In the centuries following the Beast Wars of the Golden Mountain Era, many ages distant and nearly forgotten, there emerged several cultures of Beast Tamers who fought for various causes on battlefields around the world. Generally these Beast Cultures kept peace with each other and fought only in ritual sports, even when they met as enemies on the battlefield. They shared a certain respect for life and a hardy survivalist mentality that led to a sort of gruff cooperation.
Dungus Thung had the ill fortune to lose a journal in the Ruins of Rujnarax. This journal, recovered in 567 GFC, detailed the life of an adventurer in that time. He rode a snake-horse named Lamp Oil and he made a living selling Ancient Brassworks he found in the ruins. About two weeks prior to losing his journal, he met a woman named Thorn. The Account of Dungus and Thorn has become a popular tale, adapted into numerous songs and dramas. I shall attempt an abridged retelling here.
Thorn was a woman of the Sky Walkers, a scion of minor nobility, who had descended to earth to learn about the plants of the Eastern Steppe. Thorn's mother had been an Earth Walker, a Sky Walker term for one who remains on land for many years. While her comrades piloted airships to tame drakes and pegasi, Thorn's mother (whose name is forgotten) traveled the land and learned about plants and Great Beasts. The Eastern Steppe became economically important for the Sky Walkers, especially because of the large population of Stony Chargers. Thorn likely wrangled these Chargers and other sorts of animals from the area. Meanwhile, Dungus' people, the Grass Dancers, also wrangled the beasts of that area, and foraged for wild plants.
Dungus and Thorn met at a Grass Dancer camp and engaged in a contest of drinking. In the morning, Dungus taught Thorn a local hangover remedy called Milk-Sugar Pie. They became friends and pioneered a method of using low-flying pegasi to wrangle the Stony Chargers. For two weeks, they danced together in the skies in a high-risk display of acrobatic skill, amazing the sky folk and the earth folk alike as they wove ropes around the Great Beasts. Their friendship became a symbol of unity and understanding between their people. After the Stony Chargers migrated away from the camp, Dungus and Thorn formed a party of delvers to explore the local ruins. Their fates are unknown. While most tellers of this story like to imagine elaborate endings, I will refrain from such speculation.
That was four calendars before the present, probably more than 3000 years. The journal was discovered four years after the coronation of Queen Aymis le Tyr, and made into a ballad in the decade that followed. At the time of the Outside Movement, the Ballad of Dungus and Thorn took on a revolutionary character, partly because the Royal Censors deemed it representative of the Synergist Movement. While the court produced versions of the ballad which were not objectionable, some alleged that radical versions were performed in the hinterlands, or in the houses of dissident nobles. The conflict over this ballad, and the various nuances of language employed by different bards, exemplified the cultural conflict of that era.
Ascensionist writers, for example, emphasized the glory of dominating living creatures. They make Dungus and the Grass Dancers into vine-mages, who wrap the Stony Chargers in living vines, binding them to the earth. Synergist writers, emphasize the unity between human and pegasus, describing how Thorn brushes and feeds her mount, and speculate that perhaps the Great Beasts were not captured, but rather enticed into collaboration. Though not explicitly revolutionary or heretical, such speculation must have been dangerous at the time. If any extreme versions of the ballad were produced, for example by the Outside Movement, they were not recorded and have been lost to history.
