Viera History
"Rabite, Rabite, in the Mist, how many roses have you kissed? Crimson thorn and crimson bloom, decorate your mother's tomb." -- Traditional children's rhyme
The history of the Vieran race before the coming of the Mist is well known and understood; before the coming of the Mist, they were a stable race, mostly bound to the Golmore Jungle that had seemed to spawn them; a race of isolationists, they had chosen a life of solitude and tranquility amidsts the Wood that guarded and tended them, and they in turn to their jungle.
In the times before the Mist, it was understood and expected that their men-folk would be kept in a seperate village, guarded jealously from other Viera tribes and outsiders, and otherwise seen only when the villages had need or opportunity to expand their numbers.
While some of their numbers roamed the world due to exile, most lived lives of contemplation and stewardship within the Golmore jungle, for all their lives.
It is believed that their careful attunement to the world around them bore terrible fruit, upon the coming of the Mist during the Larsan Folly. Mist made madmen of many, but none more so than the Viera. Whole villages roamed, berserk and wild; murdering all before their path, then turning on each other, often with bare hands and teeth. Many are the horrific tale of the few survivors; and many more still are the terrified memories of the kind, graceful people turned wicked and savage in the midsts of the confusion of the Folly.
No race suffered so hard, no race lost so much, as the Viera, during the Folly. Most went irrevocably mad; driven out of their minds (and some say, their very souls) by the burning rage the Mist instilled upon them, the tales of the horrors perpetrated are too many to list, and too dark to relate.
Over half of their number died during the Folly; and they were regarded by the survivors as the fortunate ones.
The rest scattered to the four winds; lost, mad, often piteous and rambling souls, staggering from place to place, living as savage beasts. But even this might have been borne by their number, if not for the loss of the Voice of the Wood.
Once, the attunement of the Viera to the Golmore Jungle was so fine, it was said the Wood spoke, and they listened, and both would answer to the other. The Viera are split between beliefs; one camp believes the great Mist slew the voice of the Wood forevermore. The other camp believes the Wood has turned its back upon the Viera, for their depravity in their madness, and that only through the atonement of all their people, will the wood forgive. If it will forgive.
The Viera now are at full diaspora; spreading radially from the Golmore Jungle; the memories of the horrors of the Folly fading. The newest generations having never known the Wood, or the Folly, or the old, traditional ways of their people. Their menfolk walk freely beside their women; and having stepped free of the Wood, they are finding themselves a more cosmopolitan race than ever before. While old memories linger, time has dulled the edges; very old viera are still viewed with nervous suspicion (and often, rightly so!), but the younger are as welcome as every other race.
Today, the Viera are found throughout Ivalice; their fine ears and eyes valued as Hunters and warriors of all callings, and their often tranquil manner and long lives earning them respect within their communities.
Amongst Vieran communities, pilgrimages to the Golmore Jungle remain, of course, frequent; and new villages have sprung up within the Jungle as well, though these are no longer the exclusive domain of the Viera; many Moogles opposed to the intrusions of machina have taken up the life of stewardship of the Jungle, and strong bonds of friendship are being born there.
Bloodied by history, stained by sin, the Vieran race bears the weight of guilt and madness in its past, but is buoyed by a brighter future, and destiny, ahead.
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