Part III: Greed is Good
Chapter 1: Who Controls the Past
But before we get into the future of Drokka politics, it’s probably a good idea to learn a bit more about the past. Remember those Drokka families who betrayed their brethren by working as overseers for their Derkka slave masters?
As so often happens with human affairs, the people who choose to do evil get rewarded – such was the case here. During their captivity by the Derkka, the turncoat families among the Drokka enjoyed special privileges (they could own a bit of property, run a business, and even keep slaves themselves) – this made them grow wealthy compared to their enslaved peers. Naturally the rest of the Drokka hated these traitorous families, but as with most rich people, they didn’t care much for what the ‘common rabble’ thought because they had the foresight to know that money buys lot of important people as friends and can open doors that might otherwise be inaccessible in the future.
Since they owned nearly everything, the elite families lived in vast mansions, their walls lined with tapestries depicting their supposed heroic deeds and illustrious lineage. Their mountain estates were lush, with meticulously maintained gardens, fountains, and courtyards where they hosted extravagant feasts and gatherings, displaying their wealth and influence.
These families shaped Drokka culture and politics, controlling religious, economic, and military aspects of society. They built grand temples, commissioned epic poems and songs celebrating their deeds, and constructed monuments to their false achievements. Their influence permeated every aspect of Drokka life, from the laws governing trade and property to the rituals performed in worship of their gods. [Does any of this sound familiar? Some things never change, huh?]
The family names of these Drokka turncoat clans were as follows: Rukstinz (or Ruks for short), The Naves, The Gaatz, the Busz, the Bomas, and the Klyntz. Another family is often lumped in with these called the Kyndyz and this family did become wealthy and politically important among the Drokka, but history is unclear as to whether they were also slave overseers like the rest; even still we’ll include them in our discussion.
These were the families who dominated the Drokka’s history – from the earliest periods of the clan’s migratory life under the patriarchs Kane and Drok, through the centuries of slavery under the Derkka, and throughout their post-slavery freedom.
In fact, Ajax the Freemaker was actually from the Skemerz family which was part of the Busz clan – however the story of his birth to a slave named Mara who abandoned him at birth in order to save Ajax from being sacrificed to Baal is a fable that was written into The Kroniklz to cover for the truth.
[It’s true that Ajax was born the son of Mara and she was of the Skemerz/Busz clan, but the girl wasn’t married to a bricklayer. In fact, Ajax was the bastard child of Mara’s uncle who abused the girl behind his brother’s back. When Mara’s father discovered his daughter with child, rather than take revenge on his brother, he used his connections in the palace of the Derkka king Rokan to arrange to have Mara’s child sold to the royal family. Rokan was all too happy to agree to this secret deal because his daughter – the princess Jezze — had proven barren despite her many attempts to get pregnant with Derkka royalty. Rokan desperately needed an heir and Mara’s child solved that problem. The story was then concocted by Rokan and Jezze to claim the girl bore the spawn of Baal – a miracle that no one could challenge. This little bit of ‘human trafficking’ thus provided a solution for everyone and paid the Skemerz’ centuries of political dividends to boot].
It would take volumes more to detail the many evils of these ‘ancient’ families and after a while it kinda all runs together so I’m not going to bore you with the truth. [I also won’t waste your time with the fake history they wrote about themselves in The Drokka Kroniklz except to remind you that Who Controls the Present, Controls the Past, Who Controls the Past, Controls the Future – and for the Drokka, the ancient families controlled it all].
But I will give you a few more details about each of these important families…
The Apocrypha of Azazel 