"Though many groups have claimed the honor, the truth is that no one really knows who was the first group to migrate from the North into the so-called Golden Horn. To be sure, the most vocal claim comes from the Iskandran priests, which is to say the descendants of the Narti refugees from some nameless, forgotten war in the land beyond the Gate. And just as sure, the Iskandrans themselves were not the first. Even they grudgingly admit that the ancestors of their hated cousins the Cilanese--who were also Narti refugees, apparently fleeing from the same war--arrived in the region first, which ultimately led to the bitterness and intolerance that has become so characteristic of the Iskandran personality (a statement that is defended in the following sections on Iskandra).

"The Narti, however, do not have the only claim. Of course, the gipsy people (who are sometimes referred to as aborigines or in their own tongue as the Children of Asan, or the asanir) seem to have inhabited the realm since long before any of the other peoples, perhaps even hailing from the ancient kingdoms that once controlled the Horn.

"But there are yet other peoples to consider. Evidence is mounting from the West that the Castillians were here for some time before the Narti, and I have spoken with more than one arcane culturalist who claim that the Madar clans in the south, once thought to be splinter gipsy tribes, are actually more akin to the Narti and the Castillians, and that further more, their cultures seem to predate the canonical dates of the Migration taught in Iskandran schools."

The vast veil of time is truly difficult to pierce.