Philippos III of Phrygia oversaw the construction of a great palace-city on the site of an elephant reserve his forefathers had constructed. Its name was Elephantinê and it was the jewel of the Northern plain, unrivalled by any other construction that had been erected within the great steppe. Constructed in the fringe of his Kingdom, Elephantinê needed buffer lands to protect her, and Philippos' eyes turned eastward, to the lands of Karhua.

Centuries ago, Finno-Hellenes had roamed these plains. Vuugists had fled across the Caspian Sea to create their own nation, preserving the true faith of their Gods. Their new Empire stretched across the Northern plain, but it soon fell. It had produced little in the way of the ordinary trappings of civilised folk, but within this nation, Vuugism was reborn. The new Vuugism spread across the world and conquered the heart of many a zealot ; thus, Karhua's footprint far exceeded the power of its armies or the wealth of its coffers.

After Karhua came the Tsahgars, who proved both a plague and an asset to the renascent Kingdom of Phrygia when it set about recreating itself as a power of the Northern plain. The Tsahgars did not extend far into these lands before collapsing in turn, to the dreaded plague ; however, they undoubtedly left their mark on the region, and Tsahgar clans still persist in the plain, some having sworn fealty to the Crown of Phrygia. In Karhua they roam free - for now.

And finally, after Tsagharia came Samarkatia. Obsessed by prosperity, its leaders had the ambition of turning Samarkatia into an important trading hub between the East and the West. Overshadowed by the great Davakan Route that flows from Daskhinapatha, to Davaka, through the Mesopotamia, to Antiokheia, to Konstantinoupolis, and back, the Samarkatians would stop at nothing to divert trade through their own region, in order to secure for themselves a place under the sun. Ruled from the city of Samarkand, for which they claimed the title of City of East and West, the Samarkatian realm was one of the few to come to the aid of the Atreid state during the Great Satanic Treachery. And unfortunately, it, too, collapsed, after the fall of Byzantion dealt a crushing blow to East-West trade.

Now Philippos III dreamt of becoming the new ruler of these lands ; and he would build a realm that would never fall. He sent tens of thousands of horse archers, heavy cavalry, and artillery to subjugate the region. His attack would be swift and merciless : overwhelemed by the numbers and skill of the Hypsianistarian horsemen, the various disunited peoples of the region would bend the knee. Their lands would be cut up and distributed amongst Philippos' bravest retainers, to be used as their own pastures.

The new region would be annexed into a new Kosmos : Kosmos Neasthuemia. Into this Kosmos, the Finno-Hellenes would be be released, to live in the hills and the plains, and and bask on the shores of the great lake, as their ancestors had done for generations.

Once Kosmos Neasthuemia was theirs, the gates of the East were opened to the Hypsianistarians, just as the gates of Anatolia had been open to their Byzantine ancestors by the fall of Troy so long ago. The land was a gateway to future greatness.

Takes place before the integration of Phrygia into Zeon.

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