The First Treasure Holds
A concept born under the Dragon's but soon spreading among other Mythic beast, Treasure Holds emerged as yet another valuable possession to flaunt and fight over. The concept was quite simple, a settlement of humans would live under the protection of a Mythic beast, they would grow food, mine gems and precious metals etc. for the Beasts who would in turn protect them from other Mythic Beasts. Soon enough the Treasure Holds themselves where seen as so valuable that Beasts would fight not to destroy the Holds but to posses them, with many holds changing rulers several times across history. Humiliating as they were ultimately the Treasure Holds would allow for the first proper human settlements to develop, and under the Beasts these holds became the first human civilizations of the world.
The first Treasure Hold was
born under the Dragon Laxidos, with the humans digging precious stones for her in return for protection, and for a time all other Treasure Holds where imitations of this idea, humans digging up precious materials for their Mythic Overlords.
It should be noted however that this was still a dangerous time for the humans of the Holds, much of the early history of the Treasure Holds occurred in the background of the Mythic Wars, and it was far from uncommon for Mythic Beasts to wipe out entire holds simply to deny them from their rivals. In many holds as well the resources being mined would simply run out, and the Treasure Holds in question would be abandoned by their Mythic Beast overlords, or sometimes wiped out by the Beasts which had previously protected them. To counter this latter threat many Treasure Holds began to grow crops and livestock as their mineral supplies ran out, offering these instead to their Mythic Beasts.
The Agrarian Holds
This process saw success, as the Mythic Beasts in question no longer had to hunt for increasingly dwindling food supplies, instead able to devote themselves entirely to protecting their spoils. For the Mythic Beasts this soon made the treasure Holds even more valuable, as their ability to naturally sustain themselves slipped away many of the most powerful Mythic Beasts became as such because they had Treasure Holds to feed them. This also gradually led to Treasure Holds becoming more valuable and while this did lead to more conflict between the Mythic beasts over the holds, it also saw the holds themselves suffering less, as the costs of destroying the Holds often outweighed the value of denying them to rivals.
For the humans who dwelt in the Treasure Holds this allowed them to develop their own societies and technologies. In the first holds techniques of metalworking, stone working and mining were rapidly developed. With the transition of Treasure Holds as lands to feed the Beasts, techniques in agriculture experienced a rapid growth, and many Treasure Holds started to be founded on arable lands, rather than near rare minerals or gems, in turn these new agrarian treasure Holds experienced massive population growth.
Equilibrium of Power
As
the Decay continued to weaken the Mythic Beasts, they became more and more dependent on their treasure holds, and the humans under them began exercising more authority. Already the humans had developed many of their own political and bureaucratic systems to govern the Holds, the Mythic Beasts themselves being unsurprisingly uninterested in bureaucracy, and as these governments became entrenched and the holds grew even larger they also became invaluable for the continued operations of the holds. Weaker Mythic Beasts began asking their human subjects for assistance in conflicts, with the holds themselves began battling one another in place of their Mythic overlords, skirmishes and small scale conflicts breaking out between them.
With the militarisation of the humans they also began to reject some of the beasts, where once a Mythic Beast could devour any human for looking at them funny, now Mythic Beasts attempting to hold their subjects in tyranny would often find themselves killed in their sleep, new beasts invited to take their place. The new power structures became more involved in the 'selection' of their Mythic patrons, the practice of Beasts trading Treasure Holds became rarer as the humans now had more violent means of expressing their dislike, and if a Mythic Beast patron was liked by its humans they would often fight to defend their Beast.
Whilst in hindsight many would see this as the humans usurping the Mythic Beasts, in reality this was initially a case of closer cooperation between the Humans and Mythic Beasts. This growing cooperation would eventually lead to the Primal Pacts, with some Mythic Beasts attempting to strengthen their humans to lessen the burden on the Beasts and also make the humans more loyal to them.
End of the Beasts
While initially this was still indeed a case of closer cooperation, eventually the Decay would ensure that, deliberate or not, it became usurpation. In some Holds the Beasts simply became so stupid that the humans simply became their masters, the Mythic Beasts becoming creatures of war for their former subjects, in other Holds the Beasts would simply die, either at the hands of the inhabitants or foreign invaders, and the Holds would invite no new ones, no longer needing their protection.
While the Mythic Beasts themselves would fall into the background of their human subjects, the Holds themselves would have a lasting legacy on Human civilization. Many Holds would go on to form the basis for several nations and civilizations. In many parts of the world, human civilizations without Mythic Beast patrons would emerge, finally able to settle lands without the threat of Mythic Beasts destroying them, several of these civilizations would develop cultures hating the Mythic Beasts, and these civilizations would go on to conquer and often destroy both the Beasts and the Holds. But even destroyed often the Holds would be resettled by the conquerors, new cities built on the bones of old ones. However they began, the Treasure Holds laid the foundations for Human civilization for millenia to follow.
