On "The Ankor-Nimbul" War Myth

It would be a bold claim to assume that nobody in the history of the world discovered the land that would become Gloria before Demiscans. There are some tales from other cultures about journeying to close lands and being stuck in a seemingly endless storm in which ‘the waves and the winds battled’. Perhaps this started as poetic language in a letter sent home from a traveler to loved ones, though if so it has taken on a life of its own. Early Glorian storytellers would spin it into all sorts of tales about the old war between two creatures: Nimbul and Ankor.

---

Before there was Gloria, or a plot of land which could name itself Gloria, the two forces of Nature fought amongst themselves in a war to claim what little they had left. The peoples in the other parts of the world took what they wanted, and built dams and towers and did whatever they wanted with the skies and the seas. Land was the domain of Man.

In Man’s absence, Nimbul the flying-squirrel and Ankor the whale contested the other in an attempt to claim a kingdom. Ravenous winds and tall tidal waves and massive storms were sent to-and-fro.

This would rage on for many years, and the destruction would expand. Waters and winds across the world caved to the demands of the war as both lusted over victory over one another. It was in this unquenching desire to destroy the other that they lost themselves that they revolted even Nature, and in order to stop the two of them put Man’s Land between.

The continent which would become Gloria formed, and Ankor and Nimbul were both banned from stepping foot on it. This would not stop their fight. Both had their own ways around the new restricted lands. Nimbul tricked the other squirrels into constantly forgetting their own acorns, which would sprout trees for him to travel across. Ankor constructed a giant swordfish from the remnants of wreckage and stabbed the side of the land, poking holes that would fill with water and inject rivers and lakes and springs into Gloria.

Their war would shift in dynamic, and became much more about taking over the grounds with orchards or rivers. The more the two fought, the more both sprung up across the continent. Some believe these battles continue to today.

---

These events are regularly taken as true in Gloria today; some claim to have seen Ankor or Nimbul. More common are reports of seeing a possibly unique two-headed horse which has been connected to a number of Glorian myths and folklores. Coincidentally, it is attached to two stories, that of Ankor and Nimbul and that of Mount Brauf and NeoDemasia.

The story of Ankor and Nimbul states that sometime after their covert fighting continued, it was noticed by Nature, and there needed to be an intervention or the winds and waters all over the world would get disrupted again. Thus, Nature made a two-headed horse. The horse had eyes that could see to the ends of the world in one direction, and one head would always face Ankor while the other faced Nimbul. It was only since this two-headed horse came into being that people could discover and settle Gloria. Some credit the horse’s creation not to Nature, but instead to the Spirit of Gloria. The more nationalistic sects of our field have begun treating Gloria as its own player in the mover of ancient and divine powers. Perhaps this is a correct assumption, but until there is any solid proof, I will continue going with the Grendillic tradition of taking Nature as the deity above all.

Some contemporary mythologians, poets, orators, and writers have started many discussions on where the other horse-story plays into it, though the Brauf/NeoDemasia conflict has happened after the earliest tellings of the Nimbul/Ankor story, so it is likely a retroactive after-the-fact merging to play off of a popular, pre-existing myth.