Editing LeviathanTempest:ChapterOne (section)

=== Legends of the Tribe === 
The Tribe has little in the way of formal history. In certain ways, the history of the human world is somewhat irrelevant. It is the world that the Leviathans inhabit, but it is not theirs. Still, the Tribe has existed for the whole of human history, and there are certain moments which are of some import to all Leviathans, if only for the lessons they contain. In the earliest recorded moments of human history, the Tribe operated more openly, attempting to reclaim some fragment of the dominance they once held. Legions carted off whole villages for sacrifice and cults grew to unprecedented size. It was these excesses that ensured them a lingering presence in the catalogue of mankind's fears, but the ascent to mythical status was accompanied with a bloody response. From temples in Kish and Uruk emerge the first records of what would be called the Marduk Society. The inheritors of the slayer of Tiamat, the Society were tireless enemies of the Tribe. They broke the backs of the Legions and put the cults of the Tribe to the sword. Yet whispers abound of bloody rites performed in secret temples, the flesh of Leviathans devoured to raise the mortal men of the Society to the height of the gods that they had cast down. Others speak of monstrous assistants and grim alliances, the Society rotten inside with the machinations of one or more of Tiamat's children. Whatever of these rumors were true, the Society exists in the modern day, harnessing the will and energy of man to cow and slaughter the Tribe. Some dispute their antique origin and claim that they have only usurped the legacy of a far purer and more upstanding organization, but few of the Tribe would argue the case of their ancient enemy. 

Yet the stinging defeat that was handed down was not enough to suppress the Tribe forever. On the Indian subcontinent, nearly two thousand years before the common era, the progeny of Nagaraja began to mass, with powerful leaders deliberately cultivating dozens of children, seeking to produce heirs and allies that were full members of the Tribe. A great and sprawling empire was built on the backs of the swarming Hybrids and maddened cultists that the Vasuki commanded, and the human civilizations quaked in the shadow of a kingdom of demigods. Yet it was not to be. Other members of the Tribe began to resent the excesses - and successes - of the united Strain. More insidiously, factions began to grow, as cohorts began to scheme against one another and Legions concocted religious justifications to topple their rivals. The hunger of the ancient Vasuki grew only greater, and eventually the Tribe came to police its own. Wondrous Bhogavati, the great and horrible capital of the empire, was swamped in ferocious storms. Warbands of Hybrids stalked the streets and devoured the inhabitants. The dynasty of Nagaraja ended in flames. Spite and outrage ensured that its citadels were torn asunder and its treasured scattered across the face of the globe. It was not alone. The scholars of the Tribe record several such civilizations, some pure speculation, all eventually scourged from outside or rotting from the inside out. Records exist of a lost island in the Mediterranean, and a great kingdom of Thule, and of Lemuria's crystalline spires. If all existed, or none, is irrelevant - what is important is that those cities and kingdoms forged by the Tribe seemed inevitably fated to end in horror and blood. It seemed that the world itself conspired to extinguish the legacy of the Progenitors, scrubbing its inheritors and their works from its surface.

Here the record breaks for centuries. While stories exist of the blood of the Tribe flowing in the veins of the heroes of ancient Greece, and bloody rituals for their benefit in the shadows of Rome, these are mere speculation. The same impulse that drives mankind to fear the Tribe seems equally driven to categorize the Leviathans with the other demons and bogeymen of their mythology. Modern Leviathans experience mankind's history like interpreters and cryptographers, divining from hints and suggestions those points at which the footprint of the Tribe left an impression on mankind. Such clues are scattered across the globe in countless sources, and at the very least a Leviathan can be sure that his ancestors were present across the face of the world. Writhing horrors lurked in the waters off of China and Japan. Cults worshipped serpentine abominations in the fragmented ruins of ancient Bhogavati. The Tribe persisted, even if it did not flourish. Humanity spread to every corner of the world and, with it, the blood of the Progenitors. New traditions arose, but the instinctual fear remained. As consciousness of the Tribe waned, the lives of Leviathans became simultaneously more easy and more difficult. Easier, for they were no longer so readily hunted. Harder, for a newly-Emerged Leviathan would be bereft of guidance and information. 

One last cautionary tale circulates among the Tribe. While little evidence exists that strictly supports it, it has gained some traction either due to some degree of veracity or due to the virtue of being an ancient and well-loved fabrication. The Tribe's historians claim that, during the early half of the previous millennium, reports of rampaging dragons and ship-devouring serpents can be traced to the action of an influential and well-manned Legion. Called the World-Coiling Legion, the group was purportedly motivated by a prophecy specific to the Strain descended from the Progenitor called Jormungandr. This Legion's destructive ritual beliefs, paired with the relatively limited ability of mankind to counter the depredations of the Tribe during this period, led to widespread destruction. It seemed as though man would again be subject to the dominion of the Progenitors, or annihilated in the flames of the World-Coiling Legion's grand prophecy. Emboldened by the Legion's success, other groups of Leviathans came forth, staking claims on territory and lashing out at humanity. And then the reversal came. This time, the judgment came not from the Tribe's internal strife, but from mankind itself. This time, however, it was not - or at least was apparently not - the Marduk Society, or any such group, that struck back. Merely the backlash of many individual men (and women) standing forth against their tormentors. This era of "dragon-slaying" saw the World-Coiling Legion devastated and its membership slaughtered almost entirely, while also proclaiming quite simply that resistance to the "demigodhood" of the Tribe was not solely the province of the Tribe's sworn enemies. 

Most modern Leviathans, as a result of these and other similar tales, keep themselves relatively well policed. Beyond the threat of the Tribe's most driven enemies, there is the simple fact that even the power of Progenitor blood has its limits, and the world of mankind is not as hospitable to the grand ambitions of would-be conquerors.