The Malus
are a product of the harsh environment of their home planet. Scarce water,
extremely high temperatures, and a volatile climate have combined to create a
stout and rigidly disciplined culture based on strength and triumph over
adversity. Even under the fickle Clan system, order was strictly maintained.
Under the rule of the theocratic Night Sky regime, the Malus have
come to see their place as the rightful inheritors of the cosmos. Each Malus
citizen has been re-defined as a warrior. The Code of the Warrior includes a
lust for glory in battle that is tempered by a sense of sacrifice and fierce
loyalty to one's leaders.
In the year 424,
during the era known as the Old Dark, a period of intense fighting ended with
the establishment of the Malus Clan system, in which each Clan is responsible
for a particular aspect of society. Prior to the establishment of the Clan
system, individual families vied for power. The results were unfailingly bloody
and peace was short-lived. The Clans absorbed the existing families, and
imposed a fragile structure on the chaotic
squabbling.
No words have come down to us
from this time, though the image reproduced above shows territorial divisions
after the establishment of a Clan system on Malus.