At the dawn of the 7th Age in the 30th Century, Westrun was home to two distinct subgroups of humans, the Nandi and the Tren. By the end of the 40th Century they had been joined by the Meni and the Fahr. Together these four people groups and their struggles create the Eight Kingdoms of Man in Westrun.
NANDI
The Nandi roamed from the Silverlodes Mountains to the Dagger Sea in tribes. Most of their names are lost to history. Those names that are still familiar -- such as the Nadi, Sahna, Numin, Shina, Anis, Duvi -- come to us as place names. Sak and Rath now give their names to whole kingdoms in the modern era. There are many, many more which have been lost to antiquity.
All of the Nandi were hunters and gatherers who made war with one another continuously. Tribes rose and fell, splintered and merged. Life among them was an ongoing struggle for survival against the unyielding land, the elements, and especially the elder races which still tarried from the previous ages. It was not until the common threat of the Goblinkind, that the Nandi were able to unite and eventually coalesce into states under the Eight Kingdom's Pact.
TREN
While the Nandi were roaming in hundreds of nomadic tribes, the Tren, were another race of so-called civilized men. Once held captive by the Dragon Prince of old, they were eventually entrusted with the matters of their captors and in due time inherited the entire Principality of Treft from its exiled ruler. Though they could not maintain the height of Treft's former glory, they were able to hold the walls of its capital city against those slavering Hordes who would rise against it.
After the Dragon Prince was exiled, the Tren lived under the rule of a long succession of their own unpopular monarchs. A rebellion saw to the death of their last king, Etru III, and the Nine Elders who remained banished the monarchy. In its place they created a system of government in which each property owning inhabitant would be permitted to cast votes in a general assembly. Thus the strange democratic government of that city/state was born. The date of that government's founding is commonly given as 3600EY.
MENI
The year 3413EY saw the settlement of the Meni in Westrun under the leadership of Tal the Just. The Meni were refugees from the principalities that lay across the Dagger Sea. A one hundred year long struggle between two of the more powerful city/states had come to its end with the total defeat of Lanaria. Thousands of Lanarians were slaughtered. Many more were evicted and forced to live as wanderers -- their fields were salted, their noble city destroyed. To this day, many Lanarians still wander the Provinces in caravans with a reputation not altogether wholesome. Others made their way East and South by ship.
Several hundreds of Lanarians heeded the call of Tal -- a lesser son of the old ruling house. Together they migrated across the Dagger Sea and settled on Westrun's shores. Once landfall was made they intermingled with the Nandi they encountered. Their descendants were less nomadic, preferring to settle up and down the coast before eventually spreading inland on the plains. The inland group of Meni founded the kingdom which still bears their name: Menea. Those who spread Southward along the coast eventually divinized Tal their founder. They grew from a monarchy into a theocracy.
FAHR
Many long decades after the settlement of the Meni, in the year 3400EY the first of the Fahr from Northrun came down and founded Sudhall on the Southern slopes of Mount Oromir. This settlement would eventually grow to become Peakshadow. The Fahr of Sudhall and the Meni moving north from Menea intermingled and eventually give seed to Bolden. The people of Sudhall intermarry with the Nandi of the plains and in time came to see themselves as a different from the Fahr of Northrun. Under the Eight Kingdom's Pact, the massive Northrun holdings of the Jarls of Wanderhalt swear fealty to the Lord of Sudhall and become the Kingdom of Colonia.
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