A Brief History of Magic | Part 2 | Mystery of the Sum Sum Kingdom

Introduction

I am Utta Marvew, Wanderer of Cyrrn. I have spent my life traversing the lands of Cyrrn, gathering many tales along the way. As I reach the end of my traveling days, I am sharing this knowledge so others can learn about our wonderful world. In my first entry, I discussed the planet and sky and the two Planes. In this part, I will tell the tale of the wondrous and tragic Sum Sum Kingdom.

I composed this text on the beaches of the Summalen Isles. This tropical paradise in the southern sea offers vistas of unparalleled beauty and the friendliest of peoples. It is easy to understand why many sailors who reached these shores chose to remain. Perhaps I will live out my twilight time in a comfortable hut by the shore.

The Summalen Isles were home of the Sum Sum Kingdom, one of the greatest civilizations in history. The Sum Sum were the first seafaring people and first adept magic users but they are best known for their tragic disappearance.

But first, we start in the early days of magic.

Early Magic and Shiman

Magic existed long before magi, the Magus, and even the Sum Sum Kingdom. Around four thousand years ago, the Ashon Road trade route connected the ports and inland cities of the Cyrrn continent along the Penkal Sects and other nations. These routes transported goods, people, and most importantly, stories. Scholars examining discarded fragments of records found along the ancient route discovered mention of magical conjurations witnessed by traders on their journeys.

One such merchant, known as Larl, wrote of a celebration he attended that included, “wild fires and streams of light reaching the clouds and whirling in circles.” The individual channeling these magical energies was most likely a shiman, a term roughly translated to “sun caller.” This was a fitting name for someone apparently pulling down the sun’s might.

There are no records of shiman employing structured spells. Rituals consisted of uncontrolled bursts of light, heat, and thunderous sounds. Certainly, this was more than enough to amaze onlookers. While these performances were impressive, shiman dealt with terrible power and a few accounts tell of when rituals went wrong.

In one horrific reporting, a shiman was engulfed in black flames that could not be extinguished. They remained alive, screaming, even though the blaze was so hot no one could approach. After several hours the shiman crumbled to ash and only then the flames extinguished. Another account dated several centuries later told of a merchant visiting a favorite village, only to find a scorched hole blasted in the ground and nothing else.

Not all who dared channel the Magian Plane suffered for their efforts. No matter the hazards, shiman and those who came after them continued to expand their knowledge and strengthen their control of magic. We do not know the circumstances surrounding the Sum Sum Kingdom’s ascension to magical proficiency but there is no doubt it made them the strongest nation in the world.

The Sum Sum Kingdom | 3,000 to 800 Years Before Present

At the height of their civilization, the Sum Sum were master navigators, circling the globe on the Ashon Road. Along with being shipwrights and sailors, they were poets, engineers, and scholars. We know this from surviving ledgers of the age that recorded Sum Sum knowledge tomes in exchange for goods. One such transaction included eight Sum Sum poems, three plays, and instructions on improving sail rigging and keel construction.

Trading knowledge was a common hallmark of Sum Sum trade. Through these actions, they educated the world on everything from improving farm output, sanitation, and mathematics, to the structure of the deep sky. One must wonder why they traded information which could provide an envious nation the inspiration and means to attack them. It appears the Sum Sum knew more than they gave away, wisely keeping their greatest secrets to themselves.

The Lost Armada

Yulyen was another southern sea island nation during the time of the Sum Sum Kingdom. Their trade routes were not as expansive but they were prosperous and sailed a fleet of feared war galleys. The Yulyen used the knowledge gained from the Sum Sum to strengthen their naval might and, around two thousand years ago, set forth an armada of over three hundred of the deadly ships on the high seas. Their destination was the Sum Sum Kingdom and their goal was conquest.

We know this event occurred from records and tales from neighboring islands of the great fleet sailing past, headed to the calm waters of the Sum Sum. The fleet and its sailors never returned. There was no retaliation by the Sum Sum nor was any needed. Yulyen was invaded once word spread of what happened and the nation was erased from the map. As for the Sum Sum Kingdom, their waters were given a wide berth by all who sailed near.

An unseen naval victory does not prove the Sum Sum Kingdom were skilled magic users and spell casters. This confirmation came not from the fury of war but from that of a storm.

The Last Voyage of the Blue Dawn

I did not travel the Penkal Sects as much as I would have liked. Relations between them and the Cyrrn districts remain strained after their border conflict some years back. However, during one of my journey’s north, I had the good fortune to meet with a naval archivist in the port city of Jurestin. This grand fellow respected my quest of knowledge and when I brought up the Sum Sum Kingdom, he offered to let me read a most fascinating journal from nearly twelve hundred years ago. The account it provided justified its unusual preservation through the ages.

Gefray Da’Kurrn was captain of the Penkali merchant ship Blue Dawn. During an otherwise typical voyage along one of the southern trade routes, the ship encountered a massive gale spanning the horizon and coming upon them too fast to avoid. Waves thrashed the ship and lightning split the black sky. Crewmen tied themselves to the deck to avoid being washed overboard. It did not save them.

Captain Da’Kurrn wrote of an approaching wave so tall it “overshadowed a sailor’s darkest nightmares.” The Blue Dawn’s bow pointed skyward as the wave flipped the ship and smashed it to pieces. The sea swallowed the captain and his men.

Captain Da’Kurrn woke on a mat in a ship’s hold alongside his crew. They were aboard a Sum Sum galley. The Sum Sum sailors tended their wounds and gave them food, water, and dry clothing. The calmness of the ship made Captain Da’Kurrn believe they were unconscious for the duration of the gale. He asked to see the captain to give thanks for their lives. Captain Da’Kurrn dropped to his knees in shock when he emerged on deck.

The gale raged on but neither a drop of rain nor wisp of heavy wind battered the craft. A bubble of golden light surrounded and shielded the ship. Its bow broke effortlessly through crashing waves with the smoothness of drifting on a peaceful lake. The crew tended lines and sails with little reaction to the maelstrom.

The crew of the Blue Dawn spent several weeks aboard the ship. The two crews became friends and the Sum Sum captain taught Da’Kurrn about the spell that protected his ship from all manner of damage. I imagine the Yulyen armada had first hand experience with a similar spell. Although the Sum Sum were open about magic, they had a strong sense of personal privacy. Captain Da’Kurrn omitted the ship’s name, captain’s name, and name of the the Sum Sum port when they disembarked from his log.

Captain Da’Kurrn and his crew spent five months with the Sum Sum. When they returned to the Penkal Sects amid much celebration, the captain brought with him six tomes of magical instruction and spell creation, introducing advanced magic mechanics to the Penkali. Whether spell casting spread from there to the wider world or was provided by the Sum Sum via other unrecorded means is unknown.

The Great Tragedy

Every five years, all Sum Sum ships and citizens returned to the Kingdom’s big island for a month long celebration of music, food, drink, and fantastic demonstrations of magic. We know these details from Sum Sum citizens who chose to share them to persons wise enough to write them down. Over time, the festival became known as Alzsumm, meaning “Without the Sum Sum” in the dialect of old southern Cyrrn.

As with hundreds of prior occasions, Alzsumm approached and Sum Sum citizens loaded onto ships and voyaged home. However, one year, Alzsumm came and went and no one returned. Weeks passed and not one Sum Sum mast broke the horizon. Adding to the strangeness was a change in the weather. The normally tropical temperatures felt cooler and a haziness shrouded the sun and sky.

A flotilla of ships from some of the Sum Sum Kingdom’s oldest trade partners set sail to discover what happened. As they crossed into kingdom waters, no ships came to meet them. When sailors searched the outer islands, they found no people in the towns, no ships in the harbors, along with no texts, scrolls, or any written parchment.

A search of one of the middle kingdom islands provided the first signs of a catastrophe. Teardrop shaped pieces of black glass littered the area, ranging in size from grapes to melons. They deeper the flotilla sailed into the kingdom, the larger the black glass teardrops they found.

For clarification, the black glass described by the fleet was not blown glass but rocks with a bright midnight shine. They are formed when molten volcanic rock cools very fast, such as from flowing into the ocean. Broken pieces of the midnight rock are so sharp, you can cut severely cut yourself and not feel any pain. The teardrop shape and discovery on roof tops suggests these cooled while flying through the air, propelled with great force.

Here we reach the end of the story and the beginning of the mystery. The flotilla approached the Sum Sum Kingdom’s big island and center of its civilization. The island was described as a lush paradise with two tall mountain peaks. When the flotilla arrived, they were stunned to find a single peak, stripped bare of vegetation. Where the second peak should have been was a sheer drop to the sea, and instead of the rest of the island there were only jagged rocks protruding from the waves.

In Conclusion

Centuries have passed and we still do not know the fate of the Sum Sum people. Did a magical ritual go horribly wrong like in the ancient shiman times? Did the Sum Sum attempt to push the limits of their spell casting too far and unleashed a force of complete devastation?

We honor the Sum Sum and the knowledge they shared with the world by seeking to use magic for peace and learning and never hatred or war. Unfortunately, history has shown such hopes are fleeting. The spread of magical knowledge fostered an age of enlightenment, but sadly, the opposite as well, for it led to the coming of the Magus.

And the world burned.

Utta Marvew

Wanderer of Cyrrn

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You have been reading A Brief History of Magic. A companion piece to The Chaos of Magic book series. Book 1 of the series, A Nightmare of Magic and Madness comes out February 9, 2026.