Hoof Encampment: History and Rumors
The centaurs of Veapra are a proud and noble race with ancient lineages that most children in each family can recite by the age of ten spring seasons. They are skilled orators and tend to be very artistic and can often be found drawing pictures on rocks or bark using colored unguents made from plants, minerals and berries collected from various parts of the island. The Hoof clan is the largest clan of centaurs on the island and has established an encampment upon the plains north of the River of Depths where their ancestors first laid waste to the Ravenhair clan.
The oral tradition of storytelling is one that is alive and strong among the centaurs, not only those of the Hoof clan but also among all the centaur clans of Veapra. The oral history of Veapra that can be gleaned from these stories tells of many nomadic groups whose ancestors aided great beings in planting the trees on Caesin and on Veapra. They also tell of how these beings passed onto them the responsibility of being caretakers to the Garden of Modrigon. The mystery of who or what Modrigon is or was has been lost in time along with many of the old stories, but what is of note is that the oral traditions of both the Hoof clan'whose members originally came from Caesin'and the other groups already on Veapra have certain similarities including this reference to Modrigon.
For a great many centuries the centaurs roamed the grasslands of Veapra, for the most part at peace with the liontaurs. They tended to the trees of the Ash Woods and the forest which became known as the Forest of Drakes, with treants and fey creatures by their side.
Later, when the drakes came into the forests, the centaurs became easy prey. They ceased wandering the forests and almost exclusively traveled about the Sea of Grass and other areas of the island in the open. Each clan claimed a different area of the island, the nomadic bands taking up their own territories.
The Hoof clan had gone from strength to strength until the war against the Pit creatures and their najashanian allies, during which they lost many of their numbers. Since then, however, the proud and noble centaurs have rebuilt their clan and are fiercely territorial and protective of their island. Each clan has made pacts in the Modrigon Grove near the Hoof Encampment, vowing to protect their island from any threat from within or without. These pacts have also gained the centaurs a lasting peace with the small liontaur clans that inhabit the southeastern reaches of the island.
