They had a wicked sense of humour 😄

Yes, they were fabulously mighty and wealthy for a short time, but now, only this valley of ashes endures

Thus, blinded in their hubris, their demands only grew on their perceived might. At first, the demands seemed small and reasonable, but only grew more unreasonable until only the strength of arms prevailed between formely brotherly villages.

Why protect the weak when you can bully them out of their meager riches? What's the value of friendship if you can't extract every last ounce of wealth from them?

Alas, there came a time when fabulous wealth blinded their descendants to what had made them great and slowly the wisdom of their ancients was discarded in pursuit of ever more trinkets of wealth and power.

They understood that a part of strength was nurturing the weak, finding common ground in friendship was more powerful than just the strength of arms.

In this place once stood a great community of villages, of which one became incredibly wealthy and mighty. Mistake not, they had humble beginnings and stumbled more than once on their way to greatness, but they were industrious and wise people.