The ancestors of the people of Shankhabhumi migrated here from other lands about a thousand years ago. They arrived to find swamp forests infested with monsters and other dangers—a land shaped by hundreds of riverines who were indifferent to the newcomers and their fates. Then the elven leader Kubjhatika killed a giant mollusk that attacked her people. After the battle, she carved the tale of her victory and her people’s journey on a beautiful, red-ridged shell. This shell became the Riverine’s Shankha. Kubjhatika offered it as tribute to the riverines, appealing to them for refuge amid the unforgiving land. The four greatest riverines—Adirohit, Iravati, Mehul, and Joltara—each wished to claim the Riverine’s Shankha as their own. Kubjhatika proposed the Shankha Trials to ensure it would circulate fairly. But since people who could barely survive in this unstable land couldn’t put on such a spectacular event, Kubjhatika persuaded the riverines to each create a site for a great city. Thus, the riverines created the stable islands on which Manivarsha, Sagorpur, Ashwadhatu, and Tippurika would be built, and the histories of those great cities began.