Banana Ninjas vs Meatball Barbarians

The Peel Wars, c. 1200 to 999 B.P.

An account of the ancient and entirely invented rivalry between the Banana Ninjas of the Plantain Highlands and the Meatball Barbarians of the Marinara Steppes, assembled from chronicles that do not exist.

Illustration, artist unknown, date invented

The record

Conflict
The Peel Wars
Duration
Roughly two centuries, allegedly
Casualties
Mostly dignity
Status
Uneasy truce since 999 B.P.

The belligerents

1
The Banana NinjasAn order of silent peel-borne assassins from the Plantain Highlands. Masters of the vanishing split, they strike overripe and leave no trace but a faint potassium shimmer.
2
The Meatball BarbariansA simmering horde out of the Marinara Steppes. They ride ladles into battle, season first and ask questions never, and answer to no one but the Great Cauldron.

Origins of the feud

Every chronicle agrees on one point and one point only: no one remembers why the fighting started. The ninja histories blame the barbarians' refusal to eat fruit quietly. The barbarian sagas, which are sung rather than written and thus impossible to fact-check, blame the ninjas for an incident involving a fruit cellar.

What is certain is that by the dawn of the Bruising, the two powers had settled into their eternal roles. The ninjas owned the shadows. The barbarians owned everything within reach of a fork. Neither side ever won, and both sides kept excellent records insisting otherwise.

The Splitting Hills engagement, reconstructed from a mural that was itself reconstructed from rumor

A timeline of the wars

  1. 1c. 1200 B.P. (Before Peeling). The First Bruising. A barbarian raiding party mistakes a ninja temple for a fruit cellar. Three monks are lightly seasoned. War is declared by both sides, in writing, several years later.
  2. 2c. 1187 B.P. The Battle of the Splitting Hills. The ninjas attempt their signature vanishing split en masse. The fog lifts early. Historians agree it was embarrassing for everyone.
  3. 3c. 1090 B.P. The Long Simmer. A century of cold war. Raids are replaced by strongly worded scrolls. Both economies briefly flourish on espionage tourism.
  4. 4c. 1022 B.P. The Great Marinara Flood. Barbarian siege cauldrons boil over, saucing the lower highlands. The ninjas call it a war crime. The barbarians call it lunch.
  5. 5c. 1001 B.P. The Night of a Thousand Forks. The conflict's most famous engagement. Chroniclers of both sides describe it identically, word for word, which scholars find suspicious.
  6. 6c. 999 B.P. The Treaty of the Sizzling Table. Peace is signed over a shared meal, which both delegations refuse to eat first. The treaty holds to this day, mostly out of mutual embarrassment.

The peace

Peace came not through victory but through dinner.

The Treaty of the Sizzling Table, signed in 999 B.P., remains a model of diplomatic ambiguity. Its central clause, translated from the original Condimental, roughly states that each side shall keep to its own course of the meal. Delegates from both factions signed, sealed, and then sat in silence for three hours waiting for the other to take the first bite.

The treaty scroll, with both seals intact and the meal untouched