This led to a full flowering of the Tagatu civilization and eventually its complete mastery of virtually all aspects of Skull Island and its inhabitants. It was a Golden Age, with the development of botanical repellents able to control and ward off the island’s monsters. This enabled the Tagatu to leave the Wall behind and build a great city, replete with bio-engineered architecture and myriad other marvels at the center of Skull Island. Long before the flowering of the great Egyptian and Grecian civilizations came to be, the Tagatu people on Skull Island reigned supreme.
Such greatness was not to last. Resurrected internal rivalries fanned by a fanatical Atu cult ripped the Tagatu civilization apart and a great schism took place. This time the Atu sect had prevailed. They banished all Tagu-related remnants to life back behind the decaying remnants of the old Wall.
Divided, and vulnerable in their arrogance, the Atu usurpers let slip the defenses surrounding the great city. As though sensing their weakness, in the late 7th century BC Gaw and her army of Deathrunners re-emerged and the attacks began again. The Atu tried to replenish the burning repellents used to guard against outside threats both above and below ground without success. The formulas needed to create the repellents were guarded secrets of the Tagu Pendonjira, leaders of the Tagu sect that had been banished.
Gaw and the Deathrunners succeeded in overthrowing the City and forcing the Atu survivors to flee back to the Wall in the southern part of the island. They begged forgiveness at the foot of the Wall’s great door and the Atu remnants were mercifully allowed in by the very Tagu they had banished years before. The newly reunited Tagatu culture, again living in fear behind the Wall, would eventually once again fall prey to a small group of Atu fanatics who had hidden themselves within the ranks of Atu refugees. In time a cunning Atu madman, Bar-Atu, seeks to undermine the wisdom of the Pendonjira once and for all. He and his followers seize power by captitalizing on the people’s fear of the omni-present danger lurking beyond the wall-Gaw and her vicious followers, the Deathrunners. Claiming to be Gaw’s intercessor, Bar-Atu begins the horror of offering human sacrifices to appease Gaw. These sacrifices continued following the rise of Kong as King of Skull Island, but with a very different result than imagined following his rampage and capture…
The Kongs survived in low numbers without their human counterparts and became feral; the Zantu by now having all but disappeared. But it was Gaw and the Deathrunners who ruled the island once again and they sought to hunt the surviving Kongs to extinction. The Kongs were forced to occupy the high places of the far mountain to survive. One day an orphan from their ranks would rise up and fight back to again become King of Skull Island…