In this NRP, you play as a nation of your own creation. This is a setting with heavy historical inspiration, but no direct parallels. The best term for the setting is schizotech - this is a world wherein a mail armored cataphract charge coexists with nitrating crop rotation, the sextant, potatoes and tomatoes available without the need for any great dyings. We have technologies and ideas that would not exist until the 18th century coexisting with the 6th century. The setting is based on the concept of highly developed, intricate societies with a deep, complex web of trade, alliances, and diplomacy, societies that can build monuments to humble the Pyramids of Egypt or dwarf the Roman Colloseum. Vast empires with vast populations, deep history, and so on. That said, this is not a map painting simulator, and if you want to conquer the world, I fully understand, but this is not a Total War or EU4 game and such should not be your driving goal.
Individual nations are player created, with randomly rolled stats serving as a guideline upon which you should build your nation.
This is a world with by now some well established lore, and I encourage you to speak to me and the other players about how your own nation fits into it!
I invite those interested to join our Discord server and get to know the players already in. Slots are somewhat limited, unfortunately, so we do not have indefinite room for new players.
Rules
Use common sense.
Don't game the rolls.
No godmodding, powergaming, etc. You get the point.
What the GM and Co-GM says, goes. Please don’t push things this far.
No meme nations (why do I have to make this a thing?)
Don’t be an arse.
Application
Name of Nation:
Species:
Culture and Society:
History:
Territorial Claims:
Economy:
Army:
Navy:
Traits:
Foreign Relations:
Rolls: (Rolled by GM in the Discord Server. Just ping me, and I’ll roll as soon as I’m able.)
Other:
Other Information
Magic, in this world, is significantly different from that of most fantasy settings. In most settings, a mage conjures a fireball in his hand from the ether and propels it at the enemy - that is not how it works here. Imagine the magic of the world as a shallow puddle with the breadth of an ocean, covering the entire world, but not ‘deep’ enough to allow much more than low level cantrips, or a telepath to communicate with others. But within this puddle there are spots that could be considered ‘low lying’ - where the magic of the world collects and concentrates, manifesting physically as a crystalline material that can be mined and processed, brimming with the magical energy of the world. These magical crystals can be used as power supplies for the magical contraptions of those nations advanced in the arcane, a machine to cast bolts of lightning or launch balls of fire for those of great sophistication, or a contraption to draw water from the earth or a stone circle to communicate at great distances for the middling. A nation’s magic roll is related to the prevalence and size of these ‘hotspots’ - determined by the magical reserves roll. Just as with material resources for a nation dependent on tech, the supplies of this crystal are crucial for the war effort of a nation dependent on magic.
Those learned in the ways of magic’s use are known as mages - almost anybody can become a mage, as the use of magic is for the most part a matter of learning and applied technique, rather than any inborn attributes. There are those who do not need a ritual circle to cast magic, whose bodies are focal points of magical crystal themselves, inexplicably linked to their bodies. These individuals, while capable of small feats at most under their own power, can harness the energy of crystals to become a force to be reckoned with. Sorcerors, as they are often known, are exceedingly rare - with birthrates as low as one in ten million in many populations, and never exceeding one in a million among even the most magical of peoples.
There are other means of supplying magic in the field, but these are costly. The sacrifice of living beings, for instance, - dozens or hundreds, or even thousands - can create enough energy with the turmoil of death to supply magical devices for a limited time.
Magic’s use, however, comes with a darker side - one that can and has spelled doom for myriad civilizations and empires before. Excessive extraction of magical crystal can lead to depletion of the magical field in the area - ‘dry’ spots can occur, and should action not be taken to dramatically lessen or outright halt crystal extraction, calamity can occur. There is always ample forewarning - magically sensitive individuals will experience splitting headaches and full body pain, for instance. A basic (and somewhat silly) visual guide can be seen here.
Should such a calamity occur, it will become immediately obvious. At the point wherein the depletion reaches a critical point, the very landscape will begin to change. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, vast lightning storms, and all manner of natural disaster are likely to occur, greater than any recorded on earth in living memory. The land itself will turn fallow, life becomes twisted, corrupted, a shadow of its former nature as universal forces unknown to the living crash into the mundane world. Such land is tainted, and for the first centuries at least the land will be unlike anything of the natural world. Warped abominations will prowl through toxic streams, plants and animals molded into new, perverted mockeries of life, unable to live outside of the hostile, abnormal conditions that gave rise to them. The only mercy is that those who created such conditions rarely live to see the worst of them. To survive, let alone remain sane and uncorrupted within such land is all but impossible, and it can take a millenium or more for the area to truly heal.
Magic is a flexible system - but it is far from omnipotent.
And now, a brief explanation of the rolls and other aspects of the sheets.
Your rolls are a guideline for your nation, and they serve as an upper limit. If your roll is large, but you wish to go smaller, you are welcome to. With your rolls, you have five free points to place wherever you want, in addition you can subtract a total of ten points from wherever you wish and redistribute them elsewhere. Fifteen points in total to play with. Finally, you can choose any two stats within a roll to swap - changing fertility with land area, for instance.
Your Land Area: This roll determines the amount of land you have under your sway. It covers how much of the map under your control.
Your Land Fertility: This roll dictates the habitability of your land, and its suitability for agriculture. A low roll may be host to a harsh climate (natural or artificial) difficult to inhabit, it may have soils that yield small crops. Conversely, a high roll will have rich, fertile soil and a climate that lends itself to a habitation.
Your Army Size: This roll dictates the size of your nation’s army, and the level of training and sophistication of your land forces. A nation with a large army roll is capable of raising powerful forces, numerous, well trained, and well equipped.
Your Economy: Your Economy is a representation of the wealth of your nation. It stands for the money your people hold, the amount you import and export, and to some extent how connected with others your nation is. A nation with a high economy is able to fund and finance more expensive works, and can maintain a war for considerably longer periods of time.
Your Development: Development represents the sophistication and development of your nation’s culture, civilization, and governmental structure. It is essentially the difference between a country with bustling cities and intricate systems of trade and taxation, and a collection of thatch roof villages loosely controlled by a reigning warlord. A higher development means bigger cities, bigger monuments, more artisans not working in the fields.
Your Navy Size: This roll dictates the size of your naval forces. In addition, it represents the sophistication, extent, and other facets of your marine infrastructure - dockyards, drydocks, ports, and so on. This roll does not solely determine the quality of your warships or ability to field advanced designs.
Your Magical Reserves: In Takanis, Magic is not powered by an unseen ethereal force - but by a physical, tangible object. An iridescent crystal that goes by many names is the physical manifestation of magical energy that permeates the universe. Its scarcity varies greatly throughout the world and the universe at large, and this roll dictates the reserves of crystal you have available.
Your Magical Sophistication: In this world, magic is a potent force - but a tricky one that requires intensive study to understand, and requires expert training and meticulous technique to harness. Capable of impressive feats when properly used, a magically potent nation can create massive contraptions to unleash bolts of lightning upon their foes, a ball of flame, or other more mundane uses - a trained individual can communicate remotely with a similarly trained individual in a manner akin to a radio (range dependent on the power of the system) or water can be drawn from deep underground aquifers.
Traits - The Traits of a nation are essentially flavor text, chosen by the player, that gives the nation they belong to extra details, strengths and weaknesses not able to be truly represented by rolls alone. The effects of these traits can be varied, both in their breadth of effect and the magnitude of their impact. National traits must be balanced, with the exception of one wholly positive trait. All other traits must carry some tradeoff or be countered by a negative trait. For instance, a nation is capable of fielding amazingly large armies, but a negative trait is the size of their military takes away funding for civil projects.
Your traits can carry some flexibility with your rolls, but nonetheless they are still constrained - for instance, a nation with a naval roll of 1 may not have a trait that describes their ancient seafaring culture enabling them to build the best warships in the world.
A positive only trait, for instance, may reference an age old warrior culture and boost the morale of their armies, ensuring that flight is only a possibility in truly dire circumstances.
NPC nations are nations controlled either by the GM or players that create them, intended to serve as flavor, flesh out the region, and provide a rich playground for our greater powers to frolick in. NPC nations have stats much the same as our own nations do, rolled by me, the GM.
And with that, I welcome you to this land - troubled though it may be, and await your own entry into the great games of war and politics that will play out!
The Væringi (Varangian proper): Full citizens of Vaerheim are few in number that enjoy full political and civil rights. However, their dedication to physical discipline and military service may seem to be an eternal punishment to others. They’re able to own property, thralls, and vote on political matters that occur in the Thing, a meeting between all Varangians that occur every four years. Varangians can perform manual labor if they choose but it is highly frowned upon if the decision was carried out.
Male Varangians were expected to be perfect soldiers the moment they were born while female Varangians were expect to become strong healthy mothers and capable athletes. Babies that were born defective or deemed unfit by the elder judge would be demoted to become a Thenn. Rarely is a baby put to death but only in the most extreme cases.
Education was universal as literacy was expected from all Varangian youths when they reach adulthood. However there are divergences in some subjects: the men had to learn administrative duty when not training or retiring while the women were taught basic self-defense, music, and festive tradition. As a result, Væringi are famous for their drop-dead beauty and their unassuming wit.
The Thenns: Argurably the second class populace of Vaerheim, Thenns are free men and women but non-citizens of Vaerheim. However, they are given the luxury of free movement inside and outside of the state as well as full economic opportunities. They could be landowners, serve as auxiliary in the Varangian Banners, or even become a Væringi if their loyalty and military competence exceeded beyond expectations. Thenns are mainly the source for blacksmiths, merchants, priests, scribes, tax collectors, and sometimes city labourers. They are also fully protected by the law even though they have no say in politics. Ironic since they are the ones doing the basic legal and administrative work of Vaerheim.
The Thralls: The third class non-citizens of Vaerheim; originally the conquered people enslaved by the Varangians, the class has diversified when the Varangians began taking captives and prisoners of war from villages and battlefields. Thralls lived basically as slaves as they were forced to perform all the hard labour such as farming and mining to fuel the Varangian war machine. They were in constant danger of being murdered by a young Varangian going through one of his many trials.
However, despite the bleak lifestyle, Thralls have some rights in Varangian societies: they can live in their own accommodation, allowed to keep some of their farming yields, can marry and permitted to avenge an insult about their wives, form their own families, as well as buying their freedom through exemplary military service or through saving what little coinage they have. Intermarriage with a Thrall and Varangian proper was absolutely forbidden though a Thrall could gain freedom and enjoy second class freedom by marrying a Thenn. Of course, a conversion to the Varangian faith was a big requirement.
History: Originally, the Varangians were once a large band of nomadic people that worship gods foreign to any nation they come across. They serve as a band of mercenaries to any crown willing to pay for their service. And the Varangians serve with such distinction as either shock troops or armored line infantry.
In their contracts, however, there was that one special agreement that the Varangians get to keep what they plunder whether it be gold, captives, or other spoils. The Varangians did not care about land as they were nomadic at the time. While they did serve under their clients, the Varangians would usually learn a few new methods from them such crafting more complicated armor and weapons or learning some literature.
This continued on as the Varangians grew in status as an elite mercenary band until a particularly ambitious leader of the Varangians heard of rich soil in the north, rich with game and mineral ores. He took the gamble and led the Varangians north while still taking on mercenary contracts along the way.
When they finally reached their destination, the area was already settled so the Varangian leader decided that conquest was the solution. With the natives turned thralls, he used their labor to build a new city that would be the seat power for the Varangians, that it would be called Vaerheim. Territorial Claims:
Economy: With fertile soil and access to abundant mines and woods, agriculture and urban industry dominate Varangian trade. Though income can also be gained by renting out Varangian soldiers as mercenaries to other nations
Army: The Varangian Bannermen, the army of Vaerheim, have trained their whole life in the art of war making them one of the most recognizable soldiers on the battlefield. The most iconic weapon of the Varangian Bannermen is the Long Axe, a two handed polearm that has a large axehead that cleaves through armor. (A comination of a Bearded Axe and Dane Axe to maximize armor piercing capabilities.) The round shield of the Bannermen was also iconic as it was quite large, made of three layers, and has a grip that was at the edge of the shield and a leather fastening at the center. This allowed greater mobility for a Varangian soldier as well as more versatility in its offensive power.
The biggest downside of the Varangian Bannermen is that they win battles not wars. The generals that lead them are great tacticians but not competent strategies. Army strength: 500k, 100k Varangians and 400k Auxiliaries Navy: Hardly call it a navy, the Varangians have no experience in naval warfare.
Traits: The Agoge - Military service is inseparable in Varanagian society. It was in war where their identity was found and it in war when Vaerheim became their new home. Because of this, Vaerheim will always have an elite professional army ready to deploy at any moment. access to elite tier heavy infantry,such as the Varangian Guardsmen, one of the world's most legendary warriors for their skill and bravery in combat. Industrious - Being a band of wandering mercenaries, the Varangians have learned much knowledge from their clients such as metallurgy and craftsmanship. Skills that would later be taught to the Thenns. Weapons, armor, and metal tools used by the Varangians are of remarkable quality. Even the Thenns and Thralls serving as auxiliary positions enjoy adequate equipment when going into combat. However, this leads to a dependancy on slave labor in order to fulfill agricultural demands. lower army maintenence decreased domestic agricultural income Fierce Negotiators - Any Varangian is worth his weight in gold, ivory, or other spoils of war. They will fight and die for you, IF the tithe was paid. Sadly, rich nations may turn down the services of the Varangians if the payment was too high for their taste. increase Mercenary profit minimal Monthly War exhaustion when majority of the Varangian army is under mercenary service Well Connected - The Varangians were nomadic people, but as time went on and serving under a myriad of clients; they earned newfound reputation from their employers that would later help them when they established their own country. improve relations overtime with foreign nations Must be under mercenary contract for effects to activate Tyr's Pride - A Varangian Bannerman is bound by three things: his flesh, his weapons, and his armor and equipment. Magic has no place among war banners as sweat, blood, and faith is all that a Varangian needs to become one of the most legendary warriors in history. Increased morale and discipline in the army Magic cannot be used in military service under a combatant role Foreign Relations: Due to their exceptional service in the past, most nations regard Vaerheim is benign neglect or silent respect although some are willing to hire them again for mercenary contracts.
The Empire consists of the Imperial family as the head sovereigns of the state. While the Emperor is nominally the head of state, he does not technically manage all affairs of the Empire, rather he focuses on the foreign and international affairs of the Empire, namely military, diplomacy, and trade. It is the Empress, the typically Elven spouse of the Emperor who is in charge of the domestic affairs such as education, civil engineering, industry, and magical research as the native Attolians are typically much more magically attuned than the humans.
This stratification is found to be pervasive throughout the culture of the Empire as males are typically off to serve the Empire while the women drive the internal economy and keep the home front running. Both genders do their part to contribute to the Empire with each playing a crucial role in society.
The Empire's government was initially a form of military junta, but as the Empire was properly formed and stabilized, the Empire took a more centralized and formal form of government via an absolute monarchy. Particularly loyal and meritorious citizens in the Empire were/are granted land and form the foundation of a landed gentry, which take the role of a lesser nobility and bureaucracy. However, one thing is clear, the Empire favors the talented and successful and allows room for social mobility through numerous ways.
History:
The history of Attolia is long, but largely unrecorded until a human army landed on the island of Attolia to "civilize" the island and claim it for the Empire that they had served. The natives were a magically attuned, sea-faring people, but were rather... undeveloped and primitive in many ways as they lived in small tribes and enclaves that often found themselves in conflict with each other, but the natives of the land were such skilled magical users that battles that seemed easy led to substantial losses. It was the General of the army, Imperator Marius Wolff, who would later use the tribal rivalries to help conquer the island with relative ease as the Army allied with certain key tribes to subdue the rest of the island. This major campaign proved to be successful and the General's men hailed him as "Imperator", which was a great honor. However, rather than claiming the island for the former, ancient Empire, a great tragedy had taken place in the mainland and the Empire shattered from within. The former lands of the Empire were carved up by bandits, barbarians, and would be pretenders.
The Imperator did his best to evacuate and save as many civilians from the mainland, but ultimately the human army had to settle and effectively mixed with the native population. Rather than one population or culture dominating each other, the two found mutual appreciation and admiration for each other's abilities as the Imperator married a native woman, setting a milestone in racial relations between the humans and the natives.
Many generations have passed and others have tried to invade the main island, but all have failed as the Empire came to quickly realize the importance of a strong navy. Thus, current political doctrine has changed to focus on naval projection and trade as a means to keep the state healthy and growing while having the means of protecting itself.
Economy: The soil of Attolia are among the richest in the world and productive. However, what is more notable is the use of magic to provide industrial power to create finished goods. Needless to say, the Attolians export much more than import as the island is largely self-sufficient. Really, the only thing that the Attolians do import much of is magic crystals and lumber as they try to avoid using their own natural supplies.
Army: The Attolian Legion finds itself as a remnant of the human armies that had landed in Attolia long ago. It focuses largely on the use of well trained and well disciplined heavy infantry with small contingents of various supporting units.
Navy: The Attolian Navy has risen substantially through the years with most of the military development focused on the navy to keep the shores safe from potential invaders. Thus, the navy is possibly the most powerful in the world and is used to secure the islands of Attolia and to make sure that the trade routes are secured. Most of the military budget is spent to maintain this grand fleet.
The Attolian Navy features several "Floating Fortress", which are huge ships used to display the Empire's wealth and power.
Traits:
Splendid Isolation - Unless something traumatic happens or there's a major emergency, the Empire of Attolia will avoid permanent alliances with major powers as a way to stay away from continental affairs and politics. Thus, it will take a largely neutral stance on most matters that doesn't involve them or their interests.
The Iron Walls of Attolia - Rather than referring to actual walls, the Iron Walls of Attolia refers to the giant iron platted navy of the Empire which protects its shores and the means with which it projects it power and influence.
Always Faithful - The Attolian Army is rather small. This is due to most soldiers of Attolia being sailors or marines, who man the huge fleet.
Foreign Relations: Generally amiable or neutral. As long as the trade continues to grow and flow and the island remains safe, then there isn't much that the Attolians worry about.
Sidara and its people are old, boasting nine-thousand years of human habitation and just under five-thousand years of true civilisation. Forming into many warring clans by 2,000 BGAM, they would be conqueror and conquered both from 900 BGAM until 7 BGAM. In their long history they have warred with the Héiswaepzí, the Baevnizí, and with the ap Morig who utterly destroyed the great Baevnizí Republic. When the ap Morig were finally cast back into the sea whence they came the Sdarids returned to warring amongst each other, and from these wars the states of the present day emerged. The Esher Ríghacd, though small, has been one of the more successful Sdarid states in this new period, dubbed the Glorious Age of Man.
Territory
Economy
The people of Esher, like the Sdarids of old, are not a merchant people and have no mind for such things. Their economy is largely agrarian and there land is fertile enough to ensure food autarky. Control over the Seihdh-Soul Strait and the World-Water Strait also ensures a fairly stable flow of funds.
Technology
The Sdarids are not great innovators in the fields of technology or agriculture. They see no reason to reinvent the wheel - ideas and technologies have flowed their way over the ages and they are rather adept at grasping and adapting them to their needs when they arrive. If magic is to be considered a technology - and Sdarids as a rule do not consider it as such - then it is perhaps the one area in which Esherans excel and lead.
Culture
Above all else, Esherans value the traditional Sdarid ideals of freedom, valour, honour, and loyalty, and they regard the family, clan, and tribe very highly. Fiercely independent, they consider the acceptance of enslavement in any form as the highest dishonour. Esherans, like other Sdarids, are polytheistic and animistic, worshipping many gods and believing that spirits rest in all things. Foremost in their pantheon is Seihdhara, goddess of war and love, and who is the personification of Sidara. Every clan and tribe also has its own god believed to be the personification of that clan or tribe. They worship outdoors in stone circles, sacred groves, or near sacred springs. Leading worship, and many other responsibilities, falls to the Wyndyn. They are split into two classes: Treiwyndyn and Arwyndyn. The Treiwyndyn carry out everyday responsibilities and interact with the people. The Arwyndyn are scholarly druids. There is no official clergy in a sacerdotal sense. Filim, poets, play a very important role in society and are all members of the Bardic Order - the Cumannfil. Being praised by a Fili is a great honour, but being satirised by one is a source of immense shame. The words of Filim are believed to have great power in and of themselves. Wyndyn can exile individuals for various reasons, these become Trosychen, outlaws who do not benefit from being part of society and to whom the law does not apply. The elderly generally occupy positions of influence due to the clan structure of society (the elderly have children and grandchildrem, who naturally owe them a degree of allegiance). Children are considered the children of the entire clan. To become adults, they must undergo a rite of passage where they travel throughout Sidara for six months. Fosterage is common across Sidarid societies, and this is no different in Esher. Fosterage involves a family giving its children over to other families. This is generally done for educational reasons and to bring families closer together. Children can also be fostered by skilled persons who teach them their craft. In Eshera, women are considered more or less equal with men and have historically played important roles in leadership - on the battlefield, and elsewhere. The liberties enjoyed by women in Eshera, even before the establishment of the present-day nation, have generally been greated than elsewhere in the Sdarid world. Sidarids are polygamous, with men and women marrying as many times as they please. Sex is not constricted to spouses, though children should not be born out of wedlock. There are four major and four minor festivals celebrated universally. These are Beltane, Sambane, Embilc and Lignsid, and the minor festivals are the two solstices and equinoxes. On death, people are either cremated or have their bodies buried. The dead are generally buried in burial cysts and have a mound of either stone or earth built above them.
Army
The Esheran army is exceptionally powerful and prepared, honed to excellence by the constant warring with its neighbours, whose armies are no less prepared and honed than that of Eshera. The on land military balance hangs by a string in the region and tension is very high.
Navy
The Sidarid navy is respectable and is able to protect its two strategic straits. The main naval power in the region is the Gweilaerth Confederation, though the latter's weakness on land ensures a tense understanding between the two powers In return for not raiding Esheran shores, Gweilaerth raiders are allowed to pass through the two straits at a discounted price, though any a share of any loot passing through the straits (usually 15%) must be handed over to the Esherans.
Traits
Soul-names and Prophecies - Soul-names are given at birth and are said to strengthen one's link with the gods. Prophecies are personalised oaths of sorts which one must upkeep. Doing so can given one strength. Breaking one's prophecy can greatly weaken a person, even leading to death. Willing Warriors - Sidarids love war. They want to do glorious things and achieve victory. Unfortunately their excitability makes them more likely to disobey orders. Nothing but Customary Law - Sidara has no legislature. It is run completely by customary law. This differs from clan to clan and even from village to village, which can be extremely troublesome for anyone moving around, and even more so for foreigners trying to conduct trade. Scholarly Druids - Arwyndyn have records of Sidarid history, law, magick, lore, and much else stretching back thousands of years. They are incredible founts of wisdom and knowledge. Unfortunately, they are highly secretive and usually communicate in a language unknown to any but themselves.
BGAM - Before the Glorious Age of Man OGAM - Of the Glorious Age of Man
~8,500 BGAM
First human habitation.
First human habitation is evident from this period when early humans migrated into the area during the last ice age - it is possible that they were escaping threats from the east.
~4,000-3,500 BCE
Dwellings, farming, animal domestication, fishing, waterfaring vessels, ritual burial, polytheistic religion, tribalism, stone circles all present.
Stone houses and farming first appear. Denizens of the region kept cattle, farmed barley & wheat, gathered shellfish, and engaged in pole & line fishing from boats. Grooved pottery appeared in the period, and chambered cairn tombs appear to have been developed. The earliest pottery depictions of a female goddess with a head of saffron date back from this time. Even from this early period, people appear to have been very connected, suggesting that clans were present or were at a developed point in their formation. A unique hallmark of early Sidarid culture that has endured are monuments in the form of standing stones, ranging from monuments of one large stone to monuments of hundreds of stones placed in complex shapes and piled on each other to create rudimentary arches. The early function of stone circles may have been to commemorate the end of clan feuds or wars and to honour the war goddess. In the present day they function as shrines to the Bear Mother Seihdhara and to other gods or spirits, as peaceful sanctuaries where arbitration between feuding parties can take place, and as gathering places during festivals, celebrations, and in preparation for war. The Wyndyn as a distinct druido-magickal priestly class emerge in this period, and their discovery and utilisation magic occurs over an absurdly short period of time. The Sdarids believe magic was granted to them via divine means.
~2,000 BGAM-1000 BGAM
The bronze age arrives in Sidara around 2000 BGAM, and hillforts begin appearing from around 1,500 BGAM. Clan hillfort settlements become an established part of Sidarid culture and society by 1,000 BGAM. Contact with the eastern Héiswaep traders helped spur Sidarid cultural development. For the longest time Sidarids had been content with their insular existence, from time to time raiding one another or erupting into small clan feuds, but contact with these strange trading people - who would be dubbed 'the Headless Men' - brought about a lust for the strange and wondrous goods bartered - and eventually not just bartered, but bought. The great Héiswaep trader, Eilaegi, and his father, Shruehaem, introduced the concept of currency to the Sidarids. The two Héiswaep merchants hired Sidarid clans to protect their great caravans as they journeyed westward through Sidarid lands and, across the Seihdh-Soul-Sea, on to the lands of the Gwereinmáchlíd - the 'Sunset-Folk'. The warriors in these Sdarid clans served as light infantry and as cavalry, protecting the traders from bandits and hostile tribes along the trading route. The gold coins the clans received in return made a deep impression on their greater tribes, who then sought out Héiswaep minting expertise. The Héiswaepzí gladly provided this technology since it made trade between the two peoples much easier, and soon the Sidarids were striking coins of their own, usually adorned with horses and sheaves of wheat. Sdarid tribes made their coins of gold and less often of silver, and very rarely of copper. Bronze or iron coins, common in some of the Héiswaep city-states, were not struck by the Sidarids. Coin-making became a refined art amongst the Sdarids - they very soon eclipsed their Héiswaep teachers and specialised craftsmen were making the dies for the coins. The methodologies developed in this period have remained largely unchanged to the present day. First, blanks are made from gold or silver, which are melted and poured into special clay moulds. The die is a two-part affair: the blank is fitted into the heavy lower half, and the upper half then fitted over it. A worker then strikes the die with a heavy iron hammer, smashing the design into the gold or silver of the coin. Sdarid minters are very good at this, and doublestrikes or “smeared” coins, found often in the coinage of the Héiswaepzí and Gwereinmáchlídzí, are unknown among Sdarids. Because the Sidarids had no central government, the coinage was easily debased (mixed with inferior metals). Coins were commonly “shaved”: an unscrupulous trader would keep a small container out of sight and use a sharp blade to remove a sliver of gold from the edge of each coin he or she handles, dropping these ill-gotten gains into the container. Sdarid coins rapidly lost their original value, and traders often weighed them or even bit them. Gold mixed with a base metal is typically harder than pure or near-pure metal and so pure gold is very soft and will yield teeth marks if bitten. This remains an issue event to the present day. Powerful tribes usually minted their own coins with the image of their chief or king on them. Some tribes even used the extremely precious sacred-metal, halor, for coinage. However this met with stiff resistance from Wyndyn, who frowned upon the sacred-metal - believed to be the congealed blood of Seihdhara, fallen from the heavens where she does battle - being used for such base purposes.
By 1500 BGAM even silk from Csíbhrògh (later it would be discovered that silk, in fact, came all the way from Cúneacsbhrògh) had found its way into the hands of Sidarid Lairds. The quantity traded remained small, and this meant that the acquisition of these exotic goods marked out certain Lairds as a cut above the others. Such status symbols aided them in gaining greater power, and so the clans began to coalesce around ever-more-powerful leaders - leaders chosen from the then-supreme warrior class, for the Wyndyn would not fully expand their powers for some centuries. With this greater power and organisation came the ability to wage war on an ever greater scale, though it would not come to be directed against non-Sidarids until the Iron Age.
~900-400 BGAM
The onset of the Iron Age. Age of forts and defended farmsteads, as well as quarrelsome tribal confederations, petty tribal kingdoms, and the quick rise and fall of tribal warlords.
The onset of the Iron Age in Sidara occurs around 900 BGAM, initiating an age of forts and defended farmsteads, as well as quarrelsome clan confederations, petty tribal kingdoms, and the quick rise and fall of clan warlords. Huge numbers of small duns, hillforts, oppida, and ring forts were built on any suitable crag or hillock during this period, moreso than in the past where single hillforts were the norm for a clan. Brochs are also first constructed in this period. Many souterrain underground galleries (functioning as food stores or hiding places during times of strife) and passageways were constructed to ease movement and communications when the surface was compromised or too dangerous. Island settlements linked with land by a causeway, the so-called crannogs, also became common and served a primarily defensive purpose. This period saw the swift expansion of Sidarid lands westward, across the Seihdh-Soul-Sea, and eastward into Higape, the lands of the Héiswaepzí - who thought to profit eternally from Sidarid desire for exotic goods from Csíbhrògh, Cúneacsbhrògh, and other far eastern realms. It also saw the rise of the Baevni Empire to the west, which wreaked havoc on Western Sidara (Wesdara).
740 BGAM
A Héiswaep league of western merchant republics elected a Great Merchant to lead the defence of their lands against Sidarid encroachment.
The Héiswaepzí, a Race of Headless Men
The newly formed league was both large and wealthy and would have almost certainly put a stop to Sidarid ambitions were it not for bad luck and the hurriedness of the Great Merchant, a man by the name of Gulgalu, who led his force against the Sidarids and faced them in open combat before all the forces of the League were at his disposal. Led by one Laird Aenghas, the Sidarids were enthused by the opportunity to face their prey openly. Unprepared and poorly led, the Héiswaep force was defeated and scattered, and the Great Merchant Gulgalu was slain. His face was cut from his chest and paraded before the victorious Sidarid army.
739 BGAM
Sidarid tribes invaded Higape again led by a Laird named Rhigh. The Héiswaepzí fended off the Sdarids, but could not stop them from moving on into Higape. A force led by the prominent city-state of Buoriga moved to stop them at the pass of Ulaemip, the only useful route southward towards the rich Héiswaep cities. Barbarians the Sdarids may have been, but centuries of trade meant that they knew their neighbour well by now. They bypassed the Buorigzí by using a mountain path commonly used by merchants wishing to avoid the bandits who sometimes lay in wait at the pass of Ulaemip. When the Buorig fleet tried to evacuate the army, the Sdarids launched an attack and a fierce battle broke out at the water’s edge. The Héiswaepzí managed to drive off the Sdarids after heavy losses on both sides. Leaving their dead behind, the invaders headed on toward their real goal, the sacred Tuohimil Oracle. For centuries, Héiswaepzí had donated treasures to the Oracle and its god, Fo. The Sdarids now pillaged these riches but were surprised in the course of their looting and desecration by a relieving Héiswaep army. According to Héiswaep writers, the actions of the Sdarids enraged Fo, who smote the thieving raiders with earthquakes and thunderbolts, slaying thousands of them. Whatever the case, the Sdarids were harassed by guerrilla strikes from small bands of Héiswaepzí. A nighttime raid also created great confusion, and Sdarid contingents mistakenly fought one another in the darkness. The next day’s fighting against the Héiswaepzí went badly, and Laird Rhigh suffered a serious wound. Shamed by this immense defeat, he followed the Sdarid custom of enlarging the wound to make it more conspicuous, killing himself in the process. The remainder of the Sdarids put their own wounded to death and straggled north, losing still more warriors to Héiswaep attacks along the way. A pitiful remnant returned to their homelands, still loaded with immense treasures. One wing of the Sdarid host would go on to found a small pirate kingdom on the shore of the World-Water, which endured for several generations - they raided the Héiswaep cities on the World-Water's coast and gained a fearsome reputation for their habit of sacrificing prisoners. So cruel did the Héiswaepzí consider them that people would commit suicide at the very approach of Sdarid raiders. This greatly amused the Sdarids, who enjoyed marching toward Héiswaep cities just to watch the citizens fling themselves from the walls. Another group of the Sdarid host would cross the World-Water to serve as mercenaries on distant islands, eventually founding the long-lived kingdom of Sadeiríya. Still others returned to Higape for decades to come, this time invited as paid swords for hire. But they would never again threaten to conquer Higape.
Though there were undoubtedly Sdarid excursions - such as that of Laird Rhig - that aimed after loot and glory, Sdarid tribes tended more often to migrate due to population pressures. Those same pressures that saw them expand eastward towards Higape saw them also expand westwards towards Gwereinmáchlídbhrógh (lit. Land of the Sunset-Folk). For traders not only brought luxury goods from east and west; they also alerted Sdarids to the existence of rich lands they could plunder and potentially settle...
550 BGAM
'These are not civilised people who will become your ally when you have taken their city, but wild beasts whose blood we must shed or see them spill our own.' - An Anonymous Baevni Military Leader
The Gwereinmáchlídzí were organised into a number of kingdoms and republics, all which had early contact with the Sdarids both through trade and due to the Gwereinmáchlíd expansion. Of these republics, the Baevnizí, centred on the city of Baevin, soon formed a lasting alliance with the more easterly city-state of Baxiria to counter the Sdarid threat. Sdarid settlers arrived in the Torg River Valley of Eastern Gwereinmáchlídbhrógh around 550 BGAM and soon invaded the lands of the Kulgum, a Gwereinmáchlíd people neighbouring the Baevnizí.
548 BGAM
Baevni ambassadors tried to arrange peace between the Sdarids and the Kulgum city of Diharc but carelessly took the side of their neighbours against the Sdarids when fighting broke out anyway. The Sdarids emerged victorious from the battle and demanded compensation from Baevin for this breach of the peace. Baevin acknowledged the wrongdoing but elected two of the disgraced ambassadors as the new year’s consuls. Taking this for the insult the Baevnizí surely intended, the Sdarids - led by Laird Rhigh (a common leader’s nickname during the period, meaning “king”) - marched on Baevin. At least three tribes took part, Rhigh's own Waégnú tribe and their allies, the Hóeryéfni and Panoagh tribes. Rhigh and his men smashed a Baevni army at the Oragi Moors and pressed on to the city itself. Although later Baevni historians recorded great acts of heroism by the ancestors of every prominent family, the Baevnizí could not stop the Sdarids. The invaders burned and pillaged the so-called Sunlit City with great enthusiasm. Only a small Baevni garrison held out on one of the city's fourteen hills, fending off repeated assaults. Unable to force the Sdarids to leave, the Baevnizí negotiated a peace. For one-thousand pounds of gold, the Sdarids would head back east and leave Baevin. When Baevni negotiators protested that the scales were unbalanced, Rhigh famously tossed his sword on the scales to add to the weight and declared: “Janask Jatedi,” in broken Culiv - the language of the Baevni. “Woe to the vanquished.”
Janask Jatedi
Rhigh’s victory did not end Sdarid attacks on Baevni lands, and the Baevnizí made sure their own people never forgot the insult. Janask Jatedi became a Baevni watchword and the basis for Baevni policy towards defeated peoples. Every new generation of the Baevni upper classes grew up thirsting for vengeance against those who had sacked their invincible city. A century later, Gijer Dul would still cite the Sdarid sack of Baevin as justification for his atrocities against Wesdarid civilians...
548-460 BGAM
Gulubi, a powerful Héiswaep city peering over the World-Water on the western continental coast, just north of Gwereinmáchlídbhrógh, saw Baevin as a potential rival and funded repeated Sdarid incursions for a half-century after Rhigh's victory. In 497 BGAM, the Baevni consul Fohir Tor defeated a Sdarid Laird in single combat and took his golden torc, greatly demoralising the Sdarids and ending that particular threat to Baevin. In 490 BGAM the tribune Harok answered a challenge and strode forward for the ritual exchange of insults before battle. While he and his opponent berated one another (with neither probably understanding a word), a raven perched on Harok's helmet. The Sdarids took this as an evil omen and swiftly quit the field. Almost as though they followed a calendar, about once per generation the Sdarids launched a mass invasion of Baevni lands. Driven by new tribes crossing the Seihdh-Soul-Sea, themselves moved by population increases to the east, the wars continued with neither side able to gain an advantage. Sdarid gains from these movements were balanced by Baevin's increasing dominance over the Culiv-speaking peoples of Gwereinmáchlídbhrógh. However Sdarid leaders suffered a key weakness throughout their history in this period: their near-total lack of geographic sense blinded them to larger political realities. They continually passed up chances to attack while Baevin engaged in life-or-death struggles with other Gwereinmáchlídzí, such as the Kulgumzí, Lohinzí, Shumgzí, Ehopzí, in addition to the non-Gwereinmáchlíd Horidjzí from the north who had by now conquered Gulubi and were advancing on Gwereinmáchlídbhrógh. Then, when Baevin had no such distractions, the Sdarids would attack alone. Had they taken advantage of any of these opportunities, which occurred over the course of about one-hundred years, there is little doubt that Baevin would have perished.
When Ungar-Harukin, the glorious Horidj general, led his elephants south against Baevin in 469 BGAM, many Sdarids he crossed on his route - in what is today western Haiho land - joined his forces, but the tribes made no concerted effort to intervene in the war. Instead, they waited until Ungar-Harukin had been defeated and then attacked the Baevnizí. This time, the tribes of western Haiho met their final defeat and came under direct Baevni rule. But conflict between Sdarid and Baevni was far from over - this was only the beginning of an epic and, for the Sdarids, tragic saga.
460-403 BGAM
'To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire: Mark where their carnage and their conquests cease! They make a solitude, and call it — peace!' — Cel-Duibur, A Laird of Clan Esher of the Culldinoan Tribe
The most influential individual in Sdarid history in this period (or perhaps in any other period before) had no Sdarid blood himself. Gijer Dul completely overturned the Wesdarid world in a series of military campaigns designed primarily to enrich himself and increase his political power at home. The destruction of hundreds of thousands of lives, massive property, and nearly a whole civilisation, just happened to be the collateral damage from Dul's ambitions.
457 BGAM
Population movements from Easdara (eastern Sidara) started the chain of events that led to the Baevni conquest. The Auldeahui, a Sdarid tribe allied to Baevin, had long-standing feuds with the neighbouring Afurihn to the southwest of their lands and the Coaduagh to the northeast. The powerful Xunikghza tribe, belonging to a nomadic non-Sdarid people called the Kurgamish, had also been moving southward for some decades already, and had formed an alliance with the Sdarid Rhighacd of Noegaera. The Coaduagh, also friends of Noegaera, used this connection to invite the Xunikghza to cross the River Chjelbui running through Wesdara and help them in their war with the Auldeahui. As the Xunikghza king Curxknga had made himself a friend to Baevin through his alliance with Noegaera, the Baevnizí ignored Auldeahui calls for intervention. Things changed when the Huidinogh tribe began to move eastward from their lands in what is now northern-eastern Wesdara. Overpopulation, and the fear of advancing Kurgamishzí, led them to seek new lands to the west. Their Laird, Uorsein-Gator, asked permission to enter Baevni-ruled Wesdara. Gijer Dul, just named proconsul, brought his army up and engaged them, inflicting defeat on them. Unswayed in their determination to find new homes, the Huidinogh sought out a different route.
The Coaduagh, eager to create more problems for the Auldeahui, gave the Huidinogh and their allies, the Baoruio, free passage through their lands and into the Auldeahui territory. The Auldeahui called on Baevin to save them. Gijer Dul answered promptly, falling on the Huidinogh as they besieged the Auldeahui capital. He smashed the tribe, selling tens of thousands into slavery. He allowed the Baoruio to return to their homelands. With the Auldeahui saved from one threat, he next turned to Curxknga and ordered him to leave Wesdara. The Kurgamish king refused, and Dul marched quickly to fight him as well. The Baevnizí fought the Xunikghza with unusual fury, charging them so fast that the legions did not even throw their javelins before crashing into the Kurgamish shield-wall. The Kurgamish broke under the attack, and Baevni cavalry (many of them Sdarid auxiliaries) rode down the survivors. Curxknga escaped, but the Baevnizí slaughtered both of his wives and most of his children. Gijer Dul had what he had come for: a major military victory over an ancient foe of Baevin. He had even fought and won a second major battle over a different enemy, an unexpected bonus. His battlefield skills became the talk of Baevin, exactly what he needed to further his political ambitions. Dul returned to Western Gwereinmáchlídbhrógh for the winter, disposing of his profits and engaging in long-distance politicking; he could not re-enter Baevni Gwereinmáchlídbhrógh itself without giving up his proconsulship. Using his new-found wealth, he recruited two new legions among the Baevni settlers and assimilated Sdarids of Toga-wearing Wesdara, as the Baevnizí called the parts of Wesdara they had conquered. He neither requested nor received approval from the Senate to raise these troops, a major breach of Baevni law and custom.
456 BGAM
At some point during this winter, Dul seems to have realised that he could gain even greater profit from a war of conquest in Wesdara. So when the winter ended, he claimed that the Golturae tribe had massed their tribes for an attack on his army, quartered in the lands of the Coaduagh. The Golturae certainly had made ready for war, minting special gold coins to finance the effort and calling in mercenaries from as far away as Northern Easdara. One Golturae clan, the Rhaemigh, tried to defect to the Baevni side. The Rhigh Guilbuo of the Golturae, belonging to the Suosaenu clan, led a huge Golturae army against their capital. Gijer Dul sped north, accompanied by his senior staff and, most importantly for his own fortunes, a whole retinue of slave dealers. He rejoined his army and led them on one of his famous forced marches to relieve the Rhaemigh. The Baevnizí caught Guilbuo's army in the midst of crossing a river and inflicted a massive defeat on them. The coalition swiftly began to break up, with individual clans withdrawing to defend their homelands from the Baevni onslaught. The Baevnizí chased down the fleeing clans, killing ten of thousands of their warriors. Shocked by the rapid defeats, the older men and boys left at home to garrison the oppida (a Sdarid form of fortified town) surrendered at the approach of the Baevnizí, often without a fight. One Golturae clan, the Magaeruic, vowed to never surrender. Considered the most warlike of the Golturae, the Magaeruic had a reputation for hating Baevni traders, considering them liars and cheats. Taking this vow as the insult to Baevin the Magaeruic surely intended, Gijer Dul quickly marched against their capital. But the Magaeruic had studied Baevni ways. They knew that Baevni armies always halted before nightfall to build fortified camps, and would choose ground for defense. The Magaeruic plotted the Baevni march route, predicted where Dul would halt, and, when his men scattered to cut down trees and dig ditches, the Magaeruic were waiting. They swept out of the trees in a silent charge, having put aside their war trumpets and boasting. It was a remarkable display of discipline, and it almost changed history. The Magaeruic got in among the Baevnizí before they could form up to use their devastating close-order tactics and managed to turn the battle into a series of swirling group and individual duels – the sort of fighting at which the Sdarids excelled.
Only the personal leadership of Gijer Dul and Heikus Albintus, the X Legion’s veteran commander, kept the three legions present from being slaughtered. While they held off the Magaeruic and tried to reform their ranks, the other three legions of the army arrived in formation and drove into the Sdarids. The Magaeruic fought furiously, even heaping up their dead to make ramparts, but they finally broke and fled, leaving behind thousands of dead. This time, though, the dead also included a huge number of Baevnizí. The campaign ended with the defeat of the Agatugh, who had marched to join the Magaeruic but recoiled from the dangerous ambush plan. Instead, they pretended to surrender their capital and then attacked the Baevnizí. Dul had his men ready, and the Agatugh were crushed. Fifty-three thousand of them marched off to Baevin in iron chains.
Many Easdarid warriors had crossed the Seihdh-Soul-Sea to participate in the war against Dul and the Baevnizí. Most of these fought as mercenaries, paid by the Golturae to help bolster their own forces. Some Lairds of the tribes related to the Golturae also dispatched warriors of their own volition, as the arguments of the Golturae leaders had convinced them that there was more at stake in this war than simply honour or land. The Baevnizí were shocked by the ferocity of these men, and surprised at the much greater proportion of fighting women among them than were found amongst the Wesdarids. Few were taken prisoner as the Easdarids tended to kill themselves first, but the handful who were captured were savagely put to death.
These Easdarids were generally larger than their Wesdarid counterparts and had darker hair and skin, betraying the fact that they were likely mostly of the Culldinoan Tribe of northern Easdara. Those of the Culldinoan Tribe were the most likely among the Sdarids to paint their bodies for combat (usually blue, using azurite clay). Female warriors at times clad themselves in black robes to increase their fearsome appearance; they were also sometimes found as guards sworn to protect religious sites (chiefly, sacred oak groves).
455 BGAM
Gijer Dul spent the winter once again in Western Gwereinmáchlídbhrógh defending his political position. Many in Baevin now feared the power represented by his new-found wealth and private army. When spring came in 455 BGAM, he ordered his legions to start building a fleet of warships on the Seihdh-Soul-Sea's coast. At about the same time, the tribes of Uiwghreim rose in revolt against Baevin. During the previous year, the tribes living in what is now south-eastern Haiho accepted Baevni rule without resistance after the fearsome defeats suffered by the Golturae, but during the winter, they had time to reconsider and found they hated the Baevnizí once they got to know them. Led by the Veucioghr, the Sdarid world’s greatest sailors, they now called together their warriors and prepared to attack the Baevnizí. The Veucioghr used their fleets to retreat away from oppida threatened by Dul's land forces. The Baevni fleet moved to stop them, and in a great naval battle destroyed Veucioghr sea-power. Using long grappling hooks to shred the rigging of the Sdarid vessels, the Baevnizí immobilised them so they could either board them or set them on fire. With their fleet eliminated, the Veucioghr surrendered. Dul put all of their leaders to death and sold the entire tribe into slavery. For his last campaign of the year, Dul marched against the Maorheghn, who lived on the coast of the Haiho Sea in what is now north-eastern Haiho. The Maorheghn, who had not sought this war, did not want to risk the same fate as their Golturae neighbors. They burned their own oppida and withdrew into the deep forests, daring the Baevnizí to follow. Dul tried, but his plan to simply cut down the entire forest proved impractical and he sent his troops into winter quarters with the Maorheghn still free of Baevni rule.
454 BGAM
For several years, Dul had been planning to invade the Culldinoan, across the Seihdh-Soul-Sea in northern Easdara. It would be a great feat of arms to cross the sea, something no Baevni had ever done. Culldinoania - as the land was called by the Baevnizí - had tin, and many Baevni traders wanted to control both these mines and the huge market for Baevni wine that then region had become. Finally, Dul despite his ambitions remained a Baevni at heart, and Baevin never tolerated a threat. The appearance of Culldinoan warriors fighting alongside the Golturae proved that this land needed to be subjugated. Before the fleet could sail, however, two Kurgamish tribes, the Huksunkxa and the Twoxtiq, crossed into northern Wesdara. Dul marched to expel them, and the Kurgamish leaders proposed a three-day truce. During the truce, a skirmish broke out between Kurgamish cavalry and Sdarid horsemen serving Dul's army. When the Kurgamish chieftains came to meet with Dul, he used the fight as an excuse to imprison them and then quickly marched his army to launch a surprise attack on the leaderless Kurgamish. Believing the Baevnizí would honour the truce, the Kurgamish had no guards posted, and their warriors scrambled to arm themselves even as the Baevnizí began killing their people. Dul ordered that no one be spared: 430,000 Kurgamish men, women, and children were put to the sword. In Baevin, the Senate coldly refused to grant Dul the honours of victory, accusing him of staining the army’s reputation. Something spectacular had to be done to regain the public’s favour. A Kurgamish tribe on the other side of the River Chjelbui refused to hand over the survivors who had escaped the massacre. Taking this as pretext for invasion, Dul had his men build a bridge over the Chjelbui, a great feat of engineering. His army then spent eighteen days burning farms and murdering Kurgamish non-combatants before withdrawing back over the river and dismantling the bridge. Another feat would have to be accomplished, and soon. While most of his army went after the Maorheghn again, Dul took two legions and invaded Culldinoania. Having spotted the approaching ships waiting for a favourable tide, the Culldinoan donned their blue war-paint and met the Baevnizí right on the beach. Many waded into the surf or drove their chariots into the water to attack the Baevnizí. The outnumbered Culldinoan could not hold for long, though, and eventually Dul's men forced their way ashore and set up a beachhead. Despite this temporary success, Dul found that he was unable to consolidate his position and was forced to withdraw before winter returned.
453 BGAM
'Culldinoania - avoid that unusual and extravagant word as the sailor does the rock.'— Gijer Dul
Dul could not allow the defeat to stand, and sold his withdrawal to the Baevni public as merely the planned result of a reconnaissance in force. He spent the winter once again tending to his political position and writing a guide to Culiv grammar, recommending a forceful and direct style. His troops spent the winter building more ships, and, when spring came, Dul found six-hundred vessels ready for his use. In addition, hundreds of traders, slave dealers, adventurers and political lackeys attached themselves to his headquarters. And, to spite his political enemy Durmikio Onbrasokus, Dul brought along an elephant as well. Onbrasokus’ grandfather rode an elephant when he conquered south-western Wesdara for Baevin, and Dul planned to do the same when he added Culldinoania to Baevin's empire. Before he could leave, Dul learned of a planned uprising by the Tuiopu, Wesdara's leading cavalry power. He marched quickly to cow their Laird, Eigomar, who handed over two-hundred hostages in a pledge of good behaviour. With that settled, the invasion of Culldinoania could begin in earnest. This time, five legions made the trip, along with two-thousand Sdarid cavalry. Dul got ashore without opposition and quickly moved inland to confront the nearest tribe. But once again a storm damaged his fleet. While Dul had spent the winter in preparation, so had the tribes of Culldinoania. Several of those in the south had placed their warriors under the command of Cel-Duibur, Laird of Clan Esher and widely considered Culldinoania's best general. Cel-Duibur ordered his men to employ guerrilla tactics against the Baevnizí. They withdrew before major forces and tried to filter behind the Baevni advance guards to fall on supply trains and isolated units of soldiers. While Dul sought a decisive battle, the wily Sdarid drew him ever further away from his ships and the route back to Wesdara. Dul fought his way across the River Dhoium with the help of his elephant, and accepted the surrender of the Tuihroam, an important tribe. But Cel-Duibur now disbanded most of his army, keeping four-thousand chariot-riders and sending many of the rest slipping back past the Baevnizí for a surprise attack on their beachhead. Dul and a small personal guard rushed back to the camp, but by the time they arrived the one legion there had smashed the uncoordinated Sdarid attack. With his plan now foiled, Cel-Duibur decided to give up. Gijer Dul took a few hostages and went back to Wesdara before winter storms made the passage impossible. While he declared the mission a great success, the Baevni public was less than impressed. Already, his political hopes seemed to be fading. Wesdara had suffered poor harvests in 453 BGAM, and so Dul spread out his eight legions in separate camps for the winter. The Sdarids saw their opportunity and rose in a series of coordinated attacks in the fall of the year with the Magaeruic in the lead. The Eiburion, a Golturae tribe, led by their Rhigh Umberuiss, wiped out one legion and killed half of another. When Dul rushed to relieve one of his legions, he found the Magaeruic building siege works copied from Baevni practice, hacking away at trees and earth with their swords since warriors would never touch a shovel. While he saved that camp, the Sdarids were learning and learning fast.
452 BGAM
This time, Gijer Dul spent the winter among his troops, trying to repair their fading morale and madly recruiting replacements. He raised two new legions, plus a third to replace the lost unit. In addition, he convinced his political ally, Xorna Mrognis (Xorna the Magnificent) to lend him troops from Xorna's army in the lands north of Wesdara. But as the winter progressed, the news got worse: Xorna's wife, Cuia, died in childbirth. He seems to have genuinely loved her, but theirs had been a political marriage – Dul was her father. Soon, that alliance would start to fray. The Sdarids remained busy as well, bringing more adherents to their cause. Once again, they launched a winter campaign, striking the Baevnizí at their most vulnerable. Sdarids, considering war a sport, preferred to fight during summertime, but they managed to put aside these practices, and fought in the dreary rains and snow. Baevnizí huddled around their fires learned to fear the dark nights. When spring came, Dul responded, and, in a series of campaigns, managed to subdue the Magaeruic and their allies. Albintus scored a smashing victory over the Tuiopu, and broke their power. As the campaign in the north dragged on, however, Sdarids from other regions began to see Baevni vulnerabilities. The powerful, well-organized tribes of Central Wesdara had been bypassed by Dul's earlier campaigns – probably because of Baevni commercial interests there, and because they seemed most apt to assimilate to Baevni ways quickly and easily. They might have stayed quiet, but news from Baevin showed the Republic to be at its end, and this gave new courage to Baevin's Sdarid enemies.
451 BGAM
With Cuia dead, Dul's political alliance with Xorna crumbled. The great Baevni general now had to devote all of his energy to holding his proconsulship since his long list of enemies would quickly destroy him should he lose immunity from prosecution. Baevin's immediate future lay in the relationship between its two greatest leaders, not in its institutions. Sdarid leaders, chiefly the Culldinoan, Cor-Haedeil of the Uraegier, realised this. Haedeil had been one of Dul's hostages during the Culldinoania campaign and now explained to his Wesdarid counterparts just how much the Baevnizí depended on their leader. Agreeing, the Sdarids began their campaign with an attack on the Baevni grain depot at Hurfna, wiping out the garrison and executing many Baevni traders for cheating Sdarids. Responding to Haedeil and impressed by the daring assault on Hurfna, 20-year-old chieftain Vercin-Gator of the Orfeinugh led his troop of cavalry out of Baevni service and began to gather tens of thousands of warriors. He then sent a force deep into the western Baevni Wesdara to harass the Baevnizí. Gijer Dul sped back and made a daring ride through Sdarid-controlled territory to reach his army in Eastern Wesdara. Showing his usual speed and energy, he marched west to face Vercin-Gator, who ordered the tribes in his path to burn their oppida and fields to deny the Baevnizí food and shelter. In an unusual development for the Sdarids, however, the Baelgund had become attached to their capital, Hoerv. Most agreed it was the most beautiful of all the Wesdarid oppida, and the Baelgund believed its huge walls made it impregnable. Vercin-Gator agreed to its defense, and brought up his army nearby to harass the Baevnizí as they laid siege to the fortress. Dul's troops built a pair of huge ramps, each sporting a tall siege tower. Between them, a terrace of tree trunks held up the whole structure. When the ramps approached the wall, a daring Sdarid raiding party managed to slip out of Hoerv one night and set the Baevni siegeworks on fire. The defenders poured out to finish the job, and the Baevnizí counterattacked. After fierce fighting, they pushed the Sdarids back into the town. The next day, helped by a driving rainstorm, they pushed the surviving tower up to the wall and breached the defenses. When resistance finally collapsed, Dul ordered everyone in Hoerv put to the sword. Next, the Baevnizí marched on the Orfeinugh capital, Kierkaroafa. Vercin-Gator's army harassed them the entire way. When the Baevnizí reached the oppidum, they found a powerfully-built mountaintop fortress. However, the Orfeinugh had allowed their allies to build walled camps adjacent to their walls, and the Baevnizí easily managed to penetrate these hastily-built lines. When they assaulted the walls, though, a counterattack cut off the raiders and destroyed them. A few days later, Dul withdrew to the east. Kierkaroafa was the only defeat the Baevnizí suffered under Dul's direct command, and it had wide-ranging effects. The unbeatable Baevni had been beaten. Tribes that had wavered in their allegiance now rushed to support Vercin-Gator. Even the Auldeahui chieftains, those long-time allies of Baevin, threw their swords at the feet of the young Orfeinugh rhigh. Dul united all ten of his legions and recruited Kurgamish mercenaries to bolster his forces. Vercin-Gator now held the initiative – rare for the Sdarids in their struggles with Dul – and attacked western Baevni Wesdara again. Dul, as the Sdarids well knew, had no choice but to head west to defend Baevni territory. The Wesdarids launched a surprise attack on Dul's army with their cavalry, but Vercin-Gator held back his foot soldiers, probably due to his youth and inexperience. What could have been a stunning victory instead led to the loss of thousands of Sdarid horsemen. Vercin-Gator withdrew to the nearby oppida of Peilugin, and Dul followed. This time, the Baevnizí constructed elaborate siegeworks to ring the Sdarid town with ditches, barricades, and walls. The Sdarid rhigh sent out clouds of riders to raise all the tribes of Wesdara to come to his aid, and they responded. All of Dul's old enemies marched on Peilugin, including some he had claimed to have exterminated: the Magaeruic, Veucioghr, Huidinogh, Maorheghn and more. In all, forty-three tribes sent warriors. Even the Uraegier of Southern Culldinoania sent four-thousand warriors, and the Wesdarids chose the Uraegier laird Haedeil to lead the relief force. While the Wesdarids assembled, Dul's men frantically built a second line of fortifications facing outward. Three times Sdarid attacks failed to breach the Baevni lines, and, after the last one, Baevni and Kurgamish cavalry rode down thousands of Wesdarids. Haedeil could not hold the relief force together, and tribe after tribe defected and went back home. Running out of food, Vercin-Gator decided to surrender. Dul allowed the Orfeinugh and Auldeahui to return home and made the rest slaves, giving one prisoner to each Baevni soldier as a reward. Vercin-Gator was made to surrender in an elaborate ceremony and was then sent back to Baevin in chains where he was ritually strangled in Dul's honor six years later. After the epic defeat at Peilugin, Haedeil and his diehard Uraegier went west to continue resistance, joining with the Baehlir to attack the Rofnigh, the pro-Baevni tribe in eastern Wesdara. Dul marched east to relieve the Rofnigh once again. He found the Baehlir camped behind a thick swamp, and had his men build portable bridges to cross the wet ground and attack the Sdarids. The Baehlir laird, Caerus, had his men gather huge quantities of brush and sticks and pile them into a massive wall in front of the Baevnizí. When the Baevnizí approached it, they set it on fire and ran in the opposite direction. Caerus set up a new ambush for the Baevnizí, but a Kurgamish mercenary betrayed his plans to Dul, who sprang an ambush of his own on the Baehlir. Caerus refused to surrender, hacking down every Baevni who approached with wide swings of his sword. Surrounded by Baevnizí, he still would not give up, and so they stood back and riddled him with arrows. Next, Dul headed north to deal with Umberuiss of the Eiburion, who still decorated his house with the heads of the Baevni legates Schubnu and Qitud from his destruction of their legions two years earlier. But Umberuiss took to the woods and conducted a guerrilla campaign, killing isolated Baevni soldiers but refusing to meet them in open battle. Dul chose not to continue the effort in bad weather and sent his troops into winter quarters. After a winter spent defending his political position via letter and messenger, Dul returned to the field and mopped up the Quihuitan, who had a fortress that seemed invulnerable and had laid in huge supplies of food. However, the Baevnizí figured out how to divert the streams that fed the springs on which they depended for water. The Quihuitan surrendered, and Dul ordered his troops to cut off the hands of all who had borne arms against the Baevnizí.
403 BGAM
The ap Morig invade first Baevin and then Sidara, alongside their lumbering, Alluidh-riding green minions - the ap Gynurk.
In their eternal hunger for expansion, the ap Morig erupted from across the western sea and utterly destroy Baevin, before extending their hands towards Sidara. The initial invasion by these eldritch beings and their lumbering, Alluidh-riding green minions - the ap Gynurk - was really nothing more than a raid, but eventually hordes of the ap Gynurk landed, led by their eldritch overlords, and the Sidarid clans - disunited and ever embroiled in internal wars and feuds - could do nothing before their dread horror.
393-7 BGAM
The period of Sidarid subjugation to the ap Morig. By 10 BGAM the power of the ap Morig had largely waned, and their last strongholds fell to Sidarid clans in 7 BGAM. Now the ap Morig occupy a position directly opposed to the gods in the Sidarid weltanschauung, and are the manifestations of all things evil. It is said that their descendants dwell even to this day beyond the western sea, plotting and scheming and planning the release of their forefathers and the reconquet of Seihdhara.
The period of Sidarid subjugation to the ap Morig. Various parts of the region fell into the power of the ap Morig over the centuries, but never all of Seihdhara at any one point. Their rule was always hindered by constant clan risings and rejection of foreign subjugation, as well as invasions by clan confederations that retained or had re-established their independence. One of the early confrontations between the Sidarids and ap-Morig came after the ap-Morig devastated and conquered the south Wesdarid Geihuim tribe.
With the utter devastation of Baevin clear for all to see, and the intention of the ap Morig to invade Sidara clear, the remaining major tribes quietly made their deals with the ap Morig - the Eugein and Uraegier becoming client kingdoms. One rhigh Coalighn would not rest, though, and continued to organise resistance in what is today north-eastern Haiho. The Sheoline of eastern Haiho became fanatical supporters, and an ap Morig grand magicker set out after him with a terrifying horde. Coalighn finally was cornered by the grand magicker in 349 BGAM, turning to give them battle to protect the huge column of refugees, mostly women and children, which his army had acquired. ap Morig dread-horror overcame the Sheoline’s fury, and the Sdarid army broke up. The ap Morig fell on the camp followers, slaughtering many and seizing thousands as slaves, including Coalighn’s wife and daughter. This disaster seems to have taken the will out of the great Sdarid laird, who instead of falling back with the Sheoline went east across the Seihdh-Soul-Sea in response to an offer of aid from the Builagnh. Their scheming warrior-bhaenrhigh, Mhundacara, promptly threw him into chains and gave him to the ap Morig. Her husband, Fineic, considered this a dishonorable act and open warfare broke out between the royal couple. Mhundacara also began sleeping with her husband’s shield-bearer to deepen the insult. Fineic defeated his wife’s faction, and the ap Morig rushed across the Seihdh-Soul-Sea to reinstate their vassal. Meanwhile Coalighn went in chains to the ruins of Baevin, where the ap Morig had established their temporary capital. There Coalighn was pardoned by the mysterious overlord of the ap Morig and sent into exile, where he was reunited with his family.
After Coalighn went into exile, the the ap Morig did nothing, and the Sdarids remained quiet for the next decade. In 335 BGAM, a new grand magicker took charge in the east. An ambitious creature, it aimed to further the conquests of the ap Morig by subjugating the rest of Wesdara and crossing the Seihdh-Soul-Sea. Gathering great hordes in what is today eastern Haiho, near the offshore island of Bui-Ghuilo. The site of the largest Wyndyn groves in Wesdara at the time, the new grand magicjer considered Bui-Ghuilo a hub for rebellious movements. From there, the Wyndyn encouraged resistance to the ap Morig, and there they also trained their “wild women” female warriors. The grand magicker mounted an amphibious assault across the narrow channel separating Bui-Ghuilo from southern Haiho, and slaughtered the Wyndyn in their groves. The Wild Women fought ferociously, dying to fulfill their oaths to defend the sacred site. Exiles from ap Morig-conquered areas had gathered there, and these men and women died fighting or were massacred. At least some Oergeinu and Dacuilean tribal warriors from nearby areas fought there as well, but could not stop the ap Morig from hacking down the ancient, sacred oak trees. While the grand magicker engaged the Wyndyn, it received word of a massive rebellion clear across Wesdara, in what today is the southern-most peninsula of Wesdara.
Cliodhna, a Clan Mwryfin warrioress of th Eugein tribe whose husband, Paelug, had decided to submit to the ap Morig rather than fight them, had led her people in a series of attacks on ap Morig colonies, burning several and slaughtering the eldritch settlers. For while Paellug's decision bought Clan Mwryfin and teh Eugein some respite from the incessant ap Morig attacks, it proved exceptionally unpopular with his people. Paelug died under mysterious circumstances, leaving leadership of the tribe to his daughters, and naming the mysterious overlord of the ap Morig co-chief with them. The idea of sharing power - with women! - was clearly viewed as an affront by the ap Morig, and so they struck out to educate the 'savages' on their place in the hierarchy. Cliodhna, to whom the daughters had an obligation of obedience, was now the effective Chieftess, and so was publicly flogged by the ap Morig and her daughters raped. Severeal of Cliodhna's relatives were also sold into slavery. Her honour injured and her people thirsting for freedom and revenge, the Chieftess assembled her forces and waged relentless war against the ap Morig, inflicting humiliating defeats upon them and razing to the ground a number of the major cities they had established in Wesdara. The timing, and the documented presence of Wild Women among several of the warrior hosts including as a personal guard to Cliodhna, hints that the Wyndyn prompted the uprising in an attempt to divert the grand magicker from his assault on their sanctuary. Cliodhna certainly waited some time between her disgrace and calling for armed resistance. If this was the intent, it failed, for the grand magicker had just accomplished his goals when word arrived of the uprising. It marched quickly back to face the Eugein. Cliodhna had assembled a large army, and the grand magicker fell back before her forces and summoned further minions to subdue the upstarts. Cliodhna led thousands of charioteers, who somehow managed to hide their vehicles from the ap Morig invaders. She eventually met her match at the Battle of Foul Finn's Field, when the grand magicker had all its forces gathered and was able to face the Chieftess. It turned to face the Sdarids and Cliodhna obliged with a mass charge. Her troops did no better with the tactic than the Wesdarids had a hundred years earlier against the Baevnizí, and tens of thousands of Sdarid warriors perished. Many members of Clan Mwryfin perished and the clan was eventually exterminated in its entirety. Cliodhna's exact fate is undetermined, though it is said the Arwynden know but have refrained from making it public knowledge. It has passed into Sidarid folklore that, having survived Foul Finn's Field with her daughters, the Queen escaped across the veil into the spirit realm and will return with the warriors of Clan Mwryfin when the eschatological final battle against the ap Morig draws nigh.
Despite the many defeats inflicted against the Sdarids, the ap Morig never penetrated far into Easdara and by 10 BGAM the power of the ap Morig had largely waned, and their last strongholds fell to Sidarid clans in 7 BGAM. The memory of this great invasion by foreign forces, and the horror of the ap Morig, has left an indelible mark on Sidarid culture and ways - for the ap Morig occupy a position directly opposed to the gods in the Sidarid weltanschauung, and are the manifestations of all things evil.
4-20 OGAM
The departure of the ap-Morig means that the Sidarids return to doing what they do best - warring with and killing each other. Clan Esher, an important clan in Easdara, emerges as a major player during this period under the leadership of Laird Ruahthain.
40 OGAM
The Haiho Clan's lands are united for the first time and the Haiho Righacd is established to the north of Clan Esher, across the Seihdh-Soul Strait.
46 OGAM
Tensions over the passage of shipping and trade through the Seihdh-Soul Strait leads to conflict between Clan Esher and the Haiho Righacd. Clan Esher loses its Laird of the time, a warrioress by the name of Mhyruih and suffers tremendously, but the appearance of a Wyndyn-Prophet turns the tides. With the strait now secured, a Duthchas (great council of the clans) declares the Esher Laird rightful Rhig (King). The Esher Righachd is established.
47 OGAM
Episode of the Malcontents. The newly-ascended Rhig Fhuiric is forced to deal with malcontents who had not cast their votes for him at the Duthchas. The Duthchas becomes the official advisory body representating the clans. In time, the Duthchas become a directly elected parliament. An ancient ritual, called the Hyscadal (‘the Bull’s Vision’), is reinstated after to solidify the Rhig's position and bolster his legitimacy.
Bhaenrhig Fhuiric is forced to deal with some malcontents who had not cast their votes for him at the Duthchas. It is agreed that a Duthchas should always be in session to act as an advisory body to the Rhigh/Bhaenrhig and as a permanent representative of the interests of the realm's clans. In time, the Duthchas would grow into a directly elected body (though still referred to as the Duthchas). This would come to be known in Esheran history as the Episode of the Malcontents. An ancient, likely mythological, ritual, called the Hyscadal (‘the Bull’s Vision’), is reinstated after the Episode so as to solidify the Rhig's position and bolster his legitimacy beyond further challenge.
58-90 OGAM
Under the leadership of the legendary Rhiglaird Seihdhos, the south Easdarid Clan Aujvint manages to unite and commence a thirty-year war of Sidarid unification which, by the death of Seihdhos, sees its territories encompass all of southern Easdara from the sea to the Esher Righacd. This enormous empire was dubbed, with Seihdhos' dying words, Great Seihdhar.
109 OGAM
The Rape at Byc. The Auldeahui of Wesdara rose against Great Seihdhar together with the Tretuioligh. Their leaders, Suorig and Bion, tried to convince local clans and soldiers to join them. They brought over very few of these men, and relied mostly on a collection of escaped prisoners, tribal warriors, and bankrupted farmers. Though the Auldeahui managed to equip their men with weapons and armour, they could not overcome the gap in training and experience. The Auldeahui managed to take the provincial capital, Goelgai but were trapped there. A school there taught the sons of leading Sdarid households the Baevni and Héiswaep classics, rhetoric, and the other fine points that the Rhiglaird wished to inculcate in the Sdaird ruling classes. Almost all of them joined the doomed rebellion. After holding out for several weeks, Suorig and his men set the city on fire, and then killed themselves in a mass suicide. The Rhiglaird saw traditional Sdarid education as the root of this rebellion, and banned Wyndyn and bardic schools, overlooking that the most fanatic rebels came from the ranks of students enrolled in the official institutes the state had set up. The Rhiglaird did not abolish the Sdarid religion - such would have been a step too far - only the schools, and both Wyndyn and bards continued their lessons in caves, deep forests, and other out-of-the-way locales. The Rhiglaird believed that the Wyndyn helped spread rebellion. Past Rhiglairds had begun the trend to repress the Wyndyn by forbidding them from gaining citizenship. The new one, facing increasing resistance to centralisation from the Wyndyn, followed through to the logical conclusion of past policy by banning Wyndyn altogether. Wyndyn, he felt, sparked rebellion by challenging his political authority and using their information networks to spread anti-state propaganda. Thus a campaign to sideline and remove Wyndyn, either via execution or by having them renounce their druidic ways, was launched. This first period of persecution culminates in the massacre of a group of Wyndyn near the great town of a’Cheimbyc. Following this, many Wyndyn go into hiding while others flee to other Sidarid lands.
136-138 OGAM
The Treiwynd Rising against the Rhiglaird. Practised human sacrifice. Led to a civil war which resulted in Clan Braeg and its various sub-clans and allies breaking away from Great Seihdhos.
The Treiwynd Rising against the rule of the Rhiglaird. A zealous group of Treiwyndyn gathered together a group of clans, foremost amongst them Clan Braeg, under the banner of the 'true and ancient faith' of the Sidaric people. This involved the 'rejuvenation' of human sacrifice, including wicker man burning, hanging, beheading, drowning, and immolation. The Rhiglaird attempted to crush the Rising, but this resulted in civil war. Clan Braeg, with the support of the zealous Treiwyndyn and its various sub-clans and allies, was able to fight off the Rhiglaird and establish independence. Despite this setback, Great Seihdhos would cross into northern Sidara not long after and continue its drive to unite the Sdarid race and rid them of the Wyndyn blight.
161 OGAM
The Great Decree of 161 issued fixing every clan's clan-lands into permanent, untransferrable property of the clan. All land not delineated as clan-land becomes crown land.
The Great Decree of 161 is issued after nearly a decade of careful delineation and consultation with every clan in the realm. The Great Decree fixes every clan's clan-lands, and makes these clan-lands the permanent, untransferrable property of the clan as a whole. Individuals from a clan may own and make use of the land, and it may even pass into the hands of those not of the clan, but the land remains clan-land and can at any point be reclaimed and redistributed as the clan sees fit. All land not delineated as clan-land automatically became crown land with the passage of the Decree. Crown land is effectively public property and can be used freely, but the Rhig can ultimately reclaim and redistribute it at will, or designate it be used only for particular purposes (e.g. grazing land, farming land). The Decree is revolutionary and effectively marks the crown's ultimate authority over the clans.
214-29 OGAM
Griffri the Bear of Clan ap-Filigin campaigns against the invaders.
Griffri the Bear leads Clan ap-Filigin in one of the first successful campaigns by north Sidarids against Great Seihdhos. His nearly two decades spent fighting the empire would later be canonised in the epic poem known as ih'Griffeada. Griffri became a source of inspiration for the Clan Gweilaerth chieftain Saenuo, who proclaimed himself Griffri reborn. He would go on to establish the Gweilaerth Confederation, with Clan ap-Filigin playing an important role in his successes.
230 OGAM
Establishment of the Gweilaerth Confederation.
357 OGAM
The Rising of Clan ap-Gwynnud against Great Seihdhos. The Esher Righacd, under the heroic Warrior-Rhig, Der-Ilei Bridu, having for some time suffered due to Great Seihdhos' control over the World-Water Strait, took this as an opportunity to strike. Using the ap-Gwynnud cause as its excuse, it landed troops and secured the strait. Fearful that the Esher Righacd's involvement will result in a general collapse of Great Seihdhos - to the benefit of the Esherans - both the Haiho Righacd and Gweilaerth Confederation declared war on Great Seihdhos. The resulting conflict saw the empire's lands reduced somewhat. Ultimately, the uncertainty of its foes, and their distrust for one another ensured it managed to hold onto more of its territories than it otherwise would have.
454 OGAM
The bardic order, the Cumannfil, is formed.
527-34 OGAM
Mad Galam's Rebellion.
Mad Galam, son of chief Haeini of Clan MgGrregah, leads a concentrated insurgency in the mountainous regions of the MgGrregah clan-lands. With the mountains to hide in, Mad Galam and his men sow discord in the Haiho Righacd. The reason for his uprising has become the subject of jests and legends, but one particularly popular story relates that an Clan Haiho herder stole one of Galam's goats and slaughtered it for food. Enraged by this thievery, Mad Galam then declared his eternal war on the lot of them. Today the phrase "go a' Galam" refers to an, often violent, over-reaction to something or someone - 'Finor tripped up Balar, then Balar gaed a' Galam oan his head'. 'He bolted intae a dyke 'n' hurt his foot, sae he gaed a' galam oan it wi' a hammer'.
534 OGAM
Mad Galam slain at Galam's Stand.
Mad Galam is finally slain at what is today called Galam's Stand. The highland warrior had descended from the safety of his mountains to meet with his beloved Ailen in a secret cottage in Aeld Aega's forests off the Blaejays river. Unbeknownst to him a treacherous lumberjack whom Galam had at one point or another humiliated had reported his frequent excursions to the authorities. The highland clansman was ambushed there but was able to fight his ambushers off for a time and escape with Ailen. However, the two were eventually cornered atop a hill and there, claymore in hand and loosing the mountain-bear's song, Galam made his final stand.
564 OGAM
The Cumannfil, Sidara's bardic order, welcomes visual artists of all stripes into its ranks and permits their presence at the annual Tionilfil, the great Sidarid gathering of poets and musicians that has taken place since time immemorial.
Species: Geradamas (Sorcerers), Nucaal (Humans), and Nahaki (Repitilian)
The Geradamas were born in a land far from the one they exist in today. To date their involvement in this world starts at the mouth of the Ydra River. It is here the Geradamas thrived for sometime as an agrarian culture, their knowledge and wisdom of how to work the land, tend to the animals, navigate the sea, and connect their community remained buckled in traditions of a discipline considered ancient to current times; Teachings of Sophia.
As time carried on, the mouth of the river became more dangerous. Men with their own ideas of "right" and "wrong" began deciding on what land was their's. These same men pulled children into conflicts, to fight their own battles, so as to retain their own ideas of what they believed to be the "Just" cause. The Geradamas would ignore the common babbling of a man who convinced himself to be God, until one day the Geradamas were forced to leave before being pulled into one of these deranged contests. Some Geradamas would remain, successfully disguising themselves among the masses and setting up Sanctuaries inside the region.
The Geradamas who left would find themselves voyaging to the Island of the Caals. Their interaction started off with the Caals bearing their teeth, but after impressive diplomatic discussion, the Caal would remain open to negotation. The Caals were in the midst of a war with the Nahaki; a serptine species which put the Caal in an interesting position. They asked for the Geradamas to help in return for sovereignty.
The Geradamas were not a people who fought wars, but they could help in the field of magic. Their tradition and intuition regarding magical affairs lent them a hand in creating powerful devices that could sway the tides of battle. The Geradamas supported the Nucaal, and the Nucaal succeeded in defending the island.
Story of the Geradamas and The Individual Journey of the Complete Becoming
The Geradamas are a people of tradition who believe in world view not always agreed upon by others. Their belief system has both aided in tethering the knots of those who are believers tighter to one another, and severing their connection to those who oppose such ideas. Their story, their beliefs, are nestled in the Aeons or Teachings of Sophia.
The Teachings of Sophia tell of two Gods or Aeons who came together to begin it all. Lila, a Lux Aeon and an Aeon who held the Wisdom of All things, looked toward the source of All things. In it she saw the reflection of creation and in that moment she realized she had a creator. This realization marked the beginning of her own desire to create. Lila's first attempt at creation was with her own Wisdom and Power, but what she lacked was Understanding of both, unable to see herself, she made a flawed being and this being began wrapping her up in her own delusion for creation. Lila looked toward the other Aeons for help, but only one heeded her final cry. Umbra, the Tenebris Aeon, he reached his hand to pull Lila from the Bestia's web, but in return Lila had to agree to lay with Umbra and never return to the Bestia.
Lila unable to convince herself to leave her first creation behind, returned to the Bestia in hopes to save it from its own web was caught herself in her attempt. Lila now pregnant with a child was wrapped in the Bestia's illusion and gave birth in the world of "stuff". Her child was to be named "Sophia", but before Lila could raise Sophia, Lila was once again pulled from the Bestia by Umbra and this time locked away for only Umbra to see. The child, Sophia, was discovered by one of the 7 tribes; AETERNA, OLHO, COROA, ABRAXO, MYSAR, NAFTAL, BASAL. Delivered to them by her mother, Lila, before disappearing into the light as it is told today.
These tribes vowed to secrecy, for the Bestia and his Archons would have Sophia disappear into the illusion they've so ignorantly created. It was out of these tribes the Geradamas were born. The Geradamas are those who have sworn to protect the Teachings of Sophia, to find Umbra and unlock Lila from her prison. The unification of Sophia and Lila is the only way to end the illusion created by the Bestia.
Rings of the Geradamas
Initiate - The Ring of the Initiate is the beginning of a long path to the Complete Becoming. Inside this circle are no Geradamas, but candidates of those wishing to be accepted into the circle of what it means to be a Geradamas. The Initiate will undergo a study of the SHACKLES, once prepared, they will then participate in the FIRST REAPING.
Pathfinder - The Ring of the Pathfinder challenges the individual's heart and mind. Their responsibility lies in mastering the Shackles of Aeons, while pushing their bodies to extreme limits brought onto them by Umbra Masters. Upon completion of the UMBRA TRIALS and SHACKLES OF AEONS, they will be granted ceremonial access to participate in the SECOND REAPING.
Apprentice - The Ring of the Apprentice proves the path has been found and now all that is left is to find a guide. The Apprentice at this point will have no concept of who they were before finding the path. They will now select the path of a Celestial, Umbra, or Elementalis for further disciplinary study. Depending on their path, they will be granted a mentor who will assist in developing the depths of their knowledge in regards to the path they've chosen. When the mentor decides they are ready, a test of their ability is challenged in the DUALITY. If successful then they will participate in the THIRD REAPING.
Ferryman - The Ring of the Ferryman acknowledges the wearer as a skilled and tested member of the Order. They are on the boat to Complete Becoming, but are required first to contribute a significant discovery or act to the Order. It is at this stage most will test their true ability, because it will be the first time they act on a mission without supervision or aid. The chaotic world will bring them to many dark places and if they return, they return as Masters. The inauguration of a Master is a successful discovery, return, and the ceremony called; The GREAT HARROWING.
Master of Nous - The Ring of the Master symbolizes the sacrifice of their own life for the life of the Order. They embody the Teachings of Sophia, Freed their Souls from the Shackles of Aeons. Mastered their own Body and Mind, challenged their discipline in the world of the Bestia.
Celestial - Their discipline is in the art of healing and light. Umbra - Their discipline is in the art of illusion and death. Elementalis - Their discipline is in the art of nature and life.
Avatar or Trascendant - Their discipline is in the art of all three, a Complete Becoming of ALL things, an Avatar of the Free. The Transcendental Whole of a once Incomplete Being, a true Geradamas.
Shackles of Aeons
1) Shackled to the Image - Body and Self. 2) Shackled to the Reflection - Heart and Mind. 3) Shackled to the Shadow - Space and Time. 4) Shackled to the Ignis – Spirit.
The Reapings are a ceremony where the observers and the participant are together for the single purpose of witnessing death and rebirth. The ceremony starts with a ritual which is conducted by one of the CHIMERA (One of the 30 Heads of the 3 Disciplines). The Chimera will present a brew from which the participant will drink, the participant will both puke and move their bowels until they typically collapse into what appears to be sleep. The participant is then submerged in sand while in this state given only the nose uncovered from which to breathe. Once the participant experiences moments of no illusion and awakes they will be "reborn". They will be celebrated back into the world of illusion to do the work of a Geradamas.
Each Reaping has a different ritual but similar feel, the first ritual is to provide the first time an individual sees what it is like without illusion fogging their senses. The second time is to get rid of their sense of self, while the third is to remind them of where they are going. Each time one is Reaped, the tethers to who they were before the Reaping is always greatly diminished.
The Great Harrowing is a significant ceremony which hosts a different potion. This brings about frightening images specific to the individual; a metaphorical hell. The ceremony is not presented by a CHIMERA but instead is presented by the SEVEN CROWNS. These are the Geradamas who've originated from the original tribes, Avatars of the Geradamas.
Origins of the Caal
The Caal, a tribal agrarian culture from which cities blossomed on an island rich with resources. The Caal had 12 tribes, each founding their own city in due time, each with their own agenda and focus. Peace sustained itself until the territories and needs of each city outgrew the very land each had claimed as their own. It did not take long for the Caal to engage in territorial skirmishes over food, land, and materials.
These battles played out for years until two of the dominant city powers married one another through the Son and Daughter of both Emperors. These two were named Aalyptus and Nazeri. Each fed off the other as they both strove for power, their focus was in uniting the Caals under one nation by force.
The result of this power play created a resistance from the Western cities where an alliance was formed to bring down the power couple. The three resistance leaders were Kyber, Jaeis, and Heiros. The Free Caal State is what they went by as Aalyptus and Nazeri subjected others forcefully under their banner. There were three decisive battles involving the three resistance leaders and Aalyptus himself. Aalpytus would kill Jaeis and Kyber, but in the final battle over the last city, Heiros slayed the Emperor. Heiros would manage to escape the city with barely his life, Nazeri would finish off any residual units of the Free Caal and the cities were liberated under the reign of Nazeri, Queen of the Caal.
Nazeri would reign for 5 years time before disturbances in the southern region of the island were reported. She had forced East and West under her rule, but the South remained under their own independence. The Queen had plans for campaigning South but had two more years before she would commit, unfortunately for her, Heiros emerged before she was ready. Heiros once again inspired numbers of Caal to fight for him, and with great experience behind him, he was able to push back a lot of the lands Nazeri had claimed. Quickly, Heiros’ victories spread like wild fire and other resistance forces ignited within the Nazeri’s borders to create further instability across the land. Nazeri had no other option but to seek out and destroy Heiros before momentum grabbed ahold of her own people in the Capitol.
Nazeri would campaign in the South for nearly a year before she fell into a trap set up by Heiros himself. She was captured alive, and Heiros requested an end to the fighting. He summoned all Caal city-states to Mount Halios. In six days time, all representatives arrived on Mount Halios where Nazeri was judged and executed. Heiros pleaded for a national unification of the Caal into one state for the sake security and longevity for future kin, the representatives after deliberation of ideas agreed and the Nucaal were thus born.
Igniting the Dragon
The Nahaki; a serpent and reptilian species, first came to the shores of Polisea. The Caal greeted the Nahaki upon their arrival, but during talks it is said the Nahaki flashed the blade of a knife from a pouch and plunged it into a Nucaal representative.
“You greet us as visitors on our own soil?” – words spoken by the Nahaki murderer.
The Nahaki drew blades, stormed the beaches, and Polisea was lost in a day. Polisea was a poorly fortified village, and held up no real resistance in the defense. The Nahaki not only were a surprise, but also beasts of intimidating appearance, myths of their lore swept the imagination of the Caal, but the words silenced when it reached Heiros’ ears. Heiros gathered a number of warriors to march on Polisea in a week’s time. The siege of Polisea lasted 3 days, with heavy casualties on both side. The Nahaki chose to retreat as their numbers dwindled waiting for reinforcements. They were surprised to see an organized resistance mount against them, and to see a leader among the “mongrels”. The Nahaki left Polisea and Nucaal took to rebuilding and fortifying the city.
The First King – Prime Halios – of Nucaal
The foreign invaders would bring about the transformation of the Nucaal government system. It originally was established as a Republic, but quickly shifted into an Monarchy as a Commander and Chief would be needed for organizing the Nucaal’s defenses. Heiros was the one to sentence the beasts off the island, and Heiros would be the one to be given command of the Nucaal military. It was in his era that a standing military or security force was created, funding for naval innovation and the construction of boats to secure the shores, along with building roads for swifter supply transportation. The infrastructure of the island grew tremendously; population, economy, education, and security.
News of the boom would travel to a few distant places, and it would even entice populations North of the Nucaal Island and South. During this period the Northern Empire which seemed to have no limits to its growth, quickly collapsed and those seeking for a new chapter in their life migrated to the island of Nucaal. Heiros would accept these refugees under conditions now titled as the "Sanctuary Action"; allowing for foreigners to settle if they agree to 2 years of auxiliary service. During this time the military acted as a standing army, and construction force. Many of the Northern refugees would be placed in the construction force to contribute their manpower to the overall infrastructure of Nucaal society. They were then granted full citizenship and equal rights. Those who served in the military would have battled significant questioning but if they held true, their acceptance would have been tremendously felt and acknowledged.
The refugees in the military would aid Heiros in mapping strategic points off the coast of Nucaal and on the coast of the Northern continent. Some of these points were abandoned forts left behind during the collapse of the Northern Empire. Heiros would move on the Northern continent because of the collapse and claim a territorial buffer which granted more access to resources and fertile land to fortify and feed the growing populace.
Many of the projects started by Heiros would be seen to the end with the exception of only a minor few, these would be continued into the reign of Prime Halios II Vacuna. Vacuna would focus on upgrading new ways to process and refine materials, his funding went into those who studied the arts of alchemy and smiting. Out of Vacuna’s reign the Vacuna Ferro or Victory Steel was forged, a strong, durable metal used for weapons. Vacuna would also innovate production to increase the efficiency of work and reducing time spent.
Vacuna would later be super seceded by Prime Halios III, Renne. He demonstrated his worth in the battle of Polisea when the Nahaki occupied it. Renne fought directly under Heiros’ command, and alongside him in battle. He would too navigate the relationships of the Geradamas and save the Nucaal from a successful Nahaki invasion.
Arrival of the Geradamas and the Nahaki
Renne met the Geradamas when they made land fall, negotiated a proposal that did not take the first time around. The Nahaki arrived months later in the West and a second proposal was offered to the Geradamas in exchange for aid. Renne and the Geradamas took to the battlefield and repelled the Nahaki who had a strong presence along the Eastern shore by the time Renne’s forces and the Geradamas mobilized.
The Geradamas were offered sovereignty, constructions of one Citadel outside some of the major cities, and rights of citizenship.
The Dragon-Coastal War
Battle of Polisea – A small port city with outstanding trade opportunity. It is located on the upper west peninsula of the island. It was lost twice, first under Heiros’ rise, and the second under Renne’s command. It was poorly fortified during Heiros’ time, but was heavily fortified and the last stronghold to stand during Renne’s campaign. The Geradamas contributed a lot to the victory of this battle, Geradamas operated covertly and provided access for Renne’s forces to liberate the city.
Battle of Izan – The city is cradled in the center of the west coast, the belly of the island just north of the southern peninsula. Izan was under siege by boat for four days before the Nahaki morale broke for Renne’s forces to march in with ease and take the city. It was the first time in Nucaal history that naval warfare was used in a way that mitigated casualties of land troops.
Battle of Guren – The southern peninsula at the very tip houses a port town named Guren. This was the largest battle in the Dragon’s War, both land and naval forces clashed with the Nahaki for several days without end. The Nucaal would fight during the day, and the Geradamas would act covertly in the night practicing espionage. By the next day the Nahaki would have to restructure rank, reinforce and allocate resources to continue holding the city, as their numbers thinned, the Nucaal would breakthrough first on land and enter the city by mid-afternoon on the sixth day.
At sea the Nahaki would retreat along the coast line to Polisea, several ships would fall behind and sink as the Nucaal made chase. The Nucaal would move to Izan, where the ships would be deployed once more serving a far greater tactical advantage. They would not make it too Polisea for the final battle because of repairs.
1. Prime Halios IV or Amelia, currently continues to support the war in the west after Renne’s resignation as Prime Halios III. 2. Geradamas are working in secret on Project Manifest. 3. Nucaali in the northeast region are currently experiencing a small group of Nucaali who detest the Geradamas. Reports suggest, highway thievery, murder, and town disturbances. General Taolos is dispatched to the region. 4. Fortifications of the northern border are completed across the countryside. 5. Southern fortifications are currently in the second stage of construction out of four. 6. Illegal Nucaali mage activity in the southern region; one Penumbra, one Elemantalis, and one Nucaali mage investigate by orders from Amelia. The party is escorted by five Nucaali fighters.
Geradamas Order : Gear
Nucaal Military
Acudaemonia or Sea Devils – These fighters are typically deployed on boats at sea. They are armored in all the right places for a land battle, but are equipped and trained to take over boats. They're speciality is sea warfare and attacking boats after making contact.
Medium Equipment
Light Equipment
Rolls:
Land Area: 2 (+2) 4 Land Fertility: 12 Development: 18 (+2) 20 Land Power: 12 (-2) 10 Naval Power: 15 (-3) 12 Economy: 11 Magical Reserves: 3 (+7) 10 Magical Sophistication: 19 (+1) 20 Population (Determined by other rolls): 12 (-2) 10
Traits:
Sea Devils, Sky Angels
The Nucaali society has thrived off fishing and deep diving on the coastal edges working their way inland to a more agrarian culture without ever losing its thread to the water. Surrounded on all sides, the Nucaali have always trained and explored the water from when they are young to when they die. It is such apart of their culture that when a baby is born, the ceremony of birth is held in water, and when a Nucaali dies, they are dropped into the sea.
Pros: Fearless under, in, or on water, great swimmers, navigators, and excellent divers. Their stamina, physical capability, and endurance is top notch for per their usual practice in the sink. Those who excel over already great swimmers, are selected to be Sea Devils (see Sea Devils in military section.)
Nucaali Pride
A Caal is invested emotionally in their culture and society. Traditions pervade their Self practice, Cultural practice, and Societal expectations/roles/responsibilities. It is difficult to critique a Caal of his own traditions unless it comes from another Caal. They are accepting of others, will treat others equally, but they will immediately shun these traits if disrespect is perceived by the person about their heritage.
Pros: Collective mindset, high morale can sustain itself for long periods of time, sense of belonging (increased happiness).
Cons: Easily upset by perceived remarks, relationships can easily be destroyed and difficult to mend, decisions of the future can be hard to make without push back.
Augmentation Technology
Gear created by the Nucaali are typically modified to present a space to house a crystal for augmenting the gear with magical capabilities.
Pros: The gear can have certain effects in combat or other realms of society where significant impact can be had in more effective ways.
Cons: If the stone is overused, it can explode and have a negative impact on the wielder.
Artifice Becoming
The Geradamas explore unknown and known territory regardless of the laws or prohibitions. Their purpose is to seek artifacts that bring them closer to their ultimate goal. This means their ability to innovate, construct, and connect new concepts with current technology is always pushing current limits. The knowledge they hold is quite powerful, but also dangerous.
Pros: Accelerated technological, developmental, and magic sophistication upgrades.
Cons: Target for espionage, waving trust among the Nucaali, and opportunities for internal corruption.
Species: Mainly humans, notable communities of other races
Culture and Society:
The athian society can be split in three main branches: - Vassalots, who compose a good part of the general population. These men and women are regarded as free citizens of the republic, and are equally protected by rights and have to abide by obligations and rules. Their main dominions include farming, craftsmanship, building, etc.
- Domnetaries, essentially families of land owners. They often employ vassalots on their lands in exchange for payment such as coins or various other methods including food or housing. Domnetaries have access to education and medicine, and usually represent the authorities, imperial accountants and so on. Domnetaries are also the knight class of Athia, with many military career men coming from this social class.
- Nobiles, the elite wealthiest families of the republic. Purple is the colour of choice for the nobiles, for it is hard to get and expensive to manufacture. They are the business moguls, senators and generals of the army, patrons of public works and art. Various families are scattered around the republic, each with their own sphere of influence around the realm.
The political system of Athia is centered around a stratocracy, which requires each citizen at the age of 19, regardless of social status, to serve in the land and naval forces of the army. The citizens who have completed their 10 year military service receive full voting rights, aswell as the permission to hold public political positions. Each urban center has a district that it governs on a local level, where representatives of Vassalots, Domnetaries and Nobiles meet once a semester in the year to discuss matters regarding regional problems and vote on regional matters. Nationwide decisions will be discussed and voted in the senate of the republic, where there is a general assembly of elected representatives from each district of the nation. In times of war, the general assembly vote to establish a dictator for a shord period of time to lead the nation in times of war or severe crises.
The Church of the Archangel is the main religious body in Athia. The Archangel is the only God of Athia. He is said to a spirit that came to be embodied by the collective prayers of the ancestors, who tousand of years ago descended upon his golden mount from the sun and led Athia to overthrow the tyrannical rule of mages. The Church shuns all types of magic, and regard them as degenerate and abnormal. There is a church funded para-military organisation called 'The Inquisition' which is sponsored by the state and it's primary objective is to hunt down and destroy any magic presence within the republic.
History:
Territorial Claims:
Economy:
Athia exports and imports all kinds of goods from all over the world due to it's strategic position. Main athian specialities are their wood, coming from the well known athian trees that dot the southern coast entirely. A hard type of wood that is especially prized for ship building. The Western Mountains of Athia provide the nation with lots of precious metals, but most importantly it provides materials such as iron, copper, bronze and so on, which are used for many things. Athia generally benefits from most of the known resources, aunless magical or unique to certain regions.
Army: The land forces are commonly referred to as 'Legions', each numbering about 5,000 men, further subsidized into various units with the lowest one being the squad of 10, where 8 are regular soldiers and two are auxiliary soldiers, one an officer and one a petty officer. The officer is in charge of the squad, and the petty officer manages the administrative duties like holding the squad's journal, identity tags of each member and other bureaucratic work.
The legions are separated into three main branches: -> Infantry
Ideal infantry for scouting, garrison and general patrol. Armed with standard spears and rounded shield.
Ideal for all around tactics, especially shock. Steel helmet and neck protection, leather cuirass and two sets of axes, one for throwing before close-in and one to use in combat. Smaller kite shield.
Ideal to tie the enemy down in one place and exceptional durability in battle, main bulk of the army. Equipped with chainmail or scale mail, either spears or swords and a kite shield for additional protection.
Standard archers of the legions.
-> Cavarly
Light cavalry is mainly composed of horse archers that are equipped with swords. Athians prefere to use heavy shock cavalry in fights, however horse archers are well able to attack by swords if they are required.
Exceptionally armoured in order to survive projectiles. Heavy cavalry is very much prized in the warfare tactics of Athians, and they are composed mainly of nobles.
-> Auxiliaries
Navy:
Traits: Martial republic - Democracy within the republic is dictated by and centered around military, effectively a stratocracy where all free citizens are required to serve in the military for 10 years in order to gain republican rights, such as voting. Pros - Maintains a very good and complex military, with a rigid hierarchy. Land forces prowess is considerable, fielding light and heavy infrantry and machines of war. Civil service and military service is not distinguished, as during peace the military acts as public employees, whereas they are tasked with building, maintaining roads, correspondence and law enforcement act. Vast human resource for military service.
Crusade of religion - religious piety and tradition in the lives of the people lead to both advantages and disadvantages. Pros - Fierce religious indoctrination can boost the morale if the Church declares a 'Holy War'. Cons - Intolerance to magic.
Crossroad of worlds - the position of Ahtia between West and East provides a good control over the trade routes and combines technological knowledge from both hemispheres. Pros - economic powerhouse, capable of exporting and importing all manners of goods known on both sides of the world. Cons - piracy and thieves plague the remote parts of the republic, corruption.
Land of the Four Rivers - the majority of eastern settlements are along river banks for the arid climate in the East won't allow sustainance otherwise. Cons - due to the arid climate and the presence of the deserts in the East, fertility in the eastern half of the Empire is very fragile, concentrated on river banks. The republic relies on considerable food imports from all over the continent in order to sustain the high population in the urban centers.
Foreign Relations: Neutral, trade relationships for the most.
Rolls: (Rolled by GM in the Discord Server. Just ping me, and I’ll roll as soon as I’m able.)
Land Area: 17 (7+10) Land Fertility: 10 (8+2) Development: 19 Land Power: 20 (19+1) Naval Power: 12 (16-4) Economy: 16 (14+2) Magical Reserves: 3 (9-6) Magical Sophistication: 1
Territorial Claims: The Neferher claim dominion over the entirety of the Sikhala River delta, from the hundreds of small springs in the north Savana, all the way to the Great Delta where sit the many palaces and Necropoli of the noble Hierarchs. Once, long ago, they held the grasslands far to their east and west. After successive wars which drained the magical capabilities of the land, these grasslands were reduced to salt wastes over which none but the hardiest camel and caravan might cross. The Neferher nominally claim these lands as their own, but have not lifted a finger to claim or defend them in centuries.
Economy: The Economy of Neferher relies exclusively on the river of Sikhala. The Sikhala floods regularly and such floods are rarely a surprise- thus farmers can plan their crops by the cycle of the river in the lowlands. Famine is unheard of in Sikhala and most of the Delta's exports come in the form of grains, fruits, and beers. Smaller luxury exports of gold nuggets and ivory from beasts comes from the upriver territories. Despite this natural wealth, the average Neferher peasant lives in squalor serving the Priesthood and the Pharaoh. Many who cannot afford to pay taxes must pay their tithes in labor, working on construction and maintenance of public works.
Army: The Armies of the Pharaohs are a fearsome force on the battlefield when they are called upon. They are not the most numerous- it is forbidden for common folk to bear weapons. They are not the fastest, as calling upon the army is a lengthy process that involves many rituals and the cooperation of the Priest Castes.
But the Armies of the Neferher are terrifying, for they require no sleep and no sustenance. They feel no pride, no anxiety, no jealousy, no fear. They feel nothing- because they are not human.
The warriors of the Neferher Dynasty are preserved beneath the sands of the Kingdom in ancient tombs, great constructs of stone and gold imbued with the souls of the Pharaoh's house guards in lengthy entombing rituals. Every generation a new batch of champions compete for this honor in festivals to the Warrior Goddess Nesp, the greatest among them are granted the honor of slumbering forever beneath the sands until they may be awakened by a descendant of the Sun God Irasha in their hour of great need.
To awaken one of these warriors will see the enchantments eventually broken and their soul freed to travel across the Ghost River, into the afterlife. Thus they are not awakened unless the need is dire, and only in such numbers as the Pharaohs and Priests deem necessary.
Navy:
Traits:
The Loyal Dead: The Armies of the Dynasty lie in wait, buried in great tomb-garrisons along the banks of the Sikhala- the souls of the loyal House Guards bound in these stone sarcophagi. They do not tire in their marches, they do not mutiny against commanders. They need not eat, sleep, or drink. So long as their priest commanders live, they will continue on their mission- and when the Pharaoh declares their campaign ended, the constructs disintegrate into dust.
Priest and Prince, in Accord: The Pharaohs of the Dynasty claim an unbroken lineage back to the Sun God Irasha, but much of their power lies in the hands of the mortal priesthood. The Priest Caste are the ones that perform rituals of Entombing for the great army, they collect taxes and tithes, and they oversee the harvests. While the Pharaohs may be the face of the Dynasty to the outside world, the priests ensure the kingdom runs smoothly- and command the Construct Armies in battle with their mastery of magic. The Pharaoh may awaken and dismiss the armies of the Dynasty- for their entombed souls owe their loyalty to Irasha and his Holy Line- but the Priests maintain their function on the battlefields. If the Priests and the Pharaoh do not agree on a military course of action, the armies will not march.
The Far Kingdom: The Dynasty lies at the heart of a vast swath of salt wastes, an oasis overflowing with food, water and magic- if anyone could only live to reach it by land. Because of its isolation, the Dynasty is comparatively backwards when viewed against the other kingdoms of the world and their economy suffers all the more for it.
Foreign Relations:
Rolls:
Land Area: 4 (+3) Land Fertility: 20 (+4) Development: 10 (-3) Land Power: 19 Naval Power: 4 (+3) Economy: 9 (+1) Magical Reserves: 16 (-2) Magical Sophistication: 15 (-1) Population (Determined by other rolls): 12
Name: Imperium Quavarazium/Kvazsír Birodalom/Quavarazi Empire (in short just referred as Quavaraz/Kvazsíria) Capital: Levedium Head of the State: Imperator/Zoltán (currently: Absalon Jenw Levedicum) Dominant Species: Quavar/Kvazsár Population: est. 16 million Area: ~ 3.12 million square miles (8.08 million square kilometers)
Quavaraz is a large nation built on the heritage of the Aurelius Empire. The once prosperous empire imploded in a magic catastrophe that plague the inhabitants even after many centuries. Collecting the countless scattered survivor tribues Quavaraz was formed and presently they secure the Golden Road, the largest safe land route connecting the eastern and western portion of the continent. Quavarazi are considered harsh and hardy people who manage to survive under the constant threat of monsters.
HISTORY
The proper origins of Quavaraz are shrouded in many legends and mysteries but according to the most popular tale their history began with the Aurelius Empire, a legendary nation of magic. A prosperous realm in spite of their hostile and resource thin environment the Aureliei were revolutionary and thanks to their ambitions they were set on a path of steady growth. During their peak they nourished another golden age of magic, charming in practitioners from all across the world. Yet as quickly as they rose the Aurelius Empire fell even faster in the wake of another magic disaster. Nobody knows why it happened though almost everyone blames the arrogance of the Aurelei to think they could master magic. The magnitude of the blast wiped off the capital, scorched the empire and spread waves of mayhem even beyond their borders. While never a hospitable place the land turned into a toxic wasteland infested by monsters, seemingly hopeless for anyone to inhabit. Yet people are hardier than given credit for. Hundreds of years passed and those who remained within the country underwent a dramatic change. Humans, elves, orcs and other races all went through various magic mutations, countless tribes were formed and the land was a forbidden realm to most travelers. Quavari eventually came to prominence. They were descendants of the magically bred warrior servants once faithfully serving the Aurelei. Their tough builds became even wilder thanks to mutations although without proper leadership they were divided into countless tribes. They had to wait until the divine emergence of Almis of the Levedis tribe whose charisma and excellent leadership lead to the first ever united government in central Aurelia. Almis had uncanny foresight and unlike many other tribal leaders before him the government survived his passing and only began to prosper. Of course prospering is relative in a disaster-stricken land but the entity known as the Levedis Alliance rapidly expanded. Using the resting place of Almis as a foundation the capital of Levedium was created to provide admninistration to this new country. After finding scraps of the last Aurelian Imperator's holy raiment the ruler Gyulák Gyulája (meaning: First of the Gyula-s), Lehel Tehatom son of Tarhony, renamed his title Zoltán while declaring himself the new emperor. Since then the country is referred as the Quavarazi Empire.
GEOGRAPHY
Quavaraz, alternatively referred as Aurelia Magna, a huge land mostly dominated by savannas and magically hazardous deserts. Harsh terrain, haunting remains of dried up rivers and weird phenomenons that defy reason can be all expected for the brave who wish to travel through these lands. Monsters of great variety provide an ever present threat. Sandstorms could carry the poisonous particles from still corrupted lands to spell gruesome death on all exposed to them. This is the land of Quavaraz. Yet not all is about doom and at small patches life is blooming anew. Albeit slow but after several hundred years the land is gradually recovering. In addition Quavaraz took territories outside the afflicted zone of the magic catastrophe and now these provide a good bulk of the nation's foodstuffs to consume.
Society
Quavaraz is a diverse nation uniting a myriad of tribes and while there are constant efforts at strengthening the administration this feature did not change. Quavari are the first rate countrymen of the Empire. Bulky and huge, these horned black demi-monstrosities make up roughly 12.5% of the country's population even if their large bodies mean they actually consume the most food out of any race. Quavari naturally form the first class of their society, a warrior and leader caste which is responsible for creating this great nation. Underneath them are various lesser races of mutated people, generally adopting a slim and much more human-sized profile. Their collective name (which technically includes the Quavari and some races outside the nation) is the Tülkösnép which literally means "horned people" or alternative called the Ceranicus in the neo-Aurei language. They are the commoners and worker caste of the nation. While aren't prohibited to bear arms this is limited to self-defense or tiny militia forces. In addition as second class countrymen they are unable to advance to higher ranks of the administration and are literally prohibited to fight as anything but auxiliary to the main army. The third group is a tiny minority called the Hospicites/Hospitánsok AKA "guests". These are inhabitants from different country legally allowed to settle down in Quavaraz. While their numbers are small they are far from negligible and their total count approaches hundreds of thousands. They tend to be merchants, artisans or possess other important skills that positively impact the Empire's growth.
Founders and the strongest race of the Empire the Quavar are living in a martial culture. Built to be powerful a Quavar obviously values strength, often ready to prove their superiority. This is especially true to male members (Quavarus/Kvazsárom) whose almost implausible muscle bulk makes them easily stand out. Given this massive disparity it isn't that much of a surprise Quavars have a much more defined distinction of gender roles. Quavarus are aggressive and supposed to do the menial jobs, fighting and take the leadership. Quavara (female Quavari, also called Kvázsa) are calmer and more dexterous who take on jobs that are more demanding of knowledge and finesse. Quavara might rarely if ever lead a large community but they are equally valuable as assistants to their husbands and considered equals. This is not an ironclad rule but closer to a "common sense" to all Quavari. Thanks to the Quavarusi predominance of huge muscles their society also tends to view males of other races as rather effeminate in comparison, at times even mocking them.
Quavars themselves are also divided to castes, although these are closer to trends rather than rigid structures. Hwarum (masculine:Hwarus, feminine: Hwara, plur.: Hwaroi) are the warrior bloodlines. The most prominent line of Quavars known to produce first rate warriors. They have the highest presentation in the military and their political and social status makes them akin to nobility. Puavar (plur.: Puavari) are the religious caste. Their bloodline have shamanistic traditions and practically all of them are either with the Valrahu faith or highly learned wise men either employed by the government or serving in schools. Mavari are the shaper caste and they provide a great portion of magic users and craftsmen in general. Avari are the commoner caste that don't possess similarly prestiged bloodlines and consequently make up the majority of Quavari within the empire.
When talking about the Quavarazi/Kvazsír society in general it can be said that most of them live in a semi-nomadic state of affairs. Most locations in Aurelia aren't safe for permanent settlements and even if they could the fortifications and military assistance necessary means this is mostly limited to towns and other important places. As such the typical Quavarazi settlement is erected hastily and can be packed up just as quickly to avoid a horde of monsters or other incoming disasters. Fighting monsters and the cursed environment is part of their daily routine. As such while technically under the iron rule of Quavari the commoners still view these people as their saviors and shields from harm. They both fear and respect them for all the obvious reasons. With resources scarce the average Quavarazi is frugal, not wasting anything. They also have a culturally ingrained hatred of magic, the source of their present plight. As such Quavarazi have inherent hostility to all magic users but their own. They especially hate those who use magic for their own gain or try to rely on it to dominate their lessers. It's well-known that any foreign magic user without an escort and/or official papers could end up being targeted by the angry Quavarazian mob. Religion-wise the faith in the Sacred Wheel of Light dominates everywhere, its cross symbol representing both divine protection and reverence to the Divine Trio. In spite of this the Quavarazians are rather tolerant of other religions, accepting those gods as either their own by other names or divine spirits aiding the work of their true deities. Indeed, while the pantheon of the Father (Er), the Mother (Eny) and their Son (Arany/Ereny, consequently also the name of "gold" in common Quavarazian) is the official faith there are a myriad of local gods rooting from previous faiths of the inhabitants.
Valrahu/Vélrönkeny is the most proper name to their faith centering around the Sun Wheel and the trio consisting the Father, Mother and the Son. It combines the archaic words of "Valu" (light) and Rauhau (peace), roughly translating as "peace through the light". When spoken in common Quavarazian the word gets morphed into Vélrönkeny, which has no special meaning aside from sounding similar. The faith emerged from the combination of ancient shamanism and the re-discovery of old Aurelian religious texts. The chief members of the faith are of course the Puavari although the organization as a whole is staffed with all races. As explained before Valrahu believes in the trinity of deities and uses the sun wheel as their common symbol. Sun has divine significance in Quavaraz and its light considered the will and mercy of the Son, Arany.
Culture and Society: Andred is an elective monarchy. A tough and redoubtable folk, with traditional values of an old warrior society that has had to get used to a technological and economical revolution the past few centuries. There have been three different families that have ruled from the Capital, though as fate would have it, the founding family of Connerad has returned, its youngest son having been elected nigh on fifteen years ago. King Kraygar Connerad the first, of Burtswik. Below him are the Dukes and Earls, who vote for the new King when it is time. The highest class of warriors and statesmen are the Thanes, though unlike the Dukes and Earls, Thanes are warriors first and statesmen second, and are the personal bodyguard of the King. Most Thanes are of the Kavaleri class, a group of heavily mounted warriors.
History:
Territorial Claims: Far right territory!
Economy: The country of Andred has a myriad of different exports. For starters the coastline and the Isle of Mandori has fish aplenty, and the norther shores even have whales and the occasional walrus for Ivory. The majority of Andred is not made for crops, the forests being too thick and the mountains looming over much of the country, but near the river valley, there is rich soil where apples, wheat, rye, barley, oats, strawberries, potatoes, tomatoes, and cherries are grown and harvested. These cash crops would make the river valley the richest region, though the mountain zones have gold, tin, iron, and copper, and the coastlines have far more trade exports than any other location. All in all, The Andred economy is healthy and fairly balanced.
Army:
Navy:
Traits:
Foreign Relations:
Rolls: (Rolled by GM in the Discord Server. Just ping me, and I’ll roll as soon as I’m able.)
Species: Human, with small regional minorities of Surabhi and Sanghar.
Culture and Society: Culturally, Kuriso is relatively insulated from the human cultures of foreign nations. Their language and customs developed and evolved entirely separately from those of the Seihdh or the Andred, and are in many ways more superficially similar to the Surabhi or Sanghar than to the other human realms. Perhaps that most important cultural connection that the people of Kuriso have to other nations is their sense of closeness to the sea. A heavily coastal nation, the Kuriso are renowned fishermen and seafarers, their cuisine dominated by the bounty of the ocean and their merchant vessels common from Caelrumoste to the Kabal. In most other respects though, from their bountifully colourful and loose-fitting garments to their unforgiving sense of social grace and highly pluralistic religious beliefs, the Kuriso are exotic to their human kin.
Kuriso society is prominently characterized by strict social regimentation, far beyond that practiced by most other nations. All ethnic Kuriso, the large majority of the population of the empire, are subject to a merciless code of conduct and a lifestyle and career dictated to them from on high, a collection of customs collectively known as the 'Tejun system'. Punishments in the empire for the breaking of the social norms of Tejun, let alone for breaking actual laws, are notoriously severe. For this reason the society of Kuriso is unusually orderly and quiet, especially in towns and cities where the empire's small minority populations of non-Kuriso are mostly absent. This is because foreigners in the empire, at least those that are non-proscribed, actually enjoy a great deal more freedom than do the ethnic Kuriso. Only the Kuriso themselves are expected to obey the rules of Tejun (and it could even be found offensive for a non-human or a human of a foreign culture were to engage in some of the Tejun rituals), so much of what little there is of new and exciting things happening in Kuriso have foreigners heavily involved in them.
At the top of the Kuriso social pyramid is the Imperial Family, the 'Tenochii', supreme sovereigns of the empire. Believed to be the direct descendants of Tsukisei—the legendary philosopher-god-king who founded Kuriso in millenia past—the Imperial Family rests at the top of Kuriso's politics, religion, and culture. Worship of the Tenochii is the compulsory religion of all ethnic Kuriso, their whims constitute the empire's supreme law, and their outward behavior dictates the rules of etiquette and the cultural customs of all the Kuriso people. The Emperor and his relatives are a class unto their own, and no one, whether the most wealthy merchant or even sovereigns of foreign lands, may call themselves his equal. Incumbent upon the power of the Tenochii is an expectation that they will observe the Tejun system to the letter; if a Tenochii were to behave improperly, it would be questioned by the Kuriso whether they are truly of heavenly blood. The Tenochii all reside within the Tenchikashi, the Imperial palace complex in the holy city of Miyaka. Their visitation to other regions of the Empire is a matter of great consequence, and their residence in Tenchikashi is divinely mandated. If an empress or princess were to give birth to a child outside of the confines of Miyaka, the child would not be considered Tenochii.
Below the Tenochii are the Furodan, the class of aristocrats and administrators. There currently exist eighteen extended families of ethnic Kuriso who are among the Furodan, although foreign royalty is also considered to be equivalent to this caste. While they do have a privileged position in the empire due to their blood, being the only ones who may serve as administrators of the imperial provinces or marry members of the Imperial Family, they do not hold any land or authority which cannot be withdrawn by the whim of the Emperor. Indeed, the composition of the Furodan is dependent upon their good favour with the Tenochii, and there is no family among the Furodan so powerful that it could survive defiance against the Emperor. Similarly, those of the lower castes may beg of the Emperor to be risen to the rank of Furodan, an extraordinary gift earned by powerful families through generations of loyal subservience to the Emperor and strict obedience to the Tejun. The Furodan tend to live in large fortified estates in the country, and are expected to be good patrons of the arts and to possess talents of stewardship, that they might assist dutifully in the governance and diplomacy of the Empire.
The third caste of the Tejun hierarchy is the class of artisans, overseas merchants and lesser landowners: the Musuta. The accomplished men and women of the Kuriso, the Musuta are legally important for being the only caste permitted to engage in trade abroad, although anyone from a master craftsman to a poet to an owner of a large plot of farmland is also technically a Musuta. Membership in the Musuta is organized by province, with each provincial capital containing a list of names of every provincial family permitted to entitle themselves Musuta. It is the rank of Musuta wherein the Kuriso begin to use surnames, most of which relate to either the geographical area from which the family originates or otherwise the trade they ply. Most respected and iconic of all the Musuta are those engaging in naval commerce, either as owners of fishing fleets or merchants conducting trade with foreign kingdoms. Musuta must be treated with reverence by the lower castes, as they are ennobled by the provincial governors, the Furodan, who are themselves personally empowered by the Emperor. Musuta are perhaps the most diverse caste, and anyone from the lower castes (except the very lowest) may theoretically hope to join the ranks of the Musuta one day.
The most common of the classes of the Tejun system is the rank of Chikyuno, where most rural farmers find themselves positioned. Chikyuno could be considered to be the poor of good standing. They are the ethnic Kuriso peasants who till the soil for the Musuta and Furodan and Tenochii, and they comprise the great mass of the empire's overall population. The Chikyuno are expected to be devout worshipers of the Emperor and loyal followers of the Tejun system, and it is considered taboo for a son of a Chikyuno to engage in a trade different than his father's. Although the base caste, the Chikyuno are not technically relegated exclusively to agriculture, with Chikyuno also making up those of the urban poor of the empire's great cities. A family of Chikyuno most obtain wealth and prestige and maintain their honour for several unbroken generations to ever hope of achieving the rank of Musuta, but it is relatively easy for an entire Chikyuno family to be doomed to a lower caste should even one family member behave with impropriety. For this reason, the Chikyuno tend to be quiet, well-behaved, and strongly family centered. They are ordinarily not permitted to leave the Empire, and must even request permission from their local government—the council of the local Musuta—to be granted leave to move to a new province. The exception to this are those Chikyuno who assist Musuta in overseas trade. As long as they do not leave their assigned ship to touch foot to foreign earth, they remain in compliance with the Tejun and still rank among the Chikyuno. The Chikyuno wear simple wooden bands called 'yuna' around their ring fingers on their left hands, signifying their obedience to the Tejun. Any unwashed peasant who did not wear the yuna would be assumed to be in poor standing with the Tejun, and therefore be assumed not to rank among the Chikyuno.
Below the Chikyuno are the caste of vagabonds of Kuriso, the Zuki. Zuki are those peasant families who have broken with Tejun, either by being born outside of wedlock, engaging in proscribed activities, emigrating abroad or marrying with foreigners. Those who shun their family trade are also relegated to status as Zuki, as are those who engage in dishonorable but not proscribed activities, such as prostitution or the handling of the dead. Most Zuki are former members of the Chikyuno who have had their status revoked by their community because of disobedience to the Tejun. They are more common in urban centres than in the countryside, and they also count among their numbers the entirety of the Kuriso diaspora. Zuki are forbidden from entering the formal boundaries of the imperial capital, Miyaka, and must vacate themselves from any other place where a Tenochii is expected to be visiting; it is forbidden for Zuki to lay eyes on Tenochii, for penalty of even further shaming (or death). Zuki are expected to behave subserviently to the Chikyuno, and Zuki men are forbidden from speaking to women of Chikyuno class or higher under any circumstance, even life or death. The Zuki, especially those who are not actively trying to behave piously to regain their status, tend to live among their own kind in the poorer neighbourhooods of major towns and cities. In many densely populated places, though not Miyaka, Zuki even constitute a higher percentage of the population than the more numerous Chikyuno. Zuki are also more common to find in non-Kuriso communities within the Empire, and outnumber Chikyuno in some outlying provinces.
At the bottom of Kuriso society are the unpersons, the scum of Kuriso: the Zuru. Whereas Zuki are capable of regaining their honour through strict obedience to the Tejun, the Zuru are those considered so far gone as to be beyond redemption. Most Zuki, and many Zuru themselves, would prefer to be dead rather than to be called Zuru. The Zuru are forbidden from owning any land or property, even the clothes on their backs, and lack legal personhood or bodily autonomy. They can be assaulted, raped or murdered with impunity, and tend to live short, torturous lives. Becoming Zuru is a penalty considered literally worse than death in Kuriso culture. Those who are made Zuru have their left hand's ring finger removed, so that they can never wear the yuna, and often bear other wounds and disfigurements from the abuse they receive at the hands of the upper castes. When cities are put under siege in Kuriso, any Zuru present are killed and butchered, their flesh permitted to be eaten in spite of Tejun rules against cannibalism due to the fact that Zuru are not people. Similarly, many Zuru essentially act as slaves, this being permitted in spite of the Tejun because Zuru are no longer human beings at the spiritual level. The most heinous of all crimes in Kuriso, such as treason or libel against the Emperor, are all punished by demotion to the rank of Zuru. Most Zuru though are simply the mentally ill and the addicted, those dregs of society who live off waste and excess. Their purpose in the social pyramid is to be shamed and tortured; whereas the Tenochii represent the Kuriso ideal, the Zuru represent this ideal's antithesis.
Foreigners (including native minorities) in Kuriso are generally well-heeded, given some kind of special position within the empire in fair exchange for their loyalty to the Emperor. Generally, the different minorities found within the empire have an entrenched position in some kind of economic, political or military niche, fulfilling a role in which the ethnic Kuriso are deficient. Notable among these are the Logaz people of Ondorlogaz, in the central highlands of the empire. The Logaz are known across the empire as people of the stone and forge. They mine precious materials and forge them into sturdy armour in service of the Emperor, which he accepts in lieu of any other form of taxation or military service from the Logaz. Indeed, it is forbidden for the Logaz smiths and miners to forge, or even hold in their hands, swords or other weaponry: the Logaz shall always be Kuriso's greatest armorers so long as they never forge anything else. An even more special case occurs with the Doisu, the pale, lithe people of Doisugo, in the empire's northeast. Known in ancient times as a hated rival of Kuriso, Doisugo is known for possessing many great magic bloodlines, many of their people naturally attuned to making use of sorcery. In exchange for the continued wealth and power of these noble families after their conquest by Kuriso, as well as for the maintenance of the Doisu's democratic systems of local government, the Doisu as a people are required to surrender all of their kin who possess an innate talent for magic to the Emperor for his service. Many of the greatest battle-mages and crystal-masters of Kuriso are of Doisu blood, surrendered to the Emperor at a young age in exchange for their people's continued well-being and the continued maintenance of their democratic traditions.
History: The mythologized history of Kuriso begins with the Goddess Mumaza and her husband, Tejun. Representing the moon and the sun respectively, the couple gave birth to two children: a daughter, Chiki, representing the earth, and a son, Sai, representing the sea. Chiki and Sai in turn started their own family and produced a great multitude of dozens of children, who spread over the land and banded together to begin the world's nations. The second born son was Tsukisei, who founded Kuriso. Whereas Mumaza and Tejun's two children loved each other dearly, the children of Chiki and Sai were spiteful of one another, always feuding and showing one another no love, for they were many and all had to compete for their parents' attention. The children formed great wonders to earn the favour of their parents, forming great mountain ranges to impress Chiki and channeling new rivers and seas to earn the favour of Sai. These works only served to further divide the children, separating their nations from one another physically and even driving their parents apart between them.
In time, the children went to war, each one fighting for either Chiki or Sai in the great "War of Nations". Much killing was had as the brothers and sisters of Tsukisei fought over the supremacy of either earth or sea, all the while Tsukisei, the second born son, remained neutral, shocked at the slaying of blood from his brothers and sisters. In time, Chiki seemed destined to prevail, her champion the first born son defeating many of Sai's followers, who begged, unanswered, for Tsukisei's intervention on their side. When Chiki eventually prevailed, the Goddess Mumaza, grief-struck at the fall of so may of her kin, attempted to commit suicide, nearly putting out the light of the moon. For thirty days Chiki and her supporters rallied against the last of the followers of the sea god, until Sai, in his magnanimity, surrendered, leaving the seas untended as he left the world to care for his mother Mumaza. Chiki, shamed at her brother-husband's superior morality, left behind her own victorious army to join him in caring for Mumaza. Ashamed of those who joined her in her great mistake, she eschewed her own supporters and instead named Tsukisei her regent in the world as she cared for Mumaza.
The first born son chafed under the leadership of Tsukisei, who empowered territory and riches to all of the sons and daughters of Chiki and Sai equally, both including those who had fought under Sai in the War of Nations and ignoring those born to Chiki first. The first born son sought to commit a treachery against Tsukisei, gathering together his brothers and sisters most loyal to him to defeat Tsukisei at his seat at Miyaka. However, at the last moment, Tejun himself intervened, appalled at the first born son's betrayal of Chiki's heed to serve Tsukisei as regent of the world. Tejun came down from heaven, stepped foot on Miyaka, and unleashed his absolute authority over existence to deprive all of the children of Chiki and Sai—spare Tsukisei—of their divinity, shattering their physical forms into the thousands of humans and other species that came to be the progenitors of the world's nations, and shattering their essences into the crystals of magic that are responsible for the presence of divine power in the world today. The first born son of Chiki and Sai was particularly damned, his name forbidden to ever be spoken again, to eternally shame him for his treachery. Tejun also created a new people, based off his own form, whom he called the 'Kuriso'. These perfect creations of the God of the Sun would assist Tsukisei in his regency of the world as the Goddess of Earth and God of the Sea cared for the Goddess of the Moon.
Imperial Provinces
Economy: The economic mainstay of Kuriso, like most all large kingdoms and empires, is agriculture. The empire is blessed in land and fertile soil abundant, but the bounty of food contained in the great ocean coasts of the empire also feeds and provides work for many of the Kuriso people. Farming and fishing are easily the two most common livelihoods, perhaps followed by the artisans, responsible for crafting the fine works of art—worker's tools and paintings and blades alike—for which Kuriso prides itself.
The most abundant of all the crops grown in Kuriso is rice. Native to the lowlands of southern Shangaim province, rice is extremely congenial to the climate, topography and soil conditions of southern and eastern Kuriso. Along with fish, it is a staple of Kuriso cuisine, providing the tens of millions of inhabitants of the empire their daily nutrition. Similarly, cultivating rice is far and away the single most common economic activity for the people of Kuriso; perhaps more than half of all Kuriso alive in the empire spend their days tending to this single variety of crop. For all the intensity of scale of agriculture in the Empire of Kuriso, however, it is a market starkly isolated from trade and commerce. All rice grown in Kuriso fields and all fish caught in Kuriso waters are consumed locally to feed the masses, and trade of agricultural goods—whether imports or exports—are essentially non-existent.
Instead, the main trading commodity of the empire is works of craft. The master woodworkers of the Musuta create tools and furnishings prized half the world away, which is to say nothing of the beautiful works of jewelry and elaborate tapestries that also occupy the holds of trade ships departing from Kuriso ports.
Army: TBA
Navy: TBA
Traits
TBA
Foreign Relations: TBA
Stats Land Area: 18 (12+6) Land Fertility: 12 (6+6) Development: 12 (19-7) Land Power: 14 Naval Power: 17 Economy: 12 (11+1) Magical Reserves: 9 (10-1) Magical Sophistication: 9
Name of Nation: Exiles of the Barren Isles Species: Human Culture and Society: Religion – As many exiles came from Caelrumoste, Athia and old Alwatea, the Barren Isle counts several religions. As the Athian exiles arrived first at the island, they created their own church of the Archangel. However, they saw that the conflict that led to their banishment was not entirely a conflict of magic but rather one of religion. So the earliest version of the Council demanded that religion would never mingle in government or the Nexus. When the Alwatean refugees arrived, they brought with them their own gods. As the First Council generally did not meddle with religion, they allowed the Alwatean refugees to worship their own gods under the same laws. The same deal was taken by several Caelrumoste refugees who fled from the strange civil war that seemed to be happening in their homeland. In the end the vast majority worships three main religions. None of them originating from the Barren Isles.
While normally the lines between state and religion are respected, the Athian church has recently brought forth a request. They would like to organize pilgrimages towards their old continental land towards the great churches of the Archangel. So far the Council has not brought this issue before Athia. The other two religious factions seem quite content with staying where they are.
History:
Territorial Claims:
The Barren Isles are divided in two main parts. The eastern part has the most livable one. The main island is called the Isle of Rock. Here most of the Exiles live in the capital City Haven. Which is in fact the only city that exists on the Barren Isles. Smaller villages do exist though.
The western half’s main island is the Isle of Mist. A place hidden by a thick fog and full of mysteries. Here the Nexus resides. A vital complex built within a mountain. From here most of the wealth is also mined. Surrounding it are the Guardian Isles. Where tiny outposts remain to keep a careful watch over the Exiles’ best-kept secret.
Haven is the first city made by the Exiles on the Barren Isles. With its central position in the South Sea, Haven's port became a meeting point for merchants. Haven itself capitalized on it by massively expanding their harbor district, walling it off and designating it a special jurisdictional area. Essentially the harbor district enjoys slightly lower taxes and laxer laws.
Economy:
Safe from the fishes from the perilous seas the Barren Isles lack any form of agriculture. However, deep beneath the rocky ground and harsh mountains lie great veins of iron, silver, gems, gold, and celestialite. Using the subjugated locals as slaves the Exiles mine as much of these resources as they can. Still, many believe the veins won’t dry up for another three centuries. Once mined they are processed. Gold and silver are sold as ingots. The gems are often used to craft trinkets by artisans. While often very detailed and beautiful, the artisans can’t make many of them. Thus there is a certain scarcity to them. Finally, the mages’ their great magical sophistication allows them to craft magical artifacts of near unrivaled quality.
The Exiles are also offering services to those who can afford it. These services rang from highly regarded ward weaving to the obscure prophecies. Exiles do everything to the benefit of their homeland. So Exile mercenaries are utterly unheard of.
- The Hall of Flowing Gold -
The Gold District borders the harbor district of Haven. Though unlike the harbor district, it does not enjoy lax laws. The Gold District began as a place for vaulters (people who offered to store and protect your gold) and jewelers (who use the Vaulters' services). However, it quickly became apparent that these vaults could be used to store all sorts of things. It also became apparent that the proof that you had your gold stored in a vault was basically the same as using the gold. Though it weighed far less. So the vaulters took up the job of banks. Storing valuables and letting people use their contracts to trade in Haven. These days the Vaulters want to expand their infrastructure and go international.
However, not all vaulters became banks. Some allowed traders to store their goods for long times. For example weapons could stay in good condition in vaults. Thus they could be stockpiled and when the need arises, sold. However, it was quickly realized that you can't sell such massive amounts on a market place. Nor did buyers of such quantities walk from stall to stall gathering up the weapons. So to the first bulk trade market stalls came to be. By selling contracts allowing people to just pick up their goods at a certain warehouse. It was also quickly realized that using a "first come, first served" trade technique was detrimental. As some other buyers often wanted to bid higher for certain goods than others. In the end, the auction houses were made and moved closer to their respective warehouses.
However, the Council did not want to let this ingenious financial idea go to waste. So in the past 20 years they have been working towards unifying the different auction houses in a single hall. This hall is now known as the Hall of Flowing Gold as vast sums of money flow through it like a river.
Army: The Exiles used to lack any form of formal army. Instead each Family had a Household Guard. Tasked to protect the Family’s land. As only people part of the Exile class can become Household Guard and due to its rather low prestige, few chose the job. However, since the recent mounting fear coming from the cyclops in the west, more Exiles have clamored for an official army that can defend them in the events of an attack. The Order of Stone was made and contains Household Guards that have at least five years of experience. This has limited the recruitment pool rather significantly. Furthermore, while magic education is a common right for all Household Guards, magic in close combat is an unexplored idea so far. The only upside they have is that the equipment is paid by the Council. This means that at the very least their equipment is of some degree. Yet far from what many warriors would want.
Navy: Wood is a scarce resource on the islands. Thus a large navy compromised of wooden ships would be impossible. Still, the Exiles knew that their island homes and more importantly the Nexus had to be protected. The first clues on how to do so came from the Deep One “Leviathan”. A massive creature that, according to legend, protects the Isle of Mist. In the first Communion, which took place right after the second Awakening of the Nexus, Leviathan said that the creatures of the sea obey the deep and the moon. After consulting the Nexus methods using the Lore of the Deep and the Lore of the Moon were used to control the creatures of the sea. With significant results. Dull creatures like the Giant Turtle were easily lulled into a prolonged trance. While South Sea Serpents were less easy to control though much easier to simply direct. Later on smaller ships were bought from trading partners or taken from south sea pirates. These ships are now generally used to patrol the coasts of the Isle of Stone or send as merchant ships along the Giant Turtle Ships. The Exiles trust Leviathan to protect the Isles of Mist and he has not disappointed them so far.
Giant Turtle Ships – Giant turtles are lulled into a trance-like state using magic. Atop its ancient shell housing and warehouses are placed. These slow creatures are only defended by their extremely thick skin. For predators, this means that they are often not worth going after. Yet those atop their shells are not so well defended. Giant Turtle Ships are only ever used for trade and transport. The animal can carry vast loads. When nearing a harbor smaller ships, unfit for the open seas but safe near the coast, are lowered from the shell into the water and then do trade with the harbor.
South Sea Serpents – Large serpents capable of fighting ships one on one. Control is a fickle thing with these beasts. They can be aimed at ships and told to hold off on attacking. Yet when the leash is off, they will charge with animalistic bloodlust. Few are spared by the serpents. Yet they make an effective tool to protect the Barren Isles’ coast.
Stone-nose shark swarm – The reason why these sharks have such strong noses is subject of debate amongst the Exiles. Though the commonly accepted theory is that they use it to ram and crack large crustaceans shells to eat out the flesh underneath it. Alas, to most Exiles it does not matter. The Exiles will use a form of mass-illusion to create the smell of blood near a target. The stone-nose sharks will come up from the deep to attack whatever is near the smell. Gifted groups of Exiles are able to whip the sharks into a frenzy. Resulting in even deadlier attacks. While their stone noses allow them to stand a chance against smaller vessels, the shark swarm is extremely inefficient against larger, stronger vessels.
“From the dark deep he came. At first, we didn’t see it in the storm. Then lines lit up below us. Vast lines of light blue light. The boat stopped moving. We thought we had run aground. No, the beast stopped us. Below deck, the screams began. Water was rushing in, it could hear it. Yet nobody on deck moved. Wide-eyed we kept looking at the lines in the water. I’m not sure what pushed me. I want to say instincts but all my instincts told me one thing: I could not survive. Unfortunately, I did and I think it allowed it. It allowed me to jump the ship. Now don’t ask me what I saw in the water. Don’t ask me. I just know that it let me jump. So I could tell you this. Don’t go near the Isle of Mist uninvited.” Logan Krutz, former pirate captain of the Deep Snake.
Leviathan has long been a local South Sea myth. A vast create that drags entire ships to their doom deep below the waves. The Locals of the Barren Isles call him “Ushtha” or Guardian. Of the Exiles, only a handful of people have ever communed with the Deep One. From those few conversations, it would appear that he is not hostile towards the Exiles (for whatever reason). He also taught them how to craft a trinket that will offer anyone who possesses it safe passage to the Isle of Mists. Leviathan is apparently not the only Deep One that exists. However, according to those who talked to him the others are dead/asleep/dreaming. The word he used seems to imply all three of those options as if they were one. The only connection there seems to be between him and the Barren Isles (other that he stays close to it) is that he seems to understand the concepts of the Lore of Deep.
Traits:
Foreign Relations:
Rolls: (Rolled by GM in the Discord Server. Just ping me, and I’ll roll as soon as I’m able.)
Other:
The Exiles pride themselves in gathering an archive of magic from around the world. As many were banished from different nations, a great many different kinds of magic are used on the Barren Isles. The archive is also constantly expanded by foreign tomes and artifacts. However, the magic they use is very much different from most other nations. It is divided into different Lores. Each with their mysterious sources, tales, and explanations for magic. Each Lore is then divided into different Aspects. Which have shared traits between them, tying them to the Lore. Yet each explains a different way of thinking around the central Lore.
The Lore of the Deep contains magic to hex and curse. Deep magic bases itself on the depth of the ocean. That far away yet haunting place that could hide entire worlds. Much like a diver learns to go deeper and deeper, so do students of the Deep learn to give themselves to the watery depths. In return their understanding of the magic they practice expands. To the point that they can make the waves obey their demands
The Lore of Terra is possibly the closest to what many nations may call “traditional” magic. It gives control of your surroundings. Things like telekinesis, fire magic and nature magic all fall under the lore of Terra according to the Nexus Order. Many consider the Lore of Terra The easiest lore to learn. Due to its familiarity outside of the Barren Exiles, objects to be enchanted and sold are often enchanted with the Lore of Terra.
The Lore of the Moon was, until recently, lore many considered the most mysterious one. Students of Moon Magic are often called Seers or Mentalists. While no Moon Mage will ever offer you certainty, they may offer you a glimpse of the past that never was, the present far away or the future that may be. The most famous/dreaded aspect of Moon Magic is Dream magic. Which is used to test people before they may enter the Nexus. People who use Dream magic are called Dreamwalkers.
The Lore of the Sun is by many considered the strongest Lore. It is true that its effects, unlike the Lore of the Deep and the Lore of the Moon, are far more straightforward. The Lore of the Sun contains exclusively offensive aspects except for the Aspect of the Ward. Which allows them to weave complex magical protections. It is also the Lore most used to enchant domestically used weapons.
The Lore of the Stars. A lore that is about two decades old now, Star Magic gives a strange mixture of blessings, curses and other utility. The reason it is considered so strange is that the magic calls upon constellations that either don’t seem to exist or have an impossible name. Thus it is seriously halting the Exiles’ study to comprehend the Lore.
The most recent Lore discovered is the Lore of the Void. Which derives its meaning and power from “the emptiness between the heavens” (a little and possibly faulty translation from the Nexus). So far no spells have actually been uncovered. In fact, the explained machinations of the Lore are seemingly impossible and the tales surrounding it are incomprehensible so far.
While it was known that the Lore of the Deep could have certain adverse effects on the human psyche, the risks were far outweighed by the advantages. Furthermore, the effects were well understood and could be combatted. The Lore of the Stars and Void also have seemingly strange effects on the humans that try to study them. Most of these are far less predictable and understood.
Species & Population: Orichal (majority - approx. 550,000); Bloodmarked (north island minority - approx. 50,000); Human (subjects/allies - approx. 130,000); Refik (allies - population uncertain, but majority do not have any contact with the orichal, though they do have a non-aggression deal)
A mighty race of giants, the average Orichal is a fearsome sight. Twice the height of a man, a muscular and faintly rubbery or reptilian physique of grey-blue scales, marked by flecks of shimmering gold. Each hand and foot is a four-digited claw, a raking weapon with sharpness and strength enough to cut through toughened leather. Meanwhile its skull is a sight to behold. Wide and slavering jaws within a domed head, two great tusks and a heavy tongue, the top-lip lined with deep and hollow nostrils. To the side of the skull rest four curved and frilled ears, to the unaware a simple set of holes into the skull, yet wonderfully complex within the echoes of their darkened homes.
And there, most famous of their features, in the centre of the skull. There lies the great round eye, piercing and many-lensed, a complex organ that sees into the hearts of its prey. It picks up every feature, every notice of weakness or injury or fear, and then it lunges with the ferocity and might of a rage-filled bear...
Or so some might have you believe. In truth, for all their physical might and ferocity in battle, by nature the Orichal are pensive, pessimistic, and communal. They form mated pairs - though to a human eye it is hard to discern male from female - which bond for life, the male moving in with his new kin's cavern, whereupon they take great concern and care upon their newborns, alive and screaming into the world.
It takes many years - some say close to three decades - for a child of their kind to reach the prime of maturity, but from there they age slowly. Unended by battle or disease - a rarity amongst their hardy kind - a mature Orichal may live for close to three centuries, if the oldest of their number are to be taken as the example. Their scales ever-dulling and hardening with age, in the end there is nothing left. Their annual hibernation grows longer and longer, until at last death carves its final marker into their skin, and they remain a lifeless statue for their descendants to worship, a body entombed within its own skin.
Most Orichal have notable specks of golden-orange discoloration in their scales. Certain patterns of these are more prevalent in certain settlements, and these reoccurring patterns are linked together with golden-brown paint to help indicate the settlement to which each individual belongs as well as, on a more personal level, parental lineage.
However, many of the Orichal settlements on the islands north of Ruinous Petra are mainly inhabited by a slightly shorter and stockier breed of their people, most clearly distinguished by the dark red of their spots and subsequent patterns. These are the Bloodmarked, descendants of those who returned from their northern settlements in following the Crisis of Rejection. Their long isolation from the "trueborn" Orichal was seen as a stain on their culture and their bloodlines, and after peace finally settled on the islands, their settlements remained largely isolated.
Culture and Society: At heart, the Orichal lead simple lives. Their culture is organized into small settlements, usually of no more than two hundred individuals, who work together to support themselves. Each settlement will have a small orchard of mangroves, giant yams, mushrooms, or starch-rich root farms that it routinely harvests and reseeds, exchanging these seeds with their neighbours to ensure an even and circular spreading of crops, minimizing the risk of disease.
That said, the size and might of the Orichal has made them excellent hunters, and thus they supplement their diet with the flesh of beasts and fish. Upon fishing rafts, strung together from bone and the few trees remaining of the island, or from the dried out husks of their crops, they cast nets of rope and hunt with elegant stone spears, bringing back the carcasses of whales and squid and stranger, more monstrous prey.
For as long as they can remember, the Orichal have paid solemn respect to their three gods - of Storm, of Stone, and Sea. These three gods are not moral agents - they are beings of Chaos, of Order, and of Life, respectively - and are all both respected, beloved, and feared in equal measure. Dotting the islands are a number of shrines - spiraling, pointed structures. Those pointed west, built atop the highest points on their islands, are dedicated to the Storm. Those pointed east, in caverns and halls, are dedicated to the Stone. And those pointed south, dotting the coastline of every island, are those dedicated to the Sea.
-- The Storm, and Stormseeing The Storm of the West is their father, the ancestral origin of their people. It is ferocity and wisdom, chaos and thought, speed and emotion. They see in it the struggle of survival, and the endless possibilities of the future - so long as one does not forget their roots in the madness, and succumb to mindless chaos.
The orespeakers have a sacred ritual in the guidance of their people, the art of stormsight. When storm clouds gather and the wind begins to stir, an orespeaker from each settlement gathers at the closest shrine to the storm. There they ascend the spiral, and rest upon its rooftop. Consuming the sacred ore, their brain pan is opened with a ceremonial dagger, and a powder made from the sacred ore is applied directly to the eye, chest, and exposed brain.
In a meditative state they wait, for hour after hour, as the wind howls and the rain falls and the roar of thunder fills their ears. There, in the midst of the lightning, it flashes - the paths into the future, burnt into their mind like a bolt of lightning, permanently scarred into their memory. Those who survive - surprisingly many, for their bodies are not conducive to lightning and their organs are sturdy - descend the shrine, and gather at the capital of Ruinous Petra, comparing their visions with one another. The most common messages are those brought forward to the elder warriors of their people, who in turn will settle upon the path to take.
-- The Stone, Stonesculpting, and the great Hunting Fortresses The Stone of the East is their mother, the resting place of their people. It is caution and endurance, intellect and design, strength and silence. They hear in it the echoes of the dead, and the power of history, of tradition, and of their cherished elders.
The ritual of stonesculpting is one of the most integral, especially in their present situation. As the orespeaker meditates, consuming a portion of sacred ore, another portion of the sacred ore is crushed into a powder and mixed with sea water. The mixture is applied to a portion of heavy stone, engraved with sacred ridge-marks. As the orespeaker whispers into the mixture, eye wide open, the mixture bleeds into the ridge-marks and the stone, creating a layer of ambient magical energy across the surface of the stone.
Now it and the orespeaker are one, and with a mental push, the field shifts and compresses, the stone sculpted with no more struggle than a mass of mud... to the orespeaker. No one else can interact with it in this way, save another orespeaker who has prepared the same stone in the same way. For life, the orespeaker and the stone are as one.
Of note is that the stone is now buoyant - the field that layers it causes it to push up and away from water, as buoyant as wood. It can support a great deal of weight, and loses none of its strength or rigidity. When used as the platform, in layer upon layer, the Orichal have mastered a unique art - of essentially floating islands, tiny fortresses of their own construction that move with shocking speed, if somewhat lacking in agility. Supported by might frames and battlements of wood and iron and coral stone, grown and sculpted by orespeaker and Refik alike, these "Hunting Fortresses" have become the hope and glory of the Orichal, as legendary and fearsome as the Orichal themselves.
-- The Sea, and Seasalving The Sea of the South is their friend, parent of the Refik. It is life itself, and disaster, and food, and wealth. From its clarity comes cleanliness, and from its wide, dark depths an abundance is found.
Last of the orespeaker's arts is that of seasalving, the blessing of sea-water. The orespeaker consumes the sacred ore, and upon their spit a portion of water is blessed. In so doing, all of its sediment, salt, and other impurities is forced to the surface in a magical "skin" that is easily cleared away. Even more useful, the purified water has a warming and pleasant effect to any who consume it, their spirit feeling lighter, their aches and pains feeling less of an obstacle, and their thoughts find clarity.
A Note: The Orichal rely almost exclusively on oral history, especially regarding their early history, much of it extremely ancient. Because of this, much of it is embellished and the lines between myth, legend, and history are often unclear. If something in this history seems contradictory to the accounts of other nations, there is a high likelihood that the Orichal are speaking in allegory, or simply don't understand the truth of a given situation.
-- Origin of the Orichal, and the settlements of Ruinous Petra In the time before times, when the four primordial Titans seized upon the nothing of the world, they had a dream. Each shared it with the next. "I saw nothing - now, anything." whispered Chaos, and so was born the Storm in the West. "I saw madness - now, stability." whispered Order, and so was born the Stone in the East. "I saw emptiness - now, fertility." whispered Life, and so was born the Sea in the South.
And from this shared dream of three, there strode the Orichal, offspring of the West and the East. From the South were born the Refik, strange-friend of the Orichal. Meanwhile, the fourth Titan watched. The weakest and most jealous of its kind, with two eyes it split its soul in half.
"I saw vitality - now, disease. I saw peace - now, war." whispered Death, and so was born the Soil in the North. At that, the four Titans rested, and the seasons turned. Upon their home the Orichal dwelt, Ruinous Petra and her children, and the first of their settlements they built.
-- The First Orespeakers, the Refik, and the settlements of Lost Stormfall Upon Ruinous Petra they dwelt, in prosperity and peace. From stone they built simple halls, from the trees and roots they found sustenance, and from the beasts they found flesh and fame. But the mysteries of Stone were yet to be revealed in that age. For the most bounteous of the gifts of Stone yet lay dormant, till the first Orespeaker - the mason Phemus - consumed the stone in his arrogance, sensing its power and thinking himself a reincarnation of the Titan of Stone. With ravenous hunger he consumed and consumed, sordid and silent, and there was fear.
Then arose the Storm in the West, and Phemus gazed upon it. Phemus was a weak fellow, accused of consorting with a devil of Soil, his brain pan fragile. When his younger twin brother Gargant struck him upon Petra's Peak, he gazed into the oncoming Storm. Its lightning burned, and in a flash of divine inspiration, he saw the paths ahead.
With secrets strange he convinced his brother, and together they encountered the Refik. These slippery and cunning creatures of the Sea in the South, young Gargant did not trust them, but in their plight and in their nature Phemus saw wisdom, and companionship. He spoke and consorted, and in their shared heritage of Titans he was led to distant isles. Others followed, and so were born the settlements of Lost Stormfall, the five islands of the east.
-- Mankind's Arrival, and the settlements of the Bloodmarked Phemus's brother Gargant was a rigid and violent child, a warrior, but he could see the new potential in his brother and slowly the poison of envy did cloud his aging eye. He brought forth his daughters, and with a greedy cunning he guided them to build yet more stone ships, and thus journey into the Soil of the North.
Now at this time the North was barren, and dull, and filled with a vast emptiness of beasts to hunt. The daughters of Gargant lay claim to it, and built many settlements from the first stone ships. It was a time of struggle and of glory, of bloodshed and of hollow words.
For now the fourth Titan began to awaken. As the seasons change and the noise of battle drew him forth, the one called Death saw a terrible opportunity. The daughters of Gargant, in their revelry, did bring forth the dreaded weakling, the half-soul two-eye, the despoiler of lands. In numbers terrible they came from the Soil, and in the violence of that age there was thus the settlements of the Bloodmarked.
-- The Crisis of Rejection, and the sorrow of Ruinous Petra Peace was uneasy and often elusive, as the half-souls grew ever more numerous. Their pettiness began to corrupt the Orichal of the Bloodmarked, forever leaving them with specks of coral red upon the eye, not true Stone-bled gold.
For a time this peace remained, but as the Bloodmarked felt the starkness of their difference and the envy of man grew greater, it was only a matter of time. Their orespeakers foresaw the calamity, and many fled south. As was true now, was true then, for the divine warnings also reached their cousins at Lost Stormfall. In a blight of war and disease they fled home, and the many two-eyed fingers of Death did creep upon the edges of Ruinous Petra.
It was a bloody battle, but at last they smote their wretched foes upon the rocks. Amidst the struggle, the surviving Bloodmarked were banished to the southern smallest islands for their treachery, vowed to forever watch.
"Let it be said," said the orespeakers of that crisis, "that the Soil is rejected, and its children rejected, and its greed rejected. Ruinous Petra is our mother, our home, and our future."
Thus they vowed, and thus they waited, to push back extinction.
-- The Age of Offspring, and the mastery of Stone In quiet contemplation they remained upon Ruinous Petra. The Sea offered its bounty, and their friends the Refik continued to squabble, and Chaos and Order and Life were in abundance. It was a patient time, of lessons learned and children reared.
The orespeakers mastered and refined their arts - the art of staring into the Storm, that one might see the paths in waiting; the art of sculpting Stone and coral, of monuments and smithing; and the art of healing the Sea, of purity and holiness and the warmth of the spirit. Some of these things the Refik taught. Some of these things they taught themselves.
-- The Age of Resting, and the joining of Soils During that time, the half souls and the two eyes were rare, and often unwelcomed. Some would try to enslave them, while others treated them as meat, and yet others forced them back out to sea on flimsy rafts without provision. There was a cruelty there, born of ignorance, born of hatred and vengeance.
One day the orespeaker Gravos was in quiet meditation, at the very edge of the rocks, and was shocked to be disturbed by a ragged human. At first she was hungry, and sought to eat him, but it quickly became apparent he was not fleeing - instead, he rushed to get her attention, away from the nearby grass. Without hesitation she turned to focus on the subject of his protection, and there in the foliage was a woman, and her child.
The family begged Gravos, and while their speech was hard to discern, the message was clear - "Spare the child, please. We have nothing left." So moved was Gravos by this plight, and the twinge of a long-faded memory, that she agreed to shelter the human family. They helped her around her humble cave, and in exchange she offered them yams and water, and the exchange of knowledge. Slowly but surely, they learnt to communicate, and Gravos was troubled.
"There is no malice here," she thought, "Only fear, and love, and loss."
Not so different from an orichal, really. At once she led them to Petra's Peak, and the Orespeaker's Council.
-- Destruction in the East H
-- By Stone, by Storm and by Sea, so begins the Orichal Age
Territorial Claims:
Economy: -- Primarily hunters and subsistence farmers. Have basically nothing of value to other nations other than their sacred ore, that they refuse to trade. What few things they do own and produce are shared communally and rarely is in excess of their needs, so trade is difficult to set up or benefit from. -- Food production is sufficient for their needs but has begun to show signs of strain in the wake of a steadily increasing population, which coupled with their fears of a coming cataclysm upon their islands have served as a great motivation for the frequent hunting voyages. ---- "Homegrown food" is mainly in the form of large yams; a grainy but nutritious tuber called the rokoot as well as the excess roots of that plant; as well as a variety of fish and shellfish, domesticated goats, and caught game such as deer, boar, and harpies (a kind of violent wild fowl).
Army: Mighty warriors and hunters, a single Orichal is exceptionally dangerous and ferocious, and they have patiently studied and mastered the art of fighting as a group. However, their eye presents a notable physical weakness and their small numbers greatly limit their force projection on land. Usually armed with crudely melted down and "reforged" metal weapons stolen in raids on human settlements, or more often long, thick-shafted iron spears or clubs and maces. Most deadly of all are the slings they carry, allowing them to launch heavy rocks almost the size of a human skull, with tremendous speed, range and accuracy.
-- Hunters & Harpies ("Militia-Support") Although much rarer in recent centuries, their home islands of Ruinous Petra were once home to great and monstrous beasts. These creatures were often hunted purely for food and protection, though during the Crisis of Rejection many of these creatures were hunted to the point of extinction purely to sustain the surge in population, leading to an ecological collapse that devastated the islands and the maximum population of the Orichal and other life there for several millennia. The art of hunting in the past century and a half is now largely left to the warriors upon the great Hunting Fortresses, but ordinary Orichal at home do still build and set up traps for more mundane species such as deer and boar, and the support crews on the Hunting Fortresses are likewise skilled with javelin or sling. Though not considered "professional warriors", they are respected in spite of their relative lack of experience or dedicated training. A side note is that many of these Hunters also make use of small flocks of harpies, meter long birds of prey that inhabit Ruinous Petra and its isles (especially in the south) and many of which have been tamed. Nesting in the upper tiers of the Fortresses, their vicious personalities and sharp claws coupled with a strong pack mentality make them loyal companions - whether catching vermin, hunting sheep, or striking at enemy combatants with their claws.
-- Pack Warrior ("Infantry") The term used for the primary crews and raiding or hunting parties of the Hunting Fortresses, and thus the Orichal tasked with hunting the great beasts of the ocean for food, or in the raiding of ships and settlements. The Pack Warriors train often in the use of the spear, sling, and mace or club, and are ferocious warriors clad in simplistic but thick padded leather armour, often wearing a simple "mask" or "veil" of metal chains to protect their eye when going into battle against human opponents. Each warrior is assigned to a pack, usually consisting of a dozen warriors, led by a pack master and supported by a small group of four or so pathfinders, as well as usually having a few bloodmarked and stormhearts. -- Pack Master ("Leadership") The term used for the individual placed in charge of a pack, usually made up of the oldest or most experienced of its warriors. Though rarely better equipped, the pack master is often appointed to the position by an orespeaker for reasons greater than raw strength or skill in combat - many of them are surprisingly eloquent speakers, as well as having an emotional composure, confidence, and mind for strategy that makes them capable leaders adept at maintaining the morale of the pack. Those masters too old or injured to take part in hunts or raids themselves often remain on Ruinous Petra and become respected leaders in the home settlements, or else remain onboard the Hunting Fortresses as navigators and captains. -- Stormhearts ("Warrior Orespeakers") Most packs will be supported by an orespeaker, albeit one equipped for battle. Usually clad in some form of scaled or multiple component armour and carrying weapons and shields of heavy rock and coral that they themselves have sculpted and thus remains light-weight in their hands, a stormheart is a great boon to a pack, since his or her presence is a powerful form of motivation and spiritual comfort. In addition, the knowledge of a stormheart in the arts of seasalving and surgery makes them effective healers, and they often carry satchels of pain-numbing or curative herbs and roots. -- Pathfinders ("Scouts/Skirmishers") The youngest and most agile amongst the Orichal Hunters are often given the name of pathfinder, and are armed with javelins and darts as well as slings or powerful capturing weapons like the bolas, and a knowledge of building traps. These pathfinders operate in small groups or pairs, usually no more than four, and are tasked with observing and mapping out terrain. In battle, they often serve as harassers or flankers, laying in ambush while the majority of the pack lures the enemy into a preferred fighting area. -- Bloodmarked ("Heavy Infantry") During the Crisis of Rejection, many Orichal from the northern settlements on the mainland - whose long isolation had left them distinctive physical features, most notably a red discoloration of normally golden "specks" on their scales and a certain consistent "redness" to the veins in their eye - were viewed with suspicion, and as resources became harder to distribute and disease began to spread, they were blamed for it. The ensuing civil war, coupled with the other aforementioned issues, led to an ecological collapse on Ruinous Petra that devastated the islands for millennia. The surviving Bloodmarked, having clung to survival but not independence through their settlements on the islands just north of Ruinous Petra, have long been considered a subservient people... they are, however, famed for their ferocity and martial strength. They contribute a small "tribute" of their greatest warriors as representatives onboard the Hunting Fortresses, where they serve a unique role as heavy shock troops, clad in multiple layers of crude but effective iron armour and carrying massive tower-shields. They do not fight from a distance, but are instead vowed to take up defensive battle-line at the vanguard of the Pack Warriors that they are assigned to.
Navy: (description in progress) Sculpting great stone ships from the massive boulders of their home-island, blessed by Orespeakers in the midst of a storm, the stone becomes lighter than water and crackles with lightning. While relatively few, each stone ship is a surprisingly quick and near-impenetrable fortress, coated in spikes and slates of unyielding stone armour. Within the gut of the ship is enclosed a sacred, ornate chamber in which the Orespeaker meditates, their mind stretched out through the body of the ship, their eye forever linked to the magical field that permeates the layers of the ship.
-- Fishing Rafts ("Civilian"-"Militia"-"Boarding/Raiding") Before the mastery of stonesculpting by the orespeakers, the Orichal made extensive use of the once abundant forests on Ruinous Petra to craft wide rafts with large, crude fur sails and to set cross across their neighbouring isles and beyond. After the Crisis of Rejection, however, these rudimentary craft primarily served as simple fishing vessels, and many of them have been well-maintained by the descendants of those who first built them. There have been some refinements in the design, of course, but these simplistic craft serve no combat function save in the most dire of situations - even an untrained Orichal fisher, armed with net and dart-thrower, is a deadly foe if pushed into danger. Notably, most Hunting Fortresses will contain a number of specially reinforced "Hunting Rafts", reinforced with metal and coral and lined with metal or wooden shields. These smaller vessels are used for scouting and raiding on land, or to attack ships in less heavily destructive ways than their slings or javelins might.
-- Refik Mercenaries ("Raiding"-"Amphibious") The orichal work closely with the refik inhabiting the coral reefs and shallow waters surrounding the Petrese islands. While in ancient times there was anger between the two peoples, in recent centuries the expansion of human activity throughout the south sea has left the once powerful refik in an increasingly desperate situation, forcing them further and further into deep waters where they are often preyed upon by great sea monsters. In addition to helping in the maintenance and construction of the great hunting fortresses, the bands of refik will often congregate and attach themselves to the fortresses, using the psychological effects of the massive vessels as a protection that allows them to travel along much deeper water currents than would be otherwise considered safe, and giving them a sort of political clout among the other tribes and kingdoms of their secretive and mercenary people. In exchange, they offer their assistance in battle and fishing while the hunting fortresses are on their voyages - by helping to distract or flank sea monsters, by sabotaging human ships from underneath, and by helping to lure or pressure fish into the waiting nets of hungry orichal sailors.
-- Hunting Fortress ("Raiding"-"Siege"-"Landing") The keystone in the orichal plan for a new home and ultimate control of the south seas, the hunting fortresses are immense and multi-tiered ships, each over sixty meters long and -- Reclaimer of Ages ("Ship of the Line")
Traits: (description in progress; names and balancing pending) Giants of the South Sea {+} Their fearsome reputation, massive Hunting Fortresses, and raw primal size and strength are naturally intimidating to all but the most battle hardened. In situations calling for shows of force or intimidation, they have a natural advantage and enemy forces in battle often suffer from poor morale at the prospect of fighting them, especially at sea. {-} The stereotype of the "dumb brute" is often applied to them, and their practices of piracy, raiding, and of eating those that resist them are all viewed with contempt and anger. Diplomatic relationships with all of their human neighbours is quite poor.
Ancestral Wisdom {+} Their society and culture highly value age, experience and wisdom. They entrust all of their most important decisions to those felt to be the wisest in society, though with an emphasis on communication and the exchange of ideas between individuals, families, and settlements. Despite a lack of complex or centralized structure, the Orichal are adept at organizing themselves, even for quite large and time-consuming projects. {-} Their overly past and tradition centric worldview often stifles their individualism and willingness to adapt to new situations, and their tendency to view other races and peoples with contempt limits their ability to learn new strategies and techniques from others.
The Ore is Sacred {+} {-} Because of their strongly held religious traditions regarding the nature of the "sacred ore", the Orichal are not willing to sell or trade it. In fact, they find the largely materialistic way other societies treat the ore to be deeply disrespectful, and see the act of stealing it (usually by force) from "unworthy hands" to be a holy act.
Servants of the Storm {+} The Orichal are used to the frequent heavy rainstorms that batter their islands, especially during the approach of the "storm season", or monsoon. They are used to living and working in the rain and the wind, and build their homes and settlements in ways to minimize the damage potentially caused. Combined with their sturdy bodies, good low-light vision and other senses, and strong religious ideas surrounding storms, they suffer far fewer penalties or problems in harsh weather than other societies might. {-}
Foreign Relations: Primarily connected to the Exiles of the Barren Isles and Caelrumoste. Generally negative, but open to some form of discussion.
Rolls: (Rolled by GM in the Discord Server. Just ping me, and I’ll roll as soon as I’m able.) Land Area: 5 - 2 = 3 Land Fertility: 3 + 5 = 8 Development: 3 (swap) >12 = 12 Land Power: 17 - 2 = 15 Naval Power: 16 + 2 = 18 Economy: 12 (swap) >3 = 3 Magical Reserves: 19 - 1 = 18 Magical Sophistication: 10 + 3 = 13
Fierce lands breed a fierce people, or so the saying goes. It was true for a thousand different peoples through history and it was true for the Usharids. The Desert Fathers and other learned folk speak of the first Usharids being created out of the desert sand by Abtum, the Spirit of the Desert and the one and only god of the Usharid tribes.
Abtum gave the people a strict set of rules to his children. Rules to ensure that the tribes would give Him and His physical body (the desert) the deserved respect. And to ensure that the tribes lived in righteousness and piety. As any proper man should.
And so the tribes lived for eons. Respecting the holy places, honoring elders and the Desert Fathers, giving God His deserved offerings and prayers whilst striking down heretics and apostates with extreme prejudice. Living according to the means the land afforded them and ensuring that no foreign taint would take root upon the billowing dunes.
That system worked smoothly for who knows how many thousand years. All around the desert empires rose and fell, races grew powerful and withered all the while the Usharid tribes lived as their ancestors, taking whatever changes the outside world threw at them in stride. Adopting whatever they thought was useful and shunning the supposedly superfluous. Fighting whoever sought to impose their will upon their lands and occasionally venturing beyond the sand dunes for plunder and loot, either as raiders or mercenaries.
The conquest of Hijark broke this placid equilibrium. Suddenly, the Usharids were not only an unified people, but they had also expanded beyond their original homeland, finding themselves ruling over a large amount of settled people, the Hijarkis. The Usharids changed, or were changed by their new circumstances.
The modern Usharid Sultanate is still a land in flux. As the new generations grow knowing nothing of the old days of Hijark or the tribal confederations save what they learn from their elders.
The Usharids still make up most of the ruling elite. But instead of silken tents, they now inhabit perfumed palaces and countryside estates. Many of them even having Hijarki blood themselves, on account of Jibal’s policy of intermarriage. These children grew into an increasingly mixed culture. That although still calls itself Usharid and pays homage to Abtum and his scriptures, also has undeniably been impacted by their new wealthier and settled lifestyle.
The Hijarkis experienced their own share of changes imposed by their new overlords. Though the framework many of the old Kingdom’s institutions and organizations survived the Usharid conquest, many others didn’t or were irreparably damaged. Old mage guilds were suppressed and hunted down for resisting the Usharid invasion. Many temples, shrines and libraries were looted and razed during the invasion itself and in the suppression of the many rebellions that followed while the old warrior aristocracy that ruled Hijark was gutted. Meanwhile, cities and the coastal plains were filled with bands of Usharid tribesmen, eager to leave behind the harsh dunes for an easier life on the coast. But even then, this influx of tribesmen wasn’t enough to replace the native Hijarkis, who to this day still make up the majority of the Sultanate’s population.
The remnants of the Hijarki warrior aristocracy still cling to whatever power they managed to preserve. Mostly by ingratiating themselves with their new overlords and working within the new system. A far cry from the heights of their power in the previous centuries. Not only have they been subjugated by a new, stronger force but now they also need to compete with a new, growing class of bureaucrats and government officials raised from Hijarki and mixed race burghers and merchants. Who have become vital to the running of the Sultanate.
And last, but not least, there are those Usharids who still inhabit their ancestral homeland. Being either too poor and lacking the political and blood connections to earn themselves estates in Hijarki lands or simply choosing to remain in the desert for one reason or the other. Some of these chieftains look to the developments in the Sultanate with some concern, for they too can see how their ancestral desert has fallen behind, relegated to a backwater within the very nation that carries its name. Ruled by their supposed kin, who grows increasingly foreign with each passing generation. Distancing itself from the land and ways that originally gave them the strength to seize the lofty palaces and green fields they now lord over. Still, these men are few, and yet lacking the power to do much besides grumbling and whispering to those of their coastal kin who still stubbornly cling to their ancestral ways.
History:
The Usharid Sultanate is a young nation, specially by the standards of the region. Surrounded by nations and empires who can claim long centuries or even millennia of history, the Sultanate’s less than two centuries certainly pale in comparison.
The Sultanate’s tale with a blood feud, as many tales in the desert are won’t to do. When Ali ibn Tariq of the Lazash tribe gutted Zaffura bint Hassam of the Rubyat tribe in the middle of Aqquba Oasis’ bazaar because the trader supposedly sold him spoiled meat. The Rubyats, understandably, were incensed by the murder, and claimed that Ali had killed Zaffura to avoid paying his large debt to her.
The two tribes soon took the issue to the dunes, as usual. This little spat would’ve been just one among many in the Usharid’s long story of inter tribal warfare if not for the fact that the Lazash tribe, smaller and poorer than their foes by a considerable margin, called upon the help of their kinsmen of the Turraq tribe. At the time led by young Salman Ibn Ayyub.
Salman, eager to make a name for himself among the tribes of the desert, eschewed the traditional tactics of endless skirmishing among the sands and ritual combat between champions to instead strike directly at the Rubyat’s camps and the oasis where they sought shelter, usually held as neutral ground in Usharid culture. Winning the war with great displays of tactical acumen and personal bravery, but also committing a terrible taboo in the eyes of the other Usharid tribes. Salman had been too aggressive, too bloodthirsty in his campaign, a small blood feud was not enough justification to eschew the traditional ways of fighting. To burn homes and disrupt the sacredness of the oasis settlements and neutral grounds.
Still, Salman’s victory earned him some prestige and respect from other tribes. Enough to garner him some allies for more campaigns against other tribes. Age old enemies of the Turraqs or merely convenient targets. In the span of a few years, Salman had managed to establish a sizable tribal confederation with him and his tribes at its head. Such organizations weren’t unheard of in Usharid history. After all, it only took an ambitious warlord of foreign threat to unite at least some of the tribes. The difference between Salman and those previous warlords, however, was that Salman flaunted the ancient customs and traditions of the tribes. Not only when it came to warfare but religion too. Abandoning the proper worship of Abtum for the faith of Ishareth and going as far as declaring that he would spread his “True Faith” to all the corners of the Usharid realm.
That was the final straw for many who until then had stayed out of Salman’s way out of fear or apathy. Conquering warlords came and went in the desert, but apostasy could not be tolerated. This new coalition rallied under Umar Ibn Ali, chief of the Raidus tribe.
Umar was neither the wealthiest nor the strongest of the chieftains who rose up to challenge Salman. But he was a pious man leading a notoriously pious tribe. His strict observance of Abtum’s commandments made him the natural choice for their leader. And thus, he was named Caliph, commander of the faithful, by the Desert Fathers.
The religious nature of the conflict sapped Salman’s strength. Many of his allies and subjects refused to fight by his side or even defected to Umar’s army. The Desert Fathers, the only organized order of mages in the Usharid lands, also pledged their full support towards Umar’s cause. Still, Salman was a commander of unmatched skill at the time, and his own warriors were mighty veterans, experienced and ruthless fighters.
The Salmanid Apostasy lasted around 6 years. As able commander the Apostate was, he proved himself unable to defeat the powerful coalition in detail before it could fully mobilize its forces against him. Salman himself died at the end of the fourth year of the war, alongside with most of his army. With the rest of the conflict being spent chasing down the last dregs of his partisans and kin, purging them with grievous prejudice and destroying every last trace of the foreign religion upon the Usharid lands.
Umar himself would not live long to enjoy the prestige and adoration of having had purged the Apostates root and stem, but his firstborn, Jibal would do so spectacularly. Wielding the disparate alliance first into a loose confederation and gradually bringing all the tribes under his wing. The culmination of Jibal’s work came with the conquest of Hijark.
Realizing that in due time, every tribal confederation was prone to splintering, Jibal knew that if his work were to outlive him, the Usharid tribes would need to evolve beyond their current means. They would need institutions and structure. And most importantly, outside threats to keep the tribesmen united. And so, with that in mind, Jibal turned his eyes to the Kingdom of Hijark. A prosperous settled realm that controlled the fertile lands hugging the coastline southern of the Usharid desert.
Provoking the settled realm into war by incessant raiding and harassment of caravans, Jibal gained the outside threat necessary to rally the desert warriors. And so the great Usharid horde stormed south, giving battle to the mercenaries and levies of Hijark and breaking them in seven great battles over the course of three years. And thus, at the dawn of the fourth year of the conflict, Jibal Ibn Umar al-Raidus was declared Sultan, by the jubilant Desert Fathers over the burn ruins of Hijark chief city. And thus the Usharid Sultanate was born.
Jibal spent the next two decades of his life tirelessly working to turn the loose tribal confederation he ruled into a proper, “modern” realm. Work that more often than not involved coopting already existing Hijarki structures and institutions.
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Land Area: 11 Land Fertility: 3 (+4) = 7 Development: 12 (swapped with Magical Reserves): 16 Land Power: 19 (+1) = 20 Naval Power: 13 Economy: 16 Magical Reserves: 16 (swapped with development) : 12 Magical Sophistication: 8 Other:
"Whoso ascends and anoints the carmot throne with the light of truth shall be the rightwise master of the numinous islands, and their will shall be as providence amongst mortalkind."
In ancient bygone times, the Caelrumoste archipelago was controlled by a magically adept species of Naga called the Rashommai, thought to be distant biological relatives to the mainland ancient Ashammai Medusa. Not much is known of their society beyond the accepted hypothesis that they were particularly skilled alchemists, and that culturally they were known for their expertise in ritual magecraft.
Much like the ancient Ashammai who brought ruin upon themselves through forbidden magical experimentation, the Rashommai regime is thought to have been annihilated from backlash resulting due to a fault in an attempt at epic ritual magic. No official records or archaeological remnants exist that suggest such an event occured, and the theory derives entirely from oral tradition and storytelling passed down through hundreds of successive generations.
According to the legends, the Rashommai had devised a ritual which would grant one amongst them with the Will To Power, providence made manifest through the desires and thoughts of the bearer. However, the ritual required at its core a mote of unfettered, elemental truth - which the Naga varyingly either misidentified, corrupted, misused, or were simply unable to ever procure. When they attempted their ritual, the very fabric of creation abjured them from the face of the world as a consequence of their botched ritual, leaving only the lesser species, the minorities and the slaves of the Rashommai regime to inherit the archipelago.
So the stories go.
Over the millennia since, the people of Caelrumoste have generally been disparate and in conflict with one another, precluded from achieving any kind of harmonious unity due to separation by the ocean and the difficulty in traversing it. What few journeys were made in those times were ultimately enterprises of greed and conquest. Each island in the archipelago served as home not only to different species, but different races of each of those species in turn, and each with its own cultures and traditions. The only common theme shared between the disparate peoples of the archipelago was the same legend of the throne of carmot, to be anointed with truth and from which all the islands of Caelrumoste would be ruled.
This single legend, shared by the people of every island, would eventually serve to unite them. On the central island of Apocea, a prospector by the name of Mannet was digging at the peak of Mt. Mandjet, and discovered that buried under just a scant meter of sediment lay the mountain's crown, a cast and molded peak made from the lustrous alchemical metal, carmot. Word and rumor spread like flame, and soon every mand, women, and child on every island knew that the mythical throne of carmot lay upon the island of Apocea.
There came to be a great gathering of the islanders upon Mandjet's crown, which they cleared and cleaned to reveal the true throne atop the mountain. In the radiance of that throne, the sorcerer Tiencamot, heeding the word of the legends of old, plucked a shard of Ammacre straight from his heart. The people atop the crown of the mountain each anointed the Ammacre heartshard with a measure of their lifeblood, which was then offered unto the throne alongside their joint avowals of unity. Presented with an offering of unfettered truth, the carmot throne was thus anointed and Tiencamot did ascend to become the first King of all of Caelrumoste.
So the stories go.
No true written record of Caelrumoste's formation exists in the present day. Accounts, letters, and documents from that time describe King Tiencamot and his rule, along with references to the various tribal authorities of the surrounding islands, but little of it remains undamaged and reliable. Modern historians theorize that Tiencamot may simply have been either a peace-broker or else a conqueror who succeeded in uniting the islands either by means of wealth or wit of force. The legendary Mt. Mandjet has been identified by reference to these same documents, now known as Mt. Mesek, and bears no trace of the alleged carmot throne leading many historians to speculate that the legend of that meeting was exactly that - a legend. A few have even gone so far as to suggest the tale was deliberately fabricated in order to shore up Tiencamot's early rule, justifying the unification and his rule over the archipelago by dint of divine authority.
Since those days, the Kingdom of Caelrumoste has lived through what some might call an unremarkable interlude. Seemingly isolated from the remainder of the world by the ocean and its currents, its troubles were largely internal by nature, disputes arising amongst the island populations - oppressive taxation and crushing poverty, rebellion and famine, plague and ruin. A few of the islands have even suffered cataclysms brought on by the overmining of native Ammacre crystal.
In modern modern times, Caelrumoste had finally developed more effective seafaring methods and improved means of construction, enabling them to build some of their first truly seaworthy vessels. This induced a surge of production amongst the islands as a veritable fleet was created in order to better connect the islands and the people between them, but this fervor ultimately had come too soon and the people had acted too quickly. Seizing opportunity, many of the islands again rebelled, attempting to conquer the smaller realms of Caelrumoste piecemeal through the use of new naval craft. While the loss of life from these wars was minimal, many more people were ultimately displaced or driven to exile by them, and many of their early seafaring craft went into exile with them - giving rise to the constant piracy that has plagued the islands since.
In the last century of Caelrumoste's history, the island had in fact been hampered primarily by pervasive, organized piracy efforts. Attempts to quell the rampant piracy were rendered more difficult due to contemporaneous efforts to reach and chart the ports of the mainland continent, resulting in the loss of an extended portion of Caelrumoste's commercial fleet from inclimate weather and foreign hostility which created confusion both as to the source the pirate raids as well as whether pirates had even been responsible for many of the losses. The first half of the century was spent simply locating and eradicating elements of the pirate threat locally while making initial diplomatic contact with the mainland powers. However, during this same period the archipelago nonetheless became wealthier and highly developed due to the successful efforts of several powerful, mage-sponsored merchant guilds which were able to more easily communicate with each other than had been possible in the past. Following their example, the royal family elected to sponsor the creation of official arcane enclaves upon each of Caelrumoste's islands, where magecraft could be pursued and utilized in the furtherance of Caelrumoste's prosperity.
This proved to be a mistake.
The presence of the royal enclaves and the availability of funding with which court-sponsored could now utilize for various purposes led to some of the first efforts to excavate millenia-old Rashommai ruins, where previously no productive mage had the time or resources necessary to invest in such a prolonged and expensive endeavor. Aided further by their interconnection with one another, the enclaves unearthed ancient arcane secrets which were then widely shared between them. Advanced, sophisticated magical knowledge and theory became widely distributed throughout Caelrumoste, and at the behest of the royal enclaves many small, independent schools of magical study were established throughout the islands with the intention of making essential, basic spellcraft available to the common populace.
While this led to the rapid development of comprehensive magical archives within Caelrumoste along with the publishing of several prominent magical treatises, tomes, and monograms, this period of sponsorship and rapid development within and without the mages enclaves ultimately gave rise to a group of powerful mages who would come to be known as The Adversaries.
The Adversaries were a group of some of the most skilled and powerful mages in Caelrumoste, all of whom held positions of some authority within royal enclaves and who held official positions within the King's court on Apocea. Each also had access to the royal Ammacre reserves, and each possessed a robust, expert knowledge of magecraft. The Adversaries, realizing their unique position and the opportunity it afforded them, began to conspire and scheme with each other in order to usurp the throne of Caelrumoste and assume rule over the land. Although The Adversaries were able to unite with one another under this common goal, they predictably fell apart when each of them in turn decided that they alone should rule. The Adversaries spent years embroiled in secretive shadow-wars with one another, constantly maneuvering themselves and their affairs politically in order to gain an upper-hand in the coming conflict.
It is not known which of The Adversaries made their move first, but when they did the others immediately followed suit. What followed was the thirty-years war, alternatively referred to as the Cursed Days. The conflict began with the King falling ill to a magical disease, and ferocious, bestial summoned entities with the ability to shapeshift massacring and replacing the royal guard. They were immediately discovered by several courtiers who had became magically enthralled to another Adversary and were able to immediately discern their true nature. The palace grounds then collapsed into a massive sinkhole as numerous earth elementals arose and besieged the survivors, and then the corpses all began to reanimate...
In the chaos that followed, The Adversaries each attempted to seize control of Caelrumoste's military apparatus by means of impersonating various members of the now-defunct court's hierarchy, from the king to his personal advisers to his heirs to extended family members. As magical plague, summoned minions, reanimated dead, and mind-controlled servitors spread across the islands, The Adversaries each attempting to locate and eliminate each other while usurping what remained of Caelrumoste's standing army. Generals and commanding officers would receive contradictory orders from the same authorities, and be instructed to simultaneously relieve and to siege the same settlements, or to eliminate or support the same group of arcane assets. When the military finally began to ignore such dispatches, The Adversaries began to control and impersonate what remained of the military hierarchy as well. The royal enclaves were all sieged in turn, left intact but forcing their occupants to flee, starve, or perish. Hundreds of thousands of commoners died as a result of bloody combat between magical servitors or at the hands of paranoid soldiery who did not know who or what to trust. Cities and towns became isolated and mistrustful, militarizing themselves and becoming onto their own city-states in an attempt to stave off the disaster that had befallen the rest of the kingdom.
The conflict between The Adversaries went on seemingly without any possibility for respite for over twenty years. It was not until seven years ago when the conflict finally reached a turning point: One of the Adversaries was finally ran aground by the forces of another, their bases of power and their resources stolen. They determined that if they could not be victorious, they would deny victory to the others. They willingly gave themselves up to the common people and revealed the existence of The Adversaries and their schemes.
Having identified the source of their strife, the people and what remained of the military banded together and in a single coordinated effort, surrounded and either seized or destroyed what remained of the royal Ammacre reserves along with every noteworthy Ammacre mine on record throughout the entire kingdom. They then patiently waited for The Adversaries to run out of Ammacre with which to fuel their arcane rituals and weapons of choice. A scant few years later, the magical horrors that had plagued the land subsided, then vanished. The people organized mage-hunter squads to divine and scry the locations of The Adversaries using crucial intelligence provided by the turncoat, managing to capture, execute or kill several of them before the remainder went into hiding.
The war was not yet over - conflict would persist for several years as the people of Caelrumoste reorganized and recovered, as individual Adversaries came across forgotten Ammacre deposits or contrived methods to steal spare shards. Entire towns would go dark whenever an Adversary managed to scrape together enough Ammacre to mount an attack. The people only redoubled their efforts in response, sending surveyors out into the wild to find and secure every last node and vein of Ammacre throughout the islands - and finally, at some point, The Adversaries were unable to acquire more.
Over the last two years, Caelrumoste has rebuilt and endeavored to track down the remaining Adversaries. A Regent has been informally chosen to preside over the islands as they recover, until such time as a proper chain of succession can be reestablished. The Cursed Times officially came to a close several weeks ago, the one-year anniversary of the last known major attack by an Adversary.
The people of Caelrumoste live in perpetual fear of the return of The Adversaries, many of whom remain at large and have sworn to stop at nothing to conquer the archipelago. In response, a drastic resolution has been reached: The complete removal of all native Ammacre from the country, to the extent it is safe to remove it from the lands without invoking cataclysm, so as to make the land unappealing and adversarial to the presence of not only The Adversaries, but mages in general.
Caelrumoste is presently overseen by a secular Regency, which theoretically wields the full sovereign authority of a ruling monarch. The Regent proper, Irlvu Mountebank, is little more than an overt dictator who rules by wit of force, but who at least nominally acts in the best interest of Caelrumoste as a whole. His authority in practice is derived from a long, thorough, and secure chain of command which can effortlessly replace him in the event of his untimely demise. Despite the tyrannical nature of his position and rule, Irlvu has a considerable degree of popular support amongst the general populace and the regional governors of the archipelago due to his extensive involvement in the securing of Caelrumoste's Ammacre reserves and the capture of several Adversaries. He is something of a household name in Caelrumoste as a result, and very few individuals have the heart to actually refuse any request he might make of them. He is widely known to have spoken as to his distaste for ruling over the archipelago, and excepts to surrender his status as soon as Caelrumoste can achieve a renascent state of legitimacy that can stand on its own without him having to shore itself up.
In practice, a small number of experienced, surviving veterans of the Cursed Days occupy each major city in the archipelago, training new militia, keeping the peace, and acting as direct-proxies-by-correspondence to the Regent proper. However, these veterans are few and far between, spread over far too much space and too few in number to effectuate a cohesive or reliable presence. By and large, Caelrumoste society has split and centralized by island into individual regions, centered upon larger cities. Individual settlements are largely self-governed, with the Regency operating on a policy of 'Don't make us come over there.'
Maying (Human) Humans form a tentative majority between the various islands of the Caelrumoste Archipelago. Their demonym is derived from a derogatory trend that emerged during the early divisive period falling the fall of the Naga Empire; most other species between the islands possessing less externally apparent racial distinction between each other relative to those of Humans, who all possessed varying skin tones and facial features by island. Each separate island race was commonly mistaken as its own species rather than all being Human, a misconception only reinforced by each separate island population of Humans using different languages and possessing different cultures and aesthetics. Once it became common knowledge that each race was in fact part of the same Human species, the archipelago natives looked down upon them as changelings who could change the color of their skin, being best-known for their relatively short lifespans. Modern Maying Humans have since interbred to the extent that most Humans in Caelrumoste possess similar physical traits and characteristics, with reduced racial distinctiveness between individual islands (although these Human races are still notably present and in many cases dominant upon particular islands). Apocean Mayings are noted for their darker, bronze skin coloration, their drawn and narrow facial features, and copper-brown, wavy hair.
Barwhett (Elf) The Barwhett are one of the dominant and only native race of elves to the Caelrumoste archipelago. Having resided on Ganlt, the Easternmost island of the archipelago, the Barwhett elves acclimatized during the divisive period of history after the fall of the Naga Empire to an environment that had fallen into cataclysm - resulting in a lineage of nomadic, ashen-skinned elves known for traveling under cover of dust storms. Unlike many other elven races, their features are inherently spotty, blotchy, and prone to developing sores, and they have shortened overall lifespans as a result of having physiology adapted to living more comfortably in the turbulent and chaotic environment of voidlands. They have a heightened immune response that affords them enhanced resilience to disease, but which also renders them vulnerable to particularly crippling allergic reactions, particularly to 'sweet' foods. Being culturally nomadic and insular, individual families habitually organize themselves into extended clans that move between private lodgings around the archipelago seasonally, and in modern times this has given rise to the caricature of the unhelpfully expeditious merchant elf. Barwhett elves, as an extension of their cultural mobility, often employ themselves as vendors, stall-merchants, and small business owners but tend to move around quickly from place to place, making them frequent targets of blame for crime-waves or deals gone sour. Their insular nature and the specificity of their dietary requirements also makes catering to their needs difficult, and their population suffered the most out of all of the species due to their inability to move freely during the Cursed Times.
Largraun (Dwarf) The Largraun are a race of dwarves native to the Volwerdandt volcanic chain of the Caelrumoste archipelago. They possess uncharacteristically weak cave-adaptation due to the volcanic nature of their islands rendering subterranean living riskier in addition to the high overall content of luminescent mineral Ammacre upon the chain, which they used culturally as a light source for thousands of years. Also due to the turbulent nature of their home environment, they are unusually known (amongst Dwarves) for their coastal settlements. Since ancient times, they have exploited natural lava flows and shifting tides in order to create massive pillars of cast obsidian which they use as aggrandized stilts, upon which they build great towns and cities using fired clay. The Largraun dwarves are culturally known for their art, particularly in the form of their ubiquitous carved-obsidian and Ammacre idols (now considered contraband), and they are particularly held in high-esteem for their cultural practice of glass-working. Theirs was also the first species upon the Caelrumoste archipelago to make peace and establish trade relations with the native Refik seafolk, and consequently the first species to establish a stable mode of seagoing travel between the islands of the archipelago.
Sarmtymske (Dwarf) A race of dwarves native to the Western cluster of the Irrvulnor islands off the coast of Apocea, the Sarmtymske possess a unique adaptation to the darkened, shadow-dominated jungles and ravines of the islands in the form of a thin chemical membrane along the surface of their eyes which responds to different variations of low-light exposure, affording them two separate senses of sight dependent upon the climate of where they reside, being particularly sensitive to the concentration of oxygen and methane in the air. Underground, they possess full cave-adaptation equal to that of deep dwarves, being easily blinded by most light sources. When passing into the high-oxygen and low-methane environment of the Irrvulnor jungle ravines, their eyes secrete a thin chemical barrier that affords them the equivalent of mild cave-adaptation usually seen in Mountain dwarves, possessing greater tolerance for light sources. Unlike most other races of dwarf however, the Sarmtymske 'visual' range does not adapt to variations in light levels over time, and strictly switches only between the two different forms of adaptation, and cannot ever adapt to true above-ground light conditions, making life in well-lit areas particularly or amongst other races difficult for them and vice-versa. In modern times they are known for their fashion sense due to the ubiquity of tinted glasses and face-masks adorned while commuting on the surface, and also for their cultivation of highly biomineralized fungi. Historically, the Irrvulnor jungle ravines have been threatened with flooding due to the invasive machinations of Refik seafolk who would infiltrate the waters and swamps of the ravines to wage open war with the dwarves, and the two races harbor a long-smoldering animosity for each other.
Ambucane (Beastfolk) Thought to be the descendants of conquered and domesticated dragons during the era of the Naga empire, the Ambucane of the Southwestern Pelc islands lived as opportunistic ambush predators who rested in states of torpor for weeks waiting for prey to wander close. The Ambucane are long cold-blooded serpents with six limbs, capable of burrowing in sand, ash, and dirt. They have poor light-based vision, but make up for it with excellent thermal vision, enhanced olfactory nerves, and sensitivity to seismic vibrations. They are more than three and a half meters in length from the tip of their snout to the end of their tail, and pound for pound they are the strongest living beings in Caelrumoste. They habitually lived in centralized dens that serviced a dozen or more Ambucane over an area of a hundred kilometers, built around naturally occurring thermal baths. Ambucane would traditionally consume rocks to help them digest their prey, and upon returning to their den, regurgitate the contents of their stomach as a putrefied morass of fluids into a clay urn which all of the Ambucane would then feed from, relying on the sheer toxicity of their own guts to keep the rancid mess free of any contaminants other than their own. Due to their slow metabolisms, they are extremely long-lived, and there are a few Ambucane of note who have allegedly been alive since the beginning of King Tiencamot's rule (although this is widely decried as fabrication). Ambucane are extremely languid and slothful, and despite possessing unmatched strength can only exhibit it in brief bursts due to their metabolism. They are thought to have been originally enslaved by the Naga empire and used as beasts of burden and as burrowers for excavation, and contemporaneously they form a close second majority behind the native Mayling population in the Caelrumoste archipelago. As a people, they suffered the greatest losses of any species during the Cursed Days, as their inability to move quickly and their tendency to congregate in massive dens made them easy targets for The Adversaries and their schemes. Due to the massive dieoff in their population, Ambucane culture has all but disintegrated and their prior tradition of living together in massive dens has fallen into disfavor. Consequently, modern Ambucane live in diverse conditions and amongst many other species working as burrowers and laborers.
Refik (Seafolk) The Refik are amphibious sea-serpents capable of breathing air, with large, adapted pectoral fins ending in grasping, claw-like extremities near their tips - resembling to a degree the wings of bats. Although the Refik can breath air, they are not able to do so for extended periods of time, and if they spend too long out of the water they can perish due to oxygen toxicity. Originally preying upon the various islanders of Caelrumoste, once fortified coastal settlements began to spring up with neither the Seafolk nor the islanders possessing any reliable means of waging war with each other, they grudgingly began to tolerate each other’s' presence, leading eventually to exchanges of goods and services between each other and culminating in the modern-day presence of Refik coral dens amongst every coastal city and port in Caelrumoste, where they act as shipwrights, fishermen, sea-tenders, sailors, architects, merchants, and more - adopting many of the trappings of civilized life in the process. Although most Caelrumoste Refik are 'civilized,' insofar as such as distinction goes, it is not unheard of for Refik sirens to lure unwary islanders to their doom using their innate ability to mimic the voices of land-dwelling creatures. The Refik are even common sights further inland, where they have been known to grow massive coral dams amidst rivers connecting to the sea, from which they can venture out onto land. They and the Sarmtymske dwarves have a historic hatred for one another due to many perilous wars fought in the crushing darkness of the inland ravine marshelands of the Irrvulnor jungles.
The culture of Caelrumoste has always been diverse and highly disparate due in part to the historical difficulty in traveling between the islands. Many of its species are highly insular and mistrustful, and it is only in more recent times that they have come together as a unified society. Cultural practices, traditions, architecture, the arts, the dominant spoken language, religion, and philosophical trends all vary uniquely between each island in the archipelago. The central island of Apocea, however, has served as a melting pot for each of the island species and their practices over the ages, with a blend of all of them mixed together with accommodation and compromise.
The various species of Caelrumoste are highly polarized, but intermingle and interact with each other on a daily basis to the extent that race riots are unheard of. Intermarriage between the species is possible but extremely rare; amongst the Humanoid groups interspecies couplings involving dwarves results in frequent miscarriages for reasons that evade most physicians, and the unique physiology of Barwhett elves often yields sterile offspring with substantial, crippling deformities that rarely live beyond early infancy. Interspecies unions are publicly viewed as doomed and counterproductive, and so the only instances of species sharing the same living space tends to arise amongst tenements and slums, with families and clans almost universally consisting of a single species. Ghettos and slums, where they occur, are largely multicultural with no distinct species-lines.
The people of Caelrumoste are, generally speaking, learned and well-educated due to the prior widespread implementation of the magical enclaves, which were open to the public in many senses and provided public access to libraries. The prior drive and focus upon magical experimentation and research created a great demand for scribes, language-teachers, and craftmages led to the kingdom creating subsidies and sponsoring the employment of educators who could provide cheap education to the masses on the theory that it might eventually lead to a more intelligent and productive workforce, and the spread of magical industries and additional modern infrastructure also encouraged the spread of basic literacy amongst the remaining population. As many as two in five people throughout the islands are literate, capable of reading and writing with various levels of proficiency in various languages. There are also a large number of skilled laborers with specialized, trained skills, despite the losses brought on during the Cursed Days. The Cursed Days themselves did not result in a significant downturn in educational practices or inspire much in the way of intellectualism due to the widespread implementation of formally written contracts and contractual relationships, but did give rise to a significant fear and hatred for mages and magic in general, to the extent that all mages must wear armbands in public and can be expected to be thrown out of most public establishments, though there have been few lynches...so far.
The most marked distinction in the arrangement of the lands is the diversification of crop, particularly those of common cereals as the various species all possess different dietary requirements and drastically different traditional preferences which also require different climates altogether. Local greenhouses are common throughout Apocea, and most towns and cities host public vivariums where private rooms can be rented for the growth of personal gardens according to various conditions. Outside of these enclosed environments farming and agriculture is defined largely by latitude and proximity to the coastline in order to accommodate the approximate requirements for certain plant species, but after the development of reliable sea-travel and the rapid diversification of the central island Apocea became akin to a breadcasket, dependent at least partly upon internal trade from the other islands to maintain its supply of exotic foodstuffs and cuisine. Due to this very diversity and the difficulty in growing certain crop, the frequent famines that occurred during The Cursed Days were greatly exacerbated, with Barwhett elves and the Ambucane perishing in droves due to mass starvation in the absence of specialized crops and adequate sources of meat. Even in the wake of the Cursed Days, the availability of most foods, even common cereals, is scarce and famine is frequent although fewer die from it. This has consequentially resulted in the uprooting and exodus of many families and clans from Apocea back to their native islands, seeking more promising climates for their preferred crop. It has also resulted in extreme instances of culinary experimentation and fraud, with street vendors serving 'mystery broth' promised to be viable for every species.
The arts have suffered greatly as a result of the Cursed Days, particularly amongst the Largraun and Sarmtymske dwarven populations who would frequently use Ammacre crystals in their crafts. Culturally all of the islands took a great shine to the traditional obsidian and gemstone totems made by the Largraun and the fashion of the Sarmtymske, but these very same items became known as the tools and items of mages, who found it popular to make artifacts and arcane devices out of many of the same. More than one Adversary is even suspected of having temporarily regained power through use of stockpiled religious idols with embedded Ammacre gems. Materials craftwork has suffered greatly as a result, and in its marked absence there has been a substantial upswing in the prominence of tavern and street music, poetry, and public theater. Many other traditional artforms such as pottery, sculpting, painting, and more have declined notably.
The religions of the Caelrumoste islands are all widely accepted as being loose analogues of each other, all generally describing in broad strokes the same essential story. In the beginning, there was but the Ocean and the Sky. They loved each other but could not ever touch. In order to be with each other, the Sky conjured great and fierce winds while the Ocean danced and swayed to create tides, and between them created a great vortex made of sea and sky. The Sky cast Divine Light down from the heavens through the vortex and seeded the Ocean with life. In time, the Ocean swelled and burst, a great mass arising from its form and bursting open with flame and power, giving birth to chaos. The fires scattered across the world to become the spark of life within all beings and creatures, but the scars of the Ocean's birthing remained in the form of the Numinous Islands - Caelrumoste, literally translated to mean 'Cradle of Fugue' in the ancient tongue. Somewhere upon the islands, there remains the site where the Divine Light of the Heavens touched the earth, where chaos was conceived, known as the Carmot Throne, and it is there where the union of the Sea, the Sky, and Chaos itself converge and may be evoked. The figures of this mythical story vary in name, actions, character, and nature, as do the details of the story itself, but most parties would be able to agree on this vague summary. Anything more concrete or detailed invariably spawns diatribes, death threats, melodramatic monologues, accusations of blasphemy, and threats of holy war.
Curiously, during The Cursed Days, the Adversaries all made a point of eliminating all religious temples, shrines, and palces of worship dedicated to the varying island religions. Neither the turncoat nor the few captured Adversaries revealed why, even under intensive interrogation, and the topic is a matter of some speculation and rumor amongst the masses. Religious artifacts and relics are rare due to their frequent destruction during The Cursed Days, with what little remained either being confiscated by the Regency for safe keeping, destroyed under suspicion of use in magecraft, smuggled out of the country, or else kept in private collections. Such valuable antiques are quite literally priceless as a result, at least within the Caelrumoste archipelago. Despite the crippling of each official religious institution amongst the islands, their organizations have been making a strong comeback due to their oral traditions and their frequent use in poetry and theater in the newly burgeoning verbal artistic renascence.
The architecture featured in Apocea is largely schizophrenic, with dwellings and places of business built according to particular traditional aesthetics, renovated and refurbished dozens of times, and then either merged with or separated from additional structures over time. However, as a trend, the practical and hardy use of fired-clay favored by the Largraun dwarves has proven itself reliable over the ages, the thermal baths of the Ambucane are commonplace, and the presence of glass-covered greenhouses and vivariums are nearly omnipresent. Contemporary Apocean architecture therefore tends to consist predominantly of structures with foundations and inner walls of fired clay, subsequently covered with temporary exterior walls and coverings or with more permanent if out-of-place restructed segments. Most buildings make use of wood-and-thatch solid windows, but traditionally each individual dwelling features at least one glass window-sill, where it is not uncommon for people to hang and advertise marks of their profession, religion, affiliation, and gruesome threats towards potential thieves. Waterways, aqueducts, and public baths are commonplace in order to cater to both the Ambucane and Refik populations, as are foot-and-carriage bridges along with ferries.
Land Area: 10 (13-3) Land Fertility: 7 (3+4) (Swapped with Magical Sophistication) Development: 12 (7+5) Land Power: 3 (10-7) Naval Power: 8 (2+6) Economy: 14 Magical Reserves: 14 Magical Sophistication: 18 (Swapped with Land Fertility)
Cthonic Virtue - (This trait is entirely beneficial) The people of Caelrumoste went far, far out of their way to dowse for and identify every single last noteworthy source of naive Ammacre across the entire archipelago, from the depths of the Irrvulnor jungle caverns to the heights of Apocea's mountains. Advanced dowsing methods and the desperate, frenzied pursuit of new studies in scrying and divination have allowed for the reliable, accurate, and precise location of even the most secluded and secretive of Ammacre troves.
Dormant Infrastructure Caelrumoste had been in the middle of an early renaissance when The Cursed Days came. The Adversaries went out of their way to avoid damaging the infrastructure present in Caelrumoste, but very simply too many people responsible for managing and operating most of it were killed or died of related causes. What remains of Caelrumoste's development has been left to gently and silently rot in the aftermath of the war. The infrastructure is decayed and esoteric, but with sufficient resources, investment, and training of the population, most of it could be readily refurbished and put back to use to tremendous potential effect. However, most of it also exists on top of optimal sites and real estate, meaning that in many instances it will either have to be entirely demolished and cleared away if it cannot be restored or if the site needs to be repurposed.
Divided but Unconquered Caelrumoste presently has what would most politely be referred to as an interim government which in reality is little more than a large band of thugs with delusions of morality. Most of the archipelago is split into self-governing regions of varying efficacy and interconnectedness. There is no centralized authority of note, and communication and travel between regions is difficult for most. However, the people are now largely unified in purpose and sentiment following The Cursed Days, joined together through their trials and hardships where before there was great resentment and animosity. Some old wounds remain, but the people will not be welcoming any invaders as liberators anytime soon, and generally it is easy to rally them together for a greater purpose or enterprise.
Male Varangians were expected to be perfect soldiers the moment they were born while female Varangians were expect to become strong healthy mothers and capable athletes. Babies that were born defective or deemed unfit by the elder judge would be demoted to become a Thenn. Rarely is a baby put to death but only in the most extreme cases.
You are hereby required to have _someone_ shout "THIS. IS. VAERHEIM." and kick someone down a well at some point in this RP.
The most iconic weapon of the Varangian Bannermen is the Long Axe, a two handed polearm that has a large axehead that cleaves through armor.
It should be noted that if you're referring to something like the dane axe, they were actually shockingly light and fast weapons - if you're referring to something like the big heavy two handed bearded axes they eventually supplanted, a smaller wedge can certainly drive through maille or other armor. The dane axe itself has more of a cutting motion and a rather thin blade. Armor is defeated by either going extremely fast, or by concentrating a large force in a small area - something like the dane axe, while not quite as bad as a sword as far as dispersing the power of its blow along a wide area, will still fall short of a two handed spear thrust, an arrow from a powerful bow, or a heavier narrower axe blade.
Barring those little niggles, it looks good! Approved!
Now now, make sure to show us what you mean by halfbloods, don't leave out any details - we've gotta know exactly how they get here! If you don't mind though, a little elaboration on your exact vision of elves and half elves would be appreciated. We all have different images in our mind if someone says elf.
The Empire's government was initially a form of military junta
As for your traits, only Splendid Isolation really fits. Iron Walls and Always faithful simply reflect your rolls - you can keep them if you wish, but a very powerful navy and a small army are already shown in your rolls and in the army/navy sections.
Elaborate on how many Geradamas there are if you don't mind. Sorcerers in this setting are exceptionally rare (as in... 1 in a million or even fewer), and while you can explain having a sorcerer race for part of your magical sophistication for sure, bear in mind that creating a sorcerer race is the goal that numerous great empires tried and utterly destroyed themselves attempting to do. The issue mostly subsides if they are for some reason unable to use crystal - that's where the real power of our sorcerers is shown, but that also negates a lot of... well, their utility beyond normal mages who must take preparations to do magic.
One other thing -
Gear created by the Nucaali are typically modified to present a space to house a crystal for augmenting the gear with magical capabilities.
Pros: The gear can have certain effects in combat or other realms of society where significant impact can be had in more effective ways.
Cons: If the stone is overused, it can explode and have a negative impact on the wielder.
Please elaborate what kind of capabilities the gear can possess. Otherwise, crystal is consumed when it is used for things - you can have it overload if you wish, but it will steadily deplete and eventually fade away as used, necessitating replacement. Unless I'm misunderstanding and this is a different material.
Otherwise looks very interesting and I'm eager to see what they do! Fix those issues or please talk to me to see what we can do, and it's good!
I see you have cannons on one of your ship types. Please remove - this is probably an oversight, but remember - I don't want gunpowder in this at the moment to avoid the arms race/dick measuring contest that follows.
Just bear in mind a few of the changes we've made in discussions - your eastern border is fairly good land and a fair number of Surabhi are there - but it is quite mountainous, thus difficult to traverse~
Quavaraz, alternatively referred as Aurelia, a huge land mostly dominated by savannas and magically hazardous deserts.
To clarify - is your nation largely desert specifically because of the calamity in the past, or did that simply turn central asia into the Sahara? I'm not entirely sure which. I put mountains where they were with the understanding that the desert was largely natural.
Otherwise it looks great, approved once we clear the above up.
I love this too! My only caveat is not to get carried away with scrying the future and other magical stuff. Not to say it can't be impressive - or that I think you will get carried away for that matter - merely a reminder.
Abandoning the proper worship of Abtum for the faith of Ishareth and going as far as declaring that he would spread his “True Faith” to all the corners of the Usharid realm.
Meet me in my office, we have many things to discuss~
What you have so far looks great! Please feel free to message me at any time to work on military/traits and anything else.
You appear to be lacking info on your military - while this isn't a game of EU4, obviously military action will have some role, so while you don't need to go super into detail, a basic summary is useful.
Otherwise... nothing sticks out to me as needing revision. Looks good!
Species: While the overwhelming majority of the Kera-Bijani are regular humans, there do exist a large majority of oddities within the outlying regions of the shahdom. There are places where magic is strong, and the climate harsh, so much so that the settlers there have begun to change form to adapt. Those living in the plateaus have become short and thin, so much so that an adult of the mountain people is about the size of a child in the cities. On the other end of the spectrum, those that settled in the steppes have grown into giants, easily reaching three and a half meters, and have gained the ability to subsist on the grass itself. All three races identify strongly as human.
Culture: The Kera-Bijani faith revolves around five gods, they being Wise Fire, Wise Water, Wise Air, Wise Wood, and Wise Metal. Originally, the five kept supreme control over the universe, and the humans lived in paradise. The gods created a human, who was in all ways virtuous, and they, proud of their work, created a second. The second, however, was envious of the love the first shared with the gods, and sought to disturb their sacred relationship. That second human worked day and night, creating a weapon to destroy the universe, which upon creation he named dishonesty. The moment he spoke the first lie, from his mouth sprang five deities of evil, Corrupt Fire, Corrupt Water, Corrupt Wood, Corrupt Air, and Corrupt Metal.
The good gods found themselves outnumbered. There are five deities protecting nature, but six, five plus the evil human, trying to destroy it. So from their minds came a prophecy, telling of a shah who will one day deify himself by leading a life of maximum purity. When that day comes, each good god will slay his evil counterpart, and take supreme control over the universe again, with a sixth and most supreme member within their ranks.
It is under this faith that the three peoples of Kera-Bijan stand behind, it bringing each other together and unifying them against enemy forces. The lives of every subject, barring the least pious ones, revolve around adhering to the texts written by the gods themselves, the first human, and the many philosopher-shahs from eons past. The texts speak highly of a purity of the self, as well as a harmonious relationship with nature and the five pure forms, and to manipulate nature in any way is considered an affront to the purity of the relevant form. People are encouraged to live simply, to honor others, and to be forever honest.
Magic, too, is considered sacred, and is viewed as the will of the gods upon earth. Temples prominently feature magic crystals in their sacrifice, feeding it to fire, sprinkling it in lakes and on the earth, and scattering its fine powder into the very air. Some consider the use of magic the only pure way to manipulate the environment, while others claim that to use it is sacrilege in itself. The most recent shahs, however, tend to lean towards the former side, and thus the latter side has chosen to be silent as of late.
History: There was once a time when the city people were also many infighting tribes, distrustful of both the mountain people and the steppe people. That was nearly two thousand years ago, and a time no Kera-Bijani looks upon with much respect. From this soup of diffusion and war came a legendary figure, Demes Kehmeyid, who the priests said from birth was destined. He expanded both his dynasty and his land through genius military tactic and even more genius diplomacy. When he conquered the land held by an enemy tribe, he declared its chief his own brother, and forced their family to take on the Kehmeyid name. Through this, he fostered brotherhood within all of the chiefdoms, and declared himself the first shah of the Kera-Bijan desert. He was assassinated but five months into his rule, and replaced with one of the conquered chiefs, but the dynasty survived.
It was the second shah's third son, Vedad Kehmeyid, who expanded his territory to include the steppe and mountain people. In long ages past, during early days before the empire, the steppe and mountain peoples were created by the fallout of magic chiefs wielded against each other. They had ravaged the human settlements, but Vedad dared enter their lands with nobody by his side but priests. It was through his strong faith and charisma that many clans joined his cause, following proselytization and integration of their cultures. Those who didn't join the shahdom were violently subject to genocide, the remaining ones loyal to both faith and shah.
It was following two hundred years of stability that the northern peoples, led by the race-purist separatist Satrap Qaro, defied Shah Bandaves and rebelled. Qaro launched brutal genocides against the steppe and mountain people living in his and his allies' satrapies, claiming to want to restore the pure human race. Those few who survived escaped southwards into Kera-Bijani land, as armies serving under the shah advanced northward to reintegrate the revolting satrapies. He and the next four shahs would die over the course of thirty years in combat against the new realm of Qaroitn.
Eventually, the dust settled, and while skirmishes and raids still exist along the borderlands of the two rival nations, a relative peace has established itself, in no small part due to war exhaustion on both ends. The shahbanu finally completed the task of establishing a land trade route to Surabhumi, and sent them eastward on a voyage of exploration and trading. Twenty long years passed, and within that time the shahbanu that sent the voyage was assassinated and replaced, before the caravans returned. It was laden with goods and stories, nearly all wondrous and in admiration of the subcontinental world. With the exotic trade goods they brought back, the shahdom entered another two centuries of relative peace and isolation.
This ended with the disastrous reign of Shah Nafolosh. Manipulated by his closest satraps, he led himself to believe that he had become the One Who Brings Harmony, savior of all the faith. Armed with his zeal, he declared war upon the entire western continent, nearly destroying the empire in the process. The armies of both the shah and his enemies razed countless hides of land, both within Kera-Bijan and on foreign ground. His brother and heir, Koudad, seeing the imminent doom of their way of life should this hopeless war continue, finally made the choice to have his elder brother assassinated, along with much of the court. In an act still remembered in humiliation, he called off his brother's wars and surrendered.
The current Shah Koudad is at the end of his tether, following sixty long years of stable rule. However, he is dying, and his succession is unclear. It looks as if civil war is inevitable, between his granddaughter, the young Estazar, and her many cousins of the Kehmeyid line.
Land Area: 16 (-2) Land Fertility: 7 (+4) Development: 5 (+3) Land Power: 14 (-3) Naval Power: 1 (-2) Economy: 13 (+3) Magical Reserves: 14 (-3) Magical Sophistication: 15 (+5)
Traits Society of Purity: The Kera-Bijani people find that the purity of the body is the highest state of being one may strive to be. They shun intoxicants, such as alcohol and drugs, so as not to corrupt their own bodies and invite evil to fester within. The society strongly looks down upon both excessive gluttony or excessive temperance, and the food is never inflicted with preservatives. Purity of the body is only as strong as purity of the mind, and thus the Kera-Bijani reinforce their purity of mind through good works. They dare not speak dishonesty for fear of weakening the integrity of the universe, and treat their neighbors with respect and good spirit. Most importantly, they keep their environment clean, minimizing waste within the things they use and caring for the living things, for it is they who hold up the five gods.
Might and Magic: Although the technology sector of the Kera-Bijani world flounders, its magical world flourishes. Ley lines stretch across the nation, allowing instant contact between the shah and his satraps as far away as the steppes and as high up as the tallest plateaus. Water, scarce on the surface, is willed up from deep reserves where other peoples would have to drill for it, seeping through the ground upwards to where crops may access it. It is because of this power that the shahdom is still has voice in the world, and its neighbors would do well to listen.
Brotherhood Among Humanity: In many respects, the life of the city people and that of the steppe and mountain peoples are vastly different. The city people are content to build, develop, and trade with foreign species and races. They are proud of their communities, and live social lives. The other two are anything but. The steppe peoples have a long history of conflict with their neighbors, often raiding over the borders with the intent of killing the non-humans. They do not tend to build anything larger than a yurt, and live nomadic clan-oriented lifestyles. The mountain people are even more hostile to outsiders, living either alone or in small family units. They, unlike the herbivorous steppe people, are strictly carnivorous, and raise great herds of mountain goats to eat and trade with the city people. The city people view the mountain people and the steppe people as brothers, and the feeling is mutual, but the mountain people and the steppe people each regard the other as something alien, and thus tend towards animosity regarding one another.