Finally done with the Dead God's Church! Sorry, it's a bit long, I got a touch carried away. But I think it came out very well!

@Akrasia Sheet is approved.

<TBD>


Knight's Republic


Human
Elven
Pony (Equestrian, Unicorn, Pegasi)
Griffon
Beast-folk


11 Million

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Neveau d'Epiune or The Plane of the Horse is a land of great verdant fields, dramatic mountain ranges, wide gently flowing rivers, and great waterfalls. It has immense rolling deserts, and rolling dark seas. Its skies are blue, and filled with any manner of noble and ignoble beast. And most striking of all: it was inhabited before the opening of the rifts.

The whole of the world that the rift-walkers stepped into was much like that which they had left to escape cataclysm, were it not for the talking beasts.

The previous inhabitants referred to the world by a number of names. They had established societies and politics, all of which were disturbed and changed forever when the new inhabitants arrived.


Prior to the cataclysm, the principalities of Machauex were relatively small. Their ancestral lands, as promising and vibrant as they were sundered by political feuding and the movement of dynastic politics. No single entity ruled the entire region permanently for any length of time before one way or another the Comtes, Marquis, and Dukes would invariably break it apart in the pursuit of personal glory and filial satisfaction. What arose from Machauex were kingdoms renowned for their knights and strength of their men at arms. The imposition of feudalism and serfdom made all the more rigorous by the centuries long warring states period that had persisted since the ancestral empire of the realm retreated and dissolved.

When the Cataclysm arose over the world, the princes of Machauex had just begun to be again unified under the wizard King Gourard l'Mainx, who had managed to assemble around him a court of diligent ministers and priests of the Three Fold God. Gourard l'Mainx had begun a system of reform in his principality to turn over the old authorities of the knights that continually propelled the realm into further war by bringing them centrally to court and occupying their jealous time in other pursuits. But the tearing apart of the world and the opening of the great Rift Gates threw the king, and much of the people in world's beyond to seek respite and shelter from what foul hell was being visited upon their home. For his efforts thus, and misfortune to have to throw his people beyond the known world he became known by two names, The King of Misfortune or The King In Two Places. Gourard would not survive the travel between the universes, and would thus be trapped forever in limbo between the two worlds. His son, Dagdeux l'Mainx would pick up the pieces.

Stepping beyond the gates the people of Machauex would be greeted by a world familiar, but all the more stranger than their own. Deposited upon a great empty island, they would go half a decade without learning of the world beyond their shores as they set upon building their new home. What they built would be the now sepulcher ruined yet holy city of Isle d'Gourard, a site of pilgrimage to their primordial gate in the centuries to follow to recite poetry dedicated to the homes they had been cast out from, and of the glories and conquests their heroes will surely have in resettling the castles and ravines of their ancestors. But until then, a city needed to be built.

The island they found was well stocked, at least for the initial duties. The ministers of Gourard confided in Dagdeux that they believed there would not be enough supplies to feed the entirety of the people as-was for three years. While the island could be parceled out, farm lands set aside and timber lands cleared they did not have the seed to set about in agriculture. The forage on the island may not last a year, the grass not much longer than the year after, before they are reduced to starving on the crumbs of wheat, barley, and livestock they had before succumbing to cannibalism. Dagdeux wisely took the warnings serious, and called a parlement of the surviving nobles and of significant persons to charter a plan. The deliberations took place in the shelter of Dagdeux, who was put up in a cave high up over the great rift, now dead and ashen. There they dined together, drank together, and deliberated for forty days and forty nights. At one point in frustration, when it seemed the egos of the nobility would get the worst of them he called off all rations, save for breakfast and rain water that if this is how the nobility intended to behave he would sentence all the survivors to eat and drink this way until they all died, or the situation stabilized. A faction of nobles sought to call his bluff, and entered into a game of stamina and tolerance with him that last near twenty days of the proceedings; at the end five died of ill-health, chief among them the leader of the anti-Dagdeux faction the Comte D'Aoir Lacel Ijon. This satisfied the rebel faction, and they complied and even swore themselves to service at level of peasant if it meant they might finally eat.

What came out of the cave was known as the Charter of Caves, and outlined the settling plan and the development of their future as far ahead as man could see. It outlined a strict duty of labor, and that from this moment until the future there was full abandonment of noble privileged. For the first year, the people were permitted a diet of only the fish caught off the shore of the island, and a rationing of the cooked supplies that had followed them through the gate. Through that year, there would be consumption of farmed grain, and would be merely recycled into the next year's seed crop. Theft of stores would be punishable by death, and save for the insects of the earth and of the trees every man and woman would be permitted two meals, save for pregnancy where the woman would be fed thrice. Families would be expected to raise only two children into adult hood, exceptions could be pleaded to Dagdeux and his court, but any birth of additional children when there were two already surviving would be killed, or the mother forced to abort. The forests would be strictly managed, no private quarters would be observed, the people must bivouac in the caves and the wood farmed from the forests would be put into ship building. The demands and the laws went on, but they were horrifying. But stricken in their own way by agony, to challenge the sword of the king Dageux was more terrifying than facing up to the gods and they were followed.

The years to come were hard and terrifying. There was no pleasure trapped in their desert of the island but the land was tamed to the will of man and the farms expanded. Instead of wood, the people made huts from mud and rock, strapped together with moss. They began to resemble wild men, naked except for their skirts of grass and wool. As they too spread out over the island and developed it the true scope of the island's resources became known and the Charter of Caves could be relaxed and reconsidered as before the court Dagdeux was presented with the signs of plentiful flax and metals and fine wild animals. And while things were terrible and trying, the people survived even though there was not a day without bodies to be fed to the birds in terrible, rank burial to the sky. A small rocky butte off the coast became known as the island of crows, as the birds flew so thick over it in waiting of bodies it was cloaked in black and screamed all day and night.

On the fifth year a great sigh visited upon the exiled islanders and it terrified and hypnotized the people. Flying high in the sky above them a winged horse, a pegasi as orange as fire circled about them seeming to observe the inhabitants of what it must have thought was a once emptied island. Many stepped out to gaze at its shimmering wings as it flew about the island, as many cowered in their shelters in fear of it. It's visit was only brief, and as suddenly as it had appeared it disappeared into the sunset. Dagdeux and his ministers were summoned by the people for guidance, and they could not answer. The week after it appeared again, guiding several more who appeared clad in barding. They persisted only for a while, and also disappeared before those angered at them came with their spears and bows directed up at them. Puzzled by their appearance Dagdeux took to the mountains at the island's heart to meditate and seek his father's distant spirit and wisdom in the either between the worlds. There he was spotted by a lime-green pegasi who landed tentatively near him, keeping a distance, it watched the strange visitor in intelligent eyes and pulled back away from him if he drew too close. On the ground it was that Dagdeux noticed the creature was small for the all familiar horse of his people, just larger than a small dog. He spoke to it, and he found it recognized language, but did not recognize the language Dagdeux spoke. In a fury of emotion, he rose to demand of it if it understood, where it was they were, and what the plan of the Three Fold God was. The sudden outburst frightened the creature, and it retreated high into the peaks, but Dagdeux persisted in his efforts and made to encamp in the mountains until it returned.

And return it would. Night by night it would come to Dagdeux's camp and listen to him as he spoke slowly to establish a rapport. He told the being the names of nature around him, the name of himself and the names of man and elf. The people worried, because for months their king remained in isolation on the mountain. At the end of three months, the pegasi's eyes seemed to light on an idea, and without a word it took flight, and flew out over the island to whence it came. Having the impression that his efforts were over, the king left the mountains and returned to his people and informed them as to what happened.

It would not be another several months that the flying horse would be sighted. In the mean time it began to be suspected that the creature and its kin were of no harm and talk began that they were in the realm of the Three Fold God, and that the creature they witnessed was, or related to the stead that pulled her chariot: Eponeux. Whether it was the whole race, or any one of the four that they had seen did not matter. They began to call the name Eponeux in song at night, and ritual returned to the island as joy did. Idle men and craftsmen began to carve icons of winged horses in the soft stones they found and they were taken as personal idols. A proposal to carve for Dagdeux a large statue of a horse was made, until he reminded them they still had yet to survive, the harvests were still insubstantial, winter still claimed many lives and it would not be wise to go into such things until the first houses could be built and the matter was settled. But the people called him de l'Eponeux; Dagdeux de l'Eponeux l'Mainx.

When the Pegasi returned, the people were much left aggressive towards it. On its back it carried a satchel. And above the people it cried, “Day-doo! Day-doo! No harm! Day-doo, I, go!”

The spectacle was taken as a sign, and those who were near to the cave of Dagdeux rushed to watch the strange beast land and stand before the king, and with an agile twitch of its head produce for the king a long cotton sheet, deftly embroidered to cover his naked form, otherwise clad in rough linens like a primitive man from the oldest of times and bid him to ride on its back. And with a flury of the winds, the pegasi with strength surprising everyone there took off into the air and stole away the king before the eyes of many.

Dagdeux's journey over the sea took him out over vast dark oceans, not empty of life, and clutching dear to life onto the main of the horse he looked down at the seas and saw the teeming life, the whales and great shoals of fish the size of cities and all the schools of marine life he had not reference for. And as they went he saw the ships, the great wooden cogs and galleons of kingdoms unknown that to his notice were crewed by equines and other strange beasts that resembled animals in their form. With the speed of the wind in his ears, they passed over to land, where the coasts were cut by delicate and idyllic roads, there were limitless orchards and farms. Small towns with caravans passing between them, and the many great dramatic sights of the land to the mountains at the country's interior, where he was delivered to a palace in the mountains, and deposited before – and he could have no been so surprised – a court of unicorns.

With they in their palatial uniforms, and imperial armors, and he in his rags before them he was subjected to terse interviews, a clarifying of words more than what the green one had brought. He was stolen away from his people again for a month on a month, and then months until the snows began falling. They exchanged their words until an understanding could be had, and he was sent home on a great chariot, with supplies of food; oats and barley, apples and pears, so much cloth the chariot was a shooting star in even mid day. He had alcohol and water, tools and instruments. And he came back home with assurances of their survival and he landed with fanfare and questions and most important of all: knowledge of the world beyond and alliances with the inhabitants.

Dagdeux had been delivered to the Court of Afternoons, the seat of the Mayflower dynasty, the local royal house that rules the Central Maritimes. They were not hostile benefactors, and learning of the mystery on the uninhabited islands in their waters peaked their interest. The court promised the newcomers to their realm survival and prosperity into perpetuity so long as they declared their loyalty to them, and Dagdeux seeking for such survival agreed.

As the relationship with the mainland deepened, the island developed. Soon it was able to develop to exchange, and the metals of the island were brought forth and forged for their benefactors. A word arose to describe them, the Equinites of which they drew distinction between three: the Equine, the Pegasi, and the Unicorn. Under the tutelage of the Equinites, the Isle d'Gourard became a prosperous settlement, visited by merchants of the mainland. The people of it rarely leaving. Long after Dagdeux died it was believed that the rifts would open and they would simply walk home. But the time never came. Dagdeux's sons, of the family l'Mainx became known as the L'Mainx D'Isle family, and they ruled the island with the parlement of the former nobles, though as the years went on the members of the parlement changed as the old noble distinctions became unfamiliar.

It was however in the twilight of the Mayflower Dynasty that the men of the island would make themselves known at large. When peace fell in the realm and war came upon their shores in what became referred to as the War of the Twilight Crowns the men of the island took to the high seas in piracy and raiding for their benefactors until they slipped entirely from the scene. To the ancient nobles of the island, swashbuckling on the high seas became their own avenue to reclaim their heritage as Nobles of the Sword and they took out their fathers' swords and went to war once more, but upon galleon and caravel.

The centrality of the L'Mainx D'Isle family would itself fade in this era as noble families took to the sea and expanded their activities from simple petty raiding of rival ships and navies, to full scale war and they mounted an invasion of the mainland in their own way and their own adventurism. These pirate kingdoms recruited their forces from any number of places, from displaced levees of defeated noble-equines, or griffon and beast mercenaries from beyond. But their settlement allowed for the race of man and elf to spread out over the region, into the various “pirate kingdoms” that emerged on the mainland. But for them, the Isle d'Gourard was a special, spiritual place to them and every other year the nobles and their retainers would return to the parlemen at the rift gate, and from their exercise a form of unity across the seas and lands.

The dark age wrought by the dissolution of the Mayflower dynasty would only last short of a hundred years. During this time the complete loss of political unity on the mainland would serve as more an opportunity for the foreigners whose colonies expanded and formed their own strong political entities all the same. In this time the wisest storytellers and troubadours began to sing warnings of a return to the old ways. But the years of survival and influence of the Mayflowers had eroded and changed the barbarous spirit of the Machaoir. Dynastic power flowed much more civil, there were new heights of development, not least of all: that the minor nobility that came to inhabit these new lands of Nouveillie Machauex developed a taste much more aligned with labor.

And while the the old martial spirit never fully dissolved, still persisting in dueling societies, sport, and adventurism the activities of the nobles turned more to the development of one's gardens. Here they deployed their equine surfs to cultivating the finest of orchards and fields, to fill the table with the best food that can be prepared. What war there was was sparse and small, momentary settling of conflict not resolved by the parlement. The weight of humanoid society shifted from the Isle d'Gourard and to the mainland, and besides ritual purposes the island became sparsely populated by man; given over to only a few farming villages and their chateaus. This was the 278th year.

The political climate would shift again however, when the Duke d'Maretime went to war against the Marguis d'Doir, Jacque Darcan Simlioux. Marquis Simlioux had been elected in the year 352 of their arrival to lead the parlement and opened preceding with what he declared was a matter of most enlightened significance. Declaring that all species of Equinites were equal to that of man, and deserving of their own noble liberty in the realms that the body move to illegalize what had been since the fall of the Mayflowers a system of racial serfdom, where Equinites – and especially rival Equinites – were pressed permanently into a status equal to peasant across the realm, and denied privileges to property due to it. The Duke d'Maretime, Simon Riclou took offense to the proposal, claiming it offended his honor and standing and lead a spirited but ultimately failed attempt to block the proposal. When his faction was inevitably force out, he returned home and sought to over turn the decision by force and overturn what he considered “a heretical sect in the aristocracy” and immediately invaded the lands of Jacque.

The war was violent and bloody, and had not been seen in the lands since the dark ages after the Mayflowers. But in over seventy years of war, the forces of Simon Riclou were resoundingly defeated and for his victory the grandson of Jacque Darcan Simlioux, Charles “the Great” Simlioux was elected the first king of the Machaoir and the Equinites. The reign of Charles was marked by a great shift in social reform where the ranks of the people were shortened and remodeled. Titles of nobility of merit were enacted, granted a chance for upward mobility of anyone of any race of Equinite or Humanoid. The races of Griffon and Beast-folk were still however discriminated and tinged with a reputation of support for the Maretimites.

The liberal spirit of Charles reforms would not last for long however, and during the reign of Charles II the allocation of nobility by merit became much more a matter of cash money. Suddenly considerable rank could be gained by bringing money into the coffers and an era of raiding and piracy returned to the region. While Nouveillie Machauex was itself not raided by itself, the actions of crown sanctioned pirates earned the disrespect and ire of many of the kingdom's neighbors and war soon began again with the era of the Anti-Pirate Wars. Nouveillie Machauex would have its losses in one part of the world and its victories in another. In contemporary histories it is not regarded as a particularly advantageous period for the people politically. Any gains made in one front was lost in another. They were not wars centrally fought, and were ultimately lost as such with much censure. In the end, Charles II died. The cause of his death was highly suspected to be a curse or act of black magic from within his own castle.

The Pirate Wars would come to end as titles of merit no longer were issued. By Charles II's death the title of king was also not looked upon fondly and political prestige shifted again to the eternal parlement. While the office of the king still existed, it was reduced in its stature and forced to answer to the noble parlement. The chief factions that arose in the parlement in the post-war period was that of the Sword and that of the Purse. All members of the parlement were recognized as being knights of the realm at minimum, and would even routinely enlarge to encompass more. The factions of the parelement would even enlarge it in a bid to attract more Knights of the Purse or Knights of the Sword. The balance of power in the royal legislature was never permanently satisfied by such reform.

In the end, balance in the parelement would not be disturbed from its own games, but from outside the expected realm of politics. In the 400th year parelement member and minor legislature Honorable Sundown Horizon, a unicorn from the Commune Cille in the county Maretime was performing idle experiments when he described the functions of heat on a fluid, in particular mercury. In the end he wrote that a rise in heat was proportional to the volume of the liquid mercury in a vessel. The writing was submitted to colleagues at his local salon and forgotten about. But from the salon the experimental device would be passed around and in the 416 would find itself in the hands of brewers and winemakers the realm over that found it helped them perform a much more consistent work at their craft, and not only that but perfected the quality of their beer and wine. Brewing and winemaking in Nouveillie Machauex experienced a Renaissance and the streets of the realm were flooded with high quality drink. Wine houses and public houses opened all throughout cities and the local grain and the markets almost collapsed as the price of drink on the streets reached hitherto unknown lows and the prices of grains and fruits skyrocketed as they were purchased en'masse by the multitudes of new brewers. Forced to act in an emergency session, the parlement attempted to remedy the situation by enacting a series of price controls, pegging the price of alcohol at a higher rate than food, and lowering the price of grain artificially so that the peasants may eat. But this sudden attempt to control the market only collapsed it further, and forced to stave off famine direct government control had to be declared, far beyond the current capacity of the state. A period of famine engulfed Noveillie Macheaux and a series of civil disturbance rocked the country side known as The Great Fear, The Beer Wars, The Cider Wars, or The Great Grain Gone.

This turbulent period saw no central forces as was during the Pirate Wars, though the chaos was opportunistically sprung upon by romantic knights who pretended to sally forth across the country to do battle with just about whatever peasant army they might come across. Peasant militias often fought with each other, and the parlement and king fought over central control. In the end after a four month long “war” within the greater civil war the forces of the king were defeated by the parlement and the legislative body assumed total control of the ship of state. In a move to reform the body and increase efficiency of the parlement the 4,578 strong body of nobles voted to shrink itself down to a more managed 601. The hence retired nobles would take on the role of ministries with the mission of restoring order to their departments. And in the 443rd year the realm was deemed pacified and the situation returned to normal. Extensive infrastructural improvements were made to the realm to improve the flow of grain and fruit and alcohol to the cities and thus the brewers, but a strict limit on the total volume of alcohol in the realm was set and to be enforced by inspection. The amount of production was capped, though well over the dictated limit. This excess alcohol produced in realm was to be distributed abroad, and Nouveillie Machauex beer acquired a world renowned following and fetched high prices. Brewers and merchants who moved the goods made off well in foreign markets and money once again flowed into the realm as it had many times before, the economic crisis entirely forgotten.

Between the Brew Laws of 440 and the present moment, the limits have been steadily lessened. It has been realized that money made off brewing could be made off imports of foreign grains, and thus leaving native food stocks less important to the alcohol brewing. As such it's becoming more and more acceptable by the Knights of Parlement to consider abolishing the price controls on grain, although the move is unpopular among the commoners who consume it. And in the 500th year: the gate reopened. Songs of Gourard l'Mainx, of Eponeux, and the old country are being sung again. Pilgrims and spectators go to the gate to observe it from a distance, wondering what realm lies beyond its oblivion, and if the king of legend will stumble out of it, no longer lost in its limbo.



Nouveillie Machauex as a nation is dominated principally by the Macharoix, a demonym for both the elven and human migrants that escaped their ancient home from the tongues of the great cataclysm that destroyed their world. They stepped instead into a strange new world inhabited by sapient animals separated into Equinites and Beast.

Equinites simply and obviously refers to the inhabitants of an equine character, unicorns, pegasi, and seemingly normal horses. This race is differentiated from the contemporary horse by the range of color they take on, their intelligence, and anthropolic character; like the Macharoix they speak, dress, and otherwise act as the humanoid does just on four legs instead of two.

The other caste set aside is that of the Beast, who are likewise as intelligent as any of the rest but often less respected. These include griffons who often have a mercenary character to the Macharoix, and the Beast-Folk which encompass a large and diverse set of characters best considered “underground” or on the same level of the peasantry of old, if not even lower in some select cases.

The Macharoix initially came into this world as being scattered warlike nations, though even before the gates opened they were not entirely violent. Renowned in the ancient times as skilled crafstmen and artists their linens and pottery were sought after as well as their bronze and ironworks in their region of the “Low Lands”, though today none really remember what those lands ever were and may never remember. But while they have lost the barbaric edge they once had, the spirit persists in the romanticism and often rubs off onto the other races of the realm, especially in times or turbulence where any moment that permits it will rise the spirit of bored princes and their entourages to take up the sword and seek adventure, near or far.

The Macharoix also have an affinity for poetry and song, troubadours are a cultural institution from before the gate, and have always been present in court or along the roads and has even been enhanced and developed further by their Equinite peers that have the same or similar spirit.

They are also renown for their alcohol.


Nouveillie Machauex is ruled primarily by the Parlement, the Speaking Body as it were. This singular body elects the ministers of government who run as an executive council. While the activities of the parlement are public knowledge, they are not freely elected and are composed of a rotation of members from the nobility, who since the defeat of the King during the Great Fear has been capped at Marquis. But even below a diverse range of noble title exist, and titles are issued by election of confidence and competence for when a citizen of the realm performs a feat of respect, or more often brings in considerable coin.

The chief member of the ministry is known as the Duke of State, and his second hand – or hoof – man/stallion/woman/mare is the Marquis of State.


The relative technological state of Nouveille Machauex can be considered “late medieval”. I don't feel like getting into the weeds.

The practice of and theory behind magic to the Machavoix as adopted from the Equinite beliefs is that all creatures have inherent magic to them, reflective of their capacities as a living creature and development of an individual. Applied among the Equinites, it serves as sweeping generalizations of how each sub-set is how they are, giving unicorns their magical abilities besides simply levitation or the capacity of pegasi to fly despite their weight-to-wingspan rations being often "Bumblebee" in character. The humanoids who passed through the gate either carried with them the same 'element' of magic, or adopted it when they arrived to the plane. And while for all known intents and purposes everything possess magic, not all are able to fully realize it, let alone hone it for practical use purposes, and further train it to specific ends; pegasi and unicorns may perhaps be the only two races to at minimum realize their most basic magical capacity as fact of life.


In general, Nouveille Machauex operates still a levee system of military recruitment. When and if needed a selection of service-aged males will be drawn from the population, given rudimentary training, and armed with one of two weapons: the pike or the crossbow. Additional armament is up to the individual leveeman who may purchase additional armor. Sometimes through the wealth and generosity of the nobles brigandine armor and barding may be set aside for the levees.

There is also throughout the realm a system of personal and Parlement Levees, who act as the standing regular and professional men at arms and hoof at arms of the state. These units are often small, but far better armed and armored than the levees through the purses of their lord or the state funds itself. The equipment set aside for these units can range from brigandine of a much higher and heavier caliber than that of the levees, or full plate armor and any matter of weapons from the long bow, war hammer, sword, lance, or mace.

@Dinh AaronMk Sheet's approved.

yes i'm double posting fuck you get on my level

(Kinda don't want this to die)

yes i'm double posting fuck you get on my level

(Kinda don't want this to die)

Y the discord ded

Pls

Me not want it die either

<Snipped quote by Dinh AaronMk>

Y the discord ded

Pls

Me not want it die either

You must post

We didn't want this to die either...buuuuttt

We didn't want this to die either...buuuuttt

It's as easy as posting again comrade

We didn't want this to die either...buuuuttt

Do dragons or I will

Where da posts do be