North King
blech
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,165
II: First Blows
c. 59 - 135 AU
A light rain fell on the capital, and the streets grew slick with mud. A rolling bank of clouds overhead threatened to burst with a far more ferocious storm, but for now, they hesitated. Instead of their gales, the drizzle persisted onwards, with birds and other animals seeking hasty shelter, and driving the people of the city inside. There had been few enough on the streets already; the water drove out even those few. The streets were empty as a tomb.
Some time before, the great King Ronald the Lawmaker, the Noble, the Pure, had marched at the head of a long column of levies. Every grown man of the city had gone with him. All that were left were the boys and the women. A few ships floated uselessly in the harbor; they could not sail over land, and the famed navy of Garanthormia would not fight in this battle. Every merchant had fled the port, and no foreigners could be seen. The capital waited.
Far to the south, Ronald drew up his men on a high ridge. The steep, rocky, tree-covered slope would serve as protection enough while they organized, and after the lines drew up, they could defeat the mass of nomads that boiled in the woods below. Here, he could not have hoped for a better day; the sky was as bright as it ever had been in the Greyforest Peninsula, and the ground was firm. His soldiers would have good footing.
At last, the levies were in position. They had come a long way for this battle, and clamored eagerly to be thrown into the fight. The tree branches arced overhead, creating a dark canopy; the ground below was littered with a few low plants and fallen leavesit was like a vast, green cave. Ronald drew his sword, the finest blade in all the kingdom, a brazen hue in the scattered patches of sunlight...
...The Yuzoi were eager for battle as well, shouting and jeering. Their bows were strung, and the first arrows already nocked in place. A few beat spears on shields. The Yuzarch Gayan himself was in full battle regalia; the chariot had to be left behind in the rugged terrain, but otherwise, his breastplate was divinely adorned, and his spear sharpened to a wicked point. His missing eye and arm only made him all the more fearsome to look at, and he called out a prayer to the newborn Smiting Flame. He would not disappoint his people.
A sudden stillness befell the woods, and both sides quieted momentarily. Ronald the Just stood with sword drawn, hundreds of feet above the Yuzarch; Tarys pike waved dangerously in the air. An explosion of sound set the tree branches swaying, and hundreds of birds burst into the air as the Garanthormians charged down the hill.
The slope was rocky, and hundreds twisted ankles or worse on the way down, but more were at home in this forest; they hopped down as lightly as mountain goats. As one, the Yuzoi lifted their bows, and drew back the strings. With a shout from the Yuzarch, they let fly, and a thousand shafts pierced the gloom of the forest, scything through the first few lines of the Garanthormians. But this was not the end.
Again and again, twice more, the arrows flew, but the Garanthormians still charged. The Yuzarch shouted one more time, and the Yuzoi spears drew to the fore, raising the gleaming shafts to impale. The lines met with a crash.
At first the momentum of the Garanthormians seemed to carry the day by itself; some of the nomads broke and ran. More, however, stood still, and slowly, they pushed back. Axes hewed left and right, and spears brought down many; a few arrows sank, and the fighting raged in the forest for hours on end.
Finally, the Garanthormians broke under pressure of numbers, as the Yuzoi snuck around the rear and ambushed them; they fled into the forest, managing to escape capture or death. King Ronald tried to rally them in vain, but fled, too, after he was struck in the shoulder by another arrow. It was all lost.
The Yuzoi army gave chase rapidly, capturing many supplies, and routing the enemy further at every skirmish. Finally, the Garanthormians reached their capital with an enemy army in hot pursuit. Ronald wanted to stay, but was convinced by his family to flee; with them went many of his people. They escaped just ahead of the enemy army, to the offshore islands, founding a new Garanthormia, away from the Yuzoi, who they raided periodically with their ships.
It was a stalemate after this, with the Yuzoi completely inexperienced in seafaring, and the Garanthormians utterly unable to break the enemy on land; they fought on and off wars for decades.
Meanwhile, ships have been sighted off of the western coasts of the Yuzoi, bearing strange markings that none can identify... At the same time, new tribes pour through the mountain passes immediately to the south of the Yuzoi, and Atheist minorities are growing increasingly troublesome, determined not to lose their [lack of] faith.
Trade with the Tevanii still has not picked up, as the latter nation is not entirely eager to trade with the warring peoples, afraid of potentially alienating one or another. Even if they were so inclined, the Golden Spyglass, among others, have failed in exploring safe routes to the west, and merchants are often afraid of plying these supposedly haunted waters.
Even more harmful towards prospects of a western trade route for the Tevanii, however, is the simple fact that the south, at this point, seems more lucrative. Kehran has become a major port, with a well protected harbor serving as one of the best anchorages in the Great Water. This base has enabled much southern expansion and exploration: even beyond the orders of the Chiefs themselves. Contact has been made with the Alezari, and trade has sprung up with the mainland, something that has lain dormant since the empires of old.
Even more tempting for the Tevanii captains is the prospect of a port on the mainland, or perhaps a Tevanii-controlled trading network stretching from fabled Exilia to the faraway lands of Habyte.
Alezar, for its part, has established just such a trade network, albeit by land and not sea. The great conqueror Soratego gave his nation quite a stretch of land, and the Kings have managed to maintain most of that even with his death: a new, Alezari-ruled route exists between the lands of Thiri and Exilia, all the way to Habyte. While not all of this land is directly under the control of the kingdom, most of it falls under their sway: their vassal of Ebeor serves as an effective launching point for policing actions into the unclaimed territory between these nations.
On the other end, the caravans unload in the capital, traveling downriver to the Great Water, where they can quickly sail to Kataban, the massive sea port of Habyte. It is a very rich route, however, this fact alone has raised eyebrows in Thiri and Tevan.
Exilia, for its part, continues to promote its religion as the only true one, and being as it is far away from most other nations, has found this a rather easy tenet to hold onto. More and more land has come under their sway, and a Fourth plane of existenceslaveryhas become quite useful to the ruling class, as the new slaves (captured in wars of expansion) are very handy tools in the creation of new public works, such as irrigation canals, and even mroe so, monumental temples to their gods.
Habyte, for its part, continues to grow and cling to rather unusual customs, exporting many of them to neighboring nations, including their odd habits of keeping calendars, and writing. Downriver expansion in the wake of an imploding Mainyu has brought them almost directly in contact with the civilizations there, linking the north and south firmly for one of the first times since the Mainyu were young.
After several reigns where heavy-handed suppression of dissent became common policy for the Autarchs, a new lord, Camael, came to the throne in the Kingdom of the Harungen. His immediate predecessors had established quite a large kingdom, extending to the very boundaries of the First, and with his frontiers fairly secure, he did not have to worry so much about defense. Camael instead focused mostly on the other Pathswhich he in fact established as perfectly legitimate pursuits in life. To complement War, then, there was the path of Trade. It was this that caused trade to flourish with the other nations in the valleys. This prompted the founding of a new city on the river.
However, it was not far into Camaels reign that he found his neighbor, the Mainyu, were collapsing. Eager to snatch up the heartland of this dying empire, his generals, acting without orders, immediately occupied this vacuum of power. While this has increased tensions with Daria and Habyte, Camael blessed it nonetheless, noting that this move by the warriors of the Kingdom had once again suppressed the forces of chaos, and brought order and security to even more.
His generals continue to prod him, of course, noting that there is still another city left untaken along the river, and that they could secure it before Habyte; this could heighten the problems already arising between the two nations, however, and furthermore the rampant eastward expansion has alarmed some, who note that the capital grows increasingly remote from the frontiers of the empire, promoting, among other things, dissent and corruption.
Across the entire south of the cradle, crop yields are improving rapidly as the summers grow warm and the winters mild. Pests are always a problem, but the boom in production has largely canceled out any negative effects in that region, and even disease seems to have shrunk back as populations expand. Some are declaring a new golden age, based in the south this time, but this may be rather premature.
Nowhere is this more prominent than Singdiu, whose bad winters in recent years have driven northward expansion to a new height as men seek somewhere warmer, and with crops still growing. The climates kindness, however unexpected, has been a complete boon, as more and more Singdiu settle down in cities along the river, and yields flourish. Of course, many still live a very nomadic existence, mostly in the countryside, and even the more settled prefer villages to large cities, but the latter are growing.
The increasing bounty of the earth is nowhere more pronounced than a general increase in productivity; artisans are finding it easier and easier to ply their wares. This is very helpful, as trade with the people of Luginé has sprung up quite rapidly, with many Singdiu finding the valley peoples silver a worthy commodity. And though the Singdiu are skeptical of the spiritual qualities of the springs, some are still adventurous enough to make the journey to these natural wonders.
The Singdiu also experience a possibly negative side-effect of the increasing resources: the people of the nation find it easier and easier to lay down their bows. While of course the people are mostly happy with not imitating the Invaders, the question burns of what they are to do when another tribe comes through the passes in the mountains, as surely they must.
The Luginé struggle with this very question even more than the Singdiu, for their valley lies just to the south of one of the greatest mountain passes through the snowy mountains, and rumor has it that another tribe from the deepest deserts has appeared on the outskirts of civilization, threatening to bring war upon the nations of the Dimini River again. These thoughts are difficult to maintain, however, in the face of the bounty that nature has given them.
Vardis sees conflict again as the Lumosian Bane, who some call Nightsbane, launches a coup to overthrow the Ordarian overlords. Planned for quite a long time, the coup is nonetheless hardly bloodless: thousands are killed on the streets of the capital, and more flee into the countryside from the violence that engulfs the small nation. Yet the carefully laid plot is successful, and without too much destruction, Vardis is put firmly in the hands of the Lumosians again.
But Bane, as it turns out, is no typical Lumosian. Instead of advocating for one extreme or another, he advocates a balance between Order and Chaos, Light and Dark. It is a lesson that other, similarly divided nations, like the Harungen, have yet to learn, and one that the people of Vardis swallow only very unwillingly. However, Banes hand is firm, and he continues to guide his people along to his own vision of the future. When he dies, though, the rumors say his successor will have another difficult time reestablishing rule.
Ignoring these for the moment, he has begun to rebuild the nation, and whatever damage there was is now gone. This still leaves them as a backward, unconnected nation on the edge of the taiga, with even more territory to cover due to recent expansion, but there is much more hope for the future now. For Lumos, at least.
Northwest of them, Alystr once again has handily defeated the barbarian tribes that stand in its way. Unfortunately, the tribes seem innumerable, and stretch down the river quite as far as the Alystri have explored. One great campaign may well be needed to shatter them once again, or a diplomatic approach might be triedeither way, the Kingdom is in a very good position now, with little to worry it.
Except, that is, for internal struggles. The Drauge family opposes the royalty with increasing boldness, and the Queen has been forced to deal with these problems increasingly on her own as the king campaigns deeper along the river. A military solution might alienate the nobles even more, but there is nothing ruling out tried and true political maneuvers.
At the same time, trade slowly increases down the river, as the number of barbarian tribes between Alystr and other civilized powers is growing smaller, and the trip somewhat safer.
Far to the north, the Elder Kingdom has grown beyond all the previous boundaries. The Curse of the Younger Brother seems to be but a memory, increasingly irrelevant in light of the new heights that the Empire is reaching.
Didius the Magnificent is the greatest lord that the Elder Kingdom has ever seen, certainly, and could well be in contention to be the greatest that any part of the world has seen, though the latter would no doubt be disputed by many. His nearly singlehanded rebirthing of the entire kingdom is quite evident, for he is much loved by the common people and the nobles alike; his reign saw the excesses of Otho put away for good.
Reforms saw the restructuring of the army into a truly formidable engine of war, one able to utterly demolish most, if not all, of their opponents. Didius expanded massively, conquering neighboring cities and putting the northern city states of Balos under his rule through a vassal. Indeed, the only enemy he did not subjugate were the ever recalcitrant Draklor, but they were viewed as mere barbarians, completely unfit as opponents.
Yet with this glory came some decadence as well: buildings grew excessively gaudy and large, and the architecture of the great capital was growing redundant. Didius managed to keep most of this in check with laws and codes, however, and for now, little harm has been done. Yet he is only one man: grown increasingly old, as well. Didius reign must draw to a close, and when it does, there are many who wait to challenge him.
The Youngers, for their part, have retreated, pinched between the expanding realm of Didius, and the fearsome Draklor; most now dwell in small mountain clans, far away from prying eyes, and some have fled to the north, still envious and quite hostile to the Elders.
The Draklor, for their part, have seen the passing of the Teacher, who set out to touch the gods on the peak of the tallest mountain in their dominion. While of course the nation mourns his passing to some extent, they are more concerned with honoring his memory in the typical Draklor way: utterly crushing their enemies in a grand campaign of unification, which eliminated the rest of the tribal opposition, even driving out the Youngers who once posed such a threat. The only nation that now remains in their way is the Elder Kingdom, whose king, as mentioned, ages more and more...
Map:
Religion Map:
Key:
Khaki: Harmonism
Blue: Tevani Monotheism
Dark Blue: Jykmorum
Yellow: Noxism
Blue-gray: Legaltheism
Dark Red: Death Cult
Dark Grey: Harungen Pantheon
Teal: Dragon Path
Cyan: Spring-centered Animism
Brown: Lumos/Ordara
Medium Blue: Creator Worship
Orange: Elder Polytheism
Crimson: Jao
White: Disorganized/Unaffiliated
Feel free to write up a religion description that I can put in the stats.
Next Deadline: High Noon on Saturday.
c. 59 - 135 AU
A light rain fell on the capital, and the streets grew slick with mud. A rolling bank of clouds overhead threatened to burst with a far more ferocious storm, but for now, they hesitated. Instead of their gales, the drizzle persisted onwards, with birds and other animals seeking hasty shelter, and driving the people of the city inside. There had been few enough on the streets already; the water drove out even those few. The streets were empty as a tomb.
Some time before, the great King Ronald the Lawmaker, the Noble, the Pure, had marched at the head of a long column of levies. Every grown man of the city had gone with him. All that were left were the boys and the women. A few ships floated uselessly in the harbor; they could not sail over land, and the famed navy of Garanthormia would not fight in this battle. Every merchant had fled the port, and no foreigners could be seen. The capital waited.
Far to the south, Ronald drew up his men on a high ridge. The steep, rocky, tree-covered slope would serve as protection enough while they organized, and after the lines drew up, they could defeat the mass of nomads that boiled in the woods below. Here, he could not have hoped for a better day; the sky was as bright as it ever had been in the Greyforest Peninsula, and the ground was firm. His soldiers would have good footing.
At last, the levies were in position. They had come a long way for this battle, and clamored eagerly to be thrown into the fight. The tree branches arced overhead, creating a dark canopy; the ground below was littered with a few low plants and fallen leavesit was like a vast, green cave. Ronald drew his sword, the finest blade in all the kingdom, a brazen hue in the scattered patches of sunlight...
...The Yuzoi were eager for battle as well, shouting and jeering. Their bows were strung, and the first arrows already nocked in place. A few beat spears on shields. The Yuzarch Gayan himself was in full battle regalia; the chariot had to be left behind in the rugged terrain, but otherwise, his breastplate was divinely adorned, and his spear sharpened to a wicked point. His missing eye and arm only made him all the more fearsome to look at, and he called out a prayer to the newborn Smiting Flame. He would not disappoint his people.
A sudden stillness befell the woods, and both sides quieted momentarily. Ronald the Just stood with sword drawn, hundreds of feet above the Yuzarch; Tarys pike waved dangerously in the air. An explosion of sound set the tree branches swaying, and hundreds of birds burst into the air as the Garanthormians charged down the hill.
The slope was rocky, and hundreds twisted ankles or worse on the way down, but more were at home in this forest; they hopped down as lightly as mountain goats. As one, the Yuzoi lifted their bows, and drew back the strings. With a shout from the Yuzarch, they let fly, and a thousand shafts pierced the gloom of the forest, scything through the first few lines of the Garanthormians. But this was not the end.
Again and again, twice more, the arrows flew, but the Garanthormians still charged. The Yuzarch shouted one more time, and the Yuzoi spears drew to the fore, raising the gleaming shafts to impale. The lines met with a crash.
At first the momentum of the Garanthormians seemed to carry the day by itself; some of the nomads broke and ran. More, however, stood still, and slowly, they pushed back. Axes hewed left and right, and spears brought down many; a few arrows sank, and the fighting raged in the forest for hours on end.
Finally, the Garanthormians broke under pressure of numbers, as the Yuzoi snuck around the rear and ambushed them; they fled into the forest, managing to escape capture or death. King Ronald tried to rally them in vain, but fled, too, after he was struck in the shoulder by another arrow. It was all lost.
The Yuzoi army gave chase rapidly, capturing many supplies, and routing the enemy further at every skirmish. Finally, the Garanthormians reached their capital with an enemy army in hot pursuit. Ronald wanted to stay, but was convinced by his family to flee; with them went many of his people. They escaped just ahead of the enemy army, to the offshore islands, founding a new Garanthormia, away from the Yuzoi, who they raided periodically with their ships.
It was a stalemate after this, with the Yuzoi completely inexperienced in seafaring, and the Garanthormians utterly unable to break the enemy on land; they fought on and off wars for decades.
Meanwhile, ships have been sighted off of the western coasts of the Yuzoi, bearing strange markings that none can identify... At the same time, new tribes pour through the mountain passes immediately to the south of the Yuzoi, and Atheist minorities are growing increasingly troublesome, determined not to lose their [lack of] faith.
Trade with the Tevanii still has not picked up, as the latter nation is not entirely eager to trade with the warring peoples, afraid of potentially alienating one or another. Even if they were so inclined, the Golden Spyglass, among others, have failed in exploring safe routes to the west, and merchants are often afraid of plying these supposedly haunted waters.
Even more harmful towards prospects of a western trade route for the Tevanii, however, is the simple fact that the south, at this point, seems more lucrative. Kehran has become a major port, with a well protected harbor serving as one of the best anchorages in the Great Water. This base has enabled much southern expansion and exploration: even beyond the orders of the Chiefs themselves. Contact has been made with the Alezari, and trade has sprung up with the mainland, something that has lain dormant since the empires of old.
Even more tempting for the Tevanii captains is the prospect of a port on the mainland, or perhaps a Tevanii-controlled trading network stretching from fabled Exilia to the faraway lands of Habyte.
Alezar, for its part, has established just such a trade network, albeit by land and not sea. The great conqueror Soratego gave his nation quite a stretch of land, and the Kings have managed to maintain most of that even with his death: a new, Alezari-ruled route exists between the lands of Thiri and Exilia, all the way to Habyte. While not all of this land is directly under the control of the kingdom, most of it falls under their sway: their vassal of Ebeor serves as an effective launching point for policing actions into the unclaimed territory between these nations.
On the other end, the caravans unload in the capital, traveling downriver to the Great Water, where they can quickly sail to Kataban, the massive sea port of Habyte. It is a very rich route, however, this fact alone has raised eyebrows in Thiri and Tevan.
Exilia, for its part, continues to promote its religion as the only true one, and being as it is far away from most other nations, has found this a rather easy tenet to hold onto. More and more land has come under their sway, and a Fourth plane of existenceslaveryhas become quite useful to the ruling class, as the new slaves (captured in wars of expansion) are very handy tools in the creation of new public works, such as irrigation canals, and even mroe so, monumental temples to their gods.
Habyte, for its part, continues to grow and cling to rather unusual customs, exporting many of them to neighboring nations, including their odd habits of keeping calendars, and writing. Downriver expansion in the wake of an imploding Mainyu has brought them almost directly in contact with the civilizations there, linking the north and south firmly for one of the first times since the Mainyu were young.
After several reigns where heavy-handed suppression of dissent became common policy for the Autarchs, a new lord, Camael, came to the throne in the Kingdom of the Harungen. His immediate predecessors had established quite a large kingdom, extending to the very boundaries of the First, and with his frontiers fairly secure, he did not have to worry so much about defense. Camael instead focused mostly on the other Pathswhich he in fact established as perfectly legitimate pursuits in life. To complement War, then, there was the path of Trade. It was this that caused trade to flourish with the other nations in the valleys. This prompted the founding of a new city on the river.
However, it was not far into Camaels reign that he found his neighbor, the Mainyu, were collapsing. Eager to snatch up the heartland of this dying empire, his generals, acting without orders, immediately occupied this vacuum of power. While this has increased tensions with Daria and Habyte, Camael blessed it nonetheless, noting that this move by the warriors of the Kingdom had once again suppressed the forces of chaos, and brought order and security to even more.
His generals continue to prod him, of course, noting that there is still another city left untaken along the river, and that they could secure it before Habyte; this could heighten the problems already arising between the two nations, however, and furthermore the rampant eastward expansion has alarmed some, who note that the capital grows increasingly remote from the frontiers of the empire, promoting, among other things, dissent and corruption.
Across the entire south of the cradle, crop yields are improving rapidly as the summers grow warm and the winters mild. Pests are always a problem, but the boom in production has largely canceled out any negative effects in that region, and even disease seems to have shrunk back as populations expand. Some are declaring a new golden age, based in the south this time, but this may be rather premature.
Nowhere is this more prominent than Singdiu, whose bad winters in recent years have driven northward expansion to a new height as men seek somewhere warmer, and with crops still growing. The climates kindness, however unexpected, has been a complete boon, as more and more Singdiu settle down in cities along the river, and yields flourish. Of course, many still live a very nomadic existence, mostly in the countryside, and even the more settled prefer villages to large cities, but the latter are growing.
The increasing bounty of the earth is nowhere more pronounced than a general increase in productivity; artisans are finding it easier and easier to ply their wares. This is very helpful, as trade with the people of Luginé has sprung up quite rapidly, with many Singdiu finding the valley peoples silver a worthy commodity. And though the Singdiu are skeptical of the spiritual qualities of the springs, some are still adventurous enough to make the journey to these natural wonders.
The Singdiu also experience a possibly negative side-effect of the increasing resources: the people of the nation find it easier and easier to lay down their bows. While of course the people are mostly happy with not imitating the Invaders, the question burns of what they are to do when another tribe comes through the passes in the mountains, as surely they must.
The Luginé struggle with this very question even more than the Singdiu, for their valley lies just to the south of one of the greatest mountain passes through the snowy mountains, and rumor has it that another tribe from the deepest deserts has appeared on the outskirts of civilization, threatening to bring war upon the nations of the Dimini River again. These thoughts are difficult to maintain, however, in the face of the bounty that nature has given them.
Vardis sees conflict again as the Lumosian Bane, who some call Nightsbane, launches a coup to overthrow the Ordarian overlords. Planned for quite a long time, the coup is nonetheless hardly bloodless: thousands are killed on the streets of the capital, and more flee into the countryside from the violence that engulfs the small nation. Yet the carefully laid plot is successful, and without too much destruction, Vardis is put firmly in the hands of the Lumosians again.
But Bane, as it turns out, is no typical Lumosian. Instead of advocating for one extreme or another, he advocates a balance between Order and Chaos, Light and Dark. It is a lesson that other, similarly divided nations, like the Harungen, have yet to learn, and one that the people of Vardis swallow only very unwillingly. However, Banes hand is firm, and he continues to guide his people along to his own vision of the future. When he dies, though, the rumors say his successor will have another difficult time reestablishing rule.
Ignoring these for the moment, he has begun to rebuild the nation, and whatever damage there was is now gone. This still leaves them as a backward, unconnected nation on the edge of the taiga, with even more territory to cover due to recent expansion, but there is much more hope for the future now. For Lumos, at least.
Northwest of them, Alystr once again has handily defeated the barbarian tribes that stand in its way. Unfortunately, the tribes seem innumerable, and stretch down the river quite as far as the Alystri have explored. One great campaign may well be needed to shatter them once again, or a diplomatic approach might be triedeither way, the Kingdom is in a very good position now, with little to worry it.
Except, that is, for internal struggles. The Drauge family opposes the royalty with increasing boldness, and the Queen has been forced to deal with these problems increasingly on her own as the king campaigns deeper along the river. A military solution might alienate the nobles even more, but there is nothing ruling out tried and true political maneuvers.
At the same time, trade slowly increases down the river, as the number of barbarian tribes between Alystr and other civilized powers is growing smaller, and the trip somewhat safer.
Far to the north, the Elder Kingdom has grown beyond all the previous boundaries. The Curse of the Younger Brother seems to be but a memory, increasingly irrelevant in light of the new heights that the Empire is reaching.
Didius the Magnificent is the greatest lord that the Elder Kingdom has ever seen, certainly, and could well be in contention to be the greatest that any part of the world has seen, though the latter would no doubt be disputed by many. His nearly singlehanded rebirthing of the entire kingdom is quite evident, for he is much loved by the common people and the nobles alike; his reign saw the excesses of Otho put away for good.
Reforms saw the restructuring of the army into a truly formidable engine of war, one able to utterly demolish most, if not all, of their opponents. Didius expanded massively, conquering neighboring cities and putting the northern city states of Balos under his rule through a vassal. Indeed, the only enemy he did not subjugate were the ever recalcitrant Draklor, but they were viewed as mere barbarians, completely unfit as opponents.
Yet with this glory came some decadence as well: buildings grew excessively gaudy and large, and the architecture of the great capital was growing redundant. Didius managed to keep most of this in check with laws and codes, however, and for now, little harm has been done. Yet he is only one man: grown increasingly old, as well. Didius reign must draw to a close, and when it does, there are many who wait to challenge him.
The Youngers, for their part, have retreated, pinched between the expanding realm of Didius, and the fearsome Draklor; most now dwell in small mountain clans, far away from prying eyes, and some have fled to the north, still envious and quite hostile to the Elders.
The Draklor, for their part, have seen the passing of the Teacher, who set out to touch the gods on the peak of the tallest mountain in their dominion. While of course the nation mourns his passing to some extent, they are more concerned with honoring his memory in the typical Draklor way: utterly crushing their enemies in a grand campaign of unification, which eliminated the rest of the tribal opposition, even driving out the Youngers who once posed such a threat. The only nation that now remains in their way is the Elder Kingdom, whose king, as mentioned, ages more and more...
Map:
Religion Map:
Key:
Khaki: Harmonism
Blue: Tevani Monotheism
Dark Blue: Jykmorum
Yellow: Noxism
Blue-gray: Legaltheism
Dark Red: Death Cult
Dark Grey: Harungen Pantheon
Teal: Dragon Path
Cyan: Spring-centered Animism
Brown: Lumos/Ordara
Medium Blue: Creator Worship
Orange: Elder Polytheism
Crimson: Jao
White: Disorganized/Unaffiliated
Feel free to write up a religion description that I can put in the stats.
Next Deadline: High Noon on Saturday.
]
