Chronicle Entry – 150RE to 200RE
’In the Kul-Kaltras, there run wolves on four legs, and wolves on two. The former inconvenience farmers, frighten travelers and hunt small woodland creatures. The latter bedevil Lords of Men.’
Anonymous Panoplite source, 2nd Century RE
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War, ruinous war! How it entices the hearts of men! Proud men are the most vulnerable to its depredations, and Gigamaru Haragami - second of his name, Sunking of the Black River, and ruler of all the Mobian demesnes - was an especially proud man. Proud to a fault, perhaps. Though his people starved, ruined by feuds with the Jomnii and constant battle with the hated Emphythines, he nonetheless was beloved by the Lord of War; He Who Sounds the Horn; the Burning Sun. And so did Gigamaru II, the Terrible and the Wise, seek to do what his father before him could not. He sought to strike down the City on the River, Longinius, once again, and mobilized his armies to that end, late in the 2nd century of the Recorded Era.
Great treasure was poured into the smelters to arm the stalwart Mobian host for this pitiless labor. It was honed into a keen weapon, indeed, by the honored Lord Jikimanu; a man of sound thought and courageous leadership. But it was the crucible of war, itself, that tempered this living blade. The Mobians had become a hard people. Inured to loss and sacrifice and hardship. They were, it can be said, the finest warriors of their time. But the Emphythines were a worthy foe to this frail giant, behind their great, serried ranks of spearmen. They, too, were not men to be trifled with. It was to be a brutal, glorious, sometimes ignominious struggle. Gigamaru II mandated the Lord Jikimanu with the sack of Longinius, and the Son of the Southland responded with a crushing victory over the massed Emphythine forces in the summer of 177RE. Though the Mobians were once again impeded by Jomnii raids into the Southland, and even into the Delta itself, they marched on, deep into Emphythine territory.
The Emphythines stalled their advance with a victory in 178RE, but it was a minor, close-run thing. The Mobians rapidly re-grouped and delivered a series of terrible blows between 179 and 183RE. Though losses were hideous, on both sides, the end was nigh for the city dwellers. The Siege of Longinius began in 184RE, as Jikamanu tightened the noose around Emphythine necks. The Mobians callously scarred Longinia, and massacred thousands of peasantfolk to speed the fall of the most beautiful city in the Known World. For years, the Emphythines fought bravely and with great valor, forcing the invader to pay for every blade of grass trampled upon by Mobian sandals. In the end, it was all for naught. In 187RE, the Mobians celebrated their great victory with a vicious sack of Longinius. The slaughter and rapine was devastating. Much plunder was taken from Emphythine homes, temples and palaces.
The sons and daughters of the fallen city-state were sold into slavery or put to work for a new master. Magnificent Longinius was burned to the ground – its once-great towers toppled. It bears mentioning, of course, that this infamous victory was not without cost to the Mobians, themselves. Aside from the sea of blood spilled in Gigamaru’s conquest of their old enemy, the Mobian Kingdom was floundering economically. It was an engine of war, with nothing else to drive it. Gigamaru II had given the people a triumph, and the spoils of war. But the people were quickly becoming dissatisfied. They wanted prosperity, too. And they looked askance at the Sunking, wondering why the Jomnii were still harrowing Mobian villages and towns, while the Emphythines were being broken. By 195RE, storm clouds were gathering in the Black River Delta; the River of Blood and Tears.
(The Emphythines have been eliminated as a Player Culture after two consecutive losing Conflicts. Epitaph: Commercial/militaristic city state, active for two centuries. Best drilled and organized infantry of the early Recorded Era. Significant cultural achievements.)
South of this sorrowful region, the Council of Baal’im, rulers of the Amalechite lands, were locked in a struggle of their own. In 160RE, Menalech of Marosh, a middle-ranking priest in the Amalechite clerical hierarchy, introduced a religious controversy that shook the state to its core. The Amalechite Priest-Kings, so dependent on the
Amelechion for their religious doctrine, were taken aback by Menalech’s interpretation of Ben Iblis’ word. Menalech’s debates within the Council quickly became famous. The controversy was proving dangerously divisive, and soon Menalech had a core of fervent supporters, as well as a multitude of detractors and enemies. In 172RE, he was killed by one of the latter, and low level strife followed, as the so-called ‘Menalechites’ clashed with the Amalechite majority over the temporal role of the priesthood, as well as a number of other doctrinal divergences. The widening rift between these religious factions would continue to hamstring the Council of Baal’im throughout the late 2nd century. All the while, the Amalechite lands were also experiencing the pressures of a significant population increase, with strong growth in Amalechite townships in both Elam and Nemech.
Many hundreds of miles up the Emerald Coast, the Panoplite mercantile priesthood continued to expand its extensive trade network. Trade with the Baltusians filled Panoplite coffers, which was just as well, as the lords of the realm needed the coin to establish their people as not only docile traders, but also well trained soldiers, able to protect Panoplite farms, villages, towns and trade caravans from harm. The Illitrad, bloody minded as they were, made that expenditure a necessity with their yearly ‘adventures’ in Meir Solise. The priesthood found it very difficult to respond to the challenge the Mountain Lords posed. Though much fewer in number than the burgeoning peoples of the Panoplites, they were fearsome warriors and merciless raiders. It was all the Panoplites could do, simply maintaining a semblance of safety in Meir Solise. The Mountain Lords, of course, were not idle, either. Their conquest of Horod and its tribes in 176RE is well documented. Auxiliaries from these tribes were in Illitrad warbands by 180RE. Luckily, though potent in their own right, they were not Illitrad through and through, yet.
Further on to the West, the Inui continued to develop in a sort of blissful isolation. Having expanded as far as Sython, the matriarchs of the Inui began building townships and settlements, as the mines of Sython opened their rich veins to the world. The People of the Forest were branching out. Their profound learning tradition made the Inui some of the most ingenuous and adept of the peoples of Muria. Their uniquely matriarchal society, however, set them far apart from the smaller tribal peoples they absorbed during their advance. Many of these tribes refused to submit to the rule of women, and most of them were forced to flee Inui territory, as a result. This migratory process was likely in full swing between 150 and 190RE. Costalian records show some of these minor tribes living not far from their established borders in 197RE.
For their part, the Costalians were experiencing an enormously stressful period in their history. Having expanded from Hiradi into Faragusta and Agotia over the last one hundred years, and having witnessed the steady rise of a landed elite within Costalian society, it was likely inevitable that Costalian Elders and the budding aristocracy would begin agitating for localized authority. In 164RE, the Faragustans announced that they had selected Elder Histam as the Great Elder of their region. Initially implemented as a protective measure against the Holau, the authority enshrined in the office of Great Elder quickly allowed Histam to declare himself Great Elder for life. He did this in 170RE. Though there was significant resistance to the latter move in Faragusta, this was quashed in short order by Histam’s sizable host. Between 160 and 200RE, the Costalians, farmers and explorers of great repute, turned their hand to state building. Larger townships began developing as centers of power for the aristocrats and their forces. Proper roads were built to connect these and facilitate trade. And, inch by inch, Agotia and Hiradi began to follow Faragusta into statehood.
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The player replacing anus_pounder's excellent Emphythines will be contacted tomorrow.
anus_pounder! Have no sadness in your heart, the Emphythines might no longer be a PC, but their culture has become part and parcel of Muria's ethnographic landscape. Hail!
Conan thanks you for playing!
Player Sheets will be out ASAP, but the next turn will not be published before January 1st, for the obvious holiday-related reason.
The OP will receive some work over coming weeks to make it more user-friendly...