Chronicle Entry – 50RE to 100RE (Recorded Era)
Murian Province Listings:
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Mobians
97 – The Black River Delta
Costalians
27 – Hiradi
26 – Agotia
Amalechites
119 - Elam
Emphythines
100 – Longinia (Longinius)
Inui
16 - Murom
Panoplites
78 – Meir Ginis
68 – Meir Solise
Jomnii
93 - Norfjord
Oxheads
82 – Many-Calves
89 – The Brothers
Illitrad
65 - Mindulj
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Matters in the Black River Delta came to a head sometime after 52RE, when the township of Bluespring was sacked by the belligerent Jomnii, and several hundred of its residents massacred. The Mobian masses were soon baying for retribution, while hundreds fled riverside villages. Sensing a brewing crisis, the recently ascended Sunking, Thothei Makala, quickly began expanding the militias protecting Mobian townships. Soon, one in every twenty households was expected to provide an able bodied man to serve for a set period – available records suggest five years was the standard term by 58RE – significantly expanding the size and potency of the Mobian militia. The clashes between the aforementioned and the Jomnii escalated thereafter.
In 61RE, Guthren Kikamanu, the Lord of Heimwater, was given command of a number of riverine vessels crewed by newly trained Mobian marines. Between 61RE and 68RE, the Jomnii and the Mobians raided each other’s holdings with increasing ferocity, until the Battle of Kekuru Bridge in 70RE saw Thurge Juneison, one of the most infamous Jomnii warthanes, heavily defeated by Kikamanu’s forces. This saw Jomnii raids slacken significantly thereafter, and, indeed, evidence suggests that the wrathful southerners reverted to trade with the Mobians.
Along the neighbouring Furcas, some hundreds of miles to the east, anxious eyes watched the struggle between the Jomnii and the Mobians with trepidation. The priest-lords of the Emphythines saw it fit to re-equip their own militias in response to the Mobian military build-up. The militiamen soon received new protective material cuirasses and other articles of war at great public expense. Unfortunately, no samples survive to this day. The few Jomnii raids on Emphythine villages between 50RE and 70RE were beaten off with relative ease. However, tensions remained high throughout the 1st century, with infrequent skirmishes once again developing with the Mobians by 76RE. The most significant of these saw a serious clash along the frontier in 82RE. The Empyhthines suffered a sobering defeat and temporarily retreated to a walled town near the border, before more urban militia was drawn out of Longinius to deal with the problem.
Nonetheless, these isolated incidents did not result in outright warfare. Instead, the situation relaxed enough that the Emphythines were experimenting with political reforms by 90RE, giving a greater voice to the citizens of Longinius in the expenditure of public funds. These were then heavily invested in making the capital a more fitting place to live for its fast-expanding population. In the last decade of the 1st century, it is evident that the problem of slums was significantly reduced.
Meanwhile, to the far south, the Amalechites continued to tighten their grip on Elam and the wider region. The establishment of a rudimentary depot system saw to it that peasant levies would henceforth have access to
some proper arms and armour. Amalechite goldsmiths and jewellers were also quickly gaining a reputation for quality throughout Muria’s south-east. A seminal event of the later 1st century for this very religious people was the publication of Bel-Ibni’s
Amelechion. Though only a few copies were painstakingly copied, the priest-kings of Amalech quickly made the text a part of many Amalechite religious ceremony. Bel-Ibni, for his part, was hailed as a prophet of the Gods of the Underworld. The
Amelechion, essentially, was a prophecy of the Endtimes, when the Amalechites were destined to be the Sword of the Gods, in the battle between light and dark. All in all a fascinating text, and an incredible insight into early Amalechite society and culture.
In Meir Ginis, Muria’s first identifiable Merchant League was being established by enterprising Panoplite traders. Evidence exists that the League was already trading by 60RE, and making the Panoplites the undisputed mercantile masters of the Emerald Coast as early as 75RE. The wealth that poured into Meir Ginis during this time is hard to quantify. Panoplite coins from this period have been found as far away as Hiradi, more than a thousand miles to the west. Soon, trading posts in what became known as Meir Solise expanded into full-blown townships. Panoplite migrants and troops followed the trading caravans, and between 75RE and the end of the 1st century, Meir Solise was incorporated into the dominion of the Panoplites. A few local tribes offered token resistance, but most submitted willingly to Panoplite money.
The real threat to the newly settled Meir Solise came in the form of the Illitrad Kingdom. This belligerent state arose in the Kul-Kaltra mountain range sometime before 20RE, but by 65RE it was an existential threat to surrounding tribes. Capable miners of mineral ore, warriors of great repute and’ relentlessly belligerent bastards’ according to Tyrio Hemel’s account of Mindulj, their homeland, the Illitrad were quickly becoming a significant problem for the Panoplites. In 88RE, after the breakdown of complex trade negotiations, an Illitrad warband burned Nemette, a bustling Panoplite village in Meir Solise. The Panoplites responded by bringing in more troops and arming them heavily, in an effort to scare off the warlike Illitrad.
In the summer of 93RE, another Illitrad warband entered Meir Solise and was met by a small Panoplite force. Though hoping to avoid a pitched battle, the Illitrad nonetheless forced it when confronted, and crushed the Panoplites utterly. By the end of the century, it was quickly becoming apparent that the Illitrad would either have to be placated or dealt with by the Priest Lords of Meir Ginis. Meanwhile, several hundred miles to the north east, the People of the Ox steadily expanded into a region that became known as the Brothers, due to its forking river. Population pressures were forcing a steady migration that met very little opposition in a sparsely populated area of Muria.
The Costalians of Hiradi were faced with a similar predicament. Hounded by a lack of reliable, year-round water supply of any great scale, they were soon crossing the Sidithe mountain range and into Agotia, settling the source of the surging Notares river. This process was well underway by 72RE, when the first mines were opened in the Sidithe. Development was slow and steady, but that was to the Costalians’ liking. A number of notable poets, including Nikitor and Julis the Younger, were active during this period of Costalian history – in particular, between 70RE and 100RE. Some places of learning continue to place great value on the works of Nikitor, whose performances at the end of the century reputedly made him quite wealthy.
Finally, the second half of the 1st century was also significant for the Inui, whose wood carvers experienced somewhat of a renaissance during the period of 60-80RE. Inui woodwork quickly found its way to numerous peoples along the Odetta river, with whom it gained a reputation for intricacy and quality. The proximity of the vast Juren Forest also spurred Inui learning, and several texts exist that suggest a high level of biological knowledge on the part of prominent Inui sages. Though much of this knowledge was intuitive rather than empirically extrapolated, it was also fundamentally correct.