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Venatria

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People's Empire of Venatria
Flag of Venatria.svg State Coat of Arms of Venatria.svg
Motto:
Wisdom, Integrity, Prosperity
Capital Vethe
Demonym Venatrian
Government Constitutional Monarchy
Emperor Valerius I
President of the Government Leo Vesevos
Legislature People's Congress of Venatria
Currency Venatrian Florin

History[edit | edit source]

Early History[edit | edit source]

The first settlers of Venatria are believed to have been fishermen, who are thought to have arrived on the island from mainland Aquitare during the Mythic Era. Many of the details of these early peoples of Venatria, known to later civilizations as the First Folk, remain somewhat shrouded in conjecture and myth into the present day. Broadly speaking, they are believed to have largely lived in small, semi-nomadic settlements and to have been oriented around hunter-gatherer paradigm until shortly before the Ancient Era, when evidence points to the emergence of small-scale agriculture. While once characterized as a single people with a relatively monolithic culture, such as by Aulus Nives and Alexius Kantezenes, the First Folk are now known to have arrived in several waves and the singularity of their culture is considered dubious by most modern anthropologists. What is known about their culture is that they were strongly oriented around extended familial bonds as a tribal-band society and that religious practices generally followed animistic lines and, at least in some areas, involved shamanistic practices.

Genesis of the Venats[edit | edit source]

Between approximately 380 - 450 AE, another a great migration from Aquitare, believed to have been prompted by the invasion of the Querones, arrived on the shores of Venatria. While traditional legends characterize this as the first great arrival of outsiders since the beginnings of the First Folk, a number of anthropologists, including Caulus Cosades, argue that it is better characterized as being only a particularly large wave of migrants succeeding many prior such events. Nonetheless, the influence of the new arrivals was considerate, as they quickly overran the entirety of the island, rapidly bringing the First Folk under their yoke and, eventually, merging them into themselves.

The new wave of migrants ended up contributing significantly to the development of agriculture in Venatria and would ultimately lead to the establishment of much greater numbers of permanent settlements and the rise of a number of large towns throughout the island by the early seventh century AE. Another major development of the era was the widespread proliferation of hillforts, central to the protection of many settlements and strategic areas as well as central elements of power for many of the new polities on the rise at the time.

While it is uncertain what name the people of this migration wave went by and what their precise composition was (though a heavy proto-Enbrian influence is likely), legend claims that these peoples referred to themselves as the Ven'at, said to mean "Radiant Ones". Regardless of whether these people truly referred to themselves by that name and where it originated from, it became not only their identifier, but also that of the collective peoples (as "Venat") that inhabited the island to the extent that, by no later than 608 AE, surviving works from the author Alchumev referred to them as such.

Age of the Old Venat[edit | edit source]

While the First Folk and the Ven'at had, through cohabitation and intermarriage, become indistinguishable from each other as the Venat, the people of Venatria remained highly fragmented, their polities highly volatile and rather short-lived. Nonetheless, as time went on a somewhat proto-national grouping of people and settlements emerged, giving rise to a number of broad tribal/national identities. While the nuances of each given tribe/nation varied, by and large each was splintered between a variety of different bands and independent clans, making them something of a loose identity construct meant to distinguish local customs and beliefs from those of other Venats. They were often oriented around a feeling of common history between different groups within a given area, with ancestry being of importance though not a crucial determining factor for membership in many cases. Religious customs between tribes remained highly variable and newly arising differences therein could lead to the splintering of a tribe into multiple new tribes rather easily during this period. While towns continued to grow in size and in number, their lifespans remained highly chaotic during this period.

Nonetheless, while the number of tribes and their composition were fluid during the Early Age of the Old Venat (600 - 850 AE), in the High Age (850 - 1200 AE) the number of nations had declined considerably and stabilized around eight great tribes, known now as the Sixteen Tribes, by around 1100 AE. While other, smaller tribes and remnants thereof continued to exist independently of the Sixteen Tribes for some time, they would gradually be subsumed into the larger tribes wholesale or as sub-identities on par with particularly strong clan or band identities. Even still, as the tribes became larger and fewer in number, any pretense of being anything other than a loose, quasi-national identity faded from them, the divisions between the different bands and the rising urban identities of major settlements undermining any pan-tribal bonds that might have once existed. Thus, while the tribal identities still lent some greater degree of unity between different groups and many settlements had become larger and more developed, life in Venatria during the High Age of the Old Venat was still highly comparable with the early portion of the age. Even still, due to the crystallization of tribes and the increasing entrenchment of a number of settlements, customs, and religious practices during this period, life from the High Age casts a far larger shadow on the nature of contemporary Venatria than its earlier counterpart and is sometimes considered to be time of Venatrian civilization's birth.

Enbrian Migrations and the Age of First Principalities[edit | edit source]

As the Enbrian civilization in Aquitare came under the increasing dominion of the Vanians, one of their number, a multitude of those forced to flee or otherwise in pursuit of a better life began to migrate to Venatria. While there had been some prior interactions between the Venat and the Enbrians, the latter had generally viewed the former as relatively primitive and beneath their interest, with only relatively minor exchanges occurring between the two. Now the arrival of Enbrian migrants, many organized under the leadership of a variety of aspirant conquerors, entered Venatria into a new age as the former political and social realities completely changed. The Enbrians lived in far greater settlements and had a far greater mastery of administration, warfare, and diplomacy, allowing them to quickly establish themselves as the nucleus of a new class of rulers, establishing new or otherwise enhancing existing cities and polities, sweeping away many their indigenous rivals. Most of these new realms were structured as one form of monarchy or another, ruled over by a multitude of princes, leading to this period often being referred to as the Age of First Principalities. Nonetheless, the Enbrians hardly constituted a singular force with any one goal in mind and were vastly outnumbered by the Venat, leaving little room for them to do much beyond pulling the Venat a bit closer to their civilization as they became assimilated into the broader population (though descent from these Enbrian migrants was to remain a mark of great prestige).

In the wake of these migrations, many regions of Venatria began moving towards an increasingly urbanized way of living and the political and social organization of the various communities on the island became more complex and stratified. It was also during this age, near the end of the Ancient Era (1387 AE) in the Valerian Calendar, in which, among many other epic figures, the semi-legendary half-brothers Vallus and Vethus were said to have begun their exile from Travia and set in motion the founding of one of the greatest new polities on the island and the nucleus of the modern Venatrian state. After bringing a number of Caladori bands under their control, the brothers were said to have founded a new settlement on the Conlar Isthmus (which connects the northern and southern portions of Venatria), which took the name of Vethe (after Vethus, who was said to have slain Vallus after a conflict between them). Vethe would remain a relatively minor settlement for some time, spending many of its early years fighting for its very existence and establishing its power as the warden of the Conlar, and was overshadowed by many other cities and their polities, including Travia, but its eventual rise would transform life on the island.

Rise of the Vethean Commonwealth[edit | edit source]

Initially ruled by hereditary princes descended from Vethus, the Vetheans eventually ran their prince and his family out of the city and began to bestow (and withdraw) princehood on a variety of neighboring rulers as a part of protection and trade agreements while actual executive governance was conducted by three officials serving three year staggered terms, the Triarchs of Vethe. While it would take some time, Vethe and its surroundings, known as the Vethean Commonwealth, grew ever more rich and powerful under the protection of foreign rulers, growing steadily in population and becoming an increasingly prominent settlement over time. Control of the Conlar Ismus and an increasingly sophisticated naval forces allowed the Vetheans to extend their influence far and wide and allowed for successful de facto and de jure expansion efforts, providing the Vetheans with an increasingly sizable and effective cultural, economic, and military base upon which to project their power. With time, foreign princes gave way to elder statesmen awarded princely status at the end of their careers and Vethe took its place as a fully independent power in Venatria by 1520 AE.

Concurrent to the rise of the Vethean Commonwealth was the expansion of the Exandran Prinicipality to increasing heights of power in the south of the island in the final days of the Ancient Era. While the Vetheans held sway on both sides of the Conlar, much of the south fell under the sway of the Exandrans, led by a succession of leaders to increasing prominence and power. Eventually, under Prince Zozimus II "the Great", the Exandrans set their sights on bringing the Vetheans to heel after a series of trade and territorial disputes had soured relations. This commenced what would become several generations of successive wars known as the Wars for the South, ultimately resulting first in the near-conquest of Vethe by the Exandrans (including the infamous Sack of Vethe) and then the total defeat and destruction of Exandra (though the city would later by rebuilt by the Vetheans) as Vethe assumed effective control over the entirety of southern Venatria through a patchwork of directly annexed territories and allied/vassal states. The domination of the south opened up a new chapter of Vethean hegemony and initiated the commencement of the Glorious Era, starting the year after the Razing of Exandra in 1608 AE.

Glorious Era and Supremacy of Vethe[edit | edit source]

The start of the Glorious Era would mark the effective beginning of Vethe's ultimately successful march towards total domination of the entirety of Venatria. With the fall of Exandra, the expansion of Vethe was left relatively unchecked by any serious rival, slowed only by a preference for exerting soft power over allied states than a desire to annex or vassalize other polities directly on the part of the Vetheans. The aforementioned preference was informed in part by the relative tedium of effectively conquering and directly administering an unwilling populace in the mountainous and rugged north, long the bane of expansionist polities therein. Nonetheless, raids from and disputes with the northern states at any given time created ample cause for the eventual, if rather gradual, subjugation of much the north over the next 150 years. It was during this time that the great philosopher Essatius began his writings, discussing Venatrian history, codifying a number of cultural tropes (including the Code of Knighthood) and providing highly influential views on the place of religious ritual, family structure, and proper governance that now form the basis of Essatianism. It was also around this time that both the loose group of folk deities worshiped by the Venatrians (known as Vanatist pantheon) grew more institutionalized as a somewhat cohesive creed and a related faith, the sun-worshiping Sularians, began to rise of prominence within Venatrian society. The result was a flourishing age of culture in both Vethe proper and Venatria at large, with many of the foundations of modern society being laid in this period. By this time the tribes had fallen by the wayside almost completely in urban areas, their place long ago supplanted by other institutions, becoming informal and often irrelevant networks and census categories with membership changing from generation to generation and an increasing number of people without any formal affiliation to them, though in many isolated rural areas more traditional practices remained, if somewhat in a somewhat fragmentary fashion.

By the 200s GE, however, increasing social and political tensions within the republic began to rear their heads. Many of the vassals of Vethe, far from wanting independence, clamored for formal incorporation into the commonwealth with all the rights which that entailed, something which the established aristocracy of Vethe was often reluctant to do and grew increasingly fearful of, as the non-citizen status of the denizens of client states kept their ability to compete for any real power relatively limited and facilitated the subversion of a number of legal protections given to Vethean workers through jurisdictional limitations created by the nominally independent status of client states (which, in turn, also created pressures from lower class Vetheans to annex client states for this reason). Nonetheless, the status quo of a patchwork of directly rule territories and client states would remain for some time, though the growing dissatisfaction with it would play a pivotal role in the years to come. In the meantime, Vethe continued its gradual vassalization and occasional annexation of the ever-dwindling independent states of the north, expanding its hegemony to encompass nearly the entirety of Venatria with no real challengers to its power on the island.

Vanian Wars and the Conquests of Cosades[edit | edit source]

While Vethe had effectively taken its place as the hegemon of Venatria some time ago without any remaining rivals of substance on the island, the Empire of Vane over on Aquitare loomed ever more as a potential problem for the Vetheans. With the wealth of Vethe and the rich natural resources of Venatria at large proving to be an enticing prize, the Vanians had began to take an increasingly hostile posture towards Vethe after many centuries of relative ambivalence and even friendliness, with genuine concerns rising that an attempt to conquer Venatria was in the making. These concerns would be proven sound when, in 212 GE, the Vanians launched their first invasion attempt. On this occasion, their armada would be heavily damaged by fierce storms and the Vetheans were able to defeat those forces which did reach Venatria's shores, ultimately resulting in a restored peace after only a few actual battles, but the next two invasions would prove to be far bloodier.

In 233 GE, the Vanians launched their second invasion attempt. This time their armada would face down the Vethean fleets more directly, taking many losses but ultimately landing with much of the invasion force intact. Quickly bringing many of those northern states which still had their independence and those whose ties to Vethe were weakest over to their side, the Vanians wreaked havoc on the northern half of Venatria and pushed the Vetheans back to the Conlar, only stopping short when unrest within their own empire forced the withdrawal of a substantial segment of their invasion force, enabling the Vetheans retake their territories and to force a peace settlement in 235 GE. Nonetheless, while the Vanians had been pushed back, it was clear that it was a highly circumstantial affair and the resulting peace, viewed by everyone as a mere interlude until the next (likely imminent) conflict would break out, left the remaining independent states of the north under the diplomatic protection of the Vanians, with the Vetheans militarily exhausted. Nonetheless, in spite of expectations that it would not last long, the peace would last well over half a century, though tensions nearly boiled over on multiple occasions during this period, and would remain in effect until 297 GE. The recommencement of hostilities was officially prompted by the military intervention of the Vetheans into Rothelia, one of the independent northern states, after it had launched a raid on one of Vethe's vassal states. While the Vetheans protested that they were merely defending their own clients from unprovoked violence, there was suspicion that the Vetheans had instigated the whole situation in the first place from behind the scenes, and in any case, with the Vanians itching for an excuse to justify a third conflict, the protests of the Vetheans fell upon deaf ears.

When the third invasion began, many suspected that the Vanians would ultimately prove successful this time, given that their total victory had only been thwarted by a fluke of circumstance on the previous occasion. The Vetheans, however, had spent the intervening years preparing far more extensively than their Vanian counterparts and had learned many bitter lessons from the previous conflict. Crucially, in the wake of the second invasion, Amalatinus Secenix initiated what would become known as the Secenixan Reforms in 237 GE which replaced the armies of knights, levies, and mercenaries that had dominated much of Vethean history and coincided in many ways, formations and tactics notwithstanding, with many of their fellow Venatrian polities, with professional, standing armies. The expansion and debasement of knighthood had already raised this notion some time before among reformist circles as both a reason for reform and as the next logical step from ongoing practices, but the success of the Vanian forces, themselves based around a core professional force, truly underscored both the need for such a change and the potential that could be tapped through doing so. Accordingly, Secenix was able to dramatically change the composition of the Vethean armies, strip away the privileges of knighthood, and largely relegate knighthoods to a status of a sub-noble titular honor within a matter of years and with surprisingly little resistance, though several uprisings of knights did still occur. This time, when the Vanian armada once again arrived, though more powerful than ever before, the Vethean fleet (a veritable armada in its own right now) was able to inflict heavy losses on the Vanians, significantly weakening their invasion force.

Nonetheless, having assembled a force which dwarfed both of their previous armies, the Vanians remained confident of their inevitable victory, their landed forces being far larger than in either of their previous invasions and their tributaries on the island fielding armies to supplement them further. Their confidence initially seemed well placed, with the Vetheans being pushed back to the Conlar in the north, and the Vanian force sent to the south managing to take Exandra, giving them a firm foothold there. The Vetheans, however, were hardly as shocked by this turn of events as they had been before, and were hardly about to lie down and submit at this stage. It was at this point that a rising general by the name of Caulus Cosades, the scion of an old, if minor, noble house and the son-in-law of Secenix, began to lead the armies under his command to a series of victories over Vanian forces in spite of being vastly outnumbered, resulting in him being granted overall command of the military shortly thereafter. With Vethe nearly impregnable and ultimately serving as a shield for the south, Cosades focused on driving the Vanians from their foothold in Exandra. After succeeding, he led a massive, though still outnumbered, army to relieve Vethe. In the ensuing battle he managed to slay the leading Vanian general as well as a number of other important command figures and, through an effective exploitation of Vethe's defenses, naval support, and his own troop movements, not only defeated the Vanians, but crushingly so. When Vanian attempts to send reinforcements failed shortly thereafter, Cosades pressed on into the north and managed to bring the Vanians to heel, finally resulting in a peace agreement in 306 GE that saw the Vanians withdraw from Venatria completely and the abandonment of their support for the independent northern states. While some feared that this would, again, be merely another break in the ongoing struggle between Vethe and Vane, the outbreak of civil war and the resulting collapse of the latter into fragmented warlord states largely eliminated such fears in the years to come.

Having defeated the Vanians, the attention of Vethe turned to the northern states which had just lost the protection Vane had provided them with. Hungry for vengeance for their role in aiding the Vanians and years of raids and tensions along the borders of Vethan territory, the triarchs, and the Vethean congress authorized the conquest of the northern states, with Cosades, himself now one of the triarchs, leading the invasion. Though worn by the recent conflict with Vane, the Vethean forces under Cosades made quick work of the forces of the northern states and, near the end of 309 GE, the conquest of the north was complete and Vethe now ruled all of Venatria, at least indirectly.

Rule of Cosades[edit | edit source]

In the wake of the conquest of the north, the looming threat of the Vanians driven off, and the totality Venatria noticeably being under the effectively rule of Vethe by a mixture of direct and indirect means, talk of the need to reform the political, economic, and social arrangements which defined life on the island began to take center stage again. Hardly ever ceasing, even during the darkest days of the conflicts with Vane, the clamoring for reform had been growing yet stronger over the years and was beginning to reach a breaking point. While the threat of the Vanians had kept things under control and imposed some degree of a united front, the arrangement was always shaky and the removal of the unifying force led to the unleashing of unbridled political strife. Cosades, entering into his third year in office in 310 GE, was very much in the reformist camp and pushed for a number of reforms both to ease the burdens of the lower classes and to streamline administration. Though incredibly popular, Cosades was unable to achieve his agenda due to the steadfast resistance of his fellow nobles, the only group not tending towards a large degree of admiration for him. Nonetheless, though reform after reform was rejected and he neared the end of his term in office with little to show on the domestic front, Cosades's achievements against the Vanians and in at last bringing all of the north under Vethean dominion left him with much to be proud of and it seemed natural that he would soon enter into a well-deserved retirement. This, however, was not to be. In the final month of Cosades's term in office, a mass demonstration of veterans broke out in Vethe. Demanding pension reform and broader social change to better their opportunities as civilians in peacetime after having bled in wartime, including a demand by many for Vethean citizenship (which a substantial portion of Vethean soldiers, as denizens of vassal states, did not have) for anyone who served in the Vethean military, the veterans began to obstruct critical points of the city, grinding much of it to a halt. Refusing to disperse, congress ordered that military force be used against them, with Cosades taking command of the operation. When facing down the mob, however, Cosades (likely both supportive of the veterans himself and aware that his own troops were likely to mutiny if he ordered them to attack) descended into the crowd and was embraced to loud cheers. With his soldiers and the mob behind him, he quickly seized control of the city, had himself named both prince and sole triarch for the year, and immediately called on forces across the Vethean commonwealth to flock to his banner.

While much of the military did indeed back Cosades, a substantial segment remained loyal to the authority of congress and set out to challenge the Cosadean forces. Needing to consolidate his power in Vethe, Cosades dispatched one of his trusted deputies (and distant relative), Valerius Vesevos, to suppress the congressional forces. The success of Valerius Vesevos in this operation, as well as the vocal support of his brother, Leo Vesevos, a vocal and influential reformist and member of the priesthood, would result not only in the solidification of the rule of Cosades, but also in the rise of the Vesevos brothers to prominence. In the wake of his successful assumption of full control of the Vethean state, Cosades began to fire off a litany of reforms aimed at easing a lot of the socio-economic tensions ravaging the commonwealth proper and its sphere of influence. While he stopped short of the full annexation of vassal states, Cosades substantially reduced the ability of these polities to be used to dodge Vethean law and pushed a number of policies to streamline governance. With his term as sole triarch renewed on three occasions, the Princeship of Vethe bestowed upon him, and his popularity at an all time high, the rule of Cosades seemed to be secure for the foreseeable future and a sense of stability and optimism had returned in many quarters. In 318 GE, however, Cosades would be assassinated by conspirators aligned with traditionalist factions, igniting a fast paced struggle to succeed him and ultimately resulting in the transformation of the political arrangements in place on the Venatrian island.

Civil War and Unification[edit | edit source]

In the wake of the assassination of Cosades, the traditionalists behind his assassination, self styled as the "Preservers", quickly made a move to seize power but were thwarted by the intercession of Leo Vesevos, head of the prominent Vesevosan faction of Cosades supporters (known as the Unies for their desire to unify Venatria into a single political entity) which included the daughter of Cosades, who delivered a fiery speech on the steps of the Congressional house, at first causing the assembled crowd to block the entry of Preserver affiliated members from entering and then inciting them into a full blown riot. Having effectively, but tenously, seized control of the capital, the Unies soon allied themselves with the other major Cosadean faction, the Zullan faction (known as the Renos for their general desire to "renovate" and reform, but otherwise maintain, the political order as it was under Cosades) lead by Caius Zulla in order to consolidate their power. As a part of the formal arrangement of power sharing, the Triarchship was held by the Vesevos brothers and Zulla, with the latter also being made the Prince of Vethe in succession to Cosades.

In due course, in late 318 GE, the remnants of the Preservers had raised an army in Exandra and took a number of major and minor settlements, including Rothelia. Accordingly, after hastily completing their purge of most of the remaining Preservers and their sympathizers in Vethe proper, the Unies and Renos gathered their forces and marched south to halt the advance of the Preservers. While the Preservers were substantially outnumbered, news from the north cast doubt upon who would triumph as an army therein marched south to threaten Vethe, headed by a rogue former member of the Reno faction, Blasius Arnellus. Because the loyalty of the Vethean population could not be trusted, the nearly impregnable defenses of Vethe were no reassurance to the combined Cosadean factions and loomed as the potential source of their ruin if Arnellus, holed up in Vethe after a likely quick and victorious siege aided from within, was able to make use of the defenses while directly controlling the capital. Accordingly, forces led by Valerius Veseovs marched north to defend Vethe, with Leo Vesevos remaining behind with the Renos in order to both represent the Unies and to act as a guarantee that Valerius and the Unies would not themselves seize unilateral control of Vethe. Nonetheless (and quite crucially), the vast majority of Unie factionaries and soldiers went with Valerius to Vethe while the Renos were left largely alone to face down the Preservers. Thanks to a superior position and stronger tactics, the forces under Valerius would triumph over Arnellus in early 319 GE, resulting in the imprisonment of the latter and the re-securing of Vethe. In the south, meanwhile, the Reno forces, commanded by Zulla, were able to narrowly (and at great cost) win victory over the Preservers, though the latter were able to fall back to Rothelia and avoid the total routing of their forces.

In the wake of the nearly concurrent events at Vethe and near Rothelia, the alliance between the Renos and the Unies began to break down. With the Unies effectively in sole control of Vethe (if still pretending otherwise) and the Reno army significantly weakened, Zulla demanded that Unie forces be sent south to reinforce the army therein while at the very least a contingent of Reno forces be allowed to join the garrison of Vethe. When these demands were at first ignored by Valerius Vesevos, Zulla issued them again, this time with a veiled, if still rather pointed, threat against the life of Leo Vesevos. Before Valerius and the broader Unie leadership even learned of this, however, Leo Vesevos slipped away from the Reno camp in the night and fled north to Vethe. When Zulla learned of what had transpired, he quickly sued for peace with the Preservers and agreed to join forces with them to resist the Unies, whom he was now certain were going to move against him and his faction. Leo Vesevos, meanwhile, arrived in Vethe shortly after the threats against his life by Zulla had reached the city. Practically carried by a cheering Unie crowd to the steps of the Congressional house, Leo met with Valerius and they both announced to the crowd their suspension of alliance with the Renos. When news arrived of the defection of Zulla, the brothers led a special session of congress to depose Zulla from the offices of Triarch and Prince, awarding the former to Sophia Cosades, the first woman to hold the role, and the latter to Valerius in addition to his own triarchship. The brothers then formally condemned Zulla and announced to a gathered crowd of supporters, including a number of former Renos who were by now defecting in large numbers to the Unies, that they would bring back the heads of Zulla and the Preservers, carry on the legacy of Cosades, and transform all of Venatria in what they for the first time referred to as the Sapphire Revolution.

Marching south, the Unie forces, already considerably larger than those controlled by the Zullan-Preserver alliance, found their ranks swelled even further by additional Reno defectors, joining them due to the perceived betrayal of the Cosadean legacy undertaken by Zulla and his remaining supporters. Nonetheless, the defenses of Rothelia, though less imposing than those of Vethe, allowed Zulla and the Preservers some measure of hope to at least buy time until they could figure out a way to raise more forces elsewhere or fracture the Unies. To this latter end, Zulla began furiously writing against the Unies and their leadership for being what he considered to be the true betrayers of Cosades, attempting to win back former Renos to his cause. While he was stifled quite considerably by the reality that he was now in bed with the assassins of Cosades, he was able to at the very least raise morale among his remaining supporters and seemed to be slowly making headway to gathering back the support of some old supporters and even of grabbing entirely new ones. It was on this latter point, however, that Zulla would find that his writings, far from being a lifeline to potentially bring about his comeback, were his final downfall. With a number of Preservers being swayed over to directly supporting Zulla and thus the legacy of Cosades, the rest of the faction grew increasingly paranoid of their recent ally, whom they knew was likely to become their enemy again as soon as he could afford to. Because of this, the Preserver leadership soon had Zulla assassinated, stabbed to death on the steps of the city's capitol in a fashion similar to the death of Cosades. This would prove to be a fatal miscalculation, however, as Zulla's enraged supporters, joined with Unie-aligned and neutral Rothelian citizens, launched the Rising of Rothelia, a chaotic and bloody riot that resulted in the deaths of many leading Preservers and their forced retreat from the city. When the Vesevos brother and their forces arrived midway through the next day, the assembled mob cheered their entry to the city and delivered any still-living Preservers in the city to them for prompt execution. Capitalizing on the moment, the brothers declared that, while they had been in conflict with Zulla at the end, he would be remembered for his many great accomplishments and loyal service to Cosades and the Vethean state, effectively winning over most of his partisans to the Unie cause.

The aftermath of the Rising of Rothelia was to effectively spell the end of the civil war that had broken out. While lingering resistance remained, in the coming weeks, as 319 GE drew near to its close, Exandra was taken by the Unies and the last organized resistance from the Preservers was snuffed out. The Vesevos brothers then marched back to Vethe to assume what was by then unchallenged control of all Venatria as the undisputed heirs of Cosades. Upon arriving, the brothers quickly gathered the leadership of their faction as well a number of other congressional and governmental figured and set to work establishing the legislative basis for the Sapphire Revolution. Delegates from all of the other Venatrian polities were summoned as, while de facto under the control of Vethe, their nominal, legal sovereignty was still acknowledged and needed to be respected for the legitimacy of what was to follow to be unquestioned. After many weeks of deliberations, drafts, and negotiations, the brothers and their fellow triarch, the delegates, and the assembled Vethean congress gathered in the square outside of the Vethean Congressional building to formally announce that, effective the first day of the new year, to be known as 1 EE, all of Venatria was to be formally united under the banner of a single state, the People's Empire of Venatria.

First Steps of a United Venatria[edit | edit source]

Upon the formal announcement of Venatrian unification, the new constitution was duly ratified by the Vethean Congress and the various delegates, taking effect as the new polity was established in 1 EE. Valerius, in right of having been Prince of Vethe, a title to be permanently tied to the emperorship established as the formal head of this new state, was declared regent until an emperor or empress could be selected. Meanwhile, Valerius and Leo took up roles as Speaker of the new People's Congress of Venatria and the President of the Government of Venatria, respectively. In short order, congress decided to formally declare Valerius the Emperor of All Venatria, ending his regency and inaugurating the reign of the realm's first official monarch and the first monarch of the entirety of Venatria.

Society[edit | edit source]

While the exact conditions vary considerably between different locales on the island, Venatrian society largely consists of two distinct, though interconnected, modes of living. The traditional tribal structures long since fading to near total irrelevance within urban and many rural areas, much of contemporary Venatrian life is organized as a mass society. Though more of the populous still lives in rural areas than in urban ones, the gradual expansion of cities has become far more rapid over the past century with the advent of the Aetherial Revolution and the relative proportion of urban Venatrians is growing. Concurrently, in a number of rural areas the evolved remnants of a more traditional tribal lifestyle remain more prominent (though membership in the traditional tribes to even these Venatrians is largely a lip service, with their individual clans being of far greater importance to their lives), though the pressures of encroaching civic institutions and settlement of these regions by increasing numbers of more urban-minded Venatrians continues to erode their way of life.

The predominantly leading class in Venatria is still generally composed of a mixture of urban patricians and rural landlords, though formal distinctions in class have largely been eliminated beyond the privileges and responsibilities of titled nobles, a status increasingly awarded outside of the traditional aristocracy. The rise of factory owners and Aether Barons to greater economic and social influence in the past century has played a significant role in this recent decline of relevance for the old nobility (especially the rural landlords), though a number of old noble families have either married their scions to some of these rising personages or have themselves abandoned traditional economic practices in favor of newer enterprises, somewhat mitigating the apparent degree of this change on the surface. Knights, traditionally something of a military aristocracy underneath (though often intersecting with) the nobility, have effectively ceased to constitute much of a class in their own right, with knighthoods now largely ceremonial and bestowed to persons low and high for a wide variety of services to the realm and to local communities.

Demographics[edit | edit source]

The demographics of Venatria are representative of its history of settlement by a number of different peoples from Aquitare and of its history as a land divided between city-states and rural, clan or warlord-ruled polities.

With respect to ethnic and racial makeup, categorization is quite difficult due to the complex relationships between migrant groups with distinct phenotypical characteristics, tribal and clan identities constructed on a variety of different lines, a longstanding history of political divisions, and more recent attempts to construct a pan-Venatrian identity.

The First Folk are said to have been the first settlers of the island, historically viewed as a single (if loose) group of settlers from Aquitare. More recent archaeological evidence has revealed, however, that they were in fact made up of a minimum of eight discrete migrations and likely a number more. The group was comprised of people of variable complexions and skintones, ranging from both darker tones of brown and grey to light tones of ashen and white, reflective of a diverse set of origins and of their relatively brief time together on the island. The group generally had the rounded ears commonly associated with the inhabitants of the central plains of the west coast of Aquitare and the Arivanian peninsula, pointing to a strong influence from these regions (which are plausible locations for the origins of a number of the migrations that comprised the genesis of the First Folk), and the aforementioned variations in appearance point to origins from these regions as well as the northern reaches (where rounded ears were common but less predominant than in the aforementioned zones).

The Venats (or, rather, the outsider population group that would be referred to as such initially and would combine with the First Folk to create the population group that is now known by that moniker), meanwhile, are believed to have been a proto-Enbrian group comprised of a variety of previously separate and diverging population groups that were forced from their lands by the invasion of the Querones, a fierce nomadic group from the northeast themselves fleeing worsening winters. They generally resembled their later Enbrian cousins, ranging from olive to white skin tones and predominantly having pointed ears and standing much taller on average than many of the First Folk. When the Venats overran Venatria, they quickly subsumed the existing First Folk population groups, being variably assimilated by them or assimilating them and creating new hybrid cultural and ethnic groups. While transformed population group is referred to as also being Venats, tribal and clan identities formed a principal source of identity and the population hardly viewed itself as a single group at the time. Concurrently, the mixed backgrounds of the population continued to be seen in a wide variation of physical appearance between individuals and groups, akin to the diversity of the First Folk though with the addition of greater variations in height and a much stronger showing of proto-Enbrian features, including pointed ears, within the population.

The tribal identities of the era of the so-called "Old Venat" would eventually stabilize into the broad, arguably proto-national, identities of the Sixteen Tribes of Venatria, with clans in many ways taking on a role similar to what tribes had been prior to their crystallization. By this point, the growing sophistication of proto-urban polities was beginning to take a front seat in many of the towns as they grew into greater settlements, though rural areas remained highly clanish. As towns turned to cities and proper states began to take form, identities were often tied to these states which, while sometimes from more mono-tribal background in some cases, were largely a multi-tribal enterprise in most instances, diluting the power of tribal identities, a process which would accelerate further as city states attracted more migrants and also came to conquer each other. Meanwhile, while many rural areas remained highly clanish, some came under the rule of exiles from the cities or those from rural areas who sought to mimic such exiles who had assembled outlaw warbands and established their own para-feudal dominions. In these cases, while clan often still remained important (especially in areas brought under such warlords more recently) to individual identity, ties to the land and to its respective lord became a strong factor, dividing clans in a great many cases.

When the Enbrian migration occurred, there was a much smaller overall impact on the ethnic makeup of the Venatrians than with previous migrations. This was because of the smaller numbers of settlers who had come to Venatria in this migration and their preference to marry within the upper classes of the Venats when they could not marry within their own number. The Enbrians, being from more urbanized societies than what was seen in Venatria at the time, would establish themselves as something of a minority ruling group over Venatria for a time and would accelerate the push towards urbanization and the growth of para-feudalization in rural areas. The Enbrian migrants resembled their counterparts who remained in Enbria and similarly to the Venat migrants, having medium to light skin tones and generally having pointed ears. As stated, they tended to avoid interbreeding with the Venat save for in situations of necessity due to a lack of options or a need for political alliances, and then generally only with the upper class. Over time, their identity was largely lost as they became subsumed into the wider population groups, though initially many leading patricians and nobles would claim Enbrian identity irrespective of the amount (if any) of Enbrian heritage that they had, and to this day claims of descent from Enbrian conquerors are viewed in many circles as a mark of prestige and even a loose requirement by some of the old nobility to be viewed as one of their number, though this practice has been increasingly discouraged by the government of the People's Empire in its push to create a Venatriacentric Venatrian identity.