Arcaea/Library/History/The Complete History of the Far East/Volume I

Introduction

Only fragments of history from the centuries long First Age of the Far East survive to this day and almost all the fragments concern the history of particular regions rather than giving a picture of the whole. The most notable exception to this are documents in the archives of the city of Ossaet which record on paper the oral history of a long extinct order of monks which gives a tantalising glimpse at the overall history of the north.

In the south, the most notable records are those which survive from the libraries of the Antozan Commonwealth. Though focused mainly on the provinces of the western coast and the events which led to their absorption into the Svunnetland Empire, they offer an insight into events in the south before the historical trail goes cold once again.

The end of the First Age was marked by a period known as The Splintering where extended unrest led to the disintegration of the two empires which by then ruled the entire Far East between them. The individual triggers of the collapse are small and quantifiable but it also seems highly likely that there were much deeper and more profound causes in the background which may well be linked with the Far East first coming into contact with the other continents and a small but notable influx of nobles from across the seas.

However, speculation is no substitute for facts. And the facts known about the First Age begin with a small community of monks living in the middle of a marsh.

The North

The history as recorded by the monks (although they divide it into two ages while modern historians treat it as one) begins with a small group of travelling monks settling among the marshes of the Osaido peninsula and founding the Monastery of Ossaet which would later become the city which stands today.

At some point after Ossaet grew into a city, it came under the rule of a realm named Brevnea centred on Topenah and ruled by it's first monarch, King Julius I (implying at least one successor of the same name).

Around five hundred years (according to the monks) after this event, a twenty one year old warlord from the stronghold of Nocaneb united the city states of Remtom, Akanos, Niel and Lasop under his rule, marking the beginning of Arcaea and causing him to earn the only name which history remembers him by - that of the Patriarch of Arcaea.

Over the course of twelve years the Patriarch expanded his empire eastwards to the ocean, absorbing the lands in his path and then, four years later, ending a conflict named the War of the Woods of Ruikai by annexing the city of Nahad.

Around the same time, the city of Ossaet was conquered by a people called the Hadet who appear to have emerged from the plains of the Far East resulting in the scattering of the monks of Ossai. The Hadet in turn were defeated by an unknown army, possibly Arcaean, which took their city of Sasrhas and forced the remaining Hadet to retreat to the Osai peninsula from whence they conducted border raids on the city state of Ozrat which owed allegiance to Brevnea but joined Arcaea in exchange for the Patriarch's protection.

The Dark Isle, known to the monks as Ridania, was the next area added to the Arcaean Empire twenty five years after its founding, with the native islanders fleeing into hiding. Two years later, Brevnea was peacefully absorbed into Arcaea in exchange for protection against the Hadet still living in the Osai peninsula. The Patriarch then immediately began a war to conquer the peninsular but suffered an unspecified betrayal which prompted the islanders of the Dark Isle to emerge from hiding calling themselves the Drow and starting what the monks called the Second Drow War against Arcaea. It was this war which would lead to the collapse of the Patriarch's empire thanks to the intervention of House Relak whose family archives I was able to access after many trials and tribulations.

Just prior to the Second Drow War the two brothers named Serko and Gregor Relak arrived in Arcaea, the pair of them skilled in politics, intrigue and assassination and sent to the Far East by their family on the East Continent shortly after contact was first made between the Far East and the lands to the west.

Serko and Gregor took the opportunity of the war with the Drow to join the army led by the Patriarch to the Dark Isle and there, in the middle of a battle, killed him before taking the advantage of the confusion to reach the Patriarch's only son and heir, a young boy, who they also murdered, allowing the younger brother, Serko, to disguise himself (including, by some unknown means, altering his face) as the murdered boy.

Gregor then returned home while Serko then took the throne of the Arcaean Empire and, for unknown reasons, deliberately allowed it to implode, with the result that the realm would collapse a mere forty two years after the Patriarch founded it, beginning with the secession of the Duke of Colasan to form the realm of Lasanar. It is this event which, more than any other, can be taken to mark the end of the First Age of the Far East as it was followed by the secession of other realms, bringing Arcaea to its knees.

The South

While the Arcaean Empire experienced its rapid rise and fall, another empire ruled over the south of the Far East. Just as Arcaea was centred on the shining city of Remtom in the heart of the north, the Svunnetland Empire was centred on the mighty city of Masahakon in the heart of the south. Frustratingly, there are no surviving records whatsoever which provide an account of the origins of the Svunnetland Empire but there are some historians writing after the time who claim that Svunnetland was even younger than Arcaea.

What is known of its early history comes from the early Antozan people of the western coast whose records tell of a time when the area was composed of the three city-states of Anacan, Taop and Azros of which the former was ruled by an unknown king with the latter two being ruled by independent aristocratic oligarchies. The city states reputedly had various wars with each other and faced bandit raids but a steady overall equilibrium of peace had allegedly lasted for around 200 years when Anacan was attacked from the sea by black sailed pirates who destroyed the great harbour, raped women, slaughtered men and carried many of the cities inhabitants off as slaves. While the city itself survived it had suffered a grievous blow.

As a result, the king led the survivors in rebuilding, constructing a palisade and both hiring mercenaries and recruiting a popular militia led by the aristocrats called the Blue Guard. Hence a second raid by pirates resulted in the slaughter of the raiders and the king of Anacan seizing the pirate ships to lead a punitive expedition to the pirates' home port of Batesaor which resulted in the sack of the city and the butchery of its population.

The expedition had been very expensive for Anacan however and so, on his return, the king used his now battle-hardened forces to annex the city states of Taop and Azros to form the first unified state on the western coast.

Having developed a taste for war, the king then struck east to attack the fledgling polity of Svunnetland which had formed around the city of Palnasos and thereby started a bloody war which cost both the Antozans and the Svunnetlanders dearly until the king died leaving his new realm racked by revolt and suffering from famine. The ruler of Svunnetland then proposed a treaty to the now leaderless Antozans which saw the western coast absorbed into what now emerged as the Svunnetland empire.

Who this ruler of Svunnetland was, how Svunnetland itself was formed, who his or her successors were, how it came to expand its dominion over the entire south or what relations it had with Arcaea to the north are unknown to us as no records from a Svunnetland perspective between this period and the breakup of their empire exist. Records only start again with the reign of King Einar where multiple sources confirm that the empire disintegrated at the same time as the Arcaean Empire to the north. It seems likely, however, that the sheer size of the empire after the incorporation of the western coast gave it the strength which made the subjugation of its smaller neighbours inevitable.

What is known for certain, however, is that the trigger for end of the Svunnetland Empire came from the decision of King Einar to move the imperial capital from its then location of Masahakon to the mountain fortress of Iposez in the north of the realm.

This disruption of the state bureaucracy not only caused significant unrest amongst the peasants of Svunnetland but also placed the royal court so far away from the south of the realm that the king's control over his realm waned rapidly. This in turn was exacerbated by bitter infighting amongst the nobles of Svunnetland's senate - an institution of the imperial state of which little is known other than its existence.

The situation prompted the Duke of Zonasa to break away from the empire and crown himself a prince. Around Duke of Masahakon, Himo Musou, and the Duke of Hatdhes, Senoske Himoura, to agree between themselves to secede from Svunnetland in frustration with the failure of the king to help them quell unrest among discontented peasants. They seceded their two cities to form the realm of Nighthelm and triggered the same collapse in Svunnetland as happened in Arcaea at the same time.