Melhed/What

What is Melhed?

Melhed is many things. Depending on who you ask you'll hear a wide scope of tales. Their history is punctuated with bloodshed and wonder. People will tell you of savagery, of good humour, of the danger they pose, and needless complexity. You will hear they are peaceful, they honour deals and hold grudges, even as others curse their warmongering, scheming and benevolence. In fact the only certain thing about Melhed is that you'll get no one answer.

That's because there are two.

Melhed is the result of balance between two opposing ideals, the Wolf and the Sun. The Republic is known to be wise, honourable, dependable, and ordered; but just as the other nations do not know that they are cultured and learned, they do not know of the less ideal traits. They are wise, and they are cold, they are honourable and they are byzantine, they are dependable and they are brutal, they are ordered and create chaos. The Melite people have long walked a delicate path between the light of the sun and the dark wolf in their hearts, between civilized idealism and brutal savagery. Over all they know what they are however, and face their choices without justification, without trying to hide behind false pretences.

Wolf

Brutality, the north can be best described by that one word alone. Savage wilds, hideous monsters, and bitter cold all make life in the north brutal and the people reflect this. Tempered in the sweltering summer heat, quenched in the biting winter chill and bloodied in the battles against the monsters and southeners, the northlanders are a savage and proud lot. So much blood has been spilt it is wonder the earth is not stained red, the crops weeping as they grow. Indeed blood is the preferred drink of the north, brandy distilled from the ichor of monsters. Nothing is wasted, even the inhumans. The Melite pride is legendary and memory long, no slight, or boon, is ever forgotten. They have faced off against all manner of foe without fear, their savage fury bringing death, uncaring of the loss. Indeed it is that pride and fearlessness that drives their independent nature, sometimes making them altogether uncontrollable, even to themselves. So much so, that many an argument, with man or woman, has ended in a tangled mess of fury and furs.

Sun

With Aldo came something a little different from the usual fare of savagery and brutality, there came light. The tribes of the land were forged by Emperor Tsu into a blade of death, but Consul Aldo gave that blade purpose, a thirst beyond mere blood. The land was still savage, the people still blood thirsty and proud, but now that strength had a channel. The tribes had been forged and now they were united. Order was built, to work with the natural tendencies of the people; the Republic was founded. Laws were hammered out that put the individual, not the state, as the main champion. The rituals and legends of the land codified into a great religion, while the myths and occult melded with scholarly pursuit and philosophy in the academy. The fruits of civilization were made manifest, prosperity grew, as did the number of women, and life changed. Magnanimity, honourable, enlightenment, knowledge, justice, these things became the foundation of the Republic.

Now the land balances on a knife edge, between the wolf heart and sun mind, between compassion and savagery, between the desire for blood and the tears that follow. Without the balance, without both aspects, the land would not exist. The people remain passionate thanks to the wolf, and enlightened from the sun. Too much passion and all will be destroyed. Too much enlightenment and the cold mechanics of it all will shatter.