History
The Republic of Valdar is a nation located in the northeast of the continent, primarily made up of three main regions. First and most prosperous is the Outer Lowlands, the Common Land, and the Ore District. The Outer Lowlands, despite being the smallest region of the three, located mainly on the coast, has the most political capital and wealth. The Common Land is mostly owned by nobility and landowners and worked by either slaves, indentured servants, or regular farmers. The Ore District is the lowest region on the rung of authority, mostly populated by the poor and destitute, working in the mineral-rich areas of the region, most likely against their will.
Valdar originated as a simple coastal province in The Alammar Empire that broke away during The Splintering, participating in the conflict along with the rest of the break-away provinces and regions. However, after the initial fighting and rebellion, Valdar faced an identity crisis. It was made up of a hodge-podge of different cultures that were grouped together into a single province and governed in a decentralized matter to avoid conflict between different cultural groups, who had a long history of conflict. But now the days of the Alammar Empire were over, and a new king stepped into power. Vrika Embezo, a pseudo-noble in the late days of the Alammar Empire who held a long list of influential contacts and had a fleet of merchants under his thumb seized control of the province and declared himself King of Valdasi.
His rule proved to be untenable, however. Large numbers of his contacts were far away, separated by warring nations. His merchant fleet had either deserted him or been destroyed in the struggle of the Period of Chaos, and the mercenaries he used to keep control of his new vast Kingdom weren't exactly loyal to him. As a member of the Coastal Peoples, one of the dominant cultures among the continent but a minority in Valdar, he promoted Coastal culture at the expense of others, enforcing it with hired thugs and mercenaries who were more than prone to go on looting and killing sprees. Not only that, but he was a hardliner believer in Yzthergim, which alienated members of the Coastal Peoples as well.
It all came crashing down just a few years later after the Splintering, in 5 A.S, when nobles started rising up against him in tandem, causing a snowball effect of seceding nobles which caused the Kingdom of Valdasi to completely shatter into infighting and civil war. Vrika himself was killed not so long after the collapse of Valdasi by an unknown assassin, suspected to either be sent by a rival of his, or rumored to be The Cult of Zelial. Nevertheless, the fighting would continue on for decades, Valdar left in a splintered state for nearly a century.
Eventually, Valdar would be united again, this time in even better shape. In 124 A.S, a philosopher named Charles Davies came up with a new form of government called Omnipublicanism, a form of direct democracy that sought to include everyone and appease as many people as possible. For this he would be named the "Father of Democracy". These teaching would eventually be organized into an actual state, the Republic of Thalasneo, under a from of Omnipublicanism called republicanism, which sought a more representative form of democracy in lieu of being unable to count the votes of everyone. The Republic of Thalasneo, located on the coast, benefited heavily from trade and foreign ideas and tactics, giving it an edge over its enemies.
After nearly three decades of war, the Republic of Thalasneo would unite the former territories of Valdasi, along with a large number of other states via either diplomacy or local support to destabilize their enemies, then a series of quick decisive battles to bring them to the negotiating table. Along with a number of promises to local nobility and powerful figures, Thalasneo managed to sweep through throughout the former territories of the Kingdom of Valdasi, along with some further land to the west. On the 59th of Frigus, 159 A.S, the Chancellor of Thalasneo proclaimed Valdasi reunited and proclaimed the Republic of Valdar.
The Republic, however, would immediately face a large problem in the shape of the country's abundant nobility. To conquer all the former lands of Valdasi, a number of promises were made to the nobles to get them to cooperate, and those promises were beginning to bite Valdar in the ass. The country's new and defining constitution, known as the Five Point Constituion, would curtail most of Valdar's democracy in favor of a more elite democracy, in which only a few castes can vote, and the power of the central government is heavily curtailed in favor of more local noble rule.
Some of the points detailed in the Five Point Constitution were:
- Voting is limited to the artisans, the soldiers, and the nobility.
- Valdar is to be divided into five separate regions.
- The nobility are to be given great political power.
- The republican government is to be divided into the five regions, and the chancellors of these regions will rule together in a "Democratic Executive Council".
- The caste system is to be put into place as a legal system of division.
though there were smaller points here and there focusing on smaller issues, like land division or the limits of the republican government. This noble dominated era of Valdarian history would persist for years to come, the aftershocks of the Five Point Constitution emanating throughout the rest of Valdarian history.
The social structure and Valdar itself would go unchallenged for a while, and with the power of the central government basically ham-stringed by the Five Point Constitution, there was very little national domestic unrest, since the nobles could do whatever they wanted, and dealt with their own problems. Rebellions or revolts by slaves or dissatisfied freemen were often put down by nobles on their own, and the size of Valdar that was uninhabited or empty made it difficult for cross-county collaboration between rebels. Valdar's territory would be expanded westward during this time, however incrementally. Nobles would go to war with neighboring nations and walk away with pieces of land they would add to their own duchies or baronies, which was typically part of the larger Republic of Valdar, therefore increasing the land of the Republic.
Valdar's expansion would come to an end after the Eize War of 604, in which the western Grand Duchy of Tanat would be annexed and taken over by noble troops of Valdar. Just about five years later, in 609, one of the largest domestic upsets in the Republic's history would take place, the Tricolor Revolution. Coinciding with a rise in intellectualism and philosophy, the Revolution took place when Missionary Zhang Yun of The Order rallied a number of slaves, freemen, and sympathetic artisans and warriors to overthrow the caste system and the nobility and fully realize a democratic Valdar.
The ensuing conflict raged for nearly a decade of fighting, but eventually the revolutionaries were defeated, and Yun, along with a number of other high ranked revolutionaries, would be publicly hanged in the capital of Koliso, but not before proving himself a martyr and pushing the nobility to consider a reform of the constitution, along with potentially giving more power to the Republican government to appease the now awakened populace. The caste system was still kept in place of course, along with the chokehold of the nobles on the political power of the nation, but the rest was more loose now.
The following Rose Constitution made a couple of changes to the political system to make it more appealing to the populace that was now itching to throw off the chains of the nobility, such as:
- There would be only three regions that the country would be divided into.
- It would be allowed for freemen to move upwards into the artisan caste, though through hard work and examinations.
- Freemen would be allowed to vote, but only if they owned land.
- The Republican government would be given more power.
And so on and so forth. Later revisions that add to the power of the republican government would be added, like the one that founded a unified army, or ones that established land laws that slowly undermined the nobles, but such resolutions would be slow-acting and cautious in their wording, in order to not spark a total noble uprising.
Domestic Affairs
Valdar was involved in international politics to a certain extent, not wanting to commit themselves to long-term alliances or deals, remaining neutral in most conflicts, except ones that were very obviously a matter of national stability or aggression towards them, like the Blood War. It holds a strained relationship with Ravenna, seeing it as a mess of barbaric tribes and bandits that could push over the border at any moment and attempt to spread chaos within the Republic.
Valdar's social system depends heavily on its caste system. A prototype version was established during the Valdasi period and further developed during the time when Valdar was shattered, already well-established across noble territories by the time Thalasneo came knocking. It's divided into five levels, at the bottom are the slaves, prisoners of war, or the poor who couldn't pay off their debts, or those bought from reputable or less reputable sources, or those unfortunate enough to be born into these circumstances. They do a majority of the hard labor, in the fields of the Common Land to the mines Ore District, and to the houses of the rich and the influential in the Outer Lowlands. The second on the rung are the freemen, common peasants with little education or qualification, whose only consolement is that they're not slaves and that they have the opportunity to get better rights sometime in the future if they're lucky. They mostly spend their lives working for local landlords or nobles for low wages or the right to live on the land.
Third up the list on the caste system are the artisans, the sculptors, the merchants, the artists, the philosophers, or any freemen who was able to scrounge up enough savings to get a good enough education to be counted among the "civilized" members of society. They're afforded more rights and more respect, and are mostly treated like regular people in society. Next up are the career warriors, the volunteer soldiers. They're usually posted up in cities as guards, or assigned to protect caravans. They're above artisans in the way that they can tell them what to do as a matter of security, and are typically afforded a large number of rights and guarantees as long as they're soldiers, however when they're discharged they most likely descend back to being artisans or freemen.
At the top of the totem pole are the nobles. There are a great number of noble houses in Valdar, each with a massive control over politics and economics. While their influence might not be the best that it's ever been, they're still the dominant force in Valdar at this moment, making up most of the National Duma, and dominating in their "Noble Bloc" over the Reformists and the People's Congress. They're mostly located in the Outer Lowlands, nobles with their land located in the Ore District or the Common Land most typically live in manors in the Outer Lowlands while ruling over their territories from far away, distanced from the people they rule over and the issues these people face.
Valdar is run primarily by the National Duma, the main legislative force within the republican government. It has about 216 seats, each held by a legislator. These legislators supposedly don't have any preconceived biases, and with no party system in place, the Duma is designed to have as little factionalism as possible, with the legislators supposedly collaborating with each other for the good of the nation. This is not the case in reality, as unofficially the Duma is heavily divided into three-ish factions.
First up is the Noble Bloc, made up primarily of legislators with either noble blood or connections, who's best interest is the preservation of noble power within the Republic, although the legislators might have problems within their own bloc due to differing aims, goals, and families. The second are the Reformists, who seek a more moderate republican approach, seeking to amend the noble's power and keep it in check, or at least out of the republican government. The third are the People's Congress, a radical faction in the Duma that seeks to form a completely Republican government free of noble influence, through unorthodox, unconstitutional, and violent means if it comes to it. Formed in the wake of the Tricolor Revolution, the People's Congress split from the Reformers. While they might not own the most seats in the Duma, or have one of theirs elected into a Chancellorship, the unhappy attitude of the populace toward the nobility has endeared them to the public image. There are a number of neutral legislators who don't seek to overtly support one side or another, and can often be won over by any side when it comes to issues of governance, ranging from the radical to the more reactionary types.
The highest authority in the Republican government are the Chancellors. One is elected for each region every six years, and they come together to form a Democratic Executive Council, or more colloquially called the Triumvirate. The Chancellors are elected by the National Duma from a pool of candidates that were the most popular or most influential among the legislators. Normally, before the Rose Constitution the Chancellor that was chosen by the Duma would have to be approved by a noble backed oversight committee, allowing the nobility to retain a chokehold over the republican government, but that was repealed in the Rose Constitution.
The army of the Republic of Valdar is a heated topic to this day. In the early days under the Five Point Constitution, the central national force of the nation was minimal, reduced to only a couple disorganized units that weren't entitled to the same rights as everyone else in the warrior caste. It was heavily underfunded and under prioritized, with most of the military force residing wit the nobles and their private armies, who would hopefully defend the Republic if it came down to it. They pursued their own independent military conquests and expansions, with little input from the generals of the central army. Under the Rose Constitution the central army was made an actual force, and given consideration. Members of the army were given warrior caste rights, along with taking precedence over the armies of the nobility, though nobles did exert influence over the army.