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The Kingdom of Ravenna was originally a colony of an ally of the Kingdom of Falglor, a former mining outpost of The Alammar Empire. Ravenna was founded on land granted to the ally by Falglor. During the Age of Frost, the colony went against their overlord's orders and joined the Coalition of Nations. This led to tensions between the overlord and Ravenna, eventually leading to Ravenna's rebellion. Falglor supplied the former overlords with weapons and money, while The Order helped train and supply the rebels as thanks for helping them during the Age of Frost. Eventually, the overlords grew weary of the costly war, and let Ravenna go.

Ravenna grew and started developing a culture. The king wielded total power, while a light scattering of advisors helped run the kingdom. All was (mostly) well until The Cult of Zelial moved into the developing nation. Immediately, things started changing. The already pretty bad crime problem suddenly grew worse, and more coordinated. Bandits moved into the kingdom in droves, disrupting trade and pilfering small villages. The Cult of Zelial set to work assassinating officials and kings. The average lifetime of a king was about 6 months before they did something the Cult didn't like, and was in turn, assassinated.

Things were absolute chaos until a king eventually used their authority to form the Inquisition. After that, crime and banditry was still a problem, but the corruption was mostly rooted out of the government.

Politics of Ravenna

Ravennan politics are an absolutely abysmal mess. Ever since the rise of The Inquisition and The Cult of Zelial in the kingdom, the power of the king has become basically non-existent, with an unruly populace and unwilling governors. The only thing keeping some mildly popular duke from launching a coup against the monarchy is the support of the Inquisition, and the fact no one wants to actually rule the smoldering trash fire that is Ravenna. The king only holds power in the central territories of the nation, the outer provinces are only part of Ravenna in name alone, some small towns going decades with minimal interaction with any sort of government influence.

People have used this to their advantage, trade barons and crime lords taking up border towns as their own, enforcing their illegal rule with mercenaries and paid goons. The government knows about this, but simply isn't strong enough to definitively destroy any of the independent warlords on their own without the others falling upon them like vultures. They do try and attack any warlord that grows too ambitious or too powerful.