The Kingdom of Itan-shef was a nation in the southwest of the Continent, occupying the territory that The Holy Imperium of Moneeri now occupies today, after being crushed in the Great Crusade after years of decline. While it was still existing, it was a major power in the south for a long time, clashing with their enemies, the Otani.
Itan-shef began, as with all nations, in The Splintering and collapse of The Alammar Empire. It was founded by a powerful landowner, Atoussa Munasaya in the west who was toeing the line between being part of the government and being a technically independent part of the elite of the Empire. Atoussa saw the writing on the wall and realized that his profits, land, and power would all fall apart and crumble if left to revolutionaries, and as such he decided to become a rebel out of pragmatism, like so many others. He negotiated with his home city of Munasa to become its ambassador in the Umvarin Conference, while also pursuing his own agenda.
While attending the meeting, he didn't play much of a role, mostly being third fiddle to the Falglorian dispute and other matters of more important conquest, Munasa being mostly left to the sidelines, which left him indignant and angry after being left on the sidelines, unable to get much of anything out of the conference for himself or Munasa. Afterwards, in preparation for the inevitable chaos that would occur, he moved most of his money and wealth into Munasa and hired a band of mercenaries to protect his estate and land from any bandits or looters.
When the Splintering did break out, thanks to preventative measures by Atoussa and others associated with him, there was relatively little bloodletting in the streets, with only a few spontaneous riots or fights breaking out, enough to be easily put down by the citizen militia. However, the mercenaries hired by Atoussa decided to betray him while the iron was hot and plunder the farms and lands that he owned, stealing or killing much of the wealth and livestock, destroying most of his resources that weren't in the city. After a few weeks of skirmishes within the city and an informal siege around Munasa brought about by the excess of roaming bandits and other unscrupulous bands of the armed.
When the initial chaos died down to a low enough point, a question was posed on who should be the leader of Munasa, coming to a decision in the populous over whether to choose the mayor of the city or Atoussa. Atoussa was chosen, partly because of his connections and also maybe bribing or otherwise coercing a large portion of the voter base to vote for him. Regardless, he ascended to become the leader of Munasa, christening the Consulate of Munasa and being titled the First Consul of the City, alongside several of his close friends and confidants, forming a group of about four Consuls.
During this period of growth Munasa was a mostly agrarian state, relying on nearby settlements and farms for food to both consume and export for trade. It was continually protected by the citizen militia, with Atoussa mistrusting any mercenary force. Little would actually happen, only a few battles and skirmishes with organized bandit groups and the armies of neighbouring cities to solidify Munasa's territory. Eventually, Atoussa would die, and the other three Consuls would fight over who would take over his place, with Uhal Yonan, a distant nephew of Atoussa, ascending to the First Consulship and ousting the rest of the Consuls. It would be under Uhal that the majority of Munasa's and later Itan-Shef's conquests would take place.
Under Uhal the citizen militia would take precedence over farming or trade, with Yonan himself having taken part in the Splintering, and being partially trained in military tactics from that. The army of Munasa would conquer multiple nearby towns and eventually a neighboring city, becoming not a city-state and really earning the title of Consulate. Munasa would keep its name throughout a majority of Yonan's conquests until just a few months before his death. Under Uhal the state expanded massively, carving out a sizeable portion of the area for itself, and solidifying itself as a power. The citizen militia would be transformed into a professional army separate from the populace, one of the first following the collapse of the Alammar Empire, placing the Consulate above all their enemies.
During Uhal's time as First Consul, he would massively undermine the power of the other consulates, so much so that they were of little organized threat to his rule or authority. Thusly he would appoint his daughter, Tursahka Yonan as the next First Consul. Tursahka would be the first to formally name the nation of Munasa into the Consulate of Itan-Shef, and would continue in her father's footsteps, continuing to grow the army and conquer nearby settlements, eventually taking over most of the territory east of Tomachi, quickly becoming a major power at the expense of its internal economy. While the Consulate's rapid growth was of concern to the rest of the Continent, they were mostly tolerated by the Fervoni Holy Union because they provided a potential balancing weight against the Kingdom of Falglor in the south. By the end of Tursahka's reign, Itan-Shef had nearly tripled in size, assuming control over most of the southwest, excluding the western coastline and some of the Alammaran remnant warlord states.
It was also during Tursahka's reign that the Consulate method of government would end, the system dissolved in favor of concentrating power in the former First Consul, now King of Itan-Shef. The Consuls would be given positions in the new Royal Council, but would be in no way equal to the King. The unspoken hereditary system of the First Consulate was not formalized into a official clause of inheritance for the Royal line, but Kings would choose their successors from anyone in the population. Tursahka used this system to choose her scribe as the new inheritor of the crown (people rumor this was because of an illicit relation the two had). Tursahka would die seven months later from cardiac arrest in the middle of the night, and the scribe, Bahenzear Kataba set about administrating the new territories and building the new nation up from the ground.
Itan-Shef ruled mostly uncontested for decades in the southwest, the Alammaran warlord states all too busy going at each other to pose much of a problem (and the geography proving them to be too much of a hassle to conquer), and with Falglor kept apart by the marshes of the Xi Region, the was little in the way of their dominance in the region. This changed with the advent of the Otani Sultanate. Originating from a southern port city, it managed to evade the conquests of Itan-Shef by virtue of being kept away by hostile geography. In time, the Otani grew to be a very capable rival to the power of Itan-Shef in Munasa. This came to a head in the Yanalsa War, in which Itan-Shef attempted to strike at the Otani Sultanate prematurely, sending a sizable army into the the Yanalsa Pass, one of the few entirely safe passes through the rough terrain that surrounded the Otani Sultanate. The Itan-Shef army was soundly defeated and sent fleeing, but the Otani legions were unable to capitalize on this victory, garrisoning Itan-Shef forts of the pass keeping them at bay and away from Itan-Shef territory. In the end the war ended in a draw, but it was more of a Itan-Shef loss, with large casualty numbers, a high cost with little gain, and their image as the undefeatable "Eagle of the South" shattered.
Itan-Shef and the Otani Sultanate would continue to be hardened enemies over the years, constantly warring with each other, with little effect. Itan-Shef was once pushed out of their territory during one of the wars, with the Otani occupying multiple of their cities along the bank of the Selodus River, becoming another major point of contention for the battles between Itan-Shef and the Otani Sultanate.
The kingdom's rivalry with the Otani was beginning to be detrimental to them. Their society, based so much on conquest began to slow down with them throwing their full weight against the Sultanate, causing their internal economy to struggle. Being in an eternal state of on and off war was also detrimental to trade, with merchants often just not venturing south into the Kingdom because of fear of being attacked by either side. A more insidious side effect was the growing power of nobles. Originally they were subservient to the throne, power flowing downwards from the King to all the different persons of interest in Itan-Shef. However, now that the King was unable to make any sort of strides against the enemies of the Kingdom, their power was beginning to wane, and that power was being eaten up by the different nobles, shifting the nation from a top heavy administrative design into a more balanced one, bordering on shifting into noble heavy territory.
This was exacerbated when King Menser died in battle against the Otani without having chosen a successor, leaving behind the title of King to his two sons. The two sons hated each other with a passion, so when the news of their father's death reached them, they immediately began to fight. The younger brother ousted the older one from Munasa, causing him to flee to the secondary city of Nikpayut. This didn't spark an immediate civil war because that would cause an opportunity for the Otani to sweep in and conquer the both of them, but it did severely hamper Itan-Shef's military capabilities. Now the nation was basically split between the two princes, each one proclaiming themselves to be the true inheritor of the throne and causing a major detriment to the administrative abilities of the Kingdom with no central authority in a nation built around central authority.
This, along with their rivalry with the Otani would prove to be their undoing, causing them to be defeated and conquered in the Great Crusade.