The Achaean City States
Achaea is the cradle of human civilization, a bastion of stability and civil government back when the other nations of the continent were little but warring barbarian tribes.
An alliance of city states rather than a true nation, together the Achaean City States are a power capable of giving pause to the greatest powers of The Great Inland Sea.
History
While The individual city states are some of the oldest unconsolidated states in the continent, the alliance between them is slightly more recent. As the other nations of The Great Inland Sea grew in size and power as the most successful kings and warlords conquered and absorbed their neighbors, the city states realized that they would need to band together if they wanted to compete.
Warring States
While all of the nations of The Shattered Continent went through a period of warring as warlords and kings tried to expand their holdings and make their mark on history, The City States are unique in that most of them came through this period intact. While it was a period of tremendous violence, in most cases the wars were resolved without the actual city states changing hands, just outlying farmland. In the few cases where city states were absorbed by the victors, they invariably rebelled within a few decades and became independant again.
Stronger Together
As the wars of expansion and conquest that raged across The Shattered Continent began to wane and the modern nations began to take shape, it became evident to the individual city states that alone they stood no chance of resisting the emerging great powers of the region should their eyes turn towards Achaea. An ecclesia was called at Orrusae and each of the city states was invited to send a delegation of ten men. In the end, the ecclesia concluded that an alliance was needed, binding all of the city states together with a combined military might that could stand up against even powers like Bommbergonia.
A Neighbor In Trouble
When Bommbergonia turned it's eyes towards the galacian peninsula and control of the Strait Promiscum, Oenotria turned to their larger and more powerful neighbor to the south for help. As the Bommbergonian forces mustered and headed south, an emergency ecclesia was called in Tyros with representatives from the other City States arriving via arcane means. Oenotria had few choices available to them, and none of The City States liked the idea of having Bommbergonia on their northern border without a buffer state, so Oenotria became a protectorate of The City States and the army of Tyros marched north.
The forces of Bommbergonia had made good headway into Oenotria and were preparing to besiege the city of Risinium when they were approached by a rider bearing a flag of truce. The rider informed them that he had a messsage from the Polemarchos of the army of Tyros and would await a response. Within minutes of being handed the message, a red faced bommbergonian general shoved it back into the messenger's hands and told him to "Tell your general to keep out of the business of his betters, this peninsula will belong to Bommbergonia one way or another."
By the next evening, the armies of Tyros and Bommbergonia were facing each other in the field, and the Bommbergonians, prepared to face the much smaller armies of Oenotria, were handily defeated. In just days, the bommbergonians had been driven from oenotria. Similar invasions would be attempted multiple times over the next century or two with better prepared bommbergonian armies, and although the bommbergonian navy had significantly more succes, they never achieved a foothold on the peninsula.
Society
Achaean society is a democratic one, where everyone is equal under the law and entitled to participate in The Ecclesia; regardless of wealth, power, or social standing, all men are theoretically equals and in practice this holds up relatively well. Historically only adult men have been allowed to vote, with husbands and fathers are seen as representatives of their wives and children, including unmarried adult daughters, but this has begun to change. Unmarried adult women were granted the right to represent themselves a century ago, and there is currently a strong movement pushing for wives to be allowed their own votes as well.
The Ecclesia
All major governmental decisions in The City States are conducted in The Ecclesia, an assembly open to all and typically held in large outside spaces such as public parks or amphitheatres. While attendance to the Ecclesia isn't required, it's seen as a civic duty to attend. At these gatherings, public officials are elected, legislation is passed, war is declared, and treaties are finalized. Depending on the size of the gathering, votes may be gathered by a show of hands, paper ballot, or the handing in of stones or bits of pottery marked with the voters decision.
Heroes and Monsters
Achaea has a strong heroic tradition, with stories of mighty heroes battling feasome monsters and performing heroic tasks going all the way back to the founding of each city state. Achaeans regard heroes as having the blood of the gods within them, granting them power beyond normal men. Successful adventurers are respected in Achaea, although few rise to the point where they are regarded as true Heroes.
In order to have true Heroes like from legend, they must have monsters to battle, and this mindset has shaped the development and expansion of human settlements within the region. The building of new settlements is carefully controlled in order to keep the wild areas pure and untamed, perfect territory for manticores, chimera, hydra, and the other achaean monsters of legend. As a result of this policy, leaving the settled areas and venturing into the untamed forests and hills of Achaea is truly taking your life into your own hands.
Alchemy
Largely due to the Achaean Academy, alchemy is much more prominent in The City States than in most regions, even finding it's use in the Achaean military. Achaean alchemists are the only ones who have figured out how to produce alchemists fire in large enough batches for the military to use it in their siege weapons. In general, alchemical items are somewhat more available and possibly slightly cheaper in Achaea than in most other regions.
Religion
The Achaean Pantheon
The Achaeans worship a pantheon of gods who they believe live in a hidden realm within the mountains of The Spine. Their gods are immense beings who pass in and out of this realm through a massive gilded door in the side of the mountains, giving gifts of knowledge and wisdom whenever they deign to directly interact with mortals. Achaeans generally regard The Ascended as upstarts who have only existed for a fraction of the existance of the real gods.
Tremendous marble temples to the gods can be found in any major achaean city, and the average achaean citizen is quite religious, attributing nearly anything that happens to them to the whims of the gods. Smaller shrines to the gods can be found anywhere related to their aspects, shrines to Diadgnosis in schools, to Thalarchos at ports, to Dimikryios in workshops and forges, and so on.
Military
The Achaean Phalanxes are famous throughout the Great Inland Sea region, and the unique military organization of the Achaean City States has tried and tested in combat both between city states and against outside threats. A Polemarchos is in charge of the army as a whole, but each smaller unit has it's own officers to ensure that each piece can operate independantly.
Dwarven Influence
The Achaean military is heavily modeled after the armies of the dwarves of Godforge Hold, who acted as protectors for the early achaeans. In the early days of the Achaean city states they wielded bronze weapons and armor modeled after the enchanted bronze of the dwarves, and their unique helmets with the broad cheek guards and T shaped slit in the front. Today, bronze weapons have been surpassed by steel, but the Achaean alchemists figured out a process to coat steel weapons and armor in a thin but durable layer of bronze without effecting their weight appreciably.
Citizen Soldiers
While the city states do maintain a standing force of professional soldiers, the majority of their available forces are citizen soldiery, ordinary citizens who are issued basic equipment and train as militia several times a year. As their soldiers are required to purchase their own equipment, the ranks of their soldiery can be largely divided up by class.
Infantry
While other nations may celebrate their heavy cavalry and knights above all, the heart and soul of the Achaean military is their infantry. Unbreakable phalanxes of hoplites supported by mobile units of skirmishers and slingers form the core of their armies, with cavalry playing a supporting role, important but not the stars of the show.
Hoplites
The achaean military is built around the hoplite, a well equipped soldier compared to the lowest tiers of the armies most of the other nations of The Shattered Continent. The basic militia hoplite is equipped with light armor with bronzed helmets, large metal shields, and both a spear and the unique achaean shortsword called a gladius. The professional soldiery are more heavily equipped, wearing heavy bronzed steel breastplates and tall crested helmets with large cheek guards and nose guards. They wield the same large metal shields and gladius as their militia counterparts, but wield longspears as their primary weapons.
Peltasts
Lightly armored skirmishers, peltasts are equipped with light or no armor, javelins and a light shield, with a gladius for close combat. As skirmishers, their job is to bait enemy units out of formation and create holes in the enemy lines for the Hoplites to take advantage of.
Psiloi
The Achaeans put less of a focus on ranged units than most nations, and the Psiloi reflect this. Typically unarmored and equipped with either slings or shortbows, the Psiloi are made up of the poorest citizens of Achaean society, able to afford little more than the slings or shortbows which are used to hunt birds and small game.
Organization
Lochos - 8-16 hoplites, lead by a Lokhagos
Phalanx - 8 Lochos
Tagma - 4 Phalanx, lead by a Tagmatarkhis
Syntagma - 4 Tagma, lead by a Syntagmatarkhis
Cavalry
Achaean cavalrymen are citizens who are well off enough to own horses and equip themselves, and are organized and commanded seperately from the infantry. Unlike many of their contemporaries, the Achaeans don't tend use their cavalry in massed frontal charges, treating them as skirmishers and flankers instead.
Podromoi
The podromoi are the achaean light cavalry; equipped with light armor, lances, and javelins, along with a gladius for close quarters combat. Their mounts have light barding at best, and they are used as skirmishers, harassers, and to counter the enemies own light cavalry and scouts.
Hippeis
The hippeis are the closest thing that Achaea has to the heavy knights fielded by many other nations; wearing heavy armor and using lances, heavy shields, and various one handed weapons. Their mounts are equipped with medium or heavy barding, and they are used as flankers and as a heavy hammer to slam into the back of the enemy lines once the two sides are engaged.
Organization
Lochoi - 8 men, lead by a Lochos
Dilochoi - 2 Lochoi
Oulamoi - 4 Lochoi lead by an Oulochos
Ilai - 8 Lochos lead by an Illarchos
Hipparchiai - 2 Illai lead by a Hipparchos
The Achaean Academy
Regarded as one of the greatest educational institutions in The Shattered Continent, the Achaean academy welcomes students from all corners of the continent, although Achaeans citizenship is a point in an applicant's favor. The academy has several smaller satelite campuses in other city states, but the main campus is in Tyros, something that the city state holds as a point of pride.
The academy isn't just an educational and research institution, it also serves as a repository of knowledge. In addition to magical and academic knowledge, both crafts such as smithing and pottery as well as martial traditions are preserved and developed. It isn't unknown for academically inclined martial artists to make trips to the academy to attempt to learn from their repository of ancient and dead martial arts. The academy has an extensive dojo where a number of martial artists are in residence at any given time, learning from scrolls documenting ancient martial arts or offering tutelege in their own.
In a seperate, walled off compound from the main academy are the alchemical labs, seperated both for safety and to reduce the likelyhood of strange or toxic fumes drifting into the rest of the academy. Achaea has a strong tradition of alchemy thanks to the academy, and because achaean alchemists are the only ones who know how to make alchemists fire in bulk, they are the only nation to make heavy use of it in their siege engines. In addition to their research, the alchemical labs also serve as waste processing plants for the cities they are built in, processing waste into usable substances like fertilizer.
Oenotria
The City States gastronomically inclined ally to the north, Oenotria has had a good trade relationship with it's southern neighbors for centuries, so when their independance came under threat from The Kingdom of Bommbergonia they turned to their long time friends for help. Not wanting the powerful and aggressive nation directly on their own borders, an agreement was quickly made and Oenotria became a protectorate of The City States. The famed Achaean Phalanxes marched to war, and the Bommbergonians, unprepared for this unexpected new enemy, were quickly driven back. In the centuries since their alliance was created, the hoplites have been called out in defense of their protectorate a number of times, and although the naval forces of The City States have historically fared poorly, the bommbergonians have always been prevented from gaining a foothold in Oenotria.
The City States
The individual city states which compose the alliance all share the same cultural roots, but differences in location, economy, and culture have given them each their own distinct quirks and differences. Despite their alliance, historical rivalries and grudges, economic competition, and simple politics rear their ugly heads whenever representatives of two of them meet.
Tyros
Home to the famous Achaean Academy, Tyros is the most powerful of the city states. Located against the northern border with Oenotria, Tyros is on the front lines of any bommbergonian invasion of their protectorate, which has lead to them maintaining the largest standing military of any of the city states, with a little help. Due to the importance of both the academy and the threat of bommbergonia, Tyros' treaties with the other city states involve them loaning it units of hoplites on a rotating basis. The Academy is the most important cultural institution in Achaea, and this arrangement allows all of the city states to claim some responsibility for it's defense.
Orussae
The breadbasket of Achaea, Orussae is dominated by fertile lowlands and gentle hills. It has few wild and untamed areas, the vast majority of its land having been converted into farmland, orchards, and grazing land.
Cebresia
The second most powerful of the city states, Cebresia is located on the south-western edge of Achaea, and the reason for its large standing military is located on the opposite shore of the strait which makes up it's western border. The dark forests of Tavelia are an ever present source of danger, vicious beasts and ravenous bands of the undead a constant threat to the peace and prosperity of Cebresia. The cebresian military employs more clerics and paladins than any of the other city states, and it's a rare cebresian hoplite who hasn't seen at least some combat against Tavelian beasts, ghouls, and other things that go bump in the night.
Thassylos
Located on the shores of the Thassylian Sea, the fishing fleets of Thassylos are the most prolific of any of the city states, their unique shallow bottomed boats pulling in full nets from the fertile fisheries of the shallow sea. The fisheries are richer closer to the southern edge of the sea, but every year a few fishermen venture too close to the edge of the Fetid Marsh and disappear without a trace.
Erebes
The only landlocked city state, Erebes is nestled into a river valley which cuts through the hills of The Tail, providing fertile farmland and good fishing in the two rivers which the locals know as The Twins. The hills surrounding erebes are wild and untamed, full of dangerous monsters, brigands, and tribes of monstrous creatures.
Barisos
The newest of the city states, Barisos is the easternmost of the city states, located at the end of the Thassylian Sea. It controls Half Pass, the only major pass across the spine and into the badlands on the other side, and as such is the only city state with direct diplomatic and trade relationships with Jumhirra. To its south is the Fetid Marsh, and while some settlements have been built close to it's edge, the marsh itself has proven too inhospitable for any but the most determined explorers to venture into.
Foreign Relations
The City States generally have decent relations with all of the nations of The Shattered Continent, any wars being far enough in the past for hard feelings to have softened.
Oenotria
A protectorate of The City States, shared wariness of Bommbergonia has brought these two somewhat culturally similar nations together. The City States are glad to have a buffer between themselves and the sometimes aggressive power to the north, and the Oenotrians are glad to have the backing of a greater power against bommbergonian ambitions.
The Kingdom of Bommbergonia
One of the few nations which the Achaean City States have ever declared war against, it's been a couple hundred years since the last bommbergonian incursion against Oenotria. Despite time softening hard feelings, The City States are still wary of bommbergonian ambition, knowing that the Oenotrian peninsula is something that the ambitious nation would love to possess.
The Republic of Lechia
A few minor clashes over fishing grounds aside, the shared headache of sharing a border with Tavelia has brought them together at multiple points in the past. They share intelligence about stirrings within the dark forests of tavelia, helping ensure that neither of them are caught by surprise during the periods when incursions become heavier and more frequent.
Galacia
Galacia and The City States get along reasonably well, historical galacian ambitions on the Oenotrian Peninsula aside. Today, lacking full control even over their own peninsula, the galacians arent seen as a serious threat to Oenotria, and relations are good.
Tavelia
To share a border with Tavelia is to be constantly vigilant against the beast, ghouls, and other monsters which periodically leave its dark forests to wreak havoc in more fertile lands. The state of cebresia in particular is forced to maintain large numbers of men at arms to protect it's citizens from things that go bump in the knight.
Jumhirra
The presence of Half Pass, the only easily traversable pass across the spine, on the western border of The City States has given them a more direct relationship with the state of Jumhirra than most other nations. A limited amount of trade runs between the city state of Barisos, through the southern badlands to Junawada, transporting oil, olives, and other achaean specialties in one direction and, textiles, spices, and runaway slaves in the other.
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