Divine Era History
The Divine Era history of Maruva is both long and largely uneventful. Cities and kingdoms rose in small clusters along the coast, but the majority of the Maruvan population lived outside of these bubbles. Independent farming communities, horticulturalists, and pastoralist nomads adapted new technologies in their own ways over the Divine Era, and grew alongside their organized-urban counterparts. Early Maruvan religion was split between reinforcing early states (using what might be called an
Emprian model) and catering to those decentralized alternatives. The latter form of
Pratasam sometimes took
Lily of Red's message in extreme directions: not just rejecting the
Kima Cities, but all cities and non-consensual states as oppressive. This kind of Pratasa flourished, despite theological condemnations from the South, and kept the decentralized countryside powerful enough to resist annexation from the cities. In fact, this decentralized approach was in some ways more interested in agricultural sustainability and was able to weather the great droughts of the -300s and -200s far better than the cities. When the dusts settled on the great chaos of the late Divine Period, Maruvan cities were small and few in number - the region was deemed "free land" by the other kingdoms of Western Samvara.
Several groups moves into what is now Maruva to "claim" (conquer) that land for themselves: the
Kingdom of Marsham (then called the Empire of Safimir), with their naval empire, planted colonies in the North;
the tribes of Shenerem moved Westward over the plains, and conquered the South. Terminari groups just to the South seized the moment to conquer Northward as well, and Emprian druids moved to support the remaining city states in the central area (while bringing their own elite culture). By 200 ME, Maruva was split between six states, with deep cultural divisions between them.
Adding to this,
Kima Cities began to spring up across Maruva, though these were mostly independent groups rather than extensions of the grand Kima body to the South.
Consolidation (0 - 510)
The late 100s and early 200s were a time of empire. Maruva's Southern Shenek state was invaded by the first
Empire of Shenerem in 200 ME; the Safimiri colony of Ashimra moved to consolidate the North. Ashimra was largely autonomous by this point, and consolidating this much land made it a local power in its own right. Ashimra seized the narrow straights that would control Shenerem's access to the sea, and began to enter into conflict with the local Terminari princes. This all rolled into the
War of the Five Deserts - a complex mess of conflicts from 240 to 300 ME that involved Shenerem conquering all of Maruva, placing it all under the rule of an imperial family member as a vassal state, and then everyone getting conquered by the first selkie empire.
Immediately following the War of the Five Deserts, Maruva was a kind of home-base for selkie military activities; the conquering Empress Kova kept her closest family here, and had the vague idea that Maruva would be the center of administration for the Eastern half of her empire. Unfortunately for her, her eldest child was killed by one of her generals almost immediately, and the rest of her family was scattered to the winds. Maruva fell under the control of that traitor-general, a woman named Tasaha, who asserted her rule over Maruva as a personal kingdom. For about half a decade, Tasaha ruled over Maruva and tried to conquer Shenerem and Terminar; in 305, local officers and elites ousted her in a rebellion. Following this rebellion, neighboring Shenerem tried to invade to reclaim Maruva as imperial territory, and it failed. For the first time in history, coastal Maruva was all under one banner - and it was not that of an occupying power. Except, of course, that it was still a foreign occupation to many. The elites that ousted Tasaha were not of local Maruvan communities, but mostly came from the old Shenek-Ashimran occupational elite. And that elite certainly still saw itself as a colonial master-class.
In a "heated gamer moment", the Maruvan elite jumped across the inland sea to invade lands on the Western peninsula. The area that this invasion focused on was that of
Gilmasa: a peninsular bulge of sorts right across from Maruva, which had fiercely resisted Safimiri colonization. Maruva had a much easier time of it - they were more willing to occupy lands further inland using their own larger (colonized) population. Starting in 340, this invasion and colonial spree lasted until around 600 ME.
The Orchidian Moment (500 - 850)
Around 500 ME, the Lunar Crisis exploded across Samvara: a titanic struggle of Lunar cults across the continent. Maruva was deeply divided along class and ethnic lines, and so was easy prey for competing Lunar parties. From 500 to 610, Lunar cults pushed Maruva into periodic civil wars. Finally, in 610, Lunar Cult of
Orchid of Blue managed to bring together an alliance of merchants, colonial lords, druids, and new thinkers to crush the opposition. They met together with traditionalist cultists of
Lily of Red, and declared the Lunar struggle for Maruva to be over: divine incense would be tightly regulated, any sign of religious deviancy was punishable by death, and the old families would be purged and have their lands distributed to loyalists.
Maruva became
Orchid of Blue's bastion in Samvara; while she and Lily were a team, Lily typically led here (due to being the continent's premier prophet). Maruva was Orchid's chance to shine, and she went to work eagerly reforming the government and society. She created the
Maruvan Sansad: an assembly of landowners who could participate in government, and help shape the laws and structure of the kingdom according to the needs of all the regions. The Sansadi, or senatorial class, rose as a new type of feudal lord - commercial, mobile, competitive, actively political. This parliamentary monarchy model of government (one might call it) was intended to be a model for Pratasa kingdoms going forward, but Maruva failed on the battlefield several times and was unable to export it elsewhere: twice they launched grand invasions of Shenerem, and twice they failed. Maruva was more successful in its other wars during this later phase of the Lunar Crisis, but it only ended up slightly expanding its colonial empire and vassalizing the nascent
Kingdom of Nadram to the North.
While many West Samvaran kingdoms suffered from species-tensions during the 700s and early 800s, Maruva mostly saw class-ethnic conflict. The Sansadi families and their associated elite layer of society spoke a different dialect and practiced very different customs; they were both a distinct cultural group and an economic class. Sansadi power grew as they further consolidated power and removed lesser families from the mix; their wealth soared as their power became more intrusive for local communities. Local rebellions were common, but few succeeded. And then, in 850, the unthinkable happened: Lily of Red and Orchid of Blue split apart. The Pratasa temple condemned Maruva for Lunar cultism, and the religious hierarchy fell into infighting. Orchid had encouraged a great number of new theological ideas during her moment of dominance, though these ideas sometimes skewed towards
Eteza (or centralization of religious authority now the movement was entirely towards
Prikia (local conservative tradition). Orchid was thrown from the pantheon and her direct influence was curbed, but the druids of Maruva appropriated her ideas and her structures as their own divine inspiration of
Halcyon. The Sansad, they argued, was a model for all religious government as well as secular government - and the focus of authority in a single archdruidic body violated the political and spiritual rights of the regional priest-lords. While Prikian arguments and factions had existed in Maruva since the 700s, it was in the 850s that Maruva began zealously embracing Prikia politics and ritual.
Otters and Doves (850 to 1200)
The withdrawal of Orchid, the shifting of the priesthood, the collapse of Shenerem (which created military conflict and trade disruptions in the East), and skirmishes with their neighbors all made Maruva unstable - and instability is opportunity for those who would challenge the state. Maruva fell into civil war in 885 ME, and this lasted until 897. The new government centralized power in the East, limited the Sansad, and introduced a representative body for the urban lower classes of the Maruvan core. This angered the Sansadi, but it also angered commoners outside of Maruva's favorite cities. The peninsular Sansadi channeled this colonial rage in 901, when they called their own Sansad in Gilmasa. This was taken as a sign of rebellion and war quickly broke out. This was a perfect opportunity for the conqueror
Milen to sail in and exploit, and the Gilmasan Sansad not only won but marched into Maruva's capital - but they did so as selkie subjects rather than their own conquerors. For thirty years of selkie rule, the colonial Sansad ruled over Maruva. In 931, when Milen died, civil war quickly erupted once more. From 931 to 980, periodic conflicts burned across Maruva and Gilmasa; the wars were brutal and destabilizing, bringing plague and famine. A constant background noise of low-level violence developed. In response to all this death and pointless war, the lower druids and the commoners began to organize. How it began is controversial - was it a Lunar cult, a legendary and charismatic druid named Sevaya the Pure, an Ayshan plot, or many local groups rising at once? People disagree, but the result is the same: The
White Dove Movement, a pacifistic movement that preached non-violent, humility, asceticism, and decentralized religious power. The White Doves appropriated the Prikian rhetoric of the elites and refashioned it for the commoners and the merchants; they sang of the old times, before markets or international wars, when farmers could farm in isolated peace.
When the White Dove Movement placed their favored candidate on the throne of Maruva in 982, it was during a very tense political moment. The land of Empria to the South had declared themselves the absolute monarchs of the faith, and the Prikia druids quickly seceded from this religious regime to make their own
Pratasam. The
War of the Three Circles ensued - a great war of the sects, between Empria, Marsham, and Maruva. The Maruvan archdruids were exiled or killed in 1040, and so lost by most assessments, but Maruva kept fighting - and ultimately they were able to get a compromise with the Emprian circle in 1150. Much of the fighting between Pratasa realistically ended in the 1070s, though, as a new threat was emerging: an
Ayshan army in the North, which had just conquered Nadram and was spreading into Maruva. Most Pratasa focused on this threat during the early 1100s, and the Compromise helped them coordinate better - in 1159, the united Pratasa forces managed to push the Ayshans out of Maruva and secured a peace.
New Spins (1200 to 1570)
After 1160, Maruva rapidly restabilized. The Sansad was made an elite institution again, now heavily tied to the military. Lands were being siphoned upwards, towards the military houses; the
Kima Cities were dissolved (at least most of them were) and were put under the control of several powerful families to better extract mineral resources. The new Maruva was militarized, commercial, and rather authoritarian - the odd one out among their feudal neighbors. Regular wars with their neighbors, land grabs, and colonial expeditions occurred. But Maruva's greatest threats were internal. The
Druidic Revolution of 1300 harnessed populist tensions in Maruva; Prikian populists and hyper-Etezan radicals marched together with the peasants and lesser elites against the crown of Maruva. The revolution toppled the Sansad in 1304 - but the crown mobilized against them, and took back control in 1306. The crown began to slowly feed reforms back to the populace, offering relief to try and cool revolutionary fervor - and they seceded again from the Archdruids of Pratasa, which they felt were enabling this behavior. Empria, which was full of revolutionary fervor, took offense to that and promptly invaded. The Emprians won, and created an absolute monarchy in Maruva, banning the Sansad and replacing it with a council of druids. This new order didn't last long, but it did see a big shakeup in terms of politics - new families were bubbling to the top, and lands were becoming fractured. The colonies became their own Kingdom of Gilmasa, independent from Maruva.
Maruva re-instituted the Sansad in 1380, but it just wasn't the same without their colonies. Maruva tried to reclaim their colonies in the late 1300s, but failed spectacularly. Maruva increasingly feudalized as cities became less important, trade slumped, and people sought power more locally. This slow drift from 1390 to 1450 was interrupted by a surprise "return" of the colonies: the Gilmasan monarchy sailed in to seize the Maruvan throne in 1452 during a succession crisis, and they won. From 1452 to 1530, Gilmasa and Maruva flirted with being the same country, but didn't fully connect (they held separate legal codes, different structures, and were typicallt divided between royal siblings). Finally, in 1530, one man,
Ardija II, inherited both kingdoms at the same time and decided to re-combine them once again. Radical land and legal reform followed, as well as war: the country re-militarized and began invading many surrounding states. Ardija believed that Maruva's destiny was to remove Ayshanism from the West, and to unite the inland sea into one stable state. These wars dragged from 1536 to 1570 - and, while they included many short-term successes, they ultimately plunged the land into immense instability.
Free Maruva (1570 - 1830)
In 1570, Ardija's line failed and the greater Maruva-Gilmasan empire collapsed into civil war. Maruva's fighting was particularly bad, and elites there struggled to consolidate power. It was not a landed noble who ultimately won the day, but an ascetic druid named
Nasunavi I. Nasunavi was a monastic druid who, after rising to power over a radical sect, mobilized a nostalgia for the White Dove movement and a growing Prikian traditionalist movement to seize the Southern coastline during the civil war. But he didn't win alone - he built a secret alliance with the
Aretan Church that is now known by Pratasa as the
Infernal Pact. The Infernal Pact promised that Areto and Priki Pratasa would be elevated together as the supreme religion of Maruva; an alliance of old and new against the Eteza-Pratasa. In 1579, Nasunavi seized control of Maruva and seceded from the Pratasa religion for the last time.
From 1580 to 1650, instability predictably followed: Gilmasa invaded to restore the faith with a coalition of allies, rebels sprung up, and
Sumoxans invaded. But, in the end, Maruva survived. The Pratasa got another compromise - that some communities could still be part of the mainstream Pratasa hierarchy, as long as their local lords agreed. This agreement factionalized the local elites and fragmented power within Maruva even further. But Maruva pulled together in the late 1600s against a heathen threat: the Ayshans invading once again out of the North. Over the 1700s, Maruva reinstated the Sansad once again and used it as a tool to centralize feudal power; Maruva began to prosper, especially once the Empire of Shenerem re-unified and declared Maruva an ally. Shenerem began increasing its influence over Maruva over time, however, and kept trying to assert trade power over Souther Maruva - the empire's hunger for a port didn't vanish with their alliance.
Wary of Shenerem's domineering attitude, Maruva began to pivot towards Western Samvaran connections again in the late 1700s and early 1800s. When Shenerem went to war with the Ayshans and Halikvar in the far East, they called on their Maruvan allies to support them; but the Maruvans declared that the East was too far away, and refused to fully mobilize. They sent support, but not the desired level of support - the kind fellow Aretan communities were sending. To Maruva, they already gave a great deal in regional protection and trade access; this was a religious war, it was not their fight. To Shenerem, this was a betrayal. Shenerem sued Maruva, and Maruva cut off support entirely. It became a personal feud between monarchs, and the relationship crumbled. Maruva was on their own again - but they were still prospering! The Maruvans invaded Terminar, the land to the South, in 1830 to expand their territorial power and establish their strength as an independent empire.
Escaping Annexation (1866 - 1900)
Maruva's power was rising, but the internal tensions between central government and local lords was rising as well. In 1866, the Empire of Shenerem invaded Maruva, and those internal tensions blew the kingdom open like a live explosive. Their conquered lands seceded, their lords battled viciously. Shenerem defeated the Maruvan armies early on, but struggled for years to quell the lords and their civil war. What the Empire expected to be a quick victory and a palace coup, was now turning into a quagmire. Complicating matters, an Ayshan army soon appearing in the North led by a powerful solar wizard named
Majesty. Many feared that this would be just like in the East, where an Ayshan mage-commander suddenly appeared with an army to drive the Aretans from the coast. Majesty was far less of a threat than the Eastern leader (Graceful-Worship), but his arrival appeared as certain doom to the Imperial general -
Narian Tarthvar. To the general's relief, Majesty seemed unusually eager to negotiate, and the two met in the city of Khopen to discuss dividing the country. The two initially planned to divide the country in half between themselves, and they began cooperating to bring stability to the region. What began as a tense process between enemies, ended extremely friendly.
Majesty, it turned out, was not a zealous Ayshan, nor did he have a large army. He had connections to the military of the kingdom of Nadram that he used to supplement his modest army with theirs, but Nadram didn't want to go to war for long. Majesty was mostly trying to carve out a space for himself to get away from the overbearing regulations of the
Saraja Family - by creating a small new march kingdom to be ruled by a puppet monarch, they could escape scrutiny while still increasing their status within the Ayshan community. And so, over the course of the next few years, Majesty and General Narian grew to respect each other greatly. Majesty ultimately decided to let his puppet state become a vassal to Narian, as a way to accelerate the peace process, increase stability, and potentially start gathering influence in the Aretan world. In accepting the Ayshans into the kingdom, Narian vastly increased local feudal power: each local lord would decide the religion of their fief, and would operate with great autonomy. In doing so, Narian was also able to bog down the imperial annexation process, saving Maruva as an independent entity. The Empire was furious - they wanted the territory connecting Shenerem to the sea, at least - but was too exhausted from sixty years of religious wars in the East to begin a civil war in the West, especially when Narian was so popular among the public. Narian made his daughter queen of Maruva, and Maruva got to survive as a tributary and vassal of the Empire. To solidify the Tarthvar dynasty's legitimacy locally and in the Imperial court, there needed to be some kind of tangible victory, though. The new regime turned towards Terminar, which had seceded at the start of the civil war and had been recognized as an independent state by their neighboring Pratasa powers. Maruva invaded Terminar anyways, and recaptured it in 1872, angering the Pratasa world and satisfying the local nobility.
Modern History
From 1872 to 1900, Maruva remained generally autonomous, but the Shenek Empire was not so easily dissuaded from taking territory. From 1900 to 1910, the Empire escalated efforts to bring Maruva to heel. In 1910, the Empire decided that it was sick of the Tarthvar dynasty sabotaging their efforts, and invoked the empire's right to replace the monarch. Rather than swapping out one Tarthvar for another, the Empire went a step further and fully replaced the dynasty with one more loyal to the imperial family. There were immediate rebellions against this action, which gained steam as the new monarch began arranging for land transfers to the Empire and looting local lands and businesses for their own family (why invest in a country that won't exist in five years?). The rebels drove out the new monarch in 1913, and Shenerem had a choice: commit to a full civil war, or withdraw and accept a new status quo. The emperor chose neither, and instead committed enough troops to keep the conflict going without fully committing to an expensive mobilization. The result was a mess that dragged on until 1922, when Shenerem finally pulled out and agreed to a certain level of autonomy for Maruva. While Maruvan rebels were not winning that war, it was proving unpopular at court, in the public, and internationally - Ayshan and Pratasa powers alike were increasing their involvement. It was technically still a Shenek victory (the Tarthvar dynasty was completely removed), but it did not end in Maruva being annexed or fully subjugated.
After 1922, the imperial policy was mostly "secure the ports for merchants and the military, let the rest of the country do whatever"; Maruva increased their autonomy more and more. In the 1960s, a shift in imperial politics led to another attempt to bring Maruva back under control, and the Maruvan Queen did exactly what Narian did back in the 1800s: she increased feudal powers to bog down the imperial bureaucracy until they gave up. In the 1980s, the Empire gave up again and left Maruva back to its business.
Since 1985, Maruva has been ruled by King Tigahl I Saltanar. His mother, Queen Zujaya I, was a wily and capable political operator who is remembered very fondly for keeping the country at just
the right level of imperial closeness; and for a time, he was her model successor. But, over the years, he has given up trying to wrangle the local lords and has seemingly done his best to anger every Terminari noble in the South. The 2000s were a major pivot decade for him, when he went from beloved and competent monarch to a controversial buffoon in the eyes of some. His policies over that decade accidentally built the foundations for a secessionist movement in the South, which boiled into a rebellion in 2015. While that rebellion was put down (barely), it has all been downhill from there - scandal after blunder, the royal family's power seems to be collapsing. The rebellion, never truly crushed, has been rekindled. What happens next is anyone's guess: a civil war, an imperial annexation attempt, or perhaps a palace coup?
Terminar, in the South, is 400 miles long and 270 miles wide. Most settlement is concentrated around the coasts and rivers; the interior of Terminar is barren rocky desert. Large mountains surround the rivers, and many large Kima cities operate there. A chain of islands extend off the Southern peninsula, and are known as selkie outposts of sorts - many of the local residents have married into the selkie community.
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