History of Vaalus

Before Kataris

The Breadbasket Of The Empire: 104 AK To 544 AK

The Eastern Empire And The Regency: 544 AK To 712 AK

The Teuthis Uprising And Civil War: 712 AK To 729 AK

By the beginning of the 8th century AK, popular unrest among the Northern Provinces began to grow more acute. The situation came to a head when in 712 AK High Regent Nikomedes dispatched two legions to Ecumanalus to keep the peace; when Consul Agrippina of Ecumanalus voiced her objections to this undermining of her authority, the High Regent ordered that she be dismissed from her post and sent the Commander of the Cataphracts to replace her and put the province under military governance. Agrippina refused to stand down, demanding that she be allowed to plead her case before the Senate; however this was refused by the Commander of the Cataphract Guard, who placed her and several of her closest advisors under arrest on charges of sedition and insurrection. After a perfunctory trial, the Consul and her staff were publicly executed by the Cataphracts, and their corpses hung from the walls of Ecumanalus as a warning to others.
This discussion proved catastrophic in short order. The Consul had been extremely popular in Ecumanalus and the Northern Provinces generally, and was seen as a peacemaker and strong advocate for provincial rights. In killing her, the Cataphracts had only succeeded in making a martyr of her; before the day was out there were riots on the streets of Ecumanalus. When the order was given for the soldiers of the Auxilla to turn on their own people, the Auxilla deserted en masse, joining the uprising against the High Regent and forcing the Cataphracts to flee the city.
As the Legions and the Cataphracts set to besiege Ecumanalus, the Northern Provinces erupted into rebellion. Loyalist Consuls were deposed, some fleeing as their consular palaces were put to the flame by rebel forces, others assassinated by their own Lictors. By 715 AK, no part of the Empire north of the Bay of Xendriti remained loyal to the High Regent. In late 715, Nikomedes was assassinated by the Cataphracts, who disbanded the Senate and declared the Empire under martial law; this only worsened the situation, and it was not long before the fractious provinces of the Ephan Reaches were likewise in open rebellion, and the rest of the Empire rapidly descended into civil war.

The Magisterium Of Vaal: 729 AK To 954 AK

Following over a decade of civil war, in 729 AK Strategos-Autokrator Vaal Xendritos succeeded in banding together a number of factions in the Ephan Reaches and marched on Achyras, expelling the Cataphracts from the city and declaring themself Imperator of New Kataris. A powerful mage, they surrounded themself with a council of similarly adept magi, seeking to recreate a ruling class akin to the Ordo Arcanorum of the Empire of Kataris.
By the time of Vaal's death in 760 AK, they had enacted numerous political reforms. The nation's rulership became much decentralised, with each province led by a Magister-Autokrator, a magician elected by their peers who dwelled in the area. Vaal's son Leontius was appointed to the office of Archmagister, and the nation took on the name of the Magisterium of Vaal in recognition of the architect of the reunification. The office of Archmagister was initially a mostly ceremonial one, but over the years grew to become a kind of arbitrating judge to whom the Magister-Autokrators could appeal in case of dispute. The Xendritos family remained exceptionally powerful, controlling several of the Magisteria, and in time the Archmagister began to recentralise power. By the time that Vaal's granddaughter Gaia died in 794 AK, passing the Archmagistrature to her niece Agrippa, the Magisterium had become an elective monarchy in all but name.
Agrippa's successor Volusenna died in 826 AK after only two years in office; her daughter Leontia Xendritos, merely five years old, was evidently too young to hold the position of Archmagister and thus Volusenna's spouse Theophile Akropos was appointed Archmagister to act as Leontia's regent. As it happened, Leontia never ascended to the role of Archmagister, having no skill in magic whatsoever, and whilst she rose to become one of the most notable military figures in the Magisterium's history, the Archmagistrature was eventually passed to her half-sister, Sophia Akropos. The Archmagistrature remained in the Akropos family until 889, when Archmagister Xanthippe Akropos abdicated due to ill health and bequeathed the title to her apprentice Basina Lykophontes, much to the consternation of the Akropos family. There it remained until 949 AK, when Basina's daughter Auxente similarly bequeathed the title to her own apprentice, Lyka Nestor.

The Succession Crisis: 954 AK To 960 AK

Upon the death of Archmagister Lyka Nestor in 954, the Magisterium once more fell into strife. Lyka had died unexpectedly and without issue, and had left no instruction in regards to a successor. Members of the Lykophontes and Akropos families put forward their own claims to the title, but neither family was able to secure the backing of a majority of the provincial Magisters. After the assassination of Gallus Akropos, who had arguably the strongest claim, being the eldest direct descendant of Xanthippe, the Magisterium fell into civil war between the backers of the two families.
The war lasted for six years until Leonikta Heliodorus, Strategos of the Thabrian Legion - who had until that point remained neutral and refused to support either family - rode to the Ephan Reaches with her personal bodyguard and rallied those provinces, who were likewise unaffiliated with either faction, to her cause. In imitation of Vaal Xendritos, she marched on Achyras, gathering supporters on the way, and crushing the forces of Akropos and Lykophontes. On her triumphal return to Achyras she declared herself Imperatrix, and set about reforming the Magisterium once more.

The Republic: 960 AK To 1090 AK

After her ascent to power, Leonikta Heliodorus re-instituted the Senate and restored many of the political institutions of the Eastern Katari Empire. Many expected her to continue to rule as a dictator; however in 964 AK she announced her intention to enter into a power-sharing arrangement with an elected Consul. Though retaining her title of Imperatrix, from 960 AK she ruled in cooperation with Consul Alexius Bardas, the first to be elected to that rank in centuries; she stepped down after an effective ten-year term in 970 AK, and lived out the rest of her life in the pastureland of the Plains of Akiron where she had been born and raised.
The consular system remained in place for over a century, during which time the Republic of Vaalus consolidated its southern border with Terianis and began its expansion overseas. From the mid-11th century there was a significant push towards annexation of the eastern continent of Maddur, on whose plundered riches the Vaali grew wealthy, and many military expeditions were sent to "pacify" the indigenous Madduri.

Civil War And Imperium: 1090 AK To 1139 AK

In 1090 AK, Vaalus again descended into civil war, once more sparked by the political ambitions of the Akropos dynasty. Following the end of Consul Nereida Bardas' term, their co-consul Lucretia Akropos was accused of vote-rigging after her sister Calixta was elected to the consulate, despite the overwhelmingly popular Bardas' reelection being a near certainty. When Nereida was arrested on a patently fabricated charge of treason, they fled to the Ephran Reaches in what was by now being seen as the traditional route to insurrection against the status quo. However, unlike Leonikta Heliodorus and Vaal Xendritos, for all Nereida Bardas was a gifted rhetorician, they were alas a lousy military commander; their insurrection was brutally suppressed, and Bardas is believed to have suffered an ignominious death when their army routed at the Battle of Ket Vathum in 1093.
Lucretia Akropos ruled as Promagister alongside her sister Calixta, who took the title of Magister-Strategos, until her death in 1108; it is often told, but likely allegorical, that she was poisoned by her sister, whose ambitions trumped any loyalty she may have had to her family. Calixta dissolved the Senate and ruled as Imperatrix for a further two years until her own assassination at the hands of her bodyguards, the reformed Cataphract Guard. For the next twenty nine years the nation was in effect a military dictatorship, in which corruption ran riot and the Cataphract Guard consolidated their power, until finally descending once more into outright civil war in 1136, following the assassination of Imperator Avienus Theopontus.

The Republic Restored: 1139 AK To 1202 AK

In 1138, Archstrategos Anastasius Lascaris landed his armies near Thassalos, and began to reconquer the Vaali homeland. Lascaris, the military governor of the Madduri provinces, was increasingly infuriated by the inability of the Imperium to maintain order; he entered into several peace treaties with the Madduri, returning a portion of their ancestral lands to their control in exchange for a cessation of hostilities, and was thus able to mobilise the significant power of the Vaali legions and return west. In the space of a year he had broken the power of the Cataphracts and reunified the majority of Vaalus, though he was never able to retake the Ephran Reaches, which had allied themselves with the Republic of Teuthis in the intervening years. In 1140 the shifter Iulius Rhandros was elected as the first Madduro-Vaali Consul of Vaalus - and, indeed, its first non-human Consul - and by 1145 AK the republic had been reestablished - with a specific constitutional clause that the family Akropos were forever to be barred from holding high office. Lascaris did not stand for reelection in 1145, choosing to retire to Maddur where he lived until his death in 1153.
The second republican period was marked by increasing liberalisation, a widening of electoral participation, and relative peace and stability. It was during this period that the Prefectural system was created, gradually eroding the power of the noble families and widening participation in the political process. Vaalus was noted as becoming increasingly multicultural and cosmopolitan, and the number and influence of non-humans in the political process increased. Nonetheless, the exploitation of Maddur continued apace, the colonial authorities repeatedly violating their own treaties in order to annex further territory; even moreso than in previous years, the resource-rich land of Maddur was seen as an opportunity to be exploited.

Blight And Reformation: 1202 AK To Present

(WIP)
1203: Destruction of Akiron, Betra, Pyragion, Scidrinope, Naxoria
1205: Prefecture of the Light of Kassin wins the backing of a number of the smaller factions and reunifies Vaalus. The worship of the Madduri Pantheon is outlawed.
1208: Sacred Order of C'tholk'then suppressed.
1214: Artula Crake leads an unsuccessful rebellion against the Kassinite authorities. Later that year, the girl who will grow up to become Isabella of Saria is shipwrecked  off the coast of Vaalus.
1215: Shifter Clans Suppressed
1219: Foundation of the Quaestors of Truth
1220: Edict of Correction  requires all shifter children to be adopted as wards of state.
1224-1226: The Jocastan Mission to establish diplomatic relations with Aldernord.
1231: Founding of the Sarian Sect
1236: Sarian Sect Outlawed. Isabella of Saria begins a Penitential crusade into the Desolation in lieu of being executed for heresy.
1238: Isabella's Return and Execution
1242: Behemoth Strand Constructed
1251-1260: War of the Eastern Ocean
1260: The Kespis Rebellion
1304: Expulsion of the Abjurers
1334: Founding of the Ceaseless Hunt.