The Devlan Ascendancy

"It is important to remember why we fought this war, Horatio."

"For the Nine. To survive another day. To be standing here right now, with you."

"We fought because we didn't have a choice. We fought when we fled our homeland, we fought when we landed, and we fought when the Nine commanded it. We are standing here for one reason: To ensure that those who come after us will always be able to choose for themselves."

Overview
Birthplace of psionics, and motherland of invention and curiosity. Devlan consists of a population of the finest minds from all walks of life on the Tennan continent. A majority of the families who live within Devlan's borders were originally invited to immigrate to Amaranthine, the capital of the nation by the seemingly omniscient Supreme Mind and its Inner Circle. Every man and woman who has ever planted their roots within or around the Lavender City were chosen because of their ability to think beyond the norms or accepted parameters of other nations and societies. The Supreme Mind has chosen to govern its people with a hands-off approach, allowing all Devlan citizens the autonomy to govern and regulate themselves, so long as they adhere to the Three Laws.

Locations

• Amaranthine - The Lavender City - The Capital
  
• The Grand Observatory
  
• The Opal Stair - Fortress and home to the Ascendant Mind
  
• Serataloven - The City of Stars
  
• Relvanin - The City of Optimists
  
• Kuthaluvas - City of Wonder & Splendor
  
• Hamlet of Del'Koth 
  
• The Ruins of Mol'Hart - Quarantine & Demilitarized zone for the Horatio Plague
• The Wall of Igiskil - The Demarcation of the Northern Peninsula
  
  

Demographics
Devlan is home to 1.4 Million souls. Their population breakdown is as follows, from most to least:

Gnome - 42%
Human - 24%
Elf - 10%
Genasi - 5%
Dwarf - 6%
Aasimar - 4%
Tiefling - 2%
Firbolg - 2%
Tabaxi - 1%
Kobold - 1%
Goblin - 1%
Triton - 0.4%
Orc (Gray) - 0.1%
Gith - 0.01%
Illithid - 0.001

Interactive Map

The Devlan Ascendancy

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Structure

Devlan lacks a definitive governmental structure that the other nations of Tenna have adopted. In place of the standard monarch, or other head-of-state, Devlan is lead by the Supreme Mind, and the Inner Circle. There is little oversight and regulation within the sovereignty of the Devlan Ascendancy, aside from the Three Laws:

1. Devlan does not abide by the unnecessary, or forceful, forfeiture of life, or freedom.
2. Devlan does not abide by the the thief, the charlatan, or the overzealous preacher.
3. Devlan does not abide by the seditionist, or the insurrectionist.

Culture

Devlan culture is defined by it's citizen's right to govern and regulate themselves. The idea stems from the saying, "Freedom Above All Else," which was a common phrase spoken by founder Emorec Devlan before his death 867 years ago during the Horatio Plague. He instated the Three Laws to cover the core concepts to ensure a civilization can endure, and not fall to ruins with the animals.

The First Law covers the outlawing of Murder and Slavery.
The Second Law covers the outlawing of Thievery, Fraudulent Activity, and Religious Persecution
And The Third Law covers the betrayal of home and country. Devlan does not abide by traitors or those who steal his secrets.

That said, that does not prevent individual groups and/or minor factions within the Ascendancy from policing themselves and instating their own regulations within their territories.

Devlan is a country of free expression and open discussion amongst its peers.

Public Agenda

Devlan's isolationism does not rub the other nations well when it comes to their foreign affairs and public agenda. For the better part of the last half century

History

Birth of the Ascendant Mind

Emorec Devlan and Marcus Horatio met shortly before the DOOM came to Asguor. They were unable to bid farewell to their families before they were forced to evacuate the capital. They boarded one of the ten longships as the Nine held back the ashlords and steamriders. They spent two long years in that longship alongside 800 other refugees, and the 7200 others on the other ships. The Nine were not their leaders, as they had all perished when Asguor was broken apart and pulled beneath the sea, but they possessed divinely gifted abilities and strength that put them leagues above the former War Council. They taken the reigns of de facto leadership, and none stood to oppose them as it was by their strength alone that these ships were able to leave port and 8000 Asg citizens were still alive.

Despite this, Devlan and Horatio were alone. Their families had been obliterated in the DOOM, and so could do nothing but rely on each other. Many sacrifices had to be made during that two year sojourn across the sea and those accounts have been lost to time, but a number of things are known:

Devlan and Horatio grew close. Their exact relationship is unknown, but one was rarely seen without the other.

Ceudias, the Mind's Light of the Power Nine had seen the growing potential of psionics within them, and bequeathed a portion of his immense divinity within them. Ceudias took them under his wing to further establish their psionic abilities.

Devlan and Horatio began to develop a following amongst the people on the longship. Horatio was known in life to be a skilled orator and charismatic fellow, while Devlan was known to be more reserved and measured. Together they gained the respect and admiration of the 800 citizens on board. It is said that they complimented each other in nearly every way.

When the eight longships finally beached along the southern shores of Tenna, they found a verdant wild of lush jungles and gray skies. The Power Nine ordered the dismantling of the ships to begin the resettlement of the Asg people. Shortly after this; however, would these refugees find that their struggles have not yet ended. The Tanlier, hulking, blue skinned humanoids with piercing black eyes and an apparent lack of empathy or appreciation for the sanctity of life, found the Nine and their people to be beneath them, and sought to dominate the trespassers. Thus beginning the 30 year War of Expulsion, the conflict that would decide whether the Tanlier Empire would be eradicated, or if the Asg people would be rendered extinct.

To read more on the War of Expulsion, see: [Work in progress]. More on the Power Nine, see: [Work in progress]

Devlan and Horatio were Ceudias' best generals. The duo had trained hundreds of once scared refugees and turned them into psionic wrecking balls. The War of Expulsion had forced all who had landed on Tenna's shores to learn that in order to survive the Tanlier, they must be willing to do what was necessary to survive. Their comfortable lives back in their homeland were now resting at the bottom of a boiling sea. All must fight, or they fled Asguor for nothing. And fight they did, for thirty long, brutal years. The fighting had fundamentally changed both Devlan and Horatio. As they aged, the potency of their latent psionics increased one hundred fold. Though they were still both dwarfed by Ceudias, as individuals, they had near limitless potential. Further, near the end of the conflict, each of the Power Nine had fully come into their own as beings clearly chosen by their god. They had charged their followers with inventing impossible miracles of engineering and and magic to defy the more numerous and more powerful Tanlier.

One of these machines was specifically crafted by Ceudias, with the aid of Devlan and Horatio.

With Manneo, The God Hand's assistance, they crafted a device of many dozens of, steel spinning rings, the core of which would remain hollow. Ceudias gave the spinning rings permanence in their motion. By the will of Ceudias, the purpose and simplicity of this artifact could be explained in a single sentence: To act as a reservoir for for all psionic potential.

Each ring had been infused with the essence of all psionics who had fallen in battle in the last 30 years. Their minds, intelligences, memories and power captured at the moment of expiration. With the Ascendant Mind, Ceudias named it, it would give himself, Devlan and Horatio, as well the rest of the army of the Nine a substantial and dramatic improvement to their overall physical and mental processes. Better yet, once activated, it would become a perpetual engine that would ceaselessly power itself until the dying days of the world. All they had to do was jumpstart it by pouring a small portion of their own essences within it.

And so it was. Ceudias, Devlan and Horatio placed their hands just before the reliquary, and with just the simplest expression of a thought, the Ascendant Mind came to life. The brilliance of many hundreds of runic echoes of long dead psionics burst to life upon the surfaces of each of the rings, and the three immediately felt the surge of power it placed within them. The radiant blue energies of the Mind created a field around itself that gave all in its presence enhanced abilities. The Ascendant Mind would prove to be one of the Nine's greatest creations that would pave the way to the eventual victory against the Tanlier

The Dissolution of the Army of the Nine

After the army of the Nine had pushed through the Tanlier forces and breached the walls of their capital at the peak of Mount Anstranam, an unsettling silence descended upon the continent. Where the Tanlier forced the many races to slave away mining into the earth, for once in what seemed like a millennia of oppression, peace had finally come to Tenna. It was not without some conflict however.

First, the former Asg people had known nothing but war since their earliest days constructing simple huts out of the broken down boards of the longships that brought them across the sea. Some clung the concept of leadership from the time of their homeland, but it became quite clear very quickly that attempting to adhere to restrictions and policies of the old world would surely lead them to ruin and bring the DOOM here as well.

Second, the Tanlier did not rule only the land, but over men, elf, dwarf and other kin as well. Many races had been enslaved for thousands of years, and the army of the Nine had only grown with every mile of land they took from their oppressors.

And third, the highest ranking generals of the army had begun petitioning the Nine to disband the their standing forces. The Nine had become paranoid in their pursuit of their enemy. They felt that Tenna would never be free of oppression and their history of fighting until every single trace of the Tanlier had been wiped clean from the continent.

The Power Nine were not tyrants; however, and after much debate amongst themselves, they proclaimed that Tenna now belonged to them wholly and completely. They officially disbanded the army of the Nine, and bid them to heal this broken land. The lieutenants of each of the nine gathered their followers and spread to all corners of Tenna, to reclaim the lives they never had, and the lives that they fled from.

Free from the burden of conflict, Devlan and Horatio embraced independence. Ceudias gifted them with guardianship of the Ascendant Mind, as the Nine had no need of it anymore, and he trusted the two completely with this responsibility. He urged them to use the Mind to build a home for people like them, to hone their craft and become a power that could stand against the Tanlier if they ever returned.

And become a power they did. With the assistance of the Ascendant Mind, both Devlan and Horatio journeyed north, then northwest of the Nine's headquarters on the southern-most peninsula of Tenna. They established the foundation of what would eventually become the city of Amaranthine. They uprooted miles of limestone and marble from the earth for the cities construction, and used the leftover to create the tower of the Opal Stair

Embrace Eternity

Freedom Above All Else

Type

Geopolitical, Country

Alternative Names

The Ascendancy

Demonym

Dev

Leader

The Supreme Mind