The Eretrus Magocracy
The gods were real, and they hated us
Structure
At the very top of all of Eretrus goverment is the Magos Concilium, made up of the famalies of the distinguished wizard famalies originally chosen by Rellien. All are wizards without peer, and some even say that they have been able to communicate with other realms, and even other realities. They are as total in power as they are reclusive, few ever having the privleage of speaking to them, let alone to the god hero Rellien.
Under them is the Senate, composed of famalies of senators and nobility that all help deal with the more mundane situations, and pass decrees and notions for the approval of the Magos Conncillium. It can be as much an effective body of goverment as it can be a squabbling, shouting pit for the schemes and wants of political rivals, and more than a few senators have been assassinated in the hallowed halls and archways of the Senatorium.
Under the Senate are the many military leaders and of course local city officals, and under them still is the Peoples Court, being local institutions that act as a way for the comman man and woman to petition local leaders and organize demands to be overseen by the city or village officals.
Culture
To be born Eretrusian is to inherit a legacy of ash and death. The cities remain safe havens of a wealth of culture and art. Blood sports are a favorite form of entertainment, for in war are the people of Eretrus truly alive. Each city has great academies of magic, only allowed for the highest in society to attent. Indeed while the abiltiy to cast magic in the rest of the world happens randomly with every child birth, for Eretrus it seems they have been able to use careful and selective breeding to keep the highest members of society as the only ones capable of magic. Granted this is states offical statement on the matter, reality gets more complicated. While magic can still occur outside of noble famalies, it is a rarer thing, and such witches and mages are hunted down, for it is believed that only the strongest of the society should be allowed to use magic. No one knows if this strange quirk of the Eretrusians has always been there, was a deliberate choice made by the people, or was another punishment of the gods, and no one will ever likely know the truth. While those without magic are not necessarily treated as "lesser", there is naturally some tension between the upper and lower classes.
Amongst the commotion of artits and mages, the clamour of gladiators and soldiers preparing and doing war, the slaves toil in the lands for their betters. Slaves toil in all sorts of places, from farming and labour to even medicine and accounting, but that never changes the fact that they are but property. The rest of society seeminly just goes about its buisness, working and working some more, and celebrating when the chance arrives. The only hope for slaves in many cases is to work for years and hope their master may free them near the end of their life, or to fight and die in the gladitorial arenas, earning glory, fame, and riches abound for those that survive.
Outside the cities, survival becomes harder, and the only saving grace for border villages and towns are the patrols of the legions of warriors or wandering vagabounds and adventuerers. Monsters abound in the land, from the strange arcane "shadows" of those cities lost in the flux of time and space, to the corrupted wildlife and savage barbarian tribes that somehow survived even the God Scourge to reek a bloody toll of revenge upon the so called civilized Eretrusian people. The weather outside the village outskirts are always gloomy and dark, and only the central sun collumns in the center of every city, village, and town, keep the darkness of the land from overtaking the people, and the fog at bay from corrupting any more souls. To travel is to invite death, and so those that do travel do so carefully, with as many torches and light sources as they can resonably have on them, for that is their only hope, that and their faith in the mortal god.
History
The blighted land of Eretrus is a story of decadence and woe, and a punishment that has marked the soul of every living thing in the land. The founding of the land is murky at best, not even their cloest neighborhs in Orleia know truly when the nation founded, or even who first settled it. What is speculated is that while most of the tribes of mortals migrated west from the Ruins of Ishtar, a few somehow sailed across the sea to the east. Some even theorize that the people inhabiting the New Lands have been there as long as the Ishtar Empire had stood. Regardless, the first tribes people would form surprisngly quickly into fortified cities, making it one of the oldest and earliest nations to still exist after the Fall of Ishtar and the Disapperance of Shezarkai. Stone and marble would be hewn from the land, and they would turn into a small empire, but an ever hungry one. This is said to be because of how close the gods were to the early Eretrusians, with the legends almost describing them as being phsyically in this realm, atop the highest peak in the center of the nation, The Gods Realm.
The gods of the early Eretrusians were mighty, and many. Marthena, Goddess of War and Wisdom; Aphrolia, Goddess of Beauty and Fertility; Musilas, God of Poetry and Cultural Arts; Detamer, God of the Harvest; Ereus, God of the Seas and Storms; and the final one being Immos, The God of Gods and Thunder. They would help the early Eretrusians conquer the surronding tribes and build mighty fortressess and cities. Those that didn't submit were put to death, and sacrificed on bloody altars for the gods, or simply pushed into the wilderness. They would even go to war with their neighborhs in Orleia, and win battles and riches in their plundering. Thus the golden age began around the year 2300, but it was not to last.
Exact dates are hard to pin down, but most guesses range around the year 3250, when the fall happened. It is said the people of Eretrus grew more and more decadent, living off the wealth of their armies and the backs of their slaves. The oracles, wise clerics said to bring and herald the wisdom of the gods, grew greedy and lax in their duties. Their prophecies were not being fufilled, as the people lived more debuached lives. It is said that Immos, wentt mad, or simply decided divine punishment was in order, regardless of what happened, the event known as the God Scourge happened. A magical apocalypse the likes of which have never been seen, and only been out done by the very arrival of the World Spear, it is said the skies blackened, as arcane energies rained down and down, concentrating around the mountain. The rest of the gods of the pantheon joined in on the punishment, and the uncaring people of Eretrus would witness a cataclysmic explosion of arcane energies. Entire swathes of cities and towns were wiped off the map, or trapped in strange horrific limbos, neither in this realtiy or the next. Those that did survive tell that the gods that they thought protected them, openly abandoned them, and soon outright sought their deaths. The land became a corrupted hellscape of arcane phenomena, and the land knew doom. For almost a thousand years, their was silence, as most of the world assumed the nation simply ceased to exist.
After the God Scurge, what survivors were left had devolved into individual city states vying for their own power and gain, trying to once again enjoy the level of decadence the nobility were used to. It is only until recently that a single man had came and united most of the cities to his banner. Rellien Andrio, is a man that has achieved the one thing few mortals can hope to achieve: godhood. No one knows his origins, but he came from the mountains, and in a golden blaze of solar glory, came to the Eretrusians and united them by sword, spell, and zeal. He formed a council of the most magically wise, and with his help he has been a beacon for 500 years. The battles and campaigns he waged are many and numerous, and until the lands are freed of the old and dead gods derranged punishments, the council has saw fit to elect him Dictator of the nation. So magestic was his war that he has achieved godhood, and the people of Eretrus prostrate themselves before the banner of the god Rellien, Herald and Child of the Sun. None know for sure his wherabouts at this moment in time, some believe he is back in the capitals palace, planning the way forward while his council attends to the daily runnings of the land, while others say he has gone on his own or with an army to march up the mountain of the God Realm and challenge the gods. Either way, the people of Eretrus are ones of spell and of pain, of love and of war, and time will tell if they can do what many mortals believe unthinkable: kill the gods who have punished them.
Demography and Population
One can find nearly any species there, but minotaurs, harpies, satyrs, and lamia are some of the most common more than anywhere else, of course humans and the other big races are still there in abundance.
Religion
The only religon in Eretrus is that of the Mortal God, Rellien. Sometimes reffered to as the Radiant One, he is a man depicted in great golden armor, with a golden mask covering his face at all times. He is seen as a mortal born of the sun, who heralds its radiance and its holy light to the people of Eretrus. He is the savior of the land, and the priests and clerics of his church march across the land in their face masks of gold and silver, spreading the word of the only savior mortals can count upon, not the gods that damned them. For this reason, foriegn faiths are not outright outlawed but viewed with suspicion and confusion at the very best, and violent intolerance at worst. For this reason, most people are recomended to keep their opinion on the gods to themselves when in the company of Eretrusians.
Foreign Relations
Being only recently coming back into wider contact with the world, opinons are either scarce or simply just not even formed at all. Many of the nations still vilify Eretrus for its bloody invasions and pillages, and so war and skirmishes do still happen with some of the nations of Orelia.
"For the Radiant One!"
Maps
-
Eretrus
Type
Geopolitical, Republic
Demonym
Eretrusian
Government System
Magocracy
Legislative Body
Tribal Assembly
Judicial Body
Praetors
Official Languages
