Old Kingdom of the Garden

In the days of the Rose, the Garden bloomed. It is by these words the Ngavarā and their successors have remembered their vaunted past.
To understand what they have become, we must understand where they have come from. Many will be familiar with the legends:
That it was a place where, even in times of famine, not even the poorest went hungry. That in times of plenty, peasants feasted like kings, and the Garden-Kings knew pleasures undreamt of by lesser men.
That in war, they raised the trees themselves as soldiers to battle. That they unleashed roses to tear apart their enemies with thorns. That their forests could drink the blood of a thousand enemies, and hunger still for more.
While there would seem to have been some measure of poetic license, the evidence suggests that, broadly speaking, all these things are true.

— from Twofold Armageddon: The Modern Ngavarrā, by Quondrus Betelon

Structure

The most granular institution in the Kingdom of the Garden was the Manor, which consisted of land, the people who lived on and worked that land, the lordly house which oversaw that land, and the priests affiliated with that house. The Manor organized the mundane and magical practices of agriculture, coordinating labor performed by the people, and the fertility-magic performed by the priests, overseen by the house.
The the lands belonged to the house as an institution, rather than any of its individual members, and the house was invested to govern with royal authority, though in practice the land was ruled by the house's head, whose title translates roughly as "Lord-of-the-Manor." They were seen as something of an avatar of their house, a living embodiment of the institution.
Cities within the Old Kingdom were incorporated into Manors. Lying outside the traditional, agricultural power structure, the concentration of wealth among merchant leagues and trade guilds shifted the politics of the Manors they where they were present.
Houses often controlled more than a single Manor, in which case the Lord-of-the-Manor would invest another member of their house to govern it in their stead.
There was a hierarchy of vassalage in the Old Kingdom, in which certain houses were vassals to other, greater houses. In ascending order, the titles of the house leadership above the Lords-of-the-Manor translate as "Petty Lord," or "Lesser Lord;" "Grand Lord," or "High Lord;" "Petty King," or "Lesser King;" and the "King of the Garden." Each of these held houses would have lands and Manors of their own, in addition to their vassal houses.
The Kings of the Garden, also known less formally as the Garden-King or the Rose-King, belonged to the House of the Rose, which traced its lineage to a mythic figure called the King of Roses. The House of the Rose, and by extension the Garden-King who directs it, possessed supreme political and religious authority within the Old Kingdom.
Weaving its way through this hierarchy at every level was the primary religious body of the Old Kingdom, the Order of the Verdant, ancient predecessor to the modern Priesthood of the Sundered Green. The Verdant Priesthood was the primary magical body within the Old Kingdom, outnumbering those members of the houses learned in their magical arts.

History

The Old Kingdom's roots were in more ancient days, when the King of Roses forged a bond with the Verdant Throne and the Spirits of the Green, unlocking the secrets of what would become the arcane practices most closely associated with the Ngavarrā. This began a transition among the Ngavarrā from stationary, large-scale hunter-gatherers to a dedicated agriculturalism.
Using the abundance and reliability of food supply offered by this arcane power, the King of Roses won over many people into his service, and conquered many others. Over the course of several generations, more advanced developments in the arcane arts, and the development of both the policies surrounding agriculture and of theological dogma resulted in the birth of the aristocratic houses which would become the foundation of the Old Kingdom.
With its primary economic engine becoming ever-more powerful, the House of the Rose successfully conquered all of the Ngavarrā people, the Kingdom of the Garden was formally declared.
From here, the Old Kingdom began to look beyond the Ngavarrā to other peoples in other lands. The River-Tribes of the Yarma to the northeast, upstream of the Ngavarrā, were the first to be subsumed. As the land was reorganized into new Manors, the land's new overlords found that their powers dropped off in power at a certain distance from the Verdant Throne. Nevertheless, they pushed on, conquering the valley of the River Nim to the northwest, as well as pushing further east.
As the centuries passed, they came into regular conflict with the Empire of the Sea, the Empire of Aestyvus, and the southern Borghani city-states. Borders would ebb and flow, but no foreign power would ever threaten the agricultural juggernaut that was the heartland of the Old Kingdom.

Disbandment

It came to an end in the War of Shadow. The primordial god Vassar incarnated in the avatar called the Enthroned Shadow, who led a campaign of global conquest to overthrow all laws, both mortal and natural. After swiftly decapitating the Empire of the Sea, the Enthroned Shadow led its campaign onto the mainland of Munuth, making landfall in the Old Kingdom. The most powerful of the Spirits of the Green were able to raise protective barriers to shield what land and people they could, but much was left to fall to chaos as the laws of nature unraveled.
When the Enthroned Shadow was destroyed, and the laws of nature snapped back into place, mortal law again began to be enforced. However, many of those who had not been able to shelter under the auspices of a Great Spirit felt that they had been abandoned, lord and commoner alike. The Old Kingdom failed to rematerialize; the houses of the Yolun forged a new path on the banks of the river, the Valley of the Nim was ravaged by the Decadent Flame, the Borghani bowed again their ancestor-gods, and even the Ngavarā heartland was fractured, as Petty Kings and Greater Lords claimed independence from the House of the Rose.
The House of the Rose maintained its claim to just overlordship, but it was one that went unrecognized outside it sown lands, and the would-be Garden-King became a puppet of the Verdant Priests.

Religion

Religion in the Old Kingdom involved a reverential relationship with the Spirits of the Green—particularly of the Great Spirits, who would offer patronage of individual cities, and of the Verdant Throne—a worship of the land itself, and an adoration of the royal family, the House of the Rose. These three elements were interrelated, broadly considered components of the agricultural fecundity of the Ngavarrā homeland. The land spiritually embodied a nurturing host of new life, the royal family—and, in particular, their blood shed upon the soil—embodied the agent of fertilization, and the spirits and the Verdant Throne embodied the process of the creation of new life.
Religious practices within the Old Kingdom were overseen by the Verdant Priesthood, which over time has since evolved into the Priesthood of the Sundered Green. The ultimate head of the Verdant Priesthood was the King of the Garden, as the ultimate sovereign of the land and the head of the House of the Rose. Verdant Priests, often in conjunction with one or more of the Spirits of the Green living in their locality, performed rites and rituals to satisfy the spiritual needs of the populace, and utilize the traditional magic of the Ngavarrā to augment local agriculture to obscene levels.
There were a number of very specific rules imposed by religious authority in the Old Kingdom. These could be divided into two groups: rules to promote and safeguard spiritual purity and cleanliness, and laws governing agriculture. These rules were intended to uphold their ancient pact with the Spirits of the Green, and while the former were usually not especially intrusive, the latter tended to impact economic production. The most impactful of these were a general prohibition on the cultivation of lumber for sale. While it could be harvested for use, with an appropriate tribute paid to an associated Spirit, they were only meant to profit from the direct use of this material, rather than its sale.

Agriculture & Industry

The traditional magic of the Ngavarrā, fueled by their bond with the Spirits of the Green, and coupled with an intensive series of construction projects which built elaborate irrigation systems allowed the Old Kingdom to reach a quantity of agricultural production undreamt of by its rivals. They dominated the production of both food and cash crops, with the former translating to changes in their internal stability, and especially their eventual collapse, having dramatic implications on global stability.

Trade & Transport

Internal transportation within the Old Kingdom was heavily based in riverine transportation. Specifically, the barges on the major river called the Grogh and its tributaries were the primary method of transporting people and goods throughoutt the Old Kingdom, as the Ngavarrā of the time were still most densely populated along those river banks. As its history progressed, and people began to settle further inland, a system of roads were built to accommodate transportation to and from these locales.
The most important port of call in the entirety of the Old Kingdom was the capital city of Ghorratāndolirr, at the mouth of the Gogh river.

DISBANDED/DISSOLVED

Type

Geopolitical, Empire

Capital

Ghorratāndolirr

Alternative Names

The Kingdom of the Rose, The Bounteous Dominions

Government System

Monarchy, Theocratic

Power Structure

Feudal state

Economic System

Traditional

Major Exports

In addition to exporting a truly ludicrous amount of food, the Old Kingdom dominated many varieties of luxury goods made from processing crops, such as wines and brandies, pipe-leaves and pipe-syrups, and a variety of cooking spices. Additionally, they produced a large amount of dye-related plants, though these would generally be processed by dye-makers of greater expertise in the myriad realms of the Borghani.
The only agricultural industry in which the Old Kingdom did not participate was in lumber, on which there was a strong religious prohibition.

Major Imports

The Old Kingdom imported a wide variety of goods. They purchased metals, including lead, silver, and gold, and especially copper and tin. They purchased animal goods, including orox ivory, finished woolen and gossamer textiles, and certain animal hides. They purchased a plurality of other luxury goods, including fine ceramics, colorful glass, paper and books, and even luxury woods, which were not natively available in the Old Kingdom because of the religious prohibition on the cultivation of lumber for sale. Additionally, they participated intensely in the international slave trade.

Related Ethnicities

• The Ngavari People