Neibuzejar of Gaugwuan
The Neibuzejar of Gaugwuan is a wild Erleting state located primarily within the feytouched woods of the Dennonian region. As the culmination of centuries of work towards reuniting the fey-worshipping tribes after the Ljubidar Domina, the Neibuzejar nonetheless represents a much less authoritarian and certainly less absolutely evil state than Ljubidar. The Gaugwuani have crafted a wild domain, in which magic suffuses both the people and the lands, giving them great boons but also heavy costs. Gaugwuan's internal structure, while a mess, is far more unified than any of the tribes have been in centuries, with the woods being one of the last non-feudal places the Erleting still inhabit.
History
The exact formation of Guagwuan as well as the birth of it conceptually is shrouded in mystery, as many things in the Feywoods are. The concept of a unified state of "wild, primordial, fey-worshippers" is in a 1708 work produced Fremgraviate of Alianem which detailed tribes who were working towards unification with different ideals within the feywoods. Various tribes were mentioned as belonging to some sort of loose alliance which was focused on freedom of worship between the various courts and of tapping into their magic to transform the mortal realm. These were in contrast to fey-worshippers who focused on the ideas of the Ljubidar Domina, those who had begun working with hags, and those who worshipped one specific fey or fey court, as well as tribes which didn't worship any fey at all.
Much of exactly what occurred between 1708 and 1830 is unclear, but the wild alliance, as it was known, was seemingly able to overpower many of the single-fey-worshipping tribes, who were caught between falling under the umbrella of a state which, though wild, would respect their chosen fey, against the hags and the Ljubidan loyalists, both of whom were decidedly more evil. This strategy clearly worked well, with the hags largely abandoning their attempts to corrupt humans en masse for trolls in the late 1700s. However, their tendrils were very difficult to remove from the tribes they had already bent to their service, thus leading to the First Hag War in 1766 SC. This war lead to a great number of boons being called in on both sides in an attempt to emerge victorious and left the fey-worshippers on both sides exhausted, as well as forcing the hags to retreat back to the feyrealm or to the highest mountain peaks.
However, with the loss of their boons, the fey-worshippers were easy prey for those who had not participated in the war, and their coalition dissolved, leaving the concept of Guagwuan to lie fallow for around 50 years, until the sacrifices made during the Hag War had ended or faded into the past, and new pacts and boons were made. This upswing in power focused on a knot of tribes in the southwestern corner of the woods who were forced to deal with endless raids by the Hags and Trolls, and who had all been a part of the wild alliance. The tribes of the region retaliated by making pacts with powerful fey and weaving barriers around the region, making it difficult for the Hags to raid. Even as the trollish and hag tide was able to push all the way to the [tbd] river elsewhere, the knot remained firmly defended, and a refuge for other fey-worshipping tribes. Organizing the people in 1830, a council of Shamans would declare the Neibuzejar of Gaugwuan, with the head of this council becoming the Neibuzaru, who was expected to be the intermediary between the nation and the most powerful of fey, in order to strengthen the coordination and boons the people would receive.
The Neibuzejar, thus organized, was able to work with other clans to fight against the trollish menace, gradually expanding from a small circle just south of the bend in the river to encompass the southwestern half of the fey woods. Making contact with the elves of Alianem, who were likewise in conflict with the trolls, the two sides were able to push the hags out once more in 1852, relegating the trolls to the peaks once more by 1863. However, conflict between the the elves and the fey-worshippers over where exactly the territory would be split led to further conflict and left a space for the trolls and hags to recover their strength and begin rebuilding while the two powers fought.
Alianem would prove victorious in this war in 1869, leaving Gaugwuan as a rump state removed from even their capital wards. However, they proved unable to hold on to much of the land outside the well-fortified capital, even abandoning this redoubt in 1888 after continuous raids on their supply chains. After that, Alianem was content to hold the line along the lower mountain slopes, leaving the trolls and Gaugwuan to fight over the scraps. Despite the retreat of Alianem from the capital, it was seized by a rival faction of fey-worshippers who would only be defeated in 1902, with Gaugwuan finally beginning the process of rebuilding the wards. Over the next few decades, Gaugwuan would greatly expand, bringing a number of other tribes under their control as vassals, such as the Cyndae and Ničozar and uniting nearly the whole fey forest excluding the outskirts.
Unfortunately, Gaugwuan would see just 50 years of relative peace before coming under attack by tribes migrating from the south, especially after the formation of the Voivode of Etrulium, which drove many of the weaker tribes into the forests. This caused chaos in Gaugwuan as their capital region came under attack once more, and proved fruitful for the hags to once again make a move, seizing all lands to the southeast of the river excluding the capital and the Cyndae, who fought fiercely. Although the invading tribes would be turned into tributaries or destroyed by the 1970s, the continuing cost of the boons was beginning to weigh upon the nation, and many tribes began to seek for an alternate option, especially the northern ones, many of whom did not believe the fey deserved worship at all and resented the cost of the boons. Working together with the tribes outside the woods, they would form the Volvodya Confederation, with a large amount of Gaugwuan's lands being lost during in 1981.
In 1993, Gaugwuan would turn their sights outside of the Feywoods, attacking the weakened Etrulites and securing a buffer zone in the plateau. Efforts are underway to build a network of boons as well as plant life and magic to spread the feywoods into this region and expand Gaugwuan's home territory further, with new leadership hoping the experiment will prove successful and a blueprint for allowing the state to make itself an impenetrable, infinite feywoods. This radical action has led to polarization and even worse relations with the Volvodyans, to the delight of the hags, who some say actually have ties to the upper leadership of Gaugwuan...
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