Republic of Isileum
The Republic of Isileum is a minor nation centered around the city of Isileum as well as the river Isidrai, which passes through the city and into the ocean. Isileum can trace its ancestry all the way back to the Free City of Isileum and, ultimately, the Empire of Oleandron, but is not a direct continuance of either of these nations as it was re-founded in 1033 after a century under the Kingdom of Sunþiruda. Modern Isileum has become a majority-Eldritch city due to a thousand years of racial intermarrying, but there still remain large populations of its historical ethnic and racial minorities, which are many.
History
The Republic of Isileum was founded in 1033, during the chaotic fall of Sunþiruda. With Erleting hordes roaming the countryside and the effective control of Sunþiruda down to a small amount of land and the two cities of Mililbaurg and Isileum, Isileum's leadership decided it was time to return to being independence. Due to being granted large autonomy, by Theomand the Great, Isileum already had a robust local government, and all that remained was to cut ties with Sunþiruda, which was relatively easy. Even though Sunþiruda retained a rather sizable navy, they lacked manpower and importantly sailors to crew these vessels without Isileum, and consequentially were unable to mount a reinvasion attempt by sea or harass Isileum's shipping.
Now freed from Sunþirudan control, Isileum's leadership began the process of transforming from their reduced form as a city state to a proper republic, with plans for expansion into former and new lands. However, these attempts at a reconquest would fall flat as Erleting tribes continued to harass the frontier, necessitating a civilian defense force and a general defensive stance thanks to the large volume of Erleting raids seeking to sack the wealthy city. The necessity of such actions would hamstring any sort of territorial expansion and necessitate the continuing reality of a city-state in all but name.
With Erleting tribes continuing to harass the land, the ocean was the only safe place for trade to pass through, and during this period Isileum invested heavily into a trade fleet as well as making contacts with Telrai, who had begun exploring down the western coast of Telgren. Small Telrai trading colonies were established near the city, allowing for a flourishing of commerce as the two peoples traded information, technology, and goods. Isileum was also the first place where Gnomes and Telrai met, igniting the now-famous duopoly/rivalry of the high seas. However, even into the 15th century, Isileum was unable to make significant, permanent gains in the countryside. Sure, during times of inter-tribal conflict they could manage to bring a few extra acres under control, but ultimately the Erleting tribes would eventually overwhelm such settlements, and these movements became less and less popular, as nobody was willing to risk their lives for such an endeavor, even if the land was cheap. The only permanent expansion during this period was the incorporation of the Telrai concessions after the Gafutuo-Triton war concluded in 1298, and this amounted to little more land. Consequentially, Isileum made few attempts to establish new settlements in the 13th-15th centuries, largely focusing on land reclamation or the expansion of city walls, which had the unfortunate side effect of turning the city from a beautiful and elegant capital to an economically and racially divided city in which the few benefitted at the expense of the many. Oligarchism would rise, with the city mayor taking on the aristocratic title of Deu starting in 1338. In short, mainland Isileum was becoming a large slum, while the island portion became the domain of wealthy elves.
This would prove to motivate the development of powerful guilds, middle-class organizations which managed the trades and ensured their piece of the pie stayed the same even as the wealthy took more and more from the poor. Indeed, relations became so bad that public order began to break down and citizens began contemplating treason or even a revolution. What ended up happening was a strange mishmash of riot and rebellion, in which moderate reformists seized on popular demands and chaos in the streets to oust the oligarchic government and establish a more democratic society. In 1416, the government and their lackeys who had run the republic into the ground were arrested and tried for treason, with their wealth seized by the state. Many of those who escaped would exile themselves to the Enclave of Illumendell, where they were welcomed by similar elitists.
During the Free City period, Isileum was a multicultural society, but material conditions had created a divide that favored the long-lived elves in acquiring money and therefore land. It would be hard work to prevent the outbreak of racial violence now that a new government had taken over and punished the oligarchic cabals which ran the city. However, through thorough leadership reforms were made. While many of the mansions and gardens on Isileum Island would remain in the hands of wealthy elves (and even today the area is a predominantly wealthy, elven neighborhood), the majority of the elven population was still living in residence on the mainland. Cultural outreach programs were instituted in order to help reacclimate the populations, and the large number of unemployed young (human) men were taken into the military. After all, there was war to come.
In 1419, the Caturum tribe took over the city of Mililbaurg and began using it as a staging area to raid the surrounding area. Although Mililbaurg was an effective fortress as well as a highly populated city in its own right, what the Caturum really desired was Isileum. Over the next 30 years, Caturum and Isileum would fight a series of highly violent and bloody wars, which for Caturum netted them huge amounts of loot from the various breakthroughs they made into the city, such as in 1436, when half the city fell under their control and the jewler's guild saw the loss of 95% of their stock (along with other valuable goods). With man and elf (and occasionally halfling or telrai) fighting side by side, ironically the city was brought closer together than might have been possible in times of peace. A sense of prevailing pride in the city as opposed to racial division, unity in the shared religion of the people, and the drop in unemployment due to death all combined for a more open society.
The defeat of the Caturum in 1446 at the hands of Gafutuo would see the Caturum threat finally recede, and with the telrai fleet sailing up the Isidrai river in 1458 and shattering their remnants, Isileum was soon at peace. Although more than a third of the population had died in the years between 1419 and 1446, and the population would not recover until the latter years of the 16th century, this period marked a revival or Isileum. Land was once more available, the guilds were eager for new members to replace those that had died, and races mingled freely. Isileum is often thought of in its modern form of a highly integrated, Eldritch-majority city, but that ethos didn't really take off until this period, with man and elf marrying in record numbers throughout the second half of the 15th century. Besides the remaining elven elites who still cared about blood purity, the city was becoming more multicultural by the day and it showed.
However, Isileum was still deeply racist towards the Erleting, with many deciding that they weren't even human and deserved to be exterminated. As the citizens of the republic came together in friendship, the city's small but growing Erleting population suffered in the remaining slums, and were used exclusively as low-class workers. It would be difficult to improve things with the population because even with the defeat of Caturum, Isileum still suffered from periodic attacks and raids by other Erleting tribes. This included the powerful Avaš tribe which wiped out the remaining Caturums in the 1530s and emerged as a competitor against Isileum. Avaš, though lacking a fortified capital like Caturum once possessed, were still a formidable foe because they controlled lands both above and below the cliffs, making it hard to reach their whole nation and easy for them to hide forces from Isileum.
Despite this Isileum was much stronger than they had been in the 1400s, and their population was also still growing. Besides this, the Erleting tribes were constantly in flux due to the continual assaults on their land by the Alcediner city states. Although the Caturum never had to deal with fleeting tribes since their land was in the far west of the Erleting domains, the somewhat more central Avaš had to constantly deal with threats to their border. Having been reduced to their lowlands by 1568, they were defeated by Isileum in 1577, and for a time the whole lowlands to the east and north were under Isilite control, as well as taking the recently restored halfling nation of Hazestine under their wing as a vassal.
This marked the high point of Isilite expansion, because with the fall of the Avaš, Isileum was now forced to contend with various Erleting tribes moving into the area at will, which, by the 1620s had reduced their control back to Isileum itself and lands beyond the west bank of the Isidrai river. For the next 3 centuries, Isileum was mostly occupied with internal matters and with trade, with few notable events happening and an ever-changing parade of tribes threatening but never breaking their borders, and with a few minor expansions. Importantly, in the early 1800s, it was noted that Isileum, for the first time, had become a majority-Eldritch city, an impressive feat.
During the early and mid 1900s, Isileum suffered an economic downturn due to the crisis much of Telgren was suffering from, with the luxury goods they produced in low demand. This economic downturn led to a large amount of unemployment as the guilds restricted membership to ensure their livelihoods remained, and consequentially Isileum once again found themselves with many eager to join the military. They would be put to use in an operation to restore Isilite control to both sides of the Isidrai river, and were embedded in small colonies in the region to ensure its defense by 1960.
1960, of course, is when the Alcediner city-states launched the Little Dennonian War, and expelled numerous warlords and tribes from lands they had recently taken while under the leadership of Dragan Ivar's Army. With Ivar' dead, these tribes scattered, and with the Alcediner seizing more land than ever before, many of these tribes would push north, defeating or merging with the regional tribes. All of this would give rise to the state of Etrulium, a powerful and unified state which soon crushed these tribes under their fist. Etrulium was soon occupied with fighting against the Tritons of Jiwæiriḫ after they subjugated the Bljedknat state. Bljedknat is a tribal federation which was at a similar power level to Etrulium, but whose lands came under assault by ambitious Tritons exploring the chaos of the migrations to finally seize a foothold on the surface. By bringing Bljedknat under their control and through their defeat of the Tritons (seeing them reduced to a small pale of land along the shore), Etrulium gained significant lands from this war and by 1978 the state was ready for their next war.
The goal of Etrulium's leadership was to seize Isileum itself, and use the city as a base for future assaults against the Tritons. Although their armies outnumbered Isileum's defenders, they broke on the city walls in three successive assaults in early 1979. The chaotic retreat of these forces would see many killed by Isileum's other garrisons as they fled every which way, and Isileum managed to expand their buffer lands ever so slightly. It's clear that Etrulium still coverts Isileum, but the defeat of their forces has forced them on the defensive elsewhere, for example in the Bljedknat rebellion in 1982 and against Gaugwuan in 1993, which had left the state ravaged by war. These conflicts resulted in the loss of lands to Gaugwuan (which before this had been mostly limited to the feytouched woods) but this loss was compensated by the seizure of lands from Bljedknat, leaving them as a buffer state against the Tritons.
Agriculture & Industry
Isileum is not a large producer of agricultural products, getting most of their food from the nearby halfling states, with only fishing holding any sort of real niche inside the country. Nor are they big producers of raw goods such as ores and stones, needing to acquire these from the dwarves of Bhur Drizl. Instead, they are heavily focused on finished goods and fine works, such as cloths, glasswork, jewelry, and artistry. The cloth industries in particular are often booming in Isileum due to the thousands of weavers which are employed by various trading firms.
Trade & Transport
Due to their reliance on finished goods, Isileum is likewise reliant on trade. Ores from the dwarves, food from halflings, lumber from the elves, and a variety of other goods from the gnomes and Telrai, trade is always flowing into the city. However, the outflow is arguably more important, and it wouldn't be accurate to say Isileum suffers from a large trade deficit.
Although it would be impossible to challenge the dominance of states like Blazennia, Fraspika, and other powerhouses of South Telgren, Isileum's goods are exported across north Telgren, from the coastal states nearby to places further afield. Telrai middlemen often take exports to the Confederation of Numoanu, while other traders ship their products to the many human states in the north, with some goods making it as far north as the island of Frostreach, since most of the region lacks the manufacturing and quality standards which allow Isileum's goods to be of such high quality.
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