A History of the Korachani empire

[vorropohaiah]

I've been working on this one, on-and-off, for the past year-or-so, between atlas maps.

To be honest, I've got side-tracked by the atlas maps, meaning I've stopped making different types of maps, which is a shame, as it's nice to try something different once in a while. Those of you who follow me for atlas maps for their own personal use, don't worry, this does not mean I'm abandoning the atlas-style maps, though I may post something different from time-to-time.

I've had to shrink this by about 60% to make it uploadable to the site. For a full-res image, click here

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An ancient empire in an even more ancient world, the Korachani empire stands as the yardstick by which other nations in the Inner Sea are measured.

At the peak of its power in 3000 RM, it was the largest Fifth Age empire ever to spread across the Inner Sea. Its ruler is the most infamous and chronicled otherworlder ever known. Its deity is the only known Demiurge to still be openly worshipped by a major power. It was an innovator of industry and technarcana, and its feats of engineering were inspired by the Great Acts of Shaping, from the Bridge of Valamir, to the Bastion of Steel in Khadon. Its language is possibly the most widely-spoken language in all of Elyden.

Rich in resources, and gifted with an idyllic climate for supporting the military campaigns that characterised the expansion of its early centuries, the Korachan of today could not be more different.

Its resources spent centuries ago, its lands rendered barren by millenia of exploitative farming and deforestation, Korachan survives today through the momentum of past conquests. Once opulent patrician houses exist now in the crumbling ruin of their ancestral lands. Its military, once the envy of the civilised world, has abandoned its elite vat-born clones in favour of cheaper, more-numerous, mortal troops.

Yet still the Korachani empire maintains its bitter grip over the Inner Sea, as its rivals - The Republic of Almagest to the North, the Reformed Empire of Sarastro to the South-East, and the Secular Republic of Parthis to the South-West - consolidate their positions around the Sea.


the Koracha Civilization

From a Neolithic background centred around a popular fertility cult, the people of proto-Korachan, known as the Koracha, discovered iron as far back as c. –700 RM. The Koracha people were skilled craftsmen, already adept at creating alloys such as brass and working them into tools, weapons, and jewellery, and their discovery of iron came centuries before neighbouring people. As a contrast, take the city-states of the neighbouring Pelasgosi peninsula. Its people lived in extended familial groups with little other ties. In C. –500 RM, when Koracha was already intimate with iron, the people of Pelasgos and other surrounding lands were still in a bronze age culture.

The early development of iron gave the Koracha people many advantages: stronger weapons, better tools, the basis for a more efficient agricultural system and development of religious beliefs, granting it a stable foundation from which it could rise from many different tribes into a true nation.

Moving elsewhere, it is perhaps no small coincidence that around this time, the phenomenon called ‘the Shadow in the Desert’ was growing more prominent in Kharkharadontis, showing a bulging in the strength of the Atramenta, boosting an already burgeoning mystical tradition in the Korachani peninsula, which would lead to the growth of the Cheiroahim, immigrant shapers who would, by the time of Malichar’s birth become rulers of the Korachani states.

Wealthy from trade along the Northern coast if the Inner Sea, the Koracha people became influential. Societies grew around a caste of merchant-lords who built strongholds that attracted more people, becoming by c. –300 RM the seven states of Korachani - Bachan, Caldera, Goradach, Palun, Khadon, Makhara, and Zephanichan.

The rise of the merchant-lords led to the emergence of a dichotomous religion that was the only common-ground for the increasingly belligerent states, which commonly faced each other in skirmishes over territorial rights. Already, the resource-stripping that would characterise the later Korachani empire was beginning to be felt, with the plentiful natural resources across the peninsula allowing for the rapid growth of the states.

The Koracha people traded with their neighbours as they expanded. This led to an inevitable spread of their secrets across Elyden. Over the next centuries the three great city-states of Almagest would emerge. In the West, the state of Aglaia would appear. In the East, Pelasgos was entering its Judiciary-age, and father East, the city-empire of Xanthos was expanding in extant Nárthel.

All grew in power over the next hundred years, rivalling Koracha.


The Odyssey of Malichar

It was to this world of tension and trade that Malichar was born in –41 RM. The grandson of a merchant-lord, and second of three siblings, he was almost certainly well-schooled and literate in an age when few were, of relative wealth, and, through his bloodline, in command of a merchant vessel. Tenured captains often lived dangerous lives, defending ships from pirates and other threats at sea.

In his eighteenth year (–23 RM) his ship was shipwrecked on the isle of Maleth, in the middle of the Inner Sea. The island features little in the history of the region, for it is largely barren, with no resources, its people descended from Fourth Age tribesmen.

Despite its lack of culture, the island plays an extremely important role in both mythohistory and the future politics of the Inner Sea, for it is home to the Scripture of Shadows: the collected visions of the Demiurges Dopellanich and Achaia, prophesizing the reunification of the plagi (the children of Rachanael) who, eons past had been divided by the Demiurge Talantehut into seven nations. It was believed that the prophecy pointed to one who would help reunite and lead the plagi.

Malichar was alone, without hope of rescue, and wandered the small island, finding a Neolithic temple in which was buried the Scripture of Shadows, guarded by a cadre of mystics, who saw him as on who may fulfil the prophecy. The mystics read to him from the book, and in it he saw the seven states of Korachan united by his hand.

Thus were set into place events that would change the future of Elyden.

The island was attacked by slavers, who slew the mystics, taking what few natives lived there as their prize. Malichar was amongst them. Taken to Vaalk, he was sold as a slave, then six years later, a gladiator. Over the next ten years he carved out a successful career in the arena and escaped in a revolt of his devising in -7 RM, slaying his owners. He fled, taking the road back to Korachan, forsaking its two-faced god of Life and Death. Instead, he dreamt of another entity, one he could not name or place.

In the wilderness of Vaalk he found the sword Tartaruch, which he carried until his mortal death in 133 RM, and again following his rebirth as an otherworlder. He was visited by the otherworlder Neaishia, who foretold of great wars that would, in the settling of their dust, unite the tribes of the Inner Sea under the single banner of his house.

He successfully made his way back to Korachan, where his rebirth as Archpotentate would begin.


The Unification of Korachan

The influence of the Cheiroahim had increased in Malichar’s absence, and he returned to a home that was much changed. The merchant-lords were their puppets, subordinate to the whims of the shapers, who had appropriated their lands and holdings as their own, living off of their profits.

Within months of returning home, Malichar had amassed a group of loyal followers, old allies of his house, though others also heeded his call. He worked silently, turning the extensive black market and smuggling cartels that had plagued the states to his own purpose. Publicly, he admonished the corruption of the Cheiroahim, though secretly he had come to admire the way they had gained power.

In -5 RM he discovered in a barrow in Bachan (one of the seven Korachani city-states) the relic shield he would later name Aegis. With this shield, and the sword Tartaruch, he successfully deposed the Cheiroahim in his home state of Khadon, which was quickly fortified against retaliation. War gripped the peninsula, with Khadon beset by the forces of the Cheiroahim. Later the same year, Malichar’s forces were welcomed by dissenters into the state of Goradach, after which charges were levelled against him by the other states in a bid to turn the people against him. Most expected him to ignore this and continue in his campaign, but he walked into their court in the city of Caldera and stood trial, challenging them, confident that their laws and rituals would keep him safe. Amazingly, he won, and some now say that he used shaping to influence the decision of the court.

Walking free on condition that the war end, he continued working with the merchant-lords against heavy taxes and united the remaining states against the remaining Cheiroahim. He deposed them finally in –2 RM, after storming into their temple and executed their leaders and forcing their families to choose between following him or exile. Fully half their families left Korachan in exodus, eventually settling in Skaros and Almagest. Those who remained became subservient to Malichar, who was made Archpotentate of the united Korachan in 1 RM, under a new calendar devised by the Scholar Maccabeus.

His final act against the old regime was the toppling of the high temple of Life and Death, signifying a new beginning for the peninsula. With his crowning, dawned the Age of Steel and the birth of the Korachani empire in Elyden. Thus was born the nation of Korachan.