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History of Zeretan

Shogunate-Era: During the Shogunate area, Zeretan was an unimportant city, which served primarily to train new military recruits on the nearby Sykarra Base. It was not particularly notable or interesting, although the number of Shogunate soldiers living nearby did lead to an increase in the number of mortals with terrestrial blood in the area. Farming was sporadic but consistant, and the region primarily survived on its own merits.

The Contagion and the Fair Folk: When the Contagion hit, Zeretan was not spared. Over 80% of the population of the region was wiped out, as in many other areas of the world, and many felt that the world was ending. Quick thinking on the part of the local Colonel Purday of the Thirteenth Legion managed to isolate many survivors, keeping the death rate lower than it was in some regions, but it was still devastating. Worse was the Fair Folk invasion immediately afterwards. Striking from the southern mountains, the Fair Folk attacked Sykarra first. As Purday led a fighting retreat across the Sykarra river, however, something strange happened. The river that he was trying to hold began to run black, and the Fair Folk caught within it died screaming. As he gathered the few survivors of the attack across the river, Purday discovered that the Fair Folk were apparantly unable to follow him. As quickly as possible, he sent soldiers north, gathering as many townsfolk as he could find in the region between the two now-black rivers. As the Fair Folk ravaged the land, Purday and the survivors remained where they were, surprisingly safe. Fair Folk-created storms turned the sea into a raging holocaust, and the base into a horrific swamp, but some people were safe.

Early Years: One day, however, the Fair Folk simply died; some destroyed, others fled. While the swamp to the south remained infested and dangerous, the grasslands to the north were abruptly barren of danger. In the aftermath of this sudden disappearance, the Scarlet Empress broadcast her message across the world, telling all to join her. At first, the Colonel was not impressed. However, as warlords began to fall to the Empress's power, he left the area of 'Zeretan' to visit the Realm, taking the city's sole remaining airship to avoid the Sea of Storms. Whatever happened there, it impressed him, and Zeretan formally swore allegiance to the Realm in RY 7. Other towns in the region soon followed suit; aside from the newly spawned and half-feral lionmen living to the southeast, the entire region soon followed the Empress. Zeretan was rebuilt by the town's survivors, and the tiny handful of survivors of the Thirteenth Legion Training Force, and events soon settled into a sort of peaceful status quo. There were occasional barbarian invasions, Anathema appearances, and the like, but nothing that would resonate with most people for quite some time. Interestingly, it was discovered that the area between the two black rivers was extremely fertile. Ox-men, a beastman breed created by the Fair Folk as beasts of burden, moved into the area, and began to farm, trading with human towns. Unlike the lionmen to the east, the ox-men were friendly and peaceful, interacting fairly well with the local humans. Similarly, a number of ratmen, apparantly created some time before and having lived in hiding, took up residence in abandonned Fair Folk caves near the edge of the city; they began to handle sanitation for Zeretan, giving them a certain cautious peace with the city.

The End of the Storms: In 351, the first signs of the end of the Sea of Storms were felt, as people began to notice that the force of the Storms was started to ebb at high tide, and grow at low tide. Some people theorized that the black dust from the rivers was slowly affecting the Storms. In 452, just over a hundred years later, at the end of a mundane storm, the Storms on the sea died away as well. After weeks in which no Storm appeared, the people began to cautiously fish the sea again. To their surprise, the floor of the ocean was white with oysters, and those who went pearl diving discovered pearls that were both large, and carefully and perfectly tinted with single colors - every shade of color was represented. The pearls were extremely valuable, and the population of the city doubled in under five years. Soon, Zeretan was a bustling trade city, in stark contrast to the weaker towns of the region. Soon, Zeretan began to look into conquest, as their increasing size required more foodstuffs. The first conquest was the river towns, as the city took control of the Inky River. Not long afterwards, Zeretanese armies marched into the Black Farms, conquering the oxmen and humans who were farming the greenbelt. From there, the desert tribes were conquered. Eventually, even the fierce lionmen were brought under Zeretan's sway, and the city ruled the entire region.

The Boram Revolt: Flush with power, secure in their rule, the rulers of Zeretan began to impose fines and penalties, designed to strengthen their town at the expense of their own tributaries. This, in turn, increased the size of their tributes to the Realm, and an increased number of troops were sent to safeguard the region. In the face of this came a young aristocrat named Boram, who sent a missive to the Realm, complaining of tyranny and injustice throughout Zeretan, of the beastmen being practically forced into slavery, and asked for help. The Realm replied that King Leuriel was the proper lord, and that Boram should count his blessings that he was in such a rich kingdom. Boram, incensed, began to raise troops and organized a revolt. In response, the Realm increased its troop quotient again, until 1000 Realm soldiers were present in the town, with twenty Dragon-Blooded officers. To deal with this, Boram used stealth. One night, his people slipped into town from every direction. Servants poisoned food, ratmen and thieves stole weapons and armor. Even the great jade artifacts of the Dragon-Bloods were taken. The next morning, the Legionnaires awoke to find over a thousand rebel troops inside the castle, with their soldiers mostly unconsious or in pain, their weaponry missing or in the hands of their enemies, and Boram standing amongst a squad of soldiers, beastman and human. Under the circumstances, the garrison surrendered, and Boram was placed into power. Under Boram, the way things were run in Zeretan shifted. Mindful of the Realm's power, Boram did not seek to change the nation's status as a tributary, and returned the Dragon-Blood's weapons and armor to them. However, he greatly reduced the tributes and impositions on Zeretan's subsidiary cities, making sure that all had the same rights and responsibilities of the capitol city. While Zeretan did not return soverignty to the other towns, he did grant them equality, and for a long time, Zeretan was peaceful once again. The Empress publically upbraided the garrison commander for supporting a corrupt regime, and handed power over to a much younger officer. So events proceeded for almost two hundred years.

The Relway Coup: The second problem began near the end of the seventh century RY, and was motivated by three factors. After a small series of poor crop-growing years, a group of dissatisfied noblemen began to complain that many of the peasants were soaking up money from Zeretan without properly paying them back. At the same time, the Guild was chafing under fairly strict drug control laws that King Ledari II had put in place, and the lionmen in the southeast were perenially dissatisfied at being forced to pay allegiance to the king, preferring a more barbarian lifestyle. Lord Relway of the House of Ashan gathered together the dissident nobles, gained Guild support, and bribed the lionmen into treason, and led a coup against Ledari and his nobility. When loyalist nobles retreated to the Realm's garrison, the garrison commander, still remembering Boram's coup almost 200 years earlier, declared that this was an internal matter, and the Dragon-Blooded would not interfere. Bereft of support he had expected, Ledari was killed, and Relway took the throne. Under Relway's leadership, and that of his son and grandson, Zeretan has once again started down the road to depravity. The oxmen are not technically slaves, but they (and the Black Farm peasants) are worked hard, and their rights are gradually being stripped away. The lionmen have been granted autonomy, which they mainly use to hire on as guards or to become bandits without fear of direct reprisal. Drug use is soaring, and crime is running rampant - the police protect the rich neighbourhoods, but don't do much in the poor areas, and many are openly scornful of the poor. Things are slowly dissolving, but no one seems willing to do anything about it.

Timeline:

Shogunate Era: Military Base
Contagion: Refugees; Sea of Storms is created.
7: Zeretan joins the Realm; Sea continues to storm.
351: The Sea of Storms begins to falter slightly.
452: End of the Storm Sea; beginning of the rise to power.
465: Martial buildup in Zeretan begins.
469: Conquest of the River Towns
471: Conquest of the Black Farms
475: Conquest of the Desert
477: Conquest of the Lionmen
497: Boram Revolt
698: Relway I comes to power (Relway Coup).
721: Relway II comes to power.
749: Relway III comes to power.
768: Present Day