a History of Sagittaria (Patreon)

The region now known as Sagittaria was first colonised by Sagittaari people who were fleeing Korachani persecution in 13 RM due to their refusal to bow to the demands of the Archpotentate Malichar who wanted them to forsake their deity, remembered now only as the Asp God, in favour of the new religion that he brought with him from captivity known as the Church of Machine. Led by the Knights-exile, they fled west across the Inner Sea, carrying the monolithic Asp Pillar with them, and settled the land to the north and south of the Gate of Erebeth, where they clashed with the pastoral natives before mingling with them as they erected settlements from which they continued to spread north and south over the next decades. 

The Sagittaari had chosen a bottleneck between two seas as their home and came to control trade across the Gate of Erebeth, making them wealthy. Wealthy enough to challenge Korachan in the east. Coastal cities appeared as trade with other people flourished, though links with Korachan – whose people had spread across the Inner Sea like a plague – were avoided, but clashes between the two were inevitable and bloody whenever they Occured. Sagittaari privateers harried Korachani trade vessels, conducting coastal raids as far as the Korachani west coast by around 50 RM. The attacks were celebrated by Sagittaari instigators as a symbol of their power, though the conflict that they started became costly. Men were conscripted to fight and construct new ships for the conflicts, and women and children were forced to work fields and build weapons.

This aggression towards Korachan split the nation in two. Those in the north – who had retained the native’s rural outlook and were largely responsible for feeding and supplying the armies and merchants – opposed the aggression. This was not without cause as the Korachani fleet would often retaliate against their ill-defended rural settlements, taking prisoners and razing crops. Their objections grew more vocal as the attacks against Korachan increased, until in 76 RM they stopped harvesting food for the war effort. The south took action and sent troops against them. Attacks against Korachan dwindled during this time, as Sagittaar fought Sagittaar.

The conflict dragged on for four years, with the Knights-exile leading the southern forces. The war finally ended in 80 RM with the sundering of the nation. The north became known as Tahal and the south, Sagittaria.

The next centuries were dominated by the Sagittarians’ slow spread across their own lands, settling the wondrous harbours that surrounded the inland sea of Troja, allowing them to continue with the sea trade that had led to their original growth. They secured the Gate of Erebeth for their merchant fleets, which moved between west and east, using their allies in Parthia to help sell goods farther east. From this time would emerge a series of powerful merchant-houses who would come to rule Sagittaria as a plutocracy in 129 RM. This became known as the Merovichi Dynasty.

Hostilities with Korachan stalled, though the history of their ancestor’s expulsion from Korachan was never forgotten due to it featuring heavily in their religious texts. This will characterise Sagittaria’s relations with the east until the present day.

In 473 RM Korchan gained control of Parthis, an act which ended trade relations with Sagittaria, forcing the latter to reduce its trade with the east. This weakened its position around the Gate of Erebeth, bringing about renewed Korachani predation of its vessels by c. 480 RM. Over the next decades Sagittaria was forced to deal with these Korachani attacks, turning to its neighbours to the south east in Callistea for aid in return for trade treaties. Together they were able to stall the attacks, managing to strike back at some Korachani colonies in the process.

Korachan had a hard job maintinaing control of Parthia and attacks against Sagittaria became sporadic by c. 545 RM and privateers were commissioned to disrupt their trade vessels. It as around this time when the plutocracy in Sagittaria turned their attentions to the south, finding a prosperous indigenous people known as the savi (whose land would later become known as Saviud) with which they began trading. This partnership grew into the established Ivory Road by 600 RM, and it remains in use to this day. This way the plutocracy was able to trade exotic goods over land and then move them east via their contacts in Callistea.

In 967 RM Korachan abandoned Parthia. Within a few years trade with Sagittaria resumed, bringing great wealth and prosperity to the region, increasing the power of the Merovichi Dynasty. They built great palaces and their harbours were amongst the grandest in all of the Inner Sea and the Sea of Serpents, their ffleets moving goods as far afield as the Triskethian coast to the west and the Sea of Spires in the east, though the growing influence of the Korachani empire across the Inner Sea and the stubbornness of the Sagittarian people to trade with the Korachani people and their allies and vassals limited their options there.

The trade empire of the Merovichi Dynasty began to wane in c. 1100 RM, when the first effects of the retreating waters of Elyden began to be felt in the Inland Sea of Troja. Some of the smaller shallower ports coastal settlements were left landlocked or stranded during low tides, putting a dent in the Sagittarians’ mercantile tradition, allowing the region to dwindle. This led to a time of decline in Sagittaria, in which the Merovichi became libertines, turning away from their eastern roots, looking more and more to Saviud, a place considered strange and exotic to those of the Inner Sea. The Merovichi rulers consolidated their holdings to the south-west, funding merchant houses and embassies in the great cities of Saviud and beyond, becoming a major influence in land trade in the region. By c. 1100 RM the city of Kochab had became a mercantile metropolis bordering N Saviud and the end of the famed Ivory Road.

Sagittaria maintained good relations with Parthia at this time but Callistea had fallen to Korachani colonists, becoming known as Erebeth. Having a Korachani territory right on its south-eastern doorstep was a blow to Sagittarian security. The Merovichi Dynasty became paranoid of losing their power to Korachan and erected forts along their south-eastern borders. Their children, arrogant merchant-princes, spent their days in Saviud living decadent lives unaware of the tensions in their homeland, some of them never once having seen Sagittaria. What cultural links Sagittaria had with the east were slowly severed in favour of the rich heritage of Saviud. Saviudi immigrants, most of them wealthy lords or merchants themselves, begun filtering into the region by c. 950 RM, and today the people have become integrated, with the Sagittari having a dark complexion that belies this mixed heritage. By c. 1400 RM even their language had changed, with little of its Korachani roots remaining. Today it is considered a dialect of Saviudi, with only few eastern words remaining.

The Merovichi Dynasty continued strong until c. 1530, when it was burdened by a line of successive weak rulers, who allowed Saviudi trade partners to gain the upper hand, controlling Sagittaria through puppets. Chief amongst the Saviudi manipulators was the most trusted advisor of the court, who was using the rulers’ incompetence to foment public unrest and rebellions against the Dynasty. This period came to its fruition in 1567 RM with the Merovichi Dynasty’s death and his election as Autocrat of Sagittaria. 

Under the leadership of the Autocrat of Sagittaria, the nation invited Saviudi trade and insutries within itse borders. People from the Saviud flooded into Sagittaria, siplacing the native who, in many cases became ostracised into ghettos. The Sea of Troja had almost completely disappeared, leaving its major deep-water ports either abandoned or land-locked. The eastern city of Seth, overlooking the Sea of Danaeal was the only major port in the nation, though it was a great metropolis teeming with activity. The east was fortified even as the Autocrat brooded in his fortified palace. Sagittaria was a changed place. 

The Autocrat was a powerful shaper – a rare individual capable with both the Atramentia and Firmament – and he banned any form of supranatural acts save his own. He took his most trusted lieutenants and secretly indoctrinated them in the ways of the sorcery. They became his regional rulers. Under their rule Sagittaria was allowed to wane. All trade was carried out by the state, with the old merchant-lords earning a meagre stipend for their troubles as the Autocrat and his sycophants grew rich.

As the Autocrats’ palaces grew, poverty and disease slowly increased amongst the populace, leading to murmurs of dissent. These were rapidly quelled by the Autocrat’ police forces, but they could not stifle the growing resentment towards him and his allies. In 2150 RM the Knights-exile (which had by then become a military order) began working to overthrow the Autocrat. They were successful in 2163 RM, managing to destroy him and his lieutenants. They took control and divided the land amongst themselves, marrying into the remnants of the merchant families, restoring old traditions. Most of the Saviudi immigrants remained there, but many of the more powerful merchant-houses left during this time of readjustment.

But the autocrat’s sorcerers were not entirely defeated. Though weakened and few in number, they took the Autocrats body, which was being kept in stasis by their shapers, to Sogassa, a settlement just outside the borders of Sagittaria along the hills of the south-east. There they crafted a technarcane engine with the aid of their Saviudi sympathisers in which they interred his body, which was able to communicate with them telepathically. 

Rumours of a god-machine began to spread over the next decades. People would come and seek out this deity for its wisdom and prophecies. The Autocrats’ sorcerers would humour such activity, restricting it, but feeding the notion that the Autocrat was a god. Slowly a new religion surrounding the god-machine appeared in Sagittaria, spreading from the lower classes. The religion of Asp God had been waning for some years and the appearance of this new figure gripped the peopke of Sagittaria, eventually filtering through to all classes and walks of life. By c, 2500 RM the worship of the god-machine, which by then had become known as the Interminable One, had grown into the official religion of Sagittaria and Sogassa, the centre of the faith, had grown into a major city. The irony regarding the similarities between their new deity and the Korachani god whose worship their ancestors had forsken was lost on them. Under the guidance of the Interminable One, the sorcerers were able to gain the trust of the Knights-exile and the families of the merchant-lords.

The Knights-exile struggled to maintain sea trade, but the continued retreat of Elyden’s coastline had left Sagittaria’s inland sea completely dry, its once-prosperous farmlands sterile. The region dwindled and Tahall took over most trade from Sagittaria. Plague entered Sagittaria from the Ivory Road in c 2758 RM, leaving most of its cities devastated within a few years. The nation struggled to recover for many decades after this. It was in this timen that the Order of the Gate took control of the Gate of Erebeth, bringing order to decades that had seen privateers and corsairs attack trade across the Gate. Sagittarian trade across the gate had already waned with the death of its harbours, but this would kill its major source of income. The Knights-exile opposed the so-called Accord of the Gate, but their plight was ignored, and in 2824 RM trade across the Gate was taxed to fund the policing fore of the Order of the Gate. This was to be the ruin of Sagittaria.

The ruling Knights-exile turned in this dark time to the acolytes of the Interminable One, who were sorcerers of great power and ruled the city of Sogassa autonomously. The sorerers were able to speak with the Order of the Gate, who agreed to an alliance with Sagittaria. From 2837 RM Sagitarrian ships would be exempt from paying taxes to cross the Gate of Erebeth on condition that they supply ships and troops to patrol the Gate. This helped bring wealth back to Sagittaria.

The Knights-exile had by this time become puppets of the Interminable One and his sorcerer-priests. Only merchants and diplomats granted charters by the priests were allowed to leave the cities. Fewer still were allowed to enter Sagittaria. Technological innovation stalled in this time and the nation remained backwards when compared with the pioneers in Parthis or the technarcanists of Korachan. But knowledge of the Atramental arts prospered amongst the sorcerer-prist caste. Explorers were sent out into the world to recover old texts and treatises that they would study.

It was in 3122 RM that people in the western territories began to revolt. The usual methods of reprisal were unsuccessful and protests became bloody, with thousands dying in the city of Izabal before it was taken back by the Knights-exiles’ forces. Other cities in the west soon followed suit, forcing the Sagittarian forces to spread themselves thinly. With help from sympathisers in Eret, the rebelling people were able to force the Sagittarians into a protracted guerrilla fight that cost them dearly. Eretian forces attacked Sagittaria in 3124 RM, further weakening Sagittarian forces, but the fighting dragged on for years until in 3150 RM, when the Knights-exile general, going against the wishes the Interminable One, begun making plans grant Izabal its independence. Fearing that the rest of the populace would seek freedom if this was allowed to continue, the general was killed, allowing the war to drag on. Soldiers were conscripted from across Sagittaria for use in the war that had, by 3158 RM engulfed the entire west of the nation.

It was an accident that ended the war early the next year. A Sagittarian Atramentist was killed enroute to infiltrating the city of Izabal. She was consumed by the Atramenta during her death spasms, destroying a large portion of the Sagittarian forces. This gave Izabalan troops a chance to advance and claim much land. They called for a ceasefire, catching the Knights-exile off-guard. They relented, seeing no way they could win and in 3159 RM they signed a peace treaty against the wishes of the Interminable One’s sorcerers. Izabal and the surrounding cities – by then wasted by the war – were granted freedom.

The rule of the Knights-exile faltered both during and after the war with Izabal. After signinig the peace treaty they were deposed by the sorcerer-priests, remaining only as advisors. By 3236 RM, they had been excised from ontrol completely, with the few remnants returning to precedents’ knightly role, and they now guard merchants plying their trade along the Ivory Road.

The Interminable One remained a god to the people of Sagittaria, manipulating the desires of the sorcerer-priests to do his whim. In 3582 RM, following an expensive deal brokered with the lhaus of Khalhat, an iterant body was secured in which its soul could be interred. A powerful ritual saw the deed done, and the Itinerant One was reborn in false flesh. This was a time of great fear and awe amongst the people of Sagittaria. As generations were born under the reign of a living god, worship of the Interminable One became absolute and none doubted his power.

Despite the insular nature of Sagittaria’s politics, a group known as the Godslayers found out of this and by 3612 RM had arranged to attack Sagittaria, hoping to kill the Interminable One. But before the Godslayers could move against Sagittaria a great earthquake wracked the city of Keshel during a ceremony of veneration, destroying him and the city. Seeing the body of their god destroyed, and his life taken, the people lost faith in the Interminable One and the church waned in strength and reach, the sorcerer-priests losing power. Despite this a few faithful managed to take the iterant body of the Interminable One and take it back to the engine that had once hosted the Autocrat’s body in Sogassa, which had remained independent and a place of pilgrimage to the faithful. They restored the iterant body to life and interred it within the engine, but by then it had been irrevocably damaged, twisting the Itinerant One into a bitter weak essence that they nevertheless continue to worship, feeding it soul-stones to this day to keep it alive.  

Following the supposed death of the Interminable One, the religion faded and nation fell into chaos, with no one group able to wrest control from the other. Various religions from other nations filtered into the lands of Sagittaria through trade with Saviud. The sorcerer-priests lost their power and either fled south or remained in Sogossa with the body of the Interminable One, too caught up in their fruitless venerations to care. Over the next decades war embroiled the region. By 3680 RM Sagittaria had split into as many as a half-dozen realms, each securing trade partnerships with different region of Saviud. One of these realms, centred around the city of Asham in the east, began trading east with a newly-independent Erebeth and across the Inner Sea, bringing new wealth to the region that helped stabilise it. This allowed it to fortify its position and essentially disown the rest of Sagittaria in 3712 RM, which ignored it. 

During this time the region of Camaca had gained the upper hand in the regional conflicts and a ruling household, named after Camaca, had emerged by 3751 RM, later becoming a democratic republic. Asham had become known as Althea, and had come to control all lands east of the Bellephara mountains. Today Sagittaria and Althea are trade partners, the former trading with the Surrach and the latter distributing goods across the Inner Sea.