the free nations of Ezasuh and Tahall

[vorropohaiah]

So here's the latest map in the series - a diptych, so-to-speak (or a two-page spread, if I don't feel like being pretentious) - detailing two almost-neighbouring nations with a shared heritage. If you look closely, the bottom left of the top map lines up with the top right of the bottom map.

The land just south of the bottom map (Sagittaria) is also linked to these two and will be one of the next maps I work on, though I'm not sure of the layout yet.

I was going to start that map today though realised I was missing the base continent map that I use to create the topography. I have a relatively recent backup, though there was some work that hadn't been updated. I'm not complaining though - the lost work was minor and easily replaced. Anyway, here's the regional history:



In -1 RM the Archpotentate Malichar returned to his homeland following enslavement and escape. Burning with the prophecy from the Scripture of Shadows, he brought the seven tribes of the Korachani peninsula together into a single fledgeling nation united by a new religion. Many groups and people opposed this, and they were executed or exiled for their beliefs.

Amongst such people were the Sagittaars: natives of the Korachani peninsula who predated the eastern immigrants who settled the region in the early years of the Fifth Age of Mortal Life. Their worship of an ancient serpentine deity set them apart from the other Korchani people, whose dichotomous cult of life and death had been ousted by Malichar in favor of a new deity - the Lord Rachanael (who would later become known as the Machine Deity.

The Sagittaars fled west in 13 RM, carrying the monolithic Asp Pillar with them. Led by their knightly leaders, who became known as the Knights-exile, they scattered across the western-most reaches of the Inner Sea - some of them settling the lagoons and marshes of Aquariia, others continuing beyond the Gate of Erebeth into the Sea of Serpents beyond (indeed some claim the name comes from early Sagittaari explorers), still others landing on the Ezasuhi peninsula, though most settled the lands around the gate, which are now southern Tahall and northern Sagittaria, respectively. They erected the Asp Pillar in the lands south of the Gate of Erebeth, and it remains to this day.

For decades the Sagittaari spread north and south, breeding with natives, who had remained a simple pastoral folk. 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. 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. Privateers opposed Korachani trade vessels and coastal raids into Korachani lands and ports harried its expansion across the Inner sea. The attacks were celebrated by the Sagittaari instigators, though the war they started became costly. Men were conscripted to built new ships or fight in their landing parties. Women 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 responsible for supplying the armies and merchants opposed the aggression. Their objections grew more vocal as the attacks continued against Korachan and Korachani responses became grander as it grew in influence, until in 76 RM the two lands of Sagittaar clashed against one another. Attacks against Korachan dwindled as Sagittaari fleets clashed against each other. The conflict was soon resolved as the two leaders came to an agreement to end hostilities - divide Sagittaar in two. And so were Tahall and Sagittaria born from the ruin of Sagittaar.

Sagittaria initially continued its expansive trade, acting as an intermediary between west and east, using Parthis as its link to the east as it refused to interact with Korachan and her allies. The slow retreat of the Inner Sea saw her wondrous harbours eventually ruined, its once-flat coastline replaced by harsh cliffs that destroyed her mercantile tradition, allowing the region to dwindle.

Ironically it was Tahall, whose coastline, now far extended from its original span millennia past, was easily colonised. New harbours were constructed and the void left by Sagittaria’s wane was filled in. Growing wealthy through its facilitating of trade between west and east, its lands spread farther north (Though Sagittaria was weakened, its coastline had become too rugged to easily invade, and its leader - the powerful autocrat of Sagittaria, a powerful shaper - was an insular tyrant who had defended his lands well).

In this time of expansion that the Tahalli fleet grew in size, engaging in exchanges with pirates and privateers preying on its merchant vessels. Prisoners taken at sea were taken back to the city of Dasall where they were trained as elite warriors over years of indoctrination paid and treated better than their original employers their loyalty to Tahall became legendary.

In 2781 the appearance of the Order of the Gate (a military fleet-based order funded by various magnates, merchant families and archpatricians across the Inner Sea to safeguard trade across the sea) took action against the monopoly that Tahall had over trade with the west. For four decades privateers harassed each other until in 2824 RM the Accord of the Gate was begrudgingly signed, ending Tahalli monopoly of trade across the Gate in exchange for the legal right to tax trade heading westward.

Where Sagittaria and Tahall took on aspects of Korachani mercantile and military traditions, the Sagittaari people who made landfall in Ezasuh became known for their sorcerous ways. They were relatively few in number compared with the groups that made landfall around the Gate of Erebeth. They spread across the Ezasuhi peninsula slowly, meticulously cataloguing their discoveries as they went. They named the bay where they landed Malikhat and founded their first settlement there (it exists now as a ruin 2-miles from the present coast, a new settlement named after it appearing along the extant coastline around 1,000 years ago.

In their exploration of the peninsula, the exiles found an ancient library which contained magical and religious texts later identified as the Pentatael, which became a name synonymous with Ezasuh. The library was restored and settled, becoming the second major city. The influence of the Pentatael slowly spread with the colonisation of the peninsula, and customs that had previously been alien to the exiles established themselves over the course of a few generations, and many remain to this day. Amongst them is the well-known tradition of funerary cannibalism, which is seen as a way of remembering and respecting the dead and gaining their wisdom.

Acting to fulfil a prophecy within the Pentatael, the people of Ezasuh undertook a massed migration west in 3333 RM where, at great cost, they founded the colony of Elat, which later broke down into the nations of Ayad, Elat and Ghyza.

The deep-rooted link between the Pentataeli texts and the ruling body of Ezasuh has led to an inseparable triad of government, religion, and magic and a distrust of technology and technarcana, making Ezasuh one of the few regions in the Inner Sea to stick to traditional ‘magic’, or shaping.

[Diamond]

More beautiful work as usual. I can't wait until you finish this thing so I can buy a copy and just make love to it with my eyeballs for weeks.

[Mouse]

Wow! How do you hold all this stuff in your head? Its amazing!

[vorropohaiah]

More beautiful work as usual. I can't wait until you finish this thing so I can buy a copy and just make love to it with my eyeballs for weeks.

thanks, me too

Wow! How do you hold all this stuff in your head? Its amazing!

haha - I really don't my memory is so bad, that's why I had to start writing everything down in encyclopedic format - co that I can easy refer to stuff when I need it. My memory is so bad for this stuff, I really wish it was better.

[Voolf]

No match for you Vorro if it comes to this style. Just perfect

I will try to do something like that in the future. It's how i am impressed by your work.

[vorropohaiah]

No match for you Vorro if it comes to this style. Just perfect

I will try to do something like that in the future. It's how i am impressed by your work.

Thanks, though I think Pixie is giving me a run for my money, with a much more realistic interpretation of this style.

[Voolf]

Well, i do think Pixie is doing great maps too, but if i had to compare, i like yours better

[Ilanthar]

Very well done, as usual, Vorro! And with its consistent background details.
And this

I can't wait until you finish this thing so I can buy a copy and just make love to it with my eyeballs for weeks.