Arcél 3200

From Almeopedia

Arcél 3050

Arcél 3314

1 The Fananaki Tej
2 Elsewhere in the south
3 In the north
4 Characteristic figure

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The Fananaki Tej

Back in Ereláe, Šura had been liberated, while Feináe itself was invaded by Sainor; for both reasons Jaešim declined, and sent fewer and fewer ships to Fananak. By 3100 the only arrivals were occasional traders from Šura. The viceroy (alešp) of Fananak became by degrees its monarch.

Nonetheless Fananak was burgeoning. It had taken over Fkišnak in the 3080s, and the fertile Tsihsip valley over the next generation.

And then there was trouble with Itsičiʔli. The Fananaki largely respected the Dnetic tribes they had met; they were mostly hunter/gatherers, fishermen, or herdsmen, lifestyles particularly approved by Jippir. Many of them had even been brought to profess Jippirasti. But the Itsenic agriculturalists of Itsičiʔli were a horror, a sink of istuja (uncleanliness or sin): pagan, magic-ridden, tattooed, polygamous. There was open nudity and homosexuality, frequent drunkenness, a tradition of open rudeness; they even brought animals into their homes and ate shellfish and sausage, as if they meant to be walking catalogs of the 35 varieties of istuja.

Bad feelings eventually led to war, in 3121. Even the Fananaki were surprised by the quickness and totality of their victory. Itsenic warfare was only a step above raiding; their towns were not even fortified except for a line of sharpened logs. And though the leading class was ‘warriors’, most of these were traders or farmers. The last dakwenyan of Itsičiʔli, Mnisetmaʔna, was found hiding in his palace, tried for istuja, and put to an ignomious death.

The Fananaki explained to their new subjects, through interpreters, that forced conversion was against the laws of Jippir— but if they wanted privileges such as retaining their land and weapons, they would be wise to convert. Thousands did, though many shamans martyred themselves in protest.

The result was a large population of new converts that outnumbered the Fananaki and spoke no Tžuro. Inevitably they modified the practice of Jippirasti, continuing to believe in a parallel spirit world and a variety of spirits and culture heroes disguised as Jippirasti teŋŋiri(saints). Similarly, spoken Tžuro was highly influenced by Itsenic phonology and borrowed many Itsenic nouns. (Both languages have very involved verbal morphology that discourages borrowing verbs.)

Over the last century, nomadic life was transformed by the introduction of the horse. Horses facilitated hunting, herding, and above all warfare; and best of all, they manufactured themselves. Areas which had fully integrated the horse into their lifestyle are shown on this map using a wider stripe. The vanguard was the Ōkmisan, a Dnetic tribe which had taken over the western grasslands of Uytai and raided the settlements along the Hrat with impunity, easily outrunning infantry detachments sent after them.

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Elsewhere in the south

A coup in 3104 brought new blood to the throne of Uytai. The emperor Hansye redirected the army to Siad βo, a country very similar to Uytai and thus easily ruled. This gave him the military credibility to reduce Uytai’s military commitments. He left the Nyan peninsula, reconstituting the state of Čwam (3124) rather than allowing Nyandai to rule it, and retired much of the army with estates in Siad βo.

He also quietly invited Nyanese accountants to run the treasury, and supported the new imperial family with much less extravagance than the old. These reforms were enough to recover financial solvency and, for the moment, damp down the clamor for more fundamental change (such as empowering the growing mercantile class).

When it seemed safe to do so (in 3146), Nyandai occupied the Tsemeʔ islands.

The Ȟšanda have recovered their unity and self-confidence; in the 3070s they took over the Smë valley, and in the 3090s invaded the eastern Uytainese highlands. They also inflicted a major defeat on the Ȟlum, who moved southward, harrassing the kingdom of Ťrim.

Ȟamsan completed the conquest of Ȟaibalai in the 3140s.

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In the north

The civil war in Belesao ended in 3075, not with a conquest but a reconciliation, mediated by Jansɛ̀. Many reforms were made, for instance a reorganization of the béjan; but the core of the agreement was stark: the agricultural zones recognized the increased power of the bourgeois in return for a subsidy.

As neither of the previous sides entirely trusted each other, the capital moved to Jansɛ̀, completing a millennial tendency to move the center of power northward.

One region, which had long felt out of step with the Lé heartland, refused to join the reconstituted queendom: Ânhɛ̀, in the northeast.

The Lé were now able to turn their attention outward. They recovered the territory Hàɔráŋ had helped itself to during the civil war, and for good measure helped Mauraŋ capture one of the silk islands and defeat the pirates based in Łimaní (3097).

The Mau went on to take over Pahsau from the Hàɔ (3122), but their attempt to secure control over the coast led to a protracted war with Łeisau, which naturally wanted access to the sea. The Łei finally conquered Łimaní in 3155. Within a generation the Łei were wondering who had conquered who: the city was soon dominating the rest of the country. When the queen moved there in 3196, the Bé dominion was complete. Łeisau is therefore marked as Beic, though the underlying demographics were not greatly changed.

The first pure Linaic states have appeared: Čumú and Yusawu (the suffix -sawu ‘country’ is borrowed from Lé) along the Runya, Ayalampa along the Kuriy.

The Linaic peoples (outside Łeisau) were traditionally hunter-gatherers, who had increasingly taken to agriculture along the river valleys; they were known as tough fighters who fiercely punished incursion into their territory. They were protected from Fananaki colonization by the climatic barrier— their land was tropical forest unsuited to either Fananaki agriculture or pastoralism— but it was clear that strong states were needed to deal with these troubling new people.

The Fananaki weren’t the only new element: ships from Kebri were now appearing in the north. These brought intriguing new imports from clocks to porcelain to grape wine to cheap silk; at first these were mostly paid for in silver, till the Kebreni discovered tea. Soon they couldn’t get enough of it.

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