Alahea

From Mizahar Lore

Revision as of 22:01, 11 September 2009

Alahea was the empire occupying the eastern half of Mizahar before the catastrophic Valterrian which destroyed both it and its rival empire of Suvan. Alahea was famous for its advanced magic and scholarly knowledge, though also for the oft ruthless applications of such crafts. The Alahean creed, embodied by the ruling Nymkarta dynasty, was that intelligence and resourcefulness made a man's worth. In the end, its magical power was not enough to defeat Suvan's military superiority and larger resource pool. The war came to an end with the last Queen of Alahea, Kova, marrying the Suvan Emperor Galifer Odalah, and triggering the events that would lead to the Valterrian.

History

Origins

Main article: Nymkarta

Alahea's history begins with the founding of the city of Treval in eastern Mizahar, near present-day Lisnar, by the legendary Queen Avakalashi, in early historical times (shortly after Qalaya gifted men with writing, about 8000 BV). Avakalashi was an Alvina or demi-goddess, being a daughter of the goddess of wisdom Eyris (though Suvan scholars tried their best to refute this claim). An exceptional wizard the likes of which are only seen once in a millennium, Avakalashi single-handedly ensured the prosperity of the newborn city-state as long as she lived. She was responsible for spreading knowledge among the people, quite unlike other fledgling states that amassed it in the hands of the elite. In an attempt at opening her subjects' minds to magic, Avakalashi wrote the Treval Codex; while its text is now mostly obsolete in view of newer magical discoveries, it is considered the most ancient grimoire in existence and a must-read for any professional wizard.

Avakalashi's reign passed down in history as a mythical age of happiness, and her example laid down the law allowing women to rule as Queens with the same authority as their male counterparts. She married the most powerful Human wizard in his land, Rabaodos Nymkarta. Rabaodos was the one to officially name the new state "Alahea" (meaning "seeking the sky" in the ancient tongue). The Nymkarta dynasty would hold absolute power over the nation for the next eight thousand years.

Growth

Queen Avakalashi's death marked the start of Alahean expansion under the push of Rabaodos and his descendants. Most rulers of Alahea were powerful wizards in their own right, boasting the blood of the goddess of knowledge and the most skilled human mages of their times. Divine mandate and great magical skills were of paramount importance in ensuring the dynasty's stable rulership throughout eighty centuries of recorded history. Some aspects of dynastic mechanics - such as the methods used to combat infertility and cull those unfit for leadership - remained the object of whispers and speculation.

Alahea's growth was steady, but not explosive. Viewing war as a last resort, the various Emperors sought to annex neighboring city-states with promises of grandeur and clever subterfuge, often promoting riots and fueling dissent within and without the ruling class. Supravia and Lyconia both joined Alahea around 7200 BV without bloodshed after Alahean wizards infiltrated them and caused the local noble houses to spiral out of control and into civil wars. Stepping in as an 'neutral' third party for humanitarian reasons, Alahea made sure the local populations viewed them as the only viable option for a future of peace, and awed their rivals with superior displays of magic. Their propaganda machine was unrivaled on Mizahar, and neighbors were always reminded that life was longer, safer and happier in Alahea.

A few states were given greater autonomy than the rest because of their fiercely independent traditions, such as the Eypharians, whom Alahea met and annexed around 6500 BV. Recognizing their obstinate ways, Alahea merely instituted a Protectorate and kept a watchful eye over the people of Eyktol. Not demanding tributes in the form of money, they allowed the Eypharian rulers to save face in front of their people, accepting instead the highly advanced products of Eypharian art and craftmanship in exchange for their "alliance". There was no doubt, however, that Alahea's reach went as far as the southern shores of Eyktol.

Their expansion in the North was considerably slower, mostly because of harsh environments that the Alahean wizards considered as lesser conquests and were given a lower priority than the lands that today form Cyphrus and Eyktol. This turned out to be a mistake, as Alahea was late in gathering information on a militaristic nation that had been swallowing the West even faster than they were the East: Suvan.

Suvan wars

In 5850 BV, Alahea and Suvan were separated by a strip of land populated by a vaguely republican federation of smaller cities in what is now Southern Taldera, called the Klipzian Pact. Alahea had been working on these cities for about a century, slowly influencing their politics to pave the way for their eventual peaceful conquest. The then-Emperor of Alahea, Iffidius Nymkarta, could never have imagined that Suvan would attack Klipzia in the middle of Talderan winter - thus breaking an unspoken rule that had been obeyed as far as anyone could remember - and it would conquer and destroy the Pact in less than three hours.

As if that was not enough, the Suvan troops did not stop after trouncing Klipzia. On the same day, they advanced as if they had been cutting through butter and launched a direct attack on the Alahean border, razing a few villages. The Suvan forces were trained to fight a battle even under heavy snowfalls, and they were confident no other military in the world could attempt such a feat. Indeed, no other men of flesh could have equaled their toughness, training and discipline. Alahea counter-attacked by releasing armed golems and other magical creatures to turn the tide of battle, ending the day in a draw. On the 37th day of Winter of 5850 BV, war broke out between the two nations. It would take the Valterrian, nearly six millennia later, to truly bring it to an end.

War changed the outlook on things radically for both Suvan and Alahea. Both countries had never encountered anything that could stand up to them and threaten them at their very root. Both continued to expand even faster than before, until there was not a single inch of Mizaharian territory that had not been claimed by either Empire. Then the battle for supremacy began, with varying intensity over the ages. Of course, no matter their resources, Suvan and Alahea could not have continued to war incessantly for sixty centuries. Some decades were more violent than others, and there were periods when the conflict took on more subtle forms than pitched battle. Often, the two countries would spend years licking their wounds and recuperating after a particularly violent phase of the war, though no official truce was ever signed.

Territories were passed back and forth as fortunes changed. Locations on the border were accustomed to switching ownership between the two Empires, often multiple times in a person's lifetime. The number of people who lost their lives in the war is impossible to calculate, but it can only be estimated to be in the millions.

After five thousand years of war, it became apparent that Suvan was gaining the upper hand. There were several reasons for this; Suvan had more territory, whereas Alahea held an attitude that focused on improving existing territory before seeking more; Suvan learned more about magic than Alahea learned about military; and Suvan had more expendable troops, whereas Alahean wizards were harder to select and took much longer to train and instruct. Also, according to some scholars, Suvan's mindset actually enjoyed the war, whereas it was only a matter of survival to Alahea.

Kovinus

Main article: Kovinus

Kovinus I Nymkarta reigned from 42 BV to 11 BV. He was the last male Emperor of Alahea, crowned at a time when the war effort against Suvan was all but compromised, soon after the terrible defeat suffered at Bloodvalley. The only legitimate child of Karavius Nymkarta, he was the first Alahean ruler to be crowned despite the lack of any magical abilities. This garnered him the hostility of a sizeable part of the extremely influential wizard class. The new king further made himself hated by displaying a peaceful attitude unwilling to resort to inhumane methods in order to achieve an advantage over Suvan. The king would pass in history as Kovinus the Wise due to his good-willed, philosophical outlook, but he was also considered by many as the worst possible personality to lead the state at such a critical time.

During his reign, groups of wizards had started their own secret factions without any form of government control. Alahean society was disgregating, with splinter cells seeking different remedies to survive a losing battle against their eternal foes. Kovinus had both fierce loyalists and sworn enemies within his own nation, but his wizards were starting to drift away from him. Even though he stopped magical projects that were too cruel to consider - apocalyptic weapons and pacts with Summoned creatures too foul to describe - some of these plans were being carried out in secrecy and without his consent. Even his own Court Mage, Rupert Pycon, disgusted with what he perceived as the sovereign's weakness, planned on defecting to Suvan after unleashing his newly created clay men Pycon on Alahea.

Still, Kovinus endured and resisted much longer than most would have been willing to bet. Helped by his wife, Ariathea (herself a priestess of Eyris) and such personalities as his new Court mage Sagallius Hrinn, Kovinus showed the world that honor and honesty could accomplish what the darkest magics could not - inspired by his charisma, the common people found new courage and doubled their efforts to save the nation. Suvan did not conquer a single inch of Alahean territory as long as Kovinus the Wise lived.

It took Suvan's best assassin, Wolkirk the Slayer, to eventually kill Kovinus and Ariathea during a fox hunt in the Treval Woods. Sagallius barely managed to kill Wolkirk, but went into overgiving and fell into insanity; he would then proceed to puppeteer Alahea from the shadows for the next decade. His sacrifice saved the single life of Kovinus' only daughter, Kova, suddenly flung into rulership at the age of seven.

Kova

Main article: Kova

Structure

Society

Magic

Art

Heraldry

Coat of arms of Alahea.

The coat of arms of Alahea is emblazoned as follows: Azure, a gauntlet Argent reaching for a sixteen-pointed star Or. More precisely, this is the coat of arms of the Nymkarta dynasty; when surmounted by a golden crown it also represents the nation itself. The motto is: "Let us reach the sky", or simply "Alahea" (which has the same meaning in the ancient tongue).

The national anthem of Alahea is the Enlightened March, composed around 4800 BV.

Heritage