Greniströnd
Your and my great great grandfathers and great grandfathers spent the whole of their lives fleeing the collapse of the Old Empire as it pulled itself. Our grandfathers both perished walking across the ice wastes between the continents and our grandmothers brought our parents to Åleland and then to the east, where we would make out own nation. What I mean to say is that our people have traveled a long way to get where we are now, a trial that should have bound us together in brotherhood foreever, don't you think? Despite it all, we're on the brink of killing each other over...what? Over money? Our forefathers would be turning in their graves to hear this. My father might just climb out of his grave, belt in hand, should this come cross his ethereal ear, ha! Eh, but I digress. I can only hope that we can come to some sort of agreement before violence breaks out, otherwise I'm not sure this country will survive...
-Secretariat Offissus Ville Ranalen
The people of Greniströnd endured great hardship to come to their home and weathered the whims of fate on more than one occasion. Many times more than one. The War of the Wyrms drove them from their original home, a place that no longer exists, and scattered them across the world as they fought and fled and avoided battlefields of the war, just trying to do what they thought meant survival in the end. Eventually, as the war was drawing to a close, though nobody knew it at the time, they resolved themselves to leave entirely. They gathered what little they had left, armed themselves as best they could against misfortunate and predation, and set out northward in hopes of finding some safe haven from the way. The act of becoming refugees is not unique in the tapestry of history, of course. As they were gathering crystals for what had to be a suicidal journey, many others were having similar thoughts. Fleeing across the borders of warlords, into the territory of dragons, across seas and forests enchanted so heavily that whole armies could not make their way through them. People fled in every which way, for every which reason, but where the Groškile were unique was the direction of stark north. No one sought tout the frozen wastes to the north as salvation, why would they? Modern historians have to assume that some measurable amount of the population had heard some rumor about the location of an outpost, or perhaps some strange myth or folktale about a sanctuary amongst the snow and ice. Either that or a whole culture group decided, near unanimously, to kill itself through exposure all at once. They did find what they were looking for, of course, an Old Empire outpost (their outposts being like colonial holdings to us modern-day individuals) turned free collective that had taken to the springlands the outpost had been constructed on. For a short time, the Groškile and the Hyôref had simply lived alongside each other without much of a grander social or political structure. Unfortunately for the Groškile , a movement had alrady been brewing within the Hyôref population before other comers had arrived. Not long after they had arrived, this movement had come to fruition and the nation of Åleland was formed. A good thing for the Hyôref that left their neighbors feeling...left out, in the end. Not being represented within the new country, the moved once again, this time to the east. There was still plenty of space within the nothern springlands, and from there they could go through their own process for the formation of their country. Maintaining a friendly relationship with their original hosts, they took many inspirations from the government formed in Åleland, with some of Greniströnd's constitution borrowing directly, with respect, from the constitution of Åleland. The nation was born, and relied upon the poppies that grew in the area to export and fund the nation and feed the people. Cash crops over foodstuffs tends to do that. They grew quite skilled at the farming of those poppies, as a matter of fact, and their fields are regarded as impressive feats of agricultural engineering for their irigation and terracing techniques. Their fields are even regarded as a aesthetic fascet of the country with a burgeoning short-term vacation industry forming amidst the fields.
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