The Castinellan Provinces

Scorched and hardened by the ruthless heat and wind, the people of Castinella are fierce, festive, and faithful. The southernmost part of Etharis offers both great opportunities and great challenges to those brave enough to seize them. Sailing, farming, mining, warring—nothing is outside the Castinellans’ potential, backed by the strength of their rigorous codes and passionate faith. The teachings of the Divine Arch Seraphs—especially Empyreus, Arch Seraph of Valor—have slowly but surely transformed the provinces into a militarist theocracy, with a fierce mistrust of spellcasters. But recently, new challenges to the sacred Seraphic Teachings have thrown the population into disarray. Conflict has escalated to the point where the Arcanist Inquisition has launched a crusade to burn every magically gifted being in the Castinellan Provinces... and beyond.

History

The Great War
In the Era of Expansion, war between humans and other races in Castinella and threatened to engulf all of Etharis. With most details lost to the past, only the greatest tragedies of the time are remembered, and one such is the destruction of Ember Cairn.
The south of Castinella was once the homeland of the Dragonborn race, and Ember Cairn was their most ancient and glorious city. But the Great Purge saw it destroyed, and legends tell that the mountains themselves were shaken in the catastrophe, and thus shaped into the Shattered Peaks.
With their homeland destroyed, the Dragonborn scattered throughout Etharis, avoiding further involvement in the war and searching for new meaning.
The Story of the Unifier
Long after the events of the Great War, three provinces of Toletum, Faro, and Therpena took shape in Castinella, and continuously fought over the rich but unforgiving lands until they reached a violent equilibrium. Each time one province gained a dominant position, the other two would ally to bring it down and restore the stalemate. Therefore, none of the belligerents managed to overcome their counterparts for good until the time of Montego Valieda, the Unifier.
Valieda was the perfect example of Castinellan valor, but he was also a clever strategist. Born in the foothills of the Corova mountains, he led the Toletum forces to victory against both its rivals. However, he knew that without a significant advantage the Corovans could not prevail in the long term, as history had proven.
Valieda departed to wander the highest part of the mountains, a particularly dangerous area subject to sudden, violent storms, and reputedly unexploitable for mining. Whether by destiny or luck, Valieda was spared from the storms and came back, claiming to have had a revelation from the Arch Seraph Empyreus. The Sword Saint, as many called Empyreus, had apparently invested Valieda with the holy task of unifying all Castinellan Provinces, not under the rule of Corova or any other province, but under the sacred rules of the Arch Seraph himself. To help in this task, Valieda claimed, the Seraph had led him to a hidden valley where he revealed an exceptional vein of gold. Valieda quickly hired miners to exploit the vein and thus fuel Corova’s economy and war effort.
Valieda proclaimed his new allegiance to Empyreus and his intention of transforming Castinella into a theocracy, to put an end to the exhausting wars between the three provinces. His words became a motto that is still spoken by many clerics, priests and inquisitors: “He who fights for himself shall fear death, for his steps are led by lust, and his deeds will fall into oblivion. But he who fights for Empyreus fears nothing, for his steps are led by the Eternal Dogma, and his deeds pave the way towards the Golden Age.” Valieda and his followers proceeded to spread the teachings of the Arch Seraph to the three provinces. In time they gained complete theocratic influence over the provinces of Faro and Therpena, as their newly formed religion gained more war-weary followers. Finally, when they were unable to rally the last remnants of resistance to the holy cause, they overcame them either by gold or by iron and fire.
The Rise of the Arcanist Inquisition
After unifying the three provinces, Sagrado Valieda ordered the creation of the religious order called the Arcanist Inquisition, whose function was to control and limit the use of magic in the provinces. According to what the Arch Seraph Empyreus had told Valieda, magic was a curse that endangered its wielders and everyone who associated with them. The Inquisitors patrolled the provinces, spreading their teachings about the dangers of magic, stirring mistrust in the population. After some time, they began to arrest those known to be magically gifted and brought them to their cells, where they would supposedly live a life of humble service to the Arch Seraph. The Inquisitors were eager to find these people at the youngest possible age, as they claimed the threat of magic could be more easily contained in the young whose magical abilities had not fully emerged.
Sagrado Valieda later returned to the land of the Shattered Peaks among the Dragonborn. As missionaries of the Arch Seraph Empyreus spread their teachings across Etharis, some Dragonborn migrated back to the Castinellan Provinces. After centuries of wandering and resentment from the abandonment of their dragon gods, the scattered Dragonborn people had left behind their ancestral religion. Hence, they showed little hesitation to take hold of the new light that Empyreus offered. Seeing this, Sagrado Valieda seized the opportunity to strengthen Castinella and the Empyreus theocracy even more. He announced that all Dragonborn were welcome to reconstruct their former city of Ember Cairn, fallen eons ago, as long as they were raising it to the glory of Empyreus. As the Dragonborn were now the most zealous followers of the Divine Seraph, Valieda made Ember Cairn the headquarters of his newly created Arcanist Inquisition and raised the Cathedral of Embers.
Recent Events
With the three provinces unified and a growing new state religion, the next step for the Castinellan Provinces was to turn their ambitious gaze outside, to the north and west. The city-state of Morencia was reaching its apogee, so it was a valuable and challenging target for the servants of the Divine Seraph Empyreus. After a few decades of unsuccessful intrigues and power struggles, the Castinellans took up arms and launched a surprise attack on Morencia. By suborning a member of the Morencian Navigators Guild, the Castinellan fleet was able to pass through the island-city’s magical barrier, the Misty Reefs. However, the intervention of the Charneault Kingdom ruined the Castinellan plans, and though they inflicted heavy losses to the Morencian fleet, they finally lost the naval battle.
One of the ships within the defeated armada, the Fiery Lady, was cast adrift and driven far to the south, then to the east, by relentless winds. At this point, the ship had completely run out of supplies, but the crew had finally repaired the ship enough to control its course, and headed to the northwest in hope of finding land before they starved. But they made a surprising discovery during their approach to the coast: the submerged ruins of what seemed to be a vast complex. Unable to explore the ruins at the time, the captain noted enough information to find the ruins again in the future. Yet at that moment Castinellan society was turned towards the future, and the clergy proclaimed the ruins nothing more than more proof of mistakes made in the past.
Some time later, however, rumours spread within Castinella that the Thaumaturge, a powerful confederation of archmages, had infiltrated the Castinellan Provinces and was about to take action against the theocracy. It is unknown if the rumours had anything to do with the discovery of the ruins, or with the Castinellan Provinces’ provocative attack on Morencia, but the rumours spread all over the provinces, accusing the magic hating theocracy of a hidden, hypocritical agenda.
These rumours were officially denied and declared heretical, a brand that extended to anyone even repeating the rumours. The Arcanist Inquisition launched the Great Purge in the provinces, redoubling their efforts to find spellcasters and, this time, to burn them. The same terrible fate also awaits anyone caught calling the Seraphic Teachings into question.

He who fights for himself shall fear death, for his steps are led by lust, and his deeds will fall into oblivion. But he who fights for Empyreus fears nothing, for his steps are led by the Eternal Dogma, and his deeds pave the way towards the Golden Age

Type

Geopolitical, Theocracy

Training Level

Trained

Veterancy Level

Experienced

Government System

Theocracy

Power Structure

Unitary state

Economic System

Market economy

Currency

Virna

Neighboring Nations

• Charneault Kingdom
• City of Morencia