Versotian
People of the Sea
Summary
The Versotian people are said to have come from the sea onto the shores of Galisia thousands of years ago, the last of a fallen empire from across the vast ocean. Expert mariners and sailors, their ships are among the fastest and most formidable to ever grace the open water. Having taken to agriculture over the last several millennia, they have largely settled down and found a home in the southern coastal regions of the Continent. Though they are no longer a purely seafaring people, they have not abandoned their maritime traditions. In both the fields of warfare and trade, the Versotians have consistently proven they are a force to be reckoned with.
Comparable in skill to Demorian traders, Versotian merchants are known to be exceptionally shrewd in the field of maritime commerce. Their great merchant vessels are of superior construction, and can weather the most powerful storms while being faster and holding more cargo than those built by their Demorian counterparts. The plans and schematics for these great ships are a closely guarded secret among elite Versotian circles, along with their navigational charts. It is ultimately these advantages that give the outnumbered Versotians the crucial edge needed to dominate commerce in most regions of the Continent.
In war, the famous Versotian Marines are some of the most disciplined and effective troops to grace the battlefield. Crack shots with their mechanical repeating crossbows and expertly drilled with longswords, they are both feared and admired throughout the realm. Trained to fight outnumbered while smashing through enemy formations or holding key positions on the battlefield, the Versotian Marine Regiments are easily the most esteemed soldiers in Versotian society. While chivalry and the concept of knighthood have been slowly introduced to Versotian culture over the centuries, the idea of martial achievement is not restricted by class. In a much more egalitarian way than other cultures, Versotians revere skilled warriors of both high and low birth. And while you will still find Versotian knights among the noble classes, they are generally far fewer in number than either their Demorian or Andorian counterparts.
The Versotians are also notable explorers and adventurers. Being a seafaring people at heart, their Vinovia-based Adventurer’s Guild carries out contracts in every part of the known world. Many of these contracts involving plundering ruins on dangerous foreign continents and other distant realms across the seas. In addition to this, the Versotian Commerce Consortium, known to most simply as the VCC, functions as one of the primary megacompanies processing and controlling trade across all corners of the Continent and beyond. Founded by ten of the richest and most powerful Versotian merchants over five hundred years ago, it now acts as one of the biggest trade empires in recorded history. It maintains its own merchant fleet with accompanying soldiers and other employees that it uses to set up forts and outposts in lucrative new markets on the borders of the known world. Some of these ventures are successful and generate great wealth for the VCC, while others fail or are overrun by hostile natives or disease.
Versotians as a population maintain a great deal of autonomy and control over their own affairs due to their economic strength. Still, they abide by most of the realm’s laws and follow the majority religion in exchange for freedom of settlement and trade. There is a notable distinction, as well as some friction, within the Versotian population between the old nobility and the newly-rich nobles that made their fortunes from trade and commerce. Despite this, they are united by their love of many of the same things. Versotians from all walks of life have a great affinity for brothels, fine wines, grand operas, and the bloody trials of arena fights, where freemen from all corners of the realm come to earn gold and glory fighting against dangerous beasts and their fellow man.
Versotian lords hold similar duties to other lords within the realm, but their power and influence within their own domain often comes into conflict with the ever-present threat of powerful merchants and organizations like the VCC. For this reason, many Versotian lords choose to cooperate with the patricians of the Consortium rather than oppose them. A Versotian lord with the backing of the VCC will have access to more ships, soldiers, and gold than a lord that does not. Many lords will even send their sons to work for the VCC in the hopes that they will rise to positions of power and prominence within the organization, and ultimately use such power to the benefit of their house. It is no surprise then to see many of the current shareholders in the VCC come from some of the most illustrious and ancient Versotian noble families. This is how trade companies like the VCC continue to maintain a great amount of sway within many coastal regions, and though absolute power officially lies in the hands of Braudorf and the Emperor's Versotian vassals, it is only through the grace of the great trading guilds that they remain in power over the Merchant Cities of the south. Over the centuries, some Versotian lords have sought to distance themselves from the VCC and the trade guilds, with most of them finding nothing but hardship and despair, often meeting with financial ruin and the ultimate destruction of their house. There are some notable exceptions to this precedent, however. A select few Versotian lords, usually those based further inland from the coast, have successfully shaken off the shackles of the trade companies by producing much sought after wines from vast vineyards located in fertile river valleys. This has in turn given them their own economic strength, and thus true independence from the scheming ways of the trade companies.
Secrets of the Trade
The Versotians guard their secrets with a vigilance bordering on near-paranoia. The centuries-old schematics and plans detailing the construction of the prized Versotian trade vessels are kept limited in number, restricted to the vaults and private safes of some of the most powerful merchant lords in the three major Versotian cities. Master Versotian shipwrights are allowed to study these schematics and plans under the watchful eyes of their benefactors for hours at a time, from where they rely on memory alone to direct construction crews in the building of these mighty vessels. Such is the need for secrecy that any Versotian shipwright who betrays such knowledge is not only guilty of conspiracy to betray the Emperor and his vassals, but will additionally be subject to the punishment of Excommunicate Traitoris. After execution, the shipwright's name is purged from all administrative records, and even his own family is forbidden from uttering his name on pain of death. Through this harsh but necessary method, it will be as though the shipwright never existed. In this way, the Versotian lords have largely kept secret the methods by which they construct their magnificent ships. A more recent invention of late, the mechanical repeating crossbow is a marvel of military engineering. The first prototypes began as little more than modified crossbows two centuries ago, but soon revolutionized the way in which Versotian troops and shore parties operate. In the current day, mechanical repeating crossbows are standard armanents for elite Versotian skirmishers and the Versotian Marines. Able to fire up to thirty lightweight steel bolts every minute at an average rate of a bolt every two seconds, Versotian troops could match superior numbers of melee and ranged enemies, provided they carried ample ammunition. With this innovation lending such a crucial advantage to the consistently outnumbered armies of Versotian lords, it became essential to safeguard the methods by which the mechanical repeating crossbows were constructed. Specialized craftsmen, working directly for a select few Versotian houses and the VCC, manufacture these weapons through an intricate and painstaking process that takes several weeks per crossbow. So elaborate is the construction of these weapons that when captured by enemy forces, their design seems so implausible that most rival engineers cannot produce working copies, even with a live example.
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