Little Dark Age

The Little Dark Age, also called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages, was an approximately 250-year period of rapid cultural, demographic, and economic change between approximately 2250 and 2500 that ended centuries of relaive stability in Oecumene. It is so called the "little" dark age for its relative brevity as compared to the Dark Age in Sossis between the fall of the Dvekmenu Empire and rise of the Varani Empire. It was marked in the west by the collapse of Trofiriya in the 2250s and in the east with the decline of the Varaso Empire starting in the 2270s, and ending in both regions around 2500. The period saw trends of widespread warfare, population decline, a decline in trade, the end of feudalism and the start of the centralisation of state power, and the spread of Furanism and Eusossian Wars of Religion.

Background

Collapse of Areltya and Trofiriya

Internal divisions within Trofiriya had been mounting since at least the 22^nd century. Most disputes over land between Great Houses were settled by expansion and granting of new lands to those dissatisfied with the crown, however with the failure of the First Dvekmenu Invasion of the Dischitar and the short-lived success of the second, it was becoming clear that expansion would no longer be able to solve these disputes. The failure of these expeditions also weakened faith in the crown. King Tyared I of Trofiriya (r. 2230–2253) instituted a series of reforms meant to decrease the power of the king and grant back powers the Great Houses had lost since the rule of Eron V, however, his death led to his son, Tyared II (r. 2253–2260), becoming king and undoing much of the devolution. Tyared II would seize back much of the authority his father had granted back to the Great Houses, including an end to co-rule of the northern crown cessions. The Great Houses grew increasingly irritated with the king, most especially House Kaad, which had a history of insubordination to the crown and insurrectionist ideas.
Tyared I of Trofiriya had signed a treaty with Areltya in 2250 stipulating Trofiriyan aid in the event of a Varaso invasion, so when in 2256 Varaso soldiers crossed the Narrows into Areltya, Tyared II raised an army to send to Areltya. However, when petitioning House Kaad for soldiers, they refused to send any unless a list of demands, including the cession of Mirvon, was met. Tyared, enraged by the insubordination, directed the army he had raised turned against House Kaad. On 18 Riverflood Tyared's forces reached Tselyis and delivered a demand for soldiers. Lord Gyedrys Kaad ordered the envoy slain and his head returned to the army with an official declaration of Kaad's independence from Trofiriya. Tyared's army began a siege on the city. House Varani, who had no particular interest in helping Areltya, but who had sent soldiers to Tyared, did not want them engaged internally against House Kaad, and so Lord Krazima Nrevash petitioned Tyared for the Varani forces forces to be redirected to Aretlya while the forces of the crown and House Sadryon remained in Kaad lands. Tyared, who had now already broken the treaty, did not want to engage in an external war while also fighting a civil insurrection, and so denied the request. By the time the request had been denied, Tyared's army had already suffered several defeats at the hands of House Kaad, and so House Varani seceded from Trofiriya and ordered their troops back to Varani lands. The resulting civil war would ultimately last for four years, exhaust all parties involved, and result in the destruction of the royal House Trofir and the fracturing of Trofiriya into three rump states: House Kaad, House Varani, and House Sadryon. Areltya fell to Varas, and in the aftermath of the civil war, the lands of Houses Trofir and Sadryon would also be seized by Varas and the rulers of Areltya and House Sadryon would be kept as rulers of the Protectorate of Areltya and the Protectorate of Trofiriya, subordinate to the Varaso emperor.

Decline of the Varaso Empire

In the decades leading up to the 2250s, the Varaso Empire had been suffering from political instability, military unrest, pressure from Taminil peoples in the north and Sižoną in the south. In late 2254, emperor Alfonso II was deposed in a military coup that would install Maximillian as emperor. Maximillian began centralising power, and began a series of military expansions west into Sossis, seizing Areltya and southern Trofiriya, attempting to bolster the empire through expansion as had been done in centuries prior. He also instituted a series of monetary and bureaucratic reforms in order to settle the political situation in the empire, including a large increase in the number of civil servants to carry out tasks like value assessment on property for tax purposes, and allowing the military to directly procure goods instead of requiring they be issued money to buy the goods. These reforms ushered in an era of relative stability in the empire for a time, however, it became clear that Maximillian himself was the architect behind this prosperity. Maximillian had granted significant power to the military, and while he was popular and respected among them, after his death in 2270, different factions within the military would begin supporting different candidates to the throne. Maximillian's successor, Galxos, would rule for only 4 months before being deposed in a coup in what would become the Year of Four Emperors. A series of short-lived emperors followed, and widespread overreach of military power led to military factioning and unrest in northern Varas and Dacia. Northern Varas would also be subject to increased raiding by the Taminils. In the general chaos of the Varaso Empire, its newly established western protectorates would rebel and successfully secede from Varas. The protectorates in southern Trofiriya and Areltya and were abandoned in 2284 and 2287, only 27 and 30 years after they had been established, respectively.

Eussis

The Wars of Enzimian Expansion

Main article: Wars of Enzimian Expansion

Throughout much of the preceding centuries, the faith of Furanism had been growing in the Varaso Empire. The Enzimians, in an attempt to expand their territory, and bring in the large and increasing number of Varaso Furanists within their fold, raised a large, mostly Varaso, army, and invaded southern Varas in 2350. The Varasos were already occupied with invasions and rebellions in the north, and could not adequately respond to the threat. Assisting the Enzimians were a number of Varaso Furanists who supported the Enzimian invaders, and the Enzimians' use of early gunpowder weapons. The Enzimans, as well, forged an alliance with the Taminils in the north. These factors combined allowed the Enzimians to make quick incursions into Varaso territory, sacking Varas in First Drums 2356, destroying religious temples and functionary buildings. Emperor João had fled the city to Alvoradã several months prior, which would serve as the capital of the Varaso Empire for the next four years until the fall of the empire in its entirety, though technically Alvoradã would continue to be the capital until the empire was officially dissolved in 2370. By mid-2357 the Enzimians and their Taminil allies had closed in on Alvoradã and laid siege to the city, cutting off its access to the coast through the Uzê. After nearly two years, they breached the city, and the last holdout of the Varaso Empire fell. Emperor João was executed and the Enzimian Sanhedrin appointed the Varaso Sanhedrin to rule the conquered lands of Varas. In 2369, 10 years after the capture of Alvoradã, Cónsulo, hierarch of the city of Enzim and general of the army, with the blessing of the Enzimian Sanhedrin, dissolved the Varaso Sanhedrin for perceived vice and corruption, and staged a coup of the empire. He was shortly thereafter declared emperor of Enzim and the lands of Varas as Holy Enzimian Emperor. A series of wars directly followed the Enzimian capture of the Varaso Empire, lasting to the Peace of Útrecos in 2425, with the Holy Enzimian Empire losing about forty-five per cent of what had been Varas' land at the height of its empire, mostly in Sossis, and a significant amount of population, though much of the population decline was due to the human cost of the wars. These wars, besides the territorial ambitions of the Holy Enzimian Empire, were driven by a religious component, as Enzim sought to convert the various peoples around them to Furanism. These attempts would meet with various levels of success, but eventually conversion of most of the peoples of Eussis would be completed. By 2500, with some exceptions, like the Vudeghir, the Varasos, Dacians, Taminils, Cassidians, and most Chagic peoples were Furanist. Outside Eussis, there were many apostles to the Dvekmenus and Dischitar, which would meet with varying success.

Akridian Invasions

In the 2380s, the Akridians appeared suddenly on the southern border and made quick incursions into the Holy Enzimian Empire's southern territory. With this, the Akridians deprived the empire of much of its most agriculturally productive land. This, combined with the massive influx of refugees from the south into the northern territories led to widespread famine. This blow crippled the Holy Enzimian Empire for decades, and it was unable to effectively suppress the Dacians and Cassidians and repel the Sunaïds. The Enzimians were able to retake some of the lands that had been lost to the Akridians starting in the third decade of the 25^th century, after the original Akridian hive to arrive in the northern Arega had split into several that began to war with each other. By this point, however, severe damage had already been done.
Following the collapse of living standards begun during the crises of the late Varaso Empire, and continued by the Wars of Enzimian expansion, relative peace and stability began to return to the region following the Peace of Útrecos. The Holy Enzimian Empire, viewing itself as the purified successor to the Varaso Empire, remained a great power. Though diminished from Varas’ apex, it still exercised a great deal of soft power on other Furanist states, which would eventually lead it into the War of the Holy League following centuries of proselytisation in Sossis.

Sossis

The General Crisis

Following the Trofiriyan breakup, the Trofiriyan rump states and other Dvekmenu states of Derash and Ros were left reeling from spillover, but in the decades following there was relative internal stability, as everyone was left fearful of Varas and later the Sunaïds. Internal divisions would begin first in House Kaad and Ros, far away from the external threats in the east. Minorities in these regions, especially the Salic peoples, who had been living under centuries of Dvekmenu rule, began to agitate and rebel. House Kaad was the first to fall, widely disliked and unable to effectively control their territory without the assistance of other great houses. House Kaad's inability to effectively suppress ethnic and general popular rebellion in its territory led to cadet houses under them to grow increasingly disgruntled and eventually themselves secede. Between 2380 and 2410 every major Dvekmenu state either lost major parts of its territory and population to breakaway states, as with Ros and Varani, or fractured completely, as with Kaad and Derash. This created a patchwork of squabbling petty states and polities that grew out of the fracturing Great Houses across the Dvekmenu world. The series of conflicts between these states are collectively referred to as the Wars of Devolution or the Petty Wars. These wars would see the complete collapse of previous royal and Great House powers and its cession to independent petty lords that grew out of the smaller cadet houses.
Eventually, most of the small independent states would coalesce into the decentralised Dominion of Dvekmenia. Following the Wars of Devolution, however, the Dominion had little central power, and most still rested with the nobles who ruled the various counties, duchies, and baronies, but it provided a degree of stability and cooperation to the region.

War of the Holy League

Main article: War of the Holy League

Once Enzimian rule and Furanist cultural hegemony had been consolidated in Eussis, Enzim turned westward towards Sossis. Since the founding of Furanism, missionaries had gone over to Sossis to attempt conversion of the peoples there, but during the Little Dark Age and the rapid expansion of Furanism, these missions became far larger, more frequent, and more successful. Especially during the Wars of Devolution various Dvekmenu nobles began to convert to the new religion and impose it on their subjects, and religious tension began to foment. The role of Furanism became a major obstacle to the creation of the Dominion of Dvekmenia, with both Furanists and pagans fearing domination of the dominion by the other faith, and this point became one of the major reasons for the extreme decentralisation of the state. A tenuous balance was struck, then, between the Furanists and the pagans that threatened to erupt into war several times, but ultimately held until the consolidated and rebounding Holy Enzimian Empire issued the Alvoradã Decree in 2461, pledging to defend the faith and its adherents worldwide. Upon the news of the decree, the tenuous peace in Dvekmenia began to unravel as Furanist polities began to consider war, taking the decree to mean the HEE would come to their aid against the pagans. Various polities within the dominion on both sides began raising and training armies, mostly illegally or through various obscure loopholes. Delegates from 35 Dvekmenu Furanist polities met in Enzim in Hierarch 2462 and signed the Holy League and Covenant for the Worldly Defence of the One True Faith (Varaso: La Lega e Convenho Sançãо pro la Defença Tierrala da la Crença Sola Vera/Dvekmenu: Ѭнылы Сеназъ и Соенъ длѧ Зимкала Вауцильа Едны Прейвы Шауцъ), establishing what became known as the Holy League and formed a formal alliance between these polities and the HEE. It was in its essence a defensive pact, but largely for political reasons, as both the Dvekmenus and the Enzimians expected and desired a war, but did not want to be seen as the aggressors to any third parties, especially Tira Vella. The Holy League established the largest inter-state alliance since the Menivunian Accords more than a thousand years prior.
The creation of the Holy League did not immediately lead to war, however. It would take a precipitating event, and on 6 Riverflood, 2466 a Furanist temple was burned down in the village of Izgra in the Duchy of Freontsa, near the border with the County of Volga, which was predominantly pagan. Duke Navar claimed pagans from Volga had burned down the temple and issued the Izgra Remonstrance, demanding Volga apprehend those responsible and hand them over for punishment. Volga remanded the order, stating there was no evidence the temple was burned by pagans, let alone pagans from Volga, and that, seeing as Izgra was within Freontsa, and therefore outside Volga’s jurisdiction, Freontsa would have to conduct an investigation and give Volga a list of suspects they believed responsible, at which point Volga would make their own inquiry into the listed persons. Freontsa took this, especially concerning Volga’s own inquiry before a handover of suspects, to be covering for the culprits. Freontsa began to hold that the culprits were from the nearby town of Viysk, and demanded that they be allowed to search Viysk for the culprits. Volga denied this request and stated they would hold their own investigation into the matter. Freontsa responded by illegally marching armed men into Volga to investigate Viysk without Volga’s permission. The emperor of Dvekmenia now intervened to attempt to arbitrate the situation. It was a difficult situation as the emperor was pagan, and thus Freontsa rebuffed every attempt at agreement put forward as being too sympathetic to Volga. The attempts at arbitration lasted several weeks when news broke that a Freontsan soldier had been killed by locals in Viysk. Freontsa immediately withdrew from the negotiations, calling the event an act of war on Volga’s part, and began an invasion of lower Volga on 2 Sunmarch, 2466. Very quickly, per the terms of the Holy League, the other Dvekmenu signatories declared war on Volga, and soon followed the Holy Enzimian Empire. As this happened, many other pagan states declared themselves against the Holy League and came to the defence of Volga. Very quickly Dvekmenia developed into two opposing sides: the Furanist Holy League, and the rapidly coalescing pagan alliance. The emperor further tried to arbitrate the situation, but it very quickly grew out of control. He attempted to stay neutral as long as he could, but likely in part due to his own pagan beliefs, and as well because of the involvement of the foreign HEE, he sided against the Holy League. On 23 Sunmarch, 2466, he issued a writ of prohibition demanding the cession of hostile activity and disbanding of armies on the part of the members of the Holy League. Due to the severe limits of the imperial office, he was not able to issue a formal declaration of war against the Holy Enzimian Empire; however, he was able to declare all Enzimian subjects enemies of the realm. With that, assistance to the Enzimians became a crime of treason. Most polities not in the Holy League had either formally declared by this point, or soon formally declared, war against the members of the Holy League and the HEE.
The war was finally brought to a close in 2499 with the Treaty of Zapadloke, signed in the city of Zapadloke in the Duchy of Alvaleryn. The dominion kept its emperor, independent of Enzim, and nominally of the same rank and prestige as the Enzimian Emperor, though in actuality the position was now largely powerless. This now largely ceremonial nature of the emperor can be seen as the final step of the Wars of Devolution, establishing the various states within the dominion as de facto independent and sovereign. The Enzimian Sanhedrin was also subject to and affected by this and lost a great deal of power outside of Enzim itself. Though such ideas were slower to be implemented in Eussis, the Treaty of Zapadloke served to create the modern concept of sovereignty.

Tira Vella

Tira Vella managed to avoid the worst of the effects of this period. Owing to its status as an island and its strong naval tradition, it managed to avoid any external invasion. The peripheral regions enjoyed protection afforded to them by being part of a larger political entity, while the Gold Coast was able to extract natural resources from the periphery and export them for a great profit. Tira Vella was, thus, at the time an anachronistically forward-thinking mercantile empire.
This arrangement, however, was predicated on both sides benefitting from the arrangement. While during the Little Dark Age the peripheral regions would have been incapable of defending themselves independently, they began to doubt the ability of Tira Vella to defend them either. As the other regions of the oecumene broke down, trade networks broke down with them, and as trade declined, Tira Vella’s power as a mercantile empire did as well. Tira Vella’s military power was derived from its incredible wealth, and as that wealth waned, so did its military. Tira Vella also avoided being apostlised by the Furanists and widespread conversion to Furanism and an agreement of sorts was reached between Enzim and the Tira Vellans that Furana was reflected in aspects of the God in Octonianism, the primary religion in Tira Vella, avoiding accusations they were worshipping the “Liar Gods”.
The Grey and Elora were largely inhabited by settlers from the Gold Coast there to extract natural resources. In the face of decreasing trade and export, many mining towns died and their populations moved back to the Gold Coast. While putting an increased strain on the Gold Coast, the core of the republic, which was already suffering the greatest effects of the downturn, it had a positive effect on the relationship between the Grey and the Gold Coast, as the settlers remaining wanted to remain tied to it as a lifeline, and the native Agians were glad to be rid of many of the settlers that had left.
The situation in the Centre Province and the Arp Lands was largely unchanged through the period. They were sparsely populated, and interacted little with the larger political institutions of the republic. They were kept appeased by the exemption of certain traditional agricultural activities from tax, which actually helped the republic save money as the cost of collecting the taxes had begun to outweigh the tax proceeds.
The Southlands was the most troublesome region during the period, and multiple small-scale rebellions broke out, however, most were easily put down. The most serious was Kali’s Revolt in the far south between 2460 and 2468, centred around a peasant woman named Kali (Καλή). The complaints were the same as other revolts, namely too much payment to the government for not enough tangible benefit. However, the circumstances of the remote geography of the region and the increased conviction of the revolt following the killing of Kali would lead to about a third of the Southlands being de facto independent for half a decade. The revolt would ultimately be put down by military force, and order maintained by paying the soldiers tasked with suppressing it with land in the region. This effective settlement of soldiers permanently in a rebellious territory sent a very effective message to other prospective rebels, as well as avoided draining the already dwindling state coffers by paying the soldiers in something besides money. The soldiers settled there were kept on the side of the republic by granting them a 20 year tax rate decrease in order to allow them to “well establish themselves” in the area. The brutality of the campaign and coercive presence of the veterans has made Kali's Revolt a particularly controversial event in Tira Vellan history, capable still of raising passions between Gold Coasters and Southlanders over each other's actions in the conflict, particularly of the republican general Lavos Ygkleitos.
Ultimately Tira Vella managed to avoid disintegration by the shrewd efforts of the political elite of the Gold Coast, as well as their willingness to bear the brunt of the downturn rather than outsource it to the periphery. They appeased when they could, avoiding a costly war effort, applying force only when necessary, and ensured the long-term efficacy of said force when used. Tira Vella walked an incredibly narrow line between upsetting its periphery and bankrupting itself, but managed to keep itself afloat, just barely at times, until a new order emerged in Oecumene and trade began to flourish again.

Effects on Society

The Little Dark Age led to widespread cultural changes in nearly all aspects of life. Arguably the two most important impacts of the Little Dark Age, and why its end is considered the start of modernity, are the change in status of the lower classes and growth of the middle class, and the intellectual and technological revolution caused by the active suppression of magic under Furanist dogma and its replacement with the natural sciences. In the aftermath of the Eusossian Wars of Religion, much of Oecumene was now Furanist, a religion generally much more concerned with the wellbeing of the poor, the downtrodden, and the outcast than the previous pagan religions it replaced. Beyond this, the decline in population caused by widespread famines and the increasing scale of warfare through the period led to labour shortages, and agricultural workers were able to bargain for higher wages and/or move to other manors, leading to the breakdown of the feudal tribute systems that had pervaded in Oecumene since emerging after the end of the first Dark Age. Even further, the popular revolts during the Wars of Enzimian Expansion and Wars of Devolution demonstrated the power the common people were capable of. Gunpowder weapons, introduced by the Enzimians, drastically changed the nature of warfare, and the highly trained knights or battlemages that had ruled the battlefields of previous eras were no longer needed. Already before even the Wars of Enzimian Expansion the presence of magic on the battlefield had waned. Erizur Saelugek’s Sealing and general weave pollution had made the training of mages ever more difficult and for diminishing returns as certain magics simply became impossible to recreate. The expense of training highly skilled and specialised battlemages had grown no longer a worthwhile endeavour. Then, after the Enzimians lost their monopoly on gunpowder, the technology was quickly adopted throughout Oecumene. By the time of the War of the Holy League, armies, even those who fought against the League, fought in massed pike-and-shot formations which could be armed and trained for a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of the time of battlemages. Battlemages, once a prestigious and powerful class, first developed under the Dvekmenus over two millennia prior, were thus confined to the dustbin of history as the world entered the modern era. A common farmer armed with a gun and a few weeks' training could now shoot a knight from his horse or a battlemage across a field. This levelling effect of the firearm on the battlefield reflected in the general attitudes of the common folk, as they began to agitate for further political power and representation. As has been observed: "the musket made the infantryman and the infantryman made the democrat." While some places, like Enzim, would see the rise of absolutism as the feudal and clerical checks to the monarch's power eroded, the feelings of the lower classes would continue to foment, leading to events like the Taminil Revolution, Vessian Revolution, and Hänekşiş Reforms. The growth of printing and increasing literacy which had initially been instrumental in the spread of Furanism was also later instrumental in spreading these revolutionary ideas.
As the scale of warfare increased to levels exceeding even that of the Fey Wars, states were forced to institute vast, organised bureaucracies to manage these massive armies, and also levy burdensome taxes on their populations to fund these wars. The newly expanded commercial classes were disproportionately affected by these taxes, not enjoying the various privileges and tax exemptions of the nobility, and began to demand further representation. These bureaucracies set up also led to further centralisation of state power, leading to the rise in absolute monarchy.
The suppression of magic eventually led to an intellectual revolution culminating in the Enlightenment, as the divorce from magic led to a newfound interest in the natural sciences. While advances in magic in the two and a half millennia since its rediscovery had been made, they were often slow, as magic was and is still poorly understood and actively seems to defy and confound attempts to make sense of it, largely leaving people with the same arrays of magic that had been left by the Elves. The largest jumps in magical knowledge and application were often made as a result of the rediscovery of more ancient Elvish works. However, this state and general infatuation with magic did come at the detriment of study into the natural sciences, which began to accelerate following lack of alternative left under Furanism. The development of the natural sciences and embrace of rationalism during the Enlightenment helped set the stage for industrialisation and the wonders of modern technology which, in the 400 or so years since the end of the Little Dark Age, have achieved more than 2500 years of arcane developments.