Volgier League

The League is a federation of freely associated communes and guilds in the Volgier Mountain range. It operates according to the principles of Associationism. Most political decisions are made through consensus, throughout the various levels of federation. Communities are entrusted and empowered to manage their own affairs. Formally speaking, anyone gets a say in the decisions that impact their lives, and no say in the decisions that don't. During an assembly, a designated facilitator (oftentimes the eldest member of a social group, or the most experienced worker), guides the group through the proccess. Concerns are addressed and proposals refined. Of course, there are times when consensus fails, and decisions that must be made quickly and without the time to allay concerns and refine proposals.   As such, the Volgier League has no single leader, nor a unitary legislature capable of passing binding laws without consultation and input of those impacted. The National Diet, consisting of representatives appointed by their respective clans, has little authority to pass laws or impose it's will across the League. It's responsibilites currently include receiving foreign delegations, appointing diplomats on behalf of the League, managing the Treasury, and resolving disputes and conflicts between the Assembly of Communes and Assembly of Guilds.   The Assembly of Communes and the Assembly of Guilds are the deliberative assemblies for League members, who elect representatives each year to set and evaluate League-wide goals, discuss problems of individual members, and advise the National Diet. Each assembly meets three times for approximately 2 week sessions throughout the year before a new assembly is called. There are no term limits, only a prohibition on incumbents of more than two terms.

Volgier society is organised around the unending pursuit of free association, self-determination, and mutual aid between citizens of the League. As such, it is fiercely egalitarian, with no hierarchical differences between genders, ages, vocations, or professions. Their ancient society was highly rigid with strict gender roles and a favoring of men, but central to the Revolution after the Brother’s War was the abolition of gender inequality, which over the years has evolved into the outright rejection of the social construct. For the Volgen, honesty is the most important value - even lying to protect yourself is viewed with suspicion and scorn. Volgier Dwarves are raised to view themselves as part of a whole, while also being encouraged to manage their own affairs.   The Volgier are notable for their paranoid xenophobia, which was built up since the Revolution after having been the target of multiple attempts by relatives of the deposed Kapetian Dynasty who underestimated the resolve of the Volgier people. Although not attempted in some 300-odd years, the last attempt at restoring the Argentinisch Throne is still within the distant memory of the eldest Volgiers. As a result, Volgiers are distrustful of outsiders, and only take an interest in the affairs of their "siblings" in Gorachenya, Cyrenica, Indhara, and even Beiguo in the distant East. A notable exception is when League members mount liberation raids on Jorgan slaving operations to rescue Volgier citizens. Non-Volgier captives are allowed and in some cases even encouraged to come with them and settle in their own communities within Volgier towns and cities.

Prehistoric Volgeberg

No such city by the name of Volgberg exists, the name's origins are shrouded in mystery, with several archaeological sites vying for the title of the earliest Dwarven settlement in the region. These early Dwarves supplanted the Giants and formed clan-based tribes, the largest of which evolved into the Volgier nobility. Ancient legends celebrate the unity and collective strength of these ancestors against the Giants.

The Ancient Volgier Kings

Jörgan, Tiefen, and Volgier folklore refers to many reigning Volgier Kings. These Kings were from the largest Volgier clans and ruled what is now the modern-day League and parts of Tiefen through a "Royal Diet," an assembly of these notable Kings and their representatives. These kings are said to have brought stability to the region through the work of the Diet.   In their homelands, each King's native clan decided and handled most daily affairs through "Volgmoots," assemblies of a community's free men. These Volgmoots protected their tribes, and some at times even removed their King and would invite other Volgen nobles to govern them instead. Each Volgier King was elected by the Royal Diet and rotated upon his death.   In the years leading up to The War of Frozen Scales, the Swabian clan had gradually wielded more and more influence, with non-Swabian Kings becoming rarer and eventually nonexistent by the outbreak of conflict. References to Volgmoots also become rarer and more stagnant, indicating the practice was lost sometime around the start of the Yulan-tai's final expansion.

High Kingdom Era

After the War, the Swabian Chieftain Hansreik became the new Volgier King, emulating Jörgan noble practice, fusing it with Yulan-tai views of social order and founding a hereditary dynasty. Any pretense of consultation that remained at the onset of the war was gone, and the Hansreik Dynasty ruled through the strength of it's returning, battle-hardened armies.   The Royal Diet was sidelined, with Hansreik I appointing friendly nobles to duchies created out of the former homelands of the Volgen tribes. The ability for the Diet to debate and pass laws remained, however, the King was explicitly exempted from them. The Hansreik Dynasty also awarded more privileges to those who aided and supported them, gradually stripping away and punishing the clans opposed to them or whom the King had a vendetta.   King Hansreik II even turned against his father's Swabian heritage, attacking and deposing his cousin, whom he suspected of supporting an attempt by the Royal Diet to raise an army against him. Hansreik II also offered additional titles of land, or higher noble ranks to those who pledged allegiance directly to him over their tribes. While still made up of the hereditary leaders of each of the Kingdom's clans, now, many of the Royal Diet's members now had to answer to the King's Dukes if they were not appointed as one themselves.   For the Volgier lower strata, material conditions and rights became worse than other Dwarven counterparts. Work in the Volgier mines was notorious amongst the Dwarven Kingdoms, as tales of successive Volgier Kings instituting longer hours, lower pay, and rejecting all safety demands from the miners trickled through the Galisean trading routes. Conditions for the enslaved, generally non-dwarven peoples on the surface were equally desolate, with only rudimentary dwellings, and most of their food seized as tax for the Kingdom. In reaction, many foundational institutions and principles of the League were founded or presaged during this era, with the Royal Diet becoming more adversarial towards the Volgier King, which created the space for the organisation of the lower strata and decentralization of political authority. The Royal Diet passed laws allowing for female inheritance and leadership, the formation of miner's guilds, and the re-establishment of frequent volgmoots. Though initially, these councils were only open to and elected by men, the Royal Diet eventually did away with this too.  

Revolutionary Volgier

The proliferation of the mechanical clock allowed both for the organization of broader segments of the Volgier lower strata, while also regularizing and standardizing their exploitation. Shifts previously varied throughout the Kingdom, but as the tunnel network steadily expanded in tandem with the proliferation of mechanical timekeeping, supply chains became spread across different mines and refineries, leading to standardized time zones via royal decree.   Many argued that treating Volgier women as inferior to Volgier men was another form of hierarchical domination and that all people were capable of managing their affairs democratically. Imposing preconceived traits and roles based on gender became viewed alongside the imposition of royal authority as untenable sources of oppression for the peasants, miners, and craftspeople in Volgeberg.   The Volgier peasantry, who long toiled on the surface with little support from the ruling mountain citadels, deep below the surface, had sporadically revolted, sometimes being put down through force, sometimes with modest concessions such as tax relief, lowered quotas, and/or improved living conditions. The revolution, while often condensed to the violence immediately before and up to the execution of the last Volgier King, was in fact the culmination of Volgier miners, peasants, and artisans reconstructing and reorganizing their conditions in the absence of repression during the Brother's War.  

The Present Day

Although multiple crises have rocked the League, including multiple attempts from within and outside to restore monarchical rule, Volgier society continues to persist without the domination of political authority by a single person or social class. Jörgan slaving raids are still a problem, and the Terruk Mal and Aarumites have been skirmishing along their respective frontiers with the League.   Multiple reforms to League structure have been successful in aiding its ability to weather such reactionary conflicts, including the centralization of League defense in the Expeditionary Guild. Further reforms have reduced the influence of the National Diet, which is now subordinate to the Assembly of Communes and only constituted as needed.

The most recent census was undertaken in 980 ME (2243 AS), with a population of 4,856,941 citizens and 180,400 residents. It's largest cities are Jünhausen (119,023), Miedburg (85,165), and Freiheit (78,903), with most other cities under 20,000, and hundreds of villages and towns scattered throughout the Volgier Mountains. These numbers do not include any communities within Volgier League territories that have chosen to remain independent or to leave the League, of which there are currently three.   Anyone born within the territory of a League member is a citizen, excluding those born to parents of the aformentioned three protectorate communities. None of the Volgier population is held in slavery or serfdom, and joining the League requires the abolition of noble privileges and legal equality. Residents of the League are generally foreign-born merchants, artisans, shopkeepers, and those belonging to a League protectorate.

Volgier occupies the bulk of the Volgier Mountains, on an east-west axis. To it's west, it has a small coastline with the Erigan Sea. It is slightly wider north-to-south in the east than in the west, where the League holds some of the Nabari foothills. The League possesses a predominantly alpine climate, with very little arable land outside of a few pockets along the rivers, coast, and Nabari foothills. Personal land ownership is more evenly distributed, and has limited legal rights, with the majority of the League's uninhabitable, economically rich territory held as common resources within each community.   The foreign borders of Volgier are tightly controlled by the Expeditionist's Guild, with guarded fortifictions on every major route into the League which and various explosive, magical, and mundane traps made to seal all the minor routes within a day's warning.

Due to it's political structure, the League is under unique pressure to ensure it's security and survival. In peacetime, standing citizen militias are limited to no more than 1 member for every 100 citizens in a commune. However, every resident of a Volgier commune able to is expected to spend 16 hours of every month training in the use of muskets, and during times of war, every commune is expected to raise from this group a contingent to contribute to the League Army.   The Volgier League has a small standing army of 300, under the retainer of the National Diet. However, communes in the league are responsible and required to field their own standing militias, and can receive aid to this purpose from the Treasury. These soldiers are heavily armored, wearing scale armor, helmets, and were equipped historically with polearms, but following the adoption of gundpowder, with Harquebuses and more recently, muskets.   Additionally, an independently organised "border guard" part of the Expeditionist's Guild is responsible for securing and defending the League's borders from it's neighbors, as well as staffing the towers or checkpoints at every major road and tunnel into the League. Commonly known as the Volgen Expeditionary Legion, its 400 members are trained in a variety of guerilla tactics, and are generally armed with muskets, pistols or other smaller firearms, or in some cases, still crossbows and swords.  

Navy

In contrast to the decentralised nature of Volgier armies, The League's National Diet is in charge of the sole Volgier Navy. Though smaller than it's chief rival, the Jörgan Navy, the League outclasses it with modern gun carracks and gun caravels, with only two war galleys in it's fleet of 74. Besides patrolling Volgier's limited coastlines, the navy also provides security on the interior navigable waterways that run the length of the League. In recent years, the League has begun experimenting with "ironsides", reffitting two of its ships with hulls lined with metal to reinforce them against collision or cannon fire.

Volgier is, besides Cyrenica, one of the most advanced societies in Galisea. Volgier spies took part in the operation to steal the Cyrenic secret to gunpowder, and, perhaps learning from this experience, has zealously guarded its ability to manufacture clocks. Although knowledge of the verge escapement is no longer a Volgier secret, further advancements, such as the balancing spring and the pendulum, remain secrets of the Guild of Clockmakers. The League has been successful to this date in keeping the secret to the accuracy of their mechanical clockwork to itself, keeping the manufacture to a handful of well-protected communes deep within Volgier territory, and holding the specifications for clockwork at an undisclosed locations in the League known only to the Clockmaker's Guild. Otherwise, League citizens generally possess or have access to modern technology such as gunpowder weapons, mills, metalwork, and even some mildly complex machines.

Volgier religion is not organised under any central temple or priestly class. It shares many similarities with Jörgan mythology and folklore, including several common dieties and stories. Folk traditions across Volgier communes include more mythic and religious figures found in Ashvetist, Pandroi, and Cyrenic beliefs, but often under wildly different characterisations and domains. Despite it's close proximity to the ancient Nimearan Kingdom and the present-day Ashevite polities in Tiefen, all but one of the dynasties pre-revolution Kingdom of Volgeberg remained "pagan".

The Volgier League, as a general rule, has little to do with non-Dwarven affairs, trading for mutual benefit and need while refusing (to the best of it's ability) to get involved in the political affairs of the human, halfling, and orcish societies around it. This is more out of apathy and irrelevance than anything malicious towards non-Dwarves. The exception to this is Volgier policy on Jorgan slavers and markets, which is to liberate any and all Volgier citizens as well as any others held alongside them in bondage. Jorgan ships that dock in Volgier ports have had their slaves siezed and liberated before being allowed to disembark. Many of these communities have gone on to become members of the League, while a few remain independent protectorates.  

Dwarven Relations

Relations with other Dwarven States are a different matter. Since deposing the Kapetian Dynasty, the other Dwarven Kingdoms, particularly Cyrenica and Gorachenya, have viewed the Volgier League with suspicion and contempt, and aided exiled members of the Kapetian Dynasty at times. In turn, the Volgier League has supported rebels and revolts in these States, and the National Diet sporadically exchanges emissaries directly with the Borchan of Gorachenya.

It's "basic law" is the Tenets of Association, which lays out the structure of the League, the responsibilties and expectations of its members, and the rights of Volgier citizens. It also unequivocally states that the League's fundamental document is the Volgen Declaration of Dwarven Rights. Limited executive and some judicial responsiblities lay with the National Diet, made up of the traditional leaders of the 56 ancient Volgier clans, plus 11 representatives from the new communities accepted into the League.   The Assembly of Communes and Assembly of Guilds are the closest thing to a legislative body in the League. Every community sends a delegate to the former to propose and debate guidelines, shared goals, and new laws; conversely every Volgen Guild sends a delegate to the latter. Each Assembly meets once a year, however a meeting can be called by a commune or guild within the League. Delegates can be recalled if they are not meeting their group's expectations, and must be picked each assembly. At the local regional level, decisions are made by volgmoot, an assembly of all citizens of the community, be it a whole town or a single street within a larger city.   "Authority" is based on experience or expertise and is deferential and consent-based. No one has the "right" to authority over another. Associationism explicitly criticised the centralisation and absolute royal authority of many Dwarven societies, as well as charismatic leadership or rational legal authority, reasoning that all three inherently generate conflict and oppression.

The Volgier economy is dominated by resource extraction and metallurgy, reflecting the crafting prowess of the Volgier people. That said, a modest amount of the population lives and/or works in agriculture, which uniquely for Dwarven states, is not confined to limited regions on the surface. Mirror systems and skylights are integrated into many Volgier underground settlements, allowing for "greencaves" at various levels beneath the surface that quadruple the amount of arable space within the League, enabling it to avoid importing food to feed it's populace.   Volgier is home to 180,000 kilometers of mining tunnels and related infrastructure, of which almost 30% is silver production. Volgier craft guilds and manufactories produce vast quantities of manufactured goods for domestic consumption, and foreign trade. Masonry, metallurgist, cartographer guilds, and more are also responsible for constructing and maintaining most of the infrastructure that keeps Volgier running.

With the migration of Aarumites into the Nabari Plateau, Volgier overland trade has focused on an east-west axis, connecting Terruk-Mal routes in the central continent with the Northwestern Coastal circuit. As the Cyrenican road networks fell into disrepair on the plateau, and the Aarumite bands made trade dangerous for the merchants, the League invested its resources into this configuration. Due to these efforts, it is actually faster for a traveler to move north into the Volgier League, travel west or east, and then back south into the Plateau at times.   Most of the foreign exports of the League are silver and silver products, followed by the occasional clockwork. With this massive command of silver resources in the region, the League leverages it's near-monopoly on others, trading the coveted resource for exotic, advanced, and/or luxurious items. Volgen markets have a great variety of local and foreign goods for sale, with jewelry, tools, and weapons being the most common. Magic items also exist in relative abundance, as do technical items like gunpowder and gearworks.

As usual for Dwarven societies, Volgier maintains an immense network of highways, bridges, and tunnels connecting it's settlements, which are themselves dug out of the earth and equipped with lighting, snow and spring water irrigation networks, and indoor plumbing. The League is connected via a system of tunnels linking major cities, trade posts, and forts, some of which even stretch outside the League north into Tiefen. The earliest of these tunnels were constructed during The War of Frozen Scales, and used to supply troops and equipment to and from the battlefield, and most of them were restricted to the noblity, military, and foreign merchants. After the Abolition of the Argentinisch Throne, the Assembly of Communes authorised the renovation and expansion of these tunnels to enable their use as public routes of transport and general trade.