Lirgen

Two nations once occupied the region now known as the Sodden Lands. The strongest were the Lirgeni, descendants and exiles from Rahadoum who sought religious freedom in the lands to the south, though nearly as powerful were the Yamasans, whose vast swaths of rich farmland and expert trade tactics ensured they remained a dominant supplier of food and other goods to the surrounding regions. The death of a god and the subsequent widespread cataclysms that shook the world led to the destruction of these once-great nations, killing nearly all who once dwelled there and scattering across Avistan and Garund any survivors who remained. Of course, some managed to stay and carve out a meager subsistence amid the wind-blistered, post-apocalyptic wasteland, but now these scavengers and degenerate tribespeople must fight for every scrap they can get.
HISTORY OF THE Abendego Gulf
The histories of Lirgen and Yamasa are intimately intertwined. In 2555 AR, the region that became known as Rahadoum first set into motion the Laws of Mortality, scriptures that outlawed all worship of the divinities and were aimed at putting an end to the devastating Oath Wars that ravaged those lands. However, not all of Rahadoum’s citizens agreed with these strictures, and one of the most outspoken opponents of these laws was an astronomer-philosopher by the name of Saoc.
Saoc was not necessarily devout, but he did believe the gods had a role to play in all civilizations. In 2557 AR, he and a small band of loyal followers made their way through the Napsune Mountains and the city of Haldun and into the vast, unexplored tropics to the south. Once there, they were free to worship their own gods; they constructed a capital, calling it Hyrantum, and the small nation of Lirgen quickly began to thrive in the rich pocket of civilization they had claimed as their own.
After this first expeditionary group established themselves, more and more followers from the north joined the Lirgeni in their blossoming cities along the Gulf of Abendego, escaping the increasingly restrictive nation of Rahadoum over the course of centuries. These expatriates turned away from the Laws of Mortality, instead adopting Saoc’s so-called New Paradigm. This simplistic set of laws started out as a decree that stated all citizens of Lirgen were free to worship as they saw fit, as long as such worship benefited the common good and greater success of Lirgen. As more people emigrated from Rahadoum, however, they brought with them their own ideals, including the practices of philosophy and studies of the sciences, and these principles were quickly assimilated into Lirgeni culture and its peoples’ own ideologies. By 2800 AR, Lirgen was a completely autonomous nation, and Saoc’s dream lived on in the form of philosophically inclined governors and astrologically minded overseers who called themselves the Saoc Brethren.
Thanks to Lirgen’s proximity to the science-oriented nation of Rahadoum and the relatively peaceful relations it was able to maintain with that realm, the Lirgeni benefited greatly from trade with the secular Rahadoumi. Exchanging knowledge as well as goods, the Saoc Brethren were able to acquire and manufacture magnificent refractor telescopes, lenses, and astrolabes, as well as countless other devices to better view the stars and planets above, aiding in the divinations and fortune-telling that ran their lives. Some of the more audacious members of the Saoc Brethren even sought technology and magic to create gates and portals to leap from world to world.
Called the Land of Fortune in its prime, Lirgen grew in affluence not only due to its mastery of prognostication and wealth of available resources, but also from the hard work of the farmers and herders who worked in the southern marshes and fields and provided the Lirgeni with most of their food. This large underclass—known in the early times of Lirgen as the Swamp Walkers—was rarely afforded the privileges and rights granted to the Saoc Brethren and the middle class, and thus members of the underclass remained mostly alienated from their stargazing kin. Their proximity to the Mwangi Expanse allowed many of these laborers to intermingle with Mwangi tribespeople of all walks of life.
As the centuries wore on, the people of southern Lirgen quickly grew so jaded at their mistreatment that they could take it no more. In 3257 AR, on the seven-hundredth anniversary of Lirgen’s founding, the members of the laboring underclass celebrated the occasion by throwing down their tools and picking up arms, leading a march straight into the capital of Hyrantum. The ensuing civil war (referred to in later years as the Yamasan Uprising) lasted less than a year, with the Saoc Brethren spending most of their time during the conflict consulting the stars above for advice. By the end of the feud, the rebels had won their freedom, and seceded from Lirgen to establish their own nation-state south of the Frogmarch River, calling the newly liberated swamplands Yamasa.
Though Lirgen and Yamasa were now independently operated, they still greatly relied on one another to ensure their continued prosperity—Lirgen needed the large quantities of rice and other foods Yamasa produced, and the Yamasans in turn desired the lumber, stone, and other valuable resources so prevalent in Lirgen’s uninhabited wild regions. The two nations managed to peacefully cohabitate in this way for centuries afterward, seeing relatively little strife, as they were both content in their own ways.
Lirgen remained a small nation with little interest in militaristic or expansionist ideals. Trade with Yamasa and other nearby regions generated considerable wealth, and the nation supported dozens of wealthy merchant houses. The Saoc Brethren—using the counsel provided them by the stars—advised these merchants on the most favorable times to send out fleets, the most profitable markets to sell certain commodities at, and the best prices to ask from their far-flung buyers. Horoscopes determined a person’s status in life, even as early as childhood. The readings determined access to greater education and apprenticeships, often more so than actual examinations and previous experience. This cultural tradition led parents to carefully consider the best dates to conceive. In later times, these most auspicious days of conception blossomed into holidays devoted to bettering their progeny. Many children bore names that designated what day they were born on and some months saw absolutely no births. The celestial bodies above guided every aspect of Lirgeni life.
The founders and builders of Lirgen constructed their capital city in accordance with the constellations, laying out streets and important structures in a complex pattern that aligned with the stars, and other settlements in the region soon emulated this style.
Towns were typically constructed around a central observation citadel; architecture featured impressive towers and skylights, and most buildings possessed decks made specifically for star viewing. Avenues and side roads had a distinct lack of street lamps, with only the most major thoroughfares sporting such obstructions to stargazing, and even these were lit only on cloudy or particularly dark, moonless nights. Cities also often featured large open parks in the center of town where people could freely observe the night sky. During Lirgen’s height, these parks hosted extravagant plays and orchestral productions that utilized both the stars and the moon in their performances, and travelers from all over western Garund often came to see such magnificent presentations.
In their studies of the sky and planets beyond Golarion, the Saoc Brethren found the mathematics and symbolism of the triangle to be of significant import in astronomical matters as well as in studies of philosophy. Because of this, triangles marked much of Lirgeni design, from architecture to clothing patterns, and even their coinage was designed with three equal sides.
Whereas the people of Lirgen continued to focus their attention on the stars above in the years following the Yamasan Uprising, their neighbors to the south instead concentrated their efforts on more tangible, terrestrial matters, particularly those involving farming and trade. Agriculture was the primary trade for Yamasa; much of their exports flowed north to Lirgen, though sizable portions went to peaceful tribes of the nearby Mwangi Expanse and in later years to the regions that became known as The Shackles and Sargava. From these disparate peoples, the Yamasans adopted the practices of animism and spiritual awareness, and many Yamasans practiced worship of lesser-known spirits such as wendo or ancestral guardians. Yamasan farmers cultivated corn, cotton, rice, soybeans, tubers, and other staple crops as well as fruits and rare spices. The merchants and traders of Yamasa controlled the sale of these goods through their ports on the shore and their expertly designed trade routes on land. The ruling Koboto caste oversaw most of the trading arrangements, and frequently held diplomatic meetings with the Saoc Brethren of Lirgen to ensure that both nations profited from any joint efforts. The laborers and farmers of Yamasa—who made up a working caste called the Duboku—lived peaceful, happy lives for the most part, and their efforts were protected on all sides by the disciplined military caste (“Ebonye”), as well as the orderly priest-judges (“Umani”) who arbitrated any internal conflicts. Yamasa’s cities were simple, sprawling affairs, with most of the buildings constructed of stone, lumber, and other resources traded from Lirgen. In contrast to the vertically oriented, visually striking Lirgeni architecture found to the north, Yamasan builders concentrated on utility over aesthetics, and they devised numerous new technologies to help them deal with their wetland environment, most notably vast and efficient drainage ditches, aqueducts, and complex systems of interconnected cisterns and reservoirs. The people of Yamasa lived in spread-out communities centered near large farms and plantations, often linking their homes by bamboo suspension bridges so foot traffic didn’t impact croplands. These interwoven plantation huts sometimes grew as large as castles or villages, housing thousands at a time.
When Aroden died in 4606 AR and the Eye of Abendego formed in the waters to the west of Lirgen and Yamasa, neither nation was prepared for the cataclysm that ensued. The wisest among the Saoc Brethren knew something terrible was coming, but the stars they had come to rely on were elusive in their answers, and all were completely unprepared for the nations’ obliteration. Nearly half of Lirgen sank beneath the Arcadian Ocean in a matter of weeks following the disaster; the rest swiftly flooded or was simply blown to pieces by the hurricane winds. Many of the Saoc Brethren remained behind to consult the stars and attempt to understand the catastrophe, but most could hardly comprehend the astrological signs, and those who did suffered irreparable damage to their sanity, with a huge majority of the group partaking in a ritual suicide in 4615 AR. Yamasa was likewise devastated, with over 90% of its population perishing either in the immediate aftermath of the Eye or in subsequent weeks from disease and starvation. Almost all of the few survivors left alive fled the region altogether, but some of those with repressed, darker ideals stayed behind to revel in their newfound freedom to worship their evil gods and practice their vile arts.
THE ABENDEGO GULF TODAY
Over a century after their annihilation, the lands once known as Lirgen and Yamasa bear little resemblance to the empires they once were. The thriving jungle cities of Lirgen were reduced to rubble and half-sunken wastelands, while the fecund marshes of Yamasa eroded into swampy mires and disease-ridden bogs.
Lirgen and Yamasa were both successful countries in their own right, but those who escaped the cataclysm were lucky to make it out with just their lives, so much of the nations’ collective wealth lies abandoned in the ruins of what is now the Sodden Lands and the significantly broadened Abendego Gulf. Hardy scavengers and fearless raiders now occupy most of the realm, trudging through the flooded chambers of abandoned temples and observatories in the hope of scrounging up any remaining relics. Few, if any, Lirgeni remain behind, having given up all hope of salvaging their destroyed kingdom and instead migrated to other nations around the Inner Sea, and the remaining Koboto of old Yamasa long ago cast off the ways of civilization in favor of more depraved and barbaric systems of government, seeing little reason to cling to kindlier ideals in a world so clearly opposed to their very existence.
Few sailors dare journey to these shattered regions, this wasteland of desperation so close to the Eye of Abendego, unless they seek to plunder the old kingdoms’ remains. Here in these truly savage lands, solid ground is a commodity almost as valuable as gold, and few even attempt to establish themselves in the meager cities that dot its coast. Numerous tribes and gangs of scavengers fight endlessly over every pitiful scrap available, warring primarily for food, water, and land. To travel from region to region, most such swamp-dwellers use small, widebottomed boats that sit high in the water; horses are rare, and some gangs—such as the nefarious Crocodile Raiders—instead use aggressive, trained reptiles as mounts to travel through the muck.
The gangs of scavengers, the tribes of the Koboto, and the scattered boggard and lizardfolk settlements are the only semblances of civilization in the lands once ruled by Lirgen and Yamasa. The scattered peoples fight ruthlessly to survive, and their abject poverty brings to surface violent and selfish tactics. If the Eye of Abendego were to dissipate, perhaps these lands might see their old empires brought back and peace restored. For now, however, the apocalyptic sprawl is only for the strong and the desperate.

Dissolution Date

4606

Type

Geopolitical, Country