Ancient History (-1200 to -150)
The first large settlements in modern-day Marsham date back to the -1100s DE, in the early days of the Architects. Marsham was one of the first regions in Samvara to adopt urbanization and mass agriculture from the cradle of civilization to the East, and it mimicked more of
Lily of Red's descendants than the
Kima Cities. This first group of Marshamans is known as the Birans, or the Bira culture. The Birans lacked druidism and only hesitantly accepted elements of Lily and Halcyon cult; they largely kept to their ancestral pantheon and traditional snake cult. From -1050 to -850 the Birans slowly converted to
Pratasam, though they did frequently push back against the religion and made sure to make it subordinate to pre-existing cult. The arrival of
Gem Plague led to a massive religious-political upheaval in the late -800s DE, which led to the rise of Emprian Pratasam and a new class of imperial state. The old gods of the Birans were demonized and the snake cult was transformed into a medical tradition relating to leprosy and Gem plague. The new kings scorned the weak and decentralized monarchs of old, and conquered their tribal neighbors brutally in the name of Lily and Halcyon. This new order only last until -700; it was deeply unstable, and devoured itself whole before being wiped away by migrations and invasions.
In the -600s, the Bira culture transitioned to the Tilketh culture, though such transitions are clearer in hindsight than they were at the time. The Tilkethans were a mix of the old Birans and new groups from the North that had migrated in, and the hybrid culture that was produced legitimized itself by being zealously Pratasam and connecting itself to the civilizations to the East. The Tilkethans were less missionary-imperial than the late Birans (though that tendency still flared up at times), and were more focused on producing as many druids as possible. This was also a period of peace with developing proto-
Kima Cities in the hills, which were actively encouraged by the Tilkethans as trading partners and as affirmation of the word of Lily.
The great catastrophe of the late Divine Era plunged the land into chaos over the -300s and -200s. Ash from volcanoes to the Southwest dimmed the sun. Global temperature fluctuations made crops unreliable. Plague and famine stalked the land. The many druids of the Tilkethans allowed their cities to fare better than most, but their kingdoms soon faced large armies (and navies!) of outsiders from the West seeking arable land and plunder. Many of these outsiders were organized under the vestiges of the old
Arashokan kingdoms, known as the Baralwa, who were master sailors and warriors looking for a kingdom to call their own. Outside invasion, civil war, climatic issues, and general discord all wiped out the major cities of the Tilkethans and created a new order: the Marsham culture, which became the basis for regional naming and identity for the next two millennia.
While the new Western-ruled hybrid cities of the -100s serve as modern Marsham's foundations, the old Biran and Tilkethan cultures are remembered still as legendary historical periods full of magic, heroes, and demigods. In modern Marsham, there remains much fascination for the old Scaled Tyrants and cyclopes-witches of the Birans and the water-nymph wedded heroes of the glorious Tilkethans. More scholarly types more acquainted with the teachings of Lily understand that these eras were less magical than the legends say, but there is no clear consensus on exactly what parts were true and what weren't. There are also many details I am leaving out here, since this is over a millennia of rising and falling kingdoms, cultural shifts, and religious changes, but it is impossible to succinctly provide a thoroughly detailed account of all of Marsham's history.
The Safimiri Empire (-150 to 240)
The early city-states founded in the -100s first waged war on the countryside and the unsettled tribes surrounding them. As these groups were falling to
Corpseblight,
Gem Plague, and other diseases at the time, it was easy work that fed the city-state machines and provided workers to fuel their trading empires. Rather than create large territorial states, these city-states focused on profit and international commerce: early Marsham combined the sailing traditions and technologies of the Baralwa and the Tilkethans, making them the naval superpower of the day. The city states seeded colonies around the inland sea and along the Western coastline of Samvara, and competed with one another for maritime dominance. These druidic merchant princes slowly lost power over their colonies and declined in continental maritime significance over the 100s ME; but one city-state did ultimately reign supreme over the others.
Safimir - the city that has become synonymous with Marsham in the eyes of many - seized total control of the straights of Sefim, the water passage that serves as the only exit or entry point for the interior Emeras sea, in 150 ME.
Safimir's control over the straights granted it control over its neighbors, and the city quickly turned towards establishing direct territorial control over surrounding lands in order to retain this power. Its league of allies was transformed into vassals, then unto provinces of its empire. Legends and traditions once unique to Safimir were exported to the other cities, and from 150 to 210 ME the diverse cultural and political landscape was homogenized and centralized around the capital and monarchy.
With its immediate surroundings brought to heel and a new identity forged, Safimir turned again to overseas influence and commercial power. This time, a new group were used as useful agents of the Safimiri state: the
Selkies. The selkies were still decentralized and peripheral at this time, and the Safimiri monarchs saw their dedicated and mercenary sailing ships as useful alternatives to internal rivals. From 50 ME to 290 ME, selkies played an increasing role in Safimir's commercial apparatus, and intermarried heavily with the royal merchants and lesser nobles. As the selkies intermarried and integrated with elites to the West, Safimir extended their trade power there as well. Some maps from the early-to-mid 200s even show the selkie islands and allies in the West as Safimiri imperial lands!
The Fall of Safimir (240 to 510)
In 240 ME, a massive war broke out across Western Samvara: the war of the Five Deserts, a war between the major imperial states of Shenerem, Ejilarna (basically modern Empria), Safimir, and Maruva over the crumbling kingdom of Terminar - the middle ground between the Northern Archdruids and the Southern Archdruids of Pratasam. This was basically a war over which archdruids would run Pratasam, which empire would rule over West-continental politics and trade, and which region would be the "true center of civilization". Safimir began less invested in this war than the others and even flirted with joining into an alliance with Shenerem, but fell into regional grudge-match lines in 268 after Shenek merchants began threatening Safimiri commercial-colonial interests.
The war led to rapid state centralization and overextension. In 275 a bastard druid-princeling named Ahavu Jikitha, who was the child of a lesser Safimiri royal and a selkie merchant, seized control of the
selkie Khilaia and brought the West under Safimir's full control. Safimir eagerly armed the selkies and brought them West to win them their War, and the selkies became the cornerstone for the renewed war effort. Ahavu spotted one selkie war leader of particular renown and skill named Kova Kawamahu, and supported her as she rose to become one of the chief military leaders of the Western Pratasa (despite not even being of that religion herself). Kova, a woman of immense charisma and ability, turned the warriors and sailors of the united fleets to her will. Quietly, she had Ahavu captured and made her puppet in the Khilaian isles in 281. In 290 ME Kova took the army that was meant to drive out Shenerem once and for all, and turned it against Safimir. Effortlessly, the selkie commander took Safimir for herself. From Safimir's fall, the First Selkie Empire of All Seas was born. Kova would go on to conquer all of Western Samvara, before dying and having her massive empire collapse in 305.
Kova was not an ungracious selkie, and repaid Ahavu's previous support for her by installing him as the puppet-king of Safimir. Safimir retained its territorial core from before the selkie territory, but it lost all of its colonial empire and trade network - all of that remained selkie, and would serve as the foundation for the Samvaran selkie trading empire that has lasted to this day. The Safimiri government remained unstable after 305 and tumbled through a procession of palace coups. The Empire restabilized in the 350s, but then underwent another series of coups in the 410s as the selkies moved to re-assert power over Marsham. A new dynasty finally moved the imperial administration away from the coastline and the major port cities in 438 ME and brought another era of tentative stability. What was once known as Safimir slowly became known by the regional name of Marsham. And, from 438 to 510 ME, Marsham turned inwards to focus on state stability while the selkies seized total commercial power in their ports. This is period is sometimes known as "feudalization", as power was returned to rural nobles and druid-aristocrats and class lines were reaffirmed across society.
It was worth noting that, while Safimir the Empire ends here, Safimir the city persists (and is the modern capital).
Marsham and Lunar Crisis (510 to 800)
Starting in the early 500s ME, Samvara slipped into a continental period of turmoil known as the
Lunar Crisis, which lasted until the 739 ME Samvaran Peace Meeting. In 510, Marsham was dragged into the fray by internal Lunar actors - the same year that a massive
Moonstone vein was discovered in the interior. Competition over who had rights over mineral deposits - the Kima or the kingdom - escalated into an argument over whether the Kima were subjects or independent actors.
Jade Atharzen, with periodic assistance by
Ishkibal and
Hiku, supported the Kima;
Lily of Red. Lunar cults and agents fought in the shadows for control of the government even as Lunar politics shaped the geopolitics; the Gods and their squabbles were inescapable.
Ultimately, Marsham triumphed over the Kima but chose to offer them a limited place in government and society rather than simply drive them away. This compromise, orchestrated by the Lunar Gods
Agamine and
Emesh in 531, was not the end of this nightmare. From 530 to 700, Marsham was periodically dragged into wars in the region of Empria to the East. Every 50-75 years, the kingdom would undergo another regime change. Ultimately, the Goddesses Orchid of Blue and Lily of Red reigned supreme after a massive purge in 622 ME, known as the
Scarlet Autumn - anyone even sympathetic to the other Gods were slaughtered wholesale. The Scarlet Autumn essentially unleashed a war at home, which lasted a few years before metamorphosing into something else: a sustained campaign of persecution that saw a genocidal campaign against Kima cities, urban prism communities, selkies, and insufficiently Pratasa humans. The Autumn is difficult to accurately date and was declared to be over several times before being restarted once again; it also changed meanings many times, and was used against many different groups. Generally speaking, the major Kimas were destroyed by 649 and the last noteworthy bout of violence ended in 701, but damage done to social trust and relationships continued to haunt Marsham well after the physical violence stopped.
While the Lunar Crisis did not destroy Marsham, it did not enrich or expand the kingdom either, and the scars it left behind took centuries to heal. The impact on society was immediate and obvious, and two factions quickly emerged who fought about what to do about it: those who wanted reconciliation (either by returning to the old ways or something new), and those who wanted to use this moment to create a more theocratic society more closely connected with the other major Pratasa powers. While the theocratic faction initially won in the post-war peace, one of Pratasa's rising stars suddenly flung their full support behind the reconciliation faction in 751. The rising star was
Kipanra Akalisam: a powerful druid descended from refugees of the Scarlet Autumn, who sharply rose in power during the peace accords of 739 and 740 and ascended to become Marsham's Su-
Alkoa, or regional high priest, in 750. Kipanra is known now as one of the founding members of
Prikia Pratasam, or "First Way Pratasam": Pratasam that emphasizes tradition, ritual consistency, and localism over Lunar needs or centralized religious structures. Kipanra gathered likeminded thinkers in the city of Safimir and did her best to sell her vision of reconciliation as a "return to tradition". The public discourse morphed into a culture war, which dragged on long after Kipanra's death. Aside from this culture war and Prikian tradition, Kipanra also coordinated massive investment in the
Healing Church, making Marsham the center for the Western Samvaran Healing Church for many years to come.
Recovery (800 to 931)
If 750 to 800 was the golden summer of Marshaman Prikia culture, 800 to 850 was the much sadder autumn. Kipanra's vision for Marsham was somewhat realized, but her faction lost the culture war in the process. Limited land and money redistribution to displaced communities did happen, but only for Pratasam people - the displaced prisms were barred, while the Kima humans and dryads could only return if they converted. The last Kima, which had survived only by relocating to the most isolated territory and hiding, was saved from destruction but never really "reconciled" with the rest of the kingdom. Dryad-first attitudes were almost entirely abandoned, but human-dryad religious solidarity against heathens appeared instead. Religious toleration laws were made, but they were heavily skewed to favor certain groups - selkies, merchants, and urban residents were more protected than rural subjects or scholars. And all the while, the Prikia faction splintered. The hardcore Prikian followers proved no less theocratic than their rivals, and began calling for a new priestly order based on an idealized past that included totalitarian local control. The coalition Kipanra made, which dominated in the 790s, suddenly exploded into infighting in the 830s. Their rivals had also changed by this point, abandoning dryad supremacy for their own religious revival known as
Eteza-Pratasam - "All Promise" Pratasam, dedicated to centralized religion and global evangelism.
When the reconciliation coalition exploded in the 830s, the old culture war transformed into an ideological free-for-all. The most extreme Prikia and Eteza desperately fought for power - first in words, then court intrigue, then in street battles. When a prominent Eteza-Pratasa druid became Marsham's Su-Alkoa in 866, a Prikia-Pratasam radical known as Lily-in-Rags led rioters in open revolt - a revolt that spread into rebellion. This was put down in 868, and the failure of this revolt was a very bad thing for the Prikia-Pratasam; they were labelled as traitors and expelled from the kingdom en masse. But the wheels of instability were turning, and the existing legal structure of Marsham (with weak hereditary succession allowing easy dynasty-hopping) proved easy to disrupt. The coups started again. And one of these coups, in 899, led to a pretender with a claim to the throne falling into the hands of an ambitious young selkie captain named
Milen. And, using this prince and his allies, Milen was able to seize the city of Safimir and capture the entire Marshaman government. Milen renewed Marsham's old vassalage agreement with the selkie Khilaia - an arrangement from all the way back in 305 ME, updated for a new century - and used Marsham's navy and treasury to jumpstart a legendary series of conquests.
Milen was initially very unpopular, as an outside conqueror can so often be, but he had a way of coaxing Marsham's elites into cooperating. He expanded religious toleration of the Prikia-Pratasa (garnering their loyalty), but gave more instruments of power to the already-dominant Eteza-Pratasa - instruments inherently tied to the selkie empire, such as missionary and trade deals in
Larazel,
Garadel, and the far North of Samvara. When Marshaman nobles supported him on campaign, he generously shared his loot and influence with them, and many in Marsham began to see his conquests and empire as theirs as well. By 930, Marsham was as loyal to Milen as the selkies were, and the religious factions put aside their differences to drink in the spoils of a continent. When Milen died in 931, Marsham mourned; the selkie-Marshaman rivalry that the first selkie emperor began, the second selkie emperor healed. From Milen onward, Pratasa's broader missionary effort has included a large Marshaman component. Many of the last Marshaman Prikia-Pratasa druids fled to
Larazel to build their holy kingdom elsewhere through missionary work, and the descendants of these traditions later folded into the schismatic temple of
Rueka.
Tumbling Down (931 to 1170)
Milen may have united the kingdom, but it came at a terrible cost: the wrath the enemies of Milen, which included of some of the most powerful nigh-immortal spellcasters on the planet. On of these spellcasters, the Solar cleric known simply as
Joy, gathered their followers to avenge Milen's attack on their home by terrorizing the selkies and any who actively supported them - which included Marsham. From 980 to their death in 1220, Joy did everything in their power to punish Marsham, from supporting rebel leaders, to assassinating voices for peace, to biological warfare. After 1030 ME the Pratasa religious factions realized what was going on and united in refusing to accept Joy's help against each other; so Joy turned to radical cults and regional separatists. Joy even released a strain of
Mageplague in Safimir in 1060 - which was thankfully contained after the city was quarantined, but many thousands were killed in the process. Joy and their followers fell back more and more on bioweapons over time (given that they were easier to use and consistently worked), and continued using contagion magic to seed epidemics in Marsham even after the selkies managed to root them out of their march kingdoms. Joy and their last loyal followers were finally uprooted in Marsham in 1220, and died by
giant otter attempting a final suicidal run on the Khilaian isles.
Marsham was a particularly easy target for Joy because it was pulled into war right when the solar avengers arrived: from 980 to 1040, the Prikia-Pratasam and Eteza-Pratasam waged a terrible war, known as the
War of the Three Circles. Three Circles of Archdruids fought for control of the faith after a radical centralist druid took control of the new kingdom of Empria in 980: a new hyper-Eteza Circle of Archdruids tied to Empria, the old mixed Circle of Archdruids that fled to Marsham, and the "White Dove" Prikia-Pratasa circle in Maruva that was ready to throw their own hat into the circle. The war ended in 1040 with a tentative Eteza-Pratasa dominated compromise, but Marsham paid the price for it.
With a depleted treasury, constant bioterror problems, and a league of separatists eager to secede from the kingdom (where they would no longer be vulnerable to bioterror or foreign wars), Marsham crawled forward with its dying breaths and attempted reform and negotiations. In 1062, not long after Joy's Mageplague attack, Marsham finally broke. From 1062 to 1070, the kingdom convulsed in civil war before it finally crumbled. However, to Joy's dismay, two successor states managed to reunify the North and the South in 1075 - and so the plague attacks continued for another century.
Two Kingdoms Period (1170 to 1700)
Northern Marsham, while poorer, stabilized much more quickly than the South. It called itself the
Kingdom of Gevima, and its more dispersed population was better insulated from artificial plagues. Gevima was able to more effectively hit back at Joy's group, legitimizing itself as the destroyer of Ayshan saboteurs. But it wasn't just violence - Gevima went above and beyond in supporting healers from across the Pratasa world if they would help their country. The most famous of these is Allavala the Veiled, a scholar and paladin who founded a monastic order dedicated to fighting disease and mediating conflict. These monks would go on to become the
Suhistika:
The medical knights, druids, and monks of Pratasa who swear oaths of poverty and offer asylum and healing to any who ask. Allavala's early veiled knights helped uproot Joy, and became a symbol of everything right and Godly about the new kingdom.
The South, meanwhile, was too rich and too vulnerable to disease: it was heavily damaged by the plagues, the wars, and then by outside scavengers and pretenders who descended on the wounded kingdom to take parts of it for themselves. The South briefly did recuperate and reunite in 1280, but then was plunged back into distress by the chaos of the 1300 - 1320 Druidic Revolution. Druidic revivalists who sought to create one holy kingdom for all of Pratasa seized the South Marshaman government in 1303; even after the Revolution was quelled in 1320, the South continued to struggle with internal conflict until it decentralized so radically in 1345 that it was unrecognizable as a kingdom.
It took outside invaders to pull the South together: a rogue startup hybrid-selkie maritime empire in the land of Terminar tried to invade South Marsham in 1350, and did manage to briefly conquer most of it. Gavema and other neighboring kingdoms jumped in to repulse the invaders, and a fragile government largely vassalized by Gavema took over in 1355. Marsham briefly reunited in 1401, but a civil war in the North split the two apart again in 1410. South Marsham, again independent, drifted towards selkie vassalhood; it dialed back its religious law, opened its markets, and intermarried with selkie elites again. Selkie politics ended up thwarting any possibility of South Marsham joining the Khilaia, though, and it drifted away from selkie influence over the 1500s. A long period of stability in both kingdoms followed. Some feared that the South would go
Sumoxan when they welcomed Sumoxan refugees fleeing from religious persecution in the East in 1605, but these incoming Sumoxans ultimately folded into the Healing Church and did not seek to evangelize further. By 1800, this Sumoxan minority community had largely converted to a kind of syncretic Pratasam, with their own monastic order to boot: the Dhampiric
Order of the Red-Flower Sun.
New Marsham (1700 - 1920)
The period of stability from 1550 to 1780 was not a quiet time; it was a time of rebuilding, as well as a time of overseas profit and adventure. The elites of both the South and North participated in this, though the North was quicker to reign in their merchants and nobles to prevent internal competition. The South, meanwhile, had many merchant princes rise above the monarch in power. When Marshaman forces helped foreign converts seize three
Dragon Forges - unique magic item factories- the resulting flood of profits made the Southern monarchs bit players in their own kingdoms. In 1780 a succession crisis turned into a kind of reckoning, as different merchant princes fought for the throne to centralize power around themselves (or keep it decentralized) - ending in 1790 with the rise of the Tenija dynasty in the South. The Tenija, who reign to this day, were militarists with heavy investment in Garadel and centralizing ambitions. It took many decades of reforms, but South Marsham slowly returned to being a power in its own right rather than a collection of powerful families.
The North, meanwhile, was pulling back and isolating itself to try and prevent instability. Its economy was struggling, its dynasty was struggling to maintain power, and factionalism was on the rise - and artificially restricting travel and commerce wasn't helping this time. The South invaded in 1834, taking much of the borderlands between the two. After much politicking, Marsham was reunited by conquest from the South in 1878. The resulting unified Marsham was the full Tenijan ideal: militaristic, ambitious, always on the move. Unfortunately, that meant Marsham needed to keep conquering, or risk instability. It started with religious-military interference in the
March Kingdom of Arashoka in support of Pratasa minorities in 1883 and 1895. This led to some punitive measures from the selkies, though, and the kingdom put their Westward ambitions to rest. Instead, the Marshamans went after their co-religionists: when the chaos of the 1908 Arashokan revolution spilled into neighboring Empria, Marsham took the opportunity to seize the region of Maliva, useful land for a power who wants to fully control the straights.
Marsham and Empria skirmishes and fought further in 1910 and 1911, before the priesthood descended on them with condemnations. There were the last dregs of a war to be fought in Garadel, after all, and plenty of dangerous heathens in Western Samvara to spend their energy fighting!
Modern History
In 1920 the great wars of religion in
Garadel ended with a new religious détente. This new peace was profitable for Marsham, but left its hefty military apparatus of the last fifty years without purpose. For thirty years, Marshaman politics was divided over what to do next. After many near-wars and minor expeditions, the country finally demilitarized. This was a difficult process that took thirty years and several very astute monarchs. In 1947, it even involved several prominent nobles being imprisoned on charges of conspiracy against the crown - an exaggerated claim that helped the monarch centralize power and enact stabilizing reforms. Powerful merchants were brought into the nobility, major ducal families had their lands splintered between rising families, and the central military bureaucracy was reduced significantly.
Since 1950, Marsham has done decently well. It hasn't raked in the enormous profits of some prior years, but it has also been stable economically and politically. The administrative and bureaucratic incompetence of the current set of royals hasn't even been enough to cause discontent - the system has proven to be strong enough to easily weather subpar monarchs. There are some, of course, who want to return to the martial Marsham of the 1920s, but until a substantial threat arises this faction is unlikely to gain traction.
Marsham is split into 7 grand duchies, which are the major sub-regions of the kingdom. The most wealthy and politically important of these is True Marsham - the urban and commercial center of the kingdom from which royal power flows.
The Southern lands are much less developed, stable, and harmonious than the Northern lands. They are drier, rockier, and less arable than the lands of the Northern Peninsula or True Marsham. They are also contested by other states. Maliva once belonged to the Kingdom of Empria to the Southeast, and is still hotly contested land. Palja, to the West, belonged to the March Kingdom of Arashoka prior to their 1908 revolution; the fringes of the land are contested, though the March Kingdom is happy to not have the zealous Pratasa mobs of the inner region in their lands.
In the North, the duchies are prosperous and less militarized. Akakiva is a heartlands region close with True Marsham, containing the one remaining original Kima City and a number of prosperous trading towns. Akakiva and Milamasa are both big regions for sedentary selkie populations.
Yaraja and Gevima are culturally distinct from the rest of the Northern peninsula; they were once their own independent kingdom, and they know it. They are more feudal, less selkie, and a little insular.
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