Republic of Eredeau

Eredeau is a rocky, hilly coastal causeway, braced by warm southerly winds and surrounded by the waves. Acres of winding vineyards coat the endless hills, and sheer cliffs and rock faces are a common sight. It is home to a breathtaking landscape, with its idyllic hillsides splotched with countless red tiled and white walled homes are pummelled with the constant salty breeze. Its countless port cities are the conflux through which all trade in Volarra Bay flows, and its thousands of busy docks and wharfs are ever restless. A lively night culture is renowned across Lavenna for traditional Fleurois dances beneath lines of beaded yellow lights. Hidden beneath this seemingly ideal land, though, is a truth most of its people would prefer to forget. Because, difficult as it is to admit, Eredeau was built on unspeakable suffering. Echoes of its old culture remain, warped and absorbed into the Fleurois identity. Traditional Volarra songs and rituals are bisected through Fleurois traditions and melded into a combined culture. Only scattered remnants of Eredeau's lost and mostly forgotten original cultures remain, with only isolated clusters still adhering to Eldrantan identity. Eredeau's long history of ethnic violence has made it a complicated and often controversial blemish on Lavennic idealism and multiculturalism, and recent highly conservative and nationalistic governments in Eredeau have only worsened matters.

History

Eredeau was once known as Eldranta, and in the early 500s BA it was colonised by the Volarra. Before then, it was home to an assortment of nomadic tribes called collectively the Eldral, or "the people of the white hilled ocean cliffs." The Volarra brought with them their great technical expertise and quickly established numerous small settlements, including Sholzant, Caolos and Durva. Through trade, these rapidly grew into great trading hubs. Maintaining good relations with the natives for the most part, the Eldrai were gradually absorbed into Volarra culture and a new Eldrantan identity began to form. Over the next few centuries, those original settlements splintered into numerous small city-states and trade empires. Most notable was Sholzant, which established trading ports across the Albiontese Sea and brought back with them countless artefacts and technologies. Eldranta became a vital part of trade across the entire Albiontese, surpassing even the importance of Volkarak, though still surpassed by the immense power of Levalda. Eldrantan culture spread and flourished, and during the Novosti conquests, the Eldrantans managed to stand against their torrential advance and remained out of their control. However, the instability in both trade and demographics the Novosti conquests caused, with mass migrations and refugees fleeing across Lavenna, Eldranta was faced with decades of civil war, famine, and plague. Repeated wars with the Novosti only worsened this situation. In the decades before the Novosti collapse, they were finally conquered and forced into brutal servitude and many hundreds of thousands were taken into slavery across the Empire. Entire cities were depopulated, and by the time the Novosti Empire finally collapsed almost 35% of Eldranta's entire population had been lost. When the Skyborn arrived, the people known as the French had been in search of a home for years. They tried and failed as scattered groups to establish homes in Borashta, Rodanya, and others, but were always driven out and killed in the violence of The Birthright Wars.

In what would be known to the Fleurois as "Le grand lutte," the French and their allies waged a brutal and devastating war against Caolos in 12 AGL, eventually ending with the capture of the city and the execution of its ruling class. In the following years, hundreds of thousands of the disparate French groups flocked to Eldranta and intermixed with the native people, and a new kingdom arose from the violence, which would be known as the Kingdom of Eredeau. The allied tribes that supported le grand lutte were incorporated into the new state, and allowed to retain ruling titles. However, as the population swelled with thousands of new French immigrants, the ruling class of the Eldrantans began to feel threatened. They were witnessing their culture, their entire society begin to erode away under a tide of the Skyborn. This tentative symbiosis couldn't last for much longer, and in 78 AGL a fuse blew and the powder keg was lit. What resulted was a brutal and prolonged conflict known as the Twenty Years of Terror, and dozens of Eldrantan lords rose up against the French ruling classes.

C'est La Gloire Que Nous Recherchons (It Is Glory We Seek)

Founding Date

460 AGL

Type

Geopolitical, Republic

Capital

Nouveil

Alternative Names

Eldranta

Demonym

Eredois

Leader

Leymarc Suvouis

Government System

Democracy, Presidential

Legislative Body

Assemblée des Provinces

Related Ethnicities

• Fleurois