Portavia
Portavia is a kingdom of convenience: a confederacy of nomadic tribes and established nations, city-states and communities voluntarily banding together for mutual defence from The Corran Empire.
By its very nature a disorganized and incoherent military alliance operating under a sovereign of convenience, Portavia is ruled by King Blodwyn (known affectionately by his subjects as the "King in Cups"). Below him and his teenaged son and heir Gareth, it is virtually every clan, tribe, city-state and ice-fishing hut for itself. Some tribes with longstanding bonds of familial or military alliance have sent a single emissary to his court; others, and particularly the independent hill tribes, have sent an emissary each with the frustrating and longstanding result that debates often devolve into twenty or thirty speakers making differing demands or recommending different actions, only to be trumped by a single speaker who represents fifty times as many warriors at once.
Blodwyn does not have an easy task before him. He is a frequent target of assassins, for the obvious reason that he is the only thing holding Portavia together as a unified military force. If he, and potentially Gareth, were to die the Corrans could easily facilitate a policy of divide-and-conquer, offering preferable vassalage terms to certain more organized tribes and communities in exchange for neutrality as they massacre the more "barbaric", less expansionist tribes.
Below Blodwyn and the Portavian Parliament of emissaries, each tribal organization has its own unique structure. They often have few similarities.
The inclusion of Templeborne and the Grand Mausoleum within Portavian borders is controversial. The Corrans consider them neutral, whereas the Portavians, who have longstanding arrangements to hire units of their military on a mercenary basis, consider them part of their own organization. When pressed, representatives of the Portavian court would explain that their terms are unusually lenient, that they are also at mortal risk of Corran conquest, and that regardless of the Kindly Ones' own view, very few of the member tribes would accept the Corran Empire taking control of the acknowledged portal to the afterlife.
With Queen Anne having been killed in an assassination attempt against the entire family, the Royal Line now consists exclusively of Blodwyn (by rights King of Aleph) and Gareth, heir apparent. Blodwyn is a good king, from a line of just and popular kings, and while he is not himself a brilliant strategist or tactician he is keenly discerning in trusting those who are. Instead, he is gregarious, frank, and personally valorous in battle: traits that endear him far more to the diverse tribes temporarily united under his rule.
Anne was an incomparable beauty, and the eldest princess of a very influential hill tribe. The hill tribes had never been formally recognized by the permanent settlements such as Aleph, Greyshore, Beccles and Fouchers -- and Blodwyn taking her hand was a diplomatic master-stroke, particularly after having had the good fortune to have met and fallen in love with her in the course of a widely publicized tournament. The hundreds of thousands of men at arms in the hills would have died for Anne even before the wedding. She was known as a charitable and devout follower of Eldath that could drink a regiment under the table. Whatever schisms existed within the confederacy prior to her death were hardened at the breaking-points after the botched assassination; and while they may survive Blodwyn's death, even the most optimistic observer would admit they will not survive Gareth's.
There are no universally agreed-upon customs across the tribes of Portavia, though certain sacraments like marriage and funerals are generally respected. It is also generally accepted throughout almost all cultures that the guest right is inviolable and reciprocal. Once someone is past your threshold and has been given food, neither party may engage in any form of violence against the other until that guest has left and is safely on their way. Safe conduct out of sight is an iron law of the guest right, granting a significant advantage to those with winding paths into their property. Beyond that, even such general taboos as kinslaying and incest are very much on the table for numerous Portavian tribes.
It is also worth noting that no one considers themselves "Portavian". The name is derived from the River Portavia, where the alliance against the Corran Empire was signed and sworn in blood. It is the name of an alliance, not a people. Beulah Garland is one of the Shorefolk, not a Portavian citizen. There is no such thing.
Political Organization
Division of Responsibility
Royal Family
With Queen Anne having been killed in an assassination attempt against the entire family, the Royal Line now consists exclusively of Blodwyn (by rights King of Aleph) and Gareth, heir apparent. Blodwyn is a good king, from a line of just and popular kings, and while he is not himself a brilliant strategist or tactician he is keenly discerning in trusting those who are. Instead, he is gregarious, frank, and personally valorous in battle: traits that endear him far more to the diverse tribes temporarily united under his rule.
Anne was an incomparable beauty, and the eldest princess of a very influential hill tribe. The hill tribes had never been formally recognized by the permanent settlements such as Aleph, Greyshore, Beccles and Fouchers -- and Blodwyn taking her hand was a diplomatic master-stroke, particularly after having had the good fortune to have met and fallen in love with her in the course of a widely publicized tournament. The hundreds of thousands of men at arms in the hills would have died for Anne even before the wedding. She was known as a charitable and devout follower of Eldath that could drink a regiment under the table. Whatever schisms existed within the confederacy prior to her death were hardened at the breaking-points after the botched assassination; and while they may survive Blodwyn's death, even the most optimistic observer would admit they will not survive Gareth's.
Cultural Considerations
State Religion
While there is very clearly no state religion in force across the lands comprising Portavia, there are at least themes to the patterns of worship in the North. Gods of apparition are universally accepted. Everyone knows Kelemvor is the God of the Dead and Eldath is the Goddess of Peace and Bhaal is the God of Murder, for example. These were and are mortals elevated to divine status that are documented and enshrined in the oral tradition, and who can still be encountered in the flesh under the right circumstances. Only the foolish would disbelieve what their own eyes can see. Gods like Sylvanas, Mystra and Tyr, however, that have never been part of the mortal realm are more hypothetical for many. Generally speaking, the southern tribes are polytheistic but tend to prefer gods associated with virtues or prosperity. The hill tribes typically -- typically -- have patron gods that they worship to the exclusion of others that may not make a lot of logical sense. The Korbari, for example, are a stern and soft-spoken people that worship Mask, God of Thieves, despite loathing dishonesty. There is a local legend that Mask took pity on the ruling family's ancestors when they were starving in a cold winter, and provided them with goat meat stolen from Malar, God of the Hunt. To this day they venerate both gods in thanks and to make amends. It also must be noted that there are tribes within Portavia that are... unsavory to the rest of their allies, though their contributions cannot be denied. Evil gods are sacrificed to on the eve of great battles, much to the discomfort of nearby allies that would otherwise massacre those cultists for their sacrilege.
Customs
There are no universally agreed-upon customs across the tribes of Portavia, though certain sacraments like marriage and funerals are generally respected. It is also generally accepted throughout almost all cultures that the guest right is inviolable and reciprocal. Once someone is past your threshold and has been given food, neither party may engage in any form of violence against the other until that guest has left and is safely on their way. Safe conduct out of sight is an iron law of the guest right, granting a significant advantage to those with winding paths into their property. Beyond that, even such general taboos as kinslaying and incest are very much on the table for numerous Portavian tribes.
It is also worth noting that no one considers themselves "Portavian". The name is derived from the River Portavia, where the alliance against the Corran Empire was signed and sworn in blood. It is the name of an alliance, not a people. Beulah Garland is one of the Shorefolk, not a Portavian citizen. There is no such thing.
Art, Technology and Economy
Again, there is no uniform way of assessing Portavian art, technology or economy on a broad scale. Cultures like the Shorefolk are reasonably sophisticated and competent capitalists with a proud and remarkable tradition of oral storytelling and song. The Illio do not believe in money, smash art and have been known to fuck siege towers for a laugh. The Alephi are technologically slow but a considerable mercantile power with unrivaled skill in sculpture and beautiful rounded-wall cob architecture. Overall, the Portavian economy dwarfs the Corran one, just as its military does; but the lack of unity and rationalization renders that fact mere trivia with no real-world impact. They cannot afford to equip and feed their soldiers nearly as well as the Corrans can. They are not capable of executing an efficient siege without significant statecraft up front. As Blodwyn often exhorts them, they have all the resources necessary to crush the Empire, but the fact is they are fighting for their survival.Current Status
External Political Issues
The war with the Corran Empire is nearly all-consuming, though Blodwyn does take time to send entreaties to the dwarven kings in the far northeast in hopes of assistance. They could, after all, be next. The Portavian tribes have a negotiated neutrality with Hundred House, which allows them to acquire needed goods when (not if) their supply lines fail -- at a more than fair markup, of course.Internal Political Issues
I mean, yesterday it was cannibalism and before that it was shit-smudging as a battlefield practice. The Orderii want to go home for the harvest and Fouchers called them cowards, which led to a whole thing about who has to duel whom and either way you're going to be losing an emissary that takes four months to replace and God knows the Orderii won't take orders from anyone but an Orderi so hopefully there's some other divine right we can look up that would resolve the dispute without leading to bloodshed, but then again the Illio have already started taking bets and they're going to be out a lot of coin if the duel is off so we're going to need to order more ale up from the Overcroft again...
Type
Geopolitical, Kingdom
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