Difference between revisions of "Madura"

Latest revision as of 23:35, 28 November 2019

History

The Exarchate of Madura is an inland Realm satrapy in the northeastern Threshold, under care of House Sesus. Once upon a time there was significant development in Madura, but surviving Shogunate records indicate it was a sparsely populated hinterland at the time they were written. Proof of its earlier history can be found only in the ordered geometric patterns shaped into the ground and the occasional ruin. It quietly became a Realm tributary in the centuries following the Contagion, and while its exports were highly valued the place itself was not given much thought until RY765, with the Great Bear of the Laran Moor and the rise of the Anathema-voivode of Azerban.

In early RY765, master of the Northern Wyld Hunt Peleps Deled responded to the emergence of an Anathema in Azerban by arriving in the region with his entourage of monks. While the 4th Legion proved unable to push across the river into Azerban so the Hunt might reach the Anathema. Deled responded by striking at heresies uncovered behind Realm lines… the greatest target of his wrath was the Great Bear of the Laran Moor, a bandit lord controlling a wide expanse of lands including northwestern Madura. Many in the Realm thought him a mere legend of the local peasantfolk, not worth bothering with, but Deled commandeered 4th Legion reserve forces, setting them to ride down the Bear’s men while he led a ferocious strike against their leader. While many had hoped the Bear would be an Anathema, there was some disappointment when it turned out to be a local god. With reports of further Anathema (possibly the escaped traitor known as Lyta) in the Scavenger Lands, Deled called to the Palace Sublime for a contingent of monks to join the campaign against the Anathema-voivode and departed the region once more.

As time progressed, Azerban’s Anathema-led armies drove the 4th Legion back first to the border with Madura, and then beyond, before being eventually driven back and eventually defeated. The bulk of the fighting in the war took place in Madura, and both armies gathered volunteers and conscripts from the local population to pad out their numbers as casualties mounted. Even where the locals did not suffer press-ganging, they were forced to endure widespread looting.

The victory of the 4th brought the flooding of the Thousand Rushes River, which destroyed the Maduran town of Chumo and the best of the country’s farmland. However, the satrapy’s tribute-resource was unaffected, and continues to flow under the re-installed satrapy.

Politics & Military

Madura is ruled by a hereditary Exarch, a title which may once have had religious connotations as chief priest of the local bear god, but which lost all of those under the proselytization of the Immaculate Order, which required the royal family of Madura to send all its children to the Cloister of Wisdom for their education. The family has not manifested the Blood of the Dragons for many generations, and Dragonblooded Exaltations are generally rare in Madura. Below the royals can be found a large middle class of merchants involved in the Bear Bile trade, and beneath them farmers and peat miners.

Maduran soldiers and constables typically favour heavy bear-spears, used for hunting and herding, and often wear leather helms topped with the skinned heads of bears. In wartime, commoners are levied into the army armed with long knives and shortbows. As thanks for salvation from the Anathema, the Exarch recently gifted the Imperial Satrap with supreme command of Madura's military forces and control of military levying.

The current Imperial Satrap of Madura is Sesus Magel Chidasu.

Economy

Madura produces some food, mostly root vegetables, and some peat brick fuel, but it is dominated by a single commodity: Bear Bile. The substance is used in medications to reduce fever & inflammation, and to strengthen eyesight and the liver, forming a vital part of the public medical system established by the Empress on the Blessed Isle.

Some say that in times long past, massive creatures released vast quantities of bear bile, and their skeletons are occasionally unearthed, but today the bile is harvested from 'Moon Bears', black bears with a silver crescent moon upon their chests. While once the bears needed to be caught in the wild, demand from the Realm has seen development of extraction on an industrial scale, with tens of thousands of bears bred for the purpose. The bears are kept in cages to restrict movement, with bamboo tubes inserted into their gall bladders and stoppered with wax until time for milking. Their lives appear painful and short, and upon death their fur is gathered for clothing and their meat forms a distinctive part of local cuisine... most outsiders find it gamey and sweet, an acquired taste to be sure.

Geography

Madura is bordered to the south by Ceben, and to the north and east by the Thousand Rushes River, across which lie Azerban and Valis respectively. The flooding of that river destroyed the existing crossings and rendered a swathe of Madura uninhabitable swampland. The flooding also destroyed Chumo, one of Madura's two urban centers and its commercial capital... House Sesus has been engaged in rapid construction of a new port and warehouse community for serving the bile industry, under their direct ownership. The country's northwestern corner is mountainous, though production of metals is minimal due to inaccessibility.

The Laran Moor is a peat bog which dominates the northwestern third of Madura, sparsely settled and often considered to have little value. Its heart contains an area of minor geomantic power, claimed by House Sesus after the defeat of its occupier the Great Bear of the Laran Moor, a claim allowed by the Immaculate nestor Peleps Deled after agreement to a demand for a new temple constructed in Rabenna, that became the Temple of Sprouting Coils.

Rabenna is the capital of Madura, built on the ruins of an ancient city. At the center of the town, a perfect semicircle of moss-covered earth rises, topped with the Bed of Moss, a wood-aspected manse that is home to the Exarch of Madura. Eight roads of smooth white rock radiate out from the manse: to the N, E, SE they lead to large grids of stone walls and fences, empowered by the manse to calm & weaken animals trapped within. To the S can be found alchemical laboratories for processing bile along with the town's medical facilities and the expansive Immaculate Temple of Sprouting Coils. To the SW is located the palace of the Satrap and Imperial Garrison, to the W are residences of the middle classes along with the small Temple of Attentive Stones, to the NE and NW are commoner residences, the latter also including the market district.