Madura

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 left 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

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.

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