[hider=Varrod League] [b]Government Type:[/b] The Varrod League is a faction of city-states within the Salished Empire, each one governed independently of the other and each technically subject first and foremost to the Salished. However, the capital of the Varrod League, Vertskhlis, is home to the Orpalstrah: a building and organization which advises the cities of the Salished Empire on domestic policy, officially for purposes of inter-city harmonization of law. It merely [i]just so happens[/i] that only the cities of the Varrod League are represented in the Orpalstrah, and that only the cities of the Varrod League follow its recommendations. [b]Faction Species:[/b] Humans, with small minorities of non-human species centred in Ter Kundzil and Vertskhlis. [b]Location:[/b] The cities of the Varrod League are geographically clustered in the Salished Empire's south-west, stretching over the border region between the Rainlands and the Arm of Azoth, along the Bay of Kundzil. The countryside in this region is less inhospitable than in most of Azoth, and the areas around the major cities are home to a plethora of nameless villages, eeking out a living in the humid shrublands and farming what they can. [b]Faction Ideology:[/b] The Varrod League is firmly aligned against all wizards, warlocks and other manipulators of magic. The devastation of Azoth is perceived by the league and its cities' citizens to largely have been caused by abuse of magic. As such, practice of magic is officially prohibited by each of the city's respective governments. Ichor in particular is especially despised; ownership of it, in either crystalline or raw form, is punishable by death. Equally as important as the Varrod League's hate for magic, though, is its love of technology. The league's great cities are pioneers in gunpowder weaponry in particular, but also excel in other technological pursuits, such as building vessels and designing fantastical architectural works. Vertskhlis is said to be the technological capital of Azoth, and the rest of the league's great cities follow close behind. This dedication to furthering the cause of technology is seen by the Varrod League as a long-term way of displacing the utility of magic, rendering it unable to spoil future generations as it has spoiled the current one. [b]Faction Description:[/b] The Varrod League is a group of rebellious cities within the Salished Empire, more loyal to each other than to Nyssos and the leadership of the Empire. Though they are very much culturally similar to the rest of the Salished Empire, they are ideologically united against it by their distaste for magic and their desire to be free of the declining Empire and its yoke. It is a political open secret that the cities of the Varrod League wish to secede; however, their method of secession, whether peaceful or violent, and how they are to be constituted after they achieve their independence, remains to be seen. The Varrod League excels at inventing and employing new technologies to bolster its member cities' relative strength against the rest of the Salished Empire. Their armies are equipped with cannons and primitive pistols and longarms, and their cities, Vertskhlis especially, are constantly improving on their own success, creating new generations of weaponry as their own old creations proliferate. Tactics, too, are innovated in the cities of the League, with older combat styles and strategies largely shunned in exaltation of the new. [b]Faction History:[/b] Formed as an alliance of sorts between four Salished cities—Vertskhlis, Lerrkar, Razmiktun and Ter Kundzil—the Varrod League's creation was heralded by the invention of what was perhaps man's most important new tool since the wielding of fire: gunpowder. A Vertskhilisi technologian by the name of Puizan Varrod created the substance, and the alliance, dedicated both towards its use and the development of ever more new technologies to displace the destructive power of magic, took on his name in his honour. Over time, the alliance simply grew tighter, and the Orpalstrah was developed as a way for the cities to begin to share each other's specialities and bring the leaders of smaller surrounding towns and villages to the Varrod League's way of thinking. Although it has existed for as long as the Salished Empire has been in steep decline (around fifty years), the Varrod League could still be fairly said to be a movement in its infancy. Its history, antithetically to the history of the Salished Empire, seems to largely lie ahead of it. [u][b]Important Characters[/b][/u] [hider=Ghougas Varrod, Governor of Vertskhlis] The leader of the Varrod League and descendant of its namesake, Ghougas is one of the most powerful men in the Salished Empire. The grandson of Puizan Varrod, the inventor of both the first firearms and the gunpowder used to fuel them, Ghougas is nearly worshipped by the technologian class, the technocratic aristocracy of the Varrod League whom constitute the majority of the Orpalstrah. Though respected among those great minds, Ghougas is mostly feared, either reverently or despisedly, by the rest of Azoth. He is known to most by way of his purges—violent campaigns against magic users, which have rid the great cities of the Varrod League of wizardry, at the cost of cementing Ghougas' reputation as an autocrat and a tyrant. MORE TBA [/hider] [hider=Tanien, Dumast of Hamalsarak] WIP[/hider] [hider=Ssoss Tsertdze, Governor of Lerrkar] WIP[/hider] [hider=Araz Reizian, Governor of Ter Kundzil] WIP[/hider] [hider=Hrag Kiyad, Governor of Razmiktun] Right hand of Ghougas Varrod and High Commander of the Krakzin, the Varrod League's standing military force, Hrag is the League's foremost general and tactician, and easily the most violent and domineering of the League's governors. Winning his election to the governorship by simply threatening to execute any who opposed him, Governor Kiyad rules Razmiktun with a red hot iron fist, demanding total loyalty from his citizens and quashing any faint whiff of opposition that arises. Hrag has helped to transform the Krakzin from a simple city guard into a proper, disciplined army, and has spearheaded the introduction of technological and tactical innovations to maximize their effectiveness on the battlefield. MORE TBA[/hider] and more [u][b]Important Holdings/Territory/Possessions[/b][/u] [i]Vertskhlis:[/i] The political capital of the Varrod League, and the technological capital of all of Azoth. Verstkhlis is home to the Orpalstrah: a grand marvel of architecture, built in an intentionally non-Salished style, and dominating the city's skyline. It is from there that the Orpalstrah organization, named after the building and vice versa, meets to discuss political affairs and issue 'recommendations' to the Varrod League's city governments. Elected among the nobility and landed gentry of the league cities, the Orpalstrah is effectively both the acting government and formal government-in-waiting of the not yet independent Varrod League. This makes Vertskhlis the League's capital, and for obvious reasons. Besides being the largest city in the league, and the second largest in the empire, Vertskhlis is also a hotbed of technological progress. It is the place in which firearms (among other things) were invented, and are continuously perfected to this day, worked on day and night by the generously funded and ever-tired technologians, tasked with outdoing the powers of magic as rapidly and as capably as possible. [i]Ter Kundzil:[/i] An island city, whose sea-bound home is the namesake of the Bay of Kundzil. Usually simply called 'Kundzil', especially by its own inhabitants, Ter Kundzil wields major maritime power, and conducts much of the trade and commerce between the Rainlands, the Ashlands, and the Arm of Azoth. Easily the most cosmopolitan of the cities of the Varrod League, Kundzil is home to both a great diversity of human ethnicities and a significant minority of non-humans. Especially noteworthy among the latter are the Valoth, who possess their own section of the city: the Valoth Quarter. It is there, and in the surrounding neighbourhoods, that Kundzil's infamous underworld predominates. Ter Kundzil's international reputation is as a mover of goods both legitimate and not, and it is said that any item that exists in Azoth can be found in the shady bazaars of Ter Kundzil. The island's and city's culture and architecture show influence primarily from the Salished, but also the Drathan Union and the other societies of the Ashlands and the Arm of Azoth. [i]Lerrkar:[/i] Sprawling out over a series of cliff faces and into a network of exhausted tunnels, Lerrkar is a city carved into the mountains, and is the nexus for the great many mines that dot the area, drawing forth the bounty of the earth. Especially plentiful in iron, the ore deposits in and around Lerrkar provide most of the raw metals used in the industry of the rest of the Varrod League. Although it is a sizeable city, Lerrkar is not an especially safe or pleasant place to live; the limited space in the cliffs leads to all of the city's buildings being clustered together, forming more of a mass shanty town than a proper, planned city. It is not uncommon for the expended mining tunnels that constitute the city's centre to collapse, either wholly or in part, either crushing or trapping away whoever was unlucky enough to live in them. Even the city's outskirts are dangerous in places, many of the cliffs slowly withering away from exposure or collapsing under the weight built upon them, occasionally sending whole rows of shacks tumbling down to dash against the rocks. [i]Razmiktun:[/i] Far and away the most militaristic of the great cities of the Varrod League, Razmiktun is a city to be reckoned with, an expert in the use of the military inventions for which the League is known. Razmiktun is the origin of the Krakzin, an organization that used to serve merely as Razmiktun's city guard, but has since become a standing military force that has expanded throughout the Varrod League, keeping the peace and supplementing local militias in all four of the league's major cities. Most of their number still come from Razmiktun, though, trained from adolescence to march and to obey. The design of Razmiktun fits this disciplined nature. Unlike the rest of the Varrod League, Razmiktun is a planned city, with neatly organized rows of well-patrolled streets, kept clear of rabble by decidedly overzealous men with guns. As much a fortress as a city, Razmiktun is protected ever more by four great walls, manned with cannons, guarding the city's approaches from each direction. [i]Hamalsarak:[/i] Not considered one of the league's great cities, both due to its smaller size and its rather singular purpose, Hamalsarak could be most easily described as a large school. To those who study and teach there, however, this would be understating things, as Hamalsarak does not only spread old knowledge, but create new knowledge. Effectively the Varrod League's university, Hamalsarak was established long ago, well before the rise of the league. Originally built by a lost society native to the Arm of Azoth, the Amalsar, Hamalsarak as it is now was constructed on the ruins of the Amalsar's capital and northern-most outpost, destroyed in a bloody conflict with the Salished Empire, which saw to the Amalsar's utter destruction. Cognisant of the enormous loss levied upon civilization to create it, Hamalsarak has been dedicated to saving both humanity and the world ever since, sharing openly all that it learns and teaching freely to anyone who displays aptitude in the scholarly arts. Controversially within the Varrod League, Hamalsarak even studies archeo-tech, the ancient and quasi-magical technology left behind by the old ones in ancient times. [b]Relation to other Factions:[/b] The Varrod League are the subjects of the Salished Empire, notwithstanding their rebelliousness, and are therefore at least formally enemies of the Salished's enemies and allies of the Salished's allies. Effectively, though, the Varrod League work against all those support magic, and support all those who oppose it. [/hider] More TBA, especially characters.