(a map of Meron and of the world will be useful in reading this section)
Tribal Kingdoms (pre-DM)
The main problem with the governing system of late Dadurab Mar was the lack of unity among fiefdoms and the tendency of each domain to split upon the death of its leader. There was no system for succession; each leader could do little but appoint an heir and pray that his wishes would be honored after his death.
They often were not. The splintering of the fiefdoms and the constant petty wars between each domain became such a problem that one historian wrote: “A crop can hardly be sown but an army will appear to trample on it.”
Out of this mess came, in the last years of the era, a man in central Meron who had the will to unite. He was not a prophet nor an adherent of any particular religion; it is theorized that he was the bastard son of a minor chieftain who was unlucky enough to lose his lands when he chose the losing side in a squabble between two more powerful barons. Others claim that he was the child of a shepherd, dispossessed and wandering the roads between villages in an attempt to find a place to lay his head.
Whatever the case may have been, it was clear that Myrelyr came from less than noble roots.
Myrelyr’s Rise (1430 RM-40 DM)
Historians believe that he was born around the year 1412 RM, because if the bastard son theory is correct then that was shortly before the clash of two powerful fieflords in what is today approximately the site of Kassen. If this is his story, Myrelyr would have been raised with the knowledge that he was the rightful lord of the land on which he was born: in those days illegitimacy meant little to most people.
By the year 1430, when he was approximately eighteen years old, Myrelyr had raised a significant following and begun carving out his own kingdom in the Kassen area, in the northwest of the province now named for him. He began work on a castle at the top of a craggy hill, first leveling it and the constructing a massive fortress of stone shipped from the south. Around this hill grew a town of artisans and stoneworkers who were in the business of shaping the walls and the hill to suit Myrelyr’s exacting specifications.
The castle was the first piece of Myrelyr’s plan to unite central Meron under his banner. By 1437, an astonishing seven years after he had begun work on the castle, it was largely completed. From it he rallied many men to his banner and began annexing the regions around him.
Myrelyr was clever enough to not seek power over the entire island. Instead of pushing far south, north, or west, he pushed straight eastward to the sea, extending his reign through what is now East Province and establishing castles along the way to solidify his rule over the lands. He refrained from burning fields, though he executed leaders of those fiefdoms he conquered and installed his own men in their place. By 1442, the last year of RM, he had cemented his rule over a large area in central Meron and controlled much of the island’s agricultural base.
Leaders of other regions watched this with trepidation. They were not unified enough to stop him should he choose to cut a swath through their lands, and they feared that he would do exactly that. Myrelyr, however, had other plans. He probably aspired to one day rule all of Meron, but instead of taking it through brute force, he sent support and supplies to the most powerful man in each region, and they began the same type of conquest he had initiated, solidifying power centers for themselves by building fortresses and from there conquering other regions.
A man named Awar was the first to successfully ally with Myrelyr and establish his kingdom. He took South and Awar provinces (the latter now named for him) and threw his support behind a man named Pinar, who took the whole of the north with no difficulty (Pinar and North provinces) and ruled his people with a loose rein.
The western barons gave in without a struggle. Rather than falling at the sword, they swore allegiance to the man Myrelyr had picked for the west, Kinelvar, who took the whole region between Belar and the mountains south of Anwall (in what are now Kinelvar and West provinces).
The last region to unite was the south. The man Myrelyr had chosen was not a native Meron: he, Eveltar, was of Etana, and he and his colonists had come in the last fifty years, a last attempt for Etana to take control of part of Meron. Instead of attempting to fight him, Myrelyr offered him a large piece of the south: in return, he had to sever ties with his homeland and commit himself to Meron.
By the year 35 DM, Meron was successfully solidified into five kingdoms. Myrelyr was not a young man; he was in his mid sixties and, according to the records kept by his physician, suffering from ill health as the result of an old battle wound at his hip. He died in the year 40 DM, but he his last legacy was one to ensure that all his work was not in vain: he drew up lines of succession and sent them to his four allies. These lines laid out clear orders for who could inherit, but left open the possibility of disinheriting undesirable sons. Myrelyr himself passed his scepter not to his eldest son, but to his third child. He was determined that his kingdom would last.
Trouble in Awar (40 DM-190 DM)
Though Awar had been the first to join Myrelyr, he predeceased him and, although his eldest son held on to the kingdom until Myrelyr’s death, upon his passing it splintered between the nine sons of Awar. The other nations held firm, their resolve strengthened by the severe conflict they saw beyond their borders. A few times attempts were made to support one heir or another but they ended in a further splintering. By the year 100 DM, there were nearly as many fiefdoms in Awar as there had once been in all of Meron.
It was around the year 129 DM when a fourteen-year-old boy, Karbod, announced his prophethood. Born in Ubro, the site of Awar’s former capital, the boy recruited a following and began preaching unity. His followers called themselves Karbeans and more than half of what had been Awar was under his sway. One by one, the fieflords swore their allegiance to him, and by the year 140, when Karbod was just twenty-five, he headed not just a religious order but also a kingdom.
Myrelyr’s great-grandson, whose name is not known, was at that time in power in Myrelyr. He and his advisors felt that a religious movement was too dangerous to have in power and attempted to destroy them. While a unified Awar was a good thing, they wanted it on their own terms.
They killed Karbod. His nephew Vodal was his appointed successor, but in the year 148, just four years after Karbod’s death, Vodal was assassinated. Whether this was done on the behest of the Myrelyrs or was simply the work of some jealous Karbean is not known. In either case, the result was the same: the Myrelyrs installed an Awar heir and he united the kingdom under stricter rule than before. Yet Awar remained fiercely independent, and the Karbean movement was not killed, just robbed of its leadership.
Tranquility (190 DM-420 DM)
The two hundred and thirty years that followed the Karbean War were relatively peaceful. Around 230 a civil disturbance broke out in Kinelvar, when the king of it died suddenly without specifying which of his twin sons was to inherit. It ended when one killed the other. The surrounding kingdoms hastily moved to ensure that their lines of succession were protected, as per the guidelines Myrelyr had sent out before his death.
This era was, however, one of technological advancement. Medicine was leaps ahead of what it had been a few generations before, when it had relied almost entirely on prayer, hope, and strange medicinal concoctions. In addition, weapon-making techniques improved enormously, making swords more common and deadly than ever before.
To War (420 DM-453 DM)
Relations with Etana had been poor since the first contact between the two peoples, but in the middle of the fourth century DM it took a turn for the worse. Much of Meron’s technological advancement was due to tools gained from trade with Etana, which still got extensive aid from the people of Qaqia; the same alliance was what made Etana such a powerful force.
Etanan culture had been developing alongside Meron over the last 1500 years. While they were still closely tied to Qajendu, their mythology and religion grew further and further from their roots and they had a complicated belief system regarding their right to land and the morality of other peoples.
The Etanans held a strong belief that the Meron people were primitive savages. While they had a complex feudal system, a written language, and extensive trade networks, their religions were incomprehensible to the Etanans, who believed in the divine right of kings (not at all a part of Meron theological understandings) and regarded newly founded Karbea as hardly less objectionable than the old religions of Eemeo, which the people had brought with them when they came to Meron.
Thus it was that Etanan boats worried away at the southeastern shores of Meron. Sailboats had finally come south of Meron and were now in common use across Qajendu and even in parts of Aeone, and the Etanans had powerful longboats crewed by religious fanatics who were determined to convert the Meron people. There was initially some small success in conversion, but it didn’t take long for the novelty to wear off. Etanan religion was based on a belief system wholly alien to the Meron people, who revered nature and, unlike the Etanans, believed that it should be safeguarded, not consumed in pursuit of the Divine Three (the men who ruled Etana)’s wishes.
Qaqia, Etana’s ally, was not interested in their religious convictions. It was, however, perfectly delighted to supply men and supplies if Etana wished to make an attempt to conquer Meron. The chief benefit of Meron was its extensive natural resources; Qaqia had farmland and plenty of timber, but the iron deposits in Meron’s mountains were not found on the mainland or Etana.
There was little social unrest in Meron of the time. People had settled into the five-kingdom arrangement and were not interested in rebellion of any kind. However, the bonds between their leaders had loosened in the last decades, and while there was no overt hostility, no one was particularly interested in any allegiance beyond that of the trade networks. Awar and Myrelyr in particular, always a little at odds tottered on the brink of conflict.
It was into this situation that the Etanans waltzed. They shipped a massive army up from Qaqia and, joining it with their own, they swept across the gap between Myrelyr and Awar and within a year and a half had decimated the Meron armies (what there was of them) and had established their own rule at Kassen, where Myrelyr’s heirs had once ruled. They executed all five kings and as many of their heirs as they could get their hands on and subjugated the Meron people
Dadurab Mar <-- | --> Zhey Mar
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