Joriscian Lowlands
The Joriscian Lowlands or Argotea is a loosely defined geographical and cultural region on the coast of the central Joriscian Gulf defined by the Starroz Krai in the south, Gergotea in the north and the Varudines in the west.
Geography
Argotea's borders are typically set at the Kishmish in the south, the Aram in the north and the Varudines in the west, although areas to the immediate north and south of this are also occasionally included (southermost Zemay and parts of Low Lacre). Much of this region is a flat coastal plain, although in the west – 'High Argotea' – the elevation gradually rises towards the Varudine foothills. The region is politically divided between several different entities, although most of it falls ultimately under the jurisdiction of the Azophine Banner: High Argotea falls largely within the Marshalate of Argah and the interior Argote territories of eastern Azophin, while 'Low Argotea' encompasses the remainder of Argote Azophin, the Azophine Marshalate of Littorea and the independent Prysostea.
Argotea is an inhospitable region combining some of the lowest points on the Gulf of Joriscia with some of the highest rainfall in Outer Joriscia, making much of it highly prone to flooding during monsoon season. Both Prysostea and Littorea in particular encompass large areas unsuitable for agriculture, and the landscape of Low Argotea generally is dotted with saltwater lakes, mangrove forests and precarious floodplains. Historically settlements were concentrated on ridges or inselbergs (the most famous of which is the Prysostaic Rock). Although a complex network of dykes and barrages today prevents the regular catastrophes of earlier years – and to some extent flood prevention measures have been present in the region almost as long as human beings – all of Low Argotea remains vulnerable to hydraulic disaster.
History
Chotar
Medieval period (1052–1380 CE)
By the late Chotarian period Argotea had become a transitional zone between the great wastes of Gergotea and the urban prosperity of Old Chotar, sharing some of the properties of both. This distinctive mixture of the Gergote and the Lacrean was to survive the Secote invasion largely intact: a countryside resembling that of the vast frontier to the north dotted with cities linked culturally and politically to the south. On the one hand, the ecological damage that the region had sustained during the War of the Gergote Courts – depopulation and the destruction of much of the extensive system of dykes and barrages that had allowed it to prosper in happier times – meant that like their Gergote counterparts, the Argote peasantry largely avoided the direct ravages of the Secote bands. On the other, the sack of Kozrat and the implosion of the complex and highly centralised Chotarian bureaucracy precipitated a distinctly Lacrean fragmentation of the political landscape in Argotea, too, with a Bīrō class emerging in a handful of shrunken independent post-Chotarian city-communes (most notably Lonrāsvārad and Ūjhetvend). To this was added the Argote Maintenancies, which began as bureaucrats responsible for dams and drainage but came increasingly to act as autonomous local strongmen guaranteeing urban-rural trade, providing cities with foodstuffs as well as the all-important silk and honey for which Argotea had long been famous.
From the 13th century onwards, this political order was placed under ever greater threat from both north and south. The creeping militarisation of the Gergote Gyvenvietės gave rise to the unwelcome phenomenon of Gergote war parties, who regularly laid waste to the vulnerable Argote countryside and occasionally to major cities too. In response, the Argotes themselves began to adopt the Gyvenvietė style of fortified settlement, and the vibrant political life of many of the communes gave way to government by generalissimi, much as it had in the Lacrean interior – although most of the Argote tyrants were either locals or, in the north, Gergote strongmen invited to protect the southerners from their own kind (and not Pseudolacreans as in Lacre proper). Those cities that did retain their strongly respublican character largely did so by associating ever more strongly with their counterparts in Partia, a process which reached its peak with the integration of the ports of Kišvārad (Kish) and Merēc (Starigrad) into the Lacrean League in the late 14th century, or with other interior cities (the League of Lonrasvarad). Both the cities and countryside of Argotea proved particularly fertile ground for the Ishtinist revival, which inspired both a newfound highbrow interest in classical Chotarian culture and a more esoteric fashion for itinerant preachers and sui generis religious-philosophical movements. Indeed, the Argote population themselves (as opposed to the Lacrean-speaking urban classes) developed such a reputation for the latter that one document made out by the Kišvārad Board of Secrets refers in a single breath to 'dupes, fraudsters and Argote types' when condemning 'those fomenting unrest and foolishness among the citizenry' in 1356. While many of these men and women were ascetics or even hermits, some led bloody populist rebellions, perhaps the most infamous of which was the 1367 Rebuke of Lonrasvarad. But while they were often very influential during their own lifetimes and their ideas were frequently appropriated or recycled by their successors, it was only in the 1380s that one managed to break free of the general intellectual current of neo-Ishtinism and establish a lasting movement. That movement was Vaestism.
Emergence of Vaestism (1380–1490 CE)
The Prophet began his ministry some time in the 1380s; oriental sources conventionally give a date equivalent to 1381, although there is no evidence to justify such precision. He seems to have begun as a fairly conventional neo-Ishtinist urban preacher touting his spiritual wares in various small towns and cities within Argotea, although the actual details of his early activities are shrouded in mystery. Beginning in Agodar in 1395, however, he broke with this tradition by setting up a series of small fortified communities (essentially Gyvenvietės in the Gergote fashion), creating a territorial network of Vesnite claims that extended across much of High Argotea. After a violent confrontation with Vladivoy Mendogorovid in 1428 ended with his defeat (and the Prophet's death) at the Battle of the Holy Storm, this territorial network was rapidly expanded by the Prophetic Marshals to encompass much of Low Argotea as well, and the Vesnite proto-state quickly incorporated Lonrāsvārad as well as many other towns in the interior while also sending off missionaries into the world beyond. After the brief Conciliar War (1434-1436), Siluve was elected as the first Universal Prophet, with his seat at the Prysostaia, and although attempts to expand Vaestdom beyond Argotea by military means (most prominently the Mirokrai Expedition) failed to win the Marshalate State lasting gains, until the 1470s it was able to expand rapidly within its homeland and elsewhere by assimilating existing neo-Ishtinist movements. With the death of the last Marshal Viswald in 1472, however, the tensions this had produced became entirely unsustainable, and within less than two years his self-appointed successor Viswald II had been murdered and the Marshalate State had imploded, setting off a long struggle for the heart of Vaestism (the Wars of Heresy) that would see Argotea rent apart by mass Deist heresy and ecological disaster. The Wars of Heresy were only brought to an end by the intervention of a Pseudolacrean warlord, Nerits, in 1487. By 1490 Nerits had crushed the heretics and restored order in Argotea, earning himself the title of Emperor of the Vesnites.
At its inception Vaestism was a thoroughly Argote and borderlander phenomenon whose emergence was made possible by the unique cultural admixture and unsustainable political tensions of the late 14th-century in that region. There is some evidence, in fact, that other such movements were emerging at around the same time in other parts of Argotea (Sirputis has been identified as one likely leader) but were quickly absorbed into Vaestism either during or immediately after its formative years. In any case, while drawing heavily on the forms (and to some extent the content) of neo-Ishtinism, the Prophet introduced a marked hostility to post-Chotarian urban life, condemning the 'corpulent burghers' of Old Chotar and advocating withdrawal into militarised Gyvenvietė-style settlements far from the corruption of the world. The armed ideological communities that this withdrawal created contained within them the seeds of a new kind of political community, and on one reading positioned themselves as the voice of the largely voiceless agrarian Argote-speakers against both Lacrean cosmopolitanism and Gergote incursions. But the Vesnite message was by no means confined to the agrarian population, and proved popular among many disillusioned with the ossified pseudo-spirituality sponsored by Bīrōk and lords alike. In fact, insofar as we have a clear vision of the sociological makeup of the early Vesnites, it seems that the leaders were largely sometime urbanites of mixed or Lacreanised origins, while many of their followers were of more humble Argote stock.
Neritsovid Argotea (1490–1756 CE)
Argotea's incorporation into what became Great Neritsia in 1490 may have ended the Wars of Heresy, but it merely intensified tensions between the Argote 'Old Vesnites' and their counterparts elsewhere, particularly the so-called Occidentalisers and Imperialists at the Neritsovid court. Nerits' appointment was immediately unpopular with a significant segment of Argote opinion, particularly among the former communes of the Lonrāsvārad League, and the death of both emperor and prophet in 1498 set the stage for the first of many confrontations with the counter-election of a New Orthodoxist (Mir Kairelis) against the local imperialist favoured by Sobiebor I (Sillis). While this particular confrontation was temporarily solved by the expedient of a return to conciliar government, this quickly degenerated into fully-fledged violence, and Sobiebor II was only able to put to rest the spectre of serious Argote unrest by formally granting the Vesnites of the region an extensive list of rights and exemptions from his centralising Grand Edict (the so-called Argote Privilege). While the distinct character of Argote Vaestism, particularly within the Prysostaic School itself but also to some extent within the Schools of Argotea, was gradually undermined by the steady expansion of Theoreticism and by the establishment of the Castellan Guard, esotericism and a certain unlearned spiritualism common among itinerant preachers continued to be strongly associated with Argotea until the Errancy Era, when it spawned major heretical movements across the region.
The destruction of these movements by the Oblitors not only dealt the coup de grace to Old Vaestism, it also ushered in the definitive marginalisation of Argotea within Neritsia. Its various idiosyncratic structures were largely dissolved in favour of a more typical Neritsovid Hierarchy, and as an intellectual centre and imperial court the Prysostaia itself fell far behind Great Pestul. While the 17th century saw major expansion of land under cultivation thanks to large-scale drainage projects spearheaded by the state, most of this land went to smallholders, many of them resettled Oblitors or (later) veterans of the Cinnabar Wars; no local Noble-Profiteer elite emerged in Argotea. This, along with the prominent role played by the Castellan Guard, meant that Argotea was more closely tied to the central government than any other part of the Empire, a tie that remained strong even as Neritsia began to collapse: although the Rebuke of Axiov did inspire a copycat uprising in the east, the Rebuke of Starigrad, this was relatively easily suppressed by the Legitimists, and Argotea was a bastion of Legitimism throughout the Crown Wars. Indeed, the Legitimist sympathies of the Argotes were so strong that in the wake of the Lethpol Covenant in 1735 many of them joined a general insurrection against Vladimir Inevsky to protect what they felt were the usurped rights of Borovest II. The Pestul government's eventual success in crushing this insurrection allowed it to lay claim to Argotea at the Majestic Peace in 1756, which made it a province directly accountable to the Marshal and Plenipotentiary in the North – essentially incorporating it formally into the proto-Azophine state.
Radiance Argotea (1756–1890 CE)
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In part this was because of the marked differences between west and east – Argotea was firmly within the Lacrean cultural, economic and (to some extent) linguistic zone – and in part because of the necessity of keeping the Argotes in hand given their proximity to Lacre, which from the annexation of Laukuna in 1768 onwards had essentially encircled the region. The additional local factor of the Universal Prophets, who were consistently independent-minded and willing to flirt with Kozrat in order to secure concessions, turned Argotea into a constant zone of political struggle throughout this period. It was a significant theatre of the Imperial War (1771-1774), the War of the Third Emperor (1788-1791) and in particular the Five Winter War (1811-1815), and even in times of external peace discontented mutineers and rebels demanded demediatisation to the Prophetic Banner while Scholars regularly refused to recognise the appointing rights of the central government. In the aftermath of the Five Winter War, Spytihnev the Arbitrator finally conceded an independent Prysostaic state in a joint edict with Mezveim, Universal Prophet.
This period saw dramatic social and economic change within Argotea. Although most of the region remained inhospitable or simply agricultural throughout this period, the coal-rich areas of High Argotea and the great shipyards of Starigrad became major industrial hubs underpinning the manufacturing boom of the later 19th century (the Azophine Ascendancy). Although much of the work was dirty and difficult, towards the end of the 19th century dock workers in Starigrad in particular were able to carve out a sort of labour aristocracy status unmatched by any other group within metropolitan Azophin. Vast in-migration from the Argote-speaking countryside transformed the character of the cities, finally ending the long-standing linguistic divisions between Lacrean-speaking urbanites and their rural countrymen. Although a steady trickle of Rashimic speakers was attracted towards the new centres of industry in the east, they tended to assimilate to the Argote population rather than the other way around, and for the most part, the rapid industrialisation of Argote agriculture provided enough local labour that westerners were never needed. Until 1817 the growing local Scholarchate remained almost entirely institutionally distinct from the Azophine Scholarchate as a whole and looked largely to the Prysostaia rather than to Inetsograd, and while this changed with the full assertion of appointing rights by the central government, local positions continued to be filled largely by local Scholars except at the highest levels. Indeed, under Azophine rule Argote displaced Lacrean as the typical language of Apportation in Argote Schools.