Commandery of Tormetia
The Commandery of Tormetia was an Old Axiovy and later Rasheem-dominated successor state to the Fifth Chotarian Empire centred on the modern Azophine Uplands and particularly the old provincial cult centre of Tormopol on the Tormaytah. Initially recognised as a subordinate polity by the Secote Empire, it represented for the first century and a half of its existence a unique political culture fusing elements of Ishtinist and Secote practice shared with its southern neighbour, the Commandery of Axiov. From 1211 onwards, however, it became embroiled in a series of increasingly bloody religious wars which ended with the toppling of the Ishtinist order and the installation of a Sirian as Commander.
The Commandery initially emerged in 1047 following the disastrous Secote defeat of Chotarian forces in the western Rashimic Littoral, today Khabbat and southern Anabbah. Faced by the immediate prospect of Secote invasion, forces within the Temple-court at today's Tormopol pressured the Fejedelem Orojo to come to separate terms. So long as the recuperating forces massed in particular in the Circuit of Axiov stood with the Emperor the Temple-Censors could not act directly, but when in Nollonger 1047 the Axiov general Perdor rose up against Chotar Orojo was promptly murdered and replaced by a clique of priests led by one Karos. The putschists essentially transferred their worship to the victorious Secote Emperor, attaching Chotarian titulature and ritual to him and proclaiming him a refounder not unlike those who had reunified the Empire after times of crisis before. This move secured in general terms the Circuit's safety and security and prevented total destruction at the hands of the Secote invaders, who sought the richer prey of the Chotarian heartland. Karos was recognised by the Secote Emperor as Fejedelem and by welcoming Secote forces managed to avoid absorption into the generals' Axiov, the fate of the leaders of the southern Circuit of Narad.
The unique origins of the Tormetian state within the Chotarian temple administration itself meant that it saw a degree of continuity with Chotarian provincial practice and norms that almost no other successor state did; although the object of worship changed and bureaucrats had to be sourced ever more locally rather than being dispatched from Kozrat the provincial government remained fundamentally Chotarian in style. Until 1123, the Commandery's influence was restricted to the Azophine Uplands and its leaders chosen by a somewhat murky process from within the Temple-Censors' ranks, receiving official approval from the Steward of the Chotarians acting as the representative of the Secote Emperor. During the collapse of the Empire and the emergence of the Yaromirovid dynasty under Borovest Ironhand in the 1120s, however, Emorad (r. 1118-1133) was able to secure a hereditary succession that afforded Tormetian political life a much greater stability than its neighbours to the south. By acting as Borovest's enforcer in the East, he also pushed the frontiers of Tormetia back well into Anabbah, a process continued and brought to its peak by his son and heir Emorad II (1133-1151). Tormetia thereby acquired a very substantial Sirian population, which alongside the general spread of Siriash in Outer Joriscia and the first waves of Rasheem migration into Axiov that began around this time was ultimately to dramatically change the nature of the polity.
Tormetia occupied a dominant position in eastern and central Anabbah for nearly ninety years, repeatedly intervening in wars between the Rashimic Princes and struggling for dominance over the Princes against the Commandery of Vokhotsk. It was involved in the particularly bloody Utthun War (1190-1196) fought to try and restore the doctrinal and political unity of the Congregation of Utthun. Although Tormetian influence proved incapable of settling the war as it had hoped, and the 1204 Battle of Samshagar marked a severe setback against Vokhotsk, these events did saddle the Tormetian government with large numbers of loyal Rasheem mercenaries forced out of Anabbah after their defeat. These Rasheem soldiers were to form the popular base for a series of uprisings over the first decades of the 12th century, leading ultimately to the usurpation of power by the deposed Rasheem prince Nahor in 1211. This itself led a dramatic internal struggle pitting the Secote and post-Chotarian elite against Rasheem usurpers and ending decisively after a series of coups and counter-coups with the Sirian Secote Vladimir I (r. 1237-1245), who was able to secure Rasheem loyalty as well as bolstering his own legitimacy by forming an alliance with the newly self-appointed Nogotsovid Emperor of the Eastrons, Spytidar I Nogotsovid. Despite the ascendancy of a Secote ruler, however, very little changed in the political culture of the Commandery, whose ritual and language remained thoroughly Chotarian with an admixture of Sirian elements. Five members of the Vladimirovid dynasty subsequently ruled Tormetia in alliance with the Rasheem. Less than a century after Vladimir's death, however, the forces of the Tirfatsevid Empire swept into Tormetia and toppled the Vladimirovids by 1329.