Lestria
Lestria, sometimes known as Greater Lestria, is one of the major continental landmasses of Arden, and ranks second only to Serania Major in terms of total land area. The continent is highly diverse in ecological terms; extending from the South Pole almost as far as 30° north latitude, it contains biomes as distinct as the Bintang desert in the south-west, the Lestrian Ice Sheet of the far south and the forbidding peaks of the Lestrian Spine in the east.
Etymology
The name 'Lestria' is generally held to be of Old Messenian origin, with this particular form coming into use around the time of the Castopolite Empire. Variations such as 'Listria', 'Lissia', or 'Lesia' have been found in Messenian inscriptions from the previous centuries, and probable Antissan cognates such as liššiya have been identified. In the world of the Messenians, and of the later Neokos Empire, the name referred to the idea of the continent as a southern frontier, whence the use of Petty-Lestria for a nearby Messeno-Joriscian subcontinent.
History
Early history
Probably the first major civilisation to arise in Lestria was the Sagan culture which emerged in the later third millennium BCE in what is today Bilgedoghan and southern Busar. Inventing forms of writing and architecture that have influenced a great number of other subsequent cultures across Arden, the Sagans are sometimes called the “fathers of civilisation”. At their height around 1000 BCE, the Sagans were dominant across most of northern Lestria, with its influence extending to the fringes of the Tloule mountains and the Lestrian Spine, as well as southward into present-day Nation 91; and later Sagan offshoots may have made their way into north-eastern Lestria.
Civilisation and culture along the north coast was savagely disrupted in 855 BCE by the cataclysmic eruption of the Kalmisana supervolcano which formed the Median island of Hilima. The after-effects of the Hilima Eruption saw extensive movements in the north, as refugees from the devastated coastal regions moved inland and, gradually, eastward, where the resettled communities developed into the merchant culture of the Carcharian city-states. The Carcharian polities were one of the hubs of an extensive trading network which stretched across the Medius and Messenic Seas in the later first millennium BCE; however, the weakening of their customary markets forced them into recession and a descent into outright piracy in the early Common Era.
Medieval Lestria
The fall of the Carcharian cities and their subjugation under Messenian powers was perhaps the beginning of a long period of darkness for the polities of the north. The Ikhwani, in what is now the Lestrian possessions of the Holy Empire, slowly collapsed, while the Sagans had sunk into a state of decline and torpor. However, the influx of the Messenians in earnest in the early first millennium – partly as a result of internal movements due to the Second Great Invasions of the period 50-80 CE – brought in its wake the religion of those people; while Siriash had been a presence on the northern Lestrian coast for centuries through commercial ties with its southern Messenian heartlands, these shifts of population established it more enduringly during the second century, and the transplantation by zealots may have allowed it to gain new vigour and revitalise its reputation as a martial faith. Although it was vigorously resisted by the likes of Tetheyeth in the north-east, it steadily uprooted the native beliefs of the region, forcing these frequently animistic faiths into backwaters and often causing them to wither on the vine. As practiced by the still-distinctly-Messenian Nailenes, Siriash was probably well-established across the north of the continent by as early as 700 CE, and with it new Sirian cultures such as Tarsh or Arsilite Sagans emerged in vigour.
To the south, an expansive and sophisticated culture arose in Linghsi along the Prothenian coast, where the complex cornerstones of Pyranism developed and were spread out. The Pwo people of Linghsi built first a series of confederations now designated empires, and then the mercantile Chupang kingdoms in the first half of the 2nd millennium. On the southeast, Tondakan cities flourished from trade with cultures as far as Chotar, and in the 10th century the earliest iteration of the Tondakan principate was established by Muyentwali the Great, though its power was quickly hollowed out. Between these two poles the heterogeneous Masrey civilisation emerged beginning in the middle fourth century CE.
At the turn of the 2nd millennium, Lestrian Siriandom experienced a massive flowering of culture and philosophy, as an entire distinct Sirian civilisation had been built in the area. Lestrian ideas went back to Messenia through the Nailene Missions and profoundly influenced the post-Secote practice of Siriash. At home famous, powerful, and sophisticated Sirian polities had emerged, such as the Gemmarate of Khra in what is now Abranoussa, and the lamneary-empire of Tisceron, built on the institutional innovations of the Lestrian Compaction. The most notable development in this direction however came from Petty-Lestria, from where in the 14th century a Qundi army conquered Tarsh and founded the Holy Empire, which initiated a move towards an idea of orthodoxy, somewhat realised by widespread affiliation with the Sophoran Compact across the region.
Early modern period
The outbreak of Seranian fever across Joriscia and Messenia in the early 17th century did not see Lestria wholly spared; with the initial outbreak in Messenia taking place in Gaugura (today the largest part of Matal), a major trading power of the period, ships from that country spread the disease across the north of Lestria. While brutal in localised areas, the outbreaks nevertheless failed to manifest the widespread devastation that was seen in the northern continents; modern scientists and historians have surmised that Lestria’s native rodents were unsuitable as hosts as were similar species elsewhere, allowing the disease to die out naturally. More positive exchange with the northern hemisphere began to take place during this period, as the great age of Messenian exploration saw ships from the maritime powers of the north travelling into the Prothenian Ocean and come into contact with the cultures of Lestria’s western coast.
In the west, the rise of the White Sun cult led to a conquest of Linghsi and the establishment of a monolatric Baygil Empire in the Hierophany of the Dawn, which stands to today as the largest Pyranist country in the world. To the east, the Holy Empire soon transformed from a transplanted Qundi state to a decentralised and omnigenic federation built on local customs, although it was weakened by a fruitless invasion of the Tondaku in the East Lestrian War of the early 19th century, which also led to the unification and foundation of the modern Tondakan state.
The expansion of Messenian and Joriscian influence on the Lestrian continent began to be more strongly felt from the early 18th century. On the west coast, the recently-unified and buccaneeringly expansive Siurskeyti vied with the northern mercantile powers in Odann and in the Savamese realms for influence. The Siursk expanded their influence into Yarin and ended Tisceron's seabourne power, and set up a colony in the sparsely populated Kisilland. The Concentration Wars of the late 18th century in the eastern Prothenian saw major powers pitted against each other over what was supposed to be an invasion of Baygil by the Tionastrian Empire. The states rising from the Palthic Empire still managed to hold a presence around Neyet, while Zeppengeran in particular was able to contest southern Lestria with Odann starting in the Concentration Wars. More importantly, the beginnings of modern industrialisation in Messenia – albeit helped along by developments in Joriscia, which had begun the process and was further down the road to modernity – gave what would become a decisive advantage against Lestrian peoples who could not themselves make this leap.
Recent history
Despite reform movements such as the Nekhseri in Lestrian Siriandom or the Baygilene Reconstruction in Linghsi, the disadvantaged position of most Lestrian polities became even worse during the 20th century as outsiders jockeyed for position; and the beginnings of the Long War period saw an increasing pattern in which the great powers of the era – and a number of smaller ones – used Lestrian states as catspaws in the resolution of their own disputes and the satisfaction of their own needs. These included conflicts such as the Abranoussan War, but also more titanic endeavours such as the founding of an expansive Gekiti empire in the arid interior in the 1930s.
The position of many native powers have improved: reforms in Baygil, Tondaku, and Busar have made them able to reasonably act in their own right and even stand up to foreign influence, while developments in other areas such as the Holy Empire have broadly moved (parts of) the continent closer to the Civilised World's standards. However, it has been far more often the case – especially in the south of the continent and the deep interior – that the Lestrians are exploited to greater or lesser extent by the incomers, whether these be foreign governments or – perhaps more frequently at the present time – foreign commercial interests. The creation of the Lestria Directives at the 1959 Congress of Kethpor went some way to addressing the problems of unrecognised states in the deeper Lestrian interior – the so-called “Lestrian Neutral Zone” – but their effectiveness has been patchy and perhaps too hindered by internal disputes to have had long-term success.
Religion
The one native Lestrian faith which can genuinely be regarded as world-scale is Pyranism. Originally conceived as a relatively loose polytheism in the south-western interior of the continent, it has since extended its reach along the entire western coast, as well as establishing a foothold in south-eastern Ascesia, where it has overlapped (and in some regions syncretised to a degree) with Bhramavada, the native faith of much of that continent. The degree to which modern Pyranism reflects the practices of its origins is unclear; certainly, Pyranism as seen in the Baygil Empire is arguably closer to monotheism in appearance, with the dominance of the White Sun cult driving the worship of other Pyranist deities into subordinate positions. A more even-handed pattern of worship is seen elsewhere in the region’s theosphere, although there are suggestions by Pyranist scholars that many important practices in the modern faith are actually rewritings and recodifications of much more recent vintage.
Siriash, although it expanded rapidly across southern Messenia from its beginnings in the sixth century BCE, would not establish a proper foothold in Lestria until around the second century CE, when it was introduced along the north coast in the wake of upheavals in Messenia caused by waves of migration from the interior early in the Common Era. Since then, it has become firmly established in the regions eastward of the Lestrian Spine and to the north of the nearby Tloule mountain range, extending from Busar in the north-west to the southern Holy Empire in the south-east. Substantial parts of this region play host to distinct variants of Sirian practice; while the writ of the dominant Sirian compact, that of Coseptra, runs fairly strongly in the north, other models – particularly the highly traditionalist Sophoran Compact, the more introspective Siyettism, and the charismatic forms of Siriash common in the Holy Empire – challenge it elsewhere.
Political composition
By most generally-accepted interordinate standards, Lestria can be said to contain nineteen separate states, as well as some territories in the possession of polities outside the continent. The cultures of many of these states, particularly along the southern Median littoral on Lestria’s north coast, are of considerable antiquity; the proximity of southern Messenia to this coast ensured a substantial exchange of trade and ideas throughout much of the pre-modern era.
However, much of Lestria, particularly the more deeply inaccessible regions of the interior, the desert south-west and the icebound southern tundras, is not organised in any generally recognised sense; for purposes of interordinate activity, this unorganised territory is referred to as the Lestrian Neutral Zone, and disputes in relation to the activities of outside parties within it are the purview of the Joint Lestrian Commission. In practice, however, most such disputes are resolved by privately-raised forces, with the occasional assistance of native levies. Officially, most activity by Messenians and Joriscians in Lestria comes through private agency, rather than governmental influence; however, the distinction between the two is fluid and often uncertain as Messenian polyindustrials and Machtbünde, as well as Joriscian estates, frequently overlap with the governments which so often disavow their activities. The LNZ's politics are further complicated by powerful local entities, as well as peculiar local customs: in the west, muen, various Pyranist religious orders that command respect or even fear over numerous native communities; and in the east, the Tondakan principate's claim to fealty of large parts of the Neutral Zone in the Ultratondaku.