Múantín

Múantín (from Cunnish モンダイン mondaing, 'storm') is a large island that lies off the southern coast of Lestria. The western extremity of the island is an overseas territory of Odann, while the rest is part of the Lestrian Neutral Zone and falls under no interordinately recognised country, though it is effectively controlled by the zeephen state of Tanang. It has about six million inhabitants; the native population overwhelmingly belongs to the grouping of the Tang people, in turn separated by language and minor differences in customs into the To (straits), Klu (western), Leng (highlander), and Na (southern) Tangs. There is a considerable population of Dael settlers (approximately 1.5 million), small communities of other Messenians in coastal cities, and outposts of Pwo and nearby Lestrian traders. The island has an oceanic climate similar to northern Messenia, and the more adjacent coasts of the Kucha Sea; it experiences fierce storms during spring and autumn, which have lent the island its native name. Culturally and economically Muantin is a part of Cunland, with close ties to the nearby Núam Peninsula.

Though the island's inhabitants have flexibly shifted between settlement and nomadism for millennia, known civilised history of Muantin begins in the eleventh century, when along with the rest of southwestern Lestria it received the outpouring of Pyranist high culture from Linghsi, after Pwo traders became able to navigate the dangerous horse latitudes; the creation of muen to organise a more vibrant religious and political life inaugurated more recognisable state organisations, while trading posts were set up around the coast. By the 16th century accounts from Min record the existence of three urbanised coastal kingdoms, while the interior remained resistant to outside authority. In 1579 a Cunnish dynasty overran the island and established the empire known as the Two Rannangs, although it was quickly challenged by Odannach exploration of southern Lestria; after a war in 1660 the Muantin court became an effectively independent state and ally of Odann, and by the mid-18th century atrophied into a ceremonial authority over more assertive chiefs, kings, and port magistrates. Owing to its sparse population, Muantin became treated as a wild frontier for disgruntled Daels and zealous Cairan missionaries to test their luck, and their heavy-handed intrusion, though establishing many lasting institutions and matters of life, were to alienate the locals, and during the Fourth Concentration War local rulers joined Zeppengeran in forcing the Odannach to the west of the island. The peace treaty, however, enshrined western Muantin as an Odannach territory, and its last redoubt in southern Lestria.

Orthodoxist attitudes were much-tempered after Odann's failure in the Fourth Reform War, and combined with the exile of various dissidents to Muantin the more consolidated Odannach government in the west became more tolerant, which, combined with natives' access to the educational institutions Odann set up previously, became a card to play in Odann's 19th-century resurgence. While the Embute War distracted Zeppengeran, an alliance of Cairan-educated locals and pro-Odannach Latronists rose up in eastern Muantin in 1892, overthrowing the local muen, and unseating already loose if ever-exercised Zepnish influence there. While Odann expanded its local presence, waging the Mokrole Wars in the 1900s–20s to seize Cunland from Zeppengeran, Muantinites became increasingly enchanted by Messenian political organisation. In 1930 they established a rationalised government of a single country of Tanang, seemingly in response to Zeppengeran's sponsorship of the creation of Busar. Tanang's leaders then sought to become a self-governing Odannach territory, though this was not recognised until the First Feijerpoort Convention in 1937. The Zepnish Jungbrecht Expedition in 1955, during the Gaste War, defeated Odann's local presence, and at the Congress of Kethpor Odann's possession of Tanang was rescinded. But the rulers Jungbrecht installed were quickly overthrown in the Tumnaan during the years without summers in the 1960s, and there was little will to challenge this, leaving Muantin as a whole to continue to serve as an important Odannach base and colony in recent conflicts. For its own part, Odann has formally respected the decisions at Kethpor, and Tanang is more or less an independent government, even if with considerable patronage.