Tisceron

Tisceron (Altun: Taşkár), officially the High Lamneary of Tisceron (Taşkar Başlamenlighi) is a Sirian Lamneary-state in northern Lestria, bordering on Neyet, Abranoussa, Gekit and Busar. The Lamneant Qogayi dynasty is one of the oldest surviving royal dynasties in the world, having been established in the fifth century. The Lamneant himself plays a relatively small role in the everyday politics of the country, the running of which has been largely delegated to the Karamagali since the 16th century. With Qammam, Tisceron is one of two sovereign High Lamnearies subscribing to the Sophoran Compact of Siriash.

High Lamneary of Tisceron Ταϸκάρ Βαϸλάμένλίγχι Taşkar Başlamenlighi (Altunic)
Flag
Tisceron within Northern Lestria
Capital and largest city	Qet
Official languages	Altun
Religion	Siriash
• Compact	Sophoran
Government	Sirian hierocratic monarchy
• High Lamneant	Neveneve VII
• Karamagali	Başgun Aghayaz
Area
• Total	404,459 km2 (156,162 sq mi)
Population
• Estimate	36,800,000
• Density	91/km2 (235.7/sq mi)

Etymology

'Tisceron' is derived from Sagan Taşkar, a compound of taş 'stone' (daş in modern Altun), and kar, 'arm' (preserved in some Altun dialects as gari). This name is derived from Sagan mythology, in which one of sky-god Akta's many appendages was supposed to have fallen into the area described by the name, and has been used for a considerable length of time, with the earliest known deciphered Sagan inscriptions using it as a toponym dating to the 18th century BCE. The shift of the region described eastwards occurred in the 1st millennium BCE after the tumultous decline of the Sagans.

History

Ancient history

By the 28th century BCE the western parts of modern Tisceron had firmly entered the core of the Sagan civilisation's sphere of influence, and by the 23rd states in its eastern reaches have been accepted into the circle of Sagan culture as well. The conquests of the kingdom of Gokyuldus played an important role in establishing Saganic culture over much of coastal Tisceron. By the 2nd millennium BCE the area of modern Tisceron was divided between 4 bayraks, the largest and most consistently powerful of which was Yuldargh in the west. The Karabugha Empire, which unified the Sagan sphere, conquered Tisceron in the 13th century BCE, and maintained loose rule over the region until the late 12th century. Social conflicts sent Sagan culture into a decline, and the Hilima Eruption produced a total collapse in the region.

A succession of unremarkable post-Sagan kingdoms ruled the region until conquest by the highlander confederacies known as the Zhaliqs in the 2nd century CE. New states established by the Zhaliqs over northwestern Lestria attempted to create centralized, universal empires drawing on Sagan symbolism, producing a period of political conflict with local rulers that by the Aqbugha period (371–580) had thwarted this project, and left Tisceron in the hands of kingdoms pledging nominal subservience to a ritual authority based to the west that had been an abortive attempt to create an imperial cult.

Foundation of the lamneary

The roots of the present High Lamneary of Tisceron date back to the early third century CE, as Siriash began to spread into the present-day country. Forced out of Palthia by the various displacements of population known today as the Second Great Migrations, a slow trickle of Sirians into the Lestrian north-east had begun in the middle to late first century; by the later second century they had become an established presence there – strong enough that local rulers had to take some cognisance of them – as well as spreading along the Median coast and into several of its islands. The Lamneary of Antheula, a prominent trading city on the central north coast, is usually thought to have been established in 218 CE (this being the earliest date for its existence that can be independently corroborated). However, it – and, in large part, its counterparts elsewhere in Lestria – existed very much on the sufferance of local rulers in its earliest years; it had no recognised legal status and such property as it owned was properly that of individuals rather than the Lamneary as a whole.

The position began to change during the fourth century as Siriash became increasingly accepted at all levels of society (pushing aside the indigenous faiths of the region in the process); by perhaps as early as 450 CE the Lamneary – recognised de facto, if not necessarily de jure – had become one of the largest landowners in Antheula and its surrounding countryside, and its high lamneant had acquired a significant voice in the secular affairs of the region. The tipping point was reached in 481, in which year the Lamneary, in its secular capacity as titular landholder, contributed sizeable numbers to an army raised by Cem, the ruler of Kianlak, the largest recognised state in the region, to invade the hill-country Deghel tribesmen in the northern Tloule mountains; in recognition of this action the Lamneary was granted substantial independence, subject to its recognition of Cem as its secular overlord. The then-incumbent High Lamneant Sulin Qogayi is usually regarded as the first ruler of the lamneary-state of Tisceron.

Temple and state

Although Cem’s decision was, to some extent, a matter of political expediency, it would cause severe problems for both him and his successors over the next three centuries. With substantial popular support behind the High Lamneary, its leaders used their moral authority as a cudgel to become an increasingly assertive presence in secular political affairs across the north-western coast of Lestria – to the extent that, while still nominally subservient to Kianlak, the High Lamneary functionally controlled the country by the beginning of the eighth century.

This unusual state of affairs was finally challenged by Sarig in 735; the monarch had been notorious for a profligate lifestyle at the expense of his subjects’ well-being, and with his court heavily in debt to the High Lamneary, he was ordered by temple procurators to surrender a prized royal estate at Hişimre, south-west of the Kianlakli capital at Khanbur, as partial settlement. Already chafing under lamnearic dominance, Sarig – who had been born on the estate and regarded it as his true home – refused to comply. Instead, raising a fighting force from loyalists and contracting with mercenaries from the Karamagha plains country in the south-west – to whom he promised generous recompense from the High Lamneary’s coffers once he had seized them – he began the War of the Bower in late 735. However, the war was a dismal failure; his own armies were poorly equipped and trained, and his mercenary allies abandoned his cause in Ediface 736 when it became clear that Sarig could not make good on his promises. The king was taken prisoner in his own palace by the mercenaries and was formally expelled from the Sirian communion; the High Lamneant came to an acceptable financial settlement with the sell-swords, some of whom entered lamnearic service, as he ousted Sarig from his throne and assumed the role of secular ruler to go alongside his religious duties.

The rise of the lamneary

The significance of the High Lamneary of Tisceron would grow further as the result of events in Siriash’s Messenian heartland. The Secote invasion in the late eighth century struck the institutions of Messenian Siriash like a meteor; the original Coseptran Compact was broken up (amidst a torrent of bloodshed as the Secotes razed the city of Coseptra), and the faith itself was driven underground in its homeland. Having defeated an incursion from Arsil in Kerkes in the 800s, the lamneary under Bariş I Qogayi undertook a major reform program to securely establish its authority, and drawing on its local credentials as a simultaneous wielder of religious and temporal power, proclaimed itself as a new vanguard of Siriash in light of the circumstances affecting the faith at large.

Armed with this new authority, Tisceron began a slow, but steady expansion of its territories, which primarily took place through the subscription of smaller lamnearies to Tisceronite patronage, steadily amounting to incorporation into its political system. The High Lamneary’s rule – actual or through tributary territories – stretched well into the continental interior of Lestria during the ninth century, and extended into several of the Median islands, reaching as far as the principality of Aşuri by as early as 815; there was considerable particular interest in securing influence in the Median due to the importance of its trade routes, and Tisceron was much more disposed to use direct force in conquering the islands for itself, as seen in Yarin. This expansive system came to be known as the 'Tisceronite empire', the flexibility of religious institutions as an arm of which doing much to ensure its relative longevity and stability.

The expansion of Siur and Kerkean influence in the Medius Sea during the 14th and early fifteenth centuries was a continuing concern for the High Lamneary. The Siur's increasing presence in the Median islands, and their unwillingness to tolerate the strictures of Sirian rule, undermined Tisceronite authority, and eventually they seized Mirrey and purchased northern Yarin (as Skógarey), delivering major blows to Tisceronite power in the Median. On land the conflicts with the Kerkeans to the west drew the Lamneary into financial problems, which had forced the sale of Yarin. This “fire-sale” was the last humiliation for a lamnearic council which had grown tired of High Lamneant Denge’s financial mismanagement and autocratic attitudes; finally goaded to action, in 1510 they forced him to give up much administrative power to the Karamagali in the Capitulation of Qet.

Karamagalilik

The restructured government under the Karamagalilik was not the panacea to Tisceron’s woes that might have been hoped, and the 16th century would be marked by further centrifugation of power. Pirate-cities in Kerkes continued to erode the authority Qet could impose even on the Lestrian mainland, and many Tisceronites themselves took up privateering, defections from the ill-insured navy eventually forcing Karamagali Erun Halatlarin to co-opt pirates by offering letters of marque in 1549. Messenian powers, seeking to secure trade routes to Ascesia, took drastic action against Median piracy, and years of undeclared naval war struck the death-blow to the Tisceronite maritime empire, neutering its naval capabilities and weakening its influence enough for the remainder of Yarin to revolt in the early 17th century. By this time a more thoroughgoing restructuring of the navy under the reforming Karamagali Yalniz Çam rooted out the last of the privateers, and brought it onto a more professional and less mercenary footing.

Tensions between the High Lamneary of Tisceron and the leadership of the Coseptran Compact, to which it was still officially subordinated, increased steadily over the later 16th century. The sweep of Sophoran localism had evaded Tisceron for centuries as the lamneary-empire sought to maintain a degree of legitimacy and continuity for its own projects, but now to the Tisceronites, the Tepharion appeared dangerously subservient to the new secular powers in the ascendant Palthic Empire. With a series of short-term fixes and nominal agreements, the relationship lurched onward more or less intact until the autumn of 1606, when Holy Coseptra was descended upon by the Seranian fever pandemic which was sweeping over southern Messenia.

High Lamneant Göker IV Qogayi, who had not set foot in Coseptra since 1600, proclaimed the outbreak as a judgement upon the Tepharion and the Compact more widely; how much of this was true belief and how much political opportunism is not clear even today, but the people of Tisceron were encouraged to support the position given that Seranian fever had made only scant inroads into Lestria beyond the coastal regions between the Bay of Ambon and the Straits of Korath. Declaring that he “could no longer consent to be bound by those now blighted by the festering mass of their transgressions”, Göker severed the High Lamneary’s ties with the Coseptran Compact; Tisceron remained officially unaffiliated until 1609, when Göker declared the Lamneary’s affiliation to the Sophoran Compact after exchanges of correspondence with faithly and secular officials in other Sophoran lamnearies and polities over some eighteen months previously. The more diffuse and decentralised organisation of the Sophoran Compact – as well as its largely non-Messenian membership – was far more conducive an environment for Göker, a man notorious for his unwillingness to take direction from others; and for the Sophorans Tisceron’s shift in allegiance dramatically expanded the global reach of a body which had been largely confined to Petty Lestria and the north-east of Greater Lestria since coming into being in the late 13th century.

Contemporary history

With the Pacification of Neyet in the 1860s Zeppengeran had established a secure foothold in northern Lestria. With the construction of new roads and railways, exploitation of natural resources, and increased trade, Tisceron would quickly enter the Zepnish and Siursk economic spheres of influence, and windfalls from these partnerships emboldened Karamagali Teymur Çelikoghlu (r. 1861–90) to pursue expansion and re-assertion of the government, as well as a comprehensive modernisation program. His lieutenant and successor Bariş Konurbaliqli (r. 1890–1922), a hallegeant who was able to study at the first deigmations in Zeppengeran and learn from the deictics, proved to be even more ambitious, increasing investments into industry, establishing deigmations in Tisceron, cultivating a base of support among the cities, and establishing an authoritarian government. The next Karamagali Arslan Nevaraninkoerpulu supported the growth of an aphypnist movement, inspired by developments in Busar, to cement his power, but unsatisfied with his despotism these intellectuals and movements began to oppose his rule and seek direct revival of the Lamneant's authority. Arslan leveraged the Long War to his advantage, demonstrating his regime's usefulness to Zeppengeran through supporting the latter's logistics complex, but also seeking closer ties with Siursk to counterbalance Zepnish unease with his own assertive policies. Discontent with the government grew considerably however, and soon after his death in 1960 aphypnists and Houses that had chafed under Arslan overthrew his unprepared successor in 1965.

Far from establishing a new, enlightened government, the revolution was immediately succeeded by factional struggles between aphypnist orduyabenzers with different proposals and backgrounds, and the Houses that associated with them. The central government in Qet was unable to command the loyalty of powerful groups in other parts of the country, not to mention being frequently overthrown or overturned in extended episodes of intrigue. The situation was tolerated and even encouraged by the Zepnish and the Siursk, who were able to more effectively secure spheres of influece in the country through co-opting Houses and other regional groups. The violence continued until the late 1980s, when a faction of Sigislunist devolutionists in the aphypnist movement, the Companions' Party, secured both agreement of local interests and Great Power backing in formalising the division of power by reforms recognising and promoting the Houses, modelled on Settecia and other examples, ultimately ostensibly to the effect of reviving the Lamneary's power. The highly popular lamneant-regnant Daghli III Qogayi was instrumental in the resolution, and in 1997 the secession of a Sophoran lamneary from Neyet into Tisceron was hailed as a great victory for the Lamneary, aphypnism, and the righteous realignment of the country as a whole.

Government and politics

The Shrine of Nakasis, the Grand Shrine of the Lamneary of Tisceron.

As a Lamneary, Tisceron is nominally ruled under the will of the Lamneant of Tisceron, who not only spiritually oversees the functioning of the country's Sirian Houses but is also responsible for the implementation of laws and the dispensation of land, money, and privileges. The office of the Lamneant is passed through inheritance. In practice, however, much of the government of Tisceron is delegated to the Karamagali, the Lamneant's chief advisor, military adjutant, and governor of the capital city, Qet. Some of the functions of government are under the direct command of the Karamagali, notably the armed forces and the judicial apparatus, but in most cases the Karamagali is required by tradition to act through representatives of the Lamneant, or in some cases the Lamneant himself.

The size of Tisceron and the structure of its government assign considerable power to the Houses, extended familial groupings that are far broader than their Messenian counterparts, and which can exercise significant influence on the government through various confederations and alliances. The Lamneary has awarded many of the more notable Houses effective control over large regions of the country, including the right of taxation and the furnishing of local security. This devolution of power has intensified over the past century under the influence of the Great Powers, primarily Zeppengeran and Siurskeyti, who have captured local interests in strategic parts of the country and imposed a series of treaties and accords which grant these powers various economic, political, and territorial rights.

The increasing decentralisation of power away from the central offices commanded by the Karamagali has enabled a revival of the authority of the Lamneant. Aside from religious officers and idealist orduyabenzers who are loyal to the Lamneant as such, the Lamneant is able to call on the support of particular Houses (and indirectly, local orduyabenzers) to undermine the authority of the Karamagali; these forces are known as the Companions' Party, forming a distinct group of elites sharing common interests. In recent decades, this rebalancing has led the government to fall into effective paralysis in periods of dispute over policy, given the absence of any political organ that can arbitrate a dispute between the various arms of government.