The Republic of Asgeirria

[Asgeirria]

I'm going to keep the formatting simple, the paragraphs short and palatable, the words intermediate, the science specious, and the grammar terrible.

Preface

Asgeirria is an island nation, and has spent the vast majority of its history isolated economically and culturally, as is the trend with island nations. Millennia of remaining incommunicado with their mainland cousins has given rise to unique cultural, physiological, and ecological adaptations to an equally unique and diverse environment. Immigrants, man, fauna, and flora alike, face an entrenched, though mostly passive, opposition. A good example of this phenomena is the invasive species Mimosa pigra, a noxious weed. While other countries have been overrun by the problematic plant, the rich mineral deposits in Asgeirrian soil have a marked phytotoxicity towards most non-native plants, many of which are considered invasive. The trace metals, while toxic to much vegetation, are conducive to the growth of grains, tubers, and berries; staples of the Asgeirrian diet.

The culture, much like the soil, is inhospitable to invaders, especially those unwilling to assimilate into the system. That is not to say that Asgeirrians do not celebrate diversity; on the contrary, diversity is a decisively prominent feature in the national culture. In fact, diversity is one of the defining features of the political environment. There are distinct cultural backgrounds within Asgeirria, each with its own de facto territory, customs, values, and predominant ethnicities. However, to understand much of how this came to be, the history of the nation, and the island itself, become necessary knowledge.

 

The Bright Continent: A prehistory

Approximately 85 million years ago (if you believe that sort of thing), the island was formed over a hot spot, and over the eons went through the growing pains of every landmass. At its largest, about 40 million years ago, due to intense glaciation and low sea levels, it was connected to the nearby continent, a period of several millennia known to Asgeirrian palaeontologists as the Great Continental Migration. At the time, the island was relatively temperate, with plenty of vegetation on land and algae around the bloated coasts. Being on a hot spot had the advantage of giving it a sort of climate bubble, harboring species that, in other places, had been extinct for millions of years. However, the area was volcanically active, and a series of volcanic eruptions over the millennia following the Great Migration left the northern part of the island stripped of nearly all life. The massive, verdant forests once inhabiting this area were cooked and then buried until billion tonnes of volcanic ash. In the millennia that followed, the table holding in a lake in what is now Asgeirria's desert regions sank, draining the huge body of water into an ocean already rising from melting glaciers. By 40,000BC, when the first hominids attempted to migrate to the island, there were still large reptiles roaming the majority of the island, though at this time they were in the process of going extinct, and large herbivores were all but extinct. The substantial amount of large land predators stymied the surge of early human migrators until as late as 2000BC in some regions. 

 

The First Kingdom

Around 4000BC, the first wars were seen on the recently isolated microcontinent, and by 2000BC the inhabited eastern lowlands were dominated by three distinct peoples. In the north, the ancestors of the Huginn and Muninn ruled the northern badlands and the capitol area. From southern foothills, the ancestors of House Zhurong ruled all the way up to the desert overlooked by Tui Toafa. Ruling the desert and jungle, there was a third kingdom, the name and people of which have been long forgotten. After decades of skirmishes and border wars, the Northmen launched a savage campaign of destruction against the Middle Kingdom, reducing the human population in the east by as much as 40 percent. With the other two kingdoms weakened, the previously disadvantaged Southern kingdom launched a surprise attack on the warring states, virtually exterminating the Middle Kingdom in the process. The war lasted from around the 17th century BC to the 12th century BC, when the south finally won by attrition through centuries of higher birthrates due to a warmer, more fertile climate. From the 12th century to the 8th century was known as the Dark Ages to the Asgeirrians, due to the constant rebellions, rampant disease, and general decline. The First Kingdom slowly spiralled into chaos, to a point where brigands roamed freely and city-states fell one by one to bandits. It was a dark time in history.

 

Asgeirr

By 350BC, what few city-states that were left had devolved into little more than raider bases, pillaging neighboring towns and villages for profit. It was such an issue that a coalition of villagers, led by Cade Dunwell, banded together to 'drain the swamp', so to speak. The movement gained momentum, and the group grew from a few dozen disgruntled villagers to nearly two thousand battle-hardened veterans. They successfully cleared the capitol regions of bandits, burning raider city-states to the ground in an ironic twist of fate. In the peace following the purge, Cade ordered that every family in his band be given a plot of land to homestead, bound together as allies against future invasions. This was the founding of the 500, the original houses. These houses, under Dunwell, eventually came together as a kingdom, and so Asgeirria was born. House Dunwell expanded, reformed, organized, and militarized Asgeirria until the Kingdom was passed to house Tuireann bloodlessly through popular succession in 275BC. For the next 275 years, Asgeirria conquered the northlands, annexing the northern island, and expanding south far enough to conquer what was left of the First Kingdom by 0BC, marking the beginning of a period known as the Concordant Dawn.