Volusia

The Grand Allied Republic of Volusia is an archipelago nation in the northwestern Adelantean Sea, created amidst the remains of the former heartland of the Ruveran Empire. Diverse and disorderly, the numerous islands that make up Volusia are engaged in a perpetual struggle with one another for dominance, though their internal ties are (usually) just strong enough to unite them against outsiders. Volusians have a reputation for being ruled by their passions, but are also viewed as inveterate intriguers. They have a dynamic and vibrant culture, in which the arts and humanities are exalted and extensive commerce serves as the basis for their prosperity.

History

The islands that now make up the Volusian archipelago were once a low-lying peninsula punctuated by higher hills and volcanic peaks. In the upheaval following the eruption of Mount Elemnis and its subsequent earthquakes and tidal waves, the low regions of the peninsula were drowned beneath the sea and only the former highlands remained above water as scattered islands. These islands, once united both geographically and politically as the heartland of the Ruveran Empire, turned inward in the chaotic years following the Great Dark and developed a strong tradition of independent self-reliance. As the years passed and the young city-states matured, they began to look outward once again and to grow in wealth and influence through trade around the Adelantean.

Governance

The Grand Allied Republic of Volusia is a confederacy of city-states bound together under the governance of a Supreme Council. Both the overarching structure and the government of each Volusian city-state are republican in form, with each state ruled by a Grand Council headed up by the first-among-equals Gran Signor. Although the specifics vary from state to state, generally speaking the Council members are elected from a subset of the city-state's citizens, while the Gran Signor is in turn a member of the Council who is elected by the other members to head it. The terms of council members and Gran Signor are strictly limited, with none serving for longer than two consecutive years, and some serving only for months at a stretch. While theoretically any citizen of Volusia may be elected to the Council, in practice the Republic is an oligarchic one dominated by the oldest or wealthiest families.

Geopolitics

Volusia is perpetually on the defense against varied rivals and interlopers, both real and perceived. The most clear and present danger comes from the powerful kingdom of Merouen, their mainland neighbors to the north. The two have had a complicated relationship of rivalry and short-term alliance ever since the days of the middle Ruveran Empire, when the Meroueni began as nothing more than a confederacy of tribes occupying the wild lands of the frontier. Granted legitimacy as High Kings and defenders of the young Kalentic faith in the Ruveran Empire's waning days, the Meroueni have only continued to gain in power and influence -- and ambition, directed against their former imperial patrons.

The Republic has a still more complicated relationship with the Holy Kalentoi Empire, who consider themselves rather than the Volusians to be the inheritors of the authority and glory of ancient Ruvera. The precise relation between Republic and Empire is rather muddy. As far as the Kalentoi are concerned, Volusia is a part of the empire and falls under its command; they look on the Volusians' self-proclaimed republican status with a sort of condescending indulgence, seeing it as having little bearing on the geopolitics of reality. The Volusians, on the other hand, are very much in earnest about their republican alliance --at least when dealing with outsiders, however much they may fight over it internally -- and are perpetually on guard against various Kalentoi schemes to exert dominance over their lands.

A more recent threat to Volusian hegemony has come in the form of the increasingly enterprising Middlelands Confederacy, who have begun to send their own growing fleet of trading vessels throughout the Adelantean. As if this weren't bad enough, the ingenious Midlanders have recently begun engineering projects to expand their lowland domain by the creation of artificial islands, which encroach upon territories and waterways that the Volusians consider their own.

The interplay among Volusia and its neighbors, and the immediacy of the threat from each rival at any given time, has led to an often chaotic foreign policy of shifting alliances, diplomatic intrigue, and occasional outright (if usually short-lived) warfare.

Magic

Due to its role in the downfall of the Ruveran Empire, magic is despised by the Volusians and anyone rumored to practice even the least form of it is harshly dealt with. With the more general decline in magic in the lands of Ruvera since the Empire's fall, many common people view the claims made for magic as exaggerated at best, mere fraud and superstition at worst, and where persecution fails to materialize, mockery is common. Even the Church itself is less mystical in its practices and aesthetic in the Republic, and there is more emphasis on reason than ritual. There are, however, rumors of occult and esoteric practices that have survived the demise of the old Empire, now existing underground and practiced only in the strictest secrecy. Whether there is any truth to such rumors is debatable, and their most noticeable effect is only to fuel the average Volusian's paranoia and revulsion towards magic in any form.

Geography

Each of the larger islands of the Volusian archipelago exists as an individual city-state, the terrain rugged but favored with thin yet fertile volcanic soils.

• Fortalesi, largest and oldest of the states, with a history of political dominance in the archipelago.
• Alpazzi, a longtime pawn in Volusia's political games, whose long-suffering people have honed their skills of diplomacy and subterfuge in self-defense.
• Chiavona, famed for its art and learning, and self-proclaimed crown jewel in the diadem of the archipelago.
• Marpagna, a thriving new commercial powerhouse, eager to assert its own wealth and culture.