So, I’ve been listening to a lot of history podcasts lately owing to my lack of actual ‘sit down and do stuff’ time of late, and it got me thinking: How did the world we have present in Arcanis and its cultural practices evolve? How are these different from the real life equivalents of them of which Henry (likely) based some of these practices on? These are the questions which vex me as I write this article in 5 minute segments over the last two days, and I thought I’d bring up a few thoughts I had on these.
First of all, we all know that the current Arcanis setting takes place in the “World of Shattered Empires,” and the general understanding about this is that that Empire refers to the Coryani Empire. As we continue in this universe, I’ve come to the conclusion that—while not necessarily incorrect—that this may not be what the true meaning of this sentence. While the Coryani Empire has shattered somewhat into Altheria, Canceri, Milandir, etc. it still exists. To me, this suggests that the term Fallen Empires would be more appropriate. Where the term “Shattered Empires” is more appropriate, however, is reference to the ‘big three’ of the Empire of Yahssremore, the Eloran Empire, and the First Imperium of Man. For simplicity’s sake, I’m only going to talk about the First Imperium and the successor states of that when I discuss how some of these cultural practices have evolved. After all, I do not feel entirely qualified (nor have enough data) to ponder the thinking of immortal creatures with vampire teeth or human-sized velociraptors.
When the First Imperium of Man fell, we know that ruled an area that encompassed all the areas we basically know about on the map. From the Sea of Yarris in the east to the Dalish Islands in the west (likely), from the lands that are now Khitan (and possibly the former Auxunite lands of the Fiendish Expanse) to the north to at least Dar Zhan Vor in the south (possibly as far as the Western Lands and beyond). When this empire fell, humanity suffered a dark age that lasted for a full 1770 years (at least, as far as the Coryani are concerned). During this time a number of successor states hacked off chunks of this former landmass, with it seems that the Valinor known as the Sleeping Emperor hacking off the largest chunk for itself and its followers in the north-west of the continent. For almost 3000 years to follow, the empires form and fall, all while the languages of man split from Altharen and the cultures of humanity move away from one another.
One of these cultures is that which took hold in Milandesia sometime in the 1300 years or so between the fall of the Imperium and the rise of the Milandesian League (a league of city states which occupy most of modern Milandir and Almeric). During this time the Milandesians developed their culture which to our eyes looks like a more idealized version of the medieval European feudalism which took hold in our world in the thousand or so years following the fall of Rome. As that Empire (at least its western half) also could be said to have shattered, this seems like an interesting point to begin comparing.
I’ve discussed the Milandesian Pact of Oaths before in a previous article, so I won’t go too much into it. Effectively, it is a complex network of oaths made between a lord and their vassals for protection, taxation, and service where both have responsibilities to the other. This is not altogether different than our own world and what sprang up following the fall of the Western Roman Empire. In the case of Rome, when it split into its Western and Eastern halves, for a number of reasons the Western Empire started to lose its ability to defend itself. In order to help protect its territory—mostly from German ‘barbarian’ tribes—the Roman leaders made deals with foreign groups of mostly German tribes for protection. Basically, the Romans would sign a contract where a German tribe (like the Vandals, the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Franks, etc) would take over the administration and protection of a section of the Western Empire and rule in the name of the Roman Emperor. Alas, while many of these Germans did idolize many aspects of Roman culture, they were not Roman themselves and this dividing of the Empire effectively killed it by vivisection as the various German groups started looking out for their own interests rather than remain vassals to the Romans. While this form of vassalage didn’t work out for the Romans, it did set the stage for other ‘contracts’ to be set among the Germans for the protection and governorship of areas, leading to landed nobles who rule their own lands in the name of a higher king, all the way down to the serfs who served them.
Milandesia has many similarities to the above, and many glaring omissions and differences. First and most obvious, in the world of Arcanis most Milandesians are represented by Germanic peoples with a notable inclusion of some Uralic in the form of the people of Eastmarch which is a direct connection between that world and our own. We also know that in Milandir their Pact of Oaths formed to ward off warlords and threats to their lands from an increasingly dangerous world (the fall of the Roman army and the stability it created in our world, and the lack of a unified Imperium in Arcanis). However, there are many differences between the Milandesians of Arcanis and the Germans of our world. Historically, dating back to the 100 BC period or so, the Germans have been known as a warlike people. This is not meant to be a knock against them, but the Germans until even the last century have been characterized by various clans of their people fighting with their neighbours, sometimes as allies of other powers and sometimes not. The Germans—even as late as the modern times—have also been known to be a particularly brutal people when they need to be, with a pronounced flair for coming down harder than they need to on a problem to provide example to those so others won’t do it again. This doesn’t mean they cannot be a philosophical people, but their cultural brutality coloured everything about how Europe navigated their Dark Ages, including being a major influence on the militarization of Christianity leading up to the Crusades.
The Milandesians, on the other hand, are almost disgustingly saccharine in how they deal with their neighbours. While they can be utter demons to their enemies and have a notable martial tradition, there are almost no examples I can think of in Arcanis canon linking them to the Germans of our world in terms of fundamental psychology. They are a defensive people rather than an offensive, with even their invasions being brought about in response to some provocation from their neighbours. While there may have once been fighting between their nobles (similar to what is happening in Almeric in the current storyline), the various ruling families of Milandir are oddly united unlike the Germans in our world (such as the Franks), with very little battle between, say, the Sylvanian ‘clan’ against the Trailian ‘clan’ of Milandesians. Also, while the Germans formed an almost mercenary ‘ruling class’ over former Roman people (eventually merging into our current European peoples of Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France), we have no evidence to suggest that a foreign power came in to rule parts of Milandir as mercenary vassal-lords, but instead that the mutual sets of alliances and feudal responsibilities seemed to materialize out of a rather homogeneous population.
By the same token, we also see a similar trend in the formation of the Coryani Empire some 1770 years after the fall of the First Imperium. As is obvious to I think everyone, Coryan is modelled heavily on the Roman Empire of our world, but as I have said in a previous article, its origin and modus operandi seem to be very different from the Empire, and for much the same reason the Milandesians differ from the Germans of our world. In our world, Rome started as a city state with a king, who eventually overthrew their kings and created an elabourate oligarchy to fill their place. They made war with their neighbours, creating a network of alliances and tributaries in Italy until they found themselves in a (series of) war(s) with another city-state named Carthage. The three generations of conflict with this other power shot Rome into the ‘world stage,’ as they eventually grew in power to become the dominant power in the entire Mediterranean world. As they became more powerful, they made tributaries (and eventually provinces) of all their neighbouring kingdoms in the region in pursuit of more power and wealth, eventually leading them away from their Republican heritage to what is known as the Roman Empire. During this time, Rome’s formation of the empire was characterized by the increased greed of its people for the wealth brought to them from their campaigns and conquests, which many attribute to the erosion of their unity, leading to civil wars which paved the way for Ocativan/Augustus to be proclaimed Emperor.
This genesis (while criminally circumscript) is vastly different to what lead to the formation of the Coryani Empire. Like Rome, the Coryani Empire began it’s life as a small city state in an almost pastoral area of the world. Originally the First Imperium town of Midea Tridueae, following the fall of the Imperium it became home to the last members of the val’Assante’ family who were, next to the Emman, the most hated of the val’Virdans of the Theocracy of the Cleansing Flame. Over almost 2000 years before the foundation of their Empire, they were but one of a number of city states eking out an existence among the ruins of their more fabulous forebearers. There are references of conflicts between these city states, but unlike Rome there is no textual evidence to support that the Coryani created any elabourate network of alliances to suggest they were a ‘power on the rise’, which was the case of Rome before the Punic Wars. However, like Rome, it was a conflict which catapulted them to stardom on the world stage, but instead of Phoenicians on the other side, it was demons.
When the Time of Terror begun, it appears that Coryan was the only city state in their region to actually withstand the onslaught of the Infernals, thanks to the timely arrival of the person history refers to as the First Emperor of Coryan. With their city saved and secured, they begun to cleanse the world around them of the Infernal invaders, in doing so bringing in their neighbours as allies through liberation. While it has been said that Rome became an empire in its own defence (suggesting that the wars it fought were out of necessity rather than blunt conquest), this phrase is perfect for how Coryan came to power. During this time they brought the lands of Illonia, Balantica, and Milandesia into their sphere of influence as allies and friends, the Altherans were brought in through negotiation, and the Cancerese were brought in through somewhat grudging liberation (note: I am not clear how the southern provinces, as well as Cafela, were brought in, though likely through similar means). While Rome warred with its neighbours, making tributaries first of these people before absorbing them into their Empire, there are only two cases that I can think of where Coryan displayed naked force to bring people into their empire. The first was the ‘Deliverance of Abessios’-- which Coryani historians put blame on the Myrantians for starting much as the Romans blame Carthage for the Punic Wars—while the second is the expansion into the Western Lands and the conquest of lands such as Eppion. The Empire also expanded into the Hinterlands and the Western Marches against the wishes of the people who lived there, but there is not much information to detail these conflicts.
Like the Milandesians, the Coryani seem far more pacifistic than their Roman equivalents in our world, which massively colours their world views. While all these groups have martial traditions, the Germans and the Romans both favoured the offense in their wars with their neighbours, while both the Milandesians and Coryani seem to be almost defensive through much of their history. While the Germans and the Romans forced themselves (to one extent or another) on their culture before eventually merging their own cultures with those of their conquests, the Milandesians and Coryani created confederations with their neighbours and (seemingly) actively sought out compromise with their component bits as co-equals.
Looking at history from the Assyrians to the Chinese Dynasties to Rome to British Empire, I can think of almost no cultures in which the formation of their own nations is done with such peacefulness. The few I could rationalize had one thing in common by my view: they all originate from a known cultural source within written and sometimes living memory. The best example of this is the United States of America, which was formed of 13 English colonies with almost identical cultures and identities despite being spread over such a large area. Even the culturally similar Canadians had troubles forming their nation, due in a large part to the differences between the English and French components of what became that country. This, of course, leads me back to the First Imperium.
While people in our world are known to have originated from a common people, our singular origins are lost even to our modern archaeology. Back in the days before widespread writing and histories, this common origin would have been even less well known or believed by the peoples of our world. While all Indo-Europeans in the distant past, the Celts, Italics, Germanics, and Greeks didn’t view themselves as a common people. In all theses cases, these groups developed in near isolation for centuries (if not millennia) before they came back in contact with their sibling cultures, with all common history lost. To a Roman, the Germans were an alien culture. To the Europeans, the Mongols were an alien culture. To the Native Americans, the people of Eurasia and Africa were an alien culture. They shared none of the same gods, they appeared to be different physically, and their ways of life had developed in far different ways.
This wasn’t so for the people of Onara. While the common folk likely didn’t know details, they all grew up in the shadow of the grandness of First Imperium (or the Myrantian Empire, in the case of the Abessian Myrantians). The people—or at least enough of the people—knew that all mankind was once one people, which meant that when the Milandesians came across the Coryani they were more alike than not. Because of the commonalities in heritage, there was less of a fight for dominance between these groups, which meant that their integration was able to happen more easily. After all, they all shared the Pantheon of Man, they all shared languages which were recognizably based on Altharen (with some even still speaking that ancient unifying tongue of man in all cultures), and for the most part they all came from a common genetic stock. While some (like the Cancerese) may have diverged culturally due to the influence of alien powers (like Infernals), the integration of these peoples was done between those who may have had grudges, but all recognized as being scions of the Imperium! Hell, from my reason the only reason the Cancerese were viewed as being such pariah’s during the foundation of the Coryani Empire was because so many of their people actively sided with the Infernals during the Time of Terror, though the history of conflict between the Milandesian League and the Nerothians of Canceri in particular did also leave a fair amount of bad-blood to be sure.
In fact, the few instances of actual aggressive combat between these nations and other humans all seem to occur when the commonalities became less clear. For example, for most of its history the only part of Coryan which truly felt like a conquered people (as opposed to an oppressed people like the Cancerese) were the Myrantians, a group of people who claim heritage (if not genetic lineage) from the ancient Myrantian Empire which fought the First Imperium during those halcyon days. They grew up in a culture with fewer commonalities than the scions of the First Imperium, and when the Coryani Empire clashed with these ‘alien’ people (though they had to have been well known to the people of Onara) they were the ones who were conquered and subjugated. The same is true when the Coryani expanded into the Western Lands and came across the Undir and the Kio, where the cultures of those distinct people were subjugated in comparison to those of Milandir and Canceri. You even saw more prominent antagonism between those of the Known Lands of Onara and those scions of the First Imperium who had developed far away from the Known Lands, such as the Khitani Empire, which lead to two large-scale wars between those two powers. Even the Altherans—who apparently came from a far-away land by flying city before crashing in modern Altheria—had to negotiate their entrance into the Empire rather than risk being conquered like the Abessians were (their knowledge of Blast Powder giving them a valuable bargaining chip for peaceful entrance into the empire as a co-equal, like the Milandesians).
Another possible source of continuity is the existence of the Vals. Throughout the rise and fall of the First Imperium, the Vals were the perpetual noble-class. During the Shadowed Age that followed the fall, they continued to be the perpetual noble-class, with few (known) major empires not having Vals of one family or another among its most prominent leadership. These people were as much relics of the First Imperium (and the Gods) as the ruins which dotted their landscape (especially in the Blessed Lands), and I do not believe these Val families ever let their heritage or the existence of the other families out of their collective knowledge. This means that when the val’Assante’ came across a val’Tensen of what is now Almeric, they were not an alien tribe, but recognizably like them and both scions of the gods. They may vie for power between themselves, but they both recognize each other as kin.
Anyway, I think I’ll wrap up my musings here for now. There are many other avenues of the origin of cultural values that I can go into, but most of them rely far more heavily on the mystical and magical nature of the world than the Coryani and the Milandesians do (the Infernals of Canceri, the steampunk-ness of Altheria, etc), or simply are not known within canon to any great extent (like the Khitani). If we learn more about the Khitani, I can go into how their culture differs from their real world equivalent of China, but it looks like it will be many years before we get a definitive enough history of that land to even begin to see how it is formed.
_________________ Cody Bergman Legends of Arcanis Campaign Staff Initial Author Contact/Adventure Vetting
Haakon Marcus val'Virdan, Divine Holy Judge of Nier Ruma val'Vasik, Martial Crusader and Master of the Spear Jorma Osterman, Arcane Coryani Battlemage
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