I had never visited them before, but the region south of the Azueda Alliance consisted of three countries. Dolbogarde was situated in the center of the three. To the east was Siglair, and to its west was Radlania. There was also one small island nation off the southern coast, but that wasn’t important for now.
Dolbogarde, Siglair, and Radlania weren’t especially large countries, but they were very distinct from each other. As I had mentioned before, Dolbogarde was deeply involved in trade with the East. Though not to the same scale as Vilestorika, it still had a powerful influence on the circulation of goods through the nations around it.
Siglair sat on the edge of the Man-Eating Swamp, and so boasted a powerful military to combat the monsters emerging from it. In that way, it was quite similar to its northern neighbors, Bardoth and Ortenon. That aside, it was also famous for the production of marble. Considered to be a gift from the harvest god, marble was treated with special reverence by the church, so exporting the stone had become a significant part of Siglair’s economy. Naturally, it also produced craftsmen who excelled in architecture and sculpting.
The largest consumer of the marble they produced was the last of the three, Radlania. It was the smallest of these three nations, but also the most influential, as it housed the main headquarters of the religious organization devoted to the god of the harvest worshipped across the entire central region of the continent. Radlania wasn’t ruled by royalty or nobility, but by priests and a pope. The country’s management was funded by the donations of believers, so—at least on the surface—it didn’t levy any taxes on its people. It was a rather hard system for me to wrap my head around.
I disembarked in Dolbogarde, as it seemed like the best place for me to begin my observation of the new state of the center of the continent. Being a logistical center made it not only a central point for goods to gather but also for people, and those people brought information with them.
In that case, you might argue that a stronger economic power like Vilestorika would have served me better...but it seemed Vilestorika was currently embroiled in war, meaning it would be hard to gain any information from an objective point of view. So as the second largest trade nation in the region, Dolbogarde was best suited as a vantage point from which to view the rest of the area.
The war in question had been brought about by Zieden, the nation formed by the merger of Zaints and Jidael. The two smaller nations had a long history of conflict with Ludoria and the Azueda Alliance, so the new country born from their merger had been regarded with considerable caution by its neighbors. When I left the center of the continent, I vaguely remembered Ludoria had been in the process of building fortresses to reinforce its borders, while the Alliance had been bolstering its military.
The reason Zaints and Jidael gave for their merger was to better aid in defense against the raids coming from their northern neighbor, Darottei. Anyone would have guessed that Zieden would have turned its sights on them, or one of their other two old foes. But for some reason, it had instead marched its armies south, into the Duchy of Kirkoim.
Kirkoim had been on friendly terms with all nations in the center of the continent, maintaining a neutrality that helped to stabilize relationships throughout the region. Naturally, that included Zaints and Jidael, so the invasion had been a shock to everyone, catching the Duchy entirely unprepared. At the same time, Darottei began a large-scale invasion of the Alliance, leading to the fall of North Zaile, the northern wall protecting the rest of the Alliance.
There must have been some sort of secret pact between Zieden and Darottei, as the latter’s actions prevented the Alliance from intervening in the war between the former and Kirkoim. At the same time, Ludoria had mired themselves down, waiting in their fortresses for aggression aimed at them, and so were unable to move swiftly in response.
In almost no time at all, a full half of Kirkoim had fallen to Zieden’s advance. With half of their territory lost, Kirkoim turned to Vilestorika for aid. The Republic had made an obvious show of trying to decouple territorial strength with national power, as shown by their treatment of Gaiatica, the remains of what had once been the nation of Paulogia.
At this rate, Kirkoim would have been entirely overrun by Zieden, with Vilestorika next in line. For the sake of their own survival, Kirkoim submitted itself to becoming a vassal state of Vilestorika in exchange for their protection. In simple terms, the situation had become a stare down between the newly formed Zieden and Vilestorika with its two vassal states.
Caught between these two warring sides, Ludoria couldn’t remain silent. Making enemies of both would isolate them, leading to an inevitable slow decline. At the same time, voices within the Azueda Alliance were starting to call for a reformation of the Azueda Empire in order to put down the aggression from Darottei. In effect, that would mean the dissolution of the Alliance’s many city-states to form a single, larger nation.
As the religious center of the region, Radlania earnestly called for an end to the conflict, but their efforts had yet to bear fruit. Or, perhaps, the existence of voices calling for peace was what led to the conflict escalating to this point in the first place.
That was how the familiar and yet now foreign center of the continent had turned out in my absence.