Dominion of Alvraan

Alvraan is a takma city, and accompanying city-state, in the middle Sahvarr Valley, in the midst of the Cerulean Tangle. Alvraan is a local power, though not regionally important, and its matriarchs command a certain amount of respect as self-designated heirs of the rulers of the empire.

The city of Alvraan lies in the lower eastern reaches of the Nentir Highlands - at about 10°S, 3° W. The local terrain is relatively dramatic, shading from gorge-cut plateaus in the west, through to tepuis and chaotic hills, opening onto flat river valleys in the east as it drops toward the main course of the Sahvarr. The climate is tropical and relatively moist, though on average somewhat drier than the western slopes of the Highlands; nonetheless there are plenty of streams and tributaries crossing the landscape, many of which swell up during the unpredictable rains near sunrise.

The city is only a short distance south of the Shedir, a river and tributary of the Sahvarr whose highest navigable point is located close by. Alvraan has therefore become a major junction for trading routes leading into and out of the Highlands, a fact that has granted it considerable prosperity, and its matriarchs have not been shy about using this economic clout - and the military power it affords them - to expand the area of their rule, which now extends over several hundred square kilometers, much of it along the Shedir. Alvraan is the only major city in the domain, but there are one or two smaller towns further downstream and a scattering of villages and estates throughout.

The city itself is built around, and in, a tepui rising from the midst of the jungle. The warrens within the tepui are partly natural caves and partly artificial tunnels, and are the haunt of Alvraan's aristocracy and the seat of its government. Construction atop the tepui is forbidden, except for military installations; there are a number of watchtowers and battlements, and a set of barracks for the palace guard, but the rest of the tepui's surface functions essentially as a sort of private park or hunting preserve.

The main portion of the tepui to be inhabited is the easternmost spur, around which the aboveground portion of the city curves. The city's nearest farms tend to occur around the southern edge of the tepui, where there are more streams flowing down from it, but much of the residential area lies off the eastern end. Richer neighborhoods, and more of the city's markets, appear the further north one goes, toward the river and the road that leads toward the port on the river; a lake lies in between the richer and poorer neighborhoods.

Like many of the post-Imperial states, Alvraan is a feudal monarchy. Rulership is ultimately invested in a Matriarch, to whom lesser landowners owe fealty. While there are two or three families of a stature high enough to have small hierarchies of vassals beneath them - and their own small militaries - the previous Matriarch, Ankorineth, had made a point of ensuring that as Alvraan's territory expanded, the bulk of new vassals came under her direct overlordship, and had reason to be kindly disposed toward her. Therefore, while the other magnates have their schemes, they are generally not in a position to break away from or usurp the rule of the Matriarchs - yet.

That said, a ruling matriarch must take care neither to be too lenient on her stronger vassals - or they might use the opportunity to strengthen themselves - nor too strict - for fear that they will see the downsides of her rule as greater than the benefits. Therefore, while the Matriarch can and does issue commands and decrees for her realm, they are generally careful and nuanced in their effects on the privileged classes - playing one group against another, balancing losses with compensation, and so on.

The position of the Matriarchs of Alvraan is particularly bolstered by their lineage; they are descended directly from the Eighth-and-Onlies, the Empresses of the old Empire. Although they are not the only family to make this claim, theirs is one of the few with the political power to make a bid to be considered rightful heirs. Domestically, this shores up their right to rule and their connection with an almost mythical past; Alvraan's neighbors, who have no such lineages for rulers and would prefer to build their own new empires than submit to an old one, are generally wary of the claim, neither openly disrespecting it nor making any move to pay it more than lip service.

Among the strongest domestic allies of the matriarchs are the priesthoods, to whom their connection with the divinely-appointed golden age of the Empire is an invaluable source of legitimacy. The matriarchs, therefore, spend lavishly on the temples of the siathar and the worthy institutions associated with them; and the priests, for their part, preach adoring obedience to the Matriarch and carry out charity, rewards, and punishments in her name. In many respects, they fill many of the same functions that in a modern human government would be operated by the executive branch.

The site of Alvraan first began to attract notice in the early Steel Era. After the end of the Overturns that brought the Eighth House to ultimate power, peace gradually returned to the Empire and trade rebounded. The city of Kar Oram, sitting astride the Shedir River, was one of the places that had shared in the prosperity, being at the upper limit of navigability on the river. As the city grew, a tepui south of the city, which had already been noted for its visual beauty, became a popular destination for those wanting to bathe and swim in the pools lying at the bottom of its sinkholes - far cleaner and more exclusive than the river.

Alvraan therefore first grew up as a sort of spa resort, a retreat for the wealthy from the hustle and bustle of Kar Oram, and although a prosperous village grew up around the baths it remained a tiny curiosity - locally famous, but only one of many attractions across a wide empire, and so it remained well into the Vigil Era. As the Empire began to decay and shrink, even the Imperial heartlands came under threat from rebellious peasants and generals-turned-warlords. Alvraan came to be recognized for its defensive qualities as well as its baths - the tepui was nearly a natural castle - and beginning in 19 Vigil fortifications began to be added and stores laid in. This proved a fortuitous choice when the hill warlord Egrith sacked Kar Oram in late 24 Vigil; although the chambers inside the tepui were only sufficient to protect the aristocracy, their opening of the stores to the commoners of Kar Oram at least allowed many to live who might otherwise have starved in the aftermath.

In 27 Vigil, the Imperial capital at Kar Iitan, near the mouths of the Sahvarr, was conquered by the forces of Uvereth. A formerly loyal general who had defended the remains of the Empire against impossible odds, she killed the last Empress and her immediate heirs, and symbolically shattered the Foundation Stone, ending the Empire and beginning the Cloud Era. Loyalist strongholds fell to warlords or struggled to maintain an independent existence; the former oligarchs of Kar Oram held Alvraan for four or five cycles before Egrith's granddaughter, Hevrath, finally conquered it. Hevrath's heirs had an enormous taste for wealth but little for governance; though they maintained order around their headquarters in the Nentir Highlands, the rest of the lands under their control were simply plundered and defended against rival raiders.

In 17 Cloud, the latest chieftain of the Hevrathings died relatively young. Inheritance among the warriors of that people was typically aunt-to-niece: the warriors were more likely to die early and before any children were fully grown, so their property went to the livelier daughters of their older and more sedentary sisters. The chieftain had left no daughters, but the daughters of her three sisters were themselves mostly too young to inherit. The sisters gathered factions around them - each favoring her own daughters - and the result was a civil war that split the Hevrathings and caused the disintegration of their dominion. Alvraan hesitantly governed itself again for a time, until the heir of one of the Hevrathing factions, fleeing the Highlands, reconquered the city in 23 Cloud. This proved to have a silver lining; instead of plundering the city, she chose to occupy it, installing herself as ruler and fortifying the city against her rivals. Her descendants lasted longer in their refuge than their Hevrathing cousins did; the warrior confederations collapsed fully by 25 Cloud, but the city's new Matriarchs continued on for some time thereafter.

Their habit of only marrying into the families of the warriors who had accompanied them to Alvraan, however, proved their undoing. While the purity of their bloodlines may have been above reproach, it eventually resulted in the extinction of the line when its last heir died in 31 Cloud. The remaining warrior families, unwilling to choose one of their number to rule over the rest, chose instead to rule as an oligarchy, but after several cycles this developed into rival camps, each with its own agenda. One of the more outward-looking, and less inbred, factions chose in 36 Cloud to welcome to Alvraan one Kuabrenath, a noble who had recently been expelled from Riishen downriver and who had brought with her a number of loyal warriors and presumably well-paid mercenaries. Kuabrenath, who claimed descent from a branch of the Eighth House that had been away from the capital when the Empire fell, joined her forces with those of her new allies, who let them into the city and deposed the other factions with her help.

The alliance had been intended as as a partnership - the progressive faction would get its enemies out of power and additional military strength, and Kuabrenath would get to play the heroic Empress, a hero-figurehead to enthrall the commoners. And, while Kuabrenath remained satisfied with hero-worship, it worked; but she slowly came to realize that she had become more popular among the people of Alvraan than their de facto rulers, and saw a path to expanding her influence - and those of her descendants.

Kuabrenath, and then her daughter Tenaideth, spent considerable time building up their relations with the commoners - leading defenses of the city, organizing supplies and charities, and pressuring the oligarchs to invest in both infrastructure and in temples (gaining the appreciation of the religious establishment as well). By the mid-40s Cloud, Tenaideth had become an enormously well-respected member of the community, to the detriment of the oligarchs, who in fear of increasing her influences yet further ceased cooperating with her. Possibly at some subtle urging, the priests began denouncing such treatment of “our rightful Eighth and Only”, and the people listened. So did a large portion of the city's military, who had grown used to her command. In 47 Cloud, a large minority of the soldiery defected and, backed up by discontented crowds and inflammatory sermons by the priests, marched on the palace, demanding Tenaideth's instatement as Matriarch of Alvraan. Since even the loyalists seemed to have little inclination to fight back, the demands of the crowds were accepted, and Tenaideth, with public reluctance, formally took the rule of the city. Her descendants have been Matriarchs ever since.

Over the intervening cycles, Alvraan was brought back to stability, and then a kind of prosperity. The collapse of Kar Oram's bridges into the river had rendered that portion unnavigable, leading the matriarchs to build a new river port further downstream and closer to Alvraan. As trade picked up, the city grew and became rich.

In late 75 Cloud, the reigning Matriarch, Antalinath, died at a great age. Of her two daughters, the younger, Alirinuth, was designated to succeed, but was killed, along with three of her five daughters, by her elder sister Ambriloth as soon as their mother's death became known. The two remaining daughters of Alirinuth, Anhirinath and Ankorineth, along with their remaining brothers, fled across the river with their surviving father to seek shelter with his kin, while Ambriloth seized the throne for herself. Faced with serious internal opposition, she began a purge of those loyal to Alirinuth's claim, and began installing her own daughters in their place; already unpopular, their heavyhandedness only increased local discontent.

One of those who outwardly professed loyalty to the new regime was one Vashareth - a young female who was herself a scion of the royal line, descended from Antalinath's grandmother. Going so far as to voluntarily reduce the number of guards she kept in order to prove her loyalty, she successfully maintained responsibility for the river port, a fact that allowed her to secretly funnel news, money, and supplies to her cousins in the north and allow them to build a power base. When Anhirinath and Ankorineth lead an army back across the river in 77 Cloud, they were ferried by boats appropriated by Vashareth from the piers, and she rallied her guards and enthusiastic supporters to join them as they marched on the city proper. In the resulting battle, Ambriloth and all her daughters were killed, as was Anhirinath; Ankorineth received a serious head wound, but survived, and with the support of her cousin Vashareth became Matriarch.

Since the start of Ankorineth's reign, the size of Alvraan's hegemony has grown sharply. Her father's kin north of the Shedir, out of familial ties and a share in the city's wealth, pledged themselves to her shortly after her enthronement, and lesser villages in the surrounding area, seeking protection (either from outside forces or from Alvraan itself remains unclear), have slowly accreted around the boundaries, to the point that the city's success is starting to worry its neighbors.