Senecian States

 

How well developed the various islands of Senecia were during their preshistory is very difficult to determine as prior to the Upheaval even the basic geography of the Widow's Sea is unclear. It is generally believed that the the Conjunction of 2050 BCB may have directly caused the Upheaval - the most major consequence of which was the explosion of an underwater supervolcano creating the entire island of Mount Furia, and possibly triggering other secondary eruptions around the entire archipelago. Aside from toxic gasses, dense clouds of ash and debris, severe earthquakes and devastating tsunamis that would have been immediately devastating to the entire region, the subsequent ash cloud caused the Ash Winter and a three century period of glaciation. Whatever the Senecian Archipelago was like prior to 2050 BCB is lost to history.

With the normalization of the global climate four centuries later, Senecia began to repopulate with city states emerging on every major island of the archipelago. By 500 BCB robust sea trade routes had developed throughout Senecia and the four major southern subcontinents of Tulosz. It seems likely that ships from Senecia were also engaged in trade across the Sea of Tears to Inik, Sekhu and Ayodesh.

During the orcish invasions, Senecia was among the last continents to be invaded, with the first invasion of Povescia not even beginning until 375, thirty years after the death of the Empress Golga Olmogorog. The orcs made steady progress through the Senecian Isle once they started, however, and had captured more than half of the Senecian Archipelago before 412 when an effective resistance was finally mounted beginning in Coral.

By 414, the island and the city state of Poglia would become a major point of conflict, and many brutal battles and purges would be fought there before the rise of Lucillia Vindis who would lead the elven resistance, lead the liberation of all of Senecia and rise to become the first Empress of the Senecian Empire in 471.

The Senecian Empire would remain a single, united nation state for over 750 years, and while Senecian forces were involved in many wars during the Imperial Era, they never ceded or won any territory. When calls for independence and secession began in the waning years of the Imperial Era they were at first shouted down by Imperial authorities. But as nation states around the globe began to falter and fragment, and citizens across the Empire began to question the benefits and even the rationale for empire, political and economic pressures eventually forced the Empire to begin ceded territory.

The movement to 'Free Senecia' began as propaganda in the so-called Pirate Isles of Senecia as early as 1205. By the beginning of the 13th century, pirates began spreading lies about the wasteful extravagance of the Imperial Houses on the Senecian mainland - the costs of which they claimed were borne by the people of the Archipelago. While this is was not more true than it was anywhere else where the population was taxed to support an Empire, it fanned the fires of unrest, and led to Imperial response. The reponse meant increased naval presence in the Archipelago, increased piracy, and a need to increase taxes - the lies of propaganda suddenly became truth.

By 1225 unrest was at an all time high in the Archipelago, and was even starting to grow louder on the main island, south of the Glass Mountains. While the Senecian Empire considered itself invincible to foreign threat due to their island geography and large, powerful navies, they were not able to mount an effective defense against internal unrest. Many nobles living in their estates and plantations across the Archipelago were chased off their lands and exiled. Many more were put to the sword. Small civil defense forces, who had been treated as second-class reserves to the proud naval militias of the Empire either looked the other way, or sided with the revolutionaries.

In 1229, in order to avoid open revolution, the Senecian Empire released the Decreto di Bolina. The so-called 'Headwind Decree' ordered that the Empire would be broken up and restructured within a thirty-year timeframe, with each major region being given the choice to remain part of the Senecian Empire or to seceed and form its own nation. When the declaration was made, it was assumed that the decree and the bureaucratic effort to dismantle the nation would uninteresting and lengthy enough that ultimately most of the Empire would remain intact, with a few large islands perhaps being made semi-autonomous vassal states of the Empire. That assumption proved incorrect.

Free Senecia

Almost immediately following the Decreto di Bolina, the major cities south of the Glass Mountains; Malfincia, Gamania and Sandante, formed a regional seccession committee and invited all of the significant cities in the region to join them. The Empire, meanwhile, began propping up nobles who they expected would join and steer these committees and either convince the committees they should remain part of the Empire, or that they should reform as as Principalities or similar nation states. This resulted in several assassinations and in the cities on the large island of Povescia petitioning to join the cities in southern Senecia in their negotiations. By 1230, the cities on the Senecian main island south of the Glass Mountains and the entire island of Povescia came forth with a petition to fully secede from the Empire and reconstitute as a free region of autonomous city states would self-govern. Stunned by how quickly these powerful cities had charted their course, and terrified of the consequences of refusing to ratify the petition, the Empire conceded, and Free Senecia seceded with all of her cities chartering themselves as autonous city states.

Imperial Senecia

Imperial Senecia is the remnant of the Senecian Empire. The Empire was created under the the Empress Lucillia Vindis I at the end of the orcish conquests and has been under the Imperial rule of her and her direct descendents ever since. With the waning popularity of centralized nation states since 1200, civil unrest began to challenge Imperial authority, and in 1229, with the Decreto di Bolina the Empire attempted to create a context in which it could persist. This attempt largely failed, and the Empire ultimately lost over 80% of its territory. Imperial Senecia is currently entirely constrained to the northern half of the main island of Senecia, above the Glass Mountains.

Notably the Principality of Poglia, which officially seceded from the Empire in 1246, remains a vassal state to the Empire. In practical terms, however, the Principality is over 4000km away across the Widow's Sea from the capital at Calighenna, and so is necessarily afforded a great deal of autonomy in the administration of the their own lands.

Principality of Poglia

With the release of the Decreto di Bolina in 1229, the hope and the plan of the Senecian Empire was to prop up nobles in the various regions that were negotiating their secession from the Empire and support those nobles in the push to establish 'autonomous' states that would ultimately serve as vassal states to the Empire. This plan worked best on the island of Poglia where appeals to the lineage of Empress Lucillia Vindis, and monuments to the resistance that fought to retake the island from the orcs had enshrined Imperial pride more than anywhere else. Still, it was not a simple matter to get the Great Houses of the major cities and the leaders of powerful factions to agree on how to structure their new state.

In the beginning of the process, Poglia was joined in negotiations with the three major volcanic islands to the south and west; the isles of Mount Furia, Mount Umbra and Ciopral. After a decade of failed negotiations people in Poglia were starting to grow tired of the discourse - this was part of the Imperial plan. Unfortunately, the three other islands began to grow increasingly distrustful, and one by one, rather than passively allow themselves to be rolled into a new vassal state, they broke away from Poglia, leaving Poglia alone to form a Principality in 1246.

The Principality of Poglia is ruled by a Crown Regent decended from the lineage of the first Empress of Senecia, Lucillia Vindis. The Crown Regent appoints a governing council to administer the state, and has considerable executive power. While Poglia claims it is an autonomous state, seperate from Imperial Senecia, and in most practical senses this is true, the letter of the law is clear. The Crown Regent of the Principality of Poglia is a vassal of the Emperor or Empress of Imperial Senecia, serving at their pleasure, and required to obey their every command.

Senecian Isles

Following the Decreto di Bolina in 1229 the Senecian Empire had expected to retain the northern volcanic isles of Mount Furia, Mount Umbra and Ciopral in a vassal state with Poglia, and to maintain the southeastern island of Vercia as another vassal state. The hope at the time was that only the Pirate Isles and the smaller islands between the Coral Strait and Squall Strait would actually become autonomous. But if hopes were vassal states, the Senecian Empire would have gained control over all of Tear.

Unfortunately for the Empire, the voices for secession from Shear Point to Lussi were loud and clear - years of bargaining between and among various governing councils led only to stagnation (that part was anticipated by the Empire) and continually increasing pressure to seceded (that part was not expected). Between 1233 and 1253, city after city and island afer island withdrew from negotiations. As contiguous regions realized they were no longer surrouned by cities likely to join a nation state, they would charter themslves and independent city states and formally seceded. Aside from Rum Barrel, Aggli's Cove and Anchor Rock, which seceded within a year of the Decreto di Bolina, only the smaller cities of Tagore, Colrigna, Panigia and Lussi had formally seceded by 1246, but when the three volcanic isles opted out of joining the Principality of Poglia, everything changed. Between 1246 and 1248, creeping from north to south like gangrene, cities withdrew from negotiations and declared their independance at a rate of one every two months. The only solace for Imperial Senecia was that the liberating sweep ended at Shear Point, as the United Principalities of Stagia and Sancelia had already been official formed in 1243 - otherwise they might also have seceded, and perhaps raised a tide that might have dismantled what little remained of the Empire.

United Principalities of Stagia and Sancelia

Following the Decreto di Bolina and the sudden and successful secession of the southern portion of the main island and the island of Povescia, the Senecian Empire became gravely concerned that the territories of Sancelia and Stagia would both secede entirely from the Empire. To prevent this, the Empire engaged in a dangerous game that only partially succeeded.

With the prospect of the Empire 'partially' fragmenting, the people and nobility of Stagia became greatly concerned that if they formed themselves as autonomous city states and the people of Sancelia formed into a nation state, they would likely end up being subsumed by that nation state. Sancelians had similar fears - that an autonomous Sancelia bordering a unified Stagia would quickly end up subjugated. The Empire got wind of these fears, and amplified them. Both Stagians and Sancelians became overtly nationalistic, and the Empire encouraged this, while also promoting familial nobles and a Principality model for statehood that would allow both Stagia and Sancelia to maintain identity and security.

In the immediate term, both Sancelia and Stagia accepted the value of reconstituting themselves as Principalities, but the details took a great long time to resolve. The Empire ultimately wanted the two Principalities to form as vassal states according the model they were aiming for in Poglia (which had not yet formed into a Principality either). Over the course of the several years it toook to finish negotiating, the Empire was forced to make concessions that would grant the seceding Principalities more power and autonomy.

In 1243, both Stagia and Sancelia formalized their seperate secessions from the Senecian Empire, declaring themselves as autonomous nations. Both were formed as limited monarchies with Crown Regents appointed by Senecia who held moderate (but differing) executive powers, and who were each in some ways beholden to the larger Senecian Empire, while also constrained in some ways by their own governing councils. Over the following decade, this arrangement proved to be problematic for both of the new Principalities and for the Senecian Empire, causing a political gridlock under which nothing could be accompished.

Then in 1257, the governing councils of the two Principalites met to propose joining the two seperate nations into a union. The proposal would limit the powers of both Crown Regents, while delegating their unique powers and authorities to a President who would serve as the head of government over a new governing council that would be shared across the two states. The first candidate for President was quickly poisoned, but it was clear that uniting the Principalities was the best path forward for both sides, and by 1258 the details had been settled, despite continued meddling from the Senecian Empire.

In 1259 the governing councils of Sancelia and Stagia were joined into a united council, and a President was elected from their ranks. Different powers and authorities of the two Crown Regents were stipped from them, and invested in the President, leaving the Senecian obligations of the Crown Regents tied them - in most cases with no power to meet them. The formation of the United Principalities of Stagia and Sancelia was the last major act to significantly erode the powers of the nation states of the Imperial Era, and is generally recognized as the political marker that ends the era.