Eldunari

The Solemn League of the Sea and River (Soltran: Solenne lega del mare e fiume), commonly known as the Eldunari League, is a federation in western Ovaicaea, predominantly controlling territory along the western coast and the Eldun River valley, and is an elven-ruled successor state to the Old Empire. Originally established as a commercial and defensive alliance between Elven city-states, market towns, and independent freeholders, the league evolved over time into a powerful nation and the center of elven culture.
After the collapse of the Empire and the invasion of the Orcs, the countryside was vulnerable to attack while the cities themselves remained impregnable to rudimentary Orcish siege tactics. The dire situation led many elven cities to band together in a league to mutually defend trade routes and to encourage trade between each other. In the year 500, many of the city-states in the northwestern coastland signed a treaty with the major port towns at the mouth of the southern Eldun River delta. The League came to dominate maritime trade in the west, expand its territory inland towards the river valley and countryside, and became the heart of culture, law, education, philosophy, and the arts for the elven-dominated west.
Eldunari engaged in conflict with many of its neighboring states, annexing some of them, but mostly averted the depredations of the Orc Khans by paying consistent tribute. However, in 833, the Orcs launched an invasion, ostensibly in pursuit of Balendrian guerrillas. Eldunari committed its full military and economic might to victory. Eldunari joined the allied states in forming the New Empire, and today holds the right to vote in imperial elections.
== Name ==
The League's formal name is the Solemn League of the Sea and River, which refers to its founding structure as a league of cities and independent landholders for mutual defense and aid along the coast and in the river lands. Most refer to it as Eldunari or Eldunary, after the region through which the Eldun river flows, which is the economic heartland of the country. Even the northern coastal cities are part of the wider Eldunari drainage basin, and so are connected through river traffic to several inland city-states.
The florid description refers to the League's constitutional charter, the Solemn Covenant of Right, which any city or freehold must ratify to be admitted to the League. This charter recognizes certain rights held by constituents but also sets upon them certain responsibilities, such as contributing to the common treasury, defense, and welfare, and responding to call for aid from its fellow cities and freeholds.
Elven poets in the years after the League's formation often described it as the Elven Republic, lionizing its role as the heart of elven culture, and encouraging a sense of elven nationhood, as well as emphasizing the egalitarian, republican principles of elven society.
== History ==
== Government and military ==
Eldunari is a federation of city-states and freeholds, with a central government that coordinates defense, justice, commerce, and diplomacy for its member states, and governs federally-owned lands. Eldunari's central government is republican, but its individual city-states and freeholds are highly diverse in their systems of government; some are hereditary principalities, while others are republics, and most freeholds are ruled by a hereditary lord or signore. Eldunari's government has been seen by some outside of it as a labyrinth of bureaucracy, but its institutions allow for a great deal of local autonomy and democracy.
=== Central government ===
The central government is founded upon the deliberative assembly, the Grand Senate, a representative body composed of the freehold lords, temple prelates, and delegates from its member cities. Representatives are referred to as senators, even those who hold noble title or are high clergy, and every senator has certain legal privileges. The Grand Senate does not formally differentiate between the lordly and citizen members, and is one single chamber. The Grand Senate ultimately has the power to make laws affecting the whole federation, 
The Grand Senate annually elects the Signoria, the executive body which administers the state and sets the agenda for the Senate's policy debates. The Signoria is composed of the following officials:
* The Monsignor, master of the council, who presides over its meetings and sets the agenda. While it is not required that the Monsignor be a wizard, nearly all of them have been.
* The Gonfalonier, who ceremonially bears the federal banner and keeps the state seal.
* The Grand Pensionary, chancellor of the state treasury.
* The six Supreme Justices of the High Court, three each for the criminal and civil courts.
* The six Land Commissioners, three each for maritime and mainland federal possessions.
* The six Councillors of State, who each head one of the six government commissions: War, Diplomacy, Commerce, Magic, Welfare, and Public Safety.
Eldunari has developed an extensive bureaucracy directed by the Signoria. The federally-owned territories, considered public lands held in trust by the Grand Senate, are administered by commissions of three administrators. The Maritime Commission administers federally-owned coasts, islands, littoral zones, territorial waters, estuaries, and the Senate-owned merchant marine. The Mainland Commission administers federally-owned territories inland, mainly state-owned farms, mines, and forests as well as forts and frontier outposts. The Councillors of State each chair one of the main government commissions, which are all constituted as a board of nine magistrates that oversee one area of the central government. Each of these commissions control a network of offices responsible for administering these matters, with outposts in major cities and rural regions. The largest government department is the Treasury, managed by the Grand Pensionary, which oversees state finances, tax collection, state banks, and the national mint. Various other "extraconciliary" offices exist, independent of the Councillors or land commissions, which deal with specific matters of state: the Postal Commission, the Roads Commission, the Confessor Liaison, the Office of Records, the Census Office, and others.
Over time, the constituent cities and freeholds have ceded certain aspects of public trust to the Signoria, seeking to reduce their own expenditures. The central government has gradually grown more powerful through its authority over various state services, including running state hospitals, granaries, farms, schools, and orphanages, and maintaining networks of roads, aqueducts, and post offices.
=== Law and courts ===
Intertwined with the administration is the complex system of courts of law. The member cities and freeholds have their own court systems, which are respected by the central government out of the principle of federalism. These local courts are the courts of first instance for local matters and crimes that occur within their jurisdiction. An unsatisfactory decision can be appealed to the Courts of Assizes, which are regional session courts; crimes committed on federal lands are also tried by the regional Assize. From there, a legal matter can be appealed to the High Courts, either the Court of Cassation (criminal matters) or the Court of Chancery (civil matters) as the court of last resort. Each High Court is presided over by a panel of three Supreme Justices, who are also members of the Signoria.
Eldunari statue law has significantly influenced the legal traditions of its neighbors. Preceding elven law systems served as the basis for jurisprudence across western Ovaicaea. Its fusion with dwarven common law in the east eventually transformed into feudal law that is core to dwarven and human kingdoms. The developments since unification has shaped the law of federally-structured nations, such as the Empire itself. This indelible mark is felt to this day, in the language used in courts, in legal concepts and principles, and in the structure of judiciaries across the New Empire.
=== Local government ===
At the local level, Eldunari is composed of over 2,000 autonomous entities. Most of these are freeholds, tracts of land held by independent landowners without ties to a specific community or state. In practice, these freeholds have been settled into one or more castle towns, outlying market towns, and villages under the authority of the freeholder. These freeholds have been compared to the feudalism of dwarven kingdoms, but also are markedly different: the inhabitants of these freeholds are not serfs, instead they are free tenant farmers; and the lords possess allodial title, rather than being vassals to a feudal overlord. The freeholders voluntarily joined the League to better protect their rights and lands.
The core of the League, however, are the free city-states and the lands they control. Each city is governed differently; while some are princely states, most are republics, and their systems of government display a great deal of variation. Some are of labyrinthine complexity, some are simple direct democracies, but most have some system of checks and balances between its relative organs of state, as befits elven traditions of self-governance and a philosophy of balance. Most city-states have developed a model wherein the major guilds of the city submit members to a governing committee, usually called a Signoria or Cynulliad, whose members are elected annually or semi-annually by the citizenry based on guild membership. Mercantile and occupational guilds dominate economic life in the cities, and powerful guild networks have formed across Eldunari that coordinate operations in numerous cities. Even in the freeholds, guilds are of great importance as economic middlemen that facilitate trade and labor organization.
=== Military ===
Eldunari has always relied on militias organized by its constituent entities for defense and public safety in most of its areas. However, the extensive acquisition of federally-owned territories, as well as the near-constant state of war Eldunari endured from the 700s to the 840s, provoked the growth of a standing army controlled directly by the Signoria. Prior to the 8th century, the League's standing forces were mainly for defense of the capital city of Rivoli, and especially protected the Treasury House.
The main force of soldiers is organized as the Elven Republican Army, which is divided into twenty brigades of up to 3,000 soldiers each, which constitutes a main army of around 60,000. Each brigade is commanded by a Brigadier, and is subdivided into ten companies of 300. A typical brigade has three companies each of archers, pikemen, and battle mages, and a company composed of the command staff and horse guards; a grouping of three companies is sometimes referred to a column and is commanded by a Colonel. However, some brigades exchange one or more companies with a cavalry squadron or an artillery battery; the companies are organized to be modular and able to be detached from a brigade and moved around as needed. The Eldunari army also includes several specialist companies, including engineers, supply, construction, medicine, and other support troops; these auxiliaries consist of around 20,000 other soldiers.
The Grand Senate once had the sole right to declare war, but ceded this right to the Imperial Assembly upon joining the Empire of Ovaicaea. The civil administration that supports military operations, such as the paymasters, war planners, instructors, and others, is directed by the Councillor of State for War. Command responsibility falls to the Signoria as a whole, which collectively makes military decisions and instructs the brigade commanders to execute its plans and orders. In wartime, the Signoria may appoint a Marshal to lead several brigades as an ad-hoc army, but this is rare.
== Society ==
Eldunari society is predominantly elven in its culture, language, ethnic makeup, politics, and traditions, with a strongly shared sense of elven identity despite the diverse number of autonomous parts that make up its whole. This identity and common sense of society developed over time, as the Grand Senate sought to encourage cooperation between its constituent freeholds and cities, and as the League endured shared hardships and experiences.