Kingdom of Bec

The (sometimes erroneously called the "Kingdom of Quebec") is a minor power in Imperial Space. It is effectively a military buffer state between the Serene Duchy of Aeldrum and the Shantine Empire, kept intact by the political considerations of the two powers. 
== History ==
The Kingdom has its roots in the Petty Kingdom of Behk, which formed in the late Interregnum era out of a collection of mixed elvish and human clans: to this day, the Becois are a hybrid people, majority human but with distinctive elvish traits latent in the population. A dalliance with a republican form of government in the mid-4th century A.U. was cut short when the new republic attempted a program of nationalization and import substitution, driving the Serene Duchy of Aeldrum to organize and arm monarchist forces which restored the King to power. Since then, the generally unpopular Kings of Bec have alternated between Aeldman and Shantine partisanship to receive the necessary economic and military aid to placate and repress dissent. 
== Religion ==
As the petty kingdom of Behk expanded beyond its homeworld to rule the surrounding planets, it assimilated a variety of local cults and churches, including a distant strand of the Elvish Triad (intermixed heretically with the savage pantheon). However, as Bishant reached its territorial height and threatened to conquer its emergent neighbor in the 1st century B.U., the Kings of Behk took a radical step and imposed a program of conversion to the Church of Idolmar (conveniently, a Benevolent who could forestall Shantine conquest without requiring spiritual allegiance to a Shantine-linked Kirvan patriarch). Modern Bec remains a majority Idolmarite nation, with a strong Kirvan minority in the communities most exposed to Shantine trade.
=== UrBehk ===
Further out from Bec's metropolitan regions, however, the population holds to older traditions. The most benign strands worship the Elvish Triad (and may feel some kinship with the large Aeldman population of Enclave emigres), but a seemingly growing number hold to a new and terrible covenant with the lesser god UrBehk, the “Master of the House.” What precisely UrBehk is or demands of his worshippers is dimly understood, but worship of UrBehk is criminalized by the Kings of Bec, who have gone so far as to invite Knights of Idolmar to aid them in violently rooting out UrBehk cults.
Category:Nations