Arystophilion

The Archonate Arystophilion is a nation in the near and middle east. It is lead by High Archon Damodred Atreides.

## Organisation and government

### Government structure

#### Monarch

The Archonate of Arystophilion is a selective monarchy. This means that the Monarch must select an heir before he dies, initially when he first ascends to the throne, then again every ten years he sits on the throne. This knowledge is not publicised before the High Archon has sat the throne for 10 years, being entrusted only to the High Archon's cadre, who are sworn to secrecy. The heir does not need to be the King's son/daughter, or even a family member. It is expected that the heir be chosen amongst the families of the Magisters, but it is not required by law. The heir selected by the High Archon is known as the Heir of the Mind. If the Heir of the Mind is to die, then the Heir of the Soul and Body takes over the throne, which is the closest family member. If none of these are found, then the Council of Magisters has a general vote for a new High Archon.

#### Cadre

The High Archon, upon his ascension to the throne, selects a Cadre. The Cadre is a group of priests, wise men, scholars, warriors and other notable, competent people from the nation. They serve as the King's advisors, either generally or in specific fields. The Cadre is never to exceed 12 people, lest it become too crowded. They are the executive branch of the government, where the Monarch and Council of Magisters are the legislative, and the House of Tribunes serve as the judicial. A member of the Cadre must give his holdings to their heir.

#### Council of Magisters

The Council of Magisters is a collection of all the city Magisters of each city. They propose laws along with the High Archon, who is head of the Council. Each city with either the approval of the High Archon or over 10 people (the main power base in the nation) has a Magister who sit on the council. The Magisters were originally the tribal chiefs of semi-nomadic goat herders who lived in the region before the Theryan invasions, and so keep their familial hierarchy instead of the more selective hierarchy of the Theryans. The succession to the seat of the Council of Magisters is therefore hereditary through the edlest son or daughter.

#### The House of Tribunes

The House of Tribunes are the judges of Arystophilion. They serve only to uphold the law, and work with the military to enforce law and order in the cities. They are all priests of the god of justice, and are celibate their entire lives. They are not allowed to own property nor to marry, but are given houses by the state, as well as servants and guards.

### Military structure

The military is split into Legions, each Legion commanded by a Praetor. The Praetor commands his legion, and within them the different divisions. Each division consists of 12 men, and each legion of four divisions. There are as many legions as there is need of with the amount of people in the military. The leader of each division is called a Captylis.

## History and Lore

### History of Arystophilion

#### Natives before Theryan invasions

Before the Theyan invasions, there were a plethora of different tribes, chiefdoms and ethnic groups in the region that is today Arystophilion. They can be divided into three main groups; the river people, the goat herders in the mountains and the merchant among the coast.

##### Along the rivers

Along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a primitive forager civilisation lived off the land. They planted gardens and trees along the fertile river banks, living on house boats that they drove up and down the river. They possessed no metal weapons or tools, only stone. They made sails out of animal hides traded with the herders in the mountains and of woven reeds from the river. They had no written language, but paintings and carvings of their culture and people can be found engraved on the old wrecks of their ships. They made jars out of clay with fires fueled by coal instead of wood. This indicates that they had some basic mining technology. This people was almost completely wiped out after a series of bloody wars amongst themselves, which had depleted their male numbers to a dangerous degree, which was compacted by first a long drought caused by a small ice age which killed their trees and crops, leading to famine. When the ice age ended, so much snow had piled up in the Anatolian mountains that once it melted, huge floods destroyed the rest of their primitive civilisation.

##### In the mountains

In the mountains dividing the desert and the coast, a sheep and goat herding people lived. Though their numbers were not high, they had sophisticated bronze weapons and armour. They had a strong warrior culture, with the greatest warrior of each clan being the leader. They were nomadic, riding on large rams bred for the purpose. They led raids into the lowlands to the west, stealing the wealth and women of these regions. The chieftains were allowed many wives, and his sons had to fight for the position of heir, leaving only one survivor who wished to be chieftain. Women were horribly misstreated, often being treated worse than the goats they herded. Clans did not usually reachs sizes of over 20, and to avoid incest, clans would often raid each other as much as the lowlanders to add new blood to the genepool.

##### In the lowlands

More is known about the lowlander peoples, as they have some surviving written records, though many were destroyed by mountain-raiders. The lowlanders came from further south, it is assumed the Nile delta, and founded a civilisation on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. They were shipbuilders and merchants, having trade routes all the way to the agean sea, south Italy and the Maghreb. They had bronze and built in wood and stone, with a very family-oriented societal structure. They fished along the coasts and had some agriculture. They had a custom where they would engrave the deeds and accomplishments of a person on their bones. This, along with their mostly intact crypts give us a detailed understanding of their culture. They were the largest population centre in the lands that are now Arystophilion, and their great houses are the foundation for the Council of Magisters. They had iron weapons in small supplies, but these they only traded, as no furnaces with capacity to smelt iron ore. It is possible they found their deposits of gold, copper and tin in their familial crypts.

#### Theryan invasion

##### Theryan history before the conquest

The Theryan invasions began approximately in year 40 BSS. The proto-Theryan culture and linguistic group come from a region around the caucasus, but had during the mini ice age previously mentioned moved south to hotter climates and settled in the mountains and plains of Anatolia. Easily overruning the natives there due to them having domesticated the horse, allowing for swift travel and good warfare, and, more importantly, the development of alchemy and potions, an art they later exported to the rest of the world, they settled there and made a civilisation. This mini ace age occurred some 1500 years ago, and in the 1470 years before the Theryan invasion of the fertile crescent, dozens of small kingdoms rose in the mountains of Anatolia, before uniting one briefly in the 1100 BSS and then for a 200 year period in the period from 528 BSS to 314 BSS. The Second Kingdom, as it came to be called, had issues with overpopulation, which resulted in settlers moving from the Anatolian mainland to make colonies in Cyprus, Algeria, the Maghreb, and even further, with cities being founded in the straits of gibraltar, the Canary Islands, and the Azores. Settlers used this as a waypoint to trade with African kingdoms such as Flaydal as well as found colonies in south-America that would grow into the current kingdom of Braenza.

Along with this maritime settling there was also a deal of raids out into the lands north, south and east of them. Their ancient homeland in the Caucasus was again reclaimed and settled. When the Second Kingdom collapsed after the death of King Salenius in 314 BSS, the city-states that emerged in Anatolia and the Caucasus fought each other for several centuries. The Archons of provinces and Magisters of cities bled the land dry in the middle period before the formation of the Kingdom of Theracia. The city of Artania, long having stayed out of the fighting (though it had occasionally sent its legions to fight as allies) had in year 83 BSS a Magister with two sons, named Merren and Palenthus. The eldest , Merren, was commonly agreed to be a sot and an incompetent fool while the, Palenthus, younger, was a brilliant if reserved young man. The Palenthus was also ambitious, and his father believed that he would try to usurp his brother's throne, in which he would no doubt succeed. For this reason, he exiled his youngest son from the city. Palenthus, furious at this betrayal, started gathering an army of mercenaries and trained men left after the dozens of wars that had ravaged Anatolia. His plan had initially been to reconquer the city of his birth. He did however meet a woman whom he fell in love with, who convinced him to strike south towards the fertile crescent. Seeing the fault in the ordinary line of succession system that had removed him from his throne, Palenthus made the selective heir system, where he selected the son of the woman he had fallen in love with as his heir. Palenthus died of a winter chill at the age of 45 (58 BSS) while travelling south through the mountains, but his heir, and his heir's heir, reached the crescent.

##### The Invasion itself

The step son and heir to Palenthus, Alexis, began his conquest at age 28, in the year 40 BSS. He made a deal with the native peoples in the Lowlands west of the mountains, as they hated the mountain clans more than they hated the foreign invaders. Alexis knew he could not defeat the mountain clans on their owns with their much inferior numbers, so he hatched a cunning scheme. Inscriptions in the Lowlander language was given to the wives of the chieftains who had been taken. The instructions, which the men of the Mountain Clan descent could not read, said to kill their husbands during the eclipse that happened the following year. An estimated 50% of the chieftains of the dozens of mountain clans were killed by their harems during this eclipse, leading the mountain clans to fight amongst themselves. This let the much smaller but better equipped army of Alexis sweep in and destroy them. The conquest of the Lowlands lasted only two years, and in 37 BSS, the entire settled region from Longlake in the south to the Anatolian mountains in the north were conquered by Alexis the Great. The conquest continued under his eldest son and Heir Damodred Atreides, who conquered Cyprus from the Theryan colonies there and settled the levant.

##### Further invasions by Damodred Atreides

Damodred of Atreides, known to some as the Doom of Dethepelon, was the eldest son of Alexis the Great. Upon his succession to the throne in 17 BSS following his father's death the same year. In the begining of his reign, Damodred Atreides faced several insurgencies, mainly from the sons of old chieftains and a few religious minorities. They thought that Damodred Atreides was weaker than his father. They were mistaken. As soon as Damodred Atreides had left to be anointed by the High Priest in Artania, the Magister of Thenopolis revolted, promising a return of the old ways. Instead of conitnuing on his way, Damodred turned back with only his escort of a hundred or so men to take the city. The proud city of Thenopolis sent our their guard to meet them in the field, as the Magister did not wish for Damodred to burn any fields as to secure the next harvest. Most of Damodred's men were mounted, and so when they met the foot army of the Magister, they encircled them and enforced their line whenever the infantry tried to break out. Using punch and power bows, the mounted men caused disarray in the infantry, who had no room to escape. They did break, however, and tried to escape the circle of galloping horses. They were slaughtered to a man. Damodred then turned back on his way to be anointed as Archon in Artania. Later in his life, in 8 BSS, he would set ship for Cyprus, where he fought a guerrilla campaign against the other Theryan peoples on the island before he eventually burned their capital city of Dethepelon. He then went on to send settlers and refugees from these wars to the levant, which he claimed as part of his realm. He is still the ruler of Arystophilion to this day.

### Flag

The Arystophilion flag bears the emblem of a golden sun encircled in a crown of laurels as well as two concentric circles with eight lines radiating from the core of the sun. It is placed upon a field of deep blue. The gold is meant to represent the nobility of the Arysian people, and the blue is of the flowers that grow there and the deep blue of the Mediterranean they sail. The sun represents that they will shine the brightest of all civilisations, as well as representing the prominent sun god worshipped by all Theryan cultures. The lines radiating represent the eight paths of the gods, and the two circles the walls that stood around the mythical city of Kalynon, which protected the people within from evil demons. The laurels represent that the Arysians will always be victorious.

### Culture

The culture of Arystopholion, Arys-Theryan, is apart of the broader Theryan cultural and linguistic group, though they distinguish themselves in several key ways, such as their greater focus on military tradition and from that what you would broadly refer to as masculinity, though in Arysian society, norms like that are not based on gender, rather on what Nature you bear, a concept coined by the Theryan scholar Altelomodes in the 800s BSS. I will here analyse the Theryan culture through the framework of the culture wheel to make it easier to reference and categorise.

#### Knowledge and stories

##### Oral tradition

Theryan cultures generally have a very strong oral tradition, stemming from them only developing a written language in the 2200s BSS. There is a complex set of stories presented in the form of hymns and songs with rhythms and set templates to them. This allows stories that may fill volumes to be memorised by one single individual to be passed on to their children and community. As in many of the other Theryan cultures, the Arys-Theryans have several bards or minstrels that travel about the land telling stories in towns, cities and villages they come across. It is however less common in Arystophilion than in nations like Theracia, but more common than in Braenza. The reason for this is the high amount of literacy in the society. In old Theryan culture, it was common for these travelling bards to give memory enhancing mushrooms to the receiver of their knowledge so they would remember it all.

##### Literary tradition

###### Begining

In the old Theryan cultures, literacy was very rare, almost kept exclusively to the clergy, nobility and rich merchants. Even the low-born generals could not read proper script, restricting them to use crude runes known as "warrior writing". This form of script encompassed runes for weather, numbers, and basic terrain. Though literacy rates rose and fell throughout the 2200 years of the existance of the script, it had been considerably higher in the Arys-Theryan culture group, as it was founded mostly by homeless merchants, exiled nobles and warriors, most of which already knew either Warrior Writing or the Theryan alphabet already. This, coupled with the literacy among the natives, led to an increase in the availability and acceptance of education and literacy.

###### Schools and education

Schools sprung up mainly from the belief (originally put forth by scholar and philosopher Malius in his book "Knowledge" in 214 BSS) that everyone should have an education as a means of creating a stronger society. Military schools were the first kind to pop up and teach the general public. All students in these schools were expected to write military thesis's analysing battles and armies from around the world to get a better understanding about war. With these schools, philosophers also started academies, something that had already existed for over a thousand years in the old societies, though only to nobles, which educated the masses further. The clergy also allowed schooling of larger amounts of people in the mysteries of the faith, citing that this would result in a more pious people which would please the gods, granting the nation plentiful harvests and mild winters. All of these factors united into giving the people of Arystophilion some of the best schools in the world, and the highest levels of education.

All of these factors resulted in a wealth of literature springing from the Arys-Theryan culture. Books on history, science, fiction, mathematics, war and economic can all be found in the huge libraries of Arystophilion.

#### Language

The nation of Arystophilion, and the Arys-Theryan culture by extension, speaks a Theryan language called Arys-Theryan. It is understandable to most other Theryan languages, being almost a dialect to the High Theryan spoken in for example Theracia, though noticeably more different from what is spoken in Braenza.

#### Traditions and rituals

The Arys-Theryan people are very militaristic. This is reflected deeply in their traditions. Other than religious festivals, once every (mc year, which is 5 days) people are expected to do military drills as a community, which is a way to get together. There is usually a feast afterwards, to symbolise the victory feast traditionally held after a battle. Along with this, a traditional Arys-Theryan upbringing includes siblings sparring and fighting as a form of play, usually with wooden swords. Children get their first metal swords when they reach ten, then an actual sword (often accompanied by a set of armour for the more well off) when they reach fifteen, age of adulthood. This custom is observed in both girls and boys, as both sexes are expected to fight. There are also great sports tournaments arranged every 6 years, with horse racing, fencing, jousting, running, wrestling, longjumps, and other such activities.