Morianna

Morianna (mor-EE-an-na) is a Congressional Republic located in Central Coastal Vargelia. It is nestled into the Morianni Bend to the north of Galros. Morianna is a centre for Banking, Finance, and Services, boasting one of the largest GDP's and Human Development scores on Eurf. Morianna is densely populated, with over 80% of the population living within 200 km of the capital, Drumlin. LARS, the Albrecht Entertainment Group, and other Albrecht subsidiaries are headquartered within Morianna; with LARS HQ being located in the Drumlin suburb of Gondar, and Albrecht Entertainment being registered in New Lincolnshire.

## History

The area of Morianna has displayed continuous habitation for the past 25,000 years. Chipped stone artifacts and Marzukian hand axes can be found in sites around the Morianni Bay, with the greatest concentration being around the site of Drumlin. Unlike further south, definite examples of both Bronze and Iron Age Sites are visible, with the Burkundians and the Guritian Civilizations respectively developing their own writing systems and having established agricultural imprints along the coastline. Around 2000 year ago, climate change altered what was once a rich fertile floodplain into an inhospitable swamp, causing the collapse of the Guritian Empire. Following the societal collapse, the area was occupied by disparate villages, adapted to life on the swamp, but having limited agricultural means or trade.

This would remain the state of affairs until the arrival of Orosilian colonists in 1570, with Markan DeRoury establishing a bastion at Fort Dreumline, not far from the modern day Financial District in Downtown Drumlin. For the next two hundred years, settlement in the Morianni Marshlands would progress at an extremely slow rate, hampered by disease, poor conditions for agriculture, and attacks from the swamp dwelling Confederates. Though short lived truces would occasionally be settled between the Orosilians and the locals, peace was tenuous and quickly broken, resulting in Fort Dreumline being overrun by the Creak Federation of Tribes in 1689; who slaughtered the majority of the town's inhabitants, leaving only a paltry crew to send words of caution back to their homeland. The area would not see further Orosilian colonization until 1745, when masses of undesirables expelled during the Great Drought would descend upon Fort Dreumline's ruins, rebuilding the castle into a massive citadel and initiating a program of all out extermination against the swamp dwelling natives.

From 1750 until the 1890's, the colony of Morianna pushed out into the swamplands, massacring every tribe they came in contact with. As a port of first call and a major trading centre along the Vargelian coastline, Morianna and it's capital Drumlin swallowed up over 40% of all Orosilians fleeing from their homeland, creating a densely packed sprawl which covered the former marshes. In one of the greatest engineering feats in history, the Morianni drained the entirety of the swamp lands into the ocean, reclaiming valuable farmland for supporting the booming colony. In 1865, Morianna declared independence from it's colonial overlords, and began cementing their claims over the rest of the Begalian watershed, meeting significant resistance from Galros to the south and west. Unlike Galros to the south, the provisions made within the constitution of Morianna for Confederated Natives did not include any specific rights to fishing or agriculture, and confined them to Designated Homelands where they were not allowed to live or intermarry with non-Confederates. This restriction would only be rescinded in the 1970's, with the removal of all legal designations for Confederates. The term is now solely an ethnic one, and is viewed with indifference by both the law and Morianni society as a whole.

## Geography

The majority of Morianna lies within the Morenese Low Country, an region of low lying plains and marshes which extends some 2000 km west from the Morianni Bay. Most of the wetlands which blanketed this region have been drained in order to accommodate the densely populated country, though much of the western frontier is still an impassable bayou. Because of this near constant stream of wetlands and constant drainage into the Bay, the country of Morianna is, on average, the flattest in all of Eurf, with the area directly outside of New Lincolnshire being one of the few places where the curvature of the world is clearly visible from ground level.

Despite the relatively low elevation of the country and it's proximity to the sea, Morianna is barely affected by changes to sea level compared to countries further north and south. This is because of the sheltered nature of the Morianni Bay, as well as an extensive network of canals, levees, and dams which control seaward swells and water output into the bay. Since 1950, Morianna has reclaimed over 40,000 sq. km. of land from the sea, the majority of which has been converted towards either real estate or wind energy production.