Myras

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## History

### **Founding of the city of Mysraš**

Hundreds of years ago, when the specific monarch of Alyanka was going through an awful paranoia and was executing many of the intellectual forces of the Capital (nerds begone), a group of intellectuals decided it was time to scram. They weren’t a secret society or anything, it was just a sculpting class where one of the Alyankan sculpting students was thinking aloud about how “you know, why don’t we just head west to the land of ice and sculpt our own city into the land glaciers. We could make an artist's paradise!” and their teacher overheard this conversation. The old Alyankan was down on his luck and thought he’d finance this shower thought into a serious expedition. He had his pupils invite as many of their friends and family as possible and took their merry band of a couple hundred west and then up along the western Alyankan coast. The authorities caught wind of this, but like the anglos allowing protestants to make their utopias in New England, they knew it was a better opportunity to expand a cultural extent of influence than sending a bunch of prisoners to an inhospitable front against their will.

They treated the year long trek as a test of endurance to Yslalchiv, fasting for days at a time and enduring hail storms with minimal clothing. When they approached the ocean they noticed a massive glacier had broke off the continent and was heading west parallel with their intended travel. For months they watched it from the arctic beaches, sleeping on the shores to awake to their ice comrade’s newly found progress. Eventually it was pulled north into a bay, and the glacier settled on an Island, one that you could see land from 3 directions and nothing but ocean from a fourth. Seemed like enough of an omen to set up one’s city state, but there was a problem. On the peak of the island there were a dozen Ysluvians already called the island “Meeslok” home since “the beginning of time”.

### **First battle of Mysraš**

The other half of the reason the federation’s predecessors never exerted much influence to the west coast, was not just the extremity of the weather. In fact there was a dual psychological element, since Yslalchiv’s first, stronger, and more stoic race endured and endures here. The founding fathers of Myraš had not just been non-confrontational, but fearful of interaction. It’s easy to forget this now knowing the state of their society, but even though they were art kids, the founders of Myraš were pious men. And they believed that their commitment to Yslalchiv might falter if they exchanged even eye contact. Hence why they kept to the coast, and if the coast ever raised too high above sea level to be potential angel real estate, they made canoes. But after a year of travel they were too deadset on this island to keep moving. So they landed on the island and with pathetic weapons they made on the mainland they attempted to evict the Ysluvian inhabitants. Taking them by surprise (a Myra specialty) with spears and bows, even though the Ysluvians were unarmed, they eradicated a third of the men that started the trip. The party might have died for the stubbornness if the natives didn’t take pity and just leave their homes. The founders would let this win get to their head, but that could be after they built their city.

## The city

I am inclined to describe Myraš as a slavic venice, but that would be a bit misleading, the city governs like venice, but it isn’t on top of wooden blocks floating in the ocean, but one very tall island that originally functioned like an arctic pueblo termite mound. Complete with a ventilation and sewage system pretty advanced for just being carved in. they really put that sculpting knowledge to use. The tunnels start near sea level, there are balconies at every elevation, and the tunnels go into the middle of the island where air gets thin.

You can see the artificial stone islands made from what was sculpted out of the mountains, but don’t let them fool you, most of Myraš’ bay is far too deep for these structures, the island just extends a bit below the surface before dropping straight down for a kilometer.

The population of Myraš is so sizable that if it were to be incorporated, it would be the fifth largest city in the federation of Alyankan.

Although the population is hard to track, due to how many native born are out at sea, and how the amount of foreigners who have decided, or been forced, to take a prolonged stay in the city.

Every coast of the island has been converted into a dockyard. Although this may be due for a change in the mid-to-distant future as there is a 40 year plan to make a massive floating bridge from Myraš to the mainland. This would be akin to a wooden bridge from Rhodes to Turkey, and might occur in the current century. In which case they’d have to clear a few of the many historic ports on the island to make room.

People default to communal restaurants for most meals, which serve mainly seafood, fruit, root vegetables, and of course, the holy reminder of Bishlai

and Yslalchiv’s partnership, alcoholic beverages.

## Alyanka relations

A century and a half of isolation does wonders to a language, Spoken Myra to spoken Alyankan is less like russian is to ukranian, but more like serbo-croation is to czecho-slovak in comprehensibility. You can’t read each other’s books, but basic sentences and greetings will work fine.

The Myra are a head shorter than their ancestors on average. mainly because being a maritime culture does stunt height, but also lacking any land meats or fresh vegetables  in your diet does that as well. Their cheeks are puffy from fish.

You can’t keep a state this well traveled in out of the world’s eye, and the federation wanted in on that clout. First contact was tense. The Myra feared destruction of their republic for a new throne with a puppet king, but they also had much to gain from merging each other's spheres of influence. The federation needed a navy in the west and the republic really needed a land army in case someone just marchs to Myraš.

The deal came to be that militarily, is that they act as a single unit. If either goes to war, attacked or attacking, the other will join. So far it’s all been fun and games, there’s been a consistent population exchange and you can see the modern Alyankan vibe has been embraced in governing aesthetic. The Alyrankans get to color some islands as theirs on their maps.

So far it’s been all fun and games, they just send a hundred well trained guys for each other's little conflicts (only the white tribe stuff for the Myra really). But if a continental war was to break out, the world would soon see how real this alliance is, or if it’s all just on paper.

## history of expansion

Within the founder’s generation sea travel became skilled, but it took a few generations before they moved south along the coast to make contact with other races for trade and resources runs. It really became apparent that by the sixth trip there had never been a big state who had monopolized naval trade in the history of the west coast. Smelling blood, the Untroubled Republic formed the first merchant corp. After that civilian entrepreneurship was enough to maintain that slavic tongue was the most common sound of the icy ocean.

#### Volcanic island 1

Even though one might assume the first ever territorial expansion would be to the towns of treb which can be viewed from Myraš’ shore. But alas the first colony of the city in the rock is it’s most far flung possession. A merchant ship and a small navy got lost and discovered the southern island of the shattered isle. Abandoned by the gods, it was ripe with volcanic activity and uninhabited. Even though it was in view of civilization just to its east, no one had the wealth to fund an expedition to permanently settle on an island this chaotic, but the Myra duke’s treasury could handle it.

The island is massive and not populated year round. The Myra come, build their temporary structures, work the surprisingly arable land, and leave when the lava acts up.

the 3 big Myra colonies, greatly needed rests for trading.

It had effectively doubled the range of influence for Myra trade operations.

Even though they might be gone for months at a time, the families who call it home always come back in the thousands.

Burnt wood from the last few centuries of habitation can be found in every nook and cranny, truly the Myra have made their influence on the Island.

#### Volcanic island 2 white tribe boogaloo

The shattered Isle to the first island’s north was a similar story, but their white tribes had made home on the island. That couldn’t stand. The Myra knew they were there from the mainlanders, and the white tribe must always be shown it’s place. Thus began the untroubled republic of Myraš’ first serious trouble. Even with a decade of preparation, they once again overestimated the element of surprise, and the battle was more fair than yslalchiv fan might have wanted, but this was no longer art nerds with sticks, but a serious republic with modern weaponry. The following arrangement for the white tribe was less slavery, but more a serfdom contained to this island only. The glacial tips of the islands allow for year round habitation. The serfs have built great stone palaces under the guise of hired architects and the sculptors have sculptures that mark the shore.

#### The Trebs

Treb means three in Myra, whereas in alyankan it’s more like trëp. I made this up, it is canon now. There are three cities named Treb, all in the cliffs which look over the shore of the northern bay. It took the Myra 200 years, a functioning political system, the most modern weapons one could find, and at least one military victory on their belt before they attempted to settle the land they had viewed for a dozen generations. Mainly because they knew there were Ysluvians up on those cliffs, they could see their massive shadows lumber back and forth. But with international politics comes enemies, and having forts on the shore was too much a security need, hence the origin of the trebs.

The Ysluvians aren’t much of a threat to their livelihoods, but more their egos. Although after so little dialogue, they have a mythic status for city dwellers.

The inhabitants of each Treb have taken to throwing the corpses of their dead off into the ocean as a way to get closer to Yslalchiv, and despite them washing up all over the world (inadvertently making first contact back with Alyanka propper), Yslalchiv has seemed to find this amusing enough to reward the Treba with blessings.

#### Longia

Originally founded by linite refugees (hence why it’s on a river) Longia was a split off frontier city of a split off frontier city. It is the only city on flat ground in the republic. Hence why the Myra never founded a city there, they didn’t know how. It turned out to be great for farming though so this linite experience was adopted into the fold of the state.

The first Alyankan Alyankans immagrants lived here, since by the 150th birthday of the republic most well read people on the continent had heard of it. Mainly political refugees, they settled in longia because it reminded them of home and because linites don’t know how to utilize farming potential (because they don’t eat). That is the story of how linites went from majority to minority in longia.

#### Finally Island 3

That third island is a military(land navy) operation. This Island is white tribe territory, and no amount of cowardly tactics or surprise massacres will take that away from them. And while pacification is still on the mind of the current duke, the republic can make by with just having the eastern fifth. Without a friendly stop, it wouldn’t take much of a naval force to cut the untroubled republic off from it’s twin southern colonies. And that can’t be afforded.

Although the whites have been underestimated in their own endurance, rest assured they do plan on taking back their ancestors’ Isle.

That leaves just one colony left!

## **Governance overview**

Myraš is the only republic in the world as far as the Myra are concerned. The office of duke is elected for life by the aristocratic families. This was pretty much direct democracy originally since the qualification used to be that those of descent of the original sculpting class could vote, and since by the third generation that was every family, it was fulfilling. The office originated from when the fathers were traveling west and needed to get resources to keep the trip going. No one wanted to lead the raids every time so they just incorporated anti-monarchism into their artsy fartsy idealism.

It’s good to remember the Myra are like the Quebecoise more than venetians or serbs, they are all descended from the same 200 people, and after only 300 years most people who care can still trace their ancestry back to that group. This made it impractical in medieval terms for every family to vote. This gave good reason for why as late as 70 years ago the navy did a coup and reorganized who got to vote into a merchant meritocracy.

The colonies and bay cities have pretty decent say in republican governance, especially the one with serfdom. Special exception being the *Top of the world* but they are integrated in their own way. The colonies won’t be provinces for a while, and a parliament or political parties has yet to be formed. but such an upheaval might be in the near future.

There are Myra who travel upstream, or go into the mountains to talk with the angels and demons, but they usually were never the biggest fans of living in state projects to begin with.

Or maybe the Duke has been hiding something from us about what happens to those up there…..