Asturcia

Flag of Asturcia

**Asturcia** or formally, **The Savii Republic of Asturcia** is currently a province of Carvay in southeast Vastallos. Asturcia is mostly based around the city of Asturcia but is home to many other cities, like Broria, Griffinview, and Albertia. Asturcia is geographically made up of plains and has mountains running from south to north in the western parts of the region and has coasts with Mare Caprichosa and the Ombra gulf.

## Pre History

### **Formation of the State**

Founded by the Asturcians in the region, the Kingdom of Asturcia was formed in around ~4000 BJC and was a relatively minor state in the region. But had later begun to slowly expand to its north up the Port Ravenus. The Asturcian King had mandated a system known as the Sangtictio System which mandated large groups of citizens throughout the state to take a Polity exam, which had established the skills of these select citizens and would install them to the bureaucratic position that best fit the individual like a tax collector, administrator, military officer and many more.  The initial consequences of these programs had displayed an effective and skilled bureaucracy; but overtime, the new bureaucratic class had become increasingly corrupt. The best example of this corruption was the Military of Asturcia whose leaders had developed the army into an elite Aristocracy and slowly began to detach the army from the state this new military structure would be properly introduced later, during the Asturcian Empire

### **The Asturcian Empire**

           After the Kingdom of Asturcia had gained full control of modern day Port Ravenus the King of Asturcia had proclaimed the Asturcian Empire. Afterwards, the Empire would rapidly militarize. The earlier mentioned Asturcian Military would be reformed into the Imperial Asturcian Army who at that point were almost entirely independent from the control and command of the Asturcian government; the army only being loyal to the Asturcian monarchy. The militarism of the Empire would lead to large campaigns typically against smaller and weaker states orchestrated by the Imperial Asturcian Army that lead Asturcia from modern Broria, to western Mennszag.  Over this time period, the Asturcians had made multiple rivals, those being Dønsktopt, and Carvay.  The latter rival, Carvay became such when it started to challenge Asturcian Power by attempting to take chunks of Port Ravenus from Asturcia, leading to the Port-wars, a series of armed conflicts between Asturcia and Carvay seeking dominance over the other for Port Ravenus.

### **Decline of the Asturcian Empire**

Although the wars orchestrated by the Imperial Asturcian Army were typically successful,  this fact became apparent when most bordering states around Asturcia ie. Kamigawa, Stensta, and Carvay. Were much stronger than the typical conflict the Imperial Army was used to; thus making conflict an extremely risky militant and economic risk. Not to mention the crimes the Imperial Army would often engage in throughout the empire often terrorizing citizens. This combined with the fact that Asturcia’s economy had historically been war-driven; major economic downturn was an inevitable consequence.  The Bureaucracy had also been failing for years before the decline, the main bureaucracy also reforming into an elite aristocratic class. The class of bureaucrats also had serious corruption issues. All of this being seen by the peasantry had given rise to a new political movement that seeked the overthrow of the Asturcian Empire and its government and installing a more egalitarian state, in the form of a Republic; this political movement were commonly referred to as the Radicals, they were given this name by contemporary groups because of their Radical ideas.

During this decline period the three rivals, Carvay, Asturcia, and Dønsktopt had fought for influence over Kamigawa in this, all three sides had refused to militarily take Kamigawa, for multiple reasons. But it really did show how Asturcia was just not in the same shape it was years ago; this is further displayed in the Asturcian performance in the 6th Port-war in 2110 BJC which it had been one of the worst defeats Asturcia had faced up to that point. Not to mention, the fact that a major source of food came from the arable land found in Port Ravenus.

As a result of this a famine had appeared throughout the empire, but the eastern half had suffered the most due to the more urban regions in the area; additionally, the Asturcian market was typically full, inefficient, and often housed local merchants which only maximized the impact of the famine.  All of this had only strengthened the Radical’s cause

#### **The Radicals**

Forming in around 2113 BJC, a new movement had began to organize, originally comprised of young men who found themselves to be in the lower end of society had began to think negatively of the ideas they were often taught when they had been younger and had eventually came to the concepts of Republicanism, the Abolition of the Asturcian Monarchy, Egalitarianism, and the dissolution of the Asturcian Empire. Most of these ideological doctrines came from the discussions the organization would have late into the night; In addition to the various pieces of literature written by various figures of the movement. The organization itself was organized by a triumvirate and were popular within the group.

This organization would refer to themselves as the “Violet Movement '' but was given the name by their contemporaries as the “Radicals”. As a result of the rising discontent with the current Government the Radical movement had spread easily across the empire albeit with some trouble from the Imperial Army. After a little over a decade the political split in Asturcia was easily noticeable especially in cultural outlooks between citizens. Oddly, there had been some Military officials that began to be sympathetic to the Radical cause. The Radicals, with their immense support throughout the empire would often conduct raids against munition complexes as well as assault state bureaucrats and would occasionally assassinate military figures.

### **The Chocolate War, and The Asturcian Revolution**

In approximately 2100 BJC the Ardat Caliphate had launched a full-scale invasion of Vastallos which saw Dønsktopt and Asturcia endure the bulk of the fighting on the land. The

Asturcians had attempted a large-scale offensive in the eastern portions of Ardatian colonies in southern Vastallos which had been initially successful, the Imperial Army had slowly been pushed back the Asturcians had used the heavily forested terrains to their advantage by attempting to wage a guerilla campaign on their slow retreat back to the original border. The Ardatians had eventually pushed the Imperial Army back the border but had immense difficulties advancing due to the mountain terrain that the army must push past , as well as the fortified positions of what is now currently known as Griffinivew. These positions had properly led the battle for Griffin’s view. In this battle the Ardatian army had attempted to break through the mountain ranges but had faced strong resistance from the Asturcians who had been able to keep them within the confines of the mountains, essentially blocking Ardat from advancing and marching to the capital. Meanwhile, on the western Asturcian-Ardatian border.  Ardat had a fairly easy time taking Asturcian territories but eventually, the frontlines had morphed into a trench like style of warfare. Given this, the war had come to a stalemate with more and more men and boys across the empire sometimes.

   During the war, mass conscription was introduced, and the Imperial Asturcian Army had brung many people across the empire from western Mennszag to the capital city. These new policies were given approval by the emperor, Lysidamus Valtesus and had been a wildly successful policy. With the main issue with the policy being the worst, the conscription of everyone, which also meant the various civilians that had been affiliated with the Violet Movement.  This had caused many of the Radicals to either stay on the front, or desert and attempt to head back to their homes; now with weapons to fight.  The war had been a massive bolster to the Violet Movement with new people joining and now easily getting weapons in their hands.  This had opened the door for the Radicals to take on the Imperial Army, and the Empire.

After the Imperial Asturcian Army had captured one of the members of the triumvirate in Asturcia City, the Radicals had taken that event as their que to rise up in the streets of the city, and the couriers were sent across the Empire. It was one the Asturcians quickly had overrun important buildings in Asturcia City including the Emperor’s palace. The now revolutionaries had entered the palace, but Valtesus and his family had fled the city leaving it to unorganized fighting between the revolutionaries and the garrisons of the Imperial Army that had been present beforehand.

The relocation of the emperor outside of the city had soon began the the Asturcian civil war. The conflict had been a long brutal war with lots of irregular warfare throughout Asturcia. Later when partisans had been contacted by couriers, they began to rise up throughout various parts of the Empire. Not too long after the civil war had started, the Imperial Army had seized power from the Lysidamus Valtesus and made the emperor’s power defunct, making the loyalist government a de facto military junta, while moving the loyalist government out from the capital as the Violet movement had began to take control of Asturcia City, and moved it to Griffin's View.  But as the Ardatian kept advancing, the Loyalist government had signed a peace treaty with the ardatian, pulling Asturcia out of the chocolate war. Later, Carvay had seized the last chunk of land in Ravenus the Asturcians had. Eventually after multiple days of fighting, the Violet movement had taken control of the capital city. But the uprisings had begun in other parts of the empire like the city of Broria, although the Violet movement had much more trouble taking over the

e city, causing the Violet Movement in Asturcia city to launch an expedition north to secure the city of Broria. Afterwards the empire would engage in multiple years of fighting, with the Violet movement defeating the loyalists, causing Asturcia to grant the independence of the various regions it had ruled over although some regions of the empire had declared independence first.

### **The Asturcian Republic**

The civil war in Asturcia had left the state merely ruling Asturcia city, and the territories surrounding it severely weakening Asturcia. In this state, military figures had seized power from the Asturcians and implemented harsh and authoritarian policies in Asturcia for around sixteen years until the death of the government’s leader Aroldo Ordus. After their death a proper Republic had been formed, with  Marcius Alexidre, an influential writer in Asturcian society before the chocolate wars, as the head of state of Asturcia.

### Post-Statehood History

Asturcia became a state of Carvay when the Carvaian State System was introduced by Kori Glynrel. While still heavily underpopulated today, Asturcia controls much of the South-East portion of Vastallos, most of which making up the Vastallosi Plains.

## Language

The current language of Asturcia is typically referred to as "Orthodox Asturcian" the name is given to the language since the language is mainly spoken in Asturcia and is within the Asturcian family of languages, the other languages in the Asturcian family being Carvaian and Dracadian. The three languages being derived from "Old Asturcian" which had been widely spoken in southern Vastallos, but overtime was only spoken in the region of Asturcia until the collapse of the Second Asturcian Empire. Afterwards the language would be mostly lost to time, with a Orthodox Asturcian taking its place as the primary language of Asturcia.

## Geography

Asturcia mostly lays on forested territory, with mountains in the western half of the region, which cradles the old fort of Griffinview and many more structures throughout the mountain range, politically, Asturcia is currently divided into 3 general regions: Asturcia, Griffinview, and Broria; formerly Asturcia had 5 regions with West and east Mennszag being apart of Asturcia.