Dominion

## The Dominion

The Territories of the Dominion are highlighted in green.

The Dominion are an olive skinned, short, lean people. Rellans consider themselves to be a benevolent, civilised and stabilising force, but their greed, conniving and thirst for blood are known to all. By far the biggest polity on the Continent, the Dominion has enormous influence on the realm. Rellans are used to getting their way. Their chronic warmongering, political interference and brinkmanship has led every other kingdom into a coalition to challenge the Dominions hegemony.

### Food

Rellans drink a fermented grape liquor called vinum that they dilute with water and sometimes they add fruit. They eat flatbread and season their food with a fermented fish sauce. A popular dish with Rellans, Rellas yogurt is despised by all other palettes of the realm for its pungent smell and sour taste.

### Recreation

DSPR citizens are quite fond of a game called Hog where two teams of 7 players each try to throw or pass off an egg shaped pigskin from one end of the field to another. Star Hog players are renowned throughout the republic.

A common stimulant among Dominion citizens is a brown powder called snuff that is snorted up the nose. It is extremely addictive and after prolonged use it can cause deleterious effects.

### History

long ago, settlers from the Theron Empire (Then a three city-state alliance called the Theron league) left their homeland due to an unspecified catastrophe. Legend has it that this new land (Thalassia) was populated with giant predatory birds that walked on two legs like a man. Though none survive today many alleged bones still exist. Several decades after arriving these settlers would form The Dominion out of thirteen relatively peaceful agricultural Kingdoms who were struggling to resist the sea raiders who called the islands of the south home. Together, the Dominion was able to conquer their less organised and less numerous island neighbours over the course of several long and bloody campaigns called the Pelagic wars (346-321, 304-287, 282-279 BT). These wars helped to solidify the people of the Dominion as something separate from the Theron people, a fact that led to considerable chafing between the burgeoning empires.

Considering the Dominion to be a rogue colony, The Empire of Theron made an unfavourable peace with the Kingdom of B’ennyyanja to the South in order to direct the whole of their attention to bringing the Dominion under their control. Expecting a quick and decisive series of naval victories, the Empire of Theron lost most of their ships in the first few months of battle with the Dominion (272 BT). With no navy to hold them back, the Dominion conquered nearly the entire western half of the EOT, however a heroic and almost divinely won series of defensive conflicts turned the tides of the conflict back in favour of the EOT.

The Dominion-Theron war would go on to be one of attrition, with neither side able to get the upper hand on the other. The two powers would attempt to establish new fronts to the conflict, in 260 BT both the Dominion and the EOT would establish colonies on the Continent. Due mostly to geographical reasons and the Dominion’s decision to send prisoners to the colony to bolster its numbers, by the year 255 BT the EOT was forced to sue for peace and lost their holdings on the Continent as well as the western areas on the mainland they had conquered early in the war.

The Dominion would spend the next hundred years in relative peace (Pax Dominia), though their aggressive foreign policy made them the enemy of many peoples. In 35 BT they would go on to conquer the western coast of Gazar the EOT began investing heavily in trade with the Halk in the area.

Soon after the Tumult, in 0 AT, the Empire of Theron struck back at an unprepared and disordered Dominion, pushing them out of their territory all the way up to the northern Pelagic isles. Forced to sue for peace the humiliated Dominion was forbidden from rebuilding their navy and most of their trading partners switched to trade through the EOT as they were no longer intimidated into trading with the Dominion. Suring up their holdings on the Continent, the Dominion engaged in several territory expanding battles during the Gochebe wars.

After the Tumult and the Great Dying, loyalty to the central Dominion government was greatly strained. In 140 AT, a revolt overthrew the ruling class and replaced it with the Senate, a ruling body of elected princeps that themselves elect five simultaneous rulers called consuls who serve as co-rulers.

### Combat

The Dominion soldier is well trained, well equipped and well fed. Conscription begins at 17 and ends either after 5 years or severe injury, whichever comes first, though there are large incentives to stay in the military. Veterans who stay for another 5 years are given a plot of the land they helped conquer, a policy that does not agree with peacetime. The DSPR are partial to large, definitive pitched battles. Their armies are made up of cohorts of 200 men, 5 cohorts forming a maniple. Forming a line of battle several lines deep to allow exhausted or injured men to be swapped to the rear, if not out manoeuvred a Rellan maniple is near impossible to crack in head to head fighting.

### Governance

The DSPR is a patriarchal oligarchy where powerful landowning families make up the senate with little incentive to follow the will of the people. The highest position is that of consul but after the overthrow of the Kingdom of the Dominion DSPR citizens became so paranoid of a single absolute ruler that they elect five consuls at a time. This makes consensus on almost any issue nearly impossible. The DSPR are known for their bureaucratic municipal and federal governance, doing business with or living under the Dominion has been described as “gruelling” and akin to “pulling teeth”.

### Contemporary Issues

Though they have managed to keep it a secret thus far, the DSPR is fast approaching a state of emergency as a plague is currently ravaging their miasmic and overpopulated cities. Mass graves pockmark the countryside and some believe the crisis is a divine punishment and that the end times are upon them.

Related topics

* Settlements
* Buildings
* People
* Homelands