Wycome (athenril-of-kirkwall)

## Wycome

Heraldry of Wycome

Wycome is a city-state which lies at the mouth of the Minanter River and is adjacent to the Amaranthine coast of Northern Thedas, with its location marking it as the easternmost of the Free Marches.

While its settlement dates to the times of the Tevinter Imperium, its urbanisation only began to develop towards its modern levels after the Fourth Blight in the Exalted Age, expanding from a small walled keep to its current maritime entrepot.

Politically, Wycome has developed a reputation for neutrality which has proven useful for Antivan potentiates seeking venues for negotiations with relatively low threat of intervention from Crow assassins.

Wycome was nearly the site of a continental paradigm shift where Ferelden crown would have officially provided guarantees of the entire region's neutrality in the face of Orlesian aggression following the breakaway of Ferelden, with the Empire seeking to consolidate control over the Free Marcher economy to cover its debts and losses in the rebellion. The ambitions of this Congress of Wycome were thwarted by the disappearance of King Maric of Ferelden at sea, with no decisive agreement ultimately being reached.

In recent times, Wycome has become infamous during the Second Inquisition for its attempted usurpation by the nihlist cult known as the Venatori, only thwarted by the decisive actions of the Inquisition alongside the Dalish Lavellan clan. The city council, formerly a largely administrative office, has arisen to become the main governing body of the city-state, with its Lord President Josephus Prudentius serving as the regent and effective sovereign.

## **History**

### Ancient Age to Exalted Age

The territory which Wycome presently occupies has been inhabited since the coming of Planasene humans in the Ancient Age, with the first named Tevinter settlement being Vicus Marius, from which its current name has evolved (Wick-ham; Wycombe; Wycome with Antivan apocope.)

The name of the Tevinter fort either refers to its founder or patron, a certain Tevinter commander or dignitary named Marius, or is a corruption of its role as a sea fortress (Maris). It appears to have been constructed in response to rampant piracy along the Antivan and Rivaini coasts which was imperial trade, with walled harbour being evidence of this role.

The fortress of Vicus Marius managed to survive the First Blight by dint of its defenses and location, given that darkspawn to date are seemingly unable to swim or sail, but fell into disuse following the breakway of Antiva and Rivain from imperial control as the harbour and fortress had ceased to serve any military function. The stone structures of its walls and keep appear to have been mined for masonry in the surrounding countryside, and little settlement is noted in the region in the following five to six centuries besides fishing villages and small farms along the Minanter's delta.

### Fourth Blight and Re-establishment

The region's fortunes rapidly changed during the Fourth Blight, where the country of Antiva was overrun by darkspawn and a subset of its refugee population sought refuge in the ancient fortress of Vicus Marius. A certain officer amongst what remained of the Antivan soldiery named Apollonius took command and made the unprecedented decision to demolish the houses which had sprouted in the vicinity of the fortress and repatriate its stones and bricks to construct a defence against the horde. Incredibly, the keep was refortified just in time and remained standing until the defeat of the archdemon Andoral was slain by Garahel.

Apollonius and numerous other refugees opted to settle in Wycome instead of returning to Antiva, and he was elected its first Duke. Later retellings of Wycome's modern founding name Queen Asha as one of Apollonius' ancestors; while this is far from implausible it is also largely unremarkable given her sheer number of descendants, and this detail does not appear in contemporary records. While Wycome was established as a city during the Exalted Age, its market was still largely confined to the city gate - a far cry from its current mercantile prosperity.

### Qunari Occupation

The fall of the Antiva to invading Qunari whilst it was still recovering from the Blight directly preceded Wycome's own conquest, and much of the Storm Age witnessed the city changing hands between the Antaam and Exalted Marchers. The zealotry of the qunari conversions and the cyclical violence of the Age led to much of the populace fleeing to Ansburg, or becoming permanent camp followers for the Marchers.

The final campaigns of the Exalted Marches against the Qunari were launched from the foothold of Wycome, with the city quick to redevelop its economy by trading in provisions amongst the milled masses of Chantry soldiers in the region. A small Tal-Vashoth population has also persisted in the coastline between Wycome and Ostwick, with their Vashoth descendants frequently being hired as retainers by Wycome nobles.

### Modern History

The last century has witnessed the meteoric resurgence of Antiva and its trade connections, and with them Wycome's own fortunes. It quickly established itself as the "Gateway to the Free Marches" for Antivan goods, with transport upriver being considerably more efficient than going by land via Ansburg.

Merchants began forming guilds to consolidate their interests, with the guilds soon taking over the role of appointing dukes; as a means of separating civic powers, a City Council was formed to empower commoner participation in city affairs, albeit on a strictly domestic level.

Wycome's status as a Free March squarely within Antiva's orbit but simultaneously entirely independent from its direct governance has proven to be highly useful in its engagement with its merchant princes, with the city-state usually being chosen as neutral ground between distrustful princes.

#### Congress of Wycome

Its role in diplomacy was exemplified by its hosting the Congress of Wycome, a council aimed at forming a customs union and military alliance in response to Orlesian aggression in the wake of the successful Fereldan Rebellion. King Maric of Ferelden had been deliberately invited as a show of belligerence in the face of Orlais' sable-rattling, intended to convey that Ferelden was in a position to offer security guarantees.

In addition to this posturring, according to Orlesian spies there allegedly were secret clauses in the treaty involving the declaration of the autonomy of the Fereldan island of Alamar and its accession to the proposed League of Free Marches as an equal member, in effect joining Ferelden to the League at the hip.

While the newly formed "Free March of Alamar" would nominally be independent of Ferelden, conflict breaking out between members of the League and any foreign power such as Antiva or Orlais, or less likely Nevarra, would now risk the Alamar sovereign's appeal to the Fereldan crown on behalf of the entire League given the preceding relationships of fealty and vassalage between them.

If such terms had been ratified, the League of Free Marches' formation would have been a considerable threat to the balance of Thedosian power especially if the confederation had ever developed expansionist aims.

##### Disappearance of King Maric

Therefore, it is no surprise that conspiracy theories still mill about to this day concerning the king's disappearance at sea en route to Wycome, with the accusatory finger periodically alternating between Orlais and Antiva given that both realms had much to lose from this alliance.

Theories concerning King Maric's disappearance have included fanciful stories of his abduction at sea by the Antivan Crows and subsequent imprisonment at their infamous prison of Velabanchel, even being forced to don a metal cage upon his head to hide his identity, to more prosaic suggestions of assassination by agents of the Orlesian crown. The Second Inquisition may have unearthed evidence of the latter via their interrogation of Eustache de Marchialy, an apostate agent of the former Grand Duchess Florianne of Orlais.

In his account, Comte Nazaire de Bragelonne, eighth husband of the infamous court mandarin Dowager Lady Mantillon, had hired Eustache and a cabal of apostates to wreck Maric's flotilla with elemental magic. As Eustache did not survive his interrogation and Lord Nazaire himself had perished years prior when he was accidentally crushed by a cargo of handbags, these have been dismissed as the ramblings of a paranoiac especially given that such accusations could easily have destroyed fragile Orlesian-Fereldan relations during the Corypheus Crisis.

#### Venatori Coup

The Corypheus Crisis also witnessed the greatest threat to the city-state's sovereignity since the Exalted Marches agains tthe Qunari, namely the nearly successful coup by the Tevinter cultists known as the Venatori.

Early on in the Corypheus Crisis, the Venatori appear to have compromised Duke Antoine Chidioque, who sought to hand the city over to them whilst also scapegoating the non-human residents of the city-state, the elves in particular, by poisoning its water with the incredibly toxic red lyrium and blaming the malady on them. He and the Venatori also attempted to destroy a neighbouring Dalish clan, first by disguising mercenaries as bandits, then by implicating them in the red lyrium poisoning.

The Second Inquisition's intervention involved sending troops to protect the city and the clan along with agents to stop the poisoning plot, but were only partially successful as they were unable to stop Duke Antoine and the majority of the city's nobles from succumbing to poisoning or violent deaths in the chaos that ensued from the revelation of the Venatori plot. Wycome's neighbouring city-states of Markham and Hercyne interpreted Clan Lavellan's occupation of the city as a Dalish coup, and sent troops to liberate Wycome; they were foiled and their misapprehensions resolved by the Inquisition.

With so much of the march's administration and nobility perishing during the coup and its aftermath, the middle classes in general and the City Council in specific have rised to the fore of Wycome politics. The City Council's governing powers were formerly highly limited in scope, but have come to encompass both the city and march's recovery and redevelopment given the widespread destruction caused by the Venatori.

There is currently no ruling Duke in the march, with his powers being exercised by the Council via consensus, as overseen by its Lord President, currently Monsignor Josephus Prudentius.

## **Geography**

Wycome is extraordinarily urbanised, even for a Free March, with a miniscule rural hinterland relative to its own neighbours. As such, it imports the vast majority of its food from neighbouring Ansburg, who correspondingly enjoys much of the vast revenue brought in from Wycome.

## **Politics**

Wycome, up till the events of the Venatori coup during the Corypheus crisis, has been ruled for centuries by semi-elected Dukes, with attempts at building dynasties usually collapsing after several generations due to the sheer amount of strife the region has undergone, be it Blights, Qunari invasions, or other such wars and conflicts.

The House of Chidioque has been the exception which tests the rule given the relative calm of the previous two centuries, having secured elections for themselves and their heirs in an essentially unbroken chain until the reign of Duke Antoine, so violently ended during the Venatori coup.

Suffrage as far as ducal elections go is not universal, with the only legal voters being guild-masters, the richest of merchants and other leading members of Wycome. In response to protests and infrequent riots by the gentry and common residents of Wycome over their lack of electoral representation, the City Council which governed matters within the city walls was converted from a set of appointments by the Duke and his inner circle to positions which are directly elected by the citizenry, with political parties emerging from alliances between prospective officeholders.

These parties include the Civitas, who petition for even greater power over city matters, the Lucrosians, who share a name and certain ideologies with the economic-minded mage faction, the Integralists, who believe Wycome should enter a union with Antiva, and the Devolutionists, who feel the opposite. The current Lord President who acts as the speaker and ultimate adjudicator of the council's decision, leads a Grand Coalition of these factions whose primary goal is the reconstruction of the city after the Venatori coup.

## **Society and Culture**

The nobles of Wycome have, through capitalising upon their location as the "Gateway to the Free Marches", enriched themselves to levels rivalling the merchant princes of Antiva and the landholders of Ansburg, and their culture of revelry has fuelled an almost insatiable demand for Antivan wine. Its culture is a mixture of Free Marcher and Antivan mores.

The most common titles by far amongst the citizenry of Wycome are those of Signor/Signora for middle classes and Monsignor for magnates amongst them, and may be taken as broadly equal to their Antivan equivalents. The only Wycome Monsignors whom Merchant princes deign to directly deal with are the guild-masters, with honorary titles sold by guilds to eminent members of the bourgeoise.

While its urban population rivals Val Royeaux, it has barely any hinterland to speak of, largely importing its food from Ansburg and other key resources from elsewhere in the continent. Its lopsided demographics have elided any need for a separate branch of the Circle of Magi; its mages are largely housed in Markham or Antiva.

### **Food and Drink**

The Qunari occupation of Wycome has left indelible marks in its architecture and culture, with the qunari embellishments to the city walls still standing to this day as well as its re-organisation of the city's grid still being used as its districts; numerous cultivars from Par Vollen have survived in the countryside, some of which are grown as delicacies, and qunari loanwords persist for exotic items in Wycome.