Nya

**Nya**, also know as the **Kingdom of Nya** was a kingdom located in central Ahremia, above the Catalline Lake and covering nearly the entirety of the region now called the Plains of Altges. The small Triglla River ran southwards across the kingdom, and was important to the survival of the kingdom and the wealth of its capital, Ilgfurra, and its largest city, Altges.

The kingdom began as a collection of vassal states under the Kingdom of Estergaald. The kingdom was granted independence in about 490 SY, after the death of the king of Estergaald, Einud II. It was at this point that a local warlord, nicknamed Sasmon the Bald, took power within his home city of Ilgfurra and gained favor with the mostly Ahrem inhabitants of Nya. The kingdom would exist and engage in the politics of the region until the last ruler of the kingdom, Elegir of Gjent, died. His death caused a brutal civil war which turned into a war between Nya's neighbors who wished for control of the region, particularly the city of Altges.

## Etymology and People

The name *Nya* is of Zedian origin. Initially, it was a Zedian place-name used to refer to the land north of "Great Lake of the Ahrems". Over time, it was adopted by the local warlords to refer to a more specific area.

The people of Nya were not unlike those of Estergaald in ethnicity. The majority of Nyans were of mixed Ahrem and Buthenian heritage. The combination of these two ethnicities resulted in a people which possessed physical traits such as pale skin, light hair, tall stature, and generally more lanky builds. The people of Nya engaged primarily in farming, mostly cereal crops and root vegetables grown across the Plains of Altges. Besides farming, some Nyans fished in the nearby rivers and lakes or grazed animals in the more arid areas of the kingdom.

## History

The original inhabitants of the area that would become Nya were the sectinian horsemen, nomads who herded animals and foraged across the plains of Sectinia in ancient times. Eventually, permanent settlements began to become established, and from those, small states began to form. These states were generally just a large commune (no more than 1000 people in the settlement) and the farms around it. As the ancient era of Ahremia came to a close, many of these petty states had fortified their capitals and had notable system of tax collection, irrigation, and government.

The Buthenian Incursion (66 SY) into Ahremia marked the first real invasion by foreigners into Ahremia. The Buthenians chose to invade the uncharted land through their northern vassal states, near the city of Halda. Relying on outdated geographic knowledge, the Buthenians hoped to reach the city of Euritas, not realizing it was hundreds of miles too far south to realistically reach. Yet once the Buthenians reached the city of *Lanturr* (believed to be Dilare), the Buthenian general Daruk of Bagrad sieged the city successfully, encouraging him to try his luck sieging the city of Naiez'ka, which due to language barriers, he believed to be Euritas. His siege was unsuccessful, and Buthenian army fled - only after the Ahremians took many, many slaves. Although some of these slaves are responsible for the Buthen-Ahrem population in North Ahremia, many Buthenians chose to stay in Ahremian rather return to their harsh, cold homeland.

Over centuries, the Buthenian settlers spread, greatly changing the racial demographics of Ahremia. The former form of Ahremian became Early Ahremian, a language that by 200 SY was spoken widely in North Ahremia, including Nya.

The period from 200 SY - 490 SY was characterized as being incredibly fractured politically, and the only kingdoms of note during this time were the previously mentioned Estergaald, Mercia, and Norbrampton. But upon the death of Einud II, king of Estergaald and overlord of Nya, a small civil war began between his two sons, Oppo and Byernfuld. While both sons held firm positions as the lords of Estergaald and Nazka, respectively, Nya was left relatively open to liberation by domestic means.

That opportunity was sieged when Sasmon the Bald, a warlord from the city of Ilgfurra, declared independence from Estergaald and thus began the existence of the kingdom of Nya.

### Reign of Sasmon the Bald (c. 490 - c. 520)

Sasmon began his reign as the lord of basically only his home city and the land surrounding it. The first decade of his reign had him focused on the annexation of more territory, including the city of Altges on the Catalline Lake. A smart king, Sasmon began his territorial conquests by first marrying his daughter to the son of the king of Hamhall. This marriage secured good favor with the Sectinian rulers, and allowed him to rule without the fear of a surprise invasion.

Later in his reign, in about 500 SY, he challenged the army of the Kingdom of Altges at their border, resulting in a few skirmishes. These skirmishes caused the lords of Altges to send a much larger army, which upon reaching the soldiers of Sasmon, resulted in the Battle of Hammon Dorr, which was a Nyan victory. Not much else is known about Sasmon's conquests of Altges, but by the end of his reign he had taken over the land formerly belonging to Altges.

### Reign of Elegir of Gjent (c. 520 - c. 540)

Upon Sasmon's death, the traditional way to transfer power would be to divide it between all of Sasmon's living sons. However, Sasmon's only son was a bastard who was considered unfit for the throne upon his father's death. The nobles of Nya then decided that Sasmon's son in law, Elegir of Gjent, Prince of Hamhall, should be offered lordship over Nya. Although this is supposedly how Elegir gained power, it is likely he had spent years lobbying for control of Nya. Although the crown prince of Hamhall, he was willing to abandon that title and leave it to his younger brother in order to take power of a much larger territory, that of Nya.

As chronicled by the monk Johan Spartus in 614 SY, Elegir became king in the winter of 520 or 521 SY. His wife, Juliana - eldest daughter of Sasmon - would become queen consort. Elegir's reign is much more well recorded then that of Sasmon's. It is known that Elegir took the throne at about age 45, and would reign until his death at age 65 in 540. Unlike Sasmon, Elegir had a son. Elegir's only son, Aberoth, was in his fourties when his father died, and had previously served as a landlord of a large plantation south of Cornoa, making him seem a fine replacement for Elegir. And in accordance with such sentiments, Aberoth became king of Nya in 540 SY.

### Civil War and Collapse

Despite Aberoth's coronation in 540 SY, his claim to the throne was not as uncontested as he may have thought. Although a grandson of Sasmon, many members of the local aristocracy questioned whether Aberoth's maternal lineage justified him as king. Due to this, a faction of nobles supported by a combination of mercenaries and local militias began to support another grandson of Sasmon, Uinweld. Uinweld was the son of Gudden, the bastard son of Sasmon which some thought had been stolen of his right to the throne.

Once this faction reached a certain growth, Uinweld left hiding in Pshartia and used Castle Lour in the south of Nya as a staging base for his invasion. Unfortunately, scouts of Aberoth uncovered this plot and delivered the information to Aberoth, who chose to place troops flanking the road he hoped Uinweld would lead his troops through.

Uinweld did indeed lead his troops down said road, and the following ambush is remembered as the *Battle of Linderwent*, and began the Nyan Civil War. Although executed well by Aberoth, his troops were far less organized and susceptible to fracturing, which was the case with Linderwent. Uinweld's forces, bottlenecked on a narrow road, were flanked and attacked on both sides, which put them into a poor position. Luckily, another of Uinweld's armies, made of mostly mercenaries, was only a few minutes down the road, and arrived just in time to break Aberoth's formation. This break resulted in Uinweld's victory.

Uinweld's army would continue to Altges, where a handful of small skirmishes were fought outside and on the way to the city. Upon reaching the prize city of Nya, Uinweld and his officers found the city to be much larger and more fortified than they thought, a miscalculation possibly brought on by the fact that Uinweld had never actually visited the city. The following siege that Uinweld initiated was broken by the army of Altges in a matter of days, but did not result in much bloodshed. Uinweld would abandon his hopes to take Altges and chose to attack Ilgfurra, the capital, instead. Upon reaching Ilgfurra, a long and bloody battle ensued which gave time for Aberoth and his most loyal supporters to flee to the town of Buhr in west Nya, where he continued his operations as king and chief general of Nya.

It was around this time that Nya's neighbors began to see how weak the kingdom was becoming. Notable of these neighbors was the kingdom of Estergaald, which offered the desperate Aberoth their help in defeating Uinweld in exchange for their vassalage once the war was over. With very few other options, Aberoth accepted. But what seemed like a easy victory for Aberoth and his allies from Estergaald was to not be so. Uinwald had unknowingly struck a deal with the king of Pshartia, Ayyus, to provide military support. Uinwald had developed good relations with Ayyus while he had resided in Pshartia before his involvement in the war. This essentially turned the conflict into a proxy war, as the kingdoms backing either side had previous sour relations they wished to take out on each other.

The Battle of Muth (550) was fought between Ilgfurra and Buhr and is considered the greatest battle of the war. Uinwald and the Pshartians came face-to-face with Aberoth and his Estergasque allies. Johan Spartus wrote of the battle:

> "...as the fog rolled in over the wasteland of trampled trees and burned bushes, the victor of such a bloody battle was not one of easy prediction. As my (relative) watched the fog recede, though, one could make out Aeberoth - his head, on a pike."
>
>

Aberoth would be killed in 550 SY, giving a moment of hope that Uinwald would become king. Unfortunately, the turmoil of Nya had only just begun. Although Aberoth was dead, Estergaald's rulers were not ready to give up the fight. From this point on, the civil war of Nya became a war for foreign dominance over the region. Although Ayyus initially valued Uinweld as a representative to the local population, his presence eventually became a nuisance and he was killed and his body burned in 551 SY. Upon his death, the hope for the Kingdom of Nya was lost. By the end of the proxy war, Nya's landscape and people had been devastated, and no clear winner was decided.

## Present Day

In the present day, the former Kingdom of Nya is located in the provinces of Sectinia and Sirien in the kingdom of Ahremia. The nation's former capital, Ilgfurra, is now known as Elg-fura, and is a small commune. Altges, once a great city, is now a more inland settlement in rural Sirien province. The legacy of Nya still survives in some aspects - the term *Nyan* as a denonym is still used to refer to the locals of the Plains of Altges. The wars of Nya left a everlasting mark on the land, completely devastating it; a devastation which the land is still recovering from.