Myrmidonian Mahajanapada

The Mahajanapada is called the **Myrmidon Empire**, the **Oriental Empire** or the **Tyranny of Oriens** by the scholars of Firangi.

In truth the Mahajanapada is ruled by the **Coelo-Gerousia** (a council of **77 Neverdead** or **Gerontes**) where these undying, ancient and withered witches have allegedly the applitiy to see the future. The Yellow Emperor and Co-Emperor also sit in the Indigo Chambers where the Coelo-Gerousia is located, where the Neverdead whisper in faint voices to the Emperors. It is said that the Neverdead never leave the Indigo Chambers for they have mumified and rotten into mummies.
Yellow Emperor or **Jagatnatha** has been in seclusion in The summer palace (Yellow Chambers) on the island of Mygdon, ever since the Erupition of the Mother Flame and the Fall of Myrmidon, he has left the rulership of the day to day to the Co-Emperor or **Lavender Emperor** (After the Lavendula Chambers). The Yellow Emperor has ruled for millennia, and it seems that him and his Empire still live, more powerful than ever before-

Myrmidon is a place of anicent knowledge, faith and beauty. Laresian merchants have an increasing influence over the vestigial empire. Its grasping hand falling further and further from its ex-empire.

The Mahajanapada is futher subdivided into Archons (ruler of themes), Despotes (hereditary ruler of despotates) and Tyrants (ruler of cities).

### The Pre-eruption Mahajanapada

The Mahajanapada was an advanced civilization, and the dominant military and cultural power of the known world. Its capital was the vulcanic city Myrmidon, located at the Tip of Laresia on the Supervulcano the Mother Flame. During its long history the political system of the Myrmidonians varried from an elective monarchy to an oligarchy and finally rule by military emperor.

The Mahajanapada was ruled by the three powerful factions:

**Sphinxes**:

The Sphinxes were the old aristocracy (traditionalists) of Myrmidon, tracing their lines to the exiled magi that became the first Yellow-clothed Emperor or Jagatnatha. Masters of the arcane and magic, such as the Neverdead, which they held close to their chest, the Sphinxes were supremes of the world. They held sway over the underwater pyramids that guarded the empire and the **Spheres of Gyges**, which demanded blood offerings from their ranks. The rise of the oligarchy under their rivals the Anaxs ousted the Sphinxes from control. Although the Sphinxes would return into promience under the rule of the emperors, generals who ended the semi-democratic institutions of the Mahajanapada. The Yellow Emperor and its co-ruler the Lavender Emperor were drawn from the ranks of the Sphinxes. Its powerbase was the Capital of Myrmidon and the military.

**The Anaxs**:

What will become the Grey Nobility of the Sancta Sedes, was once the Anaxs, the younger rivals of the Sphinxes. Growing out from the conquest of Firangi and the Morrowlands, the Anaxs were powerful landlords, yet novices in the field of the arcane arts. The Anaxs power would eventually eclipse the Sphinxes, and use it to turn the Mahajanapada into a elective oligarchy ruled by Tyrants. The Anaxs were brought down by the declartion of the Empire and the revolts by the farming population. The Anaxs were the only remaing powerstructre present in post-erruption Laresia and would later transform into the grey nobility. The Anaxs were not as strict about blood purity as the Sphinxes were. The grain-producing coast of Pachora and its lands irrigated **The Great Water Canals**, where its powerbase, although many chose to inhabit the capital.

**Vanij**:

The third mercantile power-based faction. The Vanij where rich merchants who became the dominant faction in the urban landscape of Myrmidon, their powerbase being the Free Marches and its autonomous colonies. Coming from diverse origins and faiths, the Vanij reached their apex under the oligarchical period, even replacing the Anaxs as reignholders. The destruction of the urban environment during the Century of Soot greatly diminished the powers of the Vanij and they would later transform into the various local elites of the Free Marches.

### Sikandara Bloodline

The **Sikandara Dynasty** was founded by the legendary **Adargoma n-Amet**, who took the Myrmidonian name of **Menander Sikandar** and later established The Sixth line of Yellow Emperors of the Myrmidonian Mahajanapada. The Sixth line after regaining control of Myrmidon following 280 years of usurpation, by the Seventh and Tenth Lines, was the last rulining line of the Myrmidon Empire before the Errupotion pf the Mother Flame. The Sixth Line survived the destruction of the Empire by sheer accident, as the Yellow Emperor "The Emperor in Hesychia" was on his summer palace on the Island of Mygdon, it was he who crowned his only surviving son as new Lavender Emperor, a title which had fallen out of use by the latter half of the Pre-eruption Mahajanapada. In the centuries after the calamity, veneration of the Emperor grew into a demand for absolute obedience. Today the Yellow Emperor is hidden from the people and believed to be in a perfect, eternal state of meditation, while his will is carried out by a sprawling clerical bureaucracy and the Lavender Emperor.

### ***Second Fourth Dynasty***

Also known as the true dynasty or simply the fourth dynasty, is the current dynasty of Myrmidon.