Peragen
Impelanzan Union of the Peragian and Outer Lands Unión Impelántica de las Tierras Perágicas y Exteriores | |
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 Flag
 Coat of arms
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Anthem: Adelante (Onwards) | |
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| Capital | Arsal and Conoso |
| Largest | Arsal |
| Official languages | Impelanzan |
| Religion | Tunseism |
| Demonym(s) | Peragian |
| Government | Constitutional Monarchy |
• King | Jariano II |
| Tunsedoro Tejedor | |
| Legislature | Cortes of Conoso |
| Independence from the Arsalic Commonwealth | |
| 1632 | |
| Population | |
• 2021 estimate | 58,000,000 |
• 2019 census | 58,023,764 |
| GDP (nominal) | 2019 estimate |
• Total | 2,528,000,000,000 |
• Per capita | 43,581 |
| Currency | Peragian Quilón (PEQ) |
| Driving side | left |
The Impelanzan Union of the Peragian and Outer Lands (in Impelanzan, Unión Impelántica de las Tierras Perágicas y Exteriores), commonly known as Peragen, is a nation, located on the Urth continent of Arcturia, which consists of the land mass where its capital, Conoso, is located, and the islands of Peragen Exterior, where the historical city and capital of Arsal is placed, the Ferona Islands to the south and west, and South Dosca, where the trade city of Trasmenia is located. Peragen takes its name from its position south to the Peragen river and Rodenia. It's also east of Lokania and north of Vivancantadia, and shares the ownership of the Isla de la Amistad with Alksearia and New Leganés.
History
Ancient history
Ancient Intergua
Peragen has a complex ancient history. Around the middle to end of the Chalcolithic (5000-4000 BCE), the Mernian peoples who were developing prosperous cultures since the Neolithic moved to the lands today known as Intergua, between the wide rivers Pora and Tumpi. It is debated if it was the Mernian peoples moving there or if they were the local Interguan peoples adopting cultural patterns from Merna. There they developed techniques to control the waters and maintain an irrigated agriculture which would create a massive surplus not possible in the irregular lands of Merna.
These technniques brought several innovations, such as complex organisational and political structures, sailing and the wheel to facilitate transport, polytheistic cults and myths that supported the political needs, and script as the tool to control trade and the entrance of goods to the administration. The area was divided in several city-states which, from time to time, entered in rivalry, sometimes leading into one of those building an empire that ruled them all. Ancient Intergua lasts from 4000 BCE to 100s BCE, when Impelanza took over the region, and at its maximum expansion periods it covered both Merna and Intergua reaching to Conoso in the north, the northernmost areas of Vivancantadia and the area of Efraford in current day Lokania.
Ancient Erranza
The Erranzan city-states appeared around 2000 BCE and lasted until 200-100 BCE with Impelanza. These city-states focused on trading sea-related products with the Interguan states and got cultural and political influence from there.
Ancient Outer Lands
The Peragian Crescent
Around the 2000s BCE there started to be records about peoples of the language that evolved into what today is Impelanzan. They are known as Peragians because of the Peragen river, which divides nowadays Rodenia from Peragen and to which they were settled in both sides. They were actually the peoples already living in the region, but they adopted a new language by influence of peoples from the north and there was a change in their cultural and organisational conceptions, probably due to both the influence of Intergua to the south and to the constant need of new lands after an agricultural crisis that made them move and clash with Intergua. The wars between Peragians and the Interguan states are dated between 1500 and 1000 BCE. The expansion attempts to the south stopped when the Peragians definitely settled in the area and created some city-states that traded with Intergua and with other cultures to the north and east, acting as intermediaries.
That was the situation for the next 600-700 years. The Peragian city-states grew in population and expanded to the west, creating new cities or "colonies" that depended symbolically from the city of origin but were politically independent. This activity took place mostly in an island so largely colonised that it's known as Peragen Exterior ("Outer Peragen"). One of the most active cities in colonising was Pelda, nowadays Rodenia. Even today, in Tunseist countries each city has its own god, and Pelda's one is Impel, "In-pel(da)". The royal lineage of the city was known as the House of the Impeles, since they claim to descend from Impel himself, who would have been a human in the past. Hence, many kings and queens from the House of the Impeles were called Impelanto/Impelanta, meaning "the one who is like Impel".
One of the heirs to the Peldan throne, called Impelanto, led the expedition to found a new colony around 500 BCE: Arsal. Arsal had very expansionist trends from the beginning. They gathered a strong military force and in the 400s BCE they took over their neighbour city-states, installing members of the Impeles to rule them. They had good trade connections with the Outer Lands to the west, which granted them a prestige position together with other cities as Tingá and Lespanza, also former Peragian colonies. Lespanza was a very prosperous state, with connections to the Peragian sphere they were part of, Intergua to the south, the rest of Peragen Exterior and the Outer Lands to the west.
Arsal and Lespanza grew until their spheres clashed, especially under Basped IV's reign. Basped IV's heir was Antares, the brother of Impelanta herself. They were adopted by the king, a common practice inside the Arsalian monarchy, but they rivalled with the interests of Libana, a powerful member of the Impeles and cousin of Basped. Libana planned a coup d'etat and Lespanza assisted her to kill Basped, Antares and Impelanta and install her son in the throne, in the hopes of establishing a puppet monarch. However, Impelanta survived and was crowned as Impelanta III of Arsal.
Impelanza
Impelanta installed friendly leaders and members of the Impeles in the thrones of every state that entered in war against the alliance she now led, the Commonwealth of Pelda. The Commonwealth started to be more and more centralised by Arsal until it ended being a whole political entity: "the lands where Impelanta's heirs ruled", Impelantia, Impelanza, an empire with a long history from the 3rd century BCE to the 6th AD. Playing political games, war and colonisation, Impelanza would end up reaching Gondwana, Aurora and even Novaris with colonies, trade and war, as well as ruling almost all of Southern Arcturia.
Tunseism was key for the empire's integrity, including in its rites every deity praised in the Impelanzan territory and attributing the Arsalian rulers the status of highest authorities in the religion. The monarchs showed themselves not only merciful and accepting cultures and religions, but defending them and making them important in such a big entity. Even when de iure respecting the local cultures, aculturization processes were unavoidable. Probably the main aspect is the language itself, Impelanzan, adopted by the other cultures as a lingua franca and, at the end, as the main language. Another imperialist factor was the local leaders' integration into the imperial structure, and a strong propaganda and exemplary punishments against those who opposed the Arsalian leadership.
Another instrument for integrity was the expansion of the already existing Aldanic Games, a sports tournament in which initially the Outer Peragian cities participated, which was turned into a pan-Impelanzan event by Impelanta III. They were held every two years, with a gap of one year during which each participant city found their athletes and trained them. The Aldanics expanded out of Impelanza for the first time when, in the year 164 AD, the Kormistazic monarch was invited by Timópora I to participate in the games, and other friendly countries to the Impelanzan rulers started to join the games ever after.
The end of Impelanza came with the Toré eruption. The empire had been weak for some years already, but the eruption caused a massive agricultural crisis that would make the empire shatter into pieces in some years. 513 is the common date for its fall since it was when the House of the Impeles was expulsed from Arsal and an aristocratic regime, the Arsalian Alliance, was established.
The Age of the Thousand Realms
Following the idea that, as Impelanta III herself did, no blood connections were needed for political legitimacy, the House of the Impeles was expulsed from Arsal when the last of their monarchs, Impelanta XI, claimed to descend from the founder of Impelanza. This is now broadly considered to be a pretext for the growing power the aristocrats linked to the Impeles had acquired for some time already.
The name for the following period was implemented by the Arsalic Commonweath historians; however, the current knowledge of the transition period between Impelanza and this era makes it clear that it was a continuation of the process of political independence from the Arsalian power that had started when the Arsalian rulers had stopped enforcing any loyalty to the Impeles, other than religiously wise. The Arsalian Alliance lasted for three more centuries, but the relevance of what formerly was Impelanza's capital was limited. Arsal, being in Peragen Exterior and lacking any territorial connection to the continent, was left as a ceremonial site for the rest of monarchies, who kept on following the Tunseist religion but refused to give Arsal any political power over them. The territories that stood loyal to the Arsalian political power were from then limited to the very surroundings of the ancient metropolis.
In continental Peragen, the realm of Conoso was well located near to the coastal centres and Intergua. Trade flowed through it, and the access to the Interguan resources made the monarchy prosperous. The Conosian Games were founded in response to the Aldanics, and after them came other as the Lespanzan Games or the Mernian Games. It must be noted that these countries did not cease to participate in the Aldanics despite the appearance of new games, but it reflected how other rulers now had the influence enough to organise their own events in parallel while Arsal's power was now a symbol of what it used to be. Thanks to its prosperity, the realm gained in military force and expanded its territory until controlling important cities such as Pelda, Segata, Portóculo, Tolcázar or Orita, as well as all the lowlands delimited by the borders with the Erranzan sphere, the Peragen River and Intergua. Conoso's largest extension happened in the 7th century AD, and could only stop after its repeated and failed attempts to enter the Interguan and Erranzan states, since the Conosian tactics were only effective inland. Even when the realm would loose territories progressively until disappearing in the 10th century, the peak cultural period happened during the next two centuries, with the flourishing of the literary genre of the novel, derived from the previous century's philosophical trends and many times serving as mythical allegories to them.
The Nordian Empire and the return of the Impeles
Conoso's state, together with the Elvish states located in current day Wed Shams, north and west of Rodenia, as well as the eastern Peragian Sea coast, large portions of Intergua, and northern Erranza and Lespanza, would fall under the rule of the Lewizi kings Nordin V, who died during the siege of Marga, and Nordin VI, who marched forward from their original territories in the sources of the river Shams after two years of locust plagues, as reported from the historians of the time and later evidences. The fragmentation southern Arcturia had experienced for long centuries, plus the agricultural crisis lasting since the Toré eruption and the consequent general reduction of the military forces left an easy path for the strengthened Lewizi realm to expand across the Peragian region with a small but tactically effective force in the span of 10 years, with the last moves made in the year 960, the year when Nordin VI died of what is currently believed to be acute diabetes.
Nordin VI's successor, Altash, would move to Conoso and establish there the empire's capital permanently; in the process, she also adopted Tunseism, abandoning the previous Nefisi beliefs Lewizi monarchs had followed, and built stronger ideological ties with Impelanza, such as the expansion on the section of Impelanta's story in which she stays with the Elvish peoples in the area east to the Peragian Sea. Those peoples, sworn to Impelanta, were described as being ancestors of the Lewizi, and Altash and her successors claimed the Arsalian title of Guardians of Her Legacy. Altash's reign would last 102 years, a long span among elven queens.
The Nordian empire would last in the boundaries Nordin VI defined until Altash's successor, Tunsayehu. By his 46th year of reign (1108), the inner tensions inside the Lewizi elites, which confronted supporters and detractors of the "impelanzation" the empire was undergoing not only in the ideological field, but also around the economical and administration aspects (in which Altash was inspired as a model of efficiency), made the empire split in half. Tunsayehu's forced abdication and the subsequent inner Lewizi war left the Peragen river as border between the two newly formed realms, which would follow different trends from that moment.
On the one hand, Tunsayehu's aunt, Tsanainesh, kept the control of Conoso, Intergua, the southern Peragian areas and the puppet state of Stena (modern day Estenes); on the other, Inidiswa, governor of Yamalikiti (modern day Tiziri) and member of Tunsayehu's court, crossed the Peragen and successfully sieged Portóculo with the support of the Albon and Puntal as allies, only for Tsanainesh's forces to take control of the city only a month later. With no side being able to cross the Peragen river, the Conosian and Yamalikitin empires signed the Treaty on Both Banks, which established both empires as independent entities from each other, setting the lower Peragen valley as common border, and as legitimate successors of the Nordian empire, as well as acknowledging each empire's rulers as Guardians of Her Legacy.
Three centuries earlier, in Peragen Exterior, the Arsalian Alliance had come de facto to an end in 870, when the Arsalian Council appointed a monarch for the first time in three hundred years: Peragente VI was enthroned both as Regent Chancellor of the Arsalians and King of Arsal. The Regent Chancellorship, until then a temporary office, would be held by Peragente for a lifetime. Peragente's successor, Aluciela II, first named her own succession line as heir to the Impeles, and then included Peragente, herself and her royal family as part of the House of the Impeles. The move caused inner tensions in the Arsalian aristocracy, but was carried successfully after Aluciela wrote the ambiguous Decree on the Return of the Impeles in her capacity as Regent Chancellor: by this decree, the return of the Impelanzan royal house adopted a symbolic role, legitimising the new monarchical figures, but monarchs would still need to be elected in the same way they had been under the Arsalian Alliance.
During the Nordian period, Arsal would turn for the Empire into a frequent trade partner and ally: these ties helped its power increase in the Outer Lands, over which Arsal could pursue higher influence levels than with Nordian Peragen. The Arsalian aristocracy arranged partnerships with different states in Peragen Exterior and the Outer Lands, such as Sulcino or Cartena: after the Sulcinian archon Jarante joined the Arsalian Council in the year 1265, the entirety of the Outer Lands were ruled by Arsal or by its puppet states and the strong bindings they had with the Arsalian Council. Jarante was elected Regent Chancellor in 1278, and two years later they decreed to be, as holder of the Arsalian throne and head of the Impeles, the only legitimate Guardian of Her Legacy. For the first time in four centuries, a non-Lewizi state had gained enough power to dispute the role the Nordian states held in the region.
For the Yamalikitin state, this meant an intolerable offense to the role Nordian monarchs had adopted long ago, and invited Conoso to join retaliation efforts against Arsal. However, this supposed not just a threat to Conoso, but also an opportunity: Jarante's decree moved the Conosian court to follow what has been understood by historiography as a geopolitical stategy. In 1294 the Conosian monarch, Jáiluda, instead of joining the Yamalikitin claims, reached an agreement with Arsal, by which, in order to strengthen Arsal's role as as sole overseer of all Tunseist affairs, the Conosian Lewizi would resign from any claims to the Guardianship of Her Legacy and would send the first in the succession line, Amharque, to become part of the Impeles in the Arsalian court. Amharque was elected King of Arsal a decade later, in 1304, and rose to the Conosian throne in 1307. The Arsalian and Conosian states, together with their puppet territories, had been unified under the same ruler, in what would be called the Commonwealth of Arsal.
The Commonwealth of Arsal
Symbols
The flag of the Impelanzan Union describes four colours divided in horizontal areas: from top to bottom, orange, white, golden, and turquoise. Their disposition suggests both a sunrise and a sunset, with the orange skies above and the blue seas below. In the middle of both, Impelanta's Star shines in a luminous white. A line of orange and blue is inserted into each other's area.
The flag has been described in multiple ways, with two relevant versions: by the first one, the sunrise and sunset represent the access of the Impelanzan sphere to both seas surrounding Arcturia; by the second one, it is the beginning and end of existence, and how Impelanta's myth enlightens and guides the span between birth and death. Orange and blue mingle with each other, in the Tunseist conception that in the nature of Urth there is no end without a beginning and no beginning without an end, and both succeed each other in Tunsé's Eternity.