Malentina: Difference between revisions

The "Crisis of the Twelve" began with a series of smaller revolts and notorious major cultural clashes, which culminated in the creation of the Great Council in the mid-1610s. The Great Council would bring forth all of the issues that were currently plaguing the league in hopes of coming up with solutions which would necessitate large-scale reforms that were to be decided upon by the ruling class. However, despite these goals, the Great Council would prove to be a great failure as there was a large series of errors and miscommunications that would slowly lead to the islands' descent into chaos and the eventually escalation towards indiscriminate violence between the different groups. Throughout the next few years, various revolts with lots of bloodshed, costly civil wars, and sectarian tribal conflicts would break out. These conflicts were largely caused by the swift separation of the traditional indigenous tribes which included the warrior tribes, who were once prized as the finest mercenaries on the islands, fighting against their former bosses in the quickly collapsing cities. It was also during this time that the Varshani raids would start to become successful after centuries of failures, and the absolute devastation caused by the raid would further crush any hope for the northern cities to ever recover.

Ironically, the raids would inspire the tribes, leading them to unite into a new confederacy which would once more prove to be a formidable foe against the Varshani raids, with the raids soon ending permanently around the year 1690. The final result that came thanks to the Crisis of the Twelve was that it ultimate spelled the final end to the once-great North Songun Civilization as the descendants of the refugees who have fled the former heartlands began to dwindle to the point that they were deemed to be largely irrelevant to the indigenous peoples on the islands. The cities that once held the honor of being the first point of contact between the indigenous tribes to the great mainland civilizations that surrounded them were reduced to ruins, with only two of the seven cities managing to survive in a somewhat functional state. It has been estimated that at least two-thirds of the islands' population died out within a span of less than a century. It was also around this time that the islands would first come into contact with the [[Occident]] through new settlers arriving on the eastern coast. These new people were from [[Cartadania]], and had first encountered the islands in 1689, and arrived on what was now the nearly-deserted east coast which was considered to be the backwater of the islands even during the golden and silver ages of Malentina.

Had the Cartadanian sailors arrived just a century early, or even on the northern or western coasts, they would have been met with great hostility from amongst the indigenous tribes and the remaining foreign peoples from the rest of Crona, but because they had arrived at a time when the islands had just began to recover from nearly a century of ruination and on what was the backwater of the islands even during their best years the sailors were only met with small indigenous tribes that inhabited the east coast; tribes that were initially suspicious of the recently-arrived Cartadanians, but were eventually convinced to work with them. These small tribes have had very little documentation pertaining to their history, and their exact origin stories have been left a mystery even to this day. This missing piece of history would not matter much in the slightest if not for the fact that at least 35% of the modern indigenous citizenry of Malentina tracing their ancestry to these tribes, with approximately half of them being either Ardmistizo or Costizo.

Throughout the latter decade of the 17th Century, Cartadanian settlers would be among the first Occidental inhabitants of the islands, building the first settlement of [[Salcojina]], which initially served as a trading post, but would one day become the capital of modern Malentina. While there is a historical consensus that the indigenous tribes were initially somewhat hostile towards the Occidental settlers at first, the story based around the historical claims that it was a very gregarious expedition leader that convinced them to quickly build a strong and lucrative trading relationship with the Occidental settlers has been somewhat disputed. In Malentina, the more accepted historical claim that has been held by both scholars and citizens was that it was in fact three indigenous translators, who were permitted to visit the lands of Levantia and Sarpedon, who convinced the various indigenous tribes of the vast wealth they may be able to amass through working with the colonial settlers. Regardless of the veracity of the claims, the agreements that were made between the first Cartadanian settlers and the indigenous tribes of the east coast would lead to the emergence of friendly relations that would last for over a hundred years.

During the first half of the 18th Century, Cartadanian explorers would continue with mapping out the islands. The eastern tribes had relayed one grave warning to the explorers who heeded it and thus avoided making landing parties lest they wound up triggering the hostilities of other indigenous tribes. One of these expeditions would eventually come across a series of vast ruins of what looked to be a once-great city. The explorer in charge of this particular expedition was drawn towards the possibility of amassing a vast fortune of his own to the point that he considered ignoring the warning that the tribes gave him, and was convinced by his men to conduct a survey on the ruins. However, as they scouted the coast for a decent enough area to make camp, they soon discovered that not only were they not the first to have had that very idea, they saw the burnt remains of another ship and the smoldering ruins of a camp which would prove to be a convincing reminder that the warnings that the eastern tribes had given them were not to be taken lightly if they wanted to live.

Although the western tribes would remain hostile towards the Occidental settlers, several new settlements would soon be established on the island of Hileenkopp, known by the settlers as ''La Ilha Hallare'', or the Hallaric Island. All but one of these new settlements were established by Cartadanian settlers, with the sole exception being a single Coscivian settlement on the island's northern tip, the Coscivian settlers would name the islands ''Sáfach''. These new settlements would bring great wealth and power to the eastern indigenous tribes, who soon unified into a single confederation to protect themselves from the hostile acts of the tribes in the west. By the year 1750, a particularly notable demographic shift would begin to occur at that time, with the arrival of new settlers who were neither Cartadanian, mainland Cronan, nor even Coscivian. These new settlers came from Ardmore, all of them being Protestants who professed to the Ænglican faith; they were the beginnings of the islands' sizeable Ænglo-Ardmori community.