Xisheng: Difference between revisions

===Varshani Potentate===

The schism in the [[Ixa'Taka]]n empire did not go unnoticed by [[Varshan]], only a few years later it started incursions into the former's southernmost territories as far as the Mountains of the Sun. At first these territorial intrusions involved only a few hundred men at any one time and were either ignored or thrown back easily enough. By the 1200's [[Varshan]] began to openly attack the Ajaw settlements that paid tribute to Ixa'Taka prompting harsher responses. An army commanded by a nephew of the Umatz Janab I pushed the invaders out and then invaded north [[Varshan]] for five months before being annihilated in battle by the Zurg's royal army. The following century would see a pattern of territorial encroachment by [[Varshan]] and temporary alliances by [[Chimoche]] and [[Ixa'Taka]] to push back on these advances. By 1230 all the lands south of the Mountains of the Sun had been lost to [[Varshan]] and in 1245 the Ixa'Takans sealed a marriage alliance with the Zurg whereby they became a tributary state and adopted [[Arzalism]]. By abandoning their wartime alliance with [[Chimoche]] they also got to achieve a historical revenge against them for their multiple rebellions, Ixa'Takan troops played an important role in the Varshani subjugation of [[Chimoche]]. The [[Varshan]] Zurgs decided to appoint high caste noblemen from [[Anzo]] as potentates over both [[Chimoche]] and [[Ixa'Taka]] to oversee their kings, observe that Arzalism was practiced and tribute delivered on time. This period of history is known as the Varshani Potentate and it is characterized by local historians as unusually harsh and bleak. The potentates were often fanatically religious and looked down on the locals as lacking zeal in their Arzalist devotions. A great deal of resources were poured into building new temples and the [[Blood Fane of Buruso]] was said to glow red at night due to all the blood shed on its steps on the orders of the Potentates. The seeds of rebellion against the Potentate came in 1581 when the 13th Potentate, Kangar Dun Talmoc, ordered the destruction of the temples of the local deity Tlaloc, a local god of rain and bountiful weather worshipped as an aspect of the Arzalist Rain God. The forceful destruction of his shrines incensed both the commoners and nobles of [[Ixa'Taka]] and [[Chimoche]]. A low level revolt with sporadic murders of Varshani soldiers and the harassment of Arzalist priests began as a result of this action. This morphed into a full fledged uprising when the Potentate Kangar Dun Talmoc and several Anzo dignataries were attacked and killed by an angry mob in the central plaza of Rixis, an event possibly organized by the Ixa'Takan Umatz himself.