The Dwarven Empire
Territories: Dwarfhome, Tergata, Dell Brye, Arra'Eth and Arra'Tul (Two kingdoms I'm planning on adding behind the black wave mountains)
Government: The government of the dwarven empire operates on two levels: Regional and Imperial. Regional government deals with issues vital to the region it rules over, and that region alone, and varies in type. Tergata has an absolute monarchy and a dynasty, while Arra'Eth and Arra'Tul further split up their regions into localities. Each locality elects a governor, and in turn all these governors elect men to important government posts. Dwarfhome and Dell Brye are ruled over by a High Priest of Dio, handpicked and installed by Errak'Dio.
The Imperial government deals with issues of matter to the entire Empire, though regional intervention is not entirely unheard of. Composed almost entirely of dwarven priests and prophets of Dio, it is left as unspoken truth that what they do is the will of the Earth God. Ultimately, the Imperial government has the last say on all matters of military. Though each region commands its own men for self defense, an order from the Imperial government overrides an order from the regional government.
Population: Approximately 24 million citizens, ten million dwarves, twelve million humans, and the remaining two million being composed of various races.
Military: The Dwarven military commands an astounding ground force across Deisach. They are all sworn to serve Errak’Dio and the Earth God. There is also an impressive Navy that has its roots in Dwarven tradition The Airfleet, lead by the flagship Wrath of Dio, is designed mostly for protection and transport. Dwarves prefer to fight with their feet firmly planted on the ground.
History: In the aftermath of the Seeker war, much of Deisach lay in ruins. Many of the temples to Dio, even in areas that the Seekers had not conquered, had been destroyed in the latter years of the war, when the Seekers had renounced conventional divinity in favor of their Emperor. The great bastions of the Earth god and centers of stability had been bought low, with even the mighty Tergata lying beneath piles of tumbled stone. Those who had liberated the Earth continent, however-the Red Empire and the forces that the remains of the elven Empire could summon-did not have the finances or manpower needed to rebuild the land.
Dio, who had already seen his land wracked by war, now watched as it sank into a terrible cesspool of poverty and starvation. Worse still was the social upheaval in these lands, for it was apparent that while the Seeker Empire itself had been crushed, elements of its noxious, racist ideology still remained within the population, elements that might gain strength by playing off of the people's suffering.
The Earth God, unwilling to let his continent become once more a bastion of that terrible tyranny, embarked on the greatest act of divine intervention in centuries. Appearing in visions to the religious leaders of the Dwarves in Northern Deisach, he urged them to step forth and fill the power vacuum left in the wake of the war, to step forth, rebuild, and defend the lands once held by the Seekers.
The dwarves, stunned by such a clear and strong vision of their God, rallied their civilization for this endeavor in a remarkably short amount of time. There was never any disagreement about this, as it was so clearly what their God wanted them to do. By 263 AR-less than four years after the Seeker war had ended-they had sent emissaries to all the ruined kingdoms and begun to set up the infrastructure needed for this vast reconstruction mission. And in 272, led by High Priest Errak'Dio (an assumed name in dwarven roughly translating into 'Hand of Dio') had well over 20,000 dwarves in foreign lands, aiding in the reconstruction effort.
First, however, there was war to be fought. Though there were kings that truly cared about their people, and handed their power over to the dwarves in return for reconstruction, Errak'Dio had to declare open war on a vast majority of the rulers. It wasn't very much of a war, though it did turn into a long, protacted affair. But the kingdoms of Deisach were shattered and torn by the most devestating war since the Battle of the Apocalypse, while the dwarves were unified in their faith to their God. The war, known to historians as Deisach's war for Rebirth, and known to the dwarves as The War for Dio's Will, started when the twin kingdoms of Arra'Eth and Arra'Tul had dwarven builders executed without warning, and the dwarven armies faced several defeats in the lands surrounding Tergata (Though Tergata itself had bowed to them.) Errak'Dio thoroughly crushed Arra'Eth and Arra'Tul and bought them under dwarven sway, though it took a war that exemplified dwarven patience, lasting nearly fifty years (283 AR-333 AR.) He was unable, however, to put down the rebellions in the around Tergata in the south, however, something that haunts the dwarves to this day-some speculate that putting down these petty Seeker insurrections now would have crushed their power for all time in Deisach. Instead, they were allowed to stagnate, and preserve their ideology, which persists to this day.
Though the manpower of the dwarves was great, so was the scope of the destruction left by the Seekers. The once great city of Cree Ar'Vong was never rebuilt. Instead in its place the dwarves built a great temple to Dio, the largest of its kind, to which many of the Earth God's greatest philosophers and worshippers migrated. Perga, too, was left totally abandoned, though tales echoed through the halls of power of crazed Seekers and their descendents holding sway over the dwindling population in those half-haunted ruins.
The dwarves found that many of the cities and villages south of Dio's tower had been totally annihilated. Indeed, this land had become not much more than a vast wasteland leading into the Matune desert. The dwarves buried all the corpses that they found, be they Seeker or otherwise, into mass graves, most of the bodies having simply being abandoned during a quick Seeker retreat in which they left all behind them slaughtered. These lands inevitably became a nesting ground for necromancers and such. To seperate these lands from the new dwarven kingdom and to aid in defense if it was ever necessary, the dwarves erected a giant wall running into the mountain Dio's Tower, into which they built vast and incredibly defended tunnels, thus effectively cutting off Southern Deisach from Northern Deisach.
The Dwarven Empire's first great test came with the rebellions of 401 AR. Though the closely monitored cities of the Empire had nearly ever trace of Seeker rule abolished, in the loosely controlled countryside, especially in the numerous hamlets and villages south of Tergata, the remaining elements of the Seekers had been quietly building support for their cause. This flared up into a full-fledge civil war that struck fear into much of the world-for this was very much how the Seekers had gained power the first time. Errak'Dio called in his Diosworn to put down the rebellion. Lacking a strong leader, a well-trained army, or the finances that the Seekers had under Asmodean, the rebellion was put down efficiently, if somewhat brutally. Before it was put down, however, the rebellion had managed to rally a ragtag militia of nearly fifty thousand to lay siege to Tergata. Lacking the defenses it had in ages past, Tergata was at one point swarmed, with the Legion of Tergata fighting peasant insurrectionists in the streets.
The civil war ended with a great victory for the dwarves, on the surface, at least. Thousands of Seekers were slaughtered with minimum casualties for the forces of Errak'Dio, though it did take twenty years. Spontaneous rebellions, however, did continue until 611 AR, when they eventually tapered off. Either whoever had been carrying on the tradition of the Seekers had died off, or had been captured or killed in the war. Since the people who instigated these rebellions did so in secret, it is difficult to know for sure. A deep-seated hatred of other races lingers on among the humans in the southern region of the Empire, however, something that leads to great tensions and occasional violence.
Recent political tensions in the Dwarven Empire are over the twin kingdoms of Arra'Eth and Arra'Tul. Isolated behind the black wave mountains, they have been increasingly rebellious against commands from the Dwarven authority. Now an economic powerhouse and increasingly a technological center, Arra'Eth has often mentioned that it can defend itself, and that whatever rebuilding was needed is long done. Rumor has it that they are consorting with foreign powers (Against a law instituted by Errak'Dio, in response to reports of Seeker loyalists from the Dzanatorian isles immigrating to the Empire.) It has spoken openly of independence, though it has not come to open rebellion yet. Other modern issues include the tensions caused with foreign powers and even allies by the dwarven theocracy and absolute devotion to Dio, and the hardline temperment of some dwarven priests that Dio's original will was for them to safeguard all of Deisach for him, not just the portions devestated by the Seekers.
Errak'Dio rules over these lands to this day, though his role has gradually changed from that of chief of reconstruction to commander of the defense forces and arbiter in conflicts between the regional leaders and the overarching dwarven authority.
Culture: The culture of the dwarven kingdom is one of conflict and great trouble. It is almost exclusively dwarven and human, the dwarven lands having been completely dwarven and the lands the Seekers conquered having been purged of all non-human races. There are the supporters of the dwarves, who form a majority of the population, who accept their presence as a necessity until other elements of the population are made negligible. Then there are the remnants of the Seeker organization, a small but populist movement of humans who still believe in the destiny of humankind to destroy the 'lesser races' and claim their place as the sole intelligent race on Fou Lu. There are supposed leaders of this movement, but its greatest strength is the stubborn hatred and racism of these Seeker sympathizers, who are prone to riots and lynching. Though the dwarves have cracked down upon these, they continue to occur, and there is even talk of an underground resurgence of a Seeker militia that would be led into violent conflict with the dwarven forces. They embrace both magic and technology in the name of Dio, and step down hard on any anti-magical or anti-tech sentiment.
Advancements
Magical: Intermediate-Accomplished
Technological: Accomplished
Notable Achievements:
