Klastte: Men of War

Klastte
Men of War

Klastte is a land of dark forests and beautiful castle cities found in northeastern Velas. It is a land with a rich folk culture which is popularly taught by minnesang bards that learned their magical bardic musical tradition from the Talahvir. Pastries made in Klastte are delicious as are their meat products like schnitzel and bratwurst. Klastte was also home to Liestrian monasteries known worldwide for their quality beer. It was unconquered by the legendary figure Mekkhos, but it received Mekkhorsi cultural artifacts through trade. It is a temperate land with a cool climate. 

Land of War

Klastte has had a long history of war. Bordering to the north were the Scale Princes, dragons that ruled their own private hoards as city states that constantly feuded with one another and invaded the south where Klastte lay. The Nua Ragha, urkain pillagers hailing from the shores of Grush, commonly raided the eastern coasts and the boldest of them would sail along Klastte's central river, the Sondheim, and raid from the river into central Klastte. A land of warlike kingdoms in a region to their southwest known as Irenia would commonly pass through an open passage to the west of the southern Rauchig mountains, the range that surrounds the majority of the southern border, in attempts to conquer the Klasttic peoples. Along with these outside threats, the Klasttics themselves were split up into many tribes and petty kingdoms that held their own distinct dialects of Old Klasttic. For many centuries the different princes would fight amongst each other for ownership of the gold mines that lay within the Rauchig mountains in southeast and the fertile farmlands of the west bordering the southern reach of the Fang mountains that ran all along Skalovia's borders and ended in Klastte. Along with this were ancient grudges of blood between noble houses that spilled into assassinations and war. Then there were wars of religion fought between those that followed the old religion of Lathras and those that followed the new Pentaphany. The divisions of Klastte rand deep and it would take a miracle to unite them. A miracle was made by the Schalzich noble family of the old principality of Vrudekk found on the southeastern border of the nation. They were established in the city Wolfach and were a rich family from their rich trading ports and gold mines. They had hosted in their home city the Order of Saint Tobruk, a knightly order dedicated to the Pentaphany undivided. The order established to fight against Skalovia and the monsters of the lands like local nachzehrer vampires, the lizard and cat-like stollwurms, and the ravenous bakhauv that resembled a deformed calf with fangs. The Schalzich line were able to leverage their wealth into creating great mercenary armies to finally conquer the disparate kingdoms with the help of the Order. The different lands were consolidated into what is known as modern Klastte by the Schalzich Dynasty in the past few centuries and the head of house Schalzich at the time, Reichart Schalzich, was named kaiser, or emperor. Klastte in its unity has become a regional power of renown thanks to the wealth from its banking system, the consolidated power of the Schalzich dynasty, and the Klasttic Junker class. 

Klastte's Strengths

First among these strengths was the wealth built by the Royal Bank of Klastte, the first modern banking system in the world. The Klasttic bank was a standardized state-mandated financial establishment. It was first built to help the royal family of Schalzich keep the taxes gathered from the nobility of the newly conquered petty kingdoms, but its use expanded into money lending, depositing, investing, and currency transfer for any customer across the world. The Klasttic currency, the marque, became one of the most useful currencies in the world and it standardized the use of copper, silver, and gold currency. One could use a Klasttic marque even in the Huatec Empire, a nation across the sea on the continent of Xatla, and would not have to change it to the local cacao currency of the Huatecs. The amount of wealth raised was instrumental in funding the royal Schalzich family's multiple projects. Klastte was one of the first nations to establish state-funded schools to teach children of the Junkers, a landed aristocratic warrior class, in writing, philosophy, mathematics, and military theory. The first unification of the different Klasttic dialects was also undertaken in part by these schools and by the opening of new libraries full of printed books using the dialect of the Schalzich's native region of Vrudekk. Klastte became one of the first to emancipate the fallow, those of devil and demon blood, even with the full-blooded bigotry of Kaiser Heinrich von Schalzich who enacted this reform. New fortress cities, Festungs, were built all along the country to reinforce its defenses and to keep the locals in line by force and by the conscription system that would find their young fighting and becoming loyal to the kaiser. Many of these Festungs were governed and ran by Junkers. Junkers differed from Wakamotoese samurai and Velassian knights by being full-time professional warriors that were trained to be officers over large units of men rather than acting as either the main force of a kingdom or as shock cavalry. Junkers were required to take up command at all times and were expected to keep up with their skills. Under the Junkers were the men-at-arms and for a short period, line regiments that would be drilled in battle and similarly expected to be war-ready at all times. This made them natural candidates to train quickly in the newest ways of war.

Klastte and Equilibratism

The Klasttic crown became one of the first enemies of the movement with the raiding of weapons workshops that were once used to arm the southern front of the Skalovian civil war. King Juren Schalzich created a wave of hysteria targeted against the movement. This was known as the First Golden Scare, named after Uhlion the Broken One's scale color. The idea was spread that Equilibratism was a secret cult plot meant to take over the world. Regardless of Uhlionist vanguard theory and the concept of the worldwide revolution, much disinformation was spread and the true information that the Broken One had stolen  enlightenment from Astres herself set much of the world against the Republic. Tomes were burned, equilibratists jailed, and the entire world watched the Republic with a vigilant eye. Especially Klastte.

Klastte's Buildup

0 ND

Klastte had received the musket designs and magitek tools necessary to advance their own army to the modern gunpowder age. They received these from the original designer of the musket, Piotr Danilovsky, who had fled from Skalovia, at that time a newly formed nation to the north, after discovering the plans of the beloved Skalovian premier, Uhlion, that detailed a purge of any suspected dissidents to his reign. Along with this, he helped Klasttic engineers design new muskets and cannons that would be appropriate to stronger human arms. Klastte had around sixteen years to change their army but the original professional spirit facilitated the rearmament and changing of doctrines. Klastte built up to strike at Skalovia and tear away what they saw was a cancer ready to grow malignant. They may have won if they had not been facing legions of URA (Uhlionic Republican Army) soldiers hardened by the First Lich War, a horrid war fought in the north of Skalova against the invading Groza League of liches and necromancers.

The Patriotic War

16 ND - 22 ND

While near matching the URA beat for beat, the Klasttics had not known true total war in quite some time. Alaria's conflicts grew in on itself, the Nua Ragha found trade ships more profitable to raid than the Klattic coast, and their ancient enemies in the Scale Princes were slain. The URA had all the experience they could receive from proficient military drilling and officers with a complete education in all things war. They did not have built icy hardness of facing the undead and keeping the survival of their people. They did not have the indomitable spirit not born from espirit'd'corps but from the numbing of fear by witnessing the horrors the URA faced.

Klastte began the war due to a large bombing done in a border city named Schalzichburg. This was blamed on Skalovian terrorists and it was seen as time to defend the fatherland. However, it was technically carried out by Skalovian terrorists but these were monks of the Cult of Gor who wanted this outcome. They marched into Skalovia with an army of 300,000, cavalry, support mages, paladins, and a full bevy of newly designed artillery. That army fled with 50,000 that were still in fighting condition. The war lasting six years and it involved multiple long sieges and some of the worst looting and violence seen up to that point in history including the Massacre of Fort Brau.

The war is known as the Patriotic War only by those of the Klasttic Revival Movement that existed after the war. Klastte lost this war and was annexed as the new Klasttic Oblast to the Uhlionic Republic. King Juren Schalzich fled from the nation and was later found murdered.

The Massacre of Port Brau

Nearing the end of the war, the coastal city of Port Brau was captured by the URA. The siege was long and bloody and the city fighting even moreso. Once the city was captured, the commanding officer of the URA units that invaded the city, a blue kobold named Lukah Dubnov, asked the high command whether he could execute the prisoners of war in the city since he had nowhere to put them with a journey to the northern Skalovian gulags, workcamp prisons that mined the northern mountains of Skalovia, being too long to be too impractical. His question was given to premier Ural Kaitovsky, the successor to the great general and liberator of Skalovia, Uhlion. He not only gave the affirmative on the executions of those POWs, but decided the time had come to purge Klastte of any remaining influentials that would raise a hand against the Republic as they had done with the nobility of the Scale Princes. So it was made that near 200,000 Klasttics that were marked for execution were marched to Port Brau by the URA who were given orders to move the people of the occupied nation. These Klasttics were told they were to relocate to a new festung in order to make way for renovations to their old ones and that they would be returned shortly. They were marched from west to the eastern port. 50,000 officers, teachers, priests, and anyone else that were seen as a threat were executed. The largest reason why the other 200,000 were not was because of a lack of ammunition and a mutiny by a faction of soldiers against Dubnov and his military staff. The Massacre of Port Brau would make the nation a pariah state, moreso than it was before with the Great Blasphemy. This massacre ordered by the leader of the nation even gave pause to the Wakunansi, the older allies and trading partners of the Republic, and nearly made it consider breaking off their highly valued alliance. This set back equitianist work by centuries and demonized the movement to the point of even capsizing other movements that were merely related to equitianism such as abolitionist attempts in Thrale. It was a date that lived in infamy and gave birth to the premier's reign being known as the Terror.

The Klasttic Oblast

Klastte was annexed by the Uhlionic Republic in 22 ND under the rule of Premier Kaitovsky . A series of revolts and uprisings were put down over the course of two centuries. This annexation set near the entire world against the Republic and they were sanctioned and placed on interdict due to it. Klasttic culture was suppressed in the early decades of the occupation and the area was subject to Skalovification, the forcing of Skalovian and Equilibratist culture onto the occupied nation. The Kibbutz system of Skalovia was enforced upon the land. The military was disbanded and the URA, which would not allow Klasttics to join for decades, established martial law. Klasttic Pentaphany temples were looted and changed to administrative buildings. Klasttic cultural artifacts including books of folklore, stories of legendary figures, and minnesanger tradition were torn down. The nobles were torn from ownership of their lands and new union councils were created that managed those areas. One of the scariest things of this system to the greater world was that certain Klasttics kept close equivalents of their old positions and these were the Equilibratist sympathizers and double agents planted into Klastte including some of the Junker class. 

Das Syndikat

The Syndikat began as disparate groups of smugglers and black market dealers of Klasttic materials that grew and thrived under the occupation. These groups came together in the city of Port Brau, a popular coastal smuggling center, and created a new organization meant to profit off the situation the Uhlionics had created. Making a profit from desperation is not a new game. They expanded into hosting bordellos, gambling rackets, protection rackets, robberies, and more illegal businesses. They greased the palms of Uhlionic officials and even spread into parts of Skalovia. They exist even into future epochs of the setting.

Klasttic Refugees

Many Klasttics fled from Klastte during the war. Chief among these places was Alaria, the combined kingdom and palatinate of the god of war to the southeast, who had found themselves in a new peace after the Civil War. Interestingly, a number had fled to Wakunan, another equitianist state that held similar beliefs to the Republic inhabited by the hyena-like gnolls in their rich port cities and its vast savannah. The two states had traded with each other for millennia and Klasttic-owned estates had been established in Wakunan in the past. While the first few generations was anti-equitianist, further generations fell into harmonizing Klasttic culture with Wakunansi culture including hybrid food dishes and a unique form of Minnesang bard singing that combined with Wakunansi singing traditions.

The Verdant Peace

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Skalovification of the oblast lasted until the end of Premier Kaitovsky's reign. Premier Ukiatev, his much beloved successor, sought to overturn many old policies her cruel predecessor put into place. Klasttic monks were allowed back into the nation and their monasteries were rebuilt, although many temples remained administrative centers for the new regime. The suppression of Klasttic culture was stopped and certain parts even adopted by the Republic such as the Minnesang tradition which became an entrenched institution in the Institute of the Chords, or Orkestr in old Skalovian. This allowed a new source of magic users for the republic. Klasttic food, folklore, and religious traditions were allowed again. This cut into Syndikat profits but they had expanded enough into other domains that they stayed around despite the decreased pay. Revivalists continued their campaigns and sought nothing but the full independence of Klastte from the Republic. Over time, though it would take centuries, the occupation ceased to be this horrid thing and the Klasttic oblast would become a nation of card-carrying Equilibratists. A Klasttic premier would one day take power.