Post by L.E. Ott on Jan 7, 2006 10:52:15 GMT -5
A royal residence, late period, after the Restructuring.
Adaven has been, at different times throughout history, a great kingdom, a renegade nation, a place of great knowledge, and a place of great religious persecution.
In it's golden age, which lasted for over two millenia, Adaven was a sparkling jewel of settled culture, knowledge, and freedom. In it's later days, decadence followed by a sudden resurgence of religious fervor brought the once proud kingdom to its knees. A total religious restructuring brought something like a return to glory, but the religious persecution that followed made the people, from poorest peasant to wealthiest lord, miserable.
Adaven was founded in a time long gone from memory, and many tales purport to tell of the country's origin. Some say it was settled by a renegade prince from the long-fallen Gasmeian Empire and his followers. The rebels supposedly fled to the mountains at the borders of the Empire and there opened their new kingdom.
Still others say that a group of Sailors from Hoi-Na and Qoi-Chi-Lo were shipwrecked on the southern coast and, after waiting many years for rescue (in a time when their countries were busily embroiled in a conflict with each other and the remnants of the dying Gasmeian Empire) decided to settle and create their own place.
The most likely scenario, especially given the Adavenian history of mediation and peace-making, is a combination of the two which is accepted by many historians; first the Prince, then the sailors, and a peace agreement between them which led to the birth of a nation.
The first recorded ruler to unite most or all of Adaven was Shimon DeFri, a young man claiming to be of mixed Gasmeian and Irisandri descent. Ruling as Shimon I, he stopped border raiders from other lands and established the current western and northeastern borders of Adaven.
Shimon died without an heir, and there was a period of turmoil. A northern leader, Vitorus, ended all of this very abruptly. He arrived one day in the capitol city, Artin, and claimed to be carrying in his retinue a sign of divine right to rule. This 'sign' was an infant girl. Vitorus claimed to have found her lying on the symbolic altar in a temple to the virgin moon goddess Treia. The veil which permanently surrounded the altar was unbroken, thus there was no way that anything, let alone a child, should have been there.
The people, very religious and wanting to believe if only for a chance at the peace they remembered under Shimon, accepted the story and appointed Vitorus as Regent-Ruler for the infant Garia, or 'daughter of the goddess.'
Garia with Duke Aleisian of Dasin.
As Garia came of age, many of the people began to be restless for her to rule in her own right. It took a small war and an act of the High Council to get Vitorus out of the way, but once he was off the throne, the 'Goddess-Queen' took her rightful place. The people hoped that, as a divine creature, she would lead them to enlightnment. Alas, Garia proved to be simply as human and mortal as the rest of them, dying from a poisoning in her tenth year as queen.
Garia, unlike Shimon, had left an heir, her son Garhin. From him sprang the long line of Adavenian kings and queens who would usher in the golden age.
Over the centuries that passed, the people of Adaven grew prosperous. A nobility sprang up, first from the children of Garia's original High Councillors, and later from among the Royal Children themselves.
The slave trade was successful in Adaven for a long time, with many markets in the major cities. Adavenians even worshipped Hevis, a slave-god who was said to be chained to the gates of Okys, the City of the Gods.
Originally, Adaven was a polytheistic culture, with many gods and goddesses. There were gods for nearly everything, and a good part of the year, even of each day, was spent in ritual celebration of various deities. Most of these were probably based on the deities of other cultures.
There was the above figure, the dual God-Goddess Ver, the figure from which all creation sprang. Even in the portrayals of this figure in art, it is obviously a unified version of Beri and Bui, the brother-sister hero pair from Hoi-Na mythology.
Treia, the virgin goddess of the moon, was a later, gentler version of the Gasmeian deity Trith, a trickster goddess of the night. Garia, the first recorded queen of Adaven and supposed daughter of Treia, was also worshipped for some time as a special guardian goddess of the Royal family.
As important in Adavenian life as religion was family life. Marriage, though sometimes a group affair early on, was eventually whittled down to monogamy. Children were greatly honored, and to have a large family was a mark of honor.
Towards the end of the 'golden age,' life in Adaven began to be difficult. The last king of the golden age, Shimon IV, grew very ill in his last days. Rule essentially passed to his wastrel son, Prince Davril. Davril squandered the royal treasury and made deals with foreign lands which severely cut into Adaven's inport and export affairs.
Much of daily life was also so involved in worship of various deities that the people were too busy praying to work at times. A new version of the High Council was convened. They took power from Davril (thanks to a well-timed 'riding accident') and set about restructuring Adaven's power and religious bases.
The monarchy was made constitutional, with temporary power given to the Council until either Shimon IV recovered or his young daughter Risa could be invested as the new ruler.
As to religion, all of the gods and goddesses but Ver were eliminated. Ver was allowed to maintain both male and female aspects, but now held sway as the sole deity.