The Krysalti Empire

In keeping with the monthly countdown to the release of The Lioness of Shara Mountain, I'm offering a wiki-style entry on one aspect of the novel for the last blog entry each month until the book is released. Last time, it was the history of The Lionesses of Kan. My Ko-Fi supporters got to vote on the next one, and The Krysalti Empire won that one. So today, let's take a deep dive into the empire that's causing all the problems.

The Krysalti Empire

The Krysalti Empire was an aggressively expansionist theocratic state that, at the height of power, had conquered nearly the entirety of the northern continent, save for the kingdoms in the very far east and the northern most territory of the Island of Kan.

Location and Topography

The Krysalti Peninsula is a long, spear-shaped spit of land that juts from the southern-most shore of the northern continent. The end of the spear is girded by mountains on all sides. The mountains act as a rain shield, preventing the interior plains of the spearhead from receiving any rains at all. The plains of the spearhead are entirely dependent on the spring thaw from the mountains that surround it for its fresh water.

For seven months of the year, the spearhead is a desert. The spring thaw converts it into a broad wetland that attracts all manner of life, from migratory birds, to wild boar, buffalo, big cats, and even the reptilian quinkana, which are not known to migrate elsewhere on the continent. These remarkable wetlands last only three months, with grasslands dominating at the end of the spring for a further two months, before everything rapidly dries and the fields are reduced to deserts for the remainder of the year.

Early Habitation

Not much is known of the early habitation of the Krysalti Peninsula. From fragments of ancient songs, stories and the deciphering of a few of the glyph stones just north of the peninsula, it is generally thought that the region served as a seasonal hunting ground for the Cord Weaver people; a people who populated almost the entirety of the northern continent, save the very far north and the Island of Kan, following the Fall.

It is likely that the Cord Weaver hunter gatherers followed the game into the spearhead to take advantage of the plentiful food supply there, and then, like the animals they hunted, moved north as soon as the land dried up.

More permanent occupation of the spearhead appears to coincide with the violent decline in the Cord Weaver population. Likely refugees from the conflict that ended the Cord Weaver dominance on the continent, these inhabitants faced a rough situation.

Scarcity bred conflict, and from that conflict arose seven independent city states within the spearhead, with a further five along the rest of the peninsula.

Resource and mineral poor, the inhabitants of the city states of the Krysalti Peninsula turned to the skills at warfare in order to trade for much-needed goods, becoming widely used mercenaries renowned as fierce and brutal fighters for coin and salt.

The Rise of the Cult of War and the Beginning of Empire

In the thousand or so years before the Second Darkness, the Cult of War rose to prominence over the rest of the cults of the Krysalti pantheon, and then overtook it, obliterating the other cults entirely.

Beginning in the city state of Chumer, which later became the capital of the Krysalti Empire, the followers of the Cult of War launched a crusade against the other city states of the spearhead. Attacking with unsurpassed brutality, the other six city states fell in just three years.

Forewarned, the remaining five city states on the peninsula north of the spearhead put up greater resistance. The campaign to conquer the rest of the peninsula lasted nearly eighty years.

Further expansion stalled as the threat of the newly formed Krysalti Empire, led by the Prelate, was taken seriously by the rest of the continent. In this period, the Krysalti Empire opted for a different tactic. Emissaries of the Cult of War ventured out from their holy city of Chumer into the cities of the greater northern continent. There, they reached out to the most destitute and forgotten citizens and began a coordinated campaign of proselytisation of ‘The Difficult Truth.’ The message resonated, and in less than a hundred years, the cult had firmly entrenched itself in nearly all the kingdoms of the continent, with the exception of the Hnura’i Empire of the east, and the Island of Kan in the far north-west.

From this position, a number of kingdoms were converted to the Cult of War and were thus subsumed by the Krysalti Empire without the need for battle. Other states were destabilised, making conquest much easier than it would be otherwise. By the beginning of the Second Darkness, the Krysalti Empire had expanded to include the lands between the Bracet Mountains in the east to the Onuo River in the west, and as far north as the Gild River.

They also acquired several client kingdoms and from them demanded tribute in the form of food, livestock and children who were taken from their families and raised as Krysalti warriors. They were returned to their families following their service, but were deeply changed; and never for the better.

The Second Darkness

Military expansion on the northern continent halted in the period of the Second Darkness, when the Krysalti Empire turned their attention to the southern continent to fight there. Political and religious actions, however, did not cease.

After the Second Darkness

Defeated on the southern continent, the Krysalti Empire once again turned its attention north. They resumed their military efforts.

Perhaps fuelled by anger over their defeat in the south, the Krysalti Empire became more brutal and cruel. Their advance was relentless, and appeared to be unstoppable. Towns and cities were sacked, their inhabitants offered a choice: convert or die. Unsurprisingly, most chose to convert.

The new converts proved more fervent than the Krysalti themselves, attacking with a mindless rabidity. The expansion of the Krysalti Empire slowed both as a result of resistance from the remaining free kingdoms, and also in order to avoid collapse. But the expansion did not stop.

By the second century following the victory of the southern continent in War of the Second Darkness, the Krysalti Empire had conquered almost all the northern continent. Several the most northern kingdoms remained relatively free, though most despaired of resisting the empire and had become client kingdoms as a means of preserving themselves. The Hnura’i of the east remained untouched, the semi-nomadic desert-dwellers providing a buffer between them and the Krysalti Empire.

There also remained one last truly free territory on the largest island of the archipelago that sat off the north-western shores of the continent; the northern quadrant of the Island of Kan. Ruled by the goddess Eshta and protected by the last of the Lionesses of Kan, this region frustrated all aspirations of conquering the entire island until the final collapse of the Krysalti Empire following the Third Darkness.