Bright Sands and Terrible Ambitions [Brigidnan Colonization of Khiva]

[Flo]

Khiva. A land of incredible beauty and majesty, with natural wonders galore and featuring one of the planets cradles of biodiversity. A region of rich heritage and cultural significance, with written history going back thousands of years. Some of the earliest civilizations grew up in this region, with ancient cities rivaling those of the Sentric Empire and the Mahkals to the far north. 

While first officially discovered by western explorers in the mid 1200s, the region was known to those in the near east far sooner, and some maps created in that region marked Cae Verii, or a bastardization of what the coastel tribes called themselves. The tern "Khiva" specifically is tied to a Lambore word Khe-Vah meaning "Land of Joy". 

First discovered by the west by Oslanburgan explorer Sabastien Kleinsson in 1238, the northern coastal reaches of Khiva weren't properly explored and mapped until later, near the end of the thirteenth century. Early explorers reported untold riches, including valuable spices and, naturally, gold, and it wouldnt be long before boats of Brigidnans would arrive to pillage the region, and pillage they would. The story of Khiva cannot properly be told without acknowledging the acts undertaken by the colonial powers of Brigidna. This is the story of how how these powers came, saw, and conquered the Land of Joy, and how Khiva found itself into the present day, warts and all. 

(OOC: this is going to probably be a messy topic chronology wise, but that is okay. It's not the end of the world if things are out of order. Feel free to begin describing how your colonial domain was established. We'll eventually find ourselves to the point where we're ready for de-colonization. We're roughly starting around 1300.)

[Flo]

The years preceding the initial Brigidnan colonial efforts in northern Khiva were fraught with conflict and tension among the local kingdoms.

There were three primary cultural groups in northern Khiva, with hundreds of subgroups and other, smaller culture or language groups, particularly deep in the jungles. 

The Lambore were the most significant, and had kingdoms along the coast in the center of northern Khiva. The Lambore were a divided people who shared a common language and religion, but little else, as warring states were constantly jostling for control of rivers, holy sites, and farmland. The Lambore were a proud people, with much to speak of in terms of science, though their technology was behind the approaching westerners. Their established states proved dangerous foes, but it was possible to negotiate with them, as they had more centralized governments and legal systems. The Lambore also had the most experience dealing with outsiders, having traded with the Near East for some time, in particular Mestran and Arkianian civilizations.

The Bahmani were west of the Lambore, and proved to be a particularly difficult thorn in the side of both Lanlanian and Castleon colonial efforts. Their society was more disorganized than the Lambore, which weakened them at first but made them harder to negotiate with, as making an agreement with one community did not control any of the others, leading to complicated cross-rivalries among various Bahman tribes. 

East of the Lambore were the Daluanga, a civilization of peoples who lived along the banks of three large rivers in what is now New Zealmark. The Daluanga were city-dwellers like the Lambore, but were far less centralized, with many city-states and small governmental entities. Their lands were the most fertile and desirable in northern Khiva, which is likely why The Soyabarian colonizers chose it. The Daluanga strongholds were not as large as those of the Lambore, but were still significant in their own right. The Daluanga were at a crossroads of cultures, with Ishnallan civilization to their north and east and Svarnan civilization to their south. These cultures had influence on the Daluanga society through trade and communication.

Deeper in the jungles of central Khiva were countless minor tribes and civilizations. Not nearly as much is known about them and to this day there are still some tribes that have had limited to no contact at all with modern civilization.

[Arkiania]

Since 1050, The various Grand Duchies of Krinis had developed into strong trade states, though Octitania began to lean towards isolationism. Arkiania began to openly trade with Brigidnan powers, the various riches brought from and to Arkiania and the little state intervention in trade allowed Arkiania port cities to transform into major trade hubs. This transformed the countries infrastructure and military power, making it into a major player in the region, and the Isles. Over the course of a few centuries it would use this power to expand its border in the isles and abroad. By the late 1200s, Arkiania had made expeditions and formed colonies to islands in its south and far east in Ishnallan Sea. With discovery of possible riches in the South, Arkiania would serve as a major supply point to the various nations looking to establish colonies on the Khivan sub-continent.

[Soyabarian Empire]

Around 1200 the first arkanian ships landed to trade on soyabarian shores, they kept talking about this mysterious contintent of incredible riches and jungles where men lived like savages close to the arkanian homeland.
Soyabar had heard and interacted with Ishnalla both on sea and over land in trade but had never really shown any intrest in what could have been further south.
But in 1201 a year after the arkanian merchants had arrived the SHV, Soyabarischen handels verneniging, was created to ease the proces of getting those exotic goods from Arkania.

On a faithfull day in 1290, a storm hit the area in the bay between arkania and ishnalla drove the Flagship SM Soybean ere crashlanded on the shores what would later be known as New Zealmark. Other ships were succesfull in contacting the admiral to recieve instructions, he send them back to soyabar with their goods in their cargo holds, get return with more men and trade goods. The first settlers of soyabar in the region had settled and continued with building housing.

Some ventured in the jongle to contact both friendly and hostile tribes.

[Flo]

The Soyabarian settlers would have come across the stronghold cities of the Daluanga people. 


These cities were walled and built of large stones taken from quarries in nearby mountains. Each city featured a large ziggurat like structure that sat below several temples dedicated to local gods. The walls themselves were thick and built layer by layer until they were several meters thick. Outside of the walled cities were other residences, farms, markets, and places where skilled craftspeople plied their trades. Within the walls were the palaces for the noble families, religious buildings where monks, priests, and shamans would live and work, and military structures for defense. As well, the wealthiest of the Daluanga would have the money to build their homes within the safety of the walls. 

Most Daluanga cities were built along river banks, but some were built close to resources, such as a gold mine. While wars were common, actual capture of cities was somewhat rare, as the walled cities were difficult to capture and would require immense bloodshed of Daluanga warriors who were considered to valuable to waste. Daluanga conflict typically revolved around squabbles among the nobility and dispute over resources, rather than over territory. The strength and defensibility of Daluanga walled cities was chiefly to blame for this.

Trade was of immense importance to the Daluanga people. Being at a crossroads of cultures, many exotic wares and goods passed through Daluanga markets, which were typically on the outskirts of the cities, outside of the walls. It was these markets that Soyabarian visitors would first see when approaching a Daluanga settlement. With so many foreign visitors, it was unlikely that anyone would look at the Soyabarians that strangely. It wasn't terribly uncommon for lighter-skinned traders to come from the near east.

[Soyabarian Empire]

All the scouts returned with similar reports, these lands were inhabited, by natives that not only looked strange but seemed to have strange traditions. They noted that people didn't act stranger towards them as any other person, the language however was of concerned it was something noone had ever heard in Soyabar, some some Ishnallan, Arkanian or Wadihjan for trade purposes these jobs requiring knowledge of these languages payed well. The education system in Soyabar was keen on creating craftsmen, intelectuals, clerics, etc with brains whatever your standing was. Soyabar had realised this for centuries this was the way to a strong economy.

But this language gap, it would require a bet, a bet they spoke a second language asswell, one of the scouts had reported a large strangely builded city at the river delta that later would become zeebrugge a couple of Kilometers away, it was seen during the storm but no contact had been made and it was impossible to steer the ship to the east. So the admiral, put a party together, with himself as the leader. Seeing as he was the highest ranking soyabarian present it was the most logical thing to do.

The party ventured east,to a city that would later become zeebrugge withouth any visible weapons taking note of street signs and the alphabeth Until they went to enter the nobility quarter, talking to a guard, they spoke to the guard in all languages they knew including soyabarian in the hopes they would to gain permission to talk to the local leadership.

[Flo]

Anedouah was a guard for the Gobahmu provincial library. It was a relatively important job, so far as jobs in the palace district were. It was relatively low pressure (no one tried stealing old scrolls) and paid fairly well and was one of the few jobs in the district that didnt require the worker be of the noble caste. 

It had been an otherwise uneventful morning until the strangers approached. There had been some talk of them, with their funny hats and strange tongues, but he didn't expect to see them this deep into the city. It wasn't illegal for them to be up this far, but it was uncommon. 

And then they started to speak.

They were clearly foreign - *very* foreign - as many of their words were completely unintelligible. Anedouah stared at them trying to understand something... anything... A small crowd began to gather to stare as well.

A cleric from the library came out to check the commotion before hearing some near east language. It was fragmented and very broken, but he understood at least a few words. 

He waved at them all to get into the library, where there could be some privacy, perhaps, and maybe then could he understand what they were speaking.

[Soyabarian Empire]

The soyabarians got agitated by the gathering of the crowd, they had no weapons and didn't know the costums. The guard did not know any of the languages they spoke, not even Arkanian, wadijan or mestran noone in the crowd mixed in with these weird clothes from what they had seen. They were different from the normal people they had seen working the fields. This place was weirder than the soyabarian court.

Then a person came outside from the large building the guard was guarding. he waved them to come over. The soyabarian delegation followed suit and they guessed together this was a gesture to come over as together they went inside the building. soya Jaws dropped upon seeing shelve after shalve after shelve of scrolls and volumes of what seemed like books.

They came a cross a globe that was incomplete, anything north of the near east was missing. The admiral took out his map and waved over the librarian/cleric. The soyabarians knew where they were now comparing their maps with the globe they saw. The map was detailed from arkania to soyabar and started talking in arkanian, for his best guess for understanding "we are here" he pointed at the globe, then went north west to wadijah and said in wadijan: "we are from here roughly" while also pointing to his more complete map of bridgidina

The admiral looked to the cleric hoping he would understand something or get someone that could.

[Flo]

The stranger had pointed to a globe one of the other clerics was working on and pointed to the blank space. 

Oh, they were from the west then. 

The cleric referred them to the head cleric, who understood the Arkianian language. The head cleric was an old man, and wasn't pleased to be disturbed from his research, but had decided to meet the foreigners regardless. 

"What is it you want? Why are you disturbing my day?"

[Soyabarian Empire]

The soyabarian delegation bowed to the old man. The admiral in perfect Arkanian talked and said. "father, we are from a country that isn't on your map yet. We did not mean to interrupt you at all, we do not speak your local language so we have had difficulty doing conversation in your country"

"we have crashlanded on the coast not far from here to the east, this with the map you have here have not yet discovered this landmass. And we have not yet made any contact. Which I wish to do, in return I can already give you my map which includes a detailed map of brigidina, which can help your research. And ofcourse kind sir, if you can get us into contact with the local leaders so we can parley?"