KEIZAI PRINCES

Since the Keizai Treaties were written in the wake of the Retreat, the Princes of that mountainous land have been an ever-shifting collection of contrasts. Fiercely independent, they owe their existence to the games of other nations. Impoverished and provincial, they rule lands rich in resources and full of tales of treasure and magic. Pledged to maintain peace and order, they fill the mountain slopes, valleys, and passes with the sounds of conflict every summer. Honorable to a fault, their word can be expected to last only as long as it serves them.

The waning years of the 6th millennium of the Dynasts saw the southern reaches of the Suzerainty devastated with war, natural disaster, revolt, and chaos. The western steppes were utterly depopulated in the wake of a century of magical firestorms and those that survived there did so in the worst barbarism. Formerly bucolic lands of Baltine humans were wracked by the aftermath of Dynastic power plays, tribal invasion, and revolution. Fewer and fewer of the Suzerainty’s elite cared to leave their jungle homeland for the terrors of the frontier. The Retreat had begun.

Faced with continuing invasions of western tribes across the Keizai mountains and the fading resources of the Suzerainty, the Satraps of the southern regions struggled to maintain even the semblance of order. With lessons applied from an earlier age, they hatched a plan to harness the inhabitants of the Keizai mountains as a buffer. The rabid barbarians of the burning steppes would be separated from the vulnerable south, much as the jungles of Akhet were protected by the Serpent’s Back. These dangers were not theoretical: already there were ominous rumors of a new massing of tribes beyond the mountains.

The Keizai had long been a region of lawlessness and danger. Populated by ozrut clans, tribes of beastkin, coveys of ptak, and renegades of all races, the laws of the Suzerainty had never held sway beyond the reach of the troops of the Satrapies. The mountain passes were patrolled only by bandits preying on the few travelers. Raiders ranged down into the plains beyond the foothills with nigh-impunity.

The Satraps’ plan was thus: they would offer recognition to anyone who could impose order on lands within the Keizai, treating and trading with them as equals. Even in this decadent age, the recognition of representatives of the Suzerainty was a sought-after prize. It meant that the Dynasts formally agreed that the Keizai belonged to those living in it. By signing the Satraps’ treaty, any bandit captain could enjoy the right to parley as if they were a prince. Lavish gifts promised by the Satraps for such princes sweetened the deal.

In return, the Satraps demanded the following from anyone who would be recognized: a redoubt capable of withstanding a year’s siege, at least 200 retainers under arms, a surveyed map of their lands, contribution of 100 retainers under arms in defense of mountain passes, and participation in kurultai to determine joint command of pass defence or “other matters of import.”

Of these, the demand for maps nearly scuttled the deal. Feuding chieftains claimed lands held by their rivals. Petty lords seeking to boost their prestige indicated possessions far in excess of their reach. In one case, a venerable ozrut matriarch provided an ancient map of the entire Keizai range as her holdings. The Satraps insisted, however, that any map must be based on proper surveying, something that a bandit captain would be ill equipped to do, and offered teams of surveyors to assist. After numerous claimants to the title of prince accepted, more and more allowed their holdings to be defined in a realistic fashion.

Following the signing of the Treaties in 6105, the sovereignty of the loosely-organized nation was tested in short order with renewed barbarian invasions through the mountain passes from the west. Backed by the remains of Suzerainty military forces in the south, and with home-terrain advantage the motley Keizai Princes repelled the invasion, and several more in the following decades. Each such event saw massive bribes paid by the dwindling Satrapies, but that was preferable to a tide of maddened cannibals sweeping across the south.

The final dissolution of the Suzerainty’s power in the south and the slow formation of Baltine nations meant the Treaties lay fallow for a time. Contact with the distant and inward-gazing Dynasts became more and more sparse. Tributes paid to keep the passes safe dried up. Fortifications and retainers went uninspected and holdings unsurveyed. While the Princes had always jockeyed for power, now they fought each other openly, and each kurultai became a dangerous game of betrayal and assassination. Worse yet, many returned to their bandit roots and raided lands they once protected.

This might have been the end of the Keizai Princes, slipping back into lawlessness, but for the Assemblage of Khalq. The ashen steppes of the Deshr had finally seen the rise of a stable nation, bitter and inimical to the surrounding lands which had abandoned it. At the entreaty of the young Baltine states, and through visionary leadership, the Keizai Princes dealt a stinging blow to the Khalq war machine in the War of the Mountain Passes and foiled their plans to export their revolutionary philosophy by the sword. Less than a decade later, the Baltine states reaffirmed the ancient Keizai Treaties, taking the place of their iaret patrons of old and cementing the chaotic nation’s role in the known earth.

Beyond the few strictures of the Treaties, the Princes rule as they wish. Some maintain a standing force of soldiery, while others rely on landholders and yeomanry to fill their ranks when battle is called. Some are upstart adventurers, while others can trace a lineage of Princedom for almost a thousand years. Princes rule networks of fertile valleys, or perhaps just a single unassailable peak. Naked ambition governs some holdings, while others embody the selfless guardian ideals that the Treaties had hoped to foster. When larger issues loom, a kurultai is called so that the Princes can present a unified face to the world. Now and forever, the old laws hold true: any leader who can garrison a secure fortress, command enough retainers, and mark his territory can be a Prince in the wild mountains of the Keizai.