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The lands which are now Great Patrick stood for many centuries as a land that was characterized by a very low population density. While the people of that era were certainly not a monolith, there are no surviving records of the people of the area that were written by them. The only records are those which reduce the peoples down to a singular statement of “barbarian” as described by the forces of the Airlandian Empire during their invasion and settlement of the land. Sadly, this is likely all that will ever be known of the people who lived here prior to the Imperial Period.

The Airlandian Empire was founded in 986 BCE in the city of Airlandia. During its earliest years it ruled over the city and its immediate surroundings as a small city-state governed by a king. During the reign of Attilio Cassius, that status changed as the military genius of the king was put to work in what began as a subduing of a war with the rival city-state of Archgate in the year 564 BCE. By defeating the nearby state, the king declared himself to be the leader of both states under the unified banner of Airlandia. He would use this victory to continue the expansion southward until most of the area south of the city of Airlandia that makes up modern day South Airlandia had been captured. Conquest would’ve gone further if it were not for Cassius’ death in 554, almost ten years to the day since the fall of Archgate. Following his death, his son, Attilio II, would begin the process of administering the empire which would go through periods of growth and sustaining over the next centuries. During this period, following the death of Emperor Attilio Cassius III without a direct heir, the following Emperor, Lorento I, would declare that the name of Cassius was to be a title for the emperors going forward.

At the very start of the reign of Emperor Lorento II, in 390 BCE, the Airlandian Empire began its northward expansion into what is now Great Patrick. This expansion led to conflicts with the existing people of the area, which is where all written sources on them come from. However, the primary goal of the empire was subjugation and therefore once resistance was stopped, the peoples remained alongside some of their original culture. However, over time, the people of, at least the northern half of the empire began to have a sense of a combined culture from the combined history that they all shared. This is what marked the Middle Imperial Period alongside the building up of the first cities along the coast, including Herrisbourge.

The Late Imperial Period in Great Patrick was far more calm than that in what is now South Airlandia. While the empire began a civil war within its southern portion and there was a lot of violence at the capital, the relatively stable dynastic structure of the empire was thrown off dramatically as several new families took the Cassius titles for themselves only to be killed soon after. Under the fear that the northern part of the empire would soon fall to infighting while the capital was in turmoil, in 259 AD, Cassius Maximus would split the empire in two, taking the southern half for himself and leaving the northern half to Patricius, the current governor of the area. Patricius took the title of Cassius Patricius of the North Airlandian Empire and through his command a new era took place.

The Patrician Dynasty lasted only three Emperors and 162 years, but in that time it laid the foundation for the future. Firstly, it was the first time that the area had been united under a ruler that came from within its lands as the Patricius I family was not from the capital of Airlandia. Secondly, the very beginning of the reign saw the palace built at Herrisbourge which brought materials from across the empire and took years to complete, bringing in people from across the empire and leaving them with stories of their unity. In the coming centuries, these stories would become common legends amongst very different kingdoms.

The end of the North Airlandian Empire was caused by the failings of Patricius II and Patricius III, both of whom were ineffectual leaders that often gave into the demands of those who wished to split away from the empire. This would culminate with the sacking of Herrisbouge where the palace was destroyed and Cassius Patricius III killed in 421, leading into a long period of small nations trying to replace him.

Scholars debate when the start of the warring states period actually began, but the general idea is that it depended on where you lived. If you were on the edges of the empire, it occurred when your local governor declared independence. If you lived near the center, it occurred during the fall of Herrisbourge. The period of time from 421 to ~1200 is a fascinating one. However, when looking at its influence on modern Great Patrick, it has little more impact than influencing the customs of whatever city you are in. Therefore the most important part of this period is how it ended.

By the 1180s, three regional powers had taken most of the area of Great Patrick. These were the Kingdom of Patrick in the north, the Kingdom of Irene in the west and the Sean Empire in the south. Each of these three held different important cities, but none could hold Herrisbourge for long. This led to the city being under constant warfare for many years. That is, until close to the end of 1247 when the Christmas Day Treaty was signed. Despite being signed on December 26th, the treaty called for a truce between the Sean Empire and the Kingdom of Patrick. This came following the death of the Sean Empire’s leader and so the leader of the Kingdom of Patrick was placed in charge of both. Together the combined forces defeated the Kingdom of Irene, which officially surrendered on June 16th 1249.

During the surrender negotiations, a rule was put into place declaring that the leader of the new combined kingdom would be chosen following the death of the current king through a trial by combat between a candidate from each kingdom. This leader would not take the title of Cassius as they were to acknowledge that neither kingdom was to subjugate the other. It was also at this time that it was officially recognized that the two kingdoms were acting as one and the name Great Patrick (as now Patricius I was known) was chosen to represent them all.

While the unification was not completed until 1249, it is widely accepted that the Christmas Day Treaty was the document that created the nation and it therefore traces its origin to that time.

The Kingdom of Great Patrick gradually gained peace and stability through a successful implementation of the Christmas Day Treaty and the Succession Accords. The nation then began to set its sights on amassing more control over the surrounding area. This was begun in 1446 by King Sean II as he marched the armies into a reclamation of the lands of the North Airlandian Empire. This was largely successful as many of the lands that were entered had a desire, or at least a mythos, around rejoining in a union like that of the North Airlandian Empire. The Kingdom had achieved much of their goal of retaking North Airlandian land by the end of Sean II’s reign in 1478. However, his successor, Patrick V would not be as successful with similar endeavors.

Following the retaking of the lands from the days of empire, Patrick V was looking for some way to keep expansion going. As any further eastward expansion would lead to conflict with other large powers and would not be based on any historical claim, Patrick V did not act on much except for the retaking of the city of Nordlich as it was initially hesitant to rejoin the Kingdom and was therefore taken by force. This led to a few years of internal maintenance ending at his death in 1502. His death also brought about a new institution to the Kingdom. In an attempt to gain more power, much of the Patrician nobility worked with Patrick V, who many believed had PTSD resulting from the killing of the Sean candidate for king, to develop a non-lethal method for deciding a king. That method was to place into the hands of the nobles the job of selecting the king. However, aware that this would remove a lot of the power from the Monarchy, Patrick V required that the nobility only be able to select those from the line of succession of the two royal families. This new rule would last for the rest of the monarchical period of Great Patrick history and would first be used to put Sean III into power following Patrick V death in 1502.

Following the death of Patrick V, the next King was Sean III who was approached early in his reign by the admiral of the navy about a ship that had gotten lost in the ocean to the west of Great Patrick. The ship had returned talking of a set of islands that were inhabited by a friendly group of people that helped the crew get off the island safely. Upon hearing this Sean III is reported to have remarked that those islands would make for “perfect jewels in the crown of this kingdom” and he ordered the navy to send a full invading force to the islands to seize them. This conquest was performed in 1522 and led to an exploitative relationship between the mainland and the colony.

The people who already lived on the island were known as the Mesmers and were one of the first peoples to have a fully democratic government. However, this changed when they became subjects of Great Patrick, although not immediately. It was commonplace within the kingdom to have local governments with democratic elections and therefore the democracy of Mesmerica was allowed to remain.

The nation of Great Patrick experienced an economic revolution during the mid to late 16th Century as it began the development of its first factories and large businesses. These factories benefited greatly from the use of Mesmerican resources, but extraction of them became untenable. Too many businesses in the large nation of Great Patrick began to compete for a limited amount of resources in Mesmerica. This culminated when the Mesmeican Sugar Company, a transporter of sugar based in Herrisbourge, faced a strike from its Mesmerican workforce in 1687. The company sent in armed personnel to put down the strike, ending in the deaths of 3 Mesmerican workers. This would set tensions to the breaking point within the islands.

This breaking point would be broken officially on December 8th 1688 when Patrick VIII announced that the company would be facing no charges as it cited the Mesmerican distance as the reason for the actions of the armed forces sent by Mesmerican Sugar. This would lead to riots across the islands lasting until early 1689 when the Great Patrick military was sent in to put down the rioters.

This would usher in an uneasy peace in the colony lasting several decades. However, the colony would not stay quiet as a second incident, once again involving Mesmerican Sugar, would take place. In 1740 the company had purchased land from the royal Great Patrick government, land which was also claimed to be held by the local Mesmerican government. This led to a petition from the Mesmericans asking the royal government to stand down and tell Mesmerican Sugar to get off the land or to purchase it from Mesmerica. The response by King Patrick X was to call for a disbanding of the Mesmerican elected government to be replaced by a direct governor from the royal government. The royal governor would never make it to the island though as upon receipt of the word from Patrick X, the Mesmerican Government met in secret to declare independence from Great Patrick.

The Mesmerican War of Independence would be short and decisive. The Mesmers would win out and in 1743, Great Patrick surrendered the lands to the Government of Mesmerica, a nation that still stands to this day.

Following the Mesmerican Revolution, the economy of Great Patrick went through a period of hardship due to the lack of Mesmerican resources available leading to a cascading effect throughout luxury and other industries. This would result in the decision by Patrick X, near the end of his reign in 1762, to allow more freedom to businesses that wanted to operate without a royal charter. The previous rules had been formulated that all products that were to be sold out of the city market needed to be transported by royally approved carrier. Many of these failed during the economic crisis, leading to the relatively open market that is still enjoyed to this day.

This newly freed economy led to the free development of industry and products. In what is now known as the Patrician Industrial Revolution, many early machines and their practices were developed throughout the late 18th and into the mid 19th centuries. This period was marked by stability and growth as the nation rebounded from the loss of Mesmerica and slowly developed into a powerhouse economy that had a growing costal shipping industry.

The growth period would come to an end around the 1840s when the South Airlandian Empire, although not the same iteration of the empire from the earliest days of Great Patrick, came under the rule of Cassius Limitus IV. Limitus was a general during his father’s reign and he came to believe that the former Airlandian Empire needed revival. This culminated in the invasion of Great Patrick on June 2nd 1842, on the same day that King Patrick XIII took power. What resulted was a very long and drawn out conflict between the two. After over a decade of fighting, following the death of Cassisu Limitus IV in 1856, the South Airlandians called for a peace, where both would go back to the pre-war borders and not have fear of future invasion. King Patrick XIII entertained the offer and called for a truce to negotiate. This is often regarded as the end of the First Airlandian War. However, peace would be extremely short lived as the negotiations would drag on for months and, after two years of uneasy peace, the truce was called off and warring resumed. This second conflict, starting in the Summer of 1858, is called the Second Airlandian War.

The failure of Patrick XIII to bring about lasting peace would spell the beginning of the end for the monarchy in Great Patrick. The negotiations had broken down over the terms of land. While the South Airlandians would give up all their holdings of Patrician land, Patrick XIII refused to return the favor, but kept talks going in the meantime. Patrick XIII believed that if the South Airlandians were the ones asking for peace, then they would be easy to defeat and should therefore take whatever offer was given them. This would lead to the eventual decision to resume the conflict, with the hopes of reversing the tides and leading to Great Patrick taking over the place of the Airlandians. This was not the case.

The Second Airlandian War was a disaster for all involved. During the two year pause in combat, both sides had developed their weapons of war to the point where, once fighting resumed, it became a bloodbath. This open fighting would only last for a few months, as both sides would dig in for an extended period of drawn out trench warfare, lasting three more years. In the fall of 1860, the people of Great Patrick began to revolt. The war was unpopular on the homefront and the King was looking more and more disconnected from the people. With the military extended as far as it could go, the Herrisbourge Guard, which are the military units assigned to protect the capital, were sent out to cities to put down the revolts. This led to a further negative perception of the king and, by 1861, his advisors were all begging him to ask for peace. In the end, both sides needed to be done with the war and so the boarder lines were returned to how they were before the First Airlandian War and largely reflected the initial terms of the peace offered by South Airlandia at the end of that conflict.

The people of Great Patrick were not happy with the results of the Second Airlandian War, and a growing movement began to shift blame towards the king. In several cities, the Herrisboruge Guard had not left since their initial arrival in 1860 and had been becoming increasingly hostile with the people of those cities. Despite constant pressure to remove the guard, Patrick XIII refused to do so unless the mayors of the cities that had rebelled signed a document taking blame for the loss of the Second Airlandian War. A few cities took him up on this deal, but Falcon City led a group of many cities that refused the King’s request. In 1865, these cities would submit a petition to the king asking him to step down to better serve the will of the people. This enraged the king who issued a new order declaring that the Herrisbourge guard must blockade the rebelling cities and prevent them from trading. This led to a meeting among the king’s advisors who, knowing that his actions could spell the end for the nation entirely, decided to secretly overrule the king, remove the guard, and keep the king misinformed about all the happenings in the nation. This led to a period known as the Age of Unrest as the king became mostly a figurehead that had real control taken away and given to the advisors. This would only become more apparent as the king aged.

The Age of Unrest would last for 25 years and would be characterized by the continuation of most of the average daily lives of the people of Great Patrick. It was commonly known at that time that the king was doing nothing leading to the formulation of the increasingly common belief that the monarchy was no longer needed in a modern nation.

Following the death of Patrick XIII in 1890, the nobles of Great Patrick selected Sean XI as their new king. Sean XI would attempt to put power back in the monarchy, but would largely fail at this endevor as the cities were used to ignoring royal decree and Sean XI was rightly fearful to use the Herrisbourge guard to restore order. This led to his abdication in 1891, only a year after coming to power and the selection of his successor, Patrick XIV that same year.

Patrick XIV’s reign was a pragmatic one. He quickly realized the likely end of the monarchy as it had operated and moved to establish a new way of deciding legislation. This was done through the establishment of the Great Patrick Parliment, which first met in 1892.

Over the next few years, the Parliment would move to be more anti-monarch and would eventually be dominated by those who wished to establish a Constitutional Republic in place of the Kingdom. This would be realized as in 1898, the Parliment would overwhelmingly vote to approve a new Constitution which would remove the monarch entirely and replace the powers of foreign policy into the hands of an elected President, who could serve an upwards of three terms of three years each.

The Constitution took effect in 1900, at which time, the first President John Stark was elected, ending the era of the Kingdom of Great Patrick and beginning the Republic of Great Patrick.