The North PacificBoard

Post for the Acyríc of Rycastle

The midwinter snows were falling in the city of Tazhan, Union Republic of Hebelia, covering the streets in sheets of white. Lying in the northerly continent of Verusa, on the shores of the cold and stark Tsyemny, it was a city not unused to snow. These were different, however; heavier, darker. Across the frigid city the snows piled high, making the roads and pavements nigh on impassable.

The dark snows came alongside the winds of change.

Despite the treacherous weather, people from across the city flocked to their local guildhalls - remnants of a once-thriving system of worker’s guilds - as rumours spread throughout the city and Hebelia as a whole. The Northern Socialist Union had dissolved.

A conference in the Krashedzivostok city of Gagda had sealed the Union’s fate, following the recall of almost all Union Councillors. The recalls started as a protest against the Union’s perceived militarism, but soon turned into a general rejection of the state’s existence. At Gagda, representatives from all Union Republics negotiated, but in the end, they each went their separate ways.

In the western coastlands of Hebelia, and certainly the city of Tazhan, the end of the Union was of profound importance. The native people of that land were done with anarchy. They were done with communism. They were done with the domination of outsiders.

The Tsyemnic people had lived on the shores of the harsh Tsyemny sea for thousands of years, reaving and raiding across the cold waters for most of that time. Despite their widespread activities, the homeland of these peoples lay in the isles of the East, and on the Blask Peninsula, to use its Puczovskan name. Here they were vulnerable to invasion from the Verusan Slavs and the Puczovskan Confederation.

The invasion from Puczovska and the instatement of its anarchist governing system in the Tsyemnic Territories of Efyrwic and Ironlaw Isle saw the Efyrwics (as Tsyemnics from those lands are called) lose all control over their own governance. Their ancient system of guilds were co-opted by the Puczovskans and then abandoned, leaving the guild halls empty save for the rare town hall meeting. Next came the Emnarians, who colonised Efyrwic and Ironlaw along with the rest of the Blask Peninsula, sending many of their own populace to provide a base for colonial control. When that kingdom collapsed the Puczovskans of Kivrov retook control, instating a short-lived Second Puczovskan Confederation before joining the Northern Socialist Union as the Union Republic of Hebelia.

With the collapse of the Northern Socialist Union, Hebelia had regained its independence, forming the People’s Republic of Hebelia, its capital in Kivrov. Once again, the state was dominated by Puczovskans, the largest ethnicity in the state, which had ingrained itself even in the historically Tsyemnic-majority lands of Efyrwic and the Isle of Ironlaw.

The Efywic people would not sit idly by as they were once again pushed to the sidelines, their interests ignored and their voices unrepresented; no more would their lands be ruled by a foreign nation.

The meetings in Tazhan’s guildhalls were not held to elect members to the new Hebelian National Council; though free from the Northern Union’s influence, that body was still dominated by Puczovskans who (in the eyes of the Efyrwics) ignored the minorities of the Republic and solely worked to benefit themselves. Instead, these meetings were held to rally the Efyrwic people - to rally them against the Puczovskans, against the People’s Republic - to rally them to a new cause, and an old one.

In the Great Avyric Guildhall - Avyric being the true, Tsyemnic name of Tazhan - a new flag was unfurled. Green and white, it displayed seven golden stars, reflecting the constellation Lanrycas, the Longboat, an ancient symbol of the raiding people. This was the Seven Stars, the banner of the Acyríc of Rycastle, the last sovereign Tsyemnic state; a state that had liberated itself from Puczovskan rule soon after the invasions.

This would be their new cause, their rallying cry. The Efyrwics would return to their old ways, rejoin their brethren in the State of Rycastle, and reject foreign domination that had plagued them for so long.