Avlonya

Avlonya, officially the Union of Avlonya(Avlonyan: 𐐝𐐪𐑂𐐨𐐯𐑌𐐻𐐪 𐐤𐐬 𐐈𐑂𐑊𐐬𐑌𐐷𐐪) is a country located in Antigonia. Antigonia has an area of 2,773,760 km2 and a population of almost 93 million, making it the 6th largest country in the world by area. It is divided into 23 Union States, 7 Native Homelands, and four territories. Avlonya is organized into a Federal Republic, based on a division of power between the State and Federal Governments. It currently functions under a system of multi-party liberal democracy, with two dominant parties.

The nations that would unite to form Avlonya were founded by the Eressumans, explorer-conquerers working for joint-stock companies from  beginning in 1521. However was later conquered by in 1593. Due to the peculiar system of primogeniture in, most second and third sons of the landowners were left landless. Many of these chose to carve out new lands in the newly discovered Antigonian continent largely in the modern day East coast of Avlonya. The did not develop a strong political infrastructure in the region and governed it around largely laissez-faire lines. Therefore the Eressumans founded small neo-feudal corporate states known as in the new country based around a plantation economy united under the Landaketak sy. Conflict with the migratory [Empire of the Sun] in 1681 led to the demise of the Landaketak system. A minor noble at the time, Castrioti, lead the Avlonyans further inland to establish the the new Antigonian League. The league maintained unity for several decades, but soon descended into civil wars that drew in the neighboring natives tribes as well. The wars were ended by the established of the First Union of Avlonya in 1743, however this government developed into a corrupt oligarchy ruled by several political dynasties, resulting in the November Revolution of 1854 and the subsequent establishment of a radical liberal dictatorship.

The Avlonyan economy is strong and maintains a relatively high GDP per capita. It saw a major boom in the mid to later parts of the 20th century, due to boosts in manufacturing and technology industries. The high income economy has seen a further exporting of labour to other less developed regions of the world. The modern Avlonyan economy continues to grow rapidly, albeit at a lower rate than the decades before. Though there are worries of an economic decline in recent years, economic growth appears to continue to grow for the foreseeable future. The Avlonyan government continues to seek free trade agreements and new markets to spread economic influence.

Conquests of the Eressumans
The Eressumans are considered by the white population of Avlonya as the founder of the Avlonyan civilization in the present day. The conquest of the new world began with explorer Liraseer Gabrasar who led a small exploratory expedition to search for gold in the region that is now Natalia in 1521 on behalf of the Antigonia Company. Gabrasar's expedition consisted mostly of lesser nobility who had been denied land at home due to the abolition of gavelkind in the decades preceding his expedition. Gabrasar failed to find any gold, but did find fertile land, which was running short back home in. This led to him laying claim personally to a large part of the coast of the region. Gabrasar personally sold most of the country's land to the unlanded nobility of. Through this, Gabrasar and the Antigonia Company created an effectively anarcho-capitalist rule in Eastern Avlonya. However since Gabrasar was effectively the richest man in the entire country, he ran a vast mercenary army that he used to enforce his own will in his own plot of land. Gabrasar's is considered by many to be the first Eressuman, corporate explorer-conquers who established Avlonya.

Once the fortune accumulated by Gabrasar from conquering and selling land in the Antigonia fully reached, thousands journeyed across the ocean to the New World to seek their own fortunes. Many formed mercenary companies that spread inland from the lands that had been colonized by Gabrasar deep into the interior. As they journeyed inland, the Eressumans encountered more advanced civilizations including the Ukhi Empire that straddles the border between Temuschia and modern day Avlonya. The Ukhi Empire would be brought to its knees by disease and finally taken apart by the Eressumans conquests. The conquest of the vast fertile lands of the Ukhi Empire was the beginning of the end of the more chaotic period of Avlonyan rule. Avlonya society began moving into a system that more closely mirrored the feudal systems of the old world. Vicious wars between the Eressumans and their respective mercenary companies led to the formation of a class of serfs who had been on the losing side of these squabbles and more significantly - enslaved natives. At the same time more power began centralizing in fewer and fewer massive landowners similar to Gabrasar himself decades earlier. This saw an increase in the stability of Avlonya as there were fewer ambitious warlords seeking out to carve out their own piece of the brave new world.

The Landaketak Confederation
The beginning of the Landaketak Era was largely a culmination of the Eressuman Era as Avlonyan society centralized into a system of feudal statelets. The destruction of  in 1593 at the hands of  led to a massive influx of refugees who had not yet integrated into the Eressuman system. Most of the so called Neo-Avlonyans formed new small costal republics that were largely more democratic than the domains of the Eressumans. With no monarchy at home holding them back, there was also a great change within Eressumans society, while previously Eressumans had styled themselves as "governors", they now took the titles of Dukes, Grand Princes, and even a handful as King. The great-grandson of Gabrasar, Liraseer IV, even went so far as to claim the title of Emperor of Antigonia. This in fact led to the first major war to rock Avlonya, the Imperial War. The forces of the lesser Eressumans and the costal republics bested Liraseer IV at the massive Battle of the Black Forest and destroyed his Empire. The victory at the Black Forest led to the decline of the power of the Eressumans in favor of the more egalitarian republics. However it should be noted that compared to the later standards of Avlonya, the republics were far from progressive, with property owning males being the only population allowed to vote. The new Avlonya formed the Landaketak system, as a very loose confederation which sought to prevent further wars and maintain the power of the land-owning elite.

It is under the Landaketak that Avlonyan identity strongly developed. The fact that the homeland was effectively lost led to the transplanting of the entire country to Antigonia. The newer Avlonyan society was built on the idea of the citizen farmer ready to defend their homeland from attacks by imperialist powers as well as the natives. The Landaketak period is defined largely by the wars against the Mikalapi Confederacy, and its successor, the Council of the Three Fires. The Landaketak made several treaties with the natives that were regularly broken. The brutal conquest of the natives often included vast amounts of carnage, genocide, and various other types of what may be now considered war crimes. It is estimated that up to a 400,000 were killed in the conquest of the Mikalapi Confederacy alone, and possibly more societies were so utterly ravaged by disease that there are no records of them at all.

The Landaketak's downfall began when colonists from other Vesperian states began arriving in larger numbers with backing from their imperial motherlands. Most landed on the coast close to where the Neo-Avlonya Republics decades before. This led to border friction and limited warfare. More importantly, their dominant control over trade in Antingonia was effectively shattered, and many previously trade based states fell into poverty. By the rise of Castrioti, the Landaketak had already ceded some of its territory to  in exchange for military protection. By this point Avlonya had fallen technologically quite far behind most of Vesperia, and were similarly viewed by Vesperian nations as half-civilized mongrels that had gone native.

Castrioti and the Long March
Due to the intensification of the Vesperian colonization of Antigonia, the natives began to gain access to more advanced weaponry that could challenge the Avlonyans on an equal footing, and more importantly, the horse. This would bring the final demise of the Landatetak as the [Empire of the Sun], a migratory empire from the central Antingonian plains that had been pushed east by climate change, invaded the confederation. Contact between the Empire of the Sun and other Vesperian colonizers had led to them gaining great quantities of horses. While they were not as skilled on horseback as the people of Central Auchoi, they were capable enough to quickly overwhelm the Landatetak.