“Nobody would ever admit to it, but many of the people who flaunt their power over others are cowards. The slightest threat to their power and interests often caused them to overreact, sometimes disastrously. Scholars have often debated how certain debacles in history come about, questioning because certainly people in such vaunted positions would not make such foolish mistakes, would they not?

They often fail to realize that even those in positions of power are just another person like themselves. A person with their own flaws and failings, far from perfection by any means. For such a person to eventually make a mistake is only to be expected.” - From a lecture by Garth Wainwrought, Professor of Socioeconomy for the Levain Institute for Higher Learning, circa 602 FP.

After over two decades of civil war, the land that used to belong to the Clangeddin Empire housed only a few factions that had survived the constant mayhem.

Out of those factions, the former Barony of Gerouz – now the Gerouz Free State – was by far the smallest and weakest out of the remnant factions. It was the state’s location at the far north-western tip of the former empire’s territory and its overall poorness that made it an undesirable target for its neighbors. At least, the state was poor until it opened the only sea port in the entire former Empire’s territory and freely traded with its western neighbors.

By that point, they had also signed a solid alliance – complete with a marriage of heirs – with the powerful Duchy of Algenverr from the former Posuin Kingdom, which gave them a strong backing that made attacking them an iffy proposition once more. With all those factors combined, Gerouz had the unique claim to be the one state that was practically untouched by the horrors of the civil war.

Directly east of Gerouz was Lavianey, a state formed jointly by several smaller states from the region. Much like Gerous, Lavianey escaped the worst of the fighting by virtue of being too poor to bother conquering. Instead, its component states often fought amongst themselves, though primarily around the meeting tables, due to the greatly differing opinions they had.

The remaining states that survived through the civil war were powerful in their own ways.

The Free City of Levain, centered around the former empire’s old capital, was the one state that eschewed the nobility’s right to rule the most, as the peasantry had risen and taken over the old capital. Between the massive number of people that lived in the old capital – easily around half a million despite the grievous losses the populace had taken early in the civil war – and its seven-layered walls, the former imperial capital was a tough nut to crack should they focus on the defense.

To Levain’s north-west was the Republic of Caroma, another joint state formed out of several smaller states in the region, the largest two of which had been Caeropa and Oiloma. The state’s new governance also heavily involved their common populace, which made them unpopular with most other forces other than Levain. The presence of two highly skilled Marshals that led their military meant that even if their neighbors disliked them, they couldn’t really do much against the Republic, however.

Further north was the Anduille Regency, with most of its northern border directly faced against savage lands inhabited by goblin tribes. The nobles of the region had banded together, and called for a restoration of nobility rule over the former empire, but found themselves stymied as even the other states that agreed with them couldn’t decide just who should be in the lead.

On top of that, Anduille’s southern borders were mostly with Caroma and Levain, two states diametrically opposed to it in terms of policy. Had the north been more bountiful, Anduille would have attacked the states to its south more often. Instead, the three incursions it had made against Caroma so far had been repelled with ease by the two Marshals.

At the eastern border of the former empire, the Podovniy March had pretty much swallowed all the smaller states in the region and ruled as the hegemon of the east. Much like those from the Anduille Regency, they espoused the rule of nobility, and thus viewed their western neighbor – Levain – with contempt and greed at the same time.

The southern half of the former empire was mostly split between the Southern Coalition – a coalition of many small states that covered most of the former empire’s western side and the northern part of the south – and the Grand Duchy of Sevras-Galastine, a joint state formed by the union of the two largest duchies of the south.

Where the Coalition often butted heads with Caroma and more recently, Levain as well, the Grand Duchy was mostly content to expand outward and spent its time coalescing its gains from those campaigns instead. As a result, the Grand Duchy claimed roughly one-third of the land that used to belong to the Holy Kingdom of Theodinaz, as well as lands that were once the domain of smaller states around it, and maintained its stability well in the process.

Other than Levain and Caroma, every single one of these states were surprised when they received news of the joint attack the two states executed against the Southern Coalition.

Some merely laughed at the expense of the Southern Coalition and didn’t really put the matter to heart, like those in Gerouz and Sevras-Galastine, who were too far to intervene either way. The leaders of Lavianey were too busy debating one another when the report came and they only noticed it weeks later, not that they would have been able to come to any agreement on what to do about it anytime soon anyway.

On the other hand, when the report reached the Regent of Anduille and the Marquis of Podovniy, both of them felt a chill on their backs. The one quiet neighbor that only defended itself had suddenly turned to the attack, and neither liked the possibilities that could emerge from such a situation. Naturally the Southern Coalition was the first to receive the news as well as spread it to some of the others, since they were the target of Caroma and Levain’s attack.

What nobody had expected – other than as a distant worst case possibility – was that both the Regent and the Marquis felt threatened by their upstart neighbor, and came to the conclusion that they were a potential threat that might endanger their sovereignty if allowed to grow. As such, the Regent and the Marquis sent missives to one another, all discussing one single topic.

Namely how to nip said threat in the bud.