Kingdom of Khayad

Kingdom of Khayad (khay. Khayadit Malaik) - first unified Khayadic state, created in 246 3E when Giafar, Duke of Khayad won a rebellion that freed the Khayadian people from Sarid rule. Characterized by a strong economy based on lucrative trade, the kingdom was one of the major powers in both Eastern Thir and the whole continent. The state lasted until 470 3E when Yasmina the Siren transformed the kingdom into the Great Work of Khayad.

Overview
The kingdom is consists of two main geographical parts: the lush valleys of the river Ashtar that occupy the north and west of the country and the Sofiye Desert in the south and east of the kingdom. While the grasslands and flood-plains are the more developed part of Khayad, the desert is equally important to Khayadian trade, thanks to the Incense Roads that make traversal through Sofiye possible, even convenient. Thanks to that network of tunnels, Khayad can trade with countries south of it, while also transporting incense and desert minerals to the north, where the resources are sold by merchants in the port city of Ashamarad.

Khayad mainly trades incense, amber, various fruits, iron and gold; it's said that Khayadic jewellry has no equal thanks to the massive gold deposits that can be found underneath the Sofiye Desert. The economy also utilizes the fertile, arable valleys of Ashtar for agriculture - in fact, Khayad is almost self-sustainable in terms of food, with the main ingredients of Khayadian cuisine being fish, fruit, vegetables and rice.

Its major population centres include: Khadarasta, Ashamarad, Fort Karath, Khalimarad, Crocodile Rill, Baibarad, Estairad, Amber Port, Elsuhul, Rumie and Gimilirad.

Sarid subjugation (2 3E - 246 3E)
When the Great Eastern War broke out, marking the end of the Second Era, eleven Zahrian tribes left their Empire, venturing west in what is now know as the Gathasparian Exodus. After roughly two years, the refugees of war arrived in the Sarid Kingdom of Shejarda, pleading for a safe home or freedom in venturing further. It didn't take long for the Sarid king Chan II, however, to greet the newcomers and allow them to stay. The Zahrian tribes soon became part of Sarid society, eventually going on to form a new ethnic group with it's own distinct language and culture, a mix between Zahrian and Sarid influences. The people themselves soon stopped calling themselves Zahrians and created a new name for themselves: "Khayu", or "Khayadians".

When in 166 3E a Khayadic general Keran was bestowed the title of Duke of Khayad, thus creating the first Khayadic noble family, many Sarid lords opposed it, showing an anti-Khayadic sentiment that would soon turn into popular national feeling in the Kingdom of Shejarda. The very culmination of these feelings was the ascension of Chanja I to the throne in 231 3E, a queen that soon proved to the "very personification of racism and cruelty", as documented by Khayadic historian Chira Vigaiagh.

When in 238 3E Chanja I demanded that Giafar, Duke of Khayad give up his titles and lands, the proud man rebelled, starting an 8 year long rebellion that, miraculously, ended in Giafar's victory. The Stained Pact, signed at the end of the war, proclaimed the creation of an independent Kingdom of Khayad and dethronization of Chanja I among other things.

Early kingdom (246 3E - 271 3E)
Giafar I died just a year after his coronation and was promptly succeeded by his son, Rais I. An experienced commander famous for capturing the Sarid queen during the rebellion, Rais had the renown, respect and military skill needed to run a kingdom. Intelligent enough to know that you ought to strike the iron while it's hot, Rais declared war on Shejarda in 249 3E and promptly won, taking the territories of Khalouf. In a subsequent war of 252 3E, Rais managed to take the Ashtar Delta from the Sarids and thus gained a very important coastline. While he was fighting battles, however, Rais' wife, Priya, built the economic foundations of Khayad. In 250 3E, she ordered the first nationwide survey of land and the produce it gave. The book gave her a rough idea of how Khayad's economy looked like and allowed her to develop it accordingly. In 252 3E, Priya gave orders to build a port city on the newly acquired coasts - the settlement of Ashamarad would go on to become one of the busiest and wealthiest ports of the Inner Sea.

Rais I died in 255 3E and left his kingdom to his son, Zuben. The young king, however, did not only inherit his father's realm, but also his father's war - the War of the I Atamid Coalition had been going on for two years when Zuben became king and during those two years, the alliance of countless Atamid states, including Shejarda, managed to tip the conflict's scales to it's favour. And so Zuben had to deal with Djinni troops encroaching upon Khayadian borders and rebellious vassals that were becoming a bigger and bigger threat; the war ended inconclusively in 265 3E, but the vassals did rebel in 260 3E and managed to win, dethroning Zuben to replace him with his cousin, Giafar.

Vassalage under Zahria (271 3E - 435 3E)
 '' Giafar swiftly signed a white peace with the Atamids and, ironically, spent a majority of his reign quarreling with nobles. Giafar's brother, Gathaspar, did not do much to quell the tensions. In fact, he would go on to lose several wars with the Atamids and, faced with potential collapse, he bent the knee to the Zahrian Emperor Dastan V and became his vassal, the only king in the empire, in 271 3E. While several Khayadian lords raged in upheaval against what they saw as a loss of independence that they fought for so vehemently only a few decades before, the Zahrian administration improved Khayadian infrastracture, including roads and several new cities; many see the Zahrian help as the reason why Khayad became a regional power in later years.

The realm went on to become one of the Granaries of Zahria owing to the incredibly fertile flood plains of the Ashtar. That would in turn give great amounts of political power to Khayadian kings who sometimes were called Shadow Emperors or the Emperors in the West; when Yashavay I tried to seize Khayad's coast in 298 3E, Rais II openly refused the emperor's request and rallied several Ramvishtas against Yashavay, eventually forcing him to wait outside of Khadarasta's many walls for 3 days before accepting his apology.

Khayad was pretty limited in terms of territorial expansion but the Keranid kings became involved in several succession wars that raged on the Desetian Archipelago during the early 4th century 3E. In 303 3E Rais II, approached by a rebellious faction in the Kingdom of Kanatase, pressed his claim on the country's throne, starting the 15-year long I War of Kanatasean Succession that eventually embroiled all of Desetia. In conclusion, the war saw Khayad gain brief control over Kanatase and seize important port cities - territory that Rais' daughter, Nala I, would soon lose in the II War of Kanatasean Succession. Despite that, the wars oversaw the construction of the first Khayadian fleet and thus led to the inclusion of various maritime traditions into Khayadic culture.

The following century would prove to be uneventful in terms of war and expansion, filled instead with political intrigues both in the kingdom and in the Empire; in 350 3E, Emperor Vandad III killed King Zuben II with whom he disagreed about inner and external politics and religion. The Emperor planned on putting a puppet on Khayad's throne, but several nobles beat him to that and crowned Zuben III king. The conflict would escalate and last for 5 years, ending inconclusively. The precedent, however, was set - the Zahrian Empire could be defied, and the Khayadians only separated themselves more from their Zahrian overlords.

Asinid Empire (435 3E - 560 3E)
After the conflict between Vandad III and Zuben III, Khayad was poised to secede from the Empire. The break out of the Marzabadian Rebellion in 432 3E served as a catalyst not only to the Khayadian independence movement, but to other rebellious factions all around the Empire. When the opressed mages and warlords of Olansa joined Marzabad Varen in his rebellion, Khayad was in the perfect place to cut ties with the Emperor. All it needed was a competent king to lead it - Gathaspar Asinid would prove to be one such king; known as one of the most fearsome pirates of the Inner Sea, Gathaspar held a claim to the throne through his father, the bastard son of king Rais III, and decided to press it in 434 3E. Having easily beaten the Khayadian fleet in the Battle of Ashamarad, Gathaspar quickly captured the country's port capital and, soon after, the whole coast. After that, the pirate captain entered the country through Ashtar, pillaging and raiding the rivers flood plains. In 435 3E, he reached Khadarasta and, owing to his strategic wit, some Desetian water mages and a bit of sheer luck, he forced the nobles of the land to surrender the city to him. Gathaspar crowned himself king a month later.

Khayad was quite autonomous before Gathaspar's conquest, but after the pirate became king, the split became official; the new monarch didn't invite the Zahrian Emperor to his coronation to renew his feudal oaths and during the ceremony, he symbolically burned Zahrian banners and flags. Zahria itself was too engrossed in it's rebellions to worry about Khayad's secession.

Gathaspar didn't stop with his conquest and took to expanding his soon-to-be empire; in 440 3E, he declared war on the Atamid states in the south, taking a large chunk of the Sofiye Desert from them. Having known about the Incense Roads that run under the desert's soil, he rebuilt the ancient city of Apue into Fort Karath, an entrance to the tunnels that would soon see their revival as a crucial trade route between Khayad and South-Eastern Thir. Five years later Gathaspar took lands from the newly formed Zahrian Republic, expanding his eastern border. After that, he focused on expanding the Khayadian fleet and swiftly put it to good use, conquering important coastal cities in Desetia, such as Yakonka or Kanatase. That allowed Gathaspar to control trade flowing around the Inner Sea, which, combined with his education as a trader and earlier conquest of the Incense Roads, allowed him to significantly strengthen Khayad's economy, creating an important trade route between Desetia and the Atamid states beyond Sofiye.

Gathaspar died in 458 3E, meant to be succeeded by his eldest daughter, Yasmina. She, however, was challenged by her plotting and mad mother, Priya. After Gathaspar's death, the two were embroiled in a civil war that saw both of them getting crowned several times in the span of less than 2 years. Eventually, Priya died at the hands of her daughter and Yasmina became Queen of Khayad. Immediately, she took to continuing her father's legacy. Married off to the Elartan heir in her childhood, Yasmina united the two realms with a personal union. Moreover, she used the newly gained manpower of Elarta and the magnificent fleet of Gathaspar to conquer Mahuat, the southern island of Desetia. Yasmina also conquered the rocky hills of Alsadesh from Zahria, but controlling the territory would prove to be difficult - for the remaining years of Yasmina and her son's reign, Alsadesh would prove to be quite autonomous and still influenced by Zahria.

While Yasmina never crowned herself Empress, she is considered by many to have been such a figure. Having united Khayad, Elarta, Mahuat and Alsadesh under one crown, she held influence over the Inner Sea and a large part of Eastern Thir. Yasmina's reign is seen as Khayad's ascension to the status of a regional great power, maybe even Thir's first true world power - by controlling the Inner Sea's trade and crucial ports, Yasmina held influence in both Eastern and Western Thir. Even though the lands would soon be lost, the economic and diplomatic influence would remain, while Khayad itself would perservere as a naval and economic powerhouse.

The Asinid Empire began to crumble in the 6th century, when Yasmina's son, Gathaspar, lost a major independence movement in Alsadesh. Yasmina's grandson, Iusha, is considered the last ruler of the Empire. His loss in the War of Mahuati Independence of 560 3E is seen as the end of the Asinid Empire.

Two Crowns of Khayad and Elarta (560 3E - 825 3E)
Despite the loss of half of it's land, Khayad retained it's diplomatic and naval influence over the Inner Sea and it's former dominions, with the Royal Trading Company running most of the regional trade. The revival of Khayadic art that began with Yasmina led to the coming of the New Advent, a major artistic movement that influenced most, if not all of Thir.

Internally, however, the country was reeling from the shock of two rebellions that crumbled the Asinid Empire. The third and only nation still subjugated by Khayadians, the Elartans, felt enabled by the precedent set by Mahuat and Alsadesh to plot their own insurgency. On June 17th 562 3E, Elartan general Hayf Marvah ambushed the Khayadian Fort Almualim, thus starting the rebellion. In 563 3E, however, just a few days after the first major battle of the uprising, Hayf died due to unknown reasons. The general that stepped in in his place, Hasfati, was much more eager to negotiate with the Khayadians, knowing that Elarta would be better off with Khayad than without it. The original deal, however, was refuted by the Khayadians and they only accepted it after Hasfati captured the city of Alsahaba and practically conquered all of Elarta, winning almost every battle he fought. On March 20th 565 3E, Iusha I signed a peace treaty with Hasfati that detailed the creation of a new state - the Two Crowns of Khayad and Elarta.