Erinian Empire

The Greater Empire of Erinia, commonly referred to as the Erinian Empire, is a state encompassing all of the Dovan continent and the southern shores of Mikana. The Empire is unique in that it actively promotes irreligion and condemns all association with any sort of religion. The Empire also has the strongest military in the world, with well trained and disciplined soldiers armed with rifles and cannons.

Foundation
The foundation of the city of Erinia is the most widely used way to mark years and their passage. Years are B.F. (Before Foundation) and A.F. (After Foundation). The city was of course founded in the year 0 AF, although some historians doubt this as the official date for the foundation. Nontheless, the city was founded by Arostrian colonists seeking rich and fertile lands to settle. It is not known exactly where the colonists came from originally, but it is likely that they were collected from southern arostrian lands and sent by the arostrian lords with the intent to disrupt the Nulian communities.This was when the 1000 year war was still raging across Dovania, and the nulians still held conciderable lands in the north, including the lands around Haven Bay. But those lands were not very populous, and so they were ripe for colonization and for the advancement of the arostrians into nulian lands. The colonists fought the local nulians and won a decisive victory, founding their city they named Erinia on the river Peron. But most historians disagree with this tale and instead opt for the tale that the arostrians occupied the nulian city of Raer, and simply renamed it Erinia. Regarless of the way it came to be, Erinia quickly became the center of trade and commerce in the area. But the nulians still inhabited the southern Peron areas, and would frequently clash with the new arostrian city. The nulians would launch several attempts to capture the city, even succeeding in 64 AF, only to be driven back in 67 AF. Then the nulians were either exterminated or were forced to abandon their lands in the Peron. By 140 AF, the 1000 year war was declared over in Elgon city after the nulians had been confined to the modern boundraries of Nulia.

Kingdom
After the war, Erinia prospered as trade increased in the now arostrian-dominated Dovania. An electorial monarchy replaced the hereditary one in 211 after the reign of the unpopular King Hinrik. The first elected king, Jowan, began expanding Erinia's territory outside of its walls, incorporating the prosperous trading settlement of Tyre in 239. By 295, Erinia had annexed all of the lands in Haven Bay. But Erinian expansion was halted when The Neo-Camponian Republic attempted to conquer Nulia, Tropathia and Etria. Almost all of the northern arostrian states banded together under to fight the Camponian invaders under the leadership of Seria. Erinia and her allies launched several campaigns and expeditions against the Camponians, most of which resulted in failure. In 301 the camponians launched their own campaign against the erinians, invading the lands of Haven Bay and taking XXX, the second largest city in the Kingdom of Erinia. But now the southern arostrian states feared camponian expansion as well, and joined the effort against them. With the military aid of Skagon, camponian forces were pushed out of Haven Bay and Tropathia was liberated by Nulian troops. Hostilities ended in 317 with the signing of a peace treaty between Seria and The republic. Shortly afterwards the Neo-Camponian republic was dissolved after a coup. After a long period of rebuilding in 317-350, Erinia resumed expansion by expanding into the Peron lands south of Erinia. But those lands were already claimed by Erinia's ally, Skagon.

First Skagon War
Skagon had saved Erinia from Camponian conquest at the beginning of the 4th century. After the war, the two kingdoms had had very good relations with each other, frequently trading and sharing each other's military secrets. But there were a very vocal people in Erinia who held Skagon in distrust, one of which was Gerold Jones, who was elected King in 398. In 405, he launched expeditions into the lands of the Peron, establishing erinian presence there. Luis Bansden, the skagoni king, was furious when he heard of this. He cut off all diplomatic ties with Gerold and began arming his forces for war, and so did the erinians. But war didn't come. For 15 years the peace was uneasily held, but held nontheless. When a new king in Erinia was elected in 420 named Paul Tyring, he attempted to life the state of tension by slowly removing his armies from the Skagon-Erinian border. This had the opposite effect however, as the famed skagoni general Gunther Kalington simply saw an opportunity in this. Gunther attacked the erinian army as it was retreating, breaking it and sending it fleeing to Erinia. The following day, Luis Bansden officially declared war against Erinia. As the erinian armies retreated towards Haven Bay, Skagoni forces marched onwards to besiege Erinia city. After 10 months the skagoni were close to finally defeating the city, but they were constantly harassed by erinian scouts and could not starve the city since it had excellent supply lines by sea. Their only hope was to take the city by assault. On the 5th of july, 421, Kalington ordered his troops to attack the erinian walls. But Erinia had been heavily fortified after many years of nulian and camponiana aggression, and so the skagoni were beaten back from the city walls. The skagoni army was then forced to retreat back to the Numern, giving the erinian army a chance to rebuild. The erinian navy moved to destroy the skagoni navy and block all skagoni ports, to economically starve the k-entire kingdom. After a year long standoff, the erinian army went on the offensive and marched into the numern. It was lead by the famous erinian commander Rossal. Several battles were fought, with neither side winning a major victory for 3 years. Rossal and Kalington were evenly matched when it came to tactics and strategy, although Kalington possessed slightly more troops than Rossal. But in 427, Kalington died in the initial skirmish of his 4th battle with Rossal, causing his soldiers to lose all hope. They fled, surrendered or simply defected, and only around 20% of the army stayed true to Kalington's successor, Hans Borgan. Hans was forced to surrender to the erinians after onoly a fraction of his soldiers were left, and with that the entire skagoni army had been defeated. Rossal then sent a letter demanding King Luis Bansden's surrender. Luis' advisors urged him to accept, but for an unknown reason, he refused and opted to continue a hopeless struggle against Rossal. Enraged by this response, Rossal marched to besiege Skagon city. With a tattered force, the erinians faced many difficulties during the siege which would go on to last for 14 months. With the city starving, Luis couldn't take the suffering any longer and agreed to surrender to Rossal, ending the war in 430, ten years after it began.

Uneasy peace
Erinia forced Skagon to pay massive war reparations and annexing all of Skagon's territories beyond the neck of the Numern peninsula. Skagon lost a third of all her territories and was left with an economy in shambles. Erinia continued expanding into the Peron lands and eventually reached the Great River Valley. Erinia city became the fifth largest city in Dovania, after Parsis, and would soon become the largest. In 434, Luis Bansden was ousted in a coup and replaced with the despot Esker Vicarion, who became much more resistant to the erinians. He expanded the army and built a large royal navy. In 441, he refused to pay his annual tribute to Erinia, breaking the treaty of the first Skagon war. This was a declaration of war to Erinia.

Second Skagon War
Esker knew well that refusing the erinians meant open war. He had already mobilized his troops and marched them to take the erinian forts guarding the neck of the Numern. King Paul Tyring had died the year before, and in his place was elected a weak minded king easily controlled by the nobles named George II. As a consequence, the army was not fully mobilized and largely unready for war. The skagoni army was lead by the capable general Charles Kalington, son of Gunther Kalington, who easily took the neck of the Numern and marched his forces up XXX. Settlement after settlement was taken by the Kalington's men. Meanwhile the new skagoni royal fleet lead by Admiral Alfred Brigsen fought the much larger erinian fleet to a stalemate, forcing the erinians to retreat to Haven Bay. This time, the skagoni didn't besiege Erinia herself, but instead laid waste to her surrounding lands, burning farms and scorching the earth as they went. But when Erinia still held, Gunther's hand was forced and he ordered his massive force to besiege the city. His men outnumbered the city's defenders nearly 4 to 1, and this time they were in no rush to assault the walls considering that the erinians had lost their naval superiority. A small contingent of 30,000 was all that remained of the royal erinian army, lead by General Joseph Draven. Draven knew that relief of the city was nearly impossible, so he opted to attack the skagoni's undefended homeland instead. He took back the neck of the Numern and marched south to lay waste to Skagoni villages. Kalington peeled 50,000 men of his force and sent them to deal with Draven's forces. The two armies met a dozen weeks later south of the neck, where Draven's men won a decisive victory thanks to his leadership. Now Draven could march to relieve Erinia. He arrived on April 21, 444 to find a desperate erinian garrison waiting for reinforcements. Kalington had already prepared for his arrival, and had moved his army away from the city, as to not be surrounded by Draven and the garrison. Draven proposed the risky strategy of combining the garrison with his army and meet Kalington's army in open battle. The battle commenced on May 2, 444, and lasted for 10 hours. It included a huge clash of infantry and archers, with the skagoni infantry being personally lead by Gunther Kalington, and an erinian cavalry charge on the skagoni left flank lead by Joseph Draven himself. In the end, the skagoni army broke and Kalington was killed in the aftermath. The skagoni were nearly slaughtered to the last man, with only around 500 ever making it back home. But Skagon still had its naval advantage with Alfred Brigsen's complete victory over the erinian navy in July of 444. He raided numerous coastal settlements, even launching a raid on an outskirt of Erinia herself. George II sent a letter to Esker proposing a white peace, but the letter was intercepted by Draven, who then marched his forces to Numern again to seize the settlements around Skagon city. By 448, Draven had seized all of Numern besides Skagon itself. King Esker had no choice but to surrender to Draven. But Draven had had enough of the skagoni being a constant threat to Erinia, and so he took the undefended Skagon city and ordered half the city to be to be burned down and half of its inhabitants slaughtered. King Esker was executed, and most of the skagoni navy surrendering, with the exception of Alfred Brigsen, who took a handful of ships and sailed west, never to be heard from again.

Empire
Joseph Draven returned home to Erinia a hero, celebrated greatly by the masses and hailed as the savior of the monarchy. But ironically, Draven's first demand was to have the elective monarchy abolished in favor of a hereditary imperial position, due to the high corruption in the monarchy. With the support of the masses and his army, he got his wish granted and exiled George II, who fled Seria. In 449 Draven was selected to be the first Emperor of the Erinian Empire and High governor of Erinia. He consolidated his new holdings in Numern by making his close friend Rondal Meliksen the High governor of Skagon and John Walder the governor of the Peron lands. He rebuilt the lands around Erinia as well as Skagon, and funded massive contruction projects in Erinia city. He also expanded the standing army to 70,000 men, with almost 200,000 in reserve. The empire then began to expand slowly to the east and north. In the Great River Valley, numerous erinian colonies were founded and several smaller states were annexed. The same was done in Tropathia until Erinian territory reached the borders of the Nulian kingdom in 513. Joseph Draven's bloodline continued to rule the empire, with his son Henry Draven succeeding him in 464. Many arostrian states were concerned with the rapid erinian expansion, but most were caught up in the latest Serian-Ecbatanan war. When the war ended in 498 with an Ecbatanan victory, the king of Ecbatana formed an arostrian coaltion against Erinia. In 512, Erinia allied itself with the newly formed Bergan empire, and together they partitioned the kingdom of Parsis. In response, the king of Ecbatana, Harrold Stapsar, declared war on the two empires and marched his army into erinian lands. He defeated a medium sized joint erinian and bergan army near the town of XXX, then marched further west into the Great River Valley. In 513, Harrold faced an erinian army larger than his own. The erinian army was armed with gunpowder weapons, one of the first times in Dovania that this was done. Yet, Harrold won the battle, though barely. He had suffered too many casualties of his own to campaign any further, which the erinians used to turn on the offensive. In 514, Erinia allied itself with the decaying Republic of Seria, which forced Harrold to fight the war on two fronts. He defeated the serian army and besieged their capital, only to be relieved by a large erinian force, now carrying alot more firearms. Harrold retreated back to his capital and considered his terms of surrender to Erinia. But before he reached the city, he fell ill and died a few days later, leaving his thrown to his brother, Algus. He was much more reluctant to surrender to Erinia, as he was delusional and believed that Ecbatana still had a chance of winning. The erinian army then quickly besieged and assaulted Ecbatana, enacting the same