Trellin

Grand Sidereal Monarchy of Trellin Methet Serekh Fe'vra Trelli'ka
Flag Shield
Motto: Kaha lant faroi san irsta (Trellinese) "We alone have right to rule the sea"
Location of the Trellinese Empire (light and dark green) in Teudallum (dark grey)
Capital and largest city	Mar'theqa
Official languages	Trellinese
Recognised regional languages	Ahéri Khadenz Kuredt Sa'sseban Urbont Withaerosi
Ethnic groups (2013)	66.7% Trellinese 11.5% Hyseran 6.4% Velaric 4.1% Txekri 13.3% others
Demonym(s)	Trellinese
Government	Federal absolute monarchy
• Queen	Azara V
Legislature	Ladroz Aserevikhi
Establishment
• Settlement of Trelum	371 BC
• Establishment as Trellin	c. 300 BC
• Trellinese Empire	114 BC
Area
• Total	1,914,936.1 km2 (739,361.0 sq mi)
Population
• 2013 census	229,142,864
• Density	118.7/km2 (307.4/sq mi)
Currency	Rasna (Ʀ) (TRS)
Time zone	TCT (UTC−1) and AST (UTC±0)
Date format	dd/mm/yyyy
Driving side	left
Calling code	+875
ISO 3166 code	TR
Internet TLD	.tr

Trellin (pronounced /ˈtʃrɛllɪn/), officially the Grand Sidereal Monarchy of Trellin (Trellinese: Methet Serekh Fe'vra Trelli'ka) or the Grand Monarchy of the Most Ancient Sidereal Crown of the Trellinese Empire and Her Provinces and Protectorates and the Sovereign Realm of Hysera, is a developed country on the west Astyrian continent of Teudallum, located west of the Dangish Empire, north of Aurelia, north-west of Andamonia and south of Étlaurlande, Sycoon and the Sea of Jajich. The empire's landmass of 2,052,669 square kilometres is separated into north and south by the Sea of Velar. The Trellinese Empire includes 108 islands larger than 5 square kilometres and four sovereign protectorates, Arimathea, Cadenza, Kur'zhet and Txekrikar - of these, all but Txekrikar continue to exercise their rights to self-governance, as Txekrikar is moving through the process of provincialisation. The total landmass directly under the Trellinese crown is 1,930,019 square kilometres when the three self-governing protectorates are excluded.

Trellin's form of government is absolute monarchy. Its capital, Mar'theqa, is located in the west of the country's northern landmass. Its monarch, since June 2015, is Azara V. Hysera, a sovereign state in union under the Sidereal Crown and with its capital at Ledigar, is located to the north of Trellin's capital territory. The Trellinese Empire also includes the constitutional monarchy of the Isles of Velar, the throne of which is in union with that of Trellin.

Trellin is a relatively large nation, covering over two million square kilometres. This landmass encompasses a diversity of climate zones, including rainforest, cool desert and alpine regions, and the country is similarly noted for the diversity of its wildlife. The northwest of the country is heavily forested, while Trellin's southern landmass is predominantly wide grassland. Long mountain ranges divide the northernmost provinces from their southern neighbours.

The ethnic Trellinese first arrived on what was then the western fringe of the Hyseran Empire around 370 BC, with a sovereign state taking form by the fourth century. Over the next eleven hundred years a bitter rivalry existed between Hysera and Trellin, with the former being finally conquered and united with Trellin in 811 AD. During and after this period, Trellinese settlers gradually extended its borders south and eastward, and in the middle ages a cycle emerged of colonisation and subjugation of its immediate neighbours, accompanied by periodic phases of isolationism in response to times of internal upheaval. Before the last century, the modern national character was largely influenced two major events: the War of the Velaran Succession, fought in the late 1700s, which established Trellin's current ruling house as that of the Kingdom of the Isles of Velar; and the Trellinese Civil War which tore the country into royalist and republican factions.

Trellin was most recently in isolation from 1913 to 2014, as a delayed reaction to the civil war and during which time it had no official interaction with any other states - other than the Trophy Wars, a long and bitter conflict with Andamonia over the historically Trellinese Trophy Ports of Rha'gutza and Khorvu which lasted through the 1930s and became the shaping incident of the national identities of both empires. During the latest period of Trellinese isolation, its protectorates continued to conduct diplomacy and trade nominally on its behalf. In the same year it reentered Astyrian diplomacy, Trellin engaged in a brief but heated conflict with Andamonia to recapture the Trophy Ports and eastern Txekrikar. Trellin's military was redeployed to Andamonia the following year at the request of the Andamonian emperor and now supports the imperial government in Andamonia's civil war, the War of Integrity.

Etymology and name

The name Trellin derives from the Ahéri name of an area of marshland, Trelum, on the Serëtanz delta, where the Ethlorek settlers who would later become the Trellinese established their territory. What precisely the name means in either language remains ambiguous, and it has been suggested that the name itself has no real root. One of the more widely accepted theories is that it is a combination of Ahéri Edhruél, or 'Shelter', and Old Trellinese Lahúm, or 'Journey'. Trelum is now the name of Trellin's capital territory.

Various definitions of Trellin:
- Dark green: Kingdom of Trellin, under the Sidereal Crown
- Light green: Protectorates of the Trellinese Empire
- Blue: Kingdom of the Isles of Velar, within the Empire
- Purple: Hysera, under the Sidereal Crown

The modern Trellinese Empire is commonly known and referred to as Trellin, though this is technically inaccurate, as indeed is the term 'Trellinese Empire' as a name for the territory ruled by the Queen of Trellin. The Kingdom of Trellin, in its strictest definition, comprises 22 provinces, territories and metropolitan provinces. Its four sovereign protectorates are not part of the Kingdom, but permit their foreign policy to be directed by the Queen and are considered members of the Empire. The provinces of Hysera, Tenedos and Zha'tar comprise a sovereign state legally independent of, and distinct from, Trellin, though also under the Sidereal Crown; these provinces have been ruled since their conquest in 811 by the King or Queen of Trellin who, by virtue of this arrangement, is also Emperor or Empress of Hysera. The Kingdom of the Isles of Velar is a monarchy in union with Trellin since 1769, retaining its own crown within the Trellinese Empire but existing outside the Kingdom of Trellin.

History

Prehistory

Rendering of the ruins of the temple-city of Qarek Tal c. 400 AD

Trellin has been inhabited by indigenous peoples since at least 18,000 BC. Most of these peoples lived, and many continue to live, in the extensive rainforests of northern Trellin. This was primarily a hunter-gatherer existence, with the native tribes not beginning to practice agriculture until about 2,200 BC. There is no evidence of any major civilisations, however, until 1,600 BC, when the Zarakhethetin civilisation began the construction of the temple-city of Qarek Tal, near modern Asketon. It became a major power in the north east, but collapsed abruptly in 616 BC, with Qarek Tal being abandoned and ravaged by fires.

From 1,400 onwards, a number of city-states, all of which were Ahéri-speaking, were established north of the Serëtanz river. Internecine warfare saw the rise and fall of several of these states until the people of one city, the Kingdom of Ledh ti'Gara, discovered the secrets of iron technology, which it subsequently employed in the subjugation of its neighbours. In 520, however, its network of client-states, the League of Zha'tar, rose up against it and the resulting war destroyed its empire and left it vulnerable to the nascent Hyseran Empire in the south.

The Velaric culture developed on the islands of the Sea of Velar from the 8th century BC onwards, and its cities were at the centre of extensive trade routes reaching towards the west coast of northern Trellin.

Hyseran Empire

Main article: Hyseran Empire

The Hyseran Empire was established around 530 BC by the founder of its first dynasty, Julma the Great, centred around the city of Hyser. A network of alliances helped its empire to expand northwards rapidly, with various small city-states being annexed by diplomacy and military force. Ledh ti'Gara was annexed in 507. In 472, the great city of Bara, known simply by the Ahéri word for a fortress, was founded on the cliffs of Emla. By 440 the empire was entering its golden age, and in what historians cite as "Hysera's greatest act of hubris", the wealth of the burgeoning empire was used to plant a forest (which would become known as the Hysamesya, meaning Wall-wood) enclosed within the city walls in an effort to, as a fifth century Hyseran scholar wrote, "teach the unruly jungle without how to order itself". Hysera prospered at the heart of a trade network which extended from the eastern Sea of Velar, with links to native Andamonian cultures, to what is now Berique, while the expanding Hyseran sphere of influence included territories in modern-day Étlaurlande and Mevirin.

Ethlorek settlement

The Ethlorekoz fording the Serëtanz, illustration from a late-19th century Aquitaynian romanticisation

Around 390 BC, colonists from the continent of Lorecia began to arrive on the shores of Hysera, driven from their native Tanz valley by the collapse of the Merovian Empire. These migrants, known as the Ethlorekoz (from Ahéri meaning 'from Lorecia'), soon began to come into conflict with the native Hyseran Empire, raiding its outpost towns and harassing its coasts. Eventually they were forced across the southern border of Hysera, the Serëtanz river, settling an area of marshy delta called Trelum. Over the following seven decades the area was slowly drained, and around 300 the Kingdom of Trellin was founded around the town of Mar'theqa. The Trellinese, as they now began to be called, colonised southwards along the coast of Ilíra, modern-day Alyrum.

Kingdom of Trellin

In 208 BC, under King Amadar II, Trellin opened hostilities with the Second Hyseran Dynasty, beginning the sixty year-long Great Hyseran War. Having failed to achieve any lasting victory, the Trellinese began a period of colonisation of the coasts east of Ilíra and the western islands in the Sea of Velar. Hysera colonised across the Straits of Jajich in an attempt to contain Trellin's expansionism. In 53 BC a dispute between Trellinese and Hyseran merchants led to the Second Hyseran War, though this war was prosecuted on a much smaller scale and ended in 49 BC with the inconclusive Battle of Temalain.

From about 70 AD to the early second century, waves of Christian missionaries began to arrive in Trellin and Hysera, leading to the conversion of many of the Trellinese population while the Hyseran emperor ordered the missionaries killed. In 164 AD, believing the instability in the Hyseran Empire's Third Dynasty which he had founded to be the result of a conspiracy between Christians and the Trellinese, Kopral the Audacious declared war on his southern neighbour. After seven years of abortive raids across the Serëtanz, the Trellinese assembled a fleet and launched a raid on the port of Hyser, burning it and briefly laying siege to the city itself. In panic, Emperor Kopral paid the attackers to leave and sign a peace. Though he subsequently dishonoured this treaty, in doing so he lost his Grand Armada and was humiliated when Karindos I appeared in person at his court to demand an apology which Kopral was forced to concede.

The decades of peace that followed saw in House Dromai'i, which led Trellin through a period of slow growth. In the late third or early fourth century, the Principality of Retikh seceded from the kingdom, but its rulers remained on good terms with the Trellinese kings. In 317 the Arimatheans, financed by King Origoz II, seized the Hyseran city of Kzint, which was only recaptured a decade later.

Detail of King Fethre, from a mosaic showing the line of House Marizonika

The County of Pelna seceded from Trellin in 466, despite the best efforts of Queen Nalaia to keep it within her kingdom. With this loss, Trellin's coastal expansion ground to a halt, bringing social problems to the western provinces and overcrowding in the capital. The reign of Fethre, near the end of the sixth century, saw him personally lead a large army across the Serëtanz towards Hyser. He was intercepted by an irregular army quickly gathered to meet him on the plain of Sanjari, and as he dithered for a full day this army gained reinforcements and came under the command of Hyseran general Ulmaon. Fethre led his cavalry to victory in the battle that followed, and subsequently laid siege to Hyser. After a seven month siege, the Hyseran emperor capitulated to Fethre's demands of an annual tribute.

Conquest of Hysera

The Battle of Ebin was a turning point in the conquest of Morikz

In 752 and 753, while the two empires were locked in a minor war, Hysera and Trellin were both struck simultaneously by a plague. Described as 'a morbid terror' and believed by some scholars to be a form of bubonic plague, the disease spread quickly and killed almost a third of the population in the cities. Some sources reported that up to half of Hyser's population of a quarter of a million died of plague. Neither side was able to proceed any further with their campaigns and both took it as an omen that the war angered God or the gods. A peace was signed by both monarchs, though Queen Lorel III of Trellin died of plague later that year.

Stymied by his mother's peace treaty and the destruction wrought by plague, Mokhra I instead busied himself with the conquest of Morikz. The island was annexed piecemeal by Mokhra's general Marno Arguz, giving Trellin a valuable foothold on the trade routes of the Sea of Velar and a launchpad for settlement of the southern landmass, beginning on the peninsula known as Arnyü's Finger.

The Burning of Hysera, Jakúba Sarma, 1556

In 801, an uprising among the Trellinese army led to a previously unknown commander of an eastern garrison coming to power. After seizing the throne, Zilmar the Usurper ruled tyrannically for two years until he was murdered in 803 by his servants. The rightful queen, Tovelindra I, resumed power and had many of Zilmar's supporters put to death. There was relative peace between Trellin and Hysera until 811, when a large earthquake struck Hysera, the shockwave of which was felt as far away as Txir. The pagan Hyserans took it as an omen and launched a raid across the Serëtanz. The Trellinese retaliated and war quickly broke out. The two armies met in the one-sided Battle of Zefara, in which one hundred and twenty thousand Hyserans were slain by a force half as large. The Trellinese army marched on Hysera unopposed, sacked and burned the city and slaughtered much of its population.

Middle ages

The Middle Ages in Trellin are considered to have begun with the fall of Hysera and its absorption into the domain of the Trellinese monarchy.

In the late ninth and tenth centuries, the Kingdom of the Isles of Velar rose to become the dominant power in the Sea of Velar, as a series of expansionist rulers pushed rapidly outwards from their core on the island of Napocis to control most of the sea's central islands as well as swathes of land on the northern and southern shores. Velaran raids chipped away at the fortresses of Pelna as its counts faced pressure from the Trellinese: Kederm I occupied the citadel of Rosnai in 843, crippling the ability of the Pelnans to resist attack from both north and south. The turn of the tenth century gave Pelna relief from Trellinese pressure, as Ri'erha I proved a pacifist monarch, only interested in colonising Rezat, and after his death the kingdom fell into a brief civil war. His successor, Stediz IV, was the first to declare Trellin's and Hysera's thrones inseparable under the Sidereal Crown. Velar's efforts at expansion in the east were stymied by a long-standing pact, the Coalition of the East, established in 976, between the Principality of Txekrikar and the Grand Duchy of Ja'ekha, backed by other lesser polities which feared absorption into the growing Velaran sphere.

The assassination of Mokhra II in 1047 by one of his generals, Palav ti'Eza, began the Year of Five Kings, a ten-month period which saw numerous rebellions across the empire and was finally terminated by the accession of Ri'erha II. Ri'erha introduced much-needed reforms to the administration of Trellin and Hysera, smoothing the running of his empire.

Late middle ages

The Battle at Mintra, commissioned by King Damos of Velar in 1512

From the 1200s onward, the merchants of Mintra began to sponsor the weakening Coalition of the East against the Velaran threat. Mintra was one of the ports founded by the Trellinese monarchy to exploit trade in the Sea of Velar, and it stood to profit substantially from keeping its neighbours at odds. As Trellin's colonial empire grew, it began to come into conflict more and more with the Kingdom of Velar, and King Minrir greatly expanded the Mintran sponsorship. The rivalry between Velar and the Coalition culminated in 1481 with the Battle of Mintra, at which nearly two hundred Velaran galleys engaged and destroyed a larger Txekri and Ja'ekhan fleet before going on to sack the port. King Perendur avenged this attack by burning Velar's capital at Parthenope in a surprise attack, and over the next two years gradually drove them to surrender territories in Retikh and Pelna. Internally, however, rebellions among both the peasants and the nobility of Trellin persisted for decades until his son, Tor'qim, quelled them early in his reign, in 1505. Tor'qim went on to spend his reign rebuilding a ravaged empire.

Early modern period

Under Queen Zerama II, Trellin entered a period of isolation which lasted from 1603 until 1678, marked mainly by continued colonisation of the south and interrupted only by brief conflict with Velar and Fymona, and which was ended by her grandson Txerig II.

Trellinese and Arimathean warships engage the Velaran navy at the Battle at Kalodin

In 1769, the death of Elcmar IV's second wife, Tarien, Queen of Velar and his subsequent claim to the throne led to the War of the Velaran Succession, as Prince Miró of Txir attempted to prevent Elcmar and his daughter by his first marriage from inheriting the Isles of Velar. The Battle at Kalodin broke Velaran naval dominance, and the sieges of Parthenope and Txir effectively spelled the end of an independent Velaran kingdom.

Expansion

With Velaran opposition broken, and only scattered and unsuccessful rebellions in the following decades, the empire under Azara IV and her successors was free to expand eastward and southward. The Crown adopted a lenient policy towards the Velaran rebels, and the general amnesty issued early in Azara's reign encouraged many Velarans to engage fully in Trellinese society, culture and industry. The empire enjoyed a population boom immediately following the war which continued for several decades. The territory of Khatax was opened up in the 1780s, and waves of settlers went south to acquire tracts of cheap farmland. In 1790, the dying Grand Duke Kenti of Ja'ekha left his lands to the Sidereal Crown and entered them into the empire as a province.

19th century

In the mid-1800s, discontent in the military and across the southern provinces rose as corruption and graft became endemic in the colonial administration. "It became virtually impossible to achieve any official posting without paying up to a year's salary in bribes", wrote one civil war historian, and especially amid the mid-level officers there was a pervasive frustration. In 1859, a number of incidents in Bal Emrith sparked the General Insurrection, as a majority of the officers in the southwest rebelled against their superiors. The rebellion quickly spread to encompass most of the south and include some pockets of sedition in the north, and after four months of indecisive conflict — as neither rebels nor loyalists were comfortable with firing on their comrades — Txerig III agreed to work to resolve the problems of corruption. In the aftermath, the crown reviewed the structure of the military, decentralising its depots and creating localised armouries such as the Artillery Corps' arsenal at Halith.

Trellinese artillery officers, 1886

The Halith Disaster was a thing in 1883. The Andamonian Empire seized the Trophy Ports of Rha'gutza and Khorvu during the Trellinese Civil War, which was fought from 1892 to 1899 by monarchist and republican? factions.

Modern era

Trophy Wars

Main article: Trophy Wars

Trellin entered a period of almost complete isolation after its civil war, and did not participate in the Great Astyrian War. The first few decades of the 20th century were instead spent rebuilding the country economically and militarily. A massive arms buildup in the late 1920s was a closely-guarded secret, and designated shipping lanes through the Trellinese-controlled Straits of Jajich were kept far away from increasingly busy naval bases.

In April 1931 the existence of, and reason for, this vast armament became abruptly clear to the rest of Astyria as the Trellinese navy descended on the port of Rha'gutza in numbers too great for the Andamonian garrison to resist. The attempt by Trellin to recapture and secure Rha'gutza and Khorvu became the Trophy Wars, a brutal conflict which would last for over seven years and ultimately end in the failure of Trellin to achieve its goals. Initial successes at sea were not sustained or matched by the army's performance, and Andamonia was able to successfully mount an invasion of both Namija and Txekrikar. After suffering severe losses in a drawn-out retreat, the Trellinese withdrew to a series of defensive positions from which they fought a war of attrition. Eventually, Andamonia's scorched-earth policy in Txekrikar became a greater burden on their own efforts than on Trellin's, and they were forced to pull back across their own borders in late 1933, while in mid-1934 their armies in Namija were defeated in their attempts to cross the Hanoth river.

Txekri troops in the Battle of Zitiar

A desire for swift retribution led Trellin's senior commanders to order a counter-invasion of the Usmalím, a region formerly part of the independent Principality of Txekrikar now occupied by Andamonia. The Andamonians continued to withdraw in the face of the Trellinese assault, failing even to leave a token force to delay the advance. The Txekri people in the Usmalím hailed the Trellinese as liberators, and King Amadar IV promised them the protection of the Sidereal Crown. As the Andamonian military established lines of defence, the Trellinese consolidated their military presence in the Usmalím, and for the next fourteen months the two combatants engaged in a war of minimal gains as each side stubbornly held onto the positions it had secured. In January 1935, the Trellinese Navy succeeded in removing the Andamonian garrison from Khorvu, but while they departed to secure Rha'gutza an Andamonian squadron recaptured the port. October saw the Trellinese attempt to break the stalemate in the Usmalím campaign by advancing towards Zadé Axochizin, the Andamonian capital, but were firmly driven back with heavy loss of life. Both economies were by now in utter disarray, though the industrial heartlands of western Trellin had remained free from combat and continued to drive the war effort on.

After the failed assault on central Andamonia, the Trellinese found themselves once more in retreat and were forced to withdraw to the pre-war border of Txekrikar. The Andamonians, however, were unable to press their attack home, as a long Txekri insurgency began that turned the Usmalím campaigns into guerrilla warfare. The rebels successfully fended off repeated efforts to subdue the uprising until the Trellinese military finally returned to assist them in mid-1936. A naval campaign in the Txekrian Gulf supported the Trellinese advance and cut off the Andamonians' supply lines, eventually leading to the surrender of the Sixth Army in September. This left the Sidereal Crown's forces free to advance once more to the eastern border of the Usmalím, where they resisted numerous attempts to displace them. The border between Trellinese-occupied territory and Andamonia shifted continually for the rest of the year and into summer of 1937, when a renewed naval campaign, conducted under the lead of the Arimathean Navy, finally razed Andamonia's western ports. The Trellinese immediately began landing troops in the area and moving southwards to join up with the front line in the Usmalím. A simultaneous Kur'zheti assault on Rha'gutza, which had been reoccupied by Andamonian forces, proved disastrous, and only four of the seventeen attacking warships remained combat-able after their retreat. They were pursued to the port of Baxa, on the Namijan island of Kerypa, which was subsequently bombarded at long range.

Infuriated, the Trellinese and Arimatheans agreed to a coordinated assault on the crucial Andamonian city of Cevrazu, though it was put off until February 1938 because of bad weather and the need to reassign troops and warships. The eventual landing forces were held down on the beaches north of Cevrazu by Andamonian air superiority until a Trellinese battalion from the west managed to capture nearby airfields. Finally unimpeded, the Sidereal Crown's forces advanced on Cevrazu, only to get tied down in urban warfare for which they were completely unprepared. The advantages of numbers and heavy artillery proved almost useless, and in April, after losing nearly twenty thousand troops, they were ordered to abandon the attempt to capture the city. Instead, they encircled it, shelling it at range, in an attempt to coax Andamonian troops away from the front. They succeeded, but soon found themselves under attack from superior forces and attempted to withdraw, unable to pull troops together in time because they were spread out around the city. On the Usmalím frontier, however, the Trellinese forces were well aware of the relocation of the bulk of the Andamonian army, and they advanced swiftly to break the remaining defence. On 17 October 1938, as a Trellinese army once more marched on Zadé Axochizin, the Andamonian emperor called for a ceasefire and peace negotiations to begin. Unable to sustain any more losses, the Trellinese government consented.

Neither side, it turned out, was willing to concede the territories it had occupied during the war. Amadar IV had promised the Txekri people his protection, and could not agree to remove from the Usmalím; the Trophy Ports were too hard-fought a prize to be surrendered by the Andamonians. Negotiations quickly broke down, though fighting was not resumed. The Trellinese withdrew to the border of the Usmalím, which remains the de facto border between the two countries. The hatred between Andamonians and Trellinese resulting from the war remains a defining cultural trait.

Geography

Main article: Geography of Trellin

Sea cliffs in the Eth Bandig on the Sea of Jajich

The Trellinese Empire straddles the Equator and covers a total area of 2,052,669.18 square kilometres, of which 95% is contained in its two continental landmasses, the remaining 5% comprising of islands. The lands most commonly referred to as "Trellin" (that is, excluding its three protectorates) have a total area of 1,914,936.1 square kilometres. Its mainland is divided into north and south in a ratio of 4:3 by the Sea of Velar. To the west and north, Trellin is bounded by the Sea of Jajich, and its northernmost archipelago, the Eth Bandig, lies on the boundary between the Mederano Sea and the Sea of Jajich. To the east the country borders the Dangish Empire, in the north it borders Étlaurlande and Sycoon, in the southeast it borders Andamonia and due south of Trellin is Aurelia.

Northwest Trellin is dominated by rugged coastlines with high cliffs and mountains in the interior, in particular in the Eth Bandig and the province of Emla. The Great Bay of Arimathea in the central north is distinguished by numerous inlets and peninsulae and long stretches of beach, as are the coasts in the sheltered Sea of Velar.

The I'pethë canyon on the Serëtanz river

The inland regions of northern Trellin are predominantly covered in dense rainforest, most of which has been in existence since prehistoric times and with only a small portion cleared since then, and drained by a number of major rivers. Of these rivers, the largest by volume is the Serëtanz which flows 810 km from Retikh to the Sea of Jajich. In northwest Trellin, natural forest cover extends with an almost unbroken canopy from the Sea of Velar to the Vekra Retiqa and from there northward to the Sea of Jajich. This vast rainforest gives way to plains in Lekhmir, eastern Retikh and the Kaedroth valley of Arimathea. The province of Namija, in eastern Trellin, is also predominantly forest-covered, particularly around the Hanoth river, though the rainforest does not extend as far north as Ja'ekha.

The coastal areas of southern Trellin are also heavily forested, though forestry has had a greater impact here than in the north of the country. Inland, the rainforest gives way to a mix of savannah and desert in what is the most sparsely populated region of the Empire. Bal Emrith, Jajich and Më'idan are among the most agriculturally-inclined provinces, boasting fertile plains and an ideal climate. The maritime regions of Txekrikar and Ternos consist of extensive grasslands whose soil declines in fertility as it gets further from the coast.

Kaië Ryio'qi, a volcano in Azmir

The territories of Trellin and its protectorates include several hundred offshore islands, of which 108 are greater than 5 square kilometres in area and 16 are larger than 100 square kilometres. The largest, Semeria, is 20612.5 sq. km in area. Three of the empire's constituent states, Cadenza, Kur'zhet and the Isles of Velar, are composed entirely of islands. Most of the Trellinese islands are in the Sea of Velar and possess sandy coastlines.

Many of Trellin's mountains were volcanically formed, but few remain active. The greatest concentration of active volcanoes is along the west coast, where the Jajexan plate passes over a hotspot which also formed the archipelagos of Cadenza and Kur'zhet, in the provinces of Azmir and Mevirin. Seismic activity is not uncommon in Trellin, as the country is split roughly in half by a transverse plate boundary running from Bara ti'Emla and down the centre of the Sea of Velar. A number of volcanoes can also be found along this fault. Major earthquakes are rare, the last earthquake of 7 M_W or greater having been in 1969, but weaker tremors are almost predictably regular in the Eth Bandig.

Climate

Mar'theqa, Trellin
Climate chart (explanation)
J F M A M J J A S O N D     79     32 27     76     32 28     62     33 29     189     33 30     255     34 30     279     34 30     247     34 30     264     33 30     381     33 31     426     32 29     395     31 28     174     30 26 Average max. and min. temperatures in °C Precipitation totals in mm
Imperial conversion J F M A M J J A S O N D     3.1     90 81     3     90 82     2.4     91 84     7.4     91 86     10     93 86     11     93 86     9.7     93 86     10     91 86     15     91 88     17     90 84     16     88 82     6.9     86 79 Average max. and min. temperatures in °F Precipitation totals in inches

Grasslands in central Khatax

Most of Trellin experiences tropical climates, with the provinces on the Sea of Jajich receiving torrential rains in the monsoon season. Intense tropical storms affect most regions within 100 kilometres of the coast from March/April to mid-October with a high degree of predictability. The capital, Mar'theqa, receives an average of 2,870 mm annually, compared to a national average of roughly 1200 mm. Hurricanes are not uncommon on the northern coast of Trellin, and the coasts of the Great Bay of Arimathea often take severe damage from strong storms.

Inland regions tend to be substantially drier than the coast, though the dominant climate type in the interior of northern Trellin is that of a tropical rainforest. The provinces in central south Trellin are subject to savannah climates, ranging towards a semi-arid steppe climate in Khatax, south Më'idan and west Ternos. Regions of Khatax are considered dry desert under the Köppen climate classification system, though the majority is grass or scrubland.

Several of Trellin's mountain ranges, such as the Vekra Retiqa - which extends through Emla, Retikh, Lekhmir and Arimathea - and the Vekra Yarsali of the west Azmir coast experience highland climates, as do the ranges on the Dangish border. On the empire's northern border with Sycoon, some peaks of the Vekra Retiqa have been known to remain snow-clad year round, and a small region in the west-central Vekra Retiqa is regarded as Alpine tundra.

Landscapes of the Trellinese Empire

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  Grass-covered dunes on the Jajexan coast

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  Islands in Adazakh's Gar Ersa'i

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  Marshes around the river Baira in southeast Txekrikar

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  Clifftop settlement in western Emla

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  Vekh Süilya, the highest mountain in Morikz

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  Flotir river valley, eastern Fymona

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  Cadenza's Tamari Valley, the source of the river Temloth

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  Eastern foothills of the Vekra Retiqa

Flora and fauna

Main article: Geography of Trellin § Flora and fauna

The Qeqsaraken antelope, native to Namijan marshland

Because of its numerous distinct geographical subregions, including tropical rainforest, coral reef and semi-arid desert, Trellin has a diverse wildlife. Its multiplicity of biomes include some of the most ecologically significant regions in Astyria; the Tambodi and Namijan rainforests contains more unique species per square kilometre than almost any other biome in Teudallum. The habitats of some native species have been threatened by urban sprawl in recent decades, but the empire's various habitats generally remain stable in both size and population.

Terrestrial species endemic to Trellin include large mammals such as the Qeqsaraken antelope and the Tambodi tiger, as well as birds such as the blood thrush and Cadenzan woodpecker and invertebrates such as the giant Semerian millipede. Other species migrate to Trellin to winter in its warmer climes. Some non-indigenous species have also been introduced to Trellin as permanent residents, of which the most iconic is the tasarin flower, brought en masse with the Ethlorek migrations and introduced to Arimathea in the fourth century BC.

Politics

Trellin is a union of three monarchies under two crowns. The monarchies of Trellin and Hysera have been, since the early tenth century, inseparable under the Sidereal Crown, and both are ruled as absolute monarchies. The Isles of Velar, however, are governed by a constitutional monarchy. Hysera and the Isles of Velar are both unitary states, but the Kingdom of Trellin is divided into numerous provinces with varying degrees of power resting with each provincial legislature. Collectively, these legislative bodies are referred to as Ladroz Aserevikhi, or Councils of Imperial Authority. Many of these councils retain their pre-imperial structure in part or in whole: Asketon retains its republican administration, with the addition of a ceremonial duke.

The ruler of Trellin traditionally resides at the Palace of Tor'qim in Mar'theqa. The current monarch of Trellin, Hysera and the Isles of Velar is Queen Azara V.

Subdivisions

Interactive map of the provinces of Trellin. Clicking on a province causes the browser to load the appropriate article. Arimathea Emla Zha'tar Hysera Tenedos Trelum Alyrum Idisamo Pelna Saheri Retikh Lekhmir Fymona Kur'mala Asketon Ja'ekha Namija Isles of Velar Trophy Ports Jajich Bal Emrith Mevirin Azmir Kur'zhet Cadenza Khatax Rezat Më'idan Ternos Txekrikar

Protectorates

The Kingdom of Trellin acts as protector to four other states within its sphere: Arimathea, Cadenza, Kur'zhet and Txekrikar. Txekrikar is actively going through the process of integration as a province of the empire, but the other three states continue to exercise their sovereignty, including managing their own foreign affairs and border policies. Only Cadenza and Txekrikar still maintain militaries independent of the Trellinese military infrastructure, the Arimathean and Kur'zheti armed forces having been integrated as units of the Trellinese.

Foreign relations

Main article: Foreign relations of Trellin

Military

Main article: Armed Forces of the Sidereal Crown

Economy

Waterfront of Cadenza's Astyrian Financial Centre

The Trellinese economy is a modernised, developed economy, focused on its primary and manufacturing industries with a number of key hubs of service industries. Trellin has had a very minor role in regional trade as a result of its isolationist policies, though its three protectorates hold significant influence as key ports in west Astyria.

The main industrial heartlands of Trellin are found in the northwest, with focal points along the coast from Ka'azar in Arimathea to western Alyrum. Other manufacturing centres include Cavari, the Trophy Ports and western Kur'zhet. Traditionally, these centres have focused on heavy industries such as steelworking and shipbuilding geared towards a highly maritime economy, while inland hubs such as Asketon and Tar Pegalim lean more towards construction and automotive and aircraft production industries.

In recent years the Trellinese economy has begun to shift from its strong manufacturing base towards a greater emphasis on tertiary industries. At the forefront of this development are Cadenza, which now hosts one of Astyria's leading financial centres, and Bara ti'Emla, a major tourist centre and IT and pharmaceuticals hub.

Most of the Trellinese Empire, including Hysera, the Isles of Velar and Txekrikar, uses as the Rasna as its official currency, which is issued exclusively by the Imperial Bank of the Sidereal Crown. The exceptions to this are Cadenza, which uses the Tezahr, Kur'zhet, which uses the Fioren, and Arimathea, which uses the Mor'ed.

Energy

The Hauuqa Dam below Nadrioth, Lekhmir, is one of the largest dams in Trellin

Energy production in Trellin comes from a wide range of sources. It continues to rely on fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas for over half of its power supply, but the proportion generated by renewables such as hydropower and solar energy has seen an increase of 60% between 2012 and 2015, from 25% to 40%. Several of the country's major rivers have been dammed for energy production, and the province of Khatax has extensive arrays of solar panels. Major offshore wind farms exist off the coast of Alyrum, Mevirin and the Jajexan Peninsula, which receive the highest wind speeds from the Transjajexan Air Stream. A number of nuclear power plants provide for 8% of the national power consumption. Petroleum is chiefly sourced from domestic reserves, mostly located offshore in the seas of Jajich and Velar, although in recent decades, due to rising levels of automobile ownership, external providers such as Costa de Ouro have helped to fuel Trellin's transport industry.

Trellin has three nation-wide commercial energy providers and eight region-specific providers, creating a highly competitive market in some parts of the country. The largest providers are NamiKaka, TanzPetro and TL Fünselg, which together hold 64% of the market.

Transport

A road traversing forest in Saheri

Because of the large distances separating many Trellinese cities, the country has come to rely heavily on its railway networks. A comprehensive system of high-speed rail has been put in place in the last decade, one of the largest non-military capital investments made in the history of the Sidereal Crown. This network is primarily inward-focused, with few connections to Trellin's neighbours, and primarily follows the coast and rivers.

As no bridges or tunnels attempt to traverse the Sea of Velar, there is a substantial emphasis on sea traffic, particularly ferries, and on air traffic for travel between north and south Trellin. Additionally, access to the remote areas of the Trellinese rainforest, or some islands, is facilitated almost exclusively by air. A number of domestic airlines compete on internal routes, as no foreign company has yet been granted a license to fly between Trellinese airports. The two largest domestic airlines are Trellinese Airlines and Sidereal Airways.

Demographics

Population distribution

The majority of Trellin's people live in coastal areas, with the greatest concentration in a strip from Aloyu, Zha'tar to Tikeset, Alyrum, stretching inland in Trelum and Hysera. Most major cities are coastal or located on large, navigable rivers that facilitate trade, such as Mar'theqa, Asketon and Cavari, on the Serëtanz, Flotir and Hanoth, respectively. The major exception to this is Bara ti'Emla which, though on the Lasara river, is not connected to the sea because of the high falls at the end of the river. Other major population centres include the lower Flotir valley and along the Bay of Pedalin, extending westward along the Pelnan coast to Betria in Idisamo. Beyond the narrow strips of the densely-inhabited litoral lie vast tracts of uninhabited wilderness, encompassing rainforests and mountain ranges.

Trellin's southern landmass is more sparsely-populated than the northern: with a population of just 48 million (excluding Cadenza, Kur'zhet and Txekrikar) to the north's 140 million (excluding Arimathea and Hysera), it accounts for just over a quarter of the population of the state. This disparity only increases when the empire is considered as a whole, with the south accounting for a mere 23.6% of the empire's population, in part owing to the large concentrations of people in Hysera and the fact that Arimathea is the most populous territory in the empire.

Ethnicity

The population of the Trellinese Empire is ethnically diverse, with extensive mixture of its major ethnic and cultural groups. Historically such intermingling was restricted to border areas away from conflict zones: for example, in Jajich, a former territory of Hysera, centuries of contact and colonisation have led to the Hyseran majority being displaced by a Trellinese one, although an increasing percentage of the population is of mixed Hyseran-Trellinese ancestry. On the whole, majority populations within each territory reflect their historic ownership: the dominant ethnic group in Velar is Velaran, in Hysera is Hysera and throughout most of Trellin it is Trellinese. Where boundaries have since shifted, the population of the former owner has often remained, particularly when such realignments occurred under a tolerant monarchy. Notable relict populations include the significant Velaran populations in Pelna, Retikh and elsewhere around the Sea of Velar, with nearly four million ethnic Velarans in these areas.