1 Feb 1830 Jahr - The Decadence is Concluded

Beschreibung:

Queen Lidowen Dawnlight proves to be a far more competent ruler than her father and grandfather, for she makes amends there where both acted wrongly. As one of her first mandates, she recognized the Twelves Hosts claim of independence and actively met with the Lords of Spurs to negotiate a lasting peace.

The Vast Plains - The Long Grass to the Plainsfolk - is given a definite eastern border at the course of the Evercreed River, as well as a southern one at the course of the Cleft River, protecting thus the Silvered Plains and the Sundrop Shores from further raids by the Plainsfolk, whose only real claim is that of territory. Upon agreeing to Lidowen Dawnlight's terms, the Lords of Spurs vow not to harry the few stranded Sunborn cities in the plains and neither the travelers going through and from them. A pact of non-aggression is signed at the city of Sunfield, which would in time lead to the Sumborn cities agreeing to allow Plainsfolk inside once again.

She works fervently trying to restock the crops that were lost during the drought of 1789 and over the course of the later mismanaging of the farmsteads. This undertaking would be the lengthiest of her endeavors as queen, and would not be completed in full by the time the Decadence is deemed "ended".

After making peace with the Plainsfolk, the stranded population of the Silvered Plains could finally traverse through the Long Grass once again, and what crops were farmed there could now be redistributed across the length of the Kingdom (The Silvered plains, dominated by the Black River and its tributaries, is a land with a rich, well-irrigated soil, where temperate crops can be planted nearly everywhere. The re-establishing of a land route for these crops to reach the hub of the Sunborn populace was a great base for what Lidowen Dawnlight’s following measures).

Other hubs of agriculture, such as the heartland of the Sundrop shores and the dryland of the Shire of Riverwatch were slow to recuperate from their disrepair, but by the end of the 1820’s the good morale pervading the kingdom had driven the dejected farmers to return to their steads and – with the coinage rationed by the Crown – buy the tools and hire the aid to repair them and dig out new irrigation paths to replace those which had dried up long ago.

Lidowen worked as well to restart the Sunborn economy, which was in shambles by the time of her coronation. As a primarily agricultural kingdom, the Decadence had ground its internal and external commerce to a halt. The coinage which had flowed through the kingdom during the height of the Arcane Crystal mining enterprise three centuries prior was now being hoarded by the rich and poor alike, as both classes sought to ration their funds for when crops would come again. But Lidowen knew the kingdom's agriculture would not return to normalcy any time soon, so she set her sight on different trades which had long been displaced by the agriculture. As queen, she decreed that all the citizens of her kingdom needed give a part of their fortunes, however big or small they were, to the crown for their redistribution through the domain's expanse. Many were against this decision, mainly the noble Lords whose family coffers had been filled to the brim by their forefathers in the days before the unification of the Sunborn kingdoms into a whole. The Pendravar helmed this adamant host in the royal court of Sunrise, but such opposition did not prevail in the end, for the city's armed hosts, such as the Sunspire Concord, the Swords of Fredrick and the Rill Knights, allied themselves with the Lidowen Dawnlight and threatened to overthrow the Lords if they did not comply. Wealth flowed to the royal coffers in massive droves, barely denting the Lords' fortunes yet leaving the commonfolk with naught, and over the course of her first decade a ruler, Lidowen worked with her most trusted courtiers to invest in the kingdom's neglected trades.

Manufactured goods, such as leatherworks, metalworks and textiles were heavily funded, and its producers were encouraged to go out and attempt to make sells. Every ten days, Knights would visit the kingdom's villages to ration out allowances for as many citizens as were accounted for, and when it became evident that the population estimates were grossly inaccurate, Lidowen turned to the Church of the Prophet for aid in taking account of the Sunborn – aid which they were happy to give as the then Prophet, Saint Augustine II, the Wise, had recently foreseen a future of desolation should the Sunborn continue suffering from the Decadence. Thus it was that in 1825 the first Census of the Sunborn was conducted, an endeavor which would greatly help the Kingdom as a whole going forwards.

As both the citizens and the producers had coinage to trade, commerce very gradually began its ascent to stability, and the positive outlook of these buyers and sellers finally engaging in proper trade after so long compounded on itself and helped to boost morale all across the Kingdom, predisposing more and more people to contribute to the betterment of their society. Lidowen’s goal was to have her people abandon their custom of hoarding their wealth so it could be replaced by a commerce-oriented outlook, and by 1827 the common consensus was that affairs were better now than they had been in the past two decades. When word of this spread, neighboring powers began to take notice of the Sunborn once again.

Lidowen Dawnlight had sent envoys to the Court of the Red Lord in Edenrathe as soon as she was crowned Queen in 1820, but the Westfolk, bitter still from losing the second Red War, had flat out denied their entranced to the royal court. Towards 1830, however, travelers and peddlers alike had spread the news throughout the Red Lord Kingdom about the ongoing betterment of the Sunborn society, and of the impressive coinage the Easternfolk were eager to spend even for trifles and baubles. The Red Lord could not pass on such an opportunity for commerce, so he agreed to an audience with the Sunborn envoys, and eventually agreed to a trade accord (The Bloodwild, which comprises nearly the entirety of the Westfolk domain, is a vast, expanse of land where rocky mountain ranges and hills are divided by great reaches of plainsland whose soils are either rich or very poor depending on the area, where small communities have lived for over six thousand cycles relying, since the advent of society, on trade to get and give what goods they cannot produce by themselves.).

Crops from the Silvered Plains and other re-developing reaches such as the banks of the Seraphim were rationed for local consumption and for exportation. The Redfolk did not pay an exorbitant price for such foodstuffs nor for what manufactured goods the trade accord demanded they buy, but the ongoing prices were fair for both Kingdoms, and by 1850 (After the Decadence was deemed “ended”) the strained relations between the Redfolk and the Sunborn had begun to be mended, and the commerce was scarcely plagued by conflicting ideologies (A collective effort which would be cut short by the ascension of the Decagonal Court and the wave of nationalism which swept over the Bloodwild in the last few cycles prior).

Two centuries after the schism between the Church of the Prophet and the Cult of the Betrayers had driven a large mass of Sunborn citizens beyond the borders of their kingdoms towards the south, only the Concordance of Rebirth, now more than a century old, engaged with the Kingdom of the Sun in any measure. Lidowen’s forefathers had relied on its seafaring merchants during the worst years of the Decadence, but this relationship would be severed by the time of her crowning. The Riverrun coup had plunged the southern kingdom into turmoil, and its king’s declining health made it impossible for him to receive and broker agreements with the Sunborn envoys which Lidowen sent southwards by ship as soon as she rose to power. For nearly the whole first decade of her mandate, the Concordance of Rebirth made itself unavailable to the Sunborn, but in 1828 Sten Nightstrew would once again open relations with Lidowen after being ascended to Jarl of his people, proclaiming that the Concordance was no more and that he spoke on behalf of the Dominion of Stonehome and its people. Confused but not deterred by the sudden development, Lidowen worked at length with Sten to rebuild their kingdoms’ relationship.

Sten, wise than most, advised the Sunborn Queen that if it was trade what her Kingdom desperately needed, then such could not happen only by sea. Lidowen agreed to this, but explained that no amount of diplomacy employed by her people over the course of two centuries had made the people of the Bewilderland abandon their deep grudge towards the Sunborn. No safe passage had ever been offered through their realm’s dense forests, and few merchants sent southwards by land ever returned with their earned riches.

The Jarl of Murkunvir, once a Sunborn himself before sailing for the south, understood the grudge the southerners harbored better than Lidowen did, and pledged to help mend their strained relationship in what small measure he could – all in hopes of promotion peace among all realms. His efforts led to the Jarl of the Bewilderland, Ilfhild Woodsborn, at last agreeing to heed to Lidowen’s plight, conceding not to impede any Sunborn merchants in their crossing of her realm (Relations between the Southernborn and the Sunborn would not begin to improve substantially until the early twentieth century, when men such as Kunnan Wood Traded and Kalden Gem Cutter rose to power in their Dominions. Only Einar Hel would establish a good relation with the Sunborn prior to that, and that would not have occurred were it not for Lidowen’s and Sten’s efforts to better relation overall).

Towards the North of the Kingdom of the Sun, since both peoples had met, the Arsala Dul had largely ignored the Sunborn due to the language and cultural barriers, preferring to keep to themselves in their desert and jungle beyond mountain ranges. But Lidowen Dawnlight needed more allies, so she worked actively to establish a relation to the Arsala Dul in any manner. She ordered the scholars of the Riverwatch Univeristy to research and learn the tongue spoken by the northern people – an undertaking to which they would take eagerly, but that would not bear fruit until the Red Lord agreed to allow native Redfolk to teach the Sunborn scholars the Gehl Dizan, twenty years past the project was started.

Lastly, Ratscreech was given a measure of independence as well, as Lidowen, who fist sought to re-incorporate the city back into the Kingdom of the Sun, was deterred from further thrusts at this by Odrich Lefey, who visited her one night at her royal bedchamber in Sunrise and threatened to assassinate her should she continued to encumber their business. The Rulers of the city's four districts agreed to allow travelers to pass through, though only if they were granted agency by the Crown to keep developing their trades, which Lidowen reluctantly gave them.

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