Vanic State
(The excesses of Vanic and Froyalanish narration are to be condensed down into this one -critical- article.)
The Daemonic Vanic State was the pejorative term coined by the Dark Orchid Society and Imperial Propagandists to describe the period of Storrish rule in Elwynn between the abdication of Prince Jonathan in 1633 and the expulsion of King Noah in 1651. Daemonic on account of the official discovery that prominent members of the House of Ettlingar Freyu were manifestations of a daemon of many rotating faces, orifices and genital organs, known as the Harald Entity. The veracity of these claims are doubtful but it is considered likely that they will soon become holy writ in Cedrist dogma. What made them so readily acceptable to so many however was the deep unpopularity of the Vanic system of governance imposed on Elwynn by King Noah, which rested upon the twin principles of hierogamy and the systematic falsification of history to lend legitimacy to the mass migration of Storrish colonists to Elwynn, Amokolia and Batavia.
Contents
The Froyalanish
The Froyalanish, also known as Froyalaners, are one of the Twelve Peoples of Elwynn. They are a mix of native Vattnalanders and Jorvikkers as well as people of Storish descent. The areas where the Froyalanish constitute the majority of the population are collectively referred to as Froyalan. They are among the three largest population groups of the Flower of the North. Prior to the Auspicious Occasion of 1651 many a Froyalaner belonged to the movers and shakers of Elwynnese society. Froyalanish income per capita was the highest of Elwynn's population groups, reflecting their control of the state as well as key sections of the economy.
Colonisation of Elwynn
Aside from the native Vattnalanders who have been living in the Vatnaland area of Amokolia since time immemorial and a pre-existing community of Storish merchants in Wintergleam - some of them descendants of Valtian traders and others being associates or staff of the Sameinaða Erlendur Kaupsýsla Einokun Félagið - Froyalaners came to Elwynn in four waves:
- The first wave happened when Harald of Froyalan was Count of Araxion. A signification portion moved to the Old East with him when he was appointed Count of Wintergleam several Elw years later. Those people are nowadays known as Haraldian Wintergleamers;
- The second wave took place during Harald of Froyalan's Reign as Duke and the name of the Lands of the Two Sacred Rivers was Froyalan;
- The third and largest wave was triggered by the ascension of the Storjarl Thorstein Noah to the White Orchid Throne;
- The fourth wave, which has an overlap with the third wave, occurred when the Jarlorð of Jorvik became a part of Elwynn.
Froyalaners generally live on the northern coast - as well as the islands along that shore - and in the western part of the Royal Precinct called the Kingdom of Amokolia, which is known as the Furthest of the Far West. They also live in and around the areas of the Sjöhöfn, a Royal Precinct which is composed of a group of seven port cities, to wit: Avaldsnes, Esthersbýur, Fjǫrleifsbýur, Haraldsby, Hyfrost, Joelsby, and Noahsbýur. The Sjöhöfn are also known as the Septue Ports, the Federation of the Seven Ports, or the Federation of the Seven Harbours. The Froyalanish also form the vast majority of the population of the Principality of Arietta, the Jarlorð of Jorvik and the Duchy of the Lady Esther Isles.
There are also notable Froyalanish communities in the Pale of Angularis and in the Bairbank. The same applies to the Royal Precincts which are known as the County of Araxion and the City and County of Eliria.
Following the Auspicious Occasion and the Partition of Elwynn, the remaining Froyalanish, those who were not deported under Imperial Decree 969 and who proved unresponsive to reclamation by their ancestral ethno-cultural communities, were evacuated west for resettlement in the Froyalan National Reservation for their own protection in the face of the simmering ethnic hatreds that their misrule had occasioned.
Álfarnir
Álfarnir was a demonymn bestowed upon Elfinshi who collaborated with the Vanic State and acculturated to more closely resemble the Froyalanish and Wintergleamish. For this reason they were administratively treated as being part of the Froyalanish community during the era of the Elwynnese Monarchy. Following the Auspicious Occasion many of the so-called Álfarnir were redeemed from servitude by the Elfinshi community and restored to liberty as Elwynnese denizens with full civic rights in the Elwynnese Union by virtue of the charity of those kinsmen who they had once disparaged as lesser folk.
Cultural peculiarities
The Froyalanish claimed to belong to a separate, superior, race of humanity known as the Vanamaðr. The more extreme amongst them also claimed to be elves, dwarves, merfolk, faeries, halflings, and zotrians. The Froyalaners who renounced their humanity undertook extensive body-modifications to become clans of so-called otherkin. The Elwynnese state under the rule of the Froyalanish monarchy was massively committed, for ideological reasons, to establishing and verifying the claims of these otherkin to have been born into the wrong bodies. Whole branches of psychology and reconstructive plastic surgery were given over to the realisation of these delusions in physical form.
The Froyalanish were in fact a broad cultural coalition rather than a specific race or ethnicity per se, deriving from Storrish migrants, Wintergleamers, Amokolian collaborators and indoctrinated Elw.
The Froyalanish Vanafolk practiced a form of public nudity which they termed being loftklæddir (skyclad). It formed an integral part of their ideological claim to be a divinely-blessed master-race who celebrated the golden liberty provided by their proportedly perfect phyiscal forms. The ideology of the Daemonic Vanic State held that the preference for their fellow citizens of other cultures to remain clothed was attributable to "guilt, shame, embarrassment, self-loathing, fear, and suffering" occassioned by the normative values imposed by "an unholy alliance of patriarchial religions and commercial exploiters".
Religion
The vast majority of the Froyalanish profess the Froyalanish Ancient Ways although there are few of them who belong to the Bovic Faith, the Hurmudanish Faith, and the Batavian Catologian Faith.
Economic life
Froyalaners are renowned for their entrepreneurial spirit as well as fair and ethical business practices. This makes them highly appreciated and sought after business partners around the globe.
The Sameinaða Erlendur Kaupsýsla Einokun Félagið (SEKEF) plays an important role in the Froyalanish economic system with its Elwynnese investment and asset management branch incessantly monopolising contracting opportunities, and its Elwynnese social-economic think tanks providing pro-regime propaganda and indoctrinating the public on socio-economic issues. The purpose of which was to lend credence to the sometimes questionable economic decisions of the White Orchid Throne. Froyalaners greatly benefited from Royal Patronage, which was used to stimulated and encourage inwards Storrish migration.
Other key features of the Froyalanish economic system was the desire to appropriate lands and funds to provide for all Froyalaners as well as collaborators who supported the Elwynnese Monarchy and the Vanic faith.
The Froyalaners inherited a developed export-oriented economy featuring a modern distribution system, excellent internal and external communications, and a skilled labour force which is aided by oil, natural gas, huge quantities of fertile arable lands, timber, hydropower, aquatic resources, and mineral ore. These constitute the resource base of an economy oriented toward foreign trade. The main industries include motor vehicles, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, industrial machines, precision equipment, offshore construction and shipbuilding, chemical goods, home goods and appliances, fisheries, agriculture, forestry, iron, and steel. Following the Froyalanish assumption of the White Orchid Throne in 1623 (check) the large, somewhat inefficient, state owned corporations were broken up and apportioned out to regime favourites via patronage, building the Elwynnese branch of SEKEF up from next to nothing.
Large agricultural collectives were broken up and parcelled out to members of the royal family and the newly established nobility. This sudden reversion to a manorial farming system resulted in a shocking drop in productivity and output. For ideological reasons, the Froyalanish were obliged to continue to insist that Elwynn under their rule remained a divinely blessed land of plenty, and mandated the export of grain to other famine hit portions of the Imperial Republic and its allies even whilst experiencing shortfalls in production at home.
This tension in the declining agricultural economy explains to a degree the ravenous land hunger of the Elwynnese Monarchy, which launched huge expansion drives westwards to gobble up the Vale of Angularis (Transelwynn & northern Tellia) and Batavia, before overreaching itself when it tried to annex Mishalan.
Languages
Among themselves Froyalaners speak Froyalanish, Valtian, Hurmu Norse, Diets, Jorvish and Wintergleamish. They communicate with others in the Common Tongue.
Stereotypes
The following stereotypes concerning the Froyalanish are widely held: Self-regarding religious fanatics who carried the stench of mead and their own fornication into whichever land they infested. Blasphemers who defiled the highest divinity. Shameless land-grabbers who insulted and humiliated their victims by falsifying history. Petty bureaucrats bedevilled by an inexplicable love of meaningless titles and self-aggrandisement. Carpetbaggers and parasites. Betrayers. Storrish cuckoos in the Elwynnese nest. Vermin.
The propaganda ministry of the Daemonic Vanic State on the other hand valiantly strove to depict the Froyalanish as being: Strong and tall. Tough as nails. Inhumanly handsome. Hardworking and hard-partying. Well-endowed high-fantasy fertility culters. Nudists. Vikings. Overpaid, oversexed, and over here. Legal eagles. Dashing gastronomes and bon vivants with schwung and joie de vivre. Excessively fond of pomp and circumstance, pageantry, extravaganza, hólmganga, and pit fighting.
Unfortunately, many of the behaviours that the Froyalanish considered to be most praiseworthy caused them to be even more detested by their neighbours. As such, once their political power faltered, the community that shared the values of Froyalan was on borrowed time.
