The Fall of Nav- Setting

Setting:

The Gandrian Federation is a massive collection of loosely-joined nations. The leader country is Grall, the largest and oldest nation. There are powerful borders surrounding the Gandrian Federation, reinforced with huge stone walls and fortresses. In these lands, only humans reside. Elves are sometimes spotted, but no other race is known within the Federation walls. Magic is unknown to the common man.

Some of the nations that joined the Gandrian Federation were not beside the others. Most notably, Lorn stood 800 miles south of the southernmost nation, separated by the powerful barbarian tribes in the region dubbed  The Dreglands,  7200 square miles of rolling hills and lush forests that the barbarians lived in harmony with. To the east of Lorn stood Nav, the most tiny (and therefore most organized) nation to join the Gandrian Federation; to the east stood the massive Vegisan, a sparsely populated nation mostly constituted of desert or grasslands.

The budding Gandrian Federation could use all of the nations it could get, so it initially instituted Nav and Vegisan and tried to conquer all of the Dreglands to reach Lorn. This attempt was met with embarrassing failure. The barbarians, while peace-loving and disorganized, proved to be ferocious warriors and masters of using the home terrain to their advantage. The campaign for the Dreglands was cut short. Rather than waste resources carving through the Dreglands, the Federation instated Lorn through connection with Nav and Vegisan, making a ring around the Dreglands and totally containing them within the Federation walls.

After this, the Federation redistributed resources to allow Nav to carve a peninsula east through the Dreglands, cutting the barbarian tribes in half. This didn t seem to have a great effect on the barbarians  social structure, as the tribes were fairly disjointed. However, in the case that the tribes banded together, they would be at a distinct disadvantage against the Gandrian Federation. This was about eighty years ago.

Fifty years ago, the Navan government was no longer apportioned the resources to hold the peninsula by the Federation, now well-populated with civilians. In response to this, the Navans decided to impose a tax on the barbarians. With the threat of greater weaponry and numbers, the Navan troops moved nonviolently through the Dreglands, creating a winding road structure to connect each village. After this, the Navans decreed that, since the barbarians occupied and misused such a sizable piece of land, they had to provide the Navan government with a tax of foodstuffs enough for fifty men each month. This form of subjugation was objected to by some, but the few villages that stood up were crushed, lacking support from other villages.

For fifty years, a Navan field officer was assigned to each village, 54 in total. There, they represented the ever-looming power of the Navan government and made sure that the ration taxes were up to par so that the tax collector caravans could extort every village with clockwork punctuality each month.

The reason that resources were reallocated from Nav was because fifty years ago marked the beginning of the conflict in the now-called Disputed Corridor with the formidable Treyloch. Between the nations Gamracht and Lemgrall, almost 1000 miles north of the Navan mainland, a huge piece of uninhabited land lush with life and fertile grounds that connected directly to the magical Isidian Fields remained unclaimed. It was surrounded on two sides by the Gandrian countries, but one side touched Treyloch, a massive, well-populated nation at least half the size of the entire Gandrian Federation by itself filled with infertile lands therefore economically starving.  Gamracht and Lemgrall began to collaborate in the creation of New Wall, which stretched along the Treyloch border, effectively claiming the unclaimed Corridor without a fight. Treyloch immediately launched a campaign to destroy New Wall and capture the Corridor. For fifty years after the destruction of New Wall, the conflict continues. New Wall is now Old
Wall, only crushed ruins, and now the new New Wall closely hugs the borders of the Gandrian nations. The Disputed Corridor is no longer lush, but a wasted no-man s-land. Treyloch continues to lash at the waning border defenses with the hopes of breaking through and taking the Isidian Fields.

Grall, knowing full well the consequences of losing the Disputed Corridor, has reallocated resources to the now destitute Gamracht and Lemgrall. This was a drain on every nation in the Federation, but not as many resources were demanded from Nav in case the barbarians tried anything funny while Nav was weakened, with no end in sight for the Disputed Corridor conflict or its demand for resources.

Recently, however, the demand for men was too great. Since Nav is the closest nation to Lemgrall, Grall decreed that Nav could stop providing any resources but a quota of fighting men each month. This is where the game picks up from.