Karameikos - Vaults of Pandius

The History of KarameikosIn the following years Stefan called to himmany cadet members of Thyatian noblefamilies, men and women gifted withheritage and skills to rule, but not destinedto inherit their family titles. Adventurers,nobles, and merchants came to Karameikosand they came to represent the largestimmigration ever experimented by thiscountry during its modern history.Intermarriage between Thyatians andTraladarans became increasingly commonafter AC 970, giving birth to young people ofmixed heritage who more and more tendedto see themselves as Karameikans – not asThyatians or Traladarans anymore. Indeed,in the thirty years after Stefan’s seizure ofTraladara, Thyatian presence has grown tonearly one-fifth of the human population ofKarameikos, with another fifth being peopleof mixed Thyatian-Traladaran ancestry.In his first thirty years of rule, the GrandDuke has improved infrastructure, fortifiedimportant communities and his realm’sborders, built an army to defend it, andcreated a network of loyalties and allianceswith the Traladaran clans and with hisThyatian vassals. Examples of this are thebuilding of Castellan, Rugalov, and Duke’sRoad Keeps, as well as the construction ofpaved roads like the Westron and the Duke’sRoads.Marilenev, like the Kopul of Radovar, the Dromilov of Dmitrov, andeven the support of the exiled Gogunov from Ierendi. The plancontemplated a rebellion of Specularum while a Traladaran armywould have descended upon the city from the north to occupy it.The capital’s rebellion failed, however, and the Traladaran armywas cornered in the ruins of Krakatos, where it fortified itself.Despite a fierce resistance, the Traladarans were defeated; theKopul were stripped of their title and lands, many of their memberswere executed for treason alongside most of the Marilenev clan.The Dromilov’s clanhead (who after all had had a limitedinvolvement in the events of the rebellion) chose to reach theGogunov in their Ierendian exile and thus the family managed tokeep their lands – albeit losing the whole northern half of them tothe Barony of Vorloi.Moreover, Stefan supported the Thyatianpatriarch Olliver Jowett, who had split fromthe Church of Thyatis, and his heterodoxideas, financing the creation of the Churchof Karameikos to further improve the senseof autonomy of his country from theThyatian Empire and to weaken the Churchof Traladara, which had opposed and stillwas opposing his rule. The new church hadan unexpected success, winning the favor ofsome young Traladarans and quicklybecoming the second faith of the country.This last migration of Thyatians has had amostly positive effect on Karameikos from ademographic perspective because, besidesgenerating a notable rise of the population,the Thyatian immigrants have given thecountry a new expansionist thrust towardthe widening of the arable lands and theconquest of the wilderness. Nevertheless, tooutside eyes Karameikos appears as aregion still extremely wild in most of itslands, where an adventurer or a pioneerwilling to risk their life fighting againstnature’s perils and monstrous enemies willfind cheap lands for the grab, and wherecivilization advances through constant strifeagainst he wilderness and their dangerousresidents.65THRESHOLD: The Mystara Magazine Issue #1