Gildon

Gildon [GIL-don] is one of the six autonomous regions of Ororr encompassing the southwest of the country. Its capital is the fortified city of Agann, roughly 500 km from the modern border with Hesjbagaaia. Historically the region was called Vildon.

The region's name is sensitive because of its long history of colonialism and occupation. “Gildon” is a portmanteau of Gildot, the homeland of the Gyeil people, and Vildon the Daltirich name during the Kingdom of Deltirot's colonial control of the region.

The Deltirot named all lands west of them Vildon, while Gildot was technically only the Sargil Valley. After Ororr seized control of the region during the Third Vildon War, the Gyeil homeland was named Gyeiladde, and the whole region was given the portmanteau, Gildon, even though the majority of peoples in the coastal region are of Manthi, Jorothi or Othei ethnicity.

The first human settlers of the region are the ancestors of the Gyeil people, who settled the virid jungles of the Sargil Valley. The date of their arrival and their origin is unclear, though archeological evidence dates back at least to 8000 BME, possibly earlier. The Gyeil lived as clans for thousands of years, learning to ferment virid vegetation to make them edible to humans, and developing shifting cultivation with their limited range of green food crops.

Their first contact with outside possibly came with Jorothi and Manthi peoples on the lower Sargil river, who traded with the Gyeil in the 6th millennium BMEplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigBME (Before Modern Epoch)

Used to date years Before the Modern Epoch.. In the 2nd millennium BME, Daltirich explorers and traders penetrated the region, some settling and building trade outposts on the river banks, the first sizeable towns and cities. These towns operated as free states for several centuries, until the Kingdom of Deltirot sought to exert influence and extract taxation, annexing both the towns and their surrounding territories. In this period Daltirich settlers flooded into the region, slashing the forest and establishing plantations and greenplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigGreen

The Green Kingdom of flora and fauna includes humans, mammals, birds, whales, greenfish, and most green plants and crops cultivated by humankind. forests particularly in the southern uplands.

After barely a century of Deltirot suzerainty the local landowners rebelled, establishing the United Duchies of Vildon. The Duchies period was a particularly cruel time for the native Gyeil people, who were practically enslaved as plantation serfs and had no rights to land or justice.

During the collapse of the Empire of Dor-en-Sann, refugees from Deltirot and the rag-tag remnants of the old empire's armies fled westward along the Vildon Road, quickly outnumbering the Daltirich dukes. With the establishment of the Ennseperan Empire in the city of Lerit, the old duchies were overthrown by a combination of resentful Gyeil people, and Dorouns horrified at the decadent Duchy regimes.

In the third century, Ororran forces began to make gains against Ennseperans, and took control of the Sargil Valley, pushing back to the modern border in early 600 MEplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigModern Epoch (ME)

The Modern Calendar is a dating system acknowledged throughout the Civilised World. It numbers years from the Modern Epoch, abbreviated ME and BME (Before Modern Epoch). It is also called the Modern Era.

Calendar

This is in a series of articles about calendars and dating systems.OrorrHartheraHMOrorrHartheraOrorrOrorrHMHartheraHMHartheraOrorr.

Land lying west of Gildon is, or was, a land of thick virid jungle, fed by rivers, surrounded by mountains.

The first migrants came mostly upriver from the northwest about 9000 years ago. These were Jorothi-descendants, who had migrated gradually southwards along the western coast of the continent. They originally settled on the lower coastal reaches of the river in hunting and fishing communities, living on what food they could harvest from the native flora and fauna. They were later displaced by more advanced settlers from the north, who seized the coast and built cities. The original settlers were forced upstream, and eventually they were forced to flee through the mountain gap, into the forests of Gyeil.

The tribes scraped a difficult living from the native forests. Most water had to be filtered to be safe, and tribes developed filtration columns from charcoal and native mosses. Many fruits, leaves and animal flesh were toxic but some could be processed or cooked in certain ways to make them edible. There was still malnutrition however, and lacking any introduced domestic livestock, one of the greatest sources of “prime” meat was human flesh. Originally, families would cook and eat the flesh of loved ones as part of the death ritual. Later, tribes raided each other deliberately, taking victims for sacrifice to their barbaric woodland goods, but more importantly as food. A strong and murderous warrior culture developed.

With time the forest-dwelling tribes settled, but survived on conflict and conquest. After centuries of raiding, they eventually conquered the riverlands and became a proud, wealthy and arrogant ruling elite, princes of the rivers.