Overview

Some say that the Kingdom of Myra is as old as the soil it rests upon. Located in the fertile lands west of the Dragon's Maw mountains sits the namesake of the kingdom: the city of Myra. Myra is a religious place by nature, often referred to as the City of the Gods, and residents and visitors alike quickly understand why: the city is continuously proselytizing, with sermons, services, and prayer processions to the Great Temple. With the city sitting between the Queen's River and the Mother's River, it controls the vast swath of fertile ground extending from the foothills to the coast. Agriculture dominates the landscape outside the city.

Myra is known throughout the west as the primary exporter of grain and food. They import much less than they export, being a society that is largely self sufficient and largely religious in nature. You can find oddities from across Ashriya in Myra, but not consistently or regularly. You can always find grain or food from Myra, however, in market stalls across the West, and often beyond.

Myra’s strongest ally has been Mull for the last several hundred years. Sending soldiers and military strategists to help maintain order and defend against raiding parties on the border, Mull has viewed the relationship with Myra as completely beneficial. To be sure, Myra’s excess of food has allowed them to freely part with the grain necessary for the relationship to continue. The people of Baswa have been traveling to Myra for some trade as long as the two have existed and relations are neutral to pleasant. Myra has maintained good trade relations with Bollen for centuries as well. With Corsic, Myra is much more wary and cautious than with any other nation, living in fear of raids near Firatep, and having a strong memory of the sacking of Myra in 242AR.

The Golden Crown of Myra, made to look like woven sheaves of wheat and barley, is currently held by the Emre family, with the current Queen Nyla, an Elf. She has been Queen since the death of her mother Carina in 318AR. She rules Myra as a faithful of the One. The High Council, a deliberative body that can check the sitting monarch, and often deals with the day to day functions of running a Kingdom. Relying largely on code of law interpreted by worshipers of Totan, the Council’s position has always been seen as more ceremonial than impactful, but they began to challenge that notion by overruling the Queen Ammara and incorporating Firatep and Anabe as settlements of the Kingdom.

Culture

The Great Temple can be seen from miles away, towering over other buildings in the city; it is an ancient structure with a square base and stone steps reaching up as a pyramid towards a 10 pointed star open to the sky. Different faiths and faithful alike crowd the streets as they make their way in and out of the massive building and find their way to their respective congregations. The shrines and temples within the Great Temple hold sermons and rites throughout the day to accommodate various persons coming for prayer and worship. Also located within the Great Temple are the Queen’s Chambers, and the High Council’s Chambers. Outside, decadent and colorful brick and clay housing for priests and lords crowd the base of the Great Temple, and buildings become less and less ornate the farther from the Temple one travels, until all one finds are mud huts with thatched roofs.

Religious customs are a large part of daily life in Myra, and most people's professions and livelihoods are connected to their faith. Beyond the large Simone following in the vast farms, the kingdom has a volunteer army, made up of the faithful of Zinaar, Liandra, Kroon, Craigor, and a handful of others. Market vendors, who deal with large orders of crops have been known to worship Totan, praying for order in transactions, and Jarro worshipers, praying for a good profit. The faithful of Avanti make up the doctors and surgeons of the kingdom, and adherents of Death prepare funeral rites for the recent permanent dead. Firatep rests between the King’s River and the Queen’s River in the marshland created by the rivers overflowing in the spring. Fishing and rice cultivation are primary staples of the local economy for this particular settlement, and massive shipments of both are floated down the Queen’s river to docks near Myra. As the settlement closest to Bollen, it is a waypoint for travelers and traders between the two nations. A popular legend in Firatep claims that two warriors from Mull and Firth fell in love on the banks of the Queen’s river in a tragic tale that ends in their death, and the presence of Darius worshippers here is larger than average.

To the east, high up where the Mother’s River begins to spill from the base of the Dragon’s Maw Mountains, the settlement Anabe was constructed as a mining town, extracting precious stones and metals to be used in Myra. The location had at one time been a waypoint for the nomadic Baswa people as they traveled with their herds, and from those early days, Anabe has had a small goat herding community, making mutton, furs, and goat’s cheese.

History

The Great Temple Ziggurat at the center of the city of Myra is older than history itself. For centuries Myra has been a wealth of agricultural abundance and diverse representation of faith. Nestled between the river deltas on the Dryaka Bay with the mountains and desert cutting them off from many would-be neighbors, Myra flourished.

During the drought Myra suffered less than most. While their harvest yielded less, they were not without. In 102BED The Kingdom of Firth’s armies first marched on Myra, determined to conquer the land and take what Firth lacked. Myra had never been to war, but its people were not incapable, bringing those who could not fight into the shelter of the Great Temple, those that were capable defended their city, holding against the army. Firth retreated, but not without threat of return.

When two months later the city of Myra first found the Army of Mull at their gates, they did not think they would survive another fight. The King of Myra, Venar Emre, seeing their banners brandished with the symbol of Craigor asked a priest of Craigor to mediate attempted negotiations. Inadvertently this would spark a longstanding relationship between Myra and Mull, where Mull would send soldiers for the city’s defense in exchange for shipments of grain and food to the Island.

The warriors of Mull defended Myra as promised. Fighting back attacks from Firth throughout the drought. The people of Myra were grateful to their army, many citizens giving gifts to soldiers of Mull if they encountered them in public.

When the drought ended the lands regained their previous fertility, and Myra continued to have troops from Mull at their defense, and once again they began to flourish.

During the Breaking of 65AR when all the gods became unseated, Myra faced political turmoil as infighting surged over how to go about seating the gods, which gods should have seats, and the order in which to honor them.

In the early 240’s AR, Myra saw a massive influx of refugees from across the west, something that it was not prepared to handle. To compensate, it incorporated two settlements: one between the King’s and Queen’s Rivers in the Northwest, Firatep, and one in the foothills to the northeast between the Mother’s and Father’s Rivers, Anabe.

After the Third Surge, a large force of ambitious raiders from Corsic swept down and sacked Myra proper, killing the King, Pylis II, and producing a national embarrassment felt by the citizens of Mull who failed to defend the city, and started a War with Corsic in retaliation. Several battles of this war were fought on the Isthmus just west of Myra.

Today Myra is known as a lively city, a location for worship of any god, and a land rich in food and comforts.