Original Auran background lore idea

[spoiler=Background Lore][b]Background Lore: The Revolutionary League[/b]

In some other dimensions, dimensions where technology or its substitutes are further along and society has adopted a scientific and introspective form, there is a concept known as the "resource curse" - the idea that the presence of large amounts of extractable resources in a country can ultimately contribute to instability, authoritarianism, and economic struggle as the rulers or elite abuse those sources of wealth for their own gain. Yet the realm of Aur'Kayn is very much not one of those realms - peasants and nomads muddle around, and to the peoples of what is now known as the Auran continent, the deposits of gold, metals, and other mineral resources on the Auran continent have been nothing short of a lifeline and a blessing - something that has allowed for the construction of trade cities, THE city at the heart of the Auran Empire, the fortress around the desert oasis, for armies, and for nearly every form of wealth and power ever concentrated in the west of the realm. It is trade that has ultimately fueled this whole side of the world - for, after all, how much of an agricultural economy could it ever have created? How much can you grow when the biomes that define your world are a: inhospitable steppe, b: searing desert, c: harsh mountains?

(Friends, it's not a whole fucking lot.)

With all of that said, this wasn't always the Auran continent, and in fact it wasn't always the realm of Aur'Kayn, or the Auran Empire. The rise of the Aurans (who, in the most technical sense, are the nomadic and settled peoples who live in the steppe) was actually a relatively recent event, happening around eighty years ago. Until then, they actually lived under the thumb of the people of the desert, centered around a militaristic empire of the oasis - the Aurans of one and a half centuries before hadn't been [i]nothing,[/i] but their trade cities and nomad hordes had long been politically fractious, controlling their own sections and routes of the steppe, ultimately unable to contend with the highly organized military of the oasis empire.

So began a century and a half of colonial rule - rule that the Aurans deeply resented, and more and more plotted against. Under the rule, the desert peoples intensified mining in Auran steppe land; it had always been around and important, but it became the core of the settled economy (whereas many smaller villages had been fishing villages). This had the positive effect of increasing income from metal and precious materials, in the long term - it also had the negative effect of centralizing income around these. In the end, convinced that the occupation had to end, the lords of the trade cities and fiefdoms (including the central city, well enlarged by colonial presence) were finally convinced to unite around something, and they organized at first in secret and then in public into a broad organization that spanned the whole Auran region and proclaimed a deep sentiment in love of homeland, proclaiming that it was their time to take up arms: the Revolutionary League (technically the Revolutionary League of Lords and Hordes, but people often feel awkward saying this). A bloody guerilla war started that eventually ended up essentially completely dismantling the standing army of the desert - and, well, once the Aurans regained their independence, they weren't exactly looking to stop, and they rolled over the now much more defenseless desert empire in a couple of years. Now sporting a much more jingoistic attitude, if a deep satisfaction about the reversal of outcomes, the Auran Empire brute-forced its way onto the political scene, soon starting up spats with the Kaynans and proclaiming the world the Aur'Kayn realm.

The only problem was that, with the conquering slowed way down and the Revolutionary League now trying to run the Auran Empire as a whole, well, empire... it turned out that the Revolutionary League was pretty shitty at governance. Without any war to fight, and with a whole new set of spoils taken from the looting and enriching themselves that the eponymous Lords and Hordes of the Revolutionary League had made VERY MUCH sure to do at the final stretch of the war, almost all of the little liege lords and city merchant lords and steppe nomad horde leaders retreated to their own local centers of power and wealth, wielding their own small influence as well as they could but with a healthy dose of greed and paranoia - even the grand Auran capital was split between several merchants and trade societies (such as, for example, our Society of Masons here) sitting upon their own piles of wealth. Among the squabbling and attempted power-brokering that has  characterized the following decades, not much of that wealth had found its way down to commoners, whether those be peasants, common burghers, or most nomads, and the lack of leadership and prosperity had led to increasing discontent - which led to rogue mages acting as itinerant preachers (claiming to be prophets of some small religion or that) and gaining rather worrisome followings (for the Revolutionary League) before getting involved in a conflict with a local lord (or horde) and usually getting blatted.

Thankfully for the Revolutionary League and debatably thankfully for the commoners, the real reckoning for all of this has been averted by -what's that?- an indescribably powerful god showing up and offering the Auran Empire everything it has ever lacked and more! Wow!
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