Lamia

Official Name: Queendom of Lamia (former member of the Rhozanni Oligarchy)

Founded: 1891

Form of Government: Monarchy

Head of State: Parthia, Queen of Firearms

Population Level: Low

Society Structure: Urban

Technological Level: Above-average (high for personal weaponry)

Background: See Rhozanni Oligarchy.

Founding: In 1891 the old Rhozanni Oligarchy suffered its final collapse. This came as no surprise to the members of the five provinces that had comprised the Oligarchy, and had spent several years preparing themselves for a return to the hostilities of old Aechea. Additional troops were trained, spy networks quietly grew, and remedial foreign policies were drafted by the institutionally powerful in each province. When the fall came, no one was caught unprepared by outside forces who had seen the inevitable future a little bit sooner.

Internal forces, however, were another matter.

Though the Rhozanni had maintained unquestioned control over the five old states for centuries, the province of Androcles was particularly loyal. Council declarations were fastidiously enacted by Androclesian elders, and the premise of Rhozanni culture most thoroughly enforced by law or tradition. This included near-worship of the Rhozanni family, frequent declarations of allegiance, sometimes punctuated by public events in the Oligarchy's name, and various other shows of submission to the higher power. This also included extreme strictness in regulating the roles of the sexes, and parading the dominance of men in society.

By tradition, in Androcles boys took on their family names at birth, while girls were known only by their first names. (In the case of popular female names, a girl might be referred to with a surname in order to differentiate, but never as a full name- e.g., "Korinna, the Pezos girl".) Only upon marriage was a woman given a last name. Servant women, being of low class and frequently at the mercy of their employers, were rarely married off; in this way an entire class of one-name women was created. Possessing a single name became a stigma so severe that girls at the youngest marriageable ages frequently begged their parents to find suitors so as not to look like "those poor hopeless things" scuffling between rich homes and broken-down servant quarters every dawn and dusk.

These servants worked for all manner of influential people, including the governors and administrators of the province. Occasionally these officials would need a servant to maintain a basic reading ability in order to carry out a wider range of tasks. One of these, Parthia, was the favorite of Chairman Lykos, the province's second-in-command and leader of the provincial Assembly. During her altogether too-frequent calls to his bedchamber, Parthia began sifting through Lykos' messages as he slept. Though she never discussed what she may have been seeking, if anything, what she found was astonishing for someone of her rank: open discussion of the Oligarchy's breakdown and contigency plans for assuming control.

Parthia stole a number of historical texts on the nature of war and rituals associated with it. Giving up sleep when the moon shone brightly enough to read, she learned the prophecy of Yas, the Aechean god of war, and formulated a plan. Three friends, servants themselves, were sworn to secrecy that some enormous event would occur, and Parthia herself would not tell them what it was. But she promised changes, and if their literate friend had devised it, none of them could imagine the change making their lives worse.

On the day of the Oligarchy's fall, the friends went to Parthia wondering if that was the event of which she spoke. Parthia handed them all knives and led them into the back of the capital's ancient temple, before the guards took up their positions. The priests had left the interior empty, to join with the provincial leaders atop the steps, where the official declaration of control would take place. By the time the ceremony came, guards had been placed around the temple for protection; only two stood with the leadership, as a token bodyguard. After all, what threat would come from an empty temple?

The group stepped out of the temple, heads bowed, as the ceremony began and all eyes were turned forward. Only a few moments in, the four women had their knives at the necks of the most important people in Androcles: Parthia took Lykos hostage, her compatriots the governor, the head priest, and another administrator. Their first demand was for the two guards to drop their weapons, which, upon immediate orders from the governor, they did. Their second demand was for the battalion charging up the temple steps to stop, upon pain of death for their leaders, and listen.

Parthia drew upon the ancient texts she had so carefully committed to memory. She called out, "Who do you serve?"

These guards, though Androclesian, were trained soldiers of the national army. They replied, as they had been trained to do from their first moments in uniform, "The Oligarchy!"

Parthia called out next, "On whose power does the Oligarchy stand?"

The guards replied, "The power of Yas!"

Parthia put her mouth directly next to Lykos' ear for her next words. "If these glorious leaders are worthy of your service, they will answer this next question well: Who does Yas serve?"

The governor was silent. The administrator was silent. Lykos was silent. Even the priest was silent.

Parthia yelled: "Soldiers, with me!"

And all chanted, "The faithful! The faithful! The faithful!"

Parthia recited then, chapter and verse, the story of Yas' creation up to the meeting of his wife, Rema. She placed the tip of her knife against Lykos' neck, plunged it in, and dragged it through his throat. High above the horrified crowd, she threw the body down the steps, into the crowd of guards. Her friends, who she had not warned of her plan, gaped at the bloody knife in her hand; so she stuck it into the heart of each hostage in turn, each one tumbling like the first as Parthia's terrified compatriots pushed them away. The remaining two civilian leaders, an Assembly member and a priest, fell to their backsides scrambling away from the assassin. The guards did not retrieve their weapons.

"The state relies on Yas for its glory. Those men at your feet were not worthy of him. Are these?" Parthia pointed her knife at each of the cowering men in turn. "Decide now, soldiers- will you serve one of them as your king, or me as your queen?"

The soldiers blinked up at her, astonished. Her fate was no longer her own; if some legitimate authority barged through the crowd at that moment and demanded the army's obedience, she and her friends would become a tortured, executed footnote in history.

None did. One by one, the army knelt before her.

Thus Queen Parthia was crowned, and by her decree, the nation of Lamia born.

Pre-Melt: N/A

Melt: N/A

Great War Era: Word of the revolt spread immediately among the Aechean states, but so too did the realization that Parthia had consolidated power faster than anyone might have expected. Declaring a new day for the state's women, and showing the ultimate power they could wield over men long deemed untouchable, a large percentage of influential men were chased to the borders, both by aggrieved women and men with their own several reasons to oust the powers of the status quo. As in old times, assassination attempts on the new leader were frequent, but after the first two years dropped off dramatically.

Queen Parthia developed a reputation as a fair ruler; her method was not to rule with a universally iron fist, but she showed her ability to mete out terrible punishments when crimes by men against women were proven. This occasioned some complaints, as these sentences could be applied to more mundane crimes such as theft; but as the overall feeling was that justice in general was better served under Parthia's law, these issues did not create much of a ripple in the overall positive attitude towards her.

Because of their new status as nation-states and the need to find a balance of power amongst themselves, none of the newly-(re)created Aechean states partook directly in the Great War, despite having been part of the country that started the string of conflicts. Queen Parthia directed her shipyards to build a sufficient navy for defense, but given that the Rhozanni cross-ocean trade had mostly come in and out of her province, she also had them work with weapons manufacturers and act as freight carriers for whoever needed such services performed. Though this sometimes created the appearance of deeper affiliations, nations that took a dim view of Lamian activities were generally too far away to do anything about it.

Parthia herself gained the loyalty of the army by becoming the first woman to enter a complete cycle of basic soldier training. Through this she not only better understood the difficulty of the work, but discovered a talent for riflery that led to a wider inclusion of women in the military than even she had initially imagined. Some of them became snipers, and rumors exist of a specialized squad of female soldiers designed for infiltration and assassination. It is said that unlike stealth units, everyone sees these women, yet no one figures out what they did until they are well out of reach.

Post-War to Present: Shipping profits were invested first in national infrastructure, then in new technology for the army. Unlike most nations in the steamplane era, Queen Parthia's priority was outfitting her troops with the best possible inventory of gear, to protect her people from incursion by their neighbors despite a relatively low population base to draw from. Her military laid the groundwork for the inclusion of air warfare, however, and in 1906, once the ARI had become the dominant form of "diplomacy" in world affairs, Lamia has began to purchase planes and train a legitimate, if small, air force.

Resources are short in the post-Melt world, and Parthia has repeatedly said she will not waste people and planes in a wild stab at glory. But as the air force's top pilots gain renown for their talents, the nation finds itself swiftly approaching the day when entrance to the ARI will involve a legitimate chance at victory.