The Legend of Immigration

The War of the Pergrandean Succession

Ishgar. A peninsular continent located in the Eastern side of the globe, famous for its people, limitless business opportunities, and its cultural as well as linguistic diversity. It was made of a collection of countries that bordered one another and the seas, mountains, and other geographic features in the continent. Their peaks were so tall that the summits were always covered in snow. People who attempted to climb to the very top of these peaks have either died of starvation, fallen to their deaths in the deepest chasms, or were caught in devastating rockslides and avalanches. Thus, some countries in Ishgar were lucky to be untouched by foreign aggression because of geography. Aside from this, they also varied in economic, political, and military power. Right from the start the richest country in Ishgar has always been, undoubtedly, Fiore in the west coast. But the most politically and militarily powerful were their rivals in the Pergrande Kingdom, across Ishgar. While Fiore was the most progressive and democratic country in Ishgar because it was a constitutional monarchy, where the Royal Family of Fiore shared powers with the Ishgarian Magic Council, Pergrande was the most autocratic. Their king had all the power to declare war, levy taxes, and mobilize the Army without consent from the Council. This is the story of when tensions between the two rivals have escalated into conflict, all because of a succession crisis.

Hercules, the capital city of Pergrande. It boasted a wide array of exotic buildings, parks, public forums, and bathhouses with arched windows and gargoyle statues on the roof, inherited from the Greek civilization thousands of years ago. Geographically, a river cut straight through the city, called the Tiber. In the heart of this grand city, stood a castle where the Royal Family, the Nobility, and the government Ministers lived and ruled over the entire country. The Ministers were in charge of the country's magical guilds and made public announcements in behalf of the Royal Family, when a new law was signed or the country was at war. They were the second in prestige to the Royal Family and above the aristocracy, because of a common paranoia of a coup orchestraded by different aristocratic factions. Above the government Ministers, stood the King and the Queen of Pergrande named King Carlos I and his wife, Queen Marie-Theresa III. For generations, Carlos's family, the House of Habsburg, wielded absolute royal power ever since his ancestor, King Francesco III seized the throne, after a 500-year interregnum after the extinction of the previous dynasty: the Capets. It was the darkest period in the history of Pergrande, because a variety of usurpers seized the throne, only to be overthrown by their rivals within 3 months of their coronation. Pergrande's foreign policy has always been a cold war against Fiore and simmering tensions with the neighboring countries of Sin and Enca, plus a hatred of the distant country of Minstrel from its inception 1500 years ago. Today, the king had inherited the throne when his father, King Sebastian X, passed away to pancreatic cancer. He and his wife had just been crowned rulers of Pergrande and now they expected the arrival of their heir. After 9 months of waiting, a healthy son was born. The Kingdom cheered the birth of their future king with fireworks, celebrations, and a public baptism in the commemoration of Hera, Goddess of Marriage. Pergrande was a polytheistic country similar to the rest of Ishgar because, they worshipped the Olympians: a pantheon of deities that ruled over concepts like marriage, music, medicine, law, politics, economics, discord, war, and so on. For weeks, the Kingdom celebrated the christening of their first prince: Prince Maximillian I. As the infant grew into a little boy, he was groomed to one day take the throne should his father die prematurely. King Carlos was very selective when it came to who would have the honor of tutoring the Prince. Maximillian started at the age of 5 years, studying astronomy, botany, biology, psychology, physics, chemistry, politics, law, philosophy, economics, geography, history, music, geometry, basic arithmetic, literature, calculus, trigonometry, algebra, and sociology until he was initiated into manhood at 18. As a member of the royal family, his basic knowledge of the liberal arts and other subjects qualified him to further his academic studies by learning how to speak, read, and write in the common languages of ancient Greek and Latin, appreciate their cultures, and that of the vernacular languages of Old Frankish and Low German. You see, Pergrande was a linguistically diverse country despite the autocratic nature of its government and society. Some people spoke the official languages of Greek and Latin for political and economic purposes, but there was also Frankish and Low German spoken by the working-class, lowborn, and the peasantry.