Editing Mothfolk (section)

==The Mothkin==

===Contact with the Others===

The world in those days was still open and sparsely conquered, but eventually the mothkin came into contact with another race, this time on more peaceful grounds.

The halfling village of Dennborough was understandably surprised at their appearance, but quickly a delegation was assembled to travel to the great mothkin colony of Tanjian. Twelve halflings held audience with the second Daimyo, Kuraga, each party astounded at the other, but a friendship was quickly forged. To the halflings, they gave clothes of the finest silk and fabulous paintings. They taught the art of alchemy, and offered them bottled of their potent nectar-based liquor.

To the mothkin, the halflings had much to share. They showed them metallurgy, logging, and stonework, and shared maps and stories of the many other races in the world. Perhaps most revolutionary, they had brought with them a general, who instructed the Daimyo and his court on the ways of war.

From then after, the halflings and mothkin remained eternal allies and friends, but peace with their world could not last forever.

===The First War of the Silk===

Baloth had long been dead, but the terror he wrought was never forgotten, and the halflings had given then the means of vengeance. Kuraga prayed at his temple and, having convened with the fey, led a contingent of battlemages, alchemists, archers and elite warriors northward, seeking the dwarves. They found the kingdom of Bal-Torum.

After several days of miscommunication, Kuraga tired of this wait and declared the attack. Spells and arrows tore through the dwarven vanguard, but they pushed back with ferocity. The mothkin retreated to the forests, and a week later a dwarven brigade marched after them. In several conflicts, the dwarves were ambushed and turned back by mothkin and halflings archers and mages, retreating with minimal losses. After three months of inconclusive combat, a truce was formed, but tensions remained.

===Decentralization===

Kuraga died at 127, first of the true dynasty of his descendants. He was replaced by his niece, a former priestess named Michika. She ascended at the age of 32, and was highly pious, forgoing the more ornate dressings of the court for a simple silk robe. Under her guidance, the Church of the Flame spread through the colonies, and beacon-temples arose across the domains. However, the armies of the mothkin were inexperienced and thinly spread. Many colonies had to fend for themselves, often with aid from halfling or human neighbors. The Lich Kingdoms of the south spent more concern on their human adversaries, but Michika recalled the bulk of her forces to fend off the hordes of undead and corrupted from Tanjian. Around this time, a colony of mothkin under the leadership of an apostate named Anenzi trekked into the deserts beyond the Benayan, founding what would later become the Farapidaans. That is a story for another time.

Now, as the armies left the disparate colonies, they raised militias of their own, the Zaibuto. They held a power equal to, or even above, the priesthood in decentralized regions, and their magecraft and alchemy kept their respective towns safe.

The uniting around religion and the relative autonomy of the Zaibuto led to the decline in authority of the Daimyo, whose power would wax and wane over the next several centuries in accordance with the power of the Zaibuto. But because the Daimyo was always allied with the priesthood, the power of the Zaibuto was directly related to the authority the Daimyo wielded.

===Tanji II and the Rise of the Merchants===

With no present threats to the mothkin upon the death of Michika, the advent of Tanji II, a wealthy silk baron, was the first not marked by some foreign strife.

Tanji II was unhappy with the way the colonies had separated from the Daimyo's power, and made several efforts to diminish the authority of the Zaibuto by stationing official troops and spreading pro-unification propaganda. This effort had moderate success, and as long as Tanji II ruled, the Zaibuto remained as auxiliary fighters.

With his kingdom back under his influence, the Daimyo patroned art and business, especially in the capitol. As described by halfling advisor Ceagan: "Their emperor was a lover of all arts, finding war and even politics distasteful, but devoting his private funds to the enrichment of his people's culture."

Calligraphy, painting, the furnishing of old wings, and the construction of beautiful ornate clothing grew in his patronage, and these things had one class benefit above all: the merchants. Silk and wings were easy to come by, but the precious metals, especially the gold dust that was used to embellish wings, as well as fine timber and ink from the Benayans, fueled their trade. Tanji II continued the mercantile taxation of his predecessors, rather than increasing it accordingly, and so the merchants quickly grew wealthy.

And with wealth came power, as the merchants used their funds to hire Zaibutos as private soldiers, as well as procuring a permanent seat in the royal court as a station of the Daimyo.

This power would be held until the second War of the Silk, but, even after the influence of Tanji II, their wealth would remain.

===Seeds of Unrest and the End of the Classical Era===

Commerce thrived and art flourished in the zenith of the mothkin kingdom, but fate is fickle and nature is no lover of craft. A famine took hold of the provincial colonies 41 years into Tanji's reign, and their crops were reduced to barely below subsistence. Those in the forests of Tanjian never needed worry of food or water, but in the colonies unrest and starvation rose. The merchants left for the capitol, many taking their Zaibuto with them.

Tanji attempted to recourse with a stronger military presence, but this only angered the colonies further. By his 43rd year, Tanji was beset with animosity from all sides. The peasantry demanded better tools and sustenance, the loyal Zaibuto loathed the increase in national troops, and the priests decried Tanji II's apparent lack of faith, as the Daimyo spent little time in the Agiari aside from the monthly prayer required by his position.

Finally, the tension breached the uneasy peace. Peasants armed themselves and drove the militaries out of their towns with aid from the Zaibuto and support from the priests, who worked to reduce their losses. As his army was pressed out of the provinces, Tanji responded with a full scale occupation. Almost five thousand soldiers marched out to reclaim the provinces.

There were few true battles in the revolt, but skirmishes wore down the military, and a force of several thousand Zaibuto and armed proletariat made their way to Tanjian, led by a former mercenary named Amerasu. With his capitol nearly overrun, Tanji finally abdicated.

Amerasu assumed the throne as Daimyo, exiling Tanji II to the deserts of the west and finally bringing peace to the angry peasantry. Though the famine proper had ended months ago, it was accredited to the enthronement of a pious leader, and as the old empire had fallen, a new age began.

===Amerasu and the Second War of the Silk===

The provinces had been calmed, the priesthood strengthened, and the Zaibuto took work as mercenaries. Amerasu instilled a parliamentary council, the Diet, to give the people and the provinces a voice in politics, and replaced or threw out most of the old court. 

Internal affairs being sorted, Amerasu turned his attention to the dwarves. Three centuries of uneasy peace and contact with most known races of the world had not sated the animosity between them. He found himself lucky when the dwarven kingdom of Taruman was assaulted by a human warlord named Khaban Askai. 

Askai coveted the strength and wealth of the dwarven kingdom, but Amerasu merely wished them pacified. The two agreed to work together, and Amerasu began war preparations, calling in an alliance with the halflings.

The first attack caught the dwarven king Drulthum without warning, as human cavalry and mothkin mages tore a blitzkrieg through the surrounding hills. The speed and accuracy of Khaban's horse archers was matched by the skill and number of mothkin alchemists and swordsmen, and the few regiments that guarded the outer lands were quickly overwhelmed. Eventually, the mountain itself was under siege. Drulthum begged aid from the dwarven armies farther north, but no response came to him. The siege, however, faltered.

Aid came to Amerasu in the form of a halfling advisor named Balleg, who showed to the mothkin the incendiary power of the oil they used for lighting. His alchemists worked quickly to design a sort of handheld firebomb, a thin ceramic frame holding the oil and connected by a thin strip of silk. The firebombers flew over the city's walls and bombarded them ceaselessly. Finally, after two weeks of siege, Drulthum conceded defeat. Khaban took what wealth he wanted, and Amerasu returned to Tanjian a victorious general.

===Federalization and the Modern Era===

All was not peaceful within the kingdom when Amerasu returned. The merchants had declined in power with the rise of the Diet, and the scholar-gentry held power over the priesthood and provinces. Ever an adamant defender of provincial rights, the Daimyo instated government exams to weed out corruption in the scholar-gentry and fortified the colonies with a proper regimen of soldiers, this time as protectors rather than occupiers. The Zaibuto objected, but were dismissed from service and left to their own pursuits.

Each province, well defended and somewhat represented, was free to develop an identity of its own, pulling from the region's past and the traditions they carried. In the Gija province fey worship experienced a resurgence, while in the Benayan regions tensions with the Farapidaans subsided and a cultural exchange began.

The Sunstruck, maddened radicals of the Church of the Flame, spread through the south of the kingdom, and though they were hunted and hated by the locals, they remain today a terror to surrounding regions.