Editing Autia (section)

====Voluntas Pact====
''Ancient Greeks, except they all wear metal masks. Fight with Amazons and Hiisikunta. Isolated branch of the Sorgos People (Mediterranean).''

General:

Voluntas people are known for their individualistic mindset, to a point were they hide their identities behind masks made out of metal to separate themselves from outside world. Their country acts as a direct democracy in ancient Athens style, with ancient Sparta style slavery. All of the northern part of the country is under generational slavery. Additionaly they have friendly relations with Grashopperfolk to the south and west, and are in constant war with northern tribes.

People:

Most inhabitants of the Voluntas Pact are humans of Sorgos descent, but slaves and free men from other regions are not uncommon. Citizens are the top of Pact society. After having completed their mandatory military training, many go on to become soldiers, while others become landowners, businessmen, artisans, and bureaucrats. All citizens in a given region have the right to attend the regional assembly and court and vote on a range of matters including trials, laws, military actions, and the election of officials, though many won't attend sessions unless a topic of personal interest is being voted upon. Citizens can only be the children of other citizens, and due to low birth rates and occasional high military casualties, the percentage of the population made of citizens is slowly dropping. Below them are foreign free men known as metics. Relatively rare, metics still often fill a valuable niche by bringing foreign ideas and skills to an otherwise socially conservative region, or doing jobs not really seen as suitable for a citizen, helot, or slave. Next are helots. Making up a large portion of the population, they are similar to the serfs found in certain other backwards nations in that they have more rights than slaves, but are still highly constricted in terms of mobility, profession, and military training. All are Sorgos since the position is hereditary, and there is no mechanism for anyone to be promoted or demoted to helot. At the bottom are slaves. Some slaves fill relatively high status roles like teachers, scholars, concubines, foremen, and artisans, but most are laborers or domestics. Most slaves are Sorgos (descendants of those on the wrong side of civil wars and revolts) but slaves from exotic locations are highly fashionable with wealthy citizens (typically from the Second Empire via Afzen middlewomen). Slaves are rarely freed, but many are kept motivated by the thought of securing a more comfortable posting.

Religion:

Religion in the Pact is a strange fusion of the Sorgos and Nantic Pantheons with the primary gods being Zeupiter (a mix of Zeupiter and Ace/Alcar), Shull (mix of Nepseidon, Hadiese, and Shomdar/Shull), and Aphrodinus (mix of Aphodinus and Gaelhalla, Ayalla).

Magic:

Members of the Pact see direct use of magic in combat as cowardly, and overall aren't super keen on magic, though they do make use of healing magic, enchantments of weapons and armor, and occasionally divination. Although a highly controversial topic, it is believed many of the greatest warriors "cheat" by either using subtle magic to improve their combat prowess, or getting others to enhance their speed, strength, and reflexes with magic.

Military:

The Pact military heavily emphasizes individual martial skill and valor. Spears, javelins, swords, and round shields are the preferred gear, though many prefer more exotic melee weapons to better stand out. Bows are sometimes grudgingly used, though most would rather reach melee combat as soon as possible. Armor is often showy and impractical, though of course masks and visors are worn whenever possible. Siege warfare is almost unheard of since there are few functional fortresses in the area, though Pact soldiers sometimes hire themselves out as mercenaries, in which case, they typically rely on other to break the defenses before plunging into glorious melee combat. They also don't do great against modern artillery or massed gunfire, and as a result are usually employed as skirmishers, flankers, and raiders. Pact citizens are taught to treat martial combatants with respect, and usually try to ransom, trade, or sometimes simply release skilled combatants that were too injured in combat to continue. In contrast, captured conscripts and citizens are humiliated, neglected, abused, and sometimes tortured.

Most Pact soldiers are citizens, but occasionally during major wars helots will be conscripted, though their training and equipment is abysmal, and their commanders seem to delight in needlessly getting them killed. Some wars are believed to have been deliberately started just to thin out the helot population a bit.

The Pact's relations with its neighbors is complex:

The Hiisi and other monster races living to the east sometimes raid the Pact, and other times are targetted during glory seeking raids and hunts. No serious attempt has ever been made to conquer the Hiisi though, since to do so would deprive the Pact of one of their favorite foes.

The Spartician Amazons also raid the Pact for weapons, armor, and mates. Likewise, counter raids are not uncommon. Captured Pact soldiers who fought particularly well are sometimes taken as mates by the Sparticians, while a defeated Sparticians will sometimes fall in love with particularly skilled captors while waiting to be ransomed. Needlessly to say, the relations between Sparticia and the Pact are complex and strange to outsiders.

Relations with the Afzen Amazons of Afrozil are poorer. The border between these two nations is poorly defined and a frequent source of conflict, as is illegal slave snatching from both sides by greedy landowners. However, wars rarely last long since economic ties between the two nations are strong, particularly the Pact's reliance on Afzen Amazons to acquire new slaves for them to purchase.

Relations with Eritroans are generally good, mostly since the Eritroans never give the Pact a reason to fight them. Some Pact generals have tried to start wars with the Eritroans simply to have something new to fight, though cooler heads have always prevailed, since deep down the elites of Pact society know they may need a reliable ally if they are ever threatened by a major power.

The city states that make up the Pact frequently fight among themselves, and relish any chance they get to put down a revolt by helots or slaves, or even the rumor of a revolt by helots or slaves.

History:

In the time of expansion for the Soukans, the world was a friendlier place. While some younger nations may have been rapidly expanding, the Soukans were content merely to take key pieces of land and greatly expand the infrastructure of them to make new city-states and then carry on with their spread. In those times progress was quick and the Sorgos colonies as they were known soon were vastly spreading in size with vast swathes of land being built upon and regions like what is now Aesanaeria mined for the abundance of jewels and natural resources they had. Each city-state back home had their own colonization initiative active at the time and the region which is now the Voluntas Pact was a former colony of Sparathus. This is evident from the similar appreciation for martial excellence shared between both sides however the Pact has taken things a step further from Sparathus, which while still preferring melee combat freely uses magic in their fighting styles to greater enhance their lethality. Even their greatest warriors, the Black Blades (soldiers in black plate armor wielding huge enchanted obsidian greatswords that consume combat drugs in battle hashashin style to pull off bullshit usually reserved for elder elves like deflecting bullets with your sword) use magic in their techniques and use enchanted weapons. This shift in ideology was primarily caused by the isolation of the former colony, leading to the settlers left behind and the locals to change their doctrine from one of slow outwards expansion to one of aggressive defense from Amazon neighbors. Essentially it ended up devolving from constant raids and losing the magical abilities from their homeland through procreation with the locals leading to the current situation. Recently however the Soukans have showed back up again but aren't very well loved by the people who see them as posers who don't respect the art of melee as much as they do magic. Their leaders however understanding the use of magic to augment your martial prowess have gotten along well enough and trade has restarted between the nations with captured slaves and Spartican/Afzen warriors being sent back to the republic to work or fight in the colosseums in return for jewelry and higher quality weapons being sent by the Soukans.

Economy:

A somewhat backward nation economically, the Pact relies heavily on dirt cheap slave labor to make up for its low technology levels. Attempts to modernize have been strongly resisted by wealthy landowners invested in the status quo. The Pact exports good quality grains, meats, and vines to a range of nations via ocean trade routes. They also sell arms and armor to the Eritroans, Sparticians, Afrozil, and Aesanaeria, though many other nations arrogantly feel such equipment is too primitive to be of interest to them. The ruling class dislikes technology, but imports a wide range of exotic foods, jewelry, clothes, and other status symbols, particularly slaves. Mercenary work and adventuring are looked upon favorably, and Pact mercenaries are common in Eldrian States, and sometimes Sorgos and Nantic States.

Miscellaneous:

Voluntas Klephts are known to mostly make their masks out of plaster.