Place
The Ark
Manatar's country, Archon's theocracy, and the loser of the last war
The first country. Manatar raised the Central Ark at M0 as a magical land no monstrous creature could enter, made humanity inside it, and left. Everything human on Janashia comes from there.
It outgrew itself at M400 and its people went out to fight and survive for the first time. They founded one Republic with its Senate in Aventia and three outer territories: Aventia, Tyrena and Cato. The Central Ark remained its protected heart. Six centuries of invention followed — languages, trade, technique — with Archon living through all of it as a hermit and the only immortal alive.
The Jax invasion forced the Republic's divided territories into a common war. They still lost ground until Archon cast the Partage at M1010, became a god, liberated Zaran Mor, and drove the invaders back to Salk. He sealed Janashia behind Planar Lock, then replaced the Republic with one theocracy that lasted nearly seven hundred years. In M1301 he placed Aventia under Sylla, Tyrena under Markus Telus, and Cato under Marcus Crassus. After centuries under the same immortal rulers, their domains took their names.
Its wizards had to leave to escape it. Antoine de Cerberus, Gérard Alois and Cosimo Leblanc took the rebels out at M1410 and founded Cerberus on an island of giants. Archon let them go, and let two of them keep their eternal life.
Cerberus came back three centuries later with a dwarven fleet. The Great Barrier fell on the Crassus Peninsula, Valerium artillery broke the aqueducts that carried the Partage to the Ark's priests, and the censors fell one after another. The country surrendered before its god did: without Archon it could not win, and Archon had not come out of his chamber in a year.
It is ruled today by a baker's son from the country it exiled.