Fiction:Mushrum Kingdoms/History

From the start, it has been the Kingdoms' immense size that has been their largest weakness. The first Mushrum settlements to constitute a civilization consisted of early villages in what is now the heart of the modern Empire's heartlands.

The First Kingdom
The first figure to crown himself king of his race, accordingly, was King Mronghar the Legendary, in what would be year 31 of recorded mushrum history. Mronghar was also the first to start unifying the land around him, chiefly what would later become the rest of the Kingdoms. Mostly through military might, he managed to expand his rule across the Shrumian Crescent; the land where the Golden and Silver rivers converge. The king was soon faced with the problem of the varied races that already inhabited the cresectn, and although they were weak and easy to conquer, he could not erradicate them and thus was forced to include them in his new Empire. To solve the issue of their loyalty, he placed an efficient system of government in his new realm, installing Mushrum vassals to rule over his conquered peoples while letting lower local leaders remain in power. Thus was born the First Funghal Kingdom.

Mronghar's plans were many; he laid the foundations for what would later become the capital of Mushionmar; devised an intricate system of canals that would carry water into the dry southeast portion of his empire; donstructed and guarded new trade routes between his eight major cities; sent scouts to explore land that would even reach the far realms of the Western elves (and would never return to report on their findings; ordered the construction of a great wall to enclose what borders were not respected by natural features; and more. Of those many, only the wall would ever be constructed. For the king fell ill soon afterwards, and the Empire was left leaderless upon his death in the year 121. In less than 100 years, the First Empire had fallen. Political infighting left the land in anarchy; within the unfinished capital, nobles fought for the dead king's titles and outside, the supressed tribes overthrew their outnumbered Mushrum lords and fled with the Empire's harvests. The country went through three short-lived monarchs after that, and once again central order disappeared.

Mushpoldain
It was in the mid-100s when the Second Kingdom, later known as Mushpoldain finally arose. This time it was a great nephew of the original King Mronghar that took the throne; Mushpold I, later titled The Not-So-Great. Mushpold wanted to regain his great-grandfather's conquests, and indeed ended up expanding over them. He was a harsh ruler, however; with an empty treasury and good memory of his predecessors' failings, he committed none of the same mistakes. Mushpold reasoned that the first king had given too much power to the kingdoms' numerous ethnic minorities. His approach, thus, was very different; Mushpold first forced the nobles of his land to Mushionmar, executed the majority, and placed the rest under house arrest. He then outlawed any noble titles-other than those he considered Mushrumese in origin-and established a network of spies to keep watch over his lands. His prowess in battle was unmatched, and eventually the empire reached its greatest heights under his rule, extending over the Arid Midlands, Eastern Plains, and even the lands of the Klaxxa and Vrorokaa. New castles and fortifications, among them the great Inner Wall and new additions to the Great Mushite Wall, were funded by the spoils of war of his conquests. Mushpoldese society came to be known for the government's totalitarian control as much as its new cultural achievements; every aspect of society was at the king's disposal. He standarized writing, language, weights and measures, and made conscription and ethnic suppression a cultural trademark. As much as he strove to differ from Mronghar's plans, however, the two Empires would shar their fate.

An empire the size of Mushpold's fell prey to its own harsh regimen. The reasons for his culture's downfall were many; in the end, it was his weakening of Mushrum nobility that infuriated the disgraced city-dwellers (their anger left him without his government's support); there wasn't and couldn't be a national pride (Mushpoldain had too many nationalities); and no peace (the kingdom was constantly at war with one wandering tribe or another, not to mention its inhabitants oft fought with themselves). In the year 322, a military coup ousted the self-crowned Emperor, and much to his horror all he had built was put to the uses he had sought to avoid. He was exiled, never to return to his native land-but his pregnant wife was not.

The Mushroom Kingdom
Soon, the Second Funghal Kingdom had all but disappeared. In the king's place was installed a dictator, a princess from the lower lands of the Empire known as Pe'ich the Pink. Her putsch was supported by none other than what remained of the Mushrum nobility, who agreed to support her exalted but precarious position if they were restored to wealth and glory-more of it than ever before. Pe'ich agreed, though she kept her maiden title and ruled as Princess over the realm that she renamed, to underline her uncontested power, the Mushroom Kingdom.

The Princess was nothing but charismatic, but she was no great general. Most of the great extents of land that had been acquired by Mushpold I were were immediately lost (good riddance, said the nobles, who had never been interested in expanding), and the Kingdom's territory was reduced to Mushtäria's modern extent. Military ambition was replaced by decadent grandeur during the Princess' reign. Lavish palaces were built without regard to cost or labor, the grandest of which, Pilzhof, is even now the home of new Mushrum monarchs. In addition, in exchange for by-then vanishing gold, Pe'ich was persuaded to abandon her claim to the four corners of her Empire, where new royal houses were establishd by the most powerful nobles and became the Kingdom of Pilzarre, the Duchy of Champignon and the Archduchy of Hongotolia. The exiled king's wife, once Queen Sporia, was forced to the latter of the three, though she could live in relative comfort in her own court. Her newborn son, however, would prove to be much more of a danger to the pink-robed dictator than she would ever believe.

In time, even this third approach to governing the peoples of the Shrumian Crescent crumbled-this time, meeting a very violent end.

Mushtäria
By the time the dethroned Sporia's son was a grown youth, Pe'ich's kingdom was already on the verge of collapse. She and her nobles lived in splendor, but the rest of the people-common Mushrums and every other race alike-were starving. The Princess' realm required a strong, centralised and efficient government, exactly the opposite of what it had. Not only was the Mushroom Kingdom back to innefficient feudalism, it now consisted of various parts that had nothing to do with each other, had different levels of development, and were inhabitted by completely separate races. Mronghar the First had been too lenient: his kingdom fell apart without his leadership unchallenged. Mushpold I had been too controlling: his constant warfare gave him a realm that was too different and far too large to govern, not to mention all too happy to part with his company. But at least during the first two cultures, the people of the Crescent had not been starved nor worked to death. Pe'ich, the illegitimate usurper who had let the nobility run with the kingdom's riches and spent her days drinking in her ivory castles, changed that. Whatever was needed to oust the incompetent Princess from rule was already piled, one unhappiness above the other. All the first Mushpold's son did, was light the first spark.

Within days, Mushpold II led his mother's forces out of Hongotolia and laid siege to the whole of southern Shrumia-the greatest of the now four Mushrum Kingdoms-at the age of 21. He was heir to the title of Archduke of Hongotolia by his mother's side, and, through his father, to all the rest of the Empire. He encountered no opposition, save for the nobility that soon fled for the heartland, and even gained the support of Pilzarre through an engaged marriage to the small kingdom's ruler's daughter, Mycelle-through their marriage, he would also be rightful heir to Pilzarre's throne. Mushpold the Second was no fool-he had no intention of reuniting Shrumia and its surrounding countries by force, for he would need the support of the newly powerful aristocrats to regain the whole of his lands. The young archduke's forces captured Aurora, Warnii, Sergieii and Chron without hard resistance, surrounding the heartland's Inner Wall. Within the fortified capital, the Princess had no option but staring as her kingdom revolted.

The siege of the Wall lasted 700 days. As the original king of the Mushrums had intended, it was nigh on impenetrable, and there was no way to oust Pe'ich without conquering the heartlands. Eventually, however, even these at last fell. The cities of the heartland surrendered without a single cannon shot, and within the great palace at the capital the Princess Pe'ich taken prisoner by her own forces.

In time, Mushpold II became the new king of the Mushrum Kingdoms, as his realm is now known. Though he checked the power of merchants and nobles alike, the Kingdoms today remain much more independently powerful than they once were. A great campaign of rebuilding took place after the dictator's fall, and once order was restored all swore fealty to the new king. Today the lands of Mushtäria are a confederate monarchy of sorts, quite different-and yet much greater-than they have ever been before.