Pytarus

Pytarus is a civilization centred in the subcontinent of Tuntal in northern Hypocos.

Antecedents
The founding stock of Pytarus was the Rurynotes, a branch of the Gesnotes that crossed into Hypocos during the Gesnote migration and conquered Matolli Omitipal in the 3rd century BCE. The Aranai period from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE saw the rise of the nakars and the ethirili aristocracy. The Voyage of Camathines brought Tuntal under Tarsian influence in the 1st century, initiating the Valanai period, and subsequently varshtanitan expeditions eventually established the Pharnadatean Legation in 218 to bring the Rurynotes under Tarsian suzerainty and White Order Pastism. During the Dagger Pilgrimages of the 4th century, the legates were overthrown by the native Rurynote Azalenids, who were then recognized as legates in 351. They in turn confronted the rise of Aravatta and localist interests which had to be balanced with vassalage to Tarsia, a troublesome period which ended in 459 with their defeat by the Vattic petty king Perullam.

Perullamian period
The kingdom of Perullamia or Imperial Pytarus lasted from 459 to 672. Besides the assertion of a link between Rurynotes and the legendary Pitars in symbolism, which gave Pytarus its name, the era after independence from the White Order did not immediately see cultural nativization. The Tower Throne held by the monarch wielded its power in a Tarsian fashion, acting chiefly as a patron and enforcer for the general idea of Arta in the land, and overseeing autonomous nakars. The southwards expansion of the Rurynotes into Kitatal to encompass all of Tuntal in this era displaced the last of Matolli culture that remained in the region. Following a period of internal conflict in the 7th century between opposing blocs of nakars, the empire broke up in the Uchimullay War of 660–72.

Interregnum
From 672 to 877 major nakars competed as city-states in the Pytarene Interregnum. Influenced by the example of the Kaskians, the revival of Gesnote themes to provide an authentic Rurynote culture was undertaken by the Pytarenes, including the reinvention of the concept of Pytarus itself to the ideal of perfection known as Peruru. This led to the 862–76 Thirupuyalian campaigns in which the philosopher-warlord Thirupuyal reunified Tuntal.

Thirupuyalian period
The era of Preceptoral Pytarus lasted from 877 to 1301. Until the 1000s, Pytarus functioned primarily as a confederacy of nakars, the most prominent of which were Yalipazhi, Kazhani, and Vatatudi. An adventurer-nobility, the erralar, expanded Pytarus through private ventures abroad without answering to the nakars much less the Tower Throne. The curators, idealistic gentry devoted to Peruru, first emerged and were recognized to official positions in order to reconcile the erralar and their home cities, ushering in a series of integrating if not exactly centralizing political reforms part of the wider Trust Revolution. Factional maneuvering combined with increasing challenges from Kaskian city-states and Cavapatid Tarsia to drive centralization, which further raised the stakes of power struggles. The War of Offices from the 1040s to the 1150s saw rotation of power between numerous positions and factions, most notably a Janitor, before the Appearance Proclamation of 1152 established the Preceptor on the Tower Throne as an absolute monarch. This bought only a few decades of stability before the 13th-century crisis saw taxing wars and rebellions strain the empire to a breaking point; in 1301 the Pytarene Rectification ended the Apparent system and established a new curatorial government led by the Lord Protector of Pytarus.

Protectorate period
In the first decades of its existence Protectorate Pytarus clawed its way through the controversial and radical reforms of the Neralan movement, the Kurinadu Wars against the royalist Vendirevu Court, and Vellikoppai's wars against Vasarean encroachments. But by 1350 its society had been successfully rebuilt along the lines of curacies centred primarily on curator genius, well-developed and useful colonies were established in Dacara, clients and vassals spanned almost all of Roscia and Hypocos, and the Ilangatir reforms allowed it to technologically hold its own against northern challengers in the Reign of Gears. Throughout the 15th century, Pytarus was a great power heading the Great Path against the Vasarean-led Celitine system in the War of Protraction. Despite controlling a larger proportion of the civilized world, it soon found itself challenged not just by a Vasarea united out of civilizational anxiety, but also powers like Pastic Cyriacia or Antarpass that denounced the Great Path as a system of domination and sought to strike it down. At the turn of the 16th century the Pytarene position drastically deterioriated following the bloody Purging War against Cyriacia (1494–1502), and it was dealt a defeat in the Hygienic War (1513–1520), in which it narrowly escaped destruction by the Celitines but lost its entire empire. In the 16th-century crisis which followed, though, it did not avoid political collapse amidst a general decline. The curators effectively became regional princes, concerned with maintaining their welfare of their own curacies.