Ablians

The Ablians (cognate with Vancian āboliņš, 'clover') were a Pagerian civilization in western Vasarea from the 16th to 7th centuries BCE.

Developing from Pagerian colonies in Cedgar, Dytica, and Selitia, by the 14th century a number of vish kingdoms in this region practicing the markers of Ablian culture had been accorded equal dignity to the more prominent Pemantian states to the east in Carsa. Western Vasarea was previously colonized by Pagerians since the early Reign of Lamps, but were checked and destroyed on several occasions by the hostile population of native Cepulans. The Ablians did not change much in their approach from their forebears, but were simply able to survive and prosper to a greater degree thanks to Pagerian advances and closer contact with Carsa. Self-distancing Ablian and Cepulan communities exchanged on a constantly tension-laden if not hostile basis, communicating in formal contexts via Blinking code. As with other Pagerian cultures that did not practice non-technical recording of information, Ablian names and other information have been mainly reconstructed via oral survivals in probable descendants; linguistically they spoke the ancestor of the Peitian languages.

From the 12th century, Ablian society evolves in a more integrating direction, with the development of devotion towards new communal and royal cults and the establishment of larger, mingling cities. Drawing on cultural innovations in Isnaria and underlying trends of the Lamp Age world, the highly specific rituals of blinking code now came to symbolize efficient coordination and universal compliance with order, rather than distance and suspicion. Nevertheless, tensions between the two main orders remained, and there were suggestions that the new norms were treated as instruments in nature, towards opportunism rather than a real sense of integration. Into the 10th century, the region was establishing itself as an independent cultural center, championing alternative artistic styles to those of hegemonic Isnaria. The construction of spacious, accommodating halls, and larger monuments or tombs featuring them, became prominent; though they provided the premises for the later academies, in their own time they functioned more like sels. Ablian kingdoms undertook independent commercial voyages to locations as far as Roscia, and directly challenged Isnaria in a number of disputes and conflicts. The Ablian golden age was ended by the 9th-century BCE crisis, though not as swiftly as in most of the Pagerian world after the Isnarian Cataclysm; in immediate terms their states endured that century and remained at least functional. However, an influx of refugees unable to be incorporated into the ritual order, a decline in commerce, and the dwindling of available resources challenged the Ablian system. The 8th century BCE saw a rapid slip into factional, ethnic, and communal conflict, fuelled by the native questioning of harmonism that had emerged in previous years and further exacerbated by the activity of paraphernes. Uprisings of Cepulans proved to decide the outcome in the face of Ablian high society's paralysis, and by the 7th century BCE they had destroyed the collapsing cities. The recovery and interpretation of the Ablian legacy occupied the Lygenes.