Octarchy

The Octarchy was a vast political formation in Ausarea centred in its east that existed from 752 to 1272 for over five centuries. It was probably the most expansive polity in Ausarean history ever, as from the 10th to 13th centuries it represented a hegemony and then multi-governmental system observed by much of the Ausarean continent north of the Arsadise.

Dbal period
The Octarchy was established by the conquests of Omzon of Dbal, a Sarapean darsku confederacy in northern Rawpang established during the 5–6th centuries' Cremation Wars. After sweeping through the other three darskus in Rawpang in the 730s–40s with assistance from the Neo-Dayteng Empire, to whom he was temporarily a vassal, Omzon established the Octarchy in 752 by claiming to restore the unity of Arpalism. He appointed from both vassals and allies the eponymous eight hierarchs for each corner of the world in Ausarean cosmology, although at this point declaring characters such as his Neo-Dayteng overlords or more distant confederacies Octarchs was a diplomatic formality. Omzon's dynasty had conquered Gwenpang by 773, and in 775 they renounced fealty to the neo-Dayteng. Up to the 830s the empire settled into an equilibrium.

In 838 Dbal destroyed the neo-Dayteng and subsequently overran the eastern Kataran, although shortly in 851 the Bseshud tab usurped the darsku's leadership and was rapidly confronted with unrest and rebellion in the Pillar Wars. Heunno, an Omzonid prince, fled west with followers who conquered the darskus of Mchogsgo and Dgesgo in Stagthang by 865. He negotiated his loyalty with various forces that rapidly gained and lost power in the Kwangkrong plain while consolidating Stagthang as a new conquest, and indeed as the most dependable part of the empire. By 885 Stagthang marched on the Kwangkrong plain, and by 901 the Pillar Wars had ended. The imperial center moved south to the Sgo lands from which the Omzonids had made their comeback, inaugurating a new era.

Sgo period
In the name of exercising its Arpalic authority, the Sgo Octarchy campaigned in the Kataran to subjugate darskus such as the Khugwa and the Dgegzigs, but what was more significant in this period was the attainment of prestige by cultural accomplishments in the Octarchy's east, which really merited to other parts of Ausarea its arrogations to universality. The empire's expansion was being accomplished through an assemblage of common rituals, fashions, laws, and a Neo-Sernic literary culture; precisely the way by which the great cities of old Serony also extended themselves. Kaskian and Pytarene traders were now a fixture of local dealings, and there was a boom in commerce and crafts. The Octarchy's voluntarily adopted customs and institutions, elaborately designed by a common scholarly milieu into a system known as kengli, allowed the integration of trade and law across Ausarea.

The rise of devotion to the Octarchy itself, tsunking, as well as the sernicization of the empire, came as a dismay to the Sarapean tab nobility, who regarded the practice of Arpalism as coming under threat; it did not help that ascendant merchants and fashionable sadan societies were threatening the taimi's leading role in eastern Ausarean societies. From the late 10th century, taimi rebellions in the name of restoring the darskus, Arpalism, or just asserting their authority against local competing forces became a regular occurrence. Sadans took over local government in the process of assisting suppressions, while moving the nature of the Octarchical structure itself towards an ever-more decentralized direction.

Taihiok period
With a major reform by Taihiok in 1057 imperial centralization was attempted as a response to Hypocene incursions, though this would be hamstrung by political realities on the ground, and only be supported insofar as it served sadan interests. By the late 11th century, the political struggle had shifted to one against imposed bureaucrats known as Plenipotentiaries. Immigration and colonization by Kaskians, the resurgence of Pastism, and Arpalic fundamentalism all added to the social tensions of the period. Although violent civil wars were frequent, they did not prevent the consolidation of local states under either Plenipotentiaries or compacts, and the damage was greater to the culture of tsunking, as the establishment of order now used the language of foreign thought such as Pastic or Vattic Arta, themselves difficult to reconcile with kengli customs. A proxy war for Pytarene, Kaskian, Tarsian, and even Vasarean interests played out in the Octarchy.

Headless period
The Nine Armies' War of 1159–80 ended with the permanent vacation of the imperial throne and its replacement by a council of Octarchs, with a collection of Plenipotentiaries (many of whom had come to terms with sadans in a Sernic diarchy) split between three of the Octarchs governing proto-states in the eastern domains. The Octarchy was by this point a confederacy of states for whom kengli was only one of the many cultures and state systems they enrolled in, a testament to the thorough shift in character undergone by the empire. Kengli itself was now mainly practiced through regular councils for the purpose of regional diplomacy, with the terms that tied the Octarchs together being regularly re-negotiated, and as a coordinating cause for military interventions.

Over the course of the 13th century, cities on the eastern plains and southern coast were increasingly Kaskianized, Arpalism reasserted itself in Sarapea, and neo-Sernic culture had taken firm root in Tasgol and the wider north. Ports and trade routes were being fought over by Pytarenes, Kaskians, and Vasareans, though towards the end of the century local powers such as Tasgol, Keng, and Lak became more capable of resisting them. It was also this development that sealed the fate of the Octarchy even as a ceremonial construct: after years of its provisions and decisions being ignored by rising powers, in 1272 the Octarchic council simply failed to convene and was never meaningfully resurrected.