History of the Vulpine Imperium
Official Flag of the Vulpine ImperiumPre-1720
The establishment of the seafaring empire today known as the Vulpine Imperium is one shrouded in mystery, with little known about its establishment except for the name of its first Emperor, Milarkus the Malcontent, coronated by best historical estimates in 1414, who found himself removed in a technically bloodless coup by the second Emperor Tarquin Superbus, since garroting when performed by a proper assassin does not create open wounds. Prior to the ascension of Markan II sometime in the early 1700s there were sixteen previous Emperors with him being the seventeenth, all "vermin" as some on the Mysterious Sathern Continent put it and all doing their duty to expand the Imperium through a variety of means, and only two transferring power peacefully.
1720s-1742
The story of the modern Imperium begins during the reign of Emperor Markan II beginning in the 1720s when the Imperium reached the height of its power, having dominion over a wide swathe of territory, a large navy with four particularly prized ships named the Golden Hide, Blackship, Skeered of Nothing, and Markan’s Glory, powerful ministries, and a proud exclusively vermin population. During these times many beasts both native and immigrant made their mark on the Imperium, rising to positions of power and exploring much of the known world, and for a time, it was good.
Unfortunately the very nature of the beasts of the world eventually means all good things come to end. The latter end of the 1720s into the 1730s saw several internal battles fought within the Imperium between divided ministries, rising criminal groups, war with the surrounding powers, revolutions, invasions by hostile powers, and even a coup against the Emperor who was deposed and replaced by the former Minister of Misanthropy Vladimir L. Ullyanov, who reigned for a time before disappearing with his wife Vertherian, although this was concealed by the Ministers out of fear of the public’s reaction. Soon afterward the situation in the Imperium became even more chaotic as mounting debt, revolutionaries, and the sinking of much of the Imperial fleet. With Ullyanov covertly gone and with no one willing to step up to the plate the Ministers effectively took control of the government in conjunction in his name while pretending he still resided in Amarone along with a menagerie of powerful corporations.
The situation was still, however, looking dire for the Imperium until Willard Brudenell, a respected stoat and Minister of War, stabilized the situation for the Ministers, unofficially known as the “Lord-Protector” and for a time, things were good.
1742-1753
Despite his best efforts, however, the Lord-Protector could only do so much to deal with the internal problems of mounting debt and increasing domestic resentment and turmoil both within the civilian population and the military as taxes were raised and the military was downsized in attempt to shore up the Imperium’s finances, and, some claimed, to enrich Brudenell himself. Although the Imperium avoided any major disasters during this time, it was building up into a powder keg which only required a suitable spark to ignite. That came with what is now known as the infamous Revolutions of 1748 which spread across the known world like wildfire.
The primary cause was simple enough, though not widely known to most of the Imperium or indeed most of the world except for those scholars with an interest in astronomy, with solar activity suddenly and inexplicably reaching a minimum it had not seen since the founding of the Imperium. This caused widespread weather disturbances that reduced or ruined crop harvests across the entire globe, putting strain on even the most well-governed polities. The Imperium in particular was wracked with the additional problem of new diseases from the Mysterious Sathern Continent making their way to the empire proper and wreaking havoc on the malnourished population, causing widespread death and suffering across the Imperium.
It was not long before public and military order soon collapsed under these pressures, the tinder starting the fire of civil war being the revelation, long rumored but confirmed by a team of journalists sneaking into Amarone, that in fact there was no Emperor and had not been for quite some time. The brutal five year long Imperial Civil War which crippled the the Imperium more than any other conflict in recent history. Although there were many combatants, the two sides essentially boiled down to those who supported the Ministers, and those who opposed them, an unholy alliance of republicans who wished for a more democratic system of government and monarchists who believed that the Imperium needed an emperor to return to its former glory.
The fighting was vicious, bloody, and unpredictable, with each side coming close to victory multiple times only to be beaten back at the very last moment. The breakthrough came with the development of gunpowder by Ministerial alchemists in a freak accident and its potential quickly realized by the military forces loyal to the Ministers with the first cannons being developed by a particularly bright young vixen artillery officer named Captain Amélie Cadieux. This enabled Ministerial forces to launch far more effective sieges than their opponents, and for Amélie to gain a series of rapid promotions and the loyalty of a not insignificant amount of the military.
By the close of 1753 and the beginning of 1754, the war had effectively been won for the Ministerial forces, but left the Imperium in a critically weak state with most of its military exhausted, Vulpinsula depopulated, and little enthusiasm for the victors of the war. Realizing the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the now General Cadieux marched her way to Amarone effectively unopposed while her loyal battalions and ships laid siege to Bully Harbor and the remnants of those still loyal to the Ministers. There she crowned herself Empress Amélie I Cadieux to the cheers of her ragged soldiers, occupying a throne that had been dormant for over a decade and a half.
At this point a curious event known as the Frimary 26th Incident occurred. Hearing of the situation in the Imperium, former Minister of Misanthropy and head of House Ryalor Talinn Ryalor, who had left with his grandfather Alexei to their ancestral home of Eastisle to deal with their own civil war and who had emerged battered but victorious, returned to the Imperium with several battalions of House Ryalor troops. He claimed that he was there to honor the longstanding treaty between Eastisle and the Imperium as allies and put down the rebellion of the new “Empress”.
Suspicious of his intentions, but amenable to the help offered given the current situation they found themselves in, they agreed to work with him and formed a two-pronged plan to depose the upstart Empress Amélie and restore order to the Imperium once and for all. The Ministers would lead an assault against her forces maintaining the siege to tie them up while Talinn and his battalions landed to the north of the city and marched to Amarone, where the new Empress only had one battalion and a few cannons, ostensibly to remove her and bring her to justice, but many suspected Talinn was planning to play both sides against each other and then seize the throne when they were both exhausted and unable to oppose him.
The plan seemed to work flawlessly, with Amélie’s forces being tied up beating back those of the Ministers while Talinn’s advanced to the outskirts of Amarone unopposed. Arriving at and surrounding the capital on the freezing day of Frimary 26th, he requested a meeting with the Empress, which was granted at the city limits, where a tent was set up for the two to negotiate and for him to demand her surrender. And then something curious and entirely unexpected occurred.
The former Minister of Misanthropy, Prince Talinn Ryalor, now Duke Talinn "The Traitor" Ryalor.
Talinn, who had walked confidently into the tent, looking victorious, confident, and as if he himself was going to claim the crown that many in the Imperium had suspected he wanted since the 1730s, instead exited the tent after approximately one hour looking muted, submissive, and some even whispered fearful. To the shock of his beasts the former Minister and head of the House announced that he had instead sworn an oath of fealty to the new Empress instead while also agreeing to numerous terms that seemed suspiciously close to those of capitulation with Eastisle agreeing to be reduced to being a duchy of the Imperium instead of an independent kingdom, and that they would be returning to Bully Harbor to assist her forces instead. Unhappy, but willing to trust in the fox who had lead them wisely so far for decades, his troops listened. Many, even to this day, wonder what it was the Empress said to shake him to his core and convince him to swear loyalty to her, and for all intents and purposes it seems like it will remain a mystery for quite some time.
With the addition of the Ryalorian forces added to Amélie’s battalions and cannons, the Ministerial forces were crushed and they were forced to surrender and accept the new Empress as the rightful ruler, restoring the “vulpine” to the Vulpine Imperium. Amélie, likely wary of fighting a potential guerilla war and further rebellions if she cracked down too heavily on her defeated opponents, granted clemency to Brudenell and his backers, allowing them to live in exile in exchange for giving up all future hostilities.
Talinn, for his part, returned to the Ryalorian Castle in Bully Harbor, where he was furiously publicly accused of being a traitor by his grandfather Alexei and challenged to a vicious duel in which he struck down the venerable former head of the House and Fogey Police Chief. Now known by both many of his own people and the Imperium at large as “Talinn the Traitor”, he was granted the title of Imperial Duke and given the relatively harmless position of Minister of Innovation.
1753-Present
Her Majesty Empress Amélie I posing on a cannon.
With that the Imperial Civil War ended in Smarch 1754 and a ten year period of relative peace, rebuilding, and prosperity would begin as solar activity normalized. The vast depopulation of the Imperium and practical attitude of the new Empress saw the relaxation of centuries old immigration restrictions with woodlanders and other new, exotic species being allowed to arrive and even eventually gain Imperial citizenship in order to rebuild the devastated empire. This has not, however, been without friction and to this day there remains speciest tension between the disparate beasts now making up the Imperium.
Other technology was developed during the war, including the design of basic steam pumps for Vulpinsula’s mines to more efficiently draw out the necessary metal and coal for forging weapons from previously inaccessible deposits. Talinn, seeming quietly desperate to prove his worth to the new Empress considering the only reason he was not strung up on a lamppost either by those who still held grudges against him in the Imperium or by his own family and the populace of Eastisle was her influence, worked tirelessly to investigate and fund various projects regarding this new steam power.
By 1760 these efforts had borne fruit with the development of the first prototype steam engines, which were slowly refined over the next four years until by 1764 they were ready to be deployed in a limited capacity in the Imperial Navy, with Talinn overseeing the retrofitting of the venerable Golden Hide with both cannon and two of these new engines as part of a collaboration between him and the new Minister of War to modernize the fleet to a smaller and more affordable, but much more powerful, force.
As the Imperium gets into the latter half of 1764 and regains a measure of its former strength and glory under its new Empress, it remains to be seen whether or not the beasts of the Imperium can lead it into a new golden age…or back into the chaos and destruction of the previous decades.
