Republic of Aquitania

While at first the Republic's goals were to provide freedom of thought to all its citizens, its goals have since shifted to the vague, esoteric and rather impractical idea of "Pursuing the Ultimate Truth", even to the point of ignoring the necessities of running a state.

First founded after a revolution against the Astarask Orthodoxy over a doctinal dispute over Zenithism, rebels from the Alba, Vollubilis, Coria & Cyrene regions inspired by the political and philosophical writings of various scientists, mages and artists managed to push the Orthodoxy back to their easternmost territory before signing an armistice with the theocracy. Almost immediately after the secularisation of the country, the rebels pushed as hard as possible to turn their dreams of an enlightened republic built on the virtue of intellectualism and freedom of thought.   What they quickly found out however, is that the new republic was overtaken by rich artists, technocrats, philosophers and other intellectuals all unconcerned for running a country and the people that had placed their faith in them, and were instead more interested in turning the Senate into a glorified salon for them to peddle their half-baked manifestos and writings on philosophy and science for their own entertainment. Eventually, it got to the point that it became an ironic & self-fulfilling prophecy that the Senate was housed in a pair of literal Ivory Towers, eventually reaching the point where overseas, to refer to something as "Aquitanian" is to say that progress on something is slow or outright non-existent.   The three largest factions within the Senate are the Rationalists: who adhere to a logical framework, as well as patronage of the magics and sciences to understand the world from an almost clinical perspective, the Moralists: who attempt to appeal to the emotion, instinct and love of beauty and the arts of the Aquitanian people, and the Reformists: who seek to end the senate's political deadlock by whatever means possible, to little success. Despite their posturing however, no faction has passed many significant pieces of legislation and often descend into petty squabbles. Regardless, the Rationalists, Moralists & Reformists hold the balance of power from the rest of the decidedly more radical factions.   Since then, the largely-ineffectual senate has done close to nothing to improve the standards of the people, to the point where some still live in the same conditions from the post-revolution period. Despite this neglectful management however, the degree of the free exchange of ideas has allowed Aquitania's culture, arts, magics and sciences to thrive to levels unseen anywhere else in the world, even to the point that Adventists can openly associate and live without fear of persecution.

Aquitania barely has a traditional military anymore, relying mostly on unreliable mercenary groups, foreign legions and the occasional local militia to guard their territory from bandits and border-incursions.

Aquitania is a nominally-secular state, especially after the revolution against the Orthodoxy. One of the few actions actually taken by the Senate has been a complete separation of Church & State. Despite this however, Zenithism (particularly Astaraski Zenithism) remains the dominant religion of the nation.

On account of their status as a breakaway state from their territory, the relationship between Republic of Aquitania and the Astarask Orthodoxy is nothing short of hostile. The Orthodoxy has nothing but disdain for the Republic, viewing it as an illegitimate state of immoral heretics. Similarly, other successor states of the Orthodoxy: the Dwarven Alliance of Nagfaldur and the Principality of Alumach rarely take them seriously and tend to avoid dialogue with the Republic due to seeing it as a waste of time.