In 788 BU, Tal’dor became a nation state, and remained independent until the signing of the Blood Unity. In 1619, it ceded from the empire, just as the Nur Dal had done one hundred years before, and returned to its earlier condition as a theocratic state. Religious violence has always marked Tal’dori history, no matter in its capacity as a sovereign nation or a province within the empire. Within Nerunism itself, various branches have developed and fought with each other, crushing those organisations that proposed alternative religions, beliefs and values. It seems so at odd with the polytheist nature of Nerunism, with its multiple gods and demi-gods, that such uniformity of worship should emerge from a belief in a religion, but the Priesthood is to blame for much of it. They have always tried to impose order on a very disordered religion, always tried to concentrate power within a religious system that seems desirous to share it. In this sense, it is fairer to blame the Priesthood and not Nerunism itself for the centralisation, dictatorship, and punitive unilateralism of the religion.
During the times of empire, between 0 AU and 1619 AU, Tal’dor was a major contributor to the political vision. Yes, like the Nur Dal it had natural resources to offer, but more importantly, it had the scientific knowledge to develop each of the provinces, modernise them, and revolutionise the infrastructure that supported them. To this end, it helped Blood Rurik build his fantasy city palace in the Shivsei, and was the primary brains behind digging through millions of cubed meters of rock to open up the Wolf’s Pass into Volchok. Its own capital, Kvev, is even more unimaginably impressive, a city within a city of a city, at the top of which sits the Cathedral of Neruna and the Priesthood, as though it was religion, not science and sweat, that brought it to reality.
In 1619, the project of the empire collapsed when Tal’dor ceded from it. Again, the reasons were political and religious, as they always are. Blood Voron, supported and encouraged by his Priesthood, believed Volchok was not responding with proper rigour to the Nur Dal’s openly provocative sheltering of necromancers, but there were other reasons too. As time went by, Volchok simply became less enamoured with Nerunism, and allowed other beliefs to take root. Volchok had also cost Tal’dor considerable sums of money with its reckless assault on the Sakr, a country it didn’t share a border with but Tal’dor did. In the end, the empire was too big, with too many cooks in the kitchen. It was a miracle that it ended as it did, with the signing of an accord and not with the fire and flames of war.
Since that time, Tal’dor has grown inward, increasingly suspicious of outsiders, increasingly belligerent in its religious dogma. It refused to answer Blood Neprev’s call for assistance when the Obshina became a force with which it could not compete, and now, with the fall of the Blood, Tal’dor has set its eyes on the prize. The first thing that must happen is the liquidation of the necromancers, whose black arts guaranteed the failure of Blood Neprev two times before already – against the Sakr, and against the Obshina. And so now, with the full support of the current Blood Voron, units of militia stalk Tal’dor and its borders with both the Nur Dal, the Sakr, and Volchok, looking for necromancers to destroy.
