The Chronicle of the Great Chubay: A History of Blood and Steel

Prologue: The Land and the Myth

The history of the Great Chubay is the history of a dual land. Viewed from above, the Whalehold region is a rocky finger of land stretching into the oceanic west, connected to a vast continent. Its land borders with its neighbors in Bucea and Circaclogne have been, over the centuries, lines of friction and trade, but the nation's true identity has always been carved by the sea.

To the north, the Iron Spine Mountains, a proud and cold range, raise their jagged peaks known to the locals as "the Knuckles." At their foothills lies a vast, deep green plain—"the Green Cradle"—the agricultural heart of the country, crossed by the Alwyn River, which gathers its mountain tributaries and flows slowly southward. Its journey ends in a sheltered bay, where the fresh waters merge with the salt of the ocean. In this place, where land and sea embrace, the destiny of the Great Chubay was born.

The founding myth, now forbidden and considered heresy, speaks of a blood pact. It is said that the first settlers, lost on an endless ocean, were saved by Grand Cetus, a leviathan of divine proportions. The first monarch, Elara of Bellen, was not a warrior but a priestess who "spoke" with the beast. The pact was simple: Grand Cetus offered its "lesser children" (the whales) as a source of food and wealth, and in return, the Royal House of Bellen swore to be the guardian of the ocean, to venerate it, and to never take more than it needed.

The Age of the Leviathan: The Rise and Fall of the House of Bellen

For centuries, the House of Bellen reigned as a dynasty of priest-kings. Their capital, Whalevale, was a vibrant and chaotic metropolis. Its buildings were constructed from the wood of shipwrecked vessels and river stone, and the roofs were often made from the gigantic bones of whales. The supreme art was not painting or stone sculpture, but scrimshaw—the engraving on whale teeth and bone, through which the entire history of the nation was told.

Religion and Rituals: The Old Faith was centered on the veneration of the ocean and the pact with Grand Cetus. The priests, called "Seers of the Deep," interpreted the movement of the tides and the behavior of marine life. The most important ritual was the "Crown of Salt," the coronation ceremony of a new monarch. The king or queen was not crowned in a palace, but on the deck of the flagship, the Voice of Cetus, where they had to drink from a bone cup a mixture of seawater and a drop of whale's blood, uttering the oath: "My blood is of the sea, the sea is my blood."

Festivals and Culture: The greatest event was the "Feast of the Great Ebb," a week-long festival marking the end of the hunting season. It began with the blessing of the harpoons and concluded with a colossal feast, where whale meat was shared with the entire populace. It was a time of freedom, of songs, of stories told around fires lit on the beach.

Language and Society: Society was hierarchized according to the sea. Whaling captains and elite harpooners formed an unofficial aristocracy, often more respected than the nobles at court. The spoken dialect, Old Chubayan, was filled with maritime metaphors. Success was "to have a favorable wind," failure was "to run aground," and a trustworthy person was "an anchor in the storm." The coastal accent was melodious and lilting, in contrast to the harsh and guttural accent of those from the mountains.

The Decline: The glory of the House of Bellen was also its curse. As the outside world evolved, whaling became an act of barbarism. Geopolitical pressures, especially from the more refined nations to the east, led to sanctions and isolation. King Aethelred III, the last of the House of Bellen, was a tragic figure, unable to renounce the tradition that defined his divine right, even as it was sinking his nation. The economy, dependent on a single resource, collapsed. The people, once proud, began to suffer from hunger.

The Pragmatic Revolution: The Rise of Catachu

The change came not from the sea, but from the land. Catachu was a product of the "Green Cradle," an intellectual educated in foreign universities, who viewed the monarchy's maritime superstitions with contempt. He gathered around him a faction of engineers, economists, and young military officers who saw tradition as a disease. To them, the sea was not a god, but a resource; a whale was not a divine sacrifice, but a mass of protein and oil.

The coup was a masterpiece of efficiency. While the royal court was occupied with empty rituals, Catachu's troops seized control of the infrastructure: the port, the bridges over the Alwyn, the arsenals. The change was sealed by two decrees: the banning of the Old Faith and the relocation of the capital to Woodbridge. A "Cultural Purge" followed: temples were demolished, scrimshaw artworks were burned as "decadent idolatry," and history was rewritten.

The Age of the Machine: The Great Chubay under the Council

Today, the Great Chubay is a different country, led by the cold motto: Finis Coronat Opus.

Sociological State: Society has been inverted. The new elite consists of bureaucrats, engineers, and industrial magnates, most of whom originate from the continental areas. Having a coastal accent is a social stigma, a sign of "backward" thinking. The population in Woodbridge and the new industrial centers is encouraged to be stoic, efficient, and to avoid public displays of emotion, considered "a waste of energy." In contrast, in the Free Port of Unity (formerly Whalevale), the people are quiet and suspicious. They speak in whispers, using the old maritime dialect as a code of passive resistance, under the watchful eye of Zoe Clăbucescu's Department of Security.

Religion and Symbols: The Cult of Divine Reason is the state religion. It has no gods, but principles: Order, Progress, Efficiency. The temples are now "Workshops of Progress," sober spaces where lectures on engineering, economics, and duty to the state are held. The symbol of the Trident and the Cogwheel is ubiquitous, from uniforms to public buildings. The national holiday, Progress Day, is a sterile event, marked by military parades and sober speeches about production figures.

Economic State: The economy is robust but brutal. The Autocracy's power rests on three pillars:

Logistics: The Free Port of Unity is a global hub, but the locals only see wealth passing them by.

Heavy Industry: The Knuckles Mines in the north are an open wound in the mountains, where workers labor in harsh conditions to extract the coal and iron that fuel the war machine.

Oil: The "Iron Cuttlefish" complex in Hollowwallow pumps "black gold," ensuring energy independence but polluting the groundwater of the "Green Cradle." Its nickname, "The Sucker," reflects the popular sentiment that the regime is squeezing the very life from the land itself.

Language: Catachu imposed a Standard Chubayan language, a "purified" version, technical and devoid of "irrational" metaphors. To speak the old dialect is a subversive act. Official documents are written in a precise, cold, and impersonal language.

Epilogue: The Dual Soul of the Nation

The Great Chubay lives in a permanent schizophrenia. Officially, it is a success story, a nation saved from collapse and transformed into an industrial power. But beneath the facade of concrete and steel, under the constant noise of machinery, the ghost of Grand Cetus still haunts. It is no longer a venerated god, but a specter of guilt, a reminder of the broken pact.

Every oil spill from "The Sucker" is a new blasphemy against the oath to protect the ocean. Every ore barge that descends the Alwyn carries with it the echoes of a past the regime strives to bury. The nation is strong, but its soul is a battlefield between the memory of a leviathan and the implacable logic of a machine. And the motto Finis Coronat Opus no longer sounds like a declaration of victory, but like a desperate justification, whispered before a silent ocean, which judges and does not forget.