Veregend

Known traditionally by its Ascadian name, Vessana, Veregend was founded shortly after the Civil Collapse and the following corrosion of the capacity for the Branch Colonies to govern themselves without Imperial support. Without the troubles of Ascadian oversight, the local Post-Vagians, specifically Hergungan and Orthenian peoples, undertook a project of self-governance under two notable figures, the Bandit-Thane Svegeric and the so-called "Ruinous Bureaucrat" Alessio Coba.

Vessana

Under the leadership of a young Prince Alessandro VI came a colonial expedition numbering some 700 men, 200 of which were well trained and well-equipped imperial knights. What should've been a battle between a weak colonial force and a native uprising was more of a violent culling and consolidation. The old central settlement, named Veregget by the local Orthenians who occupied it, fell in the tail end of a pitched battle that devolved into a route behind the earth-backed wooden walls that protected it, a panicked route that was followed by storming cavalry cutting down any who came between them as the pushed past the gates unopposed. Prince Alessandro VI, feeling accomplished by his escapade had left one of his companions behind to manage the blood-soaked ruined without much for guidance. An act of political acceleration for prince Alessandro, who was anticipating a conflict with his sibling Umberto III on the eve of their fathers death, had turned into a bureaucratic nightmare. Vessana was notoriously unprofitable, founded solely due to a young imperialist firebands desire to prove himself. For the entire length of Vessana's long existence it has not once profited Ascadia itself, nor has it brought about any unique opportunities. The outskirts of the territory, in the hinterlands between the distant branch colony of Serrul and Vessana, was the scattered claims of Hergungan Bandit-Jarls. A people who often contested the powerful imperial patrols that secured Vessana in spite of its desire to fall off the map. It wasn't until the Civil Collapse that large numbers of Imperial forces and bureaucrats were withdrawn to support the Imperial Core during the climactic events unfolding.

Ruinous Bureaucrat

With the Civil Collapse came the withdrawal of the Knights and Bureaucrats, leaving a single man to manage the inevitable collapse of the feeble colony, Alessio Coba, a fraternal knight whose position, Grandmaster of the Knights Agricultural, left him the fourth most important person in Vessana, with the fifth most important holding no civil power. To ensure at least a fighting chance for Vessana's continued existence, he was left behind the govern. Despite being the fourth most important man, he always held disproportionate power. He was often the one to broker deals with the Bandit-Jarls to ensure the safety of locals, and he managed the only thing the colony exported, food. Within a day of his elevation to Imperial Governor, he brokered a deal with a powerful Bandit-Jarl, a Hergungan who led a large troupe of powerful clans, their collective size numbering in the thousands. Alessio promised this Bandit-Jarl, Svegeric all of Vessana and its peripherals in exchange for splitting the power. Alessio wanted to handle the money, and Svegeric wanted to handle the state.

Veregend

Upon claiming the title of "Jarl of Vessana", self-prescribed by himself and validated by Alessio, Svegeric went to renaming the land Veregend and welcoming all the displaced peoples to settle within. All the bounties were cleared, all the debts were forgiven, and all the land was distributed, as much as was needed for the people to tend the land and the beasts to tend the fields. Among the eastern powers, those who still hope to be known as Ascadia once the dust of the Civil Collapse settles and a new emperor is found, Veregend is referred to as a "Bandit State", though to call it such is an insult. Veregend, with the help of Alessio Coba, seamlessly implemented its own system of taxation and government structure divorced from the Ascadian one, though obviously based off it. Marauders often supported by Veregend itself pillage the frontiers of their land, targeting specifically the branch colonies who seceded from Ascadia but maintain an "Ascadian Identity" rather than a Post-Vagian identity. Veregend is the first of the Vagian States to arise in the peripheries of the collapsing empire. while smaller than most of the others that rose up and far less capable of expanding its borders it is still regarded as a state by its peers