[Parsulan] The Lightbearer Republic

The youngest state of Southeastern Parsulan is at once ill-omened and favored with great promise. Morrgna, capital of the Republic, is famed for the strange lights that can frequently be seen in its night skies: the aurora-like ribbons and curtains of pale color, sometimes with faces or forms moving through them and the flickering will-o'wisps that pass through the streets or hang in place for a time before fading. Such lights are often seen in association with the irruption of shadow cysts and they do seem to foreshadow the difficulties the area has with demonic forces.

At the same time, the Republic seems to be on the rise. Less than two decades ago, it was a sparsely populated backwater, ravaged by the demonic Wild Hunt. The tide turned with the so-called Miracle of the Church of Saint Lampada, wherein Leonhart Urzen, now First Citizen of the Republic, led a band of refugees in repulsing an assault by a demonic host. The cost of victory was the death of Leonhart's adventuring companions and their retainers, a group now celebrated as the Fallen Heroes. Those Heroes are entombed with honor in a crypt beneath the great church, guarded by special Keeper-Priests, for reasons that are doctrinally obscure. They are venerated on All Heroes Day, and the night before their spirits and those of the city's other dead are propitiated with offerings and their forgiveness is sought through rituals led by the priests.

Leonhart guided the formation of the Republic by inviting in neighboring cities and towns, and organized a militia, both protect the land against demonic incursion and to collect magical artifacts that emerge from the shadow cysts and bring them to Morrgna's dungeon vaults for safe keeping. While citizens guard the cities and serve in officer roles, Mercenaries and adventurers compromise most of the forces sent into emergent shadow cysts and patrolling beyond the walls of the cities and towns. Those who die in service are considered to be added to the ranks of the Fallen Heroes laid to rest with the original group beneath the church. Though few would refuse such as an honor, agreement to this burial honor is said to be a stipulation of admittance into the militia's ranks.