Atlase Elyden # 27 - Narthel

As always, if you're interested in the world and my worldbuilding, you can get me a virtual coffee here, or support me on Patreon or my FB page. Even $1 a month makes a huge difference!
A key/legend to the map can be found here.

The latest map in the Atlas Elyden is Nárthel. I added a little inset map detailing a very large cave-system that dominates the south-west of the state, though I'm still not 100% sold on the style - it seems a bit jarring next to the rest of the map. I'm open to any suggestions as to how this can be improved!
A key/legend to the map can be found here

Atlas Elyden #27 - Narthel

Much like Vârr, Nárthel is a land reduced to a wasteland by the industry of the Korachani empire. Across more than 3,000 years it has given up its forests, mineral wealth, and the bounty of its seas to the hunger of the waning empire. Today it remains only because of its vast poppy fields and the wealth its opium industry brings to an ailing Korachan.
      Conquered in 84 RM following years of blockades and sieges, Nárthel became the 6th nation taken by the Archpotentate Malichar in the name of Korachan. Its major cities were soon flooded by patricians who would eventually gain control of its major institutions and industries, bringing with them wealth and trade. A new capital would follow this new wealth, becoming known as Mulciber.
Korachan lost Nárthel to the Venathi empire in 132 RM, but the conquering empire was weak, surviving through propaganda and the false opulence of its diplomats. Its forces were stretched thin and its hold over Nárthel was tenuous at best. The death of Emperor Labaisingh in 151 RM left Venath in chaos, allowing Korachan to reclaim its lost lands, moving as far east as Halolan, fortifying it against an expected retaliation which never came. Venath crumbled, with the enigmatic sphinx Hetepheres taking control under the mantle of Queen – the region would become known as Venthir.
      Next-door, Nárthel prospered under Korachani rule – its resources were exploited and foreign threats - such as the chorsairs of Scythea – were defeated, strengthening its borders. But by around 1000 RM the central plains of Nárthel had become overworked, any nutrients in their soil long-since taken, and the region had become known as the Lybic Sands.
      Over the years other regions were also pillaged of their natural resources in the east the forest of Illia had been reduced to scattered stunted woodlands between the mountains of Uefir and Quttakal. The mines of Luqarah were likewise abandoned, leaving the surface to the north west of the Uefir Highlands covered in the scars of abandoned open-cast mines.
      In 2950 RM the land was left to the caretaking stewards known as the Domnitors, who maintained the land on behalf of the empire. All lands but the lucrative poppy fields in the north-west were allowed to wither, and there was a massed exodus from the east and south to the cities of Nekir, Nekor and Dacia. Many people fled into Venthir during this time.
      In 3061 the entire east of Nárthel, including the waning capital of Mulciber, were gifted to Queen Hetepheres as part of a political alliance (in truth it was to appease her growing ego). The capital was moved to Dacia as the hinterlands of Nárthel were left to the Interregnum to govern and patrol.
The land, for what it was worth, stabilised after this time, though there remained a minority who were vocal in their opposition of the way Malichar and Hetepheres had treated their land. Amid growing dissent a large part of the populace was exiled between 3452 and 3463 RM, eventually settling the island of Lathlos Cha, off the coast of northern Venthir.
      Dacia, alongside much of the north of Nárthel, were taken by Lyridia in the chaos that followed in the wake of the Sundering of Korachan in 3705 RM. In the south Sarastro seized the moment and pushed north against the Nártheli border. The dust settled by 3862 RM, with the southern border little different and Dacia splintered from its Lyridian conquerors and reborn as an independent nation, as Nárthel consolidated its position from the new capital in Nekir.
       Nárthel survives now as a faded nation, cared for by the Interregnum and Domnitors only due to its highly profitable poppy and opiate industries. The farther south and east one goes the more wasted the land becomes, with few villages and towns dotting the countryside and most people living in the remnants of hollow cities destroyed by war and negligence.