Lucia the Liberator
"There never was a woman like Lucia before or since. The tide of history, that of kings and successions was overturned by her will. She refused the crown and was praised as a hero until society rejected her. She also started a disturbing trend of future people." – Teranus, Laurentian historian
Lucia was born the daughter of Marius and Aurelia. As a young girl, Lucia was known for playing around with other children and practicing against her brother in swordsmanship. When she was nine, her mother escorted her to the Temple of Decenius, founded by Ys after the death of her son of that name. Aurelia ditched Lucia in the care of the temple before running off, with neither her nor her husband ever seen again. At just nine years old, Lucia was left to be raised by priests and priestesses.
Ys, now at four hundred and fifty years of age, worked in the temple as High Priestess, making sure that the temple dedicated to both her husband and her son was properly maintained. Ys saw Lucia cluelessly wandering about, taking pity on the young girl. "Hello girl, what's your name?" Ys asked.
"Lucia," Lucia replied. She looked at Ys scared and worried about something happening. That's when Ys hugged her.
"Don't worry, Lucia. We'll make sure you're taken care of," Ys said as she broke off the hug and led the girl through the hall, seeing all the statues dedicated to different family members of the House of Valorheart. She stopped at the giant statue of Decenius the Conqueror, showing him sitting down on his throne with carved messages in Daralundi. "This is King Decenius the Conqueror of Valoria. He is also known as the First Human King, the Avenger, and the Great. However, I'll always remember him as my husband," Ys said, wiping the tears that came to her eyes.
"You're old," Lucia replied with innocence.
"You're right about that," Ys replied, laughing loudly for a bit. "Remember, I was born before your grandmother's grandmother. Us elves typically live to be five hundred years old, but I intend to live to seven hundred. It is my duty to keep the memory of Decenius alive and well. While my fellow elves believe I ditched their ways, I'm still an elf even if I believe in the Valorian gods. I was the one to receive the revelation that Decenius the Great became a god."
"What is he the god of?" Lucia asked as she looked at the powerful statue of the ancient king.
"Decenius is the God of Humanity, with domain over half breeds of humans and me. When he was alive, I knew him as a good man who sought to bring peace and prosperity back to this land. Though perhaps born of a desire for glory, he came to love the people he ruled over and he loved me the most. You could probably guess that from the eleven children we had," Ys said with a slight blush coming to her cheeks. "He is the patron god of Valoria and Laudrien. Some say that he inherited some power after the death of Decenius the Younger, but I believe the younger one is in paradise and not a god. Aildarian and Lyssi left the continent forever and found immortality. I still receive messages from them, but after I die their connection to us will be severed. There is some suggestion that the two of them will ascend to godhood after death, but who knows."
"If he watches over Laudrien, then why didn't he keep my parents from abandoning me?" Lucia asked with tears in her eyes.
"I don't know. Perhaps he has his hands tied. Perhaps there is some purpose in the grand plan of the gods for it, but I do not know," Ys replied as she hugged the girl. "You are fated for a great purpose, I know it. Perhaps you will be a great priestess someday. We'll train you in the ways, so you'll be ready when the time comes."
Lucia was raised as a priestess of Decenius, but she was an unconventional priestess. Instead of being primarily focused on maintaining the proper worship of Decenius, she was focused on the poor masses of Laudrien. When she was sixteen, she broke ranks with the Temple of Decenius and created the Plebian's Temple of Decenius, focusing on the poor of Laudrien, called plebians in the Laudrien language. She preached that Decenius the Conqueror was actually fighting for the common man against the noble elites, dragging them out of Daralund to take them to foreign land to start anew. She even claimed that Decenius fought against the gods, claiming that no one should rule over anyone. The last point got her in trouble since Valorian mythological canon believed that the gods, though having their moments of selfishness, were ultimately the rulers of the world and were just. Lucia countered that in a just world, there would be no gods controlling mortals. When King Calon the Terrible heard about Lucia's preaching, he expelled her from the country, where she led her followers on the Arduous March.
When Lucia and her followers were exiled to the wilderness, she was twenty-two. She called for assembly one of the days and stood atop a rock, announcing the Freemen's Proclamation. "When our ancestors arrived with Decenius the Conqueror, we believed that we were finally going to be free from slavery! We believed that he was trying to start a society anew on this unnamed continent! We were deceived! Decenius was a tyrant who rewrote history to make himself the hero! He made himself king over us and enslaved us! We, the masses of Laudrien, are the true Children of Valoria! The story of prosperity and glory was only that of the slave owners! They made up gods for us to worship and allow them to consolidate their rule! The truth is obvious: there are no gods! Decenius created that lie to ensnare humanity into keeping him alive after his death so he can work us all to death! We will kill the kings! We will destroy the idols! And we will take our rightful cut from the fat and disgusting nobles and merchants! For the people of Laudrien!" Lucia shouted, earning applause and cheers. "Down with the gods, up with the people!" Lucia chanted as she smashed an idol of Decenius. The crowd cheered her on, agreeing with her in every way, though how much was that only her most loyal followers left with her is up to debate.
Lucia's followers became known as the Freemen among themselves. They were called the Apostates or Rabble by their enemies, the priests and the rulers respectively. Lucia couldn't care less. She was going to break the chains that enslaved the people of the land. Her followers adopted the symbol of a fist smashing a crown and another fist smashing an idol.
One morning, Lucia led her followers on the return trip to Laudrien, robbing merchants and priests and then killing them as they traveled. Once they reached the city, Lucia came up with a plan to kill King Calon the Terrible. The next day, a new maid joined King Calon's household and was shown her duties. That same day, guards and priests from across the "kingdom" traveled to the city to celebrate Calon's birthday. However, when Calon stepped onto his balcony to give his speech, a knife pierced his chest before he was sent careening over the rail and onto the ground. The maid was revealed behind the king before removing her disguise to show who she really was. She looked to the crowd and announced, "I am Lucia! I've come to free you from your chains! As we speak, my followers are killing the enemies of the people!" The crowd cheered. The common people of Laudrien, having suffered under the rule of King Calon the Terrible for over two decades, were glad someone freed them. While the citizens saw her liberate them, they didn't see the massacres of the several priests and priestesses of the gods. This was by design. She knew the masses were religious, delusional in her opinion. Therefore, by killing the priests behind their backs, she freed them from religion while also keeping their support.
"This is the dawn of a new day, people of Laudrien! No more will kings or corrupt priests control your lives! Instead, us plebians will rule the nation! No more will man oppress fellow man but work together for a glorious future! Do not mourn, for after today, your lives will improve massively!" Lucia shouted, convincing the crowd to her ideals.
During the massacre, Ys managed to escape with a necklace gifted to her by Decenius the Conqueror, running far away to keep the memory alive. She fled to the Elven Kingdom of Ysenia, hoping to find refuge from those who sought her life. She was accepted in, where she started to preach among the elves, earning several followers and even earning state tolerance of Valorian worship of their gods.
Once the Day of Shattered Chains was over, hundreds lied dead, including the entire royal family, all the priests, and most of the rich. The riches were distributed on a by-need basis as Laudrien became a new land unseen in history. Called the Plebian Republic of Laudrien, Lucia made sure the entire system was overthrown and a new one put up. In the new system, all plebians could walk to the Plebian Assembly and vote on all issues. To crush all hierarchies, everyone could vote directly on ever issue, with mandatory voting sessions at every job. All jobs were now to be run by the Plebian Assembly, with all citizens voting on working conditions and all products shared collectively. Organized religion was banned, with all temples converted into Plebian Temples, all dedicated to commoners in history. Citizens were taught about the plebian struggle against the slave masters, a conflict that came from the beginning of the world, but history was rewritten to hide it. Though radically different, Lucia was beloved by the people. She became known as Lucia the Liberator and was treated tantamount to a goddess.
The system stayed in place for twenty years until the nation's efficiency fell apart. Several workers would steal items from their jobs to keep for themselves. Soon the workers that stole became wealthy enough to vote in the Plebian Assembly more often than others, making their votes worth more than others. They quickly consolidated power, causing mass unrest in the city. By allowing all citizens to vote on every issue, the only ones who voted on most issues were those with the means to spend all day in the Assembly without needing to work. Seeing the consolidation of wealth without work, Lucia was enraged. She stepped into the town square and made the largest mistake in her life.
"People of Laudrien, there are those among us who betrayed the revolution! They're turning our Plebian Republic into a Patrician Republic, subverting what we fought for! We haven't killed foreign tyrants just to fall to tyrants pretending to be the common man! Therefore, I call upon you to root out the traitors among us! In order to prevent this disease from progressing, we must kill the Valorian culture! All traditions formed before the revolution must be purged! All belief must be purged! The idea of trade and money must be purged! We should never identify as Valorians or even Laudrienites, but Plebians! The Young Vanguard must rise up against the enemies of our revolution!" Lucia screamed in the town square, gaining cheerful replies from several teenagers, raised inside the Plebian Republic their entire lives.
Lucia formed the Young Vanguard out of the revolutionary teenagers and tasked them with reporting family and friends for counter-revolutionary behavior. Within Laudrien, a hunt for all the traitors led to the deaths of two thousand people, out of a city of twenty thousand. The Plebian Republic, having lost ten percent of their population, collapsed into anarchy, with the Young Vanguard getting bloodthirsty and deciding the entire world was in the way of the revolution.
During the Laudrien Anarchy, the neighboring Kingdom of Eaglewright took the opportunity to invade the city. Due to the infighting and looting, Laudrien fell within two weeks, not even putting up much of a fight. The king of Eaglewright, King Tiberius, marched his troops into the Plebian Palace, the former royal palace, and tried to apprehend Lucia. However, when King Tiberius entered the bedroom, he found her hanging from the ceiling, committing suicide rather than falling prisoner to a monarch. Lucia had no children, meaning her bloodline ended with her. Though several would later claim to be Lucia's descendant, all are frauds who ironically want a crown instead of actually believing in her cause.
Once Tiberius conquered the city, he looked upon it and saw that it collapsed. He knew they were too radicalized to accept a king ruling over them and he didn't want to deal with it. He therefore reorganized the country. The priests were allowed back in, including Ys and her followers. Instead of the Plebian Assembly being a direct democracy, he had them elect tribunes to vote on their behalf. With his aristocratic views, Tiberius saw the fall of Laudrien as the result of democracy, believing that the nobles must keep the rabble in line to prevent such an occurrence from happening. Using this belief, he created the Senate, an institution where the patricians, the rich business owners, priests, and semi-nobles would vote on issues, with their votes being the ones that truly mattered. Tiberius had all the Young Vanguard killed, with the survivors fading into history as they couldn't find an audience to listen to them. After all the reorganization was done, King Tiberius left the city, seeing it as nothing but a backwater compared to Eaglewright, the powerful city his mother founded.
Lucia's legacy is complex. Though praised as the founder of the Laurentian Republic, what the Plebian Republic of Laudrien was renamed to, several see her ideology as crazy and harmful. Even those who believed in her ideology say that she was born before her time, that if she was born once the kings were toppled, that she could've succeeded in her goal. Instead of a Plebian Republic, a Patrician Republic was instated, with the corrupt plebians becoming the patricians in the new system. Laudrien, though a republic in a sea of monarchies, wouldn't be a revolutionary nation, but rather a militaristic one with no ideals to enforce on others. One long lasting impact was that the Valorian Priesthood would never be as powerful as they used to be, being an assistant to the state rather than an independent organization.
This is the origin of the Laurentian Republic. In the next chapter, we'll cover the Rise of the Republic.