[Beth Gellert]

HISTORY
Origins, Migration, Discovery, Kingdom, Revolution

Europe

The Geletian Celts originate in Europe more than two thousand years ago. An independent gathering of clans numbering a few thousand individuals in all, they controlled little territory and small few fortified villages, but were noted as unusually tall and fierce even amongst their lofty Celtic kin. They were described by classical witnesses as rowdy, drug-addled, fierce, but sharp, and several times are indicated as creators of an ordered society, in which village captains were often elected and always represented their people's interests when in several times yearly commune with the high chief.

The Geletians joined the great invasions of the Balkans as hardly a foot-note, their entire community uprooting and moving but still dwarfed in size and significance by the armies of Cerethrius, Brennus and Acichorius, and Blogius as they attacked the Macedonians and others. They were keen volunteers to the cause of Brennus when he moved on Greece itself, and provided several hundred infantry and almost as many in cavalry and grooms.

It is now believed that the Geletian warriors were amongst those Brennus picked as his tallest and his strongest swimmers to cross the Spercheius, and though their contribution here was significant, the later defeats in narrow ground caused the Geletians to loose faith with Brennus. They split from his armies and followed the example of Leonnorius and Lutarius in migrating to Thrace.

Asia

Not much later the Geletians went with the Trocmi, Tolistobogii, and Tectosages into Asia Minor. It is true that at this point, and when they settled to the creation of what would become known as Galatia, the Beddgelen ancestors were probably not known as Geletian but by some other name that referenced so few people amongst tens of thousands that it has been long forgotten.

The Geletian name was adopted possibly in the first or second century BCE as this minority broke from Galatia. It is not clear exactly when the split happened, but, if not before, then it was certainly by the time that Caesar's contemporary, Deiotarus, was recognised by Rome as King of Galatia, an appointment that was in defiance of ancient traditions and structures.

The Geletians moved on, apparently migrating through Armenia around the time that it was suffering conquest by Rome, and reputedly offering mercenary service to both sides at various times, always as it suited their continued progress away from the classical world to which the Geletians have always, for whatever reason, been violently opposed.

By the time that they reached the Parthian Empire the Geletians found it too falling into war with Rome, and they were happy to lend their experience against the Romans, essentially trying to impart a better understanding of the combined arms of the day to cavalry-obsessed Parthia. Still, the small tribe did not linger in Parthia, apparently being unable to trust the expansionist empire, and moved with its offences into the Indus, trading their skills as warriors and artisans for rights of passage. The wanderers pressed ahead into India by some time perhaps as early as the first century AD, a truly epic rate of migration that had taken the Geletian homeland from Central Europe to the edges of modern India in much less than half a millenia.

When they hit India the Geletians were perhaps the most experienced war fighters on earth, having battled half a dozen major enemies along almost every step of the last five thousand kilometres and fifteen generations. Skilled metal workers they had picked up the fashioning of early steel before they were far inside India; had witnessed, carried-out, and resisted countless fortress sieges from northern Macedonia to eastern Parthia; were natural horsemen who adapted new cavalry tactics from Parthia's cataphracts and mounted archers, and there had also become fond of the bow; and of course were physically dominant over all opposition in India.

The Geletians stayed a long time in India, though rarely long in one place. It seems that the Gupta Dynasty and the golden age of Hindu administration over-shadowed the slight numbers of the previously immune Geletians, who moved south and came into conflict with Tamil kingdoms where they had more success and carved-out new influence for themselves.

After several generations, it seems, the Geletians were encouraged to leave, frustrated by the endurance and pressure of such independent civilisations as that of the Pallavas. On reaching the southern tip of India, the Geletians apparently acquired a fascination with seafaring, possibly sick of journey across the land after a thousand years of fighting, or simply believing that either they had gone so far as it was possible to go, or that Sri Lanka offered something especially desirable.

The Indian Ocean

It was here, more than one thousand years ago, that the Geletians finally changed tactics. They took a great interest in ship-building once they'd begun, wanting, as intelligent people, to take command of a new science once it was introduced to them. They apparently traded with local people, Arabs, and possibly Chinese sailors (judging by the varied influences evident in wreckage found dating from the time) for help in constructing a seaworthy flotilla.

The Geletians may have split in two at this point, many refusing to take such a radical leap of faith by setting out to sea. These apparently tried to maintain their old position as a significant military power on the sub-continent, but were too few in number and too much isolated, eventually being absorbed over several often violent generations by larger Dravidian and other populations.

Those who sailed were perhaps genius, though more likely inexperienced and fortunate. Having a poor understanding of the sea and of the conventions of travel and trade there on, not to mention of geography, they ended up heading south rather than along the the more usual east-west axis. Passing the equator, they sailed on and found the Chagos Archipelago and near by it another that they would call Parmis. Used as a base, the already populated Parmis Archipelago was the stepping stone from which further progress took the Geletians towards the Tropic of Capricorn and to the discovery of a massive new land that they found unpeopled.

Geletia

Eleven million square kilometres of land to the east of Madagascar, it was sub-tropical in some areas and barren in others (both hot and cold), but the largest parts were ideally suited to the Geletians and they seemed almost to have a genetic memory of its cool temperate expanses moderated on the one hand by warm waters and the other a highland configuration. The Celts settled in the valleys, the mountains, and the forests, and expanded rapidly.

They called this new land Geletia, and for hundreds of years since have worked to make it their own. As their numbers grew, which they did rapidly through the fertile valleys, the Geletians began to fragment and soon Geletia looked like a second Europe, dominated by the Celts but not as a united empire. Having escaped the march of the great monotheistic faiths they would later quite miss the industrial revolution as well, and continued to war with one another in tribal tradition. Though the finest riders, archers, wrestlers, and swordsmen imaginable, and farmers able to turn yields equal to early C20th levels in the industrial world, not to mention artists of great merit, the agrarian Geletians were ill prepared for a much belated embrace of the free market, which came only in living memory.

A chieftain named Adiatorix changed everything in Geletia by a campaign of conquest that was considered quite un-Geletian. The common result of Geletian war was plunder, in some cases the taking of slaves, a little killing, and sometimes the extraction of tribute, then a return to the normal order of things in readiness for another fight. Adiatorix, though, subjugated his defeated opponents after a victory that had been a particularly long time coming, and thereby almost doubled his power, which made his next victory relatively easy. Early confederations arranged against him did not really take his threat -or their own alliances- very seriously, and were easily broken-up or convinced to disband. Later ones were simply too late, and Adiatorix began to buy fire-arms from the outside world, making his conquest complete with surprising ease as brave highlanders thundered towards his fusiliers, often naked and brandishing agricultural blades, only to be cut down by automatic fire.

The [Long] Story of Conquest

Adiatorix's Durcodi kin started their epic campaign with a hard-fought victory over the neighbouring Tolistobogii, after which they built massive earthwork fortifications in the southeast and refused to yield several hundred square kilometres of captured territory. This place was a corridor to the highland domain of the Sygenii, where the Durcodi attack was unexpected since the two people had not previously shared a border, and it was probably only this element of surprise that allowed Adiatorix his key early victories on which the campaign pivoted. The Sygenii were subjugated because Adiatorix knew their highland domain to be a rich source of copper, which he planned to sell over-seas in order to acquire modern arms.

Next, Adiatorix dispatched to the Parmisi islands a ship filled with plunder taken from his conquests, which was given as payment to the islanders for help in constructing a fleet of fast transport and warships in a time-honoured fashion (of wooden hulls quite out of step with the C20th, but beyond anything the Durcodi could devise, and improved by linings of Sygenii copper). The resulting fleet -looking, in living memory, as if it was lost en route to Trafalgar- took Durcodi and Sygenii warriors to the shores of the unsuspecting Scordisci, who had usually to worry only about the nuisance cross-border raids of the semi-nomadic Pitovriii inhabiting the vast tundra between Scordisci and Sygenii lands. Maritime assault was unheard of, and the stunned Scordisci fell like the Sygenii before them.

At this time, Adiatorix faced a coalition assault by the Tolistobogii and the Trocmi, who previously had shared a common border before the Durcodi annexation of some Tolistobogii territory. This two-fronted attack might have been the end for Adiatorix, but his fleet returned in time to land on the Trocmi's coast. The Durcodi in turn launched a dual-pronged assault towards Tavium, the Trocmi capital. Seeing defeat and annexation as a possibility, the Trocmi came to terms, agreeing to recognise Adiatorix's claim to some Tolistobogii lands in exchange for a lifting of the siege of Tavium, and the coalition disbanded, leaving the newly formed Kingdom of the Geletians to press ahead with the plans of its infamous leader.

The Parmisi islanders, having helped Adiatorix in the past, soon found themselves absorbed into his new Kingdom, and, when mainland settlers arrived in force, they were able to mount no more than a limited guerrilla defence that proved ultimately unsustainable.

As his rise became impossible to ignore, Adiatorix was able to manipulate the Druids of the Deceangli, Geletia's spiritual guardians, to his design. The Deceangli were not a great military power, but their perceived connection to other worlds made them much respected across the continent. They might have called a holy war against the Kingdom, like a Pope calling for Crusade, but were fearful of the Durcodi fleet, elements of which now lay at anchor just a few miles away in Scordisci ports. The decision was made to support Adiatorix, on the understanding that he would not try to Christianise the Deceangli populace as he was attempting to do to the peoples of his other territories.

Even with this support, Adiatorix may yet have fallen foul of the continent's greatest warrior peoples, but the half-mad Durotriges and highland Silures were never able to cease fighting one another for long enough to secure a lasting alliance against the Kingdom, despite several short-lived clashes with Adiatorix's Generals.

The Demetae, famous farmers, were safe usually because they bordered the Silures, who had no time to spare from fighting the Durotriges; the Deceangli, who were more interested in influence by spiritual rather than martial means; and the Parisii, who were perhaps the world's most luckless people, suffering flooding one season, drought the next, and disease when the weather was kinder. Though the Demetae did fight when Adiatorix crossed from the Deceangli frontier, and though they were brave beyond their modest skill as warriors, most of their fighting men disbanded when it was time to gather the harvest, and they were unable to sustain their armies on the scale of the Kingdom's.

The Parisii tried, in the final days of Demetae resistance, to join the defence, but natural disasters causing hardship at home, combined with the reduced Demetae harvist -a part of which would usually have been purchased to stave-off famine- made the attempt futile, and was used ultimately as pretext for the Kingdom to send forces into Parisii territory, paving the way for their own rapid defeat. In some respects, life for the Parisii was improved by Adiatorix, who was able to export foodstuffs from across the wider Kingdom to make its newest province viable.

The Selgovae represented the Kingdom's last expansion. These people, thousands of kilometres remote from the Durcodi homelands, were known usually as the jungle celts, and had fame as hunters and as guardians of a substantial bounty in gold and precious stones, not to mention exotic animal skins and rare hardwoods. The Kingdom's initial assaults against the Selgovae met with horrific defeat as men fell to alien diseases, their battle formations broken by dense jungle while whole units were isolated and picked apart by barbarian enemies they rarely even saw. In time, though, Adiatorix was able to incorporate Parisii and some Selgovae into his ranks, giving relative immunity to local diseases and learning the nature of jungle warfare. Even so, the fighting was fierce and progress was slow, draining the Kingdom's wealth and limiting development in the subjugated lands, which began to rumble with discontent.

Adiatorix began to gather foreign debts against import of modern firearms, buying heavily from Western Asia and Europe, and with these weapons he was able finally to crush the Selgovae.

The strain of protracted war and the burdon of debt, along with the enforced arrival of the so-called free market and the first ever cases of Geletian unemployment and the creation of property rights, concepts alien to the Geletians, lead eventually to revolt, which spread quickly across the face of a continent. Almost the instant that it reached its zenith, the Kingdom of the Geletians fell under the burden of its own success.