So... when did the Lasanar breakup occur anyway?
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I always figured Galliard liked to speak of Lasanar because he's like 700 years old, not that it was a recent occurence.
You're not wrong. Galiard arrived in the Far East in 2005, and by that point Lasanar had already been around for a while. It was the big power in the North with five Duchies (Sasrhas, Ozrat, Ossaet, Akanos, and Colasan) and a close alliance with neighboring Ethiala (Topenah, Talex, Lasop) - the two realms together were a big power bloc and Arcaea was fighting a losing war with them at the time. If I remember correctly -- and I don't know this part for sure since it was before my time -- Lasanar was the first Republic in the game, ruled by Tom's character back when Tom told people who his characters were until coming to the conclusion that this was a Bad Idea and then his character, Lasanar's (first?) PM, was never heard from again.
When I arrived it was run by Milan von Krondor. There are still a couple players in the Far East who were already in power of some kind then - I think the Equar family had the Duke of Colasan. The 'big bad guy' was Nighthelm in the South and/or the '~V~' guild, neither of which I had much familiarity with because as difficult as it may be to imagine now, Galiard was quiet and did what he was told without asking too many questions.
Milan anointed Aethius Kain as his successor and Galiard as Judge, and they were partners for a long time - that's when Galiard got his first notoriety, for executing two rebellious Dukes of Colasan. Aethius stepped down but Galiard didn't want the job and so became Duke of Ossaet and then General right around the time of what I would say was Lasanar's last golden age, though I credit an ensemble cast much more than Galiard individually: there were maybe seven or eight really good players at the time, players who could play out differing political views without being reduced to vulgarity and death duels, and through a lot of churn and bustle Lasanar topped off at (I think?) about 27,000 CS. It still took us a bloody long time to beat Antoza because of the geography, but it was pretty exciting stuff. That would've been in 2007, so in late 2007 you had two things that really hit Lasanar: brain drain from the formation of Cathay and then the departure of many good players (and also myself) from both Cathay and Lasanar when a lot of unfortunate bugs conspired to make almost the entire continent starve, and after a long effing war nobody had any juice left to do what used to be required to very slowly restore a region. It's much easier now.
Most of what I know of Lasanar after Cathay's creation is secondhand. Milan was still there and he tried to patch things up, but he had disregarded advice Galiard had given a long time ago and not done anything to remove Vulpes de Zorro from power - Vulpes wasn't a bad guy but he was your classic 'can't be bothered' player who sat on ducal and sometimes ruler positions and didn't react until the place was on fire. Lasanar attracted malcontents from other realms and turned on Ethiala, and even though they didn't end up winning anything in the war they managed to kill the ruler in a skirmish (Galiard's more popular cousin, Septimus). Septimus' successor was a Leonidas and I don't have to tell you how that turned out.
Without strong governance, Lasanar went the way of most Republics and became a collection of miniature Duke-Kings with a weak PM. This was also the point when Arcaea was going downhill and Cathay and Aenilia were filling the vacuum. You probably arrived right when Ohnar was created, and Galiard holds the view that Ohnar at its best days was on par with Lasanar during its mediocre days. Not necessarily because of any one ruler but because the realm was set up as a sort of maintenance mode for autonomous Dukes (like Taylin) and never had either a strong identity or much of a central government. Kind of like 11-12th century France but without the red wine.
The biggest reason you didn't hear about it is probably because most of the players from its high point ('06/'07) aren't around anymore, but as you can see from the video, it was around for quite a while.
