Republic of Ragusa

The Republic of Ragusa (Respublica Ragusina) is a small, though powerful, maritime trading power of a republic situated along the western coastline of Haemus. It is bordered by the Venetian Knighthood to the north and shadowed by the Avar Khaganate in all other directions.

History
The Republic of Ragusa was founded by Roman and Slavic merchants attempting to escape Imperial tariffs. After a brief but brutal conflict during the empire's waning years, Ragusa established itself as a prominent trading power in the Mediterranean.

Verminite Piracy Crisis
All seemed to be going well for the young republic, until the crisis began during its nascent empire over trade. Though Ragusan ships were armed, the primary focus of them were to get from one location to another as fast as possible while delivering typically heavy cargo. This made their ships, whilst well built, lightly armed and unarmored. The Verminite pirates, sensing the weakness, launched many raids on Ragusan mercantile convoys and shipping lines, leading to such a severe drop in trade that caused the republic to nearly go bankrupt. Many of the merchant ruling class could not afford basic needs due to the crisis. The Consuls, feeling the turmoil dearly affect the young nation, hastily amassed an army of nearly ten thousand (almost 1/5th of the population of Ragusa, though most of it was comprised of foreign mercenaries). The army then went on to raid, pillage and destroy prominent pirate hideouts. Instead of directly attacking, the Ragusans flooded the cavern with quicklime and water, and butchered the Verminites that attempted to flee. Around the same time, merchant vessels began to increase their armaments. These two factors effectively ended the pirate raids.

Ragusan Religion
Officially, there is no state religion. Religion is freely practiced, though with this there have been problems with certain sects clashing with each other. These conflicts often lead to the Merchant's Guard getting involved in solving disputes. Unofficially, the de-facto religion of Ragusa are the remaining Roman cults, though they have been increasingly diminishing in their influence to local Slavic religions, especially the cult of Hors, the Slavic sun god.

Cult of Hors
Becoming increasingly monotheistic, the Cult of Hors believes that Hors, the personification of a solar disk, travels across the sky at day and underground to fight monsters - typically correlated to Verminite and Tonvun - at night. Hors is the source of all light and life, and while Rod is still considered to be the creator god, many Horsic worshippers believe that Rod was in fact killed by monsters before the creation of the world. Therefore, according to the cultists, Hors created the world and travels to the underground in revenge for his fallen brother. This highly humanocentric religion gained popularity after the Verminite Piracy Crisis.

Power
Ragusa is one of the few major republics in the world. Though dominated by the merchant class, voting is styled after both the old democracy of Athens and the Roman republic. Meaning that all propertied, educated men above the age of thirty are allowed to vote for members of the legislature. The legislature, known as the Republican Senate then goes on to elect two Consuls every five years.