Part of a series on golden ages
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/47373118/

https://youtu.be/4UWRbZsgarw

Pastilles (from Passes : “mountain chain” and tils, “in-between”) was a land stuck between two rival kingdoms so ancient and powerful, they were for ages at least half legendary. The other half, the real one, could prove so ferocious and ravenously hungry, that the efforts of the wise and ambitious would logically be directed to safety in unity in this middle region despite the widely different people inhabiting the land, often the place they would choose to meet for battle. Indeed, the duchy of the badger lords dreamed itself an empire between the Buttresses in the north, land of the bears, and the Lappes in the south, land of the rabbits.

Ever since the era of the Oath of Mercy, they saw their role as clean-cut and obvious : replacing the rule of the meek, but numerous rabbits with their own. Their slower reproduction cycle had made them improper to be considered for the Oath and they weren't as strong as bears, but the proximity of powerful allies in the easily defendable mountains had kept them in relative safety. The weak rule of the rabbit kings in Goviony soon proved ripe for the taking.

Hazardous intrigues, treason, bloody wars and gallons of bordergore later, Pastilles was united under one banner. The land, roughly secured by peppering the map with fortresses, extending the borders through alliances and conquest, entered an era of much prosperity. Wines of the Buttresses were exchanged along with state of the art weaponry to Lappridia against piles of gems and gold. The conquest of Custodion from Hebernaklian control, leaving its name and sinister dungeons as sole reminders of its carceral past, enabled them to cross the sea and extend their influence to Fromanches (From = across, anch = sea) where they used the prolific virtue of their rabbit subjects to found colonies. From this point South, to the frozen North in the desert of Sibryon, where the carcasses of dead giants lied and Florandrian allies stood guard, the land was safe. The dukes would endlessly seek from Leones and Beghedan what would cement their rule for centuries, a royal crown.

They took the four handed wheel of gnomism for sigil, put between the two mountain chains constituting their homeland, noting that be it purely through luck or a favorable geographical location, rising to prominence in a region dominated by four dominant species as well as more prolific ones, must have been no less than a divine sign. Were they disproven by later strings of bad luck and decay? Who's to say, the divine works in mysterious ways.