The sounds of an old church bell ringing could be heard across the charred capital, as trails of black smoke continued to rise into the air, reminding all of the chaotic battle that had taken place days ago.

Atop the church, a tricolor flag could be seen waving through the winds, and below it, on the streets filled with blood, debris, and jubilation, a spectacle was unfolding.

A man with heavily ornamented clothes was being dragged in chains, his face covered with ragged cloth. On both sides of the streets, in the still-standing buildings, people of all kinds and classes had gathered, united in a common act: to ostracize their hated king.

In front of the church, a wooden structure stood ominously, holding a razor-sharp blade dozens of meters above the ground. It was the king's tool for execution, once used by him to execute his enemies, and now turned against its overlord. The king's neck was placed right underneath the blade's path and held in place by a wooden headcuff. And then...

*Tchakum*

The sight of the hated king's head rolling was met with cheers of jubilation by the people, who were now fighting for the tricolor flag, their rallying symbol against the tyranny of the reactionary monarchies. The revolution was now in full swing; this was the birth story of...

The United Republic of Great Courbury.

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In the year 1823, the kingdom of Avignon would burn under the flames of a revolution. Peasants, bourgeois, and even military officers enraged at the nobility's opulent feasts and parties, as the common folk suffered from the crippling debt caused by countless wars, would finally explode, marking the start of the revolutionary wars.

The king and his family would all be killed; this act of regicide would cause the other great powers to intervene against the revolutionaries. But their armies would be met with defeat; the First Republic of Avignon was besieged but not losing. Many attempts would be made by the coalitions to defeat this new beast; however, all attempts would fail.

On the Island of Courburia, the kingdom of Albridia would stand firm against its eternal rival, its navy always protecting the nation with its wooden wall, and the blossoming industrial revolution increasing its production. But this same industrial revolution heightened the growing social strife on the isle, and the demands caused by the war would further fuel the growing resentment.

Near the city of Maclester, the largest and most important coal mining town in the country, an explosion in one of the countless mines would claim the lives of hundreds of workers. Unwilling to continue working in such conditions for a measly wage and long hours, the thousands of coal miners would start a general strike; this would effectively halt all of the blossoming industries reliant on the precious coal. As the days passed, the workers refused to step down until all of their demands were met, and with a war across the channel, the nation's industry could not remain still any longer.

On the 7th day of the 9th month, a sacred and important holiday for the nation, the sounds of hundreds of boots marching were heard, the sounds of wheels carrying heavy metal tubes were heard, and the sounds of a battery march were heard, all making their way to the mines. And what came after was a massacre.

Across the nation, the news of the Maclester Mines Massacre would spread like wildfire. The demands of the strikers, their valiant but futile stand to the last man, the orders of the king to cease any strike at all costs, and the brutality of the army sent by the king. Across the nation, the same sentiment was spreading.

In the aftermath of the massacre, all across the nation, fellow miners would begin a general strike, and just like the previous one, the army would be sent to stop them, but at each engagement, the miners struck back and refused to surrender. And at each engagement, that sentiment would grow larger and larger until nothing could stop it anymore. Across the nation, in every city, in every industry, fellow workers began joining the general strike, soldiers and sailors angered with their conditions as they were ordered to die in a foreign land began to mutiny.

The kingdom had come to a halt. The general strike had now grown beyond just wages and working conditions. The strikers wanted more; they now wanted a complete political reform. The king was to be stripped of his authoritarian powers, the people were to be given universal suffrage, and peace was to be made with Avignon.

With the general strike at its zenith, the radical wings of the parliament would gain strength, their voices weighed more than ever before. They demanded negotiations, political reforms, and peace. The moderate, liberal, and even conservative wings of the parliament would agree with their demands; the strike could not continue, and they had to negotiate. However, the king had other plans.

On the day of the negotiations between the chosen representatives of the strikers and the parliament, the army, being directly led by the king, would storm the building and hold all the men inside at gunpoint. The king declared the parliament was now dissolved, and that until the crisis was over, all the powers given to the parliament were to be concentrated on him—this was a royal coup.

Some of the parliamentarians joined the king, either out of pragmatism or for survival, but others refused to do so. They rejected the destruction of their Bill of Rights and were arrested for treason. The representatives of the strikers, alongside those who attempted to fight back, all met their ends inside the building with a firing squad.

In a matter of days, the news of the coup spread across the nation. First as rumors, and then as facts, this was the point of no return. The actions of the king had galvanized the population to such an extent that now, they wouldn't be sitting idly anymore. What they needed to do now was to take action, and that's what they did.

Just weeks after the coup, sounds of fighting would be heard in and around the old Tower of Norwick. Strikers, sympathizers, and revolting soldiers stormed the building, killing the governor and capturing most of the guards defending it. In the process, they acquired thousands of weapons and munitions. More importantly, the representatives who refused to side with the king were all freed, most of them adored by the common folk and finally giving the strikers, leaders capable of unifying the disparate groups of revolutionaries. All of the representatives wanted to end the monarchy, and now they wouldn't stop until they completely destroyed every trace of it.

From a localized strike to a nationwide general strike, and now from a general strike to a full-blown revolution, the fall of the tower would be the spark of the Courburian Civil War, and the rallying symbol of the tricolor flag would wave defiantly against the king, above the burning tower.

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The news of the Courburian Revolution spread like wildfire across the continent. The greatest economic power of the entire continent was ablaze, and its industrial engines were slowly moving again, but under new management.

For three years, loyalists and revolutionaries clashed across the entire island. During this time, loyalist forces were slowly pushed back as the revolution continued to spread from person to person and from factory to factory. The coastal cities, still defended by the ever-loyal Royal Navy, became the last bastions of the old regime, resisting against the revolutionary waves, one after the other.

Resisting the inevitable was all they could do, as no reinforcements would come from the continent while the great land powers struggled against the battered but not beaten Republic of Avignon. Across the great ocean, on their colonies in the lands to the west, the royal army in the continent battled against a resurgent continental army, emboldened by the revolution in the metropole.

There was no other option; their homeland had to be abandoned. That was what everyone thought would happen when the old tower was stormed, everyone except the king. As secret preparations for the evacuation of the royal family and its entire court to their colony were underway, the king continued to lead his army into defeat after defeat until the capital itself was besieged.

Then, the old walls were breached, and the wall defenders either surrendered or joined the revolutionaries as they stormed the capital, similar to how they stormed the Tower of Norwick three years prior. Chaos ensued, as those still loyal to the king engaged the revolutionary army in the narrow streets of the capital. Amidst the chaos, the king and his royal family made their flight to the harbor, their carriages rocking left and right, up and down from the debris and crates left by the previous battle for the city, and new ones being formed by the minute.

Then the sound of something breaking down; one of the carriages fell to the side as a result of its frontal axle suffering a catastrophic failure. Before the other carriage could stop, the sounds of countless boots stomping the ground followed by hundreds of revolutionaries charging down the wide street. The carriage occupants were forced to continue their flight, while the broken carriage was abandoned to its fate; the revolutionaries opened the door, and inside, they saw it.

They saw the face of the man who caused everything, the man who pushed farther than he could. That man was the king, accompanied by his closest family, except for one child. As the excitement from capturing the king took over the revolutionaries, they all forgot about the second carriage, which hurriedly made its way to the harbor. Its occupants desperately went aboard the last few remaining ships still in port, which began making their escape, leaving behind their once proud birthright.

With the king's fate now set in stone, there was no escape from the fate that he and his family would go through, as an example to those who tried to destroy the nation's bill of rights. His death would mark the end of the civil war, and the victory of the Revolution.

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Although the civil war saw relatively low destruction in the isle, the newly born republic still had to rebuild. More than that, it had to secure its stability, as the various factions that fought side by side against a common enemy were now starting to fight each other. Be it for what government they should adopt, or full-on independence for the different ethnic groups in the isle. This growing unrest would lead to the president of the provisional government forming the Directorate for National Security, which was essentially a secret police with the sole aim of eliminating any dangers to the revolution—be it nobles, monarchist sympathizers, and even those who once fought for the revolution.

The Years of Terror in the new Courburian Republic were far different than the one seen in the Avignish Revolution, whereas the Committee of Public Safety brutality was arbitrary and slow. The Directorate was as brutal as it was swift and efficient. They would cut once, and cut it fast and deep so that thousands of lives could be saved at the sacrifice of a few hundred.

A year after the end of the civil war, the Constitutional Assembly finalized the new Courburian constitution, which proclaimed the new republic to be a Federal Parliamentary Republic formed with the union of the Republics of Albridia, Menclast, Clifnal into the United Republic of Great Courbury.

Yet, the most defining characteristic of this new constitution was the enshrinement of the state's obligation to provide the people of the republic with opportunities so that every person could reach their full potential and complete separation of power in the government. Especially of the executive, with the removal of the president as the head of state, to replace it with a council of ministers chosen by the National Council.

This decision was made to prevent another autocrat from ever rising to power again in the isles. Especially so, as the idea of allowing a single person to hold a great amount, or even absolute, sway over the government and thus the nation was seen as a betrayal of the ideals of the revolution by those who fought for it in the isle.

However, even as the nation slowly recovered politically and economically, the republic couldn't rest yet. The exiles with their massive Royal Navy continued to harass the republic from the seas, and on the continent, the land powers wouldn't stop until the two republics were erased from the map.

A great militarization of the state and society would ensue, a necessity as many of the former monarchist officers and leaders were handled by the Directorate. Those who weren't caught had long fled the isles alongside the exiled royal family. But with the loss of their overseas colonies, the republic found itself deprived of its once practically endless supply of raw materials, forcing the new Republican Navy to adapt at a rapid pace.

In a few years, the Republican Navy would become the main contender to the Royal Navy as the ruler of the seas. With an entirely ironclad fleet, the republic would begin to fight back against the Exiled incursions. While on land, a growing professional republican army, following much of the previous doctrines of the Royal Army, was starting to take shape, and hopefully, begin to spread the revolution alongside their comrades in Avignon.

Yet, fate would have other plans. Ever since its own revolution, Avignon had become a powder keg, as its government policies failed to stabilize the nation. While fighting back against reactionary powers without rest, the republic of Avignon would be overthrown by a rising general. This man would proclaim himself as the first emperor of Avignon and defend the ideals of the revolution as he established an absolute monarchy set around himself.

This coup caused a severe rupture in the revolution, as the Courburian government denounced this Avignish Empire and its emperor as traitors to the revolution. Claiming that a man who declares himself an emperor is no revolutionary. Unwilling to allow the existence of a rival government claiming to be the rightful leader of the revolution, the emperor declared war on the United Republic of Great Courbury.

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This new phase of the Revolutionary Wars would last for 15 years, with three attempts to invade the Isle of Courbury, all sunk by the Republican Navy. The Avignish Emperor would, for a brief period, control the entire continent, under a complex web of client states and forced alliances.

But after a failed attempt to rein in the Empire of Roskyia through military prowess, the Empire of Avignon was nearing its end. The once-feared grand army was now a shell of its former self, exhausted from continuous conflicts and attrition. The emperor and his army were forced to retreat until a reinvigorated coalition was once again at the natural borders of Avignon. A last hurrah of the emperor, a last victory would be achieved, but little did it change the course of the war; the coalition had won, and the capital was occupied.

However, this wasn't the end. With the birthplace of the revolution and its puppets felled, now all that remained was for the rogue island to surrender, by peace or by force.

The Courburian republican government refused to surrender; the torch of the revolution was passed to them, and they would die before surrendering it to the continental autocrats and the traitorous exiles. A grand armada, as no one had ever seen before, was being formed between the reactionary coalition, an armada that no single navy could stop. The Courburians knew it was coming, and they would make the reactionaries pay for it.

Amidst intense rain, a storm was brewing within and outside the isle; the ground rumbled and trembled, and the republic waited and waited and waited... But no invasion came. As the storm subsided, and the scenery became clearer, the people of the republic found themselves in an alien world.

In their darkest hour, they would be brought to an unknown world. As the rightful successors of the revolution, they carried the torch of the revolution. And in this brave new world, the United Republic of Great Courbury would forge its future, where its former comrades had failed, they would succeed.

This wasn't the end of the revolution... It was just the beginning.