Vari, the first man, had five sons: Vara, Kar, Ura, Vuaz and The Betrayer. He also played a key role in forging Palkh from Sacred Earth and so, after a fashion, is the father of Palkh too. In this way, Vari is the father of all Varic kind.

When Varic civilization spread, it did so largely under communities which claimed descent from a single son of Vari. The Karhavi on the western fringe of the Varic plateau had carved out for themselves a life that focused on the sea. The Varans on the central plateau were focused foremost on hierarchy and war, whilst the Urapi invested in faith and heritage. What precisely became of the Vuazites the Urapi knew not, but the Palkha invested in their land and their people. The sons of the Betrayer, meanwhile, abandoned their roots and so forgot them. Other pockets of Varic people did not identify with a single son of Vari but instead multiple, like the Tevali who claimed descent from all Vari's four eldest sons. The Tevali had focused on a culture of resilience, asceticism and religious devotion and in truth, made up a larger portion of the Urapi's descendants than perhaps they remembered.

Among the descendants of Vari, then, was a considerable variation in cultural and religious focus. Though all born of a common ancestor, all decidedly Varic, they had their own priorities and ways of relating to the world.

Of those separate communities, just two remained: the Urapi and the Palkha. Yet those who called themselves the Urapi were no longer united under a single governance. The Varicarn of Urapivarta remained independent of the Erda Tupar of Nekvarta... a point of profound and lasting tension in the Conclave over multiple generations.

Shortly after its proclamation, many Erdai had favoured the conquest and complete integration of the Varicarnate into their domains. Only the looming threat of the still strong Pontus, and the demographic dominance of mudborn in Urapivarta proper, stayed the Conclave's hand: to fight a civil war would risk servants of The Black Sun making gains. War, then, was a theologically untenable position.

Since then, those problems had waned. Pontus had recently been dealt a significantly blow by Palkh's own ambitions in the region, and Urapi efforts to expel and assimilate foreigners had brought Urapivarta into a place of relative stability where revolt did not always loom. Still, though, the Erda Tupar did not invade.

Over the generations where their hand was stayed by factors outside of their control, a new theological edict had gained prominence. The faith dictated that many communities sprang from Vari's loins by design. It was right and just that the Karhavi, Varans, Urapi and Palkha lived in their own communities with their own priorities as that meant when it was time to come together, each of their strengths would bolster one another and cover one another's weaknesses. How advantageous, the Erdai spoke, would a wall of Varan warriors been when Lydia encroached on the Karhavi? How useful a Karhavi fleet when trade stopped and barbarism returned?

The Varic people fell, they said, partly because they failed to work together and strengthen one another. Yet just as they ought to work together, they ought to have their own strengths.

The Urapi of Nekvarta had grown cultured, wise and comparatively soft in their relative peace. Those of Urapivarta were forged in a crucible of war and political dissent, and even now waged kharubbal against Pontus in a bid to weaken their foe and reclaim the Varic Plateau. The two states were separated and geared towards different things. The Varicarn declared a season of war with a breath, whilst the same action in Nekvarta would involve weeks of debate from the Erda Tupar during which time any initiative or opportunity may have been lost.

So then came the theological synthesis. The Varans and Karhavi were lost to time, destroyed by mudborn barbarians and scrubbed of their states and in many cases even their identities. Yet their niches were still needed, still of value. The Erda Tupar would not conquer the Varicarnate not because it was politically inexpedient to do so, but because the very fabric of the Varic people would be stronger for having them as allies, not as subjects.