Lord Minix of Yarra
In the year 471, King Minix was crowned the ruler of Yarra. His small kingdom was a disappointment to the ambitious young King. Sources close to the crown say that the young king wanted to expand his domain but had longstanding peace treaties will all of his neighbors. Historians and gossip-mongers alike were all prepared to record Minix's reign as banal and unmomentous.
In the year 498, tensions along his northeastern border with the badlands erupted as a small horde of goblins streamed into Yarra. The goblins looted and pillaged everything they came across. Minix had only a small army at this point. Years of relative peace and prosperity made his kingdom ripe for bandits and raiders like these goblins.
It was at this time that Minix was granted a "vision" from the gods. Lord Minix told close friends and advisors that a deity had visited him in the night while he slept. Theologians believe that it was either the avatar of Belos or the avatar of Tyr that visited Minix that night. The vision that they gave to him was one of a vast kingdom, joined together under the common flag of Yarra and ruled by Lord Minix himself. That night, the deity place into his mind the "blueprints" of this new republic and blessed him by granting him divine right to rule as the Lord of this new Yarra.
Two years later, Minix's dream began to come true as the ruler of northern kingdom of Valin died without an heir and the council of elders looked to Lord Minix to lead in the interim. Lord Minix proposed his new republic to the council and Valin became the second state of the Republic of Yarra. Over the next several years, the surrounding baronies joined Yarra in this new republic. Still, Minix's dream of a grand empire was not realized until the great war of 520. Yarra was at war with its north western neighbor, Pakulle. The King of Pakulle had hired Hobgoblin mercenaries to harry Yarra's forces and disrupt supply lines along Yarra's borders.
Duke Isor held a small barony to the south of Yarra and was a buffer between Yarra and the city-state of Blacksway. Lord Minix new that any hopes he had of a powerful republic would be dashed if he couldn't get these two powerful entities to join his republic. To secure Isor's aid, Minix sent tribute in the form of one hundred thousand gold pieces to Isor to entice him into joining the war against Pakulle. The hobgoblin mercenaries learned of the deal and overtook the emissaries stealing the gold as well as the message asking for Isor's aid. Luckily for Minix, a group of adventurers managed to slay most of the hobgoblins and send the message to Isor.
Isor was enraged that the hobgoblin mercenaries would strike within his domain and steal something that rightfully belonged to him. Isor's highly trained bowmen joined Yarra's army at the front line and Isor's barony became the nineteenth state of the Republic of Yarra. Once Isor joined Minix, he had enough force of arms to defeat Pakulle and take the kingdom by force.
Three years later, Blacksway joined the republic giving Yarra an iron hold in the center of Traykon. The price of their joining was no Justicars within their lands, a restriction that Minix agonized over before acceding to. The only kingdoms that could threaten Yarra were far away, giving Minix a sense of security. Heading his divine vision, Minix began sending "diplomatic" missions to the surrounding kingdoms to invite them into the republic.
It was one of these failed missions that sparked the war between Kashagar and Yarra. Rumor has it that the daughter of one of Kashagar's Druids is imprisoned in Yarra for thievery. Since Yarra has a "unique" way of handling prisoners, the druid demanded his daughter be returned. When the envoy told him it wasn't going to happen, the druid struck him dead. Minix was so outraged that he mobilized his forces and began to march to Kashagar to enact justice.