A shameless patchwork of incompetent leadership, grandiose delusions, and improvisation. Agraria is less of a Great Clan and more of a theocratic movement held together by desperation and the fact that most of the country would starve without them.

The creation of Agraria started during the Widow’s Passage, when the Missouri towns of Eolia and Elsberry were each given an Agribine and a relatively similar amount of supplies. The two towns had faired surprisingly well during the Burnout due to the “River Luck” phenomena (basically states that communities near the bank of a river that are far from any crossings will typically be avoided by Marauders). A few months after the Burnout, they were skirmishing over supplies in neighboring communities that had either been raided or abandoned. With the introduction of the Agribine(s), they engaged in more intense fighting to capture their rival’s device, with each community losing almost a fifth of their population within two months. When their First-Generation Caller arrived, he decided that it would be easier to Immerse Elsberry, as they had lost most of their infrastructure to flooding. Desperate to stop the fighting, the leadership of Elsberry conspired with their Caller to convince Eolia to join them in a pilgrimage across the Mississippi River to find other communities that they could help. In a summit between the two groups, a semi-retired teacher made a comment that would forever define the Proto-Clan. Devon “Dev” Schoen, who taught environmental science and biology at a highschool in a town to Elsberry’s Southwest (He never actually said the name of this town as he was too traumatized to remember his time there before fleeing from Marauders), said that it was “extremely important that we maintain as much good farmland as possible before it gets overgrown”. This struck a chord with the Caller, who quickly turned it into a “sacred mission” to protect the country’s food-production. 

In two months, they had relocated to Springfield Illinois and were rapidly expanding in all directions. By 2032, when the idea of the Hungry Years had spread to all of the proto-clans, the “Mission of Agraria” was still going strong. Dev, who had since become one of their “expansion officers”, argued that their state would be invulnerable because no one would ever attack a food-producer. In fact, they had already secured deals with the Triumvirate, Guild, and one of the tribes in the Crude Nations. The leadership agreed that it would actually be safer to not develop any domestic industry, so no other clans would view them as a threat. Thanks to their rapid expansion, Agraria had no shortage of strip and semi-functional vehicles to refurbish into farming implements. Their engineers were trained to improvise as much as possible and to avoid doing any manufacturing themselves. By 2036, they had the most territory of any Great Clan, stretching from Northwest Colorado to Indiana. In order to sustain their literal empire, Agraria had become adept with maintaining roads and rerouting rivers. Northway was also trading hydraulic implements for a supply of food. Almost all of the population under Agraria was living in small, moderately efficient farms that they maintained with rapidly failing equipment. Even before Hellridge began their strip-trade, it was clear that Agraria would never be able to hold such a large span. Other clans were offering their farmers better resources and cultural perks than Agraria. Furthermore, they hadn’t developed any offensive assets or a standing army. 

In early 2037, Agraria’s leadership realized that in order to survive the coming wave of industry, they would need another way to maintain unity. Farming simply wasn’t as attractive or valuable to their people as what other Clans offered. They decided that the only way to stay relevant would be to make Agraria a religion, not a state. Even then, the resulting faith was not truly universal. Callers realized that they needed to make alterations and exceptions for their constituents and their regional experiences. The resulting system-of-faith, known as “Agrarianism”, has the following generalisms:

• The soil is divine, and the best use of life is to use it to produce something valuable (food or other industrially viable crops)
• Astrological events are also divine (be they lunar, solar, related to planets, other celestials, or even Pre-Burnout satellites)
• Agraria has a definitive “holy-land” that takes up most of Illinois. Its border is defined by multiple dry-moats and rerouted rivers.
• Anyone who subscribes to this general faith is considered a part of Agraria

Most importantly, this move allowed for non-farming activities to be officially sanctioned. Many of their farms, who had traded with other Clans but stayed loyal, had developed unique technologies or proficiencies and now became highly valuable assets that produced a myriad of parts and personnel:

• A system to extract clay from soil, which could be weaponized to produce flechettes
• Jet-assisted ballistas
• Several variants of Northway’s Children that were used for earthworking-projects
• Injectable vaccines
• Vulcanized rubber
• Various biological weapons that were either gaseous or powdered
• Industrial lubricants
• Denizens of chemists and engineers
• Several mercenary-companies

As valuable as these products were, all of them were still at least five years behind other Clans in terms of scale and efficiency. In the early 40’s the Guild intervened and tried to help Agraria secure Kansas City as an industrial fortress. This resulted in maniacal city-state of Nexus, the Guild’s biggest failure before their Dreadnaught-program. Agraria was able to leverage the Nexus-incident, and the Guild’s dependence on them to influence the design of a Dreadnaught specifically built to transport grain. 

… Late 40’s-50’s financial revolution with Northway and Gen-.5/1 Intellectuals…

Yet another disaster befell Agraria with Verdant Night. The arrival of the Barrier-Pattern had made their entire astrological system defunct… overnight. This made Agraria’s religion even more dependent on literal blind-faith. Sects have tried to supplement the stars with advanced clockwork mechanisms, meteorological patterns, or even Shattered who claim to see past the Barrier. 

Many have accused Agraria of “lowering the bar” for statebuilding with their system of poorly managed factions held together by religious mania. Regardless, they have been considered to be in a “state of decline” since the ’30s, but have always managed to cling on.