Difference between revisions of "Snefaldia"

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Snefaldia ) is a smallish country almost entirely surrounded by mountains, bisected by the Saard river that runs through the mountains, emptying into a sea. The name Snefaldia comes from a passage in the Amershaman Medrahov, a holy text.

The largest city in Snefaldia is Sargedain, which is also the capital.

Geography

Snefaldia is surrounded on all sides by high mountain ranges, with the Seril Mountains in the east, the Zogar Range to the west, the Hightops in the south, and the Velnar Mountains to the north. The central country is dotted with lakes and valleys, and the Saard river bisects the country, running from the northeast Velnars down through the southeast Serils before empyting into the Bay of Fuschal and the Memdar delta.

The centre of the country is called the Dayan Plain, and is very fertile, expansive, and covered in rolling hills. The Dayan forms a basin where the Saard river cuts through it, and floods from time to time.. To the north is Sring Issa, defined by old-growth deciduous forests, low valleys, and small, numerous lakes. South of the Saard and Dayan is Neer Dal, home to marshes, subtropical forests, and hundreds of small rivers.

To the east, in the foothills of the Serils, is Bae, a region defined by deep gorges and hot, windy steppes. The western region of Allasha is largely rolling hills and valleys, considered excellent farmland.

The mouth of the Saard river forms a fertile, shallow delta called the Memdar. Flanked by mountains and sheer rock faces, the area surround the mouth is nearly uninhabitable. However, due to the regular flooding of the Saard the soil is very rich, and in history city-states took advantage of this.

Climate

Snefaldia has a mixture of subtropical, temperate, and tundra climates. The mountains are high and rocky, though lower in altitude are very hillish and flat before descending into the central plain.

Sargedain

The capital of Snefaldia, Sargedain, is located on the Saard river in the center of the Dayan basin. Founded in 1302 as a trading stop along the Saard, the city grew into an administrative center for the Dayan province once Aatem Nal nunciates expanded in the city.

Sargedain became the capital of Snefaldia in 1895 after the establishment of the republic, and replaced the ancient capital of Serasarda in southern Sring Issa, which remains the center of Aatem Nal control.

Sargedain is a much a modern city. After a devastating flood in 1923, much of the city was rebuilt along a grid pattern, replacing the old winding streets and four-way streets with circular roundabouts and parks. The city is still a trade hub for the Saard river, though much of the industrial and manufacturing business has moved further south along the river. The Saard runs through the city itself, although it is heavily leveed, and a complex system of aqueducts, flood walls, and man-made irrigation rivers alleviate the harsh flooding of the Saard.

After the end of the republic in 1960, the Tuhran Bel relocated to Sargedain from Serasarda, and oversees the chambers of government from there.

Society

Snefaldia society is a mixed one, with several distinct ethnic groups competing over land and resources. Largely divided along regional lines, the Dayan, Sringal, Bae, Neeri, and Allashi ethnic groups comprise Snefaldia societies, and make up the nation's national character.

Snefaldia has long been isolated from other nations, despite having a perfect seaport situated in the Memdar delta, but has never been a great seafaring or trading nation. Most foreign influence arrived through the mountain passes, and each region recieved a great deal of cultural influence from the peoples that made the trek over their respective mountain ranges.

Modern life revolves around community involvement, religious faith, industriousness, and the pursuity of aesthetics.

Government

The Centralised Mountain States are a mixture of theocratic instutions and secular government. Power is largely concentrated in the religious synod, the Tuhran Bel. The modern state, beginning in 1895, was a republic, which collapsed in 1963. The religious forces of Aatem Nal took control of the countrys' government after more than 60 years of republican government, but have not resumed the historical control that the Tuhran Bel formerly excercised.

There is a considerable amount of devolution in Snefaldia, with municipalities and regional governments being allowed a wide latitude in terms of policy. The Tuhran Bel is the final authority for all matters judicial, legislative, and executive, and is made up of 300 high-grade religious figures from the nation's three native faiths.

Politics

The Tuhran Bel is not an elected body, but is appointed by a rotating Holy Council of 50 religious officials, who serve from within the Bel. The system is circular- the Council is chosen from the Bel by the senior members (those who have served more than ten years) and the Council in turn remove and appoint members to terms, in theory five years but in practice members serve at the pleasure of the Council. The system allows the Councillors and regular members (Bel Shahry) to check and balance each other.

Within the Bel, matters discussed are largely ecclesiastical and religious in nature, with secular and administrative duties only being taken up in important cases. The Bel oversees the secular government apparatuses, which largely run themselves.

The Bel also functions as a body of arbitration for the religion of Aatem Nal, though it is not the temporal or ecclesiastical head of the faith. To be a member of the Bel, one must currently be either a ranking member of Aatem Nal, a Dragha, or a practitioner of Endiri. In recent years, progressive members have pushed for other religious figures to be allowed membership, such as priest from the Snefaldian Catholic Church and Islamic organizations.

Religion

Most major foreign religions are present in Snefaldia, but the majority of people adhere to one of the "Three Native Faiths", the native religion in Snefaldia. The "Three Native Faiths" are Endiri, Draghdatha, and Aatem Nal. Foreign faiths make up 5% of the national total, with Roman Catholicism being the largest at 2%, Sunni Islam at 1%, and other faiths making up the remaining 2%.

Endiri

Part of the "Three Native Faiths," Endiri is a polytheistic religion that is centered around the worship of personal, family, local, and regional deities. Practitioners do not have a word to describe themselves, and the word "Endiri" translates literally as "religious faith."

Endiri has no centralized structure, but disputes between religious areas are handled by the Tuhran Bel, the national ecclesiastical council. There are no priests or monasteries, and worshippers attend no standardized services. Temples and shrines vary in size and majesty depending on the amount of patronage they recieved, and maintenance is carried out by worshippers. Regional deities and local spirits generally have traditional services performed by the members of their district.

Personal deities are given when a person comes of age, and are usually a deceased ancestor or relative. It is common for family members to have the same personal deity. The coming-of-age ceremony takes place in the presence of the shrine of the family god, and the person choses both a name and a talisman that will become their own.

Draghadatha

One of the "Three Native Faiths," Draghadatha is more ascetic than Endiri, and has a more definite normality than the common faith. Like Endiri, pracitioners of Draghadatha do not give themselves a name, and Draghadatha translates from Bagura as "lonely mountain," a reference to the ascetics who go into the wilderness to contemplate.

Draghadatha is based on the study of the ederni medragha, holy texts supposedly inspired by the spiritual world. Ascetic practitioners copy the ederni medragha by hand and memorize them, developing the mystical spells and rituals and practicing them in the wilderness. Ederni medragha are very similar to Jewish midrash, in that they are commentaries written by the ascetics themselve, dealing with the mysteries of the spiritual and physical worlds.

Ascetics, in common language called "Draghas," have mixed receptions in everyday life. Some are feared for their supposed mystical power, and some are sought out as both faith healers and holy men. Then are often seen worshipping at Endiri shrines, but are usually seen in the harsh wilderness.

Aatem Nal

The third of the "Three Native Faiths," Aatem Nal is the more scholarly branch of the three faiths. Aatem Nal translates as "study of the tower," a reference to the development of the school in places of learning. Aatem Nal has a power base, located in the city of Bandalan in northern Sring Issa.

Aatem Nal is more complex and secretive than Draghadatha and Endiri, and is not entirely comprehensible even to the average Snefaldian. Common lore places the genesis of the faith somewhere in the murky blackness of Snefaldia's ancient history, along with that of Endiri, but it only became commonly known in 1214 when Khsayakan, apparently a powerful Dragha, came down from the Velnars and taught the people the secrets of the universe.

Practitioners of Aatem Nal call themselves Arsathaes, scholars of the universe. Ederni medragha focus heavily into their study, but unlike Draghas they use a very specific set of ederni medragha, known collectively as the Amershaman Medrahov, "Books of Motions." Arsathaes organize themselves into hierarchical schools led by the senior scholars, and believe that all things are to be recorded. In their golden age, 1300-1651, the Arsathaes builts amazing libraries and schools, huge citadels devoted to learning, archiving, and the stduy of occult, esoteric knowledge.

It is very common to see Arsathaes of low rank in towns and cities, and they generally worship at Edirni shrines. However, high-ranking Arsathaes, the senior scholars of the sect, are regarded with reverence, fear, and whispers. They do not worship at Edirni shrines, and after death sometimes become Edirni gods themselves. Of course, they rarely leave their vaults as it is, so they are not often seen in towns.

The Aatem Nal oversee the Tuhran Bel, the ecclesiastical council that forms a part of the Snefaldian civil government.

History

Snefaldia was first populated by late Paleolithic humans, but the first records of human settlement come from the later Neolithic in the form of bone and rock tools. The first recognizable civilization was the southern Neer Dal culture, a forest-dwelling people that carved pictures in wood. Written history begins in 500 BCE during the Terangal period, when inhabitants of Allasha, at that time lush and fertile, built the stone palaces at Terangal and Sumdarian. Radical climate changes and a shift in the Saard's course dried out the Allashan plain, and the centers of civilization at Terangal, Sumdarian, and Alshan were abandoned. Unfortunately, their language has remained indecipherable.

After the cataclysm which caused the desertification of Allasha, centers of civilization shifted east, to Bae and northern Sring Issa. The Bajeong Guea, arguably the first hegemonic power, arose in the fertile valley that now forms the border between the two regions. Originally a few small city-states founded sometime between 100-28 BCE, the Bajeong peoples expanded and unified into a single kingdom, called the Bajeong Guea. The Guea subjugated the farming societies of the eastern Dayan basin, as well as the northern Neers Dal and most of Bae. The Guea appears in the literature of Srinat of Isaardlang, a scribe from the Sring Issan city of Isaardlang, and describes the Bajeong state as a powerful nation with great military strength, a well-developed religious hierarchy, and beautiful architecture. Indeed, the remnants of Guea architecture still remain in many cities in Bae, but any trace of the Bajeong religion is lost.

The Bajeong Guea ended in 525 CE, when the last Gueang, Drimsang Reramshap, was killed by the armies of the Sring Issan army, under the command of Trimna III Kelangat, the King of Serasarda. The Guea was destroyed, and the Sring Issan kingdom at Serasarda rose to prominence over the next 300 years, coinciding with the appearance of the Aatem Nal in Snefaldia. The Sring Issans conquered much of Dayan, and tried to integrate the farming culture into their own, but by 1000 CE, Dayan princes had taken control of much of the Sring Issan kingdom. In 1035 CE, Prince Edram Ta'us seized Serasarda and broke Sring Issan power, dividing the north, central, and eastern provinces into a conglomerate of princely states.

In the following 100 years, the culture of Dayan spread to the peoples in Neer Dal and Allasha, and the Three Native Faiths became ingrained in the regions of Snefaldia. In 1215, according to popular lore, the mystic Kshayatha came out of the mountains and brought the people a new faith based out of the Amershaman Medrahov, the motions of the universe. His teachings were brought into the waning Dayan powerbase, and formed into Aatem Nal, the most powerful religious force in Snefaldian history. The earliest Arsathaes claimed legitimacy with miracles and magic acts, calling upon the rituals of the medraghas and winning the support of the people. By 1295, Aatem Nal was a major religious force, no longer just a sect.

In 1302 the Great Library at Serasarda was begun, and Aatem Nal entered a new golden age of temporal power. Establishing libraries and smaller archives in population centers all over Snefaldia, the Arsathaes built a powerful ecclesiastical state, subsuming the power of the regional princes and eventually eliminating them entirely. By 1575, the Tuhran Bel at Serasarda was the legitimate ruling power of Snefaldia. In 1651, however, the primacy of the Bel was threatened by regionalist movements supporting localized rule, and the Library at Pholimjung in Bae was burned by members advocating a second Guea. The Tuhran Bel mobilized loyal princes to crush any threat to the primacy of Aatem Nal, and in 1701 formed a secular council, the Segovan, to administer the nation. Forming Snefaldia into five distinct ethnic regions, the Segovan appeased the anti-religious sentiments, and allowed the Bel to maintain control.

In 1835 the Segovan was disbanded, and the Tuhran Bel assumed full control once more. By this time, the princely states and regional hereditary estates had been removed from any form of power by the Segovan, and trade with foreign nations had enriched the country. Taxilha, the main seaport of the country, was the largest city in the country, and foreign influence was spreading. The Bel, fearing a weakening of the Three Native Faiths, reassumed ecclesiastical control and convened a special conclave of the great archivists to consult the Medrahov. Religious control was reasserted, and imports were reduced while exports were increased. Religious control continued until 1895, when the Bel convened another conclave where they promulgated a new government system, a republican system, and effecitvely ended ecclesiastical control of the country.

The republic, founded in 1895, was headed by Ta'us Radram as the Master of the Executive, who served as Master until 1920, when the Arsraad was formed. He was succeeded by Jeroen Seefeikh, who was replaced by Bhumisong Joengwai. The last Master, Utri Bistikar, was forced out of office in 1932 with the Act of State Capitation, and the duties of the Master were assumed by the legislature.

The Republic ended with collapse in 1963, when the Sensraad and Arsraad could not convene without political paralysis. The Tuhran Bel stepped in again, disbandind the republic and rewriting the constitution to allow provincial control and reworking its own rules. The modern state has been in existence since 1965, when the Bel formally declared the country the Centralized Mountain States of Snefaldia.

Since 1940, Snefaldia has slowly modernized, experiencing an economic depression in 1950s when the Saard failed to flood for three years, devastating the agricultural sector. This depression directly influenced the collapse of the republic. Political strength has devolved, but the Tuhran Bel has seen success in the formation of a national Snefaldian identity.