Haust

A large nation that crests the northern side of Agrophon.

The seaside

Haust has a broad coastline, including a winding peninsula that converges to a sharp point. The whole beach teems with activity, especially during the war, while the Duumvirate has control over the sea. While the mainland is contorted into hills and mountains, the seaside is calm and flat, with buildings densely packed on every patch of solid ground, and wooden outposts speckled across the sand.
Despite aggressive development along the beach, there are still plenty of acres of brush, hosting a teeming population of birds, especially sandpipers. Endangered in Agrophon but carefully maintained in Haust, the sandpiper has become a source of pride in the country.

Demographics

Haust is a mostly human country with a huge network of nobles distributed across a dozen large cities, and a working class spread across hundreds of towns. It's difficult to learn specifics about the country because of their carefully guarded census.

Government

Theology

As with Ornity, the people of Haust see Agrophon's gods as rulers and governors of the world. But they see Ornity as dogmatic and inefficient, worshiping ancient lords whose power in Ornity hasn't decayed for centuries. Haust prides and differentiates themselves in the way they communicate with gods: they have a class of virtuosic barterers and diplomats who make arrangements for Haust's spiritual well-being. They claim to make only humble appeals for the gods to debate, but Haust actually has quite some power over Agrophon's divine climate, and Haust's own deities have taken steps to keep the others in line.
If anyone on the continent is waiting for a miracle, they'd better hope that Haust approves of it.

History

The published history of Haust is a mix of factual data and irreverent legend. They wrested their territory from several other societies in a series of well-documented battles. Because of this, the people of Haust claim to have a deep understanding of "glory," a term which the rest of the continent never really learned. Even in the present day, their actions, including their waging of the Duumvirate War, are driven by an artful love for glory and the longing to see it again. It's a nobler goal than Ornity's, so they say.
Haust supports a powerful network of world-changing adventurers, a kind of people almost impossible to find elsewhere. However, the people and governors of Haust are uncomfortable with certain concepts, especially the undead; they refuse to support most necromancers, and even some healers, even if their work doesn't technically use necromantic principles. Stories of reconstruction gone wrong are popular in Haust: vengeful ghosts, evil hidden in human bodies, the returned dead who don't come back quite right, all kinds of stories real and fictional. These ghoulish stories circulated faster and faster, and dug deeper into Haust's culture, as news of Mass Resurrection reached its shores.

Population

550,000

Inhabitant Demonym

Haustan