Exatlan

Exatlan is the Western half of the Akatlan Riverlands, a rocky and fractured land on the fringes of the Suneka. Its countryside is mostly sleepy, a mix of small quarries and humble potato farmers with much smaller towns than most of the Sunekan heartlands. Occasionally, a grand fortress, massive mine, or a huge carved road-castle known as a Royal Junction juts out of the mountains, but these tend to be fairly rare and often show some age.
Exatlan is currently a region balancing between two worlds: that of the Adiras and that of the Suneka. It is also facing a political junction, between home rule and domination by the neighboring powers of Akatlan and Sikrek. The next few decades will be pivotal for Exatlan, the turning point between independence and plurality or subjugation and cultural destruction.
Currently, Exatlan is divided into 18 small republics. Many of these are small microstates that represent autonomous local power cliques more than real states; some, however, are actual states able to project power.
The Lower Exatlani Republics are, South to North:

• Zonadua, the Southernmost republic of Exatlan and puppet state of Akatlan. Known for its bountiful flowers and excellent mead
• Cualma, an insulated republic with sharp cliffs and well-insulated valleys. Known as an isolationist pocket of old cultural habits. Has a massive fortress known as the Kidula
• Tyunev, a republic with a sizeable mountain pass Westward and a reputation for trade. Flatter, less insulated, known for its horses and hospitality.
• The March Republics of Tlatapat and Kizatara - two highly militarized majority-Prism mountain states on the fringe of Sunekan practice. Basically just autonomous cliques.
• The Republic of Umentra, the rising star of Exatlan. Most adept at navigating the Sunekan religious politics and the strongest of the Exatlani republics. The last bastion of resistance against foreign conquest and the number one producer of gunpowder in the Suneka. Most populated and prosperous of all Exatlani states. Capital is largest city of region, Huzulta
• Tasmena, the Jasper Republic known for its gem mine. Small, vassalized by Umentra, and particularly rocky.
• Anocha, West of Tasmena. An autonomous valley, slightly more arid than most of Exatlan. Small and rural
• Sunotoka, the Northernmost republic of Lower Akatlan. Fairly militarized, capital of ancient Exatlan, had lots of prism developments to make it navigable. Known for its enormous waterfall. Traditional border between Lower and Upper Exatlan

The Upper Exatlani Republics are, South to North:

• Omekotra, the most densely populated state in Upper Exatlan. Their capital city, Okeval, is famously hewn from the riverside cliffs, and a number of their towns are expertly built into the mountains.
• Tlaimala, a small republic West of Omekotra, known for their salt mines and abundant Prism-food.
• Ezadua, a fairly remote republic North of Omekotra. Unusually Sunekan for this far North. Has direct paths to the Gatrev March, to which it is extremely close
• Ivalu, a republic East of Ezadua. Mostly run by a powerful clique or Prisms who manage a large prism-hold in the central mountains. Held together by raw force and the royal junctions that allow travel
• Setital, a republic East of Ivalu. Sparsely populated, largely a local group of aristocrat prisms running a decentralized state
• Amiatra, a republic North of Ezadua. A merchant republic focused on maintaining the roads and bridges that make it viable to move through. Has been trying to copy Gatrevan industrial workshops, but is struggling to do so
• Tapolget, a republic East of Amiatra. Unusually subterranean for the region, with a massive tunnel and mining system expanding out from a large mountain at its center. Few to no non-Prisms live here, as the landscape is nigh-barren
• Talmikal, a republic East of Tapolget, which is really more of a series of lush isolated valleys connected by Prism holds and tunnels.
• Uzugal, a tiny republic in the far Northeast, which is basically a small feudal valley ruled by a powerful martial sorcerer family.

Any republic with access to the actual Exayir river also hosts a unique social institution: the Cult of Exatea, local Sunekan traditionalists and mystics who worship the river. Unlike most priests and mystics, the Exateans focus on physical prowess over theology: they are experts at canoeing and mountaineering who can easily navigate the treacherous rapids of the Exayir and cliffs of the Adiras, and who practice for many years before becoming full Exateans. Exateans act rather unusually for mystics in that they operate as bounty hunters, lawmen, and sometimes smugglers when it suits their politics.

Geography

Exatlan is the region surrounding the Exayir river, the Western feeder river to the Greater Omayir. The Exayir river is 500 miles long, and begins in the Adira Mountains before flowing into the Akatlan Riverlands. The valleys of Exatlan are roughly 100 miles across. 
Northern Exatlan, also known as Athatlan, is essentially Adira mountain territory: massive mountains overlooking small, isolated forest valleys. The mountains in the Northernmost parts of Athatlan regularly exceed 13,000 feet above sea level. 
Southern Exatlan is much less elevated, but is still fairly mountainous. The Exayir river is prone to rapids that make river navigation nearly impossible, the soil is rough and stony, and the mountains may not be at Athatlan levels but they are still large enough to make travel somewhat difficult. 
To the East and South of Exatlan is Akatlan. To the Northeast lie the Simartan mountains, a particularly rough range of the Adiras, and the valley of Sikrek. To the West and Southwest is the land of Kiotza.

History

The River-Runners and the Conquest of Exatlan

Exatlan's turbulent rivers and rough terrain has always disconnected the region from the rest of Akatlan. While elements of Sunekan culture spread the region via trade, it wasn't until the rise of the first Empire of Akatlan in 400 ME that it fully permeated the Southern half of Exatlan. It was also under the first Empire of Akatlan that Lower Exatlan was brought together under a single institution. In order to govern this rough landscape, the Empire turned to the river-runners: brave merchants, explorers, and warriors who trained in canoeing through the rapids of the Exayir river. Akatlan absorbed these local river-runner groups into its priestly bureaucracy, under a new group known as the Cult of Exatea. These Exatean river-runners were made into vehicles of trade, vessels of state power, and traveling judges.
From 400 to 1145, the early empires of Akatlan consumed and replaced each other, but all of them ruled Exatlan through this Cult of Exatea. All groups depended in some way on the river system, so conquering the rapids meant conquering the land. In many ways, the river-runners became synonymous with the Sunekan priesthood to many in the region: symbols of interconnectivity to the greater culture, as well as symbols of accountability. Roads through the mountains were also built, of course, and these allowed for traffic in heavier goods, but they were still dangerous and winding enough to make the river easier in every regard. 
With these tools and heightened imperial control, Akatlan expanded its reach ever Northward, into the Southern regions of "Athatlan" or Upper Exatlan. But, in 1145, its conquests were cut short by the collapse of the second republic - a cataclysmic event that would dissolve Akatlan's government for almost 500 years. In 1208, a group known as the Kiota - plains nomads better acquainted with navigating hills and mountains than their flatlander neighbors - invaded Akatlan, conquering the East but failing entirely in their attempts to conquer Exatlan. Exatlan was left alone in a sea of militaristic semi-Sunekan Kiotan states, cut off from the greater Suneka. 

Independent Exatlan

The meager attempts at conquest by the Kiotans were enough to bring Exatlan's Sunekan settlements together. In 1212, they formed a grand league of Sunekans communities, which in turn formed into a decentralized republic in 1298. The 1300s saw periods of brief expansion Northward in wars of Sunekan evangelism, but the valley communities were largely peaceful and insulated in their own little bubble. They were the defenders of old ways, who kept the mantle of the Republic of Akatlan alive.
In 1439, an invading force better equipped to move through the mountainous terrain of Exatlan arrived: Prisms, displaced from Inahng and looking for a new kingdom to call their own. Some of these prism clans entered peacefully, others tried to settle mountains already claimed by Exatlan but not lived in, and the most militaristic of these prisms tried to conquer little states of their own. In 1470, a group known as the Taradra arrived at the edge of the weakened Exatlani republic. Led by a powerful sorcerer descended from an old dynasty of Empire of Calazen, the Taradra were more numerous, better organized, better equipped, and more ambitious than any prism group yet. They conquered the other prism arrivals first, uniting the Adiran wanderers under one banner. Then, they marched on Exatlan as an army. With their sorcerous magic, numerous prism warriors, and Calazan fire lances (early gunpowder weapons), they carved their way into the heart of Exatlan and crowned their leader king. 
From 1478 to 1661, the Taradra dynasty ruled over Exatlan. Calazan and Sunekan philosophies and cultures mixed. No Sunekan invasions arrived to overturn this syncretic state, as all of the surrounding lands remained Kiotan. Given free reign, the Taradra set to work on a great project: employing mobile prism settlements as workforces for elaborate infrastructure projects. Over the centuries, these projects went from monumental vanity projects to new routes for mass commerce: notably, the enormous fortified tunnel complexes known as "royal junctions". These royal junctions allowed for the state to closely monitor traffic between the valleys and served as an added layer of military defense. They allowed for merchants to travel quickly and safely without the assistance of specialized river-runners, bringing Exatlan together in a way never before seen. 
While the royal junctions allowed for more stable and efficient trade, the river-runners remained much faster than any land transit. The Cult of Exatea lost their role as government and community leaders, but they adapted to a new existence as couriers, smugglers, and scouts. The Cult also remained aggressively Sunekan, and emerged as the voice for Sunekan hardline traditionalism over time. 

Exatlan Broken

While Exatlan thrived as the number one producer of gunpowder and fire lances in the 1500s and early 1600s ME, the monarchy's stability depended on constant prosperity and growth. The 1600s saw the end of that growth - the royal junctions could only do so much to increase trade and production, and the land struggled to support the large urban centers and grand estates like the Taradra were trying to create. The monarchy was wildly out of touch with its people, attempted to assert immense control over population movement, and was trying to create a grand military state out of a rocky backwater that could not financially support that. In 1661, it all finally came crashing down in a massive civil war. Calazen-oriented aristocrats, Adira-oriented Prism cliques, and Sunekan valley-folk battled; claimants slaughtered one another for the throne. 
The wars came to an end almost a century later, following the lived attempted Akatlani invasion in 1750. A peace was brokered at the city of Huzulta, and Exatlan was divided into twelve republics. These republics turned inwards to rebuild after the devastating occupation and civil war, and from 1752 to 1801 Exatlan was an insular, remote region once again. Even the Cult of Exatea had broken into regional pieces during the war, and was drifting apart. 

Exatlan the Aggressors

In 1801, the twelve republics were offered a chance to rejoin the greater Suneka without compromising their fragile peace: the great war of the plains, where Sunekans and the plainsfolk (mostly Quiku, but also Kiotans and Utamans) fought in a terrible war of annihilation. Exatlan was levied against the Kiotans to the West and Southwest, and while the Exatlani warriors struggled to pursue the nomads out into the open plains, they were able to secure a number of mountain passes to the West to better terrorize and capture Kiotan communities. A number of Exatlani war leaders also began turning this war towards their profits through the trafficking of people. Captured Quiku and Kiotans were to be "reharmonized" by being relocated to new social environments and stripped of their culture, family, and community. Through the royal junctions, Exatlani war leaders were able to drag off a fairly large number of plainsfolk to the lands of Gatrev, Sikrek, and Akatlan as a captive working class for their emerging factories. 
The Exatlani republics, as decentralized and autonomous wild cards, were a perfect channel for other Sunekan officers to trade their war captives as well. While this kind of trade is illegal and immoral by Sunekan standards (as it prioritizes profit over harmony and could potentially allow plainsfolk to maintain communities abroad), the chaos left behind by the wars made it difficult to clamp down on. The fragmented Cults of Exatea, the riverruners of old, emerged as both smugglers and bounty hunters who perpetuated this trade and moral crusaders who disrupted it. Wherever the Sunekan authorities investigated, they used the Exateans to hunt down illicit captive smugglers; wherever Kiotans went rogue, it would be Exateans who captured them and dragged them back to their captors. Whatever the local law and order was, the Exateans became the enforcers and hunters for it. 

Exatlan Remade

The surge in development and wealth brought by the smuggling of people was temporary, but small bursts of it continue to this day from the plains to the industrial states. In the late 1850s, things began to settle back into a relatively peaceful status quo - but this peace was not long for this world. In 1870, the Empire of Calazen marched a grand army through the Adira mountains under the guidance of their emperor Esam the Great. These forces smashed through the defenses of the Exatlani republics, and resistance was paltry. Calazen reorganized Exatlan into one kingdom once more, this time operating as a march state under Calanzen. Calazen occupied Exatlan for a full twenty years in this arrangement, before formally withdrawing from Exatlan in 1891. Exatlan was agreed upon as a buffer state during the negotiations, and when the war re-ignited the Sunekans didn't so much invade Exatlan as fund a republican coup in 1899. 
The buffer state arrangement didn't hold. In 1933, Exatlan fell into another terrible civil war, which fragmented the region into a dozen republics once more. Since the 1950s, Akatlan and Sikrek have loomed over the region, influencing the politics of local states and preparing them for annexation. The Republic of Umentra rose in the 1960s to try and counter these foreign influences, and has gathered steam over the last fifty years.

Alternative Name(s)

West Akatlan

Type

Region

Location under

Akatlan Riverlands