Kingdom of Shekota (Sheh-koe-tuh)

Shekota is the kingdom of Alchemy, of the Healing Church, of the first Dhampires and Sacred Naram. It is a wealthy realm, synonymous with religious tolerance, hospitality, and plenty. There is a certain stereotype that follows this kingdom, an exoticized image of a camel-riding nomad with all kinds of alchemical beakers, warm but strict in demeanor, and full of prying questions. The Shekotan is a mystic, a scientist, a monk, a warrior, a merchant, a nomad. Shekota includes all of these things, but rarely all at once or in ways that outsiders understand them. The realm's leaders encourage its reputation of neutrality and commercial success, but there are deep contradictions and tensions buried beneath it all.
This is a realm in social crisis. Rebels in the Western mountains, prisms and human mountain tribes both, wage war on the royal army. The Queen has fallen deeper and deeper into militaristic egomania, and has further divided the Shekotan people to strengthen her imperial cult. The guardians of Shekota, the alchemists and the Saraja solars, watch in horror but don't seem to know what to do. Powerful clans with a history of local authoritarianism have radicalized. The world has stopped making sense for many, and rumors that this is the end of the world have not made things better.

Structure

Shekota is a feudal monarchy with a supporting bureaucracy; the crown lands, free cities, and courts are managed by the trained clerks of the bureaucracy, while the majority of the countryside is managed by counts who report to the ten great dukes (though one duke, the Duke of Dyemizar, is actually just the crown heir and is more crownland than feudal). The Dukes have significant autonomy and great power over their own vassals. If the dukes disagree with the monarch, they can call an assembly and override any royal decree through a majority vote. Ducal titles are given to families rather than individuals, and the monarch can ask a family to replace the acting duke if they are displeased with the current one (theoretically allowing for easy replacement of incompetent or disloyal individuals). The bureaucracy, meanwhile, draws substantially from the Healing Church, with people retiring from one organization into the other frequently. Parts of the bureaucracy also overlap with the Sumoxan temple, particularly the high command known as the Virtuous Council of Sumoxa. 
But there is more than just the dukes in the feudal hierarchy - there are some lands that are not traditional agrarian territory. Nomadic clans known as the Rinvala orbit the Shekotan feudal territory. In fact, they extend across the desert, with many independent Rinvala in the "empty space" on the political map beyond Shekota's borders. These Rinvala are led by a large number of interconnected clans, and many ignore the superficial borders of outer Shekota to move in and out of vassalage. There are also the Kima Cities in the mountain fringes. Not all neighboring Kima are vassals of Shekota (there are a large number just beyond the borders that consider the vassal Kima to be allies, but do not bow before the monarch), but a significant number are. The Kima are surrounded by Satellite Towns - surface communities that are vassals and tributaries of the Kima, who pay seasonal corvee labor taxes in exchange for material support (water, food, masonry, specialists). Some Satellites are kept distinctly separate from the underground societies; others blend together, offering a safe haven for those who don't wish to live underground. The Kima compete for power over satellites, and use them to project power and trade with the outside world. 

Succession in Shekota is matrilineal (lineage and last names follow the mother's side), but family mediated; property and titles are not often passed directly from mother to daughter, but rather jump between family members as dictated by the family elders. The monarchy is more of a mother-daughter institution, but does jump occasionally, while the noble families tend to only elevate the oldest members of their families. 

Queens and Duchesses

The current Queen is Nariva V of the Parchiva, third in her dynasty's line. She is a dryad of great ambition and some skill, particularly on the battlefield. Sent abroad by her family to find experience as a mercenary (to die, or so she believes), she has learned to navigate many spaces: court culture, Rinvalan mercenary culture, and foreign military culture. She is cut-throat, pessimistic, and almost venomously cynical in a way that many in the Virtuous Council and Healing Church find distasteful. She craves absolute power, and has worked to centralize the kingdom's Sumoxan temple into a kind of imperial cult around her and her family. She has politely exiled her mother from the kingdom, and keeps the rest of her family under something akin to house arrest. Her reign has been controversial, to say the least: she has played with both radical reformist ideology and radical reactionary ideology, and her reckless and ruthless actions have ignited fierce rebellions in the Western Kima and satellite communities. Specifically, she occupied the largest and most politically important Kima  - Nohtapara - and placed it under perpetual feudal rule. She has also encouraged anti-prism sentiment, as well as anti-Ayshan sentiment and anti-youth sentiment, as a way to legitimize herself through persecution. In recent years, some elite Sumoxan solars whisper that she has gone mad, as she has hinted that she is a secret reincarnation of Naram (her namesake) that has knowledge of an impending apocalypse only she can avert. 

No such personal detail will be given for the duchesses and dukes of Shekota, but a small summary of each of the ten will be given:

• Dyemizar is the urban heartland of Shekota and is home to many Sumoxan holy warriors and solar clerics. Religiously and culturally diverse. Currently run by Nariva's cousin, Zuja, who is now her greatest (and only) rival in the family. Nariva working to train her own daughter to replace Zuja, but that is still a few years away - in the meantime, Zuja is kept close enough to arrest quickly for treason. 
• Lapalar is a hilly region, less rich than its neighbors, known for its sheep and copper. Very religious and Sumoxan, with local monasteries wielding immense power. Most non-Kima prisms live here. The ruling ducal family is politically apathetic with some resentment towards the crown, but aligns with the Queen out of fear. 
• Kujid is a wealthy incense-producing region that contains many grand farming estates. Mixed Sumoxan-Aretan. The ducal clan is not exceptionally competent, but is loyal to the monarch. 
• Rosholk is a large agrarian duchy with great religious and cultural diversity. Unusually Ayshan, religiously. The local lords are infamous for their rowdiness; they hate the Rinvalan nomads, they hate each other, and they hate the Southern lakes. Unsurprisingly, the ducal clan here is the most outspoken against the reigning Queen, but Nariva has just funded their internal rivals in response. 
• Sorinim is very nomadic, with the line between the Rinvalans and lowlanders blurring often. The focus here is commercial, as a trading hub with the Empire of Shenerem. Very loyal ducal family.
• Katirel is a duchy of cotton growers and weavers, known for their linens. It is also famous for its traditionalism, with unusually authoritarian family culture even by Shekotan standards. Mixed Aretan-Sumoxan. The ducal clan here is loyal, also competent. 
• Alamshar is a duchy with evocative cliffs and large salt mines. Very Sumoxan, and famous for its elaborate temples and necropoli carved into mountains. Said to house a portal to the afterlife, and many elites choose to be buried here to get to heaven safely. Middling wealth. Famously corrupt ducal family, who currently aligns with the Queen but could be bribed in any direction. 
• Choramel is a new duchy created less than twenty years ago out of occupied Kima territory and new settled hills. In many ways, this is crown land pretending to be an independent duchy; warriors tied to the crown keep this place stable. Choramel is a duchy-in-progress still being built by forced labor taken from the Kima lands. Its presence helps stack the ducal court in the Queen's favor, as the duchess is her puppet. Very much still occupied territory filled with rebels. 
• Jovor is a wealthy duchy that is basically owned by the Healing Church. It is known for its massive herb-growing estates, its schools, and its merchants. Very Sumoxan. The ducal family here is wary of Church domination and has supported the Queen as an alternative power, and the current duchess is a personal friend of Nariva. 
• Dakaza is commercial, religiously mixed, and has much more powerful local elites than ducal elites. Nomads, monks, and foreigners are more commonplace. The ducal family here is wary of the Queen and has rallied the local elites against her as an excuse to make their own ruling bureaucracy, as if they were the true royals of Dakaza. Extremely risky move there, but the family has a grudge against the current dynasty and plenty of ambition. 

Culture

Clan Law

The ideal Shekotan culture hero is endlessly curious and inventive, as well as disciplined; children are taught from a young age that Church alchemists and disciplined Dhampires are the great heroes of life and history. "Question Everything," is a phrase taught to even common children. Stories of Naram and Moxima Sutia speak of individual achievement and spiritual enlightenment that can only be found alone. And yet, Shekotan culture can also be extremely restrictive. Children aren't given any bodily or social autonomy until marriage (and even then, not really until their first child has survived early childhood). Family honor can be a life-or-death issue, and young people are expected to submit completely to their elders. This clashes rather sharply against Question Everything. During more harmonious times, there was a catalogue of clichés to push this under the rug: "Questioning doesn't mean disobeying", "The soul wanders, the body stays firm", "An adult has the discipline to disagree without failing their duty". These are not more harmonious times. Now, these traditions are pitted against each other in many places, and much hay is made of perceived youth rebellion or abusive elders.
Across the kingdom, the idea that extended families have their own private laws that can be enforced as long as they don't directly contradict the royal laws is generally accepted. The clan law of Shekota is old, but has oscillated in strictness and its specifics over the centuries. It is also enforced to varying degrees depending upon where and who you are in the country. It is generally agreed that extended families should play some role in setting up and approving courtships, that family loyalty comes first, and that a person's unruly or immoral behavior reflects poorly on their family and should be punished by the family. A family's prestige is expanded by displays of hospitality, good works, and community defense; a person who feeds the hungry and helps their neighbors with farm work is considered a boon to the family's honor. A person who insults others, neglects the obviously needy, or is inhospitable to strangers is an insult to family honor - and it is well within the clan's rights to beat them, confiscate property, or police them. Clans that seek only to accumulate resources or power are dishonorable, and should be punished by other clans and religious institutions - family honor is idealized as a public good. Power is only honorably demonstrated by generosity, and an honorless creature is spiritually toxic. Individuals who are honorable are to be granted more freedom than others; they can even make public demands of their families, especially if their families are considered less honorable than the individual (for example, a socially lauded adult might demand their family make peace with a rival, or they might demand greater freedom in regards to movement or relationships). Neglect is a huge social sin in Shekota.
The more intense clan regulations can go beyond public virtue and family involvement in courtship; in some extreme instances, clans seclude their unmarried young people from unmarried young people of a different assigned gender as a way to prevent pre-marital affairs. This is more common among noble families that can afford the inconvenience, but it is not unheard of in parts of the poor-to-middling countryside. A handful of dryad families are particularly notorious for sending their youth to "hermit farms" to prevent accidental pollination - these are definitely an exceptional group that is more common in media than in real life, but they do represent an extreme of pre-existing cultural norms. Much of this restriction ends when one is married and has their first child, which is a kind of "second adulthood" or "true adulthood". Monogamy is also extremely culturally dominant prior to one's first child; the polyamory taboo weakens substantially after that. It is almost as if people before that threshold are considered biologically and spiritually different on a fundamental level (which, to some priests and scholars, they are).
These rules and trends do not cleanly translate over to mountain communities or to nomadic communities (the Rinvala tribes). The nomads are stereotyped as more intense in their clan law, and it is true that there are fewer royal courts available for people to appeal to among the nomads. That said, most nomads do also allow for people to swap clans at will - there is a right to mobility and an open attitude towards adoption among most Rinvalans, so just leaving is a distinct option there that isn't usually social death in the same way as it would be for a villager. The mountain communities simply do not follow these rules at all. Similarly, many Ayshan communities reject clan law. Clan law and reputation are much stronger in rural locations than in cities - much of this crumbles when someone enters an urban environment. Lastly, there are many who now actively contest and question clan law, and just as some communities become more radical in their domination of young people, some are becoming much more open and individualistic.

Everyday Life

There is more to everyday life than clan and honor. There is the emphasis on education and literacy, which are considered both public goods that should be shared with the commonfolk and signs of virtue. There is a common cultural self-deprecating humor. Cities and towns often have a tipping culture, where shows of generosity in spending over a good's price earns social goodwill. There are the common expectations of generosity and friendliness. There are the visual arts, which tend to favor the abstract and the otherworldly, and the much-beloved comedy theater.
Food in Shekota often includes thin breads flavored with tamarisk seeds. Savory dishes always include some kind of sauce, often a mustard sauce or a murri sauce. Lamb and chicken are common among humans. Several desserts are beloved by the rich and during feast days: knafeh (a layered cheese spun pastry soaked in sweet syrup), cardamom fried dough balls, and halawet (a kind of citrus-cheese swiss roll cake). Those who can afford to offer coffee, hot chocolate, and tea as well. There are many culinary influences from across Samvara, and dishes from around the continent tend to wind up here. Healing church clerks also bring in recipes and ingredients from far beyond Samvara, and the cities of Shekota are full of foreign foods.
But power is a part of society as well - and the deck is currently more stacked against people than ever. Class divides are on the rise. The social pressure around age is also intensifying. Prisms can struggle to make a home here as well; while foreign prisms are welcomed as merchants and strangers, prisms who try to settle here face a growing level of social hostility.

History

The Earliest History

Shekota developed agriculture very early on, and trading towns cropped up across the Shekotan lakes and rivers in the early -1100s DE. The lake towns grew steadily over the Divine Era, and two pre-Pratasa eras rose and fell in isolation: the early Ulunem culture of -1200 to -800, and the Kujala culture of the mid-to-late Divine Era. Both of these early cultures are more vague clouds of history than governments or clearly-defined cultural moments. The Ulunem era was extremely rural and saw all power focused on extended families; the princes who did rise and fall ruled weakly, local power was everything, and most laws that were codified were made to regulate inheritance, family membership, and inter-clan disputes. The Ulunem families were known for their plant cult, and held dryads in great esteem; many rituals involved decorating people and places as plants, and the power of a person could be measured in irrigation canals rather than coins.
The Kujala era was both a reaction against and a continuation of the Ulunem era, and began with the arrival of Kima Cities in Shekota's Western mountains. The ability of the Kima to produce mobilize large numbers of people and objects allowed them to dominate the commercial and military landscape of Shekota, and the Kima extracted salt tributes from the lowlands. That said, these early Kima were well post-Lily of Red, and had no desire to force people to work in their cities or export their way of life. In fact, the early Shekotan Kima were largely welcomed by the early mountain tribes, as they were able to create consistent food surpluses and extract water where none would otherwise be - the mountain populations gravitated towards the Kima in times of drought. Some became city residents, while others became satellite communities and vassal states. Suddenly, the mountains went from being the uncivilized fringe to being the center of the new trade network, and their cultural quirks bled into the riverlands. The Kujula culture was defined by mountain tribe influences, large towns and forts inspired by Kima cities, a proto-Akadist caste system and religious tendencies, and growing commercial industries. Most popular in the -600s was the incense trade: rare incenses found only in Shekota were becoming a luxury demand abroad, and the Kujula earned a reputation as mystical burners of incense.

The Rise of Naram

The Kujulan kingdoms were unstable and rather compressed, and they had plenty of pushback from the rural families. As the theocratic cities and kingdoms rose, the rural families organized under the Great Clans - extended families that were kingdoms in their own right. These clans grew rich on incense and cotton, and hijacked the trade networks that the Kujalan cities built in order to destroy them. Some cities were conquered, others compromised, and others were destroyed during this time; the -600s were a de-urbanizing period in terms of total-urban-population, though they did see cities and forts becoming 'mainstream' ideas for the Clan kingdoms. Into this chaotic maelstrom of clashing ideas and social structures came Pratasam - a religion that had long lurked at the corners of Shekota but had struggled to cross the desert in a meaningful way. The new kingdoms that wanted to conquer the others or break tradition strategically saw Pratasam as a useful new system of legitimacy and power, and the new faith quickly spread among the elites. Some druids and princes tried evangelizing towards the general populace, and from these efforts came the druid Naram - an herbalist of humble origins, who would rise to become a powerful druid and companion of the then-mortal Haru.
Naram famously ventured to distant Ibith in search of a cure for Gem Plague, and was martyred by the immortal Bobito. He was resurrected by the Architects as the first Dhampire, and his son, Erevi, was divinely cured of Gem Plague and given the secrets of True Alchemy. Shekota had gone from a strange, isolated realm in the desert to being divinely important. This was great news for the Pratasa religion, which caught on like wildfire; it was also great for the local elites. Healing Cults began producing as many healing potions as possible, and Dhampiric monks of Naram protected the mystics and priests of the land. Shekota became religiously distinct from the rest of Pratasam, as the cults of Naram and Erevi became important to local druids and communities alike. But Shekota's isolation essentially obscured it from criticism, and allowed these new traditions to flourish. When a massive drought brought down most of the Shekotan kingdoms and cities in the -200s DE, the new order raised the alchemists and above even Lily of Red - this was the chosen land of Halcyon, with its own chosen prophets.

The Kingdom of Peace (0 - 970)

Things changed with the turn of the millennium. The meteoric rise of the Empire of Shenerem to the North led to a new foreign influence over Shekotan markets, priests, and princes. The introduction of warhorses and the breeding of superior camels led to the sudden boom in desert tribes, who were increasingly mobile and were rising as a military and commercial force. The nomad clans undermined the strength of the lake kingdoms and could serve as useful tools of influence for the Shenek empire. Shekota was becoming less isolated again, and the druids fought viciously over what to do about that. This infighting reduced the druid's political power, and the dhampires and alchemists united to fill that void. From 30 ME to 300 ME, the cults unified more and more into an international military and economic force that came to dominate Shekota. The fall of Shenerem in 300 finally took off the foreign pressure, and the dhampiric and alchemical cliques fell to infighting immediately. This escalated to war between kingdoms, and a century of turmoil followed. One kingdom in the Southeast managed to unite most of the twin lakes in 390; in 401, they had enough control and prestige to declare themselves the Kingdom of United Shekotas. A powerful dhampiric warrior in that administration named Parsev went to work reforming and centralizing the various dhampiric and alchemical cults into one controlled body, and in 410 founded The Healing Church.
From 401 to 610, the Kingdom of Shekota prospered. Its isolation insulated it from the Lunar Crisis of those centuries, and the demand for healing potions and divine incense was skyrocketing. The Healing Church expanded across the continent as a neutral mediating power, and it accumulated immense power back in Shekota. Some of the finest schools in Samvara opened in Shekota, with the goal of analyzing the world through an alchemical lens and searching for new magical solutions - these schools became models for academies in Shenerem, and then across Samvara. Lunar Cults did rise across Shekota, but the Healing Church founded their own paladins of alchemical secrecy belonging to Agamine and Haru - and the Church was able to make peace with their Lunar cults. While the Church was well-protected from interlopers, the kingdom was less secure and did almost collapse after a lunar coup in 610. The Healing Church and their allies stepped in to restore the government, and ultimately created an oligarchical assembly in 615 to represent the various divine and elite interests in the kingdom as a concession. The monarch's power was severely reduced, and the governing fell to a combination of local clans, Lunar cults, and church bureaucrats. When religious peace was announced in 700 ME, Shekota eagerly funded and participated in the negotiations. The Healing Church won big in the resulting agreements, and ended up pushing the Lunar cults out of power in the Shekotan government completely. A new religious influence was arriving, though: proto-Ayshanism, a new philosophy tied to the solar clerics who were close with both the Church and the nomadic merchants.
The great Shekotan peace finally ended in 890. The last dregs of the Lunar cults wanted power returned to them, foreign Pratasa druids were competing for influence, and a new elite crop of local clans were pushing back against perceived royal overreach. The Healing Church tried to intervene, but was divided into its own political factions - the dhampiric military, the merchants, the agrarian administrators, and the alchemists. Civil war broke out from 890 to 910, but the council of oligarchs lost substantial authority. The unstable kingdom shook with revolts and intrigue for several decades before collapsing into civil war again in 940. The fighting stopped in 970, but there was no United Shekotan kingdom left - the realm was split into four by the major families, and would soon fragment even further. The old days of a united Shekotan region faded into a romantic dream that warlords aspired to imitate.

Days of Division (970 to 1510)

The fall of the Shekotan monarchy challenged the Healing Church to find its own identity apart from region, but the Church still held great power here. Estates used to mass farm healing herbs became the private property of the Church, ruled by monks who played the role of feudal lord. Alchemical schools and mixing centers also began to accumulate land, which was in turn handed to feudal dhampire monasteries to govern. This normalized "monastic feudalism", a mixed system where feudal lords would sometimes rely on vassal monasteries, or monasteries would act as their own feudal lords. In some areas, extended families went back to being in charge; in others, nomadic merchants and mercenaries installed their clans as feudal entities. Clans and family ties both ruled the feudal system where monks did not, and served as the tool that people could use to avoid serfdom - family ties allowed people to move freely across different feudal holdings and could provide social mobility in a world of increasing hereditary castes. Religion was becoming a very contested point in Shekota; the Ayshans were radicalizing, the Pratasa were fighting the Aretans, and the Healing Church seemed to be preaching a kind of non-committal religious neutrality. All the while, the climate fluctuated and strange omens haunted the land - for example, a large Starmetal meteor crashed into the desert in 1290, which every sect and community interpreted differently.
The Kima Cities, meanwhile, were prospering. Prior to the 900s, they had been vassals of the Grand Ekedum - the divine kingdom of all the world below the dirt, or so it was said. The Grand Ekedum drew the resources and best specialists of the Shekotan Kima Southward and dampened their rapid expansion and influence on the surface world; the division of Ekedum into independent "subdivisions" in 915 meant that the Shekotan Kimas were basically free to self-govern as a federation now. These Kimas turned from the South to the East, and began exerting influence over the squabbling surface kingdoms. They also began colonizing the mountains on the Eastern half of Shekota, encircling the lakes. For a moment in the 1000s, it seemed that the Kima reuniting Shekota was just a matter of time. But then, in 1031, the Kima League collapsed into infighting, the colonies in the East went rogue, and the political landscape seemed more fragmented than ever. Over time, though, one Kima City known as Nohtapara rose above the others. Nohtapara, the garden Kima, had perfected using satellite communities to build ties to the surface kingdoms, and used its surface relationships to gain a foothold over the others. In 1220 Nohtapara forged an alliance with the surface kingdom of Lokabra, and the twin kingdoms became the alliance of the age. While Nohtapara and Lokabra occasionally broke up, they always got back together - it became their brand, in a way. It opened both kingdoms up to accusations of heresy and impropriety, but it also greatly enriched them. The late 1300s in particular saw the Lokabra-Nohtapara alliance snowball through repeated victories - by 1400, they had almost all of Western Shekota under their shared control.
In the East, the Kingdom of Tashanra rose as a mirror to Lokabra, but its partner was the Aretan Church rather than neighboring Kimas. Tashanra marginalized their neighboring under-cities, defamed Lokabra as evil prism-puppets, developed trade routes in the North, and tried to forcibly convert all of Shekota to force religious unity. Religious cults that revered the hearts of mountains and cave necropoli as conduits to the afterlife were condemned as Akadists when it was convenient for new elites; the Ayshans were driven out of the heartlands and into the tribes, where the nomads took them in and learned their magical arts. The late 1300s saw Tashanra rise to power as well; in 1454, the two great kingdoms cleanly divided the realm in half. The two began to fight. Lokabra, seeking religious legitimacy and support, began adopting some of the religious unity policies of Tashanra, driving religious dissenters into the Kima. The two kingdoms repeatedly smashed into each other, and it was the commoners who suffered the most. Lokabra slowly began to win, and in 1510 they finally captured the Tashanran throne and reunited Shekota.

Shekota Remade (1510 - 1645)

The ascendant kingdom of Lokabra was horrifically unstable, over-ambitious, and was not particularly popular. Other religions were on the rise again, the nomads (enriched by all the infighting) were getting dangerously coordinated, and the vassal clans stood in the way of any attempt at centralization. To solve these problems, the Lokabran monarch tried to seize all assets and power in the Healing Church. This gave short-term profits but created more chaos than it solved; the local monastic feudalism was completely disrupted, the church dissolved into infighting, and trade nosedived. In 1520, a civil war broke out. It ended quickly, but the new Queen Sharika had a very unstable alliance of supporters: the Nohtaparan Kima elites, several sects of the Healing Church, Shenek mercenaries, and an Ayshan sect. To balance the new government, an assembly was made - in fact, the new queen built the government as an almost identical copy of the old kingdom from the 700s. It was symbolically powerful, but materially weak. The Healing Church was still fighting their own shadow civil war. And the world was growing more hostile.
In 1550, the kingdom of Bilgaza, a fellow Aretan kingdom and key trading partner to Shekota, collapsed into civil war and was promptly invaded by Apankarta - a group of violently oppressive Kima Cities that saw the surface world as an existential enemy. In response the desert nomads rallied under a religious leader, Barinaya Sibdaji, who who united the clans to ride Southward against Apankarta. Queen Sharika claimed to be their liegelord - and therefore had to either support Barinaya's invasion, act against it, or relinquish claims to the nomadic vassals. Terrified of losing any scrap of legitimacy, Sharika rode after Barinaya in support of the invasion and tried to claim the attack as her own. She may have succeeded in this, but she died early on in the war, just before the year turned 1551. She had hoped that a war martyrdom would support her line's legitimacy, but it simply wasn't enough. Shekota fell into civil war in 1551. In 1557, the supporters of Barinaya (led by the Apostle Goresh) returned victorious from their war - and proceeded to conquer Shekota for themselves. Their new religion, Sumoxa, was seen as the cure for the religious and political tension of the land. Scraps of land, and the Kima Cities, held out against the Sumoxans for many years, but all was Sumoxan by 1600.
From 1600 to 1645, the Sumoxan Empire of the Shepherd ruled Shekota. For several decades, the Sumoxan apostles and nomadic clans tried to directly govern the lake region, but the elaborate imperial administration was overextended and increasingly reliant on local elites. In 1644, a group of powerful alchemists finally united all of the disparate sects of the Healing Church and legitimized their new group enough to be recognized by alchemists abroad as the High Church leaders. When local elites tried to assert control over the Church once more, merchants rebelled. In 1645, the rebels installed their own "Governor of the Sacred Shepherd", effectively making a new Shekotan monarchy.

The Dyekejan Era (1645 - 1950)

It was hardly a smooth transition from Sumoxan empire to independent kingdom; rebellions, rogue feudal fiefdoms, and flagrant disobedience of royal law was common in the 1600s. In 1750, the final collapse of the "Empire of the Shepherd" as an institution of Sumoxan political power unleashed more civil war in Shekota - claimants fought for the throne from 1751 to 1754. In 1754, a merchant-princess with experience as a Church administrator by the name of Sarrosha Dyekeja was able to take the throne and actually keep it. She enacted a series of legal reforms that stabilized the kingdom, with limited religious tolerance, pockets of local autonomy, and a strong bureaucracy. The Dyekeja dynasty fostered close ties to the Healing Church and the Sumoxan solars, and survived thanks to these alliances - when feudal lords and Kima cities stirred a political crisis in the 1820s, Church assassins (who would go on to be institutionalized in the 1830s as the Pratiasha assassins) and solar clerics intervened to keep the dynasty stable.
After the crisis of the 1820s was settled, all seemed well. For eighty years, peace prevailed and the land prospered. Outright civil war became less and less acceptable. In 1905, a succession crisis did lead to a palace coup and a new dynasty, but the system remained intact. The 1905 coup did disturb the status quo, though - the involvement of Nohtaparan elites in the coup, which was revealed in a scandal in 1910, caused many to fear that the Kima were seeking power once again. Pro-Kima policies implemented 1905 - 1925 were rolled back as discontent grew. Discontent began to move the other way when the next monarch began trying to dissolve Kima satellite communities to isolate the prisms, and even poked at "liberating prisms" from Eastern Kimas. Another scandal in 1934 suggested that the reigning king may have even been Aretan, further enraging prisms and prism allies. Old religious factionalism began to re-emerge.

Modern History

To help guide Shekota back to the path of stability, the solar clerics meddled lightly in succession. Several members of the Saraja Family helped select the new queen, Ketari Parchiva I, and helped legitimize her ambitious reforms. Ketari greatly empowered the monarchy, enacted new laws of stronger religious and personal freedom, and greatly curtailed the political and social power that families exerted over their younger members. The Sumoxan temple was also centralized under the monarch, and local monasteries were brought in line. Shekotan Ayshans, who had grown as a religious community during the Sumoxan period, were thrilled by both the individualism and the involvement of the Sarajas. Some Kimas were thrilled at the expanded protections, while others were terrified at their reduced power over their subjects - and Ketari artfully turned the two groups against each other, breaking up the Kimas as a faction. While some Sumoxans loved Ketari (some even saw her as demi-divine), many hated her. Similarly, Aretans largely despised her reform's attacks on clan and community rights. Traditionalist Sumoxans and Aretans found common cause and began emphasizing their religious kinship in opposition to Ketari. The 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s are known as the Ketarin Moment, or the Spring of Youth: elopements and divorces skyrocketed, and young people began violating family traditions to join new communities in the towns and cities. Social panics in rural communities lashed back in response, and feudal lords did their best to quietly stop young people from disobeying the social order. When Ketari finally retired in 1972, the moment ended. Most of the old rules came back, and the feudal lords asserted their local dominance. Many expected the Sarajas to step in, but they seemed too distracted to intervene - a worrying sign.
The next queen, Timaya I, took a much more conservative and decentralized approach than Ketari did. Many elements of the old regime remained, but now the dukes ruled with impunity on a local level. The new queen saw feudalism as stability, and saw instability as death. Supporters of successors and advisors closer to Ketari formed their own political faction, which grew in the royal cities; Timaya flirted with this faction when she needed to, but generally tried to remain politically aloof. This tactical neutrality slowly slipped into apathy and despair in the 1990s, and Timaya eagerly abdicated the throne in 2001.
Timaya's daughter, Nariva V, replaced her. If Timaya was too distant, apathetic, and inactive, her daughter is too much her opposite. Nariva immediately set to work trying to centralize the government while "fixing" the "social damage" that Ketari had done. Some initially thought that Nariva was a Ketaren sympathizer, and she was able to mobilize significant political support before they realized this. When the Ayshans turned against her, she swiftly crushed them with overwhelming force - a display that she had no patience or mercy for any political disagreement. The entire Ayshan leadership, not just the courtiers, were rounded up and imprisoned (except for those who swore absolute loyalty). Nariva encouraged her Sumoxan reformer followers to regard her openly as semi-divine, as has started her own imperial cult.
Many religious minority groups were immediately disturbed by the crushing of the Ayshans and the imperial cult, but Nariva has united the country with a common enemy: the Western Kima (the politically unimportant Eastern Kima have actually been elevated and praised). In 2005, Nariva sent forces to occupy Nohtapara to arrest the Kima's leaders for slander and sedition; a mountain revolt quickly followed. This war had brought together Aretans, Sumoxans, and even some Ayshans - but has been a brutal slog that has brought criticism and threats of intervention from the Saraja family. This suppression campaign and radicalizing atmosphere has gotten significantly worse since 2012, when rumors came from the Sumoxan leadership that the "end of times" was starting. While the Virtuous Council of Sumoxa has since condemned these rumors as baseless fearmongering, strange omens and fell news from abroad has intensified public panic.

Demography and Population

Over 10 million humanoids live in Shekota. 40% are Human, 30% are Dryad, 15% are Prism, 10% are hybrids, and 5% are Other.

Territories

Shekota is 850 miles long North-South and 530 miles wide West-East. Most settlement is concentrated around the Twin Yaram lakes (the bigger Yaramta lake and the smaller Yaramti lake) and their feeder rivers. The area around these water sources is fertile and abundant, as are the areas around the periodic oases in the surrounding desert. That said, moving away from the lakes and rivers leads to the driest and sandiest desert in Samvara. Not all of this is barren dunes; much of it sustains grass and shrubs for the rainy months (varying between desert patches), before withering into barren stone and hardened dirt for the dry months. Some of the desert is made of sandy dunes that very rarely sustain vegetation, though.
The desert regions surrounding Shekota are less arable the further out one gets. While the kingdom claims all the vast territory surrounding it, it has basically no control over any of the regions not marked on the article map as Shekotan. In fact, the fringe areas that are marked can be very debatably Shekotan at times - the nomadic tribes are highly autonomous vassals that the Kingdom often fails to control. The inability of the Kingdom to irrigate and settle the desert is a major part of this - and part of why the new regime is desperate to change that by any means necessary. There are also areas governed by autonomous prism networks - largely run by Kima Cities and their associated communities.

Military

The Shekotan military is a mix of feudal levies and warbands, a small royal guard, and mercenaries. The Shekotan model is traditionally cavalry-based, with heavy use of horse archers, light lancers, and a core of heavy cavalry. A large number of Dhampiric monks then served as highly mobile and effective light infantry and archers, sometimes temporarily mounted in order to close in to the enemy force. The focus, in short, is on mobility and striking power.
Traditionally, holy warriors tied to the Sumoxan temple have augmented the military. Nomadic mystics known for their iron discipline and skill with swords are particularly famous in that regard, as well as the expert solar warriors known as the Eternal Apostles.
This has changed recently, especially in the rapidly expanding royal guard, to include more heavy infantry and artillery. Veterans of the Kima rebellions, known as Gembreakers, are becoming their own elite units of medium-to-heavy infantry in the developing standing army. Rather than use the traditional curved sword, such as the shamshir, Gembreakers prefer the warhammer and the war-pick.

Religion

Shekota is officially a Sumoxan kingdom, with Sumoxan leadership and some political power given to the Sumoxan Virtuous Council (old and esteemed Sumoxan solars and monks). Nobles and royals must be Sumoxan to retain their status.
That said, there is a limited "secularism" tied to royal power here. Local religious minorities are allowed to openly practice, and sometimes even evangelize. There are significant Aretan populations with generally equal rights, as well as substantial Akadist and Ayshan communities. There are some small Halikvar and Pratasam communities as well, but these are not traditionally favored communities and lack much power. In this secular system, all religious status and rights for non-Sumoxans flows from royal authority; the crown decides what religions are accepted, which are allowed to evangelize, and which are banned. Significant change in a major religion's status requires the approval of the majority of dukes.
There is a developing royal cult tied to this secular power that has been expanding across religious communities. All religious communities since 1950 have participated in joint ceremonies in every major city, where they are validated by the monarch and perform group ritual and sacrifice towards the monarch and feudal lords - these rituals grew more openly fetishistic of royal power over the 1960s and 1970s, and the current regime has been encouraging outright royal cult. This is Sumoxan-coded, as it tends to deify Naram as the "Original God-King of Shekota" from which all royals gain their heavenly power, but it is not exclusively Sumoxan.

Local Sumoxa

Sumoxa is a mixture of individualizing philosophy and local traditions. These elements can be in subtle tension, and that is certainly the case in Shekota. This tension is navigated awkwardly, and the ideas that have helped paper over Shekotan Sumoxa's contradictions have been called into question. The idea that monks can, via priests, extend their individual peace and transcendence to the community (an idea called Transitive Spirituality) is no longer commonly accepted. The idea that monks are exceptional people who alone can achieve spiritual perfection, while the rest of us must simply toil in imperfect disharmony until our patience is rewarded with a monk-like incarnation, is also no longer common wisdom. Some people persist with these ideas, while others argue that society must be reformed in order to better allow for individuals to seek enlightenment - often by improving social mobility and access to education, and reducing the power of feudal lords, monks, and/or clans. 
Shekota's other main religious tension is one of acceptance versus agency. Sumoxa preaches total acceptance of a world that cannot be understood or controlled, but Shekotan local traditions are all about trying to categorize, analyze, and ritually control. There is great anxiety over the fate of the dead; many of the most persistent pre-Pratasa traditions sought to protect the spirits of the dead from danger and to guide them towards a satisfying rest. In the elemental cosmology of Shekotan culture - Fire, Water, Earth, Wood, Sky - Earth and Sky are the elements of death, and the spirits of Earth and Sky must be ritually bribed and bound into ensuring a safe journey through the "White Desert" of the afterlife. There are several ways this is done:

• God Blocks, pillars of unusual stone taken from a mountain's core, are ritually used to bind the earth spirits of these mountains to protect the dead. Unusually, these pillars are not anthropomorphized or carved in any way to make them humanoid - these are not people, but the stolen hearts of very big creatures that are being used for magical purposes
• Necropoli, special towns and palaces carved out of mountains that serve as honored catacombs. Ritual there is particularly potent, and the dead there are believed to have special advantages in navigating death
• Ancestral Genii, or the combined spirits of the ancestral dead of a clan, which can be fed worship and magical power. Copper tablets containing the names of new people to be added to the mega-spirit are buried in the group beneath an altar, and this is a major incentive for people to die honored by their clan. This particular practice is notable in that it is also common in local Areto 
• Star-spirits, celestial beings that dwell in the night sky, essential angels of the dark sun. Star-spirits help weave the context of the world and are handmaidens of fate. Meteors are believed to come from them, and can be used for spiritual communication. Cats are also drawn to this ritual, and have symbolic associations with it.

Some priests and monks condemn these manipulations of the afterlife as a failure of acceptance, but no serious effort to end this worship has occurred. Instead, these criticisms have just created more religious anxiety within the Sumoxan community. Also, it is worth noting that there are numerous local traditions not captured here that vary from village to village.

Foreign Relations

Shekota is a generally friendly country with little interest in conquest and great interest in trade. This has earned them a positive reputation, and they are well-liked as a mediator and trading partner by their neighbors. They half a mutual protection and trading pact with the Empire of Shenerem, not quite an alliance (Shekota has no desire to be dragged into Shenek wars abroad) but close enough to allow for cooperation against bandits or unfriendly nomads. Shekota is also friendly and allied to the Kingdom of Bilgaza to the South. 
Shekota's main rivals are the minor nomads and prism communities in the surrounding desert and mountains, as Shekota claims all "unincorporated" land between Maruva and Ashakahd. This has accidentally drawn the kingdom into tension with another major state: the Kingdom of Pritinam, which has ties with the Kima cities and prismholds to Shekota's West. This is unlikely to escalate into war as long as Shekota's prism wars remain local, but future conflicts could lead to problems there.

Agriculture & Industry

Shekota is full of profitable industries that keep the continent afloat, and is the oft-forgotten heart of the Samvaran trade network. Large amounts of healing herbs, used by The Healing Church for healing potions, are grown here. Incense, both specialty incenses like myrrh and for the Divine Contact, are grown here in large quantities. Cotton is grown here as well. Salt is mined in the West, along with gold, silver, and copper in various amounts around the kingdom.
Two unusual products are notable for being mined here in large quantities: bitumen (used in asphalt and sealants) and pitchblende, used in dyes and for special green-yellow glass. Pitchblende, it should be noted, is uranium. The largest pitchblende mine in Shekota, known as Alamwar (or the Cursegraves to nearby villagers), has only recently been opened due to its horrible reputation for mysterious deaths and poisonous gas (extremely hot radioactive gas generated by a naturally occurring nuclear fission reactor deep underground has worked up into pockets near the pitchblende). The fact that even prisms are vulnerable to these poisons has attracted increasing scholarly attention. Prisms in the West also mine petroleum and oil, though these things are seen as useless by the majority of the surface-dwellers.
Obviously, more than any of these industries, most people grow food. Wheat and maize are common crops; many people also care for animals, especially in the seasonal deserts surrounding the riverlands. Shekotan horses and camels are considered superior to many others in Samvara.

Trade & Transport

The Healing Church plays a major role in coordinating trade; their grand caravans in and out of Shekota are well-protected and supplied, and often move with large numbers of common merchants. Bureaucratic connections, most easily made in the cities, are essential for any up-and-coming lowlands merchant, and merchant guilds are extremely concentrated in several cities as a result. 
Most other merchants tend to be members of the nomadic clans, who often work as mercenaries, merchants, and scouts. These nomads also frequently have relatives throughout the Sumoxan world and in Shenerem to the North - essentially allowing for powerful clans to run their own commercial networks that can avoid Healing Church and royal regulation. 
Artisan guilds coordinate most manufacturing, and are often tied to monasteries or Aretan temples (but do not demand religious participation for guild participation, except in the more zealous and religiously homogenous regions).

Education

Shekota has an excellent school system, with many great universities of magic, natural science, and theology based out of the cities. Temple schools teach basics to children in the countryside, and priests are encouraged to support children in accessing the universities (which are free to those who pass a series of tests).

"Masters of Life and Death"

Founding Date

1701 ME

Type

Geopolitical, Country

Demonym

Shekotan

Government System

Monarchy, Theocratic

Power Structure

Feudal state

Economic System

Mixed economy

Currency

Ekedian Gold Suns, Silver Moons, and Copper Bats

Major Exports

Healing potions, Divine Contact incense, normal incense, gold, silver, asphalt, pitchblende, salt, green-yellow glass, myrrh

Major Imports

Steel, lumber, dyes, luxury spices and sugar

Official State Religion

Sumoxa

Location

Samvara

Official Languages

• Shenek Language

Neighboring Nations

• Empire of Shenerem