Kingdom of Sonisha (Soe-nee-shuh)

Sonisha is a land bound by destiny. The future and the past all seem to be one thing here, an endless circular chain that cannot be escaped. Once, Sonisha was the land that rivalled Calazen and dueled against their demigods; echoes of that battle have reverberated ever since. This is the land of the Immortal Mavara, of the many-faced champion known as the Zethko, of ancient bloodlines and oaths. But this land cannot rival Calazen anymore; it has been reduced to a vassal state trapped in its own reflection. 
This is a kingdom in the Northern Adira Mountains inhabited by millions of Prisms. It is known for its metallurgy, its wizards, its sense of honor, and its fatalism. Gods, wizards, and knights who put honor before victory - it is all out of a storybook for some. For most people, all of that stuff just spells trouble, though. For them, Sonisha is patterned stitch work, fried potato crisps with cheese curds, great irrigation canals surrounded by playing children, and miners pouring small shots of vodka into a shrine before descending into the earth. Of course, the kingdom is both. And the current leadership seems able to reconcile the mundane, the heroic, the traditional, and the modern. May the kingdom survive the next round of Gods and blessings.

Structure

Sonisha is a theocratic monarchy that mixes together hereditary nobility and bureaucracies. Generally speaking, most of the hereditary nobility are prism or half-prism clans with connections to the old prism-holds (and where individual nobles are inferior to collective clan rule meanwhile, the bureaucracy helps run the roads and irrigation canals. In some areas, this can lead to a strange reversal of typical administration, where towns and cities are ruled by feudal lords and the countryside is controlled by bureaucratic offices. This is only true in some places, though, and the urban feudal lords are much more bureaucracy-adjacent than their rural counterparts. 
This kingdom is strictly divided between hereditary social classes, with great emphasis on lineage. 

• At the top is the Royal family and those immediately around them
• Below them are the Blooded Castes, nobles and other elite families with pedigrees tying them to some ancient hero or another
• Below them are the Raised Castes, merchants and sorcerers and powerful people who are not Blooded
• Then there are the Commoners, ranging from free landowners to peasants to indentured servants

The Bureaucracy and the clergy appear meritocratic, but aren't. The upper positions are gated behind caste, though the current Queen has worked to make the mid-level positions more accessible based on merit and is currently investigating how to reform the upper levels without provoking too hostile of a response. 
There is one position equal to the monarch in power: the Zethko, heir to the power of Onyx. The Zethko is someone descended from Onyx, the founder of the first Sonishan empire, and fits the definition of their "heir and descendant". Given the vast number of direct descendants, as well as the massive number of complicating factors in deciding who would be firstborn heir, the magic has been jumping between definitions and generally being kind of arbitrary for the last 12 or so centuries. Traditionally the Zethko has also been the monarch, but the current regime has kept them apart legally. 

People and Places

The current monarch is Queen Shomka I Ziriba, a product of the heir to Calazen and the Sonishan Zethko. Shomka is a gentle soul who hopes to guide the country into a new age of reason and technology, with all of the best intentions of careful reform. She is called craven by some, as she seems willing to go to great lengths to avoid violence; her benefactors note her meritocratic reforms, her investment in education, and her eye for useful technologies. Queen Shomka's older half-sister, Luida Tusuba, is the current Zethko. Luida is a dutiful warrior, a knight of the finest caliber known for her acts of charity and piety (though also for being a bit of a recluse at times). So far, Luida has not moved to consolidate power, but she also hasn't exactly distanced herself from it. In the eyes of some Sonishans, Luida is the true monarch - peak knight, accomplished warrior, successor of Onyx in the eyes of God, untainted by Calazen, elder child of the old Queen. Until Luida does something to suggest a coup, Shomka seems unwilling to act, and so the two have an increasingly tense relationship. 
Sonisha has two rulers, and it has two capitals: Athona and Drijem. Athona is the symbolic capital, in and around the base of the broken mountain (Tusuan, the original mountain of Onyx) and home to the court of the demigod Mavara. But Drijem is the administrative and economic capital. Drijem is home to the Heroic Obelisk, a magical artifact built around an ancient mummy, blessed to allow its user to communicate instantly over long distances with seven other connected artifacts (the Sacred Mummies of Kedijah it is the heart of the bureaucracy, and is better connected to the international teleportation circle network.

Culture

Honor, Status, Fatalism

Sonisha takes honor extremely seriously on all levels of society - honor is how the Gods regulate the Zethko, so it is understood as a powerful spiritual force in the real world. Elites take honor and codes of conduct the most seriously, but this isn't entirely an elite practice. Being caught in a lie is deeply humiliating, underhandedness is seen as deeply disgusting, and even a villain who moves with honor should be respected. The worst punishments are reserved for poisoners and betrayers, and those accused of underhanded cursing or witchcraft are quick to face mob justice. Families take the appearance of honor very seriously, and society can be quick to shun families that don't publicly punish dishonorable children enough. Honor has social consequences, even for the poorest Sonishans. Choosing prestige and honor over money isn't just a moral choice here, but a tactical one for many households. Honor here is about respecting deals, showing respect to others according to status, politeness to others, and directness in action. It is not dishonorable to kill a saint if you follow the rules while doing it. One might also call this a "fixation on procedures over consequence". Honor can open doors, or close them.
Duty is an essential partner to honor, and veneration of duty often doubles as veneration of status. Social restrictions aren't just static, their staticness is seen as a good thing - you are what you are born as, and that makes the world simple and correct. The idea of hereditary status is also deeply entrenched here, even for things like guilt. We inherit the status and burdens of our parents and our ancestors; a child atones for their parent's sins not because they are guilty, but because that is necessary for the bloodline - it is a burden that simply must be carried with as much honor as possible. Since status is so important here, blunt questions about someone's status are common.
There is another element to this, which is pervasive fatalism. Fate is inescapable. The media, the folk stories, the sayings, it is drilled into Sonishan's heads almost daily. A person can be born doomed, and being upset about that is creating unnecessary pain for yourself - changing it is impossible. Sonishan children are trained to accept pain and injustice with a smile; nothing can be done, we are all trapped in the current of fate. 

Manners and Fashion

Generally speaking, Sonishan etiquette divides the body in half. The top half, the torso, arms, and head, is the social and outward-facing half; the legs and pelvis are the roots connecting you to the Earth, both sacred and profane. To touch someone's legs or feet is considered more of a violation of personal space than to touch arms or torsos; stepping over someone's legs is offensive, and stepping on someone's toes has a special set of profuse apologies. Accidentally touching someone's feet under the table is considered generally unacceptable. Touching someone with your feet or shoes is considered strange and offensive, and throwing a shoe at someone is considered an insult beyond words. 
Manners more broadly speaking are very ritualistic and are broken into multiple levels of formality. Cordial and careful conversation is valued, though questions asking someone's status details or life details can be as blunt or rude as necessary. Fashion in Sonisha is generally plain, and focuses on texture over color; physical woven patterns and the fine quality of cloth are considered more important than color, and grey is perpetually in-fashion as the cheaper option. This is not to say that the fashion is austere - Sonishans love their finery, the excess here is just tailored for prism eyes rather than human ones.

History

Divine Era History

When Halcyon created prisms at the dawn of the Divine Era, Sonisha was one of the first hubs of prism population. They were largely limited by water access, but quickly innovated new ways to melt snow and gather water from underground - and, in the process, stumbled into early metallurgy before many of their contemporaries. Even before the Empire of Calazen started to rise as the first urban civilization of humans, Sonisha was rising among prisms. But Sonisha's prism-holds struggled to expand their influence (thanks to the enormous mountains that provided them their material advantage), at least until the rise of Onyx Azetho. Onyx was the ruler of Tusuan, the Mountain of Frost (known to the Architects as Frostmount), the largest and most imposing mountain in Sonisha, and he built a militaristic empire from the disorganized prismholds of the Northern Adiras. He forced the conquered and the lower-class prisms alike to build roads, bridges, and tunnels for his warriors to cross the Adiras with, and he trained his warriors how to cross the harshest mountain ranges to raid and conquer. Onyx marched Southward to conquer the more organized prisms of the Southern Adiras, while his many children raided across and beyond the Adiras. It was an explosion of the pent-up riches and energy of early-Divine-Era Sonisha, neither sustainable nor cleanly directed. The children and siblings of Onyx accidentally raided too far and started a war with Ghavi, demigod of the riverlands, who pursued them to Tusuan. In a grand adventure, Ghavi and Jade Atharzen were able to defeat Onyx and his warriors in battle. Onyx was resurrected after the battle by Halcyon and empowered with great strength. 
Onyx's descendants ruled Sonisha after his death and resurrection. Each Onyx-born ruler seemed to inherit his divine strength, which led to a cult of Divine Monarchs (or Zethko) developing in Sonisha. While the inherited blessing of Onyx did give them a divine mantle of legitimacy, it also seemed to come with a curse: every inheritor of Onyx's strength seemed predestined by fate to end up in conflict with the Empire of Calazen. Sonisha was dragged into wars with the Southern prisms over and over again. The millennia of conflicts that followed did not generally go in Sonisha's favor, especially during the Dagrin dynasty of the late Divine Era. Sonisha was on the verge of civil war when, in 0 ME, Halcyon provided another gift in the form of Mavara - a large living crystal temple in the heart of Tusuan's original prismhold. This miracle led to a religious reformation around the Zethko, despite the recent defeats.

Early History (0 - 500)

The horrible defeats by the Dagrin dynasty in the late divine era and the first century of the Modern Era shook Sonisha to its core. While the Zethko did strike back with great force and did win some victories in the early 100s ME, their administration was collapsing on the inside. The late Zethko relied more and more on eight prismholds to supply warriors and resources, and granted these "Great Eight" more and more autonomy and power within the regime. While Sonisha appeared to be winning in the 100s ME, as Calazen was busy with a brutal civil war from 155 to 180, the Zethkos were slowly becoming figureheads. And once the civil war was over, Jade Atharzen was able to exert more direct control over her old Empire through the Divine Contact and paladins; with direct divine support, the Empire was becoming extremely hard to raid or regularly fight. Despite this, the Curse/Blessing still drew the Zethko into conflict after conflict. One Zethko, God-Queen Gomida II Zethko, finally put together that this was more than just a blood feud. Gomida was a philosopher who was very interested in Calazen's legal theory and religious theory (which at the time was Daripar, or divine legalism), and wrote a great deal on the nature of fate and the divine role of monarchs. While many of Gomida's successors disagreed with her thoughts, they would eventually prove extremely influential for Sonishan religion and culture - they are considered the founding documents of both the fatalist philosophical tradition, and the Zethko-Daripar religious tradition. 
In 324 ME Sonisha finally broke into outright civil war when God-King Rati I Zethko attempted to centralize power around the monarchy once again. The "Great Eight" quickly captured Rati, and then fought one another for de-facto control of Sonisha. In 339, the war was brought to a close by Sonisha's first non-Zethko leader: Nirmeni Chando, the First Architect of Mavara. Nirmeni was a commoner who had grown close to the immortal Mavara and had been given many blessings. He was not as powerful as a Zethko physically, but he was quick, charismatic, and could contact Mavara telepathically at any time - he was a willing guinea pig for Mavara's magic, and he used this to build a large following during the civil war. He acted as Mavara's agent of peace, and gathered a team of Mavara-blessed adventurers to help end the civil war and restore unity to Sonisha. While the haphazard nature and extreme extent of Mavara's blessings made Nirmeni somewhat detached from the world and alien to his fellow prisms (to the point where direct rulership was a clear bad idea), he was an effective mouthpiece for Mavara. The Architect of Mavara became a title in Sonisha, and Mavara became the glue that held Sonisha together for the next few centuries. Sonisha centralized, and created a balanced government between the prismholds, the Zethko, and Mavara. Peace with Calazen was finally possible, and Sonisha prospered over the 400s and 500s. 

The Fall of Onyx (500 - 800)

The mid 500s saw Sonisha's dominance over the North challenged for the first time - and not by Calazen. Tribes surrounding Sonisha had slowly grown in power over the centuries, and began to chafe at Sonisha's imperious attitude. In 550, a prism war leader named Chuzi of the Naota gathered many tribes in a rebellion, that soon turned into an invasion of the Sonishan core. Other prismholds, who felt un-represented and overtaxed by the centralized regimes, began rebelling as well. The civil war lasted almost twenty years and devastated the Sonishan fringe. The Zethkos had more to worry about than Calazen now. 
Ironically, Mavara's willingness to bless the heroes of the Adiras ended up creating one of Sonisha's greatest rivals: the Kedijah Confederation, a group of seven major tribes (each with many vassals) that joined together to build an empire to the East of Sonisha. The Kedijah Confederation was originally formed by some of Mavara's chosen heroes, who were willingly experimented on by the Architects of Mavara to always be telepathically connected. The goal was to not only create more powerful blessings, but to see if these blessings could be made to carry on after death to basically artificially create magic items. This chosen band of heroes was the first clear success of this idea, and they became the Eight Sacred Mummies of Kedijah, basically interlinked communication artifacts. Several of them were then magically made into statues, to be permanent installations for a future communications network. This prototype for magical communications helped the Kedijah Confederation skyrocket into a regional power over the 500s ME. And when the dust settled on the Sonishan civil war, it was the Kedijah Confederation that took in the remaining rebels. Mavara, in her mission to test the limits of her power, had accidentally given Sonisha's new rival a cutting-edge magical communications network. After this happened, Mavara began to scale back her experiments. 
In 660, after decades of skirmishing and standoffs, Sonisha and Kedijah crashed into each other, and Kedijah won. The Confederation had a prosperous trading relationship with Calazen through the Eastern rivers, had embraced new innovative technologies, and exploited internal divisions within Sonisha's government - while Sonisha had more people and better warriors, they were caught off-guard and ultimately broken apart. Even more horrifically, when the Zethko died in 666 ME, the title didn't bounce to any of the expected candidates - it instead jumped to someone completely outside of the royal line. There were now so many descendants of Onyx across so many branches that the magic was nearly impossible to control or predict. While it had predictably been inherited by the rulers of the Tusuan mountain, there was no clear ruler of the mountain now, and the magic didn't seem interested in picking a "true victor". Instead, the next Zethko was actually a salt miner in rural Calazen who was having a business dispute with the descendants of one of Ghavi's many bastards - a total wildcard of a jump that caused a theological crisis in Sonisha. For a century and a half, Sonisha had no ruling Zethko, and the kingdom fragmented. 

Golden Age and Collapse (800 - 1000)

In the 820s another prism lord in Sonisha finally became Zethko again. The title had been bouncing around quite a bit, but never to anyone who claimed political power in the Sonishan core. But now, it was home again. While it had been away, Sonisha had learned to function without Halcyon's spirit settling all matters of succession; while it had lost most of its empire to either Kedijah or a new host of kingdoms, the central core around Mount Tusuan had stabilized again. Mavara played more and more of a political role in this; her court was more powerful than the actual government now. The greatest of all life clerics, Ponder, was supporting her along with his family; a whole host of blessed heroes from across the continent were staying with her. The new Zethko now wielded less power and less influence than Mavara's court, and had gone from being her equal to being her political puppet. This wasn't all bad - it allowed Sonisha to finally form an alliance with Calazen, for example. Mavara, ever-curious, encouraged royal marriages between the Zethkos and Calazen's imperial family. If the Zethkos were fated to rival the descendants of Ghavi, what would happen if the two families became indistinguishable? Intermarriages had happened before, but this new trend promised to fully entangle their primary branches. It turns out that the magic does tend to avoid complications, but could be coaxed into the new joint Onyx-Jade dynasty - and once there, it would follow the paths of least ambiguity. That means that, if the definitions of the "heir to Onyx" the "heir to Jade" and "rivalry" could be entirely defined by structures of power and culture, the Curse/Blessing could be manipulated into less-militaristic avenues. The religion of Zethko-Daripar formalized and organized itself around this goal: creating a legalistic structure for fate to play out safely, with minimal involvement of individuals. Sonisha rose as the religious and economic powerhouse of the Northern Adiras once again; the mountain of Tusuan expanded into a thriving metropolis. 
And then, in 970 ME, something terrible happened: an earthquake struck the Adiras. It wasn't the first significant quake, but it was the first to happen in the last few centuries. The Mountain-city of Tusuan had over-expanded and accidentally gnawed at its own supports. The Temple of Mavara had been expanded too much to accommodate new buildings, and had become a massive structural weak point. It collapsed first, instantly killing all of Mavara's closest friends and burying the Immortal. The rest of the city fell like a house of cards as the instability spread. By a stroke of incredible misfortune, the Emperor of Calazen was buried along with Mavara, as was The Saltspear. The greatest magical artifact, both Sonishan and Calazan heads of state, and the great Immortal were all taken from the world in an instant. 

The Tragedy Period (1000 - 1311)

It would take 3 centuries for Mavara to be completely freed from the wreckage of Tusuan. It didn't need to take this long - it could have taken a decade if the powers of Inahng  had worked together. But instead of cooperating, the empires and kingdoms fought viciously for the chance to seize Mavara and the Saltspear for themselves. Whoever excavated the Immortal would get every blessing, every artifact, all the power needed to conquer the continent as the supreme ruler - they could be heirs to Onyx and Jade both. Sonisha became the battle ground for these feuding armies. The remnants of the kingdom tried to hang on as a power in itself for a century, but was completely wiped out by an Athashan army in 1080. The Southern armies of Jade brought a new religion with them: Nedira, the religion of judgement. Nedira offered new hope for many people in the Northern Adiras, as the old religion of Zethko-Daripar represented an order that had collapsed for seemingly no reason at all. Over the 1100s, the new religion merged with the local traditions to become Zethko-Nedira, a more fatalistic religion that hoped that the world could be restored (or, possible, ended) by releasing Mavara from her grave. The old priesthood was integrated into a new temple, led at first by a charismatic Pearl Pangolin named Zenshu Chell. Zenshu wanted Zethko-Nedira to be independent from the religion of the riverlands, and she kept the focus squarely on the Zethko as a kind of "vessel of destiny" to be found, trained, and weaponized by the clergy. 
The knights and monks who found, trained, and guided the Zethko quickly took over the leadership of the new religion after Zenshu's death. And, in 1250, a charismatic and skilled Zethko named Divine Bian Shaki-Zethko seized control of the religious order for himself. Bian was a curious Zethko, who didn't match the typical profile. He was a Vesper, the second non-prism Zethko (and the first formally recognized as heir to Onyx) born from the intermarriage of Kobolds and prisms. Bian was also from Kedijah, and was a paladin of Wimbo Aizitu - additional factors that would make the divine algorithm avoid him. And yet, his raw devotion to freeing Mavara and remaking the world, his personality (which was similar to Onyx), his rivalry with Calazen, and his skill with a blade all led to him being chosen. And by luck and skill, he marched a grand coalition to Mount Tusuan. He fought five other armies in a final battle for Mavara in 1288, and he won. He mobilized all of the Adiras in the effort to finish the excavation. He even made peace with the new Calazan dynasty, the Kedrazir, to prevent the mission from being interrupted. He found the edges of Mavara's old structure first, and she desperately blessed him with extended life. In 1310, she was free. Bian immediately tried to claim the Saltspear for himself as well as the throne of Calazen, and was slain in 1311 by paladins of Jade. Sonisha lost the spear, but they had their mountain back. 

The Mavara Crisis (1311 - 1460)

Bian's death left the new Kingdom of Kedijah in control of the Northern Adiras. From 1311 to 1420, Kedijah ruled unquestioned; it took the name "Sonisha" as a mark of legacy to secure the Zethko inheritance, but the capital was always in the East. Unfortunately for the new monarchs, Mavara was not interested in helping them conquer the world, or even their neighbors; her only interest was in securing her freedom and living life. The monarchs began threatening the Immortal with a second burial if she didn't bless and support them, and she begrudgingly helped as little as possible. She blessed a century of Kedijan monarchs with great power, as well as a number of nobles; she handed out whatever power she needed to maintain her freedom and bribe people into further excavating and moving her. Kedijan society began conquering the other mountain tribes, shaping the Adira mountains for easier governance, and sucking resources into elaborate palaces and elite monuments. All power and wealth was siphoned upwards, towards empowered individuals who lived like demigods. The only thing that saved the continent from these warlords was their constant squabbling. 
In 1400, Mavara was finally able to gather enough followers to move her main body out of the excavated caverns. She handed out as powerful blessings as she could to all of those who helped her with that, and then officially decided to leave politics. Her immediate followers would defend her from any armed attempt to bury her; the rest scattered off into the kingdom to cause problems. Twenty years of instability followed. The Kedijan monarch slaughtered Mavara's court, but only after years of resistance and heavy casualties; when the public heard about this decision to waste lives burying their Demigod alive again, riots broke out in Kedijah's cities. In 1420, mass peasant and urban revolts overthrew the government and began a civil war that splintered Kidejah into pieces. To Mavara's immense displeasure, the families that had threatened her and reburied her for a short time ended up fleeing to Sonisha's core and took over the lands immediately around her. After several years of tense negotiation, she reached an accord with them: they wouldn't bury her or mess with her, and she would give them minor blessings so they could say she supported them. The new Kingdom of Sonisha was made. It was an unstable regime, and one that almost immediately imploded. After the death of the first queen in 1454, a succession crisis began. In 1460, a group of nobles and monks tried to get Mavara to take the throne for herself, and she chose one of them to lead instead - ending the crisis and marking the last governmental crisis Mavara resolved. Mavara would spend the next century reaching out to the other Immortals for support, and then would enter a several-century-long period of hedonism.

The Great Game (1460 - 1955)

Meanwhile, a new power was rising in the Adiras: the Empire of Karama, to the far Northeast. It invaded both Kedijah and Sonisha in 1470, and forced the two kingdoms to pivot Northwards to defend themselves. Over the 1500s, Kedijah and Sonisha grew closer and closer together to protect themselves from both Calazen and Karama. Lunar Cults began to infest their countries, periodically sparking internal conflict. In the late 1600s, Calazen started to project power over the region, and even managed to integrate the Zethko-Nediran clergy into their own religious system. In the 1710s, Karama finally started to fall apart, allowing Sonisha and Kedijah to push back against Calazan influence without threat of invasion. The two kingdoms formally combined in 1738 as a united whole. They began investing in new technologies, particularly wizardry - Kedijah had been open to wizardry since the 1200s, but had never founded a centralizing wizarding institution. In 1750, the White and Gold Academy was founded as the first Suneka-Stildane style wizarding university in Inahng. 
This century of prosperity did not lead to a new age of Sonishan autonomy and dominance. In 1840, Esam the Great conquered Sonisha and incorporated it into the Empire of Calazen. Esam recognized the immense potential of Sonisha and invested heavily in their wizardry and infrastructure. Sonisha ended up as a battleground once again, only between the two greatest spellcasters of the century rather than between armies: it was here that Darza stole one of the Sacred Mummies of Kedijah, where she dueled Esam for control over Mavara, and where Haru intervened to end their endless magical duels. 
Esam's occupation saw the final merging of Calazen and Sonisha, and the end of their ancient grudge. A master storyteller, the great sorcerer was able to take control of the narrative and culturally reframe what the Zethko rivalry meant to people: it wasn't about fighting anymore, but about competition to win glory for Tishalla. The Zethkos of the 1800s went from being rebels against Esam's empire to being champions of that Empire, who waded through the Suneka smashing through enemy armies. Sonisha became an essential part of the Empire, and the lines between the children of Ghavi and the children of Onyx were erased (with great effort made to track down and arrange-marry many stray family branches of Onyx's lineage). But the line between Sonisha and Calazen must exist, even if just in name, for the Zethko to be controlled, so Sonisha remained nominally independent. And, in 1955, Sonisha was allowed some autonomy - though it remains a de-facto vassal of the Empire to this day.

Modern History

Sonisha has thrived under the new order. Esam's initial selection for the monarch was Queen Tusuva I Ziriba-Zethko, a prism who married into the Ziribas (the Calazan dynasty). Tusuva was not an evil woman, but she was known to have a temper and a very calloused outlook on life and government. She was a militarist at heart, a war hero with an iron fist. In matters of war, personal combat, or intrigue, Tusuva thrived; she was quite competent at administration and diplomacy as well. In 1994, she ceded the throne to her daughter, Queen Shomka I Ziriba, a Calazan Ziriba by birth. Shomka did not inherit the title of Zethko, though; when Tusuva died in 2010, the blessing passed to Luida Tusuba, Shomka's older sister by another father. Luida has not claimed the throne, but there are those who wish she would; she is a living threat to Shomka's rule, but the reigning Queen seems unwilling to take any pre-emptive action. 
Shomka has worked to be an enlightened and benevolent monarch. While she was raised to be a militarist, she is both incompetent and completely unwilling in that area - even righteous violence makes her physically sick, and she gets visible anxious watching sports that are too violent. She seems to prefer Orchid of Blue to Jade, and surrounds herself with innovative thinkers and scientists. She has made peace with Darza, invested in infrastructure, and expanded the Sonishan school system. In the imperial family, she has been the voice of experimentation and innovation, always interested in new technologies and expanding the use of old ones (she seems to be the only Ziriba truly aware that the electricity of Odija has potential). While she isn't as competent and adored as her mother, Shomka has been a capable monarch and has the potential to be revolutionary - or, alternatively, another failed deviation doomed by fate.

Demography and Population

12 million humanoids live in Sonisha. 65% are prisms, 20% are Half Prisms, 10% are Humans, and 5% are Kobolds.

Territories

Sonisha is 600 miles across, and 350 miles wide. There are four component regions to Greater Sonisha:

• Inner Sonisha, the cultural and religious core of the region. Inner Sonisha was the traditional rival of Calazen, and was the prism hub of the Northern Adiras. It is a very mountainous region, and very mineral rich - those parts that are not carved into roads or canals are basically impassable terrain.
• Outer Sonisha, the Northern fringe of the Sonishan core, is less rocky but also less developed than inner Sonisha. It is made up of very tall mountains dividing large mesas and plateaus.
• Kedijah, the Eastern riverlands and valleys of Sonisha. Parts of Kedijah are lush, well-irrigated, and highly developed, while some mountain clusters are entirely "off the grid". The current economic and political core of Sonisha
• The Western Marchlands, the mountains closest to Varasa and the Cursed Rurateg Mountains - militarized, sparsely settled, and outside the political core.

Military

A mixture of religiously-tinted bureaucracy and noble warbands make up the Sonishan army. The difference between them can be small, as nobles often pay to outsource warband creation to bureaucratic offices, and visa-versa. In all regiments, the army is class-stratified. 
The warriors of Sikrek tend towards aggressive heavy infantry supported by magicians. Killing someone up close and personal is considered most honorable in Sonisha, and honor comes before victory; spells count as hand-to-hand, since you are hitting them with your soul. Warhammers, warpicks, and swords are the natural weapons for the accomplished warrior. Javelins and throwing axes are acceptable, since they are close enough and obvious enough to allow for an exchange of violence. Recently, the culture has come around to the use of grenades, and Sonishan grenadiers are some of the most numerous and disciplined on the continent. Bows, muskets, and artillery are tragic necessities shunned by true warriors - they are impersonal and cruel weapons that fail to respect the glory inherent in honorable violence. Cavalry does exist as well (mostly Sudraco from the Eastern rivers), but there aren't enough plains to raise warmounts in considerable numbers. 
Not everyone adheres to the warrior's ideal, of course. This is especially true in the West, near The Cursed Rurateg Mountains. The monsters there are too numerous and insidious, and have no honor; the warriors there have embraced all manner of ranged weapons and stealthy tactics. Elite warriors who tend towards less-honorable tactics are sent off to the Rurateg Rangers, the elite archers, trackers, and monster-hunters of Sonisha. Other light infantry are typically hired from neighboring Stildanian and Adiran mountain tribes.
When it comes to magic, wizardry and sorcery are both seen as honorable and powerful magic arts. Sonisha hosts the largest wizard population in Inahng, and arcane firepower is substituted for field artillery.

Religion

Sonisha is a Nedira country, that follows the guidance of the Nediran divine in Calazen. The country is tolerant towards religious traditions and rituals, but not towards organized religions - if it is a Lunar cult or has any kind of exclusivity, it is banned or tightly regulated in Sonisha. Village to village, religious practice and belief can vary greatly, as long as they praise Tishalla, the Divine, Onyx, and Mavara.  
Sonisha is the heart of the Cult of Zethko, a sect that is common across the Northern Adira Mountains. The Cult of Zethko worships Onyx, the ancient hero who honorably fought Ghavi, not as an enemy of the Gods but as a divine test and as a hero who embraced his God-given destiny. Onyx is a model in how one should embrace even a doomed and antagonistic destiny if it is given from above; he was designated the antagonist of the divine test, but he played the part dutifully and honorably, and so he was gifted with a second life and an eternal legacy. The worship of Onyx extends to his supposed daughter, the immortal Mavara, and the righteous Zethko who fulfilled their role as Onyx's heirs and legacy. This often crosses the line into state cult, and many festivals and ceremonies dedicated to Onyx often validate the Zethko and the current government as well.
Folk religion often revolves around Tishalla Arzan (the Goddess of the Earth), and the many spirits of the deep caverns that miners must thank or combat to survive.

Foreign Relations

Sonisha is a client state of the Empire of Calazen, and is content to allow the Empire to run their diplomacy. Historically, their greatest rival (that isn't Calazen) is the Kingdom of Karama to the East, but relations are currently good and Sonisha is actively helping Karama suppress a rebellion in their borders.

Agriculture & Industry

Sonisha is a mining country first, a farming country second, and a trading country last. Prism-food, salt, iron, lead, copper, gold, silver, jewels, flint, obsidian, crystals, coal, sulfur - all are mined from the earth in great quantities. This is agriculture of a sort (85% of the population can eat rocks), but it also fuels heavy industry. Most smelting and smithing is done on a small scale; the elite class has been resistant towards any kind of mass metalworking technology (but not kilning; pottery is not honorable enough to be protected). Generally most artisan-level work is handled by families and small shops organized into local guilds.
Non-prism agriculture is tied largely to irrigation canals that snake through the mountain passes. Many farmers grow rice, potatoes, or wheat on terrace farms build out of hills or even on mountains.

Trade & Transport

Sonisha's trade is hierarchical and traditional. Trading privileges and traditions belong to certain clans or cities, and merchant's associations are highly stratified. In the past, strict laws regulated who could trade what - and built up certain clans into monopolistic equite dynasties. These laws have been severely relaxed, especially in the last few years. The Ministry of Revenue manages licenses, loans, and regulations.

Education

The schools of Sonisha are some of the finest in the Adira mountains. Building and donating to schools is one of the most classic and beloved forms of noble charity, and education is one of the rare ways to ascend from an upper Common caste to a Raised caste. Specifically, magical education: Sonisha has long embraced wizardry as a refined, stoic, and honorable form of magic, and Sonisha's political capital city (Drijem) hosts the finest wizard academy in Inahng: The White and Gold Academy. In recent decades, the White and Gold Academy has connected itself with the Darzan University, introducing many new wizarding arts and fields of study for Sonisha's scholars.

"We Are Warriors of Destiny"

Founding Date

1955

Type

Geopolitical, Kingdom

Demonym

Sonishan

Government System

Monarchy, Theocratic

Power Structure

Feudal state

Currency

Calazan Gold Dragons, Silver Shells, and Copper Eyes

Major Exports

Iron, gold, copper, tin, gems

Major Imports

Lumber, food

Official State Religion

Nedira

Location

Adira Mountains

Official Languages

• Calazan Language

Related Ranks & Titles

• Zethko

Controlled Territories

• Drijem

Neighboring Nations

• Empire of Calazen