Latashu Sovereignty (Lah-tah-shoo)

The Latashu Sovereignty is the sharp sword and golden crown of the Keveket Hierarchy, the prodigal child who has inherited the responsibility of Head Office and the power that comes with it. Latashu is deeply Keveket, in all the best and worst ways: it has achieved some of the greatest standards of living and architectural wonders the world over, but it still treats its common people with a level of callous disposability that shocks even Zeruans.
Once, Latashu was the innovative firebrand of the Keveket offices; now, it is a model of conservative overlordship that may be drawing its last breath. It has grown large, perhaps too large to control. It has grown too calcified and reactionary, and has so deeply alienated its rural populace that they may as well be a foreign country. It has grown so developed that local ecological collapse is imminent, and no one in power has even noticed. 
The people of Latashu have spoken up against their militaristic rulers for so long that their voices are hoarse. The last century has been one of class warfare, where unions, mystics, clans, and foreign cults have banded together to try and wrench the system away from elites who obviously could not care less about their lives. Latashu sees itself as the heir of Agamine and the destined vessel for Keveket to reclaim its continent - but whether it can survive itself is a different matter.

Structure

Latashu is a hyper-bureaucratic state, where all power is mediated by formal hierarchies with elaborate paperwork and etiquette. There are three main branches of the bureaucracy: the State branch, the Martial branch, and the Commercial branch. At the top of this bureaucracy is the Sovereign, the supreme executive who marries the three branches together and manages the budgetary distribution between them. The Sovereign's power is immense (theoretically limitless), but relies on an elaborate bureaucratic court to get anything done. The Sovereign must also answer to the power above them for any major decisions: the Arbiter of the Palamun Office, the priest-manager who runs the Keveket hierarchy in Latashu. The Arbiter picks the Sovereign from among the upper bureaucracy, can replace the Sovereign at any time, must be asked permission from for any formal military conflict, and reviews the Sovereign's decisions and regimes in a job performance review every ten years. Of course, the Arbiter isn't the top of the ladder of absurd power structures: above the Palamun Arbiter is the Highest Order of Keveket, an insular oligarchy of supreme priests who lead the religion of Keveket and who have absolute power over the Arbiter. They rarely get involved in local affairs unless something goes terribly wrong.
The Latashan bureaucracy is theoretically a meritocracy where any person of talent and virtue can advance to become Sovereign. In practice, Latashu is led by an aristocracy of great houses who are heavily involved in land management, local affairs of trade, and government. The children of the great houses can afford superior education, are raised with the right etiquette, and mobilize more influential connections to give an illusion of superior competence, and the system is stacked in their favor at every turn. Nonetheless, not ever elite child can rise to power - there is a basic standard of mediocrity that not every heir can pass, and the system does favor competent elites - and some middle (even lower!) class children have risen to positions of power over time. The truly lucky and skilled can even enter the circle of elite families, just as unlucky streaks can knock dynasties out of power. 
City and regional governments are appointed within the bureaucracy: Sovereigns appoint Governors, who appoint Mayors and Aedels (municipal rulers who manage local lands), who manage local affairs. Powerful landowners and business-owners assemble in small councils to act as "advisors" for the local Mayor or Aedel, and typically interweave themselves with the government. Commoner communities outside of the major cities and seats of power are either ruled by landlords or manage themselves with informal leaders (typically elders or elected community leaders). 

The Current Leaders

The current Sovereign is a prism by the name of Beleris Airawor. Beleris is a man of firm conviction, orderly and hierarchical in as many facets of life as possible. He is the model Keveket bureaucrat-lord, if perhaps a little too firm and callous; he cares little for personal concerns (including his own at times), and is personally polite and generous even while he openly reduces everyone around him to disposable and impersonal numbers. He is well liked among the cityfolk for his zealous conviction to the Hierarchy and his competent administration, and the blame for his draconian rebel suppression campaigns is often shifted to the lower bureaucrats. Beleris has little patience for foreigners, "layabouts", or "parasites", and those labor groups who do not accept his mediation are shown no mercy. Beleris is very popular among the military for this reason and for his military background and role suppressing the infamous 1953 revolution (he is unwilling to prosecute war criminals, being a war criminal himself). 
The current Arbiter is Eprinem Palanevin, a prism with a perpetual bad attitude boiling beneath his soft and stoic exterior. Eprinem is a gentleman's rogue, an aristocratic scion who has been chasing power from a young age through a ludicrous chain of plots-within-plots. Is he well-learned? Yes. Is he competent as an administrator? Enough to have the position without getting scoured from above. Does he have blackmail on every elite family in Latashu? Absolutely. Eprinem is walking a tightrope into the Highest Order, balancing appearances with ill-gotten power, and despite many near-falls he somehow keeps on climbing. His ambition has consumed much of his life, and little is known of who he really is beneath all the formalities and layers of power.

Culture

Permissions, Status, and Piety

At the heart of Keveket religion, there is tension between efficiency being a moral good and change being a moral evil. Of the old Maradian sovereignties, Latashu most leans towards efficiency over conservatism. It does so in a very soft whisper and lots of apologies, but it is unique for even going that far. Latashan estates and mines staffed with constructs do not seek to recreate organic farms and mines but with robotic staff; they instead organize in assembly lines that maximize efficiency. Latashan city weaving guilds are allowed to use spinning wheels (the scandal!), Latashan private estates can use mills powered by wind or water (terrifying!), and Latashan bureaucrats can use printing presses (even more scandal!). These technologies are restricted to government-partnered businesses and are kept away from the needy and ignorant masses, which perhaps best describes Latashu's approach to technology in general: technology and innovation are dangerous things, best led by the government first and implemented in a way that benefits all (but mostly the elites). Poor people using technology or forming new institutions, though? Still horribly dangerous, requiring immediate application of lethal corrective force. Elites using technology is usually fine, though the more construct-driven technologies and cutting-edge stuff is only acceptable in government-led contexts.
The idea that power comes with the freedom to do new things permeates society at all levels. Social class and status directly correlate to how different you can dress or speak without social repercussions. Unfamiliar names can doom poor children to being seen as strange and unvirtuous, but be seen as pretty (if a bit unseemly) for elite children. These attitudes are also not entirely from above: in the big urban centers and heartlands, communities police deviance internally and bullying can come from fellow poor families. It is just the way things are: the poor and middling folk keep the old ways, which makes them good. Only when the elite changes become tradition after a century or so can they be adopted below. And poor families can still gain status through tradition: antiquated speech, antiquated sports, and antiquated methods of cleaning or making things are all ways for lower-class urbanites to gain status and therefore opportunity within the bureaucracies. Enough tradition, and your child may be chosen for a better school and a better life. 
Latashu is also deeply, deeply Keveket. While foreign religions are doing their best to invade, the typical elements of Keveket culture remain even there (the conflict avoidance, the meritocratic values, the mechanical thinking). Similarly, species relations are almost archetypically Keveket. 

Class War! 

Latashu is in the middle of a class war, make no mistake. But social class isn't always so neat as rich and poor; there is another divide at play here. Put simply, Latashu has two societies, verging on three: you've got the cities, you've got the vagabond communities, and you've got the rural workers who live in between them. The cities of Latashu are peak Keveket: constructs everywhere, cheap goods bought as commodities, highly structured rhythms of life that segment the days into hours and minutes, expectations of constant public performances of behavior, and highly secularized versions of religion. The cities are the locus of state control and state policing, where the best and worst of the Sovereignty is on display. And make no mistake, the Sovereignty tries to make the cities a good place to live; they offer free education, food, water, and medical care, as well as guaranteed employment. As long as the poor communities conform, they have rights to basic rights and protections: to life, to basic comforts, to sanitary living conditions and workplaces that do not maim them. The higher you rank in the great chain of status, the more rights you are granted and the further you are from getting work-assigned out of the metropole (and therefore out of your rights altogether). Many urban worker's unions seek to either demand promised protections or to negotiate a more favorable deal, not attack the system fundamentally.
Then you've got the vagabond communities. These are towns and villages (even cities!) who just aren't part of the urban world. Time is not regimented, community and family ties come before judging people based on perceived intellect or ability, public displays of emotion are more acceptable, policing is less invasive and extreme, and spirituality is not boiled down to sharp logic and ideology. These communities are basically the rural peasantry who did not assimilate and have just been left to rot on the margins - except that happened to be much of the population. The vagabond communities are not totally excluded, but are allowed scraps off the table to lure them into labor-taking range: vagabond communities are used for cheap agricultural labor, mining labor, and other forms of rural work, and receive food, textiles, and medicine in exchange. Vagabond communities are essentially viewed as packs of wild animals being used for labor, and the more the community drifts away from state employment the less the state cares what it does - wars are fought between towns and villages, cults form, leaders rise and fall, but the state doesn't care if they aren't offering labor. Every community has its own relationship with the state, defining what it can get away with and how much it gets from the state. Unions rarely try to advertise to vagabonds, but that doesn't mean they aren't organized: clan federations and religious movements wage war on the state regularly, and the Sovereignty desperately fears an armed and organized vagabond peasant rebellion. 
Between the two, you have rural work communities. These vary, with some being closer to vagabonds and some drawing on the expectations and culture of the cities. Generally, these are tied to farming estates, major mines, or other natural resources, and they occupy all of the most fertile land in the countryside. They tend to be less strict in policing behavior than cities, but the conditions tend to be worse and there is less social mobility; for some, it is a happy medium where you can carve out a happy life if you work hard, while it is the worst of both worlds for others. They tend to be densely populated and very much at the mercy of elite dynasties. They also act as a kind of membrane of social osmosis: aspiring vagabond youth who want what the cities have can go to the rural towns to acclimate and learn before being absorbed into the metropole; meanwhile, a constant stream of low-performing "chaf" is jettisoned from the metropole into the rural towns. Worthy of note: these rural towns can be full cities in themselves, or they can be networks of villages tied to great tracts of industrial farmland, it all depends.

Culture Culture

Given that the country is two societies layered on top of each other pretending to be one society, cultural norms are difficult to talk about - so much is contained to the metropoles that the vagabond peasants simply don't do. In the metropole, complex etiquette based around avoiding conflict and heaping positivity on others rules society. Ignorance is deeply shameful there, and there is a constant game of showing one's knowledge and ability without boasting - the humblebrag is real in Latashan cities. Discipline is also big in Latashu, and strict control over emotion in public is a major virtue. Acknowledging pain in public in an emotional way is seen as unrefined and sloppy. Work and employment plays a major part in identity, and unemployment is seen as shameful here. Courtship is seen as a kind of dueling, where both parties try to get the other to "break" and admit their attraction or affection; love must be won to be real, and even casual flings have intricate rituals attached to ensure that neither is an "easy win" (while also getting it over with as quickly as possible). Joy and polite friendliness are the only truly acceptable displays of emotion; it is important to note that a cold attitude is quite rude here. It is just showing one's needs or vulnerabilities that is taboo. Foreigners who wander into this game of facades are generally divided along class lines: rich foreigners are seen as pitiably emotional, but fascinating and often capable in their own ways; poor foreigners are misplaced vagabonds, like a neighbor's untrained pet dogs let loose in your house - dangerous and in need of containment. The more vagabond one goes, the more all that goes out the window. 
As for food, there are dozens of mineral-based dishes for prisms, from ash mixes to mud stews to salt bars (mineral mixes that are solidified into crunchy bars for portable meals). Humans foods include an assortment of kebabs, curries, rice cakes, spiced fish, and dishes using thin rice noodles

History

Before the Sovereignty 

Latashu was one of the birthplaces of Maradian agriculture and urbanization. In the -700s and -600s DE, small trading settlements blossomed into early cities, which served as communal centers of trade, crafting, and hurricane refuge. These early Latashan cities were run by loose oligarchies of extended families and crafting groups (essentially proto-guilds), and often were extremely decentralized. In the -500s through -300s, states formed from these city centers that drew tribute from the countryside and squabbled for local dominance. But, as the kingdoms focused on local wars, treaties, and hurricanes, a power rose in the East known as the Empire of the Living Stone. In a series of wars over the -200s, this Empire was able to conquer all of the major Latashan polities and convert them to their religion. This empire was based around the creation and worship of the Empty as emanations of imperial power, and was based around developing a handful of mega-cities around the imperial heartland (particularly their holy city of Vetuza). Over time, one Latashan city became the center of imperial production and intrigue: Palamun. Palamun also served as a hive of imperial dissent, as disgraced elites would flee there and built local allies to try and take swipes at their old rivals in the heartlands. When Agamine the Lost stirred a grand revolution against the Empire and built Keveket from its ashes, Palamun was a key player in that revolt. As a reward, the city was made home to one of Keveket's first 'Branch Offices': a semi-autonomous construct factory and body of religious governance in charge of solving local disputes and policing local states.
A small handful of local elites took over as the "independent lords", but it was the Palamun Office that dictated if a war could be fought and how local elites would rule. Control over the Empty production (and several large groups of Hierarchy-owned Empty builders and miners), the backing of Agamine, and the office's control of trade gave the office immense soft power. Over time, the local kings and oligarchs became little more than governors with fancy titles. The Palamun Office was intended to be a neutral, mediating party that enacted the will of the Home Office, but over time the control of the Home office dwindled. In 230 the Palamun Office built its own navy to better police the trade routes and protect its loaned constructs, and from there it projected power more directly than was originally envisioned by the Home Office. This more direct, threatening approach put Palamun at odds with the other offices during this early period, but it did prove useful for the Hierarchy when god-driven wars first broke out across Maradia in the late 300s. By the early 400s, it became clear that even Palamun's more centralized approach wasn't good enough for a large-scale war effort, and in 410 the petty states were abolished to the Sovereignty of Latashu: an Office-directed, centralized, Empty-embracing state that could truly maximize production and protect the coast from the jealous godlings who sought to take Maradia for themselves.

Early History (410 - 1200)

While much of the continent struggled through the 400s and 500s, Latashu thrived. Its influence spread across the coast, absorbing state after state, and the prism holds of the interior quickly folded as well. Latashu's borders are not particularly clear during this period and the sovereignty overextended itself across West Maradia, but the raw inertia of that period made it seem as if the Palamun Office was invincible. The Latashan heartlands, engorged on the minerals and labor of half a continent, became some of the most populous and developed lands on the planet at that time - but such growth is unsustainable. As the acceleration of expansion declined, the Sovereignty's economy and control of the periphery decayed. And the Hierarchy of Keveket was suffering from its own internal problems - the Toruket (a naturalist, anti-authority movement) movement was dividing the priesthood, and the Branch Offices were turning against one another. The Awanet Branch Office (center of the neighboring Kurtarsan Sovereignty to the East), envious of Latashu's resources and bitter at Palamun's soft power interference in their affairs, was far less impacted by this economic retraction and saw this all as a great opportunity to equalize their status with Palamun. The Awanet Office began expanding into where Palamun was retreating, and even sponsored a new Branch Office in the far West: a risky expansion of the Hierarchy that would box Palamun in with Awanet's allies and provide local communities more options if they were dissatisfied with Latashan rule. This new branch office merged with the rising local power of the far West, the Kingdom of Arvema, and the Hierarchy prevented Latashu from trying to contest this development with military might or intrigue. But, thanks to the incredibly stability-obsessed conservative regime of Keveket, Latashu did not fully collapse; it only fell back and regrouped.
Latashu languished in its reduced state for some time, and oscillated between periods of recovery and decline. In the 780s, a wave of foreign communities and warriors from the South invaded through the mountains and attempted to conquer Latashu for themselves. This attempt failed, but inspired a return to the militarism of the 400s and 500s; a risky gamble economically, but ultimately a profitable one. New technology with metallurgy and experimental methods of production allowed Latashu to leap ahead of the Awanet office once again. As the most experimental and innovative of the branch offices at the time, Latashu was able to leap ahead in a number of areas once they were back to prospering. By 900, Latashu had returned to being a dominant power among the branch offices. Just in time for another disaster, of course: a pod of Leviathans began rampaging along the coast in 1049, followed by a grand Ishket invasion of Southern Latashu in 1050 and a regional revolt in the West in 1051. The militarized Latashan state was barely ready for this deluge of conflict, and the Ishket army was even able to besiege Palamun in 1053. The invading army was crushed at Palamun and further defeated in 1055, and the Leviathans drifted off to new targets. The rebels, desperate to carve off their own state and get their own branch office, continued to plague the West for decades. The devastation and desperation of the 1050s also set up a wave of internal heresy and dissent. The 1100s was a century of turmoil and failed revolts, ending in the Great Purge of 1200, in which Keveket drew together to renew their bonds and drive all wrong-believers from their ranks. Latashu drew on the excitement and fear of the purge to crush revolutionary fervor and legitimize their regime.

Maradian Hegemony (1200 - 1456)

Over the 1200s and 1300s, Latashu prospered economically and strived to regain its ancient mastery over Western Maradia. It doubled down on influencing the Awanet Office and Arveman office, and even went so far as to begin pushing for influence within the Head Office itself. In the early 1300s, attempts by the distant Logotan office to try and usurp the Head Office's authority led to Latashu acting as the defender of the Hierarchy's status quo - an excellent place to be for them to advance their own status. From 1330 to 1370, Latashu fought a series of wars against Logota and Kurtarsa keeping the Offices together under the original leaders in the holy city of Vetuza. When the dust settled, Latashu and Vetuza won and the Palamun Office got to be the power behind the Hierarchy. The Awanet Office and Arveman North Office were both made into de-facto vassals, and Latashu reigned supreme. For a time, under the watchful eye of the famously competent Sovereign Luvina, Latashu had its cake and ate it too - the West belonged to them, and they had none of the Head Office's greater political headaches. But, over time, Latashu's hegemony became unpopular, especially in Kurtarsa. In 1420, political schismatics and Keveket heretics seized the Kurtarsan Sovereignty and besieged the Awanet Office, and were even able to bribe the Latashan naval garrison into joining their rebellion. When Latashu failed to quickly contain the rebellion and it looked like it would spread into a fully-fledged war between Latashu and Kurtarsa yet again, the Head Office intervened and attempted mediation. Latashu's leadership at that time lacked the subtle touches and confidence in their soft power that Luvina once had, and ultimately went ahead with their invasion in 1425; Kurtarsa was conquered and placed under a closely-controlled vassal state in 1428. But Latashu's disregard for the Head Office and Upper Hierarchy destabilized the whole religion: the Hierarchy was clearly and publicly unable to punish Latashu in any way; it was clear that anyone could get away with anything if they did it with enough force. 
While Latashu focused on local problems and undermined the Hierarchy, greater problems were brewing for Keveket as a whole. In the far East, in the more heretical offices that had been crushed back in the 1360s, old heresies and movements were blending with the religious traditions of the nearby plains. The Hierarchy responded by just pushing the heretics further away from the city centers, towards the plains tribes to the Northeast. An alliance of rural mystics leading peasant armies, disillusioned former Logotan Office priest-politicians, and nomadic plains tribes marched against Keveket from the East as a united force in 1440. Latashu had weakened the Hierarchy and inadvertently strengthened the pull of this alliance's message, and so the Head Office demanded that Latashu lead the charge against them. Latashu moved too slowly and was too caught up with trying to prevent Kurtarsa from seceding to prevent the nomads from seizing an arcane factory and the Logotan Branch office. And while the Keveket alliance was eventually able to drive the nomads out in 1451, the nomads had been able to expertly break apart and move the factory and office back to their territory years before. Eventually, the Keveket had to accept and legitimize the nomad's factory and status as equals in 1456, to prevent the secrets of construct production from getting out. The nomadic alliance became their own religious institution, the Hierarchy of Heksala, and peace again reigned. 

Imperial Latashu (1451 - 1780)

After the wars and humiliation facing the Heksala, Latashu was forced to back off from trying to bully and control other branch offices. Kurtarsa was given some of its autonomy back, as was Arvema, and Latashan power over the Head Office waned. Rather than face withdrawal and recession like the Latashans of old, the new regime decided to pivot towards conquering people the Hierarchy didn't care about: foreigners on a different continent! The trade route to Ekraht from the Latashan Western point had been steadily growing with the advancement of naval technology, and the new Sovereign saw great potential profit and power in exploiting that route. The moment the Latashan fleets were freed from the wars in the East, they turned to the far West to suppress the pirates and rogue traders who dominated the islands between the continents. And from there, it was a spree of commercial domination, political influence, and new construction. The Purge of 1200 had turned Latashu from the innovator of Keveket to the model of status quo obedience, but a simmering undercurrent of would-be revolutionaries, innovators, technocrats, and reformers remained. Before 1451, most of these agents of change were pushed into the military, where they got to experiment in Kurtarsa and Arvema while still allowing Latashu to reap the profits. But now there was a new playground, and one where they could really let loose without the Hierarchy's enforcers catching up. 
In 1457, a bard and merchant by the name of Akimia Noralek came to the Palamun office with news and an offer: she had infiltrated the high society of a kingdom on the opposite side of the continent, the Kingdom of Esedeta, and had established a teleportation circle between their capital and Palamun for trading purposes. But Esedeta could be far more than a trade partner; the land was minerally rich with both Kilusha and every substance necessary to make a legion of constructs. Given Esedeta's distance, it made little sense to try and ship those minerals back to Latashu (and magical transit was too limited to be a replacement), so she offered Palamun that if they sent over a Branch Office team to establish an Office and Factory, she could provide it with everything they could possibly need to get a jump start. It took until 1460 to actually get approval from the Head Office, but once it was finally rubber-stamped the process raced along. Tinkerers, ambitious heirs, merchants, and curious social engineers all flocked to Esedeta, to try their hand at a branch that was basically unregulated by the Hierarchy. And they did so through Latashu. The Sovereignty lost the best and brightest of several generations, but was wildly enriched doing so. Not only did Esedeta directly profit Latashu and report to Palamun as an over-office, but the hundreds of small copycat initiatives did as well.
These adventuring expeditions plundered and politicked across Ekraht from 1460 to 1805, and their siphoned profits allowed Latashu to defend the Hierarchy in war after war on the continent. From 1510 to 1590, Ishket invaders again fought Keveket in the South; and from 1620 to 1780, Latashu championed Keveket in the Wars of Control, a boondoggle of a conflict where the Hierarchies politely and horrifically fought out their differences in an industrial-scale war. In 1750, the Wars of Control even saw the Holy City of Vetuza captured by heathen armies, leading to the Home Office retreating to Palamun. Latashu finally had the Hierarchy completely under their control, but only when their empire was finally on the decline. War after pointless war, mixed with the decay of centuries of stagnation, had left Latashu diminished in power, wealth, and influence. The state apparatus had become corrupt; organized crime in the form of the Allclan Syndicate had infested the commercial apparatus, and the criminal cats that led the Syndicate ran circles around the Sovereign Government. Dhampire bandits and criminals ran wild as well, as expanded foreign trade introduced the curse and the government failed to create any kind of organized feeding program and largely attempted to criminalize the curse instead. And, to top it all off, the Wars of Control had disrupted the status quo enough for peasant revolts of considerable size to rise across the continent, causing the out-of-control military apparatus to turn against agricultural and mining communities basically on a whim. 

The Reforms of the 1800s

The end of the Wars of Control may seem inevitable in hindsight (just from sheer exhaustion), but at the time they had seemed self-perpetuating and impossible to end through anything short of one side's total victory. The continent's voices of reason gained traction as war exhaustion set in, but it was one individual who had the raw power and charisma to bring the peacemakers to the conservative war-tables in the end: Patana the Painted, greatest of Paladins and hero of the ten Gods. And while Patana may be best remembered for her role in the peace process, her influence continued well into the 1800s. While the paladin of paladins was a penultimate wanderer who didn't muddy her hands with Office politics, she empowered her companions and allies to try and fix some of Latashu's many domestic problems while she adventured abroad. This faction was able to avoid some of the extreme conservatism of Keveket without becoming enemies of the Hierarchy, and it hosted a number of now-famous reformers during its stint from 1778  to 1900. Peria Heshebed, for example, was a member of the Painted Host who founded the first Latashan Dhampire Monastery. Peria was the daughter of exiles who spent much of her time abroad, and who realized that most places had functional systems in place to allow Dhampires to legally feed and exist as well as more humane cures than the "beat them until they either turn or die" approach. Despite being born after Patana had already left Palamun, Peria was adopted by the Painted Host and died an esteemed Keveket social engineer in 1885; without the Host, she likely would have never been listened to at all, might as well honored. The system she helped found not only allowed Dhampires to exist outside of criminal spaces, but introduced new magical arts (such as the Way of the Open Palm) and even outside medicine. The Painted Host declined in influence and relevancy over the 1800s and ultimately collapsed due to infighting in 1900, but it serves as an example of how the late 1700s and early 1800s were a much-needed moment of change and flexibility in Latashu. 
Sadly, the leniency of the 1800s has not lasted. On top of slowly dying to the overwhelming pressure of Keveket conservatism, the threat of Nafenan religions has increasingly stigmatized change and foreign practice. The Singing Church of Orisha was able to launch a coup of the kingdom of Matoro in 1810, and while the Church generously agreed to join the existing order rather than leak the secrets of Arcane factories to the world, they quickly pressed their advantage to try and claim as much of Maradia as they could. In the 1870s, the Orishan kingdom even tried to invade neighboring Arvema, and Latashu spearheaded the Keveket alliance to push them back. By 1880, Orishan Matoro had been defeated and mostly occupied by Arvema, and the Singing Church's Factorial power was severely diminished. Nonetheless, the Singing Church remained a regional power that haunted the Maradian heartlands, and was soon joined by its rival-in-crime, the Final Choir of Vetevism. A large Orishan revolt broke out in Latashu itself in 1953 and ignited a massive peasant uprising that was only barely suppressed. 

The Modern Class Crisis

The flames of rebellion that had started during the Wars of Control (all the way back in the 1700s) had only been mollified by the reforms of the 1800s. And the failure of those reforms to meaningfully change the way that common people lived caused that rebellious sentiment to return with a vengeance. The Nafenan Religions and the Allcat Syndicate have exploited this class conflict, and even championed it when convenient, as commoner communities have turned to any allies they can against the oppressive industrial core. And the more resistance the Sovereignty faces, the more conservative and cold it has become. The modern era is one of total war between the elite, urban society of the Hierarchy and the unincorporated rural society of the commonborn, with scavenging third parties looking to exploit the division for their own gains.
The failed Orishan revolt of 1953 momentarily knocked the Nafenan religions out of control of the common-born movement, but they have never stopped evangelizing and community building. From 1953 to 2009, local Keveket mystics and semi-secular 'Unions of Workers' stepped up to lead the charge. This divided approach was more popular than foreign death cults, but less coherent. The Unions lacked coordination, and focused on poor urban and estate workers already ingrained in the system at the expense of rural communities who weren't in the system at all. Meanwhile, the mystics took the opposite path, focusing on empowering disenfranchised communities to further leave the system behind for self-sustaining ways of life away from society. Only a handful of union leaders or mystics actually tried to fight back against the military, and they did so largely alone. When the Coalition of Common Workers marched on the Palamun office in 1999 and were massacred, the incident set off a labor war that labor resoundingly lost. Over the decade that followed, the Nafenan religions began steadily absorbing the failed commoner-organizing groups under their banner; even if not everyone marching with them believes in their faith, they at least have organization and resources. The mystic-led seperatist communities have largely kept to themselves, though, preferring to further retreat from society rather than fight against it.

Demography and Population

Over 12 million humanoids live in Latashu. About 30% are humans, 30% are dryads, 30% are prisms, and 10% are hybrids or choricals.

Territories

Latashu is 486 miles West-East and 130 miles North-South. The Eastern half of Latashu is mostly flat farmlands, forests, and drained marshland, while the Western half is more mountainous. A large string of islands known as Kilem's Ring spans the coast of the Eastern half, insulating the bay to the South from the more intense storms and winds of the North.
The capital of Latashu is Palamun, a metropolis that spans the Northern interior of Kilem's Ring and controls most traffic in or out of the bay.

Military

Latashu depends on a robust, merchant-affiliated navy, and a standing professional army. Levies are mustered from the vagabond communities as well, but are not considered reliable and are mostly used as meat shields. Some commanders have realized that vagabond auxiliaries are useful beyond being bodies in the way, but this is a minority viewpoint. What the main force can't do, mercenaries are typically brought in for. 
The Latashan military sees war as composed of two basic parts: overwhelming ranged firepower, and a strong wall of armored and shielded people to protect that firepower. Elite warriors, such as cavalry or construct-armor infantry, are used to mop up whatever remains, and are mostly optional components for harder foes. Most human or hybrid warriors are pushed towards sharpshooting and artillery, while most prisms and dryads tend towards line warriors or engineering.

What's in a Crossbow, really?

The core weapon of the Latashan arsenal is the crossbow (and ballista), which they have perfected to an extent found nowhere else on the planet. These are the people who invented the hand-crossbow, and Latashu is where you are most likely to find really good miniaturized crossbows for espionage or battle. But the core of the firepower is in the repeating crossbow, the repeating ballistae, and the Masterwork latchet versions of both. 
Repeating crossbows/ballistae come in two varieties: standard lever-press versions, which require the bow to be re-primed after each shot by pumping the lever (removing the need for the lengthy reload process and quick-repeaters, which allow for multiple bolts to be shot in quick succession. Quick-repeaters (especially skillfully made large-capacity ones) can be quite scary, but they lose force after each shot and all shots after the first are easily nullified by medium or heavy armor (or even good light armor) - they are actually not very useful at fighting professional warriors on a battlefield, but are perhaps the best weapon at cutting down large numbers of unarmored opponents if the bolts are dipped in poison. Unfortunately, quick-repeaters are mostly thought of as rebel-suppression weapons for this reason.
Latchet crossbows or ballistae are harder to mass produce, but are considered one of the finest ranged weapons on the market. They use springing bolt mechanisms to quickly load in bolts from the side of the weapon (akin to a bolt-action rifle), freeing the wielder to focus entirely on priming the bow. Combined with mechanisms for faster priming and quick reloading, and you've got a weapon that can fire as fast as a bow but with much more power. Latashan snipers wielding these masterwork latchet crossbows can fire quickly, accurately, and dangerously, dispatching enemy officers and cavalry with ease. 

Hand to Hand 

Backing up this hellfire of crossbows and ballistae is a mix of magic and trebuchets. And guarding them are the Line Warriors: known for their broad shields and often-hooked spears, the warriors of the line are respected for their unshakable courage and ability to lock down the enemy for extended periods while the bowmen take potshots. Warriors of the line also fight with kukris and swords or axes, to provide the most flexibility. 
Elite warriors in Latashu can be quite memorable to outsiders. On top of traditional cavalry, which often wields sabres and hand crossbows, you've got the Automaton Cavalry. An Automaton is traditionally the name for a construct possessed by some kind of magically-transplanted soul to make it autonomous; in the ancient days, this was done by coercing ghosts into constructs. This is a banned practice, but the Latashans have a workaround: take a cat, magically or materially compel it to fight for you, then load it into the machine to act as a pilot no one can see. Then people will think it is autonomous, with none of the sin! The military even has its own secret division of Keve-cats ready to mech some people to death. These cat-mech cavalry constructs are nasty things built to look kind of like either horses or big cats, with whirling attached blades, that push a construct's speed and durability to their ordinary limits. 
On top of Automaton cavalry, you also have Construct-Armor Warriors: humanoids that wear Empty units designed to wrap around and mimic the wearer, providing protection and added strength.    Both of these weapons are considered just barely legal by Keveket standards because the construct isn't actually killing anyone itself - they are just worn by someone inside of them, who is doing the actual killing (in the case of the cavalry, by setting off the clockwork blades). It is a flimsy excuse, but accepted if used against Keveket's enemies.

Technological Level

The tech level of Latashu is simultaneously futuristic and deeply ancient. While it is better about implementing advancements than, say, neighboring Kurtarsa, you still see mass-produced constructs using very old means of artisanal creation in assembly lines. That the spinning wheel, a technology that has become commonplace the world around, is still considered somewhat controversial and cutting-edge here while the Maradian Enforcers basically drive motorcycles and the soldiers have power armor shows just how weirdly mishmashed Latashan technology is. 
As a rule of thumb, Latashu's education and scholarship prioritizes engineering, physics, math, and architecture over studies such as biology, medicine, or chemistry - Latashans can't make gunpowder, but they do have crossbows that do their best to compete. And inventions that look amazing or benefit individuals in some miraculous way tend to get more attention than the more-important inventions that intersect more with the lives of commonfolk - more elites daydream about the snazzy automatic arcane typewriters of Kelula or the mythic gyrocopter than something that could automate a mill or a foundry. Tinkerers and arcane engineers are funded and revered, but their arts depend heavily on access to constructs - their zaniest inventions require masterwork constructs to function, and are so expensive and hard to make that their raw power doesn't much matter.

Religion

Latashu is aggressively Keveket: the faith dictates law, the Hierarchy chooses the government, and citizenship is tied to religious practice. Foreign religion is tolerated among visitors, but land purchase requires being Keveket and land rights depend on not being a heathen. All rights depend on not being a heathen, thinking about it.
That doesn't stop people from converting anyways; other religions offer a framework of resistance for those who already feel deprived of their rights. The Final Choir of Vetevism and The Singing Church of Orisha are growing minorities in the countryside, along with Ishkibism.
These examples of wrong-thought are not just punished with neglect, but active violence. Latashu's legal code is very harsh, and the legal system allow people to be prosecuted for crimes they are simply likely to do. The most common punishment for wrong thought is corrective conditioning, where conditioning tactics are mixed in with religious mantras and hard labor to break the will and identity of the wrongdoer. 
While the rural communities are mostly insulated from the harshness of the legal system, there is a rising star of infamy in the last fifty years that has reached out beyond the traditions of the law: the Monasteries of Spiritual Renewal, built and used to provide refuge and re-integration for Dhampires and to provide medical care for all. These monasteries, which have been used as anti-bandit deterrents since they were founded in the 1830s, have also been turned on those suspected of Nafenan cult worship.

Foreign Relations

Latashu is so deeply tied to the Hierarchy of Keveket that their foreign policy has become hopelessly entangled. Keveket nations generally are treated as allies (if perhaps imperiously), while threats to the Hierarchy are enemies. Some Keveket states are seen more favorably than others; the Kingdom of Arvema, to the West, is treated with some leniency in enforcement and a lot of close support, while Latashu's traditional rival (Kurtarsa, to the East) is treated imperiously as a rightful vassal. Latashu treats the island nations to the North with favorable apathy, and tries to maintain relations with the Keveket colonies of Esedeta and Novosem. Latashu also tries to act nicely with the undersea states, which they have been courting towards Keveket. The states to the Southwest (Parpala, Lorteshu, and Renrusa) are all essentially Latashan vassals, and stand on the verge of annexation. 
Here's a map, to clarify:

Agriculture & Industry

Latashu is a mix of manufacturing and agricultural production, a whirlwind of economic activity plugged into the international network of trade. Large, centralized, government-supported businesses manage most of this; very little production is done by individuals or small family groups. This is partially because of the incredibly centralized state apparatus, but it is also thanks to the way work is done: as much by the Empty as by common laborers. Latashu has the most constructs of any country on the planet, the product of two millennia of focused toil and imperial gains; they of any country can simply send in the robots to do whatever job needs doing, and most of those robots are state property. 
Massive estate farms produce rice, corn, cotton, cinnamon, cardamom, saffron, mustard, flax, and pepper across the central flatlands of Latashu. Huge quantities of Giant Lobsters and chickens are also farmed and bred for food. The food, spice, and cotton industries have the most active non-construct workforce of the "unskilled" industries - some tasks, like managing animals or removing cotton seeds, are just not within the abilities of basic Empty constructs to do. 
Latashu may have an ideal climate for forests, but the country has had to import lumber periodically to prevent the floodplain forests from being entirely destroyed. So the lumber business tends to fluctuate a great deal depending on the health of the forests being harvested. Mining is the far larger industry; iron, coal, salt, oxides, gold, silver, and useful stone are all dragged from the earth in vast amounts. Latashu also has stumbled into a lot of petroleum, which it uses for oil lamps and cooking.
The massive metropoles (administrative cities) then alchemize all this iron and spice and everything nice into manufactured products. One might consider Latashu a place of 'domestic mercantilism', as rural towns are barred from producing their own local goods if it can be manufactured in a metropole, to better feed those city's industries. Huge weaving workshops produce textiles from harvested cotton, and make up a significant portion of urban jobs; metals are smelted and crafted; stones and precious ores are hustled into Arcane Factories to produce new constructs. Jobs are often "semi-automated", where constructs are incorporated into the workplace to make work go faster, but are often mixed with humanoid workers when convenient. Workplaces vary on just how automated they are, but the biggest workshops have figured out how to make the constructs do the lion's share - they work tirelessly and endlessly, so those who can afford to just cut out the humanoid component have long ago.
These huge cities also support huge service industries: retail workers, decorators, chefs, stylists, nurses, teachers, and domestic servants all have sizable guilds and big commercial weight. 
'Vagabond communities', unincorporated populations who live in the land that isn't profitable to mass-harvest for some resource or another, live their own lives of subsistence agriculture and low-level artisanal manufacturing. These populations often drift between total subsistence living and temporary employment in some workshop, mine, or estate farm or another; they make for useful seasonal workers, emergency labor conscripts, strikebreakers, or cheap labor for startups that haven't gotten constructs yet.

Trade & Transport

Latashan merchants are a free-for-all of petty captains, peddlers, and trading families. Commerce is considered an honorable and worthy endeavor in Latashu, and many elite families set spare children up with trading caravans or ships to get into business with. Business is a common aspiration among middling classes, and startups are extremely common. Merchants or startups that gain enough traction or are noticed by some high-up person in the trade commission can receive government backing - robots, gold, and trade protections that can allow that business to flourish. Merchant corporations aren't very common, as small businesses are seen as personal or family affairs. 
Artisans organize themselves into guilds, which are also private institutions that can receive government legitimacy if they reach sufficient size or social importance. Guilds that 'go public' are expected to have democratic elections amongst the tradesmen, as well as hired lawyer-clerks to represent the guild in the bureaucracy - lobbying against job-killing technologies and for more trade protections. These guilds are limited entirely to metropoles and are barred from operating outside of them.

Education

Metropoles have public education systems in the form of state-sponsored neighborhood schools, with three layers: primary education, from ages 6 through 14; secondary education for those who test upwards, from ages 14 to 18; and tertiary education from ages 18 to 22 for those who test upwards yet again. Only primary education is mandatory for all families, though education is extremely important for social mobility so most families prefer more if they can. Private academies and tutors exist as a parallel system for wealthier families, which tend to streamline children through the system without having to worry about failing the testing. 
Additional advanced colleges exist for specialist educations in law, mechanical engineering, architecture, social engineering, religion, accounting, bardic magic, rhetoric, and now in wizardry (thanks to a donation of specialists and materials from the Darzan University )

Infrastructure

Latashu is basically a terraformed landscape, warped by relentless industry and unsleeping hands over 2000 years. The cities have pushed back the sea and risen in great layers of stonework. Irrigation canals cut deep into the flattened hinterlands. Huge dams and reservoirs control the waters in an intricate network, killing forests and draining swamps. Mountains and hills have been deleted from the world, and old strip mines are now artificial reservoirs or sunken villages. Wherever the gaze of the state falls upon the land, it is consumed so utterly that it will never recover; only the wild lands, the unprofitable spots not yet devoured, have not been choked by development. One day, Latashu's infrastructure promises to turn the country into a metropole of living stone and whirring clockwork, but the work is not yet done.

Agamine's Glory Reborn

Founding Date

410 ME

Type

Geopolitical, Country

Demonym

Latashan

Government System

Theocracy

Power Structure

Unitary state

Currency

Maradian coinage: Gold Pieces, Silver Pieces, and Copper Bits

Major Exports

Rice, steel, spices, textiles

Major Imports

Copper, tar, precious metals, lumber

Official State Religion

Keveket

Location

Maradia

Official Languages

• Ortesian Language