March Kingdom of Arashoka (Air-uh-show-kuh)

All selkies rely on the Khilaia for trade guidance and to acquire pelts for their children, but it is the March Kingdom of Arashoka that allows the Khilaia to stand so tall. This is the natural extension of the Khilaia across the land, a hybrid society of selkies and other species in a uniquely plural culture. Arashoka is the workshop and shipyard of the Khilaia, the smith and the carpenter for the great fleets. The invisible, dispersed power of the selkies is made manifest and heavy here, a cudgel and shield for the fleets. 
Arashoka is also a populous and bountiful land in its own right. All are welcome here, and all may roam here among the many autonomous local communities. All who find their community and are willing to put in the work can find a home in Arashoka, regardless of their culture or creed. A place for all, bound by secular law and impartial constitutional governance, with room for exceptionally skilled individuals to rise; this is the Arashokan dream. It manifests for some. Others find Arashoka to be cliquey, noisy, confusing, and excessively commercial, a land trying to have everything and losing what it has in the process. Perhaps they are all true at once - that would be the most Arashokan thing at all, in a way.

Structure

Arashoka is led by an autocrat, known as an Exarch, who is chosen by the Khilaia from among a handful of specially privileged elite families. The Exarch obeys the Khilaia on matters of trade and foreign policy, and pays tribute to them in ships and steel, but has free reign over domestic matters. When it comes to those, the Exarch is answerable to the council of nine (representatives from the regional leadership of the nine provinces) and is bound by constitutional law. Generally speaking, the Exarch must get the permission of local elites to do just about anything, from raising taxes or levies to passing new laws. The Exarch can call an Assembly of the Realm, an emergency parliament, to ask for broader temporary powers. Bound by all these restrictions, much of the Exarch's actual power is in their power over the military and transportation bureaucracies. 
Beneath the Exarch are the nine Grand Seneschals, who manage the nine regions of Arashoka: Riwem, Ginumoa, Zimaira, Mikiwa, Etanula, Kitkavema, Hukavema, Duakahm, and Diereka. Each Seneschal-ship works differently and is bound by different constitutional roles and bureaucracies, and they can sometimes operate like individual states. Ginumoa and Mikiwa, for example, are essentially bureaucratic feudal states run by hereditary noble houses, with the Seneschals acting as Grand Dukes. Riwem and Diereka are run by oligarchies of merchant families that run their own assemblies mirrored after the Khilaia; Zimaira is essentially a merchant republic, with a more streamlined system. Etanula is hyper-bureaucratic in its government. Duakahm holds its Seneschal title jointly between three representatives of the major plains tribes. And both Kitkavema and Hukavema have complex mixed governments intended to represent their competing religious-ethnic groups.
A number of Kima Cities exist in Hukavema, and operate mostly autonomously. 
The current Exarch of Arashoka is Salun Woshalui, a popular and competent selkie from the province of Diereka. Salun is a charismatic and involved leader with close ties to the military. They have been known to push the limits of their regulated power using those military connections, but have yet to do so in a large enough way to provoke significant lashback.

Culture

The People and the Land

Traditional Arashokan culture has a very different relationship between people, land, and ownership than most of Samvara. Land is perceived similarly to the sea, as a thing that all people travel through and forage from to survive rather than a thing that can be owned. Property is still something that exists in traditional culture (property being quite an important marker of group and individual status), but all true property most be movable. Land itself and resources such as lumber, metals, or hunting grounds are only made into property when they leave the ground and are transported away. The only exceptions to this are crops, which are treated as mobile even when they are still growing (and therefore not really movable). This isn't to say that people have no impact on the land within Arashokan culture, for the land can be spent just as the waters can be overfished. All people have a joined reliance on and relationship with the land and its features. It is seen as a treaty of sorts, where the land provides its bounties as long as the people moderate their extraction. 
Since the actions of individuals impact the total mortal relationship with the land, it is only right for the land to have managers to mediate mortal actions with it. This is the role of the aristocrat or administrator in traditional Arashokan culture, someone who learns the treaties of the land and ensures that they are followed. The land manager is the settler of disputes mortal and cosmic, the voice who decides questions of who shall farm what land as well as the voice who decides how much foresting is too much. 
It is worth noting that not all Arashokans believe this. This is a very ideologically diverse land, with many local cultures and communities holding their own beliefs. The central government holds this to be true, but it delegates land management in a way that allows each region to visualize the land in its own way. More feudal regions have land ownership; less feudal regions have extremely limited land ownership or none at all. The responsibility of aristocrats to moderate land use in a sustainable way tends to be forced into most region's constitutions, though.

Crews, Navs, Individuality

One peculiarity of Arashokan society is the universal legal recognition of crews as a social-political unit, and not just ship crews. Any group of 12 or more people can become a land crew, as long as they make a public statement to that effect before an authority figure. Crews are treated similarly to marriages: upper class crews require bureaucracy, lower class crews operate on a common law basis that typically involves a local priest or elder. And loyalty within a crew is seen as sacred and essential to any person's pride and worth as a person. A land crew moves together in search of work, they help get each other jobs and often live together or in close proximity. They pool their savings together for emergency food, medicine, or shelter, and they refer connections to one another for business. A crew is a second kinship network forged in mutual toil rather than blood, and they are expected to work for years together before they spread out from one another. Entry to a crew after it is initially formed is possible by performing some act for the crew's benefit (typically at great personal cost) known as 'Earning One's Pelt'. Crews are often multi-species, can be multi-religious, and a diverse crew is considered a strong one: the more unique advantages and perspectives, the more hooks and advantages for the crew as a whole or so the common knowledge says. Crew life is typically a young person's game (though it is not limited to that), with the typical expected crew adventure being about five years of travel and working abroad. After the crew decides that they've done their time together, those with business elsewhere leave to pursue their ambitions. The crew still meets annually after that to trade stories, renew bonds, and share opportunities. Some crews never split apart, but instead end up as ship crews, mercenary bands, gangs, or even found new villages together. 
Within crews (or even outside of them) are a more intimate form of found-family: what is called a 'Mate' or 'Nav'. A Nav is someone you publicly swear by as your close partner in business and friendship, someone you respect and trust utterly. A Nav is a soulmate, platonic or romantic or commercial. You typically get matching tattoos with your Nav or wear matching accessories, and it is considered bad form to publicly show distrust in your Nav. Having more than four Navs at once is considered extremely taboo, the sign of a fraudster of low character. 
Crews, Navs, and kinship networks moderate and restrain the assertive individuality of Arashokan traditional culture. All people have a right to roam, a right to have their own relationship with the divine, and a right to have their own local culture and quirks. There is a certain element of Live and Let Live cultural leniency at play, though this is limited by local community norms. If a community and an individual are at continued odds, the expectation is that the individual is mobile enough to just leave for someplace that is better suited for them. If the individual must remain for some reason, they should carve out their own space and keep with their own crew. Group consensus can outweigh individualism, but can never extinguish it, and that is the compromise of society. 

Society and Life

What about class in all this? Class is still present in Arashoka and wealth is more important than heritage in determining status in most places. There is a tricky class balance at play in the realm, an ideal that doesn't always manifest in reality: the idea that a person has the right to claim exceptional skill, to have a chance to transcend the class of their birth; the cost of this claim being that, should they fail, they surrender all claims to safety nets. The idea is that those who accept their station should never starve or want for work, but those called by the Gods to something higher should not be restrained by petty social standards. Different places have different ways they try to make this ideal a reality, such as easy but risky loans or special status grants; some are more accessible than others.
As for species, Arashoka is fairly balanced in terms of species with one big exception: Selkies. Selkies have access to the Khilaia, to the Navy, and to kinship and commercial networks others do not. Society doesn't favor them in terms of local resource investment or medicine, but they do have distinct advantages that others do not. 
Cuisine tends to center around naan flatbreads, dumpling soups, poultry, yoghurt, and sausage. The most controversial element of local cuisine is the preference for soured milk, where acids are added to milk in order to safely ferment it. Soured milk stores for much longer, but its chunky consistency and sour taste are acquired preferences for many.

History

Pre-History and the Selkie Union

There was an Arashoka before the selkies. The Northern fringe had its own civilization, known as the Baralwa, during the -700s DE, which spread along the coast and then collapsed in the -300s DE during a massive drought. The -400s through -200s scrambled the Arashokan status quo, forcing many tribes East and many new tribes into their place from the South. A status quo slowly emerged at the tail end of the Divine Era, as charioteering plains tribes traded and warred with one another, and small coastal towns built new societies from the rubble of the long-destroyed Baralwan empires. Proto- [Pratasam] spread across the region,and the druidic ideology of environmental conservation meshed well with a culture that had its share of historical dustbowls and collapses. Kima Cities spread through the Eastern mountains, absorbing the prism societies of the interior. The world was becoming even more fragmented than it already was. As a sign of the end of the era, strange creatures known as Karbeetle appeared mysteriously across the plains - seemingly invulnerable, dangerous, fast-moving bugs of great size.
And then the selkies arrived. It began in the early Modern Era but it escalated massively in 81 ME, when the selkie oligarchy sent a massive fleet of colonists and merchants to claim some of the forests and metals of the Arashokan coast for themselves. It was not an invasion, per say: the selkies arrived in a disorganized swarm with the intent to peacefully build villages and boats rather than conquer. Some groups employed violence, some employed trade, and others still accepted local tribal rulership and integrated into the existing population. Trade and intermarriage proved far more efficient paths to lumber, iron, and wool than conquest, and the local tribes and towns led that initial dance. Many were eager to intermarry with the selkies, as that gave their children access to selkie pelts; and as the selkies became the go-to trading power of Samvara in the late 100s, tribes that intermarried also gained access to that trade network. Tribes that entered that network had to answer to the selkie oligarchy to earn their pelts, of course, but that didn't particularly phase most of these groups. This is all to say that the "conquest of Arashoka" that is taught by some selkie and Samvaran histories is largely a mythical construction - in actuality, Arashoka joined with the selkies as partners. Ultimately, one might even say that the Arashokans conquered the selkies - they so outnumbered the original islanders during those early centuries that they ultimately became the majority of the "original selkies". The charioteering nomads found close kinship between their culture and folk religion and islander culture and folk religion, and they seamlessly fused their traditions with those of the seafaring islanders. By the late 200s ME, the leaders of the greatest nomadic tribes had abandoned the mainland to fully join the oligarchy as equals.
Pratasa-Samvaran cultural and religious evangelism only pushed Arashokan tribes closer to the Khilaia. The selkie union was seen as a third way away from the order of the Kima cities or the feudalism of Pratasam; tribes began borrowing nautical terms for their land-based nomadism, and embraced a spiritual connection to the great otter-gods. Selkie spiritualism and magic, both in their moon druidism and their immortal guardian, was proof that the druidic status quo of "civilized" Samvara wasn't un-challengeable.
But what did the selkies gain from Arashoka? That is harder to measure, given how small and malleable early Khilaian culture and politics were. One could look to the growing militarism of the 200s, as the Arashokans were far more familiar with military tactics, technology, and organization than the isolated islanders. One could also look at a broadening environmentalism, which has so often been ignored by those in power but is a cultural force - the old Khilaia tended to contain their druidic love for nature to the compassionate treatment of useful animals, rather than an appreciation for the parts of nature that are not so directly controlled. And lastly, the Arashokans and selkies strengthened each other's loves for mobility and disdain for centralized organization and land ownership.

Early History (275 - 900)

In 275, the Selkie oligarchy was brought under heel by a single war-druid by the name of Ahavu. Ahavu was a merchant and a mercenary with close connections to the navy of the dominant Samvaran kingdom of Marsham, who was able to seize control of Marsham's military and turn its resources against the Khilaia itself. Ahavu tried to centralize the Khilaia's power using the threat of pelt-denial and the promise of great wealth taken from conquered kingdoms - and for some years, he succeeded at this. But, in 281, Ahavu was overthrown by his most brilliant general, an Arashokan selkie by the name of Kova. While Ahavu's centralization policies made him unpopular, Kova's militarism and charisma was able to disguise the fact that her regime wasn't much less centralized. In 305 Kova died and her empire fell apart, and the generals and tribes fought one another for dominance from 305 to 400. In 400 the oligarchy was restored, but the centralization efforts left their mark on Arashoka. No longer was Arashoka a federation of free tribes in voluntary relationships with the Khilaia - now, it was a united military regime. The 'rule by military dominance' model of government proved desperately unstable itself, and the Khilaian oligarchy helped mediate a compromise in 450 ME: that the selkies would pick from among the local elites in a non-hereditary monarchy, and that whomever they chose would be bound by rules all agreed upon together.
While the March Kingdom compromise brought peace, it also brought a new era of resource exploitation and conquest. The Arashokan elites competed for selection as exarch with promises of greater profit for the march kingdom and the khilaia, and they followed up on these promises by conquering their neighbors and ignoring taboos against resource over-exploitation. Forests were levelled, slaves were taken, farmland was overused, and peaceful assimilation was abandoned for violent subjugation. The exception to this were the selkie-aligned towns and tribes in the far Southern peninsula of Diereka, which had yet to fall under the rule of the Arashokan march kingdom. Between Diereka and the Arashokan kingdom were the Kavemans: a culture that had been less enthusiastic about selkie government structures, and had refused to join the Empire centuries before. The Kaveman cities and tribes were a popular source of loot and slaves, whose allies and peripheral towns were conquered one by one by the March Kingdom. The Kavemans united into their own kingdom in 601, and rallied the remaining independent tribes and towns of the region against Arashokan dominance. They also embraced connections to the religious network of Pratasam, and used the Pratasa trade network and identity to become independent from selkie merchants, religion, and druids. The resulting wars were a messy and costly on-and-off struggle that dragged on until an Arashokan army was able to sack the last great stronghold of Kavema in 890 ME. The Kavemans fled en masse to the Eastern hills and mountains, where the Kima cities welcomed them as a buffer state and potential source of spare labor. As the Kaveman kingdom collapsed, the Kima federation of Vakeshet took over the role of selkie opposition leader.
The Kaveman wars (and later Kima wars) may have failed to contain the March Kingdom, but they did temper the short-term exploitative mindset of the 400s and 500s by putting a high price on conquest and expansion. The Exarchs continued to pursue this conquest, but profits became less important than power and prestige. Internal riots, rebellions, and assassinations also put on the domestic pressure to turn the unsustainable exploitation down a few notches across the late 600s and 700s. Luckily for those seeking profits and fresh resources, new avenues for profit and raw resource exploitation were opening up in the distant land of Zeshema. The 800s were a century of stabilization and forward-looking policies, which proved so successful that the ruling dynasty of Arashokan elites (the Nimenin) were able to essentially monopolize the Exarch position for themselves. One of these Nimenek dynasty Exarchs, Yarena Nimenin, would essentially jumpstart the career of Sea-Emperor Milen in 898.

Imperial Fallout (900 - 1100)

With the rise of Milen, Arashoka jockeyed for its position within the selkie hierarchy. In 915 Exarch Yarena's daughter, Kovaka Nimenin, made a compact with the oligarchs of the Khilaia that she would safeguard their power from Milen in exchange for her being given executive authority - essentially, giving them a chance to form the empire on their own terms, with her in charge. A number of these oligarchs agreed and invited Kovaka to the sacred isles to be crowned the Revered Speaker and Grand Protector of the Circle of Elders. Milen sailed to the isles to challenge her, and forced her back to Arashoka, where her armies clashed with his. At the end of 916, Milen was able to capture her and bribe her generals into backing him. The Nimenin dynasty's fragile hold over Arashoka was shown to all, and the March Kingdom was dragged back into closer control by the Khilaia. In 931 Milen died attacking the distant city of Suwirsha and the second selkie empire ended.
The Khilaia's heightened control over Arashoka didn't last for long. Yarena's role in helping Milen take power attracted the ire of a powerful enemy: the Ayshan cleric 'Cherish under Ponder', a long-lived Solar of great power and with a great capacity for vengeance. In 981 Cherish launched a campaign of sabotage and destruction within the selkie bureaucracy of Arashoka, killing off many of the Nimenin dynasty and forcing the new Exarchs to decentralize to avoid attracting Cherish's attention. This continued through 1100, and led to Arashoka turning inwards. With virtually no administrative guidance or central command, the March Kingdom crystallized into the most sustainably self-guiding status quo it could.

New Kavema, Senset, and Autonomy (1100 to 1250)

While Arashoka turned inwards, the exiled Kavemans in the East grew in population and influence. They began to retake ground in the South, and were able to ranch horses, cattle, and karbeetles on the plains without harassment. With that increased power and decreased selkie threat, many among the Kavemans began to chafe at the domination of the Kima cities, who drained their resources, monopolized their trade, and harvested their population for labor. Many in the newer generations turned to their Pratasa faith for guidance and rebelled against the Kima in the style of Lily of Red, and attempted to overthrow their puppet monarchy for an independent theocracy. This attempt failed, but the close success of it inspired many Pratasa mystics and rebels in the decades that followed. In the late 1000s, following the failed revolution, one such mystic was particularly provocative and popular: Senset Dinija, a Prism smuggled from a Kima City as a child by an exiled parent and raised by the Pratasa temple. Senset despised Akadism and began their early career as a populist peddling anti-Kima propaganda. For their populism and general rowdiness, they were dismissed as an official Pratasa Alkoa despite their sharp wit and druidic ability, but this only strengthened their credentials as the People's Alkoa too dangerous for the Kima overlords to allow. Senset was eventually hunted by the law and was arrested in 1106, only to be set free by rebels a few days later. The experience convinced Senset that the Kavemans would never be free so close to the Kima, and he was convinced to assist the rebels in organizing an exodus back to the original Kaveman homeland in Arashokan territory. In 1108, the great migration back began. The autonomous region of Kitkavema reacted with confusion and hostility, but mediators such as Senset helped broker a peaceful settlement of return.
Senset helped coordinate the construction of one of the largest Kaveman exile communities, which was to be a new city along the Oroged river. This city, Kavshala, would be the default relocation spot for new waves of Kaveman immigrants, a place for them to keep their unique culture and Pratasa faith without (theoretically) conflicting with existing Arashokan society. Senset himself proved to be quite useful as a mediator and organizer in this, as he idealized Arashokan culture and values. He also proved to be a thorn in the government's side: in 1115, he began protesting and interfering with foresting or mining operations he considered to be unethical or environmental destructive, and he continued this for decades. He took many students and disciples as the Su-Alkoa of New Kavema, whom he also inspired to be intrusive idealists. In 1143, the Kitkaveman regional government asked the Exarch for help non-violently neutralizing Senset's influence, and the Exarch decided to promote the druid out of power: as a druid known widely for his skill in teaching druidism, he was brought on as a tutor for the Exarch's family, where his influence could be neutralized and his value to the regime maximized. Unsurprisingly, this opened up a new set of problems. Senset spread his ideology and messages to the Exarch's daughter, Selema, and began making allies at court. He ended up arrested for rabblerousing again in 1151 before being promptly released, and was made a royal advisor in 1169 when Selema was chosen as the new Exarch. He spent the next two decades lobbying for local autonomy, environmental conservation, druidic education, and greater autonomy from the Khilaia.
The 1100s were a time of growing Pratasa influence, traditional nostalgia, reactions against unsustainable practices, and cultural divides between regions. The New Kavema and the rise of Senset voiced these trends and ideas in a highly visible way. Senset in particular became associated with the Particularist Movement: a political move away from selkie interests and profit accumulation. This movement gained traction in the late 1100s and early 1200s, provoking a reactionary lashback from the Khilaian elders. In 1250, a new Exarch, Aramun, was selected with the sole purpose of reforming Arashoka back to its centralized former self and to bring it in line with Khilaian goals and leadership. Aramun went about this with a level of callous disregard that quickly provoked local rebellions and dissent. An insular selkie elite with no ties to the actual country were placed in perpetual control of the March, and this clique stripped as many locals from positions of power as possible.

The New Arashoka Period (1250 - 1571)

The instability brought by Aramun's reforms only escalated over the decades. Rebellions cropped up faster than they could be put down, and networks of dissent crept across circles of local elites. In 1280, a Pratasa selkie druid-priest named Imalai Kuluit united religious dissenters, Kaveman cultural dissenters, and Arashokan particularists in a grand coalition against the government, escalating protests and rebellions into outright civil war. In 1291 Imalai seized the Exarchate for herself and drove out the Khilaia-appointed clique. Imalai knew that the Khilaia could not deny all of Arashoka their pelts without instantly crashing their own economy, and went to the sacred isles to negotiate. She brokered a new compact in 1304, which allowed the Arashokan elite to choose their own exarchs and make their own local rules in exchange for continued loyalty. Arashoka had won its autonomy and shown itself to be the Khilaia's equal rather than subject.
Imalai's new regime granted great local autonomy and restored the conservatory reforms of the late 1100s as promised, but it was also a whole new religious direction. Unlike the religiously mixed and somewhat 'secular' old regimes, the New Arashoka was officially Pratasa and incorporated elements of their religious law in their administration. Pratasam was not mandatory and other religions were still tolerated far more in Arashoka than in other Pratasa realms, but the deck was stacked in their favor in more subtle ways. Chunks of Arashoka converted to Pratasam, and the other religious minorities began doubling down on their evangelism and identity in response. This was a slow process interrupted by the occasional non-Pratasa Exarch, but it was steady. While the 1300s were quite stable and prosperous, marked by the increased trade relationships with the tropics and aquatic societies, the 1400s were marked by factionalism and public disorder. The division of civil society was blamed on Kima City spies and raids from the Southeast, and the Exarchs of the mid 1400s waged war after war to try and unify the country. The Kima Federation of Vakeshet and their puppet kingdoms of Kavema fell bit by bit, but Arashoka's public order did not improve.
The greatest of the conquering Exarchs, Makata Kuluit, was also a selkie traditionalist. Makata revoked many of the privileges that the Pratasa Temple enjoyed, rewrote parts of the legal code to make it more secular, and actively sponsored a host of foreign religious congregations to better 'balance' society against Pratasa influence. From Ishkibism to Zihari to Elemeer (even including a larval version of Sumoxa), Makata sponsored fledgling temples, philosophers, and artists. It was a flourish of artistic and ideological diversity that is now romanticized, but at the time it enraged the Pratasa temple beyond description. They had their revenge in 1520, when Lemeika Kuluit ascended to the Exarchate. Lemeika was the inverse of Makata religiously, a Pratasa devotee who believed that it was her religious mission to unify the country spiritually and politically. She went beyond undoing Makata's changes; she banished all traces of secularism from the legal code, which she personally rewrote to look far more feudal-Samvaran. Lemeika was a passionate and effective administrator who softened the shock of her new laws with a soft-touch approach to enforcement, but she set the stage for her less-brilliant successors to drive the country straight into chaos and civil war.
The 1550s through 1560s were a time of rebellion, religious war, and radical change. Lemeika's successors used her laws and expanded bureaucracy to attempt a full transition towards a mixture of feudalism and centralized theocratic bureaucracy, and persecuted other religions with fire and sword. In 1569, the Khilaia attempted to seize control of the Exarch position and government again, but it was too late at that point. In 1571, the Kuluit dynasty successor (who would, by prior agreements, be Exarch) overthrew the Khilaia's candidate and plunged the March into civil war.

The Great Turmoil (1571 - 1731)

The 1571 civil war was a brutal and messy one that involved a great deal of inter-community violence. This was along religious lines, cultural lines, political lines, and sometimes just over basic control over resources. Arashokan society was breaking, and all of the great families went after one another for a chance to rebuild it in their own image. After a few years of these great elites burning their power and influence away, a host of outsiders descended to snap their pieces of the pie as well. The Kima Cities rebelled, secessionist rebellions sparked, and outside adventurers tried their luck. Two very notable actors emerged, each initially allied with one of the two main factions. The first was the Sumoxan Apostle Esha, who dabbled with Arashokan politics for years and initially aligned herself with the Khilaia before eventually returning with a large retinue or warriors and mages to act as a neutral missionary faction in 1579. And the second was Veshita, a human nomad of great charisma and military acumen who was passionately committed to Arashokan independence for the early years of the war and built up a substantial faction of her own in the later years. It was ultimately Veshita that won, as she betrayed and slew the last Kuluit dynastic candidate on the eve of victory. Veshita took the Arashokan Exarchate for herself and declared total independence from the Khilaia. Over the course of 1580, Veshita became increasingly aware that the great selkie families would not accept her, and that true independence from the Khilaia was an impossibility, so she staged a daring attack on the sacred islands themselves. She sacrificed her entire fleet to distract Kailio, the immortal guardian of the isles, and she personally stormed the elder's chambers and slaughtered them on their thrones. She was killed herself not long afterwards, but she remains the only non-selkie to ever storm the isles.
Following Veshita's suicidal run at the Khilaia, the new elders resumed control over Arashoka. The Khilaia was unable to choose an Exarch that would satisfy all parties and instead broke Arashoka into four quarters, each with its own arrangement with the Khilaia. Unfortunately for everyone, the discontent continued in the Kaveman and Northern Marches. Those two never really became fully stable governments, though the other two thrived and recovered the best they could. The dissent of the other two became impossible to ignore forever, though, and escalated into proper rebellions and civil wars in the 1690s. These rebellions spilled into he stable marches, and by 1720 it was back to war. Surprisingly, the victor this time was a local merchant: Dopoa Maolui, a non-Kima prism that owned a series of mines and smelteries in the region of Etanula, and who had close connections to the Karbeetle ranchers and the stable Etanulan government. Dopoa, as a Ruekan and domestic businessman, satisfied those who wanted local rule over Khilaian rule while also not being entirely too Pratasa. Dopoa wanted unity with the other March Kingdom of Kakoru, and his vision seemed inoffensive enough to work as a compromise when he brokered a peace and reunification of Arashoka in 1731.

Modern History (1731 - 2020)

The Maolui dynasty brought stability and calm, and both Dopoa and his granddaughter-heir Enkena ruled with a mind for compromise and pragmatism. Their soft attempts to imitate the feudalism of the March Kingdom of Kakoru and their religion's close affiliations with the Pratasa temple sowed the seeds for the next wave of civil disorder over a century later, but their attempts at creating peaceful connections between religious and cultural groups helped prevent the intense violence of the 1500s from ever returning. The dynasty was also short-lived, and ended with a succession crisis in 1849. Civil war was averted by Khilaian intervention, and Exarchs were again installed by the Elders. From 1849 to 1883, the Khilaian Exarchs did a competent job leading the country even if they did rely more and more on feudalistic structures. And then, in 1883, Exarch Kualev was installed - an admiral with little patience for the local quirks of Arashokan culture and a very aggressive style of leadership, who got the job due to Khilaian politics more than anything else. Kualev attempted to take the Maolui dynasty's feudalization and Ruekan religious government to their logical extremes, backed by overwhelming military force. The resulting instability continued even after Kualev left office in 1895, as the old factions and rivalries emerged once again. The Ruekans also began losing ground quickly to the more aggressive and focused Pratasa, leaving a void in Arashokan religion.
This all culminated in the 1908 Arashokan Revolution. The reigning Exarch Olomea was timid and paralyzed by conflict, who suppressed the more violent rebellions while allowing other, less openly destructive factions to build alliances and gather power. A powerful coalition of anti-Khilaian factions banded together and rose up against her in 1907, and the resulting war was brief and far less bloody than the turmoils of old. And when it was over, no new dynasty was crowned. Instead, a great political congress was called that summoned regional elites from across Arashoka to hash out what the state would look like next. Where Rueka had failed as a unifying religion, Sumoxa was made dominant. An oligarchy representing the major factions of the revolution was installed in control, and the Khilaia was invited to choose new Exarchs from among their ranks. A Constitution was ironed out, guaranteeing regional autonomy and limited central authority. Modern Arashokan government was born, and a new status quo settled into being.

Demography and Population

Around 41 Million humanoids live in Arashoka. 35% are Selkies, 20% are Prisms, 20% are Dryads, 15% are humans, 10% are Other.

Territories

Arashoka's main landmass is 723 miles by 688 miles across. A curving peninsula known as Diereka is 438 miles long and 65 miles across and emerges from the Southern edge of Arashoka. The realm is divided into 9 regions that are geographically (and culturally) distinct as well as political units. 
The region of Riwem in the Northwest is mostly flat grassland with forests along the coast and lakes, and patches of forest in the interior. Riwem gets more rain than the interior and isn't particularly dry, but it does see unusually cold winds in the winter and most of the larger forests have long since been cut down. 
The region of Ginumoa to the East of that is more lush and forested, though it also is more hilly. It is the most wet and lake-filled part of Arashoka, with the heart of the region occupied by the great Lake Ginumoa, 52 miles across. 
Zimaira, to the East of that, is home to a number of dead volcanoes and many verdant islands. It as fertile a region as Ginumoa, but its black beaches and many small lakes are known for their beauty. Mikiwa, in the Northeast corner, has a forested coast that quickly turns to rocky desert in the East. To the South of Mikiwa and Zimaira is Duakahm, a massive open plain. 
Etanula, South of Riwem, is a rocky and mountainous region centered around the 108-mile Kevnela river. The region is famous for its canyons and quarries. 
significantHukavema, to the East, is even more mountainous, a land of shrubland valleys and sharp peaks. This is the land that many of the Kaveman peoples retreated to, and it has a distinct culture from the rest of Arashoka. 

Military

The Arashokan army is a small force of mercenaries and professional soldiers who represent the Exarch's will and who tend to work closely with regional levies and the Seneschals. Beyond its small core, the army relies on the consent and contribution of the regions for mobilizations. The navy is its own beast, led by the Exarch but staffed by many Khilaian admirals and funded by the Khilaia through a set portion of Arashoka's tariffs. Many Exarchs tend to favor the navy over the army or visa versa, but the current Exarch has worked hard to keep the two in harmony. 
Arashoka's army is most famous for their weaponization of Karbeetles. Deadly Karbeetle war chariots, often with whirling blades attached to their wheels and small ballistae or mini-cannons mounted on the chariot, act as a kind of flexible heavy/ranged cavalry (and perhaps the last chariots to truly remain relevant in modern war). Heaver Karbeetle warwagons also act as the clunkier alternative, as they tend to be slower and less charge-oriented but can also act as artillery platforms or troop transports. Karbeetles are difficult animals to control and War-Karbeetles have required centuries of careful breeding. They tend to be larger, bulkier, less skittish, and higher off the ground than their wild cousins, and many are bred to sport red carapaces. One breed of Karbeetle, the Runabout Beetle or "Flivver", even sports an unusual piece of carapace on its back that acts as a flattened platform, allowing them to be ridden individually as particularly fast and maneuverable cavalry (as well as beasts of burden) or used as self-contained small-weapons platforms like the chariots. 
But Karbeetle war-breeding is a very niche industry, and it would be wrong to characterize all Arashokan cavalry as warbeetles. Traditional horse cavalry is a major part of Arashokan war - light cavalry, heavy cavalry, horse archers, mounted mages, the whole kit and caboodle. Many centuries of access to large amounts of steel have made the tribes of the plains very familiar with training both heavy cavalry and horse archers. 
Light infantry and ranged support have traditionally been the other pillars of the Arashokan army, as they can easily be used to guard ships and are more mobile on land. The wars against the Kima Cities forced innovation, though, and now a professional corps of heavy infantry have been added to the bureaucracy. These forces typically wield heavy maces and war-picks. 
Another recent innovation are war-bards, which are increasingly popular with the navy. In the 1930s, several Arashokan admirals pooled their funding to found a large academy for the bardic arts in Diereka for military and civic use, and the academy has since taken off in a major way among the officer corps of the navy.

Religion

While Arashoka is theoretically Sumoxan, it has a unique approach to religion that might make it more accurate to describe the country as secular. Rather than being actively encouraged, Sumoxa is seen as a religion of compromise and neutrality that is associated with impartial governance and civil participation. The law is kept detached from religion entirely, and personal religion is not a matter of state interest. Secular law is de-facto shaped by traditional selkie spirituality and worldviews (ie Hamekun), but it tends not to directly step on other religion's toes. Evangelism is fully legal, and cults and heresies are allowed to flourish as they please (again, as long as they follow the law). There is no sanctified freedom to religion, however, and the dominant regional laws and practices do dominate over religious practice. 
Pratasam is the most popular religion by far, followed by significant minorities of Sumoxans, Ayshans, and Ruekans. Zihari, Elemeer, Halikvar, Areto, and Ishkibism also have followings of note here. Small outposts of virtually any religion can be found in one town or another - even the distant Nafenan religions have their temples here. 
Religious communities can perform public ceremonies as they wish, though they must receive special government permission if they seek to involve public property or want some special allowance (such as having a religious holiday off, or having dietary taboos respected in military service). Typically, getting government permission requires that specific sect or temple to swear eternal loyalty to the Exarch and that they hand over the holiest items as "ransom" to the government. This "ransom" is actually highly sought-after by many, as the idol, text, or artifact is safely guarded and displayed in that region's "Vault of Holies": basically, a museum-temple that shows off of how many gods, ancestors, and spirits back the government, a shrine to the holy artifacts and government power both.

Foreign Relations

The March-Kingdom has very limited diplomacy, as much of their foreign policy is managed by the Khilaia.

Agriculture & Industry

Agriculture, ranching, mining, smelting, and manufacturing are the five cornerstones of the Arashokan economy. The agriculture is overwhelmingly wheat and sorghum farming, along with some gourds, maize, rice, and sunflowers. The more inland one travels, the more ranching takes over from agriculture. Sheep, cattle, and horses are common livestock, but the largest and most unique form of ranching is for Karbeetles, large insects that have valuable shells of steel and rubber. Mines are scattered across the realm, mostly mining tin and quarrying marble. Salt flats in the East are harvested for prism-food and salting.
Wool from sheep, steel and rubber from Karbeetles, and metals from the mines all are funneled to the towns and cities of the riverlands and coast for smelting and processing. Weaving is a major industry, as is smithing and rubbercrafting. Lumber is also funneled from the March Kingdom of Kakoru for shipbuilding purposes, as vast assembly yards produce ships for the Khilaia non-stop along the coast. Khilaian commissions are big here, as they tend to be large enough in scope to provide jobs for millions of laborers for many years.
Small Fire Termite and Sudraco ranches also exist in corners of Arashoka, though the local elites have had difficult expanding these industries.

Trade & Transport

The Khilaian trade commission manages Arashokan trade, granting trade rights and commissions for the assembly. Domestic trade is a free for all, but foreign traders have to go through the selkie treaty-bureaucracy. In terms of labor organization, it is a patchwork mess of guilds and clans.

Shipyard of the Khilaia

Founding Date

1903

Type

Geopolitical, Vicekingdom

Demonym

Arashokan

Government System

Monarchy, Constitutional

Power Structure

Federation

Currency

Ekedian Gold Suns, Silver Moons, and Copper Bats

Major Exports

Karbeetle steel, Karbeetle rubber, Karbeetle eye-"glass", horses, cattle, tin, marble, wool

Major Imports

Lumber, spices, food

Official State Religion

Sumoxa

Parent Organization

The Khilaia

Location

Samvara

Official Languages

• Selkie Language

Controlled Territories

• Dahaka
• Korathem

Neighboring Nations

• Kingdom of Marsham
• The Khilaia