March Kingdom of Kakoru

The March Kingdom of Kakoru is the great power of Northern Larazel. In the name of the Khilaia, it governs all equally and balances the interests of the great families. Kakoru's long relationship with their selkie overlords allow them to ignore profit in the name of stability and long-term prosperity. To many, they are the poster-child for Selkie rule, an abundant and free land where cultures can mix and exchange peacefully and profitably. The march kingdom has won this prosperity and freedom through great struggle and great luck, and it is certainly not going to be stable indefinitely, but it has been thriving for centuries enough that most can agree it isn't completely a fluke. 
Kakoru is a land of plurality, of politeness, of restraint and good fortune. Everyone accepts one another as long as everyone tries to show some effort at restraint and etiquette. Those who hold power are expected to step up and use it in a humble and good-natured way; those who do not are expected to follow the system and live in harmony. This is the arrangement, and anyone from anywhere can be accepted here as long as they follow it accordingly.

Structure

Kakoru is led by a monarch, who is chosen from within the ruling Evenel Clan of Prisms. This monarch is known as the Exarch, and their powers are fairly limited. They must obey the commands of the Khilaia, and when acting without the Khilaia's express commands they must convene a council of local elites to approve any lasting legislature. The Exarch does have one unusual power and responsibility, though: they are to review all noble families every decade and ensure that none rise above the others in land or influence. If one family becomes dominant, the Exarch has a duty to divide their lands to either make a new noble house or to distribute among the others. 
The current Exarch is Eshovu Evenel, an older prism who has held the seat for many decades. They are well-liked for being a competent, charismatic, and effective ruler, but the highest of the elites despise them for being both craven and vengeful. 
Below the monarch, a great number of lesser noble families manage the lands and community for the state. Some are selkie, some are prism, some are dryad - there is no dominant group here. These aristocrats can be easily replaced if local communities report them for abuse of power, so they tend to be very careful to treat their communities with care when they know a competent monarch reigns.
Communities can use both the royal courts and the Temple of Rueka for appeals of abuse. The Temple has a great deal of power here as educators, doctors, magicians, and merchants. The current Archdruid (or state-level leader) of Kakoru is Prijen Hiskaya, a dryad of great druidic skill that considers themselves a great equalizer and bearer of justice for the commonfolk.

Culture

Food Culture: Pescatarian Dream

Non-seafood meat is not forbidden in Kakoru, but it really isn't common. The great staples of local cuisine are steamed rice, soy sauce, fruit, and fish. It makes for a sweet and tasty diet, and not an unhealthy one. One fish rises above the rest in its universal acclaim and use: the milkfish. The milkfish is wildly abundant in this area of the ocean, and many seaside villages farm them in small bays and alcoves. Tofu is also very common here, typically with soysauce. Soysauce and sesame oil are ever-present at the dinner table, even for nonhumans - it has become an acquired taste for local dryads well well. 

Humility and Harmony

There are many cultural quirks here, but none are universal. Some human communities blacken their teeth, others do not - it is not a big deal as long as no one is rude about it. What matters is shared etiquette and humility: politeness and cleanliness are expected at all times here, and you can do virtually anything as long as you do it nicely. This culture of humility can sometimes stifle individual expression, as anything deemed as an overt statement of pride is seen as rude and garish. Excessive style, jewelry, or personal wackiness is on thin ice - any hint of rudeness and the community will turn on them. Collective style is seen as important in the countryside, where villages often align their houses or properties for communal camouflage or art pieces.
Many local traditions focus on fate and understanding fate. The flight of birds, the patterns in clouds, and the nature of dreams all are seen as omens and signs.

History

Pre-March-Kingdom (500 ME - 730 ME)

Prior to the 580s ME, Kakoru was a land of decentralized farming and fishing tribes. Large communities of dryads clustered in the forests and jungles, while the plains were dominated by loose bands of humans and the mountains had a number of Prism mining-holds. Trade with the world beyond Larazel was rare. But in the 580s, large numbers of Selkies began to arrive over the ocean, seeking lumber and tar for their ships. These selkies were willing to trade and to pay local communities tribute in exchange for the ability to harvest wood and tar - but even this benevolent and mutual trade deal had unintended consequences. The selkies brought Corpseblight, smallpox, cholera, and new strains of influenza when they built their trading and shipbuilding outposts. The humans and dryads of the area were devastated for a time, and retreated inwards away from one another. 
One area, which was remarkably badly hit and temporarily abandoned, was struck by something truly rare: a Starmetal meteor. This was a remarkable discovery and event, and was interpreted by the Selkies as 'The Guiding Star' of their God Daykai - a divine command to explore and colonize South. And so the Selkies flooded into Kakoru en masse, seeking the mysteries of the Gods and the riches of the land.
This rush into Kakoru threatened the peace between the selkies and the natives, and the older established families knew that the selkies would not win even against disease-reduced local communities. Three major clans, one from each of the major areas of settlement, went to the Khilaia to request the rights to regulate their fellow selkies and to keep the peace. The Khilaia agreed that these clans could enforce the treaties of the 580 and would have special rights over their fellow selkies. These clans enforced order and worked with the local tribes to prevent illegal settlement or piracy. As all decisions and trade now had to go through them, the clans began the de-facto rulers of the selkie colonies. In 730, the three clans had Kakoru officially designated a 'March Kingdom' under their rule, and they became known as The Triad. The triad would continue to be relevant for most of Kakoru's history and remain aristocrats here to this day: Clan Ruhaki, Clan Nilem, and Clan Naimaka. Those small selkie groups that sought to loot Kakoru wandered further South for their fortunes - and would later be responsible for the crisis in distant Zeshema.

Rule of the Clans (932 - 1300)

From 730 to 932, the Triad brought stability, calm, and prosperity. Many local groups slowly drifted from trading partners to tributaries to subjects, but the Triad avoided causing too much disturbance too quickly. Over time, though, the Triad's rule became more strict and direct. Selkie smallcrews and subject communities alike became increasingly unhappy. Infighting between the Triad for dominance made everything much worse, and led to them competing to extract resources and assert control over their subjects. In 932, after the fall of the Selkie Empire of Milen, the triad fell into a civil war between them for which clan would rule above the others. In 936, Selkie smallcrews and merchants united under a local rebel leader by the name of Manema the Swan to add to the chaos. Manema managed to slowly outmanuever the Triad forces, and became extremely popular among the common selkies. When the Khilaia intervened in 941, they crowned Manema as the new monarch - though the Triad families remained her most powerful subjects. 
Manema and her descendants did their best to try and reduce the Triad's influence, but they had an uphill battle. In the mid 1000s, they were able to dissolve much of the power of one of them - Clan Nilen - but the other two were able to push into the local power vacuum to divide the country in their influence. For a time, Kakoru prospered under this new regime, but the monarchs lacked the competency and vision to make this anything more than temporary. 
In 1170, Clans Ruhaki and Naimaka began struggling for power. Each had an heir for the throne they tried to place into power, and they edged closer and closer to war to try and win the crown for themselves. A small handful of Ayshan Solars, secretly on a campaign of vengeance for the actions of the ancient selkie Emperor Milen, helped provoke this into civil war. These Ayshan chaos agents worked to make this war as messy as possible, in the hopes of crippling the Khilaia's economy. Raids from the interior began striking into Kakoru, subject communities started rebelling. In 1177, a massive army from the interior jungles, a broad coalition seeking loot and vengeance, carved its way into Kakoru. The Clans managed to pull together to unite against this external threat, and peace was finally negotiated in 1179. In 1183, peace had fully returned to Kakoru. But, alas, the compromise only lasted until one of the co-rulers of Kakoru died - and so the war began again in 1210. In 1221, the triad deathmatch was finally over: Clan Ruhaki reigned victorious.
But Clan Ruhaki had a challenger in the West: the rising local Kingdom of Awaki. And the old Clan Naimaka was down but not out, and was actively working with the vestige of the old Clan Nilen to try and bring Clan Ruhaki down. This led to an unstable regime that was quickly being overshadowed. When civil war broke out yet again in 1300, some in the Khilaia considered outright backing the Kingdom of Awaki instead of trying to prop up this failed March any longer.

Kakoru Reinvented (1300 - Present)

The Civil war of 1300 was not won by any of the Triad, nor any Selkie family at all. Instead it was the local Prisms who marched together as their own force, led by the eccentric tinkerer Akwor Mativar. Akwor's Prism army collected a broad coalition of local forces including subject communities, Ruekan tribes, march-born selkies, and Samvaran immigrant communities. In 1319, Akwor captured the Ruhaki patriarch and won a major battle against the kingdom's forces. By 1321, most of the selkie clans had joined Akwor's rebellion and the Khilaia had sent a fleet to investigate. Rather than try to fight off these reinforcements, Akwor pleaded for peace and stability. The Khilaia debated for 2 years on what to do, but ultimately agreed to allow the Prisms to run the March-Kingdom as long as it remained loyal to the Khilaia as a subject. 
Akwor's clan, the Mativars, were made the new rulers of Kakoru. They prioritized stability and growth over direct control, and invited in the Ruekan Circle of druids and the Samvaran Healing Church to invest. Kakoru began slowly recovering, now as a pluralistic kingdom of many cultures and communities. By 1600, the religion of Rueka had permeated the land and converted many local communities as a kind of manifestation of Kakoru's new syncretic identity. 
Not everything was peace and stability, of course. There was a civil war in the 1590s, which ended again in Prisms in leadership. Rueka became the state religion not long after. In 1670, contact was made with the Octoperson communities of the Great Reefs to the South, which created quite a stir of trade and competition. And in the 1700s, a powerful Kuhane (regional spiritual leader) by the name of Mokshin Naimaka stirred a kind of jingoism Westward, to claim the lands of the now-dissolved Kingdom of Awaki for Kakoru. From 1780 to 1920, Kakoru pushed Westward, pushing constantly to unite Northern Larazel for themselves. In the end, Kakoru ran out of profitable targets that weren't already protected by the Khilaia in their own agreements. Some radicals pushed to rebel against the Khilaia to continue this Manifest Destiny conquest, but war enthusiasm generally died out by 1940. 
Since then, the last century has seen Kakoru pivot from conquest and control to trade and stability.

Demography and Population

17,000,000 humanoids live in Kakoru. 10% are Selkie, 15% are Prism, 40% are Dryad, 27% are Human, and 8% are Half-Dryad.

Territories

Kakoru covers over a thousand miles of coastline and extends some 300 miles inland at places. It has two disconnected parts: the larger and more temperate West and the more tropical and lake-covered East. The West and East are 70 to 50 miles apart, divided by a narrow sea. 
The center-West is the most temperate and productive, a patch of subtropical temperate forest perfect for agriculture. To the East, this becomes shrublands that gradually grows warmer and then fades into jungle. To the West, this subtropical forest slowly becomes jungle as it fades into the region of Awaki in the Northwest. The heart of Awaki the Abrinula river, which runs 200 miles.
The Southern border is defined by the Kamagana mountains, which reach 5000 feet above sea level. These mountains jut North in the center-West as well.

Military

Most of Kakoru's land military is composed of aristocrat-organized men-at-arms and levies. In the shrublands, these feudal forces are mostly cavalry (and often train in horse archery in the style of the other March-Kingdom, Arashoka). But for the most part, Kakoru's army is unmounted infantry and some archers. Some use javelins, but many train in the traditional weapons of the selkies: saw-toothed axes and swords.
Kakoru's navy is mostly Selkie merchant fleet levies (which are quite effective), but a small standing navy is used for regular patrols.

Religion

The state religion of Kakoru is Rueka, but members other Samvaran religions are allowed to have their own communities, temples, and festivities. There are sizable Pratasa and Sumoxan communities, as well as a smattering of Ayshans and Aretans. Communities of foreign religion must have an official priest they follow in order to be religiously tolerated, and any bad behavior from a religious group is placed on that group's priests and leaders. Non-Samvaran religions are tolerated on a personal level, but not on a community level.
Traditions of Hamekun permeate the coast across religious lines.

Foreign Relations

The March-Kingdom has very limited diplomacy, as much of their foreign policy is managed by the Khilaia. For the most part, the current regime curries friendly relations with their neighbors and focuses on opening trade agreements.

Agriculture & Industry

Kakoru is, like much of the world, majority agricultural. Rice is the staple crop of the region, followed closely by soybeans and yams. Some maize and even wheat is grown in parts of the country, as are potatoes. Breadfruit, a staple crop of the selkie network, is grown along the coasts. Giant Lobsters are herded in the lakes and rivers, and cattle are ranched in the Southeast.
On top of staple food crops, there are tons of cash crops grown for use and sale. Bananas, cocoa, coffee, citrus, creeping figs, papaya, starfruit, and coconuts are all grown in different parts of the country. 
In the mountains, tin and prism-food are mined. And in the jungles, lumber and tar are harvested for shipbuilding. The cities also have some manufacturing, but its mostly low-level artisan work.

Trade & Transport

Trade is managed by the Khilaia of the selkies, which has a monopoly on trade and transport in and out of the country. Domestic and regional trade can be done by anyone, but the great merchant fleets into Garadel and Samvara are all selkie-run. 
For local trades, small community guilds do much of the work.

Education

Temples do some small amount of education, but most of it is community-based. A state-sponsored university in the capital manages matters of higher education.

Prosperity and Justice

Founding Date

1610

Type

Geopolitical, Country

Demonym

Kakoran

Government System

Monarchy, Constitutional

Power Structure

Feudal state

Currency

Ekedian Gold Suns, Silver Moons, and Copper Bats

Major Exports

Chocolate, papayas, starfruit, bananas, coffee, figs, Prism-food, tin, gems, tar, lumber, medicine, pelts, salt

Major Imports

Textiles, sugar, tea, luxury items, steel

Official State Religion

Rueka

Parent Organization

The Khilaia

Location

Larazel

Controlled Territories

• Somahi