Republic of Tuzek

Tuzek is the golden republic, the beating heart of the Suneka whose legalism and spartan obedience are to set an example for all other republics. This was once a land that arguably ruled the Suneka, whose troops carried its banner and whose rulers commanded trade and doctrine. Centuries of decline have tarnished that image and robbed Tuzek of much of its territory - but the republic of the great lake is rising again. 
Beyond the propaganda and the geopolitics, Tuzek is a bountiful and prosperous land. Its massive lakes are covered in floating fields, its enormous cities bustle with traffic, and its great fortresses and military parades reflect a culture of farmers and merchants familiar with guns and blades. The culture here is one of obedience tempered with expectations of autonomy; restrained militarism bound to local needs. Those who follow the Suneka, work hard, and enjoy blunt conversation may find Tuzek to be one of the greatest Sunekan republics to live in. Those who aren't so comfortable with stern, sharp Suneka may find Tuzek to be unwelcoming, demanding, and hypocritical.

Structure

Tuzek is ruled by a centralized imperial government, with supreme power divided between the military Tlakra and the civilian Assembly.  

• The Tlakra of Tuzek is elected for eight year terms, and acts as the supreme executive and top general. Running for office requires at least ten years of service as a military officer. 
• The Supreme Congress, which is a legislature of 80 Imperial Speakers, organized by province. There are 14 provinces, with speakers distributed by population. 
• Provincial Congress, 14 regional governments that manage local affairs. 
• Prefects, military officers placed in charge of the provincial military bureaucracy

The religious bureaucracy is run by the state priest, or Aziletzen. 
The current Tlakra is a former officer by the name of Korika Tonoza, a Half Prism , a child of a warhero Tlakra who is incredibly young as Tlakras go. Korika is an excellent fighter, a competent strategist, and a skilled draconic sorcerer, but they are not much of a politician. They are nearing the end of their term, and candidates to replace them are already campaigning in a political whirlwind.

Culture

The Cult of Work

Tuzek's culture is much more work and discipline oriented than most Sunekan states. Simply put, labor is seen as a critical part of worship and community participation, and the idea of the hard worker rising from nothing through the meritocracy is downright fetishized in their stories and media. It is not accurate to the social mobility of the republic, which is fairly limited during peace time, but it is the ideal. Politics is often framed around the stubborn determination of candidates, and over who truly deserves what rewards. 
For a teenager or young adult to enter adult society, they are expected to prove their willingness to serve the state through one to five years of military of bureaucratic service, known as the Youth Levy. This is not legally mandated, but is culturally expected and tied to whether community leaders will actually consider you a citizen. This is framed as explicitly militaristic service, even when the work is conducting a census or repairing a dam: work is, at its core, war against chaos and deviance, and all workers who contribute to society are part of this cultural-spiritual army. During times of actual conflict, this becomes more explicit, and military work worship becomes the center of public attention.   

Tuzekan Cuisine

 Classic Sunekan fare such as tortilla wraps are hyper-charged in Tuzek, as the amount of food (and access to good food) is greater here than most anywhere else. Lobster, fish, and poultry are extremely common in tortilla wraps and dumplings, as well as baked into egg quiches and savory pies. Rice balls with algae and meat are also common as snacks. 
Tuzek's artistic and stylistic tastes verge on iconoclastic: architecture can be magnificent, but art for its own sake is viewed with suspicion. That isn't to say that life isn't still musical - music and explicitly religious art are still commonplace - but there is a utilitarian attitude that regards individual expression as lazy and deviant. Not all communities abide by this, but the cities in particular tend to be hubs for this attitude. 
Tuzekan speech, unsurprisingly, is famously blunt; Tuzekan humor is dry and tends to focus on pithy one-liners.

History

Early History (Divine Era)

Tuzek was one of the cradles of the Sunekan civilization, back in the early divine era. The densely populated coast of the lake, with its fertile soil and bountiful freshwater, was a perfect spot for trading posts and eventually cities. When the great priestly oligarchs of that mythic time gathered the clan leaders to plan for the future, Tuzek was a perfect candidate for their utopian experiments. And when many of the Southern cities failed due to over-reliance on slash-and-burn agriculture, it was Tuzek that took in their refugees and picked up the pieces. All throughout the Divine Era, Tuzek (along with Gwalan and Atupan) were the great centers of stability that seemed to weather any storm with ease.
At the beginning of the Modern Era, the great threat facing the cities of Tuzek was no longer climate, but military: the peoples of the open plains to the West, known broadly as the Quiku (South) and Kiota (North), were breeding and domesticating the wild horses to create better and better chariots and even riding horses. This radical change allowed these groups to become horse-riding nomads, who were deadly opponents in battle as well as useful merchants. The thirteen states of Tuzek, divided among themselves and complacent in their superior numbers, were caught totally off guard.
A devastating series of raids and invasions in the -100s and 100s led to a group of four Northern kingdoms uniting together into a grand Sunekan oligarchy capable of mustering a grand standing army. This Northern empire held back the nomadic tides, while the remaining Southern kingdoms turned to floating farms and boating to better insulate their lands from raids.

Tuzek and the Rising Suneka (272 to 605)

In 272 ME, a dryad princeling by the name of Temilu rose in the Northern alliance with a mind for expansion. From 272 to 291, Temilu conquered more and more of the lake area, until finally all of greater Tuzek was united under their crown. This was the first great empire of the Sunekan region, a true superpower that began setting to work reorganizing all of the lake's societies around this imperial vision. 
This grand empire of Tuzek struggled to maintain its vast territories and large nomadic border. It was forced to develop an incredibly large and invasive bureaucracy, and its priesthood worked for decades to iron out a perfect definition of Sunekan religion and customary law. In 369, a succession dispute disrupted this developing imperial order and caused it all to come tumbling down. The empire was split in three in 373, between a bureaucratic theocracy in the Northwest, a military state in the South, and a dynastic remnant in the Northeast. By 410 ME, these successor states had largely fragmented themselves. For much of the 400s, Tuzek was a complex web of alliances between merchant republics, imperial dynastic states, and martial theocracies. While the safer and more insulated parts of Tuzek prospered during this decentralized time, those that were more vulnerable to nomadic raids or attacks by larger cities suffered. An imperial nostalgia developed, and inspired regional powers to try to seize the old mantle. Towards the latter half of the 400s, these regional powers began clashing and competing. 
This all culminated in the War of the Three Lions, a clash between three regional powers and their supporting leagues, which raged from 484 to 490 ME. One lesser descendant of Temilu, an aristocrat by the name of Yezok, emerged as a brilliant commander and leader of the dynastic remnants. In a climactic battle for the imperial capital, Yezok defeated the other claimants and unified all of Tuzek once more - only to be betrayed by his friend, Amati, who seized the throne for themselves. Yezok was transformed into a ghost, and Amati quickly turned Tuzek's resources towards expansion. Tuzek became the centerpiece of a grand Sunekan empire of Amati, which was barely held together with fear and paranoia. In 530 ME, Amati died and Yezok took over their dysfunctional empire. Yezok transformed it into the Great Spiritual Empire, the founding state of the Sunekan religion as we know it. The ghosts of the Suneka served as Yezok's emissaries, who helped train a generation of priests in the newly formalized Sunekan Customs and who gathered the elite warriors of the Suneka into the Guardians of Hokzin.  
From 530 to 605 ME, the Spiritual Empire reigned supreme, with Tuzek's imperial capital of Amzitlan serving as one of the twin capitals of Yezok's regime. In 605, Yezok was exorcized by the Exorcist's Guild, and the sacred empire was decentralized into a small group of powerful elector states. Tuzek, naturally was one of them, and soon took the responsibility of hosting the Sacred Assembly - the priestly legislature that represented the Spiritual Empire's authority. 

Tuzek the Golden (605 to 1190)

From 605 to 1035, Tuzek reigned supreme as the greatest of the Sunekan powers. A great series of fortresses and roads were built in the North, each with trading ties to local nomads, to better creates a buffer zone against raids and invasions; a vast system of floating farms were built along the lake; an enormous education system was pioneered in the 800s that was became the model for Sunekan education to this day; and an intricate road system was built to better enable safe travel and easy trade with other Sunekan powers. The government was also unusually stable, partially thanks to a secret of the republic: that they harbored a number of ghosts from Yezok's regime, who worked with the priesthood to prevent serious disturbances within the government. The presence of the Sacred Assembly also certainly helped, as did favorable weather. 
This golden age was brought to a close by a series of repeated disasters that shook Tuzek to its core. First, the Yellow Death (or bubonic plague), hit a number of cities in the late 900s and early 1000s; while this plague didn't hit Tuzek as badly as other states with poorer access to food and medicine, it did still put some strain on the system. Then, in the 1000s proper, the Mageplague and its variants arrived from the West. At the same time, the Asuna Heresy began cropping up across Tuzek, undermining the power of the priesthood. Relations between the Sacred Electors had also been straining over border tensions, which heresy and disease only made worse. In 1035, Tuzek invaded the neighboring Gwalan Republic, which had fallen to heresy and was actively connected to heretical sects growing in Tuzek. This war spiraled into a war with the neighboring elector of Atupan in 1037, when Tuzek announced its intentions to annex Gwalan completely. From 1037 to 1050, Gwalan, Tuzek, and Atupan fought each other for dominance and plague and famine swept the land. In the end, Gwalan's periphery was divided between Atupan, Tuzek, and other powers (such as Akatlan), and the heresy was wiped out - but Tuzek was the weakest it had been since 484. 
Increasingly, Tuzek lacked the trade power to tie the border nomads down into a buffer zone, and had to rely on tribute exchanges to prevent a disintegration of the border. In 1064, these payments were abruptly stopped, as the reigning Tlakra of Tuzek deemed them unnecessary and humiliating (as well as costly for a state that was struggling to maintain its military and religious institutions). The nomads, suddenly cut off from trade and tribute alike, began raiding the other forts (who themselves were manned by far too small of garrisons to be defensible). In a few years, the stable border had become a nomadic warzone once again. In 1090, a nomadic alliance broke through the border and began racing towards the imperial capital. In order to prevent a disaster, the Tlakra was able to bribe this nomadic alliance into joining the republic rather than trying to conquer it: each nomadic tribe was granted lands in the North and the power to collect rents in the wealth South, and in exchange they promised to use their warriors and connections to re-secure the border. 
After a decade of these new nomadic aristocrats tax-farming the Southlands, the Southern communities rose in rebellion. And the neighboring Sunekan elector of Atupan, still seething from their war with Tuzek earlier in the century, pledged their support for the rebels. From 1101 to 1110, Tuzek fought Atupan, rebels at home, and nomads in the North. Tuzek ultimately prevailed, but had to promise the Southlands rights to limited self-government to bring them back to the fold. A smaller civil war broke out in 1183 due to resentment in the North, which was made worse by instability in the Republic of Akatlan that spilled over in the Northeast. It was increasingly clear that the golden age was over.

Tuzek's Renewed Empire (1190 to 1721)

The 1200s were a time of recovery. The debacle with the nomad lords had provided the foundation for Tuzek to make a new buffer zone in the form of an allied nomadic confederacy to the Northwest, and the plague times were over. Tuzek was much more decentralized during this period and its military struggled to redefine itself, but the infrastructure of the empire did rebound and even grow beyond golden-age levels. The empire did its best to encourage youth service in military or bureaucratic programs as a right of passage, to bring the regions together and potentially solve its military problem, but most of these programs flourished more at a regional than an imperial level. In 1299 the local military programs in the South were drawn away from the state entirely when the famous mercenary Imoren the Obsidian Lion established a partnership with one of the largest youth militia program in the South. Sunekan mercenary groups began investing in and recruiting from these Southern youth programs, and by the early 1400s the culture of the South had become much more martial - a reverse of the 'military North, merchant South' dynamic of earlier centuries. 
The peace and prosperity of the 1200s and 1300s did not survive far into the 1400s. The early 1400s saw rising tensions with Atupan, which turned into an arms race. Tuzek won the competition of military buildup handily, but did so at the cost of public order. In 1440, the South rose in rebellion after their legal petition against overtaxation was ignored by the imperial government, and Atupan again marched in to support them. At the same time, the Guardians of Hokzin began their own civil war, which set off a continent-wide wave of civil conflicts and regional wars. The continent was plunged into conflict, and Tuzek was soon overwhelmed. Invaders from the Adira Mountains arrived from the North, bearing basic gunpowder weapons; nomads fought nomads, and a rising Khan in the West was able to carve their way to Tuzek in the West; the North and South fought over regional differences, and neighboring Gwalan suffered its own anarchy. Tuzek's Tlakra was slain, the Sacred Assembly building was burned, and the imperial government collapsed. Ultimately, Tuzek's military rallied behind the leader of Tuzek's allied nomads, Khan Kuaho, as well as one of the loyal Southern mercenaries - a Kobold by the name of Ikito. In 1461, Kuaho and Ikito were able to secure and end to the major wars and reunify Tuzek under the military bureaucracy. They married not long after, as a symbol of Northern-Southern unity, and they reimagined Tuzek's Sunekan Republicanism as a sort of parliamentary monarchy. 
The monarchical period of Tuzek only lasted from 1461 to 1522. It was a stable regime, but one that prioritized martial training and absolute imperial power over local autonomy or economic prosperity - and while the generations touched by the brutal civil war of the 1400s welcomed it, newer generations pined for the golden days of the 1300s. Again, neighboring Atupan sensed an opportunity to seize the prosperous Southern borderlands of Mezcoco. Through dissenting intermediaries, Atupan was able to make contact with the Tonezin of Kiota, a nomadic warrior-merchant with a claim to the Tuzekan imperial throne. Atupan agreed to help Tonezin seize the throne if they got to take any claimed lands in the South - and so Tonezin built his nomadic army and invaded. From 1522 to 1530, Tuzek fell to rebellion and invasion, and was partitioned between Tonezin and Atupan. 
Tonezin's Northern regime was similar to the prior parliamentary monarchy, but his descendants never shaked the title of usurper. In 1604, the monarchs were driven out and the imperial republic was remade. Meanwhile, the South spent much of the 1500s not entirely pleased with their new Atuperen masters, and were able to gain regional autonomy in 1610. South Tuzek acheived full independence in 1721, when Atupan crumbled completely in its own civil war - and so Tuzek was free once more, but in two. 

The Quiku Reckoning (1721 to 1870)

North Tuzek, always the seat of the empire, wanted to reunite; the South, with its history of tension, did not. In 1771, the North decided to stop asking nicely and go to war about it. It turns out that this was perhaps the worst possible time to pivot Southwards: in the far Northwest, a nomadic druid and warlord by the name of Eltizen the Avenger was bringing together the remaining Quiku, Kiotan, and Utiman nomads. For several centuries, plains societies had been under siege by Sunekan missionaries and settlements, and these Sunekan cultural invasions made immense progress in the early 1700s. Eltizen campaigned across the plains with a reactionary message: to unite under his banner across clan or cultural lines, with the purpose to driving out the Sunekans and destroying their capacity to ever invade the plains again. Through luck, politicking, and skill, Elitzen won victory after victory in the West in the 1760s. And a distracted Tuzek would be a perfect target, a way to break into the Sunekan heartlands. In 1772, Eltizen's grand invasion hit Tuzek from the Northwest. By 1790, most of Tuzek had fallen.
The regions successfully invaded by Eltizen from 1755 to 1800

In 1800, Eltizen was slain in the land of Atupan. His fragile empire, not built for lasting administration, quickly disintegrated. Tuzek was divided between his children, but the last of these descendants was driven out in 1829. A charismatic dryad priest by the name of Yameska the Blue was able to negotiate a reunification of the core of Tuzek in 1832. Even parts of the South were interested in joining the protection and potential vengeance this new empire could bring. 
From 1832 to 1869, the new empire of Tuzek was predominantly a military structure focused on wars in the North. With the Guardians of Hokzin and the Keepers of Olkum, the Empire led a coalition of Sunekan powers that waged an existential war on the peoples of the plains. Through mass abductions, environmental destruction, divide-and-conquer strategies, and a ruthless use of superior numbers and new technologies, the Sunekan forces invaded the heart of the Quiku heartlands. While the coalition was unable to wipe out these nomads completely, they did create a series of Sunekan theocracies to anchor down the plains, to ensure that the nomads would never be able to exist with plains to themselves. Dozens of cultures were wiped out, and by 1870 a new genocidal order had taken root across the whole of the plains.  

Modern History

In 1870, as Tuzek was still focused on its conquest of the plains, a new threat arrived from the North: the Empire of Calazen. Calazen took a few years to reach Tuzek, but its immense forces easily outmatched the first republics they hit. Tuzek became the wall of the Suneka, the millitary power large enough to tie down Calazen while coalition forces arrived. Three times, Calazen threatened the imperial capital, but each time coalition forces were able to drive the Calazan off. While the foreigners were better-trained and equipped, Tuzek was fairly experienced in war and had the advantage of the lake: while Calazen struggled to hold the lake islands and tried to use inefficient and grandiose building projects to project power, Tuzek was able to dart through the waters and harry the Calazan supply lines. 
By 1890, Calazen had been driven from Tuzek for the last time. It was a difficult victory, and one that cost Tuzek its chance to annex the plains for itself, but when 1900 came around the empire was finally safe and victorious. From 1900 to 1950, Tuzek focused only on rebuilding - but in the last fifty years, the prosperous republic was returned to the empire building it hoped to do so long ago.

Demography and Population

Around 18,000,000 humanoids live in the Republic of Tuzek. The population is roughly 35% Dryads, 30% Humans, 20% Hybrids, 10% Prisms, 5% Other. A vast multitude of cats live here.

Territories

Tuzek is 556 miles long and roughly 210 miles wide. At its heart is Lake Tuzeto - a massive lake roughly 350 miles long and 95 miles across famous for its rich black mud, giant fish, and thousands of tiny islands. Not all of Lake Tuzeto is controlled by Tuzek, currently, only the larger Northwestern part - including the vital straights of Silkepen, which are roughly 7 miles across and allow for easy control of lake traffic. Tuzek does claim the Southern half of the lake for its own, but has agreed to temporarily respect the states that currently control that half. There is a small Tuzekan enclave in the Northeastern corner of the Southern half, specifically the city of Ituken.

Two other large lakes sit Northwest of Tuzeto: Lake Dozsa, a 20x25 mile lake that connects with Tuzeto every rainy season; and Lake Artilet, which is 61 by 30 miles across and is fed by the 180-mile-long Tlamiko River.
Northern Tuzek is flatter and dotted with patches of grassland; Southern Tuzek is hillier and heavily forested.

Military

The military is a massive institution in Tuzek, a right of passage for those looking for a job not tied to the land (such as merchant work, ranching work, free labor, mercenary work, etc). Tuzekan mercenaries have become a staple of 1900's Sunekan militaries, and Tuzek encourages mercenaries to maintain military ties (to allow for Tuzek to draw them back into the military if needed). 
Tuzek's cavalry is rivaled only by Zetepec within the Suneka. Horse archers, light cavalry, and heavy cavalry are all staples of Tuzek's martial approach, particularly their armored lancers. The Calazen invasion of the late 1800s also introduced Sudraco to the lake area, and Tuzek has so far been the only major Sunekan power to capture and domesticate them rather than kill them off. While there haven't been many chances for Tuzek to test their crocodile cavalry on the field, they have performed wonderfully the few times they have been deployed.
Backing up this cavalry are musketeers, archers, and spear levies. Interior Tuzek has a long history of fighting off mounted opponents with spears and arrows, and the current iteration is a more focused and disciplined version of that. Perhaps the greatest innovation have been firing drills for muskets: using massed fire by row of musketeers to create horrific barrages of bullets to rapidly demoralize and break enemy groups. Archers are still trained in some areas, but are used as skirmishers for fighting in difficult terrain. While the spear formations of Tuzek are nothing exceptional, they carry a level of discipline rarely found in Sunekan troops. All troops, regardless of their focus, are also issued iconic curved blades - somewhere between a dagger and a short sword.
While Tuzek has fine artillery for the area, it prefers to focus on infantry and cavalry - cannons are reserved for fortifiations, river boats, or sieges. Magical support is considered more flexible and mobile, and divisions of dragon sorcerers, druids, and wizards are better funded than field cannon foundries.

Religion

Tuzek is aggressively Sunekan - there are virtually no holdouts or exceptions left. Foreign religions never really set in Tuzek the same way they did in other occupied states, and the few Nediran temples that were made now stand as curiosities and war museums. Calazen simply never held any province consistently enough to put down lasting roots.
Heresy is as hated and persecuted here as anywhere in the Suneka, but witch hunts are uncommon. The great exception to all this is plains community and religion: while elements of Quikan and Kiotan religion have long been present in the mythology of Northern Tuzek, incorrect use of plains iconography or ritual can evoke a very quick community response. Violence towards those cultures have been horribly normalized here, and being perceived as a member of such a culture is an easy way to be un-personed here.
The Guardians of Hokzin are the most popular and influential holy order here, and play a major role in public holidays. Reverence of the Ghost King is also common, with Yezok practically deified by the state and the Cult of Yezok the Lawgiver being a major state cult. In the countryside, the Cult and worship of Yama-Armata, or the abundance and health of the lakes, is common.

Foreign Relations

Tuzek is a Sunekan power player, with a history of being a global power. While diminished, it seeks to return to its former glory and territorial control. To this end, it has curated good relations with the Republic of Akatlan and the (currently collapsing) Republic of Matayan. Its regional rivals are the Republics of Atupan and Kiuwa to the East, and Zitepec in the South.

While formal alliances are currently rare in the Sunekan heartlands (due to both mutual distrust and a desire to avoid mobilization), Tuzek has been the most willing to try and forge such alliances in the open.
Atupan is Tuzek's traditional rival, but is currently so decentralized that it poses little threat. Zetepec in the South, despite its small size, is Tuzek's more direct rival: Zetepec not only threatens its claims to the Southwest, but hosts the Sacred Assembly - a right that once belonged to Tuzek alone.

Agriculture & Industry

Tuzek, like much of the Sunekan heartlands, is a breadbasket of rich soil and plentiful water. The great lake teems with giant fish, freshwater eels, and edible algaes. Thousands of floating gardens and farms dot the lake, transforming the open water into bountiful fields. Tuzek regularly generates vast surpluses of maize, wheat, and rice, as well as cash crops such as cotton, flex, papyrus, and plants for dyes. Some islands are able to grow spices, include jalepenos, sugar, and cardamom. The lake and its shores are rich with Giant Lobsters. The Northern flats also are used for ranching cows and horses. Surplus fruit and spices are used for the creation of exquisite ciders and rums beloved across the continent. 
While this agriculture dominates the Tuzekan economy, there are a number of large towns and cities that are bustling with trade and manufacturing. While factories haven't quite taken root here, massive traditional workshops are common for mass production.

Trade & Transport

Merchant's Associations coordinated through the Department of Abundance handle most of the distribution of surplus goods. Like in much of the Suneka, monetary exchange and free market commerce is reserved for non-essential goods and services, and usually divided between two markets: the 'little economy' of small peddlers and farmers between each other, and the 'big economy' of wealthy elites. The small economy here is particularly strong across the lake, as mobile boat-markets move through the islands and around the coast.

Education

A robust education system is firmly entrenched here, beginning from early childhood and potentially continuing through adulthood. Primary schooling through one's childhood and teenage years is mandatory, and these schools are often the center of the local community. Imperial secondary schools in the major cities teach more specialized skills. Candidates for secondary education are screened through both primary school recommendations and recommendations from service in the youth levy (compulsory state service, either bureaucratic or military).

Infrastructure

Tuzek has a robust road and canal system, as well as a carefully maintained system of islands and water controls. Resevoirs manage the lake height, to prevent excessive flooding during rainy seasons. Great defenses, inherited from the terrible wars of the 1800s, stand tall across the land - from military outposts in the countryside, to giant island fortresses in the lake. 
All of this is maintained by the Youth Levy, a series of programs that allow young adults to transition to full adulthood through civil or military service.

"All Who Toil, Reap Glory"

Founding Date

1832 ME

Type

Geopolitical, Country

Demonym

Tuzekan

Leader Title

Tlakra

Government System

Democracy, Presidential

Power Structure

Unitary state

Currency

Sunekan Currency: Golden Lions, Silver Foxes, Copper Stars

Major Exports

Food, cotton, labor, paper, dyes, alcohol

Major Imports

Steel, Prism-feed

Legislative Body

The Supreme Congress of Tuzek

Judicial Body

The Sacred Tribunal

Official State Religion

Suneka

Location

Suneka (place)

Official Languages

• High Sunekan

Neighboring Nations

• Gwalan Republic
• Republic of Akatlan