The Kingdom of Ezekos

Ezekos is the rock of the West, the anchor of the Sarakan temple, and the eternal kingdom that has not fallen for nearly 600 years. It is a prosperous mountain kingdom that seems halfway stuck between "reclusive mountain wizards" and "worldly merchant-scholars". This is a land of mages, diplomats, engineers, and scholars, stereotyped across Garadel as dour but curious sticks in the mud. And at the heart of Ezekos is the great landmark that defines it: The Sages' Labyrinth, a massive maze carved by the hands of the Architects, that allows the Ezekans to translate any language and to train their own special wizards.  
Leading the kingdom is an aggressively neutral monarch who is tied by tradition to rule by committee, and a cult devoted to mathematically calculating divinity. These institutions are proud icons of what it means to be Ezekan. Or, to the more skeptical foreigner: to be a nerd who hides in a mountain spouting trivia under their own personal raincloud. 
For all the mockery that can be levied at Ezekos, it is the fool that underestimates this kingdom. It is prosperous, rich, and well-equipped with magical arms. It is a pillar of stability armed with some of the largest archives in Garadel, and led by coldly calculating minds who curate the appearance of stuttering neutrality to better defend their home. Ezekos does not conquer because it doesn't need to; it would rather rise above the continent with its magic, surrounded by buffer states willing to do their bidding for free.

Structure

The Kingdom of Ezekos is led by a powerful central government surrounding a limited monarch. The monarch's power is largely dependent on the cooperation of the bureaucratic leaders and the great clans, but the royal family has great power and influence within both groups so the monarch can usually rule as an absolute autocrat. 
Every person in power is bound by an intricate legal system that requires careful etiquette to navigate. At every step, the law is built to curtail individual power - only through group consensus outside of one clique, region, or family can any action be taken. No person is to rule any great tract of land alone, so bureaucrats and noble clusters tend to rule local regions rather than individual administrators. 
The current ruler of Ezekos is a young prism by the name of Ezanla III Krezkoj. Ezanla is a calm and content ruler, chosen from her siblings for her cool temperament and even head. Unfortunately her cool attitude can sometimes veer into apathy and decadence, and she is so confident in the prosperity of her kingdom that she spends little time actually considering its problems. She is, however, quite charismatic and skilled at keeping people loyal - so she keeps the oligarchs loyal, they run the country, she drinks and plays the days away, and the kingdom as a whole celebrates her competency. 
In religious matters, Ezekos is run by the Ezekan Arsha, an elderly prism by the name of Erklin Krezkoj. Erklin runs the temples well from a technical standpoint, but is an abrasive elitist that is generally disliked by the commonfolk of the land.

Culture

Specialization, Species, and Attitude

Specialization is everything in Ezekos. Your job and your areas of specialty are things to be worn on your sleeve here (often via how you dress, though opening with your specialty when you introduce yourself is acceptable). There is pride in low-wage or common specialties, particularly if you get specific. Better to be a poor hops-farmer who also specializes in potatoes than to be wealthy but without a specialty. Questioning someone's specialist status or knowledge is a direct attack on that person's social status and worth, and is a common source for bar or street fights. Respect for the specialties of others is considered high-class behavior, and monarchs often make great shows of asking lower-status specialists for advice to demonstrate their wisdom and respect for social rules. Tied to this specialization fetish is an obsession with displays of knowledgeability: the leading miner in an operation might represent their status (and the status of those underneath them) by spouting specialty-specific facts about their mine when talking with their superiors. In fact, these sorts of trivia exchanges mark cross-class interactions: a visiting psuedo-aristocrat might give opportunities for the wealthiest leading farmers in a village to talk about hog breeds or crop trivia, followed by praise from the lord ("Truly you are the greatest hog farmers I've met - thank Tira I am not a farmer, for you are far greater with hogs than I. The goddess chose you well!" Etc), followed by the village giving the aristocrat a moment to trot out their own trivia. This is a kind of status recognition ritual that confirms each party's social role and distance from one another and reinforces it, while granting each party respect and autonomy. These rituals also legitimize the ruling class, by the logic of "a king can't be a farmer, just as a farmer can't be a king". 
Attached to this job-oriented attitude is a general culture of what might be called "complacency". Basically, "stay in your line, be happy with what you have, keep to yourself". There is a certain level of comfort and stability that a specialist can demand (reliable food, shelter, medicine, and guild advancement), but these are traditional rights granted by your ability as a worker. To rock the boat by demanding things beyond tradition is to invite evil and instability upon yourself and society. The culture in Ezekos is incredibly pessimistic for a prosperous and stable country; it is usually assumed that the worst is always yet to come, and that stability is hard-won through constant thrift and vigilance. Many outsiders find this to be a dreary, sad, and isolated culture, but it isn't all that. There are expectations of privacy here unlike most other places, that allow for a great deal of individualism behind closed doors. There is also great comradery among trade communities, as well as an expectation for everyone to come together to safeguard traditional rights. And lastly, the 'pessimism' of Ezekos has done little to stop their vibrant party culture. 
As for species, prisms are preferred for positions of power but the laws of society work to balance things somewhat for dryads and humans. Food quotas demand that dryad and human food stores match a certain level of prism food stores for example, and the Sarakan temple has greatly assisted in creating a robust medical field for non-prisms. Things are somewhat balanced on a knife's edge, though. 

Food

Ezekos has great human-dryad cuisine for a prism-led society, a testament to historical cooperation among the species here. Strudels (thin pastries stuffed with other food) are a staple of cuisine for all species, as well as rohliks (boomerang-shaped breadrolls), and dumplings made out of processed stale bread. Mushroom and vegetable purees are common, as is fermented cabbage, as something in or on baked goods. Putting garlic on everything is a must. For humans, grilled chicken stuffed with melted cheese is a common delicacy. Boiled fruit dumplings are a popular dessert. Add in the recent emergence in fried foods and you have quite the menu: currently fried breaded meat slices (or schnitzel), and fried potato pancakes are in. 
Dinner is really big in Ezekos; the portions are big, setting is typically social, and the meal is eaten late. Along with dinner comes the drinking. Ezekos has a big beer culture, even among the prisms. Every town has their unique subtype of beer that the local villagers consider a point of community pride. But everyone in Ezekos comes together in public holidays united under the common pilsner - a beer found in few places other than Ezekos, and which is produced in vast quantities.

History

Early History and the Rise of Prozga

Many groups shifted through the mountains and surrounding valleys of Ezekos over the centuries, but the Kingdom of Ezekos was simply an impossibility for most of the Divine Era. The Kingdom as an idea is inseparable from the Sages' Labyrinth, and only began to form in the early 100s ME after the first route through the Labyrinth to the other side was accidentally discovered.
According to legends, the Sage's Labyrinth was once a greatly feared place that only adventurers, cultists, and the truly desperate dared to tread. Refugees from famine and war were forced to take residence in the Labyrinth, and most non-prisms who did so were lost forever in its depths. Eventually, a demon known as the Izutor (a horrible beast of cold, smokeless fire born of the ancient sins of a different tragic tale) took residence in the Labyrinth and began tormenting those who lived there. Some fled the Izutor deep into the Earth, where they were so twisted by fear and distance from the light that they became shriveled, eyeless beasts the Izutor would use like hunting hounds. Other residents simply learned to run forever through the maze, and these maze nomads erected many shrines to the Gods to save them. One day the Gods answered by sending the legendary prism hero Uvoso the clever, who slew the beast and used its sinewy carcass to mark a trail from one door to the other. By the old tales, this is how the Labyrinth was made safe and the way from one side to the other was opened for all.
While no evidence of the Izutor exists, we do know that the Labyrinth did serve as a safe haven for displaced peoples and that a consistent route through it was chartered and used by a small group of merchants by the early 400s ME. This trade was small at first, but each route offered goods from the other side of Garadel that were greatly desired by the other: magic items in the South and Pangolin scales and amber in the North. Towns began to cluster around the respective entrances, and the peoples of the Labyrinth moved towards the trade route to turn their own profit. By the 600s, the Sage's Labyrinth had become a cluster of mutually supportive trading communities, a beacon of stability in a tumultuous region. There was no centralized government, only small local trading communes led by elders.
Throughout the 600s, a different kind of traveler began to appear in greater numbers in the Labyrinth: adventurer-pilgrims drawn to the challenge and potential rewards of the inner maze. These mercenaries also began working as muscle for the towns, protecting each group from other adventurers and one another. The peace of the Labyrinth towns began to break down, bit by bit, as the threat of arms ate away at the centuries of mutual aid and trust. A different kind of outsider, the Labyrinth cultist, rushed in as a solution to this new problem. The cultists began to organize, and worked to keep the towns (and their potential access to the Maze's secrets) stable. Local labyrinth cults merged with these outsiders, and the result was the Cult of the Sacred Geometry: somewhere between a hyper-diverse mountain cult religion and a math cult dedicated to figuring out how the Maze and its puzzles worked.
As trade continued to grow and outsiders swarmed in ever-greater numbers, the Maze and its surrounding valleys grew as well. Small kingdoms emerged in the valleys North and South of the Maze, allied together against the nomads in either direction but generally wary of one another. In 742 ME, the Maze itself broke into a brief war as the towns fought for dominance of the Labyrinth - only to be cut down by the warriors of the Cult of Sacred Geometry. The Cult chose one of their allied families to rule the towns as one, and the city-state of Prozga was born. Prozga served as the nucleus of the emerging Kingdom of Ezekos: its influence spread over the North and South, which it slowly vassalized over the centuries.

Ezekos is Born

From 742 to 891, Prozga was content with having its share of influence and protection - but something changed in 891. Over the course of a year, the stance of the Cult and the Kingdom changed from internal development to external power projection. It is uncertain why this happened - perhaps this was when the Cult first managed to open the heart of the Labyrinth and examine its secrets, or perhaps this is when some hidden faction took control behind the scenes. Either way, Prozga began centralizing its power within the city and surrounding lands. And then, from 902 to 1100, Prozga's influence expanded across the valleys to the North and South. First this process was diplomatic, but it quickly took on a military edge. The once small and focused Prozgan government was becoming difficult to control, and each branch of the imperial administration became its own autonomous entity that fought periodically with the others.
After a rough civil war in 1100, Prozga stopped expanding and started crumbling and bickering. It was a slow, terrible, descent, which finally led to the civil war to end all civil wars in 1289. In the great civil war of the late 1200s, the Cult of Sacred Geometry also turned on itself, and cultists who wished to rule Prozga as a theocracy fought those who believed that direct rule would dilute their sacred work. Eventually, the isolationists who wished to leave ruling to monarchs won control of the Maze but lost control of the military. The theocratic cultists were forced out of "true" Prozga and marched North with their armies to carve out their own empire elsewhere. They became known as The Quenta: a militaristic religious group that mixed their worship of mathematics with a disciplined magocratic attitude. The Quenta also were known for their reverence for the Muse-Goddess Hiku, which only grew as they conquered in the North. From 1291 to 1347, the Quenta conquered, ruled, and fell - a brief experiment in empire that was brought short by the endless chaos of the Fire Plains.

The Quenta at the height of their empire
In 1295, the regime back in Prozga was able to restabilize. The new government was shaky at best thanks to nomad raids, internal feuds, and Quenta invasions, and Ezekos moved through a series of coups and minor wars from 1295 to 1431. But as the Quenta crumbled internally and the nomads were drawn elsewhere, the Prozgan lands slowly stabilized. In 1431, the Kzetkoj family seized the Kingdom in a near-bloodless coup and set to work trying to reform the laws and structures of Prozga to be more stable in the modern age. The Kzetkojs, being a family from the Northern periphery, saw that many of the kingdom's issues were coming from the ways that Prozga treated the kingdom as a city-state: draining all resources into the great city while failing to properly govern the increasingly populous 'hinterlands'. To discourage this attitude, first Queen Veleka Kzetkoj renamed the kingdom to the Kingdom of Ezekos - or the "Kingdom of the great valleys" in the old tongue - and extended the city's bureaucracy across the greater realm.

The Early Kingdom

The reign of Veleka Kzetkoj was a massive turning point for Ezekos: not only did the name change, the religion and legal structure changed. The legal code was entirely rewritten; the Cult of the Sacred Geometry was carefully contained in its influence, formally organized, and joined with the rising Ember League of Zihari. The fruits of the kingdom were spread more evenly across the valleys, and the local elites were reigned in under the queen's direct authority. Great fortresses were constructed to protect the Northern and Southern borders, and diplomats were sent to create buffer groups in the North, South, and West.
These reforms rejuvenated Ezekos, and the Kingdom began a long period of quiet prosperity. Thanks to the defensible and lucrative location of the kingdom, the monarchs were relatively safe from outside threats or sudden economic collapses, and their relentless focus on stability over flashy projects helped prevent internal threats from forming.
Things were disrupted momentarily in the 1600s, as religious infighting within the Ember League sent ripples through Ezekos' economy and religious politics. In 1669, the Kingdom of Ezekos outright withdrew from the Ember League to form its own religious cult, as the Zihari outsiders were seen as chaotic and unreliable. This attempt to make a new religion based on imperial cult and the Sacred Geometry proved a complete failure, and the Kingdom ultimately joined a more successful new religion instead: Sarakism.

Two Centuries of Tension

In the 1700s, the massive surge in trade that had destabilized the Ember League in the 1600s finally reached Ezekos. With this new trade, new ideas and technologies rushed into Ezekos, as well as new pilgrims to the Great Maze. Popular Saraka succeeded where Zihari and other cult had failed, and began bringing their religion into Ezekan daily life. A revolution in foreign technologies and ideas swept across the kingdom as eccentrics from around the world were drawn to the Sage's Labyrinth and the accumulated lore of the Geometric Cult. Through great skill and incredible luck, the Ezekan monarchs were able to keep the realm stable during this time of change. A thousand tiny crises marked the 1700s and 1800s, which are remembered now as chaotic times of debauchery and confusion. But, somehow, none of these ever combined with enough of the others to trigger any kind of mass meltdown or open violence.
Generally speaking, the 1700s are best understood as the culture war era, while the 1800s are best understood as the century of militarism. What began as a panic about the crumbling of old traditions and norms crystallized into a panic about the kingdom's potential vulnerability. The rise of Winek Nontor, who united the lands North of Ezekos into a hyper-militarized Kingdom of Anashtra in the 1830s, provoked a particular fear of foreign invasion among the Ezekan public.
Meanwhile, Ezekos leapt forward from a reclusive kingdom adopting technology to a prosperous land that innovated in it. The arrival of foreign eccentrics in the 1700s led to one particularly amazing discovery in the Sages' Labyrinth that would change everything - the discovery of wizarding secrets in the inner chamber of the Labyrinth, invisible to the eyes of those who have never visited distant Stildane. The Cult of the Sacred Geometry translated these secrets and used them to create a wholly independent school of wizardry from the extremely distant Stildanian school. The Geometric Cult shifted gears entirely after this revelation, from reclusive monks focused on understanding the secrets of the Labyrinth apart from the rest of the world, to energetic scholars seeking to understand how the Labyrinth reacts to the knowledge of the greater universe. They began sending emissaries into the broader world seeking magical and technological knowledge, and they began mass translating and copying foreign texts using the Labyrinth's secrets. In order to obtain these foreign secrets and texts, the Kingdom produced the Universal Codex - a primer on foreign language and grammar that contains phrases and grammatical explanations from dozens of major languages - to trade in exchange. To this day, the Universal Codex is a staple text for linguists, emperors, and merchants around the world.
The accumulated knowledge and magic of the 1700s was then turned to industrial and military applications in the 1800s. To keep the scholars and cultists 'pure' of the messy bias of the world, a new series of institutions were made to apply what the Cult and Kingdom learned. The largest of these new organizations was The College of Warmages, a military organization closely tied to the Cult of Sacred Geometry dedicated to the martial application of new technologies and magical arts. The military escalations of the 1800s saw the College's funding and influence balloon ridiculously, resulting in a large number of military-trained wizards, druids, bards, and engineers. 

Modern Ezekos

Anticlimactically, there was never a great war to test the military buildup of the 1800s. Aside from some small skirmishes, diplomacy triumphed over war every time. By 1890, Anashtra had gone from a threat to Ezekos to a tentative ally who helped the Kingdom secure their Northern border. Tension with the other neighboring Sarakan powers of Nalastra and Senelon also fizzled out at this time, replaced with stronger friendships. And as peace prevailed, Ezekos' bloated military became a diplomatic tool. The Ezekan warriors were sent to the other kingdoms as military advisors or state mercenaries. Ezekos' diplomatic power blossomed across the Sarakan world, and the military craze of the 1800s died down. Over time, the number of non-spellcasters in the military declined, and Ezekos essentially began training and renting mages and engineers to its allies.
By the 1950s, Ezekos settled back into a conservative status quo. While there are fights among elite circles over the implementations of new technologies, the culture wars have ended in the mainstream. Ezekos seems to its residents to be eternal, immortal, ever-prosperous and ever-stable. And with no clear threats or rivals to be seen, one would be hard-pressed to prove them wrong.

Demography and Population

3,000,000 humanoids live in Ezekos. The population is 35% Prism, 30% Human, 30% Dryad, and 5% Other.

Territories

Ezekos occupies the lowlands on either side of the Sages' Labyrinth. The Northern lands are flatter and more densely populated, mostly contained in a large valley 150 by 104 miles across. This valley is predominantly temperate forest. The Southern lands are hilly and rockier, and stretch 116 miles South and almost 100 feet across at points. Ezekos' borders are neatly defined by the Kigura Mountains, which wall the kingdom in on nearly every side. One could best visualize Ezekos as a massive mountain pass of sorts, a winding kingdom occupying the safest and easiest way through the Western Kiguras.

Military

The Kingdom of Ezekos uses a small professional military bolstered by mercenaries. The very idea of conscripted levies is laughed at, as the prevailing logic dictates that a specialist is worth a thousand poorly trained novices. So basically no conscription system exists, nor any infrastructure that would allow for one. Instead, Ezekos focuses on what is immediately effective: three very small standing armies man the fortifications and keep ready for war, with specialized full-time peacekeepers used for internal problems. Any sudden crises are solved with mercenaries, usually drawn from the neighboring mountains or the Blood of Karn. The assumption is that any major war should be reasonably predictable, and that Ezekos will just train the number of professional soldiers necessary for the near future. The existing troops are kept in defensive positions to ward off small raids or bandits, and are given significant autonomy to do so. So, basically, Ezekos is perfectly primed to ward off small attacks but is completely unprepared for any sudden new threats.
The big exception to this rule is in spellcasters. As spellcasters have a great deal of general utility and are often rented out to other states, as much of the military budget goes into their training and maintenance as possible. Ezekos seeks variety - they have training programs for wizards, bards, druids, and sorcerers. Along with specialized spellcasters, Ezekos also trains more engineers and scholarly specialists than they need - once again, for their potential use for renting to other countries or infrastructure projects at home.
As for the actual standing army, it is broken along geographical lines mainly, but species lines within those regional groups. There are the Northern garrisons, the Southern garrisons, and the Mazeguard, with the Mazeguard being the most prestigious and well-trained of the three. Within these groups there are three main divisions with their own hierarchies and species preference: the Crown Lines, the Crown Bows, and the Crown Blades. The Crown Lines are the heavy infantry and frontline troops, usually armed with spears, halberds, or other polearms; these troops are primarily prisms and tend to have the most influence within the military. The Crown Bows use longbows and crossbows, and are divided between skirmishers and heavy ranged support; these troops are primarily human. The Crown Blades are the light infantry and vanguard infantry, and tend to use short swords, handaxes, and long curved swords akin to shortened warscythes known as Rhomphaia; these troops are primarily dryads. Until the 1700s these species-divisions were official, but for the last few centuries any species can theoretically join any of the three groups - they just might have to work against stereotypes doing so.

Religion

Ezekos is majority Sarakan religiously and there is a close relationship between the temples and the state, but Sarakism is far from mandatory here. The crown treats the temples as a public service more than anything and there is a mandatory base tithe to support the religious school system, but actual participation in the religion is in no way demanded. If you wish to pay additional tithes to go to some other temple as well, you may - and plenty of small cults and alternative religions exist in Ezekos legally. Evangelism of foreign faiths is even legal here, though political lobbying by them is not. For the most part, the mandatory tithing and education through the Sarakan temple keeps most people loosely Sarakan, but some outside temples have carved out pockets for themselves.
The Cult of Sacred Geometry, a Sarakan mystery cult that predates Sarakism itself, is a major public institution here. They manage the Sacred Maze, curate grand public libraries, run the institutions of higher learning, and lead public holidays. Their approach to religion is rather novel: they see processed information as the accumulation of sacred power from reality, and so seek to capture and understand as much of the world in numbers and data as possible. The sacred truths of the world can then be puzzled out, from magic and technology to spiritual wisdom. Much of the cult's focus is on the Sage's Labyrinth, which they see as the key to translating the world's information into transcendent truth. The cultists are also famous for their geometric art, which they use for meditation and which they sew onto their robes. 
Intersecting both the Cult and greater Sarakism here are Lunar Cults. While Garadek religion typically frowns on Lunar Cult, limited communion and reverence towards the Pantheon is more accepted in Ezekos. The greatest of these cults, and the most accepted, is the Cult of Agamine the Herald. Agamine worship in Ezekos is wildly different than most Agamine cult - here, it is semi-messianic and utopian prophecy. It is said that once Agamine promised the people of Ezekos that a world-changing magic would arrive from afar, and that proper use of knowledge and a just society could use this magic to become a perfect utopia where want and suffering were erased. Agamine never explained what this meant and eventually dissapeared, and the Cults of Agamine have since compiled theories and prophecies in preparation for the Great Change. The recent arrival of greater knowledge of foreign cultures (thanks to the Darzan University ) has inspired many of these Cults to focus in on Maradia and the Empty as the secrets to creating the Great Change, and many attempts to create their own constructs have failed. Expeditions to steal these secrets from Maradia have also failed, though these have been gaining some traction recently. 
While the Cults of Agamine are considered good traditional religion and are left unregulated, cults to more active Lunar Gods are kept on a much shorter leash. Limited cults to Hiku, Jade, Emesh, Orchid, and Haru are all watched over by crown agents and the Cult of Sacred Geometry, but they are allowed to operate.

Foreign Relations

Ezekos is a state far more interested in soft power projection than expansion, and it does its best to keep itself on good terms with the surrounding states. It is even on good terms with the Blood of Karn, the network of mercenaries and warriors who loosely control the Titan's Range mountains to the West. 
In order to create as many buffers between itself and any potential invaders, Ezekos does its best to maintain good relations with the states immediately to its North and South: the Kingdom of Anashtra and the Kingdom of Senelon. The alliance in the South, with Senelon, has been the more stable relationship by far, but currently all three kingdoms are on good terms. 
As one of the original Sarakan powers, Ezekos has a close relationship with the Sacred State of Nalastra. And as the wizarding capital of Garadel, Ezekos has a close relationship with the distant Eastern power of Inasa, which grants Ezekos a massive discount on magic items in exchange for wizarding assistance in their Dragon Forging industry.

Agriculture & Industry

Mining and farming are the two huge industries of Ezekos. Most mining is done for prism-food, though acquiring metal ores and usable building stone is usually done at the same time. Farms grow wheat, hops, potatoes, apples, and often include sheep ranching. Foresting is fairly common as well. Much of what is produced here is used within Ezekos, with the great exceptions of textiles, metal mining, and hops farming. Smelting and brewing are huge industries here, and Ezekan beer and iron can be found across Garadel. 
In the towns, metals are smelted and wool is woven into textiles. Large guilds manage most urban production, which tends to be small-scale artisan work. Towns have also recently stepped up their paper-milling and ink making industries, as the Ezekan government has begun producing as many printing presses as possible for its archives. 
In regards to its beers, Ezekos brews most of its beer in modified caves that allow for even cooling during fermentation. The specially-bred hops and even cooling of the beer gives it a light golden color and a light consistency - what we know as a 'pilsner'. Ezekan pilsners are a big hit across Garadel, as well as at home - Ezekan prisms are said to drink their weight in beer during festivals, and salted pilsners mixed with mineral dust are a delicacy here.

Trade & Transport

In Ezekos, big industries and purchases usually involve government mediation. Small-time merchants operate individually. When they rise into the limelight, these merchants tend to make it big through institutions known as Coining Clubs, which are basically salons run by the major mining families that allow for groups of smaller merchants to ask the ruling elite for investments for major projects. Groups might pile together to try and kickstart big trading expeditions or experimental new industries, and if they convince one of the clan elites they might receive an audience with the upper bureaucracy for direct crown investment. 
For more traditional domestic business ventures, the guilds rule. The guilds in Ezekos are incredibly powerful: the Guild of Smiths, the Weaver's Guild, the Miner's Guild, the Smelter's Guild, the Brewer's Guild all hold vast influence in politics and business. Unless you've got Coining Club backing, Guild life is business life - you don't make it on your own here.

Education

Basic education is managed by the Sarakan temples, but further education usually involves patronage from a guild or club. Guilds are greatly encouraged to invest in education by the crown, even outside of their trade - to discourage a surplus of producers in a field, potential journeymen are given small subsidies to be trained in other fields. Those with an aptitude for learning in general may even be sent to a Cult School: one of the prestigious academies run by the Cult of Sacred Geometry or Warmage College, where one might learn theology, natural science, or magic. 
Those that demonstrate any potential skill in magic are usually snatched up by the crown for specialized training. Those from poorer backgrounds who somehow catch the crown's eye are usually given scholarships in exchange for a lifetime of service to the government as a spellcaster (usually through the military).

Hold the Walls, Keep the Words

Founding Date

1431 ME

Type

Geopolitical, Kingdom

Alternative Names

Ezekra, Ezeko

Demonym

Ezekan

Government System

Monarchy, Theocratic

Power Structure

Unitary state

Currency

Garadek Gold Moons, Silver Suns, Copper Star

Major Exports

Iron, stone, beer, lumber

Major Imports

Horses, Fire Termite Oil, Luxuries, Gems, Magic Items

Official State Religion

Saraka

Location

Kigura Mountains

Controlled Territories

• Prozga
• The Sages' Labyrinth

Neighboring Nations

• Blood of Karn