Urogan

Urogan is the north-eastern coastal province of the Empire of the Southern Sun. Temperate forests blend into hilly downs and low-lying fens and salt marshes. The hill country has always been good growing land, and more recent reclamation efforts have made much of the fenland into promising farms, while undrained fenland can be good grazing for pigs as well as excellent eel fishing. This reclamation, using wind-powered pumps, is part of an ongoing programme of development masterminded by the Orcs who settled the area after the fall of the Legion and have made adminstration and logistics the province's foremost exports, arguably after arable produce and bacon.
The dominant cultural influence in the formation of the Urogan state was the post-Legion orcs, who brought a military precision to civic organisation, with a strong favour for centralisation, openness and justice. The province is divided into cohorts and hundreds based on the levies that can be raised from the area, and all citizens undertake a period of military service, at least one year's service within five years of achieving their majority. While the Gods of Foundation are worshipped, the orcish influence means that the cults of the House founders - in the form of ancestral spirits - are paramount.
The culture across the province is fairly uniform and integratedm but there is a long-standing, traditional rivalry between 'the farm and the fen;' the residents of the higher land used for farming, and the low-lying wetland traditionally given over to pigs and fishing. The occupation of dry building and farming land was a traditional source of wealth and status, and the fenlanders have shown resistance to attempts to make their lands like the other through drainage. In addition, the coast - especially coastal cities like Uroga - is more mercantile than the agricultural inland areas.
While nowhere in the Empire has much social mobility, the Urogani have a particular distrust of ambition and social climbing, and especially of idle aristocracy. Their rulers are expected to be leaders, even the nobles, and tend to involve themselves in the practical details of their domains. Emperors drawn from House Urog tend to be short-lived. The Empire is almost always at war with someone - or with itself - and Urog emperors tend to spend more time on some front line or another than they do on the Sun Throne.

Type

Geopolitical, Province