New Xalotl (sha-LOTL)
As far as the Circle of Nine is concerned, New Xalotl is no state at all. The fact that the young separatist state of New Xalotl has managed to amass a significant swath of territory and a sizable population in only a couple months is remarkable by itself; the fact that it is the first openly Co9-separatist state to achieve as much in 700 years makes its success even more startling. Undoubtedly its success has as much to do with the fact that the Severing utterly destroyed the communications networks that kept the nations of the Circle in close contact—and thus responsive to the events happening within one another's borders—as it does with any particular actions taken by New Xalotl's leadership. But it is not a coincidence that New Xalotl sprang up when it did; its success today is the end result of centuries of slow, quiet preparation.
History
New Xalotl is the product of one individual's ambitions. Valissia ce'Xalotl, the Witch-Queen of Toluca, dreamed of standing at the head of a separatist state from the moment the Vayan Military razed the ancient Tseketon city of Toluca to the ground following a peaceful diplomatic meeting between her and the Tetrarchs of Cethandir in 322 YC. Over the next four hundred years, Valissia relocated her people to a site a few hundred miles from Caelus, led the construction of New Toluca, and retreated back into the world of the forgotten, and in that time, unknown to the outside world, Valissia began to prepare her people and her city to become, at some distant point in the future, the heart of an empire, a new Ceth Tseket. Over the course of a life lengthened by druidic lichdom, she cultivated her people as builders, warriors, healers, and leaders. The Severing provided an opportunity for Valissia to begin moving outward from Toluca, but she made no moves until one final piece fell into place: in Nightwinter of 717, Valissia was reunited with Azoxia "Seven" Ilhui, a sacred Thunderbird warrior and one of the elite Blades of the Witch Queen. Azoxia fell in battle during the Federal Army's siege of Toluca four hundred years previously, and her body was never recovered, leading many to presume it had been destroyed or taken by the Federal Army. But in 717, she resurfaced alive, the magic that preserved her life as a Thunderbird having kept her in a state of suspended animation buried in the desert sands for four hundred years. The return of Azoxia mended some part of Valissia that had never recovered after the destruction of Toluca; in the recovery of her champion Valissia found the strength to seize the opportunity the Severing handed to her. Days later, Azoxia Ilhui led the Tolucan Army to a victory against a legion of the Federal Army again, this time at the Wildwood Site, an abandoned Federal laboratory that had been commandeered by the Ghost Corps with the help of the site's rogue mythallar matrix. After the Federal Army retreated from the area around Caelus, Valissia made her move on the city. She marched her army to Caelus and offered to do what the Federal government had so far failed to attempt: rebuilding the Severing-shattered city. The government of Caelus deliberated for a day, then swore fealty to her in exchange for her aid, officially seceding from the Federation of Vay. On the 20th of Dawning, 717, Valissia declared the territory possessed by Caelus to be lands of an empire of which she was the sacred empress. She called her empire New Xalotl, after the Tseketon province ruled by her ancestors thousands of years ago. To her new subjects, she made two promises: firstly, that she would lead an effort to decontaminate and rebuild Caelus that would not stop until every Caelusian survivor of the Severing had permanent housing and access to the city's infrastructure; and secondly, that she would accept no territory into her empire that did not choose freely to join New Xalotl. Her first goal was ambitious, but as of yet it has proven eminently possible: one month later, on the 20th of Sunsummer, 718, the Tolucan army had decontaminated and rendered habitable nearly 30% of the urban center of Caelus. This was, after all, not Valissia's first time leading the construction of a city from the ground up. She has also held to her second goal so far: New Xalotl has gained territory exactly once since the annexation of Caelus, and that expansion occurred in early Sunsummer of 718, when rural Cethandirans voted to secede from the Federation, and a coalition of rural community leaders approached the Tolucan court and asked to join New Xalotl, a request that Valissia quickly granted. At present, New Xalotl stands as a state unrecognized by the Circle of Nine that nevertheless has managed to exert great influence over its land and the millions of people that call that land home.Demography
New Xalotl is a state with two distinct populations at present: the Caelusian population, consisting mostly of Dimira humans with a sizable and well-integrated minority of Zaimaris elves, and the Tolucan population of Tseketli people. Due to their centuries of profound isolation, the Tolucan population of about half a million people is extremely dissimilar culturally and socially from the roughly-four million Caelusians. To promote a sense of national unity, the Xalotli government has been promoting the movement of people between Toluca and Caelus; the ongoing presence of the Tolucans involved in the work to rebuild Caelus has also helped foster connections between the two populations. When the people of the rural lands governed by Cethandir chose to join New Xalotl, they increased the population of former Vayans by about a quarter million, and more than two-thirds of those people were ethnic minorities, namely Axatla elves but also Pelissier humans and Jasar'at orcs. Notably, the ties of the Tolucan people to the legacy of the Ceth Tseket has not yet seemed to trouble the relationship between the Tolucan and the former Vayans, perhaps due in part to the degree to which partership with the Tolucans has already benefited the people of Caelus. The Xalotli government has made no attempt to obscure this connection; contrarily, Valissia's choices to call the state New Xalotl and to proclaim herself Sacred Empress make those connections explicit. The extent to which the former Vayans embrace or reject New Xalotl's neo-Tseketon identity remains to be seen.Diplomacy
Though New Xalotl claims itself to be an empire, it is still an unrecognized state that would, should it draw the currently-fragmented attention of the Circle of Nine, undoubtedly face great pressure to bow to the authority of the Co9. As such, the Xalotli administration has taken care to preserve its ties with the new revolutionary regime in the Federation. The New Federation and New Xalotl agree for now to remain "internally separate and internationally united," meaning that neither shall interfere with the affairs and authority of the other, but both shall remain a united front internationally. While neither new administration has yet faced significant international pushback, such a confrontation is inevitable; it is only a question of when. New Xalotl has acted assertively in forming alliances with other administrations sympathetic to the anti-Co9 cause. In mid-Sunsummer 718, New Xalotl signed a treaty with Olathe, another unrecognized state, pledging mutual protection in the event either faces any military threat from a Co9 state.
Founding Date
20 Dawning 717
Type
Geopolitical, State
Capital
Alternative Names
Xalotl Uhi (in Eldercommon)
Predecessor Organization
Demonym
Xalotli (singular or adjective), Xalotlin (plural)
Head of State
Government System
Monarchy, Theocratic
Neighboring Nations
Related Ethnicities
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