The Golden Sands
The last holdout for anarchy and lawlessness in the western world
Map of the Golden Sands
Structure
The Golden Sands are an anarchy in the truest sense, and while no one figure or organization rules over it each of the main cities and/or population centers in the country serve as bastions of 'controlled anarchy', and work as singular entities to further their own ambitions and goals in the lawless Golden Sands. There is no central governing body, no government, and no rule...each being is left to fend for themself, while the desperate or driven band together behind the walls of the countries' cities to further their own goals and survive while those who rule those cities ruthlessly exploit and use those who flock behind their walls towards their own ends.
Public Agenda
The Golden Sands is an anarchy and as such has no public agenda aside from the shared hatred all who dwell here share for a unified ruler or government...they will all band together without hesitation and unify to resist a threat that means to subjugate them...though, this 'unity' is shoddy at best, and maintained only in the face of shared resistance.
History
The Golden Sands were formed quite recently when Kor'sarro Krieg went on his campaign of slaughter and genocide to stop the tide of murderous, eldritch cultists which had begun to flow into the desert, insidiously corrupting entire villages and cities to their demented cause, forcing millions to unwittingly participate in horrific rituals and brainwashing them and indoctrinating them into their ranks...it was only thanks to his absolutely barbaric tactics, scorched earth techniques, and stone-cold calm in the face of overwhelming odds that he managed to unite the previously anarchic desert beneath his banner and purge the invading cultists from the unorganized and not unified lands of the desert, which had mostly lacked the unity to resist the evil cultists. Killing entire villages with but a whisper of their infection, he butchered millions on his quest to save the desert, but his terror tactics ended up finally succeeding when successfully killed the last of the Cultist forces in their last stand within the ruins of the old sultan's palace...however, the leader of the cultists, Zara Isfa El-Khayat, is said to have escaped the purge and fled westward, rallying the western desert to her cause, forming The Collector Corps to serve as her new army to protect herself and the anarchy of the west, and forming The Golden Sands as it is known today.
Though they are but an anarchy, The Golden Sands managed to maintain its independence even in the face of The Impaler Prince's overwhelming armies thanks to the power and influence of its various anarchic mercenary groups, bandits, and myriad cities who are all hardened killers, each desperate to protect their one bastion of evil and lawlessness...not to mention, the influence of the surviving Cultist Leader Zara Isfa El-Khayat and the power of the unified bandit clans she gathered that provided them with just enough unity and power that they were left alone because despite the Impaler Prince's assurance of his own victory, the fear of the casualties and death that would occur in the war to subjugate them drastically exceeded what he wished to allow. Thus the Golden Sands continues protecting the one figure which continues to ensure their countries' survival and the protection of the anarchy they all treasure so dearly.
Demography and Population
The population of the Golden Sands is completely scattered across its rolling golden hills and sand dunes, formed into small villages built in key locations to fend off the onset of the sands which constantly threaten to subsume their homes...mostly, however, the population of the Golden Sands is focused in the cities and large settlements that dot its landscape. And while the number may be an exaggeration, many believe that as many as 35-50 percent of the countries' population are entirely slaves forced to work beneath the yoke of the strong and their owners.
As an anarchy, those that dwell here die frequently beneath the heels of the strong, whether to bandits as they travel or the whims of those who rule the cities, The Golden Sands is a place where life is cheap.
Territories
The anarchic lands of the Golden Sands once spanned the entire desert, but ever since the conquest of The Impaler Prince and the establishment of the Sultanate of Malthri in the eastern lands of the desert, they have dwindled to barely half of their former glory and now encompass merely the entire western half of the great southern desert...traditionally, The Golden Sands holds every scrap of land west of the middle of The Boneforest, the ominous dead forest in the center of the desert which serves as the natural divider between east and west.
These lands haven't seen a unified occupation or ruler for nearly a millenia, and it was only thanks to the influence of the anarchic lands' citizens and the surviving leader of the Cultists that opposed The Impaler Prince that these anarchic lands were able to maintain their independence, by presenting themselves as too much of a hassle for the east to conquer at the current moment.
Currently, as they have always been, the territory of The Golden Sands is a wild and lawless one, defined only by the rules of the various city-states that stand as bastions of civilization in an otherwise brutal and inhospitable landscape. Bandits and monsters freely roam the lands, robbing and eating all who dare to travel without protection, and while the threat of robbing of being eaten is a great one, no threat is greater than the weather and the environment in The Golden Sands. The heat and sand will devour entire towns in the span of mere years, and travel unprepared is an assured way to meet one's demise...
Military
Being an anarchy, The Golden Sands has no centralized military. Each city-state within its borders maintains their own loosely organized militia, but the real power of The Golden Sands stems from its brutal environment: So brutal is it that each individual resident who dwells here is considered the equal of a dozen normal soldiers from less brutal lands...each is a deadly and trained warrior capable of surviving within the brutal and unforgiving landscape of the desert.
The only military of the land is The Collector Corps, which functions as an organized mafia more than a paramilitary group. As the dozens of bandit clans unified into a central force, they carry out the will of the area's "leader", Zara Isfa El-Khayat, extorting the various settlements, robbing travelers, and doing as they wish in The Golden Sands in exchange for their 'protection' of the area's anarchy and the keeping out of Kor'sarro Krieg and his armies.
Religion
The most commonly worshipped gods are those of The Desert Pantheon, but as an anarchy all faiths are welcomed within The Golden Sands. Individual city-states may declare some religions outlawed, but no faith is inherently banned within these desert dunes.
Foreign Relations
The Golden Sands has no true foreign relations with its neighbors, as it has no central government with which to hold diplomatic talks with its neighbors. Instead, it keeps a mostly hostile to neutral relationship with all who border it, on account of its lawless nature and tendency to simply attack and enslave anything that comes within its borders.
Agriculture & Industry
No industry is bigger in The Golden Sands than the Slave Industry. It is the industry the entire southern desert was once infamous for, and the trade of sentient creatures is such a booming industry here that all manner of species can be found in the slave markets of The Golden Sands...while it is sorely lacking in agriculture, the sheer size and scale of the slave industry here means with manpower alone the slavers of The Golden Sands can start large-scale mining operations within the desert, deep-sea extraction operations to harvest fish and other resources from the ocean, and any other tasks which only the weight of a near infinite supply of slaves could sustain.
From the port city of Brineshell, often called The Slave Capital of the world, slaves are imported from all over the lands of Ea, where they are hauled off the galleons that brought them and shipped off to The Grand Bazaar, where they are sold for thousands of gold to owners who travel from all over Ea to buy The Golden Sands' valuable and powerful slaves.
Thanks to this near-infinite supply of bodies, The Golden Sands also has a booming salt and spice industry, both of which are mined on the backs of uncountable numbers of slaves...the same slaves also keep the seaborne industries of the country running as well, and keep the country's other mines operational as well.
Trade & Transport
As the lands are so dangerous, all travel done over land in The Golden Sands must be done in highly protected caravans or groups, where trained warriors, knights, adventurers, or mercenaries handle the deadly job of keeping those under their protection from being robbed or eaten at the hands of the highly deadly and organized bandits which roam the landscape.
No travel overland is done without protection, and travel is commonly done in large protected caravans where weaker travelers group up into larger groups for protection.
Education
There is no central education within The Golden Sands. All who dwell here grew up in a land of unabashed violence and mind-numbing terror, and are all hardened warriors and killers, each as deadly as a dozen normal men and trained to survive in a land where the very air and environment wants to kill them. Traditional book smarts are not unheard of in the desert, such things simply come second to survival and are treated as a less important resource.
No laws or masters.
Founding Date
2042 AF
Type
Geopolitical, Country
Alternative Names
The Endless Sands, The Western Desert, The Holdout
Demonym
Goldan / West Malthrin
Leader
Head of State
Government System
Anarchy
Power Structure
Autonomous area
Economic System
Market economy
Currency
The Golden Sands is only unified insofar as they are united in accepting the Three-Coin system, which ironically makes them more organized than their neighbor The Sultanate of Malthri in terms of currency.
Major Exports
Slaves, Salt, Gemstones, Spices, Iron and other Metallic Ores
Major Imports
Food and Water, Mercenaries, Varies(Imports can vary between City-states)
Legislative Body
The Golden Sands has no central legislative body, and is instead an anarchy and collection of loosely aligned settlements and cities that each pursue their own goals and ideals. The only "law" of The Golden Sands is that there are none, and this anarchy is embodied and enforced by the "Leader" of the land, Zara Isfa El-Khayat, and her paramilitary group of bandits-turned-soldiers, The Collector Corps, who bully, extort, and threaten the settlements and creatures, protecting the anarchy of the land so long as they agree to pay them tribute and promise to give them support to resist Kor'sarro Krieg and his armies.
Judicial Body
The Golden Sands has no central judicial body. If you commit a crime or do wrong, "frontier justice" is the term of the day...typically outright execution or slavery. The only law here is the ones you can make for yourself, and if you aren't strong enough, robbery, slavery, or death is the general result.
Official State Religion
Subsidiary Organizations
Neighboring Nations
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