The Sultanate of Malthri
The democratic nation where power is the one and only currency
Map of The Sultanate
Structure
The Sultanate is organized much like it's name suggests, with a "Sultan" sitting at the top of the country ruling over the country as a King. However, unlike other countries, the Sultan does not hold absolute power within the country's borders, and instead rules above a council made up of representatives of each of the country's various cities and villages. Each of these settlements sends a varying number of representatives to speak for them and their interests in the Sultan's Court, with Cities and large settlements being given 2 representatives in the court each, and smaller villages and other settlements having only one.
This court holds the ear of the Sultan, and debates and decides on matters of the day and how best to advise the Sultan on matters of state...however, uniquely, the Sultan does not have the authority to make or pass laws of their own accord. Instead, it is the responsibility and duty of the Sultan's court to propose both new laws and changes to existing ones to the Sultan, who has the ultimate and final say in which of the Court's proposals are approved and ratified, and can suggest changes or edits they believe should be done. This unique even split of power is a system born from the eccentric mind of Kor'sarro Krieg, the country's first ruler and founder...it was done in the hopes of keeping tyranny and corruption at bay by dividing power between the Citizens and the Ruler, so that the country cannot function without the other.
This system works mostly on the basis of the country's power-centric society, where the strong prosper and the weak suffer...should there be a stalemate between the Sultan and his Court, the Sultan meets a chosen representative of the court and the two have a duel to the death. Should the Sultan win, he rejects or approves the bill as he wishes, and his ruling is thereafter final for the next 5 years, and incapable of being changed again during. Should he lose, the inverse occurs, and the Court's motion passes despite his denials or suggestions, and it cannot be removed or largely modified by future Sultans for 5 years.
Outside of these governing bodies, there is little in the way of organization in the Sultanate. The police force is known as "The Skimmers", an enigmatic group which enforces the laws of the Sultan and his country, but the population is otherwise broken up into two distinct groups, the "Nobility" and the "Peasantry". Due to the power-centric structure of the Sultanate, these "Nobility" are made up of the strongest citizens of the desert...those who have proven time and again their own strength to others, whether it be magically, martially, or in some other fashion...they all hold peerless power and influence within the country, and outside of the Sultan and his Court they are next most powerful group in the country who use their often massive power bases and networks to zealously carry out the laws and orders of The Sultan, who they all see as the strongest creature in the country, worthy of leading them.
Beneath them are the rest of Malthri's citizens, who exist beneath them as the commoners of the country. However, should they prove capable and challenge a Noble, any citizen can become a noble themselves.
Public Agenda
The Sultanate of Malthri is largely concerned with the keeping of law and order within its borders, giving the people who dwell within the desert a place to live that isn't total anarchy as it has been for centuries, and the conquest of its neighbor, the anarchic Golden Sands. So long as it is left to these tasks and allowed to brutally execute its enemies in its quest for absolute law and order, it is content.
History
The Sultanate was 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 is said to have escaped the purge and fled westward, rallying the western desert to her cause and forming The Golden Sands.
Left with an exhausted army and having unburied the old Sultan's Palace that was the former seat of power in the area before The Sundering, he formed his nation in the east and decided to bide his time until he could launch another offensive against the last of his enemies in the west and bring it under his control once and for all...
Demography and Population
The lands of the Sultanate are made up of massive, maddeningly large oceans of rolling sand, with dunes and cliffs and rocky mountains jutting out of the sandy earth dozens and sometimes hundreds of miles apart...giving little reprieve to the weary travelers who try to cross the lands of staring at anything but featureless oceans of sand. Occasionally broken up by dead and broken trees and the rare stream or river, the lands of the Sultanate are an unending desert hellscape where only the most brutal survive. The population is mostly found in small to medium sized cities that dot the sandy landscape, each not generally daring to expand too much without walls for fear of both banditry and the sand...for without walls, the sand will soon reclaim portions of the city and bury them. Thus, the population tends to focus on living in smaller communities, and only dares to group up when they have the safety of walls or other natural features to protect them. The birth and death rates here are both quite high, as though it is no longer an Anarchy, the law of the desert still reigns supreme...meaning the weak die a quick death, whether by environment or a bandit's blade...if they are lucky, they are sold into slavery and allowed to live.
These lands were traditionally an anarchy for the past centuries...nearly a millennia ago or more, it was once a verdant and lush paradise of sand and grass and greenery both, ruled by a true Sultan who was the sole power in the region, but the events of The Sundering wiped all life and government from the area, creating a savage, blasted sandscape where only the strong can dare to survive against the desert's harsh rigors.
Territories
The Sultanate holds the lands which once were the anarchic lands of The Endless Sands, specifically those east of the Boneforest. These lands were previously held by no one, and united during Kor'sarro Krieg's brutal and infamously horrific campaign of conquest that saw him war against a mysterious cult for control of the desert itself. In the end, he won the war and purged the cult, but after solidifying his power base in the east, the west steadfastly refused his rule as the dregs of the Cultist forces sought refuge there...the cold war has raged in quiet ever since.
Military
Being the lands of Kor'sarro Krieg the infamous "Impaler Prince", the military of the Sultanate is an elite and powerful thing, made up of only the most elite warriors, mercenaries, adventurers, and all manner of men the anarchic desert lands had to offer during his conquest and rise to power. Legions of trained desert soldiers, hired mercenaries, and loyal adventurers all, each independent but united beneath the banner of fear and the promise of a united future, have made the anarchic and highly individualistic desert peoples into a mighty fighting force of terrifying adaptability and flexibility...in this military, the emphasis lies upon mobility, adaptability, and dexterousness of both mind and body.
After all, armor and traditional tactics are all but useless in the blasting heat and shifting ground of the desert, and thus the Malthrin Military has adapted accordingly. Darting in and out, dancing a deadly dance of death as their scimitars flash and their legions work together in impressive displays of unity, they strike fear into the hearts of their foes with both their peerless might honed against the desert's mightiest beasts and men alike as well as the rumors which claim them to be Demons...deadly beings wearing humanoid form, drawn to the brutality and genocidal, scorched-earth nature of Kor'sarro Krieg's methods of warfare.
The most feared and terrifying tactic of the Sultanate's military, and the one which earned its Sultan, Kor'sarro Krieg, his nickname and the country its motto, is the "Iron Forest" tactic, which sees the armies of the Sultanate hoist up their foes, dead, defeated, alive and otherwise, up onto iron spikes, where they are impaled from their rectum through their mouth, left to rot and die upon the iron stake slowly, painfully, and over an excruciatingly long period of time...a brutal terror tactic which creates the eponymous "Iron Forests" sometimes even thousands strong in number where the defeated foes of the Sultanate are left on display for all to see. With their flesh branded and their bodies left to rot in the hot desert sun, those unfortunate to be hauled up and nailed upon the Iron Stake are left for years as a terror tactic to dissuade any who might dare to challenge the Sultanate...
Religion
Moreso than most other countries, the Sultanate's people are a simplistic and accepting one...so long as a creature can contribute to the whole, get along, and assist in the shared goal of survival, religion takes a backseat to such things. If they prove an issue, they are killed or punished, regardless of what god they believe in.
Foreign Relations
Before it's founding, the anarchic lands of the desert had little to know relations with foreign powers...now, the Sultanate has opened trade with the newly established Kingdom of Aslaga, the two brutal societies eagerly trading with each other as the Sultanate, respecting the Giants of Aslaga for their strength, brutality, and desire to survive, gladly import all manner of things from the brutal Giants, ranging from massive amounts of slaves to masterwork metals, ores, and other special materials that the former Dwarven occupants once refused to them. They get along quite well with The Kingdom of Aslaga, and have begun talks to formalize some sort of treaty or alliance of mutual interests, as both nations are based in brutality and doing whatever it takes to survive...though, the Giants see the Sultanate's democratic-autocratic fusion government weak, believing that instead the Sultan should hold all the power themselves rather than share it. Regardless, they have remained good enough allies.
With their neighbor to the north, The Elvenwood, they have little contact, as all nations who border it do. The elves there remain stoic and quiet, only appearing to defend themselves and their forest from invaders if it is required of them.
With the western neighbor, The Golden Sands, they are currently in a sort of Cold War...having just recovered from war with each other, they both are regaining their strength and searching for ways to win the future war before it can even begin...or at the least, get a leg up on their foe before the war begins anew.
Agriculture & Industry
The desert has almost nothing in terms of agriculture...what little they have comes from the sea, farmed from the fish and other creatures that dwell there to feed themselves and sell as exotic dishes not found anywhere else. The most disturbing part of the desert's agriculture that many outsiders have a hard time is accepting is their views on cannibalism and other creatures...when a creature dies, even if they be friend, the people of the Sultanate are a pragmatic one, and thus the country's second biggest source of agriculture is corpses. Meat cooked from them, fungi grown from their rotting bodies, delightful meals prepared from their corpses...all are part of the sultanate's agriculture, as they have truly little in the way crops that can grow within the sand dunes.
Thankfully, the desert of the Sultanate is rich in ores and valuable minerals...the desert's gold deposits are quite legendary, as are their iron, lead, and other miscellaneous metals...all are found in plentiful supply beneath the Sultanate's sand dunes, and are often the land's only lucrative industry aside from the ocean. Aside from metal and ore mines, the biggest industry in the desert is a simple one: Salvage. From the coastal cities, entire guilds of Salvagers scavenge the coastlines and deep ocean for all manner of sunken resources...whether it be from sunken ships, underwater ore veins, underwater crops or fish or animals...all are within their purview, and form the single biggest and most cutthroat industry in the Sultanate. The work of the famous Salvage Guilds is the stuff of legend, and assuming one can survive in the cutthroat salvage guild wars and industry, it is a quite lucrative thing indeed.
The desert also has the single biggest shipbuilding industry in the world...the dockyards of the Sultanate's coastal cities are legendary for the massive and incredibly sturdy ships that come out of them, and many come from all over the world to study beneath the tutelage of the Sultanate's grandmaster shipbuilders, and to buy the ships built in the berths of the docks there.
Lastly, the desert has a booming Slave industry, most notably dealing in Sandskin Dai-Yukai raised and trained from birth to be obedient and mindless titans of burden that are sold for thousands of gold to the highest bidders all across the world...the Sultanate's slave industry is massive, and they are the single most massive importer and exporter of sentient creatures in all of Ea, beating out even the likes of Kingdom of Aslaga, who specializes in hardy Dwarf and Human slaves mainly.
Trade & Transport
Due to the highly dangerous nature of the desert, trade and goods are moved across the desert in large and incredibly well guarded overland caravans, where massive squads of mercenaries and bodyguards keep the caravans moving and protected from the bandits and monsters that roam the land.
However, preferably, all trade into and out of the Sultanate flows over the water...the Salvage Guilds which run the Sultanate's Port Cities in the name of the Sultan are sure to keep the ships moving in and out in an orderly fashion, and since the oceans are much easier to lift and shift cargo across, the Sultanate prefers to do so that way rather than risk moving vulnerable goods across miles of brutal desert terrain where any number of beasts or men could crush and steal the very caravans they are trying to protect.
Education
The only education in the desert that permeates the country is that of martial might, and of learning things the hard way...growing up fighting for one's life is common, and many are not incredibly well educated traditionally. Instead, most of the Sultanate's citizens are incredibly well-trained warriors and survivalists who have grown up fighting for the right to live for every second of their lives...and while they may not be well versed in lore or scholarly knowledge, almost all of them can and have survived for days on end in the desert seas with nothing but themselves to rely on...a wholly different type of education that equally powerful if not more so than a traditional one.
Chaos breaks upon the Iron Stake.
Founding Date
2042 AF
Type
Geopolitical, Country
Alternative Names
The Sultanate, The Land of Demons, The Iron Kingdom, The Impaler's Fief
Demonym
Malthrin
Leader
Head of State
Head of Government
Government System
Democracy, Presidential
Power Structure
Confederation
Economic System
Barter system
Currency
Though it is making strides to become civilized, the Sultanate has yet to move a true three-coin system like the rest of the western nations. Some citizens might take coins for services, but it is largely left up to their discretion and generally the country works off barter and deals. The biggest currency here is "power", and through duels and challenges, one can achieve almost anything.
Major Exports
The Sultanate exports mainly slaves, but also fish, pearls, wood, ore, and salt. Their shipbuilding techniques are also top-tier, and the ships built in the Sultanate Dockyards see service all across the world.
Major Imports
The Sultanate imports mainly slaves, but also meat, animal products, silks, and spices.
Legislative Body
The Sultan's Court writes the laws and rules of the country, and The Sultan himself decides which laws make it into power and has all other aspects of power.
Judicial Body
The Sultan and his council generally work in unison as a Judicial Power, but the Sultan generally holds finally say.
Official State Religion
Neighboring Nations
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