Gatrev March

Gatrev is the edge of a knife. It hones the Suneka into a razor edge, a line in the sand between order and chaos. On one side is is crystallized, militarized Sunekan religion, a cutting blade honed on centuries of battle. On the other is the Ederstone wasteland of Azilatzi. The wastes perpetually bleed monstrosities, and Gatrev is the hill they die on. 
The constant threat of monsters and Starspawn raiders has made Gatrev into a military theocracy: harmony is the different between life and death to the Sunekans here, and harmony practiced with a blade is going to be more inherently violent.

Structure

The Gatrev Marsh is a 'martial republic', that represents the voice of the military over the voices of anyone else. Its leader is not a typical Tlakra, but is a seasoned officer known as the 'Huntmarshal General' elected by the soldiery. 
Voting rights and greater citizen's rights are tied to military service - either in the 'masculine' Hunter's Legion that launches attacks on the wasteland and actively moves across the March targeting major threats, or in the 'feminine' Landguard that fortifies and protects the landed communities. Martial competency is considered a major point of electability, and much of the government is synonymous with the military. Officers here are voted into their positions by their soldiers (a rare feature of Gatrevan democracy, as other Sunekan states often organize their militaries very top-down), and are often tasked with overseeing the logistics of civilian society as well as military society. 
The great masses of people not deemed worthy of the military are generally subject to a deeply unfriendly political and legal system - and one that is fond of dolling out years of forced labor for the military as a punishment for just about any crime. But even in the lower classes there, are divisions: those who are religiously Sunekan tend to have a much better time than those who are not. Insufficient Sunekan piety is not a crime per se, but it certainly will make you more likely to be tried for a crime and given a harsher sentence. This can be a major problem for refugees from the wasteland, who often make the least and suffer the most here.
The current Huntmarshal General is Amkonek the Fair, the former head of the Landsguard and an Ederstone-touched Half Prism. They are widely respected as a diplomat, administrator, and political agent, and are doing a good job of maneuvering the March's recent struggles. They have a lot more experience managing defense than offense, and have been struggling pushing forward - but have worked miracles holding the line.

Culture

Food Culture: To Rise Above Gruel

Food here tends to be pretty bland- gruel, porridge, bread, all that is starchy and efficienct. But life can be better. The higher you are in society, the more you can spice things up. There are all kinds of special rations that can improve your community's meals, from chicken to cheeses to sugar to hot sauce. A few feastdays a year, these advanced luxury foods are available to everyone - just enough for people to develop a taste. And so, Gatrev has this culinary yearning for good food, sweet food and spicy food. That hunger alone is enough to drive many into the military.

History

Early History (-600DE to 1240 ME)

Prior to the Scouring, Gatrev had a long and storied past, with small kingdoms and federations rising and falling across the Divine Era. In the -600s DE, Sunekan agriculture and urbanization crawled up the river and enabled the rise of a series of larger kingdoms and cities. Centuries flew by, and by -100 DE the valley was thoroughly Sunekan. Much of this unique Sunekan culture was wiped away when The Chimera bombarded the valley with Ederstone in -100 DE in what is now known as the Great Scouring of Stildane. The Scouring knocked the many kingdoms and cities down in a wave of fire and chaos, but the Sunekan way of life was too entrenched to dissapear. The lands to the South, which were able to build walls and fortresses to block off the chaos, became known as 'Tuweska', while the Northern valley, which fell into absolute anarchy, became known as 'Gatrev'.
The scattered Sunekan communes of Gatrev survived for centuries, forging little fortress-communes throughout the new wasteland. These connected together in a great network of survivors, anchored to the kingdoms of Tuweska to the South. And this simply was the status quo for centuries - Gatrev was the wasteland east of the river, where the monsters were fewer and the villages more abundant. This status quo was disrupted by a great migration from the North in the late 200s, and then a great Starspawn invasion in 500 ME. The chaos of this conquest tested the strength of the community networks, and threatened to destroy all they had worked so hard to create. Gatrev called out for help, and a great conqueror from Tuweska answered: in 570 ME, a great conqueror named Agiton, who had united Tuweska, marched North to free the land of Gatrev from these foreign overlords. From 570 to 660, Gatrev was a Northern frontier province of Tuweska. Tuweska was split in half in 660 ME in a succession dispute, and Gatrev remained a firmly Tuweskan frontier. 
The Tuweskan military held the line for centuries - and as long as the monsters were hunted, the people were happy and the officials were loyal. But, the closer the Tuweskan line got to the heartland of the wastes - a massive Ederstone crater named The Howling Abyss of Anahara - the more difficult and expensive it was to reclaim and hold the land. The Tuweskans withdrew as the economy crashed, and without the forward momentum, the monsters gained more and more ground. The disorder brought famine, and the famine allowed for plague. In 870 ME, a devastating illness known as the Yellow Death that had been galloping across the Sunekan lands hit Gatrev particularly hard. The Tuweskans basically abandoned the land, leaving local communities and the Guardians of Hokzin to themselves. The Tuweskans were pressured by the Guardians to return in 890 ME, but the local peoples remembered how quickly they were abandoned. When Mageplague arrived from Stildane in 1010 ME, the Tuweskan elites again withdrew. The local military garrisons, Guardians of Hokzin, and community militias rebelled in unison, and their rebellion spiraled into civil war. Tuweskan elites simply let Gatrev go, and it became its own fragile republic in 1014. It took two hundred years for newly independent Gatrev to unify under a centralized order - but in 1240, a clear predecessor to Gatrev as we know it emerged. 

Gatrev Defines Itself (1240 to 1860)

The early Republic of Gatrev tried to be a normal Sunekan republic, but there was constant tension between safer interior communities (which tended to be more populous and more represented by the civilian government) and the the riverside communities (which were more directly threatened and contributed more militarily). Gatrev fumbled from crisis to crisis in this way, but held together decently until a military coup unleashed open civil war in 1456. According to regional legend, it was the famous monster hunter Kanayo the Sharpclawed that united the remnants of the civilian government, the military, and the local Guardians of Hokzin (who were engaged in their own infighting at the time) into a new government - a "March of all of Suneka". This new government was a mixture between the priesthood and the military, and swore to dedicate itself towards the creation of a permanent solution to the monster problem. 
A massive string of fortifications were constructed on the far side of the river, a massive wall against the tide of monsters and bandits. The military began regularly patrolling the interior, and the country both became safer and more hierarchical as the new order set in. Gatrev became a beacon of order and stability in the region, attracting new bodies to fill this growing hierarchy. An intense martial culture of work and stratification developed. And the growing labor pool enabled experimentation. In 1698, this enabled quite the experiment: the first great steel factory of the chemist-priest Tonipil. It was rudimentary, but efficient. And while it was extremely expensive to build or operate at first, it enabled a growing steel industry. The idea of going all-in on hyper-efficient workshop-factories took hold in Gatrev's elite culture, and all of it was fueled by Gatrev's brutal labor regime. 
While Gatrev may have innovated the factory system, it did not perfect it (that would probably be Akatlan or Tuzek). Rather, Gatrev specialized in steel production and weapon-and-armor smithing. This boom of money and weaponry strengthened Gatrev's hold of the valley and led to a golden age of expansion and monster-hunting. This golden age is looked upon nostalgically today, even though it was also a time of heightened brutality and militarism.

Modern Gatrev

In 1872, the Empire of Calazen invaded Gatrev. For five years, the valley was plunged into war and chaos, until the Calazan general (Dipetsa Ziraba) ultimately made a separate white peace with the border-guard to try and restore order and safety to the region. Calazen-occupied Gatrev was more independent than the other Sunekan realms, and was more-or-less spared the immense devastation that visited the rest of the continent. 
In 1890, Calazen withdrew from Gatrev and restored the old voting system - with a few of their own people in critical economic and military positions. No great purge followed, and Gatrev was more or less forgotten in the proceeding cycles of war, peace, and revolution. The nepotism that lurked under the surface in the Old March and flourished under Calazen emerged as a huge problem, though. Corruption gummed up the workings of the March, and a few ruling cliques absorbed more and more of factories and land. The golden age faded, the economy crashed, and a new status quo of mediocrity took hold. And this was okay, for a time. 
But recently, it has not been enough. It is as if the wasteland is countering the great offensive with its own punch back, or reflexively bouncing back with equal force against Gatrev's expansion efforts. Starspawn cultists have become an organized threat, monsters have grown more dangerous, and the wasteland seems to be throwing everything it can against the walls of Gatrev. The great line is holding, but the loss of the reclaimed lands has worried many within the interior. The failure of the military has led to dissent, which has only increased as the March has cracked down. The March is at its most fragile since Calazen invaded - but it isn't out just yet.

Demography and Population

7,000,000 humanoids live in Gatrev. 30% are Starspawn, 20% are Dryads, 15% are Human, 10% are Prisms, 10% are Kobolds, 10% are Hybrids, 5% are Others.

Territories

Gatrev is 450 miles across North-South, and almost 200 miles across at its widest West-East. Most of it is simply the valley between the Itekir river in the West and the Kuretep mountains (an extension of the Adira Mountains ) in the East. 
Gatrev is an abundant land of humid temperate forest, with hills on every side but wet flatlands at its heart. For the most part, the Ederstone fragments of these wetlands have been dug up and contained - but a few still remain in remote corners of the valley. The more chaotic territory is the Azilatzi wasteland to the West, which is riddled with Ederstone fragments and has a massive Ederstone meteor at its core.

Military

The March is on the forefront of Sunekan weaponry and tactics, and has always been a close partner with the Guardians of Hokzin. Gatrevan musketeers, sharpshooters, and heavy cannon are the best of the Suneka, as target practice along the frontier never stops. Heavy infantry armed with halberds, swords, grenades, and spears protect these heavy ranged forces in the event that enemy forces are allowed to ever close the gap. The Gatrevan Orderguard - elite heavy infantry with swords, pistols, and grenades - are the best of these defensive troops.
On top of the heavy defensive troops, some of the Hunter's Legion specialize in striking out into the wasteland. These troops, known as the Outlanders, tend to be mounted skirmishers (often with short muskets or pistols).

Religion

The Gatrev March is aggressively Sunekan, with the faith enshrined in law and mandatory for holding office. Technically you can join the military with any faith, but military life if embedded with so many Sunekan customs that few can hold onto their religion for long. Non-Sunekan civilians tend to be treated harshly by the legal system and excluded from many public services.
The School of Oil and Flame is dominant here - the School of Oil and Flame being a very aggressive evangelical school of Sunekan thought. Nowhere else is religion seen more literal than Gatrev. To the people here, social harmony is very physically relevant and magical, and social chaos is synonymous with Ederstone-derived chaos. Upholding the custom is the only weapon against chaos. And fighting the holy war is essential for social harmony.

Foreign Relations

Gatrev is on great terms with most other Sunekan states, and is a close ally of the Republic of Merishka. They are also very close with the Western Guardians of Hokzin, who have a chapter purely devoted to Gatrev's defense. Gatrev is on fairly decent terms with the Adira Mountain states, such as the Kingdom of Sikrek, who serve as trading partners.
Gatrev mostly focuses its military on the wasteland, but it has no great love for the neighboring Federation of Korvakal  (a loosely organized group of heretical semi-Sunekan rogues and ruffians) and has made claim to their lands in the past.

Agriculture & Industry

Large estate farms dominate the countryside, producing large quantities of wheat, rice, maize, and Ederstone-touched crops. A few estates have been experimenting with other Ederstone-touched flora, such as star-touched sugar, spices, and cotton, but these are frowned upon by the utilitarian administration. 
Lumbering is fairly common here, and some ranching is done. Mining is big in the North and East, particularly iron, coal, and Prism-food mining. And the military allows soldiers to keep their slain monster parts for sale to alchemists and mages. 
The industrial sector in Gatrev is booming, particularly in factorial smelting and forging. Massive tanneries also cling to the Western river.

Trade & Transport

There are three great forces in the production world of Gatrev: the Landsguard, which organizes the local artisans, and the Great Lodges, which are elite cliques of landowners and factory-owners. Necessary goods are distributed by the military-priesthood, and surpluses are given to the Merchants Corps. The Merchants Corp typically uses off-duty groups of Hunters Legionairres, who move around the region as petty merchants (often with their own monster-parts to sell to foreign merchants anyways).

Education

Gatrev has a robust religious school system for all Sunekan residents. It is distinguished among its Sunekan counterparts by its infamous sense of discipline. All higher education is gated behind military service.

"We Are The Wall"

Founding Date

1898

Type

Geopolitical, Country

Demonym

Gatrevan

Government System

Dictatorship

Power Structure

Unitary state

Economic System

Mixed economy

Currency

Sunekan Currency: Golden Lions, Silver Foxes, Copper Stars

Major Exports

Steel, gunpowder, armaments, dyes, monster parts

Major Imports

Textiles, luxuries, spices, salt

Legislative Body

The Circle of Generals

Judicial Body

The Lion's Tribunal

Official State Religion

Suneka

Location

Suneka (place)

Official Languages

• High Sunekan

Neighboring Nations

• Federation of Korvakal
• Republic of Merishka