Holy Zeshema

Zeshema is the sacred empire of Zesheko, the religion made flesh and steel. The prophet-queen of Zeshema and her triumvirate of high priests craft the doctrine of Zesheko and defend the faithful. The empire is not seen as culturally or ethnically distinct from the faith - according to Zeshem propaganda, other Zesheko states are simply managing the land for the empress by the grace of her generosity.
As for the actual land of Zeshema, it was until very recently a prosperous and well-developed land of canals, dams, roads, and farming towns. But there has always been a divide between the coastal saltwater Zeshem and the inland freshwater Zeshem. The coast has always used money, been more cosmopolitan, and been more performative of their religion; the interior has always been fairly insulated and communal. Traditionally, foreigners have been limited to coastal towns - bringing coinage, luxuries, and a sharp sense of identity. The countryside, meanwhile, is off-limits for foreigners and defines itself against the coast instead. This leaves the priests and monarchs to act as mediators.
Recently, this strategy of divide-and-rule has hit a stumbling block: a Pratasa revolt in 2014 was able to seize the city of Elkizta for over a year - allowing foreign missionaries into the countryside and creating general chaos. The resulting backlash has led to regional rivalries intensifying out of the priesthood's control. Xenophobia (already very present in Zeshema) has risen steadily in the last decade and has even inspired a strain of radicals who whisper that the priesthood has betrayed the faith and is being too soft on foreign religions. Many people wonder why the priesthood has not properly punished the foreigners, who continue to trade along the coast- particularly The Khilaia, which has been actively supporting rebels and undermining the regime at every turn. The state has responded by pushing its subjects to look outwards rather than squabble: to fight Selkie imperialism abroad rather than persecute merchants at home. Only time will tell if this strategy works, or if it will inevitably lead to open civil war.

Structure

As stated, foreigners are only allowed in coastal towns: the punishment for leaving these without state permission is death. Three ports are traditionally the most accepted trading ports for outsiders: Elkitza in the North, Folkona in the center, and Polikitza in the South. The smaller seaside cities of Tikandiza and Udmilzalit are technically friendly, but have local laws aggressively favoring local merchants and discouraging long-term foreign residence.
As for the government: The Prophet-Emperor rules at the top, a hereditary monarch said to be spiritually bound to their ancestors. Ancestors are often mummified or recreated as statues and kept in royal vaults for the prophet-emperor to meditate near and commune with. The current Prophet-Empress is Orika I, an isolated and conservative monarch that seems to be struggling to return to the Zeshema before their coronation in 2014.
Alongside the monarch is the Triumvirate, high priests of the Zesheko faith. They operate an international bureaucracy of priests and holy orders and are more focused on the greater faith than local Zeshem affairs.
The Divine family, Prophet-Emperors, and Triumvirate all isolate themselves from the greater public in a sacred citadel in the capital city of Kozmio. All who hold major positions take on "royal names" for public office, and hold their 'true names' away from the public.
Below this upper crust are the judge-bureaucrats, who work as the regional authorities. They command local military garrisons and manage rural labor levies.

Culture

Purity Culture

As the center of Zesheko religion, Zeshema sees itself as the most important and purest place in the world. There is no species preference outside a relative gap in understanding between Prisms and non-Prisms. Everyone, regardless of species, has a right to life and legal equality as long as they are Zesheko. And if you aren't Zesheko? You will always be an enemy, confined to live in certain districts and subject to myriad rules and regulations. Converts exist in a tricky position that is often negotiated by social status: socially useful converts with connections can usually integrate just fine, while most are usually encouraged to enter hyper-performative "purity groups" for a period of about ten years.
As in greater Zesheko, Zeshem are legally bound to wear masks while in foreigner districts; and foreigners have to wear noticeable masks while in Zeshem districts. 

Food Culture: The Best Medicine

The foods of Zeshema vary locally, but there are a few common themes and food-values at play. For one, fruits and nuts are extremely popular here: peanut soup with yam-bread or sourdough dumplings is extremely popular, and mango candies are a beloved treat found in most villages. But Zeshem food is more than jus assembled ingredient lists: they are rituals, spells, medicines, and honored traditions. In the Zeshem worldview, ingredients are made inedible by the world's corruption, and are ritually purified through preparation and recipes. Cooking is a way to spiritually wash away the poisons and the ill-tastes and a way to imbue the food with minor medicinal qualities. A balance of different medicines are used to cure the common corruptions of our world. It all works out into a kind of low-level nutritional awareness. 
This also makes for a very conservative culinary culture. Foreign recipes could have spiritual effects you don't know about, as could foreign foods. Priests are expected to screen all new ingredients and recipes for witchcraft and corruption. Definitions of "traditional food and recipes" are flexible, though, and can be used strategically to insinuate corruption in another region. Seafood is the biggest target of this right now, with certain inland elites calling seafood diabolical while coastal elites aggressively stress just how traditional it is. Similar infighting between rice-growers and corn-growers has happened in the past. At least peanuts, yams, and mangos are unquestionably pure. People would riot if someone tried to take those away.

History

Old Zeshem History

In the beginning, there was no Zeshema- just a group of unorganized tribes across the Western Larazek riverlands. The Plundering of Zeshema of 606 to 900 ME changed that. Khilaian fleets swarmed in, pillaging the land and forcing the tribes into exploitative labor contracts. The Zeshem were those who resisted, who fought relentlessly in a guerilla war. These warriors were bound together by a common religious identity - that of early Zesheko - and for a time the Zeshem state, ethnicity, and religion were the same. After the Selkies were driven out in the 900s, Zeshema was less of a state and more of a religious federation of tribes. But decentralization was never an option- the selkie fleets continued to harass them, and plains nomads began to invade from the South. From the mixture of nomad invaders and federation defenders came a new state: that of Holy Zeshema, founded by the Prophet Zorala I in 1090 ME. Zorala and her forces created a unified identity and state, and under her the Empire negotiated lasting peace with the Khilaia. This began the First Empire, the Original Zeshema.
From 1090 to 1600, the First Empire carefully balanced the threats around it. From 1090 to 1300, the empire was fairly closed off to outside trade and focused on nomad pacification campaigns. After the fire plains had been secured under a friendly alliance and shared religion in 1300, Zeshema had to pivot towards the selkies yet again as the selkies attempted yet another invasion in 1305. While it seemed that a new era of selkie-Zeshem warfare was inevitable, diplomats on both sides were able to convince their leaders to seek a longer-term solution to their problems after the war's end in 1310. One Zeshem merchant and city leader, Vwenet of Alanon, was able to leverage their considerable influence for a new solution: trading ports. Vwenet was the mayor of Elkitza and had family members running the cities of Folkona and Polkitza, and offered all three cities as experiments for this new system, where selkies could trade and live freely but only in those specific cities. The experiment was a stunning success at first, and funnelled immense trade money into Zeshema. 1310 to 1600 is often called the 'Open Period' for its relative lack of xenophobia and worldliness. Zeshema emerged as an international guild-alliance and moved to recognize other Zesheko religious communities as part of its network. 
But Open Zesheko lacked the unity it once had. Missionaries began to force their way in, converting segments of the population. The priesthood sought to keep out foreign influence, but the monarchs chose profit over cohesion. Emperors began to toy with potentially converting to Hadina or Pratasam. The late 1500s were a time of internal feuding and conflict. The priesthood finally decided to formally petition to close the country and moved to freeze the imperial government, leading to their arrest. Civil war inevitably followed. Rebellion broke out across Zeshema and the military moved against the monarch, while the monarch employed foreign mercenaries and a small cadre of loyalists. From 1600 to 1620, Zeshem bitterly fought Zeshem, until finally a new Triumvirate seized direct control. Thus began the Second Empire or Second Zeshema, known by some as the Closed Period. From 1620 to 1810, the Second Empire ruled with a xenophobic iron grip. It purged foreigners, skirmished with selkies, and generally sought to fight off the rest of the world. Finally, in 1810, Zeshem's merchants and warriors had had enough. After reports of smuggling led to a horrible crackdown on the coastal towns in 1800 and the priesthood began encouraging inland groups to terrorize and police the coast, the military entered rebellion. A brief civil war broke out from 1810 to 1811 and a new regime took over: one with a restored line of Prophet-Emperors, one that sought the pragmatic middle road the early First Zeshema had walked. This Third Empire-Zeshema what currently stands.

The Third Empire

While the Third Empire re-instituted the trade port policies of the First Empire, it also kept some of the regulations on foreigners that had marked the Second. Intermarriage with and contract work under foreigners was made illegal, the Law of Masks (forcing foreigners to wear Masks in Zeshem territory and Zeshem to wear masks in foreign territory) was institutionalized, and draconian punishments for foreign trespassers were enacted. The Third Empire also inherited a newly-divided country: the coast and the countryside had never really been separate entities legally or culturally before the more radical policies 1700s. Rather than try to force the "saltwater Zeshem" and "freshwater Zeshem" back together and risk another early civil war, the Third Empire simply drew arbitrary borders between them and made two different legal codes and tax codes so that everyone could do their own thing in peace. As an extension of this "do what you want but within the system" mentality, non-Zesheko communities that survived the Second Empire's reign of terror were invited into their own walled communities to practice openly but separately. 
From 1810 to 1985, this system worked. The Prophets and the Triumvirate kept the peace well and used the limited presence of foreigners to scare and unify their own populace even as they satisfied foreign trade demands. It seemed like the best of all worlds. Immense wealth flooded into Zeshema. The state invested in "improvements" such as an immense irrigation system and a chain of fortresses along the Southern border with the fireplains. But a great weight of tension and invisible, imagined violence kept the whole system together: the "enemy" was always lurking in the periphery, and a stressful feeling of perpetual war permeated the culture. 
And then, in 1985, Prophet-Empress Pineka II came into power and decided that stability was not worth the cost. Pineka was an idealist, a skilled administrator, a clever theologian, and a veteran fighter with a lot of worldly experience. But for all her understanding of the world, she did not understand why the country was run so strangely and inefficiently. She sought to relax some of the more draconian measures on foreigners, foreign inventions, and foreign ideas. The state's treasury tripled under her reign, the navy and army were reformed, and Zeshema's international standing improved- but Pineka neither understood nor particularly cared that her people and priests were getting scared. The empress assumed that her theological reasoning would ultimately sway her people to follow her wherever. She was wrong. In 1999, she was almost forcibly removed by a palace coup - and she became increasingly reliant on a small clique of coastal elites to actually leverage power. In 2014, she was finally convinced to abdicate. Her chosen heir was passed over, and the young conservative Orika I was installed as the new monarch. 
Unfortunately, Orika has proven to be politically opposite but personally similar to Pineka- an excellent administrator and academic, but incompetent in the world of intrigue and politics. Orika was a perfect peacetime candidate, but her heavy-handed approach led to a coastal rebellion breaking out during her coronation. Selkie, Pratasa, Zihari, and Hadina opportunists rushed in to try and exploit the chaos of the 2014-2015 rebellion and have not been properly removed from influence. The country has faced other small rebellions in the years since the 2015 revolt was solved. Orika has taken a risky new path she has called "out-facing Zesheko": instead of emphasizing internal differences, charging out to face Selkie imperialism abroad and corruption abroad. Allow (regulated) trade but take the fight to them. Can it bring Zeshema together, or is it an expensive gambit that will lead to Zeshema picking fights it cannot win? Only time will tell.

Demography and Population

7,000,000 humanoids live in Zeshema. 40% are Dryads, 25% are Humans, 20% are Half-Dryad, 15% are Prisms.

Territories

Zeshema is 360 miles North-South and around 300 miles East-West. The Sumijo and Susilo rivers, 290 miles long and 320 miles long respectively, serve as the main arteries and population centers of Zeshema. Around and between these two rivers is dense subtropical forest and marshland. North and South of them are plains - the Southern plains being heavily infested with imported Fire Termites. The Stonespine Mountains (known as the Ishok in local tongue) rise in the Northeast.

Military

The army is treated as a very large state cult - which an emphasis on cult. They are kept isolated from the rest of society, have their own lingo, and are bombarded with a constant sense of spiritual attack. The initiation to the army is extremely wearing and sometimes downright abusive, but punctuated with moments of absolute community love. This creates a sense of discipline and self-righteous fury. The enemy is made demonic, and the difference between life and death is blurred - better preparing soldiers for war in Purgatory and making them more willing to charge into battle.
Soldiers during peacetime are often given their own isolated communities where they do their own farming and maintain the local fortresses. The sacred land of the fortress is contrasted with the mundane outside world, to better emphasize their detachment from society. This is all considered normal and good as a way to make soldiers immune to the impurity of bloodshed and violence - by creating a new person that exists in partial-death, the civilian identity of the original person is spared from the impurity of enemy blood. At the end of their service, they are then ritually un-soldiered to restore to their original selves.
Military training focuses on a strong, discipline main group of infantry (often spear walls and swordsmen) backed up with heavy cavalry and massed archers and crossbows. Mobility and coordination are often the focuses: heavy artillery is unpopular here, and usually replaced with light ballistae and spellcasters. Destruction and total war are the names of the game for Zeshem warriors: rather than try to batter through walls, it is seen as more simple to fire canisters of Fire Termite oil via ballistae to create as many fires as possible on the other side. The recent reforms of Pineka II introduced new military technology to this mix: notably, light cannon and the arquebus (hand-gun). Particular interest has been paid towards translating the old specialized ballistae bolts to cannon-shot in the hope of making incendiary cannons, but it is unknown if that project ever reached any success.
Two groups in particular stand out in the military: the Holy Hunters of Norinar, who act as special forces and military intelligence agents that hunt abusive selkies abroad; and the Pale Guard, a special brigade of elite infantry, often armed with javelins and swords, that act as the elite vanguard in life and death. The Pale Guard are all human and Half-Dryad and not only act as frontline infantry in battle, but are trained to set up fortified safe houses in Purgatory.  
The Zeshem navy is run by the coastal army, with a lot of crossover in terms of funding and leadership. They were given their own specialist leadership in 1991 during the Pinekan reforms, and have adopted some selkie warship technologies.

Religion

Zesheko is the state. Religious law is the law. Other religions must reside in their state-allowed zones and are always at the mercy of the state. The priesthood is a critical state organ. Blasphemy against the church or state are serious criminal charges. Zesheko is not incredibly doctrinal, so there is plenty of room for local religious tradition in the law, but it can be invoked by traditionalists or conservatives to attack any kind unwanted social or religious change. How successful they are often depends on the local cleric-judge.
Worthy of note are the Purifiers and the Sanctifiers: The Sanctifiers are secret police with their own secret judiciary that act as hands of the Triumvirate, and the Purifiers act as elite educators, doctors, and archivists.

Foreign Relations

Zeshema has traditionally been a very isolationist country outside of defending fellow Zesheko communities and a few anti-selkie expeditions. All other Zesheko states are seen as autonomous parts of the Empire by the Prophet-emperors, so this fierce protection of fellow Zeshem isn't internally inconsistent with isolation.
This has begun to change in the last five years. The new Empress has a bone to pick with The Khilaia and has a grudge-list of those who interfered with their internal politics. Now Holy Zeshema is becoming belligerent and intimidating, like a cornered dog. And if this new militarism works out, some wonder if Zeshema might try and exercise some of that control over its fellow Zesheko.

Agriculture & Industry

The interior of Zeshema pays its taxes in food and labor, which works just fine for the local agriculturalists but tends to lead to fewer big, populous cities. Wheat, rice, millet, corn, and sorghum are all grown here - often with hay and other dryad-fodder crops. Giant Lobsters are raised in the canals, swamps, and riverlands. Orchards grow mangos, avocados, pineapples, and figs. Tea, cumin, peppers, and sugar are grown for local monasteries as a kind of extra work levy. Herding of horses, cattle, sheep, goats, Dragomanders, and even Dire Hounds is common in the plains. Fire Termites are also commonly farmed.
In the mountains and hills, stone and Prism-food mining are common trades. Lumbering and bamboo farming are also common there. Between the hills, plains, and riverlands, Zeshema is actually quite self-sufficient economically.
The heart of the interior's industry is a massive water control and fortification system that is maintained through the labor levies. In many ways, the dams, canals, and sand-storage facilities of Zeshema are a kind of sacred body of the nation, the arteries of power and faith through which common folk become part of the state body. 
The interior is more agriculturally productive, while the coastline tends to have more manufacturing and trade.

Trade & Transport

Coastal Zeshema collects taxes in the form of coinage, not labor. The last monarch, Pineka II, extended this into the interior countryside for specific groups (namely, artisans and internal merchants), but those reforms have been partially rolled back. What this all means is that the coastal areas track property more in terms of numeric value (useful for trade), while the interior works more on relationships and oath-debt. 
To accommodate the relative lack of coinage and commerce in the interior, small towns create bartering and support agreements with artisan collectives. A mixture between town artisans and cottage industry (people doing side production at home as part of a village collective) produce most of the basics: tools, clothing, and the like. Artisan groups are often tasked with trading their surplus goods in the cities for more specialized necessities such as glass, steel, or medicine. 
The cities, meanwhile, have a robust mercantile scene. Outside lendors (often selkies or Zihari merchants) can be found in the trade ports, and all goods passing through Zeshema are taxed by the state. Magic items heading to Samvara are the biggest source of revenue. 
Local Zeshem merchants and urban artisans tend to work in religious guilds facilitated by the priesthood and judge-governors. These religious guilds tend to out-compete other merchant groups thanks to generous subsidies and protective tarriffs.

Education

Towns often operate district schools, which provide free education for all Zesheko children in the local area. Priestly candidates chosen by the community and confirmed by the local Anointed Ones (regional priests) are sent to one of the two religious colleges: Sumi College in the North and Sulo College in the South. Both of these colleges are partially operated by the Order of the Purifiers, which often recruit particularly academic candidates into their ranks.

"Safety and Purity"

Founding Date

1811

Type

Geopolitical, Theocracy

Demonym

Zeshem

Government System

Monarchy, Theocratic

Power Structure

Feudal state

Economic System

Mixed economy

Currency

Garadek Gold Moons, Silver Suns, Copper Stars

Major Exports

Wood, Pepper, Sugar, Flax, Fire Termit Oil, Fruit

Major Imports

Steel, Magic Items, Incense, Rubber

Official State Religion

Zesheko

Controlled Territories

• Polikitza

Related Plots

• Birds Versus Evil

Rivalry

Holy Zeshema

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The Khilaia

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