Kingdom of Vysha (Vie-Shah)

The Kingdom of Vysha is a picturesque land of emerald forests, white-sand beaches, rocky islands, and misty hills. It is an unassuming kingdom known for its traditionalist folk-culture and peace-loving politicians, a realm regarded as cute, quaint, and somewhat mystical by the rest of Nafena. Students from beyond Nafena know Vysha for a very different reason: it is the home of Theia the Liberator, the Lunar Goddess of Freedom who waits beneath the seas for the Architects to call her to a second life. 
But the Kingdom of Vysha fails to live up to the high expectations many place upon it. It is not a land of Theian ideology made real, nor is it a peaceful land of superstitious pasta-eating weavers. In reality, Vysha is a young kingdom that is struggling to stay afloat. It aspires to the bureaucratic efficiency and unity of the now-past Gemikan empire, and it is slowly unravelling at its core. Religious tensions are on the rise, class and cultural tensions are on the rise, the monarch is struggling to maintain legitimacy, and rebel movements are gathering power at startling speeds. War is imminent, with powers foreign and domestic sharpening their blades for the approaching conflict. 
As Vysha quietly crumbles, the most radical and idealistic followers of Theia are travelling from around the world to carve up the kingdom for their own utopian experiments. Rather than disperse her followers, she has allowed them to claim bits of the hinterlands for themselves and provoke civil strife, as they seem hellbent on burning Vysha to the ground so they can built something better on it. Whether the goddess is pursuing a vendetta against the land or whether she supports some part of their mission is anyone's guess. Either way, these foreign adventurers have become a force to be reckoned with, and have infiltrated most domestic factions in Vysha to better co-opt into their crusade. Just as the religious extremists of Orisha and Vetevism prepare to fight out their differences in Vysha, the paladins of Theia have gathered into two great factions to battle out their differences: the Cult of Theia (Vysha's local Theian sect) and the international Freestate of Vysha.

Structure

The kingdom of Vysha is an absolute monarchy backed by a large bureaucracy, an unusually centralized state apparatus for Nafena. The bureaucracy mostly holds power in the major valleys and islands, known as the ten prefectures. Beyond the ten prefectures, the bureaucracy falls apart and is replaced by haphazard psuedo-feudalism, where small local governments or feudal lords rule as informal vassals for the state. 
The Vyshan bureaucracy is split between four main branches: the military, the ministry of revenue, the ministry of public works, and the Dual Churches. The military is the dominant power of these and is the most tied to the Final Choir of Vetevism, though the religiously neutral ministry of revenue is a close second. The ministry of public works is the closest with the Singing Church of Orisha and has the most influence in the Prism-holds and roadways. 
The current monarch is Queen Kimora, a prism from the wealthy Thiofea family. Kimora is a trained bard, a shrewd negotiator, and a capable political operative, but not someone who was trained to be monarch - she only took the throne after a botched coup killed the previous monarch and heir in 2007. She initially intended to be regent, but she was coronated fully in 2012 after her family was able to get military and dual-church backing. The job has since turned on her, it seems: the foreign families have waged a war against the bureaucracy, rebels have cropped up across the periphery, and her total inability to handle paperwork or numbers has started to become a problem. The ministries have started feuding, the old royals have started causing problems, and pirates have sprung up in the West. How much of this is luck, how much of this is intentional foreign sabotage, and how much is how poorly suited Kimora is for the current political situation it is difficult to say.
Beyond the traditional power structure, several major merchant families are currently on the rise: the Vetevic Agifea family (who have connections to local mercenaries and textile production), the Orishan Kimoku family (who have connections to the local copper mines), and the religiously-mixed Kospeli family (who are mostly tied to the occupied Anashokan territory and shipbuilding). 
There are also several rebellious factions active in Vysha. Anashokan secessionists in the West have armed in the last few years, the hill clans have stopped paying taxes and may enter rebellion if pressed, and both Vetevic and Orishan radicals have been stockpiling weapons and coin for the inevitable downfall of the Dual Church. Always stoking the fires are the Paladins of Liberation, chaos agents of Theia the Liberator who have set up several strongholds in Vysha and have been accumulating power for the last few decades. The Free State of Vysha, as they call it, is led by a group of foreign paladins that have been gathering spies and warriors from around the world since Vysha first became an independent kingdom. Their goal is to prepare Vysha as a utopian land free from the tyranny of lords, merchants, or priests in order to welcome the imminently-rising Theia - so, naturally, it tends to attract the most extreme and radical Theians, to whom Vysha is more of a religious symbol intended as their political playground than an actual place people live. Normally these sorts of Theian paladins struggle to cooperate on an international level, but rumor has it that they have a leader - a mysterious knight from the distant city of Odija known to some as Father Dawn. Whether that is actually true or is a part of this sect's legend is anyone's guess, but these Liberators are certainly unusually well-organized.

Culture

Justice, Memory, and Peace

Vyshan culture is a curious bundle of contradictions. It values stability, conformity, and peace as the ideal state of any community or institution, but it also values justice and individual freedom. Justice in particular is seen as a necessary conflict required to protect the community from disorder, and communities take it extremely seriously. If a person is believed to be guilty of a crime by the community, the community is seen as righteous for punishing them how they see fit - the punishment of the religious institutions are seen as a merciful alternative to the mob violence that is standard here. Justice not done is seen as an affront to the Gods, and when a perpetrator of a crime isn't caught the community does general penance. When penance is not done, the space itself is deemed corrupted or cursed, a site of bad luck and danger. Such cursed locations must be memorialized to be contained - the wound against the Gods must be made public and permanent to prevent it from poisoning the land and its people. 
But what is "justice" in a Vyshan ideal? Justice is the severe punishment of two particular crimes: physical harm or tyranny. Physical harm is typically relegated to acts of violence but can include stealing essential food. Tyranny is best understood as acts that force another person to do things they don't want to that are socially destabilizing or unusual - the definition of tyranny is extremely fluid. Many peasant revolts have been started when a new tax or law is deemed tyrannical, and communities have often clashed over differing definitions of tyranny. Vyshan justice transcends law, religious or secular, and it is a constant source of tension and conflict. It is why peace is so desperately valued and why social disturbances that could create injustice are suppressed aggressively. It is as much an obligation and a matter of pragmatic survival as it is a moral good - without justice, the land shall sink and the people shall be cursed, it is said. 

Class and Species

These ideals mix very explosively with class hierarchies. Justice has been co-opted by virtually all political groups and social classes, but the state and upper classes have never fully been able to take those ideas for their ends. There is a constant class tension here that makes local elites extremely conservative and resistant to change, as it is always easier to claim an action is unjust than a lack of action. And the old elites are no more excited about the prospect of getting dragged into the depths by the mythological Furies than anyone else. 
While the lower classes have a lot more food, freedom, and autonomy here than in most places, there is a social group that is denied most of the privileges of justice: the children and grandchildren of criminals and petty tyrants are considered polluted. Richer families found guilty of tyranny by the public can usually find a way to paper over the crimes of the past, but poor families (especially foreign ones with no strong social ties)? They are pushed from their communities and are often forced into the worst and lowest-paying jobs, often for local elites who couch their exploitation in the aesthetics of punishment and redemption. This typically goes on for two generations, but the increased need for exploitable labor by the modern economy has extended this to four, and it may grow longer in the future. This extension of generational morality debt is found more in the cities and agricultural heartlands than the periphery, which usually re-integrates the grandchildren by mid-adulthood. 
Species-wise, Vysha is a fairly egalitarian and balanced state. The only big exception are the Prism-holds in the North, which are relatively isolated from the rest of society culturally and religiously. The Prism-holds aren't persecuted or persecuting, but there is some values dissonance and a deep distrust between the prism clans of the South and the holds of the North. 
In terms of food and art, Vysha is famous for its pastas, its breads dipped in wine and olive oil, and its salted fish.

History

The Divine Era

For much of the Divine Era, Vysha was one of the centers of Nafenan civilization rivalling even Nomion in the East. The lush landscape, the numerous islands, and the access to salt mines in the North all made Vysha prime real estate for both prism and human conquerors. Vysha was one of the great warzones where competing prism and human warlords tried to create their early slave states, and the kingdoms of Vysha remained quite exploitative even after Halcyon de-escalated the species conflict in the -500s DE. The rich but divided landscape primed the region for frequent wars of conquest and tribute, and distant proto-Vetevism in the far East was not particularly big here (though the Vetevic justification for slavery and exploitation did make its way here). One of the largest slave states of the era was the Kingdom of Marimano, which controlled a series of islands in the Southeast and which relied on slave raids to propel its massive mining and plantation economy. Marimano's most intense operation of the time was the island of Vytara - a copper-rich island that Marimano had purged of its original inhabitants and transformed into a massive crime against humanity. In -460 DE, Vytara's slave rose up under a former gladiator by the name of Theia the Liberator, who was blessed by Halcyon and armed with magical abilities. Theia and her ex-slave army liberated Vytara and defeated Marimano's warriors in open battle, and began rallying slaves across Vysha to rise up against their masters. Marimano ultimately collapsed in -400 DE, and the 400s in general were a time of intense civil conflict.
Vytara was dragged into the ocean by the Gods in -440 DE and kept in stasis under the waves, but Theia's influence lived on. Her example inspired slave revolts across the late Divine Era and the first paladins before the Modern Era were all Vyshan slave revolutionaries. Initially, the kingdoms attempted using a reign of authoritarian terror to suppress these revolts, but this only provoked more intense resistance. By the early Modern Era slavery had become unprofitable and most of the major slave states had collapsed to a new order of kingdoms and city-states. The destruction of the old order also meant the end of the golden era of early Vysha. The great roads, irrigation systems, mines, and quarries that the Vyshan economy depended on were entirely dependent on forced labor, and the wars of liberation were incredibly destructive to cities and infrastructure alike. The "glory" of old Vysha was unsustainable and simply faded into ruin with the new era.

The Great Kingdom Period (0 - 289 ME)

From -100 DE to 100 ME, eight major states dominated Vysha and squabbled among each other for rule of the agricultural heartlands. Much of the rest of Vysha lived in either sedentary free-holds (non-hierarchical townships or villages) or in tribal groups, forging their own new order independent of state structures. While most of the eight states clung to a nostalgic connection to the old tyrannical order, the city-state of Ianiva in the East took a different path: it adopted proto-Vetevism and connected itself to a largely international network in the East. Ianiva was able to leverage this support for better funds, technology, and troops, and it ultimately conquered the other seven by 145 ME. It became the first united Kingdom of Vysha, and set its sights on expanding inland.
The first kingdom of Vysha was not fated to rule for long. The kingdom was less exploitative than the old order of the Golden Age, but it was still an imperialistic power that viewed those who refused to convert as sub-person. And the tribes and freeholds of the interior, with their cultural heritage of rebellion and independence, were not keen on easy assimilation. The Kingdom set to work dividing and turning the various freeholds against one another as it swept across the land. The resurgent prism-holds in the North, with their tradition of Suvadashi, were also descending upon the interior, and by 200 ME there were few free peoples left in Vysha - but rebellion was everywhere in both Suvadashi and Vetevic lands.
In the late 200s ME, both the Vetevic kingdom and the Suvadashi states began to decline. Rebellions were constant, religious wars were frequent, and the conquest of the interior had proven easier than the actual administration of it. The Lunar Pantheon began meddling in affairs, creating more paladins and spreading dissent. When a series of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions rocked the continent in the 270s ME, the Kingdom of Vysha began to waver and the Suvadashi states collapsed outright. The Kingdom was also cut off from its Vetevic connections in the East, as the religion's central authorities were wiped out in an eruption and new, more radical cultists were fighting to replace them. Theia began to organize the rebels and free peoples of the land into a new force to oppose the Vetevics: the Federation of Ata-Vytara, led by the Cult of Theia. In 289, Theian paladins assassinated the royal family and prompted a devastating succession crisis that divided the kingdom. Ata-Vytara seemed to be on the rise.

The Ata-Vytara Crisis (289 - 600)

From 289 ME to 360 ME, the Ata-Vytara Federation raged against the vestigial pieces of the old Vyshan kingdom. The Suvadashi kingdoms withdrew into contained city-states and made their peace with the Federation, preferring to start new city-states along the coast and in the interior rather than outright conquer territory. The prisms were not entirely done conquering and exploiting, but they learned to keep it more focused and contained to provoke minimal responses. When these Suvadashi holds needed labor or resources, they would conquer, raid, or commercially exploit as families rather than political units - containing the blame and avoiding large-scale disturbances. The Vetevic holdouts, meanwhile, fought tooth and nail to preserve the old ways, and suffered dearly for it.
In the mid 300s, these Vetevic holdouts converted to the newer version of Vetevism and accepted the rule of the new 'Final Choir' in exchange for material support. In 360 ME, the Final Choir sent an expeditionary fleet to Vysha to support them, and the holdouts united under one ruler once more. The Ata-Vytara Federation, which struggled to coordinate and organize in effective ways, was caught completely off guard. It was only by Theia's personal micromanagement that the Federation survived the Vetevic attacks, but it was held together by threads. In the 400s ME, the Federation embraced this divine leadership and Theia began ruling somewhat directly through her paladins. They attempted to organize into a religion of their own, which they called Elesona, and they began trying to evangelize and recruit across Nafena rather than focus on Vysha. Unfortunately for Theia, elites across Nafena were horrified by Elesona's anti-exploitation dogma and its tendency to assassinate rulers and the attempts to provoke a continent-wide revolution failed. And as Theia's attention was drawn across the continent, her ability to focus on Vysha wavered and the Federation's core organization began to crumble. In 530 ME, the Federation's leaders were betrayed and captured by Vetevic forces - the dream of a Theia-led Vysha was officially over.
Theia's power over the region did not vanish with the Federation, though. The decentralized structure of Ata-Vytara allowed the component groups to continue fighting into the 600s ME. The second Vetevic kingdom of Vysha collapsed in 588 under the pressures of an invasion of migrating tribes to the East. A patchwork of petty kingdoms and states were left behind. The Vetevic elites began to imitate the Suvadashi tactics of relying on powerful commercial families instead of state institutions to project power, and Vysha was increasingly dominated by soft-power spheres of influence in the 600s rather than large formalized states.

The Moon-Wars (600 - 760)

From 588 to 635, small fragmented states and soft power ruled the region. But such an arrangement is vulnerable to outside invaders, and Vysha had rising empires to its West, East, and North. Anashoko, the empire of Lily of Red, rose in the West and began conquering Vyshan states first. Then came Yuteka, a Suvadashi empire of prisms that reigned with Hiku's blessing in the North. And finally the Empire of Shaniku rose in the East, and it oscillated religiously between a joint cult of Ishkibal and Wimbo Aizitu and Vetevism. Vetevism itself had gained its own pair of Lunar allies - it seemed the whole pantheon was choosing favorites. And Vysha was cleanly partitioned between them, divided mostly between Yuteka, Shaniku, and Anashoko. Vetevic forces entrenched themselves in the islands and waged a campaign of guerilla war and piracy along the coast.
From 635 to 702, the Choir fought everyone else and was slowly worn down. But in 702, Suvadashi Prisms became the preferred target of continental dogpiling, and Suvadashi warriors fought everyone else from 702 to 745. Vysha was a preferred battleground in all this, and it traded hands many times. The final campaign of the emerging Singing Church of Orisha ultimately collapsed the governments of Shaniku and Anashoko, and from 745 to 760 Vysha went back to being a free for all of minor polities. In 760, a new Anashokan kingdom emerged and conquered Western Vysha, but the East was left independent again.

Free Vyshan Period (760 - 1279)

Vysha, left unimperialized and abandoned, reverted to its preferred method of government: soft power. Four major families slowly rose over time, to dominate Eastern Vysha in four informal kingdoms. The kingdom of Anashoko to the West lacked the military strength to push Eastward, and was vulnerable itself to the soft influence of the great families. In 890 ME, Vyshan merchants and elites in the West launched a war of independence. In 891, Anashokan slaves and peasants banded together to rebel against the weakened government, and the Kingdom of Anashoko was forced to abolish slavery and grant West Vysha immense autonomy to prevent the revolution from spreading into its core territory. At last, Vysha was free from foreign overlords - back to its regular domestic overlords.
The world of family influence was a surprisingly stable one, with lots of room for different religions and local identities. Slowly, the family territories formalized their allegiances into political alliances, but they avoided full centralization for centuries. And all the while, the free-holds slowly lost their freedoms to the gradual corruption of the new order. Peoples settled and consolidated, cities were built, the cult of Theia undermined and suffocated. There were wars, of course, and the alliances jockeyed for position, but all-in-all the Free Vyshan period is perhaps the least tumultuous up to that point.

The Rise of Gemiku (1279 - 1400)

Since 895 ME, Vysha had existed peacefully with the second Kingdom of Shaniku to the East, known as the Diaka. The Diaka were, in many ways, the ideal neighbor: internally-focused with little intention of expanding into Vysha, and one of the few religiously unaligned regimes in Nafena. The Diaka held a dual-religious system where all subjects aligned internally with either the Choir or the Singing Church, and both factions worked in tandem with the monarchy. It was a system prone to incredible stability when it worked and incredibly instability when it didn't, but it muffled either religion's ability to imperialize Vysha either way. But this dual-church system could not survive infinitely. It eventually collapsed in 1279 when the Singing Church seized control of the monarchy. What followed was the Time of Troubles in Shaniku: decades of rebellions, dissent, and political collapse. Not only did the Final Choir wage war in Shaniku, but the old Lunar Cults of Ishkibal and Wimbo that had hidden in the hills centuries ago. The dual-church system was forcibly re-instated in 1330, but the genie was out of the bottle by then - the Diakan peace was over. Another civil war, secular on the surface but religious underneath, erupted in 1360.
The Shanikan Time of Troubles was a wake up call for Eastern Vysha, a reminder that peace was temporary. Religious rivalries began to form among the great families, and wars became more intense. While the Vyshan peace did not break, tension was brewing. The great families met in secret in 1295 to discuss what to do, and they agreed to a pact of pragmatism: that they would resist the calls of the choir and church and find another theater of competition and war other than Vyshan politics. The families began interfering in Shanikan politics, channeling their most zealous warriors and merchants to carve out pieces of the Diaka for them to plunder. The Diaka did not appreciate this, and proceeded to send a punitive expedition into East Vysha in 1333. The Diakan expedition initially divided the families and stirred a great war between them, but the alliance that emerged victorious in 1341 essentially united Eastern Vysha.

In 1363, East Vysha had its own little revenge on the Diaka: they armed and transported a Theian paladin by the name of Taseki the Gilded into the Vysha-Shaniku borderlands, and used him to help start a class revolt in Diaka lands. Taseki's revolt proved quite effective, and the Diaka responded by invading Vysha proper. Taseki's class revolt spiraled out of control as the kingdoms fought, and soon Vysha as a whole was plunged into the Diaka's civil war. The weak and ineffectual kingdom of Anashoko to the West threw their own hat into the ring in 1366 when they invaded Vysha and Diakan lands to try and revive their dying state - but their army was crushed and their state fell into its own civil war. Like a contagion, civil strife spread across the Nafenan coast, consuming unstable regimes and raging beyond any group's control.
The beacon of peace emerged from an unlikely corner: a paladin of Wimbo by the name of Tonori, who led the remnants of the old cults of Wimbo and Ishkibal. Tonori did not seek to recreate the dying Lunar cults, but rather sought to create something new from their ashes. He gathered the supporters of the old Diakan dual-church system to his banner, including a number of paladins of Jade and Haru, and championed a return to the old ways. Tonori's ideology slowly shifted into something new as his faction gained power: while it always kept the veneer of traditionalism, it reimagined it into something new. Tonori dreamed of a syncretic harmony, where all cults and faiths could work together to end the world in their own ways in a peaceful and orderly manner, led by a united Lunar Pantheon. He gathered paladins of all the Gods to his side, and his entourage were known as the Chorus the Ten Divines. The Chorus of the Ten Divines ultimately defeated and absorbed Taseki's class revolt as well as just about every fringe faction. In 1390, Tonori captured the Orishan All-Speaker of Shaniku and the Choral Conductor of Vetevism and forced a religious peace. By 1395, the Chorus of the Ten Divines crowned a monarch of their choosing, the young chorical Hestura. A new kingdom was formed, known as Gemiku,

Gemikan Period (1400 - 1912)

For much of Vysha's history since the days of Tonori, it has been part of the Gemikan union, which reigned from 1400 to 1912. It was an era of religious peace, economic stability, and general development, though some times were harder than others. The 1400s were mostly a century of recovery and reconstruction, where the squabbling Vyshan families either integrated into the new imperial system or were wiped away. The local tribes and traditions were also eroded during the 1400s, as Vysha was opened to a larger culture that seeped into every corner of the kingdom. The 1500s were a century of crisis and social reorganization: first there was a terrible blight and plague (possibly Mageplague), then there was a wave of peasant revolts and Theian agitation that overthrew most of the local elites and forced the Gemikan government to create a less-feudal bureaucracy. The 1600s were another century of relative stability, but the regime's gradual corruption provoked dissent in the 1700s. Gemiku eventually reformed its bureaucracy again, but the reforms came with vulnerability: pirate raids were straining the reforming Gemikan navy in the West, and mountain tribes were raiding in the North. As the kingdom struggled to respond, local actors stepped up to take over: the Viceroy of Vysha started building their own military, and the Final Choir's Conductor took the radical approach of encouraging choricals to enter religiously-organized mercenary companies to better project power. Vysha was left more autonomous, and the military was becoming more Vetevic.

Through the 1800s, Gemiku was internally divided between a Vetevic military and a Orishan civilian administration, with the secular monarchy struggling to remain in control. The Chorus of the Ten Divines were increasingly insular and cut off from the real world, and tensions were building with the Prism empire of Yuteka to the North. A massive war between Yuteka and Gemiku broke out over the remnants of Anashoko in 1852, and Gemiku militarily triumphed but politically lost. The military insisted on annexing mountainous Yuteka, while the civilian government wanted a vassal state put in place, and the military won their lobbying campaign. Occupying tall mountains, even mountains with centuries of prism-made infrastructure, isn't easy, especially when your own government doesn't much want to do it. And while the Gemikans bickered, the Yutekan political faction that cooperated with Gemiku in the first place consolidated their power within the kingdom. In 1906, the governor of occupied Yuteka marched with the local elites to seize the throne following the death of the queen, and both the Vetevics and Orishans seemed confused as to whose side they were on. A horrible civil war ensued, that tore Gemiku apart. The Vyshan governor, with their increased autonomy, simply seceded from the collapsing kingdom and proclaimed herself Queen of Vysha in 1912.

The New Kingdom (1912 - 2020 ME)

For several decades, the Kingdom of Vysha worked hard to maintain the structure and stability of Gemiku. The multi-religious structure, the laws of tolerance, the neutral bureaucracy are all there, but the young state lacks the overwhelming strength the Gemiku once had to back those up. Powerful families aligned with various continental factions have moved into Vysha, subtly undermining the state bureaucracy. Chorical mercenary companies that embedded themselves in the military have also factionalized. But even these weren't enough to break the country until recently: in 2007 ME, a group of disguised Theian paladins helped a wealthy merchant consortium assassinate the new queen, but withdrew their support suddenly and left the merchants holding the ball with half a coup completed. This was an intentional move to delegitimize the new order even while they provoked civil war, as the paladins have since encouraged a peasant rebellion in the East. The new king has struggled to prevent all-out civil war, and the bureaucracy is in tatters. Foreign powers have begun dueling for dominance over the fracturing kingdom, circling like vultures over a dying animal. Unless something changes radically and quickly, Vysha is doomed to chaos.

Demography and Population

Around 3.5 million humanoids live in the Kingdom of Vysha. Of these humanoids, 25% are humans, 25% are Dryad, 25% are Prisms, and 20% are Chorical, and 5% are Others.

Territories

The coast of Vysha extends 400 miles West-to-East and the kingdom pushes about 148 miles inland. The coast is covered in bays and small peninsulas, and thousands of small islands lie to the South. The largest of these islands is the V-shaped isle of Budema, which is 63 by 50 miles across. There are two other major islands off the coast, Kelanima and Astana. 
Between the great isles of the West and the great bays of the East is a large, round peninsula known as the Hiliati. The Hiliati is the traditional heartland of Vyshan civilization, a land of lakes and fertile valleys and the most populated and developed part of the kingdom. The capital city of Eshem sits on the Western coast of the Hiliati, and the peninsula is the seat of the crown's power. The rest of the interior is divided by mountains and hills between five large valleys. The valleys are agrarian basins, with forests and lakes and farmland; the hills are held by autonomous tribes. Majority-prism holds dot the mountains and hills. 
In the West, the kingdom occupies the Southern quarter of the region of Anashoko - a lush, swampy landscape that is not traditionally part of Vysha.

Military

The core of the Vyshan military is the Stormguard, the royal standing military managed directly by the three Minister-Generals of the crown. The Stormguard is most heavily invested in the navy and marines, though it has expanded its heavy infantry corps since the new dynasty took control in 2007. The Stormguard is fairly small and leaves most local affairs to the Prefecture Divisions - local militaries fielded by the bureaucracies of the ten regional prefectures. The hinterlands between these prefectures are manned by auxiliaries hired by the Stormguard. 
In terms of troop composition, the Vyshan military is known most for its heavy infantry. Heavily armored spear formations paired with lighter troops wielding javelins and short swords make up the bulk of the army, typically with light skirmishers providing ranged support and heavy axemen providing backup. The peninsula known as the Hiliati also prides itself on its elite heavy cavalry.

Religion

The official religious body of the Kingdom of Vysha is the Dual Church, a holdover from their old imperial masters that is intended as a compromise between The Final Choir of Vetevism and The Singing Church of Orisha. Both the Choir and the Church have voices within the government, can gather tithes and train agents, and pursue their agenda within their communities. They are barred from open conflict and they must get government permits to evangelize that are limited by area. Disputes between the two are supposed to be managed by the Vyshan Chorus of the Ten Divines, a collection of sages devoted to the Ten Lunar Gods - though the Chorus has fallen into disarray in the past decade.
All citizens must choose to identify as either Orishan or Vetevic when they enter a court case or criminal proceeding, and are judged according to that religion's legal codes. Similarly, citizens are expected to attend some kind of religious service and pay a minimum tithe per month to some state-connected group. Vyshans typically choose whatever is most immediately convenient - whichever legal code is best for their case or tithing whichever local leader they like best or helps them the most. That has begun to change, though. In the last few years, the lines between the two have started to grow more solid and both religious communities have started to go after "traitors" who don't commit to one group or the other in the larger cities. The Singing Church currently reigns dominant within many of these towns and cities, though their victory is certainly not set in stone.

Theian Cult and Vysha

There are uniquely Vyshan religious traditions that transcend either the Choir or the Church, and are particularly powerful in the hinterlands. The most famous (and infamous) of these is the Cult of Theia - an institution that is both feared and revered across Vysha. Theia has a complicated relationship with Vysha - she is particularly supportive of its people when they work with her, but particularly vindictive towards them when they don't. It is for this reason that the Free State Paladins, utopians from abroad who have infested the corners of Vysha, have been able to act with such casual disregard for Vyshan life - Theia is unusually tolerant of their excess against Vyshans who reject her guidance. 
The Cult of Theia is actually the great counterweight to these paladins. The Cult has Theia's approval and those who are intertwined with them are off-limits from the more aggressive chaos-agent antics of the Free State, and the Cult is the starkly pessimistic opposite to the foreign utopianism. The Cult of Theia does not even officially agree with their Goddess; they portray her as a vengeful and dangerous Goddess of Justice who must be satisfied to prevent all of Vysha from sinking into the sea. According to their legends, Theia forged a deal with Kayshikari (the Vetevic God of the sea) to protect her island forever, but in exchange she became Kayshikari's handmaiden and sword. This deal means that Theia is bound by divine duty to cause chaos, hurricanes, and disruption, but that she only unleashes it when she feels that some injustice has been done. When Theia's gaze falls upon Vysha, the Cult reads her displeasure and sets to work doing justice for her to stave off her wrath. 
In the ancient days, the Cult of Theia did this by demanding nobles distribute their wealth among the people (and, according to legend, throw themselves to the waves as a sacrifice of their lives for the land). When the Empire of Gemiku took over, the Cult was institutionalized. They were given government power directly tied to the Chorus of the Ten Divines, and they were allowed to select champions from among them to act as "Furies". The Furies were essentially wandering agents of Theia who were said to be physically possessed by her spirits of justice and vengeance and would act as investigators into local accounts of corruption or abuse. The Furies were wildly unpopular among the local elites and were feared by many, but their constant terrorizing of local elites satisfied Theia and made the Cult a major political power. Since the fall of Gemiku, local elites have done their best to remove the Furies from existence, and to cast the Cult of Theia from power - ironically inviting in the Free State Paladins in the process.

Foreign Relations

The Kingdom of Vysha is not a country particularly interested in expansion or foreign conflicts, and its policies have erred on the side of peace and diplomacy for the past century. The kingdom inherited two powerful neighbors which it has a very tense relationship with: the Kingdom of Yuteka, a very orishan prism-led power to the North; and the Kingdom of Shaniku, which rules in the East. Yuteka would very much like to acquire the Southern half of occupied Anashoka to give itself a port; Shaniku, meanwhile, has a claim to rule over Vyshan lands and has been pushing the monarchy to accept its authority. The rising merchant families would very much not like to join Shaniku or Yuteka, and Vysha has worked to try and de-escalate and improve relationships for decades now. It is unlikely that this peace will continue if Vysha falls into civil war, but for now the vultures are keeping their distance. 
Vysha has established several foreign allies of some power that are a healthy distance from its borders: Sokuwa to the West and Matatha to the far East both rely on Vyshan textiles (and visa versa for Sokuwan dyes and Matathan cotton), and both have significant profits at risk if Vysha is conquered or collapses.

Agriculture & Industry

The valleys of Vysha are bountiful centers of agriculture, and the hills are filled with shepherds, ranchers, and miners. Wheat and wet rice are common crops, although many people also fish or herd Giant Lobsters. The mines largely produce prism-food, salt, copper, and quarried stone. 
In the Western swamps of Anashoko, a surprisingly large industry is herbalism and alchemy: for many centuries, the region has been known for its medicinal salves and its curated selection of herbs and roots. Magical Alchemists whose specialties are tied to the unique flora of Anashoko are some of the only native producers of Healing Potions to Nafena, and the Healing Church has been scouting the region for potential investment. Giant Lobsters and wet rice are the cornerstones of agriculture in the region.
Most manufacturing occurs in Vysha proper rather than Anashoko, which is predominantly rural. Vyshan towns and cities, which are concentrated in the core prefectures, are held together by their massive weaving industry - large weaver's guilds coordinate textile production and export across Nafena under the watchful eyes of the local great families. Other industries exist here, of course: copper smelting, ship-building, and the hundreds of small trades that populate most towns. But textiles are the industry that decides if the towns and cities thrive or decline here. 
The islands and the hinterlands both work on their own local logic of course: their economies are somewhat self-contained, typically revolve around sheep, goats, and olive oil, and can vary wildly based on the locality.

Trade & Transport

Low-level trade is a bit of a disorganized mess of peddlers and family merchants, and foreign trade is held together by the guilds. Once the guilds were carefully organized and held great legal power, but the last half a century has seen their sharp decline as formal institutions. Great families have instead risen to wield the guilds as puppets, and increasingly more business is being done by international family alliances. Local artisans and small merchants, through their guilds and consortiums, effectively pick from among these powerful families for patrons.

"Keep Justice, Keep Peace, Keep Piety"

Founding Date

1912 ME

Type

Geopolitical, Kingdom

Demonym

Vyshan

Government System

Monarchy, Absolute

Power Structure

Unitary state

Currency

Maradian Gold, Silver, and Copper Pieces

Major Exports

Food, salt, copper

Major Imports

iron, textiles

Official State Religion

The Singing Church of Orisha

Location

Nafena