Republic of Akatlan

Akatlan, the Sunekan Bastion of the North, is a republic on the rise. For much of history, its been the odd one out of the Sunekan heartlands, always the first of the great powers to retreat inwards and the most willing to embrace controlled deviancy that glorifies the state. Akatlan is a state built on contradictions: it prides itself on its down-to-earth legacy of warriors, and yet it is known for its elaborate etiquette; it is a heart of populist ideology and prides itself on its meritocracy, and yet it upholds a class-divided informal caste system; it stands apart from the other Sunekan powers and yet deeply embeds itself into the internal religious system.
Akatlan has a rapidly growing middle-class with access to more and more day-to-day consumable goods, from tea and sugar to paper and ink. Jobs in the heartlands are increasingly consolidated into workshops and top-down estate farms, though the fringes do harbor traditional ways of life. Akatlan is cosmopolitan and connected, with its high magic and well-developed infrastructure attracting trade from Kizen to Oteka to Calazen. Through its wizarding connections to The Darzan University, Akatlan has access to luxuries from around the world and has become a popular destination for merchants and tourists. The other key to its mercantile success has been its adoption of other Sunekan economic innovations: Gatrevan-style heavy industry, Matayan banking, Otekan infrastructural engineering, Gwalanan bard-magic, and even foreign Calazan arcane-commerce.
Of course, there is always a cost. Many of these institutions of production and industry have quieter, sister institutions of exploitation that have traveled with them. And as the cosmopolitan upper lower class has had its standards of living elevated, the already-intense Sunekan systems of behavioral policing have become even more rigid and invasive. Akatlan has reinvented itself around the wizardly ideals of "technological progress" and "rationality" under the leadership of "great minds", but the cost has been terrible and grows every year. It may not look that different from the other Sunekan powers, but it is- and with every year, it grows stranger.

Structure

Akatlan is entirely centralized, with one central government led by a Tlakra that is elected for life (though they are encouraged to consider abdication after 10 years). The Tlakra is fairly powerful, with short-term legislative power and total military and diplomatic power.
The Tlakra does not rule alone, of course: much of the legislation and budgeting is managed by a bicameral legislature. This is the Congress of Stone and the Congress of Sky. The Congress of Stone is elected from landed communities alone, while the Congress of Sky is elected by all all citizens.
The State Priest manages religious affairs, and is elected within the priesthood.
Unusually, Akatlan has two capitals: Kimikal, home to the twin congresses, and Kerutepec, home to the Tlakra and State Priest.
Lastly, there is the matter of social class. 4 legal categories exist:

• Citizen, meaning a fully legally recognized member of Akatlani society, with at least one Akatlani parent (two if one's community is not landed)
• Resident, meaning a full-time Sunekan resident that is not a citizen. Defined as having lived in Akatlan for five years. A resident is afforded certain religious rights but is barred from voting and from participating in certain National Cult Rituals
• Guest, meaning a Sunekan that has recently entered Akatlan, often for temporary work or as a tourist. Cannot purchase permanent property in Akatlan without a permit (but can rent)
• Heathen, meaning a non-Sunekan. Protected legally, but by the benevolence of the state- meaning they have no inherent rights or personhood not granted by Akatlani law.

Heathens are typically organized into their own communities, with different protocols for different professions. The are typically restricted to live in specific walled-off districts and banned from wearing Sunekan-style dress to keep them differentiated and foreign in appearance.

Culture

"Of all the Sunekan Republics, it is Akatlan that has most successfully connected the concept of the state to the identities of the citizen population. It is true that all of the Suneka attaches personal agency and identity to the government through representational government and by fostering the illusion of state-wide community, but Akatlan has innovated the most in teaching its child-citizens that they are exceptionally Akatlani. It has invented an idea that there is a national community, a community with ritualized attachment to all past Akatlani governments. The greater community is anthropomorphized and worshiped, with great care taken to maintain the illusion of national community and police the citizen population.
Such an extreme form of regional republican ideology is likely impossible to sustain, so it is worth studying and documenting now, as a truly unique cultural-ideological phenomenon" - Emesh, God of Knowledge, on Akatlani identity

Akatlani Cuisine

Akatlani cuisine is said to have two cornerstones: potatoes and flatbreads. In the occupied lands of the Gwalan valley, steamed corn-husk tamales are also popular. For Prisms of the Akatlan river-valley, salt-crusted igneous is a regional specialty for the wealthy, often mixed with gold slag for the average citizen. An interesting innovation in the last century has been a kind of soup renaissance, with multi-species-compatible soups made of bone broth gaining popularity. While this is often credited to the Kerutepec Cooking Lodge, but likely originates in the recipes of Calazen (specifically, the Adiran mountains). 
An increasingly central element of Akatlani cross-species cuisine is tea. The rise of tea cultivation in the Gwalan valley territory and the symbol of tea as a demonstration of leisure-time luxury has made it almost universal among citizens. The caffeinated citizens are also seen as more productive and alert. Tea ritual is an important part of middle-class etiquette in modern Akatlan, and there has been a flurry of guide books and manuals published on proper manners in the last century.

History

Early History

The first settlement of Akatlan took place in the 1000s DE, with the first city arising in the Southern riverlands in 800 DE. The Southern tribes of Akatlan were quick to adopt mainstream Sunekan social systems from their neighbors, but the Northern valleys were not so eager and kept many of their old ways. Several empires rose and fell through the Northern and Central riverlands from 500 DE to 400 ME, but the first to unite all of the Riverlands was the tribe of Akakal, forming the Akatlan Empire in 400 ME. Akatlan was unique from those before it in that it didn't outright reject or embrace the Suneka, but instead modified it for its own rulership. It used Sunekan systems to undermine other tribal identities while integrating their elites into its own. Rather than create an oligarchic theocracy, the First Akatlani empire created a clearly delineated noble caste of sorts, using semi-priestly aristocratic families to manage the land and military. This aristocratic caste remained in power even after the empire fell to conquest in 495, and Akatlan remained autonomous in politics and culture within the early Spiritual Empire of Suneka. When the first emperor Amati was replaced with the more centralized and aggressive Ghost-emperor Yezok in 530 ME, Akatlan withdrew from the Empire. For 50 years, Akatlan danced in and out of the empire, before Yezok finally had the Empire of Gwalan invade in 580. Akatlan was fully conquered by 600, and Yezok had the fledgling state broken into its own subdivision of the empire. A process of "Sunekanization" began, where the caste system was deconstructed and local culture was absorbed into the greater empire. But Yezok's exorcism in 605 left the process half-complete before Akatlan was able to rebel and secede in 607. 
Akatlan's noble class began a "mixed republic" system from 607 to 810, in which the aristocrats would operate one assembly, the common people would operate another, and the government would be a compromise between the social castes. The mixed republican system was shaky at best, and prone to internal conflict, but was very effective militarily. Akatlan was able to exist independently for the most part until gold was discovered in 802 - a gold vein of enormous size and purity, which set off a gold rush through the mountains. The gold rush attracted outside attention and ambition, and the neighboring empire of Gwalan set to work conquering as much of Akatlan as possible. The militaristic republic was drowned in numbers and internally divided, and was soon reduced to a vassalized flank state to Gwalan in 830. In this moment of desperation, some noble houses finally began to throw aside the old ways. These houses made deals with the growing Order of Teztin, a holy order of priests in the Suneka that managed mining operations and currency rates. When Gwalan finally entered civil strife in 885, these former-noble elite cliques were able to use their connections to launch their own rebellion. From 885 to 920, this alliance slowly retook much of the Akatlan riverlands piece by piece. But this new Akatlan was more Sunekan, with the powers of the nobility immensely reduced and communion between the state and the Sacred Assembly. In 1000, aristocracy was formally abolished from Akatlan. The republic was far less equal than other Sunekan republics, and a de-facto ruling series of cliques had immense governmental power, but the old law of bloodlines was gone.

Becoming Sunekan: The Second Republic

The second Republic of Akatlan worked to preserve the militarism of the first- the state has the military act as landlord for a number of conquered communities, allowing for a robust specialized standing army. Akatlan may have become Sunekan, but it was still eager to pick fights- with Gwalan, with the Prism kingdoms, with the nearby Kiotan valley kingdoms, with Ikatlan. For some decades, this worked fine- Akatlan expanded and prospered from 920 through the 1000s- but over time, the military elites and the ruling elites began to conflict. And as the military focused more on land management and politics, it became less efficient on the field. This reached a crisis point in 1050, when the Yellow Plague (bubonic plague) returned for another cycle from the Southern plains. As plague ate at the cities and sowed chaos through the land, the military sought to seize control from the "incompetent" civilian cliques. As civil war erupted, Prisms from the Adira Mountains launched their own invasion, which was only barely fought off. While Akatlan was victorious, their troops had actually lost on the battlefield several times. The military's weakness was showing. The military cliques doubled down on conquest after the plagues ended in the 1060s, but this time it supplemented its forces with foreign mercenaries. Kiotan and Adiran mercenaries became more and more efficient cost-wise for Akatlan's military, and became more and more of the actual fighting forces as the republic conquered into the Gwalan Valley. The mixture of a disloyal military establishment with significant influence and the introduction of a host of armed rogue actors was a recipe for disaster.
That recipe formed into the perfect disaster in the 1140s. It began with hope: in the late 1090s, the famous politician and orator Dematzin passed a series of reforms redistributing land and power to avoid the eventual meltdown of the republic. The two branches of government were mixed and made dependent on one another, cliques were stripped of their vast landed estates, and outside mercenaries were granted citizenship, status, and community membership after retirement to encourage a slow integration of the auxiliary elements of the military. But the military leadership only grew more resentful at this "victory" of the civilian branch, and officers and regiments began illegally seizing land. First this was in conquered areas, but eventually this spread to the interior. Not long after, civilian power cliques began doing the same. The republic was dying- and ambitious leaders from the various cliques rose to try and seize it for themselves. The most dangerous of these was an officer by the name of Siril. A Kobold born of mercenaries hailing from the Adira Mountains, Siril was raised as both an outsider and a Sunekan. She was a cunning politician, a bold fighter, and a strategic mastermind, who bounced in and out of Akatlan's formal military structure over the years. In the 1130s, she began accumulating a power base of loyalists, operating somewhere between a populist and a militarist in politics. Outsiders and mercenaries gathered to her banner, as she valued usefulness over etiquette - but soon found herself barred from the halls of power. Always seen as an outsider and an invader, she was barred from the Assembly and kicked from the military in 1145. But her soldiers were still loyal, and if she would be barred from power she would take it. She fought with the other military factions in a bloody civil war. She united much of the military, but found the rest of the Republic crystallize against her. Her enemies began spreading rumors that she was Kivishta and had her condemned as a foreigner and a heretic. Rebellions began rising up against her forces where she did hold power, and it slowly dawned on Siril that Akatlan would never accept her as Tlakra. The state would never bend to her will, but the army was loyal- and so, she decided to carve out an empire of her own, republic be damned. 
Looting the cities and throwing civilian government aside, Siril conquered much of central Akatlan and placed it under military dictatorship before diving Southward. She looted and razed across Tuzek, Gwalan, and Matayan, becoming a semi-nomadic army of sorts that absorbed any warriors it could in its search for loot and power. Akatlan fell before her, the republic finally snapping. In 1191, Siril finally fell in battle trying to conquer Northern Tuzek, and her empire died with her- disintegrating into dozens of tiny military supfactions. From 1191 to 1200, these subfactions fought to reunite the lands she had taken, but ultimately they crumbled into nothingness.

Foreign Dynasties

After the military infighting stopped, a tentative process of healing began. Communities in the core of Akatlan began reaching out to try and re-elect an acting Tlakra in 1205, and it seemed that more and more communities were willing to try again with a blank slate. Unfortunately for Akatlan, this fragile alliance was not particularly well-armed, and was prime real estate for outsiders. In 1210, Khan Nutoktzin gathered together a group of nomadic tribes from the great plains of Quiku to launch an invasion of vulnerable Akatlan, and it only took a year for them to seize most of the riverlands. Only the Northwestern valleys remained untouched by the khan, who divided the riverlands between his children in 1229. Thus begins the monarchical period of Akatlan. 
From 1229 to 1300, the many Quikuan warlords vied for power. But as they divided the land further and further, one group alone kept their land consolidated: the Kuretko. And in 1300, a Kuretko of great wit and ambition emerged named Makanan. Makanan was not the monarch, but served as chief strategist and advisor, bringing the family glory and land over the years. By 1315, Makanan had overseen the absorption of almost all of Central and Northeastern Akatlan over the reign of three monarchs. In 1317, Makanan crowned his grand-niece Queen of Akatlan, successor to the Second Republic. The Kuretkos were not wildly popular and often faced religious revolts, but were able to legitimize their claim in 1350, when they defended the riverlands from a second invasion from the plains and ritually demonstrated their Sunekan identity in the triumphant parades. While the Kuretko dynasty still ruled as kings, kept many of their cultural quirks, and allowed certain other families to do the same, they publically acted as if they were elected Tlakras after the 1350s. 
Another failed plains invasion in 1380 finally convinced the South that Akatlan was not an easy target, but not everyone was as convinced. In the 1450s, in response to growing imperial conquests in Inahng, waves of Prism clans migrated within and out of the Adira Mountains. Some acted as mercenaries, some as settlers, some as merchants, and some as invaders. In 1470, a group known as the Taradra launched an invasion of Northern Akatlan. The Taradra had become opportunists amidst the Eastern chaos, preying on smaller displaced Prism groups- and saw Akatlan as easy plunder. The Kuretkos were able to fight off and pay off the Taradra intermittently, but the Taradra were able to find a gap in Akatlan's armor: the vulnerable, decentralized Northwest. From this mess of local republics, the Taradran warrior-nobles were able to carve their own state, known as Exatlan. The Kuretko dynasty cared little for the rocky hills and isolated valleys of the Northwest, and had pivoted towards trying to conquer the Gwalan Valley decades ago. 
But with their conquests in Western Gwalan, the Kuretkos brought not just wealth but Sunekan evangelism into their kingdom. Sunekan priests began to consolidate their power within the kingdom throughout the 1500s, draining power from the monarchy. The dynasty didn't seem to mind, as they were happy to allow loyal priests and administrators to construct new cities and bring in new wealth. But over the century, the monarchs became more and more figureheads for their own state. In 1590, a Kobold merchant by the name of Kualo made that lack of power acutely visible. A pious Sunekan and up-and-coming community elite in the Gwalan Valley, Kualo was deeply troubled by the laws of the monarch at the time: intense tariffs, heightened labor quotas for local communities, a lack of respect for local community decision-making. When Kualo had their property seized as punishment for protesting, they began organizing laborers on the ground into Worker's Guilds. As this protest began to spread across dynasty-owned spice growing estates, more and more Sunekans began to join in. Whispers of military dissent began to circulate. Frightened at the realization of just how weak the dynasty had become, the Kuretkos simply sat back and hoped the problems would fade. In 1600, a group of Guardians of Hokzin helped local priests launch a palace coup, ending foreign rule over the kingdom of Akatlan. 

The Restored Republic

The 1600s were a time of excitement. While the distraction of the civil disobedience and coup had lost the state control over Gwalan, the economy was still booming. The end of dynastic monopolies on the cinnamon, tea, and spice trades meant that communities were actually excited to expand their local industries. As communities flourished, they brought each other up, cities began growing, schools were refurbished and towns began bustling. But not all places and industries were equally democratized- mining and other trades were still under the control of large cliques, and worker-clique conflict became a common theme for the next two hundred years. Generally speaking, the period of 1600 to 1870 is considered a time of culture, wealth and prosperity, where both magical and cultural art flourished. 
Not all was sunshine and rainbows, of course: the conflict between cliques and workers created a deep divide in politics, which slowly festered into a toxic and destructive rivalry. This came to a head in 1823, when a reformist faction seized direct control of the government via coup. A brief civil war ensued and almost escalated into a brutal partisan conflict, but a reformist-aligned general named Ruzin was able to coup the couped government and enforce order. Ruzin ruled as dictator, faked elections, and was fairly authoritarian, but had a strange belief in the "habits of the Suneka" - essentially, Ruzin play-acted Republicanism in order to "re-teach" the people how to "properly" interact with democracy. Ruzin was a reformist that sought to undermine the workers movement and the cliques at the same time- and worked for decades to do so. Ruzin was much more functional as a leader than the dysfunctional prior government, and so was actually fairly popular after their death in 1844. The Ruzinist reformist-authoritarian party took the lead, dominating politics for the next fifteen years. 
But the most influential of Ruzin's entourage was not a politician, but a magician: a wizard of immense power by the name of Darza , who was a fellow cynic and "rationalist". Darza had little time for politics, but did encourage Ruzin to bankroll magical research. As time went on, she ascended as an eccentric wizard of great renown- bringing money and prestige to the wizards of Akatlan even as she used them to expand her power. Darza was not a friendly individual, and unfortunately managed to piss off a rival of almost equal power: the legendary sorcerer, Esam  of Calazen. While Esam had always hoped to invade the Suneka, Darza brought his attention squarely on Akatlan itself. 

The Invasion of Esam

In 1870, Calazen invaded Suneka- and Akatlan was target number one. The republic was struck by the main force of the invasion in 1871, and would continue to periodically rebel and be occupied until 1900. Of all of Calazen's targets, Akatlan was most gently occupied: Esam saw Akatlan's wizarding academies and economic prosperity as treasures that were to be carefully preserved, even as he saw the rest of the Suneka largely in terms of raw numbers of resources and population. Akatlan was to be the seat of his Sunekan empire, and so it was the least scorched by Calazen's armies. That said, Esam did aggressively push Nediran religion and Calazan culture there, hoping to integrate it smoothly into the greater empire. 
The area of greatest resistance was the Worker's Associations: Esam, having been raised in a hyper-elitist culture, saw the landholding cliques as "nobility" and therefore his natural allies. This proved to be a mistake: not only were the greatest of the cliques (those involved in mining) largely tied to the Holy Order of Tetzin, but his choices managed to alienate just about every group in Akatlan. While armed rebellion was infrequent, many groups just ignored Calazen's military entirely- they refused to pay taxes or cooperate in any way. Eventually, Esam was forced to focus on the "long game": influencing the upcoming generations to slowly embrace Calazan culture and religion. 

Modern Akatlan

After Calazen was driven out of Akatlan in 1898, there was a moment of peace. But that peace was more from uncertainty than from harmony, and as soon as peace with Calazen was ratified, all hell broke loose. Neighbor turned on neighbor as those who were deemed too friendly with Calazen's military or culture were purged. The Sunekan liberators, along with Darza, were forced to step in- and mass reorganization ensued. Resettlement began in Akatlan first, before it even started in other states. While the greater international community gathered together to slowly decide who went where and what republic got what, Darza and her clique threw together what Ruzinist politicians they could and ordered them to design a new Akatlan. This one was to be rationalist and logical, a government with purpose and direction. This tiny clique of ideologues, engineers, priests, and bureaucrats hammered out the plan for modern Akatlan. In 1903, they were formally given permission by the Sacred Assembly to enact their plans. 
What has followed has been remarkably peaceful, straightforward, and by-the-book. Akatlan has thrived on paper, and many have done well. Foreigners were allowed to not only stay, but stay in peace (albeit in a lower social caste). Even new (low paid) foreigners were invited in and allowed to keep their culture - remarkably benevolent! Akatlan has since rebuilt and expanded, pushing its influence onto its neighbors. Exatlan has collapsed to its Northwest, and while Akatlan has been unable to militarily conquer the region in a convenient way, it has established de-facto trade dominance. The trauma of the great reorganization of 1900 has been used to create a fresh cultural start. And while other regions were depopulated, Akatlan was left pristine- and has risen to regional dominance.

Demography and Population

14,500,000 humanoids live in Akatlan: 25% Dryad, 20% human, 20% Prism, 15% Hybrid, 10% Kobold, 10% Other.
Like, so many cats live here man

Military

The Akatlani military is a rather strange and internally varied creature. It is internally divided between technocratic specialists and traditionalist infantry, which compete within the military structure. This is a recent development: a century ago, Akatlan's military was entirely built around elite guard units, artillery, and magical specialists. But over the course of the last century, education and community ritual has increasingly returned to the ancient martial traditions of the region. This traditional form of martial training is based around either waraxes or an unusual weapon known as a Raven's Beak or a Lucern Hammer- a spear-warhammer combination popular in the Adira Mountains. 
While this return of antique weaponry in common religion was initially just for show, pressure from below slowly introduced hammer and axe infantry back into the Akatlani model. The traditionalist infantry was deployed as military police and border skirmishers and actually proved more effective than the over-engineered "cutting edge" regiments in border skirmishes and bandit suppression. While the state of the art "organ guns" (lots of small guns strapped together as an artillery piece to rapid fire projectiles across a field), massive field cannon, and expert wizards are likely to be quite effective in a large open field battle, flexible and durable infantry is much more cost effective for small-scale operations. And so, the Raven Guard returned to Akatlan- and has been flourishing within the military structure. As the specialist regiments continue to insist on easily-broken and slow-to-transport gadgetry, the nostalgic reliving of ancient Akatlani war culture continues to grow. 
It isn't just fancy artillery, wizards, and axe infantry; Akatlan has its share of handgunners and bowmen as well.

Religion

Akatlan is generally very Sunekan, with a few deviancies - such as its legal caste system and its celebration of its culture. In order to "Sunekanize" itself, Akatlan deploys a robust "local cult" known as the Cult of Akatlaza. Akatlaza in this case is the spirit of Akatlan, the magical manifestation of the nation as a whole and the personification of the state. Akatlaza cult regulates and endorses local cultural rituals, adding an element of Sunekan endorsement while still allowing for safe levels of deviancy. The Cult of Akatlaza may theoretically be its own organization, but its massive state-sponsored temple next to the Tlakra's palace in Kerutepec leaves little doubt as to its overlap with the government. Akatlaza cult has only been growing in the last few decades, often overlapping with Akatlani martial ritual and government election management. 
The great rival and balancing power to the Cult of Akatlaza is the Order of Teztin. Tetzin is the manifestation of all mountains, Prisms, and stones, and contains the primordial element of patience. The Order of Tetzin manages mining communities and mineral rights throughout the Suneka, and has become extremely rich hauling gold and silver out of Akatlan's mines. It also manages gold rates and is heavily intertangled with the banking and minting communities- both of which are big deals in Akatlan. The Order of Tetzin generally opposes deviancy and instability of any sort, resenting the Akatlazan priests for their leniancy.
In between these giants are the typical orders and priesthood for most Sunekans. The Mysteries of Chiun-Masri, a mystery cult from Gwalan has been quietly growing in influence since they were granted land to construct bardic covens here, but generally keep out of politics. 
As for outside religions, Nedira and Uvara are easily the most common. Akatlan actually protects its heathen community and puts very little effort into converting them- and if anything, preserving them from assimilation by legally separating them. This is usually not for benign reasons, but it still gives Akatlan a reputation as a place of acceptance and tolerance for outsiders among Sunekan states.
As a rising power, several members of the Lunar Pantheon have struck formal deals with the Republic of Akatlan, mediated by the Cult of Akatlaza

Foreign Relations

Akatlan is in a curious position: it needs expansion over resources and trade routes to continue its economic growth, and yet any serious disruption to the local status quo will disrupt trade too much to be profitable. Akatlan must also balance the nationalistic jingoism it curates in its populace with the more pacifistic attitude (between Sunekans) of the Sunekan international community.
So Akatlan's diplomacy is based around conquest and domination but with the least noise or disruption. The republic has grand ambitions: uniting the riverlands, taking the Gwalan valley, carving a path to the ocean. But the republic will rarely admit anything of the sort. Instead, it works through agents and proxies- such as funding the Ezeluri Land War, and interfering with the politics of the Exatlan Republics.

Agriculture & Industry

Much of Akatlan remains agricultural, as most places are: wheat, maize, millet, buckwheat, potatoes. Herding sheep and goats is also a common practice. Cash crop plantations are fairly common in the riverlands and in the lake area in the Southeast: tea and cinnamon are common. The Southeast also has lumber-milling and fishing.
The North is the great mining area: stone, clay, obsidian, gold, silver, salt, all are mass produced and then shipped down the hills to the rivers for processing. Akatlan has a fairly large manufacturing sector as well for pottery, minting, smithing, dye-making, and paper milling.
Of note in all this is the division of labor. In many of the most productive regions, Citizen's Associations or Worker's Guilds act as powerful negotiating and representative bodies for citizens in common harvesting and manufacturing. These proto-unions act as counterbalances to landowning cliques and provide better conditions for the average Akatlani citizen. These much-beloved regional institutions do not represent those who truly need them most, though: the heathen laborers imported from the North and West, who are specifically banned from forming or managing their own guilds or associations. While the Worker's Guilds initially opposed the exploitation of these foreign laborers, a compromise with the Cult of Akatlaza has made a new system. Now, the cheap foreign laborer is shared in exploitation by the large cliques and the worker's guilds. The most backbreaking and dangerous work has been shifted to policed foreign bodies, improving the conditions of the citizenry at a terrible human cost. 
But where do these outsiders come from in such numbers? The answer is threefold: poor residents or indentured individuals imported from Calazen, Stildanian refugees that failed to integrate into the Sunekan Republic of Gatrev, and members of the Quiku and Kiota plains groups that fled Sunekan assimilation to the South. Scandalously, reports of Sunekan faithful becoming indentured in Calazen and then brought back into Akatlan as forced labor have circulated but have largely gone nowhere.

Trade & Transport

Like most Sunekan states, Akatlan is only semi-monetary: communities directly provide for their members, and food is considered a right for any Sunekan. Much labor is therefore done to fulfill community obligations or to further their status rather than for formal money. Coinage is, however, used to purchase luxury items or surplus goods. More so than in other Sunekan Republics, Akatlani citizens have sizeable spending money, and engage in an active interpersonal economy. 
Unlike many Sunekan states, the Specialists Associations in Akatlan are powerful actors in themselves rather than middle-men in the bureaucratic chain. Merchant-negotiators flutter about the system, helping the clunky chain of guilds and agencies fulfill their production quotas with minimal infighting. Many of these negotiators are publically-funded intermediaries trained and organized by the Apatlia Bank and Exchange Group. 
The Apatlia Bank and Exchange Group is a semi-religious financial institution in service to the Mystery Cult of Ozotl-Yamaqui (the Snake God, in the aspect of abundance). The Apatlia Group has little mysticism left in it since it became an international commercial center in the late 1600s, and was once a cornerstone of the government of the Republic of Matayan. However, Akatlan was able to poach the Apatlia Group's loyalty during the internal turmoil of the 1960s in Matayan, and now the banking group is here! What do they actually do? Loans and banking, mostly, but in an elaborate semi-fictional system that is fairly similar to what we would call modern finance. 
Aside from banking and merchants, wizards play an important role in Akatlani finance. As Akatlan is connected to the Darzan University, the greatest of wizard universities, it has access to materials, technologies, and information from around the world. This has put Akatlan on the map in foreign investment and hawking of foreign inventions, and has introduced magical items and even The Empty into Akatlan's markets.

Education

All citizens have access to a highly centralized and regulated education system from ages 10 to 17. Every classroom teaches some core basics: reading, writing, math, government, religion, discipline, etiquette. Children are given ranks based on performance reviews and testing, and those who score better are sent on to higher education in chosen specialty field.
Residents and Guests are also provided with schooling as Residential Schools, though these tend to be less well funded than their citizen counterparts.

Infrastructure

Akatlan is well developed with dams, canals, and roads, with the largest and most promising project on the horizon: the Grand Adato Canal, which promises to one day create a permanent water route to the massive lake Zokara to the South. It is currently under construction.

"Purpose and Dignity"

Founding Date

1903

Type

Geopolitical, Republic

Capital

Kimikal

Demonym

Akatlani

Leader Title

Tlakra

Government System

Democracy, Representative

Power Structure

Unitary state

Economic System

Mixed economy

Currency

Sunekan Currency: Golden Lions, Silver Foxes, Copper Stars

Major Exports

Gold, silver, obsidian, precious gems, stone, spices, manufactured goods

Major Imports

Iron, silk, tea, sugar, paper, dyes

Legislative Body

The Twin Congresses of Akatlan: Congress of Stone and the Congress of Sky

Judicial Body

The High Court of Akatlan

Official State Religion

Suneka

Location

Akatlan Riverlands

Official Languages

• High Sunekan

Controlled Territories

• Kimikal

Neighboring Nations

• Gwalan Republic
• Republic of Tuzek

Notable Members

• Tlakra Ilio Kapentzin