Republic of Zitepec (Zee-tep-peck)

The Republic of Zitepec is the home of the Sunekan Sacred Assembly, the highest diplomatic and theological body of the Sunekan religion. Zitepecans are influencers, clerks, ranchers, merchants, and diplomats who are seen as ever-present meddlers (sometimes even opportunists). They are broad-hatted ranchers with a sense of moral absolutism and a rootin' shootin' attitude. They breed cattle, produce Divine Contact incense, and work in great weaving and tanning factories; they make stuff and then sell it, by soft word or at gunpoint. Proud, aggressive, rowdy, profiteering, this is the Zitepecan way. Or so the story goes. The truth is always more complex. 
So what is Zitepec, beneath it all? It is a land of division, ambition, fear, and hope. Shaped by competing visions of what the Suneka should be, its radically shifting policies have created great prosperity for some and poverty for others. Its flamboyant foreign perception is a product of its great international soft power and influence, as well as its commercial success; it is also the product of immense contradictions at home. Zitepec is an important cornerstone of the Suneka despite all of its contradictions (or perhaps because of them). While for most of early Sunekan history this was a republic on the fringes, it is now an important to continental politics.

Structure

Zitepec is a republic ruled by a Tlakra, with an election every eight years. Beneath the Tlakra is an assembly of fifty representatives elected from the municipalities. And below that are the ten local provincial governors. Voting for the secular government is done communally, and is often coordinated by the priestly bureaucracy. Work and residential communities often vote as units, and self-report for census purposes. 
Unlike most other Sunekan republics, the elected bureaucracy of the Tlakra has a priestly mirror government. The top elected official among the priests is the Aziletzen, the High Priest, who is elected every eight years. Priestly elections are staggered four years after the 'secular' elections, to prevent the two from being intertangled. There is also a priestly assembly (though it is much smaller, only twenty priests), and priests get to elect their local leaders as well.
The current Tlakra is a wealthy landowner-merchant dryad by the name of Bolinar Setinetzin. Bolinar is an even-handed legalist with a forgiving attitude, who is fond of both rigidly enforcing laws and providing pardons (better to prosecute first and forgive later is their attitude). They are well-learned, well-connected, and good at manipulating the machinery of the state. Their aloof attitudes and strict enforcement have earned them plenty of curses and grumbles from the commoners, but nothing in the way of real organized discontent. 
The current Aziletzen is a prism former war-hero by the name of Otamaltza Quizetzin. Otamaltza was a battle priest for many years, who blessed the warriors of the Suneka and brutally organized the "cultural conversion" of occupied heathens. Otamaltza is diligent, stubborn, and patient. Those who dislike them say that they are a craven who struggles with actual combat, though: ever since their time on the front they have jumped at the idea of violent confrontation, and they had a reputation as more of a tactician than a warrior even back in their army days. They are undeniably excellent as a tactician though, and under their watch the priestly police have become amazingly competent.

Culture

Fashion, Work, and Coyotes

Despite the mechanisms of cultural homogeny that dominate the Sunekan republic, Zitepec does still have great cultual diversity between their ranchers, their farmers, and their urban workers. Each has a different variation of the Zitepecan broad-rimmed hats that the republic is known for; each sees themselves as the default Zitepecan person. The urban workers are internationally minded (with lots of exposure to other kinds of Suneka), aggressively literate, and proud - many urban poor proudly display their middling-class habits as a slap in the face to those who would exploit their labor, and they tend towards outspoken literacy. Utopianism tends to be common in their worker's communes, much to the annoyance of the factory-owners. The farmers tend towards a more isolationist community identity, with a fierce rejection of ranchers, farmers, merchants, and bureaucrats as threats to community stability and autonomy. But this isn't just conservatism - in some farming communities, the idea of a unique Zitepecan identity has taken hold, and peasant leaders have drifted towards a kind of local-patriotic cult. 
For all the loud noises of the workers and the farmers, the ranchers tend to scare the elites the most, as their relentless nomadism makes them difficult to control. Old ranchers (seen as priest-warrior-monks of the frontier) are romanticized by the elites and the cities, but are contrasted to the "degraded modern tumbleweed trash" of the current cowboys. Much handwringing is made of the tendency for "wild daisies", or unregulated childbirths, among cowboy communities. This is not just an example of poor Sunekan behavior, but a potential source of "Coyotes": people who exist outside of the formal Sunekan system, often born on the margins and outside of the mandatory school system, who drift from place to place as deviants who can still pretend to be Sunekan. This ability to blend in and "tempt" pious Zitepecans in coyote life is considered dangerous, and many coyotes are said to consort with dark anti-paladins as the priests of their vile dark temple.
Coyotes can seem mythical at times, but they are a real group (if a broad category with little organization). Even the cowboys, loose and wild as they are, turn coyotes away as troublemakers. Some coyotes keep their heads down and blend into cowboy culture on the fringes. Others capitalize on their reputations, becoming either criminals or 'witches' (who might curse or threaten a community with evil unless they pay up). Many become strike-breakers or community spies, who take vengeance against rejecting communities by working for elites looking for leverage. Most coyotes drift between these types over a life. A small number even become "Professionals": individual mercenary agents, guns-for-hire who run in the shadows and take on the difficult work too messy for anyone else. Sometimes called "black hats", these professional coyotes can be some of the best for-hire assassins, thieves, detectives, and fences in the Suneka, and some have even gone international with this. 

Food, Oaths, and Etiquette

Across this occupation divide, there are certain regional truths that transcend boundaries. Food here tends to revolve around corn, beans, and squash; Wakamaki, or corn-bean soup, is a popular staple dish. Ranching diets tend to be meatier and cheesier, but still the beans are inescapable. 
No matter where you are, thank-yous are important in Zitepec. To not thank someone for a service given is to deny someone their Sunekan status; to thank someone is to acknowledge the bonds of mutual interconnectivity that mark the great harmony. For a rich person to deny a poor person thanks due to class is a common trope in Zitepecan media that marks someone as "undeserving, bad rich prick". Only non-Sunekans or Coyotes may be denied their thanks. For particularly important thank-you's, a group "circle of thanks" is a common ritual. Also during important events, confetti made of diced flowers (or this new fangled paper confetti) is a sign of blessing and prosperity - if the confetti comes out, expect a thank-you circle. 
Oaths are important in Zitepec. The idea of the paladin is immensely important here, and swearing a paladin-like oath to accomplish something of immense importance is considered a sacred act. To violate such an oath is legally punishable and worthy of social expulsion, and these oaths are usually reserved for moments of crisis or great need. A person on a paladin-like quest that is supported by their community and priest is to be respected and supported on their journey. Someone who fakes an oath, betrays on oath, or makes a vile oath is considered a true threat to global harmony and an enemy worthy of death. Just as the paladin is revered, the anti-paladin is hated. Also, snakes are hated in common culture as demonic vessels (so a visitor might want to avoid snake imagery), though this is less true in the cities or among the elites (as snakes are as much a part of the world as any animal).

History

Early History: The Land of Lions (Pre-605)

For much of the Suneka's earliest history, Zitepec was just beyond the realm of the Sunekans. Its name means the "Far land across the mountain ranges" with an emphasis on distance, and it was not receptive to the Suneka's message of sedentary life. This isn't to say nothing changed; pastoral living with pockets of agriculture cropped up across the Divine Era, but no cities emerged and the region was rather hostile to Sunekan ideas and travelers. As the Sunekan kingdoms developed more luxury goods to sell in larger volumes, Zitepec's tribes slowly opened themselves up to trade with the sedentary cities to the North and East. By 200 ME, trade and foreign pressure had led to a handful of larger tribes dominating the region, and small traces of Sunekan culture had entered into Zitepec's ways of life.
From 200 ME to 500 ME, a new demand arose among Sunekan elites that Zitepec was uniquely equipped to profit from: a demand for big cat hunts. Slaying a big cat (lion, mountain lion, jaguar, panther, etc), traditionally one menacing a community, was considered the marker of a uniquely elite warrior - a Holkara. While the Holkara were no longer universally expected to kill lions, the pelts they wore needed to be honorably taken from a wild big cat; and the militaries of the Sunekan states had expanded to a point where they needed more pelts. While poorer elites simply ignored tradition and found other ways, wealthier states began sending their best trainees to Zitepec, where big cats were more plentiful than anywhere else on the continent. Others simply bought their pelts, skyrocketing the price of them. To the rising Zitepecan tribal elites, this was a win-win: their massive herds (which they needed to constantly expand to legitimize their authority) were having cat problems, they got money from these foreign warriors, and these expeditions strengthened trade connections. Rowdy youth who disliked the new order could also be sent out as mercenaries to accompany these Hokzin when they returned home. This all wildly accelerated unsustainable new industries. The lions were driven from the Zitepecan heartlands, and became more dangerous to civilians while being harder to find; overgrazing brought reduced yields to the herds; foreign demands for other pelts led to over-trapping of other animals; industries became increasingly controlled by foreign merchants and feuding tribal aristocracies, while the common tribesfolk saw little of the profit. Property disputes became common. The marginal tribes on the edges of the big ten tribal kingdoms were becoming more hostile, and better at warfare with every decade.
As the prosperity of the 200s decayed into the mid 300s and 400s, the big tribes went to war with one another to consolidate the remaining resources for themselves. The refugees of these early land wars fled West, to the Karatlal islands, where they founded their own cities across the 300s. While the tribal kingdoms struggled, the Karatlal cities thrived - and ended up conquering the more sedentary coastal lands in the mid 400s. By 500, most of the big wars had settled and there was a growing understanding of how to work more decentralized, less ecologically-distressing herding operations. The population boomed as peace set in and kingdoms became less dependent on trade for their domestic power. And then, in 589, the Ghost Empire of the United Suneka invaded, conquering almost all of Zitepec in a short time span. There was a rapid Sunekanization, as the Empire (ruled by ageless spirits with great ambition), sought to refashion Zitepec's culture into a standard Sunekan one. And then, in 605, the leader of this empire was exorcized, the spirits panicked, and the empire fell into its component parts. Zitepec was not controlled long enough to remain under the boot of a Sunekan elector state (the imperial successors), but rather slipped from the Sunekan empire to the margins again. But the decade and a half of Sunekanization transformed Zitepec nonetheless - the Land of Lions was part of the continent now, part of the Suneka, even if imperfectly.

Entering the Suneka (605 to 900)

The Ghost Empire's collapse left behind five kingdoms in Zitepec, which were centered around the coast and the major arable basins of Zitepec where agriculture and herding were most profitable. These five kingdoms shared the title of Satrap of Zitepec, and they cooperated to send representatives to the Spiritual Assembly that the Empire left behind. Aside from the five Satraps, there were fifteen tribal kingdoms that either rebelled or were never conquered by the Empire, and which rejected Sunekan practice and identity as a foreign imposition. Initially, the Satraps and the rebel kingdoms operated on old pre-Empire peacetime rules, despite their differences. However, by 680, the Satraps had become stable and Sunekan enough that they had redrawn "civilization" around themselves and excluded the rebel kingdoms; they no longer saw them as equals worthy of negotiation. From 680 to 750, the Satraps and the rebel kingdoms fought. From 730 to 750, the three largest kingdoms converted to the Suneka and switched sides, dooming the rebel alliance. By 810, the tribes understood that they either had to integrate into the system somehow, or flee the arable lands for more inhospitable hills and mountains.
Without 'barbarians' to slay, the Sunekan Satraps turned on each other. There could only be one, if they were going to be taken seriously as an Assembly elector; civilization was centralization. By 860, one Satrapy had risen over the others, and its raw inertia would carry it into conquering the others before the century's end. But this was not a stable rise to power. As this state's hegemony became certain, it faced sudden internal threats and dissent. A group of lion cultists tied with the Zitepecan Holkara began experimenting with their own brand of Sunekan radicalism, and this became popular within the military. The Cult of Old Hokzin was executed for treason, but it lived on in the military - and one paladin of Emesh named Amkonek mobilized discontent among the warriors to seize the throne in 871. Amkonek founded the First Republic, which discarded the title of satrap and the ambition of becoming a Sunekan elector to instead model itself as the true home of Hokzin. Not quite heretical, Amkonek's Suneka adjusted Zitepecan culture into the Suneka while also radically restructuring the government to look more Sunekan.

The Failure of the First Republic (900 to 1320)

The First Republic existed from 900 to 1332, though it only really experimented and thrived from 871 to 950. It was not long after the republic stabilized and began considering further religious reforms that the world began to fall apart. Plague, war, and famine struck the continent in wave after wave. First it was Yellow Death, then Mageplague, then Mageplague derivatives. The cities, which had been laboratories of Sunekan republicanism, became mausoleums; the survivors fled into the countryside. The Sunekan world shuddered as empires broke themselves against each other, and the spirit of international cooperation faded. Zitepec decentralized and turned inwards, becoming a feudal state where aristocrats alone voted for the Tlakra from a contained clique of royals, and where everyday life was mostly defined by agrarian feudalism that looked quite similar to those in other continents. The Guardians of Hokzin, the holy warriors, were pushed out of common life and forced to preside over a handful ranchers and merchants (which increased over time).
The feudal era is now seen as a dark age of Zitepec, but at the time it was seen as a bastion of stability. Wars with other Sunekan states were almost nonexistent. Zitepec expanded steadily Northward, into the forests and jungles of Agako and Sicalco, and Eastward into the hills and deserts. Zitepec's irrigation networks and roads thrived, and agriculture became the order of the day. And the less-intrusive nature of this crypto-feudalism was more generous to those who wanted to keep their children or practice deviant traditions. However, predatory practices also thrived, especially around perceived criminality or 'uncivilized' behavior. The tools of Sunekan surveillance were turned on conquered peoples and certain marginal communities based on the arbitrary whims and labor needs of feudal cliques. And rather than re-integrate the children of these people, statuses were made de-facto inheritable for many. Some priests critiqued these practices, but an attempted reform movement by these idealists was crushed in the 1200s and Zitepec remained just Sunekan enough to not be seen as heretical.

The Model Revolution of 1330

This system collapsed dramatically in 1330. It began with a Kobold of the criminalized class, Kokota, who was effectively enslaved after resisting their master's exploitation. They became a paladin of Theia, who organized the downtrodden disposables into a revolt. When a mounted warparty came to massacre the uprising, they were able to hide in a Guardian of Hokzin ranch, which happily took many of the escapees on as their own serfs. Kokota wasn't ready to stop fighting, though, and mobilized as many as they could to wage war against the state. From the safety of the ranch, Kokota organized a revolutionary network. From 1320 to 1326, Kokota's forces were underdogs labelled as bandits, cattle thieves, and coyotes, but they were able to make enough allies among the peasantry that a true rebellion broke out in the agrarian heartlands in 1326. A few idealistic priests, mystics, merchants, and unhappy nobles joined once the Theian paladins won an actual battle in 1327. In 1329, the rebels had enough money and connections to bring in regiments of mercenaries from Southern Tuzek - many of them idealistic, well-educated, urban Sunekans whose officers imagined this as a kind of holy war against corruption.
In 1330, the motley alliance took the capital and overthrew the royal clique. From there, the war became messy: the rebel alliance splintered between the hyper-Sunekan rebels (and their moderate allies) and the Theian revolutionaries who wanted to create their own egalitarian vision of the Suneka. When Kokota betrayed Theia to become a paladin of Orchid of Blue, the Theians attempted their own revolutionary coup - which failed to take the capital, but managed to seize substantial territory. These became known as the "Locust Knights" (a name given by Sunekan propaganda but eventually accepted by the Theians), and were branded as a new sect of Asuna heretics. They were driven from the Zitepecan heartlands, but the Locust Knights were able to seize the conquered lands of the North. Peace between the Locusts and the revolutionaries was negotiated in 1332. The Theians held on to the Northern jungles and forests, but were driven entirely from the heartlands.
The details of this are important, because this revolution served as a model for future revolutions: its soaring idealism, rejection of hereditary monarchy, and anti-feudalistic ambitions would serve as direct inspiration for the intellectuals of the 1500s, whose ideas would serve as the blueprint for the religious revolutions of 1600 through 1610. The central role of Tuzekan mercenaries is part of this international impact: mobile mercenaries carried romanticized tales of the revolution around the continent, and planted seeds that would take many generations to germinate.

The Imperfect Republics (1332 to 1603)

The second republic was short-lived but radical, lasting from 1332 to 1440. The revolutionaries sought to restructure society around utopian ideals, including massive land redistribution and forced resettlement of urban centers. Experimental voting systems were made, which flirted with a radical populism (but failed due to a lack of infrastructure and excessive desires to centralize). There was a "ranching revolution", where many miles of new land were 'cleared' for cattle ranching, which was to be operated by egalitarian work communes. These communes did subtly privilege the better-connected and better-educated, though, and came at the cost of the last of the old tribes and peripheral communities. To create land and "proper" laborers, a massive effort to invade the lives of common people began, which was horrifically brutal to those inconvenient to state ambitions. For some this was a century of equality and rising conditions; for others, this was a century of terror and misery. While some communities were worked into oblivion, the total population and profitability of Zitepec soared.
Of course, the Holy Orders that served as the center of this process were greatly empowered. The remnants of the old nobility who wished to hang onto power merged their cliques with these Orders, notably the Hokzin warriors. The Orders were supposedly not hereditary and deeply ascetic, but things were changing; the highly autonomous Chapter House of Zitepec had become wildly corrupt from centuries of playing landlord and merchant. The economic boom that came with the ranching revolution could not be sustained forever, and turned into a bust in 1430. As the government pivoted to try and reign in some of the powerful new elites, the Guardians of Hokzin moved as a lobbying group to resist any attempt to control them. When the Order as a continental organization fell into chaos in 1440, the Chapter House quickly launched a coup of the government, which they called the "New Revolution". Some idealists within the Chapter truly wanted to create a world of meritocratic warrior-priests, others just wanted to prolong the status quo; the regime never had enough coherency and stability to really enact policies. The government was immediately dragged into a continental war of holy orders and empires. Other Guardians of Hokzin, backed by Atupanan and Otekan warriors, captured Zitepec's Tlakra in 1455. The country was occupied, and a new government, the Third Republic, was made.
The Third Republic was the opposite of the second in many ways. It was a conservative regime ruled by a small oligarchy of prominent families, all with ties to foreign empires. Some have called it an "occupation" by outside states, but that would erase the weird nuance that let the Republic drag on for so long - it lasted from 1461 to 1603. The Third Republic wasn't feudal, but it also wasn't idealistic or democratic; it was a military bureaucracy which cared for cities, production, and stability more than anything else. It focused on crushing the Theians at home and to the North - the Third Republic defined its identity as the Locust-Killers. They were good at it too, and Zitepecan military heretic-hunters were sought after across the continent for their success. But, as the Locusts lost power in the North and were driven from Zitepec, the commonfolk tired of witch-hunts and militarism. And as the education system modeled after Tuzek's blossomed, many of the new middling classes craved social mobility and reform. And so, when revolution began to sweep the continent from 1600 to 1610, the revolutionary idealists found great enthusiasm across Zitepec. In 1603, a swift coup against the oligarchy brought down the government. The ensuing revolution was brief. The Fourth Republic, which the current government claims to be a continuation of (despite a brief interruption here and there) was born.

 Radical Transformations (1603 to 1870)

The 1603 revolution propelled one of Zitepec's most skilled and ambitious political priests to the top of the republic: Nahatin Ginotza, the revered lion of Zitepec. Nahatin was an extremely charismatic statesperson, who rapidly accumulated power in the chaos of the revolution. They ruthlessly jailed their opposition while playing all sides, moving between reactionary and revolutionary factions with ease. In 1610, after years of intrigue and feuds, Nahatin was able to use their position as the new Tlakra to seize total control in Zitepec. This 'peaceful coup' almost killed the republic before it began; after Nahatin's death in 1640, the resulting power vacuum threatened civil war until the early 1700s. Nahatin's reign may have destabilized the country, but their cunning politics did manage to bring Zitepec a major boon: they were able to relocate the Sacred Assembly, the highest body of Sunekan international authority, to Zitepec. The Sacred Assembly of 1603 was a rather miserable institution, having lost most of its legitimacy when the assembly was burned and dissolved in 1450; what continued to exist and drift around the Suneka's empires was a shadow of its former self. But Nahatin used their connections to make the Assembly powerful once again. This was not done by force, but by sly diplomacy and connections; Nahatin attracted the holy orders, leading merchant families, and major interstate landowners to the Assembly to give it a new soft power. And even after Nahatin's death, the Assembly continued to have force across the continent, which actually grew over time. 
The power vacuum left behind by Nahatin left resounding problems in the republic's political structures. A group of paladins of Orchid of Blue, led by the Zitepecan paladin Dulanira, played a critical role in saving the republic from collapse in 1713. Paladins, especially Orchidian ones, became part of the Zitepecan government and even had their own paladin academy built in 1740. Finally stable, Zitepec turned towards industrialization from 1740 to 1870; the new regime saw immense potential in the technologies of the other Sunekan powers, and eagerly embraced them. These changes could come at great cost; many villages were liquidated to make labor and land for factories and estate farms. But bit by bit the Fourth Republic transformed itself. It avoided external wars, turned its military apparatus towards policing, and earned a reputation as a peaceful republic of merchants. But, like all of the Suneka, the wars of the late 1800s would force Zitepec to change. 

Modern History (1870 to Present)

In 1870, a greatly empowered Empire of Calazen invaded the Sunekan heartlands. A grand alliance of Sunekan republics rallied to drive the foreign invaders out, and the Sacred Assembly suddenly became a very important institution coordinating the war effort. Zitepec rose with it, as a coordinator and military supplier. The half-finished industrialization was finished by this war; the existential threat of Calazen allowed for the last dregs of resistance to be crushed with ease, and the war saw many new factories built across the country. Zitepec was left drained and exhausted by the end of the war in 1900, but the state's power at home and abroad expanded immensely. 
From 1900 to 1980, Zitepec proudly flaunted its new power to secure favorable trade deals and political influence in other republics. This peaked in 1920, when Zitepec intervened in a brewing civil war in the Republic of Oteka to the South and seized control of its government. Oteka was made into a vassal state in all but name until 1980, and Zitepec had the diplomatic influence abroad to avoid any repercussions from other major states. The 1920 intervention was blatant enough to highlight the extreme power Zitepec had developed over the Sacred Assembly though, and this began to generate more and more pushback over the decades. By the mid 1960s, Zitepec was having to resort to bribes to maintain direct control over the Assembly; by the 1980s, Zitepec's power had faded (but was not entirely gone). A mixture of embarrassing scandals in the Assembly and an economic recession at home saw Zitepec withdraw over the 1980s from foreign politics. The Republic moved away from foreign interventions and pseudo-empire in the 1990s and 2000s, but another economic downturn in the 2010s has had many Zitepecans nostalgic for the days when they were "leaders of the Republics" and hungry for some of the good old subterfuge.

Demography and Population

Over 6 million humanoids live in Zitepec. The population is roughly 30% Dryads, 30% Humans, 20% Hybrids,  10% Kobolds, 5% Prisms, and 5% Other.

Territories

Zitepec extends 375 miles East-West and 200 miles North-South. Most of Zitepec's climate is semi-arid plains; many of the large central and coastal valleys are quite arable with a little irrigation, but the inland areas are better suited for ranching much of the year. Even further inland, hills and mountains make travel a bit more difficult, and the semi-arid landscape becomes something closer to desert in parts. 
Along the coast, numerous forested islands form gleaming chains. The largest and most populous group of islands are the Karatlal isles, which act as the commercial shipping hub of Zitepec.

Military

Zitepec's military is a bureaucratic structure modeled loosely on Tuzek's army, that is famous for its cavalry. Former cowboys and ranchhands are often drawn into the army as light cavalry, and trained in the lance, the pistol, the javelin, and the sabre. Massive swarms of capable light cavalry support the heavy cavalry core, which tends to be paladins or Guardians of Hokzin. Many of the Zitepecan light dragoons are also skilled as military police both in Zitepec and abroad. 
The infantry and artillery of Zitepec leave much to be desired, and have actively declined since the 1980s. The infantry core of the Zitepecan army is the Temple Guard, which is a different bureaucracy tied to the Priestly bureaucracy (formed to battle Calazen) - but which has been aggressively defunded since the late 1980s. Light infantry still exists in the secular military, but it is considered low-status and tends to be low in morale and equipment.

Religion

Zitepec is Sunekan, through and through. Merchants and visitors can be of other faiths, but permanent residency is tied to Sunekan religion. Other religions and heresies tied to Lunar Cult tend to be reviled as particularly dangerous, while mild heresies without a magical patron are considered less dangerous and better to punish with a mild re-education and a slap on the wrist. Deviancy tied to criminality, "demons", ghosts, or immortal influences is categorized as True Heresy, as opposed to "crimes of ignorance" that can be gently corrected.
The priests of Zitepec are unusually organized, hierarchical, insular, and politically powerful. The standard ambiguity of the Suneka is left behind here, both increasing its formal direct power and weakening its indirect power in communities. Priests have their own elections, their own government-in-the-government, and their own political parties. There is a growing divide between the upper priesthood, who are represented and active in politics, and the common priesthood, who are more international and dissatisfied with the current arrangement. The lines between these two categories isn't always clear, and might also be interpreted as a divide between those priests who care more about the interest of the Sacred Assembly, and those who are primarily interested in local affairs. 
Verified Paladins of the Suneka, often tied to Orchid of Blue, Jade Atharzen, Wimbo Aizitu, and Emesh, are considered particularly sacred and beloved - symbols of embodied Harmony, heroes of the spirits. These paladins of the Republic are trained at several prestigious academies, where they learn law, combat, theology, and medicine. These academies offer certificates, so paladins can demonstrate a special skill in a certain area; these certifications can range from medicine to law to massed combat to heresy-fighting. Paladins of deviance are considered particularly evil, and are often considered "Blackguards". Blackguards are perpetual scapegoats behind natural disasters, heresies, or temptation. The idea of a Reversed Suneka has become popular, with its own dark Paladin Academies that certify their Blackguards in things like "plaguemaking" and "heretical temptations", despite zero proof that this exists. Blackguards and their accomplices are legally persecuted with great prejudice, and a village under investigation can usually be spared punishment if they turn over a 'blackguard' to focus the blame on. While courts are not entirely arbitrary in deciding who is a blackguard, the presence of undue Divine Contact incense in someone's house can be used to prosecute (a big issue for farmers working with incense).
As for what people actually believe, they tend to revere Yezok the Law-Giver, Tsirik the Stallion of the Winds, and Hokzin the Guardian Lion. A popular practice here that is debated as to its deviance is the "feeding" of idols: burning small sacrifices or incense beneath a statue of the spirit, so that it may breath in and devour the essence.

Foreign Relations

Zitepec's diplomatic corps has a presence across the continent. The republic funds embassies in most every major Sunekan republic or region, who file regular reports back to the homeland for analysis and archiving. But this doesn't mean that Zitepec is without its enemies.
Zitepec's biggest rival is the Republic of Tuzek, which is competing with Zitepec for control over the regions of Mezcoco and Noxitagra in between them. Their second biggest rival is their current biggest ally, the Republic of Atupan, who also has a lot of overlapping territorial claims with Zitepec's sphere of influence. 
Zitepec has substantial informal power in the Republic of Oteka, which was Zitepec's client state back in the 1980s. Zitepec's power there has declined, but may rise once more (or dissapear entirely) now that Oteka is dealing with another possible civil war.
The Republic of Agako to the North is another Zitepecan client state. A smattering of Zitepecan influence also can be found across the Western Suneka (though rarely to the level of full client states).

Agriculture & Industry

Zitepec is an agrarian state, with significant manufacturing along the coast. Its two biggest industries are cattle ranching (and related industries, such as leatherworking) and the farming of Divine Contact incense. Factories along the coast tan vast amounts of leather and grind immense amounts of incense for export. It is said that Zitepec produces enough Divine Contact incense to support not only all of the Suneka, but Stildane and beyond. 
Of course, not everything is tied to those two industries. People grow maize, wheat, squash, beans, cotton, and tomatoes. They mine salt, weave textiles, ranch sheep and goats. The master tailors of Zitepec are famed for their techniques and patterns. Factories produce cheaper textiles, kiln pots, and cut wood.

Trade & Transport

Merchant's Associations coordinated through the Department of Abundance handle most of the distribution of surplus goods. Like in much of the Suneka, monetary exchange and free market commerce is reserved for non-essential goods and services, and usually divided between two markets: the 'little economy' of small peddlers and farmers between each other, and the 'big economy' of wealthy elites. The "big economy" here is particularly strong, with powerful commercial cliques wielding incredible political power.

Education

A robust education system is firmly entrenched here, beginning from early childhood and potentially continuing through adulthood. Primary schooling through one's childhood and teenage years is mandatory, and these schools are often the center of the local community. Secondary schools along the coast offer advanced education, though these can be difficult to access for some people in the interior. The difficulty of ranchers accessing education as compared to island farmers has somewhat gendered the education system as feminine, though this sweeping cultural notion misses that there are many landworkers assigned female that face similar barriers (and that middling merchants, given male-aligned genders, do not face these barriers). This gendering of educational access is essentially a cultural explanation for class and regional infrastructure problems the republic would rather not solve.

Infrastructure

Zitepec's coastal infrastructure is great, and its main roads connecting the republic to Atupan and Tuzek are well-made and maintained. However, Zitepec does have a problem with infrastructure geared exclusively to resource extraction: roads that don't serve some ranching operation, factory, city, or mansion are neglected, and irrigation for low-tax regions receive little government support. Given this, the quality of the roads, canals, sewers, and the like swing dramatically from "excellent" to "terrible" as one crosses the country.

"We Are Lions, First of Republics"

Founding Date

1603

Type

Geopolitical, Republic

Alternative Names

Zetepec; The Fourth Republic of Zitepec

Demonym

Zitepecan

Government System

Democracy, Representative

Power Structure

Unitary state

Currency

Sunekan Currency: Golden Lions, Silver Foxes, Copper Stars

Major Exports

Incense, Leather, meat, tomatoes, copper, agave, salt, furs

Major Imports

Sugar, spices, textiles, gunpowder, steel

Official State Religion

Suneka

Location

Suneka (place)

Official Languages

• High Sunekan