The Karaz Taruhm Shogunate

Against All Odds

Mt. Yoshihito - this location is the only major mountain on the Taruhm Peninsula. To control it is to control the Shogunate. The lesser daimyos hold hill forts that guard their village fiefs, but only the Shogun is entitled to the mineral wealth, defensible position, and raw prestige that comes with controlling the only true Dwarf Hold in the entire continent. The Shogunate was built on some of the worse land on the continent, only good for grazing and millet and trees, and their lifestyle came to depend on the sheep and goats they herd, and the roc hunt. And yet, their samurai clans are some of the finest warriors in the region, better than almost all of Beacepheron especially after the plucking of the flower of Stormaki chivalry, and second only to the Canate Blood Knights. And their shinobi are known to be some of the finest spies, assassins, and saboteurs available. On the field of battle and off, the Shogunate is not to be scoffed at.
The Sota Clan, the clan of the first Shogun, may no longer rule the Shogunate, but their legacy lives on. The martial culture of the Taruhm Dwarves, both their samurai and their crossbow-wielding villager ashigaru, stand strong in the face of both Moonlight posturing and Starflame aggression, and they cling to their dreams of a Beacepheron Empire, finally ending their dependence on foreign grain and seizing Callang and their perfect fields of flowing golden wheat. Time will tell if the Mar Taruhm Colony will stagnate, fall, or thrive - and the Shogunate's fate will likely follow.

Geography

The land of Karaz Taruhm is composed primarily of steppe, lush for grass and trees around the waterways, but largely unsuitable for vegetable agriculture. There are various hills upon which the daimyo build their holds, but there is only one real mountain to be spoken of - Mt. Yoshihito, the seat of the Shogun and the site of the most resplendent castle in the land. Rocs, while their population has diminished significantly, are still a common presence in the mountains, inasmuch as megafauna can be called common. The most common species on the steppe are the sheep herded by the rural, nomadic villages spread out over the landscape, and their main predator are the dire tigers that can occasionally be found. Raiju and other yokai tend to be found here and there, and the sugarcane fields that constitute one of the few cash crops cultivated in the Shogunate are sometimes haunted by haunting fae Thin Men.

Government and Geopolitics

The Shogunate is a feudal military government, ruled by the hereditary title of the Shogun. The title of the Shogun belongs to whoever possesses Mt. Yoshihito and its castle, which requires fighting through the most defensive and well-fortified area in the entire nation. While seizing the Shogun's castle makes one the new Shogun, doing so through guile or cunning without great military force is a recipe for a counter-attack, either by the Shogun you just dispossessed or by someone who figures you easy prey without your tricks. Every daimyo answers directly to the Shogun, but his power is not absolute by any means - most daimyo are basically sovereigns in their own land, only obligated to pay taxes to their liege and follow him to foreign wars. There are laws of the land, of course, that come from Mt. Yoshihito, and they can be passed and decreed without any oversight from the daimyos, but the Shogun would be ill-advised not to evaluate the sentiments of his daimyo beforehand. The Mar Taruhm colony is much of the same, run by a dwarven daimyo that answers directly to the Shogun, albeit with even more autonomy. Most conflicts that are not resolved with words between daimyo are decided by a duel between the daimyo, or their champions - the winner is in the right according to the law.
The title of Shogun and daimyo alike can only be passed to a warrior, someone who has been on a battlefield or achieved notable success in a formal combat tournament. The Shogun and daimyo both designate their heirs, and generally prefer elder sons, but will take a daughter, or younger child, if they prove to be a warrior prodigy. Mages, while not reviled or hated in particular, are not seen as valid heirs, as they are seen as dependant on their powers and not their own physical ability, knowledge, or prowess. Some exceptions have been made for Magi, Clerics, and others who have supplemented their prowess with magic, but by and large, this rule is rarely ignored. Administration within these feudal governments is handled by the Samurai, who are seen as both skilled and powerful warriors and educated aristocratic civil servants.
Almost all taxation is taken through goods, particularly millet, wool, and roc meat, mutton, sheep milk and cheese carried in refrigeration carts that every daimyo has for tax collection, in addition to a refrigerator in their own holds to preserve these products. These are based on a form of affordable - for a noble - cooling technology based on magic. Nobles pay their taxes mostly in metals mined from under their hill forts. Most of the country's wealth is tied up in the herding economy and the textile industry. Most roads outside of the few cities in the country are generally little more than packed earth, often created organically by the travel of the villages. The exception to this is Mar Taruhm, which has an economy almost entirely based on widescale grain and vegetable agriculture.
There is no state religion in the Shogunate, but almost everyone offers prayer to the Kami, creations of the God Jubeyer's fatherly male aspect to love and care for the nature he's created. They function akin to very minor Gods, receiving prayers relevant to their location and areas of interest. To invoke a Kami's name is seen as arrogant and disrespectful - one invokes the Kami, and allows one Kami to come to them. It is highly taboo to cut down a tree warded by a Kodama, a statuette that is guarded by a Shikigami will never be broken, and travellers will always bring the Dosojin of a road they intend to travel a modest offering. Most Shoguns and daimyo will treat the Kami with the reverence they are due as if they were the focus of a state religion, or go above their heads to make offerings to Jubeyer himself. Those that don't tend to lack the trust of their constituency.
The Shogunate have a historic alliance with the Kingdom of Stormakt, as longtime friends and allies. There have even been symbolic marriages between the House of Stormakt and both the previous Sota Dynasty and the reigning Obara Dynasty to cement this alliance. This marks both a general cultural alliance of the feudal monarchies in a world where this ideology and political system has started to fade into obscurity, as well as a more recent mutual desire to contain Canate - this has put the Shogunate into an informal, indirect cooperative stance with Tel Iskarra, who maintains an informal alliance against Canate with Stormakt.
Elves and dwarves have always been inclined to show a bit of animosity towards one-another - while the Shogunate no longer actively postures and seeks war with the Moonlight Kingdom, there remains a major and ongoing rivalry between the two states. Their army sizes, level of professionalism, economies, and general international prestige and respect clash and are compared often to one another. The consensus has consistently been that the armies of the Shogunate are superior to those of the Moonlight Kingdom, but the Moonlight Kingdom's economy and general international respect are higher.
This stance of peaceful animosity cannot be said to be true of their relations with the Starflame Kingdom - nowhere has their efforts at slave-taking been more strong, up until recently. The Shogunate has not been quite as willing to abide by their policy of plausible deniability and has staged multiple attacks and counter-raids, using the very same trick - channelling their forces through a daimyo on the border, who would conduct an "independent" raid to save captured slaves. When called out for this, the Shogun would simply reprimand them and give them a slap on the wrist, under the understanding that this is just keeping up appearances. There have also been outright wars well after the wars with Moonlight stopped. Most end in one size or the other giving reparations or Starflame returning slaves, with barely any territory, if any, changing hands.
Furthermore, the informal alliance of the Halfling Communes and the Canate Princedom have earned their ire as well, and there is an ongoing cold war between their Mar Taruhm colony and the Communes, with the clear support of the Shogunate and the Princes on their respective sides. While for now, the war does not threaten to get hot, there is no telling what either side will deem necessary to their aims.

Economy

While agrarian at heart, the Taruhm economy is quite different from most nations - in particular, it is quite dependant not on cultivating plants, but on raising sheep. They are fed via the endless fields of grass available to every shepherd and village and valued for their wool, milk, and meat. Most villages have a large herd of sheep and a handful of shepherds to keep them in check and move them with the village. Most villages stay in-place long enough to grow a crop of millet, whether they are doing so or not - towards the end, the shepherds may have to take their herds quite far to keep feeding them well, if they're big enough. Various other vegetables are also cultivated in smaller, private patches, and foraging for edible roots, plants, fruits and berries is also common, as is hunting.
As a side-effect of their difficulties cultivating dense crops, the Shogunate's few cities are built in the proximity to rivers, lakes, and canals dug to facilitate widespread agriculture. Most cities feed themselves, but as a result are quite small. They tend to be the home to weapon smiths, bowyers, crossbow makers, gunsmiths, and their surrounding infrastructure producing necessary goods. Dojos with accomodations are also a common fixture to profit off of travelling samurai wanting to train, spar, duel, and rest. Most cities are built on the coast and have a large fishing industry, and import and export goods. They are also the bases from which the few plantation magnates operate their sugarcane industries. Stone quarries are also found for castle-construction - many cities were born as sites to quarry stone for a castle.
Iron is readily available in the hills of the Shogunate - and it is used gleefully to make steel for many, many swords, arrows, spears, crossbows and bolts and other such weapons. Their iron is of average quality, but they have adapted their techniques to make for very good steel, though not quite to the very high Stormaki standard. There are significant quantities of silver, mithral, copper, tin, coal, and various other metals. The richest deposits are found in Mt. Yoshihito, but the entire country has rich deposits in its hills. Stone is, of course, also a big part of their economy, both for construction and in some cases export.
Witchery and shamanism are common in the villages, and their practices create any number of trinkets and talismans for the benefit of their peers. Most daimyo keep at least one caster in their court, and they produce bespoke magical items. Sugarcane and mining magnates may also purchase foreign magical items, or commission a daimyo's mage for a magical item, at a small mark-up. Many clerics also produce Vessels, affordable pieces of clay, metal, or wood art lightly enchanted to be an offering to a Kami.
The Shogunate primarily exports wool, metal, stone, coal, firearms and sugarcane to much of the world, with sugarcane in particular becoming something of a cultural addiction in certain places. They import food, magical items, manufactured goods, and cannons from abroad.

Military

The primary military force of the Shogunate are the samurai - most samurai are trained in swordsmanship, spearmanship, and archery, though a new generation, and many of the old, have taken quite strongly to the muskets they imported from the Stormaki and replicated in a new style more suitable to dwarves. Samurai are trained nearly from birth, as soon as they can stand up enough to hold a weapon. They typically wear a full suit of lamellar (material dependent on wealth and availability), a kabuto helmet, and carry a sword, a yari spear, and either a composite bow or a musket. Many of the richer samurai will also carry a pistol, both on the battlefield and in day-to-day life, either as a trump card against a superior fighter or as a personal defense weapon. Most samurai go into battle atop either their native species of large riding dogs, or atop the back of a sturdy, stout breed of horse that has been selectively bred from Stormaki horses. Some samurai prefer to master swordsmanship and fighting on foot, and tend to be selected as champions of their lord, known as Sword Saints. Some daimyo even practice the path of the Sword Saint, and face other daimyo's champions during interclan disputes. Even the poorest daimyo retains hundreds of Samurai, and the total number of samurai is approximately 240,000, though only a portion of these are ever raised for service. This is both to maintain the civil administration due to their role as administrators, and due to the upkeep of maintaining so many mounted men at once.
Filling out the numbers in samurai that can't be raised are the ashigaru, militia units drawn from the villages. Every 50 people must be able to maintain one ashigaru soldiers when called upon. Almost all ashigaru soldiers deploy as light cavalry or light infantry, using their own hunting crossbows for the task, as well as hatchets, battleaxes, and sometimes even swords. Villages that are able to send a significant number of troops may also send one of their witches, shamans, or clerics to support their soldiers. The ashigaru, at full capacity, can add 100,000 men to the Shogunate's army. Both of these combat roles, ashigaru and samurai, are unisex, so long as the person sent is a competent warrior. Most battlemages accompany their daimyo, as do most divine casters. Some hill castles also double as monasteries, and supply their daimyo with warrior-monks of high quality and skill.
The above is less true of the Mar Taruhm colony, but not by too much. Their war doctrine emphasizes the importance of the ashigaru, with samurai primarily serving as policing forces and defenders of their castles. The Ashigaru of Mar Taruhm form crack guerilla units to fight back against both halfling rebels on their side of the walls and raids orchestrated during wartime by the Communes in the north, normally aimed at freeing serfs. Shinobi, while present in both as spies and assassins, are used more frequently here as well as preludes to full-scale attack, typically be collecting information and eliminating leaders and officers.
The navy of the Shogunate is modest, but effective. It is primarily composed of heavy, angular boats loaded with imported Stormaki cannons, and some of their few native designs of cannon. They also maintain a selection of smaller ships, more akin to patrol craft, which primarily fight using crew weapons such as firearms, bows, alchemist's fire or grenades. Their transport ships are also a common part of their naval strategy, armored and capable of ramming, followed by boarding.

Demographics

Almost every non-dwarf in the Shogunate is there as a castaway. The few immigrants are either elf or drow in origin, with a small population of Stormaki humans present on behalf of matters of their crown and businesses. The rest are either escaped slaves of the drow - and most of them cross towards Moonlight - or visitors from the sea, exiles from the mysterious, isolationist undersea Twilight Republic of the aquatic elves. 97% of the population are dwarves, and 1% are halfling serfs of noble families of the Mar Taruhm colony, brought essentially as slaves. While outsiders may be seen as odd and perhaps even suspicious in certain villages, others have much more experience with foreigners, and may even have valued members of their community who are outsiders, sometimes even venerable village elders if they are elves or other long-lived races. In the castles of the daimyo, all that matters is one's ability to be a warrior, a samurai - and if they can't do that, if they can serve the interests of the daimyo some other way. A small but noticeable minority of samurai are of non-dwarven races.
Worship of Naau Naz - dwarven God of Artifice - Jubeyer - God of Nature - in male and female aspects, and Cezakiu - Hanxi's God of Order and Empire - is reasonably common. However, the main religion of the Shogunate, from the common man up to the Shogun himself, is the traditional Kami worship of their people. Kamis guard nature and some of the smaller aspects of civilization, and for their work they are given regular small offerings by the people who frequent their locale. These are normally small offerings of food or coin, or on special occasions ritual Vessels. Most Kamis don't mind an absence of active worship, but it is often better to be safe than sorry, especially since a perceived insult will be easier to overlook if one has thus far been courteous. One will also be seen more favorably when invoking a Kami for help - it is considered highly arrogant to evoke a Kami by name. One requesting their aid should simply evoke the Kami as a whole, and allow the most applicable one to step forward. There is no organized clergy of the Kami, but many villages and castles have a learned shaman, cleric, oracle, or druid to conduct rituals and make offerings on behalf of their respective patrons.
Literacy is considered knowledge for the samurai and their lords. There is no system of public education, only private tutoring from learned experts for the sons and daughters of wealthy merchants and nobles. Literacy is nearly unheard of in among the villages except for those responsible for religious services, though some members of a community may have some basic abilities in math beyond counting on one's fingers. Most more highly literate people are scooped up by daimyos and merchants in need of educated people, given cushy jobs.

Culture

Most families in the Shogunate keep multiple generations in one or a few nearby households, living in the same village. Marriages tend to be arranged between villages, as they pass near one-another in transit in their nomadic lifestyle. The younger spouse joins the village of the older spouse, traditionally, though if one village is losing a few of their children for none or too few in return, there will often be some negotiation to equalize the exchange of children. Similarly, most of the extended family of a daimyo or the Shogun will reside in their castle or a nearby palace or manor, if the individual in question is rich enough to afford such a thing. Marriages are arranged between daimyo clans, and the Shogun will often secure the cooperation of his subordinate clans by marrying his children into them, or marrying their children into his clan. Merchants tend to marry into other merchant families in a similar way, often to secure lucrative trade cooperation opportunities.
Their is a very slight patriarchal cultural preference, rooted almost entirely in the fact that, during reproduction, the woman is hampered in their ability to perform physical labor or fight. When not pregnant, women are essentially seen as equal to men, partially due to the fact that the dimorphism in physical capabilities is very small in dwarves. It is still a point of pride, however, that the wealthy and powerful don't have their women work, though many women still choose to practice martial arts and may even become samurai in among the noble families. Generally speaking, most dwarven peasants in the Shogunate are bearded, across gender lines, and almost all noble men are bearded. Only about a quarter of noble women have beards. A more significant number of merchant men go without beards, but this is seen as rather decadent - culturally, a man not having a beard shows that one does not have to partake in hard work, as dwarven beards are thick and dense to catch detritus and residue from mining. A woman not having a beard shows that her husband or father can provide very well.
Technologically, the Shogunate is slightly below par. They have a thriving gun industry, but in many places lag behind slightly. Their weapons are up to par, but they have not effectively kept up in terms of economic development and industrialization in particular, with most manufacturing being the realm of craftsmen. There have been some early enterprising merchants attempting to import models of industrial production, but have been hampered by import costs and a lack of local supporting infrastructure. Industrial machinery and agricultural technology are their weakest points, but they have refined animal husbandry and selective breeding to a science in many villages, sometimes better than most technological nations
Martial skill, determination, vigor, and honesty are the most important aspects of the Taruhm culture. The Taruhm people live and die on the skill with their blade, or with the aim of the crossbow - whether the latter means slaying a predator preying on their flock, striking down needed game, or helping to hunt a roc. In a people with so little to work with, they must work as hard as they can, and face many failures. This has allowed them to carve their prosperous little niche out of land that other civilizations would scoff at. And in small, close-knit villages, lying is seen as akin to betrayal of one's family - the village is akin to an extended family, in this culture.
Taruhm's people tend to wear tight, form-fitting clothes that moves with the body, to prevent chafing. Over this, they also tend to wear furs or roc down, either in small, decorative amounts during their hot summers, or as a full cold weather wear during their frigid winters. This extends to the daimyo and Shogun, but they also tend to wear a fair amount of armor day-to-day alongside a sword and possibly a pistol, whether decorative or functional, as a show of wealth, martial pride, and status. Hoods are common wear, both against the beating sun and to guard against the flurries of snow in winter. This is true of villager women, but high-class woman who do not practice martial arts tend to wear ornate, colorful and beautiful dresses and kimonos. Sword Saints, and the daimyo that wear that title, tend to prefer a simple gi, especially when they are dueling, while carrying their iconic blade.
Villages tend to practice low, droning throat singing, alongside drums and various simple string instruments, which ones being dependent on a village. These songs are often used in village rituals and festivals, and are often sung in celebration when it is perceived that a Kami performed a service for the village, as a way of giving thanks to them. The instruments are present to emphasize the voice. Most high-class people tend to prefer a dainty, delicate style of music that will melt into the background of discussions, meals, and diplomacy, and having a small band of skilled musicians for this purpose is considered a sign of status - to the extent that a daimyo's castle is incomplete without them. Most daimyo have their own tastes, but common fixtures are soft string instrumentation, and a means of creating the sound of water flowing to go alongside this music. Target shooting with crossbows is a common pastime for villagers, and with bows for nobles, and most other pastimes depend on the court or village. The main alcohol beverage drank is sheep's milk kefir, though millet beer may be made after a good harvest.

Information

Type: Nation, Shogunate, Feudal, Decentralized
Continent: Beacepheron
Population: 8,000,000
Standing: Local Power, Stagnant
Allies: The Kingdom of Stormakt
Rivals: The Moonlight Kingdom
Enemies: The Starflame Kingdom, the Canate Princedom, the Halfling Communes