Holy Republic of Vaalus
Structure
Though technically a republic, Vaalus is better described as a theocracy. All citizens are entitled to vote and be represented in the Senate; however citizenship is not conferred by birthright or residence, but is something which must be earned.
There are a number of routes to citizenship, mediated by the Prefectures, and a would-be citizen must secure the backing of a Prefecture in order to be granted citizenship. Some Prefectures, such as the Prefecture of the Watchful Blade, grant this based on military service; others, such as the Prefecture of the Cartographer's Mantle, will give their backing to those who perform other kinds of service; whilst others still, such as the Prefecture of the Black Rose, have rather more esoteric requirements.
The Prefectoral Senate consists of a single chamber, with regional senators elected for a four year term by those who dwell within a particular jurisdiction; supplemented by "Aterritorial Senators" representing the Prefectures not tied to a particular territory, who are appointed by the ruling council of each Prefecture and can be dismissed at leisure. As in practice territorial senators must also receive the backing of one of the Prefectures in order to have a chance at electoral success, the Senate is to all intents and purposes controlled by the Prefectures.
The Prefecture of the Light of Kassin - whilst theoretically of equal authority with the other Prefectures - has in practice a great deal of power over the the Senate. Whilst they do not have the power to directly dismiss a senator, their role as guardians of Kassinite orthodoxy and wide remit to prosecute heresy means that in practice there are few who would challenge their authority. Whilst there has been no official head of state for several centuries, the fact that the Archimandrite of Kassin is also by convention the Speaker of the Senate and sits in the Kingfisher Throne - the ancient symbol of the Eastern Katari Empire - has a significance which is not lost on anyone with even a modicum of understanding of Vaalin politics.
Culture
Racial Tensions - Shifters
Historically, the shifters of Vaalus have occupied a somewhat precarious ethnocultural position. Sometimes called "Madduro-Vaali", they are descended from those who made the crossing from Maddur during the 11th and 12th centuries whilst it was was under occupation by the Republic of Vaalus. The majority of those who were first brought to Vaalus were prisoners of war, indentured as labourers until they worked off the “debt” that they had accrued for the crime of resisting Vaali sovereignty; they were typically sent to work on the farms of the Plains of Akiron, or in the mines near Cortus in the south of the Republic. Those that survived the terms of their indenture - typically a five or ten year term of hard labour - were given their freedom and granted citizenship; due to the expense involved in returning to Maddur, many elected to living out the rest of their lives in Vaalus. During the latter part of the 12th century some enterprising Madduri voluntarily came to Vaalus, for reasons varying from the desire to escape the oft-harsh internecine violence within of some of the clans and the escalating conflict with Pryddcael, to a desire for the great luxuries the Vaali so-often said their homeland was famous for, or simply out of curiosity and wanderlust. By the dawn of the 13th century, the presence of shifters in Vaalus was generally unremarkable and well-tolerated by most. The Blight brought this to a violent end in 1202 AK. The plains of Akiron and the lands surrounding Cortus were among the worst-hit places, and countless shapers lost their lives to the famine and pestilence that followed in the wake of the Blight. Those that survived fled to the coastal cities along with hundreds of thousands of other refugees, all of which exacerbated existing food shortages and overcrowding until the nation was at breaking point. When the demagogues of the Prefecture of the Light of Kassin began to gather support among the masses, a chief part of their rhetoric was set against the worshippers of the “false gods” - of which the Madduri Pantheon were singled out as being among the most heinous examples. With tensions running high, the Kassinites successfully painted the shifters as cultists and apologists for the very entities which preached were responsible for the Blight. The result was as bloody as it was inevitable - a pogrom against those who worshipped the Madduri pantheon, resulting in the murders of numerous shifters. When the Grand Prefecture of All Vaalus - headed by the Light of Kassin - eventually managed to reassert control over the republic it was with a promise of restoring law and order that they obtained their mandate. The sporadic mob violence against the shifters was clamped down on, but the worship of their ancestral gods was strictly outlawed; tensions brewed for almost a decade before in 1214 AK the charismatic shifter Artula Crake led an uprising against the Republic, intending to liberate the shifters and form their own independent state - or at least to force the Grand Prefecture to acknowledge their demands. Calling on all the powers of the Old Gods of Maddur, Artula Crake declared that she was the avatar of the Black Lion Aziz, their greatly feared war-god; but at a crucial moment in battle with the paladins of the Kassinite prefectures, her divinely-ordained powers failed, and she was witnessed being burned to ashes by a blinding light from the heavens. This was enough to completely break the will of her forces, who routed and were massacred by the Kassinites. The Grand Prefecture decreed that all elements of Madduri culture were to be stamped out across Vaalus, and authorised brutal and extreme measures to enforce compliance. Almost overnight, shifters were stripped of their citizenship, their property confiscated, their families forcibly split up, and the speaking of their language being punishable by hard labour. Shifters were banned from membership of any Prefecture, in effect barring them from practicing most skilled trades, and forcing many into poverty. In 1220 AK a further measure was implemented to erase any remnants of the clan-structures which had been the backbone of shifter society: all shifter children were made wards of the state, removed from their families and raised in institutions which sought to indoctrinate them in the ways of Kassin and Vaalus. But, even after a hundred years of oppression, this was never quite successful at wiping out all remnants of Madduri culture among the shifters. The clans continued to exist, though their power and influence was but a shadow of what it was before - by the mid 14th century most had become little more than criminal gangs. In the mid 1330’s a movement among the shifter communities began which rapidly took root across the nation. Unlike Artula Crake’s rebellion, this movement, led by a group of shifters calling themselves the Provisional Prefecture of the Ceaseless Hunt, pledged no allegiance to the Madduri gods, but claimed themselves faithful servants of Kassin. The Grand Prefecture paid no heed to their demands, and rounded up the leaders of this movement on charges of sedition and heresy - but this has done little to dampen the support that this movement enjoyed, and despite numerous crackdowns and mass arrests, it continues to grow. The movement has not reached a state of outright insurrection yet - but perhaps it is only a matter of time.Racial Tensions - other
Whilst under the Second Republic, Vaalus was renowned as a cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic society (albeit one riven by economic divides), racial tensions have generally worsened since the Blight. Whilst Madduro-Vaali Shifters have fared the worst, the rhetoric of the Prefecture of the Light of Kassin has stirred up divides with a number of other ethnic groups, especially where there are cultural or religious factors which conflict with orthodox Kassinite teachings. The Tevashi dwarves have fared relatively well in comparison to some other groups; the essential atheism of the philosophy of Monarchs of Ash, whilst incompatible with the Light of Kassin, is at least considered less blasphemous than the active worship of entities which the Kassinites would consider to be aspects of the Deceiver - though tensions do on occasion emerge when the difference between reverential imitation of the ancestors becomes blurred with worship in the minds of the Kassinites. Traditionalist Tevashi are however systematically excluded from membership of almost all Prefectures due to the requirement of professing belief in Kassin; less traditionalist Tevashi often point out that there is nothing in the Four Commands, Eight Bans and Eight Corollaries that strictly conflicts with the teachings of Alavar Scriptorum, and are often willing to at least pay lip service to the Kassinite creed - however the Tevashi community has never been entirely trusted by the Prefecture of the Light of Kassin for this very reason, and dwarves often face significant barriers to engaging in public life. Elves are deeply distrusted by the Vaali authorities, for political reasons as much as religious ones. Historically the elven inhabitants of the Eastern Katari Empire were concentrated in the Ephan Reaches, the lands north of the Bay of Xendriti, and in the Teuthic Rainforest; there are no widely-known raths within the modern borders of Vaalus, and though there are several communities of wood elves dwelling in Daso Lyra, the Vaali authorities considered them to be little better than bandits even prior to the Blight. The High Elves of Terianis and Kespis to the south are likewise distrusted due to the centuries of intermittent border conflicts with the Vaali.History
See: History of Vaalus
Founding Date
544 AK
Type
Geopolitical, Theocracy
Capital
Alternative Names
Grand Prefecture of All Vaalus, Magisterium of Vaal, New Kataris, Eastern Katari Empire
Demonym
Vaalin
Leader
Leader Title
Government System
Theocracy
Power Structure
Unitary state
Economic System
Palace economy
Legislative Body
Prefectoral Senate
Official State Religion
Subsidiary Organizations
Related Ethnicities
Comments