Kingdom of Amro

Amro is a kingdom found in the northern jungles and sahel of Siwanga. It is one of the more powerful polities in the region, and despite the efforts of colonists from the Phoenix Empire maintains at least a nominal hegemony.

Structure

Amro is ruled through something akin to a feudal system. The Enkwani, or nobility, rule from sizeable cities built in the jungles or grasslands, and maintain good order. They themselves often oversee the affairs of the cities, but there are many villages and tribes as well who answer to their chieftains. These chieftains in some cases answer to a feudal lord, but (particularly in the case of nomadic groups) they operate more as separate entities within the state that answer only to the monarch, and sometimes not even to him.

There are also the Free Cities, among which may be counted some of the greatest settlements of the Kingdom, which have a much greater degree of autonomy than normal feudal vassals and largely run their own affairs. These are the remains of tributaries and other hegemonic possessions that were gradually integrated into the kingdom while maintaining their autonomy in exchange for protection. They can broadly be assured that any overt military actions by their rivals will be punished by the central authority, and so it is advantageous to the Free Cities to remain within Amro even if their rivals also answer to the monarch. Because of this diluted power structure, it is often difficult to determine where Amro's borders end, as many regions beyond their technical borders act very similarly to these Free Cities.

History

Amro began its existence within the city of the same name. At this point, it was nothing more than one amongst many other city-states in the dense jungles of Siwanga, built along the fertile Kalo river. Under a series of visionary rulers, it slowly spread its hegemony to surrounding tribes in the jungle and sahel and to the other cities along the river.

Amro has had contact with Stegarians for quite some time, engaging primarily through trade as the distances involved make warfare infeasible. The inhabitants of the various archipelagos that lie between Siwanga and Stegaria, however, are a different story, and vicious wars have been fought between the island kingdoms and the inhabitants of Siwanga's jungles. Over the past century, however, Qikuoan, Hadashtan, and Vishkanyan enterprises arrived on Siwanga's northern coast with goals of establishing easier access to the valuable resources of Siwanga. While military ventures are not preferred by these expeditions, limited conquests have been made, and even more tribes have been brought into the economic influence of these great powers from across the sea, who generally find it more convenient to leave local power intact and extract resources through tribute than to mount costly military expeditions so far from home. As a result, conflict with Amro is limited, but tensions are high.

These tensions have been further raised as of late by the arrival of Crown Prince Hong Zhawei, who has taken over several smaller Qikuoan settlements in the region and brought many traditional tributaries of Amro under his own hegemony.

Type

Geopolitical, Kingdom

Demonym

Amran

Government System

Monarchy, Absolute

Power Structure

Feudal state