Functions
When the time comes for the labour tax each year, a Scalebearer will receive a missive from the capital containing detailed information on what they are obliged to supply. Every work-able individual within the llakta will have been taken account in the labour demands, and each will be required to contribute something for the yearly tax. In the case of artisans, they may be required to travel to a nearby city in order to do their work owing to a lack of tools in their home town or village. Farmers, on the other hand, are usually simply required to provide a certain amount of produce. Young men of able bodies are commonly conscripted to work as mail runners, which is always for a fixed term of 40 days, after which they may return to their home.
The most common type of work requested for the yearly tax is direct labour. At any given time, the Prismatic Empress will undertake one or more major building projects, usually in the capital but also sometimes in other important cities, and will conscript potentially upwards of hundreds of thousands of labourers to work on these projects. The most common buildings constructed are temples to Lyrielle, as well as roads to connect the sprawling Intersedran Empire, and fortifications at various border locations or in other strategic areas.
In return, the people of a llakta will be supplied with whatever raw materials they require in order to complete their work by the central government. Goldsmiths will be given raw gold to work with, while tailors will be supplied with high-quality fabrics sourced from elsewhere in the empire. In addition, the day-to-day needs of people within llaktas for items requiring specialist construction, such as clothes, are also taken care of by the government. Scalebearers are expected to fill in request forms each year for goods that their communities cannot produce themselves, and these - if deemed appropriate - will be fulfilled by the central government. Any kind of fraudulent claims or other corruption in these requests is considered a grave crime, and is commonly punished by death.
All individuals in the empire who are not part of the nobility are subject to the labour tax. The only exemption is for members of the Estrellan clergy; the importance of whose duties is considered too great for them to be called away in order to pay the tithe.
Legal Protections for the Curious
Curious individuals are given various exemptions from certain parts of the labour tax. While still required to contribute, they are allowed a degree of choice over the manner in which they do so. They are most often given a list of projects from which to choose from, and must decide upon one or more that they will fulfil for their yearly contribution.
The tasks assigned to the Curious are almost always artisanal work. In recognition of their unique talents, it is generally seen as a waste to assign them to menial labour, and so they are most often allowed to choose from work that suits their personal skillset. The main exception to this is in the case of religious work: Having a certain amount of Curious individuals within the priesthood is considered important in successfully divining the will of Lyrielle, in much the same way that transgender individuals are considered spiritually significant. As such, all Curious are given the right to request a position within the Estrellan priesthood; allowing themselves to take up a vocation as a priest of the Rainbow Serpent.
Culture
Intersedra has a number of separate gender roles beyond simply men and women, and these make up the main basis of Intersedran culture. In addition to the two most basic genders of male and female, there are additionally separate genders for those who were assigned either male or female at birth but choose to assume the role of the other. Men who transition to become women are known as quariwarmi, and are employed as temple priestesses; occupying an important role in society as advisors dealing with matters of both intimate relationships and religious subjects. Inversely, women who transition to become men are known as uumarnituq, and also serve as temple priests; although they are considered to be of lesser importance than the quariwarmi.
Role of Women
Within Intersedran culture, women are considered to be the more intelligent, rational, and also resilient sex. Men on the other hand are recognised as being physically stronger than women, but are thought of as more prone to acting on instinct, and are believed to suffer from impairments to their judgement and reasoning capabilities stemming from their naturally aggressive tendencies and heightened sex drives. For this reason, women are considered to be better suited to administrative work and other important government-level duties. The ratio of educated individuals in Intersedra is heavily skewed towards women, and as a result they make up the majority of the scholarly class and intelligentsia within the country.
In addition, the ability of women to give birth is considered to be of the utmost importance in the country's state religion of Estrella, and this is perhaps the largest contributing factor to the primacy of the female sex over the male sex within Intersedran society. Among the Intersedran social hierarchy, women who have given birth are considered to exist at the top of the hierarchy, while women who can but have not yet had children exist a step below men who have fathered a child. Men who have not yet become fathers are a step lower, and the lowest point on the ladder is reserved for women who are incapable of having children. These women are known as illakwawa, and their infertility is often considered to be evidence of moral impurity, or an indication that they have been cursed by Lyrielle.
Role of Men
Because of the perceptions surrounding their mental capabilities, men are considered to be better suited to physical labour than intellectual activity, and so make up the vast majority of the physical working class of Intersedran society. Men are responsible for the various activities involved in farming, such as tilling the fields and harvesting crops, and are often placed in charge of transporting goods from place to place. They account for almost the entirety of Intersedra's miners, quarriers, and woodchoppers. They also commonly serve as artisans making tools and other important crafts, and are considered to be equal to women in ability to work with their hands; which has allowed some of them to see work as goldsmiths and even jewellers.
In terms of relationships, the sons of Scalebearers and other higher-ranking members of Intersedran society are rarely allowed to choose their own wives. Marriage partners are often chosen by the boy's mother, who may choose to marry him off in order to form a political alliance with another family. This is common even in the lower strata of society, where - although they will usually not be sent to other provinces entirely - it is still common for men to be forced to marry women they have never met.
Intimate Relationships
One similarity that Intersedra shares with the Rukhmarite world is their belief that sex should only be had for procreative purposes. The entire concept of marriage in Intersedran culture derives from a religious root, in which couples come together in order to better raise their children. As a result of this, sex is seen as an activity partaken in purely in order to conceive a child, and those who have it for any other reason are considered to be deviants. Where this behaviour is only shunned in the Rukhmarite world, in Intersedra, those who engage in sexual practises outside of attempts to produce a child are thought of as desecrating a holy act, and as such can be legally punished.
As a result of this, those who have sex outside of marriage are liable to be punished under the law. Additionally, same-sex attraction is not recognised in Intersedra, and anyone found engaging in intimate activities with a same-sex partner is likely to be put to death. The former has had particularly severe consequences for the Curious, who often do find partners to lay with prior to marriage.
Understanding of Space-Time
The culture and society of the Intersedran Empire and its peoples is starkly different to any Pretheyan culture on a level that most mainlanders struggle to wrap their heads around. Numerous fundamental parts of the human experience, up to and including things as foundational as space-time, are perceived or related to differently than within the cultures that descend from the Grannrormrlen.
Within the Intersedran language of Lyrellin, there are only two tenses used to convey time. Past and present share the same tense, while the second tense is reserved for future events. In contrast to the commonly held Pretheyan belief, Intersedrans believe that time - rather than the individual person who is experiencing it - is the one that is moving forwards. Events are recognised to have happened prior to the present moment, but no strict distinction is drawn between 'the past' and 'the present'; leading to the main differentiation between events being whether they had happened or were yet to happen.
Where in the Pretheyan mainland space and time provide a framework through which people live out their lives, with events happening in certain geographical locations and at specific points in time that can be measured on a calendar: In contrast, in Intersedra time and space are relative to the ones experiencing it. Rather than having any kind of absolute idea of position in a global sense, Intersedran people conceptualize the locations in which events occur by where they are relative to places of import to them; such as their hometown, or in the case of the empire's government, the capital city. The time in which events take place is perceived similarly relatively; with occurrences happening either in the near or distant past. The upper limit of how long ago Intersedrans tend to distinguish between events happening is a range of 4 to 6 years; beyond which they cease attempting to maintain specificity.
In this manner, what is important is not the objective time at which an event occurred relative to, say, the time since the founding of the Grannrormrlen or the departure of Rukhmar - the two events which serve as the focal point from which the passage of time is measured for mainland Pretheyans - but rather when the event occurred relative to the individual's perception of it; being either recently or a long time ago.
Experience of the Past
As well, the Intersedran understanding of what the past actually 'is' also differs from that of Pretheyans. History in Pretheya is conducted through a series of best-attempt endeavours to accurately record events as they truly happened, in an at least theoretically unbiased manner. Although countries will often create distorted interpretations of these events for their own benefit, this political drive is at least somewhat separate from the motives of organisations like the Inktouched who seek to chronicle things as they actually happened.
To Intersedran people, however, the material reality of an event's unfolding is generally of minimal significance. Very little emphasis, if any, is put on attempting to understand what concretely happened in a given situation. Instead, a general idea of what took place is established, and then manicured to fit what the individual recounting it believes ought to have taken place at the time. Depending on how far back the event in question occurred, the initial general understanding could be based on witness accounts that are presumed to hold at least some reliability, or alternatively could be completely fabricated.
The underpinning philosophy of this way of engaging with the past is that the actual 'truth' of the way events unfolded is not significant; rather, the importance lies in how one engages with it. Intersedrans treat the recounting of past events not as an exercise in historical recollection, but rather as a social activity designed to facilitate a certain result. They will tell tales of the same past event differently depending on who their audience is and what their purpose is in telling the story; moulding the events and the lessons to be learned from them in ways that facilitate their desired conclusion.
This behaviour is extended particularly far with regard to events that took place outside of the current generation's lifetime. The rise of Empress Rurana, for example, has been mythologized to an enormous extent; with the empress being re-cast in the present generation as a sort of 'divine queen' blessed by Lyrielle, who achieved victory in conquest through the use of supernatural powers and intervention from the Rainbow Serpent.
Generally speaking, the past is viewed as a malleable entity that can be changed at any time in order to answer questions pertaining to the current social state/hierarchy of the empire, and is more useful in answering questions of "Where/what are we?" than "How did we get here?"
Eras
In contrast to the Pretheyan belief that the world is in its current third iteration, the Intersedran people believe that there has only ever been one world, but that it has moved through a number of clearly set eras throughout its history.
The first of these is believed to have been when the Ormr - Lyrielle's kin - first awoke and wandered the earth, during which time they discovered (or, depending on who you ask, created) Arcana, then the various elder creatures in the world; such as the Fyrstbairn and Leskeln. The second era came when the Law of Mortality was enacted, rendering all creatures save for the Ormr capable of dying. This is when the Thousandforms were thought to have first been created. The third era began when Lyrielle departed, and consisted of the time the Thousandforms spent as a unified group without her. The start of the fourth era came when the Thousandforms' nation broke apart and splintered into a thousand rival tribes, who waged endless warfare with one-another for uncountable years before they were brought together under the banner of Runana; bringing a start to the fifth and present era.
Cultural Tolerance
The Intersedran Empire, despite its authoritarian labour practises, heavy emphasis on the importance of tradition, and strict cultural and gender rules, is paradoxically known to be surprising tolerant of certain types of minorities within the country. The various tribes conquered and integrated into the empire have in many cases been allowed to keep their customs and traditions; with the only major social enforcement being that they must adhere to the worship of the Rainbow Serpent.
This behaviour is thought to derive from certain stories of Lyrielle's interactions with the early Intersedran people. At several points in the two centuries they spent together, Lyrielle was visited by others from the Ormr race; and supposedly spoke with them of the other humanoid races they had created. She was also open with the Thousandforms that they were not the only beings she had given life to, and that she was equally fond of all of her creations.
Tales commonly speak of the treatment of disabled people under Lyrielle's stewardship being exceptionally kind and considerate. Supposedly, there was very little in the way of discrimination against those who did not fit in socially in the early Thousandforms society, or those who were physically unwell in some way. Although this tradition of tolerance became complicated in the cities of the empire where the central government could exert much power to force people to conform, it appears to have survived in how the various Prismatic Empresses have chosen to treat their conquered peoples.
By far the most outstanding example of this pertains to the role of the Curious in society. Curious individuals are viewed as differing on a fundamental level from the rest of Intersedran society. Rather than treating them as in some way deficient, however, they are thought of as simply being examples of diversity among Lyrielle's children. Although their ways are considered peculiar to most non-Curious Intersedrans, they are understood to have value to society, and various exemptions exist in laws to prevent them from being subject to the same enforced conformity as others in the empire.
Geography
The Intersedran Empire controls a diverse range of geographic climes; from the rocky Kuntis mountains in the west, to the Sacha jungle in the centre, and the various deserts situated between the other two regions. These immense differences in biome come from equally immense differences in altitude: The lands of the western Kuntis can range from anywhere between 1,500m in height to upwards of 6,000m; while the Sacha jungle and the northern coast can be as low as only 100m above sea level.
These wildly variable landscapes have given rise to unique challenges in administrating the Intersedran Empire, and have also made it home to the highest number of unique cultures of any Pretheyan-or-adjacent polity.
The majority of the empire's 12 million population reside within the Kuntis mountains; where they live at elevations of around 2,000-3,000 metres. This high-altitude living has resulted in the Intersedran people becoming acclimatised to breathing lower oxygen levels, and it is thought that their bodies have adapted to not be negatively impacted by this.
Cultural View
The ruling caste of the Intersedran Empire, including the Prismatic Empress, her relatives, and other noble families, all live in the Kuntis mountains; which has made them the de-facto capital region of the country. Tribalism exists between the mountain-dwellers and those living in the low-ground; with the mountain elite commonly believing those that live in the Sacha specifically to be savages and sexual deviants.
Generally, the inhabitants of the various different regions all tend to hold discriminatory views against one-another. Due to the fact that those living in the mountains both outnumber the rest of the population more than four-to-one and hold all of the power, however, this discrimination is much more felt and experienced by the low-lying 'out groups' of the empire's population.
Farming
The majority of farming in the Intersedran Empire is performed in the heights of the Kuntis. The Prismatic Empress mandates that every village must be self-sufficient in matters of food, and so each settlement in the country will have crops that it tends; as well as a herd of alpacas that they use for wool and meat.
The main difficulty of farming in the Kuntis is the extremely uneven geography of the mountains. Even within valleys, flat land of any significant size is difficult to find. This makes tilling soil and by extension planting crops difficult. In order to solve this, the Intersedran people developed terraced farms: By flattening a small region of land and then creating stone barriers around its edge to support it and prevent sagging, they discovered that they could significantly increase the ease with which farming was done. By repeating this process multiple times, they came to create 'tiered' farms; consisting of one flat strip of farmland next to another, growing a few feet higher each time. This style of farming makes up the backbone of Intersedran agriculture, and has allowed them to overcome the difficult conditions of their native terrain.
Despite this, farming in a mountain is simply not as productive as in hills or a flat plain; both owing to the lower soil quality and the sheer lack of space comparatively. As such, this has lead the Intersedran Empire to have a much lower population density than that of almost any Pretheyan nation; and has meant that their overall population is remarkably low given their geographical size.
Architecture
Intersedran architecture is almost totally unique among all of the cultures in or known to Pretheyans, owing to the fact that they are the only culture to create stone buildings without the use of mortar. Almost all buildings in Intersedran cities are built from stone - owing to the material being more readily available than anything else - and are created without the use of composite bricks, simply by stacking shaped stones on top of each other.
Buildings in Intersedran cities consist of numerous shaped stones that have been placed on top of each other and arranged without any form of mortar or other binding agent to keep them together. The size of these stones can vary enormously; with houses and other similarly sized buildings often featuring a core of roughly brick-sized stones supported by multiple smaller stones shaped to fill in any gaps in the larger ones. The precision with which these stones are shaped is such that they fit together near-perfectly, and the resulting buildings are structurally sound to the extent that they can even survive earthquakes without sustaining damage.
Larger buildings are famed for the enormous stone slabs used to construct them. These monolithic lumps of stone can in some cases measure at almost inconceivable weights of over 100 tons; some supposedly closer to 200. These are among the largest used in any Intersedran construction, however, and they more commonly weigh between 5 and 50 tons in most structures; with the largest being reserved for fortifications and palaces.
Physics
The theory behind the construction of Intersedran stone buildings is relatively simple: The rocks used to create them have been sculpted to such an extent that there is little to no natural movement or give between them whatsoever; which in turn means that any kind of mortar or other binding agent is unnecessary to keep them stable.
An added benefit of this method of construction is ironically its flexibility: The Kuntis region where the majority of Intersedran stone buildings are located is prone to frequent earthquakes, which would shatter most Pretheyan-built houses as the mortar in between the bricks broke, and caused them to tumble down. Buildings built from sculpted stone, on the other hand, are not kept in place simply by mortar; and so when shaken by earthquakes do not lose their stability and collapse.
Refinement Technique
The smooth stone blocks utilised by the Intersedrans are created through a labour-intensive refinement technique. Paste gathered from a certain local plant is smeared across the edge that will be smoothened, and the stone is then placed atop another stone with a coating of sand in the centre. The two stones are then rubbed repeatedly against each other until all abrasions have been smoothed off of the surface, at which point the masons will switch to the next one.
This technique is what has allowed the Intersedran people to construct stable structures using non-rectangular bricks. Though it is possible to make traditionally-shaped bricks, the majority of stone blocks used in their constructions are of non-uniform shapes, and holes are filled in by other stones cut to fit as perfectly as possible. Fully rectangular bricks are immensely labour intensive to make; and so are reserved exclusively for use in rulers' palaces.
The main downside of this method, other than its enormous labour cost, is the effort required to locate suitable rocks for use in construction. Every step of creating a building must be planned out in advance to make sure that individual stones can fit in with each other, and this requires a tremendous degree of forethought lest errors be made.
Quipu
The Intersedrans have only recently adopted the written word, and it is still seen by vast swathes of the country as an unnatural and strange way of recording information. Prior to the adoption of paper, all information within the Empire was stored on series of knotted strings called Quipu.
A quipu consists of a single central piece of string to which dozens of other strings, up to as many as a hundred, are attached. Around each of these secondary pieces of string are tied similarly many knots, each of which represent either a numerical value or a piece of information. Intersedran administrators perform maths using the quipus by moving knots up and down to perform addition, subtraction, and calculation; in a manner similar to the abacuses employed by Pretheyans.
The information stored on a quipu is only known to the one whose job it is to maintain that specific quipu- known commonly as the quipu kamayuq or simply kamayuq. The lack of any sort of universally identifiable markers on the quipu means that they cannot simply be read by anyone learned with a quipu, in contrast to the way that anyone who is literate in a certain language can read a book written in that language. This means that new kamayuq must be trained to read the quipus that they inherit by their predecessor, and that usually only a single person or at most two people can read any given quipu.
For over a thousand years, these quipu have been central to the Intersedran administration; being the means by which all information is stored, and all mathematical calculations are performed. All of the information required to maintain the complicated Intersedran command economy is stored on quipu; a fact that has continually baffled Pretheyans upon discovery.
Religious Beliefs
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Military
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History
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