Khorhas

To the farthest north reaches of Thascien lies the hobgoblin nation of Khorhas. Slave-built walls and fortifications crisscross the icy land like scars, and within their castles and fortresses the warlords of Khorhas continually plan the eventual conquest of neighboring lands.

Government:

Khorhas follows a strict feudal system, with only the Supreme Commander owing fealty to no one else. All positions are hereditary, inheritable by daughters but only in the absence of sons. Historically, any hobgoblin could challenge another to single combat for their position, but over time this tradition was deemed unwise, as a skilled warrior was not always a skilled warlord. The legitimacy of challenges remains, but now challenger and challenged must each field a squad of five or ten warriors depending on the rank contested. The loser forfeits neither holdings nor life (unless he participates in the combat and dies in battle), but is forbidden from making another challenge for ten years, and the challenger must include his own intended or current heir in his squad, to discourage the reckless waste of competent soldiers’ lives.

Law:

While travel through Khorhas is not forbidden, only well-informed or well-connected foreigners can expect to leave again easily, thanks to a complex and brutal set of laws making nearly any crime punishable by slavery and a much greater number of actions illegal for any who are not citizens or guests of a warlord's territory. By contrast, hobgoblin criminals are rarely enslaved; the punishment exists almost entirely as a means to justify enslaving foreign merchants and travelers. Fines are imposed for damage to another citizen's property, including the injury or death of a slave, while any unsanctioned harm to a fellow citizen personally is normally punished by exile, amputation of the criminal's weapon hand, or various means of execution.
All Khorhan law is similarly based on social class, as divided into nobility, commoners, slaves, honored guests, and travelers. Means of moving up the ranks exist in every case, although some are more realistic than others; a slave can become a commoner by surviving a hundred victorious battles or duels without dishonor, while a foreigner can become a citizen by winning a single duel against a champion chosen by the warlord they would serve under.

Relations:

The leaders of Khorhas make no secret of their warlike eventual goals, and almost every border of Khorhas is perpetually a battlefield for soldiers seeking to prove themselves, to capture more slaves, and to gain territory. Currently, however, Khorhas has not waged any full-scale wars for over two centuries, a fact which has many Aelinaran strategists concerned about what they may be planning for.
Kalaviir is specifically left unraided, as the economic value of free entry into the market city proves too important to jeopardize. The only other exception is Cernon-Das, as most hobgoblins regard the forest with an uncharacteristically superstitious fear after a significant defeat there in the distant past.

Culture:

Despite hostility on a national scale, individually the people of Khorhas regard other races in a surprisingly egalitarian manner. A non-hobgoblin who attains citizenship in Khorhas is treated with the same respect and rights as any other, provided they act in accordance with social norms. Such individuals are additionally valued as negotiators, guards for mercantile expeditions, and on the rare occasion diplomacy is sought, ambassadors.
Military prowess is central to Khorhan culture, and every man, woman, and older child is expected to be fit to fight or not fit to live, with exceptions being rare in the extreme, usually limited to proven warleaders grown infirm in old age but still able to teach. Khorhans pride themselves as distinct from the wild savagery of lesser goblins or the more barbaric of the Duleinish tribes, however. A talent for violence is seen as less than half of a true warrior's skill, and strategy and battlefield command are of at least as much importance.
While family honor matters greatly to hobgoblins, traditional family structure is looked down upon. Khorhan children are educated, trained, and housed in large groups to promote both competition and teamwork, and for any particular adult guidance outside this structure, are chosen by a mentor at the age of three. Those children not found worthy by any other possible mentor are sometimes taken in by a parent, but are just as often abandoned to exposure in the wilderness. (For this reason, and also because a parent is thought likely to spoil a child excessively, accusing someone of being raised by their mother is a common insult.) Most commonly, parents will interact with their offspring to evaluate them once a year, to comment on them bringing shame or pride after noteworthy actions, and otherwise only coincidentally throughout their childhood.

Structure:

Khorhan settlements are usually of two forms; desolate villages or immense strongholds, both surrounded by shanties or tents for the use of the less fortunate of the substantial slave population.
A typical Khorhan fortress city has a pyramid-like structure, and can be presumed to contain as the highest floor a luxurious residence for the territory's warlord and his or her family and a courtroom that, due to the hobgoblin preference for trial by combat, more closely resembles a coliseum. Lower levels of the city are dedicated to communal areas, and nearly always include a military academy and crèche at the center, a prison for captives not yet trained to the whip and those few hobgoblin criminals deemed deserving of lighter punishments than exile or death, and housing for a vast array of beasts of war.
Immense walls mark the border of every warlord's domain, typically with hidden mechanisms to collapse doorways or key sections in times of desperation.

Demonym

Khorhan

Government System

Despotism

Power Structure

Feudal state

Currency

Hand (4gp), Cut (4sp), Zad (8sp), Bit (.75cp)