Denonym: Eprian

Pre-colonial Description:
Epria is an island country located on the eastern coast of Feresia, which is comprised of several hundred volcanically formed islands. The origins of the nation are ancient, with the first written mention of Epria being found within a Dubralese historical text dating back to the 1st century. Given the location of the archipelago that makes up Epria, the history of the nation is prominently a story of isolation, broken sporadically by several significant influences from other regions.

From roughly the 10th century, until its colonization by IMPERIAL NATION in 1786, Epria operated as a feudal monarchy, with ultimate power residing in the Mikado, or emperor. Prior to the 10th century, the peoples of Epria were a loosely organized group of familial clans that lacked centralized power. This changed rapidly with the introduction of Zocism through trading with Dubralese merchants and missionaries in the year 923. With the spread of Zocism came a period of advancement and homogenization, until the nation’s first mikado, Seno Tsuneo, claimed sole control over the clans in 931.

For the next several hundred years following the formation of the mikadoate, Epria alternated between stages of peace and civil war. Through these power struggles, the Eprians developed a very distinct and rich martial culture, which bled heavily into everyday society. Soon, the feudal system that would come to dominate the bulk of Epria’s history evolved, and a ruling military class known as the senshi were formed. This governmental structure was never interrupted until the IMPERIAL NATION forced the subjugation of the Mikado in the late 18th century.

Prior to (and even following, to some extent) its colonization, Epria subsisted autonomously with a mostly agrarian economic base. Rice, along with other ancient grains, and commercial fishing, were the staples of the economy, and daily life. Trade, especially beyond the immediate geographical neighbors of the nation, was not encouraged, and during some periods, even forbidden. This isolationist policy led to a very slow rate of rate of modernization. Technology within the fields of agriculture, engineering, ship building, and the military, as well as other areas, was stagnate for much of the nation’s history leading up to the 18th century.


Current Description:
Currently, Epria operates with a high level of autonomy given its status as a colony to IMPERIAL NATION. However, this autonomy belies the still antiquated nature of Epria’s societal structure. Having transitioned from a country of isolation, directly to a colonial state, Epria had very little impetus to evolve and modernize.

While feudalism has been replaced with a constitutional republican system, power still rests with a very limited few. The senshi class of old has transitioned easily under the umbrella of IMPERIAL NATION’s power, into a ruling class of wealthy plantation owners, industrialists, resource magnates, and military officers. With lucrative connections into the affluence and power of IMPERIAL NATION, Epria’s wealthy do little to change the nation’s status quo.

Some limited progress has been achieved within the nation, however. This is mainly seen in the areas associated with the petroleum industry where, since the time of the Last War, Epria has been an important supplier of oil for IMPERIAL NATION’s war machine. While this minor trickle down of capital is almost wholly an unintended symptom of the ruling class utilizing privately owned oil companies to grow wealth, it exists nonetheless.

Epria’s citizenry is mostly ambivalent to their status as a colony. Once again, as isolation has dominated the bulk of its history, the people know little else. Yet, the natural incursion of modern ideas and thinking brought about through growing interaction with the rest of the world, has led to a definitive shift in cultural identity within the nation. Though wholly in its infancy, the notion of Eprian sovereignty and independence is a burgeoning notion. This has mainly manifested itself in grass-roots efforts to improve worker compensation and benefits, especially within the agricultural sector.

Celocombo lies on along the eastern coasts of Feresia, at the terminus of the Thúnhay River. Although located in the tropics, it is a nation of many different micro-climates: in the north and far-west, there are low, cool mountains, thick with tangled lianas, aged banyans, and, most lucrative of all, rubber trees; in the central tablelands lies the agricultural and cultural heart of the country, with vast prairies, oil palm and cotton plantations, ancient citadels, and hordes of water buffalo, all watered by the lower course of the Thúnhay; in the sweltering Delta region in the east of the country there are a number of large metropolises, abiding despite being immured amongst the mangroves, fed by the region’s characteristic staples of ozí rice, jackfruit, and fermented fish; finally, the volcanic and sparsely populated isles of Khot Jul coil far into the sea, some not more than jagged atolls and rocky outcroppings languishing in the foaming surf.

Much of the history of Celocombo can be defined as the political and social belligerence between the three premier ethnic groups: the Makhoña, a war-like people whose ancestral homeland lies in the mountainous Oudong region; the Celocomí, the progenitors of the ancient Celocom Hegemony, who emerged as nomadic herdspeople of the prairielands of Sukwa before conquering the nation entire and establishing one of the world’s great urban empires; and the maritime Lhokduy, inhabiting the Thúnhay Delta, who immigrated to Celocombo as Adekono missionaries.

Originally, it was the Makhoña who ruled. Sweeping down from their mountain holdfasts, mounted on war elephants, they subjugated the peoples of the Sukwa, desirous of their gentle pastures and ample harvests; however, the Celocomí, united beneath the banner of the “national hero” (to the Celocomí, at least), Yasuramantí, successfully rebelled against their Makhoña overlords, stormed their high fastnesses, and put entire cities to the sword. Yasuramantí’s son, who would become the first Great Raja of the Celocom Hegemony, Manjalruy, eventually brought the Lhokduy Confederacy to heel, after an unfortunate incident in which a Lhokduy merchant-prince beheaded his Celocomí consort. Desiring access to the coast, and trade with neighboring potentates (the Llahong Cascades prevented any passage to the west up the Thúnhay, and thus any sort of riverine commerce), Manjalruy the Spear had found his opening. In a single stroke brought the entire country, and every ethnic enclave, under a single banner.

Celcombo is, even today, a successor state of the Hegemony, despite being under colonial duress. The early years of imperial rule were difficult; barriers of both language and culture impeded progress. And although foreign goods and monies flowed into the nation’s coffers, famine, poverty, and peasant revolt were rampant. It was under the reign of Raja Pushoung IX, born from the union of a Celocomí prince and a Makhoña princess, that the Hegemony began to flourish. Pushoung connected the disparate enclaves of the empire with a new system of roads; he advocated for religious freedom, following the pogroms of his predecessor Mardijas; new irrigation projects allowed for more bountiful harvests, especially in the rice producing Delta, in which much of the groundwater is brackish and unfit for agriculture; a series of military victories cemented the creation of a new national identity; and most of all, a new, standardized alphabet united the nation linguistically, and enforced through a series of educational reforms; consequently, the arts blossomed under Pushoung’s rule, and some of the greatest masterpieces of Celocomban culture were produced during this period.

This epoch of peace lasted for some two centuries, for Pushoung’s reformation of Celocomban identity was continued by his successors. However, it was not to last. In 1811, a Makhoña led revolt fractured the empire, and despite the imperial administration persisting in the regions of Sukwa and the Delta, the newly independent Kingdom of Ishanauy would not be re-incorporated until 1894, following the The Rubber Wars, which would be the beginning and the end of independence for Celocombo. Then Raja Tanraíl III, who had been educated as an artillery lieutenant in a foreign military academy and did not even speak the Celocomb language until he was seventeen, eventually wrested the Kingdom of Ishanauy back into the hands of the newly christened Kingdom of Celocombo, with the aid of foreign troops.

Tanraíl III was re-instated as the raja of a united Celocombo in 1895, harkening back to the glorious era of the Pushoung potentates. However, his reign was disastrous to the nation; not seven years had passed before another rebellion arose, this time in the Delta, and one which would have repercussions throughout the empire. Called the Suwjra Insurrection, it was a revolt organized by the élites of the imperial military (the suwjrasa), all of whom had been trained abroad, and who, ironically, advocated for the expulsion of foreign influences from the country. Eventually, they managed to seize the entire eastern coast, massacring consular officers, diplomats and entire expatriate communities. It was thus that foreign reprisals were all the more vicious. A blockade of the coast was organized, while a joint force of native and foreign legions marched from the capital at Yawlapuña.

In 1902, the crucible would come in the form of the Battle of Hun-Hunay, in which the main body of the Suwjra army was smashed, despite an outbreak of cholera in the enemy camp. The foreign troops, soaking with sweat in an unfamiliar clime and debilitated by disease, vented their frustrations in the Rape of Balangas, in which an entire city was massacred and burnt to the ground. Their appetites still unsated, they began their pillage of the entire coastline, seeing suwjras where there were none, expunging entire generations of families, effacing villages from the map.

Tanraíl III, realizing what was happening, denounced the actions of the foreigners, and levelled a trade embargo against them, denying them access to the nation’s ports and seizing their rubber factories in the mountains. In response, the foreigners declared war on Celocombo, and touted a distant cousin of Tanraíl III, Yogaw, who had likewise been born and educated abroad, as the monarchy’s true successor.

In a swift campaign, the foreign armies crippled the Celocomban forces, and in 1903, Tanraíl III was forced to abdicate, and exiled to a neighboring country; he was later assassinated by Celocomban expatriates. Yogaw, who adopted the regnal title of Pushoung XIII, placed his signature upon what would come to be known to the foreigners as the Celocombo Concordat, and to the people of Celocombo as “the piece of paper that gave our nation away”. Celocombo was incorporated into the foreign empire as a colonial protectorate, its monarch not much more than figurehead and puppet to foreign wills.



The year is now 1961, 58 years after the ascendance of Pushoung XIII and the beginning of colonial subjugation in Celocombo. His grandson, Pushoung XIV, a boy of fourteen who, like his father and grandfather before him, is being administered a foreign education, now sits the Jasmine Throne as Great Raja. The World War has ended, and now, colonial nations which have for centuries been in the hands of imperial powers vie for independence.

The colonial powers have been on the decline in Celocombo since the 1940s. Once one of the most lucrative colonies in their network, the nation is beginning to lose its lustre. Rubber, cotton, palm oil, sugarcane, and other tropical goods do not hold as much market potential as they once did. Celocombo rubber does not hold the monopoly it once did, and a variety of tropical nations have begun rubber production to fuel the global need. Despite this, the magistrates and viceroys of the Convention, the principal foreign governing body of the nation, continue to hold on desperately to their colonial possession, once called “The Jewel” of their empire, and will do whatever it takes, even if it means resorting to cruelty and violence, to keep their powers.

In truth, the foreigners are not considered all bad to the Celocombans, although the memory of the Rape of Balangas is still fresh in their minds. Some consider them to be a positive influence on the country, connecting them in the way that Pushoung IX once did with their new concrete infrastructure and industrialized cities, uniting them like he once did with a language, although foreign, while their own had fallen on the wayside after centuries of misuse during the fracturing of the Hegemony; schools have been built, and children of peasant stock can achieve an education which they once would only have dreamed of; and the foreigners have given them the radio, a link to the outside world.

But most do not think of the foreigners in such a way. “Why could we not industrialize on our own terms?” “Why could we not export our goods on our own terms?” “Why could we not build our roads and bridges and railways and schools on our own terms?” “Why do we speak the heathen’s language?” Much of the country sees the foreign occupation a blemish on a once proud nation’s history. And while many of the foreigners have intermarried with the local populace, learned their language, and treat them with respect and deference, this camp contends that it would only take a push for their bloodlust to be re-ignited. This group also heralds the revival and perfection of the Celocomb language, under the banner of the renowned poet and playwright Kawdet Suy.

Two groups vie for the independence of the nation, on two separate bases. One, the Adekono Orthodoxy, led by Patriarch Ochoy Lamique, espouses that the raja of the Celocomban nation is a sovereign manifestation of God, and can recognize no other authority save for his own. This line of reasoning hails from the Pushoung era, in which sovereignty was contingent on Orthodoxy, despite the reigning policy of religious freedom of the time. The supporters of this camp reside mostly in the Delta, known for being the most religiously devout region of the nation. As of yet, it has no military arm.

The second group is known. somewhat ironically, as the Congress of Patriotic Friends and Allies. Originally begun as a newspaper and book club by Kawdet Suy in 1939 and existing in coffee houses and tea rooms throughout the Kingdom, the Congress has expanded into a full-on political and military apparatus, with covert strongholds located deep within the jungles of Oudong and in the mangroves of the Delta region, supplied by key foreign sympathizers. Their aim is to dismantle the colonial government, oust the foreigners from their lands, reinstate Celocomb as the lingua franca of the nation (a proviso of particular import to Suy), and, most controversially, to put an end to the monarchy, establishing in its place a federal republic. Although they do have some relations with the Orthodoxy, this has been the divisive issue between the two camps.

A recent incident, however, has led to a significant increase in tensions between the colonial government and the people. A rally was incited by members of the Orthodoxy in Yawlapuña following the murder of a local priest, who happened to be a prominent political writer, by a foreign dissident. Although the dissident was not related to the regime, the Orthodoxy seized the opportunity to use the murder as a platform for disseminating their ideology.

Unfortunately, some of the more zealous of the rally, against the Orthodoxy’s policy of peace and restraint, began defacing foreign businesses and attacking foreign civilians. The colonial police were called in, which only made the ralliers more bold. When one man struck a police officer with a truncheon, the powder keg was lit. All in all, 300 of the protestors were slaughtered, and sixty police officers lost their lives in the carnage. The incident, called The Massacre of Kaletong Plaza, incited rage throughout the country, and reprisals by local militias, gangs, and angry citizens against foreigners. The colonial government have billeted more troops throughout the nation, but some fear that it is not enough to stem the approaching tide.

The Congress has grown bolder, and some hint at secret negotiations between Suy and Patriarch Lamique. In the coming crucible, will Celocombo once again be inundated in the fires of revolution?