[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/Zl9pYg5.jpg?1[/img]

[b]Country Name:[/b] Lumenor.

[b]Government type:[/b] Partially elected and partially appointed Hall of Elders, with the 'Kuunin' (essentially a King with limited powers) at its head.

[b]Ruler:[/b] Eetu Nevalainen Kuunin.

[u][b]Location[/b][/u]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/FZ6WyZd.jpg[/img]
[i]The golden city is Homestead, the capital and largest city of Lumenor, which houses the Hall of Elders and the largest church of the Faith of the Light, Lumenor's religious organization. Light blue represents Silver Port, the second largest city in the nation, and headquarters of the Guild of Sailors of Silver Port (a powerful merchant's guild that dominates trade in Lumenor, as well as serving as sort of an informal navy). Green represents Kotka, a large fortress and centre of the Lumenistic Order, built at the conjunction of three of Lumenor's vassal-states. The Lumenistic Order is a quasi-religious military organization with a strong link to the Faith of the Light. It serves as Lumenor's military force, and was responsible for the conquest of the vassal-states which Kotka now borders.[/i]

[b]Language:[/b] Lumen, a language built off of the basis of the language of the Lumen's ancestors, the Light Ones, but with borrowed vocabulary from languages like Lairreen and Getic.

[b]Demographics:[/b] Primarily Lumen, but with numerous prominent human minorities, especially noteworthy in the vassal-states in the east.

[b]Army:[/b] 8%. Lumen are very disciplined and militaristic by nature, and all Lumen men serve in either the Lumenistic Order or the Guild of Sailors of Silver Port for at least one year in their early adult lives.

[b]History:[/b] The Lumen came into existence as the result of a mixture of two separate species: the Light Ones and the Lairreen. The Lairreen were one of the six human tribes native to modern day Lumenor, with all six tribes being the original inhabitants of the land as far back as their histories go. The Lairreen were the strongest and most populous of the tribes, and lived in the north-west of the area, around today's Silver Port. The five tribes to the Lairreen's south-east fought amongst themselves without end, constantly hostile to both each other and any outsiders that dare tread in the area. The tribes spoke different dialects of the same language and were very similar culturally, their societies dependent on both hunting and fishing in and around the great lakes of the area, and all six being technologically and culturally stunted by perpetual war.

Over time, the Lairreen, slightly less prone to war than their neighbours, began to take advantage of their rivals' infighting by seizing the lands of the clans closest to them during wars on that tribe's opposite border. The Lairreen forged themselves a large landmass to preside over in this way, and it allowed them to project themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the region. However, the Lairreen were afflicted with the same tribal tendencies of the men they fought, and once their conquests brought them to the most hotly fought over areas of the region, each step forward they took ended up resulting in two steps back as the enemy tribes swarmed their new conquests and forced them back to their original homeland. The trend continued for several hundred years, with successive Lairreen chiefs being prized for how much of the region they could conquer before being forced back to the Lairreen homeland. It was not until the arrival of a powerful outside force into the region that the trend changed.

The Light Ones were tall, physically imposing and technologically advanced outsiders that hailed from the lands to the east of the Steppes. They'd conquered their way through the Steppes to Lumenor, never settling, seemingly discontent with their conquests time and time again. The Light Ones conquered and subjugated two of the six tribes within the span of a few weeks upon their enter into the area, and were looked upon as supernatural monsters by the remainder of the tribes, who'd skirmished with them (always losing) and scouted some of their movements during their conquest of the two eastern-most tribes. No trade or dialogue went on between the Light Ones and the six tribes, and all that the Lairreen knew about them was that they were large, they were powerful, and their skin glowed like the sun. The entry of the Light Ones into Lumenor was enough for the Lairreen to uncharacteristically retreat into isolation, giving up some of their eastern conquests to focus on defending their core homeland's borders should the Light Ones turn on them. From their isolation, the Lairreen spies noted that the three remaining tribes had banded together alongside the remnants of the two conquered tribes, and were putting up a spirited, but ultimately doomed resistance of the Light Ones. The final battle of the invasion of the Light Ones took place just a short distance from Lairreen borders, east of Lairreen Lake. In the battle, the last fighting remnants of the two first conquered tribes were killed off completely, alongside half of the entire remaining combat-able population of the three free tribes. The Light Ones swept into the lands of the newly defeated tribes and razed their settlements to the ground, sparing only the villages neighbouring the lakes, which they proceeded to build off of and populate with their own kind. For twenty years after the Light Conquest the Lairreen lived in isolation, their eastern borders always well-guarded and ready for attack, but never once infringed upon for a full two decades. But silence would not last forever.

The Light Ones eventually did come to the Lairreen, but not in the same way as they had come to the other tribes. Rather than conquering by force, the Light Ones gave the Lairreen an option. Either they could wilfully submit and be allowed to continue their current way of life, or be forcibly annexed by the Light One state. The chief of the Lairreen chose peace. Days later, the Light Ones occupying the lands of the five eastern tribes left, leaving the tribes to fend for themselves as they settled along the lakes and lived peacefully with the Lairreen. The two peoples mixed both biologically and culturally, with both species in their former forms going extinct over the hundreds of years until all that was left was their fusion: the Lumen. Silver Port was flooded with new settlers, and an entirely new city, Homestead, was constructed to serve as the capital of the new nation. The city was positioned strategically in the centre of the newly settled lands, and for reasons of triumph was built precisely along the spot of the battle that had ended the Light Conquest.

Once the Lumen had come into their own, a nationalist sentiment began to rise. The Lumen were now very unlike their neighbours, and even more powerful compared to them as they had been as the Lairreen. The Lairreen-style phases of conquest began anew, under the organization of the Lumenistic Order, a militant body of the Faith of the Light, set up to spread the Lumen eastward over the lands abandoned by the Light Ones so many hundred years ago. The land of the Lumen eventually became larger and larger, and the expansion of land and constant war began a tradition of large families to populate the land and dedication to the military to defend it. Lumenor was born, built atop the ashes of the Light Ones' former conquests. To commemorate the conquest, and to ensure that the conquered territories remained as such, the Lumenistic Order wrote the Principles of Foundation. The Principles were signed on the site of modern Kotka, and formalized the existence of the state of Lumenor, as well as specified the terms of the surrender of the eastern tribes to become their modern vassal-states.

[b]Religion:[/b] The Faith of the Light, a religious tradition originating from the far east that became the state religion of Lumenor as a result of the migration of the Light Ones. The Faith of the Light has a very extravagant style, and many obscure traditions that were developed in the far east and spread westward without adequate explanation of their purpose. The Faith of the Light prescribes discipline and structure as the meaning of existence, and despises disorder and chaos as machinations contrary to the principles of existence. The Faith puts a heavy emphasis on purity, and unlike the Lumen language, was not affected in any significant capacity by the migration of the Light Ones to Lumenor. The principal deity of the Faith of the Light is Valo, the God of Light, who is pictured as the sun. Valo has five daughters: Tuli, Kuutamo, Loisto, Laki and Renoutta. The Goddesses respectively represent fire (light that destroys darkness), moonlight (light among darkness), brilliance (light in the sense of enlightenment), justice (light illuminating misbehaviour) and relaxation and calm (light that heals). Valo's wife is Kaikki, who is all physical existence, such as the world, which is not Valo. Valo and Kaiki meet to form the light given off by the sun, which gives birth to their daughters. In this way, the principles which the daughters represent are said to be separate from and above existence, the concepts themselves being divine in so far as being birthed from Valo and Kaiki.

[b]Population:[/b] Approx. 2,000,000

[u][b]Lumen[/b][/u]

Lumen are often considered a subspecies of humanity, but have numerous physical characteristics that separate them from their more ordinary cousins. They vary in height and weight just as humans do, but are less biologically fertile (Lumen pregnancy lasts just over one year) and start and end puberty about two and half years after the human average. Lumen live slightly longer than humans as well, and have a higher percentage of their time alive spent in the adult phase of development, with old age starting to rear its head significantly after most humans. The most easily visual unique physical trait of Lumen is their ambiance. Lumen skin glows slightly, and in the dark a faint white aura is very easily visible permeating from a Lumen's body. The degree of ambiance depends on the current physical activity of the Lumen in question. A Lumen undergoing rigorous physical exercise will glow brightest of all, whereas one settling down for bed will have almost no visual ambiance. Lumen hair ranges through the shades of grey, from black to white, with purely black and purely white being the most common, and mixtures thereof both uncommon and looked down upon. Lumen have normal human eye colours, but with brown and hazel replaced by silver and gold. Lumen, being ultimately descended from a mixture of two species themselves, are capable of mating with humans. Half-Lumen children will be fully Lumen if their mother was the Lumen parent, and will be human but with Lumen eye and hair colour if their father was the Lumen parent. Sometimes this can be impossible to discern, such as if the child has black hair and green eyes, two traits that full humans can also possess. [/center]