Country Name: Ternopolesian Empire
Government type: Caste-based non-dynastic monarchism [since kings are chosen by the determiners]. Can be considered theocratic due to the big role the clergy/choosers plays.
The official banner of the Thernopolisian Empire:
The color stripes represent the different castes [which one being which pointed out below], the black background represents the darkness of times before and the pink border represents the empire as the whole.
The caste system used by the Thernopolesians is a six tiered system that goes like this;
[Represented with the color purple][one person] Highest Authority - Emperor
[represented with the color blue][2% of pop] Secondary Authorities - Nobility, Great Deciders [see religion]
[represented with the color green][20% of pop] Honored workers - Smiths, Alchemists, Architects, Battle Masters, Deciders, Philosophers***
[represented with the color yellow][30% of pop] Workers - Builders, Merchants, Artisans, Knights
[represented with the color orange][40% of pop] Peasants - Farmers, bakers
[represented with the color red][8% of pop] Comedy* - Gladiators, Beasts**, Clowns
[[There’s more jobs than depicted, jobs are picked depending on what the empire currently needs.]]
Each caste, even the lowest of them is seen as having a role in society. The best way to move up the hierarchy is to win the favor of the determiners.
It should be noted that gender tends to factor into jobs, for instance women tend to be merchants and artisans while men tend to be builders and knights.
The system has the issue of being somewhat inflexible, which is why the deciders sometimes give out “secondary” roles such as smiths being conscripted into the army or nobility covering a vast range of choices on what they can do. It also has the issue of the king pretty much being chosen by the arch deciders who in practice tend to pick another arch decider.
*Basically those seen this low on the system are seen only as worth for entertainment purposes i.e being in arenas to fight or so on. Basically those seen so worthless all the determiners can think to do with them is “have them do stupid things and die for the people’s amusement”. Humans in this category tend to be the children of those who commit crime.
**Non-humans too ugly to count as human like enough to work in the system. I.e beast races.
***Notorious for being the caste that has the most people kicked down the hierarchy.
Ruler: Emperor Brez Ezon
Emperor Brez Ezon was recently ordained by the arch deciders little less than a decade ago and has proven surprisingly competent. The unique thing of Brez Ezon is that unlike most kings, he is part of the nobility instead of the clergy as a result of the Ezon family gaining considerable influence on the great deciders.
This has called for increasing tensions between the secondary authorities that could lead to a potential civil war in the future due to some seeing Brez Ezon as illegitimate on the account of the arch deciders being influenced by outside forces.
Location: Region 4
Capital City: Lezajskona
Lezajskona is located by the large lake also named Lazajskona and is where the massive castle is located, overlooking the vast lake the empire has complete control over.
Lezajskona is ancient in terms of age, existing since the first cultures around the region started to civilize. It is so old that among the philosophers it is hotly debated on if the settlement existed during the ice age even being settled by nomads looking for a good source of fish, but there isn’t much proof of this.
The castle is incredibly massive, so huge in fact the whole city is the castle in multiple layers built on over thousands of years, and the castle is covered in defenses to the point where there has been only three successful sieges in its history that goes back to moment the ice age ended.
All three of those sieges being achieved generally by starving those inside the castle, something now inconceivable thanks to the internal farms in some districts of the castle and the bordering of the lake giving access to easy fish and water through aqueducts and feats of engineering that would make archimedes faint; if only due to the sheer amount of application of his devices. Of course, nothing is invincible from within...
Language : Tejakian Dialect; Pretty much a bastardized form of hungarian.
They also have a habit of assimilating other languages they come across meaning the linguistic history of Tejakian is pretty much a bunch of oral dialects mashed together overtime into a unified “imperial” language.
Species: Human mostly, but nearby species may be roped up into their caste system though tend to be forced into the bottom three tiers of the hierarchy. I suggest one prays that the conquered race is human-like enough to "work" in the Working and Peasant castes.
Army: 1% of the population is part of the standing army[1 in 100 people], with a potential 5% that can be drawn in times of aggressive imperial expansion.
The nature of the Thernopolesian military makes them focus much more on using advanced metallurgical capabilities, armor and siege based tactics and generally focusing on making a unstoppable wall of death. However their army even with calvary is rather slow in movement due to all the supplies they must bring to maintain their impressive armies, being a potential Achilles heel...
The swords used by the Thernopolisans are very, very refined using techniques developed over thousands of years leading to swords so unbreakable that the age of some swords in use by the military is two hundred years old; kept squeaky clean. “Drohobizan* Steel” is a very much sought after commodity as the swords made in Drohobizan are said to slice through iron like a baker slices through bread.
Example of such sword:
Their forces tend to be heavily armored as well, even the archers tend to use at least chain mail. While the difficulty of manufacturing armor does factor in, generally the longer life time of the armor tends to make up for it with surpluses of weapons and armor being stored and kept clean for times of war requiring more than 20,000 people. However replacing old equipment is a very troublesome task.
When the numbers go up to 5%, it is due to conscripted smiths, not peasants due to a chooser a century ago noticing that smiths like practicing with their weapons. Smiths are always subordinate to knights, but the children of a smith can become knights themselves.
As a result smiths are now mandated to practice with their weapons.
*Drohobizan is located towards the north around the mountains.
History:
The Thernopolesian Empire started out as a simple city state known as Ter, near the Lezajskona lake and was one of the neighbors of Lejaka, a city state that brought the concept of civilization into play in the region.
The Formative era was very simple, and the caste system that the current Thernopolseians run by did not exist during this time. Instead it was simple kingdoms and chiefdoms that warred for nearby land and lake territory or traded across the lake to somewhat more primitive chiefdoms on the eastern part of the lake whom followed a feudal system.
Civilizations rose and fell for god knows how long, but something exceptional happened that allowed for one empire to dominate the entire lake.
The Lezajiksonians forged an empire with Ter but a province, but this gave the Ter the security the other societies that resisted didn’t have when barbarians from the east attacked and ravaged much of the ancient societies- only the western parts staying up amidst the onslaught.
While the barbarians eventually assimilated into the societies around, their deadly impact on the eastern size caused instability in the Lezajiksonian empire causing it to crash leading to a 400 year long dark age, but in this dark age the Ter city-state retained much lost technology as civil wars raged in the walls of the great castle and raping and pillaging fomented in the east.
Than, something completely insane happened. Around 1,300 Y.A when towards the end of the Lezajiksonian dark age the Ter successfully seized their great, impregnable castle. Than the Thernopolesians in a matter of one hundred years conquered the whole lake due to the technological advantages they held from retained knowledge and a supply base made from the assimilation of all the western lake cultures- later assimilating eastern lake cultures as well. From the conquered lake came classical Thernopolesian society, though it wasn’t called “thernopolyesia” at the time despite the historians of Thernopolyesia insisting that it is part of their continuity. [Historical revisionism yay!]
For the next seven hundred years classical thernopolesians ran themselves under a very feudalistic system that is much like those seen in Europe. Due to the relative isolation and the barbarians from the east subdued, Pax Thernopolesia became a thing for two centuries. In those two centuries the roots of the caste system formed from philosophers who saw the feudal system as inadequate for a empire so great. Such ideas went persecuted.
Imperial expansion lead to the conquest of the Drohobzian river, where the legendary steel smiths proved very hard to conquer with their advanced metallurgy, but due to their lack of numbers eventually were crushed under the boot as well. However their metallurgy would revolutionize the empire.
Much corruption and unrest came about in the following years, and by 800 Y.A the classical empire fell apart into three warring states and a century of war ensued. In these hundred years death and starvation became the norm, making people in power in the state of Thernos turn to a new system in desperation brought about by the clergy whom made a organized caste system that regimented society in a machine-like way that out produced rival societies and reconquered all of the states.
As a result the caste system became legitimized throughout the empire; but it would be another two centuries before the system fully became implemented to a state recognizable to today’s Thernopolesia. In some ways there always was a caste system in the region, it just wasn’t as elaborate as the one that currently is used to run things.
The current order of things for the past several centuries has been relatively steady with road systems connecting the whole empire from the eastern frontiers to the western plains. Many cultures and societies have fallen to the Thernonesian empire, some taking centuries to finally be conquered others being swallowed in days.
The system the choosers made seemed to be working near flawlessly as far as a denizen was concerned with the successes and conquests of the Thernonesian Empire.
Around 400 years ago the Styrian corridor was made by expansion to the eastern sea bringing the Thernopolyseians into contact with the wider world. Current plans in the empire are to try to conquer their war to the sea, but imperial overstretch has started becoming a problem due to the logistical problems of building a concrete road through a long, hilly region.
In the past 100 years the caste system has been slowly more and more undermined with people buying their descendant’s futures with the wealth that the empire has brought. The rise of the nobility also has furthered to undermine the caste system by making it more aristocratic, as the nobles whom are really just meant to run provinces start influencing the clergy.
In the past decade the Ordination of Emperor Brez Ezon has caused deep concerned within the circles of the deciders who traditionally have only let arch choosers become emperors. It is feared that the influence the Choosers once had is waning and the empire will degenerate to a dynasty monarchy like that which existed over seven hundred years ago.
What will happen next, we shall see in the IC.
Pic:
[A idea of what the main city looks like, though it is really mean to be more sprawling than towering with many layers of different architecture from thousands of years of history]
Religion : I’ll detail it IC or later since i’m outta energy man. Basically the choosers are the clergy of the empire and their job is to pick who moves up a caste since unlike the indian caste system which was very spiritual the religion here is more secular, meaning that a more concrete reward for hard work exists with children of those who worked hard ascending to do jobs in highest castes.
There is gods and a pantheon assimilated from local cultures, but these gods don’t play much rule in the “imperial religion”, they just aren’t persecuted as long as they do not contradict the caste system.
There is a myth behind the deciders to explain why they get to choose who is in what caste.
Population: Around 2.1 million people give or take. The pops in this RP are odd to me since I recall stuff like the roman empire having tens of millions of people, but I am pressured to not go much higher than 2 million since no one else has.
