Location/Geography
(#27)
The Jade Island is a realm rich in spices and jade. The interior of the Island is defined primarily by dense jungle, sprawling limestone caverns with the ruins of long lost underground civilizations and highly dangerous flying predators that are still fearing even at a Iron Age level of technology. The jade mountains are not the tallest mountains in the world, but they make up for it in the exotic vistas that permeate the region. Forests have been somewhat cleared out by earlier societies of Finefolk, but not to the extent seen with humans for the finefolk often house themselves in trees when they are not allowed in the temple pyramids that house the highest echelons of societies in the area. The densely forested areas of the island are interspersed with wide plains out to the Caloro sea which feed the empire and allow for trade from the other major civilizations around the Caloro sea.
General Introduction
The empire of hands is a empire that has expanded to new lands around the Caloro sea in the past century. The finefolk, finally unified after centuries of disunity under one imperium has caused them to start expanding downwards seeking new wealth to get their massive hands on. The Great Alpha wants to make the Caloro sea into a handy lake, but to do so there will need to be a great push into the South and overcome primal fears to do so.
History
History will be elaborated on in light of the nature of adjacent cultures. However, for now what must be known is that a folk religion became the main religion of a major empire that dominated the northern hills a thousand years earlier. Said empire collapsed due to a centuries long drought and only in the past four centuries has agricultural civilization and ancient technologies been rediscovered by the tinkering guilds. The finefolk have made slaves out of the other races in the area, making a caste society where finefolk can focus on higher pursuits such as war, philosophy and tinkering. The Empire of Hands has a culture of tinkerers and a pathological obsession with elaborate siege machines that goes back centuries which has allowed them to conquer the southern lands.
More recently the Empire of hands has sought to monopolize trade in and out of the Caloro bay so they can get all the best spices from the west, and for that reason has expanded across the straits of their large island into the southern territories putting them at conflict with former trade partners.
(further history will require Alt's civ)
Government & Society
The Empire of hands is a empire that uses a tributary system and slave classes to maintain power. The Great Alpha is essentially akin to a king or emperor; what the great Alpha says goes. For they are handpicked from the palm of the gods to lead and are completely unquestionable. If the Great Alpha is overtaken by another Alpha, than it is clear that the hand of god has cast itself upon a superior ruler. Their religion is highly ritual and based around hands entirely, with massive hand statues and steles dedicated to the hand of god. Their god is literally a massive hand that smashes the unwanted and gives to the strong. For the hand of god beats the lazy and rewards the diligent. To be in god's favor is what the Great Alpha must do, and if the Great Alpha fails society is ruined.
There is two major classes of architecture, temple architecture and tree architecture. The temples tend to be steep, covered and terraced. They act as a storage faculty, market, ritual site and home for the Great Alpha and his fingers throughout the empire. Tree architecture reflects older traditions and are basically large, elaborate nests placed into trees with pulley systems and hammocks. They are a nice play to live if you have at least one wife. If you have no wife, you literally live in a dirt hut you are expected to make yourself (than you are expected to make the better houses). If you get a wife somehow (it's hard since the higher ranking ones may take your wife if you married too pretty), than you get a tree house too.
The word wife is a bit misleading since there is no elaborate marriage ceremony, just a short and often rushed marking ritual to state 'THIS WOMAN IS MY WOMAN'.
There is three major classes in their empire.
The farmers, the tinkerers/engineers and the soldiers.
The tinkerers and clergy and one-in-the-same and are the great alpha's fingers that deal with a range of tasks ranging from managing the farms to tinkering with new machines. They are very important to the manufacture of the war machine the Empire of Hands boasts about, along with the design of new buildings and the creation of sculpture. They don't view themselves as "artists"- for their follow a strict geometric system of numbers to make the effigies of god perfect and if they fail, they get beaten to death with a executioner's gauntlet.
The soldiers are combined with the merchants, the merchant-soldier being of great importance to the Empire of Hand's economy as having a unarmed merchant without military experience comes off to the Handyfolk as simply suicidal. These merchants unintentionally also happen to be a source of piracy due to corruption and very little oversight outside of the Empire (despite piracy being banned by the Great Alpha).
The farmers do farm work and can be conscripted into building elaborate communal temples for everyone to live in, each terrace holding successfully higher level members of society. The lowest social class, the slaves do not get to live in the temples. Instead they live in mud huts and do their work out in the open, without any protection beyond the merchant-soldiers.
The empire of hands values dominance, ingenuity, dexterity and versatility. A versatile individual is the best kind of individual in the minds of the Tinkerers and in the minds of the great Alpha himself (females tend to be their own social class of child rearers, with higher ranking males having more women while low ranking males die virgins unless they can get a women from outside the empire. While they can't have kids with other species and propagate their family name, it still gets them a tree house.)
Economy & Industry
The economy of the Empire of Hands is highly unequal, with wealth being seen in not just money but the amount of wives with children you have. For that is propagating more of your kin, which means your bloodline is richer. Selling wives at times is used as a trade currency, but more abstract forms of currency are used by lower ranked Finefolk in the hierarchy for common trade goods. Jade coins tend to be what they use, and in theory you can buy a wife if you get enough minted jade coins. There is effectively serfdom and slavery in the Empire of Hands, and they will frequently sell the riches of the Jade Island's forests (like spices, fruits and handycrafts) in return for slaves to do the shit work.
Handyworks are what the Empire of Hands is well known for, which essentially are elaborate plates and sculptures of their god that they openly sell to spread their god's influence around the world. They are ironically usually melted down into something else or kept in some rich landlord's villa as a exotic cup holder, but the Empire of Hands is very oblivious to that as they just can't imagine other people thinking so little of the perfect craftworks. Handyworks aren't very diverse, but they are hard to replicate due to the expensive materials use.
Ivory from various forest creatures is also a major trade item they export.
The Jade Island lacks in terms of draft animals, silks (they have no silk), oils or waxes and tends to trade or raid for these items.
The tinkerers monopolize industry in the Empire of Hands.
Imports
-Slaves
-Spices
-Exotic Foods
-Silk
-Wax based products like candles.
-Carpets
-Bugs (bug races are considered a food product instead of a 'slave' type)
-Magical artifacts
Exports
-Gems (Jade in particular)
-Handyworks (crafts that double as idols)
-Metals (caves got good metals)
-Wood
-Fruits
-Slaves
-Herbs (Adrenaline inducing flowers you infuse into tea mainly)
Military Overview
The Empire of hands has had to adapt its military to unfamiliar open plain environments in relatively recent times, which they have done to some success but some parts of their combat doctrine still reflect the earlier raid oriented warfare which defines the military history of earlier civilizations on the Jade Island.
The Empire of Hands is a military which works heavily around various types of armored caravans and siege machines (similar to those the Romans used). The armored caravans are pulled by horses.
The armoring of units are light, but they compensate by having heavy shields and long spears or more specialized military equipment such as the "steel fists" which are basically like Maces mixed with Halberds in terms of their niche. A long reach smashing tool that is meant to try to break enemy formations.
They are lacking in gun powder weapons, instead they make use of long bows and crossbows for their ranged military forces. They also anachronistically use a variety of slings when fighting in their element.
Their metallurgy is their strong point, along with having combat doctrines making use of "lull and ambush" tactics that are mixed with smash and grab assaults on enemy fortifications. They may sometimes try starving out their enemy in siege, but only when smash and grab assaults with their siege machines fail to break through the ramparts.
(#27)
The Jade Island is a realm rich in spices and jade. The interior of the Island is defined primarily by dense jungle, sprawling limestone caverns with the ruins of long lost underground civilizations and highly dangerous flying predators that are still fearing even at a Iron Age level of technology. The jade mountains are not the tallest mountains in the world, but they make up for it in the exotic vistas that permeate the region. Forests have been somewhat cleared out by earlier societies of Finefolk, but not to the extent seen with humans for the finefolk often house themselves in trees when they are not allowed in the temple pyramids that house the highest echelons of societies in the area. The densely forested areas of the island are interspersed with wide plains out to the Caloro sea which feed the empire and allow for trade from the other major civilizations around the Caloro sea.
General Introduction
The empire of hands is a empire that has expanded to new lands around the Caloro sea in the past century. The finefolk, finally unified after centuries of disunity under one imperium has caused them to start expanding downwards seeking new wealth to get their massive hands on. The Great Alpha wants to make the Caloro sea into a handy lake, but to do so there will need to be a great push into the South and overcome primal fears to do so.
History
History will be elaborated on in light of the nature of adjacent cultures. However, for now what must be known is that a folk religion became the main religion of a major empire that dominated the northern hills a thousand years earlier. Said empire collapsed due to a centuries long drought and only in the past four centuries has agricultural civilization and ancient technologies been rediscovered by the tinkering guilds. The finefolk have made slaves out of the other races in the area, making a caste society where finefolk can focus on higher pursuits such as war, philosophy and tinkering. The Empire of Hands has a culture of tinkerers and a pathological obsession with elaborate siege machines that goes back centuries which has allowed them to conquer the southern lands.
More recently the Empire of hands has sought to monopolize trade in and out of the Caloro bay so they can get all the best spices from the west, and for that reason has expanded across the straits of their large island into the southern territories putting them at conflict with former trade partners.
(further history will require Alt's civ)
Government & Society
The Empire of hands is a empire that uses a tributary system and slave classes to maintain power. The Great Alpha is essentially akin to a king or emperor; what the great Alpha says goes. For they are handpicked from the palm of the gods to lead and are completely unquestionable. If the Great Alpha is overtaken by another Alpha, than it is clear that the hand of god has cast itself upon a superior ruler. Their religion is highly ritual and based around hands entirely, with massive hand statues and steles dedicated to the hand of god. Their god is literally a massive hand that smashes the unwanted and gives to the strong. For the hand of god beats the lazy and rewards the diligent. To be in god's favor is what the Great Alpha must do, and if the Great Alpha fails society is ruined.
There is two major classes of architecture, temple architecture and tree architecture. The temples tend to be steep, covered and terraced. They act as a storage faculty, market, ritual site and home for the Great Alpha and his fingers throughout the empire. Tree architecture reflects older traditions and are basically large, elaborate nests placed into trees with pulley systems and hammocks. They are a nice play to live if you have at least one wife. If you have no wife, you literally live in a dirt hut you are expected to make yourself (than you are expected to make the better houses). If you get a wife somehow (it's hard since the higher ranking ones may take your wife if you married too pretty), than you get a tree house too.
The word wife is a bit misleading since there is no elaborate marriage ceremony, just a short and often rushed marking ritual to state 'THIS WOMAN IS MY WOMAN'.
There is three major classes in their empire.
The farmers, the tinkerers/engineers and the soldiers.
The tinkerers and clergy and one-in-the-same and are the great alpha's fingers that deal with a range of tasks ranging from managing the farms to tinkering with new machines. They are very important to the manufacture of the war machine the Empire of Hands boasts about, along with the design of new buildings and the creation of sculpture. They don't view themselves as "artists"- for their follow a strict geometric system of numbers to make the effigies of god perfect and if they fail, they get beaten to death with a executioner's gauntlet.
The soldiers are combined with the merchants, the merchant-soldier being of great importance to the Empire of Hand's economy as having a unarmed merchant without military experience comes off to the Handyfolk as simply suicidal. These merchants unintentionally also happen to be a source of piracy due to corruption and very little oversight outside of the Empire (despite piracy being banned by the Great Alpha).
The farmers do farm work and can be conscripted into building elaborate communal temples for everyone to live in, each terrace holding successfully higher level members of society. The lowest social class, the slaves do not get to live in the temples. Instead they live in mud huts and do their work out in the open, without any protection beyond the merchant-soldiers.
The empire of hands values dominance, ingenuity, dexterity and versatility. A versatile individual is the best kind of individual in the minds of the Tinkerers and in the minds of the great Alpha himself (females tend to be their own social class of child rearers, with higher ranking males having more women while low ranking males die virgins unless they can get a women from outside the empire. While they can't have kids with other species and propagate their family name, it still gets them a tree house.)
The finefolk are humanoids with orange fur, long arms (with big hands) and stubby legs. They have flat noses and a skull which tapers back horizontally instead of being round like our own. The finefolk have no visible cornea, instead having what appears to just be a monocolored dark pupil and their ears are extremely circular. The finefolk tend to be arboreal, a fact of which is why they tend to fear open spaces (a problem that is literally beaten out of the military-merchant class from birth, through forced exposure to open places until they stop fearing it or die from panic). Finefolk have very different levels of civilization and despite the Empire of hands claiming the whole Jade Island, there is still various hill tribes living in trees who are extremely dangerous to contend with due to being much more in touch with the tree-based roots of the finefolk kind than the "civilized" Empire of Hands is. The males tend to be orange while the females tend to be black.
Economy & Industry
The economy of the Empire of Hands is highly unequal, with wealth being seen in not just money but the amount of wives with children you have. For that is propagating more of your kin, which means your bloodline is richer. Selling wives at times is used as a trade currency, but more abstract forms of currency are used by lower ranked Finefolk in the hierarchy for common trade goods. Jade coins tend to be what they use, and in theory you can buy a wife if you get enough minted jade coins. There is effectively serfdom and slavery in the Empire of Hands, and they will frequently sell the riches of the Jade Island's forests (like spices, fruits and handycrafts) in return for slaves to do the shit work.
Handyworks are what the Empire of Hands is well known for, which essentially are elaborate plates and sculptures of their god that they openly sell to spread their god's influence around the world. They are ironically usually melted down into something else or kept in some rich landlord's villa as a exotic cup holder, but the Empire of Hands is very oblivious to that as they just can't imagine other people thinking so little of the perfect craftworks. Handyworks aren't very diverse, but they are hard to replicate due to the expensive materials use.
Ivory from various forest creatures is also a major trade item they export.
The Jade Island lacks in terms of draft animals, silks (they have no silk), oils or waxes and tends to trade or raid for these items.
The tinkerers monopolize industry in the Empire of Hands.
Imports
-Slaves
-Spices
-Exotic Foods
-Silk
-Wax based products like candles.
-Carpets
-Bugs (bug races are considered a food product instead of a 'slave' type)
-Magical artifacts
Exports
-Gems (Jade in particular)
-Handyworks (crafts that double as idols)
-Metals (caves got good metals)
-Wood
-Fruits
-Slaves
-Herbs (Adrenaline inducing flowers you infuse into tea mainly)
Military Overview
The Empire of hands has had to adapt its military to unfamiliar open plain environments in relatively recent times, which they have done to some success but some parts of their combat doctrine still reflect the earlier raid oriented warfare which defines the military history of earlier civilizations on the Jade Island.
The Empire of Hands is a military which works heavily around various types of armored caravans and siege machines (similar to those the Romans used). The armored caravans are pulled by horses.
The armoring of units are light, but they compensate by having heavy shields and long spears or more specialized military equipment such as the "steel fists" which are basically like Maces mixed with Halberds in terms of their niche. A long reach smashing tool that is meant to try to break enemy formations.
They are lacking in gun powder weapons, instead they make use of long bows and crossbows for their ranged military forces. They also anachronistically use a variety of slings when fighting in their element.
Their metallurgy is their strong point, along with having combat doctrines making use of "lull and ambush" tactics that are mixed with smash and grab assaults on enemy fortifications. They may sometimes try starving out their enemy in siege, but only when smash and grab assaults with their siege machines fail to break through the ramparts.
