Angkar

Overview

Once an empire that encompassed everything east of the Yinse Long river, they were pushed back to their current peninsula due to protracted war with Shalkara. During the course of this war, women became the dominate force in mercantilism and property ownership, creating a proper matriarchy. Unlike in Doomstadt, males are not subservient and are well treated. Their religious traditions involve more mysticism and focus on enlightenment.

Culture

Culture found in land

Religions

In antiquity the people of Angkar believed in the Oborosin religions that persist to the modern day in Vedia, but were introduced during their expansion to the principles of "Ru" from Shalkara as well as reverence for the Dragon Orders. These ultimately overshadowed the Oborosin faiths and dominate the spiritual landscape of Angkar.

Social Structure

Male Angkara are not a deeply underpriveleged or subjugated group in the kingdom but are essentially second class and relegated more to menial and mundane work while decisionmaking and leadership are considered both feminine qualities and prerogatives. A great deal of reinforcing narrative and philosophy about the correct balance of power in life and the universe helps to maintain this status quo.

Customs and Holidays

What days matter to the people

Arts and Exceptionalism

Angkar is famous for unique and beautiful architecture, including a great deal of large and spectacular temple complexes dating all the way back to their Oberosin heritage. Visitors are often deeply impressed with the art and architecture on display in this prosperous, if rather isolationist, kingdom.

Politics

Government

Angkar is ruled by a queen, currently Indravarmana VI, who is attended by a mixture of nobility and ministerial bureaucracy. Succession is usually orderly but has not consistently been direct line-of-descent, meaning several families have spent time on the throne without much tradition of coup or major disruption of government. Intrigue and infighting is most common in the mercantile classes, and is broadly considered to be beneath the dignity of the nobility. This means that major political machinations tend to be tortuously elaborate, secretive, and subtle.

Angkar Map

Organization of the Land

How the power structure is divided regional (i.e. Duchies, Baronies, Lordships, etc.)

Economy

The prosperity of the kingdom relies on their early invention of a system for irrigating rice which has allowed them to be a net exporter of food for almost the whole of their history, practically impervious to famine.

History

History since the Dragon Wars

National History

In the 10th through 13th centuries, Angkar rose to become a powerful empire that encompassed almost everything east of the Yingse Long river, including nearly half the land which is now part of the Empire of Shalkara. The founding of the Shalkaran Song dynasty to replace its unstable predecessor the Zhou coincides with this development in Angkar. Ultimately, the demise of Song and subsequent massive juggernaut of Yuan dynasty Shalkara created a protracted and devastating series of wars that ultimately drove Angkar back to just the peninsula it now occupies and from which it has not greatly expanded since.

The wars themselves, between 1290 and 1325, caused a sea change in Angkaran society that drove the development of a predominantly matriarchal system. Women, required by the circumstances of the long and devastating series of wars and punishing defeats to take an ever more active role in society and civil service, became the mainstays of government and by the fifteenth century were well instituted as the essential keepers of political and social power. This ties both to the necessity of feminine leadership and the effective and stable state and able leadership of a series of female military commanders that brought the long series of defeats to a halt and managed to bring about a new and durable stability.

Major Modern Events

What events will have shaped the experience of characters having grown up there

Geography

The physical lay of the land