Sarica. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
legislatory) wrote2022-05-20 09:55 am
legislatory) wrote2022-05-20 09:55 am
Entry tags:
setting.
Efith is a country roughly the size of Germany, many of their acres formerly territory belonging to their surrounding neighbours of which the most relevant is Reece (south), though there's the Eastern Mountain region, too, and Mergan up north (the quietest of their neighbours and therefore as of yes uninvaded). On the west side of the country, there's a vast sea with various scatters of island kingdoms, none of which Efith has any hostile relations with. Efith's capital is merely called the Capital.
Internally, Efith is divided into five "states", the West, North, East and South States with the Capital State squarely in the middle. Each state is devoted to a specific element, the North State to water, the South State to fire, the East State to wind and the West State to earth. The main temples in each state educates priests/priestesses in the elemental magic of the given state, so the South State temple educates people in fire magic. If priests or priestesses show abilities in fire magic, they'll be sent to the South State to learn their craft.
The Capital State is a hotpot of all four elements, along with the "fifth element", Efith's main deities called the Mysteries, a kind of mind/soul-focused god entity. No one really defines it beyond that, because, honestly, no one knows for sure. It has never manifested itself beyond prophetic dreams and whispers in the various elements that the priesthood control.
Efith is a part-democracy, in the sense that certain aspects of government are democratic (Ancient Greek definition, not the modern one), while others are theocratic - and the two institutions, Senate and the Sacred Council of the Temple, work closely together. While all decisions on how to run the country have to go through the Sacred Council before being finalized, the decision-making process and inventive state of legislation takes place in the Senate, among the Senators and the Legislators (their term for lawyers/lobbyists), with the Temple having "interpretative rights", their priests and priestesses meditating and divinating on laws and proposals to find out whether they're approved by the Mysteries, before they're put into effect.
The wars, especially with Reece, but also with the Eastern Mountains, have resulted in many enslaved people from those regions working for Efithians as part of their labouring class. Keeping slaves is as natural to the Efithians as it were to most Ancient Greeks and Romans and a natural consequence of their warfaring. A slave cannot own anything or have independent romantic relations to others (basically forced celibacy, sexual relations between master and slave are forbidden as well). Freeing slaves is almost unheard of. Sarica freeing his former lover, Timachus, to make him his partner is a very rare incident and generally seen as somewhat laughable.
Internally, Efith is divided into five "states", the West, North, East and South States with the Capital State squarely in the middle. Each state is devoted to a specific element, the North State to water, the South State to fire, the East State to wind and the West State to earth. The main temples in each state educates priests/priestesses in the elemental magic of the given state, so the South State temple educates people in fire magic. If priests or priestesses show abilities in fire magic, they'll be sent to the South State to learn their craft.
The Capital State is a hotpot of all four elements, along with the "fifth element", Efith's main deities called the Mysteries, a kind of mind/soul-focused god entity. No one really defines it beyond that, because, honestly, no one knows for sure. It has never manifested itself beyond prophetic dreams and whispers in the various elements that the priesthood control.
Efith is a part-democracy, in the sense that certain aspects of government are democratic (Ancient Greek definition, not the modern one), while others are theocratic - and the two institutions, Senate and the Sacred Council of the Temple, work closely together. While all decisions on how to run the country have to go through the Sacred Council before being finalized, the decision-making process and inventive state of legislation takes place in the Senate, among the Senators and the Legislators (their term for lawyers/lobbyists), with the Temple having "interpretative rights", their priests and priestesses meditating and divinating on laws and proposals to find out whether they're approved by the Mysteries, before they're put into effect.
The wars, especially with Reece, but also with the Eastern Mountains, have resulted in many enslaved people from those regions working for Efithians as part of their labouring class. Keeping slaves is as natural to the Efithians as it were to most Ancient Greeks and Romans and a natural consequence of their warfaring. A slave cannot own anything or have independent romantic relations to others (basically forced celibacy, sexual relations between master and slave are forbidden as well). Freeing slaves is almost unheard of. Sarica freeing his former lover, Timachus, to make him his partner is a very rare incident and generally seen as somewhat laughable.