Vht'shjenjé

The Vht'shjenjé is a Scorched state in the northern part of the Mír river region of the Iron Desert , risen into statehood from an earlier tribal confederation between seventeen nomadic settlements and the underground settlement of Varvardnársh . 
==History==
The Vht'shjenjé or "Those born out of Shadow" are descendants of the handfuls of survivors of the ancient Eshárenja, a tribal civilisation in the stone age that rose to prominence but later fell victim to a near complete genocide. The tortured remains of the Eshárenja migrated north to the end of the Mír river, and settled in a cave they later named Varvardnársh. Unlike their ancestors, they focused largley on martial virtues and absolute egalitarianism. In the early days of the Vht'shjenjé civilisation, all members of the tribe slept in the same chambers. Due to the lack of daylight in their subterranean cavern, there was no day and night cycle, and instead one half of society worked in one period while the other slept, and later they changed. Every bed was used by two people who in most cases barely knew each other. They were a scarred people who lamented bitterly the demise of their kin and their homes, and their bitterness and lust for revenge was tempered only by the fear of knowing that the outside world wanted them dead. It would take nearly a century before they actively began to rise to the surface again, and by then they had already developed a society quite unlike anything else in the desert. They were reborn, in the subterranean depths in perpetual darkness, and thus called themselves the Shadowborn.
Varvardnársh slowly rose again to become a trade hub, located in the centre of the northern Mír region, and began to rise to prominence in the region. Varvardnársh eventually grew into the largest city in the region and the tribes that traded there became subject to its influence. It was in this time that a young girl, named Shjevtyrín Nen'Vshtjávr , was born. She had an unusual gift for reciting the legends of ancient times, so much that she eventually began to be regarded as a prophetess and even wars were fought over her. She disappeared into the desert for a long time, but one day the young girl came back as a woman, having lived out alone in the desert for years. Her hair was white and she was blind, but her intellect was brighter than ever. Since that day, she has ruled the Vht'shjenjé, for more than a thousand years without dying; so great is her power.
The defining moment for the Vht'shjenjé came when war was declared upon their ancient enemy; the insect-worshipping Mósharenja of the south. The black-bloods, as they were called, had all but destroyed the red-blooded Eshárenja but now they had returned. The war that followed was immensely bitter; a stalemate of incredibly brutality that lasted for over a thousand years and nearly depopulated the whole region. After a millennia of fighting and countless of thousands of casualties the Mósharenja capital city of Ch'kth'chir was destroyed and the Mósharenja civilisation annihilated. 
The slow transformation of the ancient Eshárenja into the Vht'shjenjé has been a painstaking and bloody one, with frequent coups from various factions within the government fighting one another in the streets of the capital city, sometimes with casualties in the thousands. However, after the rise of the theocratic government with their two councils, the Vht'shjenjé world is relatively stable and peaceful.
==Government==
The perpetual head of state of the Vht'shjenjé is the immortal prophetess Shjevtyrín, who has outlived countless of generations but still resides in her palace in the heart of the city. Around her is the Upper Court, dominated by the poet class that is essentially the clergy of the Vht'shjenjé. All the officially recognised sects in the state have representatives in the Upper Court, where affairs of spirituality are ultimately decided by discourse between them. Prominent poets, artists and thinkers are sometimes invited to the Upper Court to lecture; naturally, this is considered an enormous honour.
The rest of Vht'shjenjé society congregates in the Greater Council, where representatives of all recognised civil and military factions may discuss affairs of state. Society is roughly divided into classes of merchants, poets, artificers, scholars, nomads and warriors and each class run themselves in local groups. In order for a segment of a class to be recognised to send representatives to the Council, they must submit to scrutiny from the Upper Court that they do not deviate from the Ancestral Veneration cult, and must pay a certain amount of goods or services to the central state. Apart from that they are free to live and organise their own lives, meaning that individual Shadowborn factions largely govern themselves without interference from the state.
The military forces of the Vht'shjenjé is the Azure Army, as their banner was once a plain azure flag. Their flag is no longer the same but they are still referred to by this name. They have their own schools, their own craftsmen, their own poets and even their own styles of cuisine. They have special seats reserved for them in the Greater Council but are banned from holding office in the Upper Court.
==Religion==
The Vht'shjenjé have always been a deeply spiritual people, connected to thoughts of mortality and the preservation of life in dark times. Their religion is based around this idea as well, that individual life ultimately has the sole purpose of maintaining the sacred bloodline and the traditions around it. They believe that through the bloodline they will reincanate, often as descendants of themselves, and that all of this bloodline are ultimately connected in a single destiny. They consider themselves the remnants of a lost great civilisation and their religion focuses mainly at the preservation and eventually the resurgence of that former greatness.
The Upper Court is the heart of the Ancestral Veneration cult and the preservation of it is considered to be the whole purpose of the state. The cult arose in opposition to earlier traditions of worshipping animals or inanimate objects, but in particular in opposition to the Insect-worshipping cult of their ancient hated enemy, the black-blooded. After the demise of the black-blooded the Ancestral Veneration cult grew in dominance and its influence stretches beyond the borders of the Vht'shjenjé state.
Category:States
Category:Nations
Category:Vht'shjenjé
Category:Moaseraiana