Saian

Saiän, literally meaning "River People", is one of the two most advanced civilizations in the known world, and arguably the most populated region. The people, known as Saiännics or Saiännese, are known to be innovative, loyal, civilised and hard-working. They are masters at irrigation, engineering, seafaring, trade practices and skilled at warfare.
Saiän is divided into twenty city-states and numerous smaller political entities. There are also Saiännic colonies both in the Gate Kingdom, the Parelsa and the Za'ahene Empire.
Saiän has an overall population of between 4,5 and 6 million people, which makes it the most densely populated region in the world.
==Location and environment==
==Culture==
===The meaning of the masks===
The mask is an ubiquitous symbol of authority in Saiännic culture. Any individual who wielded state power possessed a mask as their symbol of office. This represented the de-individualisation of authority in the Saiännic world - authority was understood to be held in trust from the Lyssar or 'True Light', a 'font of truth and law' drawn from the Saiännic state and people. The association of power with personality, as demonstrated by the warlords and tyrants of 'lesser peoples', was deemed deeply un-Saiännic.
The nature of the mask varied considerably both within and between Saiännic city-states. The officers of a city would each have unique masks, but normally within some encompassing style common to their city. One of the common ways a city might try to eliminate a conquered rival's identity was to destroy the masks of its senior officials. These masks would often incorporate the city's colours too - Talmoa's were commonly lacquered red, with inlay and detailing of ebody, ivory and gold. Mask design would also vary with rank - these distinctions could be subtle, and difficult for outsiders to decode.
Separately to the officers of state were the sarszā and the military. An independent local sarsza would normally wear a simple wooden mask, perhaps with decorative carving or a feather headdress in the old Paranid style. Sometimes similarly-minded sarszā would group together into units reminiscent of religious orders, and often members would adopt a common style of mask and dress. Three promiment early orders were: the Lysvoruna, or 'Light Keepers', scribes and archivists whose white robes and blank white masks symbolised both the purity of knowledge and their ideological neutrality; the Uturei, 'Of the Red', an order of Red Dream supporters marked by their deep crimson hooded robes and ornate black masks, decorated with red butterflies and white or golden flames; and the Aszani, 'People of Ashes', a funereal order centred on Yehar who wore robes and masked stained with grey and travelled the small towns and villages of Saiän, overseeing funerals.
The military also had a mask tradition, since every soldier was considered to draw their right to kill others from the Lyssar. For most regular soldiers this mask was represented by the red and white warpaint they donned before battle, symbolising life and death. Actual masks were the preserve of officers, although in later times they were often incorporated into the parade and even battle uniforms of some units. In particular Saiännic cavalry, being fewer in number and thus easier to reliably equip, often wore masks to increase their terror aspect on the field.
A final note goes to the traditional Saiännese practise of smearing the face in the ashes of a funeral pyre. This was done by mourners at funerals using the cold ashes mixed with water to create a 'mourning mask' which would last a week or so. It was also used as punishment - criminals subject to the Lower Redemptive Path would be forced to witness the execution by burning of those on the Higher Path, smearing the hot ashes into their face as a reminder of the consequences of criminality. One notorious use of this was ordered by a military court marshall after the Veiaku Katāran (Battle at the Gates of Aran), when a group of senior officers were ruled culpable for the defeat and burned alive in front of their army. The troops were then forced to apply the hot ashes mixed with adhesive to their faces and forbidden from washing it clean "until they had wiped the stain of defeat from the face of the Talin army". The chronicles report them doing this, with great ceremony, after annihilating the Maran field army at the Veiaku Urusense (Battle of Lake Urusen).
===Sāszā===
====Origins====
The first sāszā (sing.: sāsza, truth seeker) were shamanic wise men and women who served as guides and arbiters of disputes of the Saiännic tribes. They practised meditation, and prized above all else understanding the world around them. It was they who made the concept of cause and effect a central tenet of Saiännic teaching, and the emphasis they placed on study and understanding prevented the Saiännic peoples from developing the clearly-defined gods and creation myths of other peoples, practising instead a sort of philosophical mysticism.
====Masks====
It was the sāszā who first adopted the famous Saiännic mask. Simple wooden masks, often adorned with feather headdresses, were worn to help the sāsza separate their individual human nature from the pursuit of truth, and to represent the impersonal nature of their judgements and justice. A third eye, representing enlightenment, was typically carved between and above the eyeholes and formed the centre of the design. By the height of the Paranid order, the centre of these eyes were ubiquitously set with a pearl, which came to represent perception, foresight and understanding in Saiännic culture.
According to the records, recoving the mask of the 47th and last Sorosāszīn of Saiël was one of the first tasks that Szaeda set her followers, after she saw the mask in a vision. It apparently had been swept to the island of Chata, from whence it was carried by Yeharene explorers to the city of Sofalss. It was recovered by a Tālmoänni expedition who, accompanied by one hundred warriors from the Tiuannic kingdom of Ur, posed as angels of the Yeharene god of death to recover the mask from Zarak Uraz - thereby triggering the birth of the Sofalssian Orthodoxy. The recovered mask became a prized relic in Tālmoä.
====Paranid Era====
According to legend, at some point Saiännic sailors travelled beyond the isles of the Srasaiägha and discovered the Parana - 'Garden Islands', upon which lived the society of Paran. These had long been a central focus of Saiänic belief, representing an unattainable state of peace and understanding. It was for this reason that the Saiännic peoples scattered the ashes of their dead into the rivers - to flow to the sea, and 'find Paran'.
The islands were apparently incredibly lush, and teemed with life unknown to the mainland. After their discovery they became a place of pilgrimage for especially gifted apprentice sāszā and Saiännic rulers. According to legend even Camur, or one of them, led an expedition from the upper Reisra to visit the islands and achieve immortality. Particularly notable sāszā would have their ashes bourn to Paran to be scattered from its highest point, and a commemorative stone placed at the centre of a meditative tableau for later students to remember them by.
At this time, sāszā began to stratify into ranks as they became the formal government of pre-Beiveïd Saiän. In addition to junior sāszā, there emerged several senior tiers:
*Sāszata: These would normally serve as the chief sāszā of a village. A sāsza was elevated to a sāszat after being examined by a panel of three sāszata. A council of senior sāszata also advised a tribe's sāszīn.
*Sāszīna: A sāszīn was the leader of a Saiännic tribe, the highest court of appeal in disputes, and the wisest of its guides. They were selected from amongst the ranks of a tribe's senior sāszata by a vote, taken by casting polished river stones into a clay bowl.
*Sorosāszīna: Meaning 'Great Truth Finder', the sorosāszīna ruled over the largest of the Saiännic states, the sorosāszīnata. Legend records these as including Saiël, Nanan, Nehan, An, and Ashad.
====Post-Beivei====
The Beivei almost wiped the slate clean across much of southern Saiän. The islands of Paran were drowned and lost (if ever they had existed), and the Paranid order with its neat hierarchies of judge-shamans was not rebuilt. Nisaiännic states that had escaped the devastation, such as Nehan and An, maintained the old order intact.
Although sāszā remained a feature of society across Saiän, their status changed from place to place. In Tālmoä, where historical records are most thorough, they became a semi-detached academic caste of scholars, linguists, archivists and advisors. Whilst many worked in the bureaucracy of the Seraiat government, the government was not comprised exclusively – or even mainly – of formal sāszā.
History records that the Post-Paranist political faction, which was most interested in upholding the traditions of ante-Beiveïd Saiän, lost their last seat on the Kovoseraiat (trans. 'Firsthood Council') around the turn of the Third Century ABV, and had ceased to be formally organised by the year 215 when the onset of the War of the Two Serpents heralded the rise of the Militarist faction.
However several traditions of the sāszā, most significantly that authority figures were masked and impersonal servants of the state, and considered themselves as judges and seekers after truth, carried over into the new order. It is this which is credited with the very early Saiännic development of the concept of 'the state' as an entity distinct from an individual monarch or priesthood. They also carried over the Paranid tradition of numbering their rulers.
===Festivals===
===Inter-Saiännic cultural differences===
==History==
==List of Saiännic city-states==
At the dawn of the Fourth Century of the Saiännic calendar, the rich deltic plains of Saiän were divided seventeen city states and a handful of smaller, pre-urban polities. Of these cities, only Nehamoä and Tālmoä controlled more than their home city - each had conquered and annexed two others, although the Tālmoänni inherited Aranmoä in such a gutted state after the War of Two Serpents that it no longer counted, being considered instead a sort of well-fortified port town.
In addition to the core Saiännic territory, there were a few far-flung outposts of the civilisation. Both Tālmoä and Yāmoä controlled colonial territories along the northern shores of the Parelsa, with the former additionally having a remote trading post on a small island far south in Yehar. Finally the Tālmoänni daughter-city of Veigholmoä, and its own colony inside Rûkhene territory, formed a Saiännic exclave far to the west.
===Anmoä===
The Sorosāszīnat Anmoä is a state in the north of West-Central Saiän. It borders Tālmoä to the east, Maramoä to the south, Dausailōn to the south-west and Jeszaemoä to the west, as well as Ira-Uspaz to the north-west.
Anmoä was founded in the pre-Beiveïd era, and was not destroyed by that catastrophe. As such, it is one of only a few modern Saiännic states still ruled by a Sorosāszīn in the old style. It maintains a strict form of Paranidism as its state ideology, and Szaedari are forbidden.
===Czarimoä===
Czarimoä is a state in East-Outer Saiän. It borders Osrimatzeä to the south-west, Danmoä to the west, Tzeosailmoä to the north and Suvamoä to the south. On its eastern border likes the Hereri kingdom of Unknown.
Like most of the Saiännic far east, very little is known of Czarimoä as of the turn of the Fourth Century. It appears in the histories only during the Thirty Years' Strife, when it lost the southernmost portion of its territory to an Osrimatzeänni invasion.
===Danmoä===
Danmoä is a city state in East-Central Saiän. It lies on the western bank of the Ceisra river. On the west bank it borders Osrimatzeä to the south, Yāmoä to the south-west, Tālmoä to the west and Jaremoä to the north, whilst across the Ceisra it borders Czarimoä to the south and Unknown to the north.
The city of Danmoä is set back from the Ceisra proper, and mimics Tālmoä by being connected to it by a ship canal, which also serves as an irrigation artery and city moat.
The Danmoänni are regional allies of Yāmoä, having cooperated on a couple of military campaigns with them.
===Dausailōn===
Dausailōn is the westernmost Saiännic state. Roughly translating as 'Two River Stronghold', it is a daughter city of Tālmoä, having been founded by the Tālmoänni in the aftermath of the Ghazri War. An attempt by Maramoä to annex the river fork that would become Dausailōn triggered the First Oathbreaker War.
Dausailōn borders Suquamoä to the south-east, Maramoä to the east, Anmoä to the north-east, and Jatzaemoä to the north. It also borders Ira-Uspaz to the north-east and the Rahōlan kingdom of Unknown to the south-east. It enjoys good relations with Tālmoä, its mother city, and contains a strong Zaiānni presence. It has tense relations with Jatzemoä.
Alongside Jatzemoä and Suquamoä, it is one of the three Nuphemoǟ, 'New-Born Cities', established on territory won back from the Rahōlan in the Gazri War.
===Jaremoä===
Jaremoä lies in East-Central Saiän, along a long stretch of the west bank of the Ceisra river. On the west bank it borders Nehamoä to the north-west, Tālmoä to the south-west, and Danmoä to the south. Across the water on the East Bank it borders Unknown to the south and Unknown to the north.
Jaremoä enjoys good relations with most of its neighbours. It was a participant in the Copper War during the Thirty Year Strife, and almost came to blows with Nehamoä in the 290s as that state moved to annex Numoä, which had sided against it in the Great Northern War. Instead it signed a one-hundred-year peace and received the southernmost portion of Numoänni territory as a reward.
===Jatzemoä===
Jatzemoä is a city-state in West-Outer Saiän. It lies north of Dausailōn and west of Anmoä, and south-east of Ira-Uspaz. It is an adoptive daughter city of Anmoä, who helped to resettle the territory of Jarimoä after that settlement's heroic performance in the Gazri War. Alongside Dausailōn and Suquamoä, it is one of the three Nuphemoǟ, 'New-Born Cities', established on territory won back from the Rahōlan in the Gazri War.
Jatzemoä has close relations with Anmoä, including a defence pact, and tense relations Dausailōn.
===Maramoä===
Maramoä's territory lies along the northern bank of the Veisra river as far as Dausailōn, and then up the eastern bank of the Phasai (Western River). She borders Anmoä to the north, Dausailōn to the west, Suquamoä to the south-west and shares a long, straight border with Tālmoä to the east.
Historically, Maramoä has enjoyed poor relations with Tālmoä. It was a Maramoänni attempt to annex Dausailōn that led to the First Oathbreaker War, and a secret military alliance with Aranmoä that saw her lose a third of her territory to Tālmoä following the second one. At present the city has close links with Anmoä, and Tālmoänni are banned from its territory.
===Nehamoä===
===Osrimatzeä===
Osrimatzeä is a city located in lower East-Central Saiän, on the western shore of the Ceisra river. It neighbours Yāmoä to the west, Danmoä to the north, Czarimoä to the north-east and Unknown to the south-east.
Osrimatzeänni territory spans the Ceisra, with roughly forty per cent of her territory lying in East-Outer Saiän. The northern half of the trans-Ceisranni territory was won from Czarimoä.
Little is known about the culture or government of Osrimatzeä.
===Suquamoä===
Suquamoä is a Saiännic city-state in West-Outer Saiän. It is the only Saiännic state south of the Veisra, the White Serpent of Saiän.  Alongside Dausailōn and Jatzemoä, it is one of the three Nuphemoǟ, 'New-Born Cities', established on territory won back from the Rahōlan in the Gazri War.
At the dawn of the Fourth Century, Suquamoä embarked on a sudden campaign of expansion, and by 305 ABV had conquered much of the swampy badlands between its core territory and the sea. At the same time, a platoon of Suquamoänni soldiers annexed a Ch'kovan settlement after a false-flag operation, extending their territory over the Raiszain river.
===Tālmoä===
Main Article: Tālmoä
Tālmoä is the oldest Saiännic city, founded only a few decades after the Beivei by Saeszuëlan, the semi-mythical Saiännic engineer who is credited with inventing both the Saiännic writing system and irrigation. 
It controls the largest of the Saiännic states, with territory encompassing the formerly independent cities of Szamoä and Aranmoä. It also controls several discontiguous colonies. Catagholmoä, on the north-eastern shore of the Parelsa, controls both access to the Gholan city-states of the east and the salt flats that host the infamous Tālmoänni mines. Sudao on the western shore is a large expanse of farmland captured in the Sleeping Moon war, whilst far to the south of the Parelsa lies the island outpost of Susa (not shown on map).
The Czecov city of Geczurov, on Sudao's northern border is a Tālmoänni protectorate.
===Yāmoä===
Yāmoä is a southern Saiännic city state. It is almost as old as Tālmoä, according to history being founded a few decades after its northern neighbour.
It's territory encompasses a long stretch of the eastern bank of the Reisra river, and extends out into the Srasaiägha delta. It also controls a small exclave in the eastern reaches of the delta, a leftover from the War in the Reisra Delta. Finally it has carved out a colony on the western shore of the Parelsa, south of the Tālmoänni colony of Sudao.
The Yāmoänni are a dour people. Their city subscribes to a funereal strain of post-Paranid philosophy which holds it in almost perpetual mourning for the Beivei.
Yāmoänni foreign policy has generally been peaceable, and concerned only with its immediate neighbours. It has assisted Danmoä in a handful of campaigns, and maintains a competitive but not hostile colonial relationship with Tālmoä. Along with the Tālmoänni, the Yāmoänni are the only Saiännic state to have developed into a maritime power, and nearly all Saiännic activity in the northern Parelsa stems from one of those two states.
===Wemoä===
Wemoä is the northernmost Saiännic city-state. It lies across the Neck of the Andines, which separates the northern reaches of East-Central Saiän from the Anderise Plain to the north. Wemoä neighbours Nehamoä to the south, and is a close ally and de facto protectorate of that state.
Wemoä came about after a military coup ended the Catasāszīnat, the marcher military state and regional Tālmoänni ally established after the Battle of Ka. The coup is largely believed to have been orchestrated by Nehamoä.
Category:Syan
Category:Nations
Category:Moaseraiana