Laothan

Laothan was the northernmost nation of Malatra in Kara-Tur. It was home to the Seng people. Though it was a unified kingdom like the neighboring Kuong Kingdom, the ruling Thok house only directly ruled over the upper Phu River basin from their capital of Cheinang, with other princes and the lesser nobles who served them autonomously ruling over their ancestral territories.
==Geography==
The territory of Laothan swept in a curve along the northern coast of Malatra. It bordered the Purang and the Malatran Plateau to the south and west, the Kuong Kingdom to the south (along the Dwai River), the empire of T'u Lung to the northwest, and the Celestial and Eastern Seas to the north and east, respectively. The traditional southern border with Kuong was marked by the ruins of the fortress of Tua Koh, which had been fought over between the two nations many times.
Laothan was covered in a vast rainforest fed by monsoons, various river systems, and a humid tropical climate; this rainforest was of light density in the north and east and medium density in the Phu River basin south and west of Cheinang. The terrain of Laothan was hilly and dominated by steep ridges, and most agriculture was thus done at the bottoms of valleys or on hillside terraces.
===Geographic Features===
;Rivers
:Dwai River • Phu River
==Language==
The people of Laothan spoke the Laothan language. As they came into contact with neighboring civilizations, they borrowed from their languages words they did not yet have concepts for. Most of these loanwords originated from the T'u Lung language, but Laothan pronunciation was so different that they were unrecognizable to Shou ears.
==People==
The Seng people were of similar race to those of neighboring T'u Lung, having fine, straight black hair, epicanthic folds, and brown eyes. They had a joyful approach to life, celebrating many yearly celebrations and festivals, and they were known to be far more independently-minded and contentious than the Kuong to the south.
==Government==
Laothan was a monarchy ruled by the Thok clan, which ruled from Cheinang. However, the king's rule over most of the country was not direct; instead, a number of princes ruling over their ancestral lands answered to Cheinang, an arrangement originally forced upon Thok Hueng after his unification of Laothan. Relatives of the Thok clan received their power directly from the king and were the most loyal and influential members of the Laothan aristocracy. In the mid–14 century DR, Thok Lian reigned as the king of Laothan.
Minor nobles served under the many petty princes of Laothan, and it was from these princes that these nobles got their power and land grants, though this was typically just to confirm their traditional ownership of land and their authority. Outside of Cheinang, where the Thok clan had centralized their rule, these minor nobles and land-holding aristocrats formed a network that oversaw the domestic affairs of Laothan, which were carried out on a local basis.
==Religion==
Among the Seng of Laothan, the Path of Enlightenment, which they had adopted from the Shou (with whom they had the most contact out of all the peoples of Malatra) was the most popular religion. In particular, the dominant school was the Ku Nien school, which provided guidelines for personal behavior, social formalities, and obligations of duty in addition to religious ritual practices and chanting meditations and promised enlightenment for those who adhered to its structures and practices. The Ku Nien school was represented in Laothan by a system of interconnected temples and monasteries dedicated to the school's practices.
==Economy==
As with other lowland regions of Malatra, the economy of the Laothan lowlanders was based around the cultivation of rice and supplemental fruits and vegetables. In fact, the Seng had the most extensive system of rice-farming villages throughout Malatra, and their land was thus the most agriculturally well-developed. This sparked the ambitions of the Kuong Kingdom, whose lands were less agriculturally developed because of the dense jungle that the Kuong inhabited and the slash-and-burn agricultural techniques that many Kuong villages employed, in annexing Laothan.
In addition, the Seng were skilled in leatherworking and woodworking, though they traded few of the resulting products outside of Laothan. Silver was mined in Kwang Tre, and unlike the aforementioned leather and wood products, jewelry from southern Laothan was popular among not just the Seng but also the Kuong as well.
==Relations==
Owing to the geography of the region, the nations of Malatra were protected from most external threats but also constrained together. As a result, the Kuong, Seng, and Purang had long fought over each others' territory, with borders being pushed back and forth several times. Laothan most often butted heads with the Kuong Kingdom, which had sought to exploit its fertile lands since at least the 12 century DR; this rivalry was reflected in the views of one particularly prejudiced Kuong nun, who often derided the Seng and (among other things) referred to them and the Purang as "so-called civilizations." As of 1357 DR, the conflicts between the two kingdoms had been in a lull for 50 years, but as a result, the petty princes of Laothan began to squabble amongst themselves. This opened up an opportunity for the Kuong Kingdom, which had been building up its army in those years, to invade once more.
The other main neighbor with which Laothan interacted was T'u Lung. Though the two nations had close cultural ties, with the Seng adopting their northern neighbors' religion and many words from their language, the nature of Laothan's diplomatic relationship with T'u Lung in the mid–14 century DR is unclear, but in the year 594 in a local calendar, the fortress of Dien Nyu was constructed on the border of T'u Lung on Nuyen Sing's orders to deter raiders.The date is simply given as "in 594", but it is unknown what calendar this is in. No other dates are given in The Jungle Lands chapter in Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms, it's unclear which other calendar should be presumed, and there no dateable connections to this event. (Given that the narrator is a Kuong nun, one possibility is that the calendar in question is the one used within the Kuong Kingdom, though even that assumption leaves plenty of ambiguities.)
==Culture==
Men wore simple loincloths or loose trousers and shirts while doing manual labor. In contrast, women wore high-necked, form-fitting dresses with long slits up the side. Those who had to do manual labor (including village women) combined a looser version of this dress with trousers underneath. Both sexes favored silks that were hand-painted and dyed in bright colors.
Seng cuisine was known to be hot and spicy.
The countryside of Laothan was dominated by villages of huts made of woven bamboo and palm leaf and built upon raised platforms propped up by stilts, a setup that offered protection from insects and wildlife and kept the floors of said huts dry during the rainy monsoon seasons. The village architecture of Laothan was similar to that of the Purang to the south, but their structures were more elaborate and sturdy, incorporating hardwoods from the jungles of Laothan. The dwellings of nobles often consisted of interconnected houses, some of which were as high as two stories tall. The fortresses and defensive structures of the Seng were built upon stone foundations, but the actual buildings were made of wood; the same could be said of the temples and shrines in Laothan.
==Society==
There was some yakuza activity in Laothan, though it was nowhere near as common as in the Kuong Kingdom. More commonly found in Laothan were ninja from T'u Lung who had settled in Sayan, offering their services to the highest bidders. The largest and most active of the ninja clans of Sayan were the Sung clan, who operated throughout Laothan and even conducted espionage missions in the Kuong Kingdom under the guise of merchants. Despite being based in Sayan, from where the prominent Nuyen house ruled, the Sung clan did not necessarily support the Nuyen princes, instead being primarily concerned with keeping travel routes open to facilitate their work.
Unlike in the Kuong Kingdom, where wu jen were severely persecuted and even publicly executed if caught, wu jen in Laothan were viewed with more reverence, being feared and respected by the Seng, and they could be found in some cities within Laothan.
In Laothan, blade dancers, shadow scouts, and shintao monks were fairly common.
==History==
Prior to the mid–12 century DR, the Seng were divided amongst many different tribal kingdoms that each ruled over a relatively small territory. The rapidly-expanding Kuong Kingdom to the south coveted the fertile lands they inhabited, and it launched several invasions of these petty kingdoms. The Kuong even managed to capture the Seng fortress of Tua Koh, though it would pass back and forth between the Kuong and the Seng several times before the conclusion of the conflicts. In response, King Thok Hueng united the Seng under his banner in the mid–12 century DRThis is "almost 200 years" before a setting date of 1357 DR, so some time after 1157 DR. and successfully led their resistance against the invaders, though Tua Koh was destroyed during the final siege. 
From around 1300 DR, the Kuong Kingdom apparently abandoned its ambitions in Laothan, leading to five decades of peace between the rival nations. In fact, the Kuong had spent those years consolidating their western holdings and building up their military. In that time, the princes of Laothan, taking their freedom from Kuong expansion for granted, grew resentful of the ruling Thok house, wishing for a return to earlier times in which they would have been independent kings in their own right.
===Modern History===
In the 1350s DR, Thok Lian found himself struggling to hold the throne of Laothan and keep his kingdom united in the face of the growing separatist movement. The most prominent of his opponents was Prince Nuyen Phi, the charismatic and arrogant patriarch of the Nuyen house which ruled over northern Laothan and commander of the largest military force in Laothan. Nuyen Phi, convinced that the Kuong Kingdom no longer posed a threat to Laothan and thus seeing no need to maintain the "convenient fiction" (as he saw it) that the Seng were united under Thok rule, had begun ignoring the edicts of Thok Lian, though he had yet to take any action against him. Of course, he was sorely mistaken; spurred on by the agricultural bounty of Laothan and the urging of Lady Natiya, Priest-King Vishnan VII had begun plotting a new offensive against Laothan.
In 1356 DR, a Kuong temple sohei attempted to assassinate the great Seng wu jen Hueng, master of a school in Deikhou which trained wu jen in the art of magic. The attempt failed, and the sohei died as a result.
The following year, the Kuong army began its attack against Laothan, moving covertly through the hills of the Purang and entering Laothan in secret. Careful to avoid conflict with the Purang tribesmen, the Kuong offered gifts to the Blood Tree and Twisted Palm tribes, whose territory they passed through, to placate them. The tribe leaders were split amongst themselves as to whether or not they should accept the bribes; one faction advocated for accepting them and leaving the Kuong alone, while the other argued that such an action would be implicitly taking their side against Laothan and quietly prepared to attack the Kuong armies. Meanwhile, the Kuong troops assembled at a secret camp between Tua Koh and Kwang Tre; from there, they planned to take Kwang Tre and then embark down the Phu River to launch a surprise attack on the Seng capital of Cheinang, striking a decisive blow.
The attack on Kwang Tre was expected to be an easy victory for the Kuong, as they believed that its defenders would pose little to no meaningful resistance due to their laxness. However, the power play of High Priest Malvaya, who (among other things) concealed predictions by Kuong diviners that the invasion would end in disaster, posed a major obstacle for the Kuong.
==Notable Locations==
;Cities
: Cheinang • Sayan
;Towns
: Deikhou • Kwang Tre • Mhou • Nalamh • Nindamh • Pursai • Tran • Thok Treng
;Villages
: Bang Nu • Binkohn • Buyan • Khon Tre • Kompoa • Min Loh • Nyu Thok • Thiam
;Fortresses
: Dien Nyu • Tua Koh
==Appendix==
===Behind the Scenes===
Laothan appears to be inspired by the medieval kingdom of Dai Viet (later Vietnam), whose culture and language were heavily influenced by that of China to the north, though its name instead suggests Lan Xang (later Laos). Its government, which appears to follow the mandala model which dominated much of pre-colonial Southeast Asia, may be analogous to that of the Ly dynasty, whose direct control was limited to the land surrounding its capital while other areas were controlled by autonomous lords who were allied to the royal clan (though the following Tran dynasty centralized control over its territory).
===Notes===
===References===
Category:Monarchies
Category:Locations in Malatra
Category:Locations in Kara-Tur
Category:Locations on Toril