Aimlowy Government

The Aimlowy people are not organized in a nation: each city has its own area of influence and each settlement has its own set of rules and laws, though mostly similar.

The power is detained by the Leethlowigal, who is originally a priest. This derives from relying on religion to solve disputes and to take important decisions. The Leethlowigal does not formally detain power, but this is the situation de facto.

The Leethlowigal chooses his successor and takes care of his education and sustainment. Anyone can be chosen, since the Leethlowigal speaks for the gods and that is their will. The new Leethlowigal will not be in charge until the old one's death or abdication.

## Decisional process

When an important decision has to be taken, the Leethlowigal will "consult the gods" ("yan alaum", literally "know (=inspect) the bowl") and then come back with their response ("idalgalbufy", "the seen movement", referring to the water bowl. Sometimes also "idalgalbufythu", "the movement I saw", when said by the priest). Since this is the gods' will ("anoo"), it shouldn't be questioned by others that are not in contact with them. Most times this is actually the Leethlowigal's own decision, driven by their own particular interests and ideas.

If people are not satisfied with the verdict, they can request an assembly ("bowulooalsumeentheeti", "where one stands and talks") to rediscuss the matter and to offer a better solution. If the assembly votes for a different policy, this overrides the Leethlowigal's. If somehow things go badly because of this change, its promoter is punished: they are sent alone on a boat ("daalfymengee", "to be placed on a boat") for a week and their fate is in the gods hands, since they questioned their will.

## The Leethooaluida

The standard religious practices often require a few people to move bowls around, replace the water, keep the temple in order and so on. For this, priests started hiring the so called "helpers" ("Leethooaluida"), who at first were civilians willing to aid the priests, but then became more and more selected, until they became kind of a religious office themselves. Now a Leethooalui has to follow a specific religious initiation and has to mantain their roles all life long.

When the priests begun transforming their power from religious to administrative and political, they weren't well seen from the population. To solve this, they started using the helpers as a form of secret police, mostly intimidating the dissidents or blackmailing them. This kind of work was done in a very careful and discrete way, so well that to this day most people believe (or prefer to believe) that someone was unlucky, rather than that the Leethooaluida were involved. Moreover, pointing this out publicily would be a great offense to the gods themselves and punishment would be immediate.

Now the helpers follow a religious and martial training, both of which happen secretely (with the excuse of religious mystery). There is no special organization among Leethooaluida and they respond uniquely to the priest.

A group of Leethooaluida is called a "aiminom" ("people of the temple", "inom" being short for "inomlowi", "temple"). There is not a fixed amount of people in an aiminom, but they usually go from 5 to 10.

## The Luifily

For religious purposes and for the questionable work they do, a Leethooalui cannot return to their past life, but as they age, they are not really useful anymore and have to be replaced. The old helpers thus became a separate religious office in charge of choosing future Leethooaluida, called "Luifily", "the old help". They usually choose relatives, to keep this business "in family", or people from other cities that dont' have many relationships and influence.

With time they started managing donations to temples and became pretty rich by retaining part of what was given. They still respond to the Leethlowigal, but the amount of influence they are gaining and the ability to choose helpers that will pursue their interests makes them a threat to the priests' power. To limit this situation, the priests usually choose some helpers themselves and pay them with their own money.

It has happened that some of the Luifily tried enforcing their decisions over the priests', by having someone publicily contesting them in the assembly (since they are a religious office, they can't explicitely go against the priest's will). This has made the Leethlowigal seek consensus in the population and in the more powerful groups of the cities by organizing "restricted" assemblies on specific topics (assembly of the fishermen, assembly of the farmers etc), limiting the influence of the Luifily members.

## Government in Upylilmyloo

Upylilmyloo is the most important city in the Aimlowy territory and has a special form of government.

Upylilmyloo historically had six Inomlowi (temples), one of them dedicated to both gods Leesoo and Luil because of its position in the Usul estuary. The latter became the Yanaltu, the biggest and most important temple in the capital.

Because of this, Upylilmyloo has six Eleethlowigal, one of which is the Leethlowigalemsasm (the High Priest), who is responsible for Yanaltu and has more power than the other Eleethlowigal. Each priest has influence and control on different parts of the city and they usually administrate that district autonomously. Really important decisions are taken by all priests together in a council, called Galidalda ("watch the movements", i.e. "waves", realated to the ritual of inspecting the water of Yanaltu's gigantic bowl) and the High Priest has the last word. Each Leethlowigal chooses their successor as usual and so does the Leethlowigalemsam.

Citizen's assemblies in the context of the Galidalda are really rare and if they do take place they are usually restricted to a few powerful people in the city. Assemblies still happen with local district meetings as in other cities.

### The High Priest

The current High Priest of Upylilmyloo is Medilkheegoo ('Gift of the Current'). His full name is Medilkheegooylsywgalyleesoo (Medilkheegoo son of Galyleesoo). He became High Priest recently, chosen by his father Galyleesoo, and intends to expand Upylilmyloo's territory to the Southern coasts and the inner forests. Under his rule Upylilmyloo is becoming more and more important from an administrative point of view, centralizing decisions that affect wider regions and supporting economically other cities and their Eleethlowigal and consolidating the capital's religious and historical importance.

Medilkheegoo has started contacts with other nations, mostly with the Taadzi, which have brought great improvements and technologies. From his positions he is incentivating education and local production in the perspective of establishing florid trade routes in the southern peninsula.

### Upylilmyloo's Leethooaluida

Each priest in Upylilmyloo has their own aiminom. The High Priest's aiminom is called Aiminomaltu and usually consists of around 20 memebers. In special cases the Leethlowigalemsam may request control of another aiminom, or another priest may offer theirs to help. By taking control of all aiminomda, the High Priest would command around 70 Leethooaluida, which is enough to take care of most problems, while still a small number.

### Upylilmyloo's Luifily

Upylilmyloo has a pretty big Luifily, considering all the Leethooaluida active there, but their power is severely limited in relation to their number and to other cities. Donations in Upylilmyloo have to be made to the Yanaltu, which will then distribute them to the other inomlowida, most times giving donations directly to the temple's priest.

This prevents the Luifily from having too much control on the donations and reduces the part they retain for themselves and their influence. The Luifily is still potent though, as most members have become somewhat powerful in their own neighbourhoods and their families usually control important activities in the city.

Even though Upylilmyloo has various aiminomda, there is only one Luifily: former Leethooaluida who served in the same aiminom usually group together and try to influence the district they worked for.