Xiapia

明星与我们的未来息息相关(The Stars Align Our Future)

Xiapia is located under the Steodia Empire and just above the Silvercoal Isles. It has multiple mountains and is surrounded by forests as well.

**Capital**: Kikoro

**Language**: Xiapan

**Cities**: Gnawing, Silver Fang

**Symbol**: Stars

**Colours**: Dark Blue and Yellow

**King**: King Keung

**Queen**: Queen Daiyu

**Princes**: Prince Kueng II(Hier), Prince Siyu, Prince Michi

**Princesses**: Princess Mei, Princess Yue

**Lords and their Families**:

* Lord Akhiro, Duke of the Fen Forest
* Sir Hirishi of Ganwing
* Lord Lo of the Siver Fang
* Sir Thimio of the Dark Land
* Sir Jun of the South Sea

### **Beliefs**

* Worships Jarvaid. Ancient of Stars
* Women have had no rights ever since the late Queen Kikoro dishonoured her husband. Since then, women have been treated lower than slaves.

### **Festivals and Events**

* ***Festival of Lights***.  For two weeks of the year, Xiapai is wrapped in complete darkness. The only thing that is visible to the eyes is stars. So, an inventor created fireworks to light up the night sky and bring joy to the dark times.
* ***Day of Stars***. On Kallidasp the 5th, the stars glow brighter than any other day. Myth says that Jarvaid attempted to seduce the ancient Kalliste by giving her own star in the sky. It worked and together they had Devika.

### **Climate**

There are four seasons in Xiapia. Spring, Summer, Fall, and winter. The summers here are the most humid and wet in all of Aelloyln.

### **Resources**

* Domestic animals, pelt, rice, opium, silk, spices, fireworks, wood.

### **Main Trade**

Xiapia’s forests contain innumerable amounts of animals and birds that are prizes for their coats and pelts. The pelt trade of Ibathia is renowned, making it the continent’s major supplier. They also supply wood and other special items only growable in their wet fields, particularly rice, opium, silk and spices.

### **Relations**

* Xiapai has alliances with Vrendour, Steodia, Grimmwing, and Candonia.
* They don’t interact much with Vruica and Kolia.

### **History**

Xiapal, son of Jarvaid born during the Great Fervor, was the first to head East, stopping along the forest line, finding true solace and peace. He settled Xiapia, though he became its first King it is believed he led a simple life, living in a hut in the forest, hunting his own food. Xiapal had no ambitions to create what would become Xiapia, until he met Kikoro. Queen Kikoro was the power behind the throne of the first reign of Xiapia. Kikoro invested in the education of craftsmen to create some of the beautiful carvings and special crops only available in that region. Even though Kikoro was the power behind the throne, her name is almost lost to history, for every achievement she created almost single handedly was attributed to her husband.

Queen Kikoro accepted this, thinking there was no other Avenue. She could not have predicted the future that this would create. For many years it passed like this, Kikoro doing the work but Xiapal gaining all the praise. Until one night, Kikoro exclaimed to Xiapal during an argument that he was nothing without her, and that he was a poor ruler and an even poorer husband. Xiapal flew into a rage, murdering Kikoro and showcasing her corpse on the parapets of the castle they built. He claimed that this was the Wrath of the Ancients, that women were not to be trusted, and to never speak against their husbands. That they were liars and deceivers sent to trap men and make them forget. Though Xiapal later regretted his actions greatly, the damage was done. Women became seen as shallow tricksters only good for procreation and little else, that they were stupid and dull, their minds smaller than men.

When Xiapal died, he named the capital of his kingdom, Kikoro, hoping to remedy his mistake. His son, Hiro, ascended the throne, and having believed the stories his father told of his mother, married a meek girl from the forest, it was rumored she was never allowed to speak unless spoken to. That she was kept in line by Hiro through physical beatings and starvation. He believed and he instilled a belief that a woman was made to serve men, and outside the few that claim direct lineage of the ancients, i.e. the other royal families, women were to be guided and controlled by men.

This became even more apparent when Queen Kasumi gave birth to their first child, a daughter named Ufara, who King Hiro immediately neglected her in favor of his second born, Arcan, who he named Crown Prince. However, Ufara was the one who was remembered as, she was the first to chart the sky, naming the constellations and even realizing that the world was on an axis and was in fact rotating. She discovered this by sitting every night in the palace observatory and drawing meticulous maps of the stars each night. Over time she realized that the stars were moving ever so slightly each night. Over years of study, she came to the conclusion that the world completes a full rotation around the sun every 365 days. Ufara then went to the monasteries in the forest of Xiapia conversing with the monks and learning all she could about the observations of the sky. When she returned to Kikoro, she presented her brother with the first calendar, one year being measured by one rotation around the sun, and the months broken up and named for the twelve great ancients.

Her brother, Arcan was immensely proud of his sister’s achievement that he made her the royal astronomer and her calendar was distributed throughout Aellolyn, along with her charts of the constellations. In the astronomy tower of Kikoro, it is said that her original drawings still decorate the walls. Though Arcan valued his sister’s accomplishment, he felt he needed to honor his father’s memory and follow the rules regarding women.

Xiapia’s position also led to it being on the side of Grimmwing and Steodia, or Candonia and Ciral, in their constant jockeying for power. During one such moment, it is rumored the twins of King Arcan, invented a game. A game of precision and strategy, the twins called it chess. Throughout the ages, Xiapia became known for being some of the strongest strategic minds in all of Aellolyn, it was believed that they were unconquerable. A shadow in the dark.

Then Evan the Black arrived. Though Xiapia resisted strongly, they fell to Evan’s massive army, unable to keep up a siege of over five years. It was a bitter pill for the King of Xiapia to swallow, having to admit defeat and pass a law banning slavery.