The Crowned Republic of Amazeia

A mortal nation located to the east of the Tallet Empire, southeast of the Inisfall Confederacy, and south of the Broken Kingdom. The Crowned Republic of Amazeia wraps around the massive inland lake which they call Pontos.

The land itself is a rugged one, filled with ravines, outcroppings, and broken hills. Heavily forested away from the lake, it is not a welcoming environment for large troop movements or rolling fields of grain. Most of the region's flatland lies along the flood-plains of Lake Pontos, where sediment from the creeks which feed the lake and the lake's floodwaters has smoothed the area. Lake Pontos itself is incredibly deep, with divers unable to find the bottom of the lake as close as single fathom to the shore in some areas.

## **Government**

The Crowned Republic uses a bi-layer of government to ensure the nation has both the cohesiveness to defend itself against outsiders but also the self-determination of the city-states that the natives have fought for so long to protect.

Each of the City-states is ruled by the Assembly of Wisdom, a legislative body which oversees the daily needs of the people. When major decisions need to be made however, a direct vote is taken of every man and woman over the age of sixteen in the city. Likewise each city also selects three delegates from the Assembly of Wisdom to send to the Pontic Council.

The Pontic Council is the national assembly of eighteen representatives from the six city-states, which rules the entire Crowned Republic of Amazeia in conjunction with the presiding monarch who casts a nineteenth vote in the case of a tie in the council. The monarch is called the Duke or Duchess of Amazeia and is the nominal leader of the Amazei military, with the sacred charge to protect the six city-states and surrounding peoples.

The Pontic Council itself resides in the Acropolis of Pontos, the new fortress-like seat of state for the Amazei royalty. The Acropolis is found on the shores of Pontos at the peninsula which thrusts into the center of the lake. Under construction for the last hundred years, the Acropolis is still not entirely built and work continues. The docks and barracks of the Crowned Republic's military however are fully functional, with the shipyards and foundries perfecting the design of Pontic Steamers.

The royal family of Amazeia is descended from the initial leaders of the rebellion against the immortals. Of the six men and women who began the uprising, only one woman and two men remained. The woman, Sharine, took both men, Stelios and Okan, as her husbands. Sharine was named queen with her husbands both possessed of the title prince. The tradition of polygamy has continued throughout the ruling family's nineteen generations. While the Crown is typically passed to the Most Able daughter from her mother, it has passed to the Most Able son a total of four times in the absence of a suitable female heir.

While the Crown of Amazeia is inherited by birth, the offspring of the current ruler must battle for supremacy to be named Most Able and become the heir. These battles are for the greater part carried out in controlled war-games, each sibling competing to demonstrate who possesses the best military mind. The fight for right to succession however often turns deadly between siblings, with any direct action taking by one sibling against the other being immune to punishment. The use of intermediaries however, is barred.

This practice has lead to a lack of noble families in the Crowned Republic, as survival of enough royal offspring to beget branches of the royal family forming has yet to occur.

## **Economy**

With the equator of Soi running through the center of the Crowned Republic, and a large freshwater sea forming the heart of the nation the economy of Republic as a whole predictably exploits the hot and moist environment. Primary cash crops include water-intense crops such as almonds, grapes, tomatoes, and fruit trees. Due to the rugged terrain orchards are preferred over fields as any field requires intense labor of terracing hillsides. Lake Pontos is a flourishing fishery, and the city-states monitor their fishing fleets carefully to ensure that the fishery is renewing and perennial. In addition rich coal veins run throughout the land and are heavily tapped. While not every city-state has mines for metals to accompany the coal production, each has come to rely on the extraction of coal as a part of their economy. The Acropolis of Pontos is home to one of the richest silver mines in Soi which belongs to the Royal Family by virtue of being outside of any of the areas originally claimed by the city-states. Silver bullion and silver based goods support much of the operating expenses of the Royal Family and Amazei Military.

Major exports of the Crowned Republic include: wine, olive oil, preserved fruits, nuts, fish, and coal.

Minor exports of the Crowned Republic include: cotton, pottery, bronze goods, silver bullion and silver goods

Imports of the Crowned Republic include: salt, grains, iron (not steel), cloth, and manufactured goods

## **Culture**

The culture of the Amazei varies from city to city with some being more reserved and others lending themselves more to an "anything goes" mentality. One comonality among all the city-states is the limited use of slavery. While it is universally illegal to deal and trade in slaves, it is considered perfectly legal to sell oneself into slavery as a means of paying off one's debt. Persons who do such sell only themselves, and any children born to them are considered free. Likewise the Amazei use enslavement in the place of prisons, with criminals being sentenced to work for the public as slaves until their errors have been paid for. Slaves do enjoy a number of legal protections, preventing the public handlers or private owners from causing any permanent harm to the enslaved and requiring basic food and shelter provisions for each.

Beyond this the Amazei tend to be a learned people, with extremely high rates of literacy through all segments of society. Artists, poets, and writers garner large amounts of respect and any sizable village has some manner of amphitheater in it. In the city-states proper, these theaters are significant public works and can seat thousands at a time for performances.

The Amazei have a strong culture of personal responsibility, and as such not a shred of the "welfare" found in other nations is glimpsed within the city-states. Each man and woman is considered to be born equal, and if they chose not to make use of the public schools to educate themselves in a trade that is their failing and no one else's. As such being destitute is considered a crime in the city-states, with beggars and vagrants (even foreigners) finding themselves slaves of the public.

Going hand in hand with the culture of personal responsibility is a high level of civic engagement, with those who fail to vote and participate in government being generally shunned and mocked as fools. Likewise most citizens maintain some manner of weapons and armor for the eventuality of being called upon to defend their city, should the Amazei Military and city-state militias not prove to be enough.

Due to the climate of the region the favored fashion for the Amazei include sleeveless vests and wide-legged trousers for men while the women tend to favor loose mid-length dresses when not dressing in the men's style for labor. Sandals are the generally preferred footwear throughout the land and the wealthy often go without footwear at all, demonstrating their lack of need to travel unpaved and unswept areas.

## **Military**

Each of the six city-states of the Crowned Republic is responsible for maintaining its own citizen militia and town guard. Like with many nations, training in these militia and guards is required for all citizens and consists of a period of three years, two of which must be served consecutively. After one completes their three years in the city-state militias, one can be recommended for the Amazei military by their local commander. The military offers three major occupations of Steamer, Cavalry, and Infantry but most career soldiers find themselves moving between the three branches as the commanders rotate most low-ranking troops to maintain the flexibility of their forces.

### **Pontic** **Steamers**

The refugee settlers brought more with them than just material possessions and ideas about the place of Immortals in the world with them when they left the Circle. Armed with knowledge of the Circle's steam weapons which they had used for decades along side Circle natives to help fight the Goran, and familiar with the construction and maintenance of boilers by the same token, the settlers merged their know-how with the native populations utilization of Lake Pontos. The result was small, fast, steam-driven boats which allowed for rapid movement along the coast line. These shallow drafted boats are typically thirty to fifty feat long, sport up to three boilers, and are propelled by the burning of coal in the boilers. The same steam which drives the boats forward at such remarkable speeds, is likewise tapped to power steam cannons which fire heavy lead shot or javelin-like projectiles. The ability of these boats to hug the shoreline make them a deadly facet of the Amazei defense strategy, forcing foreigners away from the few primary water source in the area and back into the craggy forests of the surrounds.

### **Amazei Cavalry**

Borrowing from the success of the Broken Kingdom's use of heavy cavalry and the Kushani horse archers, the Amazei walk a line in between. Mounting their cavalry on the sure-footed steppe-horses, Amazei cavalry wear modest armor and make use of javelins and shields. The favored tactic is to use the rough terrain to shield the cavalry until they can close on the enemy, hurl volleys of javelins and then withdraw into the terrain's shelter again until the enemy breaks formation to try to deal with the harassment.

### **Amazei Infantry**

Combining native and Syndicate traditions the Amazei are perhaps the deadliest archers one for one in the world. Using bows sized in a fashion akin to Broken Kingdom great-bows, but constructed of composite materials and recurved like the weapons of the Syndicate, these instruments of war sport both incredible range and stopping power. Soldiers unable to draw such bows typically wield javelins as ranged weaponry, providing an extra close-ranged punch for anyone who gets through the arrow barrage. The Amazei normally use shields and swords in melee combat as well as modest armor.

Typical armor for both cavalry and infantry consists of a light steel breastplate, leather llamellar coats and greaves, and light steel guards for the major sections of the limbs with a helmet. As with cavalry behavior, the Amazei infantry does its best to use the regions rough terrain to its advantage, forcing enemies to pursue them into craggy areas where large formations cannot be brought together while harassing the foreign forces at a range.

## **History**

Originally home to a loose association six tiny of democratic city-states which shared both the lake and their culture, the area was occupied by a trio of Syndicate Immortals and their refugee subjects at the end of the Great War. The three Immortals used the confusion of the Corpsebloom to occupy the six townships nearly unopposed, setting up the totalitarian regimes they desired away from the interference of the Circle. Within fifty years however, the native peoples had absorbed the Syndicate's subjects culturally and began a wholesale rebellion against their rulers.

After a brief civil war the Immortals were torn down from their thrones and sold to the Faceless Emperor in return for resources and formal pardon of the original six city-states rebellion during Great War. This agreement rendered the Crowned Republic of Amazeia a neutral state, no longer subjugated by immortal rulers, and no longer considered a rebellious province by the neighboring empire.