Shrivipahit

* Map
* Flag

### Location

Central Islands between The North Western Sea, The Sea of Three Islands, and The New Middle Sea

## Shrivipahit

The Shrivipahit Confederation is a country in The Central Islands between The North Western Sea, The Sea of Three Islands, and The New Middle Sea. It consists of the central area of Chicen Island. It is home to three species of sentient beings, cat-people (28%), humans (11%), and lizard-folk (61%). Although the official religion is Phranan, the majority of the population follows Chirk. However, Phranan is growing rapidly.

Shrivipahit is a tribal confederation. It consists of three racial elder councils and 34 tribes. It's capital, Srijon, is located in a seasonal rainforest. Shrivipahit shares land borders with Solcel, Fiaross, and Plo Tbrov.

Located at the center of several major trade routes both North-South and East-West, Chicen island is quickly becoming a trade hub. Although Shrivipahit distinctly lacks the technology to reliably travel the seas on it's own, many Plo Tbrov and Ral Atsel trading ships pass by to pick up trinkets from islands farther north. Also, the lizard-folk shamen's medicinal herbs are highly valued commodities by these traders.

Shrivipahit's primary culture is Shrivipahit. However, the other major two are Salerio and Neow, Shrivipahit is most concentrated in the nation's capital. Salerio is located in the rural rainforested areas, and Neow dominates the coasts.

Basic Statistics

## History

### **The foundation of the lizard-folk**

There are two competing origin stories that lizard-folk tell. The first is increasingly difficult to find.

1. Before the earth, there was only water and fish. One fish, Sylvia, gave birth to two twin lizard-giants. One was a boy. The other was a girl. These giants got tired of swimming. So, they started to fight, trying to climb on top of each other. One of them scratched the bottom of the sea, and the bottom bled earth into the sea to form islands. The two lizard-giants copulated to make all of the lizard-folk we know of today.
2. Before the earth, there was only water and fish. One fish, Sylvia, gave birth to two twin lizard-giants. One was a boy. The other was a girl. These giants got tired of swimming. So, they decided to take a bet if there was a bottom of the sea. One of them said there was. The other said there was no bottom. So, they held their breath and sank until they saw a giant sea turtle. They offered the sea turtle seaweed in exchange for a place to rest. So, they made their lives on the back of this turtle. This is the turtle we live on today. We are their ancestors. They still feed the turtle for us to live on this island... looking out for us.

### The migration of cat-people and, "The Tenuous Negotiation."

Tempest Village was an avid fishing village that decided to trade fish with some lizard-folk for protection. Unfortunately, the lizard-folk they hired invited the rest of their nest to attack the village. They raided at midnight setting the buildings aflame. The lizard-folk ate or kitten-napped every villager there. Only ash and smoke remained of the village.
One famous tom, who lost his daughter and wife to the blaze, vowed to pacify all lizard-folk. His name was Koko. So he spent any spare time he had with a local lizard-man, tied prisoner in the neighboring village, to learn the language. He then hired a raiding party that proceeded to kidnap a lizard-man Shaman. They succeeded, and forced the Shaman to breed an herb that pacifies the aggressiveness of lizard-folk when burned. It took 15 years, but it worked.
Koko released the lizard-folk Shaman and prisoner with seeds of this new herb Mon. The lizard-folk were at first disgusted by lizard-folk that grew addicted to Mon. However, the addiction spread like a weed, and despite their war on drugs, most lizard-folk became passive enough that they stopped raiding enough to trade.

### Human Settlers and, "The Great Peace."

After 51 years of sieging, raiding, and war with Srijon, a cat queen (cat female not ruler) named Maw called for a negotiation. She first worked with the lizard-folk to cast a formal alliance. They decided that no decision could be made unless both leaders agree. Then, she held a meeting with the lizard-folk and humans to negotiate. After a year of negotiating, they came to the modern form of governance, where the three elder councils, one from each race, would debate and nothing would be agreed upon until all three reached a consensus of the three. One of the major terms was that land had to be dedicated to rituals in Srijon, and anyone had to have access to the nearby hunting grounds.

### The Great Search and The Threat.

Then, Plo Tbrov translators came to threaten this association of tribal nations. They mentioned that they would go to war with any nation that tried to block their attempt to setup a route through the islands. Many of the other islands declared that they wanted to go to war. Some declared that they wanted to let Plo Tbrov take strategic locations to create their trade routes. Many long nights were passed in this great debate on how to handle Plo Tbrov. Shani had many questions about Plo's ambitions and long-term plans. Some nations tried to represent the alliance on their own. In the end, Shani negotiated on behalf of the islands that Plo not declare war on the islands in exchange for a key piece of Chichen.

## Geography

Shrivipahit is and island in The Central islands. The island of Chichen has little elevation above sea level. The climate is that of a temperate rain forest. There is a wide level of biodiversity.

## Languages

The official language is Phrysh. However, that is mostly spoken by humans. Cat people mostly speak Aot. Lizard-folk speak Slythen.

## Politics

Shrivipahit is a tribal confederation. It consists of three racial elder councils and 34 tribes. The three councils meet in the capital, Srijon. The three elder councils are proportional to the number of tribes on the island. 4 representatives are on the human council, 10 representatives are on the cat people council, and 20 representatives are on the lizard-folk council. Any proposal can be made in any council. However, 3/4 or more of each council must vote, "yea," to pass a proposal in each council. All three councils must agree before a proposal passes for all tribes.

## Religion and culture

### Moral values and principles

All morality spawns from the four central values of the religion. So, meeting one’s basic needs means each individual is responsible for their own lives first. However afterwards, helping those who struggle in the game of life is a priority. So, extra wealth beyond meeting your basic needs in theory is supposed to go to the poor. However, in reality many people are a little more greedy than that.

The second value of friendship means that we are to try our best to form relationships with everyone equally, even those we don’t like. The druids teach many conflict resolution techniques. People generally grit their teeth and try to get along with those they hate. If someone really is evil, then for the good of society, people will make that destroyer of the communal bonds locked up or just, “disappear.”

The third is meaningful work. It is up to each individual to discover what is meaningful to them.

The fourth value is life long learning. They often listen to debates on the merits of various professions. Debates are usually as to whether profession x has merit y, but rarely compare two professions. The value of life-long learning involves spending one’s spare time reading, observing nature, debating with friends, doing chess, or solving math puzzles and competing to find the cleanest solution. The ultimate role models are the four gods themselves, whatever local gods and spirits there are, and whatever druid of the day is popular.

The standard dress code for men is baggy pants for the hot areas and a vest with no shirt. The standard dress code for women is simply a dress, or a skirt with no top. However, if people are comfortable enough with each other, like family, close friends, or lovers, they view naturism as a sign of intimacy and transparency. Many merchants take part in naturism during debates to show transparency.

### Traditions

There are four major holidays every year, each worshiping one of the four gods. There is Baned, Barel, Balern, and Balab. Since a year is 33 days and 27 hours in this world, These four holidays are worshiped on the 7th day of the week. Even in weeks without a major holiday, The 7th day is off anyway. Each of these four major holidays exhibit traditional games and whatnot for each. During Baned, there is a great feast. During Barel, there are many actors games, like, "Go, Human Levers, improvisational scenes," and, "improvisational stories." During Balern, people partake in debates and chess. During Balab, there are wrestling matches.

Apart from the four major holidays, some of the strangest traditions are nudism, platonic cuddling, eye gazing, acting improvisational games, and sharing their deepest secrets. These traditions are there to build deep emotional bonds with each other.

### Religion

The majority of Shrivipahit's religion is Phranan. Phranan was established by a human woman named Shanti. She started her career as a captain of a merchant ship. She was highly successful and rich. She gorged herself on the finest of everything until it all became dull. Then, her ship crashed on an island, and she was stranded with her crew for months. She was suddenly depressed to lose all of her luxury. So, she learned moderation. This was also a time of deep self-reflection for her. She read the books that she bought long ago just to look smart. She learned to appreciate mysticism and philosophy. She learned that mental pleasures are superior to bodily pleasures. After her rescue, she tried to study more philosophy with high expectations and zeal. However, the constant rebuffing of her teachers taught her to be humble.

Finally in pursuing happiness, she stumbled on the fact that desire causes unhappiness when our desires are not met. However, there is a paradox of desire. Desiring not to desire creates desire. After wrestling with this paradox for years, she concluded that letting go of the outcome of being happy is a prerequisite to being happy ironically. We can and should still take actions to be happy for the best odds of being happy. However, we shouldn't expect or hope that we will get it. Instead the motivation that causes us to take actions towards being happy should be a state of sereneness, effortlessness, and conscious awareness. Imagining losing everything, and doing without, regularly helps us reach this motivational state.

So, she invented the four axioms of moderating physical pleasures, enjoying mental pleasures, removing expectations while working hard for great results, and pursuing pleasure in a detached, effortless way. She concluded that the secret to happiness is taking care of your basic needs, good friends, lifelong learning, and meaningful work. These are the 8 major tenets of Phranan.

Shanti then proceeded to name the four gods. The god of basic needs is, “Baned.” The god of relationships is, “Barel.” The god of learning is, “Balern.” The god of meaningful labor is, “Balab.” There are many other gods, demigods, and spirits, but these gods form a tetrarchy at the top. Several other druids after Shantri proceeded to grow the doctrine and define many more gods, demigods, and spirits. They also defined the various forms of meaning in labor, pedagogy for lifelong learning, and life hacks for fulfilling basic needs. They also defined methods for making friends as well as setting boundaries.

The religion is not technically organized. It works more like a grouping of scholars that debate and review each other’s work. It’s similar to one of the schools of ancient Greece. However, there are some commonly observed rituals which I will get to later in this section. The scholars/druids don’t have any special powers. They just learn from the gods, debate on the interpretation, and pass it along.

After life, you simply reincarnate. You always reincarnate as your original race/species, etc.

The most known works are the writings of Shantri, her creation of the religion myth, which is her life and it’s search for happiness. Some other books written were the books of her four disciples, one for each of the four gods. The four books are simply named after each of the four diciples. Baned = Janik, Barel = Philos, Balern = Franish, Balab = Krinn.

### Art

Art comes in the form of statues that celebrate various body types. The focus is on authenticity rather than of the ideal body. Paintings of nude humans, cat people, or lizard-folk are famous too. Architecture is similar to SE Asian temples. Tiny statues adorn houses of the rich. Houses have the famous SE Asian U shaped roof. Literature often harps on the good life. However, stories of exploration, adventurism, and political intrigue are popular. Children’s tales talk about loneliness, starvation, not helping your neighbor in need, doing a job or chore you hate, stagnating in your lifelong learning, or something like that as a kind of boogie man.