Umbirab

The **Republic of Ūmbirab** (Umbirabian: **Ūmbiråb**; Rabydosian: "Undying City") is a landlocked nation located at the far southern reach of the supercontinent of Palkyras.

It is surrounded by Rabydos to the north of the Awildesh River, and a large east-west mountain range that stretch to the south. To the west of Umbirab is the gamer-republic of Volzeraen, and to the east of Umbirab are the nations of Shaunetor, the native republic of Nartathi, Azairab, Qogandra, and Makhorna.

## Flag and symbols

Umbirab's flag is a rectangular banner in bright blue, with a yellow stripe at its bottom and a yellow chalice above it. The bright blue background represents honour, the yellow stripe for discipline, and the chalice for its namesake immortals who reside there.

Umbirab's national bird is the phoenix, as it represents the nation's immortal rulers and majority.

## Geography

Umbirab is a temperate nation, with snowy winters in June and cool summers in December.

Its north consists of slopes of grassland and pine forests, and much of its territory consists of mountainous pine forests. Beyond those mountains to the south lie frozen ice wastes.

## History

During the Second Age, Pelgir, Autean, and Assuwelli explorers established several outposts along the frozen wastes of Umbirab as they ventured southwards.

Umbirab was established around 8,000 years before the Tornarin Bombardment. Just after Rabydos was founded by Zaradim colonists, several outlaws and intellectuals founded Umbirab to hide several secrets from Rabydos' leaders, who supposedly planned to use them to create super-soldiers. When those leaders passed away or were overthrown, Umbirab became a haven for immortals, dissidents, and outcasts from Rabydosian society.

When a team of scientists have successfully grown meat in their laboratory, the country gradually implemented lab-grown food as its meat, and sold much of its livestock and materials from its demolished slaughterhouses to Rabydos and its neighbours. Among them were victims chosen as sacrifices to the vampiric emperor of Rabydos, and several natives who used Umbirab to resist the Rabydosian Empire. Over time, exports of its minerals and artificial meat have made the country richer than Rabydos, that the president of Rabydos enacted a tax upon Umbirab to earn a portion of its profit.

Some people of Rabydos felt that their condition to seek a violent death at the age of 200 was degrading and abhorrent, so they modified themselves to pass away at the age of 300, when they would sleep in peace. Most of them refused, preferring either becoming mercenaries, auxilliaries, or fighting each other to end their lives.

Umbirab and Rabydos stopped a warlord in western Volzeraen from launching slave raids.

Umbirab and its neighbours were protected from the Tornarin Bombardment by a system of energy shields. Their alliance rallied to defend their homelands from the Tornarin armies, and helped liberate Rabydos and the native states after the Tornarin authorities fought each other.

In the year 900 AT, Umbirab's government initiated a series of reforms. Opponents in the southeastern part of the country and neighbouring Falturia and Shaunetor objected to some of these reforms as "imitating Rabydos", so they used a more archaic form of Umbirabian.

Umbirab also gathered its allies to fight against the Rabydosian and Thralondian Empires' siege of the country. The immortal soldiers who joined the Rabydosian Empire's military joined the rebellions, although a few remained behind to fight for the enemies of the realm just to find as many foes to slay. This gave rise to legends of pale-haired raiders who slaughtered under the Thralondian banner, or age-old ghosts in tattered uniforms who tore unsuspecting travellers to shreds.

## Politics

Umbirab is a centralised republic. It is ruled by a President who is elected for a single term of four years.

Occasionally, Umbirab was a kingdom ruled by immortals. After the overthrow of King Ninqartan, the nobles made a law that required every monarch to abdicate after fifty years (later reduced to thirty), and then pass on his or her authority to a chosen child or officer. In the later years of that monarchy, the people were obliged to elect a candidate as their kings' successors. Thirty years after that reform, non-Umbirabians were allowed to vote for their next kings.

## Military

Umbirab has one of the largest militaries in the southern region. It is armed with very advanced technology.

Umbirabian soldiers wear white armour with blue parts. They use flying carts to traverse the battlefield or pursue enemies, where they shoot at their enemies.

## Economy

Due to being more stable, resilient, and technologically-advanced than its northern neighbour, Umbirab enjoys a developed economy, on par with richer nations such as Marnos and Bujan. Many Rabydosians come to Umbirab as assistants, staff, and cleaners, since they get better pay there than they do in their homeland.

The Umbirabian economy is supported by mining, manufacturing, and the mass production of chemicals and synthetic substances. It is also fuelled by money spent by other nations for research projects.

As the bodies of Umbirab's immortals require more energy than normal humans, they rely on vertical farms and lab-grown meat to grow their crops.

They sold much of their livestock to Rabydos and its neighbours when they grew their own meat in plants all over the country: they only used chemicals and water to grow a kilogram of beef in half an hour. They also sell any surplus food to nearby countries and scientific teams that go into the southern ice wastes, as their meat was not very popular elsewhere due to its bland taste.

## Demographics

The majority of Umbirabians are tan-skinned, curly-haired humans of ethnic Rabydosian descent. What is notable about them is that unlike their northerly neighbours, many of them are immortals, descended from mutants whose lifespans were enhanced to live as adults for hundreds of years. As immortals, every ethnic Umbirabian has white hair from birth, but any child from a marriage with an outsider is always born with the outsider's hair colour.

Umbirabian immortals suffer from a condition. By the time they reach their 200th birthday, they may look like middle-aged adults of 40 years, but as they reach around 205 years of age, they start to go insane. Their insanity drives them to seek to get killed in a fight, as an earlier form of sabotage and population control. This led to many 200-year old immortals "going north" to serve in Rabydos' military to find enemies to kill and be killed by.

Some Umbirabian families have modified themselves to remove this curse, so they instead passed away peacefully in their sleep after around three centuries instead of two. Most Umbirabians refuse this extended immortality so they can pass on their resources to the next generation.

Six major demographic groups form the mainstay of Umbirab's people:

* immortals (people with extended lifespans who cannot get elderly),
* sdachels (dangerous humans with superpowers),
* aliens (most non-humans, while some races such as Arnadjanai and Epadwaranai had intermarried with humans, grafting themselves to the human species. In Umbirab, they are still counted as aliens because of their DNA),
* Greyfolk (a pale species of hominid, close relatives to the rest of humanity),
* Ontemazei (among the most hated aliens on Jerde, colourful hair and skin -- most on Jerde follow Vozonid cultures),
* and "hybrids" (mostly children of human-Ontemazei unions who are told apart by their colourful hair).

Some human Umbirabians are born with white or gray hair, even though they are not hybrids or Greyfolk.

## Culture

Due to its cooler climate and snows, hockey has become Umbirab's national sport.

### Arenas

Because Umbirabians suffer from violent urges when reaching their 200th year of life, some towns built arenas for immortals to slay each other in ritual duels. It is not seen as entertainment, but a glorious end to the victim's suffering and the start of their ascension to the gods. To other nations, this is not human sacrifice, but more like "an elaborate form of euthanasia" to stop the slain's torment. This is to prevent the immortals from destroying themselves and committing a dishonourable deed.

In order for a gladiator to enter, he must inform his peers and loved ones. Usually, they prepare the gladiator for his coming death, bathing him in fragrant water and petals as if he were already dead. He signs a death warrant and chooses another immortal to fight with. No one else, not even criminals on death row, is allowed to take part in the death duels.

Every week, dozens of duels are done. They are not like any competitions, but simply as acts of worship for the gods to claim the soul of the slain. Only when one of the immortals dies in combat, will the audience cheer, for they consider it the end of their torment. They can even make it as simple as a pistol duel.

The victim and the slayer are hailed as saints, and the slayer must lead the funeral of the victim.

## Language

See also: Umbirabian language, East Umbirabian language

The national language of Umbirab is Umbirabian, an offshoot of an older form of Rabydosian. Since the year 900 AT, the Umbirabian government standardised its language to resemble Standard Rabydosian. The southeastern part of Umbirab speaks in a dialect that remains unaltered by the Reforms of 900, and this dialect is also used as the standard form of Umbirabian in the nearby countries for its beauty.

* Rabydosian - kakkabum (angel)
* Umbirabian - kačåbun, (hi)šåbun

## Religion

Most Umbirabians worship Marduk and his son Naburi, like their northern counterparts. Some Umbirabians practice the Vozonid religion, and a few are atheists.

## Foreign relations

### Rabydos

Rabydos is Umbirab's "mother country", and the source of its people and traditional culture.

Every year on April 1, Umbirab's government pays 10 percent of its exports' profits to the Rabydosian economy. In return, Rabydos is expected to continue friendly relations with Umbirab.

Many Umbirabians go north to serve at Rabydos' military once they reach 200 years of age and their immortal instability emerges. They seek to kill enemies and die in battle, seeing it as the most useful way to finish their own lives. However, when Rabydos was hostile, they instead served other allies, such as the rebels, Kekhaulid militias, and the Guardians of Rabydos.

### Porashon

Porashon is Umbirab's "brother country". Both nations supported each other because of their unusual demographics (Porashon is an Ontemazei nation, and Umbirab is a nation of immortals and mutants), and exchange advanced technology with each other.

### Marnos

Although Umbirab welcomes Marnos as a fellow nation of sdachels, the Umbirabians are disappointed with their Marnosyn counterparts for their arrogance and delusions of godhood.

### Bujan

Bujan and Umbirab are close friends, as both nations regularly support each other in hundreds of research projects every month, advancing each other's technology.

### Volzeraen

The Volzeraenir are members of Umbirab's alliance, hosting expensive and lavish events for guests who are dissatisfied with Umbirab's technology and mountainous conditions. In return for building machines for the alliance, the Umbirabians defend Volzeraen.

### Falturia

The native kingdom was supported as a barrier against Rabydos. The people of Falturia are also known for refining Umbirabian meat into delicious, roasted cuisine.

Although several regiments of Umbirabians protect Falturia, the Falturians play the most part in defending their own nation. They are also more independent, relying less on the suggestions of their allies to take what is best for their country.

### Shaunetor

The Shaunetorians visit Umbirab because its high-standard conditions are more affordable than in other lands. They do get along with its immortal peoples, and study technology from them. In return for producing supplies and machines for the Umbirabians and their allies, the Umbirabians protect Shaunetor.

Porashon, which has better standards than Umbirab, is seen as more like a prestigious venue for the more luxurious-minded of their folk.

### Nartathi

Nartathi is a good ally of Umbirab.

Umbirab is another nation that defends Nartathi from threats and supplies it with modern technology. It is also where many Nartathiek go to study more advanced subjects and improve their technology.

### Vintland

This ancient human nation, the northernmost in all of Jerde, looks to Umbirab as one of the mentors for its advanced technology.

### Rukania

Umbirab joined forces with Rukania, Pinoguni, Yawanda, and Porashon to use whatever Green Years technology they had to rebuild the world. Even after preventing the Exiles from subjugating them, they still aided the survivors in reconstruction.

These five nations were eventually joined by other users of more advanced technology, starting with Paramosir, another defeater of an Exile invasion. With Zvesta they became members of the Jerde Alliance, which protected their solar system from alien invaders.

## Terminology

### Positive

* The Rebuilders
* The Defenders of the World
* The Guardians of the South

### Negative

* The Mad Ones
* Mad Immortals - also referring to some Umbirabians taking part in deadly duels to stop their own post-immortality aggression.
* Grey Hairs
* 200s - referring to the age when every Umbirabian will go insane and violent from their immortality.
* The Elves

## Trivia

* Umbirab might be inspired by Nepal, Switzerland, Singapore, Rivendell, and the mountainous areas of northern Canada and Alaska.
	+ In 2023, Umbirabian traditional culture looks more "futuristic Babylonian".
* Umbirab and Rabydos speak a language that resembles Akkadian and Arabic. Even though both of their languages are mutually intelligible, Umbirabian has a slightly different pronunciation. Umbirabian also sounds "quick and shortened" to a Rabydosian speaker, and Rabydosian would sound "lazy and old-fashioned" to an Umbirabian speaker.
	+ Rabydosian - kakkabum (angel)
	+ Umbirabian - kačåbun, (hi)šåbun
* As much of their meat is grown from labs, any livestock in Umbirab is usually raised as pets, as test subjects in experiments, or as sacrifices in some festivals. Their meat is derived from cow, chicken (with their eggs too), fish, duck, and goat cells.
	+ Roosters have become a popular, trendy pet in Umbirab no thanks to imported Vozonid comedies. Any roosters that were killed were then cut up into genetic stock for the meat labs.
	+ Umbirabian lab-grown eggs are considered tastier than local egg varieties.
* Many Umbirabians are more fit than their neighbours, because every day they are shown pictures of foreign people doing stupid or harmful things to warn themselves to improve their own conduct.

### Why is it peculiar?

* Umbirab is the only nation on Jerde where mutants consist of the majority of its population; more specifically, immortals.
	+ They are more well-known for a terrible condition that causes them to become more aggressive and frustrated when reaching their two hundredth birthday, a side effect of their immortality and an attempt in population control. Many Umbirabians who reach that age may look young, but volunteer to join military groups, especially Rabydos, to kill and die in battle.
* It is also the only nation on Jerde where most of its meat is grown from labs instead of farms, due to the country's mountainous terrain making farmland scarce.
* Umbirab is one of a few nations of Jerde that treat Ontemazei as people instead of monsters.