Shantine Empire

The Flag of Bishant, a flaming sword in a golden triangle on a field of blue

The **Empire of Bishant**, or **Shantine Empire**, sometimes spelled "The Xantine Empire", consists of about two hundred moderately to highly developed worlds, with dozens of far flung colonies and, along the edges of Fialta space, a handful of protectorates. The government and culture of the Shantine Empire is deeply linked to the Church of Kirva.

## Society

Shantine civilian culture is inextricable from religion and class. Most Shantine subjects are landless, living on vast farm estates or in industrial company-towns, where their entertainment, education and consumer choices are determined by the ruling clergy or aristocracy (mass-media has penetrated the Shantine urban core but is not yet spread throughout the empire’s more rural or outlying regions). Shantine material culture emphasizes votive shrines in the household and a wide variety of religiously-linked consumer goods: small handicrafts, furniture and jewelry are favored hobbies of semi-skilled Shantine householders, and material work is seen as a form of praise to Kirva – ambitious cathedrals and other stunning architectural displays are common sources of community pride. Large consumer industries are usually controlled by the clergy or by the Emperor. Shantine industry is a heavily export-driven model of art and handiworks of various religious themes. Luxury goods consisting of fine glassworks and artistry, as well as mastercrafted weapons, have for centuries provided an image of “Shantine quality” which mass production methods then fulfill for the market. It is a system designed to support the church economy, adapted for mercantile strategy and export.

The Shantine enjoy several important freedoms which are central to the national self-image. Shantine subjects have freedom of movement within the Empire, the right to a trial and legal representation and protections from debt inheritance, serfdom and slavery. Shantine Kirvanism is generally credited (by Shantine historians) with the Empire being the first great power to grant most of these rights (all of these rights have been enjoyed by Shantine subjects since before the unification of Aeldrum).

Shantine culture is fairly literate, emphasizing a populist brand of religious interpretation which prizes open engagement with faith, provided very strict constraints are obeyed. Shantine cultural norms and references are transmitted through a mix of religious doctrine, legends and history: the three are virtually interchangeable to a Shantine. Shantine emphasize that learning requires proper instruction: cannot learn oneself, even if literacy is encouraged – churches and nobles fund public religious education, often with themes designed to serve local power interests.

### Nobility and Sainthood

Land ownership on Bishant and other holy worlds (i.e. most which were ever of sufficient strategic importance to build a critical mass of martyrs) is restricted: the Church owns land and keeps it sacred, and the nobility have hereditary licensures to own land as well. To be a noble in the Shantine empire is to be a hereditary cleric after a fashion. Unlike the other great powers, one cannot be elevated to the nobility within a lifetime: only the descendants of saints are nobles, and typically their privileges are linked to the hagiography of their ancestors (e.g. land grants based on the place of their ancestor’s martyrdom). Ancestral hagiography is also important for political promotion: military positions are often preferentially granted to the heirs of great warrior-saints. Nobles are thus obsessed with their bloodline and preserving as many links to saints as possible to preserve themselves against accusations of dilution or exaggerated heredity. The Imperial family, the House of Kataph, includes dozens of saints in its ancestry and more than a few prophets.

Sainthood is rare in the cosmic scheme (the Council of Patriarchs recognizes a few saints per year, many of them long-dead or semi-fictitious), and often disputed – what the local Kirvan church considers a saint might not be recognized by the Council of Patriarchs for decades or centuries, if ever. Sainthood is of course posthumous: it requires the affirmation of two Kirvan angels that the individual in question was known to Kirva for their actions in life. However, in extraordinary cases it is possible to be named a prophet of Kirva – this is a title which may be held in life, and it implies not merely a heroic action on behalf of Kirva but a direct communion. Prophets are exceedingly rare (once in centuries), never unanimously accepted and usually the catalyst for bloody civil disturbance.

With access to the nobility so restricted, social advancement usually consists of moving through the clergy or of attaining a high court position: great nobles often rule their lands on behalf of the Church (or the Emperor – this point is disputed) and will take clergy directly into their administration, both for political favor and for experts in the byzantine religious legal system that governs their rights and privileges.

### Merchants

Shantine merchants are often a cultural class of their own: over generations they have developed the capital and connections to perform commerce, and while usually linked in some way to the clergy and aristocracy, they often live abroad, raising their families as expatriates. Even in the most insular mechant communities, drift from Shantine norms is common, and merchants are viewed both with appreciation as a sort of commercial-clergy, supporting proselytization and church prosperity, and as a hotbed of dangerous combinations of new ideas.

## Religion

Religious tolerance falls into three classes: Kirvanism is of course favored, followed by Idolmarism, which is granted many of the same privileges (Idolmarite clergy also have land rights, and Idolmarite aristocrats can receive land grants through their church just as Kirvan aristocrats do from the Kirvan Church), followed by a variety of tolerated faiths (mostly local religious systems which the Kirvan clergy have not yet managed to subsume) and, lastly, the proscribed faiths deemed existentially antagonistic to the Kirvan Church (the Lords of the Pentacle, the Cult of the Unnamed and the “Savage Gods” of the orcs rank as major examples): while worship of a proscribed god is not strictly criminal, most rituals and activities around these faiths are criminalized or severely discouraged.

### Shantine Kirvanism

The Shantine do not necessarily have a cultural exceptionalism: rather, they have a religious exceptionalism, believing all interpretations of Kirva other than their own to be implausible at best and dangerously heretical at worst (it is common for Shantine religious orders to split over minor doctrinal matters while still retaining an overall loyalty to Kirvanism and the High Church). However, any person can with sincere belief easily join the “correct” faith, making Shantine Kirvanism highly exportable.

The “Shantine” Church of Kirva is synonymous with the Council of Kirvan Patriarchs, a body of mutually-recognized senior church officials. Despite its name, the Council is not exclusively open to men, and historically has had slightly more female than male members – though 6 is Kirva’s holy number, complex systems of numerology can justify almost any number of members as political necessity dictates. The Council sets the doctrine of the Kirvan Church (at least those Kirvan churches which recognize the Council), administers land grants within the Empire, judges sainthood and performs genealogical and occult services for the court. The Council also confirms and crowns the Shantine Emperor: though traditionally the firstborn child of the preceding Emperor (or the next closest relation by primogeniture), the Crown Prince of the Empire does not always receive the blessing of the Council. Historically, when such a prince does not abdicate to a preferred candidate, the result has been assassination or civil war (not always favoring the Council).

In addition to its strong administrative hierarchy, Shantine Kirvanism places a strong religious emphasis on both the equality of all people and the responsibility of the strong toward the weak (and the responsibility of the weak to strengthen themselves): this last feature permits Bishant’s thriving aristocracy, provided that it cloaks itself in language of militant defense of the people and of secular transmission of religious lessons (a local lord may treat the tenants on his land as a flock just as much as a priest, and therein again lies room for disagreement, as many a respectable lord will have a religious education to rival most non-scholarly clerics). Being an empire of mortals, with material problems to regulate, Shantine principles also illuminate a potentially hazardous distinction between religious justice and secular law: to a Shantine, the morass of secular laws provides daily consistency, but religious challenges to law are commonly accepted (if argued according to highly specialized methods), placing faith over common law. If a tradition is traceable to a hagiography or angelic dictate, it will most likely supersede any law of man except for the opposition of very powerful grandees (and therein often lie the seeds of dangerous confrontations between church and state). This approach also informs Shantine attitudes toward secular power as useful but ultimately obedient to Kirva – though far less individualistic than Aeldrum, the result is also a belief that Shantine individual religious conviction can count for more than national policy (some argue that this encourages Bishant’s intermittent rashes of religious radicalism) and that the Emperor, though respected and revered as a holy figure, is fallible.

Bishant’s strong culture of religiously motivated challenges to various secular powers, and of endless religious scholarship around the right way to do things, can often end up a constraint on commerce and administration, though strong traditions have also provided common ground for Bishant’s vast trade connections.

### Cosmopolitan and Radical Kirvanism

Despite the squabbling that can result, Shantine “Cosmopolitan Kirvanism” is a vigorous and often quite attractive ideology built on principles of racial and gender (if not economic) equality and dignity combined with a generous and caring church-state, working toward a greater cosmic future. Shantine armies are famously diverse, though often the effective core will consist of militarized zealots. These zealots can be the source of “Kirvan Radicalism,” which while extremely varied in its details, is generally defined by a prioritization of evangelism and conversion to Kirvanism over individual rights and the supremacy of religious law and custom on various aspects of life (notably, not all radicals propose that the clergy should supersede the Emperor’s authority). The struggle of cosmopolitanism against radicalism is a significant theme throughout the Empire’s history.

### Kirvan Heresies

In addition to the tension between Imperial traditions of Kirvanism and Kirvan radicalism, Kirvanism in the 5th century A.U. is not without its direct heresies. There is the ever-present ambiguity of the Knights of Adarnum, whose special reverence for Kirva’s archangel, Adarnum, sometimes borders on apostasy. The “Revelator” movement is a less ambiguous heresy, though not without its mass appeal. It holds that the gods all made pacts in the Partition which amount to a series of sequential contracts, and that by understanding these contracts it is possible to know the future of mortal empires, and to create the conditions for a better future to come about in Kirva’s favor. Revelationism has notes of heretical consultation of Valdosian texts, presumptuous guessing of Kirva’s will and, of course, subordinating Church doctrine to the needs of half-understood prophesies.

## Military

During the Fialta-Shantine War, the Shantine Empire deployed a mix of religious militants (e.g. the Knights of Adarnum and the Idolmar Hospitallers, usually as cavalry and heavy infantry), semi-professional Imperial infantry (part constabulary-turned-army, part foreign legion) and auxiliary forces from the border protectorates. Conscription was been introduced for the defense of certain worlds.

The Shantine fleet has a strong core of warships, historically supplemented by refitted cargo vessels from the Bishant Trade Company.

## International Relations

The Shantine international strategy is carefully balanced with the domestic relationship between the Emperor and the Church. The Emperor enjoys enormous influence as the Defender of the Kirvan Faith, which the Shantine can deploy for substantial diplomatic leverage across the cosmos. At the best of times, the Emperor can even exercise his secular power to influence the decisions of the Council of Patriarchs, giving the Emperor not only moral authority but a limited form of direct control over Kirvan religious law. The price of this leverage is that the Emperor’s title must be credibly defended: persecution of Kirvan minority groups can almost instantaneously generate a diplomatic flashpoint between the Shantine and a rival power, as the Emperor must play not only to the international community but to a kaleidoscope of zealous Kirvan sects that will demand action.

The distinction between the Shantine Imperial border and the so-called Kirvan protectorates (often administered by the Council or its subsidiaries) highlights the uncomfortable imperial position: while not deriving revenues from these territories or maintaining control on the behavior of local leadership, the Empire is pressured religiously to keep them under its protection.

Weak Emperors have been drawn into disastrous wars in defense of fringe Kirvan groups, only to find that the Shantine masses do not share the will to fight of Bishant’s influential radical factions. This duality, between the bellicosity of would-be crusaders and the quiet indifference of many of Bishant’s subjects (a strong minority of whom are not Kirvan), is the essential weakness of the Shantine diplomatic position. Its strength is in the reverence of billions of people within and outside the Empire not only for the Shantine brand of the Kirvan Church, but for the Emperor directly.

### Serene Duchy of Aeldrum

To the Shantine Empire, the Serene Duchy of Aeldrum is a familiar if not particularly well-loved partner on the cosmic stage: as the two great trade powers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.U., Aeldman and Shantine interests historically clashed (especially as then upstart Aeldrum outmaneuvered Bishant’s historic trade monopolies), but rarely to the point of outright military conflict (and never to the level of total war), and the devastation of the Shantine Empire in the 4th century A.U. sufficiently separated Aeldrum’s scope and level of power from Bishant’s to turn the Shantine into respected but usually junior partners in a distinctly pro-Aeldman cosmic order. Since then, Bishant has recovered much of its power, and while still weaker in many respects than Aeldrum, has forged a parallel rather than directly competing base of power, focusing heavily on diplomatic influence and the soft power of its religious ideology, which Aeldrum cannot match. To Aeldrum, Bishant’s diplomatic and religious strategy is difficult to reconcile with the Aeldman model, making it an object of increasing suspicion, especially as it becomes increasingly clear that the Shantine cannot always control the “mad dogs” of Kirvan religious radicalism on which much of their soft power rests: the Shantine are consistent partners, but both sides have had frequent cause to complain bitterly that the other has not carried their share of the burden (Bishant has not forgotten Aeldrum’s lukewarm assistance in the Fialta-Shantine wars of the mid 3rd century A.U., and Aeldman policy in the First Coalition War rested heavily on the expectation that their Shantine allies would drop out if the tide ever turned against them).

## History

### Early History

*See also: Protectorate of Adarnum*
The Shantine Empire belongs to an ancient succession of states devoted to the goddess Kirva, most of them with their capital on the holy world of Bishant, second only to Aeldrum in the number of etheric gates that it supports and the wealth that it encompasses. Long before the rise of the Mage Imperium some 7,000 years before the modern era and long after the fall of the last Mage Princes some 2,000 years later, priest-kings, anointed emperors, prophet-generals and every other entanglement of theocracy and monarchy have been striding the history of Shantine space. Sectarian infighting, ruinous crusades and calamitous civil strife between drifting spheres of church and state have set the tempo for a history of alternating prosperity and pauperism. The Shantine are the latest exponent of this proud and zealous tradition. Even their instantiation of the Kirvan state is more than a thousand years old.

### Fialta-Shantine War

*Main article: Fialta-Shantine War*
The 351 - 357 A.U. conflict between the Fialta States and the Shantine Empire was sparked by the creation by of new Shantine Protectorate worlds. It ended badly for the Shantines, and was a direct cause of the establishment of the Second Fialta Imperium.

### The War of the Coalition

*Main article: First Coalition War*
During the First Coalition War of 396-399 A.U. the Shantine Empire was ruled by Emperor Theodosius IX, who had originally taken the throne in 377 A.U..

### Post Coalition War

Empress Theoboda Kataph took the throne in 433 A.U..

## Notes

1. ↑ The Aeldman financier Francis Mervodan observed wryly that the “Shantine consumerism led to industrial oligarchism long before a Serene Doge ever had cronies.”
2. ↑ Dire insults used by Shantine aristocrats against each other include “saint’s in-law” and other variations on non-blood relationships.
3. ↑ Strong incentives are given to convert to Kirvanism: there are sometimes taxes on non-Kirvans, exemptions from land-service for clergy and lay religionists (deacons etc.) and preferential official appointmens. Outlying Shantine “protectorates” are administered as often by religious orders as by Imperial decree, resulting in a high degree of variability in quality of life and governance. Imperial territories tend to be more tolerant and cosmopolitan (enjoying tax revenues from non-Kirvans), while religious governors tend to offer the strongest conversion incentives.
4. ↑ An attempt to change the name in the 3rd century A.U. resulted in years of linguistic argumentation about gendered nouns in ancient Shantine; when the matter escalated to an extremely heretical discussion of Kirva’s gender (understood by the Shantine to be female), all further discussion was barred, and records were sealed.
5. ↑ Though often puppets, “Council Picks” from outside the primogeniture have also included some of the Empire’s most successful rulers, include its only ruling prophet, the Empress Kalnida (who ultimately purged the council that appointed her).
6. ↑ The Council of Patriarchs meets on Bishant, in a cathedral which is essentially a wing of the Imperial palace: Shantine Emperors (usually remembered as tyrants) have on some occasions held the Council hostage until they reach a desired conclusion.