Chalparna

Location of Chalparna

### Religion

Predominantly Nakkalite (with an approximate 3:2 Amekizite-Shurite split), small Orthodox Christian minority

**Chalparna**, also known as **Calparnia** in Elvic, is a country within the Nesarian Empire. Its head of state is the King (or *Vas*), though the head of government is the First Minister of the Golden Throne. Its national animal is the Qaluran, and its state religion is Nakkalism.

Chalparna is typically considered by its own inhabitants to really be two countries in one, with Ladhara lying in the west and Kaichalparna (lit. "True Chalparna") - frequently shortened to Kaiparna, even in official usage - lying in the east. Although Kaiparnis and Ladharis largely follow the same religion and speak dialects of the same language, their differences are numerous; they have distinct traditions and customs, differing cuisines, artistic and architectural styles unique to themselves, and they are physically identifiable as separate populations. Their homelands are also markedly different; Kaiparna is warm, dry and flat, whereas Ladhara has many hills and has a mostly temperate climate, little different from northern Roulonne.

Although Chalparna borders Roulonne and Keloruela, historically the country had negligible contact with these two other civilisations due to the presence of the extremely hostile Violet Mountains - and the challenging geography continues to leave these countries isolated from one another despite the negligible danger in modern times.

Chalparni history and culture, particularly that of the ancient variety, is highly influenced by the ancient Gold Elves who once ruled the country but disappeared during or soon after the Annihilation. Though their race no longer survives, many ruins and relics from their civilisation exist, and some of them were used by the Chalparni kings for military purposes. The Constructs of the Golden Legion and the Golden Conduits made the kings absurdly powerful in battle, ensuring the sovereignty of the fractured Chalparni kingdoms against the powerful foes that bordered them - and also ensuring that the numerous wars between the kingdoms were inevitably highly destructive.

## Name

Chalparni tradition has always made clear that the name of the country comes from the ancient Gold Elves - that is, the name was originally Elvic - though what this ancient Gold Elf name may have been is unclear. Various reconstructions has been proposed, though the most favoured is *Cialapar Nara*. *Cialapar* is a phonologically reconstructed word which is theorised to be related to the Nesarian word *Colva*, meaning brightness, and the Saverian word *Geleva*, meaning lustre or shininess. *Nara* is one of the few Gold Elvish words with a known meaning, translating as "soil" or "farmland". *Cialapar Nara* is theorised then to mean something along the lines of "bright land", though some linguists propose that *Cialapar* refers to sunshine, so *Cialapar Nara* may mean "sunny land" or "land of the sun".

Ladhara is also known to be Elvic in origin, though the exact form of what this Gold Elvish word was is disputed. Saverian sources unanimously refer to it as *Ladar*, and Roulonnais ones as *Ladare* or *Ladore*, but this is believed to be a shortened corruption of a longer name, which has been variously reconstructed as *Ladara*, *Ladiara*, *Ladahar*, *Ladihar* and *Ladaria*. An incomplete inscription on a Gold Elf burial site, when transliterated to the Latin alphabet, reads *Lad\_h\_\_*, which is likely but not certain to be the original form of Ladhara, lending legitimacy to the reconstructions which include the consonant H. The meaning of the word is unknown.