Qilinia

**Qilinia** (Qilinian: *Qilingok*, meaning "Qilin country") is a country in southern Pyrisia. Its capital is the city of Cantonlot.

Its population is primarily made up of Qilins.

## Demographics

Rural Qilinian lands have shacks built atop of trees, connected by rope bridges, as well as shacks at the bottom of trees as well.

Urban Qilinian lands are very different though. They have rows of narrow tenements with shops at the ground level as well as balconies. The window frames, fences and railings are famed for their ornate designs.

Stilt houses at coastal urban Qilinian lands are also a thing, specially in algae and pearl farming areas as well as near ports and shipyards. These houses may only have one floor and are typically built out of wood.

### Society

Traditionally, Qilinian society has been divided into four classes: farmers, merchants, artisans and scholars. The scholar class is made up of government officials, philosophers and professors.

Industrialization has seen the rise of a new class of "low scholars" who aren't as educated as the "high scholars" but perform jobs that require an education and require more workers than the scholar class can provide.

## Politics

The current leader of Qilinia is Empress Eternal Spring, who succeeded Emperor Winter Breeze.

Eternal Spring is prophesized to bring a period of growth and blossoming.

### Government

Qilinia is an absolute monarchy where emperors design an heir to succeed them. Other government positions are filled by a strict system of examinations which all potential candidates are required to pass.

The examinations measure the skills and knowledge of candidates on philosophy, history, literature, art, music, magic, geometry and calligraphy.

Because of the examinations, Qilinia has been sometimes described as a noocracy, although common criticisms of the system include the lack of flexibility of the content of the examinations to adapt to new knowledge, or the lack of relevance of some examination subjects to the jobs that are fulfilled by them.

Qilinia's political factions include a traditionalist one that defends the current system and a reformist or technocratic one that advocates for changing the examination system to focus only on matters related to the role the candidate aims to fulfill. Other factions include a democratic one which aims for the creation of institutions to put imperial power in check.

### Diplomacy

Qilinia's relations with Equestria have been considered strained since the Equestrian-Qilinian war.

## Military

Qilins are notoriously pacifist. The Qilinian army is small and mostly ceremonial and it sees little use in actual battle besides fending off invasions.

Qilins have a mastery of passive defenses as well as incendiary and explosive weapons. Pole arms and crossbows are common features in their army. Rocketry is also commonly used in ranged attacks, being incredibly powerful against static or slow targets.

Qilinian armies have a helmet and a blanket that covers the back and drapes over to the side made of iron and bronze plates riveted together.

### Cataphracts

Qilinia's military has heavy units, with a name often translated in Equestrian writings as "cataphracts", with a heavy armor made of tungsten-steel alloy.

The high melting point of this alloy makes it particularly resistant to heat and fire, making this armor useful for resisting attempts to melt or weaken it with heat. Because of this, cataphracts are often used against Dragons or other Qilins.

### Navy

An important feature of the Qilinian navy is tarasque ships. Those ships are built to look like tarasques, covered in metal plates with spikes and with a metallic tarasque head in the front with holes for the eyes, nostrils and mouth which is used to shoot fire.

Tarasque ships are efficient in naval combat against wooden ships. They're hard to board due to the plates and can shoot cannons and fire in most directions.

After the Equestrian-Qilinian war, the Qilinian navy has incorporated a new class of ships called the dragon ships, which employ modern shipbuilding techniques and top of the line Qilinian artillery and can launch powerful barrages.

Dragon ships are all named with the word dragon. The Golden Dragon is the flagship of the empress.

## Economy

### Currency

The modern currency used in Qilinia is called Bi (币).

Historically, Qilins used bronze tools as currency. As iron replaced bronze as tool material, bronze continued being used for minting coins, being still established as a valuable metal.

However, the demand for tin outstripped supply and the tin percentage of the coins went down until it was decided to mint net coins in copper instead. Eventually, silver coins were introduced as well.

Later on, "paper coins" were introduced as a convenience, which represented an amount of money stored in the coffers of the empire and were given out as a pay to state employees to be cashed in coins whenever. This not only made paying more convenient, but also made it so that the state could pay its employees even if it didn't have all the money right away.

These paper coins were the predecessor of the paper bill.

## Culture

### Crafts

Traditional Qilinian crafts include works with lacquer, jade and porcelain.

Due to proximity to Dragon lands, Qilinians have a close relationship with the dragons and Dragons are commonly featured in their art.

### Cuisine

Qilinian cuisine is largely based on rice, soy and algae. Qilinians are opposed to keeping livestock and consuming animal products.

#### Seaweed pearls

Seaweed pearls are a luxury food specialty.

They are made from seaweed, which is chopped into small pieces and boiled and the resulting liquid is poured onto a tray with many holes in it so that droplets of the hot liquid fall into a pan of salted water where upon they immediately form round orbs. The orbs are then retrieved from the salt water and packed in glass jars with a salted, spiced water marinade.

The most prized ones are the small translucent pearls as those require a repeated cycle of boiling, skimming and cooling to remove as much of the impurities that color the lesser grades in varying shades of green, but even the lesser grades are relatively expensive as harvesting the seaweed is labor intensive because it grows on ropes and it has to be manually scraped off in a way that does not damage the "root" of the seaweed.

#### Tea

Tea, particularly green tea, is commonly consumed in Qilinia. Its proper preparation is seen as a sign of good control over magic as it requires magically heating up the water to a point where it's close to its boiling point but without reaching it.

### Mythology

Unlike other cultures with a set classical elements, in Qilinia classical elements include wood and metal.

This distinction was important to ancient Qilinian philosophers as wood is conductive of magic but metal isn't.

### Philosophy and magic

Qilinian philosophy values peace, social order, work and virtue.

The practice of enchantry is common in Qilinia.

### Prosoponymy

Qilinian names are often based on meteorology, such as weather events and seasons.

### Theater

In Qilinian theater, the actors wear complex costumes, masks and hair which obscures their real coat and mane. The masks are placed both resting on their muzzle and hanging from their horn to keep them from falling or moving.

## Society

### Blind tigers

As a measure of cultural preservation, Qilinia enforces a strict ban on foreign cultural expression such as music, poetry, literature or art.

This, combined with state bans on addictive substances, has created a culture of underground establishments, known as blind tigers, that play foreign music, sell foreign pornography and sell illicit substances.

These establishments proliferate in the largest Qilinian cities and they are plagued with ties with organized crime due to the illegal nature of their activities.

## Religion

Qilinians believe in the worship of the ancestors and an underworld where the spirits of the dead and incinerated things go to.

As it is believed that burning things sends them to the underworld, items like food, paper money and the resin of the olibanum tree are burnt during funerary rituals to help the recently deceased.

It is considered that you should only sacrifice what you can. A wise philosopher explained that the Qilin who has one grain of rice and burns it has done a better service than the one who has a million and burnt none.

## Landmarks

### The Great Wall

The Great Wall is a long tall wall built across the Qilin isthmus northeast of the country.

It was built after an invasion from the Silver Horde to fend off future land invasions from the country which usually fares worse at naval invasions.

### The Stone Army

The Stone Army consists of a large amount of Qilinian soldiers petrified with a petrification spell to eternally guard the tomb of emperor Golden Autumn.

Ancient Qilinians hoped that if a way of reversing magical petrification was discovered in the future, the army could be resurrected and defend the emperor's place of eternal rest from would-be tomb looters.