Kjeropan

* Map
* Flag

A gentle but greedy country of love, knowledge, food, commerce, bison and dance. Settled on the river by an alliance of Northern Plains fur-traders and Western Savannah nomads.

Today, Kjeropan is a booming economic and cultural hub in the Northwestern Western Continent, known mainly for the classical open-minded metropolis of Sunsleep (known in Kjeropan as Ponekoli).

Kjeropan is ruled by the Janpēto, a triad of elected rulers, kept in check by the Kapawa Code, a constitution carved into Sunsleep's main square.

Basic Statistics

## Demography of Kjeropan

Currently, in the Age of Expansion, about **320'000 to 350'000** **people** call Kjeropan home. The majority of Kjeropani live in urban areas, with the city of Sunsleep boasting around half the nation's total population at roughly the size of ancient Byzantium.

**Ethnic Kjeropani**

Roughly 85% of the nation is ethnically Kjeropani. Of this majority, three quarters stem from the nomadic Owampapan tribe of the savannah, and a quarter trace their lineage to the fur-traders of the northernmore Kjero tribe. While all ethnic Kjeropani share olive skin and soft features, the Kjero typically have light brown hair and baby pink to deep purple irises, the Owampapani mostly have blonde hair and bright gold to dark orange irises.

* **Height**: 150-180cm.
* **Lifespan**: 40-50 years old, with rare extreme outliers who reach 80-100. These older people are almost always considered heroes. Short life spans influence all of Kjeropani society, from politics, to family structures, to their general lust for life.

**Immigrants**

The remaining 15% are immigrants, a welcomed and ever-growing segment of the population. In descending size of their diaspora, there are immigrants from Iskelkla, Noveos, Juraxchi, and temporary residents from Anseme Gabanga, Gwanoi, and the Central Lakes. There is functionally so social or political distinction between tribes or national origin, since since the practice of polyamory (and, to a lesser extent, democracy) on a national scale encourages constant mixing between races and cultures.

## Languages

The Kjeropani, due to the wildly differing languages of their founding tribes and future ambitions to become a hub for foreign language exchange, communicate primarily using a form of sign language and *[once RINV3 is researched]* a system of hieroglyphics. There is a highly rudimentary language (Kjeropan) for basic words, but lacking many formal or consistent linguistic conventions.

The secondary language is Kelkla Sse, which the Kjeropani teach in schools across Sunsleep following first contact with Iskelkla (after an Iskleklan ritual).

## Geography

**See: Geography of Kjeropan**

Kjeropan inhabits a single, large territory in the Northwest of the Western Continent. This territory occupies a vast stretch of hilly terrain leading to mountains in the East, and giving way to deciduous forests beyond its western border. The northernmost part lies in the Northern Prairie, while the southern part covers most of the nation and is located in the Western Savannah.

## Economy

Kjeropan has a free trade economy, although the incumbent Janpēto may influence it how they wish. You can sell anything, and it's even encouraged - there's not really any laws in place regulating exchange of goods, services and currencies. There are taboos though: prostitution must be with consent, and slaves are only morally justified if they were decreed to be slaves by the Janpēto directly as they weren't contributing to society enough - so while you may do what you want, others may insult you, leave your family, or otherwise antagonize you. Conflicts go to the Janpēto directly, or are resolved by games of luck.

**Top 10 exports:**

1. Ponki/Sunfruit oil: Squeezed from the greasy peel of sunfruit, this oil can be used in cooking, incorporated into ointments, or used as a yellow, orange, or golden dye.
2. Bājibush/luckybush leaves: a type of minty-fresh black tea that grows in abundance along rivers and can be used as an herb, or smoked or steeped in water as a mild psychoactive with a deep floral taste.
3. Anponite marble: a type of yellow-pink marble, perfect for decor, wares, architecture, or sculptures.
4. Bison cheese: soft, salty white cheese, aged at different lengths and conditions to produce regional specialties.
5. Kanoki clay: from ceramics to toothpaste to painted bricks, the lands around our rivers and lakes are rich in clay.
6. Bison wool: thick wool from the big bison/wamwa, natural, dyed, and/or braided
7. Tjukki: a small root used as a spice for its intense sweet, sour, spicy and smoky fragrance.
8. Kanoki duck: smaller, fattier duck that multiply like rabbits.
9. Entertainment: the national circus is a huge moneymaker, with emotive plays, dog-dances, and wamwa/big bison showings.
10. Children: yep, children. Kjeropani also multiply like rabbits.

**Top 10 imports:**

1. Rice
2. Iskelklan shuff (cotton)
3. Herbs and spices
4. Metals and rare stones
5. Drugs and alcohol
6. Clothing and art
7. Exotic fruits and vegetables
8. Wood
9. Slaves
10. Engineering: tools, carts, etc.

**Taxes:** There are no formal taxes, although all the wealth you make technically belongs to your chosen family. There is, however, immense social pressure and moral responsibility to gift the vast majority of your wealth to the Janpēto directly or put it towards infrastructure projects or celebrations to help pursue Kāpawa.

**Currency**: there is no real currency, only bartering. Live ducks and bison cheese may be the closest equivalent to a nation-wide currency.

## Politics

### Foreign Relations

Kjeropan is an open, welcoming nation. They see immigration as a tool for growth, exchange, riches and progress, so want to encourage this by maintaining friendly relations and encouraging travellers to visit. In international relations, they can be needy, petty, or emotional, but they are usually fair and kind.

Kjeropan is a core member of the Western Continental Council. Below is a list of Kjeropani attitudes to each nation in the region:

* **Noveos**: Friendly. Love to hang out with them, not a fan of their monogamy.
* **Iskelkla**: Friendly. In awe of their beauty, not a fan of their religiousness.
* **Juraxchi**: Undetermined, likely friendly.
* **Anseme Gabanga**: Friendly. Impressed by their nation, although a wee bit jealous.
* **Gwanoi**: Friendly.
* **Calai**: Friendly. Particularly love their Don house and their dogs.
* **Masat**: Friendly. Thankful for their gift of music.

Attitude towards Eastern Continent nations:

* **Yonange**: Needy, petty and a bit provocative.
* **Gweriþ**: Neutral, slightly suspicious.
* **Esmitan**: Neutral.

### Government

Kjeropan is run by a triad of elected rulers known as **the Janpēto** (“three parents”). The Janpēto are all national-level branches of government, and are responsible for holding each other accountable to the election process and potential abuses of power. Whilst anyone can be elected to the office, from horse traders to doctors to mushroom farmers, they typically divide tasks as follows:

1. A parent of the city, responsible for developing infrastructure, defending the city, maintaining population growth, and ensuring everyone participates in civil service activities.
2. A parent of the plains, responsible for the food supply, logistics, defense, foreign relations, and the families that live outside Sunsleep.
3. A parent of trade, responsible for the river, the treasury, and establishing trade routes.

The Janpēto are elected during festivals in a process formalized in the Kāpawa Code and governed by **chance** and **liquid democracy** (also see: Election Festivals), in which anyone is free to vote verbally or delegate their vote to others by physically standing behind them. Festivals are announced by random chance: each week, the Janpēto announces a number and rolls a series of dice. Whenever the dice amount to exactly this number, a new festival must be announced and all are at risk of losing their position.

**Criminal law:** There is only one legally sanctified punishment in Kjeropan society, which is banishment. Only the Janpēto may rule a banishment, so depending on the incumbent Janpēto, whole groups may be banished at once, or only one person may be banished for over an entire year.

**Local politics:** Power outside Sunsleep is hugely devoluted, with families trusted to handle local matters except as relating to trade, the terms of which are enforced by the Janpēto. Due to the outsize role of the bison in each village, local politics is usually structured by it. This means that the village's eldest female bison, the Mother Wamwa, is seen as the de facto head of the village, and only those who can interpret her thoughts and behaviours are seen as justly holding decision-making power on important local matters. In practice, this means local power gravitates towards a number of people who spend the most time taking care of the bison, crafting them beautiful accessories, dyeing and braiding their wool, keeping them fed, washed, healthy, etc.

## Kāpawa (the Big Dream)

Kāpawa is Kjeropan's founding myth and constitution; a path based on an imagined utopian future of lazy riches and eternal joy in which everyone’s free to spend their days traveling, making art, feasting, and attending festivals. This has become the nation’s core driver, to the point where it’s a taboo to not commit your whole life to building a rich and beautiful nation. Effort towards this destiny is what grants each Kjeropani freedom - those who refuse or become unable may be forced to labour to it until deemed worthy of choices again. All norms structuring society flow from the pursuit of Kāpawa.

Thanks to Noveosian explorers, Kjeropan learnt the knowledge of law (RITR1) and established **the Kāpawa Code**, a constitution carved in limestone on the main square of Sunsleep where citizens, heroes, travelers, and the Janpēto all come to debate. The Code also sets in stone the proceedings of elections.

#### Civic values

Values core to your position as a free and valued citizen. Each Kjeropan is responsible for all of Kjeropan's success and happiness.

1. **Civic duty**: Mandatory civil service is the backbone of the Kjeropani economy. Citizens work to maintain communal buildings, streets, farms and canals, raise children, care for the elderly and the sick, run supply lines, work farms, and maintain defenses. It’s less of a law, and more of a strong normative duty, but has the same effect. This maintains that everyone, even the wealthy, work and contribute to the nation’s shared prosperity. Those who do not participate sufficiently are forced by their chosen family or wider village, offered to the Janpēto and effectively becoming slaves until they gain the discipline and talent to provide for the nation.
2. **Wealth**: The pursuit of wealth is inherently good, as it is a necessary component to having the resources to achieve Kāpawa. The wealth anyone produces belongs to them and their chosen family alone. There are no taxes on wealth, but very strong external social pressure and internalized moral desire to give to the state by paying for infrastructure projects, foreign goods, disaster relief, arts and festivals, and more (usually spending most of their wealth quickly and abundantly - Kjeropani are not very good at holding on to money).
3. **Sun worship**: Kjeropan believes the sun has a soul, and not just any - a soul so kind that it gives us all of our positive emotions, grants life and energy to all plants and creatures, and yet expects nothing in return. Out of genuine gratefulness, rather than religious obligation or social pressure (although the latter definitely plays), they worship the sun by feeling its emotions to the fullest. This is best achieved through drugs, games, adventure, festivals, dance, sex, or love more broadly.

#### Moral values

1. **Aesthetics**: Beauty is value and forms many of the core prejudices inherent to Kjeropani social hierarchy. Staying clean, dressing beautifully (or showing one's naked body, if it's a beautiful one), landscaping, decorating, and making art are all highly valued. In Kjeropan's eyes, beauty causes you to feel the sun's emotions, and draws immigrants who can help introduce Kjeropan to new aesthetics and grow the city of Sunsleep.
2. **Bison love**: *Wamwa* have the power to change the future. to have any sort of political power, especially on the local level, you must care deeply for bison, grant them love, riches, music and beauty in exchange for their wisdom. While all animals have an influence on worldly events like weather patterns, bison are the most powerful of all.
3. **Festivals**: You’re not living *bāji* (lucky) unless you participate in feasts and parties. Letting loose feels good, so it must also *be* good, since the sun provides all positive emotions. In addition, festivals lead to bonding between all sorts of peoples, and ensure the nation stays happy.
4. **Free love**: Polyamory is the norm. Sex is merely a game that brings people closer, and babies are a byproduct, and not even your responsibility: parents and children choose each other, are not determined by genetic lineage, and all children are raised communally. Polyamory allows for fast population growth and constant mixing, rendering the population highly homogenous as heritage has become only a vague cultural idea.
5. **Openness**: Extraversion, welcoming attitudes, kindness and openness to immigrants lead to interaction, population growth, innovation, interaction, and social bonding.
6. **Chosen family**: Your inner family is your choice. *Ja* (parents) choose their *jaji* (children) and vice versa. Pregancies are usually untraceable to their fathers, and after the babies are pooled for communal raising, even their mothers become a mystery. Each person decides who they choose to love and live with, whenever they feel like it. Such families are loosely defined, chosen, constructed, and otherwise assembled depending on each individual’s choices in life, and can be very small or very large.

## Cuisine

### Food

Some examples of Kjeropani cuisine:

* **Breakfast:** Sunfruit slices and mushroom loaf. Rice pudding with cheese and honey. Hot milk.
* **Dinner**: Duck marinated in bison milk with tjuk fries. Cold bājibush tea. Antelope cheek with caramelized little saviors.
* **Sundown**: Fermented bison milk with grape sugar. Triple-fried sunsalmon with tjukki salsa.

## Religion & Traditions

### Heroes of Kjeropan

The Kjeropani are avowed humanists, believing humans, not gods, are the greatest power in the Western Savannah. They make no distinction between the natural and the supernatural, explaining away all divine happenings as the results of weather, plants, animals, or more powerful humans. They believe gods may exist beyond the Western Savannah, but not here — Kjeropan is the land of humans (...and dogs, and horses, and bison). They do, however, have a range of real, past, and mythologized heroes that act as a pantheon. These heroes are believed to have been real humans without supernatural blessings, but who made a great impact on Kjeropan. Theses heroes are typically flawed, can be benevolent or evil, and are the primary way adults teach morals to Kjeropani kids.

* **Little Jan** (the Friend)**:** Associated with democracy, luck, friendship, and the city of Sunsleep. Negotiated the founding of Kjeropan, then disappeared.
* **Oie** (the Scout): Associated with adventure, pride, charisma, and the city of Nip. Laid contact with Iskelkla and Yonange and helped map the country's borders and the Anpone (cave system around Nip).
* **Lejo** (the Girl Who Spoke First): Associated with diplomacy, courage, and the wisdom of youth, and Noveos. Laid contact with Noveos.
* **Vana** (the Masati Drummer): Associated with music, generosity, and the wisdom of age. Introduced music and dance to generations of Kjeropani.

### Traditions

* **Election festivals:** At various random intervals, decided by chance, the Janpēto announce festivals for electing each of the chief positions. During such festivals, individuals can issue oral votes or delegate their votes to others by literally standing behind them, electing the individual with the most votes to their name. This is, of course, accompanied with copious drinking and drugs, so sometimes the results get… interesting.

* **Sunshine rituals:** Every morning when a Kjeropan first sees the sun, they must greet it. And as the sun sets, they must celebrate it before its nightly nap. The latter can take the form of a small acknowledgement over dinner, or attending the nightly parties that happen at the heart of Sunsleep.
* **The Sun's Fair**: Every summer equinox, Kjeropan invites nations in the region to flock to Sunsleep and partake in weeks of weddings, drinking, feasting, and exchanges of culture, food, resources and art.

### Art

* **Clothes**: Typical Kjeropan dress consists of a simple linen skirt adorned with accessories of fur, flowers and grasses, and dyed rope anklets featuring gems, bones, rocks, and carved wood. Accessories are key to seeming beautiful, and typically colours and patterns are what makes them beautiful to the beholder. However, a significant percentage of the population is nudist, with most of them residing in Jorkwam. The general idea is: if you have a body that is more beautiful than your clothes, you should just display that instead.

* **Dyed furs:** Since the Kjero were hunters up North, trading fur for wealth, fur remains a cultural fixation. As the Western Savannah’s seasons are kinder than up North, and there is less fur to be found, dyed furs have remained important as markers of beauty and style, and to some extent, social status.

* **Architecture:** The Kjeropani generally believe that, if one is to settle down, rather than enjoy the freedoms of nomadism, your home needs to be beautiful. Individual stones, bricks and branches are carved and etched with patterns or whole stories, rendering architecture a valued career path and virtually every settlement will have one.

* **Stories:** The Kjeropani traditionally practice oral history, telling stories about heroes and animals and their imagined future.

## Wildlife

### Fauna

* Big Bison: *[will go into effect once RMOB1 is researched]* The Kjeropani rely on a species of particularly huge bison for wool, milk, and (rarely) meat. These bison are particularly large, with the females especially large at about the size of a mammoth. Due to this, the Kjeropani only need a small population of bison to produce a large amount of dairy and wool. Originally the source of life for the nomadic Owampapan tribe (one of two tribes unified to form Kjeropan), almost every village in Kjeropan has a single family of bison to supply it with clothing, cheese, milk, and, when one dies of natural causes, a festival is held in which its meat is eaten and skin and bones are fashioned into housing, tools, art and clothes. The whole village is responsible for treating the bison with respect and extraordinary care. Also see: Bison Politics, under Politics.
* Owampanese (Dogs):*[will go into effect once RMOB1 is researched]* Owampanese are the bedrock of Kjeropan hunting bands. They are smart, easy to train, and extremely loyal, and are also often an integral part of Kjeropani families.

### Flora

* **Sunfruit** (citrus): Sunfruit is a citrus that grows in abundance in the hills and valleys around Sunsleep. A single sunfruit is about the size of a small mandarin, is yellowy-orange on the outside, and has a smooth, thick, greasy peel. The fruit is eaten for its sweet and sour flavour and alleged disease resistance, while the peel has multiple uses. Its oil can be squeezed out and stored for long periods of time or applied directly in cooking, on the skin or for medicine, or to dye things yellow or orange. The leftover peel can be incorporated in crafting tools, art, or clothing and accessories.
* **Little Saviors** (mushroom): Little Saviors (also known as 'tinglies', 'tinglers' or 'tingles') are a small, thick, lilac-coloured edible mushroom found in the caves on the southwestern edge of Kjeropan. They are rich in sugar and protein, and can be consumed raw, cooked, or ground into a flour. When eaten, they have a tender consistency similar to the common white button mushroom, but leave a slight, pleasant tingle on the lips.
* **Giddyleaf** (tea/drug): Giddyleaf is a 16m tall bush found all along the bank of Kjeropan's rivers and lakes. It can be steeped in water and drunken as a tasty flowery black tea, which activates the mild psychoactive properties to which the plant thanks its name. Giddyleaf is also used in crafting, or in cooking to add a slightly bitter, spinach-y flavour to dishes.