Confederacy of Buon

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## Description:

The Confederacy of Buon, previously known as the Republic of Buon, is a loosely-unified collection of independent "cliques," or warlord-led territories, which rules over most of mainland Ostia. The Confederacy of Buon is recognized mostly for its disjointed member states, competing warlords, and fierce internal struggles which prevent the nation from rising to its position as a true global superpower. The Confederacy's member warlords and their factions maintain individual and independent relations with foreign powers, making the political situation within Buon very unstable and volatile. However, all Buonese warlords can agree on 1 thing: they all hate the Bhalong, the nomadic tribal conquerors to Buon's north and west who have made dozens of attempts at invading Buon in the past.

The Confederacy of Buon is located on the eastern coast of Ostia, across the Strait of Buon from the Raiki Shogunate. Buon's size means that it has a wide variety of geographical features, including lots of mountains, some tundra, hilly fields and grasslands, forests and jungles, plateaus, and deserts. Buon's size also provides a range of climates, from tropical and warm to frigid at the more northern points.

### Organization:

#### Capital: Peixiang - "

The highest federal level of Buon's government is incredibly weak, bordering on non-existent; the few federal structures that survived following the [REDACTED] are ineffective, weak, corrupt, and helpless, nothing more than puppets propped up by the warlords to perpetuate the illusion of unified strength. The highest level of the Confederacy of Buon exists as a voting council, composed entirely of the nation's warlords, known as the [REDACTED]; this voting body decides what is and is not to be done about any and all threats which would threaten Buon as a region. As one might expect, the council is incredibly inefficient, corrupt, and rife with ruthless scheming and competition. It takes months or years for the council to make a decision, costing them valuable time which could be used elsewhere; only in defensive matters can the council decide quickly.

The real governing bodies of Buon lie with the warlords, the 13 military leaders that fight with each other for control of the region. Each of the warlords rules over their own territory in a slightly different way, but few are devoted to any ideology; instead, each of the warlords sees themselves as the rightful rulers of Buon. This attitude sparks constant warfare and conflict between the different warlords, as alliances and rivalries are made and broken at an incredible speed. Given this conflict-laden system of government, Buon is incredibly susceptible to influence from foreign powers, including the Union of Birmingham, Republic of Truseau, Westgaardian Royal Empire, the Raiki Shogunate, and the Khaganate of Bhalong. These foreign nations seek to sway the warlords of Buon in their favor, either to acquire greater power within the region, slowly annex more territory into their own nation, acquire predatory or manipulative trade contracts, etc. This foreign interference has stoked a large divide within the Buonese people: urban residents tend to appreciate the importance of foreigners, while more rural people hate the colonizers and businessmen for their manipulations and schemes. Foreign nations also use the Buonese warlords and Buonese criminal groups like the Maofu Clan to wage proxy wars against one another, seen most prominently during the War of Vile Men, although these conflicts would continue long after the WoVM's conclusion.

Below the warlords sit their commanders, assistants, aides and logisticians. Most warlords take a very authoritarian and heavy-handed approach to rulership, stamping out signs of rebellion and disloyalty with great prejudice. This system is disliked by foreign powers, who view it as inhumane, while those same foreign powers use those draconian laws to their advantage in order to buy cheaper land, pay workers less, etc. Buon is one of the largest growing economies in the world, not because of its collective improvement, but because of foreign investment.

Buon is a land rife with warfare and death. Warlords constantly wage war against one another for territory, make and break alliances, conduct acts of espionage and sabotage, etc. all with impunity while the civilian populations are often caught in the middle. Entire villages or small cities will be massacred or razed to the ground by marching armies to deny approaching invaders the resources, or as punishment for acts of resistance by the local warlord. While Buon itself is too consumed by its internal problems to expand outwards, the warlords are constantly seeking to expand their territory and defend what territory they have; regions may change hands a dozen times over the course of a week due to the speed at which fighting occurs. Buon is, therefore, heavily militarized; the number of active soldiers within Buon triples every few years, creating a need for able-bodied men and capable warriors that draws mercenaries from around the world. The warlords are rarely capable of paying all of their soldiers, which leads to high desertion rates and draconian punishments for disloyal troops; more than 1 warlord has been overthrown by angry mercenaries or displeased commanding officers, which stokes the flames of a paranoid command structure, as officers constantly monitor their subordinates for signs of treachery or sabotage whilst avoiding the same stares from their superiors. Most villages, even in the most rural parts of Buon, have some form of trained militia or equipped civilian populace to defend their homes, but this does not stop the widespread issue of large-scale piracy and banditry. A militarized culture like Buon's is bound to have trouble when soldiers are arrested or dismissed from service, a kind of trouble which has manifested in a massive, nationwide bandit plague that interrupts agriculture and industry, threatens trade relations, costs money, and demands more militarization to combat. Banditry is one of the most lucrative careers a person can have in Buon, save for foreign businessman, foreign mercenary, or warlord.