Kirdan Empire

The Kirdan Empire is a vast imperial state which dominates most of eastern Orithea above the Sarpic Seas. It covers all of Urem and the Great Plain of Tethas, with its outlying provinces encompassing Eatheus and the Phoacian Plain, parts of Kamuria, parts of the Thyrian steppe, and the northeastern margins of the huge Suagir steppe.

The Kirdan Empire is by far the largest and most stable of all the successor states of the even larger (but short-lived) empire established across Orithea by the great Suagir conqueror Torkai Ul-Tash. It is named for Torkai's second son, Kirdai Ul-Tash, who took control of the empire that would later bear his name upon the death of his father. He established the dynasty that still rules the Kirdan Empire to this day; the current Tash-Teshivan is Tembekai VII, twenty-second in a direct lineage running back to Kirdai.

The capital of the Kirdan Empire is the city of Baribur, although the imperial court often migrates to the Phoacian city of Gemata in the winter months due to its much milder climate, so Baribur is sometimes referred to as the "summer capital" and Gemata as the "winter capital." Other major cities of the empire include Kathakaion, Mimyran, Suradis, Bromokoray, Uthmir, XXXX, and XXXXXXXX.

The Kirdan Empire is divided into a number of provinces called satrapies, administered by governors with the title of satrap. This arrangement is a result of reforms by the Tash-Teshivan Tembekai III, prior to which the empire was organized into a much more complex and disorderly collection of several different types of administrative region, including the traditional Suagir chieftain's domains called tamirates. Such was the legacy of the Suagir conquest and the customary parceling-out of subjugated lands into personal domains for various warlords and sub-commanders. There had been a slow, uneven process of regularization and consolidation following the initial conquest, but even two hundred years after Torkai's death, the empire was difficult to manage. The boundaries of regional divisions were often ill-defined or fluid , and each had its own unique rights, duties, prerogatives, and modes of governance; some with appointed governors, and others whose rulers were hereditary and could not easily be replaced. Feuding between them was not uncommon. Tax revenue was often divvied up among supporters to keep them loyal, rather than sent back to the imperial capital, or even spent locally on pressing needs. Local potentates were often uninterested in developing public works or administering justice even-handedly. Tembekai III's sweeping reform and the institution of the satrapies changed all that, although it was not an easy transition and he spent most of his reign struggling to prevent rebellion by traditional elites who resented their old prerogatives being undermined.

The boundaries of various satrapies have changed at times since then, and some have been consolidated together or split apart, but overall the current arrangement is much more manageable (and has contributed substantially to the centralization of powers by subsequent Tash-Teshivans). There are currently thirty-one satrapies in the empire, along with a small number of self-governing cities.

Originally, the Kirdan Empire's aristocracy and warrior caste practiced the traditional religious rites of their Suagir forefathers: Worshiping XXXXXX, Baaqu, Nabhiru and Uatha, various lesser elemental spirits of wind and fire, and even chthonic deities like XXXXXXX and XXXXX. Only the common people of the empire (i.e. the conquered Uremites) adhered to the cult of the Thaedonu-Vaati, which the Suagir overlords disdained. However, in 1044 CV, the Tash-Teshivan Marotai II decreed the conversion of the whole empire to Utara-Vaati after witnessing a magical duel in which priests of the Thaedonu-Vaati challenged and defeated traditional Suagir shamans calling upon the ancestral gods of the steppe dwellers.