Jernoah

JERNOAH
INFORMATION
Status:	Foreign Lands
Capital:	Bridlespear
Government:	Religious Oligarchy
Head of State:	Master Regent (informal title) Stalsi (formal title)
Demonym:	Jerno / Jernoan
Population:	Approx. 15,000
Currency:	Arkhat
Religion:	Pursuit of the Nameless

Jernoah is a foreign land far beyond the west coast of the Amasynian Peninsula, separated from it by a great ocean. Jernoah is bordered by other countries to the north, south, and west, though the details of them are considerably sparse. Its capital of Bridlespear is Jernoah's only prosperous city, from which most of its governmental authority and religious creeds are dispensed. Otherwise, Jernoah is a desert country comprised of small outlying villages, and while most trade is conducted domestically, a countless number of coastal townships allow for occasional overseas expeditions.

(All dates are listed as their Anno Regalis equivalents, though Jernoan history does not adhere to the Trae Kelsan standard.)

History

Jernoah's history is scarred by mediocrity, at least according to its advancements in technology and culture. For the past several hundred years, it has been a cultural hub rich with artistic and literary contributions, but due to its minimal military power, thousands of square miles of barren desert land, and its irregular contact with bordering countries, few marked advancements have contributed to anything but a general stagnation. In his book A Brief and Likely Misleading History of the Jerno and His Jernoah, Myrken scholar and historiographer Crisken de Lanz said:

It is assumed that what we now know as Jernoah was once a Country comprised entirely of Wandering Tribes and Misfits. Over the past Few Centuries, however, they banded together to form Villages, and Cities, and they founded a rather Suitably Savage Religion, and they have saturated the World with such good Poetry and Art that One might think they were not so primitive a race.

Government

Leadership: Stalsi, Stahls, and the Festival

A religious oligarchy rules over all of Jernoah, binding various towns and villages under the edicts presented from the capitol. In Bridlespear, a stalsi (or, translated, Master Regent) presides over a small senate comprised of seven stahls, all representatives appointed on merit of wealth, influence, or religious sanctity, one from each of Jernoah's more notable settlements.

The stalsi and his underling stahls are revered with great respect across Jernoah, often lavished with what little riches can be afforded them. Elected officials are appointed for six-year terms. It is the the conclusion of these terms that makes them most memorable, however. Jerno philosopher and historian Sol Paulis wrote of the event in one of his journals:

Brothers and Sisters of the Nameless are brought in from reputable jerethedrals throughout the Great Country. For one week in Bridlespear every six years, the Festival of the Ascension takes all our attentions away from our minor purposes and labors. We lose ourselves in merriment, drink, and plays meant to honor the previous six years. On the sunset of the final day, it happens: the stahls are dressed in their finest vestments, they are brought before the capitol crowds, and by an ordained Brother or Sister, they sacrifice their lives to the Nameless for the next six years of prosperity. The blood is left to stain the streets. Finally, the stalsi is all that is left, and he too is slaughtered in the eye of the Nameless. We revel in their deaths, write songs of them, and praise them. To choose a life of politics, in Jernoah, is to choose death, but it is a proud death, and we all dream that we too could be regents one day, and die that very same way.

After the Festival, the Brothers and Sisters who made the sacrifices appoint -- by way of prayer and prophetic guidance -- a new stalsi from one of many candidates. Usually, this candidate is of some religious and authoritative position in Bridlespear itself.

With the deaths of the stahls, Jernoah is regularly embroiled with temporary chaos. While more diplomatic townships elect new representatives through complex honor or vote systems, others rely on contents of strength, violence, or even games of wealth to designate a new regent. Only when the new government system is set into place and the chosen stahls are escorted to the senate at Bridlespear is peace often renewed by way of law modification and periods of exemplary capital punishment. Peace, if not restored naturally, is often restored through force.

Law and Order: A Regime of Violence

Except for the periods of post-Festival, pre-senate disorder, Jernoan townships are often seen as remarkably crimeless. This is due, in part, to the relentless dispensing of violent punishment. While individual judiciary systems are in place in some more organized towns, most rely on the strength of hired policing forces -- former Jernoan soldiers -- to quell discord and crime through bloodshed. Thieves, burglars, rapists, followers of anti-religious factions, and murderers are often dragged into the streets and killed. Of this brutality, Sol Paulis writes:

Once, I saw an old man who could not keep his trousers fastened around women dragged into the streets and bludgeoned into a red puddle merely on the power of accusation. Once, I saw a female thief lose her head to a hungry soldier's blade in the fruit-bazaar, all while a very proud mother with her six children laughed at a dancing clown across the way. These are the fortunate ones. Some villages prefer to stake offenders out beyond the town limits in the sands, where they can rot and bleach in the desert sun over several days' time, or can be picked apart by dune-vultures or -- at the worst -- get devoured by hungry stonebears. In some cities, where this staking tactic is preferred, you can even hear the occasional pop of a dead criminal as the sweltering heat boils the gases inside his stomach before any animals can even get a chance to eat.

Military Power: A Fleeting Concern

The military presence in Jernoah is small and disorganized. There are several factors that lead to the country's minimal reliance on military power: 1) few attempts at usurpation and overthrow from neighboring countries have ever been attempted, most likely due to Jernoah's few attainable resources and the uselessness of its mostly-desert land, and 2) the country's large expanse and its relatively minimal population easily allow for traveling groups to get lost amid the sand and dunes, as miles upon miles could be traversed without seeing some hint of civilization. There is little value in Jernoan land to outside armies, especially those used to claiming more temperate land. In the event of rare, concentrated conflict, Jernosta numbers have been supplemented by the slave population.

What military the country does have is regularly referred to by outsiders as the Jernosta, a volunteer force comprised mostly of teenaged men and with minimal training. Jernosta recruits are often assigned to posts at the country's furthest borders. There, they engage in any number of small, unremarkable conflicts as overzealous borderlanders surge and wane against them. Crisken de Lanz notes:

A Drawn Map of Jernoah would require a Magic Ink for It to always be accurate -- on a Daily Basis, Tiny Conflicts potentially shift the Borders back and forth between Neighboring Countries as Jernosta border patrols are pushed back (or advance) anywhere between a Few Inches and a Few Feet. This is a Constant Struggle; Armies of Adjacent Countries have become familiar with sending their own Trainees to Jernoan Borders to engage in these almost Playful Conflicts.

Religion

Religion and faith is extremely important to the Jerno, though foreign theologians often criticize Jernoah for being a country, as de Lanz says, "under the Influence of Nebulous Gods that inspire Unpredictable, Ever-Changing Ideals; Jernoah is neither Monotheistic or Polytheistic. The Identity of Their God (or Gods) is so inaccessible, so undefined, it forces any Onlooker to wonder what the Point is. Jernos are married so strongly to Vague Ideas of the Divine that One must wonder if They are truly religious, or just playing like Children at it."

The Nameless: Gods without Faces

One of the driving edicts behind the Pursuit of the Nameless is the understanding that human senses can never achieve honing enough to to ever allow direct communion with the Nameless. Though many paintings and countless pieces of literature have attempted to describe the traits of the Nameless, there is no ordained form or image, and the religion is greatly founded in assumption or conjecture.

"They came to me as colors," Brother Har'vaak Arhjaad once wrote in his voluminous sermon, On the Matters of our Faith, in A.R. 54. "In my dreams they spoke to me and I listened; in my waking they came as twangs of pain or sudden, rushing sensations; I could feel them dictating my motions and decisions through breaths of wind, blasts of sand, needing no words, and I, no special language to understand them."

Followers of the Nameless understand innately that, while they may coax the Nameless into action by prayer, song, or praise, they will never receive direct intervention -- as the pivotal sermon once expressed, "Our natural tools and senses are too base for Them to waste Their time appearing to us. We stare into mirrorglass and see ourselves prostrated. They watch and work from beyond it, moving the world into action around us, dictating our every moment in ways we shall never be great enough to see except through death."

As such, death is a great part of ritual. Occasional sacrifices of animals, willing Jernos, and unwilling ones all bolster large religious events. To devout Jernos, death is not as much a fear as it is a willing release, freedom to finally answer lifelong questions of gods and faith. Yet, to discourage overzealous suicide, edicts are put into place that require years of study in life to prepare the soul for a death worthy of the Nameless.