I'm putting up what I have now, and will continue to flesh it out over the weekend.
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Némori
(
Trans. Némo ri - golden land) (
Proun. nay-moh-di)
“And thou shalt be bound to this wheel, and turn upon it.”
Society:
Three discrete waves of colonization contributed to the genetic ancestry of the current day Némorian people:
iluki,
!-aki, and
jyaké. An ancestral ur-culture (referred to by later chronicles as former people,
iluki) once dwelled in the river valleys, speaking a language isolate. These cultures were pressed out by a major wave of migration from the south, the
!-aki, or center people. This second wave formed the major genetic bedrock of the current population, though
iluki populations continue to dwell in inland pockets and in the mountains. After that time, an invader race of
jyaké 'bright men' came from the east, perhaps (although this is unclear) from the sea. Their brightness may have referred to their early mastery of bronze armor which shines in the sun, or a lighter skin tone. Regardless, the linguistic impact and genetic contribution of the
jyaké was minimal, however they seem to have supplied many of the traditions that, post-assimilation with the bulk of the
!-aki, contributed to the formation of the
rizu class.
There are several important moieties in present-day Némorian society. The upper stratum of society is a semi-migratory elite that monopolizes the riverine trading rights between the cities, and parlays this monopoly over economic activity into a monopoly over military power. The romantic ideal of the
rizu, the trader-warrior-adventurer-poet-boatman, is an iconic and enduring aspect of early Némorian art and literature. Like their
western neighbors with whom they share a common, if long distant ancestry, the main form of government is municipal republican assemblies. However, the
rizu interact with them in unorthodox ways.
Some
rizu families dominate the politics of individual cities, though the ideal
rizu family is independent of petty republican politics and maintains holdings in multiple cities and regions, boating between them to monitor their interests. This makes Némorian politics often more about rivalries between decentralized family networks rather than conflicts between individual city-states, though geographic and dynastic feuds can play out independently or in parallel, as city-state alliances are wielded by rival factions against one another. The
rizu, in particular, see themselves as threads in a grand tapestry of trade, conquest (economic and military) and honor, and are most interested in prestige and legend-building. The cities both enable them and play them off on one another, while being manipulated by them.
The middle class is made up of priests, artisans, and other skilled and/or literate professions, who are born and bound into castes at birth and are typically encouraged to remain in them (though caste-trades and other forms of social mobility do occur in some scenarios [see, Defier]). The republican assemblies of the individual city-states are filled and dominated by the middle castes, though they lack the regional power of the
rizu. The lowest classes are farmers, free laborers and slaves, although some specialized slave castes can be quite comfortable and even influential in their own way.
Although the
rizu are the most common suppliers of the regional hegemons, or Defiers, since they have the wealth and power to entertain political intrigue, the stable power bases of the city-states sometimes supply them from the middle castes, or even from slaves. Although labor is abundant, the ability to bargain separately with the
rizu and the city castes gives the farmers a slightly better position than they might have in an imperial despotism, except in periods of turmoil.
Values:
There are hundreds if not thousands of gods, cults, supernatural beings and ascended heroes venerated in Némori, reflecting its status as an entrepot for trade and waves of migration to the most fertile land in the world. Outsiders claim this means that Némori has no religion at all, or that they have many religions. But the truth is found in a seven thousand year old stele fragment dredged out of the silted mud of the Némo River. A figure stands before a vast wheel. The figure is not identifiably male or female, and its face is not seen. In one hand it holds a lily, and in the other hand it holds a blade. The wheel has countless faces, each of them different. Men, women, some bearing diadems and headdresses, others with the faces of animals.
When a woman is married, she blesses the Wheel. When a man lies dying of an ulcer or famine, he curses it. When the armies of the Némorians go to war, they bear the Wheel on their banners, with the promise: We shall be bound to this together. This is our fate. But the Wheel is not truly to be worshipped, or opposed. It simply is. The Wheel is simply a recognition of the helplessness of man, and even the gods themselves, before the inevitability of fate.
And yet, there are those who oppose it. The Wheel of Fate turns, and for most, it turns until you die. But there are some, some few, who choose the path of the Defier. Some say the true Defier is a god-before-gods, imprisoned by his children, perpetually reincarnating into new avatars to break the Wheel. Others say the first Defier was the first man, and his descendants forgot his tenets and fell to the Wheel of the Gods, except for some few who remember.
To choose the Defier, or rather, to BE a Defier, implies a complete rejection of the Wheel and the turning of fate. Bandits choose the Defier, but so do lovers who marry outside their families. Again, this is neither good, nor evil. Defiers, like the Wheel, can represent fortune or misfortune, cruelty or kindness. The archetypes of Wheel and Defier also manifest in the political system of Némori, with the city-state republics and mercantile rivalries of the region being periodically swept away by charismatic, caste-transcending figures who seize personal imperial power.
Fallen Defiers (and there are many) who fail to achieve their aims are often said to have been ‘bound to the wheel’.
Religion:
Some important early cults that defined the period include:
Rizuké - Tragic out-caste hero figure, one of the archetypical Defiers. Later ascends to godhood after many adventures. Epitomizes
rizu ideals to such an extent that the social class is named after him.
Tsenu-|| (or, Tsenuki) - Wife of tragic out-caste hero figure. Born a slave. Has important adventures of her own trying to reunite with her love. Worshiped by many lower castes.
[ ] - Hermaphroditic fish god, who regulates the flood. Also a god of time, life, and death, order and regularity. Leader of some pantheons.
Jikeji - Trickster god, an anthropomorphic red weasel. Also a god of luck, chance, and commerce. Has many popular and hilarious legends, typically involving seduction and violence.
[ ] - A fertility and love goddess who wears a crown of grain. A big fan of bread parties and orgies.
[ ] - Five sisters representing the five great rivers of the world. Patrons of art, science, and journeys.
Language:
Némorian tongues share a common linguistic origin with Hâidzòêla and other clades that originally stemmed from the great southern migration.
Most Némorian languages possess a consonant-vowel syllabic system with 2 clicks, a dental (tongue against the palate, cork-popping sound) and a lateral (tooth sucking, ki-sounding) click. The dental and lateral clicks will be written as [ ! ] and [ || ]. These are exceptions to the rule and do not need to be followed by vowels. Typically, the dental clicks are used as word-initiators, and the lateral clicks follow, though this is not a hard and fast rule.
Simple pictograms are rapidly moving towards a phonetic ‘alphabet’ with several hundred letters representing all the possible syllabic combinations. (This should be in place by the high Bronze Age, so it might not be a turn 1 development.)
Vowels: a (ah), e (eh), i (ee), o (oh), u (oo), and é (ay)
Sounds that do not exist in Némorian: d, c (though ch does), q
Tsenu-|| (Tsenu-*side click*)
Se-||-tsé (or Se-*side click*-tsé)
Zhri-ilu
!-kiasuzo (*top click*-kiasuzo)
Tsa-!-tsa.
!-patzi
Zatsu-||-tsé
The trading sign language originally imported from the far west is also in common usage, especially among the mercantile elite as a private tongue.
Economic Base:
Mass production of food leveraging the hugely fertile breadbasket of the Némo River and her sisters constitutes the bulk economic activity. A major amount of surplus labor allows for intensive aquaculture activities such as dams, draining and flooding fields, and even canals. In highland areas, experiments have begun with terrace farming, though most people simply farm the alluvial plains of the massive, wide rivers since it is so easy.
Refined goods include jewelry, arms and armor, lacquerware and highly sophisticated pottery, and production of large items like boats. The demand for wood is extreme in Némorian society, since the elite live aboard their boats, and are a critical infrastructural component as well as being a status symbol. The demand for high-quality wood is so high that it forms an impetus for imperial expeditions outside of Némori itself.
Due to the extreme interest of the
rizu in long distance trade, multiple currency systems have already been put into place, with the most popular currently being stamped clay tokens issued by city-states and individual
rizu families, with value largely determined by negotiation and prestige. The impetus for writing largely stemmed from the explosive growth of commerce, and the complex, multi-generational alliance contracts made between
rizu castes and city-states, city-states and farmers in the hinterland, and all sorts of other groups.