Djarvin
Djarvin is a large and wealthy nation on the western coast of the continent of Orelan on the world of Curcalen. Long and narrow, it spans the entire continent from north to south, more than 6600 kilometers in length but only about 1600 kilometers wide. Surrounded by water on all sides except the southeast, it is a major maritime power; Djarvish ships ply the seas as far away as Emerald Bay on the opposite side of the world. It also has a reputation as a center of learning, with Djarvish universities having a high reputation all over Curcalen. But perhaps what it's most famous for are the galliards' guilds whose members are sent on missions of exploration, succor, and liberation; not only are these guilds' teams seen operating all over the world, but many people from other places with a thirst for adventure or a drive to do good travel to Djarvin specifically to join them. Today one of the most diverse nations of Curcalen, Djarvin is home to people of all ancestries and ethnicities.
Etymology
The name of Djarvin comes from the language of the Ituni, who on settling this land called it "Han D'Jar a Vin", "Land of Birds and Water", after two notable things they found plentiful here that were much scarcer in their desert homeland. As the language of the land's inhabitants evolved and was influenced by other cultures, the name went through various forms such as "Han Jaravin" and "Han Djar-Vin" before eventually landing on something close to "Han Djarvin". The meaning of the latter part of the name became mostly forgotten but the "Han" was still recognized as "land", so this was interpreted as "Land of Djarvin", and when the people of the area formed into a unified country "Djarvin" was taken as its official name.
Geography
Djarvin occupies a thin strip on the western edge of Orelan, along the Ivarian Ocean. Northern Djarvin is bordered on the east by the Tower Sea, the narrow arm of land between the sea and the ocean being known as the Arantine Peninsula, or simply the Arantine.
Djarvin is a nation of diverse geography. Two parallel mountain ranges run from north to south, the Shell Mountains to the west and the much longer and taller Abulaji Range to the east. The Great Valley between them is a patchment of temperate forest and grasslands. Much of the area along and near the Ivarian coast is ulvose fen, though here too there are forested areas, largely giving way farther north to the savannah of the western Arantine. The eastern Arantine, beyond the northern end of the Abulaji Range, bears a patch of sandy desert called the Kufra, while the northern tip of Djarvin is largely rocky highlands with patches of cloud forest, and some areas of tropical forest along the coasts. Djarvin's northernmost point is Cape Dread, a headland that forms the western edge of the Silver Strait that is the Tower Sea's connection to the ocean.
Government
One of the features Djarvin is best known for is its unusual form of government. The highest executive body in the nation is the Heroes' Council, made up of adventurers, explorers, and others who have distinguished themselves by great deeds, risking their own welfare for the sake of the nation. The deeds that qualify them as heroes don't have to involve defeating foes in physical combat—though they often do—; a few council members won their seats by intellectual or diplomatic means: inventing useful spells or devices, calming uprisings, lifting powerful curses.
Anyone can nominate a member for the Council—the nominations go to a clerical department called the Office of Renown—but before a candidate is seriously considered for membership, they must have received at least a thousand nominations, by different people. (The Office keeps a careful list of all nominations it receives.) After that, during a probationary period that usually lasts three months but can be extended if the Office of Renown deems it necessary, the prospective Council member is investigated by an agent of the Office of Renown called an Illuminator who essentially plays the role of devil's advocate, carefully researching the candidate's past and present dealings to turn up any signs that they may not be who they appear to be or may have any affiliations or proclivities that may make them unfit to serve on the Council. While the Illuminator does not have the authority to single-handedly scuttle a would-be Council member's appointment, they do present their findings to the current members of the Heroes' Council, who, after hearing from the Illuminator and perhaps setting aside some time for debate and deliberation, hold a vote to decide whether to admit the newcomer into their number. The new member must be approved by a two-thirds majority of existing council members; then, and only then, do they become a full member of the council.
In principle, the system of the Heroes' Council ensures that the highest authorities of Curcalen are those who truly have the good of the country at heart, and have shown both this and their ability to effect change in the past. Purportedly, the Heroes' Council is by its very nature unaffected by any external influence, and motivated only by the nation's welfare. Only a few people are aware (though more may suspect), however, that nearly all the councilors are truly in the pocket of one of the sorcerous covins that exercise power behind the scenes. All the major covins have at least a handful of councilors doing their bidding, and a few minor covins have managed to get their own agents seated on the council as well. There are only three councilors who are independent of the covins: Hi La Yetj, Gadi Orcazo, and the charismatic Selori Naen, who secretly serves not the covins but the demons of Merinele.
On the subnational level, Djarvin is divided into fourteen provinces. Each province is led by a provincial governor, who is directly elected by the populace. The Heroes' Council has the power to dismiss a governor at will and call for a new election (in which the just-amoved governor is not eligible), but they very rarely exercise that power unless the popular sentiment in the province is clearly strongly against the governor, or the governor has engaged in some particularly flagrant misdeed.
Aside from the Heroes' Council, the other major parts of the national government are the High Assembly and the Court of the Stone. The members of both of these bodies are selected by the provincial governors, who in addition to running their provinces are each empowered to appoint three representatives to the High Assembly and one to the Court of the Stone. Constitutionally, the High Assembly is the nation's highest legislative body and the Court of the Stone its highest judicial. However, in practice, such is the renown of the Heroes' Council that it generally has its way even in matters not officially within its purview, and the High Assembly and the Court of the Stone have little actual power, their members being mostly figureheads who rubberstamp the Council's "suggestions".
Economy
Djarvin has a thriving economy that relies largely on its trade connections; through magic and marinage, its merchants travel all over Curcalen buying and selling. This is not to say, however, that it manufactures no goods of its own. Djarvin's chief exports include textiles, weapons, and waterware, the last a class of vessels and other objects produced out of water through paracarminical processes that originated in Ritao but have been adopted and adapted by Djarvish craftsmen. Djarvin is also known for its contributions to the arts, especially music; several now widespread musical styles and instruments originated in Djarvin, and Djarvin has more than its share of famous composers both past and present.
Agriculture does not play a large role in Djarvin's economy, but some farming does take place there, mostly in the Great Valley. Still, meat, grains, and fruits are among the nation's most important imports. There are, however, some exotic nuts and spices such as icenuts and saffron that are grown only—or mostly—in Djarvin and that do bring in a nonnegligible part of the nation's income, the small volume of their trade made up for by the high prices they fetch. On the seamier side as well, however, there are also some dangerous drugs that originate in Djarvin and find their way elsewhere, most notably skullweed and drone dust, despite the efforts of the Heroes Council to quash this illegal trade. Thanks to its long coastline and extensive seafaring experience, Djarvin does have a strong fishing industry and does export a significant amount of fish and shellfish.
Djarvin could be said to trade not only in material goods, but in knowledge as well. Djarvish travelers bring back from their journeys not only valuable objects and materials, but documents and learning, and centers of learning have sprung up in Djarvin where this science and scholarship can be shared. Perhaps the most illustrious such establishment is the University of Lüm, but Blackbridge University and the Kaji Academy are not much less celebrated. This too, however, has its dark side, as not all the relics and writings that have been collected in Djarvin's universities and museums were brought there by honorable means or with the permission of the people from whose lands they were taken, and there are frequent calls for the repatriation of many such treasures.
Galliards' Guilds
Perhaps even more notable than the universities as a sort of abstract export, however, are the exploits of Djarvin's "galliards' guilds". These originated shortly after and as a reaction to the formation of the Heroes' Council. Several prominent merchants and other people of wealth and influence decided that if heroes were to play such a prominent and respected role in the land, then it made sense to make a conscious effort to cultivate new heroes—to bring together bands of what amounted to apprentice heroes who would be sent on tasks that would not only make the world a better place but also help these aspiring heroes to hone their skills and make a name for themselves, the better to reach a status as true heroes worthy one day of serving on the Council. Thus were born the organizations that would one day become the galliards' guilds, though it took some time for them to settle on that name. Of course, the motives behind their formation were not altogether altruistic; the nabobs who founded and funded these guilds no doubt hoped to increase their own respect and influence by doing so—and perhaps in the long run to have leverage over members of the Heroes' Council who owed them favors.
Over time the galliards' guilds multiplied and expanded until now there are at least a hundred such guilds of varying levels of notoriety and capability. Despite the name, most of them are not true guilds, in the sense of coöperative associations of practicers of a trade; most of the galliards' guilds are still ultimately controlled by moneyed individuals who provide their funding and give them their orders. Still, the purpose of the guilds are to help their members become heroes, so it's in their leaders' interests to send them mostly on missions that do resound to the benefit of the world, or at least of parts of it, the better to build goodwill toward them and help them win coöperation from local leaders. The Djarvish government takes pains to assert that galliards—members of the galliards' guilds—are not mercenaries; that their missions are centered on exploration and on righting wrongs and not on mere combat, and they do what they do for the sake of gathering knowledge and doing good deeds, and not just for money. In fact, however, this isn't always true; most guilds may to some degree or other truly strive to hold themselves to these lofty ideals, but there are some galliards' guilds that really are little more than swords for hire.
While people interested in joining the galliards' guilds have emigrated to Djarvin from all over the world to do so, naturally some have decided instead that they could just found similar such guilds in their own homeland. In that way, organizations similar to the galliards' guilds, though perhaps called by different names, have begun to spring up in other lands as well. Still, even if Djarvin no longer has a monopoly on galliards, it is in Djarvin where the galliards' guilds are most numerous and most famous, and it is this nation with which they remain most closely associated.
History
The oldest known inhabitants of what is now Djarvin were various different groups of hunters and gatherers who either made settlements on the coast or in the valleys or wandered nomadically across the deserts or grasslands. These people, however, left no written record, and what little is known of their early history comes primarily from archæological evidence and from oral traditions of questionable reliability. A thousand years ago, however, Ituni sojourners from the Malari Desert to the east crossed the Abulaji Mountains for the first time and found this land. Finding the greener valleys and coastlands almost paradisaical compared to their place of origin, the Ituni settled this new land, subjugating or assimilating its native inhabitants. Over time, the new people, now a mix of Ituni and the natives they had displaced, developed the land, built new settlements, and developed new technologies and practices, including increasingly advanced agriculture and shipbuilding—previously the natives of the area had made small boats, and even the Ituni had occasionally used simple rafts to travel up and down the few rivers in the Malari, but now the proto-Djarvenish people started building larger and more elaborate ships that could travel long distances along the coast and even venture into the open ocean.
Civilization first came to what is now Djarvin in the form of a collection of contentious city-states, formed when the population of the area became large enough to support social classes and stratification. The relative power of these city-states shifted significantly over time, but over hundreds of years the coastal city-states, enjoying greater resources and trade opportunities, came to predominate and mostly subjugate the inland states, and a handful of states rose to dominate the rest. The sites of dozens of such city-states are known—some today in ruins, others having developed into modern cities at the same sites—but there are six that were especially large and even today are most famous. These standouts of the city-states are now often called the League of Six—though this is a bit of a misnomer since they were never in any real way a league. The League of Six were not all allied with each other, and indeed some were bitter enemies. Even those that were allied didn't necessarily stay that way; alliances—as well as rivalries—shifted and changed over time.
Of the cities that made up the league, one, Alus, is now underwater—a victim, many believe, of a magical attack by an enemy state, though some think the disaster may have been the result of an accident by Alus's own wizards. Another, Erery, is now a desolate ruin said to be haunted by undead, senings, and worse. The other four were never uninhabited except one, and that one only briefly, and are still major population centers today: Lüm, Tlala, Wamahata, and Macaar, the last of which is now Djarvin's capital.
The end of the independent city-states came about not because of any compact between the leaders of the states, but because of a compact among the common people. The kings of the city-states had become increasingly demanding and tyrannical, and their exploitation of their subjects, especially those living outside the major cities themselves, had grown increasingly unbearable. And finally the people could bear no more, and conspired to overthrow their oppressors. The rulers' power was great, but not great enough; the battles were hard, but the rebels won the day. They seized the hoarded wealth of the city-states' kings, and resolved to put it to better use than the previous administration had.
This did not mean the land was united; the power of the city-states was broken, but no overarching power immediately took its place. The territory once claimed by each city-state was either divided into smaller areas under local rule or thrown into anarchy. The time in the immediate wake of the kings' ouster was a hard one, though in a different way than it had been while the kings still ruled; for all the city-states' regrate, they had played an important role in production and distribution of resources, and with them gone there was widespread poverty and mass starvation. Still, in time the people rebuilt and found ways to provide for their needs without the despotic authority of the kings. This is not to say that there were no threats of a return to autocracy, but when an aspirant claimed the title of king of Tlala and seemed set on returning the city-state to a semblance of its former ways, the tyrantry of the city-states was too fresh in the memories of the populace for them to tolerate his ambitions and he was swiftly removed from power. During this time, the coastal areas of Djarvin further developed their shipbuilding and sailing industries, and increasingly began sending ships to faraway shores to discover new resources and forge trade relations. It is Djarvin's maritime tradition that is largely responsible for it becoming the cosmopolitan nation it is today. Djarvish ships in distant lands needing to recrew would recruit from the local populations, and on the ship's return to its home port many of its new crew members settle there; gradually Djarvin became, and still is, a diverse melting pot of people from all over the world, including many nonhuman folks such as navanars, fanks, urippu, and laithers.
Still, it became difficult to ignore the advantages of the economies of scale that the land no longer enjoyed now that it composed hundreds of separately administered regions rather than large territories controlled by a few city-states. Few wished to return to the days of the autarchic kings, but there was an increasing hope that perhaps the area could be brought together under a more agreeable form of government. The person most credited with the eventual unification of Djarvin is the famous explorer Hualek Quazal, though it could be argued that the idea was already in the zeitgeist and that if she hadn't taken the lead someone else would have. In any case, largely at Quazal's direction, the multiple small states of what is now Djarvin finally came to an agreement and were forged for the first time into a single nation, and Djarvin in its current form was born.
Relations with other states
Djarvin shares a land border with three other nations, all to its east. It engages in extensive trade with all three and maintains reasonably good relationships with them, though it counts none as a close ally. From Ritao, Djarvin imports rice and pottery; from Huchal, grains, wool, and meat; and from Kukulok, various metals.
Much the same could be said about Djarvin's relationships with most nations it doesn't border. Djarvin does not cultivate alliances, and rarely gets involved overtly in armed conflicts (though Djarvish galliards may lend support to one side or the other), but has ties all over the world through trade and the activities of its galliard guilds, and is on generally friendly terms with most nations, but rarely really cordial. That isn't to say that there are no states with hostility toward Djarvin. Ehereq and Bahabba resent what they see as Djarvish plundering of its ancient sites (as do a few other states to a lesser degree), while Lagahe's leaders chafe at the galliards' thwarting of their expansionist ambitions. In contrast, Reckland is a particularly enthusiastic supporter of the galliard guilds, and more than any other state has tried to emulate the system itself, while Ilgavane considers it an especially valued trading partner, particularly prizing some of the exotic shellfish and fine textiles and dyes that Djarvin provides.
Notable locations
In addition to the former city-states, important cities of Djarvin include Geridon, a city in southern Djarvin where much magical research is performed, famous for the extensive nearby ice caves; Port Heaven, a city on the Tower Sea that has become Djarvin's most popular tourist destination; Shadewater, a city located at the end of the Groaning Gulf that is on the main travel route between Djarvin and Ritao; and Lych, an unusual experimental "living city" made of flesh and organs summoned from other planes. Some sites of interest outside any major city are Poko Zazala, a strange ancient ruin of unclear original purpose; the Everfair, a sort of permanent carnival in the Great Valley; and the Panthyra, a structure housing a collection of portals to many different planes for use by intrepid galliards willing to explore those exotic locations.
A notable location of natural origin is Needle Lake, a large freshwater lake in the highlands of the northern Arantine. Others include Witch Canyon in the Kufra Desert; Mermelo Beach, with its famous purple sand; and the Wood of Ages, a forest made not primarily of common trees but of giant ferns found nowhere else on Curcalen.