Kashiria

Kashiria is a metarchy of Gallerra, unusual in that it's ruled by a triumvirate of three equal metarchs. Located in southwest Asia, Kashiria encompasses most of what was, before the Deconstruction, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, as well as substantial portions of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, China, India, Iran, and Nepal, and a small sliver of Kazakhstan.

Kashiria has a reputation as being among the metarchies with the highest standards of living. The people of Kashiria are happier and better cared for than those of most other metarchies, and in some ways better off than before the Deconstruction. (For one thing, certainly Kashiria has more gender equality than did some of the countries its territory once pertained to.) In fact, so noted is Kashiria for its relative benevolence that heroes have been known to ally with its leaders against more malignant metarchs. This is not to say, however, that Kashiria is a humane utopia; it is benevolent only in comparison to most other metarchies. It is still a complete autarchy with severe restrictions on freedom of speech and other basic liberties.

Still, the fact that the metarchs of Kashiria, while still maintaining themselves as absolute rulers, do seem to have more genuine concern for the citizens of their state has prompted some perhaps idealistic heroes to hope that possibly they can be reasoned with and convinced to transition their country's government into a more democratic form. Even if this doesn't serve as an example to other metarchs, it could possibly make for a base of operations heroes could use without feeling like hypocrites. At least thus far, however, no clear progress has been made in convincing Kashiria's rulers of the benefits of democracy. They can be hospitable to heroes, and even appear to give consideration to their arguments, but they don't change their practices.

Government

Kashiria is run by three metarchs, named the Blessing, the Mongrel, and Shahrazad. They rule as equals, though some tend to deal more with some matters than others: the Blessing deals with the economy, the Mongrel is in charge of the military and law enforcement, and Shahrazad takes care of diplomacy. This is simply a matter of skills and specialization rather than of separate authority, however; if the Blessing and Shahrazad both disagreed with the Mongrel about some military matter, he wouldn't claim to overrule them (though he would no doubt do his best to persuade them), and similarly for the other two co-leaders.

Formally, the triumvirate of metarchs is only an advisory council; the actual legislation and decisionmaking is done by an elected thirty-member senate. The Blessing, the Mongrel, and Shahrazad have no official power, but the senate consults with them before all decisions. In practice, of course, this appearance of independence is a pure illusion; every member of the senate is firmly under Shahrazad's thelctic control, and will do whatever the metarchs tell them to. This is not to say, however, that somehow breaking the metarch's thelctic control would suddenly break their hold over the nation and give the senate real power. No fools, the metarchs have any number of contingency plans in place in case that unlikely contingency comes to pass, including a military coup (under one of several different possible pretexts), immediate containment and suppression of the senate until the metarchs can reestablish control or arrange for replacements, or a manufactured outside threat that they can easily unite the people against under their leadership.

Law enforcement in Kashiria is carried out principally by strange beings brought from the alien plane to which the Mongrel has access. These unearthly creatures have very different biology from familiar fauna, and are utterly bizarre by normal terrestrial standards, but the people of Kashiria have now become sufficiently accustomed to them to not have much fear of them—or at least, not much more fear than they'd have of human agents of a totalitarian regime. Those new to Kashiria who have not encountered the things before, however, are likely to find them quite disquieting—even if they've heard about the Mongrel's weird allies, a mere description is inadequate preparation for actually meeting one face-to-face... or face-to-whatever distant analogue of a face the beings might have.

History

Kashiria had its genesis when, the Deconstruction already in progress, the Blessing, the Mongrel, and Shahrazad gathered to discuss a possible alliance. Not having met before, they knew each other by reputation, and had considered that by working together they might be able to take advantage of the current worldwide political situation and seize some territory of their own more safely and successfully than if they worked alone.

The initial target of the supervillains' conquest was the Kashmir area of southwestern Asia. This territory was chosen partly because it was reasonably centrally located relative to the three aspiring metarchs' respective homelands, and partly because it was a politically contested area even before the Deconstruction, which they thought might make it easy pickings. As it turned out, it was even easier than they thought; they found themselves in control of the entire Kashmir area more quickly than they had anticipated, and so decided to make good use of all they had prepared to expand their territory further.

Since they had started in Kashmir, they named their territory after a variant of that name, but they managed to win land far beyond it. The conquerors didn't restrict themselves to overtaking lands still held by their pre-Deconstruction governments, but overthrew some minor metarchs and seized their lands as well. Kashiria's rapid growth stopped only when it came up against the borders of other metarchies too powerful for them to readily usurp. On reaching these boundaries, the metarchs of Kashiria turned inward and consolidated their power in the territory they had, building its defenses and tending to its culture and economy.

Culture

Before the Deconstruction, what is now Kashiria pertained to several different countries, and it retains today many cultural vestiges of that diversity. The customs and ways of life in the western extreme and the eastern are very different. Certainly there has been considerable cultural interchange between different parts of the state since its unification, but not enough to prevent different regions from still having their own individual character. The western part of Kashiria contains the nation's intellectual center, while many parts of central Kashiria still have strong elements of a tribal culture, with people having much more loyalty to their clans than to their nation. Music and poetry thrive in Kashiria, with different regions having their own characteristic forms. Kashirian food tends to be spicy, its high-end cuisine including complex interplays of spices.

Kashiria is a multilingual country, with Balochi, Farsi, Hindi, Kashmiri, Mandarin, Pashto, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Sindhi, Tajik, Ü, and Urdu all spoken by large proportions of the population. Other languages including Arabic, Armenian, Brahvi, Khams, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Russian, Turkmen, and Yaghnobi are spoken by smaller but significant numbers. Since the Deconstruction, the metarchs have also strongly encouraged the learning of English, both for ease of communication with foreign nations and to serve as a lingua franca between the different peoples within Kashiria. As a result, most Kashirians now speak English as a second language, though many of the rural or older Kashirians speak it very poorly. A few families have adopted the language to such an extent that many children now speak English as a first language—either in addition to other languages or, typically in the case of children of parents with different native languages who therefore rely principally on English for communication in the home, solely (though usually with some borrowed words from other local languages).

Economy

Kashiria has a diverse range of exports, from crops to minerals to technology, the last mostly from the western part of the country. Its principal agricultural exports include wheat, nuts, grapes, apricots, melons, pomegranates, various meats, wool, and dairy. Mineral exports include coal, copper, gold, iron, uranium, antimony, and lithium. Kashiria also exports a large quantity of textiles and glassware, and has one the largest motion picture industries in Gallerra.

Some of Kashiria's largest imports is wood, paper, and related products, the nation not being plentifully supplied with forest to provide for itself in this regard. It also imports large quantities of petroleum, and of certain agricultural goods that have recently become popular there but are not widely grown locally, such as sugar and potatoes.