Langkha (pronounced LAHNG-khah), once the breadbasket of the Sangiran Empire, continues to feed Kea Racha and lands even farther afield. The vast and incredibly productive Gardens of the Suzerain continue to be worked by large migrant communities who regularly travel the nation even after the Eternal Suzerain's last death in Y9606*.
Geography, flora, and fauna
Encompassing almost the entirety of northern Kea Racha, Langkha is a large and diverse region. Tropical forests and grasslands cover much of the landscape. Aside from the foothills of the Suzerain's Scales in the south and the Kaaniral Hills in the west, Langkha is remarkably flat, with broad floodplains that surround its many rivers. These ideal conditions led the Sangiran Empire to transform Langkha, physically and culturally, to best serve imperial interests. The lands around each major river have been converted into seemingly endless fields, with complicated systems of irrigation, levees, dikes, and dams running for miles throughout. These Gardens of the Suzerain are central to life in Langkha, for people as well as for many animals.
Despite the extensive modification of the landscape, much wildlife, mundane and magical alike, still thrives in Langkha. The forests and hills remain broadly without settlements, at least in the modern day, and are therefore refuges for all creatures seeking to find a home away from the Gardens.
Located just south of the equator, Langkha is hot year-round. There is little seasonal variation in temperature, though the rains of the summer monsoon season often bring with them cooler winds.
History
Pre-Suzerain Langkha
Prior to joining the Sangiran Empire, Langkha was a patchwork of city-states spread across the landscape. Disunited, they often squabbled amongst each other, waging minor wars within complex webs of alliances and rivalries. Even in this time the region was well-known for its agricultural productivity, which resulted in Langkha being home to a significantly larger population than anywhere else in Kea Racha.
Imperial accession and the establishment of the Gardens
After integrating the dragons of Vua Ran and the aquatic peoples of Lelwani into the empire by Y5156*, the Eternal Suzerain set their eyes north past the mountains. Through a combination of shrewd diplomacy, playing the rulers of the city-states against each other, and strategic conquests by imperial forces, the peoples of Langkha slowly found themselves under imperial rule. By Y6190* all of Langkha was within the control of the Suzerain.
While at first the inhabitants of Langkha were allowed to maintain their own traditions and own governance as they saw fit, like other peoples of the empire were permitted to, it did not take long for the Suzerain and his priests to see the value of the land they now held. The opportunities presented by the bountiful land were obvious - with Langkha they could feed the entire empire and more, providing it a source of growth that would expand the reach of the Suzerain ever farther and further their millennia-long goals.
The first Gardens of the Suzerain were established around the year Y6260* near modern-day Prosperity along the Wuhaya River, but as with all the grand efforts of the Suzerain, these were not half-hearted endeavors. To support the Gardens on the scale required, Langkha would need to be shaped around them, and so shaped it was. Expansive systems of irrigation, dams, and more were built, stretching for miles upon miles along the rivers. For the labor required to work the Gardens, the Suzerain and his priests set about restructuring Langkhan society. Cities across the region were intentionally abandoned, save for those at the mouths of major rivers, as the population was directed towards new, planned cities centered around the Gardens. Though this process took hundreds of years, for hundreds more its success bore fruit, as Langkha become the agricultural core of the empire, fueling its growth around the Gulf of Timakal and enabling similar monumental projects elsewhere in Kea Racha.
Post-Suzerain Langkha
When the Suzerain suddenly and unexpectedly died in Y9606*, the Divine Inheritors in New Era were able to hold the imperial heartlands in Kea Racha together for a time. After several decades of their rule, however, it was clear the situation was untenable, especially as the military forces once under their control returned to their home nations and administrators gradually ceased to act within the centralization of the empire. Pela Huban and the cities of Langkha declared their independence in Y9631*, finally fracturing the empire in the process.
Yet even without imperial oversight, the Gardens largely continued to function as they had before. The people of Langkha had prospered through the reliance the rest of the empire had on them, and they saw little reason to stop their harvests or their export of foodstuffs - that they now sold their goods directly to other nations or to independent merchants instead of bureaucrats appointed by the Suzerain mattered little. Independent once more, the city-states of Langkha have not returned to their once-feuding ways, as the plenty their cooperation brings provides more than enough incentive to maintain their new loose alliance.
Demographics
Humans account for the majority of the population of Langkha, but they are joined by many half-elves, nagaji, kogolds, and others. The port cities of Langkha especially have become especially diverse in recent centuries, after the collapse of the Empire allowed foreigners access to Kea Racha outside of Pela Huban for the first time, but these changes have slowly begun to trickle into the interior of the region as well.
Culture
Religion
As with Kea Racha as a whole, Langkha was thrown into religious disarray upon the death of the Eternal Suzerain. With the loss of the god who had been their spiritual leader for millennia, many sought out new faiths, whether local or foreign. Post-Suzerain, or in some cases revivalist pre-Suzerain, Kea Rachan religions have found strong followings in Langkha, especially that of the Weaver of Eighty Thousand Threads, whose faith is extremely popular with those who work the Gardens.
Others in Langkha have turned to foreign pantheons and gods. Priests of the Chaskan pantheon have made some inroads in proselytizing within the nation, but it is the Elven and Aserdian pantheons that have attracted the greatest attention and number of converts in Langkha.
Regardless of other beliefs, it is common in Langkha to worship ancestral spirits as well.
Society
The Gardens shape every aspect of life in Langkha, even for those who do not work directly in them. This is evident in ways both obvious and subtle, often unnoticed not only by outsiders but also by those who have lived in Langkha for their entire lives.
Most visible is the significant proportion of Langkha's population who maintain migratory lives as they move between the Gardens as each in turn requires planting or harvest. These people live in large, semi-permanent encampments, equal in size to some small cities elsewhere, carrying their entire community with them when they inevitably pick up and travel once more - by the time one harvest is done, the next in line is ready, and their work is required at another Garden. The encampments are not hastily set up or crude in design, however. Rather, they contain the full set of amenities that one might find in any other Langkhan town, with restaurants, taverns, libraries, theaters, apothecaries, and more; a large percentage of those in these communities make their livings not in the Gardens directly but rather by supporting those who do.
Such massive and regular population movements effects the holidays of Langkha. Festivals, for example, are regularly fixed more to certain locations than to particular days, with each transitory community celebrating the occasion when their travels bring them back once again.
Amongst those who work the Gardens, it is most common for entire close families to travel, though it is not unusual either for individuals within a family to set down roots in the cities when a new opportunity presents itself or they desire a change. As a result Langkhan extended families are geographically very widely distributed, far more so than might be expected in many other parts of the world. Still, they keep regular correspondence, with migrants carrying messages between their relatives across the nation.
Langkhan culture and society has remained perhaps remarkably intact after the collapse of Sangiran. The culture of the region has shifted, but not in such a significant manner as took place in Koamun or Vaothan, even if Langkha was guided by the Suzerain more directly than any other part of the empire outside of the Sangiran core to the south.
Gardens of the Suzerain
See also: Gardens of the Suzerain
The construction of the Gardens involved incredible engineering mastery to convert the floodplains into wide and shallow expanses where food can be grown with great efficiency, supported by irrigation and dams, some of which are magically controlled. Yet the efforts required to bring them into being was more social than material. The Suzerain and their priests spent centuries altering Langkhan society to revolve around the Gardens even after their reshaping of the land itself was complete.
The Gardens are perhaps best known for their prodigious rice fields, but this is not the only crop produced within them. Peanuts and soybeans are grown as well, as are fruits, vegetables, and the like in spaces on the margins of the fields. Fish are often farmed in the river floodplains as well, though they are almost entirely eaten by local populations.
Traditions
Gift-giving is an important tradition in Langkha. Upon entering someone's home, or simply when expecting to meet an acquaintance who has not been seen in some time, it is considered an obligation to gift them with a present to mark the occasion. These most traditionally take the form of a prized food, particularly fruits grown by artisan farmers like durians, dragon fruits, or jackfruit.
Languages
Sangiran and Common are by far the most-spoken languages in Langkha yet they are far from alone. Timakal can be heard somewhat widely, as can a host of ancestral languages like Elven and Draconic.
Architecture and urbanization
The cities and communities of Langkha were dramatically transformed under the Suzerain. A great many cities were intentionally abandoned, save for those along the coasts and at the mouths of major rivers, with their populations encouraged to move to the planned cities in the middle of the Gardens. While not a rapid shift by any means, as it took hundreds of years and many generations to complete, today the old cities lie largely empty, their architectural marvels overgrown and decaying.
The cities that are more modern, relatively speaking, are carefully planned and laid out. Though their winding and curving streets and almost organic-feeling designs are a far cry from the rigid grid layouts that might be found in intentional cities elsewhere, they are no less deliberate in their designs.
Other settlements in Langkha include the garden-forts, smaller fortified communities that maintain and protect the Gardens while the migrant labor force is away.
Architecturally, the old coastal cities of the region are built in traditional Langkhan styles with detailed ornamental stonework, while the imperial-era cities and settlements are constructed in styles more akin to those of Sangiran.
In migratory communities, homes and shops are a mix of semi-permanent tents and raft- or wagon-carried wooden structures. These are often very elaborately painted and decorated, not merely practical in nature.
Arts
Puppetry is an art form with a long and prestigious history in Langkha. While it is used for lighthearted entertainment, this is not its only purpose, as religious and historical narratives are often conveyed the same way as well. These puppets take elaborate and complex humanoid and animalistic forms, all heavily stylized. Some are intended to be viewed directly, yet others are only observed in silhouette. Traditionally, prior to joining the Sangiran Empire, those who produced and performed with these puppets were exclusively sponsored by the rulers of local city-states, who often used their displays as a way of reinforcing their own ideals and positions. The empire largely continued these practices by supporting the performers, but today the art form has become far less centralized, with the old restrictions on who could learn the art dropped and open to all.
Massive and impressive statuary of the Suzerain is relatively common throughout Langkha, some over one hundred or more feet long. Unlike other monumental efforts in Langkha, these were not constructed at the command of the Suzerain, but rather as a form of collective worship by their most devoted. Though no new statues of the dragon have been built after their death, the old ones all remain, regularly cleaned and maintained largely more out of respect than any lingering reverence.
Fashion
Langkhan clothing, while broadly similar to Kea Rachan styles as a whole, differs in a number of ways. Everyday garb more austere in design than the typical loose clothing and sashes worn by peoples of the island, oriented far more towards practical purposes. Ceremonial clothes, however, more than make up the difference, as these tend to be extremely elaborate, with intricate bead- and needlework - each article of Langkhan formal garb can take many days for even expert craftspeople to produce.
Tattoos, particularly yet not entirely on the arms and hands, denote status, personal achievements, and one's role in their community.
Government
Modern-day Langkha is a loose alliance of autocratic city-states alongside the more democratic rule of the migrant communities. The cities have fused the methods of rule of their old, pre-Sangiran days with those of imperial administrators, effectively operating as structured bureaucracies supported by local temples and prestigious individuals. Though most living in the urban settlements would consider themselves Langkhan first and foremost, they have nearly as strong an identification with their cities - while the alliance between them holds, the city-states continue to jockey for prestige and wealth in methods that fall considerably short of their old ways.
In the communities of those who wander Langkha working in the Gardens, it is most typical for leadership to be rather informal in nature. Individuals are elected effectively as spokespeople for their communities, expected to consult those who they represent before making any decision, especially those that involve interactions with the cities or other fixed settlements. In practice religious leaders, especially those of the Weaver of Eighty Thousand Threads, often hold great sway in the decisions of their communities.
Economy
Langkha is economically almost totally centered around the Gardens of the Suzerain and the agricultural surplus they produce. This vast amount of food is preserved and sold across Kea Racha and even farther afield, including to Vaothan and other nations around the Gulf of Timakal as well as to various cities in the Kilche Sea. In the days of the Sangiran Empire imperial administrators handled the transportation of these goods, and the compensation given to those that grew them, but in the modern day various merchants and middlemen have stepped into this role instead, buying as much as their ships or caravans can carry in Langkha's ports then carrying it far and wide.
Those who work the Gardens are paid directly by city leaders for their efforts. These cities then handle the transportation and sale to outside merchants.