Rashareka

Rashareka
Capital	En-Ta
Ruler	House Silakara
Government	Theocratic monarchy
Demonym	Rasharekan
Adjective	Rasharekan
Languages	Sea-Speak; Gnomish; Hikunza; Taruhmite dwarven; others
Religions	Beating Heart; Ta-Lasau-Kori; animism

Rashareka (pronounced rah-sha-REH-kah) was an empire that once spanned much of the Wounds, at its height controlling all or part of five archipelagoes. It met an abrupt end in Y9266^* when the first demon invasions struck the Old Twins, the Rasharekan core, a sudden calamity that brought the nation to an almost immediate end.

Geography

Though centered on the Old Twins, with most of its population on the two islands, Rashareka directly or indirectly ruled much of the Wounds. By the early tenth millennium it encompassed the Old Twins, the Protectors, the Nests, and Ha-Rase-Metu, and even as far afield as Harv Doruhl and parts of the Wisps.

Demographics

The population of Rashareka included humans, gnomes, dwarves, and elves above the waves, and locathah below.

Government

Rashareka was an monarchy under the rule of the Silakara dynasty. The monarchs, aided by their temple-minders, enjoyed effectively absolute authority, at least within the villages, towns, and cities of the Old Twins, the Protectors, and Ha-Rase-Metu. Their influence on the many nomadic peoples who voyaged through their seas and landed on their islands was always more religious than political, and in their most far-flung territories on the Wisps and Harv Doruhl they relied on local tributaries and vassals to keep control.

Housed within the palaces of En-Ta, the members of the Silakara dynasty enjoyed immense wealth, everything their islands could offer. While relations within the dynasty were generally amicable, the death of the previous monarch always led to a rapid yet often violent period of factionalism as each prospective ruler gathered their allies and attempted to seize power for themselves. Yet those who survived, even if rivals for a time, were always pardoned and welcomed back into the palaces once the dust settled.

On the local level, the political and religious life of Rasharekan cities was led directly by the temple-minders, trusted agents of the monarch, who were themselves often of the Silakara family. In smaller towns and villages it was generally more typical for the king or queen to have little real sway, as these instead were ruled by whatever traditional manner their inhabitants held - even as the empire expanded across the seas it was unable, and rarely attempted, to fully subsume the various Farnakara and Keleta-Ru tribes, tolerating their customary ways as long as they remained religiously devoted.