Lelwani (pronounced lel-WAH-nee) is an aquatic nation in the Bay of Jinawa in southwestern Kea Racha. The Augurs of Lelwani, constructed in the time of the Eternal Suzerain as a symbol of unity between surface and water dwelling peoples, remain the most famous settlements in the nation, bringing together two disparate worlds. While the region has changed significantly since the death of the Suzerain, its immense shipyards continue to be Kea Racha's gateway to the sea.
Geography, flora, and fauna
See also: Bay of Jinawa
Lelwani sits entirely within the Bay of Jinawa, a body of water southwest of Kea Racha. The seafloor throughout most of the Bay of Jinawa is relatively shallow, especially so at the guyots in the west like Mount Vea, much of it covered by miles upon miles of expansive seaweed forests. Rocky islets of the bay's karst landscape lie amongst a somewhat smaller number of much larger tropical islands, where giant snails, originally native to the Spine but brought to the region long ago, live in the shallows of the coasts and along the beaches.
Expansive kelp forests grow throughout much of Lelwani, hiding places and homes for innumerable sea creatures.
Located not far south of the equator, Lelwani 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
Early Lelwani
The earliest inhabitants of Lelwani are believed by many to be the azarketi, who migrated south from the northern Kilche Sea sometime before Y4000*, leaving behind their old cities, now in ruins off the coast of Akhom, for unknown reasons.
Accession to the Empire
The Sangiran Empire's conquest of Lelwani, beginning in the earliest years of the sixth millennium and ending in Y5156* with the subjugation of Balai and Makain, was unusually violent in comparison to the process by which other regions of Kea Racha acceded to the Empire. Traditionally very inclined towards local independence, the various peoples of the Bay of Jinawa strongly resisted imperial rule even after they were no longer able to field their armies.
Seeing the difficulties posed by a prolonged conflict, the Eternal Suzerain embarked on a new campaign in Lelwani, this time one not of war but of reconciliation. Leaders from the aquatic communities of the bay were allowed to keep their roles, and were additionally elevated to serve as trusted advisors to the Suzerain, while guarantees were given of local autonomy. At the same time construction of the Augurs began, initially intended as diplomatic communities in which aquatic and surface dwelling peoples alike were given equal space and standing. Over the centuries - the last was built in Y7265* - the roles of the Augurs transformed from embassies to settlements as they began to be permanently populated. The shipyards at Landside and Makain were built in this same period as well, tasked with constructing the immense vessels that the Empire would use for the following centuries to keep control of the southern Kilche Sea and the Gulf of Timakal.
Post-Suzerain Lelwani
Like everywhere else in Kea Racha, Lelwani was transformed by the death of the Eternal Suzerain, though less so than some other parts of the Empire, as even if Lelwani was physically close to the Sangiran heartland it was always apart from it in its own way. By and large life continued as it had previously, though the religious and political spheres shifted markedly as the Suzerain was no longer the central pillar of either.
Demographics
The population of Lelwani is primarily azarketi and triton, with sizable numbers of humans, half-elves, and others. Roughly two-thirds of the people of Lelwani are aquatic and the rest are surface-dwellers.
Culture
Religion
Even with their tumultuous early history, by the first centuries of the tenth millennium worship of the Eternal Suzerain was widespread throughout Lelwani, but this rapidly changed upon their most recent death in Y9606*. Like many other regions once part of the Empire, the people of Lelwani sought out new faiths to guide them after the disappearance of their reincarnating draconic deity. Post-Suzerain, or in some cases revivalist pre-Suzerain, Kea Rachan religions have found strong followings in modern Lelwani, including the Weaver of Eighty Thousand Threads and Hesht. Foreign pantheons and gods have found little sway, however.
The worship of ancestral spirits, never absent in Lelwani, has moved even more to the forefront of its peoples' faiths in recent centuries.
Society
Languages
Sangiran and Common are the two most frequently spoken languages in Lelwani, joined by Timakal and the old dialects of the azarketi and tritons. Other foreign languages are uncommonly heard or used.
Architecture and urbanization
See also: Augur
Though most of the population of Lelwani lives in underwater abodes similar to those built throughout the Kilche Sea, the region is better known for the Augurs, partially submerged settlements built by order of the Eternal Suzerain. Strongly reminiscent of the shells of one type of giant snail commonly found around the Bay of Jinawa, each Augur is a massive spiraling structure, its whorls growing ever tighter as it climbs above the seafloor. Though they range in height, most are somewhere between 400 and 450 feet tall, with roughly half of that below the waves and half above. The structures are primarily built of a form of cement constructed from immense amounts of local, iridescent shells, giving them a shimmering appearance, even if in the modern day parts of many are now clad in steel or other metal as structural reinforcement, armor, or to help protect against the elements.
The maximum population of each Augur is quite small, typically numbering in the hundreds, but the symbolism of them has far outstripped their actual utility as places to live.
Below the waves, each Augur is flooded so as to serve as living space for aquatic peoples, while above live surface dwellers. Though not cramped, they are not precisely full of free, unused space, but even still their denizens go to great length to maintain the water gardens and other shared public spaces. Reefs have traditionally been cultivated at their bases.
The underwater sections of some Augurs have been overrun with various hostile creatures even as the upper levels continue to be inhabited, and vice versa, as though both halves are built to be connected they can also be sealed off for practical reasons of safety and defense.
Arts
The armorers of Lelwani are masters at making their protective equipment from shell, favoring in particular those harvested from the giant murex of that live around Laminaria and its nearby islands.
Shipyards
In the days of the Empire large shipyards were constructed at Landside and Makain, the two westernmost of the larger surface settlements in Lelwani. Designed as places to build the junks that projected Sangiran power away from the shores of Kea Racha, material was shipped to these ports from elsewhere on the island, where crews of laborers, under the watchful eyes of Sangiran administrators, engineers, and shipwrights, assembled the Empire's mighty fleet. While today the shipyards are still active, they no longer produce ships for war but rather smaller, lighter vessels for merchants traveling to foreign shores.
Government
Each major settlement and its surrounding region in Lelwani is governed by an autocratic ruler known as a dragon-prince. Despite the name, few have ever been dragons, and none are at present; the name does not refer to the ancestry of the individuals but rather to their subordinate status to the Eternal Suzerain. In the days of the Sangiran Empire the dragon-princes were appointed directly by the Suzerain, but in their absence the role has become effectively hereditary instead.
Traditionally, the Eternal Suzerain's appointed ruler in Lelwani, the high dragon-prince, ruled from Mount Vea, but without the backing of the Suzerain their authority has been functionally reduced to that of every other dragon-prince in the nation.