Taira
Located south of the Scavenger Lands, Taira stretches for nearly eight hundred miles along the Grey River. Never quite part of the Confederacy of Rivers - though its imperial ambitions have long been a worry - the nation has historically been a meeting place of southern and eastern culture. The empire of Taira was forged by northern cataphracts who over the past three hundred years leveraged their wealth from trade on the Grey River into conquest, until their realm subsumed the entire Alesian Sea.
Two decades ago, the murder of the Shah and his entire family save one by southern lords tore Taira apart. The Infant Shahbanu Sabah II saw many regents in her childhood as mighty lords fought for control of her personage, and now she has come of majority she finds herself in charge of a broken country where each lord answers only to himself and his clan. The lands are awash with mercenaries and the old chains of loyalty are broken.
The north of Taira is dominated by hilly, dry terrain and lower savannas around the many rivers, while the south is tropical jungle broken up by extensive mountain ranges and cooler highland plateaus. The most prominent feature of Taira is the Alesian Sea, named after the ruins of the ancient city which the capital Zamash is built upon. This depression does not connect up to the Grey River and has no outflow, but is fed by rivers that flow down from the Summer Mountains. The salt from this sea is a major export and Alesian salt makes its way to downriver to Nexus.
Tairan Culture and History
Historically, there were many broad cultures within the Tairan lands. In the north, the dwellers on the savannas and the hills were famed for their production of brightly coloured woven clothing and fine pottery from the thick clays of the valleys. The dry lands were fractured, with every local lesser lord controlling the fertile valleys from their mountain-top fortresses. Banditry was common as valley-dwellers fled to the kin in the hills when the rains failed or the burden of taxes became intolerable. Between the fertile valleys the herding hillfolk grazed their sheep and goats, migrating to give time for the shallow soil to regrow.
The northern horse-lords were distant kin to the Maurakan, and it was their migration in the early 400s which set the foundations for the Tairan empire. With the conquest of Terema in the north, the first shah gained vast wealth from river trade - and through reduced trade tariffs for his subjects, swiftly spread his influence down the Grey River. The horse-lords made alliances with the hillfolk, and the old valley-lords found themselves cut off and their pottery and weavings no longer making their way to market. The shah's son married the shahbanu of Malra, a mountainous nation rich from their silver mines, and together they slew the sorcerer-king of Zamash, a decadent city-state built on the ruins of the First Age on the northern shore of the Alisian Sea. There they founded the capital of the Tairan empire.
Sweltering Perswha, on the southern shores of the Alisian Sea had long been a rival of Zamash as the two fought for supremacy over the salty sea. The unaging witch-queen of Perswha was a daughter of one of the Lunar anathema, able to shed her skin and walk among her subjects as a bird or a tiger, and from her mother she had learned many fell secrets she taught to her disciples. The culture of Perswha was a strange one, for the meddling of moon-witches had made many breeds of men; some for fishing in the sea who breathed water and had skin like fish; farmers more akin to ants than men; and the skin-changing lords and ladies who knew dark magics and had ancient pacts with elementals and demons.
Though Perswha had been allied with the horse-lords, it immediately tried to seize control over the waters while Taira was still trying to secure its rule. Great naval battles were waged in this sea, and at first Perswha was triumphant with the aid of its spirit allies. However, in the battle off the coast of Maresh while the star of Mars was high in the sky, a demon lord broke free from the chains it was bound in and turned on Perswha. The demon lord Lucien slew the witch-queen and many of her highest princes, and shattered the back of Perswha. The Tairan fleet sailed uncontested into the city, red banners flapping in the wind, and pillaged its silver-domed temples and sacked its libraries carrying much of the knowledge back to Zamash. While previous conquests had been more gentle, no quarter was given to the witch-lords and their twisted servants were enslaved.
It was only sixty years ago that disputes over the river trade escalated enough that the might of Zamash was set against the principality of Douzha; a war fundamentally born over river taxation. The Douzhans people live in the vast jungle that reaches as far as the ruins of Rathess, and much of Douzha is swampland, resulting in a culture of river folk around the few ancient stone cities built on drier land. These river folk travel hundreds of miles up and downstream, forming a network of trading guilds and pirates who dabble in both as they see fit, and dwell on both sides of the Grey River. Taira demanded that all clans that dwell in their lands pay tax on all of their trade, but that would have bankrupted the prince of Douzha - and the suspicious death of the Tairan ambassador brought war. Traitors in the Douzhan capital made it a fast conquest, and these traitors were given rule over the new province. Much bad blood was stirred up by this war, though, and the southern lords saw no benefit from these conquests. Indeed, they suffered as they could no longer tax trade from Douzha.
With the murder of the shah, the country has come unwound. Douzha has declared its independence as people claiming to be of the old royal family come out of hiding, and is blocking ships with the Tairan flag. The naib of Malra is a distant cousin of Sabeh II and was once her regent before he was expelled by rival factions; he now holds the silver mines of Malra and has his eyes on the throne. In Perswha, a skin-changing prophetess claiming to be the daughter of the witch-queen has the ear of the naib; when the Tairan fleet came to retake it a midnight black storm descended in the middle of the day and scattered the ships. She and her followers call on demons and encircled Zamash for a year before the siege was broken. Countless provincial naibs have taken the chance to settle long standing grudges or seize land, and the wealth of the Tairan empire has been bled away in paying the countless mercenary bands who roam the land. In the chaos many of these mercenaries have simply overthrown their employers when they could not afford to pay them and so these bands have become lords in their own right.
Those Who Would Be Shah
While once Taira was a strong imperial power, for twenty years it has been shattered by civil war. The provinces do not obey the Shahbanu and imperial authority only extends along a narrow strip reaching from Terema in the north to include the capital Zamash and the northern reaches of the Alesian Sea. The once-gleaming spires of tropical Zamash are dirty from soot and the walls are pitted and scarred from the last siege, when the demon-worshipping prophetess of Pershwa unleashed her infernal allies on the city. The stepped gardens have been dug up and replaced with fields and the grand academies now focus on war-magics. Countless lords wish to seize this city and with it the imperial throne, but some have more realistic ambitions than others.
Sabah II, once known as the Infant Shahbanu, is a young woman in her early twenties and has ruled since she was nineteen months old. Since taking the throne four years ago, she has proven herself to be an heir to her bloodline, and there are mutterings that she is not quite sane. She is said to dress only in mourning garb and daily makes offerings at the tomb of her family - and sometimes these sacrifices are traitors. Last year her soldiers retook Terema, decimated the population and crucified the entire family of the ruling lord. This has given her control once more over tariffs on the Grey River, boosting her coffers and allowing her to turn her eyes towards the rebellious south. Some whisper that she may be among the Anathema - yet the Realm ambassador reports that his Immaculate advisors can find no sign of taint in her. This does not quieten the voices who point out the number of her rivals who have died bloody yet seemingly accidental deaths in the past few years.
The prophetess of Perswha is viewed as a goddess by the common people and the slaves alike in that province, and they believe her to be the heir to the witch-queen. The naib buys into her myth fully - and even if he did not, her pacts with demon lords tattooed into her skin are more than enough for any doubters to pretend faith. It is now clear that the old ways had remained in the province, and altars to the moon have been erected in villages and towns all across the area. The witch herself is an enigma - she speaks only of a vision she had when she found her true heritage, and does not speak of who she was before that. She avoids the topic, and gets violent if forced to dwell on it.
The naib of Malra, Taym Matah, is a sober man of middle years with claw-scars down the left side of his face from misadventures in his hot-headed youth. As Sabeh II alarms more of the lesser nobility with her brilliance and her brutality alike, he is fast becoming everyone's second choice for the position of shah - yet few truly desire him. He is grasping and holds a tight grip on the silver from Malra. He has sent his wife and children from Taira to an unknown location to avoid the threat of kidnappers using them as leverage; this has only intensified the hunt.
Henna II, princess of Douhza, has no interest in the title of shahbanu. Douhza has kicked out the hated Tairan administrators and is free once more. At least, that is what she would have you believe. In truth, while the river folk support her in large numbers, the Taira-ised urban elite consider her a swamp rube with a diluted bloodline and she has already faced several rebellions from lesser lords who publicly avow their loyalty to the shahbanu. Strangely enough, their loyalty does not extend to paying taxes, and they still raid trading ships flying the Tairan flag.
In the far south-west of the country, a mercenary band has found an ancient cache of golden golems with eyes that burn with red fire. These hulking brutes are three metres tall at the shoulder, and have four bladed arms; swords and spears bounce off their metal shells. The self-proclaimed shah, Rigel I, is a bandit lord who happens to command an army of a hundred immortal First Age killing machines. He could probably take any city in this broken nation - if only he could move them through hundreds of miles of mountainous terrain and jungle without being murdered or his golems breaking down - for he has no way to repair them.
Economy
Twenty years of civil war has ruined the imperial economy. Once Taira was wealthy, built on its export of silver, fine fabrics and pottery, and salt down river to Nexus. It has nigh bankrupted itself from war, and if the shahbanu had not managed to seize Terema then the crown would no longer have been able to pay its mercenaries. Instead, with the fleet at Terema in her hands Sabeh II now gets the proceeds of the tariffs on river trade - and they are sizable.
The same chaos has ruined the internal markets. There is famine in the north as drought has spoiled the wheat and rice harvests; in the south, slave rebellions have sacked and destroyed cocaine and coffee plantations dooming the cash crops. Only Douzha has managed to escape total economic failure, for the river folk are cunning and hardy and have snatched up markets along the Grey River, setting up trading posts - and engaging in river piracy when they see fit.
The Bones of Dragons
Taira lies not so far from ruined Rathess, as the crow flies, and once the Dragon Kings dwelt in the south here. Their pyramidal architecture can be seen on plateaus and certain towns are built on the slopes of landmarks they built. Zamash is built upon a First Age city that itself was built upon a city of the Dragon Kings, and the famous gardens draw their fresh water from ancient spells once laid by the lizard-men.
The architecture here combines pyramidal structures with domes. In the south around Perswha these domes are plated in silver to honour the moon, but in the rest of the country brass or copper is more common in honour of the sun. Cities are built with broad boulevards and plenty of greenery. In the north, structures tend to be of sandstone and other sedimentary rocks, while the south uses the local granite of the plateaus and often sheaths the structures in shining marble.
Certain elements of the prehuman faith of the Dragon Kings remain in the local faith. All give honour to the Sun, whether cataphract or Douzhan river pirate, and all know that the sun needs blood to keep burning. Outside of the south of the nation, the blood sacrifices to the sun are usually of animals, but one of the rituals of adulthood involves the child willingly shedding their blood on a hot copper plate. In most places a few drops are enough, but some areas demand self-flagellation with thorns or deliberate scarification.
The moon-worshippers of the south still give respect to the sun, but they have taken the forms of worship traditionally given to Sol Invictus and use them to honour Luna. The north shakes with fear about rumours of bloody nights of the full moon where hearts are cut out and priestesses bathe in blood.
Some of the ancient magics that the Dragon Kings taught to their human slaves are still known by scholars and thaumaturges within Taira. The old cities are lit by luminous crystals that trap the light of the sun during the day and release it within the night, which combined with their sophisticated sewage systems leave them peculiarly fragrant compared to most of the cities of Creation. With the civil war, however, many of these vanity projects of the shahs go unmaintained and much of the old knowledge stands at risk of being lost.
Military affairs
The imperial Tairan army is shattered, split by divided loyalties and the horrific losses inflicted on it by the demonic servants of the prophetess of Perswha. Some of it remains loyal to the shahbanu, others to naibs, but much of it has either disbanded or gone fully rogue and joined the mercenary bands that roam the countryside fighting for pay. Many of the mercenaries have come down the Grey River, lured from the Scavenger Lands by the promise of Tairan silver and land to seize.
The shahbanu does not trust the imperial army - and she is far from the first of her line to be suspicious of the polyglot force. Traditionally they rely on the northern cataphracts who descend from the horse-lords, clad in shining scale and draped in chain. The shahs of Taira have long recruited foreign soldiers to make up their elite units - most famously from Harbourhead. This practice has gone on for a hundred years after a Harbourhead princess married the shah. With control of river trade restored, Sabeh II has spent most of the revenue on bringing more foreign mercenaries in.
In Perswha, the remnants of the imperial army are supplemented by enthusiastic but untrained former slaves and commoners serving their witch-queen. The demonic servants of the prophetess are rarely sent to battle, and she has hinted that to do so too often would bring some dark price. In truth it is the Perswhan fleet which is most threatening because it controls much of the Alesian Sea and is supplemented by strange vessels that the prophetess grew from gourds.
Relations with the Realm
Imperial Taira managed to maintain its independence from the Realm, avoiding the status of satrapy. Of course, certain compromises had to be made and the Realm satrapy of Jades was a constant thorn in the sides of those Tairan shahs who turned their eyes to the eastern shores of the Grey River. The Treaty of Malra exempted Realm vessels from Tairan river tariffs, and Jades took full advantage of this, gaining wealth as a stopping point for Dynastic merchants who wanted to avoid Tarian dues.
In a fit of bitter irony, it is only the Realm's own internal disorder that has stopped it from taking full advantage of the weakness of Taira. If the Tepet legions had not suffered humiliating defeat at the hands of the Solar anathema, the Realm would have intervened to 'help restore peace to a wartorn nation' and seized control of river trade entirely here. However, the distraction of the Realm means that local satraps have merely been left with the understanding that cutting off pieces of Taira and getting local naibs to accept the protection of the Realm will meet with approval from the Treasury and the Imperial Ministers.
