Khijovia

Ascended Kingdom of Khijovia Khıjovïænne Æšcaēe Raēgə
Flag Coat of arms
Motto:  "Seþþə vīəra Raehxxa nīəva Matrïænne jmørrə" "Love of the Motherland is our only Law"
Anthem:  Khıjœvïænne Aemınə Hyjnnə The Preclarous Khijovian Anthem
Lands and surroundings of the Ascended Kingdom of Khijovia, 1613 AR
Capital	Kleitore
Largest	Xoviah
Official languages	Khijovian
Recognised regional languages	Teutorian, Aldorian, Koritian
Ethnic groups	Humans (100%)
Religion	Aravianism
Demonym(s)	Khijovian
Government	Feudalistic Constitutional Monarchy
• Ascended King of Khijovia	Arcadion II
• Ascended Queen of Khijovia	Carevia I
Legislature	Royal Parliament
Establishment
• Foundation of the Ascended Kingdom	July 3, 1611 AR
Area
• Land Area	1,386,546 km2 (535,348 sq mi)
• Water (%)	6,8
Population
• 1611 AR estimate	~34,275,100
GDP (nominal)	estimate
• Per capita	41,850 Shonnenors (45,220 USD)
Currency	Shonnenor (SHN)
Date format	dd/mm/yy
Driving side	right

Khijovia (Khijovian: Khıjovïæ [kɪjəʊviə]), officially the Ascended Kingdom of Khijovia, is a feudalistic constitutional monarchy located in northwestern Pelia - in a geographical region usually known as the High West - with Kleitore as its capital city. Khijovia is bordered to the north by the Kyldigardian Confederation and to the south by Prestore, and faces the Kesper Sea to the west. The nation has a population of about 34 million inhabitants and occupies the entire historical region of the same name, also possessing the Recondian Archipelago in the Wintry Ocean. The Ascended Kingdom was founded in 1611 AR by Arcadion II shortly after the collapse of the Khijovian Federation and after the return of the Zenonian Dynasty. The State is subdivided into 27 fiefdoms plus a special administrative district. A strongly spiritual society, Khijovia has always had a very special relationship with the magical arts.

Etymology

The etymology of the name Khijovia has always been the subject of reconstructions not only by linguists, but also by historians, traditionally attentive to the question; not always, however, we are faced with etymologies in the strict sense, rather with hypotheses which over time have formed a rich corpus of possible solutions, among which there are numerous that refer to popular traditions (such as the mythical existence of an ancient pre-Shuffle king named Khjvonnə).

It is thought that the name derives from the word Khyjvīə, an exoethnonym with which the Koritians designated a tribe that inhabited the bordering region of Aldoria. It is also hypothesized, however not in contrast with what has been said, that this people worshipped the simulacrum of a pagan divinity, Khœvă. According to this hypothesis, the name would therefore mean "inhabitants of the land of Khœvă".

A further hypothesis instead maintains that the origin of the name is simply the semantic union of the word Khvıəyūtœnnə, a qualifying adjective of uncertain etymology which referred to the Kveutonian Empire, with the term Jyovïæhnnə, which referred to the Jovianic Order and its doctrine.

History

Despite all that prior to the Great Shuffle is basically unknown to the Sparkalian historians, the great cultural and historical heritage of Khijovia has managed to come down to us almost in its entirety thanks to the numerous archaeological sites, written finds, and surviving traditions, thus allowing us to faithfully reconstruct the history of the Khijovian region.

A crossroads of numerous neolithic cultures, ancient Khijovia saw the birth and flourishing of a multitude of independent city-states that thrived for hundreds of years during the Era of Ruin, eagerly preserving their cultural identity and language from outside meddling and influences. Following the collapse of the city-state system around 277 BR, the Khijovian territory was occupied by numerous nomadic peoples coming from the south, thus initiating the so-called Barren Age and ending the Archaic Age of Khijovian history. Being purely isolationists, the Khijovians were not concerned with the chaos and turmoil that was tearing apart the rest of Sparkalia at the time, therefore they were not too much affected by wars and famines, and continued to live peacefully up to the catastrophic Abheric Wars and the subsequent advent of the Syhric caste. As the Great Shuffle occurred, Khijovia was struck with continental amnesia but her culture would manage to survive and persist into time to come.

Khijovia was then conquered and divided into multiple governatorates by the Kveutonian civilization in 287 AR, becoming one of the most important economic and cultural centers of the Kveutonian Empire. Having reached its maximum expansion in the "heydays" (400-425 AR), the Kveutonian Empire then dissolved in 502 due to being gradually expelled from the region, thus creating new independent statelets throughout the High West and sanctioning the birth of ancient religious-monastic military orders: among these was the Jovianic Order, which operated on the Khijovian region for more than a century until its disappearance around 656. During the next few centuries the old city-states transformed into independent municipalities, which would later evolve into feudal lordships headed by the most influential and important families; in this period, the first Khijovian principalities, duchies, counties and marquisates arose.

Starting from 1152, the Grand Duke of Klettoria Zenon the Great launched a campaign of national unification and managed to defeat the rival House of Arenia for hegemony over Khijovia, then reuniting the agglomeration of territories into a single Kingdom on July 11, 1161: the Kingdom of Khijovia. Although hundreds of years of reign, on January 28, 1534 the Zenonian Dynasty was driven out in a coup d'état and the Khijovian Federation was founded. However, Federalist Khijovia had a short life as, with the return of the Zenonian Dynasty in 1610, the young prince Arcadion II managed to obtain power and bring the monarchy back to the country: on July 3, 1611 the Ascended Kingdom of Khijovia was founded.

Primordial Aeon

Prehistory

The first ever population of the Khijovian territory of which we have news dates back to about 35,000 years ago by the Acreatics, a nomadic civilization of which the archaeological site of Yvernia on today's Pletorian coasts in particular is preserved among many; the site appears to be what remains of an anciently more articulated funerary complex, presenting over 20 tombs with related funerary kits. The Acreatics practiced the burial of the deceased and had a rather particular concept of death: the skeletons were arranged with the head facing East to perhaps symbolize a second birth, and the skulls were colored with red ocher to return blood, and therefore life, to the corpse. The walls of the funeral complex are also adorned with rock paintings with a propitiatory purpose, depicting shamanic rituals in particular. Burial was thus a magical rite, intended to prevent the soul of the dead from disturbing the existence of the living and intended to get rid of the spirit by granting it the way to new life; it is precisely in this culture that the first contacts with the magical arts in the Khijovian region occur. The large number of Venuses representing female creator deities found in the tombs, in addition, suggests that the social organization of the Acreatic civilization was the matriarchy for the direct relationship of women with fertility and reproduction.

The Neolithic agricultural revolution did not excessively change the life of the Acreatics, who continued to base their livelihood on hunting and shellfish gathering. Starting from the twelfth millennium BR, however, probably as a result of climatic changes, this population moved away from the coasts and began to migrate towards the surrounding regions and, due to the mountainous nature of the territory, transhumant farming developed and subsequently agriculture also began to be practiced, thus marking the end of nomadism and the definitive sedentarization of the Acreatic people, now scattered throughout almost the entire Khijovian region.

Protohistory

The greater availability of food guaranteed by agriculture and livestock produced, as a result, a great demographic increase and the consequent appearance of the first housing agglomerations. In this period, the matriarchy would have disappeared due to the need for the presence of a male military leader to defend the villages, and thus a transition towards a patriarchal society took place. The beginning of metallurgy in Khijovia gave rise to the cultures of the Copper Age: the Venatorian culture arose in the north, the Khantan culture in the east and the Koritian culture in the central-south. The Bronze Age instead led to the development of the Xomian culture on the island of Axiomia, while the Iron Age gave birth to the Kleitite culture on the mouth of the Thevre river. All of these cultures were descendants of the Acreatic people, therefore they all had the same language but different dialects, very rarely unintelligible to each other.

Starting from around 1400 BR, the large village centers would have evolved into real cities, and a relationship of interdependence would have begun to be created between the city and the surrounding countryside: the farmlands produced the goods that are used to feed the urban center, and the latter ensured a defense for the rural villages. The development of job specialization would eventually lead to a social hierarchy, at the top of which resided the ruling class of specialists, the future aristocratic caste.

Era of Ruin

To officially mark the beginning of Khijovian history was the epochal invention of writing by the Koritians around the year 1300 BR, founders of the city of Xoviah and considered the first to have used writing in the High West. Urban centers of the Khijovian region would take the form of independent and self-sustaining city-states and, thanks to a strong isolationist policy, would thrive for almost the entire duration of the Era of Ruin. These city-states, although culturally and linguistically similar, organized themselves into different types of states:

In some cities, power was exercised in the name of the deity by theocrats, the priests who were considered those whom the gods had destined to govern the city, and therefore there was no separation between political power and religious power. The theocrat, being the executor of the divine will, assumed full political authority, led the army, and administered justice. The sovereign was also supported by a caste of priest-officials, the hierarchs, who met every ten years in a general assembly to elect the new state theocrat among its members, and who distributed the lands to be cultivated among the population. The temple of the eponymous divinity, in addition to being the seat of the theocrat, served as a center for the organization of work, a warehouse for foodstuffs, and the place of the city's treasury. In these cities, private property was essentially unknown, as the lands belonged to the community and everyone contributed to public works. In other cases, however, this theocratic system would have degenerated in such a way that the theocrat was considered not only the representative of the gods, but was himself a god come down to earth whose sacralization legitimized the exercise of his power. To legitimize the unlimited powers of the absolute theocrat was the powerful priestly caste of large landowners who had a strong influence on political life and whose high priest served as grand vizier of the sovereign. Therefore, from a political point of view, the Khijovic absolute theocracy manifested itself in forms of autocratic government fundamentally based on priestly legitimacy.

Other cities, on the other hand, turned out to be monarchies, the result of a probable evolution of the theocratic system, in which a distinction was made between political and religious power. In conjunction with this process of separation of sovereign power, the kings of these city-states strengthened their ability to intervene in social and economic life, directing their activities in a much more centralized way. In some cases, this action of consolidation of the royal power also entailed the assumption of an expansionist policy of conquest, aimed at enlarging the territory. These kingdoms rested on a well-defined ideology of monarchical power, which would also be transmitted to the subsequent state organizations of Khijovia, and similarly to theocracies, even here it was believed that the gods conferred power on the sovereign but that, although the result of a divine gift, the power of the king was separate from the religious one. This change therefore meant that the temple, hitherto the governing center of the state, was replaced as the fulcrum of power by the royal palace. In this state order, citizens were considered mere subjects and a possession of the sovereign, even if it should be emphasized that considerable privileges were in any case reserved for priests.

Some city-states would instead have based their state structure on a timocratic principle of landed or military aristocrats who ruled in a small general assembly, the kledia (klaēdïæ). The members of these assemblies were all part of an exclusive caste, and each of them could inherit a seat of power. The kledia elected every two years seven specialized magistrates who exercised administrative, religious, and military functions and who, once finished with their office, became part of the so-called council of sapients - the ghrontia (ghrœhntïæ) -, the supervisory body and supreme court. In addition to these purely aristocratic institutions there was the drarchia (đrahrchïæ), a minor consultative assembly of some of the members of the less well-off classes of the population. In aristocratic cities, the title of citizen, which implied the possession of political rights, was the prerogative of adult males who owned the land, and among these, only the large landowners actually had political power, being able to aspire to the high offices of the city. In an economy based on agriculture and livestock, wealth was evidently measured in the amount of land owned. The enormous power of the great aristocracy greatly limited the possibilities of small landowners and excluded all other individuals from the life of the city, subjecting them to their domination.

Finally, when a city-state was governed by the people it was considered as a "democratic" city. Democracy was created later in time, towards the end of the League Phase, and was the result of a long evolutionary process born from the aristocratic system. The democratic transformations began when, by concession from the aristocrats in order to avoid popular revolts, the weight of the people within the institutions was strengthened. Eventually, following a series of concessions, the drarchia in which the people could assert their numerical superiority would become the most important political body of the city and so the kledia was essentially deposed together with the ghrontia. The magistracies here were drawn among all citizens except women, people from other cities, serfs and slaves, while military and financial positions remained elective. Citizens of democracies, in addition to having equal right to speak in the people's assembly and tribunal, enjoyed equal legal rights, while aristocrats were essentially excluded and marginalized, dispossessed of their large estates, forbidden from participating in political life, and in some cases, proscription lists were put in place for their exile and their possible elimination. These very radical measures resulting in demagogic populism adopted by the "democrats" were such that some of the democracies were named kakistocracies by the other city-states. In the end, the Khijovic democracy was never realized in its purity as various elements of the other different state forms were co-present, and the democratic government was the result of a hybrid balance between the political forces that supported the various institutions of the city.

This forced coexistence of the vast array of different and conflicting state systems would somehow last for the entire Archaic Age of Khijovian history, and although diplomatic relations between the different city-states would remain peaceful, clear political tensions would still pervade latently the souls of the cities, forcing them to conciliate through an intricate and dense network of alliance pacts and leagues, the only remedy to avoid a disastrous intranational war.

Geography

Physical Geography

Physical Map of Khijovia

Belonging to a larger geographical region called the High West, the Khijovian region features one of the most substantial ranges of landscapes of the Pelian continent. Bordering the Kyldigardian region to the north, Khijovia is completely enclosed to the east by the Clastoclite range and to the south by the Stornic massif. The Khijovian soil, slightly anthropized, has a wide range of characteristics and has a prevalence of hilly areas compared to mountainous and flat zones, with the average altitude of the territory of about 630 meters above sea level.The mountain ranges extend throughout the eastern part of the nation, in fact a good part of the western side of the Clastoclite system belongs to Khijovia. The highest Khijovian peaks are found in the central Clastoclites, where there are numerous peaks exceeding 4500m including Mount Eletherium (4910m), the highest mountain in the Clastoclite range. The Khijovian mountainous territory has also been shaped over time by an ancient glacial mass dating back to the Cenozoic which has left long moraines flanking the western Clastoclite slope, forming in the meantime also wide higlands in the north and a multitude of shallow valleys among the southern hills.

Topographic Map of Khijovia

The plains of Khijovia include the Catridian plain, an alluvial expanse formed by the Thevre river and its tributaries which extends up to Pyrisia, the Betronic plains, uplift plains along the coasts of Androvia and of Charonthia, and finally the Platic plain, an oblong flat valley of tectonic type which surrounds the Axiomia Lake and which runs from Cassiopia to Carcassionia.

Most of the Khijovian isles are collected in small archipelagos, such as Cheronia off the Charonthic coasts and Recondia, a polar archipelago lying within a deep lagoon connected to the Wintry Ocean and surrounded entirely by ice cap glaciers.

Ecosystem

Thanks to its rich geographical diversity, the Khijovian region hosts a varied collection of unique biomes that make the national territory one of the most characteristic and peculiar of the whole of Pelia, presenting an articulated biotic whole that makes the Khijovian ecosystem so very fascinating and highly biodiverse.

Politics

Administrative Regions

Region		Map of the Khijovian Administrative Regions
1	Klettoria
2	Luriah
3	Pyrisia
4	Qaylasiah
5	Atredia
6	Chondia
7	Charonthia
8	Androvia
9	Ketheria
10	Iverniah
11	Kharpovia
12	Venatoria
13	Profania
14	Koritia
15	Bellatoria
16	Cassiopia
17	Corkovia
18	Aldoria
19	Teutoria
20	Garganthia
21	Kalkhovia
22	Carcassonia
23	Sopholenia
24	Karkarovia
25	Kenveciah
26	Akrocanthia
27	Recondia
*	Axiomia