Saukania

League of Dautan
Flag
Saukania (green) on Earth
Meeting place	Dautan
Largest city	Khodan
Demonym(s)	Saukanians Allies
Type	Confederation
Members	Acha Dathan Erya Ghulashan Khodan Kula Muridan Rhegan Sardash Sashan Tushan
Leaders
Establishment	April 12th, 1847
Area
•	1,116,863 km2 (431,223 sq mi)
Population
• 2024 estimate	47,413,000
• Density	42.45/km2 (109.9/sq mi)
Currency	Allied kel (ALK)

The League of Dautan, also known as the Saukanian Alliance or simply Saukania, is a confederation located in the Ghuran-Argan region of northwest Thrismari. The League is comprised of eleven self-governing city-states.

Saukania has a total land area of 1,116,863 square kilometres (431,223 square miles) and a population of 47.4 million people. The climate of Saukania is continental arid and semi-arid, with limited annual precipitation. The majority of the population is concentrated in oases and along river valleys which are the primary source of irrigation and human habitation. The League is landlocked, though it is bounded on its south-southeastern side by the inland Argan Sea. Saukania is bordered by Niater to its northeast, Sarocca to its northwest, Shirua to its south, and Talgiristan to its east-southeast.

Saukania has been inhabited since the Palaeolithic, and saw the rise of some of the earliest farming communities. The Karkul civilization was the earliest urban culture to flourish in the country. Saukanian-speaking peoples became dominant in the 1st millennium BC, living in tribes and founding city-states. Following the collapse of the Third Empire of Vapna in the 17th century, many city-states re-established their independence and founded leagues on shared ethnic and religious characteristics, initiating a period of conflict between rival alliances. The Fighting Years weakened the opposing leagues, and allowed foreign powers to begin extending their influence into the country.

The League of Dautan was formally founded on April 12th, 1908, at the religious sanctuary of Dautan, after decades of de facto co-operation between the distinct alliances of cities. The Dautan Oath is the binding pledge of the League, forbidding its members from war against one another, authorising the creation of a confederate government, obliging mutual assistance, and honouring the eternal sovereignty and territorial integrity of its members. The League is run by a number of elected and appointed officers, though in practice, the independent city-states govern their own affairs. An assembly of all adult male citizens is the core legislative body, electing officers of the League, while a smaller council representing the member city-states deliberates on relevant League matters. This council is presided over by the President of the Allies.

Saukania's economy is largely agrarian. A little over half of the country is urban, and this number is steadily increasing. Saukanian exports include food, alcohol, and finished goods such as textiles. Saukanian carpets and wine are a prominent cultural export. Tourism to Saukania forms a sizeable aspect of its economy. Its largest cities possess a wealth of hospitality and service-oriented businesses. Archaeological sites are a major draw of tourism, as are natural sites including the Ghuran Mountains.

Saukanians form the majority of the population, identified by their use of the Saukanian languages. Though they possess a common identity rooted in language and religion, regional and local identities emphasising city-state and clan-based lineal descent groups are typically more immediately important. Tradition is valued in Saukanian culture, and is the basis of a code of conduct and ethnic self-expression known as Kauratarya. Core concepts of Kauratarya include hospitality for guests, retaliation against injury, courage and strength for men, and the modesty of women. This code is strongest in Saukania's rural areas, and particularly among nomadic clans and the hill tribes.

Name

Main article: Names of Saukania

The Common-language toponym "Saukania" is derived from the Sauka river, whose valley is of disproportionate importance in the country's history, culture, and identity. The demonym "Saukanian" is subsequently derived from this Common-language name.

In older parlance, it is only the plain of the Sauka river valley that is known as Saukania. In modern times, this area is sometimes called "Saukania Proper" or more frequently the alternative toponym Saukiana. The application of the toponym to neighbouring regions in modern Saukania owes itself to the cultural influence of Saukiana as the homeland of the Saukanian people.

In their own language, the Saukanians call their country Tokaurasartha, meaning "the Tokaura expanse/region/territory". Tokaura, or in Common-language, "Tokauran", is the native endonym of the Saukanian peoples, transcending the divisions of the ariyi. The country of Saukiana within Tokaurasartha is called Saukavya or Saukasartha.

Generally, Saukanians use their native endonym and toponym, though the League accepts use of the Common-language signifiers of the land and people in international discourse, accepting "Saukania" and "Saukanian" as synonymous with "Tokaurasartha" and "Tokaura" respectively.

History

Main article: History of Saukania

The history of Saukania stretches back to the first inhabitation of the country by humans in the Stone Age. Saukanian history, as the history of the ethnic group presently inhabiting the country, begins during the Iron Age, with the rise of the first Saukanian city-states that are ancestral to the modern population.

Prehistory

Further information: Ancient history of Saukania and Archaeological sites in Saukania

Stone Age

The Kagana caves in southwestern Saukania contain the oldest known confirmed anatomically modern humans in Saukania, with the remains dating back to 61,000 years ago. Middle and Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers are known to have inhabited regions of Saukania more or less consistently, though evidence of continued subsistence is at times sparse. Mesolithic hunter-gatherer cultures have a much more visible presence in the archaeological record of Saukania, and continue their presence into the early Neolithic until replaced by the first local farming communities.

Sauka Valley Civilisation

Saukania and its adjacent regions witnessed the rise of some of the earliest sophisticated cultures and civilization in Thrismari, despite the environmental aridity, due to the fertility of the rivers that drained into the Argan Sea. By far the most significant of these in Saukanian history was the Sauka Valley Civilisation (SVC), also known as Attarasa. A complex and urbanized civilisation with street planning, religious art, and an undeciphered language, the Attarasans flourished between c. 2300 BC to c. 850 BC, reaching their apex in the mid-2nd millennium BC. Having originated in the Sauka valley, where most of their sites are clustered, they were also present in the Apria and Kria river valleys. The Attarasans also possessed small outposts on the southern side of the Ghuran mountains. In total some 800 sites have been identified with the Sauka Valley Civilisation, well-preserved owing to the dry conditions. The decline of the civilisation in the early 1st millennium BC has been attributed to a multitude of factors, including climate change, and the influx of migratory waves of Saukanian-speakers.

Saukanian migrations

The "pre-Proto-Saukanians" are thought to have migrated into Saukania between c. 1300-1100 BC, and have been associated with the Sagana culture, located in the upper Sauka valley. This culture is believed to be the Urheimat of the Proto-Saukanian language and the cradle of the Tokauran ethnocultural identity. Based on archaeological and genetic evidence, the Sagana culture has been connected with the Yagaura civilisation, another sophisticated urban complex situated on the southern side of the Ghurans, which declined between 1400 and 1200 BC.

From c. 950 BC, Sagana artefacts and archaeological offshoots begin diffusing throughout Saukania's river valleys, attesting to a migration of significant scale as the Proto-Saukanians overrun and absorb the declining Attarasans. For the subsequent four centuries, the Proto-Saukanians diverge and adopt differing dialects and unique cultural innovations, assimilating Attarasan artistic, religious, and political structures. Urban settlement, temporarily diminished, begins to resurge towards the end of this migratory period. The obscure period between c. 800 and c. 450 BC has been associated with the so-called Saukanian heroic age, a formative period for Saukanian mythology and folklore as narrated by some of the earliest surviving Saukanian epics.

Ancient Saukania

By the late 4th century BC, the Proto-Saukanians had diverged from one another, and given rise to several closely related yet ethnoculturally distinct civilisations. The greatest and best known of these are Apriana, Kriana, and Saukiana. From these early days, the political disunity that is characteristic of Saukanian history is immediately apparent, as all three regions were comprised of independent or autonomous city-states. These city-states were the early form of the ariyi. The first few centuries of this period are attested only retroactively by writers from the late 1st century BC onward, and blend back into the mythological heroic age. By the time of this growth in literary material, all three regions were well-established collective polities. Coherent cultural identities are attested within Apriana, Kriana, and Saukiana, even as they remained politically fragmented. At any given time however, one or two city-states within each civilisation tended to be militarily and economically dominant, sometimes directly absorbing smaller city-states into their state as autonomous subjects, while confederating more powerful yet still weaker rivals. Rivalries between these major or "high cities" were well-established decades before the first accounts of their conflicts, and the networks of allies and subjects commanded by cities like Augas, Khauaspa, Nisauma, and Vapna, were frequently drawn into their masters' wars.

Medieval Saukania

Vapnian Empire

In the 13th century, the city-state of Vapna once again ascended to prominence. This period is recalled in Saukanian historiography as the Vapnian era. In outside scholarship the period is known as the Third Empire of Vapna. The previous two eras of Vapnian precedence among Saukanian states are little more than footnotes in Saukanian history. The Third Empire however is considered extremely important, particularly as its fragmentation gave rise to the modern city-states.

Vapna's ascendance began with the subjugation of Dathan, its nearest rival high city, in AD 1232. Over the rest of the 13th and into the early 14th century, Vapnian control was extended outward from east to west, and south to north, coming to dominate a large portion of what is modern Saukania. Vapna was at this time a monarchy, though in AD 1344, executive power was transferred instead to magistrates usually called archons. This transition motivated a number of subjugated states to revolt, aligning with the still-independent city-state of Khodan. The war came to a conclusion in AD 1349, at the Battle of Phoragana. The battle itself has little surviving documentation, save to confirm the victory of the Vapnian-led hegemony over Khodan and its rebel allies. The battle has been mythologised to a significant extent by the descendants of both sides. Kula, which claims to be the true heir of Vapna, regards the battle as a sign of divine favour for the heritage that they seek to embody. Khodan, and those cities that fought alongside it, emphasise the courage and valour of the defeated in the face of a powerful opponent. Competing mythological accounts, in which many modern Saukanians continue to have a strong investment, make an objective picture of the battle difficult to develop. By the end of the 14th century, Vapnian rule was virtually unchallenged by Saukanian rivals, and the empire began to turn its attention outward.

Vapna's hegemony over its subject cities is historically atypical, and the longest attested on record. Its success has been attributed to its generosity towards loyal vassals, which it often officially named as "allies" despite a de facto relationship of overlordship. This generosity was most visibly manifest in the distribution of war spoils. With Saukanian rivalry pacified, the Vapnian Empire began conducting aggressive military campaigns against its various neighbours in order to acquire the rewards necessary to distribute to its vassals. Saukania's southern neighbour, Shirua, was a common target of these assaults. The Vapnian-Shiruan Wars, themselves merely a chapter of the Saukanian-Shiruan Wars, were fought with an unprecedented scale of destruction and manpower. When victorious, the Vapnians established local nobility as client rulers, using them as staging posts for further invasions. Many riches and prisoners taken as slaves were transported north. Vapna's ability to project power across the Ghuran Mountains was limited, however, and these client leaders often rebelled and joined their coethnics in counter-attacks on Saukanian land. By the dawn of the 16th century, however, Vapna began losing more of these wars than winning, resulting in economic stagnation and increasing tension between the city and its vassals.

Beginning in 1511, the Great Revolt began, in which the majority of Vapna's vassals once again united around a resurgent Khodan, and declared independence from Vapnian hegemony. Coming in the wake of the Sixth Vapnian-Shiruan War, in which an imperial army had been defeated with heavy losses in the last major incursion into Shiruan territory, Vapna however retained enough military potency to defeat this uprising. A critical moment came in 1513, when, swayed by Vapnian pledges, the ancient city-state of Nisauma switched sides and arrayed its considerable forces alongside the Vapnian host at the Battle of Darastan. Vapnian dissolution could only be delayed, however, and though it had militarily defeated its rebellious subjects, most of them found themselves increasingly only under the nominal authority of their overlord. While Vapna remained too dominant to oppose outright, city-states such as Khodan were able with ever-increasing impunity able to conduct foreign relationships of their own.

This period finally drew to a close in the 17th century. In 1605, Khodan once more declared its formal independence from Vapna. Since the failure of the Great Revolt, it had recovered its strength and grown its economy, while Vapna had continued to deteriorate. No force was dispatched to reconquer the rebel city, and over the following two decades, Vapna was deprived of all territory outside of its traditional boundaries. It was spared the destruction of a war by the fear of Khodan, Dathan, and other newly re-established independent city-states of neighbouring powers, which might seek to take advantage of a Saukanian conflict. Nevertheless, in 1631, Vapna's existence as an independent state came to an end. Kula, a low city-state that had always been traditionally subject to Vapna, had grown rich and prosperous under its overlord's hegemony over the rival high cities. Finally in a position to eclipse her master, the city simply mobilised its own troops and marched into Vapna unopposed. A Kulean high city-state was proclaimed, with Vapna reduced to a semi-autonomous dependency. Now without their traditional enemy to take vengeance upon, Khodan, Acha, and Dathan sated their desire to correct the failure of the Great Revolt and marched on Nisauma. After a brief siege, the city was taken, and uncharacteristically annihilated as punishment for its betrayal.

With the fall of the Vapnian Empire, and the disappearance of Vapnian independence, the 17th century gave rise to the Kula-Khodan Period, also known as the Fighting Years, dominated by the rivalry between these two high cities.

Geography and climate

Main article: Geography of Saukania

Saukania is situated in northwestern Thrismari, and has a land area of 1,116,863 square kilometres (431,223 sq mi). The country is landlocked. Saukania lies between longitudes 43° and 59°W and latitudes 22° and 32°S.

Physical geography

The Sauka river close to its source in the Ghuran Mountains

Saukania's landscape is dominated by a vast area of desert land called the Saukanian Plain. The deserts comprise fine-grained sedimentary rocks overlain in parts by sand dunes and sand sheets. Vegetation is thinly distributed, consisting primarily of xerophytic scrubs and short grasses. These plants serve as pasture for desert-adapted sheep, camels, and horses, as the desert is unsuited for agriculture. Trending south, desert gives way to more expansive grassland.

The crucially important Sauka river and its tributaries carve their way through the desert and provide more ideal environments for human habitation and crop cultivation. These rivers, which rise from the mountainous and hilly territory to the southwest, east, and northeast, drain into the Argan Sea and provide most of the country's water resources. The Ghuran Mountains form a crescent in Saukania's southwest, forming the core of a highlands region which decreases in elevation along the course of the major rivers and their tributaries into the fertile and densely populated valley foothills at their base. This southern region of Saukania is more steppe-like, with areas of wooded and forested vegetation. In the east are Kulean Highlands, the source of a number of the Sauka's many tributaries and independent rivers.

Virtually all of Saukania is located above sea level, at an average of 323 metres. The Saukanian Plain is mostly flat, though lower depressions at the centre of small endorheic basins as well as hilly areas vary the landscape's relief. The lowest average elevation occurs around the coast of the Argan Sea.

Shrubland in the Saukanian Plain

Climate

Saukania experiences very dry arid continental climactic conditions. Significant fluctuations in temperatures during the day and the year are observed as the norm. In general, Saukania has very cold winters and hot summers, typical of a semiarid climate. The daytime summer temperature rarely falls below 30°C (86.2°F). Winter temperatures regularly drop below freezing, especially in the southwest of the country. Cloud coverage is minimal, and Saukania experiences an annual average of 321 days of sunshine. Precipitation occurs mainly in the spring and ranges from about 3 inches (80 millimetres) per year in the northern desert to as much as 17 inches in the mountains.

The scarcity of water results in a highly varied population distribution. Most people live along the fertile banks and delta regions of the rivers or in fertile mountain foothills in the southwest. Few people live in the vast arid expanses of central and northern Saukania.

Environmental issues

Desertification is the greatest issue facing Saukania today. Fluctuations in aridity have had significant effects on Saukania's history and its people for millennia. Expansion of desert areas due to overgrazing poses a significant risk to the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands. Saukania's significant population growth over the last century has also seen major expansion of irrigation networks, threatening overall water security as more of the Sauka river system is diverted for agricultural production.

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Saukania

Saukania's population is estimated at 47.4 million as of 2024. The majority of this population is concentrated in the fertile foothills of the Ghuran mountains, the riparian oases along the lengths of the major river systems, or in the deltas of those systems. Most of Saukania's land area is either sparsely inhabited or completely uninhabited.

The urban-rural divide in Saukania is approximately half, with an estimated 52.3% of the population living in urban environments. As the Saukanian polities are organised as city-states, this includes those urban areas within a city-state's jurisdiction which do not have equal designation to the seat of political power. Despite a long history of such sociopolitical organisation, Saukania has traditionally only been relatively more urbanized than various surrounding peoples, owing to the dry conditions of the country. Industrialisation came relatively late, and alongside it, the pressures and incentives motivating significant large-scale immigration to the cities from the countryside. While cities had always been the centre of handicraft and metallurgical industrial activity, the majority of the population remained engaged in agricultural work in the many thousands of villages and smaller towns throughout the country.

Approximately 3.3% of the population of Saukania live nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyles. These are animal herders living around the fringes of the desert plains, grazing their herds on the hardy desert grasses and shrubs and steppe flora. Nomadic groups were once larger relative to the urban population, though the Saukanian population boom of the late 20th century radically increased the sedentary population's majority status. In addition, many nomads have settled down within the territory of the city-state they inhabit, in many cases completely assimilating or only partially retaining aspects of their nomadic culture. While nomadic interactions with sedentary rural populations in villages and towns are usually cordial, with exchange and sale of goods between communities, tensions and conflict are not unknown. Expansion of irrigation projects into traditional pasture lands in order to sustain the growing sedentary population threaten nomadic lifestyles. Rural populations are in turn often suspicious or mistrustful of Saukanian nomads. Incidents of bride abduction involving nomadic men and rural women and girls are rare, but when reported, often result in outrage as the victim community perceives itself dishonoured, and such incidents can lead to retaliations and violence.

Population growth in Saukania is high, averaging 1.67% annually. Fertility is a major contributor to this growth. The total fertility rate for 1960 has been estimated at 7.6 children per woman, falling to 4.3 in 2010, and an estimated 3.7 as of 2020. This growth has diminished with the decline in maternal and infant mortality rates, while longer lifespans attributed to healthcare improvements are also a significant contributor to the higher population.

Men outnumber women, with approximately 108 men for every 100 women. Women in general have longer life expectancy, and so the sex ratio in old age is weighted in favour of females.

Ethnicity

Main articles: Saukanians, Ethnicity in Saukania, and Nomadic peoples in Saukania

Saukanians are the dominant group in Saukania. Saukanians are the collective ethno-linguistic groups distinguished primarily by native use of one of the Saukanian languages, but also by culture, religion, and self-identification. A common identity to the Saukanian-speaking peoples exists, but is of little domestic relevance compared to tribal identities or identities rooted in the city-state. There is strong disagreement on whether the Saukanians collectively constitute a single ethnicity, or if they instead are a family of closely-related ethnicities organised according to distinct historical and social criteria, emphasising both kinship and locality.

For Saukanians themselves, a more important distinction than ethnicity, however that may be defined, is that between sedentary agricultural populations and the mobile pastoralists. Each is conceived of as the existential "other" by the opposing group. The agricultural city-states and the pastoral tribes have a common institutional ancestry in the ancient Saukanians, the semi-nomadic herders who came to dominate the Sauka basin over many centuries, but developed in mutually exclusive and opposing directions. For the city-states especially, the nomads came to represent an "un-Saukanian" tradition, despite recognition of their language and many of their other customs as of a familial connection to the city-states' own. The idea of nomadism as the basis of a city-state was firmly rejected as the institution developed.

Language

Main articles: Saukanian languages, Arshanian language, and Takhrian language

TBA

Religion

Main article: Religion in Saukania

Major cities

Main article: List of major cities in Saukania

Politics

Main article: Dautan Oath

The League of Dautan is a confederation organised according to the provisions of the Dautan Oath, the pledge made by every member towards the common welfare of all other members. These provisions, first and foremost, declare the "eternal sovereignty of the Allies in their own affairs". Nevertheless, obligations to the common welfare necessarily strip some autonomy in particular areas from the individual members. Alliances among Saukanian city-states are not a new phenomena. The League of Dautan instead superseded existing alliances organised on the basis of common ethnic identity or regional cohabitation, which likewise respected the sovereignty of members while demanding concessions for the good of the whole. These dynamics not being new, the League was able to establish itself without much resistance.

Military

Main article: Allied Saukanian Armed Forces

Culture

Main article: Culture of Saukania

Saukanians have both shared cultural features and those that vary between the regions of Saukania, each with distinctive cultures partly as a result of geographic obstacles that divide the country such as mountains and desert plains. The largest divisions exist between the three traditional civilisation-regions of Saukania; Apriana, Kriana, and Saukiana. Within these regions, each ariye asserts an independent ethnocultural identity with features that separate them from close neighbours. Saukanians claim cultural continuity with their ancient predecessors over two thousand years ago, asserting their indigeneity to the country.

Social structure

Main article: Social structure and class in Saukania

Further information: Women in Saukania

Social class in Saukania is hierarchical, with multiple and overlapping social hierarchies. This hierarchical social complexity is a direct inheritance from Saukania's past, which has been traditionally dominated by a hereditary aristocratic elite which monopolised political office, religious authority, and wartime activity. There has been little shift from this state of affairs in the Saukanian city-states, and with the country continuing to possess a massive agricultural sector, land ownership remains a sizeable source of wealth for the Saukanian urban elites. This elite is supported a vertically and horizontally reciprocal network of patronage and clientship between the top and the middle. Politics remains dominated by these powerful aristocratic families, of which there are typically two dozen in any given city-state, though larger polities such as Khodan and Kula have as many as fifty major families. A larger number, though still socially a minority, comprise the client class. This class possesses wealth largely derivative from various commercial enterprises, rather than the traditionally legitimising land ownership. In some cases these families may even be wealthier than some of those at the top, but in practice are held to be vassals by the traditional hereditary elite. The patronage system is controversial outside of Saukania, and it has been accused of being a "scarcely veiled avenue of corruption". Nevertheless, Saukanian culture regards it as normative and expected that the elite should reward loyalty by those in the middle and bottom of society, distributing resources, favours, and boons in return for political support. The client class families themselves are frequently patrons to lower class families, and thus within each city-state, almost all of citizen society is tied in together as part of a complex reciprocal network.

The family itself is the core social unit of the ariye. In Saukanian culture, the state is conceived of as comprising families, rather than individuals. These families are traditionally patrilineal, patrilocal, and patriarchal. The extended family unit was once normal throughout the city-states, but increased urbanization trends have resulted in more nuclear-organised families. These retain close ties to one another even if physically separated, with a strong religious sense of filial piety towards unifying living figures in the wider family lineage, i.e, the eldest living male. In rural regions, the extended family tends to live closer together. Rural regions are considered more conservative, particularly with regards to women, who in extended familial households live in closer proximity to the highest patriarchal authority. While perceived levels of strictness in this authority may have diminished in the urban context, city-dwelling women remain legally and socially under the authority of their patriarch, delegated largely in practice to the nearest male authority; traditionally the husband or father. It is not uncommon for city women to work, though it remains a social ideal for women to be primarily engaged in activities within and around the home, while men represent the family's interest in the public sphere.

Honour

Honour is a core aspect of Saukanian society and identity. Honour belongs to the family, and has a symbiotic relationship with its members. That is to say, all members of a family benefit from the esteem in which their family is held, while the actions of any family member have the potential to benefit or harm this collective estimation. As an inevitable result of their greater social profile, overrepresented in the politics of their city-states, the aristocratic elite have the greatest concern for honour. Saukanian honour is in large part the quality of being left alone. In addition to estimation, it is also reputation in the sense of an individual's or family's willingness to defend what is theirs, and respond with the culturally-determined proportionate severity to intruders, interlopers, and attackers. This is strongly connected to the ideology of personal justice in Saukania, and the law of blood for blood retaliation as expressed in the traditional code of the Tokauratarya. A family that does not take appropriate compensation for the theft of property, the sexual assault or abduction of a woman, or a murder, collectively loses honour, since in their inaction they demonstrate an unwillingness or an inability to back up any previous reputation with action. These transgressive acts can result in blood feuds if the family of the perpetrator is uncooperative in finding a resolution, or if the victim's family is dissatisfied with any compensation proposal.

Honour in Saukania is essentially male, and part of the wider male code of conduct, or sirauna. Responsibility for protecting the honour of the family from outside threats and for avenging it against successful attacks falls to men. As women are a direct means through which family honour can be harmed, an ideology of female protection through control of their movement and behaviour is the uniform cultural standard.

Clothing

Main article: Clothing in Saukania

Architecture and art

Main articles: Architecture of Saukania and Art in Saukania

Music

Main article: Music of Saukania

Cuisine

Main article: Cuisine of Saukania

Saukania has been a wine-producing region for thousands of years. Many valleys in the Ghuran range cultivate grape production as their primary or supplemental crop. Saukanian wine is exported globally.

Sport

Main article: Sport in Saukania