Hiranipra
From Axalon RPG
“The Floating Kingdom.”
- Capital City: Mu
- Official Language: Hiranigo, Lithian (high-caste officials only)
Contents |
Population:
The Hirani, citizens of the Floating Kingdom, are more or less human; prolonged exposure to the powerful magical fields that not only levitate their floating homeland but make up their society in general has made a few notable changes, however. Hirani tend to be taller and thinner, on average, than other human races, with pointed ears and large eyes, and bright blue blood. Their skin and hair run the usual gamut of human coloration, with the increased versatility of a magic-using civilisation to alter basic appearances.
The kona caste of the Hirani are generally unimpressive, physically, having largely abandoned physical labours in pursuit of philosophy and scholarship. The deadly shosa caste and the all-encompassing fia caste, however, are not so removed from the world of the body. Shosa soldier-mages are usually a few inches shorter than kona, with lean, whip-cord muscles, while fia, the Hirani who make up the largest percent of the population and contribute to the worldly well-being of the Floating Kingdom and its people, are usually the shortest and broadest of the Hirani, and the only group that makes routine use of personal magitek physical enhancements.
State Religion:
The Hirani are likely the most religious race on all of Lith, for the simple reason that their goddess, Wuanshu, lives in the city of Mu, at the heart of the Floating Kingdom itself. However, since Wuanshu actually exists, and can communicate directly with her followers, there is no particular ‘holy book’ that lays out the do’s and don’ts of the Hirani religion. Rather, Wuanshu has made it clear to the people of Hirani that what she desires of them is art and science, the raising of the Floating Kingdom from a small, out of the way backwater to a major player in the game of nations. Wuanshu is something of an enlightened goddess, and has passed no edicts banning foods, clothing or relationships, though the divisions between the castes are ironclad, and the Book of Laws set down by the goddess at the dawn of the Floating Kingdom is light on the rights of the accused and heavy on learning the truth of the matter, by whatever means necessary.
Government:
The government and the state religion of Hiranipra are, for obvious reasons, closely bound together. Wuanshu is legally the absolute ruler of the Floating Kingdom, but over the past few centuries she has receded more and more from the daily workings of the kingdom. The Wuanshu’ani, the administrative council that advised and carried out the decrees of Wuanshu, has instead taken centre stage. Composed of an equal number of representatives from the three castes, three for each at the moment, the Wuanshu’ani rules the Floating Kingdom with a technocratic perspective. The studies of the kona are heavily supported by the state, especially into new applications of magitek, while the shosa and the fia are largely left to their own devices, though their own scholars and magitek scientists are equally well compensated by the Wuanshu’ani.
The Wuanshu’ani is not elected directly; instead, each of the three castes elect their own ruling bodies, the kona’ani, shosa’ani and fia’ani, and these ruling groups then send three representatives of their choice to the ruling council. There is no separation of the legislative and executive branches, and though there are courts to handle disputes within each of the three castes, there is no national judicial branch. Inter-caste disputes are sent to the Wuanshu’ani for mediation and settlement.
Though the members of the council originally thought of themselves as nothing more than temporary caretakers of Hiranipra, Wuanshu’s steadily dwindling involvement has pushed them to take more and more of the Floating Kingdom under their authority. The Wuanshu’ani are currently divided between the stewards, those who want to simply maintain Hiranipra until Wuanshu takes control once more, and the crusaders, those who want to use the power of the shosa and the fia’s magitek to expand the borders of Hiranipra and the influence of the teachings of Wuanshu. At the moment, the stewards are the dominant power, though it would require only a single councillor’s changed mind to tilt the balance otherwise.
Geography:
Hiranipra is one of the floating islands that drifts over Lith, a moderately habitable chunk of rock with a topside surface area roughly the equal of Texas. The rim of the floating island alternates between sheer, sudden cliffs and jagged, towering mountain ranges, the natural land formations moderating the harsh weather of the mid-to-upper atmosphere. The summers are usually quite dry, and the winters can be wickedly cold, but the floating island is habitable.
The capital city of Mu sits at the centre of the Floating Kingdom, and at the centre of Mu is Wuanshu’s Repose, the great, golden tower from which the goddess watches over Hiranipra and beyond. The architecture of Mu, and indeed of all Hiranipra, is marked by its ability to marry stark utility and understated beauty in equal measure. Due to the limit on space Hirani architecture favours building upwards, rather than outwards, so Hirani cities are often a collection of five or six-storey buildings clustered around a few small parks and green spaces. The architecture is similar to feudal-era Japan’s, with sloping, four-cornered demi-roofs jutting out from each floor in the tall buildings, and an emphasis on open spaces and broad vistas. Most structures are still made of wood, though stone is a not-uncommon sight, especially as a supportive base for the taller structures and as a sign of government-related industry.
All the arable land of Hiranipra is under the control of the fia’ani, and they and their magitek helper-constructs have maximised the potential of the fields and valleys, carefully cultivated plants growing in serried ranks, almost mathematical in their perfection. There are very few animals on the Floating Kingdom, and the only grazing animal Wuanshu allowed were sheep and rams, since their fleece could be used to make clothing. Meat has never been a large part of the Hirani diet, though the construction of magitek airships did introduce fish to the Floating Kingdom for the first time. For the most part, however, the Hirani are vegetarians.
Though the floating island is poor in almost all conventional minerals, to the point where the pre-magic proto-Hirani never made it past the Bronze Age, the Floating Kingdom does have two key natural resources. The first is found in the hanging crags and inverted mountains that stretch down from the inhabited plateau, the rock formations shot through with huge amounts of aethracite. This psycho-reactive mineral, similar in appearance to green jade, is believed to be what holds the Floating Kingdom above the Nahuatl Ocean, and is also the driving force behind the Hiranipra culture. So much of it has been harvested, in fact, that the orbit of the floating island has decreased by almost two full feet over the last century. Nevertheless, the kona believe that the Hirani have extracted no more than one percent of all the aethracite in the inverted mountains. The second key resource is the primal clay, found in the aethracite caverns deep inside the floating island. Primal clay, having been surrounded by the magically-resonant aethracite for uncounted eons, has taken on a magical sensitivity of its own; it can be induced, via a magical charge, to take almost any shape, and the soft clay is capable of a limited ‘regeneration’, the severed edges of a break rushing in to repair the damage.
Most Hirani live in the tall cities or on the broad plains of the valley, but there are a few small settlements in the Rim Mountains, and a shosa skyport on the eastern Evercliff.
Economy:
For much of its existence, Hiranipra was a closed economy; the Hirani had no exports, and had nothing to offer to draw imports of their own. Over the last century, however, the Wuanshu’ani has begun to loosen its control over the borders, and Hiranipra has taken some small steps out into the wider world. For the moment, however, the Hirani are still somewhat distrustful of outsiders, and there is little trade with the ground-lands.
The internal economy of Hiranipra is a complicated structure; since there is so little actual work to be done by the Hirani, owing to Wuanshu’s gift of magic to the Hirani centuries before and their creation of magitek automatons, a conventional capitalist economy would simply fail to function, producing either gross inflation or abject poverty for a super-majority of the population. Instead, a system of mutual obligation and dependency amongst the castes creates an economy centred around services, rather than goods. Each caste produces certain key goods, and the leaders of the caste negotiate, both within their own castes and with each other, to ensure a tolerable division of wealth. The system produces enviable stability for the lower classes, but has been found to restrict growth and expansion. The Hirani are willing to make this tradeoff for the moment.
When they have to interact with other nations, the Hirani generally use aethracite as a form of currency, the only valuable mineral on their floating island. Alternatively, suitably learned Hirani may agree to create magitek artefacts in exchange for goods and services, though the Wuanshu’ani have placed strict limits on what magitek is allowed outside of the Floating Kingdom. The Hirani’s aethracite-powered devices are their only real advantage over the other, larger, more resource-rich nations of the world, and the Wuanshu’ani are not eager to blunt the only real weapon in their arsenal.
Primal clay is never traded, and the locations of the clay-pits are a closely guarded secret, backed up by both government law and religious decree.
Military:
It is said that any suitably advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic; the Hirani have approached this maxim from the opposite direction. Their aethracite-powered magitek constructs are so complex and so refined that those not schooled in artifice and magic frequently mistake them for technological creations.
The shosa, the warrior caste of the Floating Kingdom, maintain both the great airships of the shosa’tae and the mobile weapons of the ground-based shosa’tol. The airships of the shosa’tae range from simple merchant and supply craft to veritable floating fortresses, though for the most part they field mid-ranged carrier airships when they need to project power, relying on unmanned drone magitek fighters. Their ships are both protected by and armed with magic-based systems, shimmering rainbow shields flickering around the sleek craft while the aether cannons unleash void-space blasts on their targets. For all the power of their magitek systems, however, the actual airships themselves are remarkably fragile; the lack of any real mineral deposits on Hiranipra means that most vessels of the shosa’tae are constructed of wood and stone, inlaid with aethracite to direct power and hold the airships high above the ground-lands. Attempts were made to create clay-hulled airships, but it was found that the primal clay interferes in some way with the limited levitation powers of the airships; to put it simply, primal clay airships cannot maintain lift. As a result, any force capable of breeching the glimmering rainbow shields of the airships could destroy the vessels of the shosa’tae with a book of matches and a jackhammer.
The shosa’tol, the ground combat arm of the warrior caste, is likewise heavily dependant on their magical creations. For every human soldier there are a score of magitek constructs, ranging from small one-shot hunter-killers to massive, powerful suits of independently mobile armour. For the most part, even the lowest-ranking shosa warrior is the equivalent of a colonel, directing his or her magitek forces while remaining out of battle themselves. Though their ground forces are generally constructed from the same weak materials as the shosa’tae air wing, the sho’san, the ‘mind warriors, are as capable as any steel-and-kevlar battle armoured techno-trooper. The reason for this rests in the unique properties of primal clay; most of the sho’san warriors are built from this pliable and resilient substance, and are capable of auto-recovering from all but the most grievous and debilitating damage. Bullet holes seal over again, the edges of chopping injuries flow back together, even fire and napalm can be resisted, if only for a brief time. Unfortunately, as a trade-off the sho’san are rather slow and lumbering, though the power of their magic-fuelled blows is considerable, and the shosa’ani have begun experimenting with sho’san armed with ranged weaponry, generally smaller versions of the armaments fitted to the airships of the shosa’tae. A few experimental sho’san have been fielded on this design, but the Wuanshu’ani have not yet decided on whether to mass-produce the new form.
The Hirani have not yet attacked any other nation, nor has any other nation attacked them. As a result, the military prowess of the Floating Kingdom is generally unknown to the outside world and largely a matter of theory to the shosa’ani itself.
Culture/History:
The history of the Floating Kingdom begins long, long ago, in the lands of the Iluster College. A collection of some of the most powerful magic users of the age, Iluster was as unprecedented a success in terms of magical scholarship and application as it was an unmitigated failure in terms of being a stable nation. In the end, the lands of the College were left uninhabitable, though sadly neither dead nor barren; the things that roam the College Wastelands, however, are not to be spoken of.
A few members of the College escaped, however, including the awesomely powerful Wuanshu. Wuanshu had come from a land lost to the mists of time, now, and after the fall of the College she declared that she would prove the ideals of the College, while avoiding their mistakes. To accomplish this, she sought out the proto-Hirani, a small group of plains dwellers almost constantly on the verge of starvation and extinction. When Wuanshu appeared before these floating island-dwellers, the tribal leaders of the time proclaimed her a goddess, come at least to ease the suffering of their people. Wuanshu was torn, initially, between her rational, science-oriented mind and the fact that her new-found status as a goddess allowed her an unparalleled amount of influence over the nascent human culture of the floating island. In the end, she accepted the godhood offered her by those ancient leaders.
Under Wuanshu’s leadership, the anarchic tribal society of the proto-Hirani gave way, quickly, to a carefully planned and administered society, the lifestyle of the technocratic Hiranipra. The tribes were broken up, splintered and reformed and shattered and regrouped, until they gave way to the three castes instead. Determined to outdo not just the now-long dead Iluster mages, but nature itself, Wuanshu created a social system in which children were raised, not by parents, but by the group itself, passing on the greatest amount of knowledge with the least amount of consistent bias. The youth were not inducted into one of the three castes until they showed a proclivity for any one of them; to this day, there are a vanishing few who never find their niche. Nevertheless, Wuanshu was well pleased with her nation and her people, and the Hirani, having exchanged the absolute freedom that had nearly killed them for a strictly ordered lifestyle that gave them peace and prosperity, were faithful followers of the mage-turned-goddess.
Such powers as Wuanshu possessed, however, could not help but change the person who wielded them. Six hundred years after she first came to the Floating Kingdom, creating her Repose in the exact centre of the sky-island and using her tremendous powers to influence the land and the sky and the people, Wuanshu found her attention wandering away from temporal concerns. The goddess retreated more and more frequently into her Repose, and emerged less and less often. Within the aethracite-laced walls of her stellar observatory, the mage-turned-goddess began to grapple with the wider forces of the universe, studying the far-away stars, charting the movements of the planets, even battling other things, dimly sensed creatures of pure malevolence that lurked on the ragged edge of magic itself. Soon enough, the concerns of the material world, of her people and her Floating Kingdom, were no longer enough to draw Wuanshu from her Repose. Eight hundred years after her first appearance, a century before the current date, Wuanshu shut the doors of her Repose for the last time, and has not been seen since. The only evidence of her continued existence is the haunting amber-green glow of the aethracite in the walls of her sanctuary, a reaction to the awesome magical field of the goddess.
With the goddess in effective exile, the three castes of the Hirani elevated the Wuanshu’ani to the role of ruling council, and have done their best to continue to live as she instructed them too. Nevertheless, eight centuries of direct rule by an effectively omnipotent being has left the Hirani ill-suited to governing their own affairs, and there have been rumblings of discontent both between and within the three castes.
For the moment, however, the average Hirani is little different from their grandfathers and grandmothers. The culture of science and artistry, of enlightened self-interest and mutual dependency, still dominates on the Floating Kingdom, and the frontiers of magitek science are consistently being challenged by the great scholars and seekers of the kona, while the shosa harness their magical abilities to enhance the power of Hiranipra and the fia, the largest and most populous of the three castes by a wide margin, continue with the million-and-one tasks that keep the Floating Kingdom the bastion of stability and order Wuanshu decreed it should ever be.
The culture of Hiranipra is centred around the concept of the greater good, of all the parts of a civilisation working together to lift the entirety of it upwards. Hirani are trained to be content with their place, their niche, and friction between them is generally minimal owing to this early indoctrination. There has never been a rebellion or insurrection amongst the Hirani, not since Wuanshu came to their sky-island.
National Weaknesses:
Despite the age of their society, the Hirani are young and naïve with regards to the game of nations currently playing out across the length and breadth of Lith. They attempt to counteract this by gathering as much information as possible about as many subjects as possible, but conflicting reports and simple information overload has stymied them on several fronts.
The mineral-weakness of the Floating Kingdom makes them wary of engaging in prolonged conflicts, especially with more resource-rich nations. Additionally, the Hirani are intrigued by materials such as iron and steel, and can be over-eager to acquire supplies of their own with which to experiment. Another case of dangerous naivety.
Relations:
- The Pemen Order – The Hirani have had no direct contact with the Order; what they know of them comes from second-hand sources. Despite their agreement with the Order’s focus on rationality and technology as a force for social good, the Wuanshu’ani are greatly concerned with the rumours of its expansionist nature. Additionally, the Hirani are unlikely to respond well to Pemen superiority complexes, as their faith in both their goddess and their own civilisation is the bedrock of their collective psyche.
- The Pol' – The Pol’s floating continent is almost directly opposite that of the Hirani; the two groups have not, as yet, interacted with each other at all.
- The Rat Lands – The low population necessitated by the limited resources of the floating island have made the utilisation of each individual’s talents essential; the Hirani are frightened of and disgusted by the slave-taking Mind Rats. Nevertheless, Hirani delegations have been dispatched, though generally these delegations consist of a small number of kona and shosa and a powerful contingent of sho’san, with orders from the Wuanshu’ani itself to return all members of the delegation at the close of negotiations. The Rats have not yet attempted to enslave any of the Hirani, but the ruling council of the Floating Kingdom regards them as being a potentially grave threat.
- Shanters – The powerfully capitalistic Shanters, with their emphasis on individual wealth and their lack of social cohesion and community, perplex the Hirani greatly. Nevertheless, the Wuanshu’ani has begun to open communication with the nearest Shanter city, Coreolis, to explore the potential of using the globe-straddling Shanters as a source of both material exporters and intelligence assets.
- The Solaris Empire – Though the Hirani appreciate the Solari’s apparent interest in creating a well-educated populace, they find little to endear them to the Empire, otherwise. The two nations’ religions are particularly incompatible.
- Kyoz-Asgi World Power - The Wuanshu’ani have heard only scattered tales of the subterranean reptilians, but what they have heard has interested them greatly. Kyoz-Asgi sounds to be as rich in minerals and ores as Hiranipra is poor in it; the Hirani are understandably eager to open negotiations with the Kyoz-Asgi for access to their underground wealth. The Kyoz-Asgi, for their part, may be considered eager and willing to expand into foreign markets, and are interested in Hirani's business, as opposed to anything more material than hard currency.
- Dispaterland – The Hirani would never use magic in so frivolous a manner as the wizards of Dispaterland do, and find the unceasing energetic cheerfulness of Dispaterland’s representatives somewhat wearying. The Dispaterlanders, for their part, simply adore the Hirani and their quaint (but unusual) magical ways, and are perpetually on the nation’s doorstep, fawning over them and begging for access to their research. This is not at all uncommon policy for the Dispater when they come across a magical nation that would otherwise wash its hands of them.
