Chakailan

Chakailan, officially the Free State of Chakailan, is a country in Crona. It is neighbored by Varshan, Titechaxha, Telonaticolan, and Mid-Atrassic Crona.

The nation was established by the Treaty of Electorsbourg as an independent nation at the end of the Final War of the Deluge. The territory was part of Varshan prior to the conflict, and its history is inexorably linked to that of Varshan and slavery within Varshan. Prior to its incorporation into Varshan, the land was sparsely populated territory of the people of Telonaticolan, to whom the original tribes of the area were distantly related. However, the local mountain tribes often interacted with runaway slaves, and this area became well known as a slave escape route out of Varshan in the 19th century. A strong local culture between the tribes and slaves was established. Reduction of fugitive slavery became a top Varshani priority and the land was taken along with the other Telonaticolani lands in 1894. The area continued to be a choice area for the Anzo government to enslave and also a location where many slaves unable to work - such as the elderly or crippled - were deposited in the rare cases where they were not exterminated. The area became home to a unique people and culture with global influences due to the reach of Varshani slavery.

Etymology
Chakailan as a term most likely originates from an earlier version of the Telonaticolani language, and most scholars believe it approximately means "bad soil" with reference to the region's generally poor conditions for sedentary farming. References to the region using this name or some variation thereof are first attested to by Levantine traders who interacted with and traveled throughout Telonaticolan during the early 16th century.

Geography
Chakailan occupies a mountainous position east of Varshan and west of Telonaticolan, occupying one of the central mountain ridges that divides north central Crona. Accordingly, the country is primarily comprised of mountains and and has a relatively cool climate with strong winds blowing over much of the country. The mountains form a "V" shape at the southeastern and southwestern border of the country, separating it from the eastern highlands of Varshan. In the middle, a relatively flat but elevated region exists where most human settlement occurs. The nation's climate features relatively sparse flora and fauna beyond that kept by humans for agricultural purposes. Grass, suitable for grazing, covers much of the country, and most of the country is unsuitable for large scale growing.

Pre-Varshani history
Little is known about the people and history of the area of modern Chakailan other than it was largely under the influence of the more numerous and prosperous Telonaticolan people, and most maps up until the Varshani integration of the territory include it as part of Telonaticolan. Genetic testing and scholarship have shown that its original tribal inhabitants were distantly related to the "mainline" population of Telonaticolani people and the area was likely settled by proto-Telonaticolanis during antiquity. Much of the history of the region is known by reputation. Both Telonaticolani and Varshani histories make note of the ruggedness of these mountain nomad tribes, with individuals from the area making excellent scouts and guides through the central mountain ranges of Crona. Efforts by the Telonaticolani to pacify and more directly incorporate the region failed in both the 1820s and 1840s, as they were repulsed by means of large and well set ambushes and rudimentary but well located static defenses. The relative separation from Varshan but few passes that existed made it a popular area for slaves to flee from Varshani control, and the accounts of escaped slaves from the period indicate the tribes were receptive to these people and even welcomed some into their tribes. Several Varshani raiding and slave hunting parties entered the region throughout its history, with most being repulsed. As early as 1860, Occidental visitors who traveled to the remote area that would become Chakailan noticed many non-indigienous among them and even one Occidental escaped slave having been incorporated into the local peoples, leading modern scholars to suspect that the unique cultural interchange that formed the modern Chakailani people began well before the Varshani occupation.

Annexation into Varshan
Slaves began exiting Varshan through Chakailan in increased numbers in the late 1800s spurned on by increasing disloyalty to Anzo from Telonaticolan, whose people began to openly welcome escaped slaves and began to settle them throughout the country. In 1891, Varshan invaded Telonaticolan, burned its capital, enslaved most of its army and political leadership, and annexed the teritory of Chakailan and other territories in western Telonaticolan. The tribes of the Chakailan area fought bravely and inflicted significant casualties but were defeated by overwhelming Varshani force. Many of the men and warriors of the tribes were sent into slavery, leaving behind the women and children. Many of the Telonaticolani slaves who were too weak or sick to continue on were left behind by Varshani forces in the care of the Chakailan-area tribes.

Varshani occupation
With the beginning of the Varshani occupation, most of the population of the region were removed from their nomadic way of life and centered in towns and villages which amounted to concentration camps; many contemporary Occidental scholars referred to this practice, which was used across Varshan and not just in Chakailan, as "slave manufacturies." During the occupation, the skill of the local tribes as guides and scouts continued to be valued, and many locals were enslaved for their work in the mountainous regions of Varshan where they would work capably for the Varshani overseers. Around 1910, it became stylish among high Varshani society to relocate their old or disabled slaves to remote parts of the state as a work of mercy and to instill the values of obedience to the young among the "lesser peoples" ruled from Anzo. While a majority of slaves who could no longer work were simply killed or sacrificed according to the tenets of Arzalism, a significant number began to be relocated to what would become Chakailan in hopes that the old men might reproduce and create more strong and capable slaves while the disabled might prove to be an example to future slaves. Between 1910 and 1960, when social views shifted back towards predominant sacrifice, more than 75,000 slaves were deposited in what is now Chakailan, creating a massive cultural shift and integration of the mores, traditions, and cultures of those slaves into the native tribal populations. The type of work that the slaves were trained for also generally enhanced the "mountain man" culture and ethic that emerged within the country. In 1980, economic reforms in Varshan ended the grain delivery to the region, leading to the abandonment of the concentration camps and a resumption of nomadic grazing activity for most people, though the Varshani government also sponsored the creation of slave-worked plantations with new hybrid plants created by Occidental experts imported by the Anzo regime. The varieties of mountain agriculture now grown by a majority of the population for subsistence farming began with these imported scientific developments.

With the invasion of Kiravian forces in the Final War of the Deluge, the area was quickly abandoned by the Varshani military as it was beyond the natural defendable borders of the country. Most Varshani overseers simply abandoned their plantations and other enterprises in the country with retreating Varshani forces, and economic devastation swept the countryside as most of the technical experts and managers left overnight. Occupied by Kiravian forces during the war, significant investment was done by the Kiravian government in education and restoration of the productive enterprises of the region. Most Chakailani instead took to the traditional nomadic lifestyle or subsistence farming on the lands of former plantations, which were divided up into lands with title by the occupying Kiravian forces in June 2023. Many refugees, most of them liberated slaves, came to settle in the area as the war progressed, with as many as 10,000 settling in the region. Local leaders began to organize a provisional government under Kiravian occupation in late 2023 and the area was determined by League of Nations Command to be capable of self-governance in March 2024, with its recommendations included in the Electorsbourg peace negotiations that commenced with the end of the war.

Independence
Chakailan was established as an independent state by the Treaty of Electorsbourg with an explicit recognition of the unique culture that emerged in the territory with further expectation of additional slave resettlement in the future. Following its independence, it became geopolitically aligned with both Kiravia and Urcea with significant investments from both countries and the presence of the Urcean DNID and ACED to help social, political, and economic development.

Government
Chakailan is a presidential republic ruled by the cooperation of four important leading institutions: the President, the Chancellor (also known as the Carrier), the Council of Commons and the Fire-Lit Hall. The Chakailani system of government was set forth in the Basic Charter of Government instituted in 2026 by the nation's provisional government. Many of its apparatuses and structure is based on studies of the Government of Urcea and Government of Kiravia, including systems from both nations.

Executive
The Chancellor serves as the main executive power in Chakailan, and holds power in directing the Fire-Lit Hall in its implementation of policies and regulation. It is also the Chancellor who holds the power to direct the military, as well as appointing the leadership of the army. The Chancellor is elected indirectly by the members of the Fire-Lit hall. The Chancellor may be replaced by a vote in the Council of Commons called by the President if they lose trust in their power to rule.

The Fire-Lit hall takes care of the actual implementation of policies and regulation for the nation. They are chosen by the President twice every term, allowing them to be replaced more often than the President themselves.

Legislature
The President is the most important legislative power in the nation. Although technically they are suppose to rely on the Council of Commons for most of their legislative work, more recently they have gained far greater powers to subvert the Commons and propose new laws more directly. The President is responsible for choosing the Fire-Lit Hall, who choose the Chancellor, giving the President extensive powers over the entire nation. The President is elected every 6 years in a first-past-the-post popular election.

The Council of Commons, despite being somewhat subverted by the President, in more recent times still holds substantial legislative powers, being able to propose and enforce the implementation of new legislation. While the President too is able to do this they require that the executive branch is cooperative, while the Council of Commons holds extensive abilities to enforce the implementations of their proposals, to a point where they can force the president to dismiss the entire Fire-Lit Hall if they fail to properly implement the will of the Commons. The Council of Commons is elected by regional elections held every 3 years, with each region holding a certain number of seats. Despite population changes, the Basic Charter of Government included no clear provision for between the different regions.

Local governance
Chakailan is divided into four geographic regions and eighteen communes. Communes are not geographical territories but rather groupings of people based on ancestry, tribe, or other pre-independence association. Accordingly, membership in a commune is a legal status rather than a territorial one, and communal status is inherited through the maternal line according to the Basic Charter of Government. The regional administrations have self-governing capability and instead are largely divided in such a way as to provide for legislative and judicial districts. Communes, on the other hand, carry some significant self-governing authority, including elected councils for each commune which provide for a limited degree of laws for each commune, and these laws primarily govern business and social transactions between members of the commune, although relationships with the other communes and to what degree communal members may participate in those relationships is determined by communal law. Traditionalist political influences within Chakailan tend to seek to empower the communes, while centralizing or modernizing influences seek to limit their authority or dissolve them altogether.

Politics
Since its, creation the Chakailani government has been made up of two major political parties, although the various factions within the nations and these parties have switched allegiance. These are often simply called the 'left' and the 'right', the 'reds' and the 'whites' with many other nicknames. Officially, the parties are called "Peoples Liberation Party", or PLP, and the "Chakailani Unified Front", or CUF. Since the nation's liberation, the CUF has ruled over the nation, although most observers believe the parties are relatively evenly balanced.

Chakailani Unified Front
After the Treaty of Electorsbourg, the rebelling forces called the Chakailani Unified Front were given the opportunity to shape a new nation for their people. Many of the important figures during the independence war became important political leaders within the newly formed republic, and the party they served chose to carry the same name they did before they gained their liberation.

When they formed the party, it was mainly made up a mixture of more modern nationalists focused on independence and the power necessary for the survival of the nation. Many of its members had sought a more totalitarian state, but compromised on these beliefs to ensure they could free the nation and it's people and adhere to Occidental terms for aid. The second most important component in the party is a much more reactionary traditionalist movement focused on the ideas of the more distant, local communities that make up most of the nation. The traditionalist component seeks to maintain traditional social ties among communes, supporting their autonomy and opposing a "flattening" of society that more modern-minded reformers have proposed.

In part because of the various other powers involved both in the creation and rebuilding of the nation, the Chakailani Unified Front is mainly aligned with the Occidental powers who helped ensure the nations creation - Urcea and Kiravia. They are often criticized by their opposition for being too reliant on these foreign powers and allowing corruption to manifest to help serve the interests of foreign companies over the people of the nation.

In the first election the party was opposed in part by a collection of liberal and democratic-focused groups who sided with the Peoples Liberation Party. These groups have distanced themselves from their old allies after they witnessed the left-leaning party become more and more radical in it's beliefs. Because of this they have chosen to loosely align themselves with the CUF in the future.

Peoples Liberation Party
In the aftermath of the Final War of the Deluge, a smaller faction split off from the main rebelling group, feeling betrayed when a very Occidental, capitalistic system of government was implemented. This was not a surprise for many in the leadership, who knew that they would always have to fight once more to truly save their people. With a combination of various militant socialist and communists as well as the help of the liberals at the time the Peoples Liberation Party was created to be the main component of the faction that claimed itself as the nations liberators. At the time the party only received a a bit over 30% of the vote. This was considered a total failure, and over the course of the next 6 years the party would work hard to rebrand themselves and better gain the trust of the populace.

After the ejection of the liberal element in 2027, the Peoples Liberation front could still mainly be categorized into two main factions. The largest faction is the Militant Socialists. They don't necessarily believe that the current government as it is implemented needs to be torn down, simply that the nation must implement new socialist policies that focus on helping the people become equals, something the current government has proven totally incapable to do. The originally much smaller, but now quite large secondary faction within the movement is the Communists, who have successfully rebranded themselves from their originally similar views of a more totalitarian state, similar to the views of some of the more hardcore nationalists, but have shifted to a view similar to the CUF's traditionalist wing, seeking to be the main representatives of restoring and modernizing the old traditional communities of the nation, bringing power to local communal councils and heavily decentralizing the nation to become much more focused on the various outlying villages and other rural societies.

Culture
Chakailani culture is an eclectic blend of many different cultural traditions, with local tribal customs forming a cultural baseline on which the traditions of many different groups of former enslaved people from across the world have introduced new traditions and mores. Focus on rough life in the mountains and reemergent nomadic traditions factor strongly within Chakailan's culture. Chakailani identity has become increasingly tied to a fierce sense of personal, familial, and national independence, especially since the nation gained its independence following the Final War of the Deluge.

Cuisine
Much of the cuisine of Chakailan speaks to its history both as an area of slaves as well as that of a rugged mountain people, and due to the types of people left in Chakailan over the ages, it reflects the country's rich and diverse cultural heritage. Two categorizations of food exist in Chakailani cuisine, the first of which is known as "work food" and the second of which is known as "new food". "Work food", as the name suggests, originated from the food given to laborers and slaves, and is nutrient dense; many of these types of foods, originally bland, have received additional ingredients and spices to make them more appetizing. is commonly eaten in Chakailan, and in recent decades this has been iterated into cake-like products eaten for with fruit-based sweeteners and softer ingredients included. stews are also common and have received iterative improvements to flavor in recent decades and especially since independence. "New food", on the other hand, are types of food based on the cuisine and meals familiar to people enslaved and subsequently brought to the region. These meals resemble those of the cuisines of elsewhere and Crona and even abroad, but are made using local ingredients. Lamb meat pies, prepared in such a way that clearly originally followed Levantine beef pies, are commonly eaten in Chakailan, evidencing the use of locally available ingredients to create new Chakailani dishes. "New food", despite the name, can date back hundreds of years.

Symbols
The torch and torches are used in Chakailan as a symbol of liberation, as paths lit by torchlight are associated with the road to freedom from slavery. Accordingly, torch imagery has become closely associated with Chakailani culture and is pictured on the flag and coat of arms of the newly established state and is also alluded to in the state's motto, "Light the torch to freedom."

Linguistic Demographics
The majority of residents of Chakailan speak a lower caste variant of Hieratic Varshani, though a handful of native languages which are related to it are spoken by isolated mountain tribes.

Religious Demographics
The Chakailani people have a wide variety of religious beliefs as a result of their historical ties to servitude in Varshan. A plurality of the people are adherents of a folk variety of Solar Arzalism, though scholars believe a separate folk religious tradition may be included within these statistics. The second largest group of people are what can best be described as "folk atheists" - a position with no definitive philosophical or scientific arguments against the existence of a God, but rather a lived experience leading to religious. Among the relatively small but growing educated classes of Chakailan, an effort to import M'acunism into the country is underway, though some former slaves and mountain tribes are also original adherents of the faith. Catholic missionaries made minor inroads with both the native population and returning slaves during and after the Final War of the Deluge, contributing to a small but notable Christian population in the country. The remaining part of the population - about 15% - adhere to a wide variety of folk mythologies, slave religions, obscure tribal faiths not yet categorized by Occidental sociologists, and other various local traditions.

Economy
Chakailan has a very small economy, and its people are considered among the poorest in the world. The primary sectors are subsistence agriculture and nomadic pastoral herding. The economy of Chakailan is such that its government is not sufficiently strong enough or have enough credit to issue a currency. In the more remote parts of the country, barter is the primary form of exchange, but the government uses Cronan lira as its de facto currency for internal and external transactions, and observers note that the Taler is also accepted in some parts of the country at a 1-to-1 rate with the lira despite the difference in value of these currencies abroad.

Chakailan is very under-urbanized, with a large, central city only presently under construction as a project of the new state - T'laa'nah, which means "liberty", - which also serves as the nation's capital. Few transportation networks or systems allow travel throughout the country, with an in-progress highway and rail network system emanating out of the city of T'laa'nah, which is under construction. T'laa'nah is home to the nation's only airport, which is being upgraded to be able to accommodate international flights. Many of the nation's former Varshani-run village concentration camps have been abandoned or destroyed, with recent government incentives attempting to encourage individuals to abandon the nomadic lifestyle and return to the sites of the villages in an attempt to create a small, but stable urban core to the country.

Due to both the newness of Chakailan as a state as well as the nomadic lifestyle of many of its residents, the state's taxing efforts have been extremely inefficient since its independence. As of the late 2020s, the nation's primary form of state revenue is in the form of foreign aid from Urcea and Kiravia, particularly ACED funds. These funds are being used to support state operations in addition to being used to fund construction of T'laa'nah and its associated infrastructure. Besides state-to-state transactions, foreign investment into the country has been limited, especially due to the lack of urban centers which might provide a good opportunity for growth. Economists anticipate that the state's budget will be largely self-sustaining by the early 2040s.

Military
Chakailan's military only has one branch - the Republican Guard of Chakailan, which serves the basic functions of both an army and an air force. Within the national defense scheme, it is intended that Chakailan's primary main manpower and defensive capabilities be provided by tribal militias and volunteer forces. The RGC is intended to supplement these forces with a relatively small contingent of regular professional soldiers - a single of 524 personnel as of 2029 - as well as air and logistical support along with maintenance and operation of artillery. Accordingly, in addition to its infantry battalion, the RGC maintains four of artillery. The air component of the RGC includes a number of transport vehicles as well as five mixed-role jet fighters.

In terms of military outlook, Chakailan is heavily reliant upon Kiravia to provide for its national defense despite having no formal agreement between the two nations. With Varshan occupied by the League of Nations, many of Chakailan's threats are assumed to be internal or non state-actors, and accordingly the military remains largely garrisoned in and around the emerging city of T'laa'nah.