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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 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 a highway and rail network system emanating out of the city of T'laa'nah, which is under construction.