CtW:Kingdom of Ayin
| Change the World | |
| Creator(s) | Bloodnose |
| System(s) | GURPS |
| Genre(s) | Alternate Universe |
The Kingdom of Ayin is a monarchial nation in Bloodnose's Change the World setting whose language and culture is primarily influenced by the Arabian culture of the medieval period. Its state religion, called Tamism, is an adapted eastern religion primarily based on Mahayana Buddhism. The geographical kingdom is composed of four cities, each one ruling over its own province: Kedda, Medua, Morad-dar, and Mok-ta. The government is hereditary, passing the Hakimate (or kingship) down a dynastic line. Slavery is legal in the state, but more based on classical Greco-Roman slavery than antebellum American slavery in that it is economically motivated rather than racially or religiously. The currency of the Ayin is called the Zayin, a square gold coin minted in Morad-dar.
History
This nation, with cultural traditions and a language inspired by the tribes of Earth's Arabian Peninsula, will be the supporting character for our story. It is a mostly grassy land, with some rolling plains and a few hills rich in minerals. The two largest cities rest on the east bank of the River Darkha, a great river too wide to be bridged, it must be crossed in a boat or ferry. Its north border is the Mahesh Forest, a woodland that is slowly being chipped away by farmers looking for new land as well as the rapidly-growing population seeking free space to build homes. To the south, the kingdom meets the Sea of Nomir, a vast and perilous ocean that none dare to cross. Some philosophers hypothesize that new, uncharted lands may lie beyond the sea, but even the bravest mariners say that to lose sight of the shore is suicide. The Kingdom of Ayin is made up of four large cities, each ruled over by an Amir who also manages the surrounding lands.
The history of the kingdom is rich and well-recorded. The earliest records indicate that nomadic Ayinite settlers found the lower River Darkha to be ideal farmland. Avoiding the brackish water near the coast, they built the first settlement that would become the Kedda we know today. The settlement flourished and the strongest of the people became the first Ayinite Molokh, a word best translated to 'despot' in modern Ayinite. Molokh Shaak sent forth scouts and emissaries to the neighboring tribes with stories of the Ayinites' prosperity, and his kingdom grew swiftly. By the reign of Molokh Borr, a second Ayinite city had been founded on the upper River Darkha, called Medua. The soil there was even richer, and the hills on the east bank held many minerals and strong building materials. Medua grew even more rapidly than Kedda.
After the foundation of Kedda, the next addition to the Ayinite kingdom would be the city of Morad-dar. Originally a foreign tribe living beyond the Desert of Lom and across Lake Domir, the people of Morad-dar agreed to join the Kingdom of Ayin in hopes of boosting their productivity beyond substance farming levels. The Dom Hills on the other side of Lake Tor proved to be as bountiful as the Sphardeakh by Medua. Morad-dar, too, prospered.
The end of the 'Rule of Strength' came in 248 B.C.E,, when Ayinite scouts first ventured into the northeast tundra and found the Remans. The Remans are a society as ancient and cultured as the Ayinites. Their leader, Senex Viminus Victor was a strong, proud, but wise man. He saw the Ayinites as valuable allies and agreed to trade the strong stone found in the Reman Empire for some of the rich gold of the Dom Hills. The time was prosperous, and the people were happy. It was also at this time that Molokh Dovem declared himself Hakim, and that his son, Koven, would become the next Hakim, rather than the strongest among the Ayinites. Koven then became Koven Al-Dovem, the next Hakim. Thus was the Ayinite Monarchy established.
During the reign of Hakim Mogen Al-Kumesh in 127 B.C.E., the spiritual outlook of the Ayinites changed forever. A great priest of Nami, Goddess of Knowledge, began speaking of a way to achieve complete oneness with knowledge. Sayid Harat Gau-Tamah was his name, and he is today known as the Buhd-Ha, the Awakened One. He began preaching an arrival at complete nyr-vana: salvation, transcendental immanence, compassion, bodhicitta, and unversalism in which everyone can become a Buhd-Ha. The idea spread rapidly, and the next Hakim, Oren Al-Mogen, adopted Gau-Tamah's teachings as the state religion, Tamism.
The Tamist ideas spread like wildfire through Ayinite society. Old temples to pagan gods were destroyed or converted into monasteries and shrines for contemplation of Gau-Tamah's ideaology and often his divinity. Certain Tamist sects suggest that Sayid Harat Gau-Tamah was himself divine, despite his own statements to the contrary.
Regardless of the religious doctrine, the Ayinites now had a true national religion that the people could get behind, but all would not stay so well forever.
Under Hakim Notem Al-Vakiyra, the barbarians first became a major problem. First it was just trade caravans being sacked on the way to the Reman Empire. These nomads would come out of the trees or down from the mountains to rape, murder and pillage the unarmed or lightly armed caravans rich with gold or stone. But soon these tribes, eventually known by the Reman name Golgae, began entering Ayin itself. After the sack of Medua in 4 C.E., Hakim Dagesh Al-Gayn ordered the construction of a gargantuan fortification that would safeguard the entire kingdom, keeping the people in and the barbarians out. The wall, called Bhozad Wall, was completed during the reign of Hakim Bhozad Al-Dagesh in 11 C.E.
The construction of the Bhozad Wall led to the development of what would become Ayin's Fourth City. The small village of Mok-ta was built as a labor camp for the eastern length of the Bhozad Wall across the Vav Desert. It was a coastal town that soon prospered off the tremendous bounty of fish to be found in the Sea of Nomir. The town flourished and grew rapidly, and soon became Mot-ka, the Fourth City.
With the wall completed, the people of Ayin were safe from further barbarian incursion. The Golgae would never try to scale the colossal fortification and the Ayin would never venture beyond its towering safety. The exception is that once per month, the Tamist priests, called Bi-Ku, from the Mahabodi in Kedda would send a mission to the Reman Empire, hoping to continue teaching the ways of Sayid Harat Gau-Tamah. None of the missions have ever returned and are presumed forever lost to the barbarians and their wilderness.
While the Bhozad Wall created an environment of safety for the Ayinites, it also raised some problems. Because no one was ever allowed out, the growth of the kingdom was stifled. While the population continued to rise steadily and rapidly, the Ayinites were not accumulating any new lands for these people to settle. The four cities became brutally overpopulated and miserably unhealthy, which led to a growing feeling of discontent. By the 3rd century C.E., riots in Medua and Kedda were commonplace, as was disease. Military force became necessary to suppress regular riots.
In response, a series of aqueducts were built in the mid-4th century when engineering advances had caught up with medical theory about fresher water in nearby hills. The major health problems in the Two Cities were alleviated and tempers calmed, though the military presence was not reduced. Tempers remained high, but the riots had subsided.
Throughout the fifth century, a national culture began to develop. Theatre became a major art, libraries and institutes of secular learning called madrasses were built in each of the four cities. Further, a Medua poet named Rajib Ki-Amun completed an epic poem chronicling the adventures of a character named Kinim, a mythic warrior supposedly alive six centuries prior. He was a thinker as much as a warrior who traveled the land bringing peace and wisdom to all the villages to which he came.
This brings us to the modern period. The year is 607 C.E., the people are restless and need to expand, but the dangers beyond the wall are unavoidable. Something about the world must change, and you are the one to change it.
