Yakami

Nation Profile
Description	The iron islands.
Government	Feudal Kingdom
Real World Inspiration	Japan
Other Names	Nupuri Moshiri (Poyna)
Geography
Location	Northeast of the Ohm Basin
Largest City	Shānto
Relative Distance from the Basin	Near
Demography
Demonym	Yakami
Population	5 million
Languages	Yakami
Races and Ethnicities	Yakami Human, Zheng Human, Dwarves
Religion	Yakami Pantheon

Nation Overview

Society

Culture

Yakami's society is centered around honor and loyalty to one's superiors. Even the smallest betrayal is considered a grave sin, and those who go against their word are looked down on. Yakami has a strong warrior tradition thanks to its origins and the worry of an attempt by one of the warlords of Zheng to retake the island. There are virtually no paladins or druids in Yakami, but monks are extremely common, as are other psionic disciplines.

Yakami has a rich history of the written word, especially poetry and epics. There are many celebrated authors in their corpus, and while there is no mandated schooling system, even the poorest children are taught to at least recite poetry, even if they cannot read it. Mastery over language is considered one of the highest virtues, as the ability to use calligraphy to put the words onto paper with a beauty that matches the prose.

Government

Yakami is divided into 150 fiefs which are ruled by a feudal lord. All 150 of them answer to the king, who is descended from the first king of Yakami, Shāndǎo. Yakami is a very peaceful kingdom, thanks both to the difficulty of invading it but also because the king's vassals are forbidden from warring with each other, and they stay true to their oath of loyalty to him. Most of the government's efforts go toward bureaucracy, taxing the populace for the sake of public works like road building and other civil engineering projects.

Inhabitants

The people of Yakami are often honest to a fault, and very disciplined. Despite the peace of the islands, martial and psionic training is common. Many Yakami leave their peaceful homelands in search of gold to loot or evil to thwart in more barbaric lands. Yakami tend to have fair skin and dark hair, though their features resemble those of their Zhengen cousins. They often wear monocolor clothing with complementary sashes and shawls.

Geography

Climate

Yakami is temperate and experiences frequent rainfall. It grows colder towards the north of the islands, especially in the mountains.

Ecology

Much of Yakami is managed forest, and many of the highlands support rice farming. The lower areas have been cleared for the cultivation of other grains.

Landscape

Most of the islands of Yakami, especially the largest, have flat coasts which slope upwards into highlands and then mountains.

History

Premodern

The earliest known people to inhabit the island of Yakami were a group of dwarves known today as the Poyna. These dwarves made their homes in the island's mountainous terrain, living in small clan halls of simple construction. Unfortunately, not much is known about this group's early history. A writing system for the Poyna language was only devised after they left Yakami, leaving much of their history unrecorded outside of oral tradition. Archeological evidence suggests they had perfected the art of iron smithing very early, long before nearby humans would discover it.

Colonization by Zheng (Shāndǎo Period)

Around 2000 a.u.c., human explorers from Zheng began sailing to the island that would become Yakami. The Zhengans, who had little interest in the mountains, never encountered the reclusive Poyna during their initial ventures. This lead the explorers to believe it was uninhabited. They quickly reported their findings to the Emperor of Zheng, who declared the island to be part of his domain. Colonization efforts quickly commenced, and the island vassal-state of Shāndǎo was established. By 1800 a.u.c., large port cities had been established along Shāndǎo's shores, and their farms began to cover the small amount of available green space on the island.

Shāndǎo had become too large a presence for the Poyna to continue ignoring, so they descended from the mountains and made themselves known to the settlers. The dwarves, for whom they had only been settled half a life time, were unhappy with their recent appearance on the island. They requested the settlers return to their home country. The humans, whose families had lived on Shāndǎo for many generations, did not find this agreeable. They requested the help from the emperor, hoping for soldiers to protect them from a potential dwarven invasion. Unfortunately for the settlers, the emperor did not consider the dwarves to be a serious matter, and military aid was refused. The people of Shāndǎo, believing themselves to be abandoned by the Emperor, immediately readied for war against the Poyna. They did not wait for the dwarves to strike first.

King Bā Shàng began leading the armies of Shāndǎo on crusades into the mountains in 1790 a.u.c. Initially, the crusaders were overwhelmed by the superior iron weaponry of the Poyna. The balance of power quickly shifted in favor of Shāndǎo, however, when they realized that the dwarves were almost entirely unfamiliar with psionics. Bā Shàng amassed every combat-capable psion in his kingdom into a company of 250 soliders. Each psion was paired with an elite soldier to protect them from the Poyna warriors¹⁾ , who preferred an up-close approach to combat. This strategy proved to be highly effective. The dwarven's biggest advantage, their superior weaponry, would quickly disappear. Seized halls became armories for the conquering army, quickly putting their equipment on even footing with that of the dwarves.

In only 10 years Bā Shàng had conquered two thirds of the island. Over the course of that decade, he had only lost 200 solider. The majority of his army still in fighting shape, and they showed no signs of slowing down. By this point, the Poyna could see that they had lost the war. Many of their brethren had been killed, and it became clear that they would be wiped out if they did not abandon their homeland. The surviving Poyna left their clan halls behind and began hastily constructing a fleet of boats on the far shores of the island. As soon as their boats were finished, the Poyna set sail. They would eventually make their new home in the Northpeaks of the Ohm Basin.

After the Poyna's mass migration, the conquering army ran through the rest of the island unimpeded. The army continued to march through the mountains, all the way to the far shore. With his entire army standing on the beach, the king officially declared Shāndǎo's boarders to be defined by the island's coasts.

The other events that occurred on that beach are subject to great historical contention. Official accounts claim that the psions, seeing an opportunity to seize power, betrayed the conquering army. They alleged that a bloody battle ensued, and all of the army's psions were dispatched by the brave soliders who stayed loyal to Bā Shàng. One retelling events, supposedly written by a psion who miraculously survived, tells a very different story. This account suggests that the king, afraid the psions would try to usurp him, ordered each soldier to kill their psionic partner. Regardless of what happened, the effects were the same. Every psion in the conquering army was killed, and the newly annexed land was divided among the king's 150 soldiers.

Isolation Period

A few Poyna clans had remained in the far mountains, but Bā Shàng did not view them as a threat now that their numbers had been sufficiently reduced. Even without its psions, the conquering army would still have been strong enough to subjugate them. The small number of surviving Poyna were forced to teach the bronze smiths of Shāndǎo the secrets of iron in return for their lives. Bā Shàng would order the construction of dozens of villages dedicated to forging iron, allowing him to amass a large stockpile of superior metal weaponry.

While Shāndǎo was entering an era of untold prosperity, Zheng was in decline. The Emperor had began to lose control over the various kingdoms of his empire, and rebellions were becoming more frequent. Bā Shàng took this opportunity to stop paying tribute to the Emperor. Obviously upset, the Emperor sent a small naval fleet to the island in an attempt to get Bā Shàng to pay. Iron had yet to become mainsteam in Zheng, however, and their invasion was halted with ease.

War for Independence

Religion