SILESEA IS D O N E!


[hider=Silesia]Silesia is the he southernmost nation. Ruled not by kings, but by a confederation of representatives from each of its major tribes. A strong mercantile power, blessed with mineral deposits of gold and salt as well as most of the few rivers and lakes in the Cradle. Known for its archers and light troops, Silesia has adopted the military tradition of arming two bowmen for every spear. Mennonite grain is ground into flour via watermill and sold for profit.

Silesia dress is telling of their environment, with their area in the cradle having hotter summers than the others, head wraps and flowing loose fit clothing has remained fashionable throughout its existence. Bright colors are common, with cooler colors being favored. A rich Silesian can be picked out from a crowd, as they will no doubt be dressed in bleached linen robes, blue sashes and headwraps, while also being complimented with plentiful golden jewelry, crafted with the geometric art style of the Sileseans.

Silesian government is upset with you and your decisions, get a job. Silesian government is of course, a confederacy of tribes working on cohesion. Each tribe is represented by the tribal leader, which could be a petty king, an elder, or an elected official. Every tribe has the right to its own form of government so long as they are loyal to the confederacy as a whole.

Disagreements among tribes do rise, and are often solved by the confederacy but there are occasions where tribes attempt to cut off from the confederacy, or cause brief civil wars. These conflicts are often resolved through trade embargoes or swift and brutal retaliation by allied tribes to ensure a quick conflict rather than a long war. The threat of brutal punishment acts as a strong deterrent, keeping would be upstarts in their place. One of the most famous examples was Jurrod the Bloodied, a young man who murdered his father to take control of one of the larger tribes of Silesea, but upon disregarding the confederacy and attempting to set himself up as the sovereign of Silesea, the confederacy broke down his walls, stormed his towns, and slaughtered the first born of every family and all who got in their way. Jurrod himself was sacked by his own people after the atrocities, and his body was offered to the confederacy in hopes for forgiveness.

While Silesian politics could be considered brutal, their day to day life is among the most comfortable in the cradle, with the vast mercantilism of the limestone built Silesian cities offering the best of resources to anyone who could afford them. The wealthy rarely labour, and even the poor have decent living quarters and available food in comparison to the poor of other nations, however this overabundance often brings in more people than the towns can handle, and while the native born lower class can still experience the care of Silesian mercantilism, foreigners are often stuck living in shack towns outside the settlements. 

Silesian food is considered the most colorful and flavorful in the cradle, with Roshadite coming in at a hot (very hot) second. Silesians use many spices and natural sweeteners on their foods, giving their palate very savory dinners, and very rich desserts, often consisting of chocolates and cinnamon baked into fluffy cakes. The most popular dessert happens to be what the Silesians call “Jil’shuk” which is old tongue for lucky plums. A lucky plum is a dried plum baked into a chocolate bread and then rolled in sugar and cinnamon, often wrapped in a thin cloth until ready to be consumed. 

Silesians worship a single god, and unlike Kothar, their monotheistic representation of God does not have a anthropomorphic design or motivation. The Silesian God, Ill’llii, is often depicted as an arrangement of geometrical shapes that are considered “infinite” to represent the omnipotent nature of Ill’llii. 

Ill’llii is the creator of all, and of course is all knowing, having decided the course of history at the very beginning of time. In Silesian myth and religion, life and existence is purely those of the mortal realms chance at creating themselves to the point of being ready to experience the greater realm after this life ends. Being ready means to fulfill and embody the virtues of Ill’llii-ism: generosity, humility, compassion, wisdom, honesty and faith. Those who fall short at the end of their lives and give into the vice’s of pride, dishonesty, greed, foolishness and wrath are doomed to repeat life, born into increasingly difficult situations as per the depths of their fallacy until they finally redeem themselves.

Of course the Silesians are not without guidance, and often convene in great assemblies called Op’kil where the priest of Ill’llii leads the assembly through the various teachings of Ill’llii that were given to the mortals through a myriad of prophets and wisemen over the ages.[/hider]