Tepat is the oldest continuous culture in the eastern continent
of Tiptum - long the source of new ideas for surrounding
countries, who eagerly copied as many aspects of its culture as
they could integrate to their own. Tepat considers itself the
safeguard of enlightened civilization for the benefit of mankind.
Indeed, it is from Tepat that writing spread to other countries,
and in Tepat that the "conciliar" state was created. As it has
grown and absorbed many people, it is its unique, consciously
created structures that gained salience over its inherited customs
in the country's self-image. Thus, like the USA or the USSR, Tepat
has become a country that sees itself as the embodiment of an
idea, rather than an accretion of traditions.
Tepat occupies most of the southern part of the northern half of Tiptum. Its western border is the Hlôk Sea and its southern the Nep Sea, its eastern border is at the mountains, and its northern frontier fades somewhat into the plains where nomadic horsemen live. The eastern dry uplands give way to more humid, subtropical land downhill. This area receives ample rain in the summer. The western half of Tepat is more Mediterranean, with rainy winters and dry summers, and a patch of desert on the southwest coast. In the center of the country is a transitional area that receives two yearly peaks of precipitation. Since this also largely encompasses the area where the Yot and Phitim rivers join, it is the most fertile, populous, and active part of the country by far. Tepat has also acquired colonies to the south, including the arid territories of Wasak and Pet, and the savannah of Nusam.
The seeds of Tepat sprouted in the eastern country of Notoq. In
legend, the earliest people were ruled by a race of demonic giants
who hid from mankind the mastery of fire. After the seminal leader
Simen discovered their secret, they were driven
off and replaced by benevolent sages called Phlat. At
first they led quasi-informally by virtue of their admiration by
the public. The last of the Phlat formalized his
leadership and passed it on to his children, creating the Nyow
Dynasty.
While Tepat is the most important nation in Tiptum, it is not the
oldest. Before Tepat the central Valley was occupied by the Milim.
Originally living in small villages, worshipping the stars, with
different cults dedicated to each of the planets, they developed
the first calendar, and the first symbols that would develop into
Tepatic script. The Milim king managed to subjugate the whole
valley and unify the planetary cults into one state religion. He
could also use the large population to fund his human-sacrifice
fueled sorcery. As the the Nyow expanded west and downhill into
the region of Tepat, carrying with them their greatest treasure -
the Allsoul, into which are absorbed the souls of the dead
ancestors of Tepat. They rallied other tribes to a successful
revolt over Milim rule. The vanquished priests surrendered the six
planetary stones to the Nyow, who enshrined them with the Allsoul
in seven temples. The land of Tepat was was rewarded as domains to
the Nyow's retainers and the tribal chiefs who had allied with
them. This feudal system was fragile and when it collapsed, so did
the Nyow dynasty, and the local lords struggled to establish their
own dynasties as supreme.
This is the period known as the Shattered Land
(Klow Met). In the more than 200 years of civil war that
followed, more than half of the noble families were wiped out -
absorbed by their neighbors, displaced by usurpers, or even
overthrown by their serfs. Nomadic raiders and the Red Death
appeared for the first time. The Planetary Stones and Allsoul were
lost or destroyed in the chaos. The members of the nobility known
as tliw, who monopolized the performance of rituals, found
their authority and teachings challenged.
The stage was set for the ascent of new kinds of authorities. The
lyup began as a kind of attendant to the noble rulers. As
the nation decayed, the fate of rulers came to depend crucially on
the quality of advice coming from their lyup, who received
the greatest portion of their lords' confidence, and the lyup
enhanced themselves not only by increasing their learning, but by
daring to voice new ideas. As the political cannibalism of the
aristocracy accelerated, more and more lyup found
themselves masterless and homeless, and took to the road to find
someone who would find use for their talents. New conditions
created demand for new ideas. Wandering lyup distinguished
themselves by creating distinctive styles of thought, and
transforming themselves into the first philosophers, scientists,
psychologists, economists, educators, military strategists, and
historians. The most famous and influential of these established
or hinted at almost all of the intellectual trends of Tepat's
future, and left their names on the tip of people's tongues over a
thousand years after their deaths.
By the end of the era, remaining states and cities were enmeshed
in a rivalry between the competing models of the states of Cûn
and Qom. Cûn had overthrown
their rulers and organized their city on a Greek-democratic-ish
model, allied with other cities in a Swiss-confederation thingy.
Qom had reorganized itself in a highly centralized, bureaucratic
way according to the plan of Moq. The Civil War finally ended with
the military victory of Lord Qathûq û-Qom, who
championed Moq and Cyam's doctrines. Peace came, but not freedom.
Qom's first goal was to eradicate everything that remained of the
aristocracy and might challenge him, so he banned noble titles,
created new provinces with new names and new borders cross-cutting
old feudal domains, redistributed all farmland, and implemented
sword-control. He then turned to ensuring the complete submission
of the whole population with strict control of all activity, and
his expensive forced-labor projects - building a new capital and
canal, for example - made people wonder if order was as much a
curse as a blessing. In the process, he also remade the writing
system, the measurement system, the calendar, and in essence
reordered the entire culture of Tepat overnight according to his
will.
His attitude, but not his effectiveness, continued over his
successor. The second Qom decided to just **** it and just burn a
bunch of books and kill everyone who could think for himself. But
he was toooo laaaate! With open revolt on the way, his scholarly
advisors took the unprecedented step of ousting their very own
leader. After subjecting the old Qom rulers to Soul Banishment
(its last official application), the Lyup invited scholars
from all over the country to convene to decide the fate of Tepat.
The result was the Covenant of the People offered to the
reborn nation. The newly powerful Lyup
left many of Qom's bureaucratic mechanisms in place, but set about
remaking recreating a new, and wiser, gentler government - one
according to their ideals, and one to serve as a model for the
world of the potential of humankind working together.
The Lyup created the lwik
(council) system as a kind of interface with the non-scholarly
population, to relay and enforce policy, and to represent popular
interests and opinions back to the Lyup. A segment of the
population, defined by a natural interest group such as residency
and occupation, chose from among itself individuals who would made
up its corresponding lwik. The members of that lwik
chose one of themselves as chairman, who also represented the
whole lwik to the national lwik. The Lwik
were also overlapping, such that a farmer in Hanam would belong to
both a farmer's lwik and a Hanam regional lwik.
Within the framework defined by the Lyup, particular lwik
were given great latitude to regulate themselves. For example, the
lwik of food growers and preparers collectively defined
standards of food quality, set prices, and instituted a sales tax
on produce which they collected for themselves and used to support
their own activities. Whenever the activities or regulations of
different lwik conflicted, the national lwik,
composed of scholars and the chairmen of other lwik,
arbitrated the disputes. New kinds of lwiks also emerged
representing ideological movements, or religious sects, or groups
of people such as mothers, making the associations ever more
complex. The lwik system incorporated functions associated
in the U.S. with such distinct organizations as political parties,
labor unions, trade associations, legislatures, and departments of
the executive branch. The entire system is known as the Conciliarity.
Over time the lwik increased in size and number, and
gaining a life of their own, drained power away from the Lyup
and into themselves. The result was a truly popular government, as
we would recognize it, with the Lyup now finding
themselves in an advisory position. A variety of stops, breaks,
interruptions, and other reforms occurred along the way, including
restricting emergency dictatorships, limiting the size and
privileges of the military, standardizing electoral procedures,
and restricting the power of individual representatives. The
importance of the lwik
system is such that as the state extended beyond the area of Tepat
itself and ethnically Tepat people that its official named became
the League of Councils.
Please visit the Yuktepat page.
| -864 |
Age of Tyrants and Heroes |
| -720 |
|
| -576 |
Nyow Dynasty |
| -432 |
|
| -288 |
Period of the Cloven Country |
| -144 |
|
| 0 |
Qom Dynasty |
| +144 |
Age of Scholars |
| +288 |
|
| +432 |
Age of Councils |
| +576 |
|
| +720 |
Invasion by the Swíra and flight to Wasak |