Shenzen

Shenzen, the largest landmass in the Counterwise Region, is known locally as "The Land of Three Kingdoms", though it has been a unified nation since late in the old Alliance era. Modern-day Shenzen is known for its exotic spices and well-preserved ancient ruins, its unique local culture, and the wondrous legends that still circulate about it' distant history.

Shenzen is part of the New Day Alliance but not the Trans-Draconic Federation. The Gudersnipe Foundation maintains a sizeable military presence in the region and owns some industry on Shenzen.

Modern Shenzen

Modern-day Shenzen is a constitutional parliament which retains an emperor as a powerless figurehead. One curious eccentricity of the state is the way the emperor is not even paid for his position, and is in fact a middle-class working man. While no one would ever argue that Shenzen's government works "well", it has a semi-command economy which lets it respond to market forces while also maintaining local wealth. Shenzen is unique on Aren in the New Day era for having its own currency strong enough to exchange for Gate Credits and Wingbeats.

Shenzen's chief industries are tourism and spice production. The island is food-self-sufficient and sometimes exports food as well.

Population

Because of its status as an island, Shenzen is also uncommon on Aren for having a unique ethnographic population. Comprised of two major haplo-groups, typical facial features include high but rounded cheekbones and slit-shaped eyes. Skincolors are generally darker tending towards more yellowish. Shenzen has a population in the New Day era of around 750,000,000; notably low for the land area.

Necromancer Population

Around ten percent of the population of Shenzen are necromancers, who while sharing many physical features in common with the locals, still comprise a unique haplogroup. Shenzen Necromancers are considered a unique tribe within the greater necromancer population, and have their own version of the sacred texts and lore.

The Consecrated Lands

Shenzen has several regions with a unique property: necromancy does not work in them. These are called The Consecrated Lands and range from several thousand acres to dozens of square miles. These regions were created during the early part of the Dynastic Period and remain functional to this day. No one knows how the paladins of the era were able to create such a long-lasting and far-reaching enchantment.

History

Ancient History

Shenzen contains many ruins that can be dated to Antiquity, but these are unique and do not match the style of other ruins known to belong to The Ancients. Some archeologists argue that these ruins in fact pre-date Antiquity. These ruins, however, are of a quality and intricacy too great to belong to any other culture. Ergo, conventional wisdom holds that some unique but connected portion of the Eladamri culture must have existed here.

The ancient legends of Shenzen are of much greater interest, with the land having a unique lore all its own. One curious aspect is the continued repetition of the concept that Shenzen is or is supposed to be a peninsula of the Greater Continent, and not an island. The presence of the especially deep Drunlake sea and the island of Iami between Shenzen and the mainland makes this impossible, but the stories are interesting.

Recorded History

Mage Wars

The recorded history of Shenzen begins around 3500 B.G.A when an invasion force from the mainland first landed and Shenzen culture--which until then simply hadn't been known about--was discovered. The invasion force lost badly, but introduced the concept of Tower Magic to Shenzen.

At this time, Shenzen was ruled by three waring kingdoms then divided by natural borders. Each kingdom made heavy use of these natural defenses and launched frequent but seldom successful campaigns to attack their neighbors. Tower magic changed all this, and for the next 1,100 years, war ravaged the country. Tall mountains, once the most important defensive measure, became beacons of destruction on the new normal.

Grey-Temple Necromancy played a heavy roll in the internal conflict. Every war had two phases: first the living, then the dead. By 2400 B.G.A., vast swaths of Shenzen had been rendered uninhabitable by roving hordes of self-sustained undead.

This is is when a new sort of invasion landed on Shenzen's shores: a religious one. While Shenzen had had several local religions, Cardinalism had thusfar not had much presence. Then came a force of paladins loyal to Four Kings of the Last Dynasty#Makbeth, who landed on Shenzen not to conquer, but to put an end to the undead menace.

Let by a paladin known only as Thome, his army included a thousand Paladins, four hundred warrior monks, seven hundred scribes and religous leaders, and fifteen thousand common soldiers. Another five thousand camp followers joined the army; which came to Shenzen from the mainland on 200 ships. For forty long years, Thome's army roamed Shenzen, spreading Southern Cardinalism and building churches. They purified the ruined lands and consecrated many safe-heavens that persist to this day.

But Cardinalism was not long for Shenzen, and by 2300 B.G.A. the rapidly-growing Marcon Alliance had done something no one else before them ever achieved: they conquered the whole of Shenzen. The Marcons performed their usual ablutions, laying claim to all ancient ruins and great works, building temples to their own perverted religion. As a vassal state, the spices local to the region began to be farmed in earnest, and this is seen as the beginning of the spice trade out of Shenzen(though some historians argue it had been going on for thousands of years before). Marconian Spices produced in Shenzen became sought after throughout the entire empire.

This is perhaps what allowed some semblance of Shenzen's own ancient culture to survive. While the Marcons typically imposed their own culture, the spice farmers relied heavily on ancient customs and practices in order to produce the sought-after products. As more and more of the land was given over to spice production, only the urbanites took up Marconian customs while the much larger rural population maintained a sort of separate culture.

When the Second Chaotic Period arrived, Shenzen, which then had almost no local food production, was plunged into a terrible famine which lasted almost thirty years. This killed off nearly the entire urban population and forever ended Marconian customs in the region. Only the more remote rural regions survived which, as the population rebounded, brought about a truly remarkable resurgence in the ancient customs and traditions.

By the end of the Mage Wars, the three kingdoms had returned, though the use of Tower Magic had become recorded as "ruinous and wicked". Only coastal cities retained mage towers for defense against invasion.

Alliance Era

In A.Y. 15, Eieber dispatched not an army but a diplomatic mission to Shenzen. He dispatched three such missions, in fact, one to each country, with the goal of ending the conflict and bringing all three countries into the Alliance. Each was invited in as equals, and while some resistance happened, the three kingdoms were soon faced with the worry that the other two would join the Alliance and then over run them.

The love of Shenzenies spices returned in the early Golden Age and the three kingdoms soon became prosperous. But the old grudges were not soon forgotten, and Shenzen soon became a tense space. With all three countries being a part of the Alliance, any actual ear would have been quickly stopped. But each side built up powerful armies, strong defenses, and the great island seemed constantly on the brink of war.