The three great confederations of Langara control, between them, more than 75% of the planet's land mass, although some of that is rendered useless by the poisoning of the Andari Cursed Land. Only a few independent nations stand proud alongside these three superpowers, including a dozen or so small island nations, a scattering of city-states and a handful of larger states.
The primary independents are the island nation of Ister; the free state of Reeth on the Kelownan coast; the secessionist provinces, Valeria in the north-east of Andari territory and the Southern Provinces on the other end; the allied city-states of Atharis in the north of Terrania; and the tribal council of the forbidding and icy coast of Australis.
Ister is one of the 'true' independents, a nation that has never belonged to any of the great alliances. Located on an island in the middle of the Central Sea it has forever stood surrounded by tyrants, yet it has never been conquered. The island is protected by erratic seas and storms, rocky shores and heavy fogs. Indeed, for centuries following the great holocaust the island itself was quite unknown by the survivors on the mainland. It is poor in natural resources, with only its rich growing land to recommend it. As the Terranian military Historian Elite Victan Miranis put it, 'invading Ister has always proven to be a great deal of trouble for a paltry gain'.
However, Ister has a distinction unique among the nations of Langara. In isolation, the people display a limited number of phenotypes, which are quite different from those displayed by any others on the planet, although not dissimilar to the population of the Middle East and Subcontinent of Earth, with black hair, dark eyes and deep, brown skin. It is believed that the Isteri are the last surviving members of an indigenous human population, wiped out elsewhere on the planet with the coming of the Goa'uld but permitted to survive on one island alone as a sort of curiosity.
Modern Ister is a technologically emergent nation. It was rediscovered less than one hundred years ago and with its limited resources had previously enjoyed very limited industrial development. Since contact was restored, however, the Isteri have become voracious consumers of foreign technology and the ambassadors of the Court of San Liege have acquired a reputation as wily bargainers. The Isteri government is aristocratic, led by a High Prince, under whom a sprawling, Byzantine bureaucracy of Lord Mayors, Warlords, Law Lords, the Lords Spiritual of Ister's eccentric dualist church and Merchant Princes manage the affairs of the peasantry.
The chief export of Ister is administration, followed by information technology. With no resources but sand, the major industry was once glass making, then the manufacture of vacuum tubes. In the early days of the Stargate age, the Isteri have taking to making silicon chips.
San Liege is the capital and only large city of Ister. It houses the Principal Court and most of the major instruments of government, including the Ambassadorial College and the Grand Cathedral where the Archprelates of the twin gods Izar and Adar rule over the spiritual life of the Isteri. Beyond the capital there are only the commercial settlements that gather around the manors of the provincial lords. Those who rule over larger settlements are Lord Mayors, while those who rule rural lands are Warlords.
Reeth is a pleasant, tropical country in the south of the Kelownan continent, like Ister protected by nature as much as by military might. It is isolated from the rest of Kelowna by the shield of the Drumen mountains. Thee mountains continue out to sea as tall, submarine ridges and, coupled with a coral reef, make it difficult for any vessel with a deep draft to land on the Rethian coast. As a consequence of these geographical features, Reeth was never conquered by the Kelownan Empire. The mountains and the sea also keep the climate unusually cool considering that the province is just a few degrees north of the equator.
The original population of the region were the Drusari, who called it Drusus, but in or around 500AH there was a great diaspora as toxins from one of Thanos' long-lost projects poisoned the land for fifty years, putting an end to both occupation and any effort at conquest. The Drusari left and, when the land became good again, others moved in. Under the leadership of the self-styled visionary Lord Reeth, a sizeable group of Kelownan political exiles occupied the territory and held it against their erstwhile masters.
Since the Revolution of Lights, the Parliamentary Democracy of Kelowna has had greater success at conquering Reeth than its imperial predecessor, not through force of arms but by cultural hegemony. Floods of refugees seeking a new life in Reeth, Ister, or even the Andari or Terranian territories have poured into Reeth, bringing with them more of Kelowna than a dozen armies could carry. More recently, some traffic has flowed the other way, with Terranians, Andari and independents defecting by way of Reeth.
The modern Rethian population is therefore a hotch-potch of different races, cultures and languages; a cosmopolitan dosshouse full of the desperate and the despicable, with the dominant groups being the Kelownan-Rethian and the Kelownan mainstream. Under the shadow of the bomb, the Rethian government have at last capitulated in some degree to the Kelownan authorities and a Kelownan military presence now assists the local authorities and militia in keeping order and controlling the black marketers and smugglers who make Reeth their home. Visiting Terranian diplomats have likened Reeth to Casablanca.
The Rethian government is led by the hereditary Grand Prince, or currently Princess. Naturally, many Rethians maintain that the accession of a female head of state - Grand Princess Telina taking the throne in the absence of any male heirs of the Reeth family - is a direct cause of the degeneration of the Rethian state and the surrender of its sovereignty to the hated Kelownans. The seat of power is built around the ancient mountain stronghold of the Reeth family, imaginatively named 'Reeth' as well.
Valeria was one of the original sixty-nine provinces of the Andari Federation. Before joining the expanding League, the Valerians had been a sedentary, moderately prosperous maritime trading nation and it was for almost a thousand years the leading sea power of the League and the Federation. It lost some of its importance with the strengthening of the southern fleets, in part due to the influence of Valerian expertise and technology, but regained prestige when trilateral cold war gripped the planet, as the principle bulwark against aggression from Kelowna.
Three hundred years ago, the people of Valeria - always a proud and independent-minded people - decided that they were tired of suffering the greatest part of the casualties and collateral damage in any engagement between their own state and that across the water. In 10,077AH, the Valerian State Senate issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence, closed their borders and their airspace and expelled all non-Valerian forces. Valerian military units within the border seized control of Federal bases and those posted abroad were recalled with remarkable efficiency; those few who were captured were exchanged for senior officers and diplomats seized in Valeria.
An attempt by the Andari to force the province to return to the Federation failed when Kelownan troops skirted the edges of Valerian territorial waters to launch a sneak attack on the flanks of the Andari expeditionary force. A protracted resurgence of hostilities with the Kelownans, followed by a series of Terranian incursions bought Valeria the time they needed to fortify their landward border and it was easier for the Andari Federal Senate to accept the right of the province to secede, unwittingly opening the way for the Southern Provinces to follow suit.
Valeria is still ruled by the State Senate from the capital city Valeris, which functions in much the same way as an Andari state senate, except that there is no superior Federal authority. An elected Magisterium on the Andari model acts as a check on government power, consisting of a tribunal of three Consuls, two Praetors, a Censor and a Judicial College. The Valerian military, the Bellus Praetorium, was formed from their internal security forces and still uses a praetorian rank structure. One of the magisterial praetors is the Bellus Praetor, supreme military commander.
The southern states of the Andari Federation were known for many centuries as the Federal Stores. The south contains the bulk of the Federation's growing land and has always provided the bulk of its agricultural produce. That was perhaps why the southern states felt as though they were owed a greater degree of autonomy than others, and why they came to feel that they should be relieved of a level of their tax burden in return for providing food for the rest of the Federation.
Three of the states - Centria, Ordrea and Mantua - went even further. In 10,094AH, seventeen years after the successful secession of Valeria, these three declared their own independence. After the chaos of the Valerian secession, the Federal Senate opted to negotiate a bilateral declaration so as to maintain favourable trade terms. The three states became the Southern Provinces, a single entity governed from the Centrian capital, Centris. The old Ordrean capital, Ordris, was fortified to act as a check on any Andarian attempt to retake the Provinces. It became known as Borderward and remains the heart of Southern Provincial military command.
Since gaining their independence, the Southern Provinces have experienced mixed fortunes. Although no longer directly involved in the cold war, they remained allied to the Federation while at the same time becoming a tempting target for the Terranians. Following two unsuccessful attempts to invade - thwarted with aid from the Federation and by the presence on the edge of the conflict of the unpredictable Atharian and Marani forces.
The Southern Provinces decided not to continue using the Valerian system of government. Instead, they opted for an elected Council of sixteen. A new member of the Council is elected every five months, so that the entire Council is replaced, one by one, over a period of eight years, with the senior Councillor acting as chairperson for the five months before they stand down. The Council is both the executive and legislative branch of the government, assisted by a complex bureaucracy of civil servants and watched over by a form of stripped-down Praetorium who form the judicial and enforcement group.
One of the few mainland territories never to fall into the control of any of the great powers, Atharis sits on the equator and on the continental shelf. It is geologically active, with many geysers, hot springs and occasional quakes and volcanism around the sulphurous gorge known as the Cleft of Athar. The upper reaches of the Cleft are a crucible of extraordinary chemical phenomena and have for years been used by Atharian alchemists to develop the eccentric weapons technology that has kept the nation free.
The Athari are an insular, xenophobic people. Until a thousand years ago they were merely a loose association of tribes, but they were united under the warlord and alchemist Athar to resist the first incursions by the forces of the Teranen Dui. Athar and his tribe, the Gentry (pronounced with a hard 'g'), successfully defended their hill fort of Gentrica from the legions and later drove the Terranians out when the bulk of their forces were withdraw to fight the Kelownan Empire. Athar then masterminded the unification of the tribal forces, the fortification of the border with Terrania and the digging of the Gentrica Canal to protect the northern border.
Athar also created three institutions that survive to this day: The Alchemical Order, the Knights of the Burning Rock and the Basalt Throne. The Order exists to pool alchemical knowledge in the defence of Atharis, while the Knights are an élite body of warriors - actually a full combined-arms fighting force in the modern day - who defend its borders. The Throne, meanwhile, began as Athar's seat of autocratic rule at Gentrica, before developing into a more modern and complex - although still autocratic - system of government. The Warlord of Atharis - who is selected by a contest of strength and skill on the death of his predecessor - rules with the aid of the Military Tribunal, the Circle of Master Alchemists and a Council of tribal chiefs.
The modern Athari continued to refuse diplomatic contact with everyone except their neighbours in the Southern Provinces for many centuries, although they have begun to exchange embassies with the Joint Ruling Council. The rest of Langara typically regards the Athari as barbarians and they have made no effort to change any minds on that front.
The Maran Archipelago was, technically, a part of the Terranian Tetrarchy until less than a year ago, but this domination was never given more than lip service. The Marani are a stubborn bunch and the Archipelago has little to recommend it to a world power. Even under Terranian rule it was never more than a tourist trap.
The Archipelago is a mixture of coral reefs and volcanic islets, none very big, and the tourist town of Maran is the only settlement of any size. The people live in scattered fishing villages and trade pearls and coral with the Andari, Terranians, Southern Provincials and even the Athari.
Disputed area in southern Kelowna, formerly governed by Terrania.
Antarctic continent. The northern coast is populated by a loose confederation of tribes.