Kiurtrog

Kiurtrog, officially the Province of Kiurtrog (Lo'Oi: Silokoli io Kiurtrog), is a Lausán province currently controlled by the Imperial Archonate of Sylvania. The name can also be used to refer to the Isle of Kiurtrog, the Southeastern-most land in all of Eldham.

Historically, it was the homeland of the United Socialist States of Eldham; being where the nation was founded and where its first capital was located. During this time, it was organized as the State of Kiurtrog. It also is the traditional homeland of the Oxinto faith.

Following the Kunir War, Kiurtrog was temporarily ceased as Anglunian territory and an attempted ethnic cleansing was organized of the native Lo'Oix people around 72 TE. The USSE, after a short interim period, purchased and annexed Kiurtrog where it remained USSE territory for over a century. Following a secessionist crisis organized by Letheans in the city of Laria, the Republic of Laria was declared to be an independent state that functioned as an military dictatorship or oligarchy. At this time, the entire State of Kiurtrog was forcefully seized by the Larian state and all communist sympathizers were executed or placed in exile. Due to inactivity and paranoia regarding a possible return to socialism, the Republic of Laria ultimately collapsed in on itself and the entirety of Kiurtrog joined Sylvania as a Province.

Ancient History (Before -472 TE)
In ancient times, the first humanoids to ever inhabit the region of Kiurtrog were Homo erectus. Over the scale of thousands upon thousands of years, this ultimately developed into the ethnic group of people; the Lo'Oix. For this reason, they are technically not Homo sapiens sapiens, like most people on Eldham are.

The first Homo sapiens to even enter Serrona would not make contact until a few thousand years ago. The Lo'Oix developed rather uninterupted as hunter and gatherer societies before the development of agriculture. Its only been in the last millennium that states began to form in Serrona.

Two Kingdoms Period (-472 TE to -17 TE)
The Isle of Kiurtrog and the other islands of the Sea of Lélo'é was still filled with Archaic Lo'Oix societies by the turn of the -5th century TE. Things began to change as two rival families on the Isle of Kiurtrog began to have land ownership disputes and found themselves on opposite ends of Oxinto cults.In -472 TE, the Julakua clan of the South and the Ketág clan of the North began to threaten war towards one another and the various smaller and less privileged clans of the Isle of Kiurtrog began to side with one family or the other. This ultimately resulted in the foundation of two different kingdoms on opposite sides of the isle. The Julakua clan formed the Savoko Kingdom on the Southern end of the island which was dominated by mesas. To their North, the Ketág clan formed the Gakosir Kingdom in a region that was largely prairie and temperate forest. The two original families became the first royal dynasty of each corresponding kingdom.

The unique shape of both kingdom's flags would be an influence on future Kiurtrogoix flags. In particular the black and orange design on the Gakosir Kingdom's flag would be an iconic color palette representing Kiurtrog in the future; these flags being made with squid ink made by fishermen off the coast of Kiurtrog and with dye made from orange tulips found on the island's forests. The 'circle' symbolism seen on both flags is believed to represent the Sun. The Savoko Kingdom's use of green and white was made with cacti found in the mesa biomes and with bone dust from hunted animals, giving a symbolic meaning of 'deadly resistance'.

In -431 TE the Gakosir Kingdom conquered the island of Jawto'O and the Selum isles off the coast of Kiurtrog. In response to this, the Savoko Kingdom create a settlement named Téntasos on an island on the opposite side of the Sea of Lélo'é in -427 TE. The name 'Téntasos' eventually transformed into the modern name for the island, Téntalo.

In -382 the Savoko-controlled settlement of Téntasos was conquered by peasants on the island who declared the Tekyri Kingdom.

These two kingdoms lived alongside one another for a total of four and a half centuries with relatively little conflict, largely considering each other 'sister nations'.

Kingdom of Kiurtrogo (-17 TE to 40 TE)
In -17 TE, after over three centuries of relative territorial stability, the Gakosir Kingdom found itself in conflict with the locals of Jawto'O and the Savoko Kingdom found itself in conflict with Tekyri. With this, they decided to unite into the Kiutrogo Kingdom, which was led by two kings. While the Julakua dynasty had long ceased to exist by this point, the Ketág dynasty was still leading the Gakosir. The Sunka dynasty of Savoko and the Ketág dynasty of Gakosir both led the country. Because both considered themselves Kiurtrogoix and a member of the same Lo'Oix ethnic subgroup, this activism for a united kingdom was made much easier.

In the proceeding war against Tekyri, they found themselves victorious but chose not to conquer Téntalo; with war being largely ceremonious.

Sérotoix Kiurtrogo (40 TE to 61 TE)
For two decades, on the mainland of Lausá the fellow Lo'Oix Sérotat Kingdom was conquering its nearby states. Beginning is 37 TE, the Sérotat Kingdom and the Kiurtrogoix Kingdom went to a three-year old war with one another that was devastating and resulted in the complete subjugation of the Kingdom of Kiurtrogo.

For another two decades, Kiurtrog was territoriality owned by the Sérotat Kingdom as the Province of Kiurtrogo.

Foundation of the State of Kiurtrog (61 TE to 71 TE)
When the Sérotat Kingdom was overthrown by a revolutionary organization called the Ároxin, Kiurtrog found itself a base of many communist revolutionaries inspired by the texts authored by Burgameres. Eldham had freshly come into contact with Rathnir at this time, and the ideas of communism and socialism had first been introduced to Eldhamites.

It was the peasantry of the Sérotat who would be the first to agitate the idea of revolution. Over a scale of half a decade they fought a brutal revolution and upon the defeat of the Sérotat, the United Socialist State of Eldham was formed with Kiurtrog being the first state to be declared. Its city of Garkogorod was also the first capital of the USSE. The term 'Kiurtrog' at this point only referred to the Eastern islands of the Lélo'é Sea unlike today where it refers to all the Southern islands of the Lélo'é.

The State of Kiurtrog was founded by Xeroise Ronango'O who at the time was a minor government official. It was the first settlement in all of Serrona after the opening of the Eldham server to the general public.

This is also where the Oxinto religion was born and worship of a local Kiurtrogoix cow named 'Doug' first happened.

Anglunian Kiurtrog & the Débalo Dakoroto (71 TE to 75 TE)
Following the Kunir War which ended in 71 TE, the USSE saw itself loose the vast majority of its territory, including for the first time the lands of Kiurtrog. They were annexed by a user named Welpish for the nation of Anglunia. Over 40 people were displaced from cities like Garkogorod and Laria at this time. This catastrophe is known as the Débalo Dakoroto, meaning the 'Great Humiliation'. The city of Garkogorod in Kiurtrog was completely demolished by the People's Army to prevent it from falling into Vanakunirian or Anglunian hands.

Continuation of the State of Kiurtrog (95 TE to 197 TE)
The States of Kiurtrog and Croscograd were purchased by the USSE government in 95 TE following nearly two decades of occupation. The State of Kiurtrog was reformed at this time. Settlements on the Southern end of the island were encouraged.

The Western islands of the Lélo'é were also soon integrated into Kiurtrog at this time and the borders of Croscograd were pushed onto the mainland. This is how cities such as Laria became part of Kiurtrog despite not being on the physical Isle of Kiurtrog.

Laria was one of the wealthiest cities in the USSE and most attention was paid to it. Kiurtrog at this point developed other cities such as settlements on its southern edge and Fort Morskoy. Development was minimal on the Isle of Kiurtrog ever since the end of the Kunir War however as its original population entirely moved inland and few wished to continue development of the island. For over a century Kiurtrog remained a fundamental state of the USSE.

Larian Republic Period (197 TE to 221 TE)
Having immense strife with the USSE government following treason charges being given to Lethe of Laria and Bhutch Fielinya-Akataste, the city officials of Laria chose to make a secession from the USSE in an illegal manner. The USSE was unable to defend itself or its laws from the heavily militaristic Larian secessionists, and as such the Republic of Laria was declared an independent entity in 197 TE. Seeing as Laria was the capital of the State of Kiurtrog and was a part of the state, when deciding on territorial extent; the declared state chose to take the entire territory of Kiurtrog instead of simply the city of Laria.

Despite declaring itself a republic and making initial promises to form a Parliament and Constitution, any attempts to fiscally make this happen were shut down and as such the dwindling republic quickly fell into a dictatorship or oligarchy.

Noticing that development on Kiurtrog had been incredibly minimal, Larian communists decided to resettle the former settlement of Garkogorod. This was nearly immediately shut down by the Sylvanian government but communists decided to begin development anyways, to the extent of physically settling there and building schematics. This is where the Larian government began to quickly dwindle into anti-communist dictatorship, as they harshly shut down any attempts for communists to make a living within the Larian Republic and banned them from the nation. In lore, this repression is generally considered to have consisted of murder and mass exiles. Because the city of Laria and the entirety of Kiurtrog had been socialist for over a century at this point, a significant chunk of its population was communist both in real life and in lore. Any attempts to democratize the Republic of Laria were silenced in favor of anti-communism.

Effectively destroying the entire sector of their population who was interested in physically developing new lands and culture, in the months following the anti-communist dissolutions, the Republic of Laria quickly fell into inactivity. The only development to happen in the entirety of the Larian Republic was restrained purely to the city of Laria where the government remained. Almost all of this development was placed on Sorray of Laria because of the government's lack of activity. Despite the USSE entering isolation and attempting relatively friendly relations with the Larian Republic at multiple times, fears were still rampant that Laria could possibly fall back into socialism. To prevent this, the Larian Republic was dissolved and became the Province of Kiurtrog underneath Sylvania.

The supporters of Lethe of Laria called themselves Loyalists, in reference to being loyal to the then-deposed Lethe.

Treaty of Lélo'É Sunset ()
Following the death of Sorray, the Treaty of Lélo'É Sunset was signed: annexing the Republic of Laria into Sylvania as the Province of Kiurtrog. Little development occured after the annexation. The key to the city of Laria was given to Sylvanian government officials and Sylvanian was instituted as an official language and was preferred by the government over the native and more commonly spoken Lo'Oi.

Dread Fleet in Kiurtrog (227 TE to 245 TE)
The Isle of Kiurtrog was sold to pirates known as the Dread Fleet in 227 TE. The pirates had settled in Kraken's Point, a ruin once known as Garkogorod which served as the first capital of the USSE. The Dread Fleet would not stay in Kiutrtrog for long as they would return the land to Sylvania after 18 years.

Contemporary Sylvanian Kiurtrog (245 TE - Present)
Eventually, the Isle of Kiurtrog was returned to Sylvania as a part of the Province of Kiurtrog. Some minor development of the island has occurred since, though it largely still resembles its state during the State of Kiurtrog nearly a half century prior. No flag for the Province of Kiurtrog or other unique symbols have ever been adopted, all being retained from the Republic of Laria era. This is generally seen as a consequence of the inactivity that has plagued Kiurtrog since the Lethean revolts.

Language and linguistic traditions
The most commonly spoken language in Kiurtrog has always been Lo'Oi, particularly the Losa Lo'Oi dialect, also called Standard Lo'Oi. Following Kiurtrog's entry into the Sylvanian Archonate, Sylvanian became a de jure language used by the government. Signs across Kiurtrog, as far back as Eldham's first opening to the public, have been in Lo'Oi though.

This specific dialect of Lo'Oi, in its more archaic Old Lo'Oi form, is what was exported abroad to nations such as the Confederation of Garxijos. This dialect of Old Lo'Oi later formed into dialects like Vasa Lo'Oi, Ko"Oi, and Drikohigá.

Cuisine and culinary arts
Kiurtrogoix food is an incredibly popular cuisine found across Serrona. It is generally famous for its stews and rice-based dishes. Kixué Ixuk is a shrimp and crab based stew that is served over rice that is popular particularly during the Winter months. Other dishes such as Jauvádésa Puji are also popular; a type of spiced fluffy rice dish served with sweet plantains, smoked sausage, and crab.

Kiurtrog also has a rich history of alcohol brewery, being one of the very first places on the entirety of Eldham to have a brewing industry. The very early Kiurtrogoix economy largely consisted of alcohol exportation of vodka and green absinthe. Since then, a rich variety of brews have been produced in Kiurtrog.

Religious traditions
The most commonly practiced religion in Kiurtrog has always been Oxinto, also called Oxintoism.

It is perhaps most famous for the 'Doug' myth which has been adopted by various other religions and cults today. In the very early State of Kiurtrog, a cow bearing features of both sexes lived on the Isle of Kiurtrog in the city of Garkogorod. This cow was relied on by the entire population of Kiurtrog from Garkogorod, Fort Morskoy, Laria, to Staroslav, for curing symptoms of alcohol withdrawl and drunkenness. This cow was named Doug, sometimes known in Lo'Oi as Doxolas. After nearly the entire population of the early USSE had been greatly healed from drug addiction and alcoholism, the cow suddenly died and in its place an egg had been born. This egg was kept in secret chests by Oxinto cults and it was mythologized that in the day when the USSE needs it most, the egg will hatch and Doug will save the people of Lausá once more from whatever ailments afflict them.