Çilvōk

Çilvōk(Vōkkan: Çilvōk, pronounced [sˈɪlvʊk]), officially the Republic of Çilvōk(Vōkkan: Karagtia Çilvōk), is a landlocked country in Northern Subtorria. It is bordered by Achysia and Tarinion to the west, Körythir to the south, Merturosya to the east, and Kolsia to the north. Its capital and largest city is Pižiyk, and other major cities include Kárnec, Agelsis, Hetamiasna, Gorzna, and Çirkemez. The country is known for its well-developed lower and higher education system, as well as its history as a center of liberal thought, being one of the first republics in its region.

Etymology
The name Çilvōk is a conjunction of the Vōkkan words Çil, meaning land, and Vōk, meaning people or person. The name first came into use during the 1767 Revolution, popularized by a set of prominent pro-revolution essays written by the preeminent authors at the time. The official denonym of Çilvōk, which is Çilvōn, was adopted by the 2nd Republic in its constitution, and has been in use ever since.

Pre-Nictorrian Tribes
Before the arrival of the Nictorrians, the lands now known as Çilvōk were inhabited by humans for thousands of years, in structures ranging from simple nomadic clans to tribal proto-kingdoms. The people inhabiting this area were blessed by the abundance of fertile soil, and, in later years, or iron. Coalescing around the resources which proved useful to them, these people would for the earliest civilizational structure of Çilvōk: the Tribe. These tribes, despite their lack of advancement, still leave a mark to this day in some forms of Çilvōn culture, with their customs being the foundation of it. Throughout the Iron age, these tribes would expand, founding some of the first real cities in Çilvōk, though they would now be recognized only as small towns. Several of these towns remain to this day, and they enjoy protected status as heritage sites.

Nictorrian Era
The arrival of the Nictorrians in the first century AT would herald the end of the Tribal era in Çilvōk, as the disorganized and relatively weak tribal kingdoms stood no chance against the armies of the Nictorrian Empire. Consequently, the west of Çilvōk was conquered quickly, with the remaining tribes retreating to the more advantageous ground of the east, founding the city of Kárnec in the year 42 AT. Kárnec would go on to become perhaps the most important city in Çilvōk until the 1627 Revolution, and even today it stands as a cultural center of the country. Relations with the Nictorrians were tense at this time, and on more than one occasion, the Nictorrians would attempt to subjugate the tribes around Kárnec, which had by that point unified into one kingdom-like structure for mutual defense. The most successful of these incursions happened around the year 90 AT, and it ended right at the gates of Kárnec with an promise of tribute on the part of the Çilvōn. This agreement ushered in an age of relative peace and prosperity for the Çilvōn, with the exception of the occasional frontier skirmishes with neighboring tribes. This era would come to a cataclysmic end in the late 290's, when the Vibian Plague reached Kárnec and the surrounding areas. The plague devastated the city, and according to ancient historians and archeological evidence, at least half of the city's population perished during this time. In a stroke of fortune, a company of Theodaric priests arrived to the city just as the plague was beginning to slow, and their arrival was taken by the people of Kárnec as the arrival of saviors to a city which had long ago been forsaken, causing a mass conversion to Theodarity in the months that followed. These turbulent times in the city would prompt a local warrior named Mirovas to rise through the ranks of the city's tribal society and declare the Kingdom of Kárnec in the year 311 AT, unifiying the city and the nearby lands under his rule.

Kingdom of Kárnec
By the time that Mirovas had declared the Kingdom of Kárnec, it was clear to most that the Nictorrian Empire was in decline. Mirovas had suspected for a long time that once Nictorria was unable to maintain it's frontier, the nomadic groups which had retreated east to escape the one-mighty Nictorrian armies would come back to lay waste to their former conquerors, and that the first to pay the price of that revenge would be frontier kingdoms like his. Because of these fears, the first years of Mirovas' reign were marked by large scale defensive projects in and round Kárnec, including the construction and renovation of the city's walls, and the raising of a proper standing army to defend the kingdom if need be. These measures would prove to be crucial when, just as Mirovas had suspected, the Nictorrians drew back from their forts on the river Zuil, and an army of barbarians invaded the Kingdom. The city of Kárnec held out against the invaders for long enough to receive reinforcements from the north, and through this valiant defense it would earn the name Tivirav, meaning Fortress. After surviving the invasion, Mirovas decided to raise another army and attempt to take the remaining land east of the Zuil in the year 320. This would prove to be a mistake, however, and the Nictorrians, who, despite their withdrawal from the area a half-decade prior, still regarded it as their territory, would beat Mirovas' army back to the gates of Kárnec, just as had happened in the year 90. Here, as in the year 90, the Nictorrians gave Mirovas an offer of peace, which he accepted with reluctance. This peace would bring some amount of stability to the rest of Mirovas' reign, and it would be the status quo until the end of the century, when the Nictorrian kingdom finally collapsed.

Remondes(Turbulence) Era
The turmoil of the the Nictorrian collapse would reflect onto the Kingdom of Kárnec as well, and it would cause a the Kingdom to eventually be diminished down to a city-state around Kárnec. This would only be made worse by the fact that, after the death of Mirovas in the year 363, the Kingdom lacked a ruler who could effectively unify it or suppress rebellions started by the nobles under him. For the next 300 or so years, a cyclical pattern of rule would emerge in the Kingdom, in which there would be some periods of stability followed by rebellion, invasion, or death of the king, ushering in even more instability as the cycle repeated. The residual instability and mistrust among the elites of the Kingdom eventually came to a head in the year 641, when, after barely surviving an invasion by a nomadic army, the Kingdom would collapse into a series of duchies and baronies, each controlling a certain part of Kárnec and it's surroundings.

Geography
Çilvōk spans 246,176 kilometers, and is intersected by several waterways, the most prominent of which being the River Zuil. The country is primarily split between west and east, with the west being flatter, and the east being more varied in topography. The only mountains in Çilvōk are located in the east, at foothills of the Urdennics.

Çilvōk is situated on the North Subtorrian Plain, a flat area which is temperate in climate, and spans from the Subtorrian Sea to the Urdennic Mountains. Historically, this has allowed for a high degree of development in the region, due to the flat landscape and arable land.

The climate of Çilvōk follows its Geography, being split between east and west. The west, which is part of the aforementioned North Subtorrian Plain, has a Mediterranean climate. The east is, just as it is in topography, more climatically varied than the west, but it has an oceanic climate, making it colder than the west.

Due to the temperate climates, almost all of the land in Çilvōk is arable