Terophan
Great and Universal Terophatic Empire ⰂⰅⰎⰉⰍⰑⰋⰅ Ⰹ ⰂⰟⰔⰅⰎⰉⰅⰐⰠⰔⰍⰑⰋⰅ ⰕⰉⰓⰗⰀⰜⰅⰂⰠⰔⰍⰑⰋⰅ ⰂⰎⰀⰄⰟⰉⰝⰠⰔⰕⰂⰑ Velikoje i Vŭselienĭskoje Tirfacevĭskoje Vladyčĭstvo | |
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 Flag
 Imperial seal
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| Motto: ⱁⱅⱏ ⱃⱘⰽⱏⰹ ⰿⱁⰋⰵⱈⱁ ⱂⱃⱁⱄⰲⱐⱅⱁⱈⱏ ⱄⱔ ⰿⰹⱃⰠⱄⰽⰟ ⰿⰹⱃⱏ (Tr.: Otŭ rǫky mojego prosvĭtoxŭ sę mirĭskŭ mirŭ) "From my hand shone universal peace" | |
 Territories of the Terophatic Empire (marshalates in pink) | |
| Capital and largest city | Axopol |
| Official languages | High Secote, Rashimic |
| Recognised regional languages | Adur |
| Religion | Vaestism |
• Banner | Terophatic |
| Demonym | Terophite |
| Government | Rescapitan monarchy |
• Emperor | Vsevolod II |
| Establishment | |
• Establishment of the Tirfatsevid Empire | 1292 |
| 25 Dominy 1701 | |
| Area | |
• Total | 0 km2 (0 sq mi) |
• Metropolitan Terophan | 464,603 km2 (179,384 sq mi) |
| Population | |
• 2018 estimate | 167,359,590(1) |
• Density | 298.8/km2 (773.9/sq mi)(2) |
| Currency | Terophatic vlod |
| Time zone | Vaestic Day |
(1) Ordinarily resident population of the core Terophatic Empire excluding overseas estates and marshalates (2) Metropolitan Terophan only | |
Terophan ([ˈtɛrəˌfæ:n]; High Secote: ⰕⰉⰓⰗⰀⰜⰍⰑ[?], Tirfacko; Rashimic: ⰕⰓⰊⰗⰋⰉⰅⰏ, Trĭfyiem), formally the Great and Universal Terophatic Empire (High Secote: ⰂⰅⰎⰉⰍⰑⰋⰅ Ⰹ ⰂⰟⰔⰅⰎⰉⰅⰐⰠⰔⰍⰑⰋⰅ ⰕⰉⰓⰗⰀⰜⰅⰂⰠⰔⰍⰑⰋⰅ ⰂⰎⰀⰄⰟⰉⰝⰠⰔⰕⰂⰑ, Velikoje i Vŭselienĭskoje Tirfacevĭskoje Vladyčĭstvo; Rashimic: ⰁⰎⰠⰄⰍⰑⰖⰕ ⰃⰠⰄⰎⰦ ⰖⰂⰔⰅⰎⰅⰐⰔⰍⰦ ⰞⰕⰓⰊФⰋⰉⰅⰏ, Blědkout gědlā u-vselenskā š-Trĭfyiem), is a state located in south-eastern Joriscia. Clockwise from north to south, it is bordered by the Azophine marshalates of Trans-Tormetia and Seter, by the Banner-State of Lacre, and by its own marshalates of Kethpor, Lefdim, and Dekoral. Proclaimed in 1701 with the Great Imperial Restoration amidst the fall of Great Neritsia, Terophan claims to be the resurrection of the Tirfatsevid Empire and the Banner of the Greater West, and has contended at various times to re-establish the universal throne of Vaestdom. Since the 1920s, Terophan has been ruled by a dynamic and authoritarian imperial regime under the absolute rule of the Terophatic Emperor. Led by a Vaestic technocracy primarily following the principles of reformed Strong Externalism, Terophatic society is closely regulated by the Empire's Scholarchate and estates, though the practice of government has allowed for considerable autonomy at the local level.
Geography
The metropole of the Terophatic empire is a state covering some 385,000 square kilometres in Outer Joriscia, largely centred on the historic region of Axiov. To the west it faces the Gulf of Khabbat (also known as the Isartian Sea), and to the south the Sunnar Ocean. In the northeast, the empire encompasses the greater part of the Varudine mountains, extending across the south of the range into the Lacrean lowland. To the southeast, the border with Dekoral is delimited by the line drawn by the Ouvghim, the southern tip of the Varudines, and the upper Sigril. Three great rivers of the empire—the Erekh, the Nvoun and the Dghesah—flow into the Gulf of Khabbat. The Erekh, originating in the northern Varudines, flows towards the Terophatic coast, before turning northwest and joining with the Nregour, which then delineates most of the short north-western border with Azophin. The Nvoun and the Dghesah originate in the west Varudine foothills; the capital of Axopol lies in the heartland between them on the western coast. The Nvoun, which splits in its upper reaches into the West and East Nvoun, is the larger of the two.
These rivers water the fertile tropical lowland of Terophan, home originally to an ancient jungle that was supplanted by the development of civilization. The Varudine foothills in the country's centre play host to expansive rice cultivation, while the mineral-rich mountains themselves are rockier and less densely populated, though the range's outer slopes are forested and home to a wide range of wildlife. The Ruby Pass in the southeastern Varudines, which opens onto the upper Sigril, forms a bottleneck in the east, and holds together Terophan's possessions in Greater Adrim and High Lacre further east—though for strategic importance it now competes with the bare stretch of the Dekoralese border between the Ouvghim and the southern mountains.
Climate
Overall, the climate of Terophan may be described in common with southeast Joriscia as warm, coastal, and tropical, well-suited to sedentary habitation. The exact climatic régime of Terophan is a proper 'wet and dry' monsoon climate, as the region is affected by the half-yearly oscillation of the Sunnar Monsoons. In common with much of western Outer Joriscia, during the winter the north-to-north-easterly winds driven by the Joriscian Anticyclone blow moisture away from the Isartian coast, creating a dry season, and during the summer moisture-laden south-westerly winds blow into the country, bringing heavy precipitation owing to the orographic lift of the Varudines and Areefs.
History
Mardoans and Axiovy (c. 1400–410 BCE)
Chotar (c. 410 BCE – 1052 CE)
Secote rule and post-Chotarian states (1052–1333 CE)
Tirfatsevid Empire (1333–1495 CE)
Southern Neritsia (1495–1701 CE)
Restoration Terophan (1701–1785 CE)
Radiance Terophan (1785–1911 CE)
Second Restoration and Long War (1911–1959 CE)
Ascendancy and contemporary history (1959 CE – present)
Economy
The Terophatic economy is structured on estatist lines, with legal corporations territorially invested with usufruct rights and known as estates dominating economic activity. These are notionally extensions of the imperial state, and typically share leaders with relevant local district mokyklos, but as with other Vaestic Powers the estates' functional autonomy bears comparison to the formal private sector familiar from the Messenian political economy. Estates exert relatively tight control over the lives of their employees and 'slaves' or rabtat, imposing regulations upon them within the limits allowed by imperial law and frequently providing them various services on a holistic basis from cradle to grave. The estates' tasks are facilitated by a significant, though closely regulated, financial sector of Hand Banks and lesser melmenes, which is represented at the Prysostaic Consortium of Measures. Though considered a single market in interordinate accounting, the Terophatic Banner as a whole is not fully integrated, and certain tariff and regulatory barriers exist not just between the Banner-State and its marshalates, but even within the Banner-State itself, especially between the metropole and Terophatic Serania. Many of these were, however, dismantled under the 'Floodgates of Industry' policy beginning in 1984. The Terophatic vlod is legal tender throughout the Banner, but local currencies are also in use in the marshalates, and Terophatic Serania operates independent currency reserves and maintains a largely autonomous right to issue vlods of its own accord.
The economy of the Terophatic Banner-State is highly advanced. A strong service economy is coupled with manufacturing in technically sophisticated sectors such as cars, medical equipment, and semiconductors, drawing on the enormous resources made available to the estates of the Empire around the world. The typical vertical integration of estates often involves them in many different sectors at once. Some degree of economic transformation in metropolitan Terophan has been triggered by a broad internal economic rebalancing within the Empire since the 1980s, by which the Court intended to open new prospects for the development of the Banner and bind its various political components more closely together. Since 1984, in particular, the 'Floodgates of Industry' saw much of Terophan's traditional industry moved to its marshalates and Seranian territories.
Though succeeding in its immediate goal of raising economic growth and cultivating stable pro-Terophatic interest groups among the Banner's subjects, the 'Floodgates' policy resulted in significant economic disruption in the metropole and a wave of labour migration, particularly from the Varudine inland, to other parts of the Empire, a process that continued into the 2000s. In common with other Vaestic states, Terophan imposes significant legal limits on internal migration, and this has meant that these migrants often remain formally unrecognised in their new residences and lack access to public services. In comparison to the rabtat, now a relatively privileged sector of the working class with numerous legal rights and protections, these migrant workers have greatly diminished access to social welfare. Scholarly socialists have pushed for the regularisation of the status of internal migrants, as well as the provision of facilities to retrain workers for the benefit of developing sectors, but progress in these respects has been halting.
Government and politics
Imperial Court
The government of Terophan is founded on the rescapitan rule of the Terophatic Emperor, whose name is appended to every administrative decision. The Emperor is the font of law, and beyond his nominal First Prostration before the Prophetic Banner his personal power is legally unlimited. Government decisions are promulgated through the central Terophatic gazette, Velyal Yest, which in principle ascribes all of them to the personal command of the Emperor as Imperial Edicts or Edicts to publish Utterances, though in practice this is often merely symbolic. The Emperor is elected through a tightly choreographed form of the standard Vaestic device of Debates among the realm's principal Scholars. In contrast to some other modern Vaestic Banners, the Terophatic Debates do not exercise any authority, even notionally, beyond their election of the Emperor.
The Emperor is advised on a day-to-day basis by his expansive Court. The highest Court officials are the Warden-Protologue of the Fisc, effectively the realm's finance minister; the Supreme Archivist, who oversees the Empire's centrally-directed mass media; the Supreme Maintenant, responsible for public works and welfare programmes; the Marshal-General of the Court, the military's civilian second-in-command; and the Council of Eight Chancellors, a variable privy council that implements other fields of government policy. Each of the Chancellors of the last body commands an autonomous Chancellery, and their precise division of responsibilities will change depending on imperial regulation. The sprawling Court forms the central arena of Terophatic politics, with its officials engaged in a continual and famously underhanded competition for power and prestige. Appointments to and within the Court are made by imperial fiat, but this often resolves to the advice of one or another of the Emperor's Chancellors or other advisers.
Shakleem
Outside the Court as such, responsible only to the Emperor, is the Private Imperial Chancellery, commonly known as the Shakleem or 'Dark Ones' owing to their remarkably opaque operations. The Shakleem serve as both facilitators among the agencies of the Court and a secret police outside of it, ensuring that the Court's agencies function effectively, potential opposition within the Scholarchate is suppressed, and the Emperor's will is respected when it is made known. The leaders of the Shakleem are the five Scholars who make up the Chancellery's Permanent Tribunal: these are empowered to pass immediate character judgements without recourse or appeal on matters of urgency. The role of the Shakleem as a police force unrestrained by law has often been exaggerated outside of Terophan, however—in reality, their investigative responsibilities are generally limited to the most sensitive matters of state, and in normal times it is a rare thing for any Terophite outside the higher reaches of the Scholarchate to ever encounter them. Nonetheless, the supposed omniscience of the Shakleem is an object of popular humour even within Terophan, and when they do mobilise in defence of the state—as in the Bes Sakoov incident of 1970–71—they are typically highly effective.
Nobility
Since the reforms of Vsevolod the Great, the nobility within the Terophatic Banner-State are understood to derive their status from the continual consent of the Emperor, as was always nominally the case of the institution of imperial usufruct. Nobility is not, therefore, an intrinsically hereditary status. Most of Terophan's titled aristocracy is therefore a continually shifting merit nobility, and while there continue to be a considerable number of old High Nobility who transmit their titles in a hereditary fashion de facto, such honours have tended to become meaningless since the Second Restoration. The granting of noble title is often a perquisite of entry into the central administration, and the Emperor at the same time reserves the right to revoke a title at any time. A variety of noble titles exist in Terophan, each commanding different levels of prestige. Notably, Vsevolod's reform of the nobility entailed the integration of the serim into the Secote ranking of dignities, and the title 'sar' itself has been appropriated as a rank of honour at the disposal of the state, distinct from the original social class to which it referred. In order of precedence from highest to lowest, the principal noble titles today, with their corresponding High Secote form, are thus:
- Ban — ⰁⰀⰐⰟ, banŭ
- Voivode (also Voyvod) — ⰂⰑⰋⰅⰂⰑⰄⰀ, vojevoda
- Knaze — ⰍⰟⰐⰤⰇⰠ, kŭnędzĭ
- Sar — ⰔⰀⰓⰟ, sarŭ
- Zhupan — ⰆⰖⰒⰀⰐⰟ, županŭ
Local governments
Beyond the closed world of the Court, the local administration of Terophan is relatively efficient and clearly organised, embodied mainly in the hierarchy of the Vaestic Scholarchate. Scholars themselves naturally play the main role, and the Vocation Scholar of the local district mokykla is always the recognised leader of the local administration at the lowest level. Lower Scholars are themselves responsible to various higher authorities such as Protologues and Elector Scholars at the higher Schools. Most Scholars are advised by panels of Acolytes and by other local notables who are empowered for the purpose with imperial privileges. Certain of the larger cities, however, have acquired their own separate administrations, such as the Scholar Council in Nardash and the various Monition Boards first established by Spytihnev the Arbitrator. Local Scholars and their advisors often interlock with the leadership of local estates, ensuring that these territorial corporations are centrally overseen and that the estates' views, on the other hand, are adequately represented to the government. At the highest level the Schools are arranged into Hierarchies, functioning in effect as provinces of the Empire, with each of them commanded by a Protologue who is often, though not always, an Elector Scholar.
In the far-flung Seranian territories of the Banner-State the Viceroy of Serania deputises for the Emperor and maintains an independent parallel Court at Besbelid, with its own second-rank Grand Archivist, Maintenant, and Marshal. The subservience of the Seranian Court is ensured by the presence on the continent of Shakleem chapters and the gendarmery known as the Holy Thousands, which is also ultimately responsible to the Emperor. A special administration formed by a military order titled the Champions of the Cayvore governs the island of Sharis off Terophan's western coast, and relatively autonomous Hierarchies have been constituted in the Empire's more distant maritime holdings.
Politics
Since the time of Ascendancy, Terophan has been a centre of reformed Strong Externalism, practising an elitist and technocratic politics derived from the view that quantitative methods and empirical science are the most important form of Vaestic Knowledge. This has not met universal approval within the Terophatic Scholarchate, and the country was also the birthplace of the more sceptical and collectivist Post-Radiance current of Yerethonism, as well as one of the centres of the Sage Precepts movement beginning in the 1970s. Though the rarefied debate of political questions is ordinarily confined to the Scholarchate, a large part of Terophite society may be considered politically active, and demonstrations led by Scholars in favour of particular policies are not infrequent. These have been especially promoted by the Scholars of the Sage Precepts, who have met considerable popular support in their demands for a retrenchment of the highly centralised imperial state and a greater focus on ensuring the ethical probity of the government and its subjects.
Criticism of imperial policy is relatively common, usually articulated in terms of its adherence, or lack of it, to the path of doctrine established by the Sacred Prophecy, and this is tolerated so long as it does not rise to the level of concerted obstruction or the promotion of disobedience (though the limits of acceptable critique are often hard to distinguish). When imperial anger is aroused against opposition within the Vaestic hierarchy this is almost always directed at specific troublesome individuals, with the Contrafactional Board directing the suppression of unauthorised political associations. Since the death of Vsevolod the Great there have been no attempts to conduct ideological purges of the Scholarchate, and, conscious of the possibility of creating martyrs, the Court rarely metes out overly spectacular punishments: typically, the objects of its disapproval, who are usually either Scholars or ranking Acolytes, will simply find their public appearances and ability to publish curtailed, and they might be reassigned to less public roles, or meet early, yet comfortable, retirements.
The spread of more radical forms of popular dissent such as Hejrozinism has to all appearances remained quite limited in the Banner-State, despite Hejrozor's own background in Axopol, which provoked a pall of ill-directed official suspicion in the years following his flight in 1986 and has been a source of embarrassment for Terophan in recent years. The lack of interest in Hejrozinism in Terophan itself can perhaps be explained as the result of a combination of the state's close surveillance of the metropole and its relatively generous welfare policies.
In general, there is a high degree of flexibility in the application of government policy at the local level, depending on Scholarly discretion, provided that this does not explicitly conflict with centrally determined objectives. This has allowed the formation of various forms of local associations that exist outside the Scholarchate, notably the Investigative Societies that serve as interest groups particularly among the middle classes and are loosely federated together at the Banner level—since these are formed with explicit Scholarly approval, they fall short of the well-worn Vaestic ban on faction. The organisation of workers and rabtat is rather less well-tolerated, but has been allowed to exist in a more or less non-institutional form. The dominant Strong Externalist technocracy has also been tempered since the 1980s by the increasing influence upon the Court of Post-Radiance concerns to diminish social conflict by various forms of surveillance, training, and education other than the Acolytic rank, and through the implementation of extensive welfare programmes, so that the Supreme Maintenant is now also advised on these topics by a committee of socialists drawn from relevant Modality Combines.
Foreign policy and security
Interordinate relations
Terophan is considered a Great Power. Though no longer occupying the commanding position it once did under the Terophatic Ascendancy of the 1960s and 70s, the Terophatic Banner remains the largest single market in Vaestdom, and its Emperor is by his office a member of the Panarchate, the four leaders who comprise the nominal government of all Vesnites. Terophan's great rival has been Azophin since the enormously destructive conflicts between the two countries in the Long War, most recently expressed in the 2010 Mentusian War between the two Powers, but there have been notable instances of collaboration between them, reaching a climax at the 1983 Congress of Molot that established many features of the contemporary Vaestic political order. Since the Long War its major Vaestic partner has usually been Zemay, though Molot was also an important exception to this trend. Relations with Lacre and Agamar are more ambiguous, oscillating between collaboration on specific issues and hostility over Terophan's claims to primacy and the other two Powers' interventions within the Terophatic Banner.
Terophan is one of the major colonial Powers in Serania, dominating southern Serania Minor and commanding the Coactian Sea through a string of territories known as the 'Golden Hand'. Through its estates and other institutions, Terophan maintains interests across almost the whole world. Terophan controls the Straits of Korath alongside Azophin, its various zones of interest dot the Lestrian Neutral Zone, its affiliated servient estates sprawl over the Ascesian Banner and the Tondaku, and other Terophatic concerns exist in such diverse places as Adorac and New Issenov. The Empire has nurtured cross-continental ties in Messenia on grounds of political necessity, and has developed a working relationship with Siurskeyti in order to counterbalance the influence of other Messenian states both in the steppe and in colonies abroad.
Marshalates
Within Outer Joriscia, the Terophatic Banner includes the marshalates of Kethpor, Anabbah, Lefdim, and Dekoral. While the self-government of the city-state of Kethpor is largely nominal, the other three are great and autonomous countries with particular cultures and proud histories of their own. In many respects this makes the Terophatic Banner the loosest of the major Vaestic Banners, the marshalates of which have often been artificially established over substantially smaller zones of historic conflict rather than being long-established states or cultural regions with distinct identities. Further afield, Terophan maintains the marshalates of Napsul off the coast of Serania Minor—a fragment of Lacre's former Sixth Chotarian Empire that defected voluntarily to Terophan at the end of the Long War—and Mentusia within Domradovid Joriscia, which is only partially recognised and has been partly occupied by Azophin since the Mentusian War.
Since 1959 the Court has continually striven to bind its vassals closer through various economic and political initiatives, notably under the 'Floodgates of Industry' policy of the 1980s, but this has not prevented the Marshals' courts in Dekoral and Lefdim in particular from seeking closer ties to other Powers. In Dekoral this is partly from a desire to reintegrate the region with the Agamari marshalate of Meshrati, which was severed from Dekoral at Kethpor in 1959; Lefdim, a late acquisition under the 1969 Union of Aleon, has put up a more diffuse resistance, seeking whatever ties with the other Vaestic Powers are available to counterbalance Terophan's continuingly unpopular oversight. Nonetheless, Dekoral is now relatively well-integrated with the Banner-State politically, with many of the government agencies in Axopol exercising practically undiminished authority there, notwithstanding the Marshal's various prerogatives. Lefdim, with its much longer history of independence and the deeper wellsprings of its resentment of Terophatic rule, has proven a harder pill for the Banner to swallow, and though the country has become rather more autonomous and quiescent since the 1976 Lefdian Revolts, the Terophites have not quite shaken the role of foreign occupiers, disdained even by the Marshal's own administration.
The Interim Authority in Anabbah, by contrast, has hewn more closely to the Terophatic line, ruled as it is by an autonomous military junta formed by the Imperial Terophatic Army in Anabbah. Though effectively independent of the Terophatic Court, the Authority is prevented by its expressly anti-Azophine strategic objectives and especially its fierce resentment at the loss of Khabbat from any reconciliation with Azophin, and is physically isolated from the other Powers. Indeed, to the extent that Anabbah has become another thorn in the side of the Court in Axopol it is in part a result of almost the opposite problem: a desire by the Authority for greater stridency from the Banner-State. In 1983, the Anabbine Army repudiated the consensus of Terophan and Azophin at the Congress of Molot to recognise Khabbat's nominal existence as a marshalate, a policy that has never been revoked since. In the 2010 Mentusian War, the establishment of the marshalate of Mentusia through the Anabbine Army's machinations in Inner Joriscia drew Terophan into open conflict with Azophin. The War was an unmatched opportunity for the Interim Authority to refresh its paranoia concerning an Azophine invasion, and since then Anabbah has become ever more entrenched in its hardline policies, while continuing to serve as a military outpost and garrison state of the Empire. Mentusia itself is, to all appearances, an outgrowth of the administration of the Anabbine Army, though in contrast to Anabbah itself a Marshal of Mentusia has been commissioned by the Court in Axopol.
Military
The Terophatic military is divided into four principal branches: the Terophatic Imperial Army, the Terophatic Imperial Navy, the Imperial Air-Fleet of the Terophatic Empire, and the space and orbital Imperial Storm Command. The Army is also responsible for the Holy Thousands which keep order in the Empire's overseas territory. A wide-ranging policy of conscription operates in Terophan, and a large standing army is viewed as essential for its security as a Great Power. The Terophatic military has been involved in numerous interordinate conflicts and crises since the establishment of the Kethpor System.
Religion
The sole religion of Terophan is Vaestism, a faith zealously enforced by the imperial state. The Terophatic Banner is led by the Emperor as Standard-Bearer, a position reinforced by ritualised Debates which take place before the monarch's accession to the throne. As in all Vaestic states, the exercise of institutional authority by Vaestic Scholars lends a sharp political importance to philosophical disputation. Though the established religio-political order has been challenged by the intermittent emergence of heretical sects, most prominently in contemporary history the menace of Hejrozinism, these have not significantly disrupted the overall Vaestic hierarchy in Terophan. The politically dominant intellectual form of Vaestism in Terophan is reformed Strong Externalism, but since the 1970s this has been challenged by the intellectual currents of the Post-Radiance and the more popular movement of the Sage Precepts, each commanding considerable support within the Terophatic Scholarchate.
The established Banner-Shrine of the Terophatic Banner is the Sacred Seat of Nardash, which traces its history to the reign of the second Universal Prophet, Siluve, and has been renowned for centuries as one of the greatest southern mokyklos of Joriscia. Its reputation today lies mainly in the teaching of the exact sciences. The High Mokykla of Axopol and the Shrine of the Notaries, both located in the capital, are also eminent institutions of learning, the latter producing some of the most authoritative tribunal judges in Terophan. As expected in a Vaestic state, the mokyklos function as the sole official vehicles of education in Terophan, and all Terophites are expected to receive thorough religious and scientific tuition, though these have recently been supplemented by vocational training institutes that maintain nominal dependence on particular Schools. Due to the far-reaching authority and responsibility of Scholars in Terophan, there is hardly a shortage of aspirant Scholars, though professional training at an Acolytic level, which is also available to women, is far more common. Official figures record some 35% of Terophites in the metropolitan Banner-State as credentialed Acolytes as of 2019.
Culture
Ethnography and language
The vast majority of the population of Terophan—perhaps around 95%, though the imperial government does not collate ethnic statistics in the Western manner—is Rasheem. The common and, for most purposes, official language of Terophan is Rashimic, with the Terophatic Rashimic Standard being its taught form, regulated by the Seat of Grammatical Learning in Axopol. Significant numbers of Lacreans and Adur are to be found in the eastern uplands of the metropole, and the Adur language is permitted for liturgical use in the region of Greater Adrim. High Secote remains the formal language of the Court and is also used in certain liturgical contexts: the Imperial Utterances routinely published in Velyal Yest are given in High Secote, formal academic texts are usually composed in that language, and a few publications and radio and television programmes that cater to more refined tastes also use High Secote in whole or in part. The continuing use of High Secote thus serves to distinguish the Scholarly and higher Acolytic elite from the rest of the population. Compared to present-day Azophine Rashimic, the Terophatic Standard in general is marked by a much heavier reliance on High Secote loanwords, which, at least in formal speech and writing, are declined punctiliously according to Secote grammatical rules.
The people of Terophan who share in the general imperial culture, whatever their ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, are known as Terophites. The Terophite identity formed historically from the cultural heritage of the southern Neritsovid Empire, and took shape under the influence of such events as the War of the Pact of Osan and the Exorcism of the South. After the Great Imperial Restoration of 1701, a peculiarly post-Neritsovid fusion of the Secotised official religion of the period with popular Rashimic traditions developed as the Empire nostalgistically asserted its double roots in the Tirfatsevid Empire and the Banner of the Greater West, melding the traditions of the imperial South into a unique culture. The distinct appearance of the imperial family derives mostly from their long-held practice of marrying within the formal High Nobility; though not breaking with this tradition entirely, since Vsevolod the Great the Imperial House of Tirfats has tended to prefer union with Inner Joriscian Vesnite houses that are not socially rooted in the Terophatic High Nobility itself.
Art and literature
Over the three centuries of its existence, Terophan has acquired a considerable literary corpus which has spurred the development of Terophane verse. Terophan has been broadly influenced by the currents of Outer Joriscian literature as a whole, including the classical characters of the Pochizinia. Music has also reflected the regional developments in the Vaestic sphere.
Philosophical debate has been an important pastime in the Terophatic cities since the Neritsovid era. Historically, members of the population would throng to hear and support Adepts and Scholars in public debates. After the Restoration, it became increasingly common for imperial agents to be planted in the audience, instructing them as to which party to support, such that the debates often became state-sponsored humiliations. This tradition has developed into a peculiar form of theatre known as Common Discourses, where actors memorise the records of previous such debates and re-enact them as drama. These re-enactments have in the present day vastly overshadowed the popularity of academic debates between Scholars themselves, and the selection of material often today serves as a means of implicit critique of Court policy. At these events, the audience is encouraged to join in the rubbishing and debasement of discredited philosophers, so that the enacted debates themselves are rarely of a high intellectual calibre.
Science
Terophan has maintained an illustrious tradition of externalist science going back to the Restoration-era Pechet Boards, including such figures as the notable 18th-century alchemist and controversialist Shettopane. After a period of reaction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, natural science has been generously sponsored by the Court, and indeed has tended to dominate other academic pursuits in both prestige and funding since the rise of the reigning reformed Strong Externalist establishment in the Long War. Terophan today maintains some of the most prestigious scientific establishments in Vaestdom, including the Banner-Shrine itself at Nardash.
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