Nama

Nama is the name of a state in the Poswob Empire (Pusapom). It is different from the other states because Nama is a very old state consisting of an alliance of absolute monarchies that were historically independent nations, but agreed to join the empire as just a single state in return for military protection. The central Blop government largely leaves Nama to itself and doesn't even collect taxes from the common people (though they do take taxes from the kings). In some ways Nama is thousands of years behind the rest of the empire and the people who live there blame the kings for keeping them locked in the past. Nevertheless, the quality of life is better than many other areas, and few Namans are interested in immigrating elsewhere.

Nama (green) admist surrounding states.

Nama is sometimes considered the Poswob homeland even though it contains neither their origin nor their capital. It merely is the area that has the least cultural influence from outside, and therefore best preserves the original culture of the Poswobs. It is also the only state in Pupompom (where Pupompom is defined as "the north") that has coastline on the tropical Raba Ocean. (the rest of the Raba ocean is considered "the south").

Nama's capital is Pworše; not a true capital in the sense of administering the territory it's in, however. It is merely the most convenient stopover for people traveling between Nama and Blop since it is the northernmost settlement in Nama.

Nama's motto is Pwopup rybaebum pembap buswawa; taep rybaebum foppap buswawa. Translated, this means "For wisdom, look to the elders; for faith, look to the children."

Nama is over 95% Poswob, but these Poswobs are mostly Poswobs due to cultural assimilation, rather than immigration. Thus they have distinct racial types, more different from each other than even many recent immigrants into Pusapom are from the Poswobs. Nearly every racial type is represented, from dark-skinned aboriginals along the south coast to dark-skinned immigrantsfrom other countries, to Paba-type people in the northeast and Khulls-type people in the mountainous west. The two dark skinned races are more different from each other than the eastern one

Borders and government

Despite being positioned along the south coast, Nama is considered a northern state. Nama's northern border does not generally end at a natural boundary such as a river. This is unusual for Pusapom. Instead it ends on flat land with the mountains about 50 miles away. This formed as the limit of settlement of people who oriignally lived in the mountains.

Though the Poswobs have long been welcoming of ethnic minorities, the need for a large and strong Poswob-majority state led the governors in the capital city to draw the boundaries of Nama and exclude the areas within it that were mostly home to non-Poswobs. This meant that neither Sarapom nor Pallupubom, both cities which had long been important in the empire, would be located in Nama. But Nama has many cities of its own which, though of lesser importance than those others, are still valuable to the economy. Its wide variety of climates means that many types of food can be grown.

Pine trees are the most common type of tree, even in the warmest areas; this is because it is difficult for palm trees from other tropical areas to reach the Naman coast. Early settlers had attempted to bring over fruit trees and animals from the tropics of Laba, but found that few of them could survive here even though the climate was almost as warm. As is the case elsewhere, this is largely because the planet only recently left an ice age in which the climate even at 30N was subpolar.

Nama is one of the most rural states, and in some ways resmembles the ancient homeland of the Lagi where every village is different and the central government is extremely weak. Since Nama is majority Poswob, and the local governments of many ethnostates are seen as being largely about interpretation, the Naman government is seen as largely unnecessary to the national government in Blop, "because they're basically just us" and the Blop government can rule the people directly. But for lack of transportation there would probably be no Naman government at all. Nama has for a long time participated in the "Naman Dissenter Union" (Bybabumbem) where different governments that disagree about politics are still allied with each other and will cooperate militarily.

Cities

Pavbwa is the name of a city settled by Subumpamese and Andanese-type people during a time in which Nama did not have control of the area. It is in the extreme southeast. Its etymology is similar to "Baeba Swamp" and indeed it is a mostly a swamp. But it was the capital of a very powerful nation, Kava, during its time. Its people called it "Lun" rather than Pavbwa; their descendants embraced Naman culture when they were eventually overhwlemed, and then later on, Poswob cutlure when Poswobs began taking over Nama. They existed as Kava for a short time, roughly 3125 to 3348.

From the time of its founding in c 3125, the nation of Kava stood out from its neighbors. They were far more militaristic and their soldiers were individually far more brutal than those of other nations. They launched a genocidal war against the defenseless aboriginal Repilian people, who had been their traditional allies for over a thousand years. They promised protection for anyone of either the Andanese or the Subumpamese tribes, and held true to that promise: they conquered vast territories of land in the far north, massacring entire populations as they replaced them with themselves, but they never harmed any of the smaller, weaker nations on their way that were of the same races as the Kavans. They encouraged all Andanese and Subumpamese to simply join forces and call themselves Kavans, which many did. The Kavan army won many battles against impossible odds. When they finally went down, they were defeated by a power several hundred times what they themselves had been 200 years earlier. This set off a wave of militarism in the area that lasted another 1400 years. Kava remained a fairly militaristic culture during this 1400 years, but they had submitted to their conqueror, Nama, and were thus on the opposite side of their ancestors. However, Nama was in a state of rapid decline as a world power now, because the population density had shifted further northward, and Nama was walled off from the north by the world's tallest mountain range. Instead Nama remained essentially a regional power, controlling at best only itself and the trade that went through its sea from the two empires on either side of Nama. Surrounding empires began biting off pieces of Nama, eventually leaving only a rump state comprised of the most inaccessible parts. They retained more than half of their coastline, however, so even Nama at its worst was still in a fairly advantageous location.

Climate

Nama has a variety of climates. It is the most climatically diverse state, per unit area, in the Empire. However, this is mainly just because it has the highest mountains, so temperatures can range from subpolar to tropical in a shorter distance than anywhere else. Even so , the climate northj of the mountains is very different from the climate to the south. Northern Nama (which is where ther capital is, and is the part that borders the rest of the Empire) is like Nebraska or eastern Wyoming, though it does not have Nebraska's leeside low phenomenon, because the mtn range is primarily east-west. Thus storms cant appear "out of nowhere" the way they do in the Great Plains. Even so, the ocean is not all that far away, so the precipitation is moderate and peaks during winter. On the other hand, because the mtn range is east-west, cold waves can't just skip over Nama the way they skip over the area imeddsiately east of the Rocky Mtns. (e.g. Cheyenne WY is warmer than Des Moines e3ven though its 6000ft up, and "should" be about the same temp as Fairbanks Alaska.) Thus northern Nama is temperate despite being at about 30N.

The south coastr is about 150 miles long. Though its inhabitants consider it to be tropical, and tropical plants such acoconuts fgrow there, it is the coldst "tropical" coastline in the woirld because it is the futherst north. However, pine apples will not grow here; they myst be imp[otted from nearby lands that do not have freak cold spells in winter.

Cities

Cities

City	elev	Lon	Lat	H	L	H	L	Comments
Pubiapep	84	36	28	63	51	80	67	gmneerally warmer than that during winter ... the avg is due to cold spells
Pworše	4391	38	32	39	23	83	55	wet due to upslope snow, but not leeside low