Societal Name: The Ruwan Rai Hierocracy

Societal Organization: Early Theocratic State

Cultural Group Name: Dorina

Technology Era: Late Chalcolithic

Primary Important Technologies: Camel domestication, theocratic bureaucracy, basin irrigation, water harvesting, copper smelting

Map: Territories and primary settlements of the early Ruwan Rai state

History: Countless years ago, the Dorina people existed as a loosely-connected series of tribes and villages, bound only by their shared reverence and dependence on the Ruwan Rai - the Waters of Life - to nurture their crops and make a home for the fish that they subsist off of. The largest and strongest of these villages, Damasak, raised priests and priestesses that would help to make sure that all the different villages were properly paying tribute to the Gods that ensured their survival. This was especially true for worship of Tafki - the God of the Ruwan Rai - who brought them the gift of water and fought off the Goddess Rana, who used the Sun to dry the land they lived on and further encroach the sands of the Great Hamada into their lands. Rana was a vengeful Goddess, and was greatly angered by the existence of mutane, or people, on the lands of the world, holding that their usage and changing of the land was wrong.

One day, legend holds, Rana finally decided to take a more active role in removing the human plague from the world, and so introduced the great Kada monsters to the Ruwan Rai. These beasts were as tall as ten men and as long as fifty, and rampage through the Ruwan Rai and surrounding lands, destroying villages, farmland, and blocking the rivers that flowed to the lands of the Dorina people. All hope seemed lost. But after five straight days of prayer, the High Priest of Damasak was finally rewarded with a visitation from Tafki himself, who bestowed him with a plant from the Gods that would shrink the Kada monsters if they ate them. Armed with this new trump card, the High Priest ventured to the Ruwan Rai, where he tricked the Kada into consuming the plants. Immediately, they all shrunk from the size of terrible beasts into the Kada we know today as crocodiles, too scared to even attack the hippos and elephants that shared their homes with the kada.

With this threat vanquished, the priests and priestesses of Damasak went to work helping the rest of the Dorina villages and settlements to rebuild. These priests began to implement societal rules and traditions across the land, and the connections between them morphed into a form of theocratic bureaucracy centered around the Damasak Priesthood, eventually forming into an early state. It would be through the rapidly growing city of Damasak that innovations in the field of agriculture, metalworking, governance, and theology would be centered and spread to the peoples of the new Ruwan Rai Hierocracy.

Within this state, religious rules and traditions are heavily enforced and cases of sacrilige are swiftly punished. Any act that works against the favor of the Gods is seen as strengthening Rana and allowing her to further dry the lands they depend on for food. In this way, sacrilege is seen not just as an insult to the Gods, but as a direct attack on the Ruwan Rai state itself. Nonbelievers and sacrilegious neighboring states are often raided for slaves to work labor jobs and serve the exalted priesthood, with the High Priest usually accompanied by an attache of two dozen slaves at a minimum. Slaves are branded on the back with the symbol of Tafki, and are expected to be fully subservient to their masters. It is possible for a slave to buy their way out of slavery, however this has to be accompanied by a "test of faith" that normally involves fighting a Kada with their bare hands. Few slaves every attempt such a difficult task, and far fewer have ever succeeded.