The Banner State
AFRICA || ASIA || AUSTRALIA || EUROPE || WESTERN || HISTORY
::Bioculture::	Most people are mestizo. They are descended from the native Inuit and Oceanic settlers (themselves a good deal Paneuropan) that migrated across the Pacific Ocean some three hundred years earlier. The Banner State speaks Russian.
::Totem::	The totem that the native people had embraced was the salamander. However, the Banner State also include people's whose ancestors embraced fish and worm totems.
::Religion::	The state religion is Shinto Medicine. The Sarai settlers brought with them the last surviving strain of Polyasian Shinto, and it integrated easily with the prevailing Spirit Medicine cults of the native population. The nascent central government worked hand in hand with the Shinto priests to unify the country. The priesthood reigned briefly as the dominant central authority, but unable to encompass the wide range of traditions, it disintegrated into different shamanic lineages.
::Government::	The Banner State is anarcho-tribalist. The various tribal authorities are bound by a loose centralized authority that resolves internal disputes and maintains a military. All other matters are completely the purview of the local communities, and not much is done to integrate the various tribes.
::Gender::	Society is matrifocal. Women make most of the decisions in government, and to a lesser extent, in religious affairs. There are few barriers keeping men from obtaining privilege, but in practice there is widespread discrimination.
::Guilds::	The Banner State is mostly self-sufficient. They trade some with Macronesia, Sarai, and Noosaqua. They also have close ties with the Tribes. The largest guild, the Gas Company, takes combustible gas from large organisms and pipes it into cities to heat and light them.
::Military::	The primary function of the government is providing a military for the defense of the State. They engage in minor hostilities with the Theocracy of Golgotha and the Aztec Empire. They have a treaty of non-aggression with the Tribes to the south.
::Shashi::	Shashi are treated as pets. When they begin to lose mana-potency, they are humanely harvested for their mana.
::Geography::	The Banner State stretches down from the north of the Seeded Grounds to a wavering border along the Missouri River. The Banner People inhabit the northern shores of the Lakes to the south, but the government has tacitly ceded control of the Lakes to pirates and aquatic freeholders. There are ten pueblos in the lands of the Banner State.