First pass at Zakharos

REGION: ZAKHAROS

This is a setting I'm tinkering around with for a war campaign and/or ruleset I'm tinkering around with. It's tentatively called Zakharos, but that might change. This is honestly more for my benefit than it is good reading; as Skerples says, it's got a whiff of the dolphin. 

1d6 measures the Brevantine Imperials has taken to put down Zakharone uprisings in the past:

1. Working with bandits and organized crime to strike against revolutionary elements. Foreign smuggler outfits or local racketeers are more than happy to do so, if the Bureaus turn a blind eye.
2. Arresting street preachers and public speakers, usually with no charges: the Dérobés just take them away in the night, not seen again for months—sometimes they end up executed on order of the Synod. 
3. Framing possible uprising-leaders, usually by planting heretical religious iconography on them, or else just cooking their otherwise-legitimate books.
4. Capturing a whole village, and threatening to put them to the sword if the leaders do not come peacefully; only twice have the Zakharone not relented.
5. Paying out substantial rewards in silver écus if any Zakharone report on their neighbors' possibly-subversive activities to the Dérobés. 
6. Breaking any caught revolutionary leaders on the wheel, and blinding any of their more prominent followers.

1d6 reasons why this particular revolt has been more successful (so far):

1. An influx of drafted Zakharone veterans returning home after the Moth Wars (if they went south) or the Drowned Man's War (if they went east), who both know how to fight and how the Brevantine Legion operates in hostile territory.
2. An uptick in raids from the Kreitene and Freags, on the Brevant's southern and eastern borders, pulling the Legion's attention and resources away.
3. A poor harvest in the hills around Dessecaire (Dyskar, to the Zakharone) and the eastern plains, leading to many people out of work and out of food—eager to join the Revolutionary Guard and raid Bureaus' caches.
4. It's the first Year of Red Skies, which only come once every 120 years, since the Brevantines took Zakharos. Whether or not the festivals will be banned remains to be seen.
5. Smugglers from Synnius and the Grasp supplying the Guard with arms, food, and supplies—in exchange for looted Brevantine silver, naturally. 
6. A roster of icognito Dérobés was stolen, leading to some rapid house-cleaning among the Guard's ranks.

1d6 holy sites the Brevantines have defiled:

1. The Triptych Shrine, which housed the remains of a hundred saints; the Brevantines literally toppled it during the Seventeen Day War, almost eighty years ago at this point.
2. Our Lost Sister's Hall, the largest temple in Dessecaire; Brevantine soldiers stand guard, in their boots, both in the literal Hall and in the square outside.
3. The great River of Rats; during the high feast days around the summer solstice, the Brevantines fished in its waters for their dinner.
4. Carrousse (Kharos, in Zakharone) the Anointed, the great statue of Zakharos' founder, was draped in Brevantine colors on order of the Synod, and has been every year at the start of the month of Anointing.
5. The ruins of the Temple of Nails, to which pilgrims travel every year, had a Synod church built over part of the ruins; that church's walls are literally made of the stones of the Temple.
6. The Deadking's Arch, illegally destroyed by drunken Brevantine artificers; the Bureaus punished the artificers and paid for Arch's repair, but the Zakharone have never forgiven it.

1d6 otherwise-innocuous symbols of Zakharone resistance:

1. A sprig of rosemary, usually either tied around the wrist or attached to the belt; it was worn by some of the preachers in the Date Riots earlier in the year, who then were executed.
2. The loon, specifically a red-throated loon; they've always been common symbols in the Zakharone mystery cults, and so to wear the icon of a loon is to resist the Synod's cultural grip.
3. "Rafi," the common given name; Rafi Iron-Palm was the first Zakharone commander to die in the Seventeen Day War. Among revolutionaries, referring to "our friend Rafi" is a term for a fellow revolutionary.
4. The melody to "Laud to Thee," arguably the most-popular hymnal among the Zakharone; some revolutionaries have sung it while fighting. It's been banned in Dessecaire, and other Bureau lords-mayor are considering the same. 
5. A Brevantine silver écu split in half—both because good-and-proper Brevantines aren't supposed to accept defaced currency (while Zakharone don't care), and because of the obvious symbolism of cutting the Emperor's face in two.
6. The color red—in traditional Synod mysticism, it denotes evil, villainy, and chaos. As of six months ago, the quasi-official uniform of the Revolutionary Guard includes a red beret.

1d6 revolutionary hotbeds:

1. Dessecaire, specifically in Old Town, where the Date Riots happened—the first link of the chain of events that led to the revolution.
2. The Jackal's Flats, the catch-all name for the wide eastern plains where most of Zakharos' food is grown—between Bureau mismanagement and several unexpected spring storms, there was a poor harvest, leading to many farmers fighting in riots.
3. Talais (Zakharone: Tel-Vay), the deep northern city on southern coast of the Seas of Sand; it's always had ties to the Free Cities, and thus was more prone to revolution anyway, but it's also where most of the Synniot smugglers have been arriving, pushing it further.
4. The Osteoclast Hills, in the center of Zakharos, craggy and steep and labyrinthine. Every outlaw, criminal, and exile from any of the major cities flees to the tiny villages of the Osteoclast, plotting their return.
5. The Dust Quarter, a stretch of gritty scrubland desert running north towards Talais. The Legion has only twice tried to cross it, with disastrous results both times, and thus hidden oases allow for far more independence than elsewhere.
6. Damiens (Zakharone: Daniyyan), a southern port city on the Lesser Sea. Other than Dessecaire, Damiens has suffered the tightest Bureau regimens, and the most abuse at the hands of the Dérobés, pushing it further and further towards open revolt.

This was posted for GLOGtober the 9th: Region.