Of Singhapura, the Great Empire
The poet Additya Wickrama was a man of considerable gifts and considerable debts, the latter of which he resolved by dying. He once wrote thus: there are two kinds of people: those who belong to Singhapura, and those who will. He owed me six hundred and thirty-eight Owls at the time, which colors my affection for the observation, but I have traveled widely and I have not found reason to dispute it.
Singhapura is the greatest continuous empire in the known world. It is the largest political, economic, and military power of our age. It stands at the forefront of infrastructure, education, magical development, and industrial capacity. It sprawls from the Diamond River Delta through the Balalpura Plains — one of the world’s great breadbaskets — up into the mountain fastnesses of Udanuwara and Giridhora, to the Raavanskandha Mountains themselves, which are held to be the bones of Great Raavan. To the northeast, past the Hooniyang Pass, it controls Wattle and Daub. To the south, it holds the entire coastline and the thousand islands of Tangowan as a vassal state. The geometry of Daub’s situation with regards to Singhapura is the primary political fact of Your Grace’s governance.
Of the City, Which Is Also the Empire
To understand Singhapura the empire, one must first understand Singhapura, the heart-city of the empire. The city was originally founded at the Diamond River Delta, and then moved piecemeal and rebuilt in the shadow of the Raavanskandha mountains. All roads lead to Singhapura, or so it’s said. Indeed, follow any road from any end of the empire; follow the lion statues — follow the Diamond River, monsoon-waters so wide you cannot see the end, and then at the end are vast Balalpura Plains, a sea of green interspersed by great chasming moats that shine crimson, as if watered with blood. This is Rathmada Samudra, more than five thousand hectares of reservoirs running red with Taprobane-cultivated algae, built to irrigate the land; I strongly suspect the dread color is not unintentional. These moats are crossed by great bridges, each guarded by a vast stone lion in front of walls that climb higher as one goes within.
Inside is a world of glass and metal and spires, the hum of waterworks and arcane machinery, roads worth more than diamonds. The city is organized in concentric rings representing the cosmic order. At the center is Adiraj House, built by the Lusian architect Andretto d’Orenzo alongside the finest mages of Taprobane; here lie the Adiraj’s quarters and all essential administration. Adjacent are the Botanical Gardens — the entire known world in microcosm, every plant from every place the empire can reach, trade with, or control. To the north, the sprawling buildings of the Taprobane Imperial University, the greatest university in the world, from which magic was and continues to be revolutionized. To the west, the offices of the Red and White Councils of the Haugris Church, and all its attendants. To the east, by a network of canals, come merchant galleons, unloading cargo onto great runic conveyors. From Tangowan, from Wattle, from Lusia, from the Rosantic League, even from lands further still — all flock here.
The water infrastructure alone, built in these mountain lands, represents an administrative and engineering achievement that most states could not conceive. This is the Mahabag Subha, its underground and overground canals connecting public tanks across the entire breadth of the city, some extending hundreds of miles to supply entire towns. Tampering with the water is punishable by death, extending to family and associates.
The Sunken Church sits behind the city and above it; carved into the foothills of the Raavanskandha, it houses what the Haugris Church holds to be the Divine Corpus — the preserved remains of Raavan himself. It is a holy place, drawing pilgrims from the city in a ceaseless grey stream. The Ruins of Vidyaakara to the east, restored by the Temple of Eighteen, are older still — a complex ancient city, stupas, a university, monasteries, with sealed areas yet unexplored. I note that the Adiraj has shown considerable interest in maintaining control of the excavation; I posit that He finds it useful to have archaeological sites of impressive antiquity available when argument with the Haugris fails.
There are, of course, satellite cities, as large but perhaps not as storied. Nagenapura to the East, Basnapura to the West, Ruhunapura to the South; and in between a thousand towns and minor dealings, all the way up to Udunuwara and Giridhora, which guard the passage to the North.
Your Grace will not deal with these satellite cities directly. Everything routes through Singhapura. I note also that as Duchess of Daub, Your Grace is technically above most administrators and provincial nobility encountered on the road south; this is a pitfall, and I will urge you caution. Anything said in such conversations will be met with smiles and hospitality but little else, and promptly reported to the center. The correct posture is courtesy, brevity, and the avoidance of political discussion.
Of How the Empire Is Actually Governed
Political theorists — I invoke Weerasingha and his student Molligoda, the latter of which I will spare Your Grace at length — have long since attempted to build classifications of empires in the same way that Taprobane classified magicians. One may use their thinking to describe Singhapura accurately as a divine-right absolute unitary state. Unfortunately, one may describe it equally accurately as an aristocratic legal feudal state with federal characteristics, and still be correct; this is the problem with applying theory to practice.
Your Grace should understand that the empire’s apparent monolithic unity, as seen from Daub, is the face it presents to its periphery. The underlying reality is more complex. At the summit of the Empire sit three entities: the Singha Adiraj, the Haugris Church, and the Taprobane University. They are three powers in permanent negotiation, each dependent on the others, each limiting the others, each seeking advantage over the others.
The Adiraj is the Highest of the High — First Prophet of the Haugris Church, Judge and Arbiter Above All, High Commander of all military forces. His word is law. In theory, he exercises total control over every aspect of the empire. In practice, everyday authority is delegated and wielded by others, while the Adiraj crafts law and reserves supreme authority for the Military Orders and for moments that require it. The position is not hereditary; the Adiraj selects a successor from the nobility and adopts them as heir. Theoretically, this position is open to anyone who demonstrates sufficient skill; in practice, the Ministers of the Interior, Trade, and Justice are commonly the chief candidates. This means the question of succession is permanently open and thus permanently political.
The Haugris Church handles the empire’s messaging and controls large portions of its money, education, and health. Its internal structure runs through Red and White Councils — White for high-level internal policy and major judgments, Red for regional appointments and logistics — down through three Sequences and a fourth that does not get discussed at dinner. The Sequence of Letters runs the mail network and is, underneath that function, the most sophisticated intelligence operation ever constructed. The Sequence of Discourse produces the bureaucrats who go on to become the administrative functions of the Church. The Sequence of Acts produces the public face: priests, healers, diplomats, explorers. The Samanera Corps is the fourth; it was the Church’s answer, in its time, to orders like the Paladins, and is a great deal more violent and capable. These four sequences are the empire’s public presence in most of its outlying territories, including Your Grace’s own.
I say this plainly: all of these Sequences already operate within Daub. Your Grace should govern accordingly.
The Taprobane University theoretically exists outside the political structure entirely. Practically, the people who devise and control the most powerful magic in the known world are involved in every aspect of Singhapura’s development. The Taprobane system is the empire’s decisive advantage in every domain in which it operates, and the University knows this. The University trains not only magicians but lawyers, judges, and engineers; thus it has sway even in places nominally outside its fiefdom, well into rural courts. Its friendly rivalry with the Lesser Theoretical University of Daub is, from the University’s perspective, patronage. Your Grace should understand it as such while extracting whatever value it offers.
The nobility is best understood as a merchant-military aristocracy in which the Adiraj parks useful people and their families. Hereditary power is real but not absolute — it can be stripped by the Adiraj, the Church, or the judgment of peers. A commoner from a remote province can acquire a crest with the right patronage and the right deeds to their name. The bureaucracy — governors appointed by and answerable to the Adiraj, a system of Low and High Courts in each territory — are the work of the nobles, but this is by appointment. This administration skeleton bears the flesh of another: the Guilds.
It should not surprise one to learn that those who make the products of empire have a great sway over it. The Guilds hold no formal legal authority except over themselves, but in reality they exercise considerable practical authority over everything; by far the most powerful is the Singhapura Merchants Guild, which in particular operates as a Lusian bank with armies attached; Your Grace may see in this the model for the Daub and Wattle Guilds. These forces I would not underestimate; it is well-said that while the sword of the Adiraj are the Military Orders, the arrows are the Guilds.
The ideals behind the Empire are real: universal law, the Taprobane system, free education, centralized administration, competitive examination for almost every post, heavy investment in new technologies. However, what holds it together is a shared calculation; that this arrangement is more practical than any available alternative, and that together they are stronger than any of them would be alone.
Of the Empire’s Tensions and Opportunities Therein
No structure this large is without strain, and I would be failing Your Grace’s interests if I catalogued Singhapura’s strengths without attending to what lies beneath them.
The first is steel. The empire requires high-quality steel — for construction, for armies, for everything that holds a civilization together. Centuries of exploitation have depleted the accessible metal deposits of Udanuwara. The empire is pushing north again, which is why the trade relationships through Daub matter more now than they did a generation ago. It also means that whoever controls northern trade routes, through which Stānbyrig’s metals travel south, holds both leverage and a noose around their own necks. This, more than any, is why Singhapura desires control over Wattle. Your Grace should be aware of what flows through Daub, and what that flow is worth to the Empire.
The second is religious. The Haugris Church dominates, but the Temple of Eighteen remains powerful in the eastern provinces, and the Iron Pagoda grows in the southwest. The Taprobane University increasingly chafes at the Church’s involvement in magical regulation. These pressures have been steadily accumulating beneath the empire’s skin. Daub has both the Church and the Temple within its walls. Your Grace manages this as a local equilibrium, but it is also a microcosm of a larger war of faiths and reason.
The third is the frontier. The empire’s particular frontiers are unusually consequential. There is Wattle and Daub to the north, and the Waste beyond them. Tangowan to the south. Lusia and the Rosantic League to the west; and many Tears around the border cities due to magical excess. A wise empire must watch its borders. The Military Orders are a consistent drain on resources here, a condition that worsens as the supply of metals tightens.
Of the Governance of Daub, and What It Means to Stand in the Shadow of the Empire
Your Grace governs a free port that is too well-positioned to ignore. However, if I may make so bold, the arrangement — tribute, nominal deference, and the occasional imperial quest — is a softer noose than one may expect in such circumstances, especially when Wattle struggled beneath tighter bonds. It may very well be that the Adiraj is content to let Daub exist and grow as a vassal; it may also be that the fruit is being ripened for the picking.
The same Additya Wickrama who predicted that everyone would eventually belong to Singhapura also wrote, in a less celebrated passage, that the most dangerous thing anyone can do is believe the empire’s account of itself.
There are three direct avenues I would urge Your Grace to examine. The Military Orders of Singhapura exist in uneasy tension with Your Grace’s Charter Knights, the Paladins, and whatever mercenaries are present at any given moment. These Orders have trained for war against the north; that is their orientation and capability. The Church is in subtle but tense dialogue with the Temple across Daub’s wards and provinces. The Merchants Guild will trade and intermingle whether or not it is invited to; from here come the strings of capital, favors, and votes.
I will not advise Your Grace on how to deal with the Adiraj directly. What I will say is this: the empire, for all its coherence and capability, is a machine built by human hands, maintained by human institutions, and subject to the strains that attend any large human enterprise. It may present a unified face to its periphery, but Your Grace has the advantage of being close enough to see behind that face, and experienced enough to decide which aspects of it you wish to see in your own mirror.
Further Reading
A man who wishes to understand Singhapura must first understand that it produces, in abundance, the means by which it prefers to be understood. Your Grace will find this pattern familiar. It is not unique among states, but Singhapura has been more systematic about it than most.
The Singha Chronicle is the official account of the founding and the history of the Singhapura Empire. It was and is commissioned by those who control the empire, and should thus be read with that fact in its proper place; nevertheless, for Your Grace, it will be most instructive; it contains the most complete record available of approved crests and sigils, and for this reason alone it remains indispensable in any dispute concerning lineage or the legitimacy of claims.
The Himakatu Chronicle covers the affairs that the Singha Chronicle prefers to pass over quickly. It is a tragedy in the full sense — glory, hubris, violence and power; it is the Empire at its worst, and in some sense may explain the shame that the Empire, even today, sees lingering in the ruins of Wattle.
The Ithihaasa Potha is a sequence of epic poems composed by seventeen philosopher-poets once exiled from Singhapura. It is the only known work of prophecy that has consistently proven accurate. Every prediction has thus far been fulfilled, but in the most indirect and perverse manner imaginable.
Weerasingha’s foundational analysis, extended by Moligoda, reduces all states to three forms and subdivides each by the source of its legitimacy, the scope of its power, and the structure through which that power operates. I will spare Your Grace the need to read Molligoda, a man universally recognized for his singular lack of talent in the art of letters.
The Assembly of Gold and Saffron, maintained by the Haugris Church, is assigned to schoolchildren throughout Church territories. It is, by the consensus of everyone compelled to read it, among the most tedious documents in any tradition. Nevertheless, it is vital in understanding how the Church sees itself.
The Reflections of the Moon in Still Water, attributed to the Nameless Sage of the Temple of Eighteen, is a collection of verse in the manner of aphorism set to poetry. Its primary social function is the conferral of apparent profundity. A ruler who can produce a passage at the right moment will be taken for a person steeped in the customs of the Temple, whether she is one or not. This I trust Your Grace may put to use.