Syltheim

Overview
Sylthiem is a large nation in the Northwest, located north of Kaab and west of Stradova. Syltheim is currently a monarchy, but in the past it has been a direct democracy, with all citizens comprising the voting body. There were regular elections to appoint a Chief Diplomat (the Sylthian head of state), meaning that any citizen can potentially lead the nation. The nation It is primarily located in the gravelly mountains, which plays an important role in the nation's culture and political ideologies.

History
The nation of Sylthiem was founded on December 21, 2020 by Terranelm. After traveling through Twiceland and the land of Cascadia, Terranelm surveyed the majestic cliffs covered in gravel, and quickly decided that this would be a good place to settle. The population began to rapidly grow during Terranelm's first term as Chief Diplomat.

Terranelm's First Term and The Cascadia Purchase
Desiring to centralize Jugoslavijan territories, Chipt began talks with Terranelm to determine whether Sylthiem would be a good candidate for a land sale. After a detailed tour of Cascadia, Terranelm accepted the offer (with price yet to be decided), concluding that the purchase of Cascadia would present many economic opportunities.

At the time, Sylthiem had little to no economy, with nothing to export besides alcohol to get the diamonds necessary to purchase Cascadia. However, thanks to the hard-working group of Sylthian citizens, Sylthiem was able to mine the necessary diamonds within two weeks.

On January 16, 2021, Chipt I met with Terranelm, goosejuic3, pdln, and Borg_Minion at Terra's Tavern to agree on the terms of sale. It was decided that Cascadia would be sold for 45 diamond blocks and an alliance. The terms of the sale are as follows:


 * 1) The Jugoslavijan political claims in the state of Cascadia will be ceded to Sylthiem.
 * 2) The Jugoslavijan faction claims in the state of Cascadia will be maintained as long as needed for Chipt to transfer his items.
 * 3) Jugoslavija will retain the faction claim to the ink farm, but Sylthiem will hold the political claim to the area as normal.
 * 4) Sylthiem will commit to maintaining the Palaima National Forest as a nationally protected area.

These terms were written into a book titled "Cascadia Purchase", authored by Chipt and signed by all citizens at the meeting. This sealing the deal and marking a new era of Sylthian growth. After Cascadia was bought and the Sylthian citizenry saw what it had to offer, they had a spur of patriotism, decorating many buildings with with the banners of Sylthiem.

The First Sylthian Debates
The first debates for the Chiefdom of Sylthiem occurred on January 18th. Four candidates ran for office: _Racc00nn_, Habit_Cat, Terranelm, and pdln (although due to unforeseen circumstances _Racc00nn_ did not attend the debate). Habit_Cat put an emphasis on culture and the growth of Sylthian traditions, Terranelm called attention to his experience as a leader during the Cascadia purchase to appeal to the audience, and pdln asserted that he would increase the "epicness" of Sylthiem if he was in power. The debate lasted a total of 47 minutes, with the aftermath being a party in the Sylthian mead hall.

After the debates, citizens were given a week to vote for their preferred candidates. At the end of this week, the results were declared by Borg_Minion on January 22nd. Habit_Cat scored first place, meaning he would become the next Chief Diplomat. Terranelm received second place, pdln third, and _Racc00nn_ fourth. Terranelm spent his last day in discussion with Habit_Cat. Terranelm transferred control of Sylthiem to Habit_Cat with his blessing, while the two were in cauldrons brewing apple mead, setting the trend of each term being 32 days long.

Habit_Cat's First Term and The Grove-Jusef War
On February 8, 2021, members of the Grove Faith waged war on the Yusefarian faith, whose followers lived in Jugoslavija. Grove Faith crusaders swiftly occupied the Jugoslavijan state of Lazarica. Syltheim was wholly unprepared for this, but rushed to defend their newfound allies. A small force consisting of Chipt I, Saashin, lognbtw, and Endossi was organized the same day to fend off the occupants of Lazarica, a province of Jugoslavija. Upon arrival, they were countered by StonkseleksI, and later CreeperColder, who killed Chipt I and lognbtw. Endossi and Saashin dispersed, meaning that the troops of the Grove Faith had successfully defended the territory they had occupied for themselves.

The following day, Kaleidoeyes127 of Jugoslavija and a group of Sylthians marched to work-in-progess Cathedral of Yusef-On-High in Lazarica, where Grove Faith Crusaders had built several small fortresses in order to prevent the church from being completed. Jugo-Sylthian forces made a small dark oak fort on the opposite side of the church perimeter, and discussed plans of attack. Suddenly, StonkseleksI appeared outside of the fort, and Jugoslavijan and Sylthian forces scrambled to attack her. Some hits were landed, but she escaped, and Jugo-Sylthian forces decided to hold their ground instead of pursuing her. After some discussion, a plan to go to the Grove Tribes territory to fight them on their own turf was approved by all in the party, and Habit led a Sylthian force there while Kaleidoeyes127 and Terranelm went to Schenektengrad to attempt to overclaim valuable builds. When Habit's party consisting of Endossi, Saashin, and Habit_Cat himself arrived in Grove Tribe territory, they were surprised to see that the world tree was unclaimed. Jumping on this opportunity, Habit_Cat claimed the World Tree, just as Grove Faith forces began to arrive. Once news reached the rest of the Jugo-Sylthian force, they rushed from both the fort at the church and Schnektengrad to the scene of the battle, and forced their way into the hollow World Tree. Jugo-Sylthian forces held their ground for roughly 20 minutes, as they perched upon the branches of the World Tree and shot arrows down into the Grove Faith army below. This changed when all of a sudden a fire appeared on the upper half of the World Tree. Chaos ensued, and what became two armies clashing with each other became a reluctant cooperation to save the World Tree, during which Sylthian forces unclaimed it. After the fire was put out, Jugo-Sylthian forces dispersed, and Syltheim pulled out of the war effort, not wanting to participate in "dishonourable acts" such as this. On 02/16/2021, Habit_Cat formally announced that they were leaving their alliance with Jugoslavija, and forming an alliance with Kaab instead. Soon after, on 2/19/2021, there was a Trial in the Sylthian Mead hall (repurposed into a courtroom), but there was no consensus as to who lit the fire.

Terranelm's Second Term
Soon after Syltheim broke their alliance with Jugoslavija, Terranelm was elected into office, as his first elected term.

_Racc00n_'s First Term
After Terranelm was reelected, he quickly realized that he had not yet recovered from DeathPercent's attack, which had taken a mental toll on him. Five days into his term, Borg_Minion recounted the votes and declared that Terranelm and _Racc00n_ were actually tied, and their algorithm had simply picked one of them at random. There were talks of both of them taking power at the same time, but Terranelm decided that that would be inefficient, and he made the executive decision to hand off power to _Racc00nn_. _Racc00nn_ would take a hands-off approach to leadership for the rest of his 28-day term.

Habit_Cat's Second Term
In his second term, Habit_Cat spearheaded a campaign to expand north into former Twicelandian territory, incorporating it as a protected area in Syltheim. Additionally, he worked with the nations of Askar and kaab to form the Northwestern Alliance (NWA).

logbtw's First Term
Logbtw may have been known for his loyalty to the Sylthian people and staunch support for military strength, but his greatest accomplishment as Chief Diplomat was his drastic improvement to Sylthian national security. Over the course of days, he significantly reduced the number of Sylthian faction claims, entering all existing claims into a tracking system. Additionally, he sponsored a bill to clean up a cluttered storage area in Malarfjoll.

Chipt's First Term
Chipt's first term marked the first time a non-native citizen of Syltheim was elected Chief Diplomat, a symbolic moment for the welcoming nature of Syltheim. During his term, he completed the Constitution of Syltheim, which featured a new system for land ownership, allocating Sylthian land into regions led by each citizen.

Chipt's Second Term
Chipt's first term was successful enough for him to be re-elected. In his second term, he proposed a transit plan, creating roads between all regions in Syltheim for greater interconnectivity.

Chipt's Third Term
Shortly after the votes were counted, Borg_Minion announced a tie between Chipt and Habit_Cat. Fortunately, Habit_Cat willingly allowed Chipt to take the reigns of Syltheim, preserving the amicable nature of Syltheim's elections.

Terranelm's Sixth Term
Due to a minor malfunction, Borg_Minion was unoperable, and was unable to announce the election results at the scheduled time. A few hours later, however, it was soon revealed that Terranelm had won the election, and was sworn into office shortly afterwards. During this time, a new unofficial law was proposed in which there would be no election if the incumbent Chief Diplomat passed a vote of confidence. This was never adopted into the lawbooks, but was used in practice. Syltheim's populace was somewhat apathetic when the vote of confidence came to pass (which was indicative of the rampant inactivity soon to come), with only 2 citizens voting in favor of keeping Terranelm in office, with no votes against this.

Terranelm's Seventh Term
During Terranelm's Seventh Term, he was mostly dormant, along with Syltheim's population. Despite this, he did propose a complete ban on the creation and use flint and steel, suggesting a shift torwards lava buckets (or as he dubbed it, "Government Issued Pain Buckets") in the interest of protecting Syltheim's gravel from further damage. This proposal narrowly passed with 66 percent of the vote, but was never added to the constitution. During this time, Syltheim became too inactive to hold regular elections, meaning Terranelm held office unopposed for nearly 72 days not including his previous term. Eventually, Terranelm decided that the role of Chief Diplomat would be better suited for someone else, and he passed the reigns to Habit_Cat without an election on 5/30/2022.

Habit_Cat's Third Term (Current)
After Habit_Cat was instated as Chief Diplomat, he realized that the Sylthian nation was plagued by Voidrot. Habit_Cat took drastic measures to ensure the nation regained stability, and declared himself the king of Syltheim. He was able to successfully eradicate most of the Voidrot epidemic, and still rules presently while Syltheim continues to recuperate. Public opinion remains anti-monarchy, but the consensus during these specific circumstance support Habit_Cat's course of action.

Government
See article: List of Sylthian leaders

The government is set to be made of the executive and legislative branches. The executive branch is made up of the leader and their cabinet, while the legislative branch is currently made up of the general population.

Political Parties
Sylthiem's founder, Terranelm, expressed that the existence of multiple political parties is something the nation should strive for. Right now, four political parties exist, as listed in order below:


 * Sylt Party (Dec 20th, 2020)


 * Vocal Defense League (Jan 1st, 2021)


 * Green-Top Party (Jan 2nd, 2021)
 * Epic Fire Dragon Party of Epicness (January 1st, 2021)
 * Isolationist Party of Syltheim (February 26th, 2021-April 1st, 2021)

Elections
Elections are run using the Alternative Vote method. Depending on the circumstances, elections use a combination of virtual and in-game ballots. The Election Supervisor, currently Borg_Minion, counts the votes, and is unable to run for any elected office (despite Borg_Minion being a co-founder of the nation). Elections have been on hold since 5/30/2022 since the beginning of monarchical rule.

Foreign Relations
Syltheim is part of the Northwestern Alliance, a group of nations in the Northwest with similar ideals. Syltheim has not entered any alliance with nations outside this group, but maintains friendly relations with the outside world.

Government Finance
The concept of taxation has been strongly and almost universally opposed since the founding of Syltheim. Alternative methods such as statewide resource production and trade have been considered, but considering there are hardly any occasions for the government to spend money, no method has been implemented.

Player population
The player population of Syltheim was last counted at 7, though some players remain sick from Voidrot. 6 players run their own district or town, or 85.7% of the population. 4 players currently hold a government position, at 57% of the population.

Villager populations
While villagers do exist in Sylthian trading halls, only 'free villagers', i.e. villagers that live in a town, village, or homestead, are counted in a census. Blindvé Village currently has the largest villager count, with the last census counting 107 villagers. Heimstǫd af Býrnir had 18 villagers at the time of the last census.

Language
See article: Syltician language

The two primary languages are used in Syltheim, Common and Syltician. Common is spoken by 100% of the population, while only 14.2% speak Syltician. The amount of players who speak other languages is unknown.

Religion
See article: Sylthian religion

The religion of Syltheim, also known as Jordars Creed by practitioners, is only practiced by 28.4% of Syltheims population.

Urbanization
The primary urban settlements of Syltheim include Mallarfjoll, Ragako, Hilmrburg, Blindvé, Heimstǫd af Býrnir, Twicetown, Bloxford, Goozengrad, and the Cascadia district. Some of these settlements are only urban sprawl, and have no villager or player population to speak of, such as Twicetown and the Cascadia District. Mallarfjoll, Ragako, Bloxford, Goozengrad, and Hilmrburg are all populated by the players that run the district. Blindvé has the largest free villager population in Syltheim, and is also populated by a player, while Heimstǫd af Býrnir has a smaller villager population and no player population.

Education
while attempts have been made to create schools, colleges, and universities, none have been completed. None of the Sylthian population has received a formal education, which could be considered part of the reason the Syltician language is only spoken by a fraction of the population.

Art and visual media
See article: Sylthian architecture

Visual media in Syltheim is primarily expressed through buildings and architecture, with Sylthian styles distinct from the rest of Elgeis. Cascadian, Twicelandian, and Common styles have all effected Sylthian architecture.

Mass media, literature, and philosophy
A few pieces of Sylthian literature have been written during Syltheim's existence, including, but not limited to Terra's Technique of Tussle (TTT) and Where God Went Wrong (WGWW).

Another important philosophy of Sylthian culture is the concept of Sylt, meaning Gravel in most contexts, but also meaning the earth/soil of any sovereign country. Sylt includes gravel, sand, dirt, grass blocks, terracotta, podzol, mycelium, etc. Sylthians believe that the Sylt of a sovereign country is to be respected and preserved.

Villager culture in Syltheim
See also: Sylthian villager culture

While communication with villagers is still impossible, some things can still be inferred about villager culture in Syltheim. Naming conventions, burial traditions, and the structure of the main plazas all indicate the existence of a villager culture.