Long before the south-west of Anarkand carried borders, councils, or even a name, there lived a man remembered simply as Mavado. Not king. Not prophet. Not chosen by gods. He was a citizen before the word existed.


What history records of him is fragmentary, braided with song, testimony, and recovered inscriptions from stone waystations now buried beneath modern cities. Yet every version agrees on one truth: when something alien to Anarkand came calling, Mavado stood in its path.


In the late First Era, when Anarkand still believed the stars were distant and silent, the skies above the south-west fractured. Witnesses spoke of a shape that swallowed light, hovering above the coastal plains where Mavado’s people lived. Crops withered not from heat, but from stillness. Animals refused to cross certain ground. The Red Hex, still young and imperfect in that era, dimmed in response, as though recoiling.


The threat did not invade. It observed.


Mavado was not a warrior by birth. He was a speaker, a coordinator of settlements, a man who walked between camps settling disputes over water and land. He carried no banner. He held no throne. His influence came from being listened to. When panic spread and calls arose for a single ruler, Mavado refused.


According to the Rabo Tablets, his words were:


“If one voice commands, then one voice will fall. Let many stand, and the ground itself will argue with the sky.”


Instead of raising an army, Mavado organised people.


The unknown entity above the skies of Anarkand was named the Verrakin. It reacted to structure, to hierarchy, to concentrated energy. Early attempts to confront it using organised force failed. Settlements that tried to channel power through leaders and symbols were silenced entirely.


Mavado noticed the pattern.


He ordered the settlements to dissolve their command chains. No banners. No generals. Decisions made locally, communicated outward. Defence without central authority.


People moved in shifting groups, never forming predictable structures. Energy was shared laterally, not funnelled upward. When the Entity pressed inward, it found nothing coherent to unmake.


At Mavado’s urging, the people altered the Red Hex interface manually, dispersing its output into thousands of micro-fields. The sky dimmed further, but the entity recoiled. It could not grasp a system without a centre.
The final act came at the coast, where the Verrakin descended close enough to cast shadows that bent the land.


Mavado walked alone into its influence zone.


Accounts differ on what happened next. Some say he spoke, not with words, but with intent. Others claim he disrupted the Verrakin by acting as a single citizen, refusing to become a symbol or sacrifice. A few traditions insist he physically dismantled an anchor-object embedded in the seabed, collapsing the entity’s tether to Anarkand.


What is certain is this: the Verrakin withdrew.


It did not flee in violence. It simply ceased to be present.


And Mavado did not return.


No body was found. No monument raised at the time. The people gathered and argued what should come next.


They named the land Mavado, not to honour a ruler, but to remind themselves of a principle: that Anarkand had been protected not by destiny, divinity, or command, but by shared action.


Mavado’s system of Citizen Rule traces directly back to this origin myth. Leadership without permanence. Authority without worship. Defence without domination.


The story is taught not as legend, but as warning.


Other nations remember heroes as conquerors or martyrs. Mavado remembers a man who refused to be either. The lesson remains carved into civic halls across the country:


Anarkand does not need saviours. It needs citizens willing to stand together.


That is why the country still bears his name.


Mavado is a nation built not around bloodlines, prophecy, or empire, but around the collective will of its people. Situated in the south-west of Anarkand, Mavado occupies a region of rolling coastal plains, fractured highlands, and deep inland basins rich in water and cultivable land. It is neither ostentatious nor insular. Instead, Mavado has become known as one of the most ideologically confident citizen-ruled states on the planet.


Mavado began as a loose network of independent settlements formed after early Anarkian migrations pushed populations away from the central core. These settlers were a mix of displaced peoples, ideological dissenters, and frontier communities who rejected both imperial authority and religious absolutism.


Without a unifying monarch or theocratic figure, governance in early Mavado emerged out of necessity. Councils were formed to manage water, food, defence, and trade. Over time, these councils formalised into a system now known simply as Citizen Rule, where authority is granted directly by the population through layered representation, referenda, and rotational leadership.


This structure allowed Mavado to survive eras of instability that fractured many neighbouring states. While less centralised powers collapsed under pressure, Mavado’s flexibility became its greatest strength.


Mavado is highly diverse. Its population includes:

Native Anarkian lineages

Migrants from Atlantia and Karasis

Smaller Marakai communities

Independent clans with no clear ethnic origin


What binds them is civic participation. Citizenship in Mavado is not passive. Every adult is expected to vote, debate, and contribute to communal decision-making. Political apathy is socially discouraged, not through punishment, but through cultural expectation.


This has created a population that is politically literate, deeply opinionated, and fiercely protective of civil liberties. Religion exists, but it holds no governing authority. Mazkars may advise, but never rule. Leadership positions are temporary, strictly limited in duration, and recallable by public vote. No individual may hold executive authority twice in the same lifetime. This system has made Mavado slower to act in emergencies, but remarkably resistant to corruption.


Relationship with Neighbouring Nations:

KARASIS:
Mavado shares a respectful and pragmatic relationship with Karasis to the east. While Karasis is conservative and deeply anchored in history, Mavado represents ideological flexibility. The two states often exchange agricultural technology, labour specialists, and Red Hex maintenance teams.

Tensions occasionally arise over border regulation and cultural preservation, but neither side views the other as a threat.


BAALMARK:
Baalmark’s status as a superpower and its strong religious belief in the return of the Precursors places it ideologically opposite to Mavado. Yet, the relationship remains stable.

Mavado respects Baalmark’s strength but is wary of its one-party structure and prophetic doctrine. Baalmark, in turn, sees Mavado as useful but unpredictable. Trade exists, particularly in raw materials and logistics, though political trust remains measured.


ATLANTIA:
Relations with Atlantia are strong. Both nations value openness, innovation, and economic flow. Atlantian traders operate freely in Mavado ports, and Mavadan civic engineers have assisted Atlantia in urban planning and coastal infrastructure. This relationship has helped Mavado become a regional transit and negotiation hub.


MAVARIA:
Mavaria shares historical and cultural ties with Mavado, often described as its ideological sibling rather than neighbour. Where Mavado formalised citizen rule, Mavaria retained stronger traditional leadership structures.

The two cooperate extensively on border security, disaster response, and population movement. Migration between them is common and largely unrestricted.


Red Hex and Environmental Balance

Mavado’s Red Hex has remained largely stable through recent eras. Lessons learned from neighbouring crises, particularly Kabal and Karasis, led Mavado to invest early in decentralised Hex monitoring and rapid repair frameworks.

The nation places heavy emphasis on ecological balance. Industrial expansion is permitted only if it can be reversed without permanent damage. This philosophy has earned Mavado respect from environmental factions and tension with profit-driven conglomerates.


Today, Mavado is politically stable, economically steady rather than explosive and socially vocal. It is not a military heavyweight, but its citizen militia and defensive coordination are highly effective. Any external attempt to destabilise Mavado would face resistance not from an army alone, but from an organised and politically unified population.

Mavado often acts as a mediator in south-western disputes, trusted precisely because it lacks imperial ambition.