HOME | DD

Description
At the time of human arrival, Planterkind was broken into various groups of different ideologies and forms of civilization. Having developed under vastly different conditions than human civilization, Planter civilization was organized and orchestrated much differently than that of humans.

Planters never formed the idea of religion(with some small exceptions), but many of them deeply embrace different philosophical and logical systems of belief. Many of these systems of belief dictate allegiance and behaviors of different nations.

Compared to human forms of government, almost all Planter civilizations would be classified as radically communist, as Planters generally do not have much of a notion of personal property aside from small personal effects such as clothing. Countries differ in many ways however, such as their stance on other countries and cooperation with them, their stance on leadership, their views on individuals vs the state, and other things.

Cascade
Despite being a country made through warfare, Cascade is one of the most peaceful of the current superpowers of Tungsten Heart. Two hundred years prior to modern times, the first Cascadians, two medium sized nations that had been rivals, joined together in an alliance and forcibly annexed or pushed out any other nation living around the Cascade Sea. Those who resisted often ended up giving up the futile attempt after seeing how well the annexed subjects were treated- the Cascadians’ terms were generous towards those they conquered, and anyone who embraced their government became full members of the country. The remaining dissidents were eventually defeated and those not killed fled across the lands, mostly ending up as refugees in the Fountain Bloc.
Compared to other Planter countries, Cascade is very centralized and has a government based around delegation of duties- meaning they have roles reminiscent of what humans would call governors, mayors, or other such things. Many Planter ideologies see the idea of one Planter having some form of authority over others as downright tyrannical, but as Planter countries grow in size and population, many are finding such practices to be required for stable, united countries to exist.
Cascadians, while accepting such ideas as delegated leadership, are still very communal and group-based in their way of thinking. Groups of Cascadians who are close with each other will often share a group name and introduce themselves as such, often living out their entire lives within arm’s distance of each other and sharing a place of residence.

Fountain Bloc
Fountain is an alliance of conglomerated smaller states that follow a consensus-based method of governance, where they try to follow the will of the majority of the people, with big issues voted on directly. Most Planter nations hold no value in societal constructs such as written concrete laws and prefer to handle transgressions on a case-by-case basis. Humans may find this to be a risky move with mob-justice running rampant, but Planters have an extremely low rate of infighting and domestic crime, so it is generally a non-issue.
Consensus-based governance does have its issues, however. Compared to a country like Cascade, the Fountainites can be sluggish in rallying their people behind common causes. They may find issues in responding to natural disasters or other crises such as outbreaks.
The Fountainites and Cascadians have had a long-running rivalry since the unification wars in Cascade due to the Fountainites supporting the anti-unification factions of old Cascade. Since Cascade was unified, the Fountainites have been in a semi-cold war with occasional skirmishes between their militaries and various proxy wars, mostly involving the Central Bulwark nations and the people living around Buffer Lake and the Basin.

Path Confederation
Path’s form of governance is somewhere between Fountain and Cascade’s, with some regional delegated leadership but no centralized federal leadership.
While Fountain and Cascade are locked in a continuous conflict with each other, the people of Path are in a constant war against the smaller nations of the Turbid Zone and the Savanna Bulwark.

Turbid Zone States
The satellite states of the Southern Path Savannas are a heavily fragmented community of small, ever-changing nations who fight over the fertile lands to the south of the Path Sea. With constant meddling from the three superpowers (Path, Fountain, and Cascade) the Turbid Zone earns its name with constant infighting and shifting alliances that keep the Turbid Zone from uniting as one and posing a serious threat to anyone aside from each other.
Many of the conflicts in the Turbid Zone are between those factions that control the two mountain ranges south of the Path Sea and the ‘runoff nations’ that exist in the regions where the mountain’s runoff forms rivers. When the nations who own the mountains build dams and redirect the runoff flow of the mountains it denies the ‘runoff nations’ the water that their lands are named for, and it often sparks conflicts.

Southern River Clans
The Southern River Clans are a network of clans who have inhabited the river leading to the South Path Satellite Lake. Being rather small and somewhat behind their peers technologically, the SRC has been at continuous risk of invasion from countries from the Turbid Zone or from Path, but being in the harsh transition zone from desert to tundra has benefits. Most larger armies do not see fighting the SRC as a worthwhile way to spend limited resources when the reward is mostly frozen, barely livable land.

Junction
The region around Junction Lake is home to a peculiar set of Planter states. Like the Southern River Clans, the Junctioneers are not as technologically advanced as many other nations, but this is not a problem to them.
Junctioneers are a rarity for a variety of reasons, one of which being their more peaceful way of life when compared to other areas on Tungsten Heart. Rather than forming countries and warring with each other over the extremely limited fertile land around Junction Lake, the Junctioneers hold a steady state of equilibrium and peace through use of heavily interdependent trade-based economies. While the political ideologies and societal structures of the Junction countries vary greatly, they are all bound by their trade networks and something very rare among Planters- religion.
Junctioneers have the closest thing to human religion on Tungsten Heart. Their beliefs, rather than focusing on creation stories and specific Planter-gods, are built around the idea of every Planter body being a vessel that holds just one part of the central Planter spirit. In their eyes, there is only one Planter mind, but it is fragmented across the entire species. They believe that if the world was united under this belief that the species would actualize itself into its final unified form and become something greater.

Citadel
The convergence of two mountain ranges formed an incredibly defensible natural wall around the region known as the Citadel. The inhabitants originate from refugees fleeing the warring savanna states in the pre-industrial days of Planter civilization. They formed a tight knit but xenophobic society that strictly embraces self reliance and using all resources to their fullest extent. Citadel lagged behind in the technology department for years until they were threatened by the Fountainites, which led to them breaking their xenophobic and self-reliant ways in order to trade resources for a handful of Cascadian scientists who helped them get up to date with their weaponry and other technology.
Citadel remains isolationist in modern times, but they have continued to have a warm-yet-distant relationship with Cascade, and a sore feeling towards Fountain for threatening them.

The Basin
The people of the Basin are similar to the Citadel in their beliefs towards self reliance and their living within a naturally walled, defensible area. However, due to their proximity to larger, more powerful countries, they have had to make alliances and sustain trade deals for their own survival. While politically different from them, their closest ally is Cascade. Basin is the only northern country to have a notable demographic of Planters who believe in the Junctioneer religion (around 30% of their people).
The alliance with Cascade is a controversial matter among Basinites, who frown upon their delegatory government, which many of them see as tyrannical. However, facing annexation by the Path Confederation as well as invasion by Fountain, the alliance with Cascade is more of a survival motivated move than one motivated by friendship.

Buffer Lake
A neighbor of the Basin, Buffer Lake’s people are in a similar situation to the Basinites. Being situated in the space between all three superpowers, the very existence of the Buffer Lake community is constantly in jeopardy.
Buffer Lake’s community is run by a pure population-vote based method of rule, which politically aligns them with the Fountainites, though they have yet to join Fountain. Buffer Lake is the only remaining Cascadian country that maintained its own identity post-Cascade unification. Their staunch resistance to unification earned them respect from Fountain, which promised to support them if Cascade ever attempted to finish the job and invade. Aside from their proud and self-contained identity as a nation, the biggest thing stopping them from joining Fountain is the risk of Cascade starting a war to prevent them from doing so, as it would bring Fountain’s borders directly to Cascadian territory.

Valley of Salt
To the far west of Fountain lies the Cascade Deadlands, a region so far from any sea that next to no moisture reaches it. Within the Cascade Deadlands are the remnants of what used to be a great sea before geological changes in Tungsten Heart’s surface led to it being cut off from water sources, which made it slowly evaporate away, leaving vast salt flats.
While the superpowers all have spread out observation posts and a handful of research facilities within the Deadlands, there is a demographic of Planters who call the area home and who answer to no nation. They are commonly referred to as Salt People, but they do not actually identify as one group. Various clans of scavengers, pirates, and ascetic survivalists live out in the salt flats and surrounding parched regions making their living off of the extremely limited resources of the Deadlands. Many take to raiding outposts and supply convoys to make their living and secure water and technology.

While there are various other Planter nations, these are the largest and most stable of them that exist in modern times. Some factions exist without holding territory, such as the secret society Mode of Change. Some exist within other countries, such as the various states of the Path Confederation.

Description
At the time of human arrival, Planterkind was broken into various groups of different ideologies and forms of civilization. Having developed under vastly different conditions than human civilization, Planter civilization was organized and orchestrated much differently than that of humans.

Planters never formed the idea of religion(with some small exceptions), but many of them deeply embrace different philosophical and logical systems of belief. Many of these systems of belief dictate allegiance and behaviors of different nations.

Compared to human forms of government, almost all Planter civilizations would be classified as radically communist, as Planters generally do not have much of a notion of personal property aside from small personal effects such as clothing. Countries differ in many ways however, such as their stance on other countries and cooperation with them, their stance on leadership, their views on individuals vs the state, and other things.

Cascade
Despite being a country made through warfare, Cascade is one of the most peaceful of the current superpowers of Tungsten Heart. Two hundred years prior to modern times, the first Cascadians, two medium sized nations that had been rivals, joined together in an alliance and forcibly annexed or pushed out any other nation living around the Cascade Sea. Those who resisted often ended up giving up the futile attempt after seeing how well the annexed subjects were treated- the Cascadians’ terms were generous towards those they conquered, and anyone who embraced their government became full members of the country. The remaining dissidents were eventually defeated and those not killed fled across the lands, mostly ending up as refugees in the Fountain Bloc.
Compared to other Planter countries, Cascade is very centralized and has a government based around delegation of duties- meaning they have roles reminiscent of what humans would call governors, mayors, or other such things. Many Planter ideologies see the idea of one Planter having some form of authority over others as downright tyrannical, but as Planter countries grow in size and population, many are finding such practices to be required for stable, united countries to exist.
Cascadians, while accepting such ideas as delegated leadership, are still very communal and group-based in their way of thinking. Groups of Cascadians who are close with each other will often share a group name and introduce themselves as such, often living out their entire lives within arm’s distance of each other and sharing a place of residence.

Fountain Bloc
Fountain is an alliance of conglomerated smaller states that follow a consensus-based method of governance, where they try to follow the will of the majority of the people, with big issues voted on directly. Most Planter nations hold no value in societal constructs such as written concrete laws and prefer to handle transgressions on a case-by-case basis. Humans may find this to be a risky move with mob-justice running rampant, but Planters have an extremely low rate of infighting and domestic crime, so it is generally a non-issue.
Consensus-based governance does have its issues, however. Compared to a country like Cascade, the Fountainites can be sluggish in rallying their people behind common causes. They may find issues in responding to natural disasters or other crises such as outbreaks.
The Fountainites and Cascadians have had a long-running rivalry since the unification wars in Cascade due to the Fountainites supporting the anti-unification factions of old Cascade. Since Cascade was unified, the Fountainites have been in a semi-cold war with occasional skirmishes between their militaries and various proxy wars, mostly involving the Central Bulwark nations and the people living around Buffer Lake and the Basin.

Path Confederation
Path’s form of governance is somewhere between Fountain and Cascade’s, with some regional delegated leadership but no centralized federal leadership.
While Fountain and Cascade are locked in a continuous conflict with each other, the people of Path are in a constant war against the smaller nations of the Turbid Zone and the Savanna Bulwark.

Turbid Zone States
The satellite states of the Southern Path Savannas are a heavily fragmented community of small, ever-changing nations who fight over the fertile lands to the south of the Path Sea. With constant meddling from the three superpowers (Path, Fountain, and Cascade) the Turbid Zone earns its name with constant infighting and shifting alliances that keep the Turbid Zone from uniting as one and posing a serious threat to anyone aside from each other.
Many of the conflicts in the Turbid Zone are between those factions that control the two mountain ranges south of the Path Sea and the ‘runoff nations’ that exist in the regions where the mountain’s runoff forms rivers. When the nations who own the mountains build dams and redirect the runoff flow of the mountains it denies the ‘runoff nations’ the water that their lands are named for, and it often sparks conflicts.

Southern River Clans
The Southern River Clans are a network of clans who have inhabited the river leading to the South Path Satellite Lake. Being rather small and somewhat behind their peers technologically, the SRC has been at continuous risk of invasion from countries from the Turbid Zone or from Path, but being in the harsh transition zone from desert to tundra has benefits. Most larger armies do not see fighting the SRC as a worthwhile way to spend limited resources when the reward is mostly frozen, barely livable land.

Junction
The region around Junction Lake is home to a peculiar set of Planter states. Like the Southern River Clans, the Junctioneers are not as technologically advanced as many other nations, but this is not a problem to them.
Junctioneers are a rarity for a variety of reasons, one of which being their more peaceful way of life when compared to other areas on Tungsten Heart. Rather than forming countries and warring with each other over the extremely limited fertile land around Junction Lake, the Junctioneers hold a steady state of equilibrium and peace through use of heavily interdependent trade-based economies. While the political ideologies and societal structures of the Junction countries vary greatly, they are all bound by their trade networks and something very rare among Planters- religion.
Junctioneers have the closest thing to human religion on Tungsten Heart. Their beliefs, rather than focusing on creation stories and specific Planter-gods, are built around the idea of every Planter body being a vessel that holds just one part of the central Planter spirit. In their eyes, there is only one Planter mind, but it is fragmented across the entire species. They believe that if the world was united under this belief that the species would actualize itself into its final unified form and become something greater.

Citadel
The convergence of two mountain ranges formed an incredibly defensible natural wall around the region known as the Citadel. The inhabitants originate from refugees fleeing the warring savanna states in the pre-industrial days of Planter civilization. They formed a tight knit but xenophobic society that strictly embraces self reliance and using all resources to their fullest extent. Citadel lagged behind in the technology department for years until they were threatened by the Fountainites, which led to them breaking their xenophobic and self-reliant ways in order to trade resources for a handful of Cascadian scientists who helped them get up to date with their weaponry and other technology.
Citadel remains isolationist in modern times, but they have continued to have a warm-yet-distant relationship with Cascade, and a sore feeling towards Fountain for threatening them.

The Basin
The people of the Basin are similar to the Citadel in their beliefs towards self reliance and their living within a naturally walled, defensible area. However, due to their proximity to larger, more powerful countries, they have had to make alliances and sustain trade deals for their own survival. While politically different from them, their closest ally is Cascade. Basin is the only northern country to have a notable demographic of Planters who believe in the Junctioneer religion (around 30% of their people).
The alliance with Cascade is a controversial matter among Basinites, who frown upon their delegatory government, which many of them see as tyrannical. However, facing annexation by the Path Confederation as well as invasion by Fountain, the alliance with Cascade is more of a survival motivated move than one motivated by friendship.

Buffer Lake
A neighbor of the Basin, Buffer Lake’s people are in a similar situation to the Basinites. Being situated in the space between all three superpowers, the very existence of the Buffer Lake community is constantly in jeopardy.
Buffer Lake’s community is run by a pure population-vote based method of rule, which politically aligns them with the Fountainites, though they have yet to join Fountain. Buffer Lake is the only remaining Cascadian country that maintained its own identity post-Cascade unification. Their staunch resistance to unification earned them respect from Fountain, which promised to support them if Cascade ever attempted to finish the job and invade. Aside from their proud and self-contained identity as a nation, the biggest thing stopping them from joining Fountain is the risk of Cascade starting a war to prevent them from doing so, as it would bring Fountain’s borders directly to Cascadian territory.

Valley of Salt
To the far west of Fountain lies the Cascade Deadlands, a region so far from any sea that next to no moisture reaches it. Within the Cascade Deadlands are the remnants of what used to be a great sea before geological changes in Tungsten Heart’s surface led to it being cut off from water sources, which made it slowly evaporate away, leaving vast salt flats.
While the superpowers all have spread out observation posts and a handful of research facilities within the Deadlands, there is a demographic of Planters who call the area home and who answer to no nation. They are commonly referred to as Salt People, but they do not actually identify as one group. Various clans of scavengers, pirates, and ascetic survivalists live out in the salt flats and surrounding parched regions making their living off of the extremely limited resources of the Deadlands. Many take to raiding outposts and supply convoys to make their living and secure water and technology.

While there are various other Planter nations, these are the largest and most stable of them that exist in modern times. Some factions exist without holding territory, such as the secret society Mode of Change. Some exist within other countries, such as the various states of the Path Confederation.