Okoi City-States
The Okoi city-states are not a nation in the conventional sense. They hold no contiguous territory, share no border, and govern nothing collectively except the terms under which they deal with the world. What they share is the Hammer Accord, a confederacy of city-state leaders that coordinates Okoi leverage across the continent, and the shared understanding that each city-state’s independence is worth more than any alliance that would compromise it.
There are six city-states on the Remnant Continent: Kolvrath, Duvrak, Ashveth, Halvrak, Kethvar, and Thirkoth. Each is independent. Each governs itself, maintains its own military, and negotiates its own local relationships. The Accord convenes when matters require collective decision: trade terms that affect all city-states, threats too large for one city to handle, or disputes between city-states that cannot be resolved locally. Outside of those matters, each city-state is its own authority.
For daily life, law, and civic culture within any Okoi city-state, see Daily Life: Okoi City-States.
The Hammer Accord
Section titled “The Hammer Accord”The Hammer Accord functions as a final court and collective negotiating body. Its power rests on a single fact: no nation on the continent wants to be cut off from Okoi metalwork, and none wants Okoi weapons in the hands of their enemies. Every head of government who has dealt with the Accord has understood, usually quickly, that the leverage runs one direction.
The Accord convenes by summons from any city-state head who calls a matter of collective significance. Decisions require consensus, not majority, which means any city-state can block a collective action. In practice this makes the Accord slow to move and impossible to co-opt. No external party has ever successfully split it by purchasing a majority.
What the Accord does not do is govern the city-states internally. A city-state’s law, its military command, its forge contracts, its local political relationships with the surrounding nation: all of this remains entirely within that city-state’s authority. A Dosharen house that pressures Thirkoth directly is not dealing with the Accord. It is dealing with Thirkoth, which is a different problem.
Geography
Section titled “Geography”The six city-states are positioned across four of the continent’s five nations. No city-state sits in Kyr’Elian territory — the archipelago’s geography offers no mountain foundations of the kind the Okoi build on. Every other nation has at least one Okoi city-state within or near its borders, which is not coincidence. The spread gives the Accord continental reach without requiring territorial control.
Three of the six city-states are in Gankoran territory. This concentration reflects a longer history than the post-Migration settlement patterns of the Janim and Nyl. The Anamor and Okoi are both peoples native to the continent, and the absence of organized hostility between them in the early post-Migration period allowed the Okoi to hold positions in Gankoran terrain that would have been contested elsewhere. The relationship has deepened over centuries. Gankora treats the city-states within its territory as neighbors with standing, not anomalies to be managed.
Relations
Section titled “Relations”Gankora: The most functional relationship any nation maintains with the Accord. The United Anamor Nation does not claim sovereignty over the three city-states in its territory and has never formally pressed the question. The Okoi do not participate in UAN governance and do not ask to. What exists instead is a working relationship built on mutual recognition: Okoi forge output moves through Gankoran trade routes, and the city-states’ defensibility adds to the security of the regions they occupy.
Dosharen: Transactional and carefully managed. Thirkoth’s position between Ahjis, Narimis, and Jashirith gives it access to three distinct house economies simultaneously, which means three houses with independent reasons to keep the relationship functional. The Dosharen council cannot deal with the Accord as a unit — the Accord does not negotiate internal Dosharen politics — so each house negotiates with Thirkoth directly. This suits Thirkoth.
Lithywae: Formal and stable. The Empire respects demonstrated strength, and Kolvrath has demonstrated it consistently. The city-state’s position in the northern range carries strategic value the Empire has found easier to acknowledge than to challenge. Relations are not warm. They are reliably functional, which in Lithywae’s political climate is its own form of respect.
Shejara: Indirect and commercially active. Kethvar’s river access to Nashira makes it the primary conduit for Okoi metalwork entering Shejaran trade networks. House Dajimir has never attempted to assert authority over Kethvar and has never been given a reason to. The Accord and Shejara maintain no formal diplomatic relationship. They maintain a trade relationship, which is more durable.
The City-States
Section titled “The City-States”Kolvrath
Section titled “Kolvrath”Northern Lithywae, Kaelthar Range
Kolvrath sits high in the northern range where the mountain faces are sheer and the winters long. The forge district runs continuously through the cold months: stopping the fires in Kolvrath winter means restarting them in conditions where that process is dangerous. The city’s metalwork reflects its environment — tools and weapons built for endurance in extreme cold, with a reputation the southern city-states do not match and do not try to.
Its position in the imperial north gives Kolvrath a particular relationship with Lithywae’s outer-ring politics. The Empire’s authority thins with distance, and Kolvrath has never acknowledged Lithywae jurisdiction in the first place. The practical result is a city-state that operates with considerable independence even by Okoi standards.
Duvrak
Section titled “Duvrak”North central Gankora
Duvrak is the most interior of the Gankoran city-states, positioned where forested mountain slopes give way to higher rocky elevations above the treeline. The surrounding forest provides timber in quantities none of the other city-states have access to, which has made Duvrak a source of composite work — metal and wood together — that reaches different markets than pure forge output.
The city-state’s relationship with the surrounding Anamor clans is the most developed of any Okoi community on the continent. Duvrak has occupied this position long enough that nearby clans treat it as a fixed point in their seasonal movements, and the city-state has adjusted its trade rhythms accordingly.
Ashveth
Section titled “Ashveth”South Gankora, east of Corvesh
Ashveth occupies a mountain position with river access connecting it to Gankoran trade moving through Corvesh. Of the six city-states, Ashveth is the most commercially integrated into its surrounding nation — not by choice exactly, but by geography. The river makes goods move, and goods moving over generations has produced a city-state that is still recognizably Okoi in every institution but more practiced at dealing with outsiders than most.
The proximity to Corvesh means Ashveth is the city-state most frequently in contact with UAN leadership. When the Accord and Gankora need to communicate directly, Ashveth is where that conversation starts.
Halvrak
Section titled “Halvrak”West Gankora, coast
Halvrak is the only coastal city-state. The mountain it occupies descends sharply to the sea, and the city is built into the cliff face in layers, with the forge district highest and the harbor lowest. The harbor is a consequence of geography rather than a strategic choice, but the Okoi have made full use of it: Halvrak’s metalwork reaches Kyr’Elian markets more directly than any other city-state’s output.
The Keldar has maintained a working relationship with Halvrak for generations. It is professional and mutually respectful in the way that two organizations who have accurately assessed each other’s capabilities tend to be.
Kethvar
Section titled “Kethvar”North Shejara, inland
Kethvar is the hardest city-state to supply and the most self-sufficient. The desert environment means the mountain’s water — channeled from high snowmelt through Okoi-engineered stone channels to the forge and living districts — is the city’s foundation in a more literal sense than elsewhere. The river running south to Nashira is less a trade convenience than a structural fact: Kethvar’s output flows south because that is where the water goes.
House Dajimir has never made a formal approach to Kethvar. The Okoi read this as correct behavior and have not raised the question of why.
Thirkoth
Section titled “Thirkoth”Northeast Dosharen
Thirkoth’s position between Ahjis, Narimis, and Jashirith was not accidental. The mountain it occupies controls overland routes that all three cities have reason to use, and its forge output is accessible to each without passing through the others’ territory. The result is a city-state with three separate house relationships and no obligation to any of them.
The Diramesh excavation near Terima has increased Thirkoth’s relevance in ways the city-state has not publicly commented on. The kerim deposits in the northeastern range are in terrain the Okoi know well. What Thirkoth makes of that is not the Hammer Accord’s business yet.