---
title: "Varahmehr"
nativeTitle: "جمهوری فدرال ورهمهر"
romaji: "Jumhūrī-ye Federāl-e Varahmehr"
type: "overview"
nation: "varahmehr"
infobox: (34 rows)
---
**Varahmehr** (Mehrāni: ورهمهر, *Varahmehr*; lit. *Warmth of the Sun*), officially the **Federal Republic of Varahmehr,** is a country located in Southeastern [[evria]], formally known as Nabataea. It is positioned on the Western coast of the Eastern Panthalassan Ocean. Varahmehr only borders the Alemannian colony of Divia to the north and west, as the territories to the south remain uninhabited due to the inhospitable environment of the Nabataean Desert. It comprises six semi-autonomous ostān-hā (provinces), each with distinct cultures and affiliations. The ostān-hā are further divided into thirteen shahrestān-hā, which are governed by an elected Shahrdār.
Nourabad, the provincial capital of [[nourestan]], also serves as the federal capital. It has a population of 1.8 million people. It is the fourth most populous city, after Gandomabad with roughly 2.6 million, Kuhestan in industrial [[ahanestan]], which has 6.3 million residents, and Golzar in the ham-peymān of Al-Sahrā, with a population of 7.4 million. Other major cities include the port of Shushabad, the plains capital Sabzavar, the libertarian stronghold of Rāhgozar, and the academic center of Golestan.
The territory now constituting Varahmehr was, for most of recorded history, occupied by six distinct communities - Nourestan, Shushestan, Ahanestan, the Dashti plains, the refuge-settlement that would become Azadestan-e Kuchak, and the academies of Farzānestan - maintaining a fragile balance of mutual dependency through an annual diplomatic gathering called the Sofreh-ye Shesh (Table of Six). The modern federation was founded following the potential threat posed by the Ymirians, who acquired a colony near the territories. This culminated in a three-year negotiation, which concluded with the signing of the Federal Compact of Varahmehr.
## Etymology
The history of the name Varahmehr is quite long. The name itself is a compound word combining Varam (warmth, bounty) and Mehr (love, the sun), roughly translating to "Warmth of the Sun." This term was originally used by the Mehrāni to describe the region where the six ostān-hā were located and was later adopted by the other five as ties grew closer due to foreign imperialists. During the signing of the Compact, all six ostān-hā agreed to use the name of the region as the new name of their republic. The name of the capital, Nourabad (*City of Light*), echoes this solar symbolism, representing both the warm sun in the skies and the covenant of mutual care between citizens. Varahmehri citizens are referred to as Varahmehri (adjective and demonym) or, colloquially, as Mehrāni, though the latter term technically refers specifically to the largest ethnic group.
## History
### Prehistory
The earliest known traces of human civilization date back to around 100,000 BCE, with the first tools in the region found in the mountains of Nourestan. The first settlement in Varahmehr, Mehrāvar, dates back to around 3000 BCE, and it still operates today.
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<figure style="flex:1.337"><img src="/assets/old-media/media/varahmehr-4.png" alt="Ruins of a palace near Mehrāvar"><figcaption>Ruins of a palace near Mehrāvar</figcaption></figure>
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### Antiquity
The land consisted of many tribes during the era, ranging from the currently widespread Mehrāni, the Shushtari, who trace their ancestry from settlers of the Hasmenionian Empire, the desert people of the Arabi tribe, the mountainous Kuhi clans, and the agrarian Dashti people, all the way to cultures that no longer exist, such as the Samyār tribes and the innovative Gutians. Many similar cultures existed during the period, but most were assimilated by the expansionist Mehrāni or by one of the surrounding cultures. The most notable example of this was the Daria tribe, whose tribal communities and fishing villages were assimilated by the Shushtari, who quickly adopted their maritime traditions and began their trading history, for which they are known today.
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<figure style="flex:0.901"><img src="/assets/old-media/media/varahmehr-5.png" alt="The territories of the tribes and their subjects in late Antiquity, c. 104 BCE"><figcaption>The territories of the tribes and their subjects in late Antiquity, c. 104 BCE</figcaption></figure>
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The region was briefly occupied by the Hasmenionian Empire around 524 BCE, which retreated from the area shortly after due to external factors.
This process took centuries, but eventually the tribes centralized and expanded, slowly giving way to a new age in the Varahmehr region - The Six Lands.
### The Six Lands Period
This age is also commonly known as the age of Stans. It saw the emergence of the six ostān-hā as they are known today.
Nourestan was the first of the ostān-hā to be properly established - a plateau city-state built near a lake which was ruled by a merchant-scholar class - the Nouri. They maintained the region’s oldest written legal tradition, a body of commercial and property law that the other communities used to resolve disputes precisely because it belonged to none of them exclusively.
Shushestan’s coastal communities had existed as trading ports long before any sort of state emerged in the land. The Shushtari families who formed the merchant core carried with them the memory of Shushan’s ancient glory - the palace city, the royal court, the deliverance of Esther - and built their commercial identity around the idea that trade was not merely economic activity, but a form of covenant between peoples. It is unknown whether this ancient palace city was a part of Shushtari history before the Six Lands period, as no historical records remain of it other than songs and legends. Shushestan had no army to speak of, but it had something more durable - the trust of every merchant network within a thousand miles.
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<figure style="flex:0.572"><img src="/assets/old-media/media/varahmehr-6.png" alt="The Six Lands prior to the Ruz-e Peymān, 1878"><figcaption>The Six Lands prior to the Ruz-e Peymān, 1878</figcaption></figure>
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Ahanestan occupied the lakeside territories in the center of the region, where the Kuhi clans had mined iron and copper since antiquity, and the later Mehrāni settlers built forges and foundries that turned raw ore into tools, weapons, and, eventually, the structural ironwork that every other community depended on for building. Ahanestan was the most internally fractured of the six lands - the relationship between Kuhi tribesmen and Mehrāni settlers was governed by a complex web of clan agreements that outsiders never fully understood, and that collapsed and reformed on a generational basis.
Dashtestan was the breadbasket - the vast northern plains where the Dashti people had herded and farmed since before the Mehrāni expansion brought settled agriculture to the region. The Dashti were the most numerous of the non-Mehrāni peoples and the most politically coherent, governed by a council of clan elders called the Shurā-ye Dasht, whose decisions carried the force of law across the plains. Their relationship with the other five lands was essentially transactional: grain and livestock were traded for iron tools and weapons. They were largely neutral in the region's affairs, which was mostly respected by the others.
Azadestan-e Kuchak - not yet called that - was the smallest and strangest of the six territories, a thin coastal strip and its immediate hinterland that had been settled by a succession of communities who shared one trait: they had all left somewhere else. Refugees, dissidents, merchants who had quarreled with the authorities of larger places, scholars whose ideas were unwelcome elsewhere - the territory accumulated them over centuries and developed a culture of radical tolerance born not from philosophical principle, but from the practical necessity of people with nothing in common learning to live together. It had no formal government for most of its early history. Instead, it had a tradition of not turning away anyone who arrived seeking refuge.
Farzānestan occupied a small territory, a state whose mild climate and agricultural abundance gave its people enough surplus to support what the other lands could not - a scholarly class. The great academies of what would become Golestan were the oldest continuously operating centers of learning in the region, drawing students from every other territory for centuries. Farzānestan’s political influence derived entirely from this - it produced the lawyers, doctors, engineers, and administrators that everyone else needed, and its neutrality in the endless disputes between the other five lands was maintained with great care, for all understood the value of the territory.
### The Delicate Balance
For centuries, this arrangement functioned through a combination of mutual dependency, carefully managed grievances, and the absence of any single community powerful enough to dominate the rest. There were still wars, however. Ahanestan’s iron clans raided Nourestan’s settlements twice in living memory before a trade agreement made raiding less profitable than selling. Numerous border skirmishes also took place, although none of them amounted to any significant losses for either side.
What kept the balance was the Sofreh-ye Shesh - the Table of Six - an informal annual gathering of the six lands’ representatives at a rotating neutral site where disputes were aired, trade terms renegotiated, and the fundamental question of whether to formalize the relationship was raised and declined every single year without exception for approximately three hundred years. The Table of Six was not a government - it was an acknowledgment that a government might someday be necessary, held permanently in abeyance by the collective conviction that the cost of federalization would outweigh the benefits of independence. Nourestan wanted federalization most - its legal tradition made it the natural seat of any federal structure, and its merchant-scholars understood that a unified legal framework would benefit them disproportionately. Dashtestan wanted it the least - the Shurā-ye Dasht had governed the plains for a thousand years without outside interference and saw no reason to invite any. Other territories also had their reasons for staying away from any form of federalization.
### The Great Shift
The states kept up the balance for centuries, until a new power emerged from the north - the Ymirians. The arrival of the colonists was a shock to the inhabitants of Varahmehr, as if they were interfering in the region’s geopolitical situation; the whole balance could collapse. While there was no guarantee that the Ymirians would actually be interested in the region, a new type of fear arose within the people - one of colonization by the more technologically advanced Northerners and the uncertainty surrounding it. This fear sat in the hearts of the region's inhabitants until it culminated in a decision no one would have expected: the people of the Six Lands were considering unification with the other states. It started out small - a student group in Golestan arranged a demonstration in support of federalization on the 14th of October, 1874. It was a rather small rally, but it got the message across - the people wanted unity. Many more demonstrations took place after this, up until the gathering of the Table of Six. This prompted the representatives at Sofreh-ye Shesh to begin seriously considering the issue of federalization.
### The Three Years of the Compact
What followed was neither swift nor inevitable. The path from that moment to the signing of the Federal Compact took three years, two near-collapses, and a negotiation so contentious that the records show thirty-seven separate occasions on which a delegation walked out of discussions entirely. Dashtestan’s Shurā-ye Dasht refused for fourteen months to accept any federal structure that placed Dashti lands under a court system they did not control. The breakthrough came when Shushestan's chief negotiator - Esther Bahram, a woman carrying both Mehrāni and Shushtari heritage, proposed that the federal court's legitimacy would derive not from the authority of any single land but from the document itself. No land’s legal tradition would dominate. The Compact would be its own source. Dashtestan’s elders deliberated for 11 days and returned with acceptance.
Ahanestan’s Kuhi clans would not sign without an explicit guarantee that clan autonomy in the escarpment would be protected against both federal interference and Mehrāni settler encroachment. This guarantee was written into the Compact in language so specific that it named the mountain passes by their Kuhi names - a detail that seems minor but represented an enormous concession, the formal acknowledgment in a found document that Kuhi geography and nomenclature had equal standing with Mehrāni.
Azadestan-e Kuchak sent a delegation of four people who arrived two weeks late, asked three questions - *“can we leave if we choose to, can we refuse to participate in federal wars of aggression, and will you guarantee the right of any person who arrives here seeking refuge?”* - received three affirmative answers and signed without further discussion.
Farzānestan proposed and drafted seven different versions of the Compact’s preamble before the other five lands told them that the seventh version would be accepted regardless of whether Farzānestan’s scholars considered it philosophically satisfactory. The eighth version - which they consider superior - exists as an academic document in Golestan’s central library and is occasionally cited in Constitutional Court proceedings, to the quiet satisfaction of Farzānestani lawyers everywhere.
Shushestan’s final condition was the one that came closest to breaking the entire negotiation. They would not sign any document that did not contain explicit and irrevocable equal protection for all citizens regardless of ethnicity, religion, or heritage - not as a general aspiration but as an enforceable right with specific remedies. Nourestan’s Mehrdad Nouri-Fard, who had by this point spent three years nursing this agreement into existence, is recorded as having said: *“If this condition cannot be met, then we deserve to be colonized.”*It is Article Three of the Federal Compact, and it is the article that Shushestan’s Assembly delegation reads aloud every Ruz-e Peymān.
### The Signing - Ruz-e Peymān
The Federal Compact was signed on a morning on March 3rd, 1878, at a neutral site between Nourestan and Dashtestan - a location chosen precisely because it belonged to no single land and all of them simultaneously. Six representatives signed. Six seals were pressed into wax. The document was written in both Mehrāni and Dashti - the only two languages given equal status - with a Shushtari dedication in the margin that was not formally part of the text but that nobody proposed removing. The union of the Six Lands was not without issue, however. Shortly after the signing of the Federal Compact (also known as Peymān-e Mellī), many problems arose, such as the location of the capital, treasury distributions, the formation of the state’s institutions, and many other administrative burdens. This forced the newly founded nation into isolationism, preventing it from entering the Great War on any side.
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<figure style="flex:0.620"><img src="/assets/old-media/media/varahmehr-7.png" alt="Map of the shahrestān-hā of Varahmehr"><figcaption>Map of the shahrestān-hā of Varahmehr</figcaption></figure>
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## Government
The Federal Republic of Varahmehr is a federal constitutional republic governed under the Peymān-e Mellī. The government comprises three branches: the bicameral Majles-e Mellī (legislative), the Vazir-e Azam or Chancellor (executive), and the Dīvān-e Adl (judiciary).
The federation comprises six ostān-hā, each governed by an elected Ostāndār with significant autonomous powers. Political life is organized around four major factions: the Peymān-dārān (pro-market, constitutionalist, largest federal faction); the Risheh-dārān (traditionalist, agrarian, anti-federal overreach); The Mardom-e Kār (worker protections, social investment); and the Āzādi-khāhān (radical libertarian, based almost entirely in Azadestan-e Kuchak, functions as a decisive swing vote disproportionate to its size).
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<figure style="flex:1.138"><img src="/assets/old-media/media/varahmehr-8.jpg" alt="Tālār-e Peymān (The Hall of the Compact), it houses the original Peymān-e Mellī"><figcaption>Tālār-e Peymān (The Hall of the Compact), it houses the original Peymān-e Mellī</figcaption></figure>
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A consistent feature of Varahmehri political culture is the focus on personal freedom: since the people hold the Compact sacred, any attack on personal freedom is met with disdain and anger.
## Military
The [[defence-force-of-varahmehr]] (DFV) is based on a two-layer structure - the **Sepāh-e Mellī** (The National Force), which is commanded directly by the Chancellor through the Farmāndeh-ye Koll (Commander General), and the Niru-ye Ostānī (The Provincial Forces). The federal government spends approximately $225.7 billion on defense, while each ostān provides varying amounts to its provincial defense:
Nourestan - $5.7 billion
Shushestan - $3.9 billion
Ahanestan - $15.1 billion
Dashtestan - $3.5 billion
Azadestan-e Kuchak - $2.3 billion
Farzānestan - $1.6 billion
### Sepāh-e Mellī
The Sepāh-e Mellī is the federal standing army headquartered in Nourabad. Small by regional standards, but well equipped, well-trained, and designed for rapid deployment. It is the core of Varahmehr’s defense, maintained at federal expense and subject to federal law.
The Sepāh-e Mellī is divided into several **Lashkar** (divisions), with the remaining manpower held in specialist and support roles. Each Lashkar is a combined-arms formation capable of independent sustained operations - infantry, artillery, and cavalry operating together under a single divisional commander rather than being parcelled out by arm of service.
### Niru-ye Ostānī
Each ostān maintains its own military force, funded jointly by ostān and federal budgets, trained to federal standards but organized and commanded by the Ostāndār’s military council. These forces are constitutionally prohibited from being deployed outside their home ostān without federal Assembly approval - a provision that exists specifically to prevent the Chancellor from using one ostān’s forces against another. Combined, they are larger than the national force.
In wartime, the Provincial Forces work as a garrison layer - they know their terrain very well, meaning they can provide the defensive depth that the national army could not. The two layers are also merged under federal command through a structure called the **Shurā-ye Jang** (War Council), in which each ostān’s senior military commander sits alongside the national commander to coordinate operations.
### Navy
The state's naval capabilities are quite underdeveloped, consisting mainly of several Shushestani mercantile ships with minimal escorts.
### Aviation
The Hava-ye Mellī (National Air Service) is a newly established department that currently does not possess any aircraft. Instead, it is dedicated to aviation research, which, in the hopes of many, will bring long-term benefits to the nation's prosperity.
## Economy
Varahmehr operates a free-market capitalist economy with strong constitutional protections for property rights, contractual freedom, and commercial competition. While the economy is still developing, the gross domestic product is estimated to be around $3.38 trillion. The independent Bayt al-Māl (Federal Reserve Bank) manages monetary policy and issues the Dinar-e Āzad. Economic policy is a perennial site of factional contestation - the Peymān-dārān advocate minimal regulatory interference, the Mardom-e Kār push for worker protections and social investment, and the Risheh-dārān maintain quiet protectionist instincts on agricultural commodities that they rarely articulate explicitly in Assembly debates.
### Industry and manufacturing
Ahanestan is the federation’s industrial heartland. Its capital, Kuhestan - the largest city in Varahmehr - hosts foundries, steel mills, and engineering works that produce the structural materials on which the federation’s physical infrastructure depends. The Kuhi mining tradition, predating the Compact by centuries, feeds raw ore to processing complexes founded by Mehrāni. It has also started drilling for oil in recent years, and large quantities have been found across the nation.
### Trade and Finance
Shushestan is the commercial heart of Varahmehr. The port of Shushabad, operating under a legal framework developed over two and a half millennia of Mehrāni-Shushtari mercantile tradition, hosts the federation’s most respected commercial courts - contracts governed by Shushestani law carry a premium of trust that parties from other ostān-hā actively seek out. The ostān’s banking houses developed sophisticated instruments of credit and commodity trading that underpin federal finance. Āzādport in Azadestan-e Kuchak operates as a free port under minimal federal oversight, attracting capital that finds Shushabad’s structured legal environment too restrictive.
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<figure style="flex:1.674"><img src="/assets/old-media/media/varahmehr-9.jpg" alt="Port of Shushabad, circa 1920"><figcaption>Port of Shushabad, circa 1920</figcaption></figure>
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### Agriculture
Dashtestan produces the bulk of Varahmehr’s grain, livestock, and timber. The Jashn-e Mehr harvest festival - whose nān-e mehr bread-sharing tradition has spread across the federation - reflects the cultural significance of agricultural production to Varahmehri identity. Dashtestan’s commodity, centered on Sabzavar’s grain exchange, set pricing benchmarks across the region.
<div class="imgrid">
<figure style="flex:1.880"><img src="/assets/old-media/media/varahmehr-10.png" alt="Farmlands surrounding Gandomabad, Dashtestan"><figcaption>Farmlands surrounding Gandomabad, Dashtestan</figcaption></figure>
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## Geography
Varahmehr has a wide range of terrain, spanning from the plains of eastern Dashtestan and highlands of central Nourestan to the beaches of Farzānestan and the Nabataean desert to the south of the nation. It shares several bodies of water that serve as borders with the Ymirian colony of Divia, including the Ghlat and Nan rivers, which flow into Lake Dakhli, and the Barkeh basin. Other bodies of water include Lake Āvanak and the Daria Bay, which connects to the Eastern Panthalassan Ocean.
### Climate
Varahmehr’s climate is diverse, ranging from arid desert to subtropical in the north. On the northern coast, temperatures rarely fall below freezing, and the area remains humid. Summer temperatures rarely exceed 30 °C. The southern territories get much hotter, sometimes reaching 40 °C or higher. The coastal parts of the country receive much more rainfall on average than the inland areas, thanks to sea-breeze convergence. The inner parts of the country are not affected by this because orographic lift from the Nourestani highlands rarely brings rain.
## Demographics
### Ethnic Groups
Varahmehr is a multi-ethnic nation in which no single group constitutes an absolute majority in every ostān. The largest group, the Mehrāni, forms the cultural and linguistic backbone of the federation. They constitute 63% of the national population but fall below the 50% line in Dashtestan (48%), where they share the ostān near-equally with the Dashti people (40%).
The Kuhi people represent the largest single ethnic minority community and are mostly concentrated in Ahanestan’s industrial cities. Kuhi workers are disproportionately represented in the heaviest industrial roles; a persistent wage gap between Kuhi and Mehrāni workers in comparable positions is the federation’s most sensitive ongoing domestic equity issue and the primary concern of the Mardom-e Kār faction’s Ahanestan wing.
The Shushtari diaspora exerts cultural and commercial influence disproportionate to its raw population share. Shushtari communities in Nourabad, Golestan, and Rāhgozar are overrepresented in law, finance, academia, and journalism - a distribution reflecting centuries of educational tradition and the community’s historic reliance on intellectual capital as portable wealth during periods of insecurity.
### Languages
The federation, while only having two official languages - Mehrāni and Dashti - widely uses Shushtari as its third tongue, often used in the financial and academic sectors. While Kuhi tribes are allowed to speak in their dialect, they are generally required to learn one of the official languages when seeking employment. Schools in Varahmehr often teach the three main languages, alongside any minority languages present in the ostān, as decreed by the local Ostandār.
### Religion
Varahmehr is constitutionally a secular state with strict separation between government and religious institutions. No state opinion on religion is maintained or expressed; all faiths are equally tolerated and equally protected under Article Two of the Federal Compact. The dominant religious traditions reflect the federation’s ethnic composition: [[mithraism]] among the Mehrāni majority; Hasmoneanism among the Shushtari community; and Shahadism among the Arabi, Dashti, and Kuhi. Surprisingly, while being ethnically diverse, most residents in Farzānestan claim to be agnostic or atheist.
### Largest Cities
| Rank | City Name | Population | Subdivision |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | Golzar<br>گلزار | 7,416,000 | Eleriyaz |
| 2 | Kuhestan<br>کوهستان | 6,300,000 | Dabi-shā Avret |
| 3 | Gandomabad<br>گندم آباد | 2,560,000 | Dashiristan |
| 4 | Nourabad<br>نورآباد | 1,785,000 | Nahieh Nor |
| 5 | Shushabad<br>شوش آباد | 1,720,000 | Mosaghat |
| 6 | Āhanshahr<br>آهنشهر | 1,620,000 | Dabi-shā Avret |
| 7 | Dashtvār<br>دشتوار | 1,570,000 | Ghlat |
| 8 | Sabzavar<br>سبزوار | 1,452,000 | Kesht |
| 9 | Āvanak<br>آوانک | 1,186,000 | Barkeh |
| 10 | Dorudgar<br>درودگر | 847,000 | Ghehooh |
