If you ask a Togarman to describe a Togarman, though, he will not know what you mean. He will, however, have plenty of appelations for his neighbors. The Veneci are pompous, the Zelskys eat horse meat, the Korjans drown themselves in wine, and the Leshes speak in tongues. As they would remind you, there is no such thing as "a Togarman." There are many peoples who belong to the banner of the tethered unicorn, and many of them would be quite insulted by being lumped together.
The people of the Togarman lands are united by a common heritage, but that heritage has long since divulged into a multitude of languages and cultures, and often an individual citizen will have more loyalty to their brothers and sisters at home than to their cousins far afield. In fact, not all Togarmic peoples pay homage to the same king. The majority of the population of Kvesland is of Togarmic stock, even if the noble classes are descended from Northmen, and Vardessy controls a Togarman March. Then there are the numerous cities on the Togarman coast that belong to the League of Three Crowns, and will often side with their interests. Nevertheless, the Togarmah most known to foreigners is the Kingdom of Togarmah - though it encompasses many lands and many peoples, they have long stood as one.
In ages past, the land that is now Togarmah was split between several kingdoms and tribes. Occasionally some of these petty kingdoms would stand together against a raid by Northmen, but they would wage war against each other just as often. There were too many competing interests for the tribes to come together for a lasting peace, it was thought, and blood feuds between rival clans could not so easily be forgiven.
That changed with the coming of the Orc Wars.
Some four hundred years ago, the great orc chieftain Ghammorz the Maneater surveyed his wealth - gold, jewels, horses, and land won by his great force of arms and strategic cunning. Already, he had cowed his rivals and amassed legions to his name, with would-be contenders finding no choice but to swallow their pride and throw their lot in with him. Many orcs would be content with the glory and riches such strength brought. But Ghammorz hungered for more. He had already achieved so much, he wished to see how much more he could truly attain. He wanted to make a legacy to be remembered - he wanted to become the greatest warlord the orcs would ever know.
Few would deny he succeeded.
In a series of campaigns, Ghammorz and his allies managed to conquer the Togarman lands, forging an empire to rival the nascent Vardessy. Some Togarman nobles saw fit to pledge tribute to the orcs so that they might be spared, but others stayed and fought - but they were no match for the hordes. They were driven from their ancestral homes and fled to Vardessy, seeking refuge from the unstoppable onslaught.
The nobles of Vardessy could not stand for such an injustice to their brothers in arms (or perhaps they just feared having such a fearsome empire on their borders, or had too many second sons without fiefs to their name and needed some land to conquer for themselves). They joined forces with the displaced Togarmans and launched a campaign of their own to retake the lands conquered by the orcs. It was a long and bloody conflict, lasting for generations of on-and-off warfare, but in the end, the last successors to Ghammorz's empire were brought to heel, and Togarmah was again free.
And then, something incredible happened. In uniting against the orcs, the Togarmans found a common enemy, and a common purpose. So too, when returning to their old manors, they found that the orcs had appointed regional governors and vassals, creating a system that managed to unite the disparate kingdoms where they could not. It proved such a thing was possible - and with that in mind, it was deemed that a divided Togarmah was too vulnerable to threats from outside, be they Northmen, orcs, or the neighboring realms of Vardessy and Kvesland, who perhaps could not be trusted to be allies forever.
Thus was issued the Golden Peace. In order to unite such fractured lands, the Togarmans developed a system of governance that some scholars would compare to the republics of the City-States and of Valossa, though Togarmans insist they are a kingdom. Under the laws of the land, all of noble birth - no matter their wealth, origin, or the size of their domain - had equal claim to the throne. To prevent kin-strife from tearing the young kingdom apart, the monarchy would not be passed down from parent to child; instead, whenever the reigning monarch dies, an assembly is called of all nobles in Togarmah who wish to attend to nominate one among their number to take the throne. All may come, and all votes are counted equally.
This system gives the nobility of Togarmah great power; in theory, even the most minor knight has a say in shaping the kingdom's future. Because of this, even though the King has all the authority such an esteemed position demands, he is still beholden to the interests of his peers; one who wishes to be King rarely does so without support from powerful allies. Furthermore, each time a monarch is elected, the nobility also decide on a charter that determines what policies they may enforce and what rights of the gentry must be respected (this is drawn up anew for every monarch, reflecting the shifting interests of the courts over time), forming an agreement by which the King rules by the assent of his subjects. One long-standing right has been the right of revolution, stating that a King who has lost the faith of his vassals has brought retribution upon himself, and that it is not an act of treason for rebellious nobles to take up arms - at least, as long as they succeed in the goals of their uprising.
In practice, this often leads to a weak central government, with its control over regional leaders curtailed by the very structure that gave it power. Although theoretically every noble's vote is equal, the feudal system still ensures that those in the lower ranks are indebted to those above them, and they may be pressured to vote in their masters' interests. So too, the system is ripe for exploitation from foreign powers, who may seek to influence the dukes and princes who hold the most sway so that they might appoint weak or loyal kings. There have even been times where the nobles were unable to reach a consensus on a new monarch, leading to two or three candidates claiming power and waging civil war. But the Golden Peace has ensured that no foreign power has held all of Togarmah since the Orc Wars - and at least when succession crises do occur, they do so in a relatively controlled environment.
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