Editing Journey of the Strange (section)

==The Mari Imperium==
The Mari Imperium.
In one form or another, the Mari Imperium has been in place for almost 200 years. It was once in control of most of the Middle Sea (as the Mari Republic, then the Marian Successor Alliance), but now exists on the Southern coast...though its Empire expanded south so much that it now controls more land and subjects than it ever did in the Middle Sea. The Mari, pragmatic as ever, condsider it part of the the great cycle of Mari.
Mari the woman was a queen in the ancient days who led her tribe to victory, conquest, unification and, eventually, the alliance of the people who bear her name. She founded the Marout, or Way, a spritual philosophy that has a hundred sects in the modern day but is also the official religion of the Imperium. It acknowldeges gods as local manifestations of the Divine All given much greater power and understanding than mortals and questions not why the god of the sun is a woman in another place. In religion as in politics, the Mari are pragmatic.
The Imperium is vast and depends on regional governers and colonial allies to keep itself intact. While it has access to huge resources, much of these are, at any one time, being used to supress revolts, arbitrate with warring factions, deal with disaster and banditry or fight wars of expansion or defence.

[What if India was attached to East Africa? The Mari Imperium is a mixture of Byzantine Empire,Egypt, India and 'Nubia', - vast, enigmatic and very dangerous if truly roused. I imagine a semiformal caste system with meritocracy at the lower levels, but rigid control at the top. ]