Tsort

Tsort
Established
Motto
Neighbours	Klatch, Djelibeybi & Ephebe
Geographical Features	Valley of Tsort, ruins
Population
Size	small
Capital	Tsort
Type of government	Kingdom
Notable Citizens	Elenor of Tsort (Technically of Ephebe...)
Imports	Kidnapped Princesses
Exports	dressed stone, tobacco products
National Anthem
Books	Mort, Small Gods, Eric

One of two political heavyweights adjoining Djelibeybi and the historical enemy of Ephebe, the other, Tsort is a walled kingdom on the continent of Klatch, by the Circle Sea. Presumably, it is located in the Tsort valley, near the Tsort river. Tsort (not to be confused with Tsorta, a now-destroyed village that once stood around 1.8 kilometers from Tsort) seems to be a heavily militarized society; its influential Commander of the Fleet is the Imperiator. In the war against Omnia, Tsort was able to contribute the most ships to the invasion fleet.

Unlike Ephebe, Tsort can't look back on a noteworthy philosophy tradition, but is notable for having, at one time, imitated Djelibeybi in pyramid-building, as exemplified by the famous Great Pyramid of Tsort (made one with the lone and level sands long, long ago). The pyramid is said to have contained the ancestral wisdom of Tsort. Inscribed on the interior of its walls was an ancient prophecy detailing how the world was going to be destroyed if the eight spells of the Octavo weren't said on Hogswatch of one year in the Century of the Fruitbat. Tsort's written language is comprised of hieroglyphs.

There is also, of course, the famous Elenor of Tsort, a beautiful woman stolen from Ephebe by King Mausoleum, causing the Tsortean Wars, in which a Tsortean Horse was used, and which prominently featured a Tsortean hero whose heels were his only vulnerability.

Tsort in its capacity as a military entity is featured prominently in Eric, Pyramids and Small Gods.

Annotation

While Ephebe is clearly based on Ancient Greece with every knob turned up to eleven, Tsort is not so clear-cut. There is a clear component of ancient Troy, which was situated on the west coast of modern-day Turkey. However, all other references point to the ancient Persian Empire (which, in its heyday, included the site of Troy). The Persians built step pyramids (ziggurats) and refined their own hieroglyphic language into the cuneiform script, the immediate predecessor of all modern Western scripts (both Greek and Hebrew alphabets borrowed heavily from cuneiform, and our modern Latin script is a Roman adaptation of Greek lettering). It's scarcely necessary to add that Greece and Persia were traditional enemies and fought many wars, as befits geographical neighbours the world over.