History

World Weep Opening History

Katapesh, the nation of nearly unregulated trade, was a nation that quickly crumbled into anarchy after the failed First Heroes' March against Mathesis, the mad Alchemist. The mysterious Pactmasters, who had usurped power in Katapesh in a bloodless coup over a thousand years ago, disappeared as quickly as they had arrived mere days before the birth of the Worldweep. The lines of order that bound the plutocratic nation eroded quickly without the infrastructure that the Pactmasters had instilled. As trade crumbled across the globe, Katapesh would soon backslide from being the center of commerce in Garund to instead become a dangerous land of mercenaries and feudal city-states.

Age of Collapse History- Era of Mercenaries

Katapesh had once been famous for its wealthy markets where any conceivable product could be bought and sold. In the era of the Worldweep, however, anything that couldn’t be used as a weapon or to protect against the Alchemist's quick and merciless strikes was all but worthless. Across the nation, villages and hamlets would turn towards martial means and abandon their mercantile habits, save one: mercenary work. Enterprising inhabitants, strong or clever enough, banded together and used their power to extort farms and townships around them for protection from other competing bands. And during this era, new strains of Pesh were refined and brewed in small batches. These strains were miraculous in the power that they could impart to their user, catapulting everyday farmhands and small-time thugs into worthy adversaries for adult and ancient dragons, at a price. These strains were said to incorporate Mathesis's experiments and the essence of outer planers, and were thus labeled with batch names relating to the seven deadly sins and the seven heavenly virtues. 

Age of Renewal History

In the new age, post Mathesis's defeat at the hands of the Second Hero's March, the Pactmasters flowed back into the scene with the quiet reassurance they had all those centuries ago. Some especially bold bards and other historians note the deadly accurate timing of not only the disappearance of the Pactmasters in the days before the birth of the World Weep, but the 'coincidental' timing of sweeping back into the scene the moment Mathesis had fallen. Regardless, it is clear that the Pactmasters have their hands on the heartbeat of the world and guide other nations towards their will with golden diplomacy. The greed of their mercenary armies easily overpowers the resolve of most would-be resistance forces. A new strain of Pesh has been circulating the upper markets, something that can let an individual handle objects tainted by the weep shards, or even stay within the shard-covered lands of the Mana Scar Desert for small periods of time. With the gleam of gold in their eyes, Katapesh mobilizes towards the promised opportunity of the shardbound.

Government

The Pactmasters of Katapesh rule the nation with total authority over the various cities and major guilds, perhaps more tightly than they supposedly had in the millennium before. These mysterious beings are said to gather in monthly council sessions, but most of the population only has their supposed representatives, humans and towering aluum constructs, as any sort of reference point for their decrees, rulings, and laws. What in the past ages was a more relaxed plutocracy with minimal oversight is run more like a Corporatocracy, with the Pactmasters in essence having direct supervision of the major guilds, mercenary bands, and other businesses that act as their subsidiaries.

Many of the major mercenary bands have become so involved in higher business dealings, expanding internationally to supply the world with hireable soldiers, that many operate and are run like a traditional business. These venerated bands are often called Katabands internationally, with this title becoming a pseudo-label for an effective and high-quality armed force. Some of these Katabands even partially own the townships they are based in, operating several of the businesses with contracted workforces.  

Points of Interest

• Within what is colloquially known as the 'Wilderness' of Katapesh, numerous ruins, caves, caverns, and other natural environments can serve as hideouts for bandits or mercenary bands. Some locations have outgrown their names, like what was once known as Hook Ford, while some carry the same name all these centuries later, like the aptly named Serpent's Canyon. This wilderness plays home to several skirmishes between man, beast, and other- and it is not uncommon for travelers to protect their caravan with a rented mercenary or adventurer crew. 
• The national capital of Katapesh City still reigns as the trade metropolis of the world on the Obari Ocean Coast. It has rebuilt itself in the decades since the world weeps' ascension to the sky, and already the city is nearing bursting at the seams within the skeleton of the millennium-old outer walls. The Pactmasters Revivalist faction has created a city of sin in the new world, with major organizations and factions within the city proper servicing all kinds of vice, marking the city as a popular tourist destination for the new wealthy classes. 
• Peshfarms are still a staple of the frontier of the nation, and several agricultural towns have popped up around the individuals the Pactmasters have elected to lead the agricultural organizations. Some of these small towns, named after all manner of natural landscape features, are entirely run by the pesh businesses and form what have been called 'Company Towns', while some operate outside the purview of the farmers and enjoy some semblance of mayordom. 
• Finally, some towns formed outside the influence of the rest of the nation's capitalistic lens. Some form from religious sects, such as Sarenrae's faithful, while some are simply communities that banded together and naturally grew around natural resources. These towns often have varied names and cultures, some aligning with others in the nation and some forming wholly independent of outside influences. 

Organizations Within

• The Pactmasters and their subsidiaries form the most prominent organization chain within the nation of Katapesh that is present in each branch of infrastructure, from the macro to the micro level of society in Katapesh. They are prevalent in each settlement in the nation that is open to the outside, and rumor has it that they have spies and supporters in the settlements that are closed to the outside. Many mercenary bands are wholly owned or majorly financed by the Pactmasters and could serve as a standing militia at a single call. 
• The Free Caravan League is a coalition of traders and other business owners across the nation that don't directly serve the Pactmasters or their subsidiaries. They often operate at a microlevel that doesn't warrant hassle or direct warfare from the Pactmasters. Several members of these leagues finance small freedom fighter bands or other free-spirited adventurers to serve as a thorn in the side of these oppressive merchant guilds. 
• The Sorrow-Eaters are a cabal of bandits and gangs that hang around the Wilderness areas of Katapesh, leading skirmishes and raids against the townships of the nation. They have perfected an altogether new form of refining pesh and pesh mutations into a strain of plant that relies on human emotion instead of any essence of outsiders or leftover alchemical experiments of Mathesis, and thus brewable nearly anywhere in the nation.
• The Brass Bands are the largest guild of mercenaries and the ones that define the Kataband mercenary international labeling. Rumored to be outside the purview of the Pactmasters, this guild holds liquid power in directing the various factions of mercenaries and their contracts towards conflicts of the nation, and has supplied and organized wars and other skirmishes in such a way to bring them the outcome that keeps the most power and wealth in the guild's hands. 

Major Conflicts

• In the Wilderness of Katapesh, beyond the toils of man battling against man, storms of primal energy ravage the landscape as the Rovagug Beast's cults practice their rituals in secret. New horrific monsters burst onto the battlefield and settlements regularly from these practices, and terrible relics find their way into the hands of corrupted warbands that warrant rival mercenary bands to put aside their differences to survive.
• The lands of Katapesh are heavily occupied and patrolled by the various bands of Kataband Mercenaries that serve as domestic militiamen for any bandit groups or other potential crises for the various settlments of Katapesh or its farmlands. Although small skirmishes may occur from time to time, either against bandit groups or amongst opportunistic mercenary inner conflicts, a majority of the fighting is reserved for outside the nations borders. 

Events in the Age of Renewal

• The return of the Pactmasters after the ascension of the Worldweep marked the rival of the nation of Katapesh and the reformation of Katapesh city into a metropolis of trade and vice. 
• The Pesh Accords marked the point at which all major pesh farms of the nation agreed to serve under the supervision of the Pactmaster's new supervision, and granted this new oligarchy complete and total control over the market of trade. Somehow, despite the limited supply of outsider essence available in the known universe, the output of Pesh related to the seven deadly sins or the seven heavenly virtues seemed to exponentially increase after this agreement.  
• This decade, the wilderness settlement of Kiririt signed an agreement with the Free Caraven League to handle trade instead of their competing rival, the Nightriders of the Pactmasters. This landmark break from the total market control of the national government sparked a number of wilderness settlements to follow suit, and caused an increased number of 'unrelated' mercenary skirmishes to increase mercenary presence across the various settlements of the wilderness.

Other notable changes from the past Golarion

The general population and characteristics of inhabitants mirror the past Golarion.  The religion of the region is shifting, with some people and settlements substituting their previous predominant faith in Abadar with a pantheon of the mysterious pactmasters, sharing in essence many of the same tenets, domains, and other doctrines as the Abadar faith. 

Otherwise, another notable change is the boom of Katabands, who have, in essence, privatized and taken over many of the policing, firefighting, and other services of many townships in addition to their usual duties. Despite their mercantile nature and the possibility of dissolving or otherwise disappearing from the lives of the towns they occupy, the townships have grown accustomed to relying on their aid, to the point that many mercenary bands are being adopted as the mascot and even cultural figurehead of some townships.