Curacy

A curacy is a unit of a social and economic arrangement that prevails in Pytarus and to some extent Kurinadu in eastern Roscia. A descendant of the patrimonial relationships in ancient nakars, curacies comprise podiyar interests in a relationship with the namesake curator, who owes the curacy obligations to its welfare. The curator represents the curacy in politics, and campaigns for its interests; the curacy is their effective power base and political constituency. Curators also undertake many other endeavors to improve the welfare, enlightenment, and tolanggoly of their curacies, the most notable of which is the trusteeship constituted along lines of the curacy, with the curator sitting at the head of a fiduciary corporation drawing resources and investment from the curacy and in turn nourishing it with returns, though this trust does not usually interfere with curacies' own economic activities. Nearly every Pytarene lives under a curacy and benefits from it, and local customs mean to exist outside one is very rare, although changing allegiances is common. Generally divided along traditional and historical lines, curacies may represent communities of a few thousand to up to a million people. They may even be geographically discontiguous and comprise several different, otherwise unrelated, communities.

Curacies emerged as the early curators in the Pytarene Empire merged into a single class from various groups of yeomen and coastal merchants, thereby tying together the politics of the main economic activities in Pytarus. However, early curacies were rarely institutions; curators had obligations to the groups that supported their political or commercial ambitions, but usually only repaid them by irregular donations in welfare and championing those interests in local disputes or imperial politics. They also worked within the boundaries of imperial law, and were often limited by it. In the 17th century however, the explosion of trade, and the lucrative colonization of Roscia, meant that curators now turned massive profits that would be poured into a complete system of parish welfare. The ensuing Customary Revolution saw curators fortify their influence by consolidating trusteeships to bring ties closer, but also as improved education in the curacies allowed the curators' and their competent allies' numbers to be boosted, and the Pytarene Rectification now proclaimed this arrangement as the supreme administrative division of Pytarus alongside the nakars. Into the modern day curators remain heavily beholden to curacy interests in their activities, though many erratic curators that defied the wishes of their communities have also appeared throughout history.