Sudal
"If you want a weathervane for the country, keep an eye on the Duumvirate's bedroom; When lights are on in the joint room, everything's fine. Now if the private apartments are lit; that's when I win awards."
-Modeste Bujakera, Political reporter for the The Akoda Lighthouse
History
Extensive logging by pre-Pardic Empire nations converted most of Sudal from semitropical to rolling plains.
During the Pardic Empire's expansion Suusanna and Daguetera were largely shielded from invasion by the extensive mountain range creating few viable logistical routes into their land from the rest of the continent. Both nation's began working close together to hold off their mutual enemy, and without easy access to trade with anyone else with the major land, and sea routes controlled by the Pardic Empire, they became eachother's only trading parters. By the time of The Lashing the two countries had effectively merged into one, with slow beaurocratic and legal changes over the next several hundred years forming the completely unified Sudal of modern times.
While there is an official date at which the nations announced their "long term alliance", the reality is that the changes were so incremental and slow that it is hard to put an exact date on when the nation of Sudal as one would think of it began to exist.
Government
Sudal functions as a monarchic duumvirate; two royal families each rule their state within Sudal, with the crowned member of each family symbolically marrying the other. Each monarch has complete autonomy(ostensibly) over the internal affairs of their part of the country, though over time the actual differences in law and policy between the two states have slowly faded, and some laws have even been passed unifying certain parts of their respective legal codexes. International issues such as trade, diplomacy, and national defense are overseen by both, and any decisions must be a unanimous decision between the two. There is both a national military and the private militaries controlled seperately by each monarch, though in modern times the private forces are smaller than the national forces by almost an order of magnitude.
Culture
There is a (mostly) friendly rivalry between the Suusanna and Daguetera halves of Sudal. This usually manifests in cultural competition; whose sports team recently won, whose band or musician is currently in the zeitgeist. On occasion a violent incident may occur but these are few and far between.
Since their section of the continent was never conquered by the Pardic Empire, the citizens of Sudal have less hostile memories of the empire, and in turn, less hostile (generally) attitudes towards Nostra compared to most other countries. Nostratic practices are still outlawed however. In rural areas old thaumaturgic techniques, passed down as shamanistic practices are still quietly practiced. Some sects of the Nabalic Church have made inroads in the last few centuries and urban centers are now predominantly Nabalic.