Flag of Tavaris

The Flag of the Kingdom of Tavaris, known as the "National Banner" or sometimes as the "Auspicious Banner," is the national flag of Tavaris. It uses black and white, which are the traditional colors of Line Nuvo, the clan that had been raised to the kingship upon the unification of Tavaris. King Utor I, in one of his first acts of office, designed the flag and established it as the "national banner." A deeply ritualistic man, he designed it under the traditional Tavari principles that he would later have codified into the Tavat Avati. The combination of black and white is said to bring good luck, and Utor counter-charged his family arms with four-pointed star symbols of opposing colors, in order to make the flag, in his own words, "doubly auspicious." The four-pointed star was a design common among many Tavari chiefdoms at the time and had long been held as a symbol representing the Tavari people as a whole. The star is still commonly used for this purpose today by the government as well as the public. In 1793, the definition of the flag was included in the Instruments of Governance, the country's new constitution. In 1997, an amendment to the Instruments added a clause allowing for the flag to be amended by referendum of the people, but did not change the design of the flag itself. No referendum allowed under the amendment has ever occurred.

Kingdom of Tavaris

Use	National flag
Proportion	13:24
Adopted	1304 CE
Designed by	King Utor I
Variant flag of Kingdom of Tavaris
Use	State and naval ensign
Proportion	13:24
Adopted	c. 1550s
Variant flag of Kingdom of Tavaris
Use	Civil ensign
Proportion	13:24
Adopted	1624
Variant flag of Kingdom of Tavaris
Use	Civil ensign
Proportion	13:24
Adopted	1625

The ratio of the National Banner's height to its width is 13:24, a ratio that has a traditional and cultural significance in Tavari society. Historically, when Tavari chiefs ever gathered to make decisions—in which capacity they functioned as the de facto Tavari legislature from the country's establishment until the promulgation of the Instruments of Governance—a vote had to gain the approval of 13 out of every 24 chiefs present. This works out to slightly more than a simple majority, about 54%. The modern Tavari legislature is no longer required to use this majority, which is today called the "Tavari majority" to contrast it with a simple majority, but it still sees use elsewhere in society such as in the legislative bodies of cities whose royal charters were issued prior to the 19th century, by private societies and clubs, and by corporations, where it is the most common majority required for shareholders to amend corporate bylaws.

Naval Ensign

The Naval Ensign of Tavaris is the flag flown by Tavari military and civilian government vessels. The ensign takes the national flag and "quarters" it, meaning it repeats it four times on the field. Because the Tavari flag is already quartered, this has the result of dividing the flag into sixteen fields of opposing colors in a "checkerboard" pattern. The exact reason this flag was adopted by the Royal Tavari Navy, as well as the exact date it began use, have been lost to history, with those records having largely been kept in the Royal Tavari Naval Library in East Harbor that burned down in 1677. However, it is largely believed to have been based at least in part on the same Tavat Avati principles of the national flag - by quartering the flag, it increases the amount of opposing black and white, thus increasing its auspiciousness. Other theories include unrelated sailing superstitions or a desire on the part of the Navy to have a more "striking" design in the face of stormy seas.

Civil Ensigns

Tavaris has two Civil Ensigns, which are flown by civillan vessels under Tavari authority. In 1624, in the brief Second War with Bana, a Tavari naval vessel provoked war by destroying a Banian merchant vessel under the mistaken belief it was a warship launching an attack. Tavaris sought to make sure that the same would never befall one of their own ships by mandating that civilian merchants and others flew a flag of a unique design that would indicate their civilian status. This flag, known as the Tavari Merchant Mariner flag, is the Naval Ensign with a gold border around it, charged with a gold anchor.

Akronists very quickly rose up in demand for a civil ensign of their own. The Church very much did not like the idea of having to fly a flag of merchants on Church vessels sailing for religious causes. They took particular offense to the gold on the Merchant Mariner Flag, which was specifically chosen to symbolize wealth. Said the Matron at the time, Taladri Kankrelat, "It is an insult of the order most grave to cloak a Ship of God under the banner of greed. Our ships sail for noble purposes, and to cast our lot with those in pursuit of naught but vanity and sloth may be bureaucratically convenient but would wound our spirits and slow our most precious work." A design for Church of Akrona vessels, using the orange and the diamond symbol of the Church, was passed into law the next year. In that same law, the organization that is succeeded today by the Tavat Avati Shrine Association was granted the authority to create an ensign for its ships, but it has never done so.

Native Rodokan Flag

The Native Rodokan flag.

The Native Rodokan Flag was adopted by the Rodokan Native Tribal Administration (RNTA) in 1992, when it assumed the role of the former Native Rodokan tribes in governing the Native Rodokan Reserve. The flag was flown from 1540 to 1634 by the High Chiefs of Rodoka and was used alongside the Tavari flag as a Rodokan flag in talks with Rodokan officials as early as 1622. During the Tavari-Milofite War in the early 18th century, Native Rodokan ships flew the flag as a naval ensign; however, in more recent times, ships owned by RNTA flew the Tavari Merchant Mariner Flag until Rodokan independence in 2022. After independence, the flag became the national flag of the United Tribes of Rodoka and the Isles, where it is used both as a national flag and national ensign.

In 2020, the same bill that allowed for the Rodokan provincehood referendum declared that the Native Rodokan flag was "a national flag of Tavaris," recognizing it therefore as a national symbol, but the bill did not give the flag equal status with the national flag as defined in the Instruments of Governance. Therefore, Tavari government property flies the national flag, not the Native Rodokan flag. However, since 2021 the Royal Tavari Armed Forces has allowed the families of deceased Native Rodokan servicemembers to have their loved one's coffin draped in a Native Rodokan flag, and municipal government buildings in Lantaž and Sinajärv fly the flag in addition to the national flag. This policy has remained unchanged since Rodokan independence and has in fact been expanded: fallen Royal Tavari Armed Forces servicemembers of all Tavari Union countries may have their coffins draped in their national flags or in the flag of the Tavari Union.