Regalian Empire

The Regalian Empire describes the nation-state in which most of the Roleplay takes place, or through which the roleplay finds context to interact with the wider world. On-server, the major roleplay hub is Regalia, the similarly named capital of this nation. The Regalian Empire exists as a semi-feudal semi-decentralized state, a plural state with a clearly defined disenfranchised commoner population, and a wealthy elite aristocracy that hold all the power. Beyond this class dynamic, the Regalian Empire is a multicultural realm, with practically every culture and nationality represented to some degree within its borders, and with a celebrated heritage diversity. In a world of despotic tyranny, religious oppression, and extreme sectarian or cultural violence, Regalia often acts like a progressive beacon, though it is certainly capable of inflicting its medieval-style cruelty, and should not be misunderstood to be some benign entity. The Regalian Empire is mostly hallmarked by brilliant and beautiful presentation, but inner rot and decay as concepts of benevolence and good governance get corrupted by individualism, nationalism, and the effects of capitalist ambitions.

Territories

The Regalian Empire is vast and contains several overseas territories, each with its own unique political and cultural identity. To understand how the Empire functions, one must understand how its subjects interact with the Emperor, and the civil authorities that serve him.

The Divine Seat

The Divine Seat loosely refers to a micro-state that covers only the Imperial Palace, the Unionist Divine College, and various religious buildings built around the Imperial Palace. The Divine Seat can best be compared to the Vatican, a religious center that is detached from secular civil governance to have a plausible distance to potentially problematic or controversial decisions that secular authority makes. The Divine Seat and the Emperor are technically considered absolute in authority, but the reality of politics means that the Emperor is often simply a figurehead or a mascot, and can sometimes even be interpreted as being imprisoned in the Divine Seat without much influence on what happens outside of it. The Divine Seat is best described as a theocratic government over what essentially comes down to a few buildings, streets, and squares. It has no official population.

The Capital City

The capital of the Regalian Empire does not have an official name, it was once the Kingdom of Amelore, but people from across the world refer to it just as Regalia. The city is the most well-known city in the world because it has the reputation of being the "city where everything happens, you can find anything, and you can lose anyone". It is vast, with a total population of 4 million (which is considerable in a near-post-medieval world) and ever-stretching districts of wattle and daub housing, and brick and marble palaces. Regalia is a beautiful city covered with the spires of every conceivable temple in any style of nearly every religion, with an architectural presentation for nearly all people of the world. It is a true multicultural melting pot, but also home to deep civil neglect, social mismanagement, and cruel apathy for the suffering of others. As with the shining knights that patrol the streets, presentation is everything in Regalia, and that leaves the population with an often stark indifference to the poor conditions of the dispossessed and unhoused populations, as well as recent migrants who arrive with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Regalia accepts any immigrant who simply states a desire to live in the Empire but does not provide them with any further support beyond medical. To many foreigners, Regalia is like the most brilliant jewel in the world, that yet hides a rot on the inside if you crack it open too far. Regalia is where all the centralized authority and rule of the Regalian Empire takes place, with legislative Assemblies and the central bureaucracy.

The Archipelago

The Archipelago is a loose set of islands and landmasses around the capital Regalia, which can best be described as a feudal federation that serves as a representative of the Emperor's authority. Technically all the land is owned directly by the Crown, but the Crown leases the land to nobles who hold feudal rights over the people who live on said land. Not all parts of the Archipelago feature the same level of serfdom of feudalism, some parts have only loose concepts of British manorialism in place, while other regions are under the control of monasteries, and others yet follow a more repressive regime like Russian serfdom. There is no single unifying experience in the life of a peasant in the Archipelago, other than the fact that these "provincials" think that the capital (Regalia) is a bit of an eccentric place where weird people go to do weird things and hold strange opinions over how the rest of the world should work. These Archipelago provincials often denounce the capital as too liberal or progressive. While feudalism is commonly applied across the Archipelago, the nobles don't actually do a whole lot of direct ruling, as that is usually reserved to the bureaucratic clerks, allowing the nobles to live in Regalia to be close to the Assembly and Emperor and spend their fortunes there instead of rurally.

Ithania

The Ithanian Kingdom is the most powerful suzerain of the Regalian Empire (Confederacy) that follows state law, and taxes and is essentially an external holding that is legally on the same level as the Archipelago but does not have the same kind of political standing. Ithania is immensely wealthy, covering nearly 40% of the financial budget of the whole Empire by itself, and its banks exert excessive influence on the financial markets and the state debt. Ithania is a high-society place that nonetheless contains in it many political contradictions. They are at once the more sane political branch of the Empire, denouncing those living in the capital as insane warmongers and not true followers of the unitarian vision of Unionism. But on the flip side, they are also entertaining foreign dignitaries as if they are their own nation, and engaging in a process of sphere of influence building at the cost of Regalia's central authority. It is commonly proclaimed that the Regalian Empire conquered Ithania with an Army, but the reality was that Ithania had already converted to Unionism by the time those soldiers arrived, and the Kingdom voluntarily surrendered to the Empire without even a single casualty, the military landing was more a formality for presentation sake in a world that largely understands strength through violence.

Aioránia

The Western Republics or Aioránia covers the nation-states of Landfall, The Western Cities, Basqon, and Frontierra. These nation-states are highly deregulated and decentralized republics, bordering on democracies, but in practice run more like crook oligarchies. These states formed in the wake of the Allorn Empire's collapse, and as a result, their birth was filled with chaos and violence. The crime caused the rise of the civil watch and the Cortes, which in turn gave rise to fierce independent thinking and self-sufficiency. While crime eventually abated, the systems of the Cortes that were put in place to deal with that element of their history did not. The Cortes are commonly misunderstood to be "nobility", but they are not. The Cortes are self-regulating neighborhoods with their own micro government and budget, that only loosely obey the national authority. On a local level, major cities like Ciudad Daenio contain several dozen Cortes, as many as there are neighborhoods and districts, each of them bickering on a more regional scale over how the city itself should be run.

The Regalian Empire has technically appointed governors, and technically calls Aioránia a colony, though this is at best performative. Governors have no actual authority and are often prisoners of their own governor's manor, good only for cutting ribbons and making speeches in favor of loyalty to the Empire which the locals see as cause to engage in beer-throwing. Aioránia is seen as a separatist region. Even though it voluntarily joined the Regalian Empire for a sense of mutual security, any attempts from the Empire as a whole to impose centralized taxing or law has faced resistance among the locals, who wanted to resolve these matters themselves. They love the Emperor but hate the idea of being ruled in practice by a few bureaucrats from the capital who have never set foot in warm Arioránia.

Lusits

Lusits is another western Kingdom under the authority of the Empire, but much like Ithania it is largely independent. Lusits joined the Empire voluntarily when Ithania did, ostensibly out of common security interests from Elven revanchism. The de Lobo family has ruled Lusits since its creation and continues to do so under Regalia's guidance, though the state has largely become the lesser partner in Ithania's geo-political games.

Perrionne

Perionne can best be described as a state constantly at war with itself, with major duchies like Brisemar, Delaloure, Nevadore, Visois, and Andois constantly engaging in feudal violence against one another. Perrionne is one of the few nations that Regalia "conquered", that is to send an army there and defeat local armies to induce it into the Empire. Yet immediately afterward, this army pulled out, and at best, the realm currently has a few administrators that ensure tributes to the Emperor are correctly sent out, without enforcing local law. Perrionne feels very distant from the Empire, because it is, being the westernmost realm of the Empire, where the Empire is largely a meaningless construct. The Dukes all fight each other over small strips of feudal land but are largely Unionist and sort of on board with the general direction of the Empire.

The Silerian Chain

The Silerian Chain is a stretch of island nations like Mirtasil, Arvosil, Solacil, Maartasil, and Aetosil. These nations were once Elven colonies but were captured by Ailor in the chaotic collapse of the Allorn Empire, and have since existed largely under the radar of global events. They are poor mountainous island nations with little global meaning, the only reason why most people even remember their islands is because one must pass through them to sail west, but also because of the vast Allorn monuments that still decay on them. Out of all of these islands, Aetosil is the most populous and important one, that houses the Evintarian theocracy and population. Aetosil is largely autonomous from the Regalian Empire due to a history of religious persecution after the schism, but it remains true that all these nations voluntarily joined the Empire for a variety of reasons. The northern states joined because of cultural outreach. Successive Emperors made displays of love for local custom and tradition by visiting these lands and acting as gracious guests, while Aetosil joined because even though it was a fugitive heretic state for a long period, they are still wholly convinced to join the Great Way, and believe in the unifying message of Unionism.

Nordskag (and Middeskag)

Nordskag is the northernmost autonomous realm of the Empire, inhabited by the Nordskagger Velheim and Fornoss worshipers. Nordskag is the only nation in the Regalian Empire truly conquered through bloody violence, with Emperor Allestrain I brutally invading this nation by citing their constant raiding of Ithania and other surrounding lands as a Casus Belli. The war against Nordskag is considered a continuation war of the Skagger Wars because many of the inhabitants of Nordskag fled the Archipelago when it was conquered by the Empire as a whole. Nordskag remains religiously separate from the Unionist core, following the Fornoss Gods to this day, though it has made strides to be seen as an equal partner to the other power-broker realms like Ithania. Nordskag is commonly understood to have the strongest and larges army in the Empire out of all the states. While the Emperor technically has the Tenpenny Legions at his disposal, the Kingdom of Nordskag has the most battle-seasoned and well-trained conscript army due to the high dependence on militarism and dueling customs among its people, meaning that the Nordskag army if fully mobilized would make up half the Empire's actual armies. Nordskag is constantly stuck between being recognized as one of the strongest pillars of the Empire and having to fend off historical grievances and identity politics on the part of the Ithanians in particular, who resent the idea of being seen as equal to the people who raided them for centuries.

The Moors

The Moors are a series of lesser kingdoms and republics to the south of the Archipelago that are generally seen as poor suzerain realms within the Empire that have no political say, or strong ties to the Empire at large. They are too poor to pay large sums of taxes, don't contribute to armies in any meaningful way, and also have no political representation. The Moors nations like Moorwich, Kenshield, Berrickwyle, and Dalewyth joined the Regalian Empire once after the over over 300 years because being part of the Empire and joining its currency market meant access to trade networks and safety on the high seas from piracy. However, the growth and wealth of the Empire have largely passed by these nations even if the common market has provably improved the lives of the locals. Generally the lives of the locals continue on without ever interacting with the Empire at large, the Moors are considered just a stepping stone to other regions, like Hadar.