RE: Spheres of Influence: Alliance
06-18-2019, 01:24 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-18-2019, 01:25 AM by Anomaly.)
Country Name: The Antipode Coalition
Country Color: A questionably magical purple.
Government: Power in the Coalition is divided between two main entities - a democratically-elected senate that manages most of the country’s day-to-day affairs, and a council of mages and researchers that oversees various arcane matters, research concerns, expeditions, and so on. Said council is made up of representatives from both the main city of Antipode and the smaller outposts overseas. The council is, in itself, led by the Director of the Antipode Institute, the single most prestigious title in the whole of the Coalition.
Leader: Director Aztra Narilis, a lizardfolk who only very recently rose to leadership. Moderately tall, with purplish-gray-scales and a prominent blue bioluminescence from scars that snake their way across a good portion of her body. Her left arm is a clearly-magical prosthetic made from equal parts metal, treated wood, and glowing crystals, which functions adequately as a focus for magic and rather poorly as an actual arm. The Coalition hasn’t invented better prosthetics yet, give them time. Relatively young, idealistic, and sometimes a bit overzealous, she aims to reform the Coalition for the better while setting her sights on the heavens themselves. She came to be the Director after the last one, and a good chunk of the council, was blown up in the same terrible accident that left a large chunk of the island infected by the arcanophage.
Society: The Coalition is home to a wide variety of races - humans, dwarves, orcs, and even the occasional half-elf - but the majority of its population are, surprisingly enough, lizardfolk. Many of the cultural traditions of the Coalition come from the Empire of the Moon, owing to its roots as an imperial research colony - and yet, many of these traditions have been secularized or discarded over the years. Particularly, cultural taboos regarding things like “literally going to the moon, where the gods are supposed to live” have been mostly discarded. There’s a lot fewer corrupt nobles around, too, mostly because there’s no nobility.
Naturally, a major focus of society in the Coalition is research - or more generally, the pursuit of knowledge in all its forms. Prevailing belief is that all of society’s ills can be solved with enough R&D, along with the notion that more knowledge is always better - if you can find something out about the world, if you can recover some lost magic from an old ruin, if you can uncover secrets by poking weird things with sticks, you should. This has given the Coalition a reputation for being dangerously irresponsible, a reputation sometimes backed up by things like, say, blowing up their own research institute and filling the wilderness nearby with magical mutant wildlife. More on that later.
The Coalition is largely peaceful, most of their military focus being on defense. High walls, magical defense turrets, a navy of magical ships patrolling the seas as needed, and so on. However, due to the danger inherent in many of their research expeditions, they have shockingly well-equipped field teams for when they really must get into a fight. Avoiding war is a priority for them, but if they need to go fight some bugs, they won’t be completely useless.
History: While the humans and dwarves of the former Tharassan lands were busying themselves with an apocalyptic invasion of bugs the likes of which was yet unheard of, the Empire of the Moon was busy with rather less (for now) horrifying things. At the height of the Fourth Dynasty’s power and decadence, a glorious expedition was mounted to the west, and a great colony of mages and scientists was established, for the study of the mysterious eastern lands and its people and resources. Or western lands. Alliance territory is pretty much halfway around the world from the Empire, after all. The people of this colony got right to work, documenting wildlife, conducting flagrantly inaccurate anthropological studies of the area, and learning of the region’s myriad technologies - not to mention mounting expeditions to discover sunken Tharassan secrets.
For quite some time, the colony kept to its own, changing its research focuses with regularity and refusing to have any part in this “Alliance” and its politics. However, as the Fourth Dynasty began to decline, things started to change. Orders from the imperial government became few and far between - as did the ships carrying supplies, equipment, and - most importantly - research assistants. By necessity, the Coalition became self-sufficient, turning its research to better methods of agriculture, bringing the brunt of its arcane prowess to building up a mighty mage-city around its original laboratories, and even opening trade negotiations with its nearest neighbors. Before anyone knew it (let alone themselves), the Coalition had developed into an independent country of its own. No one was terribly broken up about this - the Empire of the Moon wasn’t exactly the best government to find oneself ruled by.
A few years later, realizing that being a country was hard, the governing mage-council decided to set up a real government. That way, they’d have far more time to pursue their own areas of magical and scientific research instead of having to figure out what in the bloody hell an “exequatur” is. With people who actually knew what they were doing put into power, the Coalition began to prosper as a haven for research, knowledge, and education both magical and mundane.
Two more outposts established by the Empire of the Moon were contacted and ultimately brought into the Coalition - Mistwatch to the south, near the islands now known as the Nova Kallan Republic, established to research the unusual phenomena surrounding the island; and Szalva Outpost far to the east, established to study the mostly-unexplored islands in that part of the world.
In 761 AF, the Coalition formally opened diplomatic relations with the states in and around the Alliance, and opened its borders to immigration. The population of the Coalition grew steadily after that, gaining a notable population of humans, dwarves, and even a few orcs and half-elves. No elves, though. Elves think they’re too good for science. The Coalition still declined to join the Alliance, having little immediate interest in fighting the bug menace when they were still getting established as a country in the first place. The three islands prospered, developing new magitechnical innovations like the world had never seen before.
In 786 AF, disaster struck. A violent explosion rocked the Antipode Institute, collapsing an entire wing of the building and causing the breach of several dangerous experiments. In the explosion and the containment efforts that followed, several council members and the Director himself were killed, and the city was moderately damaged. Most notably, perhaps, was the release of an infectious magical agent known as the arcanophage, which settled on the damage portion of the city - though much greater amounts drifted on the wind into the wilderness to the east.
The effects of this infection are still being understood - it was apparently a secret project of sorts being conducted by one of the deceased council members, and the explosion also destroyed nearly all of her notes. Known effects in sapient life include a notably increased affinity for magic, a slowed rate of aging, an increased incidence of a variety of chronic health conditions, and varying degrees of unsightly physical effects such as scarring, hair loss, calcified growths, and bioluminescence. Interestingly, in non-sapient life, the arcanophage causes rates of mutation not observed in sapients. Naturally, as much of the agent settled in the wilderness, this has led to the existence of all manner of strange and magical animals and plants. Cleanup efforts are still ongoing.
In the aftermath of the disaster, an institute researcher named Aztra Narilis was able to rapidly climb the ranks all the way to the position of Director. In light of what happened, she pushed the council toward reform of the Coalition’s research practices, specifically advocating for increased research transparency, putting a stop to unregulated “secret projects”, and banning research on particularly dangerous subjects within the city itself. She also pushed for the Coalition to join the Alliance, to facilitate cooperation and the sharing of knowledge with their neighbors. But along with her reforms, Director Narilis has ambition. In the Empire, it’s believed that the moon is the home of the gods, an Olympus beyond the reach of mere mortals. And it’s there that Director Narilis is setting her sights. A whole new world to explore. New discoveries to make. A more secure place to conduct experiments.
We’re going to the moon.
Alliance: Yes, if only recently. Research should be shared.
Country Color: A questionably magical purple.
Government: Power in the Coalition is divided between two main entities - a democratically-elected senate that manages most of the country’s day-to-day affairs, and a council of mages and researchers that oversees various arcane matters, research concerns, expeditions, and so on. Said council is made up of representatives from both the main city of Antipode and the smaller outposts overseas. The council is, in itself, led by the Director of the Antipode Institute, the single most prestigious title in the whole of the Coalition.
Leader: Director Aztra Narilis, a lizardfolk who only very recently rose to leadership. Moderately tall, with purplish-gray-scales and a prominent blue bioluminescence from scars that snake their way across a good portion of her body. Her left arm is a clearly-magical prosthetic made from equal parts metal, treated wood, and glowing crystals, which functions adequately as a focus for magic and rather poorly as an actual arm. The Coalition hasn’t invented better prosthetics yet, give them time. Relatively young, idealistic, and sometimes a bit overzealous, she aims to reform the Coalition for the better while setting her sights on the heavens themselves. She came to be the Director after the last one, and a good chunk of the council, was blown up in the same terrible accident that left a large chunk of the island infected by the arcanophage.
Society: The Coalition is home to a wide variety of races - humans, dwarves, orcs, and even the occasional half-elf - but the majority of its population are, surprisingly enough, lizardfolk. Many of the cultural traditions of the Coalition come from the Empire of the Moon, owing to its roots as an imperial research colony - and yet, many of these traditions have been secularized or discarded over the years. Particularly, cultural taboos regarding things like “literally going to the moon, where the gods are supposed to live” have been mostly discarded. There’s a lot fewer corrupt nobles around, too, mostly because there’s no nobility.
Naturally, a major focus of society in the Coalition is research - or more generally, the pursuit of knowledge in all its forms. Prevailing belief is that all of society’s ills can be solved with enough R&D, along with the notion that more knowledge is always better - if you can find something out about the world, if you can recover some lost magic from an old ruin, if you can uncover secrets by poking weird things with sticks, you should. This has given the Coalition a reputation for being dangerously irresponsible, a reputation sometimes backed up by things like, say, blowing up their own research institute and filling the wilderness nearby with magical mutant wildlife. More on that later.
The Coalition is largely peaceful, most of their military focus being on defense. High walls, magical defense turrets, a navy of magical ships patrolling the seas as needed, and so on. However, due to the danger inherent in many of their research expeditions, they have shockingly well-equipped field teams for when they really must get into a fight. Avoiding war is a priority for them, but if they need to go fight some bugs, they won’t be completely useless.
History: While the humans and dwarves of the former Tharassan lands were busying themselves with an apocalyptic invasion of bugs the likes of which was yet unheard of, the Empire of the Moon was busy with rather less (for now) horrifying things. At the height of the Fourth Dynasty’s power and decadence, a glorious expedition was mounted to the west, and a great colony of mages and scientists was established, for the study of the mysterious eastern lands and its people and resources. Or western lands. Alliance territory is pretty much halfway around the world from the Empire, after all. The people of this colony got right to work, documenting wildlife, conducting flagrantly inaccurate anthropological studies of the area, and learning of the region’s myriad technologies - not to mention mounting expeditions to discover sunken Tharassan secrets.
For quite some time, the colony kept to its own, changing its research focuses with regularity and refusing to have any part in this “Alliance” and its politics. However, as the Fourth Dynasty began to decline, things started to change. Orders from the imperial government became few and far between - as did the ships carrying supplies, equipment, and - most importantly - research assistants. By necessity, the Coalition became self-sufficient, turning its research to better methods of agriculture, bringing the brunt of its arcane prowess to building up a mighty mage-city around its original laboratories, and even opening trade negotiations with its nearest neighbors. Before anyone knew it (let alone themselves), the Coalition had developed into an independent country of its own. No one was terribly broken up about this - the Empire of the Moon wasn’t exactly the best government to find oneself ruled by.
A few years later, realizing that being a country was hard, the governing mage-council decided to set up a real government. That way, they’d have far more time to pursue their own areas of magical and scientific research instead of having to figure out what in the bloody hell an “exequatur” is. With people who actually knew what they were doing put into power, the Coalition began to prosper as a haven for research, knowledge, and education both magical and mundane.
Two more outposts established by the Empire of the Moon were contacted and ultimately brought into the Coalition - Mistwatch to the south, near the islands now known as the Nova Kallan Republic, established to research the unusual phenomena surrounding the island; and Szalva Outpost far to the east, established to study the mostly-unexplored islands in that part of the world.
In 761 AF, the Coalition formally opened diplomatic relations with the states in and around the Alliance, and opened its borders to immigration. The population of the Coalition grew steadily after that, gaining a notable population of humans, dwarves, and even a few orcs and half-elves. No elves, though. Elves think they’re too good for science. The Coalition still declined to join the Alliance, having little immediate interest in fighting the bug menace when they were still getting established as a country in the first place. The three islands prospered, developing new magitechnical innovations like the world had never seen before.
In 786 AF, disaster struck. A violent explosion rocked the Antipode Institute, collapsing an entire wing of the building and causing the breach of several dangerous experiments. In the explosion and the containment efforts that followed, several council members and the Director himself were killed, and the city was moderately damaged. Most notably, perhaps, was the release of an infectious magical agent known as the arcanophage, which settled on the damage portion of the city - though much greater amounts drifted on the wind into the wilderness to the east.
The effects of this infection are still being understood - it was apparently a secret project of sorts being conducted by one of the deceased council members, and the explosion also destroyed nearly all of her notes. Known effects in sapient life include a notably increased affinity for magic, a slowed rate of aging, an increased incidence of a variety of chronic health conditions, and varying degrees of unsightly physical effects such as scarring, hair loss, calcified growths, and bioluminescence. Interestingly, in non-sapient life, the arcanophage causes rates of mutation not observed in sapients. Naturally, as much of the agent settled in the wilderness, this has led to the existence of all manner of strange and magical animals and plants. Cleanup efforts are still ongoing.
In the aftermath of the disaster, an institute researcher named Aztra Narilis was able to rapidly climb the ranks all the way to the position of Director. In light of what happened, she pushed the council toward reform of the Coalition’s research practices, specifically advocating for increased research transparency, putting a stop to unregulated “secret projects”, and banning research on particularly dangerous subjects within the city itself. She also pushed for the Coalition to join the Alliance, to facilitate cooperation and the sharing of knowledge with their neighbors. But along with her reforms, Director Narilis has ambition. In the Empire, it’s believed that the moon is the home of the gods, an Olympus beyond the reach of mere mortals. And it’s there that Director Narilis is setting her sights. A whole new world to explore. New discoveries to make. A more secure place to conduct experiments.
We’re going to the moon.
Alliance: Yes, if only recently. Research should be shared.