FrivYeti/ShogunateGeography
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The Provinces Of The Shogunate
When the Shogunate was founded, the Shogun decided to divide Creation into Administrative Provinces, each of which was ruled by one of his proud daimyos. Each daimyo was given command of one of the Shogunate's powerful legions, and the eldest of the Provinces still control the first twenty-five legions of the Shogunates. The Shogun chose to keep things simple, creating five provinces in each corner of Creation, and arranging them as evenly as possible to compensate for the various threats that the Shogunate might face.
As time went on, however, various events conspired to increase the number of daimyos. In the process, the size of each legion grew out of control, such that when the Years of Weeping Blood occured, the daimyos were able to bring massive amounts of power to bear on one another, squandering many artifacts of the First Age in their war. By the end of the war, still more warlords existed who had to be brought into the existing power structure by Shogun Jukari.
Now, there are a total of thirty-nine daimyos, with seven on the Blessed Isle, nine each in the West and North, ten in the South, and twelve in the East. Each daimyo controls one of the Shogunate's thirty-nine Legions, with strict rules on exactly what is allowed to be in such a legion. It is hoped that evening out the military forces available to each daimyo will slow down anyone hoping to take a chunk out of a rival daimyo's territory. In practice, it has prevented war, although small-scale skirmishes and battles between daimyos still occur when the Shogun is not watching. The Shogun himself controls three more legions, giving him a military edge against any upstart rivals.
Within their territories, the daimyos reign supreme; they have total authority over the execution of laws, finance, and military deploymen. Each province is not the same size; cunning daimyos have found ways to chip small amounts of territory away from one another, skirting the edges of the Shogun's anger in order to expand their power bases. Because of this, general population guidelines are only that; guidelines. With that in mind, each of the Shogunate's thirty-nine Provinces has a rough population of eighty million people - the total population of Creation at this time is slightly over three billion people. Creation also has a Dragon-Blooded population of six hundred thousand, with around fifteen thousand in each province. This gives the daimyos massive pools of talent to draw on for their wars, and ensures that the Shogunate age is one of amazing feats and powerful deeds.
Provincial Organization
Each province in the Shogunate has a rough population of eighty million mortals and fifteen thousand Dragon-Blooded, all under the control of a single daimyo (Backing 6). This is too much territory for one person, even an Exalt, to manage unaided. In order to keep things running smoothly, daimyos divide their provinces into anywhere from eight to ten territories, each of which has a population ranging from six to twelve million mortals, and from about twelve to twenty-four hundred Exalts; territories are run by governors (Backing 5). Each territory is then further subdivided into anywhere from five to ten districts, leaving around eighty districts per province, each of which has a population of one million mortals and around a hundred and eighty Dragon-Bloods. Each district is run by a satrap (Backing 4), who reports to his local governor. Finally, districts are subdivided one last time into wards, generally about ten per district, with about a hundred thousand mortals and fifteen to twenty Dragon-Bloods living in each. Generally speaking, only one to three Ministries or Militaries will be represented in a given ward, which is managed by a mayor (Backing 3). Despite the name, the mayor is not elected, but appointed by the local governor. Mayors then have general civil servants of Backing 1 and 2 to help manage things (usually only two to four Backing 2 officials, with ten or twenty of Backing 1).
