FrivYeti/EnliIsle
The Blessed Isle
With a population of just over 100 million people, the Blessed Isle is, on the surface, a pastoral paradise. Despite its massive population, vast areas of the island remain untamed and unclaimed, from the still-dangerous ruins that stand as testaments to the devastating battles that followed the Contagion, to the heights of the Imperial Mountain, which rises over ten miles into the air and is faintly visible from anywhere on the Isle. The Blessed Isle is the heartland of the Immaculate Faith and the Draconic Dynasty, and it is here that history has traditionally been made.
Geography
Despite its name, the Blessed Isle is more of a continent than an island; thousands of miles across, it is crisscrossed with mountains and rivers, dividing it into what were once scores of independant nations. The climate of the Blessed Isle is temperate; the five elements mix more or less equally on the Isle, leading to warm summers, cool winters, frequent rains and verdant woods. These conditions are ideal for farming and life in general, and the people of the Isle enjoy an easier time raising crops than almost anywhere else in Creation; this also leads to the great forests and marshes that also spread across the Isle, broken by meadows and settlements.
The centre of the Island is the Imperial Mountain, the Elemental Pole of Earth from which all order and stability springs. The Mountain's base covers close to a quarter of the Isle, entirely in its centre, and entire regions are thrown into shadow for periods of time each day as the sun rises around it. The slopes of the Mountain are much like the rest of the Isle; hilly, but with many plants and animals dotting its surface. Few settlements actually exist on the slopes themselves, as the Immaculate Order frowns on base concerns so close to the holy summit, but monastaries are not uncommon. Further up the mountain, the other elements gradually fall away; it rises above the clouds, the woods peter out, the air cools and thins, until only the stone remains. Few have the skill or resilience to actually scale the mountain to its summit; it is said that, for those few who can, the world lays spread out before them and that the air itself has faded away, leaving the intrepid climber free to touch the sun as it passes overhead. No traveller has spoken of actually doing so, however; one imagines that such presumption might be answered with anger.
Around the Mountain, hills and rivers spread, flowing outwards towards the long shoreline. It is here that the population mostly congregates, in a number of large cities, each surrounded by smaller towns and farming villages. The Blessed Isle is also connected by an extremely elaborate series of roads and waterways that ensure the safety of travel; small shrines to the Dragons dot these byways so that travellers may stop to pray when necessary.
Society
The entire Blessed Isle remains a part of the Draconic Dynasty, and has been such for centuries. Because of this, the overall culture of the Isle is unified. Despite fairly large regional differences, everyone on the Isle speaks Low Realm, with the exception of those who are born or adopted into the Five Great Houses; these enlightened individuals speak High Realm, in order to demonstrate their continued quest for perfection. The average peasant on the Isle has a safe and generally prosperous life; crops tend to grow well, there are rarely major droughts or famines, and gods are held strictly in line.
This safety is purchased by limits on freedom. The people of the Blessed Isle must worship the Immaculate Dragons; anyone caught offering illict worship to another god, to ancestor cults, or to other beings are considered to be heretics. The exact punishment will vary depending on the serverity of the offense, but typical punishments for being a member of a full-blown cult are the confiscation of all properties and forced slavery of the unfortunate criminal. Atheism is also not allowed; failure to follow the Rites of the Dragons is also considered heresy. Those who commit minor offenses are typically punished by fines and enforced civic duty - atoning for their weakening of the social fabric by working to strengthen it. They are also watched more closely in the future in case they suffer a relapse.
Otherwise, crimes in the Blessed Isle are fairly standard. Minor crimes are punished by enforced civic labour, while major non-violent crimes (such as repeated theft) are punishable by enforced slavery. Major violent crimes or treason are punishable by death. Only members of the Five Houses may own slaves, as only they are considered to have the moral enlightenment to own another person. Alcohol and some recreational drugs are legal (if somewhat frowned upon in more religious circles), but any sort of highly addictive substance is not.
Another area in which the Blessed Isle is restricted is the practice of the very tools of Enlightenment that once saved humanity. For good or ill, the Dynasty does not trust most of these powerful tools in the hands of the untrained; thaumaturgy and the Martial Arts are restricted, and Avatars are outlawed completely. Savants are taken as wards of the state, to perform their wonders only for the Dynasty.
Anyone who wishes to become a thaumaturge must pass a number of exams and tests, and pay a licensing fee; this fee is steep, and any who cannot pay it are outlawed from practice thaumaturgy. The sole exception are Immaculate monks, who may freely learn the Arts of Astrology, Elementalism, Herbalism, Spirit Beckoning, Warding, and Weather Working. These monks make up the bulk of the healers and wise men of the Blessed Isle, which is as the Order wishes. The Immaculate Martial Arts are restricted to those monks who wish to learn them, and to the Five Great Houses; no one may learn any other form of martial art.
Organization
The Blessed Isle is divided into ninty-eight prefactures, whose satraps run them and choose a member to send to the Imperial Senate. Of these prefactures, one represents the bulk of the Imperial Mountain (and thus has a very low population), two represent the northern and southern slopes, one represents the Imperial City alone, and the rest each represent one large city, with a population ranging from two hundred thousand up to over half a million people, two to four smaller cities with populations that measure in the dozens of thousands, and scores of small towns and villages covering hundreds of miles - each prefacture thus covers around a million people, with the smallest population-wise (aside from the Mountain's three) being the Smoky Coast, whose population is just over half a million, and the largest outside of the Imperial City itself being the great Juche Prefacture, with a population of 1.6 million people. Prefactures answer directly to the Senate and the Empress, having a great deal of internal autonomy in how they divide their tax expenditures, but are not authorized to actually make laws. Each Prefacture also sends a single Senator to the Imperial Senate, and is generally associated with a given one of the five Great Houses. Prefactures occasionally, but rarely, pass from one House to another.
The Imperial City is the largest city in Creation. With a population of over two million people, it is a sprawling and glittering metropolis - thaumaturgy and savantry keep the streets clean and the lamps lit, and even manages a basic system of public transport that allows people to get around by high-speed aerial gondolas, which hang from steel lines on their own small streets, and occasionally cross the main thoroughfares. The City is primarily populated by buerocrats, politicians, nobles, and the many people who work for them and make a nation of over 100 million people run. The Imperial Palace, near the city's centre, is generally considered to be the most amazing city in Creation, with its own fifty-foot golden wall and five great towers, one for each of the Five Dragons.
The Blessed Isle also has the world's largest military. The Isle has under its control a full 80 legions, each with approximately 5,000 soldiers and associated hangers-on. Normally, half of these legions will be stationed on the isle itself, with the other half divided as follows: Fifteen legions in the South, ten in the North, ten in the West, and five in the East. However, the looming civil war has resulted in a number of legions being called home without new legions being sent to reinforce them; there are currently only thirty-eight legions off the isle, rather than the full complement of fifty. The Realm's navy numbers over fifteen hundred warships and a host of transports, divided into five Fleets. The Western Fleet and the Central Fleet each have between four and five hundred ships, with the other three fleets (North, South, and East) averaging two hundred ships each. Fleets are divided into task groups of twenty to twenty-five ships, each of which makes port in a single city. Again, many fleets are currently doing manuevers closer than usual to the Blessed Isle, in preparation for the possibility of war.
