Astril
In the West of the Five Realms is the kingdom of Astril, a confederation of elector counts ruled over by a chosen king from among their number. Whilst this sounds very nice on paper, the monarch is essentially a figurehead there to do official looking things without actually doing anything official, and is rarely often seen let alone known by the average citizen of the kingdom.
The power of the nation comes from its vast mineral wealth, with each elector count having control over extensive mining operations that produce precious metals, gems and all kinds of ore. This makes them arguably the richest nation of the Five, but this is somewhat undermined by an almost total lack of centralised power and general distrust between the various elector counts.
In terms of religion, the people of Astril are monotheistic and revere Melor, He Who Dwells Below, and the source of their mineral wealth. His priesthood are smith-priests, creating some of the most wondrous arms and armour in the world.
Structure
At the top of the kingdom is, shockingly, the King of Astril. His role is mostly ceremonial and the day to day running of the country tends to default to either the Arch Lector or the various Elector Counts. It is unclear, even to the King himself, who it is who holds the more actual power in the capital of Wildestar - him or the Arch Lector - but for the most part things get taken care of.
The rest of the realm is feudal in the extreme, with local lords having an extreme amount of control over the local serfs and peasants. Said serfs and peasants are generally unhappy about all of this, but have essentially no options other than going along with it.
Culture
Almost to a fault, the people of Astril are hard-working and industrious as a result of their religious beliefs. This has led to an exalted priesthood, an incredibly powerful nobility and an increasingly cowed and downtrodden serf class who believe that their hardships and their industry and labour despite that bring them closer to their god.
As a result they have nothing but contempt and distrust for those who are lazy or imprecise in their work, and tend to view any nation that isn't as industrious as they are as very much their inferior. It is a common saying that even the laziest Astrilese citizen is worth ten Vemar, for example.
History
Astril was founded, originally, by people moving further south from the homeland of the Vemar people, before there really was a Vemar. Coming down the isthmus that joins the two realms, the wandering tribesmen settled the valleys close to the border and founded what would become the town of Steelrest. After several years, a number of expeditions were sent out to scout the land around the new township and to see where expansions could be made.
After reporting back that to the East there was only a cursed land of darkness and ruins, the men of Steelrest went West and South where in quick succession the towns of Goldford and Bronzeham respectively were founded. Further expansion discovered what is now known as Starfall Lake and the priesthood of the newly founded Melorian Faith decried that this was a holy place due to the ores found here being unlike any others that their people had ever seen, and the town of Wildestar was founded nearby. The final great expansion of the Astrilese people was to the south and ended in the founding of Copperburg.
These petty lords fought and squabbled among themselves before a threat emerged from the South-East - from the Plaguemarsh marched a force of creatures unlike any the Astrilese had faced before. Due to their lack of centralised power, at first the Astrilese were beaten further and further back until the town of Copperburg was under brutal siege. Brought together by the Lectorate of Melor, the lords of Astril decided that they needed someone who could make the decisions they were unable to agree on and elevated Astril the Great from among their number to become the first King of Astril and give his name to the new realm.
Demography and Population
Due to the need for almost total labour and industry, the people of Astril have settled far and wide and a lot of their lands are home to settlements of various sizes. Major towns tend to be situated on trade roads that link the seats of power of the Elector Counts and villages are dotted around between them. As a result of their constant need for workers and the leaps forward the priests of theLectorate are always making with technology, the population is currently entering a boom period but it is unclear how many jobs they will have waiting for them as more and more innovations are being made in the fields of industry, and with each one fewer and fewer workers are needed to operate at peak efficiency.
Territories
In terms of land controlled, Astril is one of the largest nations in the Five Realms, controlling almost the entire North-Western corner of the the continent. They also harbour plans to begin either the integration of a number of the Free Cities or the colonisation of other islands in the West Sea to have better control over trade with both Motrein and Ostaria. For now, though, they continue to found new towns and cities within their counties, and thus giving the local lords even more power.
Military
There is no centralised military in Astril, leaving each local lord and Elector Count to raise and maintain their own forces. As that is often expensive to train and upkeep, the most common solution is to levy soldiers from local communities rather than having a professional fighting force. As a result, despite their technological superiority, they often find themselves wildly outclassed by the forces of Vemar when they raid south of the border as they have spent a lifetime training for combat and exist as professional warriors. Likewise, as they found out to their cost, the forces of Ladren are also very familiar with the arts of combat and combine a far larger fighting force.
The men of Astril are very willing, but their training and equipment leave much to desire as the local lord and his bodyguard typically keep the best the Lectorate have to offer and leave the average foot soldier with little more than a shield, weapon and helmet. The lucky ones might get a breastplate.
Due to the lack of a professional standing army and centralised control over the fighting forces, it also often takes some time for men to be raised to fight, which is why the raids South from Vemar so often go unanswered, and this is a point of supreme irritation for the Elector Count of Steelrest especially, as his lands are the ones most often raided.
Religion
Religion, to the Astrilese, is incredibly important and a key part of their culture - after all, Melor, as the god of the Underworld and Wealth, is ultimately responsible for all their successes, riches and continued existence. Not honouring that with worship would be to invite calamity and disaster.
Ruling from his Glade of eternal twilight, Melor sees to it that the Underworld - literally the under world, the realm below the land - has ores, jewels, gems and precious metals as well as being responsible for crops and the harvest - grain and such does, after all, grow from the ground and does tend to have a golden look when it is ready to be harvested. To tie in with all of the above, his symbol is a gold cornucopia, the horn of plenty.
His priesthood is, quite understandably, vastly wealthy and his temples tend to be incredibly well decorated and dripping in gold ornamentation and jewel encrusted icons of faith. Tokens and symbols that a common believer might wear are also made exclusively from gold, and are often the most expensive thing a farmer might own - often worth more than their farm - and have been passed down through generations of their family.
Sacrifices made to Melor tend to be pigs - especially the rarer black pig which is seen as especially holy - as well as dark fruits such as dates, figs, black cherries and the like. The meat of the pig - after it has been slaughtered - and the fruits are placed in golden dishes and then burned and the ashes are buried to ‘send’ them to Melor in his Glade. In return for these sacrifices, Melor makes sure that there continues to be ore and crops, and this is the only form of direct intervention he makes.
While the overwhelming majority of the Astrilese follow this faith, there is a dogmatic split within the religion over whether or not Melor is married and has children. Those that believe he does are in an absolute minority and tend to keep their beliefs to themselves as they are seen as heretical.
Their belief holds that Melor ensures that gemstones and jewels are present underground as ‘stars’ for his realm, while his wife Akera takes care of the crops as thanks for the sacrifices made to them and his children are responsible for ores and precious metals - his daughters Aurane (gold) and Agna (silver), and his sons Curian (copper) and Ferox (iron). Otherwise, their practice is exactly the same as the main faith and this helps them keep their heresies hidden.
Foreign Relations
The most friendly relations Astril has are with the empire of Motrein to its South-West, mostly due to the lack of desire it shows for expansion and aided by the most easily crossed border being almost entirely blocked by the Plaguemarsh. Instead the two nations are happy to trade by sea, mostly via the towns of Copperburg and Gares, and continue to generally resist Ladren when the need arises.
On that note, Astrilese relations with the nation of Ladren are decidedly frosty following two bitter wars that saw no-one crowned victor and only resulted in a lot of death and destruction for both sides. Now the two states are locked in a cold war, where Astril possesses the overwhelming technological advantage but Ladren commands a vast numerical superiority and also has dark magics at its command.
And then, to the North of Astril, we have the land of the Vemar. The only way to describe the relations between Astril and the Vemar is to deny their existence and the possibility that they ever might exist. Following a failed invasion of the North in the time of Astril the Great's grandson, there has existed a culture of periodically raiding South by the Vemar and then melting back into the mountains and pine forests of their homeland, leaving the men of Astril powerless to stop them or do much about it. As a result, Vemar sees Astril as weak and Astril see the Vemar people as scoundrels and morally bankrupt savages.
Type
Geopolitical, Kingdom
Capital
Demonym
Astrilese
Leader
Leader Title
Head of State
Head of Government
Government System
Monarchy, Elective
Power Structure
Feudal state
Economic System
Palace economy
Legislative Body
Judicial Body
Official State Religion
Location
Related Ranks & Titles
Controlled Territories
Neighboring Nations
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