Ladren
Ladren is the Easternmost nation on the mainland of the Five Realms. A highly stratified nation, it is ruled over by an exalted priesthood who use their religious power to keep the aristocracy well under the thumb, while they both exploit and profit from the borderline slave labour of the serf class.
Their gods are bloody and vicious, a reflection of their religious beliefs that exalt the darker elements of the human psyche. Blood sacrifice and ritual torture are staples of both their religion and their philosophy, and this exaltation of cruelty is something that fully saturates everyday life and every area of society.
Despite this, they’re a fairly insular nation with no real intent to reach beyond their borders - after all, the more people you need to keep controlled and downtrodden, the harder it gets. As a result, they’re distrustful of outsiders and outsiders are distrustful of them. As well of this, very few people know much of what goes on inside their borders, giving them an aura of mystery.
Structure
As a theocracy, the organisation structure of Ladren follows that of its religion to the letter. At the top is the Archpriest of the Nine, aided by a council of the Lords Cardinal - the Lord High Cardinal, Lord Naldros, Lord Uldros and Lord Cemos. Below them sit the High Priests of the Nine, served in turn by local priests and sorcerers.
Culture
Due to their belief in the Circle of the Nine, the people of Ladren are somewhat fatalistic and nihilistic as a general rule, though there are some exceptions. Recently there has been a move away from this dour outlook into a more ecstatic worship of the Nine that has led to some interesting social upheaval as much over generational differences as religious ones.
Outside of this, their culture is built on sacrifice both literal and physical, as well as a deep rooted distrust of anyone that might have ties to the Light gods, or what the people of Vemar might call the Otyr. As such, those with suspected bloodlines descended from those folk are hunted out and killed in droves to better appease the Nine.
The society of Ladren is also built on what is essentially slave labour. Those involved in the cults are too busy with their religious observances to do someone so mundane as to work the fields, and so thousands upon thousands of slaves and prisoners captured in raids across borders or on the sea are pressed into service. If they can no longer serve, then they are sacrificed to the hungering gods of Ladren.
History
Ladren was settled, originally, rather like Astril in that the first people to land on its shores were migrants from what is now Vemar, though these came from Nordrland.
Settling in Uldros first, they found ruins of what they assumed to a city of the gods and were able to translate some of the writings they found there with the help of the great murals that told the story of the people that used to live there. From this starting point, they sought out the other major cities of the gods and settled either in their ruins or near them, learning more about who came before them with each new founding.
They were aided in this by ancient roads that they found half buried as they explored, which also made it apparent to them that Yther was the most important city to this race they were trying to learn more about, and so they in turn made it their capital. The realisation that these cities were in fact temples to a race of godlike beings that had been exterminated in a war was learned generations later after much greater understanding of the found writings was gained, and the faith of the Circle of the Nine was created to stop such a disaster happening again.
Demography and Population
The population of Ladren is highly concentrated around large towns and temple cities. Each of these settlements is full almost to bursting, with the citizenry crammed into sprawling slums and tenement blocks with little regard for their needs. Outside of these cities, plantations litter the countryside and provide the food crops the nation needs to feed its teaming armies of slaves, as well as the ruling classes and cult members.
Due to all of this, both birth and death rates are staggeringly high and the turnover of lives is terrifying to behold.
Territories
Ladren dominates, literally, the entire North-Eastern corner of the continent, stretching from the Gulf of Ladren in the north to the East Sea and the Ostarian Straits in the East, and down to the border with Motrein in the South.
Military
The military forces of Ladren are made up of a mix of professional soldiery maintained by the Lords Cardinal, levied serfs from nearby towns, the penal legions of slaves who have transgressed in some way and members of various and sundry cults to one of the Nine. This hands Ladren a truly vast army, but also one that varies wildly in its quality of troops, level of training and quality of equipment.
Religion
Ladrenite religion is arranged around a pantheon of dark and bloody gods, none of them benign and all of them vicious and sadistic with varying degrees of bored apathy. Their religious practices mirror this perfectly, and often involve human sacrifice and ritual bloodletting - some exclusively.
They believe that their gods reside in a realm both beneath and removed from the world, and that in order to keep them satisfied and satiated they must soak the soil with blood lest the gods rise up and take back what was once theirs. These gods are generally shunned in the rest of the Realms, apart from in the slums of Ostaria and the Free Cities, and likewise the Ladrenites shun the gods of the other realms, seeing them as a false gods and an existential threat to all living beings.
Foreign Relations
To the West, relations with the kingdom of Astril are decidedly frosty and a cold war as been raging there for generations, as neither nation has the power to actually challenge the other - with Astril by far and away in the lead in terms of technology, but Ladren comfortably having the upper hand when it comes to weight of numbers and quality of troops.
To the North, Vemar is seen as an irritation and a fly to be swatted at some point, but not right now. Following a disastrous invasion attempt into Southern Vemar across the Gulf of Ladren that saw numerous ships destroyed by bad weather on the way over, and then saw the forces badly mauled on the beaches near Skorraey by an ambushing force, the military leaders of Ladren have indefinitely shelved any further invasion plans and Ladren as a whole try to pretend the people of Vemar are not as much of an irritation and national shame as they truly are.
To the South, the empire of Motrein poses the greatest threat to Ladren, as their levels of technology are roughly the same but they command a vast army of highly competent, professional troops that outnumber even the forces of Ladren. However, the empire seems to have very little desire to expand from its current position and instead maintains the citadel at Tolonia to make sure that Ladren doesn't get any ideas about expanding to the south. For the most part, the ruling classes of Ladren are fine with this.
To the East lies the island, and republic, of Ostaria, a vitally important trade partner and one of Ladren's most prized relationships. Without them there would be no other way to obtain steel from Astril or horses from Motrein, two things Ladren finds vital for its military, let alone slaves from the various islands of the great oceans.
Type
Geopolitical, Theocracy
Capital
Demonym
Ladrenite
Leader
Leader Title
Head of State
Head of Government
Government System
Theocracy
Power Structure
Feudal state
Economic System
Palace economy
Legislative Body
Judicial Body
Official State Religion
Subsidiary Organizations
Location
Related Ranks & Titles
Controlled Territories
Notable Members
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