Ember Dominance

The government style in the Ember Dominance is a bureaucracy. Before the Inferno of Souls, forced upon the Emberlings by Fire, the Mad King, the Dominance was a Kingdom. They operated under a single King and his elected officials. Now, a complicated body of officials and non-elected administrators rule over the Dominance, their every decision slowed through the slog of bureaucracy. However, this prevents another catastrophe like the Inferno from happening, and lets the Emperor's Council keep tabs on them.
The cultural leaders of the Ember Dominance that lead the namedays of Emberlings, where a child is given a name that will discern the rest of their life, are known as Firespeakers. They can see into the flames and speak to them. The flames listen, and sometimes they talk back.
The Eastern end of the Virnach mountains ends in active volcanoes. These volcanoes spew fire and ash into the sky, littering the land in embers. The trees are charred corpses, and the land is grey with soot. However, found within these volcanoes is a rare metal unique to the area and situation: Aether. For this reason, the people of the Ember Dominance have remained in the dangerous and infertile land, learning to live at the base of volcanoes. Aether is incredibly profitable. The main use of Aether is why it is so expensive and the mining of it able to support an entire Dominance. It is the only element that draws out the fifth element of a soul in Soulomancy : the Arcane. None know the origin of Aether but know that it is a pure element of the Gods found deep in volcanic mines.
Ember Soulsmiths have mastered a unique technique of alloying sulfur with Iron, giving the wearer the ability to alight their armor in fire. The Souls of the Burning King are a group in Ember kept secret since Ember’s occupation by Iron. They are elite troops that can only fight all out once. They wear Sulfur and Iron armor and when they go into battle, they expel their own soul slowly out of their body, draining their life away, but empowering the fire lily-infused armor. The soul alights from the fire lily, and the sulfur transforms the fire into a magical blaze that encompasses the wielder and protects them and harms enemies. The Souls of the Burning King can only do this for so long, roughly an hour, and then they die.

Culture

The most notable cultural aspect of the Emberlings is their naming system. No child is named until they reach three years old, their nameday. A Firespeaker speaks to the flames and sees the childs future. The Firespeaker then names the child. The names of Ember are singular describing words. For example, Professor Shake is a teacher at the Soulomancy academy known as the Thorn in Hero's Rest. He was named Shake and none know quite why. He does not shake any more than a normal man, so it is some kind of an omen for a name, most likely pertaining to his death. A more regular example would be the name of Bent. Bent grew up with horrible back pain from a fall when he was a young child. His body contorted around this injury, and he grew skewed. He is now always bent at a sideways angle and hobbles around. Another would be Left. Left is an older woman that always goes in a left direction. She often gets lost because of this and constantly falls over from carrying things always on her left side.
People from the Ember Dominance, Emberlings, are light-skinned like the rest of the Empire, but predominantly have bright orange/red hair. Their skin has grown grey-tinged over the decades living under a volcano, and they are mostly hairless. Other than that, they are similar to Highlanders in being short and stocky, and muscular and strong.
The only live in mining cities, it is too dangerous for towns, and the cities rely on the economy of mining to survive. Although the Empire has its own flag, the Dominance flies their version of it with a different coloration to show both their individuality and subservience to the Empire. The Empire's flag is the black and scarlet of House Glore, represented with an Iron Spear and winged flames.
The people of Ember stay in the volcanically-active location because it is profitable to do so and over the years they have learned to survive there. They are the biggest export of metals rarer and more niche than Iron, including gold, copper, silver, etc. However, they also have access to a specific mineral that can only be found in volcanoes that the ruler has built his entire kingdom off of. This is called Sarkeneite. It is the most valuable and rare component found for Soulomancy spells that the empire pays highly for. Sarkeneite is believed to be the fossilized bones of an ancient being gargantuan in size that has been buried and hardened by the volcanic activity around it over centuries.
The Ember Dominance celebrate namedays, which is when a child turns 3 years old and is given a name for the first time in their life by the Firespeaker. The names are always eerily accurate and match the person the Emberling grows up to be. Embers speak in short sentences, using short words, and are always blunt, much like how they appear.

Assets

The volcanoes of Ember are rich with minerals found only in the volcanically active mountains. The most prominent material found here is Aether, but this is a special case. Silver and tin are especially bountiful in Ember, but sulfur is especially prominent.