As we covered previously, Jepera is the single largest continent in the current area of the story. It is also by far the most varied, with a wide variety of biomes, cultures, and geographical formations scattered across it’s vast surface. The story as we know and see it is set to the far NW of this continent, in a coastal region defined by the massive mountain range separating it from the inner continent.
Jepera as a whole contains seven great powers, empires of vast wealth and might that are the ones that guide the future for most on the continent, whether as enemies, allies, or simple trade partners. Altesia is one of a few dozen smaller states scattered up and down this far western coast, and while the largest and strongest of them, is dwarfed by many of it’s major neighbors. Jepera is in a region influenced by no less than four of the current seven great powers, making it a hotbed of activity of every kind, from spies to armies.
Like the other independent countries protected by the mountains and their coastline, Altesia is relatively peaceful, preferring to focus on it’s own realm rather than the interests of outsiders. It and the other powers of this coastline that aren’t simple city-states are all united in a defensive pact. If one is struck, all are struck, which has kept them guarded against all four of the great powers for centuries, but times are changing.
Fota, a stubborn state who does not share the protection of the mountains to the mountains, instead controlling a flare coastal plain that leads up to the mountains that protect it’s southern neighbors, has long refused alliances with it’s other neighbors. Citing their history as proud warriors, and their stubborn refusal of what they call the weakness of many, they have long clashed with the first and closest of the great powers, The Oroborus Theocracy. While Fota was once a great maritime empire in the north, stretching south and east from their now nearly isolated peninsula, they have been pushed back till only their last major city remains, the Capital of Fota, being the namesake of the nation as a whole.
Desperate for protection, but refusing to ‘bend the knee to the weakness of the south’, they’ve instead turned to black magic, and worse to reclaim their lost land and topple Oroborus, trying to reclaim the lost glory of their old empire.
Now we get to the four relevant great powers of the area, being The Oroborus Theocracy, The Stroacor March, The Ecrian Empire, and The Kupfermark. While their military might is strong enough to challenge any of these four, the poor economy, diplomacy, and unification keeps The Ogre Tribes from being considered an eighth great power.
Why does this area have so many of these powers? Simply put, geography. The region has many natural barriers, like mountains, and rivers, dividing it into resource rich and fertile sub-regions that if dominated give a power both wealth, and the might to resist outsiders. As you head south and east along the continent, mountain ranges and massive river systems become more isolated, reducing these barriers and creating a greater number of independent powers constantly rising and falling, though three more great powers exist scattered far and wide in this area.
So how about we start with the one that has been mentioned the most, and a driving force behind the antagonism towards our heroes from Fota and the Night Talons.. The Oroborus Theocracy. Centered in a set of floodplains fed by large, gentle rivers, and the foothills of the mountains that protect Altesia to the Theocracy’s west, Oroborus is perhaps the richest and strongest of the four in the area. It controls such a disparate number of cultures and species, that much of it’s time and power is spent centralizing it’s control and integrating these people under one banner. The banner of it’s Celestial King, Oroborus himself.
Founded six hundred years before the start of our story, the kingdom is built on the idea that only Temperance and restraint can bring salvation to the sinful masses of the world. It cares not what your vice is, moderation and care are the only way to keep evil from taking root. In it’s early years, the Paladins, Clerics, Priests, and Zealots that populate it’s elite army spread the empire quickly, casting down regional power after power, till it controlled most of the vast territory it still holds to this day. It had, however, expanded too far to fast, and most of it’s time over the centuries has been spent putting down rebellion after rebellion, with breaks to try and breach the great mountains to it’s west and claim that coast and the ports that connect it to rich exotic trade by breaking through Fota, or the Mountains and their vallies controlled by the Ogre Tribes.
Violently anti-monster, it has led a march of genocide against any and all people that still bear monster souls, regardless of their nature. In this end, it would eventually find itself clashing with the unofficial eighth great power, under contract, of the Adventure’s Association. Repeatedly failing to break the steel walls of the Ogres, it instead focused on Fota and step by step, as whittled the once great nation to nothing, and while it holds to it’s truce with them, it masses for the final push, spurring Fota into desperate, cruel action.
It is the only major power of the world that has expelled the association, disallowing them use of Ouroboros land, and leylines, though it’s members are still allowed to take contracts and jobs across it’s territory. To it’s end, the Association still maintains outposts in the major cities of Ouroboros, but cannot extend the legal and financial protections it prides itself in, nor does it invest much to it’s people in the area. Most adventurers in Ouroboros are on short term contracts from outside it’s borders, as many of the jobs they typically handle are instead controlled by the state.
Organized into a feudal theocracy, Celestial King Ourobors stands over all the rest, beneath him are his Seven Cardinals, who each direct the administrations of it’s seven districts. Each of them employ Bishops that oversee castles, towns, and temples throughout the territory, employing Zealots to act as sherrifs, mayors, or other administration roles. Beneath the Zealots are the Paladins, who are the military officers of the realm, with most members above them promoted from their ranks. Finally at the bottom of this religious hierarchy are the equal but separate roles of the Clerics and Priests. Where the Priests manage the people, spreading the word of their infant god, the clerics are tasked with seeing to the law and public safety of the regions, hunting monsters and criminals.
The second of the great powers relevant to the state of Altesia is the Ecrian Empire. Ruled by the nigh immortal Ryujin Empress, it was formed from the remnants of a shattered continent, and much of it’s land is the scattered floating, migrating islands the sit above the rest of Region 001, though most hover over Western Jepera. It once owned most of the same coast where Altesia now sits, the lands of the Ogre Tribes, and most of the lands east of these mountains that Ouroboros now controls. Using these lands to feed it’s people and fund it’s warmachine, corruption hidden from the eyes of their Empress led to the eventual rebellion of the lands below, and after several decades of lighting, Ecria eventually agreed to grant them their freedom in exchange for a waver of all taxes on trade, and a promise that if the dread Dragon Emperor ever revives, the nations below will join arms with Ecria to stop him.
To this end, despite it’s military clashes with the other powers of the region, all of them but Ouroboros have agreed that if the sleeping Emperor was ever to wake, a truce would settle over the region as the Dayimo and Shogun of Ecrica march in lockstep with the Titans of Stroacor, the Halflings of the Kupfermark, and the Ogre Tribes. These days it has mostly been quiet, only it’s floating traders bring news of to the world below, and keep some influence of this ancient japanese like culture to the much more diverse cultures below, such as some towns and families still following it’s Family Name - Given Name conventions, including Miraki Kahari and his family of Miraki Ayoko, and Miraki Tanaya.
While it’s economy has suffered due to the limited land and resources it has left, it’s placement of a great power is of no doubt due to it’s vast, veteran military, widespread lands, and the difficulty of assaulting a power that floats above the mountains themselves when airships are rare and expensive, rarely seen in numbers. It’s people are generally stoic and hardy, doing what they can to rebuild their way of life, even now thousands of years after the shattering of their home continent, it’s effects still keep with them to this day. On rare occasions, a new city or piece of land below is brought into the sky by vast, ancient magics to join the empire, and replenish it’s resources.
Thankfully due to the way mineral veins and fertility of land regenerates and resets after a lack of use for a long enough time, it simply has to migrate it’s main mines and farms from island to island while it waits for another to recover.
Organized into dozens of smaller administrations ruled by their own clans, they are only united by the power and wisdom of their Empress, and fight constantly over land and honor. It’s weapons, armor, and tactics are quite different from the world below, but it’s greatest strength are the Lesser Ryujin and their riders that control the skies and bring mighty battlemagic to bear through their eternal bond of love and compassion. Even Ouroboros is careful not to draw their ire, as it lacks any means of assaulting them, and it’s one war against the empire is the only overwhelming defeat it has ever suffered.
Next we shall cover the Titans of Stroacor, officially the Stroacor March. These vast lands of the south end of the region are mostly gentle hills and small mountains, with a south-western coastline, and a number of islands, great and small, off it’s coast. Founded by the Titans, a great monster race from a now dead world, these lands once belonged to the new enslaved or expelled Amazons. The God-Slayer Titans struck down the Amazon Pantheon, or chained the gods as punishment for their sadism and cruelty to the mortals below, with only a handful of gods and divine titans escaping this fate. These include Hades, Persephone, Hestia, Prometheus, Nyx, and a few minor deities.
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Of those killed included Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Aphrodite, Thanatos, Ares, and a few others due to their overwhelming cruelty. All the rest have either been imprisoned to work of their sentence, watched by the wise eyes of the Hecatoncheires and Elder Cyclops, monster cousins and progenitors of the Nisterian Cyclopsians. Since then they have expanded their lands slowly but surely beneath their boots, the vast strength and magic of the Titans backed by their armies of Helot Warriors, and free Saytrs, Centaurs, and Minotaurs. It is also from their lands the Lamia and Lamiadyn were expelled, moving inland to now shrouded clans in the Jepera Spine Mountains.
Extremely Militaristic, military service defines one’s prestige and ranking in Titanic society, with the Titans and ‘Honorary’ Titans standing above all others, forbidden from any pursuits besides administration, warfare, or strangely, becoming healers. Below them are the free warriors, craftsmen, merchants, free laborers, helots, serfs, slaves, and finally ‘Chained Ones’. The Chained ones are, beyond the occasional criminal, almost solely the majority of the Amazon populace of the world occupies this role. Little more than tools to be used and discarded, this is their ‘noble’ punishment for resisting the Titan invasions for centuries, and for claiming the ‘sacred’ Titan name, which they have now abandoned for Amazon. Within Stroacor, only the free Amazons are called Amazons, the ones in the country, ‘working off their debt of blood’, are referred to only as the Chained, and aren’t allowed so much as a name, or any property.
Unlike the other great powers, who usually have a fair distance of minor powers between them, the majority of Stroacor’s northern land border is controlled by the Halfing Kupfermark. This border has seen over a dozen wars in the past 200 years, and to date, the Titans of Stroacor have yet to gain an inch of Kupfermark land. This has led them to declare the Kupfermark and it’s people, mostly Halfings, to be ‘Rivals of Might and Soul’, equals in the eyes of their King and warriors. Most of their wars are internal, different Titanic cities clashing with each other for influence and honor, with only their King able to bring them all together against an outside power.
It’s military is thought to be the single greatest of the powers in the region, though the Kuperfermark’s stubborn resistance has brought this into question, every other war they’ve waged for expansion has been almost completely one sided, and their once steady march north has only been halted by the dragon city of Stravine, and the Kupfermark. Now their focus of expansion has turned east, into the wild lands owned by the nomadic centaur tribes that rejected them during the Chained Wars against the Amazons, and beyond them, the Amethyst Expanse stands as another barrier to further expansion. Unless they can expand their navy and hop the sea and start onto the dry lands to the south, their expansion is nearly at it’s end.
Economically they are almost entirely agrarian, with their only major processed products being wine, military supplies, and olive oil. This is largely due to their rigid refusal to change their society alongside technology and magic, and as time goes on, their neighbors gain a greater and greater economic edge. Strangely they give the Association almost near free reign, so long as it’s members don’t violate their laws they are among the only people allowed to freely pass through the border and move around inside Stroacor.
Last, and technically least, of the great powers in the area, we have the Kupfermark. A realm of gentle rolling hills, streams, mild weather, and almost no major threats to speak of, it is a peaceful realm filled with vineyards, farms, and quiet villages. No one would ever guess that the Vitners, Rhubarbs, and Meisters of the halfling Kupfermark, greatest of it’s kind, were one of the major powers of the region. Halfings, a Nisterian race, are generally content, and somewhat slothful people, more than happy to sit back and life roll by around them.
So how did this quiet, safe little nation get so large? A combination of money, discipline, and lots of magic. Of the three other powers in the region, only the Ecrian Empire has better magic, Ouroboros suprasses their cavalry, and Stroacor has the greatest infantry in the reason. The Halfings? They have okay in all of that, between their pikewalls, crossbows, and hog knights, they can bring a respectable amount of force to bear despite their small stature. However, it is their ability to heal on mass, eliminate fatigue, and feed their troops with no supply lines thanks to the powerful nature magics of the Rhubarbs and Vitners that they excel. What can you do when your enemy has burned all it’s fields, and yet isn’t starving? How do you siege a people whose stores will take decades to empty? How do you catch an army that can march for days on end? Simple, you just don’t bother.
Economically the Kupfermark is by far the strongest in the region, with artisan industries of nearly every stripe, rich fields, and richer wines, they want for little, and grow fat on their delights. Every merchant has heard of the Kupfermark, even those from far flung continents and nations that will never see it in their lifetime. With more money than sense, and plenty of sense to go around, whatever weakness the Kupfermark has can be patched with imports and mercenaries. Rumor states that it has 10,000 adventurers on hire at any one time, and in war this grows even more.
Unlike the Ouroborus and Ecrian’s with their ageless leaders, or the Titan’s with their stratocracy, the Kupfermark is a republican plutocracy, where money, and land are the movers and shakers. No hierarchy of species or birth, just plain money and influence, though given most of it’s population are Halflings or the Fae Goblins, most of it’s leaders fall in those camps. Content to stay in their little corner of the world, the Kupfermark has only ever expanded through buying land or merging with failing states, unlike it’s militaristic rivals.
Next we come to Altesia. The greatest of the Ecrian break away colonies, and the only monarchy of the region, with it’s neighbors all being republics or aristocracies, Altesia has the sole advantage of holding the main source of mithril, and Nisterian Orchalicum (As opposed to Golden or Titanic Orchalicumm) for the entire sub-continent. Able to field mithril-plated knights, boasting the regional headquarters of the Association in it’s capital, and having the only air force of any note besides Ecria itself, it’s a wonder they aren’t a major power. Sadly between numerous mutually allied states on their borders, and the heart of the Ogre Tribes on their doorstep, all this military power must go into holding it’s own territory. Further with both the Bleakwoods and the Mycellium Marsh in it’s borders, powerful monsters run amok necessitating much of it’s might and money going to maintaining it’s current peace.
It’s eccentric King is a Human Wizard that has held the throne for one hundred thirty years, and while his age is catching up with him, he still holds enough power and wisdom to rule the small but stalwart nation. With fifteen sons and twelve legitimate daughters, the matter of succession was once thought to be a messy one, but the majority of them have abandoned any claim to the throne, and some even giving up their noble titles, in favor of joining the College of the Magi, adventuring, or more. While no real threat to any great power in the region, it is strong enough that it has embassies with all four, and is particularly close to Ecria, a matter of some concern to it’s direct neighbors given the Empire’s history of colonization and warmongering.
It’s economy is built around rare materials, though it can support it’s own needs for many basic goods, it exports predominately processed or raw magical materials of low to middling quality, which is part of why the Association chose them for their HQ in the region.
The Ogre Tribes is a collection of well…Ogre Tribes loosely organized beneath a King and his Three ‘pillars’. As a society they believe in Might Makes Right, but also that the mighty have a duty to strengthen or protect the weak, though this does not stop raids on enemy borders, beware any who think to target those that can’t fight back in the lands of the Ogre Tribes. Only three times in history have the tribes mustered a united army, twice against Ouroborus, once against the Videl Empire (A misnomer given the Videl Empire is approximately one small city and almost nothing else), after their zealous assaults on the monsters ended in damage to civilian shelters. All three times the ground rumbled as massive steel plated walls of the Ogre Brute went on the march. Tower shields, plate armor, and massive swords or axes, these walls of steel trample all in their path.
Economically they are almost wholly reliant on imports for anything beyond basic foods and materials, as most Ogres refuse any work that is not fighting in some form, though they also have the only city of Dwarves, Gnomes, and Goblins in the mountain range, leading many to believe they may have a stockpile of weapons and armor hidden away for a true emergency, and have even signed the treaty against the Dragon Emperor.
Calling their leader a king is also a misnomer, but one they stick to, as with their policy of might makes right, their leaders and officers are always simply the mightiest around. Whether it’s the best muscle, best mage, or best assassin, the ability to kill and not be killed rules all. The only catch? Only the three pillars can challenge the King, and you can only challenge up to three steps above you on the Ogre power ladder. Why? Mostly to prevent civil wars as the King is swamped by a dozen arrogant challengers a day.
The Ogres that regularly attack Altesia are one of the lesser tribes of the region, but since Marge moved to Ixul, these attacks have stopped. After all, why would anyone challenge the granddaughter of the current King without being damn sure they’d survive?