The Cidel Empire

Near to the center of the world at Uderon lies the islands that make up the Cidel Empire, a total of nine kingdoms across five islands have gathered together in order to work together for their greater good.

History
The region that would become the Cidel Empire has a long history dating back to the prehistory period.

A thousand years ago in the year 201 AE the Mage MoonDancer received a vision from the Minor god Titania telling him that he should take some of his kin the Moon Elves and settle near to humanity, there he would find a champion who would bring peace to the gods, but his goddess did more than just tell him his fate, she also made him the first and only Celestial Elf Elhadrim as he felt his mana swell from his new status, he was given a third and final gift, a staff taken from the horned god's own sacred grove that he could use as a magical focus.

Working in secret, he gathered five hundred of his kin and together they built ships that would take them to where their lady Titania had decreed them to sail, seven ships were crafted when they set sail but when they arrived on the rocky island that was cut off from the human tribes that called the nearby islands home, only five were still afloat the other two having sunk and causing twenty moon elves to perish in the choppy waters however most of their passengers were able to make it onto the other ships, but when they did finally arrive on the rocky island they set to work building the kingdom of Ilomev-lu, that while they did not know it at the time, would be the first of the nine kingdoms that would come to rule over these islands.

But as his followers built up their new homeland, Moondancer himself summoned a small vessel and sailed to the main island and wandered the human tribes, hoping to find the champion that the Lady Titania had promised him, but after three months of his quest, Moondancer found the chieftain of a small tribe and at once knew this was the one who had what it took to do what is needed, Caes Cidel. approaching the young chieftain he explained why he had ventured from Valina to the island

clans:
the clan holds sway amongst the people of the cidel empire, most clans consist of between two and twenty families, with at least one of the families being the dominant family of the clan, giving their surname and coat of arms to the clan, with each member family in the clan taking the clan's coat of arms as their own but often times (but not always) giving some sort of twist to the heraldry to make it more easily identified. however a result of the clan system is that most will have a "stronghold" of some sorts, now what the stronghold is depends on both the wealth of the clan and where they are from but that stronghold is where they gather, and feel most safe so in Attacia and Anastria they tend to be a castle if the clan owns one but in Valostria the clan's stronghold will be some sort of walled meadhall-complex.

Equality
while the empire is nominally equal between men and women with both genders having equal rights to inheritance and property ownership, women tend to be banned from holding military positions unless they hold a knightship however fewer female knights exist then male knights.

Nobility.
The Humani are a feudal culture and that shows in their nobility system which holds sway over most if not all of the various isles that Cidel is spread across.

On top are the High Kings rulers of the cidel empire itself they rule from their palace in Attacia.

Kings: the cidel empire is a union between nine different kingdoms and that means that there must be kings, and so there are with eight people at anyone time holding a rightful claim to the title of king within the isles (although King Kenneth of the Valostrian Gnomes claims that he is one) with the ninth king, that of Attacia holding the title of High King instead.

Lords: below the Kings are the lords and each rule over a portion of one of the kingdoms, named a province, usually consisting of a city and the surronding towns and villages, most lords will have had their clan build a castle or several of various sizes across it in order to enforce their claim to the province however other lords are content to live in palaces or villas instead of castles.

Barons: if Lords are kings, Barons are lords and so each controls part of a lord's province, with their lands becoming known as shires (although in Tevin and Valorium they are known as counties) and normally consisting of a town and the surrounding villages plus fields.

Landed Knights: the rulers of Manors, or villages and the surrounding fields (but are sometimes lone towers) landed knights are different from Hedge knights, or knights-errant as they are sometimes known in that landed knights have embraced their place as lower nobility by accepting land from barons (or occasionally higher ranking people) in exchange for a pledge to serve in the land-giver's military.

Attacia
At the center of the kingdom lies the Kingdom of Attacia, the second kingdom is composed of five provinces, the first of which is named Avium and consists of an island im the middle of the Inner Sea, on that island is the capital city of the empire, which itself is named Attacia and is located on one end of the Avium island (the rest is covered in farmland and various estates) in form it is a walled Pentagon with a tower in each corner and a gate on each wall, four of the gates open out onto docks but one opens onto land, at the center of the city however is a monolith on top of which is Castle Cidel, which itself is a collection of palaces and towers used by Clan Cidel as their home and a place to rule the kingdom from.

The other four provinces in the kingdom of Attacia however consistent of strips of land on the inner coast lines of the other kingdoms In the empire with each Province having it's own Lord.￼

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Tevin:
In the mountains of Cidel lies the kingdom of Tevin, covered in small villages that seem to not have changed since agriculture itself, clans numbering in members. being 100 and one thousand live in small, isolated villages that use the local hippogryph variant in order to maintain contact with one another, although on the outskirts of the mountains however there are cities like those one you find in the other kingdoms but even those tend to be small.

As for their culture, each tribe's adults are supposed to have bounded with a hippogryph who they captured during a right of passage into adulthood.

Valorium:
If one were to travel through Valorium they would find the empty steppes that fill out most of the kingdom strangely deserted, only circular stone towers guarded by humans at all times and ruins, both Dawon and from an older as yet unnamed empire that preceded that one dot the rolling hillocks, however if one knew the right passcodes, they would be granted into the towers and find themselves facing a spiralling staircase going downwards, following it, one will find the villages and cities of the "men of the vipers" as they call themselves, warrens of tunnels lined with brick connecting homes and workplaces, while if one goes even deeper they will find out how the locals get their water, natural tunnels filled to the brim with sweet fresh water rage below their cities, and their spiral ramps always lead down to at least one, often with a port for trade with another settlement but even below that one who knows the paths can find their way miles below the surface....

Anastria:
Perhaps the most beloved of the other kingdoms to Attacia due to having been the third kingdom formed as it was formed from captured Dawonian Lands as the Caes and Lord Moondancer fought their way to Gwinlond., the kingdom is covered with thick, monster filled hard-wood forests dotted wherever a foothold can be established with walled villages and cities, each surrounded by the farmland and manors needed to sustain it's population, however in addition to its human residents, there are some ten thousand wood elves dwelling within the woods of Anastria, finding it much to their liking, not to mention they find the women of the area shall we say, easy on the eyes meaning that the men of Anastria do not like their fae cousins living on "their lands" neverminded the fact that the wood elves live in wilderness that is only claimed to be owned by the king of the kingdom, who as of 1210 AE is King Troof Bladebreaker who permits them to live in the woods as they help with the monsters killing his citizens.

Valostria:
At some point in the iron age the lands that are now Valostria divided themselves into fourty petty kingdoms, although six have banded together to form the Attacian province of Stroi, the other thirty four were united and when the Kingdom of Valostria joined the empire each of these former kingdoms became a province.

Two hundred years ago the northern most kingdom of the empire was rich and prosperous even more so than Attacia itself, but in time its power was its greatest weakness as when its traders found a god-ring from the ruins of an ancient empire on a far away island, they gave it without thinking to the queen of the time, Queen Availia, who was at once corrupted by the evil god that had been bound to the elegant ring and began waging war against the other kingdoms but was eventually defeated by the efforts of a band of adventurers who have since gone down in history, but now the people of Valostria, while still ruled by distant relatives of Queen Availia are eager to make up for their dark past but alas their coastline is plagued by raids sent from Uderon. meaning that they can do little to change the opinions of the other kingdoms.

Ilumev-lu
the oldest of the nine kingdoms (at least by current itoration) it was founded just under 10 centuries ago when Moondancer and his companion Elves arrived in the chain, perched on top of a rocky island lie five cities each from one of the five ships that made the journey to the island all those years ago, while in the center of the island looms the palace-castle of the Lord Moondancer and his family. however perhaps the most important building in the kingdom is not King Moondancer's castle, no, the most important building to the rest of the empire at least is the Library of Ilumev-lu, which in addition to being a collection of writings larger than any other known to currently exist, also holds the distinction of being the largest of the twenty magical schools across the chain. perched on a massive monolith is the library, a series of white marble domes cascading from a center dome in the very middle.

Gwinlond:
almost three thousand years ago, before any other humans made it to the island of Gwinlond from the main human islands, a powerful mage lived on the island of Gwinlond, using her magick in order to build herself a massive fortress, at least for the time, however a spell went awry, and instead of doing what ever it was that it was meant to, her soul was ripped to threads and used to fuel what the spell now did, permanently changing the climate of the island and the surrounding waters to what the people of one of the past realms would have called a "Mediterranean climate" turning it unusually warm.two hundred years later, the first settlers from the main islands reached Gwinlond, and finding the new climate to their liking, made a home in the ruins of the fortress, first using its massive walls to protect their village as their population grew beyond the fortress they turned it into their citadel as they created their first city, named Dawon, but overtime people left Dawon to found other cities and villages. eventually forming the Dawon Empire, however now Dawon is a shadow of its former self, most of the city has been torn apart to create new buildings aside from a mixture of buildings protected by magic and buildings that the farmers who now live in the city haven't gotten to using for new buildings, however the outskirts of the city are still clear due to the massive black-granite walls that once lined the metropolis.

as for the rest of the island, it can be divided into three provinces, working one's way in they are:

the Highlands: mostly rocky plateaus cut through by small rivers and lined by caves and forgotten dungeons, homes for things that go bump in the night while on top of the plateaus perch the remains of Dawon villas and fortresses, now used as homes both peasants and nobles alike who have expanded and torn down the villas to their liking.

Townlands: "below" the highlands, are the townlands, so named for being the most populous of the three provinces and covered with walled towns and cities, with the largest of them, Enceta being the current capital of the island and the home of clan Lyndon. in terms of geography, the townlands are relatively flat however are broken by wide rivers that aid trade between the different settlements and other provinces.

Flatlands: the largest and first settled of the three provinces, it is also where Dawon was founded so many nowadays stay away from the region if they have a chance however as the flatlands have the most fertile soil of all the island, and quite possibly the other three minor kingdoms the flatlands are firmly settled by farmers growing both wheat and perhaps most importantly grapes that are sold to make wine and than sent to the other lands of the empire and at times beyond.

Kessex:
once upon a time Kessex was a member of the Dawon empire and was one of the last three member-islands of that empire, that is until the reign of the final emperor in 501 A.E. who took the granddaughter of Kessex's queen as his wife, and raped her on their wedding night, furious the queen beheaded the emperor and sending the head to Dawon, ending the dawon empire in the process, before splitting the rest of the body in quarters and put one quarter in each direction of Kessex and decreed that from now on Kessex would be ruled by women alone, and so it has been with each queen since being the descendant of that original queen, however in the year 1018 A.E. when one of the princesses married the current high king of cidel and so a deal was made that Kessex would join the union of the Cidel Empire.

Mages:
One in a thousand humans have the potential to learn how to become a wizard, so it is only proper that the Cidel Empire (with a population of twenty one million) would have a large number of magic users on hand who normally attend one of the twenty magic schools in the empire if they can afford the fees required to join one of the academies where along with learning how to cast magick, perhaps more importantly they are taught how to read and write something that few people learn how to do making even those who end up not having the skill or mindset for a career in the arts to make a career for themselves as letter writers and readers. but usually upon learning a sufficient amount from the academy they will leave the school, and find a career for which they can make a living, with the primary options being becoming an adventeer slaying monsters and raiding ancient structures for loot, while others will find a cushy job for themselves as a nobleman's court-wizard casting spells and reading and writing letters and books for their employers in exchange for protection and coin.

Navy:
Much like the land forces the navy is not officially standardized and to provide for it is normally the requirement of nobles who have coastal lands however by official legislature in many kingdoms the navy forces have in general been "standardized" in order to maintain a minimium standard. with clinker built ships with keels being preffered.



Army:
the empire as a whole has no official army, instead leaving it up to noblemen providing their own forces from the peasantry whenever they are in need of military forces, this of course has the side effect that the armies of the empire are vastly varied however as a general form they can be considered to be standardized into various categories. Knights: somewhere in between heavy calvary and commanders are the knights, warriors clad in chain mail with plate armour protecting part of their bodies and helmets upon their heads they ride into battle upon warhorses, however many knights also either fight as heavy infrantry or prefer to reside in castles performing adminstrative work for their liege lords.

Men-at-arms: serving as infrantry for the most part are the men-at-arms, men who have made a living serving as military men and so are both experienced, and perhaps more importantly, well equiped with most wearing gambeson, chain mail, helmet, and a round wooden shield for protection while being found of spears and swords as their primary weapons but those from other regions favour different gear so this is by no means an exhaustive list of what one could find in a man-at-arms gear.