Smyklion

“What was once but a dream, has become a

frightening reality for those who acquiesce to disorder.”

Far from the bubbling cauldron of the Venia deltas, there is the emperor who thrusts coals into its fire. Beyond the Ascorni woodland, across Licca’s mighty hold upon the Conda and bordering the picturesque castles of Leoviedo: there lies Smyklion. Once a simple mercantile city-state whose ships contested the Liccans on every front, now stands as something different. It has crawled from the status of a target of its own allies, into a metamorphosis of violence - emerging in ash and gore with a crown upon its head.

Smyklion is now an empire, a city that has swallowed its bloc like a jackal devouring its siblings in the night.

It took little time for their wealth to be put to use. The empire’s armies spread like a crimson rust across the continent’s neck, casting a mighty and impregnable stranglehold from the frigid waters of the west to the titanic Spine Mountains. Towns were cowed with influence or force of arms. Most settlements elect to raise the imperial flag to benefit from trade, infrastructure and law imposed by an entity that has withstood the test of time and battle alike. While the northern powers collapsed inwards upon themselves, Smyklion had grown to rival ancient Mormiloa in sheer magnitude.

Among the jewels of the empire’s provinces, one stands as the most precious: the Dukeswood. It is a massive stretch of ashen grey trees whose bark is a crucial component in the production of dukespowder - the red substance that fuels firearms and explosives. Ammunition is their muse, making up the largest percentage of their export and driving them from simple woodworking to entire entrepots of alchemists, manufacturing and soldiery.

From their foundries and furnaces rises not only weapons, but the empire’s greatest creation: a standardized and standing army. The backbone of these forces are the Smyklian Peacekeepers, the standard infantry garrisoned in every fortress, port, and frontier of the empire. They are drawn from the native populations and entered into academies where veteran mercenaries school them in archery, the mastery of polearms, the cut and guard of the sword, and the grappling of daggers. This mix of physical training, as well as the subtle indoctrination of imposing architecture tamed by silky banners, puts forward a template soldier who is drilled, adorned, and prepared to adapt their strategy to any form of aggression.

Where the Peacekeeper’s multitool fails, the empire casts aside the stone and takes up the knife at the foe’s throat. Draped in red robes that veil a harness of plate, and driven forward by fanatical sergeants clad in fluted armour marked with the crown, the Bloodied Gauntlets surge into the breach again and again - until the foe is nothing but memory. These soldiers are drawn only from the city of Smyklion itself, never from the provinces. For only those who have lived beneath the emperor’s shadow - who have seen the granaries overflow, the smokers burn through the night, and the streets kept safe beneath his law - can understand what it is they fight to preserve. They are not merely soldiers, but the empire’s stubborn will made flesh: fanatical in loyalty to the one who has fed them, clothed them, and lulled their families to safe sleep.

This is all that the outside world may see. An overwhelmingly loyal city reaping the rewards of a complacent population of subjects. A culture of barbecue and smoked meat, whose masters push the boundary of spice mixing by the day. Parades of armies that bow all foes and slay the monsters that prowl the night.

What they do not see is what lies below. Buried in the depths of the isolated village called Scarleta, there are caves that reach kilometers deep. Thousands of sappers work there, supported by sorcerers and scientists, excavating a weapon of the golden ages before the Twilight Wars. A Coupoli, a combination of citadel and titanic monster able to conquer cities - or lay them to waste in hours.