Pryce
Background
Nine families and their retinues settled the soaring chalk cliffs of eastern Tethys one-thousand- and-fifteen years ago, refugees from the great Sabling that scarred and shaped the majority of the continent. Led by young Orsen Pryce, the survivors crossed the uncharted Shadebog out of desperation, and in hopes of untouched land beyond. What they found was something else: a society of Pinion stonemasons who worked the land’s to lead lives amidst massive stone karsts upon which they nested—high in the clouds, the birdfolk were happy to share the lands below with the wearied travelers. A settlement was established at the head of the land’s northernmost promontory, and in Orsen’s twilight years, he was crowned its first king, the settlement named in his family’s honor.The Queendom Today
A millennium later, the empire’s capital is a sprawling urban metropolis — its influence sways all lands east of the Orendral range, and indeed stretches even across the great oceans. House Pryce is long gone, the potential of its heirs squandered by the inbreeding of its progenitors, and House Feyhollow rules in its place. Expansionist on the pretense of propagating peace in the continent, western powers genuflect through financial tribute or the levying of a portion of their military in the empire’s service to maintain the sovereignty of their own lands.While Queen Peregrine counts the mountains bisecting the continent among her demesne, the twinrealms of Orendir maintain their independence in near-outright rebellion. Elven aristocracy in the peaks pursues a diplomatic approach to the disagreement, where the rougher canyon-dwelling rebel elves hunt and waylay imperial supply trains through the mountains in hopes to pressure for their freedom. Similarly, the rolling grassy domain of Lai Gai has been an imperial claim since Pryce annexed the valuable coastal territory of Zhibin, establshing the puppet state of Zhibinguo some one-hundred- and-fifty years ago.
It’s amidst this growing turmoil that the High House of Order has voted on the monarchy’s succession. As tradition since the time of Orsen’s sons, a familial line of succession continues until a council of the familial houses votes to transfer it to another familial house. Views on Queen Peregrine settle somewhere around complacent neutrality, though her detractors and zealots are many as well — those who credit her with the prosperity afforded by the century of her rule and the reign of her family before her, and those like Lyonel Birchwood, who criticize the Feyhollow dynasty's expansionist policies, and maintain that profit margins cannot justify international ire over conditions in the colonies. As these parties clash, votes are pulled from the center.
The Prycian Queendom
Metropolitan power in north-eastern Tir Danam
The Bloodfield Lynx
Capital and largest city
Pryce
National Language
Prycian
Regional and Minority Languages
Pinion
Demonym(s)
Prycian, Pryctic
Ethnic groups
70% Prycian Human
4% Esconian
Government
Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy
— Queen: Peregrine I
— Prime Minister:
Legislature
The Houses of Order
— High House
— Low House
Population (Metropolitan and Colonial)
Estimated at ~40,000,000
Colonial Holdings
show
Zhibinguo
unnamed
unnamed
Type
Geopolitical, Country
