Incandescent Council

Theoretically speaking, Alzath and Kalania still exist as independent countries. However, their existence was downscaled from truly independent countries into regional administration structures, governing the society at the behest of the Council itself. That's despite having their own armies, theoretically.   Which is the true power over the whole territory, leading to foreigners and natives alike treating the Council as the country. It is, after all, the Incandescent Council that makes all the important decisions and is entirely responsible for the foreign politics.   The Council itself is composed by a select group of mages (Fourth and Fifth Steps) called the magisters. Always take a nickname during their ascension per tradition. Expect magisters to be incredibly dangerous, devious and, more often than not, evil. There is about forty of them, although exact number isn't made public.   Incandescent Council has its own armed force, called the Enforcers. They are something between a special security force and an army. They are the faceless goons of the Council, wearing masks and black uniforms, trained in fighting with a combination of sword and magic. They are responsible for more serious threats and security issues than what local militias and town guards deal with.

The Incandescent Council's territories are culturally diversed, with several different cultures meshed together haphazardly, with a significant degree of cosmopolitan approach to the world, at least in Anrief. Destruction of G'har made things only narrowly less complicated, all things considered.   Alzathians and Kalanians are relatively similar in terms of culture, due to centuries of close ties and living right next to each other. The main differenced lay in naming and architecture.

Local language appears to be a hint to Alzath being a distant and heavily deformed word Alsace. Many settlements names appear to be distant descendants of French and German words, such as the capital of Alzath being called Anrief, a word perhaps originally written down as 'Angriff', German for attack/aggression.   Kalanians, in the meantime, appear to have much lesser number of such visible linguistic influences, the result appearing as more of a stock fantasy language. However, certain demigods with more linguistic interests and access to DivineNET appeared to find certain (if minor) similarities to ancient latin, with very faint hints of Italian.

The larget differences between Alzath and Kalania lies in architecture, caused by a heavily different environment they live in forcing completely different adaptations. Alzathian territories are primarily barren and rocky, regularly decimated by mighty storms arriving from the direction of the Sea of Wrath.   The result of that is reliance on solid buildings form stone or concrete, with doors and windows often resembling easy to close metal hatches that are supposed to protect the insides from flooding in the case of an archstorm coming.   Due to the area being mountainous, with numerous ravines and cliffs, it's also rather common for a building space to be limited. This makes building tall buildings a logical choice, at least within cities. Outside of them, expanding underground is also treated as logical choice.   With how expensive food can often be in such an inhospitable and infertile lands, many of such apartment blocks attempt to grow as much food as possible on their own. It's common for the top of the building to be covered in pots filled with various vegetables, that are relocated into the building when the storm comes. Larger buildings sometimes have entire greenhouses at the top of them, made from magically reinforced glass to withstand the local weather.   It's not uncommon for most of the village to be located almost entirely underground, with underground streets connecting the underground houses, the surface part of the village composed only of external defensive walls and entrance to various houses, all of them being easily able to hermetically close in case of a storm coming.   In Kalania, the situation is much less complicated, as the storms that regularly batter Alzath never make it this deep mainland. As a result, Kalanian architecture is much simpler and basic, with a mixture of wooden and stone buildings.

No one knows exactly when Alzath and Kalania were founded, as the early history is rather sketchy, with many documents destroyed or forgotten in the chaos following the fall of the Oirithian Hive. What is known is that they existed for at least five hundred years, perhaps dating all the way back to the Liberation War.   Three hundred years ago, Ylzannah the Founder/Ylzannah the Steelmade, a famous adventurer, found a machine allowing creation of semi-automatic assembly lines of goods, believed to be created in first years after the Blackout only to be for some reason lost to the history, establishing the source of the industrial power of the city of Anrief. And, eventually, the rest of Alzath.

The history of the Council starts with a coup. A group of ambitious and powerful mages managed to overthrow the king of Alzath, establishing their rule over the kingdom. This happened around a century ago.   Most of Alzathian knighthood sided with the king, only to be defeated and scattered. Unawarely to most of the world (and, especially, the Council itself) remnants of it formed the Alzath Liberation Army under Firebrand, a descendant of the sole surviving member of the old royal guard.   The rule of the Council expanded to the Kingdom of Kalania soon afterwards, over the two royal houses being closely connected and the Council suspecting that a restoration war was in the works. That was the beginning to the Council as known today.   The mages weren't particularly nice, a fact that lead to a number of major magic families having some degree of royal family blood in them due to the old royals having a number of daughters that were treated as spoils of war and a way of getting their revenge on the royalty for actively suppressing their power for decades.

For all its moral negativity, the Council became a major contributor to the war effort during the Hellfire War, including a valiant defense of the Fortress City of Tarum which prevented armies of Hellfire from marching into the deeper Kalania and Alzath. The siege was lifted after almost two years by the Realm of Days entrance into the war.   One of the magisters of the Incandescent Council ended up becoming a member of the Hero Company send to engage Hellfire himself during the conclusion of the war. The result of his survival was the ascension of magister Flamelight into a status of a de facto leader of the Council as a whole.

Population [Numbers]:
~9 000 000 Total.
~1 500 000 Slaves.   Population [Species]
Humans: 90%
Beastfolk: 6%
Others: 4%   Population [Religions]
Temple of Seven: ~30%
Alzathian Pantheon: ~26%
Kalanian Pantheon: ~21%
Khierayism: ~6%
Church of the Highmost - 4%
Others - 13%   Armed Forces:
150 000 soldiers,
10 000 Enforcers,
2 000 mages,
~40 Magisters
Unknown Number of Adventurers

Kingdom of Alzath - A coastal country of rocky cliffs, rare and valuable (because fertile) river valleys and really nasty weather. Fogs are common, rain is common (humidity in general is rather high, despite mostly average temperatures). The entire region is regularly battered by massive storms from the Sea of Wrath, forcing a particular architecture to survive.   Kingdom of Kalania - A country of a great, primeval forest, a bit of temperate equivalent of a jungle. Very hard to traverse aside from a number of established roads (often alongside rivers). The cliffs and hills of Alzath end up mostly repelling the storms, meaning that the weather is slightly more palatable here, although it's still rather cold and humid.   Bloodhand Tribe - A small and more or less subjugated tribe of beastfolk (handful of types, lead by a religious caste of foxfolk) following a particularly brutal blood religion worshipping Khieray, a god of blood and violence. Expect cannibalism, blood sacrifice and so on. Some of them end up showing up as particularly brutal adventurers and fighters, if onlu because they're looking forward to kill more interesting things.   Grand Duchy of G'har - Something akin to a vassal state of the Incandescent Council, destroyed during the Hellfire War. It was inhabited by a small tribe of giants, who were known for their infernal magic and pacts with the demons. With their loyalty uncertain, the Council forces (led by Flamelight) laid waste to their city. Today, the Lost City of G'har is considered to be a restricted zone, where even adventurers are forbidden from going.

Anrief - Capital of the Kingdom of Alzath, inhabited by around three hundred thousand inhabitants. Considered to be the capital of the Incandescent Council as a whole, in big part due to its crucial value as the industrial and trade center of the Council's territories. Tall buildings, narrow streets, a lot of bad people and nasty plots.   Tarum - Fortress city overlooking the border between the Incandescent Council and the former Empire of Lothria, a place of particularly violent fighting (and very long siege) during the Hellfire War. It didn't fall, stopping the armies of Hellfire from marching deeper into the Council's territories.   Omna - A rather quiet town that acts as the center of worship for the Alzathian Pantheon. While it possess a handful of important locations (such as the Grand Temple of the Divines), it's otherwise kept on the sidelines by the magisters of the Council and their fear of the religious authorities to raise to the point of becoming their competition.

The Incandescent Council's military is divided between three main groups: the regular army, the irregular army and the enforcers. Each of those groups has to be examined separately.   The regular army is composed of the forces of Alzath and Kalania, typically spread throughout various villages and towns. They act as garrisons of those settlements to repel outside attacks, while also helping in maintaining peace within them. They are divided between 21 divisions (12 from Alzath, 9 from Kalania), each having their headquarters in a larger settlement (minus Anrief).   They are further divided between a varied number of variedly sized regiments, each of them centered on a single smaller settlement, and responsible for local security.   They are composed primarily of a mix of melee fighters and ranged combatants. The former have a preference for spears and pikes, the latter for longbows. The notable part of the regular army of the Council is a sizable amount of mages within the army ranks, offering heavy magical support and ability to reinforce their ranks with summoned entities.   The irregular army is composed of people that can be drafted, typically to deal with a more irregular threats. This includes local adventurers, trainees and other members of local martial arts and magic schools and warriors of the Bloodhand Tribe. It's hard to estimate just how many soldiers can be amassed by taking advantage of that mechanism.   Those forces are also heavily different in terms of their combat skills and style. As a result, they won't help a lot in a regular clashes, but have proven heavily useful in guerilla warfare against hostile attacks, as proven during the Hellfire War.   The final category are the Enforcers, an elite formation that acts as a secret police as much as an army. Its members are brought up from early childhood, and taught to be unfailingly obedient to the Council. Their combat skills are more or less uniform, but with their focus on maneveurability and magical attacks they are closer to elite and disciplined irregulars rather than the regular armies.

On the field of religion, the Incandescent Council territories are divided between three main religions... and a handful of smaller ones. The three main religions are the native pantheons of Alzath and Kalania, and the Temple of the Seven.   There isn't much to say about the two native pantheons. They worship gods that aren't heavily involved in the day-to-day life of their worshippers, getting dangerously close to the border between the gods that are asked for help and gods that are asked to leave you alone. This is, at least somewhat, caused by how rough the lives of people of those two countries are.   The secular power of those religions has been thoroughly dismantled by the magisters of the Council. While they didn't openly stood with the royal houses during the coup, there were long-standing suspicions that they helped some of them escape the magister's wrath and were considered to be a potential foundation for the royal restoration.   The situation is much more complicated with the Temple of the Seven, as they are at this point the strongest religious group in the Council, and with their support from the Sakarian League, attempting to dismantle the power would be politically dangerous.   There is also a certain degree of religious syncretism involved. The Temple of the Seven is attempting to devour the two local pantheons, thus making them into one of the many subsidiary pantheons and a part of their own religion. Temple of the Seven worshippers are allowed to peruse the religious facilities and rituals of the local pantheons, with only a small percentage of Temple adherents following the temple exclusively.   The second category are the minor religions.   Church of the Highmost forms an embattled minority, considered by many (especially the magisters) to be a fifth column of the White Accord. As a result, their religious communities are living in hiding.   Then is the kierayism, the native and somewhat monotheistic religion of the Bloodhand Tribe. With how incredibly violent and evil it is, it's generally speaking not finding any converts outside of the tribe, then again it's a clear example of an ethnic religion that actually isn't looking for converts.   It is thus only practice by the beastfolk of the Kari Forest region.

Incandescent Council is a country with a complicated political situation. One that, at least for now, is kept at bay in large part by the prestige born from having one of the few remaining members of the Hero Company within their ranks.   To the west, it borders with the Sakarian League, an emerging superpower that's attempting to expand its power base, and would gladly devour the Council's territories. Even today, it's slowly spreading its religion through the Council's territory, taking advantage of the magisters suppressing local religious organizations. However to do the same with the Temple of the Seven risks conflict with the League.   On the other side, the country borders with the White Accord, another emerging superpower that's attempting to expand its power base. It's also INCREDIBLY hostile towards the Council. The remnants of the royal house of Alzath (tied through marriage with Kalania almost to the point of personal union between the countries) fled there following the coup, and found refuge.   To this day, they are considered to be the legal rulers of the Alzath-Kalania. There were given a fief and a status of nobles, supported by the White Accord to this day. No one knows which of the many noble houses is descendant from that family, a fact done to avoid assassination attempts from the magisters.   Due to that, every emissary from the White Accord to the Council introduces themselves as a member of the royal house of Alzath-Kalania, and acts accordingly. The Accord has also financed or supported numerous royalist plots within the Council.

Very limited, due to rocky and infertile land, and regular decimation of those lands by the archstorm that are practically guaranteed to completely destroy all attempts at regular agriculture. There is some of it, but it's primarily done in reinforced greenhouses or in pots, with the locals typically growing vegetables that way.   Alzathian go around that issue with fishing, animal husbandry (mostly goats) and importing food. This is the reason why the only larger cities in Alzath are on the coast, as otherwise importing the food would cost way too much.

Kalanian is a bit better than Alzath when agriculture is involved, although with primal forest covering most of its territory, clearing out area for larger-scale farming is costly and requires a lot of hard work. Due to that, the Kalanian population is still average at best in terms of numbers.   Locals are raising a handful of crops, with potatoes making he core of their foodstuff. This is supported with hunting in the forest and foraging.

Alzath is one of the Aurgentia's largest centers of heavy industry. The mountainous rocks of Alzath cover a wealth of treasures, from several types of valuable stone (including granite and obsidian) through kaolinite and quartz (used for production of porcelain) to numerous types of ores, including massive amounts of iron, copper and several magical metals like mithril and orichalcum.   Other things to be found down there include anthracite and promethite (extremely useful when used as fuel) and mana crystals.   This was used by the kings of Alzath and Kalania to establish a massive industry, big part of it is based on preserved low archotek technology. There are numerous automated foundries scattered throughout its territory, most of it focused in the cities on the coast, producing a variety of goods from raw materials at a fraction of cost of manual production. There are also many automatic processing facilities, typically placed at the local mines, allowing of processing ore into metal bars on-site, making the transport of the goods much cheaper.   The result of that fact is a massive overabundance of many basic goods, with metalworked goods often cheaper than food. Exporting those goods is also producing a steady source of revenue, forming a financial foundation for the Council itself.

Kalania's industry is centered on two main fields. First one is woodworking - there is an almost endless supply of wood in Kalania, something that cannot be said about Alzath. As a result, naturally, the locals took to it and made it into their specialty.   The second branch of industry is oil. There are significant deposits of petroleum under majority of Kalanian territory. In several parts of it, it can be easily extracted with primitive tools, due to the deposits being right under the surface.   In other cases, archotek machinery is used to extract it industrial ammounts, before its processed into a number of useful things in several alchemical facilities throughout Kalania, typically placed near to the crude oil extraction facilities. The list of products includes fertilizers and fuel oil.   What's truly valuable, however, is the plastic that's produced in preciously small numbers and typically used to produce very expensive bottles for potions and to be used as tools in alchemical laboratories. Kalania is the only region in Aurgentia that changed plastic production into a thriving industry.

Land transport throughout Alzath and Kalania is very restricted. Most of Kalania is covered in primeval forest. Most of Alzath is a hell of cliffs and ravines. As a result, the large-scale transport (especially when you want to send something from Kalania to Alzath or vice versa) is mostly limited to rivers.   Thankfully, while rocky, Alzath isn't exactly mountainous (although there are a few higher mountains). As a result, there are rivers going through it and into the Sea of Wrath.   At least in Alzath, many roads are in fact underground, taking advantage of massive cave system underground to avoid the storms often ravaging the surface. However, sometimes the result of that is deaths due to flashfloods.

Very limited. The wealthy can afford private education, and there are many martial arts and magic schools throughout the Council's territory. However when it comes to poorer people, what they get is being taught their craft by their parents or distant family members.   There is a degree of religious education, originally offered by the Temple of the Seven (but then the native religions started to offer the same thing in hopes of stopping the religious takeover of their counry). Most of it is rather basic, but it's technically freely allowed to all free citizens, at least for as long as there is a religious institution nearby.