The Nation of Stanster

Stanster’s leadership structure is incredibly corrupt. While claiming to be a representative democracy, Stanster can be more accurately described as an oligarchy. Every Stanster citizen has the right to vote in national elections held once every year in the provinces and municipalities and once every 5 years nationally . Each city has a governor who runs the day to day activities of that city. The national government of Stanster is made up of a legislature with representatives appointed by the governor of each city as well as a “Chief Office” made up of one military official and one civilian elected in the 5 year national election. The Chief Office acts as one unit, overseeing domestic and foreign policy. Unfortunately, because no government positions offer a salary of any kind, the peasantry is effectively barred from holding political office. Additionally,voting stations are often inaccessible or poorly defined. As a result, the peasantry is largely politically inactive. The legislature is constantly at the beck and call of the merchant elte, as is the military establishment who are more concerned with protecting the country’s resources than its people. Slums run rampant in many of Stanster’s cities.     The current “Chief Officer” is the newly elected Atalya Evenwind. The High-Elven Evenwind family is one of the oldest merchant families in Stanster, and that is certainly saying something. The only heiress to the Evenwind fortune, Atalya has taken her family’s riches to new heights. She has become the wealthiest merchant the country has ever seen, and potentially the wealthiest single person on the entire CONTINENT. She is known as a shrewd, pragmatic, and sometimes cruel businesswoman who has had little problem dispatching with her competition. Even still, the Evenwind Trading Company provides the largest selection of foreign goods for the cheapest price on the Continent and supplies the entirety of Stanster as well as many foreign cities with all forms of goods. The military half of the Chief Office is currently held by the Dragonborn Kilkax Ildun. Kilkax came to this role two years ago, his predecessor having been demoted by the council of military advisors after not anticipating the surprise attack by Ocras. They would later die under mysterious circumstances. Kilkax is known as having a fine strategic mind as well as incredible bravery and fighting acumen. His naval prowess perhaps single handedly kept the war from becoming an absolute disaster for Stanster, as he personally captained the nation’s flagship in Stanster’s only clear victory during the war. It was his ship that landed the decisive blow in that battle and kept Ocras from blockading the entirety of the Bloody Barrel.

Domestically, there is only one god that the ruling class of Stanster pray to: money. There is a large temple to Bhata,God of Merchants and Trade, just outside the capital. The worship of this god has far more to do with fear of reprisal than actual faith and belief. Most wealthy merchants don’t truly believe in the God’s power, but don’t want to “take any chances” by neglecting his worship. The general population of Stanster is as diverse as Verur itself. A common saying in the cities of Stanster is “travel and trade are poisonous to ignorance.” As a result of constant trade and immigration, Stanster is home to dwarves, elves, humans, and all other races and walks of life. Early in its history the capital city had districts where individual races lived, but at this point the concept of “foreign” peoples has become largely anathema to Stansterites; the leadership and mercantile classes of Stanster have been inhabited by people of all races and religions. The largest single temple on Verur is Briarmont in the Stanster countryside. The clergy in Briarmont are known to accept all faiths and religions without question, simply celebrating the existence of faith itself in all its forms.     This is not to say that Stanster is some form of utopia. Racial strife has existed in small forms throughout the country. These tensions have grown recently mostly due to the war with Ocras which has put a significant strain on Stanster’s economy.

Stanster is currently engaged in a long and bloody war with Ocras, its neighbor to the west. To put it mildly, the war with Ocras is not going well. Stanster had previously enjoyed a cordial relationship with Ocras, but a devious (and incredibly effective) surprise attack allowed Ocras to seize a large and strategically important section of Stanster’s territory. Stanster has never been a particularly large nation, but Ocras managed to cut the size of the country nearly in half during the first year of the conflict. Since then, the war seemed to reach something of a standstill. By pushing the border between the two countries farther east, Ocras has managed to trap Stanster on the bottom of what has become known as the “Bloody Barrel,” the seawater inlet that feeds the Heart of the World. Despite this strategic position, Ocras has been unable to land a killing blow due to the massive size of Stanster’s navy (a force rivaled only by Esmer to the north). Recently, Ocras has managed to gain a foothold on Stanster’s northeastern border and is attempting to use this position to essentially starve Stanster out by cutting off its land routes to other nations. Additionally, Ocras has control of a small portion of the Heart of the World, giving it the ability to cut off trade between Stanster and Ardenia. Ocras has yet to play this card, however, fearing that it would drag Ardenia into the conflict against them and turn the tide of battle.     The relationship between Stanster and Otem is covered under “Otem” above. Stanster desperately wants Otem to join the war against Ocras and perhaps even enlist the help of Esma in order to help them fight off the Ocrasian invaders. There is some within Stanster who believe that, should Otem not join the fray, their country should consider closing off Otem’s access to the Heart of the World. This strategy has been able to bring Otem into line in the past, although it has also backfired in the past, resulting in bloody and pointless conflicts.     Stanster’s closest ally is the nation of Ardenia. The term “ally,” however, is perhaps too strong a word to characterize this relationship. The Ardenians have been only too happy to accept whatever terms and conditions Stanster desired in the past in order to preserve the close trading relationship they have with the small coastal nation. Militarily, however, Ardenia has proven reluctant to commit to any large scale conflicts or agreements with anyone, including Stanster. Ardenia’s primary concern is the maintenance of its own defense and peaceful wellbeing. Ultimately, Stanster believes that the longer the conflict with Ocras lasts the more likely it becomes that Ardenia will enter the conflict on their side. The war will ultimately have adverse effects on Ardenia, and the wise people who rule that peaceful nation will need to take action against the obvious aggressors.