Ihingrill
Structure
They are led by a prince or princess regnant from the royal clan, with the prince/princess regnant having full power over their principality, they can marry or not, their spouse is know as prince/princess consort.
There are many restrictions on who can receive a title:
- Dukes can only be members of one of the rulling clans of the Five Duchys, the clans which own titles of Duke are; Ellsworth, Rowntree, Flowercrown, Honeycutt and Blackbourne. The feminine version of the title is Duchess
- Marquesses are always of families that brought dragons to the court, usually those families already had titles of Count or Baron before. Only dragon riders can receive this title. The feminine version of the title is Marchioness
- Counts also are usually dragon riders, but there is no rule saying that they need to be, it's usually the title commoners receive when they bound with a dragon or turn into skinchangers. The feminine version is Countess
- Baron is the most generic title, anyone who receives land or works on a very important job on the court can receive the title, even those who aren't born on the Principality
- Knight is a title related to the military, anyone who is part of the military, be it official or not, can receive it independent of the military rank, a land soldier who was a hero in battle is just as big of a candidate for the title as a General. There is no feminine version of the title, anyone who receives it is considered a Knight, regardless of gender. Knight is also the only title that is not hereditary, the child of Knight is not a Knight unless they receive the title themselves.
The prince regnant, while having full power over their country, is surrounded by people who help them rule. There are titles of treasurer, main conselor, almirant of the navy, land army marchal, master of spies and leader of the Royal Guard, with none of those being hereditary. Any of those can be apointed as regent if the prince isn't capable in the moment and there is no consort or child of the prince who is capable.
Public Agenda
Nowadays, their objective is to become the most powerful nation of the western continent by forging alliances with other nations like the Ayakashi from the East and the Moonchildren from the South.
Assets
Their army is probably the most powerful elfen army simply by having dragons as their main weapon, a very big land army, an important navy and skinchangers as soldiers.
They don't own lots of land, especially if compared to the closest human kingdom, but the people seem to live in better conditions and can buy more with their money.
In general, they are one of the richest nations of the continent, losing only to the Central Empire and possibly Horian.
History
The principality was created after the death of the only King the Aranea ever had, King Lonán of the Forest, he had chosen his oldest child with Queen Laracna, Phoenix of the roses, as heir, but the prince didn't thought of himself as good enough to take his father's place, so he decided to just became a regnant prince, turning the kingdom into a principality.
His first action as a prince was to turn all his siblings into dukes, giving them land, creating The Five Duchys and their respective clans:
- The Rosenfeld of Ihingrill, his own clan
- The Ellsworth of Elendell, Aaron of the Blackstone's clan
- The Rowntree of Darnell, Merope of the Oak Tree's clan
- The Flowercrown of Tyell, Olena of the Wine Road's clan
- The Honeycutt of Howell, Leith of the Beehive's clan
- The Blackbourne of Aurell, Agni of the Perpetual Fire's clan
His reign was quite long lived, lasting a total of 3360 years, his successor was his oldest child, Dragon Rosenfeld.
While Dragon didn't had to prove himself as a strong prince, he was never as popular as his father and grandfather, specially to his court, some commoners still liked him because of his military conquers, but his behavior wasn't seen with good eyes by noblemen in general, specially his tendencies to not care for his wifes and to carry lots of prejudice. Almost all his children were born of different mothers; His first wife was Rosamund Tuk, a halfling woman who he married only of spite, as he hated her father, she died giving birth to their child, who would become Prince Lethif. After noticing the fact that his child wasn't as masculine as he wanted, he married to Mielikki Rowntree, who he exiled after deeming his second child Griffon a even bigger failure.
His third wife was Elia Makall, a Yuan-ti princess, who gave him only a daugther, Basilisk, who was just as cold as her father wanted but not of the right gender, Elia refused to bear children again after she discovered a dangerous condition related to pregnancy, so he divorced her and married again, now to a human of Horian, Emily Edwards, a close friend to Elia, she tried to change him but ultimately failed, in the end she died in the same way as Rosamund, during childbirth, her children are the twins, Garuda and Cocatrice.
Both his last two wifes had less tragic ends, as Rowena, a human from a southern tribe, just abandoned her family after been treated in a way that she disliked after birthing Great Duchess Helena, and his last wife Sena Ishikawa actually liked him, she was a Snow Elf daughter of a close friend of the regnant prince, she is Great Duchess Mai's mother, both stayed married for 67 years, when they were assassinated by a Honeycutt retainer.
His behavior resulted in a conspiration to assassinate the prince and give the power to his oldest son, it involved all of the Five Duchys and many people surrouding those families, specially the prince's children and both clans Rowntree and Honeycutt. It was successful, the power went to Prince Lethif Rosenfeld, who also took the High Elf name of Lirior.
As a prince, Lirior is probably the most successful since the beggining of the principality, having rulled for more than 3059 years without any big scandals, having a secure line of succession and forging many alliances with neighboring nations and even some with nations from the East and South, specially the Ayakashi and the Moonchildren, been married to a prince from the last one.
Those alliances brought the Principality prosperity through both commerce and war.
Demography and Population
The majority of the population lives in the caves of the capital or mountains, there aren't many outsiders living permanently in the country and those usually live close to the borders.
The main castle is surrounded by mountains but there aren't any villages near it.
Territories
Their territory is composed mainly by islands, with Elendell being the main one, where the capital is located.
The Island of Ihingrill only houses the prince's castle.
Both islands of Tyell and Aurell are conected under by tunnels under the water, both are mainly composed by rocky mountains which have multiple silver and gemstones mines and the second biggest city in the principality.
Darnell is the second biggest island, also holding the most important spider farm on the principality.
While there are many more small islands, the only two that have any importance are both dragon nests.
Military
The Aranea army is composed by land army, navy, dragon riders and the skinchanger guard.
- land army: their main duty is to guard the cities, contribute to field invasions, the majority of the ranks is made of half elfs or pure elfs, it composes the majority of the army. They are lead nowadays by the prince consort;
- navy: it was originaly a very big pirate crew, but became the Aranea Navy after their captain decided to go back home, they are very capable fighters and smugglers. They are lead by Admiral Sohab;
- dragon riders: the second smaller part of the army, people who are capable dragon riders are invited to take part in the army and are given both status and money, they are almost regional equivalents of knights. They are lead by the prince regnant himself;
- skinchanger guard: the prince's personal guard, fully composed of skinchangers (humans or elfs who are capable of changing forms in between a humanoid and an animal form), is the smaller part of the army. They are lead by the Main Counselor Hawkeye;
While both don't belong to the army, there are two unnoficial regiments, the spies/assassins and the soud mages, the first work into getting intelligence and killing enemy leaders, the second is mainly support during battle.
Religion
Their original religion does not have a name, it is politeistic, based on 666 different gods, with six being the main gods (worshipped everyday by everyone), 60 major gods (worshipped by big portions of the population frequently) and 600 minor ones (worshipped by smaller portions of the population less frequently). Their leader is the Great Priestess.
- Urania, goddess of love and equality;
- Ilith, god of royalty;
- Amaura, goddess of gemstones and precious metals;
- Laracna, goddess of spiders and redemption;
- Yorie, god of darkness and the underground;
- Kyaren, god of justice and revenge.
Foreign Relations
They are close to the Ayakashi from the East, some kingdoms from the North and trade with Nemathis and Horian.
Their biggest alliance is the elfen kingdom of the Moonchildren, which is also the homeland of the prince consort.
Their main enemies are the Central Empire and the Greystorm, the second biggest northern kingdom.
Agriculture & Industry
Their major food production is in the many smaller islands in the form of fish, corn and wheat, the production is distributed to the cities. Their other produce is mushroons, specially non poisonous species.
They also mine silver and gemstones, brew potions, create spellbooks, sew clothing, forge armour and swords, make arrows and collect dragon skin, scales and horns.
The Honeycutt clan are the biggest productors of honey in Auroris, exporting their produce to the majority of the rich countries.
The spider wine is Ihingrill's most iconic produce, being made of unfertillized eggs of giant spiders, it can be of two varieties, the clear, which can be drunk by non Aranea people, being lighter not only in coloration as in taste and alcohol content, and the dark, used almost only for ceremonial/religious purposes such as marriages, coming of age ceremonies, coronations, etc. The dark variety is the responsible for the iconic look of the Aranea elfs, staining their lips gray and coloring their eyes black. Most of the wine is made in the farms of Darnell island.
Trade & Transport
They use boats and tunnels as their main transportation. Those who are dragon riders usually travel by flying.
Their tunnel network is quite complex, with three islands being connected in some capacity.
While horses aren't by any means unheard of in Ihingrill, their main transportation animal is the giant spider, they are considered their brothers, children of The Mother Spider, their legendary ancestor. Those spiders live in symbiosis with the Aranea elfs, elfs provide them with food, shelter and protection and they provide the elfs with silk, spider wine and help.
Education
The population is more educated than average, they can go to schools related to some subjects such as military, potion making and magic, but the rich usually put their children under tutors for specific subjects such as languages, science, advanced maths and medicine.
There are also people who work in aprenticeships, specially the commoners, those become artisans, no magical or bardic musicians, farmers, fishers and cooks.
"We are the children of the Spider."
The official currency in Ihingrill is the Dark Coin, it looks like a small crescent moon and is made of black steel, being also the most commonly used by the population.
The other official coins used are the Silk Coin, in the shape of a spider and mostly used in large transactions and the Shadow Sickle, a small round bronze coin that is used in small transactions by the commoners but is not produced anymore.
The spider wine that can legally be exported is the clear variety, which is both weaker and safer for foreighners.
The same farms which produce spider wine also produce their most traditional fabric, spider silk, it comes from the webs of giant spiders, who also produce unfertilized eggs for spider wine production.
The Honeycutt clan produces and export high quality honey for other countries.
Artisans, mages and professinal potioneers from Ihingrill are capable of creating powerful itens that are sold at many markets around Auroris.
They import mainly luxuries for the nobility, fabric and meat.
Meat is usually imported because of the production price for local meat, there isn't much space for cows to graze nor interest in keeping pigs as anything else than pets or garbage disposal. While there are some cows and chickens in the Principality, they are intended to produce milk and eggs.
They aren't capable of producing fabric like common silk or cotton in their territory and usually import those.
One of the prince regnant's duties is to write the legislation used by the many courts in the nation, the main counselor also participates in the process.
There are some courts in the nation, but they are mostly for commoners and small crimes, any crime considered for death penalty needs to be judged by the prince.
It is possible to have a trial by combat if the prince decides that is impossible to know for sure if the person is guilty or not.
diplomatic tension
The Emperor dislikes elfs, but they can't attack without overextending their supply lines or having heavy losses related to dragons and mages.
Much of the army also disagrees with such invasion, with the old expansionist generals wanting to attack but the young ones, specially the veterans of the war against the Riveran Elfs are much more cautious, having seen what magic can do.
Ihingrill also disagrees with the inner workings of imperial politics, so any aliances would be halted before even beggining, specially under the government of Prince Lirior.
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments