The Reikvaldt
The True Heirs of Alagaros
The Reikvaldt, commonly referred to simply as “The Empire”, is by far the largest and strongest political entity on the continent. Stretching from the Ice Sea in the west, to the Witchwood and the Blightlands in the south and east, and controlling a vast stretch of the Green Sea Coast in the north all the way to the Old Wood, The Reikvaldt is a land without compare. Containing the greatest variance in terrain, The Reikvaldt has several large cities, vast fields and pastures, tamed and untamed woodland, the Green Sea Coastlands, and it even reaches to the desert of Myrhh.
The Reikvaldt is known as The Empire for a reason: ruled by an Emperor and his Grand Council, the Empire is divided into three levels: Imperial, County, and Thing. The Imperial level controls the military, taxes, and the knightly orders, all under the watchful eye of the Legates. The County level controls the day-to-day affairs of the Empire, from law enforcement to trade regulation, the Counts and Marshals who are entrusted with overseeing the Counties are expected to do their duty or be replaced. The Things and their governors are the bedrock of the empire, managing and interacting with the people of the Empire on a much more personal and responsive level.
Then there is the matter of the Elector Counts. The less said about them the better, thanks to the arcane and seemingly arbitrary rules determining their selection. They as a body exist solely to select the Emperor and approve new members of the Grand Council and High Court. Typically drawn from among the Counts and Marshals, they usually have a few from among the nobility, and even from among the commoners, especially ex-legionnaires.
Society in The Reikvaldt is as varied as the land it covers. There is no truly solidified “nobility”, and while a common soldier may earn himself a high title or a dedicated civil servant may earn a royal estate, the educated still tend to be picked for high offices, and the educated have educated children, and so the Empire still tends to be ruled by the same kinds of people who ruled a century ago. The vast educated populace does allow there to be a flourishing of the arts of all type: from grand marble palaces and cathedrals, to small gold icons invoking blessings for commoners, art is a universal pleasure in The Reikvaldt. Even the halfling villages are treated as full members of Imperial society and tend to have a member on the Grand Council.
While The Reikvaldt is still primarily agrarian, it’s massive population allows for an equally massive specialized sector producing everything from fine armors to potent magical spells, and unlike many other nations, these specialized services exist in almost any town of decent size. International trade is very common and provides for even more specialized and exotic goods to come in from Lineria across the desert of Myrhh, from the Velemin and Arandell, and from the tribes of the Old Wood. No trade travels through the dangers of the Witchwood, nor does any cross the frigid and tumultuous Ice Sea.
Religion plays a small but solid role in Imperial life, the Thalador are universally worshipped throughout the Empire, with the priests of the Thalador being especially well respected. Several of the Empire’s knightly orders are religious based, and commoners will typically have small shrines and icons to one or two of the Thalador. Worship of other gods is outlawed throughout The Reikvaldt, and while deals may be made with the Aerefons, treating them as anything more than loan sharks is outlawed. The enforcement of religious law is carried out by the Knights Inquisitors of Indoril and the Dawn Knights, two orders of highly dedicated and equally trained fighters who specialize in rooting out evil and heresy from the land.
The Reikvaldt fields by far the largest and most powerful military on the continent, their legions maintain order inside the Empire, garrison the borders with the Blightlands and the Witchwood, and are even sent on expeditions as far north as the Orthonic lands and as far south as the Aegrion frontier. Organized to maximize flexibility, the Imperial legions can bring to bear as large or as small a force as is needed for the job at hand. To enhance and augment the legions are the dozens of knightly orders, from the heavily armored cavalry of the Jade Knights, to the light hunters of the Royal Forest Wardens, to the terror inducing griffon riders of the Royal Reiksguard Knights, each has its own tenets and duty, but all are equally effective at what they do. Like the Velemin, the Empire fields a large and well-equipped navy, and also like the Velemin, the Empire has no qualms with hiring adventurers to solve problems the legions or the knightly orders couldn’t.
Structure
The High Emperor begins and ends all policy, diplomacy, and war The Empire ever faces. In theory. While all-powerful, on paper, one man cannot rule alone. Instead he divests power into three main bodies: The High Council, who act as the legal authority; and the small army of Legates who act as the civil and military arm of Imperial authority; and the Counts, who are the administrative side of the civil authority. They each watch over their own respective lower body: the Judges and Governors who act as the direct administrators for regions.
Then there are the Elector Counts, a body of 123 who elect new Emperors and approve the seats of the highest echelons of society. Each Elector has its own unique laws determining who sits in it: some are ancestral, dating back to the founding of the Empire, some are based on elections within a township, a few are chosen by guilds, one can only be wielded by an eremite who has taken vows of poverty. In order for a new Emperor to be approved it must be approved by 70 Electors.
The Code Civil (Vox Vitae Juris Imperium) is written and maintained by the seventeen man Imperial Council, the highest legal authority within The Empire. The body has little to no civil authority outside of the law, but in the hands of a good Emperor it is a force to be reckoned with, and the experience of its members help insulate it in the times of a bad Emperor. Each member of the Council is selected by the Emperor from among the High Judges or the Legates upon the death or retirement of his predecessor, however they must then be approved by the Elector Counts, which limits the Emperors ability to emplace sycophants into the upper echelons.
The actual laws are enacted by the four tiers of judicial authority, each corresponding to a tier of government: the Imperial Council, the High Judges, the Lower Judges, and the Thing Judges. Almost all issues of law fall to the Thing Judges, however, if there is a debate among the judges (as three judge each case) then it is passed, in its entirety, to the Lower Judges, who will decide that either a previous ruling applies, or that a new one must be made. If a new ruling is necessary, it will be passed further up, to the High Judges, who may decide to pass it into the hands of the Imperial Council, who will make the final verdict on the case and create a new, specific law to answer the question presented by the case.
History
As the Heroic Age dwindled into its twilight years, a tribal elder saw his people suffering, saw the war that was ripping apart the region, and he felt pain that those he cared about suffered. But he was just one man, and he did not think he could change the way life happened. Then, the legends say, while he was out hunting one day, a silver stag appeared before him; a servant of Vivec. The stag spoke to him, warning him of a coming raid against his village, telling him of what would be left after the raid, and of who he must find to change the world. The tribal elder doubted the stag, thinking it a mere mirage, or the trick of a fey. But four days later, the raid happened, just as the stag had warned. None of the tribals were left except for the elder. On that day he swore revenge against the raiders, and he set out just as the stag had said he would.
In the aftermath of the raid, the elder took a new name: Aligaros, the Lost Man. Aligaros set out across the land on his quest, first finding the man the stag had instructed him to, a man named Ralathor the Warrior. The two men carved their mark on history by convincing tribe after tribe to ally with them against the most violent tribes of the region. Within six years, Aligaros and Ralathor had unified sixteen tribes into one large confederation. But they were not done yet. The Warrior had seen visions of Geraan who foretold that it would not be enough to merely stop the killing in the here and now, but that they must truly unify the bickering tribes into one great empire. Aligaros and the Warrior spent the next twenty five years leading the tribes to war after war, slowly bringing together the region, until finally, when Aligaros was sixty-one years old he was crowned the first Emperor, and took the name Aligaros Ashuin, the Once Dead Man. The region became known as Reikland, after the largest tribe, and the collection of tribes became known as the Empire of the Greater Reik Union (Imis Reik Valdt).
The Reikvaldt was forged by the will of a single man, but as time went on it became clear that one man could not be the dynamo that Aligaros Ashuin was and thus was born the Imperial bureaucracy. For four hundred years the house of Ashuin oversaw the ever expanding Empire and forming and reformation of its laws, until eventually it had spread to its current borders. But even when the house of Ashuin failed, and the Empire's first succession crisis occurred, it was not done expanding. Over the next three hundred years the population and influence of the Empire spread north across the Green Sea, west across the Anarak, and south to the desert of Myrhh. It could not maintain direct control over all these territories though, so they were given de facto independence, with the promise that they would support Imperial policy. Over time, these promises were forgotten, and the once-Imperial kingdoms each took their own path, sometimes coming into conflict with the Empire, sometimes with each other. War has never stopped for the Reikvaldt, but for the past fourteen centuries, the Empire has seen astounding stability and prosperity, with only a handful of civil wars, revolutions, and crisis' to mar it.
Demography and Population
The Reikvaldt contains by far and away the largest population on the continent at just over 14 million citizens. It is also one of the most diverse, with massive pockets of halflings, elves, dwarves, and even tieflings, who have the highest population density of any continental region, in spite of the distrust commonly shown to them.
Primarily agrarian, there are still a large number of major trade and production centers. The largest of these is the Imperial Capital of Alenor, at nearly half a million citizens. There are about a dozen other large cities that boast over one hundred thousand citizens. The remainder of the population is scattered amongst the smaller cities, towns, and hamlets of the countryside.
Religion
Religion plays a small but solid role in Imperial life, the Thalador are universally worshipped throughout the Empire, with the priests of the Thalador being especially well respected. Several of the Empire’s knightly orders are religious based, and commoners will typically have small shrines and icons to one or two of the Thalador. Worship of other gods is outlawed throughout The Reikvaldt, and while deals may be made with the Aerefons, treating them as anything more than loan sharks is outlawed. The enforcement of religious law is carried out by the Knights Inquisitors of Indoril and the Dawn Knights, two orders of highly dedicated and equally trained fighters who specialize in rooting out evil and heresy from the land.
Foreign Relations
The Reikvaldt maintains (mostly) good relations with the other nations of the continent, though it has caused friction due to it's tendency to become involved with the internal politics of its former domains. Most recently it marched a force of 1800 Empire Knights to the gates of Lineria to demand the abolition of slavery. They succeeded, but it left a bad taste in the mouths of many Aegrion politicians, who in turn spread dissent to the other continental powers.
Where devils dare not tread.
Founding Date
Year 0 of the New Age (Year 126 of the Heroic Age)
Type
Geopolitical, Country
Capital
Alternative Names
The Empire
Demonym
Imperial, Reiklander
Head of State
Head of Government
Government System
Monarchy, Elective
Economic System
Market economy
Currency
| Amount in Higher Quantity | |
| Copper Dèmal | 12 (60,1020,61200) |
| Silver Rin | 5 (85,5100) |
| Gold Töll | 17 (1020) |
| Platinum Éné | 60 |
| Platinum Well | NA |
Legislative Body
The Code Civil (Vox Vitae Juris Imperium) is written and maintained by the Imperial Council, the highest legal authority within The Empire.
Judicial Body
The Imperial courts enact the Code Civil
Official State Religion
Subsidiary Organizations
Location
Controlled Territories
Neighboring Nations
Notable Members
Related Ethnicities
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments