Sheltered Inlands District

Main capital of the Itude Empire

Housed by the Tepes/Cheonsa Family

The Sheltered Inlands is the head of the regions of the Itude Empire. This region shares a somewhat similar history to Minuianto, gaining its first vampire settlements on the east coast sometime during the beginning of the 4th Era of the Era of Light, a.k.a. EoL, before expanding out west to create the other regions of the empire. During the expansion, the region followed the same pattern as Tong-ilia with many small independent human settlements popping up and vying for local power with one city or another, occasionally achieving brief periods of command before rapid declines thereafter.
The only notable peace this region achieved came from the Treaty of Chymoús in 1374 EoL, which succeeded in uniting most of the races as well as establishing many prosperous trading routes. This, however, was the first major region to feel the rising might of the empire, with several long and fruitful years between the Itude Empire and the Moonlight Expanse before the Empress Sin-yeona of the Itude Empire was assassinated by the four reigning Alphas of the Moonlight Expanse, paving the way for the bloodiest war in history, the War of Chymoús.
After the war began, the region quickly fell into an intense militaristic regimen between the nobleborns and the citizens in the ensuing lust for revenge, partly driven by the quite poignant racial differences between vampires and werewolves. This war has persisted even to this day, despite several efforts from the Winter Moon Pack to try and unify all of the races again—with all of the races outside the vampires and werewolves having to pick sides and sometimes quite wildly different cultures, political organizations, and racial makeup with several of the regions in the more mountainous, grassland, or wooded areas being dominated by vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, humans, elves, witches, and half-breed societies respectively.
There does however exist one relatively informal magick political body in the Itude Empire known as the Witch Federation, consisting of representatives sent by each of the Witch Covens. This organization was established to hopefully reduce conflict and increase co-operation and trade between the witch covens and has been famously effective in creating a new race called Blood Witches. The Witch Covens continued existence is only facilitated by the understanding that under its advocacy the various witch covens will military co-operate when threatened with aggression from outside the empire, which has prevented the outside conquest of the five regions of the Itude Empire over the past 524 years.

Table of Contents

Founding Date

1373 EoL

Type

Geopolitical, Empire

Capital

Vol'nische

Government System

Monarchy, Absolute

Power Structure

Unitary state

Economic System

Command/Planned economy

Location

Vol'nische

Neighboring Nations

• Storms Reach District
• The Northern Narrows District
• The Serphants Scope District

Military Formations

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Due to the diverse political makeup of the region, the military formations and tactics of the various cities, towns, and villages are also extremely varied. In general, the region tends to specialize in light infantry and cavalry formations, specializing in hit-and-run tactics as opposed to the heavy formations of its neighboring regions.
Warriors from this region are called the Itudean Army and they answer directly to the Emperor. They are particularly famed for the usages of various thin, light, sharp-pointed silver swords used for thrusting, collectively known as “flame-bladed swords. Due to the importance of Darkness worship in this region, the military also plays host to a decent selection of very destructive battle witches, more commonly known as Blood Witches.

Georgraphy & Climate

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by eberhard grossgasteiger (Pexels)

The region makes up the entirety of the large circle that wraps around Icywind Alps, Winter Pine Forest, and the lake just south of the mountains with the Marea Lumii Sea to the west of the mountains. It is also nestled by the Storms Reach, the Northern Narrows, and the Serphants Scope regions.
As a result, most of this area shares a similar subarctic climate to the Winter Pine Forest, though the area centered around the Icywind Mountains tends to be a highland climate, and most of the south—near the lake—is more tundra, featuring very little precipitation (usually less than 15 inches per year) and permafrost, where the subsoil is constantly frozen. Most of the northeast is dominated by a sizable flat, dry plain which is home to a selection of forts, villages, and towns. Most of the region’s interior is generally dry, forest-filled, and mountainous, unlike its neighbors, that almost all the settlements are focused around the lake, coast, or major river valleys.

Demographics

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The cultures and peoples of this area are as diverse as the rest of the Itude Empire combined, but in general, the cold, dry climate inevitably leads to most of these having similarities to the Coastal Region and the Northern Narrows. In this sense, many tend to be closed off, hostile, and rigid, but also share a keen interest in searching out new experiences and pleasures whenever they can. This reserved nature, however, is what has largely been the cause of the historic disunity of the region, with each small ethnic group being fiercely protective of their individual cultures and freedoms. To foreigners, these traits are often regarded as alluring and exciting, but at the same time rather dangerous and unpredictable, leading to a general attitude of suspicion and mistrust from outside. Like those of the Coastal Region and Northern Narrows, most vampires have pale skin and blond or dark hair.

Raven Senate

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Bringing order from chaos—that is the mission of the Raven Senate. Without the extensive legal code crafted and enforced by the Itudeans, society would crumble, transforming the Itude Empire into a field of rubble where the Vampires and Blood Witches due as they please. The Senate functions as the government of the Itude Empire and is built on four columns of a legislative, a judicial, an executive, and militaristic branch under the leadership of Emperor Vladimir Tepes, the Itude Empire Supreme Judge. It was created as a means to write the laws of the empire and ensure those convicted of crimes are held to the utmost ability of the law.

_{See Raven Senate for more information}

Faillen League

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The Faillen League are obsessive experimenters, combining a keen creative intellect with a short attention span. The original mandate of the guild was to provide solutions for public work projects (sewers, boilers, and roadways), but their increasingly far-fetched experiments satisfy only their insatiable curiosity. Sometimes, their experiments yield useful technological advancements; other times, they produce unintended magick geysers, spatial rifts, arcane portals, or huge explosions—all of which can be useful in their own way. The most notable member of the guild is Michanikós Klóstis, who the one person who blew nuclear research wide open.

_{See Mini Nukes for example}