Kima
Age of the New Dawn
Scope
The motivation behind building Kima
Kima started as a place to which I could "escape" to when things in the real world were bad. Over time, it developed more and more in my head, and I eventually decided I needed to put it down in writing.
The goal of the project
I want to create a comic series from this world.
Kima's Unique Selling point
I really love morally gray stories and characters. They feel more realistic. I also really like the magic system I came up with and it allows me to explore themes that are important to me, such as environmentalism and moral ambiguity.
Theme
Genre
Magic in Kima is fairly advanced. Not everyone practices it, and not everyone is good at it, but those that are can do amazing things. An ancient, extinct race even created giant metal suits that they could control with magic (effectively, robots).
Reader Experience
The world should feel huge and wondrous. Some parts of it are mysterious, maybe even scary, but all fascinating.
Reader Tone
The tone of the world is somewhere in the middle, leaning a little bit more to the darker side. Living in Kima is not easy, especially under Ragna's rule.
Character Agency
The main characters are actively seeking to change the world and bring Kima out of the dark times it has fallen upon.
Drama
Ragna is in charge of Kima now. She seeks to become the most powerful ruler in the known world, and she has to get her hands on magical abilities in order to do so. Finding Rolan, her nemesis' former right-hand-man, is paramount to this goal. The single-minded drive could very well lead to her downfall, as it did her predecessor. Strife festers all across the country, but most of all in the Strica Seaboard. It's always been the poor region of Kima, but the gap has only widened in recent years with the war, despite Ragna's roots in Strica's capitol city. Additionally, on the opposite end of the spectrum, the wealthy residents of the Chema Expanse are terrified of Ragna. She rules with an iron fist, but that may not be enough to protect her from a nationwide uprising.
The laws surrounding magic use have changed greatly since Ragna's rise to power. Mages must possess a license that can only be received through a strict and unfair process. All mages and their abilities are catalogued by those in power. Any uncatalogued and unlicensed mages face consequences as severe as death. Blood Magic is no longer outlawed as it once was, and the penalties surrounding its unethical uses are far less severe than in the past. A lot of common people have become distrustful of magic, some groups even forming to "enforce" the new laws in any way they see fit. Similar groups have also been founded to hunt down the last of the rare, magical creatures that call Kima their home. This has led to a decline in the magic that used to set Kima apart from its neighboring countries, and protected it from invasion.
Kima is full of a wide array of diverse cultures and people. Unfortunately, not all are viewed as equal. The first people who discovered Kima, referred to in Common as the "First Wave", have been slowly pushed out of the most populous and wealthiest areas of the nation. Now, they are scattered to the corners of the Katzan Cape, Avadale, and the Lumarien Plains. These people are the ones who first discovered the remnants and magic of the Ancients, the people that lived in Kima long ago and was mysteriously wiped out. Now, that history and those traditions are being threatened.
After the war, Kima has been left in a state of widespread turmoil. The nation is losing money, fast. Its neighbors are wary of Ragna and don't wish to trade as freely anymore, seeking to pull away and leave Kima to its downfall. Others see this as an opportunity, and evidence suggests that some neighboring countries may once again attempt to invade Kima and claim it for themselves. This would lead to the eradication of magic entirely. Foreigners from these neighboring companies are notably skittish and wary of Kimans, or far too interested in the inner workings of the country.
Mt. Vyšnak, translated to "Mt. Blood" in Common, has begun showing signs of its inevitable eruption. The last eruption, nearly 1000 years ago, decimated the northern peninsula of the Chema Expanse, leaving it dead and ruined. It also caused the Kačkan Abyss ("Primal Abyss") to open up on the border of Chema and Ephemere. The land surrounding these places is notably blackened, and magic doesn't work there. The Warnach Mountains and the Barrenwood have fallen upon a similar fate, although that was brought about by the war. These speaks to a larger problem than just the volcano: the magic in Kima is disappearing. There's no telling when it will be completely gone, but it has become increasingly clear that it is not a renewable resource.
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