"Such is the flame that needs run dark to burn the blood of our own failures from our cities and their soil. We inherit the world; and yet we do nothing? I say this must not be so, Akumei, and here we stand at bastion made by those eternal lain low not by evils above, but by evils beside! Stand and fight, with flame in left and the knowledge that what we reclaim what is ours; what was lost; what was taken; and what our hands alone have built again!"
-- Imperator Visange Carlamaine in 910 AB.
Gothic. Haunted. Industrious. Despised. Serene.
All are used to describe the Land of Black Roses, where the water of the Somaru runs gray and briny, changed through artefacts and the magic therein proliferating up and downstream.
This is a land of veiled intent.
This is a land of knives in backs.
This is a land of ingenious devils.
This is a land of saints and sinners.
And they're one and the same.
From the capital city of Seidopolis (最度ポリス), the Darkwater Council administrates and interprets the City-God's will in order to better direct the peoples' wills. Their true identities are often unknown, only unveiled in times of communique as a tool of propaganda; and even then, it might be a lie. The history of these lands as those of betrayers is stretched across many a century, and so is mainly that of prejudice, but it is certainly true that the streets of Seidopolis and its sister-cities alike are those of whispered words, hurriedly shuffling feet, hoods and magical wards. Trust is a rare commodity, never traded, only stolen.
-- One of many Cathedral-Castles throughout the older districts of Seidopolis.
Where in larger Elysia, honor and duty are the highest desire of the society, in the Land of Black Roses, honor is a state that may be lost or regained, depending on the action. When properly cleansed, the kharmic energies are removed and no dishonor is grave enough as stain the soul so it might not come out in the wash. "No ledger is too bloody in Seidopolis", it is said. However, duty to the Council and the city is often required and enforced, for the interests of the state and its capital pursuits are paramount. Law is a matter of some debate, as while there are councils, it seems that the true law of the land is power, and nowhere is that more true than in the movements of coin.
In effect, the Land of Black Roses is an occult superpower with a masked technocracy dealing in occult ghost-batteries and ephemeral engines that power machines with captured angels and ghosts, alike, in order to emulate the same technologies that the
Dynasty of the Hikarima 光 possesses. To their benefit, "the Black Rose blooms brighter when closer to any hell", another saying, which holds true in that the Dynasty's elemental engines do not compare to the output in terms of range and force as those of Miraikan, the
black-magic quasi-real twilight science study centre of the world.
Occultism aside, as it is less of a mystery in Seidopolis and more of a money market for investment, the Land of Black Roses is greatly industrial. Metal beams and skyscrapers have been erected in the last century where the surrounding states from Ishito to Cervantis or the Blackwich still build with marbled blocks or log houses. Smokestacks and ghoststacks, alike ring the city, with the occasional hundred-foot statue of a member of the Darkwater Council held in high honor. Industry proceeds with a wartime ferocity, as the Land of Black Roses and its laissez-faire economy requires a degree of constant threat and war in order to maintain quota.
-- The Land of Black Roses in the year 910 AB, during its confederation into the new Liara Imperium.
In 908, the Jinzo Revolution overwhelmed the forces of the Council and its gas-masked enforcers, leading to Zenkado and more than 75% of the territory of the Land of Black Roses to break free and reclaim the independance it once had in centuries past. This, of course, would spell the doom to the ruling class in Seidopolis, for if an opposing state did not depose them, their own dissasified and frenzied populace would—nevermind the fact that it was the Council presenting such propaganda as to feed their frenzied flames in the first.
Offerring a golden ticket out of this predicament came the Imperator.
Imperator Visange Carlamaine had just been elected the Crown Speaker for Sylastra, using rhetoric of reclaimation and heritage, telling the Alcori peoples that their heritage in the great and eternal elven empire of
Erinion was taken from them by invaders from the stars, yes, but also their ancestors own failings. He had fired up their desires and dreams; their hate and their rage, in order to create a frenzy for war and conquest and development that would take the relatively peaceful—if extremely magically advanced—society and transform it into a war-mongering colossus within the span of a few years. He vowed to unite all the peoples and cultures that descended from Erinion, the Cervani, the Alcori, and the Akumei (in the Land of Black Roses), and restore Erinion to the heights it should have never fallen from... and then surpass their failures as they turned to philosophy and peace instead of claiming the very stars as their own.
This intensity and rhetoric stoked a fear in many a faction along strict lines, for it is of no secret that a prophet claiming that only a select few will be allowed beyond perdition will claim that the very person he wishes to convince is one of said select few. However, as the world from Elysia to Cospia was still recovering from the War of Manifest Mythopeia,
New Alcorin had prepared for war but found no enemy. The Imperator took advantage of this fear and by 910 AB had conquered the Successor States, confederated Altcervan and Inner Cervantia, and in one final stroke of his master plan, revealed that he was a sitting member of the Darkwater Council of Seidopolis.
With the Imperator as the deciding vote, and the Land of Black Roses fearing a quick decapitation at the hands of the Kamizoura Revolutionaries at Zenkado 全門, the Darkwater Council declared its intent to confederate with the state then known as the New Consortium. With the New Consortium and the Land of Black Roses united, the city of Sentochi 戸一銭, (
a.k.a. the Cospian Gate or Dinas Aurgil.) saw that it laid surrounded by the Imperium and the Viscount Coin Lords quickly decided to ally with a good treaty, rather than be assassinated or invaded.
And from the stroke of two pens, the Liara Imperium was borne of three of the most advanced and storied states in the world, becoming in the span of days the largest dominion to exist since the days of the Golden Age of the Dynasty, or Caesia Thiir in antiquity... but such was just another throne to add to the legions of the Imperator, as their hunger would not be satisfied.
Not yet.
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