The Explored World of The Kingdom

Hundreds of years after the collapse of global society by a quickly spread plague, a single Kingdom largely covers Southern Africa. A religious imperial monarchy, modelling itself after the Byzantine Empire and the Papacy, runs through keeping the majority of the population uneducated and dependent on the ruling powers for medicine, miraculous technology, security and safety, as well as enforcing a religion that asserts the holy nature of the Kingdom.   The history of the Kingdom and the world before are mostly shrouded in myth. The theology promotes The Kingdom as the divine authority, with the succession of God-Kings divinely chosen, ascending to Godhood upon death. An oracle has a significance in the theology as being the embodiment of the all-knowing nature of the gods, and appears only to advise the current ruler. The world before is considered dangerous and unholy. Only the priests of The Kingdom can sanctify a ruin, and it is heresy to explore ruins before they have been cleared. This is used to ensure that technology is only kept in the hands of The Kingdom, and is enforced by the 'Curses' that lie within the ruins - tetanus and disease that can lay dormant, sealed within.   Official government is housed within universities and other stone structures of old. The Castle of Good Hope is the main house of the military in what was once Cape Town. The Kingdom has mainly expanded peacefully, providing resources, medicine, law, security, community and trade to communities. The cost is that all need to accept the religion of the Kingdom, and lose many freedoms, especially regarding the strict heresy laws.   Its populace are largely farmers, fishermen and the like. Those who prove their loyalty to The Kingdom are given advanced tools and machinery, and any excess supply is used to provide for the armies. The majority of people are subsistence farmers, however, and so live an effectively medieval life.   Most expansion of The Kingdom's borders has been a gradual accumulation of territory from unorganized local groups, but for the first time, a faction centered out of what was once Johannesburg has halted the expansion. War is brewing, and it seems that the fate of the Kingdom may hang in the balance.