We live for love

So first on my map goes Northern Kingdom with its capital - Idunn.

It is a large territory, scattered with the lands of aristocrats, small towns, villages, ancient estates, towers and castles, hidden from each other by dense layers of forests. All of them are united under the banner of the royal dynasty, who lived for centuries in the capital of the North - the city of Idunn. The name "north" itself is nominal, because compared to the whole world these lands are actually not very northern. If you imagine Earth, they would be somewhere near the Mediterranean. But on the scale of a small piece of territory, the kingdom occupies the northernmost lands. Their language is similar to the mix of British English and Norwegian - they speak unintelligibly but melodically.

Faith Northern people are a warlike and highly religious people. Ever since their ancient unification into the kingdom, they have believed in the Light and its incarnation - the holy Child. The church is harsh, but tries to stay friends with the government, so the inquisition and local guards often work hand in glove. Idol of the church - the Blessed Virgin, living incarnation of the Light - Lady Cecilia. She is a preacher, but was not born a chosen one, which is known only to the narrow circle of people. The fanatical parents filled the girl with the part of the very Light itself, and she survived and grew with him. To maintain its living icon, the church must carefully monitor her emotional and physical health, because its veery unstable. I mean when Cecilia is upset she can accidentally burn something with her inner uncontrollable light. The northern church also has an incredible musicality. Every sermon or holiday procession is accompanied by lively music with drums, violins, and so forth. This is what about half of the parishioners come for - even if a priest’s speech is boooring, it will always be accompanied by fine music.

Neighborhood The Northern Kingdom is a buzzing land of paint, with a moderate warm climate and proximity to the sea, but also strong winds and frequent rain. The people here are mixed, as through Idunn pass wanderers from all over the world, bringing not only a piece of the cultural layer but also money. The only ones impossible to meet in the northern kingdom are the half-dragon people: the api, long-time enemies of the northerners. It so happened that they are the closest neighbors (the island next to the red zone on the map), whose mutual hate had already grown into a thick layer of anecdotes, bays and other folk art. In fact, hundreds of years ago with the war against the api helped to unite small separate principalities into the Kingdom. Apis are physically stronger than humans by nature, but completely incapable of witchcraft, so each new war became more imaginative and bloody than the last. The last skirmish left both sides completely out of their way. The victory remained formally by the North, but the scale of destruction far exceeded the benefits. The capital almost fell under the onslaught, and on the way to the sea you can still find long ditches or a fragment of a rusty sword. The military shame, the army’s dependence on sorcerers and casualties were an important point for future restructuring. To the south of the kingdom was a desert, much more ancient than Idunn and those who built it. North and South do not care much about each other. Their only military conflict has occurred so long ago that it is chronicled by only a few phrases. The inhabitants of these lands revere each other for being barbarians, but engage in active and mutually beneficial trade.

Magical progress In the North, magic of all kinds has gathered - spontaneous, arched, familiar, supreme. And a directory of domestic sorcerers for dummies - an ordinary matter in any house. There is also a classification of congenital abilities to magic:

C. Lack of ability to use magic. Not even a list of ready-made spells for general use will help. Such people can rarely afford to run their own business or succeed in the trade, for there is always a sorcerer who is better than you.

B. There is a small seed of magic. Members of this class actively use everyday magic in small quantities and limited sizes. Sometimes with a book, sometimes without. To develop their magical skill to the high level, they will need to put in a lot of years and effort, probably, their whole life.

A. Possessors of talent of varying degrees of sophistication. Many roads are open to them from birth - trade, crafts, politics, science, creativity - a skilled wizard will be welcomed anywhere. Typically, these go deep into a single branch of magic and perfect it. Like the Etsricks family, which concentrated all its wealth in fire art.

S. United with the aether - geniuses, famous scientists, ones who take high positions. The existence of of such people is always accompanied by events.

In Northern Kingdom monarchical power coexistes successfully with capitalism, which gave prosperity to all possible activities of ordinary citizens, but also created inequality, because sorcerers very quickly occupied various trade niches, and overcoming them - became an impossible task. And, while the old king was alive, poverty and unemployment grew, for a powerful sorcerer does not need much to gain. But a few years ago, with the support of the elderly Chancellor Gavin, a young princess ascended to the throne, and changes came with her. By opening the door from a foot, clacking with iron boots, technological progress and complete abandonment of witchery services entered the room. The call of progress: to restore to the North the power and glory that existed when people, not sorcerers, ruled their own lifes. The promotion of a healthy lifestyle, manual labor and human values were back.

With his right hand, Iberius, Gavin discovered that if wizard is burned alive, his ashes become incredibly powerful thing. The order was given to keep a record of all people belonging to categories A and S, as well as to annul their social privileges. The last years have been ambiguous for northern people: on the one hand, the road to peace has been opened again for everyone, and on the other hand, repressions have started. Sorcerers were stigmatized and sometimes taken somewhere (but not always returned), regardless of their status or rank. Witch hunts have begun, which cannot be called by its proper name when you speak in the royal court.

Important Figures

The Chancellor. Formally, the head of state is the queen, whose seal adorns every official document or decree, but in practice, since her coronation, all decisions have been made by Chancellor Gavin. He is old and wise, and the harsh conditions allow him to keep the queen under his control, along with the church. A former soldier who lived through the last war with the api, he hates sorcerers and wants to raise his homeland from its knees, asserting its primacy among all neighboring states. The chancellor has a network of spies, scientists who worked under the late king, an advisor from the elven people, and the latest technology based on the ashes of dead sorcerers. Few know how often and intensely the huge furnace deep within the royal castle burns, but Sir Gavin understands that the ends justify the means, so he does not fear sacrifices. And the new policy has found significant support among the people. Gavin does everything according to the ideals he imposes on people. He looks after his health, and despite his age, he is in good shape. His house is very modest, and Gavin has on his plate the same what common northern person has. In fact, he is a really good leader, except that his policies justify some sort of concentration camp for wizards. The thing is, during the last war he was on the front lines. His fate was to die, and all his squad got from the sorcerers was a refusal to help in the battle for the capital and total indifference. The whole war was won by a single young man — a polished aristocrat, a master of magic, a class S representative, basically one of the very few strong sorcerers who came to help. By his efforts apis was pushed back, and the capital was saved. This guy died exhausting all his strength, and Gavin was inspired for all of his life. He hated how helpless the human army was without magic. That’s how his path to the very top began.

The agitator Mark comes from the old aristocracy, the son of the kingdom's Great archivist. He's responsible for promoting the ideas of the reforming Northern Kingdom; loud, catchy slogans, and journalism. He's good at writing articles but bad at headlines. A diligent and pushy young man. He's afraid of Sir Gavin and his criticism but is kinda eager for his attention. With Mark I want to put some caricatures on russian journalism, modern and communistic included. Mark reminds me of J.D. from Scrubs a bit, and his Dr. Cox is Gavin lol

Queen Adella is very young but stately. In her youth, she fell off a horse and injured her back, which is why she hides an innovative prosthetic under her clothes, developed by the chancellor's scientists just for her. She's stern, quiet and gloomy, unlike her idle father when he was alive. She deals personally only with the chancellor, and only Light knows what goes on between them. In fact, she was brought into the world by Gavin (who hired a woman to become pregnant with the king). She injured her back because of Gavin (he arranged the fall). All her decisions are dictated by him, and she has no right to oppose him, for he has promised her the worst possible fate, and Adella knows for sure that he will fulfill this promise. The Chancellor uses her to bring down all of the people’s displeasure with his policies. And although the people love her, with the advent of the witch-hunt, an opposition began to arise gradually. Adella has innate leadership qualities, but she hardly has a chance of realizing them. In essence, she is in a cage, merely a figurine on Gavin’s chess board. Only her loyal knightess secretly knows all her misfortunes.

Lady Cecilia is a person with a delicate soul. She literally glows from within, but she’s always wrapped up in furs and dresses with wool linings – the Light takes all her energy. She eats a lot, yet she’s always exhausted. She got lost somewhere in apathy and choleric temper back in the early years of becoming a face of the church, a path her parents paved for her. Emotionally unstable, picky, sarcastic. She’s skeptical about the Light in which she never believed. She knows it exists but finds it much more parasitic then holy. She loves nor her home, nor the people who adore her. As much as queen Adella, Cecilia hates Gavin. Bun unlike young queen she has fun dealing with him - because she finds burning his people alive amusing.

Iberius is a forest dweller (elf, okay), Gavin’s right hand. It was he who brought the idea to the Chancellor of burning sorcerers in order to obtain the most effective powder and weapons possible. He is a father of two twins, whom he abandoned (well, about that later) and absolutely does not regret it, as he knows that his children will not only be able to survive on their own, but will certainly find a way to get revenge, which Iberius himself is very much waiting for. He's a shapeshifter which is exclusively his thing. So it makes him unreplacable for Gavin, and Iberius likes to give him morally questionable ideas. Iberius adores Gavin.

The North is always active and changeable. Bloody or happy times—all of it gets recorded in the great chronicle of Northern history, where the names of leaders, then kings and queens, flow one after another. But the chancellor brought change—prototypes of firearms appear, agriculture and trade develop rapidly. The queen is preparing to marry prince of api to end the endless conflicts. To the soldiers, Sir Gavin is a father figure, to the queen—a usurper, and to the citizens—a benefactor and a tyrant. Only he (and Iberius) knows the price of sudden technological growth.