Chalice Nations & Major Landscapes
These are crash course summaries!
Anterro
Anterro is a freehold of 40 houses, with the most powerful freeholder representing the kingdom in major affairs. Otherwise decisions vary unless there are disputes of the dire kind.
Both the major military and faith of the land can be found in the Lady’s Lake. A religion founded upon a deity that granted gifts to her chosen, with her chosen representing the peak of chivalry and knightlyness. The members are called Loch Knights, at the top of the order is a merlin, with the second and smallest being the nimve, and the major body of the order consisting of knights.
The faith of the Lady’s Lake is deeply valued across Anterro, even the most powerful of freeholders dare not to publicly discredit the good loch. Afterall it was around the lady of the lake, anterro even continued to stand.
Baslen
Below the Red Spine mountains and lands below the east coast wetlands, is the theocracy of the Baslen people. Baslen is led by a religious order of women, with the lead matriarch being dubbed the Haga. The faith is dubbed Keepers of the Stone, or stonefaith, where the earth thus everything from it is alive and an entity with a will.
There aren’t monogamous or nuclear family structures to be found in Baslen. Major groups acting as a single front are the norm, with families consisting of all sorts of parties and kin. Baslen society is deeply social, where individualism is rarely if ever acclaimed instead of a great family line of deeds.
There are caste systems but don’t function as one would expect on the surface. People are born into a role outside of Baslen, where a child or individual in Baslen is taken in by a teaching/mentor party. Children in baslen can be granted or taken into another family entirely, such things are done with negotiations and ceremony.
Outside of the matriarchs and religious attendants, below them are the noble-dynasties who were descended from great deeds and the strongest of the stone. Then are warriors, artisans, and laborers. At the very bottom of baslen society are the lost ones or wanderers.
Black Bellia
Known for being made up of eight major islands and an octarchy is Black Bellia. With people found as far north near humid Medy to the frigid reach of Pincer Isle in the south.
Black Bellia has a great list of cultures across its eight islands, it shows mostly in leadership. With none dressing, conducting, or acting the same, as the Black Bellia is a collection of independent kingdoms unified. With only the belief in Hyart(term for ocean & great waters) being the decider of the most worthy leader in the isles being a common or understood belief.
There are major cultures and associations for each bellian island. Of the eight are: Cat Cay, Mermaid Key, Crocodile Isle, Siren’s Stalk, Mumbling Skerry, Dead Ring, Dogshead, and Godsnare Island.
Fesmargo
On the surface the great wetlands are overseen by the likes of an elective monarchy voted on by the nobility. Where in actuality the government is run by the merchant lords and is a plutocracy sooner than not.
Unlike other lands, where faith and politics don’t spill into each other so deeply, Fesmargo boasts its faith, called pivali. Worship of the sainum, the mortals with great magic or ability, and the no longer living like ancestors. To the point that the houses of worship are decorated in finery and skeletons. And the living wear tokens of the dead with carvings.
No matter the impressions, the defenders of Fesmargo are as colorful as the rest of her people. With there being roaming bands of performers, bachelors, and bachelorettes who travel the land called cockatrice. There are military sects of the pivali who are known to defend and fight for their people.
Locheckle
The furthest south and recognized nation of Chalice, the union of nations and masks is Locheckle. A collection of minor nations and independent parties are found to govern and dispute on the Grand Council. No matter if a nation is made of thirty persons or three hundred, there is representation of their people on the grand council.
Locheckle is a deeply diverse collection of people. A major practice adopted from the Phroesti people in the old days of Locheckle’s foundation is the practice of wearing masks that many people of Locheckle have adopted and altered to their appropriate culture.
The image of locheckle people is warped by outsiders of time due to the ambassadors and representatives of the land being the major interactions others can have of locheklians. Called the greenguard, these individuals ensure routes and plans are made safe for the nomads of Locheckle outside of their home but also are the informants of any trouble.
Medy
Understood as a republic monarchy is the nation of the cur, the dog lords, Medy. The successor of the subjugator and monstrous empire was Yusador who had nearly all of Chalice under its control. Compared to the hyper-military Yusador, Medy can appear weak or toothless. In reality Medy is overseen by philosopher hound princes who vote upon a cur king, who all vie for power and scheme upon each other's downfall. Bureaucrats are just parchment burdened warlords.
Diogenesis would not be called a faith by the people of Medy, but the reality and treatment of the practice is near impossible to divorce from faith. A series of tenets were detailed by the first cur king, Diogenes, that leant to the practices of a proper, humble society and kept away from the failings of Yusador. Philosophy, wisdom, and intellect are heralded as the main foundations.
The hound’s scholar is the image of Medy’s future. Compared to the ramblings of the 66 virtues of Yusador pantheons.
Tantimar
Known as a collection of independent city-states with loose alliances is Tantimar. There are four notable powerful city-states in the region. There is a consistent set of conflicts and petty wars amongst the Tantimar states, ranging from legitimate battles to limp trade tariffs and restrictions. It is only the major lack of overt centralization across the entire nation that offset many outsiders due to how it compares to the rest of Chalice.
There are a great string of religions and cultural practices in Tantimar, a popular faith is that of the Five Chargers or the Five Mounts. Deities who occupy the form of horse-like entities, known to herald great curses and boons to those that follow them.
Xarlgos
From the lands of mountains and dragons are the triarchy governed territory of Xarlgos. Called the three talons, are the drakons each of which is from a dynasty family of Xarlgos. The three dynasty families are Elt Redflaw, Tusclum, and Yseult.
The dragons of the land are controlled not by the nobility but the faith of the land, the revout who are made of disciples. The revout faith believes in Elt Talo or Great Talon, a fully human and dragon that created avatars of his will after creating the world.
Xarlgos’ leaders are said to be solely the drakons but in reality the government is overseen by the drakons while the people are overseen by the revout.
Cackling Ashes
Not much is truly known of the lands north of the 10th Tower, even the alleged folk who say the hail from the land are thought more mythical than real.
Propaganda would have many believe that a land as vicious as the ashen landscape breeds a brutish people. In reality the small collection of accounts of these people tell a story of peaceful, if not stern, surviving tradesmen. Artifacts from the land note fierce glass weapons and a powerful psychotropic substance in a red dust material.
For the humans seen on expositions north, there are documentations of some who were leading a pack of phoenixes and seemed to be able to set themselves on fire with little consequence. The most outlandish writing to date is the rumor of some of these folk riding atop a wicked unicorn as it was shedding its velvet. If such humans can be found if they do exist, their will to survive isn’t too surprising given how they’ve to live near the dread angels.
Winter’s Throne
By far the most untraversed and little known area of Chalice documented with alleged human settlements. Of course the very nature of these sightings are in question on account of many being sourced from exiles, criminals, and pirates who would be the most likely souls to bother fleeing so far south.
Accounts detail the known occupants as constant silhouettes, ushered in and out of sight by great thunder claps and a lightning strike. Some are detailed to encroach on campsites to only be gone in a flicker of starlight upon being caught. A distant and oldest regaling tells of a people who practiced cultural cannibalism and kept skulls of the dead. Another group encountered were thought to be dead when found in a decorated cave but when bothered, one of the thought to be corpses opened their eyes and spoke.