An exploration of an idea for a political/social "utopia," from/for the setting of my game

[Moniker Pending]

This was originally posted on a Facebook comment of mine, to describe my political ideology. While I'd say "Bull Moose Progressive" is probably the closest to my ideology in real life, this is more of an exploration of my "ideal" political ideology, in a fantasy world where the people are more capable of handling such systems. I'd like to see what the people here thought of this idea; as a selling point, I'll say the following right now: This form of government, if adopted in real life, would give Neil Degrasse Tyson more authority on scientific legislation than an actual government official who demonstrates a lack of scientific knowledge.

"Milandrianism." Named after Milandria, a nation in an anachronistic fantasy setting I'm working on for a pen and paper role playing game, this political ideology combines elements of "Bull Moose Progressive" "Classical Republican" [aka "civic humanism," entirely unlike the GOP in America], and "Platonic" ideologies, with a largely "Guild Socialist" structure, and quite a few other traits that don't really fit in with any forms of government or ideologies that I've previously heard of. Milandria itself is aesthetically modeled mostly after Medieval & Renaissance Europe, with some regional variations. Culturally, they mostly value liberty, justice, and epic, larger-than-life heroism, which is pretty reflective of how the nation was founded: by populist revolution, led by Joles K. Milandred (who was honored with the people's decision to name their new country after him) and his group of what can basically be described as a high fantasy adventuring party, fighting against the previous government, whose form can best be described as "rule by villains" (Though I did put a lot of effort into avoiding making it cliched; while the whole game's setting has many common fantasy tropes, many [of these tropes] are taken in unconventional directions. For example, magic and technology are just different ways of applying scientific knowledge; for example, if you want to cast magic fireballs at your enemy, you'd at least need to know the conditions under which fires burn, and how to manipulate magiplasm in order to create those conditions.).

The Milandrian government involves a pretty great mutual involvement between the government and the populace, and in fact, a lot of the governmental functions are performed by "guilds." Basically, guilds are para-governmental organizations that deal with a particular category of interests, such as industries, security, fields of research, and the like. Their members can come from any background (even members of the state government, though such people get no extra authority, beyond that which they already have from their government positions), and the positions and privileges of members are organized less by rank, and more by what duties members prove they can perform, represented by titles such as "advocate," scribe," "agent," "regulator," "laborer," and so on, and with duties catered to their positions (also, members can have multiple positions, though this requires proving one's ability in each position). While guild operations are governed by purpose, as opposed to bureaucratic rules, there are still various checks and balances put in place to avoid abuse of power, in addition to "Milandred's Mace" described below. The guilds mostly combine the functions of legislation, regulation, and advancement of their respective categories of interests, as well as supporting individuals and private enterprises involved with such interests.

Almost all government functions happen through the guilds; the state government actually does little decision-making of its own, with the monarch and delegates thereof mostly involved in organizing efforts between guilds, mediating disputes, etc., and only assuming any significant power in times of emergency, like what "dictators" were in ancient Rome. On the opposite end, the founders of Milandria, not wanting to have their goal of a utopia ruined by corruption, put into the Milandrian Constitution a provision called "Milandred's Mace" (Joles K. Milandred, the aforementioned founder of Milandria, preferred wielding a large mace), which guaranteed the following:

"If anyone of authority in Milandria is proven to have acted with deliberate contempt for the responsibilities of their position or the virtue of character that must be present in anyone worthy of authority, they will have to face whatever fate demanded by the will of the people of Milandria, and so long as the fate that the people's will demands can possibly be fulfilled, it shall be so."

Given that this is a fantasy setting, the "fate demanded by the will of the people" can get rather interesting, to say the least. "Milandred's Mace" didn't need to be used much, since any would-be corrupt authorities learned pretty quickly that "being a corrupt authority in Milandria" was basically tied with "threatening a Grendemoth's child" as the most masochistic decision one could make [an explanation for what a Grendemoth is, and why it's a bad idea to threaten a Grendemoth's child, as provided along with the original post, will be given in spoiler box below].

Also of note: Given what the Milandrians rebelled against, they see the crucial importance of an enlightened populace capable of opposing tyranny in all forms, not just state tyranny, but also the tyranny of arbitrary conformity (In other words, a nation populated by reasonable people!). Even in a setting where there are beings worshiped as deities in other nations (the "real gods" really don't care to be worshiped, and are basically unheard of by almost everyone; this is by choice, considering the greater existential threat that they're dealing with, from which constant prayers would distract them), the Milandrians don't really care much for gods or religion, instead revering mortal heroes and trying to live up to their example.

One of the problems keeping this ideology from being feasible in real life, of course, would be how little one could trust the people in real life, who would be wielding "Milandred's Mace."

And now, as mentioned in the note in the above post, here's a spoiler box on what a Grendemoth is, and why you should never threaten one's child; this is just for those who are curious, though it does briefly mention the historical background known as the "Lost Age," a time in which people were too busy dealing with all sorts of problems to really record any history (Note: It does have some non-explicit descriptions of Grendemoth reproduction, which aside from being weird, shouldn't be enough to break any rules; still, you've been warned.)

Spoiler!

[...]the Grendemoths are a large, minotaur-like humanoid race, mostly known for their great strength, fierce loyalty, and nurturing demeanor toward those close to them, which actually results from a very strong maternal instinct that often extends to loved ones beyond their own biological offspring. While their origin is unknown to those of the present day [though it's known to me, as the setting's creator], their evolution is obviously different from the way other species evolved, given their unique means of reproduction. The truth is that the Grendemoths were engineered long ago by biomancers (magic users who specialize in using magic to apply biological knowledge), who wanted to create a new race to serve as caretakers and, if need be, protectors for the children of their nation, who became refugees after most of the adults of the nation were either killed or enslaved by invaders.It was decided that, in order to guarantee that the engineered race would be willing to serve its intended purpose, every member of the new race should be strongly compelled by nature to see itself as the "mothers" of those they cared for, and thus be instinctively motivated to nurture those they would grow emotionally attached to, and to ferociously defend them from anything that threatened them. To ensure this, one of the choices made in designing the Grendemoth race so that every one of them would be capable of experiencing motherhood, by designing the race to only include one sex, "autogamous hermaphrodite," which would automatically conceive offspring via internal processes at set intervals occurring every few years.

However, by the time the biomancers' efforts had finished making the first generation of Grendemoths, their original purpose had become obsolete, since the children the Grendemoths were made to protect had either suffered fates similar to those of the adults, or escaped to places where the invaders, and the Grendemoths meant to protect the children, would never find them. The first-generation Grendemoths, and the biomancers who made them, emerged from the cave where the Grendemoth's development was kept secret, and saw that the land where their nation used to be was abandoned, and much of the evidence of the civilization that used to be there was in ruins. With all else lost, the biomancers decided that the only thing they could do at that point was prepare the Grendemoths for their first contact with the other races in the lands nearby. And the rest, is... well, due to the lack of historical knowledge from the "Lost Age," aside from the fact that life was generally terrible back then, no one really knows much of what happened before a few centuries ago, when some nations started keeping historical records again.

EDIT: It seems this thread has moved from the "Ranting Board" to the "Gaming Board." I don't have a problem with that, though I'm not sure if the change really needed to be made. Basically, even though this is for a game I'm making, the discussion will probably focus on the ideas in the story and setting of the game, as opposed to any game mechanics. I'm not complaining, or anything like that; I simply like to learn about and consider various thought processes and forms of reasoning, though talking about that in this thread will probably bring it off-topic.

[prototype99]

that is an interesting political setting indeed. sadly most places would not be able to cope with the idea of not having a singular political figure, so such a structure will be bound to eventually fail in my opinion. a sad truth. but maybe one day it could work

[Moniker Pending]

I pressed the button to save a draft of a post from last night, which already had a lot of text in it, and the text wasn't merely copied from a post I had already made elsewhere (which is why I wanted to save a draft; I had to type it all up here)... sadly, it appears that the draft was not saved. There have been other little, random problems with the various buttons at the bottom of the text box, but those seemed to be temporary server errors, which could be worked around by simply pressing the button again, or typing, and then deleting, something one of the the "poll" options that appear when making a new thread. This, however, is a bit worse than that... still, it's not like I can't type it all up again.

[post contents will go here when finished never ye mind]

[prototype99]

i like to get notifications, so post message afterward to notify that you've done it please

[Moniker Pending]

that is an interesting political setting indeed. sadly most places would not be able to cope with the idea of not having a singular political figure, so such a structure will be bound to eventually fail in my opinion. a sad truth. but maybe one day it could work

Anyway, the "singular political figure" would probably be the monarch, the unified title for "king" or "queen," who can serve as a powerful symbol to rally the nation around, even if the position itself has little inherent legislative power. According to the constitution, the monarch must not only be fit to handle the responsibilities of maintaining Milandria and representing its culture and people, but also be allowed by those people to enter into, and continue to hold, the position of "monarch" by the people of Milandria. It's a somewhat informal process, which in the "present day" of the setting, has had little time to be tested or developed.

See, the present day is only about 50 years after the war in which Milandria was founded had ended, and the current monarch is an aging, yet still quite lively, King Milandred II (to whom I had given a name, but it was kind of hard to type, and it didn't roll off the tongue that easily; I'm trying to think of something different), son of King Milandred I (Joles K. Milandred). Milandred II was chosen to succeed his father as king, during the year following the emergence of Milandria as a new nation, when Joles K. Milandred was assassinated by remnants of the previous nation (In fact, there's fitting symbolism in the name Joles K. Milandred; his middle name, pronounced like "tazer," but with a "k" sound instead of a "t" sound, should make the symbolism more clear when considering his first and middle names. I couldn't decide upon a spelling to type here, since the language of Milandria has a different alphabet than what English has.). Milandred II was chosen, not because he was the biological son of his father, but because his personality was almost exactly like that of his father, and like those of members of older generations of his family, going as far back as anyone could trace his lineage (you could say that heroism ran in the family, but it's a bit more complicated than that; I'll insert spoiler boxes for this, and other details, at the bottom of this post).

Otherwise, as already stated, most of the duties of the state government, including the monarch, involve managing government operations other than what the guilds manage; this mostly includes managing operations and relations between guilds, regulating taxes and allocating revenue from said taxes to fund public services performed by the guilds (as well as providing funding for international trade, though given the unfriendly state of affairs between nations (listed and described in a spoiler box below, about the nations of the known world), international trade mostly occurs through the Remiel Merchant League, anyway), etc.. While state government officials can also be members of the guilds, they still have to work within their roles as guild members to engage in the process of writing new laws and regulations, and their authority as a state government official is ultimately separated from whatever authority they have as guild members.

[Edit: Some formatting may not work with the spoiler boxes below. I tried to figure out what the problem was, but I couldn't see anything wrong with the use of BBCode.]

Spoiler!

As far as anyone can remember, members of the Milandred family have always held themselves to high ideals, making them naturally compelled to promote justice and oppose tyranny. This, of course, had earned them the ire of the previous nation's government (another name to be changed), which had tried to eliminate the Milandred bloodline, and all traces of the family's existence, after the Milandred family had opposed them for so long (as I had described earlier, the previous government was basically "rule by villains," though in truth, it's more like “rule by intelligent devils disguised as ordinary people,” who used the previous nation to maintain a foothold in the local region without alerting some “higher powers”; this is explained a little further in the box for the description of the cosmic history of the setting, itself contained in the other box for the descriptions of the world's nations). By the time Joles was born however, the bloodline was whittled down to two members: himself, and his father, Renolas.

The Milandred Family, more than most families, was a family that reliably produced heroic people, and while many would speculate as to why, the truth is that, long ago, the heroic clan that would later become known as the Milandred family had allied themselves with a group of phoenixes, and became so close that both groups considered each other to be part of the same family, bound by oath rather than by blood (or energetic plasma, in the phoenixes' case). After a battle against a mysterious enemy that the phoenixes had fled from long ago, most of the members of this joint family were dead, and the rest were mortally wounded. The phoenixes knew that there was still danger, and while the phoenixes would eventually reform and live again, their human brethren would die in the phoenixes' absence. To help keep their human brethren alive, the phoenixes used the last of their power to deviate from the usual process of phoenix reformation, and instead revitalize their human brethren by infusing what remained of their beings into the souls of the humans (somewhat like Zen and Natani in TwoKinds, though with different consequences). The phoenixes believed that they would never be reformed, effectively killing them as if they were mortals; however, by infusing their beings into the humans' souls, they actually made the souls of the humans into hybrids between human souls and phoenix plasmas, which would continue the cycle of reformation among the humans' descendants, as a form of reincarnation. Thus, the heroes that would be produced by the Milandred family are, in fact, the souls of the heroes of their ancestors, reincarnated into the bodies of their descendants.

One group of archaeologists, finding hints of this truth among the relics that they studied from the Lost Age, has formed a secret society, known as the “Phoenix Spark Creed.” This group is known for mysteriously working behind the scenes to protect King Milandred II from anything that might kill him, and is thus seen as a group of Milandrian patriots. However, while they are certainly loyal to the ideals of the Milandrian nation, they weren't trying to “protect” the king's life with their efforts so far, but rather, to “preserve” his life. In truth, they think that Milandria would do much better as a nation if Milandred II were a phoenix, and they're waiting for what they believe is the right moment for him to be killed, based on the idea that, if his body is killed under the right circumstances, his soul will be released in a pure phoenix form, unleashing his full potential.

Spoiler!

In order to hide from the people trying to kill them, Renolas had adopted the false surname "Febil," and relocated to Haavelle, a small, isolated hamlet in the middle of a heavily forested region, where he and his son would be unlikely to draw attention (Joles' mother died in childbirth). Renolas had planned on telling Joles the truth when Joles was old enough, but he also knew that he'd have to prepare hints for Joles to use in learning the truth himself, in case Renolas was killed. After finding a trustworthy confidant in one of Haavelle's adolescent residents, a local Dendago orphan/beggar known only by the nickname "Ga-Eid," who would later become one of the heroes of the revolution ("Dendago" is the name of one of the races in my game's setting, to be explained below), Renolas asked Ga-Eid about any local areas in which he could safely “keep some important items hidden,” referring to the few Milandred family heirlooms that Renolas could take with him, and to have Ga-Eid tell Renolas' son about the location if Renolas was killed.

Ga-Eid, needing to look out for his own interests as well as those of his new friend, asked for some form of payment, but when Renolas picked out a small trinket among the items with which to pay Ga-Eid, Ga-Eid responded with a warm smile, and words telling Renolas to keep the trinket, and forget about having to pay him. As Renolas would later find out, the whole settlement of Haavelle had strong rebel sentiments, which is why the people there, like Renolas, had chosen to settle in such an isolated location; being so far out into the wilderness meant being far away from where the tyrannical regime ruling over the land could regularly monitor. The Milandred family was, to these people, a group of legendary folk heroes, and Ga-Eid was able to sneak a glimpse of some of the Milandred family heirlooms that Renolas was searching through to find something that he would pay Ga-Eid with.

Over the next few years, Renolas built up his identity as a local blacksmith, both as a real profession, and also as a cover for the rare occasions when government inspectors came into town. When the inspectors weren't around, and he wasn't working as a blacksmith, he would manufacture various chemicals, mostly of the “explosive powder” variety (though with a small amount of other chemicals being made), and keep them stored away in a hidden room of his basement for use in the event that the government ever found out about the town's loyalties, and invaded in full force. As Joles grew, he and Ga-Eid became close friends, and he learned what his father was able to tell him about the Milandred family, though it was kept secret from him during most of his childhood. He also learned all he could from the various rebel sympathizers in Haavelle, learning how to fight from some, how to survive in the wilderness by others, and how to craft explosives by his father. He was a gifted child who learned new things very quickly, and by the age of sixteen, he had learned enough to be ready to put his skills to use... which, unfortunately, he would soon be forced to.

After government spies had learned not only of the loyalties of the remote hamlet of Haavelle, but also the rebel activities there, and rumors of a Milandred family remnant in the area (no one outside the government itself had any love of the government, and this was plainly known; really, the response to was the rebel activities, and the possible presence of Milandred family remnants), a large group of soldiers was mobilized to go to Haavelle, to march right into town and demand that they turn over Renolas in exchange for not destroying the town and killing everyone. Regardless of whether or not the town complied with the request, the plan would include overwhelming the residents with an attack that would leave no survivors. When they arrived, it was without any warning; they just quickly marched into town, with some soldiers securing the periphery, and the leader of the attack, along with a few soldiers, gave the demand.

While Joles, unknown to the attackers, wanted to fight, Ga-Eid knew better than to allow this young lad, showing promising signs that he would be the one to bring an end to the tyranny across the whole nation (despite his inexperience), to die in the fight over a small, isolated, and ultimately insignificant hamlet, and in fact, his task of guiding Joles in the case of Renolas' death, which he realized was most likely going to happen. Ga-Eid sneaked out-of-sight, as he did best, when the soldiers were still marching toward the town, and soon before the fighting began, he told Joles to flee with him, and he only told him once. When Joles naturally refused, Ga-Eid told him that if Joles was going to fight, he should at least prepare himself with some better equipment, and that he knew of a place where Renolas had been storing some higher-quality weapons, in a different place from where the explosives were stored. After stealthily leading Joles through the back door of the town hall, Ga-Eid used a small dose of paralysis-inducing, non-permanently-damaging poison to paralyze Joles, then tied him up with some rope, and put him in a large sack (he had gotten these items, as well as some supplies, while sneaking around moments before). As soon as he was finished, he took Joles out of town via a hidden tunnel under the building, and just in time, too...

Given how little time the Haavelle residents had to prepare themselves to fight, most of the explosives made by Renolas were still stored in his basement... When the residents inevitably gave a unanimous declaration of “No,” the battle began pretty quickly, and it wasn't long before a soldier torched Renolas' house, the building with the many explosives hidden in the basement, which were stored in large enough quantities to last the town through several dozen smaller battles. When the explosives in Renolas' basement caught fire, the resulting explosion leveled the entire hamlet of Haavelle, along with much of the trees within the area. With Ga-Eid and an incapacitated Joles almost to the opening of the cave out of the tunnels, Ga-Eid heard the rumbling, and began to run, with Joles still over his shoulder, for the exit, leaping out and into a ditch as a thick cloud of dust and a bunch of large rocks blasted out from the cave, having been stirred up by the collapsing tunnel. Unfortunately, one of the largest rocks in the blast ended up landing on and crushing Ga-Eid's right hand, embedding itself deep in the ground. When the dust had settled, he saw that he would have to amputate his forearm in order to free himself; he might have been able to remove the rock with enough time and effort, but he would have to free Joles from the bag soon, and even if he could free himself without losing any extremities, he'd never be able to use his right hand again (being a Dendago, he didn't need to fear infection nearly as much as a member of another race would have, and he would even be able to use the same poison he used to paralyze Joles to numb the pain, without becoming paralyzed) again. Plus, Ga-Eid thought to himself, it would look pretty cool if he could replace his now-useless hand with a sword-arm...

The mouth of the cave was near a small river, with an old canoe having been left nearby a while back by Haavelle's resident fisherman. Knowing that he had seen the canoe's owner back at Haavelle before leaving, Ga'Eid figured that the canoe was now without an owner, and thus free for the taking. After Ga'Eid severed his arm and freed himself, he put Joles and whatever supplies he had into the canoe as the young man began to regain his ability to move, and after walking the canoe far enough out into the river, he climbed into the canoe himself. The two set sail downriver, not knowing where they'd end up, but knowing that their lives would never be the same...

Spoiler!

The Dendago, along with the other Dend races, is a race that split off from a common ancestor race, with their evolution aided by symbiotic, gene-altering psuedo-viruses (the pseudo-viruses stuck to their original hosts, only spreading to the host's offspring, and making alterations to the offspring during gestation, based on its host's biological reactions to its environment) that they carried with them from the land of their species' origin; according to legend, their land of origin was a large island with many strange and wondrous creatures, though the island itself was isolated from the rest of the world by the constant presence of storms off the island's coast in every direction, and the Dend ancestor race could not leave the island until they became of sapient intelligence, and built boats to carry them through the storms. While the pseudo-viruses they carried have long since died out, during the ancient times when the Dend spread across the world, the pseudo-viruses noticeably altered each successive generation of Dend, enabling their hosts to be better suited to their new environments. Evidence of the Dend ancestors exists in the features that the races share: fur-covered bodies, faces like those of rodents, lion-like manes surrounding their faces, thin tails tails that slowly taper to a point, and unguligrade legs that each end in a single, equine-like hoof.

The Dend race, after spreading across the world, split into four new races, with the Dendago of the jungles and swamps, the Dendieg of the plains and deserts, the Dendoryv of the forests and temperate regions, and the Dendrogar of the tundra and mountains. To get the others out of the way first: The Dendieg evolved to be able to run the long distances of the plains and deserts, with efficiency to save water and speed to reach their distant horizons, and an ability to think with the same haste with which they ran. The Dendoryv evolved while thriving in the many natural resources that surrounded them, growing to appreciate the gifts of nature, and forming different factions that have rooted themselves so deeply in the Dendoryv that these ideas managed to survive the assimilation into larger, more diverse societies. The Dendrogar, evolving in the harsh, frozen wilderness and large, snow-covered mountains, became disciplined, mighty warriors, standing tallest and proudest, similar to the peaks that they traveled between, or the great migratory beasts that they would hunt for food.

The Dendago, on the other hand, changed the most, even developing features reminiscent of reptiles. The features that defined the Dendago included leathery scales, which are most prominent on the chest and abdominal areas where there was less fur to get in the way; modified eyes, allowing them to see the heat from the bodies of the creatures living in the darkness under the thick jungle foliage, and resembling lizard eyes in appearance; nimble, flexible bodies that could leap through the canopies like those of acrobats; and resilient immune systems that could resist the diseases spread by the swarms of insects, and the toxins naturally produced by many of the creatures in the jungles. The Dendago were free spirits, adventurous, daring, and even reckless in the face of danger, and irreverent to those who would try to stifle or oppress them.

Needless to say, the Dendago were treated especially badly in the nation before Milandria.

Spoiler!

Phoenixes in my game's setting are actually a strange alien life form. The phoenixes are not biological organisms, but rather clusters of energetic plasma, including a significant amount of “qiplasm,”AKA soul energy; they can interact with their surroundings by “telemagnetically” manipulating conductive materials (metal is ideal for this), which they can shape into bodies for themselves, though this requires heating the material for flexible joints and such, which is how the phoenixes became associated with fire. This “telemagnetism” requires them to expend some of their energies, and this almost always happens faster than their plasmas can recover the energy (especially in situations where the body suffers damage, and must be reformed). As such, they all eventually become unable to keep maintaining their bodies, and when this happens, a phoenix must shed its metal body, and become “dormant” for a long period of time while it recovers. During this dormancy, the qiplasm in their beings “smoothes out,” erasing much of their memories (though still keeping some of their original personalities intact) and effectively making them into new beings when they finally recover.

The phoenixes had to come to Ufera (the name of the “core” planet of the setting) after fleeing their home planet, due to the incursion of a mysterious cosmic force that had corrupted and/or destroyed most of their specie (hint: read the box containing information on the history of the cosmos, contained in the box explaining the nations of the known world). When they arrived in Ufera, they realized that the primitive natives of their prospective new home would see them as beings from the sky, so in order to make their appearance more familiar to the natives of this new world, they shaped their bodies to look like the local flying creatures, thus appearing to the natives as giant birds made of fire and metal.

Spoiler!

The four Great Nations are Milandria in the West, Gondrogar in the North, Parodesh in the East, and the Remiel Merchant League in the middle. The known world is surrounded by a wall of force (see the box below this text), preventing anyone from exploring the world outside. With Milandria being explained pretty extensively already, here's a brief description of the other nations:

Gondrogar was originally populated mostly by Dendrogar, who adapted to its cold temperatures and rough terrain (see the box explaining the Dendago, located in the “Joles and Renolas” box inside the “Milandred Family History” box for a brief description of the other “Dend” races, including the Dendrogar); hence, the similarities in the names. The nation has a culture that favors those who are strong; they are governed informally by an “honor” system, where authority is gained by challenging others to contests of combat prowess, whether they be fights to the death, tasking each contestant to slay a powerful beast, etc.. Academic pursuits are mostly frowned upon, since they give power to those who are viewed as “weak,” and unfit to have power; the exceptions to this include knowledge of crafting weapons and other equipment for combat, as well as animal husbandry (since the strong can take their food from a worthy beast, while the weak must plant their weak, unworthy food in fields; other, non-food animals are also bred, such as draft animals, mounts, and other beasts of war). The only magic that is tolerated in the leader/warrior caste of Gondrogar is sorcery (basically, wizardry by those who don't really know what they're doing), since the dangerous and uncontrollable spells that sorcerers cast would require a strong, sturdy body for the caster to survive anyway.

Parodesh is a polytheistic theocracy, where servants of the Parodeshi gods, and sometimes avatars of the gods themselves, form the government. It is rumored that Parodesh may have been culturally derived from a culture that existed beyond the wall of force, given how different their aesthetics are, such as their art, their architecture, and so on. Beyond that, I haven't really developed their culture as much as the other nations, similar to the Remiel Merchant League...

Speaking of which, the Remiel Merchant League, named due to the fact that it's mostly owned and populated by the Remiel (a race that shares ancestry with humans, looks like elves, and is known for their keen mercantile sense and natural charismatic qualities, which help them in their negotiations with the other nations), is a league of independent merchants, sailors, and so on, operating from a cluster of islands in the sea between the nations (various channels allow them to access the waters between the other nations and the force wall by boat). Culturally, they're similar to the mercantile nations of the Renaissance, such as the Spanish or the Venetians; much of their wealth comes from their monopoly on highly sought-after resources (like adamantium ore and other rare, precious materials, as well as delicious spices and other delicacies, which they sell to the other nations), given the fact that only their explorers have been able to find any places from where these resources can be obtained, and their network of spies and other agents ensure that no one else has access to such things without going through the RML. Because of the benefits of trade with them, even though the other nations don't like each other very much, they are all very friendly with the RML (thus meaning they don't really need any military force, beyond their own agents or mercenaries from the other nations to serve as bodyguards or other “hired muscle”), and it is through the RML that any international trade and negotiation occurs.

To the South, there was once another Great Nation, Calmekanni, which developed advanced “steampunk” technology to compensate for the lesser viability of magic due to the low amounts of local ambient ether (which is energetic plasma in its rawest, purest form, spread across all of space and providing “fuel” for other forms of energetic plasma to form, based environmental variables). However, the nation fell into ruin about a century before the setting's present day, after an invasion by the nation that came before Milandria, which used a particularly deceptive, yet highly destructive strategy in which they landed an invading force on its shores, using extensive illusion-making spells (they had to store a lot of magiplasm to take with them, in order to cast and maintain the spells) to make the already-large force appear far greater than it actually was. While the real soldiers went to work on destroying Calmekanni's infrastructure and farmlands, the appearance of the sudden mass invasion sent the Calmekanni leaders into a panic, and in their desperation to create an adequate defensive force, they started handing out weapons to whoever was able and willing to fight the invaders. After the panicked nation had given firearms and other weapons to an army it wasn't prepared to control, the invaders suddenly left; with a ruined economy and a bunch of armed citizens with no one to fight (including many criminals who were promised freedom if they aided in the defense of their country, and no longer had the option to do so), the whole nation quickly collapsed into anarchy. Now, a century later, Calmekanni is mostly a desolate wasteland, with many factions warring over territory and resources, and a few larger, more powerful and/or civilized factions starting to try to reclaim the wastes (similar to “Fallout: New Vegas.”)

Spoiler!

This is copied and pasted from a post I had made a long time ago, describing the cosmology in a general sense; it'll at least tell you where the force walls come from, as well as providing some context for other things:

"The universe was accidentally created by an extra-universal consciousness, which, upon realizing what it had done, decided to look after the universe out of a sense of responsibility. Even though the universe had its own set of physical laws by which everything within could function, the creator could influence things within it merely by commanding the desired effect to occur. Yet as time went on throughout the universe, so too did the creator's astonishment at what the universe could do on its own become greater and greater; various bodies formed from scattered material in space, and even life began to form on these bodies.
Satisfied, the creator left the universe to develop on its own, but it could not stay away for long; upon returning, however, it noticed that absolutely nothing new had occurred in its absence. Time itself within the universe had stopped the moment it had left, and resumed when it had come back. The creator realized that the universe it had accidentally created relied upon the creator's attention to continue functioning; feeling an overwhelming sense of responsibility to its creation, the creator devoted itself to observing the universe for eternity in the creator's own time, or until the universe it had created no longer existed.
However, even the creator's sense of responsibility could not prevent boredom. When the creator lost interest, the universe would slow down, even stopping as before. The creator desperately tried to think of a solution for this, but could only come up with one. The life forms within the universe could barely be observed at all; their lives were, for the most part, perfect, without trouble, without conflict, and therefore without a story to tell. Therefore, in order for the creator to stay interested, there needed to be an enemy, a cosmic threat to the universe and those living within it.
And so the creator formed another cosmic mind, giving a portion of its own cosmic powers to the new consciousness, to act as a source of evil in the universe. But the creator knew that this mind was too powerful for the universe, as it was, to fight on its own. Therefore, the creator made yet another cosmic mind, imbuing it with power to help protect the universe. These were the cosmic motivators, dutifully opposing each other to keep the creator entertained enough to maintain the universe; for eons, this balance was kept.
But on one of the planets in the universe, a world called Ufera, there was a king who was not only noble in character, but also a powerful mage, immense in wisdom and in knowledge and possessing of great magical talent. In his quest to determine the true nature of reality, he began to spontaneously develop powers which his court mages and even he himself could not fully explain. By merely commanding the reality around him, he could bypass the laws of physics (but not break them), creating the effect he desired. One fateful night, as this king was theorizing in his laboratory, his most trusted bodyguard began to notice the king's form glow, warp and become transparent, and the king himself did not seem seem to react unusually, as though he was entirely unaware of what was happening. The bodyguard, having been taught many things about arcane magic by the king, quickly realized that this was no ordinary magical effect. But before the bodyguard could even speak to alert his king, a blinding light burst from the king's fading form. When the bodyguard could see again, the king was no longer there. For the rest of his life, the bodyguard never stopped searching for the whereabouts of, and seeking to rescue, his missing king; unbeknownst to him, the king was never lost at all.
The king had become so immensely enlightened to the true nature of the universe that he had become a cosmic mind himself, and he sought to use his new powers to do good for not only his kingdom, or his world, but for all the universe. Whether it was a rare error in his judgment, or simply that he had forgotten the fact in his eagerness to make all the worlds better for their inhabitants, this king, for all his good intentions, had upset the balance needed to keep the universe alive. To combat this imbalance, the creator gave even more power to the evil cosmic motivator; this power was used all over the universe to fight the king, until eventually the king was forced to retreat back to Ufera. When he returned, much time had passed, and his kingdom had been long forgotten and replaced many times; furthermore, the king was weary, and knew he needed help. Over the centuries, he had recruited the greatest of heroes to his side, and used his own power to increase theirs, giving them immortality and preparing for a confrontation with the evil cosmic motivator.
When the battle finally came, the heroes fought valiantly, and saved their world from a force that would have otherwise destroyed it; but there was still much destruction, and the king himself was slain. Furthermore, remnants of the evil cosmic motivator's power had corrupted many of the life forms on Ufera, turning them into evil, twisted monstrosities, called devils, which still threatened the remaining life on Ufera. Thus, the heroes used their power to form barriers of force all over the surface of Ufera, separating the areas where civilization could still be saved from those areas which were lost. Those walls have remained for thousands of years, and the people within each pocket of the world have mostly forgotten that there ever was a world outside. In the present day, however, more and more devils have gotten through the barriers as of late, and the people remain unaware of the catastrophe that awaits them..."

[prototype99]

i can see you have put a lot of thought into lore, that's good.

[Moniker Pending]

i can see you have put a lot of thought into lore, that's good.

Indeed. In fact, the heroes mentioned at the end of what should have been the spoiler box for the description of the setting's cosmic history (inside the working spoiler box for the nations), with the power given to them by Iokhetseth (the king who became a cosmic mind; I went into his story a little bit in the "Random Quotes V.2.0" thread on the Ranting Board"), and are actually more powerful than the "gods" that rule Parodesh, have been waging a war, unknown to the people of the world, to keep the devil hordes at bay. They have mostly become exhausted in trying to contain the devil threat, and one of them, named Rusuficier, had split off from the rest, growing frustrated with the others' willingness to continue fighting defensively and lacking a proactive approach to defeating the devils once and for all. After looking into things that the others considered "not enough of a threat" to try to take care of, he actually learned of the secret held by the pre-Milandrian government, that it was ruled by intelligent devils disguised as regular people, and that it was being used to try to slowly invade and destroy that region of the world. After realizing this, Rusuficier formed an autonomous avatar, a poruqe (another race from the game, described in a spoiler box below) mage and enchanter named "Rodaqulynne," and sent her to aid in the revolution, using her as a means of acting in and monitoring the situation without revealing too much information to those involved, thus preventing panic in the revolutionaries, or a larger response from the devils. Being an autonomous avatar, Rodaqulynne had a personality and will of her own, and her relationship to Rusuficier was more like that of a daughter than an extension of his will; while in the end, she managed to keep the secrets well enough to get the job done, she would occasionally slip up, and accidentally end up talking about Rusuficier to Joles or the other heroes of the revolution. She is remembered by the Milandrians as one of the more mysterious heroes of the revolution; when the revolution had achieved its final victory, she didn't stay around for very long, instead leaving Milandria with a promise that she would return if she was needed again, and having never been seen or heard from by anyone in the known world since.

The idea for my game actually started out as an idea for a video game with a semi-linear story, and one of the ideas for that game involved the the two main characters of the game being bodies containing "fragments" of the preserved soul of Iokhetseth, whom Rusuficier had tried to revive by placing fragments of his soul into bodies in the world, hoping that the bodies would grow and allow those fragments to develop and gain enough power to unite, and resurrect Iokhetseth. Rusuficier would have tried this many times before, only coming close to success, but not actually succeeding. The story would have played out beginning in the "present day," with the two characters as young adults and best friends in the city of Libar in Milandria, suddenly having to deal with a massive invasion of devils (similar to the events of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion), and the force walls surrounding the known world ceasing to exist. Near the end of the game, Rusuficier would confront them, and try to get them to fuse together into Iokhetseth, but the canon choice would be that they would refuse, and have to fight Rusuficier, but not kill him. Rusuficier would have to let go of the past, and eventually, he would recover, and rejoin the battle in time to fight the final boss of the game, a massive devil that was rampaging across the whole world, having become a greater threat than the rest of the devils put together. I'm not sure how much of that idea I can keep, since I'm making the game into a pen-and-paper RPG now, and won't have the same ability to have a canon story.

Spoiler!

The following is copied and pasted, with some edits, from an RP I participated in via texting on Skype (not related to my game, except for my character, taken from the setting of my game), in a post I gave while introducing my character:

"Racial information: The Poruqe, a race from the PnPRPG I'm designing, are a race that physically resemble an anthropomorphic hybrid between a dog and a kangaroo. They evolved as marsupials, and the females often take advantage of the vestigial pouch by using it as an improvised "utility belt" of sorts. On average, they are slightly smaller than the average human. Their digitigrade legs are relatively short and bulky (pretty much the only spot on a poruqe body that has any significant bulk muscle), with their large and especially long feet spanning a vertical distance that more than compensates for the shortness of the legs themselves. They also have long, thick (though steadily tapering toward the tip) tails, to further help them to balance on their oddly-proportioned legs and feet. Their heads definitely resemble those of canines far more than they resemble kangaroos, and aside from that, you can probably guess what else there is to what they look like. Most poruqe are female, for reasons which aren't fully explored (in the setting, anyway; my actual reason so far is that, in playtesting, it was mechanically better to play a female, given the addition of a built-in utility belt, and so most poruqe characters ended up being female), but which are otherwise natural to the way they evolved. Due to a difference in their hormones, they have a proportionally much higher rate of non-heterosexuality than the other races, and those who end up breeding have to compensate by having larger amounts of children. Personality-wise, the Poruqe tend to make excellent bard-type characters, given the way they naturally value beautiful and inspiring things, but they are certainly versatile enough to do other sorts of things, especially since many poruqe have differing ideas of what is beautiful."

I had made some pictures a long time ago, giving a visual reference for what poruqes look like, but there are the following problems: I don't know where the pictures are, my scanner's not working, the quality of my drawings have improved since then, and even then, I haven't drawn anything lately, so I might be getting a bit rusty anyway, which might cause problems if I get the chance to start drawing again.

For further emphasis on the bardic nature of the poruqe, here's something I had posted in the RP, in which my character, a poruqe scientist/engineer, was trying to help the party move through a tunnel network to a hidden bunker owned by a magic organization, while escaping from invading demons:

"Kitsana looked at the paper, and started pressing buttons and switches immediately. After hearing Zark say "now," however, she nodded, then flipped open an barely-noticeable compartment, revealing a comically-noticeable "Speed Multiplier" dial underneath. Originally set to "Normal," Kitsana spun the dial pretty quickly to the right, past the intervals of "Elevated," "Overload," and "Never Use" settings, finally landing on the last setting: "Emergency Plot Device."

With the dial set as such, the motor started to hum rather loudly, confirming that it was probably going to be destroyed by the time the trip was over, and a button lit up next to the dial. Kitsana quickly glanced back to make sure no one was in the way, then pressed the button, and suddenly, some of the seemingly-extraneous junk on the side of the cart started shifting about via underlying mechanisms, and within a few seconds, it had formed a protective shell over the top of the cart, with transparent panels in various places to provide a view of the outside.

Kitsana looked back to the group, and said "I'll count to three, and anyone who isn't buckled in will only have themselves to blame!" As she turned back around to face the control panel, she buckled herself in, grabbed the lever, and proceeded to count. "One, Two, THREE!"

As Kitsana had said just moments prior, anyone who did not buckle in would quickly blame themselves for having not done so.

(OOC Clarification: I mean, what kind of a Poruqe engineer would Kitsana be if she didn't have a button labelled "Emergency Plot Device" on at least one of her devices? I was also trying to find good, fast-paced, heroically invigorating songs to play on the tunnel loudspeakers (because it's not background music unless it's actually coming from the background), but I couldn't find anything that would entirely fit.)"