"Does our Lord, celestial fire dancing upon his shoulders, watch as we destroy all that he and his chosen bride built? He does, I think, and he weeps, and his blazing fury grows with each passing day of strife." - Patriarch Meraikos Andrenus
Nation Sheet
Nation Name: The Holy Ilisian Empire
Government Type: Officially, in the absence of a ruler of royal blood sitting the Martyr's Seat, the 'Imperial Senatorial Regency Council' presides over the Ilisian peoples in a governmental capacity. Their official mandate, as written in the 'Charter of Our Martyred Lady's Imperial Peace', is to act as careful strewards of all facets of Imperial Life until such time as a fit ruler of Sebastine Dynastic Blood appears to return the Empire to peace and tranquility. To this end they have seized control of the Imperial Military, the Imperial Legislature, the Imperial Governorates, and so on. Despite this apparent coup, they have maintained the old Imperial Institutions. They are loathe to endanger themselves by rocking the political boat it would seem, and as such they do little beyond keeping the arctrams running, keeping the gate posts manned, and keeping the squalid morass that is the bureaucracy a squalid morass. Indeed, beyond slowly, gradually cementing their place at the top of the empire, the Senate has done precious little for the current state of affairs, and the Empire has suffered for it.
A great number of disaffected commoners, veterans, military officers, clergy, and academics have called into question the legitimacy of the Regency Council, and many have even ventured to say that is naught but a mouthpiece for the old families that once ruled the despotates in feudal Ilisia. Indeed, these former nobility, now for the most part immensely wealthy landowners, have thrown their full support behind the Senate and its unprecedented, implicit move towards republican rule. So, with the Great Families and the Senate entirely unwilling to abandon their position of power, cracks have begun to form in the imperial peace. Governors and generals, both ideal and corrupt alike, have launched into their own myriad agendas. Petty warlords, with their own armies at their beck and call, have launched campaigns to restore the 'true empire', both for legitimate claimants and for themselves.
To define a single system of rulership in this troubled time is, to say the least, difficult. All manner of petty emperors and warlords have staked their claim, and it is hard to say where one 'emperor's' rulership begins and where another's ends. Many have set up their own petty governments to provide where the regency will not.
Economy Type: The Ilisian economy is closed to the common entrepreneur for the most part, and is absolutely thrall to the oligopic landowners and nationalized industrial conglomerates. Rare is the farm or workshop that is not given patronage by some manner of aristocratic family or affiliated with an imperial-chartered guild. Foreign trade is carefully regulated by the Imperial Economic Commission, and brutal protectionist policies such as import quotas and excessive tariffs give an obscene advantage to the wealthy, domestic industrialists.
Race(s): Ilisia is, by majority, populated by the Terviin peoples, who are a swarthy, olive-skinned, and dark haired people. They are not natives to the continent, but instead supposedly refugees from across the ocean. Imperial scholars for the most part have reached consensus in that they crossed the southern seas from their island homeland in ancient antiquity. The reasoning behind this mass exodus, however, is still quite up for debate. Many hypothesize that an inhospitable climate, famine, or some sort of etherium-related mass disaster are to blame.
Leader(s) and People of Importance:
The Imperial Senate Regency Council; The ambitious republicans who seek to end once and for all the blight of absolute monarchy.
The Grand Families; Landowners and Industrial Magnates whose wealth compensates for their lack of legitimacy.
Various Royal Pretenders; The second cousins, aunts, uncles, and bastards of the now defunct Sebastine Dynasty.
Local Governors and Warlords; Those with their own agendas and old scores to settle, and with the armies to make it happen.
The Clergy; Whose only wish is for the end of violence, the restoration of the empire, and a renewed adherence to the ten holy tenets.
Military:
Brief History:
Other:
