Even in the canonical churchChurch, The Shade is not considered to be all bad though. After all, they created their half of the world, and the light cannot exist without darkness. Basically, The Shade and The Spark have a beef. Humans must worship The Spark, as they're the source of life. However, no human will insult any god, even a dark and deadly one like The Shade.
When The Spark passes by, summer lasts for the whole year. Wars stop. The elders feel young and the kingdomKingdom expands. When The Shade passes by, winter lasts for a whole year and a lot of people die. To the record, the gods haven't both been around at the same time since the creation of the world.
The current King is the all-powerful ruler of the kingdomKingdom, and his word is law. The capital, which is literally the center of the world is a flamboyant testimony of his power. Meeting the king is quite the difficult task, as you have to navigate through a huge and diverse court of nobles representing the different duchies and external settlings, as well guild-masters and priests.
Nobility comes from birth and with the exception of the royal crown, most titles are inherited by the eldest sibling (gender is officially not a problem, though there is sexism in practice). The king is decided between the dukes and cannot have children after his/hertheir nomination. Younger children will usually be knighted by a Duke (unless they join the clergy).
To be completed Titles:
- King
- Prince (aka King successor, usually a duke)
- Duke (they run the show, there are around 20)
- Count (do the heavy lifting of territory management, around 5 per duke)
- Knights (usually have no territory, executives, some dukes have hundreds under their orders)
The justice system is (officially) the responsibility of the Church. The ruling nobles can override any decision, but they usually don't. After all, when you write the law, control the police, and the judge is your brother, you seldom feel like pardoning people. Notably, the King is also the ruler of the clergy and can declare himself judge of any trial.
There are other kingdoms around the Kingdom. The north and the west areas are organized in small tribes, most of them being nomadic. The east has small countries that maintain independence by being ready to gang up on the Kingdom if attacked. The south is unified and democratic and is mainly left alone because it doesn't have much resources. The border, being practically uninhabitable as no governing.
The Kingdom's economy is based on mercantilist. Any economic entity requires the approbation of the king or a duke.
The most valuable resource is the Crystal. Crystals have various properties (depending on the type) and are considered to be the key to any power. The rest of the economy is pretty much equivalent to Europe's economy during medieval times.
There is fierce competition within the Dukes and all-out war can happen after a famine. The outer territories rely heavily on the Kingdom's sizable economy and often gamble on that competition to their benefit.
I will focus on the Kingdom's society, other territories are organized differently but keep to a lesser or higher extent the outward xenophobia.
The nobles compose the leading cast. They have money, influence and land. It is pretty much agreed upon that only nobles will have an influence on history. Work is not considered degrading, as long as it's noble work: military officer, minister, counselor or company owner are the kind of jobs that are reserved for nobles.
The clergy comes second. Though the highest parts of the clergy are children or siblings of the dukes. They are the most educated members of society and will often serve as unofficial counselors to the executive nobles. They are the administrators and the scholars. Since they are the plumbers of power without owning anything themselves, their corruption is fairly common. To a commoner, joining the clergy is usually a social boost. Some nobles, however, consider this demeaning.
99% of the population is the commoners. Most of them are farmers, heavily religious and happy with their condition. Almost all non-human are commoners.
Crystals is a magical matter that can have different colors, shapes, and effects. Its mining and trade are a primary goal of any country, to the point of obsession. According to the gods, they are a gift of power to mankind.
Their usage is reserved to nobles and (sometimes) clergymen. Though the black market is quite developed.
Example of crystals:
- Dark crystal: produces "negative light" that cast a shade around them.
- Sight crystal: allows the user to see anything on the surface on the earth.
- Fire crystal: used with skill, a lighter, used without skill, a flamethrower.
- Power crystal: power source that can increase other crystals reach.
Necromancers are children chosen by the Shade to slaughter as much people as possible. They are the bogeymen except they are real. They are feared mostly because of how unsettling they are: it's something to see your family killed, but it's something else to see your family killed by your 6 years old neighbor with a gesture and then to see your family get back up and attack you.
Necromancers rarely reach adulthood, though, and thankfully so. In their first month of practice, a kid can slaughter a village and you need a dozen armed people to stop him. A teenager with a few years behind them can only be stopped by an army.
What is not known, however, is that necromancers don't choose to be that way. They have little to no control over what they do and most of them commit suicide early on. With puberty comes control over their power and necromancer usually go underground before that because they don't want to face an army. Moreover, necromancers don't like each other, and two adult necromancers meeting will almost always result in a fight to the death.
What even most of necromancers themselves don't know is that they can use crystals in ways that are not supposed to work, and a power crystal in the hands of a necromancer is pretty much the end of life on a 10km radius minimum.
