Ardacia [OOC]

Across the globe, there are thousands of flags planted in the Earth. In the north, the two great clans of Vyntarland hang their flags frozen and stiff, while in the farthest reaches of Orlandia, sultans proudly display their national emblems on colored silks and tapestries. There have been kingdoms recorded as having stood for no longer than a fortnight before their flag vanished from history, and empires whose flags have outlasted the mountains they were once planted on. However, there is only one dynasty in the world to fly their flag on every corner of a continent, and it is that the Ardacian Empire.

Before Ardall the Great arrived, Ardacia was a secret to the world, known as "Nokulikulk" to the hut-dwelling natives that called it home. It meant "Dirt Which is Precious" in their harsh tongue, a fact Ardall would only learn as an old man after conquering their precious dirt, appointing scholars and natives alike to the task of translating his subject's language. Ardall's conquest was a relatively quick one -- The natives of Nokulikulk, while having tales boasting of troll-slayers and dragon-chasers among their rank, had never seen the steel, formations, or horses Ardall had brought, and were smashed in every engagement until Ardall's forces had reached the northern shore. Since this conquest, the sons and grandsons of Ardall have been the emperors of Ardacia, maintained through the imperial house of Arda. So it has been for five hundred years.

The Ardacians, as they are now known, are comprised of many kingdoms under one empire. While more or less the same in culture, following the moon-faith brought to the continent by Ardall and following the same social conventions from coast to coast, there are still great differences from kingdom to kingdom. In the Imperial City, great houses drink spiced wine out of crystal goblets while they gaze out at the Southern Sea, while clans on the northern coasts past the Valley of Tears live in thatched huts and tell thousands-year old stories in Oldtongue. It is not the similarities or alliances between kingdoms that has held Ardacia together for half a millennium -- kingdoms come and go in marriage alliances, petty feuds blown into wars, or arguments over land. It is the power of the House of Arda that has maintained the Empire, and the moments they have used this power to sway events outside their immediate lands.

Currently, no members of the House of Arda have left the Imperial City in over two generations. Aside from installing aqueducts, wells, roads, and temples throughout Ardacia, the empire has done little in the ways of building outside of the Imperial City. Accordingly, bettering the city has become something of a pet project for the emperors of the past five hundred years, who have built under, on top of, and around the city countless times. It now boasts the continent's largest temple, nearly a million residents, and over a thousand ships in its ports. There is an expansive tunnel system to manage sewage beneath the streets, three guard forces -- one funded imperially, two privately -- and five great houses beneath the emperor's heel to manage most of it. But the rest of Ardacia is not so well managed, funded, or guarded.

In the North, there are whispers of a clansman who has united the untamed savages into an army, while in the south, political unrest has broken out more and more throughout the wetlands. Across the sea, thousands of miles away, foreign rulers toast to the empire's downfall, while sending spies and thieves to her lands. I will finish this paragraph tomorrow, it has delayed me for too long. Shit's heating up.