Post by Shin RyuKen on Oct 20, 2012 16:59:28 GMT -5
Landiel's collective of disheveled city-states has been a threshold for anti-federalist political turmoil sprawling across the last century or so of the centerpieced monarchy's campaign. King Jacquil Baldassare II continued the trend of geopolitical aggression by using the military to strong-arm surrounding regions and absorb them into Landiel's unipolar mega-economy. The kingdom has notoriously persecuted what it considers to be other inferior races, including but not limited to half-elves, tieflings, gnomes and other grotesque non-humans considered to be a threat to the predominantly homogeneous population of humans and pureblood wood elves. Several of these groups and even some of the unchaste lower-class citizens have backlashed against the kingdom's blatant racism and formed a number of social cleavages within some of the many city-states which have been less fortunate from the government's disproportionate pool of subsidies to the city-states. As a result, many of the city-states lining the border of the kingdom have been suffering from a jarring wealth gap whereas the inland city-states surrounding the actual palace are sitting on a mountain of subsidized capital so vast that it would be able to probe into the clouds with the average share of income each household contains.
Many of these inland city-states, however, have been industrialized and operate in industries not fully monopolized by the government. Automobile production, software engineering, corporate law, and other related fields are among the sparse amount of markets that have not been impacted by government programs and localized research. Markets that are largely medical, especially pharmaceuticals, have been culled out by the government's multimillion-dollar projects in their intensive research facilities. The integrity of these research facilities has been largely contended by rumors revolving around inhumane experiments that have reanimated prisoners and cadavers into bizarre and paranormal entities partially responsible for internal proxy warfare with citizens inside and outside of the nation-states. Controversies such as this have spawned fervent dissent against the kingdom among for many other reasons and some factions have formed, some more militant and bizarre than others, to facilitate the spread of democracy into Landiel.
The Shemhazai are a particularly extremist case of one such a faction. As hegemons to the criminal underground, the Shemhazai are a selective cult of shadar-kai, half-elf, and rakshasa expatriates crowding the far north. Aptly considered a cultist faction by many, traditions in the faction are crowned by a rather disturbing ritual that each agent of the faction undergoes as a final promotion following a specific prerequisite to existing members of the cult. The requirement of this faction is that the member must commit suicide to release his or her soul from the host body, and should they survive the underworld, find their way back into the faction as a revenant. The revenant members of the faction, mostly shadar-kai, are the elite members who have succeeded in this ritual. They firmly embrace the immaterial characteristics of their new selves and accepted their destiny as ferrymen of the damned. All Shemhazai, including the non-revenants, partake in assassinations and siege missions more or less inclined towards procuring resources from the kingdom and attempting to dwindle the king's numbers. Their ultimate goal is to dismantle the kingdom in hopes that they can return Landiel to the state of nature in which a democracy will form from freedom of the oppressed people of the nation-states. To this day they have been slowly succeeding, barring a few improperly titled revenants who haven't been performing their duties since their twisted coronation into the afterlife. Lazul is one of them.
Lazul was born to a reclusive tribe of shadar-kai aggressors hiding deep in the mountainous regions north in the snow-capped land of Bolstus. The Bolstusi tribespeople have mainly kept to themselves and have developed a generic market economy from small-scale mill labor and immense reserves of raw minerals lodged deep within the mountainside. Landiel has been wary of these mineral reserves and have long tried to use their expansive military power to siege the Bolstusi tribe's resources by force. Naturally the people have turned an affront towards the Landiel military and engaged in decades of de facto warfare against Landiel soldiers. As Landiel's technology in raw GDP is growing at a rate far outstripping that of Bolstus's rural economy, numbers have inherently tipped the scales against Bolstus as their already small population has dwindled and their once firm grasp of minerals has started to wane as Landiel soldiers have developed more effective strategies to subvert the tribespeople. Luckily the rough terrain has proven to be a serious disadvantage for the Landiel soldiers, but as years pass and the kingdom continues to grow, the labor bubble that had been confronted by Landiel for so many years will pop almost too soon. As a counteract to this threat of destitution, tribespeople were sent into Landiel as teenagers over recent years to hide in the shadows and build numbers to usurp the king from his allegedly unrighteous throne. Lazul was one of the many tribespeople sent into Landiel to join one of the factions against the monarchy, and over time, he held the record for the youngest agent to serve as an elite to the faction. Unfortunately, his naivety as a tribepeople has manifested sheer laziness and characteristically teenage curiosity that led him to roam the streets of Landiel as an infamous street rat. His remarkable talent as an assassin was conveniently masked by his rampant acts of public defiance, mostly revolving around threatening the patrolling soldiers and denouncing them for persecuting his people. The humans in the crowd looked at him with mostly scorn and apprehension for his crude behavior and inhuman appearance. As a revenant, Lazul is believed to have been an astray experiment from the Landiel research facilities sent to wreak havoc upon the kingdom and has been persecuted ever since suspicions were raised about him.
Many of these inland city-states, however, have been industrialized and operate in industries not fully monopolized by the government. Automobile production, software engineering, corporate law, and other related fields are among the sparse amount of markets that have not been impacted by government programs and localized research. Markets that are largely medical, especially pharmaceuticals, have been culled out by the government's multimillion-dollar projects in their intensive research facilities. The integrity of these research facilities has been largely contended by rumors revolving around inhumane experiments that have reanimated prisoners and cadavers into bizarre and paranormal entities partially responsible for internal proxy warfare with citizens inside and outside of the nation-states. Controversies such as this have spawned fervent dissent against the kingdom among for many other reasons and some factions have formed, some more militant and bizarre than others, to facilitate the spread of democracy into Landiel.
The Shemhazai are a particularly extremist case of one such a faction. As hegemons to the criminal underground, the Shemhazai are a selective cult of shadar-kai, half-elf, and rakshasa expatriates crowding the far north. Aptly considered a cultist faction by many, traditions in the faction are crowned by a rather disturbing ritual that each agent of the faction undergoes as a final promotion following a specific prerequisite to existing members of the cult. The requirement of this faction is that the member must commit suicide to release his or her soul from the host body, and should they survive the underworld, find their way back into the faction as a revenant. The revenant members of the faction, mostly shadar-kai, are the elite members who have succeeded in this ritual. They firmly embrace the immaterial characteristics of their new selves and accepted their destiny as ferrymen of the damned. All Shemhazai, including the non-revenants, partake in assassinations and siege missions more or less inclined towards procuring resources from the kingdom and attempting to dwindle the king's numbers. Their ultimate goal is to dismantle the kingdom in hopes that they can return Landiel to the state of nature in which a democracy will form from freedom of the oppressed people of the nation-states. To this day they have been slowly succeeding, barring a few improperly titled revenants who haven't been performing their duties since their twisted coronation into the afterlife. Lazul is one of them.
Lazul was born to a reclusive tribe of shadar-kai aggressors hiding deep in the mountainous regions north in the snow-capped land of Bolstus. The Bolstusi tribespeople have mainly kept to themselves and have developed a generic market economy from small-scale mill labor and immense reserves of raw minerals lodged deep within the mountainside. Landiel has been wary of these mineral reserves and have long tried to use their expansive military power to siege the Bolstusi tribe's resources by force. Naturally the people have turned an affront towards the Landiel military and engaged in decades of de facto warfare against Landiel soldiers. As Landiel's technology in raw GDP is growing at a rate far outstripping that of Bolstus's rural economy, numbers have inherently tipped the scales against Bolstus as their already small population has dwindled and their once firm grasp of minerals has started to wane as Landiel soldiers have developed more effective strategies to subvert the tribespeople. Luckily the rough terrain has proven to be a serious disadvantage for the Landiel soldiers, but as years pass and the kingdom continues to grow, the labor bubble that had been confronted by Landiel for so many years will pop almost too soon. As a counteract to this threat of destitution, tribespeople were sent into Landiel as teenagers over recent years to hide in the shadows and build numbers to usurp the king from his allegedly unrighteous throne. Lazul was one of the many tribespeople sent into Landiel to join one of the factions against the monarchy, and over time, he held the record for the youngest agent to serve as an elite to the faction. Unfortunately, his naivety as a tribepeople has manifested sheer laziness and characteristically teenage curiosity that led him to roam the streets of Landiel as an infamous street rat. His remarkable talent as an assassin was conveniently masked by his rampant acts of public defiance, mostly revolving around threatening the patrolling soldiers and denouncing them for persecuting his people. The humans in the crowd looked at him with mostly scorn and apprehension for his crude behavior and inhuman appearance. As a revenant, Lazul is believed to have been an astray experiment from the Landiel research facilities sent to wreak havoc upon the kingdom and has been persecuted ever since suspicions were raised about him.