Merkass, A Modern Fantasy Setting (Pure Worldbuilding)

This thread is basically me trying to write out a concept of a setting that has intrigued me basically from the moment it came to my mind. It will not be properly narrative, nor will it be a timeline. While history will come up, it's more "things that are important recent events" than a timeline where the ultimate fate of this nation or that is waiting to be revealed.

Effectively, the idea of the setting is to take a modern world and impose upon it the common tropes of fantasy - numerous nonhuman races, pervasive magic, polytheism with traces of henotheistic practice, and so forth - while maintaining a recognizable modernity. This isn't an Eberron type setting, where magic takes up the role of technology, nor is it a story of our own world's secret (or not so secret) underbelly like True Blood or Dresden Files or Persona. It's closer to something like Shadowrun (sans the cyberpunk elements) or Final Fantasy XV: there's cars, trains, cell phones, internet, and there's also elves, orcs, evil gods, wizards, and dragons.

The broad thematic notes, as I currently see them, are:

• Nations are generally Earthlike. They have major industries, commercial trade, complex legislative and judicial systems, professional or conscript militaries, mass politics, secular governance, etc. Where they aren't, they should be coded as holdovers from older systems of governance, not as e.g. mageocracies.
• Fantasy races are generally treated as ethnic minorities. They are not meant to be coded as specific real world ethnic minorities and will typically borrow from multiple relevant subcultures as well as the relevant tropes for their specific race.
• Magic exists and is a skill but does not replace unskilled labor. Factories work like real world factories, industries generally work like real world industries, there are waiters not magic servitors. Where magic interacts with the market it primarily supplants or intersects with areas we would associate with skilled labor - geological surveys, movie stunts, psychiatric care, and so forth.
• Magical items are an artisinal industry that has not been phased out by mass industry.
• The gods intervene rarely, but definitively exist and are frequent objects of veneration. Religion is, broadly speaking, cultural rather than philosophical - the gods are not seen as terribly moral figures by most people, though certain more henotheistic subcultures do view their gods in such a light.

The current year in the setting is 2018, and you can use our own history as a rough timeline of technological and social development.

That out of the way, let's get started with the most important things: a map, and a dark lord.

Spoiler: Merkass Map

Merkass is the central region/polity of the setting. While presumably other countries exist beyond its borders, I shan't be concerning myself with those for now, if ever.

The Dark Lord Mansur
Emir Mansur - known nowadays by the epithet assigned to him by Talionne and soon adopted by all the opposing armies, “the Dark Lord” - is likely the most important figure of the twentieth century in Merkass, certainly of the latter half.

Mansur began his life as a minor member of the old royal family of Reqas, seventeenth in the line of succession, but acquired a major public following in the economic turmoil of the late 1970s. Reqas had relied heavily on its oil exports for its government’s budget, and with the collapse in oil prices, it was left to attempt wildly unpopular austerity measures. Drawing on this natural wellspring of discontent and radicalization, Mansur positioned himself as a figure of anti-austerity and was eventually embraced by the business classes of Reqas as a figure who could tamp down on this discontent without coming after them.

And tamp down he did. Having taken power in the seventh month of 1978, he had by the ninth month of 1979 pacified the population, murdered all his rival claimants to the throne to the last, and established himself as the absolute dictator of Reqas. He embarked on a major campaign of industrialization and armament, which culminated with the invasion of his northwestern neighbors, the Sindao Confederation nations of Aaji, Beoltai, and Chinili, in the sixth month of 1980.

From there, the other major powers of Merkass soon created an alliance, seeking to encircle Mansur, but ultimately failing - by clever geopolitics, by the first month of 1985, he was the almost unquestioned ruler of most of Merkass, even controlling Vivanga, long a client of Talionne. Only Albinreich in the East and Talionne in the West yet maintained their independence, and he viewed them as soon to fall. His ultimate loss was not purely due to mortal affairs - but then, neither was his ascension.

Mansur, like many in Merkass, venerated the god Mammon. Although Mammon is of the Nephine tribe of gods - the so-called “good” gods - he is only loosely beneficent. He is a god of unrestrained greed, among other things. Mansur called Mammon first among the gods he worshiped, but he did not, like most Mammon-worshipers, also worship the other Nephine gods. Instead, he broke bread with the Lucifene - the so-called “evil” gods - for magical power which he used to crush the other nations of Merkass. He even summoned over a hundred thousand demons from Hell, having them serve as elite soldiers in his army, regardless of their age or sex, and they looted and conquered on his behalf until his defeat.

Then came the hero chosen by the Nephine, Garic. A young infantryman of nineteen years, serving faithfully in the Albinreichen Army, he was blessed and given the power of the Godsblade, a divine weapon bound to his soul, which could cut through anything he wished it to. In a lightning strike on the Osin Palace in early 1987, he slew Mansur in personal combat.

Although his armies continued to fight on, for a time, the tide had irrevocably turned, and those who succeeded Mansur to power recognized this, quickly bringing about an end to the war. He is remembered fondly only by a minority of Reqasi, most of whom see him as responsible for their national humiliation and disarmament. His secret practice of infant sacrifice to the evil god Moloch, though only killing some two hundred infants over the entire course of the war, has certainly helped later propagandists cast him as a wicked monster who tricked the people of Reqas.

 

Demons
Demons originate in Hell, a land of fire, brimstone, and endless broken stones, of rivers and lakes and oceans of lava, of wild magic that scalds the skin to be exposed to, and countless monsters of all kinds. In Hell, the Nephine have no presence whatsoever, and the Lucifene rule supreme - it is a world run in accordance with that tribe’s wishes.

As one might imagine of a people born into such stubbornly inhospitable circumstances, demons are a tough and tenacious people. The physical strength of a demon is easily triple that of a human, despite their similar frames, and their toughness and agility are similarly enhanced. Demons are far more likely to show aptitude for magic, particularly fire magic, as well.

Physically, they appear as humans, save for their slitted eyes, horns, and the magical tattoos which by custom they mark upon their youngs’ chests during the first year of life. These tattoos - the so-called “demon’s crest” - vary from individual, being made by a specialist called a Bloodcarver as a sort of permanent warding spell to protect them from magic of all kinds. Although it is no longer necessary, it is a common cultural touchstone.

Most demons worship the Lucifene, but many add Mammon to the list of the gods they venerate, reflecting the somewhat complicated relationship that demons have with the Dark Lord Mansur. When he yet lived, he had them propitiate Mammon, and to many demons, he was one of the last people to give them a fair shot in Merkass, so they carry on that worship. They are disinclined to turn to the Nephine as deities in general however - both because they associate the Nephine with the frequently hostile societies in which they live, and because they see worship of the Lucifene as part of a distinct religious and cultural tradition to which they belong. Only 10-20% of the demon population across Merkass have turned to the worship of the Nephine to exclusion.

Although the initial demon population was a mere hundred thousand, and an estimated thirty thousand perished in the War of the Dark Lord, demons are a fecund people - their estimated population across Merkass has since rebounded to number some five hundred thousand, with the vast majority being individuals below the age of 30.

Across most of Merkass, demons are viewed with suspicion and a certain amount of fear. They were among the most loyal to Mansur, and unlike the rest of the Reqasi armies, they had no homes to return to when the war ended. What wealth they had looted was typically confiscated by Talionnese and Albinreicher soldiers, leaving them an impoverished people. Their tight cultural bonds were what helped keep them from falling into complete ruin, and they began to eke out a living wherever and however they could. Frequently this was in organized crime, though they also moved in heavy numbers into private security, mercenary and military service, magery (magic institutions being historically quite race-blind), and, curiously, music. The so called “death metal” genre is a uniquely demon cultural product, derived from their ancestral stylings.

Demons tend to look out for one another, their community struggling to pull itself together across the continent and become something that can survive and even thrive in this foreign, alien world. Many countries criminalize Bloodcarving as a barbaric act of infant mutilation, and these tend to see a significant exodus of the demonic population (or “tourism Bloodcarving,” where a demon family briefly visits another nation for a period of several months around the birth), for whom the demon’s crest represents a vital part of their history, culture, and values. The majority of the modern demon population - some 369,754, by the latest records - live in Reqas, where Bloodcarving had its legality formally recognized ever since the days of al-Iirida.

 

Dragons
Across the breadth of Merkass, there are perhaps somewhere just north of two thousand dragons. At sixty feet from tooth to tail, the typical dragon requires an enormous amount of food to survive, and many of them spend much of their time in hibernation or in a low-energy state as a consequence. They are capable of highly maneuverable flight under their own power, and breathing wildly dangerous gouts of flames up to a hundred feet away. Their hide is thick enough to stand up to volleys of arrows, though not bullets, and their claws are strong enough to dig into the armor of a tank.

Dragons also live an exceptionally long time. While it takes just a bit beyond two decades for a dragon to reach its full adult length, and perhaps three to become mentally mature, there are dragons still alive today that are over a millennium old. They are as a rule wise and cautious beings, as one would expect of such elderly figures, but generally have little in the way of formal education.

As terrifying monsters of war and magic with deep bellies, most national governments have some form of “welfare” for dragons, feeding them in return for military service in times of war, and so that they won’t have cause to create problems when they get hungry. As part and parcel of this deal, dragons do not reproduce freely, being only given the right to lay eggs which hatch by petition - which is generally used to keep a near-constant population of dragons, not allowing them to balloon out of control or to decline.

These sorts of bribes originated in Albinreich, when an enterprising Consul approached one of the dragons to offer him sheep in exchange for military services in the wars of those republics; soon enough, the other great states of Merkass were paying off dragons. Only in Kusti do dragons roam truly free; it is simply no longer possible for a dragon to make its living as a hunter and brigand.

In the earliest days, men were mounted atop them and armed with bags full of heavy nail-shaped weapons, which were simply dropped freely on enemy armies, virtually impossible to retaliate against. As the great states acquired their own dragons, they moved on to fighting against one another for dominance, before getting back to dropping nails on people below.

With the development of manned flight, missiles, and rocket-propelled grenades, the use of dragons as weapons of war has precipitously declined. While they still have advantages in maneuverability, maintenance, and their ability to operate on land or air, even a single well-aimed missile can cause a grievous wound. Many served admirably in the Wars of the Dark Lord, but it is hardly missed by anyone today that despite having perhaps a hundred and fifty dragons, he fought off virtually every other nation’s. Perhaps six hundred new dragon eggs were laid in the immediate aftermath of those wars, with various dragons petitioning to be allowed children, given the loss of life and their valued service, and they were given such, bringing the dragon population back up to roughly its pre-war level.