The Kryat Arcaneocracy

One of the great superpowers of Tar, the Kryat Arcaneocracy is a vast and wealthy nation comprised of a dozens and dozens of bustling cities. Yet despite the name, it is not those of the Craft who truly rule the Arcaneocracy. For while their power is mighty indeed, its practitioners are little more than slaves, bound for generations in hopeless addiction to the source of their arcane might. The true rulers of the Arcaneocracy are the Kryask, conquerors who hail from far to the North. When they came, they brought a deeper mystery, the source of all that the Arcaneocracy is built upon.

The Kryask are a warlike people, and having colonized their Southern neighbors, have turned their attentions to the rest of the world. Yet even the most powerful empires have limits, and it seems the Arcaneocracy may have met their own. Internal feuding and constant political maneuvering have led to fractious campaigns, and even with their seemingly unfathomable power behind them, their expansion has been halted at the borders of Sundevalda and the Tal Empire.

## History

Four hundred years ago, the great superpower know known as the Kryat Arcaneocracy was nothing more than a disparate collection of warring city states. Witch King and Queens ruled these burgeoning cities, mastering their Craft and waging an unending stream of petty wars and conflicts upon one another. Then, 361 years ago, came the Kryask. Far from the North, they struck the hundreds of warring city states like a tidal wave. For with them, they brought the **Kryat Spirits**. A pair of ancient and primordial spirits, bound in unending conflict and war with one another. The Kryask were potent Spirit Binders, and generations before had tricked the **Kryat Spirits**, goading them into a battle with each other and then binding them in their moment of distraction and weakness. The Kryat Chain forged from that binding is a source of seemingly unending Craft, and while the Kryask's traditions did not allow them to access it directly, the Mages they captured and enslaved were under no such bindings. Every city they conquered, every battle they won, more Craftsfolk were taken. Taken, tamed, and then fed the rich Soulstuff of the Kryat Chain.

It was called the **Unification,** and within a hundred years, the Arcaneocracy emerged much as it now exists. Dozens of former city states under the firm hands of more than three dozen Kryat Clans. Beneath them are hundreds and hundreds of enslaved Mages, Warlocks, Sorcerers, Wizards, and other Craftfolk, collectively known as the Empowered. The Kryat Chain is passed from city to city, staying exactly one week in each, on a pilgrimage through the Arcaneocracy that takes more than a year to complete. Within each city, the Empowered draw deeply upon it, fueling their magic until the Chain again returns. So strengthened, their magic is seemingly unending, but the fatal flaw in this system is visible even to the members of the Arcaneocracy. The larger their nation grows, the more cities it adds, the longer and longer it takes for the Kryat Chains to come to each. The solution to this problem has been a subject of fierce debate for over a hundred years, for the nature of the Kryask is to conquer. Yet it is a debate that remains unsettled, and one that has grown increasingly less diplomatic and more deadly. Decades of frustration has led to political bickering, infighting, and even assassination, with rival Kryask Clans each thinking that they know best how to break the stalemate.

## Geography

The Arcaneocracy is simply too vast to categorize, containing examples of almost every sort of terrain. The Northeast, from which the Kryat first emerged, is full of rolling foothills that grow steeper and more jagged the further one travels. Eventually, the mountains become almost impassible, before finally giving way to the permanent glaciers of the steppes. The frigid forests of the North are sparely populated, though a few cities remain. The Western forests are vast and dense, though the Arcaneocracy has had more luck taming them then their Southern neighbors in Sundevalda. The central Arcaneocracy is made up of enormous planes and seemingly endless rivers fueling the fertile land despite the chill winters. To the South is heavily forested, the woods seemingly shrouded in near endless mist, within which most of the Arcaneocracy's cities are found. These cities are also the most recently conquered, with Tuukve having been taken from the Duun'Rath less than two decades ago.

## Politics

At the heart of the Arcaneocracy is the 32 Kryat Clans. Each Clan claims a domain, as far as its power can extend, and so long as a Clan can hold a conquered city, no other Clan will directly challenge their rule. For the might of each Clan is measured by how many cities they can hold. The **Kryat** spends but a week in each city on their pilgrimage, and so the more cities a Clan possesses, the more time the Kryat Chains remain in their possession. However, Kryask ambition is not limited by their over reaching empire. Increasingly, the Clans are beginning to wage campaigns of destabilization against one another. While it is forbidden to claim a city claimed by another Clan, should that hold slip, the city is right for the taking. Thus, for the first time in a hundred generations, the Kryask have begun to wage campaigns of political intrigue and subterfuge against one another.

## People

* Most populous: Amenni
* Dominant minority: Kraysk
* Oppressed minority: Holda