Cod Region

**The Cod Region**

The Cod Region is a hereditary monarchy in the United Regions. It is the most recent member to join, joining in 2019. Its leader is the Grand Duke Salmon, who is the Head of state and the head of government.

There is however, democracy in the Cod Region: the Grand Duke’s advisory council (The Grand Council) However this council, as the name suggests, is purely advisory and everything it votes on is non-binding and is subject to change by the Grand Duke. The Grand Duke’s power is virtually unchecked, though in recent years Dukes have been reliant on the Council and treating it as if it is the primary legislator. The Council has 16 members, 2 from each district, there being 8 districts.

#### **The Trout Dynasty:**

The Trout dynasty has been in control of the land that now makes up the Cod region for centuries, though its power has fluctuated due to popular opinion of them. A key tenet of The Cod Region is people’s opinion of their leadership, the people are prone to rebellion when they feel their freedom is in doubt. It’s this system of opinions that keeps the Trout dynasty from becoming tyrants. Cods are renowned for their ability to speak their mind honestly regardless of situation, leading to the common phrase ‘Don’t bring a Cod to a heist’.

#### **History:**

As mentioned, the Trout dynasty has a large amount of influence over coddish society. From the first towns on the now coddish coast there has been continuous reliance on the ocean.

The history of the Cod Region is truly the history of the Trout Dynasty. They started as a noble and wealthy family in The Emoji Region and when that fell apart they began the area’s own successor state, ‘The Trout State’. This remained stable for 25 years until it was conquered by its neighbours, the lesson here was that no nation could stand without adequate force, each attempt at a nation taught the Cod people a lesson in how to build a nation. Years later around the time of The Villager Empire they tried again, founding ‘The Oceanic League’ it was almost immediately declared treasonous by the Empire and was placed under martial law. Emperor Ferdinand I himself famously said “You cannot expect a fish to stand on its legs.” Fish being a derogatory term for Cods. During this speech a cod nationalist attempted to assassinate the Emperor by throwing a knife at him, he hit the left knee of the emperor, and he was apprehended seconds after the attempt. This gave the Villager Empire the necessary justification to declare the coddish separatists criminal and what is now known as ‘The Cod Crisis’ began. This crisis led to all devolution of powers to local Cod authorities to be revoked and the area was placed under direct rule of the Emperor. This moment came to be known in the Cod Region as ‘The burning of the Seal’ named for when the Trout family hierarch, Sushius IV burnt the building housing the Imperial seal, a criminal act in the Empire. The secessionist movement was forced underground and its members executed.

The next attempt at an independent Cod state was in the days of The Villager Republic Of The Comintern when the only region in the Republic with local democracy voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence from the Republic, a divide in the areas politics emerged, the Socials, in favour of union with the Villagers and its communist ideals, and the Writers. The writers were named after Jonathan Writer, a Trout family outcast and influential politician in the local legislature, who was later assassinated by someone reportedly working with the Empire. This legislature was mostly symbolic and held little power, but people still looked to the legislature, known by the people as the Grand Council as a symbol of Coddish pride and the hope for an independent nation. This desire manifested as the Writer movement, an independence movement that ultimately caused others and brought the end of The Villager Republic Of The Comintern in 1994.

The Writers founded ‘The League Of Cods’, in 1997 a democratic state that quickly realised it couldn’t sustain itself, leading to ‘The loss of hope’ as it is now known. Wide spread famine and corruption erupted and civil unrest until the country’s constitution was dissolved in 1999 and replaced by the modern hereditary monarchy of the Trout dynasty.

The Region joined the United Regions in 2019, joining the Great War against the Vile Regions in January 2020, despite this it has played little part in the war due to its small standing army, it has however complemented the overall strategy of the war well with its infamous special forces, the Cod Special Division (CSD) being the foremost intelligence agency in the world. It’s famous Cod Covert Operations team (CCO) also known as the ‘Cod Champions Office’ by the populous, are notable for their prevention of disastrous plots to bomb Villager cities and preventing ambushes of armies in no-man’s land.

Cods have put aside differences with Villagers due to their history of oppression to focus on the larger threat of the Anti Villager League and the Vile Regions as a whole.