Nine Headed Dragon Archipelago Union

The **Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago Union** is a collection of islands that is one of two nations that is not physically connected to the main continent of Landia. It was later remained as "**Nine Headed Dragon Archipelago Kingdom**" (or "**Archipelago Kingdom**" for short) after its centralization of power by Sha Bon.

## Location

The Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago Union is a group of islands located off the southeastern coast of the Kingdom of Friedonia.

## History

The Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago Union was once the home of the Sea Serpent race, but due to a civil war hundreds of years ago, Excel Walter's people were driven out and caused them to become pirates, eventually leading to the founding of Lagoon City, 500 years before the summoning of Kazuya Souma. It is said that each island is ruled separately, but all swear allegiance to the Nine-Headed Dragon King. Incidentally, due to being a maritime state, most if not all of its citizens come from fishing villages and such and speak with a seafaring slang. One of the stars of the Lorelei Project, Nanna Kamizuki, is actually an immigrant from the Archipelago.

The Union was in conflict with Friedonia over fishing rights as ships from the Archipelago are invading the waters near Friedonia's coastline due to Ooyamizuchi feeding on large fish resulting in low catch and destroying boats and ships in Union waters making fishing dangerous. However King Shana of the Union offered to pay in secret for allowing Union fishermen limited access to Friedonian waters using increased taxes. Souma and Shana secretly planned to kill the Ooyamizuchi by getting the leaders of islands to unite to counter a perceived invasion by Friedonia but during the battle the Ooyamizuchi was lured to a nearby island thus the combined fleet was to defeat the monster. Currently the Union is discussing the creation of a maritime alliance with Friedonia and Turgis.

## Governance

The Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago Union is a monarchy ruled by a King but his control over the union is limited. Each island is controlled by an independent chief with the chief of the largest island being considered the king and the chiefs would resist any attempt by the king to control other islands.

## Military

The navy of the Archipelago Union prefer to use wooden ships reinforced with metal which while no match for metal hulled ships in direct combat are much lighter and the Union uses Horned Doldons that are much faster than sea dragons despite being weaker. Wooden ships also had the advantage of being able to use sails allowing them to move even if their doldons or sea dragons are lost while metal ships only have limited mobility with sails. As a result their navy can use hit-and-run tactics combined with boarding attacks and hurling explosives at close range while avoiding enemy attacks.

Larger ships of the Union used for travel outside of the islands are similar to carracks but with metal platings while smaller ships similar to Kohayabune are also used. While the use of magic and enchanted armour make smaller guns useless as magic is less effective on the ocean the Union develped small cannons around 60mm caliber called "Lion-dog cannons" which while inferior to larger cannons can be mounted on the smaller boats and used to target weak points in enemy ships.

## Economy

As a maritime state, most of the Archipelago's economy depends on fishing and maritime trade. They are considered as the world's best shipbuilders and have been able to tame sea creatures other than Sea Dragons to haul their boats. Due to being lighter and faster, their ships can easily outrun most military vessels. They also possess the techniques to forge blades similar to that of the Japanese Katana and are exceedingly sharp.

## Known Citizens

* Sha Na
* Sha Bon
* Ki Shun
* Nanna Kamizuki (former citizen, immigrated to Friedonia)