Kingdom of Ilosia

Ilosia is the main kingdom in the Royalty roleplays. It's a pretty big kingdom with an extension of businesses sponsored by the royal family, dukes and knights and such. Citizens of Ilosia are called Ilosians.

## Culture

* Knighthood--in the original roleplay, two siblings were part of a knight organization, one of them doing competitive jousting arts. Knights are generally sort of polite and formal with the way they address things, their ideology consisting of courtesy and whatnot despite being fierce in battle--they're afraid that people will judge them because they compete so much, so they act the opposite way. The only time they should be proud or gallant is when defending their kingdom, as it is their sole duty. The Ellens, specifically, take military and royal security very seriously.
* Those of low status don't normally mingle with the higher nobles, and marriages being arranged is more of a normal thing. During the timeline of the original original, the social classes were also really not balanced, as you were either very poor or very rich but somewhat ignorant because of it, making there a bigger reason to fight for house reps and power.
* The castle has a fairly big library, but education isn't great in the actual kingdom. This is one of the causes of poverty. The queen's letters reveal a lot about the secrets of the kingdom in the OG, but the only character with full access and awareness of it has probably been too grieved about their mother in the first place to try and see.
* The Kingdom of Draseon and this one have a peace treaty that stretches back many years. As for the kingdom in which the original roleplays took place, it's full of hidden coves and nice waterfalls where the nobles live, but go deeper North and you can find tons and tons of dark forests, said to make a person forget their own reflection.
* In the rural parts, there was an increase in orphans, crime, and unemployment in the original. Unemployment indirectly causes the other two, making it a cycle.
* In the palace of the OG rp kingdom, there's a big palace with maps and charts and stuff. It's quite messy, but it definitely has some hidden drawers here and there.
* Cooking is the most popular job for someone with most basic talent in this part--the nature is not actually that bad if you have the strength to travel and get your ingredients. It doesn't take much knowledge to feed those who have never eaten more than slop, and hey, you're never hungry. Because of the education shortages, the most highly unemployed age group is youth or the elder ones purely out of time and morale. Other than cooking, artists and musicians are pretty common, building where there's resource. It keeps them going even when the more physical things prove to be lacking, with this joy they find in their passions. Thieves, too, however, tend to snatch from these free people.
* In the OG roleplay, they planned to create a program for the necessary resources. A street cleanup sounded like it would have been amazing for both environment and people, which would make lands for farming, which, of course, would provide more stable and long term jobs as well as recycle resources back to the community. There's a countess who owns quite an impressive chunk of land and wealth that she hasn't been exploiting, which means we could use, and also says something about her interests. The idea of encouragement suggests that whatever they work in, there should be decent working conditions so they aspire to keep working, was the ideology that went along with it. It was also suggested that they build schools--janitors, teachers, and general staff. They're uneducated, but not because they want to be, so scholarships would def help--courses that are specific to what a person wants to work in, sponsored, too.
* “Yes. I read an article of a country called England that used this tactic awhile back. They had the unemployed clean the streets and the town so the would desire better and higher jobs. Of course, it was a little harsh but we could build off of that tactic"
* Most nobles wouldn't want to interact with the lower class because of the greed towards keeping their concentrated wealth.
* High-ranking naming their children after each other could be seen as a way of passing down power, wealth, and good fortune that just originated with nobility and hasn’t found its way into the naming conventions of the lower classes. Religion's a bigger deal to you when it's what you believe brought your power.
* The lower classes are starting to grow dissatisfied with the state of the monarchy and the characters. Assassins attempted to kill the royal family in the original roleplay. They were hired by an anti-monarchy group. Religion affects the government sorta because of the way royalty and culture tie in so people who want to stage the coup would have common interest
* Status/class would be very blood related, meaning if you're born poor, you stay poor, and vice versa. The only was to build your way to the top is becoming an apprentice to a duke or duchess, and if you work hard enough, then you could become well known. Or you could join the royal guard, but that would be very middle-class, serving the upper class--somewhat paid because of it, but less independence.
* In high society the straying from one's assigned role is a bigger deal. But the general public, maybe not. For instance, one OC courted with one of much higher class. That is more of a petty royal-drama thing, not so much one that affects all the kingdom.
* There is a dukedom in power that sort of handles the legal things would be interesting. Like, they decide the penalties for the felonies and are basically court. They also handle paperwork and bills and such. Of course, they don't have the actual power, but their opinion is very sought-after
* When the Ellens had assassins sent towards them, the Turians were suspected despite how they're not actually very involved.
* The Ellens actually almost ran out of heirs during one point in their history, which is why they're currently pressured to have heirs or get married.
* In the Ilosian calendar, months are named after birds.

January: Owl

February: Eagle

March: Shrike

April: Starling

May: Sparrow

June: Warbler

July: Swan

August: Heron

September: Goose

## Religions

* Turianism
* Kantar, nobles are expected to practice it. Also the religion of the vast majority of ordinary citizens. They follow the priestess, The Matriarch of Sevic.

## Government

Feudal monarchy type of thing, though there are certainly people who want a revolution out there lol

The main houses in power include:

### House of Armani

The Armanis are a new but fairly slowly rising power.

Catherine Armani was born into a wealthy family, and when she became 20 she became an advisor to a royal. She met her husband, and eventually their family rose to power enough for her to become one of the wealthier Ladies. Everyone knows the Armanis, but their real power is just being a poster child to the monarchy, figureheads. Catherine is pretty strict about religion. Catherine looks and acts like what you think would be a typical homophobic mom, but she's act just like idgaf what you are as long as you follow in my footsteps.

For Alexis, she doesn't want to become like her mom, who's very power hungry and falls right into the corruption of the system, but she ends up become more and more like her with every decision she makes. The Armani colors are navy blue and gold, blue to represent wisdom and gold to represent wealth. Catherine basically has a rivalry with every noble family except for the royal family, because that's who she wants to impress.

Their father is a diplomat for the other kingdoms, which is why he is away so much, and he's a softer tongue so that's why they hired him for the job.

### House of Ellen

It honestly was a mess before the queen Inlicio passed, but after she did, any remaining contract kinda just--flopped. Inlicio's sibling used to visit the villages and such, but then they passed, and with every passing event the Ellens seemed to have less harness over the public and with it less power. Like, entire villages in the Western outskirts are starving flopped. Most of the nobles did not use their taxes for the benefit of the public, and the queen was too tired to do anything, especially after her husband passed and she lost so much motivation to rule. Katarina follows the Kantar, but their mother was doing it just for show, along with the rest of most of their house. Dillon would somewhat believe in the religion but wouldn’t fully follow it ether, if it wasn’t in the best interest of what he needed to do in a certain moment.

Later on, Grey Arthur Silverstrike courted Kyra Hailynn Ellen, an Ellen, despite his fairly low status in the hierarchy. Neptune had a ton of ambition to become king, likely from Katarina, and whenever I think of him I think of Super Wings. The House of Ellen is currently in power, as the chief governing house. Honor =>> Life =>> Karma =>> Reincarnation so they're pretty driven by religion. Reincarnation and what you do on this earth are underscored, as they are devout followers towards Kantar and it's one of those things that make them frenemies rather than enemies with the Yardleys. They're the first to come up with the naming tradition, though it's been done in the Yardley lineage, too. They're big on military, and they always like having a bunch of guards close by.

Silver, for grace, sophistication, detail, and prudence. Indigo is for justice and deep thought.

"As the soul passes into a new life when the body is old and feeble, so must the role of guardians of the faith pass onto a new house! Long live House Ellen!"

They managed to snag the title "Defenders of The Faith" from the Yardleys when they annexed their kingdom.

### House of Yardley

The Yardleys are unstable because of the twins and the rumors that circle them, but they're still quite up there due to time and lineage, there having been a Yardley ruler in the past. They gained popularity because of religion, and their house colors are black, in honor of Kantar and to symbolize their everlasting power, and violet, to symbolize nobility and all things associated with it as well as resourcefulness and creativity. Auwin Paloma Yardley knows all the secrets of the kingdom, but only ever keeps to herself. Auwin is likely a pretty big Kantist--she's basically Esther's apprentice, which could lead to Euphemia and Esther meeting, but she's really big on defending the kingdom and sort of a 'trust-no-one' figure towards the kingdom's allies, partly because she met the orphan and thief Mikhur (who has a chain of similarly destitute kids who help each other out) when they were kids and got that from her. She really only talks with people she knows, and she's always carrying sword and shield with her. Like, she literally sleeps with it. Her mom and her uncle were

The Yardley ruler is why Kantar is so popular in the first place. They were initially from a colder part of Draseon and were part of the contract, since the religion originated near there and the Yardleys preached it to Ilosia as they moved. They grew into power for a few generations until the Ellens took over. The two Houses secured a contract that made them something like a balance of powers, a while back. Yardley actually used to be its own kingdom, called Cyror, but over time, even though their influence didn't, their actual power waned. To fix this in the eye of an invasion, they shook hands with the Ellens securing a throne and combining forces in the process. Before then, the Yardleys had been in power for quite a while.
Autonomy is a big deal here

The House of Yardley is like a cousin house to the Ellens. The religion somewhat gives them something to have in common, so they try to stick to it if they don't want conflict. Anora Yardley is a devout follower and Blair Yardley would pretend to for appearances but even then they wouldn’t try very hard.

## Magic

There's definitely sorcery, but it's not, like, a common thing. It's pretty much considered obsolete and there's a high doubt for it, but it's still there, if you go deep enough into the older and far-out towns.