I guess I should put my money where my mouth is and post some lunar dominions, some of which I hope to put into my quest (which I'll never stop talking about).
Lunar Dominions
At the edge of the world lies a ring of fangs and claws. A ring that neither the ten thousand dragons of the world's heart, nor the fair lords beyond its edge has ever had the power to sunder. Not even the Great Contagion, not the One Eyed Crusade, not even the Empress and her blasphemous claim on creation's sword have ever truly broken the ring. Each weakened the lunars, killed many and shattered their children, but none was able to wipe them out, though it was her, this accidental dragon who claimed the world and saved it who bought the lunars closes to ruin.
For the eight centuries of her reign, they have prepared, mounted limited options and within creation made subtle weapons of men. Now she is gone, consumed, so the omens say, by her own hubris. The Sun Kings have returned, but they are weak, the realm is divided against itself. The dead walk but serve only to fight against the living.
Now is time to act.
The three types of Dominions
While the Silver Pact is not tied together as tightly as the Scarlet Empire or the Hundred Siblings, most Dominions have a specific purpose in mind when they are created, and a particular service they provide for the Silver Pact's constant wars in both the wyld and the world.
Like all things Lunars do, each Dominion has several aspects. So for instance, while the Haslanti league are primary a Coyote, who exists to bridge the gap between the lunars and the realm's trading network, they are also a crow, who's advanced military technology puts them on course to conquer across the North. While the Haltans are primarily a Cat, it also exists as a Coyote, attracting trade from both humans and the fair and funneling it on further to other dominions. Ma Ha Suchi's territory, perhaps the purist of all vengeance seeking Crows, is also a Cat, testing newer and better forms of life.
Coyote States
The Coyote States are not false, but they are truths that decieve, built over centuries by patient lunars who wish to gain some of the power of the centre of the world, or of the deeper wyld. A Coyote state is a state of normal humans or normal changlings and the fair, which has been nurtured and supported by Lunars, who appear as helpers, heroes, advisors to great women, or as great and mysterious men themselves, and shape a state which is friendly to the lunar's interests.
These states then act as go betweens between the Kingdom's of the edge of the world and those rich areas deeper on either side, allowing the lunars, seen as hostile by the leaders on both sides as hostile, to gain the benefits of these civilizations.
The best known examples of Coyote states in creation is the Haslanti league, which both have extensive trading relationships with both
Crow States
Crows are vengeful creatures, and clever. Their grudges go on beyond generations. The crow states are the front line of lunar's war, and are generally heavily fortified, and home to those of the lunar's servants best adapted to war. The people of crow states regularly deploy armies against the Silver Pact's enemies, claiming new territory and resources, and forcing those on both sides of the world's edge to accept the silver monarch's suzerinity, and to pay tribute.
The best known of the crow states in creation is the domain of Ma Ha Suchi.
Cat States
Cats are adaptive beings, and have great skill in making life pleasent. Living in human cities, cats manage their territories by agreeing times and diplomacy between themselves, and create cries which better persade humans to their will, all the while maintaining their dignity. The cat states are the lunar's experiments into better living, the end product of the Thousand Stream Rivers. When a cat state succeeds, its system is often copied by other lunar states.
Halta is also an example of a cat state, and humans and beastmen live together there, and where diplomacy with the fair is normalized.
Example Dominion
(only one right now cause I need to write a quest post)
The Amari Empire
Primary Aspect: Crow
Secondary Aspect: Coyote
History
Above the plains of Prasad, a chain of mountains reaches to the top of the world. When the season of the rain gods come, their final dance pours water down upon the mountains, forming lakes and feeding lush plateaus in the heights. Here lie ancient temples and museums, monuments and vistas of great beauty. From some peaks, it is said you can see the dreaming sea itself. Four times in the last two centuries have the Princes of Prasad, with their chariots, their elephants, their artillery and warstriders, and their infantry all their spears, climbed the high passes. Each time they went not to pray at the temples or see the beauty, but to wrest these meadows for those who own them. Four times then have the Amari, the Free, sent them back down to the plains, carrying their dead and without their banners.
The Amari are an ancient people, a proud culture descended from the many city states of exiles who came seeking shelter in the mountains. They draw their antecedence from dispirit groups, fromArisen Empire of the far South, from refugees from the inhuman backbenders, from those caprice of dragon kings and of demons. They formed many small cities, and built temple complexes of rock without mortar, some of which last to this day. In the first age, they were not a unified kingdom, but rather a multitude of small states. Kis, and Ampac and Vanti and all the rest. From the ranks of these, several of the exalted rose, including Nazanin, a fierce of lunar who's aspect was the llama, and who taught the the Mountain and the people of the dreaming sea to ride, and became the heroine of all.
At the Usurpation, Zaratania, who held the shard of Nazanin returned to mountains with her circle, and there made her stand against the forces of the shogunate and their sidereal allies. The dragon's wrath knew no bounds. Wishing not the expense of an occupation, a long hunt for quick Zaratania and her companions, they attacked with vast brutality, reducing the kis, which was the regions largest city to a shadowlands with an artifact of dread power, then burning many of the ancient temple complexes as they hunted everywhere for the lunar.
In turn, Zaratania lead the people in a series of guerilla raids against the realm, and journeyed into the wyld to bring back strange war machines tricked from the fae. The people retreated into the hills, and fought back from hiding, or in quick rushes on horse, or llama. At last, the Dragons admitted defeat. They could not defeat the Free, and they could not find Zaratania. They retreated back down to the plains. Several more times they would come, leaving chaos and poison in their wake, but every time, the Free would rebuild. Finally, as the shogunate decayed, they came no more. Zarantania, who was by now vastly old, even for a lunar, came to her people at the end of the last people. After all the hardship they had been through together, and all the losses, she begged them to come together as one. They would be Amari, the empire of the Free, the survivors joined by the decedents of Zaratania and her companions, who were the people of Llama, and the Condor, and the Bear, and the Cat, and by those fleeing into exile from the shogunate below.
It was not the dragons that bought Amari low, but the fair. Always jealous, they nursed long grudges for the aid that Zaratania had tricked from them. After the contagion came, lapping even the high mountains, the One Eyed Crusade tore through the mountains, and sought to slay the Free and their protectors. The battles fought in those days were of a ferocity not seen since the days after the Usurpation, as the survivors of the plague unleashed all the carefully husbanded weapons from their long cold war against the shogunate against the intruders from beyond. The war raged from peak to peak, and the armies of the free were sore pressed, for they had lost too many even before the war started. The lunar Azure Sky, who held the shard of Zarantania and Nazanin bad the free hold, for a companion of hers, Cava of the changing moon sought a solution beyond the world.
Then, the sky fell. Warriors of flame shattered the Fair and those of the Free who were near them. They tore great chunks out of the mountains and flung them at the fair folk armies, creating new valleys and low places. Whole cities burned away in the aftermath, many who survived would die of the drought when the rain gods, terrified by the onslaught, did not come.
But the Free endured.
Even after sword of creation was used, the edge of the world was close, and the fair continued to fight, some crossing the border, others retreating back from deeper in creation. An army of the fair gathered for one last victory, and the free knew sorrow as more arrived. Then, treachery among the enemy! The Cataphracts of the new Fair folk fell upon the crusaders, and smote them down into the new valleys, crushed them and changed them into those shapes that they found most pleasing.
Cava had succeeded in their mission, and had beguiled another faction of the Fair from the deeper chaos, and bought them against the one eyed host. The leaders of these Rakshasi presented themselves to Azure Sky, and to the Empress and made their submission.
Amari today
Amari is an ancient empire dating back to the time of the shogunate, which has been under the protection of multiple incarnations of a powerful lunar circle. It extends down the mountain range near Parsad, where the remains of the monsoons and various high water sources make conditions livable. High pastures support horses and llama, and various other creatures. In the northern parts of the mountains, there are even high forests, where elephants and tigers roam freely. It is a beautiful country, though sometimes a strange one, as the wyld incursion and the heavy strike of the sword of creation changed things mightily. In some places, the pastures grow with rainbow bright flowers, while in others, the giant bodies of the cyclopian war machines of Balor's Crusade lie in their death throws, large as small mountains.
Most Amari settlements are at the top of hills, a series of fortified compounds of rock and mud brick, each with its own water cistern to collect rain and supplement the communal supply. Each village is governed by a Rasnan, or noble, a position subject to election on the death or retirement of the previous occupant. These elections are done on a household by household level, and usually go to the area's richest family, though they can sometimes become bosterous affairs when two or more families compete. The Rasnan's job is to distribute communal water and supplies, to collect taxes, and perform public works in the area.
The Emperor or Empress is elected for life by a congress of the Rasnan, with each having one vote for every one hundred families, or part there of, who live in the settlement they represent. This system often becomes rancorous, but it has so far prevented the kind of violence between large land holding families jockeying for power seen in many other places around creation.
Beastmen and humans live together in Amari cities, and most larger cities have a quarter for fae blooded and even full blooded fair. This relationship is not without its tension however, and most inhabitants wear several iron charms to secure themselves against possible attack. This has not kept Fae courtesans from becoming very popular among the rich or ambitious of the empire, with the chance that one's children will have the blood of the fair, and the sorcery that implies.
The balance between human and fair is maintained more than anything by the presence of a powerful circle of lunars, lead by a llama talisman shard which has reincarnated in the area many times since the first age. These lunars and the strongest of their beastmen children act as the empire's chief agents and advisors, defeating criminals and rogue spirits, and providing advise and training for the army. The lunars do not rule, but they are the kingdoms protectors. The balance has been maintained for two centuries, and so far seems to be working. Some in the Empire do still worry that the Fair have some long term plot of their own, one that will not go well for Amari's mortal citizens.
The flower of Amari's armies fight mounted, either from horse, boar, Simhata or llama back, and employ bow, fire wand, saber and lance as their weapons of choice. Some units capture giant eagles or elephants as war animals.
Most cavalry are light, employing missiles and light, face lance attacks when they have the advantage, however the Empire also employs large numbers of heavy cavalry and superheavy cataphracts. Despite favoring mounted combat, most Amari cavalry are unafraid to dismount and fight on foot if the terrain requires it, and their lances can do double duty as long spear. Gossamer and fae glass weapons are available to the richer of Amari's troops, but almost universally, the mortal warriors of Amari prefer iron or iron plated steel armour, usually lamellar or chain, with superheavy cavalry employing chain swathing on both rider and mounts.
Mortals of Amari believe that cavalry riding, and thus warfare are women's work, especially as women may be brides of Ahlat, though the Lunars have again and again tried to stamp out this belief. Infantry, when it is raised, are support troops and guerrillas, providing little more than lines of protected respite for friendly cavalry in a major clash.
Against heavy infantry forces, such as blessed isle legions or the disciplined phalanxes employed by several powers on the dreaming sea, the Amari employ charges by lancers armed with double length lances to overcome long spears, and sometimes attack enemy formations with their wyld derived war machines, behemoths and animated objects domesticated from the wyld. The Free have also been known to pay mercenaries from other people to provide heavy infantry.
