Something of a work-in-progress, but here we go:

EDIT: 6/11/18 00.10 - Location changed to the island East of Fibor, as original location taken by Zealossus

[hider=The Vershellen Principalities]

[b]Nation Name:[/b] Vershellen Principalities

[b]Flag:[/b] Sable, a phoenix ascendant Or and three mullet imperial Or.

[b]Type of Government:[/b] Constitutional Monarchy

[b]Head(s) of Government:[/b] Her Effulgent Majesty Aurelia II, by grace of the gods Queen of Vershellen, Duchess of Pyroborea, Marquess of Sairland and the Rathing Sea, Countess Orielle and Mistress of the Opal Court

His Radiant Grace the Duke of Manticore, Julian Rigo-Ruthven, by grace of the Crown Chancellor and First Lord of the Treasury of the Star Chamber Parliament of the Vershellen Principalities

[b]Economy[/b] (Main imports, exports, industries, technology level, etc.)

[b]Imports:[/b]

Silver
Tea
Lumber
Fruit
Textiles
Dyes

[b]Exports:[/b]

Magical Devices
Machinery & Tools (Finished Goods)
Gemstones
Building Stone
Copper
Gold
Financial Services (Banking)
Munitions

[b]Industries:[/b] Vershellen is the cradle of imperial industry. Its volcanically-active landscapes are rich in metals vital for the Industrial Revolution, and the elves of the Principalities have eagerly adapted their magic to the new, technological age. Teams of sorcerer-engineers work tirelessly to build and maintain forges, factories, foundries and smelters that draw power straight from the molten heart of the earth, taking in vast quantities of raw materials and turning out exquisitely-finished goods by the ton, and the great gross of tons. Most of the tremendous output – however much the Vershellese increase production – goes in tribute to supporting the Yllendyr, supplying both the burgeoning imperial middle classes and the colonization efforts in the New World.

[b]Technology:[/b] Vershellen pioneers the fusion of magic and science, rejecting neither and embracing both. Forges powered by the volcanic fury of the island, electricity drawn from their mastery over the very quintessence of fire, machines given life and purpose by arcane power…the sorcerer-engineers of Vershellen continually blur the boundaries between the arcane and mundane. As a consequence, Vershellese weapons are just as likely to hurl lead shot and high explosives as they are to project searing toroids of stellar plasma, and their ornate buildings are just as likely to have been raised from the earth with a word as they are to have been built by sheer physical toil.

[b]Primary Species:[/b] Vershellese – elves. 

[b]Population:[/b] 103 million

[b]Culture:[/b] Cultured and urbane, many of the outward trappings of Yllendese culture have been adopted by the Vershellese. The great families are arranged into noble Houses, each with their representatives in the House of Blood in the Parliament, vying with one another for power and position at both local and imperial level, leveraging their wealth and racial closeness to the dark elves into ever greater influence.

The Yllendyr are happy to let the Vershellese play with their Star Chamber Parliament, with their noble Houses and their figurehead Queen, seeing in this their political energies spent more in domestic disputes rather than focused on their imperial liege lords. The froth and fury of the debating chamber, though, hides many Vershellese projects from the oversight of Yllendyr advisors and interlocutors, and that suits the Principalities and its government right down to the ground. After all, one never knows when [i]something[/i] might bring the whole institution down around their ears.

[b]Religious and Other Beliefs:[/b] Their gods abandoned them or were defeated and subsumed when the Yllendyr came – or so the prevailing thinking goes. The Vershellese learned many a harsh lesson as a tributary state of the Imperium, although they avoided most depredations by dint of their timely [i]request[/i] - not surrender, never surrender, the elves of Vershellen are far too proud for that - for admittance to the empire, and now believe that it is only by the labour of hand and brain they can drag themselves up from the mud and into a bright and gilded age of their own making. Worship and reliance on numinous gods availed them naught when Yllendyr darkened the seas around the Red Isle. Pyroil projectors, lightning casters, heavy artillery, plasma gatlings, ironclad dreadnoughts and golem legions, now…they might yet keep the Principalities inviolate, come what may.

[b]Location/Territories:[/b] The northernmost island of the Old World.

[b]Climate:[/b] Lush, wet and tropical, the Principalities experience little in the way of seasonal variation – it is always summer, fuelled by the abundance of volcanic activity across the isle. Hot springs, sulphur-crusted fumaroles, lava lakes and towering volcanoes dot the landscape, and keeping them under control is a never-ending task for the armies of sorcerer-engineers that Vershellen’s academies turn out in their thousands.

[b]Military:[/b] The Principalities prefer devices over flesh when it comes to war. They are also an island nation, and as such the Vershellen Fleet of the Imperial Navy is one of the largest and most advanced, boasting thirty ironclad dreadnoughts of the latest pattern, with all their attendant crusiers, destroyers, frigates and supporting elements. On land, the Principalities provide their sorcerer-engineers to the Imperial Army, serving as artillerists, gunners, mechanics, logisticians and sappers. However, again, the Principalities have turned to metal and magic in an effort to save fragile elven flesh themselves – and to stockpile military might against the day when the Imperium’s attention might be distracted. On the Red Isle itself, a hundred thousand steel golems have stepped forth from secret forgeworks dotted amongst the foundries and taken up positions throughout the island’s cities, shipyards, ports and fortresses. Decorative and utterly silent until called upon, the imperial advisors think them nothing more than baroque decoration.

[b]Magic Prevalence/Usage and Elemental Alignment:[/b] Magic is universal; every Vershellen elf has the spark dancing in their soul, and it is integrated into their society in a way that few can match. They have a particular affinity for the quintessence of fire – plasma – but welcome with open arms the study and practice of all the disciplines. Plasma magic drives the developing industrial colossus and brings abundant light and energy to the province, but the other magics are important too. Solid, to raise cities and vast factory-cathedrals against the elements and have them stand strong forever; Liquid, to make and mould the miscellany of industrial chemicals, to power the transition between states and to control the thousand springs that rise across the Principalities; Gas, to keep the air free from industrial pollutants and to ventilate the sprawling mines beneath; and lastly, Mind, to animate the great presses, the conveyors, the digging machines that labour in the stygian darkness of the depths, and – most critically and secretly – the war-golem legions.

[b]History/Background Info:[/b] In the depths of history, the Vershellese were tribal, supported by the extreme abundance of the Red Isle in their internecine conflicts over a thousand petty ideologies, philosophies and doctrines. Scores of gods and hundreds of tribes rose, mixed and fell amid the fecund and kindly rainforests. Over time, these tribes divided the island between themselves, intermarrying and trading more than fighting - the Red Isle provided more than enough for everyone. Over it all, there loomed the volcanic heartlands: hot springs, fumaroles, lava flows and the towering volcanoes themselves, dominating and shaping the landscape and the elves that lived within it. Magic in these times was a sacred thing, to be used only in ritual appeasement - or condemnation, calling upon the ancient flame deep within the earth. 

Magic slowly unified the Vershellese over centuries, tying them together with bonds of doctrine and theology, a pantheon of burning gods for each of the great volcanoes, all ruled by the Unconquered Sun - an arrangement that became echoed in the developing aristocracy rising out of the blurring, settling tribes. Safe and secure in their volcanic home, the Vershellese paid little attention to the outside world, raising stupendous cities from volcanic rock and harvesting the bounty of the rich, ashy soil. Ancient and decadent, the solar elves of the Vershellen Principalities have long revelled in the abundance of their island home. 

The coming of the Yllendyr sent shockwaves through Vershellen society. The gods that had seen the Principalities through for centuries failed and faltered against the dark iron tide approaching across the sea, and into the vacuum of power left by the clergy of the Sun there stepped the nobles. Powerful socially, masters of soft power - the only sort they'd been permitted under the Solar Church - they seized the reins and the main chance, recognizing a far superior power and the need to preserve as much of Vershellen as possible.

Their gambit paid off and saved the Red Isle from the darker fates which befell many other nations under the imperial yoke. In the sun elves, Yllendyr recognized kindred, and many of their heavier-handed demands passed the vassal Principalities by. Even so, the Principalities have changed beyond all recognition - the gods have vanished from Vershellen devotion, replaced by the Crown and nobility, and magic has been entirely unchained, producing an unprecedented flowering of technique and power. At the forefront are the sorcerer-engineers of the Isle, backed by the power and money of the great trading Houses that now eagerly look beyond the island borders to the wide blue vastness of the sea, and all the lands beyond.

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