[hider=The Caelrumoste Regency]][center][h2]The Regency of Caelrumoste[/h2][/center]
[center][quote=Ancient Caelrumoste Folk-Legend][i]"Whoso ascends and anoints the carmot throne with the light of truth 
shall be the rightwise master of the numinous islands,
and their will shall be as providence amongst mortalkind."[/i][/quote][/center]

[hider=History]In ancient bygone times, the Caelrumoste archipelago was controlled by a magically adept species of Naga called the Rashommai, thought to be distant biological relatives to the mainland ancient Ashammai Medusa. Not much is known of their society beyond the accepted hypothesis that they were particularly skilled alchemists, and that culturally they were known for their expertise in ritual magecraft.

Much like the ancient Ashammai who brought ruin upon themselves through forbidden magical experimentation, the Rashommai regime is thought to have been annihilated from backlash resulting due to a fault in an attempt at epic ritual magic. No official records or archaeological remnants exist that suggest such an event occured, and the theory derives entirely from oral tradition and storytelling passed down through hundreds of successive generations. 

According to the legends, the Rashommai had devised a ritual which would grant one amongst them with the [i]Will To Power[/i], providence made manifest through the desires and thoughts of the bearer. However, the ritual required at its core a mote of unfettered, elemental truth - which the Naga varyingly either misidentified, corrupted, misused, or were simply unable to ever procure. When they attempted their ritual, the very fabric of creation abjured them from the face of the world as a consequence of their botched ritual, leaving only the lesser species, the minorities and the slaves of the Rashommai regime to inherit the archipelago. 

So the stories go.

Over the millennia since, the people of Caelrumoste have generally been disparate and in conflict with one another, precluded from achieving any kind of harmonious unity due to separation by the ocean and the difficulty in traversing it. What few journeys were made in those times were ultimately enterprises of greed and conquest. Each island in the archipelago served as home not only to different species, but different races of each of those species in turn, and each with its own cultures and traditions. The only common theme shared between the disparate peoples of the archipelago was the same legend of the throne of carmot, to be anointed with truth and from which all the islands of Caelrumoste would be ruled. 

This single legend, shared by the people of every island, would eventually serve to unite them. On the central island of Apocea, a prospector by the name of Mannet was digging at the peak of Mt. Mandjet, and discovered that buried under just a scant meter of sediment lay the mountain's crown, a cast and molded peak made from the lustrous alchemical metal, carmot. Word and rumor spread like flame, and soon every mand, women, and child on every island knew that the mythical throne of carmot lay upon the island of Apocea.

There came to be a great gathering of the islanders upon Mandjet's crown, which they cleared and cleaned to reveal the true throne atop the mountain. In the radiance of that throne, the sorcerer Tiencamot, heeding the word of the legends of old, plucked a shard of Ammacre straight from his heart. The people atop the crown of the mountain each anointed the Ammacre heartshard with a measure of their lifeblood, which was then offered unto the throne alongside their joint avowals of unity. Presented with an offering of unfettered truth, the carmot throne was thus anointed and Tiencamot did ascend to become the first King of all of Caelrumoste.

So the stories go.

No true written record of Caelrumoste's formation exists in the present day. Accounts, letters, and documents from that time describe King Tiencamot and his rule, along with references to the various tribal authorities of the surrounding islands, but little of it remains undamaged and reliable. Modern historians theorize that Tiencamot may simply have been either a peace-broker or else a conqueror who succeeded in uniting the islands either by means of wealth or wit of force. The legendary Mt. Mandjet has been identified by reference to these same documents, now known as Mt. Mesek, and bears no trace of the alleged carmot throne leading many historians to speculate that the legend of that meeting was exactly that - a legend. A few have even gone so far as to suggest the tale was deliberately fabricated in order to shore up Tiencamot's early rule, justifying the unification and his rule over the archipelago by dint of divine authority.

Since those days, the Kingdom of Caelrumoste has lived through what some might call an unremarkable interlude. Seemingly isolated from the remainder of the world by the ocean and its currents, its troubles were largely internal by nature, disputes arising amongst the island populations - oppressive taxation and crushing poverty, rebellion and famine, plague and ruin. A few of the islands have even suffered cataclysms brought on by the overmining of native Ammacre crystal.

In modern modern times, Caelrumoste had finally developed more effective seafaring methods and improved means of construction, enabling them to build some of their first truly seaworthy vessels. This induced a surge of production amongst the islands as a veritable fleet was created in order to better connect the islands and the people between them, but this fervor ultimately had come too soon and the people had acted too quickly. Seizing opportunity, many of the islands again rebelled, attempting to conquer the smaller realms of Caelrumoste piecemeal through the use of new naval craft. While the loss of life from these wars was minimal, many more people were ultimately displaced or driven to exile by them, and many of their early seafaring craft went into exile with them - giving rise to the constant piracy that has plagued the islands since.

In the last century of Caelrumoste's history, the island had in fact been hampered primarily by pervasive, organized piracy efforts. Attempts to quell the rampant piracy were rendered more difficult due to contemporaneous efforts to reach and chart the ports of the mainland continent, resulting in the loss of an extended portion of Caelrumoste's commercial fleet from inclimate weather and foreign hostility which created confusion both as to the source the pirate raids as well as whether pirates had even been responsible for many of the losses. The first half of the century was spent simply locating and eradicating elements of the pirate threat locally while making initial diplomatic contact with the mainland powers. However, during this same period the archipelago nonetheless became wealthier and highly developed due to the successful efforts of several powerful, mage-sponsored merchant guilds which were able to more easily communicate with each other than had been possible in the past. Following their example, the royal family elected to sponsor the creation of official arcane enclaves upon each of Caelrumoste's islands, where magecraft could be pursued and utilized in the furtherance of Caelrumoste's prosperity. 

This proved to be a mistake.

The presence of the royal enclaves and the availability of funding with which court-sponsored could now utilize for various purposes led to some of the first efforts to excavate millenia-old Rashommai ruins, where previously no productive mage had the time or resources necessary to invest in such a prolonged and expensive endeavor. Aided further by their interconnection with one another, the enclaves unearthed ancient arcane secrets which were then widely shared between them. Advanced, sophisticated magical knowledge and theory became widely distributed throughout Caelrumoste, and at the behest of the royal enclaves many small, independent schools of magical study were established throughout the islands with the intention of making essential, basic spellcraft available to the common populace.

While this led to the rapid development of comprehensive magical archives within Caelrumoste along with the publishing of several prominent magical treatises, tomes, and monograms, this period of sponsorship and rapid development within and without the mages enclaves ultimately gave rise to a group of powerful mages who would come to be known as The Adversaries.

The Adversaries were a group of some of the most skilled and powerful mages in Caelrumoste, all of whom held positions of some authority within royal enclaves and who held official positions within the King's court on Apocea. Each also had access to the royal Ammacre reserves, and each possessed a robust, expert knowledge of magecraft. The Adversaries, realizing their unique position and the opportunity it afforded them, began to conspire and scheme with each other in order to usurp the throne of Caelrumoste and assume rule over the land. Although The Adversaries were able to unite with one another under this common goal, they predictably fell apart when each of them in turn decided that they alone should rule. The Adversaries spent years embroiled in secretive shadow-wars with one another, constantly maneuvering themselves and their affairs politically in order to gain an upper-hand in the coming conflict. 

It is not known which of The Adversaries made their move first, but when they did the others immediately followed suit. What followed was the thirty-years war, alternatively referred to as the Cursed Days. The conflict began with the King falling ill to a magical disease, and ferocious, bestial summoned entities with the ability to shapeshift massacring and replacing the royal guard. They were immediately discovered by several courtiers who had became magically enthralled to another Adversary and were able to immediately discern their true nature. The palace grounds then collapsed into a massive sinkhole as numerous earth elementals arose and besieged the survivors, and then the corpses all began to reanimate...

In the chaos that followed, The Adversaries each attempted to seize control of Caelrumoste's military apparatus by means of impersonating various members of the now-defunct court's hierarchy, from the king to his personal advisers to his heirs to extended family members. As magical plague, summoned minions, reanimated dead, and mind-controlled servitors spread across the islands, The Adversaries each attempting to locate and eliminate each other while usurping what remained of Caelrumoste's standing army. Generals and commanding officers would receive contradictory orders from the same authorities, and be instructed to simultaneously relieve and to siege the same settlements, or to eliminate or support the same group of arcane assets. When the military finally began to ignore such dispatches, The Adversaries began to control and impersonate what remained of the military hierarchy as well. The royal enclaves were all sieged in turn, left intact but forcing their occupants to flee, starve, or perish. Hundreds of thousands of commoners died as a result of bloody combat between magical servitors or at the hands of paranoid soldiery who did not know who or what to trust. Cities and towns became isolated and mistrustful, militarizing themselves and becoming onto their own city-states in an attempt to stave off the disaster that had befallen the rest of the kingdom. 

The conflict between The Adversaries went on seemingly without any possibility for respite for over twenty years. It was not until seven years ago when the conflict finally reached a turning point: One of the Adversaries was finally ran aground by the forces of another, their bases of power and their resources stolen. They determined that if they could not be victorious, they would deny victory to the others. They willingly gave themselves up to the common people and revealed the existence of The Adversaries and their schemes.

Having identified the source of their strife, the people and what remained of the military banded together and in a single coordinated effort, surrounded and either seized or destroyed what remained of the royal Ammacre reserves along with every noteworthy Ammacre mine on record throughout the entire kingdom. They then patiently waited for The Adversaries to run out of Ammacre with which to fuel their arcane rituals and weapons of choice. A scant few years later, the magical horrors that had plagued the land subsided, then vanished. The people organized mage-hunter squads to divine and scry the locations of The Adversaries using crucial intelligence provided by the turncoat, managing to capture, execute or kill several of them before the remainder went into hiding.

The war was not yet over - conflict would persist for several years as the people of Caelrumoste reorganized and recovered, as individual Adversaries came across forgotten Ammacre deposits or contrived methods to steal spare shards. Entire towns would go dark whenever an Adversary managed to scrape together enough Ammacre to mount an attack. The people only redoubled their efforts in response, sending surveyors out into the wild to find and secure every last node and vein of Ammacre throughout the islands - and finally, at some point, The Adversaries were unable to acquire more.

Over the last two years, Caelrumoste has rebuilt and endeavored to track down the remaining Adversaries. A Regent has been informally chosen to preside over the islands as they recover, until such time as a proper chain of succession can be reestablished. The Cursed Times officially came to a close several weeks ago, the one-year anniversary of the last known major attack by an Adversary.

The people of Caelrumoste live in perpetual fear of the return of The Adversaries, many of whom remain at large and have sworn to stop at nothing to conquer the archipelago. In response, a drastic resolution has been reached: The complete removal of all native Ammacre from the country, to the extent it is safe to remove it from the lands without invoking cataclysm, so as to make the land unappealing and adversarial to the presence of not only The Adversaries, but mages in general.[/hider]
[hider=Government]Caelrumoste is presently overseen by a secular Regency, which theoretically wields the full sovereign authority of a ruling monarch. The Regent proper, Irlvu Mountebank, is little more than an overt dictator who rules by wit of force, but who at least nominally acts in the best interest of Caelrumoste as a whole. His authority in practice is derived from a long, thorough, and secure chain of command which can effortlessly replace him in the event of his untimely demise. Despite the tyrannical nature of his position and rule, Irlvu has a considerable degree of popular support amongst the general populace and the regional governors of the archipelago due to his extensive involvement in the securing of Caelrumoste's Ammacre reserves and the capture of several Adversaries. He is something of a household name in Caelrumoste as a result, and very few individuals have the heart to actually refuse any request he might make of them. He is widely known to have spoken as to his distaste for ruling over the archipelago, and excepts to surrender his status as soon as Caelrumoste can achieve a renascent state of legitimacy that can stand on its own without him having to shore itself up.

In practice, a small number of experienced, surviving veterans of the Cursed Days occupy each major city in the archipelago, training new militia, keeping the peace, and acting as direct-proxies-by-correspondence to the Regent proper. However, these veterans are few and far between, spread over far too much space and too few in number to effectuate a cohesive or reliable presence. By and large, Caelrumoste society has split and centralized by island into individual regions, centered upon larger cities. Individual settlements are largely self-governed, with the Regency operating on a policy of 'Don't make us come over there.'[/hider]
[hider=Demographics][b][u]Maying (Human)[/u][/b]
Humans form a tentative majority between the various islands of the Caelrumoste Archipelago. Their demonym is derived from a derogatory trend that emerged during the early divisive period falling the fall of the Naga Empire; most other species between the islands possessing less externally apparent racial distinction between each other relative to those of Humans, who all possessed varying skin tones and facial features by island. Each separate island race was commonly mistaken as its own species rather than all being Human, a misconception only reinforced by each separate island population of Humans using different languages and possessing different cultures and aesthetics. Once it became common knowledge that each race was in fact part of the same Human species, the archipelago natives looked down upon them as changelings who could change the color of their skin, being best-known for their relatively short lifespans. Modern Maying Humans have since interbred to the extent that most Humans in Caelrumoste possess similar physical traits and characteristics, with reduced racial distinctiveness between individual islands (although these Human races are still notably present and in many cases dominant upon particular islands). Apocean Mayings are noted for their darker, bronze skin coloration, their drawn and narrow facial features, and copper-brown, wavy hair.

[b][u]Barwhett (Elf)[/u][/b]
The Barwhett are one of the dominant and only native race of elves to the Caelrumoste archipelago. Having resided on Ganlt, the Easternmost island of the archipelago, the Barwhett elves acclimatized during the divisive period of history after the fall of the Naga Empire to an environment that had fallen into cataclysm - resulting in a lineage of nomadic, ashen-skinned elves known for traveling under cover of dust storms. Unlike many other elven races, their features are inherently spotty, blotchy, and prone to developing sores, and they have shortened overall lifespans as a result of having physiology adapted to living more comfortably in the turbulent and chaotic environment of voidlands. They have a heightened immune response that affords them enhanced resilience to disease, but which also renders them vulnerable to particularly crippling allergic reactions, particularly to 'sweet' foods. Being culturally nomadic and insular, individual families habitually organize themselves into extended clans that move between private lodgings around the archipelago seasonally, and in modern times this has given rise to the caricature of the unhelpfully expeditious merchant elf. Barwhett elves, as an extension of their cultural mobility, often employ themselves as vendors, stall-merchants, and small business owners but tend to move around quickly from place to place, making them frequent targets of blame for crime-waves or deals gone sour. Their insular nature and the specificity of their dietary requirements also makes catering to their needs difficult, and their population suffered the most out of all of the species due to their inability to move freely during the Cursed Times.

[b][u]Largraun (Dwarf)[/u][/b]
The Largraun are a race of dwarves native to the Volwerdandt volcanic chain of the Caelrumoste archipelago. They possess uncharacteristically weak cave-adaptation due to the volcanic nature of their islands rendering subterranean living riskier in addition to the high overall content of luminescent mineral Ammacre upon the chain, which they used culturally as a light source for thousands of years. Also due to the turbulent nature of their home environment, they are unusually known (amongst Dwarves) for their coastal settlements. Since ancient times, they have exploited natural lava flows and shifting tides in order to create massive pillars of cast obsidian which they use as aggrandized stilts, upon which they build great towns and cities using fired clay. The Largraun dwarves are culturally known for their art, particularly in the form of their ubiquitous carved-obsidian and Ammacre idols (now considered contraband), and they are particularly held in high-esteem for their cultural practice of glass-working. Theirs was also the first species upon the Caelrumoste archipelago to make peace and establish trade relations with the native Refik seafolk, and consequently the first species to establish a stable mode of seagoing travel between the islands of the archipelago.

[b][u]Sarmtymske (Dwarf)[/u][/b]
A race of dwarves native to the Western cluster of the Irrvulnor islands off the coast of Apocea, the Sarmtymske possess a unique adaptation to the darkened, shadow-dominated jungles and ravines of the islands in the form of a thin chemical membrane along the surface of their eyes which responds to different variations of low-light exposure, affording them two separate senses of sight dependent upon the climate of where they reside, being particularly sensitive to the concentration of oxygen and methane in the air. Underground, they possess full cave-adaptation equal to that of deep dwarves, being easily blinded by most light sources. When passing into the high-oxygen and low-methane environment of the Irrvulnor jungle ravines, their eyes secrete a thin chemical barrier that affords them the equivalent of mild cave-adaptation usually seen in Mountain dwarves, possessing greater tolerance for light sources. Unlike most other races of dwarf however, the Sarmtymske 'visual' range does not adapt to variations in light levels over time, and strictly switches only between the two different forms of adaptation, and cannot ever adapt to true above-ground light conditions, making life in well-lit areas particularly or amongst other races difficult for them and vice-versa. In modern times they are known for their fashion sense due to the ubiquity of tinted glasses and face-masks adorned while commuting on the surface, and also for their cultivation of highly biomineralized fungi. Historically, the Irrvulnor jungle ravines have been threatened with flooding due to the invasive machinations of Refik seafolk who would infiltrate the waters and swamps of the ravines to wage open war with the dwarves, and the two races harbor a long-smoldering animosity for each other.

[u][b]Ambucane (Beastfolk)[/b][/u]
Thought to be the descendants of conquered and domesticated dragons during the era of the Naga empire, the Ambucane of the Southwestern Pelc islands lived as opportunistic ambush predators who rested in states of torpor for weeks waiting for prey to wander close. The Ambucane are long cold-blooded serpents with six limbs, capable of burrowing in sand, ash, and dirt. They have poor light-based vision, but make up for it with excellent thermal vision, enhanced olfactory nerves, and sensitivity to seismic vibrations. They are more than three and a half meters in length from the tip of their snout to the end of their tail, and pound for pound they are the strongest living beings in Caelrumoste. They habitually lived in centralized dens that serviced a dozen or more Ambucane over an area of a hundred kilometers, built around naturally occurring thermal baths. Ambucane would traditionally consume rocks to help them digest their prey, and upon returning to their den, regurgitate the contents of their stomach as a putrefied morass of fluids into a clay urn which all of the Ambucane would then feed from, relying on the sheer toxicity of their own guts to keep the rancid mess free of any contaminants other than their own. Due to their slow metabolisms, they are extremely long-lived, and there are a few Ambucane of note who have allegedly been alive since the beginning of King Tiencamot's rule (although this is widely decried as fabrication). Ambucane are extremely languid and slothful, and despite possessing unmatched strength can only exhibit it in brief bursts due to their metabolism. They are thought to have been originally enslaved by the Naga empire and used as beasts of burden and as burrowers for excavation, and contemporaneously they form a close second majority behind the native Mayling population in the Caelrumoste archipelago. As a people, they suffered the greatest losses of any species during the Cursed Days, as their inability to move quickly and their tendency to congregate in massive dens made them easy targets for The Adversaries and their schemes. Due to the massive dieoff in their population, Ambucane culture has all but disintegrated and their prior tradition of living together in massive dens has fallen into disfavor. Consequently, modern Ambucane live in diverse conditions and amongst many other species working as burrowers and laborers.

[b][u]Refik (Seafolk)[/u][/b]
The Refik are amphibious sea-serpents capable of breathing air, with large, adapted pectoral fins ending in grasping, claw-like extremities near their tips - resembling to a degree the wings of bats. Although the Refik can breath air, they are not able to do so for extended periods of time, and if they spend too long out of the water they can perish due to oxygen toxicity. Originally preying upon the various islanders of Caelrumoste, once fortified coastal settlements began to spring up with neither the Seafolk nor the islanders possessing any reliable means of waging war with each other, they grudgingly began to tolerate each other’s' presence, leading eventually to exchanges of goods and services between each other and culminating in the modern-day presence of Refik coral dens amongst every coastal city and port in Caelrumoste, where they act as shipwrights, fishermen, sea-tenders, sailors, architects, merchants, and more - adopting many of the trappings of civilized life in the process. Although most Caelrumoste Refik are 'civilized,' insofar as such as distinction goes, it is not unheard of for Refik sirens to lure unwary islanders to their doom using their innate ability to mimic the voices of land-dwelling creatures. The Refik are even common sights further inland, where they have been known to grow massive coral dams amidst rivers connecting to the sea, from which they can venture out onto land. They and the Sarmtymske dwarves have a historic hatred for one another due to many perilous wars fought in the crushing darkness of the inland ravine marshelands of the Irrvulnor jungles.[/hider]
[hider=Culture]The culture of Caelrumoste has always been diverse and highly disparate due in part to the historical difficulty in traveling between the islands. Many of its species are highly insular and mistrustful, and it is only in more recent times that they have come together as a unified society. Cultural practices, traditions, architecture, the arts, the dominant spoken language, religion, and philosophical trends all vary uniquely between each island in the archipelago. The central island of Apocea, however, has served as a melting pot for each of the island species and their practices over the ages, with a blend of all of them mixed together with accommodation and compromise. 

The various species of Caelrumoste are highly polarized, but intermingle and interact with each other on a daily basis to the extent that race riots are unheard of. Intermarriage between the species is possible but extremely rare; amongst the Humanoid groups interspecies couplings involving dwarves results in frequent miscarriages for reasons that evade most physicians, and the unique physiology of Barwhett elves often yields sterile offspring with substantial, crippling deformities that rarely live beyond early infancy. Interspecies unions are publicly viewed as doomed and counterproductive, and so the only instances of species sharing the same living space tends to arise amongst tenements and slums, with families and clans almost universally consisting of a single species. Ghettos and slums, where they occur, are largely multicultural with no distinct species-lines. 

The people of Caelrumoste are, generally speaking, learned and well-educated due to the prior widespread implementation of the magical enclaves, which were open to the public in many senses and provided public access to libraries. The prior drive and focus upon magical experimentation and research created a great demand for scribes, language-teachers, and craftmages led to the kingdom creating subsidies and sponsoring the employment of educators who could provide cheap education to the masses on the theory that it might eventually lead to a more intelligent and productive workforce, and the spread of magical industries and additional modern infrastructure also encouraged the spread of basic literacy amongst the remaining population. As many as two in five people throughout the islands are literate, capable of reading and writing with various levels of proficiency in various languages. There are also a large number of skilled laborers with specialized, trained skills, despite the losses brought on during the Cursed Days. The Cursed Days themselves did not result in a significant downturn in educational practices or inspire much in the way of intellectualism due to the widespread implementation of formally written contracts and contractual relationships, but did give rise to a significant fear and hatred for mages and magic in general, to the extent that all mages must wear armbands in public and can be expected to be thrown out of most public establishments, though there have been few lynches...so far.

The most marked distinction in the arrangement of the lands is the diversification of crop, particularly those of common cereals as the various species all possess different dietary requirements and drastically different traditional preferences which also require different climates altogether. Local greenhouses are common throughout Apocea, and most towns and cities host public vivariums where private rooms can be rented for the growth of personal gardens according to various conditions. Outside of these enclosed environments farming and agriculture is defined largely by latitude and proximity to the coastline in order to accommodate the approximate requirements for certain plant species, but after the development of reliable sea-travel and the rapid diversification of the central island Apocea became akin to a breadcasket, dependent at least partly upon internal trade from the other islands to maintain its supply of exotic foodstuffs and cuisine. Due to this very diversity and the difficulty in growing certain crop, the frequent famines that occurred during The Cursed Days were greatly exacerbated, with Barwhett elves and the Ambucane perishing in droves due to mass starvation in the absence of specialized crops and adequate sources of meat. Even in the wake of the Cursed Days, the availability of most foods, even common cereals, is scarce and famine is frequent although fewer die from it. This has consequentially resulted in the uprooting and exodus of many families and clans from Apocea back to their native islands, seeking more promising climates for their preferred crop. It has also resulted in extreme instances of culinary experimentation and fraud, with street vendors serving 'mystery broth' promised to be viable for every species.

The arts have suffered greatly as a result of the Cursed Days, particularly amongst the Largraun and Sarmtymske dwarven populations who would frequently use Ammacre crystals in their crafts. Culturally all of the islands took a great shine to the traditional obsidian and gemstone totems made by the Largraun and the fashion of the Sarmtymske, but these very same items became known as the tools and items of mages, who found it popular to make artifacts and arcane devices out of many of the same. More than one Adversary is even suspected of having temporarily regained power through use of stockpiled religious idols with embedded Ammacre gems. Materials craftwork has suffered greatly as a result, and in its marked absence there has been a substantial upswing in the prominence of tavern and street music, poetry, and public theater. Many other traditional artforms such as pottery, sculpting, painting, and more have declined notably.

The religions of the Caelrumoste islands are all widely accepted as being loose analogues of each other, all generally describing in broad strokes the same essential story. In the beginning, there was but the Ocean and the Sky. They loved each other but could not ever touch. In order to be with each other, the Sky conjured great and fierce winds while the Ocean danced and swayed to create tides, and between them created a great vortex made of sea and sky. The Sky cast Divine Light down from the heavens through the vortex and seeded the Ocean with life. In time, the Ocean swelled and burst, a great mass arising from its form and bursting open with flame and power, giving birth to chaos. The fires scattered across the world to become the spark of life within all beings and creatures, but the scars of the Ocean's birthing remained in the form of the Numinous Islands - Caelrumoste, literally translated to mean 'Cradle of Fugue' in the ancient tongue. Somewhere upon the islands, there remains the site where the Divine Light of the Heavens touched the earth, where chaos was conceived, known as the Carmot Throne, and it is there where the union of the Sea, the Sky, and Chaos itself converge and may be evoked. The figures of this mythical story vary in name, actions, character, and nature, as do the details of the story itself, but most parties would be able to agree on this vague summary. Anything more concrete or detailed invariably spawns diatribes, death threats, melodramatic monologues, accusations of blasphemy, and threats of holy war.

Curiously, during The Cursed Days, the Adversaries all made a point of eliminating all religious temples, shrines, and palces of worship dedicated to the varying island religions. Neither the turncoat nor the few captured Adversaries revealed why, even under intensive interrogation, and the topic is a matter of some speculation and rumor amongst the masses. Religious artifacts and relics are rare due to their frequent destruction during The Cursed Days, with what little remained either being confiscated by the Regency for safe keeping, destroyed under suspicion of use in magecraft, smuggled out of the country, or else kept in private collections. Such valuable antiques are quite literally priceless as a result, at least within the Caelrumoste archipelago. Despite the crippling of each official religious institution amongst the islands, their organizations have been making a strong comeback due to their oral traditions and their frequent use in poetry and theater in the newly burgeoning verbal artistic renascence.

The architecture featured in Apocea is largely schizophrenic, with dwellings and places of business built according to particular traditional aesthetics, renovated and refurbished dozens of times, and then either merged with or separated from additional structures over time. However, as a trend, the practical and hardy use of fired-clay favored by the Largraun dwarves has proven itself reliable over the ages, the thermal baths of the Ambucane are commonplace, and the presence of glass-covered greenhouses and vivariums are nearly omnipresent. Contemporary Apocean architecture therefore tends to consist predominantly of structures with foundations and inner walls of fired clay, subsequently covered with temporary exterior walls and coverings or with more permanent if out-of-place restructed segments. Most buildings make use of wood-and-thatch solid windows, but traditionally each individual dwelling features at least one glass window-sill, where it is not uncommon for people to hang and advertise marks of their profession, religion, affiliation, and gruesome threats towards potential thieves. Waterways, aqueducts, and public baths are commonplace in order to cater to both the Ambucane and Refik populations, as are foot-and-carriage bridges along with ferries.[/hider]
[hider=Statistics]Land Area: 10 (13-3)
Land Fertility: 7 (3+4) (Swapped with Magical Sophistication)
Development: 12 (7+5)
Land Power: 3 (10-7)
Naval Power: 8 (2+6)
Economy: 14
Magical Reserves: 14
Magical Sophistication: 18 (Swapped with Land Fertility)[/hider]
[hider=Traits][b][u]Cthonic Virtue[/u][/b] - (This trait is entirely beneficial)
The people of Caelrumoste went far, far out of their way to dowse for and identify every single last noteworthy source of naive Ammacre across the entire archipelago, from the depths of the Irrvulnor jungle caverns to the heights of Apocea's mountains. Advanced dowsing methods and the desperate, frenzied pursuit of new studies in scrying and divination have allowed for the reliable, accurate, and precise location of even the most secluded and secretive of Ammacre troves.

[b][u]Dormant Infrastructure[/u][/b]
Caelrumoste had been in the middle of an early renaissance when The Cursed Days came. The Adversaries went out of their way to avoid damaging the infrastructure present in Caelrumoste, but very simply too many people responsible for managing and operating most of it were killed or died of related causes. What remains of Caelrumoste's development has been left to gently and silently rot in the aftermath of the war. The infrastructure is decayed and esoteric, but with sufficient resources, investment, and training of the population, most of it could be readily refurbished and put back to use to tremendous potential effect. However, most of it also exists on top of optimal sites and real estate, meaning that in many instances it will either have to be entirely demolished and cleared away if it cannot be restored or if the site needs to be repurposed.

[b][u]Divided but Unconquered[/u][/b]
Caelrumoste presently has what would most politely be referred to as an [i]interim[/i] government which in reality is little more than a large band of thugs with delusions of morality. Most of the archipelago is split into self-governing regions of varying efficacy and interconnectedness. There is no centralized authority of note, and communication and travel between regions is difficult for most. However, the people are now largely unified in purpose and sentiment following The Cursed Days, joined together through their trials and hardships where before there was great resentment and animosity. Some old wounds remain, but the people will not be welcoming any invaders as liberators anytime soon, and generally it is easy to rally them together for a greater purpose or enterprise.[/hider][/hider]