Type of Government: Lumenor is governed as a constitutional monarchy. The Kuunin, Lumenor's King, is a largely ceremonial figure, serving as the country's figurehead, a symbol of national authority, and to a limited extent as a balance of power against the more democratic institutions of the Lumen state. Most real legislative power in Lumenor falls upon the Vanha Suuri, a unicameral legislature composed of a mixture of appointed civil servants from various aspects of the state apparatus, as well as elected representatives of the citizenry (both male and female). The Vanha Suuri is decidedly lacking in intrigue and excitement; corruption and other unscrupulous acts are strongly despised by the Lumen, and when discovered are vigorously punished, both by law and in the court of public opinion. The Lumen parliament also has a reputation for reactionary action, even among its more liberal members. Itself a product of ancient history, the Vanha Suuri and its members—called Vansuurs—are fiercely protective of the cultural and historical institutions of the Lumen state. The advent of industry did not reverse this trend, instead accelerating it; as technology and society evolved, the Vanha Suuri remained determined to prevent such changes from having wide-reaching cultural impact.
Head(s) of Government
Naavalor IX Kuunin; Born Jarrd Eskven, Naavalor is Lumenor's current sovereign. A native of Pientila, Naavalor was born in the purple, and has been preened for leadership since his birth, fifty-two years ago. Naavalor took up the title of Kuunin after the death of his father, who was the longest reigning Kuunin in the country's history. He has one child, Yarnal Eskven, a son of age twenty, born to a wife who took ill and died shortly after her son was born. Jarrd is an old man who has long since been made bitter from his wife's death and his son's constant escapades. He doubts that he will ever live long enough to outmatch his illustrious father, and has taken it upon himself to outdo in accomplishment what he cannot outdo in longevity. Naavalor has lofty ambitions for Lumenor as the industrial giant of a new, technologically modern age, and his desire to achieve prestige in this manner has resulted in his stepping increasingly outside of the bounds of his constitutional powers, to suppress naysayers of pax Lumennica. Although intended, as a Kuunin, to be apolitical, Naavalor's desire to be known in the history books as the man who brought Lumenor into the new age has resulted in a level of political involvement unprecedented among Kuunins in the modern age; the Auld Stripe courts Jarrd with promises of industrial might, whereas Usikun promises to have Naavalor remembered as the leader who modernized Lumen society.
Maat Vinter; Whilst the Kuunin is the head of state in Lumenor, the head of government is the leader of the largest party in the Vanha Suuri that can command the Elder's confidence. Currently, this is the social-conservative and traditionalist Auld Stripe, and their present leader is Maat Vinter. Maat's family line, the Vinters, are a leading industrialist family in Hoportti, Maat's place of birth. Members of their family have held office in the Vanha Suuri for hundreds of years, and they're heralded as the first family to bring the wonders of the Industrial Age to Lumenor. Maat has five children with his wife, Brigitte Vinter, whose mother is one of the leading shareholders of the Guild of Sailors of Silver Port—Lumenor's private navy. The couple livee in a manor in Hoportti, but own a second home in Pientila for Maat's work in the Hall of Elders, and a summer home in the mountains along Lumenor's west coast.
Maat's political party, the Auld Stripe, is the largest faction within the Vanha Suuri. The Auld Stripe is a long-standing formal alliance of social conservatives and other traditionalists. They voraciously defend Lumenor's protectionist policies, which incidentally keep industrialist Auld Stripes like the Vinters from having to compete with foreign enterprises on equal footing. The Auld Stripe is supported by the vast majority of the appointed seats in the Hall of Elders, 39 out of 50, signifying their support by most of the country's generals and lawmakers. Of the 150 seats in the Vanha Suuri which are elected, the Auld Stripe hold 60, giving them just over a third of the country's popular support. This discrepancy between support by appointed seats and by the electorate has long been criticized by modernists as a mechanical bias in favour of traditionalism, and the long-standing cause of the Vanha Suuri's reactionary tendencies.
Tuuli Vanska; The second most noteworthy politician in the Vanha Suuri, and the leader of 'Usikun', Lumenor's official opposition. Tuuli is the founder of Usikun, which she formed in an explicit attempt to unite the modernist movement and remove the Auld Stripe from power. Her successes in this regard have been noteworthy, but few and far between. Though Usikun is the second largest party in the Vanha Suuri, it has failed to annex the other modernist parties, and is even strongly divided within its own ranks. Various different elements from republicans to democratic socialists find themselves sitting together within Usikun, united more or less by only one thing: the ousting of the Auld Stripe. Usikun's many dividing lines make the task of keeping the party together difficult, and stand as a credit to Tuuli's diplomatic ability and charismatic tact.
Tuuli is an imperious woman, tall, and exuding an aura of calm. She is relentlessly confident, even in the face of stacked odds, and devotes herself entirely to her political work. This devotion has resulted in her becoming something of a social recluse; she has never married, and though she was born in a small village in the country's mountainous north, she has scarcely beend there since she first left for Pientila as a young woman to pursue a career in politics. Tuuli is the first woman to achieve notable political office in the Vanha Suuri, and one of her crowning achievements was forcing the Auld Stripe to accept suffrage and extend voting rights to women.
Sarko Voros; Guildmaster of the Guild of Sailors of Silver Port, and the single wealthiest man in Lumenor. Sarko is from Lansar, from the town of Jaad that serves as that island's main G.S.S.P detachment. Starting from the bottom of the Guild's ladder, working the docks loading and unloading cargo, Sarko gradually worked his way up the leader through exceptionally dedicated work and more than a little luck. As the head of the G.S.S.P, Sarko Voros is technically outside of the state apparatus, but the Guild's commissioning as Lumenor's navy makes him heavily involved in affairs of the state nonetheless. A resident of Hoportti (or 'Silver Port'), Sarko is an ardent supporter of the Auld Stripe, as a large portion of his company's profit margin depends on the maintenance of Lumenor's protectionist policies.
Economy: Lumenor's economy is strongly centred around manufacturing. All manner of products, though especially those produced mostly or entirely from metals, are fashioned and assembled in the numerous factories dotting the industrial centres of the country's south. The economy of the north, meanwhile, is mostly focused on the production of the metals themselves. The mountains of northern Lumenor are abound with mines of varying sorts, and their bounty's extraction to fuel the industry of the south compromises most of the north's economic activity. Also of note in Lumenor's economy is the country's fiscal probity. Both cultural and legal measures contribute towards Lumenor's strong fiscal standing, and this monetary expertise has resulted in the emergence of a rapidly expanding financial sector in Lumenor's southern population centres.
The Kingdom of Lumenor is strongly protectionist, weary of growing overly dependent on foreign goods and services. Protectionist policy is a long-standing fact of life in Lumenor, and has over the years made a lasting cultural impact on the Lumen people. Lumen are distasteful towards the idea of purchasing goods from abroad, and buy locally whenever possible both because of the effect of government policy and simply out of habit. This trend towards mercantilism extends doubly to products arriving from colonies. Lumenor's position on the world stage is that of a power strongly supportive of the right of self-determination, and therefore strongly opposed to empire building and the resources brought onto the market through it.
Primary Species: Human. Lumen appearances tend towards the more 'northerly' phenotypes—light hair, fair skin and so forth. In Lansar and the mainland territories nearest it, however, a more traditionally Slavic look is predominant.
Population: 11,500,000.
Culture: The Lumen are an orderly and just people, famed for their calmness and their somewhat superfluous formality. Crime and other instruments of chaos are rare sights throughout the domain of the Lumen, and the Lumen love of order permeates even into their art and leisure. Lumen enjoy highly regimented sports, and are masters of artistic styles demanding strong adherence to boundaries, and representing realistic concepts. Lumen are also infamously introverted. Social events, though not by any means rare, and almost never spontaneous. Public displays of emotion are typically restricted to special events, and are more often than not displays of patriotism. The state itself, in particular the Kuunin, plays an important role in Lumen national identity. The state existed, as a union of the Lairreen and Lansi, before the Lumen did themselves.
Religious and other Beliefs: A relatively unique facet of Lumen culture is its secularity. The traditional faith of the Lumen's precursor peoples was extinguished long ago, and although Lumenor permits free religious practice, the vast majority of the Lumen are irreligious.
History: Lumenor's history begins with the Vanha Suuri. The rise of its parliamentary powers, unlike in most monarchies, precedes the rise of Lumenor's Kuunins. It was the Vanha Suuri, in fact, that appointed Lumenor's first Kuunin, long before the rise of industry that encapsulates the modern day. The Vanha Suuri's history lies in the history of the pagan Lairreen people, to whom the Vanha Suuri served a religious purpose as the echoing of the Gods. The people of the Lairreen tribes would select the most devout among them and gather them together in the precursor to the modern Hall of Elders to hear the desires of the Gods. It was such a convening, the very last that the Vanha Suuri ever held as a religious body, that resulted in the appointment of the first Kuunin. The Kuunin's purpose was to politically unite the Lairreen people, and most cruicially to recruit an army from them capable of casting back the Lansi, an invading people originating from the north-eastern island of Lansar. The Lansi were a strongly militaristic folk, united under a powerful emperor, Soturi III, the grandson of a former Lansi chieftain who had led his tribe to conquest against the other Lansi tribes. Soturi III's father, Soturi II, was the first Lansi leader to permanently conquer and settle territory on the mainland, rather than merely raid. His conquests had brought the strongest of the Lairreen tribes, the Nor, to ruin. It was the descendants of the Nor that would make up the bulk of the first Kuunin's army, under the Vanha Suuri's instruction.
The Kuunin was ultimately unsuccessful, however, in his attempts to cast the Lansi back to Lansar. After a horrifically bloody struggle, the Lairreen eventually found themselves a subject people of the newly implanted Lansi. The Lansi, out of respect for the tenaciousness and ferocity of the Lairreen, and in an attempt to pacify the land and avoid future rebellion in the lands that now constituted the majority of their territory, came to adopt many of the Lairreen practices as their own, morphing them as necessary to accommodate their traditional Lansi practices. Soturi III adopted the title of 'Kuunin', and had it passed down hereditarily by his sons over the following generations, as was the custom under the Lansi empire. In the decades and centuries that followed, the Lairreen and Lansi gradually merged into one cohesive people under the leadership of the Kuunin, merging together over the years into the Lumen of today. For its role in creating the title of Kuunin and mediating the Lansi takeover of Lairreen society, the Vanha Suuri is considered to be responsible for the creation of Lumenor.
Territory
TBA (blue on map).
Climate: Lumenor's climate is colder than most, though Vanha Bay in the south, where most of the larger settlements are located, is quite temperate. It is in the north, beyond the Vanha Bay and into the mountains, where Lumenor's reputation for extreme cold comes to fruition. The winds off of the Joisea, the frost-crusted body of water north of Lumenor, are infamous for causing extreme wind chills in communities along the northern coasts, including and especially the island of Lansar. Increasing elevation by ascending into the mountains does not solve this problem, however. Much of Lumenor's mountain ranges are so inhospitable, due either to their inaccessibility or their coldness, that they are almost completely uninhabited outside of clusters of buildings set up around mines, tunnelling out rich ore deposits. Along the western coasts, away from the bustle of Vanha Bay and sheltered from the Joisea winds by the mountains, Lumenor is famous for its beautiful fjords, dotted with cozy, idyllic villages and the summer palaces of the rich and famous. This region is chilly, but, as the Lumen joke, "only so cold as to keep out the foreigners".
Settlements
Map TBA.
Pientila
Lumenor's capital city, and home to the Hall of Elders (the Vanha Suuri's Chambers) and the Royal Residence of the Kuunin of Lumenor. Pientila is Lumenor's second largest city, and is situated at the north coast of Vanha Bay, in the nation's south. The modern day city is built around a historic core that dates back to before the foundation of Lumenor. Many historical sites such as churches and ancient fortresses and villas have been preserved in Pientila, including an imposing medieval wall that encloses the historic city centre. It is this centre, the Historic Quarter, which is home to the Kuunin's Palace and the Vanha Suuri. Outside of the Historic Quarter, the city is notable for being home to a great many public parks and low-density housing projects. Many of Pientila's poorer residents live in the city's extreme north end, which is also home to a number of branch plants developed by industrial enterprises based out of Hoporrti.
Pientila is an ancient city, its founding preceding the arrival of the Lansi into Lumenor by several hundred years. The settlement, merely a large town at the time of the Lansi Conquest, was the place where the Vanha Suuri submitted themselves to Soturi III, ending the conquest with a decisive Lansi victory over the Lairreen. The Vanha Suuri's surrender was encouraged by threats made by Soturi III against the town should they persist in their defiance; if the Vanha Suuri did not surrender, Soturi III had threatened to burn down the settlement entirely, and slaughter every single one of its residents. The surrender of the First Vanha Suuri avoided this fate. Instead, it was only the Vanha Suuri themselves who were burned, their Hall of Elders set ablaze with the First Kuunin and the Vansuur that appointed him locked inside by the Lansi victors. On the ashes of the Old Hall of Elders, Soturi III built a new Hall, in the Lansi style, which has stood (albeit with extensive renovations) to the modern day.
Hoporrti
The largest city, main trade port and industrial and financial centre of Lumenor. Hoporrti rests along Lumenor's southern coast, in the southern-western part of Vanha Bay. Originally a small fishing village, Hoporrti experienced an exponential population boom upon the arrival of the industrial revolution, and its rapid outward expansion led to it administratively annexing numerous other neighbouring towns, which are now merely neighbourhoods of Hoporrti. In significant contrast to the historical buildings and wide open spaces found in Pientila and most of Lumenor's small settlements, Hoporrti is both densely urbanized and starkly modern. The city is home to state-of-the-art infrastructure to facilitate public transportation—including an underground railway system—and its tall, gleaming buildings and polished streets act as a statement to the rest of the world of the wonders of the modern age. Hoporrti's downtown core is home to most of Lumenor's rapidly growing finance sector, and the rest of city is largely what gives Lumenor its industrial might: Hoporrti's industrial enterprises are a goliath of the developed world's manufacturing industry, and their factories pump out products twelve hours a day, earning vast wealth for their owners, and a fair slice of the pie of prosperity for the hard workers that man them. The Hoporrti Docks, from which the metropolis originated, serve a role as a major commercial shipping centre and trade area, and are also home to the headquarters of the Guild of Sailors of Silver Port.
Agriculture: Lumenor's agricultural industry is focused around the fertile south-east, between the Bay of Vanha and Lake Jumala. The Bay area itself is too urbanized for agriculture, and the country's north is unarable. This fertile square of land, though only a small portion of Lumenor's total area, is actually quite expansive and produces a large amount of durable varieties of wheat. All of this wheat, by law, is kept within Lumenor, so as to maximize self-sufficiency.
Industry: All varieties of goods composed primarily or entirely of metals. The caveat of Lumenor's large and prospering manufacturing industry is that there is no real specialization. Goods of all sorts are produced and goods of all sorts of exported abroad, from weapons and other military equipment to household appliances.
Military: Lumenor's tradition of isolationism demands for a strong defensive-oriented military. Land fortresses, either newly constructed or newly renovated mark the eastern border of the Lumen homeland. The Guild of Sailors of Silver Port, a private organization (though with a war-fleet outmatching that of most nations), serves as Lumenor's navy. Though lacking in experience at long reach offensive operations, the G.S.S.P excels in defensive actions, and patrols the long Lumen coastlines as rigorously as the Royal Army casts eyes and aims rifles over the land. The importance of military self-reliance is not lost on the Lumen, and all Lumen military ships, weapons, ammunition and supplies are conceived and manufactured within the confines of Lumenor. As with civilian technological advancements, this results in Lumenor being unreceptive to foreign inventions. Unlike with civilian technological advancements, however, the militaries of Lumenor's neighbours likely would not be fond of sharing their technological secrets with foreign states in the first place, making isolationism more effective for the Lumen in the military sphere than in the civilian sphere.
What is the current status of the Enclave and the Brotherhood? Supposedly the Enclave has total control of the Capital Graveyard, with the exception of the northern-most territories, but I've heard that the BoS is still kicking. To remove any amibiguity; who is in possession of the actual ruins of DC, in particular the Pentagon and the Jefferson Memorial? The Enclave, yes?
I'm interested in writing a CS for a member, or former member, of the Institute. Where in the Capital Graveyard has the Institute set up operations, and how much freedom would I have in describing things relating to them?
Member
