Obviously, now things appear to be Really Happening, so I suppose this is all subject to change.
This is something I already had laying around, so I figured I may as well post it – it’s easy to see where I tried to put in hooks for adventure-type stories.
Obviously, this was just notes I jotted down to help me remember – they are not really complete (if you’re wondering “hey, what happened to X?” the answer is I probably hadn’t thought about it yet!)
Dragon
Gods, this place has gone to hell.
Winlan and Prima
Like many of Tasnica’s possessions outside of the Mana Dimension, Winlan and Prima held a referendum on remaining in the Republic after the War of the Generalissimos. Unlike most of them, however, they voted to stay as members of the Tasnica Republic (somewhat narrowly in Winlan’s case, but fairly decisively in Prima’s case.) Collectively, they make up a swath of Tasnican territory in the north-central part of Dragon’s ring-shaped continent.
Given the state of the rest of the dimension, this was probably a smart move. They remain prosperous and safe, and have negotiated additional local autonomy, though Tasnicaport still runs all foreign and national security affairs.
Winlan and Prima are both blessed with defensible locations—Winlan is mountainous, and Prima is underwater. This insulates them somewhat from the predations of their neighbors, who usually have more vulnerable prey.
The United Clans
The young Forest Clanners have decided to shed all trappings of civilization and return to their savage, yet noble roots. This apparently means forming a bunch of roving jetbike gangs. To be fair, the Clans’ centuries long oppression by their neighbors, and the deliberate destruction of the history by the Ticonderans, Dark Dragons, and Scandian League, doesn’t leave much of a record.
These anthromorphic wolves have claim to rebel against “the decades long campaign to ‘domesticate’ us”, and have even embraced a word for themselves once considered a racial slur – “dogface”. Many “dogfaces” act in an exaggeratedly animalistic way, to prove their ferocity and worth, and display a mask of contempt towards all “soft, civilized” races.
The Clan Elders meet every few months to discuss questions of concern. Although filled with macho posturing, they are usually able to solve things amicably. Civilization in the United Tribes is coated by a veneer of savagery (though a visitor should not say so out loud, as the Clans are obsessed with proving their “primal” bona fides).
The clans conduct ritualized inter-tribal warfare and raids into surrounding territory to prove their worth. Cities and towns (most significantly, Tantar and Tuntar) largely run their own affairs as long as they pay tribute to the local chieftan. The ritual of “the Hunt” has assumed a central place in Clan society, and not surprisingly many have made their way into the rest of the Web as bounty hunters. The Clans employ highly mobile, hit and run tactics, drawing on their deep hunting traditions, and many of their fighters are highly experienced, having fought as Biker Scouts in the Scandian League Combined Military.
Returning to a semi-nomadic lifestyle, most Clanners have become obsessed with vehicles that go fast, particularly jetbikes. Tantar has an old Scandian jetbike factory, and imports from Guardia are highly sought after and generally regarded as superior.
Aradia Sultanate
A hell-blasted, toxic wasteland run by religious fanatics.
White Cell used the Executor to level several of its key energy and water facilities, and literally turned large parts of the Arad desert to glass. After the war, the Yellow Turbans unleashed a vast toxic cloud over the region, claiming that it was the breath of the Dragon God himself come to purify the region.
Anyone traveling outside in Arad must wear protective gear; a rebreather is minimum, and some areas require full hazmat suits.
The interaction of so many high-energy magitek weapons, and the heavy toxic miasma of unknown origin, have interacted to create a variety of rare, exotic, and quite beautiful gemstones. These beautiful jewels can fetch a high price on the Web market, for those willing to risk the miasma zone to get them.
Bleak
Nestled between Aradia and the United Clans, the city Bleak is a smugglers haven run by the Vory y Zakone criminal organization. (Though, they do have a mayor and everything to take care of trash collection and other boring, non-criminal activites.)
Scandian League
The Presidium is officially known as the Presidium of the All-Union Communist Party (of the Dragon Dimension), and in theory at least represents the continuance of the Party rule of Travin Rumanski and the legitimate government of the Scandian League. They have diplomatic recognition in most of the Web’s other countries as well as the Alliance Congress, and they claim to be the legitimate rulers of most of the Dragon Dimension, as Aradia, the United Tribes, and other states and warlords are merely “provinces in disorder.” (At an official level, most countries in the Web agree, though as a practical matter the other powers are hedging their bets and want nothing to do with the clusterfuck of internecine war and destruction that has scathed the Dragon Dimension.)
The membership of the Presidium is not made public, and their meetings are always conducted remotely through intermediaries, drones, or holographic representations. One publicly disclosed RFIA intelligence estimate stated that “the Presidium most likely includes between six and twelve members, male and female, with a mix of old Travinists and younger blood, some bureacrats and planners, and probably at least a few senior military leaders.”
The Presidium have refused all requests to meet with other Web leaders, though they have appointed ambassadors to fill Scandian embassies in most countries as well as the Alliance Congress. (These ambassadors tend to vanish after about a year, however, only to be replaced.)
The Presidium’s paranoia seems a little justified, as even such a notoriously cautious Scandian leader as Travin Rumanski ended up nuked in his bunker.
Although though the Scandian League Combined Military is much smaller than during the Great Power days, it still has access to elite units such as the Dracoforms regiments, Orca Amphibious Assault Teams, and S/31 Spetsnatz operatives. Most of SLCM’s time and resources, however, are spent attempting to reconquer the Dragon Dimension, and most of the counties in the Web see Scande as too remote and too occupied to be really threatening.
Conventional wisdom regards the Presidium as a little strange, but essentially doing what any other national would do, ie, the maximization of Scandian power and security, starting with the “restoration of order to the rebellious provinces” and the re-unification of the Dragon Dimension.
In reality, the Presidium are trying to gather the “Six Keys of the Goddess” and resurrect Tyr, the Dark Goddess of Desire – though only a handful of people know this, and the Presidium has brutally snuffed out anyone who even guesses at the secret. They are very, very close, possessing four of the six necessary keys. (Probably a few people in Scande would’ve said this was a terrible idea, but they’re all dead.)
(I imagine Presidium meetings go like this: youtube.com/watch?v=_Z26Eev6nZ8)