The Prairie Lands is a country located to the west of the Kingdom of the Lakelands, to the north of the Kingdom of Tiraxes, and to the east of the Free Republic of Montfort.
Government[]
The Prairie Lands government is a feudal kraterocracy. The will of the strong rules across the land. Warlords and warladies control their varying fiefdoms through power and cunning. The Prairie warlords are in constant flux. Land often passes between Silver bloodlines from generation to generation. The son of a warlord is just as likely to lose rule of his father's territory as he is to gain it. Sometimes the Prairie rulers will even adopt or choose successors from outside their own bloodline.
After the Nortan Civil War, the Prairie Lands are moving towards becoming more blood-equal, with the Warlady of Fourskulls recently having married a Red.[1]
Geography[]
This nation has a sprawling geography and lacks a centralized population. The majority of the country is flat grasslands and gentle hills. Some of the land is farmland and wheat sprouts in golden waves, patch-worked with corn in endless rows. The rest of the area looks like open landscape, pocked by the occasional forest or lake.[2] The flat lands of Prairie end abruptly at the western border, where the land is punctured by the wall of a vast and sheer mountain range that marks the border with Montfort.
There are four major territories within Prairie, each controlled by their respective rulers:
- The Sandhills, a territory from the Ark River to the plains north of the Crane River, ruled by Warlady Henge, a windweaver. She maintains a small city at Lightning Rod, a rock formation in the midst of the plain.
- Fourskulls, a vast northern territory, ruled by Warlord Carhdon, a stoneskin. Fourskulls is centered upon a sacred and strange mountain into which are carved the gigantic heads of four men. This mountain is the deteriorated remains of Mount Rushmore.[3]
- The Heart, which has some of the most valuable farmland in Prairie, ruled by Warlord Riono, a swift. The Heart sits at the convergence of Prairie, Tiraxes, Piedmont, the Lakelands and shares a tumultuous border with the Disputed Lands, making it a chaotic place. Warlord Riono rules from the city of Mizoura and is known to execute Reds who attempt to flee his fiefdom.
- The Mirrors, a land that stretches from the city Geminas and shares a thin border along the Great River with the Disputed Lands and the Lakelands. The Mirrors is ruled by Warlady Needa, a nymph rumored to be a distant cousin of House Cygnet, who openly encourages Reds to flee across the border and work her fiefdom.[1]
Culture[]
Bloodlines and dynasties are not as important to the Silvers of the Prairie Lands as they are in other nations.
Reds in the Prairie Lands are generally bound to the land they are born on, and belong to the Silvers who rule that piece of field or plain. The Silvers in turn owe fealty to their lords, and up to the Warlords and Warladies in standard feudal hierarchy. Thus, most Reds in Prairie are bound in servitude, with little education or opportunities to improve their lot in life. Their life spans are shorter than Reds in neighboring nations, and most of the Reds in the Disputed Lands are refugees from Prairie.[1]
Notable Locations[]
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