The Fallen World : A Dungeon's Story

Short note about Alexandra's location :

The world the story takes place on is called Alcheryos, and the continent Alexandra is situated on is called Arkan. Alexandra's dungeon is currently located in the Red Sands Desert, in the wasteland between the Asarian Kingdom and the Elkis Republic.

Nations :

The Eris Empire :

The largest, most technologically advanced and most powerful nation on Alcheryos, the Eris Empire encompasses over half of the planet's total population and industrial capability. The Empire is divided into 3 broad regions, notably the Core, the Periphery and the Protectorates, with a decreasing population density and overall technological level at each step. The Protectorates are more or less occupied territories, kept in line purely through the force of arms, and being ruthlessly exploited for their natural resources and cheap labor force by the corporations from the Core and Periphery. The Eris Empire's military prowess is beyond legendary, so much so that just the threat of intervention from the Empire has changed the course of entire wars. However, the Empire is badly overstretched, and it's Protectorates become more restive each day under it's abusive rule...

The Eris Empire's military might is beyond counting or effective estimation, even by the Empire's own generals and administrators. Equipped with fixed wing aircrafts, fleets of flying warships, and vast armies liberally provided with the newly introduced assault rifles, machine guns and all manner of armored vehicles, from armored personnel carriers to battle tanks, the Eris Empire's forces are unmatched in sophistication and firepower on Alcheryos.

The Tark Hegemony :

The Hegemony is the third most technologically advanced nation on Alcheryos, and a rapidly growing power, both on their home continent and the world stage. The repeated invasions from the Elkis Republic has ultra-militarized the Hegemony and it's society, to the point that civilian leadership has been effectively sidelined from the entire executive branch. Despite all odds, the Hegemony has withstood the onslaught from their many times larger neighbour, and has grown stronger because of it, inflicting severe and humiliating defeats to the Republic, and grabbing vital pieces of territory in the process, causing a long, drawn out cold war between both powers. Nowadays the Hegemony is actively gearing up for a new confrontation with the Republic, supporting as many as it's enemies as it can, and trying to bleed out the Republic with every minuscule cut before the cold war goes hot once more.

The Hegemony's military is extremely modern and highly experienced, universally equipped with bolt action firearms, field artillery, and even seeing the appearance of the first machineguns and battle tanks. It's navies, both airborne and waterborne, are equipped with top of the line warships capable of going toe to toe with even Gorromar's vessels. The price of quality however, is a lack of quantity, and the Tark Sky Fleet in particular is relatively small, causing the Hegemony's government to order a massive airship building program.

Gorromar :

Gorromar is a city state, a country, an practically an entire culture. Formed from the remnants of a fanatically loyal group of survivors from the Great Night, rescued by the God of Fire from their crumbling bunker, they have established the single most stable and resilient society on Alcheryos. They are also a strange mix of extremely isolationist and interventionist, wanting to have nothing to do with the rest of the world, except when it comes to fulfilling their primary directive : protect the weak from oppression. Gorromar is unique in that while it is not very innovative and extremely conservative, it's sheer stability has prevented the massive technological regressions that affected the rest of the world thanks to the Tesseract Crisis or the fall of the Orlov Empire. Thus it is the second most advanced nation on Alcheryos, and the single most powerful nation in raw military power on their home continent of Arkan. This is also compounded by the fact that Gorromar is one of the few factions on Alcheryos capable of producing technology from the Old World, albeit in very limited quantities.

Gorromar's military is the only one that could claim to be able to compete with the Eris Empire, man for man. Their soldiers are equipped with submachine guns and fully automatic rifles, as well as ever more compact and portable machine guns, and their armored vehicles are starting to look like something a Terran general from the second world war would have recognized.

The Asarian Kingdom :

The largest and most populous nation on the Arkan continent, the Asarian Kingdom has long been an expantionist nation. However, it is deeply obscurantist, it's all too often abusive and power hungry nobility preferring to keep the lower classes as obedient and ignorant as possible. This has resulted in the kingdom being one of the least advanced nations on Alcheryos, sporting only medieval level of technology at best, incapable of even making basic firearms. The kingdom is also badly in need of reforms, it's purely feudal hierarchy starting to break at the seems at the introduction of corporations or the ever cheaper consumer goods from the other nations of the world.

It's military, while formidable on paper, is mostly composed of poorly trained conscripts backed by knights, and sometimes supplemented with outright peasant levies, divided into numerous noble houses and very hard to coordinate. The Kingdom possesses virtually no flying warships of it's own, and has to rely on imported ships for air defence. The one shining point in the kingdom's military forces are it's gryphon knight companies, most of which are made of nigh on fanatical soldiers trained for birth for combat, alongside their mounts. They make for formidable shock troops and more than one enemy has broken before their might. Unfortunately they are few and far between, and each gryphon knight lost can take years, or even decades to replace.

The Elkis Republic :

The second largest and most populous nation on the Arkan continent, the Elkis Republic used to be a symbol for the future, a shining beacon of democracy and peaceful expansion that promised a safe haven to all who wished to join it. Unfortunately that symbol is long gone, the once thriving democracy having been subverted by the oligarchical dynasties of it's senate, calling themselves the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, who rule the Republic with an iron fist. For the past few centuries the Republic has been aggressively expanding outwards, attempting to conquer every one of it's neighbours, and gobbling up most of the southern half of the Arkan continent. However, this expansion ran into it's first roadblock 150 years ago, when the Republic's attempt to starve the city state of Tark into submission backfired spectacularly, causing the formation of the Tark Hegemony, one of the Republic's most bitter enemy. Another attempted invasion of the mountains of the Far Reach 15 years ago ended in absolute disaster, as the Republic's entire invasion force was wiped out by a concerted attack from the dragons inhabiting the mountains, causing the Republic to almost completely break down under the strain. The Republic has now rebuilt it's forces, and constant pressure from the Hegemony and the Far Reach has left it desperately looking for new sources of wealth and revenue, like, say, a newly born link dungeon....

The Republic's military is professional, decently trained and somewhat modern, with the appearance of entire regiments of musketeers, and dedicated artillery companies, equipped with rudimentary bombards and even some field guns. However the bulk of it's forces are still very much medieval in nature. It is still in process of rebuilding from it's devastating defeat 15 years ago, and as such very much lacks forces that are time consuming to train, like pegasus cavalry or gryphon knights. The Republic also completely lacks anything resembling a navy, as it was repeatedly annihilated during the wars with the Tark Hegemony, until the Republic simply gave up on the idea of maintaining meaningful sea going power. It's airfleet however is nothing to sneeze at, and although it's vessel don't even come close to the Hegemony's own warships, they are more than capable of holding their own given ground support or numerical superiority.

The Saphire Kingdom :

Once a kingdom spanning the whole of the Arkan continent, the Saphire Kingdom is now but a shadow of it's former self. Confined to the snowy hills of Discovery, the kingdom has been struggling to continue to exist for centuries, before finally stabilizing. While it's technology is in many ways no better than the Asarian Kingdom's, the Saphire Kingdom is the undisputed magical masters of Arkan, and it's magical universities are renowned even in the Eris Empire. What it cannot do with technology, it has with magic, from home appliances to agriculture.

The Saphire Kingdom's forces are badly depleted from the constant border skirmishes with the Asarian Kingdom, but it's war mages are the single most dangerous of their kind outside of the Eris Empire's War Mage Corps, and it still possesses the vast navy from the old kingdom, with hundreds of millenia old, but still massively armed magical galleons guarding it's coasts against any and all intruders.

The Far Reach :

A disparate group of clans inhabiting the mountains of the same name, the Far Reach has sustained and successfully repelled a full on invasion from the Elkis Republic 15 years ago, notably thanks to it's dragon inhabitants. Ever since the clans have been constantly raiding the Republic's territory in revenge from the atrocities committed during the war. While not formally allied to the Tark Hegemony, it is an open secret that various clans retain close ties to the Hegemony and that considerable amounts of civilian and military hardware, as well as the engineers and soldiers accompanying them have passed into the Far Reach to help fight against the Republic. This assistance has, oddly enough, made the disunited collection of clans highly advanced and technologically savvy, allowing them to start building a technological base that outstrips the Republic's.

The Far Reach does not have a unified military as such, but it's clanic warriors are infinitely more lethal than they used to be. Augmented by expatriated Tarkians and outright military advisors, alongside generous donations of modern military equipment, they sport some of the most dangerous guerilla fighters on the surface Alcheryos, with elite snipers and ambush forces massacring any Republic patrol foolish enough to intrude upon their territory. Their raiding forces are generally far less well equipped, or experienced, but they are still a force to be reckoned with in their own ways.

The Loris Empire :

A dwarven realm, the Loris Empire is a nation that has been slowly growing it's technological might and industrial power. While nowhere near the levels of advancement of the Tark Hegemony, let alone Gorromar, it still has managed to make it's name known as one of the few truly technologically advanced nations in Alcheryos.

The Loris Empire's military is transitioning from muskets to bolt action rifles, and while it does not sport armored vehicles per say, it does possess large and fairly modern air and water going navies.

The Elven Confederacy of Eleria :

A confederacy of elven realms, the Confederacy of Eleria was founded in response to the Eris Empire's attempted colonization of it's home continent. While not the most coherent or well organized of nations, it has succeeded in halting the Eris Empire's expansion in the region, as the Confederacy is simply to large to simply roll over without a major war, which would push the Empire's already badly stretched military beyond it's breaking point. The Confederacy is somewhat infamous for being biggoted, notably towards what it sees as 'lesser races', like orcs.

The Confederacy's military is...strange. Due to being a permanent coalition of technically still autonomous militaries, it encompasses both nearly worthless peasant levies and entire armies of professional soldiers, sometimes even armed with imported muskets and even more advanced weapons bought from the Tark Hegemony. Still, despite it's patchwork nature the Confederacy's military forces have shown a definite aptitude in working together and complementing each others' strength and shoring up their weaknesses when the need arose, making them into a surprisingly deadly military force.

The Trinity Federation :

Formed out of 3 realms, a human kingdom, an elven one and a dwarven one, the Trinity Federation is an oddity in that it is a triumph of diplomacy over warfare. The 3 kingdoms had been locked in a deadly stream of seemingly never ending wars, the wasteland separating them being the only thing preventing them from trying to exterminate each others. Then, after centuries of fighting, a lasting peace was brokered by the Wyrm Edarconak the Greater, and thanks to the trade links established from that peace, the 3 nations grew closer together, before eventually unifying in a single nation.

The Federation's military forces are relatively small, but professional and extremely well trained. While the Federation itself is not particularly advanced, it's military still sports a few cannons and muskets, mainly old surplus imported from the Tark Hegemony. The Federation's real strength however comes from it's vast airfleet, necessary to police and secure the wasteland separating it's 3 member states, which could stand up to that of any other nation, bar the Eris Empire itself.

The dark elven Kingdom of Arsir :

A somewhat obscure realm (no pun intended), the kingdom of Arsir usually avoids the spotlight in international affairs, and tends to it's own business. Of course, many claim that it is only a facade, and that the kingdom is just focusing on expanding it's increasingly powerful trade networks through the Syndicate, trying to conquer their foes through trade and economic control rather than outright warfare.

The Kingdom's military is somewhat strange. While it does possess a core of professional, well trained soldiers, most of it is made up of volunteers with merely adequate training, who are then loaned off to the Syndicate, from which the survivors come back bloodied veterans. While this insures a steady supply of highly trained soldiers, it also means that a lot of it's on paper military might is dispersed throughout the world rather than defending the kingdom itself. The kingdom's low technology also means that it's military is purely medieval in nature, bar a few specialized units equipped with imported Erisian equipment.

The Western Marches :

Officially a duchy, the Western Marches are truly a vast kingdom encompassing millions of souls. Vastly dominated by vampires, who fill virtually all of the higher echelons of society, the Western Marches have existed for so long no one seemed to remember quite when they came into being. What is known to some however is that the duchy was already in place when the Dawn of Flames happened, and the God of Fire negotiated directly with the Von Oswald dynasty, to acquire their services as advisors for his dungeons. What the Western Marches got in exchange, no one but them know....if that knowledge has even survived the ages. However there are persistent rumors that if the Western Marches were to fall, the Custodians of the Flame would personally intercede to prevent the extinction of the vampires, and even stranger rumors claimed that the vampires were originally super-soldiers from the Great Night, and were allowed to live for their treachery and crimes in exchange for their service to the God of Fire.

The Western Marches boast quite possibly the single most dangerous military, man for man, out of any power on Alcheryos, bar the Order to Restore Humanity and the Custodians of the Flame, despite only having a medieval level of technology. It's army is made out of elite regiments of vampires, backed up by human conscripts. While the latter are generally not that well trained, the former are nigh on unstoppable killing machines capable of individually massacring entire squads of experienced warriors. The Western Marches have also become rightly feared for it's use of blood magic, sometimes sacrificing thousands of enemies, civilians or military, to destroy entire armies or even nations in impossibly powerful rituals.

Sub-divisions :

Sub divisions are parts of a wider nation, like a protectorate or autonomous region.

Notable subdivisions of the Asarian Kingdom :

Duchy of Sunrise :

The largest and richest duchy of the Asarian Kingdom, the duchy of Sunrise is known for it's vast trading port of the same name...and it's relentless use of slave labor. The duchy has prospered on the back of it's countless slaves and built it's economy on their corpses. Due to this, and the highly ambitious nature of it's rulers, the duchy's relations with the crown have been tense at best, outright hostile at worse. It is no secret among the kingdom's nobility that if a new civil war was to tear the kingdom apart, Sunrise would most likely lead it.

Duchy of Sarth :

The Duchy of Sarth englobes most of the southern frontier of the Asarian Kingdom, particularly the regions facing the Republic and the Death Zone of the Lost Sands, including the trade city of Darthar. Ruled by house Estogan for centuries, the duchy has long been fighting incursions both from abominations rising from the wasteland and Republic probes into the kingdom's defenses.

Notable subdivisions of the Elkis Republic :

Autonomous Province of Eternity :

Centred on the capital city of Eternity, built ontop of the Eternia Crystallis dungeon, the province of Eternity has long been a willing member of the Republic...right up until the first war with the city of Tark and the formation of the Tark Hegemony 150 years ago. After this war, the province, which had considerable trade ties with the beleaguered Hegemony, nearly broke off, and was effectively granted independence, operating autonomously in all regards and only being a part of the Republic on paper, and paying only the flimsiest of lip service to the Republic's leaders. There are widespread reports of Hegemony military units moving into the province, as well as considerable amounts of 'advisors' being sent to train and modernize the province's military, a fact that has pushed the Republic to reinforce it's border with the province, effectively turning it into another fortified defensive line in case of Tarkian incursion.