The Infinite Empire

The Infinite Empire is a prominent nation in Adrastea, centered around Shangri-La and comprising both Suvarnabhumi on the Western Continent and Dardania on the Eastern, along with several smaller, scattered holdings. Primarily composed of and ruled by High Elves, the Infinite Empire is the oldest state still functional in Adrastea, having existed before recorded history.

During the Age of Empires, it was rivalled only by its northern neighbor, the Dwarven Kaiserreich. This rivalry came to a head in the Elder War, the greatest conflict ever recorded, which saw both nations ravaged until the Kaiserreich fell under mysterious circumstances a hundred years after the war's start. Now the sole superpower in the world, the Infinite Empire has only spread its reach further, and is the most powerful and prosperous state in Adrastea.

Geography
The Infinite Empire is based in the island of Shangri-La, which sits between the Western and Eastern Continents as well as the Meleager Ocean and Mu. Because of its central location on the map, Shangri-La enjoys a temperate climate; barring unusual or supernatural circumstances, the weather there is almost never too cold, hot, wet, or dry. Much of the region is forest, although in several areas swamps do exist.

Central to the environment and ecosystem of Shangri-La is the Gaokerena, a massive, mountain-sized tree whose roots underlie much of the island and whose branches stretch thousands of feet into the air. All life in Shangri-La is connected to or dependent on it in some way. Its hollows, dells, and the entire ecosystems that thrive off its branches and roots provide shelter and sustenance to beast and Man alike. The rich air that the Gaokerena produces is such that life can thrive even in its highest reaches. Such is its size and lushness that some speculate that it supports itself through magical means.

Even setting the Gaokerena aside, the flora of Shangri-La is extraordinarily unique. The subforests that cover much of the ground below in a dense tangle are not actually independent trees; rather, they are offshoots of the Gaokerena’s roots. The incredible fertility of the region lends itself well to the growth of all manner of fruits and flowers; produce grown there are prized throughout the world for size, taste, and medicinal properties. Perhaps the most famous of Shangri-La’s crops is the barometz, a plant that bears a fruit that both resembles and tastes like a lamb.

The fauna of Shangri-La is, as expected, primarily arboreal. Shangri-La is host to some of the largest and most fantastic avian creatures in existence; rocs, griffins, kongamato, giant insects, and chupacabras all nest on the Gaokerena. Gigantic frogs, climbing bears, and massive lizards can also be found living atop those massive branches. The subforests below, meanwhile, are inhabited by your usual terrestrial fare: deer, rabbit, tigers, boars, etc. Marine wildlife in the surrounding seas is similarly typical. The most unique aquatic specimens can be found in the peat swamps and rivers interlaced by the Gaokerena’s roots, which are home to rainbow fish, river dolphins, and a strange species of docile crocodile.

Society
The native Men of Shangri-La are called High Elves in Human tongues; in their own language, they know themselves as Haiaeldari: literally, “The People.” Their primary characteristics are heights of 6 to 8 feet, long and pointed ears, a colorful set of skin tones, and virtual immortality. The High Elves possess the lowest birth rates of any Men in Adrastea; as such, they have the smallest population in the world (around 5.5 million) and are even outnumbered within the bounds of their own Empire by the other races of Men: namely, Humans and Wood Elves from the colonies.

High Elves primarily live either in small rural villages in the subforests of Shangri-La or in the cities carved into the branches of the Gaokerena. The prosperity of their empire, the availability of cheap labor from the colonies, and the unique length of their lives mean that High Elves work primarily as artists, craftsmen, artisans, and intellectuals. Of all the types of Man in the world, they are the most educated per capita and possess the greatest proportion of sorcerers.

High Elven society is based primarily around age. Rather than wealth or bloodline, High Elves primarily divide themselves along age lines; an elderly silk weaver is shown more deference and respect than a young sorcerer. This veneration extends even to the highest echelons of their government; advanced age is required to join the ruling council.

Like almost every culture on the planet, High Elves practice Astrolatry as their primary religion. Rather uniquely (this belief has spread through non-Haiaeldari within their domain), they believe in reincarnation; every High Elf was once a star, every star once a High Elf, with death and birth transferring the two.

Culture
Religion aside, High Elven culture places emphasis on individualism and intellectualism. Competition and ambition are looked upon favorably; High Elven history is a record of heroes and great men, whose singular talents and intellects are responsible for shaping the world today. Rather uniquely, they carry no stigma against sorcery or the mutation of its practitioners, if only because arcane magic plays such a central role in their society. In fact, sorcerous mutations are treated with respect and special attention; the first warp of a sorcerer is seen as a milestone in their development, and interpreting and divining from these warps is a popular practice indeed.

Thanks to the uniquely verdant nature of their environment, High Elven art and architecture are uniquely organic in form and makeup. The buildings of the High Elves, if you could call them that, are designed to blend in with nature rather than dominate or replace it; they are primarily created by selectively shaping and growing offshoots of the Gaokerena into a desired form. This symbiosis between flora and structure means that that construction in Shangri-La is uniquely vertical; walkways, bridges, and spiraling staircases abound.

In both art and architecture, flowing lines, economy of detail, and appreciation of nature are prized. The ceramics, stonework, smithing, and gemwrighting that might be found in other regions of the world are almost absent in Shangri-La; High Elven craftsmen and artists prefer to work instead with living wood, carved bone, and amber. Preferred subjects of depiction include pastorals, glorious scenes of High Elven history, and explorations of the High Elven form.

Rather uniquely, High Elven music is based around the individual musician rather than the ensembles, orchestras, and choirs favored elsewhere in the world. Usually having spent decades honing their voice or a single instrument, Haiaeldari musicians perform primarily solo. Ballads are the most common form of song; fundamentally, there is no distinction between poetry, opera, and literature in High Elven culture. String and woodwind instruments are their preferred instruments of choice and, rather uniquely, trained beasts are highly sought after to augment performances. Perhaps the quintessential High Elven performance is a ballad of the creation of the world, sung by a lutist and accompanied by a trained songbird.

Popular sports in Shangri-La include archery, parkour, fencing, and kokenball. The particular variant of kokenball that they practice, known as chuiwan, uses exceedingly small balls and slender, curved clubs; the emphasis being strategy and precision over raw physical power. The Infinite Empire is also well known for its martial arts, the forms of which number well into the dozens. Popular styles include Waterfall Fist, Ten Thousand Needles, and Waving Branch. Uniquely, these unarmed techniques were designed with the explicit intention of being used with sorcery; what would be an ineffectual landing strike for any other fighter becomes an avenue for a powerful contact spell with a High Elf fighter.

The cuisine of High Elves is reputed to be amongst the finest in the world. Their philosophy of flavor places emphasis on freshness and subtlety; most of their food is prepared raw, which is less of a detriment than expected due to the sheer quality of their ingredients. Leafy greens take the place of both dining dishes and complex carbohydrates in High Elven cuisine, and few, if any, of their dishes are considered complete without a palette of herbs to garnish with. Favored ingredients include lettuce, barometz, venison, mint, coconut, lime, and honey. Famous dishes include spring rolls, sweet curry, honey fish, and barometz hot-pot. Although the taste and apparent health benefits of High Elven food are admired the world over, the expensiveness and lightness of the fare makes it difficult for non-Haiaeldari to eat and live off of regularly.

The expanse, relative security, and prosperity of the Empire makes trade easy and incredibly profitable. The prime exports from Shangri-La are lumber (the wood of the Gaokerena is highly prized), luxury produce, and artisan products. The self-sufficiency of the island is such that imports are far and few between; meat is one of the few exceptions, owing to the realm’s lack of grazing land, and gold, which lacks magic-dampening properties, is commonly sourced from the colonies in the Western Continent.

Government and Military
The Infinite Empire, which spans both continents and a multitude of smaller islands, has a varied and adaptable government. At the very top (both metaphorically and literally, seeing as their office is in the highest branches of the Gaokerena), is The Council, an assembly of the oldest and most powerful High Elves in the world. Although famously slow to act due to their long and detailed sessions of deliberation, once The Council does decide to move ahead, there is little that can stop them.

Reporting beneath them are, for the colonies, a system of governors, and, for Shangri-La itself, an assembly of representatives from each settlement. The High Elves practice a complicated mix of oligarchy and democracy; the older one is, the more important their vote and voice. Unofficially, factions in the Infinite Empire are broken up into “dynasties.”

Naturally, a nation as large as the Infinite Empire needs a massive army to support it; a difficult feat when one considers the relatively small size of their population. The Infinite Imperial Army thus relies on mercenaries and colonial conscripts, led by an elite officer corps composed of native sorcerers and priests.

These warrior-mages, often referred to as spellswords or hexblades, are trained from birth in strategy, martial arts, and combat magic. Eschewing metal arms and armor because of their magic-dampening properties, the spellswords rely on agility and enchantments for defense and wood/bone weapons and kinetomancy for offense. Favored weapons include bows, staffs, whips, spears, and sabers. Infamously dressed in gilded masks and fine robes, they act either in raiding teams or in command of colonial troops.

Said colonial troops are either Human mercenaries hired from the north or Wood Elves conscripted from the south. These auxiliary troops are intended to provide what their commanding High Elves tactically cannot: chiefly, superiority in numbers and expendability. Outnumbering their colonial commanders almost 10 to 1, they fulfill a variety of roles: the Humans take full advantage of the firearms and heavy armor that most High Elves disdain, while the Wood Elves act as excellent interpreters, scouts, and skirmishers thanks to their familiarity with the Infinite Empire’s primary battleground: their homeland.

Being an island nation at heart, the Infinite Empire has a powerful navy. The ships, carved out of the Gaokerena’s wood, are surprisingly hardy and can deflect even cannon fire, and the sorcerers onboard can manipulate both wind and water to turn engagements at sea in their favor. This naval superiority is perhaps the chief contributing cause to the Infinite Empire’s continued supremacy.

Alongside a few Dwarven strongholds and The Inquisition, the Infinite Imperial Army fields a regular air force, but, in contrast to the airships of the former and the griffin legions of the latter, this flying army is composed primarily of sorcerers, who hurl magic fire, manmade meteors, and blasts of lightning down at the battlefield below. On occasion, a member of The Council will take to the skies themselves; the appearance of one of these ancient Elves usually spells doom for the enemies of the Empire below.

For the entirety of its recorded existence, the Infinite Empire has waged a campaign of conquest against the Wood Elves of the Gargarean Jungles. In certain eras, they have pushed all the way down to the Mad South; in others, the jungle and its inhabitants have driven them almost into the seas of Mu. A state of perpetual stalemate is the two’s shared history, and, it seems, their eternal future.

History
As the name implies, the Infinite Empire stretches back before recorded history; its first reference, from two thousand years ago, tells already of the ongoing conquest of the Western Continent.

With the supremacy of their sorcery and the prosperity of their home island, the Infinite Empire has changed perhaps the least of any land over the long millennia. The stability of its government and the strength of its military have protected it from internal strife and invasion for the most part (see below for the few exceptions), and the unique prevalence and prominence of arcane magic, as well as the natural comfort and cultivation of their home, makes most technological innovation unimpactful. The long lifespans of the High Elves means that recording history is of little effort to them.

Only a few radical developments have occurred over the course of the Infinite Empire’s history. In 1073 SC, they clashed against perhaps their greatest opponents: the Dwarven Kaiserreich, which then dominated much of the Eastern Continent. This conflict, known as The War of the Elders, lasted over a century and ravaged much of Dardania. Though the enemy never set foot on the shores of Shangri-La, they did manage to raze one of its sacred roots. In retaliation, Infinite Imperial sorcerers collaborated with Fae spirits to cave in several Dwarven strongholds, chief among them Mar Gandrum. The war would come to a close when the Kaiserreich’s capital was swallowed by a massive sinkhole; though the High Elves maintain that the calamity was some Dwarven experiment gone wrong, some whisper that the Infinite Empire was behind the atrocity. Though their greatest foe was vanquished, the war was too costly and they withdrew from all their overseas holdings save for Suvarnabhumi. Despite their weakness, they remained relatively untouched by the horrors of the Age of Indigence.

In 1553 SC, the Wood Elven king Suvaryaman III became the first, and thus far only, invader of Shangri-La itself. His troops succeeded in pushing the Empire out of Suvarnabhumi, and, still pursuing, made landfall in the southern tip of Shangri-La. After a failed campaign, Suvaryaman fell back to the Western Continent, where his reign would keep it free of the Empire until 30 years after his death (1562), when a civil war broke out between his sons and the High Elves exploited that to retake their colonies. To this day, Suvaryaman is spoken of with both hatred and respect as one of the Infinite Empire’s greatest enemies; the most senior member of the High Council, Karandra IV, actually dueled him in his youth. The battle and resulting mutual incapacitation is one of the most celebrated stories in High Elven culture.

1546 marked the return of the Empire’s colonization of Human lands, starting with the reclamation of Dardania. Rather than a military conquest, this expansion was carried out through a long and complex series of political marriages and property purchases; Human governments, perhaps eager to enjoy the benefits of the Empire’s favor, often granted High Elves positions of nobility or the hands of their heirs. Thus began a slow and steady incorporation of the area into the Empire, a process which still continues into the current day (2118 SC).