Okeanos

• Controlled by: Provincial Empire of Okeanos
• Capitol: Monosios
• Official language: Abyssal
• Common languages: Infernal common
• Inhabitant races: Tiefling
• Population as of AC 1411: ~ 3,540,000
• Demonym: Okeanosian
• Approximate form of government: Aristocratic Autocracy
• Head of State: Imperator Vagos Pateridis

On the far northwestern side of Terre, along the coast of the Oceanic Expanse, across the impassable mountain range of Mount Taignos, is the isolated land of Okeanos. While the beauty of the land is luring, the inhabitants are not welcoming, as here lies the remnants of the Forgotten Empires of the Tieflings, locking themselves behind the geographical barrier from the rest of the world.

The Far Reaches of Terre

Ever since the formation of this continent, the Mount Taignos Ranges, although slightly dwarved by the Crest of Terre to the south, has separated the land of Okeanos from the rest of the civilized world, with intense blizzard storms and disorienting winds. This gives rise to a unique environment full of exotic fauna and flora: colorful leaves, fairy-like creatures, pearl-like stones, and so on. As the first Tieflings of the Empire ascended upon this land they immediately recognized and claimed as their own, as the Province of Okeanos.

Then, the rest of the story is what we like to call history. The Empire’s rapid decline during the Tides of Steel, caused by the allure of Okeanos, and ended in the embraces of Okeanos. Old Empire Aristocrats now drown themselves in the sunsets shining on the far oceanic horizon, reminiscing a time when the Helios and everything under its light once belonged to them.

Remnants of an Empire

Mount Taignos Ranges, the impassable physical barrier to Okeanos, is only the first, and perhaps the lesser concern for those that wish to tread upon Okeanosian land. Beyond the mountain winds and blizzards is a hostile land, dangerous and unwelcoming, greeting every outsider, legal entries or not, with cold apathy and flaming cruelty.

After the Empire’s retreat in the Tides of Steel, the province of Okeanos became the only territory for the once ruler of Terre. The distrust of other races and technology is already rampant in the later years of the Empire, and the rebellions and the subsequent defeat only worsened their paranoia. Foreign visitors to Okeanos must go through layers upon layers of bureaucratic applications and screenings before a few of them each year may be approved for entry, and then are still subject to intensive searching and questioning at every corner and every turn of the road within Okeanosian territory. Technological advances, in particular firearms, are explicitly outlawed, and attempts to hide any such devices and smuggle them into Okeanos - apart from the fact that there are very few individuals who do not detest these items, let alone have a need for them - are met with harsh reprecussions.

The one fortune to the entire continent is perhaps that Okeanos have no intensions - at least for now - to take back their territories lost to the others. Apart from the stark difference in military prowess, the deeply rooted xenophobia and technophobia portray the world beyond the Mount Taignos Ranges as one even more hellish than the Nether planes they came from, thus the aristocrats of the Provincial Empire would rather lay in their current homeland, enjoying the beauty of the land and indulging themselves in research of the netheric arcane arts, within the remnants of a crumbled empire.

The Ascendant and the monarchy, exiled from their throne at the Gate, still holds dominion as the technical ruler of the Forgotten Empire, but in reality the head of state of the Province, by extension the Provincial Empire of Okeanos, is the Imperator, by law elected with the blessing of the monarchy, but in fact more of a independent authoritarian form of government of their own.

Outsiders in Okeanos

While once upon a time Okeanos is inhabited by primitive settlements of various races just like the rest of Terre, starting from the later years of the Forgotten Empire, the influx of aristocratic tieflings directly or indirectly evicted all these aborigional out of this untainted paradise.

Current day Okeanos hosts a overwhelmingly tiefling-only demography. None-tiefling races are albeit on paper not second-grade citizens, but the way they are received would indicate otherwise. As said, non-tieflings in Okeanos, whether visiting or residing, are subject to searches and questioning at all times, and are shunned if not publicly despised by tiefling citizens. Legislation will undoubtly favor tieflings over foreigners in any dispute, to the point that accidental or even intentional murdering can still leave the tiefling killer unscathed if the victim happens to be a foreigner. There are very few foreigner individuals influential enough in the old Empire days to last them with a seat of decent power in Okeanos in the current days: These individuals often only differ with tieflings physically, thinking in the same mindset and posing the same mannerism, and are often seen with elaboratly and masterfully crafted fiendish horn-wigs to make themselves more in place with the aristocracy.

City of Solitude

Monosios is the coastal capitol of first the Province of Okeanos, and now the Provincial Empire of Okeanos. The city is built on the Akropolis, a isolated cliff facing towards the oceanic expanse, supported by extensional districts along the beaches surrounding the Akropolis. On top the Akropolis is the elaborate and decorated palace housing the aristocratic elites of the Provincial Empire, and the lower sections of the cliff backside ramp, extending into the surrounding beaches, is the Agora of Monosios, where less noble, but equally arrogant and archaic citizens reside.