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How to begin, how to begin... Ah, yes. It is the year 197 of the Royal Calender in the land of Calaras, an exquisitely terrible land plagued with poverty, indulgence, terror, and entertainment. Highwaymen were common, but so were aspiring adventurers that more or less made up the country's police force. Sometimes they did a good job, often times they tried and failed. In any case, our serene, illustrious, and so forth King Athar of Calaras decreed, yesterday, in a most royal and noble manner, that magic of all forms was to be banned, and magic-users hunted down. According to his logic, his rival, King Ville of Iolopis, extensively uses magic in his wars against Calaras, so therefore magic must be evil in some way to the serene, illustrious, and so forth mind of our good King Athar. And so peasants prepared wood and tinder and flint to prepare for the burning of magic in every form. Mages, wizards, warlocks, and scholars were all put to the stake, the rope, or the axe, including their families, servants, and anyone who did so much as to touch their evil, vile, hands (as decreed by King Athar). Most were then later burned twice for good luck (as decreed by King Athar), and their ashes thrown into the sea (as decreed by King Athar) so as to ward off sea monsters that must be preying in the ocean constantly. King Athar went back to war as he usually does, fighting and stabbing and kicking soldiers of the enemy and his own side, due to his fiery temper.
Calaras is a sort of a strange country. Do so much as to take food from the mouth of a child, and you are put to death. Just the same as if you were to slaughter dozens and refuse to bow to the King afterwards. Double death sentence for that actually, one for slaughtering dozens, and one for not respecting the King. So your body would be quartered, roasted, and served to pigs, who are then butchered and left to rot to use as catapult ammunition. Isn't that exciting? You're doing a service for your country even in death. From that, I think you can draw a picture of the serene, illustrious, and so forth country of Calaras. Iolopis isn't much better, mind you. Though, they have more problems, and Calaras takes pride in their obviously superior country, despite it being quite overshadowed by their more foreign trading partners and losing badly to rebels across the sea.
Calarasian society is, like the father country, very old-fashioned. The architecture is like that of the ancient Steollian civilization, of which Calarasians take great pride in comparing how the Steollian civilization was backwards and barbaric, in contrast to Calaras in their divine splendor of luxury and hardship (of course, like many things, this was contradictory to history). There were, in general, when the lines were not blurred by inter-marriage and scandals, two main classes. The rich, upper-class landowning/merchant class, who fought wars of their own with hired blades and immersed themselves in the finest lifestyle one could hope to achieve in Calaras (which is not that good in the eyes of other countries). Then there is the oppressed, lower-class farmer/laborer class, who fed everyone, did all their work, took the blames of everyone's faults, purchased trifles for the nobles, and pretty much everything for the upper-class, and without credit or any sign of gratitude to them. They were still happy though, that they were serving their country, no matter that the food rots away in unkempt granaries, the work becomes fruitless in the end, the faults build up tremendously to the point of mass executions of random villages simply because they're peasants, the trifles are thrown away after not even a fortnight, and everything else. People dressed vainly and usually impractically, preferring appearance over comfort. It's not rare to find woman that need a cadre of servants to tend to here appearance constantly, or extravagantly dressed men who no one can take seriously for the comedic value of their outfit (though they suppress this mirth, hiding it behind the most deadpan faces). On average years, the lower-class is the overwhelming majority of 98% to 1%, while the other 1% consists of everything between peasants and nobles. Calaras is no tiny city-state, either. In size, you could ride a horse around the perimeter of the country, and take several years doing so. It nearly encompasses the entire continent it is situated on, leaving only a little space in which to create their rival, Iolopis.
In war, the Calarasian Army consists of drafted lower-class members given a spear, a shield, some padded armor, and a one-page pamphlet on the various ways to stab someone with a spear. If you've got a bow, good. Use that first, then stab people with the spear later. The veteran regiments (of which there are only two) consist of more battle-hardened troops (that is to say, people who survive their first battle with brain and body intact), generally use homemade weaponry of clubs and crude swords/axes/daggers as well as basic studded armor to supplement their standard boring affair of spear and shield. Calarasian tactics are also terrible, as the generals have the annoyingly handsome habit of throwing troops gallantly at the enemy until the enemy either dies of laughter from looking at the poor Calarasian army, the enemy stops fighting because a wall of bodies built up in front of them, or their own troops poison the general with a plate of bad clams. Unlike other, dare I say, smarter, countries, Calaras doesn't employ magic. This may explain the fact that they've lost every war within the past decade.
As to you, you'll find out soon enough. Keep scrolling down and you'll find a little form to fill out, nothing much. I will explain everything later. Go on. Also, do keep it moderate, or you'll find deadly surprises waiting for you.
I forgot to mention: You're dead.
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