Dorwin

Dorwin developed into a sprawling and powerful empire early in the Third Era. Their mastery of technology, art, science, and magic was said to mirror that of the Elves, even though it has always been a Human-centric land. With a domain stretching far and wide, it seemed that there was nothing outside of its reach.

This came to an end in The Year of the Black Star, when a noxious fog known as the Blight started spreading at the heart of the empire, near its capital of Daith Emyr.

This fog persisted beyond weather, wind, and centuries, corrupting all life that found itself caught within. The initial appearance of the Blight had effectively decapitated the empire, with millennia of knowledge lost.

Those who survived were left searching for answers, and over time, the prominent school of thought posed that it must've been a punishment by something divine. The decadence of the old empire must have been the cause; punishment for a people getting too close to heaven. All history before the Blight was dubbed the Great Sin.

Between the factions and forces that survived the Blight, none were more powerful than the Holy Church of the One, which preached about the Great Sin and the necessity of reclaiming all that Dorwin had lost, except now in accordance to the will of the One True God.

The Holy Church of the One found itself the ruling entity in Dorwin, soon after its founding on the 1st of Springdawn, 23 5E. Its leader is known as The Pontiff, a faceless figure who dictates all which happens within the Church. On the 1st Falldawn, 25 5E, the Church decreed that it and therefore the whole of Dorwin was now dedicated to the Eternal Crusade; a multi-faceted plan to restore greatness to Dorwin.

The core tenet of the Crusade was to be that no method was to be shunned in order to reclaim that which belongs to Dorwin. In practice, this meant that all the regions unaffected by the Blight would focus on working to reclaim the regions that were, while also working towards the conquest of other regions, such as Gandortal. Extensive plans for a navy were drafted, in order to gain control of Cradle Bay. As for the methods, Dorwin would force those conquered into slavery. It went even a step beyond enslaving just the living; under the Church, necromancy was legalized in order to bolster the Dorwinian armies and workforce. It was discovered that the Blight did not directly harm the (un)dead, and so, every Dorwinian was expected to donate their body to the Church in order to serve in the struggle against the Blight.

Dorwin is a Theocratic Dictatorship. Its government is a spiritualistic dictatorship, ruled by a single individual (The Pontiff) in a hierarchical power structure supported by the official state religion (Holy Church of the One).

It is highly authoritarian, spiritualist, militaristic, and xenophobic.

The main ideological split in Dorwin is along the following lines:

The Heart

Those who subscribe to a policy of improving Dorwin through power, have called themselves The Heart. This faction has seen strong support of the Holy Church of the One, who supports the idea of reclaiming the heartlands of Dorwin from the Blight. The Heart has a symbiotic relationship with The Reach, as both rely on power, and thus military resources. The Heart is broadly supported by the Dorwinian Army.

The Reach

Not all believe that the Blight can be beaten, and so some believe that Dorwin should expand outwards, to perhaps return to liberate their homeland someday in the future. It is known that The Reach has many supporters in the Dorwinian Navy. In the past, The Reach has been the main catalyst in the invasions of Helladris and Gandortal.

Some speculate that the influx of prisoners captured by the Navy and sent to Dorwin is a way to placate the Dorwinian Army, a main follower of The Heart.

The Soul

The followers of The Soul are not pacifists, per se - it is more about their short- and long-term view of the future of Dorwin. They generally eschew the usage of prisoners in fighting the Blight, believing that is exactly the type of sin that brought down the Blight in the first place. Instead, they believe the Blight should just be suffered, as a punishment for the faults of past Dorwin. Where The Heart and The Reach embrace the Blight as a military threat, The Soul sees it as purely religious.

The Word

The Word does not see the Blight as a happenstance to just be suffered. Instead, they believe in building strong alliances, and perhaps one day defeating the Blight together with other peoples. The Word also sees the Blight not as a military threat, but as an arcane curse of sorts - one that could be lifted, theoretically, by arcane scholars. It is that pursuit of knowledge that drives The Word to seek allegiances.

• Restoring some real or imagined glorious past
• Piety and devotion to the gods
• Conquest and domination of others
• Ascetic unworldliness and pious poverty
• Submission to lawful authority
• Purging evil and expelling the wicked