Requiem in Blue

Requiem in Blue is a canon written by Zahhak.

The Earth
The inhabitants of this world call it the Earth, although it has very little in common with our home planet, and perhaps just as much in common with the planet Saturn. It is a small gas giant with a series of icy and highly reflective rings. It has three great moons, six major moons, and twenty-two minor moons. The landmasses range in size between a few metres across and tens of thousands of kilometres across. They float on a sea of corrosive, poisonous clouds due to a combination of the density of the clouds and the background magical radiation. Above the cloud sea, the atmosphere is 25% oxygen, 71% nitrogen, 3% argon, 1% carbon dioxide, and traces amounts of other elements and compounds.

Life
This world is inhabited by a mixture of animals that would be recognisable to us, although in varieties not seen on Earth, and creatures wholly alien to us.

Recognisable Creatures
Recognisable creatures include the wayfaring tortoise, similar to our tortoises but capable of growing up to eleven metres in length There are also bears, although these come in the varieties of red, blue, and horned, although others may exist. There are also raptors, which wouldn't immediately be recognisable to us, but are very close to the prehistoric pterodactyl ramphorynchus.

Strange Creatures
Cloud whales are similar to our whales, but have large natural sacs of hydrpgen dwarfing the rest of their body to allow them to rise and fall in both the cloud sea and the atmosphere with ease. Jet-sharks are vaguely similar to our sharks, although they use magical runes constructed with delicate nerves along the hollow core of their body to act as a jet-engine. Drift horses are wholly alien, with a long head and a longer tongue, a body composed mostly of hydrogen sacs, a series of tentacles hanging below them, and four large, wing-like fins.

The Three Empires
The main area described in the Requiem in Blue setting is called the Three Empires. It is a little larger than the surface of our Earth, and despite its name contains a lot more than just empires. However, the Three Empires are the most powerful states in the region, and the ones most important to focus on.

The Norlan Empire
The Norlan Empire is the smallest of the empires both geographically and in population. It is situated in the cold northern end of the Three Empires. It has five provinces, or Stahls, called Dzatsk, Hreinstahl, Svolgen, Skatha, and Tyrmund Reach. The capital of the empire is Hreinsvand, in Hreinstahl, and features both the Winter Palace and a famous cathedral called the Hundred Gods.

The Norlan Empire is, however, an industrial and military superpower, with a full 3% of the population being a part of the standing army. Vast swathes of Tyrmund Reach, the largest of the Stahls, are covered in thick pine forest, which is where the empire acquires most of its wood. To add to its military might, the Norlan Empire has a significant advantage in the power of its individual troops.

The average Norlan man is between 6' and 6'6", and weighs around 250lbs. The average Norlan woman is between 6'6" and 7' tall and weighs over 300lbs. Due to a second mutation caused by the background magical radiation, women outnumber men by a 5:1 ratio, and the Norlan Empire is very matriarchal. It is also the source of the Z-gene, which causes fully fertile intersex people, and most of the Norlan Empresses in recent history have possessed the Z-gene.

The Azwan Empire
The Azwan Empire is the largest of the three empires, both geographically and in population, and has a population of over three billion people. It is as large as Africa and Asia put together, but the interior of its largest landmass is largely desert, with most of the population clinging onto the fertile coasts and rivers. The central Azwan desert is home to little other than the roaming mawatu trees and the nomadic night markets, which serve as a hotspot for people of all races and cultures to meet and trade every imaginable good or commodity.

The Azwan Empire is trailing behind the other two, technologically speaking, but only by a very narrow margin. This can be directly attributed to its inept and corrupt governance, which cares little for the people except for what it can tax. As a result, most people in the empire are equal, with a very progressive stance on sex and gender, but high-class people and foreigners are regarded with suspicion.

There is a revolution brewing in the universities and factories of the Azwan Empire, as the educated realise that the system is driving their empire into the ground, and the working classes grow tired of their government's selfish and clueless approach to rulership.

The Azwan Empire is ruled from the court in Sahem, similar to our Egypt, with a wide range of governors and statespeople promoted beeyond their competence at the whims of the ruling family.

Kobatji Empire
The Kobatji Empire is the most technologically advanced of the three empires, and is to the west of the Middle Sea. It is inhabited by a huge number of serfs and a smaller middle class which merges seamlessly into the nobility. Amongst the nobility heterosexuality is considered a disgusting faux pas, and straight marriage is purely for breeding purposes.

The Kobatji nobility also tend to subscribe to the philosophy of the Great Play, which holds that the world of the living is a play put on for the gods and the ancestors, and that narrative is a more important force than morality. This philosophy has been introduced to the working classes several times, but has failed to take root due to the very ingrained traditions of the workers in the Kobatji Empires. Of the three, the Kobatji Empire uses more gliders than any of the others, mostly designed to take down enemy airships.

The Kobatji Empire, like all of the others, contains several ethnic groups, although unlike the others at least one of them houses a growing revolutionary movement aiming at taking back their ancestral lands from the grip of the Kobatji Empire.