The Empire of Mercia

"'Do Not Falter'"

Background
Founded: Unknown

The Empire of Mercia is the dominant power of the world. It has a long history of warfare, much of which has resulted in their favor. However, they have been unable to bring Arcadia under the watchful eye of their empire, resulting in a great deal of tension between the two nations.

Mercia has rather ruthless methods of dealing with the few stray individuals who use magic - executions, assassinations - although with a sudden surge of magic-wielding terrorists, Mercia struggles with how to proceed. Just where are they coming from all of a sudden?

Mercian citizens pride themselves for their hard-working, homey lifestyles, and their steadfast attitudes. They are simple people who find comfort in friends, family, and food cooked with lots of love. Mercians are always ready to lend a helping hand to their fellow citizens, and work hard to make life rich and comfortable for everyone in the empire. However, at the first spark of danger, Mercia shows no mercy.

Mercia is a mishmash of Germany and the British Empire and is named after a real life kingdom in central England that existed during the Middle Ages.

The empire does not have a national animal.

Politics
Ruler: Emperor Theodoric Dareaurum Eberhart VIII

Next in line: Prince Boris Dareaurum Eberhart V

Known Members of Mercia's Five:
 * Esther Victoire (Ambassador/Royal Advisor)
 * Lyra O'Hara (Admiral/Head of Airship Development)

Mercia Fortress
Mercia Fortress is the bastion of the empire - counting as the seat of the Emperor, and the forge of Mercia's political, technological, and scientific developments. Many people live within the fortress as they work there, such as Cog and Christian.

Meriden Village
The farming village of Meriden rests on the outskirts of the capital city, nestled between rolling hills and expansive plains. Cog lived there for the first nine years of his life, before being moved to live within Mercia Fortress after the death of his father and sister. Cog returns there every year to visit their graves, and to spend time with the villagers. When the mayor visits Mercia Fortress, she will always find Cog to say hello.

Technology
Mercia is more advanced with their technology, and have been advancing at an insane rate since the empire was founded. Mercia is full of extremely talented tacticians, scientists, and engineers, although they lag behind Arcadia in terms of airships.

Airships
As part of their peace treaty, Arcadia supplied Mercia with the basic blueprints for building airships. Mercia constantly lags behind in terms of development, and fails to match up to the standard of Arcadia's basic airships.

Mercia maintains mostly cargo ships, and has only two warships at it's disposal; The Vega, owned by Lyra O'Hara, and The Gullinburst, owned by Emperor Theodoric.

Kleinships
Kleinships (more literally known as Gliders) are small airships fit for one or two people. They were recently developed by Mercia, and mark a breakthrough in Mercia's airship development - as Arcadia has yet to develop anything like it.

Cog, who worked in the docks often during development, helped design them - and he and Boris own the two first prototypes. Although Cog and Boris have a tendency to crash them constantly, Cog keeps them in good shape.

MAIL0
MAIL0 is a failed attempt at making a functioning robot with AI. MAIL0 was the first prototype built to aid with the construction of airships (to make up for Mercia lagging behind Arcadia), but his production and repair was too costly to pursue further. MAIL0 now simply helps carry heavy loads around Mercia's docks, and only allows his maintenance to be performed by Cog.

Culture
Mercia values hard work and companionship over all. All who wish to lend a hand to their fellow Mercians, and therefore the future of the Empire, are valued members of society. This can range to being a solider, a mechanic, a scientist - or to simply helping another citizen carry their groceries. Those who live a self-absorbed and lazy lifestyle are looked down upon.

Mercians, however, can tend to be rather xenophobic. Many Mercians view Arcadia's refusal to join Mercia as self-absorbed and disrespectful, without any consideration to the benefits it may provide both Mercia and itself. Hundreds of years of this rocky relationship has caused the rift between Mercian and Arcadian people to grow, and to harbor only contempt for eachother now.

Mercian people value homeliness, character, and warmth over presentation. Mercians also prize size and strength in their citizens, and see people such as Theodoric, Cookie, and Leonardo as attractive ideals.

Government
Mercia is an empire, and thus composed of different areas and people. To increase size and strength of their empire, Mercia has both invited poorer settlements to join, as well as taking land and subjugating people by force.

Mercia's Five, unlike Arcadia's Five, are a secret to all but the Emperor.

Architecture
The architecture reflects upon the people's values: compared to Arcadia their buildings seem rather hodgepodge, with lots of knobbly wood, warm colors, and crooked angles.

Economy
The economy of Mercia is another aspect of the empire that reflects upon the culture of the people - unlike Arcadia it's more driven by hard work instead of inheritance and thus there are no real social barriers. A person will only get to the bottom of the barrel if they're lazy.

In terms of trade, Mercia has more resources within its own borders and thus is able to keep to itself more, instead of relying on external trading. The empire also has more land than Arcadia for agriculture and farm use. There are also many mines, and overall the empire produces mostly metals, tools, technology, red meat, and vegetables.

Mercia uses darics as their currency.

Holidays
The two main holidays celebrated are midsummer and midwinter, simply called the Summer and Winter festivals. There are also national holidays - the current leader’s birthday is a holiday, and Mercia and Arcadia share a national holiday to celebrate their peace treaty.

Superstitions
There's a superstition in Mercia that you should never look back while walking up the stairs.

Legends and Stories
Most of Mercia’s famous myths and legends come from war heroes and creating peace in times of strife.

Immigration/Travel
It’s VERY uncommon for Mercians to live in Arcadia and vice versa, just on account of how much the citizens loathe one another (and some of the politicians) - but more importantly because of how much paperwork and etc goes into it because of the terrorist attacks/murders in the past 7 years. Christian is a special case because Esther personally vouched for him, but the shopkeeper at the end of Chapter 1 only knew the gossip about Cog because she has a relative who works in Mercia Fortress. It's for the same reason that everyone is surprised that Cog is in Arcadia - he's Mercian, and it's not normal to see Mercians in Arcadia.

People don't really move around a lot in the world of Clockwork, so tourism isn't even a business. Another reason is that no one wants to get between the Mercian-Arcadian tension if they don't have to. The world is just an extremely tense place.

Warfare
Most wars and scuffles came from Mercia attempting to subjugate Arcadia, which ended when Arcadia developed the world's first airship and forced Mercia to sign a treaty of peace. Arcadians are aware that Mercians have no love for them because of the cultural differences and the fact that they won't join the empire. Mercia sees it as disrespect and Arcadians see it as wanting to protect their independence and history.

Wars are about territory - Mercia will take over land as a way to better police them. Although Arcadia deals with magic users the exact same way Mercia does (execution via hanging the magic user and immediate family such as parents, children, and siblings), Mercia still wants to hold the reins.