The Empire’s laws are mandated by the Empress herself, a series of Imperial decrees known as Imperial Common Law. These decrees constitute a simple bill of rights for all Imperial citizens, ensuring basic rights such as the right to a fair trial and a total ban on slavery. The Confederated Kingdoms may have their own local laws regarding trade, taxation and other more material matters, but Imperial Law overrides all others, often to the chagrin of their rulers.

The capital of the Empire is High Imperia, located on Arebnak’s eastern coast. It is there that the Empire’s many colleges, guilds, and labour unions will usually house their main offices, clustering close around the Imperial Palace where the Empress resides. The Empress only rarely makes public appearances, and an Imperial citizen will be lucky to hear of her appearing before her subjects once in a generation

For the time being, the Empire and the League exist in a state of fragile peace that some might more accurately call a stalemate. Over the past thousand years, both sides have incurred into the other’s borders to annex territory and settle accounts of blood and honour. However, as the Wargrounds goes through ebbs and flows of power and chaos, bottlenecks have formed to the north and south, making mobilizing armies increasingly difficult. Instead, the great powers have turned their attentions to the Wargrounds itself and the opportunities to seize power it offers in the form of ancient magics and technology. To this end, small bands of warriors are commissioned to sally forth into the Wargrounds on expeditions to recover these treasures and prevent their enemies from doing the same.

To enforce Imperial law and settle civil disputes, High Imperia maintains a College of the Laws, where experts in law both Imperial and local are trained and given the authority to pass verdicts on any Imperial citizen. These Magistrates travel the length and breadth of the Empire and assist in settling local disputes. They have a reputation for being strict at best and draconian at worst, delivering harsh verdicts and serving as judge, jury, and, when necessary, executioner.

The Empire maintains a standing army of soldiers under the Empress’ own banner, recruited from its many provinces. For every soldier a member nation raises for their own muster, one must be sent to High Imperia to join the Imperial Legions. Regiments are deliberately made of soldiers from across the Empire with different cultures and languages. To overcome these differences, Imperial soldiers are subject to strict tenets of discipline and taught a new shared language, Soldatencant

Throughout the Empire, trade is conducted using a single, standardized currency: The Imperial Talent. Essentially a small rod of electrum, Imperial Talents are marked with the seal of the Empress and enchanted to be unmeltable and unbreakable except by an Imperial Banker (or a skilled and unscrupulous mage). Being so valuable and therefore impractical to use, most day to day trading in the Empire is done in Imperial Scrip, promissory notes issued through the banks promising the holder the written value in Talents, usually in the thousandths.

The Empire permits freedom of religion for its subjects and many different faiths and demi-cults proliferate under its auspices. However, the largest and most widespread is worship of the Empress herself as a physical god, her rule divine. Empress worship goes by many names and takes many forms, whether she is worshipped as a god alone or incorporated into an existing folk pantheon as the new chief deity. The Empress has been declared the wife of so many ruling gods and goddesses that the collective pantheon is known as the Divine Consorts, taken as proof by the faithful that Empress’ rule extends beyond the physical and into the heavens and afterlives

Officially, there is no peace across Arebnak. The Empire and the League have never formally declared an end to their ongoing war, with the Empire continuing to assert the Empress’ claim to the western portion of the continent and the League acknowledging no right of conquest. However, for nearly a century, the two powers have been in a state of stalemate with limited open military action. Trade, at first cautious, is now conducted openly between member states of both factions. Each side commits greater and greater resources to plundering the Wargrounds in search of some kind of military edge that will finally tip the scales and allow the war to resume in their favour.

Civil war has plagued the Empire for much of its existence. The loose but bureaucratic structure of the Confederation puts a lot of friction upon the moving parts. Neighbouring states, with the only other choice being long, slow, officially overseen diplomatic procedures, will often turn to open warfare with one another. The same is often true for the League of Free Peoples, where disagreements may erupt into outright conflict even with the guiding principles of the Pact. Mercenary companies do a roaring trade, from small brigand outfits of under a hundred men hired by low level aristocrats to large, professional regiments of trained and drilled soldiery in the employ of monarchs. When the war business is slow, many mercenary crews test their mettle and seek fortune in the Wargrounds, maintaining their reputations and keeping their skills sharp.

Many races inhabit the lands of Arebnak. Besides the most numerous humans, elves, dwarves, and Wee Folk (Halflings and gnomes) can be found almost everywhere. Less widespread but still common are orcs and goblin-folk, and part-animal Beastkin. The Empire secures equal rights for all races of being, and mono-cultural enclaves are rare in the League. Other, stranger beings, that only appear rarely, are becoming a more and more common sight in the depths of the Wargrounds; trolls, ogres, and more twisted, mutant things that defy conventional description.