Declaria was my "wild nation." The nation's original concept revolved more along the lines of a mix of rain forest and rolling savanna-like plains. However, the concept changed as the world did; rain forests became somewhat implausible in a world where the water was "fed" to other countries and oceans don't exist. When I decided that the Root of Creation, of life and chaos, would be coming up through it as well, it took another twist.
The country turned into a dense forest of deciduous trees, thinner at the edges where most of the larger towns were located. The closer one came to the middle of nation, the wilder the area would get, with great trees and the most barbaric of villages closer to the middle. At the very center of the world is a vast, half-sphere crater; all of the water that comes into the country, regardless of its point of origin, ends here, filling most of the five-mile-wide hole and turning it into a deep lake dozens of feet below the closest edge of land. Most people do not know what is actually right next to root; although legends tell about people disappearing or abducted to other worlds, those who know of these things know that the Fae make their home near the base of the root itself, and venturing to those lands means one may never come back; if they do, they will most likely not come back the same as they once were.
Since the country was centered around the idea of chaos, I decided that a singular ruling body was unrealistic. Any centered power-seat would be immediately rooted out by not only the anarchistic forces of the land, but also by those who lived here and considered themselves part of such a chaotic land. As such, I decided that any governing body would only meet periodically, and often in secret. It would be composed of defacto or informal leaders from any and all settlements, gathered by some of the greatest Terrestrial Mages who were capable of detecting colonies of living, thinking bodies throughout the country, as well as creating vast nets of communication lines between them through various means.
The immediate problem that tends to come from creating separate nations within a world (unless, of course, this is something you're intending to do from the beginning) is the tendency for some of them to be perceived as "good" and others as "bad." The tyrannical oppression of an empire versus the freedoms represented by the conglomerate of states run by the people. It's ingrained in many of us, to be honest, as it's how many of us were raised.
So when I first decided I wanted to create a nation that consisted of a large number of independent cities and villages, I was afraid most anything I wrote would be construed as some sort of allegory either for or against democracy. I wasn't entirely comfortable with construction, and I definitely wasn't ok with the idea of a back-woods society I was trying to create being compared to any sort of modern-day political construction.
As such, I decided I would make the "ruling body" consist of two things that would separate it from modern political schemes. First, I made it a shadow organization: although each member would do their best to represent the interests of their home, most did not make any within their home aware that meetings were happening, what they were discussing or where they were being held. Second, I added an illogical hierarchy, where villages with their own mages in the organization were given priority over those that were not, and that priority amongst the mages were given not by their power or strength, but actually the distance and area of effect a mage could control or influence at once.
After also removing the ability to create any legislature of any kind, restricting the body into a role where it could do little aside from setting up trade or evaluating threats, I was a bit more comfortable with the nation. To be honest, it's still my least favorite of the nations I created. At the same time, I think that's driven me to keep working on it.
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