Setting Idea: Tranquility

For as long as their was the Celestial Empire, so there was Tranquility. Tranquility was the northern -most province of the Empire and so it would ever be as the Empire was perfect, and perfection does not require change.

One hundred years ago, the quarterly visits from the Imperial tax collectors to Tranquility ceased. That same year, the processional of students bound for the Imperial Academy to have their magical talents ‘shaped’ for service to the Empire, disappeared enroute.

Somewhere south of the mountains of the Dragon’s Spine the veil had appeared. Appearing as a glimmering white curtain, and extending east to west as far as the eye could see. Apparitions of the dead, those dear to you in life would appear at its periphery, and beckon you to enter to be reunited. Those that entered allegedly do not re-emerge.

Mandate, the capital city of Tranquility, carried on as best as it could. Kings were elected by landowners as they always had been, and loyalty to the Empire and its resident Elven representatives was still shown, at least publically.

To the north, the uncharted Wilds extended into obscurity as they always had. Fulfilling their ordained role as a home to creatures that would not acknowledge the rightful rule of the Empire, as well as malcontents from the Empire itself that would be inconvenient to execute.

The King of Tranquility is ill, and the landowners of Mandate gather next month. The King’s son sets out next week with a small expedition into the Wild, following a custom to prove his worth to the electorate, he will ‘cull’ the troublesome Orcish tribes that have been encroaching into Tranquility in recent years.

While he is not perceived by many to be a natural, or perhaps even adequate rulers, this is the tradition, and tradition is the bedrock of the Celestial Empire, even for a province that has been out of contact for so long. Afterall, the rulers of the Empire live for a span of centuries, to them this interruption must be a mere blink of the eye.

Woe to those in Tranquility should their Imperial masters discover that they had gone astray once contact is inevitably restored.