Profile
Angstrom
Geography
Angstrom is a cold and rocky place, has a very grey aura, just generally feels bleak as hell. It's pretty large and hard to navigate, the landscape is dominated by mountains and riddled with volcanic activity. Much of the country is uninhabited and most of the population lives in a handful of cities crammed on the banks between cliffs and waterfront(cities tend to build up rather than spread out, lots of tall buildings)(also lots of tunneling into the cliff faces/basementing).
Climate leans towards very cold, it's got a near-arctic positioning.
THERES DRAGONS IN THEM THERE HILLS
Politics
"I'll kick anybody's ass. I'll kick your ass. I'll kick your allies' asses. I'll kick my own ass" -Angstromi leaders, probably
At war fucking constantly, probably on the verge of civil war. At one point was an empire spanning many many nations but over time has lost most of its territory, mostly due to the Siphon-bomb launched on them a 100+ years ago that destroyed the country's ability to hold onto ambient magic and essentially sparked a localized apocalypse & sent the whole place back to the stone age. After that they kinda had to retract to the homeland and deal with their entire destroyed infrastructure & having to essentially redo their entire technological revolution from scratch since they're the only place on the fuckin planet that can't rely on magic.
A Venn-Diagram of the rich and high-ranking military officials is nearly a circle, and the middle part is where almost all of the politically-powerful people reside.
Culture
Someone from Angstrom is Angstromi. Their language is similar to earth's french. Despite it being kind of a shithole patriotism is pretty high thanks to generations of propaganda, and foreigners do not generally receive a warm welcome. Actually distrust is kind of a staple personality trait for the Angstromi.
There are pretty much 3 classes: the rich, the poor, and the military. The wealth gap is very high; with the rich living in insane luxury and the poor slated to lives spent either in mines/farms/factories owned by the rich, or in the service industry. The poor who wish to escape this life often turn to the military(or immigrating elsewhere, or CRIMINAL CRIMES, but that persnickety propaganda & a cultivated systemic pipeline make the military route seem much easier to get into & much more glamorous/honorable). (Well, as long as you're able-bodied. Social programs are minimal & if you're barred from access to the military u prolly can't do manual labor either so unless u have family to support you ur kinda fuckd.)
Agriculturally, they do a lot of fishing, raise domesticated seabirds for their eggs, and grow most of their produce in vertical farms. Canning food is the most popular method of preserving it.
The population is mostly human, any demons who don't want to be hunted down & harvested do their best to blend in, and the fae population is assumed to be near-zero.
Not really any queerphobia, in that there is nothing in their culture priming them to hate gay & trans people in order to prove their religious/political convictions? Most people only know about queerness in that 'i have a gay cousin' way, and at most it's seen as a weird quirk and pronouns changes are tolerated/respected even if nobody really 'gets' it. I mean u might get microaggression'd but nobody's gonna assault you over it.
In other countries they tend to have a reputation for being selfish and aggressive, stereotyped as criminals.
Magic
Magic itself is mostly limited to witches, or those wealthy enough to be able to import stored magic for their magical studies. Culturally, magic is viewed as a dangerous/corrupting force, magic users are distrusted, and witches when discovered are taken in by the military, 'for the protection of all' (aka drafted & forcibly trained into living weapons and/or batteries). They tend to prefer the more technical magical terms & categorize it into Physical/Metaphysical/Chemical.
Humans with atypical features/mutations(pointed ears, tails, odd skin tones or just regular-ass birth defects/disabilities) tend to be associated with magic & viewed negatively because of this.
Their hatred of magic has made them leaders in development of technology that doesn't rely on it, though? They take a lot of pride in their scientific endeavors(i mean it's mostly in attempts by the military to build better weapons & more efficiently move/provide for their armies but a lot of shit useful for daily life has come out of it). Electricity is mostly geothermally harvested.
Trivia
- smoking is pretty popular
- there is no Angstromi CoL branch, although not for lack of trying
- City aesthetic is militaristic, utilitarian, steampunkish, influenced by early-1900s western aesthetics.
- Country aesthetic is inspired by iceland.
- Culturally inspired by USA w/ the dystopia factor turned up a couple of notches.
The Ashlands
A subregion of Angstrom wilderness claimed by the fugitive witch Ezra and their charges, which are mainly other less-powerful witches seeking refuge from government enslavement.
Territory
Ezra has claim over a particularly active region of volcanic activity, a boon for the lavamancer in their fight against government agents attempting to capture them. Their claim solidified when the military decided it wasn't worth chasing them anymore, and assuming nobody was even aware they had a presence in the area failed to create a cover story until after news of Ezra's victory was widespread.
Politics
Its very formation is an affront to the standing government of Angstrom, and becoming a haven for witches & beacon of hope for the Witch Rebellion certainly didn't make it any less of an inherently-political entity. Whether this was Ezra's intention from the beginning is unknown, but they have embraced their role as a leader of the people and have made a lot of large claims regarding the control of the country as a whole.
Raw power is an amazing asset, but as the population grows so does the demand on resources, until there is simply not enough in the valley to remain a self-sufficient settlement, and the opposition is taking advantage of their lack of resources, disrupting their barely-established supply lines and hoping to starve them out before it can come to an actual Civil War(and also just propaganda out the ass to present Ezra as EVIL CORRUPTING WITCH MONSTER and prevent the public from sympathizing/thinking to help them.
Ezra's desire to firstly build an Angstromi throne & then sit upon it is on the backburner for now while they struggle with infrastructural issues.
Culture
Kind of strained and unstable, what with the population ranging from scared families wanting to protect their children to revolutionaries on pilgrimage to an underwhelming end, and everybody being pretty hungry and living in caves. Belief in Ezra is the unifying factor among the population and though their personality isn't exactly comforting it's not bad enough to send their new wards back where they came from.
Everybody's trying their best to get it working but nobody really has experience founding a nation so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Their view on magic is tainted by the Angstomi view that it is a force of evil, but seeing as everyone there has a personal relationship with magic or a magical being as a rule they are trying to move past that and celebrate it as the medium of their salvation rather than damnation.
Ledrakile
A settlement in one of few areas in Angstrom that has somehow retained its ambient magic.
Territory
A smallish sliver of coastal land, far-flung from the majority of civilization on Angstrom. Dragons used to live here but they were chased off decades ago.
Politics
The population is mainly comprised of military researchers and their families, as the place was mainly founded to study the magic in the area. It isn't super involved or important in the politics of the nation as a whole. The only real conflict in its history was the battling with dragons during its founding, but that didn't last long enough to actually be labelled a war, or even a proper rebellion.
Culture
Pretty chill for a military base? They're so far out of the way from both proper leadership and other nations that there's minimal need for security at all and as long as the governor isn't looking and no one important is visiting/hounding them for deadlines the atmosphere is basically lax with a side of old-fashioned Angstromi depression.
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