A Basic Breakdown of the Political System
Corim was once a monarchy and the crown still holds onto some institutions, the royal post office, and air force of note.
The country is run by an oligarchy – called the high council – made up of ministers, a publicly elected representative of the general public, a military minister selected by the nations military, a transport minister selected by the transport and border authorities organisation, an agricultural minister elected by registered farmers and the agricultural ministry, a manufacturing minister from the Foundry Guild.
These five ministers share equal power except in times of war when the military minister is granted veto power over the other ministers. Elections for the role of public minister are held every three years and anyone over the age of twenty can vote by mail or in person at the polling booths in most major towns. During a minister’s term any citizen who has lived in Corim for at least a quarter of a century can campaign publicly and votes are taken by writing one’s choice of candidate. The votes are gathered in Duncarran and counted by the Archivist Institute.
The seats of the high council are currently: Public Minister: Edmund Tear, Military Minister: General Stana Erben, Transport Minister: Mara Kroll, Agricultural Minister: Hugo Ardalle, Manufacturing Minister: Philip Golde. Edmund is approaching his last year in term and is campaigning hard with the two newspapers he owns, Corim Weekly, and the Herald. Edmund is facing fierce competition from Sybil Harrington, the owner of Harrington Automotive who has recently gained a lot of public grace as she took a notable pay dip to support her workers as she expanded the company into more budget friendly motor vehicles.
The Military
The military of Corim was built on the Duncarran Officer’s Academy, an exclusive academy for the rich and powerful to train as officers in the ancient and the overly ceremonial military institutions of the army, navy and royal air force. The military hasn’t been in an actual war in decades and has become a bloated, inefficient weight on the countries coffers, only being used to deal with notable monster lairs or to deal with minor border disputes.
The army usually acts in Companies of about one hundred and twenty soldiers in a town which will then deploy their platoons on defensive patrols against monsters, but even with the bloat of the military only large towns have any military defense. Defensive patrols deploy for a few days to a week moving around the outskirts of a town trying to find signs of monsters or anti government insurgents. The army’s main mobile forces are in seven massive airships that are constantly moving around the nation to keep them safe from possible insurgent attacks.
A company on town defensive deployment will usually be made up of a captain or company commander, administration staff of three to six people, eight sergeants, four lieutenants, and the rest basic troops with often two to four squads of special weapons or mage squads.
The Airforce operates a fleet of three dozen aircraft, seven of which hold a large portion of the army’s forces including mechanised forces using tanks, paladin battle suits, and striders. The other twenty nine airships are much smaller with the exemption of the Goliath – a super carrier that holds multiple entire airwings of fighters, bombers, and transport aircraft. The Goliath is the centre of the airforces power, a massive airship that blocks out the sun and rivals dragons in the fear it wields as a weapon of destruction, with four batteries of artillery cannons mounted on the underside as well as dozens of anti aircraft turrets mounted over entire the hull. Other than it’s fleet of airships the airforce has multiple bases set up over the nation, with notable bases in Palinta, Bak-Farl, Terius, and Tatinalle.
The Navy is by far Corim’s most underutilised branch of the military, due to the treacherous and monster infested sea on their southern coast they don’t believe they risk attack from the sea. Their navy only has a handful of ships, most outdated ironclads with ramshackle systems held together purely by the tenacity of their engineers and the spite of their crews.
Transport and Travel in Corim
Corim’s main transport is via rail, with trains link all major towns and cities of Corim. The trains run on lifeblood fuel, belching flame and smoke into the air as they pass, their sooty silver hulls streaking by much faster than most automotives could ever hope to reach. Trains transport most of the food produce, ore, and refined materials and goods. They are the veins and arteries of Corim, they are a constant.
Automotives are a relatively new advancement, some large automotives haul cargo to hard to reach areas but most automotives are still luxury vehicles or expensive industrial equipment, with most common people using animal pulled carts and wagons, however Harrington Automotive and Sarnis have been pushing to extend the presence of automotives to the everyday people of Corim. Harrington Automotive have begun manufacturing affordable automotives for the public and Sarnis have begun creating low price Lifeblood powered machinery such as ploughs, mills, pumps, and heating units.
Agricultural Industry
Much of Corim is still in largely subsistence farming with some large corporate owned or sponsored farms growing on a commercial scale with industrial equipment. The agricultural industry of Corim is largely based on wheat, potatoes, corn, and barley which they export commercially from their industrial level farms in the southern reaches.
The cuisine of Corim is very much effected by eastern european food such as; Deruny, Paprikash, Shakshuka, Stronganoff, and stuffed cabbage dishes. I might do a post later on the cuisine with the help of some people who know more about food than me.
Manufacturing Industry
Corim is a hotbed for manufacturing and mining as it has a lot of iron deposits and a strong base of raw Lifeblood for extraction, making it a hotbed of industry. The cities are monsters of steel, baroque and gothic architecture. Factories belch fire and smoke into the air creating ever present smogs over the cities and run their workers through fourteen hour days with workers as young as four years old. Corim is thoroughly in the midst of an industrial revolution due to its utilisation of Lifeblood fuel and new advances in machinery.
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