Kija

Kija is a distant country where the Kija series missions take place. A theocratic feudal state, the country is currently ruled by Emperor Wong-Chaesong, who began his reign in 2012 CE. The population of Kija is estimated to be about 100 million people, as counted by an Imperial census every ten years.

Geography
Kija is located on the east coast of the Reach's eastern continent. It is bordered to the west by the Western and Spiritland Deserts, from which it was separated by the Kijan and Misty Mountain mountain ranges. It was bordered to the north by the Shattered Bay archipelago.

Kija's climate is temperate, and the majority of its biome is best classified as deciduous forest. The winters are cold and dry, while the summers are hot and humid. The weather also tends to be colder the higher north one gets, as a powerful white dragon in the Shattered Bay keeps the surrounding regions in an eternal winter.

The northern half of Kija's western mountain range are referred to as the Kijan mountains, the tallest of which are capped with ice and snow year-round. The southern mountains, referred to as the Misty Mountain range are warmer and smaller but are perennially beset with heavy fog. The boundary between the feywild and the material plane thin near the Misty Mountains and the Spiritland Desert beyond it, and these areas are thought to be the source of most of Kija's fey-adjacent inhabitants, such as elves or gnomes.

Three major water sources provide Kija's fresh water: The Dragon Lake in the north, the Golden River to the west, and the Bidan River to the south. The Golden and Bidan river are also heavily used for trade, as public projects led by previous emperors have tamed the originally harsh waters with several dams and well-maintained reservoirs.

Major Races

 * Kija is predominantly inhabited by humans, who compose 85% of the country's population.
 * About 7% of the population is composed of elves or half-elves, who immigrated to Kija over the last few millennia. Though initially met with skepticism, they now occupy a position of privilege in Kija; they are particularly prized by the Imperial bureaucracy for their resistance to enchantment magic.
 * About 3% of the population are gnomes, who immigrated to Kija only over the last few centuries. They were similarly prized by the Imperial bureaucracy due to their resistance to enchantment magic, but due to being more easily distinguishable from humans than elves, they usually take on less visible roles than elves.
 * About 2% of the population are dragonborn, who, thanks to Kija's deep cultural admiration of dragons, are treated as first-class citizens in Kija. Being a dragonborn is enough to warrant nobility status on its own, and Kija's own Imperial family are mostly dragonborn.

Rare Races
The remaining 3% of the population consists of a variety of rarer races, including dwarves, halflings, orcs, and half-orcs. There are also a few other creatures from the feywild who immigrated more recently than elves or gnomes, such as dokkaebi, gumiho, satyrs, pixies, and goblinoids.

Dokkaebi
The dokkaebi are red-skinned fey who take a humanoid form. They typically have one or two horns jutting from their forehead, though some occasionally have more. They are distantly related to the oni, large, blue, magical giants who also inhabit Kija.

They seem to be able to usually alter their appearance at will, often disguising themselves as humans. They may also turn into household objects upon falling to 0 HP, where they remain inanimate until revived, based on Dishrag's behavior during the "Sticky Situation" mission. While saving Cocktail from the Amsaldan lair, it was also revealed that dokkaebi fear horseblood, which causes them to go into an uncontrolled state of panic, incapacitating them.

Gumiho
The gumiho, also known as a kitsune, is a magical nine-tailed fox that hails from the Feywild. While outside the Feywild, they must periodically consume intelligent creatures in order to remain sapient; a gumiho that goes too long without eating a sapient creature will eventually devolve into a mundane, unintelligent fox, losing its tails one by one.

While hunting a gumiho during one mission, the guild also discovered a half-gumiho child, who had the same need for intelligent flesh as his gumiho mother, but could not enter the Feywild to prevent his devolution. The child was eventually changed into a human by Lady Noksu to end this affliction.

Magwi
The magwi are not quite a race, but rather a type of monster that dwells in Kija. They are undead creatures, not too different from vampires, that come into existence when a living creature is infected by consuming a magwi's blood or when a creature dies with powerful feelings of anger, regret, or desire. They are nocturnal, fearing the sun, and are vulnerable to wisteria poison, which negates their regeneration. Their head must be cut off in order to grant them a true death. Wisteria poison is highly regulated in Kija; indeed, the distribution of it by non-governmental entities is illegal.

Government
Kija is divided into six provinces (Jinju, Haejae, Annan, Nahung, Wusan, and Giwa) and one Imperial district. Each of the provinces are governed by a major noble family or "House", each led by a single family head, who are responsible for upholding and enforcing the Imperial laws. Each family appoints a representative to the Imperial court, where they are permitted to advise the Emperor; this representative is often but not always the family head's eldest child and heir.

Other than this Imperial court, the Imperial government is composed of a vast network of bureaucrats, who work both in the Imperial district and the provinces. These bureaucrats are selected from both the major and minor noble families of Kija through a national civil service examination administered once every ten years. This civil service exam tests prospective bureaucrats on a variety of subjects, including mathematics, history, economics, philosophy, science, magic, and martial arts. Performance on this exam determines a noble's starting position in the bureaucracy (or whether they may join the bureaucracy at all), though they can always rise through the ranks throughout their lives. The Emperor chooses one member of the bureaucracy to be the Prime Minister, who oversees the rest of the Kijan bureaucracy; the current Prime Minister is Lord Baek Inho, who led the coup that led to the current Emperor's ascension.

The position of Emperor is hereditary and is restricted to the Wong family, the dragonborn Imperial family of Kija. The Emperor is considered to be infallible; it is said that the spirit of the first Emperor of Kija joins with the soul of the current Emperors when they are coronated, giving them divine power and knowledge. This spirit joining is referred to as the "Mandate of Heaven," and it grants an absolute right to rule to the Emperor who possesses it.

The current Emperor of Kija is Wong Chaesong, who ascended to the throne after the previous Emperor, Wong Gumun, was deposed in a coup. Chaesong, unlike Gumun, is very reclusive, rarely appearing to the public outside of official matters and rarely taking advice from the noble families. As a result, many scholars have dedicated themselves towards analyzing the Emperor's decisions, trying to understand his reasoning and making predictions about future decisions.

On the local level, each town and city in Kija is governed by a magistrate, a member of the Imperial bureaucracy.

Founding Legend
The founding legend of Kija is considered to be largely factual by its scholars, though exact details are hard to confirm. According to this legend, Kija was founded about three millennia BCE when the Celestial Dragon, the third son of the Jade Emperor of Heaven, was sent away in order to create his own domain. The Celestial Dragon descended upon the Reach accompanied by four angelic attendants, claiming a piece of the Reach as his own.

He first established the capital city of Gyeongju, which would become the center of Kija, his new empire. For the next four centuries, with his angelic attendants at his side as generals, he went on a campaign of conquest, establishing control over the surrounding lands. The land was previously controlled by several smaller nations, each ruled by archfey or celestials who had made claims on the material plane; as Kijan forces slowly defeated them, they were either absorbed into the Empire or destroyed.

However, his campaign ended early when he was banished from the material plane by an unknown assassin. Some suspect this assassin to have been Sun Wukong, a legendary warrior who served Hwanung, one of the local kings the Celestial Dragon subjugated. Without the Celestial Dragon bolstering them with his divine power, the Kijan forces' advance slowed to a stop. Kija then had to establish treaties with the surrounding kingdoms to draw up permanent borders for the Kijan Empire: Towards the north, with the white dragon born, the west, the tengu of the West Desert, the south, the various archfey who inhabited the Misty Mountains and the Spiritland Desert, and the east, the sahuagins and merfolk.

Unable to act directly on the material plane, the Celestial Dragon instructed his four attendants to stand at Kija's borders and protect the land from external threats. The attendants slowly assumed physical forms—avatars—to act on the material plane, and became known as the four divine beasts that protected the land.

Recorded History
For most of its history afterwards, Kija remained mostly static. Though there were occasional wars with the neighboring countries, Kija held on to its borders, though without the direct divine power of the Celestial Dragon, it struggled to expand. With the perpetual guidance of the Celestial Dragon, the government and its policies also remained largely static, though technology and culture, of course, changed over time.

The Reign of Blood
On the 9th month of 2001 CE, Crown Prince Wong Gumun ascended to the throne after the death of his father, Emperor Wong Kaeson. Though he was considered a highly able and wise ruler for the first few years of his reign, his reign would soon take a turn and become known as the "Reign of Blood" and lead to the only successful Imperial coup in Kijan history.

In 2005 CE, the then-head of the Baek Family, Baek Nami, began to speak out in opposition against the Emperor's decision to go to war with the white dragonborn to the north after they began raiding northern Kijan settlements. Though arguing against the Emperor was not uncommon and even encouraged in the Imperial court, Baek Nami exceeded the traditional boundaries of this discourse by campaigning to the general public to pressure the Emperor to change his mind. Emperor Gumun declared this treason and initiated a purge of the Imperial bureaucracy, executing 36 officials and exiling or dismissing 239 more. He also executed his younger brother, Prince Wong Sabol, who had supported Baek Nami in his campaigning to the public. The entirety of the Baek family was executed, though one scion of a side-branch, Baek Inho, escaped and hid himself.

Afterwards, he was recorded as having become much more withdrawn from public life, increasingly shunning official duties and instead spending time with artists, musicians, and courtesans. In 2007 CE, he took one of his favorite courtesans, Jang Noksu, as his concubine; just a few months afterwards, he banished his then queen and elevated Noksu to her position. His lavish spending and elevation of a courtesan to the position of queen drew the disapproval of the nobility, and rumors began to spread that the Emperor did not have the Mandate of Heaven, which was why he kept away from official appearances. In response to these rumors, the Emperor conducted another purge in 2009 CE, this time of the nobility at large. Within just a year, 334 nobles were executed and 708 were demoted to commoner status or exiled. Until the end of his reign, he continued to frequently execute nobles, executing 4-5 per month on average.

Throughout this period, the nation suffered economically due to his excessive spending, his frequent purging of the most educated members of his government, and his constant military campaigns to conquer the Shattered Bay from the white dragonborn. Thanks to this, Emperor Gumun's became highly unpopular among the Kijan population at large. He especially lost popularity among the nobility in 2011 CE, when he declared that he would begin taxing nobles to help bolster the Imperial coffers.

The Imperial Restoration
After avoiding Emperor Gumun's first purge, Baek Inho, a scion of a side-branch of the previously illustrious Baek Family, fled and hid in the Kijan mountains. Travelling throughout Kija, he collected evidence that showed that the Emperor had never been the righteous Emperor, due to actually having been the product of an illicit affair between his Queen mother and a male courtesan, and that he thereby lacked the divine power granted by the Mandate of Heaven. He used this evidence to secretly rally the nobles against the Emperor. After the purge of 2009 CE and the taxation of nobility that began in 2011 CE, he finally gained the sufficient support: He convinced General Jin Dojun, who was leading the war effort in the north against the white dragonborn, to turn his army around and march on the capital.

On the 3rd month of 2012 CE, Baek Inho and Jin Dojun took the capital from the small Imperial forces; Jin Dojun had the majority of the nation's military power at the time, due to his efforts in the war. Within the next month, Emperor Gumun was deposed, executed, and replaced by his cousin, Wong Chaebong. Emperor Chaebong restored the Baek Family and named Baek Inho his Prime Minister and placed those who had contributed to his ascension in positions of power. The new Emperor signed an armistice with the white dragonborn and rescinded the taxation of the nobility.

Post-Restoration Recovery
After the coup, Emperor Chaebong took decisive measures to stabilize the nation's economy. He restored several exiled or demoted nobles to their positions, and cut down Imperial spending to a minimum. The Empire also loosened regulations on the treatment of slaves, allowing them to be worked harder than before, and increased taxes on the commoners. He also shifted funding heavily from the philosophy and art sectors towards agricultural efforts to help feed Kija's vast population.

In the 2nd month of 2022 CE, one of the chiefs of the northern white dragonborn tribes was assassinated by unknown forces. The white dragonborn accused Kija of conducting the assassination and voided the armistice, reviving the border war between the white dragonborn and Kija.

Class System
The lifestyle of Kija's inhabitants is largely determined by the country's rigid class system that separates people into nobles, commoners, and slaves. Class designations are inherited matrilineally, and class mobility in Kija is highly restricted.

Nobles enjoy various privileges, such as an exemption from taxes, the right to own slaves, and the right to take the national civil service exam to join the Imperial bureaucracy. They also enjoy several legal protections that favor them over commoners or slaves; for example, if a noble kills a slave, they need only pay a fine and reimburse the slaves' owners, but if a slave kills a noble, they and their immediate kin are executed. About 5% of the Kijan population are nobles.

Commoners, also known as freemen, live within towns and districts governed by nobles, but may generally live very freely. They are permitted to travel freely within Kija, setting their own wages and leaving employment when they desire to do so. Many commoners often become wealthy or powerful through successful trade or work, but their direct political power is limited by their inability to join the Imperial bureaucracy. However, commoners may in the rare case be granted nobility by the Emperor for significant services rendered. On the other hand, commoners can also be cast into the slave class as a sentence for grievous crimes. About 60% of the Kijan population are commoners.

Slaves compose the remaining 40% of the Kijan population. They are required to be legally owned by a member of the Kijan noble class. If a noble dies without designating an heir to receive their slaves, the slaves are taken into the Imperial governments' possession. Most such "Imperial slaves" are put to work in Imperially-owned farmland or mines, though some are auctioned to nobles to raise Imperial funds. Slaves enjoy very few rights in Kija, though certain provinces may have nobles who impose their own restrictions on the treatment of slaves.

The National Registry
Every ten years, the Imperial bureaucracy conducts a census of its inhabitants. However, besides this, there are also several other methods by which they keep track of the population. All legal inhabitants of Kija are registered in a national registry kept in the capital city, which tracks their name, birthdate, appearance, and permanent record. Whenever children are born, the parents are required to report to the magistrate of their town or city, who sends the child's information to the national registry, and every Kijan is required to report to their magistrate at the beginning of each year to update their record in the national registry.

Each legal inhabitant of Kija possesses an identification badge, known as a "hopae," that verifies that they are recorded on the national registry and the date of their last update. Most have a nonmagical version of the hopae, but high-ranking members of the bureaucracy possess a magical version with an Imperial seal that changes shape when pressed.

Travel and Immigration
Travel is very common throughout Kija. One of the Empire's earliest and most successful public projects was the creation of six enormous, permanent teleportation circles throughout its lands, dubbed the "Blue Stars of Heaven." The teleportation circles are strictly regulated, with guards controlling entry and exit into the circles, as well as their operation. The circles are connected by a robust highway system, which are paved with smooth cement and regularly patrolled by Kijan soldiers. This combination of travelling technology makes traveling throughout the lands very quick and relatively safe.

Emigration rom Kija is relatively easy, as long as one is not a slave. There are no restrictions on commoners and nobles leaving the country. Immigration, on the other hand, is much more difficult. Those without a hopae or an invalid hopae are deported from the country if found; several repeated offenses result in increasingly higher punishments. Temporary visitors to the country are allowed only in Nonchon City, and extended residency in Kija requires approval from the Imperial bureaucracy.

Religion
Most of Kija's inhabitants worship the Emperor, who is considered a god. They also worship the four divine beasts—the white tiger, the azure serpent, the vermillion phoenix, and the black tortoise—who are said to protect the empire from outside harm; each of the four divine beasts have a grand temple around the outer edges of Kija. Some inhabitants also worship King Enma, the god of death, as well as various local nature spirits and fey.

There are no legal restrictions or requirements on religion in Kija. Insulting or doubting the Emperor's godhood is considered blasphemy, but is not actually illegal; however, it is considered to be extremely bad-mannered.

Amsaldan
The Amsaldan is a band of rogues, spies, and assassins who captured and imprisoned Cocktail, a dokkaebi who was spying on them under Lady Noksu's orders. They use a courtesan house as a front for their operations, serving courtesan patrons on the ground floor while conducting Amsaldan operations underground. They were led by a drow spellcaster named Yi Hwang, who was captured and brought to Lady Noksu by the guild; he was in her custody up to her death.

The House of Baek
The House of Baek, also known as the Baek Family, is the major noble family in charge of governing Wusan province. The head of this family, Lord Inho Baek, serves as the Prime Minister of Kija and is known to be a powerful wizard.

The House of Jin
The House of Jin, also known as the Jin Family, is the major noble family in charge of governing Jinju province. The head of the family is Jin Hyun, an accomplished Kijan general. The Jin Family has played a prominent role in preserving Kija's northern expansions against the efforts of the White Dragonborn who occupy the Shattered Bay.

Gyeongju City
The capital city of Kija and the seat of the Emperor's authority. Considered to be the political and philosophical center of Kija, thanks to the government being situated there, as well as the Imperial Library of Kija.

Nonchon City
The largest city in Kija by both area and population, followed closely by Gyeongju. Considered by many to be the cultural and economic center of Kija, Nonchon spearheads Kija's trends in fashion, entertainment, and trade. Many Imperial laws are relaxed in Nonchon, such as those pertaining to immigration or market regulations; it is one of the only cities to be fully open to foreigners, resulting in a highly diverse racial composition.

Chungcheun Village
A small, rural village and Lady Noksu's hometown, which, for some reason, she can no longer enter. A gumiho used to live here and periodically kill residents, but was slayed by the guild.

Damyang Village
A small, rural village with a corrupt magistrate who was punished and publicly humiliated by the guild and Dishrag.

The Jade Mine
A jade mine run with slave labor was destroyed and liberated by the guild on one mission.

The Misty Mountains
Full article: The Misty Mountains

A group of tall mountains near the south of Kija where the border between the Feywild and the Material Plane thins. Also the setting of the Kija: Misty Mountains game sub-series.

The Western Desert
A desert to the west of the mountain range encircling Kija. There was an insane crow god ravaging the region's settlements, who was defeated by the Bright Dawn guild.

The White Dragon Monastery
The guild at one point investigated a monastery inhabited by monks and a white dragonborn who turned into a young white dragon. The young white dragon killed a guild member and escaped death several times, eventually being defeated and captured by a Tier 2 team. It was later revealed that this young white dragon was one the princes of another nation north of Kija ruled by a powerful white dragon, who used the assassination as a pretext to invade Kija.

Trivia

 * Kija is based on an amalgam of East Asian countries, but is mostly inspired by medieval Korea.