Socalie is not the overarching power it once was, but still holds considerable influence in the Chirle Rim, funding a large navy with exorbitant tolls on the great circle trade route and keeping it well-tempered with piracy, raids, and minor skirmishes. At the moment, Socalie does not acknowledge a state of war with anyone, since Rimshore's navy went home after their blockade was broken with Anguirle's help.
Socalie is a cold land, lying as it does against the Winter Border, open to the chill winds sweeping in from the north. On clear days, the proximity of the sun warms the land, but after sunset, or on cloudy days, winter holds sway. Because of this, Socalie has never been much of an agricultural land, relying mostly on herding and fishing for food, and lumbering and the mining of gold and iron for wealth.
The people of Socalie are much like those of the other northern Chirle lands, being in general tall, fair-skinned, brown- or black-haired, and fair to look upon, tending toward curvaceousness in women and broad-shouldered strength in men. Traditional Socalien garb is tunic and trousers of leather, closed with laces, and a long overcoat lined with fur, and the working and rural classes still hold to that, but city folk augment or replace the traditional materials with imported cotton and silk, and foreign fashions. The latest fad in courtly dress is a fitted jacket with sleeves slit so they can be pulled away from the arms and knotted in a bow behind the back; this is expected to remain fashionable for a good fifty or a hundred days.
Not many rulers in the Autumn Lands survive into senility; there is always someone waiting for their grip to slip just a little bit. In Socalie, however, the line of Queen Lirielle is greatly revered for having brought the land safely through the collapse of the Empire, so it wouldn't do to just bump her off; the people would never stand for it. Queen Antielle rules with all the unquestioned authority that she had in her younger days, therefore; it's just that most of the edicts she signs into law were drafted by her Cabinet and presented for her signature without much accurate explanation. Once in a while, despite the best efforts of the ministers, Antielle manages to find out something about the true state of affairs in Socalie and draft an edict to fix it, but the Cabinet can usually talk her down before any significant good is done.
Antielle is visibly aged (slightly prematurely, due to a dissipated youth and a worrisome reign): stooped, wrinkled, and white-haired. She still has the piercing gaze of a monarch born, however, and covers well for the decay of will and memory behind it.
The Right Honorable Anne Granien, Baroness of the Winter Marches (depraved prime minister)Lady Anne is both the de facto and de jure leader of the Cabinet, although her power is not as absolute as she might like. No single other Minister, or even small coalition, dares oppose her, and she keeps the Cabinet too divided to form a large coalition. Having reached the position of greatest real power within the country, her goal now is to improve Socalie's position in the world. Her policies are therefore aimed at promoting the growth of commerce and industry, and generally well-received by the populace, but she treats her enemies in far too imaginatively draconian a fashion to be a truly popular ruler.
Anne is quite young for one who has wormed her way so far up the pyramid of temporal power, and looks even younger. She is quite beautiful -- tall and shapely, with glossy dark hair elaborately dressed -- and uses what influence she has in such matter to make sure court fashions flatter the young and beautiful, and display the old and plain in all their lack of glory.
Anne is, if not mad, at least quite eccentric and depraved; her private parties, open only to those who share her tastes (or can successfully feign them) tend to feature bizarre costumes, exotic imported drugs, fire, chains, and boys too young even for Anne's apparent age.
Rumors abound that Anne is a sorceress, a diabolist, or a secret child of Brand, but hard evidence of any of these is notoriously lacking.
His Luminance Orzin II, Voice of the Sun on Earth (fanatical Sun priest)A great deal about Orzin II's personality can accurately inferred from his choice of ecclesiastical name. Like the original Orzin, he wants to be seen as leading his people against the armies of the faithless. Since Orzin I melted all the snow ghouls, Orzin II has to settle for heretics, atheists, and those who short the Church on tithes. Despite the mundane nature of his foes, Orzin II persecutes them with a fervor that would bring tears to the eyes of his namesake. Previous queens of Socalie have kept the Church on a short lease, denying it the right to try any except its own priests for religious crimes, but under the lax rule of Antielle, the Inquisition has gained much more power than anyone outside the clergy really wants it to have.
Orzin II is personally rather average-looking, but the elaborate white and gold regalia of the Voice of the Sun (and elevator boots) lend him the imposing splendor appropriate to his station.
Socalie got off to a strong start in K.1, as the legendary hero Yvar Icesword seized the throne and led his army of snow ghouls northwest along the Winter Border, conquering everything in his path and incidentally declaring himself Emperor. With the resources of his wintery empire, he built a second military, more suited to the temperate climates of the Autumn Lands, and sought to extend his writ west and south. Men are not as reliable as snow ghouls, though, nor as fearsome in battle, and though Ivar brought the northern and western Chirle lands under his sway, he never met with as much success as in the Borderlands. Still, the Empire of Socalie was a great power, possibly the greatest in the Autumn Lands at that time.
In K.15, at the great festival celebrating the 10th kalend of the Grand Socalien Empire, the Sun priest Orzin caused a small commotion by denouncing Ynar as a faithless sinner in front of the assembled personages and killing the snow ghouls sent to arrest him with beams of golden light. Fleeing into the hinterlands, Orzin raised an army of the faithful to march against Ynar's forces. Travelling in what the bards later described as 'a moving castle of sunlight', the Army of the Sun laid seige to Socalie City, melted the army of snow ghouls, and toppled Ynar from his throne. In a move that still brings tears to the eyes of pious Sun worshippers, Orzin declined to take the throne himself, instead elevating Ynar's half-sister Ynesse to that seat.
Without Ynar and his snow ghouls, the outlying parts of the Empire, especially the Borderlands, quickly broke away and reverted to independence. Ynesse retained control of the central territories, which now form Socalie proper, and through deviousness, intimidation, and several early widowhoods, annexed most of the Chirle lands to form the New Socalien Empire (also called the Petty Empire, but not where Ynesse could hear). Despite her many marriages, Ynesse never bore a living heir (perhaps due to her brother's dying curse), and when she died suddenly and unmarried in K.34, the Empire collapsed. A distant cousin, Lirielle of Gran Point, eventually gathered enough of a coaltion to hold the throne, but by that time the outer provinces had fallen away, and Lirielle and her heirs have been only Queens of Socalie.
This file was last modified at 1457 on 27Apr99.