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While mostly an agricultural society, the Kingdom of Roavin has recently developed a more sprawling city life in Namartis, Eight-Bridge, and Beleartis.

Country life in the Roavin Valley is family-oriented. Leadership of the family is generally reserved to the eldest male family member. When two members from disjunct families marry, the elders decide which of the two wedded will move in with the other family. These families usually own their own land, and helpers employed will become part of the family in due time. In general, work on the farms is very communal. Wheat is a popular crop, and goats are the most common livestock. In many families, one or two men may work seasonally in the Cascadian mountains in the north as miners or icebreakers.

Life in the cities is much less family-oriented; while many families certainly exist, bachelor life in young years is common and accepted among both men and women, converging back to smaller families in later years. Both Namartis and Eight-Bridge sport a sizable university culture, and elements of merchant aristocracy have developed in Beleartis and Namartis, in particular the latter.

Namartis has become a moderately significant naval trade hub due to its location on the Bavmorda river, trading native Roavinian goods such as wheat, wicker, wool, and iron against various spices, furs, and diverse luxury goods. Eight-Bridge is an odd case - originally a small wicker-producing town in a swampy area around the Hovort river, the intellectual pursuits of a rather wealthy tanner led to its first library which also offered lessons in literacy, quickly evolving into a full-blown university. Beleartis sprung up around a plantation owned by wealthy merchants who were one of the few landowners leasing lands to families; it has since become a place for merchant aristocracy - dangerous, yet irresistible for anybody interested in rare, exotic, or even illegal goods.

Roavinians are polytheistic, believing in a set of nine gods with temples dedicated to each. Many Roavinians see themselves primarily bound to one of these gods. Other religions, while rare, are accepted, albeit often distrusted.

The government of Roavin is a monarchy, currently led by Queen Ralea. The acting monarch typically does not concern him or herself with the daily dealings of the nation, but rather delegates this task to a set of high councillors appointed based on merit or (unofficially) favors.

   
    The Sei-Tenna Empire was formed a century ago with the arrival of the Order, ending the constant conflict between the two kingdoms of Sei and Tenna.  The Empire is now ruled by a dual monarchy led by King Tayal Chan of Tenna and Advisor Jia zai’she, Regent to Crown Princess Sei da’zhou.  Despite this century of peace, there remain strong ethnic and political tensions between the two peoples, and despite much work to try and bring the two closer together, the empire remains a ticking time bomb ready to tear itself apart.  

    The people of the Tenna kingdom, called the Ruya, are not indigenous to this area, but have been moving in for centuries.  Originally nomadic, they crossed the northwestern mountain range and by sea, flooding across the western coast.  While on the coast, the Yi mostly left the Ruya alone, although conflict quickly occurred when the Ruya started pushing eastward, starting the First Great War.  This conflict ended in a stalemate when neither side could expend forces anymore.  Over the later centuries, the Ruya continued slowly moving into the interior while the Yi worked on strengthening themselves in the east.  The Second Great War began when the Yi attacked the Ruya although, much like the first war, the Yi were initially pushed back until they unleashed their newest weapon, gunpowder.  With the use of these weapons, the Yi were able to retake significant losses, although the war eventually ground to a halt, finally ending with the arrival of the Order of Magi.  
    The Ruya have a strictly hierarchical society with their semi-divine (at least according to tradition) king at the head of government and central to religion.  Each of their cities has at its center a large temple-palace, with smaller temples surrounding them in the cardinal directions, with the rest of the city spreading out in lightly ordered urban sprawl.  This comes directly from the ways their tent villages were set up during their nomadic days.  The Ruya religion puts forth a universe of two worlds, ours, and a spirit world, with the kings being descended from both and as such being able to communicate with the other world.  The form of magic traditionally practiced by the Ruya, is that of summoning demons and spirits, which they then bind into their service.  Most are required to perform complex and difficult rituals in order to accomplish this, while it is thought that the kings and members of their family can communicate directly with this other world, and so can simply will the spirits into their service.  They are the majority population of the Empire.

    The people of the Sei kingdom, known as the Yi, are the indigenous population of this region.  In the many conflicts between them and the Ruya, the Yi have slowly been pushed further and further to the east, although the first and second Great Wars have ended in a stalemate, the first due to insufficient manpower as well as war exhaustion on both sides to continue fighting, the second due to the invention of gunpowder weapons by the Yi evening the scales long enough for the Order to broker the peace.  
    The Yi were at one point human, but are no longer.  They have lost their sight and are cursed to need to take the sight of others in order to see.  The Yi have a reputation for being sneaky and untrustworthy due to their attitudes towards outsiders and their traditional form of magic, that of imitation (contagion) magic.  It has usually been used in order to assist the people with some problem they were facing such as disease,  Outsiders typically know this form of magic in ways it has been used against them.  The Yi religious world view splits the cosmos into six different realms, one of order above, our world, a world of chaos below, and a corresponding afterlife for each.  Yi government has a hereditary monarchy at its head, although their rulers are not considered divine, and appointment to the court, bureaucracy, and military are (at least in theory) determined strictly by one’s merit as determined by exams.  Yi cities are extremely highly ordered, all have a rectangular layout with square blocks of the same size save for the merchant quarter and governor’s/ king’s palace.  There are six great cities, all along the eastern mountain range.  In the interior the Yi mostly live in small spread out villages, which are ordered in a way similar to the great cities.

    As the Yi are a non-human race, I feel that I should explain them and their powers here.  The most important thing I feel there is to stress is that the Yi are not superior to humans in any way, at most they will either be slightly above or below the level of an average human and although their adjusted senses may give them an edge in certain areas, it always comes with drawbacks in others.
-The Yi are an ethnic minority, although they are a significant one (between 35-40% of the population).
-The Yi can inherently steal the sight of others as it was part of their curse, when they do not have access to stolen sight they are blind.
-While blind their other senses are slightly better than the average human's, but not by much.
-Their senses adjust depending on what they have stolen sight from, but they will always stay at roughly the level of an average human.
-The Yi can create a "bond" between themselves and whatever they have stolen sight from.  This functions to allow the Yi to retain control of the sight without needing to be in direct contact with what they have stolen from.  The bond can be broken by natural decay over time, by either the Yi or the victim's death, or by magic breaking the bond.  This bond does not tell the Yi where what they are bonded with is unless additional magic that most do not have access to is used.
-The Yi have access to gunpowder weapons around the level of what the Chinese would have had around this time such as fire lances and stoneware "grenades".
-The Yi shamans still exist, but are under the control of the Order of Magi and regular Yi cannot use more than their inherent abilities.
-All Yi appear to wear a face covering with a single large painted eye on it that is really a part of their face, the eye opens with it's appearance changing depending on what they have stolen sight from.
-All Yi have pure white skin.