The Powers
Seven powers hold ground in Wildoria. Six of them are a race's own state; the seventh belongs to nobody, which is exactly the point of it.
Membership here is not a choice. Your race decides which power's ledger you are written into, and that ledger follows you: it is what the watch reads on the road, and it is whose bench sentences you under the Civic Code.
The six race states
| Power | Race | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Bengal Republic | Bengal Tiger | A modernised republic in the eastern jungles, its parliament built on top of the old empire's palace. |
| Iceblade Confederacy | Penguin | Confederated city-states on the frozen northwest cliffs. |
| Bamboo Kingdom | Panda | The volcano spine, and the only realm that still wears a crown. |
| Madagasca Republic | Lemur | The tropical southern peninsula. |
| Savanna Coalition | Rhino | A loose coalition of tribes across the open southern savanna. |
| Swamp Coil | Reptile | A syndicate of the western wetlands, officially unrecognised by the rest. |
Note what that table is not: it is not six variations on a theme. A kingdom, a confederacy, two republics, a coalition and a syndicate answer the question of who decides six different ways, and the neighbours do not all agree that the sixth counts.
The neutral capital
Wildoria Free City holds the capital and belongs to no race. It is the one piece of ground on the map outside every other power's claim, kept that way by the Neutrality Treaty: no arms drawn inside the borders, every citizen of every race equal under the charter.
For a traveller carrying a warrant, the capital is the only place the warrant stops mattering.
Why territory decides
Charter D-002 gives each power judicial authority over crimes committed on its claimed ground. Three things follow:
- The same act is not the same offence everywhere.
- A warrant is read by the watch of the power that issued it, on that power's roads.
- Ground can change hands, and sovereignty travels with the claim.