Re-Estize Kingdom

Re-Estize Kingdom (リ・エスティーゼ王国) is a human nation of the New World with a population of around nine million and one of the three major human nations neighboring Nazarick. The Kingdom is currently in a state of political disorder and civil unrest between the Royalty Faction and the Nobility Faction.

Background
Re-Estize Kingdom is located west of the Azerlisia Mountains, north-west of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, with its existence lasting over 200 years and is usually called "the Kingdom". Though it is one of the three main human nations appearing in Overlord, the Kingdom is suffering political disorder. The confrontation between the Royalty and the Nobility is quite severe, virtually dividing the country into two.

The roots of all this corruption lies with the Kingdom's geological location. Protected by natural barriers and its neighboring countries, the Kingdom was able to enjoy a relatively large amount of peace. However, this peace caused many nobles to grow delusional, believing their prosperity would continue forever.

The peace which the Kingdom had enjoyed for so long came to an end when the Baharuth Empire declared war on the Kingdom. Things did not escalate into an all-out war though. Instead the two nations simply fought each other during annual wars at the Katze Plains. However, these annual wars took place during harvest seasons, slowing the food-production due to the peasants being drafted. This caused the Kingdom to slowly consume their nation's strength while the Empire waited for the opportunity to conquer it with minimal casualties.

Apart from all political issues, a large criminal group named "Eight Fingers" is undermining the Kingdom from within, spreading the Kingdom's corruption beyond its borders and worsening its relationships with other nations.

The Third Princess, Renner Theiere Chardelon Ryle Vaiself, is attempting a structural reform of the Kingdom, something that earned her the nickname "Golden Princess". However, most of her attempts were thwarted by the nobles, who feared such changes could to be a threat to their power. At least slavery was abolished, but there are still a lot of unofficial slaves in the criminal underworld.

The Undead King Arc
Several villages within the borders of the Kingdom were attacked by what was believed to be imperial knights of the Baharuth Empire. As a result, the King sent Gazef Stronoff and his group of warrior troops to investigate and eliminate them. However, it was in truth just a ploy planned out by the Slane Theocracy's Sunlight Scripture, who pretended to be imperial knights with the mission to kill Gazef Stronoff and his men. Gazef came face to face with a mysterious magic caster who made his presence known by the name of Ainz Ooal Gown in Carne Village.

Upon confronting the Sunlight Scripture, Gazef and his troops were easily overwhelmed by them with the use of magic. This was only until Gazef and his remaining soldiers were teleported away from that area to be replaced by Ainz and his armor-clad follower. After Gazef and his men had been saved by Ainz, the Scripture's men were either killed or captured for experiments at Nazarick. Gazef later thanked Ainz for his aid and returned to the capital with his remaining men.

The Dark Warrior Arc
Within E-Rantel, a city near its borders, one of the Kingdom's major import and trade areas, Ainz set up a base of operations for his Adventurer persona Momon and established his group, Darkness. During his exploits there, he prevented a plot to turn E-Rantel into an undead city by Zuranon.

The Bloody Valkyrie Arc
In E-Rantel, the Adventurer's Guild called for an emergency meeting to discuss about a powerful vampire. Pluton Ainzach also invited Mayor Panasolei to determine how to defend the city from the vampire. Two adventurers teams: Darkness and Kralgra, departed the city to confront the vampire. Although Kralga was wiped out, Darkness returned in victory and was made the Kingdom's third adamantite ranked adventurer group.

Meanwhile in the Royal Capital, Gazef was reporting to the king and the nobles what occurred in Carne Village. Although Gazef was thankful for Ainz's help, several nobles cast suspicions on the masked magic caster's origins and wished to capture him for interrogation.

The Men in the Kingdom Arc
In the Royal Capital, the Kingdom came under attack by a demon known as Jaldabaoth and his army of demons, who came to the city looking for a powerful magic item. However, the truth was that Demiurge orchestrated this scenario in order to increase Momon's reputation as a hero within the Kingdom. With Demiurge's plan at hand, he was also able to recover a large percentage of the Kingdom and Eight Finger's resources as well as kidnap thousands of its citizens for experimental and other uses for Nazarick. A large coalition of the Kingdom's adventurers and soldiers were brought together by Princess Renner and Lakyus Alvein Dale Aindra while aided by the King himself, Gazef, and his warrior troops. In addition, Marquis Raeven brought his private troops in order to stop this powerful demon.

In the end, they all succeeded in stopping Jaldabaoth's diabolical plan, but at the cost of countless lives of both adventurers and soldiers. Their sacrifice was made worse with a large percentage of the city's populace taken away by Demiurge's remaining demon army. Furthermore, Aura and Mare also took part in taking control of Eight Finger's underground operations.

The Magic Caster of Destroy Arc
Following the demonic disturbance, the influence of the royalty faction increased because the King aided in the defense of the royal capital. However, this also made the noble faction even more desperate to undermine the royalty faction.

It was around this time that the Kingdom once again received a declaration of war from the Baharuth Empire for their annual war at the Katze Plains. However, this time the Empire had decided to form an alliance with the newly founded Sorcerer Kingdom to take the fortress city of E-Rantel and its surrounding territories.

It was also around this time that the Kingdom's economical instability began to take its toll. According to predictions, the Kingdom would not survive another war and peasants would start dying from starvation due to failed harvests. Commoners also started to catch on to the Kingdom's situation, with rumors reaching frontier villages like Carne Village.

With the war looming closer as one month passes by, the Kingdom sent an army of 245,000 strong to the Katze Plains to engage the Imperial Army. An additional 5,000 troops led by the crown prince was later sent to Carne Village in order to gather information about the mysterious Sorcerer King, Ainz Ooal Gown. However, talks between the prince and the villagers broke down and erupted into a battle, resulting in the prince being run off by the village's demi-human inhabitants. The prince and his surviving forces were later eradicated by another force of demi-humans led by Lupusregina Beta, one of the Pleiades of Ainz Ooal Gown. Similarly at the Katze Plains, the battle was over before it even began when most of the army was devastatingly wiped out by Ainz's spell and his five Dark Young.

As a result of the war, the fortress city of E-Rantel, as well as its surrounding areas, was ceded over to the Sorcerer Kingdom. Because the royalty faction refused to just hand over the territory in the first place, they took most of the blame for the disaster. As a result, the balance of power shifted again, this time in favor of the noble faction. However, this hardly mattered as the Kingdom was now reduced to a mere shadow of its former power and in imminent danger of total collapse.

The Ruler of Conspiracy Arc
After E-Rantel was ceded over to the Sorcerer Kingdom, the Re-Estize Kingdom received a huge influx of refugees who fled the city, believing the Sorcerer King Ainz Ooal Gown to be a monster and a tyrant.

The Kingdom was also left with a massive amount of orphans and widows as a result of the massive casualties of the battle at the Katze Plains and many of the survivors being traumatized. In response to this, Princess Renner invested a large sum of money into making an orphanage in the royal capital to provide a home for the orphans and jobs for the widows, hoping others would follow her example.

Additionally, many fathers and firstborn sons of noble families were killed during the massacre, forcing the second or third born sons to take over their family's territory. However, most of these "spares" were never properly educated on how to conduct themselves in high society and thus lack class and etiquette. Also, many of them did not want to be subservient to the leaders of their factions, resulting in some of them splitting off and creating their own factions, once again shifting the balance of power.

As the current government struggled to rebuild its power and re-strengthen its government on both sides, the emissary of the Sorcerer Kingdom, Albedo, visited the Royal Capital to form the first official relations with the Kingdom after the war. Many lower-class nobles sought to use this opportunity to establish a relationship with the new nation to increase their own influence, resulting in the creation of a faction that supports the Sorcerer Kingdom. Unknowingly to most of the populace, this was all part of Albedo's plan. With the help of Eight Fingers, large amounts of food was imported from the Kingdom to the Sorcerer Kingdom. This is part of the plan to eventually annex the Kingdom. Princess Renner is aware of this and is helping Albedo in order to become a member of Nazarick in the future.

Culture
The Re-Estize Kingdom is a feudal state. At the top of the hierarchical structure stands the king and the royal family. Next comes the nobility who possess major landholdings in the kingdom. At the bottom are the serfs.

Titles and even professions are all hereditary. Social advancement in the kingdom seems to be very unlikely as any progress made is always hindered by the nobles, who fear that such changes might endanger their power and stations. In fact, it is not uncommon for small wars to break out between the nobles themselves, should one act against the interests of another.

As it is a monarchy, the eldest son will usually inherit everything once the father either passes away or retires. This is true not just for royalty and the nobility, but commoners as well. The reasoning behind this is as follows: should the father divide all the land he owns evenly between his sons and they do the same with their own sons, then eventually a time will come that there will not be enough land left to do anything with. Therefore the eldest son will inherit all the land while the second son will become his helper. In case there is a third son, they will usually be forced out of their home once the first son takes over and be left on their own. In fact, parents will usually only conceive a third son to act as a replacement in case the first or second dies. It is unknown what role women play in the Kingdom. However, at least in the case of the nobility, they seem to be used to acquire alliances through marriages.

Unlike the Slane Theocracy and the Baharuth Empire, the Kingdom lacks any kind of centralized magic academy. A person would have to hire a magic caster to teach them.

The Kingdom follows a Guild-Based system which means that each city has its own guild and has its own rules. One tradesman that is a master in one city would be considered a junior in another.

The literacy rate among the Kingdom citizens is very low. Usually, every soldier stationed at a checkpoint are required to read and write. Literacy is also a desideratum for adventurers where, in order to gain entry into the Adventurer’s Guild, a literacy test must be taken.

Religion
The Kingdom's citizens adheres to the worship of the Four Great Gods, along with a compilation of minor gods.

Politics
The Re-Estize Kingdom is a feudal monarchy traditionally ruled by the king and his nobles. The king and great nobles own 60% of the territory respectively while the remaining 40% are domains of lesser nobles. Policies are decided at conferences between the King and the nobles. Due to Ramposa III's advanced age, he is unable to exercise his leadership as he once could and thus the nobles have more say in matters. The only reason that the Kingdom did not split is Marquis Raeven, the opportunist who owns the highest authority among the Six Great Nobles. Many nobles, regardless of faction, are in league with other countries like Baharuth Empire or Slane Theocracy.

As for administration in the Kingdom, there are different entry rules and regulations for each region controlled by a noble. For citizens of each region, travel between areas is mostly prohibited. For transit, the villages under royal control are issued permits. These permits allow one to bypass the toll tax issued at the city gates.

Military Strength
Re-Estize Kingdom's military is composed mostly of militia. Its soldiers are mostly just drafted peasants. They receive a government-issued weapon, no armor and extremely sparse training. The Kingdom usually levies two-hundred thousand men to fight the Empire, but it can levy more if need be.

Only Gazef's Warrior Troop, Marquis Raeven's private guards, the King's royal knights, and the other elite forces of other nobles can match the Imperial Knights. The Royal Army of the Re-Estize Kingdom is really just a ragtag bunch of individual armies put together whenever the call of banners is issued in the face of a common, or at least mutual cause. Although the King is in overall command, the nobles don't necessarily have to listen to him.

Foreign Relations
The Re-Estize Kingdom was the most geographically secure country of all and faced almost no territorial encroachment from aggressive demi-human nations that plagued its neighbors. It was by far the most peaceful nation, aside from the annual territorial dispute with the Baharuth Empire. It possessed the largest concentration of human effort. However, its seclusion from the rest of the world left it weak to corruption and stagnation from within, and eventually its sickness spread to other nations.

Baharuth Empire
The Kingdom and the Empire were in a state of war. Though the losses on both sides were minimal, the conflict between the two nations has only prolonged due to the fact that the Empire never fully committed the entirety of their forces to the war, merely engaging in a war of attrition to take the weakening Kingdom with minimal losses. One factor of antagonism is the Kingdom's negligence over the continuous production of the addictive drug, Black Dust, which is already influencing the Empire's populace.

After the most recent battle at the Katze Plains, the Kingdom believes that the Empire must truly hate them to the core for calling upon the Sorcerer King to cause such a massacre.

Dwarf Kingdom
The Kingdom has not attempted to forge any national-level ties with the dwarves but the mining city of Re-Brumelashul is known to make small trade deals with the Dwarf Kingdom.

Slane Theocracy
Official relations between the Kingdom and the Theocracy are more or less neutral. However, some of the nobility were willing to conspire with the Theocracy to kill off Gazef Stronoff and had no problems in killing the Kingdom's citizens while doing so under covert operations.

Furthermore, there are also people within the Kingdom that detest their treatment of non-human races. Despite this, the Kingdom's human civilization would have been wiped out long ago if it was not there, so they view the Theocracy as a necessary evil. According to the officials from the Theocracy, the territory around E-Rantel originally belongs to the Theocracy.

Originally, the Slane Theocracy hoped that the Kingdom would become the nation that would save humanity. However, most of the official leaders of the Theocracy view that nation as a disgrace, as their relatively sheltered isolation caused the leaders to become greedy, selfish, corrupt and incompetent. The only real significant benefits it had brought are increasing the total human population and producing a few talented individuals such as Lakyus Alvein Dale Aindra and Gazef Stronoff.

Sorcerer Kingdom
Until the official declaration of war against the Kingdom in alliance with the Empire, both the Kingdom and Nazarick had no official relations with one another. Afterwords, they became enemy states and fought against each other in the annual war which resulted in devastating losses for the Kingdom including losing one of its major cities to be under Nazarick's rule and reducing its governance into near total collapse.

After the war, the two nations opened formal relations and tried to form a peaceful and productive cooperative relationship with one another. Some of the nobles within the noble faction are even conspiring to sell out the Kingdom with the new country in exchange for more power and control. In truth, the preparations are being made in secret on both sides so the complete annexation of the Kingdom by the Sorcerer Kingdom will be accomplished soon.

Trivia

 * The Kingdom's former territories, Carne Village and E-Rantel, are ceded to the Sorcerer Kingdom.
 * The Kingdom is incurring food problems due to the strain of the war with the Empire.
 * Two-hundred-fifty thousand men is around three percent of the Kingdom's population.
 * The roads of the Kingdom, excluding the King's and Marquis Raeven's territories, are dirt roads with poor public order.
 * The Kingdom keeps records of its citizens. However, such documents are almost always full of mistakes and aren't supposed to be taken all too seriously.
 * The poor and unlucky commoners get drafted while the lucky ones join the City Guards which provides them with an excuse to avoid the front lines. The patriotic commoners usually join Gazef's Troop.
 * Many frontier villages suffer from monster attacks due to being unable to hire adventurers and in part because of the Kingdom's inability to deploy soldiers. Moreover, the nobles who rule much of the Kingdom are generally apathetic to the well-being of their serfs.
 * Frontier villages are usually avoided by people. Only those who have nothing to lose, like third sons, would go to them. The exception is of course those who already live or used to live in a frontier village.
 * Often times, when the head of a noble family changes, unless they are one of the great nobles, these family heads have to gain the approval of the Great Noble they are under.