Fiction:Phfiion Empire

"The Phfiions come at you with their massive warships, you think it's the end. The next day, you're a rich merchant in their empire."

- A Non-Phfiion member of the Phfiion Empire

The Phfiions are a species that control a small empire in The Thala Region near the equator of Koldenwelt. Their empire is a Thalassocray, with most of their power being naval force. They also have strong markets in their cities. Phfiion technology is somewhat mixed technology, they do not have steam, yet gunpowder is commonly used, mostly by warships.

Empire & Culture
The Phfiions have a mostly economic outlook on life. Throughout the Thala Archipelago, the Phfiion have many cities that have large markets and bazaars, with most citizens becoming very wealthy. The markets will trade anything of value, gunpowder, pefumes, precious metals, anything.

Government
The Phfiion Empire is commonly refered to as a Thalassocracy. This means that most of the empires power is drawn from the sea, meaning it has a strong navy, and that their empire is drawn out across a large expanse of water. But that is not the technical form of government. The Phfiions are a plutocracy, the power is in control of the most wealthy of all the Phfiions. The decisions of these people, can however, be overuled by one particlar figure. The Phfiions are led by Empress Lassoc, the most wealthy woman in the empire. She has a higher rank than the Plutocratic council, and can allow or disallow their decisions as she pleases.

Military
The Phfiion military force is a mainly navy based force, with over a hundred warships spread across their territory. Each warship is armed with several cannons (Making use of the gunpowder that the Phfiion had developed.) The Phfiion also use gunpowder in muskets used by ballon soldiers, who strap themselves to ballons and float over enmy territory.

The Civillians
Majority of the civillian population of the Phfiion Empire are merchants, givers or collectors.

Merchant: Refers to a Phfiion who makes money selling items. Merchants set up little shops in the markets of the Phfiion cities. They sell what the gatherers gather for them. Their are no private corporations, just family owned shops. An odd practice that the merchants preform is to colour their items. There are seven colours generally used amongst the Empire:


 * Red
 * Blue
 * Yellow
 * Green
 * Purple
 * Pink
 * Brown
 * Orange

Having more then one item of a certain colour means you have a "collection." Anything made of gold appears as sort of a wild-card, that can count as any colour of collection. Selling collections has a pre-set value system.


 * One item - One UoC
 * Two item collection - Three Uoc
 * Three item collection - Six Uoc
 * Four item collection - Nine Uoc
 * Five item collection - Twelve Uoc

Uoc is the currency of the Empire

Givers: Refers to a Phfiion who makes money finding/making items for Merchants. Givers are those who collect and make the items that are sold in the markets. There are several types of givers.


 * Gatherers: Phfiions who look for valuable items that are neither mined nor made, usually lying in a random location. They are sometimes confused with theives. Gatherers hate theives, for they give the gatherers a bad name.


 * Maker: Phfiions who make items of value, usually ornate furniture or scultures. Sometimes perfumes are made by them. They work well with miners, who can mine out materials for the makers to craft with.


 * Miners: Phfiions who work in the caverns to gather minerals in the rocks. The miners work well with makers, for the miners can collect plentiful ammounts of minerals for the makers to craft with.


 * Theives: Phfiions who steal an item from a shop, run away, hide for a week, then sell the item to a second shop. If caught, theives are usually sent to work in the deep mines.

Collectors: Refers to Phfiions that make money by making collections, then selling them at high prices.

Magic
The Phfiion fear The Source in any manifestation. Practitioners of magic are either put to death, or worse, sent into the deep mines of the Phfiion Cavern Network.

Ironically, their is a field of magic surrounding the Thala region that is vital for the Phfiion economy. The field prevent the sea water from collapsing the Thala Cavern Network.

The only legal use of The Source is it's use by the Phfiion Admiral of the Fleet, who will occasionally use magic to destroy massively powerful enemies.

Trivia

 * The Phfiion are the first known race to mine spice. (?: I'm not sure whether Koldenwelt has Spice, fact pending)