The Land
| The Land | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Location | Pacific Ocean |
| Type | Country |
| Area | 201,213 sq mi |
| Population | 64.9 million |
The Land is an island country in the north Atlantic Ocean that is most well known for its sheer number of Marked inhabitants. Within The Land resides five autonomous city-states that comprise most of the country's population: Apopka Lights, Cytopia, Draywood, New Chiti, and the Republic of Randwell.
Geography
Besides the five major cities, many smaller communities dot the land. Borders can be vague, and villages and towns pop up in remote places. The Land is about the size of France, and has a variety of geographical features, mountains, rivers, forests, and others.
Climate
The climate of The Land varies from city-state to city-state.
New Chiti has some...unique weather patterns. Winter is usually a toss-up between slush and weird chilly ash in lieu of genuine snow, thanks to the swamps and old factory residue still descending. The rest of the year usually consists of sweaty, humid or dry heats. Roll a three sided die. Congrats, you guessed the weather right.
Randwell is perfect. The best weather for beach trips, the most fertile and lightly windy plains, the most comfortable temperatures— even the rain, as one would hear from many a citizen, is always just the right amount of drizzly or poury.
Draywood’s natural climate gives it some of the cleanest air, rainwater, and skies— and some rather flammable land. Heavy storms are common, though to a lesser damaging degree than Cytopia’s. It has a cooler environment than the other cities thanks to its ample shade throughout the streets. Draywood’s falls are to die for, a beautiful sight with just the right touch of chill to satisfy anyone’s preferences. Winters are equal in this regard, though it’s a prime time for many cold and hungry wild animals to make their way into the city streets.
If you’re looking for EXTREME weather patterns Cytopia’s your EPIC companion XP. Cytopia’s learned to harness their rather WICKED tornados to enhance their building structures. They even LET tornadoes, lightning storms, and other freaks of nature come through certain areas JUST to test cool prototypes. They’ve learned to reduce said extremes to actually pass on to the main zone of the city, but the interns at the weather station mess it up sometimes, so you gotta be careful!
Apopka’s never heard of a temperature that requires any kind of jacket, things like snow are almost talked of in wonder, and the lack of much foliage in the main city square leaves many not knowing if it’s spring or fall or winter— aside from fashion catalogues saying such. The sky is normally clear, so if you see even one cloud, it’s best to grab your raincoat-- no, not the 2076 design, do you want to look old? Get with the times, geez.
History
Main articles: History of the Land and History of Superheroes in the Land
Culture
Everyone in the land speaks the same language, uses the same currency, and has the same popular holidays and sports. Each section might be governed differently, but it’s still one country! Different places might have regional dialects and accents, though.
Intercity sports is a huge deal, and a big source of pride for the cities. There’s local leagues for most sports, along with an ‘Olympics’ type event every 3 years. The biggest sport in the country is dodgeball, and many players turn into celebrities. After the Flare, there has been an upset on how to handle Marked players and the use of Marks in sports, with the eventual decision to ban their use, which eventually spawned a second league of frankly zany sports action for Marked to play with their Marks.
Holidays
While commonly known holidays like Christmas exist, the Land itself isn’t comprised of any specific religious denominations. Smaller events are littered throughout the Land, and there are plenty of things to celebrate.
The Token of Heart Festival is Apopka’s biggest celebration. Occurring late spring, citizens celebrate with wild parties and give each other anonymous gifts in the process. People can send lavish gifts of admiration to friends and family, and awful, terrible nuisance gifts to the people they despise. Apopkans are rather creative during this time.
Cytopia’s Celebration of Separation has delicious food, a cool showcase of future tech, free New Millennium Park admission, and one of the largest fireworks shows in the Land.
Since Draywood’s founding, the city has celebrated its history, culture, and artistry with a celebration titled the Gathering of Minds. Located in various parts of the city, TEDTalk-like lectures and exhibitions are hosted and funded by the king himself. It’s considered a great achievement to be chosen for the event. At the end of the day, the entire city votes on the Most Profound Scholar of the Year, who receives high praise and their portrait painted and added to the Hall of Scholars within the city castle. Other cities see this entire ordeal as snobby.
Celebrating perseverance and getting rid of an invasive species at the same time, the New Chiti Bake and Snake is a giant cookout that basically finds different ways of making a mucky little creature taste somewhat digestible. The CookOut Conqueror is championed to whoever can consume the most snake dishes by the end of the day.
What better holiday could Randwell have than to celebrate the birth of the greatest Premiere ever? Parades, traditional dances, and theatrical recounts of Regina’s life up to today are held throughout the city on Regina Aquamarina Berndtsson Day. All the smaller communities in Randwell contribute by making art that they believe represents the spirit and unity of Randwell. Regina herself hosts short videos broadcasted throughout the city, thanking everyone for their continued support of both her and each-other.
Technology
In the year 2080, technology in The Land has skyrocketed over the past 60 years, possibly better than anything else in the world. Robotic limbs and animals, laser guns, and even (experimental, available only to the wealthy) flying cars! VR technology along with many others has advanced, though the best stuff is still mostly limited to Cytopians or the rich. AI exists, and is fairly new, the ethics and potential uses are still being discussed. AI are debatably capable of sentience, but laws prevent them from trying to pass as human and regulate the creation and use of the most advanced ones.
The most popular mode of transportation is bullet train, as Cytopia has built a public train system that connects all the capital cities, along with the more prominent smaller villages.
World Politics
The Land usually excuses itself from the global stage of politics. The very remote island nation's distance makes it hard to remain relationships or have need to. Relations are pretty neutral since the Land is so out of the way, save for the occasional tourist interested in the theme parks. In general, they exist, but matter very little to the messy internal affairs of the Land’s city-states. Likewise, the Land keeps itself outside of global affairs, intercity strife taking a more clear priority than foreign relations.