This is why I love Zeira. He's the soft voice of reason and wisdom, filled with carefully considered advice honed by years of experience, easily one of the greatest assets Bastion has on both the battlefield and for guidance.

Oops! Turns out he's also a shitty leader who abandoned his kingdom so he could join in the adventure.

The life of the serf changes drastically based on where on the continent they're located - in the Kingdom, the common man lives inf ear of Empire attacks, as Imperial forces have been seen as far into Kingdom territory so as not to be far from the Kingdom's border with Avalon. They are strongly apathetic and uncaring and live a life of harsh survivalism - they cannot count on the Kingdom to protect them, and they MUST count on the Imperial forces to either raid them under orders, or go rogue and raid them anyway.

In the Avalon Principality, they are much better off. The horror of the Empire is far off and unseen, only heard about in brief from travellers and the tax collector, taking their funds and prodcuts to support a war they have no investment in. With a largely absent leader, the Principality largely enjoys freedom and safety from both the enemy he is fighting and the tyranny of the aristocracy.


In the Muspel Nation, there are no serfs - there is only one settlement, where Duke Radcot ruled from, near the only Oasis the desert has. Muspel Nation has no natural worth and, as such, has nothing for the serfs to do - except join the Duke's 'military'. As all of their resources are stolen from either the Southern Alliance or Avalon, the most productive position is that of a soldier. ATACs, however, are incredibly expensive to build and maintain, so most soliders expect to idle while their fellows do the fighting. They are to be disappointed, however - the Muspel Nations chief ATAC, the Yurangol, are famous for their poor performance and delicate frames. Pilots are often killed or maimed in great numbers, but the ATACs themselves are too worthless to even scavenge, allowing for easy recovery and repair for the sacrifice of the next pilot.

Dionne-Lehve, is, of course, not a nation. It's mountainous terrain is too harsh to set up villages for any purpose, and many of the mountains are volcanic, occasionally bathing the entire area in cinders, except for the structures on high, safe mountaintops. This is where the mercenaries of Dionne-Lehve train and hone their arts, and together make a military no nation would wish to engage with - and even if they did, why bother? The entire area is a sulfuric deathtrap.

The Southern Alliance is widely known as a paradise among men, however. Surrounded on all but one side by ocean, the city-states have an easy time of fielding their few ATAC's to defend the outlying farms and have few problems in the interior. Furthermore, they are the only nations that still understand naval transport, meaning they are able to profit from trade with other continents while safely ignoring the troubles of the continent.

I'm not touching the state of the other three countries, however. They're barely even talked about in the LP, that'd ruin it.