Setting of the Benacian Union

This article was written from an out-of-character perspective and might break the fourth, fifth, and even sixth wall.

The Benacian Union, known colloquially as the Union-State, consists of the union of the realms of Elluenuueq, Ransenar, the Sovereign Confederation, and the Unified Governorates. The Union-State is ruled from the Free City of Chryse, which is for this purpose also a realm. The highest authority is the Congress of Chryse, formed by the victors of the Second Elwynnese Civil War (Benacia Command, the Benacian Union Defence Force, the Honourable Company, and the Nationalist and Humanist Party). The Congress of Chryse is the font all authority within the Benacian Union, but for the regulation of the Union State there are fundamental laws (Charter of the Benacian Union and Union Covenant) to ensure a harmonious society and a coordinated state. The realms are in turn administered in accordance with "Documents of Governance" providing for civil executives and local legislatures.

There are three routes for an entity to be established within the Benacian Union:

1. By receiving a charter and livery from the Guilds of Benacia in return for the payment of annual dues and an agreed tribute. The guilds maintain chapters in every bailiwick of the union-state;
2. As a subsidiary of the corporations of the victorious powers (Benacian Union Defence Force, the Honourable Company, the Nationalist and Humanist Party, and the United Ecclesiastical Corporation of Benacia);
3. As a public corporation established by the union-state or one of the constituent realms.

It is important for all entities to clearly establish that they enjoy the patronage of some higher authority within the union-state in order to avoid being considered the legitimate prey of all acquisitive powers. Receiving the patronage of the chapter of a guild is probably the safest and simplest course of action for a small or medium enterprise at the point of its establishment. This can however give rise to a paradoxical situation where certain liveried companies (GleamCo for instance) enjoy such success that they come to dominate the chapter of the guild from which they received their livery in the first instance.

The concept of freedom, of universal rights, or universal suffrage, is wholly absent in the Benacian Union. All are bound to authority, as though through a chain that links the lowest protected person to the highest archon, and subjects all to the Highest Divinity. Indeed, the notion of citizenship was so completely discredited by the Ayreonist treachery during the Second Elwynnese Civil War, that there now only exists subjecthood gradated by varying degrees of obligation and privilege. Meritorious subjects can enjoy conditions and protections akin to citizenship - this can especially be the case in such realms as Chryse and Ransenar, where practical considerations encouraged the bestowal of meritorious subjecthood as a near universal.