Navaratna (Sheng)

World Setting

The Navaratna Empire comprises of nine smaller kingdoms: Aoyama, Han, Zhou, Suvarna, and others. Each court is riddled in scheming and social performance but to varying degrees. Every kingdom has its own ways of dealing with their internal political strife and drama.

Zhou Kingdom

A large matriarchal kingdom, or queendom, that sits in the center of the Empire, it has quickly grown to be the strongest in military might thanks to its current Queen. Men vastly outnumber women but most seats of power are now held by women despite them being a minority of the population thanks to social reforms led by its Queen but it's not without dissent from some. Reverse harems (multiple men to one woman) have grown due to the gender imbalance. Members of the court often wear opulent silk hanfu and extravagant hair pins. While monsters (yāoguài) are more common in rural areas and rare in the city, spirits (gu) tend to plague both densely populated cities and remote towns indiscriminately.

Zhou Politics

Once a bastion of patriarchal order, the Zhou court now kneels to a woman after its king passed away. The Queen's reforms, merit-based governance, elevation of women to bureaucratic and military posts, and the dissolution of hereditary titles, were hailed by some as signs of progress. To others, particularly patriarchal noble families, they are whispered about as omens of disorder, a blasphemy against Heaven's design. At the center of this volatile landscape stands the Queen's palace, where female attendants, scholars, and concubines now wield subtle influence over policy, a power both envied and despised by the old guard.

In response, the noblemen's misogynistic rhetoric has taken new forms: disguised as appeals to tradition, divine hierarchy, or "moral preservation." Religious leaders preach of imbalance in Heaven's favor; poets lament the loss of masculine virtue; soldiers mutter about being commanded by women they cannot challenge without dishonor. Gender has become the kingdom's unspoken civil war — fought not on battlefields, but in court chambers, salons, and whispered rumors that erode the throne from within.