Blood Magic Extra: Merolate Charter

This is another piece to add to the Blood Magic world-building. Last year, I wrote about my goal of sharing more world-building material and background on how I craft stories, and this is part of that effort.

As I was writing the first two episodes of Blood Magic‘s second season, and working on revisions for the first season’s episodes, I realized that I didn’t have an adequate vision of how Merolate’s government was actually structured. I knew the broad outlines – the Prime is in charge, he or she has an advisor, the Sub-Prime is the successor, the provinces are run by Governors who are subject to the Prime – but that’s not really a full government. As Kiluron is trying to put his new government together in the second season, I found myself trying to put the government together, too.

The first thing I did was create Minister positions. If you’re familiar with how the US government is structures, these can be thought of a lot like Cabinet positions. I had alluded to these a bit at the end of the first season, and so I opened the second season really building on that. It also provided a useful story writing tool to have Kiluron exploring and learning more about the government, so that the reader could, too. I also needed to figure out exactly what the relationship was between the province governors and the Prime, since I would need to have that pinned down for Kiluron’s investment ceremony, and that relationship had been evolving a bit from when I started writing these stories to the present day. I went ahead and codified it, and will be making sure there is consistency on this point when I do the first season revisions.

Once I’d defined the Minister positions, the succession for the Prime and the Advisor to the Prime, and the relationship between the province governors and the Prime, I could have stopped, from a story-writing perspective. That was enough detail to have in the World-Bible to make sure that my writing was consistent and realistic. However, I’ve referenced the Merolate Charter a few times in the series now (which didn’t exist in my head until about half way through season one), and I was a little stuck on my current season two project, so I went ahead and wrote up what the actual text of that Charter might nominally be.

Please note that while this can be considered “Truth” for the Blood Magic world right now, it’s a working document for my use, as is everything in the World Bibles until final publication, so I may update it if I change my mind about its contents or need to add something that wasn’t in the original. And yes, I know that there are a lot of continuity issues with how I currently have Merolate’s navy and military forces set up versus what I describe in the Charter – I’m working out how to resolve that in the first season revisions. With that in mind, I invite you to read the founding document of the Merolate Union:

When in the course of our lives it doth become needful and expeditious to put aside those pasts and conflicts which divide us, and instead to seek commonality and friendship in pursuit of succor and safety against an unsympathetic and impersonal world, it is mete and reasonable to inscribe the terms and intricacies whereof an alliance of mutual governance be formed of this common Union of provinces on this most storied continent of Lufilna.  Bearing then in conscience and forethought the forthwith described circumstances hath this governing document, this Charter of Merolate Union, been created to provide for the mutual peace, sustainment, and ascension of the Merolate Union and of all the provinces disparate of which it be composed.

The Prime

In accordance with this Charter shall the Merolate Union be led and headed by a Prime, in whom shall there be vested all powers not specifically enumerated elsewhere in this Charter as belonging to other personages, save only the Prime shall not have the authority to implement of his or her independent will revisions unto this Charter, that power being reserved only upon agreement and consensus rightly reached and achieved in conference amongst at a minimum three fourths of the province governors.

Being that no individual can reasonably be expected to hold within knowledge of all manner of topics which may become relevant for the dispensation of the duties of the Prime of Merolate, the Prime shall at all times be associated with an office Advisor to the Prime of Merolate.  This Advisor shall be responsible for the collection, presentation, and interpretation of information unto the Prime.  Furthermore, the Advisor shall be responsible for the management and organization of the Prime’s Ministers, of which there shall be the following positions: Minister of Affairs and Relations with Alien Lands, Minister of Economics, Currency, and Trade, Minister of Health and Sanitation, Minister of Public Defense and Civil Order, and Minister of Law and Governmental Policy.  The execution of actions as deemed necessary for the effective administration of the Union shall also be tasked unto the Advisor to the Prime of Merolate as guided and desired by the Prime of Merolate.

The Sub-Prime

To ensure the continual, eternal, and uninterrupted functioning of the Merolate Union, the Prime of Merolate shall select for him or herself a Sub-Prime, being of an age no more than six years upon the initiation of training and the formal assumption of the position, titles, and duties thereof the position of Sub-Prime.  No Prime may select a Sub-Prime who originated in the same province as that from whence the Prime did originate, that there may be no unjust and undue accusations of favoritism amongst the provinces.

The Governors

Being that it is truth that the Merolate Union of Provinces hereforward instituted and enacted by this Charter is truthfully a gathering of equal and independent provinces, the apparatuses of Union governance herein previously explicated by not intended as the sole arbiters of the fates of all the disparate provinces in the Union.  Rather, significant powers shall be rightly reserved to the several provinces, to be invested in and assembled under the persons of the province Governors.  The province Governors may not enact any edict or law in contradiction or conflict with the Union laws imposed by the Prime, but may rightly otherwise be fairly considered the resolute and absolute sovereigns of their respective territories.

However selected, as determined by the provinces, the Governors are only empowered in so long as they take upon themselves, abide by, and uphold an oath of allegiance to this Charter.  This oath must be administered or readministered forthwith to formally and properly invest any alteration in the characters which reside in the executor positions.

Each province hath reserved unto itself the right and power to raise and maintain such bodies of men and constructs of a military character as are internally determined to be necessary and prudent, provided that all such forces raised hereunder be sword subordinate to the will of the Prime of the Merolate Union.  Moreover, the Prime may himself or herself authorize the creation of an apparatus of war only under conditions of imminent conflict, or for such limited purposes as are deemed appropriate for the fulfillment of the defense of the Union’s shared borders, the protection and warning of the Merolate Castle and City, and the safety and security of the persons of the Prime, the Sub-Prime, and other designated officials.

Investment

That the peace, security, tranquility, and integrity of the Union herein described, the disparate provinces of which it be composed, and the assorted persons being inhabitants therein, be maintained unto perpetuity, this Charter shall be invested and upheld forthwith, unto the end of days.  Signed and invested into authority as the law of the Union on this date, the Day of Union, by Prime Vridu and the Province Governors Assorted.