The Phoenician Empire [EDIT]

HISTORY
I called the land Phoenecia, but styled it after 500 B.C. Greece, with some Industrial age and Dark age. There are automatons, airships, and personal flying machines, a sort of mix between Daedalus-type gliders and jet packs. Baltazarr the Great united all the city states 30 years ago, and now his son Baltzar II. He is beginning the excavation of the Isle of Crete, which was mostly destroyed by an earthquake one year before the great unification.

MILITARY
The Phoenician city-states are now peaceful, but before the unification they were all fighting. Several thousand troops remain in reserve, though. There is a police force that helps to maintain peace in the cities, called the Avain guard. A dark-skinned man named Abdul Hakim is the leader of the Avian Guard in Phoenician capitol city of Athens.

POLITICS
The Emperor rules Phoenicia, and has the final word on everything. But each city-state has an elected senator, who represents the people of his city to the Emperor. The Athenian senator is Caedmon Severin, who has a son named Eleazar. Caedmon is good friends with Abdul Hakim.

RELIGION
The state religion is polytheistic. Two siblings are the High Priest and Priestess (Pythians) and are apparently immortal and impartial. No one knows where they came from, but their prophecys have always come true. They live at the Temple to Phoebus at Delphi, and people come from everywhere to make sacrifices to them, and the god. Many of the minor gods have cults devoted to them. The members will generally be unified by a different political ideal or religious viewpoint.

CRETE
Ever since a gigantic earthquake killed almost everyone on Crete, the Pythians have forbidden anyone from landing on its shores, and any ship that sailed there with the intent to land never came back. But now the Pythians have prophesied that Crete should be re-populated, and the senators from the city-states have voted to begin an excavation on the island. A man named Demetrios is in charge of the project.

ECONOMY
Once unified, the city-states isolated themselves, and became economically independent. The population is relatively steady. Most wildlife has been driven into Germania to the south. All timber comes from there, and since the land is fertile there are farms everywhere.

SOCIETY
The wealthy have stone houses in the middle of the city, and the poorest live in wooden huts on the outskirts. Young noblemen can go to schools, and most do. The low-class citizens are uneducated and illiterate, and are content to stay that way, for the most part.