The Mud Kingdom

Introduction

The Mud Kingdom, occasionally known as The Swamp, has claim to a significant portion of eastern Pyrrhia. It shares borders with the Sky Kingdom, the Rainforest Kingdom, and the Kingdom of the Sea. The Mud Kingdom is one of the most populous regions in Pyrrhia, with its population growth rate being five or six times that of every other kingdom due to its primary tribe’s large clutches. The majority of this kingdom’s residents are MudWings, with the SkyWings being the largest minority tribe living within its borders.

The Mud Kingdom’s climate is dominated by warm and humid temperatures, with the majority of its marshy territory being situated in a subtropical zone. The region is known for its agricultural and militaristic practices.

Key Characters

Animus Dragons

Animus dragons in the Mud Kingdom are incredibly rare, with only five known to have existed. Of the five, four have been hybrids, further emphasizing the lack of animus genes in the MudWing tribe. Despite this, animus magic has had a deep impact on the kingdom; the MudWing Massacre of 8,103 is often blamed on a rogue MudWing animus, and several enchanted items are tucked away in the Mud Kingdom treasury.

Past Rulers

• Queen Crane (Book Character)
• Queen Anhinga (Book Character)
• Queen Egret (Book Character)
• Queen Olive (Book Character)
• Queen Coypu (Book Character)
• Queen Moorhen (Book Character)
• Queen Everglade (CrystalWolfGem) [Stepped Down]
• King Bog (BogTheMudWing) [Stepped Down]
• Queen Sindy (sindyyyy) [Inactive]
• Queen Espresso (BurntEspresso) [Stepped Down]
• King Bog (BogTheMudWing) [Map Reset]
• King Warthog (NPC)
• Queen Bulrush (NPC)
• King Glade (glade_mw) [Inactive]
• Ruler Cherry (peekaplay) [Stepped Down]
• Lord Warmouth (oiledmushrooms) [Current]

Governance and Leadership

In the modern era, the Mud Kingdom has mostly moved past royal lineages and instead operates under an aristocracy. Government leaders are almost entirely wealthy MudWings, or MudWings with close ties to royalty; this has previously created an imbalance as to whom the laws benefit, with changes slowly being made as response to citizen protests.

Instead of a royal family, the modern Mud Kingdom hosts a succession list with three tiers of government: the ruler, the heirs, and the nobility. Officially, free spots on the succession list are filled via an application system, with its criteria as following:

The acting bigwings of a sibling troop is able to apply for an open spot on the Mud Kingdom succession list once they are beyond a certain net worth, have a recorded high quality education, and are able to reliably provide for their siblings. MudWings with blood relations to a current or historical royal are heavily preferred in this process.

Challenges, the process previously used by royal females to replace their queen, remain a valid way to obtain a royal status. However, this system has been heavily modified and is scarcely used. Any civilian, effectively bypassing the strict criteria of an application, can duel a member of the succession list for their rank. In the Mud Kingdom, an official royal challenge hasn’t successfully been utilized to depose a member of the succession list in hundreds of years.

Mud Kingdom citizenship is given to any dragon hatched in the Mud Kingdom’s territory, or to any dragon with at least one Mud citizen parent. For dragons that immigrate into the Mud Kingdom, citizenship can be obtained after five years of residency. No test is required to become a Mud citizen.

Geography

The Mud Kingdom is situated on the back of the Pyrrhian continent, much like the canon book counterpart. Being at one of the lowest parts of the continent, it is prone to flooding; the fauna and flora reflect this with their semi-aquatic properties, able to thrive in watery landscapes. Similarly, it is situated close enough to Pretarsi’s equator to be in the planet’s subtropical zone, giving the Kingdom a warm and humid climate. As such, snow in the Mud Kingdom is rare but not unheard of.

The lush climate in the Mud Kingdom lends itself to a wide array of organisms. While it is not as biodiverse as the Rainforest Kingdom, the kingdom’s swamps host an impossible amount of insect species. Large aquatic plants like lily pads and reed grass decorate the swamps, sheltering a myriad of fish and supporting the diets of crocodilians. A keen eye may even spot a capybara straying north from the Rainforest’s borders, a welcome sight to many weary and hungry from travel.

Culture and Society

The Mud Kingdom is peppered with villages and small towns, with the brunt of the population living in the northwest corner of the kingdom. Catamont’s Claw is another large population center, and villages encircle the two large hubs of activity and peter out further into the swamp. Dragons living near the Palace or inside Catamont’s Claw are often the wealthiest, whereas villages and individual residences on the outskirts of the kingdom are usually the poorest. Villages vary heavily in size and population, lacking a standardized classification system. Bunkhouses for each sibling group lie along paths encircling a center of activity, whether it is a marketplace, school, or otherwise. Marketplaces exist in nearly every village, and often offer handmade goods such as carved toys, furniture, and meticulously crafted meals. Vendors trade with each other constantly, creating a circulating supply of goods that can be hard to track. Meat is often traded for milk, cakes for paintings, et cetera.

Festivals are extremely common, often being held for harvests, hatching days, and even just to celebrate a particularly sunny day. These celebrations are very social, including improvised instrument ensembles, dancing, and scale paint. The instrumentation of these groups is mostly percussive; the most common instruments in the Mud Kingdom are marimbas and conga drums, but other drums such as bongos and tambourines are often used. The improvised music played is traditionally in 3/4 time, with a steady, rumbling beat and deep cacophonous melody. Unlike the spontaneous music, dances in the Mud Kingdom are meticulously planned and practiced over years. The styles of dance vary incrementally between sib groups and villages, making the dances found around Catamont’s Claw vastly different than those around Rootplace and other cities. Another key tradition is scale painting; saved for large celebrations such as the solstices and harvest festivals, siblings will take turns dipping their talons in multicolored clay-based paints and marking their talonprint on each other’s wings, bodies, and even faces if one is feeling boisterous. This act of painting each other is not standardized at all; some sibling groups paint detailed portraits on each other, while others use it as an excuse to fling paint at each other and see who walks out the most splattered.

MudWings operate in an entirely aronormative society, with monthly breeding nights treated as a civic responsibility to maintain the population. Romantic relationships are extremely uncommon and are often talked about with great discomfort, but dragons in relationships are not intentionally discriminated against. Otherwise, the only familial relationships a Mud Kingdom citizen would ordinarily have are those with their siblings (or “sibs”). Sibling “troops” operate very strategically, with roles in the family assigned to each sibling based on their strengths. The largest MudWing to be hatched is known as the “bigwings”, and takes on a parental role towards the other siblings. The bigwings is often treated as a representative of their troop, having more responsibilities but gaining more privileges such as being preferred for leadership roles.

Military and Defense

The Mud Kingdom is intensely militaristic, with a significant portion of the royal budget going to defense. Military forts are scattered along the kingdom’s borders, with the Cherry Stronghold and Fort Blackgum being the most well-known. These often act as centers of commerce as well as defensive bases, and are occasionally shared with the military of allied tribes. The Cherry Fortress in particular, being the westernmost base in the kingdom, sees a lot of usage by SkyWings.

Military squadrons are usually made up of sibling groups, although exceptions are not uncommon. The lowest-ranked units are often made to perform menial tasks, such as escorting low nobles. More experienced soldiers are assigned more intensive tasks, and the highest-ranked generals often have direct conferences with the Mud Kingdom’s ruler.

While spears and battle axes are common weapons, MudWing combat mostly involves the use of their intense bite force and fire breath. MudWing warriors are trained to crouch low to the ground, both using their armored dorsal scutes to protect their vital organs and providing ample access to an enemy’s throat or belly. Fighting is almost entirely close-range, with fire being used purely defensively and most often as a means of escape. Aerial combat is almost never used in a fight in which the MudWings have an upper hand; as their bulky bodies make it difficult to fly, fighting in the air is near-impossible for all but the most skilled gladiators.

Diplomacy and Relations

Tribe Relations

Tribe	Hearts	Status
RainWings	🤍 🤍 🤍 🤍 🖤	Neutral, positive.
SilkWings	🩷 🩷 🩷 🖤 🖤	Neutral.
SkyWings	❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️	Allied closely.
MudWings	N/A	N/A
HiveWings	🧡 🧡 🧡 🖤 🖤	Neutral.
SandWings	💛 💛 🖤 🖤 🖤	Neutral, tense
LeafWings	💚 💚 💚 🖤 🖤	Neutral.
IceWings	🩵 🩵 🖤 🖤 🖤	Neutral, tense
SeaWings	💙 💙 💙 💙 🖤	Neutral, positive.
NightWings	💜 💜 💜 🖤 🖤	Neutral.

Economy

Currency

The Mud Kingdom, similar to other Pyrrhian regions, operate on bartering as their primary form of commerce. Valuables such as gold and jewels are on occasion traded for goods and services, but more often service is performed for goods necessary to survival such as food. Art such as pottery is traded for meat, meat is traded as payment for construction work, et cetera.

Imports

Metals such as iron and copper are highly valued in the Mud Kingdom, but marshy soil obstructs most possible mining within its borders. As a direct result, these metals are often imported from the Sky Kingdom.

Although less common, wealthy rancher troops often import non-native livestock species such as yaks and Pantalan species both for display and to sell a variety of meat or other animal products with less competition. Mud Kingdom markets are a cornerstone of the pet trade, legal and illegal.

Exports

Main MudWing exports include:

• Rice, cranberries, various herbs/spices
• Freshwater fish, crayfish, small crustaceans
• Meats from crocodilians, water buffalo, cattle, and pigs
• Raw clay and mud, wood, small amounts of bamboo, leathers from crocodilians and cattle
• Fired pottery and beads, reed weavings, paints and glazes derived from earthy pigments