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
Non-Playable Characters
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)
- ??? (NPC) [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.[1] 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.[1] 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.[2] The largest MudWing to be hatched is known as the “bigwings”, and takes on a parental role towards the other siblings.[3] 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
The Mud Kingdom often considers themselves to be peacekeepers, with aid sent to other kingdoms constantly. They take their alliances incredibly seriously, the most valuable of which being their centuries-long alliance with the Sky Kingdom. Due to this dedication, the Mud Kingdom has entered wars that the citizens generally perceived as causing unnecessary deaths, another contributor to the rift between the Mud Kingdom’s social classes.
Diplomats are heavily scrutinized by the crown, and any displays of behavior that might threaten the Mud Kingdom’s valued stable relations with the other kingdoms will result in swift, occasionally extreme consequences. Being a process directly carried out by the ruler, this process has its biases; dragons that are close to the ruler, such as siblings and friends, tend to have significantly more leeway to behave inappropriately.
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, very tense |
| SeaWings | 💙 💙 💙 💙 🖤 | Neutral, positive. |
| NightWings | 💜 💜 💜 🖤 🖤 | Neutral. |
History
MudWing Succession Crisis
The MudWing Succession Crisis started when Queen Egret was killed in a flight accident and her sister Bayou, the last heir to the throne, disappeared days after. The lack of a ruler threw the kingdom into brief turmoil, ending when a construction worker named Olive offered Prince Sawgrass, the late queen’s brother, her clutch of eggs to act as heirs to the throne. Queen Olive served as ruler thereafter, until her daughter, Queen Coypu, was able to rule.[3]
War of SandWing Succession
The Mud Kingdom was initially allied with Princess Blister and the Sea Kingdom in the War of SandWing Succession, but pulled out of the alliance when General Swamp, a high-ranking member of the military, was framed for the murder of a SeaWing commander and executed.[4] They were then threatened by Princess Burn, and were forced to enter a new alliance with her and the Sky Kingdom. Despite the benefits of the Sky Kingdom’s military support, and the privileges the MudWings received in respect to the Sky Kingdom’s entertainment activities, the deaths in battles with the Ice Kingdom devastated the Mud Kingdom. The war was eventually ended when two of the three competing princesses were killed and the Dragonets of Destiny, one of whom was a MudWing, helped select a new candidate for the Sand Kingdom throne.[5]
Titan Pact vs. Hurricanes War
While not much is clear about this war, it is known that the Mud Kingdom, along with the Sky, Night, and Ice kingdoms, were part of the winning Titan Pact. Historians theorize that this is one of the factors that solidified the Sky-Mud Alliance, along with thousands of years of historical ties.
Frostburn War
The Mud Kingdom sided with the SkyWings’ claim of the Heart of Ice and Fire, forming the Firebound Alliance along with the Night and Sand kingdoms. Honoring their allyship, the Mud Kingdom was the only kingdom to not pull out of the alliance after the Sky Kingdom’s surprise attack on an IceWing Village. When the Heart of Ice and Fire was shattered, making its ownership impossible, the war immediately came to a close.
After the main conflict had come to a draw, the Rainforest Kingdom began to invade parts of MudWing territory. The Sky Kingdom aided the Mud Kingdom in fighting back the invaders, until a blast of fire burned down a significant part of the border and both sides were forced to retreat.
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.[6] 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
Lore and Myths
Much of MudWing folklore is built around fable-like stories, either about fictional MudWings, or common swamp animals such as crocodilians, frogs, fish, or insects. The exact nature of these stories varies significantly in different areas of the kingdom, due in part to the fact that much of it depends on oral storytelling instead of written records, so different villages often organically develop their own versions. Common threads, however, are the messages of loyalty, teamwork, and community—and the unfortunate fates that befall those who don’t uphold such values.
Many stories have themes around the dangers of the swamps, describing dangerous monsters that prey upon the unwary. These monsters are often viewed as metaphors for various things, such as disease or predators. It’s widely believed that these stories originated as a method to keep dragonets from wandering too far from their village.
There’s also quite a few myths about heroes of old, such as Buffalo the Unyielding or Copperhead the Swift, detailing their prowess in battle with exaggerated tales of combat. It’s hotly debated by historians how many of these warriors actually existed, and how many are purely fictional.
MudWings don’t have a religion in the sense of worshipping any gods, but their intense love for the earth has been often described as nearly religious in nature. Living in tandem with the natural world and caring for the earth is not only valued, but seen as outright necessary by most MudWing communities. There are many rituals and traditions meant to give back to the earth, and quite a few stories around the downfall of those who don’t do so. MudWing mythos also contains mythical creatures viewed as personifications of the earth, such as mud sprites—small, fuzzy creatures that bring blessings to those who care for the natural world, and extreme misfortune to those who don’t.
Trivia
- On the Minecraft server, the MudWing tribe has the least players of any Pyrrhian tribe.
- As of October 2024, no Mud Kingdom ruler has lost a challenge.
- The players in the Mud Kingdom are notable for being a close-knit but welcoming group.
- The Mud Palace was mostly built by MudWing players, rather than entirely by the Build Team.
References
- ↑ One Earth. (2022, July 29). Pantanal | One Earth. https://www.oneearth.org/ecoregions/pantanal/
- ↑ Sutherland, T. T. (2023). Wings of Fire: A Guide to the Dragon world. Scholastic Inc.
- ↑ Sutherland, T. T. (2012). The Dragonet Prophecy (Wings of Fire #1). Scholastic Inc.
- ↑ Sutherland, T. T. (2015). Assassin (Wings of Fire: Winglets #2). Scholastic Inc.
- ↑ Sutherland, T. T. (2014). The Brightest Night (Wings of Fire #5). Scholastic Inc.
- ↑ FAQ - Okefenokee NWR and Twin Pines Mine | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. (2024, April 4). FWS.gov. https://www.fws.gov/story/2024-04/faq-okefenokee-nwr-and-twin-pines-mine
