WORLD OVERVIEW
Core Premise

This world undergoes an early form of industrialization (roughly Renaissance-era technology accelerated by magical resources), triggered by the discovery of dragon fossils. These fossils function as a literal fossil fuel, powering magic rather than machines alone.

Magic has existed for over 2,000 years, but its true source—the dragon bones—was long concealed by the elves. The human discovery of this source removes elves as the sole gatekeepers of magic, destabilizing ancient power structures and igniting economic, political, and cultural conflict.

MAGIC AND DRAGON FOSSILS

Source of Magic

- All magic originates from dragon bones buried underground.

- Dragon fossils are finite and slowly degrade when used.

- High-tier magic requires dragon bone access.

Pre-Discovery Era

- Elves discovered dragon bones thousands of years ago.

- Elves shared methods of magic with humans, not the source.

- Humans wishing to practice magic paid tribute to elven clans.

- Elves presented magic as their own innate or exclusive ability.

Post-Discovery Era

Humans independently discover dragon fossils.

Elves lose their monopoly as magical middlemen.

Human magic increasingly merges:

Dragon fossil energy

Human engineering, logistics, and mass production

Not all humans can become full wizards, but skilled magicians can now work directly with fossil-powered systems.

HUMAN SOCIETY
Political Structure

- Merchant city-state, not a kingdom.

- Power is held by wealthy merchants and guilds.

Legitimacy of authority:

- Wealth = usefulness = power

- Oligarchic rule through guild dominance.

Guild System

-Approximately 5 major guilds, plus hundreds of smaller ones.

-Influence correlates directly with wealth.

Notable Guild Types

Archaeological Guild

Controls excavation and discovery of dragon bones.

Politically weak and underfunded. [TO DISCUSS: Why underfunded? Wouldn't all the richest people want to invest in archeology, fund expeditions to discover new deposits or excavate recrntly found ones?.. ]

Cannot monopolize bone supply.

Enchanter / Alchemical Guilds

Experiment with bones and bone derivatives.

Logistics / Shipping / Caravan Guilds

Transport bones and bone-based goods.

Banking Guilds

Major political influence.

Mercenary Guilds

Military power rented for profit.

Economy and Conflict

- Dragon bone reserves = wealth and political leverage.

- Violence (assassination) is rare.

- Preferred tactic: economic sabotage:

Ruin rivals financially, disrupt trade and logistics.

Human Strengths

- Rapid innovation and adaptability.

- Will fund anything tied to profit or bone access.

- Willing to:

Use mercenaries, spy, enter forbidden areas, sell information to enemies

- Pragmatic approach to magic:
It doesn’t matter how it works, only that it works.

Human Weaknesses

- No unified ideology.
- Loyalty is transactional and rented.
- Progress vulnerable to sabotage.
- Long-term stability often sacrificed for short-term gain.

Human View of Elves

See elves as:
Arrogant
Resource-hoarding
Inefficient
Believe elves squander dragon bone potential.

Desire to break elven control through:

Innovation
Theft
Circumvention

[ADDED] Classic supestition:
- Elves take away children and leave changelings instead (people believe to be changelings generally do Not have a Great Time, if it's anything like deep autism, going non-verbal etc, they are AT BEST sent to monasteries, rich people might keep their 'changeling' relatives away from public, AT WORST such people are put into asylums or event driven out of the human society under the pretense 'go live with your own long-eared kind'. Parents are known to leave children they perceive to be changelings in orphanages or to die. Some elves societies might actually have some organisations / their own asylums for such children / people. A lot of mental illness in human society is associated with the 'changeling' myth, elves actively blamed though modern science might be trying to change this.
TO DISCUSS: do elves actually have the option to do so, are there historical cases of elves doing that, taking a human a leaving a 'replica' in its stead? It might be possible but prohibited by Elven Geneva Convention or whatever, idk, might be fun.

-Other superstitions eg: never give an elf your full name, it grants them power over you; never eat elven food lest you forget your own world; living near elves one should either appease them with milk or fresh produce or small gifts OR another school of more religious thought - elves should be placated/scared away using the Bible, iron, lucky horsheshoes etc.

[MANDATORY OBVIOUS ADDENDUM: humans are not a hive mind and there a factions that differ in opinion, several schools of thought, parts of society and/or individuals with unique approach to the whole thing, however, the above summary might describe the 'official line' of the government of the City and the main dogmas of major local religion(s). The rich and powerful have a large influence over public opinion, but individual ideas might still vary.]

ELVEN SOCIETY
Political Structure

- Power based on lineage, age, and bloodline. [TO DISCUSS & SETTLE: Elven lifespan, how long are we giving them, 1000 healthy years from birth to death? Less, more?]

- Organized into Great Houses. [TO DISCUSS: The classic thing with elven courts? Winter court, autumn court etc, all that jazz, do we want that as an aesthetic or come up with our own? I don't mind either way]

- Legitimacy rooted in antiquity, “We were here first” ideology

- Governance may involve councils or conclaves.

- Decision-making is slow and traditional.

Great Houses
Old, powerful families.

Possible origins (unresolved/speculative within lore):

- Dragon slayers
- Dragon wardens
- Pacts with dragons
- Guardians of ancient bone vaults or grave sites
- Control sacred hills, forests, and dragon bone sites.
[IDEA NOTE: If dragons were eradicated (and fossilized) by a climate event, much like dinosaurs, either the 'big cold' or the 'big warm' (probably cold being worse for reptilians? idk, our own ice age with our own squirrels), elves might have been there are the time and survived the event. We could go full anthropology nerd and speculate that humans co-existed with dragons and elves thousands of years ago, possibly being more closer related to elves at the time. Then Ice Age happens, dragons and humans are wiped out, elves survived because (insert plausible reason), and actually watched the evolution happen again and humans evolve once more from apes because evolution has a sense of humor and is a persistent bitch. IN TURN!! It might be elven lore that the 'old humans' or elves themselves of all kinds had evolved from angels, or some 'higher being', so seeing humans 2.0 evolve from apes looks really ridiculous to them. ALSO I DO REALIZE we do not need any of this in the actual матчасть unless someone wants to play a REALLY racist anti-darwinist elf.  BUT WHO KNOWS RIGHT]

[ADDED 15 MINUTES AND A SHOT OF BAILEYS LATER: ELVES SOCIETY MIGHT HAVE THEIR OWN RACE SCIENCE + ANTHROPOLOGY + SYMPOSIUMS WHERE THEY TRY TO FIGURE OUT THE EVOLUTION OF ALL RACES AND VIOLENTLY DISAGREE WITH EACH OTHER, EG CREATIONISM VS DARWINISM; CONTROVERSIAL ELVEN TEXT 'DID WE ALSO EVOLVE FROM APES??? SHOCKING PROOF, READ FURTHER IN THE NEXT SCROLL' I'm basically saying they are also not a hivemind and there might be different schoold of thought on humans etc]

Cultural Foundations

- Elven magic and dragon bones are sacred.
- Dragon bones are revered, not consumed.

[ADDED]D Strong indoctrination / elven religion:
- Children taught never to reveal magic’s source.

- Closed society with strict rules and traditions.

Elven Strengths

- Deep, foundational understanding of magic.
- Long-term planning (centuries, not years).
- Strong loyalty within individual Houses.
- Cultural cohesion and shared worldview.
- Belief that elves are custodians of the world.

Elven Weaknesses

- Rigid, inflexible, resistant to innovation. [Note: more like, it's not that they are resistant to change per se, they see a bit of a bigger picture and have more context on why things are the way they are and what are the dangers or rapid overconsumption]
- Slow response to sudden threats.

Internal generational tension:

- Younger elves resent elder rigidity.
- Cannot openly oppose entrenched power.
- Distrust between rival Houses.

Elven View of Humans

Humans seen as:
- Children playing with relics they don’t understand
- Reckless and spiritually careless

Believe humans will destroy magic through misuse.

Deeply offended by:

- Sale of dragon bones
- Grinding or fragmenting bones
- View human practices as sacrilege.

[ADDED: Elves are the ones actually concerned about sustainability, nature cycle, ecology, ozone layer, plastic straws etc - this part is a joke]

DRAGON BONE USE: CULTURAL FLASHPOINT
Human Use

- Grind, refine, and repurpose bones.
- Use bone dust, marrow, fragments.
- Mass-produce:
   Lesser magic items
   Industrial-scale magical effects
-Bones are drained until they crumble.

Elven Use

- Preserve bones whole.
- Ritual-based magic.
- Reuse the same bones over centuries.

Believe bones:

- Retain memory
- Are sacred [NOTE TO DISCUSS: have elves deified the dragons mayhaps?..]
- Possibly believe bones can recharge over centuries (humans live too briefly to observe this).

Mutual Accusations

Humans: elves waste potential.

Elves: humans spiritually destroy magic / are overusing a finite resource

CONFLICT DYNAMICS
Current State

- Cold-war–like tension.
- Undermining rather than open warfare.
[ADDED: possibility of future resource wars once more dragon bones are discovered in neighboring regions. We're going to invade fantasy Iraq for their fossils and say that we're bringing them democracy or whatever]

Human Tactics

- Smuggling bones from elven lands.
- Funding rival elven Houses.
- Creating:
   Synthetic magic
   Unstable, low-cost alternatives
   Use disgraced or low-grade bones.

- Shape public opinion against elves:
  Portray elves as hoarders
  Frame them as letting the world suffer
[NOTE: GOOD PLACE TO BRING IN RELIGION HERE]

Elven Tactics

- Enforcement of their hills and forests being sacred, constant debates over territories and borders.
- Magical sabotage of trade routes and agreements.
- Subtle curses:
   Guild leaders
   Lands
[ADDED IDEA: increase the 'toll' on existing magicians? Those agreements must have been signed ages ago and still legally binding, that grants us another niche of magicians employing lawyers to try and break those agreements]
- Withhold magical knowledge.
-Engineer:
   Famines
   Misfortunes
-Support conservative human factions to stall progress.

INTERNAL CONFLICTS
Human Internal Conflicts

- Guilds accuse each other of war profiteering.
- Black markets thrive.

Divisions:
- Peace advocates (bones running out, balance of nature, danger or war with elves, uncapped expansion will lead to conflict with neighboring regions)
- Extremists (wipe out elves, seize resources, go to magic Iraq for more fossils)
- Just Some Guys who are trying to get by, society is still divided, largest chunk of it being lower class: peasants and workers. For a rich landlord, it might be cheaper to underpay a peasant working your field than buy a Magic Field Working Machine (+magicians might consider it beneath them to waster magic on menial tasks). There are few labor rights, human resource still valuable, it still takes an entire village and several fields to feed one rich family. Commoners have limited to no access to fossil fuel technology, or even medical care, so livespans are not great.
(However, the City is still rapidly expanding since that's where all the jobs are, massive immigration and urbanisation).

Elven Internal Conflicts

- Younger elves question ancestral superiority.
- Radical Houses advocate human extermination.
- Other Houses argue cooperation is necessary to preserve magic.
- Fear that if humans learn too much:
    Elven dominance ends
    Elven relevance collapses
[ADDED IDEA: Elves are concerned if bones are over-mined the entire concept of magic will disappear, and nobody knows what this will do to the land/nature in general]

CITY GOVERNMENT
(based on Medici-era Florence, merchant oligarchy, nominal monarchy)
Even if a King exists in the background, the city can be near-fully autonomous.

De jure:
The city is technically part of a larger kingdom or empire.
The king holds: the right to coinage approval; the right to declare war in theory.
(A ceremonial governor or “royal observer” might be stationed in the city and relentlessly bribed).

De facto:
The city enjoys autonomy because it controls
- Dragon-bone trade and refinement
- Banking and credit
- Logistics and mercenary supply

In practice:
- The crown is deeply indebted to city banks.
- The king relies on city-backed mercenary companies.
Cutting the city loose would crash the wider economy or magic supply.

This mirrors Florence’s relationship with emperors and popes: technically subordinate, practically indispensable.

Structure of Government

1. Executive Council with a fancy name
About 9 members chosen from the wealthiest and most influential guilds.
Terms are short (6–12 months), but re-election is common via influence.
One member acts as First Speaker (not officially a ruler, might be turn based? Idk).

Function:
- Day-to-day governance
- Foreign diplomacy
- Emergency powers

2. The Grand Council
150–300 members drawn from:
- Major guild representatives
- Banking families
- Old merchant houses

Function:
- Legitimacy
- Public debate
- Diffusing blame
- Mostly rubber-stamps decisions
- Can block extreme actions if unified (which almost never happens)

3. The Guild Compact

Not a council, but a binding legal framework.
Guilds are recognized as semi-sovereign entities.

Each guild:
- Polices its own members (and NON-members, eg Pottery Guild will chase out or fine any non-member potters found to be selling their products within city limits)
- Maintains internal courts
- Collects dues and enforces contracts

Major guilds (≈5):

- Banking
- Logistics / Shipping
- Enchanting / Alchemy
- Mercenary
- Manufacturing / Craft
Minor guilds: hundreds.

4. Informal Power: The Inner Circle/Shadow government

~12–20 individuals, not an official body, just the jeff bezoses and elon musks of our world (major bankers, bone magnates, guild masters) staying in touch. Decisions made here before councils ever meet and STRONGLY SUGGESTING their opinions.

POPULATION + CLASS STRUCTURE

Approximate Population:

City proper: 250,000–400,000
With surrounding districts and workers: 500,000+

Class Breakdown (VERY ROUGH):

- Elite oligarchs: ~0.5%
- Upper merchant / guild elite: ~5%
- Skilled artisans & clerks: ~15–20%
- Laborers, porters, dockhands: ~40%
- Urban poor, migrants, unregistered workers: ~20–25%

High immigration + industrial expansion = constant social tension.

I know barely anyone will want to play laborers + lowest class, but we have enough elite this way for everyone.

MY FAVOUTIRE QUESTION EVER:
How does the City eat?

Historical comparisons:

- Rome at its peak (~1 million): depended on imperial grain fleets.
- Renaissance Florence (~60–90k): relied heavily on Tuscan countryside.
- Constantinople: survived on state-managed imports.

THREE PILLARS OF SUPPLY
PILLAR 1. Surrounding Farmland

What it provides:
- Grain
- Vegetables
- Meat (limited)
- Dairy
- Timber
- Charcoal

Who controls it:
- Merchant-backed estates
- Church lands
- Semi-autonomous rural towns
- Leased farmlands owned by guild families

IMPORTANT:
The City does not rule the countryside directly like a feudal lord.
Instead:
- It owns debt.
- It owns storage.
- It owns transport.

Peasants farm.
The City controls who buys the harvest and at what price.

PILLAR 2. Imports

Imports include:
- Bulk grain (from river valleys or overseas breadbaskets)
- Salt
- Soap fats and oils
- Candles (tallow, wax)
- Wool, cotton, flax
- Metals
- Exotic foods and luxuries

NOTE:
Dragon-fossil–powered logistics:
- Faster ships
- Weather-resistant navigation
- Magically stabilized storage
- Banking system funds massive grain speculation.
If one region fails, another is tapped.

Vulnerability:
Disruption of trade routes = catastrophe; lucrative for elven sabotage.

PILLAR 3. Urban production (fossil-powered in part)

Dragon fossil power does not create raw materials, but it reshapes processing.
Produced or refined in-city:
- Soap (from imported fats)
- Candles (from imported tallow/wax)
- Preserved foods
- Textile processing
- Brewing, distilling
- Bone-derived fertilizers or alchemical additives

NOTE:
Because the fossil power might allow this production to happen faster than purely artisanal methods, the City can produce enough for itself + for export.

ADDENDUM:
The City survives because it does not trust a single source.

Grain Policy:
- Public grain reserves
- Merchant-owned silos
- Price controls during shortages
- Speculation during good years
- Grain riots are a known risk

ADDITIONAL CONFLICT:
The City is actively expanding = encroaching on Elven territories (constant border disputes).

Elven lands are:
- Forested
- Fertile
- Lightly populated
- Magically stabilized ecosystems

Humans suspect:
- Untapped farmland
- Untapped fossil reserves
- Untapped trade routes

The City doesn’t just want bones, it wants secure supply corridors.

NOBILITY / ARISTOCRACY

In The City, nobility has not vanished but was fundamentally reshaped by commerce. Old court nobles still cling to titles, ceremony, and royal favor, they are often land-rich but cash-poor, while resenting their dependence on merchant wealth. Alongside them stand hybrid noble families: lesser lords, younger branches, and pragmatic houses, who quietly invest in trade, marry into guild dynasties, and wield influence through proxies while maintaining the fiction that they remain above commerce. Third, a new commercial aristocracy has emerged: ennobled merchants and bankers whose wealth rivals or surpasses that of ancient houses, buying land, titles, and legitimacy as readily as others buy grain. The crown tolerates and empowers this balance out of necessity, granting the City wide autonomy in exchange for credit, logistics, and magical resources, leaving nobility within the City divided, adaptive, and inseparable from the mercantile order that now truly governs it.