The Southern Realm is a kingdom led by King Brodén. It's territory consists of a large flat rock surrounded by a forest on one side and a sea on the other side. Most of the sides of the rock are steep cliffs, with only a few paths leading down safely. On the middle of the rock stands a castle guarded by knights, in the middle lies a keep where the king, queen and the king's men reside. Around the castle is a village for the noblemen, guarded by stone walls and even more knights. Here the people thrive on the wealth they get shared from the king. On the edges of the rock lie smaller villages, containing training grounds where the knights prove their worth as warriors and get accepted to reside in the castle or noblemen's village. Or they don't, and end up staying in their own village or in the army.
Around the rock, behind the cliffs lie more towns, guarded by a little group of knights. Here the people work to provide resources for the villages on the rock, only getting to keep a little for themselves which is nearly enough to stay alive. The king doesn't pay attention to these villages and they often get hit by epidemics, wiping out the retired people at relatively young age.
Around the Southern Realm lies great landscapes with many more independent towns and cities. They all know of each other's existence and developed hatred towards the Southern Realm, but yet there is little to no interaction between the Realm and the independent world. Still the king fears they might strike, as he or his men cannot enter the villages or cities safely so he doesn't know what they're planning. To prevent any greater damage to the villages on the rock the king assigns men to function as messenger in the villages on the outskirts of the kingdom, so once the independent lands strike the villages on the rock will be warned and called to action. To prevent any surprise attacks from within the king orders knights to patrol at the edges of the rock to prevent outsiders from entering the wealthier towns.
The Southern Realm does not have any form of currency. All the products and recources that the villages around the rock gather are stashed into one big storage near the castle. Here a small portion gets distributed back to the villages, an average amount is sent to the villages at the edges and the majority is kept for the castle and noblemen. This results in great poverty around the rock, while the noblemen thrive on recources they got without doing anything to earn it. Whether you're poor or wealthy gets decided at birth as families have to stay in their birthplace.
The king's only son, the crown prince Jocke, grew up in the keep surrounded by wealthy people. But in contrary to his parents he feels bad for the poor people around the rock. He always paid his respects to the people around the rock, and as he grew up he wanted them to be treated more fairly. At the age of 21 he would be crowned king, and he would distribute all the recources fairly among the people of The Southern Realm. A few months before the preparations for the coronation would start king and queen Brodén noticed Jocke's ideas turning into actual plans. Fearing the loss of wealth for the noblemen, the king decided to postpone the coronation for as long as he was able to. When this news reached Jocke he didn't hesitate and tried to sneak out at night, although he didn't get caught directly, he was spotted by a guard who sent signal to the king, who tried to catch up but ultimately failed as Jocke had already left out of sight.
