Guinea

“To deny one half of the divine is to live with only one eye open.”

Guinea stands apart from the violence that has consumed much of the world. Cold, austere, and fiercely ordered, it is a land where faith governs openly and without apology. Its frozen coasts, its unforgiving wilderness, and its guarded mountain passes have spared it from the endless wars and infighting that other nations had to survive. Guinea survived not through conquest or exploitation, but through sanctity and discipline. Guinea has little excess, but what it possesses has not been squandered. As a result, it has found a way to thrive in an otherwise chaotic world.

Guinea is ruled by belief made law. The nation is governed by the Council of Seven Bishops, a theocratic assembly whose authority is both spiritual and temporal. Each bishop is bound for life to one of Guinea’s great cities, elected by the faithful and forbidden to abdicate their seat. To resign is to renounce the covenant entirely, an act treated as spiritual death.

Unlike every other nation in the world, Guinea enshrines open worship of both The Choir & The Legion in law. Angels and demons are not opposing truths here, but complementary forces. To the Guinean faithful, divinity is whole only when light and shadow are acknowledged together. Outsiders call this heresy. Guineans call it honesty.

Religion in Guinea is not gentle. Worship demands discipline, sacrifice, and acceptance of contradiction. Trials of faith are common. Judgment is final and severe. Miracles are respected but scrutinized. Guinea does not promise salvation. It promises truth, however uncomfortable.

Guinea’s heartland is cold and unforgiving. Forests of black pine stretch across frozen soil. Coastal tundra meets iron-grey seas. To the south, the Sahara Mountains rise as a jagged wall, shielding the nation from the storms of Arabia and harboring powers that answer to no one. To the north lie wastes so cold that even faith struggles to survive.

The people of Guinea are disciplined, devout, and resilient. Every settlement maintains both church and council hall. Markets are flanked by shrines, sermons echo alongside trade calls, and disputes are as likely to be settled by ritual as by law. Faith is not private here. It is civic duty.

Guinea is governed collectively by seven bishops, each bound to one city:

• Marrakesh – Capital of Guinea and seat of the Primus Bishop, home to the Dual Cathedrals.
• Tangier – Northern port and gateway to Europa.
• Tripoli – Fortress-city guarding the Sahara passes.
• Freetown – Frozen outpost at the edge of the world.
• Tindar – Center of theological education and doctrine.
• Zafira – A city that turned shard-blight into ritualized prosperity.
• Qasr el-Nour – Beacon city of faith and sea trade.

Together they rule as one body. In deadlock, Marrakesh holds the casting voice.

In the 1200s A.M., under the direct authority of the Council of Seven, a series of sanctioned rites sought to resolve what Guinean theologians called a Divine Asymmetry. If angels and demons were both instruments of the divine, then mortals, it was argued, were incomplete vessels. They endeavored to correct this flaw.

The result was the deliberate creation of divine-adjacent mortals. Aasimar and tieflings were not accidents of belief or corruption. They were shaped and refined with Shardisite magic and well-meaning intentions. For a brief generation, they were hailed as living scripture. Proof that faith, properly applied, could perfect humanity.

What had been intended as sacred singularities became unchecked lineages. The miraculous became common. The divine, once curated and controlled, escaped ritual containment and entered the world as inheritance rather than calling. The Council ended the program without declaration. Records were sealed. Participants were reassigned, silenced, or elevated beyond reproach. No doctrine was rewritten. No apology was issued. Officially, the aasimar and tieflings simply appeared, as most races have, through random shardisite-induced mutations.

To this day, Guineans bristle when Marrakesh is called a nursery for half-breeds. Not because the title is false, but because it names something the Council insists never happened. The stain is not the act itself. It is the refusal to reckon with it.

Within the Sahara Mountains dwell monasteries whose monks are known beyond Africa as Stormwalkers. Their martial art is air itself, shaped by shard mutation and ritual discipline. They move faster than thought and strike with the force of a gale.

They accept guests under strict rule. Their deeper halls are forbidden. Their loyalty to the Council is ambiguous. Some call them guardians. Others call them a power Guinea does not truly control.

Adventurers in Guinea walk a narrow line. In Marrakesh, they may be drawn into theological duels or forbidden archives. In Tangier, every contract may be scripture and every scroll a weapon. In Tripoli, service may earn honor or provoke the wrath of the monasteries. In Freetown, survival itself is a holy test. Guinea is a nation of paradox: prosperous yet austere, faithful yet feared, balanced between heaven and hell. Those who learn its secrets may emerge shattered or they may be forged into something utterly unbreakable.