Venucci Republics

The Venucci Republics are in the temperate north of the known world. They highly value creativity and progress, and are known for having the most talented alchemists in the world. The Venucci believe that scientific progress is the key to success, and as long as they keep making progress it’s only a matter of time before they become the dominant power in the world. Venucci greatly value success and deride failure, but while failure is derided, the only thing worse is stagnation, so there are always Venucci keen to invest in those with big ideas who are willing to try.

Venucci is made up of independent city states, each of which is ruled over by councils of representatives from influential houses and guilds in that city. The cities formed a loose political and military association in order to expand their influence and protect their interests. The Venucci believe that the best way to expand their influence is culturally, and historically accomplished much of their expansion by aggressively exporting their culture to their neighbours, until they were de facto integrated in to Venucci.

Venucci political houses are not necessarily based on family lines. Children of existing house members must prove themselves to be accepted, and those that showed promise but fail are quickly removed; meanwhile adoption of outside individuals that show talent is common.

Look and Feel

Venucci like “finer” fabrics, colourful schemes, and patterns, and decorative adornments such as jewellery.

The aspirational Venucci look is western European Renaissance period, though anything from late middle ages stretching to Victoriana can work. Try to avoid anything that looks more modern than mid-1800s, so late Victorian styles would be less appropriate.