The Empire

For millenia, the south of Ilunia has been ruled by the mighty Empire of the Elves. Currently led by the Empress Zenithah Calvwern, latest of a long line which stretches back to the dawn of their race, the recent Empress is only the second in her line to wield control over the Empire's military assets. Across the forested mountains of the south, the Sun Court rules their subjects with a kind heart, though fair and stern. Dissent, much less infighting will not be tolerated. But it appears that the upstart humans were not so easily pacified. With the Empire's millenia long rule legitimately threatened for the first time, factional politics in the Court threatens their ability to regain control of the humans of the Confederation.

History
(OOC: In progress - See below.)

Ethnicity and Demographics
(OOC: The extra shit is going to be put into its proper place once I flesh out the history of the unification of the various elven ethnicities.)

Official censuses list five elven ethnicities, along with small populations of immigrants from client states.

Sun
The Sun People (Ostianized Ze, or Zeh) constitue roughly 27% of the Empire's elven population and can trace their ancestry to the earliest elven clans and the First Ze Dynasty.

Notably, blond hair has been proven to be a sign of Sun descent, as it was the Sun elves were the first people in Ilunia to develop fair hair.

Wood
The Wood People (Ostianized Wyn, also Nwyn)constitutes roughly 24% of the Empire's elven population. Concentrated mainly in the southern portion of the Empire, few have deviated from their ancestral work feeding the elves of Planitia.

Sea
The Sea People (Ostianized Nmir) constitutes roughly 21% of the Empire's elven population and hail from the sea-faring tribes that lived on the island Meinan and the southern Planitian coastline.

Steel
The Steel People (Ostianized Tanni) constitutes roughly 18% of the Empire's elven population. Steel elves originate on the northern Mandate of Heaven Mountains, the Empire's largest source of mineral deposits.

Sky
The Sky People (Ostianized Ten, also Tfen) constitutes roughly 10% of the Empire's elven population. Descended from the Fuu Clan along the northern borderlands, the Sky elves traditional wind-riding magic has been inducted into the Empire to train airborne troops.

Culture and Society
(OOC: The following are just notes and need to be wikified.)

Next on the agenda, elven society. I'm thinking heavily agrarian and matriarchal. Men do all the gathering of raw materials, women do all the refining of raw materials. Men chop the lumber, mine the ore, hunt the game, harvest the crops, women do the cooking, metalworking (precious metalworking, at least. Weaponsmithing is the domain of a warrior class, I'd think), prepare the food.

The idea of a matriarchal society rising from this system would be that women, as the fairer sex, shouldn't be subject to hard labor, which is the work of, not just men, but low-class men. With manual labor attributed to both men and the poor, women would be viewed as above it. Plus, they're the ones that make the labor of men useful anyway. So that-way goes society. War, as it is made of physical labor, would be the domain of men. The warrior class would be, presumably, also the weaponsmiths, since non precious-metal metalworking is labor-intensive. So warrior-smiths.

Typically, rulership would be by a matriarch (what do we want to call her? Queen? Empress? I'm really leaning towards Empress or a generic Matriarch title), and handed to the head of the warrior class in times of conflict. Since the elves have been in conflict with the humans for a pretty long time, though, the approach would change to the royal family being wed to the warrior nobles. Eventually, the matriarch would be in charge of both domestic and military policy.