Zandia

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• Official Name: State of the Blood Order
• Capital City: Zandia City (38°42'N 10°36'E)
• Places of Interest: Zandia City
• Major Languages: Zandian
• Demonym: Zandian
• Government: Unitary theocratic order

• • Brother: Sebastian Blood IX (Brother Blood)
  • Mother: May Bennett (Mother Mayhem)
• Area: 596 km²
• Population: 922,551
  • Density: 1,547.90 km²
• Monetary Unit: Zandian lira
• Major Resources: Coal, iron ore, tomatoes, olives, grapes, wheat, wine, textiles
• National Defence: Knights of the Blood Order
• International Relations: The State of the Blood Order has refused all invitations from the international community, preferring to remain independent
• Domestic Metahumans: Brother Blood and Mother Blood
• History: This small Mediterranean nation has one of the bloodiest histories in all of Europe. The bloodshed began in earnest in 1202, when the knights of Pope Innocent's fourth Crusade landed in Zandia seeking recruits for the Pope's holy war. The ruling High Priest of Zandia refused to bow to the army's will and fought against the invaders. During the course of this war, the priest came into possession of the Cloak of Christ, a religious icon that had been corrupted by the power of darkness and was being returned to the Holy Land for exorcism.
  
  After donning the cloak, the High Priest was filled with sudden, invigorating power that enabled him to rally his people to victory against the Pope's army. To celebrate his victory, the priest bathed in a pit filled with the blood of his enemies, which strengthened him and rendered him nearly immortal. The priest declared himself Brother Blood and closed Zandia to strangers. Brother Blood ruled for sixty years. He fathered a son, who killed him at the age of 100. The son then bathed in the blood pit and assumed the mantle of Brother Blood, growing stronger on the emotions of his followers and ruling until slain by his son and successor. Thus, a ritual was born that continued for centuries until 1980.
  
  In that year, a new son of Blood was born who rejected and despised his father's evil. The father, seeking to break the cycle of the curse of Blood, attempted to kill his son before he himself was destroyed and supplanted. Brother Blood's wife and son fled Zandia; the wife eventually remarried into a European royal family. From his stepfather, the son of Blood learned how to wield power and how to hate when he was forced to slay his stepfather to prevent the mistreatment of his mother. The son eventually returned to Zandia and fulfilled the cycle of Blood when he killed his father and took his place as the new Brother Blood.
  
  Under the most recent Brother Blood, the church grew from a small Zandian cult into a worldwide Church of Blood, with members in high official positions in many countries. While Brother Blood plotts to conquer the world, his many followers await their master's commands.