Calanthe is located on a peninsula off of a continent. The capital city, Etrowyn, is located on an island off the coast.

Julien, Evindr, Aylin, etc. are royal princes, and they live in the royal palace. The palace is located on the edge of the water. There are three main buildings of the palace, that form sort of a V, and there are two plazas in the middle, an inner one and an outer. The outer is like a rectangle on top of the V. The outer courtyard is open to the public, the inner is part of the palace and limited to people who have business there.

Just across the outer courtyard, there are a few other large buildings, including an urban monastery. Past those, there are smaller streets full of shops. There are also some canals in the city, and bridges across the canals. There are also often bridges between buildings. The architecture is ornate, but also "modern", with lots of large windows.

Their world and culture:

The civilizations in this world never developed warfare, because of the way their magic works. Because one must have a calm mind in order to work magic, those with cooler heads, who understood that it's better to avoid a war, were always able to stop those who wanted to start wars. There is conflict between areas (they don't have countries - see "government") but it is never solved with all-out warfare. They don't have the concept of a military. They have heard of it from "drop-ins" from other worlds, and they consider it barbaric. They do have espionage and occasional political assassinations, but anyone who would use force against another person would, pretty automatically lose their position in society because of it. No one would respect them anymore. Whoever ordered the assassination would have to step down. Also, whatever cause they were trying to advance would lose a great deal of face because they resorted to force. Though, a lot of causes have lost face because an opponent died in suspicious circumstances, and suspicions arose.

Their magic essentially gives them something close to IRL "modern technology" - instantaneous communication, fast travel, etc. From magic, they had, essentially, modern medical technology before they had settled societies and writing, so such things were never controversial to them.

Magic users who are highly trained in healing magic can heal by, essentially, using the forces of magic to see inside the patient's body, and move things around. How do they prevent situations where people misuse this power? The same ways powers are regulated IRL - licensing. When doctors IRL commit malpractice, they lose their license. Driving a car IRL is also a huge responsibility, and when people misuse it, they lose their license. Of course there are some people who try to practice medicine without a license, or who use this knowledge to try to poison people, but just like IRL, those crimes are investigated, either solved or not, and the wrongdoer is punished.

(They... don't really have prisons. People who get caught committing crimes get sent to remote monasteries where they meditate and release their violent inclinations. In extreme cases of magical crimes, there are ways to block or cut off someone's magic.)

Because of their magical technology, people can, theoretically, live forever, but no one wants to. It's incredibly rare for people to want to live past ~170-200. When they feel like they've lived a full life, they generally go off to meditate in the wilderness, to die there. Some people, usually under 60, say, "Well, I'm going to be different, I'm going to live forever!" but by the time they're ~100, they realize why that wouldn't be fun.

The arts are important to them, and have always been. Poets, artists, and philosophers hold the highest regard in their history, and there is great overlap between historical figures respected for their political leadership and for their art (the same way there is overlap between "great" generals and political leaders in real history). They never had any taboos against sex (which is what I meant by "medicine was never controversial to them") and many of their most highly respected works of literature are erotic.

(The arts are the focus of all my stories and all my created worlds).

They have no gender construct at all. They have two sexes for reproduction, but they have never had the concept of separating the sexes into different jobs, modes of dress, etc. (Most of my main characters are males who don't look/dress/act in ways that would conform IRL.)

There are no countries, essentially, in their world. There are kingdoms, which act more like states/prefectures/regions in IRL countries, and are parts of larger federations, but most people move not only between kingdoms, but between continents/federations as well, within their lifetimes. There is no parent-child inheritance, instead, inheritances pass from teacher to student, and that includes thrones. When a king wants to take on students, they choose a class out of the highest level school children. After working with the class for a while, they choose a smaller number to be declared official heirs, and designate one out of that group, but then if that one can't do it, there are still the others to fall back on. They get experience with government while training.

Because children aren't raised by their parents, and are raised all together instead, there aren't really class differences or any other sorts of divides in society. When people notice a divide forming - usually between occupations - they step in to smooth it over and help people get along.

There is no religion. Secular people can meditate, too. The monasteries are secular. They provide services - raising children, rehabilitating criminals, and a lot of other things.

In the time of the story, the chosen heir doesn't want to take the throne, and pulls the main character, Julien, in because he thinks that the previous king actually designated him. Julien used to live in a monastery, one of the sorts of places where children grow up, and he doesn't have much experience. Since the designated prince has hesitated to take the throne, there has been uncertainty, and due to this, factions have popped up, all but declaring their desire to take the throne. The main characters have to sort this out. And someone has stolen a magical artifact that is key to the king's power. The kings have to perform certain magical duties that they can't do without the power of that artifact. This instability threatens to overthrow the peace of the area. Also, some of the other federations are against magic, and there are criminal organizations that smuggle magical things in and out, etc., and that adds to the conflict.

(adding this here because you can't divide comments into paragraphs, apparently)

So, the people who are against magic generally live in other federations, other continents. Like I said, movement between places is pretty open, so it's not difficult or unusual for people to move that far, it's far more common than not. So, people choose to live in the places where the laws and customs suit them. If someone is really bothered by magic, they'll move to the place where there are more restrictions on it. If they like it, they'll move to the places where it's more open.

On the other hand, this does result in a lack of change - the places that are pro-magic grow more open with it, the places that are anti-magic grow more fearful of it, because the people who disagree just leave, instead of staying to diversify the opinions present.

The magic-using countries know that they could use their magic to use force and invade the non-magic countries and make them abandon their laws, or at least to release people who have gotten in trouble for using magic (some of those areas do have prisons). But they also know that if they were to use magic for violence *at all*, they would be proving the anti-magic people right, so they don't.

Negotiations for those sorts of prisoners are a pretty regular thing. They can be pretty contentious internally, in terms of which prisoners they want to negotiate for, how much resources they're throwing into this or that negotiation and why, etc.

(... I said before that they don't have countries, but then I use the word "country" here, like... how their countries differ from IRL countries is complicated. Basically, they don't have borders, they don't have nations, they don't have identities, they don't have flags, they don't have anthems, they don't have sports teams, they don't use geographical or political regions as an excuse to divide themselves. Basically, no one has just one nationality, everyone has at least like, 4 or 5, to the point where it becomes meaningless.
That doesn't mean that there aren't local traditions, it just means that someone who was born half way around the world, who's lived in three different cities so far in their life and learned all their local customs, is just as qualified to learn and pass on the local tradition as someone who was born next door is. Because there isn't anyone who hasn't lived in at least three different countries and learned all their cultures and customs equally.)

(Related to traditions, I keep mentioning monasteries - so, a) since people live such long lives, no one has just one career their whole lives, they tend to change after 10-15 years doing one thing, and that includes monks. b) monasteries from different parts of the world tend to do exchanges a lot, where monks from one monastery go live in another, in a completely different part of the world, in a completely different tradition, and learn that tradition, and learn from them. The purpose of it all is meditation, which all monks have in common in different religions IRL, too, and these even more so, since they don't have religions. Monks also practice art that's a form of meditation - to use IRL examples, mandalas or illuminated manuscripts, different forms of singing and chanting, etc. - so someone who's a monk for 10 years would probably do exchanges twice, and go to two different monasteries besides their home one, learn their routines, manners of dress, art, theory and philosophy, as well as interacting in their societies - because these monks aren't cloistered. Like I said, monks are the ones who educate children, rehabilitate criminals, and provide other services. Art restoration, too. Not all at the same monasteries, but...

Basic medical care is also done at monasteries, since medical science is a form of magic - really, all science is magic, and magic is science. But since the more rigorous forms of medical magic are so vital - even with magic, you can't really be a monk and a surgeon at the same time - there are hospitals where magic surgeons essentially live similarly to IRL surgeons, just, preparing their tools by summoning precise amounts of emerald and sapphire energies from the air, rather than by choosing the right measure of scalpel.)

As the centuries pass and the anti-magic people see that magic hasn't caused any major disasters, that sort of puts a counter-weight against their insular ideas about magic, and they do become more open about it over time, but that's a delicate balance, and if a magic-using diplomat tries to take hold of that and push hard for them to open up more, it can snap back.

There are also different types of magic, and different federations who will allow this type of magic, but ban this other type. The types aren't that different, though, and anyone who really know that much about magic can easily convert a spell in one type to a spell in a type that is allowed. The federations that make these bans know this, like, they've seen the evidence, but then they just go, "well, yes, you've proven that A and B are the same thing, but B still makes me feel weird, so I'm going to allow A but ban B." (just like real politicians do).

Calanthe is one of the most magically open areas in the world.

There are about 10-12 federations in the world, and there are large and small states/kingdoms in them, as well as sub-federations, and large kingdoms that are divided into regions that more or less operate as independent states.

There are kingdoms/states with elected leaders (including some that call their presidents/prime ministers "king" - the concept of royalty isn't connected to birth parents at all in this world), and there are some with leaders that are chosen by magical artifacts, as well as some with a mixed system like IRL constitutional monarchies. One of my other novels, Celestial Stone, takes place in the same world, but in a country with a constitutional-monarchy-like system, where the Celestial Princes basically just have a ceremonial role, not a political one (but they do still perform spells).

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