Kingdom of Concordia

The Kingdom of Concordia is a nation that holds the Azure Dragon Crystal in Final Fantasy Type-0, its capital being Mahamayuri. The Concordian people use the Crystal to communicate with dragons and monsters, and use them for daily life and to strengthen their military. The residents of Concordia are shorter than those of other nations in Orience, never growing beyond 5 feet tall.

Top posts in the Concordia government, save for the King of Concordia, are held by women; Queen Andoria is the only one who can communicate with the Queen Dragon, the physical representation of the Crystal. There are five Orders of elite knights who protect the Azure Peristylium. One of them is known as the Akatoki, under Celestia, with Yuzuki among its members.

Rubicus
''Home to the Azure Dragon Crystal, the Kingdom of Concordia is a matriarchal nation. From the queen herself down to the lowest-ranking bureaucrats, all important government positions are filled by women. Queen Andoria rules over the land, guarding the Azure Peristylium and sharing the Will of its Crystal with her people.''
 * Queen Andoria - Kingdom of Concordia

''It is that selfsame Crystal which grants Concordians the ability to communicate with wyverns and other creatures. This power serves the populace well in their daily lives, and military applications of the Azure Dragon's blessing have provided the kingdom with enough power to hold its own against the other three Crystal-States. Given that the Concordians never grow taller than a few feet, they prefer commanding monsters to fight on their behalf. When they are forced to join the fray, however, the kingdom's dracoknights make use of their innate speed to run circles around their enemies, then pierce their foes with long spears.''


 * The Rubrumite-Dracobaltian War
 * The Royal Army
 * The Concordian Coup and the Militesi-Concordian Alliance

Story
The territory of the Azure Dragon was originally known as Blue Dragon. According to legend, the male progenitors of the Blue Dragon people had consumed the flesh of dragons cursing the male descendants who became monsters known as Dracobaltians. The female descendants, who were unaffected by the curse, took over the country in the year 252 under the name Azure Dragon and made Concordia into a matriarchy.

As the Militesi Empire annihilates the Lorican Alliance and then turns its focus on the Dominion of Rubrum, Queen Andoria travels to the imperial capital of Ingram and invokes the Fabula Pact, a peace agreement made between the four peristylia of Orience that grants a short-lived ceasefire before she is assassinated.

The King of Concordia, whose title is more of a figurehead, schemed to overthrow the queen and restore the Blue Dragon to power. When Andoria is assassinated, the King of Concordia assumes control of the nation and allies with the empire to retaliate against the Dominion of Rubrum for their supposed role in Andoria's death. The King of Concordia is frustrated to learn that the Queen Dragon, Soryu, being a l'Cie, obeys only Andoria and will listen to no one now that she is dead.

The king's reign stood on a fragile political foundation, so he hoped the empire's aid would maintain his authority. As the dominion airship fleet engages the royal army the dominion legionaries summon Eidolons to annihilate the Concordian dragons. Soryu, the Azure Dragon Crystal Primus l'Cie, destroys the Eidolons with its breath until the Vermilion Bird Crystal deploys its own Primus l'Cie, Zhuyu Voghfau Byot, to intercept it and draw it away from the rest of the battle.

When the dominion advances toward the royal capital, the kingdom is unable to mobilize enough forces to the assault on Rubrum. To supplement the dwindling royal forces, the King of Concordia orders the seal on the Cursemire of Naraku broken to unleash the Dracobaltians on the dominion. However, this had virtually no effect on the outcome of the battle.

When Rubrum defeats the combined Militesi and Concordian forces, the King of Concordia goes into hiding and is caught by Class Zero. The elite knight Yuzuki, who had accompanied the king, reveals the extent of the King of Concordia's plans and the origins of the Dracobaltians before summoning one to eliminate the king once and for all. She presumably meets her demise afterward when she seals Naraku to contain the Dracobaltians within.

Culture
Concordians revere dragons as the manifestations of the Azure Dragon Crystal. Though most of Orience speaks one language, Concordians command wyverns in Soryusian. While the common language of Orience boasts a superior vocabulary and ease of expression, Soryusian is an intentionally simple language. By limiting the number of phrases, dragoniers and other Concordians can communicate orders to dragons with little room for misunderstandings.

Military
The Concordian Army comprises of the monarch's Five-Star Royal Guard and the dracoknight forces and the monsters they command. The dracoknight forces are divided into three classes: second and third class are equivalent to privates, while the first class equates to what other nations refer to as "noncoms." The dracoknights are prideful warriors as even if they can manipulate monsters, they prefer to attack with their own spears.

Besides the dracoknights, the kingdom deploys swarms of wyverns. Wingverns form the core of the royal army, a fixture in every one of the kingdom's dragon platoons. A close relative of the Wingvern, the Skyverns are deployed with a selected number of regular units: the Kingdom Central Command assigns the majority of them to accompany the Five-Star Royal Guard. Diepverns are high-ranking dragons deployed with a mere handful of units because of their inability to fly. However, they compensate for their lack of mobility by controlling the climate summoning downpours and blizzards and heat waves. The Brontovern is its closely related but physiologically superior cousin, and is even rarer, belonging exclusively to the Concordian Royal Guard.

The strongest dragon in the royal forces is the Flyvern whose riders hold prominent positions in the Concordian military and thus often serve as or fight directly under royal commanders. Kingdom Central Command deploys an even more deadly breed of Flyvern known as the "Atmosvern" to guard the holy capital city of Mahamayuri.

Regular forces are organized by region. Each varies in scope, but generally a command consists of 100 wyverns, 2000 monsters, and 4000 dracoknights. The kingdom's military includes approximately 100 commands. Because of its numbers mobilizing each command takes time.

The wardens of the Five-Star Royal Guard inherit their positions and play a role in all governmental affairs. Of the Five-Star divisions the house of Akatoki under its Warden Celestia handles all military operations in conflicts against other Crystal-States. Other divisions play unique roles in upholding the kingdom.

l'Cie do not usually partake in military affairs, but the First Battle of Judecca marks a unique turn when two Concordian l'Cie aid the royal army in battle.

Etymology
The nations of Orience are based on the Four Symbols.

Trivia

 * The country's attributes and qualities, as well as symbolism to one of the animals of the Four Symbols is evident in its themes.
 * Representing the east, Concordia is located far off on a secluded peninsula eastward from Orience's greater lands. Symbolically, the dragon has connotations with representing the eastern world, with the tiger representing the western world in Asian cultures.
 * Representing the season of Spring, the nation is consistently vibrant and lush, with a gentle oceanic climate.
 * Representing the Wu Xing element of Wood, the Azure Dragon Crystal bestows upon its users the Power of the Dragon, allowing them to communicate with beasts, and by extension, nature itself.
 * Its animal the dragon, Concordia reveres them highly, with the Queen Dragon being the physical manifestation of the Azure Dragon Crystal itself, and the beast finds itself in the highest ranks of the military in the nation. In some mythologies, dragons have shown to have the ability to communicate with sentience and language, and even interact directly into the affairs of mankind. In real life, Asian nations also bear the dragon in their heralds and arms, being representative of auspicious and great qualities, and heavenly providence.
 * Its crystal is close in shape to that of an orb. Crystal balls were often the choice cut shape for precious jewels and stones in Asian nations, as dragons in Asian mythology bared them in their claws and are representative of their closeness to creative powers and universal perfection.
 * The creation of Concordia's majestic palace was actually the Focus of Shirotae, a Concordian l'Cie.
 * In Pandaemonium, the symbol for the Kingdom of Concordia is different, being two serpents chasing each other's tails. This is a different interpretation of the Ouroboros symbol, representing cyclicality, however, the representation of two serpents could allude to both Dr. Arecia and Gala attempting to break the cycle in their own different way.