A totalitarian multi-national empire headed by Vernick officially known as the “Empire of the 39 Dovin Stones”. Eminently concerned with the damage and causes of the Great War, the Shards operate an extensive state effort against the 'superstition and witchcraft' of magical practice. These policies hide the fact that hidden magic is used at the highest levels of government, presented either as religious miracles or technology as each local culture finds most convenient. The most famous form of this are the eponymous Dovin Stones that magically influence subjects' minds, making more classical forms of slavery redundant. This insidious form of tyranny does not go unnoticed by those in Agothos, whose Free Alliance was formed to contain the Shards.
The Dovinreich is officially led by an Emperor, but the real power is concentrated in a shadowy council of ministers. These ministers are often drawn from secret magi societies that occupy the major universities, making the empire effectively a magiocracy that presents a puppet-emperor to the masses.