House Paxia

House Paxia, or the House of Paxia, is a noble family established by StoneyStoner_ on March 16th, 2024, right before the proclamation of the Eldham Legion Empire and their state terrorism on innocent Rathnir citizens. House Paxia was founded with StoneyStoner_'s adoption of several leaders and players who were set up to be the administrators and policy leaders of the Eldham Legion's empire in Rathnir.

There are no core members of House Paxia except for StoneyStoner_ himself, but it has four constituent branches.

Members
House Baker


 * Terradore
 * Shoddyshoe
 * Theophrastusbombastus

House


 * Tannerm270

House

Knights of House Paxia:
 * ZenoHUN
 * Crazy_Kings

The Knights of House Paxia is a branch of House Paxia that consists of the warriors who committed terrorism against Rathnirian players on the day of the Eldham Legion Empire's establishment. This branch is much more fluid than the others, as they were not strictly adopted by StoneyStoner_, but several of its members have taken the name 'Paxia', and considered themselves part of the house through their allegience to the Eldham Legion. These warriors on the day of establishment were:


 * LucasVictorio
 * Notchrulz
 * Astralium1
 * oLune
 * AstridRackham
 * Hxrry_
 * Bennynick18
 * Inferno_Games
 * 1984r Demol5
 * Alexisthebest_
 * PVPBrain
 * Shaenanigans
 * Grant_Legoman
 * Frezee_
 * Subvert_
 * MrSuperb
 * Georgios_Caticus
 * Liberatus

Ideology
The ideology of House Paxia is Loreism, which advocates for players to developing their Nations into more durable and abstract Civilizations. Loreism posits that ultimate success on Stoneworks is larger in scale than having a successful state or empire, ultimate success is transcending the status of a single state, and turning your state/culture/group into an identifiable idea or institution (like the Roman Empire is to the West in real life). Examples of this in-game are Escharia, Bardonia, Viodoxa, Tortuga, Simulami, Aristios, the Rattican, the U.S.S.E, Vulpinia, etc. Players of these civilizations have persistant and tangeble conceptions of state, culture, lore, and ideology that allow these states to consistently reform (or try to reform) after they are destroyed or conquered. The culture, identity, and perceived importance of a civilization all serve as regenerating and perpetuating forces of a nation, therefore, a well ingrained civilization is more powerful, durable, admirable, and notable than any single successful empire.

One can achieve Civilization status by following these three points, although the tenets of Loreism only apply to helping with the first two:


 * 1) Develop a strong and unique identity for your nation.
 * 2) Foment strong players' nationalism and attachment to that constructed identity.
 * 3) Be geopolitically or economically successful enough to gain recognition, respect, or memorability (but this facet of gameplay is not covered by Loreism).

Detailed Tenets of Loreism:
1. The goal of Stoneworks is to create a successful civilization. Nations can be the iterative manifestations of a civilization. Nations without a strong national identity or sense of national pride exist without an underlying culture/civilization, and these nations are often more temporary and unstable than nations with culture/civilization.

2. A successful civilization emerges out of a single nation with a strong sense of identity and pride towards that identity. Identity is created through personal relationships, lore, history, symbols, unique expressions of physical space; and pride in that identity comes with geopolitical success and successfully undergoing emotional experiences as a group. With identity and national pride, a nation becomes a civilization--that nation may be reborn with successive iterations, its legacy perpetuates through cataclysmic server and geopolitical disruptions, and the idea and institutions of that civilization transcend far beyond its original nation.

3. Creating a civilization through lore and identity must work hand-in-hand with geopolitical success. A civilization must have a nation, past or present, that was powerful and respected enough to inspire pride in its citizens. This will inspire natural nationalism among players, and encourage them to reproduce the civilization into future generations.

4. Developing a national identity requires consciously choosing a few traits to be iconic and representative of the nation. This necessitates rejecting contrasting and mutually exclusive traits, for one cannot have a unique or cohesive national identity if they accept and promote all traits. In addition, Some traits of the civilization must be strange and unique in order to create a national identity which stands out among others. Many states adopt basic Western and American liberal values: freedom of expression and religion, general equality, and harmony in diversity. These tenets of cultural identity are insufficient to creating an outstanding and memorable national identity, for they are largely ubiquitous among players. A national identity requires core traits that differ from others, ones which make others take notice.

5. Drawing upon symbols and popular references for lore, culture, and iconography is an easy way to engage players with your national identity, but it will decrease the uniqueness of your culture and draw over-simplistic comparison and ridicule from outsiders. Making a nation obviously inspired by the Roman Empire will help get the Romaboos on board and it will be easy to understand your national identity, but it will be mocked and oversimplified by outsiders. Creating meme nations/cultures/religions/etc has the same pros and cons: creating a culture worshipping Garfield is funny and easily understandable, but draws widespread mockery and disrespect.

6. Your lore and history must be presented with as much popular appeal as possible. Written documents and wiki pages of lore and history must be the source material for visual, video, or architectural content that can be understood as easily and passively as possible.

7. The historical events of the nation and civilization must be rewritten into cleaner, simpler, and more value-bearing narratives. Players must have an "elevator pitch" for their national histories: very short, polished, one-sentence ways to intriguingly retell history to new players and outsiders. For example, "300 years ago, we Escharians invaded this island, killed off the cult of evil void worshippers in two wars, and sealed up the hole to the void to appease our sun god Solaris."

8. Any political institutions need to have a polished and engaging story involved with them (like the story of the American Revolution to the USA, or the Magna Carta to British Parliament).

9. The physical space of towns, especially the capital and well-trafficked cities, must be thickly decorated with themes of the nation's culture, history, and lore. These are things like flags, memorial statues, national colors, murals, artwork, and street signs. Original historical artifacts and documents need to be displayed in a museum or public spaces, not hidden in a chest. Make these as aesthetically pleasing and easy to understand as possible so that ignorant players can passively notice them, therefore engaging with your national identity.

10. It is more important for parts of the national identity (such as lore, architecture, symbols) to be unique, noticeable, and memorable than for them to be consistent, polished, skillfully written. Players often enjoy weird things they get used to more than artfully-made things with widespread appeal.

11. An emotional connection to a group and its identity grows by players enduring a range of emotional experiences, both good and bad, and using group resources and relationships to get through them. It is therefore the responsibility of a government to create fun and memorable experiences for its citizens, and to organize and overcome difficult and trying challenges. Successfully doing both of these will hook a player into caring deeply about the group, nation, and culture.

12. More players abandon their nations out of despair for predicted future annihilation than out of annihilation itself. Adopting core traits of your culture such as "never surrender" or "adapt, overcome, survive" is often more effective in preserving a civilization during an existential crisis, than overcoming the existential crisis itself.

13. Players fight difficult wars and challenges ultimately to preserve their community and relationships. The hardship of existential (and often toxic out-of-character) challenges tends to either weld communities together, or drive them apart, depending on how its leaders and players act during them. Therefore, the nation must focus on unity during and after a crisis, making the nation internally stronger after a trauma than before.

14. A nation must have an established in-group, which means creating boundaries and signifiers to who is a part of the core group, and who is not. Oftentimes this happens by having initiation ceremonies, official citizenship status, or having an in-group language of memes, slang, and symbols that one can only understand and reproduce by spending lots of time with members of the nation. This may also necessitate creating an out-group, which the in-group hates and harshly judges for certain personality traits, especially during times of conflict and war.

15. A nation must be adaptable and updating in order to create a civilization for itself. There must be parts of it that change to better fit new circumstances--such as government type, opinions on war, religious acceptence, etc. However, one cannot change too much at once, especially regarding its national identity, otherwise this will seem like a break in the continuity of the civilization, and therefore will threaten its historical legacy and perceived legitimacy among older members.

16. The ultimate fall of a civilization happens when players no longer care about maintaining its identity. This might happen if a civilization's key players are disgraced and condemned by the community; if the identity of the civilization grows old, rigid, stale, and uncool; if new players take over the state and reform it into a totally new political identity; if the key players of a civilization all leave at once, and its homelands are balkanized or partitioned; if a large nation collapses into several warring states, and these states fight too much and too bitterly to want to reunify / claim the unifying identity of the old, large nation; and if another civilization totally conquers and culturally absorbs the old civilization. All of these are existential threats to a civilization, and therefore anyone trying to create and maintain a civilization must focus on steady reformation, and avoid sudden and rapid cataclysms.