Esperia Kingdom

Set within the West Blue, Esperia won its fame through the instruments its craftsmen built and the music it turned out, a trade so vital that the nation carried the nickname Land of Instrument Makers. Here Brook was born, and here he once served among the royal guard. A towering harp anchored the island, worked into the castle at its middle, on a chiefly urban and mountainous land whose center climbed above the rest, joined by a bridge to a lesser isle nearby.

Baroque taste shaped the buildings, with clefs, notes, and similar musical touches worked into their design. Districts included the Esperia Palace ringed by gardens and barracks, an Opera House that Queen Candelle enjoyed, a Theater Street crowded with music shops, the Cello Port handling the instrument trade, a shoreline junkyard where the young Brook once lived among stray dogs, and a school teaching children to play.

The making of instruments powered the whole economy and stood as the kingdom's chief source of income. Guarding it was a military called the Battle Convoy, headed first by Candelle and afterward by Brook. That force divided into specialized units, one of them a Raider Squad that Brook led before rising to captain of the entire Convoy.

Everything unraveled 62 years back. A peculiar mist descended on Esperia and hung there for six months, spoiling its instruments and hollowing out the economy. The haze eventually grew poisonous, sickening the people and claiming hundreds of lives, Queen Candelle's among them. The Heavenly Tribute owed to the World Government still stood, and when the government proposed taking a thousand citizens as slaves instead, King Reuven found the notion unthinkable and refused. War followed, and a fleet was launched to overrun the now-unprotected country.

The royal bloodline passed through King Reuven, his queen Candelle, and their daughter Princess Shuri, who later went by Manmayer Gunko. Brook recalled that Esperia had once groaned under a merciless king whose cruelty starved the poor and cost Brook his entire family. Brook grew close to the prince Reuven, who rescued him alongside Candelle from crooked Marines, and once Reuven took the crown his kindness reshaped the kingdom for the better.

At least 70 years back, Brook rose to captain the Battle Convoy, celebrated alike for his blade and his playing, and formed a bond with Shuri, who longed to wed him. He turned aside the Moulon Family with ease when they moved to snatch Candelle for their boss. In the final war, the Convoy collapsed swiftly, Reuven seemingly perished before a demonic Shuri, and with the royal line extinguished and the land in ruins, the country was left to fade out of existence altogether.