*This region and the art created therein are my own. While creating this piece, I did use fonts created by Jackster3000 and Most Wanted that I downloaded from DA Font and official Pokemon art that I traced for the Gabite skull, for instance*

The Lennetto Region

The Lennetto Region is located to the far west of Kanto and the direct south of Kalos. Built upon the shores of the Meditaria Sea, the Lennetto Region differs in many ways from other regions – the region has a wild range of climates, floating islands, ancient ruins, and Pokémon seen nowhere else in the world. The Lennetto region is known for its bakeries, beaches, and wonderful hometown cuisine. Like the Alola region, Lennetto’s Pokémon League is one-of-a-kind. Most trainers who have competed in the league say that the gauntlet, led by provincial leaders blessed by legendary Pokémon and funded by the trade of rare minerals found only in Lennetto, tests their teams like no other.

Lennetto's greatest export to the world is a rare-earth mineral called Evolutium that alone could fund the entire region. Evolutium is a common site in Lennetto – crystal formations and natural veins dot the region and are as common in some areas as quartz may be to the rest of the world. Evolutium as a material is hailed for both its hardness and its ability to store energy like no other material in the world with negative resistance as it passes through the crystal. It is used in various regions in keystones Mega Evolution, synthesized Z-crystals, artificial wishing stars for Dynamax, and mass production of orbs for the Terastal phenomena. Technology companies are seeking to utilize Evolutium in PokéTech and a new phenomenon capable of altering the entire terrain, climate, and energy of a small area known as Prisma Actualization is currently being researched. Lennetto's ecosystems and Pokémon have evolved due to Evolutium, creating magical habitats and unique Pokémon variations.

 

The Lennetto Conference – the Mantle Challenge

Like the Alola Region, the Lennetto Region has its own take on the Pokémon League known as the Mantle Challenge. In each of the region's provincial territories, students study Pokémon, literature, math, history, science, and art at respected academies authorized by their territory. At the end of their 12th year at the academy, trainers at respected academies graduate and receive a Knight's Mantle and a Mega Z-Ring , marking them as worthy of taking up the Mantel Challenge. Mantles are customizable, with colors reflecting the trainer's identity and progress as a Pokémon trainer in the Lennetto region.

Each of the ten territories in Lennetto each have an Academy and a Knight's Bastion to earn Honor Badges. Knight Bastions operate like gyms but first require its challengers to complete a quest by defeating a Royal Pokémon. Royal Pokémon are chosen by the leaders and blessed with sacred fruit, allowing them to Dynamax and call other Pokémon in the territory to aid them in battle. Victory over the quest grants access to the Bastion and their leaders. Bastions contain both puzzle halls and stadiums for fans to watch intense battles that showcase Dynamax, z-moves, and mega evolutions on top of Prisma Stars – a unique power-up using raw Evolutium that changes the battlefield's terrain and climate.

Unlike traditional gyms in other regions, each Bastion may have more than one leader (still called a Gym Leader) with different type specializations. These leaders are chosen as local elected representatives of a territory in Lennetto. They must then harvest a sample of Evolutium to one of the region's Mythos Guardians – 21 legendary Pokémon that once formed a Pantheon above the region and led its people in ancient days. Bastion Leaders often undertake the challenge of courting these legendary Pokémon with their loved ones and expressing their bond by splitting their badges with those loved ones. As such, most Bastions have more than one leader, requiring trainers to beat all of the leaders in a Bastion before the badge is considered earned. Because of their bond with these legendary Pokémon, bastion leaders often express superhuman abilities related to their deity.

Each gym is built to be based upon two elements with a challenge revolving around either paired types or a specific grouping of Pokémon. Trainers who complete the province's quest will then be allowed to challenge their leaders for their component of the badge, either at once in a double or triple battle, or separately. Upon receiving all of the pieces of a badge, the Evolutium fuses with the challenger's mantle, making both them and their Pokémon stronger with each victory. The color of the inner fabric of a player's mantle evolves with each gym badge they earn and determines whether they are applicable for certain events, can enter certain venues throughout the region, and also what level of Pokémon will obey them.

Every year, the Royal Crown of Lennetto hosts a tournament amongst its Bastion Leaders to test and qualify them for their role. In reality, this crucible is meant to remind them that even though they are blessed by legendary Pokémon, they still serve the crown. Leaders are pitted against other territories and their leaders in ranked matches that require them to train many Pokémon to compete without healing them in between. Losing a match or ultimately placing low in the overall ranking often results in harsh penalties such as production quotas or fines while victories and placing high in the results award funding and support for their local government by the crown. The Capital Province, made exempt from the penalties of this tournament altogether, has never lost a single tournament and continues to win every year.

 

Trouble in Paradise – Lennetto's Troubled History with the Knights of Shade:

Tales of a ragtag thieves' guild turned shadow mafia to overthrow the government are as old as the Lennetto Region itself. To understand them, you must first understand the events of 3,000 years ago and their part in the War of the Crowns against Kalos and the Great Wars of Pokéropa. 3,000 years ago, during the 14th Century before the Judgement of Arceus, the Lennetto region was once a territory of the Kalos Region and its mad king. All of Pokéropa and the fringes of its neighboring continents were battlefields for the Pokéropa's Three Major Empires: Kalos, Paldea, and Galar who each sought to expand their nations' influence across the world.

3,200 years ago, the territory of Lennetia was controlled by the empire of Paldea. The people of Lennetto, dissatisfied by Paldean rule, made a deal with the King of Kalos. In exchange for freedom, the people swore loyalty to the King of Kalos. The King of Kalos renamed the territory "Lennetto" after Brimaldi the Great presented the King of Kalos with a staff carved of Citrine and blessed by the region's mythical deities. Lennetto's legends state that a Parthenon of Mythos Pokémon, immortal and worshipped by all of Lennetto, formed pacts with humans in ancient times to protect the region. In exchange for protecting the Pokémon in their lands, the legendary Mythos Pokémon gave humans blessings that allowed them to connect their minds and bodies with their Pokémon to use powerful abilities. They called these abilities Citrine Revelations.

With the Citrine Staff, the King of Kalos and the people of Kalos treated Lennetto as an equal part of its empire. However, as the King aged, so did his mind. So did his greed, wrath, and fear. One day, the King of Kalos witnessed a warrior blessed by Poseihydra, the Mythos Pokémon of the Sea, force his island and city underwater to prevent his people from rebelling. The King of Kalos, fearing rebellion, exiled Lennetto's blessed and decreed that the worship of Mythos Pokémon was punishable by death. Furthermore, the King ordered taxes on the people of Lennetto and Kalos' other territories, forcing his people into poverty so that his armies could expand their growing territories. Wealth inequalities, crime, and poverty rates throughout Kalos' empire tripled to satisfy the King's greed.

In Lennetto, the people turned to a guild of pickpockets and cutthroats not afraid of Kalos' nobles just to put food on the table. The guild used blackmail, worker strikes, and assassination to control their noble leaders, creating a lawless territory where rare Pokémon were smuggled across borders to strengthen the armies of the King's enemies. The guild bred Royal Pokémon using ancient techniques for criminal auctions and maintained power by paying off the same elite nobles they blackmailed to keep the King of Kalos blind to their crimes. By 1404 BAJ (Before Arceus' Judgment), their membership reached nearly 300,000.

With a growing army of loyal workers and Kalos elites under their thumbs, the guild convened a Roundtable – a public showing where they demonstrated their overwhelming strength in rebellion against Kalos nobles in battles with their Pokémon. Their members fought the Kalos elite using their best Pokémon and a strange power they'd discovered from trade with people in the deserts of western Lennetto near the territory of Tourma. Those that failed were executed by the nobles while those that succeeded were dubbed knights in a radical new order – the Knights of Shade.

This all changed when Evolutium was discovered in Lennetto in 1684. From the Ancient Burrows, a stone so powerful that it could hold, harness, reproduce, and infuse Pokémon with great power changed the world as we know it. The King of Kalos recognized the power of this stone and immediately ordered that all of Lennetto's Evolutium belonged to the crown. He sent an army to declare the Knights of Shade a terrorist organization, crushing the rebellion, and forcing its members into mines in the Ancient Burrows, a mountain range that spreads throughout western Lennetto from modern day Stonewood City to Cyberopolis.

The people of Lennetto were furious but ultimately powerless against the forces of Kalos. The Knights of Shade, beaten but not destroyed, once more took to the shadows, using their power in other regions to grow their own influence, destabilize Kalos, and smuggle resources into Lennetto and its people. They fed the poor, funded hospitals, and Their image changed and to this day, many still see the Knights as the rebels of Lennetto that saved its people from the tyranny of Kalos.

Lennetto's Wise Duke, Brimaldi Abreo, the descendent of Brimaldi the Great and a noble protected but heavily monitored by the King of Kalos, heard the cries of his people from the mines. The suffering of his people weighed heavy on his heart – his ancestors had fought Paldean rule for nothing, accepting Kalos rule for even worse treatment by a foreign crown. His castle, known now as the Ascendant Spire, held libraries of all of Lennetto's history and written traditions. Brimaldi used this vast knowledge and his wealth earned by collecting taxes to fund the Knights of Shade, feed his people, and make their work in the mines safer and less burdensome. Above all, however, Brimaldi Abreo was known for his ability to communicate with Pokémon – he could speak directly with their hearts without words and all Pokémon seemed to trust him, including those owned by the soldiers of Kalos. 

Using this power, Brimaldi met with the Lennetto's Mythos Pokémon, who were forced into hiding by the King of Kalos. He received the blessing of each of the Mythos Pokémon, encasing his arm in citrine-colored Evolutium. The Mythos Pokémon entrusted him with their royal assistant – the Hourglass Pokémon, Hoursand. With the powers of his Citrine Hand, Brimaldi could infuse any Pokémon with immense energy, creating Royal Pokémon at will and allowing them to bend the world around them like magic. With Hoursand as his partner Pokémon, the King could predict the future, momentarily stop time around himself and his Pokémon, and could even avoid death by creating points in time he could return to should his heart stop.

Brimaldi emerged from the Pantheon of Mythos Pokémon an even stronger threat to the King of Kalos than before. The people of Lennetto crowned him King of the Knights of Shade, which he overhauled from a criminal guild into an order of honorary knights. Together, they planned for years a revolution against Kalos, avoiding detection in the face of occupation using the Citrine Hand. The turning point for all of Lennetto came in 1724 when Brimaldi Abreo met with a warrior priest from Lennetto's eastern desert to unite their rebel causes as one. The people of the Paranoium Desert, an ocean of sand protected by the Mythos Pokémon Harchaes, brought Brimaldi to the final resting place of his ancestor, Brimaldi the Great, within the Obelisk of Souls. The Obelisk served both as the domain of Harchaes and a graveyard for all of Lennetto's ancient nobility. There, Brimaldi met with the warrior priest and signed the Writ of Liberty; a doctrine that declared the immediate independence of Lennetto and declared its people free from the influence of Kalos. The Warrior Priest of Paranoium, whose real name is lost to history, brought with him advisors from Galar and Paldea, who agreed to ally with Lennetto against Kalos. This doctrine officially started the War of Crowns in 1255 BAJ.

A brutal, hundred-year war ensued. The Knights of Shade, now rebranded the Knights of Citrine, fought against the King of Kalos with the forces of Paldea and Galar. Outnumbered and close to defeat, the King of Kalos was forced to send his beloved Pokémon into the battle. The Knights of Citrine feared this Pokémon as the Flower of Death and its Light of Ruin poured over Lennetto's forces as it purged hundreds of souls to oblivion. Quickly, the tides of war began to shift as the Flower of Death wiped battalion after battalion from the board, leaving no survivors, blood, or remains in its wake.

In 1006 BAJ, the Warrior Priest of Paranoium challenged the Flower of Death with his partner, a trickster-Pokémon and master of illusions known as Lokifey. The two Pokémon fought in a dangerous battle atop what is now the Triumph Olympiad, where channels and gouges in the stone remain as evidence of their struggle. On the verge of defeat, the Warrior Priest awakened an ancient ability of his people, cloaking Lokifey in prismatic energy that unleashed dark energy on the battlefield. The Flower of Death fell, defeated by Lokifey and its illusions.

The King of Kalos was devastated by the loss of his faithful partner. He spent the next fifty years, while his forces continued to fight the armies of Lennetto, Paldea, and Galar, creating an artifact from the Evolutium he'd hoarded in hopes of bringing back his lost partner. Enemy forces continued to defeat his armies, annexing territories, destroying his fortresses and advancing to the capital of Kalos. Finally, in an act of insanity, the King used the last of his vast royal collection of Pokémon to build an array before his artifact. The Evolutium pulled the life energy from their bodies, channeling it through the Evolutium, and through the King and his partner. When the light cleared, the Flower of Death rose, brought back through the sacrifice of 3,000 Pokémon and their life energy. The King emerged, rendered immortal and made giant by the prismatic life energies that now flowed in his veins.

The King of Kalos now held power on par with the strengths of Brimaldi Abreo's Citrine Hand but lacked the military force necessary to defeat the advancing armies. Using his prismatic powers, he converted the artifact into a vessel of destruction future generations would come to know as the Ultimate Weapon. The weapon rose from the ground into the air and the King of Kalos unleashed its powers in 975 BAJ. A pillar of light rose from the weapon into the sky, filling it with prismatic light. Raw power in the form of gamma radiation leaked out and fell as rain, falling upon both the armies of Kalos and its enemies. The King first sent a blast of light that forked to strike the region of Lennetto and Paldea, striking the land and carving a tremendous hole in both regions using half of the weapon's power. Simultaneously, the King of Kalos used what remained of his Pokémon's life energy to strike the ground beneath the weapon, striking both Kalos and unleashing a torrential wave of energy that hit nearby Galar in the process, possibly triggering an event known as Galar's Darkest Day. All three regions were destroyed in a single instant along with the armies burned away by the rain.

The blast that struck Lennetto tore the earth asunder, burrowing down to a bedrock-layer of pure Evolutium. The crystalline layer prevented the blast from tearing the entirety of the region apart and instead absorbed it, sending waves of energy rippling through all of Lennetto. The region's Evolutium swelled with unfathomable energy, causing deposits throughout the region to rip free from gravity and float eternally in the sky above the region. The resulting rain that struck the Lennettian armies fell on the people of Lennetto as well, nearly exterminating them. Brimaldi Abreo used the last of the power of the Citrine Hand to protect his people, scarring his body with radiation that would eventually claim the blessed hero's life.

The aftermath of the Ultimate Weapon changed Pokéropa on every conceivable level. Representatives of Paldea, Galar, Kalos, and Lennetto came together to declare the end of what they hoped would be the final war between their nations. The King of Kalos, who had given everything to end the war and bring back his friend, was abandoned by the Floette he'd loved so much. Brimaldi Abreo was bedridden for months while his body tried to heal from radiation burns. As part of his reparations for the war, the King of Kalos banished himself from Kalos and left to Lennetto to visit Brimaldi. It is said that the two spoke for many hours before Brimaldi rose from his bed and departed with AZ on a journey throughout the rest of the Pokémon world. Brimaldi would eventually return to the Paranoium Desert without AZ, where he bade goodbye to his partner Hoursand and died in a bed of Moon Stone in what is now known as the Sinbad Oasis.

The Knights of Citrine, who in their final days had rebranded as a noble order of Knights serving the people of Lennetto, were all but burned away. However, those less noble and who refused to step out of the shadows to serve on the frontlines survived the war. Lennetto began to rebuild with help from its allies in Paldea, Galar, and even Kalos. The Knights, now forgotten, splintered and shattered, reverted themselves back to the Knights of Shade and returned the organization to the shadows. They planted roots in all three regions, hoping one day to rise again with a roundtable that would unite them to take over Pokéropa.

For the next 3,000 years, the organization found itself incapable of unifying, instead embracing its roots as a guild of thieves, assassins, and smugglers to survive. Increased scrutiny along with the rise of international police agencies kept it deep underground in Pokéropa's criminal scene. Evidently, before the Knights of Shade could inspire the crusade they so desperately craved, they would need a new leader to lead them to this goal. Various splinter factions each tried to anoint their own leaders but ultimately failed to prevent infighting and the International Police from thwarting their efforts whenever they had larger aspirations. They searched all of Lennetto, but failed ultimately to find someone worthy of taking up the role as their king and savior.

Now in the 22nd Century, Lennetto currently is at the height of the world's global economy. The Evolutium charged by the Ultimate Weapon has proved to be the most powerful resource in the world. Researchers throughout the Pokémon world and tech companies have flocked to the region to research the material. Lennetto's Zephyr Corporation stands above all of them – by combining index-fund management, AI research, and Evolutium technology under a unified umbrella, the corporation has established a powerful empire in Lennetto that it has used to make the region one of the most prosperous in the world. The rate of technology development in Lennetto has been incredible and doesn't appear to be slowing. Key developments include, to name a few, the Cyberopolis Powerplant having developed the first artificial star using Evolutium crystals; a space-elevator in Lennetival City that connects the International Space Station to Lennetto's capital using Evolutium to create antigravity propulsion; and the development of the Cyber Dimension in Cyberopolis, which allowed researchers in the last decade to open a world to another dimension composed entirely of quantum-binary data where everything is made of digital data.

However, despite Lennetto's technological supremacy and economic rise, politics in the country have reached a boiling point. After many more generations and through countless wars, including two world wars where the region was conquered by the nearby Tourma Kingdom, Lennetto became a democratic country around the 18th century. Recently, the rise in artificial intelligence and its strain on the nation's resources and job outlook have caused unrest throughout the region. It has observed and practiced free elections for decades and recently elected its 25th president after a successful populist campaign – Harvey Brimaldi. Harvey Brimaldi ran on a populist campaign where he promised the people of Lennetto that it would free them from the rest of the world seeing the region as solely its supply of Evolutium. Harvey, who claimed himself a genetic descendent of Brimaldi the Great, described himself as a fascist who would use his full power as president on day one to unite the country. Harvey split the country with his rhetoric against the rest of Pokéropa, seeing them as only exploiters and financial burdens holding Lennetto back on the international stage. Nonetheless, he achieved a slim victory in both the electoral and popular votes and was elected in 2024 as President of Lennetto.

Harvey's greatest point of contention is his open corruption and allegiances to dark money projects in Lennetto, including the Knights of Shade. On home soil, the Knights of Shade has grown considerably within the last few years. The organization has evolved from a guild of petty crimes to a members-only, political organization pushing a governing agenda it believes will protect the region from being overtaken in the world economy. It accepts and works with organizations to create index funds and lobbying to influence the government despite dubious ties to various criminal organizations. Their shadowy dealings have led the International Police to investigate them for supporting terrorism and for skirting international law. However, no charges have been filed nor have sanctions been placed on their dealings.

During the election, they supported Harvey Brimaldi and helped prove his relation to the once-great leader of the region. Following his inauguration, the Knights have used government efficiency and workforce reductions to practically bring all investigations and support for international oversight to a halt. Crime is on the rise in Lennetto and dark money brought by Wiley Industries, a shell corporation that owns the Heartland Group, which in turn owns both the Sliph Co. in Kanto and Lennetto's own Zephyr Corporation, has allowed the Knights of Shade to consolidate wealth and power like never before. Operatives of foreign Teams of Evil have begun to invest and install their own sects of the Knights of Shade in every region in the world. An investigation by the International Police has claimed that the leaders of the world's Teams may all be high-ranking members of the Knights of Shade. In a whistleblower report leaked to the press after it was suppressed by Lennetto's government through executive order, Giovanni of Kanto's Team Rocket is of the Judge rank in the organization, second only to the organization's King. Furthermore, it is said that fugitives originating in the Orre and Almia region fled to Lennetto following the break-ups of their Teams of Evil, the Team Cypher and Team Dim Sun organizations specifically. These fugitives were offered asylum in Lennetto – an act the government denies but is proven in the whistleblower report.

Despite having a terrorist organization operating inside their borders, the Lennetto government has decried and rescinded legal obligations to the Shade Barrens – a territory of the Lennetto government that they claim lies outside of any police jurisdiction, remains in legal grey area, and is used as a black site for the government in its attempts to curb immigration and political dissent. Despite satellite imagery revealing laboratories, hidden military caches, and a strange, shadowy glare emanating from the Shade Barrens, the government denies that the Knights of Shade are operating within Lennetto. The truth, however, is beginning to permeate into the streets and into competitive Pokémon battles staged throughout the region. Pokémon with strange moves and even stranger Terastallization forms have begun appearing on the world stage and dominating competitions. The Knights of Shade are said to be creating, producing, and trafficking advanced Shadow Pokémon and Shadow Devices, previously only known and used in the Orre and Alma regions respectfully, as powerful and undetectable weapons against the factions of government resistant to corruption and not yet broken. With this technology, Shadow Pokémon are able to pass as normal Pokémon, undetectable until they interact with Evolutium and either terastallize, mega evolve, activate a Prisma Star, etc. 

As of writing, Harvey has managed to take over all of the Lennettian government except for a small organization of independent investigators, bolstered by separate judicial powers and international treaties. This group, authorized by an agreement between the nations of Pokéropa after the Second Great War, authorizes the Pokémon League in times of emergency to remain independent of their local government and conduct their own investigations. Bolstered by Lennetto's Gym Leaders, who function as territorial leaders, are the only group truly unfettered and protected from the government with Lennetto. Historians believe that an attack on them and the mythical Pokémon that gives them strength is inevitable and will soon throw the entire region into civil war.