Long a military realm, Arcadia maintains a tradition of martial service to the present day. Society in the province remains a mixture of meritocracy through armed service and heritage through rank�but customarily only for males. Though incorporation into the Regnan Federation has meant rigorous enforcement of more progressive laws, it is difficult to shake centuries of deeply ingrained culture, and Arcadia still has a noticeably misogynistic bent developed�or so the dukes would have their people believe�in retaliation to age-old female rule throughout much of the neighboring land.

While this behavior is slowly diminishing among the common folk, the nobility cling to their hypermasculine ways, going so far as to denounce women as breeding stock only, with fellow men being the only worthwhile intimate or intellectual company. Society in Arcadia is a struggle for dominance between competing lions, with men doing almost anything to amass popularity sufficient to climb in standing�especially degrading or defaming those with lesser reputations or privilege. Strength and assertiveness are core values, and aggressiveness is encouraged with a heavy hand. Men who refuse or are unable to fight and scuffle are compared to women and accordingly ostracized: Seen as poor marital prospects, often estranged from their families, cut out of inheritance, and shunned by their neighbors. Sensitivity is weakness, tact is laughable, and scholarship is the province of the nobility�and then only in their retiring years. Submissiveness is a detestable trait; it's believed that there is more dignity in one man submitting to another male than in developing romantic attachments to a woman�but only barely. Needless to say, the backwards views of the Arcadian leadership are greeted with little enthusiasm in the Federation halls of power, and despite having long been a vassal of Regna, diplomatic relations between the two domains remains tense.

While an extended era of peace resulted in the dwindling of most other Federation armies to ceremonial positions only, the duchy�led today by Duke Septimus "Hodge" di Marivaldi�has kept up its demanding programs of recruitment and service, emphasizing classical praetoria education over the more liberal Collegio-derived fora minora. Young men, especially those from aristocratic families, are pressured to enter the military and serve a tour of duty to honor the duchy, and afterward are expected to settle down with another man and to put their combined discipline to use in some useful trade. Although Regnan law has made it illegal to exclude women from marriage (and from the rest of Arcadian society), institutionalized discrimination persists, and they nonetheless find themselves a marginalized minority in a male-dominated realm. The queen's inspectors are always on the lookout for violations by Arcadian nobles and officers, and queen's counsel try to offer as much help as possible to those whose rights have been infringed upon, but the duke and his ilk play the part of high-minded neutrality, all the while well aware that their "hands-off" policy toward helping social progress along means they can cling that much longer to their oppressive old customs.

Nonetheless, Arcadia has played a critical part in the recent war, taking on the role of core defense thanks to their standing military forces. The crucial advantage offered by real training and the experience manufactured through noble-sponsored war games has birthed an infantry able to hold the Baranda Pass, even against the vastly superior numbers and lack of regard for human life on the Serene side. Much like Del'Hanas's and Regna's navies, the Arcadian ground troops are a relatively small, but highly tenacious force to be reckoned with.