Empire and King both use modern definitions in my setting. The Emperor rules an Empire made up of many conquered nations. A King (or Queen- there are Queens who rule in their own right) rules his own kingdom which he inherited from his father (or mother as the case may be).
Well that's nice, I would not know that from reading the piece. By the time I finished the piece I understood what was going on, but for a good chunk of it I was thinking they were using Saxon titles. You might not mean it the way I took it, but I'm only really sure of how you meant it because you told me how you meant it.
As for my setting being based on Lord of the Rings... I really can't see where you got that at this point.
Well I can understand the confusion. After all I didn't actually that. What I did say, however, was that the setting is . . . boring, overused, rehashed, lacking imagination, and just like nigh every fantasy since the creation of Lord of the Rings up until very recently. Ironically, fantasy before that fell into two holes of overused: The barbarians of the very early BC (or BCE for those of you who prefer), and Arthurian legends. Barbarians are out of style, but people still can't get over Arthur. Now I like Conan, The Gray Mouser, and King Arthur but they were and are over used places. Lord of the Rings, for all its glory and awesomeness, is essentially Europe . . . with magic. Your setting, with what little we have of it comes off as the same kind of over used fantasy setting that Lord of the Rings created. And by that I mean Europe with magic.
Now the tried and true setting in itself is not bad. It's the how its used. books like
The Name of the Wind fall into the same category as your piece here as far as what the setting is. If you removed the fantastic, it would read as a well researched historical piece of fiction about bard types in I'm guessing the sixteenth or seventeenth century. It's historical, real world, and essentially boring. What keeps
The Name of the Wind from being generic is the depth at which this world exists. By using a bard character, Rothfuss was able to give us stories, songs, and lots of other stuff that made his world truly enjoyable as many of us have never experienced that kind of life. That made it interesting. And his magic was cool.
Now let's compare that to say
The Way of Kings (Best book ever). Sanderson's latest release is set in a world where a great deal of it resembles a coral reef being blasted by tides. Minus the ocean and the underwater part. Not to mention the spren (which are super cool). The world itself is alien, but there are many familiar elements that we as the readers can latch onto for support before being drowned by axehounds and high storms (like ninjas who can walk on walls, as an example of the familiar).
So to be clear on what I'm trying to beat about the bush about:
The world is a turn off for me because it is too familiar. We've read it before. And since the plot isn't gripping (while the characters are cool) my personal feelings are that it needs more alien in the familiar mix. I might be the only one who feels that way but I stand by my feelings on the matter.