A weary traveller hurriedly paces through the forests of the northern lands. He carries a modestly-sized bag containing his few belongings, his trusty dagger and enough salted mutton to last him a few weeks. The forest around him is a sea of birch, spruce and crunchy shrubbery sapped of life by the winter just passed. The snow has begun to melt, but the air is cold and crisp as if winter had decided to linger for a while longer (although to be fair it has been merely a day since she released her grip on the landscape).
The traveller realises he has reached a high point in the forest and pauses to check his surroundings. He cannot see much through the thick forest, but he can make out the towering minaret of a nearby village mosque not far ahead. This village, a few days' walk away from the traveller's native village, will be his final destination for now. He breathes a sigh of relief, thanks god for giving him a safe journey and begins scaling down a forested slope towards the settlement.
As he walks he watches his foggy breath spring forth from his smooth, round face. Half Bashkir and half Sami, his appearance is one of a very eastern character, with prominent eye folds and a stunted moustache that grows out from his face in two separate segments. He is dressed in a ragged-looking but snug fur coat and wears a black Tubeteika on his head.
There are many men like this in the northern lands- plucky travelers eking out a living in the many forests and villages here. The peoples of the northern continent are, by and large, a young and free people, descended almost entirely from migrants who arrived at earliest a century and a half ago when the great plague almost wiped out the native peoples of the continent. The continent itself has many names- the Land of the Franks, various derivatives of the word Europa, and The West, among other names.
What this RP is about
Welcome to the world of Sans Europa, inspired partly by the modded EU3 scenario "Dark Continent" and partly by the Years of Rice and Salt book series. This will be an alternate-history nation RP in which a mutated version of the black plague killed about 95 percent of Europe's population during the late 14th century, ushering in a total collapse of Western Civilisation and foreign elements (mainly from Western Eurasia/The Islamic World) slowly repopulating Europe afterwards.
It is now 1499, and the world's two greatest centres of civilisation are Dar-al-Islam and the East. The former is in a period of decline, with the Islamic golden age letting out its last breaths and the Caliphates of old being replaced by warlords and sultans. The latter stands proudly and strongly, although also somewhat stagnantly both politically and technologically. Native Europeans, who are something of a curiosity in this world, still exist as a coherent people in isolated corners of their home continent, but they have become very isolationist in manner and are less developed socially, technologically and materially than the Muslims or East Asians.
While the absence of Europe and thus the renaissance has done a number on Eurasia's technological development, the development of military technologies lags behind a lot less than most others as kings and sultans play out their power struggles with great armies, fighting everywhere from the jungles of South Asia to the deserts of Arabia. Seafaring has been affected catastrophically by the absence of Europe, and while Sub-Saharan Africa has in many ways come under the pseudo-colonial influence of the Islamic world neither the Americas nor Australia have been discovered, and these lands will not be covered in the scope of this RP.
General OOC notes on the RP
Firstly, you might recognise this RP. It's been done before by three people, to be exact- me, myself and I (although the posting was done on puppets; you may know me as Bill Cosby Island). I'd like to give all of those three great guys a pat on the back for coming up with the idea and starting those RPs.
Secondly, some improvements from the old RP. I have learned from my past mistakes and will not be starting the RP without specifying how long a single page covers. So, OP, if you're so smart and organised, how long will a single page represent? Good question! With the exception of wartime, a page will represent six months, cycling between the Northern Hemisphere's Spring-Summer and Autumn-Winter. I think that's a pretty good way to divide the year, seeing as Spring and Summer are the nice times and Autumn is for many agricultural societies a time of preparing for Winter.
Thirdly, Poland isn't going to be as horrendously OP as it was in the last incarnations of these RPs. I have sources that conclusively say that in OTL Poland lost a quarter of its population to the plague, meaning that in this RP Poland will have lost a good majority of its population. Not enough to wipe it out, of course, but enough to severely weaken it and send it into isolationism. Russia's going to be harder hit this incarnation- I'll be knocking out the general Moscow-Tver area and leaving Novgorod somewhat alive. The Pyrenees and the Scottish Highlands will still be home to survivors, as will villages in the Western Swiss Alps (although they'll be even harder-hit than Poland population-wise).
Fourthly, when a past incarnation of this RP died, I asked one of our more enthusiastic members why it did so. He told me it was because the RP had no goals. I was pretty gobsmacked as to how to deal with this. After all, it's kind of just applying as a state and mucking around at a set alternate point in history, it's kind of hard to have goals unless you make goals. And for that reason, I will get you to specify goals in your nation app. Where do you want to take your faction? Say you're the Manchus and you want to form a pseudo-Qing Dynasty, or you're the Mughals and you want to conquer Hindustan, or you're the Ottomans and you want to advance into Europe or you're the Ming and you want to reverse your decline by uprooting the seedlings of dynastic decline in your heavenly state. Even the most irrelevant country in bumfuck nowhere (although I don't know why you'd come in and RP it unless all the good options have been taken) should be able to get a goal of some sorts. If you really need stimulation (no homo) I can RP as a neighbouring faction and give you some goals.
Also, please no massive Chinas or other such historical implausibilities. This may have stolen some ideas from TYORAC but it isn't the actual book series. This is going to be very much geared on what would actually happen if Europe got wiped out, although I'm alright with you taking realistic liberties.
And no, nobody's going to colonise the Americas in this RP either, although if you're looking for that subjugation-of-foreign-peoples experience you can do it the classic Eurasian way and turn neighbouring countries into tributaries/just conquer them.
Also, for clarification, let me explain some things about the European Black Death strain of this TL. It's basically extinct now, flaring up in some pretty terrifying outbreaks like ebola does but never really wiping large groups of people out anymore. The reason it has fallen from prominence is simple- its native Europe, which was before the plague overpopulated, was for a good deal of time mostly cleansed of potential disease hosts, and the plague ripped through Europeans too fast to ever really make it elsewhere. Expect Septicemic plague to be a much more common thing in this strain and other colourful symptoms like haemorrhage to appear.
Finally, don't be hesitant to declare war! If you loose one nation you can app as another, and if you feel up to the challenge you can RP multiple nations at a time. Eurasia is a glorious clusterfuck of war, join in! Seek booty and glory!
Rules and advice
Now here's the rules-
- If you shit up the thread and I tell you to leave you do it
- Don't spam or godmod or make godawful posts
- I don't care if you call me a shitcunt but the mods might, so keep that in mind.
- Try to be civil, you can get a lil cheeky but don't make the thread Baltimore my nigga
Also, some recommendations-
- If you're new to RP, try to pick a more out-of-the-way faction to work out your skills on. Although if you're not totally new and nobody has applied as a major country like the Ottomans I reckon you could pull it off too.
- You should play as a Central Asian horde. I dunno why but I have a feeling a clash of the Khans would be heaps of fun.
- You should play in India! India is so divided right now there are countless possibilities. More fun!
- This RP is ideally more story than competition. Fight valiantly and with great prose! Although still, remember to fight valiantly!
- We can use group TGs or Chatzy to communicate RP affairs if the OOC does not suffice.
- Don't do big things fast, instead do lots of fun things! Completing events in one big post is boring and kinda ruins the RP, you should do all sorts of stuff and progress through great tasks post by post. Follow your great campaign with the narrative, assassinate your rivals one by one, negotiate with other nations post by post.
Your App
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[box][b]Your NS username and nicknames:[/b]
[b]Your RP nation name:[/b]
[b]Government form:[/b]
[b]Your leader (title and name):[/b]
[b]State culture and accepted cultures:[/b]
[b]Cultural/ethnic composition of your nation:[/b]
[b]State religion:[/b]
[b]Religious composition of your nation:[/b]
[b]A brief history of your nation:[/b]
[b]Controlled territory (preferably on a map):[/b]
[b]Your nation's natural resources/economy/goods produced:[/b]
[b]Goals in the RP:[/b]
[b]RP sample (preferably a link or a written paragraph of prose):[/b]
wew_lad55 (for tracking purposes, I'm CIA)[/box]
Bits and bobs, the map and the mob
RP-related links
The Roster-
accepted nations-Maroon in Southern Africa- The Shahdom of Zulustan- Sanabel
Purple in Arabia- The Aminid Tribe- Ikky
Lime in Persia (with similar-coloured vassals)- Safavid Persia- The Jade Confederacy
Pink in the Black Sea- Lordship of Taurica- Arkolon
Oceany-Blue in Bengal (With a light brown vassal)- Bengal Sultanate and Mrauk U- Sunthreit
Snot green in Britain (with similar coloured vassal)- Sultanate of Britania and Emirate of Jazirat Al-Barasil- Sunthreit
Donald-Trump-skin-colour in the Mediterranean- Republic of Rum- Victores
Blood Orange in Indonesia (with similar coloured vassals)- Majapahit Empire- Stadenwick
Blue in Korea- Empire of Goryeo- Intermountain States
Grassy green in Britain- Principality of Cymru- New Los Angelos
Dark grey in Japan- Shimazu clan- The Valyria Empire
Jungle Green in Africa- The Kangdom of Kongo- WPT
Cyan in Northern Europe- The Outer Realm Union- Imperialist Salvia
reserved nations (reservations last about 12 hours unless I feel like extending them)-Orange in South India- Vijayanagar- Soviet Chernarus
Golden-yellow in Ceylon- Vijayanagari client of Ceylon- Soviet Chernarus
Scottish-flag-blue in Britain- Scotland- Imperial Idaho
Olive Green in Palestine- some Arab thingy- Markimoomoo
CO-OPs-
Sanabel
