Antiquity Rises Rampant (IC/Open)

[Steampunk Mars]

Upper Mississippi valley, at the mouth of the Missouri:

The People were expanding. Tin for making bronze was hard to come by, with only a little to be found away up the Ohio river, but that little was transforming the People's agriculture. Stannic bronze made far better axes for clearing farmland than the arsenical bronze, copper and stone that had been used in times past, and the resulting increase in available farmland was resulting in something of a population boom.

Following Misasip, the Great Water, upstream in search of new places to plant corn and build the cities of the Makakai, the People came to a second major fork in the Great Water. The mouth of the Ohio was the site of the Makakai city Chomisaya, Meeting of the Waters, and it was known for the fertile alluvial land of silts washed downstream by the two rivers. Now here was another, similar place. The new river was named the Misaru, the Second Water, because it was greater in size than all but Misasip himself. The area proved fertile and a city sprang up quickly, with Makakais seeking a new start or the opportunity of owning new land moving there from other cities in the territory of the People as the word spread.

[The Nation of Hay]

[*]RANDOM EVENTS![*]

The season is good in the Fertile Crescent. The lands of Egypt and Mesopotamia experience a bountiful harvest.

A string of violent hurricanes and typhoons hits the Pacific. Coastal cities in the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, and China, are hit hard.

A new alphabet has been developed by the top minds of Heraklion! The new alphabet begins to spread throughout the Mediterranean, and many traders in Greece, Italy, Egypt, and Ameral are learning the language and adopting the new script.

[The Nation of Hay]

The last century had been good to the people of Crete. More and more trade continued to come through the great harbors, and great bounties were harvested by the farmers of Libya and Makedonia. These places, recently colonized by the Cretans, were growing to become the prime food suppliers of the nation. These lands were also rich with other commodities. The Cretans in Libya held many dyes and the wide open plains provided sustenance for the millions of Crete. The mountains of Makedonia lay host many minerals; gold, silver, and copper called these mountains their home.

A shortage of tin in the last few-hundred years had lead the Cretans' development of iron. With no tin to make their bronze with, the people needed to find a new material of which to make their tools. Large deposits of a new greyish ore, called iron, were beginning to be found in the Cretan holdings in Anatolia, as well as on the Isles of Kriti and Kypros. This new material was no stronger than the bronze they had used for millennia, but it did not require the purchasing of tin, and was much cheaper.

The establishment of new barracks was also something worth note. The Council of Crete had, with the consent of the states, announced the institution of recruiting and training centers in every large city. A small army, rewarded with large amounts of gold, would be used to set up a permanent defense. This small army would be the first to use this new iron. Iron speartips and shortswords were being crafted by many skilled craftsmen, and iron tips would be set on the many arrows that were being fletched.

Besides militaristic and industrial advances, many were also cultural. The great Temple of Poseidon had been completed, and now sat upon a hill outside of Heraklion. The huge building was decorated lavishly, and was an architectural marvel for the time. The building was giant. A vast courtyard marked the center, surrounded by a U-shaped temple, accented by large columns. In the middle of the courtyard stood three statues. These statues, crudely etched as they were, depicted Poseidon, god of the sea, in varying poses. The building was filled with ornaments and religious trinkets, and contained three great shrines.

Meanwhile, a new alphabet had been developed in the capital. The 23-character alphabet was a vast improvement over the hieroglyphic writings of the past. This alphabet would prove useful; many new books and texts were being written down using it. This alphabet also allowed traders and tax collectors to more easily take notes, and it much expedited the bureaucracy. The Cretan Alphabet began to spread throughout the Mediterranean, and would soon become very widely used.

[Sasutary Island]

Götter Stuhl

"Oh Cornelius, that is my most fairest daughter Alexandra. She is the most beautiful in the land and is at the age where I must give her away. Twenty-two years ago I would never see myself saying that and thought she would always be my little girl but now look at her, its hard to keep the men away" his burly laugh sounded out through the hall. As he drank his flask of mead he looked at Cornelius, "maybe you could marry her and strengthen ties even more between our nations, aye?" King Boris made eye contact with him.

"Hmm, I agree, but where will the wedding take place? I had in mind having it in Skaðis as a symbol of everlasting friendship between our two nations. What do you say; future father-in-law?" Cornelius took a step back and bowed before his future father-in-law, a Latium tradition which symbolizes peace and respect.

Meanwhile In The Lands of The Ingævones
The IV Legion of Latium marched into Marseilles in an attempt to overthrow and claim the lands of the Ingævones for Latium, they were met with people form a bygone age, the hardly wore any clothes and the roads were lined with litter and bodies. These people CLEARLY have no idea what Civilization is; and the IV Legion wanted to put an end to the tyranny (and lack of activity) of the Ingævones leaders, being native Ingævones. The peasants met them with open arms, though some did resist, they were not much of a threat.

OOC. I now own the Ingævones' lands.

[Dalria]

"Hmm, I agree, but where will the wedding take place? I had in mind having it in Skaðis as a symbol of everlasting friendship between our two nations. What do you say; future father-in-law?" Cornelius took a step back and bowed before his future father-in-law, a Latium tradition which symbolizes peace and respect.

"Skaðis" Boris emptied his flask of mead quickly down his throat, "that is a wonderful idea my future son-in-law, you are so bright surprising that you are not actually from my blood" Boris laughed. "The wedding shall commence soon and I shall inform my daughter. Whom do you wish to attend to the grand festival" Boris asked?

[Sasutary Island]

"Hmm, I agree, but where will the wedding take place? I had in mind having it in Skaðis as a symbol of everlasting friendship between our two nations. What do you say; future father-in-law?" Cornelius took a step back and bowed before his future father-in-law, a Latium tradition which symbolizes peace and respect.

"Skaðis" Boris emptied his flask of mead quickly down his throat, "that is a wonderful idea my future son-in-law, you are so bright surprising that you are not actually from my blood" Boris laughed. "The wedding shall commence soon and I shall inform my daughter. Whom do you wish to attend to the grand festival" Boris asked?

"Hehe. I must say, You're not to bad yourself. Anyways, I would like all of Latium to attend, but unfortunately, shoving 500 000 people into the alps is not a very good idea. I say, I'll invite my close friends, relatives and my father, Junius. As for everyone else, I'll auction tickets, it'll pay for the wedding and ensure the dessert isn't gone by the time it ends."

[Harkback Union]

Harkback
Iron is becoming scarce. The harkback smelteries return to using copper for tool making.
The harkback cult is puzzled by the nature of time. They invent the hourglass.
...
The harkback cult decides to build a "Clock tower". A tall building with a device on top of it capable of telling people the current time. The construction takes 2 decades. The tower topples once during the construction, causing severe injuries to a construction worker. A large nail which got stuck in his chest. A Nearby anatomist manages to remove the nail without killing the person. He is commended by the cult. New safety laws are passed by the consent and a surgery is built in cloqbern. After the tower was finished, a group of engineers installed the large clock-like device in the tower. It had to be operated by a person who moves the dials every harkback minute. Harkback Minutes were measured with the hourglass. Usually, nobody but the six harkback elders volunteered to operated the clock. Their shifts lasted one day long. A harkback "week" thus lasted 6 days. Since the elders spent a lot of their time thinking, they became very philosophical...
...
The harkback launch expeditions to find out more about the world. They find several agrarian towns to the far east. The people of these towns speak a strange language. Missionaries are sent there to spread harkback influence by assimilating the population. An elder operating the clock "invents" the Pi.
...
The an alchemist finds interesting materials during an expedition. A road is built through the mountains to the newly found towns.
...
The First Harkback Alchemist builds a workshop in cloqbern. It soon becomes notorious for the strange smells it emits. Harkback smiths make the first instruments out of copper. A Huge ship is built in Dunrot.
It topples right after it's launched. The engineers who designed the ship don't understand why the ship sunk. They travel to Rootof seeking wisdom from mathematicians there. The mathematicians have no idea why the ship sunk, but they suggest the engineers that they build "models" of their ships to test if their designs work...

[Sasutary Island]

(OOC: I love the way Harkback writes in the IC, so I'll be shamelessly copy his style )

Latium, Modern Day Livorno

The Fourth Wall
Workmen began building a wall around the third layer (ie. outermost) of the city. It took them a decade to complete and when they did, a section of wall collapsed due to the stress on the weak, sandy soil; damaging a forum. The senate grants the project 300 000 Latiums
($3 000 000 modern equivalent) in order to ensure that the wall doesn't fall before any enemies arrive.

The Shinny-New Senate
The senate building was dilapidated, the walls covered in graffiti and the ceiling almost caved in. 900 000 Latiums are spent to renovate the senate building and the citadel which surrounds the senate. The senate building was built with imported black and local
white marble. It took 6 years to finish.

A Map of the City of Latium


Note: In the citadel lies the senate buildings.
Red: Prefectorial and Military Buildings
Darker Green: Parks and Libraries
Light Blue: Marketplace
Orange-Yellow: Government Buildings
Brown: Port
Grey: Residences and Small Shops

Skaðis
Latium began to heavily invest in Skaðis due to its rich deposits of salt and granite. The town is frequented by many merchants and to prevent the town from foreign incursions, Latium built a palisade around the town and on the road from Latium to Skaðis there were small guard towers manned by Legionnaires of the VI Legion to prevent bandits from attacking valuable cargo.

[Harkback Union]

Thanks to the elders advice, The engineers come up with an Idea on how to fix the ship.
They order the workers to build a large dam around the wreckage of the ship. There, they repair the damages and install a heavy weight into the ship's bottom. Than, they open the dam and the ship is afloat once again... The first Drydock is build in Dunrot
...
The Clocktower Is slowly sinking into the ground. It seems that it's foundations aren't good enough.
Panic ensures when the Tower begins to lean towards the hall of consent. The Cult dispatches their best engineers to stop the tower from collapsing. They reinforce the foundations but they can't make the tower straight. The harkback gain skill in construction.
Meanwhile, The missionaries to the east are successful in spreading harkback culture to the area.
It seems however, that the locals refuse to join the cult. They keep their autonomy.

THE HARKBACK COMPLETED THE LEANING TOWER OF CLOQBERN!!!


+20 SCIENCE!!

[DrakoLand]

"An other day, an other fight" had became the motto of Drakonia. For years now the Kingdom has kept on expanding, making more living space for the Drakonians, in what seemed to be, the Golden Era of Greece. Colonies were built, trade was prospering and population was sky-high. New colonies were finally built in Azov while the barbarians living on the coastal areas were busy fighting each other.

Meanwhile, the Ameralites were becoming stronger every day, controlling an Empire stretching from the depths of Arabia, to the Black sea. Meanwhile, the Italians were expanding in mainland Greece. It appeared that the era of peace for Pelloponse was about to end...

[Liecthenbourg]

Lisbon, Portugal, Iberia.
With a mighty trumpet sound, the garrison archers unleashed a volley. It seemed the barbarians from the surrounding areas seemed to dislike the fact that civilization was being brought close to their homes. Another volley flew over the heads of the Itilican Soldiers infront of the walls engaging the few remaining barbarians in hand to hand combat. As the final few fell, the sounds of battle stopped. It was an eerie silence, one that was not common on the grounds of the coastal city. Mighty walls of stone had been erected by the great Itilican Architects to keep the attackers at bay. The soldiers, having scouted the area, returned into the mighty bastion.

Safi, Western Moroccan Coast, Africa
The smell of cooking meat was always a treat for Sikarbaal. The hood clad man grinned as he ran across the market, hidden among the crowds of merchants, travelers, guards and whatnot. He slid underneath a stall, earning a puzzled and odd look from the bearded man whom manned it. Feeling threatened, the elderly gentlemen went to reach for his dagger, only to notice the man whom had appeared was gone. He scratched his head, for he was not the only one reporting sightings of a strange, disappearing individual.

Oran, Northern Algerian Coast, Africa
"Keep her steady!" called a sailor, as he walked along the landing planks and onto the harbour of Oran. He stared in amazement at the coastal city, one of many that dotted the coasts in the area. As he and his fellow sailors brought their cargo ashore, builders walked along them and proceeded to walk to their construction site. A mighty lighthouse was under construction, one whose shining light would be visible by the Gods themselves.

Cordoba, Spain, Iberia
The town of Cordoba, a town constructed fairly recently, was perhaps the newest town that had been built in Itilican Lands. Odd for their habits, being a coastal people but nonetheless it would remain a place of trade and commerce, hopefully. Many Itilicans thought that Cordoba was simply the beginning, the stepping stone for advancement north. Others simply did not care, keeping to the coast was the way to earn money quickly and effectively.

[Steampunk Mars]

Modern SW Illinois:

The Ilanoi were growing restless. The Makakai co-opting of the Wabash had prompted the other tribes of the Ilanoi to coalesce into a single alliance, unified by mistrust of the powerful Makakai empire and spurred by anger at the encroachment of the People into what had been traditional Ilanoi hunting lands.

Raiding parties of younger warriors eager to make a name for themselves began attacking outlying Makakai settlements, particularly targeting the Wabash lands. At first, the attacks were confined to the young and reckless Ilanoi braves and the smallest and most isolated settlements. But as time progressed, the attacks begame larger, with more of the older warriors and some of the younger warchiefs, and the targets became larger and more important.

Makakai city:

Eventually word of the raids reached the Great Hokam of Makakai itself. Hokam Tawakani watched the mesquite-wood smoke ascend from the ever-burning fire on the sacred platform and considered. The attacks were escalating and needed to be stopped, that much was certain. "Send out the call!" he said. "Let all the warbands of the Makakai assemble as one and march out to strike those that would harm us!"
"Great Hokam," one of his wise women said, "Are you sure this is wise? We have been attacked, yes, but perhaps a way forward in peace can yet be found..."
"Be quiet, sister," another of the wise women said. "The Ilanoi have attacked us not once, but several times, each time with more force than the last. The Hokam is right to raise the warband to defend our people." Most of the other women nodded, and Tawakani spoke again. "Let the messengers be sent, then!"

---

SW Ilanoi territory:

A month or so later the combined warbands of the Makakai were sweeping north like a tide, adorned with eagle feathers, panther pelts and warpaint in red, black, yellow and white. Sunlight glinted off the metal spearpoints of warriors and the arsenical bronze breastpieces of chieftains. Archers carried their bows of Osage orangewood. Javelineers, slingers and bolas-wielders carried their weapons with grim pride, while champions marched in front bearing stone war-clubs and a few metal blades and axes.

The battle was, like most such, a chaotic affair. Hordes of warriors on both sides rushed each other, the Ilanoi distinguished by their wolf-tail standards, the Makakai rallying under the carved and painted images of their gods: Hoquiah Thunder Bird, Okah Bear-God of War, Achara Fire-Mother and all the rest. The Ilanoi nomads were individually powerful warriors, each one having a level of skill with their weapons that only the dedicated hunters among the Makakai could match. But there were far more Makakai, and each of the Ilanoi found himself assailed by three, four or sometimes more Makakai tribesmen with spears, clubs and axes. Bowmen and javelineers loosed their darts, while bolasiers hurled their hunting weapons at the legs of their onrushing foes. Champions squared off one against another, the victor pausing to shear off the loser's forelock as a trophy. At last, the chief of the Ilanoi whooped a screaming cry that pierced the din of battle, and ceremonially raised his spear overhead and broke it. Tekuman, warchief of Makakai city and acknowledged overall commander of the Makakai forces, stepped forward. "Do you cede all claim to these lands between the River of the Wabash and the Great River of the Misaru?"
"We do so cede," the Ilanoi warchief Ponkate said formally. "We will yield up these our southern lands and not make war any longer on the Ones-Who-Live-In-Stone-Houses."

[Dalria]

Skaðis

The wedding had been set up and the people were going wild as the festivities began. Skaðis was now one of the larger cities in the known world as both populations from Himmel and Latium as well as nearby tribes flocked into the major trading hub. The marriage of Aurelius Cornelius Magnus and Alexandra Pearlman was going to bring a new age into the co-empire. King Boris was awaiting in the gala area for the rest of the guest to arrive.

The great fields of Rhine

Hundreds of slaves toiled in the largest open field in Himmel spanning over eighty miles in distance. Lord Gregory Stone had first cultivated this land by himself yet through arranged marriages with the late King Olsons family he acquired vast amounts of power and gold. With this he had bought many slaves from the western tribes and became the largest owner in Himmel. Soon criminals as well as slaves were sent to the fields of Rhine, sharecroppers made their home to the fields as well which did good for them. The vast fields were separated from grain, to corn, to potatoes, to sugarcane, to cabbage, ect and finally large amounts of cattle made the last section of the fields their home to fertilize the land. With this he was acquired a small personal army in which protects the Rhine and keep slaves from escaping.

Gaul

The army marches on and is about to face the Gaul people for the first time ..

[Reatra]

The hurricanes were battering the newly conquered coastal lands and their cities. The trading ports were especially hard hit. With the loyalty of his subjects failing, RyRy decided to enact a sacrifice to the spirits of his ancestors. A scribe wrote down the rite as it happened:

In due order, treading carefully,
We purify the oxen and sheep,
We carry out the rice-offering, 
The harvest offering,
Now baking, now boiling,
Now setting out and arranging,
Praying and sacrificing at the gate.  

The food was blessed by the ancestral spirits and was feasted upon by the royal family. Hundreds looked on as the food was politely eaten bite-by-bite. A million hoped that this offering would bring an end to the storms, the ones that had destroyed so much. Every devout Rylonian knew thus was a sign of Heaven herself being angry at the people, and RyRy hoped to change this. After the feast was done, they all sipped the blessed wine. RyRy dismissed his court and hoped for the best. The storms stopped. They just ended. People celebrated in the streets and praised the name of the Reatra. RyRy's subjects now respected him, and the Rylonian religion spread further throughout the world.      

With new contacts in the south and an expanded view of the world, and with the hurricane season over, Rylonian expansion started again. With the iron age in full swing, Impirren RyRy asked several northern dukes to vassalize to him. While most refused, three bordering dukes realized the power of the Rylonian Empire's administration. They accepted the proposition and started to provide troops and a small tax to the Impirren. With new manpower and plentiful iron ore from the northern territories, Rylonia was able to expand their influence even farther. RyRy tried to form a network of alliances with minor nations to the south and west, making the nomads to the north less ferocious. For centuries the horsemen to the north had raided Rylonian villages and caused dissent on the frontier, but with the stationing of troops on the border towns and the construction of large dirt and stone barriers the barbarians lessened their aggressiveness towards the civilized Rylonians. But through all of this something was learned from the horsemen. Now cavalry was becoming more common in the ranks of the military. This had been a very progressive century for Rylonia, and Chinese civilization in general, for as the Greeks and Aegyptians were making their alphabets, so was China. First developed by Rynatooan merchants to help in transactions, it was based on syllables. Each symbol was designed to show a sound. A string of symbols made a word, and this alphabet spread all throughout the known world. Especially with silk productions and iron ore mining at an all-time high, I mean the stuff is freaking EVERYWHERE, the Rylonian merchants were spreading the Rylonian language throughout the lands. 


A noble's son, who was only ten years old, was curious. He had always been in love with sail boats, he thought that they were the neatest! So he tried to make one of his own. He made the sail out of silk and the frame out of thin wooden sticks. When he put it on the pond in his garden on a windy day, it wasn't long before the post that held the sail snapped, leaving the thread that the boy was holding the sail's only connection to the ground. This sail floated on the air and wind. Soon the Impirren heard of the child's invention. The new kites were quickly used for military in communications in attacks and other battles. The son was patted on the head by his father and nothing more. This made him incredibly mad, he then killed his father once he came of age. And he ruled the duchy of Tripol. But apart from this tragic news, the invention of the kite was a great advance for the Rylonian people.  

[Steampunk Mars]

Chomisaya, Makakai lands:
A new god was arising in the Makakai pantheon.

The figure of the Horned Serpent had been known for generations of Makakai, but with the coming of the powerful shaman-priest Wakantu, the Horned Serpent had risen in prominence.

Wakantu taught that the Horned Serpent was the progenitor of the other ancestral gods, Lapita Earth-Mother and Hoquiyah Thunder-Bird, and was thus the most powerful of the Spirits. The Horned Serpent gave to the People the life-giving waters, especially the Great Water Misasip and its two "horns", the tributaries Ohaya and Misaru.

Wakantu had gathered disciples around himself, who were either here in Chomisaya, receiving instruction from their prophet, or out spreading the word in Tayokah, or Wokan, or Makakai itself.

In deference to the supreme power of the Horned Serpent, Wakantu was now proposing the construction of a gigantic earthen mound here at Chomisaya. Unlike the square platform-mounds of the other gods, this was to be a special mound, winding between Eagle Rock and the tumulus known as Mother Mound in a great horned serpent figure of earth encircling both. Completing the figure, Wakantu said, would usher in a glorious new age for the People, without death or sickness.

Mukan, Hokam of Chomisaya, had initially dismissed Wakantu as a relatively harmless crackpot. Until, that was, a group of two hundred arrived from the far southern city of Wikas, faces daubed with the figure of the Horned Serpent in blue.
"You are here for what?" he'd said, incredulity getting the better of diplomacy.
"For the Great Work, Hokam," their leader had said. Mukam had just stared at him. "The building of the Great Serpent Mound, Hokam?" the leader of the pilgrims had said, less sure of himself with this stony reception.
"Ah. Wait, and Wakantu will be told you are here," he had replied neutrally. The pilgrim leader, Nanakam, bowed and withdrew.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Mukan signalled to one of his braves. "Bring me that sacred idiot Wakantu and find out what in the name of all the gods he thinks he's doing!"

Wakantu made an impressive, even inspiring figure, as he ascended the sacred platform to his Hokam. Clad in a robe of buckskin sewn with porcupine quills and jet and tortoiseshell beads in a rattlesnake's diamond-back pattern, he wore a copper circlet onto which had been attached a pair of elk antlers, and he carried a sacred gourd-rattle staff.
"Are these people friends of yours?" Mukan asked bluntly. Wakantu looked puzzled. "Clearly not," Mukan continued. "Yet they say they are here for your Great Serpent Mound. All the way from Wakis, I might add."
At this, Wakantu's face lit up with a beatific glow. "Wakis!" he exclaimed. "I had no idea the Word of Kakawiyt the Horned Serpent had reached so far!" Then he noticed his Hokam's disapproving stare and backed off. "Er... I mean, Great Hokam, think of the prestige and power that will attach to you and your city when it is known that you have authorised this Great Work! Think of the influence of Chomisaya spreading under your wise hand as the traders spread tales of the Great Serpent Mound taking shape under the hands of your people, joined with pilgrims from all the lands of the People!"
Mukan stopped. Hoquiyah rend the fellow! Against his better judgement he found himself half-persuaded. After all, what harm could it be if a bunch of religious fanatics set about building a great project for his city?

"All right," he said testily. "You may proceed. But you are responsible for feeding and housing these 'pilgrims', and if they break one of our laws, I will hold you responsible."
Wakantu bowed low. "The blessings of Kakawiyt Horned Serpent be upon Chomisaya for its wise and powerful Hokam!" he said, and departed to organise the start of the Work.

[The Great Warrior Rivers]

Kahat stood outside of his house, looking at the lands before him. There were many people, all of the Indus Valley colony, chopping down the large trees surrounding the newly founded villages. There were also many farmers, plowing the fields with oxen imported from the lands to the West, to the North, and finally here. He stepped down onto a wooden terrace that supported an irrigation canal. That same irrigation canal gave all of the terraced farms plenty of water to grow crops. It's not like the land wasn't fertile already, it just needed to be quick if farmers wanted the wheat crop grown by the Harvest. Harappa, their counterpart to the north, had provided most materials for this expedition from the East however, from a naval empire that controlled many a island.

Indian colony grows by 1-2 territories. The city Tiruvana is established on the southern coast, the first expedition some 50 years ago.

[Harkback Union]

... Than, one rainy morning, an elder called Mordiu climbed the stairs of the Clocktower to replace the elder before.

"Greetings, Brother. Allow me take the burden of time from you."

The other elder nodded left.
Mordiu sat down next to the hourglasses. There were 3 of them. One for measuring days, the other 2 for measuring harkback minutes and hours.

The harkback took great effort to calibrate these devices. At first they were very inaccurate, but eventually they managed to put the nearly perfect amount of fine sand into the hourglasses.

There was also a tank filled with water. There was a tap on its side from which a drop of water fell every harkback second. This was useful to the elders when they were about to flip the hourglasses.
The harkback cultists were obsessed with the concept of time. The elders spent may hours thinking
about the nature of time during their service in the clocktower. Occasionally, they forgot to turn the hourglass and operate the clock at the end of a minute, but interestingly, this never caused any trouble.
This day however, Mordiu was very tired. He couldn't get a good night's sleep after yesterday's concert. It was a good concert, but it was very long... so he fell asleep a few minutes after he took his post...

[Equalium]

~ The Kingdom of Belgica (Belie) ~

"We are the new strength, hope and power of the new generation of the Kingdom of Belgica!" a brave powerful female voice boomed. "We are now the strength, and blood that had gave us the new momentum to ensure that WE will emerge victorious over our enemies! We shall draw their blood out, and savage their every skull!" Warriors of the kingdom cheered as their Queen, Femke II spoke. It had been 40 years, and over a decade since Belie expanded. As language evolved, so had the Belie Language, becoming something known as Belgican, a new type of speech that had became the first written language. Written on wood slabs, the language had begun to dominate the courts and the honest folk as it expanded throughout the empire. The Nordic Parthenon had also begun to influence into Belgican life as the Belgicans adapt to this new religion. "Thor's hammer shall smite all those who oppose us! May the gods bring us glory and strength to us all!" Queen Femke spoke again as she raised her blade and the troops cheering, as they charged southwards. Over the last 30 years, the newly formed Kingdom of Belgica had spread into what is now known as Northern France and into the lands near what is now known as the Western Rhineland of Germany. The Conquests along the Rhine had been long and rather hard to trek through, but atleast they had parts of the river under their control. The Belgicans fought fiercely, drawing fear into their enemies. With trade beginning to slowly happen with the Savars, the Belgicans had begun to exchange cultures and some names became rather hard to pronounce. Meanwhile in Brukels, construction had begun on a garden, but it would be built in a unusual design. It's estimated it might take 15-20 years.

[Transoxthraxia]

It had been more than fifty years before the Transoxthraxians had desired to move again. They had previously settled just east of the Carpathians, in the shadow of the mountains. Seasons passed, and desire to move again went away. However, after the death of the great general in a famine that ravaged the land, the high seer foretold of more misfortunes that were to come if they did not move once again. Reluctantly, the incompetent chief's son, who was named Girdas, who was a somewhat average leader, began to ready his people for migration once again. Saddling up, he first began to move his court, then rode throughout the land, ordering any Transoxthraxians to follow him. Those that resisted were slaughtered.

Soon after, Girdas led them along the path that was given to him by the High Seer. He told him that he was to follow the sun to the west, where it died every night, and on the edge of where the sun and water met was the new homeland for the Transoxthraxians. However, he moved north along the Carpathians, as he would not want his people to cross the mountains. Rather, he continued to move north, into more forested land, into the land of the Slav. The Transoxthraxians had clashed with the Slavs before, on their way into their old homeland in the Baltic. While not in recent memory, the stories of undying soldiers, and great beasts as chiefs. Girdas was told these stories as a child, and feared the Slav, for they were ferocious warriors and barbaric cannibals at times, or so his father had told him for stories as a child.

Their people moved through the land of the Slav, from the land of the Rus to the land of the Pole, and then south, into the Carpathian basin, where they continued to move West, until they hit the Alps, in Germany. There, they stopped once more, not settling, but just preparing for their next move.

[Steampunk Mars]

Close to Makakai city:
The buffalo hunt had been very successful. Having driven the animals into a dead-end creek ravine, the hunters had triggered a landslide to block the entrance and then dropped spears and large stones on them from above to administer the final blow.

At least twenty of the beasts had been killed, providing meat for the city for a good long time. But amid the slaughter, three calves had survived, and stood bawling beside their mothers' corpses. Normally the hunters would have killed the beasts as easy extra meat, but the young hunt leader Mataquiyah had another idea this time.

Noting that the calves were far less skittish and aggressive around the People than the adults, he stopped the hunters from killing them. "If we kill these buffalo, we will have meat now. But if we keep them penned up here in this ravine where there is water and grass and let them grow to adulthood, there will be more meat later, meat that will need no tracking."
"That is an interesting idea, Mataquiyah," said Hochopepa, "but will it not sadden Tantana Buffalo Mother to keep Her children penned up?"
"Does it not sadden Tantana that the People kill Her children to feed ours? I say that it will appease the Buffalo Mother if we raise and take care of Her children."
The hunters nodded thoughtfully. Mataquiyah was young for a hunt leader, but was experienced and successful. If the Spirits seemed to favour his hunts, and they did, maybe he knew what he was talking about.
"We will do as you say, Mataquiyah," they said. "And if Tantana is angry, may Her anger fall on you alone."

---

Chomisaya, Makakai territory:

As the Great Horned Serpent Mound took shape, more and more pilgrim-workers began to arrive from the Makakai territories. For the most part, they were fairly well-behaved, Mukan conceded, but with the immense numbers of workers and their diverse backgrounds, it seemed like a day did not go by without some kind of incident between his citizens and the workers, or between workers and workers.

Mukan's patience was wearing thin, and his subjects' had worn thin a while ago. Not least of Mukan's worries was the influence Wakantu, the so-called Great Prophet, had over his disciples. It seemed, too, that he was beginning to believe his own propaganda: he had begun talking of some sort of "acsension to godhood" of the Faithful of the Horned Serpent, by which it was to be presumed he meant himself. As the Mound neared completion, Wakantu's pronouncements of imminent godhood became more evident, and his popularity continued to soar.
And therein lay Mukan's dilemma. Wakantu was so popular that laying a finger on him would precipitate a revolt, but that very popularity and its political implications made his contunued existence a threat.
If only...

Came the day when the Work was almost complete. A couple more twenties of man-loads of earth to finish out the serpent's westernmost horn. And Mukan still had no answer to his dilemma. And then, at last, the Horned Serpent Mound was completed. Taller than eight men standing on each other's shoulders, the Mound wound serpentine for the half a mile between Mother Mound and Eagle rock, and with the end coils, undulations along its length and the twin horns on the serpent's head, the total length approached a full mile.

Wakantu ascended the completed Mound, resplendent in his Horned Serpent robe of gold, silver and copper scale beads and his copper-and-gold horned headdress. A violent summer storm was brewing and the rain was beginning to fall, but the ceremonial dedication of the Mound would not wait, said Wakantu.

Dancing, chanting and waving a smoking branch of mesquite, Wakantu stood alone atop the Serpent's head. Around him, black skies grew blacker and thunder rolled. Lightning arced down, striking the Mound and its lone figure in by now a wet copper-encrusted robe.

Many of the followers of the Horned Serpent said that this was the translation of Wakantu to godhood; that he had become one with the Deity. Many followers of Hoquiam, on the other hand, said that the Thunder Bird had struck him down for his presumption, beginning a long rivalry between the two cults.

[Transoxthraxia]

The Transoxthraxians had travelled for a long, long time. They had travelled from the land of the Slavs through the land of the Germans and Celts. Now, however, after a century and a half of migration, the Transoxthraxians had nearly reached their goal. By now, they had passed onto the third chieftain since their departure from the Baltic. Numbered in the high ten thousands, the Transoxthraxians formed a giant cloud of migrating horses and people that stretched for miles long and wide, kicking up dust and snow and dirt where they went. They passed through the territory of the Germans with relative ease, still having not made contact with the Germanic civilizations, such as Belgica.

The third in the line of Chieftains which had been created by the usurper general Dirgudas was named Agaidikas, which translated to the Gift of God. He was the one that led his people through the land of teh Germans following his father's death shortly after reaching the Alps. He didn't allow his people to stop, ever. Nearly three generations of people had passed away since the Transoxthraxians had a true homeland. While the people were getting weary, Agaidikas knew that his journey would soon come to an end. He was young, and full of life. His people were not. Despite being people of the steppe, people of the horse, and people of tbe bow, they were becoming tired of the continual nomadic life, despite their traditions. Transoxthraxians no longer knew a settled lifestyle. They knew how to raid, how to plunder, and how to steal food, but not grow it for themselves. But Agaidikas planned to teach them once he reached his destination.

---

It would be another thirteen years before Agaidikas reached the shores predicted by his predecessor's advisor. He had done so the previous morning, but had been too exhausted to make any official proclamation. The morning after he arrived, he gathered all his important nobles and warrior-chiefs. Standing atop a large stone, atop the high shores of what would later become the capital of the nation, on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean in Aquitaine, Agaidikas spoke. In front of him lay the thirty most important people within the domain of the Transoxthraxians. What he would say would later be recorded in the Kyzikas Gulmodas, or book of the Chiefs. "My fellow comrades, we have been birthed by the Drowned God, and preserved by the Good God. What has once been destroyed, has now been redeemed. I present to you, what my father and father before him seeked. I present to you, my dear vassals, the shores in which the Good God's presence upon this plane of existence meets the Drowned God each night, the place in which my father's father's predecessor was told about in a divine revelation to his High Seer. My people, we are no longer cursed. Go, and be free, to walk and ride the land as if it was yours, as if it was your ancestors, as it now is, blessed by the Good God, and desired by the Drowned God, and all the watchmen, the forests, and mountains, and hills, and stones, and rain. I proclaim this land to be Transoxthraxian, forever and always!"

---

It would be a month after the speech in which the Transoxthraxian resettlement was complete. It took a short war with the native Aquitanians, a mix of Celtic and Iberian cultures, to finally stake a place in the valuable land. The resettlement was forceful, with Transoxthraxian warrior castes forcing the Ibero-Aquitanians out of their native lands, and dividing it amongst the Transoxthraxian Tribal Castes which had been formed. The southernmost lands went to the Xaxonites, and the central parts of the land were given to the Zyravanites. The northernmost part of the land, in which the city of Vounomethea, capital city of the new Transoxthraxian land was being built, belonged to the crown of the Transoxthraxians. The final, and perhaps largest Caste, however, received no land. Upset by this, the leader of this caste, who were known as the Zyrvanites, Dolgordos, performed a campaign against the Gauls in the east, pushing them further eastwards, and establishing a land for him and his warrior caste, leaving Transoxthraxian lands to appear like so. The Transoxthraxian war tactics relied heavily on an all-cavalry force, which devastated their enemies by, not dissimilar to the Avars, Huns, or Mongols, by showering arrows upon them from horseback before retreating again. Different from the aforementioned steppe people, however, was the fact that the Transoxthraxians also held an elite type of Heavy Cavalry armed with spears and curved swords, known as the Falcata, which were developed during the campaign against the Ibero-Aquitanians.

[Sasutary Island]

[*] RANDOM EVENTS! [*]
-A harsh winter hits The British Isles, Northern France and Flanders; crops wither before they are harvested.
-Bountiful Harvests in China and Morocco.
-A major tsunami hits the coast of India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Southern Arabia and Somalia.
-A meteor has landed off the coast of Bordeaux

[Reatra]

Rylonia had just started a policy of tribute towards her allies. All Rylonia's allies and vassals now had to give up a small tax to the Impirren. While this did annoy many of the neighboring nations, it did give Rylonia many more resources to utilize in her development. Though it wasn't much of a tax! The biggest tribute was copper. Copper was used for currency in Rylonia and most of the nations it controlled, being made into square coins with a circular hole in the middle. The hole was used to string hundreds of the coins together, each string was a common form of payment. Copper too was used for bronzemaking. Bronze was used for ceremonial and religious cauldrons or bowls, and iron hadn't yet full replaced bronze in everyday tools. Other forms of tribute were used after their copper too. The south gave silk and cotton, along with rice and tropical woods for Rylonia's industries. The north gave the Impirren horses, wood, wheat, and lots of iron ore. While the west payed in extra copper, wheat, stone and marble, and dried meat. With these raw materials, Rynatoo and the other large cities grew into industrial powerhouses. Already Rynatoo and it's surrounding farms and villages had almost a hundred thousand people in them. So many people immigrated, intact, that new land was settled to the north. Dozens of villages were set up but they eventually merged into one large urban area. This city mined ore from the hills and chopped trees from the forests. 

With these new allies to protect, Rylonia's military kept advancing. Known for a long time, the crossbow was starting to be used in the army. While not capable of firing as far as normal composite bows, they were easily equipped to a militia as they required little training to use. Just load, pull, and fire! While this was going on, more and more of the border governors were being continually impressed by the mobility of the barbarian horsemen. While chariots were cheap and easy to use, the agility allowed by having true cavalry led many of the Rylonian armies to be made up of cavalry. Plus, one man riding one horse gave a special advantage. The south was riddled with hills and forests, making it nearly impossible to fight with chariots. But cavalry could swing inbetween trees and over rocks without fear. Thus, training of cavalrymen increased. But with all her tributary provinces, Rylonia's military was slightly overextended. So RyRy ordered the construction of a road system that would connect Rylonia proper and all her empire. These roads all ended in Rynatoo, and at least every ten miles a paved road met the border. These roads took over two decades to complete, but they allowed quick travel across the land. It took only three days to travel from Rynatoo to the tributary state of Asignon! Over twenty thousand men worked on these roads, but they had paid off! Many of the nations vassalized a century ago were beginning to be integrated into Rylonia proper. These included the three northern kingdoms and six tiny western and southern nations. Rylonia was dominating her region, and her borders evolving.   

[Harkback Union]

... Than, one rainy morning, an elder called Mordiu climbed the stairs of the Clocktower to replace the elder before.

"Greetings, Brother. Allow me take the burden of time from you."

The other elder nodded left.
Mordiu sat down next to the hourglasses. There were 3 of them. One for measuring days, the other 2 for measuring harkback minutes and hours.

The harkback took great effort to calibrate these devices. At first they were very inaccurate, but eventually they managed to put the nearly perfect amount of fine sand into the hourglasses.

There was also a tank filled with water. There was a tap on its side from which a drop of water fell every harkback second. This was useful to the elders when they were about to flip the hourglasses.
The harkback cultists were obsessed with the concept of time. The elders spent may hours thinking
about the nature of time during their service in the clocktower. Occasionally, they forgot to turn the hourglass and operate the clock at the end of a minute, but interestingly, this never caused any trouble.
This day however, Mordiu was very tired. He couldn't get a good night's sleep after yesterday's concert. It was a good concert, but it was very long... so he fell asleep a few minutes after he took his post...

...When Mordiu woke up, Everything was silent. The hourglasses have all run their time, except for the one which measured days. It still had a little sand in the top jar.
The air inside was difficult to breath, so he opened the window.
Outside... It was completely dark. He took his lantern and walked down the stairs...

[Liecthenbourg]

Safi, Morocco, Itilician Republic
Sikarbaal smiled inwardly, watching the peasents bring their bountiful harvests into the city. It was a bountiful season, all across Morocco the fields had been blessed by the Gods, and the people enjoyed an overabundance of food.
He watched as vendors sold their meats to the masses. Fish was particular the food for choice, as there was more than the more expensive beef, pork and lamb. However, the more upper class of the city would purchase all the meat they could. Sikarbaal walked over to a stall himself, purchasing some fish and beef, his preferred meats. After paying he walked off and back to his home, for today he dined like a God, and true, all across Morocco even the poorest could do this.

Gibraltar, Itilican Republic
As the Senators had decreed, the harbour of the city was to be extended across a larger portion of the bay. A great task this was indeed, but with the greatest architects in the Mediterranean it could be accomplished. Resources were collected, locations set and builders instructed. The harbour of Gibraltar would become a powerhouse, a powerhouse of the naval trade.