The Distant Past and Present
Drums beat, beasts howl, and mankind stands forth to take his rightful place as lord of all he surveys. In their cities and towns the sundered civilizations gather, and now it is plain to see for any with the eyes to see it that the greatest threat to one man's dominion is another man. With weapons of forged copper and bronze warriors stride in to battle to leave their mark on the epics of history, heroes and kings that will be spoken of throughout the ages. Many though, will be lost to the mists of time, forgotten save as tels of stone and dirt left where their edifices were once raised high. Only your good judgement, mighty ruler, will separate your civilization from ignominy and dissolution. Do you have what it takes to lead your people to glory?
Drums beat, beasts howl, and mankind stands forth to take his rightful place as lord of all he surveys. In their cities and towns the sundered civilizations gather, and now it is plain to see for any with the eyes to see it that the greatest threat to one man's dominion is another man. With weapons of forged copper and bronze warriors stride in to battle to leave their mark on the epics of history, heroes and kings that will be spoken of throughout the ages. Many though, will be lost to the mists of time, forgotten save as tels of stone and dirt left where their edifices were once raised high. Only your good judgement, mighty ruler, will separate your civilization from ignominy and dissolution. Do you have what it takes to lead your people to glory?
Welcome, friends, to the The Distant Past and Present, a RP of the Bronze Age. If you have what it takes, the sages and storytellers will tell of your exploits for all time, as leader of one of the many city-states and early empires arising in the near East as humanity takes its first steps towards ruling the entire planet.
If leading your civilization to glory strikes you as interesting, feel free to fill out the below application to add your people to our shared world.
- Code: Select all
[b][u]Civilization Application[/u][/b]
[b]Formal Name:[/b]
[b]Form of Government:[/b]
[b]Location:[/b] (Please choose 3-4 provinces on the map below)
[b]Brief History:[/b] (Include a summary of the population of your civilization here)
[b]Military Description:[/b]
[b]Naval Description:[/b]
[b]Color for Map:[/b]
Current Map
Note that civilizations applied for now should be west of the Caspian Sea, south of the Baltic, and north of the latitude of the Gulf of Aden. For now we are focusing on the Mediterranean Basin.
The starting date for this RP is about 500 BCE, though it should be noted that the conventional civilizations in place at that time do not exist in this RP.
Time will advance at a steady rate of one year for every page of IC posts, though timeskips will likely happen if there is call for greater advancement.
Technological advancement will be determined by your OP, for fairness' sake. Feel free to propose technologies that civilizations might develop, but be aware that a technology you propose might be discovered by another civilization first, and vice versa. As a rule of thumb technology can spread one province per year in terms of diffusion.
Resources like tin, copper, iron ore, etc. are not distributed as they are IRL, though climatic conditions are. Settling in Anatolia does not guarantee your civilization access to iron ore, settling in Iberia does not guarantee ample tin, and so on. This is to ensure that meta-settling is not profitable.
Expansion should be a province or two per page maximum- empires or civilizations that grow rapidly may suffer internal turmoil, or even rebellions. Not all 'empty' land is truly empty. The world is full of NPC barbaric nations and over time NPC civilizations will assuredly grow to challenge even the most resilient of rulers.
Current Civilizations
The Kingdom of Thessan - Zelphos
The Kingdom of Parthia - Theyra
The Assyrian Remnant - Trotza
The Kingdom of Parsa - Of the Quendi
Ahn'Ahneran - Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States (GCOCS/James)
The Kingdom of Silesja - Austria and Bavaria
Statza Republique x'Maghrza - The Grim Reaper
The Kingdom of Erturia - New Minahasa
Nuradica Confederation - Adurnak
Rejs Nortiros - Apostolic Hungary
Kingdom of Tartessos - Krugmar
The Cities of the Porphyrae - The Knights of Azorea
The Free City of Peliton - Reverend Norv
The City-State of Eroshia - Nuxipal
The Sacred Indautai Empire - The VOID
Phoenicia Nova - Narintia
The Crones of Cochlea - Olthenia
The Celestial Kingdom of Uulaan - Sanabel
The Auretanic Cult - New Communist and Socialist Unions
Salamnus - Rygondria
Current NPC Factions
Nem'Jeled
The folk of Jeled are either doughty seafarers or fleabitten brigands, depending on who you ask, and who the recent Pirate-King of the central peninsula happened to be. A force in the Middle Sea since antiquity, Jeled is a populous land fed on the bounty of the sea and trade from the north. Her rocky soils and mountainous terrains have rendered her less agrarian than her cousins in many other basins of civilization, and so from the early years of the seafarer her folk have trod the waves with abandon. Ancient Jeledic colonies were founded from the Pillars of Herakleum to the shores of the Dark Sea and the mouth of the Nile River, but most have fallen or been absorbed in to other nation-states over the long centuries. Known for their strength at sea, the Pirate-Kings of Jeled traditionally impose a heavy levy on all trade passing the peninsula and Crete, which is used to import food from the north for their subjects and thus maintain the social contract. Jeledic warriors are a terror at sea, wielding heirloom bronze axes passed down through generations of naval marauders capable of cleaving men in twain; though they do not have a ship-building tradition of ramming, favoring instead boarding actions to seize goods and slaves, the carefully managed forests of Jeled have enabled the Pirate-Kings of antiquity to maintain a powerful navy all but incapable of being challenged in her home waters. Nem'Jeled is their capital, and controls the bronze trade from the north and the copper from the west of Jeled; the Jeledic people worship a confusing panoply of divines composing almost two hundred gods.
Charkarvids
A savage but proud folk, the Charkarvid riders and raiders of the eastern European plains are a people beholden to no man save their Khagan and his many generals. Though of late they have in many places settled and taken up an agrarian existence, the Charkarvids are a people of the high steppes, pastoralists and horsemen of surpassing renown. Their stirruped destriers and horse-archers have laid low many great civilizations who sought to stand against their occasional migrations, and their people have only grown and thrived in recent history. Disdainful largely of armor and close combat, the further away an enemy is killed from the better, with only the meanest of warriors resorting to the lance to slay their foes. Their god is the All-Seeing God, whose name is carefully concealed from outsiders- to learn his name or speak of it for a nonbeliever is to court swift death. Slaying those who speak is name is one of the few circumstances where a Charkarvid warrior will sully his hands with blood in direct combat, the religious frenzy driving men to attack with bare hands so as to draw out the death of the blasphemer.
Namuria
The land of the Five Kings, Namuria is a wealthy kingdom of the Upper Nile, renowned for its agricultural fertility and vast armies. Grown rich on trade from the interior of Africa, the Five Kings sit in council to govern their many subjects as wisely as is possible, informed by over a hundred stele raised in their Court of Law by generations of rulers and wise men. The Five Kings are selected for their knowledge of these laws and stories, which are many indeed, and thus most citizens of Namuria are actually unfamiliar with the laws they are governed by, trusting in the wisdom of the Five Kings for guidance. Copper is known to flow north along the River Nile from Namuria, and her armies are small though often swelled to formidable sizes when levied by a concord of the Five Kings. They worship ancestor spirits, as is the custom of the lands of Namuria since antiquity.
Veltevics
The Veltevics, a loose tribal confederation of inner Gaul, are a proud and advanced people. Most prominently, bronze armored warriors feature in great numbers in the ranks of their tribesmen, even more so than most civilized powers would be capable of fielding. This tradition of metallurgy has allowed the Veltevic kindreds to expand over many wide and fertile lands under their savage pantheon of ancestor-gods, Hror and Tharkas-Thrar, chiefs being seen as aspects of the divine incarnated to lead the many warriors of the Veltevic in combat. Though not besotted with agrarian life like many civilizations, the Veltevics understand the virtues of trade and plunder, and make shrewd merchants but better mercenaries.
