Reverend Norv wrote:I can try to summarize.
At the moment, most of our activity, and almost all of our active players, are concentrated on the northernmost landmass, which is dominated by Nekhur. Player nations in this region are Nekhur, Embweald, Valamir, the Serebyani Dominion, Reyla (which is a protectorate of Nekhur and thus not shown on the political map), Zelmary (long inactive), the Bloodsworn Confederacy, Tamarask, and the Ironmark (shown on the map as Kerwick and the Mootland). All the other nations are NPCs, and you could rework any of them from top to bottom as Gataash. That is what I did to turn Kerwick into the Ironmark.
Since this is where activity is concentrated, I'll try briefly to summarize the history of this part of the world. Real modern history begins more or less with a catastrophic event about a thousand years ago known as the Dragonwake. It involved dragons blowing up most of the preexisting political order and setting off a migration era. The two polities that survived were the Bloodsworn Confederacy (basically ancient pacifist vampires), and Nekhur: the ancient empire that has dominated the vast cities of the North since more or less the beginning of recorded time. The aftermath of the Dragonwake saw the arrival of the Folk of Devora - the dwarves - from regions far to the east, and the establishment of most of the small states south of the Nekhur border, which are collectively known as the Southron Realms. This was, for example, when the Duchy of Zoloto created modern Serebyan, when the Aðadain discovered the Forge of Colborn and founded the Ironmark, and when the mysterious Pale Lord first arrived in Embweald.
The next thousand years were marked by two military confrontations, one prolonged and one fairly abrupt and cataclysmic. The prolonged confrontation involves the expansion of Nekhur. This vassalized one Elven kingdom (Relya), destroyed another (Dhor e-Qalanthe, the city of the Flame-Elves), and most recently conquered the Southron Kingdom of Tervain. Nekhur's expansion has been frequently obstructed by the resistance of the Ironmark, a highly militarized border society fielding the finest cavalry in the world. But it has been aided by the fact that the Southron realms spend more time fighting each other than opposing the superpower to the north. Thus, within living memory, the Valamir has undergone a civil war in which the Ironmark intervened - all while Nekhur was devouring Tervain. And other Southron states - like Serebyan, Zelmary, and especially Tamarask - look more to the sea and to the riches of trade than to land power and the threat to the north.
The cataclysmic confrontation, by contrast, was about 150-200 years ago and involved the Pale Lord of Embweald, the most powerful vampire ever to have lived. In the course of about thirty years, he invaded all his neighbors, conquered most of the western Southron realms, and raised vast legions of vampires, werewolves, and other monstrous creatures. In the end, this unholy empire was overcome by a unique alliance of Nekhur, the Ironmark, and the Serebyani Dominion. It left Embweald a shattered wasteland and represented a brief but total departure from the geopolitical status quo.
This is very much the spark-notes version, but assuming you choose to replace one of the NPC Southron realms, it should enable you to find your place in our neighborhood. Let me know if you have any other questions!
Well first I need to find a way to make my presence in that area plausible. Geographically close civilizations, even if they're at each other's throats, usually have common ancestry from an earlier civilization. Think the greek city-states for instance. They all descended from the Mycanaeans of the Bronze Age. Assuming magic didn't just teleport entire groups of people to random parts of the world, the same must be true here. So the Southron realms must be expected to share common ancestry. But the thing is, I'm pretty sure that the Southron Realms don't write their poetry on beads. Nor do they all worship a monotheistic animist religion. So this leaves a couple of possibilities.
1.The Taash in the Southron are a later arrival. They're new, and as such different. Back to Ancient Greece for a minute. When Alexander was very great, he put Greeks in a whole bunch of places where they weren't before very quickly. Of course they'd be very different. It would take centuries of revolution and assimilation for places like Egypt, Persia and Anatolia to once again be home to peoples with a common culture. Perhaps the Taash were similar. Some smart guy decided to jump into the Nekhur backyard and make the Gataash nation here. They conquered some local fiefdoms and put the Taash in their place. This isn't unheard of.
2.Everyone is else is Taash. The Taash do share a common ancestor with all of the other Southron realms. Perhaps their culture is just incredinly basal, or derived. Maybe the ancestral people of the region did write poetry with beads and everyone but the Taash have just moved away from that. Or perhaps the Taash just evolved a wholly different culture for various reasons. Maybe some prophet firebrand came to ancient Gataash and turned everyone there into monotheistic animists. Unfortunately word didn't spread to the surrounding region and everyone else just went on.
3. The Taash are old. Perhaps the Taash are in a position similar to that of the Anglo-Saxons after the Norman invasion. Or perhaps they are like the Basque, pre Indo-European people. They are the old people. They represent a more ancient culture that was displaced by the new arrivals around them. Southron was once full of bead poetry and monotheistic animists but migrating people got rid of all that-except here in Gataash.
Now all of these are solutions to how bead poetry is in Southron. I'm just not sure whether or not I like them. Maybe I'll just put Gataash in a region further south.
