INTRODUCTION - THE WAR
"Forgive me if I sound almost as if I am waxing poetically about the Asatran War as if it were some distant war from past centuries - and not a sordid mess that we have emerged hardly five years from. Since the end of the war, both of the respective nations involved - the Republic of Alestria and the Republic of Crionia - have shed away the old ties that bound them in centuries of hatred and bloodshed and are on the up-and-up of regaining their respect in the eyes of the other nations that populate the continent of Diaketha. The journey for either nation is not an easy one to tread, as Alestria fought a civil war for the better part of 4E64 and Crionia's disgruntled veterans and once-repressed 'peace parties' overthrew the military government. The conditions imposed upon them by the Coalition of Diakethan Nations have not been kind; near-total military disarmament, internationally monitored elections, and monthly inspections to ensure that neither nation can ever possess nuclear weapons - or the 'bio-organic weapons' that almost destroyed the world."
"To fully explain the Asatran War and its outcome, we must go back to the middle of the Third Era. These were the final days of the Great Diakethan Empire, the nation that ruled the continent in all directions. The excesses of the ruling nobility, from the Imperial Family down to the lowest of feudal lords, had greatly angered the people of the Empire as their sons and daughters fought and died as pawns in foreign wars of conquest. While the lords dined and drank, taxed and conscripted, the common soldier of the Empire died in fruitless wars against rival nations and barbarian hordes. The modern nations of Diaketha sprouted from this discontent. As the Empire fragmented and the people cast away the sovereignty of the Empire, two particular nations emerged from the anarchy: the kingdoms of Alestria and Crionia. They were, and still are, neighbors who share a common culture and even a common language. The first two nations to successfully claw themselves from the bosum of the dying empire. In those early days, they fought as allies."
"Without the Empire, came the revanchist, reactionary elements of both nations to stoke the fires of discontent. For nearly five-hundred years, Alestria and Crionia have waged war and conflict against each other for every cause that one could imagine. They have fought for justice, for territory, and for no other reason than simple hatred. Some conflicts lasted mere weeks; others lasted for years. The progress of the two nations were intertwined by the tides of war. The days of pike and shot gave way to the breech and industrial revolution. With industry came wars of steel and oil. Many became rich by applying themselves to the trades that fueled the war effort, while many, many more died for a status quo that never changed."
"In a few instances, Alestria and Crionia fought not each other, but other nations. What brought them to Asatra was the threat of a common foe. In the early years of the Fourth Era, the Empire of Asatra dominated its continent of Honaache, separated by the sea from Diaketha. Asatra was a modern state with a formidable army and a desire to increase its reach. What started as a trade dispute between the Empire and the nations of Diaketha turned into a naval war, and finally, the Asatran invasion of Diaketha. By 4E22, Asatra possessed a foothold upon the southern coast of the continent. The nations of Diaketha, including Alestria and Crionia, united into the Coalition of Diakethan Nations to turn back the attackers. Five years of gruelling mechanized and trench warfare carried on, and it was due in no small part to Alestrian and Crionian sacrfice that Asatra was forced back beyond the waves. However, the Diakethan War carried on. The formidable Imperial Navy imperiled civilian maritime traffic, and thus the Coalition turned its sites to an Asatran campaign. Of the nations of the Coalition, the two republics of Alestria and Crionia spearheaded the campaign."
"They pushed across the seas, forcing back the navy until they invaded Asatra's very shores. By 4E30, Alestria and Crionia occupied the heartlands of Asatra while other nations of the Honaachen continent, namely the Republic of Pulastra and the Principality of Anteluja, reaped much of the rest. The defeat of Asatra did not see the departure of Alestria and Crionia, but it began the colonial exploitation of Asatra. Alestria occupied the western part of the peninsula; Crionia took the east. A line of demarcation between their territory was drawn straight down the middle of the Asatran Desert and the Outer Ring Jungle."
"For the next thirty years, there was peace. Yes, it was shaky and fragile and the saber-wrattlers on both sides continued to sharpen their proverbial sabers for the next war. But, the peace held. In Asatra, both sides consolidated their control and fought Asatran nationalist insurgents who were most certainly financed by one side or the other."
"The Alestrian-held portion of Asatra, what they called the 'Alocasia Colony,' centered itself around the oil trade. Three oases settlements in the desert - Tivola, Cantala, and Fesola - became oil boomtowns. Alestrian civilian and military engineers built the Alocasia Highway, a modern four-lane highway which ran oil from the oases' refineries and fields to the oil shipping terminal in the colonial capital of Porto Jaravais. The capital itself grew into a modern metropolis - skyscrapers, factories, military installations, an airport. Tivola did the same, building Tivola City as a way to complement the influx of colonists who came looking for work. Cantala and Fesola grew, but not as much as Tivola - and certainly nothing like Porto Jaravais. The Alestrian investment in the Outer Ring, on the other hand, was minimal. Most of the Alestrian presence in this region was military; Fort Jaguar and its firebases served to support border security along the Line of Demarcation. A connecting highway and military airbase served to sustain Fort Jaguar. While Western Alocasia drank on the fruits of economic lifeblood, Eastern Alocasia was the safeguard against any kind of Crionian aggression."
"Crionia? They had the east - the so-called 'Asatran Free State.' While they attempted to excavate oil in the desert, their yields could hardly compare to what was coming out of Tivola alone. Instead, the Crionians exploited the Outer Ring. Within the lush, tree-covered hills and mountains is an abundance of raw mineral wealth - gold, coal, copper, manganese - among other things. Crionian logging crews excavated land and moved timber out for Crionian plantations to operate. Like their Alestrian counterparts, they built a highway connecting their operations to their capital at Porto Maxima. They avoided the Alestrian model, centering their colonial population around the city and leaving the interior to house smaller, dispersed settlements and military bases."
"It was 4E59 began to simmer. No one side was to blame, not even Crionia for its military coup in the same year - or the electoral sweep of the hawkish faction of the Alestrian Republican Party the year prior. Suddenly, after nearly three decades of peace, tensions regarding Asatra arose. After thirty years, the attacks on both sides by Asatran nationalist insurgents and terrorists were not brought to heel. In May, terrorists assassinated the Deputy Governor of the Free State; insurgents also successfully blew up three oil platforms outside of Tivola. With that, the fingers began to point. Alestria accused Crionia of financing insurgent groups; likewise, Crionian authorities presented a Type 58 Battle Rifle - the primary weapon of the Alestrian Army - as the weapon used to kill the Deputy Governor."
"Once again, an Alestrian-Crionian war erupted - the Second Asatran War. The war started on the Line of Demarcation; both sides mobilized their forces on either side and dug in. Artillery traded shots back and forth across the border and jets did battle for control of the airspace. In those initial days, the Crionians had the advantage in terms of strength and manpower, having already moved crack divisions in the previous months to the Free State. The Alestrians, on the other hand possessed a much smaller garrison of colonial volunteers and police, who proved ill-suited for the task at hand. However, they fought hard, even as Crionian armor pushed past the border. They didn't take the entirety of the border, but the spearhead pushed into the desert toward Tivola City. Alestria was rushing as many of its continental units as it could to Asatra by air and sea. By the first week of the war, Crionian forces besieged Tivola and were moving more forces into the region. Crionia dropped paratroopers into the Outer Ring, who besieged Fort Jaguar. That siege, however, did not last very long as the 24th Jungle Rifles, arguably the best colonial regiment in Asatra at the time, easily broke out and forced the Paras into a game of cat-and-mouse in the jungle."
"The siege itself lasted three weeks. The few Alestrian units from the continent that reached Tivola - the 2nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Commando Squadron, and the 50th Infantry Regiment - made it in time to join the colonials and the police in bolstering the defense. It took the arrival of more air force fighter squadrons to gain air superiority over Alocasia, which in turn paved the way for the air force to launch ground attacks upon the besieging Crionian forces. Those air attacks, combined with the sheer dogged determination of the Alestrian defenders, broke the siege. The tide shifted over the next two months as Alestrian troops, backed by continentel reinforcements, steadily pushed the Crionian forces back to the Line of Demarcation."
"After that month of Alestria regaining its territory came another five months of nearly static trench warfare along the Line of Demarcation. There were no more mighty gains to be made; only a flow of static trench warfare temporarily broken by small tactical gains that were insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Offenses usually faltered due to the inability of one or more sections of the front to successfully fall. The greatest Alestrian offensive of the war actually succeeded in pushing a spearhead one mile into Crionian territory, but because the other sections of the offensive failed to press forward, the Crionians easily retook the lost ground. Elsewhere in the Outer Ring, the Crionian Paras who originally jumped into the jungle to take Fort Jaguar continued to fight behind enemy lines, carrying out an asymmetrical campaign without much in the way of the support from the rest of their military."
"The stagnant nature of the war concerned both sides, as well as the rest of Diaketha. The hawks were pushing to expand the war to Diaketha, which greatly concerned the rest of the Coalition. In response to the war, the Coalition voted to not only eject both Alestria and Crionia, but to economically and politically excommunicate both nations from Diakethan affairs."
"Among the Alestrian High Command, options were discussed. The nuclear option was posited, but ultimately shot down. However, as the trench war continued, murmurs of a top-secret proposal by the Military Research & Development Division began to circulate among the brass. Allegedly, the scientists developed a biological weapon, or what the rumors referred to as a 'Bio-Organic Weapon,' that could be deployed behind enemy lines and, through the mysterious powers of biology, turn the Crionian military against itself. The details of this weapon, codenamed 'PROJECT WENDIGO,' were seen only at the highest levels of the military. Ultimately, the deployment of PROJECT WENDIGO was declined."
"Around the same time, a religious holiday approached. The 'All-Father Day,' a sacred holiday dedicated to the deity worshipped by all of Diaketha since the early days of the Empire. Both sides agreed to a week-long ceasefire in celebration of the holiday. Stand-down orders went out among Alestrian forces and, at first appearance, Crionian forces. However, Crionia had other ideas. At the beginning of All-Father Week, the Crionian troops at the Line of Demarcation abided by the stand-down. All appearances were made to show a colony-wide stand-down in honor of the All-Father. Even in the air, Crionia matched the Alestrians by deploying only token air patrols. In reality however, the wheels for OPERATION WARHAMMER were already turning. Months prior, the Crionians moved armor and reserve infantry into staging areas to prepare for a breakthrough, deliberately leaking false intelligence that the positioning of their reserves was to anticipate an Alestrian breakthrough. Bombers, fighters, and transport planes with Para units were put into this reserve force around the same time. Additionally, Crionia covertly placed its tactical nuclear assets in the border region; Alestria had only a strategic nuclear capability and Crionia was gambling on the Alestrian reluctance to use those strategic assets."
"The Crionian offensive opened, by way of conventional and nuclear bombardment, a seven-mile hole in the Line of Demarcation that allowed Crionian forces to push into Alocasia and move west. They quickly regained air superiority, allowing more Paras and supplies to be dropped into the Outer Ring. Alestria was caught with its pants down and suffered heavy losses. The offensive took Cantala and Fesola with relative ease and encircled Tivola. A northward push was stopped by Alestrian armor, and the Alestrians scrambled to contain the breakout. It was at that point the Alestrian High Command sent word to the MRDD: 'PROJECT WENDIGO is given the green light.'
"Six ICBM platforms, loaded with the BOW, were launched from submarines into the Asatran Free State. Two were intercepted by the Crionian Air Force and shot down before they could pose a threat to Porto Maxima, but the other four struck along the Crionian side of the Line of Demarcation. The effects of the BOW were instantaneous; Crionian troops exposed to the virus succumbed to death within twenty-four hours, only to seemingly come back to life. Only, these unlucky souls were not who they had been. Instead, the resurrected dead were revenants who could not distinguish between friend or foe - their only motivation was to kill living creatures and mutilate their corpses in order to consume their blood. While these revenants, later called 'Wendigos,' were vulnerable to the usual methods of killing and harm, the infection that they caused to those they wounded led to the same outcome. The wounded suffered, died, and came back as Wendigos. This caused an instant breakdown at the front of Crionian military capability, rendering many units combat-ineffective within days."
"Alestria believed that they now possessed the upper hand as they watched Crionian soldiers killing one another. In light of this, Alestrian troops began to push into Crionian territory - and were met with the cold reality that PROJECT WENDIGO did not discriminate between Alestrian and Crionian soldiers. As the month progressed, the situation only continued to grow out of hand. Alestria and Crionia fought each other, and the bloodthirsty Wendigos - and both sides were losing. Those dark days were the dying gasps of two colonies. Military units and locations were instantly collapsing, commanders weren't checking in on radios, and the public back home were asking tough questions of their governments. Fesola and Cantala fell quickly to the Wendigos, and Alestria answered by dropping two nuclear bombs upon the oases. The decision was made: evacuate."
"Had a unilateral cease-fire been agreed upon by Alestria and Crionia, perhaps the events that unfolded - and the future those events brought - would not have happened. The evacuation orders were given: all military personnel and civilians were to make their way either to the colonial capitals or to one of the few remaining airbases that had not yet fallen. Simple enough - but the fighting raged on. If soldiers and civilians weren't fighting for their lives against Wendigos, they were at the mercy of a senseless war that was still technically being waged. Maxima and Jaravais were swamped by tens of thousands of people hoping to catch the last plane or ship out of Asatra. Some places, like Fort Jaguar and Tivola City, were too far from the ports and their land connections were too bogged down with fighting for people to evacuate."
"In the end, not everyone made it out. Close to a quarter-million people - soldiers and colonists - were left behind when Alestria and Crionia stopped sending ships and planes to pick people up. Close to three million people made it out; for both governments, that was enough. They formally ended the conflict and announced that the whole of Asatra was to be quarantined. No one would go in - or out. Once the no-fly-zone was declared, Alestrian and Crionian jets bombed the airfields in the hope that any aircraft left on the ground would be destroyed to prevent any possibility of the infection from spreading to Diaketha."
"Back home, the people - and the continent - had grievances to settle. Over the next few years, both Crionia and Alestria would undergo radical changes. For Alestria, civil war brought the long-dominant Republican Party - dominated by the hawks who supported the Asatran War - to its knees. Crionia would see a coup by democratically-minded soldiers overthrow the military government, transforming the nation into a democracy. The new governments appealed to the Coalition for readmittance into continental affairs. The Coalition responded by forcing both nations to bury the hatchet and end their long-running feud. Their weapons of mass destruction were destroyed, and their militaries mostly demobilized in every way."
"As for Asatra, it remains a Terra Incognita. A place long abandoned."
ASATRA, 4E65 - THE ABANDONED
"We are what's left of the Second Asatran War - the Abandoned. Because neither side wished to declare a cease-fire during the pullouts from this place, they stranded a lot of us. If you were on the coast, or close enough to a bird, you likely got out. If you were fighting the enemy - or the Wendigos - you probably ended up stuck when both sides wiped their hands of Asatra and instituted the Quarantine. Soldiers, civilians; there's no difference anymore. We're all unlucky bastards."
"The lucky ones are in Tivola City and Porto Maxima. Tivola was too far to fully evacuate and they didn't have enough planes and choppers to get everyone out, so the senior commander in that region ordered his troops to hold the city and hope for a later evacuation. No evacuation came, but enough of the garrison refused to desert and enough civilians stayed behind. Their fields are still in operation and their military strength keeps out the raiders and Wendigos alike. Maxima - that garrison opted to cover the sea evacuations against the Wendigos and as a reward, Crionia fucked them and refused to send any boats back to pick them up when they threw up the Quarantine. So, the ones who got left behind - the garrison and the Alestrian POWs they conscripted to cover the evac - cleared Maxima out and made it a halfway decent place. At least in those places, there's some semblance of what life used to be like. The people there have to work in either oil fields or factories and put up with abuse, but at least they can sleep safely without fear of being eaten alive."
"The Quarantine. No one gets in or out. The air forces bombed the airports and the navies blew up any ships halfway seaworthy to keep people from going back to Diaketha and potentially spreading the plague. There's a total blockade on the coast, and a no-fly-zone in the sky. The land borders with Anteluja and Pulastra are fully fortified and the border guards will shoot any crossers on site, or send out attack birds to kill whomever the guards can't kill. We saw, in the early days of the Quarantine, how far Alestria and Crionia were willing to go to keep us here. They can't be blamed; if the plague and the Wendigos made it to Diaketha, there'd be no stopping it. Cargo planes still make flights over Asatra, dropping supply caches to keep us sustained. But goddamn, couldn't they launch another operation to get those of us who aren't infected out?"
"The beasts are bad, but the people? Aside from the nurses and the priests and the workers, the only people in Asatra were soldiers. We're all trained killers to begin with, and getting left behind for five years has weeded out the weak, leaving only the strong to survive. Anyone can kill anyone else, for any reason; there is no "military police" in Asatra, nor is there a rule of law outside of the settlements. When we got left behind, a lot of guys grabbed their guns and ran off together, forming raiding bands in order to take whatever they needed by force. Groups like the Lost Dogs and Bone-Eaters control small improvised forts by the roadways, robbing or killing anyone who comes by. Slavery is big, too, and the Jungle Rifles command a slave-trading auction at Fort Jaguar. They sell off any Paras unlucky enough to be taken alive. Most of those slaves are taken on a death march to Coal Hill, where the Crionian mine administrators are still working people to death in the mines. Lone wolves are common threats too; a lot of the snipers took off on their own, and some of them gained a penchant for murder and robbery. Even in the friendly settlements, where guns are kept holstered often, the guys protecting the place are liable to kill anyone that steps out of line. Death is the ultimate penalty out here, and it can be issued for anything, at any time, anywhere."
"The war is over, and all we have is survival, day to day for most folk. If you aren't in Tivola City or Maxima, where they at least produce enough to keep themselves fed and safe - or slumming it in places like Ulyex or Fort Jaguar - you're living rough. Cantala and Fesola are craters, thanks to the atomic bombs that Alestria dropped after the Wendigos overran their garrisons. Jaravais is a ghost town, nothing but Wendigos and half-crazed survivors live there. The Demarc? It's a wasteland, filled with rusting relics and roaming Wendigos looking for a snack. The jungle ain't much better."
"Asatra is a changed place. The Wendigos hunt at night, and the opportunists rule the day. If you're unlucky enough to be out in the Blood Rocks, you're liable to get mutilated and crucified by the Bone Eaters. They're the biggest, baddest gang of raiders and psychopaths in Asatra, operating out of the badlands between Tivola and Jaravais. Alestrian or Crionian, they don't care. If you go out into their territory, expect to be greeted with IEDs, shot at by snipers, and eventually cannibalized. They aren't the only raider game in Asatra, but everyone else is terrified of them."
"Out in the Outer Ring, it's not much better. The Jungle Rifles are still kicking around, but they're mean as hell to anyone who isn't one of them - or who isn't paying them something. If you're a Crionian Para, they'll shoot you on sight. The Paras are also out there in the jungle, feral as all hell and still fighting the Jungle Rifles. They live off the land and exist in their squads. Rare to see a whole platoon of them."
"Sundown brings with it the stuff of nightmares, but even my childhood night terrors were mild compared to the horror that we endure on a nightly basis. The Wendigos, after slumbering away the daytime in darkness and seclusion, come out from their lairs to hunt and feast. Unprepared settlements and night travelers are almost guaranteed a death sentence. The locations that they can overrun, they'll hold back nothing. When someone gets bit by a Wendigo, it's all the same. Over the course of anywhere from twelve to twenty-four hours, that person will become a Wendigo. Starts out with nausea and stomach cramps, followed by violent vomiting and diarrhea. Irritability and dementia come up several hours, along with fainting spells and expulsion of blood. A variety of other symptoms follow next, different for everyone. After that, strokes and a life-ending brain hemorrhage. One hour later, you've got a live and pissed-off Wendigo. They hunt by way of enhanced night vision, smelling, and hearing. Fast as fuck and sticking to the shadows, they would be nigh-invincible if they weren't so susceptible to gunshot wounds. Shoot 'em anywhere, and they bleed out quickly. Death is the only cure for a Wendigo."
"Much of Asatra has been ruined to shit. What we brought to the island - the worker towns, the oil fields, the ports, our Palmoran civilization - has been reduced to shambles. There are vast swaths of this place ravaged by napalm, or contaminated by fallout from the nukes. Most of us survive by finding what we need, or by bartering for such things. We fight over water, money, food, fuel, ammunition, women, booze - anything, basically. When we aren't fighting over airdrops or resources, we scavenge the ruins, ever wary of the sleeping Wendigos as we pluck the buildings clean of goodies. We watch the sun, and our watches anxiously, hoping that we can get as much done as possible until the sun comes down. Not a lot is produced, because much of the land was unsuitable for crops even before the war. Still though, there are signs that Asatra is healing; minute, almost insignificant signs that Asatra will grow only long after we have joined the All-Father."
BREAKDOWN
If the text walls haven't scared you off yet and you have read this far, well done! I know it's a lot to read, but trust me, it's well worth it.
A S A T R A is my own creation, a character-focused, military-themed post-apocalyptic action RP set within a fictional world that resembles, in many ways, our own. Technologically and culturally, this world is somewhere in the 1960s. Equipment, vehicles, and clothing are based off of real-world examples, as you will see below in the information section. As for the real-world equivalents of Alestria and Crionia, I was imagining their culture and ethnic heritage to be a mix of different Latin-derived concepts. Not too Roman, not too Spanish or Italian, and not too French. Somewhere in between all of those.
As for the plot, A S A T R A takes place roughly five years after the end of the evacuations. Our characters are the Abandoned; the remnants of the soldiers and civilian colonists who were unlucky enough to be stranded in Asatra. At this point, there's no hope of escaping Asatra. If you try running the border, you'll be shot. Find a working plane? You're gonna get shot down. If you try escaping by sea, the deck guns of a destroyer or a torpedo from a submarine will send you to the bottom. Alestria, Crionia, and pretty much everyone else won't risk anyone escaping to potentially spread the infection to the rest of the world.
At the beginning of the RP, you're in Tivola City. It's pretty much the best place to be in all of Asatra; fortified, well-defended, prosperous, and powered by petroleum from its oil fields. Your background is your own, and it does not matter much in relation to the job offer you have found. The rulers of Tivola, the "Garrison Government," are looking to expand their trade network outside of the few friendly settlements in Alocasia. What that means is looking east for more places to send their caravans; in particular, Porto Maxima. In the minds of the Garrison Government, there's little reason to continue crying over the spilled milk that is the Asatran War. So, they're putting together a convoy. One oil tanker, some trucks laden with goods, and whatever vehicles they can get to escort the supplies. It is their hope that by successfully transporting an entire tanker of petroleum to Maxima, they can open up the door for a much greater relationship with the only other "civilized" settlement in Asatra.
The objective of this convoy means that it will have to undertake a long, arduous journey through the interior. They'll be crossing through the desert and the formidable Demarc, into the Outer Ring and eventually northward into the desert again until they reach the coast. Tivola won't spare a huge contingent of soldiers to escort this convoy; instead, they turn to souls of private initiative to staff the convoy. While some of the drivers and guards are affiliated with Tivola, there will be a number of mercenaries and enterprising souls venturing out with the convoy.
That's where you come in. Whether you're a member of the Tivola Guard Force or a wayward wanderer with nothing much else going on, you've taken it upon yourself to join the convoy on its journey. It hardly goes without saying that it will be a dangerous trek.
Lastly, this might be my original piece, but I am always happy when others contribute their own interesting and supportive contributions! Whether you've written a bit of lore in your app or you propose something to spice up the worldbuilding portion of things, I am all ears!
