Kondrovo, Empire of Vetalia
July 8, 1853
The early morning summer sun rose hot and hazy over the seaside town of Kondrovo, a settlement of some 10,000-odd inhabitants clustered around a massive set of stone docks that spoke of a much greater settlement in times past. They were the kind of docks seen in a city of 50,000 or even 100,000 inhabitants, as strange and even impossible as that might seem to contemporary residents. Even now, however, the settlement's continued prominence as a fishing and local trade port supported a sizable collection of impressive wooden houses and beautiful onion-domed churches. Clouds of smoke and steam rose up high into the air as the bathhouses heated their water and church bells rang out summoning the devout to daily Mass. Further inland, fields of tobacco, corn and wheat cloaked the gently rolling hills of the Kondrovo lowcountry, stretching for many miles outside of the city limits.
The settlement's decline was by no means of ancient memory, however. Starting from the early Middle Ages when its recovery began in the 9th century as the warming climate ensured the port once again remained ice-free all year, to its peak in the early 16th century, when it was the most prominent gateway between East and West, Kondrovo was one of the largest trading ports on the White Sea and home to many times its' current population. Traders, crusaders and explorers of all types passed through the city over the centuries on their way to fates unknown. The seeds of its decline were sown during the 17th century, however, when the chaos of war and destruction in the face of the Protestant reformation cut off the nation from its Catholic allies to the West, and in the East expansionist Orthodox, Islamic and Pagan states eyed the now-isolated nation and its rich farmlands with renewed interest. In the face of such danger, the Emperor, Valentin Augustus Petrov, ordered the nation's ports and borders closed to foreign trade in 1640, save for a few tiny outposts on outlying islands. The Navy was massively expanded, the land borders ringed with forts and soldiers and all foreign trade diverted from landing at Vetalian ports under threat of capture or sinking.
For 213 years, this policy was tightly enforced. The world outside of Vetalia moved on, but Vetalia did not. By the turn of the 18th century, the nation was antiquated at best, and by the turn of the 19th viewed as hopelessly primitive, a feudal backwater worth neither time nor attention from the great powers of the world. This was only partially true, as the Imperial government used the few trading posts kept open to remain aware of developments in the larger world and to maintain a staff of professional translators and diplomats, but this knowledge was tightly controlled among the greater populace as it would quickly demonstrate that the Imperial military strength based on sail ships, crossbows, and steel swords was increasingly useless in the face of the guns, cannons and steamers that prowled ever closer to its protected waters. The Emperor was well aware of its isolation and weakness as well, and an ever greater number of the feudal lords realized it too, each posing a threat to the centralized power of the Emperor as they secretly schemed to acquire some of these foreign weapons for their own use. The world was changing whether the Vetalians wanted it or not.
For weeks now, rumors had been spreading around Kondrovo and the surrounding port cities of ships from an unknown foreign land drawing ever closer to the coast. They had first been spotted by fishing excursions returning from the outlying islands, magnified by the crews' ignorance and the city's rumor mill into a massive fleet of terrifying war machines belching black smoke and bristling with weapons. The Black Ships they were ominously called...
