Ctrl + Alt + Earth [AH RP - WIP]

[Cymrea]

OOC Thread IC//OOC//Map - 11 Septembris 15 OP - Cymrea First Co-OP - Second Co-OP - "Put your history books away, this is not the war you remember." Nor is this the world you remember. It has developed in ways quite different from the one in which we live. Britain is dominated by a Romanised Welsh culture rather than English; there is an American king: George I of House Washington; slavery ended much sooner and the Confederate States rebelled against the northern monarchy as the side fighting for freedom; Texas and Cascadia have achieved independence; and the Holy Roman Empire is neither holy, nor Roman (or Germanic!), but Spanish...and Arcane - just to name a few examples. This RP comes with nations ready made, already acceptable and accepted - they just need you to take the role of leader and control this alternate Earth! Order of Precedence Based on time stamps, this is the current order of tags of interest, with stated reservation interest. When CAE is ready to launch, this will be the order in which folks can/will choose their nations. 1. Empire of Gibraltar (Poland, Lithuania, possibly more) 2. The Flame Dawn (Shogunate of Japan) 3. The Heavenly Commonwealth (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines) 4. The Orson Empire (United Kingdom of America) 5. Bolovia (Arcane Spanish Empire) 6. MIKIA 7. Zoblus (Caliphate of Parthia) 8. Greater Mobile (Utah/Nevada area) 9. Jade Confederacy 10. Halleon (Confederate States of America) 11. New Kratopolis (Tsardom of Ruthenia) 12. The Greater Dutch Republic (Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria) 13. New Rnclave - Updated: 9/18/2015 Arcane Philosophy in place of Religion! The Magisteria A list (probably incomplete!) of each magisterium of arcane philosophy and its real-world equivalent. Semite College – Judaism Reformist College – Protestant, Lutheran Vatican Synaxis – Roman and Orthodox Catholic: Pontifex Islamic Academy – Islam Sindhu Temple - Hindu, Sikh Siddarthic Circle – Buddhism, Jainism Kamido Nexus - Shinto Taoist Temple - Confucianism, Tian/Tao Laibon Council - African and diaspora Druidic Circle – Celtic pagan Runic Circle – Norse pagan Masonic Synod – Freemason Alchemos Praxeum – Alchemy Mormonic Temple - Mormon - Expanded descriptions forthcoming.

[Cymrea]

Ctrl + Alt + Earth Nations - Part I

Official Nation Name: United Kingdom of Cambria
Short Name: Cambria
Flag: Red dragon represents the Cymric ancestors of the Welsh. The white and green field represents the colours of the House of Tudor, now the royal House Rosa.

Territorial Core: Wales, England, Scotland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, Orkney Island, Shetlands, Australia, New Zealand
Territorial Claim: Central Canada
Capital City: Londinium (London)
Population: 32 million
Demonym: Cambrian, Cambrians

Government Type: Constitutional Monarchy
Head of State: Queen Victoria o Rosa Regina
Head of Government: Consul Primaris Robert Gascoyne-Cecil
Magisteria: Druidic Circle: 84%, Reformist College: 12%, Vatican Synaxis: 2%, Other: 2%
Economic Ideologies: Mercantilism, leaning to capitalism
Currency: Cambrian crown

Army Active: 150,000
Army Reserve: 50,000
Navy Active: 90,000
Navy Reserve: 30,000
Military total: 320,000

National Figures of Interest: Great Druid Tal-Essen
National Ambition/Aspirations: Maintain the global empire

Comparison Points – Political: 2
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 3
Comparison Points – Economy: 2
Comparison Points – Military: 3
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
As the northern tribes of Angles, Saxons, Teutons, and others assaulted and settled a Brittania recently bereft of Roman garrisons, they found a stable and comfortable quality of life and so Roman influence never faded, but instead flourished in its own way.

In the 15th Century, the popularity of Maria Tudoria Elizabeth was extremely high, but her Privy Council, her Parliament, and her subjects thought that the unmarried queen should take a husband; it was generally accepted that, once a queen regnant was married, the husband would relieve the woman of the burdens of head of state. Also, without an heir, the Tudor dynasty would end; the risk of civil war between rival claimants was a possibility if Elizabeth died childless. The first and most ardent suitor was the late Mary’s widower, Philip II of Spain. However, numerous other suitors from nearly all European nations sent ambassadors to the English court to put forward their suit.

Risk of death came dangerously close in 1564 when Elizabeth contracted smallpox; Elizabeth survived but British destiny was forever altered. It is said that in her fever, she experienced a holy visitation from a source no one would ever have suspected, given her moderate yet adamant Reformist College views. Elizabeth claimed that Danu, mother druidess to the Tuatha de Danaan – the forerunners of modern Celts – came to her in her hour of greatest peril and told her that the elder philosophers had returned from their long celestial journey to reclaim the hearts and spirits of their Briton children. Elizabeth quickly recovered and proclaimed the vision a miracle.

What followed was a Second War of the Roses, with House York rising up with the support of all Reformists and Synaxists of the realm, many of them Lancastrian. But a return to the original philosophies and a renewal of ties to the land was popular among the laymen and more nobles than might have been thought joined the Tudor cause. The Reformist College reacted virulently, supporting the Yorkists and declaring Elizabeth and her revived Druidic Circle anathema. In response, Elizabeth decreed the College to be valid, but no longer the faith of the Crown and State. Popular revolts against the clergy resulted in the College’s presence being reduced to Yorkist fortifications. In the end, the overwhelming popularity of Druidism resulted in the expunging of the Reformist College.

The initial reaction from Rome was one of support for Elizabeth, seen as a scourge against the Reformists. The Vatican Synaxis believed that their philosophy could be reinvigourated in Britain. Too late, the Pontifex realised that the movement was strong enough to hold permanent sway over the nostalgic Britons. Having supported the movement at its inception, the Pontifex could not exactly call for a Crusade – especially given that Rome was greatly occupied with the Arcane Land, and that Britain held nothing of geographical or theological importance for Synaxism. Indeed, the pagan artifact Stonehenge became a leading symbol for the Druidic revival, something the Vatican Synaxis wanted no part of. As a result of the successful Druidic Movement, Elizabeth conformed readily to the idea that marriage and birth-giving were natural cycles of the gods-given Earth. She married Edwardius Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, in 1565. After much anticipation and anxiety, Elizabeth finally gave birth to Augustus Tudorius Taliesin I in 1575; Prince Taliesin succeeded his mother to the throne in 1603.

The nation’s identity as a Welsh state of Roman influence was solidified when, in 1599, Prince Taliesin suggested for the kingdom the name Cambria, a Romanised version of Cymru, the Welsh name for Wales. The name was officially adopted November 3, 1601, and was declared the national holiday by Queen Elizabeth. Later, the name of the family line would be changed to Rosa, to reflect the Tudor rose. This incited a sweeping change of name for all noble Houses of Cambria, who would not be left out. Native flora and fauna became symbols - and names - for the oldest Houses. After a similar popular Druidic Movement, Ireland joined the Kingdom of Cambria in 1644.

With an unbroken dynastic line content to advance the kingdom, Queen Victoria o Rosa Regina now reigns over a nation ready to resume a place in global affairs at the dawn of the 20th Century.

Official Nation Name: United Kingdom of America
Short Name: America
Flag: Twenty-one white stars represent each of the states in the kingdom in a canton of American Blue. The thirteen red and white stripes represent the original thirteen American colonies.

Territorial Core: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Massachussetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa
Territorial Claim: Great Lakes region
Capital City: Philadelphia
Population: 38 million
Demonym: American, Americans

Government Type: Constitutional Monarchy
Head of State: King George II, House of Washington
Head of Government: President William McKinley
Magisteria: Reformist College: 57%, Vatican Synaxis: 18%, Semite College: 12%, Druidic Circle: 11%, Other: 8%
Economic Ideologies: Capitalism
Currency: American dollar

Army Active: 160,000
Army Reserve: 100,000
Navy Active: 50,000
Navy Reserve: 70,000
Military total: 380,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 3
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 2
Comparison Points – Economy: 2
Comparison Points – Military: 3
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : /10

History
The United Kingdom of America began rather humbly, as a cluster of tiny colonies originally established by British proprietors looking for gold and riches in the New World in 1562. They did not find quick riches of gold deposits but rather a land which required hard work and farming just to sustain the colonists. But in 1565, just on the cusp of an exodus back to Britain, many sails appeared on the horizon bringing a flood of fresh supplies and new arrivals, religious objectors who brought word of the Second War of the Roses and the rebirth of the arcane philosophy of Druidism in Britain.

The new colonists arrived to the fugacious original sites and breathed new life into them. Though it was widely believed that ships full of soldiers might soon arrive from across the ocean to enforce a British governance, it was the native tribes and nations with their powerful shamans that would prove to be the foe. The cluster of settlements grew larger and more populous with immigrants from all over Europe. Soon, the original sites had been merged into a single colony, incorporated in 1584 as Jamestown, named for Prince James Stuart of Scotland, a favoured cousin of the British queen, Elizabeth.

The need to create new settlements and expand their land holdings brought them into conflict with the local natives. In 1585, after a small scouting expedition had returned with two Indigenas and many astonishing stories, British immigrant (and staunch Reformist) Sir Walter Raleigh tried to establish a colony called Roanoke in an area of land he named Virginia in honour of the Queen Elizabeth before her Druidic Movement, when she was known as the Virgin Queen. The site was actually an island on North America’s eastern seaboard protected by the outer banks of what is now North Carolina’s coast. Twice Roanoke was the site of massacres at the hands of local Algonquins.

The next year was devastating for the colonists, with only thirty-two surviving the winter and only then because Indigenas living in the area came to their aid with food. After a supply ship arrived the next year they had additional provisions but many more colonists to feed as well. Once again, over the winter, most of the colonists died of starvation and from hostile encounters with their neighbors. As winter came to a close, ships once again arrived. But as these were preparing to sail back, Lord Thomas de la Warr (Delaware would be named after him) arrived from Britain with new supplies and more settlers; he refused to let the survivors return to Europe. Slowly, as they reached agreements with the local native tribes – Druidism and the native arcane philosophies shared many tenets – and as they learned how to grow some of their own crops, the colonies began to prosper. More immigrants were arriving to the colonies all the time, establishing trade and industry and by 1624 the governors of Virginia had organized into a Royal Colony, petitioned to and granted by Charles I, son of King Taliesin I. The British (now Cambrian) crown sent a Governor General, but the post remained almost entirely a ceremonial one. In 1632, Charles I granted the Maryland Charter to George Calvert, governor of Baltimore. Over the next 120 years, the remaining eleven colonies would also be granted Royal Charters.

Powerful Dutch merchant guilds strived to regain control of flourishing continental holdings. In an effort to disrupt the growing union of colonies, the Dutch funded and supplied local native nations to make war on the Americans. In 1775, George Washington was appointed general of the American Continental Army. After a decade-long campaign, Washington’s army was forcing the Indigenas west into the areas of Ohio and Upper Canada. The general faced a crisis with the Continental Army while it was encamped in New Amsterdam in 1783. There has not been a major battle for almost a year and the Dutch-supported natives were simply sitting in a stronghold on Lake Erie, and his Army was in danger of desertion. The soldiers had not been paid for many months and, due to inflation, the continental dollar was nearly worthless. Meeting with his officers, he heard their grievances and was pained. Conditions were indeed intolerable. Washington supported a move against Philadelphia and their coup against the Congress. Being the only real military presence on the continent, it was a swift and bloodless affair. In a matter of just a few weeks, the governance of the Continental Congress was over.

What to replace Congress with was a point of much debate. A petition to the crown of Cambria for annexation was being drawn up when Governor Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, suggested that America form its own united kingdom of states. The proposal was supported by the Cambrian governors general and in January, 1784 General George Washington was elected the first monarch of the United Kingdom of America.

While many members of the Congress were arrested by Washington’s force, some were able to escape and fled south. Among the Congressmen who made their way to Charleston, South Carolina, was Thomas Jefferson. With the support of the General Assembly of South Carolina, Thomas Jefferson declared the secession of South Carolina from the United Kingdom of America. Soon after, the states of Georgia, North Carolina, and – most distressing to the American king – Virginia followed the example of South Carolina and declared their secession. In February, 1784, delegates from the four independent states gathered at Richmond and agreed to resume the Articles of Confederation that gave the Continental Congress their authority and formed a new confederation: the Confederate States of America. King George could not bring himself to oppose the secession. He was no tyrant to declare the southern states as rebels. Instead, he initiated extensive talks with the South. But diplomatic relations between the UKA and the CSA remained icy and civil war was imminent.

King George formed a new congress through which to govern. One of the first acts of the Royal Congress was to create the American Constitution, which outlined the constitutional limitations of the crown and the structure of the government. The process of debate and ratification by all of the colonies began in 1787 with Delaware being the first to sign, and would last until for just over three years when Rhode Island signed in 1790. The Colonies became States.

King George died in 1789, brokenhearted over Virginia’s secession, it was said. King George had no children of his own, only stepchildren by Queen Martha. His named successor was the son of his closest advisor, John Adams of Massachusetts. John Quincy Adams, crowned King John of the House of Washington, continued George’s negotiations with the South, but only to keep up the appearance of diplomacy. Talks ultimately failed in 1796, and the American Civil War began.

Initially, the Civil War was exceedingly bloody and fierce. Attrition slowed the pace of the war to a sullen crawl, devolving the conflict into a series of raids and sieges. Events came to a head in 1836 when the Republic of Texas declared itself a nation and Sam Houston’s army marched into Spanish Mexico supported by the Confederate Army. Given a fresh excuse to punish the South, the royalists invaded Virginia. In the bloody four year surge that followed, Richmond and Petersburg burned as did Baltimore and Harrisburg. By 1840, the royalists had claimed large territories from the natives to the west and much of the state of Virginia. The grueling raid-and-siege pattern resumed until the Treaty of Richmond and the establishment of the Mason-Dixon Wall in 1896. The treaty established a de facto cold war in recent years. However, with the reconciliationist policies of current King George II, both Americas seem hopeful to put away past differences as the new century begins.

Official Nation Name: Confederate States of America
Short Name: Dixie
Flag: Thirteen white stars represent the original thirteen American colonies. The field is a Reformist cross banner in the traditional American colours of red, white, and blue. The blue is a particular shade called American Blue.

Territorial Core: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Bahamas, Turks & Caicos Islands
Territorial Claim: Puerto Rico
Capital City: Atalanta (Atlanta)
Population: 20 million
Demonym: Dixie, Dixies

Government Type: Republic
Head of State: President Murphy Foster
Head of Government: President Murphy Foster
Magisteria: Reformist College: 54%, Vatican Synaxis: 15%, Druidic Circle: 13%, Semite College: 11%, Other: 7%
Economic Ideologies: Mercantilism, leaning to capitalism
Currency: Confederate dollar

Army Active: 100,000
Army Reserve: 40,000
Navy Active: 40,000
Navy Reserve: 20,000
Military total: 200,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 3
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 2
Comparison Points – Economy: 3
Comparison Points – Military: 2
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
In 1783, George Washington supported a move by the American Continental Army against Philadelphia and their coup against the Congress. In a matter of just a few weeks, the governance of the Continental Congress was over. The traitorous General Washington was elected the first monarch of the United Kingdom of America in January, 1784.

But while many members of the Congress were arrested by Washington’s force, some were able to escape and fled south. Among the patriots who made their way to Charleston, South Carolina, was Thomas Jefferson. With the support of the General Assembly of South Carolina, Thomas Jefferson declared the secession of South Carolina from the United Kingdom of America. Soon after, the states of Georgia, North Carolina, and – in a coup against the northern king – Virginia followed the example of South Carolina and declared their secession. In February 1784, delegates from the four independent states gathered at Richmond and agreed to resume the Articles of Confederation that gave the Continental Congress their authority and formed a new confederation: the Confederate States of America. King George initiated extensive talks with the South, but diplomatic relations between the UKA and the CSA remained icy at best and civil war was imminent.

In 1789, King George died. John Quincy Adams, crowned King John of the House of Washington, continued George’s negotiations with the South, but only to keep up the appearance of diplomacy. Talks ultimately failed in 1796, and the American Civil War began.

Other developing southern states joined the confederacy as they formed: Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas. General Andrew Jackson led Confederate forces in the First Seminole War in 1817, ostensibly to protect burgeoning settlements on the peninsula. The Second Seminole War started with the Dade Massacre in 1835 and incited the former general and then President Jackson to take Florida decisively. The state was finally added to the confederacy in 1845.

Attrition slowed the pace of the Civil War to a sullen crawl, devolving the conflict into a series of raids and sieges. It flared hot again in 1836 when the Republic of Texas declared itself a nation and Sam Houston’s army marched into Spanish Mexico supported by the Confederate Army, which included many veterans from the Seminole Wars. With this fresh excuse, the UKA invaded Virginia. Confederate armies pulled out of the Texan campaign and turned to the north. In the renewed conflict that followed, Richmond and Petersburg burned, but so too did Baltimore and Harrisburg. In the end the CSA was not able to field armies of the same size as the more populous royalists. The UKA had claimed large territories from the Indigenas to the west but, apparently unsatisfied, the kingdom acquired much of the state of Virginia. A truce with the CSA was eventually formalised with the Treaty of Richmond and the construction of the Mason-Dixon Wall in 1896.

In the Caribbean, the Arcane Spanish Empire was gaining strength. Already in firm possession of Central America after the failed attempt by Texas to claim disputed Mexican territories, the Spanish hold on certain islands was growing. When a small rebellion rose in Cuba, both the UKA and CSA called for its resolution. Spain rejected the demand and asserted their sovereignty over the matters. The UKA continued to negotiate in vain, but the Confederacy declared war in 1898. The conflict began with the CSA gaining control of the Bahamanian islands, and ended very shortly thereafter with a decisive defeat at Havana. The war lasted only five months and was formally resolved with the Treaty of Paris; Spain maintained their holdings and the CSA was allowed to retain the Bahamanian islands, including the Turks and Caicos. The islands were organized into the State of Bahamas and added to the Confederacy late in 1899.

With the reconciliationist policies of both the current American crown and President Foster, the Americas seem hopeful to put away past differences as the new century begins.

Official Nation Name: Republic of Texas
Short Name: Texas
Flag: Five white stars represent each of the states in the republic. The field is American Blue.

Territorial Core: Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado
Territorial Claim: Parts of northern Mexico
Capital City: Houston
Population: 10 million
Demonym: Texan, Texans

Government Type: Republic
Head of State: President Joseph Sayers
Head of Government: President Joseph Sayers
Magisteria: Reformist: 45%, Vatican Synaxis: 33%, Semite: 8%, Druidic: 7%, Other: 7%
Economic Ideologies: Capitalism
Currency: Texan dollar

Army Active: 65,000
Army Reserve: 20,000
Navy Active: 10,000
Navy Reserve: 5000
Military total: 100,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 3
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 2
Comparison Points – Economy: 2
Comparison Points – Military: 3
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
Texas is a new nation, born mainly of necessity less than a hundred years ago. Independent settlements in the Wild West, viewed as being lawless and chaotic, came to be pressured to join the Arcane Spanish Empire. Wary colonists in Texas began forming Committees of Correspondence and Safety. A central committee in San Felipe de Austin coordinated their activities.While a somewhat popular notion with the local Synaxists of Spanish decent, the pressure was vehemently rejected by stubborn, freedom-minded folks. As the cold war between the United Kingdom of America and the Confederacy heated up, the governors of major settlements in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona assembled the Convention of 1836. At the convention, it was decided to seek aid from the CSA and declare their own independence, most notably from Spain.

On March 2, 1836, the Republic of Texas declared itself a nation and Sam Houston was elected the republic’s first president, with Stephen F. Austin as his vice president. A hastily assembled army of Texan civilians, arcane practitioners, and professional rangers marched into Spanish Mexico. They were supported by the elements of the Confederate Army, which included many veterans from the Seminole Wars. When the UKA invaded Virginia, Confederate armies pulled out of the Texan campaign and turned to the north. Consequently, the Texan offensive stumbled to a halt and was easily rebuffed by Spanish forces. Peace was forged with the Alamo Treaty in 1837, the terms of which established the current borders between Spanish Mexico and the Republic of Texas.

Internal politics of the Republic were based on the conflict between two factions. The nationalist faction, led by Mirabeau B. Lamar, advocated the continued independence of Texas, the expulsion of the Indigenas, and the expansion of Texas to the Pacific Ocean. Their opponents, led by President Sam Houston, advocated respecting the border claims of burgeoning western neighbour Cascadia and peaceful co-existence with Indigenas. The Comanche shamans were the main Indigena threat to the Texas Republic. In 1839, Sam Houston negotiated a peace between Texas and the Comanches, but Lamar replaced Houston as president the next year and reversed the Indigena policies. He launched a genocidal war against the Comanches and invaded Comancheria itself. In retaliation the Comanche attacked Texas in a series of raids. After peace talks in 1841 ended with the massacre of thirty-four Comanche leaders in San Antonio, the Comanches launched a major attack deep into Texas, known as the Great Raid of 1841. Under command of Potsanaquahip (Buffalo Hump), 500-700 Comanche cavalry warriors and shamans swept down the Guadalupe River valley, killing and plundering all the way to the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, where they sacked the towns of Victoria and Linnville. Houston’s former state secretary Anson Jones became president in 1844 and, with both Texans and Comanches exhausted by war, a new peace was established.

With the neighbouring Pacific nation beginning to flourish, Texas trades a great deal with Cascadia via overland routes through the independent territory of Deseret and the native nations to the north; a prosperous endeavour for all involved thus far. A delicate balance of trade with the Confederacy and UKA also enriches Texas, though both Americas tend to see this as partisanship and strains relations between each. President Joseph Sayers’ diplomats – indeed those of all three nations – are certainly busy as the new century begins.

Official Nation Name: Republic of Cascadia
Short Name: Cascadia
Flag: Douglas fir is a traditional symbol for the Pacific coast settlements. The colours of American Blue, white, and evergreen are strongly associated with the Pacific Ocean and regional flora.

Territorial Core: British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Aleutia (Alaska)
Territorial Claim: Hawai'i
Capital City: Seattle
Population: 8 million
Demonym: Cascadian, Cascadians

Government Type: Republic
Head of State: President James Dunsmuir
Head of Government: President James Dunsmuir
Magisteria: Reformist: 48%, Vatican Synaxis: 29%, Indigena: 10%, Druidic: 9%, Other: 4%
Economic Ideologies: Mercantilism
Currency: Cascadian dollar

Army Active: 55,000
Army Reserve: 10,000
Navy Active: 10,000
Navy Reserve: 5000
Military total: 80,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 2
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 3
Comparison Points – Economy: 3
Comparison Points – Military: 2
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
After Confederate president Thomas Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark into the Pacific Northwest in 1803, Jefferson envisioned the establishment of an independent nation in the western portion of North America which he dubbed the Republic of the Pacific. Jefferson’s original idea was embraced by a number of settlements on the west coast, and less than thirty years later, the Republic of Cascadia was formed.

Elements among the region’s population sought to form their own country from the very beginning of Oregon’s settlement by pioneers. While the southern states seceded to form the Confederacy, some Oregonians saw it as a perfect opportunity to establish their own country. However, their movement failed when it became linked with the Knights of the Golden Circle, a pro-Confederate organization. Californians unsympathetic to the UKA also pushed for the establishment of the Republic of California as an independent entity – the leader of California’s militia at the time of secession was himself a supporter of the Confederate cause – but that movement proved weaker than its opposition.

Royalist sympathizers separated themselves politically from those sympathetic to the CSA and established the Washington Territory from the northern expanse of the Oregon Territory. But the eastern American nations were far away on the other side of the continent and local concerns provided a much stronger common ground upon which was founded the Cascadian republic. In 1828, regional leaders convened the Cascadian Assembly – which would inspire the Convention of 1836 in Texas. The Assembly took place at the end of the Oregon Trail, in Oregon City, at the residence of local leader Dr. John McLoughlin. Though not initially invited, leaders from settlements in Cambrian Columbia, Rupert’s Land, and Aleutia petitioned to be included at the assembly, a petition that was readily granted. On October 19th, 1828, the Assembly declared the Republic of Cascadia a nation. All attending leaders signed the Charter of Cascadia, joining the nation, with the sole exception of Rupert’s Land, now called Alberta.

For the first two years Cascadia had no central government, owing to the tremendous distances and a lengthy election process. In 1830, John McLoughlin was elected the first president of Cascadia. In what was dubbed “The Great Migration of 1843”, an estimated 700 to 1000 emigrants left for Oregon from the royal and confederate Americas. They were led initially by John Gantt, a former Royal American Army captain and fur trader who was contracted to guide the train to Fort Hall for $1 per person. In January 1848, gold was discovered in California precipitating the California Gold Rush. Over the next decade, gold seekers from the UKA, the Confederacy, Texas, and the Arcane Spanish Empire in Mexico started rushing overland and dramatically increased traffic on the Oregon and California Trails. Overall it is estimated that over 400,000 pioneers used the Oregon Trail and its two primary off-shoots, the California and Mormonic Trails. Traffic declined after 1855 when the Panama Railroad across the Isthmus of Panama was completed. Paddle wheel steamships and sailing ships, often heavily subsidized to carry the mail, then provided rapid transport between the coasts, Spanish Panama, and ports in California and Oregon.

Trade has been Cascadia’s primary endeavour since the nation’s founding and, while not very populous, Cascadia remains a wealthy and influential nation on the Pacific. The native and independent Mormonic settlements survive on the trade flowing overland to and from the west coast. Over the decades, the capital has moved from Oregon City, to Portland in 1857, and finally to Seattle in 1890.

While the other American nations contend for the plains territories, Cascadia looks for potential expansion into unincorporated Alberta and possibly the Yukon territory. Instead of marching armies, however, Cascadian policies rely heavily on economic incentives, particularly with the Indigena nations. The wealth and quality of life in Cascadia continues to attract a steady stream of immigrants, and President James Dunsmuir holds high expectations for Cascadia in the new century.

[Cymrea]

Ctrl + Alt + Earth Nations - Part II

Ctrl + Alt + Earth Nations - Part II

Official Nation Name: Arcano Imperio de España (Arcane Spanish Empire)
Short Name: Spain
Flag: Black eagle represents the imperial House of Habsburg. The field of red and gold represents traditional colours of Aragon and Castile.

Territorial Core: Spain without Andalusia, Mexico, Cuba, Central America
Territorial Claim: Puerto Rico, Jamaica
Capital City: Madrid
Population: 45 million
Demonym: Spanish, Spaniards

Government Type: Absolute Monarchy
Head of State: Emperor Francisco José, House of Habsburg
Head of Government: Prime Minister Julio Cervera Baviera
Magisteria: Vatican Synaxis: 95%, Reformist College: 2%, Semite College: 1%, Islamic Academy: 1% Indigena: 1%
Economic Ideologies: Mercantilism
Currency: Spanish reals

Army Active: 250,000
Army Reserve: 70,000
Navy Active: 100,000
Navy Reserve: 30,000
Military total: 450,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 3
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 3
Comparison Points – Economy: 2
Comparison Points – Military: 2
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
Spanish history is as long as it is tumultuous. During the Second Punic War, an expanding Roman Empire captured Carthaginian trading colonies along the Mediterranean coast from roughly 210 BC to 205 BC, leading to eventual Roman control of nearly the entire Iberian Peninsula; this lasted over 500 years, bound together by law, language, and the Roman road. Hispania served as a granary for the Roman market, and its harbours exported gold, wool, olive oil, and wine.

Semite arcane philosophy was introduced into Hispania in the 1st Century and it became popular in the cities in the 2nd Century. Most of Spain’s present languages and faith, and the basis of its laws, originate from this period. Rome’s loss of jurisdiction in Hispania began in 409, when the Germanic Vandals, together with Sarmatians crossed the Rhine and ravaged Gaul until the Visigoths drove them into Iberia that same year. The Vandals occupied the region that still bears a form of their name – Vandalusia, modern Andalusia.

In the 8th Century, nearly all of the Iberian Peninsula was conquered (711-718) by Moorish armies from North Africa. These conquests were part of the expansion of the Umayyad Islamic Empire. A number of areas in the north of the Iberian Peninsula managed to resist the initial invasion and were the starters of the Reconquista. The arrival of the North African ruling sects of the Almoravids and the Almohads restored unity upon Muslim holdings, with a stricter, less tolerant application of Islamic arcane philosophy, but ultimately, after some successes in invading the north, proved unable to resist the increasing military strength of the Synaxic states.

The Reconquista (“Reconquest”) was a centuries-long period of expansion of Spain’s Synaxic kingdoms, viewed as beginning with the battle of Covadonga in 722. As early as 739 Muslim forces were driven from Galicia, which was host to medieval Europe’s most powerful arcane nexus, Santiago de Compostela. Capture of the central city of Toledo in 1085 largely completed the reconquest of the northern half of Spain. After a Muslim resurgence in the 12th Century, the great Moorish strongholds in the south halted the advance of the Synaxic armies. In 1236 the Treaty of Cordoba was signed, ending hostilities between Spain and Andalusia.

The unification of the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile laid the basis for modern Spain and the Spanish Empire. Spain was one of Europe’s leading powers throughout the 16th and 17th Centuries, a position reinforced both by the nexus at Galicia and by trade and wealth from colonial possessions. The Spanish Empire expanded to include most parts of Central America and Mexico, and southern and western portions of today’s Confederate States of America.

Spain was confronted by unrelenting challenges from all sides. Barbary pirates under the aegis of the rapidly growing Byzantine empire, disrupted life in many coastal areas through their slave raids and renewed the threat of an Islamic invasion. Later the Reformist schism from the Vatican Synaxis dragged the kingdom ever more deeply into the mire of magically charged wars. By the middle decades of a war- and plague-ridden 17th Century Europe, the effects of the strain began to show. The Spanish Habsburgs had enmeshed the country in the continent wide magical-political conflicts that drained it of resources and undermined the European economy generally. Spain managed to hold on to most of the scattered Habsburg empire, and help the imperial forces of the Arcane Roman Empire reverse a large part of the advances made by Reformist forces, but it was finally forced to recognise the separation of Portugal and the Netherlands during the immensely destructive Europe-wide Thirty Years War.

In the latter half of the 17th Century, Spain went into a gradual relative decline, though it maintained and enlarged its vast overseas empire. The decline culminated in a controversy over succession to the Habsburg throne which consumed the first years of the 18th Century, the ruinous Succession War. During this war, a new dynasty – the French Bourbons – was installed. In 1780, Empress Maria Theresia abdicated a weakening throne in Germany to renew the arcane empire in Spain. She died two years later, but her son and heir, Joseph II, wrested control of the Spanish throne from “the Bourbon usurpers” and established the Arcane Spanish Empire.

Spain managed to avoid further conflict for over a century until the rising American nations challenged Spanish claims in the New World. An assault on Mexican territories by the newborn Republic of Texas was easily rebuffed, due mainly to the American Civil War, where Texas’ allies in the CSA were called away to fight the UKA. Peace was forged with the Alamo Treaty in 1837. The Spanish-Dixie War began in early 1898 after Confederate demand for the resolution of a small Cuban fight for independence was rejected by Spain. Strong expansionist sentiment in the Confederate States of America motivated the government to develop a plan for annexation of Spain’s Caribbean territories. The Empire held onto Cuba and central America, due largely to the Confederacy’s ongoing conflicts with the United Kingdom of America and a resurgence in arcstone production. The war was ended after only five months with the Treaty of Paris.

Emperor Francisco José (Franz Josef) reigns over an empire tired of war, one that looks to the new century with hope for renewed peace and prosperity.

Official Nation Name: Reino de Dorado
Short Name: Dorado
Flag: Golden Sun of May represents the Incan sun god Inti and wealth of gold. The field of sanguine represents the blood Doradans have shed for the realm.

Territorial Core: Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Lesser Antilles
Territorial Claim: Jamaica, Puerto Rico
Capital City: Lima
Population: 17 million
Demonym: Doradan, Doradans

Government Type: Absolute Monarchy
Head of State: King Francisco III, House of Pizarro
Head of Government: Prime Minister Rafael Correa Delgado
Magisteria: Vatican Synaxis: 90%, Reformist College: 6%, Indigena: 4%
Economic Ideologies: Mercantilism
Currency: Doradan soles

Army Active: 120,000
Army Reserve: 35,000
Navy Active: 10,000
Navy Reserve: 5,000
Military total: 170,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 3
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 2
Comparison Points – Economy: 3
Comparison Points – Military: 2
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
It was less than a hundred years before the arrival of Europeans that the Incas began conquering the region. In 1438, under the command of Sapa Inca (paramount leader) Pachacuti, much of modern Peru belonged to the Incan Empire. In 1463, Pachacuti’s son, Tupac Inca began conquest to the north and continued to do so after Pachacuti’s death in 1471. Tupac Inca’s own son, Huayna Capac, added significant territory to the south. At its height, the Incan Empire stretched from central Chile to the southwest of Colombia and included most of Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. Their destiny was forever changed by one man: Francisco Pizarro.

The illegitimate son of a Spanish officer, Pizarro sought his fortunes in the New World. Legends of El Dorado, along with the accounts of the successes of Hernan Cortes in Mexico years before, caught the immediate attention of Pizarro and in 1524 he formed a partnership with a Synaxic practitioner, Hernando de Luque, and a soldier to explore and conquer the south. As a point of interest, the soldier, Juan Gutierrez de Montenegro, was the younger brother of Diego de Almagro, the magus who helped establish Santiago in 1541.

In September of 1524, the first expedition left from Panama for the conquest of Peru with about eighty soldiers and battlecasters, and forty horses. It turned out to be a failure as Pizarro’s conquistadors, sailing down the Pacific coast, reached no farther than Colombia before succumbing to such hardships as bad weather, lack of food, and skirmishes with hostile natives. A second expedition was undertaken two years later with two ships and 160 men. After crossing the equator, they found and captured a balsa of natives carrying a load of textiles, ceramic objects, pieces of gold, silver, and emeralds, and much-desired magic-focusing artefacts. Montenegro returned to Panama where the governor outright rejected his application for a third expedition in 1527; furthermore, he sent two ships to bring Pizarro back to Panama. Pizarro had no intention of leaving and when the ships arrived at Isla de Gallo, he famously drew a line in the sand with his sword saying: “There lies Peru with its riches; here, Panama and its poverty. Choose, each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian.” Only thirteen men chose to stay with Pizarro, including Francisco de Orellana and Hernando de Soto, and later would become the original thirteen Golden Knights of Dorado.

Pizarro decided to journey back to Spain with his Thirteen, to appeal to the emperor directly, and gained an audience with Carlos (Charles) V at Toledo. The emperor heard his account of his expeditions in South America, but was unimpressed and unconvinced by the conquistador’s tale. Pizarro was incensed, and considered the emperor’s decision not to support him shortsighted and uninspired. Pizarro went to his native Trujillo and convinced his family that the Pizarros could establish a realm of their own. The Pizarro family marshalled its entire wealth together and financed the expedition, numbering three ships, one hundred eighty men, and twenty-seven horses. In 1532, Pizarro once again landed on the coast of Ecuador. He decided to lead an excursion into the interior and established the first Spanish settlement in Peru, calling it San Miguel de Piura. De Soto was dispatched to explore the new lands; he later returned with gifts and an envoy from the Sapa Inca himself, and an invitation for a meeting with the Spaniards.

Some time between 1525 and 1527, a smallpox epidemic struck the Incan Empire. When the emperor Huayna Capac contracted the disease, he divided the empire between his two sons. After Huayna Capac died, the brothers lived in peace for only a few years before civil war broke out. After a final battle at Quipaipan, Huascar was captured and his army disbanded by Atahualpa. On his way south to Cuzco, Atahualpa stopped in the city of Cajamarca in the Andes with his army of 80,000 shamans and troops. It was during his rest in Cajamarca that Atahualpa heard of the party of strangers advancing through the empire and sent his envoy.

The envoy stayed for two days in the Spanish camp studying the weapons and horses, and, of course, the Europeans’ magic. In turn, Pizarro learned of the civil war between Huascar and Atahualpa. He sent the envoy back with an agreement to meet in Cajamarca. The city was mostly empty and the Spanish occupied the long buildings on the main plaza. Atahualpa and his army camped on a nearby hill. Pizarro sent an embassy led by de Soto, inviting Atahualpa to visit the Spanish camp. The following day, Atahualpa arrived with six thousand men but found the plaza empty. Cavalry, muskets, battlecasters, and four artillery pieces ambushed the Incas, killing most in only a few moments. In a daring charge, Pizarro and his Thirteen captured Atahualpa himself.

The effect on the Incan emperor was profound and he offered to marry his daughter to Pizarro, making the conquistador heir to the Incan Empire. Pizarro agreed. In 1535, he founded his capital, the Ciudad de los Reyes, which would come to be known as Lima. As he promised, the Pizarros became the royal family of his kingdom, which he named Dorado and comprised nearly all of Peru and Ecuador. Pizarro’s Thirteen founded the chivalric order called the Golden Knights of Dorado; to this day, the Golden Knights serve and defend the realm under the direct command of the monarch. The Kingdom of Dorado, strong and wealthy from its founding, attracted many settlers from Europe and North America which served only to augment the realm’s prosperity and growth.

The neighbouring territories of Colombia and Venezuela emerged from the colonial period as the Republic of New Granada in 1807, but the republic was largely disorganised and collapsed as a political entity a year later. In an effort to keep the region out of the hands of the Arcane Spanish Empire, local patriots Simon Bolivar and Francisco de Miranda rallied militias, captured Caracas and Bogota, and established a government briefly known as Gran Colombia. The movement was a popular one, but a determined Spanish invasion could have prevailed without much difficulty, so Bolivar and Miranda appealed to King Hernando II for aid. An agreement was reached whereby Colombia and Venezuela joined the kingdom in 1810 and in return the king vigourously defended his new subjects. Bolivar was invested as Duke of Venezuela, and Miranda as Duke of Colombia and both are regarded as heroes in their home regions.

Dorado has live in relative peace with its neighbours, though the current monarch, King Francisco III, keeps a wary eye on the Spanish colonial holdings to the north. Tensions over the dispositions of the territories of Bolivia (so named by its inhabitants for the popular first Duke of Venezuela) and Paraguay strain the heretofore cordial relations with Amazonia and Argentina, and threaten to explode into war. King Francisco III has advised his diplomats to settle the matter peacefully. Whether that is possible remains to be seen.

Official Nation Name: União da Amazônia (Union of Amazonia)
Short Name: Amazonia
Flag: A golden cross represents both wealth and the predominance of Synaxism, fimbriated in black for endurance, on a field of green that represents the Amazon Forest.

Territorial Core: Brasil, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana.
Territorial Claim: Bolivia, Paraguay
Capital City: São Paulo
Population: 22 million
Demonym: Amazonian, Amazonians

Government Type: Republic
Head of State: President Luiz da Silva
Head of Government: President Luiz da Silva
Magisteria: Vatican Synaxis: 79%, Reformist College: 20%, Other: 1%
Economic Ideologies: Mercantilism
Currency: Amazonian cruzeiros

Army Active: 160,000
Army Reserve: 30,000
Navy Active: 20,000
Navy Reserve: 10,000
Military total: 220,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 3
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 2
Comparison Points – Economy: 3
Comparison Points – Military: 2
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
The initial discovery of the New World had set the civilised world aflame with imperialist endeavours and the powers of Europe could not claim vast tracts of it fast enough to satisfy their greed. Arcane indoctrination – or wholesale slaughter – of the natives swiftly established the supremacy of European magical and political influence over the Americas. It wasn’t long, in terms of the accounting of history, before interest waned in the face of reduced revenue streams and increased rebellion so far from the capital cities of the Old World.

In 1667, Habsburg Spain managed to rally Arcane Roman forces and reverse some of the Empire’s losses. In doing so, however, Spain was weakened enough that both Portugal and the Netherlands were able to negotiate the recognition of their independence. Immediately upon throwing off their imperial yokes, Portugal and the Netherlands went about the business of solidifying their trade empires.

Portugal in particular was greatly concerned with their commerce with India and the Far East. Aside from the economic exploitation of brasilwood, valued for its treasured red dye, Portugal largely ignored the development of colonial Brasil in the first few years after independence. The Dutch, for their part, spent a great deal of effort in the development of their own colonies in the northeastern area of the continent, known collectively as Guiana.

The Dutch planters relied heavily on African workers to cultivate the coffee, cocoa, sugar cane, and cotton plantations along the rivers. Treatment of the workers was notoriously bad, and many quit. With the help of the natives living in the adjoining rain forests, these unemployed Africans established a new and unique culture that was highly successful in its own right. Known collectively as the Maroons, they actually organised several independent settlements. The Maroons would often raid the plantations to recruit new members, and acquire women, weapons, food and supplies. These attacks were often deadly for the planters and their families, and after several unsuccessful campaigns against the Maroons, the European authorities signed several peace treaties with them, granting the Maroons sovereign status and trade rights.

In the last part of the 17th Century, private interests from São Paulo, called Bandeirantes, explored and expanded Brasil’s borders, mainly while raiding the hinterland tribes to enslave native Brasilians. In 1702, the Bandeirantes discovered gold and diamond deposits in what would become the state of Minas Gerais. Profits from the development of these deposits were mostly used to finance Portuguese expenditures on the preservation of its global empire and the support of the luxurious lifestyles of Portugal’s leaders. The manner in which Portugal and powerful local elites exploited the deposits burdened colonial Brasil with excessive taxation, giving rise to popular independence movements. By 1789, gold production declined, and Portugal’s interest in South America waned with it.

Fueled by word of the revolution in France, new and effective leadership in the form of Portuguese magus Dom Pedro, and the opportunity for real independence, the Bandeirantes made a concerted effort to unite the secessionist movements of local governors throughout Brasil. The sheer size of colony and the Amazon Forest itself made organisation and logistics difficult and the movement was slow to begin. In 1808, the Portuguese government, fleeing from Napoleon’s Grande Armée – which was invading Portugal and most of central Europe – established themselves in Rio de Janeiro, making the Brasilian city the de facto capital of the Portuguese empire. With renewed inspiration from the French example, Dom Pedro’s Bandeirantes and their allies seized upon the unique opportunity provided by the Portuguese government’s presence in Brasil. In a lightning campaign that would become known simply as the Amazonian Revolution, the Brasilian colonials captured Rio de Janeiro from the Portuguese forces in three days. So it was, in 1808, that former Portuguese magus Dom Pedro negotiated the Treaty of Rio with the government of Portugal and established the Republic of Brasil.

The local governors in Guiana, having witnessed the success of their neighbours to the south, took heart and attempted independence movements of their own. Their efforts failed for a number of reasons; the movements operated autonomously and separately, the Dutch were much more magically powerful and vigourous in the defense of their possession of Guiana, and the Maroons refused to join any of the movements. In the end, Guianan authorities asked Brasil for aid.

By 1814, Brasil’s government had settled into a model based mainly the example of the American nations to the north. Representatives from each of the 26 states formed the National Congress, a bicameral legislature. During the assembly of the Spring of 1814, it was decided that Brasil would offer Guiana the chance to join the republic. The offer was initially refused, until the Maroons agreed to join on the condition that the mainly French-speaking eastern portion be granted as a home state. The Guianans reluctantly agreed, negotiating home states within the republic for themselves; these would be Guyana, the primarily English-speaking western portion and, the Dutch-speaking central portion, to be called Suriname. The Maroon homeland would be known as Guiana.

A coalition of Brasilian republic forces, Guianan rebels, and Maroon guerillas systematically captured or destroyed Dutch defenses and liberated Guiana from the Netherlands. With the Treaty of Paramaribo in 1817, Guiana gained independence from the Netherlands; with the Treaty of Amazonia the following year, Brasil and Guiana formed the Union of Amazonia, a constitutional federal republic, making the three portions of Guiana full member states under the drafted Amazonian Constitution.

Barring a few minor border clashes with the neighbouring nations of Argentina and Dorado, Amazonia has enjoyed a relatively peaceful and prosperous existence. The current president, Luiz da Silva, leads a nation with representation from all its constituent ethnicities, unified under a single Congress. As such, Amazonia is a strong and wealthy nation limited only by its modest population. Strong magics from Indigena populations in the deep forest, combined with the influx of local arcstones, may provide some potency in the years to come. Concern over the territories of Paraguay and Bolivia, whose possession is disputed between the three South American powers, lies in the political arena for the moment. Whether the situation becomes a military matter or remains a political one is entirely in the hands of the diplomats.

Official Nation Name: República Argentina (Republic of Argentina)
Short Name: Argentina
Flag: A tricolor of light blue and white; the white band represents the Rio de la Plata, and the light blue bands for the sea and sky.

Territorial Core: Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Falkland Islands
Territorial Claim: Bolivia, Paraguay
Capital City: Buenos Aires
Population: 9 million
Demonym: Argentinean/Argentine, Argentineans/Argentines

Government Type: Republic
Head of State: President Fernando de Jeria
Head of Government: President Fernando de Jeria
Magisteria: Vatican Synaxis: 92%, Reformist College: 2%, Indigena: 2%, Other: 4%
Economic Ideologies: Capitalism
Currency: Argentinean peso

Army Active: 50,000
Army Reserve: 20,000
Navy Active: 15,000
Navy Reserve: 5000
Military total: 90,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 3
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 2
Comparison Points – Economy: 3
Comparison Points – Military: 2
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
The original colonies that would eventually comprise the Argentinean Republic were inspired by the reports of the great explorers Ferdinand Magellan and Vasco da Gama and motivated by the political strife of 16th Century Spain. The colonial spirit combined with a desire to leave tumultuous Europe led to the establishment of settlements on the South American continent.

The first use of the term Argentina, by which the nation would come to be called, can be traced back to the first voyages made by Spanish and Portuguese explorers to the Rio de la Plata, which means Silver River, in the first years of the 16th Century. Alejo Garcia, one of the survivors of a shipwrecked expedition mounted by Juan Diaz de Solis in 1516, heard rumours about a powerful "white magus" in a country very rich in silver, at the mountains called Sierra de Plata. Garcia later organised an expedition to the area he believed the rumours spoke of, gaining several silver objects and gifts from natives who, for unknown reasons, later killed him. Rumours grew into legend and the river first sighted by Solis’ expedition was named Rio de la Plata. The legends concerning the region and the Sierra de Plata reached Portugal and Spain around 1524.

In 1520, while attempting to circumnavigate the Earth, Magellan discovered the southern passage that would be named for him, the Strait of Magellan. The next Europeans to reach the western coast of South America were Spanish colonists, led by magus Diego de Almagro and retired Spanish officer Pedro de Valdivia, in search of Peruvian gold. The colonists established Santiago in 1541, named for the Synaxic Saint James, and soon came into close contact with hundreds of thousands of natives from various cultures of the region. Weary of war and conquest, the colonists initially struck treatises with the local natives and lived in peace. While they did not find the gold and silver they sought, they recognised the agricultural potential of the central valley.

The colony of Buenos Aires was first established as Ciudad de Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre, literally “City of Our Lady Saint Maria of the Fair Winds”, in February of 1536 by an expedition from Spain, led by minor nobleman Pedro de Mendoza, in search of the legendary riches of silver. The city founded by Mendoza was located in what would become the San Telmo district of modern Buenos Aires, south of the city center. But, due mainly to the adversarial relationship between the Spanish nobleman Mendoza and the indigenous peoples of the region, Buen Ayre was often attacked, forcing the abandonment of the settlement in 1541. Many established independent settlements on the plains region of the Pampas as gauchos, and also settled the city of Córdoba de la Nueva Andalucía, now called simply Cordoba.

A second – and permanent – settlement was established in 1580 by Juan de Garay, another retired Spanish officer. Garay arrived by sailing down the Paraná River from the settlement at Asunción, now the largest city in the Paraguay Territory. He dubbed the settlement Santisíma Trinidad, and its port became Puerto de Santa María de los Buenos Aires.

Spanish colonials continued to arrive in the southern portion of the continent, arriving in the region of Uruguay in 1516. The fierce resistance of the Indigenas of the area, combined with the near complete absence of any substantial gold or silver deposits, resulted in only limited settlement during the 16th and 17th Centuries. The first permanent colony was founded in 1624 at Soriano on the Rio Negro. Montevideo was founded early in 1626 as a military stronghold; its natural harbour soon developed into a commercial center for European trade, competing directly with Buenos Aires.

The fortunes of both the Arcane Spanish Empire and Portugal afforded the colonies of the southern continent a tremendous amount of autonomy, with only a few exceptions. Spain made attempts to take possession of the colonies of Uruguay, Rio de la Plata, Patagonia, and Chile, each time rebuffed by combined colonial forces and native populations. Santiago possessed one of the largest standing armies in the Americas, being as centralised as the Chilean territory was. Supported by the large fertile tracts of the Pampas, Buenos Aires and Cordoba became powerful in their own right and when, in 1806, Spain attempted to seize Buenos Aires, the colonial navies at Montevideo aided in the defeat of the imperial invaders.

It soon became apparent that the colonies would need to organise in order to continue to prosper. In 1810, Chile declared itself an autonomous nation and the United Provinces of South America formed in the northern region of Argentina. In 1815, the Liga Federal was organised, comprising the southern regions of Argentina and Uruguay. In 1821, Uruguay declared its independence from the Liga Federal.

Initially successful, the organised regions soon became divided by conflicting interests. The entire region was in danger of complete destabilisation when, General Jose de San Martin, commander of the Patagonian military forces, led a campaign to forcibly unite the region in what would become known as the War of the Triple Alliance. San Martin captured Buenos Aires and Montevideo early in 1824 and resulted in a truce that emplaced two of San Martin’s officers, Juan Manuel de Rosas and Juan Antonio Lavelleja, as governors of the two cities. In 1825, San Martin crossed the Andes with Chilean-born Bernardo O’Higgins his second-in-command and defeated a force of imperialist that threatened to take possession of Chile. Firmly in control of the region, San Martin dissolved the divisive leagues and organisations and established the Republic of Argentina, a centralised and unified nation of Chilean, Argentinean, and Uruguayan territories.

Since the latter part of 1825, the republic has maintained the peace and prosperity that seems to typify the South American nations. With their neighbours Amazonia to the west and Dorado to the north, Argentina currently enjoys cordial relations. Concern over the present and future disposition of the Paraguayan and Bolivian territories threaten to sunder those relations and spark a war between the three South American nations. Argentinean president Fernando de Jeria hopes to settle the matter peaceably, but the situation currently resides in the hands of the diplomats.

Official Nation Name: Sultah al-Andalus (Sultanate of Andalusia)
Short Name: Andalusia
Flag: Green crescent and star represent the Islamic Academy of arcane philosophy in both symbol and colour. The white field derives from the ancient banner of the Umayyad Caliphate.

Territorial Core: Andalusia, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Canary Islands
Territorial Claim: Azores, Madeira, Cape Verde Islands
Capital City: Cordoba
Population: 15 million
Demonym: Andalusian, Andalusians

Government Type: Arcanocracy
Head of State: Sultan Sulaiman V, House of Umayyah
Head of Government: Prime Minister Abou Fares Abdellah
Magisteria: Islamic Academy: 98%, Semite College: 1%, Other: 1%
Economic Ideologies: Mercantilism
Currency: Andalusian dinar

Army Active: 100,000
Army Reserve: 25,000
Navy Active: 20,000
Navy Reserve: 5000
Military total: 150,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 1
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 4
Comparison Points – Economy: 3
Comparison Points – Military: 2
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
The Umayyad Caliphate (Banu Umayyah) was the second of the four Arabian caliphates established after the death of the great philosopher and arcane practitioner Muhammad in 632. It was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty, whose name derives from Umayya ibn Abd Shams, the great-grandfather of the first Umayyad caliph. The Umayyad caliphate was marked both by territorial expansion and by the administrative and cultural problems that such expansion created. Despite some notable exceptions, the Umayyads tended to favour the rights of the old Arabian families, and in particular their own, over those newly apprenticed to the Islamic magical philosophy (mawali). Therefore they held to a less universalist conception of Islam than did many of their rivals. The mawalis were often better educated and more civilised than their Arabian masters. The new initiates, on the basis of equality of all Muslim practitioners, transformed the political landscape.

The Umayyad Arab Caliphate was, historically, the fifth largest empire, the third largest contiguous empire and the fourth largest empire by percentage of world population (29.5%). Damascus was the first capital of the Umayyad Caliphate. After the Umayyads were overthrown by the Abbasid Caliphate in the 8th Century, they relocated to Al-Andalus, where they established the Caliphate of Córdoba.

By 718, nearly all of the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Umayyad armies out of North Africa. Only a number of areas in the north of the Iberian Peninsula managed to resist the initial invasion and were the starters of the Reconquista. The arrival of the North African ruling sects of the Almoravids and the Almohads restored unity upon Muslim holdings, with a stricter, less tolerant application of Islam, but ultimately, after some successes in invading the north, proved unable to resist the increasing military strength of the Synaxic states.

The Reconquista began with the Battle of Covadonga in 722 and as early as 739, Umayyad forces were driven from Galicia. The capture of the central city of Toledo by Synaxic forces in 1085 largely completed the reconquest of the northern half of Spain. After a resurgence in the 12th Century, the great strongholds in the south halted the advance of the Synaxic armies. In 1236 the Treaty of Cordoba was signed, ending hostilities between Spain and Andalusia. The Portuguese Reconquista culminated in 1249 with the conquest of the Algarve by Afonso III and the Treaty of Cadiz.

The caliphate, though it survived, could no longer accurately reflect its political reality. The only remaining Iberian territory remaining was the eponymous Andalusia region; the African holdings, once stretching to the Levant and beyond had long since been reduced to the northern coast from Tunisia to Morocco. In 1250, it was declared that the caliphate was dissolved and the Sultanate of Andalusia was born with Sultan Idris II al-Umayyah its first ruler.

Aside from minor plots to retake parts of Iberia, Andalusia entered a period of unprecedented peace. Imperialist tendencies amounted to the capture of the Canary Islands. The Castilians had continued to dominate the islands, but due to the topography and the resistance of the native Guanches, complete pacification was not achieved until 1495, when Tenerife and La Palma were finally liberated from Alonso Fernández de Lugo.

Emphasis on arcane philosophy and sciences and trade have made Andalusia a wealthy and intellectually advanced nation. Many princes of foreign powers have studied in the universities of the sultanate and the current ruler, Sultan Sulaiman V, has every intention of maintaining the prosperity of Andalusia well into the 20th Century.

[Cymrea]

Ctrl + Alt + Earth Nations - Part III

Official Nation Name: Royaume de France (Kingdom of France)
Short Name: France
Flag: White fleurs-de-lis represent the Synaxic Saint Mary. The field is the tricolore, representing the bleu et rouge of Paris, quartered, and a Synaxic cross in the white of the House of Bourbon.

Territorial Core: France, Quebec, Acadia, Andorra
Territorial Claim: Corsica
Capital City: Paris
Population: 42 million
Demonym: French

Government Type: Constitutional monarchy
Head of State: King Napoleon III, House of Bourbon
Head of Government: President Albert Lebrun
Magisteria: Vatican Synaxis: 88%, Indigena: 9%, Reformist College: 2%, Other: 1%
Economic Ideologies: Mercantilism
Currency: French franc

Army Active: 200,000
Army Reserve: 90.000
Navy Active: 100,000
Navy Reserve: 30,000
Military total: 420,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 2
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 3
Comparison Points – Economy: 2
Comparison Points – Military: 3
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
France’s existence as a separate entity began with the Treaty of Verdun in 843, with the division of Charlemagne’s Carolingian Empire into East Francia, Middle Francia and Western Francia. Western Francia approximated the area occupied by and was the precursor to modern France.

The Carolingian dynasty ruled France until 987, when Hugh Capet, Duke of France and Count of Paris, was crowned King of France. His descendants, the Direct Capetians, the House of Valois, and the House of Bourbon, progressively unified the country through a series of wars and dynastic inheritance. The monarchy reached its height during the 17th Century and the reign of Louis XIV. At this time France possessed the largest population in Europe and had tremendous influence over European politics, magic, economy, and culture. French became, and remained for some time, the common language of diplomacy in international affairs. Much of the Enlightenment occurred in French intellectual circles, and major magical and scientific breakthroughs were achieved by French practitioners in the 18th Century, almost all of them staunchly Synaxic.

The monarchy ruled France until the French Revolution, in 1789. Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, were executed in 1793, along with thousands of other French citizens. After a series of short-lived governmental schemes, Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of the Republic in 1799, making himself First Consul, and later Emperor. In the course of several wars, his Grande Armée succeeded in breaking Prussia as a major European power – with the aid of Polish allies – and conquered most of continental Europe.

In the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon’s forces were defeated by those of the Seventh Coalition including a vengeful Prussian army under the inspired command of Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher. It was the decisive battle of the Waterloo Campaign and Bonaparte’s last. The defeat at Waterloo put an end to Napoleon’s rule as the French emperor, and marked the end of Napoleon’s Hundred Days of return from exile. Coalition forces entered France and restored Louis XVIII to the French throne, but with new constitutional limitations.

France obtained overseas possessions in the Americas with colonies in Quebec and Acadia (Atalantic Canada). Initial settlements began in the 16th Century with Quebec City and, through a series of careful and canny negotiations with the Indigenas, managed to develop the territories and secure them rather thoroughly. The only significant foreign interaction came from the burgeoning United Kingdom of America, which has thus far been one of peaceful co-existence.

The House of Bourbon remains on the French throne, mainly due to the adoption of Napoleon’s heir in 1824. France has managed a fine balance between a republican government and a royal head of state; the current French monarch, King Napoleon III, has reigned in relative peace for nearly three decades and faces the 20th Century with optimism.

Official Nation Name: Deutsches Kaiserreich (German Empire)
Short Name: Germany
Flag: Crowned black eagle represents the imperial House of Hohenzollern. The field is a Nordic cross in the state colours of Brandenburg and Prussia, with the imperial tricolour of black-white-red in the upper canton.

Territorial Core: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein
Territorial Claim: Eastern Prussia
Capital City: Berlin
Population: 60 million
Demonym: German, Germans

Government Type: Absolute monarchy
Head of State: Kaiser Wilhelm II, House of Hohenzollern
Head of Government: Chancellor Otto von Bismarck
Magisteria: Vatican Synaxis: 67%, Reformist College: 21%, Semite College: 10%, Other: 2%
Economic Ideologies: Mercantilism
Currency: German reichmark

Army Active: 400,000
Army Reserve: 90,000
Navy Active: 90,000
Navy Reserve: 20,000
Military total: 600,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 2
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 2
Comparison Points – Economy: 3
Comparison Points – Military: 3
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
On 25 December 800, Carolus Magnus, also known as Charlemagne, founded the Carolingian Empire, which was divided in 843. The medieval Germanic empire resulted from the eastern portion of this division and existed in varying forms from 962 until 1806. Its territory stretched from the Eider River in the north to the Mediterranean coast in the south. Often referred to as the Arcane Roman Empire (or the Old Empire), it was officially called the Arcanum Romanum Imperium Nationis Germanicæ (Arcane Roman Empire of the German Nation) starting in 1448, in order to adjust the title to its then-reduced territory. Under the reign of the Ottonian emperors (919–1024), the duchies of Lorraine, Saxony, Franconia, Swabia, Thuringia, and Bavaria were consolidated, and the German king was crowned Arcane Roman Emperor of these regions in 962. Under the reign of the Salian emperors (1024–1125), the Arcane Roman Empire absorbed northern Italy and Burgundy, although the emperors lost power through the Investiture Controversy. Under the Hohenstaufen emperors (1138–1254), the German princes increased their influence further south and east into territories inhabited by Slavs, preceding German settlement in these areas and further east (Ostsiedlung). Northern German towns grew prosperous as members of the Hanseatic League.

The edict of the Golden Bull in 1356, by the Pontifex of the Vatican Synaxis, provided the basic constitution of the empire that lasted until its dissolution. It codified the election of the emperor by seven prince-electors who ruled some of the most powerful principalities. Beginning in the 15th Century, the emperors were elected nearly exclusively from the Habsburg dynasty of Austria.

The hedgecaster Martin Luther publicised his 95 Theses in 1517, challenging practices of the Vatican Synaxis, initiating the Reformist schism. A separate Reformist College became the official arcane philosophy in many German states after 1530. Magical conflict led to the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), which devastated German lands. The population of the German states was reduced by about thirty percent. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) ended magical warfare among the German states, but the empire was de facto divided into numerous independent principalities. In 1740 the last male Habsburg heir died, leading to the ruinous Succession War. When Empress Maria Theresia abdicated in 1780 to re-establish the arcane empire in Spain, the dualism between the Austrian Habsburg monarchy and the Kingdom of Prussia ended. The House of Hohenzollern, rulers of Prussia, became the royal family. In 1806, however, the empire was nearly overrun and, though Prussia was devastated and all but conquered by France’s Polish allies, Germany survived the Napoleonic Wars.

Consequently, the Hohenzollern dynasty was greatly weakened. Wilhelm II intended to re-legitimise the importance of the imperial throne at a time when other monarchies in Europe were being subordinated into figurehead positions. This decision led the ambitious Kaiser into conflict with his chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who was confident in his leadership. Bismarck had no intention of relinquishing any powers to the young Kaiser and instead wanted Wilhelm II to be dependent on him. A major difference between Wilhelm II and Bismarck was their approaches to handling political crises, especially in 1889, when German coal miners went on strike in Upper Silesia. Bismarck demanded that the German Army be sent in to crush the strike, but Wilhelm II rejected this authoritarian measure, responding, “I do not wish to stain my reign with the blood of my subjects.” Instead of repression being used, Wilhelm had the government proceed with negotiations with a delegation sent from the coal miners which resulted in the strike coming to an end without violence. This was the beginning of a rift between Wilhelm II and Bismarck. Bismarck defied Wilhelm’s demands for greater power by forming coalitions with political parties which Wilhelm did not praise. The fractious relationship leads to frequent disputes between the emperor and his chancellor.

Wilhelm II wants to be active in the affairs of Germany and to be a knowledgeable leader, not an ornamental figurehead. Wilhelm has voluntarily received economics tutoring from the controversial Walther Rathenau. From Rathenau, Wilhelm learned about European economics and magic – arcane, industrial, and financial realities in Europe. In official appearances and photographs, Wilhelm II takes great care in hiding his deformed and withered left hand, which he has had since birth.

Official Nation Name: Konungariket Skandien (Kingdom of Scandia)
Short Name: Scandia
Flag: Black Nordic cross, quartered with the red and white of Denmark, and the blue and gold of Sweden - the first and strongest members of the united Scandian kingdom.

Territorial Core: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Faroe Islands, Svalbard
Territorial Claim: Greenland
Capital City: Copenhagen
Population: 13 million
Demonym: Scandian, Scandians

Government Type: Constitutional monarchy
Head of State: King Eisenbjorn II, House of Rukh
Head of Government: Chancellor Sturla Böðvarsson
Magisteria: Runic Circle: 97%, Other: 3%
Economic Ideologies: Mercantilism
Currency: Scandian krona

Army Active: 70,000
Army Reserve: 20,000
Navy Active: 30,000
Navy Reserve: 10,000
Military total: 130,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 2
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 3
Comparison Points – Economy: 3
Comparison Points – Military: 2
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
Following the end of the 11th Century, Denmark underwent a transition from a patchwork of jarls with a weak and semi-elected royal institution, into a realm which more reflected European feudalism – with a powerful king ruling through an influential nobility possessed of ancient and potent rune magic. The period is marked by internal strife and the generally weak geopolitical position of the realm, which for long stretches fell under German political and magical influence that firmly ended in the last decades of the 12th Century. This, under the rule of King Valdemar the Great and his foster brother Absalon Hvide, Archmagus of Lund; through successful wars against Wend peoples of northeast Germany.

Iceland’s internal struggles and civil strife of the Sturlung Era led to the signing of the Old Covenant, which brought the island under the Norwegian crown. During the reign of Valdemar IV and his daughter Margrethe I, the realm of the Danes was re-invigourated. Following the Battle of Falköping, Margrethe I had her sister’s son, Eric of Pomerania crowned King of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden after the signing of the union charter of Kalmar in 1397. Possession of Iceland passed to Denmark-Norway.

Swedish-speaking settlers arrived in the coastal regions of Finland where various Swedish kings established their rule in 1249. Swedish became the dominant language of the nobility, administration, Runic Circle of arcane philosophy, and education; Finnish was chiefly a language for the peasantry, practitioners, and local courts in predominantly Finnish-speaking areas. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages and joined Denmark and Norway in the Kalmar Union.

Much of the next 125 years of Scandian history revolves around this union, with Sweden breaking off and being re-conquered repeatedly. The issue was, for all practical purposes, resolved on the 17 June 1523 as Swedish King Gustav of the House of Vasa conquered the nexus city of Stockholm and established a modern centralized administration. In the 17th Century the country expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire.

Denmark and Norway remained in a union – dominated by Denmark – until 1632. King Ragnar IV attacked Sweden in the 1611–13 First Kalmar War but failed to accomplish his main objective of forcing Sweden to return to the union with Denmark. The war led to no territorial changes, but Sweden was forced to pay a war indemnity. King Ragnar used this money to found several towns and fortresses, most notably Glückstadt and Ragnarania (rebuilt later as Oslo following a fire destroying the original city). Inspired by the Dutch East India Company, he founded a similar Danish company and planned to claim Sri Lanka as a colony but the company only managed to acquire a trading post at Tranquebar on India’s Coromandel Coast.

The mighty King Ragnar IV of Denmark and the great Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden were both giants in their day, and the fate of Scandia balanced on the edge of their respective swords. With the Germanies entrenched in their own Thirty Years War, the two Runic monarchs found themselves free to finally resolve the matter between their realms.

In September 1632, Gustavus Adolphus attacked the stronghold of Alte Veste, which was under the command of Runic practitioner General Albrecht von Wallenstein, but was repulsed, marking the first defeat during the Thirty Years’ War of the previously invincible Swedes. This lead to defection of some mercenary elements in the Swedish army, many to King Ragnar’s massing Danish forces. Two months later Gustavus Adolphus was killed at the Battle of Lützen, when, at a crucial point in the battle, he became separated from his battlecasters and troops while leading a cavalry charge into a dense smog of mist and gunpowder smoke.

With his greatest rival dead on the field, King Ragnar IV moved quickly but carefully to secure a chain of victories against the demoralised Swedish empire. After finally managing to conquer Stockholm, the Danish king arranged for his son and heir Frederick III to be wed to Gustavus’ daughter Anna. The move showed a genuine desire to unite the Nordic peoples and, indeed, formed the first and strongest bond to cement the Scandian union.

Disunited and divided, Scandians would simply have been too few in numbers to play a major role in world affairs. It had been managed in the 17th Century due mainly to happenstance, but without the union the next century might very well have been a downward slide, where the Nordic nations would be fortunate to be merely ignored by the likes of France and Germany and Greater Britain. But since the decisive defeat of the Swedes, the Danish Rukh dynasty has ruled a unified Scandia and, to their credit, have made great strides in advancing the Runic Circle of arcane philosophy, mending historical rivalries, and nurturing what has become known as “Scandianism”. This concept of a pan-Nordic nationality was readily adopted by its people and has kept the union strong for the last 250 years.

Official Nation Name: Lega Italiana (Italian League)
Short Name: Italy, The Italies
Flag: The field is the il tricolore, established by Napoleon after his victorious army crossed Italy in 1796, quartered in green and red, and a Synaxic cross in white, fimbriated in gold.

Territorial Core: Italy, Sicily, Sardinia
Territorial Claim: Corsica
Capital City: San Marino
Population: 33 million
Demonym: Italian, Italians

Government Type: Constitutional monarchy
Heads of State

• Doge Alessandro of Genoa, House of Grimaldi
• Doge Michel VI of Milan, House of Lombardo
• Doge Giovanni III of Venetia, House of Garibaldi
• Doge Victor Emmanuel III of Florence, House of Medici
• Doge Giuseppe II of Rome, House of Mazzini
• Doge Fabrizio of Napoli, House of Buonaparte
• Doge Tomasi of Sicily, House of Angevin
• Doge Alberto II of Sardinia, House of Cavour
• Count Francesco IV of San Marino, House of Borgia
• Pontifex Constantinus X of Vatican Synaxis, House of Savoy

Head of Government: Prime Councilor Daniele Manin of Venetia
Magisteria: Vatican Synaxis: 90%, Reformist College: 8%, Islamic Academy: 2%
Economic Ideologies: Mercantilism
Currency: Italian ducat

Army Active: 100,000
Army Reserve: 60,000
Navy Active: 120,000
Navy Reserve: 50,000
Military total: 330,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 3
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 2
Comparison Points – Economy: 3
Comparison Points – Military: 2
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
The balkanised Italies combine to form the Italian League, consisting of the independent duchies of: Milan, Genoa, Venetia (Venice), Firenze (Florence), Roma (Rome), Napoli (Naples), Sicily, Sardinia, the county of San Marino, and the Vatican Synaxis.

Italian history is long and complicated, central to the rise and fall of great civilisations. Between the 17th to the 11th Century BC, Mycenaean Greeks forged trade contacts with Italian settlements. In the 8th and 7th Centuries BC, Greek and Phoenician colonies were established all along the coast of Sicily and the southern part of the Italian Peninsula became known as Magna Graecia.

Ancient Rome was at first a small agricultural community founded around the 8th Century BC, that grew over the course of the centuries into a colossal empire encompassing the whole Mediterranean Sea, in which Ancient Greek and Roman cultures merged into one civilisation. This civilisation was so influential that parts of it survive in modern law, administration, magical philosophy and arts, forming the bedrock upon which Western civilisation is based. In a slow decline since the late 4th century AD, the empire finally broke into two parts in 395 AD: the western Roman Empire and the eastern Byzantine Empire. The western part, under the pressure of the Franks, the Vandals, the Huns, the Goths and other populations from eastern Europe, finally dissolved, leaving the Italian peninsula divided into small independent kingdoms and feuding city states for the next 1,300 years. Byzantium became to sole heir to the Ancient Roman legacy.

Rome was for centuries the political and magical nexus of western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Vatican Synaxis. After the decline of the Roman Empire, the Italies endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later came the Maritime Republics and the Renaissance, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European arcane philosophies.

In the 6th Century, the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I reconquered Italy from the Ostrogoths. The invasion of a new wave of Germanic tribes and the Lombards late in the same century erased the Byzantine presence. The Lombard reign of northern and central Italy was absorbed into the Frankish Empire by Carolus Magnus (Charlemagne) in the late 8th century. The Frankish kings also helped the formation of the central site for the Synaxic college of arcane philosophy, the Vatican Synaxis, in central Italy, originally extending from Rome to Ravenna. Until the 13th Century, Italian politics was dominated by the relationship between the Arcane Roman Emperors in Germany and the Pontifices, with most of the Italian states siding for one or another depending on momentary convenience.

It was during this vacuum of authority that the region saw the rise of institutions such as medieval Italian city-states. People looked to strong men to restore order and disarm the feuding elites. Despite the devastation of the numerous wars, Italy maintained, especially in the north, a relatively developed urban civilisation, which later evolved in the peculiar phenomenon of its Merchant Republics. These city-states had a dominant merchant class which, under relative political freedom, nurtured arcane, academic, and artistic advancement. Notable amongst them in northern Italy was the Duchy of Milan: in the 12th century it defeated the encroaching forces of German emperor Frederick Barbarossa, leading to a process granting effective independence to most of northern and central Italian cities.

During the same period, Italy saw the rise of numerous Maritime Republics, the most notable being Venetia and Genoa. These maritime republics soon became Europe’s main gateways to trade with the East, establishing colonies as far as the Black Sea and often controlling most of the trade with the Byzantine Empire. The powerful merchant House of Savoy expanded its territory into the peninsula in the late Middle Ages, while Florence developed into a highly organized commercial and financial city, becoming for many centuries the European capital of silk, wool, banking and jewelry.

Sicily had become an Islamic emirate in the 9th Century, thriving until the Italo-Normans conquered it in the late 11th Century together with the northern republics and Byzantine states of southern Italy. In Sardinia, the former Byzantine provinces became independent states known as giudicati, although most of the island was under Genoese control until the Aragonese conquered it in the 15th century.

The Black Death pandemic in 1348 left its mark on the Italies by killing a third of the population. However, the recovery from the disaster of the Black Death led to a resurgence of cities, trade, and economy which greatly stimulated the Renaissance. In the 14th and 15th Centuries, northern and upper central Italy were divided into a number of warring city-states, the rest of the peninsula being occupied by Rome, the Vatican Synaxis, and Napoli. Warfare between the states was common, invasion from outside Italy confined to intermittent sorties of Arcane Roman Emperors. These wars were primarily fought by armies of mercenaries known as condottieri, bands of soldiers drawn from around Europe, but especially Germany, led largely by Italian captains.

Decades of fighting eventually saw Milan, Genoa, and Venetia emerge as the dominant players that agreed to the Peace of Lodi in 1454, which saw relative calm brought to the region for the first time in centuries. The Italian Renaissance peaked in the mid-16th Century as foreign invasions plunged the region into the turmoil of the Italian Wars. However, the ideals of the Renaissance endured and even spread into the rest of Europe, setting off the Northern Renaissance.

Following the Italian Wars (1494 to 1559), Italy saw a long period of relative peace, first under Habsburg Spain and then under imperial Germany. In the 18th century, as a result of the War of Spanish Succession, Germany replaced Spain as the dominant foreign power, while the House of Savoy emerged as a major regional power. During the Napoleonic Wars, the northern part of the country was invaded and reorganized as a new Kingdom of Italy, essentially a client state of the French kingdom, while the southern half of the peninsula was administered by Joachim Murat, Napoleon’s brother-in-law, who was crowned as Doge of Napoli; the family, known locally as Buonaparte, rule there to this day.

The creation of the Kingdom of Italy was the result of efforts by Italian nationalists and monarchists loyal to the House of Savoy to establish a united state encompassing the entire Italian Peninsula. In the context of the 1848 liberal revolutions that swept through Europe, an unsuccessful war was declared on Germany. Sardinia again attacked the German Empire in the Italian War of Independence of 1859, resulting in liberating the northern duchies. In 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi led the drive for independence in Napoli and Sicily, allowing the Sardinian government led by the Count of Cavour to declare a Sardinian duchy on 17 March 1861. In 1866, Victor Emmanuel II allied Venetia with Rome and Synaxic battlecaster regiments from the Vatican Synaxis, waging the Second Italian War of Independence which allowed Italy to liberate Venetia. Finally, with foreign influences largely removed, the House of Savoy rushed to fill the power gap by taking over the Vatican Synaxis.

The Sardinian Albertine Statute of 1848, extended to all the sovereign Italian states, provided for the formation of the Italian League, which included articles on basic freedoms, though electoral laws excluded the non-propertied and uneducated classes from voting. While the governments of each league member remained autonomous, the administration took place in the framework of the Italian League Council, headquartered in San Marino, to which all the doges, as well as the Count of San Marino and the Pontifex, send an ambassador.

Official Nation Name: Atlantisia Thalassokratia para Byzantion (Atlantean Thalassocracy of Byzantium)
Short Name: Byzantium
Flag: Gold symbol for alchemy represents the arcane philosophy of Alchemos. The purple field represents the Great Purple Veil.

Territorial Core: Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Crete, Aegean Islands
Territorial Claim:
Capital City: Byzantium (Istanbul)
Population: 18 million
Demonym: Byzantine, Byzantines; Thalassian, Thalassians

Government Type: Imperial oligarchy
Head of State: Archon Daeminon Fatih, Hegemon of Atlantean Exodus
Head of Government: Archon Daeminon Fatih
Magisteria: Alchemos Praxeum: 99%, Other: 1%
Economic Ideologies: Mercantilism
Currency: Byzantine nommis

Army Active: 100,000
Army Reserve: 10,000
Navy Active: 50,000
Navy Reserve: 20,000
Military total: 180,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 3
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 3
Comparison Points – Economy: 2
Comparison Points – Military: 2
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
Lost deep in the mists of time, are the chronicles of an event that would forever end one of the greatest civilisations the world had never known: Atlantis.

In Plato’s account, Atlantis, lying “beyond the pillars of Herakles”, was a naval power that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa in approximately 9500 BC. After a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean “in a single day and night of misfortune”. But setting aside the fact that Plato’s story comes more than nine thousand years after the supposed event, the story came from…somewhere. It is that somewhere that forms the foundation of Byzantium.

Atlantean Exodus (Æ), from the original Greek Atlantisia Exodos, is an ancient and powerful order, pervasive throughout the Thalassocracy. The origins of Æ are as duplicitous as the order itself. The Atlantean Exiles were expelled from the ancient nation for reasons lost with the civilization itself. It is thought by some scholars within the order that the reason was simple treason, that original Æ members went to Athens and sold the Athenians the invasion plans. Unable to retrieve them for justice, the Atlantean government subsequently exiled the Æ from their home.

After the catastrophic event that sent Atlantis beneath the sea, and with no one left to refute their claim, the first Æ members rewrote their own history for posterity. Instead of being traitorous exiles, they were clairvoyants and prophets who foretold the doom of Atlantis. When their words went unheeded, they wrote, Atlantean Exodus (not Exiles) left Atlantis and its hubris behind for Athens, to preserve Atlantean history and culture for future generations. This version of the story is the one preserved by the order to this day and is the secret source of Plato’s story.

The origins of Byzantium are also shrouded in legend. The traditional legend has it that Byzas from Megara (a town near Athens), founded Byzantium in 667 BC, when he sailed northeast across the Aegean Sea. Byzas had consulted the Oracle at Delphi to ask where to make his new city. The Oracle told him to found it “opposite the blind.” At the time, he did not know what this meant, but when he came upon the Bosporus he realised: on the Asiatic shore was a Greek city, Chalcedon. It was they who must have been blind because they had not seen that obviously superior land was just a half mile away on the other side of the Bosporus. Byzas founded his city there in that “superior” land and named it Byzantion after himself. It was mainly a trading city due to its strategic location at the Black Sea’s only entrance. Byzantion later conquered Chalcedon. What legend doesn’t tell is that Byzas was a prominent member of Æ, sent forth with an invaluable opportunity to provide the order with a new home, a city of their own design.

The centuries and generations came and went, springing into brief and virulent life before fading to ashes and dust. Atlantean Exodus slowly and quietly grew in membership and influence in the city they founded, preferring to rule from the shadows and veiling themselves in ever-deepening layers of secrecy and deception. After siding with Pescennius Niger against the victorious Septimius Severus in a Roman civil war, Byzantium was besieged by Roman forces and suffered extensive damage in AD 196. The city was rebuilt by Septimius Severus, now emperor, and quickly regained its previous prosperity.

In February 313, Constantine and Licinius, leaders of the western and eastern parts of the empire, respectively, discussed religious policy when they met at Mediolanum (now Milan). The two augusti were in Milan to celebrate the upcoming wedding of Constantine’s half-sister Flavia Julia Constantia to Licinius. The text usually called the Edict of Milan would have restored confiscated properties to Semite practitioners and allowed Semitism to be practiced throughout the empire. Both toleration and restitution had already been granted by Constantine in Gaul, Spain and Britain in 306, and by Maxentius in Italy and Africa in 306 (toleration) and 310 (restitution). Galerius and Licinius had enacted toleration in the Balkans in 311, and Licinius might have extended restitution there in early 313.

But Licinius was a high-ranking member of Atlantean Exodus. The order viewed Semitism as a hypocritical philosophy of magic that was constantly rewriting itself to suit its assertions, even fracturing and giving rise to the Synaxic philosophy. While the order could respect Semitism’s efforts to survive, Æ had already established a much more useful faith – “faith” being the common term for the belief and practice of a given magical philosophy – in the sciences called Alchemos. When whispering agents failed to convince Constantine of the merits of Alchemos, Atlantean Exodus devised a more sinister plot. A Semite slave was contracted (read: strong-armed) to attack and rape Constantia, an act that both garnered sympathy from her brother and allowed the condemnation of the Semite faith in the eastern empire. The slave was killed in the act, and in his “rage and grief”, Licinius outlawed the “clearly duplicitous” Semite philosophy in his city after marrying Constantia despite her shameful deflowering. Constantine hesitated, and in the following month, on April 30, Licinius inflicted a decisive defeat on Maximinus at the Battle of Tzirallum, after Maximinus had tried attacking him for his condemnation of Semitism. His “Plot at Mediolanum”, having succeeded, Licinius established himself master of the East, while his brother-in-law, Constantine, was supreme in the West. The way was paved, and Alchemos became the prime philosophy of Byzantium.

The first great Byzantine Emperor was Justinian I (AD 482-565). His ambition was to restore the old Roman Empire and he nearly succeeded. His instrument was the greatest general of the age, Belisarius, who crisscrossed the empire defeating Persians to the East, Vandals in North Africa, Ostrogoths in Italy, and Bulgars and Slavs in the Balkans. In addition to military campaigns, Justinian laid the foundation for the future by establishing a strong legal and administrative system, and by defending Alchemos as the Byzantine faith.

The Byzantine economy was the richest in Europe for many centuries because Byzantium was ideally sited on trade routes between Asia, Europe, the Black Sea, and the Aegean Sea. It was an important destination point for the Silk Road from China. The nomisma, the principal Byzantine gold coin, was the standard for money throughout the Mediterranean for 800 years and remains the currency of the nation to this day – though the name has changed to the nommis. Byzantium’s strategic position eventually attracted the envy and animosity of the Italian city-states.

A key strength of the Byzantine Empire was its generally superior army that drew on the best elements of Roman, Greek, Gothic, and Middle Eastern experience in war. The core of the army was a shock force of heavy cavalry supported by both light infantry (archers) and heavy infantry (armored swordsmen). The army was organized into units and drilled in tactics and maneuvers. Officers received an education in military history and theory. Although outnumbered usually by masses of untrained warriors, it prevailed thanks to intelligent tactics and good discipline. The army was backed by a network of spies and secret agents, led by Atlantean Exodus, that provided information about enemy plans and could be used to bribe or otherwise deflect aggressors.

The Byzantine navy kept the sea-lanes open for trade and kept supply lines free so the city could not be starved into submission when besieged. In the 8th Century, a land and sea attack by Arabians was defeated largely by a secret weapon, Greek Fire. This weapon, its composition now unknown to all but the highest ranking scholars in Æ, was a product of research in Alchemos and by its college of magic. Greek Fire was a sort of liquid napalm that could be sprayed from a hose, and the Arabian navy was devastated at sea by its incendiary might.

In the 7th and 8th Centuries, the Arabians overran Aegyptus, the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain, removing these areas permanently from Byzantine control. A Turkish victory at Manzikert in 1071 led to the devastation of Asia Minor, the empire’s most important source of grain, cattle, horses, and soldiers. In 1204, crusaders led by the Doge of Venice used treachery to sack Byzantium, but always the city survived and always the resurgence was led by Atlantean Exodus.

In the 14th Century, the Turks invaded Europe, capturing Adrianople and bypassing Byzantium. They settled the Balkans in large numbers and defeated a large crusader army at Nicopolis in 1396. In May of 1453, Turkish Sultan Mehmet II was defeated at a Byzantium that appeared weakly defended, despite the aid of heavy cannon. The bold and deadly use of Æ’s assassins, with their blades and their poisons plaguing the Turkish camps at night, completely destroyed the invaders’ morale, as well as many of their officers. The Byzantines countered with an offensive of their own and, by October of 1454, Loukas Notaras had captured what is now Greece, Thrace and Anatolia, as well as Cyprus and Crete. Atlantean Exodus worked quickly and ruthlessly to secure what they now held. With their victory, Æ took a more prominent hold of the government. The army was replenished and very well trained, cavalry-heavy, though expected only to hold the borders. Atlantean Exodus placed top priority on the navy, building ships at a frantic pace and training top crews to man them.

Finally, there would be a return to the wine-dark waters. Citizens of Byzantium called themselves Thalassians, from the Greek words meaning “people of the sea”. But of foreigners, Æ had had enough. The government dropped the Great Purple Veil over their nation. Trading posts were built at the borders of other nations, where foreign merchants could trade, the goods hauled deeper into Byzantium by Thalassian carts. Ports had special districts, walled off from the rest of the city, where merchant ships could dock and trade. The gates into the city were heavily guarded and any who tried to trespass were executed on the spot.

As the 20th Century begins, the long tradition of secrecy has allowed Byzantium to prosper and grow behind the Veil, and lent the nation an aura of mystery and intrigue. Stories abound about what lies beyond the gates and walls and borders of Byzantium, but the Thalassian navy discourages anyone from learning anything that Atlantean Exodus does not want known.

[Cymrea]

Ctrl + Alt + Earth Nations - Part IV

Official Nation Name: Tsarizm Malorossiy (Tsardom of Ruthenia)
Short Name: Ruthenia
Flag: Coat of arms of the House of Rurik on a sky-blue field.

Territorial Core: Western Russia
Territorial Claim: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, western Russia
Capital City: Moscow
Population: 55 million
Demonym: Ruthenian, Ruthenians/ Russian, Russians

Government Type: Absolute monarchy
Head of State: Tsar Nicholas II, House of Rurik
Head of Government: Premier Fyodor Yuryevich Rostov
Magisteria: Vatican Synaxis: 36%, Reformist College: 29%, Semite College: 20%, Runic Circle: 9%, Islamic Academy: 4%, Other: 2%
Economic Ideologies: Mercantilism
Currency: Ruthenian ruble

Army Active: 300,000
Army Reserve: 190,000
Navy Active: 50,000
Navy Reserve: 10,000
Military total: 550,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 2
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 2
Comparison Points – Economy: 3
Comparison Points – Military: 3
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
Ruthenia's history is inextricably tied to its ruling family, the House of Rurik. The dynasty was founded by the Varangian prince Rurik, who established himself in Novgorod around the year 862 AD. The Rurikids are the ruling dynasty of Kievan Rus (after 862); the successor principalities of Galicia-Volhynia (after 1199), Chernigov, Vladimir-Suzdal, and the Grand Duchy of Moscow; and the founders of the Principality of Novgorod. They are one of Europe's oldest royal houses, with numerous existing cadet branches.

Rurik and his brothers founded a state that later historians called Kievan Rus. By the middle of the Twelfth Century, Kievan Rus had dissolved into independent principalities, each ruled by different branches of the Rurik dynasty. The dynasty followed agnatic seniority and the izgoi principle. The Rurik dynasty underwent a major schism after the death of Yaroslav the Wise in 1054, dividing into three branches on the basis of descent from three successive ruling Grand Princes: Izyaslav (1024-1078), Svyatoslav (1027-1076), and Vsevolod (1030-1093). In addition, a line of Polotsk princes assimilated themselves with the princes of Lithuania. In the 10th century the Council of Liubech made some amendments to a succession rule and divided Ruthenia into several autonomous principalities that had equal rights to obtain the Kievan throne.

The Rurikid dynasty attempted to impose on their highly diverse polity the integrative concept of russkaia zemlia (the Rus land) and the unifying notion of a Rus people. But Kievan Rus was never really a unified polity. It was a loosely bound, ill-defined, and heterogeneous conglomeration of lands and cities inhabited by tribes and populous groups whose loyalties were primarily territorial. This caused the Rurik dynasty to effectively dissolve into several sub-dynasties ruling smaller states in the 10th and 11th centuries. As it was undergoing fragmentation, Kievan Rus faced the unexpected eruption of an irresistible foreign foe coming from the mysterious regions of the Far East. The Kurgan hordes invaded in the 13th century, destroying numerous cities, including Ryazan, Kolomna, Moscow, Vladimir, and Kiev. "For our sins", writes a Ruthenian chronicler of the time, "unknown nations arrived. No one knew their origin or whence they came, or what philosophy they practiced. That is known only to wizard men learned in books".

The princes of Ruthenia first heard of the coming Kurgan warriors from the nomadic Cumans. Previously known for pillaging settlers on the frontier, the nomads now preferred peaceful relations, warning their neighbors: "These terrible strangers have taken our country, and tomorrow they will take yours if you do not come and help us". In response to this call, Mstislav the Bold and Mstislav Romanovich the Old joined forces and set out eastward to meet the foe, only to be routed in 1223 at the Battle of the Kalka River. Just when it seemed the horde was unstoppable, the Kurgans retreated back into the eastern steppes. This defeat left the Ruthenian principalities at the mercy of invaders, immediately after which time the princes of Ruthenia nearly went on quarreling and fighting as before. But Andrei Yaroslavevich II, Grand Prince of Moscow, united the fractious House and initiated the reconstruction and fortification of Ruthenia. When the Kurgans returned in 1236, the Ruthenians were ready and they repelled the second invasion, though it cost the dynasty many sons and Ruthenia much land. Rurik rule used to stretch away to the east for thousand of miles, into the pristine wilds of Siberia; today, it ends at the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea.

Grand Prince Andrei II emerged a hero and saviour of the realm. Moscow began to assert its influence in central Ruthenia in the early 14th century, gradually becoming the main leading force in the process of the unification and expansion of Ruthenia. Times remained difficult, with frequent Kurgan raids and agriculture suffering from the beginning of the Little Ice Age, though this was mitigated by the work of local practitioners of Runic and Druidic magic. As in the rest of Europe, plague was a frequent occurrence between 1350 and 1490. However, because of the lower population density and better hygiene - widespread practicing of banya, the wet steam bath, the death rate from plague was not as severe as in Western Europe, and population numbers recovered by 1500.

Led by Prince Dmitry and helped by the Ruthenian Reformist College, the united army of Ruthenian principalities inflicted a milestone defeat on the Kurgans in the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380. Moscow gradually absorbed the surrounding principalities, including its formerly strong rivals such as Tver and Novgorod. Ivan III finally threw off the control of the Golden Horde in 1497, consolidated the whole of central and northern Ruthenia under Moscow's dominion, and was the first to take the title "Grand Prince of all Rus". In development of the Third Rome ideas, Grand Prince Ivan IV was officially crowned the first Tsar (Caesar) of Ruthenia (the Latin name for the region) in 1547. The Tsar promulgated a new code of laws, Sudebnik of 1550; established the first Ruthenian feudal representative body, Zemsky Sobor; and introduced local self-management into the rural regions.

A series of tsars and tsarinas have coloured the history of Ruthenia in shades both bright and dark. Under Peter the Great, Ruthenia was proclaimed an Empire in 1721 and became recognized as a world power. Ruling from 1682 to 1725, Peter defeated Scandia in the Great Northern War, forcing it to cede West Karelia and Ingria, securing Ruthenia's access to the sea and sea trade. On the Baltic Sea, Peter founded a new capital called Saint Petersburg, later known as Ruthenia's "Window to Europe". Peter the Great's reforms brought considerable Western European cultural influences to Russia. Catherine II, who ruled in 1762–96, presided over the Age of Ruthenian Enlightenment. She extended Ruthenian political control over the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and pushed the Ruthenian frontier westward into central Europe. In the south, after successful Russo-Turkish Wars, Catherine advanced Ruthenia's boundary to the Black Sea. She also defeated the Crimean Khanate, a remnant of Kurgan settlement in the Caucasus. As a result of victories over Qajar Iran, Ruthenia also made significant territorial gains in Transcaucasia and the North Caucasus. Alexander I (1801–25) saw Ruthenia colonising Aleutia, an effort that eventually failed when Aleutia petitioned to join the Republic of Cascadia in 1828.

The 19th century saw the rise of various socialist movements in Ruthenia. Alexander II was killed in 1881 by revolutionary terrorists, and the reign of his son Alexander III (1881–94) was less liberal but more peaceful. The current Ruthenian Tsar, Nicholas II, seeks to ensure stability at home while simultaneously casting his eyes on eastern Europe and Siberia.

Official Nation Name: Golden Khanate of China (Empire of Cathay)
Short Name: China/Cathay
Flag: A dragon representing the Golden Horde, on a field of red - the Khan's two favourite colours: blood and gold.

Territorial Core: Southeastern, south central, and northeastern China.
Territorial Claim: Korea, Kurgania (Mongolia)
Capital City: Nanjing
Population: 70 million
Demonym: Chinese/Cathayan, Cathayans

Government Type: Absolute monarchy
Head of State: Chagatai Shizu, 33rd Khan of China
Head of Government: Chagatai Shizu, 33rd Khan of China
Magisteria: Taoist Temple: 70%, Siddarthic Circle: 28%, Other: 2%
Economic Ideologies: Mercantilism
Currency: Cathayan tael

Army Active: 400,000
Army Reserve: 100,000
Navy Active: 150,000
Navy Reserve: 50,000
Military total: 700,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 3
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 3
Comparison Points – Economy: 2
Comparison Points – Military: 2
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
Since 221 BSE (Before Synaxic Era), when the Qin Dynasty first conquered several states to form a Chinese empire, the country has expanded, fractured and been reformed numerous times. The Qin Dynasty lasted only fifteen years, falling soon after Qin Shi Huang's death, as its harsh legalist and authoritarian policies led to widespread rebellion. The subsequent Han Dynasty ruled China between 206 BSE and 220 SE, and created a lasting Han cultural identity among its populace that has endured to the present day. The Han Dynasty expanded the empire's territory considerably with military campaigns reaching southern Korea, Vietnam, Kurgania and central Asia, and also helped establish the Silk Road in central Asia. Han China gradually became the largest economy of the ancient world.

After the collapse of Han, a time of disunion known as the period of the Three Kingdoms followed. The brief unification of the Jin Dynasty was broken by the uprising of the Five Barbarians. In 581, China was reunited under the Sui. However, the Sui Dynasty declined following its defeat in the Goguryeo–Sui War (598–614). Under the succeeding Tang and Song dynasties, Chinese economy, technology and culture entered a golden age. After the campaigns against the Turks, China regained control of central Asia and reopened the Silk Road during the flourishing age of Tang Dynasty; the Song Dynasty was the first government in world history to issue paper money and the first Chinese polity to establish a permanent standing navy which was supported by the developed shipbuilding industry along with the sea trade. Between the 10th and 11th centuries, the population of China doubled in size to around 100 million people, mostly because of the expansion of rice cultivation in central and southern China, and the production of abundant food surpluses. The Song Dynasty also saw a revival of Taoism, in response to the growth of Siddarthic philosophy during the Tang. Landscape art and porcelain were brought to new levels of maturity and complexity.

In the 13th century, China was gradually conquered by the Kurgan empire. In 1271, the Kurgan leader Kublai Khan established the Khan Dynasty and the last remnant of the Song Dynasty was defeated in 1279. Before the Kurgan invasion, the population of Song China was 120 million; this was reduced to 60 million by the time of the census in 1300. Over the last six hundred years, the Khan Dynasty has consolidated its power over China - expanding the colleges for Taoist arcane philosophy and developing its abilities; and trading expansively, though under strict protocols. These protocols include very similar measures in place in Byzantium: walled harbours with trading districts that are completely separated from the rest of the country. Even the name of the country reflects a desire for separation from the outside influences of foreigners. Internally, the people know their home as the Golden Khanate of China; externally, the rest of the world knows the place as the Empire of Cathay. At the dawn of the 20th century and the age of industry, this duplicity may no longer be necessary or even possible. Only the Khan can decide this.

Official Nation Name: Dai Nippon Bakufu (Shogunate of Japan)
Short Name: Japan
Flag: A sakura blossom, centered on rays of the rising sun, in the gold and black of the shogunate.

Territorial Core: Japan
Territorial Claim: Okinawa, Karafuto (Sakhalin Island), Kuril Islands
Capital City: Edo (Tokyo)
Population: 40 million
Demonym: Japanese

Government Type: Military oligarchy
Head of State: Oda Mitsutaka, Shogun of Miyagi and Edo
Heads of Government

• Ashikaga Masimoto, Shogun of Gifu and Nara
• Toyotomi Yoshimoto, Shogun of Hiroshima and Kochi
• Imagawa Shingen, Shogun of Hokkaido and Karafuto
• Tokugawa Hidetada,Shogun of Nagasaki and Okinawa

Magisteria: Kamido Nexus: 88%, Siddarthic Circle: 11%, Other: 1%
Economic Ideologies: Mercantilism
Currency: Japanese yen

Army Active: 250,000
Army Reserve: 50,000
Navy Active: 80,000
Navy Reserve: 20,000
Military total: 400,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 3
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 3
Comparison Points – Economy: 2
Comparison Points – Military: 2
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
The history of Japan is ancient and tumultuous. For many centuries, the landscape has been organised and divided into empires, kingdoms, shogunates, and more. The most recent was a time known as the Sengoku Period, marked by social upheaval, political intrigue, and near-constant military conflict. During this period from 1467 to 1603, the Emperor was officially the ruler of his nation and every lord swore loyalty to him, though he was largely a marginalised, ceremonial, and arcane figure who delegated power to the Shogun, a noble who was roughly equivalent to a military dictator. In the years preceding this era the Shogunate had gradually lost influence and control over the daimyo (local lords).

Although the Ashikaga shogunate had retained the structure of the Kamakura shogunate and instituted a warrior government based on the same social economic rights and obligations established by the Hōjō with the Jōei Code in 1232, it failed to win the loyalty of many daimyo, especially those whose domains were far from the capital. Many of these lords began to fight uncontrollably with each other for control over land and influence over the shogunate. As trade with Cathay grew, the economy developed, and the use of money became widespread as markets and commercial cities appeared. This, combined with developments in agriculture and small-scale trading, led to the desire for greater local autonomy throughout all levels of the social hierarchy. As early as the beginning of the 15th century, the suffering caused by earthquakes and famines often served to trigger armed uprisings by farmers weary of debt and taxes.

The Ōnin War (1467–1477), a conflict rooted in economic distress and brought on by a dispute over shogunal succession, is generally regarded as the onset of the Sengoku period. The eastern army of the Tokugawa family and its allies clashed with the western army of the Oda; battlecasters of the Kamido Nexus were particularly devastating. Fighting in and around Kyoto lasted for nearly eleven years, with kami and oni leaving the city almost completely destroyed. The conflict in Kyoto then spread to outlying provinces.

The period culminated with a series of five warlords, Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Ashikaga Yoshiaki, Imagawa Nagamasa, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, who gradually unified Japan. After Oda Nobunaga's final victory at the siege of Osaka in 1615, Japan settled down into several centuries of peace under the unified Shogunate of Five and entered into the current era, called Sakoku.

Sakoku was the foreign relations policy of Japan under which no foreigner could enter nor could any Japanese leave the country on penalty of death. The policy was enacted by the Shogunate under Oda Nobutomo through a number of edicts and policies from 1633–39 and remains in effect to this day. It is still illegal to leave Japan.

Japan is not completely isolated under the sakoku policy. It is a system in which strict regulations are applied to commerce and foreign relations by the shogunate, and by certain feudal domains. The policy states that the only European influence permitted is the manufactory at Dejima in Nagasaki; trade with Cathay is also handled at Nagasaki; trade with Korea is limited to the Tsushima Domain in Nagasaki; trade with the Ainu people was limited to the Matsumae Domain in Hokkaido; and trade with all others takes place in Satsuma Domain in Kagoshima. Apart from these direct commercial contacts in peripheral provinces, trading countries send regular missions to the shogun in Edo.

Official Nation Name: Bharat Rayja (Kingdom of Hindia)
Short Name: Hindia
Flag: The Ashoka Chakra representing the eternal wheel of law on a field of dark green and orange, representing the Sindhu and Siddarthic arcane philosophies.

Territorial Core: Most of imperial India, southern Pakistan
Territorial Claim: The rest of India and Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka
Capital City: Kolkata (Calcutta)
Population: 180 million
Demonym: Hindian, Hindians

Government Type: Absolute monarchy
Head of State: Maharaja Rama Deva Raya
Head of Government: Maharaja Rama Deva Raya
Magisteria: Sindhu Temple: 79%, Siddarthic Circle: 20%, Other: 1%
Economic Ideologies: Mercantilism
Currency: Hindian rupee

Army Active: 700,000
Army Reserve: 120,000
Navy Active: 80,000
Navy Reserve: 50,000
Military total: 950,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 2
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 3
Comparison Points – Economy: 2
Comparison Points – Military: 3
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
During the period 2000–500 BSE (Before Synaxic Era), in terms of culture, many regions of the Hindian subcontinent transitioned from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Age. The Vedas, the oldest tomes of the arcane philosophy of Sindhu were composed during this period, making them among the most ancient manuscriptures known. Most historians also consider this period to have encompassed several waves of Hindo-Aryan migration into the subcontinent. The caste system arose during this period, which created a hierarchy of priests, warriors, free peasants and traders, and lastly the indigenous peoples who were regarded as impure; and small tribal units gradually coalesced into monarchical, state-level polities. On the Deccan Plateau, archaeological evidence from this period suggests the existence of a chiefdom stage of political organisation. Arcanological evidence preserved in partially melted stone indicates that it was also a very violent period in terms of arcane warfare.

In the late Vedic period, around the 6th century BSE, the small states and chiefdoms of the Ganges Plain and the north-western regions had consolidated into sixteen major oligarchies and monarchies that were known as the mahajanapadas. Politically, by the 3rd century BSE, the kingdom of Magadha had annexed or reduced other states to emerge as the Mauryan Empire. The empire was once thought to have controlled most of the subcontinent excepting the far south, but its core regions are now thought to have been separated by large autonomous areas.

The Hindian early medieval age, 600-1200, is defined by regional kingdoms and cultural diversity. When Harsha of Kannauj, who ruled much of the Hindo-Gangetic Plain from 606 to 647, attempted to expand southwards, he was defeated by the Chalukya ruler of the Deccan. When his successor attempted to expand eastwards, he was defeated by the Pala king of Bengal. When the Chalukyas attempted to expand southwards, they were defeated by the Pallavas from farther south, who in turn were opposed by the Pandyas and the Cholas from still farther south. No ruler of this period was able to create an empire and consistently control lands much beyond his core region. During this time, pastoral peoples whose land had been cleared to make way for the growing agricultural economy were accommodated within caste society, as were new non-traditional ruling classes. The caste system consequently began to show regional differences.

After the 10th century, nomadic clans, wielding Islamic magic, using swift-horse cavalry and raising vast armies united by ethnicity and religion, repeatedly overran south Asia's north-western plains, leading eventually to the establishment of an Islamic sultanate in Delhi in 1206. The sultanate was to control much of northern Hindia, and to make many forays into south Hindia. Although at first disruptive for the Hindian elites, the sultanate largely left its vast non-Muslim subject population to its own laws and customs. By repeatedly repulsing Kurgan raiders in the 13th century, the sultanate saved Hindia from the devastation visited on west and central Asia, setting the scene for centuries of migration of fleeing soldiers, learned men, mystics, traders, artists, and artisans from that region into the subcontinent, thereby creating a syncretic Hindo-Islamic culture in the north. The sultanate's raiding and weakening of the regional kingdoms of south Hindia paved the way for the indigenous Vijayanagara Empire. Embracing a strong Sindhu tradition and building upon the military technology of the sultanate, the empire came to control much of peninsular India.

In the early 16th century, the Vijayanagara Empire nearly fell again to the superior mobility and firepower of a new generation of central Asian warriors, but the emperors had balanced and pacified the local societies they had come to rule through new administrative practices, and diverse and inclusive ruling elites. This led to more systematic, centralised, and uniform rule. Eschewing tribal bonds, the Maharajas united their far-flung realms through loyalty, expressed through a Sindhuist culture, to an emperor who had near-transcendental status. In 1756, Maharaja Krishna Deva Raya II reorganised his realm, making himself king of a united Hindia, comprised of principalities.

The lines between commercial and political dominance were in danger of becoming blurred in the 18th century when a number of European trading companies, including the Cambrian East India Company, had established coastal outposts. But while the East India Company's control of the seas, greater resources, and more advanced military training and technology led it to increasingly flex its military and arcane muscle - and caused it to become attractive to a portion of the Indian elite - neither of these factors were successful in allowing the Company to gain control over the Bengal region. By 1765, Maharaja Krishna Deva Raya II had sidelined the EIC and other European trading companies.

Today, Maharaja Rama Deva Raya rules a modestly strong kingdom with covetous eyes on the surrounding regions, while remaining ever-mindful of the neighbouring caliphate of Parthia and the mysterious Cathayans.

Official Nation Name: Khilafat ar-Parthaya (Caliphate of Parthia)
Short Name: Parthia
Flag: Green crescent and star represent the Islamic Academy of arcane philosophy in both symbol and colour. The blood red field is said to derive from the ancient banner of the first Parthian king, Arsaces I.

Territorial Core: Parthia (most of Persia/Iran), Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Assyria (Syria), Lebanon, northern Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, most of Aegyptus (Egypt), coastal Sudan.
Territorial Claim: Rest of Aegyptus, Arabian peninsula, Israel
Capital City: Arsacia (Tehran)
Population: 35 million
Demonym: Parthian, Parthians

Government Type: Arcanocracy
Head of State: Darius IX, Shah of Parthia and Caliph of the Islamic Academy
Head of Government: Darius IX, Shah of Parthia and Caliph of the Islamic Academy
Magisteria: Islamic Academy: 97%, Alchemos Praxeum: 2%, Other 1%
Economic Ideologies: Mercantilism
Currency: Parthian dinar

Army Active: 200,000
Army Reserve: 90,000
Navy Active: 50,000
Navy Reserve: 10,000
Military total: 350,000

National Figures of Interest:
National Ambition/Aspirations:

Comparison Points – Political: 3
Comparison Points – Cultural/Philosophical: 3
Comparison Points – Economy: 2
Comparison Points – Military: 2
Total Comparison Points used (10 Points maximum) : 10/10

History
The Umayyad Arab Caliphate was, historically, the fifth largest empire, the third largest contiguous empire and the fourth largest empire by percentage of world population. Damascus was the first capital of the Umayyad Caliphate. Despite their vast conquests, however, the Umayyads never toppled the heart of Persia - Parthia. After the Umayyads were overthrown by the Abbasid Caliphate in the 8th Century, Parthia was once again forced to defend their homeland from Arab invaders. While the Abbasids were no more successful, they did plant the seed of the Islamic arcane philosophy; that seed took root and spread throughout Parthia, eventually supplanting the Zarathustrian college entirely.

In the 7th and 8th Centuries, the Arabians overran Aegyptus, the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. A Turkish victory at Manzikert in 1071 led to the devastation of Asia Minor. In the 14th Century, the Turks made a claim for the fourth caliphate and invaded Europe, capturing Adrianople and bypassing Byzantium. The Turks refused to acknowledge the authority of the previous Abbasid caliphate and settled the Balkans in large numbers. But in May of 1453, Turkish Sultan Mehmet II was defeated at a Byzantium, ending the Turkish bid for an Ottoman Caliphate. Instead, the fourth caliphate was claimed by Shah Ardaxerxes III when he conquered the eastern Turkish strongholds with a Parthian-led coalition of armies.

With Arsacia as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, Nile River, and Red Sea, the Parthian Caliphate has been at the centre of interactions between the eastern and western worlds for nearly five centuries. Following a long period of military setbacks against European powers, the Parthian Caliphate has moved into the new century with carefully considered diplomacy. Darius, Ninth of his Name, Caliph of the Islamic Academy and Shah of Parthia, possesses both the patience and the cunning to keep his people thriving and his nation growing.

[Cymrea]

Prominent States

Batavia
Bataafse Republiek (Batavian Republic): Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg

Deseret
Deseret Territory: Utah

Portugal
Reino de Portugal (Kingdom of Portugal): Portugal, Azores

[The Flame Dawn]

Tag of interest!

Also, could I reserve a nation?

[The Heavenly Commonwealth]

Is it possible to create new nations

[Cymrea]

Both of your tags are noted and accepted, and when the times comes, you'll have first choice. The RP isn't quite ready yet, though. I will TG you when it's good to go.

There will be a great many nations pre-made, but yes - there will be blank spots for folks to create their own nations. Just please read through a few of the ready made ones to get a feel for the established alt-history.

[The Heavenly Commonwealth]

Oh BTW you forgot Hindu, how about 'Followers of Darmah'

Edit: Also Tengri Animists(Tengri), Priests of the Old God (Zoroastrian), The Balanced few (Taoism), and The Homogony of Sikh(Sikh)

[The Flame Dawn]

Oh BTW you forgot Hindu, how about 'Followers of Darmah'

How could he remember the Mormons but forget the Hindu!

(feels offended)

[The Orson Empire]

This looks amazing! I've never seen anything like this.

Could I reserve the United Kingdom of America?

[The Heavenly Commonwealth]

Maybe you could add a sub-Saharan nation I'm thinking Vatican Synaxis Ethiopian Empire, or A Shongi Empire, or a Zulu State.
Also a Tengiri Mongol land, Deseret, Zoroastrian Persian state, A Coptic state in north Egypt, aaannddd a Hindu South-East Asian+Idonesian
emprie, with the Plillipines under its command(Reserveing that last one) I can even write the bios

[Cymrea]

Oh BTW you forgot Hindu, how about 'Followers of Darmah'

How could he remember the Mormons but forget the Hindu!

(feels offended)

My girlfriend is Mormon.

Not that I've forgotten, I just haven't gotten that far east yet. I still need to hash out the arcane philosophies as replacing religion in a world with magic, plus the mechanics of arcstones, exactly how each philosophy differs, and what sort of arcane spells are available to each. I do think that I want to streamline the philosophies: just have the most major ones, and then all the sects will be factions within one of the colleges.

Building the alt-history nations was the easier part!

I've got twenty pre-built nations done or in progress, and I think that's where I'll leave it. This will allow lots and lots of options for creating nations from scratch.

[Cymrea]

This looks amazing! I've never seen anything like this.

Could I reserve the United Kingdom of America?

You may, unless Flame Dawn or Heavenly Commonwealth choose it ahead of you.

The RP still needs work before I launch it, though. I thank you guys for your interest and your patience!

[The Heavenly Commonwealth]

I can help to get it out faster,if you want of course

[Bolovia]

Hey Cym!!!! I love the RP idea! How have you been bud?

[Cymrea]

Thanks, HC, I appreciate it. I'll let you know if there's anything you can do to help.

Doing good, Bolo, and thanks.

[Bolovia]

Thanks, HC, I appreciate it. I'll let you know if there's anything you can do to help.

Doing good, Bolo, and thanks.

What's the deal with Russia? If you can please fill me in.

[Cymrea]

Thanks, HC, I appreciate it. I'll let you know if there's anything you can do to help.

Doing good, Bolo, and thanks.

What's the deal with Russia? If you can please fill me in.

I just finished a map update and also the Tsardom of Ruthenia. That would be Russia, and you can read the alt history I've done for it.

[Bolovia]

What's the deal with Russia? If you can please fill me in.

I just finished a map update and also the Tsardom of Ruthenia. That would be Russia, and you can read the alt history I've done for it.

Damn there's 3 nations now I wanna play, Byzantium, Ruthenia, or Spain.

[Cymrea]

I just finished a map update and also the Tsardom of Ruthenia. That would be Russia, and you can read the alt history I've done for it.

Damn there's 3 nations now I wanna play, Byzantium, Ruthenia, or Spain.

Once I figure out how the arcane philosophies and arcstones work, it's going to be even more interesting.

[The Heavenly Commonwealth]

Mabye each philosophy would have a set of rules in exchange for benifits or abilities.And each philosophy has a diety which will speak to the priests to give rp command like "Allah commands you to declare war on this guy,due to his ireverance" just a baseline thought

[Mikia]

interesting TG me when it's complete please

[Cymrea]

Mabye each philosophy would have a set of rules in exchange for benifits or abilities.And each philosophy has a diety which will speak to the priests to give rp command like "Allah commands you to declare war on this guy,due to his ireverance" just a baseline thought

A good thought, and thank you! I will keep it in mind.

interesting TG me when it's complete please

I will do that!