Barunia/Gadirya Bid for the 64th Baptism of Fire
Who are we?
Gadirya
The nation of Gadirya may be new on the scene, but the user behind it is the more experienced host of the two. Under the nations of Felix and Gaveo, he has hosted the 71st World Cup with Yttribia, the 62nd Cup of Harmony with Mizuyuki, the 10th Campionato Esportiva with Ruentenbach, the 6th U-15 World Cup, 5 editions of Copa Gaveo, the 1st Esquarium Cup, numerous seasons of domestic football for numerous countries, assisted in scorinating qualifiers for the World Cup 70 with Equestrian States, San José Guayabal, and Mizuyuki, and hosted the First Global Cup of Soccer.
Barunia
Barunia joined the NS Sporting community in March 2013, just after World Cup 63 ended, and has been here ever since. He has participated in every World Cup since 64, as well as the Olympics, World Bowl, and tournaments in cricket, rugby, field hockey and calvinball. His biggest achievement to date has been winning the Di Bradini cup with his puppet Furellum - a nation that also lost two U-15 World Cup finals, including one to his co-host.
Barunia hosted the Barunia Football Cup in his first month on NS Sports, and since then has hosted hosted the T20 World Cup III and ODI Challenge Cup (both Cricket), and the 2nd Calvinball Hobbes Trophy, which provided an interesting challenge, Calvinball being an unusual sport with unique scorination requirements. Most recently, he hosted the Celebration of Field Hockey, which involved two simultaneous tournaments.
What about your nations?
The Kingdom of Gadirya is an island constitutional monarchy off the coast of San Jose Guayabal. For many almost all 4 eras this country of 10 million people has been isolated from Esportiva and the rest of the world. But in the reign of Anwar I relations towards the rest of the world has thawed. They established links with nations in Esportiva, joined the World Assembly, and more importantly joined the world of football. By taking part in the beautiful game they opened up their country to world to not just only football but also investment. Charmat, the capital, has transformed from a sleepy yet large city to an active metropolis. Casablanca is another city that thrived from this flourishing period of foreign investment and is by far the most advanced city in Gadirya featuring a full functional city metro system.
Gadirya is a secular yet mostly Islamic nation. Casablanca is a mostly Christian city and Charmat while having a Muslim majority feature pockets of Christian communities; it should be noted that the further you get away from the two main cities of Charmat and Casablanca the more Islamic it gets (disclaimer Balbay is a Christian majority city, an outlier). Ethnically Gadirya has a mix of Arabs, Turks, and French Gadiryans. Because of that the official languages are French and Arabic while Turkish has a national recognition status. Arabs are the majority, living in all provinces, governorate, and cities but are either a minority or a slim majority in the city of Casablanca and the surrounding Casablanca Province and Altintop and the surrounding Altintop Province. The French Gadiryans live in Casablanca, Casablanca Province, and Charmat. The Turkish live in Altintop and Altintop Province. French Gadiryans are the descendants of Felixian immigrants and as the name suggests these Felixians were mostly French speaking. Arabs and French Gadiryans despite their religious differences actually get along really well although there are some isolated segments on both sides that despise each other. Turkish/Arab relations on the other hand are tense although not as tense as it has been years ago. But the bad blood between the two stem from eras long rivalry.
Going back to football the country of Gadirya's rise in the footballing world started when they won the previous Baptism of Fire. In the spirit of starting journeys on the right foot the country is proud to co-host the next Baptism of Fire with their good friend Barunia. Gadirya's government, and more importantly the people believe that by hosting this tournament it is another step in opening up to the world and saying, hello.
Barunia is a federal democracy consisting of several large islands and one chain of smaller islands in the southern ocean. The federation consists of four states and one territory. The country has a little over 41 million people, with the largest city being the national capital of Porthaven. The nation was first colonised by the Spanish, and later the English, and the national culture has been heavily influenced by the two. In particular, the state of Tildos and the territory of the North Islands has a strong Spanish culture, and the majority of the people here speak both English and Spanish. The state of Marion has also been heavily influenced by Eastern European culture.
The influence of Eastern Europe on the rest of Barunia is evident in the nation's adoption of socialism. This has led to the provision of free education, healthcare, and public transport services to citizens. Businesses are heavily regulated, but are not state-owned - rather, they are owned by the people who work in them. Barunia is a very tolerant society, and laws protect personal freedoms.
Barunia has rather temperate weather, and temperatures remain above 0 degrees Celcius even in winter. Snow is unheard of, although rain is very common.
Barunian football fans love to tell you that Barunia almost qualified for the World Cup on their first attempt, a journey that started with the Baptism of Fire. Now the country starts a new footballing journey with the Baptism of Fire alongside Gadirya, one that the nation hopes will take them to further heights.
Tournament Format and Scoring
We'll be using xkoronate with SQIS, using multiplicative style modifiers. The tiebreakers being points, then H2H results, goals difference, and finally goals for.
We'll be hoping for 32-48 sign-ups, in which case we'll go with a standard 8 groups, top 2 advance style, although the exact format will depend on numbers. We currently have plans for numbers anywhere from 24 to 50 sign-ups.
We have decided not to release details of our RP Bonus and scale, but both hosts will be grading according to common criteria, with an emphasis on creativity and story-telling. Rosters will also receive a graded bonus, to encourage people to post more than just a list of names.
Extras
We all know inspiration can be hard to find sometimes. To help new writers get the creative juices flowing, we'll be providing a quote with each cut-off, with the suggestion that these can be used as starting points for an RP idea. This will be an entirely optional writing challenge, with no change in RP bonus for those who do it or don't do it, but we hope that this will add a bit of extra fun.
We now submit this bid for questions or comments.
Barunia will be away until Sunday, so Gadirya will have to hold the fort until then.