JOHRUA
A Fantasy Faction Sandbox RP
IC Thread | Discord Server
Co-OP: The Batavia, [1 vacant slot]
Map maker: Nations United for Conquest
~+ BACKGROUND +~+~+~+~+~+~+~
For 1,100 years, the Johrid Empire (pronounced YOH-rihd), also known simply as Johrua (YOH-rwah), after its founding emperor, has been the single most dominant political, economic, and cultural influence of the Eastern Continent, having controlled a whopping 70% of its territory at its peak. Years are measured from the year of the Empire’s foundation, and almost all the nations of the Eastern Continent speak the Johrid language on top of their native tongues. Its seat of power, Eunau, is the largest city in the Eastern Continent, and is known for the artistic and intellectual advancements its progenies helped foster.
The heyday of the empire has long passed, however.
For the last 344 years, the Johrid Empire has been ruled by the Anamuna Dynasty, and throughout its reign, has slowly descended into stagnation, corruption, infighting, and instability. Under a long series of Anamuna monarchs mired by flagrant extravagance, incompetence, or downright insanity, the power and influence of the Johrid Empire was slowly but surely diminished, and with this decline came waves of previously dormant sub-nationalism from the constituent states of the empire, as well as invigorated challenges from the outside.
On January 5 of the year NE1190, Emperor Kanuri V Anamuna died suddenly at the age of 69; his son and successor, Emperor Nihei VIII Anamuna, was just 17, three years too young to govern, according to the laws of the empire. The governance of the empire fell upon the Central Council of Ministers, a committee of eight men presiding over the various imperial bureaucracies, but as if an expression of anger from the gods, another death befell the highest echelon of the Johrid Empire’s government; 76-year-old Amro Artenos, Chairman of the Council and de facto leader of the Empire, fell downstairs and broke his skull in his home, just half a month after the death of Kanuri V.
With the already stagnating Johrid Empire thrown into political chaos by the two successive deaths, which have left responsibility for the Empire's governance in the hands of a 17-year-old boy and a headless committee, the various nations of the Eastern Continent have begun scrambling to find their bearings, taking advantage of the weakening grip of the central imperial government over its territories and a rise of new powers, economic and military alike, all over the Eastern half of the world. None have any doubts as to what fate will befall the Eastern Continent and its oldest state.
The age of the Johrids is over. A new era looms on the horizon.
~+ SYNOPSIS +~+~+~+~+~+~+~
Welcome to Johrua! In this RP, you'll be playing one (or more) of the nations that make up the Eastern Continent, whether they be independent nations or constituents of the Johrid Empire. The idea of this RP is for players to come up with their own lore; as such, you can take free rein when it comes to designing your faction (within reasonable limits, of course). There is no overarching plot, beyond what has already been spelled out in the lore; whatever happens in this world is entirely up to you, the players.
~+ MAP & WORLD INFO +~+~+~+~+~+~+~
Many thanks to Utceforp for the map. This isn’t the final version, however; use it as reference for now. At the moment, the coloured parts show confirmed and pending territorial claims; when the IC opens, we'll have a map of confirmed territories.
- In this world, there are two main continents: the Eastern Continent (where our RP will primarily be taking place) and the Western Continent.
For 1,100 years, the Eastern Continent has been dominated by the Johrids, but as mentioned, their grip is slowly beginning to weaken, opening the way for new powers to emerge. The Western Continent, which is almost triple the size of the Eastern Continent, is inhabited in the far West by three perpetually warring empires, none of which have any interest in anything beyond their own parochial concerns; given the distance and the political situation, it's not likely anyone will be coming into contact with them anytime soon. A massive series of mountain ranges and canyons down the centre of the Western Continent (not represented on the map) separates its western and eastern halves from each other.
Politically, the world is divided into two spheres: the Western Sphere is dominated primarily by the three warring empires, and the Eastern Sphere, up till now, by the Johrid Empire. Aside from occasional maritime trade in oddities and status symbols, no contact is ever made between the two Spheres.- Within the Johrid Empire, there are three main levels of political and demographic organisation.
The inner empire refers to the territories that are located close to the centre of power of the Empire. These territories have been governed directly by Eunau since the abolishment of the imperial family's collateral branches by Arlesti I, and it in these territories that the bulk of Eunau's 300,000 troops are stationed.
The grand protectorates, which bear the prefix "Grand Johrid Protectorate", are nations which are considered to be constituents of the Empire, but which have been granted high levels of autonomy and self-governance. Their militaries and state apparatus are still beholden to the main government, and they have to pay annual taxes (which some of the protectorates consider to be of unfairly large magnitude), but by and large, they are left to their own devices.
The vassal states or colonies are, as their names would suggest, not strictly speaking part of the Johrid Empire; they exist merely as resource farms for the Empire to exploit. As of NE1190, however, the Johrid Empire maintains no such territories, as they have by and large broken away from the Empire in preceding centuries.
Aside from these, however, there are numerous states within the Johrid Empire that do not fit into either of these three categories, due usually to the circumstances surrounding their being assimilated into the Empire, or other political reasons.- Technology in this world is relatively advanced, with the most advanced of nations possessing the likes of primitive steam-powered airships and iron steamships. Muskets are commonplace, but bows and arrows are still widely used for their greater adaptability, ease of reloading, and acceptability of enchantment.
- Magic, too, is commonplace, though the general trend is that nations which have invested much into the development of their magic sciences will, undoubtedly, have neglected their technological sciences to some extent. While magic can be used for non-combat purposes (the possibilities are myriad), it features most prominently in military use, where combat mages either use blasts of magic to directly attack enemies, or enchant their weapons with them to grant them special powers. The ease with which a weapon can be enchanted is its acceptability of enchantment, or AOE, and the general rule is that weapons with more complicated components will be harder to enchant, as each individual component has to be done separately. Note: After some consideration, I have opted not to include a magic-tech scale, so as to allow players more flexibility in determining the advancement levels of their nations.
- While humans are the dominant race, there are also other nonhuman races present. The Johrid Empire, while predominantly human (as with pretty much every other nation), maintained a policy of tolerance, and as such, there are states within the empire that comprise and are ruled primarily by nonhumans.
~+ RULES +~+~+~+~+~+~+~
- The usual. Don't godmod, metagame, or be an arse OOCly. Regarding the last one: you're free to be as nasty as you like in the IC, but given the delicate nature of politics, it's not likely you'd survive for long that way.
- I will try as hard as possible to give everyone free rein in what they'd like to do. On your end, do try to keep it reasonable; time travel and laser cannons are, for obvious reasons, not allowed.
- I'm not that picky about posting frequency (seeing as I myself can often lag at times), but do inform us beforehand if you're not going to be able to post for more than a week. We'll see what we can do to help you.
- You can play as many nations as you can handle, but please don't use that to political advantage (you know what I mean). After all, no nations are ever really on 100% good terms in real life.
- Do enjoy yourself, and feel free to talk to me if you've got feedback on anything!
~+ APPLICATION FORM +~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~
- Code: Select all
[b]Name of State (official)[/b]
[b]Name of State (common)[/b]
[b]Population[/b]
(Johrid Empire constituent states have a population cap of 3 million people. If you are playing an independent state, the cap is 5 million)
[b]Dominant race[/b]
(If non human, please provide a writeup explaining the features and capabilities of your race)
[b]Size of military[/b]
No more than 10% of your nation’s population.
[b]Leader[/b]
[b]Other prominent leaders[/b]
[b]Location on map[/b]
[b]Capital city[/b]
[b]Largest city (if different from capital)[/b]
[b]State religion[/b]
[b]History[/b]
Please provide at least 3 paragraphs of info.
)
