Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast
Results 1 to 20 of 52

Thread: 2015 IH planning thread

  1. #1
    Barry Goldwater's Avatar Mr. Conservative
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Richmond, Virginia
    Posts
    16,469

    Default 2015 IH planning thread

    As the title indicates, this is the development thread for the post-apocalyptic IH that seems to be the most popular choice 'round these parts whichever IH the community goes with.

    Barry's post-apoc IH
    The faction map:

    Map

    The factions done so far:

    Purple (Utah)
    The Church of Latter-Day Saints directly rules Utah as an absolute theocracy led by the Morrison family of 'Prophets', descended from the last pre-apocalypse President of the LDS Church, and aided by counselors of the First Presidency. As of the game start, they'll be suffering from a growing schism between modernist and fundamentalist wings, led respectively by reigning Prophet Gordon VII Morrison & his uncle Joseph; the modernists aren't remotely open to liberal democracy or anything that looks like it, in fact quite the opposite since they want to reduce the First Presidency to a powerless advisory body & invest all temporal authority in the Prophets' hands, but they do want to maintain the prohibition on polygamy + pursue a peaceful approach to spreading the Mormon faith while the fundamentalist faction wants the exact opposite of these things (on top of reducing the Prophet to a toothless figurehead & hoarding all temporal power for themselves).

    Brown (NorCal, Pacific NW & S. BC)
    The northern half of the former Californian Empire, which still insists on being called THE legitimate Californian Empire but is usually just referred to as 'North California'. Said empire was founded by 'High Commissioner' George Faust, descendant of the last pre-apocalypse LAPD commissioner whose heirs wound up directing the LAPD survivors into establishing a safe but authoritarian government in the ruins of Los Angeles, in the 2240s-70s (over 200 years ago) - culminating in him exterminating the hippies of SF after they refused to bow to 'The Man' that he represents + his son subduing the EPA in Oregon/BC. In 2420, this empire imploded into a civil war between Emperor Leonard II's sons; the weak-willed elder Thomas who was a pawn of the high nobility, and a tougher younger son named Henry who was popular with the more martial lesser nobility & chivalry of the realm. The Northern Cali Empire was founded by Henry after he failed to take over all of California & has its capital at San Fran, and once they ruled the land as far as Colorado but have steadily been pushed back by the Grangelanders (beige).

    Teal (SoCal, AZ, Baja Cali & part of NM)
    This would be the Southern Californian Empire, arguably its 'legitimate' half. It's ruled by Thomas Faust's granddaughter Alexandra who, like her dad and grandpa, is a powerless figurehead for the Great Houses centered around the capital of Los Angeles. While the nobles are playing their intrigue-ridden games, the neglected frontier of the empire has been giving way before the Texans, Mexicans, Mormons (Deseret was formerly a protectorate of this half of the empire before breaking free in 2450) and now the Grangelanders.

    Orange (Texas + Oklahoma + parts of neighboring states + NE Mexico)
    Definitely not a republic, not yet anyway. It's the Holy Kingdom of Texas, ruled by descendants of the Bush family - the last pre-apocalypse POTUS was a Bush, and those with his blood in their veins now claim to be his rightful successor & thus the true lord of all America. They're a fiercely martial and religious state who've put their oil wealth behind both a powerful army (with the most mechanized & motorized formations in America to date) and spreading their fanatical branch of Evangelical Christianity in the Wahhabi fashion (complete with inciting foreign believers to work against their governments & eventually install pro-Texan governments in their home countries), and boast elite units in the form of the Texas Rangers (light infantry) and the 'Greyhound Division' (the first and best armored unit on the continent). They aren't the greatest fans of democracy - to them, two past Bush Presidents smote down 'the eastern devil Saddam' twice over and they both still lost power anyway, obvious evidence that the masses should not choose their leaders - but they are more populistic than the Confederacy to the east, and have allowed the creation of legislative assemblies with limited powers; now a power struggle is brewing between said assemblies (divided between constitutional monarchists & outright republicans) and the Holy Monarchs who want to hold on to their power. Though originally brought to heel by the Columbian Confederacy, the Bushes never liked being equals to the other Southern royal houses and broke away in a civil war 160 years ago.

    Blue (NY, PA, New England)
    Meet the Free States of America, a republican federation that represents the closest thing to a revival of the American Dream in the former USA. They've done their best to clone the pre-war institutions of the USA: power is divided between the President (executive), the Congress of Free States which is further split into a Senate & House of Representatives (legislative), and a Supreme Court (judicial), the Constitution is still upheld and a strong civic-nationalist spirit has been nurtured among its people. Yet it's not without its problems - the Mid-Atlantic core of the Free States (coastal NY & eastern Penn) are dominated by plutocratic merchant houses that have no problem with buying votes and employing powerful political machines to retain power, New England (formerly divided into many feuding petty-kingdoms) was only brought into the federation through the Concord of Charlestown that made the region's most powerful petty kings into essentially autonomous hereditary Governors (nominally equal to other state governors, but in fact with much more power up to & including private armies in the form of their states' National Guards) and those living in the recently-conquered western & southern territories of the Federation still chafe under martial law with no constitutional protections. That said, at least the Manhattan-based plutocracy (currently represented by sitting President Martin Godin) is being challenged by an alliance of lesser merchant houses, urban poor and Pennsylvanian religious populists calling themselves the 'Populares', led by legendary-war-hero-of-humble-origins and ex-Marshal of the Free States Douglas Grant; while Grant insists that his platform is strictly about cleaning up corruption and giving the common man a government that actually represents them, his rivals claim he's only running to seize power, will violate the rights of the Yankee pseudo-nobility to further strengthen his own position, and is ultimately aiming to become like the hated Confederacy's hated High King.

    Grey (Ex-Confederate core)
    This is the Columbian Confederacy that was first founded in 2270, a confederal monarchy made up of lesser hereditary kingdoms within the borders of the modern Southern states & led by a High King or Queen elected by said lesser monarchs & the higher aristocracy of the realm. The Southern gentry are further divided into the 'Houses of the Round Table', older and more powerful dynasties who determine foreign policy & elect the High Monarchs (indeed, said HM is considered only a primus inter pares among the Round Table) and the 'Houses of the Southern Congress', lesser nobles and knights who only have the right to sit in the larger Congress in Charleston and do not elect High Kings and Queens - though they can still direct domestic policy to an extent. Though they were once the premier power on the Eastern Seaboard, ruling everything from the Mohawk River in the north to the Everglades in the south at the apogee of their might in 2385, they have since greatly declined owing to internal strife (thanks be to both the old color-blind system of slavery + the notoriously corrupt & cutthroat nobility...) and defeats abroad: Texas was lost in 2405, the resurgent Free States steadily pushed their border back south with the help of the Yankees of New England from the signing of the Charlestown Concord in 2407 onward, Mississippi and most of Alabama were lost to a slave rebellion 2460-68, and it took a destructive civil war fought between 2472 and 2482 to finally abolish slavery (to be replaced with sharecropping everywhere outside of South Carolina, where it was replaced with serfdom instead), greatly sapping the Confederacy's remaining strength. The Confederacy is still an extremely backward and decentralized empire, with the state-kingdoms wielding their own armies + tariffs + legal systems that make domestic governance a nightmare, with some kingdoms being relatively industrialized & liberal (Virginia and North Carolina in particular) and others still chiefly rural and conservative (South Carolina being the most extreme example, having kept its fullblown caste system from the days before the Confederacy). King Albert III Littlepage of North Carolina bribed, bullied and murdered his way into the Gray Throne in 2552 and, though personally a deeply unpleasant man, he does have the foresight, the cunning and the ruthlessness to turn the Confederacy's fortunes around - if his rivals in the Round Table and the Congress would let him.

    Dark red (MS + AL)
    These lands are held by the 'Tuskegee Collective', an agrarian socialist republic born of a slave rebellion in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana against the Confederacy in the 2460s. The Collective's founders seized the great plantations and rebuilding industry of Alabama and Mississippi (after killing as many of their former owners & said owners' supporters as possible, of course) and divided them up among their people - '20 acres, a rifle and a mule for all' was the revolt's slogan in its later stages, after all. Since then, the Collective's 'Popular Militias' have been jealously safeguarding their borders against their former masters to the east and the Texans to the west, while farmers' and workers' councils deliberate in the occupied mansions of the now-exiled Deep Southern nobility on how to best carry out the revolution. However, the Collective's very existence is an obvious ideological threat to their neighbors, and in recent wars the Confederates have begun to make inroads into Alabama while all of Louisiana was lost to the Texans in 2499-2510, and the murderous 'White Terror' visited upon former Collective citizens in both have shown them what they can expect should they fall. Further complicating matters, the Collective's leadership is increasingly divided between a moderate faction led by Allen Attucks which favors maintaining the domestic status quo of numerous family-sized private farms & businesses + preserving racial harmony between blacks and whites (whose ancestors jointly fought to free the Collective, after all) as well as making peace with their neighbors, and a more extreme faction led by Elijah Greenfield (influenced by the Illinois Commune, see below) that intends on abolishing the democratic communal assemblies in favor of concentrating power into the hands of a central committee, collectivizing farms and violently exporting the revolution.

    Red (IL + parts of Indiana)
    Meet the Commune of Illinois, the continent's first and staunchest adherents to the Theory of Marxism-Lennonism: a mishmash of Buddhism, Communism & pop culture that believes there are no gods, but humans can attain enlightenment & build a paradise of harmonious prosperity on the bones of the Old World if they work together to overthrow the kings and bourgeoisie who would subjugate their fellow man out of selfishness, as commanded by the Marx brothers who discovered the truth and were put to death for it by the pre-apocalypse authorities + John Lennon who transcribed their texts and boiled it down to a few catchy songs (chief among them 'Imagine', clearly a description of what the Enlightened Earth should look like) for future generations. They firmly believe that the reconstruction & expansion of heavy industry is the only way to attain paradise, that working in a factory is the key to enlightenment, that the previous two require the absolute guidance of the Central People's Committee in Chicago (whose members coincidentally automatically ascend to the status of 'Enlightened Ones' upon their death and have at times been consulted for advice by their successors through channelers) to succeed, and thus denounce the agrarian Tuskegee Collective to the south as heterodox deviants from the glory of Marxism-Lennonism.

    Beige (Great Plains, Rockies)
    The Empire of the Plains and Mountains (whose denizens are known as 'Grangelanders' or simply 'Grangers'), the Mongol horde crisscrossed with cowboys: a fast-growing empire founded by Wyomingite warlord Russell Holliday 60 years ago, who beat or talked most of the myriad granger-lords and Indian tribes of the Great Plains into falling in line and exterminated those who would not kneel. They are reliant on an entirely mounted/motorized army + a crude air force to overwhelm its opponents with speed & shock in a post-apocalyptic attempt at reinventing the blitzkrieg. The Hollidays are known for being quite open to new ideas & accepting those who submit immediately into their domain with grace, to the point of granting them total cultural and considerable local autonomy so long as they pay their respects and taxes whenever Granger officials swing by...and savagely raping, murdering & pillaging their way through the lands of those who don't, which serves as their primary carrot/stick combination in diplomacy. Emperor Dwight Holliday is now quite determined to carry out his forefather's dream and unite all of America under Denver's heel, by word or by sword.

    Light green (Missouri)
    The Kingdom of Missouri is an autonomous vassal state of the Columbian Confederacy. Having regained their independence in the same war as the Texans and Arkansans, the Missourians made a killing off of tariffs on trade up & down the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers for many years. However, recently Queen Ada Schwengel was forced to submit to the Confederates once more after High King Albert defeated her army and sacked St. Louis in 2560, though due to limits on his own strength he did have to at least nominally recognize Missouri's continued independence. What Schwengel thought was a victory in the short term has turned into a disaster however, as Granger forces from the west have been storming into western Missouri and the kingdom's weakened forces cannot hope to defeat them alone: she will require at least the aid of the Confederacy, or some other outside ally, if she and her people wish to escape an ignominious fate at the hands of the Grangelanders - and there's no way that help will come without even more strings attached.

    Pale pink (Arkansas)
    The Kingdom of Arkansas, like the Kingdom of Missouri, was a reluctant member of the Confederacy - much like their neighbors the Bushes, the region's ruling Blythe family claimed descent from a pre-apocalyptic presidential family (in their case, the Clintons, though the connection is much more dubious than in the Bushes' case), and so they resented having to answer to younger and less prestigious royal families to the east - and broke free along with the Missourians and Texans 160 years ago. Unfortunately, the Blythes' belief that isolationism would protect them proved very, very false when their one-time Texan allies wound up invading their kingdom in 2467. Despite the Arkansans' best efforts, by 2470 their King Orville II had been killed in single combat with Texan Holy King George IV (who lopped his head off with a chainsaw while riding a motorcycle, no less) and Texan forces had sacked Little Rock, forcing what remained of House Blythe to seek shelter with their former Confederate overlords and abandon their kingdom to over 80 years of occupation by the Texans. In 2559 Confederate forces under Albert III's personal command finally drove the Texans from most of Arkansas and restored Orville's descendant Roger to the throne; however, it is very clear that the restored Kingdom of Arkansas is little more than a puppet of the Confederacy, and while plans to fully annex it are in the works, elements among Arkansan society are plotting to rebel and reassert their independence before that can happen...and ironically, some of them are now looking back to the Texans for help in doing so.

    Pink (Ohio, part of Indiana)
    The Kingdom of Ohio's very name is misleading - it is a kingdom without a king, having driven its last King and all of House Audubon out some 200 years ago in a popular uprising only for his natural successor, the humble Lord Steward Clive McCook, to decline the crown and instead take up the mantle of Regent, which his heirs wore from that time onward; and it doesn't control all of Ohio but does control parts of Indiana, having tragically lost the Toledo Strip to raiders from Michigan in 2549 and eastern Ohio to the Free States Army twelve years before that. Though the McCooks have reigned as just and much-beloved Regents in times of peace (indeed, their benevolent rule was one of the reasons that the Indianan lords elected them to rule over the Hoosier State in 2420 after the extermination of their ruling family by the Communists), in war they have a far worse record (hence the above losses) - until now: Roderick McCook, the eldest son and heir to Regent Isaac II, has emerged as a fierce warrior and especially hotheaded leader with very little time for his ancestors' cautious, consensus-based style of leadership & who has no problems with personally dirtying his hands in battle. A rupture is growing between father and son as Roderick disapproves of his father's attempts to buy peace with the Great Lakesmen and to forge alliances with their neighbors, instead preferring to not give the Lakesmen another inch of Ohioan soil nor another Ohioan dollar, and may even be plotting to replace his old man - not as Regent, but as the first King of Ohio from House McCook.

    Cyan (Great Lakes)
    In the aftermath of the apocalypse, the Nordic Americans of the Midwest opted to start imitating their Viking ancestors and pillage their neighbors for survival rather than start sowing fields or building homemade generators themselves. Navigating the rivers of America and Canada, they were able to strike as far south as New Orleans (sacked twice by Lakesmen in 2345 and 2447) and as far north as Quebec City (which was occupied by the legendary Lakesman warlord Eric 'of the Evil Eye' Wahlgren 2376-80). Most recently and infamously, between 2461 and 2468 the Lake-Lord Lance Gyllenhaal sailed down the Mississippi and out into the Gulf of Mexico, stormed several Texan oil rigs, burnt down Pensacola, raided the shores of Cuba and planted his flag over Guantanamo Bay before swerving northeast to raid Charleston and New York; and though he was repulsed by Confederate and Federal forces at both cities, he still survived to make it back home with enough loot & slaves to sustain his family for decades. Though he tragically died a decade later when he decided it would be a good idea to try the same thing and wound up being quartered by the Confederates in Atlanta for his trouble, his son Carl not only preserved the family legacy but even one-upped his old man by uniting the Lake clans into one kingdom for the first time between 2480 and 2495. As King of the Great Lakes, Carl's great-grandson Beck now aims to conquer all of the former United States with his army of seasoned raiders and warriors, counting on the rivers of the land to lend him strategic mobility and the ability to surprise his enemies - and should he fail, well, as long as he dies like a true warrior in the process (for a brave death is the only way to atone for failure among the Lakesmen) he'd be fine with that too.

    Brown (KY, WV)
    The Appalachian clans have not had a great time surviving in post-apocalyptic America, to say the least. Often scorned as inbred, slavishly traditional hicks with tempers as fragile as glass by their neighbors (especially the Confederate nobility who've derided them as 'cohees' fit only for hard labor and raided their lands for slaves for centuries), they've been largely left to rot alone in their mountains even as said neighbors grew more prosperous and rebuilt themselves, and were engaged only when outsiders wanted something from them - namely, their quality weapons and coal from their mines. Granted, the Appalachians haven't made it much easier on themselves - their myriad clans battled each other over causes from the serious (control of coal mines, let's say) to the trivial (at one point, two clans went to war over the supposed killing of one clan's hound by the other), and in the past they have proven all too eager to accept foreign 'help' against their rivals, help which never came without strings attached and inevitably bit them in the behind down the road. As of 2520, the four remaining great clans of these mountains - Crockett (though they had technically mostly moved to Kentucky), Gibson, McCown and MacLaine - banded together through the Pact of Lexington, a blood oath that they would cease trying to kill each other and instead answer any attack on one as though it were an attack on all in a desperate attempt at preserving their independence from foreign encroachment on all sides.

    Olive (Everglades)
    They're the Sons of Disney, swamp tribals who have reinterpreted Disney creations such as Mickey Mouse (or to them, the 'Mouse King' who is the voice of the All-Father Disney) as gods and have also branched out to cover other cartoon figures (ex. Warner Bros' Wile E. Coyote --> the 'Dread Coyote' who will pursue not only his archenemy the 'Great Runner', but also anyone who annoys him, to the ends of the earth and cannot be killed) - and are perfectly willing to die & to kill for their deities. They were subjugated time and time again by the Confederates, who tried to forcibly convert them to the Southern Baptist Convention and whose settlers drove them again & again from their lands, even reservations granted to them by the express order of the Confederal Congress; yet every time, whether it took a year or a century, the tribe's chiefs would rally their people and drive the Confederates out by the barrel of the rifle. Starting in 2564, Paramount Chief Fights-With-Ducks leads his people on their umpteenth rebellion against Charleston's authority, while the Confederates under High King Albert have at last given up on assimilating them: a thousands-strong Confederate expeditionary force, backed up by thousands more armed settlers & adventurers, is now on their way to enact a more...permanent solution to the 'Trouble in the Everglades' and to make sure nobody will be contesting their newest settlements anytime soon.

    Dark green (Alaska)
    The only faction of truly non-American origin in former US territory, the Tsardom of Alaska was founded by descendants of those few Russian soldiers who occupied this state in WWIII and managed to survive when the bombs fell. In the wake of the nuclear apocalypse, their most senior surviving commander - a certain Colonel Ivan Semyonov, who was infamous for having delusions of grandeur before the war - proclaimed himself Tsar in the ruins of Anchorage; thanks to his astonishing competence in the years after the Third World War, his men humored him and his descendants, who were eventually able to command their subjects' absolute loyalty by promoting a cult of personality with some basis in their actual achievements (and ruthlessly punishing anyone who stepped out of line). Even today, Tsar Igor III Semyonov has not deviated from his ancestor's mission: to take over America before crossing the Bering Strait to impose their rule on their distant homeland. Before they can even begin contemplating the conquest of the Americas though, much less going home as conquerors, they must overcome their chief rivals: the Eskimo Confederacy to the east, and the Great Plains Sich to the south.

    Caribbean Federation
    The second great mercantile federation in North America after the Free States, the Caribbean Federation got its start in Cuba - quite odd for a most definitely 'bourgeois' republic to be born from the ashes of one of the pre-war Communist states, but that's just one of the great ironies of post-apocalyptic history for you. In 2360, the rival Republics of Havana and Santiago buried their bloody past by signing the Grand Charter of Guantanamo to unify their states into one greater republic, with Havanan President Dolores Cardona serving as the first President of the reunited Cuba and her Santiaguero counterpart Arsenio Rubin as her Prime Minister, their eldest son and daughter marrying to seal the new bond with blood and the official Cuban capital set at Havana. The Cubans proceeded to try their hand at welding the Caribbean into a single nation (ideally with them as its leaders, of course), starting by intervening in the Parsley War between the Third Haitian Empire and the New Dominican Republic's genocidal tyrant Rafael Batista: Batista (a man already rumored to have tortured the President he deposed in a coup to gain power, his former mentor in the army no less, to death) started the war by massacring every Haitian within Dominican borders before attempting to do the same to western Hispaniola, but although the Haitian military was able to keep his genocidal ambitions in a stalemate on their borders they were too hobbled by corruption and incompetence to go on a successful offensive, and the Cuban intervention on their behalf is credited as the only reason they were able to counterattack eastward, depose Batista & annex his 'republic'. When Emperor Jean-Baptiste Bazin showed the precise opposite of gratitude by killing the Cuban ambassador for asking that he enter a Caribbean Federation with the Cuban Republic in 2377, the Cubans sponsored a coup d'etat that resulted in the entire Bazin family being murdered & the ascension of pro-Cuban Jean-Joseph Nerette to the presidency of the reborn Haitian Republic, after which Nerette promptly agreed to the Cuban request - and so the Federation as we know it today, with its capital set at Santiago de Cuba, was born. The Federation proceeded to spend the next ~200 years expanding into the former Commonwealth islands in the eastern Caribbean, which they steadily brought into their fold by hook or by crook, and under the guidance of the Cuban Presidents they have largely focused on establishing trade ties & outposts across the American coasts even after re-establishing contact with Europe.

    As of 2565, the Caribbean Federation superficially appears to be one of the nicest places to live in the post-apocalyptic Americas. It is a liberal constitutional republic where the government is divided into a bicameral legislative branch led by a Prime Minister (traditionally the leader of the party with the most seats in the lower Federal Assembly) and an executive branch headed by the President based in Santiago de Cuba, the constituent republics are granted sweeping cultural and political autonomy (each individual republic has its own leaders & bi/unicameral legislative assemblies who are elected independently of the Federal Assemblies & Presidents, in a fashion similar to the pre-war European Union, and English/Spanish/French are all official languages of the Federation) and its peoples are not only among the most prosperous in the Americas thanks to all the trade flowing in and out of its ports but also enjoy considerable civil liberties. But many tensions are boiling under its pristine surface - thanks to the proportionally representative setup of the Federal Assembly & Senate, the Cubans have been able to use their demographic advantages over the other republics to dominate the Federation's leadership since its inception, and to date there have only been one non-Cuban President & two non-Cuban Prime Ministers of the Federation, which is still not enough for the 'Radical Liberal Party' which seeks to centralize even more power in Havana; most of Haiti's newfound trade wealth was seen only by its mercantile Mulatto elite while the majority of their people still languish in conditions little better than when they were under the Empire, fueling the rise of a Haitian ultranationalist movement (originally a Voudou practitioners' association that performed some charitable works) calling themselves the 'Tonton Macoute' after another bloodthirsty Voudou-practicing bunch in Haiti's pre-war past, who aim to overthrow the republic and raise up an independent, strictly Voudoun Fourth Haitian Empire; and the Eastern Caribbean statelets have been coalescing under Jamaican leadership to demand greater representation in the Federal government (or alternatively decentralization) and efforts to reestablish trade with Europe, preferably before the FSA get around to it so they can completely corner the European market, while also putting more effort into reclaiming liberating former Commonwealth territories still outside the federation such as Guyana. Some especially radical Eastern Caribbean leaders are even calling for a referendum to secede from the Federation, whether to remain fully independent or to swear allegiance to the Windsors across the Atlantic as the Ontarians have done.

    Magenta (Ontario)
    The Viceroyalty of Ontario (officially all of Canada) is the oldest organized society in North America, having emerged from the shattered remnants of the Canadian federal government in the decades after WWIII. For centuries they were led by 'Viceroys' elected by the Canadian peerage, a merger of the old positions of Governor-General and Prime Minister who would always swear to govern Canada not as its sovereign monarch, but merely a loyal servant of the British monarch (whoever that might be at the time, since for most of its history Ontarians didn't even know if Britain had survived the bombs) and a first-among-equals within the nobility. In 2500, the first European exploration ship docked in Montreal, and as the Quebecois were in a rare state of peace with Ontario at the time they allowed news of the arrival to filter back to Toronto. From there, then-Viceroy James Borden learned that Great Britain had indeed survived the Third World War and happily asked the British ambassador to relay his oath of allegiance back to King Arthur II Windsor. Though neither Borden nor his successor, current Viceroy Philip Meighen, have been able to offer their allegiance to the British monarch in person so far, nor has Britain been able to send any meaningful aid to the Ontarians, just the restoration of contact between the motherland and her dominion was sufficient to restore Ontarian morale after a number of defeats at the hands of the Quebecois and Lakesmen and to get them to believe that they can indeed reunite Canada for the House of Windsor as the first Viceroys hoped.

    Blue (Quebec)
    The Kingdom of Quebec was founded when Saguenay-based warlord Jacques Vanier seized then-ruined Quebec City in 2133, and can be said to play a similar role to the Texan Holy Kingdom to the south as Canada's premier authoritarian & militaristic powerhouse with a sharp rivalry with another regional power (in their case, the Ontarians). The Vanier Kings and Queens officially continued to associate themselves with Catholicism, but in practice (and due to a total lack of contact with the Popes in Rome for the past ~500 years) have established a sort of royal cult around themselves that only borrows Catholic imagery, making themselves out to be sacred kings anointed directly by God and even making a point out of crowning themselves instead of having a priest do it upon their ascension. However, in 2500 the Quebecois' world was turned upside down when a fleet of European merchants and dignitaries docked in Montreal for the first time in centuries - including a Papal Legate who sternly disapproved of the borderline heretical Vanier 'sacred kingship'. Now a struggle is steadily brewing between King Louis V Vanier, who insists that he is still a Catholic (and officially is one) but refuses to abandon the more heterodox practices of the Quebecois kingship and is backed by the upper nobility, and his cousin Jean Vaquer, the powerful Duc de Montreal and a descendant of Jacques I's second son Charles, who is working to undermine the Vaniers with the unofficial backing of the lesser seigneurs and orthodox Catholics who reject the 'royal cult' in its entirety; their factions are respectively nicknamed the 'Gold Lilies' and the 'White Lilies' after their houses' heraldry.

    Purple (Maritimes)
    The United Kingdom of the Maritimes is one of the younger factions of the Eastern Seaboard, having only been forcibly united by the Sinclairs of Nova Scotia in the early 2400s. Though it has always been in a position to seriously contest dominance of the Eastern Seaboard's trade lanes and fishing areas, the Maritimers have been unable to make good on their potential so far due to internal instability, with many of the subjugated lords and petty kings still resentful of their defeat at the Sinclairs' hands and chomping at the bit for any opportunity to secede. Making things worse, since the arrival of European dignitaries at the start of the 26th century Catholicism has steadily been making inroads into the Maritimes at the expense of the state's Nova Scotian Church, which is widely seen as a corrupt money-sucking tool of the Sinclair kings and queens (who happen to be its official heads). Now, Queen Joan Sinclair not only has to deal with resurgent secessionist feelings in Newfoundland and New Brunswick but also the rise of one Anne Shirley, a young Catholic evangelist of peasant origin who is said to perform miracles and is attracting increasing support among the people of Nova Scotia & Prince Edward Island with her fiery speeches (and resources from the Catholic Church). If Joan doesn't play her cards carefully, she could see everything her ancestors worked for going up in the flames of a combined separatist and religious rebellion very soon...

    Gold (Manitoba/Saskatchewan)
    The Manitoban Empire was once the premier power of the Canadian West, but no longer. Though it ruled everything from the British Columbian coast to the edges of the Canadian Shield in northern Ontario at its apogee in 2360, a string of inept rulers, civil wars and well-timed rebellions has by now reduced them to slivers of central-western Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan. Its troubles began with the successful rebellion of the Albertan Cossacks and the foundation of the Great Plains Sich in 2377, followed by the loss of its British Columbian exclave to Alaskan and Californian attacks as well as Ontarian counteroffensives in the east starting in the 2390s. In 2402, the Douglas dynasty which founded the empire and led it for most of its history came to an end when Emperor John II slew the rebel Duke Owen Forke in battle to avenge his murdered family, only to expire of his wounds soon after; without any strong leaders, the Empire collapsed into anarchy for several decades while Albertans from the west, Eskimos to the north and Granger warlords south of the border further nibbled at its borders. Although what was left of the imperial core region was definitively reunited by Alexander Crerar of Marquette in 2470, instability continued to wrack the Empire as nobles prioritized their intrigues for the throne & personal wealth over the well-being of the whole empire, and to date no man has been able to establish a dynasty that sat for more than two generations on Manitoba's blood-soaked throne. The latest nobleman to secure the crown, Emperor John III Dhaliwal (who murdered his predecessor, Gregory IV Beddome, for the job two years ago), is still struggling to keep his vassals under control: the Pallisters of Saskatchewan are inviting the Sich to 'liberate' them from his rule, the Marstons to the south are doing the same with the Granger Emperors, and his own brother is sharpening his knife at this very moment - so to put it mildly, he may not be able to worry about restoring Manitoba's imperial glory for some time yet.

    Aqua (Alberta, parts of BC)
    The Great Plains Sich is a semi-democratic federation that grew out of a massive peasant rebellion against Emperor Henry Douglas of Manitoba in 2370s Alberta, where only soldiers and civil servants have the right to vote and where the economy is doubly reliant on decentralized agriculture (the great noble estates of the past having been seized and redistributed among individual families long ago) and its slowly-rebuilding oil industry. Befitting its Albertan core's dominant population of Ukrainian-Canadians and the role that its elite Albertan Cossacks played in liberating the former Canadian province from Manitoban rule, the Sich is officially led by a supreme Hetman who also happens to always be the personal commander of the Albertan Cossacks, though true legislative power lies in its Sich Rada (an upper house composed of Otamans elected by the various regional Cossack communities) and the Greater Rada (a lower house composed of representatives elected by non-Cossack soldiers), who together form the Central Rada of the Sich. Needless to say however, the Sich's restricted franchise and the tendency of the Cossacks to ride roughshod over non-Cossacks who get in their way has produced a steady wave of popular discontent, further aided by lesser Cossack communities that feel oppressed by their more powerful cousins. Today, sitting Hetman Alexander Stelmach must not only watch for danger from the Sich's ancestral enemies in the Alaskan Tsardom and the Grangers to the south, but also a brewing 'Second Albertan Revolution' likely to be led by his rival Ataman Wayne Lyshchyn, who aims to crack Cossack dominance over the state and inaugurate true democracy on the western plains.

    Cyan
    The Arctic regions of Canada were heavily depopulated in the Russian invasion and then again by the bombs at the climax of the Third World War, in no small part due to the surprisingly large number of Canadian military facilities formerly present there, yet through it all the local Inuits were able to survive. Though they initially preferred to live in their own tribes and not-infrequently warred with each other, repeated Manitoban and Quebecois incursions forced the chiefs to see the necessity of presenting a united front against non-Native powers lest they be divided and subdued once more like their ancestors. The warlord Thomas Okalik was the first to unite his people under the banner of the Inuit Confederacy with blood, gold and promises, and since then the Inuit elders have not only steadily consolidated their rule over Arctic Canada and defended their traditions & sovereignty from those who would make them bend their knees but also began to look to liberate their cousins to the west, which necessitates conflict with the Russian Tsar in Anchorage - not an easy opponent, to be sure. In preparation for their ultimate goal of uniting the continent's remaining First Peoples against all who would crush them and relegate their traditions to the dustbin of history, reigning Chief of Chiefs Lavinia Aupaluktuq has renamed her nation the 'Eskimo Confederacy' with the full backing of the Circle of Elders and is gearing her people up for war.

    Some religions
    Exceptionalism: A form of bastardized Christianity, especially popular in the Mid-Atlantic Free States. This faith holds that America was founded as a new Jerusalem; that the Founding Fathers were divinely ordained to shape the new nation and ascended to become angels after their death; that the Presidency is a holy office and that Presidents are not only temporal but also spiritual leaders of the federation (unless he's a non-Exceptionalist, in which case Exceptionalist believers essentially declare the leadership of their religion 'sede vacante' until an Exceptionalist once more sits atop the Presidential Chair in Philadelphia), anointed by God but also raised high by their people in democratic elections; that the Constitution is worthy of reverence, perhaps not on the scale of the Bible itself but as part of 'holy tradition'; and that they have every right to only reunite America under their banner, but also bring the light of freedom to the rest of the world in due time. Many Presidents, in keeping with Exceptionalist tradition, have had an eye on restoring Washington DC and moving the capital of the FSA there, which Exceptionalist doctrine states is one of the necessary steps to bring about the Second Coming; thanks to Marshal Douglas Grant, who captured the ruined city in a daring offensive in 2550, there is now a chance of all that finally happening (well...maaaaybe not the 'Feds move back to DC = Second Coming inevitable' part).

    This religion's cradle is Pennsylvania, where it is taken so seriously that even despite the First Amendment some county authorities will look the other way when a lynch mob breaks down the door of a critic of any President, but less so on the New York coast where the cosmopolitan plutocrats are more welcoming of foreign influences, and has made few inroads against the Catholics and traditional Protestants of New England. The 'Black Bureau', a holy order dedicated to defending the President of the Free States (regardless of his/her actual religion) and smiting their enemies, was founded in Philadelphia in 2355 by seventeen fanatical Exceptionalist soldiers and bureaucrats in the wake of yet another Free Stater defeat at the hands of the Confederacy; today, the 'Men in Black' (as the order's soldiers are known) are rightly dreaded by all who see their black helicopters or vans approaching, friend or foe, for they have also taken to investigating the government's inner workings for corruption as well.

    Revelationism: Another bastardized form of Christianity, this time emerging from Pentecostalism, Hyper-Calvinism and reactionary fundamentalism in general after undergoing severe post-apocalypse distortions. Revelationists believe that the Apocalypse written about in the Book of Revelations has already come to pass in WW3, and that they are now God's soldiers in the Tribulation, carrying the holy duty of preparing the Earth for the arrival of His Son by exterminating all who offend Him. As one may predict from that doctrinal development, they tend to be violently xenophobic and fanatical, demanding that any unbeliever they find either convert or burn first in their worldly flame before they start burning in Hellfire. It is not unheard of Revelationist missionaries to murder unbelievers who refuse to listen to them on the spot. They denounce all other Christian faiths as heresies whose adherents should be given precisely one chance to turn to their light or be annihilated as servants of Satan, and non-Christians as unworthy of even a chance at redemption - clearly, if God wanted them to be saved then He'd have made them right Revelationists before they ran into each other, right? Revelationists are also (in)famous for their practice of snake-handling and imbibing small quantities of poison from childhood to both express the power of their faith and build up a natural immunity to poison, while dismissing any casualties as a sign that the boy or girl who died clearly did not have God's favor: to nobody's surprise, this practice has only further entrenched their reputation as psychotic lunatics in the eyes of their neighbors.

    The Revelationists are common in the Appalachian Mountains, even in the Columbian Confederacy where the authorities have been working hard to suppress their faith in favor of the Southern Baptist Convention (which, despite being authoritarian in structure & approving of first slavery and now serfdom, generally frowns on endangering children with snakes and poisons + murdering strangers for not listening to you). Small, secretive Revelationist communities also exist as far north as Michigan and as far south as Texas, and the Grangers are also looking at this warlike religion with increasing interest. In the free Appalachian territories, though the Revelationists have no proper holy order like the Exceptionalist Black Bureau or the SBC's Brotherhood of the Holy Grail, their elite warriors are known to favor flamethrowers and blowtorches as weapons with which they can burn sin out of the world.

    Marxism-Lennonism: The primary belief among the workers of the Illinois Commune, Marxism-Lennonism is a syncretic blend of Buddhism, Communism, spiritualism & pop culture. According to Marxist-Lennonists, there are no gods, but humans trapped themselves in a vicious cycle of oppression known as the 'Eternal False Revolution' where kings and the bourgeoisie will constantly battle each other for the right to oppress the unenlightened proles, due to their own selfishness and pride. However, the Marx brothers discovered a way to break this wheel, attain enlightenment and build a paradise on earth: they had to awaken the consciousness of the oft-dominated proletariat by getting them to set aside all interpersonal struggles so they can focus on the class struggle, after which they must cast the kings and bourgeoisie of old down and build a new, industrial paradise of harmonious equality and prosperity where nobody starves or sleeps without a roof over their head atop the bones of the oppressors. Though the brothers were put to death by the pre-apocalypse authorities, their friend John Lennon transcribed their texts and boiled it down to a few catchy songs (chief among them 'Imagine', clearly a description of what the Enlightened Earth should look like) for the convenience of future generations, and Marxist-Lennonists feel it is possible to commune with the spirits of these deceased great men through channelers; only once the Eternal Revolution has ended and a paradise of enlightened workers reigns over the Earth can their spirits finally rest.

    Marxist-Lennonists are obviously mostly found in the Commune of Illinois, as those who would spread the Word of the Marx Brothers elsewhere are often in danger of being executed by local authority figures if they get caught. Within the Commune's borders, more fanatical adherents of this ideology have founded the 'Red Guard' to supplement the Communal armed forces: accepting soldiers from all walks of life under the belief that all who unconditionally accept, meditate on and fight for the Word of the Marx Brothers will have already done their duty to earn a place in paradise, they make up for their relative technological inferiority with sheer numbers (the Red Guards are the most numerous holy order on the continent) and raw zeal.
    Last edited by Barry Goldwater; April 18, 2015 at 05:30 PM.

  2. #2
    Dirty Chai's Avatar Dux Limitis
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Seattle
    Posts
    17,263

    Default Re: Post-apocalyptic IH planning thread

    I have a suggestion.

    For "colloquial" names, Northern California could be "Alta California" and Southern California could be "Baja California."
    "Alta and Baja," sometimes.

    The original meaning of Alta & Baja California could be lost, since Baja is entirely controlled at this point by an Atla-based state.
    So, maybe these terms would become re-appropriated to mean the two halves of the Californian Empire?
    Last edited by Dirty Chai; April 13, 2015 at 01:27 AM.

  3. #3
    Barry Goldwater's Avatar Mr. Conservative
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Richmond, Virginia
    Posts
    16,469

    Default Re: Post-apocalyptic IH planning thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Bastard Feudalism View Post
    I have a suggestion.

    For "colloquial" names, Northern California could be "Alta California" and Southern California could be "Baja California."
    "Alta and Baja," sometimes.

    The original meaning of Alta & Baja California could be lost, since Baja is entirely controlled at this point by an Atla-based state.
    So, maybe these terms would become re-appropriated to mean the two halves of the Californian Empire?
    Works for me. I don't think the Californians would be particularly racist towards those of Hispanic descent, so it's not like they'd reject such labels anyway.
    Quote Originally Posted by Pericles of Athens View Post
    I think we should keep the lands overseas more of a mystery, if we aren't going there and our characters don't really know about those lands then there's no point in fleshing them out.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bastard Feudalism View Post
    ^Agreed.
    Some names would be alright, so the odd mention could occur, but beyond that..
    Quote Originally Posted by chesser2538 View Post
    I see your point. I cut back the map to just the west coast of Africa and Europe. To places that cross Atlantic sailors would most likely go.

    Currently there is around 10 nations added to the base list. The ones that I see as important to game play are mainly the South American countries, as they border a current faction. and the British Isles, as they would be the most likely to reconnect with their former Canadian Allies.
    Reasonable points. Maybe we could flesh out the regions on the Atlantic & (for Asia) Pacific coasts since those are the ones that you're most likely to come into contact with, and leave the rest to brief in-game conversations or notes? By which I mean something like:

    Random European bartender #33006: "So, I heard that the Czech and Polish kings are trying to kill each other over some Silesian mines..."

    Or:

    Random Chinese messenger #43774: "Yesterday, my brother's friend's uncle's cousin's son-in-law told me the Mongols have started raiding our northern frontier..."

    Instead of a lengthy multi-paragraph description in the second post of the game thread, which would be reserved for say, France and Japan.

  4. #4
    Barry Goldwater's Avatar Mr. Conservative
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Richmond, Virginia
    Posts
    16,469

    Default Re: Post-apocalyptic IH planning thread

    I've decided this would be as good a time as any to hold that poll on what IH you guys want to play next and that this thread would be a good place to it (so we're not choking up the Bar or unnecessarily taking up bandwidth with yet another thread), hence the rename. Here are the options I'm seeing:

    1) Barry's post-apocalyptic IH - The one we've been talking about for the past 2 weeks, and which this thread was originally all about. We're looking at a May/June start here folks, at best late April, so there will still be plenty of time to flesh out the American factions & the European/Asian factions likely to interact with them.
    2) Community-made apocalyptic IH - A post-apocalypse IH in either RPG or faction format, where the factions & NPCs involved are written by you guys.
    3) Barry's fantasy IH - A fantasy game where the setting is written by yours truly. I got the idea from an off-hand mention of dark fantasy by Perry in the Bar, and it won't leave my head ever since lol. 'course, like the post-apocalyptic IH, although having me write the entire thing will probably mean it can start faster than if the community does it, I can't guarantee that you'll be happy with the results.
    4) Community-written fantasy IH - Much like the community-written Post-Apoc IH, this will be a game set in a fantastic setting written by you folks. It can be high fantasy (the main Lord of the Rings trilogy), low fantasy (ASOIAF), a dark fantasy that leans to either (The Silmarillion, Dragon Age, The Witcher), whatever - point being, it will be up to you guys to decide that. Heck, if the community so wishes we could be looking at a game combining modern tech with wacky ancient magic & fantastic beings like the World of Darkness. 'BaW with (potentially) elves, goblins, vamps, werewolves etc' might be a good way to put it, certainly it's a better comparison than the post-apoc game since this will almost certainly not be taking place on Earth, if Dan permits this re-use of BaW's core concept of course
    5) Reboot of the WW2 IH - Since we only reached the end of turn 1 last time.
    6) Reboot of WEF 3.0 - Since we didn't even reach the end of turn 1 last time.
    7) Reboot of BaW 2.0 - Since we created the world, but failed to do much with it (I ran the only game set on that Earth, and it died very quickly too).
    8) Something else entirely - Post what you'd like to see.

    Cast your vote by post, I'll keep tally in this post.

  5. #5
    Pericles of Athens's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    The United States of America
    Posts
    12,267

    Default Re: 2015 IH planning thread

    1 or 3. Both pique my interest and I trust you to do a good job in either case.

    Scratch that, just 1. Its pretty well along and I'd hate to see the setting go to waste.
    Last edited by Pericles of Athens; April 18, 2015 at 11:20 PM.


  6. #6
    chesser2538's Avatar Senator
    Citizen

    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Houston, Texas
    Posts
    1,483

    Default Re: 2015 IH planning thread

    I agree, your IH seems like a good idea. Plus it will provide more motivation for you to stay with it if the IH is your creation.

    Under the Patronage of the venerable General Brewster

  7. #7
    Dirty Chai's Avatar Dux Limitis
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    Seattle
    Posts
    17,263

    Default Re: 2015 IH planning thread

    ^ Yeah, that's fine.

  8. #8
    chesser2538's Avatar Senator
    Citizen

    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Houston, Texas
    Posts
    1,483

    Default Re: 2015 IH planning thread

    Here is an updated tentative map that I have been working on of known territory for the IH . White regions are considered unknown, or undeveloped. The regions that I have focused on are the primary areas post apocalyptic explorers with 500 years to recover would likely be able to reach. In some areas the individual factions are known, in others only the portions of the larger region. So you might know the different factions in the British Isles, but may only know that china is divided in a civil war between alliances of northern Communist and Southern Syndicalist, with only a general understanding of there coastal territory.
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	world map.png 
Views:	9 
Size:	645.6 KB 
ID:	324928

    Let me know what you guys think. I can edit the map if there are any complaints/suggestions.
    Last edited by chesser2538; May 03, 2015 at 12:25 AM.

    Under the Patronage of the venerable General Brewster

  9. #9
    jacb547's Avatar Primicerius
    Join Date
    Sep 2011
    Location
    Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
    Posts
    3,490

    Default Re: 2015 IH planning thread

    Sorry I'm late but 1,3 or 5 would be my preferences.
    "We all know whatmy brother would do. Robert would gallop up to the gates of Winterfell alone, break them with his warhammer, and ride through the rubble to slay Roose Bolton with his left hand and the Bastard with his right. I am not Robert. But we will march, and we will free Winterfell … or die in the attempt."

  10. #10
    Barry Goldwater's Avatar Mr. Conservative
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Richmond, Virginia
    Posts
    16,469

    Default Re: 2015 IH planning thread

    This ain't dead, folks. I've been working on the Far East and hope to get it + Europe done over the next few weeks, tell me what you think so far:

    Far Eastern map

    Far Eastern factions
    United States of the Far East (lilac)
    In the last days of the Third World War, American forces counterattacked from Japan into the Russian Far East and Manchuria; when the bombs fell, the surviving US personnel were left stranded in Asia, a situation mirroring what befell the Russian troops still in Alaska. Centuries later, the descendants of these Americans and locals who warmed up to them (those who didn't are quite dead) are proud citizens of the 'United States of the Far East', a project initiated by an elderly Admiral Arthur Locksley (the last commander of PACOM, stranded in Vladivostok after the bombs fell) in 2080 to recreate the United States as best he could in Asia with the forces still under his command. This constitutional presidential republic is based out of the rebuilt Vladivostok, accepts all who are willing to abide by its laws and serve its interests as 'New American' citizens, regardless of race and religion, and though its bicameral legislative branch & all too often its presidency are routinely dominated by the elite (comprised of descendants of US military officers who've often gone into business + their mirrors in the Russian, Korean and Japanese populations), charismatic populists such as sitting President William Matveyev have been able to challenge the system from time to time.

    The USFE's long-term policy goal has always been to export the joy of apple pie, baseball and the free market to the rest of Asia whether Asians like it or not, though the longest-lasting political division in the country has been whether to do it peacefully or violently; elections are routinely only seriously contested by the 'Federalist' and 'Republican' Parties, which prefer to employ soft power by economically & culturally dominating the Pacific Rim and to employ hard power by directly conquering it, respectively. Both face different foreign policy challenges - the Federalists and their corporate backers must contend with the Pacific League for control of inter-Pacific trade lanes, while the Republicans and like-minded war hawks have immediate threats in the Ji Dynasty to the west and the Urashima & Maeda Shogunates to the east to deal with.

    Ji Dynasty (red)
    Just before the bombs fell and pre-war civilization perished in flame, Chinese Premier Ji Peng refused to evacuate to Yan'an with the majority of the CCP and instead hid out in his own private bunker near Beijing with his family & closest associates. Upon emerging to see his beloved country reduced to a blasted wasteland, something in him snapped, and instead of even trying to reach the rest of the Communist Party he declared that they were probably dead and that the clock had been rewound too far back for Communism to be realized in his lifetime: thus he resolved to recreate the Marxist conditions for the rise of Communism, starting with feudalism, and thus was the Ji Dynasty of the new Chinese Empire born. 500 years later, as one may have guessed his descendants have long since ditched any pretense of 'recreating Communism, one socioeconomic stage at a time' and have fully embraced their role as the upholders of the Mandate of Heaven & rightful monarchs of all China. Mao's Little Red Book has been set aside in imperial territories, to be replaced with lengthy Neo-Confucianist screeds, and the Emperors since Peng's grandson have been very quick to paint themselves as opponents to both 'failed Communism' and 'decadent capitalism', which they consider to be remnants of the past that are way past their expiry dates and stand in the way of a monarchist, Confucian/Taoist (depending on the mood of the Emperor at the time) and vaguely mercantilist 'third path for the future'.

    As of 2565, Emperor Cheng of Ji enters the 18th year of his reign. A martial leader & fierce war hawk who inherited the throne after the highly convenient deaths of his more peaceful brother (in a hunting accident) and father (from poisoned tea with evidence pointing to the CCP), he has to date overseen campaigns to push his empire's borders past the Yangtze against the feuding petty-empires of the south, to the north & west against the Yan'an Communists and the Mongols, and to the east against the USFE. However, despite the great size and population of the Empire as well as Cheng's own martial skills, the Ji Dynasty has so far had a very poor track record with fighting on multiple fronts all at once, and though Cheng has been careful enough to only fight one war at a time so far, continued successes on his part may well inflate his ego to the point where he will think that biting off more than he can chew would be a good idea - especially considering that his plan is to not only unite the Middle Kingdom under the Red Dragon, but also reclaim China's historical place as the cultural & economic hegemon of the Pacific...

    Chinese Communist Party (dark red)
    While the last Premier of the PRC sulked in his own private bunker when the end of days came, the bulk of the Chinese Communist Party's upper echelons fled to their own bunkers in the Huangtu Plateau of western Shaanxi, where they too weathered the nuclear bombs. Emerging years after the apocalypse under the command of General-Secretary Zhang Yunshan, they immediately moved to rebuild the People's Republic in the Plateau and to export the Revolution to the rest of the world, starting with China itself of course: deeming the late First PRC's dallying with capitalism to be a reason for its eventual destruction in nuclear fire, the Central Committee of the CCP mandated a return to 'orthodox Maoism' as the only acceptable course for post-war Chinese Communism. The discovery that their former Premier had gone off his rocker and founded an imperial dynasty, far from discouraging them from their quest, only further motivated the Communists to burn their former country clean of 'bourgeois and neo-aristocrat corruption'.

    As of 2565, the CCP is still directing its rebuilt PLA, backed by Red Guards drawn from enthusiastic younger farmers & workers within their borders, on wars of (re)conquest against all of its neighbors. However, over the centuries the Party's topmost cadres have increasingly become like the neo-feudal elite they claimed to be fighting, and are content to lord it over everyone else from the safety of their luxurious bunkers in Yan'an; this disconnect between what they're preaching and what they're actually doing is the reason why they are being increasingly challenged by Red Guard captains who believe in Maoism with more fire than the sun but have no patience for their masters' softness & corruption.

    South Chinese kingdoms (Anhui = yellow, Fujian = green, Chongqing = brown, Guangxi = grey, Yunnan = beige)
    For as long as anyone can remember, post-apocalyptic Southern China has been divided into a number of bitterly feuding dynasties, though the only ones to have survived into 2565 are the Duan of Anhui, the Qu of Fujian, the Qiu of Chongqing, the Cai of Yunnan and the Peng of Guangxi. Each dynasty presides over a feudal warlord-kingdom (though of course all of them have claimed the title of Emperor, due to the relatively small sizes of their domains they are often referred to as 'kings' by outsiders), and have grudges with each other as well as their neighbors that go back centuries. Anhui, Fujian and Guangxi have also often warred with the Pacific League in attempts to secure the wealth of the Mainland republics for themselves, while Yunnan and Chongqing have battled the CCP almost as often as each other.

    However, as of late the southward surge of the Ji Dynasty has forced at least Anhui, Fujian and Chongqing consider looking past their petty problems with one another and rally together against Northern efforts to unify China - they can go back to killing one another. Meanwhile, Guangxi must contend with an increasingly aggressive People's Republic of Vietnam, which may mean less resources for their privateer fleets to use in targeting Pacific League shipping in this period of tense peace with Tainan. Only Yunnan, long the most isolated and weakest of the Southern states, still has a relatively free hand & few immediate threats to worry about in these more turbulent times.

    Kawabata Shogunate (olive)
    Post-apocalyptic Japan, like virtually every other place on Earth, was a chaotic wasteland where strongmen & former government officials thad the best chance of building a new fortune. In the Land of the Rising Sun that opportunity was first exploited by Kawabata Hamaguchi, a lieutenant-general in the JGSDF who had the good fortune of sharing a bunker with a nephew of the last pre-war Emperor of Japan & proclaimed the man Emperor Go-Kogen to the other survivors, after which Go-Kogen named him the first Shogun since the 19th century. Between 2095 (when they first emerged from their shelter) and 2395, their descendants reforged Japan from the blood & bones of the myriad petty warlords or 'daimyo' who had emerged from the post-apocalyptic anarchy. They were aided in no small part by newly-forged business ties with the USFE and the Pacific League, as well as their vassalization of the 'Republic of Nagasaki', founded by the descendants of US troops in Japan, so it was no surprise that for the next near-century Kawabata Japan not only remained open to foreign business but also oversaw a tolerance for other religions and cultures that was unmatched in many parts of the world; after the Nagasaki Republic was formally annexed in 2417, these policies of 'openness' were further deepened, but the economic good times they brought to the people made it difficult for more conservative daimyo to do anything beyond making angry noises at Tokyo. But all good things come to an end, and when a New American company's hired scouts accidentally released a pre-war virus that killed thousands in eastern Japan in the middle of the economic slump of 2452, the reactionary daimyo found their opening for a coup. In a short and bloody civil war, Shogun Kawabata Naoto was killed, his sons forced to retreat to Hokkaido and his remaining followers in Honshu brutally purged by the ascendant Maeda clan, to whom then-Emperor Go-Higashiyama capitulated after the Kawabata defeat.

    As of 2565, the Kawabata clan have long since rallied in the safety of Hokkaido and are looking to push back south. Under the able leadership of Shogun-in-exile Kawabata Okada, they have already managed to seize a foothold in Tohoku with the aid of local sympathizers, and it seems that they have a reasonable chance of avenging their past defeat at long last. But the Maeda are not the sort to go gently into the good night, and even if they can prevail over their ancestral enemy, the Kawabata will still have to deal with the treacherous USFE in Kyushu before they can claim to have repeated their forefathers' reunification of Japan.

    Maeda Shogunate (purple)
    The Maeda have a long and illustrious history dating back to Maeda Shintaro, a lieutenant-general in the JGSDF and contemporary of Kawabata Hamaguchi. In the years after the bombs fell, Shintaro forged the people of central-eastern Japan into a cohesive state under his iron fist, and having procured his own claimant to the Chrysanthemum Throne (a distant cousin of the last pre-war Emperor) seemed like he had a good chance of uniting Japan under his banner. Sadly he did not count on the emergence of Kawabata Hamaguchi, and was killed in single combat with his former comrade in 2098: thus did the lengthy blood feud between their clans begin. Although the Maeda were eventually forced to submit to the Kawabata after a number of crushing defeats in the 2160s, played a critical role in aiding their rivals in reuniting Japan and managed to grab enough land & resources to become the second most powerful clan in the reborn country, they were not satisfied without a pound of Kawabata flesh to compensate for all of their own losses in the Kawabata-Maeda wars, and were further aggrieved by the Kawabatas' insistenceon making Japan 'open for business' as well as their tolerance for the ways of foreigners, especially the foreign-blooded & mostly Christian people of the former Nagasaki Republic. In 2452, Maeda Takashi seized an opportunity to violently overthrow the Kawabata and force Emperor Go-Higashiyama to name him Shogun, after which he sent his forces & riled up mobs on a fortnight-long xenophobic murder spree directed at foreign businesses & emissaries in Japan; none were spared, and most infamously his eldest sons personally butchered the USFE ambassador and her entire family. But he overreached when, in 2455, he marched his forces on then-Kawabata-loyal Kyushu and explicitly declared his intent to kill everyone with a drop of non-Japanese blood there, the USFE finally decisively intervened, destroyed his fleet in the Battle of Shimonoseki and trapped the vanguard of his army around Fukuoka. The result was Takashi's corpse being chained to a pole planted within sight of Chugoku and a USFE annexation of Kyushu with the overwhelming support of its locals, while his surviving children wasted precious resources squabbling over the succession back in Honshu.

    As of 2565, the Maeda are still in the process of rebuilding after a second destructive civil war. Shogun Maeda Sagoya, the victor of said civil war, has had hardly any time to catch his breath before his ancestral Kawabata rivals jumped at their chance for vengeance and had their marines secure a beachhead on Tohoku with the aid of some disillusioned locals; but if anything good can be said about the Maeda, it is that they never truly give up (even when it is readily apparent that they should), and so Sagoya has already begun to rally his exhausted but highly experienced forces to stop this threat. And once the Kawabata have been dealt with, he can finally turn west and complete his ancestor's work in Kyushu...

    The Pacific League (blue)
    In the early 22nd century, seven cities emerged as great hubs of trade in the South & East China Seas: Taipei, Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai, Haikou, Xiamen and Fuzhou. For many decades, the only thing they had in common was the fact that they all had democratic and republican governments, and they fought each other as fiercely as they did with the pirates and Southern Chinese kingdoms. That changed in 2270, when the leaders of these republics - having figured that they could turn a bigger buck if they all worked together to monopolize every market in the Pacific Rim instead of competing with each other - signed the 'Pact of Shanghai' that bound them into an alliance 'forever'. Although each state in the League maintains its own armed forces, government and domestic policy independent of all the others, they must answer to a High Council based at Tainan (composed of elected representatives from each member-state) in matters of foreign policy (including League-wide sanctions on doing business with other foreign powers) and inter-League business regulations, an arrangement that has kept everyone reasonably happy for the past few hundred years. Between their founding and the present day, the League has also added Ilocos ('liberated' from the rival Philippine Republic in 2372 as a Taiwanese protectorate, but granted full independence as a League member in 2420), the Lanfang Republic (which joined the League for protection from the Malay Sultanate in 2440) and Singapore (signed the Pact in 2488).

    As of 2565, the Pacific League remains the top naval and mercantile power in the Pacific. Its companies' ships transport goods and workers while each republic's fleet works tirelessly to keep their shipping lanes safe, the denizens of its neighbors continue to flood past its border in search of a better life, and it maintains sizable enclaves (of business leaders, workers and their families) as far north as Tianjin in the Ji Empire and as far south as Jakarta in the Javan Sultanate. The High Council is also in talks with the leaders of the Republic of Vietnam to incorporate their state into the League, in exchange for protection from the People's Republic of Vietnam. However, the League is still under pressure from the militaristic Malays, the South Chinese kingdoms which still see its Mainland member-states as well-fortified treasure chests, and most recently the increasingly southward-turning USFE, whose Federalists wish to contest the control of the Pacific trade routes with them & whose Republicans intend to neutralize the threat the League poses to their dreams by outright conquering them.

    Mongol Khanate (cyan)
    A tribal confederacy of Mongols and, more recently, Manchus led by a Khan (elected by and from the ranks of the tribal chiefs) from Ulaanbaatar. Well known for constantly raiding Chinese frontier areas, killing and enslaving hundreds or even thousands every year. They have also attempted full-blown migratory invasions of the Ji dynasty in 2388 and 2436, but were eventually repulsed with great loss of life both times (though in their second invasion, Khan Sanjaagin Enkhbayar was able to sack and occupy Beijing for 5 years).

    Ironically, in recent years their own northern borders have come under heavy pressure from the Siberian warlord Grigory Pepelyayev, popularly known as 'the Pale Horseman': a bloodthirsty brute of a man known for his paranoia and mood swings between 'petting kittens with kids' and 'literally foaming-at-the-mouth fury', creating pyramids from the skulls of his enemies, and leading a bizarre self-made apocalyptic cult that holds him up as the earthly incarnation of the Mongol god of war and the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse (hence his nickname). Outside observers believe that if he can defeat sitting Khan Punsalmagiin II Enkhbold, the Mongol & Manchu tribes will elect him Khan so he won't fashion their bones into a new throne.

    People's Republic of Vietnam (orange)
    Another self-styled Communist people's republic in what used to be North Vietnam, founded by the descendants of the CPV's survivors when they emerged from their bunkers 150 years after WWIII. Their publicly-stated mission to unite all of Indochina beneath their red banner. Needless to say, they've often clashed with the Republic of Vietnam and the Laotian & Cambodian kingdoms as well as the Peng Empire in Guangxi. In recent years, under the leadership of the martially-talented Chairman Do Tan Sang they have enjoyed a number of sweeping successes on all fronts, leading Laos, Cambodia & Guangxi to form an ad-hoc coalition against them called the 'Pact of Vientiane' while the RVN seeks Pacific League support.

    Republic of Vietnam (blue-purple)
    The oldest state in post-apocalyptic Vietnam, founded in 2175 by a mutual agreement between the Mekong Delta Merchants' Board based in Ho Chi Minh City Saigon, the Buddhist monks dominating Binh Duong, the Catholic diocese of Xuan Loc and several Degar tribes in the central highlands of what used to be Vietnam. Since its inception, the RVN has had to delicately balance the demands of the Buddhist and Catholic communities that have grown to dominate it (the Buddhists demographically, the Catholics financially), while the Merchants' Board which has supplied all but five of its Presidents is known to have connections with the organized crime (particularly pirates who find Saigon's port to be a great hideout & vacation spot). In recent years, it has suffered a number of military defeats at the hands of the PRV, and though the Thieu Line at its northern border is holding fast for now, the situation is getting dangerous enough to force President Ngo Chu Trinh to apply for membership within the Pacific League in exchange for direct military assistance.

    Laos & Cambodia (light green/dark purple)
    A pair of feudal kingdoms that have often warred with their neighbors, and each other, since they were first founded by surviving members of the Khun Lo & Norodom dynasties 80 and 100 years after the bombs fell, respectively. Laos has recently undergone a civil war between the rival princes Kiranvong & Santi Savang, and though Kiranvong was ultimately able to defeat his younger half-brother in 2560, his kingdom was weakened enough for the PRV to crush his army in several engagements & occupy parts of N/NE Laos. Meanwhile, Cambodia has also just emerged from a decade-long dynastic war with the Kingdom of Thailand in 2561: though Queen Buppha Devi has managed to preserve her throne and her kingdom's independence, her forces have been badly bloodied and Phnom Penh still recovering from the unforgiving Thai occupation of 2554-6. Nevertheless, with the western threat dealt with, she feels it is safe to enter an alliance with the battered Laotians in hopes of halting a southward PRV advance - she didn't fight for her country's freedom from the Thais just to lose it to Vietnamese Communists, after all.

    Thai People's Republic (salmon)
    One of the newest countries in East Asia, the Thai People's Republic was first proclaimed by peasant rebels in Chiang Mai province, NW Thailand who had risen up against corrupt local aristocrats under the lead of the treacherous police chief Kokaew Prompan (who was promptly elected its first president) in 2375. In its founding document, the Republic proclaimed itself to be a constitutional democratic republic that sought freedom and prosperity for North Thailand's farmers & hill tribes, and its constitution mandated a universal franchise, a unicameral 'National Assembly' and a parliamentary system where a Prime Minister drawn from the ranks of the most powerful party/coalition in said Assembly wields all executive power, with the President being a figurehead. On the surface it certainly seems to have made great strides in a more progressive direction, breaking up landowners' estates, Buddhist monastery lands and socialist collectives in all the territories it has conquered in order to redistribute parcels of land to peasant families to own privately and steadily driving the unpopular Royalist forces out of northern & central Thailand with the aid of local rebels. However, in practice power has been monopolized by a few powerful families including the Prompans of Chiang Mai and the Yangs of Shan, who secure votes through elaborate patronage systems which dispense funds and guarantees social services for their supporters. The Republic has often warred with the Cambodians, Burmese and the Thai Kingdom throughout its history, and in recent years it has been unable to take advantage of the Thai Kingdom's severe defeat in Cambodia due to its own war with the Burmese Federation.

    Kingdom of Thailand (pale yellow)
    The Thai monarchy was officially revived in 2167 when the Bangkok-based warlord Sondhi Kosaisuuk, who installed a descendant of the last pre-war Thai King as a figurehead to lend his government a veneer of popular legitimacy. The Kosaisuuks held the office of Prime Minister for the next 180 years, and in that time unified most of Thailand outside of the remote northern/northwestern areas. However, the Kingdom was notoriously corrupt - its army, police and nobility alike not only turned a blind eye to the drug trade routes crisscrossing the country but often actively aided the drug lords in exchange for a cut of their profits, while Bangkok became Southeast Asia's premier pirate & smuggling den. Even after the Kosaisuuks fell from grace, the situation did not improve as corrupt nobles and generals (well, often corrupt noble generals) spent their time & resources fighting each other for the PM's seat while the Kings remained powerless figureheads, resulting in surges of popular dissent that eventually gave birth to the rebel Thai People's Republic and were a major factor in said Republic's growth. The Kingdom has since lost most of its territory to the TPR, and an ill-thought out attempt to snatch the throne of Cambodia ended in disaster in 2561. Only the fact that the TPR is busy fighting the Burmese has saved the Kingdom from being fully occupied by them...for now.

    Malay Sultanate (green)
    Capital:​ Klang

    In the aftermath of the Third World War, the Federation of Malaysia dissolved into a number of petty-kings (some of whom claimed descent from pre-war royalty, others from post-war warlords), warbands of Islamic zealots calling themselves 'mujahideen', and pirate lords. This sorry state of affairs persisted until 2299, when Sultan Jaafar ibni Najib of Selangor (largest and wealthiest of the western Malay states) struck an alliance with the powerful mujahid Iskandar al-Haj; in exchange for al-Haj's aid in slaughtering his enemies and unifying the Malay sultanates into one, Jaafar swore to enforce the rigid sharia law demanded of him by the mujahideen and to heed spiritual advisers drawn from their ranks. By 2322 the duo had succeeded in this: the petty sultans of west & east Malaysia had all been crushed, driven into exile or reduced to vassals of the triumphant Jaafar (with Perlis, a Thai protectorate, falling last), other mujahideen groups had been brought in line or shot, and the headless or even dismembered corpses of pirates decorated their former lairs. Jaafar was able to crown himself Yang di-Pertuan Agong, lord and master of the former Malay Federation...and at his coronation feast he had al-Haj poisoned, for the mujahid had outlived his usefulness and Jaafar feared he could undermine his new kingdom, though he converted the mujahideen into his police force (the 'Mutaween') under a more loyal handpicked lackey.

    Since then, the Malay Sultanate has been a country living in a perpetual state of cognitive dissonance: while the overwhelming majority of the population live under strict sharia law, mercilessly enforced by the Mutaween who see no problem with executing gamblers or drinkers on the spot and flogging women who even accidentally reveal too much skin in public, the royal House of Selangor & the realm's nobility live in decadent opulence, and the former's private parties (complete with alcohol, drugs and no end of concubines or sex slaves) are legendary throughout the region as an example of their hypocrisy. Their coffers are perpetually stuffed to the brim thanks to the Sultanate's strategic position in the southern Pacific - any trade that doesn't go through Singapore has to go through them, and the Sultanate also happens to be the only route for the slave & drug trades which are flagrantly illegal under Pacific League laws. Things are outwardly unlikely to change under the reigning Yang di-Pertuan Agong Iskandar II, a teenage boy who ascended to the throne at age 15 upon his great-grandfather's death, but behind closed doors he must watch for the plots of his many ambitious relatives as well as that of Mutaween chief Aqeel ibn Khalid, who is quietly looking for opportunities to throw out the corrupt House of Selangor and usher in a properly fundamentalist Sultanate.

    Javan Sultanate (aqua)
    The Javan Sultanate was pieced together around the same time as its northern neighbor in former Malaysia, but in quite a different way. After a similar ~200 years of chaos and persistent low-level warfare between the island's myriad warlords and petty-sultans, Sultan Hasyim of Surakarta managed to unite his country by arranging strategic marriages into the royal families of Surabaya and Semarang, then using his allies' new might to crush the more powerful Jakartan Sultanate - before extending the hand of mercy to the defeated Sultan Ahmed II and not only keeping him alive as a vassal but also marrying his most treasured daughter to Ahmed's eldest son, thereby binding Java together with diplomacy as his glue instead of wars-to-the-knife as was the case to the north. Since then, his descendants have striven to expand the Sultanate with his methods: they prefer marrying into and/or vassalizing other states in the neighborhood, typically provide lavish charity to their subjects to maintain popular support, and adhere to a much less rigorous & more native-influenced form of Islam that gives them more flexibility in tolerating other religions (like say, Pacific League or Christian Ambonese merchants). This has resulted in the Javan Sultanate being a much less centralized realm than its rigid Malay counterpart, more of a royal federation than a unitary empire. At present, Sultan-of-Sultans Amangkurat II, having failed to forge an alliance with the Malays and gain influence over their new Yang di-Pertuan Agong when his proposal to marry his daughter to Iskandar II was shot down due to influence from native Malay nobles jockeying for their young ruler's hand, is looking into forging an anti-Malay alliance with the Balinese Kingdom and the Christian Union of Maluku.
    Last edited by Barry Goldwater; May 30, 2015 at 09:52 PM.

  11. #11
    Barry Goldwater's Avatar Mr. Conservative
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Richmond, Virginia
    Posts
    16,469

    Default Re: 2015 IH planning thread

    Quote Originally Posted by chesser2538 View Post
    What is the tentative start date for this current IH? And has the game type been decided so that we can start choosing our faction/ building our character?
    You posted this in the wrong thread man, hence why I'm answering you here.

    As for a start date, let's say June 1st. Should give me time to do a decent job with the Asian & European factions, and for players like Aggy to get in. And as for the gamestyle, I'm quite certain the community consensus was a character-driven RPG, so let's go with that. I propose having you guys be part of a merc outfit (with one player elected by the others as its commander) so you can pick any setting & side yourselves through consensus, instead of having me pick it for you guys.

  12. #12
    chesser2538's Avatar Senator
    Citizen

    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Houston, Texas
    Posts
    1,483

    Default Re: 2015 IH planning thread

    So something similar to Glen Cook's The Black Company or The Golden Company from A song of Ice and Fire?

    Under the Patronage of the venerable General Brewster

  13. #13
    Dan the Man's Avatar S A M U R A I F O O L
    Content Emeritus

    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Penn's Woods
    Posts
    11,557

    Default Re: 2015 IH planning thread

    I'm on summer vacation now (well, sorta - I'll be working 35 hours a week starting on 5/21) so I should be able to participate this time. My vote goes for the Post-Apocalyptic IH.

    Are we taking suggestions for factions in the European theater for that one, by any chance? Because I have a few.
    Proudly under the patronage of The Holy Pilgrim, the holiest of pilgrims.


  14. #14
    Barry Goldwater's Avatar Mr. Conservative
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Richmond, Virginia
    Posts
    16,469

    Default Re: 2015 IH planning thread

    @Chesser Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I'll open a thread in mid to late May (so perhaps as early as this weekend or next week) so you guys can collaborate on your merc band. Elect the officers, decide who gets what job & under which higher officer, determine the band's composition & special units (will you focus on having elite light infantry or throw in some tanks/IFVs in there f'rex, maybe even a few choppers if you really want to prioritize quality over quantity), that kind of stuff. The goal will be to have you guys ready to start playing by June 1st, or at least close to a playable state.

    Heck if you guys want (and if the setting is properly filled out in time, of course) we could move the action entirely to Europe or Asia, should the community end up favoring those continents over North America. It'd be another break with Fallout, which to date has been bound to NA as well.

    @Dan Great news! And yeah, I'd welcome your (and anyone else's) recommendations for Europe And Asia for that matter, if you folks want to see anything changed about the factions posted so far (or to have them replaced outright) then fire your suggestions away. Here's the map I'm planning to use for Europe:
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    My initial plan, as was the case with Asia, is to fill in countries up to the Oder/Lake Balaton/Dalmatia + the Levantine coast + Morocco (and maybe the rest of the Maghreb if I had the time) and leave the rest blank. However, if you guys want to fill in those blank spaces all the way up to the Urals/the Caspian, go right ahead. And obviously if we're going to move the game to these other continents we'd have to fill those maps in completely, though fortunately we still have plenty of time to kill until the June 1st start.

    For the record, the factions I've planned (but which are still open to your suggestions,replacements) beyond than a few short sentences are:

    -The UK (already established as 'canon' since they're in contact with the Ontarians, a monarchy still headed by the Windsors, now struggling to regain control of the Home Isles from independent Irishmen & Scots; a bastardized form of Anglicanism that elevates the monarch to 'literal avatar of God on Earth' levels, with the PM handling almost all public events so the King/Queen can be secluded from unworthy eyes and nobody outside the Peerage is allowed to even utter his/her name, is the state religion)
    -Scottish Lowlands (Presbyterian nationalist secessionists in the north with their capital at Glasgow, battling Neo-Anglican/Episcopalian Unionist lords who are still part of the UK: I was thinking of using this year's election results as a base for the Lowlands' political divisions, with the Conservative seats + SE Scotland up to & including Edinburgh as part of the UK and the rest of it going to the secessionists)
    -Scottish Highlands (mess of Presbyterian & Neo-Celtic clans, independent from the UK but in a state of constant war between each other)
    -Ireland (everywhere outside of Ulster & the Pale is fighting for independence from the UK, but the rebel leaders are divided on whether to recreate a republic or install an Irish clan lord/a Catholic foreigner as a High King)
    -A French Empire (the latest in a cycle of kingdoms, republics & empires, this one emerging after a military strongman coup'd a republican government following a defeat at German hands)
    -A German Empire (the Kaiserreich walks again under a non-Hohenzollern dynasty, tremble before the reborn Reichtangle!)
    -Papal States (not sure whether to make it a dominant force in the northern half of Italy, just give it its historical possessions in central Italy, or have it be a small Latium-centered state that relies on soft power & foreign volunteers/holy orders to get things done)

  15. #15
    Pericles of Athens's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    The United States of America
    Posts
    12,267

    Default Re: 2015 IH planning thread

    I'd like the see Italy broken up into city-states I.E. ancient Greece and pre unification Italy. Milan, Venice, Naples, a Sicilian state - I'd like to see the same thing in Greece. More importantly I'd also like to see a Kingdom of Asturias in Spain, because independence for my people.

    But in general I've always found that things turn out better if you shape the world, so while I have suggestions I'll leave it to you as to weather or not you wish to work any of it in.


  16. #16
    Dan the Man's Avatar S A M U R A I F O O L
    Content Emeritus

    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Penn's Woods
    Posts
    11,557

    Default Re: 2015 IH planning thread

    Well, here's what I've got. Some of these were ideas that I had before you wrote the above and they do clash with yours (including the map), so feel free to take them on (in whole or in part) or reject them as you see fit. I'm also not 100% familiarized with the "lore" yet, so if anything doesn't jive, let me know.

    Maps
    Factions

    State Religions


    Key to religions map
    Yellow: Catholic Christianity
    Prussian Blue: Imperial Christianity (Note: Brittany should be here too, I just forgot to color it)
    Gray: Church Militant
    Teal: Cult of the Mechanical God
    Light Blue: Cult of Zalmoxis
    Purple: Orthodox Christianity
    Green: Sunni Islam
    Red: Cult of Ares
    Pink: British Judaism
    Orange: Zoroastrianism
    Light Orange: "Atenislam"


    Factions
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    Teutonic Order: (Dark Gray) The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem is an extremely ancient organization, not so much older than the Papacy itself really. Forced into obscurity after the establishment of Prussia as a secular state, the Order persisted nevertheless, abandoning its martial status in favor of true monasticism. In the days following the apocalypse, the Order was quick to reclaim its former territories along the Baltic Coast, presumably to provide aid to the people of that region. Such claims, however, were always dubious. The Order soon began a new crusade of its own against the "pagans" of what used to be Poland and the Baltic states. So vicious were the acts of the Teutonic Order, that they were excommunicated by the Papacy. They formed a church of their own, calling itself "The Church Militant." The schismatic church is headed by the Grandmaster of the Order and replaced former notions of spiritual warfare associated with the term "Church militant" with a doctrine of actual constant warfare against all perceived enemies of the faith. Capitol: Marienburg Castle (reoccupied and renamed from Polish "Malbork").

    The New Commonwealth: (Brick Red) A reformed Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Originally formed to oppose the Teutonic Order's reign of terror in Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth is home to many diverse ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups. Its political system is also uncommonly open for Europe at this time, ruled by an elective monarchy with open elections for all male, landowning citizens of the empire. It's not perfect, but it's certainly closer to democracy than anything else you might find in post-apocalyptic Europe. Though officially Catholicism is the state religion of the Commonwealth, freedom of religion is one of its primary political ideals, drawing the extreme ire of the Teutonic Order. Capitol: Krakow.

    Dacia: (Light Blue) A pseudo-Roman state that arose after the apocalypse in what was once Romania and Moldova, Dacia claims to be the true heir to the ancient Roman Empire, vowing to bring the "Pax Romana" back to Europe through peaceful alliance or, if necessary, outright subjugation. The religion of the Dacians is highly syncretic, with a church structure inherited directly from Christianity, but worshiping the ancient deity Zalmoxis as its one god. Beneath Zalmoxis, however, are the cadre of ancient Roman deities filling largely the same role they did in ancient times, with Jupiter considered to be the son of Zalmoxis. Capitol: Sarmizegetusa Regia (rebuilt).

    Tsargrad: (Royal Purple) Though it is more Slavic than Greek, let alone Roman, the Empire of Tsargrad claims to be Byzantium reborn, with its roots in post-apocalyptic Serbia and Bulgaria. The ancient city of Constantinople was abandoned shortly after the apocalypse, persisting only in legend among the tribes of what was once Greece and the Balkan countries. Legend has it that the first new Tsar of Bulgaria, Mihail the Great, saw the location of the "City of the World's Desire" revealed to him in a dream and, leading a host of settlers to the site, reclaimed it in the name of his people and the Orthodox Church, both reborn from the ashes of apocalypse. The new empire was populated largely by South Slavic settlers migrating from Serbia, Bulgaria, and Macedonia, but also by Eastern Slavs, crossing over the Black Sea from what was once Ukraine and Russia, Greek Christians attempting to escape persecution by the Spartans (more on them later), Christian Arabs escaping the newly-imposed Jizya in their homeland, and adventurers from around Europe. Truly, Tsargrad is a cosmopolitan endeavor, formed from a variety of peoples united in faith and purpose. Its greatest rival is no doubt the Empire of Sparta to the south, and also The Ummah on the other side of the Sea of Marmara, which has had its eyes on ar-Rūm for many years. Capitol: Tsargrad (on the site of Constantinople/Istanbul).

    High-Kingdom of Transcaucasia: (Lighter Blue) At varying points Tsargrad's greatest ally and most vicious rival, the Kingdom of Transcaucasia (K'avk'asia in Georgian or Kovkas in Armenian) shares a similar history with the empire. Formed of a union between Georgian and Armenian petty kings, rising to their position in the wake of the apocalypse, the kingdom is diverse, but also united in faith (Armenia having adopted Orthodox Christianity). The country is ruled by a single high king, elected by the lesser lords of both Armenia and Georgia. At various times, Transcaucasia and Tsargrad have worked together, especially against The Ummah. However, a deep rivalry also exists between the two, especially in regards to their faith. Though Transcaucasia has existed longer than Tsargrad, Tsargrad continues to claim that it has inherited Byzantium's status as the preeminent Christian Empire, something deeply offensive to the Caucasians. Capitol: Tbilisi.

    Eranshahr: (Orange) The glory of ancient Persia reborn, this new empire was founded by an enigmatic prophet-hero known only as Xerxes (Xšaya-ṛšā). In the wake of the apocalypse, the people of Iran abandoned the Islamic faith and took on the various pagan, tribal religions that were growing up in post-apocalyptic society. Xerxes, however, was a student of the history of his people, and reminded them of the ancient ways of their forefathers and the Zoroastrian faith. With the apocalyptic event being seen as the opening of Frashokereti (the final renovation of the universe) Xerxes was proclaimed Saoshyant, the messianic "one who brings benefit" of the Zoroastrian religion. Saoshyant or not, Xerxes certainly backed up his claim with a series of unprecedented military victories to build his empire. Capitol: Persepolis (rebuilt).

    The Ummah: (Dark Green) With its roots in several pre-Apocalyptic Islamist extremist groups, The Ummah is the latest (and, in the eyes of its followers, final) incarnation of the Islamic Caliphate. Its predominantly Turkish and Arabic population is composed of thoroughly radicalized Sunni Muslims, ruled by Caliphs chosen in the traditional Islamic shura in the manner of the Rashidun Caliphate. Hostile to foreign creeds, The Ummah quickly re-instated the Jizya after coming to power, forcing Christian, Jewish, and Pagan minorities from the Arabian Peninsula to Anatolia to flee elsewhere en masse. Today, The Ummah mostly has its sights set on The empires of Sparta, Tsargrad, and Persia in its endless Jihad against non-Muslims. Capitol: Baghdad (official), Mecca (ceremonial).

    The United Kingdom of British Israel and Juda: (Pink) Just one further example of the political and religious insanity spawned by the apocalypse, The United Kingdom of British Israel and Juda (often simply shortened to Israel or Israel and Juda) has its roots in the British Israelite movement of the 19th and 20th century, resurgent in the post-apocalyptic era. Because of how hotly the entire Levant region has been contested for the last few thousand years, it was among the first regions to be utterly destroyed in the terror of the apocalypse. The region was re-settled by soldiers (and their descendants) from the former British military base of Akrotiri and Dhekelia on the island of Cyprus, indoctrinated with notions of British Israelism by their commanding officer (and soon to be first King of Israel and Juda) General David Davidson. A new cult was established, based mostly on Old Testament Judaism but with a distinctly British character, known fittingly as British Judaism. Its primary rivals are The Ummah and Egypt. Capitol: Jerusalem.

    Egypt: (Light Orange) Egypt is an old land, dominated by ancient ideas. The apocalypse saw the rise of a new dynasty of Pharoahs, the expansion of Egypt to a position far outshining even its ancient glory, and the arrival of a new cult. Much like in Persia, confidence in Islam evaporated after the apocalypse, and the people of Egypt turned to their oldest ways...mostly: Unlike the purist Zoroastrian revival lead by Xerxes in his newborn Eranshahr, the new religion of Egypt is highly syncretistic: Blending a few Islamic traditions with revived worship of the ancient Egyptian deity Aten, the disk of the sun. For this reason, the faith has been dubbed "Atenislam" by outsiders. The religion is radically monotheistic, like Islam, and is iconoclastic like both Islam and ancient Atenism, while also conflating Aten and Allah together as a single deity. Furthermore, the new Pharoahs of Egypt are thought to be reincarnations of the Prophet Mohammed. A common symbol of the faith (and by extension, symbol of Egypt) is the ancient sun disk of Aten with the traditional Arabic calligraphy for "Allah" inscribed in the center. Capitol: Amarna (rebuilt).

    Empire of Sparta: (Red) The name of this empire should be explanatory enough. In the wake of the apocalypse, Greeks living around what used to be the ancient city state of Sparta adopted the war-like ways of their forefathers once more, forsaking Christianity, abandoning all luxury for a life of "spartan" austerity, and devoting their entire lives to the physical perfection of their bodies. A society built on war is bound to find enemies, and Sparta poured its massive military prowess into conquering the known world, pushing north from the Peleponese until it reached the borders of Tsargrad, west into Italy until it was at last stopped by a Christian alliance led by the Pope, and East to contest the city of Smyrna with The Ummah. The Spartans dedicate themselves to the worship of Ares, the ancient Greek god of war, though their rites are significantly more brutal than those of their forefathers, commonly involving human sacrifice. The other gods of the ancient Greek pantheon - especially Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades - are also honored individually, though the state cult is officially dedicated to Ares first and foremost. Capitol: New Sparta.

    Sultanate of Epirus: (Light Green) Proving once and for all that "the meek shall inherit the Earth," the Sultanate of Epirus was founded by nomads from Albania, who poured into a depopluated northern Greece after the events of the apocalypse. Though it does possess an army for defensive purposes, the Sultanate prides itself for never having gone to war with its neighbors, instead relying on Adriatic Sea trade to keep its nation strong. The peace enjoyed by Epirus amidst the chaos of the apocalypse, however, will likely not last, as they are pressured by The Ummah to swear fealty to their Caliph, and both Tsargrad and Sparta gear up to conquer the country's wealthy trade ports. Capitol: Durres.

    Papal Roman Empire: (Yellow) The medieval Papal States on steroids, Petrus Romanus (Pope during the days of the apocalypse) decided to enforce his title of "Universal Bishop of the Catholic Church" by military force. Petrus and his successors built an empire composing the northern part of Italy, the Dalmatian coast, and Provence. The Pope acts as both emperor of the "new Rome" and Bishop of Rome, weilding supreme executive and ecclesial authority in both capacities and weilding the title "Pontifex Maximus" in the style fo the old Rome. Its pretensions to this two fold authority have led it, in recent years, to direct conflict with the Holy European Empire to the north, and also to Tsargrad, which still has designs on the "Western Roman Empire." Capitol: Rome.

    Holy European Empire: (Prussian Blue) The aristocratic, monarchical shell that remains of the old European Union, the Holy European Empire conflates political aspects of both the Holy Roman Empire and the EU. Ruled by a diverse collection of electors representing various polities in what used to be France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic, the Empire lays claim to the whole of Europe - from what used to be Russia, to Britain - and might just have the strength to enforce those claims, if it could get its squabbling princes to work together for once. Strong emperors have come and gone, but the majority have been weaklings, kept in power only because a majority of the other electors were able to use him enough for his own purposes. The Empire is officially in a state of schism from the Catholic Church, subscribing to what is known as the "Imperialist" heresy, stating that it is the emperor who should be the head of the Church, not the Pope. As its flag, the Holy European Empire has adopted the old twelve stars on blue of the European Union, with an imperial double-headed eagle in the center. Capitol: Aachen (Assuming any other major city was probably glassed when the bombs fell).

    New Swiss Confederation: (Teal) The other example of political and religious insanity, a legacy of neutrality and its non-threatening nature tucked into the Alps left Switzerland largely unscathed by the events of the apocalypse. The Swiss, emerging from their burrows after the apocalypse, found their cantons almost entirely untouched, and rejoiced. Though surrounded still by potentially hostile polities in the form of the Holy European Empire and the Papal Roman Empire, the Confederation has an ace in the hole: Long ago, the Swiss rediscovered an ancient passageway beneath the city of Geneva, constructed from metal and equipped with incomprehensible arrays of computers and machinery from the Old World. The explorers who happened upon the passageway surmised that it was the sleeping chamber of an ancient deity, whose awakening, escape, and ascension beyond the plane of Earth is what caused the apocalypse. If the sleeping chamber could somehow be reactivated, the god might return to lead his followers to glory. The faithful, therefore, scour the world searching for artifacts of the Ancient Days (including old electronics, radioactive materials, books, etc.) that might prove to be the key to activating the sleeping chamber. Outsiders doubt the existence of this "mechanical god," but are certainly wary of the power that the technology of the Old World can hold. Were the Swiss ever able to actually turn the "sleeping chamber" back on (and they may just be mad enough to do so), the consequences could be devastating. So, the rest of the world gives them a wide berth. Capitol: The Holy City of Geneva.

    Empire of Vasconia: (Brown) Euskal Herria is the other underdog story in post-apocalyptic Europe. After the apocalypse, the majority of Iberia south of roughly Navarre was depopulated. Relegated for centuries to a small triangle of land just beyond the Cantabrian mountains, the native Basque people saw this as a chance to reclaim their ancestral lands. Through colonization and conquest of the survivors that remained after the dust of the apocalypse settled, the Basques built an empire that consumed the entire Iberian Peninsula, as well as Gascony and Toulouse. The Basques preserved their Catholic faith after the apocalypse, and have been among the Pope's strongest allies in the struggle against the Holy European Empire.
    Last edited by Dan the Man; May 12, 2015 at 01:54 PM.
    Proudly under the patronage of The Holy Pilgrim, the holiest of pilgrims.


  17. #17
    Pericles of Athens's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    The United States of America
    Posts
    12,267

    Default Re: 2015 IH planning thread

    I don't like the ideas of states becoming.. bigger and more centralized after the apocalypse. It kinda contradicts the whole idea of nuclear Armageddon.


  18. #18
    Dan the Man's Avatar S A M U R A I F O O L
    Content Emeritus

    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Penn's Woods
    Posts
    11,557

    Default Re: 2015 IH planning thread

    It's not so much that they're bigger and more centralized, it's that there's less people. There aren't as many people to govern over a wide swathe of terrain, so you can effectively "claim" huge chunks of territory that don't actually have any people living on them. Example: The Ummah - The Empty Quarter is still very empty, as is much of the Syrian desert. I'd venture to guess only Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the area between Medina and Mecca are very densely populated at all. The sites of important cities like Paris, London, Athens, Madrid, Warsaw, etc. are all probably still practically glowing with fallout too, so you know nobody's living there. Furthermore, it's only really "centralized" because it's despotic: Government systems aren't meant to be especially complex or bureaucratic in this scenario, the HEE with its feudalism and electors is about as complex as it gets. You can't be anything but centralized in an absolute monarchy, which is basically the oldest government system known to man anyway.
    Proudly under the patronage of The Holy Pilgrim, the holiest of pilgrims.


  19. #19
    chesser2538's Avatar Senator
    Citizen

    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Houston, Texas
    Posts
    1,483

    Default Re: 2015 IH planning thread

    Nice work Dan on the map. The main issue that I see as perry pointed out though is the nations are rather large, from my understanding, the civilizations at this stage are still in the feudal, tribal, and factionalism stages of rebuilding and expanding. The size on your map is somewhat unrealistic. Especially the big blue blob and Arabia. Areas like Spain, France, and Scandinavia would likely be divided between religious, historic, and regional lines. And as far as the large capitals being destroyed and abandoned, Fallout 3 kind of shows that the damage was not total but distributed. The tech level for the time of the was was basically 1950's. So the bombs would destroy infrastructure more than anything. These bombs probably yielded 10-15 KT.
    Last edited by chesser2538; May 11, 2015 at 11:28 PM.

    Under the Patronage of the venerable General Brewster

  20. #20
    Pericles of Athens's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    The United States of America
    Posts
    12,267

    Default Re: 2015 IH planning thread

    Also, perhaps more importantly, *hiss* @Empire of Vasconia *hiss* Damn Basques trying to take over my damn country. *grumble* But on a more serious note, Catalonia and Madrid would be wastes with Rome, Istanbul, Paris and Berlin.. but, maybe its just because I've got the blood of Asturias, but there's no way the people in northern Spain could be conquered by the Basques. There just aren't enough high value targets in northern Spain to really drop any bombs let alone enough to depopulate the area enough to pave the way for such a conquest.


Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •