TerraNES2: SilliNES Part 1: The Invisible Hand is In Your Pants

Game? Ultimately very simple.

Fresh Start. Bronze Age. No “Official” Stats.

Updates every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. Map guaranteed only on Sundays. Right Now: 25 years

Stories can be OOC, as long as they are IC. Meaning, “Newspapers” or scattered short paragraphs accepted, as long as they are written with your state’s personality. Stories make me like you. When I like you, better things happen. Not necessary GOOD things, but better.

Each player keeps own stats. Each player is responsible for keeping other players honest. BASICALLY: You can claim whatever you want, as long as you are able to convince other players you aren't power gaming.

When your nation collapses/splinters, I will allow 1 turn for a player to play ALL the splinters to establish character, but after that the player MUST make a choice.

Players are free to characterize their neighbors, but I have final say over NPC characterization. Sometimes, their characterization is just a point of view. On the other hand, they are entirely free to characterize themselves culture wise, with the same caveat of able to justify oneself.

Technology can work either based on claiming, or by soliciting me via orders.

All Orders and Diplomacy are in thread. Orders must include “new” stats.

No Mercy for Missed Orders. Reserves are available on request.

After 10 turns, Overview+Awards.

More Info if you want. But seriously, it's simple!



All I need is Name and Color. History? Culture? Bah. If you want to put that, put that. If not, no need.

If you do start off in a strange place, you WILL have disadvantages.

Also, I will only start off with a few nations bunched together. FOR DRAMA. Repost every update for a chance to get your dream state in! For a better chance, convince someone else to go in next to you. THEN MURDER THEM AND TAKE THEIR WOMEN.

AND YOU MAY POST.

EDIT: Current Updating Schedule/Table of Contents

Update 0: Wednesday, August 14, "This is a horrible map."
Update 1: Friday, August 16, "Wait WHAT? This is an UPDATE?"
Update 2: Sunday, August 18, "Stop! You’re too fast! You’re Hurting Me!"
Update 3: Friday, August 23, "This is a tale that never ends"
Update 4: Sunday, August 25, "LET THE EPIC FAILING COMMENCE"
Update 5: Tuesday, August 27<- WE ARE HERE
Update 6: Friday, August 30
Update 7: Sunday, September 1
Update 8: Tuesday, September 3
Update 9: Friday, September 6
Update 10: Sunday, September 8
Part 1 Overview and Awards: ?

Also

Culture Name: Astacean League
Government: Confederation of merchant republics
Stability: Mostly stable
Army: Comprised primarily of levied militiamen, with a smattering of professional soldiers culled from the retinues of powerful merchant families and clans. Mostly drilled in the use of spears and broadswords as light infantry, though there are some horsemen.
Navy: Significant in size, though mostly under the leadership of various merchant families.
Possessions or Territories: Control of the Balearic Isles and several ports and settlements along the Catalan coast, in Sardinia and Corsica, as well as in Algeria and Morocco.
Religion: Polytheism based around nature elements and human concepts i.e war, fertility, etc.
Culture Color: Dark brown

The capital and core city-states are in Barcelona and along the Catalan coast, ending around Valencia

In as Italy + Western North Africa.

Edit: Just realized how this works.

In as Rome.

Lord of Elves said:

Start me in Barcelona. Stats and culture coming.

Click to expand...

Arrow Gamer said:

In as Italy + Western North Africa.

Edit: Just realized how this works.

In as Rome.

Click to expand...

NAME AND COLORS YOU FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOZ!

Jeez.

Name: Stahfla
Color: Red
Location: Southern Norway, towards Denmark
Government: Absolute Monarchy (High King, with Kings underneath him).
Army: Mostly raiders that attack the coastline during the high winter and early spring/late fall, and farm for most of the year.
Navy: Longships and dumnar raiding vessels.
Stability: Mostly Stable.

Light blue.

I would join, but heading back to my dad's house soon, and with school (and therefore soccer) starting up in a couple weeks, not going to have the time :/

I'm the one updating 3 times a week, brah.

Name: The Ostrian Republic
Color: Dark Orange
Location: At the north-east of what would be the Netherlands, going into Denmark
Government: Switches between Despotism and Republic, due to rebellions happening every hundred years.
Army: Split into two groups, due to the civil war: The Despot's group is mainly focused onto the use of elite cavalry, which wipes the floor with non-anti-cavalry units but is curl-stomped when encountered with anti-cavalry. The Rebels holds a vast army, but are considered militia even within the army's upper and lower ranks.
Navy: Unable to hold a stable one, what with the revolutions happening every century, leaving Ostrian defenceless from naval invasions.
Stability: Total civil war during Goverment changes, but stable otherwise.

Welcome!

The two "Cradles" we have are currently Western Med (Astacean + Something in Rome) and the North Sea (Ostrian+Stahfia). More signups are welcome!

So, is it just a long wait for Tuesday, isn't it?

Yes, but not really. You can write about history, neighbors, culture, legends, current situation, notable places and names, and the such like. You can draw maps from your people's point of view.

hmm.. actualy have a fairly interesting Idea for something.. a bit of old, revived as something new..

The City State Ghaggar: (OOC: I want to start in Mohenjo Daro, but that's not an ancient name for that place. Mohenjo Daro means mound of the dead and is a modern name for the archeological site. Hence, I had to get creative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaggar-Hakra_river)
Starting Location: Mohenjo Daro
Color: Blue
Social Structure: This society is separated into five casts: the farmers (the normal people), the priests (who are the ruling class and will be detailed under "religion"), the soldiers (who will be detailed under "army"), the sailors (see "navy") and slaves. You belong to the caste your parents filled, unless you are forced to sell yourself into slavery, or freed by your master. Inter-caste marriage is allowed, mostly for the benefit of generals, who occupy lower social positions than priests, but often hold more de facto power. The children of an inter-caste marriage belong to the highest level caste of their two parents.
Army: The Army of Ghaggar consists of a large alliance of mercenary Vedic tribesmen, who were bribed to join the city state and fight against rival tribal groups who moved in to raid. This let Ghaggar survive the Arayan migration, being one of very few cities to do so. These warriors are now a distinct caste, and a distinct ethnicity. Their generals often marry into the priest caste, becoming the high priests of major towns and regions.
Religion: The farmers of this land have, over time, through oral tradition established a large body of customs and beliefs related to the river, the planting season and the monsoon. These beliefs were codified in the Cycle of the Holy Waters, a massive stone calendar that is the greatest religious artifact of the Ghaggar. Special priests were designated from amongst the elders to read this, and to recite oral tradition. The farmers came to depend on the council of these elders, who passed ancient knowledge on from father to son, from mother to daughter, making the first caste, the ancient caste of priests. As their power grew, they began to rule villages and cities in their own right. They speak for the waters and the monsoon, which, together, are believed to be a living sentient entity in their own right, which created this world as a monument to itself, and these people as its keepers. The river is thus sacred, and harbors often double as temples to the waters.
Navy: Fishermen have always gone onto the river, and the most skilled, blessed or otherwise worthy of them (in the opinion of the priests) are made into the sailors of large ships and military watercraft. These are technically their own caste, equivalent in social stature to the army.
Slaves: Just like the army consists of Aryans, visibly distinguishable from the locals, sailors and priests, so the slaves are also mostly Aryans, specifically those Aryans who were defeated by the city of and its tribal allies. The punishment for most crimes is also enslavement, and if you are bankrupt and cannot pay your debts you are sold into slavery to your creditors.
Stability: Stable, at least for now.

Useful note: Chieftains It seems likely that once, when farmers lived in small villages and the Aryans were unknown, the priests, who at that time were merely elder's councils passing on oral tradition and stories, were not the main leaders and interpreters of the law. Instead, the tribe was lead by a chief, chosen by the elders from amongst themselves. This chief was the judge, the warlord and made decisions, usually after consulting the elder's council.

However, as the oral tradition of laws and taboos grew more complex, the role of chief as a judge was increasingly replaced by elder's councils. The Chiefs instead became the warlords of major cities and towns, and took up leading increasingly large armies. Soon after, the Indus Script came to this region from further up the river, and the function of administrator also shifted to the elder's councils. At this time, the elder's councils became more and more akin to priests, as they made the Great Ghaggar Temple of the Cycle of the Holy Waters, and codified other forms of oral tradition as the sacred commands of the holy waters. Chiefs continued to fulfill a military role, until the Vedic invasion came.

The invaders destroyed many of the Indus Valley's greatest cities, including the mighty capital, where the Script was first invented, whose name is now ominously remembered only as Mohenjo-Daro, the Mound of the Dead, and which stands abandoned and burnt. The Chiefs knew that their armies would be equally helpless and so negotiated to bribe some of the Arayan warlords, forming the warrior caste as we know it today.

The position of chief still exists, and is still chosen by the priests from amongst the Priests, but is purely ceremonial (or in some towns, serves as a tiebreaker of the council fails to come to a decision). The role of chief now involves commanding the temple guard, and blessing the captains of new ships. For this reason, chiefs are often chosen from former admirals.

Useful Notes 2: Cities and villages There are three main cities in the city state of Ghaggar. The first is Ghaggar itself, which serves as the spiritual and administrative center. The second is Hakra and the third is Mehrgarh, according to oral tradition, the oldest of the three, and perhaps the place where the Indus people were first made from mud and clay by the great water, according to their creation myth.

Each city is similar in its architecture: In the middle live the priests, near a large dock, which doubles as a temple. They administer the city, and perform many spiritual duties. They also are the only caste who are taught to read and write The Script (whose original name is forgotten, just like the name of the city it was made in). Around that food is stored in large barracks, and the tiny reed huts of fishermen sit under the granaries mud brick walls. East of that, often across a river is the district where the warrior Arayans live and trade. This separation, while not encoded in law, is socially enforced: The Arayans see the Indus as weak, the Indus see the Arayans as uncivilized, so, with the exception of politically arraigned marriages and on marketplaces, the two groups rarely mingle. The other 3 corners of the city are occupied by irrigated farmland, where herders, fishermen and farmers produce most of the city's goods.

Around the cities are small tribal villages, accessible mostly by boat, where one may occasionally still find powerful chiefs acting as judges, and where locals do the same things as most of the people in the city: fish, farm and heard. The main crops here are barley, einkorn and emmer wheat. The most common animals are sheep, goats and cattle. Occasionally, one will find a domesticated elephant, whose owners are always important people in the village and deeply respected.

Due to the importance of the river, all life centers around it and its irrigation, and there are no roads in the city state to speak of.

Useful Notes 3: Trade Merchants, who carry goods between cities are a small, but notable social subgroup. They are not their own legal caste, since they rarely manage to maintain status over many generations. Before the influence of Mohenjo Daro, there were no merchants here, since every village had the same goods and there was nothing to trade outside of your town, where everyone traded on the marketplace for themselves. However, with The Script, there came many luxury goods, incense and crops like dates, which turned into valuable commodities. Not to mention a new trade in slaves, which local cities were now large enough to obtain through conquest. However, the priests saw commerce as beneath them, since it had always been something done by petty commoners selling their wares to one another. They received enough in taxes that they had historically had no need for trade. Instead, opportunistic fishermen stepped up to the plate, becoming rich by exchanging goods from city to city. Thus, merchants are technically of the commoner caste.

With the fall of Mohenjo-Daro, trade was expected to weaken, and many powerful merchant families became bankrupt as the city collapsed. However, the Arayans were new willing customers, with their own needs. Moreover, their conquests produced many slaves, who could now be sold for considerable profit. Those who saw this grew in power, and are now becoming a socially advanced new group, that may soon be important enough to have considerable political influence.

Useful Notes 4: Creation Myth Long ago, there was the water. It flowed everywhere in the infinite nothingness, and from it, the consciousness rose. This consciousness proceeded to ponder its own existence, and to attempt to comprehend it, The Holy Monsoon crafter the Earth, and the fire the Sun, and established the Great Cycles of Nature, by which all life initially lived. The Holy Waters slept in their musings, and a darkness, a perversion came upon the world. We do not know what cast it, but it caused the beasts of the world to deviate from the rational cycle. And so the waters woke and created us in the city we now call Mehrgarh, out of the clay and mud of the Earth, and we vanquished the chaos, and thus gained dominion over beasts. But we ourselves were also corrupted, for the mud itself had been turned into disease and pestilence, and so we were crafted from the chaos to fight it. Hearin lies the tendancy of us to deviate from the Great Cycle's rational council, though those who follow it will be reincarnated as lords and priests, while those who deviate from it shall be remade as slaves, to do penance and punishment in their next life. For such is the way of the waters, the unending cycle of the world.

The most wise and most holy shall be reincarnated with a special talent to read The Script and write it, and understand the Great Calendar Stone, built in Ghaggar to guide us. They shall be the priests, responsible for guiding all to improve themselves, so that all may enjoy in the future a better reincarnation, and so that the world can finally be restored to accord with the Holy River's mighty Way.

Name: Greek Empire
Color: Blue
Location: Greece, Minor Asia, Cyprus
Government: Absolute Monarchy
Army: Phalanx
Navy: Triremes
Stability: Stable.

Name: Siam Empire
Color: Red
Location: southern Vietnam
Government: Monarchy
Army: feather-warriors