New NESes, ideas, development, etc

Thanks, Milarqui, I had no idea! Also, I bet going farther than the entirety of the observable universe to find "antimatter galaxies" sure will be an economical and sustainable way of getting energy!
 
Right now, the only potential cost-efficient antimatter sources are the Van Allen Belts (where cosmic rays' energy can turn into matter and antimatter) and the potential existence of antimatter galaxies (which, right now, is not clear if they even exist).

:huh:
 
As mentioned earlier, but dunno how many people were interested, I'm thinking about making a fantasy/colonization NES where players would attempt to seek riches or tame this strange world that has recently been discovered by navigators.

Group Name/Player
Homeland or Base of Operations
Assets-
Wealth
Resources
Manpower
Armed Forces
Recent activities

Example:

Hentel's Band/ NinjaDude
From Kingdom of Buulht
Assets
-Camp Hentel at Seriel River (+manpower, +resources)
-Village of Mo Gus (-resources, ++wealth)
Wealth: Average
Resources: Average
Manpower: Low
Armed Forces: 3 companies of musketeers, 15 small ships
Recent activities:
-Arrived in the new world last year
-Discovered a river last year
-Enslaved some native giants recently
-Were ambushed by natives recently

The scale for resources, wealth, and manpower would go:

Minimal-Very Low-Low-Average-Above Average-Abundant-Immense

Resources would represent how much material and tools your group has available to you. Wealth represents how well off your people are, as well as economic activity. Manpower simply means how many able bodied people are in your group.

Thoughts?
 
I'd be up for this but are you going to have any mechanic for how pleased your homeland is with you? Like if your making them a large sum of money they'd be more willing to give you additional supplies than if you were some unprofitable outpost.
 
I'd be up for this but are you going to have any mechanic for how pleased your homeland is with you? Like if your making them a large sum of money they'd be more willing to give you additional supplies than if you were some unprofitable outpost.

That'd be handled more through diplomacy and what is said in the update. A lot would depend on flavor and creativity.
 
Good. I'm interested in what kingdoms players will be hailing from, and what races will exist in the setting you create. Some rival kingdoms, perhaps (well, all of them are rivals, I suppose...)? Also, do you plan on having everyone be human, and all of the fantasy stuff is in the new world, or does the old world contain "fantasy" elements as well?
 
I'm thinking that some horrible thing occurred in the old world that severely diminished the amount of magic present, although a select few court wizards and a few prodigies crop up here and there that cause trouble. But all in all, magic is generally seen as rare, and is sometimes even banned, depending on the culture.

However, within these boundaries I'm considering having people send in applications for possible home countries from which people can hail from. They would just need to be broad descriptions For me to work with.

Races that inhabit the old world
-Humans (Humans)
-Dwarves (Live long, average intelligence, unusually strong. Extremely low birthrates and very work-obsessed life)
-Elves (Live forever, but mature rather slowly)
-Goblins (short, green, average intelligence, have high birthrates)
-Orcs (big, dark green, usually dumber than a bag of hammers, unusually strong)
-Very very VERY few giants occasionally are imported from the east as servants to show wealth and power
-Halflings (Mature slow, but live very long too. Very adept at destroying rings)
 
I'm thinking that some horrible thing occurred in the old world that severely diminished the amount of magic present, although a select few court wizards and a few prodigies crop up here and there that cause trouble. But all in all, magic is generally seen as rare, and is sometimes even banned, depending on the culture.

However, within these boundaries I'm considering having people send in applications for possible home countries from which people can hail from. They would just need to be broad descriptions For me to work with.

Races that inhabit the old world
-Humans (Humans)
-Dwarves (Live long, average intelligence, unusually strong. Extremely low birthrates and very work-obsessed life)
-Elves (Live forever, but mature rather slowly)
-Goblins (short, green, average intelligence, have high birthrates)
-Orcs (big, dark green, usually dumber than a bag of hammers, unusually strong)
-Very very VERY few giants occasionally are imported from the east as servants to show wealth and power
-Halflings (Mature slow, but live very long too. Very adept at destroying rings)

Y U NO have no lizardmen?
 
What will the technology level be equivalent to? Will it be Arcanum-esque, in that Dwarves have sort of led the Renaissance, taking much of the old power of Elves away (and creating a racial rivalry)? [I don't mean there need to be guns or steam power, but more asking about any racial rivalries and if any one or two races led the world out of the dark ages and to the era of colonization / exploration.]
 
I'll just leave this here.

Polity Descriptions

Spoiler DaNES IIbis Descriptions Part 1 :
Bolgimorg

For centuries, the Belgae have been the most warlike of the Celtic peoples. Rarely, however, were they united – that genius for battle was turned on other Belgae more often than not. The rise of the centralized Batroi state in Gaul gave the Belgae milnaht warriors other opportunities to ply their trade, though – and when they came back home, they were steeped in the historical knowledge and the culture of the south. The increasingly intimate economic and cultural connections between Bolgimorg and Gaul meant that when central authority in Batromorgan began to falter in the late third century, the Belgae were there to take advantage. United under the overall leadership of a tribe referred to as the Ambianoi, Bolgimorg soon established broad power over a wide stretch of northern Gaul, a ferocious military power that stands a reasonable chance of bringing the weakened southerners to their knees.

Batromorgan

Nearly three centuries ago, the Batroi rode a wave of urbanization and monetization to military victory over the previous Gallic powers, the Aeduoi and Auernoi. Within a few short decades, they had established hegemony over all Gaul, northern Italy, and northern Iberia, a truly remarkable achievement; through their partner, later puppet, of Massilia, they extended tentacles of control throughout the Greek colonies of the western Mesogeios. But the shadowy civil wars of the third century crisis shattered the power that the Batroi had once had and reordered Gallic society – eradicating druidism and apparently reversing the long-term trend of urbanization that had predominated in Gaul. Central authority was smashed into pieces, with sub-kings rising among the Aquitae, Sequa, and Salya. To make matters worse, Sophism has been gaining adherents in the Rhodanus valley and among the various Greeks of the coast. Various efforts to reconcentrate power into the hands of the monarchy, the most recent being that of the rix Diviciacos in the 330s and in the early 340s. And now further threats impend – from the north, as the Ambianoi flex their muscles, and from the east, as the migratory Hatta have moved into Vindelicia. But an able rix might be able to use these external threats to force internal cohesion – or the lack of internal cohesion might simply make the Batroi even more vulnerable.

Armoricae

Armorica has always been somewhat divorced from the rest of Gaul, geographically; after the warfare and migratory activity that accompanied the demise of the Aeduoi and Auernoi, Armorica became culturally and politically isolated as well. The tribes here historically enjoy considerable autonomy from Avaricum.

Aquitae

Linguistically isolated, but culturally united, Aquitania is a bit of an anomaly in Gaul. For a long time, the Batroi have given the Aquitae considerable autonomy in running the foreign-policy show in the southwest, largely to prevent central authorities from having to deal with Iberia; this framework has suffered in recent years with the rise in power of the Namarini. The Aquitae are increasingly formidable in military and political terms – but their allegiance is similarly increasingly uncertain.

Sequallra

For decades, the Sequa were a useful buffer for the Batroi, a militarily competent power that could hermetically seal Gaul off from Italian or trans-Rhenan affairs and not provide any problems of its own. Both of those things are increasingly untrue; it was the Sequa that collapsed in the face of the Hatta, and although they have closely supported Avaricum in the civil wars, more aid tends to flow to them than from them.

Salyamrog

A long-time power in Liguria and southern Gaul, the Salya were the centerpiece of Batroi policy in northern Italy after the Markomannic rebellion left the Po valley a power vacuum. Since then, they have established a strong monarchic state with high levels of urbanization and land ownership along Greek lines. This development has helped give rise to an independent streak among their kings; during the recent civil wars, the Salya gave only token aid to Avaricum – and significantly more, under the table, to the Caturoi.

Hattalandam

Centuries ago, the Hatta were a tribe of central Germany, living in the squalor common to those parts, with an above-average reputation of military prowess gained from effective raiding against the Aeduoi. The modern incarnation seems to use the ancient name as a talisman; it almost certainly was not extant more than a century ago, and was not prominent even then. Only beginning in the 330s did the Hatta come to the attention of most chroniclers; apparently the Sequa brought many of them across the Rhine to fight in the interminable Gallic civil wars. When negotiations over Hatta service in the war against Sedullos of the Caturoi broke down in 342-3, the Hatta allied with their brethren across the river and assaulted the Sequa and Batroi. It was only with great difficulty that they were contained in Sequallra. While the Batroi look to either use the Hatta as a stick with which to beat their restive vassals or an enemy to force the vassals to rally round the flag, the Hatta could play both ends against the middle and emerge on top.

Namarinia

It is not totally clear what spurred the massive growth in the exploitation of northern Iberian mining – and therefore wealth – in the third century, or whether the development of a large organized polity there was an effect of the mining expansions, a cause, or part of some sort of positive feedback loop. The expansion of Qarthadastei control northward in the peninsula – as well as the spread of a moneyed economy – surely had something to do with those political developments as well. By the 240s, the Namarini had seized or negotiated preeminence among the Gallaecian tribes and were soon military protagonists north of the Tagos. They wrested the old oppidum of Numantia from Qarthadastei control in 253 and sacked the great city of Gader five years later. While further fighting with the southerners over the next century was little but inconclusive, the vastly expanded Namarini polity’s internal development was nothing short of momentous: the development of a centralized monarchy to replace the high kingship, the resettlement of many Gallaecians and Celtiberians in the Tagos valley to form a cordon sanitaire against the Qarthadastim, and the expansion of slave-based mining throughout northern Iberia. The revamped Namarini monarchy is, for the most part, secure, although as ever the Qarthadastim have been preparing to resume their formerly dominant position in central Iberia and there are always frictions in the Pyrenees.

Celtiberian Marches

In order to resettle central Iberia – especially the Tagos valley – and restore the region to economic productivity (in addition to establishing a buffer region against the Qarthadastim), the Namarini forcibly moved many Gallaecian and Celtiberian tribes, giving legal protection to their territory and adding in considerable initial investments. Lately the region has been something of a battleground for Namarini and Qarthadastei influence as the southerners attempt to exploit their soft power – and gain access to the mineral resources further north.

Qarthadast

Centuries ago, the Qarthadastim ruled a vast trading empire that covered the western Mesogeios, governed from the jewel of Africa, the city of cities, the great port the Greeks called Karchedon. That empire tangled with Greeks and Romans, through many twists and turns over the centuries. But Perseus III’s conquest of Africa in 147 ended that old Qarthadast for good. Its refugees collected in what had once been the colonial territories, Qarthadastei Iberia. Under the leadership of the general Bodmelqart, who formed a military dictatorship as sofet; his lieutenant Annibas, who seized control when he died, turned Qarthadast – based on the namesake of the ‘old’ New City, where he placed his capital – into a proper hereditary monarchy, albeit forced to share power with a civic council dominated by representatives from the other Phoenician colonies of Iberia. Ever since then, the council and the kings and their power struggles have defined Qarthadastei politics. Hamstrung by these difficulties, the Qarthadastim have been something of a punching bag for the powerful Namarini of the north and the Niketids of Africa for the past several decades. Perhaps if the political squabbles could be ended – by negotiation or violence – Qarthadast could reclaim its economic dominance in the western seas, or finally achieve hegemony in Iberia.

Italia

Ever since the demise of the empire of the city-state of Rome, no power had successfully managed to unite Italy from within. Greeks and Africans played the inhabitants of the peninsula against each other, usually with great success; eventually, driven by a security crisis among the Rasna leagues of the north, the Perseids annexed the lot and ruled Italy for a century and a half. When the Perseid Empire began to buckle, confronted with grave threats from the inside and out, it was not the disparate Italians who made a grab for independence – but a Markomanna general in Perseid service, who launched a sordid power play in the aftermath of a failed Perseid purge. The army, although ethnically diverse, eventually united around a common corporate military identity – but civil society remained as culturally and politically fragmented as ever, and the new Markomanna overlords did little to change that. In spite of that, the Markomanna have amassed a sizable and powerful army, prying the Perseids out of Kampania over the course of the 340s under the energetic and enigmatic Rhaos. Yet for such external success to continue to be viable, the Italian rulers will need to continue to play their careful internal political balancing act – an act that has only gotten more difficult with the annexation of new land.

Niketid Empire

In the last act of the cataclysmic Sophist Wars, the previously loyal satrapy of Africa revolted under the leadership of the charismatic army officer Niketas Heraios. After spending the 270s resisting a series of desultory and halfhearted efforts by the central Perseid authorities at reconquest, Niketas secured formal independence and his state soon assumed the role of premier power in the western Mesogeios. After an off and on series of naval wars with the Qarthadastim of southern Iberia and the collapse of Perseid power in Italy, the Niketids are, at least temporarily, more militarily dominant than ever. But military power on the seas has not been backed up by tranquility at home. Over the last thirty years, there has been serious violence and turnover at the top: between 320 and 350, five coups and a civil war have rocked the Niketid court. There are deep cleavages in society as well: between Sophists and everybody else, between the Punic populace and the Greeks, between civil and military authorities, between the Fleet and the Army, and between Palaiopolis, the other port-cities, and the great expanse of the chora. The Niketids need stability if they are to maintain their power in the face of rising challenges from the Markomanna, the Qarthadastim, and the resurgent Perseids.

Perseid Empire

Even after the Perseid house split from the Seleukids in the vicious civil wars at the turn of the millennium, the Perseid state ran things little differently than the Seleukids had for centuries. Even as Perseid troops brought their archetypal owl banners into deepest Kush, to the Alpine peaks, through the myriad Caucasian mountain passes, and over the impregnable walls of the great port city of Karchedon, the differences between them and their eastern brethren were mostly cosmetic. That changed forever when Lysias, the Bringer of Wisdom, introduced the Sophist religion as a state-sponsored sect. The attendant military, governmental, and fiscal reforms he initiated sparked the bloodiest conflict in world history to date, and reduced the Perseid Empire to a shadow of its former self. But although it was territorially challenged, the new Perseid state was a hard core of Sophists. It ruled the heartland of Greek culture and thought. Perhaps most importantly, it still controlled the bulk of Mesogeian trade routes and possessed a battle-hardened army, and the administrative infrastructure of the old Perseid Empire to run it all. Yet the watchword of Perseid rulers thus far has been measured expansion, mostly by consent or concession. But as Sophism – increasingly seeming to be a separate entity from the Perseid state – spreads far beyond Perseid borders, new questions have arisen. One way or another, figuring out the answers will involve a lot of bloodshed.

Euxine Poleis

During the Sophist wars, many Greek cities on the coast of the Black Sea that had once belonged to the Perseid Empire seceded. Through carrot and stick maneuvers over the course of several decades, Athens has managed to woo most of them back into the fold with Sophist proselytizing and bilateral alliances. Still, their decentralization makes their resources hard to mobilize, and they must be defended against the Aursa, Bastarna, and Saka on the steppe.

Kingdom of Phrygia

Home of a cadet branch of the Perseid royal house, Phrygia has managed Anatolian policy – and, by proxy, Perseid relations with the entire East – for the last several decades. It is a staunch bastion of Sophism and of loyalty to Athens, and so far has managed to do more than hold its own against the Seleukids, the Hai, and their puppets.

Amyntid Empire

When the satrap of Egypt, Amyntas, rebelled against the Perseid Empire in 226, he sparked a fifty-year series of wars that engulfed the Mediterranean, resulting in the deaths of millions and a radically redrawn geopolitical map. His successors successfully guarded their independence and established Amyntid Egypt as a stable bastion of the old gods in the face of the rising tide of Sophism. In the first few decades of the fourth century, the Amyntids challenged Seleukid power in the Levant successfully, and built a network of client states ringing its borders in Nubia and Arabia. Yet while the Amyntid state possesses security, it is increasingly being forced to deal with internal flaws – both with its allies among the Qassam and Makourians, and native to the Egyptian kingdom itself. The lack of a religious consensus has been contributing to riots, especially in Alexandreia, Helioupolis, and Paraitonion (all centers of Sophism). Egypt’s economy is stagnating, and its share of the Arabian trade is declining by comparison to the Seleukids’. While the navy is top-notch, the army is generally viewed as weak and incapable of engaging the Seleukids’ or the Perseids’ in a stand-up fight. And linguistic fragmentation has only made the exercise of rule throughout Coptic Egypt harder. One way or another, Amyntid Egypt will have to bestir itself from relative slumber in order to confront the problems facing it, much less to surmount them.

Banu Qassam

Formerly a tribe of Jewish Arabs in Nabataia, the Qassam moved onto the Levantine stage when they allied with Amyntid Egypt to defeat the Seleukids in Syria-Koile in the 310s. Most of the Levant was occupied with nary a fight, and the tardy Seleukid counterattack defeated easily. The Qassam soon settled into a federate role with the Amyntids, but the control of the Ioudaian holy places – and tens of thousands of co-religionists – continues to be a sticking point between Alexandreia and Gerasa.

Makouria

The series of wars that broke out between the ancient Nubian kingdoms in the 290s eventually drew Egyptian attentions, and in the 320s Amyntas III campaigned south of the First Cataract, smashed the competing Nubians, and established a federate monarchy at Dongola to serve as a vehicle for Egyptian policy and prevent further disorders from breaking out. Thus far, the experiment has been largely successful.

Hayasdan

The Hai are a hard people to destroy. Centuries ago, the Yervanduni built a great kingdom in the Caucasus, but the Seleukids destroyed it during their era of great power. In the 50s and 60s, though, Arsham Khorkhoruni successfully rebelled against the Greeks and became satrap of “Armenia”; within thirty years, his son Samus had secured full independence. The story of the succeeding centuries has been one of slow Seleukid decline and slow Haikaikan growth. For the past several decades, the Hai arkahs have ruled the Caucasus, and even dominate many of the Greek cities of Pontos Paralios, Yeger, Adurbagadan, and even northern Mesopotamia. But control of such a vast territory has come at a price: many of the outlying territories are practically independent. The nakharars that rule the southern territories are more tied into Seleukid politics than to those in Armavir. The Greek cities are increasingly influenced by the Perseids, and Sophism has begun to spread from them into the Caucasus foothills. Yet rocking the boat to try to fix these problems – insofar as they even are problems – might make things even worse.

Paralian Poleis

For the last hundred years, the Hai have exercised suzerainty over Pontos Paralios, having seized control of most of it during the Sophist wars and a time of Perseid weakness. The Greek ports there enjoy considerable autonomy and exercise a great deal of economic power as the chief conduits for trade into and out of the Caucasian valleys.

Yeger

The loyal kingdoms of the western Caucasus have been in a state of varying subjection to the Khorkhoruni for centuries. Due to the intrinsic difficulty of maintaining effective control over more than a small portion of the Caucasus valleys – and to the threat of raids from the north through the passes from the steppe – they have retained their autonomy and culture reasonably intact.

Nakharars

In the detached, hands-off fashion typical to Caucasian states, the Haikaikan nakharars – great noble houses – have driven much of the Hai expansion to the south over the last century. Adurbagadan and northern Mesopotamia have fallen under the control of one clan or another, acting more or less in tandem against outsiders. They have recently even managed to face down the Seleukid emperors themselves.

Seleukid Empire

If there is such a thing as a constant in the geopolitics of the Eastern Hemisphere, the Seleukid Empire is it. There has always been – and, its citizens loudly proclaim, will always be – a Seleukid state. The Era of Seleukos I is the calendar used by the entire oikoumene. Its governing institutions form the basis for those of almost every country from the Western Mesogeios to the Gangetic Plain. Its cultural influence is virtually unmatched. In virtually every way, the Seleukid Empire defined the classical age. But those days are long gone. First came the great civil wars, and the loss of the western territories to what became the Perseid Empire, three hundred years ago. Then the long, depressing decline in power, prestige, and cohesion, as the Empire lost ground in all directions and began to lose control of its extremities. The Seleukids failed to make much capital from the Perseids’ difficulties in the Sophist Wars, although they regained a semblance of power and stability, but the ascension of Alexandros IV in 312 sparked a grand coalition that ravaged the Empire, stole many of its outlying territories, and weakened it internally once again. Ever since those disastrous wars, the Seleukids have been slipping into a vicious cycle of coups, civil wars, empty treasuries, and mutinies. Yet they remain one of the great powers of the oikoumene, possess a new ruler (and a – mostly – clean slate), and perhaps most importantly, possess immense amounts of inertia. The Seleukid Empire may be badly weakened, but it can never be counted out.

Anatolian Satrapies

After the Seleukids’ defeat at the hands of the western coalition thirty years ago, Alexandros IV was forced to cede considerable autonomy to the satraps of Anatolia, yielding them hereditary succession, decreasing their taxation commitments, and combining their offices with those of the local military commanders, the strategoi. They generally opposed Seleukos X during the civil wars over the last few decades, but are generally closer to Seleukeia than the Upper Satraps due to the proximity of Phrygia, Hayasdan, and the Amyntids.

Upper Satrapies

The Upper Satraps have always been more independent than the other Seleukid governors, dating back to before Antiochos the Great. This traditional autonomy was only increased after the collapse of the Levantine defenses three decades ago – increased first by negotiation, as Alexandros IV ceded authority in exchange for immediate support, and then by warfare, as Seleukos X tried and failed to reassert imperial authority and was forced to deal with the consequences.

Gerrhaia

The trading ports of Gerrhaia have been loosely aligned with the Seleukids, in one way or another, for centuries. Several Arabohellenic poleis have sprung up, chief of which has been Seleukeia (formerly Gerrha, from which the region derives its name). A reasonably symbiotic relationship with the trans-Arabian traders has sprung up, and over the last few decades in particular there has been something of a boom in trade with India and southern Arabia.

Uar

The Uar are only recent arrivals on the Central Asiatic stage, but their recent arrival provoked the largest geopolitical reshuffle since the destruction of the Eupatrid empire north of the Hindu Kush. As part of the general series of political realignments on the steppe in the 310s, the Uar found themselves in conflict with the Alanliao, hegemons of Central Asia; unfortunately for the Alanliao, the Uar were more numerous at the right spot and didn’t have to worry about defending a vast empire. A series of key victories in the 320s and 330s threw the Alanliao out of Chorasmia and back into Yancai, culminating in the battle of the Atrek River in 337, which smashed Alan power and made Hyrkania a tributary of the Uar. Since then, the Uar have had the time to get used to the routine of pastoralism in Chorasmia – and the Alanliao have only had more troubles in their empire with the Tiele and the rising force of Areia. Opportunity knocks – perhaps it is time for a changing of the guard on the Asiatic steppe.

Kingdom of Hyrkania

Having seceded from the Seleukid Empire two hundred years ago during the Four Revolutions, Hyrkania retained a more or less isolated existence within the natural boundary of the surrounding mountains. But as a small island of Zoroastrianism in an increasingly hostile sea of Buddhists and Seleukid ruler-cult worshipers, Hyrkania has rarely possessed the ability to go its own way, and its current state, subservient to the Uar, is a legacy of that.

Yancai

Seventy years ago, the Alanliao emerged from the steppe and brought fire and sword to the land of a thousand cities. They crushed the ancient Eupatrid empire, whose remnants scattered into the Drangianan wastes or scurried into India, barring the Hindu Kush passes behind them. For decades, the Alanliao ruled as hegemons in Yancai – dominant over a series of weak petty rulers in Baktria and the Tarim Basin. They built one of the greatest steppe empires in history – but of late, that empire has come under attack, its rulers incapable of holding the overextended mass together properly. First came the Uar out of the northwest – then the Buddhist Greeks of the south improbably made a comeback – and now the Tiele of the east have been causing trouble among the oasis towns. Vigorous leadership will be necessary for the Alanliao to retain their position of dominance on the steppe, much less expand.

Baktrian Principalities

When the Alanliao rolled through central Asia, they only seized the far northern parts of Eupatrid territory for the purposes of direct rule. Baktria was and is the land of a thousand cities, and Borgoros and his successors chose to divide it into a collection of princelings, each to be kept at the others’ throats. While an effective strategy for managing the political-military ambitions of the Baktrians themselves, it has been remarkably ineffective at mobilizing their military and economic power to support the Alan state, and proved as such against the Areians and Uar.

Tarim Basin Oasis-Towns

In the 290s, Kuqa, Turfan, Khotan, and Kashgar were all independent city-states of varying cultures that, between themselves, governed the Tarim Basin. But then came the Alanliao, who seized control of the Tarim trade routes and exerted their suzerainty over the region. The Alanliao have remained the biggest fish in the pond, although there have been increasing threats from Tiele and Xianbei tribes to the east.
 
Spoiler DaNES IIbis Descriptions Part 2 :
Kingdom of Areia

Once, the Eupatrid empire of Central Asia and India had been a true colossus, a rival to the Seleukids in power and glory. But then, in the 270s and 280s, the Alanliao had come from the north, and internal divisions had done the rest; the Eupatrid rulers chose to bunker down south of the Hindu Kush and focus on ruling India instead of protecting the heartland of their dynasty. So the Alan chieftain Borgoros conquered Baktria and drove the sad remnant of its army, its government, and the state Buddhist clergy into the impoverished hill country of Drangiane. But the Alanliao were never able to finish the Drangianan Greeks off, and by the 330s they were hard pressed by the Uar from the west. Into the fray stepped Telephos, a Prophthasian notable, who maneuvered the fractious Drangianan Greek synod’s members against each other and against the Alanliao, and eventually managed to reconquer Areia during a period of Alan weakness – then turned on the Drangianan synod, crushing it in civil war and declaring himself Lord of Asia, the old Eupatrid title. After fifteen years of whirlwind, vicious conflict, Telephos’ dynasty has solidified its place in charge of Areia – and opportunities for further conquest abound.

Eupatrid Empire

Over four centuries ago, a military adventurer named Eupator I Soter conquered Gandhara and established the world’s first Greco-Buddhist state, founded with a guiding principle of syncretism, employing the best aspects of all those it ruled and suffering from the weaknesses of none of them. Over the next three centuries, the Eupatrid empire eventually grew to stretch from the Iaxartes and the Fergana Valley all the way across the Hindu Kush down the Gangetic Plain. But the Eupatrids, in focusing their rule on India, neglected their Baktrian territories for far too long; the advent of the Alanliao in the 270s and 280s sparked a belated adjustment, but it was too late, and half the empire was severed from their rule at a stroke. And then their grip loosened in India as well, permitting the Kanva rulers of Magadha to rise and lengthening an already long and vicious civil war. When the dust finally cleared, the Eupatrid state had survived, battered and bloody, centered on the Indos valley and Kaspeireia, the Land of the Five Rivers, with the capital in Boukephala. In the 320s and 330s Empress Isidora spurred a military and economic revival of Eupatrid Kaspeireia; she personally conquered Surastrene’s rich trading ports, and reorganized the army to make use of Kambojas and the Indian sreni warrior-guilds. But this revival itself spawned a new enemy, as the old, weak Satavahana empire collapsed and was replaced by the new dynamo of the Vakatakas, while Kanva remains as powerful as ever. Yet with chaos comes opportunity in the Subcontinent, and perhaps a particularly successful sovereign might even push back across the Hindu Kush to take advantage of the temporary weakness of the Alanliao and reclaim Baktra.

Eparchy of Gedrosia

Out of the way Gedrosia was once a far-off outpost of the Baktrians; with the Alan invasion, it has remained at least officially under the rule of the Eupatrids, but exerts considerable autonomy. Which is mostly fine, because there’s nothing there except rock and sand anyway.

Surastran Poleis

Near-constant Greek migration – and a redefinition of what it means to be “Greek” in India – fueled the expansion of several Indian trading ports along the coast of Surastrene and the foundation of several new Greek ones during the Eupatrid hegemony. The ksatrapa ascendancy resulted in many of them breaking off for independence, rule by one of the ksatrapas, or rule by the Satavahana. It was only in the 330s that Empress Isidora reestablished Greek control by skillful diplomacy and conquest, forming a Surastran league, sparking the Vakataka war, and creating a new fault line in subcontinental geopolitics.

Kanva

For Magadha, the unstable Eupatrid hegemony and the depredations of the ksatrapas served as scourges of God. Never before had the dominant power in India fallen so low. It was only with the rise of Narayana in the 250s and 260s that the fragmented region regained its old political cohesion and power. But with Narayana’s rise came an era of great power: the Kanva rulers terrified the Pallava, beat back the ksatrapas, and eventually intervened in the Eupatrid civil wars to bring Mathura under their domination. The expansion of Kanva culminated in Bhagabhadra’s subjugation of the ancient ksatrapal enemy throughout the 310s and 320s. But the easy victories are over: Pallava-allied Kalinga remains a bone in the throat of Magadha, the Greeks have reformed their military and seized control of the key ports of Surastrene, and the weak Satavahana state has given way to the powerful and ambitious Vakatakas.

Ksatrapas

Incessant three-way wars between the Eupatrids, Magadha, and Satavahana created a power vacuum in Malwa in the second century, and it was into Malwa that thousands of former soldiers and adventurers migrated, earning the collective title Kamboja from the Indians. These disparate groups eventually coalesced into several major warlord-states, the rulers of which claimed the Greek title of satrapes. For several decades, they terrorized the neighboring states, until finally, forty years ago, Bhagabhadra of Kanva subdued them and forced them into military servitude. They remain at Putaliputra’s beck and call – though not without a certain amount of resentment.

Indohellenic Mathura

The invasion of the Alanliao sparked a civil war in Greek India, in which Susarman of Kanva intervened to support the marginal candidate Sosipatros; the Eupatrids were able to limit Kanva’s gains, but Mathura itself remained a bastion of support for the pretender that Putaliputra busily began to rebuild into an appropriate weapon against Kaspeireia for the next war. The Sosipatrid dynasty, in the meantime, has not forgotten the humiliation of fighting at the behest of the ancestral enemy – nor the price to be paid if any rebellion fails.

Vakataka

For centuries, Maharashtra was the whipping boy of India. The weak Satavahanas warred with their feudatories, with the ksatrapas of the north, with the southern clans, and within their own dynasty – almost never successfully. From a brief apex of hegemonic glory, the Satavahanas limped into the fourth century with barely any control over their own destiny; when the Greeks seized control of the Surastran ports, crippling Maharashtran trade, the fallout – and the royal response that only made things worse – destroyed the empire. It was the Vakataka clan, led by Devasena, that sacked Pratisthana in 339 and ended the moribund Satavahana state. It was Devasena who cowed the other Maharashtran clans into uniting under him to defend against – and later attack – the mass alliance that tried and failed to crush the Vakatakas in their infancy. But while the Vakatakas could defend their homeland, they failed to carry the war onto foreign soil and extract gains; the Greeks still possess a stranglehold on trade, while the wars of the last decade have heightened the threat that Maharashtra poses to the rest of India’s polities without increasing the military power dispensable to the Maharashtra state enough. But the Vakatakas are better run than the Satavahanas have been for a very long time, and they still do possess the power to go toe-to-toe with any one of their opponents. It remains to be seen if that will suffice.

Pallava

Two centuries ago, the Pallava feudatories – along with several other south Indian clans – seized the opportunity afforded by yet another interminable Satavahana war with the ksatrapas to throw off Maharashtran control. Yet in the beginning they were only one of many, and it is only in the last several decades that the Pallavas have gained the sort of power they currently wield. But this power is based on a relationship that leaves the Pallava king as a primus inter pares with the rulers of Kalinga, the Kadambas, and the Pandyas – a fractious group if there ever was one. For the last several years, the threat of the Vakatakas has helped keep the Pallava subkings united around Kanchi. But even that has taken personal-political skill, and if the Vakatakas, or some other outside threat, become less threatening, or, even worse, more fearsome, the jury-rigged Pallava coalition might fall to pieces.

Kadamba

A long-lineaged clan of Karnataka, the Kadambas secured their independence during the collapse of Satavahana power in south India in the 150s. The fortunes of war were not kind to them, though, and eventually a Satavahana effort to reclaim their old territory forced the Kadambas in line behind the Pallava banner. The recent Vakataka depredations have only solidified Kadamba backing for their southern partners.

Kalinga

Unlike the other Pallava allied regions, Kalinga did not gain independence wholesale from the Satavahanas; indeed, until the mid-third century, the region was split between the rule of the Satavahanas, of various Magadhi tyrants, and of petty local rulers. Only in the 240s was it forged into a single polity by rebellions and shifting alliances. Kalingan independence was short-lived; the threat of the Kanvas brought Kalinga into the Pallava fold thirty years later, where it has stayed ever since then, a bone in Magadha’s throat.

Pandya

Where the other Pallava allies have been staunchly standing against the Satavahanas – and later, the Vakatakas – the Pandyas have used the past two centuries of freedom to embark on an artistic and cultural flowering based primarily in the great city of Madurai. If anything, this has rather dampened their ardor for martial pursuits, and the Pandyas have been slowly estranged from Kanchi as more and more troops and cash are devoted to the struggle against the northerners. If anything, the Pandyas have become rather more intimate with the Buddhists of Anuradhapura than anywhere else.

Wei Dynasty

The demise of the Han state in the second century may have been chiefly self-inflicted, but all the Han themselves could do was get themselves to a state where they were teetering on the edge: all it took was one little push, and the whole edifice would come crashing down. It was the Togar, and more specifically several groups of Yuezhi Togar, who provided that little push. But this did not lead to a wholesale Yuezhi takeover of North China. Initially, the Qi, a would-be successor state of the Han, brought Yuezhi groups into their military and briefly dominated the north, but when the Qi leadership fell into a war of succession in 176, the Yuezhi leader Qiujiuque, Prince of Zhao, seized control; his descendants finally destroyed the Qi in the third century and set up a Wei state that briefly held the fate of China in its grasp. But on the eve of the planned invasion of the south, Wei Xuanwudi died, and Wei policy drifted. Expedients to try to solve Wei military exhaustion ended up sparking rebellions throughout the north in the early fourth century, and the Wei were nearly toppled completely by the alliance of the Xia and Liang. But Wei Wuchengdi crushed the opposing coalition in the Five Great Campaigns in the 330s and built an alliance with the Yan in preparation for making another try at dominance. Revivals are rare in Chinese history, but the Wei may yet be able to break that mold.

Xia Dynasty

Thirty years ago, the Xiaoshuang Emperor of Wei divined a serious problem in his empire’s military, a manpower gap that needed to be made up. He chose to solve this problem partly by inviting barbarians of the Xianbei and Tujue into his territory as military colonists. Problems over disbursing the proper amount of state land to these would-be dependent tenants sparked struggles in the Wei court, as traditional Chinese and Yuezhi Togar interests blocked the division of territory. The result was that the Xianbei and Tujue settlers were less military colonists than fighting serfs. Predictably, the Tujue by the coast rebelled at this state of affairs in 321, which brought even tighter restrictions on the other barbarian tenant-warriors. In 323, the Xianbei tribes in the Ordos seized control of their own land and wiped out their Wei landlords. When the Wei mounted an expedition to reconquer the Ordos four years later, the Shiwei Xianbei had risen to dominate the region; their leader used the attack to claim the Mandate of Heaven and became known to later history as Xia Taizudi. Taizudi’s weakness against the Wei – his Xianbei were not numerous and were divided – forced him to seek a decidedly unequal relationship with the Liang, but after the Battle of Hezhong in 340 the Xia and Liang are on more or less an equal footing – albeit still gravely threatened by the resurgent Wei and their putative allies the Yan.

Liang Dynasty

In the late 310s, Wei Xiaoshuangdi attempted to solve his dynasty’s manpower problems by incorporating cost-cutting measures in the military and bringing in recruits from the Xianbei and Tujue tribes of the north. Predictably, this angered many of the Yuezhi Togar who already served in the army. One of the Yuezhi generals, one Bodiao, rebelled with his troops after being ordered to suppress the rising of the Yan in 331, seizing control of Luoyang and founding the Liang dynasty. Liang Mindi, as he would eventually be called, used his control of the ancient capital and his sizable army to force the Xianbei Xia in the Ordos into something of a puppet relationship, and briefly became the arbiter of north China, defeating Wei and Shen armies in turn. But his surprising death from illness in 335 coincided with the rise of the Wucheng Emperor in Wei, whose vigorous campaigning rolled back many of Bodiao’s gains. The decisive Battle of Hezhong in 340 drove the Liang out of Nanzheng. Now, they are forced to lick their wounds and contrive some other way to stop the Wei resurgence – survival not guaranteed.

Yan Dynasty

The crisis of Wei military power in the 320s brought mutiny and revolution to that dynasty’s eastern domains. First it was the Lü who broke with Chang’an, then the Xia in the Ordos. By 330, the military governors of Zhouxian were effectively cut off from the Wei government in Chang’an. Border skirmishing with Goguryeo forced the hand of the provincial authorities; many of the local troops, who were, in large part, Tujue, coalesced around the leadership of the general Silifu and declared Yan independence early the following year. This sparked a violent Wei backlash, but the rebellion of the troops sent to reconquer Yan – forming the state of Liang – made that a moot point. For fifteen years, Silifu – Yan Zhaowudi – campaigned vigorously against the Goguryeo and against the kingdoms of the Korean peninsula. But the wars in the east brought a coalition into existence, centered around Silla, while shifting circumstances in China have brought the Yan into partnership with the Wei against the Xia and Liang. The Yan have two paths towards greatness –but should take care that they do not attempt to follow both, lest they be pulled apart.

Baekje

Before the Yan came, Baekje was the most powerful of the Mahan groups, and, in a distant mirror of the effect the Yan would have on Silla, attacked the other Mahan enough that the rest coalesced in opposition against it. But the campaigns of the Zhaowu Emperor put an end to that: now the king of Baekje must be ratified by the Yan court, and Baekje warriors are dispensable shock troops for the Tujue armies. Yet if the Yan succeed in Korea, it is Baekje that will reap the rewards.

Goguryeo

The early parts of the history of Goguryeo are shrouded in myth. Only with the fall of the Han did Goguryeo enter written chronicles, as a warlike frontier state seeking to replace traditional avenues of authority in what used to be Chinese territory. For a time, Goguryeo ruled over some of the eastern Han commanderies – but that all changed with the rise of the Wei, who reoccupied the old Han fortresses and sacked Gungnae a century ago. But the rulers of Goguryeo bided their time, even as they subjugated many of the inhabitants of the peninsula to their south. Once again their opportunity came with the collapse of the Wei in the 310s and 320s. But once again they were turned back by the Chinese warlord states that emerged from the wreckage of the Wei empire – this time, the Yan, who had rebelled in part to save Liaodong from Goguryeo attacks. Once again Goguryeo’s king was shamed by defeat at the hands of the armies of the west. Yet the rulers of Goguryeo are persistent, and with the Liang and Xia on the march in the Huanghe valley, perhaps the tribes will once again have their chance to seize Liaodong.

Silla

Before the last century, the peoples of the Korean peninsula were ill-organized, if organized at all; a bewildering mess of confederacies swept each other aside on a regular basis, all competing for patronage from the Chinese empires to the west. Goguryeo, to the north, got its start as an organized polity during the incessant wars that followed the collapse of the Han dynasty. For Silla, it took longer; although Silla’s clans have been loosely affiliated for a long time, they never formed anything that could be called a state before the fourth century. The military power of the Yan changed that: in an effort to win laurels outside the ugly morass that was north Chinese politics, Yan Zhaowudi had brought fire and sword to the Korean peninsula. Led by the Kim clan, Silla took the lead in organizing resistance to the Yan, and the forces of the united Koreans managed to halt the Yan at the Battle of Ballo in 343. Forced to retreat and lick their wounds, the westerners have let Silla and its allies – some might say vassals – go for now, but Baekje remains under the invaders’ control, and the Yan remain a very grave threat.

Ye

The Ye peoples never ruled much territory even before the expansionism of Goguryeo and the Yan, and now that they are organized in a very loose confederacy, they rule still less. They are the weakest of the states allied to Silla, both in terms of actual resources and in terms of geography: they have little choice but to ally themselves with the southerners.

Mahan

Before the Chinese came, the Mahan peoples were riven by civil conflict: Baekje against the rest of them. To counter Baekje, the rest of the Mahan organized, but it would still not have been enough had the Yan not subjugated Baekje in the mid-330s. Badly weakened, the Mahan peoples backed Silla at the Battle of Ballo and now remain in alliance with the easterners to preserve their independence.

Shen Dynasty

When the Han fell in 143, they fell hard, splintering united China into a million pieces. The north was a mess, fought over by innumerable groups of barbarians, local magnates, and would-be warlords. It was left to the southern Chinese governors, on the frontiers of civilized China, to reestablish order and security. So Zhao Ji, the duke of Xinchang, under the guise of suppressing peasant rebellions, established the Shen dynasty. His successors have built a fairly prosperous empire; it dominates the south and has considerably increased the settled area and the territory under cultivation, especially by accepting emigrating Chinese fleeing from the chaos in the north. But prosperity for the citizenry has not translated into military power, and the Shen have been repeatedly foiled in their efforts to take back the north. Their efforts to establish military governorships in Ba and Shu have backfired badly, as the generals of the Western Commanderies increasingly assert their autonomy, part of a general institutional military malaise that prevented the Shen from taking advantage of the temporary military collapse of the Wei a few decades ago. Still, the Shen have security and prosperity – for now. But if the Wei, or one of their competitors, ever manage to unite the north, that security might not last long.

Lü Dynasty

The Tujue were supposed to be the Big Solution to the ills of the Wei dynasty’s military. Instead, the system of military enserfment that the Xiaoshuang Emperor subjected them to sparked a rebellion by the Tujue in Qingzhou and Yanzhou, who raised up one of their own as Lü Dezongdi. But he died fighting the Wei the very next year, and his son, terrified by the prospect of invasion, made obeisance to the Shen in a desperate quest for protection. Since then, the Lü have effectively served as a Shen puppet state, but the value of the partnership has been rapidly decreasing lately – for both sides.

Western Commanderies

In the 250s, the Shen Dynasty teetered on the brink of destruction, and by some readings, only the timely death of the Xuanwu Emperor of Wei prevented that dynasty’s fall. But there was still much fighting to go against the Wei – the arena merely shifted, from the lower Chang Jiang to the fortress-regions of Shu and Ba. As a way to prevent the war from draining Shen coffers even more than it already was, Shen Yangdi had the commanderies of the region hived off from the main military establishment and made responsible for their own troop-raising and taxation – while removing the region from the limitations on such things typically associated with Shen rule. The commanders brought the fighting under control, but soon the decentralization backfired, as wars broke out in the Central Plains: the resources of Shu and Ba were closed, left to the western commanderies. The military commanders there have guarded their prerogatives jealously, even forming an informal council to coordinate policy – both military and political.
 
A map:

Spoiler Labeled Eurasian Map, 350 :

Underlined polities will be playable.
Italicized polities are minors; non-italicized polities are majors (i.e. they lack a subordinate relationship to another polity).
 
Tossing up between Namarinia and Qarthadast already. Looks really good :goodjob:
 
I'd be very interested in Batromorgan or Italia :) (in that order)
 
My interest in the Perseids is in part religious in nature; I enjoy working on religions, and the Sophist hierarchy, rites, and doctrines certainly need in-game detailing to be properly compelling. I took a stab at it in DaNES II with Bill but I think I'd like to do a better job of it this time. Also yeah, the Perseids aren't a state BASED on Sicily, but I might as well play to pre-existing tropes. :p

If someone better than me decides to go for the Perseids I'd be extremely interested in the Qarthadastim. I have an extremely cunning pran for them.

And yes I know this is all extremely premature but do you even really need a pre-NES thread?
 
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