SouthernKing
crickety cricket
or SKNES IV
Backstory
For centuries, the Holy Louisiana Empire has dominated the bulk of the Old United States. From its great capital of St. Louis, home to no less than a million people and the greatest monuments to have ever graced the North American continent, the Empire reigns supreme over the North American heartland. Its parishes once spread from the Rio Grande to the St. Lawrence and it once ruled over tens of millions of people. Indeed, the Holy Louisiana Empire was truly the greatest empire the Mississippi valley has ever seen.
But recent times have not been kind to the Empire. Years of internal strife, civil war, disease, famine, and economic chaos have badly shaken the very foundations of the eternal state, tearing away the faith of its people in the ability of the state, and tearing away the state's ability to keep order and control and to keep the taxes flowing. And one of the Empire's pillars, the New Catholic Church reborn after the Event, is crumbling, beset by the ills of endemic corruption and an inability to control its own incredible decadence. And for the first time, new religious movements have arisen in the underworlds of the Empire's cities and the backwoods of the Empire's countryside.
Now, the year is 500 on the Imperial Calendar, the standard used throughout the oikumene. Under the steady-handed leadership of the emperors of the Thorvaldic dynasty, a period of calm has returned to the Empire. But the ills that beset it throughout the last century have not gone away completely. And at the Empire's borders, the entire edifice continues to be an incredible expense to maintain, and soon the hammers of non-Abrahamic gods may find themselves tearing at the Empire's frontiers...
In this game, you play as a "barbarian" tribe or state at the periphery of the Holy Louisiana Empire. From where you start, your options are wide open. You may seek to peacefully move into the Empire, taking up jobs as mercenaries in a parishioner's employment, growing wealthy and gaining the fruits of Louisiana's civilization. Or you may seek conquest and glory, cutting down entire peoples and reducing great cities to burning ashes. Or, you may just seek to create your own culture of art and culture that matches, nay, exceeds the best of Louisiana. But remember that you don't start off with any of these things. They'll only be built with the blood and toil of your people.
I'm going to run this game vaguely NES-ish, both in update and stats style, because that's what I'm comfortable with, and this is loosely based on a rejected concept idea for SKNES III. Orders are open and please send them via PM. But most of all, please do have fun, that's the entire point of this exercise.
Joining the Game
Pretty simple. Fill out this form:
Name/Player: Obvious.
Color: Obvious. Anything but a shade of grey (or black, or white) works.
Location: Describe your starting location. You can start in the white space, or you can even start inside the borders of a parish bordering white space. Please do pay attention to geographic features though.
Description: This is the most important part. Here, please describe your culture, your military, your preferred style of government, etc., as you wish to. This is a Canticle for Leibowitz-type setting, set in a pre-industrial setting after an unspecified apocalyptic event, and, so as long as you don't do things that are blatantly silly, most anything will fly.
Religion: Please describe what your religion is. Again, can be anything that's not blatantly blatantly silly. Could even be an existing religion, or a completely made-up religion.
History: If you wish to, give a brief history of how your people got to where they are.
Neighbor Ideas: If you have any ideas for NPCs to start next to, please post them here. They can be tribes, related or unrelated to you, or they can even be civilized, sedentary states.
Remember, you are starting as a migratory tribe, or, at the very most civilized, a very petty state along the lines of the Cimmerian Bosporus or Dacia. You are not an empire, you are at best a relatively small collection of people seeking glory. I also highly encourage you to coordinate with others in doing the background - it's more interesting that way.
Ruleset
Sample Stats:
Albanii/Omega124
Location: Upstate New York
Economy: 0-0/10
Unity: +2
Civilization: -3
Administration: -3
Authority: +1
Culture: Yorker (Imperial, Alleghenii)
Religion: Zoroastrianism (Catholic, Rust Cult)
Military: 3 Infantry, 1 Cavalry (4/6)
Military Description: Infantry are lightly armored, mainly use iron spears, and are mobile and good at woodland fighting; cavalry are lightly armored and mainly use iron lances.
Description: Matriarchal society
It is very important to note that some of these stats should be taken with a grain of salt. They matter less or more depending on how settled you are.
Location: Obviously, where the core of your people are located at a given time. This is by no means fixed, and if you're not entirely civilized and you wish to, you are able to migrate to greener pastures. There are no claims as other games might have - if you want to expand, you'll either have to fight to conquer new lands, colonize them, or migrate there.
Economy: There are three numbers here, your income, your military upkeep costs (if applicable), and your treasury. Your income is the amount of EPs you gain every turn. At the start, your income will be rather low, or you may not have an income at all! This is because (in most cases) you don’t have an established structure to collect taxes. So you’ll have to get funds from other sources.
How do you get funds, you ask? There are many ways. The most obvious - and perhaps the biggest in lump sum terms - is loot from cities or towns you raid and sack, which goes directly into your treasury. This works, but can be sporadic, and loot can easily run dry. You can demand tribute from conquered peoples, which gives you income, but creates resentment. Or you can sell yourself to a parishioner or someone else as mercenaries, which also gives you income. Once you start civilizing, you'll be able to levy proper taxes and obtain a firm, established source of income.
You can really spend EPs on anything, from expanding military to public works programs to bribes to male slaves - preferably the latter.
Unity: A scale from -3 to +3, this represents the general cohesiveness of your leadership over your warbands and overarching government: +3 represents complete control by a strong, decisive leader, while -3 represents virtually no central control whatsoever, or a decentralized tribal federation. Low unity can lead to other leaders challenging your authority and trying to take over control, or even your units leaving your command, while higher unity will naturally give you better, more decisive leadership. With higher unity comes better ability to shift your people's fortunes, and also a higher military cap.
Civilization: A scale from -3 to +3, this represents how sedentary and settled your people are. +3 represents a fully settled, urban society like Holy Louisiana, while -3 represents a purely nomadic society constantly on the move. The lower it is, the quicker and further you can migrate. Higher civilization, however, will lead to better tax income, better technology, and all the fruits these things give, and this increases dramatically once you go over 0. However, if your civilization level is 0 or above, you cannot migrate. Additionally, having a civilization level of -1 or higher allows you access to siegecraft.
Administration: A scale from -3 to +3, this represents your ability to adequately manage the lands you control. Consistently low administration will lead to depopulation and famine and devastation as order breaks down. If you're just in it for loot, then this stat won't matter much to you. Nevertheless, keep this in mind if you have intentions of creating an empire in the vein of Holy Louisiana. Higher administration leads to better income as it is easier to collect taxes.
Authority: A scale from -3 to +3, this represents the amount of control you have over the people in the lands you control. This is separate from Unity in that while that represents control over the warriors and, this represents the people themselves who are under your rule. Low authority causes rebellions as the people see opportunity to assert their demands. Higher authority will make the people more...wiling...to provide their tribute to you. If the people under your rule grow dissatisfied, and there's not sufficient authority to keep them under control, expect rebellion.
Culture: This is the culture group your people come from. That of you and your leaders are listed first, while any significant minorities are listed in the parenthesis. If there is a majority under your control that you are not part of, then said majority will be listed in bold. Over time, cultural groups can and will grow and merge into each other.
Religion: This stat operates the same as Culture. The religion of you and your leadership. Similarly, new religions can form and spread and so forth, just as they did in the chaotic time around the fall of old Rome. It is your decision whether you wish to be tolerant and create a cosmopolitan society or if you wish to make the rivers flow red with the blood of four thousand Saxon men that you did behead.
Military: And naturally, the most important part. This is the armies under your command. There is a cap on the number of units you may have, listed in the parenthesis next to it - this is dependent on your Unity stat, with the cap being (unity stat + 4), so -3 has a cap of 1, 0 has a cap of 4, and +3 has a cap of 7. However, you may still exceed the cap, but every unit over the cap costs another 1 EP per turn in upkeep.
Costs to build units are:
-Infantry: 2 EP
-Cavalry: 3 EP
-Siege Train (Requires Civilization -1 or higher): 5 EP
Assume that if you want to cross seas transports are provided. This game doesn't have provinces so there's no artificial limits to military orders besides the obvious geography. Supplies aren't a major concern - your warriors will just live off the land if you don't give any, and if you're raiding there's not a point in giving supplies anyway.
Military Description: In lieu of having unique units, your entire military is customizable to a degree, and this will be reflected in this description, which will generally be a short blurb on the preferred weapons and tactics and battle customs and such. If you don't specify anything, and you don't have to, I'll just make it up depending on where your start is. This will certainly change depending on what happens to you. Remember, the tech level here is approximately the Crusades. Gunpowder hasn't been discovered quite yet - but perhaps it will later?
Description: Anything else of note goes here.
---
Parish Stats
Each parish (province) of the Holy Louisiana Empire has its own stats, as follows:
Arcadiana Parish
Status: Loyal to Emperor
Economy: +2
Stability: +1
Religious Unity: -1 (Vodun)
Military: 3 Legions
Description:
Status: Represents the present political status of the parish in relation to St. Louis - if the parish is under direct imperial control, if it is under a parishioner loyal to the Emperor, if it is in rebellion, if it has a degree of autonomy, if it is outright independent, and so forth and so forth.
Economy: A broad stat from -3 to +3 representing the overall health of the parish's economy at any one time, as well as the health of the state to administer it - as poorer economy leads to poorer tax revenues and all the fun that implies. Lower economy stat will lead to the people of the parish being forced to consider migration in order to merely feed themselves, as well as further embolden the people against the parish's government, or even St. Louis, which impacts stability.
Stability: A broad stat from -3 to +3 representing the political control the parishioner('s government) has over the administration and people of the province. Low stability could lead to revolts, coups, or other fun things happen. Parishioners ruling over unstable parishes will often resort to desperate measures to retain control - something to keep in mind if your people are nearing said parish.
Religious Unity: Again, from -3 to +3. This stat represents not just the general number of heretics and heathens (or lack thereof), but also the confidence instilled in the local hierarchy of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church of the Empire is the all-pervasive state cult that emphasizes, yet centuries of building corruption have resulted in a structure that makes a Renaissance pope blush. Any significant religious minorities that have formed, or have simply resisted Church inquisitions long enough, are listed here in the parenthesis.
Military: A general overview of the present military garrison of the parish. At the start, most parishes will be garrisoned by legions stationed there - these are, naturally, elite units. However, their political loyalty is...questionable, to say the least, as is their upkeep, so many parishioners are turning to the use of mercenaries to buff up their forces. Keep this in mind when you're going to war in a province.
Description: Anything else of importance will be mentioned here. For example, any significant cultural minorities dissatisfied with the Empire will be mentioned here.
Need a few posts reserved after this
Map, including Imperial parishes:
Backstory
For centuries, the Holy Louisiana Empire has dominated the bulk of the Old United States. From its great capital of St. Louis, home to no less than a million people and the greatest monuments to have ever graced the North American continent, the Empire reigns supreme over the North American heartland. Its parishes once spread from the Rio Grande to the St. Lawrence and it once ruled over tens of millions of people. Indeed, the Holy Louisiana Empire was truly the greatest empire the Mississippi valley has ever seen.
But recent times have not been kind to the Empire. Years of internal strife, civil war, disease, famine, and economic chaos have badly shaken the very foundations of the eternal state, tearing away the faith of its people in the ability of the state, and tearing away the state's ability to keep order and control and to keep the taxes flowing. And one of the Empire's pillars, the New Catholic Church reborn after the Event, is crumbling, beset by the ills of endemic corruption and an inability to control its own incredible decadence. And for the first time, new religious movements have arisen in the underworlds of the Empire's cities and the backwoods of the Empire's countryside.
Now, the year is 500 on the Imperial Calendar, the standard used throughout the oikumene. Under the steady-handed leadership of the emperors of the Thorvaldic dynasty, a period of calm has returned to the Empire. But the ills that beset it throughout the last century have not gone away completely. And at the Empire's borders, the entire edifice continues to be an incredible expense to maintain, and soon the hammers of non-Abrahamic gods may find themselves tearing at the Empire's frontiers...
In this game, you play as a "barbarian" tribe or state at the periphery of the Holy Louisiana Empire. From where you start, your options are wide open. You may seek to peacefully move into the Empire, taking up jobs as mercenaries in a parishioner's employment, growing wealthy and gaining the fruits of Louisiana's civilization. Or you may seek conquest and glory, cutting down entire peoples and reducing great cities to burning ashes. Or, you may just seek to create your own culture of art and culture that matches, nay, exceeds the best of Louisiana. But remember that you don't start off with any of these things. They'll only be built with the blood and toil of your people.
I'm going to run this game vaguely NES-ish, both in update and stats style, because that's what I'm comfortable with, and this is loosely based on a rejected concept idea for SKNES III. Orders are open and please send them via PM. But most of all, please do have fun, that's the entire point of this exercise.
Joining the Game
Pretty simple. Fill out this form:
Name/Player: Obvious.
Color: Obvious. Anything but a shade of grey (or black, or white) works.
Location: Describe your starting location. You can start in the white space, or you can even start inside the borders of a parish bordering white space. Please do pay attention to geographic features though.
Description: This is the most important part. Here, please describe your culture, your military, your preferred style of government, etc., as you wish to. This is a Canticle for Leibowitz-type setting, set in a pre-industrial setting after an unspecified apocalyptic event, and, so as long as you don't do things that are blatantly silly, most anything will fly.
Religion: Please describe what your religion is. Again, can be anything that's not blatantly blatantly silly. Could even be an existing religion, or a completely made-up religion.
History: If you wish to, give a brief history of how your people got to where they are.
Neighbor Ideas: If you have any ideas for NPCs to start next to, please post them here. They can be tribes, related or unrelated to you, or they can even be civilized, sedentary states.
Remember, you are starting as a migratory tribe, or, at the very most civilized, a very petty state along the lines of the Cimmerian Bosporus or Dacia. You are not an empire, you are at best a relatively small collection of people seeking glory. I also highly encourage you to coordinate with others in doing the background - it's more interesting that way.
Ruleset
Sample Stats:
Albanii/Omega124
Location: Upstate New York
Economy: 0-0/10
Unity: +2
Civilization: -3
Administration: -3
Authority: +1
Culture: Yorker (Imperial, Alleghenii)
Religion: Zoroastrianism (Catholic, Rust Cult)
Military: 3 Infantry, 1 Cavalry (4/6)
Military Description: Infantry are lightly armored, mainly use iron spears, and are mobile and good at woodland fighting; cavalry are lightly armored and mainly use iron lances.
Description: Matriarchal society
It is very important to note that some of these stats should be taken with a grain of salt. They matter less or more depending on how settled you are.
Location: Obviously, where the core of your people are located at a given time. This is by no means fixed, and if you're not entirely civilized and you wish to, you are able to migrate to greener pastures. There are no claims as other games might have - if you want to expand, you'll either have to fight to conquer new lands, colonize them, or migrate there.
Economy: There are three numbers here, your income, your military upkeep costs (if applicable), and your treasury. Your income is the amount of EPs you gain every turn. At the start, your income will be rather low, or you may not have an income at all! This is because (in most cases) you don’t have an established structure to collect taxes. So you’ll have to get funds from other sources.
How do you get funds, you ask? There are many ways. The most obvious - and perhaps the biggest in lump sum terms - is loot from cities or towns you raid and sack, which goes directly into your treasury. This works, but can be sporadic, and loot can easily run dry. You can demand tribute from conquered peoples, which gives you income, but creates resentment. Or you can sell yourself to a parishioner or someone else as mercenaries, which also gives you income. Once you start civilizing, you'll be able to levy proper taxes and obtain a firm, established source of income.
You can really spend EPs on anything, from expanding military to public works programs to bribes to male slaves - preferably the latter.
Unity: A scale from -3 to +3, this represents the general cohesiveness of your leadership over your warbands and overarching government: +3 represents complete control by a strong, decisive leader, while -3 represents virtually no central control whatsoever, or a decentralized tribal federation. Low unity can lead to other leaders challenging your authority and trying to take over control, or even your units leaving your command, while higher unity will naturally give you better, more decisive leadership. With higher unity comes better ability to shift your people's fortunes, and also a higher military cap.
Civilization: A scale from -3 to +3, this represents how sedentary and settled your people are. +3 represents a fully settled, urban society like Holy Louisiana, while -3 represents a purely nomadic society constantly on the move. The lower it is, the quicker and further you can migrate. Higher civilization, however, will lead to better tax income, better technology, and all the fruits these things give, and this increases dramatically once you go over 0. However, if your civilization level is 0 or above, you cannot migrate. Additionally, having a civilization level of -1 or higher allows you access to siegecraft.
Administration: A scale from -3 to +3, this represents your ability to adequately manage the lands you control. Consistently low administration will lead to depopulation and famine and devastation as order breaks down. If you're just in it for loot, then this stat won't matter much to you. Nevertheless, keep this in mind if you have intentions of creating an empire in the vein of Holy Louisiana. Higher administration leads to better income as it is easier to collect taxes.
Authority: A scale from -3 to +3, this represents the amount of control you have over the people in the lands you control. This is separate from Unity in that while that represents control over the warriors and, this represents the people themselves who are under your rule. Low authority causes rebellions as the people see opportunity to assert their demands. Higher authority will make the people more...wiling...to provide their tribute to you. If the people under your rule grow dissatisfied, and there's not sufficient authority to keep them under control, expect rebellion.
Culture: This is the culture group your people come from. That of you and your leaders are listed first, while any significant minorities are listed in the parenthesis. If there is a majority under your control that you are not part of, then said majority will be listed in bold. Over time, cultural groups can and will grow and merge into each other.
Religion: This stat operates the same as Culture. The religion of you and your leadership. Similarly, new religions can form and spread and so forth, just as they did in the chaotic time around the fall of old Rome. It is your decision whether you wish to be tolerant and create a cosmopolitan society or if you wish to make the rivers flow red with the blood of four thousand Saxon men that you did behead.
Military: And naturally, the most important part. This is the armies under your command. There is a cap on the number of units you may have, listed in the parenthesis next to it - this is dependent on your Unity stat, with the cap being (unity stat + 4), so -3 has a cap of 1, 0 has a cap of 4, and +3 has a cap of 7. However, you may still exceed the cap, but every unit over the cap costs another 1 EP per turn in upkeep.
Costs to build units are:
-Infantry: 2 EP
-Cavalry: 3 EP
-Siege Train (Requires Civilization -1 or higher): 5 EP
Assume that if you want to cross seas transports are provided. This game doesn't have provinces so there's no artificial limits to military orders besides the obvious geography. Supplies aren't a major concern - your warriors will just live off the land if you don't give any, and if you're raiding there's not a point in giving supplies anyway.
Military Description: In lieu of having unique units, your entire military is customizable to a degree, and this will be reflected in this description, which will generally be a short blurb on the preferred weapons and tactics and battle customs and such. If you don't specify anything, and you don't have to, I'll just make it up depending on where your start is. This will certainly change depending on what happens to you. Remember, the tech level here is approximately the Crusades. Gunpowder hasn't been discovered quite yet - but perhaps it will later?
Description: Anything else of note goes here.
---
Parish Stats
Each parish (province) of the Holy Louisiana Empire has its own stats, as follows:
Arcadiana Parish
Status: Loyal to Emperor
Economy: +2
Stability: +1
Religious Unity: -1 (Vodun)
Military: 3 Legions
Description:
Status: Represents the present political status of the parish in relation to St. Louis - if the parish is under direct imperial control, if it is under a parishioner loyal to the Emperor, if it is in rebellion, if it has a degree of autonomy, if it is outright independent, and so forth and so forth.
Economy: A broad stat from -3 to +3 representing the overall health of the parish's economy at any one time, as well as the health of the state to administer it - as poorer economy leads to poorer tax revenues and all the fun that implies. Lower economy stat will lead to the people of the parish being forced to consider migration in order to merely feed themselves, as well as further embolden the people against the parish's government, or even St. Louis, which impacts stability.
Stability: A broad stat from -3 to +3 representing the political control the parishioner('s government) has over the administration and people of the province. Low stability could lead to revolts, coups, or other fun things happen. Parishioners ruling over unstable parishes will often resort to desperate measures to retain control - something to keep in mind if your people are nearing said parish.
Religious Unity: Again, from -3 to +3. This stat represents not just the general number of heretics and heathens (or lack thereof), but also the confidence instilled in the local hierarchy of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church of the Empire is the all-pervasive state cult that emphasizes, yet centuries of building corruption have resulted in a structure that makes a Renaissance pope blush. Any significant religious minorities that have formed, or have simply resisted Church inquisitions long enough, are listed here in the parenthesis.
Military: A general overview of the present military garrison of the parish. At the start, most parishes will be garrisoned by legions stationed there - these are, naturally, elite units. However, their political loyalty is...questionable, to say the least, as is their upkeep, so many parishioners are turning to the use of mercenaries to buff up their forces. Keep this in mind when you're going to war in a province.
Description: Anything else of importance will be mentioned here. For example, any significant cultural minorities dissatisfied with the Empire will be mentioned here.
Need a few posts reserved after this
Map, including Imperial parishes:
Spoiler :
)
