PREVIEW: Our Terrible Purpose

TheMeanestGuest

Warlord
Joined
Dec 4, 2008
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Location
Ontario, Canada
Hey everyone! I'm still semi-new around here, and some of you probably don't know me, but I hope you won't hold that against me. Below you'll find a few details on my upcoming pseudo-industrial post-apocalyptic weird-fantasy NES, Our Terrible Purpose.

It is my intention that you will play as a city-state, kingdom, tribe, confederacy, etc. etc. in this oppressive, ruinous and sparsely populated world. I've written a few short items below that might help you understand the tone and setting of the game, but there's still a lot to be filled in! I'll be adding a few more things in the coming days, but it's my hope that you - the players - will develop most of the world by proposing your state (note: you are also free to play as Grist, Ath or New Hayne), and by playing the game itself.

I will be vetting your applications, but I'd be more than happy to help any prospective players work on their proposal. I can often be found on #NES on the warrensofthought.com IRC network. There is no strict format here for those who want to play, if you'd like to give a simple description that is fine, but if you'd like to present your application as a story, that is also fine. I'd only ask that you indicate your preferred location.

This is a relatively serious game, but I'm a fairly forgiving GM and above all I'd like people to actually enjoy playing this NES. I don't expect that I will be allowing more than 10 players at this point in time. I will be working out the system shortly, but I expect I will be borrowing some popular NES mechanics.

Feel free to ask questions (I know I'm light on details), discuss, and critique.

Map

Spoiler :
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Current Roster

Spoiler :
Nobody!


Cities and Places

Ath

White walls strong, tall and fine, roofs of gold and green, a hundred towers against a clear blue sky. But as all cities must, Ath succumbs to the Fugue. Streets that once bustled lie silent and empty, and a thousand windows yawn black in the dead of night. Here many ships still call, but they seem so few amidst a great harbour built for many more. The people of Ath forget their dignity and feign grace that has long since forsaken them. The body wounded, the spirit ails, and empire quickly slips from weakened grasp.

New Hayne

Hayne may be centuries gone, burned away by the Red Fever, but its prideful legacy persists. Triumph is sweet upon the tongue, and the Mercers grow fat on the spoils of their victory. Haynish dreadnoughts sail unopposed upon the Fugue Sea, and their guns enforce a new regime. But Ath is merely humbled, and the Mercers yet fear revenge. The Crown's authority must be broken utterly and in finality - lest the specter of the enemy foil the ambitions of New Hayne.

Grist-on-Blackest

Here a city has always stood, astride the river Blackest. It has borne many different names, and the robber princes of Grist know each and every one, for they are keen students of history. It is by plunder that a man grows rich and rises in his house, perhaps one day to sit upon a throne. The ruins of the Weald provide, and the lure of gold blinds many to their mortal peril. A dozen and more expeditions depart each day into that hot and gnarled wood, which now grows close enough to touch the crumbling walls. Some return laden with ancient tomes, with coin and jewels, with powerful artifacts of ages past. More return hollow-eyed and empty-handed, or twisted in some subtle way, grinning that fell grin - a different man behind it. Many return not at all, claimed by the wood and that which lurks within.

The Fugue Sea

Calm waters unremarkable and unremembered. Shores of grey sand, and upon them the final gasp of civilization as the world dies a still and lonely death. Here men live in the shadow of better days, of terrible days. Here they play out the same tired roles as the final act draws near.

The Sweltered Weald

They say that once the Blackest ran clear, but that was long ago, and the river chokes on the detritus of ages. A dark forest grows up around it, slick and fetid, deep and trackless. Stones molder in the gloom beneath leaf and vine - the great cities that were. Eas, the Alchemists City, brought low by its own hubris -a bright and terrible light, a thousand colours, screams and a flash of searing heat, silence as the world fades into chiaroscuro relief. Somnesht, city of dancing shadows, city of a thousand doors. Golden Dis, where the Star of the Morning led her Choirs in song. All belong to the Weald, and the Weald is a jealous keeper.

The Dead Sands

A desolate wasteland long sundered from the sea. A green and bountiful paradise, once, before the world was changed. Tombs both grandiose and elegant rise from the shifting sands, from the cracked and shattered earth. Here lie ancient lords in all their glittering regalia, warrior-poets in bare repose, witch kings wrapped in a dozen curses - final gift of fearful servants dreading a master ill contented by death's embrace. Water is precious and scarce, but blood runs freely, for the men who dare live here are hard and cruel.

The Shatters

A rust-red desert of dead machines and wandering terrors, the Shatters can be found north of the Dead Sands, in the deep waste. Huge machines - Titans - slumber in the Shatters, their limbs broken, immensely prolix clockwork brains inert. Engines of mass destruction said to have been used in the Membrane Wars and the Ravaging. Titans are incredibly ornate constructs complete with balconies, living quarters for crew, barracks, armouries, and a hundred other chambers. They carried whole armies into battle while laying into enemy forces with their guns, huge shoulder and chest-mounted cannons. Now they molder, their baroque armour mottled with rust, their furnaces ashen. Generations of scavengers have picked several clean, leaving only huge steel skeletons; others are more intact. There are other machines half-buried in the Shatters, along with Cullys and Suchol, sister-cities of bronze and chrome grown spotted with rust, their walls collapsed, machine gods broken or insane. Berserk automata and a handful of bitter demons call these cities home, fallen places of smashed cogs and glyph-graved monoliths and maniacal deities of brass and steam, grown twisted and senile in the lightless gloom of their now-deserted temples.

Soldiers and Warriors

Athish Knights

These knights eschew the horse and fight afoot with their retainers. Encased in masterfully angled and mechanically assisted heavy plate armour, an Athish Knight need fear few weapons. Arrows, bolts and bullets alike ricochet harmlessly from their plate, allowing them to exchange fire with the shotguns and revolvers they favour even when heavily outnumbered. Likewise, they may close upon the enemy with impunity, even under heavy barrage, and make short work of their foes with gruesome heatblades. A charge of Athish Knights is a fearsome sight indeed, and entire armies have scattered on contact with these butchers.

Heyden and Roen Heyden

Servants, attendants and retainers to the Knights of Ath, Heyden train all their lives in the arts of combat in order to protect and serve their masters. As Ath's authority vanishes as dust upon the wind many have abandoned or lost their former masters, and now find themselves without bond - Roen. These men are looked down upon in the loyal holds as honourless, and so they make their living as they can - swearing their blades and their service to the strongest of their own number. Heyden are fierce and brave in battle, throwing themselves recklessly upon the enemy - trusting in their ferocity and skill to carry the fight. They are well protected and well armed, wearing thickly plated cuirass and masked helm, carrying breech-loading rifles and shiverswords.

Mercer's Guild Infantry

Recruited exclusively from the Haynish population, and the mainstay of any Guild army. They are a trained and well-motivated professional infantry force. Wearing identical uniforms, ironweft jackets, a steel helmet, and armed with repeating carbines, these soldiers are distinctive on battlefields across the Fugue. They excel at engaging the enemy from a distance - or from prepared trenches and fortifications - where the power and accuracy of the Haynish carbine can be best demonstrated. Should they be caught in melee combat they will suffer terribly. A bayonet is little match for a shiversword or shiveraxe in a man-to-man fight.

Blackest Plundermen

A motley collection of men who make their living as as thugs-for-hire, as brigands plying the Blackest in mildewed junks, as scavenger-soldiers in the employ of Grist's Robber Houses, or sometimes all three. These men are coarse, callous and hungry. Their training, if any, is not standardized. Though fierce and eager fighters, they cannot be relied upon to hold disciplined ranks, or to maintain position if they sense advantage. Diversely equipped with an assortment of clubs, knives, and axes, with crude muskets and pistols or the occasional imported shiversword. More often wielding shellblades - the living crustacean swords for which Grist is famed, carefully cultivated in the shallows of the Blackest. They fight either unarmoured, or wearing a light lamellar cuirass of shell and lacquered wood.

An Understanding of Anomalies

Anomes - or, magic, to the uncouth and uneducated - is the practice of imbuing a symbol with aetherial power. The aether, that numinous energy which flows between worlds, cannot be directly accessed. The minds of men no longer possess the strength or technique. Rather, this power must be interpreted through analogy and symbolism, be that symbol a phrase, a gesture, a rune, or simple ideation. Such symbols have no power in and of themselves. A practitioner must empower or infuse his symbols with aetherial potency. For the most part, propensity towards this ability is inborn in some few individuals, though with the proper mind, and with rigorous dedication, it may be taught to a willing pupil.

Orthodox

The orthodox tradition emphasizes detachment and understanding - a calculated and severe application of anomes. Through the elimination of emotional pollution, and through the inculcation of deeper understanding, the potential power of a practitioners symbol is substantially increased. The development of such skill requires years of intensive schooling. Few teachers now remain, and Orthodox anomes is relegated to the dusty halls of crumbling colleges or the libraries of elderly magi.

Heterodox

A term applied primarily by the orthodox to those they view as lesser practitioners of anomes, to those who lack that essential purity of resolve. A living, ever-changing hodge-podge of a thousand magical traditions. Gutter witches sell charms of dubious efficacy to passersby in the clotted streets of Grist, country wizards tend to their herb gardens in rural Athica, tribal shamans lead their people in cursed ritual from the very edge of the Blackpine Hills, looking down hatefully on the distant sprawl of New Hayne. All possess some ability to access the energies of the aether, though variance in sheer potency between these traditions is often staggering.

Plenipotent

A dead tradition. Those who could touch the aether directly and mold its power to their will. No plenipotentiary - no true sorcerer - has walked the earth in a thousand years. Esenna, who was the Iridescent Queen, was the last. Her power did not avail her, and she and all her acolytes died just as their slaves and subjects in that terrible immolation - the Red Fever.

Beasts and Horrors

Salamander

Large, predatory and amphibious. Salamanders are among the most dangerous creatures to inhabit the Sweltered Weald. Already several feet long at birth, salamanders never stop growing, and truly ancient specimens can easily exceed a length of over one hundred feet from the nose to the tip of the tail. Their skin is smooth and moist, but seems to exude an inordinate amount of heat. They range in colour from black, through green, to a light and dusty brown. Salamanders rarely stray far from water, though sightings in drier climes are not unheard of. They tend to avoid highly trafficked waterways, but a hungry salamander will not hesitate to prey on an isolated party deep within the Weald. As they age, salamanders develop a rude cunning, and some even learn to speak in the tongues of men. They are strong and fast, and can eviscerate with sharp claws and gnashing teeth. Their most potent weapon, however, is the deadly vapor they may exhale in astounding quantities. A man enveloped will asphyxiate in under ten seconds, and engaging a salamander on low-lying terrain is functionally suicidal.

Corner Snep

Sneps hail from some strange and outer dimension, and they are innately free of physical constraints. They seem to possess an inborn and irrepressible desire for mischief and take advantage of their form and abilities in the furtherance of this pursuit at nearly any opportunity. The presence of a snep is often announced by its distinctive tittering laughter, followed shortly by the tinkling of broken glass, the crash of splintering furniture, or some other minor calamity. Under most circumstances sneps are difficult to spot, though with a careful eye they can be located as a minute disturbance of light, a near imperceptible skewing of ones vision. Should a snep choose to reveal itself - usually to mock or further torment its hapless victim - it will invariably appear as a disembodied and grinning row of sharp teeth. As their name alludes, they prefer to reside in corners and can move between joined corners instantaneously. Sneps bear some similarity to the sinister and deadly bonhombr, and some theorize that they are in fact the juvenile form of this dangerous creature.

Piranha Rat

A malignant and ubiquitous species of rodent encountered across the Fugue Sea and its environs - most commonly in ancient sewer-systems and other urban environments - the piranha rat is a pest that becomes dangerous in large numbers. Physically, piranha rats look like large, hairless rats with oversized heads and nimble, elongated limbs. They are distinguished from other rats by their jaws and teeth: the piranha rat jaw is larger and more jutting than a normal rat's, and is filled with rows of interlocking, blade-like teeth. Unlike their aquatic namesakes, whose legendary reputation for savagery is often exaggerated, piranha rats are efficient and bloodthirsty killers so gluttonous that they will literally eat themselves to death if given the chance. They tend to travel in swarms, attacking any and all prey that they happen across: unlike piranhas or rats they are strictly carnivorous, and prefer living prey. Packs unable to find enough food to sustain themselves will degenerate into cannibalism, devouring one another until most or all of the swarm is dead.

Apocalypse and Catastrophe

The Membrane Wars

Though the details of the Membrane Wars are lost in the mists of the distant past, their echoes are still felt to this day. Precipitated by a single anomalous event, possibly even an accident. It is unknown whether the magi who first tore open the world-pore were curious but naive scientists or crazed diabolists bent on unleashing the apocalypse that followed, but whoever they were the normally semi-permeable skin between dimensions, the eponymous Membrane, was ripped open - a permanent portal to one of the terrifying Hell-dimensions. The portal propagated, like a torn seam in fabric, unraveling normally immutable boundaries. What followed was a brutal, centuries-long state of warfare in which demon princes and their clans fought against each other and against mortal armies across the breadth of the world, with a death toll in the billions. But at last the tides of war begin to ebb, and demonic dominion seemed assured.

A herald unnoticed, a golden comet in the sky. Drawn by the scent of the foe upon the aether, the zirrafim had come. The Star of the Morning, Heosë herself, and all the Golden Host with her. War blossomed anew, more terrible and incomprehensible then before. The sun occluded by a thousand-thousand wings, and black rain that froze upon the earth. Slowly, the demon-clans driven back upon the field. Nivial, wrestled down and drowned in the sea even as it boiled. Apollyon-Kotet, pierced by seventy-seven solar lances, thrown broken and mangled before his wailing army. Laan, who burned swollen with infernal might, who fell apart in Heosë's hands. Cunning Sprezychish, driven from his thrice-encircled palace. And so a new tyranny was born, and so the choirs sang in Golden Dis.

Her Earthly Dominion, and its Ravaging

It was that Heosë looked out upon her conquest, and decreed that it must change. It was impure, corrupted by the touch of Hell, and by an eon of mortal sin. Again the Golden Host took wing, and fire poured down across the land; the peoples of the world were broken, and could not resist the zirrafim. Some men turned upon their fellows, seeing in this their salvation, and Heosë granted them her favour, and the right to rule in her name.

On the banks of the river Alph the zirrafim built the city Dis. Towers as tall as mountains, palaces resplendent with otherworldly glory. The choirs sang upon a marbled square before a marbled hall, where Heosë sat her throne. Their song nurtured the land, and its many scars were slowly healed. A supernal wood grew up about that city, and it was the apotheosis of all woods, sublime in its natural beauty and tranquility, and filled with creatures wonderful and rare. Heosë came to love this wood, and she named it Rem, and could often be found upon its paths.

Far from Rem and Dis and the river Alph the world was a crueler place. The people cried out, prostrate before looming cathedrals, as priest-magi glowered down, indifferent to any suffering. Toil brings purity, they said, and so the people toiled on the earth and below it to serve a distant city they would never see.

For an age were the zirrafim thus contented, but it was that one day the scent of the foe returned, though it was so very far away. The choirs grew restless, their songs discordant. Heosë stood before her folk, and she knew that she could not long keep them. She said that she had come to love this world too much, and could not depart, and so to her sister Inan-Ishtar she passed her scepter and her crown. The host was gathered, and they left. They took Silver for their banner, for Gold would always remain to Dis. Some few of the zirrafim chose to linger, those who loved the world as Heosë did, or who could not bear to leave her. Things were much as they had been before, though Dis did not shine as brightly. The choir's song was not so loud as it had been before, and it bore a note of melancholy.

True vengeance bides its time, waiting for that perfect moment. The demon princes had sown their progeny far and wide, only for their legacy to be expunged in fire and light. Ere he was drowned, it was that the dread prince Nivial saw his fate written upon the stars. He called his sons to him, and he threw each and every one into the deepest pit of Hell. He who should possess the strength to climb back out should be one worthy to avenge him. It was Nivias the Rozier who swam the Acheron, who slew twelve of his brothers upon the gloaming plain, who won his life in a game of chess against cunning Sprezychish, and who survived his father's trial. And so he returned to the world of his birth, his power grown great.

He shook the ground beneath those grim cathedrals, and their foundations splintered and cracked, and their towers fell in upon themselves. He lashed the priest-magi with whips of infernal fire, and filled their lungs with cold water, and called the spirits of the restless dead to drag them down to Hell, and all their spells availed them not. Arram the Sorcerer stood before him, and their duel was long, but at last did Arram submit, and seized with a fear greater than the one he held for the zirrafim he begged mercy, and for his fine display of skill was made apprentice to Nivias the Rozier. An army grew about him, and so he found his father's ancient forges locked deep beneath the earth, and he opened them with the key written in his blood. Belching smoke the furnaces warmed, and soon the flumes ran with white-hot metal, and the air was filled with the cacophony of hammer upon steel, and great titans were risen up as in elder days. Her nations fell, and at last Heosë was roused to action.

The generals Semias and Valiel went forth, riding upon the backs of crystal dragons, and they marshaled all the power that then remained to Dis. The sky was black with storm when the armies met upon the plain of Sermet. Zirrafim wheeled in the sky, great and golden phalanxes beneath them, lines of proud centaurs upon the flanks, and strange creatures or machines like gossamer spiders towering above. Nivias the Rozier stood in company with all his sorcerers before his army. He had dug up the skeletons of vanquished demons from the earth, or plucked them from the depths of the sea, hatred still burning in empty eyes. He had called upon giants, and they came to him bearing wicked axes, or trees plucked from the earth as clubs. He was master to a screaming and seething horde, all the slaves of Dis now freed, armed with demon swords and mail. He had built many machines of war, and his titans strode forth clad in ornate armour plating - enormous machines bathed in steam and festooned with cannon - and buzzing things like metal wasps circled about them.

The armies met. Violence incomprehensible, and millions dead, swallowed up by the earth beneath them, crushed beneath some roaring beast, souls unraveled by arcane fog, or bodies blasted with black fire or searing light. Semias came down upon Nivias, and the dragon Anendrein took him up in its jaws and swallowed him down in one instant, and a moan of utter sorrow went up from his army. But Anendrein seemed to flutter, as the wings of a hummingbird, and its crystal scales began to melt and drip, and Semias leaped free just as his dragon vanished in a swirling column of eldritch numina. There stood Nivias the Rozier, whole and unharmed, and Semias screamed in rage and dove at Nivias, solar lance poised before him. He faltered in the air, some spell upon him, and fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Nivias stepped forward, and spat upon his face, and drove a dagger through his eye. Valiel could not be found, and the army of Dis began to falter, and slowly a keening went up from the zirrafim, one to the other, and of a sudden they made to flee. Near all were ridden down, or shot from the sky, or dragged from where they hid. The way to Dis lay open.

Nivias rode at the front of his army upon a cloud, and at last he was before the gate. Mammoun awaited him, skin black as pitch, a great sphinx at his side, his starry cloak upon his back. He spoke then: "Does your revenge satisfy you, princeling? Your burden is lifted, and the haze clears from your mind, but you will not desecrate this sacred place so long as I stand before it." Nivias only snarled, and he bade his giants forward. They roared and swung their axes fiercely, but Mammoun simply danced aside, and he killed each one with a single strike of his palm. Nivias shook with rage, and he screamed at his sorcerers, and each flung their killing spells upon Mammoun, but they simply dripped from his starry cloak like water. Mammoun stepped forward, and the army gathered before him flinched back. Nivias was still, a look of utter fury upon his face, and it seemed then that surely Mammoun would be destroyed. But nothing happened. And so Mammoun took one more step forward, and gently he placed his hand upon Nivias, and spoke again: "Your father's power has left you, for you have already won, princeling." and he laughed softly and bitterly. Then Mammoun twisted Nivias' head from his body. His army fled ere his corpse fell upon the ground.

It was that Mammoun sighed then, and turned, and walked the streets of Golden Dis one final time, gazing upon its fine gardens and palaces. He came to the banks of the river Alph, where he took up the pallid body of Heosë - her wrists slashed, golden blood still dripping. When she had seen that she was undone, and that Nivias the Rozier would take from her all that she loved, she went to sit in the waters of the Alph. She picked up a simple knife, and she killed herself, and so Mammoun found her, and tears ran down his face. He carried her away, and where she lies none know save him.

The Red Fever

Its origins uncertain, though speculated in some circles to have been intended as a tool by some acolyte-magus in the baroque power games of the court of the Iridescent Queen - largely due to its strong anomalous properties; bejeweled Sensinsal was likewise the first city to burn, and no answer came from the Shuddering Palace. Regardless of its cause, the Red Fever was the most virulent and destructive infection in memory. It gave no sign, lying dormant for days or even weeks, until suddenly the ill are seized in spasm, followed by the rapid onset of fever. The afflicted suffered horribly, the sickness somehow keeping them alive and sensate - screaming - even as the fever climbed far beyond lethality. The body smokes, and at last the flames begin their dance. Order crumbled, cities burned. Some few fled in their great ships, reducing the coasts as they went with spell and cannon, executing any man or woman suspected of carrying the fever without thought or question. Even so, many ships were as pyres on the sea ere those fleets at last set eye upon the Fugue.
 
Super super in
 
Definitely in. This gives me the vibe of The First Law trilogy, several centuries and a catastrophe or two down the line.

Questions incoming:

Can we begin creating our nations?

And would you be against a pirate island? Not a PotC one but a serious kind, with all the murderous villainy piracy truly implies? I'm playing with the idea.

How does the magic work in this world? What makes a shiveraxe different from an axe?

Does Athish armor have magic to make bullets bounce off, or are the physics of this world slightly different?

What is the Fugue? Does it relate to magic in this world?

The blackest plundermen import shiver weapons. From where?

Does the mapped region share one language and cultural group? Or are there remarkably different ones, i.e. OTL West vs East? Or is it more Various-European-States kind of differences?

You claim the world is dying. Is this a supernatural (read: magic) cause, is it because of a man-made catastrophe, is it god(s), is it man and magic, is it a natural disaster, what?

You say sparcely populated, but what does that entail? Is Ath a city designed for 1,000,000 but has about 10,000 living there? Or is it designed for 200,000 but has 5,000 living there? Etc.

Is there any Hope? In the capital sense- is it possible to revive this world, or is it on a slow path to certain doom?

Where is the breadbasket? Where are the metals, precious and utilizable? How many miles is it from, say, New Hayne to Ath, in a straight line?

What kind of climate is it? Mediterranean is my guess, or does it have horrible, snowy winters and burning summers? Does it vary (depending on how large this is)?

Is there anything beyond the desert? Nations that we trade with, but have not explored?

" A green and bountiful paradise, once, before the world was changed." What happened?

What moves a dreadnaught? Are we still wind-powered, have we discovered steam power, or even electricity or the combustion engine? Or is it magic? If then, what kind?


I'm sure I will have more questions later, and I indeed have more but will stop for now, since this is already a big list. I hope you see this as helping to flesh out the world, rather than being pesky! :)

Oh, one more- Can we get some borders (or at least zones of control) for the nations you have already made? Thanks. I'm excited!
 
Well, thanks! I haven't yet read First Law, but I'm a big fan of Best Served Cold.

You may indeed begin creating your nation. Pirate island would be sweet, and I endorse this idea.

I'm still working on magic, but it is esoteric and rare. I'll post something about it in a few hours, probably. Shiver weapons just vibrate at high frequencies, like vibroblades in Star Wars. I'd imagine they operate in some technomagical fashion, perhaps an alchemical ampul with some strange reaction going on attached to the tang. The armour of an Athish knight, however, is not magical. Just precisely angled and very thick, and thus heavy, necessitating clockwork assistance. The text is somewhat hyperbolic, there are weak points, and bullets certainly do wound or kill Athish Knights. A dreadnought is steam powered, though all of the technologies you mentioned have existed at some point in time.

Shiver weapons are produced in the north, and thus would be brought up the Blackest to Grist, a long and dangerous voyage, but well worth it to the merchants who come to trade for relics scavenged from the weald.

When I refer to the Fugue, I'm just talking about the Fugue Sea, or the various superstitions associated with it, perhaps justly. There is a gradual historical trend towards decline. It's just not a great place, but I suppose neither is anywhere else.

There are certainly cultural differences, and I welcome differentiation. The Athish and Haynish are not originally from the region, having both fled from the Red Fever. They've been around for awhile, though. There isn't really such a thing as an Athish commoner anymore, and cultural differences are mainly class related in Ath or its associated cities. The Haynish however have been very careful about maintaining their separation from the native populations.

Well, the world itself might not necessarily be dying (though it certainly could be!), but civilization is becoming more rarefied. As you alluded to, there have been several various catastrophic and apocalyptic events, which I will elaborate on. As for causes, it depends who you ask. But several of the listed factors have been involved at one time or another.

There are vast tracts of uninhabited or uninhabitable wilderness. Ath was probably built for half a million people, and would have between twenty and thirty thousand remaining inhabitants.

Ultimately, probably doomed. Though I will say there is potential for stasis. Of course, the world being dead wouldn't preclude some form of life persisting on its festering corpse.

In a straight line, it's about 175 leagues (or ~600 miles) from New Hayne to Ath. A general rule to follow is that the north is more productive than the south both agriculturally (the greener areas of the north, anyways) and in general. There is certainly room for exceptions to this, however. So far as anyone knows, there isn't really anything worthwhile beyond the area shown.

My answers probably aren't terribly satisfying. I'm still working on a lot of things, such as a good way to implement borders aesthetically with the map.
 
~Snip~

My answers probably aren't terribly satisfying. I'm still working on a lot of things, such as a good way to implement borders aesthetically with the map.

Thanks for the info!

I'm claiming the group of islands north of Ath, as well as a third of that earthy finger pointing towards said islands. A pirate's life for me! I'll put up some more details for you to work with later.
 
By the gods, in.
 
I can't see the image. Otherwise potentially interested.

I have this too now. But if you open the pic in a new tab it appears.

Edit: I have done some math so I can work on my Pirates. Based on what TMG has said, I have worked out that each pixel is approximately one mile (It's really like .991 mi if you take 175 leagues from Ath to New Hayne literally and exactly). So this can be used to estimate distances.
 
Interested, pending more information.
 
This seems very promising.

Reminds me of the Paper and Pencil Series I ran, which was all based on the same world where civilization fluctuates constantly. Players would be playing medieval-esque states, and then someone's army would activate an automated defense system and get eradicated. Or one falling behind in tech opens a vault filled with books and valuable engineering info. Difference is, trajectory is (meant to be?) definitely and possibly irreparably downward, instead of moving up and down, reaching the modern era in time for nuclear holocaust.
 
Map of Pirate-controlled lands:
Spoiler :
1tOLC2S.png


Under the Blacke family, some notion of order was put in place over these pirate-infested islands. However, there is only so much that can be done to control the most despicable villainy humanity has to offer. The thugs, murderers and thieves that call the islands home are just as likely to kill one another as bring an issue before the head of the Blacke's. Blacksand Bay and Tanisport are not towns so much as anarchic havens of debauchery and suffering. These two towns are home to brutal pirates, and to the pleasure women and slaves they took from the mainland.

Some sixty ships, with some 5000 crew, make up the typical pirate count for the islands. There are some armadas, the largest being the Blacke Armada of some 20 ships and 2100 crew. These alliances don't prevent their crew from trying to kill each other, however; there are usually several murders a day across the islands, mostly slaves and pleasure women but also all too often pirates.

The Blacke Archipelago is a place no sane man would wish to call home.
 
I really like the title of the image file, by the way.

It's also png grrrrrrrrrrr
 
As i stated above, the hosting is fine, he just has accidentally typed a space before the tag.[/QUOTE]

And I [i]still[/i] can not see it even when I remove the space and also right click for new tab. Is it really that hard to accept that I am having an issue with whatever site he uploaded the image to? Is it that bad to just rehost the image for me?
 
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