Pre-industrial Fantasy STGOD OOC/Rules Thread:

[Simon_Jester]

[Ohioans declare marijuana to be HERESY because of DEMONIC JAGUAR GOD REEFER MADNESS, acquire a tobacco habit]

Disrespecting the Ohioan religion will not get you killed by some god, but respecting it tends to get you into a state of grace where cannons fired at you randomly miss a disturbingly large fraction of the time. Very few beings with credibility can explain why; the Ohioans themselves simply say that the living stars protect.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Disrespecting the Ohioan religion will not get you killed by some god, but respecting it tends to get you into a state of grace where cannons fired at you randomly miss a disturbingly large fraction of the time. Very few beings with credibility can explain why; the Ohioans themselves simply say that the living stars protect.

And this "cannons miss you" effect is why we Orions use grapeshot and canister a lot when fighting Ohioans

[Simon_Jester]

Those miss a lot too.

Seriously, it's uncanny, and even the Ohioans don't have a precise diagnosis of how it works (not that they need one; the living stars protect).

It's like, if you fire an area effect weapon that normally kills 3d6 soldiers at Ohioans, the Ohioans keep rolling 4's and 5's and 6's. It's not that anything obviously impossible happens any one time.

But it's like, everything works about as well as it would on a bad day. The bulk of the canister distribution cloud plows into the ground short of the target, or the grape balls disproportionately fly over their heads, or a few of the musketeers forget a step of their drill and accidentally fire the ramrod down range.*

However, this problem can be solved by firing more grapeshot and canister at them. Massed firepower is still the most effective counter against Ohioan tactics, you just need more of it than anyone would ever expect.

Honestly, the main thing it does is cancel out the fact that their pikemen aren't shooting at you.

Although you don't want to know what happens if you start trying to use Shrapnel shells on them. Thaaat is going to get irritating real fast.

Aimed fire actually works better- unless you aim at the priestesses who are for all intents and purposes impossible to hit.
__________

*This actually happened in real life sometimes.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Shrapnel shells eh? [makes notes for what's in my R&D list...]

[Beowulf]

On Dragons:
Dragons are large winged flying reptiles found throughout the Southeast of the North American Continent. A grown adult stands between 30 and 40 hands high at the shoulder, and weighs up to 8000 lbs. No known attempt has been made to domesticate them, as although they are intelligent carnivores, like dogs, they tend to eat people who try. They appear to be an apex predator, with no known creatures predating upon them.

Although they age, they have no known maximum lifespan. They do not die of old age. Few dead dragons have been seen in the wild in recorded history. Whether this means they die in areas humans can't reach, or for other reasons is unknown. Dragons are very tough, able to handle punishment well beyond what could be expected of a human. Little short of cannon fire will kill one, and they tend not to let such happen. This suggests intelligence great enough to recognize a cannon for what it is. Poison has been known to work, but their high intelligence means this is usually unsuccessful as well. Counter-balancing this long life is the extremely low birthrate. Dragon eggs must be laid into warm sand, which helps explain their location. Few eggs have been found, and even fewer moved, as both the local lords mandate a death penalty, and the dragon queens tend to kill those who try.

Dragons will eat livestock, with the owners of such being compensated by their feudal lords. They also will hunt wild animals. Perhaps surprisingly, no attacks on humans are known, aside from idiots who attack them first. It is uncommon to see one up close.

It is unknown to find dragons outside the Dragonlands, though they can be found throughout that land. Almost as if they are intelligent enough to known who the local rulers are. Dragons are most likely highly magical creatures, but no one has managed test such a theory.

--

So, yeah. If you were wondering, you won't see people riding dragons into combat.

[Simon_Jester]

Re: E_F:

I'm not saying shrapnel shells would be effective against Ohioan infantry formations.

I'm saying they would be hilarious.

OOC, you may well come to understand just how the Ohioan Army manages this preternatural luck, and then some thought about the nature and reliability of 19th century shell fuzes may explain the rest.

[Simon_Jester]

Hm.

You know, I'm actually ready to do the first in a series of story posts; the others are incompletely drafted but the first 1700 words are ready. It's set describing some events that took place on Ohio's northern marches, shortly before game start, at the base of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan where the Empire is having some... friction... with the independent city-state of Detroit.

[madd0ct0r]

On Dragons:
Dragons are large winged flying reptiles found throughout the Southeast of the North American Continent. A grown adult stands between 30 and 40 hands high at the shoulder, and weighs up to 8000 lbs. No known attempt has been made to domesticate them, as although they are intelligent carnivores, like dogs, they tend to eat people who try. They appear to be an apex predator, with no known creatures predating upon them.

Although they age, they have no known maximum lifespan. They do not die of old age. Few dead dragons have been seen in the wild in recorded history. Whether this means they die in areas humans can't reach, or for other reasons is unknown. Dragons are very tough, able to handle punishment well beyond what could be expected of a human. Little short of cannon fire will kill one, and they tend not to let such happen. This suggests intelligence great enough to recognize a cannon for what it is. Poison has been known to work, but their high intelligence means this is usually unsuccessful as well. Counter-balancing this long life is the extremely low birthrate. Dragon eggs must be laid into warm sand, which helps explain their location. Few eggs have been found, and even fewer moved, as both the local lords mandate a death penalty, and the dragon queens tend to kill those who try.

Dragons will eat livestock, with the owners of such being compensated by their feudal lords. They also will hunt wild animals. Perhaps surprisingly, no attacks on humans are known, aside from idiots who attack them first. It is uncommon to see one up close.

It is unknown to find dragons outside the Dragonlands, though they can be found throughout that land. Almost as if they are intelligent enough to known who the local rulers are. Dragons are most likely highly magical creatures, but no one has managed test such a theory.

--

So, yeah. If you were wondering, you won't see people riding dragons into combat.

I've just discovered there's a place called dragon cliffs in Nunuvut. Also uranium. go figure.

[Beowulf]

Re: E_F:

I'm not saying shrapnel shells would be effective against Ohioan infantry formations.

I'm saying they would be hilarious.

OOC, you may well come to understand just how the Ohioan Army manages this preternatural luck, and then some thought about the nature and reliability of 19th century shell fuzes may explain the rest.

By this, I'm assuming they will tend to either explode short of the optimal place, or not to explode until after they should have. I'm assuming normal explosive shells will have the same issue.

[Simon_Jester]

Honestly, I suspect that they'd zig-zag back and forth in between the two outcomes.

The Ohioan magical counter-artillery defense mechanism is not just any 'curse of bad luck.' It is sapient. And it has a sense of humor.

Again, it won't catch everything, it's not immunity. Enough fire will still work. And aimed fire will still work, with considerably less diminution of effect. But massed, unaimed or poorly aimed fire just doesn't work as well on large bodies of Ohioan soldiers as it would on a random sample of normal men.

The living stars protect.

[Aasharu]

Sorry I haven't responded much, yesterday was a busy day for me.

@Aasharu:

I know our nations are a bit far apart, but how would you feel about doing fairly heavy slave trading with the Syilx? I'd imagine that it's easier to feed ghouls and vampires with slaves than it is to capture them yourselves.

I had already figured that Tarn would basically be buying slaves from any place willing to sell them slaves. The crown doesn't stage any state-mandated slave raids itself, mainly because none of the undead in Tarn truly need food; that being said, they do have a fairly extensive slave market in Sanctuary, a fact that has lead to quite a few jokes about the hypocrisy of such a name. Also, while the crown sponsors no slave raids, it is quite likely a number of barons do, especially those closer to the borders of Tarn. It's no coincidence that ghouls and vampires are far more common outside of Tarn than liches or deathknights.

One of the major things I want to play with in Tarn is that the Monarchy is pretty hands off with regard to the baronies. The Baron's magical oaths keep them from plotting against the throne, so all three of the Triumvirate has historically spent more time and energy on their own personal research and side projects then on trying to control their subjects. As a result of this, I can easily see a number of barons becoming rather infamous in the rest of the continent. And likely not just for military conflict either - I imagine in the eight hundred some years since Tarn began trading with the outside world, Tarnish gemstones have spread far and wide. I realized that most barons would be extremely wealthy, since they would have abnormally few subjects and even fewer expenditures. A lot of that wealth has probably been used for nefarious purposes throughout the centuries...

[Esquire]

Osmanli Surgun Devleti
Ottoman Empire-in-Exile


The Ottoman Empire in the Americas dates from 1453, when the desperate Eastern Roman Empire, with nowhere to turn in the face of overwhelming Turkish might, sacrificed fully half the collected Imperial treasure-store to the ancestral pantheon - specifically Poseidon, the God Who Shakes the Islands - for deliverance. Just moments after they embarked from their Anatolian camps, Sultan Mehmet's troops found themselves in the midst of the fiercest storm any of them, indeed any human since Atlantis had seen. The storm blew for weeks, hurricane-force winds shattering the masts of the ships and the oars of the galleys, hundred-foot waves tossing men and beasts into the raging sea, drowning thousands, and when it finally subsided the Sultan's army was further from their ancient homeland than any of them had ever been. Mehmet and his chief captains landed at the mouth of a great river, the equal of the Nile, and considered their situation. They knew not where they were, or what had happened, but it was clear to all that there could be no return. Whatever force had cast them here could do so again, easily, even if they knew how to return to the Mediterranean. The army quickly set about building a camp from the wreckage of their ships, then a city from the pines they found growing nearby. The local tribes, faced with either peaceful assimilation or a starving army of 100,000 battle-hardened men on their borders, quickly submitted to Turkish rule, and the tolerant Ottoman tradition made for a rapid merging of the two societies.

Over the next centuries, the fiery Islam of Mehmet and his men faded, replaced with a more animistic worship of the Great River as a kind of All-Merciful Providing Spirit. The River brought the exiled Ottomans their food, their brides, and their trade; while they began by thanking Allah for the River, the exiled Turks soon found themselves thanking the River directly. Without any clear idea of where Mecca lay, they oriented their mosques north, towards the headwaters of the River, and their soldiers cried "there is no God but God, and his River is the River." Mehmet and his successors pushed the Empire's borders northwards along the Great River, fighting when needed but largely preferring to assimilate local populations in order to add to the Imperial population. By most counts the Sultan's domains now include nearly ten million people, most at least nominally adherents to the new River-Islam.

The Empire of today is a unique mix of Mehmet's centralizing Islam and the more democratic animism of the natives. By the time the Empire re-established contact with Europe in 1577, it was too established in its new home to return, and the power vacuum left by Mehmet's disappearance had been filled for a century. Extensive trade across the Atlantic and throughout the Caribbean keeps the Ottoman coffers full, but there is no possibility of a transatlantic Ottoman superstate. The Empire is bookended by the great cities of Yenistanbul, the New City, where Mehmet's troops first landed (OTL New Orleans, more-or-less) and Mehmetan, the City of Mehmet, near the northern extent of Ottoman territory (OTL St. Louis). Mehmetan, while only five decades old, benefited greatly from the conquest of Cahokia, a huge native mound-city across the River; its population was resettled to the strategic confluence of the Great River and the Missouri (the latter called by its native name, the former by its Ottoman) after its priest-kings refused to convert. Only limited settlement has taken place East of the River, as most Ottomans prefer to have one border secured by the physical embodiment of their God.

The Imperial army is structured along the lines of Mehmet's forces, with a strong core of regular Janissary troops directly serving the Sultan (though without their traditional recruitment areas the Corps has become an elite volunteer organization drawing from the whole Empire), and a mass of feudal troops of varying quality supporting them. The Ottomans learned from the native shamans, though, and new orders of ghazis (holy warriors empowered by the River God and various subservient spirits) fight alongside the army. They may be thought of as analogous to the Old World's religious knightly orders; technically subservient to the Sultan in his role as Caliph, but prone to independent action when least convenient. The Empire has been resistant towards using magical beasts in battle, with one comparatively recent and very noteworthy exception, but does not mind dealing with nonhuman civilizations in order to obtain a strategic or economic advantage.


Military

Ottoman troops are mixed, in many senses - cavalry and infantry are (often) integrated at the regimental level, and divinely-empowered ghazis fight side-by-side with sword-armed irregulars and line infantry carrying grenades and bayoneted muskets. The nobility and their retainers provide most of the Imperial cavalry, mostly heavy lancers and pistol-and-saber armed hussar-type light cavalry. Artillery has progressed significantly since the days of Mehmet, with paired batteries of heavy (24-pounder or larger) and light (12- or 8-pounder) guns attached at the regimental level. Battalions, usually two to the regiment, usually have a battery or two of very light artillery, 1- or 2-pounders with special mounts, as organic fire support and anti-air artillery.

There are three divisions of Janissaries, totalling 30,000 men in three infantry brigades and three cavalry brigades. These are the Sultan's elite troops, and the artillery of the Janissary Corps is trained in grand battery tactics and equipped with the best guns Ottoman forges can cast, as well as experimental howitzer-type weapons. Two of the cavalry brigades are heavy lancers, the last - unique in the Ottoman army - is trained as dragoons, the best of the best, able to fight equally well on foot or astride their magically-enhanced armored lizards. These beasts, bred from crocodiles native to the swamplands around Yenistanbul, can run as quickly as a horse for great distances without tiring, bite clean through an armored man, and have their scales etched with verses from the Holy Koran for added protection from mystical attack. These are the only magical beasts employed by the Sultan's forces, having first been used in the conquest of Cahokia. The infantry of the Corps eschews bayonets, preferring to drop their muskets in favor of grenades and their trusty yataghans when the enemy draws near. Janissary troops have never broken on the field of battle, though several have died to a man rather than retreat.

Feudal troops are largely cavalry, and largely light cavalry at that. Of the 50 thousand troops of the nobility, 30 thousand in 60 battalions (smaller detachments are amalgamated into regional regiments; great nobles raise coherent units) are of cavalry, 20 lancers or heavy melee and the rest hussars or raiders. The other 20 thousand in 40 battalions are infantry, mostly armed with bayoneted muskets, dedicated grenadier companies, and short swords, though a few pike-and-shot formations survive on the Eastern frontier, where the Great River limits potential invasion routes to predictable landing zones or fords. Regimental artillery is not, generally, trained in divisional or corps coordination.

The ghazi Orders, 20 thousand strong, tend to be self-contained combined-arms formations, with their own organic infantry, cavalry, and artillery (or their supernatural equivalents). The Ottoman military tradition has led to the Orders organizing themselves along regimental lines; there are twenty orders, each with its own secret teachings and special military focuses.

************
More details to follow; please let me know if you have any thoughts, suggestions, or criticisms.

[Simon_Jester]

Cool!

Hm. Assuming the game year is in fact 1750, then the Ohioan culture (which looks... Europeanish enough that the Turks probably just call us Franks, although I picture Ohioans as somewhat duskier than typical 17th century Frenchmen) would have been busy going to war with the wicked necromancers of the Tennessee Valley, who would probably have been an alarming and disturbing thing for the Ottomans to find out about. That war probably couldn't have even started until the Ohioan culture and the military alliance which prosecuted the War of Souls secured a pretty firm position on the river at the site of OTL Cairo, Illinois.

[If the game year is not 1750, should we modify the age of your Ottomanoids or the date of their arrival in the New World?]

So the history there might be interesting- what do the rights over control of the river look like, on that stretch jointly claimed by Ohio and the Turks?

Hm. Thinking about how the Church of the Living Stars might look to Islam... idolatry does not play a prominent role in the faith. The stars are revered as deities collectively and I'm not sure how this would be interpreted. In most other respects the Ohioans would qualify as People of the Book, having an extensive written religious tradition much of which predates Islam. But... they may or may not be polytheists, depending on the underlying theology of star-worship that I haven't worked out in detail.

Also, to be perfectly honest, the Islamic doctrine that prophecy and miracles are no longer a thing... well, let's just say that the Starrists cheerfully ignore this proposition and are entirely unsurprised by miracles. They may well be setting themselves up to experience one later this year, even.

"The difficult, we do immediately, the impossible, takes a month to set up."

[Coop D'etat]

As I've been given some encouragement in the recruitment thread, I'd like to throw my hat into the ring.

The Commonwealth of Assiniboia is based on the drainage basin of Lake Winnipeg, controlling the northernmost portions of the continent's great plains. Its borders are anchored to the west on the continental divide, with the northwest corner at the Yellowhead pass and the southwest corner at Crowsnest pass. Its heartlands are the prairie plains drained by the Saskatchewan, Assinibone and Red Rivers. Its reach also extends over the height of land to dominate a port city on Thunder Bay, as well as trading posts along the shores of Lake Superior (including the strategic choke point at Sault Saint Marie).

Gadzooks!

That is significant!

Hm, we have reason to think that the historical copper mines of Michigan's Upper Peninsula are already in operation, and given how historically valuable and rare good copper was in the era, they'd likely be one of the (if not THE) major supplier of copper to Ohio, Orion, and other parts of the East.

Do you own them, if not, do you levy tolls on copper passing Sault St. Marie?

I'm thinking the old city-state on Thunder Bay controls all the shipping on Lake Superior (having long since burnt any competitor) as well as harbours along the lake but don't penetrate inland to hold the mines themselves. They enforce their control by taxing transit at Sault St. Marie and occassionally banning traffic on the lake to anyone but their own traders.

More recently, the Republic of Thunder Bay has passed into the political domination of their larger inland cousins of the Commonwealth (much like the Phoenicians to the Persians), but the old policies are largely maintained. Except now Sault Saint Marie is the terminus of an internal trade route which stretches to the Rocky Mountaints. I imagine the trade flowing between it and your outpost in Chicago will be significant.

[Crazedwraith]

Sorry I've not been posting much, here is a more full picture of my ideas here.

Primer on the Unified Mining Kingdoms

History
The goblin race was native to the Americas and evolved a society well before any human colonists came to the area. They were cave-dwellers were devolved tool use and mining technique to expand their cave homes rather than come out of them. They however cultivated a small above ground presence to help feed their growing population.

They develop sprawling underground towns beneath the hills, independently owned and operated, but still interconnected so a rich goblin could live all his live under the earth and travel from one end of the kingdom to the other without seeing the light of day.

When humans came to America they were drawn to the riches of the mountains and their jewels and initially clashed with the goblins. There was eventual a stalemate. The humans were superior fighters above ground and beat off the goblin attacks but were unable to penetrate their mine structures. Eventually a symbiotic relationship evolved as the humans began the farm the area and grow crops and raise herds. The goblins provided the metals and jewels the humans craved and the humans provided food an drink backwards.

With the rise of other empires in the region, the relationship between the goblin mines and human villages in the area was eventually formed into a proper unified government.

Physiology.
Goblins are humanoid creates that are normally between 3 and hour and a half feet talk, and are stocky and densely muscled. They evolved as cave dwellers and have large ears and eyes and long fingers to make their senses as sharp as possible in low light environments.

They are mostly hairless and have thick skin ranging in skin tones from a reddish colour, through yellow all the way to a pale green, though these colours are always muted rather than bright. Above ground in the sun their skins darken and thicken while Goblins from underground are much paler.


Hybrids between Goblin and Men are generally called Goblin-Men. (Though technically this would the offspring of a male Goblin and female human, with the reserve being a Man-Goblin, the former term is used to refer to all Hybrids). Though there is considerable varience between them Goblin-Men tend to stand as tall as man with the dense musculature of the goblin. They are considered stupid but while their average intelligence is slightly lower, it’s still within human norm.

Society

Initially each Town and mine was entirely independent from all the others and communication being slow, most of them still are independent with the local authority being the highest any person can easily appeal to.

There are over 114 mountain ranges in the area, and as many human settlements, each has a chieftain who goes to, or sends a representative to the Great Conclave. There are 600 representatives; 400 from mines and 200 from the surface. (Though not all mine representatives are goblins and not all surface representatives are human.) There elect the Miner King.

Initially this position was for live but this lead to the assassination of individuals who were valuable but not as suited to office as hoped, so a system to allow a graceful abdication was put in place, though this remains entirely voluntary by the Miner King in question.

Trade

The Goblin mountains are rich in metals and jewels and these they sell in both raw and combined forms. The goblins are thought of as naturally cunning and good with machinery and both they and the humans have become very proficient with clockwork mechanisms. The fancy pocket watches, and clocks the Miner Kingdom are among some of its popular exports.

The surrounding surface is thickly wooded and even simple stone that is extracted from their tunnels and underground towns as are excavated.

Trade is done both by individual traders going forth independently and great markets organised in the kingdom. Much of the trade flows along the central river of the kingdom.

Warfare
The Miner Kingdom has no standing military as from it’s police forces. The Town Guard is the police form in the towns both above and below ground. The Forest Guard patrols the woods and grounds between the mountains. And the River Guard keeps an eye on the river and handles customs at all river ports. The Town Guard is the most conservative of the Guards. The River Guard the most progressive. They maintain an number of patrol skiffs, armed with a small chase gun in the bow and several swivel guns. (Their use of gunpowder and guns is an extreme oddity and are imported. After several accidents with explosives in enclosed cave spaces, they are not generally approved of)

In times of need, the King calls upon his Dukes. Nobles appointed to form Warbands of leeveed soldiers to defend the realm. These are not professional standing forces and are equipped from the Dukes own funds if the king’s purse does not cover it. The more popular Duke are able to command and equip a strong forces quickly, while others might have to resort to more underhand tactics to form their band, promising plunder and other excitements for his followers.

A Duke is not commanded by the local chieftains but directly by the king, and cannot hold any land or property. Likewise the Chieftains hold and rule property but cannot command military forces beyond the Guards. While this gives the King more active ways to hold his authority, the Chieftains can control the purse strings and trade of the realm giving them a counter balance.

A typical Duke will equip his troops with a mount, (Usually horses, but riding dogs or rams are known of in Goblin Warbands) As well as a primary weapon, the goblin mechanist’s equivalent of the muske; A repeating crossbow. These weapons are shorter ranged than muskets and the ammunition is bulkier, but they are much faster to fire and reload. A typical crossbow carries five bolts to gravity feel and is built of mainly metal construction with wire strings.

After generously providing a primary weapon a Duke will generally require his troops to provide their own secondary weapon. Rare professional fighters from underground will prefer a stabbing weapon useable in tunnels but miner levees are more used to axes. Long hafts are preferred owing to their short stature (and desire to keep back from the action) The polearm and glaives are a compromise between the two types as they can stab like a spear or be swung like an axe and along with the crossbow have been come to be seen as the steoreotypical miner kingdom weapons.

A warband will have siege weapons in the manner of mechanical repeating ballista and spring loaded volley spearguns.

Strategically, the warbands like to skirmish and raid and fight open battles, to harass enemies. They tend to favour retreat and scorched earth tactics on the surface, to retreat into mines and allow the enemy to attempt to breach them, while inflicted pain on them all the way with murder holes and traps and in extremely cases collapsing their tunnels and digging new ones when the danger has passed.

This tendency has been credited as the reason why human tribes were eventually integrated into the region. The goblins retreated and hit and the humans just set up shop on top of them and became a fact of life.


----

As it's a fantasy RPG I'm crediting these guys with advanced mining and ability to built under ground places they probably shouldn't have pre-1800, but I've not given them any active magic and they use weird spring gun and crossbows and are generally less advanced militarily to make up for that, so I hope it's okay.

[Simon_Jester]

I like goblins. Can there be scattered bunches of goblins all over the place? Goblin navvies who helped build the Erie Canal?

I honestly think the Church of the Living Stars might actually try to convert goblins. It's not that Ohioans aren't capable of racism, but anything with souls and a family tree can theoretically fit into their religion.

And- Coop:

The way I'd figured it, Lakes Huron and Michigan are infested with pirates and independent states that present serious hazards to trade (think Barbary Corsairs, you have to buy them off or fight them regularly in order to get anything done). The Ohioan Empire is relatively impotent to do anything about this, because its navy is divided into two parts.

The part on Lake Erie is actually pretty strong (for a brown-water navy centered around galleys), but cannot sail into Lake Huron and points upstream in the lake system without the consent of the city-state of Detroit, which has a metric boatload of heavy cannon in forts controlling the Detroit River.

The part of the fleet on Lake Michigan is hopelessly outmatched and has literally one viable base of operations, and is menaced on a regular basis by renegade hosts of Illinois Cossacks. I doubt the Empire can manage more than clinging to Chicago by its fingertips unless they can get a canal up to Lake Michigan from the Wabash River, and I'm not sure the lay of the land makes that possible. Need to do more research.

I like the idea of setting this up at game start because it gives us something to do.

I will note that as a side-effect of this, unless I'm overlooking something drastic or very major... there is no direct water access from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi except via the Ohioan canal network, in particular the Grand Imperial Canal running from Toledo on Lake Erie, south via the Miami River to the Ohio.

[Esquire]

Hm. Assuming the game year is in fact 1750, then the Ohioan culture (which looks... Europeanish enough that the Turks probably just call us Franks, although I pic
Also, to be perfectly honest, the Islamic doctrine that prophecy and miracles are no longer a thing... well, let's just say that the Starrists cheerfully ignore this proposition and are entirely unsurprised by miracles. They may well be setting themselves up to experience one later this year, even.

"The difficult, we do immediately, the impossible, takes a month to set up."

That doctrine was probably the first to go; it's just silly to insist that a thing isn't happening when it clearly is. I'm not set on the arrival date, but I do like the departure. Maybe the Ottomans were exiled in time as well as in space? Or to a parallel dimension, not that they'd know or care, particularly.

River transit rights are probably... Complicated. There are significant naval bases at OTL St Louis and New Orleans, complete with harbor chains and shore batteries; coming from Anatolia the Empire is happy to allow foreign shipping through the Mississippi but there will be fairly significant taxes to enter or leave Ottoman-controlled waters. Within our shared border it should be free since any tax would be too provocative. Maybe an agreement not to fortify that section of the river, on either side?

I do hasten to reiterate that these Ottomans aren't really Muslims, they're River-Muslims [working title]. Allah is still called Allah, but has gradually shifted from the lord of all creation to basically an extremely powerful river god, with associated lesser spirits. There is a largely tolerated heresy that says that since all waterways are connected, the river god is really the god of all waters, and therefore the world, but only a few Ottomans cling to the old omnipotent god concept.

When were you thinking for the War of Souls, again? The Empire reach St Louis about 50 years ago, so it's just possible they may have been involved, either observing or sending supplies to the allied forces. The undead and those who trw leat with them are absolutely abominations to the Empire.

I haven't quite worked out just what the ghazis can do, but I have a mental image of an Order using imported Celtic woad in special tiles to armor ships or fortifications... I need about 19 more things like that, if anybody has any ideas I'd love to hear them.

[Simon_Jester]

The War of Souls involved the Ohioan Empire (then a large kingdom centered around OTL Louisville, Kentucky, with assorted allies and dependencies strung up and down the Ohio River, mostly down) prosecuted a series of crusades between 220 and 300 years in the past in which they fought their way up the Tennessee River, overthrowing a series of city-states and principalities ruled by various necromancers and liches whose mobs of fast zombies and death magic made them fairly tough opponents. At this point in time, the Ohioan fighting forces had rough technological parity with the 1450-era Ottomans, although probably less refined use of gunpowder. During the wars, the Ohioans developed the ancestor of their modern techniques for defending armies against magic through coordinated prayer.

Given that the Tennessee joins the Ohio only a very short distance before the Ohio joins the Mississippi*, this strongly suggests that by the time the Ottomans expanded upriver to reach what is now Missouri, there was a well armed Ohioan garrison city on the east bank of the river on the site of OTL Cairo, with an associated flotilla of river galleys. Ohio does not now and never has claimed territory west of the Mississippi, so another polity advancing north past them on the west bank is entirely possible.

What do you think?
___________________

*interestingly, the majority of the Mississippi's waters flow into it from the Ohio; it is a much smaller river upstream, and at the confluence of the two rivers, the Ohio has a considerably higher flow rate.

[Jub]

TRR, one thing that occurs to me is that if elves are nigh-immortal, then either they breed slowly or they kill each other off a lot and few of them survive more than a century or so. Thing is, if elves breed slowly, then when dealing with faster-lived races, "eye for an eye" tactics can result in them being destroyed by attrition. It's a simple, blunt reality- if elves and humans fight, and each side kills 10% of the other, then within twenty years the human population will be more or less back to normal, while the elf population won't even have begun to recover.

So you may see elves holding grudges against whole ethnic groups or otherwise trying to make it utterly impossible for the fast-breeding, swarming humanoids around them to start whittling them down by attrition.

Another possibility is that the Syrax (did I get that right?) have a de facto practice of capturing elves into slavery and ransoming them back right away, and rarely if ever actually keep their prisoners for any length of time. This would seem to be in keeping with the Syrax culture, and it turns a motive for lifelong vengeance ("You kidnapped, enslaved, and carried away my sister to a foreign land!") into something that can conceivably be forgiven ("you kidnapped my sister and treated her with irritating amusement and kept her stuck in a tent in the boonies until we could scrape up a pile of gold bricks!")

Syrax is close, and a damned cool name, but it's actually Syilx. I had to look up the pronunciation and it turns out it's pronounced se-ilx, not silks as I had thought.

You basically nailed what my people do with their raids. They raid, they get shot at, and usually run off with a handful of captives. A tribe taking captives for sport, or as a right of passage, will leave a sign behind letting their victims know who they need to trade with to get their people back. This type of raiding usually sees captives traded back without too much stubbornness over the exact price being met. Of course, if they're obviously being lowballed they play the game right back. In the case where nobody comes forward to trade for them or a group of simply tries to take the captives back by force, the captives become slaves.

Slaves don't have much by way of status and often do the manual labour that other people don't want to do, but they're given decent housing, fed well - if not with the finest foods, and aren't expected to work hours that any other labourer would baulk at. During their off hours they're allowed to socialise so long as they've not tried to escape. It's also customary to give them an allowance to spend, and given that their food and housing needs are covered by their owners some slaves have more free income than lower class non-slaves. Slaves are free to, and in fact, encouraged, to marry and start families.

Slaves with exceptional skill, guile, or charisma, as well as those that end up with very large, and thus powerful, families tend to be released. Their wives, children, grandchildren, and so on down the line are released with them. Usually the release of anybody with a reasonably sized family results in a festive feast. Due to this system of releasing slaves some now prominent tribes started off as families of slaves. The downside to this is that some tribes split up families, deny the familial connections between slaves, and generally do shady things to keep from having to release significant numbers of slaves.

Groups taking captives to sell as slaves tend raid far less often, but are far more ruthless when they do raid. These are the kinds of raids that leave villages burned with as few witnesses left behind as possible. They also tend to raid other Syilx tribes if they think they can get away with it. Those in change or the Syilx can't come out against these types of raids officially, but groups that engage in this kind of raiding don't tend to get invited to important gatherings.

Their captives are sold as slaves, first in Syilx lands, then back to the lands they were taken from, and if nobody else wants them to Tarn. The Syilx look down upon having to buy slaves from slave traders preferring to gain them through raids, in the course of normal trade with other tribes, or having them included in the bride price at a wedding. Still, a weaker and less prestigious tribe, or a prestigious tribe that has fallen upon hard times will buy slaves in this fashion as a way to help them leapfrog other groups in terms of economic output. As a result, purchased slaves tend to be worse off than other classes of slaves.

[Aasharu]

So I'm trying to figure out what each faction would think of the undead, so that I can figure out who would be open to trade, who is already trading regularly with me, and who is pretty much a lost cause in terms of coming to an agreement with. So far, I have:

Ohio Empire: They think they are the Gondor to my Mordor, they have recent history fighting against necromantic states, and they worship ghosts. Many in Tarn see them as hypocrites for that last bit, but there you go. Probably not open to trade. Maybe open to subversion; several quality Deathknights were once Ohioan holy warriors.

New Ottoman Empire: Apparently find the Undead to be abominations, close relations with the Ohioans. Likely similar prognosis.

Imperial's Confederacy: Centrally organized by a group of magocratic states, may be open to working something out, otherwise unknown.

Empire of Orion: Technologically advanced, contemptuous of magic. May be open to trade agreements.

Hyenorks: Savages, but they can't survive the plateau, so more nuisance than anything.

AMT's faction: Not much known, aside from that they are ruled by mages of an ethically dubious nature. Probably open to trade.

Zwinmar's orcs: Aside from once nomadic orcs, no idea.

Fusang: Shinn and I discussed briefly the possibility that my current lich queen was once a queen in Han, and her kingdom was one of the first destroyed by the barbarian hoards. It seems like a fun idea to run with, and since she's currently the only active member of the Triumvirate, I have to imagine that the relationship between our two nations will be interesting.

Commonwealth of Assiniboia: Nothing known about their opinion on undead, possible trade partners, possible targets for subversive tactics.

Dragon Empire: If magically advanced, than likely not hostile towards undead on principle, but beyond that, unknown.

Unified Mining Kingdoms: The fact that the goblins live in tunnels, and that my undead have been tunnelling for gems, means this version of the Rocky mountains is likely far more cavern-ridden than the OTL Rockies. It's possible our factions have found themselves at cross purposes before, but I doubt either side would be interested in a major war - I know I wouldn't. Just the thought of trying to root out goblins from all those tunnels gives me a headache.

Aztec Empire: Given the idiosyncrasies of their religion, they are unlikely to find undead offputting. Likely not a reliable source of slaves - they need too many sacrifices for that. Investigate possibility that these "gods" are infact undead of some kind.

Syilx: A rather quirky bunch, touchy if your set them off, but a reliable source of decent slave stock. Maintain, and possibly increase, trade.

Travellers: A few of the living necromancers in Sanctuary are of these elvish people, but little is known of their primary culture's attitude towards undead or necromancy. Investigate further.

Did I miss anybody?

[Jub]

Here's the most recent update to the map. As usual, let me know if you want anything changed around. The black lines denote fully enclosed pockets of unclaimed land.



Also, a link to the unlabeled image pulled directly from google earth. Warning, it is a 4k image so it might take a while to load on a slower connection.

[Jub]

Syilx: A rather quirky bunch, touchy if your set them off, but a reliable source of decent slave stock. Maintain, and possibly increase, trade.

That's a pretty good summary of how I see things between us.

[The Romulan Republic]

Very good with the map Jub, thanks.

Oh, its really filled out well. And I've got a new neighbour. That'll be interesting.

Just a reminder: I'm looking to have the updated rules posted for discussion tonight. It'll probably still be a little rough, but we'll have a few days to make any major adjustments before I put the OOB thread up. Main story thread will go up at the start of next week, say the 21st. or 22nd. tentatively, if that works for everyone.

[Jub]

Very good with the map Jub, thanks.

No worries.

Also, if you haven't yet looked at the post I made about Syilx re: Raiding and Slaves you can check it out here.

EDIT: If anybody knows how to share map data from google earth in an easy fashion please let me know. I'd be more than happy to let people zoom into their borders, and fiddle with things, or even just give people an easy way to zoom in and get story ideas for what might be happening along their borders.

[Simon_Jester]

So I'm trying to figure out what each faction would think of the undead, so that I can figure out who would be open to trade, who is already trading regularly with me, and who is pretty much a lost cause in terms of coming to an agreement with. So far, I have:

Ohio Empire: They think they are the Gondor to my Mordor, they have recent history fighting against necromantic states, and they worship ghosts. Many in Tarn see them as hypocrites for that last bit, but there you go. Probably not open to trade. Maybe open to subversion; several quality Deathknights were once Ohioan holy warriors.

About the best you'd ever manage with Ohio would be some kind of agreement permitting goods from Tarn to travel up the Ohio to the Erie Canal, and north to Lake Erie, in order to reach the states of the Northeast beyond. There might be more efficient ways to get your good to market in any event. Any substantially magical artifacts sent along the Canal would probably wind up dissolving en route, too; the nature of the blessings on the Canal that make it operable at night also make it gently corrosive to arcane necromantic artifacts. Rather like being washed in weak acid... for days on a canal boat.

That said, many men would be forsworn for a pouch of jewels.

And, yes, ancestor worship. The essential nature of it is that each individual Ohioan venerates their own dead, very intangible ghosts that virtually no Ohioan ever actually perceives except in dreams and visions. These ancestral spirits are viewed as intermediaries between the incalculably powerful, benevolent, and distant living stars, and the merely mortal beings that populate the Earth.*

Part of what makes them unusually sticky about the raising of undead is that it subverts this process.

Although Tarn is one of the nations that contains sorcerers powerful, and knowledgeable enough that they might be able to deduce by observation how the magical protections of an Ohioan infantry regiment actually work. It requires magical ability of a high order to perceive what's going on there clearly. And, if any have ever done so... said sorcerers may well have physically laughed their bony, bony ass-bones clean off their skeletal bodies. There's a reason I called it "white necromancy." More will be revealed.
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*If we ever encounter an actual servitor-entity of the Ohioan religion, it's going to be... really quite something. Certainly not a permanent thing- they're too energetic and unstable to be permanent, and probably too energetic and unstable to be bound or in a real sense controlled. Their idea of an angel is much more extreme than their idea of a demon, and their idea of a demon is founded in extremely frustrating and unpleasant practical experience trying to make the bastards die.