Pre-industrial Fantasy STGOD OOC/Rules Thread:

[The Romulan Republic]

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.

My people are... really not fond of necromancy. Being immortals, they generally have no need to delve into dark magic to prolong their lives. And at the same time, the powers of death are feared by their people (death, at least by old age, is, after all, something of an alien concept to them).

One interesting quirk of my people is that those of them who do turn dark tend to have a penchant for necromancy, however. Necromancy is basically a perversion of the healing magic that tends to come naturally to my people, and controlling undead is merely an extension of the telepathic magic that also tends come naturally to them.

And their is a growing movement among the Travellers to use dark magic out of shear desperation, due to their recent difficulties. At present, though, the crown takes a very hard line against necromancy.

Undead are deeply distrusted and disliked, even more than other outsiders, though not to crusade/purge the unclean levels. Mostly the Travellers stay away from them as long as they stay away from the Travellers. In other words, their usual policy, only more so.

[The Romulan Republic]

You could have necromancers from my people possibly living among your's, I might add. Guys who got caught crossing some lines that weren't supposed to be crossed and had to flee to a more necromancy-friendly civilization.

As to what happens to a necromancer if they're caught... well, the usual sentence would be to have a spell cast on them that strips them of their magical powers, then be imprisoned. Unless they resisted. Then, it might be the Order of Scholars (my combat mages) being sent to kill them.

[Zwinmar]

Still working to consolidate a few ideas I have on the Orks:

No one is sure where they originally came from. Their legends speak of great battles and a multiple moons, most telling however, is the eclectic technology they possess. What is for sure is that before they arrived, some thousand years in the past, there howls of their great wolven war companions had never been heard across the echoing through the rolling hills.

Despite their obvious nomadic past they have established several metropolis with one sitting on their south east boarder (where Omaha is), what is peculiar is their arrow straight roads in a precise grid pattern. All are welcome to trade there, provided they follow the law. (Need a name for the city btw, so suggestions helpful)

As far as religion, as a whole they are ambivalent to it all practicing a rarely seen tolerance to all: druidism, shamanism and ancestor worship are widely spread though no real organization across the region can be seen.

As a species they are rather larger than humans with even the females averaging around six and a half feet, with the males being larger in general. Many are accompanied by their great wolves and as a result it can be unnerving to travel to their trade cities. What is remarkable is that women seem to share an equal role to the males doing the same jobs and respected as any other.

As with every thing, they are remarkably tolerant of every species, including the undead, though they allow no slavery in their own territory, perhaps indicating a negative association to it from their own past and they will hunt down with extreme prejudice any who take slaves from among their own people.

--------
Haven't included it as of yet but would like them to have an analogue of the Ferguson Rifle (locking mechanism first seen around 1721 irl) though not sure how you guys feel about that.

As for the species, yeah I'm drawing from several sources, including Warcraft so there will be some glaring similarities though they are very highly disciplined, though neutral, race.

[Jub]

Based on the cities within the borders of the Syilx nation, and using modern day population figures, it looks like I'm going to have a population of ~2 million people. The largest settlement is around 260,000 people, with several other major cities in the 200-100k range. There are 21, depending how you count, cities above 15,000 people which is where I chose to stop marking things on the map below.

Speaking of the map below, the red areas are major sections of arable land, yellow areas are trading posts, and the white dots are cities with the number beside them showing population. I'll probably add more markings, such as for cities between 10-1,000 people, major routes of travel, and major holy sites in the next version.

The map is kind of large, so feel free to check it out here.

[The Romulan Republic]

My population is going to be quite low, I think. Like I said, I'm intending for my people to be a fallen civilization trying to rebuild, not a major military power.

[Simon_Jester]

Haven't included it as of yet but would like them to have an analogue of the Ferguson Rifle (locking mechanism first seen around 1721 irl) though not sure how you guys feel about that.

Are they spectacularly expensive and tricky to build, prone to breech blowouts, and prone to the stock breaking off in combat? If so, maybe.

Or your orcs' schtick could be like the Skinner barbarians from Drake and Stirling's The General series, who carried very heavy muzzle-loading rifled guns and were extremely good marksmen with them. Historical 1700-era muzzle-loading rifles make for an interesting contrast with the smoothbores of the period: surprisingly good accuracy, terrible rate of fire. Good for highly mobile skirmishing warfare, bad for positional combat.

Note: the Church of the Living Stars in Ohio will definitely send missionaries among the Thyrs in hopes of converting people to their specific style of ancestor worship.

[TimothyC]

Map update.

I need people to keep a watch on the file and tell me if I get something wrong.

The white areas on a set of layers over the background, so they won't be there on the final (I am thinking of replacing them with a colored shading).

[The Romulan Republic]

Anyway just trying to guard you guys against having more nonsense then you need up front. 1800 and pre industrial is a non sequitur, and yet it seems unlikely much of what people really want actually requires 1800 tech anyway. Setting a lower limit would make peoples google fu more effective.

That idea of 'equal to 100,000 spearmen' thing too. I mean, what are 100k spearmen supposed to be worth? If you really had a force that was exactly that it would for example simply be incapable of storming a major walled fortress. No way to break the walls, and no way to fight with a spear on a ladder! Its a serious abstraction problem when the other side actually could have 32pdr guns that fire more then once an hour.

Your points are well-made. My intention was to keep things fairly simple, but I do see how that could lead to contradiction and confusion on some points. Nonetheless I'm reluctant to change it now because it might force people to rewrite a lot of stuff.

So as lazy as I know it sounds, I'm inclined to just hand wave away any discrepancies with "A wizard did it." My main concern is not so much to be historically accurate as to create a set of guidelines for participants that are flexible and don't unduly limit creativity without being too complicated.

Although the troop numbers thing is something I'm probably going to modify a bit (more on that in a couple of hours when I post the updated rules).

[Simon_Jester]

Basically, the key intent was "prevent industrialized nations a la Victorian England from being a gameplay option." 1800 is an arbitrary technology cutoff (since it doesn't technically ban things like steam engines and interchangeable parts), but since everyone involved is honoring the actual original intent of that rule, it doesn't matter. The highest technology we're seeing, in the nation whose schtick is high technology, is basically the level historically fielded in 1750-1800 Europe, with at least one or two other nations close behind (Ohio looks quite a bit like France under Louis XIII or XIV).

So mission accomplished, no point whining about the technology rules since they're serving their purpose.

The troop numbers issue is more significant, and I would like to suggest that my standard of saying "a hundred thousand Fighting Men" is about right. The standard for what constitutes a Fighting Man should maybe be "one musketeer" rather than "one Iron Age swordsman," but the basic idea is sound, I think.

[The Romulan Republic]

And... done. I've set the max. size number of points at a bit higher than 100,000 though, in order to account for some of our larger and stronger factions.

[The Romulan Republic]

The history of Tarn: The original settler of the Colorado Plateau was the lich Arjuna, an ancient necromancer prince who had found himself on the losing side of a dynastic struggle in his home nation. Six thousand years ago, he was exiled, and after a few decades wandering, eventually found his way to the intersection between the Green and Colorado rivers. Being in the middle of a desolate wasteland, the location appealed to him, and he used magic and minions to create a large fortress at the fork of the rivers.

Two thousand years later, Gilgamesh wandered in one day. Gilgamesh is one of the most charismatic and likable liches you will ever encounter. He charmed Arjuna with his urbane manner, and the two struck up a lasting friendship. It was through Gilgamesh’s aid and magic that the entire Colorado plateau was claimed, and it was his suggestion to establish it as a haven for intelligent, free willed undead. It was also at his suggestion that this new nation was named the Barren Baronies of the Territory of Tarn. (Yes, he has an obsession with alliteration.)

For almost three thousand years, the new nation expanded. Slowly, as more and more liches, vampires, deathknights, ghouls, and others found their way to their court, Arjuna and Gilgamesh devised ways to test their new subjects; those found to be exceptional were awarded baronies throughout the Barrens – functionally independent, so long as they all swore binding magical oaths of fealty to the throne of Tarn. Those found wanting were also forced to swear oaths of allegiance, but to their new barons as well as their kings. It was within this time that the famous mines of Tarn began to flourish. An intrepid vampire named Korin was digging around OTL Grand Junction, trying to create an underground fortress, when he discovered diamonds. Arjuna made him a baron on the spot, and Korin quickly expanded his mining operations, staffing the mines with tireless skeleton workers crafted from grave dirt; unsuited for combat, they were more than capable of handling brute labor like mine work. Other barons soon followed suit, and several lucrative mines of amethyst, opal, and sapphire were soon founded.

Five thousand, one hundred and forty nine years after Arjuna built his fortress, and one hundred and fifty years after Korin first found diamonds, the third ruler of the Triumvirate of Tarn arrived. Lu Zhi the Everqueen, Empress of a destroyed people, found her way to Arjuna’s Fortress. Unwilling to settle for being reduced to a baroness, she approached Arjuna and Gilgamesh and declared that she would rule with them as an equal. It is likely the shear absurdity of such a statement that saved her then; formidable though she was, the two kings sat at the height of their power, and could have destroyed her with a thought. But instead Gilgamesh asked her why they should treat her as an equal, and her response was to create, with a single spell and the sacrifice of her imperial crown, the sorcerous city of Sanctuary just outside the borders of the plateau (OTL Las Vegas). She then told the two that they could either treat her as an equal, or a rival.

In truth, the two kings were growing tired of kingship. The millennia were beginning to wear on them, and yet Lu Zhi proved to be an energizing force. A diplomat born and bred, it was she that began sending out diplomats and traders to other nearby nations. Though Tarn had long been considered nothing more than a particularly large nest of undead by neighboring kingdoms and empires, they soon learned that black robed strangers bearing chests and crates overflowing with precious gems would pay vast sums for similarly vast quantities of seemingly basic commodities; paper and ink, wood and cloth, and many other goods that one takes for granted unless one lives in a wasteland. The barons of Tarn began to draw upon their wealth to craft grander and grander (or larger and gaudier) towers and fortresses for themselves. This lasted almost a century before Gilgamesh put a stop to the worst excesses; trade has trickled off somewhat since then, but a small, yet functioning economy had formed nonetheless.

The city of Sanctuary was founded to serve as a safe place for mortals to inhabit; due to this, the city quickly boomed in the wake of the new trade rush. As her literal crown jewel, Lu Zhi took special interest in the city, and it benefited greatly for her attention. It has become a city of diplomats and spys, full of plots and intrigue. Unknown to all but the Triumvirate, Lu Zhi has complete awareness of all that happens within the city limits. She allows all the intrigue to occur, only ever intervening if a plot becomes dangerous to her city as a whole.

Four hundred years ago, Arjuna grew weary of his realm, and decided to depart his body in spirit to explore the outer realms. One hundred years later, Gilgamesh departed to join him in his wanderings. Since then, the Everqueen has been the only reigning monarch of Tarn. The youngest and most inexperienced of the three, she remains a lich with over a millennia of experience, and has proven herself a canny ruler. She has begun to explore opening actual diplomatic contact with the nearby nations, for her own entertainment more than anything else.

And that brings us to the present day. Thoughts? Opinions? Ideas for how to alter this to fit with nearby nations? Simon, I imagine those necro-cratic states could have been rogue barons from Tarn.

Looking back over the old posts, and I have a few comments on this:

1. Very interesting take on an undead realm that is more than just the usual horde.

2. However, the level of power you describe (creating a city with one spell) is a bit disconcerting. I'll allow a mage that powerful, but if that level of magic can be applied to warfare in any way, that one individual would likely have a point value in the thousands, which would reduce what you can spend on more mundane units. That goes for anyone else too.

[Aasharu]

2. However, the level of power you describe (creating a city with one spell) is a bit disconcerting. I'll allow a mage that powerful, but if that level of magic can be applied to warfare in any way, that one individual would likely have a point value in the thousands, which would reduce what you can spend on more mundane units. That goes for anyone else too.

Honestly, while I was writing it, I imagined it was more of a one-time thing. If I write out the entire scene, which I might, it's more that she sacrificed her crown, her last symbolic link to her throne, her past, her entire identity, and through a sacrifice of that magnitude, amplified her power such that she could create a new "crown jewel" to symbolize her new life - a city, in this case. It is not a spell she could cast again, at least without sacrificing all of the city of Sanctuary to do so.

[The Romulan Republic]

Fair enough. If she's not usually on that level, then its not a big deal. Though I presume that if she found something else of comparable significance that she was willing to sacrifice, she could theoretically do something on that scale again?

[The Romulan Republic]

The new rules post, made after consideration of, and reflecting, various posts made in this thread.



The Rules Mk II:

No Godmode, obviously. This includes decisions regarding your faction’s capabilities and back story that might interfere with other participants.

Comply with all forum rules, obviously.

Don't be a dick.

In the event of a dispute or question, the game moderator/host's decision is final (unless its a matter of forum policy of course, in which case take it to an actual moderator).

Please try to post fairly regularly. If you will be absent for an extended period of time, notify others in advance if possible.

To join, post an Order of Battle outlining your faction's economic and military capabilities, in accordance with these rules. Additional information is optional, but encouraged.

No technology invented post-1800, as a rule. Exceptions will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Maximum starting population is fifteen million.

Each faction starts with a maximum of 300,000 points (you may play a smaller faction if you prefer, of course). As a baseline, one point equals one ordinary human militiaman with a musket.

The more points you spend on a given structure/vehicle/military unit, the greater its military strength.

Powerful magical effects or cutting edge technology (by the standards of the setting) should be especially pricy.

You can also trade points to another faction, represented in-story as trading valuable goods. This is a way to eventually exceed the point limit via trade and negotiation. Ie, you can say “I’ll give you such and such, in exchange for x number of points worth of trade.” This will then be subtracted from the other nation’s points total and added to your’s.

Trade with NPC factions off the map is permitted, but should be limited in scope. You cannot use this to exceed the 300,000 point limit.

The outcome of engagements will be determined by agreement between the combatants, or by the point value of the forces deployed. In the event of a tie or dispute, the decision will fall to the game moderator/host, though this should be unlikely.

We will be using a map of North America for the game (credit to Jub for map editing). Feel free to play around with local geography and climate somewhat, but no altering, removing, or adding major features such as major lakes, major rivers, and mountain ranges.



Apologies that this is a little late- I was tired and my internet connection stopped working briefly.

This is probably not complete yet, but I thought it best to get something up now so we can discuss any other changes people feel need to be made before I do the OOB thread.

Thoughts?

[The Romulan Republic]

Edit: I really should add an acknowledgement to TimothyC as well for his help with the maps.

[Simon_Jester]

Somewhat hazy on how the trading points mechanic makes sense, other than as a de facto gifting of some of your stuff to another player in exchange for RP considerations.

May I suggest, as a SDNW4 vet, that we probably should have a guideline for military expansion/construction in terms of points per year? We'd need one to replace casualties. Or to create/recruit/build new kinds of weapons and fighting units to replace old ones we're moving away from.. And given the relatively slow overall rate of travel and commerce in a pre-industrial society, I certainly hope the game will proceed for several years of game time, so military forces expanding or being modified seems likely.

Fair enough. If she's not usually on that level, then its not a big deal. Though I presume that if she found something else of comparable significance that she was willing to sacrifice, she could theoretically do something on that scale again?

Given that the only thing which truly matters to her seems to be the nation of Tarn itself, the only thing that could cause her to do that would be a threat to the nation of Tarn. And since Sanctuary appears to be the capital of Tarn, or at least its single most important city... talk about "destroy the village in order to save it;" you'd basically only see Lu Zhi doing that if the city was already lost and Tarn was on the verge of collapse. Which is a fine time for Aasharu to do weird things, because we wouldn't actually want him to be driven out of the game entirely.

I mean, it's a fantasy game. We probably want to encourage the writing of acts of high magic, as long as they don't disrupt the functional character of the game.

[The Romulan Republic]

Somewhat hazy on how the trading points mechanic makes sense, other than as a de facto gifting of some of your stuff to another player in exchange for RP considerations.

That is pretty much what it is. Just an idea I wanted to employ.

May I suggest, as a SDNW4 vet, that we probably should have a guideline for military expansion/construction in terms of points per year? We'd need one to replace casualties. Or to create/recruit/build new kinds of weapons and fighting units to replace old ones we're moving away from.. And given the relatively slow overall rate of travel and commerce in a pre-industrial society, I certainly hope the game will proceed for several years of game time, so military forces expanding or being modified seems likely.

This sounds fairly reasonable, but I have three questions:

First of all, how long would a year in game be in real time?

Second, if you set a fixed amount of time for each year, how do you accommodate the fact that, well, people will post at different rates? Hopefully everyone will post fairly regularly, but I don't want a situation where someone is unavoidably away for a little while and finds themselves cut out of the loop.

Third, how many points should one get in a year of game time?

I'm open to suggestions on all these points.

Given that the only thing which truly matters to her seems to be the nation of Tarn itself, the only thing that could cause her to do that would be a threat to the nation of Tarn. And since Sanctuary appears to be the capital of Tarn, or at least its single most important city... talk about "destroy the village in order to save it;" you'd basically only see Lu Zhi doing that if the city was already lost and Tarn was on the verge of collapse. Which is a fine time for Aasharu to do weird things, because we wouldn't actually want him to be driven out of the game entirely.

That has some validity, I suppose.

I mean, it's a fantasy game. We probably want to encourage the writing of acts of high magic, as long as they don't disrupt the functional character of the game.

Indeed.

[Simon_Jester]

This sounds fairly reasonable, but I have three questions:

First of all, how long would a year in game be in real time?

Second, if you set a fixed amount of time for each year, how do you accommodate the fact that, well, people will post at different rates? Hopefully everyone will post fairly regularly, but I don't want a situation where someone is unavoidably away for a little while and finds themselves cut out of the loop.

I've never yet played a game that provided a satisfactory answer to that question. Here's my suggestion.

Let's define game time in terms of 'seasons' such as 'spring 2016.' We'd be starting the game in 'winter of X.'

A season lasts until one of two things happens:
1) All active players explicitly agree that we should move to the next season and that they have no plotline events which need to be covered during this season, OR
2) Our moderator(s) suggest(s) a season change and two weeks pass with no one raising a serious objection.

So basically, we play out events that take place in winter. We probably tool around in the winter of the year X (shading forward into the beginning of year X+1, for those of us using Gregorian calendar) for, oh, a month. Maybe a bit more. At some point, TRR suggests "you know what? We've done enough in winter, time to move to spring." At that point, unless someone presents a convincing case within two weeks for why we shouldn't, it is now "spring." Nobody goes back and alters fundamental things that happened in the winter, and no fair changing plot elements that would retcon people's actions in the spring.

This would tend to give us time progression of around 1:1 or 2:1 if people are being highly active. If people aren't posting lots of rich story material, then the incentive to delay advancing the season diminishes, in which case it might speed up to more like 3:1 or higher time compression.

This would then go with the rule:
"No willfully holding up everyone else's gameplay while you write Big Elaborate Posts. If you're trying too hard to make your participation in the story artistically pretty, the story will move on without you." This rule needs in particular to be enforced against me, because in SDNW4 I wound up continuing a novel-length space battle for the better part of a year long after everyone else had moved on, although at least I did this in GODDAMN UNREAL TIME and it wasn't hurting anyone else's gameplay.

Third, how many points should one get in a year of game time?

Dunno. It depends.

[The Romulan Republic]

I've never yet played a game that provided a satisfactory answer to that question. Here's my suggestion.

Let's define game time in terms of 'seasons' such as 'spring 2016.' We'd be starting the game in 'winter of X.'

A season lasts until one of two things happens:
1) All active players explicitly agree that we should move to the next season and that they have no plotline events which need to be covered during this season, OR
2) Our moderator(s) suggest(s) a season change and two weeks pass with no one raising a serious objection.

This sounds pretty good (and similar to what I recall from the last big STGOD, actually).

So basically, we play out events that take place in winter. We probably tool around in the winter of the year X (shading forward into the beginning of year X+1, for those of us using Gregorian calendar) for, oh, a month. Maybe a bit more. At some point, TRR suggests "you know what? We've done enough in winter, time to move to spring." At that point, unless someone presents a convincing case within two weeks for why we shouldn't, it is now "spring." Nobody goes back and alters fundamental things that happened in the winter, and no fair changing plot elements that would retcon people's actions in the spring.

Okay.

But we'll need to be pretty strict about the not going back and changing stuff rule.

This would tend to give us time progression of around 1:1 or 2:1 if people are being highly active. If people aren't posting lots of rich story material, then the incentive to delay advancing the season diminishes, in which case it might speed up to more like 3:1 or higher time compression.

Nice and flexible.

This would then go with the rule:
"No willfully holding up everyone else's gameplay while you write Big Elaborate Posts. If you're trying too hard to make your participation in the story artistically pretty, the story will move on without you." This rule needs in particular to be enforced against me, because in SDNW4 I wound up continuing a novel-length space battle for the better part of a year long after everyone else had moved on, although at least I did this in GODDAMN UNREAL TIME and it wasn't hurting anyone else's gameplay.

I don't want to be too strict or discourage people from writing detailed posts, but yeah, at some point you've got to just cut your losses and move on if you want to keep up.

Dunno. It depends.

How about 50,000 or 100,000 per year?

Edit: I also forgot to include the start date/season for the game, so that's another addition to make.

[Crazedwraith]

Considering that we start with 100,000 point, that seems like a lot. We wouldn't all double our military in the first year, unless we all went apeshit on each other. I'd assume the powers that have militarily active it's history would be near its peak strength anyway. Though obviously I can't speak for anyone.

[The Romulan Republic]

I upped the starting points to 300,000 to take into account an increase in maximum population and desires for bigger armies.

So it would take three to six years to double the size of our militaries, at this rate.

Not sure how realistic that is outside of a major war or building up to one. Does anyone have an alternative number they would prefer?

Edited for accuracy.

[Raw Shark]

This is also my first attempt at this sort of thing, and I'm a little hazy on how to scale up non-standard resources and how the economy works, so any suggestions on the value of the following ideas would be much appreciated:

1: I want to have a really strong economy for a nation that's a little behind the front of the pack, technologically, in most areas and regarded as a little worrisome by some people. Lots of trade, including overseas if possible (I want to have I Can't Believe It's Not Spain as a client state that imports tobacco from me under ruinous tariffs if that's not too outlandish). Technological gaps are made up with magic in some cases, as is the case with our seafaring capability, but all of our really snazzy magic is fueled by sacrifice, with blood sacrifice required for the most potent displays, so it is not used frivolously by most sane people and we lag behind in many other areas. This trend is reversed regarding healing magic and mundane medicine, however, as the gods of Death, War, and the Underworld tend to regard it at best as tacky, and in some cases as outright theft of their personal property, but don't care and kind of like it if we hack each other up or stuff toxic herbs down each other's throats. We're surprisingly up to the state of the art on mundane surgery and sanitation, therefore, and have some herbal remedies that do more than nothing and are sometimes in vogue with foreign elites. We're also up to the state of the art in the fields of astronomy and astrology, which the Priesthood take very seriously, and navigation as a knock-off of that.

2: I want to have a strong navy and a decent sized land force, whose strength is mitigated by being spread too thin, especially along the Northern border, and almost nonexistent inland. The Empire has grown overreliant on the hostile terrain of the Northernmost territories to dissuade attackers, and is more concerned with garrisoning its trading ports and Southern border. Fear keeps the local villages in line. Fear of this batt- er, divine wrath, summary mob justice by people afraid of Divine wrath landing in their neighborhood, and the priesthood's constables (emphasis on the stab) in roughly that order. On the other hand, our network of magical cacti do report large-scale border penetrations fairly reliably unless muted or deceived with magic; their yodeling takes a while to reach civilization, but propagates exponentially, so we're almost never completely caught with our pants down.

3: I'd like what massed forces I do have to lean heavily on monsters. Especially the kind of nightmare fuel that acts as a force-multiplier, not necessarily direct battlefield power. In particular, I'd like to have domesticated Chupacabrae, about the size and toughness of a large dog and as smart as Lassie. They're not able to carry a human (except for my literally small elite corps of magically-shrunken Owl Knights, who serve as my spies in the air), but they can be trained to take out sentries and attack encampments stealthily at night, with their ability to descend from the sky, see in the dark perfectly, and silently leave blood-drained corpses in their wake. Once they have the scent of blood, they can track it better than an OTL bloodhound, but only as good as a German Shepherd at smelling anything else. With my proximity to Tarn, I also figure we have a large expatriot population of Vampires, who find the local culture as welcoming as they're liable to find anywhere and like that the climate makes people more active later in the evening hours than the middle of the day. They tend to not be very patriotic by nature, since they're unliving here in the first place, so their participation in warfare is less probable than evacuation in the event of conquest. Less so with the were jaguars, who are proud of their ancestral land and grudgingly accept the Empire as their legitimate overlords after centuries of bloodshed. They're as strong, fast, stealthy, tough, perceptive, and agile as regular Jaguars, with human intelligence, but normal bullets kill them and they can't carry equipment when transformed, so their utility is limited.

4: And of course, the Gods. None would ever stoop to joining the military as anything other than ad hoc commander if it suited their whims, but they will defend themselves if attacked, and are highly territorial in some cases. This makes them a wild card in the event of invasion, occasionally incredibly dangerous to outsiders, but not unlikely to fight each other if two show up, or to kill indiscriminately, or to just grab a bag of roasted maize kernels and laugh at the carnage happening around them. Long story short, I don't want to pay for them as a military or economic asset, I want to just treat them as a hazardous feature of the landscape, except as has already been covered in whatever the ongoing effects of my good relationship with the Ocean has on my Shipping and navy, so however much of a loose cannon everybody thinks they need to be for that to be the result, let's make it so.

5: Am I forgetting anything important? Thanks!

[Zwinmar]

Haven't included it as of yet but would like them to have an analogue of the Ferguson Rifle (locking mechanism first seen around 1721 irl) though not sure how you guys feel about that.

Are they spectacularly expensive and tricky to build, prone to breech blowouts, and prone to the stock breaking off in combat? If so, maybe.

Or your orcs' schtick could be like the Skinner barbarians from Drake and Stirling's The General series, who carried very heavy muzzle-loading rifled guns and were extremely good marksmen with them. Historical 1700-era muzzle-loading rifles make for an interesting contrast with the smoothbores of the period: surprisingly good accuracy, terrible rate of fire. Good for highly mobile skirmishing warfare, bad for positional combat.

Note: the Church of the Living Stars in Ohio will definitely send missionaries among the Thyrs in hopes of converting people to their specific style of ancestor worship.

Alright, make them experimental technology then.
I had totally forgotten about that series, so have to thank you for the reminder.

As far as military goes I'm thinking the more of a dragoon style of stop, dismount, fire, mount and move. Out on the plains it makes this wolf pack style tactics exceptional and as they can fire accurately from beyond most peoples range they can do it is relative safety.

Stardard Equipment then:
Cavalry
-Buffalo skin buffcoat with cuirass and maille hauberk
-trousers
-Heavy leather riding boots
-.75 caliber flintlock rifle, with a double set trigger. Usually 54 inches in length.
-steel kettle helmet
-45 inch backsword with a steel knuckle guard
-63 inch estoc
-16 inch socket bayonet
Occasionally a recurve bow of buffalo horn is carried, though primarily by the scouts for hunting purposes.

Mounted Infantry the same except 72 inch long barrel and no estoc

.................
As for your missionaries: you are free to send them and you may get a few to convert but it wont be much. If you establish an sort of building (even if its just a tent) you will have to pay the same tax as every other merchant however.

[Raw Shark]

Ghetto Edit: And giant octopi! I need giant octopi, because octopi are awesome, and to protect my trade fleets from dolphin and Orion aggression on my Gulf coast, and from treacherous elements of the Shark People off the Pacific coast who do not always honor our peace treaties.

Proposed Trade Relationships: The Gods demand that our Priesthood import the best optical equipment that we can to study the stars. This is probably coming from the Goblins if they're willing, or some NPCs if nobody else starts making that stuff.

Our herbalists aren't saving lives, usually, except for this one poultice that prevents sepsis sometimes, but if some of your people have a lot of money, there is probably some kind of above or below board market for Aztec Birth Control and Erection potions in your homeland, regarded with various degrees of pearl-clutching depending on local mores.

We've also got this thing we call chocoatl that some people seem to really like...

[Simon_Jester]

Considering that we start with 100,000 point, that seems like a lot. We wouldn't all double our military in the first year, unless we all went apeshit on each other. I'd assume the powers that have militarily active it's history would be near its peak strength anyway. Though obviously I can't speak for anyone.

I actually think we should observe a peacetime cap of, oh, 330000 points.

So if you're just in the process of raising some "new model army" units or summoning new creatures or whatever right as the game starts, then you can create a limited number of them- but your military is assumed to be near the peak strength your economy can reasonably sustain in peacetime.

How does that sound?

If you enter a major war, then you start replacing your forces at a rate of, oh, 60000 points per year. Or if you voluntarily disband units to bring you under that cap.

So basically, we play out events that take place in winter. We probably tool around in the winter of the year X (shading forward into the beginning of year X+1, for those of us using Gregorian calendar) for, oh, a month. Maybe a bit more. At some point, TRR suggests "you know what? We've done enough in winter, time to move to spring." At that point, unless someone presents a convincing case within two weeks for why we shouldn't, it is now "spring." Nobody goes back and alters fundamental things that happened in the winter, and no fair changing plot elements that would retcon people's actions in the spring.

Okay.

But we'll need to be pretty strict about the not going back and changing stuff rule.

Unless of course it is agreed on by all parties involved that "this is how it should have happened."

Time travel is fine as long as it's between consenting adults.

This would tend to give us time progression of around 1:1 or 2:1 if people are being highly active. If people aren't posting lots of rich story material, then the incentive to delay advancing the season diminishes, in which case it might speed up to more like 3:1 or higher time compression.

Nice and flexible.

That said it's definitely the moderator's job to keep time flowing smoothly.

Those of us who try to adopt realistic timescales will have to deal with some awkward realities. We're operating in pre-industrial times. Just hopping on a horse and riding a thousand miles can take twenty or thirty days, and assembling the resources to support a major military operation could easily require you to start planning six months or a year in advance.

So I can easily imagine a lot of plotlines stalling out not because time is passing too fast, but because it isn't fast enough- because I need three months for my character to get where he's going, and three months of real time is translating as ten weeks of real time or whatever.

This would then go with the rule:
"No willfully holding up everyone else's gameplay while you write Big Elaborate Posts. If you're trying too hard to make your participation in the story artistically pretty, the story will move on without you." This rule needs in particular to be enforced against me, because in SDNW4 I wound up continuing a novel-length space battle for the better part of a year long after everyone else had moved on, although at least I did this in GODDAMN UNREAL TIME and it wasn't hurting anyone else's gameplay.

I don't want to be too strict or discourage people from writing detailed posts, but yeah, at some point you've got to just cut your losses and move on if you want to keep up.

I know I did. I kept writing posts dated June 8 or so while everyone else was in March of the next year. One thing I did NOT do was demand other people wait on me. And SDNW4, which had flourished for a year, didn't really start to die until the big tangle of delayed, postponed, slow-to-finish collaborative posts resulting from the MEH War.

SDNW6 (modern setting) flamed out for pretty similar reasons.

So, lesson learned.

Dunno. It depends.

How about 50,000 or 100,000 per year?

Edit: I also forgot to include the start date/season for the game, so that's another addition to make.

Hm. I'd say about sixty thousand, with some lead time required to replace losses- say, you can't replace major losses in less than a year. In that way, military losses from a major campaign can matter, by weakening your forces for the next year, even if you "only" lost thirty thousand men out of an army of three hundred thousand.

Meanwhile, losses of hundreds of thousands of points will cost you for years, as you will not be able to replace, repair, or re-summon the forces you need.

As far as military goes I'm thinking the more of a dragoon style of stop, dismount, fire, mount and move. Out on the plains it makes this wolf pack style tactics exceptional and as they can fire accurately from beyond most peoples range they can do it is relative safety.

Yes- although a muzzle-loading rifle has to be reloaded with an iron ramrod and a mallet to pound the bullet back down the barrel. It takes a while, so the tactics are different. I am, for the record, NOT content to see anyone playing around with Minie balls. Also, why do your cavalry carry two different types of swords in the four to five foot length range?

.................
As for your missionaries: you are free to send them and you may get a few to convert but it wont be much. If you establish an sort of building (even if its just a tent) you will have to pay the same tax as every other merchant however.

Not a problem.

Our herbalists aren't saving lives, usually, except for this one poultice that prevents sepsis sometimes, but if some of your people have a lot of money, there is probably some kind of above or below board market for Aztec Birth Control and Erection potions in your homeland, regarded with various degrees of pearl-clutching depending on local mores.

[Ohioan star-priestess winces, picking shards of shattered pearl fragments out of her hand]

We've also got this thing we call chocoatl that some people seem to really like...

HERESY!

...Wait, did you just get me to declare War on Chocolate?

Fuuuuu-