This is a RP set in the late medieval period of an original world.
No fantasy races and magic is rare. Magical items can cost a fiefdom.
Story
"When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die." -Jean-Paul Sartre
My friend, twenty years ago this world was plunged into a war like none we'd ever seen. There were no allies, only every nation out for itself, leaving such a stain on public memory we simply know it as the War. What caused it? None can say. None who could are left alive, and their records were burned. What we do know is the toll that war took. From the known world's population of roughly five hundred thousand, less than one hundred and fifty thousand survived. For you see, this was no ordinary war. This one lasted thirty years, kept going in the end simply because it was cheaper to raise armies to fight than to return to peace and hope to try and deal with the costs of repairing their lands.
Why then did it end you ask? Well, nations began to suffer from more and more severe famines, even the nobility was forced to tighten their belts. Plagues began to spring up like flowers after the rain, presumably helped by the masses of bodies accumulating faster than they could be buried by the overtaxed undertakers and clerics. Many armies of the world were beginning to turn treasonous, feeling they were lead like lambs to the slaughter. To withdraw from the war was a prudent measure aimed at preventing a complete collapse of the country. Even so, one was still plunged into a bitter civil war lasting to this day.
With only the most minor territorial concessions gained, we must wonder, was it really worth it?
No, that's rhetorical. It wasn't worth it, not a day of it. For even now we still pay the price. What great measure of blood may wash these sins of our fathers from our hands?
We live in interesting times.
Major Nations
The man who loves other countries as much as his own stands on a level with the man who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife. -Theodore Roosevelt
Senzietaia
The largest of the nations, Senzietaia (lit. "Land of the Senze") is also currently the most populous. Relatively unaffected by the War, it made the largest territorial gains from it. The largest military and economic power around, some call it a nation only one power-mad ruler away from trying to take over the fractured known world. It shares a northern border with the Great Sandy Desert, with wandering nomads sometimes raiding it and disappearing back into the inhospitable hell of a desert before any major resistance can be organised. Politically, it is a stable absolute monarchy that gives out human rights based on how noble one's bloodline is. Its principal exports are lumber, iron and slaves. Unknown to most, the current ruler secretly engineered the War.
Tunilus
An extremely precarious nation bordering the east of Legiostan, Tunilus is blessed with literate peasants hating the nobles and the king, scheming nobles hating the king and the peasants, and the king hating the nobles and peasants. The king is a reformist-minded king, who after frequent power-clashes is willing to remove the nobility and appoint leaders based on competency and loyalty. However, the nobility own their armies and have their castles, making getting rid of them extremely difficult. The peasants demand reforms that allow them to have more rights, and are willing to off the king to achieve them. The entrenched nobility refuse to give up any power and frequently threaten the royal family with civil war should the king anger them too much. However, they are more than capable of uniting against a common foe, and will not allow the nation to be invaded while the argue. Their chief exports are marble, agriculture and meat-derived products.
Legiostan
Even withdrawing from the War didn't save them. Situated straight in the middle of the known world, the vast majority of battles were fought upon their soil. The agricultural industry was destroyed, the cities reduced to rubble. Formerly the most populous nation, it is now the least populous of the known countries. Engaged in a civil war, new governments tend to last only a couple of years. Foreign nations fund rebels and lend military aid (disguised as "military advisors") to those rebels or even the government in an attempt to ensure a government more loyal to them arises. All this has ever done has prolonged the conflict indefinitely. Each new government forcibly takes food from the people to feed the military to defend from new rebel uprisings, causing terrible famines and giving the revolutionary spirit only greater fuel. The people are proud and have a strong egalitarian trend. The current economic system has resulted in them having few if any exports.
Argioland
Hailing from the bitter frozen south and the jagged mountains - sharing the border with Legiostan, Argioland is a nation mostly isolated from foreign affairs, though still sending a 4,000 contingent to the War. The people have a strong egalitarian trend and this has resulted in curious wealth-sharing programs and the amount the Consuls spend to improve the lives of the poor and downtrodden - at the expense of the wealthy elite. They have a small but highly elite military and mostly avoided wars from having a near-impossible nation to launch strategic operations into. Argioland covers the entire southern frozen wastes. The principal exports are fish, salt and precious gems and metals.
Magic
Magic is derived from focus. There is a realm of magic, and the mage is a rare individual who can sunder the barrier between the two, if for as long as they can focus on it, and channel magic into this world. Magic is, however, a highly destructive force that will change the wielder according to the type of magic they use (frequent pyromancers have often noticed it starting with a faint smell of smoke around them at all times and then eventually going mad and desiring to burn the world).
Magical items are far safer - they have a specially attuned item inside them constantly channelling magic to perform the desired function. However, damaging tends to end... violently. They can only be created by mages through tremendous effort and great risk of losing control and having the now-magically attuned object bursting magical energies out everywhere, and with the already rarity of mages they are themselves incredibly difficult to acquire.
Geography
Important subject.
This is set on a large continent, with the known world forming a shape closest to an inverted triangle. The East is mostly flatlands and marshes, with some mountains springing up. It does have nifty marble reserves and good grazing land.
In the far south, it's close to a mere hundred kilometres off the southern ice shelf and also largely mountainous. Because of that, it's frozen most days of the year - and sometimes one of those mountains turns out to be a volcano. Seismic events are frequent, though tsunamis are unheard-of. Permanent shelters are difficult and what arable land there is is exploited as efficiently as possible. The mountains hold natural slumbering resources deep within.
The further north one goes the hotter and hotter it gets. At the edge of the known world lies great deserts as far as explorers have been brave or foolhardy enough to go. There, civilisation is almost impossible and nomadic tribes make up the closest one ever gets. However, north near the deserts is a great forest spotted with reserves of iron. Be warned: there be monsters. So they say. Werewolves and dragons are rumoured to be here.
The west is largely hilly terrain and fairly decent farmland. The center, however, is flat plains converted into masses of agriculture - agriculture that since the War has grown very well. They would be very well-off if the incessant civil disorders didn't keep causing famines. Because of that, most agriculture is grown entirely to support the one family owning it.
Religions tend to venerate the ruler, however some suppressed religions have begun to appear preaching about a higher power than kings and consuls. Limited knowledge of them exists due to harsh suppression of other beliefs.
What I'm Looking For
This RP is based around characters with long-term goals. There is a public goal, which will be submitted to along the character sheet, and a private goal (should you so desire) to be PM'd to me. However, expect a major shakeup of things here and be prepared to be able to adapt any goals you have to suit it as you deal with the new times. For example, the public goal of an officer in Legiostan might be to end the civil disorder, and the private goal might be to become the next one on the throne. Along the way you may make powerful friends... or enemies. I am allowing limited flexibility in adding new nations, however you must let me know of them well before and be ready for me to change them. No nation here is "nice".
Questions, queries, doubtful points?
