It is the year of our Lord 893, and the Sun is rising on the Golden Age.
Many decades have passed since the Caribbean Empire and its subjects, originally just refugees from Ethiopia, built their glory and power, also thanks to a sprawling trade network, reaching as far as the cold lands of Gotham in the North and as the jungle kingdom of Miskitia in the South. The Caribbean Trade Fleet was the pride of the Empire; its galleons, their holds filled with gold, gems, tobacco,
coffee, sugar, spices, slaves, and everything else the Empire could produce or buy, were the most resplendent jewel in the crown of the Emperors, and their cannons were the tip of their swords. The Empire grew greater and richer, expanding into the continent and building outposts and fortresses on its shores, and while the Creole subjects toiled in the fields and plantations of the Caribbean, the Ethiopian nobility and the Imperial Court grew more powerful and opulent with every passing day.
Yet, wherever there's wealth, there's also someone looking to steal it. In the war-torn lands of the North, from the divided Empire of Columbia, devastated by the Wars of Religion, to the deep forests of the Great Lakes, where the Norse jarldoms ceaselessly fought against each other and the natives, rumors about the incredible wealth that was to be found in the sunny Caribbean spread like wildfire; thus, the first pirate attacks started, as timid incursions from small bases on the continent. The Empire at first ignored this fact: why care about a galleon being despoiled, when a thousand more entered the ports of the Empire every day? Soon, the Emperors would come to regret this mistake. The pirates became bolder and more ambitious, as more and more joined their ranks: once proud Columbian knights fallen from grace, ruthless Norse housecarls looking for glory, riches and a way to enter Valhalla, battle-hardened gallowglasses from Nova Scotia and the surrounding provinces of the Maritimes, and of course former Creole subjects seizing the occasion to rebel against
their overlords; all seeking a piece of the Empire's fabled treasures. In time, true pirate coves were estabilished, first only on the continent, then in the Caribbean themselves, small and highly fortified cities over which the Empire had no power, and from which the pirate flotillas could prey upon the Imperial fleets, their small, fast ships outmaneuvering the large, slower galleons. At first, the aristocracy of the Empire, which had grown unaccustomed to war, was unable to react, and the pirates were left free to prosper and ravage in the Caribbean Seas: only recently the new generation of the Ethiopian nobility, led by the young and ruthless emperor Menelik IV, has started to actively counter the activity of pirates.
However, the Golden Age of Piracy has started: as legendary captains such as Morgan, Blackbeard, and J. Flint are carving their legacy of terror in the Caribbean Seas, another, smaller conflict is going on in the islands of the Empire, unknown to most. When the population of the village of Gresye, on the island of Hispaniola, was found guilty of helping and providing shelter to pirates from Tortuga in their raids of the island, the Imperial authority decided to make an example out of them: the men of the town were hanged in the streets of the village, while women and children were taken in captivity and embarked on a large galleon, to be brought to Havana and be sold in the slave market of the city. However, one man is hellbent on stopping this: marquis Lézin Exil, a Creole former nobleman who was away from Gresye as the townsfolk were embarked on the galleon, has discovered that his sister his among the captives. After recruiting a small, ragtag party of mercenaries, he immediately reached Tortuga, to find a ship and a crew in order to intercept the Imperial fleet before it reaches port in Havana. This is where your adventure begins...
A few centuries ago, the Empire of Axum, once the most powerful state of sub-Saharan Africa, crumbled, leaving its lands in chaos and anarchy. As Sabean conquerors from the Arabian peninsula claimed vast regions as their own, driving out the natives, the new petty, pagan Ethiopian kings that rose to fill the power vacuum left by the Empire violently persecuted the Christians. Thus, the Great Exodus began: thousands and thousands of Christian Ethiopians abandoned their lands, moving eastwards, and after a long and terrible trip they reached the western coast of Africa, settling in the region of Cameroon. At the same time, the sailors and navigators of Kambra, greatest trade city of West Africa, discovered a new land, far beyond the western ocean. Thus, the Kambran merchants offered a deal to the Ethiopians: they would sail towards this new land, and settle it as vassals of Kambra. As the living conditions in the jungles of Cameroon were terrible and the neighboring peoples warlike and hostile, the desperate Ethiopians accepted, and a large fleet was prepared to claim this new, unknown lands, filled with some thousand Ethiopians and a few hundred Kambran soldiers.
Among the Ethiopian leaders, one distinguished himself for his charisma and leadership, known as ras Teferi. After some time in the ocean, the fleet arrived to touch the shores of south America, near the jungle of the Amazonas: in this inhospital territory, exploiting the tensions between Ethiopians and Kambrans, Teferi successfully led his people in revolt against the soldiers, throwing most of them at sea; afterwards, after a supposed divine inspiration, Teferi led the fleet to what would become the Caribbean, where his people
settled; ras Teferi became a semidivine being to his people, as he had led them out of slavery and into a promised land. Teferi's sons would claim the title of Caribbean Emperors, and laid the foundation of the Empire as it is today; Teferi is still worshipped as a demigod of sorts, while the descendants of the Ethiopians settlers now form the main bulk of the noble aristocracy of the Empire. Ethiopians are Christians, but the vast distance from their homeland caused their religion to change somewhat: apart from the veneration of their first Emperor, to whom their branch of Christianity (Rastafarianism) owes its name, characteristic traits of their cult are nazirism, a special vow taken by priests and holy men, forcing them to abstain from sex, alcohol and other carnal pleasures and to let their hair grow (causing many of them to have impressive dreadlocks), and the widespread use of cannabis for purposes of meditation and divination.
As the Ethiopians expanded more and more into the Caribbean, they soon found themselves in dire need of workforce, as the native Taino were rapidly decimated by diseases imported from the Old World as well as the harsh treatment imposed on them by their new African overlords. To solve this problem, the Caribbean Emperors turned to their old ally and enemy, Kambra, asking the wealthy merchants of the city for a huge amount of West African slaves in exchange for goods produced in the New World, especially coffee, sugar and tobacco. Thus, the first of many deals of this kind was made, and slaves from the regions of Mali, Ghana and Nigeria were brought to the Caribbean, forming the original cores of what would become the Creoles. Living conditions for the West Africans were quite poor, also because, differently from the devoutly Christian Ethiopians, they were pagans; while they were forced to convert, they maintained many of their old customs, which evolved most notably into the what is today known as Voudou or Voodoo.
The Creoles were however born some decades later, as news of America spread into Europe. In time, many settlers (especially from Spain, at the time torn by the Gothic Wars, and Gaul, whose inhabitants suffered under the Gothic and Frankish yokes), arrived into the Caribbean; the Empire welcomed them but only as workers and farmers, and in time they became heavily mixed with the descendants of the West African slaves, thus forming the Creole ethnicity, which arose from the original mixture of African and European, pagan and Christian elements, reflecting itself in the religions practiced by them: Santeria, a form of Christianity syncretized with West African heathen beliefs, somewhat tolerated by Imperial authorities, and Voodoo, a religion and magical system directly descending from the African ones, directly persecuted by the Empire. The Creoles represent the backbone of the Empire's agricultural production, and are often part of the lower classes of society; also for this reason, the Creoles have recently started to demand a greater political weight and representation in the affairs of the Empire, so far unsuccessfully, and in some cases they directly began to help pirates and other enemies of the Empire.
The story of the pirates did not begin in the Caribbean, but elsewhere, in the north of the New World. A couple of centuries ago, terrible and violent wars raged all over the continent: it was during this terrible, violent age that the Europeans of the New World began to look to the Caribbean as a place of opportunity. As adventurers, mercenaries, refugees, sailors, and their families settled in the smaller islands of the Caribbean, the Emperors did not think much of this, as they had already seen this kind of immigration: however, these migrants had no intentions to be subjects of the Empire. Soon, the various cultures of the nascent coves began to merge and mix with each other, giving rise to the motley group known simply as "pirates", who had turned sea plundering into a way of life: soon, prominent captains began to rise in rank, status and infamy, entire small flotillas following them on their journeys of terror across the sea and achieving a semi-legendary fame. Meanwhile, around the pirate coves entire villages and small cities developed and prospered, becoming trade hubs for stolen goods sold at lower prices than those the Empire could offer, and soon became true fortified
strongholds, with a fleet always ready to defend them from Imperial incursions.
The various traditions and legacies imported by the pirates as they arrived from all over the New World gave rise to a unique culture, characteristic of the pirates: the traditions of Christianity were almost completely forgotten in favor of more primitive, natural and terrible gods of the sea and of nature. Captives taken by pirates are made to walk the plank, offered in sacrifice to cruel slumbering god of the depths, the Kraken, while the souls of those fallen to storms at sea are said to be sucked and consumed by the swirling Maelström, the all-devouring whirlpool at the centre of the ocean, and the deeds of great captains turn into legends and myths, as the most dreadful pirate leaders are slowly turned into proper demigods. This sort of cultural melting created a kind of spiritual brotherhood among pirates from all over the Caribbean, who often call themselves "Brethren of the Coast", and in a stark contrast with the aristocratic Empire, pirate coves and crews are ruled in a quite democratic manner, with crew members and citizens able to vote on the decisions taken by captians and leaders, which are also subject to a "Code of Conduct" regulating their powers and responsibilities; this is also why the whole of buccaneer society is often called "the Republic of Pirates".
