[CHAR] Winter Came on Forever: An 18th Century Alt-History

[Vilageidiotx]

MY CHARACTERS

Perspective characters (apps pending)

King George III of England

(Wikipedia)

Place: Charles Town, South Carolina

Bio: George III was born in London, the Grandson of King George II and son of Frederick, Prince of Wales. Born two months premature, it was thought he wouldn't survive, and he was given a hasty baptism. One month later when it was clear he was going to survive, he was publicaly baptized.

George was a shy child. He received a high class education, being the first British Monarch to learn the sciences as part of their curriculum. His father died of a lung injury when he was thirteen, leaving George the Heir Apparent. His mother raised him through his teens in order to imbue him with her Anglican values. In 1760, when George was 22, his grandfather died and he saw himself propelled to the throne as King George III. The following year he married Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who he met on their wedding day. Despite the political circumstances of it, the two enjoyed a happy marriage. They had nine sons and six daughters.

He was the first Hanoverian Kings born and raised in Britain, and quickly distanced himself from his German origins, presenting himself as a natural Englishman. At his ascension he was popular, but his preference for Tory ministers caused him bad will among the Whigs. He surrendered the crown estate to parliamentary control in exchange for an annuity, officially severing the monarchy from its feudal origins and become a modern King.

At the end of the Seven Years War, not knowing what would come, George III made a royal proclamation which drew the boundaries of the British colonies at a set point, restricting westward expansion. After the rough winter of 1763-1764, the Stamp Act was passed on the colonies, sped through to pay for relief and grain. The harsher winter that followed started a process of Migration. When summer freezes warned of a harder winter to follow, George announced a grand tour of the colonies and started off for Jamaica, creating a surging panic as people interpreted it as an abandonment of England.

The tour was initially meant as a way to avoid wintering in London, but while visiting the ports of British North America, winter in the north set in again. George III officially moved the capital to Charles Town in South Carolina, where the government purchased Drayton Hall, a plantation house on the outskirts of the city, to serve as the King's temporary home until a palace is built elsewhere.

General John Burgoyne

(Wikipedia)

Place: Ninety-Six, South Carolina

Bio: John Burgoyne was born in Sutton, Bedfordshire in into a wealthy family of the gentry. At age ten he entered the Westminster school, an athletic and outgoing boy who made many friends in British high society. At fifteen he purchased a Commission in the Horse Guards. Stationed in London as part of a fashionable and largely idle regiment, he became a dashing figure in London society and gained the nickname "Gentleman Johnny". His love of style, high living, and gambling lead him into debt.

He served in the Dragoons during the War of Austrian Succession, ending the war as a Captain. After the war, he eloped with Lady Charlotte Stanley, the sister of a friend, and the couple eloped together. His new bride was cut off from her family wealth by her enraged father, and Burgoyne sold his commission in order to pay for their life. They traveled Europe until the birth of a daughter healed the rift in the family, causing them to return to Britain and Charlotte's wealthy family.

At the outbreak of the Seven Years War, Burgoyne purchased a commission, becoming a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Coldstream Guards. He led men on several raids on the French coast, pioneering a light and quick form of cavalry in the British army, encouraging initiative in his men. He took up a seat in parliament in 1761, but went back into the military in the following year in time to serve with distinction in the Portuguese campaign, playing a key roll in the battle of Valencia de Alcantara. At war's end he returned home, having achieved the rank of Major General.

Wealth protected Burgoyne and his family that first winter, where winter balls kept them entertained while blizzards roared outside. When spring came, slow and late as it was, they thought as most people did that the harsh winter would simply be an anomaly. When the next winter proved worst, whispers among the gentry at their galas were not only of mulled wine and scandalous romances; talk of the apocolypse became common. And when June came the next second summer after the war and freezes wreaked mayhem in the countryside, even members of the Aristocracy boarded boats for the new world.

Burgoyne went to the new world with his family and used what money he had to purchase acres of land outside of Camden, South Carolina. The influx of cheap labor from Europe made it unnecessary to purchase slaves for the work, much to the relief of Gentleman Johnny's aristocratic sensibilities. The constant stream of immigrants put a population pressure on the colonies, and in 1769 Burgoyne was given a command; a mix of British regulars and colonial irregulars sent to the purge the frontier of Indians, waging war on the native Cherokee in order to make room for new settlers. With the muster set at Ninety-Six, a small hamlet on the frontier, Burgoyne prepares for a campaign into the wilderness.

[Byrd Man]

Byrd's Characters

Hercules Mulligan

Name: Hercules Mulligan

Place: New York City

Bio:

Hercules Mulligan was born in 1740 in Ireland. Six years later, his family moved to America and settled in the colony of New York. The young Mulligan studied at King's College in Manhattan. After school, Mulligan opened his own business -- a tailor's shop -- that caters to wealthy members of colonial New York. In the influx of immigrants from Europe, Mulligan has found his business booming as many agents of the crown settle into New York.

Unbeknownst to anyone else, Mulligan is in fact a member of the Sons of Liberty and the New York Committee of Correspondence, two very important organizations that sought to unite the colonies in their struggle for greater representation and less taxes from the British crown. Now, with the changing weather and the refugee crisis the situation is immensely changed, although the Sons of Liberty and the CofC stick to their goals and Mulligan continues to assist them wherever possible.

Sir Thomas Bennett

Name: Sir Thomas Bennett

Place: South Carolina

Bio:

Born in 1729, Thomas Bennett came from a prominent English merchant family. Thomas' father had relocated to America to run the family's business in Virginia. The Bennett family thrived for most of Thomas' childhood, but bad investments by his father bankrupted their family business and turned the elder Bennett into an alcoholic. In 1732, he committed suicide and left Thomas responsible for his mother and three siblings. Thomas, along with his brother and two sisters, worked for the wealthy gentry of the Virginia tidewater area to make money to support themselves. Thomas was still a boy when he learned the easy ways to cater to the ruling elite of Virginia society.

At the age of eighteen he began reading law under the tutelage of Victor Randolph, one of the top lawyers in Virginia. In 1754, twenty-five year old Thomas struck out for himself as a lawyer. He soon used his connections with the first families of Virginia to get work. By the time he turned thirty, Bennett was perhaps even more well known that his mentor Randolph.

In 1760, Bennett was employed by the mighty Fairfax Family to handle a sensitive matter. Lord Fairfax's youngest son had become involved with a woman of ill character and had fathered a child with said woman. For a fee, Bennett used his connections in the state to have the woman and child quietly sent west to the Piedmont Region and a lonely planter who had longed for his own family. For this service, Lord Fairfax honored Bennett by pulling strings in England and granting him a knighthood.

Now in 1770, as the entire world has been turned upside down, the now wealthy and successful Sir Thomas finds himself in South Carolina just outside Charles Town. With the influx of wealthy nobles, there are to be many in need of his discreet talents.

George Fucking Washington

Name: Lt. Colonel George Washington

Place: The West

Bio:

George Washington was born in 1732 to a Virginia planter family. While wealthy, the Washingtons were still several steps below the First Families of Virginia. As a young man he surveyed the Shenandoah Valley for the Fairfax family and gained enough political clout to become a lieutenant colonel in the Virginia militia. As a social striver stuck in the middle class, Washington yearned for a full commission to the British Army to improve his standing in the world.

In 1754, Colonel Washington was charged with a mission to build a fort and hold off French expansion in the Ohio territory. The young and ambitious Lieutenant Colonel instead set off a global powderkeg. The Battle of Fort Necessity would be the spark that would ignite the Seven Years' War. After a disastrous expedition underneath the command of General Edward Braddock, Washington returned to Virginia and became a full colonel and commander-in-chief of the Virginia militia. In 1759, Washington married wealthy widow Martha Dandridge Custis. The marriage raised Washington's place in the social order and he entered the pinnacle of Virginia society.

But then the cold came. The changing weather would alter the tobacco planter class in Virginia. As Washington's plantation, Mount Vernon, began to go into a financial tailspin due to the poor turnout of the crop. As the situation worsened in Europe, Washington and Martha sold their land to the Fairfax family and moved south along with scores of others seeking to flee from the cold.

In South Carolina Washington finally received what he had sought for so long. With the British Army in desperate need of capable officers, Washington was granted a commission as a captain in army. He was quickly promoted to major and shipped out west towards the French border. Washington and his men are currently stationed at Fort Fredrick in the outskirts of civilization. Fort Fredrick and the nearby settlement of Georgetown are filled with British settlers seeking farm land, French fur traders selling their wares, and people with seedy connections looking to find their fortune.

[Athinar]

Lord Marcus Pembleton

Name:Lord Marcus Pembleton.

Age: 52 years of age.

Place: Boston, where the Royal Society was relocated to.

Bio: Born to English nobility, Lord Marcus Pembleton was landed gentry, and a member of the Royal Society before the Great Winter. Known as the 'face' of the Royal Society to both Parliament and the Royal Family, Lord Marcus Pembleton has been trying to depose Lord Somers since he was chosen to be the President of the Royal Society, and has a rivalry with the controversial mathematician Sir Isaac Newton, who is competing for the Presidency of the Royal Society as well.

Skills: Chemist, Mathematician, Physicist.

Dietrich Netzke

Name: Dietrich Netzke

Age: 26

Place: Mobile, in the Alabama Territories gifted by England.

Bio: A member of the Prussian mercenary group known as the Hessians, Dietrich was hired by the British Crown to guard their interests in the colonies, in case rebellion broke out. However, with the onset of the Great Winter, and the exodus that followed, the majority of Prussia was forced to leave their homes, and were gifted a sizable amount of land in the Americas by the British Crown, as they had shared close relations for years.

Moving from New York to Mobile, Dietrich carried the knowledge that he could never return to Berlin again, and that his people were on their way to join him in the Americas.

Skills: Shooting, CQC, Hunting, Manual labor.

[Oliver]

Julien LeFebvre (OC)

Name: Julien Henri Ciel LeFebvre

Place: In and around the colony of Philadelphia. He's a bit tied down by work and doesn't see much of the other colonies, though he very much likes the idea of adventure.

Bio: Julien is originally from a wealthy family of French immigrants. Tuberculosis ravaged the colony in the summer of 1967, which killed his mother and younger brothers. Only he and his father had the constitution to survive the outbreak, but even they were left weaker than they had been. His father, grieved by the loss of his wife and three of his four sons, took to violent alcoholism and kicked out his only remaining son to have more money to drink with.
Being nearly eight years old at the time, Julien took a job as a chimney sweep (despite this, even at the time, being illegal) and then an early apprenticeship at a tailor's shop owned by a freed slave. Using this opportunity to improve his poor English, he quickly made a life for himself as a part time street rat, part time working adult. Except, he's by no means an adult. His eleventh birthday is rolling around this next December, and even for his age he looks very young. Despite this, he can handle himself surprisingly well, with the help of some good luck and a little bit of his criminal tendencies.

[Dinh AaronMk]

Name: Pontiac

Place: Michigan

Bio: Like many Native-Americans, little is known of the early life on Pontiac. Pontiac was born in an Ottawa village outside the location of Fort Detroit between the years 1712 and 1725. Pontiac was raised as a member of the Ottawa tribe by parents who were either Ojibwa or Miami Indian. For most of his child-hood life he was raised near Fort Detroit.

After his child-hood Pontiac came to prominence among his people when it 1747 he led his people as a war chief in alliance with the French against an uprising of the Huron people. The alliance between Ottawa and the French held strong after, and Pontiac partook in battles against the English in the North American front of the Seven Years war; the French and Indian War in the Americas. Here Pontiac grew to acclaim among his people as a warrior as he fought successive skirmishes and battles against the British, such as the French victory over the Braddock expedition.

It wasn't until 1765 that Pontiac drew public attention among a broader audience when a British frontier soldier met Pontiac in the midst of the war. It was from this encounter that the soldier wrote a play about the formidable and charismatic leader which became the root of his awareness among the British colonists in later years, and among the rest of the colonies.

Though while Pontiac had garnered a significant reputation on the battlefield during the French and Indian War, his best is yet to come.

With the conclusion of the war and cessation of former French lands to the British the formerly French-allied tribes were thrown into disarray as French presence in the Ohio Valley and Michigan disappeared as Upper Lousiana was ceded to British authority. The initial sweep of colonists into the native forests was bad enough, but when the winters began to become longer, and the summers colder it began getting worse.

Over short summers more and more of the British arrived on American shores. While initial diplomacy suggested the British would not infringe on native lands, the burdens became heavy as the flood gates opened unleashing many hundreds of British frontiersmen onto Native American land. And as the winter grew colder the prevalence of distance natives did grow as well as new hunters merged south in seek of warmer lands ahead of the ice-shields that grew from the northern reaches of Canada.

In these times as they grow dire and the world steeps itself in the confusion of changing times Pontiac reaches out to Guyasuta...
________________

Name: Guyasuta

Place: Michigan-Ohio

Bio: Born in western New York around the year 1725, Guyasuta is a prominent Seneca was chief. Having once met and lead a young George Washington to Fort Le Boeuf in the build up to the Seven Years war Guyasuta chose not to in the end ally with the encroaching British powers and allied with the French in the ensuing war. Playing a part in the battle that ended the Braddock expedition he crossed paths with leaders like Pontiac, and like the young Ottawa war chief came to acclaim among Indian warriors, though not to the degrees as Pontiac.

Much respected by his people he held an important place in Seneca leadership and was looked to for guidance by the Seneca people when beyond all expectations more and more British settlers sailed across the great ocean to settle the Americas, greatly displacing the Seneca tribe along with others. As the scope of British settlement grew and the Seneca were pushed from their land they fled west into the Ohio valley, and deeper still.

With the additional stress of the tired northern tribes straying south to avoid the deepening freeze and migrating game in Canada, Guyasuta and his people were faced with the double threat of not only European refugees filling up land, but migrating refugee Native Americans.

And it was when Pontiac called for him, he responded.
______________________

Name: Peter Pytorvich Kavinovich

Place: Northern California

Bio: Born in the year 1727, Peter Pytorvich came into the world as the son of a merchant family in Kiev, Russia. Peter's young life was a simple affair, attending church and a religious school paid for by his father. Born two years after Peter the Great and at the end of Catherine the Great's reign as Empress of Russia young Peter lived in a still changing Russia reaping the benefits of what was new to it for its re-alignment to the west.

His father traded primarily with the Austrians and the Germans through the years and as a teenager Peter traveled to Vienna and Königsberg on several locations. And although he never earned a mastery of the language, he still learned and became capable of speaking German as a result of his infrequent trips and dealings alongside his father as a young man.

When Peter came in adulthood he became conscripted into the Imperial Army, as the terms were for life Peter braced himself for a life of soldiery in 1754.

At the outbreak of the Seven Years War, Peter had attained the rank of sergeant in the military. During the course of the war his unit was marched to take the city of Königsberg. His previous familiarity of the city was like a return home to Peter, and in the battle for the city he displayed considerable valor and was to make a promotion for his show of force and valor in the face of enemy fire. However on hearing of the promotion a jealous fellow officer sought to stymie Peter's future in the army, and murdered one of the fresh privates the previous night.

The following morning Peter was summoned before command to answer for what had just happened. Flabbergasted, he was speechless as the jealous sergeant railed against Peter, producing evidence and testimony against him. He was promptly arrested and held prisoner to be tried for murder.

His imprisonment didn't last long, at some point he escaped; though he refuses to say how, and fled from Russian-occupied Prussia choosing to not face what punishment the military courts might have for him and instead choosing to live a life of self-appointed exile in Siberia.

In Siberia, Peter assumed a new name but lived in fear and paranoia of retribution for bailing on the army in the west. Seeking safety and work he sought refuge among the Siberian Host, cossacks serving the Tsar to clear and help settle the Siberian frontier for the Empire. Through the duration of the war he drifted with the hose across Siberia performing soldier's work, clashing with the Siberian tribes who called the vast tracts of wilderness claimed by the Empire. And over-time as the winter's bite grew colder Peter found himself the furthest east a man could walk in Siberia. Finding himself in the distant frontier port of Petropavlovsk he tried to settle down until he saw in the street the czar's men.

Peter's paranoia of being caught as a refugee never died, and quickly he dashed to the port were he traded his skills as a soldier-turned Cossack to a boat docked at port, a Russian fur-trader from Alaska bound to China. He was readily admitted and they set sail for East Asia the following day.

A storm blew in on their journey, damaging the ship and the Russian trade was forced to make land-fall outside the small village of Haishenwai in late winter. Or it was what they thought to be late winter, in truth the cold never let up that year and while the ice melted from the rivers and the horses could drink from the troughs there was always a cold snap and bite to the air. Repairs on the ship became slow, the men becoming afraid that they would be found out by Qing authorities who had strictly prohibited the non-Manchu from setting foot in this area of Manchuria.

In order to accommodate for repairs to their ship – having beached it in shallow waters on rocks, it was beyond the minor storm damage forced upon them – the expedition was forced to trade away the otter pelts from America to pay for the services from the village. Work lingered on into winter and the men were forced to endure another long, bitter winter that never relented in its onslaught.

After long complicated work they were able to leave their prison, and with no otter pelts to sell in legitimate ports in Asia the captain turned the ship around towards America.

Intending to take the usual route that would sweep them passed the Bering Straight and to follow the coast of Alaska until they made port, the plan was quickly foiled as the ship came across dense ice-pack that had formed into the Arctic Circle and extended far beyond. The ship never found Alaska.

When they finally made land-fall in waters free of dangerous ice the Russian expedition was far from where they wanted to be, low on water, and low on food. Harsh fashioning had been put in place and for food the crew had taken to capturing sea birds that came too close to deck. The entire crew came to land famished and weak.

Replenishing their supplies and their water, they scouted the area around them later reconnecting with Russian trappers and Siberian expats that had chosen to find refuge in the Americas rather than dealing with the threat posed in trying to find a home in China or Japan.

It was under these men that the bedraggled, lost, and confused Russian refugees established a new home, Fort Nadezha. They had no way to connect with the Russian authorities in Moscow, or if it were even possible. Hoping there would be other vessels at sea from Russia or to continue trading with the now lost colony in Alaska the inhabitants of the Nadezha built a rudimentary light house, where a large beacon would hail in any ships at sea.

Nadezha was a rudimentary shelter, composed of only a palisade wall and canvas tents, the men who called it home lived on hunting and foraging the country-side, and battling and trading with the natives. It wasn't long after its foundation that slowly small, half-starved crews drifted to the fort and joined with the men there. And longer after men and women fleeing Asia sought desperate refuge in the direction the Lost Russians went, and a small entourage of Japanese and Chinese sailors followed and joined them.

As a veteran of both the Imperial army and the Cossacks, Peter became a notable man in the defense of and policing of Nadezha, though hardly much in an official capacity. Through contact he learned Chinese and Japanese.

[NecroKnight]

Queen Maria

Name: Queen Maria Francisca Isabel Josefa Antónia Gertrudes Rita Joana of Portugal and Brazil

Place: Brazil

Bio: Maria was born at the Ribeira Palace in Lisbon and baptized Maria Francisca Isabel Josefa Antónia Gertrudes Rita Joana. On the day of her birth, her grandfather, King John V of Portugal, created her the Princess of Beira.

When her father succeeded to the throne in 1750 as Joseph I, Maria, at age 16 and as his eldest child, became his heiress presumptive and was given the traditional titles of Princess of Brazil and Duchess of Braganza. In 1760 Maria married her uncle Pedro, younger brother of her father Jose I - although, with the coming cold and winter - her spouse died, before they could consumate their marriage.

As such, Maria is without an heir or a spouse. With the dead of her father Jose I - it has fallen on her to reign the Portugese Empire. With her first choice being, to move most of the court over to Brazil - leaving only the peasantry and several high-ranked aristocrats left in Portugal.

Her titles and situation, have made her very sought after in terms of marriage.