"Your highness, I still have ten ships to lead into battle..."
It is Medieval Age.
The Tawai Empire is no more.
The desire of conquest and lust for fame of King Auxfied of the Neryn Empire knows no bounds. Right after his ascension to king, he spent five years of his reign only to unify his chaotic empire, which had been engulfed in a huge civil war that had raged on for over a century, split between dozens of self-proclaimed rulers, using all means necessary, from trades, treaties to large scale battles. And then another five years to strengthen his throne and bolster the economy.
His entire social system was built off of martial hierarchy, where the citizens are born to become warriors. Battling to them is simply to breathe. The economy system was entirely devoted to war efforts. Weapons were manufactured, ships were built, men were trained rigorously. All of these were performed in order to partially ease the tension of a populace of citizens accustomed to war but mainly to fulfill his bottomless desire and greed for territory of the King. In a course of a few years, the Neryn empire has accumulated up to two hundred thousand men and five hundred naval ships and boarding crafts, hungry for total war.
In contrast, the Tawai empire had never seen war in the last six decades. Their society was a bureaucratic system, which focused more in cultural development and fishing industry, due to their long coastline. Therefore, their technological advances in ship building has been developed far ahead of other countries in the region. However, due to the long period of peace, boredom has taken into the soldiers. Troops were under-trained, under-manned, and ill-prepared. Weapons are not developed thoroughly, outdated. But most importantly officers and generals are less competent.
And then, Auxfied set his eyes on Tawai as his first nation of conquest, and he soon initiated an invasion. When the two dynasties clashed with each other, it was an incredibly one-sided fight. Because the Tawai’s army commanders were too accustomed to peace, they initially did not believe that the Neryns are actually invading until it was too late. Despite having a chance to engage the enemy’s invading fleet, the Tawai’s local admirals decided to sit still doing nothing, refusing to move. And when the Neryn’s land forces landed on the coast, Tawai’s resistance collapsed completely. Their army was poorly trained, ill-disciplined, unmatched for Neryn’s battle-hardened forces.
Being taken by surprise, local admirals decided to scuttle their fleets and flee deeper in land. Luckily for Tawai’s forces, there was still one admiral who decided to act against orders to sink his ships: Admiral Kan Mishifuri. Kan, a naval commander who had gone under rigorous naval training, having realized this imminent invasion all along unlike the other admirals and commanders, had been training his men and building ships in preparation for this. After news of the invasion reached him, he set off with over one hundred ships at his disposal, striking some of the harbors that Neryn’s ships were docking in, destroying dozens of ships and killing thousands of enemy soldiers. The Neryn’s army, despite being well-trained and experienced with war, were unfamiliar with naval warfare and ship buildings, due to their civil war being on land. Therefore, their navies fell apart when faced with a fleet with superior ship design and more experience at sea, leaving the Neryn’s land forces being trapped on foreign land
Auxfied, upon being notified of his lost of control over the Tawai sea, decided to send one hundred more ships to reinforce them, but was defeated badly. Furious, he sent another two hundred ships to the rescue, but to no avail. After some consideration, the Conqueror King decided to take a different approach. He decided to inject spies into the enemy’s land, bribing corrupt government officials, driving them to believe that Kan was plotting against the King. By a simple trick of manipulation, they succeeded, and Kan was imprisoned, tortured and later executed. Command of the fleet was replaced by another admiral, a much less competent one.
Auxfied, when he learnt the news of Kan’s removal of command, decided to assemble a huge navy of battleships and engaged the Tawaian navy in a decisive battle near Otto island. The result was devastating. The fleet that Kan had worked so hard to build, was utterly decimated. The admiral in charge, who were incredibly flawed and predictable, fell victim to a simple trick by the Neryn’s forces. His fleet was ambushed, surrounded and slowly destroyed. Only a handful of ships managed to escape the battle alive.
The devastating result of the battle greatly demoralized Tawai’s forces and bolstered the spirits of Neryn’s forces. Now, with Tawai’s army completely crushed, Neryn’s high command decided to use this opportunity to take the enemy’s capital, capture the king and end this war once and for all. They decided to mass two third of their land forces onto transport ships, move west to take a shortcut through the Strogult strait and intend to land on the North Western coast of Tawai for a quick seize of the capital. But in order to reach the capital, they must get pass the remaining ten ships of Tawaian navy, who had assembled together after being routed in previous battles for one final stand against a fleet of hundreds.
The hope of the entire Tawaian nation now lied entirely on ten lone ships, ten ship commanders and several hundred sailors.
First of all, I am very much grateful for your time reading through such walls of texts. Thank you very much!
To get started, I will go on to explain the concept of this RP. So I got this idea after watching the movie ‘The Admiral: Roaring Currents’, depicting Admiral Yi Sun-sin’s most finest victories of all time. And as any of the history enthusiasts would notice, the lore that I wrote up is largely based on the Japanese invasion of Korea in the late 16th centuries, and the battle that is the center of this RP is largely inspired by the Battle of Myeongnyang, but with moderate changes (such as admiral Kan's death so that the player's role shall be more significant). In order not to provoke anyone, I have decided to make the two countries completely fictional. The only thing you should keep in mind is the era when the battle takes place, which is late medieval, so gunpowder, arquebuses and naval cannons are widely available, and the type of ships that you will be bringing to battle, which is galley (A ship that propells mostly by using oars). You can get creative and add sails and other fancy stuff if you want, it’s just that oar-powered ships are much faster and more maneuverable here (if you have better ideas, just voice it out and I’ll consider)
You will be playing as one of the ship commanders who will be taking part of the battle. Your character will have a ship and a handful of crews at your disposal. You can also design your own respective ships (i.e what it has, how fast is it, what armaments does it contain,…), just bear in mind that it will be a medieval galley. The Tawaian navy is known for having technologically advanced ships, while the Neryn’s armada is not, but they have supreme numerical advantages. So I will be going with that to depower their strength accordingly to your designs.
The current situation is that the enemy has over 300 ships heading for you, over 100 being warships. But since this is called 'The Miracle at Strogult Strait', you will ultimately emerge victorious, despite the overwhelming odds. This is an RP that values courage, bravery, loyalty and comradeship, so not exactly a tragedy RP (you can still kill your character though).
There will be four arcs to this RP:
-The Gathering Arc: This will be very short, but will not be rushed. This arc is simply to gather up the remaining ships, and getting to know each other if the characters don’t have any histories with each other.
-Morale Arc: This will be longer than the first arc, but not as long as the third one. So basically, you will be trying to make a plan to counter the opposing Neryn forces while trying to deal with problems that will no doubt arises within the army. I mean, when faced against an enemy that outnumbers you thirty to one, it can drive any man to shit their pants, right? There maybe exceptions, but definitely not everyone. So there will be problems caused by fear within the fleet, and you’ll have to work together to fix it. There will be character development. Also, that problem can also be you, if you volunteer to become the problem. Anything is possible. Just give me a notification, and we’ll plan around your ideas.
-The Battle Arc: The longest of the four arcs. The battle commences. There might be some unresolved issues that still lingers within your soldiers. It will cause a bit of a problem at first, but at the heat of battle, all will be resolved. This will be the test of bravery and loyalty to all of you and your sailors, and your relationship to other ship commanders will have a lot of significance here. Like I said earlier, be guaranteed that you will emerge victorious in the end. But ships can be sunk, and sacrifices can be made if you want to have some dramas. If not, that’s ok. In the real battle of Myeongnyang, Korean naval forces suffered very little casualties, around 10 at best, so you don’t have to worry about having too few deaths or wounded.
-The After Arc: A conclusion to the Battle Arc, and the fate of those who survived the battle. It can also be very short, but I have yet to think about it thoroughly. If you want, you can expand it into another fully-fledged battle. Depends on you.
Thank you for taking your time here. We are still accepting more commanders so if any of you who has interests, you are free to join. And if you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask me. I would be willing to answer.
