Fractured Empire-WIP Renaissance Fantasy Nation Building and Rping

[Rhymer]

Fractured Empire

Introduction
Six centuries have passed since the fall of the Ikvari Empire. The ensuing chaos threw the fragmented kingdoms into turmoil. It is now a time of great change and prosperity. The kingdoms have consolidated power and scheme anew. Ancient magical artifacts are surfacing. New science and technologies are emerging and radical thought is beginning to stir in the Middle Sea Kingdoms.

A lord in Ikvar declares his intent to reform the Empire. Valheim mercenaries traverse the Middle Sea in search of glory and gold.Modern airships bring knowledge and luxury trade goods from far away lands. Peralt shipyards construct bigger and faster sailing ships in greater numbers. Adventurers brave Doanish ruins-submerged castles and ancient catacombs of mythological kings filled with magical artifacts.


Players will create a ruler and form a nation. Make allies, declare war-build wealth and fund research. Discover ancient artifacts that bestow great magics. Reform the empire or defend the sovereign right of every Middle Sea Nation.

This NRP will be a WIP until further notice. Any suggestions would be appreciated. A map is in the works. For the most part this will be a numbers light game.

Color Map

This is a map of the Middle Sea Kingdoms circa 600 A.E. (After Empire , i.e. the Ikvari Empire) Distances have not been established but you can equate it roughly to the Mediterranean Sea.

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NATION SHEET

Nation Name: Create a name for your Nation
Ruler Name: Create a name for your Ruler.
The Statistics Box: (These stats are an overall measure of your nations strengths/weakness. They are not contrived from any sources but represent a general idea of what your country is capable of accomplishing) On a scale of 1-5 rate the following:
INFLUENCE: Your nations influence in exerting its will. If it gets low enough your Ruler could be removed from power and your Nation thrown into chaos.(Don't worry, if you are truly attached to your country you can always write up a new ruler or group of rulers to fill the power void!)
WEALTH: Your nations material and economic power. Measures how likely another nation or private interest will go into business with you, loan money etc.
POWER: A general measurement of offensive strength.

NATION CHARACTERS: Any characters that are affiliated with your nation. You will RP through these characters.
NATION RACES: Describe any races that live in your country.

Other things to include might be a description of the terrain, features of the main cities, a ruler biography, a list of things your country is known for (art? music? food? military prowess? etc.) Other great characters that come from your country (famous actors or poets, gladiators or notorious pirates and thieves etc.)

How the game is played:

TURNS progress in seasons starting in Summer,621 AE (after empire). Each turn is one season long (Summer,Autumn,Winter,Spring).

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ORDERS and how they (might) work:

Orders are how you interact or RP with the world and other players. In general only one major action may be used a turn (like moving an army into battle, or excavating a Doan Ruin). Any number of minor actions may be taken (writing letters, Soliciting officers, Sending envoys.
-When considering whether an action is major or minor a few things might be taken into consideration: Major actions involve large groups of people or a multitude of entities (like constructing a new city or moving an army or fleet etc.) Minor actions might involve only one or two (sending a spy into your rivals city, or sending a single ship to port)

Orders must be in the form of Speeches,Letters, Journal Entries or anything else you can think of that your Nations Ruler could say or write. Speeches given to the public or at court might raise or diminish public favor. Letters to foreign nations or commanders in the field could sway the outcome of a battle or alliance.

Other orders will be things that your nation does. (Army movements, Construction, Maintenance, Research etc.)

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WEALTH and Spending


Wealth points may be used to buy things for your country

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CONSTRUCTION and Maintenance


Every army has upkeep. How long can you keep your army in the field before your coffers are empty?

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MAGIC and Artifacts

The ancient mythology of the Doan civilization tells of wondrous items crafted in the past, items that bestow great power upon the owner. Discovery of these artifacts could bring your nation great notoriety and wealth.

Example Magic Items:

Ring of the Seahorse
This Gold and Larimar ring has interwoven seahorses etched into the band. When the bearer nears water the seahorses begin to move around the ring, joining and unjoining tails.

Stylus of the Emperor
This ostrich feather quill pen is wrapped in gold fabric and has a nib of platinum. Any correspondence written with this pen will receive an automatic favorable disposition. (any requests are more likely to be granted etc.)

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NPC nations:

Ikvar

Nation Name:Ikvar
Ruler Name: Tarsus Ivalian,
Races: Human, Gnome, Dwarf, Elves,Half-Elves,Minotaur, Orc/Goblin (slaves)

History:The name Ikvar harkens back to an older era, an Empire that once ruled all of the Middle Sea Kingdoms. After the decline of the Empire, a few warlords joined under a single ruler of house Ivalian. 600 years later an Ivalian still rules the maritime nation of Ikvar.

INFLUENCE:3 The name Ikvar carries with it a certain prestige, as it is known across the whole of the Middle Sea. A certain prejudice is carried with it as well-the centuries after the fall of the Empire were especially harsh. Tarsus Ivalian has worked tirelessly to reestablish the name of his forebears carrying culture and technology to distant ports-more often than not, an Ikvarian fleet on the horizon is a good sign.
WEALTH:2 Rebuilding a country is expensive. A huge fleet requires upkeep. The royal coffers are nearly empty, but trade is rebounding after the dark era following the fall and ensuing wars. Ikvari ambassadors work tirelessly to establish good trade practice with nearly every nation of the Middle Sea. Expenses are rising but the economy is on the upswing.
POWER:4 Being a (almost!) island nation, Ikvar's navy is nothing short of miraculous. The backbone of the navy is the Royal-Red-Stripes,(RRR) 243 ships protect the trade routes and mainland Ikvar. Nearly 1000 privateers could be called upon to protect the country should need arise (although the cost would surely break Ikvars economy)

To-Do:
Color Map
Write NPC nations of Ikvar,Valheim,Peralt
Exploration of ruins
Finish/Edit Nation stats block
Finish wealth/spending
finish construction/maintenance

[Feigling]

I'm interested. Looks good.

Also, first time RPer. Hi.

[Rhymer]

Feigling said
I'm interested. Looks good.Also, first time RPer. Hi.

Hi Feigling,

Thanks for taking a look. I'm well and new to these forums too. If your interested go ahead and subscribe to this thread.

[Burthstone]

This certainly looks interested, and It certainly looks like it'll be interesting once everything is worked out, I have ideas already.

Also, Welcome to the guild!

[Rhymer]

Burthstone said
This certainly looks interested, and It certainly looks like it'll be interesting once everything is worked out, I have ideas already.Also, Welcome to the guild!

Hi Burthstone. This is certainly slow going but hopefully promising once I've finished. Thanks for taking a look. If you have ideas feel free to post in this thread.

[DELETED324324]

I'm Interested

[Feigling]

Nice X-Com reference, Enlias.

[Honored Brother]

Looks interesting.
I'll willing to join.

[Dinh AaronMk]

You had me until the RTS-tier stats. Then you lost me.

[Rhymer]

Dinh AaronMk said
You had me until the RTS-tier stats. Then you lost me.

Could you be more specific? This game/system is totally up for debate. I'm more interested in role playing and world building then comparing number charts. I like to write-not run numbers all day. Later today I will have a blank region map and some first ideas about exploring Doan ruins and acquiring artifacts.

[Dinh AaronMk]

The notified existence of ancient artifacts as something that gives statistical boons, the fact there is a unit list, and that posts need to be written as orders in which their effect will be determined by someone else, sections placing emphasis on how one's allowed to spend, build, or whatever. If you're interested in world building then just give us a world and let the players paint it, if there are things you feel MUST be included, then do so in the story introduction or even reserve the first IC post for yourself to mention or lay down the basic things you want included in lore building. But it's not going to come from a rigid attempt at raining in things by structuring it as Civilization, it raises arbitrary numerical restrictions.

[ASTA]

Dinh AaronMk said
You had me until the RTS-tier stats. Then you lost me.

That^

[Rhymer]

Dinh AaronMk said
The notified existence of ancient artifacts as something that gives statistical boons,
the fact there is a unit list, and that posts need to be written as orders in which their effect will be determined by someone else, sections placing emphasis on how one's allowed to spend, build, or whatever. If you're interested in world building then just give us a world and let the players paint it, if there are things you feel MUST be included, then do so in the story introduction or even reserve the first IC post for yourself to mention or lay down the basic things you want included in lore building. But it's not going to come from a rigid attempt at raining in things by structuring it as Civilization, it raises arbitrary numerical restrictions.

First, let me say thanks for taking the time to tell me what you think. I think basically your saying drop all of the "game" aspects. I have to apologize, I'm not used to RPing for the sake of RPing; I come from a tabletop gaming background. The point of the nations stats is to give a player an idea of what their nation is capable of accomplishing. I don't want space flight discovered on turn 3. Maybe I should trust the players to play along nicely and ditch the stats ?

I guess I have to decide if I want to run an RP or a strategy game-although I've browsed this forum and most of the other games running use units and statistics and seem waaaaaaay more complicated then what I am proposing. As for the orders thing, I think I may have worded it funny. I do not mean to say that you should be creative for the sake of trying to get me to agree to your plans or whatever-but rather as an incentive to stick to character. I can rewrite that.

I do however believe that games with clearly written, concise rules can be very entertaining for players. I think I need to work on that :)

[So Boerd]

I for one love stats.

[Pepperm1nts]

I am taking a liking to them from seeing how they work in WiR (which uses a great system).

[Rhymer]

Pepperm1nts said
I am taking a liking to them from seeing how they work in WiR (which uses a great system).

Just browsed World in Revolution-very impressive! Far more complicated than I am prepared to get into for this game however.

[Burthstone]

I both like and dislike stats. Stats keep people more honest, true, but limits what you can do. But I think the 'GM tells you results' thing is a good idea. And stats such as money, economy, an population would be a good things to keep track of. As those are VERY important.

[Rhymer]

Updated with a color map. If anyone wants to start outlining a nation/ruler, post what you have in this thread and we can all discuss. Only things to keep in mind:

• The Rule of Cool, If you have a great idea outside of this outline or you just absolutely want to have it, we're going to use it.
• The Ikvari Empires influence was great, sympathizers still exist six centuries later.
• Religion is Polytheistic, although a somewhat popular monotheistic religion is emerging
• Technology is roughly equivalent to the age of Renaissance
• Use any inspiration for naming conventions from that era. Even if you want to travel outside Europe, just keep it consistant. I don't want any Tokugawa Ieysu's ruling over 'Black Wood' in 'Italia'.
• If your not sure, post it anyway we can talk about it.

[Burthstone]

(Work In Progress)

Drëkav

Nation Name: Drëkav
Ruler Name: (Figurehead) Michen Drest
The Statistics Box: (Since you didn’t give a specific system, I’m going on a 20 point system (Twenty points total spread out on all the major attributes I could think of.))
Research and Development: 3
Army: 4
Economy: 1
Industry: 2
Crops: 2
Population: 2
City Development: 1
Culture/Religion: 0
Law Enforcement: 3
Political Freedoms: 0
Civil Rights: 3
Exports/Imports: 0

INFLUENCE: Leader isn’t very popular, but the large military (Ten years of required service) and trained secret police keep people too afraid to try and fight back
WEALTH: The economy is fairly poor, due to the high taxes and strict regulations on everything save home life. Homeless rates would be high if homeless people weren’t killed.
POWER: Powerful Military for a nation of its size, and it’s constantly trying to improve upon technology, often giving them the upper-hand militarily, along with numbers.

Terrain: For the most part a northern country, most of it is not arable, the southernmost reaches are where all the farms in the entire country reside, and they barely support the population. The country is also mostly surrounded in mountains, which keep it isolated and well defended from attack, which is why they’ve never been successfully invaded since the nation was formed.

Exports and Imports: None. Drëkav controls mines of Copper, Iron, and salt. As well as stone quarries. And so has no need to trade.

Civil Rights: Peoples of all genders, nationalities, races, or whatever else, are treated by their income and their ‘use’.

Cities: Cities are centered around a massive bell tower. Around the tower is a large semi-circular courtyard, which doubles as a crude sun dial, as the tower’s shadow is cast into the courtyard. Planned Cities are also built for maximum protection of the central tower, and the governmental center located behind it. The City Garrison is typically near the ‘main’ entrance to the city, one side of which is either part of a wall surrounding the city or is planned to be.

There are currently three cities: Krëp, Doun, and Dainl. Krëp is the capital city, and houses one fourth of the entire population of the moderately-small nation.

Government: The Government and how it works is largely unknown, and the common people simply refer to it as ‘The Hierarchy’. Nobility knows what the government is, and how it operates. Michen Drest serves as the figurehead of the government and would be mistaken as the ‘leader’ by the common peoples.

Military Service: Military ultimately focused around Honor and Duty. People who desert, or fail to complete their ten years required active duty (Outside of uncontrollable medical conditions, EG: Being paralyzed) in most communities will get you shunned. Ranking is not determined by merit or intelligence, but on skill in battle, up to a point. There is a certain point where “Deremas” (Name subject to change, I don’t have the phonetic translation sheet nearby) the government’s special agents and personal body guards, hand pick promotions. It is every soldier’s goal to reach these hand-picked ranks, for reasons listed before.

(Not sure on a good title here.): Locally, nobles run the show, with their massive wealths and large castles. They often run their provinces feudally, but a few nobles are nicer, allowing people to actually own their houses and simply pay a small tax per working person living there to the noble, who then in turn pays money to the government. However, the people still ultimately end up with very little money, since the Government spends its money controlling every aspect of the country, which requires a massive amount of funding. This is highly detrimental, since only nobles then have the money to afford businesses that can hire more than one or two assistants. This leads to people serving in the army for longer than ten years often, as they are payed a very minimal untaxed salary and don’t have to pay taxes for a home, as they move with the army. Ultimately, the average citizen earns barely enough to feed themselves and maybe one child.

Celebrations and Events: Any outdoor events must first receive approval by the mayor of the town, or, should it incompass multiple towns or a large well-known town, the approval of the local Noble must be obtained. Cities must receive approval from the Hierarchy themselves, which is done through the local noble. The only nation-wide offical event is ‘Year break’ which lasts an entire month.

’Year Break’: In order to keep the population from starving, a Census is taken in the middle year, where newborn children and pregnancies are counted, as well as the number of individuals who are too old to serve in the military or work in the mines. On the last month of the year, the number of expected children by ‘Year Break’ is decided, half that number of older people are selected (To account for likely deaths of babies, and executions are also included in this number), and hunted down and killed throughout the month. Single parents, former high-ranking military veterans, and Nobles are excluded from this list. Homeless and people with Debilitating diseases are automatically selected first. On the first day of the month, all the new laws made that year are announced at a required-attendance ceremony in every town and city (Multiple times in the cities, but only the first is required.). The law announcements are made so no person can say ‘They didn’t know’.

Labor: Prisoners and extremely poor families that can’t afford to go back into the military work the farms or the mines, depending on physical ability, former rank, and location. They’re paid in not needing to pay taxes and food, instead of money. People who work in these sad places can never afford any kind of frivolities, and live sad miserable barely-existences.

Why do people follow?: A combination of fear and respect for the government prevents revolts. People fear the military, the secret police, and the Deremas provoke pure fear if one is thinking of committing of even pickpocketing. As, most of the time, the penalty for crime is death, and one less name that needs to be drawn. An uprising would simply be suicide, as there’s barely enough food to go around, and raiding farms does a good deal more damage than most people are willing to cause. Any organized rebellion would end in a week or less from lack of food, and no one knows where the people in charge of making laws is actually located.

Deremas: The government’s agents, both secret and not, effectively. Young children that show some unique physical or supernatural ability are drafted into training until they are twenty-five. The training process is unknown, but even the most compassionate little children come out cold blooded killers that could kill their own mother without batting an eye. They are typically armed with a crossbow, a medium-length narrow sword meant for speed, a number of knives, lock picks, and powerful martial art skills. They serve as envoys, assassins, bodyguards, diplomats, you name any official government position that is of power or external affairs, they serve it. However, there are typically only about fifty at time.

Foreign Policy: Isolationistic. If the government of Drëkav can avoid any kind of foreign reliance or situation, they will. They choose to do their best to support themselves by themselves. Their army is kept mostly as a deterrent to bothering them. But should someone threaten them, they will not hesitate on a full-out invasion of the offending nation

The Bell Towers: The bell towers serve partly as watch towers, the start and end to the work day, a crude clock, and multiple other practical uses for a large tower. In emergencies, the tower serves as a haven for the first groups of people there. The towers are typically square, fifty feet by fifty feet, and around a hundred fifty feet tall. Typically split into five floors, the top two are restricted from the general public if they somehow find times in their lives to visit it.

Population: Population is highly mixed, numerous human and B-human races inhabit the area. Cross breeding isn’t uncommon, and it’s become uncertain which was the first race there as well. The Census reports typically estimate around three million expected individuals at the end of ‘Year Break’.

[Feigling]

Would a psuedo-Ottoman empire that speaks a language inspired by German be okay?

I was planning on using Shamshirs and Kilijs but the name of the ruler is Weiss. I thought that Turkish and German sounded similiar, so I didn't see a problem. Everything else would be Ottoman inspired, obviously.