It is year 1201, of the Era of Sagittarius, reign of Angel Cherubim. The combined trading power of Chalewiel and Astieb are a colossus that stands astride the world, awing any and everyone. Ships are built, going through seas and oceans, straits and canals. Agreements, marriages, pacts are made. And wars declared. It is in these days that fates of men, families, and kingdoms are sealed. As the Cardinals battle against the Ularids, and the Astiebenese clash over strategically important locations, that our play begins. ------------------------------ Hey guys, this is a Medieval-themed nation roleplay taking in the elements of diplomacy, warfare and intrigue. You lead a dynasty that rules a kingdom, interacting with other such families and vying for power and control. Another note to add, when your dynasty dies out, game over for you. You'll be given vassals who can be another enemy as well. Decisions that you make affect the game, and in the end make for a dynamic and interesting story. Have fun. The rules are simple. Be friendly to each other, don't metagame information, and my word is law. Bam. Everything goes like this - There are the seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Each season gets its' own update, everybody gotta send all their decisions and actions to me on the PM each season and write up a post explaining about it. I later put the outcomes of such decisions back in the PM and some more public ones in the IC. OFFICIAL MAP [img]http://i.imgur.com/qL0CxMj.png[/img] [img]http://i.imgur.com/5yre72c.jpg[/img] ----------------------- OFFICIAL KINGDOM APP Name of the Kingdom: Current Ruler: Dynasty: Flag: (You can put an image or describe it here, the coat of arms too, if you'd like.) History: Traits: Claim on the map: (Please supply an image, don't try to describe that stuff.) Additional things to fill in: (Culture, Traditions, Customs, Et Cetera.) You have 10 points to spend on all traits. You must have two flaws. You can get more flaws in exchange for more points. Feel free to get some Special Traits and Flaws, and I'll see them over. ---------------------------- KINGDOM TRAITS **A web of whispers** Your master of spies is a genius. His contacts are numerous and you have many insiders in different courts. Your spies are good at seeking out and buying information, at spying, extorting, falsifying, and sabotaging. Although such a reputation doesn't make you popular. **A breaker of webs** Your agents are many, and as such they combat the spy network with great efficiency. **Honorable folk (Cannot take with A web of whispers)** In all of history you were known for being most honorable. Your diplomats are one of the most trusted, although that makes all the more.. Sneakier affairs, more difficult. **Beloved by the people** Your royal family is widely popular among the peasantry. To sow dissent and seeds of doubt into your populace would be met with fierce resistance, for sometimes even a bad jest about your cousin's lazy eye could get you into trouble. **Friends with the nobles** Your dynasty sometimes gave landed titles to those they deemed worthy, or they sometimes helped during disasters or married some nobles, making quite some blue-blooded people happy. **Wondrous beauty** Your cities are adorned with fountains, gargoyles, churches, cathedrals, chapels, statues. Not to mention the world's wonder in your capital. **Developed infrastructure** Your roads are well-built, your villages have wells, watchtowers, schools, and even walls sometimes. Armies and caravans pass rather quickly through your lands. **Clean streets** Your streets are regularly patrolled by the city guard. **Fair law** Your justice court is renowned for its' fairness. No one can complain about unfair treatment at your unbuyable judges' hand. **Schools** Your people are taught in schools. Some folks are literate. ------------------------- MILITARY TRAITS **Knowledge of war** All high-ranked officers and commanders learn from veterans in military institutes. Your strategists are brilliant and can plan elaborate attacks and maneuvers. Many interesting cavalry and infantry formations are known. **Messengers with wings** Your communication is rather fast with the use of trained birds. It helps relay urgent and sometimes vital orders to different places. **Show of war** Songs are sung, crests and sigils are adorning the shields, tabards, flags, and even painted on faces. The morale in such moments is extremely strong. **War taxes** You tax your populace in time of conflict. It helps greatly with paying for the upkeep and cost of armies. However, if war goes on for too long, the peasants will revolt. **Foraging** Your armies can live off the lands indefinitely; hunting game, gathering fruits and growing vegetables. It helps sustain your army in alien lands. **Big armies** You don't miss up on an opportunity to recruit more people, even if they lack in a finger, eye, or limb. You recruit the old men, the boys barely out of their teens, and even women at times. This does however add more mouths to feed sometimes and more people to pay to, but can be worth it when needed cannon fodder. **Masters of ambush** Your armies have mastered the art of ambushing an enemy - taking them by surprise and slaughtering them. Indeed, a small squad can destroy an entire entourage of soldiers if they have prepared all the traps and tricks needed for the excellent ambush. **Good equipment** Many of your soldiers have access to good equipment, which means that they'll fight with better armor and arms. However if you take this trait along with the trait 'Big armies' you get a modifier making less soldiers have the same good armor and weapons. **Heavy armor (Cannot take with Light armor.)** Your forces are heavily armored, prone to enduring many blows in battle in exchange for mobility. **Light armor (Cannot take with Heavy armor.)** Your soldiers are lightly armored, leading to them being more faster and mobile. *Note that the Heavy and Light armor are simply preferences. You will still have heavy cavalry or heavy infantry if you take the Light armor. Just that they'd be less heavy than the ones with the 'Heavy armor' trait chosen.* **Good archers** Your archers are extremely good, either at discipline and teamwork or at being good shots. **Jousting lords** Your knights have practiced jousting at tournaments for hundreds of years. This means that your lancers are amongst the finest. **Trained troops** The troops that you command are highly skilled and disciplined, taught the art of war and all of its' great and important details. The men are hardened warriors with training and are ready for combat. However, if you take this trait along with the trait 'Big army' you'll get a modifier with less soldiers being experienced and somewhere along the recruits unless after several battles. **Sieging genius** Your engineers know well the craft of building siege towers, siege ladders and digging under the walls. All in all, you are feared as a besieger. **Awe-inspiring fortifications** Your castles and keeps are known for its' beauty, but most of all its' security as they stands tall and imposing, as a big challenge for the world. The kingdom's forts are highly valued strategic positions which reinforce certain regions and protect it from the foe. **Ships** Your navy is formidable with many a ship, crewed by bonny sailors and admirals. **Riding the waves (Can't take with 'Massive ships' trait)** Your ships are among the fastest. You ride atop the waves as if on a chariot, and can cross seas and oceans with ease. **Seaworthy** Don't worry about your entire fleet sinking to meet the god of water himself! Because with the vessels you possess, it's near impossible. **Massive ships (Can't take with 'Riding the waves' trait)** The ships in your fleet are massive, and can take in more than several hundred men, as well as hundreds of crates. But they're rather slow. ------------------------ TRADE TRAITS **Agriculture** Your fields and soil are rich. Your people can feed off it and make bread aplenty. All in all, it is a big bonus to feeding your civilians and your big hosts. **Filthy rich (COSTS 2 POINTS, REQUIRES IMPORTANT TRADE ROUTES TRAIT)** You live in mythical extravagance, for you are very rich and your coffers are full. **Rich with ores** After successful expeditions into your mountains, you've discovered numerous veins of rich ores and still to this day you're making profit from them. **Important trade routes (COSTS 2 POINTS)** Many roads vital to international trade go through your country. Merchant guildmasters bow and pay tariffs to you, coin circulates through your demesne like blood. **Ports** Trading ships set anchor upon your shores as they trade many different, important and luxurious resources from overseas. **Industry** Your craftsmen and artisans create many important and quality goods. **Black market** There is some very interesting wares that can be purchased in your domain, if you find the right person and have good coin. And even for Your Majesty's unspoken approval, they can give a share. [b]Ancient merchant families** Your merchant families are old, all having haggled with kings and queens of old. Through them you can get access to many other markets and places. The Merchant families and guilds are extremely powerful, almost as powerful as your vassals, or even more. **Caravans** Not just caravans. Very well guarded ones, extraordinarily quick and big. Your merchants won't get robbed by some filthy brigands, and sometimes an army won't stop them, though that's unlikely. --------------- *Do not take Flaws which are completely opposite of the traits you took. For an example, it's better not to take a flaw about bad ships when you chose many traits for good ships.* Flaws **Not a flawless family** Your family members all have flaws. Maybe one is crippled, the other proud and slothful, third a feebleminded abomination. That doesn't help with alliances, which are almost all made through betrothal. Nor does it help with popularity. **Not a flawless family 2** Something horrible had been once discovered about your family, and it's a sweet juice for rumors to be made by your foes. **Corruption** There is clientelism, bribery, and other disgusting things in your government. Your closest advisors take a slice of the tax money for themselves and possess too much power, fighting over the kingdom like petty children. **Arguable claims** Several of your vassals have been married to your ancestors, and all have some considerable claims on the throne, putting your dynasty at risk. **Horrible vassals** Your vassal lords are not very nice to you, nor to each other. They often fight and burn each others' estates, sowing chaos in the country with their disputes and skirmishes. They also often do not help out with troops nor financial contributions to the good of the realm. **Debt** Your parents left you in a bad debt to several rich merchant families. This hurts your prestige and they can take action to take back the money you owe them, by force. Better pay up. **Beggars by day, brigands by night** The poor turn to banditry as a way to eat some more bread at the expense of others. They kill and rob, getting bolder day by day. **Sellswords** Often mercenary companies form the backbone of your army, which is not a very good thing considering that they are only loyal to their purse. **Depleted resources** Your fields cannot sustain your populace, your mines are abandoned and ruined as there is nothing else left to milk out of it. **Hated by the people** Your dynasty better get some equivalent of a Varangian Guard to supress revolts, because there's going to be plenty. Your ruler is loathed and despised by many, (for a reason you can make up yourself.) **Overly powerful merchant guilds** These ones can become an annoyance if you get on their bad side. They can even try and assassinate you if they consider you dangerous or a liability. **Terrible boats** Your hulls are broken, there are holes in it and the sail is nearly ripped apart. Your fleet is a pitiful view. **Even your horses look weak** Yes, your cavalry deserves its' obscurity in the world. Many horses are lame, swaybacked, stubborn, and bad-tempered. Not to speak of your 'knights'. **Your arrows fly like dung** The archers of your kingdom are bad at their jobs. They're an undisciplined raggle-taggle host of weak, cowardly rangers. **Serf Armies** Your infantry is rather undisciplined, and at times poorly armed. [/hider][/hider]

So, the initial plot is going to be Crusades analogue?

might there be a nation sheet we need to fill out?

might there be a nation sheet we need to fill out? scratch that just saw the kingdom sheet

App is incredibly incomplete; I just want to see if my traits are appropriate and hear where my sort of civilization could go. Name of the Kingdom: The Kingdom of Lazaria Current Ruler: Fiox of Kahles Dynasty: Lazarian Dynasty. The Lazarian Dynasty is a ancient dynasty, with blood lines (claimed) to have gone back over a thousand years with unbroken secession; the blood of a Lazarian man considered holy to the point where it is believed that by touching a relic with lazarian blood can heal the sick and blind. Lazarians give legitimacy to their dynasty through their warrior caste, who are said to all be descendants of the first Lazarian king that keep order in the Lazarian Kingdom. A successor is designated on the condition that it is a Lazarian of the Warrior caste who has taken control, very often the Lazarian king in power has the firstborn son become the king of Lazaria. Lazarian warriors come in both sexes, the female descendants of the first Lazarian warriors being forced to wield arms with their male counterparts- for they are of Lazarian blood, after all. The only true Lazarians considered worthy of ruling are those of pure Lazarian breeding and blood; tainting Lazarian blood with the blood of commoners or even royal blood of the other kingdoms is tantamount to treason in the Lazarian Kingdom. Flag: (i'll make one later) History: (WIP) Traits: Good traits- Honorable Folk: The Lazarian kingdom, should they carry out diplomacy with the royalbloods always keep their word and will keep loyal to any alliance or agreement unless betrayed. The Lazarians are notorious, however, for being quick to declare war on those who break agreements. A Breaker of Webs Developed Infrastructure Clear Streets Heavy Armor Trained Troops Show of War Big Armies Awe-inspiring Fortifications Jousting Lords Seiging Genius Good Equipment Rich With Ores Industry Bad traits- Hated By the People Terrible Boats Your Arrows Fly Like Dung Famine- Poor Farming practices has made much the land unarable and the current populations of the kingdom unsustainable. Beggars by Day, brigands By Night Not a Flawless Family 2 Claim on the map: (Unsure which region this sort of kingdom would be best in) Additional things to fill in: The tainted lazarians, who are of the product of treasonous acts by lazarians who interbreed with the commonbloods or royalbloods are notorious for their mercenary work, in some vain drive to prove they are as much lazarian in blood as any pure lazarian.

You got 14 traits and 4 flaws. I'm not sure about it, but since 2 flaws are the minimum I think that for 14 traits you would need 6 flaws.

I modified my traits in response, got a devilish idea of the current state of my kingdom as a result. Mainly that the peasantry is a total disaster in the Lazarian kingdom.

> I modified my traits in response, got a devilish idea of the current state of my kingdom as a result. > > Mainly that the peasantry is a total disaster in the Lazarian kingdom. Ok, but aren't depleted resources and rich in ores the opposite?

Not completely since depleted resources means both the fields can't sustain produce and mining resources are depleted. I figured rich ores would cancel out the part where the mining is poor too.

> Not completely since depleted resources means both the fields can't sustain produce and mining resources are depleted. I figured rich ores would cancel out the part where the mining is poor too. Then there's no point in picking the two. OP says to not pick traits that will cancel each other

The trait system oddly enough has good agriculture and good ore be separate traits, but depleted resources as a negative trait gives both poor ore and farmland.. Is there a any reason why you can't have poor agriculture, but good ore or vice versa? The traits don't cancel out because I still suffer from having a lack of arable land even if the good ore trait negates the secondary ore depletion. If the traits are as rigid as you imply, i'll suggest two new negative traits: Empty Mines- Your kingdom has depleted most, if not all the mines in the land. Famine- Poor Farming practices has made much the land unarable and the current populations of the kingdom unsustainable.

Then take away 'Rich with Ores' and replace 'Depleted Resources' with a custom flaw about bad farmland. 'Rich with Ores' implies a surplus of precious metals, not "normal amounts".

I've suggested a couple new negative traits, but it sounds like special traits require GM approval. I'm keeping rich with ores since it makes sense for the kind of kingdom I created. Farmland is poor due to shit agricultural technique and being in a environment with poor arable land to begin with.

Wait so is it safe to assume this is like a version of Game of Thrones?

> Wait so is it safe to assume this is like a version of Game of Thrones? Every medieval RP that's low fantasy these days is like a version of game of thrones.

APP Name of the Kingdom: Merchant Republic of Ytterova Current Ruler: Grand Minister Dyrbov Mstislav Vasilievich (Age: 45) Dynasty: House Vasilievich An old merchant house, one of the first few that started in the region. Roots tracing back to simple cloth merchants, through connections, intrigue and coin their trade ports and caravans know make up the backbone of the Republics Trade routes. Competition for control and the coveted seat of Grand Minister keep House Vasilievichand the other patrician houses sharp, always looking for the next big opportunity to grow in influence and wealth. With the most recent Grand Minister Arno Vasilievich elected for his creation and management of new trade routes to the north and west bringing forth great wealth replaced the late Krasnov Arkadiy Yakovich of House Yakovich. Elected for life he has his peoples' ambitions in his hands. Flag:  Territory: History: The people of Ytterova are merchants through and through. The capital of Yttergrad sits upon the shores of the nearby straight. In its prospective years in was simply small town that catered to passing ships and their sailors. Over time they felt the pull of trade, with many ships coming in and out of area, many connections were made and products sold. Dubbed the "Great Gates of Gold", the straight crossing facilitates trade between the two seas and has created a culture of tolerant, but deathly ambitious merchants. Their boundaries have encompassed much of the peninsula and claims were recently staked on two nearby islands, furthering their control on the sea trade in the region. Of course the excessive wealth and opulence breeds greed and violence like no other. Outside forces such as pirates, bandits, and upstart states sought to take from the Republic, however private fleets and mercenary guilds loyal only to gold were created to protect the interests of the merchant families. Even today the security and peace of the republic rests upon its coffers. The state of the republic kept in check by the Grand Minister, his duties include protecting the trade routes (and people by extension), moderating the rival families, and creating treatises and embassies with foreign nations. Of course the merchant families are responsible for the creation and maintenance of their own routes, and supplement the trade security with their own soldiers.The constant flow of cash has allowed the Republic to develop civic projects, and the importance of trade has created a myriad of well kept roads and sea ports. Advantages: **Kingdom** - Developed Infrastructure - Schools **Military** - Seaworthy - Trained Troops **Trade** - Important trade routes - Filthy Rich - Ancient merchant families - Ports - Caravans Disadvantages: - Sellswords - Overly powerful merchant guilds - Corruption (Im gonna go ahead and take an extra advantage and disadvantage if thats cool) Culture: The people of Ytterova are an ambitious lot, the belief of rags to riches is a clear and present aspect of daily life. There are many examples of this, as the lowly peasant given enough drive during their education can become a massive force in the trade industry. The major Merchant families akin to large corporations they take upon prospects from every aspect of life (given enough merit). In the republic gold is king and most services are privatized and monetized with even schools competing to receive the greatest prospects. However, Ytterova is not without its vices. Corruption, especially to those in power is rampant. In addition the excess leads to oppulant lifestyles: drugs and prostitution, and gambling are an everyday (and legal) occurrence. The Grand Minister's duty is to lead his people to wealth and influence having executive and legislative power to administer. The GM is more commonly known as the "Elected King," the man elected among the most influential families by a council of patricians (The Heads of the 10 largest merchant families).

^ Afraid you're not unique in thinking that's a good area to set up, bark. My faction, S'laaeth, includes that area, and I only managed to put them there after a first fellow decided he'd be alright shifting eastward. I suddenly find myself agreeing with you about that trade thing, Pepper. Wishing I'd gone with one of my other faction concepts now.

I told ya. I wasn't trying to upset anyone when I first said it. I was only hoping that saying so would inspire some people to do something different so the RP played out more interestingly.

My fleet of viking raid...I mean merchants most definitely, certainly, absolutely, positively plans on not destroying stuff.

Considering the heat of my area in particular, I'm considering setting S'laaeth aside and writing up a new sheet based on one of my other ideas. If I chose that, though, I'd wait until conventional coding is back to do it. **Unfinished Claims Map**  *Note that it is possible, even likely, that some accepted nations are not shown, and some unaccepted nations are shown. I believe it's been accepted that Affadyqid, for instance, is to the east of its current position on the map.*