For real though we should put some serious thought into what commanders are known by other commanders. And cultures. And things like that.
Missed this... and possibly some other things? I've been pushed to the limit this week lol, and I'm starting to worry I got too focused on getting sheets accepted than answering any questions. Looks like I'll have to trawl through things and see if I missed anything. Sorry if this makes me look incompetent, but I am just one guy with a full time job - not sure how fast you guys expect me to work, but I do go as fast as I reasonably can when it comes to organising things.
Any patience you can lend me will be greatly appreciated. Anyway, moving onto this topic of commanders knowing each other, and of other realms.
SOOOOOOOOOOOOO, I've left the Moonsong Alliance as this vague, great unity of diverse nations for a reason. And that reason is to allow maximum creativity. To have crafted the Alliance properly, would have meant me turning this into a Nation RP, which I don't really want. Therefore, this "Moonsong Alliance" of ours will remain fairly vague - but perhaps now is the time that I should shed more light on it.
I hadn't done so this far because A) I didn't think I'd get enough players to make it a problem, and B) I hadn't entirely decided on its origins yet, other than it has been around for centuries and is a volatile union of states that exists out of mutual gain rather than any form of moral agreement.
Sorta like our world at the moment, all nations have realised that many of them have enough power to do some serious damage to each other - perhaps even the planet as a whole. Therefore, many of them live in an uneasy harmony, a kind of forced union. The same way you don't really see
much war these days. Not real war anyway. Just petty struggles with no clear or obtainable objective... which parallels the state of the Alliance perfectly.
Nations within the Alliance bicker constantly, and there are always skirmishes and minor wars between states, but things are usually reigned in before things get too end-of-worldy, or if a particular country threatens to become greater than a significant amount of its neighbours. There are of course countries that are near-super powers within the Alliance, and those that are barely a city-state. Political unions and economic spheres of influence overlap each other, resulting in a cauldron of boiling disaster that may eventually blow up and end everything.
It can't possibly last, but for now it has, and in a way, Gargth's rise to power has given the Alliance a real purpose: mutual defence in the face of a great catastrophe.
... I better add a section detail this in the RP
Anyway, to finally answer the question: the Alliance is vast, it's possible that many countries only know vaguly of others; on the other hand, its possible they're very familiar with some. This is simply down to player preference. If two of you want your Champions to be best buds or arch enemies, then that's up to you.
EDIT: Here's what I've put up for now. Hope it sheds some light. Shouldn't break anyone's sheets who referenced the Alliance.
The Moonsong Alliance Explained: What happens when two nations possessing the means to obliterate large swathes of the planet come toe to toe in a conflict of political, religious or economic interest?
There are only two outcomes of this age-old conundrum. Mutual annihilation, or a reluctant peace.
The Moonsong Alliance was birthed from the latter scenario, between a group of warring nations many centuries ago. None had the power to both destroy their enemies and yet guarantee their own survival in a cauldron of war and death that had all but exhausted both their peoples and their resources over the span of decades.
Realising that they could not move forwards with continued hostilities, this group of nations instead formed an Alliance - creating a shallow peace in exchange for the liberty of conquest in areas that were not contested by conflicting interests.
This should have paved the way for mighty empires to arise, but it was not so. In their bid to expand their borders, the founding nations of the Moonsong Alliance raced each other to acquire land and influence. Rather than conquer smaller countries and isolated city states, they sought to bring them into their own respective blocs. A way of officiating this process, was allowing these vassal states into the Alliance.
At first, the founding members of the Moonsong Alliance and their political blocs ballooned. Large swathes of land came under their respective influences, and soon, over a third of the world carried the same banner - if only in name. However, it did not take long for these blocs to break down, as minor nations sought their own independence. Revolutions erupted across the land, thus fracturing what power the founding members held over all those that had once paid homage to them.
Fast forward five hundred years, and several thousand rewritings of the Moonsong Treaty, and the Alliance is now a loosely aligned patchwork quilt of over a hundred nations, all bound by the same flag, but little else. Petty skirmishes and minor wars are a common daily event, and any attempt at creating a central authority has proved a fruitless endeavour. Instead, the Alliance has so far maintained itself by a method of self-policing.
A country invades a neighbour; that neighbour's sponsors and allies rush to its aid, as do those who hold sway with the aggressor. Before long, nations from across the globe are dispatching soldiers to fight on the newest battlefield, until things come to a head and all parties realise that the only way forwards is mutual destruction. What usually follows is a slow de-escalation of violence, lengthy negotiations, reparations, and then the world goes on.
Several times the Alliance has come to the brink, where the greatest warriors and wizards of the land threaten to undo each other in an hour of senseless and wide reaching destruction - yet always reason has prevailed, and both sides back down after realising the futility of their struggle.
But this can't last forever; in fact, it wont last forever. Gargth's rise to power in Everstrine is perhaps the first time the Alliance has mustered its forces for reasons other than keeping the peace; this time, the soldiers of Moonsong fight to stop a great catastrophe from casting a shadow over the world.
