Senor Herp

Untold Empires: Legacy of the Old

Scratch that note about South America as a remaining choice, I've been off-and-on filling out a sheet for that business. Only thing left to touch up is the history, fill it out from bullet points to paragraphs. Once I've a free moment and a clear mind, I'll have it finished up briefly and posted for a perusal, you shall see.

The Fractured South - Nation RP

Meeky said Also, firearms for the most part brought an end to plate armor. This isn't to say that the advent of firearms immediately spelled the end of all armor, as you can see such historical troops as the Polish Hussar wearing metal armor well into the development of firearms; but you really shouldn't be standing in front of a guy with a rifle and expect your armor to get you away from the scene unscathed.

Nonsense! They existed side-by-side for quite a long time. What changed was how much was worn and where, thickening up around the center of mass while the rest often got lighter. There's a reason we have the term bulletproof, and it refers to proofing of plate armor by close-range firing. Eventually, with the advent of cheaper & more effectual firearms and the bayonet, pike & plate were out entirely for the regular and eventually cavalry, too.

Interesting anecdote about the war, though. I was aware of the involvement of Prussian mercenaries and drill instructors, but not the Blue Book, or the use of militia as an unwilling anvil. Very interesting!

The Fractured South - Nation RP

SyrianHamster said Does this make sense to anyone?

Makes sense enough to me.

Meeky said
This is reflective of feudal times. You didn't see armies of men wearing full plate and carrying nice metal swords and shields. For one, that's heavy. Also, it's really expensive to field an army so well-equipped.

If I'm not being uncouth by butting into this line, that's not entirely true in case of our period to my knowledge, or at least were it not for the unusual circumstance of complete subcontinental balkanization causing two decades of chaos. It is around this time of serpentine gunpowder that we'd start seeing munitions-class armor start getting churned out by guild workshop. And for that matter, neither is a sword especially heavy, with the heavier end of the zweihander class reaching seven pounds at most; the issue of fatigue comes from extended combat action in less heavy and more suffocating armor, not that it wasn't heavy, but the primary source was lacking ventilation compounding extended actions. Chain-draped heavy quilt gets VERY hot, and chain is often rather heavier than homogenized plate.

Meeky said Instead, you'd have a pool of professional soldiers, such as, yes, a house guard, that really did make a living out of warfare. Knights and huscarls are prime examples of such men. However, large professional armies didn't really become a "thing" until much later; a local lord would just gather up a bunch of peasants from his fields, equip them with weapons, and march them off to war. (Consequently, you usually saw a lot of people running away and deserting their armies in battle. This sort of behavior continued well into the 1700's.

It is to my understanding that this is not entirely true either. Besides gentle-blooded or knighted house guards, there were also mercenaries in the employ of lords as said guard. This in addition to further mercenaries bought for a campaign, and in addition to whatever the crown would commission. This in addition to institutions of martial familiarity like those for the English longbow meant that the core of an army was to consist of professional troops, and the core would be quite a large portion, of mercenaries and men-at-arms (knightly or otherwise.) If a belligerent was using peasant conscripts from the field, in the field, it was likely a sign they were losing already to draw so recklessly from the harvest. Large professional armies they were not, but neither were they small, with support in the form of some number semiprofessional troops drawn from the commoner.

Meeky said (The Revolutionary War in the U.S.A. is riddled with examples of militia running away as soon as the enemy closes in on them.)Making sure your armies are well fed and such is important.

Wouldn't this be more that the militias were typically guerrilla fighters in the first place? My understanding is very basic, but they were not meant nor expected to hold a line against the British without a dugout, they were to harry the enemy long enough for responsive action, hold fortification, or else were bushwhackers killing in the woods and dying in the woods. Dying less than British line infantry, though.

Meeky said Most casualties in war have historically been from disease and injuries not being treated properly, so keep that in mind. A healthy, well-fed soldier is less likely to succumb to disease than a malnourished one.

Quite right there. Carry on!

The Fractured South - Nation RP

Sheet fiddling continues. The history is rough, I feel, and too vague, and I am not certain the manpower is reasonable for too much or too little. Initially mistook the manpower for an abstract rather than one-to-one manpower to man. Feel less like standing armies proper and more the scale of house guard, not that that wasn't a significant portion of professional troops in the era besides men-at-arms, mind. What do you think, Syrian? And others, if they care to comment.

The Fractured South - Nation RP

SyrianHamster said Forgive my reservations, I am all up for creativity and what not, but it seems quirky as f**k.

Such was the purpose.

SyrianHamster said I mean Most Serene and Holy Kingdom of Helor, Empire of the Rat's Friends? Just rename it to North Korea, it's much shorter.

You steppin' on muh grorious reader?

SyrianHamster said the fact you've bothered to read the ICs and know Hightower is an ally of Helor tells me you're serious

It pays to know these things; I'll give the IC more than just a skim later, focus is on the sheet now. Conveniently, a friend is Hightowering it up for cooperative subplot makin', whenever he can get off his ass to make a post and assemble his sheet. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, CAPTAIN. GET TO IT WITH THOSE SPANISH ALPS.

SyrianHamster said but I need to know that you're not going to start spawning cartoon bunny rabbits to frighten the local slugducks. Just a "i swear I wont spawn cartoon bunny rabbits to frighten the local slugducks" will do.

Well, I wasn't GOING to, but now that you say it, I know not what I do. By which I mean I know EXACTLY what I do.

The Fractured South - Nation RP

Work-in-progress posted. Gives some idea of flavor, but is missing necessary mechanical information and characters; I wanted to put out something, at least, rather than only post a complete version some time from now. Good enough for a reservation. Work continues.

The Fractured South - Tome of Nations

Region Number: 7
Nation Name: Most Serene and Holy Kingdom of Helor, Empire of the Rat's Friends, "Shield of Hightower" and "Reliquary of the Gods."
Nation Leader: Saint-King Bharat in Divine Stead
Nation Banner: Left half is green, wreathed in a stylized depiction of vines. Right half is a stylized night sky and assembled zodiac figures. A river rushes diagonally from left down to right, crossing over both. A sunburst of green thunderbolts forms a shield shape, imposed over the other aspects.
Race: Heloran Ratmen, Minors: Rakshasa, Vanara, Ganesha
Custom Race Descriptions

Heloran

- Name: Heloran Ratman
- Life Span: Fluctuates significantly. The average-living individual could live to 50 naturally, while the brighter-burning would be lucky to see the age of 30 due to physiological limitations. Devout ascetics are known to break one hundred.
- Appearance: Varies, but most typically brown furred with white underbelly & coat, black-eyed, with black tails around their body length/height. Manner of dress is southeast Asian.
- General Traits: Rigorously casted/uncasted, cautious, magnanimous, vengeful when crossed, forgiving of the sincere, communally and personally faithful, ardently nationalist against foreign invaders. City-builders, tunnelers, agriculturalists and priests.

Rakshasa

- Name: Rakshasa
- Life Span: The lowly and well-off both live to around at greatest 40, dying of material excess.
- Appearance: Exceptionally swarthy humanoids, with skin most oft like pitch, heavy brows and facial hair, fanged mouths and strong build. Most often reach seven feet of height. Dress is as mythological Lanka. Devilish visages in the form of mask or makeup are common.
- General Traits: Temperamental, vice-ridden, arbitrary qualities tempered by shrewdness, materially inclined and disinclined to the divine. More mercantile than martial. Traders, sellswords, and racketeers.

Vanara

- Name: Vanara
- Life Span: Even more wildly fluctuating than the Helorans, the driven tend to die at 20 from some heroism/foolishness or another. No consistent middle range. Ascetics will see similar lifespans to their Heloran contemporaries.
- Appearance: As humanoid macaques, often with styled beards or moustaches. Morphology (i.e, dominance of humanoid or monkeylike feature) varies. Dress is Newār.
- General Traits: Courageous to a fault, curious, intelligent but not always wise, straightforward in application of justice. Pastoralists and craftsmen.

Ganesha

- Name: Ganesha
- Life Span: Excessive at a hundred years naturally. Often shortened by circumstance.
- Appearance: Humanoid Indian elephants. Splayed feet with four nail-jut 'toes.' Deceptively dexterous though wide & short fingers, four to a hand plus thumb. Typically approaching eight feet despite hunched back, exceptional examples approach ten. Dress is Punjabi/Sikhist.
- General Traits: Slow to rouse emotionally, intense once done. Similarly justice-inclined to the Vanara, and similarly straightforward. Maintain martial school-strongholds; otherwise nomadic grazers & limited agriculturalists outside of certain families whom maintain polders on the western coast. Hospitable if stoic, slow to make friends, long in having them.

Capital City: Dēvī pina, the Divine Pin
Other Major Settlements:
Great School of Ganesh (west lakes region, Ganeshan, fortress-school located centrally in an expansive marsh & series of polders)
Bandaragāha, City on the Water (north peninsula, Rakshasa, trade center and site of major lend-lease docking to Hightower)
Lukēkā pahāḍa, the Hidden Mountain (dispersed through southern range, Hightower border, Vanara-Heloran settlements dug and carved into the mountains & hills)
Orc mārca, the Orcmarch (Heloran agricultural stretch, burrows and sparse former Imperial wayforts, dotting along the eastern border, particularly southeast)
Gross Population:270,000 (108,000 Helorans, 54,000 Rakshasa, 81,000 Vanara, 27,000 Ganesha; any others too insignificant to serve as demographic)
Exports: Stone, rice (wheat equiv.)

History

Brief Nation History: The region of Helor has, since recorded history, been an alien place to its surroundings. A land of rainforest, jungle, marsh and wetland, giving way to deserts east & plains west, mountains south and bay north. A seeming paradise to the uninitiated, but unequivocally hostile to the foreigner, bested in this regard only by the most barren wastes. Fitting, then, that it would harbor far different peoples than the surroundings to fill the vacuum. A number of distinct populations form the national makeup, each a small nation unto its own, made as one by military adventure, diplomacy, faith or alliance in distant history by the Helorans. Brought into the Empire by King Almon III the Conqueror, previous ventures had been met with vicious failure on the western front, the marshes being untenable to advance through even without Ganeshi saint-soldiers exploiting it so terribly. It was only with Almon that a different route was sought, in expedition through the desert and into the mountains of future Hightower- less state then and more frontier- into the arguably friendlier terrain of the Vanara. There they find themselves harried by mischief instead of glaive, as adventurer rather than invader. The saving of a Heloran Saint-King from disaster against orc invasion in fulfillment of myriad prophecies saw Helor's near-immediate entry into the Empire as a client state.

From there, besides trickling advances, the writing of new sagas, and the temporary pacification of the Orcs in later day, the Heloran state of affairs remained largely the same as always. A heart of darkness, famous and infamous, from which a few interesting, groundbreaking ones, might spring. From time to time, Heloran advisers might be in vogue, or Vanara mercenaries and the rare Ganeshi crusader. Many songs were written of Rakshasan corsairs, loosing iron and smoke against the enemies of Bohaddon, and others of considerably bawdier nature. Continued development of Hightower and mutual action against the orcs saw a close bond between frontiersmen and later men of the state & the peoples of Helor, to whom few others could claim any closeness, the other immediate neighbors being hated Orcs, somewhat stigmatized West heartlanders, or divided by wide bay. Helor was one of numerous nations within nations in the Empire, but its contributions were undeniable, and its loyalty assured.

It is this close relation to the Empire and Hightower in particular which assured its stability in the times to come, but also what left it shook to the core in the Empire's fall. Confusion was rampant, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and the borders strained under skirmishes with insurrectionists, loyalists and rebels, brigands and petty warlords, and the hostility of the country to incursion was the prime reason any lasting military campaign from one aggressor or another was avoided. The Empire's fall was viewed as fulfillment of the prophetic, and of Helor's fracturing and reforging in the wake was to follow; also recorded was that 'one may hold the crown again,' though it is poetically vague. Initial civil unrest was quashed by the Saint-King Bharat's interventions; none desired to be the ones to break the covenant first, even in trying times and seeming inevitability, and conservative thought won out. Then wizened, he is only morso now; he has lived through the reign of three emperors and none. What he and his charges will live through following is for the gods to see, as tension flares through the once-peaceable state.

---

Nation Status Card
Most Serene and Holy Kingdom of Helor

Nation Status

Current Leader/Government: Saint-King Bharat
Settlements Owned: 5
Provinces Owned: 1
Population: 270,000
Standing Army:

- <The Marches>/<1200?>/<East: ????><Morale 85%> (regular-irregulars, light and medium infantry formed from formal reservists and informal militia; 'standing' in sense of being ready-at-call levies and armed citizenry)
- <Ganeshi Legion>/<900>/<Western marshes & wetlands>/<Morale 100%> (extra-heavy infantry, marsh fighters, high personal strength, comparatively small manpower in numbers to contemporaries leads to higher force dispersial, equaling smaller overall strength for non-field battle/siege operations unassisted)
- <Companions of the Misted Vale>/<800>/<Southern range: ????>/<Morale 90%> (military-monastic order, dualpurpose bushwhackers and shock infantry)

Standing Navy:

-<Rakshasan Merchant-Marines>/<# 32 light ships (merchant junks, cannon-armed)>/<14 medium ships (turtle ships; cannon armed, smokescreen, iron plated & spiked top deck, reinforced iron rams>/<2 big ships (recommissioned treasure ships)>/<Either at port or at trade in the bay & beyond; treasure ships run a long route west>/<Morale 75%>

Population Happiness: 65% (social unrest and anxiety, politically stable)
Imports: Wine (Hightower)
Exports: Rice (wheat), stone, wine (tariff from Hightower)
Wealth: Respectable
Alliances: Hightower
Trade Pacts: Hightower (wine & tarriffs for stone & stoneworker expertise)
Cease Fires:

The Fractured South - Nation RP

Allo, allo. Throwing together a sheet for Helor if there's room for one more, thought I'd notify you. Expect Indian-Polynesian ratmen and elephantman-sikh not-quite-paladins. Also monkey-gurkhas and cutthroat Rakshasa merchants.

Adrius: Age of Strife(Magitech Nation and Character RP/High Casual)

... downloader, why do you do this to me. why. I save it straight from the browser, I make no edits to the file type. None. And it somehow came out as a .jpeg even so.

ffnnngngngn. Redrawing borders by eyeballing is not going to be fun, but oh well.

Oh wait. Lower resolution, that's the source of the artifacts. Nevermind. Jaggy mess is still on you, mate.

Adrius: Age of Strife(Magitech Nation and Character RP/High Casual)

SUDDENLY



NOT-HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE

Getting back on this miserable nag of a horse again. Claims down; gray is Germany, blue is balkans/Yugoslavs, green is Magyars, gold is Papal States, dark gray is border princedoms, minor states and knightly orders, burgundy is Burgundy, vivid burgundy is not-Hansa, turquoise is bastard Venezia-Ukraine, all are under one imperial crown & Ilisian papal sect. I apologize for not being able to clean up the horrendous jaggies, but Vahir saved the last version of the map as a .jpeg. The artifacts and the mutilation of all rivers forever were beyond my ability, I did not tackle them. A proper sheet is forthcoming. Surely, it is forthcoming.