The Nexerus

World in Revolution: 1861

The Foreign Office of the Kingdom of the Netherlands,

It is the stance of the Dutch government that there is no nation on our God's green Earth which is subject to any portion of the Treaty of Constantinople. The entire operation of the treaty has been nothing but a flagrant lie to every single sovereign state in Europe, and through the role of the the spheres of influence, the world as a whole. Every single one of the signatories agreed to the terms for the sole reason that they could use them to their own personal benefit. The Treaty of Constantinople was a deceit built on lies, and any good that any of its signatories might have intended for it to do has absolutely and without question failed, outright and completely.

While all signatories of the treaty used it merely as a tool to serve their nation's will, some, like the Kingdom of Prussia, decided that liberation of the oppressed minorities of Europe was the will of their nation. Rectification of this continent's broken national borders, which are not respective of the will of the people who inhabit them, is a noble goal regardless of the means through which it is achieved. Other nations, though, like the French and British Empires, chose to use their powers given under the Treaty of Constantinople to further their goals of colonialism, and intervention in affairs outside of the continent in which every single one of the Treaty's signatories was located. They cannot possibly lie and pretend that their blockade and ensuring declaration of war on the United States of America had no connection to Constantinople, either—the existence of Article 7, which is now, apparently, being enacted upon the Netherlands—makes the British intent to use the Treaty as a tool to recollect North America all the more obvious.

If the Wallonians seek revenge for their poor state of affairs at present, it is their own King to whom their ire should be directed. Had Leopold not fled his own country, he could have signed for peace and been sipping wine in Charleroi by now, instead of Paris. The premier goal of the Kingdom of the Netherlands was and is the unity and sovereignty of the Dutch state. I warn the navies currently mustering in the North Sea that if they should choose to defy the sovereignty of the Netherlands, it will not be only the Dutch that they answer to, but all of the peoples of Europe that choose to accept the Dutch expression of sovereignty. If it is the reconquest of King William III's very birth place that compels the European continent to war, so be it.

Je maintiendrai — I will maintain.

The Netherlands does not yield.

World in Revolution: 1861

Pasta Sentient said
Thank you. We've been arguing about that forever. According to the Treaty...Prussia doesn't have the right to seize Belgium like they did.

The Lowlands are directly in between Prussia and the British Isles, and are not mentioned anywhere specifically in the Treaty. If it were well-worded, which it has proved countless times not to be, it would have specifically mentioned the Lowlands.

Not that it matters. The ToC is forfeit from the Netherlands' perspective at this point.

World in Revolution: 1861

Ampharos said
I never said it was. I just said they didn't lie, which is true.Also, stop being so condescending. I can see your ego from Vienna.

My only point is that if Prussia takes a prestige dive for leaving and revealing the ToC, every other signatory should take a dive for being associated with its secret terms and attempts at gaining executive control over the entirety of the globe. This is the stuff of New World Order conspiracies.

World in Revolution: 1861

Ampharos said
Nobody lied to anyone. We just didn't reveal the full document.

Right. I'm sure that's completely common legal practice, and the nations of the world have no reason at all for their opinions on the signatories' governments to change.

World in Revolution: 1861

Ampharos said
I really hope that we lose presitge for breaking treaties because:"Annulment of this treaty must be declared 48 months prior to the date of termination."

The signatories minus Prussia should also all lose a considerable amount of prestige based on the fact that they've been flatly lying to every single sovereign entity in Europe for the past three years, on top of a prestige loss once nations outside of Europe, in the designated spheres of influence that the ToC assigns, hear that Constantinople has been trying to exert sovereign authority over them and control over their relations with their neighbours.

World in Revolution: 1861

I feel as though William III could just say, "I told you so!" at this point, and be done with it.

Seats of Power

Lucian said He will always be able to freeze the shit out of whoever he wants.

It just seems silly to put some arbitrary, "And if it gets more than X kilometres away then it doesn't work" limit on the Shard.

Seats of Power

Lucian said
Perhaps put some sort of exact range limitation on it. It just doesn't sit right with me that you could toss the thing into a warmer climate rival's home city and watch everyone freeze to death, y'know?

The Lonely God has no rivals, but I understand your point. The entire idea of the Shard is that it's the inverse of Krustaliem's powers, being most effective furthest from where he has direct control. That its range limitation. It's less effective the closest it is to where Krustaliem is the most effective, to the point of being completely useless in Glacinus itself. I figured that it was fair as an amalgamation of all three of his potential artefacts.

Seats of Power

Lucian said How would one counter it?

The idea is that they don't. I'd intended on having it be Krustaliem's sole artefact, rather than one of three, and thus having it be particularly powerful. Three in one, so to speak.

Seats of Power

Krustaliem

Name: Krustaliem.

Title(s): The Frozen One. The Lonely God.

Seat of Power: Inside of the ice fields of northern Glacinus.

Divine Aspects: Ice and Winter; Introversion and Isolation.

Primary Form

A colossus constructed of ice, half trapped in the glacier of northern Glacinus.

Secondary Form
A figure entirely covered in worn animal skins and bits of cloth, clung tightly to his body. When removed, the figure is distinctly androgynous looking, but appears old, and extremely pale. The figure's hands, feet, nose and ears are suffering from severe frost-bite, and turned black.

Secondary Form
An imposing humanoid figure made of solid white stone and standing at ten feet tall. In direct sunlight he is blindingly bright, in the most literal sense.

Artefacts: The Shard of Glacinus; A permanently frozen shard of ice that freezes everything around it in reverse proportion to the heat in its surrounding environment. In the ice fields of Glacinus, for instance, it would essentially be indistinguishable from any other shard of ice. If it were dropped into a volcano, however, it would freeze its surroundings so instantly and so substantially that the magma would solidify and turn to rock before the shard could even fall through the air to reach it. Similar to how it cannot be melted, it cannot be shattered, no matter how hard of a force is enacted upon it.

Unique abilities

Manipulation of Ice; The ice fields of northern Glacinus are under Krustaliem's direct control. If someone he doesn't like happens to be walking on them, he can decide on a whim to open up a large crack directly underneath where they're standing, and send their corpse to the depths of oblivion. Krustaliem can also utilize ice to create structures and tools, including fortifications and weapons of war. This power makes Krustaliem nigh-invincible inside of the ice fields, but largely useless, from the perspective of a god, outside of them.

Call of Neutrality; Krustaliem can influence the minds of mortals to sever their emotional connections with others entirely, eliminating whether they perceive others as friend or foe. The Call is less effective the closer in proximity (both literal and figurative) that a person is to others. If a trained group of warriors who have been taught through discipline to recognize a certain party as a foe were to enter into Glacinus, for instance, Krustaliem's Call could eliminate their perception of who the foe is that they're there to fight, as well as their kinship towards each other. Eliminating the bond between a mother and her child, though, would be more difficult, because of their closer emotional connection.

Personal History: Krustaliem has spent almost the entirety of his creation isolated and largely dormant. He has undisputed control over a massive swath of territory, but the territory is mostly uninhabited, and as such he has acquired fewer worshippers proportional to other gods. Despite his small following though, his isolation has also meant that what followers he has are extremely devout. Another positive side-effect of Krustaliem's introversion is his lack of enemies; he has no real disputes with any of the other gods, except perhaps those that are ideological. Similarly, he has no allies among the Gods either.

Personality: Characteristic of his role as the God of Isolation, Krustaliem is distinctly asocial and introverted. Most of his worshippers never see his physical form directly, and attempting to visit his place of refuge in northern Glacinus is a life-threatening proposal. Krustaliem is quiet, cold and absent; he will generally only intervene when the safety of Glacinus is directly threatened. In such cases, though, his cold personality makes him capable of horrific acts of brutality and mercilessness.

Glacinus

Name: Glacinus.

Location: The nation of Glacinus is a massive one, existing in the far northern stretches of the continent. The southern edges of Glacinus could be described as tundra or taiga, with either bitterly cold, empty plains or the snow-swept corpses of withered mountains welcoming travellers to the land of the far north. Once the tundra's passed, the continent ends in technical terms. A large portion of Glacinus' area is ocean, but ocean that is permanently frozen over, thus allowing for an artificial extension of the land into the sea. The temperature here is somewhat warmer than the permanently frozen seas would suggest—Krustaliem's machinations allowing for some small level of human settlement in his realm—but it is still a cold and harsh place. In the warmer seasons, when the southern portion of the ice mass melts, a number of islands are visible, disconnected from the mainland in precisely the time when they would be most vulnerable to an outside army. It is on these islands that most of Glacinus' residents live, in small settlements, keeping to themselves far away from the other realms of mortals.

Civilization is rare, even in the more populous areas. The capital and largest settlement, Boreas, would be considered more of a large town than a city when compared to many of the more populous nations of the realm. The other settlements are all much smaller, villages and hamlets more so than towns, meekly working to preserve their existence in their unforgiving homeland, with most families having careers have change with the seasons, ranging from hunters in the spring to craftsmen of some sort in the bitter winter months. As a result of the extremely low population density of the country, the vast majority of the land of Glacinus is completely untouched by civilization. Nowhere in the whole of creation, though, is more isolated and more disparate from the civilized realms than the ice fields.

Occupying around half of Glacinus' total area is the Glacinus Ice Fields. This area is completely frozen down to bedrock year around, and almost completely flat, offering men to see for longer in any direction than anywhere else in the known world. The sky in the ice fields is radiant and foreboding, constantly imbued with northern lights, hues of blue, red and green running across the dark night sky all year around. Krustaliem's machinations have ensured that daylight never enters upon the ice fields, making the only natural illumination in this deathly cold antonym of hell the coloured lights that stretch their way across the sky.

Government: Boreas is the seat of Glacinus' government, and the administrative centre of the nation as a whole. The Glacii, a semi-religious order that are joint priests and governors, maintain order in the country, and act as its effective military, ensuring no foreign army can ever march upon Glacene territory. The Glacii do not exact taxes or tribute of any kind upon the citizens of Glacinus, however, and instead fund themselves through acting as middle-men for all trade that occurs between the Glacene and the outside world. Craftsmen and metal-workers, but especially miners sell their goods to the Glacii, whom in return arrange for them to be sold to interests outside of Glacinus. It is an age-old arrangement, and one that is largely an absolute necessity. Due to the massive distances between locations in Glacinus, and the remoteness of most settlements, trade is often an extremely costly endeavour. The Glacii also operate a few of their own mines in different areas of the country, and act as something of a police force for the larger settlements, like Boreas. However, that role is a minimal one, as the brutality of Glacinus doesn't leave much room for luxury, thus discouraging thieves and bandits from operating in the country.

Dominant race: The Glacene are Humans, but a heavily modified breed, having been moulded by their environment and their god to better suit the climate of the harsh north-lands of the continent. To make the most of the extreme flatness of Glacinus, the Glacene have highly attuned senses of sight, and are capable of impressive feats of agility to catch and subdue the prey that their lives depend on. The Glacene are also, obviously, extremely tolerant to the effects of cold temperatures. Their bodies don't start to break down or lose ability as quickly as those of other humans in the cold, and their extremities aren't nearly as susceptible to frost-bite. On the other end of the scale, though, their alterations make them extremely unsuitable for life in hot climates.

Other races: There is no other race in Glacinus but the Glacene, and the only domesticated animals in the country are the korra—a very large, furry breed of dog that developed alongside the Glacene, and is used to help them hunt and defend their communities. The korra are especially popular with Glacii units, assisting in aspects of their duties in defending Glacinus from outsiders.

Wild Flora/fauna: The taiga of southern Glacinus is filled with the predictable amount and breadth of wildlife. Bundles of trees and various hardy grasses and natural grains are common, as are animals like moose, hares and various birds. Further north, wildlife becomes somewhat more scarce. North of the seasonally island-filled area of Glacinus, where Borea and most other Glacene settlements are located, animals both prey and predator alike are extremely uncommon. The most you'll usually ever see is the odd fox or rabbit of some kind, and of course, in the warmer months, the waters that open up between villages mark the arrival of the fishing season. Once the ice fields in the north are reached, though, there is almost no life of any kind in sight, whether human or otherwise.

Specialization: The Glacene are exceptional hunters and expert craftsmen, adept at getting the most and best use out of any given material they can manage to get their hands on.

National History: Glacinus was brought together as a unified state by the Glacii, who were at first the local militia of the city of Borea. The Glacii gave Borea all of the services that they currently offer the whole of Glacinus, and their support to the city proved extremely beneficial to the Boreans, allowing them to spend more and more time on developing their settlement rather than merely trying to subsist. Eventually, Borea's population came to outnumber all of its surrounding villages, as families flocked to the city for use of its trade routes to the south and relatively ease of living, compared to the rest of the country. This prompted the local leaders of the villages to establish their own offices of the Glacii, and eventually every single settlement in the north found themselves associated with the Glacii in one way or another.

Alliances/Enemies: None. Following the teachings of Krustaliem, Glacinus is perpetually neutral. With that said, their neutrality does not by any means compel them to non-violence. When threatened, or when having a particular special interest outside of Glacinus, the Glacene can be as ruthless as the situation commands in their pursuit of their goals. Typically, though, the Glacene are accustomed to filling the role of the quiet, rural north-folk to their southern neighbours, who they generally interact with only for trade purposes.

Notable People

Evalaine Ashtur, Commander of the South Patrol.
Unin Lairr, Prudent of the Priests of Glacinus.