Outredemesne

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Outredemesne

Post by Siege »

I've no idea if this'll go anywhere, but having not done it for a while I thought it'd be fun to try my hand at fantasy.

So, welcome to Outredemesne, the 'overseas domain' of a large empire that doesn't currently have a name (working title is simply 'the Rus'). Hundreds of years ago the Rus established colonial provinces on the west coast of a faraway continent, but has since turned insular, leaving the colonies' vassalage to the throne of the Rus as more of a technicality than a reality of life. The colonies have long since splintered into a number of small city-states, principalities, counties and lordships which feud with each other and the natives of the continent alike.

One of these local powers is Ceyret-sur-Mer, more commonly known simply as Ceyret [SAY-ret]. Ruled by a meritocratic and mostly-benevolent council of rich and influential families, Ceyret is rich and prosperous, owing to fertile land and any number of natural resources. The city-state is a stabilizing influence on its surroundings, known among its peers for its noble spirit, just ways and virtue in its endeavors. These virtues and its riches have allowed it to survive as long as it has, despite being one of the smallest of the powers in Outredemesne.

The riches and influence of Ceyret have long since been the envy of High Mercia and its back-stabbing Lord-Protector. High Mercia is not as rich as Ceyret but far larger and more populous, and its feudal lords constantly scheme to usurp the fertile coastal region occuppied by Ceyret. As such the Military Order of the Star of Mercia is the principal opponent of Ceyret's Seigneury.

Of key importance to the continued independence of Ceyret, the Seigneury are knight-musketeers; dashing, swashbuckling heroes who keep the peace with pistol, sword and rapier wit. Known for their high sprit de corps, can-do attitude and their motto "tous pour un, un pour tous", they are saviours of their state, swooners of women, defenders of the fleur-de-lis of Ceyret, thwarters of evil plans, wearers of pencil moustaches, and generally awesome dudes.

More details to follow...
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Artemis »

So, let's see, I'm getting hints of Renaissance Italy, Louis XIV's France, and American colonial period. That's quite an interesting mix, and not one I see used that often in fantasy!
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Kingmaker »

So these knight-musketeers of the Seigneury are like 17th/18th century Jedi, right? 8-)

Also, it doesn't look like this setting is going for the grim and gritty feel.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
-Rudyard Kipling
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Siege »

Jedi-musketeers, yeah I like that. Mostly musketeers though. Like what you'd get if you mixed Obi Wan, D'Artagnan and Errol Flynn. Although I'm still toying with the ifs and hows of magic -- it's sort of difficult to justify 17th-century pike and shot formations when there's folks milling about who can devastate such a formation with one well-placed fireball. I might go with more naturalistic magic instead of the boom-headshot variant, something more akin perhaps to "influence the lord-general, that way you don't have to zap all his dudes".
Kingmaker wrote:Also, it doesn't look like this setting is going for the grim and gritty feel.
Yeah, I've seen enough grim and gritty fantasy for a while. There's nothing wrong with it, but other people are way better than I am and right now I'm not really in the mood for grimdark. It'll be much more fun to write some swashbuckling pulp.
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Acatalepsy »

For magic, I'd suggest plot-focused magic; magic that makes things work out "right" rather than having an special, flashy power. Love potions don't cause you to fall in love with some random person, they find some inexplicable way to put you in the right place and right time to meet your true love. A spell to destroy an army might plague that army with a death of a thousand cuts, as their food spoils, their ammunition becomes damp, the soldiers grow homesick and the lieutenants conspire to outdo each other and not the enemy.

A lot of magic might be things that start out as magic feathers, but grow more powerful with time as it turns out to work. Magic isn't something that can be taught exactly, but you end up growing into; the incantation doesn't work because of what you say by because of who you are, etc.
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Kingmaker »

Siege wrote:Jedi-musketeers, yeah I like that. Mostly musketeers though. Like what you'd get if you mixed Obi Wan, D'Artagnan and Errol Flynn. Although I'm still toying with the ifs and hows of magic -- it's sort of difficult to justify 17th-century pike and shot formations when there's folks milling about who can devastate such a formation with one well-placed fireball. I might go with more naturalistic magic instead of the boom-headshot variant, something more akin perhaps to "influence the lord-general, that way you don't have to zap all his dudes".
I actually meant more along the lines of purpose than special powers (warrior-adventurer-diplomats). Anyway, these guys already sound like they're already supernaturally charismatic. Maybe the setting's magic is something to the effect of the universe rewards certain behaviors by subtly fudging things in your favor i.e. a crew of dashing heroes armed with nothing but rapiers will somehow not get shot by the dozens of musket-wielding goons they're charging.

Yeah, I've seen enough grim and gritty fantasy for a while. There's nothing wrong with it, but other people are way better than I am and right now I'm not really in the mood for grimdark. It'll be much more fun to write some swashbuckling pulp.
Good for you. I was getting tired of the grimdark darkness of the grimdark future (where the air is grim and dark).
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
-Rudyard Kipling
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Artemis »

Gritty =/= realistic is one of those lessons every speculative fiction writer needs to learn early on, I think.

I think one way to keep the magic from overwhelming the setting is to keep it, like you said, subtle and very rare. Still my favorite thing about Lord of the Rings is the fact that magic is not really all that commonplace, and is thus much more fantastic when Gandalf or Saruman does let loose with the mojo.
"The universe's most essential beauty is its endlessness. There is room and resources enough for all of us. Whether there is room for all of our passions is the question, and the problem that we work tirelessly to find a solution to."

-Qhameio Allir Nlafahn, Commonwealth ambassador, during the signing of the Kriolon Treaty.
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Czernobog »

Well, I have to say that this sounds pretty awesome.
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Magister Militum »

It's certainly an interesting mix, Siege, and I'd be interested in seeing more of it.
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Acatalepsy »

Kingmaker wrote:
Siege wrote:Yeah, I've seen enough grim and gritty fantasy for a while. There's nothing wrong with it, but other people are way better than I am and right now I'm not really in the mood for grimdark. It'll be much more fun to write some swashbuckling pulp.
Good for you. I was getting tired of the grimdark darkness of the grimdark future (where the air is grim and dark).
Grimdark is best when played up with a side of humor - Ciaphas Cain anyone? - but it's always good to have some sort of middle ground between straight up parody stuff (like America in Space) and more realistic universe.

Really, every spot on the sliding scale has its advantages and disadvantages. This seems like a good sort of compromise; you have to keep realistic enough in the sense that the characters (and audience) need to be able to perceive real threats, but keep the charm and fun about it.
Anything that can be done to a rat can be done to a human being. And we can do most anything to rats. This is a hard thing to think about, but it's the truth. It won't go away because we cover our eyes.

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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Ciaphas Cain really isn't grimdark since most of the characters around him are pretty adorable! Amberley-chaaaan! Kasteeeeeeeeeen! Broklaw-kun! Felicia-chaaaan! Magot! And even Commissar Ciaphas Cain-kun himself!

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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Kingmaker »

Commissar Kawaii-iphus Cain? The 40k anime series.

Edit: and I'll try to make a few suggestions so this post isn't totally OT.

Is Outredemesne located primarily along the coast (I presume Ceyret is)? Or have they expanded significantly into the interior?
Also, is there any interaction at all between Rus and Outredemesne?
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
-Rudyard Kipling
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Siege »

Kingmaker wrote:Is Outredemesne located primarily along the coast (I presume Ceyret is)? Or have they expanded significantly into the interior?
I haven't figured the geography out exactly, but it's mostly coastal, as befits a series of colonies established by an overseas power. High Mercia however isn't located on the coast but rather along the ridges of a series of mountains further inland (probably connected to the coast via a sizeable river). So there has been some inland expansion, but not significantly so. At least no-one has fully figured out how big the continent they're on is.
Also, is there any interaction at all between Rus and Outredemesne?
Very, very little. Maybe twice every century a ship comes by to extract the tribute the powers in Outredemesne are required to pay, but beyond that there's little interaction. Such a set-up would allow me to get away with fantastical stories about the lands of the Rus that may or may not be true.
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For, now De Ruyter's topsails
Off naked Chatham show,
We dare not meet him with our fleet -
And this the Dutchmen know!
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Acatalepsy »

What's stopping ships from going back and forth more regularly? One would think that colonies would want to at least figure out what was going on. Even if the homeland has lost interest in the colonies, there's no reason the colonists wouldn't want to check out what was going on, maybe trade a little bit, etc.
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Artemis »

That may be the very question the "colonists" themselves are asking.
"The universe's most essential beauty is its endlessness. There is room and resources enough for all of us. Whether there is room for all of our passions is the question, and the problem that we work tirelessly to find a solution to."

-Qhameio Allir Nlafahn, Commonwealth ambassador, during the signing of the Kriolon Treaty.
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Maybe Confucianists burned a whole bunch of their trade ships. Fucking Confucius. :twisted:
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Re: Outredemesne

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Acatalepsy wrote:What's stopping ships from going back and forth more regularly?
Nothing physical, really.
Even if the homeland has lost interest in the colonies, there's no reason the colonists wouldn't want to check out what was going on, maybe trade a little bit, etc.
I imagine they wonder from time to time why the King has stopped calling on them, but they can't spare the vessels to check it out. They're too busy making sure they're not getting stabbed in the back by the neighbours to put together an expedition. Secondly, Outredemesne doesn't have much of a seagoing tradition. These are the guys whose great-grandfathers immigrated to these whereabouts, and no-one really has built anything bigger than a coastal ship since. And finally, they just might not care -- the Rus is a remote place miserly old farts talk about, it's not actually a real place for most people. They're doing fine where they are, why bother sailing across a bloody sea to meet some upstart 'King' and his much-ballyhooed 'court'? There's guys right over there we need to scheme and plot against!
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For, now De Ruyter's topsails
Off naked Chatham show,
We dare not meet him with our fleet -
And this the Dutchmen know!
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Acatalepsy »

I guess that depends on exactly how far away it is and what the exact technology level would be. Still, I have a hard time seeing an almost entirely coastal people losing much if anything in the way of shipbuilding savvy.
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Then again if you're out making sure those guys pay tribute to your faraway homeland, aren't you going to end up with big power projection capabilities and enough boats to make sure that if any fringe world yokel doesn't know where his loyalties lie, you can just send a galleon full of conquistadore knights to smash their faces in?
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Kingmaker »

A justification for Rus being able to reach Outredemesne but not really caring to reassert dominance could be something similar to what was occasionally seen in later Spanish/Portuguese colonization in the Americas: we don't give a shit what you do over there as long as we keep getting the checks every year. Admittedly, this takes that sort of neglect much farther than it went in history.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
-Rudyard Kipling
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

That happened because, for the Spaniards at least, they already had a hueg presence in their colonial holdings so even though the mainland didn't give a fuck about the going ons over there, their Governor-Generals and Friars and whatever still ruled those states. It's different since in Spaniard colonies in Latin America and, say, the Philippines, the Spaniards basically ended up making so many babies with the natives that today you don't see guys with names like Quetzcoatl or Lapu-Lapu anymore and they're all Rodriguezes and Cortezes and Pabloes and Juans and Diegoes and are all really Catholic and chauvinistic and love Mamma Mary with all their hearts. They turned the Latin Americans and Filipinos into MINI SPANIARDS! With that, their dominance was pretty assured.
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Kingmaker »

Shroom Man 777 wrote:That happened because, for the Spaniards at least, they already had a hueg presence in their colonial holdings so even though the mainland didn't give a fuck about the going ons over there, their Governor-Generals and Friars and whatever still ruled those states. It's different since in Spaniard colonies in Latin America and, say, the Philippines, the Spaniards basically ended up making so many babies with the natives that today you don't see guys with names like Quetzcoatl or Lapu-Lapu anymore and they're all Rodriguezes and Cortezes and Pabloes and Juans and Diegoes and are all really Catholic and chauvinistic and love Mamma Mary with all their hearts. They turned the Latin Americans and Filipinos into MINI SPANIARDS! With that, their dominance was pretty assured.
True, but at least in Latin America (everthing I know about the history of the Philippines, I learned from the Cryptonomicon), there was a substantial divide between the European Spaniards and the Americanos (American-born whites). Americanos drastically outnumbered Europeans, and tended to get rather annoyed when some assclown from the motherland showed up and got the promotion they'd been gunning for or something (this was one of the driving forces behind independence). The point is, Outredemesne appears to be undergoing an extreme version of that anyway--political appointees stop showing up from Rus in any significant, so colonial leadership develops its own hierarchy. Now cut off political appointees entirely instead of having them show up sporadically to terk the gud jerbs, and leave the whole thing to stew for a couple centuries. The various viceroyalties (or whatever they call their colonial administrations) have almost certainly started to fight over stuff, and once that starts, there's no stopping it short of a full intervention from Rus.

On a side note, how big is the settled area of Outredemesne and how populous is it? That will play a big role in the functioning of politics
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
-Rudyard Kipling
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Acatalepsy »

My issue is less the neglect and more the mythologizing of the homeland. I don't see why contact would be cut off more or less completely unless something was actually stopping ships. The colonists aren't going to forget where they came from. They aren't going to forget how to build ships. There is going to be, if nothing else, trade between the colonies and the homeland, even if the governments of Rus completely don't give a crap outside of tribute. There is going to be a stream of new folks who think that the old world stinks and are ready for a shot at the new.

My point is that something physical needs to happen to cut of the colonies - social and political forces are insufficient without creating all kinds of other implications which probably go against the main idea of the setting.
Anything that can be done to a rat can be done to a human being. And we can do most anything to rats. This is a hard thing to think about, but it's the truth. It won't go away because we cover our eyes.

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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Ford Prefect »

I have to say I'm quite pleased to see some Reneissance-flavoured fantasy kicking about. I've wanted to do something like that with the city states of Italy for ages, but could never really get much kicking in the ways of coherent ideas. Out of my own curiousity, I have a question: while my genetic bias means I assume the colonies are human in nature, do you intend for other species to be present? Perhaps as the natives?
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Re: Outredemesne

Post by Siege »

I'm still contemplating that. Thing is, having the natives be non-humans, while awesome, also makes it a convenient us-vs-them scenario, which I'm not that big a fan of myself. Alternatively the colonies (and by extension the Rus) might be a multi-species society, but then I'd have to whip up a bunch of interesting weirdness first.
"Nick Fury. Old-school cold warrior. The original black ops hardcase. Long before I stepped off a C-130 at Da Nang, Fury and his team had set fire to half of Asia." - Frank Castle

For, now De Ruyter's topsails
Off naked Chatham show,
We dare not meet him with our fleet -
And this the Dutchmen know!
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