Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

It would be cool if certain anarchic desertified regions could have armed caravans providing logistics across continents, akin to militarized versions of those ridiculous Pakistan-Afghanistan-India buses. Land galleons and land pirates! Yes, I just saw Mad Max: Fury Road (again) and it's great and in a strange wartorn not-earth with the likes of San Dorado... I'd imagine the lawless regions would be similarly obscene. :mrgreen:

So a lot of these states would be like how Rome was beleaguered by barbarians, or how African states are beleaguered by the likes if Boko Haram and the Lord's Resistance Army, and how Libya got its ass kicked in the Toyota War... but so much more obscene! Motobarbarians! The land version of that submariner woman.
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Siege »

That would fit with the 'North America' continent, I think. The states of this continent fought an apocalyptic war in the not-too-distant past ('50's/'60's perhaps). A handful of places were nuked, and in the end the city-states of its eastern coast unleashed deadly biological weapons (possibly acquired from SinGen) that killed off the majority of the population. The entire continent was promptly embargoed, remained so for a good decade until the plagues burned themselves out, and are pariahs to this day.

So, yes. Soldier regiments on horseback with sabers, IR gear from the sixties and modern smuggled rifles; walled coastal cities using drones and helicopters to kill anyone approaching over land; and sure, convoys of improvised vehicles. Part-diesel part-atomic truck caravans rolling through the wastelands carrying valuables and trade goods between isolated settlements. Or something, I figure it requires some tuning to do this right in a way that coheres with the rest of the world properly.
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

It can be lower-tech so that it can cohere with the rest of the world, a place that's once first world but regressed to really bad third world, like Somalia with autobahns. Just the terrestrial equivalent of Indian Ocean sea piracy, if RTG-fueled landship armadas of raiders are too much. :D
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Siege »

Maybe they're on rails instead of roads. Armored atomic trains, so you can't simply derail them to steal what's on board because if the reactor vessel ruptures your entire bandit gang is going to die an agonizing slow death from radiation poisoning.

The trains run between certified enclaves, but there's abandoned railroad spurs leading through contaminated hotspots where coctails of virulent diseases have lead to all kinds of mutoids roaming the land.

Sometimes bandits try to hijack fortified switching stations to lead a passing train onto one of those dead spurs; the chief conductor then has a choice to either stop and be seized by bandits or to keep going at full speed and hope for the best.

(Why don't they simply fly from one place to another? Uh... Automated defense systems from the sixties maybe? That shoot down aircraft passing overhead? Maybe the states that once ran those parts had elaborate dead hand systems that never got switched off. Or maybe in some cases there's people in deep shelters still controlling those missile batteries, thinking they're still at war... A million bayonets for the dead emperor!)
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Siege »

Herceowic is a country on the northern coast of the Gulf of Ason. It borders Kagaria to the east, but is separated from it by the Deifr firth. The firth, or channel, is several kilometers wide and bisects a flat-bottom lowland corridor running from the Chernigov Sea in the north to the Gulf of Ason in the south. Further inland Herceowic is mostly hilly with high mountains in the north.

The name Herceowic means 'people of the duke'. It has sordid and bloody history of invasion, rebellion, betrayal and subjugation, having at various times been conquered (and lost) by foreign Khaganates, the Kingdom of Ravan, the Daedalean Empire when it was at its zenith, Greater Sjenska and Teyrnon Canhastyr. The latter was its most recent overlord, controlling the country for much of the 19th century up to about a decade ago.

With reserves of the Serene Empire depleted in the aftermath of the Great War (~1950s-1960s) the populace rose up and claimed its independence. The rebels threw out the reigning duke who, having thoroughly fallen from imperial favor for allowing this to happen, was forced into exile in San Dorado where his family still lives.

Today the Workers' Republic of Herceowic is a bureaucratic collectivist state with a rabid hatred of anything that smells of empire or nobility, blaming those things for all the wrongs in the world. Its capital is Archenfels. It has in the past exported communist propaganda, revolutionaries and 'military advisers' to the Sarakan peninsula and indeed to nations in turmoil around the world. As a result its coast is officially blockaded by Teyrnon Canhastyr, which to this day refuses to recognize Herceowican independence and has not signed a peace treaty.


A brief note on the timeline
  • The first major war of the 20th century was the War of Three Emperors ca. 1920 which pits the Daedalean Empire and its then ally Dar Qimr against Teyrnon Canhastyr. It starts when the Serene Emperor invades the semi-independent Principality of Sjenska. It ends with Canhastyri troops thrown off the peninsula, but what remains of Daedalean rule is broken; the Sarakan League is formed instead. The League is a confederation of Zagor, Sjenska, Vlasenica, Niksic and Tskhumkara.
  • The world-spanning Great War takes about a decade to fight, from roughly 1950 to 1960. It starts as a border war between Kagaria and the Daedalean Empire, but in the end all four major empires are involved, with Kagaria and Dar Qimr fighting the Twin Thrones of Teyrnon Canhastyr and the Daedalean Empire. Fighting spills over onto most other continents as the instability and depradations brought by prolonged war destabilize the entire world.
  • Herceowic revolts ca. 1965. Unrest soon spreads to the Sarakan peninsula, whose states were forced into Kagarian vassalage after the dissolution of the Sarakan League at the end of the Great War.
  • Ca. 1965-1970 the Kagarians are thrown out of the Sarakan peninsula in a series of bloody rebellions. Sjenska and Vlasenica are liberated by insurgencies lead by respectively Aleksandar Radojević and Srdjan Karic; Niksic is invaded by Daedalean 'peacekeepers' which restore the son of the last Grand Duke of Niksic to his throne; with the aid of the Sultan of Dar Qimr Tshkumkara escapes the unrest mostly intact.
  • Aleksandar Radojević is assasinated in 1991. Start of the Vlasenican civil war.
  • Siege of Sarakovar in Vlasenica.
  • The Vlasenican civil war ends in 1995
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

Would I be right in thinking that the Great War was where the Wild West continent ended up being destroyed? If so, I imagine a lot of the survivors might blame the destruction on a foreign conspiracy, and even if they're wrong, the Great Realms of the east would probably want to take advantage of it somehow, like setting up colonies on the pretext of helping the natives to rebuild.

I have to say this whole project is impressive, the world being similar enough to ours to demand a high amount of detail but disimilar enough to stop you falling back on anything from reality.
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Siege »

Thanks!

Yeah, the western continent was blown up during the Great War. There were wars all over the place as fall-out from the main one (although I haven't defined these yet). I'm positive the survivors have lots of conspiracy theories on what happened, who started shooting first etc. The interior is pretty much a post-apocalyptic version of central Africa, I think (with different cultures, obviously). Lots of abandoned cities, overgrown highways, collapsed bridges etc. But the survivors still get radio from the rest of the world, and they can see satellites zip overhead, so they definitely know there's still a world out there. So kind of 24 days later, I suppose.

There's a handful of cities in the Hexapolis still standing (a few others got nuked in the war), and pockets of civilization remain. Not sure how much organized colonization is going on, that would be very costly and I'm not sure even the great powers have the money for it. However I could definitely see small outfits roaming the land, looking for old gear to strip and sell abroad. A bunch of dudes with rifles and MRAPs rifling through dead cities for lost vaults of gold or diamonds. And then they have to make it to the exfil zone without being ambushed by the Canyon People. Something like that.
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Siege »

Here's the 2.0 map of the continent I've so far dubbed Transkagaria:

Image

I'm not wholly satisfied with the size and shape of the Zagor Democratic Republic yet, but it's getting there. I doubt any more nations will be added to this continent.

Strictly speaking the Sarakan Peninsula (Zagor, Vlasenica etc.) is too big here; Kagaria is supposed to be analogous in size to Russia, Sigmarina to Poland or Sweden, and the Sarakan Peninsula is heavily modeled on former Yugoslavia and thus significantly smaller. But I'm terrible at drawing and this is just to give you an impression anyway. Chalk it up to wonky map projection ;).

The only nation not mentioned before is Kingdom of Sigmaringa, so far conceptualized as a pseudo-Prussian (in the 'a military with a state' sense) Finland who've managed to hold off all historical invasions but at the steep price of a paranoid siege mentality, xenophobia and an economy slaved to an oversized military and the massively inefficient bureaucracy that controls it. This isn't helped by the fact that in terms of strategic resources Sigmaringa has a ton of steel, coal and permafrost, but not much else. Their border with Kagaria strongly resembles the Korean DMZ in the sense that it's an endless warren of tank traps, minefields, bunkers and artillery emplacements.

Everything north of Kagaria / Sigmaringa is frozen polar wastes.

I'm debating a Japan-ish set of islands to the east of the Daedalean Empire (note: Japan-ish in terms of position, not necessarily in terms of culture), perhaps by moving a few islands of the Impact Archipelago up north. So far I'm thinking both the Archipelago and the splintered islands and coastlines of the Aegean-esque sea south of the Daedalean Empire are the result of a giant ancient meteor shower that did a pretty good imitation of a cosmic shotgun on that part of the world.
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Invictus »

Siege wrote:I'm debating a Japan-ish set of islands to the east of the Daedalean Empire (note: Japan-ish in terms of position, not necessarily in terms of culture), perhaps by moving a few islands of the Impact Archipelago up north. So far I'm thinking both the Archipelago and the splintered islands and coastlines of the Aegean-esque sea south of the Daedalean Empire are the result of a giant ancient meteor shower that did a pretty good imitation of a cosmic shotgun on that part of the world.
Another option would be to make island chains leading off the east of the continent be part of a tectonic plate boundary, with volcanic activity spawning new and regular series of islands - if you look at our own Pacific, all the islands comes in chains for the same reason. This admittedly won't explain the Impact Archipelago, but nothing prevents an asteroid hitting the planet right on the fault line, potentially causing worldwide tectonic aftershocks :twisted: . What would it look like though, the mix of post-apoc natives and deranged colonist-crusaders? The latitude of the Archipelago doesn't exactly lend itself to South Sea adventures.

That said, Japan-sized isles hanging off the Daedalean Empire will likely be more temperate than the mainland, which when combined with potential volcanic fertility makes it primo real estate.
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

FISHMONGERS!

In this pseudo-pocalyptic world, the islands, coasts and seas of the worst off areas, their Oceania, could be filled with horribler versions of modern day Thai slaver-fishermen. Have you guys read the articles on how these guys press-gang immigrant Indonesian/etc. jobseekers, keep them at sea for years on end (the fishing boats rotate between sea and port, but they transfer the slave-crews to the outgoing ships, so they never see land until they die), and chuck them in mass graves on land or just throw them overboard when they finally die. These fishing cartels have battles over the best fishing grounds and shit. All to provide food for the world. In some cases, the fish they catch aren't even people-food, they are nuisance fish that get sent abroad to feed other fish that are then turned into cat food! Fucking cat food!

Plus the initial rise of Somali piracy is when foreign fishermen started crossing the Indian Ocean to deplete the Horn of Africa's fisheries, the initial local attempts at repulsing them evolved into ransoming captive illegal fishermen and THEN they started kidnapping and ransoming whoever.

Which also reminds me of how in West Africa, I read that the depleted fisheries caused soaring fish prices, unaffordable, forcing people to hunt gratuitous amounts of bush meat. By killing large predators and herbivores, the place was cleared and so baboon populations skyrocketed, and troops of apes started looting people's crop fields, so kids had to be yanked out of school to guard the crop fields for months on end, causing literacy rates to plummet! Eating bush meat also has the risk of ebola. :D

There could be whole vicious social-predation cycles due to ecological murderization here! The worst parts of Shear Anarchy is what's happening to the rest of the world outside the "relatively better" "first world" places like San Dorado and these imperial nations which seem like pretty cozy places. :D
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Fingolfin »

Come to think of it, the map strangely reminds me of the map of SDNWII....
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Siege »

Invictus wrote:Another option would be to make island chains leading off the east of the continent be part of a tectonic plate boundary, with volcanic activity spawning new and regular series of islands - if you look at our own Pacific, all the islands comes in chains for the same reason. This admittedly won't explain the Impact Archipelago, but nothing prevents an asteroid hitting the planet right on the fault line, potentially causing worldwide tectonic aftershocks :twisted: .
Yes, perfect. So both, then: the antediluvian asteroid smashed the continent that used to be there into the Impact Archipelago and caused widespread tectonic activity, bringing up a number of island ranges even as other bits of land sunk beneath the waves. The ocean floor is still unstable, and new island ranges sometimes pop up with little warning.
What would it look like though, the mix of post-apoc natives and deranged colonist-crusaders? The latitude of the Archipelago doesn't exactly lend itself to South Sea adventures.
Well the impact happened in forgotten pre-human times (OR DID IT?!); I think the Impact Archipelago would be equal parts Daedalean crusader states and native nations locked in a more or less perpetual war of conquest that's lasted a few centuries or so. Maybe the natives worship volcanos though. And maybe volcanos wiped out an unusually large number of crusader armies in the past...
Shroom Man 777 wrote:FISHMONGERS!
That sounds like a thing I need to fit in, definitely. Considering the 'south pacific' region of this world is locked between Vedica and another continent that probably also won't be particularly rich, it's eminently possible that it's a very unpleasant place. Still a lot that needs figuring out though.
Fingolfin wrote:Come to think of it, the map strangely reminds me of the map of SDNWII....
Barring the concept of an Impact Archipelago the map really doesn't have all that much to do with #2 though.

Speaking of, here's version 2.2, now with more continents:

Image

Teyrnon Canhastyr should be slightly to the south, but obviously this is far from finished.
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

I am kind of (not-) sorry for introducing so much third world grimdark here, but my brain is kind of... fixated on the whole pseudo-pocalyptic, deprived nature that was somehow implied, and I'm regurgitating all the deliciously depressing stuff I've been reading in all those loony progressive sites.
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Lelouch vi Britannia »

Much like Fin, my mind keeps drifting back to SDNW2 for some reason...

Just how large is Teyrnon Canhastyr's royal family, anyway? Considering the fact that Teyrnon Canhastyr is stated to be prone to considerable internal unrest and colonial insurrections, I figure that there may be cadet branches of the royal family that broke off and took some of the former colonies with them.

Given the sheer breadth of Teyrnon Canhastyr's colonial possessions, I'd also expect massive variation in the cultures of the various colonies and ex-colonies. Not quite on the same level as Norse Japanese, Anglo-Japanese, and monarchist pseudo-Americans, but still.

Teyrnon Canhastyr has already been stated to have possessions in western Kagaria and Dar Qimr, but given the reach of their navy, could they have also expanded west, towards the Daedaleans and the Impact Archipelago?
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Siege »

Lelouch vi Britannia wrote:Much like Fin, my mind keeps drifting back to SDNW2 for some reason...
Maybe it's Srdjan Karic rubbing off on y'all ;).
Just how large is Teyrnon Canhastyr's royal family, anyway? Considering the fact that Teyrnon Canhastyr is stated to be prone to considerable internal unrest and colonial insurrections, I figure that there may be cadet branches of the royal family that broke off and took some of the former colonies with them.
I honestly haven't decided how large the royal family is. But the general idea behind the Serene Empire is that the main reason the imperial line is still in charge is singular ruthlessness. Muddy lines succession don't typically increase stability, so a good dose of Richard III style siblicide might be involved. I also quite like the idea of a very small number of people holding the empire together all whilst pointing daggers at each other's backs as insurance.

Entire family branches breaking off is something that happens in Dar Qimr, whose ruling dynasty definitely has the problem of a million princes and the complex power dynamics that results when even a handful of royal siblings square off for the throne. Then again Dar Qimr doesn't really suffer from colonial unrest, which the Serene Empire definitely does (belying its name).

So I don't think it's common for branches of the imperial family to break away. But I like the idea that a bunch of dissatisfied nobles split from the empire at some point (maybe after the Great War)... And then find themselves in charge of a state whose natives hate their guts. To stay in power (and alive) as colonial overlords they'd have to engage in brutal guerilla wars with native insurgencies, doing to the natives exactly what they disliked the imperial family doing to them.

It's basically Ian Smith's Rhodesia at that point, fighting against insurgencies that get their weapons from states and maybe even against inside elements backed by imperial intelligence who've promised a knighthood to anyone that assassinates a member of their family and a patent of nobility to the first person to launch a succesful coup. It's colonial paranoia time!
Given the sheer breadth of Teyrnon Canhastyr's colonial possessions, I'd also expect massive variation in the cultures of the various colonies and ex-colonies. Not quite on the same level as Norse Japanese, Anglo-Japanese, and monarchist pseudo-Americans, but still.
Indeed, although to start I first want to flesh out the empire's own culture. I'm aiming for a Celtic-Norse culture progressing into vaguely Imperial French direction.
Teyrnon Canhastyr has already been stated to have possessions in western Kagaria and Dar Qimr, but given the reach of their navy, could they have also expanded west, towards the Daedaleans and the Impact Archipelago?
The Impact Archipelag, or at least its northern parts, is at least at this point conceived as being firmly within the Daedalean sphere of influence. There's also more continents west of Teyrnon Canhastyr yet to be filled in that would be in the way of such an expansion. I'm not counting out imperial possessions on those continents, but they basically only exist as very vague concepts (like 'sorta Aztec with ageing bomber fleet' level vague). So, yeah, ideas are welcome.
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Siege »

Government of the Serene Empire of Teyrnon-Canhastyr (or what of it has been determined thusfar)

The Queen-Empress, currently Her Serene Imperial Majesty The Queen and Empress Emryn Canhastyr XIII, is an absolute monarch who wields technically unrestricted power over the Serene Empire, although in practice this power is counterbalanced by the political influence of the aristocracy and, to some extent, the middle classes.

Although the title is translated as either King-Emperor or Queen-Empress depending on the gender of the person holding the office it should be noted that the native tongue of the island empire makes no such distinction. Unlike many other cultures the precursor states that developed in the frozen wastes of the island traditionally made very little distinction between men's and women's roles.


The Great Imperial Offices are the most important officers of state in the Serene Empire. They are non-hereditary and appointed by the Queen-Empress.

The Knight Marshal is the First Officer of the Crown and highest commander of the imperial armies after the empress. Because the Knight Marshal has the authority to assemble the armies and militias of the empire it is an exceptionally powerful position; it is consequently a perilous office to hold, as many Knight Marshals have been executed on suspicion of plotting against the monarchy. The position of Knight Marshal is traditionally either held by either a member of the imperial family, or bestowed upon an unusually trusted noble, who will hold the office as an exceptional honor for no more than a year, to prevent them from accruing too much influence within the military.
  • Chieftains of Arms are the commanders of the household retinues of the ducal families. In times of war the Knight Marshal has the power to requisition their forces for the service of the empire, but field command will always rest with the family that raised them.
The Lord Chancellor runs the judicial system, and as such is responsible for overseeing the functioning of the courts. The Lord Chancellor has supreme prosecutory and judicial authority but also is in charge of maintaining the Imperial Chancery, the institute that collects, organizes and maintains all official documents produced by the imperial administration with the exception of empress' private correspondence.
  • Keeper of the Seals is the deputy of the Lord Chancellor. Traditionally some of the wide-ranging duties of the Lord Chancellor are devolved to the Keeper of the Seals.
  • Chancellor of the Imperial Penitentiary is the ranking judge on the Imperial Penitentiary, the highest judicial authority in the Empire besides the Empress herself.
  • Warden of the Invisible College is the provost of the Invisible College, the imperial secret police.
  • Queen's Advocate is the chief legal adviser and diplomatic envoy of the empress who represents the monarch in disputes with foreign states or ducal families.
The Grand Master of the House is the head of the imperial household. Because the imperial holdings constitute nearly 50% of all the territories of the Serene Empire the Grand Master of the House is the de facto minister of the interior.
  • Mayors of the Palace manage one of the imperial palaces.
  • Lieutenants-General of the Realm are governors of the imperial realms.
  • Lord Provost of Haut Istrenval is the mayor of the imperial capital city, a position with various traditional powers, rights and privileges. Within the capital the Lord Provost is accorded precedence over all individuals except the monarch.
The Grand Chamberlain is in charge of managing the empress' day to day affairs. The position is massively influential due to the holder's direct daily contact with the monarch, and is also responsible for the immediate safety of the empress. Typically the position is bestowed upon a member of the lesser nobility without ties to the great ducal families.
  • Royal Secretary is the 'secret keeper', responsible for organizing and managing the private correspondence of the empress and the royal library.
  • Grand Master of the White and Silver is historically the bearer of the royal standard (the White and Silver Flames of Teyrnon and Canhastyr). Today the Grand Master is the commander of the monarch's personal bodyguard. Historically if the retinue of the ruler of Teyrnon-Canhastyr enters the field under the White and Silver it indicates that no quarter will be given.
  • Beringian Wolves are the personal assassins of the empress. Next to nothing is known about their number or organization.
The Lord Navigator is a position that dates to the period of history when the proto-states of the island explored the shores of the central sea for trade, raids and conquests. Senior chieftains recognized as seasoned explorers and war leaders would be appointed to coordinate and lead war parties as first among equals. At first the position was universally that of a king, but as the kingdoms of the island began to develop after the end of the Little Ice Age in the 9th century rulers' duties developed and became more complex. Eventually kings could no longer afford to stay away from their fiefs for prolonged raids, and the position was divested to trusted lieutenants. Today the Lord Navigator is responsible for defending the coasts, maintaining the imperial fleet, issueing letters of marque to corsairs and coordinating (or attempting to coordinate) naval efforts with the councilor-dukes.


The Master of Wolves is a religious official charged with keeping the royal chapel and the eternal flame interred therein.
  • Keeper of the Treasury is traditionally a post held by a religious official.
  • Constable of the Thousand Eyes leads the paramilitary peacekeeping organization that acts as the imperial constabulary. The Thousand Eyes were founded as an order formed to safeguard the pilgrim road to Caer Saint and continue to be a religious organization.
The Grand Master of Artillery presides over the College of Estates, the assembly of legal entities that irregularly convenes at the court of the empress. These entities include the Estates of the Sword representing the oldest and most powerful families in the empire and the Order of the House of Ravens; the college of free imperial cities; the Estates of Letters representing families ennobled by letters of patent; and the Iron Companionship representing merchants, scientists and the middle class in general.


The College of Estates started as a convention of the chieftains of the old tribes and eventually developed into an assembly of equal (at least in theory) kings, until the unification of the kingdoms of Teyrnon and Canhastyr in 1357. After the War of the Last Kings the surviving rulers were forced to swear fealty to the imperial family. Their lines are now represented in the Estates of the Sword. The other Estates were added over time, with the latest addition being the Iron Companionship which is both the largest and least powerful body in the College. This is reflected in its name, iron being a worthless material used in shackles and chains. Nonetheless each Estate controls its own respective affairs, with the caveat that each is at all times subject to imperial instruction.
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Invictus »

Teyrnon-Canhastyr's setup is all so stubbornly un-modern. I like it. ;)
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Lelouch vi Britannia »

Siege wrote:
Lelouch vi Britannia wrote:Given the sheer breadth of Teyrnon Canhastyr's colonial possessions, I'd also expect massive variation in the cultures of the various colonies and ex-colonies. Not quite on the same level as Norse Japanese, Anglo-Japanese, and monarchist pseudo-Americans, but still.
Indeed, although to start I first want to flesh out the empire's own culture. I'm aiming for a Celtic-Norse culture progressing into vaguely Imperial French direction.
Teyrnon Canhastyr has already been stated to have possessions in western Kagaria and Dar Qimr, but given the reach of their navy, could they have also expanded west, towards the Daedaleans and the Impact Archipelago?
The Impact Archipelag, or at least its northern parts, is at least at this point conceived as being firmly within the Daedalean sphere of influence. There's also more continents west of Teyrnon Canhastyr yet to be filled in that would be in the way of such an expansion. I'm not counting out imperial possessions on those continents, but they basically only exist as very vague concepts (like 'sorta Aztec with ageing bomber fleet' level vague). So, yeah, ideas are welcome.
Wait, Celtic-Norse? And continents to the west of Teyrnon Canhastyr that may be home to imperial possessions? Between that and what you've already told me about the possibility of dissatisfied nobles seceding from the empire (and imperial intelligence sponsoring attempts at reunification with Teyrnon Canhastyr), honest-to-Haruhi Norse Japanese can actually be a thing here after all.

One of the continents west of Teyrnon Canhastyr is home to a country that I will provisionally name "Japanistan" (mainly because my mind is still dwelling on SDNW2 and because it's a convenient shorthand for the concept I'm trying to push here). Despite its (provisional) name, Japanistan is more akin to Qing Dynasty China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; despite earnest and sincere attempts to modernize, it is culturally stagnant, and its ruling class collectively suffers from significant delusions of grandeur even though they are largely irrelevant on the world stage. Some time prior to the Great War, Teyrnon Canhastyr took advantage of Japanistan's weakness and started seizing a number of Japanistan's easternmost territories through both diplomatic and martial means; at that point in history, these represented some of the westernmost colonial acquisitions of the Serene Empire. However, significant unrest in Teyrnon Canhastyr's western frontier in the aftermath of the Great War resulted in the wholesale secession of these colonies from the Serene Empire to form a unified state, followed shortly by a counter-revolution in which some of the new state's territories either seceded in their own right or were expelled; I'm envisioning it similar to the Konfrontasi, with Japanistan as Indonesia and Teyrnon Canhastyr's former colonies as Malaysia and Singapore.

To keep with the SDNW2 theme and again for the sake of convenience, the two states formed out of Teyrnon Canhastyr's former colonies in Japanistan will have the provisional names of "Zoria" and "Langley," at least for the time being. "Zoria" is the state that broke off (or was kicked out) during the counter-revolution; its ruling class is proudly pro-imperial and highly assimilationist (in short, they put the Norse in "Japanorse"). "Langley" is the remainder of the Serene Empire's western colonies, merged into a single state; as a whole, it tends to be far more cosmopolitan than either Zoria or Japanistan. In the modern age, Japanistan, Zoria, and Langley are in a state of cold war with each other; Zoria wants to get back in the good graces of Teyrnon Canhastyr by annexing Langley and seizing more of Japanistan's territory, Japanistan wants to take back what had once been lost, and Langley just wants to be left alone.

As far as better alternate names for these polities go, to keep with the general Japan theme, my first thought would be to mix and match some of the classical names of Japan (Jipangu/Zipang, Fuso/Fusang, Oyashima, Shikishima, Akitsukuni, et cetera).
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Siege »

Lelouch vi Britannia wrote:Wait, Celtic-Norse?
That's the quickest way I have to describe it. French/Celtic, with Norse influences limited to their history as seaborne raiders from a frozen wasteland and the way that informed their mythology. So Norman more than Norse (also since this is still the conceptual stage these things tend to shift from day to day).

I'll see if I can incorporate your suggestion when I draw up the western continents. The Serene Empire is as thusfar conceived the largest colonial entity in the world but I don't want to let it devolve into a direct expy of the British Empire. We'll see.

In the meantime, here's map 3.0:

Image

Here's a link to the detailed version. In this version:
  • The Impact Archipelago (which still needs a new name) has been filled in
  • The western continent has been added;
  • Kagaria has been significantly enlarged;
  • The coast of the Daedalean Empire has been enhanced;
  • More size and border changes to the Sarakan Peninsula;
  • Herceowic and Sigmaringa have been redone;
  • Addition of a 'Mediterranean' to the west of Dar Qimr.
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Siege »

After looking at it for a few days I've decided I really like the map as it is right now. I might add a 'northern Australia' somewhere to the north of the impact archipelago, but I think it has a lot of potential as it is already.

A few nation concepts (none of these are more than a single line at this point):

Prefecture of Chanda-Li, whose bureaucracies claim to represent the Court of Heavens here on Earth.

Dai Xich, a rich and ethnically diverse nation on a crossroads of trade routes.

Akka, where the emperor and the nazirites maintain an uneasy, crumbling peace over Temple Cliff.

Krung Khes Kraom, whose dense and deadly jungles hide the remnants of ancient cities... And some not-so-ancient cities.

Mazaber, where fates were once broken with trinkets of bronze and oracle bone.

Assam, defined by the Red and Blue Assam rivers. Riches and rags, cruelties and mercies, corruption and ardor are present in equal opportunity at the stations along the rivers.
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

Post by Invictus »

The map looks good, and the anti-oracles of Mazaber is one of those ideas I wish I'd thought of. The rest of the nation ideas also seem pretty good, and already suggestive of where on the map they can be.
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

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On further thought I'm moving the apocalyptic wasteland to 'new guinea', the big island between the western continent and the impact archipelago. It's big enough to make for a good setting and it's relatively remote enough that it's conceivable that it'd be left to fester.

Aside from San Dorado we find on Vedica the Holy Kingdom of Akka (provisionally centered on the northenmost peninsula on the east of the continent); the ruined coasts of Lothal (likely to the south of Akka); Shan Assam (on the western shore of the bay; Lower and Upper Sankara (take up most of the land south of that same bay), Mazaber (in the dense jungles of the west of Vedica) and Krung Khes Kraom all the way to the west.

The westernmost regions of Vedica are extremely difficult to navigate, with mangroves and vine thickets, fast-shifting streams and rivers and treacherous craggy ranges, rising to the highland plateaus of Krung Khes Kraom. This ancient state has historically held off all attempts by Dar Qimr to penetrate the Vedican continent and its soldiers have a fearsome reputation as a result.

The area directly south of the San Doradan peninsula is an unstable confederation of states called the Grace of the Wircrowe Coast. The Counts of the Coast are heavily reliant on San Dorado; the ruling Princess is sometimes seen as a member of San Dorado's Club Perdition or is, less pleasantly, referred to as the Eighth Serpent for her administration's willingness to exploit the population of the coast as cheap expatriate labour.
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

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  • The Wirrycrow Coast south of San Dorado is divided into the five counties of Montante, Falcaras, Dal Salona, Caldora and Ravane.
  • The Coast is home to and named after the Direcrows (Corvus Dirus) that originate there. Direcrows are highly intelligent flock hunters and tool users.
  • In the 11th century the Canhastyri ruled parts of the Coast as their short-lived fiefdom of Esternesse. They believed the crows to be ghosts of murdered women, associated with the battle-goddess Morrigan. Even after the loss of Esternesse the line of Canhastyr has kept direcrows in one of the towers of Ashcreagh Hall, said to protect the fortunes of the imperial line.
  • Significant numbers of direcrows have migrated north to San Dorado, where great murders of them can be seen wheeling around the Downtown skyscrapers.
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

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  • Daedalean Steel is a metal derived from meteoritic iron dug up from the Sea of Sidon. Properly forged and alloyed Daedalean Steel is remarkably strong and flexible. It was the discovery of the initial deposits of this material that allowed the armies of Daedalopolis to first forge the weapons and armor of the First Daedalean Empire.
  • The name 'Daedalean Steel' is used as a name for both the deposits and the refined and alloyed metal.
  • Daedalean Steel is easily recognized by the peculiar interleaving crystalline ribbon patterns that emerge after forge-welding. This banded pattern is present in ancient swords from the First Empire and can be seen even today in the hull of the empire's fastest interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft.
  • Althought small deposits are known to be present on the Impact Archipelago, almost all the world's known deposits of Daedalean Steel are inside the empire. Practically none of it is exported.
  • The forging and alloying of Daedalean Iron is one of the most closely guarded imperial secrets. Senior bureaucrats and key engineers of the Ministry for Metallurgy are forbidden from leaving the territories of the empire.
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Re: Shear Anarchy / San Dorado [Worldbuilding Exercise]

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"Maps used to say 'here be dragons'. Now they don't. But that don't mean the dragons ain't there."
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