As a kid I randomly picked up a book from the Darkover Cycle by Marion Zimmer Bradley, and I was hooked. Then I discovered she took some names from Chambers' King in Yellow, and I read that. I discovered the connection with Lovecraft and, having already read some R.E. Howard, I tried on that too. The Batman Connection (Arkham) was next, and from then on. Check out some of the Darkover Myth deities: Aldones, Evandra, Avarra, Zandru and of course Hastur. Though not properly Old Ones (apart from Hastur) they may inspire you.
Map Thread XIV
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As a kid I randomly picked up a book from the Darkover Cycle by Marion Zimmer Bradley, and I was hooked. Then I discovered she took some names from Chambers' King in Yellow, and I read that. I discovered the connection with Lovecraft and, having already read some R.E. Howard, I tried on that too. The Batman Connection (Arkham) was next, and from then on. Check out some of the Darkover Myth deities: Aldones, Evandra, Avarra, Zandru and of course Hastur. Though not properly Old Ones (apart from Hastur) they may inspire you.
Hm. I'll take a look at those beings. Still, I usually side with Great Old Ones. I tend to view the Elder Gods with suspicion. I follow the theory that the Great Old Ones were slaves to the Elder Gods. Then they later learned black magic and revolted. The rebels were then cast asunder and imprisoned by the Elder Gods. Still, I try to insert the theory that the Great Old Ones are in a galactic hibernation cycle and will, as stated by all undisputedly, rise when the stars come right. The whole slavery bit does align with my own current world view
I have a different theory: the Elder Gods ruled, and the Outer Gods usurped their place. Hastur (Asator, Donar, Thor) was an Elder God (In the Darkover Cycle, Hastur is stated to be Son of Aldones; Aldones= Odin). So was Nodens: Nodens is the enemy of Nyarlathotep, like Hastur is Enemy of Cthulhu (though he is called an Old One, Cthulhu is actually one of the Outer or "Other" Gods, like its servant Dagon).
The current religions are based on the Other Gods, particularly on Nyarlathotep (the Wizard Prince of Egypt*) Dagon and Cthulhu, but the Elder Gods will return when the stars are right.
*Egypt used to be Stygia, don't forget.
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X-posting my entry from the Random Bouts in Cartography thingy.
(Kind of a quick little map, short on detail but whatever.) The color, to me, looked most like the UCS color for Scotland/Caledonia, and the first time I thought of Scotland invading anyone else was during the decline of the Romans' power in Britain, and thus I present to you a Kingdom of the Picts that pulls together behind a strong, capable ruler and begins to invade the rest of the British Isles, beginning with the lands between the Antonine Wall and Hadrian's Wall (in addition to the Dál Riata lands in OTL Northern Ireland), and moving on to conquer the Kingdom of the Brigantes once Roman power in the Isles finally collapses. There is also significant historical evidence that the Picts raided very far south, so I included that on the map as well.
Feel free to ask if you have any questions.
So pretty...
...Though the pedant in me must point out that the borders of Lebanon are very convergent, and modern Lebanon's borders are somewhat arbitrary. For example, the "bite" out of Lebanon's eastern border deviates significantly from the line of the Anti-Lebanon mountains to disinclude the city of al-Zabadani, and the northeastern "arc" is kinda arbitrary as well. The current boundaries of Lebanon are a result basically of the French starting with the core region around Mt Lebanon and adding extra territory until the region was only just barely a Christian majority.
This is really a quibble, but a more natural border might follow the mountains up more, as shown on the attached map. Red is modern OTL borders, blue is yours as far as I can tell (where it diverges from modern borders), black is what I think would be more natural. Incidentally, I completely agree with your disinclusion of Tyre.
EDIT: also Abu Dhabi. The UAE's borders are for the most part arbitrary.
But please don't take my nitpicks too harshly, the map is amazing!
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2004: After the better part of a year of fighting, and nearly 400 000 dead (plus large numbers injured and displaced) the Concert of Nations was able to push through a transitional agreement between the Communist and Military governments of the US(S)A (along with various breakaway states). Break away nations were recognised, while the two 'American' governments were to work together as a transitional authority to set up an election. And what an election it was. The Communists proved complacent and surprisingly bad at campaigning, while the American Liberal Party managed to rally the people around the idea of a large change and wide spread freedoms. In the end the ALP surprised the world by pulling in nearly 40% of the vote, while the Communists squeezed in at just under 30%. The rest was divided between the Social Democrats (who were caught in the middle and seen as a wishy washy choice of insufficient change/not real socialists), West Coast and Texan regionalists, some old school Conservatives, and Fascists. The Radical ALP began tearing apart various chunks of the social order, removing various programmes deemed wasteful and corrupt (most of which were indeed corrupt), reopening the field of Medicine to private clinics, and generally embrassing the idea of a Free Market to an extent that made even Colombia a little nervous (Colombia was always a little radical as they sat on the edge of the Communist world).
Meanwhile Moscow has begun dismantling the old 'Ethnic Homelands' concept, in part because it just wasn't working, in part because they didn't like the way the USSA fell apart. They've also enjoyed an economic boom as military spending has dropped significantly without the 'Word War' ongoing. Moscow, Washington, and other nuclear powers have also signed a number of treaties to help decrease global nuclear stockpiles.
Mexico tried to join the Latin Union economic bloc, but Brazil didn't much care to add a new rival over 'their' group (Italy already causes enough noise, and they're all the way over there in Europe). The Mexicans were angered to be rebuffed and after an initial slide into American style hyper-liberalisation have slid back towards a Socialist style, though still more open than before, and brought in a few neighbours to start the Latin Coalition. They're negotiating with Chile (which remains communist, and kind of in collective shock) and Iberia (doing quite nicely thank you) which is basically a Social Democratic state, but for the whole 'one party state' thing (though polls by internationally recognised pollsters show they've got strong popular support).
So yes, the world is doing nicely, even if the Americans are a little too big on the whole 'let's try capitalism' thing and are making everyone nervous.
Well everyong but Cairo which is fast realising the Radicalist elements are snowballing out of control. A recent string of mass protests by supporters of Radical Clerics are seriously troubling.
Oh, and Australia, which is busy with a little thing called the Indo-Australian war. Those two powers massively outnumber Australia on paper, but Indonesia is basically bankrupt, taking loans from India to try to pay their armies, and India really doesn't care that much about the war, but wants to show that Communism isn't beaten, just American Communism failed, and they can still take on Fascists.
Meanwhile Moscow has begun dismantling the old 'Ethnic Homelands' concept, in part because it just wasn't working, in part because they didn't like the way the USSA fell apart. They've also enjoyed an economic boom as military spending has dropped significantly without the 'Word War' ongoing. Moscow, Washington, and other nuclear powers have also signed a number of treaties to help decrease global nuclear stockpiles.
Mexico tried to join the Latin Union economic bloc, but Brazil didn't much care to add a new rival over 'their' group (Italy already causes enough noise, and they're all the way over there in Europe). The Mexicans were angered to be rebuffed and after an initial slide into American style hyper-liberalisation have slid back towards a Socialist style, though still more open than before, and brought in a few neighbours to start the Latin Coalition. They're negotiating with Chile (which remains communist, and kind of in collective shock) and Iberia (doing quite nicely thank you) which is basically a Social Democratic state, but for the whole 'one party state' thing (though polls by internationally recognised pollsters show they've got strong popular support).
So yes, the world is doing nicely, even if the Americans are a little too big on the whole 'let's try capitalism' thing and are making everyone nervous.
Well everyong but Cairo which is fast realising the Radicalist elements are snowballing out of control. A recent string of mass protests by supporters of Radical Clerics are seriously troubling.
Oh, and Australia, which is busy with a little thing called the Indo-Australian war. Those two powers massively outnumber Australia on paper, but Indonesia is basically bankrupt, taking loans from India to try to pay their armies, and India really doesn't care that much about the war, but wants to show that Communism isn't beaten, just American Communism failed, and they can still take on Fascists.
How are Ireland and Brittany feeling/faring? How likely are new nations like *Deseret and *Oklahoma going to be able to function on their own? Now that the USSA is gone, how are relations between Russia & Co. and India? Do the new Canadian and Aztlan states view themselves as Canada and Aztlan respectively?
Though I really like how this is progressing (American Putin perhaps?) I must say I'm a little disheartened by the way the war ended; I was somewhat hoping for a stalemate situation in which a rump USSA state survived
So how are things looking in the Cairo block?
Also what happened in South Africa?
Finally how does the international community view the Indo-Australian war? How do the Hue accords feel about India flexing it's muscles?
The Azatlan State is going probably going to start ripping itself apart over water as the Arizonan and South Californian states argue over who gets enough water to continue to supply their respective cities and farms in the middle of deserts. IOTL we're having the issue, but SoCal has the option of stealing more water from Jefferson. Without that water supply to help, South California is going to be more desperate. If South California and Arizona overdraw from the river to the point that the water never makes it to the Sea of Cortez then you are going to see an ecological crisis in the making that is going to piss Mexico.
Gian
Banned
So pretty...
...Though the pedant in me must point out that the borders of Lebanon are very convergent, and modern Lebanon's borders are somewhat arbitrary. For example, the "bite" out of Lebanon's eastern border deviates significantly from the line of the Anti-Lebanon mountains to disinclude the city of al-Zabadani, and the northeastern "arc" is kinda arbitrary as well. The current boundaries of Lebanon are a result basically of the French starting with the core region around Mt Lebanon and adding extra territory until the region was only just barely a Christian majority.
This is really a quibble, but a more natural border might follow the mountains up more, as shown on the attached map. Red is modern OTL borders, blue is yours as far as I can tell (where it diverges from modern borders), black is what I think would be more natural. Incidentally, I completely agree with your disinclusion of Tyre.
EDIT: also Abu Dhabi. The UAE's borders are for the most part arbitrary.
But please don't take my nitpicks too harshly, the map is amazing!
I could modify the borders around a bit to your suggestions.
Ireland and Brittany are in full 'What just happened? What do we do? Send the Secret police out to break any dissent' panic mode. The saw Iceland's previous dictators get locked away with life sentences and don't want a repeat. The people are mostly conbinced Paris/London will invade any minute and do something terrible (like propaganda had been warning for years).How are Ireland and Brittany feeling/faring? How likely are new nations like *Deseret and *Oklahoma going to be able to function on their own? Now that the USSA is gone, how are relations between Russia & Co. and India? Do the new Canadian and Aztlan states view themselves as Canada and Aztlan respectively?
Though I really like how this is progressing (American Putin perhaps?) I must say I'm a little disheartened by the way the war ended; I was somewhat hoping for a stalemate situation in which a rump USSA state survived
Deseret plans to be a quiet Mormon republic which will export some mineral goods and otherwise just live the quiet life. Most others are fine with that. The 4 Nations Homeland is trying to build a functional native run state while exporting grain and such. Both are quite dependent on the US for trade, but are currently politically independent.
Russia and Company see having gotten India on side as a key part of breaking the USSA (with India helping them the 'out spend Washington' plan the E10 had might have failed, or at least taken longer). India however is a little paranoid the E10 plans to break them next and has been engaging in a lot of military flexing, building some new carriers and launching their own satellites.
As for not having a stalemate, it was close, but would have involved a lot more deaths that neither side wanted.
Cairo is in trouble. There was a short boom in oil prices while the USSA was tearing itself apart, and the people got ticked their annual handouts didn't go up in accord. Now that oil prices have dropped significantly Cairo's treasury is slowly running dry as the people protest every time services get scaled back in a cost saving effort. Right now they're trying to talk India into a crash course in industrialisation to stimulate demand. New Delhi is interested and trade deals are being signed. So as long as the radicals don't ruin it all should be good.
South Africa divided along ethnic lines after arguing that it was a 'white colonial construct' and more importantly arguments about regional autonomy rights and federalism broke down. The White parts of the Cape have run away to Moscow begging forgiveness. The fact that most are Anglophones, and it was the Afrikaaners who had been running the previous government, has meant they got some forgiveness. The white bits elsewhere are either puppets of their neighbours or saw the Indian minority take over and get good treatment from New Delhi (which has caused a little tension).
The Hue are weary of India's rise, but most really don't like Australia's government (officials often use racist terms and generally tick off everyone who isn't white). They're mostly hoping India will find the war expensive and need to play ball with the rest of Asia more to pay off expenses. Russia meanwhile is glad to see India doing good and wants them as a strong balance to China. (Also to stem illegal immigration from the subcontinent into Russia. Proportionately it's way less of a thing than Mexico has OTL, but considering India has ~10x the population it's still involves millions of people sneaking into Afghanistan, Iran, and ultimately Russia . . . mostly in Central Asia, but plenty elsewhere. It's not a racism thing though, more an annoyance of paperwork and strain on affordable housing schemes.)
Yes, water is going to be an issue. The USA has lots of water here... They might be open to exporting a bit if it's needed. (Schemes had been under way for a major water transfer from the Hudson's Bay area, which had been part of why Canadians wanted out.)
They are the USA again. The states are mostly staying as is due to territorial shifts. The Flag under the USSA had dropped the blue and gone for one big red star. The new flag has brought back the blue, and changed the one start to white. They don't want to have to factor in lost states. (Conservative groups just want a return to the pre-revolution flag.)
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