Map Thread VI
- Thread starter Ian the Admin
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Ah. Well, then it would apparently be the Sava, rather, if I'm interpreting the map-lacking-instructions correctly.
Susano
Banned
Well, if we go by that, Triest would still have to be considered part of it, as the gulf it lies on would have to be considered one of the ends of that peninsula!
I do believe that little bit of Italy is considered part of the Balkans, yes, meaning that Italy is partially a Balkan country.
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I call this monstrosity:
Italian Hitler.
I like it. You should give Italy more of the Mediterranean, divide France, making Occitania and Burgundy puppets, and give them a major ally -- a Turk Mussolini perhaps?
I was just toying around with a Wikipedia map of Europe, and I made one minor tweak to an otherwise OTL map. Care to guess what it is?
Belgium is split with the Wallons going to France and The Flemish joining The Netherlands.
ASB map.
This is taken from GURPS “Infinite Worlds” “Azoth-7.”
As all “Azoth” (Azoth: the “philosopher’s mercury”) worlds, Alchemy works here, and Sir Isaac Newton cracked the operating code of the universe, allowing the construction of Philosopher’s Stones and with them, control by humans over the elementals and the lower order of Angels.
Louis XIV’s successful creation of a European coalition to put a stop to Britain’s use of “demonic” powers ended disastrously, and the British conquered France outright and incorporated it into their empire. Thanks to Alchemical potions, William III lived rather longer and succeeded in fathering children, so the Anglo-Dutch personal union continued.
The Brits failed to make themselves masters of all of Europe: Gottfried Leibniz, working in Prussia, managed to duplicate Newton’s feat of summoning angelic powers, as did scholars of the Catholic Church working in Spain, and an oddball bunch of intellectuals in Venice. Since the struggle between angelic forces tended to be as dangerous for any bystanders as low-yield atomic weapons, a sort of MAD between the four Alchemy-powered nations was established, and after a few mutually destructive wars, a rough four-part division of the world took place.
Prussia managed to absorb a number of smaller German states, but further expansion was blocked by the British and the Venetians, and the Spanish intervened to prevent the total breakup of the Catholic Austrians. Instead, Prussia turned east, annexing Poland, overrunning Russia, and then moving on to colonize China. (The Prussian empire is divided into a “European” dominated inner Empire, and an “outer” empire of Turks, Chinese, Koreans, etc., which is administrated in a much more outright “colonial” manner.) Fears of too many Russians means that the empire has only directly incorporated the as-of-1700 still thinly populated southern Russia, leaving the rest as a puppet. (Peter the Great’s flight into exile, attempts to raise an army to liberate his country with Spanish help, and final heroically doomed attack on Berlin in a fleet of pirate Azothic flyers is the stuff of legends among the Russian people). Prussia is even more autocratic than in our timeline’s 1752, given the enormous empire it must manage and keep under control, but fairly egalitarian and gives opportunities for advancement to most people of talent: the bureaucracy includes Poles, Russians, Lithuanians, even Turks.
Spain is Very Catholic, and works hand-in-glove with the Church and the Inquisition (no banning of the Jesuits in this timeline): Church scholars tend to predominate in the Alchemical research establishment. Poorer and with a less developed alchemical science than their opponents, they have been hard put to simply hold what they had before Newton created the first Philosopher’s stone. They lost a lot of north Mexico to the British, but they still hold most of Latin America, and are working to expand their influence in Asia. They are wary of the Venetians, who they consider borderline heretics for their ban of Inquisition activity in their territory.
A democracy for those who have money in Italy, Venice is a bureaucratic dictatorship in the Balkans, and an exploitative colonial power elsewhere. Venice has the smallest population base of the four powers, in spite of absorbing quite a bit of North Italy: to maintain its huge territorial claims, it has been forced to use puppet regimes to an extent greater than any of its rivals, and has so far failed to effectively establish its authority in vast areas of desert and jungle. The Venetians make a great deal of use of mercenaries, and encourage immigration of Catholics suffering from the harsh censorship and social control enforced in the territory of Spain and its allies and satellites. Venice gets along fairly well with the British, which is also essentially an oligarchy.
The British Empire is also oligarchic, parliamentary supremacy being even more firmly in place than in our 1753, but with Alchemy providing enough bread and circuses that the lower orders are unlikely to make a fuss about their lack of political representation, although there have been some rumblings of late in the Americas. Britain and the Netherlands remain dynastically united, but have their own Parliaments and generally run their own affairs: since trade and movement of goods and people is free and open between their respective territories, most are content enough with the situation (and the Dutch really don’t relish the idea of making it on their own). Lately, the British have been pushing hard to divvy up the disputed regions of south Asia: given the Spanish conviction that the other three powers are going to squeeze them out, this has led to an increase in tensions. British Alchemy remains the most developed, but people are nervous about the possibility of war.
Alchemical technology is widespread. Bat-winged Azoth-powered flying machines cross the skies, pallid, gelatinous homunculi do the grunt work and serve as cannon fodder, and ships powered by alchemical combustion processes zip across the ocean faster than steamships ever did OTL. Alchemical potions cure many illnesses and lengthen lives, although the process of making the Elixir of Immortality is so involved and expensive that only the very rich, the very well connected, or the very valuable (such as Sir Isaac Newton, which is all three of these) get to use it. With controllable weather and potent fertilizing potions, crops are richer, while control of underground and marine elementals makes fishing and mining a snap. (Depletion of fish stocks is already becoming a problem).
On the down side, alchemy also has brought terrible new weapons into the world: as well as alchemical potions which produce the sort of explosions and fires and deadly poisons OTL is familiar with, there is alkahest, the all-destroying solvent, unquenchable alchemical flames, zombie-like homunculi soldiers, controlled elementals of air and fire and earth and water, and worst of all, the angels, which can burn a city to the ground or raise a fleet-sinking storm.
Although alchemy has brought a world of plenty and a consumer society of sorts, some substances can’t be produced by alchemy and require the control of raw materials and land. Most importantly, jewels of several varieties are needed to keep the Philosopher’s Stones working, and there has been in the past few decades a scramble for precious stones that has become increasingly heated and violent. Theft, piracy, smuggling, etc. are all rife, and increasingly the various powers look upon each other’s mines with greedy eyes. The fabulous diamond mines of Venetian South Africa are a particular source of envy, and British and Prussians and Spanish all have drawn up plans for their capture. One reason the Disputed territories have not yet been divvied up is that nobody wants the jewels of India and Afghanistan to pass into the hands of their enemies, so each intrigues with local princes for control of the supply without the bloody war actual territorial occupation would bring about.
War seems almost certain, as competition for the jewel supply becomes ever more heated, but Sir Isaac Newton is about to reveal a remarkable new discovery concerning the stars…
Bruce
This is taken from GURPS “Infinite Worlds” “Azoth-7.”
As all “Azoth” (Azoth: the “philosopher’s mercury”) worlds, Alchemy works here, and Sir Isaac Newton cracked the operating code of the universe, allowing the construction of Philosopher’s Stones and with them, control by humans over the elementals and the lower order of Angels.
Louis XIV’s successful creation of a European coalition to put a stop to Britain’s use of “demonic” powers ended disastrously, and the British conquered France outright and incorporated it into their empire. Thanks to Alchemical potions, William III lived rather longer and succeeded in fathering children, so the Anglo-Dutch personal union continued.
The Brits failed to make themselves masters of all of Europe: Gottfried Leibniz, working in Prussia, managed to duplicate Newton’s feat of summoning angelic powers, as did scholars of the Catholic Church working in Spain, and an oddball bunch of intellectuals in Venice. Since the struggle between angelic forces tended to be as dangerous for any bystanders as low-yield atomic weapons, a sort of MAD between the four Alchemy-powered nations was established, and after a few mutually destructive wars, a rough four-part division of the world took place.
Prussia managed to absorb a number of smaller German states, but further expansion was blocked by the British and the Venetians, and the Spanish intervened to prevent the total breakup of the Catholic Austrians. Instead, Prussia turned east, annexing Poland, overrunning Russia, and then moving on to colonize China. (The Prussian empire is divided into a “European” dominated inner Empire, and an “outer” empire of Turks, Chinese, Koreans, etc., which is administrated in a much more outright “colonial” manner.) Fears of too many Russians means that the empire has only directly incorporated the as-of-1700 still thinly populated southern Russia, leaving the rest as a puppet. (Peter the Great’s flight into exile, attempts to raise an army to liberate his country with Spanish help, and final heroically doomed attack on Berlin in a fleet of pirate Azothic flyers is the stuff of legends among the Russian people). Prussia is even more autocratic than in our timeline’s 1752, given the enormous empire it must manage and keep under control, but fairly egalitarian and gives opportunities for advancement to most people of talent: the bureaucracy includes Poles, Russians, Lithuanians, even Turks.
Spain is Very Catholic, and works hand-in-glove with the Church and the Inquisition (no banning of the Jesuits in this timeline): Church scholars tend to predominate in the Alchemical research establishment. Poorer and with a less developed alchemical science than their opponents, they have been hard put to simply hold what they had before Newton created the first Philosopher’s stone. They lost a lot of north Mexico to the British, but they still hold most of Latin America, and are working to expand their influence in Asia. They are wary of the Venetians, who they consider borderline heretics for their ban of Inquisition activity in their territory.
A democracy for those who have money in Italy, Venice is a bureaucratic dictatorship in the Balkans, and an exploitative colonial power elsewhere. Venice has the smallest population base of the four powers, in spite of absorbing quite a bit of North Italy: to maintain its huge territorial claims, it has been forced to use puppet regimes to an extent greater than any of its rivals, and has so far failed to effectively establish its authority in vast areas of desert and jungle. The Venetians make a great deal of use of mercenaries, and encourage immigration of Catholics suffering from the harsh censorship and social control enforced in the territory of Spain and its allies and satellites. Venice gets along fairly well with the British, which is also essentially an oligarchy.
The British Empire is also oligarchic, parliamentary supremacy being even more firmly in place than in our 1753, but with Alchemy providing enough bread and circuses that the lower orders are unlikely to make a fuss about their lack of political representation, although there have been some rumblings of late in the Americas. Britain and the Netherlands remain dynastically united, but have their own Parliaments and generally run their own affairs: since trade and movement of goods and people is free and open between their respective territories, most are content enough with the situation (and the Dutch really don’t relish the idea of making it on their own). Lately, the British have been pushing hard to divvy up the disputed regions of south Asia: given the Spanish conviction that the other three powers are going to squeeze them out, this has led to an increase in tensions. British Alchemy remains the most developed, but people are nervous about the possibility of war.
Alchemical technology is widespread. Bat-winged Azoth-powered flying machines cross the skies, pallid, gelatinous homunculi do the grunt work and serve as cannon fodder, and ships powered by alchemical combustion processes zip across the ocean faster than steamships ever did OTL. Alchemical potions cure many illnesses and lengthen lives, although the process of making the Elixir of Immortality is so involved and expensive that only the very rich, the very well connected, or the very valuable (such as Sir Isaac Newton, which is all three of these) get to use it. With controllable weather and potent fertilizing potions, crops are richer, while control of underground and marine elementals makes fishing and mining a snap. (Depletion of fish stocks is already becoming a problem).
On the down side, alchemy also has brought terrible new weapons into the world: as well as alchemical potions which produce the sort of explosions and fires and deadly poisons OTL is familiar with, there is alkahest, the all-destroying solvent, unquenchable alchemical flames, zombie-like homunculi soldiers, controlled elementals of air and fire and earth and water, and worst of all, the angels, which can burn a city to the ground or raise a fleet-sinking storm.
Although alchemy has brought a world of plenty and a consumer society of sorts, some substances can’t be produced by alchemy and require the control of raw materials and land. Most importantly, jewels of several varieties are needed to keep the Philosopher’s Stones working, and there has been in the past few decades a scramble for precious stones that has become increasingly heated and violent. Theft, piracy, smuggling, etc. are all rife, and increasingly the various powers look upon each other’s mines with greedy eyes. The fabulous diamond mines of Venetian South Africa are a particular source of envy, and British and Prussians and Spanish all have drawn up plans for their capture. One reason the Disputed territories have not yet been divvied up is that nobody wants the jewels of India and Afghanistan to pass into the hands of their enemies, so each intrigues with local princes for control of the supply without the bloody war actual territorial occupation would bring about.
War seems almost certain, as competition for the jewel supply becomes ever more heated, but Sir Isaac Newton is about to reveal a remarkable new discovery concerning the stars…
Bruce
Just have the Balkan Peninsula be everything south of a straight line from Trieste to Odessa.
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