This one is taken from a GURPS alternate earths Wiki somewhere out there (I'm afraid I no longer have the website
)
In the world of Curonia, a slower conversion of the Scandinavian peninsula to Christianity and a more successful Vinland colony leads to the establishment of a Pagan norse foothold in North America. Still, the pressure on Norway and Sweden to Christianize is strong, and as their kings move to accept the inevitable, a worried Vinland recruits new settlers to strengthen themselves against Christian conquest: first, Norse and Swedes unwilling to convert, and later, foreign but reliably anti-Christian Baltic pagans fleeing from Germanic crusaders.
Perhaps due to the loss of mapower to America, the Teutonic Knights do better than OTL and overrun Lithuania. Christian missionaries start to show in America, although due to the primitive state of deep-sea shipping its hard to get a proper Transatlantic Crusade. In the end, the Vinland state splits in two, with hard-line Pagans (mostly Balts) going south and west, forming the state which will one day be known as Curonia, while the old core territories (mostly Norse) slowly turn to Christianity and become known as Markland.
A number of centuries later, Curonia sprawls across the continent. A loose and rather democratic federation, with some areas, such as the northern plains and the native states in the Appallachians, only rather theoretically loyal to the High King and the Grand Council, it is nevertheless united by religion and common custom, plus hostility to the European Christian enemy: centuries of warfare have kept the Curonians abreast of military developments, and although somewhat backwards in actual science, they are learning fast, in part due to a policy of tolerance towards immigrant religious dissenters and Jews from Europe and the south, which provide a good conduit of foreign knowledge. The synectic (Christian, Norse, Balt and native American influences) local religion, with an organized priesthood and a High God, is the state religion, but is tolerant as long as immigrants do not try to convert the faithful (immigrant communities do try to convert eachother, which occasionally leads to highjinks). Ethnically, the Curonians are very mixed, with at over 80% of the population having at least some Native American anscestry.
The constitutional monarchy of Markland is Catholic, but a tolerant sort of place nowadays, and there hasn't been a war with the Curonians in over a century (in any events, they'd get their butts kicked by the now rather more numerous Curonians). Although relations aren't as cordial as OTL Canada and the US, there is a lot of cross-border trade and travel.
The "Bad boy" of the Western Hemisphere is the English (more or less) speaking Commonwealth of Meshico, a near-theocracy reminiscent in its attitudes of Cromwell's England. In this ATL, the religious *Reformation didn't get very far in the Old World (Poland is the only major Reformist nation in Europe), but various forms of dissident Christianity triumphed in much of OTL Latin America (here colonized by the British and Portuguese, mostly). Their revolution against England was a religious as well as a political struggle, and they remain the most religiously militant of Christian nations. The government remains dominated by those with "purer" European heritage: the more tolerant clergy is the most important road to advancement and power for those with dark skins. Their African colonies are mostly run by the clergy, and are rather more pure theocracies. Although they have fought bitter wars against the Curonians in the past, nowadays they concentrate their hostility on England, whose colonies in the Caribbean they lust after, and the Teutons, which they see as the militant arm of Catholic heresy, far worse than the ignorant pagans to the north.
While whites still rule the roost in Meshico, in the high Andes, where Portuguese never were more than a thin skimming atop a subject Indian multitude, the revolution saw the emergence of a nativist regime, run by the racially mixed and pure-blooded natives. Reform Christians, but of a more moderate persuasion than the Meshicans (kinda "Anglicans"), the locals have struggled to create a new unified identity based on the Quechuan languages (after a century and a half of standardization, people from the north can still barely understand those from the far south, alas) and the memory of the old Inca empire.
A couple other Christian native states exist in Araucania, which broke away from the Portuguese *Chile during the independence struggle, and the Republic of Terrarios. Most of the rest of the continent is fragmented and racially mixed Portuguese colonies, mostly various brands of Christian reformist, the only other regional power being the somewhat backwards and politically turbulent Portuguese kingdom of St. Amador, currently embroiled in a quarrel over the control of the Amazon with the Teutons.
Catholic and conservative England (more successful than OTL in culturally assimilating the Scots and Irish) has been in relative decline for a while: the industrial revolution started on the continent, and although it's abundance of coal promises well for future the future of its now growing industrial sector, economic power is currently limited, while it has only been able to hold onto its Caribbean posessions thanks to a mutual-assistance pact with the Curonians.
The Kingdom of France, thanks to butteflies, did less well in getting out of its entanglements with Normans and Englishmen, and is a smaller country than OTL, if richer than England. Expansion is hampered by the great power of Germany hanging over its shoulder, although through close relations with the other major Latin power, Spain, it has been able to avoid actual puppetdom. Its colonies in the Americas were lost variously to Curonians, the English, and Teutons: after emerging from a period of political turbulence, it has jumped into the new era of colonialism, grabbing bits of Africa and Asia and taking over Patagonia (disputed between Portugal and three of its colonies): further acquistions look doubtful, though.
Perhaps the greatest power in the world is the Catholic Christian German Confederation, led by the Teutonic Empire, which although now a hereditary monarchy rather than a religious order with a country, remains fervently Catholic. Looser than OTLs post-1870 German Empire, the Confederation is religiously united and proudly German. The only real fly in the ointment is the low-level confict for leadership between the Teutons and the Austrians, who consider themselves a more cultured and "scientific" nation than the rough-hewn Teutons. Heavily industrialized, the Confederation is heavily invested in the world-wide Teutonic colonial effort, and Germans from all the member states immigrate to the colonies in Australasia and South Africa. Like OTLs Japanese, the Teutons are very into development of their colonies, with Teuton Bengal, for instance, becoming a major smoke-stack producer. The biggest problem with the Teuton colonial effort is their vigorous prosthelesizing, which leads to local resistance, which leads to Sadly Necessary massacres.
Still too busy fighting Muslims to participate when Europeans started colonizing the americas in earnest, Spain turned its colonial efforts towards a continuation of the Reconquista into Africa: after some three and a half centuries, the effort has somewhat run out of steam, the costs of continuing outweighing any benefits except the purely religious, and modern-day Spaniards having little of the fervor of their ancestors. Although the coastal cities of NW Africa are solidly Christian, the interior has been more of a problem, and the Tuareg, supplied and armed with modern weapons with Spain's old Egyptian enemy, constantly stir up trouble in the borderlands. There is some talking of dumping the south and fortifying the frontier, but it would have to be quite a wall.
(The Tuareg have developed into something of an African nomadic Khanate equivalent, like them dependent in bad years on food supplies from outside their lands, raided from Spaniards, given freely by rebellious Spanish subjects and delivered in occasional Egyptian largesse).
Portugal still rules a few jots and tittles of land here and there, but is no longer an important colonial power, a sleepy, backwards monarchy where nothing much ever happens. Spaniards often take cheap vacations there.
Normandy is a small but rich and very closely governed nation, Swedes are glum, Danes are prosperous in a small way and neutral, and the Poles are Europe's main Reform Christians, a legacy of centuries of wars with the bellicosely Christian Teutons with the Church in Rome being
no help at all. With no Lithuania, it ended up as Poland-Hungary, with Moldavia added more recently as a result of wars with the Turks. (The Hamids rather than the Osmans). Without OTL Lithuania's vast expansion into Orthodox lands, they also have no real beef with the Russians, and in fact have traditionally been allied with them against the Germans and the Turks: there has been a fair amount of intermarriage between the Russian and Polish royal families, although ideas of a union have been nixed by religious differences and the certainty of a Turkish-Teuton gangup if the idea were floated.
Poland is a constitutional monarchy (the Nobles never took over as OTL, but the Kings never managed to break their power entirely, either), and what with friendly relations and intellectual commerce democratic ideas have been more successful than in OTL Russia, and Russia is nowadays somewhat more democratic than a still rather militarized Poland. Long denied sea access, the Poles and Russians ganged up on the Turks to take the Straits while the Germans were busy having a war with the French and the English. Russians are also friendly with the Curonians, which are far away, also dislike the Teutons, have no beef with Orthodoxy, and are profitable trade partners.
Although the Spanish are agreeable enough about Polish and Russian shipping going past Gibraltar, and the Egyptians have had a toll canal up and running for a while, the Russians still seek better sea access: *Vladivostok is sometimes icebound, and there is as yet only one rail track across Siberia. Russia has been pushing south through central Asia for some while, and have their eye on eventually getting Baluchistan: the Persians, the warlike Pathans, and perhaps the Goans are likely to object.
The Hamids are a power in decline: although they managed to create an Empire almost as big as the OTL Ottomans, they never managed to take Egypt, and are seen as the weakest of the three major Islamic powers. On the other hand, they were more energetic than the Ottomans in Islamicizing the Balkans, and have less to worry about in terms of Orthodox revolt. Egypt, on the other hand, is a recognized power of some importance, having developed through centuries of war with the Spaniards, and expanding deep into Africa. Egypt is Shi'a, which puts it at odds with the Sunni Turks and Persians (the Ismaili's being butterflied away), and makes Sunni pilgrims to the Holy Cities pay sizeable (and resented) fees. It is currently stirring up trouble with Tuareg help in Africa and Beduoin help in Arabia: it hopes to detatch still mostly Shi'a south Iraq from Persian rule.
One thing all three Muslim powers agree on is hatred of the Teutons: after Egypt and the Turks bled themselves white in a fight over the Levant, the Teutons marched in and grabbed Palestine for themselves. The "Holy Land" has seen much of its population expelled and replaced by Christians: the Egyptians have tried twice, the Turks three times, to regain the area, but with no success, principally because neither is willing to aid the other in a fight where the other might be the one to get the Holy City of Jerusalem.
Africa is much as OTL 1885 south of the jungles, but thanks to plentiful Berber and Arab immigrants in the long history of the continuing Spanish Reconquista, the states along the Niger are larger, more advanced, and more cohesive than OTL, and are unlikely to fall victim to European colonizers anytime soon. Ethiopia, blocked by Egypt from expansion in one direction, has carved a corridor to the sea through Somali territory, and is supported by the Russians, which consider them fellow (more or less) Orthodox and are currently busy building railway lines for the Ethiopian emperor.
The Portuguese as OTL set up a trading station in Goa, and in time this developed into the capital of a Portuguese equivalent of the East India Company, ruling over populations larger than that of their home country. When the Portuguese were forced to cede their Indian possession to the Teutons in a peace treaty, the corporate nabobs refused to submit themselves to German rule, and revolted to set up the world's first and so far only corporate state. With the aid of native Muslim and Hindu allies familiar with the harsh rule of the Teutons in south India (the Goa Company generally made it a rule to not interfere with the religious beliefs of its subjects), they managed to beat off Teuton efforts to sieze the area by force, and survive till today, leading a somewhat shaky alliance of states incorporating most of the subcontinent. Although the Presidency remains in the hands of a small group of super-wealthy European families, an ambitious Hindu or Muslim can climb very high, and becomes very rich, in the Goan government without having to compromise their religion: Goa is known worldwide as a byword for religious tolerance.
The succession of dynasties since the Middle Ages has been a bit different, and China is now under the dynamic new leadership of the young Sun emperor. Having continued incremental improvements rather than letting their gunpowder technology stagnate as under OTL Manchus, the Chinese have done a bit better than OTL in encounters with bellicose Europeans, but not enough to prevent the Russians from grabbing vast swathes of outlying territory during the messy dynastic changeover, and continued modernization is seen as vital, not just to deal with agressive foreigners, but also with severe overpopulation problems only slightly delayed by the death toll of the recent conflicts. (American foodstuffs arrived in China earlier than OTL). Foreign ideas and religion are also proving disruptive: in Korea, conflict between converts to American-style reform Christianity and traditionalists is approaching open civil war: will the Meshicoans intervene to create a puppet at China's front door?
Japan is quite friendly to Curonia: as another pagan nation stuggling to modernize in the face of an agressive Christian world, they have quite a bit in common, and there are trade and military agreements, a big Curonian naval base, and a number of Curonian Shaman-priests looking for converts. Some Japanese worry there is some risk of their becoming Curonian puppets rather than Christian ones.
The world is roughly as advanced technologically as OTL 1885, although industrialization is spread more widely outside of Europe. Slavery still exists, especially in the Muslim lands, but has largely been replaced by forms of indentured labor in the Teuton Empire, and has been abolished outright in most of the Reform Christian nations. Curonia has some forms of semi-slavery for crimes and some special "castes", but no for-life people-as-property slavery.
Bruce
