Predictions or a NJ-based county in your timeline, it could be one of the bigger powers in the American Northeast with a noticeably high population and an even higher population density, while only a step behind technologically compared to the oldest Algonquian civilizations, they more than make up for it with a higher population, better shipbuilding and sea navigation, and their strong friendship and trade with the Taino.
To many nations of the Northeast, the Algonquians see the NJ-based region as a land of deserts, luxury, and hedonism. They are the lead producers and exporters of the sweetest pastries and the finest wines. With access to deer's milk, turkey eggs, maple syrup, and a wide assortment of berries (cranberries, raspberries, strawberries, etc.), cookies, cakes and pies are among the sweetest in the Americas, while the cranberry and raspberry wines are nothing less than exquisite. The NJ-based region is also the only place in the Northeast woodlands in which popcorn is even remotely common and affordable to the common peasant, thanks to frequent trade with the Taino, who also provide foreign fruit from the Caribbean and the amazon, though those are more restricted to the upper class, and the only time peasants could enjoy such luxury is during the most expensive of parties.
Speaking of parties, the NJ-region is also known for its celebrations and its active nightlife, as well as its peoples more enlightened and self-aware pursuit of happiness (personal or public). Whatever personal free time people have, they try to make the most out of it, whether its resting lazily, fulfilling their curiosity, or living the 'good life' of 'maximum pleasure and minimum pain' of financial security, diet of sweets, and forbidden love with guaranteed reproductive success and a long line of descendances. Philosophy, literature and the arts are very important, many civilians are more 'creative and imaginative' on average, a peasant boy longing to live like a spoiled prince surrounded by lovely ladies (for example) is acknowledged more frequently by all people of across the social tiers, to a point where many civilians question their own existence. Regardless, the general population of the country is more enlightened than educated, and people already have better schooling than most civilizations of the Algonquian culture sphere, they're also among the first to provide special education to the intellectually disabled.
Pastries and Pleasure aside, the NJ-based region are also characterized by having red and black as their theme colors, referencing to the turkey vulture and the black vulture respectively, which are important animals to their culture. The red represents love and pleasure, the black represents heartbreak and pain, and while red more likely represents life, both colors also symbolizes death, with red representing a good afterlife in which one can restart or continue life under more favorable financial and social conditions, only remembering the good times of one's life, while the black represents damnation, where one only remembers the bad stuff in life, and is filled with sadness and rage that he didn't get the life he wanted, filling with bitter, grudge-baring resentment until he is driven mad or tires himself into eternal sleep, usually both in that order. While vultures are seen as the grim reapers, they also represent the clergy, while the owls represent the aristocracy, the eagles representing the bureaucracy, and little birdies like finches, cardinals, jays and passenger pigeons represent the common man, but the real heroes are the crows and ravens, the most famous of which is the rainbow raven, which once brought red crimson fire from the sun and give to all the animals during wintertime, at the expense of its colorful plumage which turned black as ebony. The most important mammal by far is the white-tailed deer, which not only is a domesticated animal, but the civilization's mascot alongside vultures. Wild white-tails also have dual symbolism, deer could either be the great prince of the forest which guards nature and order, or they could be bad and turn into jersey devils which cause forest fires and destruction, like dragons of European folklore. Dogs are portrayed as loyal in folklore, dogs represent friendship, and are considered best friends with humans, and hounds in particular have a strong friendship with foxes both domesticated and wild. Foxes are very noble in folklore, as apposed to bunnies, hares, rabbits and wabbits, which are portrayed as dishonest tricksters who raid fields and steal crops that the foxes try to guard, as such, bunnies and foxes have a huge rivalry with each other in fairy tales, albeit most of their conflicts are comedic.
Due to trade, the NJ-based region had more direct contact with the Taino than most Algonquian cultures north of the tidewater regions, thus many Taino sailors settled in the NJ-based region. Though many individual Taino sailors settled all over the Atlantic coast of both North and South America, NJ Algonquians do come at second, but they get first place when only compared to other Algonquian civilizations.
Due to having a more condensed population, whatever disease arises is going to spread faster and have a higher death toll compared to most other places in the Americas. Despite higher death tolls, there will still be more survives thanks to an overall higher population, and populations can recover slightly faster despite the greater loss. This also means natives of the NJ-based region could better adapt to diseases brought by the Europeans, thus they remain more populated when Europeans begin to establish settlements. While most of the Atlantic coast might be settled by the English, the NJ-based region might be settled by the Dutch instead, and several centuries later, immigrants from Naples, Sicily, Germany, Wales, Provençal and Occitan France, Picardy, Normandy, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Hungary, Romania, Greece and the Ukraine, which makes the NJ-based region noticeable for having a higher native population AND having a more varied European population. Not only that, most of the Native American diaspora living in continental Europe originally came from the NJ-based region, with the biggest communities in Paris, Marseille, Naples, Sicily, Munich, Budapest and Bucharest.
Those are just a few ideas I had, many of which I might save for when writing my own timeline, few paragraphs are more philosophical than standard predictions, but I wanted to know your thought on those ideas.
