alternatehistory.com

This is a forum game in the vein of this, where you add entries to a fictional alternate colonization of the Americas [here called Oceania].

Rules:

1. Read every post before you post. I want to make this a self-consistent collaborative world. No contradicting prior posts. If you do, I can't delete your posts but they will be considered non-canon.

2. PODs are anything after 1066. There can be multiple. However, like Empty America and the Vivaldi Journeys, the history of the Old World is "parallel", which means there are minimum butterflies and it continues largely like in OTL, with some distinct differences. That's because this game is supposed to be more entertaining than necessarily plausible (though you can always comment on that).

3. Entries are before 1810 just to set an artifical limit. I don't know if Napoleon will even show up or not, but having entries by then kind of defeats the purpose of making this about the colonial era.

4. Don't hog land. Don't say that your overpowered Navarran transoceanic empire controls all of North America. Let other people have room to make claims too. Though in the spirit of the Age of Discovery, claims are first come, first serve.

Again, this is supposed to be consistent. If you won't make an effort to do so, then you shouldn't play this. Please be considerate and at least skim over prior posts.

I'll start off.

San Valletta [OTL St. Bart's] - The sole New World possession of the Knights Hospitaller, acquired in 1567 after it was bequeathed by the Holy Roman Emperor in honor of the Order's successful defense against the Ottoman siege of Malta. Initially called New Petronium, the name was later changed to reflect the canonization of the former Grand Master of the Order. Though never heavily developed, the island became the Knights' toehold in the Noddian Isles [Caribbean], and where the Order's activities in the New World were focused at, allowing them to play the role of perennial kingmaker with regards to several disputed territories in the region and to engage in several evangelization efforts on the mainland.

Though the island of Clermont [OTL St. Croix] was later given to the Knights by Duke Henry of Auvergne in 1604, it was captured by the post-Mali colonial city-state of Kangaba [OTL Curaçao] amidst the Noddian Crusades and eventually granted to the Most Catholic Kingdom of Kongo at the Council of Ehingerburg.

Nova Roma [OTL Dominica]- Founded by the Papal States through Pope Calixtus IV in 1525 with the bull Novus Universitas Pacis, both in response to the Tordesillas Wars and the ongoing Reformation. Decreeing that a lasting peace must be struck between the clashing colonial powers of Oceania [the Americas] so that the Catholic nations can focus on resolving heresy in Europa, the Vatican sent a mission led by Pompeo Cardinal Colonna to seize the island from its wayward Milanese overlords in the name of all Christendom. Nova Roma was declared a papal fief, its Arawak inhabitants converted to ready-born servants of the Church, and though everlasting peace never came to Oceania (nor even the Noddian) the island proved to be the center of Roman Catholic efforts in the New World.

Gokuraku [OTL Anchorage] - Following the fourth Mongol invasion of Japan, the daimyo of Odawara brought together a grand ragtag fleet of his clan and refugees and sailed east, away from the invaders and chaos. Eventually currents took them into the chain of icy islands in the far north, where game was few but fish was abundant. The first outpost was Ryujima [OTL Unalaska Island], and there the refugees settled at first, intermarrying with and occasionally fighting the locals. Further expeditions eastward took place, and more Nihonjin settled in the more temperate area which later became the city of Gokuraku in honor of the Pure Land. Though ronin and adventurers went south, they did not create any other considerable settlements.

Though there was some contact with the very rare wokou who had resurged following the fall of the Yuan hold over Japan, the first formal contact between the exiles and the Old World was in 1528 when a pan-Catholic exploration fleet of the short-lived Sacred Christian League under Captain Fernando de Magallanes sailed up the coast of Atlantia [roughly North America] and found the mixed-Japanese/Aleutian colony. While their technology had somewhat regressed after centuries cut off from home, and their religion and culture combined with those of the natives, the Nihongo language was remarkably preserved. Though the explorers did not have much of interest there, the surveyors of the mission realized that the city was built partly atop a giant sea-going ship. Later visits showed that the surviving ruins of the vessel did not resemble Kamakura Japanese designs at all.
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