Maps, Part IX

So, in the category of catching up on items long-neglected - I used to post my alternate history map work pretty frequently, but the last time I did so was in... 2013? I'm not as involved with this as I used to be, but I still have a few tucked away from over the past seven years. As a reminder, these are all works of fiction!

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Mansa Abubakari II of Mali (known as Manden in this world) manages to put his nautical interests to better use by sending expeditions up the coast of Africa instead of sailing off the edge of the world and never coming back. Under his successors, Manden merchants establish further trade links with North Africa, both by sea and across the Sahara. This strengthens the Genoese trading empire relative to OTL, as they happen to be the next link in that chain, but an analogue to the War of Chioggia leaves Genoa as the lesser partner in a Manden-Genoese alliance against the Ottomans and the Castilians. Meanwhile, Manden consolidates its hold over the western Sahel and the small states to its south. As the year 1500 dawns, a certain Genoese explorer has arrived in Niani to petition the Mansa for funds for an expedition to the west, hoping to find a new route to the Orient beyond Ottoman control...

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"Between the Bay and the Lakes: The Rise of the Susquehannock Confederacy"

From North American Military History Gazette, vol. 32, December 2008

"The rise of the Susquehannocks as a regional power was linked to their acquisition of European firearms, first from the Swedes in their short-lived colony in present-day New Jersey, and later from the Dutch. By taking advantage of this new technology, they were able to subdue their Delaware neighbors and fend off the colonial powers—when Maryland declared war on the Susquehannocks in the 1640’s, they were defeated by the natives and their Swedish allies…

"As the century progressed, the Susquehannocks were pushed into conflict with the Five Nations Confederacy, then the preeminent native power. The Five Nations were likewise equipped with European firearms, acquired through the fur trade. These had allowed them to subdue many of the neighboring tribes and thus expand their hunting grounds—the furs from which could then be traded to fuel further conquests. But crashing beaver populations forced them to venture ever further afield, and brought the Five Nations into conflict with tribes as far away as the Ohio Valley. In 1660, they turned their attention to the Susquehannock.

"The colony of Maryland had watched the Five Nations expansion with alarm, and in 1661 they made an alliance with their former foes the Susquehannocks, hoping that they would provide a buffer against the fierce northern tribes. This policy was a success—a northern invasion was beaten off in 1663, and two of the Five Nations, the Seneca and the Cayuga, were dealt major defeats in 1666. The war dragged on for several years more, as artillery supplied by their Maryland gave the Susquehannocks and edge over the Five Nations. By 1674, the tide had turned, and the Five Nations were clearly on the defensive. Some among the Maryland government suggested negotiating a peace, but others were in favor of continuing the war and ending the Five Nations threat permanently.*

"In the end, after negotiation with the Susquehannock chiefs, the war faction won out—in exchange for exclusive trading rights, the Marylanders would continue their support. In 1680, a peace was finally signed, stripping the Five Nations of their conquests over the previous decades. Indeed, they would be five nations no more—the remnants of the Seneca, Cayuga, and many of the Onondaga would be incorporated into a new Susquehannock Confederacy. The remaining nations would become clients of the French, who called them the Iroquois…

"Many of of the Five Nations’ former tributaries transferred their loyalty to the Susquehannocks as well, and so by 1680, the Susquehannock Confederacy stretched from the shores of the Chesapeake Bay to the Great Lakes…"

*This is the POD: in our timeline, Maryland made peace, and in fact turned on their former allies, massacring their leadership…

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Three and a half billion years in the future, a matrioshka brain is running a simulation of the rise of one of its creator species, when a minor error causes a hyperspherical cross-section of the simulated world to be temporally transposed by 2^10 cycles...

2017. At first they thought it was a summer thunderstorm. The first thing everyone noticed was a great booming sound, like a clap of thunder but larger, as two masses of air at different temperatures and pressures were suddenly brought in contact with each other. Those who were outdoors could see a strange roiling in the sky, as clouds formed, joined, or dissipated. One or two people near the boundaries of the sphere saw features seem to vanish in an instant - trees, roads, telephone wires. Later, they were able to trace the boundaries of "The Zone" by finding objects which had been bisected by the transposition. Staff and campers at Box Canyon Ranch noticed as the power went out. But it was several days before anyone grasped the truth - that their little circle of northern New Mexico had been thrown back in time.

Once this hypothesis had been reached, a party from Box Canyon Ranch set out within a few days, following the Chama River down to the Rio Grande, then heading up into the hills where Santa Fe should be, to determine if it might be possible to make contact with American or even Spanish colonial authorities. They found nothing. A second party set out a few days later, headed west...

993. The strangers had come down from the high country to the east, Qoyanomtiwa's scouts had reported, though they did not dress like easterners. They were oddly pale, and most curious of all, some were being carried by elk without horns. No one seemed to have guided them, but somehow they had found their way to the Great House. Qoyanomtiwa pondered this, and at last he shrugged. "Let us go and meet these strangers," he said. "Maybe they are Pahana, maybe not. We shall put them to the test, and if they fail, we shall treat with them as with any other men or women."

2017. "It's not much like how I remember it," Rick said. "It's bigger, but smaller at the same time." It didn't even look much like the reconstruction in the National Geographic they'd found in the library--most of Chaco Canyon didn't seem to have been built yet. But there was Pueblo Bonito, sure enough, and not just the ruins Rick had visited last fall - the stone walls stood several stories high, and right now they seemed to be bustling with people.

"Look," said Carla. "Someone's coming out." Indeed, a group of several people was emerging from a doorway, though only one seemed to be carrying a weapon.

"Alright, let's not get any closer. Wait here for them."

993. Qoyanomtiwa surveyed the strangers. There were five of them, but the scouts were correct - each of them seemed to be seated on an elk of some sort. As he watched, the strangers climbed down off these elk, and stood. They did not seem to be carrying spears or other weapons that he could see, though who knew what powers they might have if they could command these beasts?

"Lomankwa, tell them to come no closer," he said to the shaman.

2017. Rick watched as one of the delegation drew out a small pouch of white powder, and sprinkled it in a line on the ground. "Let's leave the gifts here and back off a bit," he said, watching the shaman's gestures. Carla nodded, deposited the "gift package" they'd assembled at the Ranch, and stepped back a few paces.

993. "I think they might be offering a trade," said Macatoiniwa. "Remember the men from the south, five years ago, who brought the green birds and the shells?"

"Yes, I remember," Qoyanomtiwa replied. "In that case, let's see what they have to offer." They advanced to where the strangers had laid their bundle. A square of fine red cloth, wide as his arm, lay on the ground. On it were knives that glinted like the sun on water, plates and dishes with strange intricate designs, several garments of white cloth, jewelry of silver and turquoise, and a pile of shining disks the size of his hand. "These seem like fine goods," he said to Macatoiniwa. "Let's see if we can come to an arrangement..."

By the time the error was noticed, milliseconds later, several dozen processing cycles had passed. A new hybrid culture was blossoming across the affected area, as the ancestral Puebloans adopted and assimilated these strange newcomers. The area had already been headed for an era of rapid growth and development due to favorable climate conditions, but the new crops and livestock seemed likely to extend it further and faster. Already, trade networks were forming, east to the Mississippi Valley and south into Mexico.

A quorum was called to determine whether to end the counterfactual scenario or to let it continue...

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Snipped from a copy of The Economist in a nearby timeline:

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Paratemporal Institute Report

Despite Dr. Saunders' initial reaction, we do not believe that Artifact QM-176002a indicates an alternate geography on timeline Aleph-8644. Further evidence suggests that this timeline featured an Anglo-Saxon kingdom or state surviving into the 17th century or beyond, and taking part in an equivalent to the Age of Exploration. It is probable that the cartographer attempted to collate reports from multiple expeditions, suggested by the variety of dates given at points around the map. The inaccuracies most likely result from imperfect or incomplete information.

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BACKGROUND

The Ann Arbor Anomaly is best described a portal leading to central North America during the early Cenomanian Age of the Cretaceous, approximately 100 million years ago. The portal is perfectly circular, usually around four feet in diameter, and is only visible and accessible from one side. The size of the portal fluctuates; when first observed it was only a few inches across, then expanded to approximately its present size over the course of three days. Since then it has varied between three and six feet in diameter, with no discernable pattern to the changes.

DISCOVERY

As the name suggests, the Anomaly is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where it seems to have appeared in a park on the night of November 12, 2019. It was discovered the next morning by Aidan McKinney, who was walking his dog in the park when he noticed a plume of vapor condensing out of what seemed to be a small hole in the air. Mr. McKinney notified some friends of his, who briefly ventured through to the other side. There they found a humid jungle environment with unfamiliar fauna, including some unmistakable dinosaurs. The group attempted to notify the authorities, but were initially disregarded until photographic and video evidence was provided and independent confirmation from other sources was received. A variety of experts from the nearby University of Michigan then took over the scene until federal authorities arrived to secure the anomaly.

EXPLORATION

In the two years since the appearance of the Anomaly, a number of expeditions have gone through to the far side, and a substantial facility has grown up on both sides of the portal. The main bottleneck has been the limited size of the portal, making it difficult to transport large equipment. Outside the facility on the far side, there are four zones:

Zone 1 is the immediate area around the anomaly, which has been thoroughly explored and mapped. Most of this zone is a humid rainforest, part of the drainage basin of the Cope River, which runs west to the Mowry Sea.

Zone 2 stretches about as far as the shores of the Atlantic and the Mowry. Most of this has been mapped by solar-powered drones, so major land features are known. Some manned expeditions have taken place, mostly cataloging the flora and fauna.

Zone 3 has been cursorily explored by the newest long-range drones, mostly mapping the shorelines as part of the effort to date the far side by comparing landmasses to geologic data.

Zone 4 is anything not yet surveyed; landforms in this region are based on geological conjecture only.

SCIENTIFIC CONTROVERSIES

The cause of the anomaly is unknown. A popular theory is that the anomaly was somehow caused by the GLC particle accelerator in Japan, which had gone into operation only a few days previously. However, so far there is no evidence to support this, and activity at the GLC does not seem to correlate with observable behavior of the portal. The portal emits a unique radiation signature when contracting or expanding; based on this signature, physicists have detected two other possible anomalies (one in New Mexico and one in California), but both have been microscopic in scale and lasted only a few seconds.

There is also an ongoing debate over whether the far side is our direct past, or some type of alternate timeline. Efforts to plant an object on the far side that could be retrieved in the present have so far been unsuccessful.

The exact date on the far side is still being narrowed down based on astronomical and geological data. The current estimate, based on some new bathymetric survey data from the Mowry Sea, is 99.7 ± 0.3 million years before present.

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In the late sixth century, invading Angles had carved out two kingdoms along the coast of northern Britain - Bernicia in the north and Deira in the south. Around 593, a man named Æthelfrith became king of Bernicia, and began pushing inland more vigorously, particularly against the Brythonic kingdoms of Rheged and Gododdin. In 599, he married a daughter of king Ælla of Deira, sealing an alliance between the two Anglian kingdoms. In response, Mynyddog of Gododdin began building an alliance among the fractious Brythonic kingdoms, gathering warriors from among them and eventually launching a preemptive strike against Æthelfrith at Catraeth in 600. In our world, this effort failed, and Æthelfrith would go on to smash the Britons and take direct control of Deira. The combined kingdom would eventually come to be known as Northumbria.

In this world, things go a little differently - Æthelfrith is killed at Catraeth, and the Anglian alliance falls apart. There is infighting among the Bernicians, and the Britons are able to regain much of the lost territory, while Deira takes over some of the south. The prestige of the victory allows Gododdin to become the paramount kingdom among the northern Britons under Mynyddog and his successors. Now, twenty years after Æthelfrith's death, the Britons face two threats - Edwin of Deira, who has ties to the southern kingdom of Mercia, and wily old Áedán mac Gabráin, of the Gaelic kingdom of Dalriada, who has lately made common cause with the Pictish tribes of the north.

Ghost Archipelago: Spider Island

The mission had been a disaster, from beginning to end. Lorria stood in the captain’s cabin of the Grimoire, looking at the figure laid out on the bed - stripped of armor and weapons, a gash opening up his throat. Barl, Chief Acquisitor from the Great Library at Ubar - the captain of the ship, and her employer, a Heritor who had come in search of the Crystal Pool and found only death.

A rumor and a reference in an old book had brought them to the Isle of Spiders, where treasure and clues to the Pool’s location might be hidden in a ruined temple. But others had heard the same rumors, or had followed their trail. The spiders had been bad enough, but the dwarves had been worse - followers of a rival Heritor who had attacked them, and slain Barl.

"What was the haul today?" she asked. A few of the crew had managed to evade both the spiders and the dwarves, and had made it back to the ship.

"Maybe forty ducats in gold? Plus a pair of boots that might be enchanted, and that little chest of herbs." Hedwig spoke up, her arm in a sling and her face bruised where an axe-blow had smashed her helmet.

"Let me take a look." The boots were definitely enchanted - Lorria could feel the little pulse of power as she ran her fingers over them. A swimming charm, maybe? She flipped up the lid of the herb chest - most of the contents had lost their potency, but that bit of dremlocke weed might still be good. And what was this? Buried at the bottom was a small locket, carved out of wood, almost like a reliquary. Almost of their own accord, her fingers undid the catch. Inside the locket was a small red berry.

She could feel a wild laugh welling up inside her. A lingle berry? Rich men back on the mainland would pay hundreds of ducats for one of these, in hopes of the slightest chance of cheating death. With the proceeds, she could pay off the expedition’s debts, have a little stake of her own for if she hired on with another crew… she looked over at the corpse on the bed. Or she could use it now, and try to save poor old Barl. Did she owe him that much?

Idly, she sifted through the meagre pile of coins. One slipped into her hand, and she picked it up to look at it in the light of the porthole. It wasn’t a mintage she recognized - who knew how old the hoard had been? On one side was a skull, on the other, a ship. She chuckled grimly, and tossed the coin in the air, using a Warden’s trick to make it hang there, spinning. "Here’s your chance, Barl," she said to the corpse on the bed, and let the coin drop back into her hand. "Ship - you live, skull - you can stay dead."

She opened her hand, and there was the ship. "Guess we’ll give this a try." She picked up the berry, pried Barl’s mouth open, and squeezed the tiny droplet of juice onto his tongue.

***

There was a strange taste in his mouth - like strawberries and vomit and pepper and fire all at once. He opened his eyes, and drew a deep, rasping breath. "Where am I?" he tried to say, but it came out as more of a croak. 

"You’re back on board the Grimoire." Lorria’s voice. So, they had made it, then. Memories started to return to him - scuffling with a pair of dwarven toughs, the burning in his blood, the knife at his throat… He reached gingerly up, and felt the ridge of a scar there, as though long healed.

"What happened? How many casualties?"

"Only two killed. Fletch - and you."

"Me? But… then.. how?"

"You were lucky. That herb chest Petra found - it had a lingle berry in it."

So. That explained it - but he had been very lucky. From the tales he had heard, lingle berries worked perhaps one time in four, if that. And for that matter… "Lucky twice, then. Lucky I have a loyal crew." He turned his head to look at Lorria. She nodded. "We press on, then. And next time I hope I will prove… that your loyalty has not been wasted."

The Encyclopedia of Proxia

A bit of background on some of the countries from this map, the setting for my 19th-century Imaginations wargaming project:

DOBRIA

Dobria first appears in the annals of history as a vassal of the Maxenian Empire during the early Chivalric Age, founded by a tribe of nomads from the Procalan Steppe. Dobria’s fortunes waxed and waned alongside the Maxenian Empire - when the Maxenians were strong, Dobria became a province, ruled by a Maxenian governor. When the Maxenians were weakened by wars in the Procalan provinces, the Dobrians broke free and built a substantial kingdom in Eastern Proxia. As the Maxenians regained their strength, the Dobrian kingdom was reduced to vassalage once more, and when Maxenopolis fell at last, Dobria took on a similar relationship to the Koraman conquerors. In the last century, as the Koraman Empire in turn has weakened, the Dobrian princes have regained independence once again, this time with covert aid from the Elabruners and Gospodinians.

ELABRUN

The Emperor of Elabrun rules a vast large and diverse realm, from the plains of the east to the mountains in the west, and his subjects speak a dozen languages or more. This Empire has been slowly patched together since the Chivalric Age by the Falkenburg family, who started as Dukes of a small Nordoric state in the Nivean Mountains. Through advantageous marriages and shrewd alliances, they expanded their realm, and by the end of the Chivalric Age, the Falkenburgs ruled the sizable Duchy of Rugen and had holdings as far away as northern Seridia.

With the fall of the Maxenian Empire, the Falkenburgs found themselves in the path of the Koraman advance, as the victorious nomads swept through Stecjia and conquered the city-states along the Muriatic Sea. However, the Falkenburgs were able to raise an army of their own from among their vassals, and held off the Koraman invaders in the great siege of Rugen. Throughout the Rational Age, the Falkenburgs regained much of eastern Proxia, unifying it in what became known as the Empire of Elabrun, after the Falkenburgs’ original domain.

As the Empire grew, it came into conflict with other powers besides the Koramans. The Haumont kings of Occiterre resented Elabruner expansion into northern Seridia, and many of the Nordaler states were wary of their southern cousin, which often tried to expand its influence in the north. With the fall of the Haumonts, Elabrun became entangled in the Fraternal Wars, and was a frequent foe of Jules I after his rise to power. The long period of war strained the Empire, and many of the far-flung provinces began to see calls for independence. 

With peace once more reigning in Proxia, the current Emperor Maxim IV has been working to weld the Empire into a more cohesive whole, and to develop good relations with the now-unified Republic of Nordalen to the north. But the recent independence of Stecjia and Dobria from the Koramans has caused some of the southeastern provinces to grow restless, and worse still, some of the Seridian provinces have risen in revolt, no doubt inspired by their compatriots across the border. The recent ascension of Jules III in Occiterre has sparked fears in the court at Rugen that he may intervene on the side of the North Seridian rebels...

FLUSSLAND

Flussland has always depended on trade. Its origins lie in the Chivalric Age, as a defensive pact between a number of merchant cities along the Sleeve. At its height, the city of Plewen was one of the busiest ports in the world, and the Flusser Republic rivaled Stratland and Occiterre in power, with profitable colonies around the globe. However, the economic tides turned, and a series of wars with its rivals left Flussland exhausted.

Nor did Flussland fare well during the wars of Jules I. The country was conquered by Occiterre, and even after the death of Jules I, Occiterre retained two of its southern provinces. The remainder of the country regained its independence, but the republic was abolished, and a cousin of the Stratish monarch was made king. These days, though neutral in theory, its interests largely align with those of Stratland, which sees it as a potential foothold on the continent. Meanwhile, the old mercantile families are using the years of relative peace to rebuild their trade networks.

GOSPODINIA

This vast country stretches far to the east, across both forests and steppes. Much of Gospodinia was once ruled by nomads from these steppes, who were slowly driven back by the ancestors of the Gospodinians. Because of its size, the country has never been subject to a strong central authority--the Grand Hetman is elected by the nobility, and the greatest magnates rule domains the size of small kingdoms. Most of the population are peasants, tied to the land in a way of life largely unchanged since the Chivalric Age. 

Since the disastrous Occiterran invasion forty years ago, the Gospodinian nobility have started to take more of an interest in the affairs of Western Proxia. Several of the recent Grand Hetmans have come from the Narostki family, and have been trying to increase the power of the central government. A key part of this effort has been to build a modern national army and navy to supplement the nobles’ levies. However, a recent attempt to test these new forces in an invasion of the Koraman Empire came up against opposition from the western powers. This culminated in an intervention by the Stratish, Occiterrans, and Seridians on behalf of the Koramans, and a lengthy siege of the port of Strelopunsk.

KORAMAN EMPIRE

The Koramans were once a single tribe among the nomads of the Procalan steppe, raiding the borders of the Tyran Empire. When the Tyrans lost their western provinces, the emperor Maxenius built a new capital in the east, which he named Maxenopolis. For centuries, the Maxenian Empire held sway over the Archian islands and much of nearer Procala. The Koramans fought against the Maxenians as well, even as they grew to lead a confederation of the steppe tribes. Over centuries of war and peace, the Koraman-led confederation gained the upper hand, forcing the Maxenians out of Procala, until at last the Empire was left with little besides the city of Maxenopolis.

By this time, the Koramans had become an Empire in their own right, one of the greatest of the late Chivalric Age. When Maxenopolis fell to them at last, it sent shockwaves through all of Proxia. Koraman armies swept west, subjugating the mountain kingdoms as far north as Rugen, and Koraman fleets threatened the Seridian city-states. Only an alliance led by the Duke of Rugen was finally able to halt their advance, after a long siege of Rugen itself. Throughout the Rational Age, the Koraman Empire remained a great power, but the Elabruner descendants of the Dukes of Rugen have gradually retaken much of their eastern Proxian holdings, and in the past few decades, some of the mountain kingdoms have regained their independence. The Koraman Empire these days is a shadow of its former self, propped up by some of the western powers as a counterbalance against the increasing strength of Gospodinia.

NORDALEN

The Nordoric peoples have inhabited this mountainous land since time immemorial. Though regarded by their Tyran neighbors as barbarians, the Nordoric tribes of the Classical Age also had a reputation as fierce warriors, and as the Old Tyran Empire weakened, many tribes crossed the frontiers into the western provinces. The new kingdoms they founded kept ties with their kinsfolk who had stayed behind in the Nordoric homeland, and the Chivalric Age saw a shared culture develop across much of Western Proxia that combined Nordoric vigor and Tyran sophistication.

However, the Nordoric heartland remained politically divided, as ancient tribes became baronies, duchies, and kingdoms, who fought among themselves in their narrow valleys as often as they faced Gospodinians or other foreign invaders. The Falkenburg dukes of Elabrun gained influence in many of the southern realms, but the north remained a tangled web of kingdoms, free cities, and trade leagues even as the ideas and ideals of the Rational Age spread throughout the continent.

The advent of Jules Brasfort and the Fraternal Wars finally changed all of this. Like few had done before, his Occiterran armies swept through the Nordaler states, and to help ensure the security of his new Empire, he set up a Confederation of Nordalen as a buffer to the east. This did not last long beyond Jules’ death, but the experience of the Occiterran invasion and the unity under the Confederation had a deep influence on a generation of intellectuals in the Nordaler cities. About twenty years ago, a wave of revolutions toppled many of the surviving noble houses, and Nordalen was united again - this time as a Republic. The new Republic has been rapidly industrializing and modernizing in the decades since, emerging as a new power on the continent and alarming both Occiterre and Elabrun.

OCCITERRE

The history of Occiterre dates back to the fall of the Old Tyran Empire, when Nordoric barbarians overran many of the western provinces and set up numerous petty kingdoms of their own. One of these was the kingdom of Lutens, centered on the former Tyran city of Lutenium. Over time, the kings of Lutens expanded their holdings at the expense of their neighbors, and by the end of the Chivalric Age, they reigned from the Stratish Sleeve to the Gulf of Lucra. By this time, their realm was more often known as “Occiterre”, the “western land”. 

As Proxia emerged from the Chivalric Age into the light of the Rational Age, Occiterre took its place as one of the great powers of the continent. Under the Haumont kings, Occiterre contended with Stratland, Pelendia, Elabrun, the Flusser Republic, the Koraman Empire, the city-states of Seridia, and the fractured fiefs of Nordalen.

But sixty years ago, with the death of Omri XII, the Haumont dynasty came to an end and the Fraternal Wars began. There were many claimants to the throne of Occiterre, both foreign princes and scions of its own noble houses. Alliances were formed and broken, and in some places the peasants and bourgeois rose up, calling for the end of the monarchy. 

It was with the help of some of these radical factions that Jules Brasfort first came to the fore. A minor noble and distant relative of the Haumonts, he was a captain stationed in the port of Mayon when Omri XII died. When the Pelendians invaded, he organized the defence of Mayon, then raised an army to repel the invaders. After this victory, the people of Mayon acclaimed him as Tribune of the city. The next year, Jules marched north to Montchemin, where he defeated the army of a prince who was supported by Elabrun. In every city he passed, he gathered the people together and had them choose a Tribune to govern them. Soon he arrived at Lutens, and the people of the capital threw open the gates for him. Jules called for all the Tribunes to come to Lutens, then told them that they must choose someone to rule all of Occiterre. Naturally they chose Jules, who was crowned as the first Emperor of Occiterre.

This was the beginning of the end of the Fraternal Wars--there were still some provinces in the west that did not acknowledge Jules as Emperor, and even today there are still some “Haumont'' pretenders who claim to be the rightful king of Occiterre. But soon Jules I had unified all of Occiterre and turned his attention to the rest of Proxia. He decided that the best way to keep the Occiterran people united was to lead them against their neighbors. So he began campaigns against Pelendia and Elabrun, and set up new states in Seridia and Nordalen. The Stratish became worried about his domination of the continent, and joined an alliance against him. For twenty years, he fought up and down Proxia, winning victory after victory. But finally, in far-off Gospodinia, his luck ran out when a wound from a stray musket ball festered.

His son, Jules II, was only fifteen when his father died, and so a regency was set up. The generals and statesmen of the regency council negotiated an end to the wars and began rebuilding the country. Once he came of age, Jules II continued these policies. Under his rule, the first railroads and telegraphs were built in Occiterre. Trade flourished, colonies were set up in far away lands, and Occiterre became a great power in Proxia once more. But new powers were on the rise as well: the Confederation of Nordalen that Jules I had set up soon collapsed, but from its ashes emerged the Republic of Nordalen. And in the south, the Seridians also formed a Republic, whose leaders still look north to those territories still held by the Empire of Elabrun. Occiterran governments greeted these developments with cautious optimism, hoping that these new nations will be allies against the old powers of Stratland and Elabrun. 

Two years ago, Jules II died, and his son took the throne. Jules III is a brash young man who idolizes his heroic grandfather and wishes to see Occiterre dominant in Proxia once again…

PELENDIA

Like Occiterre, Pelendia was once part of the Old Tyran Empire. But while other provinces were overrun by Nordoric invaders, Pelendia instead fell to tribesmen from the deserts to the south. Throughout the Chivalric Age, the invaders were slowly driven back or assimilated, until at the beginning of the Rational Age, Pelendia once again stood united. This was the golden age of Pelendia, as explorers mapped new lands to the south and west, and precious metals flowed into the coffers of the Pelendian kings. But just as quickly, that gold went to fund wars with the Stratish overseas and the Occiterrans over the Seridian cities. During the Fraternal Wars, Pelendia was a battleground for Occiterran and Stratish armies, and the country has been slow to recover since, locked in a struggle between consevative nobles and a queen who dreams of rebuilding Pelendia into a modern nation.

SERIDIA

The Seridian peninsula was once the heartland of the Old Tyran Empire, one of the mightiest powers of the ancient world. Bolstered by the Archian diaspora after the fall of the Islands, the Tyrans built an empire that spanned much of western Proxia and nearer Procala. But that empire collapsed thirteen centuries ago, in an invasion by Nordoric peoples from the north, who even sacked Tyra itself.

Throughout the Chivalric Age, Seridia was a backwater, sometimes dominated by foreign powers and sometimes by city-states that rose above their neighbors. But when Maxenopolis fell to the Koramans, the Seridian cities became havens for the new Diaspora. The advances in arts and sciences brought by the fleeing scholars of the east marked the start of the Rational Age, and the city-states of Seridia were among the first to benefit. For centuries, they were unsurpassed in culture--yet politically they remained weak, and often influenced by Occiterre, Elabrun, Pelendia, or the Koramans.

It was not until the wars of Jules I that Seridia was united once more. Jules conquered both the northern regions--then controlled by Elabrun--and the Pelendian-backed kingdom in the south. In their place, he established a republic, harkening back to the pre-imperial traditions of Old Tyra. This republic did not long survive Jules’ death--the Elabruners reconquered the north, and a king was restored in the south following the Treaty of Rugen. But it endured long enough for a generation to come of age knowing Seridia as a united country.

One of these was Alessandro Capporossa. Born in Zampogna, he was a student in Tyra when Jules captured the city. He served as a representative for Zampogna during the First Republic, and when the king was restored, he fled overseas to the Pelendian colonies, where he fought in aid of the revolutionaries there. Twenty years ago, with the death of King Luigi III, Capporossa returned to Seridia, with a force of three hundred fellow exiles. Together they marched on Tyra, and proclaimed a new Republic. Despite the efforts of Elabrun, many of the southern cities raised the Green Star once more.

Now an old man, Capporossa still dreams of liberating the north from Elabruner rule. Seridian patriots in Turchino, Melaponte, and even Trampoli have repeatedly risen in revolt, but still Elabrun has maintained their hold. With the ascension of Jules III, the Seridian government has renewed hopes that Occiterre may help them regain the lost provinces.

STECJIA

The Stecjians are distant kin to the Gospodinians, and settled in Eastern Proxia while it was still under the sway of the Maxenian Empire. After the fall of Maxenopolis, the Dukes of Stecjia put up a fierce resistance to the Koraman invaders, and the last Duke had a particularly brutal reputation that has sparked many sinister legends. Even after his mysterious disappearance, the land did not rest easy under the Koraman yoke. Constant rebellions wracked the country, which in turn brought down further repression by the Koramans. The Elabruners were always happy to fan the flames, but over the centuries the Stecjians have grown to resent their meddling almost as much as the Koramans, especially as much of what was once northern Stecjia now lies within the Empire of Elabrun. Southern Stecjia has recently broken free of the Koramans to regain their longed-for independence, but now hotheads on both sides of the border with Elabrun have started to agitate for unification.

STRATLAND

This island country has long been the premier naval power in Proxia. Known to the Old Tyrans as the Tin Isles, when the Empire fell, the islands were conquered by Stratic raiders from across the Cold Sea, cousins of the Nordoric tribes. In the early Chivalric Age, the Stratish frequently raided the coasts of Occiterre and Flussland, until finally an invasion led by the bastard son of the king of Lutens crossed the Sleeve and brought the islands under control. The descendants of Martin the Bastard set up their own kingdom in Stratland, which would prove to be a great rival of Occiterre throughout the Chivalric and into the Rational Age. Since the beginning of the Rational Age, much of the power is held by the House of Thanes, some of whom are hereditary, but others of whom are elected from among the free yeomen.

Despite their long rivalry with the Haumont kings of Occiterre, the Stratish were no happier to see Jules I on the throne. The formidable Stratish navy fought many battles against his empire, and the profits of Stratish trade and industry funded alliances against him on the continent. Since the death of Jules I, the Stratish have been content to maintain the balance of power in Proxia, even cooperating with their old Occiterran rivals in some cases. Stratish interests are increasingly taken up with trade and colonization abroad and booming industries at home, fueled by the islands’ rich resources of coal and metal.

Maps, part VIII

It has been a long time since I've done one of these posts, but as it turns out, these days I have even less time for map-making than I do for miniatures-painting. However, here at last I have enough maps to make another collection worthwhile. As always, please don't mistake these for real history!

First up, a look at a world where a natural disaster devastates the early United States:

From A House Built Of Flotsam: Early American Government and the Great Wave by Brewster Rogers (2006):

"At approximately 7:00 on the morning of May 17, 1786, Captain Harrington of the British merchantman Nancy, bound for Calcutta, noted a pillar of clouds or dark smoke to the southwest, in the direction of La Palma Island, one of the westernmost of the Canaries. About half an hour later, the ship was caught by an enormous swell, described by Captain Harrington as 'larger than any man on board had ever seen, and arising from a calm sea.' Harrington and the crew of the Nancy had been among the few to observe the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano, and among the first to encounter the resulting poseidonic wave [1]...

"In recent decades, geologists and oceanographers have identified the proximate cause of the Great Wave: a lateral collapse event occurring on the westernmost flank of the island, which sent almost 100 cubic miles of rock plunging into the Atlantic ocean. Like a tiny stone thrown into a still pond, the ripples spread outward--but in this case, the ripples were poseidonic waves up to fifty feet high...

"Much of Europe was shielded by the eastern Canaries, though areas of northern Spain, northwestern France, western England, and Ireland all experienced heavy damage. Areas of coastal West Africa were devastated as well. Still, it was across the Atlantic that the Great Wave would be felt most keenly...

"Based on reports from survivors, the first waves reached the south end of Nova Scotia at approximately 8:30 a.m. local time. Points south were contacted over the course of the next three hours, with parts of East Florida not being reached until almost noon. To observers at the time, contact must have seemed terribly capricious, with some areas shielded by some nigh-imperceptible quirk of the coastline, while others suffered even greater damage from waves funneled into bays and straits..."

"Boston was devastated... Much of Connecticut was shielded by Long Island, even as the Eastern Shore protected Baltimore and the Upper Chesapeake... New York City did not escape unscathed, but the damage could have been much worse. Philadelphia itself was spared, but Delaware Bay was choked with debris that took weeks to wash ashore. The Tidewater areas of Virginia, the most densely populated area of the state, was also the most badly damaged... All up and down the eastern seaboard, the same pattern of destruction was repeated. It was an event that could not help but leave a stamp upon a fledgling nation and its unwieldy government...

"Even before the Great Wave, there had been a growing dissatisfaction with the Articles of Confederation. In the aftermath of the disaster, as the helplessness of both the affected states and the Confederation government became clear, the 7th Confederation Congress, under the leadership of its President, John Hancock, began work on a new constitution--one which would vastly expand the powers of the central government..."

[1] TTL name for a tsunami--named for the Greek god of oceans and earthquakes.

Quick version: the Cumbre Vieja volcano goes off in 1786; a massive tsunami devastates the United States. The magnitude of death and destruction is enough to put a bit of a wrench into American demographics; while there is a general drive to settle further west, the country can't really support expansion on the scale of OTL--the U.S. may eventually cross the Mississippi, but probably won't reach the Pacific. The "Departments" are the result of an urge to consolidate and centralize--the states still technically exist, but the Departments end up being the main units of federalism. The capital is New York--parts of it, including Federal Hall, weren't too badly damaged, and nobody really felt like building a brand-new capital in some Potomac swamp when there was so much rebuilding to do...

 

Next, a quick look at a world where Constantinople Istanbul is known by another name entirely:

This map shows a few of the major tourist attractions in the Old City of Miklagard. Backstory is a little hazy, but at some point an unpopular Emperor gets deposed by the Varangian Guard, who end up running the Empire for a while through a series of puppets. While this state of affairs lasts only a few centuries, it does leave a lasting impression in the languages of northern and western Europe... and so, when rich Aenglisk-speaking tourists from the Westlands book their lyftship flights for a vacation on the Golden Horn, they arrive at Miklagard Lyfthofn. (Even if the terminal also has signs posted in Greek and Kypchak.)

A world where the Americas are discovered by a more northern route, showing some misconceptions of early cartographers:

From Maps Through The Ages, Cecille Frampton, 1973.

"Although settlement proved infeasible for the Norsemen, sporadic contact continued up through the end of the fifteenth century, when a number of explorers in more southerly countries began suggesting that the riches of the East might be more easily reached by sailing west, and that the rumored "Vine-land" might provide a convenient stopover point. As a result, many of the early navigators chose a more northerly route, and only gradually did the extent of the Hesperian continent become apparent. In fact, for a long time, North Hesperia was thought to be a part of Asia, as shown in this map from 1501, which optimistically places the "Great Cham of Tartary" somewhere in northern Mechicoe. See also the existence of a Southwest Passage connecting the Atlantic and Placidic Oceans--this may have been wishful thinking on the part of the cartographer, or it may have been based on second or third-hand accounts of trade routes across the Isthmus of Tecwanipec. Note that the Mayapan Peninsula, though misidentified as an island, is labeled as a source of spices, which may indicate that occasional trade was taking place between Europeans and native Hesperians at the time of the map's printing, or may be another misconception on the part of the creator, confusing Mayapan with the Spice Islands of the East. Information on the interior of the continent is similarly vague; for instance, the Great Lakes are shown as a single inland sea--source of the Mississippi and the Cabotto as well as the St. Brendan..."

 

And finally, a world where the Mongol Empire reached some places it never conquered in our world:

In our history, the Mongols under Genghis Khan reached the Indus River in 1221, in pursuit of the last Shah of Khwarezm, Jalal ad-Din. After his defeat, he sought asylum with the Muslim rulers of the Delhi Sultanate. In our history, they turned him away, and after knocking around northwest India for a bit he returned to Persia, where he was eventually murdered.

But what if Iltumish, the Sultan of Delhi, had not turned him away? What if the Mongols had continued to pursue their old enemy to the walls of Delhi itself, and the city had been sacked by the implacable hordes of Genghis Khan?

In this world, Iltumish chooses to take in the exiled Jalal ad-Din, and offers great insult to the Mongol ambassadors who demand that he surrender his guest. Dorbei and Bala, the Mongol commanders in India, send word of this to Genghis, who dispatches the famous general Subutai to reinforce them. Subutai handles the Indian campaign with the brilliance which in our world he demonstrated in the invasion of Europe, and Delhi is sacked by the Mongols in 1224. Jalal ad-Din is captured and sent to Karakorum in chains, but dies along the way.

Genghis Khan dies roughly on schedule, and as in our world, his son Ogedei succeeds him. Subutai's assignment to India means that his expedition against the Rus which culminated in the battle of the Kalka River never took place. Without that initial expedition, the Mongols do not launch an invasion of Europe during Ogedei's reign, instead mopping up the remnants of the Delhi Sultanate despite the determined resistance of Iltumish's daughter Razia Sultana. Differences in Mongol internal politics become apparent around the death of Ogedei--Genghis' grandson Batu has spent his time at court rather than leading armies across Russia, and manages to outmaneuver his rival Guyuk to take the throne.

As in our world, the Mongol empire eventually falls apart under its own weight, but in this world, one of the successor states, under a line of Khans descended from Subutai's grandson Aju, reigns from Ordapur, a new royal district of Delhi built after the sack of 1224. The Delhi Khanate reaches its apex under Sartaq the Great--though a later Khan does reach the Coromandel coast, his conquests are achieved only at the cost of much of the north to a resurgent Rajput dynasty, and his gains in the south are recovered by the Pandya kingdom of Madura during the reign of his successor...

 

Maps, part VII

Haven't done one of these for a while; guess it's time for another! Remember, these are alternate history. Don't use them for your school reports.

First up, a map showing the empire of a more successful Queen Zenobia of Palmyra!

Aurelian gets killed a stray arrow, and the Crisis of the Third Century goes even worse for the Rome--the Goths have fun plundering everything that isn't nailed down, while the Empire fractures permanently into several successors--including Queen Zenobia's realm of Palmyra in the east, as Palmyrene cataphracts smash both Gothic raiders and the Italian emperor's half-hearted attempt at reconquest. The map shows the Palmyrene Empire at the time of Queen Zenobia's death in 310 A.D. (Technically the former Queen-Regent Zenobia, as her son Vaballathus came into his majority some years back.)

Next up: a world where horses were never domesticated, and the Bactrian camel is the riding animal of choice!

At some point in prehistory, Eurasian wild horses undergo a slight mutation, resulting in slight behavioral changes that render it unsuitable for domestication, much like its relative the zebra. Instead, the Bactrian camel takes the role of the primary riding animal throughout northern Eurasia, while its dromedary cousin plays a similar role in Africa and parts of the Middle East. (Oxen and donkeys are also used in various capacities.)

A certain number of butterflies are in effect here, but the majority of them do not become apparent until the Indo-European expansion of our world fails to occur on schedule. (Some Indo-European speaking groups do make their way into Europe, but their accomplishments are minimal compared to our world.) For the civilizations of the Fertile Crescent and their neighbors, the broad strokes are much the same, though most recognizable individuals have been butterflied away, and any specialist would be able to point to a number of differences.

Around 2000 BCE, the Bactrian camel is domesticated, much as it was in our world--however, this gives the first adopters a comparatively greater advantage than they had in our world, as the Bactrian camel spreads across Eurasia. (Domestication of the dromedary occurs in a similar timeframe, but is outside the scope of this map.) As with the horse in our world, not all the Bactrian-riding cultures are closely related to the original developers, though many of them are. The introduction of domestic camels and the absence of horses will be the final element in setting this world on a divergent path--by 2012, pretty much no elements of language or ethnicity will be recognizable...

A map focused on New Guinea, because there aren't enough of those!

A PoD somewhere in the 18th century shakes up the balance of power in the East Indies--the Dutch lose some parts of what would have been Indonesia, but gain a piece of western Australia. Time passes; colonialism goes in and out of fashion. Radical ideologies reshape Europe and the rest of the world. Former colonies gain varying degrees of independence. An organization called the International League is formed to prevent the horrors of industrial war from revisiting the world. Over the decades, its mandate evolves until International League troops are being deployed in various troubled parts of the globe far from the centers of power. 

One of these is New Guinea, or as the natives call it, Papua--the Disunited Land. Never terribly profitable, various parts of the island kept getting swapped around between the colonial powers, and as a result not much infrastructure ended up getting built. As of forty years ago, New Guinea was still divided between three countries. The Dutch sector was the first to gain independence, as the Republiek van Nieuw-Guinea, followed soon after by former Portuguese Menesesia, which became the República da Menesesia. British Papua was granted independence about five years later as East Papua, just in time to be invaded by the newly unified "Provisional Republic of Papua," consisting of the first two. 

While East Papua was eventual overrun and incorporated into the PRP, the Provisional Republic fared poorly--only by sheer numbers had it won the day, and the new country was coming apart at the seams under the stress. Corruption was rampant. Many of the newly-appointed generals were running their territories effectively as independent fiefs, with some going so far as to broker deals with foreign mineral consortiums and arms manufacturers in order to maintain their power. Ethnic violence and sectional conflicts both boiled over, following a coup attempt, and East Papua made a bid to regain its independence. 

Currently, the entire island is nominally under the control of the Second Provisional Republic of Papua, but their control barely extends beyond artillery range of the capital. The East Papuan government has regained most of former British Papua, but their independence is still not recognized by much of the world. (With the exception of Australia, which prefers them to the PRP as far as neighbors go, and supports them with the occasional arms shipment.) The remainder of the island is a stew of warlords, Islamic radicals, leftist rebels, and stone-age tribes whose introduction to the wonders of modern technology has been the assault rifle. In recent years, pirates have begun to harass shipping through the region, and the International League has put up a cordon and dispatched peacekeeping forces to occupy several coastal cities in an effort to deal with this problem, but for the foreseeable future, Papua will continue to live up to its name...

Finally, a world locked in a cold war between Imperial Germany and... the Utopian States of America?

THE PAST:

Sometime in the 1820's, Robert Owen's life takes a slightly different term. While his views on human society remain much the same, he does not attempt to put his theory into practice with the "New Harmony" settlement--instead, he devotes his time to writing more books, including one called Towards An Improved Human Society which describes a world made up of so-called "townships" of a a few thousand people, each formed around some common trade or attribute, and how a greater society of these townships might be formed. Without the failure of New Harmony to discredit it, these views remain popular in certain intellectual circles; later writers build upon them to form the basis of what is known as the Utopian Movement.

In the United States, Utopian ideas stay mostly below the surface into the mid-19th century, as the country is busy with a civil war and a period of Reconstruction which both proceed much as in our own world. (Although Seward never ends up purchasing Alaska, for one thing.) However, the turbulent era of economic growth and experimentation followed by a severe depression leads to Utopian ideas gaining a wider audience, and a number of Owenite and similar communities  are founded throughout the country. A few of these prosper, and others emulate them. A second wave of Utopian philosophy and political thought develops during this period, and some Utopian communities remain even as the country recovers.

The US manages to avoid getting involved in this world's equivalent of World War I, which occurs in the 1890's and sees Britain and Germany defeat France and Russia. Unfortunately, it does not manage to avoid a second round of economic malaise, and in the aftermath of that, the Utopians emerge as a major political party for the first time. A perfect storm of charismatic leaders, clever politicking, and a few dirty tricks puts the Utopians in power by 1912, and pretty soon a few minor reforms have snowballed into a "Fifty Year Plan" to reshape the country along Utopian lines. Citizens are encouraged to join "phalansteries," the descendants of Owen's "townships"; eventually membership becomes mandatory, and the phalansteries evolve into economic and administrative units. After a dismal showing backing the Germans in the Second European War, the military is reformed along Utopian lines. Dissenters are assigned to "special education phalansteries"; some flee abroad instead. By the time the first generation of collectively-raised children comes to adulthood, America is an entirely different place.

In the meantime, Germany has been building a more conventional powerbase, balancing imperial authority with a modicum of constitutional reform, and harnessing growing industry with a system of powerful cartels. The Second European War saw revanchist elements in France and Russia defeated decisively;  the formation of the Eurobund established German economic and political leadership of the continent. Britain has remained acquiescent, more concerned with trying to hold its empire together than challenging German dominance.

THE PRESENT:

The success of the Utopians in America has inspired similar movements elsewhere; the details vary widely, and poor Robert Owen would be appalled by many of the results. Perhaps the largest is the "Peach Blossom Movement," which has reunified much of the country, formerly a mess of warlordism and European interference. Liberia's ties to the US have extended to the Utopian ideology; the Liberian variant is virulently anti-colonialist as well, much to the distress of the Eurobund, which is struggling to maintain its influence abroad. Britain's attempts to hold onto its empire have been largely unsuccessful: India was a spectacular and bloody failure; much of Africa was less spectacular but equally bloody, and the "white dominions" are largely autonomous these days--with the exception of Canada, which is extremely concerned about its southern neighbor. Russia has recently slipped the German leash--still annoyed by the loss of Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltics, it has been cozying up to the US.

Atomic weapons have been developed by both German and American scientists, but rocket technology lags significantly behind our world; vast fleets of jet bombers are still the delivery system of choice. In fact, technology in general lags behind our world--despite the propaganda, the US system does not work nearly as well as advertised, and a significant amount of its brainpower is devoted to working the bugs out of that system--and what with one thing and another, the Germans aren't much better off. Space travel is still out of the picture, but the Americans have been working on building a self-sufficient community in Antarctica to serve as a model for the next stage of Utopia... if no one ends the world first.

(Yes, I've been going through one of my "weird map projection" phases...)