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TL;DR is in bold
The first eight players are the "major powers" and represent the most powerful nations on earth at this moment. All other players are minor powers. It is possible for a major power to be eclipsed by a minor power, thus switching their power status. Your country's capital will have a symbol to represent your status as a major power. Major powers may send four actions per turn, whereas minor powers may only send one.
To send turn actions, send me a PM titled "Nations RP" without quotes. If you must make an edit, resend all of your previous actions as well; I will only read the last PM titled "Nations RP" from each player, so make sure the latest PM from you has everything that it needs to have. Also, try to be brief; if your PM is too lengthy, I may skim to save time, potentially missing important things.
Rather than playing as the immortal spirit of a nation as is typical with grand strategy games, you will be playing as a faction within the nation. For the major powers, the faction is synonymous with the nation. For minor powers, however, it is possible for your faction to be within another player's nation. You can use this to either help or hinder that player, depending upon your own personal goals and loyalty. It is difficult to extinguish a player faction entirely; you may still exist in the game even if you own no lands at all. Switching to a different faction or creating a new faction is possible if times are changing (maybe you want to be a communist later on in the game) or you are having a difficult time (perhaps you are the last branch of a universally hated royal family with no land).
When you send in your PM for this turn, make sure to name your faction and (for minor powers) decide which country to start in. These details do not count as actions towards your action limit. For most of you, the faction will be a family name, such as Habsburg or Lancaster. Some may choose to be something different, like a monastic order (Knights Templar, etc.) or other organization (Guild, Political Party, Nomadic Tribe, etc.). Minor powers may attempt to hijack an existing NPC nation, but this will likely cause that country to collapse, so plan accordingly.
Wars will be settled in a single turn, unlike previous games where they stretched on for multiple turns. You should send war goals along with your declaration of war, otherwise your diplomats will not know what to seize in the peace. War goals can be anything; land grabs, demilitarization, monetary concessions, forced conversion, etc. You may also define a strategy, if you think that your generals need guidance.
Do not send diplomacy related things in your turn actions; post that in the thread, even when dealing with NPCs. You may form alliances in the thread and they will become active as soon as all parties agree on its terms. I will keep track of such alliances, so long as they are made in the thread, and they will be listed in each turn. Alliances formed this way will automatically come to each-others' aid if attacked or attacking, depending upon what the conditions of the alliance are.
As always, feel free to ask any questions if you have them.
History of the World
Faced with the threat of Roman expansion into Germania, many tribal chieftains rallied together under the banner of a man named Haglaz. Routing the Roman armies at Teutoburg in the year 9AD, Haglaz became ambitious, and forced the unification of the clans through violence. Within a decade, most of Magna Germania was united under the budding Haglaz dynasty, which went on to capture most of the Roman provinces from Hadrian's Wall to Sicily.
In the centuries since this conquest the so-called "Central Empire" has been in steady decline. A third-century invasion from beyond the wall in Britain, led by a charismatic astronomer-prophet, caused the islands to be lost. They are now ruled by the Cheswicks, a powerful coalition of highland clans from the far north. A secondary result of this invasion was the spread of Celestialism, a religious fusion of astrology and astronomy, which gradually became the official faith of the empire.
In the early eighth century Spain was lost to Muslim invaders. As a result of the multiple wars the imperial treasury was drained and national manpower was devastated. This left the empire open to invasion and rebellion, and the regime was bankrupted. The kingdoms of Denmark, Poland, Moravia, and Genzodia gained their independence in a series of bloody uprisings.
During the time of the Central Empire's decline, the east-Roman empire was also collapsing. Gradually provinces were lost to a combination of rebellious princes in the north and Muslim invaders to the east. In the 7th century a Persian army marched in to Anatolia and its general, thinking himself more powerful than the Persian king, seized most of the peninsula and declared himself Sultan of Rome. His armies ravaged the countryside in place of raising taxes, leaving most communities too devastated to continue their lifestyle there. Some of the Pontic Christians, unable to tolerate the rule of Rum and its bloodthirsty Sultan, fled across the Black Sea. This army of refugees established a kingdom called Opus and conquered vast swaths of land.
Some time in the late eighth century a small group of Beothuk fishing ships, blown off course by a storm, docked in Iceland. This was the first contact between the continents of Hanunah and Europe, and since then mutual trade has created an exchange of ideas, inventions, produce, and disease across the Atlantic. Among these ideas exchanged has been Celestialism, which is now the majority religion in many northeastern countries.
The history of Hanunah is mostly the history of the Aztecs; Some time in the first century, the Aztec empire stretched out to the east, conquering most of the Caribbean and the areas surrounding it within two centuries. Their religion, symbolized by a Black Sun due to their fear that the sun will one day die, is a lasting effect of the Aztec Empire's presence. The empire lasted for six hundred years before collapsing due to a seventh century invasion of nomadic people from the north.
North of the former Aztec domains is a vast land, unified religiously through a shamanistic practice. This religion, called Peyotism, is a loose collection of Hanunan traditions including astral projection, a belief in spirit animals, vision quests, and a connection with nature. The use of peyote, a cactus known for its psychoactive properties, is central to the religious experience. Nations which control peyote's desert habitat are common targets for religious pilgrimages. Oddly enough, most of these countries are Black Sunnist, and occasionally these pilgrimages turn into bloody crusades to retrieve peyote.
South of Hanunah lies the continent of Pindorama. Very little is known of the extent of this land, which is covered in jungles and mountains. A few nations along Pindorama's northern coast thrive on Caribbean trade while Chimor and Inca are largely isolated from the rest of the world, ruling from the Andes mountaintops. Most people in Pindorama worship the god of the sun, Inti. Intists are less commonly known as White Sunnists, due to their slightly more optimistic outlook on the future of the sun than their Black Sunnist counterparts.
In east Asia the Han dynasty has ruled since the sixth century, having been preceded by a great number of ancient imperial dynasties. The Han are the largest empire that china has yet seen, all previous dynasties holding vastly smaller domains. A few budding civilizations are rising about the expanding Han, including Korea, Japan, and Rose. The Roses in particular are developing quickly, having imported the Chinese writing system and formalized their pantheon into a cohesive, organized religion. Their population has risen rapidly over the past few centuries and their typical city's infrastructure rivals even the imperial capital of China. The Han, feeling that the Roses owe a cultural debt to China, have demanded tribute many times during the small kingdom's rise, but this connection has grown weaker over time and tensions have risen as the occasional request for tribute is refused.