Epraiym Tagas
New
Roleplay posts: 4 
Age: 52
Physical Description: Tall and skeletal, Epraiym presents the figure of someone not long for this world, all bones and pallid skin that is alternatively loose and shrunken. Bushy gray eyebrows, the only hair on his head, hang low over faded brown eyes, contrasting with his thin, bloodless lips. But this belies his vigor, for he is still as sharp and active as when he was a young man just out of the Iveluan rectory.
Clothes and Equipment: A variety of gold and basalt rings adorn his fingers, marks of both his office and his predilection for pleasures of the flesh, contrasting sharply with his simple clothing. Typically dressed in black, gray, dark green, or navy cowls, plain undyed cotton coifs, starched collars, a wide-brimmed felt hat and fine leather boots, when on assignment a light mail coat is secreted under his robes, against which is pressed a concealed stiletto, both protection from rulers angered by his professions.
Registered: Jun 4, 2015 22:25:12 GMT -8
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Post by Epraiym Tagas on Jun 10, 2015 15:50:33 GMT -8
We need to discuss how long each nation and group has known of each other, and to what extent there has been contact in the past. The governments and groups of The Fantasy Sandbox are all fairly new out-of-character, but generally have existed for hundreds of thousands of years in-character. While there is the matter of distance involved, it is extremely implausible that we would not know every other nation/group on the planet.
There are a few reasons for this. First, most people seem to be roleplaying with a Medieval-era level of technology. That means ocean-going ships, long-distance trade routes, developed academic societies, and for some even limited steam power. Even without the latter innovation that puts us all at about the tech level of ~1,500 AD, just without guns. Now add to that magical abilities, which include flight, telepathy, scrying, and other communication and knowledge aids and it is absurd for there to have been no knowledge beforehand. The only possible way to explain a lack of previous communication would be some kind of immensely powerful magical shielding of nations and groups, isolating them from all others. And if contact has been established so far back then interactions are inevitable. There would be trade, skirmishes, criminals fleeing from one group to another, and so on, for hundreds and hundreds of years. Again, the only way to prevent this is some kind of magical shielding. Even the most repressive, dictatorial government with perfect border guards and impassible terrain would be unable to stop at least some people from entering or exiting the lands. Look at North Korea, even with modern technology manufactured by China and Russia they are completely unable to prevent thousand of people moving through their borders every year.
Given all of this, we must acknowledge that every one of our nations and groups would know of, at least in passing, every other one, and almost certainly would have extensive dealings going back centuries or more. The only logical way to isolate your nation/group from this contact or knowledge without godmodding is extremely powerful magics
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Garo Zelsai
Committed
Roleplay posts: 66
Age: 16
Player's online availability : Random, and usually you can find me in the Free City.
Registered: Dec 27, 2014 22:10:44 GMT -8
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Post by Garo Zelsai on Jun 10, 2015 16:08:06 GMT -8
A loose consensus formed around the idea of a great cataclysm, which tends to be interpreted and documented in different ways or as different events to different places, somewhere between one hundred to several hundred years ago. "The Cataclysm" formed as an explanation for the blank space the sandbox was when it started--the void in civilization and technology, and is strongly compatible with the 1000NPCs*PCs concept.
The interplay between the way factions scale to your members and this Cataclysm "lore" has created something of a "rising from the ashes" theme, in which each civilization, typically growing steadily over time and rising from a mere 5,000, document (through roleplay) their humble beginnings. Each government thus has roleplayed their "beginnings" legitimately and have grown from single villages and single outposts into actual civs over time.
The Solarian Assembly and Ivelius are the two latest nations and are also the two only nations that did not develop this way, but instead started out with enough members (due to off-site recruiting) to establish themselves as "governments" from the get-go without going through a smaller "group" phase first.
So this has emerged into something of a roleplayed game of Civilization locked within the Medieval era. Think of this forum as being in the very beginning, where everyone has 2-6 cities and is just starting to meet each other.
Taking all this into account, all the civs, for the most part, know the existence of others, but this knowledge, these diplomatic connections, they all happened IC and didn't happen long ago, and what precedes that isn't really hundreds or thousands of years of communication, it's the roleplays of these nation's beginnings (you can dig around and read some of this, Camilla and Evrand's Wedding, for example, marked the beginning of Medan as we know it).
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Deleted
Roleplay posts: 0
Registered: May 18, 2024 11:56:20 GMT -8
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2015 16:10:45 GMT -8
Then how do we explain nations rising up seemingly from the blue in lands that were, in previous posts, blank? I think we should keep everything vague with relations between governments going down to a discussion between the leaders/representatives. The map was made just to show relativity not to show distances or scale or anything.
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Garo Zelsai
Committed
Roleplay posts: 66
Age: 16
Player's online availability : Random, and usually you can find me in the Free City.
Registered: Dec 27, 2014 22:10:44 GMT -8
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Post by Garo Zelsai on Jun 10, 2015 16:17:08 GMT -8
The only two that rose out of the blue were Solarian Assembly and Ivelius. They had enough members (5+) to start out as a government without growing through the "group" phase first.
All of the rest of the nations started out as groups, controlled tiny forts or villages, and had to recruit real players to their cause and grow steadily past the 5 member requirement, applied for Government status, and grew steadily from there. So most civilization didn't really pop into existence, they emerged over time through rp.
Therefore, Solarian Assembly and Ivelius kind of have some wiggle room in creating their own starting lore. Everyone else did that in actual RP, and so it's difficult for them to discredit those RPs and say they've been around long enough to have known each other prior to the roleplays in which their diplomats met each other.
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Epraiym Tagas
New
Roleplay posts: 4
Age: 52
Physical Description: Tall and skeletal, Epraiym presents the figure of someone not long for this world, all bones and pallid skin that is alternatively loose and shrunken. Bushy gray eyebrows, the only hair on his head, hang low over faded brown eyes, contrasting with his thin, bloodless lips. But this belies his vigor, for he is still as sharp and active as when he was a young man just out of the Iveluan rectory.
Clothes and Equipment: A variety of gold and basalt rings adorn his fingers, marks of both his office and his predilection for pleasures of the flesh, contrasting sharply with his simple clothing. Typically dressed in black, gray, dark green, or navy cowls, plain undyed cotton coifs, starched collars, a wide-brimmed felt hat and fine leather boots, when on assignment a light mail coat is secreted under his robes, against which is pressed a concealed stiletto, both protection from rulers angered by his professions.
Registered: Jun 4, 2015 22:25:12 GMT -8
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Post by Epraiym Tagas on Jun 10, 2015 16:28:34 GMT -8
That's very interesting, Garo. We were very confused about the specifics of the Cataclysm, given that there was only a brief mention of it with few specifics in one thread. Given that the fluff we set out to create is so radically different, it makes me wondering if it's even fair for us to come in and dictate things like this. How can both realities be true? I think we have much to discuss.
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The Phoenix State
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 151
Registered: May 17, 2015 13:41:25 GMT -8
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Post by The Phoenix State on Jun 10, 2015 17:12:17 GMT -8
Maybe some lands were less effected in the Cataclysm? Of course a more powerful land of that time would be able to sustain a little better, allowing them the knowledge and such of surrounding territories. Where as the lands that were more effected would obviously be without knowledge of surrounding lands, since everything pretty much hit a restart.
As for references to The Phoenix State, if you read everything, it continued to thrive within itself by cutting itself off from the world outside the desert. While the Cataclysm was going on, they were also at war with themselves, which was actually the only reason they successfully survived the event. The Phoenix State has always had a governing body that goes to you, which makes it hard for anyone to actually map it due to their lack of ability to make it through the Gate of the Valheecius Desert alive. So what did exist of it in the surrounding lands vanished when everything was wiped out.
So there's no real magic involved in it, just location and effects of the Cataclysm. This is why you will see more lands just really establishing. This is like the economy thread, the RP is gauged by the RP'ers who developed that land as long as it fits with the era. Which as stated in the economy thread, all lands and nation DO have to keep in mind that their lands are effected by lack of things, keeping it moderately realistic.
So with this said, while lands are just forming throughout, everybody still fits in. Some great nations can exist, but they will have to keep in mind that they are a reforming body. We are pretty much getting ready to ascend into a Dark Age here. Powerful nations are revealing themselves to the new world, while the new world is trying to recover from it's loss. As long as there's no robots, steel, and vessels people keep in mind of how their imports and exports can effect their people, soldiers, and government, everyone is still within the bounds of Overworld RP.
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Deleted
Roleplay posts: 0
Registered: May 18, 2024 11:56:20 GMT -8
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2015 18:00:11 GMT -8
This makes sense. Basically you can decide within the RP to what level of familiarity you have with the world/other nations, correct?
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Garo Zelsai
Committed
Roleplay posts: 66
Age: 16
Player's online availability : Random, and usually you can find me in the Free City.
Registered: Dec 27, 2014 22:10:44 GMT -8
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Post by Garo Zelsai on Jun 10, 2015 18:04:16 GMT -8
Yeah. The cataclysm did seem to affect others differently. Katashima, for instance, experienced a "Great War." There have been some references to the destabilization of older magical nations by removal of the sources of mana resonators on which their cities ran, stuff like that. Consensus seems to suggest it was a social upheaval that resulted in a lot of violence and displacement.
The cacaclysm also accounts for the existence of numerous ruins that are a central theme of medieval-fantasy exploration and adventure and dungeon-crawling, scenes that emerged in the beginning of the RP.
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clydethestag
Committed
Roleplay posts: 92 
Age: 27
Clothes and Equipment: no clothes. sometimes a light robe. also i have a medium sized sword
Registered: Mar 15, 2015 8:55:34 GMT -8
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Post by clydethestag on Sept 6, 2015 17:30:34 GMT -8
if the cataclysm only effected humans, then the deer tribes may have gotten a boost from the cataclysm. less humans means less predators and less competition for land and stuff. it would have allowed to evolved from the large herds to the society they are today
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