Glimmers In The Dark-(A Supernatural Mercantilism Quest In Alternate History Europe)

The year is 1500 after the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. The previous century is a darkened, terrible dream in the eyes of many, holding nothing but fear and misery for most. Yet for others, it represented a new chance, an era of opportunity reserved only for those who would dare to push onwards.

Some of those people went into alchemical laboratories in the depths of the Queen of Cities, coming out as heroes. Others tried their luck in the grandest sciences revealed to Man by divine wisdom in that darkest time, inventing machinery, mixing up potent brews and even practising witchery for the protection of their people.

Success was had, the vast hordes of the Impaler's son beaten back by heroism, miracles and more shot and powder than is strictly sane. Thrace was retaken with blood and fire, Greece reclaimed with trickery and explosives, Bulgaria taken with tremendous force and the most advanced technologies of the time, and finally, with great effort, the very citadel of the damned and unholy monsters was shattered.

The response was apocalyptic, Mihnea's army ravaged the Balkans with infernal might, crashing to the very walls of Constantinople, following his father's example and pushing to burn even this mighty bastion to its foundations. The walls were valiantly held at immense cost of life and damage to the city itself. The Evil was driven back by the finest warriors this Empire could produce, even if they sacrificed their lives for it, and was sent running without an army or support.

With a great effort, his escape was tracked, his location found and a team of mighty warriors and Bacchus Attaliates, master alchemist and hero of the Empire took to battle and slew him. An event which resulted in a colossal detonation that shook the world, igniting the sky as far as Vienna.

With his death, a new era was born, an era of unprecedented growth was birthed and wealth drove to obscene new heights by a war-time industry that was expanding to never-before-seen rates of production. Munitions, powder and weapons sold made Rome rich beyond measure and after that same war, it sparked more conflict with the Djinn to their east in pursuit of ancient borders.

Strange happenings in the Balkans saw more destruction, including the annihilation of two entire armies of Romans by method of a burning wave of light leaving no evidence of them save for Damascene steel in suspicious piles on blasted flat plains of exposed stone and glassed earth. No real proof came of this event's source and the proceedings afterwards are shrouded in mystery and myth.

The conflict with the Djinn turns to outright war as Mesopotamia was retaken with blood and fire. Sorceries of elder myth were overcome with careful strategy and overwhelming force until they were pushed fully across the Zagros mountains, banished to far away Parthia to whatever fate awaited them there.
In these days, the Empire lives triumphant, returned from the deepest brink of history to finally claim glorious standing in the world. This is where your story begins.
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The interlocking Ochimata ways that swallow the countryside are a familiar sight to most now. Cranking gears sounding out with metallic grinding even miles out, much less a few meters out of a station. A station services the passenger Ochimata you step from, seven oxen driving a brass crankshaft the size of small home to instil potential energy for its travels.

The crowd pushes past you, kept in control by stolid armoured Tzakones brandishing jet black soft clubs made from alchemically solidified petroleum that regularly push it back to order. Rabblerousers spread, but are beaten down and arrested. A megaphone-wielding Quaesitor screams out commands to order, demanding the crowd fall in line.

You make it through them with effort, some hands having to be batted away before they steal every coin in your purse, and perhaps the purse itself. Concrete streets, freshly rebuilt after the siege a decade prior rendered it shattered, extend out in gleaming white tracts that seem to infinitely extending outwards.

Vast buildings stretch up a dozen stories, marble-like glimmer giving them a beautiful appearance like the rest of this city. The rented Ochimata, a large brass thing which is armoured and protected to prevent overtaking by desperate workers, takes you over to the building where the supposed "Head Tradesman of Constantinople" is to meet you for some reason.

White streets turn red and broken as the remains of a work riot are being cleaned still, Athanatopouloi being deployed in force as they brandished firearms toward the Tzakones. Broken bodies and blistered flesh consumes the path ahead, but the Ochimata driver pays it no heed, the large wheels and fenced-off tramways on the interior of roads allowing the worst of it to be avoided easily enough.

Distant work riots ignite with the glow of alchemically produced flame, the workers firebombing something or other in rage whilst Tzakone disperse them forcefully, choking gasses and heavy impacting clubs being used to great effect on them.

Finally, you arrive at this damned place. The brass of the Ochimata still shining even as the wheels glint with the smallest portions of blood and gore trailing behind it as you exit, going towards the generally anonymous's building shine, somehow bereft of blood and chips even in the less than prosperous part of Constantinople.

Yet, a question remains unanswered, one of the most important. Who are you and, of course, who are you from?

[X] A son of a gunsmith and his merchant wife, the explosion of work in the times of war made your father obscenely wealthy and your mother similarly so. A normal man, you did not benefit from alchemical enhancement like so many of your peers, and in terms of sciences, you never had much of a head for them beyond economics. Now, with their passing, you were to meet with their guildmaster to assess properties and determine what their wills put forth. This new affair with this Head Tradesman of Constantinople is unexpected.

[X] Born to nobility just a bit under two decades ago, your house has, as of recent times fallen apart. Like most children, of your generation, heavy mutagens were applied to force you into excellence. Your mind was enhanced, your strength is inhuman and your lifespan nearly unlimited so long as elixirs continue to flow into you. The old family lands were in Greece, with rich vineyards and urban centres contained within them. However, they were levelled by the rage of the Evil. Some of the old treasury remains, but it is limited and you have yet to claim it due to this Tradesman.

[X] The eighth son of a sea-side copper mine owner in Anatolia, you never expected to really amount to much in your father's work. Instead, he sent you off to the Naturalist college where you learnt everything from gears and mechanics to art and biology. Of course, as you finished your studies as a fully grown man, your return home was soured by the fact that your entire family had been butchered by the rampant spread of sea-borne monsters that somehow gained the ability to invade the land. Now, after weeks of screaming at local liege lords and stewards, you've come to the capital to settle the matter of ownership.