Behold A Black Horse: An Alternate 1315 GSRPG. Returns December 2023

[JBO]

Behold A Black Horse: A Late Medieval GSRPG

Spoiler: Higher Resolution Half Maps

The Making of what one day shall be called Europe is in full swing. It is the year 1313 of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and all across Europe commoners and noblemen alike feel the devastation of the Great Famine, a disastrous event that will see millions die across the various kingdoms and empires of Christendom, going so far as to even topple the rule of the great Emperor Romanos in Constantinople. Following the great economic expansion of the past century institutions, rulers and commoners alike find themselves sorely unprepared to face the challenges ahead. Yet even as hunger for food determines what the commoners seek, it is hunger for power that guides their rulers as in the Empire, Iberia, indeed all across the various realms of the world men and women of great ambition have raised their hosts for battle, seeking thrones, rights and above all security in this time of uncertainty. Little do they all know they live in a time not of a great calamity, but solely in the prelude to an even greater one that shall come to them in the form of rats and fleas in three short decades. That is the world these mortals wish to shape. Land before the fall.

Introduction

And we are back. Did not take this long didn't I tell ya? Seriously best of thanks to everyone still interested after the way too long wait and a special thanks to my darling Sidheach for giving me access to their Inkarnate account so I could include all the various info I wanted on the map.

Rules

1. General
   1. Respect the Forum Rules.
   2. Be excellent to each other and the GM.
   3. If the salt mines get reopened before the game even starts, go looking for another game. I am not kidding around about this. I don't care what contributions you made in the past I will not let this game burn me out again.
   4. All rules below this one may be changed at my despotic whims and as I deem necessary.
   5. Above all keep in mind that this is not the medieval world, but the medieval world as seen through the lens of JBO. Hence there will be obvious issues of interpretation, scale, evaluation and personal opinion that will come up that you may disagree with, feel is too excessive or too lenient on my behalf. While I fully welcome any appeal sent to me, as I am not perfect, especially in the early period I would request that you consider before sending in an appeal if the issue may come down to different interpretations of the world at hand.
2. Formalities and Game Outline
   1. Please send any appeal only after a 24-hour wait period. Any prior public complaints about the issues at hand will result in me considering your appeal null. This is not to clamp down on complaints or public discussion of events, but to make any 24-hour wait period viable to do its job of making people calm down from initial reactions, instead of letting interactions with others only inflame their tempers more.
   2. To prevent creative burnout, to let ill will die down or to prepare for major drastic events in the game world this game will feature pre-planned moments of stoppage and self-evaluation to see where we are at. For now, these points are the end of the game starting a war (aka Stephens rebellion), the dawn of militant peasant uprisings and the year where the two deaths get born, to prevent anti-climaxes. At each of those points, I will let the game rest for an indeterminate period to see where things lie and if it's viable to continue or if it's better to let it go on hiatus at that point.
   3. The first turn will start around October 1313 and end on December 31st 1314. Each turn from then on will cover 12 months. Keep this in mind when submitting plans to raise banners and march in any direction, since you will not wanna campaign in winter or be stopped by a siege.
   4. Your main vehicles of play are flavour posts, which develop your characters and are posted in the main thread, major actions, which develop your cities, lands and other things and are posted in your yearly turn post (an example format is given below) in which you please @ me and war plans which are sent to me via PM here on SV and which describe what your armies will do over the coming turn.
   5. Each polity has a standard three major actions they may take, per turn. The results of your actions will be given at the end of the turn in the Turn Report. Major Actions are given specific results by the GM in your end-of-turn report, and dictate the progression, or lack thereof, of your polity. Anything else you do, such as minor actions, or internal events, are purely flavour, and will not be given results or calculated into your main modifiers, otherwise, they must be utilized as a Major Action. The French and English monarchs have four, and the Roman and Mamluk Empires have five major actions to reflect their immense wealth and bureaucracy.
   6. Lastly your advisors may make themselves heard. While they are not always the smartest and may not see what you are trying to do, they do tend to look out for you not getting blowback from behaving too much like a modern person in a Medieval society that would not appreciate you screwing everyone over.
   7. Any secret agreements made via PM that the GM has not been invited to are null and void as if they never happened.
3. Characters
   1. Your characters are your main vehicles of play, familiarize yourself with your family tree immediately and please stick to established characterization. Neither play your "nation" instead of your family nor claim a "weak" character with the plan to "fix" them. (Use the find tool and type in the last name as given in the almanack. Recommended settings are to display middle names, and life years, to set parents and children to one generation and another to none)
   2. Unless stated otherwise your characters are in your capital at the game start. To be sure ask me just to be safe. Please keep their locations in mind when both communicating with others and having them travel. Fully expect for the first few turns for me to step in and slap your fingers if I feel you are starting to tweet at each other and use an interrail system.
   3. You have full control of all characters patrilineally related to your main character and not separated by one or more degrees or under the control of a different faction. Put simply you control your uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers, children and grandchildren, but not your nieces, nephews and cousins. Similarly, you don't control your younger brother that has been left with a smaller part of the inheritance.
   4. If two player characters are married to each other, each player maintains control of their member of the pair. Children will always be under the control of their fathers, cause this is a patriarchal society.
   5. I will reserve for at least the early turns of the game a full monopoly on childbirths and natural deaths. You may send requests to me via PM, but even the kindest and most reasonable bid is no guarantee of getting a "Yes" in reply.
   6. You may freely create retainers, advisors, emissaries and other characters sworn to your main characters to act as your intermediaries and fill roles your character cannot fulfil.
   7. NPC family trees will be updated every five years so I don't have to bring the game to a halt each turn to edit them.
   8. Similarly to rule 3.1, please avoid people having spontaneous ideas that might help their family members thousands of miles away due to meta-gaming reasons.
4. Settlements
   1. Settlements under your control will be listed under your almanack entry. To avoid excessive lists, for each continuous territory, just one will be named. If there is shared control it will be indicated.
   2. The different types of settlement are these:
      1. Castle. These are stone fortifications that must be besieged to be taken. They do not provide hosts though.
      2. Castletown. These are castles, with a small settlement around them. They may get upgraded to a town in the 1340s if they grew enough. You can raise one support host from them.
      3. Town. You can raise two support hosts from them.
      4. City. You can raise a main host and a support host from them.
      5. Centre. Everything from here upwards has an increasingly powerful NPC burgher class that may make themselves known if they feel ignored or mistreated. You can raise two main hosts from them.
      6. Hub. The centres of a trade network. If they get conquered it may affect the regional trade. If they get looted the state containing them automatically loses one economic level. You can raise two main hosts and two support hosts.
      7. Metropolis. Even a siege of them is a major disruption of local trade. If they get conquered the state containing them loses one economic level. If they get looted it loses two. You can raise one elite host, two mains hosts and three support hosts from them.
      8. World City. A siege of them may affect the entire world map. Conquering them automatically makes the state containing them lose two economic levels. Looting them makes the territory containing them automatically be in imminent collapse unless it contains another world city, in which case it will be ravaged. You can raise three elite hosts, three main hosts and five support hosts from them. Further for each 50k above 100k inhabitants add one main and one support and for each 100k one elite host.
      9. The list of 100k cities is as follows:
         1. Constantinople 550,000
         2. Cairo 534,000
         3. Paris 210,000
         4. Mosul 208,000
         5. Fes 203,000
         6. Venice 188,000
         7. Thessaloniki 141,000
         8. Kyiv 114,000
         9. Genoa 112,000
         10. Bagdad 110,000
         11. Alexandria 108,000
         12. Lisboa 106,000
         13. Tunis 102,000
         14. Damaskus 101,000
5. Economics will be limited in scope and impact on the game. Each player state will be given an economic level at the game start Imminent Collapse, Ravaged, Declining, Stagnating, Growing, Impressive, Magnificent of relevance will be the following
   1. Imminent collapse may spawn noble rebellions or as the game goes on militant peasant uprising against the ruler in question. NOTE: Nobles may rebel for other reasons, but they will do so semi-automatically if your economy is in disarray for too long.
   2. Ravaged territory if crossed by armies multiple times in a turn or consecutive turns may lead to desertion, starvation, mutiny or a simple downgrade to imminent collapse.
   3. All further levels are safety cushions against radical downgrades and may be used by the GM as warning signs to the players.
6. Military
   1. Hosts: A host is the basic unit of your army. They vary in size and discipline but are given their categories assumed to be of more or less equal size. This does however not mean that tactics, counterplay and cultural differences cannot be exploited. Keeping a host raised for long can have both positive and negative effects. On the one hand, this may lead to them becoming battle-hardened, on the other they may eventually demand to go home already. Note: Hosts are always raised publically in the game thread. Further, a host is not raised from the city they are associated with but represents both the levies from the city and the surrounding lands.
      1. A Support host: What it says. Peasants, poor knights, fanatics, irregular bandits, whatever they may be, this is mostly fodder that should be carefully positioned to defend you.
      2. Main Hosts: The usual grunts. Trained house retainers. Mercenaries. Knights. These men should be positioned in the key positions of your army as they can be the best relied on when push comes to shove.
      3. Elite Hosts: Once you are rich and prestigious enough you can have your pick of the litter. Maybe you have a great bureaucracy or a warrior caste. Whatever the reason this host is something else and not to be trifled with. Any army containing an elite host, regardless of size will be considered at least a medium army.
   2. Armies: Armies are units made up of a collection of hosts. Hosts are assigned a position in the overall army and battle positions in the secret war plans. On the map the actual size of an army is never displayed instead there are several symbols representing the number of hosts in it. If you lose track of which hosts are in your opponent's army, too bad for you better investigate that.
      1. Small Army: 1-4 Support Hosts, <2 Main hosts
      2. Medium Army: 5-10 Support hosts, 2-7 Main hosts
      3. Large Army: 10< Support Hosts, 8< Main hosts
   3. Obstacles. Some natural obstacles present severe issues to armies trying to march across them.
      1. Hills. A hill chain severely slows any army that crosses them.
      2. Mountain chain. A Mountain chain is impassable apart from passes or staying close to rivers and the coast. Any army crossing mountains is increasingly slowed depending on its size. You may attempt to pull a Hannibal but do remember the casualties that were caused.
      3. Rivers. Crossing a river slowly your army down if one is not using the river crossing of a settlement to do so.
      4. The sea. If you plan to cross the sea depending on the size of your army expect to spend one or even more turns building a fleet or to seize the ships of local traders. As standing fleets are limited to only a select number of powers they will be left largely disregarded.
      5. Towns. When one of your armies encounters a settlement there are several options: You may ignore it, force a surrender or put it under siege. The first leaves a potentially hostile settlement in your back, the second may not be possible, and the third will bring your army to an effective stop. A besieged settlement can only raise half of the host it normally could, may only raise them outside the city and may only use them to lift the siege. This represents raising a host from the countryside to lift the siege. If the hosts of this city have already been raised it has to defend itself with only its garrison and is thus easier to take. World cities may raise their full hosts, but may only raise half inside the walls of the city and the other half outside it. In any case, there will be a public event informing the player base that these hosts are raised as normal.
   4. Your armies will expect you or a member of your family if possible to lead them into battle. This is after all the societal role of feudal lords. If you do not do so or have your character abandon an army on the march to go somewhere else this will affect the morale of those fighting.
7. Diplomacy. Diplomacy takes time and is multifaceted. I of course can't control that you stick to it, but I would ask that you refrain from using PMs or Discord to get around these restrictions as they are supposed to a) Get around tweeting and b) Encourage a higher quality in diplomacy. There is no limit to the amount of diplomacy you may engage in each turn, but the travel time will restrict whether you will get an answer.
   1. Proclamations. A proclamation is your ruler going into their great hall and commenting on stuff. "I have a son looking for a wife." "My neighbour smells." "Can't we all get along and kill someone else and not each other?" As a proclamation is not directed at anyone in particular it will take a turn to travel outside your diplomatic region.
   2. Missives. Missives are messages that are exchanged between courts. They are often read publically when they are presented at court and thus they are treated as proclamations made at the court they are sent to. They may have any length, though note that with a diplomatic range in effect, it may be a waste of your message to simply do a To: From post. Secret Missives are messages that are sent with an unbroken seal and are read to the ruler in question in private. Please put them under a spoiler and @ the player or GM in question BENEATH the spoiler to avoid people knowing who is talking secretly with whom. Naturally please try to ignore secret messages not addressed to you. Naturally, you can choose to make a secret message to you public or to infiltrate someone's court to get to have a look at their secret correspondence.
   3. If you wish to engage in the highest level of secrecy, please send one of your actual characters to the court you wish to address and begin a PM convo with the GM. Envoys naturally present a great risk as you may become a hostage or be endangered on your way to and from that court. Note that this does not mean that you have to arrive secretly. You can naturally start a Field of the Cloth of Gold by arriving in style, the only important thing is that you send one of your PCs. If the GM informs you that you have arrived without issue you may invite the other player and engage in diplomacy either formal or RP. The contents of this message are considered canon for the game and may be treated as knowledge of your faction as soon as your character returns home.
   4. Diplomatic range. If your capital directly borders the lands of the ruler you wish to engage in diplomacy with you may send up to three missives to them. If you are within the same diplomatic region as the other ruler you may send up to two missives to them. If they are in a diplomatic region bordering yours you may send them one missive. Any further distance means they or you must wait one turn before responding to any missives received.
   5. Diplomatic Regions
      1. Russia
      2. Eastern Mediterranean
      3. Balkans
      4. Northern Periphery
      5. Eastern Periphery
      6. British Isles
      7. HRE
      8. France
      9. Italy
      10. Iberia
      11. Western Mediterranean
      12. Ummah
8. Getting Started
   1. If you played in the past or got promised a faction close to the hiatus, simply claim it. However, I will limit the number of playable factions to one per player at the start. The only exception is the besieged Crusaders in Gibraltar cause for all sets and purposes they depend on someone bailing them out.
   2. If you are new you can make a proactive claim of up to three factions. Please see the thread marked almanack posts for descriptions. Simply put everything no matter the size is claimable. If you don't have time for a big major power there is nothing wrong with claiming a minor Swabian lord. I will however bias towards filling "needed" factions just to create a more organic Europe. Alternatively write a short paragraph about what type of experience, power, interaction with other players etc. you are looking for and I will give you a short list of options to choose from. The list of factions is massive after all and there are lots of factions that need filling.
   3. The pope is a permanent NPC as is the church hierarchy.
9. Final Notes
   1. There is a dedicated discord here. As I suspect much of the OOC talk to happen there I'd suggest joining.
   2. Golden Ages, Great Persons and Geniuses are abolished.
   3. And don't forget to have fun! This is all silly make belief.

Spoiler: Turn post Example Format

Polity Name In Native Language - Year
Polity Flag/Coat of Arms

Name: Polity Name in English
Current Ruler: Name
Expected Heir: Name
Succession: Copy from the almanack
Religion:
Type of Government: Self-explanatory
Capital: Capital
Diplomatic Region(s): Please ask the GM
Cities: If there is a capital it will be designated with a (c)
Armies:
Economic Status: Magnificent (Example, and is to be given by me and updated at the end of every turn if needed by me)

Insert Major Actions here, tag the GM

Internal Events:
-Any internal events to talk about...


Alliances, Agreements, Pacts and Trade:

Diplomacy:

 

[JBO]

Player List
IF YOU ARE NOT LISTED HERE PLEASE PING ME

Holy Roman Empire
Henry of Luxembourg, Emperor of Rome @John7755 يوحنا
Stephen Premyslid's regency @Velasco
Hedwig, Queen of Bohemia @The_Red_Baron
Otto IV Welf, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg @Deathwing
Baldwin XIII Of Flanders (Hainaut-Flanders), Count of Flanders, heir to the Duchy of Burgundy @Sneakyflaps
Henry IV Askania (Anhalt) (b.1273), Count of Anhalt-Dessau, Prince of Altmark @Dadarian
Ludwig of Bavaria @DanMan
Heinrich von Urach @Vald

France and British Isles
Henry II of France @ZealousThoughts
John of Britanny @Pirx
Richard II Plantagenet, King of England @Tyrell
William of Scotland @mcclay

Italy
Giovanni de Lucari, richest banker of Siena @Ultimatum
Theodore II of Wittelsbach @Hyvelic
Boniface I/III of Liguria @Muskeato
Marco Polo, Doge of Venice @Magnive

Iberia
Peter III/II of Barcelona, King of Aragon, Navarre, Valencia and Mallorca, Prince of Catalonia @Sidheach
Afonso IV Capet (of Portugal) King of Portugal, Lord of Berry @HumanityDark
Alfonso IX of Castille @Sejanus
Nasrid Sultana @Lux27Rub
Charles "The French", Duke of Cordoba @ike225
Leo "The Homeless" @Korona

East and North Periphery
Albert of Poland @adriankowaty
Canute Lagman of Norway @Tiberius
Dragoš Dragaš, Grand Prince and Voivode of Rascia @Mrmastro

Jochids and Vassals
Timür II, Sultan of Kiev @SitzKrieg

Far "East"
Theodore III Laskaris Melisennos Byzantine Greek Roman Emperor @ByzantineCaesar
Amal Bahri, Sultan of Egypt @Dovahsith
Purple Horde @Zorakov
Marinids @Vitalian
Caliph of Tunis @Anon500

 

[JBO]

Since I am still editing papers for publication/finishing my degree, the game will for the first few months have a very relaxed pace.
I have set aside times in my weekly schedule to be primarily game dedicated. I will be online otherwise and may answer things or do other related stuff, but do not treat this as an open invitation to expect me to engage actively with stuff. I have in the past been really bad at setting boundaries between my RL and the engagement of this game, so I will try to keep things to more clear time periods.

Every turn lasts for two real-life weeks and covers a year IC.

The general schedule for one week turns is as follows(all times Berlin local time). For two-week turns just consider this a "this but slower" guide stick:
Monday 16:30-17:30: Turn report goes up and I will be on hand to answer immediate IC responses and other things. NPC proclamations and answers to missives from the last turn will be sent.
Tuesday: No scheduled time may respond on Discord or here.
Wednesday 17:00-19:00: Responses to NPC missives sent on Monday will be given assuming that diplomatic distance allows it.
Thursday and Friday: No scheduled time may respond on Discord or here.
Saturday 15:00-18:00: I will work during this time on turn/mid-turn reports. I ask you do have plans in by 17:00 via SV PM to be considered. Everything sent after the deadline and before 0:00 on Monday may still be considered as a late submission if it is not too extensive. Everything after will not.
Sunday: Don't contact me and expect an answer in time for midnight I will 99% not be looking at my messages.

First turn deadline:
July 22nd 17:00