Global Event

The Age of Discovery

The Age of Discovery is upon us! New innovations in disciplines as diverse as optics, compasses, shipbuilding, astronomy, and food preservation have allowed for sailing ships to sail further and further than ever before, potentially even leaving sight of the shoreline to sail the deep oceans for weeks and months on end. While most captains are busy with practical things like privateering, coastal trade, and otherwise using their ships to make a living, some brave, foolhardy few have already gone on riskier, more adventurous escapades. Now rumours and legends of lands unseen, filled with wonder and excitement, fill your taverns and courts. The plague has driven many otherwise sensible people to desperation, and you find yourself with the potential manpower and resources to launch a series of state-sponsored expeditions into the great unknown. If you want to, of course.

You may select as many options as you'd like from below. Note that selecting numerous options may have adverse effects, as your manpower, resources, and attention are focused away from home. Further note that this is a two part event, meaning that your selections this part will give you options to select next part, which is when the fruits of your expeditions – if any – will be reaped.

• Option 1: We shall sail to the northeast, to the Queen of Cities herself – to the second Rome, to the capital of the Roman Empire, Constantinople!

• Option 2: Why go to the second Rome, when we can instead go to the original Rome, the birthplace of the Roman Empire and the grand tradition of Western imperialism!

• Option 3: Why all this talk about Romes? We aren't Romeaboos like Lego. We have heard rumours of great and wealthy principalities in the swamps of Holland, and their wealth shall be ours!

• Option 4: Swamps? Sounds wet and smelly. Why not instead go to the great palaces of Spain, and treat with their mighty kings and stalwart holy warriors?

• Option 5: I'm not here to take a siesta, but kings and warriors sound great. And the land of baguettes is full of both, or so I've heard!

• Option 6: Sure, the land of baguettes has kings and warriors, but I've heard that the Bohemia to the east has those too, and with a lack of French pretension to boot!

• Option 7: Bohemia? Sounds like a place that should be burned. And as I've always said, the best way to burn something is with high quality alcohol, and according to our traders the best alcohol comes from just south of Bohemia, in a land called Bavaria.

• Option 8: If I wanted booze I'd just drink some at home! I want to see something I've never seen before, like a great open grassland, untouched by desertification or overgrown jungles. A steppe, if you would. And I hear there's one just east of Bohemia and Bavaria!

• Option 9: Why all the fuss about this one continent? I've heard that the greatest treasures lie on an island to the north, called Albion, a land of swords in stones and mighty wizards and shipwrecked Spanish treasure fleets.

• Option 10: Why stop at just one tiny island? Our bravest sailors tell tales of a great sea beyond Albion, where great dragons fly overhead and the very shores glow green with power.

• Option 11: Eurocentrism bad. Let's go to Persia instead, the true greatest empire of all time! Or rather, the greatest set of empires – Achaemenids, Sassynids, Parthians, Baluchistanis, and more await!

• Option 12: Just north of Persia lies a land called Georgia. Wait – before you run away in disgust, this isn't the Georgia where Lego comes from, but the Georgia of absentee non-royal rulers and proxy wars and vampire counts and more. It's cool, I swear!

• Option 13: O man o man, let's go to Oman!

• Option 14: The rarest, most enigmatic rumours speak of a great continent to the far west, filled with treasures and wonders unimaginable – gold, silver, diamonds, and other shiny things galore! [Note: This journey may take longer than others, and may thus have delayed rewards.]

• Option 15: Offmaps? That's illegal! I'm calling Bandy! [Note: If you select this option, you cannot select any other options. This is also the default option for factions which select no options.]

Regional events will follow later this week, and will be more conventional in style and scope.