Global Events

The Age of Discovery II

Your intrepid explorers, sailors, merchants, traders, adventurers. and raiders brave the harsh, unknown waters surrounding the continent of Africa, towards their fabled destinations, not knowing whether they'll reach them or even return home alive. Thankfully, your information was good, and there are indeed destinations within reach awaiting them. As their journeys come to a close, and the sights, sounds, and smells of land and civilization appear to them on the horizon, this is what they see...

You may select one option from each section below that you're eligible for, based on your selections in the first part of this event chain in Part 11.

Section 1: Constantinople

As you approach the Queen of cities, the capital of the Roman Empire, Constantinople, you see a surprising sight. Or, perhaps, not such a surprising one for those familiar with the Eastern Roman Empire's history of coups, rebellions, and civil wars. Plumes of smoke and ash are first seen along the horizon, followed by a fleet of warships blockading the city's whole coastline. As you approach, your lookouts upon the crow's nest spot what seems to be two warring factions with their spyglasses. One, made up of mostly native Byzantines, but with a distinctive Latinate contingent, and, most strangely, what appears to be a force of Persian Immortals, appears holed-up and fortified in the Senate chambers and Imperial palaces. The other, likewise made mostly native Byzantines, but this time with a large Egyptian component, albeit not one similar to the failing, disease-riddled Egyptian you're most familiar with, controls the harbours and dockyards, and is pushing aggressively through the city towards the first camp's bases.

• Option 1: The Senatorial force is clearly corrupt and decadent! We must aid the liberators from the sea, and they will surely reward us!

• Option 2: The seaborn invaders are just that: lawless, violent invaders! We must aid the Senatorial troops in securing control over the city, and they will surely reward us!

• Option 3: There are lots of badass warriors fighting here, from all sorts of backgrounds. Once this fighting's over, I doubt that either side is going to be able to pay them all, what with the city's treasures getting destroyed and looted, and one side likely getting removed from the city altogether. We should hire them on as mercenaries, so that they could fight under our banner!

• Option 4: What did you say about looting the city's treasures? That sounds fun and profitable. Time for a second Fourth Crusade!

Section 2: Rome

The city of Rome, when you reach it, seems to not quite live up to the tales you'd heard. The former capital of the civilized world is but a smoldering ruin, slowly being picked apart by vultures, looters, and other low-life scavengers. Clearly, whoever was last in charge of managing and securing this city had done a truly terrible job. However, despite the city's decrepit state, most of the looters are in small, unambitious, unsophisticated bands. You could do quite well or yourselves by tackling loot that they would never put in the work to take.

• Option 1: We shall take the great Colosseum, home of the mighty gladiators!

• Option 2: We shall take the holy Apostolic Palace, and its many vaunted stained-glass windows and paintings!

• Option 3: We shall take the Imperial palaces, and their unfathomable treasuries!

• Option 4: We shall take Trajan's Column, the foremost symbol of military might and strategic genius!

Section 3: The Low Countries

Your ships lay anchor in the swamplands of Holland. Your explorers exit your ships and are quickly roped into a conspiracy by a group of local merchants and nobles. They seek to use their great fleet, trading networks, and many goods to create a de facto trading monopoly in the North and Baltic Seas, and earn lots of money doing it. It seems that your ships are the last thing they needed to secure naval supremacy over their rivals.

• Option 1: We shall join in this monopolistic profiteering, and with the Dutch reap the rewards!

• Option 2: We shall bust this illegal monopoly and arrest the would-be monopolists, and earn the favour of all of the Dutch's neighbours!

• Option 3: We shall ignore this nerd shit and get drunk on fine Dutch booze!

• Option 4: We shall drain the swamp!

Section 4: Spain

You arrive at the court of the King of Castile, Aragon, etc., etc., who seems to be a very important and powerful man with many titles It seems that the King is quarreling with the grandmasters of several ancient knightly holy orders in the Iberian Peninsula, which trace their lineage back to a Visigothic order that stabilized Western Europe in the aftermath of the Western Roman Empire's collapse, expanded Christendom to North Africa, and participated in the defence of the Holy Land during the original Muslim conquests. Or so the legends go. Regardless of history, the knightly orders are major landowners, with large private armies of knights, and numerous ancient charters and bulls of varying authenticity granting them numerous rights and privileges. The royal government seeks to expropriate the orders' wealthy holdings for the Crown, as part a broader initiative to strengthen and centralize the administration of the Spanish kingdoms.

• Option 1: One of the grandmasters, a large and imposing man, barges through the crowd to stand right in front of you. In a commanding voice he asks that you, as impartial visitors from a faraway realm, without local political allegiances, declare that the lands, wealth, and power of the knightly orders are sacred and inviolable, and that any King who tries to revoke or expropriate them is a traitor to God.

• Option 2: A man in Eastern-style ecclesiastical robes appears behind you, and taps you on the shoulder to gain your attention. He says that these knightly orders have grown detached from their spiritual duties and become too focused on material wealth and temporal power. He claims to have a Papal bull that will place all of the orders' lands and wealth under the direct control of the Holy See. All he needs is some brave armed men to help him enforce the decree, who he says will all receive unconditional plenary indulgences, whatever those are.

• Option 3: A weedy Florentine man wearing a big floofy hat pushes the cleric aside, and opens a large chest of Florins in front of you. He claims to be the Portuguese king's sister's late son's widow's second husband's illegitimate half-brother, and says that you will be well rewarded if you help claim all of Spain for Florence, er, Portugal.

• Option 4: The doors to the court are thrown open, and a procession of heavily-armed Catalan mercenaries, censer wielding acolytes, and a very intelligent, brave, honourable, handsome looking man, who you presume is the King. Above the king's head a red-robed ecclesiastic holds a big, Imperial crown. A herald proclaims that the King is now the Emperor of All Spain, and that all knightly orders and church officials are now under his direct control.

Section 5: France

As you land in a port in France, one of your men asks the local dockhands who the ruler of France is, so that your crew may have an audience with him. After a brutal brawl between the dockhands, it turns out that there are many kings and rulers, none of which recognize each other's authority.

• Option 1: Apparently the King of France is also the King of England and the Count of Holland.

• Option 2: Apparently the King of France is still the King of England and the Count of Holland, but also the Emperor of the Romans and a zombie.

• Option 3: Apparently the King of France is a former Grandmaster of the Knights of Malta, returned to seize his throne by force.

• Option 4: Apparently the King of France is irrelevant, and the Bohemian-born Duke of Burgundy is the real power player here.

Section 6: Bohemia

As you arrive in Bohemia, you find it to be a land ravaged by war, both civil and uncivil. On one side, a coalition of Wittelsbach invaders backs a former Bohemian king's daughter's great-grandson for the throne, while on the other side an Italian-Rhenish-Spanish coalition supports a diarchy of a former Bohemian king's direct patrilineal heir and some other random guy with no relation to any legitimate Bohemian royal line.

• Option 1: We should help the diarchy, because diarchies are the best and most legitimate form of government!

• Option 2: Ew, diarchies. We must help the Wittelsbach forces crush this evil diarchy!

• Option 3: Why help either, when we can sit on the sidelines and sell arms, mercenaries, and other goods and services to both sides?

• Option 4: While both sets of rival Bohemian kings deeply oppose each other's temporal claims, it seems that they both share a common spiritual doctrine. This Bohemism thing must be pretty cool is both sides of an otherwise vicious, sectarian civil war support it, right?

Section 7: Bavaria

After a long journey your explorers arrive in Bavaria, or, as the locals seem to call it, Grossbayern. You're not entirely sure why they'd refer to their own country as gross, but whatever. You've heard that this is the place to get booze, not to worry about linguistics.

• Option 1: First stop: Baytear! Time to get tucked like Lego!

• Option 2: As you're walking to the nearest Baytear brewery, you come across a deranged, vaguely chicken like man, shouting "THY GIB WAGON TRAINS!" into the sky.

• Option 3: Further along, you come across an elite, disciplined group of crossbowmen mowing down hapless peasant rebels. The leader of these crossbowmen says that they're the PRC, the best ranged warriors around.

• Option 4: One of the half dead peasants gurgles at you, and points towards a burning church right before he dies. It seems that the Bavarians have conquered several formerly independent ecclesiastic states, and in general love oppressing the clergy.

Section 8: Hungary

After a long, long trek across endless steppe plains, you come across a yurt village. After narrowly convincing the brutal, vicious steppe raiders patrolling it to let you in, your eyes jump to several interesting landmarks.

• Option 1: The one free-standing, non-temporary building in the camp appears to be a library. Upon entering the library you find it to be full of picture books. Surely the locals wouldn't mind if you took a few?

• Option 2: A flock of hippos meanders about the edges of the settlement, herded by a few elderly men. One of them offers to sell you some hippos, since they're annoying and unruly creatures.

• Option 3: A group of heavily armed men wearing gaudy, almost Babylonian looking outfits catches your eye. They are apparently the BUMS, a crudely named mercenary band looking for enemies to kill and villages to plunder.

• Option 4: These poor souls! They can't read, don't have proper settled cities, and don't even seem to have discovered agriculture! We must send foreign aid here immediately, to list these poor despondent souls into civilization!

Section 9: The British Isles

Your ships come to the British Isles, a network of islands both great and small, seemingly embattled in war. As your ships approach the shorelines of Ireland, Scotland, and England, they must make a choice of where to lay anchor.

• Option 1: In northern Ireland a lost Spanish treasure fleet lies, shipwrecked on the island. If there's one thing I like, it's treasure.

• Option 2: In northern England a vast army of Vikings assembles, intent on conquering and plundering. But where did they get such a massive army? When you looked just a moment ago, they had serene, cultured cities which seems to have now vanished, and not nearly that many troops.

• Option 3: A roving band of eclectic, heavily armed warriors sails alongside your ship, and offers to serve you in whatever wars you're in, for only slightly exorbitant pay.

• Option 4: In the south of Ireland a mercantile coalition called the Irish Racketeering Association is making great money from parking large armies on the island and demanding payments from the local lords and burghers in exchange for not being murdered. Maybe we should implement a similar revenue generation program back home?

Section 10: The Baltic Sea

As your ships sail past the Danish straits and enter the Baltic Sea, they first hear, then see, great roaring, winged creatures fly above them. They see plants, rocks, and soil on the shorelines glowing green with mystical power. And in the distance, deeper into the see, they hear a noise they don't recognize, one not of nature, blaring in warning or terror.

• Option 1: To the northeast, your men see a great, mighty wyrm, the largest by far, fly down to a city. Its cry is territorial and fierce, but also old and choked by coughing. Such an mighty yet old drake must have accumulated such a hoard in its lair in the ruined city of Hrensholt.

• Option 2: To the northeast, your men see two smaller, although still large and imposing beasts circling and calling out to each other. Their cries sound young and vigorous, and seem to be almost joyful. The pair of drakes then swoops into the ruined city of Hrenefsholt. If you head quickly, you may be able to catch them while they're grounded.

• Option 3: To the south, your men spot a harbour, in the ruined city of Hrefnsheolt. The city is overgrown with glowing trees and shrubs, perfect for your royal forests and gardens back home.

• Option 4: To the far east, in open waters, you spot a great iron vessel, oddly rectangular in shape. This ship is emitting the warning klaxons your crew heard earlier, and it smells faintly of charred meat. Ready the boarding party!

Section 11: Persia

As your team heads further eastwards, into the lands of Persia, their vision begins to blur. Several greatly different images, all built atop the same basic landscape, are superimposed over each other in their vision. As their vision begins to clear, which scene do they focus on?

• Option 1: A great force of steel, horseless chariots, earthen trenches, and green-coated soldiers with black musket-like weapons form a defensive line, as if they're about to face off against death itself.

• Option 2: A massive, majestic city hosts a great golden palace, inhabited by a glorious dynasty, pure of blood, which rules over the greatest, richest, and mightiest empire east of Rome.

• Option 3: A hardened group of embattled peasants, burghers, and local nobles, of dress and ethnicity strikingly different from the ruling dynasty, rises up to secure their rights and freedoms.

• Option 4: A network of partially destroyed cities, with blasted walls and razed palaces, each hosts a foreign occupation force, a mass of starving peasants, and the bodies of numerous dead defender. However, assassins and spies lurk in the shadows, ready to avenge their fallen friends and liberate their surviving countrymen.

Section 12: Georgia

Your brave exploders finally reach the borders of Georgia, and enter a small border village. However, when your explorers ask the villagers where the ruler of Georgia is, they say that he's not in the country. When your men ask how a king can rule his realm without being present, the villagers clarify that their ruler is not a king. What a peculiar country.

• Option 1: This invisible ruler is vexing. I know! Tracking him down and killing him will surely lift my spirits!

• Option 2: Why kill him? This man clearly has discovered some great secret of long-distance government. We must track him down and learn from him!

• Option 3: The weather suddenly turns dark, as clouds cover the run and rain begins to pour. Thunder claps, and lighting illuminates an ominous looking castle up on a hill just outside the village, that you're sure wasn't there before. Maybe you'll find a ruling figure to talk to there?

• Option 4: The local villagers scream in terror, and madly rush into their homes and begin barricading themselves in. As the people are panicking, you notice that many of them are oddly pale and emancipated, as if something has been feeding on their blood. Whatever it is, you'll kill it as soon as it shows its ugly head!

Section 13: Oman

O man, o man, you've gone to Oman. However, all you see is sand. Endless dunes of sand, as far as the eye can see. After hours upon hours of walking, searching for anything of value, all you see is still sand. As you painfully cough in your parched throat and rustle around to find your canteen, and savour the last few drips of water left in it, you begin to think that this may have been a bad idea.

• Option 1: Wait! To your left you see a shimmering image! A city! It must be!

• Option 2: As you turn around and look to your right, your vision turns hazy. You see... something... off in the distance, but your vision swirls and colours blend, making it impossible to clearly make out.

• Option 3: We've already come far enough. We'll all die of thirst if we keep going. Let's just gather up as much sand as we can and take it back to the ships. It has to be useful for something, right?

• Option 4: I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.

Section 14: The New World

Your ships sail endlessly westwards, as the days turn to weeks, the weeks to months, and the months approach years. However, just when supplies were running out and the captains ready to turn back, land is sighted. Your lookouts spot an archipelago to the far north, marshy shores on a peninsula straight ahead, and distant forested shores to the far south.

• Option 1: To the northern archipelago!

• Option 2: To the swampy peninsula!

• Option 3: To the southern forests!

• Option 4: These early shores can't be where the real treasure waits. We must go deeper, even as our supplies wane!