Part 26: The State of the World: 1836

THE STATE OF THE WORLD: ANNO DOMINI 1836


These are the great nations of the World in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-Six: Italy, Byzantium, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Scottish Union, the Federal Republic of Nicholia, Orleans, Russia, and the Confederate States of Nicholia.


The colonial nations have been forced to the edges of Nicholia. Leon and the Scots cling to the west coast, the Orthodox powers maintain fur trading stations in the frozen north, and Orleans continues its dominance of the Caribbean. Meanwhile, the rich and ambitious Nicholian republics dream of Manifest Destiny…


In the south, the King of the Flemish Argentine eyes his republican neighbors territory with greed. The tangled jungles on the Amazon and highlands of Argentina remain unclaimed, although settlers continue to encroach on them.


In the south of Asia, Leon has begun to colonize the desert continent of Antipodea. Further north they struggle with Orleans, Byzantium, and the Flemish Argentine for control of Indonesia. China and Japan continue to be left behind by the technologically advanced west. Further north, the Scots and Russians squabble over the frozen wastes of Siberia.


Although the coasts of Africa are fairly well known the interior remains dark and mysterious. It will not remain this way…


Europe continues as a divided and bloody continent. Italy, the leader of the renaissance is now leading in industrialization. Byzantine vassals states in Scandinavia and Germany pay homage to their Orthodox masters. Nationalists in Orleans eye the Scottish Aquitaine with hungry eyes, yearning to liberate their countrymen. The Russian republic dreams of recapturing the glory of their Rum heritage. Leon and the Scots turn their eyes to the waves and colonial glory.


This, then, is the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Light and Glory of the Christian Faith on earth. It stretches from the Sahara to the Bay of Bengal, from the Caucasus mountains to the sweltering isle of Madagascar. From his palace in the Holy City of Jerusalem, King Laurence V rules over ninety million souls.

The world is changing. Some whisper that the Last Days have nearly arrived, that Christ will soon return to judge the wicked. Others believe that a new era of secular and worldly glory and wealth has begun, that the old superstitions will be swept away by an age of reason.

Only time will tell the fate of men and nations…