Wintreath Royal Flying Corp fast patrol sloop Cascading Ember preparing for a 3 month tour of the aerotrade lanes.
It is the year 5 in the New Ordered Calendar, the 539th year of His Majesty Inric I's reign. Wintreath has been a free nation for more than half a millennium, and in that time it has gone from strength to strength. The principles of gearwork have been discovered - or rediscovered, depending on which historia academic you ask - and the sweeping changes industrialisation has made to the face of the nation have only just begun to slow. Cities have risen, and with them the citizens.
This is an age of enlightenment, in which men and women can go forth to do bold things, institutions add to the sum of Wintreath's knowledge day by day, the great Familial Houses of old push the arts and industries of the nation onwards and upwards... it truly is a golden era.
But all is not well.
Within the shadowy confines of the Färnhel District of Wintreath's capital city, men and women meet for hushed conferences. Out in Frostlake City itself, disappearances are becoming more common, and the first bodies are being discovered. Questions that perhaps should not be uttered are now being asked.
The Monarch, despite his venerable age, has done what he can... but it is not enough. In the Far North, rumours are emerging that the dreaded Hunt Clan, long thought destroyed by the mysterious Origin and the alliance of men three thousand years past, is not quite as dead as all had been led to believe.
And out to the East, in the waters off Helmgrad, ancient weapons of unimaginable power once again rise to the surface, their spires flickering with unholy energies as they wait... But what they wait for, no man can tell.
Something is changing, and some fell current that thrums within the pulse of all who call themselves Wintrean is making itself known after five thousand years of absence. What this change brings, only time will tell.
Now, friend, I can look at you and tell you with little doubt: what a time it is to be alive! But are you sure you're cut from the right cloth, good stranger? Will you survive the coming tumult, or be dragged down with it?
Artist impression of the Hunt Clan based on fragmented descriptions in ancient texts discovered in Arnocen Academy.
So, at long last I'm getting this thing off the ground. Welcome to the Houses RP! This is more an interest post to see who might want to take part, but as I go I'll be building up the suspense until the RP starts. I'll be answering questions in this thread as to how this RP will be run, the rules, things that can and can't happen, that sort of thing... so if you want to know something, ask away!
If you have questions about the history the RP will be referencing near-constantly (for example, just who the hell are the Origin and the Hunt Clan?), please see
this thread for further details. It is quite a read, but I hope you'll enjoy it and return with a heightened desire to see this RP through! Great things are in store.
A 'Short' History of Wintreath
NB: This is not 'IC', it's just to help you all get an idea of what's gone before
Wintreath is, as the name suggests, a rather cold and blustery place. Before the ice swelled down from the Far North and covered much of the landmass, Wintreath was a mild and temperate land covered in forests, rivers and wide plains of grass and scrub. When the ice came, it stayed for around 250 years (a small ice age), covering the entire map down to a line that roughly went (on the map) from Jormving on the west coast to Foret, then to Cetera, then to Arnocen Academy and across to Janth and the east coast.
Below that, the land was still temperate and covered in forests far larger than the ones that exist today in Wintreath. The Edilian Republic was the first native Wintrean civilisation to emerge beyond hunter gatherer tribes and loose nomadic communities when magic still flowed thick in the blood of men. The Edilian peoples were closer in blood and stature to the Forebearers who created Wintreath at the dawn of time, allowing them to actively manipulate the magic in their bodies and in the world around them, creating great cities (Lenth, a city that's part carved into the peaks of mountains and part floats on massive Storm engines, is an example of their creative prowess) and new technologies that blended magic with the new disciplines of science and industry.
When the ice sheets that covered the Central Plains (aka that stretched down to that line I told you about earlier) started to melt, the volume of water that was suddenly liquid again washed much of the Edilian civilisation away, leaving only a few small settlements and the ruins of their capital city, Utorim, to carry on their legacy. As the years passed, the remnants of the Edilian peoples left Wintreath interbred with those across the Southern Peninsulas (the two bits on the bottom left of the map that go off the edge), distilling their blood. Slowly, magic slipped out of living memory and became a myth, often thought to be a misremembered tale of lost technological artifacts and the like.
When civilisation slowly began to return to Wintreath (it was mostly uninhabited after the meltwaters washed away the Edilian Republic, save for small tribes and the few remaining Edilian settlements, where magic practitioners passed into legend as the mouthpieces of the old Gods) it was in the form of the De Falvosa Line. Germaine De Falvosa was a bold and intelligent man with a following of several tens of thousands, and where others balked at the sights of the foreboding forests that now covered all of the south of Wintreath, he and his people pushed on, rediscovering Palar and Stranglor and inhabiting them as stepping stones into the wider landmass beyond the forests.
The De Falvosa Line pretty much shaped modern Wintreath into what it is now; it was under their guidance that the mega forests were cut back to something approaching their current sizes, and it was their will that had construction begin on many of the settlements that would later grow into the cities Wintreath has today. When the Kingdom of Arraia came into existence some 3000 years ago, they quickly conquered much of their surroundings with the first noted use of mounted archers (think Mongol bowmen), but the De Falvosa Line used similar tactics as well as better chain link armour, and the Arraian people fell under their sway.
No one knows if the Hunt Clan were the reason for the Origin that followed, but from their arrival just over 3000 years ago a constant war raged for some 200 years, with the youthful civilisations and societies of the south banding together in desperation with the hopes of merely surviving the onslaught.
It's at this point that the Origin show up. No one knows much about them, save for the fact that they could construct marvels of metal that defied all understandings of what should work, things that floated without visible Storm engines, devices that could kill a man from a thousand yards, huge towers in the sea that despite the distance between each was linked by crackling blue fire that spat out towards the East (Norloch Spire is one of these) towards unknown targets... They're like the aliens of the setting that arrived, did a hell of a lot of shit that no one could fathom for around a thousand years without anyone ever seeing one in the flesh, and then vanished. Some theorise that it was they who truly drove off the Hunt Clan, not the men of that age, but as there's none of them left to ask no one knows for certain.
A lot happened during the thousand years from 3000 to 2000 years ago. It was during this period that Innail became the home of House Kestar, later to be the Royal Family of Wintreath, and it was during this period that the true destructive power of the Origin was first seen - every device they'd ever constructed lit up, damaged ones repaired themselves and lifted into the skies, and the skies themselves boiled over with tumults of light and sound that left the men and women of this age shaking and trembling in fear. Almost as soon as it started, it was over, and the Origin were gone, leaving behind relics of technology or magic that even today defeat the best efforts of Wintreath's finest minds.
By the time 2000 years ago rolls up, much of Wintreath is explored (I say much, Wintreath is HUGE so there were large areas that were little travelled and left to wilderness) and the Hunt Clan have vanished again, meaning that for the first time the peoples of Wintreath can live without the ever present fear of death finding them. The Rides Kingdoms emerge in this time, a hundred hundred fiefdoms and princedoms that vie with one another for the most trade, the most land, the most whatever it is the other wants. Exactly 2000 years ago, Spiritian military forces arrive and due to their more advanced technology (basic muskets, smooth bore cannon, that kind of thing, tech from the 1700s in our world) they were able to conquer the entirety of Wintreath.
Thus begins the Spiritain occupation, wherein Wintreath was effectively stripmined for resources and the people mistreated as little more than slaves. After hundreds of years of this, the Wintreans (now unified in their hatred of their oppressors and no longer fractured kingdoms competing against one another) rise up, with the powerful Houses lending their support one after the other for House Kestar of Innail in their rebellion against Spiritus. The conflict spans almost a thousand years, as Spiritus was far more populous than Wintreath at this time and had better technology, but the constant grind wore them down as Wintreans built up a native technology base to match that of their oppressors.
By the end of the conflict, Spiritus was too exhausted to keep fighting and a much more populous and much more unified Wintreath rose from the ashes as the nation we live in today. Industrialisation had began (so 1800s tech IRL, though more steampunk and 'out there' than our tech) near the end of the occupation in Spiritus and Wintreath both, but under the control of His Majesty Inric I Witnreath advanced rapidly, discovering gearwork principles beyond those known to the rest of the world and becoming a powerhouse in its own right.
500 years of this development, 500 years of peace and prosperity, brings us to now. It's been a golden age in Wintreath, with the discovery of air travel, the invention of the modern day lifestyle (so modern day IRL tech but achieved through slightly magical means) etc etc. Wintreath has a population of millions, with hundreds of major cities and thousands of minor ones, tens of thousands of townships and countless villages, outposts, settlements and fortifications.
The map this RP will be using:
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Large)
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RoyalThe Royal House of KestarPatriarch: Wintermoot
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NobleThe Noble House of MeindhertPatriarch: Duke Klause Meindhert // Weissreich
Descendants: Elliot Bernhard Meindhert // Barnes (Grandson)
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The Noble House of PenguonPatriarch: Count Gabriel S. Penguon // Pengu
Siblings: VidiLune (Sister of Pengu)
Offspring: Jellybean (Daughter of Pengu), Dreamer (Son of Pengu), Lumenland (Daughter of VidiLune)
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The Noble House of ValeriaPatriarch: Colberius X
Siblings: Aragonn (brother of Colberius X), Count Laurentus (brother of Colberius X), Taulover (brother of Colberius X)
Offspring: BraveSirRobin (son of Colberius), North (son of Taulover), xXHydraXx (son of Taulover)
DISCUSSION THREAD*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
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CommonThe House of BluteisenPatriarch: Joshua Bluteisen
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The House of AuditorePatriarch: Govindia
Offspring: TaintedPaws (Daughter), Yaoke (Daughter)
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The House of HeinrichPatriarch: Sapphiron
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The House of EverdenMatriarch: HannahB
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The House of TelcontarSpudtriarch: Crushita Telcontar
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The House of DanationPatriarch: Rass Danation
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The House of KaizerPatriarch: Chanku
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Houses will play a role in the 'gameplay' of this RP to an extent, hence the name (
) but they are by no means a requirement to play. Some aspects of the IC world can be better explored through familial connections, but there are always going to be other ways to gain access to such things.
