Make a setting - steampunk factions

[ShieldWife]

I got this weird idea in my head the other day of a new fantasy and/or science fiction setting, so I though I would get SB to help out. People can add to the setting as long as they don't contradict previous additions.

This is an alternative world, it isn't Earth, but it has 19th century roughly Victorian technological levels and culture in many regards. But as is typical of steam punk, there are certain more advanced technologies that still have a 19th century feel and flavor to them. We could throw in a bit of the supernatural too, but let's make the magic more subtle than your typical high fantasy setting. The populace are overwhelmingly human, but there may be a few non-humans as well.

The most important place in this world is a massive city, the seat of a huge empire or perhaps confederation of nations, which controls most of the resources and influence in the known world. Within this city there are number of distinctive and flavorful factions which covertly or sometimes even overtly war against each other. These organizations may exist publicly (some certainly will) and others may be unknown to the general public. As for the factions - think Dune with Bene Tleilax or the Atreides family, think vampire Clans from Vampire the Masquerade, think Starks and Lannisters - that sort of think. They can represent political bodies, secret societies, corporations, noble families, anything along those lines.

Anyway, have at it...

 

[Deleted member]

In the capital of Karinapatra on the island of Merinwe serves as the focal point of the Empire. Karinapatra was once, in 1246 A.F.T. (After Fall of Terinwe, the legendary city of the Empire of the North), the main heart of Timmasian (what we would call Caucasian) civilisation after Kar-nomads from the central plains of the continent of Merinte overran most of the subcontinent of Timmas. The Royal family of the Kingdom of Durinmer escaped with their navy from the Kar-hordes and conquered Karinapatra after they were initially refused shelter, the city being where the locals had long intermixed with the southern Quirinas peoples (roughly Dravidian). The House of Durinas restored the ancient privileges of the trading Republic of Karinapatra, but firmly entrenched the monarchist principle. Using its Navy to foil several inept thrusts from the Kar-nomads at seaborne warfare, the Durinas ultimately turned their city into a trading entrepot between the conquered mainland and the south, and taking advantage of plentiful coal and iron in the highlands of the island, became the foremost technological nation of the world. Inventing cannon, they ultimately conquered all of Quirinas and established themselves as Emperors.

With the Kar-nomads collapsing in power, the peninsular nation of Erotimar (roughly Hispanic-Caucasian) revolted from its Khans and was assisted by fleets of Imperial ships. The Erotimarean General Court (roughly legislature) elected the Durinas as their Kings, creating the dual monarchy of Merinwe-Erotimar under the Durinas. There is no unified government, just the monarch, so the two governments had their own representatives. After a period of weakness a century later, the Quirinas revolted against the Durinas Monarchy, but were ultimately reconciled after several military defeats to accepting their own General Court, thereby reforming the government into the triple monarchy; these military defeats were at the hands of the first flying battleships, using simple steam engines to drive combinations of Yule-metal gears which generated a field of anti-gravity. With the world's only fleet of flying battleships, the Triple Monarchy quickly overran the Kar-hordes and liberated Timmasian civilisation from the four hundred year Darkness of the rule of the Kar Khans. Several eastern powers, however, managed to copy the technology and so the world is not completely under the rule of the Durinas. The Triple Monarchy's home capital is a city of 4 million with subways, elevateds, and a massive harbour filled with landed flying ships laying at anchor, as well as many conventional ones, filled with gleaming high smokestacks and guarded by troops with rapid-firing compressed air guns. It is home to the Parliament of Merinwe as well as representatives of the General Courts of Erotimar and Quirinas, while it despatches Viziers to rule over the vast lands of the conquered Kar and their subject people, now subjected to Karinapatra, where the Durinas and the Timmasians are themselves a minority among vast numbers of those of different races and the many mixed blood of the Empire, classified in various ways according to admixture, and of course the representatives of every free nation on the planet present themselves as emissaries and ambassadors.

Empress Karolita is the nominal head of the Empire, but her Uncle Jarolako serves as Grand Domestic of the Court and is known to favour the more restrained General Court of Erotimar over those of Quirinas and Merinwe.