Five Earths, All in a Row

[Dargaron]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

On the subject of religion and mind-backups, I don't know enough about religion to give a good answer, and am only commenting so it's clear that I'm not ignoring the discussion - in fact, I'm somewhat interested in how it pans out.

Not much more that I can say on this topic, at least. But on a different note: the initial post says that the PoD for the Clp-Earth is in 1457: Was there any "magic" in Clp-Earth before that? I have some fluff I wrote up, and it seemed to fit Clp-Earth the best, but it rests on there being a low-level of fantastical elements already in place.

In short: an associated twin set of holy orders in Eastern Europe: one for Vampires, one for Werewolves. They emerged in Hungary, but after the Ottomans conquered it (I assume the Ottomans are still powerful in this timeline; the main post didn't mention much about lands farther east than Italy) the Vampires became subsumed by Orthodox Russia, while the Werewolves remained Catholic, and are currently waging a futile off-and-on guerrilla campaign in the rough and tumble parts of Romania against the Ottomans. They are very small orders (about 500 Vampires total, roughly half of them "tamed," the rest unaffiliated with the order and maybe five times as many Werewolves, two-thirds of whom are in the order), and do not have any effect on the history in the grand scheme of things; they're a splash of local color to be interacted with in Eastern Europe on Clp-Earth.

But of course, it's your campaign setting-thing, so I won't post the stuff if it's wildly inappropriate to the established canon.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Dargaron

Not much more that I can say on this topic, at least. But on a different note: the initial post says that the PoD for the Clp-Earth is in 1457: Was there any "magic" in Clp-Earth before that? I have some fluff I wrote up, and it seemed to fit Clp-Earth the best, but it rests on there being a low-level of fantastical elements already in place.

No, there was nearly nothing magical/fantastic on Clockpunk Earth before the arrival of the comet, it was practically a bog-standard historical echo. At most, there were some obscure people or groups that didn't exist being present, or did exist being absent, or groups having a slightly different composition. The very low/wild mana means that there was very little magic at all, and what little there would have been, if anything, would include nothing as stable as vampires or werewolves. (Think 'very small numbers of minor, strange artifacts or locations, and quite small numbers of people with very odd, but generally rather low-level, abilities' - not enough at any one time or place to form one holy order, much less two.)

Too, bad, as your ideas are interesting.

As for the Ottoman Empire, it's roughly where it was in our history, just with lots of weird stuff added - and I say roughly, because the historical inertia has been fading, so there are some areas that don't quite match, just like other nations - for example, the Knights Hospitaller, as the Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Rhodes, still hold most of the islands that they did in 1500, while the Ottomans extend a little farther into Russia than they did in our history at this time.

You could perhaps have the two orders mentioned, or similar groups, being founded later, or being normal holy orders that later gained strange powers - I do wonder how you'd justify a Christian holy order of werewolves, much less vampires, though. Maybe the 'vampires' have Psychic Vampirism abilities?

Of course, there was a certain Voivode of Wallachia that I've been trying to decide what to do with. His OTL death (or 'death', for those who believe the legend) took place well after the arrival of the comet.

[Dargaron]

Alright, I've updated my fluff to account for the setting. It's a sidebar in a textbook that *just* came out by a new professor at the University of Novgorod.

Spoiler:  

Sidebar: Ordos Nocturna

While much study has been made of the situation in Western Europe on Earth Four, what attention has been spared for Eastern Europe has largely been focused on the (albeit extraordinary) differences in the status of the Jews between Earth Four and our own history. It is a shame that this has been the case, for Eastern Europe contains just as many instructive oddities as does the West. One of the most relatable to modern audiences are the Ordo Sacri Vampyre and the Ordo Canis Christi; that is, the Order of the Holy Vampires and the Order of the Hounds of Christ. Together, they make up the Ordos Nocturna branch of the Dominican Order.
When The Event occurred in the year 1457 local time, certain individuals in the East began to manifest unusual conditions. In the areas of modern Serbia, Bosnia and Romania, clergy report a handful of cases in which a recently-executed murderer rose from his grave three days after burial. All told, there are four such cases extant in the record, and each took place within a two week period of the others.
Our sources tell us that each of these individuals rose from the dead with an altered appearance: their irises had turned a dull red, and they now possessed a set of fangs, roughly a quarter of an inch long, which enables them to drain blood from human victims. They were vampires, at least in a modern understanding, and as the documents make clear, were capable of spreading their condition by biting a fellow human, as well as possessing increased speed and strength. However, the documents tell us that most vampires are disinclined to spread their condition widely, as they fear attracting the attention of church and secular authorities.
The case of the werewolves is somewhat less clear. Except for vague references to "men who lived like wolves" reported in Julius Caesar's De Bello Gallia, no period document can give a firm account of these creatures' origins. Whatever the case, the first verifiable reports of werewolves appeared in Bohemia and southern Poland in 1457. They appear to have been more willing to "reproduce" than vampires, likely because of their instinctive mastery of stealth and overland travel.
The Ordos Nocturna were founded by the King of Hungary Matthias Corvinus, in either 1479 or late 1478. The initiative was started by Italian humanist and neo-Platonist scholar Marsilio Ficino, who in 1465, combined Hussite texts with his neo-Platonic studies to devise a specially-prepared variation of the Blood of the Host which could, temporarily satiate a vampire's thirst for human blood. The next year, he also developed a Eucharistic Host that could satiate a Werewolf's hunger for human flesh.
From 1465 to 1479, Marsilio collaborated with Pietro Ranzano, a humanistic Dominican friar and fellow scholar, in order to "Christianize" the werewolves and vampires within Hungarian territory. Their success was minor, but by 1479, they had rounded up roughly twenty new-born vampires and nearly one hundred werewolves. When Ottoman forces invaded Hungary in 1479, the Italians offered their charges to Matthias Corvinus as soldiers in his Black Army. After the defeat of the Ottoman army at Szászváros, Matthias commissioned the two men to organize their charges into two military monastic orders: the Ordo Sacri Vampyre and the Ordo Canis Christi. In 1481, these orders received recognition by the Papal court, and were placed under the control of the Dominican Order, with the understanding that they would serve the needs of the Hungarian King.
The Ordos Nocturna performed their duties admirably under Matthias Corvinus and his successors, but were never particularly large. A sub-branch of the Ordo Canis Christi was founded in Poland near the end of the 15th century, while an independent Orthodox version of the Ordo Sacri Vampyre was founded in Moscow in 1502. All told, manifests tell us that there were, at most, one thousand vampires across Hungary, Poland and the Russian Principalities, while nearly six thousand werewolves are reported in the service of the King of Hungary.
When Hungary fell to Suleiman the Magnificent in 1526, the remnants of these orders went their separate ways. The leadership of the Ordo Sacri Vampyre made its way to Muscovy, where they joined forces with their Orthodox brethren against the Ottoman Turks (much to the Pope's chagrin). As of the present, roughly five hundred vampires are in the service of the Prince of Moscow, nearly four-fifths of them former Hungarian Catholics, although the current grand master is a Vlach nobleman known for his ruthless treatment of captured foes.
The Ordo Canis Christi did not flee into Poland, as might be expected. This order took much more severe casualties than their vampiric kinsmen, and set themselves up in the Carpathian Mountains. They remain there to this day in camouflaged hide-outs, terrorizing the Orthodox peasants and alternately fighting and hiring themselves out to local Ottoman authorities. It is estimated that only one and a half thousand werewolves are left, clinging to existence in Wallachia and Transylvania.
-Professor Simon Petrov, University of Novgorod

Originally, the vampires and werewolves had been around since forever, and the means of taming them had been devised by Saints Cyril and Methodius respectively, but lost until 1257, when monks under Bela IV recovered the documents from a monastery sacked by the Mongols. Shifting the date forward meant that everything had to happen faster, but I reasoned that the Ranzano and Marshilio would have focused their efforts on taming new vampires and werewolves, rather than attempting to sway the original ones (three of which have since been killed, two by Hungarian officials, the third by an Ottoman garrison commander). The last original vampire is believed to be hiding out somewhere in Epirus.

[warellis]

Dargaron, do you mind if I copy and post your stuff onto the thread in Spacebattles? Because it's very interesting. Mostly there, at least recently, we've been discussing stuff like what the spacefighter-gunships each Earth will be using will be like.

Regarding the vampire and werewolf fighting organizations, how were both groups treated by the majority of people in Poland, Hungary, etc.? Even if the King of Hungary and the Catholic Church were able to turn them into useful fighters against the Ottoman Empire, did the peasants see them as protectors as well?

And how come the Ordo Canis Christi is occasionally hiring themselves out to the Ottomans?

Also how did researchers find this information?

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

You could perhaps have the two orders mentioned, or similar groups, being founded later, or being normal holy orders that later gained strange powers - I do wonder how you'd justify a Christian holy order of werewolves, much less vampires, though. Maybe the 'vampires' have Psychic Vampirism abilities?

Christian werewolves, you say?

Have you looked at the Benandanti?

[Dargaron]

Originally Posted by warellis

Dargaron, do you mind if I copy and post your stuff onto the thread in Spacebattles? Because it's very interesting. Mostly there, at least recently, we've been discussing stuff like what the spacefighter-gunships each Earth will be using will be like.

Go ahead, unless Prince Charon has an objection.

Originally Posted by warellis

Regarding the vampire and werewolf fighting organizations, how were both groups treated by the majority of people in Poland, Hungary, etc.? Even if the King of Hungary and the Catholic Church were able to turn them into useful fighters against the Ottoman Empire, did the peasants see them as protectors as well?

I am assuming that they would be seen as a more dangerous version of regular nobility. Considering the kinds of rights a landlord had over his serfs, the fact that he can drain your blood is, not moot, but less important. Since there weren't very many of them, and they are usually kept on the frontiers (particularly the werewolves), they wouldn't have had all that much contact with the common folk.

Originally Posted by warellis

And how come the Ordo Canis Christi is occasionally hiring themselves out to the Ottomans?

Because there are only about 1,500 of them, and if the Ottomans actually exerted themselves, they could wipe out the Canis Christi without working up a sweat. The werewolves in Romania are reverting back into a more wild, fight-or-flight mode, being surrounded by either Orthodox "heretics" or "Muslomen" Turks, and without any non-militant types to put the "Monastic" into "Militant Monastic Order." The Polish werewolves are holding up much better (being under the influence of an effective church and state), and would vehemently refuse to fight for the Sublime Porte, and on the most part, wouldn't terrorize peasants just because they're Orthodox.

Originally Posted by warellis

Also how did researchers find this information?

I had thought that there was a certain amount of contact between Inp-Earth and Clp-Earth through various embassies, but now I can't find the actual timeline entry. I was guessing that Professor Petrov put on his charm and asked the envoy from the Clp-Earth Papal States. I tried not to specify when this was written, so that if necessary, it can be shelved until there is actual, reliable contact between Inp- and Clp-Earth.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Dargaron

Alright, I've updated my fluff to account for the setting. It's a sidebar in a textbook that *just* came out by a new professor at the University of Novgorod.

I like it, and it is now canon. I think it should be posted to the fiction thread on SB.com (since you told warellis you were OK with it being crossposted), but if you're not a member of that forum, I can do it.

Most likely, it would be published after the war, to give time for travel and communication - in June, 2013 (which is unfortunately where the timeline is stuck at, now - though hopefully not for much longer), the only communication is by way of the Fa-Earth ambassadors on each other Earth, which doesn't really work for these sort of scientific studies. Mind you, the Clp-Papal States do have a working example of a radiotelegraph, and the Fa-Earth ambassadors have been relaying some information around in trade.

I'll just call it a flash-forward, and say it will have been published in 2020 or so (unless you have a preferred future date), to give time for the war to have ended, interplanetary communication methods to have spread, and perhaps even civilian travel to have been allowed to Clp-Earth (which is likely to be sooner than to the Earth's in 'front' of Inp-Earth, but will still be late in the war, if not after it, due to the bottleneck that is spacelift capacity), as well as time for the actual research to take place and get published.

It's certainly possible for the cunning folk and other magic-users of Clockpunk Earth to develop some variety of interplanetary communication on their own, but it likely won't be as efficient or reliable as radio, or Myrddin's Mirrors. Likewise, it'll take time to develop, just as radiotelegraphy will take time to spread. By the time either reaches the areas that Professor Petrov seems to have been interested in, he could already be there.

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Christian werewolves, you say?

Have you looked at the Benandanti?

I forgot about them, but when I said holy order, I specifically meant official ones, which Dargaron's post has helpfully explained, and which the Benandanti specifically were not. They are, however, interesting, and might be just getting started.

[combatmedic]

Sure. The Benandanti, whatever they really were, were not a holy order or otherwise any sort of sanctioned body. Quite the contrary.

But they do offer a starting point for Christian werewolves whooping witch and devil butt.

[Dargaron]

I don't have an account on SB.com, so it'd probably be best if you posted it.

2020 sounds like a good date, although you're giving out spoilers: now we know that the war ends sometime before 2020 :-).

Is Clp-Earth (largely) open for fluffing? It seemed to be the most narrowly focused of the original four descriptions, and seems like the overall lowest-power world in the setting, lacking the outright magic of Fa-Earth and the weird-tech of Dsp-Earth or Stp-Earth. Although, I bet some Inp-Earth industrialists are dying to get their hands on some Springmetal...

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Dargaron

I don't have an account on SB.com, so it'd probably be best if you posted it.

2020 sounds like a good date, although you're giving out spoilers: now we know that the war ends sometime before 2020 :-).

To be specific, the phase of the war where spacelift is a serious bottleneck ends before 2020. Once the Planetary Siege Fortresses get moving...

Originally Posted by Dargaron

Is Clp-Earth (largely) open for fluffing? It seemed to be the most narrowly focused of the original four descriptions, and seems like the overall lowest-power world in the setting, lacking the outright magic of Fa-Earth and the weird-tech of Dsp-Earth or Stp-Earth. Although, I bet some Inp-Earth industrialists are dying to get their hands on some Springmetal...

In general, yes, Clp-Earth is open to writing fluff - so is the rest of the setting, but Clp-Earth moreso (and springmetal is indeed something that will generate interest). I may have some specific comments or limits, but otherwise, people are free to come up with things, that have a good chance of becoming canon. This'll be easier once I have more of the house rules and other information written and posted, so people have a clearer idea of what they're working with.

I'll try to post your bit to the fiction section tomorrow, as SB.com is being troublesome for me, today.

BTW, do you have a title for the textbook that this is a sidebar of?

On a related note, what do you imagine these werewolves are, in terms of advantages/powers? Actual shapshifters, whether biokinetic, space-warping, or both, are quite unlikely (especially in such huge numbers - though biokinetic shapshifters who don't change that much are certainly possible), but astral projectors like the Benandanti combatmedic mentioned are possible, as are ectoplasmic projectors, unconsciously using psychokinesis and illusions to cover themselves in 'wolf suits', or some other option, like the aforementioned 'limited change biokinetics' (if the bones don't changes, or if they change permanently and very slowly, it's plausible)?