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Places of Interest

Bretagne

France, Franco-Prussian Empire

Jutting defiantly into the Atlantic, France's northwest corner has long been culturally and geographically distinct from the main bulk of the country. Known to the Celts as Armorica, the land of the sea, Bretagne's past swirls with the legends of drowned cities and Arthurian forests. Prehistoric megaliths arise mysteriously from land and sea, and the medieval is never far from the modern.

Confederation of American States

Capital: Philadelphia

Doc Martin and his wife Ann, http://www.coon-n-crockett.org/cowboy.htm

The wealthiest nation in the New World is the Confederation of American States. Barbaric by European standards, the CAS is neither an empire nor a single nation-state, but a tightly knit union of sovereign States which are pledged to support one another in matters of foreign policy. Trade barriers among the Confederated States are forbidden by their Constitution, leading to increased specialization as the people of each State focus on those activities which at which they can compete most effectively. This economic flexibility and competitive motivation has catapulted the CAS from a backwater hellhole to the most affluent of the former Imperial Colonies.

Despite the apparent success of "The American Experiment", the CAS is a brutish, lawless land, where local police have little power to keep the peace and the Confederation central government has no troops of its own at all. Americans are reputed to be as unruly as Spaniards, militant as the Swiss, and lusty as Italians. In short, they have all the least-civilized qualities of the Imperial citizenry, with none of the Empire's culture and sophistication - little better than the Savages and Pirates whose attacks they must constantly repel.

The Empire places strict limits on how much may be imported from the American States. The Imperial Foreign Office has urged the adoption of even stricter quotas, due to the growing popularity of uncouth American films, music, and hex in the Empire.

Franco-Prussian Empire

Capital: Paris

The wealthiest and most advanced civilization on earth is the Franco-Prussian Empire. It stretches from the icy waters of the North Sea to the furthest reaches of the Dark Continent, and possesses more territory in the New World than any other empire.

Laouen Castle

Camaret-sur-Mer, Bretagne, France, Franco-Prussian Empire

Laouen Castle is the Bretagne headquarters for the Imperial Ministry of Information and Surveillance, better known as the Imperial Eye. This isn't public knowledge, but anyone who has a reason to want to know, knows.

Ottoman Republic

Capital: Istanbul

The Ottoman Republic is the greatest rival to the Franco-Prussian Empire. It stretches from the sands of Morocco and the rocky islands of Greece to the distant lands of Persia and Hindustan. The Turks divide their empire into semi-autonomous feudalmilitary divisions, each under the rule of a vassal prince who owes fealty to the Grand Turk, Sultan Selim IV. The Turks are even more barbaric than the Americans. They have fierce cannibalistic warriors (called "Janissaries"), depraved sexual practices (multiple wives kept in "hareems", decadent "Turkish baths", castrated slaves, and other practices too vulgar to mention here), and are notorious heathens as well (the Ottomans tolerate a variety of strange foreign cults, the practice of "Islam" chief among them).

Pénitencier du Camaret-sur-Mer
("The Keep")

Camaret-sur-Mer, Bretagne, France, Franco-Prussian Empire

Pénitencier du Camaret-sur-Mer is a forbidding granite fortress built on and into the Ile de Vauban, a rocky granite plateau thrusting as high as 60 meters above the ocean. Originally built to defend against Viking attacks in the ninth century, it was significantly expanded c. 1180-1200, with additions in the fourteenth century. A massive wall and gate encircle the castle keep. The enclosed area of the castle fortifications is one acre, contained within an oval wall of about 200 by 150 feet. The central three story "donjon" is the oldest of its kind in western Europe, and aboveground it has walls over two meters thick. Improvements in catapults in about 1200 necessitated higher walls for the exterior defensive ring. The castle was restored 1894-1914, and the Empire began using it for criminals too dangerous to imprison elsewhere.

The stones of The Keep and the granite bedrock into which its dungeons are tunneled are saturated with wards to prevent anyone from using magic to get in, and to keep those hexmasters already inside powerless. Rumours are that these potent wards require the ritual sacrifice of a few prisoners each year, but of course the Empire denies such wild tales.

Russian Federation

Capital: Moscow

The Russian Federation is a vast territory stretching from Poland to Mongolia, from the the bitter Arctic to blistering Afghanistan. It is the largest contiguous empire on earth, and also the most stable. Blessed by a series of competent and just Czars, Russia and its vassals have avoided the military entanglements which have ensnarled their Ottoman and Franco-Prussian neighbors, and an uneasy peace has existed between the Russian Federation and the other two great powers for several generations.

As has been the case since the time of Catherine the Great, the subject nations of the Russian Federation have very limited autonomy. While local governments have authority to deal with local matters, in all cases they may be overruled by the will of the Russian Parliament and the Czarina. This usually takes the form of standardizing the laws across the Federation, eliminating corruption and unrest in the subject nation's political organs, and funding public works which are deemed to enhance the Russian Federation as a whole. Unlike the Empire and the Ottoman Republic, travel between the subject nations of the Russian Federation is actually encouraged.