((The game has begun! If your character dies, or if you'd still like to join please PM me with a new character.))
The game is supposed to be slow paced so be careful with the flow of time. I will probably keep track of that in my posts. Take it is easy, make plans find allies, plot, back stab, double-cross. You can talk in private using PM (but don't let your inbox fill up). There is no real goal, but the leaders of the different states must try to make sure their country is better off at the end than they were at the beginning.
March 1st, 1523 - Noonish
A March snow covers the ground and buildings of Doneckas (Donetsk), a fortress town on what used to be Lithuania's border with the Blue Horde. The city, a once-proud Crimean settlement is a very different place then it was only on hundred years ago. The Mosques are gone, as are the Crimeans. Instead there stand pagan shrines, and a small Ruthenian community is growing around the fortress. These are settlers from Galacia, removed from their homes to allow for Lithuanians to settle the more "civilized" lands near the old-Polish border. Poles, too, make up a large number of the people in Doneckas. They have traveled far to get away from the constant fighting between Catholics and Pagans in the west. Lithuania is a very cosmopolitan nation. So many languages and religions in one house. It took several strong Kings and great military tacticians to build the Empire up from a Pagan backwater. Their work, as always, is on-going. Catholicism and Orthodoxy have tried, several times, to wipe out the Pagan influence in Europe. But so far they have only failed.
But Lithuania isn't interested in wiping out Christianity outside of its borders, or at least it seems. Recently they have seemed to stop expanding, and instead started building roads and trading posts. They have also started sending great sums of money to the Russian states of Moscow and Murom to fund their wars against the Mongols. The newly formed "Russian Expedition Army", lead by General Giedrius Paras was able to quell a pretender uprising in Murom and a massive peasant revolt in Moscow. It seemed that Lithuania was true to its word, they wanted to help the Russian states resist the Mongols. So, Emperor Kazimieras I Gedminai called a great conference to discuss the future of the Russian states.
Attending from Lithuania are: Baron Wladyslaw Vadeytius, the trusted ambassador to the Russian states and land owner in Lithuania's Livonia province; General Giedrius Paras, the commander of the Russian Expedition Army; Vaidila Kaributas Kęsgaila, a Pagan priest and personal friend of the Emperor; and lastly Emperor Kazimieras I Gedminai himself, to lead the Lithuanian side.
Representing the Russian states are: Voivode Ilya Muromets Glebovich-Muromets, the ruler of Murom and the great enemy of the Mongols; Ambassador Jaroslav Ivanovych, the trusted right-hand-man of Voivode Yuriy III Mustislavski of Moscow; General Arkadiy Kolzof, commander of Moscow's western and northern armies; General Sergey Lagunov, commander of Moscow's battle-hardened eastern armies; and Nobleman Stylianos Ioannidis, a refugee from the Roman Empire.
Also attending are: Papal Ambassador Giovanni Decocco, sent east to combat the influence of Paganism; Crown Princess Anastasiya Asen, representing the Tsar of Bulgaria; Margrave Sebastian II von Wittelsbach-Brandenburg, ruler of Lithuania's neighbor Brandenburg and contender for the crown of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire; King Gustav I Gryf; Sebastian's rival in the Holy Roman Empire and King of Sweden and Finland; and King Ludovicus Árpád, ruler of the great Catholic state Hungary, looking to gain dominance over the Balkans.
Things begin quietly as guests and their entourages mingle in the main hall of Doneckas. The Lithuanian chefs are careful not to offend anyone's tastes, serving only the best from East and West. At the far end of a great oak table sits a tall man, in his mid thirties. On his head is the double crown representing lordship of Lithuania and Poland. When it seems everyone has settled down, he turns to his steward and nods gentle.
"Attention lords and ladies, attention. His Imperial Majesty: Emperor Kazimieras Gedminai, first of that name; son of the Great Emperor Augustas Gedminai, conqueror of Poland; wishes to speak at the start of this momentous gathering!"
The Emperor stands, "It seems that many in Europe are suspicious of the East. They fear that grow too powerful, that we wish to conquer the breadth of Christendom. But I must say that this cannot be further from the truth: we guard Europe. The Russians, the Alans, the Lithuanians and the Romanians... we have protected Europe from the greatest of evils that the world has every seen. Past our furthest seeing stones, past the walls and forts of Murom and Moscow lay the endless steppes of the hordes... Their troops are without number, their resolve an endless river, their mercy non-existent. My people spent two hundred years fighting back these barbarians, a thankless task and now on the verge of our victory: the west seeks to weaken the dykes... letting the flood back in. It was my hope to fuel the fires of Russian industry, keep their armies marching on full bellies and with the strongest of weapons. To keep their homes and farms safe while the men were away. But everywhere I turn, there is no trust any more. Not from the Russians whom we've helped and turned the other cheek in the face of their insults, and certainly not from the Catholics who look only to split the East like they did the Roman Empire. Weakness, weakness is rampant in the East. And we must be strong. We must come to terms with the future and we must work out an arrangement that suits all."
You are free to mingle again.