A thousand years before the great nations of Arturan and Krak H'Voreem, three thousand years after The Destruction. A time of few great powers...

Nations of Iowk takes you, the role-player, into the world of Iowk. Redesigned from its original ventures as seen many months ago, it is a world of great diversity in technology mostly due to strange and irregular minerals and materials. By "great diversity in technology", I mean that there are factions using advanced steam technology, factions in the stone age, factions with world-war 2 weapons, factions using future battlemechs, and almost anything else you can think of; because of these compounds.

NoI allows you to take control of a faction of your design, create their history, and interact with both other players and staged world events. There are also few rules and regulations, which will only be added on if necessary; I want Nations of Iowk to have a great community of players without stained relations OOC-wise. Several components of NoI now follow.

Players are of course allowed to RP just a character and not a nation.



This shall not go down the path of CNRPS, with one of its greatest features its greatest flaws: unlimited races. With NoI, there are a limited number of races that will be expanded on as we go; these will be added if the community wants them to. Currently there are two, but as I said can be expanded upon.

Humanoids

Humanoids are a race of intelligent beings, exactly like humanity (mostly, read on). In Nations of Iowk they are located all over the planet in every continent (although there are few on the island of Arturan), but over the years sub-species have developed. There are a wide variety of humanoid humans by this time, some of them even calling themselves their own race; like the Dwarves of the Great Plateau Mountains, or the Elves of The Split Country. Those are the two largest sub-species of humanity, but there are a great deal of other human-like races that few have seen, or just have not noticed in a crowd. (Examples: bird people, sea people, etc.)

Artures

OLD Artures-based Spore creature, newer 2 steam-punk fighting Artures. More pictures coming soon!

Artures are a strange race, a creature bred to replace the human & robot workforce that neared completion but was not finished by the time of Destruction. The Artures have four arms, with most Artures having weaker & longer upper limbs with 5 fingers (1 thumb) and stronger & shorter lower arms with 4 fingers (1 thumb). Although varied in size like Humanoids, most are ~7 feet tall and their bodies tubular in design, their faces are more hostile than a human's face, ears are more like small indents, and the hair on their head grows like a nail (only outward, makes good for special designs). There are other variations of Artures as well out there.

Others...

You are allowed to RP any beasts, pets, and war animals you want. Any. Fit them into Iowk's lore though (I'll post it at the end). In addition, there will be two major nanobot zombie areas and a "Barbaric Wasteland" area (extremely deadly beasts).
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Remember: you can submit races for the community to vote on.



The world map shall be drawn by me and posted at some point in the future when I have a chance to. However, barring a couple areas and guidelines, players make their own map. Common sense [should] tells us all that you cannot make a fortress. The areas, baring the local deposits of strange metals and rocks that change depending on what the owner RP's and some minor changes, do not change much when the land changes hands.

A note: for the history lovers, there are areas where they "all came from" for the major races & sub-races, laong with some mountain ridges and the such.

Current World Map

Blue = Alteran Confederacy
Light Brown = Sooval
Red = Tokshes


Geography of Iowk




While population and soldiers are pretty straight forward, depending on your nation your tanks, aircraft, and navy are changeable (IF we keep them). Their relative strengths must be regarded when RP'ed though. I'm still not entirely sure how stats should affect NoI; its supposed to be an RP loosely based on the stats.



I hope this list stays small, but if I have to...

1. GM's are gods, but if a tribe wants another god they gotta want another mod. So a 65%+ vote is needed for another mod, and will only occur once the current mod, JerreyRough, deems NoI too large for just one mod.

2. Common Sense. Really. With today's world, you NEED this as a rule. Any arguments against it are null.

∞. Don't make me make more rules. ☭☭☭



The year is...unknown. Man stopped using years at this point; only "sections" are used that are designated by a timescale different than our own. Yadda yadda yadda.

As the Milky Way Federation (the name of the largest alliance of planets) expands, no sentient alien life is found. Still, we expand and expand. The dangers of advanced AI and advanced nanobot technology are found after an entire system is destroyed by "smart" nanobots. But the top staff of the MWF still want to take advantage of advanced nanobot technology, and other outlawed technologies; coincidentally, at the "Bermuda Sphere" in the middle of the galaxy, a place full of black holes and massive starts, a planet that never seems to hit anything is found. They track it, finding it doesn't have an orbit but has native life. So the MWF secretly makes planetfall on the planet, establishing a worldwide research operation and ironically calling it "If Only We Knew", or Iowk.

The MWF finally finds an alien force and is eager to start communications; but a alien-fatal accident sparks a war in-between humanity and the aliens. The aliens, for reasons unknown, attack Iowk first and devastate the planet. But they release nanobot swarms, and their anti-nanobot cousins nanomals, that destroy much of the aliens forces. In the end, the aliens managed to contain the nanobots and nanomals; but at the loss of their spaceships. Experiments get loose and most of humanity starts anew (along with the aliens). The aliens and humans forgot they were enemies, and since they were very similar in genes intermarried, leaving little evidence of their existence.

But there were many, many more purposes of the research that are now lost; like the strange stones and minerals, the strange runes on the planet, the 4 orbiting moons, the "Sky High Monoliths", and more unknown mysteries...

Registered Nations

Player: JerreyRough
Nation Name: Sooval
Nation Technology: Realism Steampunk* *(home-brew steampunk made by me, steampunk but mostly realistic because real technologies & materials exist)
Nation Short Description: Artures, trench warfare tactics, heavy armor with explosive weapons, Returning Regime, finds peace usually in a military stalemate.
Nation type: New
Claims: http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc155/R...eader/Map-2.png

Player: King Kevz
Nation Name: Dark Mon'kai
Nation Technology: Sci-Fi
Nation Short Description: Humanoid, Based on the Warhammer 40K Dark Eldar race.
Nation type: Old
Claims: (Need to redo this bit once final map is done.)

Player: Subtleknifewielder
Nation Name: Aquarian Federation
Nation Technology: Fantasy/Sci-fi
Nation Short Description: Human-offshoot (Like the water-breathing Castalians of the TV series Andromeda)
Nation type: Old
Claims: Er...not so good with that, but i can describe...I want the major islands in the western gulf between the Major Nothern Continent and the one it is nearly connectedf to by a land bridge.

Player: Arkantos
Nation Name: Alteran Confederacy
Nation Technology: Modern, but imagine the Dark Ages didn't happen, so Modern with Sci-Fi elements.
Nation Short Description: Confederacy of various Human states that formed over time out of common interest.
Nation type: Very Old to New (It's a Confederacy, so the ages vary.)
Claims: http://i565.photobucket.com/albums/ss98/Ar.../iowkclauim.png

Player: N Reeki
Nation Name: Je'karta
Nation Technology: Fantasy
Nation Short Description: Large armies specializing in tactical warfare. Think clone army from Star Wars.
Nation type: Old
Claims:

Player: freakwars
Nation Name: Tokshes
Nation Technology: Steampunk/Sci-Fi, a dash of fantasy
Nation Short Description: Feudal Military state, led by General Dhon Do, Predominately made up of the near-human race known as the Holekhor.
Nation type: not new, but not old.
Claims: http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt145/f...owkclauim-1.png

Registered Characters

Player: JerreyRough
Character Name: Great Ancient Vutomo
Character Starting Point: Capital of Sooval
Character Technology: Steampunk
Character Short Description: Artures, home-built zeppelin as transport, a "spartan" Artures (something touched upon in CNRPS/AEGIS), likes to interact with other species.
Character Appearance (optional): N/A

Player: King Kevz
Character Name: "Archon" No'akei Vesper "the Daughter of Pain"
Character Starting Point: City of Black Dagger (Dark Mon'kai capital)
Character Technology: Sci-fi
Character Short Description: Humanoid, splinter pistol and curved bladed close combat weapon. No'akei Vesper rose to become leader of the Dark Mon'kai in the usual fashion. By ruthlessly cutting down her enemies and rivals and taking their possessions and families through death and trickery. Unlike her predecessor she enjoys the arena games in her nation and regulary holds them for entertainment.
Character Appearance (optional): http://www.geocities.com/jay_mallory/deldar.gif

Player: Shadowsage
Character Name: The Unknown Soldier. (The Common Man calls him Pariah.)
Character Starting Point: Travels between nations seeking contracts.
Character Technology: Sci-Fi and Fantasy.
Character Short Description: Carries various weapons depending on the opposition and mission parameters. Rumored to be an ascended human on the same plane as the Immortal God Emperor. Controls powers relating to Darkness and the Warp. Often appears in nations offering his service as a soldier in return for some ancient artifact or piece of technology. Believed to be the most powerful single being on Iowk.
Character Appearance (optional): The Unknown Soldier
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So? What do you think of this? Let your opinion be heard! (Other than "this idea sucks", but "I would like this if you did X").

I must say, I'm impressed at the depth and scope of what you've created here.

I'm SOOOOO in.

Thanks! And to think the "main" timeframe I work on isn't for another 1000 years.

Also, my CNRPH guys link directly to the Iowk universe, along with a MNU character still not revealed.





I think that for the world map, I may need to send someone a basic outline and then they make the real version; it would just show land mass, locations of mountains, and important locations. I would also like to know of opinions on: NPC nations and "World Events" that give the nations (and characters) of Iowk challenges to overcome.

Do you mind if I do the basic landmasses in Paint? I like drawing that kind of stuff, and I can do a fairly good job at making it realistic.

Thanks! I'll PM you a basic map later; storm rolling in.

People are also allowed to make clusters of islands (in designated places), or a few off their coast. This will also include lakes (NOT super lakes).

Jerrey...you mind if I just do a character?

I'm in if I can be a hedonistic robot warlord.


I'll also, free of charge, make you a non-earth world map with views from space, terrain, blank maps for lining out nations, and heated seats!

I'd like to try a character in this.

Not at all! Its quite allowed to not RP a nation, just like in CNRP. In fact, I hope to make this roleplay less focused on nations & stats than any others.


Yep! Everything is allowed! And thanks! I'll post a outline soon.

Here are some locations & IC information.

The Plateau Mountains of the North West

In the upper reaches of Norint, Iowk's northernmost continent, lies the Great Plateau Mountains. The mountains are located on a massive, mostly flat plateau that streaches for hundreds, if not thousands, of miles in diameter (surveys show it is an exact circle) with two rectangular smaller plateau's on its sides (the east and west sides). The plateau itself is a kilometer high and going up at a 95 degree angle, making its two southern access points extreamly valuble (with the east plateau having on access point). There is a similar cliff for the opposing rectangular cliffs. Water covers 3/4ths of its sides, and a mountain range on 1/3 of its remaining side. The exact reasons why it was this shape have been lost within its crags and hot vents spewing out, but perhaps the secrets can be found by an adventurous expedition...

The Aliens first built on it, building a massive city before intermarrying with Humanity. However, it is in ruins now with the last 200 years of world-wide civil wars, even with the growing and advanced Dwarven nation of H'Voreem defending it; they have even begun constructing a new, gleaming city near the plateau's mountains near the north.

The Gap and The Split Country

The Gap is a gap exactly 4 kilometers accross, and "links" the northern continent of Korint to the southern continent Intinagor. The land beside "The Gap" is known as "The Split Country" from the belief that both continents were connected two thousand years ago. A massive bridge connects the continents, as well as a massive sprawling city that acts as the center of the world. The most powerful local nation (or rather two) are the Parted Elves, two elvish groups parted by The Gap. Occasionallly they go to war, but currently are truced. They have different allies, different ideals - and a "kill-revenge-kill" history.

---More to come--

OOC: The NPC nations can be taken over by players, with a couple rules PM'd to you.

So the gap is water, and the Split Country is land?

Yep! The way I'm thinking is that of these 2 out of 6 continents (with these two being the largest), the top is a larger horizontallly and the bottom is larger vertically; a bit like North and South America, but...unique. The "connection" point juts out of the northern continent like Florida (but waaay skinnyer) while the south is just more shoreline.

The power went out, and until it comes back on I won't be able to post my draft/outline (cell phone at the moment).

Alright. Just give me a very rough draft, and I'll see if I can clean it up to look somewhat realistic.

Nooez! I wanted the Cross-Continent nation.

Heh, you could always rise up with whatever you are and defeat them. I hope to keep OOC to a minimum, so each NPC nation will react to major things in the world; i.e. once I post more information and show the 4 NPC megafactions then you'll know who you will anger if you defeat a NPC; and who will like you and assist you.

The NPC's will have stats of their own, and will be very powerful; but they are far from each other (barring the unfriendly civil war elvs) and would take time to attack you, if they bother. One thing to note: none of these empires/nations: none of them are Artures, only humanoids.

I literally threw this together completely at random, if this works, great. If it doesn't (Which is what I assume it will be) if anyone can post a map in a similar format, I'll go in and put in terrain, plant life, etc.

Without further ado:

I don't like it. The lack of large land masses and large oceans disturbs me.

Yah. Well, hope yours is better, like I said, I did it by pushing buttons is intervals to get random result.

Once I see something approved, I'll do terrain and stuff. I have a sample, but it's being annoying and not loading, so I'll link it later in an edit

Speaking of which:

EDIT: This was a fast job, but came with decent results:

Where are you generating these?

Photoshop. They're actually the same map, just with and without the terrain texture

Wow that's cool. I'm still working on MS Paint.

Dang people and your photoshop! That is amazing dude, but you are right; it won't work. I'm making a rough, ROUGH outline right now, and here is the very, very, very basic outline! Yellow is a Sahara-like dessert, and brown is mountainous country. The north continent is temperate and like North America; the south is a combination of dry climate in the west, and the east a rain forest-like place; like Africa and South America. The very north-eastern landmass is dessert-like, and due to its nature it will be either unclaimable/only colonies or claimable but very harsh conditions (will describe later). The very western landmass is Arturan (Artures) and has plenty of mountains/terrain changes (and needs to be bigger); the north west especially. Those streaks are archipelago's, the southern end should be temperate, and the very south-eastern island is a very high hight. I'm not sure about the rest though; you make it up!



Thank you very much!

How's this for the landmasses?

That looks quite good so far, just a couple of questions:

-Could the very south-eastern island be flipped?
-The near-intercontinental part can be slightly thicker on the top, and the southern land mass a shoreline going by; like this:



Other than that, excellent! Thank you!

Better?

Posted in OP.

In the next couple of days I'll post names & descriptions of all the continents. The island clusters are...island clusters. There are also zombie hordes (a "instance" for nations to fight against, very good for character battle role play), which anyone is allowed to map those locations out (if no one wants to do it, we don't really need it done). There are two of these, as shown below.

If that map is deemed correct, I'll go in and add some smaller scale geography and terrain, along with color.

How about we have 2 maps? One political, one physical?

I think Herrey is aiming for that, but just hasn't had it done yet.

As far as maps are concerned you can use one of the ones I've used for past military RPs, e.g.


Lo Color with bounderies shown and numbers (I numbered them for easier strategic descriptions using the IMAGE system I built for the other RP)

I've got this map WITH national boundaries that are natural looking in photoshop or PsP, with the boundaries in a separate layer so that the player can easily select them. I also have a higher saturation version that looks more natural and less like an old photograph (which worked for my old RP but not necessarily others).

There is also this map, but I don't have national boundaries drawn. You can use either one if you please.


(High colored image on an inspirational poster)


I'd make you a custom map, but the things take about 10-20 hours worth of work to make.

I don't think any of those would work, not with the landmasses Jerrey described.

Correct. Sorry, but yes it won't work in the greater scheme of things.

And yes, there should be two maps; a basic one that we have already for political locations, and either an "advanced" map, or links to individual player maps.

Ok, so with the world map selected I think we should get an important issue out of the way: stats. How much should we use (for the nations)? Should we just go for population & soldier amount, with aircraft and tanks talking up a player-determined amount (i.e. a tank replaces 5 soldiers, so the tank has the power of 5 soilders of the nation), or include aircraft, tanks, and navy (or any smaller combination) that can be RP'ed as something else of equal power.

Discuss!

Since you want to keep away from strictly following stats, I'd suggest taking the numbers for soldiers, tanks, aircraft and navy, but leaving tech and such out of the equation.

Should we even use stats at all? Considering some may RP at fuedal tech, and some at space age or beyond...

If we do use stats, I agree, military numbers only. All others being irrelevent.

Iowk is all about having completely different forces affecting one another; I'm in support of stats and having no stats. Remember that there are "strange unknown compounds" found on Iowk (incase I haven't talked about this yet, see below) that are the reason for giving people powers, strong metals for armor, etc.

Iowk is located in the center of a galaxy, and in this galaxy there are worm holes, black holes, and dwarf- to super-giant suns there; for some unknown reason, it never seems to get destroyed, and occasionally even goes through worm holes to other galaxies and other universes; thus explaining different factions like the Imperium from Warhammer 40k on this planet. And all this activity causes it to gather strange compounds from these places.

But yea, I think you guys are right; we just need the military stats (including nuclear weapons?).

Nuclear? Er...how would those translate into a feudal society? An unkown compound that has explosive potential?

Perhaps. I just needs to be something powerful; either a powerful single-use, or a slightly less powerful multi-use thing; like a Dragon in a Medieval society.

I would advise people starting their claims for land, even if they don't do the geography yet. When we start, there will be two types of nations: old nations and new nations. Old nations are stabilized and have a long history dating up to one and a half thousand years ago, while new nations are either a "returning nation" or a "new regime". The main difference inbetween is relations; naturally, older nations will know about other old nations. One thing to note in your RP is that there wasn't much globalization up to this point, thus why old nations are finding out information about other older nations.

So from this point on, here is a "form" to lightly explain yourself. Note that the remaining continent names will be chosen by the community or myself in the next while. Just be sure to not claim The Gap and to leave an area in the top left. This form is not necessary unless you want to be an old nation.

Nation Name: {Name of your nation}
Nation Technology: {Medival, Fantasy, Sci-FI, etc.}
Nation Short Description: {Race, and additional info i.e. "Star Wars" or "Tolkien-style Fantasy Dwarves"}
Nation type: {old/new}
Claims: {link to colored place on the map}

Now for characters, you can provide information if you wish but you don't need to. To help you and the community, here is a short "form". Nation players can of course have characters and can use this form.

Character Name: {Complete character name, including titles via quotes]
Character Starting Point: {Where you start, whether it is a NPC nation or a player nation}
Character Technology: {Medival, Fantasy, Sci-FI, etc.}
Character Short Description: {Race, weapons, SHORT description}
Character Appearance (optional): {Picture link}

To help, here is my nation (yes, I shall still have a nation anyway, even with control of the NPC nations ); that is, if you guys trust me enough.

Nation Name: Sooval
Nation Technology: Realism Steampunk* *(home-brew steampunk made by me, steampunk but mostly realistic because real technologies & materials exist)
Nation Short Description: Artures, trench warfare tactics, heavy armor with explosive weapons, Returning Regime, finds peace usually in a military stalemate.
Nation type: New
Claims: http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc155/R...eader/Map-2.png

Character Name: Great Ancient Vutomo
Character Starting Point: Capital of Sooval
Character Technology: Steampunk
Character Short Description: Artures, home-built zeppelin as transport, a "spartan" Artures (something touched upon in CNRPS/AEGIS), likes to interact with other species.
Character Appearance (optional): N/A

I'll have to register later, when I have some more time...

Hey, if everyone is willing to wait until tomorrow, I can make a more realistic map that also has Geography, and terrain, as well as political versions.

I've already finished about half of the political version.

It''ll still have the same basicc outline as the one Jerrey approved, right?

Of course. In fact, here it is:




The terrain mode one is being a bit weird, so it'll take a bit longer.

EDIT: Also, if there is any other Geography needed, I'll add it in, and it would be good to know now, before the terrain is done.

Nation Name: Dark Mon'kai
Nation Technology: Sci-Fi
Nation Short Description: Humanoid, Based on the Warhammer 40K Dark Eldar race.
Nation type: Old
Claims: (Need to redo this bit once final map is done.)

Character Name: "Archon" No'akei Vesper "the Daughter of Pain"
Character Starting Point: City of Black Dagger (Dark Mon'kai capital)
Character Technology: Sci-fi
Character Short Description: Humanoid, splinter pistol and curved bladed close combat weapon. No'akei Vesper rose to become leader of the Dark Mon'kai in the usual fashion. By ruthlessly cutting down her enemies and rivals and taking their possessions and families through death and trickery. Unlike her predecessor she enjoys the arena games in her nation and regulary holds them for entertainment.
Character Appearance (optional): http://www.geocities.com/jay_mallory/deldar.gif

Jerrey hopes that ok but do you want me to give a more detailed description on their technology?

The Northern and Soutnern large continents aren't supposed to be connected.

Whoops, gimme three minutes, I'll fix it.



Thar we go

Count me in, Imperator.

I suppose I'll RP a soldier or something.

Good Job. Though I am dissappointed that my Hawaii lookalike didn't make it.

I havn't given up yet! A bit more information to come out soon, then I'll get the first steps towards everyone starting up.





Who is this Imperator?


D: Only a soldier? More nations are allowed, ya'know (and if you don't know what terrain to make, then you could always ask nicely for someone to make it).

So a quick overview of NPC nations: a "Dwarven" nation, two "Elven" nations, and the final unposted nation, "MWF Colonial Marines".

I have another community question to ask, which may allow for more RP as long as no one exploits. This is avalible a thousand years after these events, and some things related to it will be "seen" here anyway (plus the Colonial Marines will be included in this).

Space.

In the Iowk universe, there were 13 space elevators constructed on the planet of Iowk (due to the fact that humanity didn't really have good ships for going through an atmosphere, and telewarp required a lot of money and a lot of energy). These would be randomly scattered, barring one, and could be "fought" over. At the top of these elevators is a space station capable of creating and storing about 30-50 space ships. Any faction can make a spaceship of their own design (whether it is a picture or typed material or both). These craft would not be able to go far, with special cargo vessels taking a small army or characters to one of Iowk's 5 moons, or the partially destroyed Colonial Megavessel (effectivly, an instance), or the large amounts of depris from past space battles and the massive space battle when Iowk was attacked.

Space ships would be far, far cheaper than in RL due to increased materials and designs for space, but still costly (alas the small number). The space scene would not affect the ground scene military-wise (baring non-weapon satellites), as no space vessel can enter the upper atmosphere without burning (barring far more costly spacecraft that are made to do that).

So? Should we have space for those that want to have it, and perhaps take their characters to a space-bourne instance (there is a moon with horrific monsters, and there will be events where the nations of Iowk....wait! must...not...say...anything!).

Nation Name: Aquarian Federation
Nation Technology: Fantasy/Sci-fi
Nation Short Description: Human-offshoot (Like the water-breathing Castalians of the TV series Andromeda)
Nation type: Old
Claims: Er...not so good with that, but i can describe...I want the major islands in the western gulf between the Major Nothern Continent and the one it is nearly connectedf to by a land bridge.


Yes...!

And possibly one elevator on my islands?

One of them looks to just touch the equator at one point, so it would be logical...