RolePlay onLine RPoL Logo

Welcome to Quintessence: The Hotaether Element

08:07, 29th March 2024 (GMT+0)

Quintessence: The Hotaether Element

In 1905, it seems to many that the age of princes and empires will last forever.  But there is trouble brewing, near and far.  The Tsar may preside over the richest court in the world, but revolution is whispered of, even on the streets of St Petersburg and Moscow.  In Germany, a united nation for only a generation, an arrogant and un-careful Kaiser simultaneously loves and fears his British relatives and looks enviously at his uncle's throne and empire.  In Austria, an aged emperor seems to have outlived his usefulness and vitality.  All three emperors project confidence and strength, but there are whiffs of violence in the air.  All are bound in ties of blood, history, and treaty in the Three Emperor's League in response to the growing British power.

The Third Republic of France has found an ally in Britain and her king.  Italy and Greece round out a network of friendly states that establish peace and prosperity (or encircle and exclude the emperors, depending on your perspective).

Then there is the Near East.  When Britain took Constantinople more than 60 years ago, it created a strain in the historic friendship between Britain and Russia, as the Tsar could never forgive another European power--of a faith other than the Orthodox--holding Constantinople, the ancient seat of Orthodox Christianity.  British diplomats protested that the collapsing Ottoman Empire would have destabilized all of Europe, and that thus they had no choice.  The British are near unto the world's first hegemonic "super power".

Across the ocean, the Aztlan Empire has been flexing its muscles, adding territory and wealth, even pushing west into the vast waters of the Pacific.

Even as tensions rise in various parts of the world, there are vast tracts of land which seem wide open and unexplored.  Discoveries untold might be made, if death in a thousand horrible possibilities doesn't come first.  Rumors always swirl of tales of lost artifacts from the ancient Magoi, objects which are more than decorative items but which hold powers.

Magic and dreaming, science and hotaether:  it's a world of both great danger and great possibilities.