Both ideas take place in a version of the Fourth Era that follows along with your usual 'Empire crumbles doom gloom' minus the 'doom gloom'. Tamriel would be in a rather medieval Europe-y state; there are several big players around, the biggest of which being the 'heir' of the Septim Empire, in truth a whole different Empire that just began in Cyrodiil as well. It would be a very close alliance of several small kingdoms/duchies/whatever, spanning through entire Cyrodiil, south-eastern Hammerfell, northern tips of Elsweyr and Valenwood and southern Skyrim, although those would be (partially, in case of Hammerfell) outside the Emperor's power of control as they are conquests done individualy by three of the members of the empire, lands outside those that were sworn to be in the direct control of the first Emperor and his successors, hence somewhat giving an edge to those three members although also adding to the mistrust from others. The Emperor would be elected from the dukes/kings, who themselves form 'the Imperial Council of the White Tower' (read: Elder Council in a different guise and with less power). The discussion of the new Empire brings me to my first idea.

Idea 1) would see a political RP set in the Empire, with players acting as the vassals of the Emperor, or the vassals of those vassals, or whatever degree of power potential players would desire. I'd be playing as the Emperor (read: GM) and King of Cyrodiil, the central realm that encompasses the Imperial City and some area around it, at least for as long as the character I'm RPing remains Emperor. The RP would begin at 4E 246, when the already mistrustful councillors would be split apart by an argument involving Skyrim which, despite being composed of several independant nations, is seen by the Emperors and their vassals as the possession of the Cyrodiilic Empire. It would stem from the fact that Winter Hold, the old rival of Solitude, has stepped out of the Kingdom of Solitude that was formed along the northern coast of Skyrim following the Dawnstar Union of 4E 92 when Winter Hold agreed to become a part of the Kingdom to help fend off the Kingdom of Whiterun encroaching upon both Solitude and Winter Hold; having broken the union, the newly crowned King of Winter Hold has also declared war on Solitude. Thus, the Emperor decides that the Empire needs to step in and stop the squabbling between the two cities, as that leaves no counterbalance for Whiterun in Skyrim and allows the Kingdom grow powerful enough to ignore the Cyrodiilic Empire should Whiterun swallow up both Solitude and Winter Hold.

However, the councillors are not really agreeing on whichever should be supported, and the Imperial Council is split into two, one side supporting aiding Solitude in regaining Winter Hold, and the other side suggesting deposing Solitude and instead leaving Winter Hold in control of the northern coast. Since war is prohibited under thread of Imperial Ban (banning of the agressor from the Council, with his/her vassals released free of their oath and promised the former councillor's power if they manage to dispose of him/her before the Imperial Army arrives), the RP would circle around political intrigues in the Council, with cloak and dagger things to try and dispose of your opponents in an attempt to become the next Emperor.

Idea 2) would be very closely related to the first idea, taking place at the same time, however dealing with the conflict of Winter Hold and Solitude after the Dawnstar Union's terms were broken and war broke out. It could be a lot of things, really, there's no clear way to define the RP's genre - it has the potential for political intrigue, to a lesser extent than the first idea. Solitude would be the larger power, thus the players on the Winter Hold side of things would be encouraged to try and break up Solitude's power, since Solitude would be split into two sub-factions, with the city herself and Dawnstar, the King of which would probably want to exploit this situation and gain independance. Treaties could be also made with external players, i.e. Kingdom of Whiterun, although that is a risky bet as Whiterun is bent on uniting Skyrim. Warfare would take place, in the form of many small raids and the occasional larger engagement, which would be fairly rare, as neither side has manpower available in large numbers. The raids would also allow for an adventury feel to the RP, since they'd range from a handful of soldiers and a single ship to ten or so ships and several hundred men. In this RP I'd be acting as the King of Whiterun and a neutral ruler at the beginning; I'd also be the GM, making some events and moving things along if all else fails.

Speaking of events, they'd make the two RP ideas overlap, as, for example, rather unexpectedly the Empire may invade Skyrim in a Drag Nach Osten-like thing and screw things up a bit or a lot. There'd be other sorts of events, and a few new factions may come into play along the two main factions (since I don't intend to have anyone else than myself in Whiterun as the focus is on the north coast and not entire Skyrim).

I haven't worked a lot out besides a loose timeline for the thing; however, I am considering having gunpowder in as a recent discovery, to give something interesting to play around with. In the case that gunpowder made it in, it'd be mostly in the form of small cannons mounted on the Nordic boats, maybe some odd arquebus-armed soldiers for the North Coast RP; for the Empire RP, I'm not as sure since warfare won't be a main focus, however probably heavier cannons and pike and shot formations as a whole new, experimental concept not yet employed in major battles. In any case, gunpowder troops wouldn't be fielded in large numbers, mainly as morale droppers, and the combat would stay close to ye olde hack n' slash.

So, comments, suggestions, anything? I want to know which of the two would be in more demand before I expand any of the two a lot.

I like idea 2 better because it sounds more interesting to me, mainly because I hate most things to do with politics. When could you potentially start?

I'm still doing my research on the Kievan Rus and the Scandinavian Kingdoms to provide a base for both the factions from which the players could work out their things; I'm also looking up info on the Holy Roman Empire in case the first idea gets more votes. My knowledge on the early gunpowder weapons is also a bit rusty, although I need peoples' oppinion on that too, as I figure those on the magic side of magic vs. technology may be against having gunpowder weapons. However, after those decissions are made, I'll probably have the thing fleshed out and ready in a week or more in case of RL issues.

Early guns would be laughable in the face of even the weakest mages, they where large rifle like construct which took forever to reload and forever to shoot. But saying this, it didnt stop the japanese having thousands of these guns in their country at one point, and it certainly didnt stop them from using them.

Now, while the early weapons may indeed be laughable, there's nothing to stop advancements in technology during the RP, as gunpowder in the situation I picture would be around for some fifty years or so, and considering that Tamriel does not equal Europe in terms of creativity, also that the Empire would be toying around with those guns a huge lot, matchlock arquebuses could maybe be part of an event, or a whole new event in their own right.

They're both good ideas so some combination of the two would be good.

Whilst early guns may be useless in comparison to magic, doesn't the Almighty Lore state that not everyone can be a mage? (not actually sure just what I had gathered) where as anyone can use a gun.

I've also liked the idea of adding Kieven Rus/Novgorodian sub culture in Skyrim as well but had trouble sort of justifying its origins. Not the norse elite but the slav majority under it. I thought the idea terribly interesting.




Not really because mages aren't all the uber exploding hand demons people think that they are. We have to think of resource allocation. The knight fell out of use to guns not because guns were that much better. A smoothbore rifle is less accurate and has less armor penetration than a decent bow with a good steel tip. Where the issue lies is the resource allocation. With the same amount of resources you could use to train, and arm a knight, you could put together a dozen peasants with pikes and decent armor and gunners. So would you rather have an elite knight or a small pike shot mob at your disposal? Sometimes quantity is a quality of its own.

Like wise mages are expensive. And in the big picture of things rifles, even low tech ones would have a much greater advantage cost wise.

Indeed, after reading an article on gunpowder weaponry, I can say that the main reason why they became so widespread in the early phase, when the handguns weren't very powerful (testing with a model of early gunpowder handheld weapon seems to show that the penetration power of a circa XIV century gunpowder handgun was worse than that of a crossbow), was the fact that they were in the middle between crossbows and bows - you could just hand them out without little training, like crossbows, and they were easy to mass-produce, like bows (thinking of the simple bows used in damp conditions). Bowmen took years of practice, and crossbows were hard to make; and besides, crossbows were also nearly as useless in bad weather as gunpowder weapons, thus gunpowder weapons were the middle, a good solution for the need of an easy to field ranged force that later on got increasingly deadly.