Murka

## A Brief History of Everything Important (Taken from the Murkan Campaign Setting)

History is typically written by the victor, or so the saying goes. With every wartime triumph and civil rights achievement, Murka has forged a path for itself through the annals of history. Although, it’s important to remember that while Murka is a great and powerful nation, it was not always history’s good guy. In fact, many would say that Murka’s powerful military presence and pride in itself often created more problems than it solved, and made Murka into an empire built on the backs and bones of those it crushed along the way.

### The Braggish Empire

We are legally obligated to say that Murka was first discovered by the Braggish Empire as their naval scouts crossed the sea. Those early explorers were looking for a shortcut to a completely different, far�off land; but instead of finding a new route to an old land, they found themselves utterly lost. After many months of deluding themselves of their success, they finally admitted that instead, they had actually discovered a new land, brimming with possibility, danger, and life. They eventually returned home, but they carried with them tales of massive freedom dragons, misty haunted forests, and a native people who had lived there since before the dawn of civilization. They also carried home a boatload of gold and magical artifacts, which impressed the Empire much more than all those other things. Over the next few centuries, colonists and nobles in exile poured across the sea to the land of possibilities. Murka was strikingly beautiful, but also harsh. For the earliest settlers, it was only through painstaking efforts to make peace with, and learn from, the Natives, that any settlement took root at all. But soon, the once peaceful and serene landscape of Murka slowly became dotted with bustling and flourishing colonial villages. Though the earliest colonies were mostly human-populated, many other races followed their fellow Brags across the sea. While major city centers became mixed cauldrons of race and culture, the colonial wilderness of Murka offered some the chance to create safe, secluded communities for their people—an option that was no longer available in the crowded Old Continent. Even so, Murka quickly became widely known for being a hodge-podge of culture, and ethnicity. Over the next 100 years, thirteen kingdoms were founded, with each swearing fealty to the emperor across the Edged Sea.

### Thirteen Kingdoms.

The early days of Murka were turbulent; the wilderness was as magnificent as it was unforgiving. While some colonies flourished and secured themselves, others fell victim to the call of the unknown. Many colonies were lost in conflicts with the Natives, who possessed some seriously powerful nature magic. Others were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and were swallowed up by natural events such as shark infested tornados, dragun attacks, or shredstorms during the winter months. Like a child learning to walk, and bumping their head into the coffee table, the march of progress ambled slowly onward as wilderness-hardened colonies transformed into well established cities of stone. Other empires from the old continent had also established kingdoms of their own, and war quickly followed. From the ice plains of Cunuc in the north, to the mountain-breaking stormlands in the south, Brag’s thirteen kingdoms fought with arcane fire and enchanted bronze—enemies were toppled, and the kingdoms expanded.

The Thirteen Kingdoms were also prone to disputes between themselves, often over relatively small issues —which deeply annoyed the Braggish emperor, who often stepped in to violently quell what he assumed were rebellions against his crown. One battle in particular was recorded as being a series of three battles fought over the distribution of salted meats wrapped in barffulo skin that began when the Braggish rolled in to claim the entire trade. The colonies quickly gained a reputation across the sea for their incredible feats of stubbornness, their fierce independent spirits, and their distrust of authority. Rebellions would rise on occasion, only to be smashed by Braggish soldiers. Murkans saw themselves as underdog fighters, and even as oppressed by the Braggish. As time went on, anti-Braggish sentiments grew and festered in minds of Murka’s citizens.

### Atrocities Against The Natives.

While Murka was underdog to the Braggish, they often acted as oppressive overdog to the Natives of the Murkan continent. The Natives of Murka did not fair well as the Kingdom of Murka expanded further into their territory. Their nations were smashed and their people often forced to either assimilate to Braggish culture, flee to nations that were further west, or simply die from the rampant disease and war now plaguing the continent. Murkan expansion trampled sacred temples, and cut down revered forests. Murkan and Braggish necromancers even took to raising Native ancestors from the dead for use as minions. The Murkan kingdoms waged constant war to expand their territories, and they committed a collective genocide in the process.

Murkan in-fighting among the colonial kingdoms, and unchecked expansionism had stretched the patience of the Emperor of Brag, particularly since the Murkan colonists had a habit of ruining deals the emperor had made with the Native nations. Even though Murka had made promises to improve, Brag sailed their army across the sea to bring order back to the kingdoms. At the same time, in a desperate attempt to regain their homeland a massive Native army attacked the thirteen kingdoms from atop their barffulo steeds. The Emperor himself flew to the continent on his dragon companion, Elzibetha. Sandwiched between the Braggish fleet and the Native army, the thirteen kingdoms of Murka surrendered—but not before the largest kingdoms had been smashed and burned into submission. The Braggish army went on to not only smash Murka’s army, but also the Natives. While the Native army escaped back into the wilderness of the mountains, the kings of Murka were captured and either beheaded, or had fled into exile. From then on, the Murkan kingdoms were ruled by appointed governors—who were directly subservient to the Emperor, rather than simply allied to him. This also meant that the Braggish military took direct control of the kingdoms. In the mountains, a new Native Kingdom rose up, composed of the many nations who’d fled the eastern shore.

### The War for Independence.

Eventually, relations between the empire and Murka broke down when Jorge Wash sparked the fires of rebellion nearly 150 years later. After leading a militia of colonists to win the Battle of Winter’s Edge, Jorge quickly united four of the original thirteen kingdoms of Murka. He declared himself King Wash, and everywhere across the thirteen kingdoms, the people loved him, and a slew of sister revolts sparked in nearly every major city. King Wash quickly acquired more territory as Braggish governors were ousted from their seats of power.

Inspired by King Wash’s example, six other kings took power in their respective kingdoms. Colonists from across the thirteen kingdoms displayed their defiance by ridding themselves of Braggish made goods—including Braggish tea—which the colonists happily chucked into the ocean and subsequently drank out of the ocean, like mad-people. Many traditional commodities such as parchment, and other more mundane quality-of-life items had to find domestic manufacturers in the wake of the rebellion. The seven kings of Murka allied and fought a bloody revolution, outnumbered and under�equipped. Over the course of three years, they pushed the Braggish out of Murka, and back across the sea. During the war, Wash’s allies suffered great losses, and each of them came to admire and respect the leadership of King Wash who pulled their people through the worst of the tragedies. In the last days of the war, King Wash personally led the army as they fought through a bitter and foggy shredstorm that lasted for three weeks, decimating both armies. The final battle of the war occurred at the border of Virenia and Marr, a site that would later be settled by King Wash, and styled as the capital of the nation: Washtown.

After the war, the other six kings swore their fealty to King Wash, and together they became the First Grand Council in a newly christened nation: The United Kingdom of Murka. King Wash remained the High King of Murka, and the members of the First Grand Council eventually set up the Second Grand Council, consisting of members from each kingdom. The former kings of Murka then went on to become six of the thirteen governors of each of the Murkan provinces. King Wash went on to rule as King of all Murka, and remained vivacious, and even scandalous, throughout his entire life—earning him the nickname “The Old Buck” among the common people.

### Manufactured Destiny

The advent of science, now recognized as a study totally separate from magic, led to the dawn of an age of machinery and industry. Gnomish light bulbs lit up the streets of the city, and dwarven railroads connected the world of Murka together—and Halfling toilet paper? Just... Absolutely amazing. The quality of life for the average Murkan improved drastically, and in the largest cities of Murka, great towers of stone and steel began to rise up above the antiquated castles and forts of old.

With industry also came new and unfortunate ways to skirt morality. Murka was, and has almost always been, a human dominated culture—and with most other races and tribes sitting at the edge of marginalization, it wasn’t long before some of the more business-minded people began to take advantage. It began with a preference for hiring non�human workers at cheaper rates, but as westward expansion accelerated, it gradually led to prevalent indentured servitude, and eventually some guilds pushed their governers to legalize full-blown slavery —which many did, happily. Slavery focused squarely on the impoverished, the non-human, and the non�Murkan. The construction of the west’s expansive railroads, as well as much of the cheap mining and farming labor, were soon managed almost entirely with slaves.

Ease of travel and innovations in weaponry sparked a renewed fervor in Murka’s westward expansion efforts in a movement known as Manufactured Destiny: The right that Murkans had made for themselves to claim the western shore. Murka continued to grow, sending colonists and pioneers to scout and settle the silent, haunted plains of Midwesteros, the mystical deserts of the Southlands, and the tall, ancient forests of Kale’forna. The aggressiveness of Manufactured Destiny came at great cost to the Murkan Natives. While most conflicts were small, a few became major battles that resulted in full-scale invasions, such as the conquest of Holly Woods. Nearly every Native nation the Murkan empire came across was destroyed or displaced into camps. Eventually, peace treaties were signed between Murkan and Native leaders. Unfortunately, those treaties were authored by Murkan representatives, and greatly favored Murka’s position. These ultimately took advantage of the Native people’s plight and left them claim to incredibly small territories.

### Bringing Guns to a Sword Fight.

War and continuous expansion had become a defining point of Murkan culture, and their attitude towards foreign affairs. In an effort to expand west, Murkans continued to manufacture and improve the weapons they used. After the revolution, Murka, and other nations, started using steel instead of bronze weapons. With the advent of steel came a rush of innovation including the — miniaturization of ancient bronze cannons modeled after the mighty Draguns into what we now know as GUNS. Armed with the boomstick, Murkan warfare changed. While other nations studied the blade, Murka perfected the bullet. Murkan guns became known for their intricacy and quality, and Murkan gunsmiths for their almost arcane knowledge of ballistic craft. Owning a gun, and defending yourself, became a point of pride, a time honored tradition, and an iconic piece of Murkan culture. While guns have risen in popularity, swords, shields and the weapons of the old world are still widely used by soldiers and adventurers alike.

### The Freedom War.

As Murka finished settling the land, a great—and admittedly obvious—ideological schism occurred in Murka, with many in Murka’s more progressive provinces calling for the freedom and citizenship of the enslaved. The Murkans of the south and southwest had come to heavily depend on the use of slave labor in their clockwork-enhanced economy, to the point that slavery came to define their culture as well—particularly as a point of pride as relations with the north deteriorated. Finally tensions snapped when a northern militia attacked a slave transport caravan on the border of Kanned’turkey.

Refusing the call of the then-High-King Abram to come negotiate peace and reparations, the governors of the south elected their own High King: King Divis, who immediately took office in the south and seceded with the support of the southern provinces, forming the kingdom of South Murka. When High King Abram was given word of the second election, he quickly raised an army in the northern provinces. Being the greater portion of Murka, they had better�equipped troops. And, in order to ensure an overwhelming victory and further bolster the size of his army, King Abram freed all enslaved peoples, giving them full citizenship in his kingdom. Many former slaves eagerly joined the army, though most were content to start new lives in free provinces. Hearing that King Abram had freed nearly all of his own citizens, an enraged King Divis ordered his army north. The north and south met on the battlefield shortly after, sparking the bloody Murkan Freedom War.

The war went on for many years, devastating the kingdom. Cities were burned in accidents of wild magic, rebellions were sparked deep within South Murka, and every casualty of the war was Murkan. Eventually, King Abram, and his second in command, General Ulyssea, surrounded the southern army. Cut off from reinforcements and deep within enemy territory, the southern army was pretty much porked. The southern capital of Rich-Man was captured, along with King Divis, who was imprisoned. Most of the southern provinces surrendered immediately and rejoined Murka, but a few still resisted, and in shocking betrayals, were attacked by their previous allies alongside the northern armies. King Abram pieced Murka back together one battle at a time, and in one of the final battles of the war, he was hit by a crossbowman while on horseback. King Abram later died of his wounds in Washtown, after having completed the reunification of Murka. In death, Abram was styled King Abram The Great.

### The Nightmare War.

While Murka was still rebuilding and reforming the law in the wake of the Freedom War, another war was beginning on the far away Old Continent. The Braggish Empire, which had once covered the entire Old Continent, had collapsed in the wake of Murka’s independence. Many of the disillusioned kingdoms spawned from the now-defunct empire banded together, establishing a new empire in the heartlands of Brag and calling themselves “The Purity Empire.” While the rest of the world did not know what to think of their new neighbor at first, it was not long before rumors began to surface that the Purity Imperials were amassing an army, and preparing for war.

Without warning, several of the empire’s most immediate neighbors found invaders on their doorsteps. The Purity Empire quickly conquered several kingdoms, and annexed them into the empire —often in grandiose style, with large, colorful flags, and impassioned speeches about the ‘Destiny of The Pure.’ In hindsight, the goose-stepping and saluting were also a little disconcerting, but that’s not the point. The other kingdoms of the Old Continent banded together, denouncing the formation of a new empire, and amassing armies for war. Alliances were forged, and armies soon met on the battlefields of the heartland.

The Nightmare War was devastating—a symphony of guns, steel, magic, and might, the likes of which the world had never seen. It was truly the first war of a new era, and as such, everyone was woefully unprepared for it. Not even the Puritans completely understood what they had set in motion, as mage fire and artillery shells burned entire cities to the ground. The Puritans took over a huge portion of the Old Continent, and for a time, it looked as though the war would be lost, and the world covered in darkness.

With few remaining options, the post-Braggish kingdoms of The Angles and The Bagguesh made an appeal to then-King Rose of Murka. King Rose was a just king, but was hesitant to join a war occurring on another continent. After all, Murka had no trouble finding their own wars without sailing halfway around the world for them. Murka only agreed to ally with the admittedly-obtuse Kingdom of The Angles after The Purity Empire made the mistake of attacking an island nation under the dominion of Murka. News of the attack spread throughout the kingdom, and shortly after, King Rose called for volunteers to invade the Old Continent. The voluntary response was beyond King Rose’s most liberal estimates.

While the warriors of Murka crossed the sea to free the Braggish heartland, another story was unfolding in the deserts of the South. A team of adventurers discovered an ancient weapon left over by an ancient Native empire—a Planes Cracker, capable of untold destruction, even able to bring down barriers between worlds. The party returned the object to Washtown, and presented it to a horrified King Rose.

Even with fresh troops from Murka, the alliance struggled to hold their own against the Empire’s armies. Each territory restored came at an incredible cost. Knowing that the war would be lost if he did not intervene, King Rose travelled with the Planes Cracker across the sea, where he deployed it against the Empire, detonating it deep within the empire itself. The weapon ripped open the fabric of reality— in some places, it released abominable eldritch horrors into reality, while in others, demons were summoned into the bodies of the fallen. The weapon obliterated the landscape, leveling whole towns and turning the surrounding wilderness into a nightmarish wasteland. While only a small part of the empire was affected, the region was so devastated and overrun with horrors. The Imperial armies which weren’t broken by the interplanar assault were immediately recalled to combat the creatures that had sprung forth from the tear, as well as many of the demons whose bonds of loyalty were broken.

With the Purity Empire scrambling to react, the alliance could take a long smoke break before driving the imperials back into the heartland. The alliance would be victorious, but after the war, as the allied kingdoms began to occupy regions conquered by the Puritans once again, a discovery was made. Conditions inside the empire had been much worse than anyone could have ever guessed. The last fortresses to fall were found to contain massive altars where the Puritans had been sacrificing their own citizens in droves in attempts to open a portal into one of the lower planes and bring forth a mighty Great Old One. The soldiers who found these bloodmagic sites deduced that these rituals had failed, but the empire had kept trying, and retrying— and it was believed that millions of their own people had been killed. A series of trials were held for the leaders of the empire, and thousands of mages were put to death for their part in the genocide of their own people. In secret, however, many of these mages were offered plea deals—often providing evidence against one another in exchange for a new life in Murka.

Murka’s decision to use the Planes Cracker became another global hotbed issue. While many defended the use of the weapon as necessary; King Rose, shamed by his decision which ended potentially millions more lives, left Murka in a self imposed exile - to this day no one has been able to find his final resting place. The Planes Cracker brought fear to all the people of the world from then on, as a weapon that, with enough use, could destroy the Urth itself.

While the leaders of the world grappled with the crimes of the war, the soldiers of these nations returned home with honor and bittersweet celebration. Murka’s returning warriors were celebrated as the greatest history had ever known— and the people of Murka celebrated for weeks on end, a party almost as wild as the war itself. Murka, as a whole, prospered for a time—the war had been very good for the economy, and nearly everyone who survived the war benefited from the economic boost. A new, even more heightened quality of life soon became the norm in a world where Murkans declared themselves the heroes who’d won The Nightmare War.

### The Frozen War

The Frozen War period covers a series of wars that Murka fought in the aftermath of The Nightmare War. One of Murka’s chief allies, Rutha, had fallen into the throes of a revolution from which they emerged a magocratic state, ruled by a witchking named Ballin. While magic was not a force of evil by any stretch of the imagination, the events of The Nightmare War had made nearly everyone involved weary of powerful magics, and of states ruled by them. How long would it be before Rutha became a copy of the Purity Empire? To make matters worse, Ballin showed worrying signs of evil: He created a dastardly army of minions known as the Kremlins, and started sending those armies to far off countries where they toppled governments, terrorized its people, and installed new magical leaders.

This trend of raising magical kingdoms in a world increasingly terrified of the abuses of magic led many of Murka’s more conservative elements to reject the use of magic in Murka—a movement known as the Arcane Scare. This led to a restriction in the use of magic, and even discrimination against magic users themselves—including those who used magic for benign or even benevolent purposes.

Meanwhile, outside of the kingdom, Murka's troops fought on the battlefields of kingdoms overthrown by magical usurpers, but many of these were losing battles. Most notable of these failed fights was Murka's war in the jungle kingdom of Nami, where many Murkan soldiers fell at the hands of the powerful Charlie The Warlock. It was a devastating blow to Murkan pride—the powerful, imperialist Kingdom of Murka had been defeated by an underdog nation of farmers and common folk… Sounds familiar, right? (See: The War for Independence) That is not to say that Murka did not have their own crimes in the Frozen War. Not every magocratic nation was directly created by Rutha, and certainly not every one was a psychotic dictatorship. Murka placed numerous island nations under “Murkan protection” to deflect the influence of magic, often suppressing the magical practices of the island Natives in the process. Murka also contributed significant resources to toppling the nations who chose magocracy themselves, employing spies to weaken the regime and ultimately open the door to a “justified” Murkan invasion force. Murka had always flirted with imperialism in its westward expansion efforts, but it was only now as Murka built an empire of protectorates and toppled enemies that they truly began to resemble the empire they had fought to get away from, The Braggish Empire of old.

The rivalry between Rutha and Murka was famed for its ferocity, and infamous for its ridiculousness. The two empires raced each other for everything. There was a race to create more Planes Crackers, to arm the most troops, to have the best economy— there was supposedly even a secret race to go to the moon itself, but we’re pretty sure they faked that one. As the Frozen War dragged on, the cost of making weapons, recruiting troops, and conquering distant lands began to weigh heavily on both nations.

While the battles of The Frozen War were reshaping the political landscape of the world, Murka itself was also being reshaped from a cultural standpoint. The kingdom was, and had always been, home to a wide variety of magic users. In opposition to the Arcane Scare, mages began to celebrate magic and the many possibilities it opened up, while still teaching about the dangers therein. They also tended to get really high in public on wizard drugs, so they got arrested a lot. As the government continued to feed into the Arcane Scare by waging wars and restricting magic use, Murka’s people began to become weary of constant warfare, and resistant to the government’s own abuse of power. Those who felt that magic should remain unrestricted began to cast spells more openly, even looking for ways in which magic could be folded into the lives and economy of the common folk—which enraged anti�magical hardliners.

The ironic part was that eventually Ballin died, and in his place the Ruthan people elected a supposedly non-magical king named RathPoutine. Nothing had quite prepared the Murkan people for this. The Murkan people had not only lost the Nami War, but now they had lost a worthy opponent. The Murkan people found themselves lost, and so they began to search for worthy opponents—even if their reasons for fighting them were less than pure. The end of The Frozen War, combined with the Arcane Scare on the home front, and the now-failing Murkan economy, had left the kingdom in a state of cultural and political confusion.

### Magitechnology.

Time does heal some wounds: With the end of the Frozen War, and the fall of nearly all of the magocratic states, Murka breathed a sigh of relief. Over time, the Arcane Scare ended, and hardcore anti-magical groups moved outward to the fringe of acceptable ideas. Murka continued to treat magic carefully—for a time, that is. The movement of free mages that began in the Frozen War eventually kicked off a new revolution that changed the face of the kingdom, and the world: Magitech.

A guild of mages invented a new way of communicating through a combination of machinery and magic, called the writwit—a messenger bird that could be summoned or unsummoned at will, by any user who holds a magical writing plate. This grand innovation in communication brought the world of Murka closer together than it had ever been before— effectively shrinking the country. Other similar inventions followed, such as mass projection devices that allowed plays and news to be disseminated to multiple town squares at one time. This gave rise to advances in projection technology that resulted in PeoplePortal, a network of projections that common people could use for everyday communication.

While advances in communication were shrinking the world via magic, powerful advances in transportation were bringing the world together in a more literal sense. Locomotive steam engines could carry passengers across great distances, and portals to far flung planes of existence provided quick access to the more secluded places of the world for the magically minded and less conventional traveler. As Magitech businesses continued to flourish and expand, the largest and richest cities in Murka were soon covered in a canopy of railways and portal arches.

As extra-planer activity expanded, the many ways that an outer plane could be used for business or information expanded wildly. Vast libraries called wikys were built in tessaracted houses that appeared larger on the inside than on the outside—a practice that relied on the services of the magical cabal known as The Zone, the preeminent masters of extra-planar technology. With every new advance in communication or transportation, Murka not only bustled with life - it began to glow, and hum even, with activity. The pace of life sped up to almost breakneck speeds. Magically print clothing, trains, and projected news feeds flooded city centers with lights with a sense of immediacy that was unlike anything ever seen. The act of trying to keep up in this ever changing world of constant motion became a job in itself. Everyone knew life was changing, but no one could really stop long enough to say why - and in the heat of alchemical street signs, life passed us by.

### Small Lands, Yuge Leaders.

As the world shrank and, for the first time in centuries, the voices that cried out the loudest were finally heard. For the first time in living memory, all Murkans had to come face-to-face with the crimes of the past. Native citizens told stories of the death of their nations, freedom fighters revealed some of the dark places where slavery had managed to live on— and everywhere people began to realize the truth that had started in the jungles of Nami all those years ago: We were not the heroes anymore, and maybe we never were. Murkans were beginning to demand morality from their government and people, often citing the kings of old such as Abram The Great. Murka had to change, it had to progress, and what scared everyone was that the necessary change might leave Murka looking a little less… well, Murkan.

Naturally, some continued to hold on to the glory of old and refuse change, and somewhere between acknowledging our flaws and yearning for the prosperity of yesteryear, Murka lost something, though no one can say exactly what. All anyone knows is that somewhere in the mess that was created, a leader began to rise. He promised power to Murka, and a return to the glory of the golden age. He promised a return to a better economy, and to squash the voices that had driven Murka’s people to their state of catastrophe. While the previous king had done his best to repair the broken nation he’d inherited, an election was called for by the governors and member of the Grand Council. In a stunning, and surprising, victory, The Don was elected by the council to lead the kingdom—whatever that would mean for Murka’s people...