OMGWTFBBQ! Solo completion by the MonkeyBoy

Having not completed for more than a week I felt the need to get SOMEthing ANYthing done in order to prevent ossification and loss of momentum. So remembering JJason's advice: "Never, never let good tasks prevent you from doing mediocre or bad tasks." here is a big steaming pile of stuff that fell out of my mind.

It's Earth Jim, but not as we know it.....
I humbly present the map of a magical steampunk universe I have been working on sporadically for a couple of years, supposedly for a GURPS roleplaying campaign, but mostly used for daydreaming about being a dashing wizard/aeronaut/privateer. As such, it could be treated as a map of my sublimated and frustrated ambitions (my early teenage self was convinced I would be a bestselling author and rock star with a sideline in world conquest by this point in my life) to measure up against the various explorations of psyche, society and personal history that have been posted so far. But it really isnt anything so deep. ;-)
The basic formula is The Peshawar Lancers by S.M. Stirling plus big chunks of the Technomancer RPG, along with anything else that's happened to make my brain fizz.

Apologies for the masses of text.
Further apologies for awful phone camera pics.

On October 3rd, 1878, a spray of high velocity meteors comprised of thaumically charged ores struck the earth moving in a band from east to west, the first impact being close to the southern edge of Moscow and further impacts across the continent of Europe and out across the Atlantic Ocean. Dozens of events with energy releases in the 300 megaton range cause tsunamis on all shores around the Atlantic and a global "nuclear winter".
Some of the European nations were able to evacuate substantial numbers of their population to more survivable climes amongst their colonial empires. Much of the world fell to anarchy and plague, starvation and cannibalism.
In the aftermath the survivors discovered that magic rituals, parroted and corrupted over thousands of years, worked once again. The keepers of forgotten lore and secret tradition found their powers greatly increased.
By the year 2025 civilsation has clawed its way back to a level with that before the Second Fall or Great Catastrophe, and has evolved in new directions under the influence of the new magic.


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The Angrezi Raj
Ruled from Delhi, and still officially known as the British Empire despite holding no more of the British isles than a few military outposts, this is the pre-eminent power on the planet. The Angrezi (English) have largely been assimilated into Indian culture, regard themselves as the ruling military caste (sahib-log) and speak a language that owes as much to Hindi as to pre-catastrophe English. Influenced by the local concept of Kingship, the Monarch wields more direct power than their european ancestors did, roughly equivalent to an American President in our world. The Viceroyalties of Australia and the Cape are closely intragrated politically, electing Members to Parliament on an equal footing with India.
The application of scientific principles to magical phenomena, combined with hermetic knowledge preserved by secret societies such as the Order of the Golden Dawn arms the Raj with magical capability to match is military muscle.
The Merina Kingdom on the island of Madagascar was never conquered by the French in this timeline and is a self governing protectorate of the Raj, as is the Batavian Republic, formerly the Dutch East Indies.

France-Outre-Mer
The heirs of Napoleon rule this gallic-north-african counterpart to the anglo-indian Raj, which was formed from refugees not only from France but also most of Mediterranean europe, with significant cultural influence from the Iberian peoples. It is smaller and poorer in resources which along with its continous struggles to hold back the Caliphate has limited its development in comparison to the British. It is also more culturally conservative; Sari wearing Angrezi mem-sahibs (ladies) regard the survival of the corset as prima-facie evidence of French backwardness. France's mystical forte is the psychic powers developed through masonic breeding programs dating back to the first republic.

Russia
The old Russian empire was beheaded when Moscow was obliterated, and in all northern latitudes during the years without summer the choice for those who could not escape to the tropics was starvation or cannibalism. In the madness following the second fall an alliance between a minor royal and a fallen priest of the orthodox church turned neecessity into perverse religion.
In today's Russia, ruling from the city of Samarkand the Csar is the Claw-on-Earth of the dark god Tchernobog also called The Peacock Angel, Malik Nous and Lucifer. Men are farmed as cattle to be devoured as the sacrement of the black mass, and the patronage of the abyss fuels insane sorceries.
The great game continues with the Raj for possession and control of Afganistan. Neither side has yet gained the upper hand or made much progress in subduing the Pashtun clansmen.

The Caliphate
The Caliph leads the faithful from the ancient city of Damascus, from the horn of Africa to the banks of the Danube. In these lands the catastrophe is known as "The Fist of God" that smote the wicked infidels. Persia is an uneasy ally, eager to serve the faith but determined to preserve its independence.
The reappearance of Irem, city of pillars and home to the mighty Djinn has gven the Caliphate potent paranormal forces.

Northern Europe
This region bore the brunt of the Great Catastrophe and the magical fallout that followed. Werewolf clans stalk the northern forests. Neo-neandthals hunt chimeric beasts. Fae of the Seelie and Unseelie courts wander the land and converse with ambulatory trees. Into this landscape of nightmares and fantasies travel prospectors searching for thaumically charged thunderbolt iron, archeologists and tomb robbers after the treasure of lost civiliastions, missionaries of Tchernobog preaching to the cannibal savages. In short, adventure country.

Atlantis
The magical civilisation of Atlantis was forewarned of the impending disaster by its seers and scryers and evacuated its domed underwater refuges before they were destroyed not by meteorites, but by the volcanic activity the impacts ignited. The few thousand air-breathing heirophant nobility thought they would conquer the surface dwellers by means of greater mystical power and ancient technology based on the magical metal orichalcum. However, they were undone by the revolt of the water breather fishmen that were the serfs of their society. Following this split the water breathers, calling themselves The Deep Ones, settled the continental shelf off the east coast of America, engaging in strange piscine rituals and giving worship to disturbung celaphapod beings.
The air breathers salvaged what they could and took control of the Caribbean and Azores. Long-lived and slow breeding, the New Empire remains small but its advanced orcihalcum technology and magical prowess allow it to punch above its weight.

The Americas
The multiple tsunamis that tore across the Atlantic utterly wrecked the United States. Even those that survived inland were left without organisation and leadership by the loss of the east coast. Mass starvation and a descent into barbarism followed. The tribes that now inhabit theregion may pound crude axe-heads from salvaged railroad tracks rather than rocks but other than that life is stone-age. Some coastal tribes have fallen under the sway of, and may have interbred with the Deep Ones.

Further west, the nomadic plains indians and ethnically european and african populations that copied their lifestyle have a much more sophisticated creolised culture.

The Mormon practices of stockpiling food and communalistic government saw the theocracy of Deseret trough the worst of the choas relatively unscathed (the wobbly looking symbol on the map is meant to be a Beehive).

The sparsely populated west coast absorbed several waves of refuges from the interior and now consists of many small city states ranging from dictatorships to mercantile republics to anarchistic communes. The situation is strongly reminiscent of Renaissance era Italy except that instead of producing sculptors and painters it is (in)famous for mad scientists, crackpot inventors and self proclaimed prophets displaying peculiar psychic abilities.
The dominant power in central america is the Atzlan confederacy, led by priest-kings granted stupendous magical powers by the pre-colombian gods in exchange for the reinstatement of human sacrifice.

In south america the only polity acheiving the level of a nation state is the Holy Brazillian Empire. The Emperor is chosen by the vote of hereditary noblemen called Electors, a system deliberately copied from the old Holy Roman Empire. Following the evacuation of the Papacy from Rome to Rio local colonial nobility and newly risen warlords and demagogues were given the title Elector to bring peace and legitimacy to the land (and as territories on the periphery become organised enough they can be easily absorbed). Much of the politcal power lies with the Pontiff and the reconstituted Iquisition (new magic brings new heresies to root out). The Emperor's military is largely devoted to containing and throwing back the threats that boil out of the jungle depths; the "Empire of the Ants", Dinosauroid lizardmen and Undead Mayan liches leading zombie hordes to name but a few.

Dai-Nippon
Dai-Nippon (greater Japan) is the result of the Japanese conquest of much of mainland China following what is locally known as "The Great Fortunate Event". Even though millions died and there was massive civil unrest the region suffered much less than the lands of the barbarian gaijin. The Mikado took up residence in the Forbidden City and the Meiji dynasty were recognised as the new Imperial rulers of China. The Samurai form the ruling caste much like the Angrezi in India and the Mandarins conduct the affairs of state as they always have. Conquests in Korea, The Phillipines and the former French Indochina have brought Dai-Nippon into direct conflict with the British.