Start Screen Megathread

[Zephyrum]

Keeping track of Start Screen progress and perhaps where I'll dump them as I finish them

Must have: -Atlantis -Antillia -Lemuria -Mu

Optional but good: -Atla -Nautean -R'lyeh -Regional ones for Lemurian states

Special note: For Thule, use vanilla screen used by the Irish (Vanilla European?)

[Zephyrum]

Antillia

The Visigoths have migrated all the way through Europe to finally settle in it's westernmost region, Iberia, wrestling control of it from the falling Roman Empire. For the next few centuries, the region was contested between the - now no longer nomadic - Visigothic Kingdom, and the Eastern Romans. It would remain this way until a decisive invasion from the Umayyads finally put the region under Arab control.

Yet this is largely in the past. Iberia, the Romans and Arabs are not much more than a distant memory from the few and far between history books that survived one final migration - this time by sea - that the Visigoths went through. As the Visigothic borders receded and the Umayyads pushed North, many ships sailed out of Iberia into the unknown ocean, going South and West, until they found themselves in a large island.

There was little to no central authority at the beginning. Villages would often have a leader, sometimes informally, in charge of their affairs, but as settlers moved inland and new villages were founded, a new leader would emerge for every single area. Over time, as it often goes, some degree of authority is estabilished, in many places at the hands of whoever had the mightiest following, in others on whoever was the most charismatic and skilled at intrigue. Regardless, one thing binds the Antillians together: a strong clerical presence in the leadership of all of those states.

As the states were formed, skirmishes ensued, conquests happened, and the island is now contested by an increasingly smaller number of powers, with the Ansalli being perhaps the most noteworthy, feared for their skilled liutenants. Antillian unification sounds less like a daydream and more of a matter of time, to be finished whenever the diplomatic webs of the island fail to secure the balance of power.

And it couldn't come in a more appropriate time, for to the North, in Atlantis, a power vacuum is starting to form, and in their ancestral homelands, new states with an interest in exploring faraway regions are rising. Antillia is likely to be in their way, and who knows what over seven centuries of geographical isolation could have done to them?

[Zephyrum]

Atlantis

"An Imperator must never outlive his Empire", Herakleios is claimed to have said.

Atlantis has no borders, being completely surrounded by water. Many, thus, assume wrongly that it is a safe place, where war does not touch. Yet, this could not be more false. This island has been seemingly cursed for centuries, afflicted from widespread corruption, plagues, secessionist regions, power-hungry warlords and councilors and just about everything that can collapse a society from the inside. And it seems that Atlantis is on the verge of it's breaking point.

From the North, the city-state of Hermusa broke free from the yoke of the Imperator, and has since stood proud as the land of the free in Atlantis. Many other warlords slowly took advantage of the chaos this caused and declared their own secessions, while some others merely drifted outside Imperial influence naturally, such as the Nautean islands.

Herakleios, sick, rules from Atla. In name, he still holds the crownlands and much of central Atlantis. In actuality, however, more than merely the peripheries of the island have already achieved effective independence, and his actual control is as large as Atla itself. Some neighboring lords claim to be loyal subjects, but time has shown that claims alone don't mean much.

To the East, Trichotos, Zephyria and Tadipouro confront each other over regional supremacy, while to the North, Hermusa defends itself from hungry conquerors. In the Trident Isles, city-states have grown further interested in inland acquisitions, while southwards sees the rise of dozens of independent entities of different strength on the more sparse South.

Now, the Atlantean Empire is merely a long gone dream, even if it persists in name. Whether the old rulers of the continent will be able to retain - and reclaim - their power, or if a new set of great Atlantean nations are to rise, remains unknown. For if there is anything to learn from Atlantean history, it's that it is oftentimes unpredictable...