All You never wanted to know about RURITANIA and were not bothered with before

[former user]

Hello dear collegues

so, Red Orc, Argsilverson an myself  (I hope I did not miss anyone) so far are about to start a journey to creating Ruritania (the LAF version)

This thread will be updated to contain all information about this country we will be gathering and inventing.

Everyone is invited to contribute suggestions and inspirations, however "official" background info will be subject to authorisation by @Red Orc (unless I am told otherwise, so please keep eyes open for changes) and active contributors.

Since we are not admins, I might ask You to alter or delete a post when I have extracted the authorized facts - this all to keep the thread supple  .

So far, Ruritania is a middle european country (exemplified by the novel "the prisoner of Zenda" etc), German speaking, it's eastern province being Molwania, multiethnic.

So far, the 19th C and 20th C will be covered, with options for earlier times, provided it fits with the history we create and someone nurses the facts. Background is definetely Steampunk, alternate history and Pulp.
The country at the turn of the century has an army, a railway and will soon employ a riverine Navy and an Airfleet.

so, Go 
I will update when I have time

former user

[flooglestreet]

Between the wars, Ruritanian Generals imported small numbers of tanks from France and Britian. They also manufactured copies of the Pzkw I. The generals had political ambitions.

[Red Orc]

Part of my motivation for this is to do 'A Very Ruritanian Civil War' which will cover the late '30s. It's an excuse to mix some late Victorian minis - as 'Royal Guards' and whatnot - with RCW/WWII Partizans, WWII Germans etc.

Looking at the real Balkan and Central European nations of the time, there were several where different factions of the ruling class were allying themselves with different powers. Germany, Italy, France, Britain and Russia were all meddling in that area (as in Spain and other places) so I think the idea that different groups in the military and administration would be supporting (and supported by) different Powers is sound.

I'm not sure whether it's easier to 'start at the beginning' with say battles between the Turks and the Empire in 1500, and work forwards from there, or just to make up stuff in whatever particular periods we are interested in, and fit it together afterwards. I favour the latter, I think. It will be more confusing, but then history is.

I have an idea that we could all pick a time period and be an 'elder statesman' guiding the destiny of this small nation; but that might not actually work. My idea is that we pick let's say a 40-year block of time and 'rule' the country. The following are for example purposes only, just to illustrate the idea. Let me know what you think.

Let's say, I pick 1861-1900. In that time Ruritania starts to develop its industry, supports Germany against Austria, tries and fails to capitalise on the retreat of the Ottoman Empire, opposes Italian unification, invades Grand Fenwick, and ends by concluding an alliance with Russia.

Then someone else picks 1901-1940, when Ruritania begins to lose out to its neighbours in the arms race, develops a strong socialist movement that opposes WWI, but eventually joins in 1916 against the Central Powers, is occupied by Austria-Hungary, has a revolution when the King is toppled (is this still Rudolf? Perhaps...) then a military dictatorship; the son of the King is invited back in the 1920s; but then after the rise of Nazi Germany there is an increasing fascist movement...

It might be fun to try; what do you think guys?

[Captain Blood]

Between the Wars? Ruritanian generals?

Although the Prisoner of Zenda was written in 1894, surely Ruritania is a fictional construct set in a pre-1871 world, before German unification and the creation of the German Empire in 1871? After 1871 there were no fully autonomous German Kingdoms with their own armies, were there?

I appreciate it's an imaginary country which you intend to use for gaming in an imaginary, VSF-style milieu - but what you're really saying is that you're going to invent a whole new world Ruritania, of your own imagining - not the Ruritania of Hope's novels.

In which case, why call it Ruritania at all? Why not just invent your own imaginary German state.

Sorry to be anal, but it would be like taking Tolkien's brilliant imaginary creation of Middle Earth, and then saying 'ah yes, well - that may be the original fictional Middle Earth, but our fictional Middle Earth is different... We have a WW1 era Middle Earth...'

I appreciate the human imagination is limitless, but this 'riff on a theme of...' feels a bit of a metaphysical conudrum...

[Spong]

Surely as long as the period covered by Hope's novels is faithfully recreated and anything after or before is approached in the same spirit it would still be the same place?
Likewise I'm a fairly hardcore Tolkien fan but I don't object to the idea of a WW1 era Middle-Earth provided it is done with a great deal of forethought and sticks to the background as much as possible - having said which I don't think there would be much scope as the idea with LoTR is that after the fall of Sauron evil is banished from the world and races other than humans dwindle away. Admittedly there would be the evil that nations of men commit upon each other, perhaps after the rule of Aragorn's son.
Its not really any different to Star Wars or Star Trek fan fiction, which is widely popular.

On the subject of what Red was talking about, I would be quite interested in contributing to the 1740's-1770's period.

[argsilverson]

Ok here I am.
I agree, but I believe that, due to lack of time and, maybe, of models let's concentrate on one period, establish the background etc etc.
I suggest as the first part the time span 1861-1900 and try to model or small nation, establish boundaries, neigbours etc.
 First some question:
1 .- Shall we stick on the offical canon text of Anthony Hope's prisoner of Zenda, or not.
If yes I doubt that we can portray the WW2. Acc. to Hope Ruritania is a german speaking country, totally conservative with high degree of absolutism and catholic. This, has limitations. I doubt whether there should be any partizans and I am afraid that Ruritania will have to follow the terms imposed by the german speaking countries, like Germany and Austria.
The whole story is between the royal family and all commoners are non-existent or absolutely non playing characters.
2.- At least initially the characters that will apear are only those A.S.Hope created? i.e. Rudolph V, Rassendyll, Sapt, Fritz, Princess Flavia from one side (plus the Marshall and cardinal) and "Black" Michael, the Six (incl. Rupert of Hentzau), few servants, a couple of ladies (Helga -Fritz's wife to be and Antoinette de Maubent - trapped between her love for Duke Michael and R.v.H.), the odd station master and doctor.
Os should invent others  and in which extend. (I have some ideas on the subject) .

If the answer is yes, then we need to make an introductive chapter , collecting whatever is available now in links and photos, and start collecting contributions.

For easy following matter I suggest:
.- one thread with all contributions
and
.- one thread monitored by Red Orc where the "officially approved" story chapters will appear.
In the meantime I have seen the message by Spong. Quite an interest thought, but I do not like the idea of "fantasy" or better "Tolkien fantasy" to be incorporated.

[Red Orc]

I think you might have picked up the wrong end of the stick about Tolkien - I think, Captain Blood was saying that re-inventing Ruritania would be like re-inventing Middle Earth.  Having said that, I've seen versions of Middle Earth where a 20th Century political geography was projected into Tolkien's geography and history, and they've been very interesting I thought.

If we take ME as an example, the 'trick' I suppose is to decide that it corresponds to phase in the 'real' Earth's history (for instance, Aragorn = Augustus) and then project from there. 2000 years after Aragorn's coronation, what does Middle Earth look like? Well, 2000 years from Augustus's assumption of Imperium, what did Europe look like? Or perhaps 'The War of the Ring' corresponds to the post-Roman or medieval period and Aragorn is Charlemagne, or King Arthur, or Frederick Barborossa... and then 'history' unfolds from that point. In whichever case, the 'invented history' of the setting supplies the starting conditions for future development.

So, the idea is to project the 'history' of Ruritania into the future (the future from the point of view of 1894). If Ruritania had existed, what would the events of the 20th century have done to it? And, as Hope never did this, what are the events that lead up to the state of affairs described in the Prisoner of Zenda? Was Ruritania occupied by the Turks? Conquered by Austria? Invaded by Napoleon? Did it have an '1848'?

I don't agree by the way that the biggest problem is German Unification. My understanding is that the novel is 'current' ie set in 1894. I could be wrong about that, it's years since I read it but I am trying to make up for that.

But even if that's the case, that it's set pre-1871, VSF already provides a situation where 'Prussians' exist in a post-1871 world. If Hope's world (with Ruritania in it) doesn't have an 1871, there's no reason why ours (with Ruritania in it) should either.

So in short, we're not inventing a whole new Ruritania. We're not necessarily going to stick completely to Hope's Ruritania, because there have been other re-imaginings which have played about with different aspects - notably the film version where Ruritania seems to be in the Balkans rather than near Prague. But hopefully we're not going to do too much violence to Hope's Ruritania either.

There are a lot of other things to say about this, but I'll leave it for now to let other people have their say.

[Spong]

Yes for the record I was not suggesting adding fantasy or Tolkienesque elements to VSF or Ruritania .

[Red Orc]

Yes, I think we're just being confusing.

All references to Middle Earth are merely for the purposes of demonstrating a point, not because we want to tie Middle Earth in with Ruritania... though if we did, I say it should be in Khand! 

[argsilverson]

Red Orc and Sponge:
Thanks for the clarification, it was well understood, sorry if my earlier message was not clear.But I just shared with you my thoughts, since I just do not like to enter in the system the element of hardcore fantasy.

So, what I have understood is that year "zero" is 1894 (or so, I, also,  do not remember the exact year, but this is of no importance) and if I am correct we need to invent the whole history before and, mainly, after this year.

But as red Orc states:

There are a lot of other things to say about this, but I'll leave it for now to let other people have their say.

[Red Orc]

Yes: whatever the year is in 'Prisoner of Zenda' is our baseline for moving forward into the 20th, or backward towards the 18th, centuries. I thought it was 1894, but I haven't read 'Rupert of Hentzau'. According to the 'Ruritanian Resitance' website at http://www.silverwhistle.co.uk/ruritania/index.html there are good reasons for assuming that the date of 'Prisoner...' is around 1870.

Either way, we can begin to work out some elements of the history of Ruritania, and sketch out how it could fit alongside the 'real' history of Europe I think.

[argsilverson]

So, let's start with basics:

1.- Geography &
2.- Does anyone know of a good site with european history chronology? in table format?

[Spong]

Well according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruritania

"Geographically, it is usually considered to be located between Saxony and Bohemia; the author indicates that the capital city, Strelsau, lies on the railway line between Dresden and Prague."

Meanwhile, this site: http://uzar.wordpress.com/2007/02/18/adventures-in-ruritania/

Proposes two possible locations illustrated by this map:



On the basis of what the Wiki article says I would suggest perhaps the West outline to be more likely, though perhaps not actually incorporating Prague or Dresden as the picture shows.

[ushistoryprof]

Red Orc, I like the elder states man idea. it should  really help to keep things managble (especially in light of the massive interest level there is in this project).  Might I suggest that you reduce the time from 40 to 20 years for the more modern era's, say 1890's-1910, 1910-1930 etc. as there was so much invention, colonization, political actions going on.  For earlier eras when change was not so rapid keep the 40 year range.  This would also tie in to the current lay out of Lead Forum,  VSF, WWI, BOB & the like.

As to where Ruritania is, I think she needs to have at least one border with Germany/Prussia and hopefully one with Russia for the story line to give lots of possible plt twists.  Personally I have always thought of her to be one of the Bavarian/Wurrtemberg type German states that remained independent after the German Empire was formed (another plot twist that can be exploited as the Empire tries to bring a wayward child to heel and other major powers become involved to prevent this).

Any way thanks for a creating such a fun idea.

[former user]

oh man---
here my thoughts
 - LAF Ruritania is based on the novel Ruritania, not the same
the name is catchy and also stands for other things - read the wiki article
that's all

- The pre 1871 novel Ruritania is our starting point - we should agree on the history and the future (there are a lot of ideas in the mock Molwania, but I think the issue is that it follows the general history line)

- provided someone wants to game in earlier or later Ruritania, no problem as long as they elaborate on the rough storyline and have the miniatures

- active contributors should be the ones who take care of the periods and have the miniatures to game it

- basically it is about being actively involved in the creation, so whoever contributes to a period should be responsible and take care of it

- not too much talk and pros and contras, but contributions and suggestions that are chosen by who manages the period and made " official"

- I must admit that I am a bit disappointed that already arguments are stated why it couldn't work...
this is the way to kill the baby in the cradle  - think positive

- about the map
maybe we should choose a period map of the final 19th C. anyone can provide one?