Foreign powers

Introduction

Foreigners are nations or powers that the empire is not formally at war with. There are two types of foreigner in Empire; local foreigners are those that share a continent with the Empire, while distant foreigners lie overseas, the nearest are at least two weeks travel by sea. Foreigners are fully protected by Imperial law, so in theory they can attend a meeting at Anvil as safely as an Imperial citizen.

Communication

Long distance communication with foreign powers should take time - players should not be able to have a back-and-forth communication with a foreign NPC over the course of an event unless that NPC is at Anvil. The civil service do not have any mechanism for delivering letters for players, if they want to send a communication to an NPC then they must make the appropriate

The Autumn ritual Call Winged Messenger has been specifically designed to allow the players to send correspondence to a known NPC. To use this ritual, the PCs need to know the name of the character they are communicating with. The names of some known foreign agents are available on the plot wiki pages for the foreign nations.

Local Foreigners

Local foreigners speak the same native tongue as the Empire. This means that local foreigners may engage in diplomacy either by sending letters or by sending dignitaries to visit Anvil at events.

It is possible that the Empire may declare war on a local foreign nation. The costs involved in producing significant numbers of NPCs for a battle with a foreign nation are significant (more than ten thousand pounds), so any plot that it is likely to provoke this should have a long time-scale and be clearly discussed with Kol Ford and Matt Pennington.

Distant Foreigners

Distant foreigners do not speak the same native tongue as the Empire. Their native tongue is phys-repped using one or more European languages. This conceit allows for the incorporation of European languages within the setting and allows players who do not speak English as their native tongue to play characters who are Imperial citizens or foreigners accordingly. Each distant foreign nation has one or more European languages associated with it - the rule is that no player can portray a native of that land unless they speak one of the languages associated with that nation fluently. This means that distant foreigners may engage in diplomacy by sending letters but may not send dignitaries to visit Anvil at events unless the people playing them are fluent speakers.

It is possible that the Empire may declare war on a distant foreign nation (and vice versa), but the distances involved mean that neither side can currently prosecute such a war using armies. Because of this, it is perfectly possible to run plot that brings distant foreign nations into a state of open conflict with the Empire. This has a small effect on the trade derived by players from that foreign nation - but may allow for interesting plot developments in terms of the foreign nation providing support or assistance to other barbarian forces the Empire is at war with. Any way between the Empire and distant foreigners must -in effect - be fought through proxies.