Slobbovia - Politics and Major and Notable Powers - Other Nations - Other Nations of Note

Other Nations of Note

Following are some of the more enduring, well-established, and/or interesting nations (a list that is, of course, not at all complete or comprehensive):

The legacy of the Rabbitanian Empire is as old as Slobbovia itself, dating back to the canoe and pluglunk era. As detailed below, the Slobbovians were either indigenous or the first settlers, followed soon after by the Rabbitanians. The latter, ruled by the Rabinsky family, were held to be refugees from a fallen "old Rabbitanian empire" and sought to reconstitute the Rabbitanian polity in the new lands. In this they found a rival in the nascent Slobbovian Empire. A flurry of exploration, discovery, claim, battle and conquest ensued between the two rival powers; in the end, Slobbovia came out on top. The Rabinskys mostly accepted this result and from then on pursued their political fortunes within the Slobbovian imperial framework, the head of the family, Genghis Rabinsky, at one point becoming Czar. From time to time, however, they made attempts to revive and maintain a separate Rabbitanian state. A notably successful attempt was the latter day Rabbitanian Empire established in the later years of the game by Aleksandr Illanov-Rabinsky.

The history of the Prinzipality of Venturia and the Vurklemeyer Triarchy was intertwined to a large extent with that of the later Slobbovian Empire itself, although Venturia's outlook on the world was in many respects extremely parochial. As Rabbitanians who had "turned Slobbovian," the Venturians and their ruling family seemed to consider themselves in some ways the most Slobbovian of Slobbovians, guardians of Slobbovian tradition . The domains of the Vurklemeyer family and their allies over the years alternately served as a bulwark of the Empire and acted in opposition to it. That opposition, however, was usually expressed as being to the then current Imperial regime while loyalty to the Empire as an ideal was stressed and professed. The core of the Vurklemeyers' state was the Prinzipality, founded by the Red Prinz, Ivor I, and based around Venturia proper, its surrounding provinces, and the Kaposvarian peninsula. The Triarchy was a more intermittent nation, being at its most active and vigorous during periods of opposition to the Empire. The head of government was the Triarch Major (usually, but not always, the Prinz of Venturia), sharing power with two or more Triarchs Minor over a realm consisting of the Prinzipality as well as the lands of assorted allies. The most prominent and powerful leader of the Triarchy was perhaps Julian Ivorovitch Boleski-Vurklemeyer, a son of the Red Prinz, whose bastardy prevented him from taking the throne but who ruled as Triarch Major, succeeding his cousin Dimitri Valgoricanus Vurklemeyer. Dimitri passed on the title of Triarch Major to Julian and that of Prinz of Venturia to his nephew Nikolai Wilhelmus Vurklemeyer.

The Valgorian Empire dominated the southern continent intermittently from soon after that part of the map was opened up by an Imperial Survey. It was founded by Gregof Vurklemeyer, a scion of a junior branch of the leading Venturian family. Gregof was at one point a follower of Alfred Mephistovich (thought by many to actually be Alfred Aardvark), which may have had significance for later events. At some point during this period the Valgorian Vurklemeyers altered their family name to Vurklehymer. Gregof was succeeded by his son Chekov. His most powerful subruler, Aleksandr Zhebatinsky, revolted soon after Chekov's accession and declared himself Emperor in Chekov's place. The resulting War of the Valgorian Succession (so named by Czar Raoul the Rude, who sought to take advantage of the chaos in the South) did not last long; rather than pursue a potentially ruinous civil war Aleksandr abandoned his claim. In doing this he also abandoned his chief lieutenant, Vasili Zhukovski. Ignominiously crushed, then rising again in revolt as head of the Theocracy of Saint Blooper, Vasili's forces became the vanguard battling Chekov and his new allies, the Goreans. Led by Sardonicus Satanicus, the Gorean horde were Satinists, and in declaring his alliance with them Chekov revealed that he was a Satinist as well. This new civil war/rebellion/nomadic incursion resulted in Chekov's death and a chaotic Valgorian state, which Gandalf Zhebatinsky, Aleksandr's son, tried and failed to reorganize. The pieces were picked up by yet another nomadic horde, this time the Zincing Horde of Huns led by Atlatl, who became and ruled as Valgorian Emperor for a brief time ... up until the morning when everybody woke to find the Huns vanished ... with the imperial treasury. A rebirth of the Valgorian Empire came some years later, when the more powerful rulers of the southern continent, led by Jurgen Zhukovski and Ivan Dragomilov, put aside their differences to organize a new cooperative state, where each of these rulers would put at least half of their lands under the rule of the reconstituted Empire. The Emperor, or "Nebuchadnezzar," of the revived Empire was Valjenkin, while Zhukovski, Dragomilov and those who followed their lead in putting half of their lands into the new Empire became Electors or "Balthazars." It could be argued that the Emperor under this new scheme was at best first among equals, at worst a puppet; each Balthazar, of course, retained the strategically more important portions of his lands under his own rule and thus most of the power he or she had before.

The Hegemony of Jamul: Assigned as a sub-ruler to the Valgorian Empire in and around the environs of Jamul, Vasili Zhukovski was just another adventurer set on social climbing. Experiencing a vision of Saint Blooper, he eventually ascended to the title of Grund Patriarch of the Wholly Slobbovian Church, declared the Emperor of Valgoria a Satinist, and led a revolt, forming the Theocracy of Saint Blooper. Support swelled for the Theocracy while the Valgorian Empire went through convulsions that ended when Atlatl the Hun absconded with the treasury and left for Parts Unknown (an off-map province to the south). The Valgorian Empire collapsed "like a whoopee cushion." The side effect was that without an external threat, the rest of Slobbovia withdrew their support to the Theocracy. Seeing the writing on the wall for future support of the Church Militant and wanting to salvage what he still held, Vasili stepped down as Grund Patriarch and turned over the reins of government to his nephew, Jurgen Sekundar Zhukovski. Jurgen reordered Jamul under the personal suzerainty of the Zhukovski family, which Jurgen was the leader of as the Grand Dilettante (the Zhukovskis were notorious dabblers in everything, and masters of none). A long struggle commenced, for despite the power vacuum left by the collapse of the Valgorian Empire, the Slobbovian Empire moved in strongly, strangling native southern culture. The Dilettancy founded its power on the Strakh of the Zhukovskis and the money that flowed in from the Jamulian Southern Railroad, of which the Zhukovskis held the majority shares. Amazingly for Traditionalist technophobes, the Zhukovskis built the largest railroad on the face of Slobbovia. As more provinces "joined" (Slobbovian spin-mastering for "forced at spear point"), Jurgen sought a more grandiose and self-aggrandizing title, and reformed the Dilettancy as the Hegemony of Jamul, of which he added the title of Hegemon (retaining the title of Grand Dilettante within the Zhukovski family). Eventually, the Strakh he accrued was honored by making the Hegemony a Prinzdom of the Slobbovian Empire, independent but pledged to defend the Empire. The capital of the Hegemony was Zhukovskigard, located in Jamul. The actual seat of government was the walled citadel, appropriately enough known as The Zitadel (a conscious rival to the Slobbovian Empire's Gremlin). Eventually the strongest power on the southern continent, the Hegemony became a power broker and indulged in reviving a puppet Valgorian Empire. The actual province name of "Jamul" was taken from a small town near San Diego, California, favored by postal Diplomacy pioneer, Conrad von Metzke, who briefly was a Slobbovia participant.

The Goondom of Phumpha was the land of one of the first new ethnicities to be added after the game was expanded through the science fiction fan network. It was created by Robert Lipton and occupied territory to the east of the original game map. Phumphans were noted in particular for a culture suffused with a goodly amount of yiddishkeit and Jewish tradition and for their extreme xenophobia. Phumpha and Phumphans were first encountered in the game in the person of Gregor Herman Werschtenschnitzelbaum, Graf von und zu Schtumpen-Schtumpen, an old friend of the then Czar Raoul Raskolnikov. Werschtenschnitzelbaum claimed to be "Hereditary Goon of Phumpha," having fled that country during some unspecified war or revolution that decimated the ruling Goon family. His claim to the title was later shown to be tenuous, at best; if he was even related to the Goons, it turned out that there were others more closely related. When the Empire made actual contact with Phumpha through an Imperial Survey (game map expansion), it was being ruled by the Klutz-Morrow family, who were quickly displaced by a restoration of the Goons under a cadet branch, the Seagoonsky dynasty. It did not hurt their cause that by this time Alexis Seagoonsky was now also Czar.

The States of Confusion were a country, not a mental condition, although that point was often argued.

Novaria was named after the fictional land in L. Sprague de Camp's universe. Its capital was Port Novar. The nation had only two provinces, but usually was in a perpetual fight with the Jamulians (to be fair to the Jamulians, it was usually the Novarians who declared war first). This was a problem since the Novarian army had the fashion sense of the pre-World War II Red Army and its military prowess was on the same level as its fashion sense. Novaria had been a kingdom until the monarch went away on a long trip (in real life, the player had to take a leave of absence). A military coup led by Quisling Remise-Markov the 99th created the Qualified Republic of the Mouse, with the nominal head of state the Missing Monarch. Quisling the 99th's dictatorship led to social experiments, such as a new currency (there were 11 quislings to the marque and 7 pounce to the quisling, so there were 78 pounce to the marque) based on lead (until an alchemist found a way to transmute gold into lead). Novaria was also home to Furfenhager, S.A., maker of Furfenhager Boots.