This state from the AGS got mentioned in one of the other threads and I have vague memories of reading about it but being at university means that I'm away from my books at the moment. So could someone give me a rough outline of what it's about and its history? Aside from the two Tirs, the Tir knock-off Pomerania and to a lesser extent Hawai'i with the levels of trolls and orks in the general population being much higher than the global average there have never really been any other countries where one metatype has taken control or gained serious influence so the fact that the Trolls that seem to have managed it amuses me.

The "Trollkönigreich Schwarzwald" or "Troll Kingdom of the Black Forest". Some 210k heads, 48% Troll, 34% Ork, 11% Human, rest others. 38% poverty. Capital Freiburg.

It´s basically about the black forest and it´s awakened nature. A version of the Black Forest without much tourism. The troll kingdom got made after the separation of the South German League (2038) lead to racist conflicts, and the trolls took to organised resistance. Which lead to a 2043 declaration of kingdom.

Most of the Black Forest is unpopulated - in a metahuman sense. They´ve got a load of undetermined species. A strong anti-corp attitude is certainly not improving things.

Do you need something specific?

Not really I just wanted to get a little information on the place since like I said I found it a bit odd. Was much ever written about the place or was it one of the locations that gets mentioned briefly once or twice and isn't really used much after that?

Well, the Germans hate it so much, we try not to mention it...

As much as the Californian's and what happened to their state?

No, not that bad. We reserve that ball of hate to Berlin. And Saxonia.

It got a few pages in Germany in the Shadows 2, that´s why I asked if you needed specifics.

As for the hate, not really. I would see Grinders Berlin/Saxonia and raise him Westphalen.

Westphalen is shit comapred to Pomoyra.

Westphalia is Bavaria, so that is explained . .
Berlin/Saxonia are still Berlin/Saxonia, so that is explained too . .
And Pomorya is our local outpost of the Tirs, elvish sissy Land, so that is explained too . .
Why would anybody hate the Trollkingdom? O.o

Troll Kingdom always sounded awesome to me, but I'm an American player, so..

"-kingdom" in Germany is enough for me to put it into the "hate it" category.

Oh, you can give it a very bavarian/medieval feel if you want, it should lend itself to that. Medieval with lax weapon laws, that is.

That would be another reason to hate it. If I want medieval, I play D&D.

Everyone seems to hate their own regions write-up, personally I think the orignal London Sourcebooks is rubbish.

Might be worth a poll. Is there anyone who likes the write-up that covers their home-patch? And where is it?

Once I got to read it, the Boston in Target: North America write-up is okay. I'd change a few things around to suit ideas I had while I was working on my homebrew version, but mostly it's benign.

Said ideas coming from BRodda, having a elven version of Whitey Bulger walking around with fomori controlling the local crime

The Hamburg Writeups are pretty neat^^

Here. I like the stuff about Austria in Europe in the Shadows (didn't read "Walzer, Punks und Schwarzes ICE" [Waltz, Punks and Black ICE] though)
I just thought that there could be a little bit more and a little bit different.

"Would you like to donate to the Kingdom?" the old troll intoned as they began shuffling out of the doors. The congregation was packed, as usually on Sunday shiftend, and plenty of tusks were dropping tokens into the bucket. To each click of plastic, the old troll would murmur, "Thank you, brother," with a nod and a one tusk smile. The bucket was almost full with people still laughing and talking inside the plascrete dome; its large banners of crosses and crescent moons, mostly hidden in the brown haze, flapped gently. Like gull wings, he thought at the time and looked over at his two ork companions.

The three of them, dressed in their long, deep green coats, each with a red and black emblem on the shoulder, stood just at the foot of the stairs leading into the worship. They were allowed to stand there, but not any closer; the vicar supported the cause, she said, but didn't want people to feel they had to donate. They understood, of course, and waited every Sunday shiftend at the bottom of the stairs.

A group of stragglers, speaking with that day's preacher over some nuanced aspect of her speech, came out of the doors, and the old troll hefted the bucket, invoking once more, "Would you like to donate to the Kingdom?"

"The Trollkönigreich Schwarzwald?" said a short member of the crowd coming over towards them. "Indeed," said the old troll in his deepest rolling voice, peering over the bucket at the... human. "Awesome," the kid said enthusiactically, but then glanced dubiously at the bucket, "Um, do you take cred?" The troll suspected his eyebrow would fall off if it went any higher, but he nodded to his left.

The kid had tusks installed, gold tusks! And muscles by the looks of it, bulky and oddly bulging. Even his skin color and texture was somewhere between ork and human, like some genetic hybrid. Heaven help us, he thought. The ork to his left made some hand gestures and the kid wiggled his fingers in the air, before saying, "Alright, yeah! Power to the metas!" Then he heart saluted, to which the ork reluctantly followed suit.

"Thank you... brother," the old troll said, his one tusk smile breaking into a grin as the kid sauntered off. The three of them watched him go, almost in tears. Someone walked by and tossed a token into the bucket, but when the troll looked over to thank him, he saw a lean elf stalking off after the kid, a grimace on his face like he'd just taken a bite of Indian Hemp. The three waited politely before laughing aloud.

The old troll, wiping tears from his eyes, picked up the heavy bucket after having put it down for fear of spilling it, asked, "How much did he donate, anyway?" The ork, looked around, frowning. "Ten G," he said at last. The old troll had to be carried into the church after he fainted, and all the tokens picked up.

Everyone hates how their home cities and countries are written up in SR. Except for Seattle, I think. But then again I live in Indianapolis so WTF do I know? Maybe I'll write up a Billy-Bob's Redneck Kingdom guide.

What is it about it being a kingdom that puts it in the "hate it" category? Simple republican fury or something else? IIRC you guys had various kingdoms and duchies up until ninety years ago so it's not unreasonable to assume some quasi-dictator might pick up the historical trappings of them.

But then I hate large sections of the original London sourcebook and dislike some parts of the Shadows of Europe chapter as well so I can understand where people are coming from.

I live only a touch north of chicago and I think the stories written up their are awsome. But Illinois should be more corrupt in the 6th world not less.

Republican fury.

My wife's clan's ancestral castle in Scottland is up for sale for a measly 4.5 million, and the buyer gains the title of Baron/Baroness and a seat in the House of Lords. It comes with 210 or 240 acres of land (I forget actual number), which includes a chapel, an ancestral tomb, a garden, and hunting grounds.

There're still titles of nobility, royalty, and livable castles now. I'd imagine there'd be enough enthusiasts to rebuild/repair some things in 50-ish years with magic/super-tech.

Scottish barons are not the equivalent of barons in the rest of the UK. They hold fuedal dignities tied to the land (hence the title can be sold with the land) but do not have a right to sit in the House of Lords. Only peers can sit in the Lords and Scottish barons are not peers. The Scottish equivalent of an English baron is called a Lord of Parliament.

Peerages cannot be sold by the holder* and since 1999 hereditary peers have no automatic right to sit in the House of Lords, instead there are a fixed number allowed to sit and when one dies or withdraws an election is held within the House to elect a replacement.

Most of the peers in the House of Lords are life peers who have been enobled because of their service to politics, business or science.

*There are occasional scandals involving politicians arranging for someone to be enobled for a fee but that is of course illegal.

Speaking of home cities write ups, while I doubt it, has there ever been anything written about Wisconsin, Milwaukee or Madison?

I actually kind of liked how they did california. Sure I thought it sucked that we got sucker punched by some tree huggers and blood freaks but in the end we came out ok...well not completely but at least we werent forced to create cheap animation for japanese kids.

Seattle wasn't to bad. I have a hard idea envisioning it though, without a rough overlay map to put over a real one, to give a general idea of location.

I do get annoyed they let the sprawl get so far east, but that's personal pet pieve of mine. I've always wondered about the border though: do they have a big wall between the NAN and the barrens? Just roving patrols? Is there 100ft of barren land, and suddenly trees start? Do the barrens thin out and forest begins? Are there more barrens, and arbitarily some of those barrens belong to the NAN? Etc etc. (I live a couple of miles from weyerhaeuser land, and only about a half mile as the crow flies from the NAN/Seattle border (NAN side). So I've always wondered. (I often play character's with NAN contacts who live in the NAN, but run Seattle, for the extra layer of security.)

I like Chicago's write up (like another person in here). My favorite part was Shattergrave, which is the remains of the Sears tower after it got hit by terrorists. What a great way to use a monument!

Yes, there are patrolled walls and fences between the NAN and the two Seattle Barrens though I'd imagine they're pretty porous. Ghost Cartels also makes mention of The Verge, a strip of No-Man's Land between Seattle and the NAN that's a haven for smuggling, drug dealing and other nefarious activities. In the adventure included in Native American Nations, vol. 1 there is a border-crossing encounter. Those checkpoint are heavily fortified, reinforced and manned by border patrol guards and occasionally military personnel. I'd imagine that there are automated drones and sensors all along the borders as well.

My wife is the one that told me about this, and she just informed me she looked at the Wikipedia link to UK Barons. She does that some times.