LORE: The year is 1791, and Europe has undergone profound changes shaped by a series of wars, rebellions, and strategic shifts. **Sweden and the Baltic**: After the Great Northern War (1700-1710), Sweden divided Poland into three puppet states. This lasted until the Polish Rebellion of 1750, which restored Poland-Lithuania and Ukraine as independent nations. To recover, Sweden turned on Denmark-Norway, seizing half of their northern territories and key Baltic islands. Additionally, they had been ramping up their power to cross the Russians and when the Crimean Revolt took place, with Persian funding on both ends, Sweden took the perfect opportunity to invade Russia. Political unrest took place in Russia, and a democratic movement swept the nation, which the monarchs eventually put down. Russia has now long recovered and become the most powerful nation in Europe, yet they hold this against the Swedes. **The Papacy and Crusades**: A French-Papal Crusade against Ethiopia in the 1720s destroyed the empire, but the Papacy’s ambitions grew. A second crusade targeted the Ottomans, but Britain seized the Holy Land and Egypt first, escalating tensions across Europe. **The Arabian and Safavid Alliance**: In the Middle East, the Diriyah and Bani-Khald dynasties, allied with the Safavids, invaded Ottoman lands to establish a puppet state in Iraq, further destabilizing the Ottoman Empire. **HRE and Habsburg Conflicts**: The Holy Roman Empire (HRE) waged a costly war against the Habsburgs, gaining territory in the south but losing strategic control of the Netherlands. Sweden mediated a peace, but tensions lingered. **Crimean Rise**: In 1760, the Crimean Federation rose from the ashes of the Russian Empire's Crimea, joining Ukraine to form a unified state that further weakened Ottoman and Russian Influence. Persian and Swedish support allowed for Kyiv to inflict a lot of damage on Russia nearly starting a civil war, which the Russian government shut down. Eventually the Russian's recovered, but they still see this day haunt them. Crimea is now Russia's foremost enemy, right alongside Sweden. **France's Expansion and Revolution**: France dominated Europe by the 1760s, establishing the profitable French Africa colony. In Spain, France’s puppet regime led to unrest. In 1760, a failed coup by the Spanish led to the creation of the Republic of Aragon, Europe's first modern democracy. Meanwhile, Morocco's invasion of Spain sparked French retaliation and a brief war. French influence in Italy grew through a marriage alliance with the Papacy, securing northern Italy. **The Rise of Prussia**: After the Polish Rebellion, Prussia regained lost territories and expanded as both the HRE and Habsburgs were distracted by their own conflicts. **France’s Revolution**: In 1780, fearing unrest, King Louis XVI transformed France into a constitutional monarchy, granting more power to the people but preserving much of the monarchy’s authority. France thus became a republic in essence, while still an empire in practice. By 1790, Europe was deeply reshaped, with shifting borders, new powers emerging, and old empires faltering, trying to make a stand to become what they once were. The political landscape had forever changed.
