Mystical Mish Mash

Mystical Mish Mash:
Started out as a scenario based on the Pirates of the Caribbean series but ended up including Indiana Jones, the Mummy Trilogy, Evil Dead as well as a few other movies and some more obscure televised franchises (mostly anime) involving elements of the fantastical and the strange that I could think of that had stories focusing on the 18th Century or later.

It all started with the battle of Shipwreck Cove and the pirate settlement of Shipwreck (you can detect a theme in the naming convention here) between an oddly ritualised alliance of pirate warlords and the vast fleet of the East India Trading Company. The battle began as a duel between the key ships of the two opposing fleets. The Blackpearl, flagship of the newly elected Pirate King Elizabeth Swan (completely ignoring the contradiction of her new title) squared off against the supernatural terror of the high seas, the Flying Dutchman, personal ship of the dread Davy Jones who had recently found himself in thrall to the East India Trading Company. The duel was complicated by the sudden appearance of a titanic maelstrom in the middle of the battlefield, the result of a botched attempt at gaining the allegiance and powers of the flighty and now vengeful pagan goddess Calypso.

During the battle one captain Jack Sparrow escapes his captivity aboard the ship and attempts to steal the heart of Davy Jones, seeking to replace him and thus gain immortality. However he does not account for the guards who whilst at first distracted by one of the captain's ploys, panic when a stray cannonball from the Blackpearl, setting off one of the guns they had trained on the chest containing the heart. Jones dies with the destruction of his heart and the battle comes to a short stop for a second as the crew are compelled to force the destroyer of the heart to replace it. The Dutchman sinks beneath the waves as the maelstrom claims the body of Davy Jones and collapses. The Blackpearl escapes with very heavy damage and prepares to face the armada of the East India Trading Company.

Immediately afterwards the Flying Dutchman returns from the depths and closes in on the Blackpearl at the same time as the EITC flagship the Endeavour. At the helm, reluctantly, is the former British private Murtogg who was responsible for the destruction of Davy Jones' heart. He somewhat shakily orders the ship to fire on the Blackpearl, remembering the last orders his unit had been given and attempting to find some kind of cohesion in the baffling events that had taken place. The Blackpearl is destroyed with nearly all hands on board and the EITC goes on to obliterate the pirate fleet, batter their way into Shipwreck Cove and level Shipwreck.

Lord Cutler Beckett commends Murtogg and officially declares him the captain of the Flying Dutchman (not that his approval was needed). Murtogg finds himself the reluctant captain of the Dutchman and is effectively browbeaten into continuing the work of the EITC. Lord Beckett then begins assigning new missions to the beleaguered captain in order to construct a new hegemony free of piracy and all resistance against the British Empire and the East India Trading Company.

Things developed from there.

With the power of the Flying Dutchman at their command the EITC was able to establish the hegemonic dominance that Cutler Beckett dreamed of. Fear of the indestructible cursed ship kept most rivals from attempting to dislodge the Company and those that did put up resistance were obliterated mercilessly. Britannia ruled the waves and the Company pioneered the newest expansion of the British Empire. Britain's power was still confined to the coast though and their more land based opponents were able to mount defences of their own. With the power of the Flying Dutchman in the hands of the British other nations fearing the domination of the British Empire and the EITC sought supernatural weaponry of their own.

Today the British Empire is no longer the unchallenged leviathan that it once was. The emergence of other rivals wielding their own supernatural powers has broken the grip they once had on the planet. By this point however they are still the bloated behemoth with control over ludicrous amounts of territory. The Hanoverian dynasty still sit on the throne of Britain and rule over the United Kingdom and its empire but the real power of the empire is now in the hands of the Imperial Trading Company, an amalgamation of the numerous royal companies. Britain shares more similarities with a corporatist government now with the crown and the parliament firmly in the Company's hands. The king is officially the CEO of the Company but the various other chair-members wield the Company's power and direct the course of the British Empire. The current King George VII is a far more ambitious and aware man than the chair-members realise and he has plans to wrest back control of his empire from the Company's hands.

The Company has continued the tradition of acquiring supernatural artefacts that was started by the esteemed Lord Cutler Beckett. The Lance of Longinus was wrested from the hands of the Ottoman Empire and great pains have been taken to gather as many copies of the Necronomicon as possible. Excalibur also lies within the Company's vaults but as yet no-one has been bidden to draw it. A king that wields the sword of Albion would be too dangerous and unpredictable for the Company to safely entrust. Many of these artefacts have proven useful to the Empire's interests especially as they became weapons of war. Various supernatural organisations are presumed to also operate within the United Kingdom and the British Empire but the Company has little control over them, a fact that infuriates them.

The Royal Navy is heavily intertwined with the Company after several centuries of enforced cooperation. The Flying Dutchman is the Navy' ace in the hole despite appearing primitive when compared to the steel warships of the present. Captain Murtogg still commands the Dutchman and obeys the orders of the Company. After centuries of manipulation and intimidation he accepts every mission with apathy, regardless of the moral implications of his commands. His position provides him with a form of stability for his disturbing existence. The Royal Navy is the single largest navy on the planet and has been completely converted to metallic warships. However the quality of their ships has fallen behind several of their rivals such as the Prussians. The rise of submersible warfare is a stratagem that they are failing to adapt to, several in the Company now lament Cutler Beckett's age old decision to exterminate the Kraken. The army is a system of Byzantine complexity, formed of several different army groups, numerous colonial forces, protectorates armies and even several private cult armies that are beholden to the king. The Company has no issues over who they conscript for the war and the number of multi-ethnic battalions has been increasing since the 19th Century in many colonies. During actual campaigns the empire sees as worthwhile the Company will authorise the deployment of the Lance of Longinus to provide their armies with nigh invincibility (but not indestructibility casualty rates can still get nasty). They are also not above summoning the dark forces from the Necronomicon to destroy their enemies but they are nowhere near as gung-ho as the Russians or the larger revolutionary groups and they take great care to bind and later banish whatever they summon.

Despite their focus on trade several branches of the Company did switch to manufacturing and industry. The entire empire has been subjected to an intense program of industrialisation for centuries now which has boosted the economic productivity of the empire, a useful asset due to the costs of maintaining the empire and also spawned socialistic movements across the empire as well.

For a short while Britain had unofficial control of nearly all of Europe. None could effectively challenge them thanks to the power of the unnatural forces they commanded. However the British were not the only ones who began to search for mystical artefacts. The Prussians, as nominal and often unwilling British allies, sent out their own expeditions. The most successful was a group that recovered an ancient medallion mentioned in several biblical scholarly texts. Through much hardship and several mishaps the Prussians were eventually covertly recover the Ark of the Covenant. The test they performed when opening obliterated everyone except a single pious soldier who had knelt in prayer, his eyes closed through the entire thing. The Prussians eventually learnt their lesson and then hid the Ark when the British began to investigate.

In 1872 as the Scramble for Africa and its mystical treasures escalated an unprecedented disaster took place. The Egyptian Book of the Dead (unrelated to the Necronomicon) was uncovered at the once lost city of Hamunaptra by a French expedition. One unintentional invocation later and a 3000 year old cursed mummy was resurrected. It was eventually defeated after its curse had spread throughout much of North Africa by an enormous British force that was almost completely destroyed whilst doing so. Egypt was almost depopulated and the Prussians claimed the territory, revealing the Ark to the British while doing so. With their independence from British controlled assured they began a campaign of opposition and covert sedition against the British Empire. They still had to tread carefully, especially when the Lance of Longinus was taken. Prussia's demonstration of power took place in 1893 when another expedition into Egypt also uncovered the Bracelet of the Scorpion King. After seven days a massive army of abominations emerged from the sand and assaulted Egypt. The Prussian army marched to meet the endless tide of jackal headed monsters with the Ark at their head. The entire Prussian force then knelt down in prayer and opened the Ark. The Wrath of God overwhelmed and obliterated the hordes of Anubis and the Scorpion King. Though the Anubian soldiers would return several times they were countered by increasingly swift and efficient Prussian forces.

Prussia is still a militant state but they have not actually united the German states. Instead they lead the states of Germany in an anti-British alliance. Their most vitriolic alliance is with the Hapsburg Empire who have been compiling a massive collection of false holy relics. Eventually they will get their hands on something genuine. Prussian Egypt is being resettled with Europeans but control of anything away from the River Nile is weak.

The Spanish Empire suffered terribly at the hands of the British. They were able to send out a small expedition when evidence of the Fountain of Youth was recovered. They then dismantled and destroyed it, mostly for religious reasons but also there was little practical application for it. Like the Prussians and their allies they swept the globe for whatever mystical, preferably Christian, artefacts of power they could attain. It was through their control of the powers of the Necronomicon, which they have construed as an example of faith overcoming the dark forces, that they were able to summon the powers of several different worlds. By their command the disgusting creatures of the Underworld, where neither light nor pain exist, march alongside the armies of Spain. The Viceroyalties are mostly independent now but remain tied to Spain as it is their power that keeps the British from taking over. With Spanish supervision portals to the Underworld have been opened up in Spanish America in order to make providing reinforcements easier. However it is dangerous to march the armies of mortal man through these portals. Several have tried and their fates have often been horrendous.

Russia was too big, too landlocked and too backward for Britain to dominate effectively at first but as the empire industrialised their reach grew further. Russia's scramble for weapons to counter the British became desperate and their attempts to industrialise under increasingly corrupt and inept leadership made things even more difficult. Their involvement in the Indian Mutiny/Revolution finally tipped the balance. After high casualties the army turned on their leaders. The empire erupted into revolution as the armies revolt spurred revolutionaries and dissidents across the empire and the Romanov family was overthrown. However a more sinister motive behind the revolution was revealed. The leader of the most powerful revolutionary faction was a former priest and occult enthusiast that eventually sold his soul to the dark forces (pick whichever one you want) for power. He declared himself Tsar and then used his powers to crush any and all resistance.

Russia successfully industrialised at great cost. The Tsar, Great and Terrible, is still in power at 104 years old and is quite decrepit and skeletal. His body is decayed but remains whole through dark magic and sheer willpower. He is tsar and autocrat over a sorcerous tyranny that he rules with an iron fist. The people of Russia suffer in poverty, toiling away in factories and farms to sustain themselves and the Tsar's enormous war machine. Machines of war are hastily thrown together and then possessed by the monsters that serve the Tsar before being shipped off to battlefields and rebellious provinces. Temples to an assortment of demons and foul entities dominate cityscapes where sacrifices are made daily to feed the monsters that give the Tsar his power. Order is maintained through fear, fear of the demonic imps the Tsar can send into your mind to poison your thoughts, fear of the possessed soldiers that patrol the streets and hunt down dissidents with inhuman senses and fear of the foul undead creatures that prowl outside the cities and devour anything that the Tsar deems treacherous.

British India eventually developed into a Raj as the systems of control the Company used changed to more directly imperialist methods. Also the fact that they practically run the UK's government helped create enough cognitive dissonance within the Company itself. Resistance movements had existed from the start but it what would be described as an extreme and maybe even insane sect of the Thuggee Cult that win India its independence. They uncovered five sacred stones that held extraordinary power. Pillars of fire immolated the British and their loyalists and whilst the coast remained in the hands of the Company's forces the interior fell with many enterprising Princes and warlords as well as pious Hindus convinced of the cults powers, flocking to the Thugee's side. What became of the Great Indian Mutiny/Revolution (the name depends on who you ask) was the creation of the Empire of Bharat. They are a Hindu theocracy that is focused on worship and reverence of Kali. Their interpretation of actual Hindu doctrine is very fatalistic and aggressive and has caused the death of hundreds of thousands in brutal sacrifices. They still believe that their slaughter saves the people from Kali who's power they channel at the heathens that seek to dominate the Indian subcontinent. Vast armies of poorly trained and equipped soldiers charge at Bharat's enemies, uncaring of whatever their enemies throw at them, fighting as if they were possessed because they often are. The coast-lands remain beyond their control and the fortified Muslim regions have aligned with Britain which has left the nation isolated. This has made maintaining control easier but also impoverished the empire immensely. They are by far the most backward of the great powers (their position as one being very precarious at best) but the power of the Hindu gods gives their armies strength.

The Qing Dynasty were strong armed by the British into becoming a client state. They still have control of the coasts and several other areas where the leadership consider British rule a benefit but the interior is overrun by warlords. The worst was the Dragon Emperor, an immortal lich (sort of) that was once a tyrannical emperor. The dragon Emperor himself has proven difficult to kill but the terracotta army he brought to life was easy to overcome, in fact they were rather pathetic against the forces stationed near the the Great Wall. The Qing puppet emperor has tried to industrialise his empire but every factory he builds has been taken control of by the Company.

Various unnatural powers and forces have been unleashed since the nations of humanity began exploiting the supernatural. The most common and worrying is the Necronomicon. The original copy of the Necronomicon Ex Mortis was recovered and exploited, at first by the British who studied it intensely, then later by other nations. Hundreds of copies have been produced by the ignorant, the unscrupulous and the deranged and wherever a copy is found chaos and death follow it. Across North America, Africa and China the dread monstrosities known as Deadites swarm wherever the living survive. Seeking fresh flesh and souls from living humans they scour the lands clean, infesting the dead and wearing their corpses as foul suits. They target the fearful, the weak willed and the desperate. Those with strength of will may be able to hold them off but the insidious creatures are just as capable of possessing portions of a victims body. Many brave men have fallen prey to the Deadites when their own bodies turned on them, even as their minds were clear and resolute. Where the sun still shines they shrink away in pain and fear but the more powerful entities of the Worlds Beyond are able to blot out the sun with almost impossibly thick clouds that shroud the armies of the dead and the demonic. Where the Army of Darkness roams the pitch black of eternal night follows it.

Egypt is still infested with supernatural forces, a legacy of the power of their old gods. The disasters the nation has suffered served only to make the situation worse and large parts of Egypt are under the control of various abominations. Despite the shattering of Anubis' army by the Prussians and the Ark of the Covenant the threat they posed is still very real. The desert sands will occasionally spawn a host of jackal headed warriors. Though none of these armies is as large as the first to appear they still require very specific means to kill them. Reports have even emerged that talk about a savage monster with the head and torso of a man and the body of an enormous scorpion leading several bands of Anubian creatures. However after every battle he disappears into the desert. Whenever it is safe private and state authorised expeditions head into the deserts and along the Nile searching for the weapons that can destroy these monsters and rid the land of their curse.

A few decades ago an illegal and occult group travelled to Egypt and after years of secretive searching finally uncovered the Book of the Living and the Book of the Dead (completely different from the Necronomicon). They are still looking for the body of their true leader wherever it was lost, a creature they both fear and worship. The creature once known as Imhotep.

The Vatican has control of various holy relics as well as knowledge of certain materials that are anathema to the evil and unnatural. Their great archive of information is invaluable and has given them a lot of power and influence especially in Catholic nations. There are a few large secret orders devoted to the extermination of demons that are not so secret anymore. The most powerful is in fact inter-religious (don't ask) and has even been technologically progressive. Romania is a particular embarrassment for the Vatican but on the whole they have at least kept most of Europe free of monsters. They have also been pestering Prussia to hand over the Ark of the Covenant for well over a century now to little effect.

In 1979 a man emerged from a cave in Southern England. His hair was overgrown, his clothes tattered and his right hand missing, replaced instead by a metallic clockwork replica. He was eventually discovered wandering the countryside, rambling about the home he needed to return to and was taken in by law enforcement. The company then took custody of him having learnt he was a famous figure of medieval prophecy. Ashley Williams is now reaching his late 50s, is still going strong and agreed to help defeat the Deadite scourge in North America as a free agent. His experience with the creatures of the Outer Worlds, whilst far from professional expertise, is invaluable and he has won many battles for the British Empire, appearing at opportune moments, defeating the enemy and then leaving. Of course eh has protested the times when the Company insists on exploiting the Necronomicon for their own gains and refuses to assist in any mission involving the powers of the book. He still dreams of America and home and he knows that something is very very wrong with the world he awoke in. His right hand now has  a base for an assortment of interchangeable weapons and he has acquired an extensive arsenal with a Company license to requisition whatever he deems necessary for his missions. He still prefers his original chainsaw, shotgun and, now extensively repaired, reworked and repainted, oldsmobile.

There are numerous cults across the world that involve themselves with the supernatural and the occult. Most of them are illegal or involved with rebellions and resistance movements which means that either way they are going to be hunted down by whatever armed forces and law enforcement opposes them. However the largest and most powerful is a group that emerged from the British Isles. Since ancient times they have been connected to the fate of the Isles and have aligned themselves with whatever reigning monarch rules over their individual cells. They have not been involved with the affairs of any nations, that is, until the entire Isles were united. Since then they have spread throughout the British Empire, operating independently of the Company. What they do is esoteric and unknown to everyone outside of their organisations but lately their agents have been appearing publicly, requisitioning resources and sending out reports inquiring into the whereabouts of certain individuals that, according to leaked rumours and overheard conversations, are immortal and have the ability to grant powers to whomever they wish.

Across the world are various places where the world is thin. Hidden doorways to other worlds have existed since time began and though most have closed several persist even to this day. People will go missing in the rural areas of spiritual significance. Though most still elude authorities some have been found. It was one of these doors that gave Spain access to the underworld and several others have also been found and placed under the supervision and observation of the great powers. Children are most commonly attracted to these places and the areas these doorways exist in often have an epidemic of disappearances.

Technology is at about the same level as the 1970s/80s with some forms such as computer technology being even more backward. Nuclear weapons exist and have even been used, most in desperate attempts to wipe out Deadites or some other monstrosity and every great power has at least a small arsenal of them. Social ideas and freedoms are even further behind OTL. Most governments still encourage traditional gender roles though a number of new occupations have opened up to women. Large families are still very popular, especially in areas where attrition rates due to war, mystical disappearances, Deadite possession and terrorism are rather high. There was no Victorian neo-puritanism which means that fashions are still rather flamboyant, especially fro men. Wigs are still worn by most dignitaries though they are a bit more subdued and large hats are still very popular and worn in public at all times. Women must still wear dresses but skirts are allowed to reach above the knees these days and some scandalous members of the fashion industry have recently made skirts and other clothing that reach even higher than that. Slavery was abolished completely by the 1910s after its profitability had become far more than questionable. However racial laws and indentured servitude do still exist and are quite extensive in parts of the world, especially those that used to keep slaves. Scientific racism also never got off the ground which has made dealing with indigenous dignitaries and elites a lot easier but ideas around cultural racism of the “they're simply unfortunate to not be born-insert nationality here” variety. Politically most nations are still monarchies. The American revolution was crushed by a particularly irate EITC that was rather upset over losing so much tea and other goods to revolutionary terrorism. Most forms of democracy are rather nominal and meaningless but people can still vote which puppet ends up in power in several nations like Britain, Prussia and Japan. Political anarchism has still developed and convinces many people to blow up factories and civic offices. Communism and fascism have not developed, at least not in a form we would recognise. Theocracy and corporatism are a lot more popular though the existing examples (Britain) are not often overt and instead prefer to work through existing governments using them as proxies.

This world is also a more religious one. Actual physical evidence of divine powers has definitely strangled any popular atheist movements in the cradle but there a still people who insist that the phenomena and the monsters from the beyond are all still explainable through science. Most religions are true to some degree or another, or at least their pantheons are real even if they don't exactly correspond with the ancient myths. Most Christians and Jews are happy that at the very least the God of Abraham is by far the most powerful, evidenced by the power of his holy relics to defeat other gods, and are happy in simply proclaiming that whilst other gods do exist none of them come before God himself. Islam has taken it a lot more poorly since this completely contradicts there being only one god and a bit of an ecclesiastical crisis is still going on in those parts of the Muslim world that don't plug their ears, close their eyes and go lalalala whenever anyone brings up the old pagan gods. The use of the Necronomicon is an iffy subject to most but it can be brushed off as either an incredibly unfortunate necessity or the children of God mastering and therefore defeating the foul powers of evil (Deadites, Anubians and other rampaging abominations aside of course). Across the world the old faiths are reviving as people once again turn to worshipping the old gods of their ancestors. Whether they will be answered with power and guidance from the often cruel and capricious deities often depends on what god they are praying to.

Aside from the immaterial beings that were revealed there used to be an entire world of magic. Hidden away from the societies and civilizations of the mundane folk whom they called Muggles (linguists are still trying to figure out what it means). An entire culture along with numerous beasts and races of myth and legend clung to the underside of human civilization, feeding off of it like a parasite. They were not malignant and rarely hostile (accidents do happen and magic tends to make you a bit of an arrogant prick to mundane people) but the amount of control they had over the rest of humanity was terrifying, attacks by dark wizards certainly didn't help their image in the eyes of the Muggles. Once the Company came into the possession of mystical artefacts like the Necronomicon suddenly they had weapons that could combat the magic of the Wizarding World. By the present the independent governing bodies of magical societies across the world have been demolished, dismantled or obliterated and any wizard who refuses to swear full allegiance to the government of their human homeland is executed. These repatriated wizards are immensely useful providing a variety of services, products and spells for their governments to use and will often receive privileges for their contributions even whilst they are closely watched for any signs of dissension. Resistance movements still persist across the world but they are failing as the last of their groups are hunted down and slaughtered one by one. Those who are stuck in Deadite infested regions suffer even worse fates as the demons flock to them like moths to a flame.

Space is a vast and forbidding realm that is largely barren and at the same time filled with a dizzying variety of species, civilizations and entities. Two immense galactic empires and their vassals and puppets divide the Milky Way galaxy with both sides vying for any chance to defeat the other. Their conflict whilst not yet a cold war has reached a deadlock as defeat on one world is followed by victory on another and then the game resets itself again. Earth, a land infested by primitive indigenous tribes and petty deities has become rather important lately as VIPs from both empires have ended up stuck on the planet (it was either voluntary or they just became attached to the quaint and thrillingly dangerous little rock). At the same time the human empires have sent people out into the void as well. Whether by rocket or attempting to find a safe path through the Outer Worlds (fat chance but stranger things have happened) the bravest adventurers of humankind have landed on the Moon and Mars and are venturing out further. Not all of space is forbidding of course but the rigours of such a hostile environment do often breed hostile people. Civilizations that have existed for millennia and blur the boundary between science and magic also tend to develop a bit of a superiority complex that makes even the most extreme levels of arrogance displayed by the 'oh so superior' British look humble by comparison. No official contact has been made but telescopes are becoming powerful enough to pick up little signs of activity here and there. Also authorities are getting better at tracking down those people that just don't seem normal. This bad news for those extra-terrestrial life forms, natural and otherwise that have sought asylum on this world for whatever reason.

Things may get even more interesting sooner or later.