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Carthage

Drawing By EarlNoir

History

Carthaginians

The city Cartage was settled by Carthaginians. The exact date is unknown but myths say that Dido, queen of Carthage settled it. This civilization dominated trade and was a naval superpower.

Alexander the Great

When Alexander the Great wanted to conquer the city he was stopped multiple times by its navy. Nonetheless, after years of struggle, Alexander finally managed to infiltrate the city. Because they were able to fight him off so long he respected their talent... and their riches. He let them keep their way of life but levied tons of taxes on the city as revenge for wasting his time. This damaged the trade severely and pushed many into piracy.
When we give someone our time, we actually give a portion of our life that we will never take back. So I shall charge you for wasting my life!
-By Alexander the Great when he conquered Carthage

Romans

When later the Romans would rise Carthage was but only a shell of its former self. The Diadochi Wars, the succession wars about who will gain Alexander's empire had caused the economy to crash and completely prevent any trade, because of this the Romans had no trouble defeating their ancient rival and had no need to punish them. When they read Greek texts about how prosperous this city used to be they rebuilt and reorganized the city creating a new golden age for the Carthaginians. Later on, The Roman empire claimed the western part of Alexander's empire.
Our old rivals are not our threat, enemies have become allies
-Scipio Africanus about Hannibal Barca

Role in The Fall of The West

However in the decline of the empire under the rules Trajanus and the invasion of the Franks under the command of Clovis the Carthaginian navy would play a major role. The Roman emperor was caught fleeing Roma by a Carthaginian patrol en brought to the court of the governor of Africa, Hannibal VIII. He spread the news about the emperor fleeing and declared his independence. He will later be the one that demanded the execution of the emperor and his family. Later on, he would be the one accepting Clovis's proposal to invade Byzantium which resulted in a major defeat and losing most of the Carthaginian fleet.

Downfall

Sadly the next person that arrived through the gate was Justinian, and he was not someone that forgave treason (see The Nika Riots ). When he was restoring the empire Carthage stood no chance because of their still hadn't been rebuilt. He sacked and pillaged Carthage, salting with it as the Romans did in Clustrum but adding a Pluto's curse. He founded another city for the surviving civilians because it wasn't their fault.

Now

in 300 Pr the second son of the emperor Bard, Nickeratus, son of Demeter, Athena and Apollo is the governor of Eremus and Africa, they are wastelands and useless. He's trying to transform the wasteland into a fertile land to feed to the vastly growing population of the empire.

Geography

A sand/salt desert, because the salt has been exposed for 300 years it became grey. The landscape is filled with ruins of the once-great city of Cartage. You can't enter this area without full body protection because of the cursed salt. It absorbs any water it touches preventing any organism to live here. As humans consist mostly of water, it slowly dries them out and transforms them into a dried-up corpse, like a mummy. ensure you bring enough water with when crossing this area.

Fauna & Flora

Nothing grows here, any normal organism that dares walking on its soil will perish. There is a species named Maledictus locustam marinam that manages to survive but not much is known about it.

Natural Resources

Except for a large amount of salt, there isn't much here that we know off. Modern tools can't be used because of the rusting caused by the salt.
Alternative Name(s)
Capital of the province Africa
Type
Desert
Location under
Owner/Ruler
Owning Organization

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Comments

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Jul 8, 2019 18:39 by Stormbril

So right off the bat, I'm pretty curious about this world. I'm seeing a lot of names of things that I recognize! Checking out the world map though, it's definitely not the same map as earth one would expect. Is your setting a sort of alternate history?   There is a lot of information in that opening paragraph! I think the article would really benefit by breaking it up, and spreading it across the rest of the article. I think I read you're fairly new to world anvil, which is totally okay. I have some recommendation in that case!   The side bar is your friend, it's a great place to put information that, while important, might be more secondary information. When editing your article, under the "design" tab, you can scroll down to "sidebar content". I'd use this area to cover your succession of rulers of Carthage. Using the h1, h2, and h3 header BBCode, you can format it to however you like.   For grammar and the likes, I noticed a couple run on sentences. I'd give the article another proof read, and try to split some of them up if you could! For example: "The salt is cursed and will absorb any water it touches and because humans are consists 70% of water it will slowly dry you out and transform you into a mummy so make sure to take enough water with you when crossing this area."   You could rewrite that as: "The salt in Carthage is cursed, absorbing any water it touches. As humans consist of mostly water, it slowly dries them out, transforming them into mummies. Ensure you bring enough water when crossing this area."   or, something along those lines. Run on sentences often take the reader out of the story, breaking the immersion.   then one last thing, but not necessary for articles -- maybe add some images! It'd be nice to see some pictures of the ruined Carthage, of the cursed sand. Maybe a picture of someone who failed to bring enough water :P     Anyways, good job! Welcome to World Anvil! Enjoy your stay!

Jul 8, 2019 18:42

Thx for the feedback, i'll try some of the design functions. I totally forgot about pictures so i'll add some aswell.

Jul 8, 2019 22:16

It's a world where the most influential people from our world arrive through a gate. In this world there are gods like the Hellenic once but also others like the Islamic or the Germanic.

Jul 8, 2019 19:33 by Tiirikka

I smell an interesting alternative reality here! O-hohoho, that is great!   The first part need more breaking to paragraphs, otherwise I think the history part is intriguing. Though I have couple of of crazy world builder questions!   1. Do we talk about regular mummification where someone dries up or curse that makes undead mummies? I know, that might be silly question, but it would be very interesting to have couple of sentences explaining how the cursed salt works (or how it's perceived/said to work).   2. Is this regular looking salt or sand, or does it look specially white, or any other color?   3. While drying up to a mummy, is there something particular feeling or otherwise person has or hallucinations or something that would make a person recognize the curse is starting to drain them, and if there is, can you still do something about that?   4. Is the curse recent, meaning can you find piles of mummies of previous wildlife lying around when you look around or have they all sunk in to the sand already?   5. Does salt rust look different to normal rust?   6. Can you take the salt from the desert safely to other place, or does it take curse with it?   Simply asking these out of curiosity, because it think you have something really interesting here, and I would love to see you expanding on it! Keep up the good work, I think you are on to something! ^ŵ^


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Jul 8, 2019 20:34

1, Belisarius (the general) cursed the salt, normal sand wouldn't do anything. Cursed sand is first very white but this happened 300 years ago it became dirty and is grey now (you can see it on the map). It takes all the water from your body so you'll just be a dried-up corpse. It absorbs where it touches you but because it's light it will fly...(i don't know how to explain this lol) making a dust storm very deadly. when it touches your arm it will first drain your sweat, then your blood and because we have a heart and veins it will keep absorbing water/blood(water in the blood) 2 whoops already answered that 3 It's not really like you touch it, you're doomed. It's not scientific so I added the curse to make up for that. Because your body is losing water quickly you become very thirsty and that will take the other effect with it like hallucinating. The salt is cursed and is affecting you, when you stop touching it, it will stop draining you. You, of course, need to dump your clothes somewhere because just like on the beach it will get stuck in there. 4 The curse is old but because no one dares to approach the area there won't be many mummies. 5 just like in the real world salt speeds up the rusting, so any tools would start rusting but because the salt's ability is increased anything made from metal will pretty much be useless. 6 Well, the salt is cursed so you would be holding a cursed object.

Jul 9, 2019 01:31 by Han

Well now, isn't that a familiar name! I'd immediately suggest that you add some sort of link explaining how Carthage managed to exist in your world if it's not riffing on alt-Earth. Stormbril has covered a lot of the criticism I'd usually give, honestly, though I'll make an attempt nonetheless.   Something I'm noticing is a lot of text with nothing to break it up. If you can't be bothered sourcing images to use, use quotes - they're your friends here, and they'll allow you to add some in-world context. Perhaps Alexander bemoaning the city, or a citizen praising it. It'll add some personality into the article and allow a break in the wall of text that headers don't provide on their own.   Your information is solid - I'm feeling very informed as to the history of this place, and you've clearly put a lot of effort in there - but there are some grammatical issues that might benefit some editing work. 'When they read Greek texts about how prosperous this city used to be they rebuilt and reorganized the city creating a new golden age for the Carthaginians.' This sentence, for example, could use another comma to separate it. If in doubt, read your work aloud. Where you naturally pause for breath, look into adding a comma.   'He spread the news about the emperor fleeing and declared his independence. He will later be the one that demanded the execution of the emperor and his family. Later on he will be the one accepting Clovis's proposal to invade Byzantium which resulted in a major defeat and losing most of the Carthaginian fleet.' Hold on, you've suddenly switched from past tense to future tense! It's advisable to stick to one tense for your articles to prevent confusion and timetravel ;)   So, onto some questions. What is this 'Pluto's curse' that Justinian managed to invoke upon Carthage, and how has it persisted so long? Can the salt be collected, contained, and perhaps used in war against other locations - has anyone tried to weaponise it? I know you've mentioned in another reply that you'd be holding a cursed object if you moved it, but surely that doesn't stop people from making the attempt.   Overall: Lovely in-depth history, but you'd benefit from spellchecking and grammar-checking as well as switching up some of your formatting. Adding some links to other articles (such as using the @ link format) would also be extremely welcomed - whilst I know who Alexander the Great was on Earth, I have no idea if he's the same on Porte!


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Jul 9, 2019 11:25

i don't know how to add more images, i think you need to be subscribed to be able to do that. i'm also very new to this stuff so I haven't worked out Alexander yet. I also don't know how to make quotes.

Jul 15, 2019 00:57 by Han

You don't need to be subscribed, you just have to upload them to WorldAnvil :D There's a guide on hte Codex! For quotes, look into the WorldAnvil BBCode. Again - there's a reference on the Codex ;)


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