About Safelster
> I have heard several people compare the region
> to the Hanseatic League or to the great Italian city-states
> of the Renaissance
I agree with the parallel between Safelster and Italian city-states (though the exact period should be the end of the Middle Ages and not the Renaissance, IMO). I know the subject rather well, as I am Italian, though not a historian. I have also been running a long Safelstran campaign for the last three years.
The Hoenstaufen Emperors of the 12th and 13th century claimed supremacy over the newly formed city-states, which had just developed a form of Republican government. Obviously the Italian cities were rather unsatisfied with paying tithes to a German emperor. Frederick the First invaded Italy and destroyed Milan (with some help on the part of rival cities), but eventually the cities formed a powerful League and defeated him at Legnano, where the Emperor barely escaped death by pretending to be dead on the battlefield. Curiously, there is currently a political party in Italy inspired to this League. This to show you how much of Italian cities national pride depended on their struggle against the Empire.
A cunning Gloranthaphile can easily see the resemblance to the current claims of Guilmarn over Safelster. However, this all happened in the Middle Ages, not the Renaissance. The parallel with the latter period comes from the universally accepted supremacy of the merchant guilds in Safelster, but as far as I remember this started in Italy during the Middle Ages, too. In Dante Alighieri's Florence (around 1300), for instance, the guilds were already well-developed and structured, having a sort of "coat of arms" and a different patron saint for each one. I have developed a Safelstran parallel to this, where in Rokari areas each major guild has a Malkioni Saint as his patron, while in Henotheist areas this role is taken over by a god of the Orlanth pantheon. In the latter case the guildmaster should be at least an Acolyte of the deity. For instance, in our Rokari city, the Guild of Healers might be St. Xemela's Guild, while in a Henotheist city it might be called Chalana's Guild. There might even be two guilds in some city...
One point that makes the parallel not totally fitting is the fact that there has never been any religious struggle in and between the Italian city-states. To find a good Earth counterpart for the sects of Safelster, you must go to the Renaissance period, but in Germany. Here three different churches (Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed) struggled, sometimes even in arms, for supremacy, involving the Electors and Princes in the struggle. The religious geography of the HRE (i.e. Germany) during that period should be extremely similar to the current Safelster situation, where one county could host a Rokari ruler and majority, while another Prince could be Henotheist or what-you-like and persecute the Rokari in order to favor his personal faith (this is what actually happened in real history).
I do not know much about the Hanseatic League, but the paralles is not so good IMO because the cities in the league did not fight one against the other, which their Italian (and Safelstran) counterpart did!
Glad to be on the Digest, and Hi all!
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