Grundeswald

The Kingdom of Grundeswald was a gargantuan, paradigm-shifting nation that existed for the majority of Civcraft 2.0. From its humble origins as a refugee settlement, to its ending position as the dominant member of a continent-spanning Empire, Grundeswald remains one of the most controversial polities in Civcraft history.

The differences in server structure after the end of Civcraft 2.0 were too great for Grundeswald to operate in a similar style to how it had before, and its citizens eventually drifted into inactivity, often finding the time to circlejerk over how great they used to be. There currently exists no active iteration of Grundeswald on any Minecraft server, although a few successor nations have been declared.

Etymology
The origin of the word Grundeswald is disputed by a few sources. Most Grundeswegians believe it is a corruption of the German translation for the words Ground Forest or Green Forest, reflected in the official Afrikaans translation, Groenwoud. Others believe it derives from Grundling, an uncommon demonym for the users of the website Newgrounds.com. The most likely answer is that it was completely made up by Ronald Grundeswald himself, but he refuses to say either way.

Ancient History
Grundeswald was the successor to Ancient Realms long forgotten from the memories of man. It was the continuation of the mindset that creativity and shit-disturbing are the keys to creating a healthy amount of server activity and spurring people into action. As the story goes, Ronald Grundeswald opened up a dimensional portal that led his followers, the Katars, to a new server, where their brand of excessive antagonism would not result in their immediate banning.



Civcraft 1.0
This first attempt at establishing a new home for the Katars resulted in failure. An important figure in Katar aristocracy, Kovio Khan, discovered that a tribe of relatives had been living among the strange peoples of Civcraft, calling themselves Prussia. Kovio, and later Killer_Chris, attempted to make their home among their distant cousins, but were disgusted by the fraternisation that occurred between the Prussians and the Civcraft natives. Kovio and Chris set fire to the Prussian capital of Danzig, and abandoned the first iteration of Civcraft, returning to the comfort of the Old World.

Istanbul
A second attempt was launched after the Fires of War and deception led to the demise of Civcraft 1.0. In this new version of Civcraft, Kovio and Greenkitten, another high-ranking Katar leader, found refuge in the settlement of Istanbul, atop a mountain overlooking where the city of Mt. Augusta would later be founded. Their time there was marked with constant strife and destruction, as both barbarians and religious extremists spilled blood on the streets and reduced buildings to ruin. The constant besiegement forced the flight of the Katars to greener pastures, but not before befriending some of the more agreeable invaders.

Vrystaat
Ronald Grundeswald met with his followers in the outskirts of Istanbul and declared that a Great Trek (Afrikaans:Groot Trek) had to take place. Armed with a pickaxe, the future King of Grundeswald, through endless toil and perseverance, dug in a straight line until he encountered rare gems beneath a small island, and called for his tribesmen to make haste and join alongside him. Once there, he commanded the construction of an underground compound, which he dubbed "New Zion," a place that would be free from the horrors of the outside world.



It was here that Ronald organised his Katar followers into the first buddings of a civilised society. He declared himself the Voorsitter and CEO of the Groenwalde Vrystaat, and his followers were added to both positions of government and the Board of Directors of the mysterious GrundesCorp. He also declared the Katars venture above-ground to build a capital city for his Vrystaat: Salisbury.

Brynian War
Not long after this emergence, the Katars came into conflict with the peoples across the bay in the cities of Bryn and Aurora. Bryn had recently established Aurora as its puppet state, and come into conflict with the far-off city of New Leningrad. Kovio and the rest of the Katars agreed that New Leningrad was the more amusing party to support in whatever the conflict actually wound up being, causing massive amounts of anger among the Brynian elite. Looking for an excuse to drive the Katars from their island, they found a casus belli in the from of a slur uttered by one of the citizens of the Vrystaat, Mazznoff, and came to enact swift justice. The resulting war was brief, firmly turning Grundeswald away from the laissez-faire capitalist societies of Bryn and Aurora and toward the command-economies of New Leningrad.

Kovio and Chris, in an effort to find more allies in their aggressive neighbours, attended the Internationale, a gathering of communists, socialists, and other left-minded individuals on the server. It was there, during some kind of degenerate hippy drum-circle, that Chris began to call for the immediate destruction of Bryn, leading to the distressingly-popular song, Go on Home Brynian Soldiers. Despite the fanatical calls of violence, a group of Anarcho-Communists called the LSIF invited the Grundeswald Vrystaat to join as a commune in their federation, to which the fledgling nation agreed.

As one would expect, the addition of a quasi-monarchical society with fascist leanings into a group of Anarcho-Communists failed, to say the least. The Vrystaat would bicker with the rest of the LSIF on every matter imaginable, but hoped to repair relations by relocating closer to their communist allies-on-paper. Ronald Grundeswald launched a Second Great Trek, and so the Katars marched again.

New Leningrad Residency
The Vrystaat surrendered to Bryn and decided to leave the town of Salisbury and its island. Marching first to New Leningrad, they were invited to create an embassy which served as the capital-in-exile of the Grundeswald Vrystaat for several weeks. Relations with the rest of the LSIF were at an all-time low over matters of political correctness, but relations with New Leningrad were strong. A temporary union was formed between Grundeswald and New Leningrad in August of 2013, but geographic distance would make this impractical. Eventually, the people of Grundeswald made their way to their final home, across the mountain from the LSIF capital of Catalunya.

Independence
According to common convention, Grundeswald became an independent nation once more on the end of September of 2013, referenced in the first national anthem, Grundeswegians Never Die. This also marked the first use of the term Grundeswegian, replacing the Katar ethnic moniker and the Grundeswaldian demonym used in a few treaties at the time. The Grundeswald Volkstaat was declared, with its capital in New Salisbury in the shadow of the Tengri Mountains.



The Great Swamp of the Volkstaat's new home was an overwhelmingly large and treacherous biome on which to live. Dangerous creatures made their home on the outskirts of New Salisbury, and as such the Grundeswegian people hardly ever wandered outside the safety of urbanisation. A few brave explorers, the original Katars, decided to head out and find new places to explore.

42 and Prussian Detente
To the northwest of New Salisbury was a giant cat statue, apparently belonging to one of the LSIF communes that surrounded the Volkstaat. Grundeswald quietly claimed the slime farm surrounding the statue as part of their natural territory, as it was within the same swamp as New Salisbury. The cat statue also betrayed the location of the Commune of 42 to the west, which the intrepid explorers sought out as a matter of principle. The city was abandoned, and upon looting it of anything valuable (including an entire vault full of poison potatoes), Grundeswald annexed the town as well. Realising they were within spitting distance of the 2.0 iteration of Prussia, Grundeswegian diplomats set out to normalise relations, which remained frigid after Kovio and Chris's assault on the town of Danzig in 1.0. Things with Prussia went surprisingly well, and the two nations bonded over their mutual dislike of the LSIF communes nearby.

This era is marked with high levels of expansion, including the annexation of the town of Torp (renamed Drakensberg), the Bulawayo Swamp, and various settlements between New Salisbury and their new border at the 0-axis to the north. Things became quiet, decadent even. The Grundeswegian government sought out new places to exploit, and such a town came in the form of Aytos.

Sable League
The City of Aytos was a decently sized urbanised area in the shadow of the much larger city of Orion, located in the Northwest quadrant of the map. It had recently become active and open to new citizens in the waning months of 2013, and the Grundeswegian government saw an opportunity to spread its influence in the region. The Aytian political system allowed anyone with citizenship to vote in their comprehensive electoral system, making it possible to even supplant the founding members of the city--a rarity in the server, to say the least. The concept enamoured many people all across Civcraft, and it wasn't long before dozens of foreigners found themselves applying for citizenship.



Among them were Kovio and Chris, who promptly started a far-right political party, the Sable League. The League was a front for Grundeswegian expansion, and hardly kept that fact a secret. Despite this, they found themselves enjoying a working relationship with the native Aytian government, who were open to the strange methods of Grundeswald and the Sable League. Other foreign parties such as the PILF attempted to assert themselves, but their methods were considered less amusing by the Aytians.

The PILF was ultimately the result of boredom by the server elite, the aristocratic-warrior class who were rich beyond their wildest dreams and tired of the rigmarole of their horrendous laissez-faire, bounty hunting lifestyles. They attempted to purchase large tracts of Aytian property as to satisfy citizenship requirements and stuff the ballot box in their favour, and their intimidation tactics to get the natives on-side resulted in several murders in broad daylight. For whatever reason, the Aytians, who at this point knew their government was going to be run by foreigners in the next election, far preferred the Grundeswegian camp to the Carsonite-Brynian camp of the PILF, and collaborated with the Sable League.

Green Forest Treaty and the West Aytian Company
On the eve of the election, Made0fMeat, the incumbent mayor of Aytos, hastily signed the Green Forest Treaty, annexing Grundeswald to Aytos for the sole purpose of giving every single Grundeswegian Aytian citizenship. The PILF were furious and abandoned the city. The election was won, and the delegates hand-picked by Grundeswald made their way into Aytian government.

Such a drastic measure had convinced Made0fMeat that the Aytian democratic experiment had failed. Becoming disillusioned with Civcraft, he quickly annulled the Green Forest Treaty and petitioned Grundeswald for annexation. This act ultimately resulted in Ronald Grundeswald being elevated to King of Grundeswald and Aytos, creating the Kingdom of Grundeswald and the Grundeswegian West Aytian Company. The West Aytian Company was wholly unique in the history of the server, selling shares in the ownership of the city of Aytos to the highest bidder. While some Aytians were interested in the arrangement, many left the city entirely or were deadset on purchasing their city back from Grundeswald.

States and Territories
The increasing size of the Kingdom of Grundeswald necessitated the creation of administrative divisions in the country. Each major settlement was given a large tract of land to administer, with Grundeswegians of distinction (usually high-ranking members of the GrundesCorp Board of Directors) being made governors of each individual state.

Around this time, the towns of Geldfontein and Gundagai emerged as personal projects of entrepreneurial Grundeswegians, Metal and Greenkitten. The Bulawayo Territory, centered on North Salisbury, began major development under Mazznoff. Xia, an Aytos successor state headed by Eccentrus, joined the country as well. However, as the nation expanded, its population remained shockingly low. Very few people moved to Grundeswald for a number of reasons, the first and probably most apparent being the bizarre insular nature of its ruling class. Becoming a high-ranking member of Grundeswald was nearly impossible, and as such, it became incredibly difficult to gain access to the shared resources of the ruling class. A decision was made to advertise Civcraft to people of a similar culture to Grundeswald, and so threads were posted on 4chan's /b/ board.

FAGT, Schwuldeswald, UIA
Those who were invited to Civcraft from /b/ quickly established themselves as a settlement in the same quadrant of the server as Grundeswald. Calling themselves the Federal Assembly of Grand Territories, or FAGT for short, these crude Channers were a bit less subtle in their uncouthness than Grundeswald, but it was determined that they would make ready allies. Feelers were sent out to the FAGT leadership, and it was quickly decided that a confederation between the two nations should be declared.

The first attempt at this was called Schwuldeswald, a grotesque attempt at combining a German euphemism for homosexuals with Grundeswald. It floundered out as no one could agree what the ultimate goal of the confederation should be. Following in its footsteps was the United Imperial Assembly, a significantly more fleshed-out military alliance that would compliment the strengths of both nations by ensuring that they would always have someone in their corner in political disputes.

This, however, was not the case. On multiple occasions, Grundeswald found itself under attack, and failed to receive aide from its FAGT comrades. During one terrorist attack on the Grundeswegian supply cache in Vault 420, it was suspected that a high-ranking FAGT official had actually orchestrated the carnage. From its inception, the UIA was little more than a nominal alliance that failed to get anything done.



Laozi
This was exemplified in the Laozi Controversy, a conflict between the Kingdom of Grundeswald and Fellowship over the status of an island in Fellowship's territorial waters. Fellowship had falsely accused Grundeswald of being responsible for the funding of a particularly nasty terrorist group on a bit of bad information, and the ensuing political conflict brought Grundo-Fellowship relations to basically nonexistent. Compounding this was a dispute over the island of Vrystaat where Old Salisbury was located, on which Fellowship had built a small town before Grundesegian settlement. Both of these, of course, were followed by the Laozi Controversy.

Laozi, founded by a Fellowship defector, had been granted independence from Fellowship on a bilateral basis, receiving consent from the Fellowship government to administer itself. When the Laozi leadership petitioned Grundeswald for annexation, however, the Fellowship government quickly recanted and began and military occupation of the island. Grundeswegian soldiers marched to the scene and a standoff began, while propagandists took to producing media to get the rest of the server on-side.

Eventually, Kovio and Sintralin came to a diplomatic agreement that saw Fellowship recognising Grundeswegian ownership of most of the island of Vrystaat in exchange for Grundeswald relinquishing its claims on Laozi. The Laozi population was invited to resettle in Grundeswald, but no permanent settlement was even constructed. This conflict spelled the beginning of the end for the UIA, as Grundeswald received little to no support from the FAGT against Fellowship.

Aytian Revolution
Although the people of Aytos under Grundeswegian rule were technically allowed to do just about anything they pleased, an air of freedom was permeable all over the city. Of the 100 shares in the stock of the city, less than half were owned by native citizens of Aytos. Stratmatt, an Aytian citizen who wanted to bring life back to the city, sought out and acquired all 100 shares, on the condition that Aytos remained a Grundeswegian dominion with Kovio as its viceroy. Stratmatt initially agreed, but emboldened by their influential neighbours in the from of Orion, Nexus, and Carson, Aytos, under Stratmatt, declared its independence.



Grundeswald was willing to acquiesce, but unilateral declaration of independence left a sour taste in the Grundeswegians' mouths. The world was united in its desire to see people govern themselves, and eventually Grundeswald backed down, letting Aytos go free. FAGT, once again, failed to offer Grundeswald any support, and it was assumed from this point forward that the UIA was dead.

Northern Expansion
As Aytos broke away from Grundeswald, the Grundeswegians longed to replace they wayward colony with something closer to home. The disputes over Vrystaat, Laozi, and now Aytos had convinced most of them that overseas endeavours were simply not worth the effort. To the north of the Bulawayo swamp and the 0-axis road that had been used as Grundeswald's northern border months were vast tracts of virgin land ripe for the taking.

None had ventured beyond that 0-axis line other than Greenkitten and Mazznoff, whose efforts to unite New Salisbury and New Leningrad by rail had given them a decent understanding of the geography. The "Red Line" between the two nations' capitals went underneath an expansive plain that was later determined to be part of the same biome as the Gundagai and Helfontein regions. Greenkitten and Mazznoff claimed this land in the name of Ronald Grundeswald, tasking Chris with deciding administrative borders. The far northern island of Naphtali would become the domain of an old high-ranking Katar, Sikandar. The landmass surrounding the 0-axis road would become the Bembezi territory, a place of extreme tactical importance. Mazznoff would assert the extent of the Bulawayo territory even further north, and in his survey of his new land, he and Greenkitten discovered and abandoned city of Boston.



Like 42 and Torp before it, Boston was a dilapidated, decayed city. Greenkitten, Mazznoff, and Chris expressed their right to annex territory to Grundeswald and incorporated the city of Boston into the kingdom. The old leaders of Boston were contacted, and they were thrilled that someone had shown interest in their long-forgotten settlement, quickly assenting to Grundeswegian rule. Satisfied with the new borders of Grundeswald, Grundeswald proper would not expand significantly for the rest of Grundeswegian history. Later, settlements such as Sunder, Wunderland and Ryhma would be discovered in territories that were claimed by Grundeswald. All three settlements were offered Grundeswegian statehood, and all but Sunder agreed. Sunder would continue to be claimed by Grundeswald for the rest of Civcraft 2.0, but no hostilities ever occurred.

Gensokyo
Kovio disagreed with the common consensus that Grundeswald should do away with overseas territories, and set searching for a place in the sun to call his own. Mt. Augusta, which had been founded in the valley of Mt. Istanbul, was undergoing a mayoral election and Kovio started having visions of the Aytian Empire that was robbed from him. From Grundeswald's base in Istanbul, Kovio planned to influence Mt. Augusta's election, with the end result hopefully being a friendly mayor to help further Grundeswegian interests in the region. The small city-state of Gardizona, to the west of Augusta, had recently surrendered itself to Grundeswegian control, and the kingdom found itself with a developing encirclement around Mt. Augusta.



While surveying the Desert Territory, Kovio came across a city across the eastern river from Mt. Augusta adorned with Touhou iconography. As a dirty weeb, Kovio quickly befriended the local leader Screenname, and the city of New Detroit also joined the Grundeswegian Empire. It is believed that Kovio offered Screenname significant status within Grundeswald in exchange for New Detroit's annexation, something which would become a point of contention later on.

With an active capital city and a clear choice for governor, the Desert Territory was united with New Detroit into the new state of Gensokyo, named for the world of Touhou. The town of Goodsprings also chose to join Gensokyo, although it had not been Grundeswegian territory beforehand.

United Kingdom
Kovio's promises to Screenname resulted in him calling for a Grundeswegian Constitutional Convention. To this point, the Kingdom of Grundeswald had had no formalised legal system or defined limits of power for the King and the GrundesCorp Board of Directors. Titles were given arbitrarily based on everyone's mood, and jobs were filled by whomever felt compelled to do them. The only absolute rule was the absolute power of King Ronald Grundeswald, whose word was final in every matter.

Kovio suggested a form of representative government in which Grundeswald and Gensokyo, which he considered to be culturally distinct, would send representatives to a joint parliament, and that Screenname be Queen on equal-footing with Ronald Grundeswald as King. This was incredible offensive to the rest of Grundeswald, who were not prepared to grant concessions to such a newcomer. Greenkitten argued that Xia, a technically independent nation under Grundeswegian suzerainty, should be elevated to the same level as Gensokyo in this theoretical arrangement. Kovio was strongly opposed to this, arguing that elevating Xia would effectively give Grundeswald twice the power as Gensokyo, as Greenkitten was Xia's caretaker. This was probably the point. Chris argued that Gensokyo and Xia were both regular states of Grundeswald, equal to Boston and Helfontein. Things got incredibly heated.

Ultimately, a very neutered form of the United Kingdom of Grundeswald and Gensokyo came into being, but it would not last.

Collapse of Grundeswald
The heated debate on the United Kingdom's constitution led to a complete and total collapse of the Grundeswegian government. Greenkitten and Chris threatened to start a Grundeswald offshoot elsewhere on the map, closer to the successor state of FAGT, Titan. While Grundeswald was at its lowest point, vultures from the Augusta region descended on the country, trying to claim bits of the massive kingdom of themselves. The final nail in the coffin for the United Kingdom was the secession of Istanbul from Gensokyo, under Kovio's choice for Augustan Mayor, GTAIVisbest. GTA had lost the election for mayor, and decided he would hold power in the region one way or another, and declared himself leader of Istanbul instead, establishing the Islamic State of Istanbul and Samarra. Receiving recognition from every conceivable entity on the server with the exception of New Leningrad, the city of Istanbul was robbed from right out underneath the weakened Grundeswald. Rather than submit to the carpetbaggers intent on seizing territory in Grundeswald proper, Greenkitten and Chris stayed in New Salisbury with a new plan for the future.

Anschluss with Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia, Grundeswald's only real neighbour, was undoubtedly of a similar stock and composition to Grundeswald itself. As both nations' citizens were originally posters on the Krautchan /int/ imageboard, they were the closest thing to ethnic relatives in Civcraft. Most of Grundeswald had been banned from the Prussian capital of Breslau after Grundeswegian tourists embarrassed Prussian police by catching the criminals Prussia was pursuing. When the Grundeswegian visitors demanded access to important Prussian factories in return for their valuable service, they were instead forbidden from ever entering Breslau again.

But behind the scenes, things had been improving. Key Grundeswegian citizens had been attending important Prussian matters of state on an unofficial capacity almost immediately after the ban was put into place, and this informal relationship between the two government bore fruit in the form of an official petition from the Grundeswegian parliament (all three members of it). A simple message was lodged to Prussia: "I don't suppose you lot would be up for a friendly ruse?"



The stage was set. Helfontein Governor Metalgirlwoot would orchestrate a fake coup on Grundeswald, and the Prussian military would enter into New Salisbury to quell this fake rebellion, before annexing Grundeswald themselves. It would be presented to the world as the unification of the Krautchannish peoples of Civcraft, to be under one throne in a greater Kingdom of Prussia. Grundeswald would be a Prussian territory, and Ronald Grundeswald Jr, heir to the throne, would be its governor. Gensokyo and Xia were both considered part of Grundeswald under Prussian administration. Many good pieces of propaganda were made.

Chanada
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Kovio was hard at work creating a chan-imageboard Empire of his own. A wave of 4channers from the /v/ board had erected a city called Viridian, and many others were propping up around it. His original goal was to create a great Grundeswegian colony with peoples of a similar cultural disposition, but before long the Chanadian region had far more people than its supposed mother country. Discussions were held to unite Chanada with Grundeswald-Prussia, but they floundered when few similarities could be found among the disparate groups. The Chanadian city-states would remain mostly aligned with Grundeswald, but no formal documents were ever signed.

Holy Krautchan Empire
HKE stuff to come soon

Politics
Grundeswald was run by the Grundeswegian National Coalition made up of the national Fascist and Communist parties from 2014 onward. The two parties were united in their desire to keep the kovio-led Grundeswaldists in check, and the stability from the resulting coalition kept it in power for years. While Grundeswald had no constitution to speak of (by design) it did have a rudimentary law document, which it seldom deferred to.