The Novgorodian republic got overthrown by the Shuiskys after crushing the Teutonic Knights at Pskov, although it ended in a compromise between monarchism and republicanism. Out of universe, I wanted Novgorod to unite Russia but it was too weak on its own, so I figured personal union with Lithuania, but I need a Novgorodian monarchy for that.
Suez's tolls go to Rhomania, but a lot of the associated businesses are Egyptian owned and worked, so the Despotate gets a lot of money from it too, albeit indirectly.
I like the House Drakos flag, although a better motto might be 'None Shall Pass'.
The only way any state is getting naval control of the Black Sea is by prying it from Rhomania's cold dead fingers.
I'm planning for a very multipolar world. It makes things interesting.
Aside from the Celestial Empire, the major powers will be Christian states, probably composed of a Numenorian state, Russia, Germany, the Triple Monarchy, and Rhomania. An Indian state might make it to that tier, but it's doubtful since I'm aiming for a divided subcontinent.
Greek will undoubtedly be one of the premier global languages, although I don't see any tongue gaining the primacy of OTL English.
Englishmen distinguish ITTL between Germans and Dutch.
Ethiopia speaks Amharic, and couldn't care less if Mali is getting overrun by Europeans. Now if Europeans started poking Ethiopia's friend Kongo or itself, it would react hard but there is absolutely no concept of pan-Africanism.
Racism will still be present ITTL. Categories may differ from OTL, but xenophobia hasn't been butterflied, and certain elements like the African slave trade across the Atlantic are still appearing.
Rhomania is completely and utterly indifferent to ethnicity, a trait the modern world would do well to adopt. Now Romans can be snobs (the Office of Barbarians is an OTL title) but it is based off culture and language. A Mongolian-Ethiopian child that speaks fluent Greek is Greek by their standards. This is the society that IOTL had a national mythological hero that was of mixed blood (Digenes Akrites, the Two-Blood Marcher Lord), and celebrated that fact as a good thing.
At this time, Copts are viewed as a bunch of ingrates, but a long spell of good relations and cooperation can dispel that. Jews aren't fully integrated but could be viewed sort of like a 'model minority', think Asian-Americans although not quite to that extent.
On a mod, a good way to model the HRE would be to give the Emperor control over Bavaria and Schleswig-Holstein, hold Saxony-Brandenburg under personal union, and have the first two or three reforms already activated.
Tatars still exist, although for them it's 'behave well or die'.
"God the Father is French, God the Son is English, and God the Holy Spirit is Irish."- Bishop of Lancaster, 1558
"I'm converting to Islam."-the response of Theodora Laskarina Komnena Drakina to the above
1558: Theodora has continued on her diplomatic tour, accompanied by her two youngest children and her husband. Stopping in Al-Andalus, Castile, and Arles, the once again pregnant princess arrives at King’s Harbor, personally welcomed to the city by King Arthur himself.
The fifty-two year old monarch is in good health considering his age, which is not that surprising in light of a constant regimen of hunting combined with a moderate (by European nobility’s standards) diet. Although de jure the three kingdoms of the Triple Monarchy remain linked only in his person, his long reign since the end of the Thirty Years’ War has seen a considerable growth in trade and intermarriage between the components of the Triple Monarchy.
The development of New England has increased steadily, with Isanguard (the etymological ancestor of Isengard) appearing in ships’ logs stored in Portsmouth and King’s Harbor. Somewhat successful attempts have been made to reduce tensions with the locals, but it is clear that the colonists utterly despise the ‘red-skinned heathen rabble’. As the population of northern France rebounds, the supply of settlers is steadily growing.
The naval supplies from the New World, given the difficulties of acquiring Scandinavian stores, are a crucial part in maintaining the Royal Navy, arguably the most powerful naval force on the planet. That is encouraging some of the younger nobility to argue for a more proactive use of the fleet, primarily directed against the Dutch, Scandinavians, and Arletians (in that order), as economic competition adds to historical grievances. Chief among them is Crown Prince Henry, twenty five years old, who has been steadily accumulating powers and responsibilities.
One of their main proposals is for King Arthur to take the title ‘Sovereign of the Seas’ and start charging a Channel toll in the style of the Baltic Sound Toll. It is an idea that Arthur is adamantly against. Besides the difficulty of imposing such a toll given the Lotharingian control of Calais (a ‘cartographical error’ that Henry immensely desires to correct) Arthur well remembers the dark days of the Thirty Years’ War, where his father had been brought low by his subjects’ naval belligerence.
The diplomatic negotiations between Theodora and Arthur are nothing dramatic, regarding trade agreements and living quarters for Roman merchants, plus the still extant loans Arthur owes to various Roman merchants such as the Plethon-Medici firm (who are willing to lower interest rates on their loans to the Roman government in exchange for diplomatic pressure in support of their much larger loans to the Plantagenets). However they do make it clear that Rhomania, considering the respectable and growing amount of trade it has with the Dutch (engraved gold and silver wares, jewelry, high-grade silks), will not be amused by the imposition of a Channel toll.
Although she gets along well enough with King Arthur (despite the difficulties he makes about repayments) and with Armand Jean du Plessis who comes out of retirement briefly to pay his respects, she has little good to say about the younger generation of the Triple Monarchy. She describes them as ‘belligerent and arrogant, certain in their superiority over all others, that the laws of men do not apply to them and that they can do what they will to others, whilst the slightest grievance against them must be answered by total destruction. The natives of Massachusetts are the first, but I fear will not be the last to suffer from such Gallic hubris.’
Responsible for giving her the antipathy her future writings display toward the Triple Monarchy (although the incident where her son Alexandros nearly fell down a drain with potential fatal consequences due to the inattention of a hired French maid certainly didn’t help), historians believe the Thirty Years War is responsible for the ‘messianic complex’. The narrative goes that the Triple Monarchy came back from terrible odds and by the hand of God crushed its enemies (conveniently ignoring the fact that such long odds had been brought about by their own stupidity and belligerence). The association with King Arthur and Camelot do not help matters, giving the state a mythical aura.
Religious differences also help to accentuate the Triunes’ (as the inhabitants of the Triple Monarchy are starting to be called in Germany) sense of distinction. Bohmanism, sponsored by the Arthurian court and fueled by the great printing houses of King’s Harbor, London, and Paris and the many universities of the realm, has made great strides. Viewing themselves as the beacons of religious purity in a sinful world (Lombardy, though Bohmanist as well, is viewed as a quasi-papist state), much of their rhetoric relating to foreign policy has tinges of crusades, which naturally repulses Theodora.
The next stop on her itinerary is Antwerp. She is given a massive welcome by the burghers of the city, her party loaded down with bales of gold brocade. Besides more trade negotiations which net Romans a larger trade quarter and reduced tariffs and the ‘twerps’ (an uncomplimentary nickname coined by the rival merchants of Bremen) larger quarters in Constantinople and Antioch, plus ones in Thessalonica and Surat. The latter is supposed to be for traders who follow the traditional Red Sea route, as the Romans are unaware that Dutch captains have successfully passed the Cape of Storms, although none have made it to India, yet.
Following Antwerp is Malmo, where Theodora gives birth to her fifth child, a baby girl named Anna after Empress Catherine’s granddaughter, who celebrated her second birthday on the day Theodora sailed into the harbor. There is little of historical interest that takes place in the city, although the Norse merchants do gain some expanding trading quarters in Thessalonica and Trebizond. Like the expanding Dutch districts, the locales had been requested by the merchants of the Triple Monarchy, but denied due to their arrears in repayment.
Quite the opposite is Theodora’s visit to Novgorod. If the rest of the Grand Tour had been a flop, the stay in the Great Kingdom would have made the trip worth it. Speaking fluent Russian in a Novgorodian accent, she captivates the city. For all the mutterings about a Third Rome amongst the court, in the streets the Empire is still viewed with awe and respect as the cultural and religious mother of Russia, the land of silk and sugar.
One item significantly helping in Theodora’s favor is that she is the great-granddaughter of Princess Kristina of Novgorod, and her Russian inheritance shines through. By Roman standards, Theodora is attractive, but the acclaim goes to her step-sisters. But here in the north, her cousin Megas Rigas Dmitri speaks for all when he proclaims her ‘the fairest of the fair sex, Aphrodite reborn. If Pygmalion were to carve his statue today, he would not name it Galatea but Theodora’.
It is soon apparent that the Megas Rigas is infatuated with his cousin, two years his junior, a sharp contrast from his plain, shy, musically inclined Lithuanian wife. Theodora, recognizing the benefits that could accrue in the negotiations, does nothing to discourage said feelings. To support his wife, Alexandros, in a gesture of trust and respect completely absent from the marriage of Helena and Nikolaios, goes on an extended hunting tour with Dmitri’s uncles.
In another respect Theodora is the ideal ambassador to Russia, as her blood claim to the throne of Andreas Niketas is comparable to that of Dmitri. Both are great-grandchildren of the Good Emperor, but while Dmitri is male he is descended from a younger daughter. This does much to smooth the feathers of Dmitri’s advisors and the members of the Novgorodian veche, to whom their monarch’s superior (in relation to Helena Drakina) descent has been a source of pride.
Another Roman who charms the city is Alexios Laskaris, son of Giorgios, who has been raised at the White Palace. Visiting his aunt, the thirteen year old has inherited his father’s charm and mischievous ways. It is difficult for his tutors to scold him, as they are having difficulties not laughing at his antics. He too makes a good impression in Novgorod, both at the court for his good humor and at the veche for his frugal manner.
A steady and prompt schedule for the repayment of Roman debts to Russian agents is set up, and in return Novgorod agrees not to hamper Roman recruitment drives to replenish their population, save for the lands beyond the Volga due to their light population. It is estimated that approximately eighty thousand Russians emigrate to the Empire prior to the Great Northern War. For the most part they are young men, second and third sons with little prospect of advancement or wealth, but the gender imbalance caused by the Time of Troubles in the Empire means they have little trouble finding Greek wives and making Greek babies.
Also the Russian government decides to allow the importation of a set amount of Roman wine annually, which previously had been banned to preserve the government’s monopoly of liquor. A restriction ignored most of the time (35% of Roman wine exports go to Russia), despite the protests of the Megas Rigas for whom the liquor monopoly is a major source of revenue under his control, the members of the veche see an opportunity for profit and act accordingly.
Besides the various trade related negotiations arrangements are also made to make it easier for Russian students to apply to Roman universities, and Russian traders are allowed access to the Roman eastern territories.
A further example of cultural cooperation taking place at this time has nothing to do with the court. Aided by Timurid texts, the University of Trebizond, the Royal University of Tbilisi, and the University of Draconovsk, with attached observatories, have been coordinating their astronomical studies. In August, they issue a joint statement repudiating Ptolemy and arguing for a Menshikovian (sun-centered, named after Pavlov Menshikov, chair of the School of Astronomy at Draconovsk) system.
Theodora is much impressed by Novgorod, finding ‘the inhabitants to be well learned and an astounding number to be literate. The members of the Novgorodian veche far exceed the members of the English Parliament in wisdom and clear-sightedness.’ One reason for that statement is they for the most part (a loud minority excepted), unlike the English, are not so enamored at the prospect of beating up their neighbors. Plus at least that minority does not couch it in self-righteous religiosity, but in legal (citing Lithuanian claims to Polish districts) and materialistic (Polish grain supplies for Novgorod, forcing open markets in northeast Germany) that Theodora can stomach even if she doesn’t agree.
Alexandros’ letters paint a different picture, of rural Russia far from the big cities, where illiterate, conservative peasantry is the norm. But there are growing iron foundries in the Olonets region, and more appearing in the Ural mountains every year. Mostly exported to Rhomania, it could be used to fuel a still extant armament industry, albeit one far declined from its state a hundred years earlier. 
