Alternate timeline (World Game)

In an alternate timeline, the Players' Game of Napoleon and Wellington successfully changed the course of history.

History
In the Game of Napoleon and Wellington, the Countess secured Napoléon Bonaparte's victory at the Battle of Waterloo, a battle which he was meant to lose. She then encouraged him to expand his empire, country after country, until he ruled most of the Earth. Napoleon was, as the Countess deemed, the conqueror she needed and the only man who could have pulled it off.

Following his victory at Waterloo, Napoleon invaded England and conquered Russia. During his victory parade in Moscow, Napoleon contracted pneumonia, which ultimately killed him. Upon his death, Napoleon's World Empire collapsed. As a result, the conquered countries split up into separate ministates which discreetly encouraged by the other Players. As most of them, namely Germany, Italy and Spain, had started out as separate little kingdoms that gradually unified, the Countess observed that they simply reverted to type. The United Kingdom split into three separate kingdoms, England, Scotland and Wales, any two of them usually at war with the third.

The Countess was the commandant of Paris, a French city state which neighboured Normandy and Aquitaine. Paris was at war with some of her neighbours, while others were allies. Such alliances and conflicts were commonplace across what used to be the nation of France as well as the rest of Europe including Germany, Italy and Spain. It was the Countess' intent that the conflict spread across the world. (PROSE: World Game)