Forum:Official collaboratives/St. Lazarus and Thilius

Forums → Official collaboratives → Official collaboratives/St. Lazarus and Thilius

This is a draft proposal for the OGF Papal States, provisionally named Confederatio Sacra Territorii Lazari Thilique (Holy Confederation of the Lazarian and Thilian Territories, named after in-world ~~Apostles~~ St Lazarus and Thilus. This is drawn-up in consultation with the Plevian mappers and others in the unofficial OGF discord, including Imperator and Rustem Pasha.

Overview

Confederatio Sacra will basically be OGF's analogue to the Papal States. What makes Confederatio Sacra more distinct, however, is that it would be an island nation rather than landlocked in an existing capital (there was a previous effort at an OGF Vatican City, but the mapper had long left). There is admittedly not much originality in recreating the Vatican through mapping just a cathedral, square and dozen church administrative buildings, though it's possible to reintegrate that mapping (or parts of it) into Osianopolis or similar as an exclave of the Confederation.

The Confederation is proposed to be centred on the Plevian island of Furgenia and/or Palmaria (with additional smaller islands to make it a kind of archipelago). The Confederation might still own some exclaves, which are largely church properties, spread across not only Plevia but Castellan and the region. The Confederation only exercises nominal sovereignty over these enclaves as a compromise through some treaties with the respective countries.

~~For now, this has been considered a subproject of Plevia.~~

Name

Obviously we don't want to just adopt "Papal" for the OGF Papal States. Confederatio Sacra Territorii Lazari Thilique seems to be a leading name, although other names named after possible OGF Apostles or other saints (Marcus, Luca, Lucius, Thomas, Judas, Basilides, Matthias) are being considered. This will be decided formally when the project is launched.

A corresponding proper noun name might be Lazaria et Thilia.

Alternatively these names could be used as island or city names - exempli gratia Portus Lazarenus

Mapping style and geography

Each islet under its direct political control could be dominated by a single monastery, like the Holy Cross Cathedral on Aghtamar Island in Turkey. Or like Mount Athos, with a sacred mountain or volcano, but less hermit and possibly a bit more centralised, maybe with a city with at least 150,000 people like Malta. The Papal Palace on Furgenia will be similar to the papal palace in Avignon (1309-1377) and largely fortified due to past attempts by Mazanic conquerors to take the island. Generally, the islets would be similar to the various islets in the real-world Mediterranean.

While a "theocratic elective monarchy" under the direct rule of the Pope, the Confederation could still function as an independent state handling its own foreign affairs, defence etc etc. As such, unlike the Vatican City, it will still have modern ports, airports and towns and villages of ordinary civilians.

History

The island on which the Confederation is currently centred is not the original Holy See. Like the Papal States, the Confederation once ruled over a series of territories, with sovereignty granted to the Popes by the Romantish Empire (or whichever the OGF Roman Empire is), and the See used to be centred in a Plevian city. However, perhaps due to a civil war in Plevia (around the 19th or 20th centuries), the Pope was forced out of that city and the See fled to Furgenia. As the island was heavily fortified, the Plevians were unable to capture the Pope.

The island itself could be a metropolitan/important centre for a variety of other reasons; perhaps it is the birthplace of "the prophet(s)", perhaps it was an important trade city, perhaps the papacy was moved there, perhaps it was the place where the prophet(s) preached. Nevertheless, with the Pope and the See reorganising on the island, it redeveloped and modernised into the current era, with its independence guaranteed by various nations in the Mediterranean.

The Confederation is likely mapped in Latin, its official language.

Zhenkang (talk) 08:15, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Comments

Hi, mappers! If it is approved, would be OK to move Peritano to this island, wouldnt? -- BMSOUZA (talk) 13:04, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Not really. Bixelkoven, who is one of the admins in charge of West Uletha, admitted that the OGF Papal States should divert, as much as possible without dropping obvious connotations to Pope and Catholicism/Ortholicism, from being Vatican copy. Peritano is directly inspired by Vatican so it would be better not to use it. It may be, however, reused partially or be used as a mapping in other country. It's good mapping of old city after all. Rustem Pasha (talk) 13:20, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Ok, Rustem! I just said it because looks like Peritano and around are available, but I understand the statement. -- BMSOUZA (talk) 13:50, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

I will confess that the project is intriguing and could be quite interesting. There are two problems at this point:

Purple territories are community-owned and cannot be split haphazardly just because someone in the project wants to. It's a new territory from a community area not a private one… make a request the appropriate way! Where was the discussion? Why that location and not multiple others that could have worked? I am aware that Bixelkoven indicated support for the project, but (to my knowledge) he did not state a go-ahead, and we hadn't had a chance to at least touch base as co-admin. We have a process for a reason.
I can see some potential world-building content above, but the idea of it being a "subproject" of Plevia is ambiguous and actual details are not worked out. There needs to be a larger, brief community discussion about how the project is organised and structured.

Right now, I can see it is already split on the map, renamed on the map, multiple other changes already started unilaterally, and there has been no public community involvement. That's inappropriate. Since I do think the project has some merit, I am not going to revert the changesets at this moment. However, no more edits shall take place until a few things are nominally worked out. This should not take long, but let's get this done first. Further edits will be treated accordingly.

So, let's get into some very specifics that need clarification. (When responding do so below the signature and don't break up the list.)

Who will be allowed to participate in this project? This impacts how the process will unfold from here.
1. If this is a proposed semi-private or invite-only territory, then this needs to be converted to a true territory request. A simple forum will not work in that case.
2. If this is going to be a fully-open community purple, it will by necessity need to be separate from Plevia. This forum would work for this, but then it needs to remain a visible conversation… here, not elsewhere.
Who will oversee this? The project is not going to be under the header of Plevia. It's a completely different idea, and one that can/should succeed on its own. The person who will be overseeing it will require admin approval and should be capable of helping to resolve conflicts that can arise in active purples.
How will the project unfold? Is it by selection of areas? Is it by selection of projects? Who will ensure the timeline of events (e.g. when the airport gets mapped).
What is the proposed layout of the project from a human-geography standpoint? Where are the cities and of what sizes? Where are the fortifications and monasteries? What about infrastructure? Is there a draft plan that can clarify these things and help guide it going forward?
Let's talk about naming. There are some issues here, and we need to resolve them. Who are Lazarus and Thilius? Why those names, and what are they to represent? Why does it say Openge on the map? As a sub-point: We also cannot and should not stake claim to apostolic names. Important fictitious saints? Sure. Let's go for it. Messing with inherent key pieces of religion? Let's just stay away from that.

There are other things that will arise as we talk about. I'm open to considering the merits of this project, but I'm quite annoyed at the unilateral and unapproved changes. Under normal circumstances, all these edits would be reverted and treated as vandalism. I'm going to wait for now, to see if we can right the ship. — Alessa _(talk) 13:58, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi Alessa. Here is my response as the coordinator for Plevia, from which this state would eventually split.

The discussion started on the unofficial discord server, and at least 3 or 4 mappers started exchanging enthusiastic opinions. In the beginning, some landlocked territories were suggested, but then I came up with the idea of a Holy See on an island, and this idea seemed to catch the interest of most. The whole thing escalated over the course of half a day, and a certain amount of consensus seems to have been reached. Probably the enthusiasm of those involved led them to consider the whole thing settled before proposing an official forum on the wiki. For the time being, we will stop editing. (I have not been editing there myself, but I have only given permission to those who want to continue).

Here are my answers to the numbered questions.

I see this as a completely open project. Of course it will be separate from Plevia.
We need to discuss this.
I do not think that I have enough time and energy to be the owner of this project as well, so my role will only be that of ceding this island by removing it from Plevia for the sake of this project, and to map it on the same level as the other participants. If someone wants to take on the task of coordinating the project, I welcome them.
This needs to be discussed, I am not able to answer this now. I think a draft map will be prepared soon.
Openge was considered at first, but then it seemed to be a knightly order already taken. So we later changed it to Thilus (after Thilo) and Lazarus, another fitting name of Hebrew origin and Latin equivalent.

--Izaland Terramorphing Committee (talk) 14:46, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

4. There haven't been any definite plans regarding this, but personally I think the antropogeographical layout can mostly remain as is. I've merely changed the harbour entrance slightly to offer more protection which is important given the history.

5. Lazarus is also a reference to reinvigoration of the project. These can be saints if apostolic names is deemed a bridge too far.

--Imperator (talk) 14:53, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Hello there! As a mapper who participates in the Plevia project, I am quite interested in this idea. However, I wanted to address some of my questions/concerns regarding this project, serving as perspective of the mappers at the contributor level in the Plevia project.

Mapping before Discussion: As Alessa stated, I find it strange that this idea was mapped before any formal discussion was made. I do agree, I was concerned that the admin team would consider this as vandalism; none of them (as far as I know) even knew that this proposal was in the works. I have briefly skimmed through the discussion regarding this proposal on the unnofficial Discord server myself, so I may not be as knowledgable about the proposal, but my main concerns currently are:
1. No formal decision was made on whether we had the green light to begin implementing this proposal. And
2. Not all the users who participate in the Plevia collab are members of the Discord server, thus not all of the Plevia participants would have a say on whether they want this proposal to be implemented or not.
The Choice of Language Rendered on the Map: I noticed that Latin was unofficially chosen for names that would be rendered on the map. I do see this as a viable option, considering that this proposal is based off of the Papal States, whose primary language was/included. However, I am sort of opposed to having Latin as the language which names are rendered. After looking at Vatican City briefly, I saw that names of buildings, plazas, etc. were named in mixed Italian/Latin. My question here is: how will places, buildings, landmarks, etc. be named? Considering that this is being considered a 'subproject' of Plevia, here are some proposals on how the naming schematic could work:
1. "The Pseudo-Vatican Approach":
  1. Names of places (cities, towns, villages, buildings, etc.) should generally be in Italian.
  2. Names of important places, or places of significance (i.e., Government/Church-affiliated buildings) should be named in Latin, with Italian names being tagged as name:it = * or alt_name = *.
2. Alternatively, the system could work as:
  1. All names will be in Italian, using name = *, with Latin translations being tagged as name:la = *. (See Key:name:la)
Fictious "Apostles": I agree with Alessa's point of possibly referring to a list of fictitious significant individuals, but to refrain from "messing with inherent key pieces of religion." I am fond of using saints names instead.

I'll think of more points to address once more about the project is discussed. Again, I would have waited to publish any changes to the map until admin approval. Regardless, I am interested in this proposal, as it sounds like an interesting idea!

-- Geoc3ladus (talk) 23:33, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Tbh, the main reason for setting up this draft proposal is to discuss and consolidate ideas from the unofficial discord before filing a formal application. And Imperator shouldn't have jumped the gun to just carve out the territory, even with Izaland's approval. Also, the reason why I wrote it as subproject of Plevia" is because Izaland said as such, and so far it involves seceding a few bits of Plevia for this Confederation.

While I drafted the proposal, admittedly I might not end up to be very involved. I like the idea enough to write something for it, but its likely I rather leave it to the Catholics who have a better idea of how to steer the project forward.

Perhaps for the first phase of the Papal States, we keep it to a few islets in the Mediterranean. Further discussions and coordination would be needed to deliberate about potential former territories of the Confederation and their status. Zhenkang (talk) 05:19, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Regarding the language as discussed by Geoc3ladus:

2. Why are you opposed to having Latin as the language in which things are rendered? This should not be seen as a direct equivalent of the papal states linguistically, it concerns a sizeable island off the coast with logically cultural differences compared to the mainland. Given its position as independent island nation it could easily have continued the tradition of using latin eventhough the local populace pronounces words differently as they are written, just like English does.

Imperator (talk) 09:47, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Hello Imperator! To answer your question, it sort of ties back to the mapping that was made before the forum discussion, but since Rustem requested that not be addressed any further—which I agree, it does interfere with the discussion,— I will not go into any further detail. While I may have some opposition to the Latin bein the primary language, I am not fully opposed to it; I think it could be a really cool idea that can be expanded! The main reasoning I was hesitant about this choice was the lack of historical context to justify Latin as the primary language. While I may not know the exact history of Uletha, I feel it there is some parallel that follows the development of the modern Romance/Romantish languages. From what I understand, given that this is a nation inspired by the Papal States, there existed a period in history where the two main types of Latin: Classical (and Church) Latin and Vulgar Latin, were used. If I understand this correctly, the Church during and after the pre-Renaissance era used Classical Latin when delivering sermon, and it was seen as the "proper language" among people of the time. The peasants commonly spoke their vernacular, which each of them were derived from the Vulgar Latin.

As time passed, Latin slowly began to fade out (possibly as a side effect of the Protestant Reformation and growing criticism of the Catholic Church). The main question I would like to pose in response is: if Latin is to be the/a primary language of the Confederation, would there have been some sort of movement that sparked the resurgence of Latin? I feel that if some history behind Latin as a language is integrated into the history of the Confederation, that could justify the presence of Latin in the Confederation.

One proposal that I had in mind was the proposal that Izaland had suggested: the integration of a pseudo-Sardinian language being present on the island of Furgenia, possible being one of the primary languages alongside Latin. I would love to hear your proposals!

Cheers!

-- Geoc3ladus (talk) 19:03, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Hello Geoc3ladus,

First of all it is worth mentioning that Latin was also used, until much later in academic circles, for example Newton wrote in Latin and it mostly started disappearing from that due to nationalistic tendencies.

I can think of a few factors that could've helped to maintain Latin as a functional language:

1) The language could've been conservative and not gone through some of the changes that caused the vulgar latin variations to lose contact with classical latin and eventually, cause sufficient changes for renewal of the writing system to necessary. Fewer changes could occur due to the lower population and less contact with external populations (isolation), an example can be Iceland where speakers can easily read the sagas from 1000 years ago. It could be possible that the island maintained a variation of Latin much closer to classical latin and didn't feel the need to change the spelling to something more adequate.

2) Education by itself can recreate a language in which people live completely, a good example is the near complete destruction of dialects and languages in France. The best example is probably Occitan which was spoken by 39% of the French in 1860 and has now virtually disappeared and is spoken by approximately 1% of the population.

3) The maintenance of Latin as the language used in administration, universities, law, might have caused a resurgence in the 19th/20th century due to education.

4) Concious attitude towards the language, historical pride, prestige and purism.

An example could be this exerpt from 1609:

"Arngrímur argues in Latin that contemporary Icelandic is the ancient tongue of the North, i.e., of Northern Europe, and not simply a vernacular. Only Icelanders use it unspoiled, he claims, while neighboring peoples have corrupted it, and thus it behooves Icelanders to preserve its pristine state. It was here the doctrine of Icelandic purism – perhaps the single most characteristic feature of Icelandic culture today – was first articulated in print (Jensson 2008 : 2)."

5) Continued literacy, literate people tend to conform the way they speak to the written form.

6) Changes mostly occured in aspects that are not visible in how the language is mapped. For example verbs may have changed quite a bit, but this is not visible on maps.

It would have to be a combination of such factors to maintain a language for a lengthy period I think. I think an idea involving Sardo would merit its own larger territory.

Cheers!

Imperator (talk) 22:36, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Adding my cent to this discussion.

Latin as a language died off in its original form, specially because the Roman Empire could not enforce gramatical rules over the population, the church preserved Latin as the church's prefered language, while Latin in the Papal State's seems to have been multiplural (by the fact that the Papal States ruled over multiple dialects). We have Neolatin, a version of Latin revived by enlightment scholars, but if you analise historically, Latin loses its influence after the decline of the Empire. I like the idea of Sardinian being used as a base language and Latin being recognized as a second official government language, just like it was in multiple countries (The Polish-Lithuan Commmonwealth used Latin as a second language for the government, but we know it was not spoken). Another thing, Icelandic is like this because it was a generally isolated language, even with foreign rule, and we should remember the language did have changes in some grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, the only thing is that it didn't evolve the same way other germanic languages did because of it's isolation from mainland europe.Davieerr (talk) 12:50, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I will respond about the use of Latin below, but as admin I will simply note that Sardinian in the area would be an absolute non-starter. — Alessa _(talk) 13:17, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

https://imgur.com/gallery/furgenia-proposal-laOOMYi Here follows an idea for the island, remembering that the reason why the Papal States ever ended is because the pope got cornered up in Rome, either the pope moved the "capital" or it still claims something on Plevia's capital. Also if Sardinian is a non-stater or if any other dialect is a non-starter no issue.Davieerr (talk) 13:20, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I like the plan bur feom what Alessa said it would require further detailing with major infrastructure (airport, monasteries, fortifications) marked at it. Rustem Pasha (talk) 11:30, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Back to the languages:

I personally think we can go one step further, and instead of using Latin or one of its close descendants/ancestors, we can evolve Latin our own way, just like I did with Snaskrit in Aizaqarasabumi. Although that would create another problem: How would people access resources for it? My country is, of course, a private territory, so i can keep the langauge wherever i want, but for a collaborative territory it's a bit harder. I know a dozen of people use ConWorkShop, but to access a dictionary of any language you need an account. Another option is to create at a free wiki service a separate wiki just for this, but I don't think anyone will volunteer to spend a lot of time to set it up... There is also OGF Data spreadsheet, but there is no access point to it outside of Discord server. Anyone has other ideas? SleepyAks (talk) 23:05, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

I also agree with you, I would like to create a possible evolution on centuries of Latin.

I thought that using the OGFC spreadsheet is also fine. Why don't we just add the link here on the Wiki for everyone to access it? But if someone has better ideas that is fine. It is also Ok for me to create an account on a specialised website, if necessary. --Izaland Terramorphing Committee (talk) 23:13, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Coordinator

It seems that people involved into invention of Papal States in OGF agreed to appoint me as a coordinator and I hope my candidacy will be approved by the admin team. I want to keep this forum focused on merits of the project, not on potential rule-breaking which, I believe, came from misunderstanding, not any sort of illwill (and I was not even aware it is happening. Given that I want to apologize for that and ask for other users to refrain from comments about that. It is really counterproductive at this point, especially given that I think we all want this project to succeed.

Going back to merits, I will answer now the questions raised above.

I see this project as comopletely open purple territory. Given that it is supposed to be the only one of a kind, it would really be unfair for any user who can provide sufficient quality of mapping from editing there.
I Rustem Pasha, was appointed as a coordinator by the ones who participated in creating early ideas for the project. As a relatively long time owner of Demirhan Empire and a person who was involved in creation of Mediterranean Sea and also provided guest mapping for Castellan I am well aware of local matters and lore. I also have relatively good record of my previous work, including participation in collaborative projects so I hope my candidacy will be approved by the admin team and the wider community.
Location: I support locating the project on Plevian island chosen by Imperator and Izaland. I believe Papal State must be located somewhere near the core of Romantian Empire and should have access to the sea, which was historically used for relatively fast travel which would allow spread of faith around the region. Additionally it is large enough to create opportunities of mapping a theocratic state without getting bored of the theme. It will not look as a Vatican City ripoff which is a good thing as well. Given that mapping already present on the island can be used as a framework as it creates opportunity both for mapping cities and towns and mountainous monasteries. There is no available plan for these places yet but I will try to prepare it as soon as possible and revail it for a discussion in this forum page.
It is not supposed to be large project so allocation of areas to selected users does not seem like plausible idea. I would see the project as following masterplan provided by coordinator and later discussed and improved. When the masterplan (a whole area or just selected parts) will be prepared, users will be allowed to map there. Such masterplan is supposed to show where important human settlements and infrastructure are located with some areas being planned in detail (by this I mean mainly important areas of the capital city). That would mean if someone wants to map airport, they will be allowed to do it more or less from the start in given location.
Naming is hard question. We assumed that using fictional apostles was a good idea but it is not something which can not be changed in respect of sensitivity of other users. As ZK already mentioned current name is provisional and may be subject of change. Personally I am now thinking removing the saints names from the country name would be probably the best option.
Language I prefer to be used in the country is Latin and this is probably the only thing in the project about which I will stay adamant and will defend it at all costs. I think having Latin as a living language of small country is an interesting project. At the same time I am well aware that languages evolve over time and new words are added. I assume, however, church imposed relatively conservative language policies over the island inhabitants and the language is not much different from standard church Latin. As Imperator mentioned secular folk may however pronounce some words differently. Additionally some words for modern things have to be incorporated to Latin and obvious source for that is Italian.

I hope this answer is complex enough to answer said questions - this is my vision for a territory which I will try to finalize if I will be appointed as a coordinator. Best regards, Rustem Pasha (talk) 10:43, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Rustem, Bixelkoven and I have agreed that you should be coordinator for the project. I trust with your leadership this project won't be a whim that dies out. Lots of things get bantered about on that Discord space, only to never get beyond initial conceptual stage. A special project like this needs to have more support than two or three users. On another note, it is very kind and selfless of you to apologize for the actions of others (regardless of reckless motives). It would be better for individuals to be humble enough and care enough to take responsibility for their own actions. Now, onto the project specifics.

It is good that this will be an open purple, and I agree that allocation of areas is probably not plausible. Please take care that one person does not end up dominating all corners of the project, to leave space for others at various levels of the project. This is particularly important of smaller projects. If the territory needs to expand beyond these islands, that should be worked out between you and the admin. I am not really keen on the idea of extraterritorial exclaves dotting the map within other purples. There are a few other potential solutions that might be useful.
Next, I look forward to seeing a more grounding plan for the territory. Yes, I can see some elements already on the map, but your guiding plan will be important. I also think certain institutions will need some forethought. For example, where will church lands be concentrated (ascetic lands, communal monasteries, key church–government institutions)? The entire conceptual edifice does not need to be final; it is just a guiding document to see how this theocratic state will interact with the citizenry.
Relatedly, thank you for clarifying that this would not be a Vatican-style rip-off. The location within the ancient empire is definitely reasonable. It strikes me as important that this territory be at least a couple centuries old. I like the idea of consolidation of papal power with a less-contentious Avignon situation. An alternative could be allotment of papal lands (like the Donation of Pepin) but with the intent of having a "more neutral" space to prevent a single country from dominating the church hierarchies. One thing that will need to be worked out is about when this occurred, and what the military situation would be. If the church lands are a neutral space with its own guard, then there should be arrangements with other territories for protection. This would mean that you might have knightly "houses" or even small representations beyond embassies (think the old auberges in Valletta, Malta but for countries or leagues instead of just ethnic blocks within an order).
My comment on naming should not be taken as a disapproval of Lazarus and Thilius. It should rather be a disapproval of calling them 'apostles.' If the territory were to be named for those two individuals, my only contention would be to just call them important early saints and leave it at that. That said, I'm open to additional proposals for the name. I would be curious what it would be called in other languages. In a related way, any approval of this project would not mean that this purple would have control over naming all past popes or major church figures. There will be a degree of strong influence here, but this should be fielded from the broader community.
I support the use of Latin on the map, with this caveat: Ecclesiastical Latin and Jesuit-initiated Neo-Latin will need to be used by necessity to fill in gaps for technological improvements. Yes, it is technically the same language; but there are some minor spelling and syntactic changes from Classical Latin. I trust these will happen naturally when using modern terms anyway (e.g. automobile, airport, etc.). The use of a pure Classical Latin just will not work for this project. Additionally, while top-down enforcement and education of linguistic policy can create a culture that uses this language, it is also something that gets messier the further down. I would expect individual shops, some personal names (given and surnames), and even non-domestic items (imports from abroad) to have bad Latin, awkward imports, malformed neologisms, or even random words from other languages. All living languages do this, so I would expect that this would equally exist here. Disputes continue online with new words all the time even today; the language on a very hyperlocal level should be messy at times.

I have some other nuanced things that we should work out, if we're in agreement. It is best to start here first. Cheers! — Alessa _(talk) 13:17, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

To be honest I am not sure how the idea of exclaves is supposed to work as well, without copying questionable idea of Merganian exclaves. Also given how dynamics of collaborative projects look I would not seek way for the expansion beyond the borders which are already on map (maybe except for adding some tiny islets which may increase area a bit) until it is mapped in high level of detail (buildings) in at least 70-80% - the island of Furgenia will be a home for all central institutions so further expansion will not be a problem. Also I see some space for adding more inhabited islands instead of exclaves if that will be needed.
Regarding the pln I'm very short on time til tomorrows night so we will have to wait for it for a while unless someone else prepares acceptable plan.
This requires longer talk about general Plevian history which is still unclear. However I assume that while Papal state started with a manner similar to Avignon but then gained independence due to political changes in Plevia. This what I write now is pure assumption and may be invalid if Plevian coordinators have different vision of their country history but I would say Papal state was built under protection of one of smaller Plevian states which was later conquered by the other one, maybe during process of Plevian unification. The conquest of the island was either militarily or politically unprofitable so as a result the Papal state regained full independence. As far as I know there was an idea for a papal state having knightly order as a form of an army (instead of real world Swiss guards), that would fit the idea of them having own representation.
Well, we certainly don't have to call them "Apostles". But I'm afraid of the other thing. We should not put church-related terms everywhere because that would end with the country being comically one topic. Neither Vatican (Etruscan name), Rome (probably also Etruscan), let alone Avignon don't have church-related names. While I believe church topic should be prevalent in names of statues or street names, the name of the country and geographic names should not be related assuming they are just legacy names from pre-christian times. Given that I would prefer to see a sort of community competition for a country name instead of using Lazarus and Thilius, even though I appreciate the reference.
Speaking about language I see what you mean and I generally agree. The comment about the language was more in a response to those who want to impose usage of other languages there (Italian or Sardo) for which I don't really see place there. I am well aware languages evolve, so I expect Latin as a living language would evolve too, there are several resources for modern names in Latin and I will try to gather them on the future collaboration page for a country. Rustem Pasha (talk) 11:26, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

The plan below looks good. Thank you. I agree that spamming church-based names everywhere is implausible. Please feel free to generate a conlang (or even use Etruscan) as a means of coming up with some ancient precursors to settlement for some strategic facilities. I am personally less worried than you are about creating saints out of nothing, but I respect your caution. (There already is a Saint Lazarus in real life, so using that would simply fit with the existing Christian-themed idiom without having to explain how it got there). I am glad you won't make it a parody of a "papacy"-led theocracy.

I am going to insist on a couple of things with regard to history of the islands, however. One, there has been a church presence since antiquity on the islands (for whatever reason). This conveniently explains why there is a place the "papacy" would even be willing to call home, the heavy monastic influence, and the reason other naval powers would "leave the church alone" even in the naval-colonial days. The second point I want to see is that the global powers, even when at their colonial 'heights' all agreed that this would be a neutral space and would just "leave the church alone." I am going to insist on it as a way to explain why FQ, Plevia, etc. have blotchy spots all across that mediterranean area and yet did not work to claim these islands. Now, how they became independent or how the papacy "moved" there is all up for discussion. I just want to put those two guardrails up.

If expansion is necessary (I agree, I don't know that it is), we can work that out later. There are options, but I agree that it is afar off.

I shall convene with Bixelkoven and see if there is anything he has before I move this forward. Cheers, — Alessa _(talk) 02:13, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Greetings, I apologize for not being more involved in the discussion of this project, my schedule right now isn't allowing me any more than discussing matters with Alessa. Generally, I am supportive of most of the points Rustem and Alessa have brought. I am not really knowledgeful of religious matters in detail so I really cannot comment on stuff like church possessions or how the government should rule, that I will leave to the rest of you to discuss and perfect. What I will comment on though is the potential expansion - I believe that this project with the essence it has should work more on the quality than quantity, and I imagine most of you are with me on this. With that, I do not think exclaves of any sorts would work and I am kind of sick of them to begin with, there's already plenty of those (admittedly, I contributed to their number as well). The expansion of the archipelago is doable, however I would say in the far future, since I believe this project should really be worked to perfection before eyeing on more land to work with. That implies lots of area under high amounts of detail, for example. It'd be a very important place for most of the global population and as such it should be the pinnacle of collaboration and high quality mapping, and it doesn't need more land for that.

Secondly, regarding the name of the territory and the usage of saints - I myself am a huge fan of creating saints for my mapping (having done so a lot in Castellan), and generally am not opposed to see this territory be named after a saint, whether that's Saint Openge, Thilius and Lazarus, or something else, however I also welcome the competition for the name so that the interested parties in the project can come up with a more creative name.

Lastly, I think Latin should stay as the main language of this territory, however as a huge fan of conlangs you may try something out with that as well. I don't really feel like Sardinian could work, and Etruscan might work only because it's extinct, and because it sound cool honestly, but I personally would stick with Latin. Other than that, for now I have no additional comments, I have agreed personally with Alessa's remarks he noted above, just to confirm that, and I feel like this project can kick off with you, Rustem Pasha, as the coordinator. The plan below also looks fine to me. ⸺ Bixelkoven (talk) (West Uletha Admin) 16:05, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I am going to approve the creation of the project but with a significant condition, after having a brief conversation with the new coordinator. No one is allowed to edit the map in the project until Rustem gives the go-ahead. He is being given the chance to make sure everything is set up properly; this includes a brief collaboration page. Once that is done as he wishes, people would be free to edit at his discretion and under his direction. I am going to list the name as "St. Lazarus and Thilius" for now, as a temporary English name. Feel free to work on changing it for the future, if you wish. It might be a good community discussion. Also, given that this project intersects with a lot of territories and their religious history (potentially), feel free to create extra forum posts to discuss those things more widely. I'll circle back with Rustem on that in a few days, as I know he is busy this week. — Alessa _(talk) 18:19, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I forgot one other stipulation: at this point, the wiki presence will be handled pretty much exclusively by the coordinator for the project and not open to any use who wishes to play around with the world-building. This means that all contributors to the project are free to discuss with the coordinator, discuss in the forum here on the wiki, or use relevant talk pages here on the wiki (not Discord conversations or semi-hidden offsite documents). But, in order to be part of the canon of the wiki page, it either needs broad agreement shown on the wiki or be placed by the coordinator. The primary reason for this is to ensure that issues that intersect with and overlap with other countries and religious figures are given due time and respect to be worked out by a larger group of people (including the numerous ones of us not on Discord). — Alessa _(talk) 22:32, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Just to add about the history: Yeah the general idea is that these islets could have been a metropolitan/important centre for a variety of other reasons; perhaps it is the birthplace of "the prophet(s)", perhaps it was an important trade city, perhaps it was the place where the prophet(s) preached. Early Christianity also spread to and from various ports of the Mediterranean, so those could be reasons of the monasteries and the old churches that exist there.

I guess also due to it being under direct Papal sovereignty there's more reluctance by Ulethan powers to invade them. After all, that's also why Vatican City still exists. Also in the Plevian civil wars (around 19th/20th century) when the Pope was forced out of Plevia and the See relocated to Furgenia, there might be some outcry if the Plevians invaded the islets. So to maintain relations and trade, the new Plevian government avoided invading Furgenia and did some sort of peace treaty.--Zhenkang (talk) 04:11, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Furgenia development

Furgenia proposal by Rustem Pasha

I finally managed to prepare workable plan for Furgenia. You can see it on the right, it is pretty self-explanatory. Rustem Pasha (talk) 19:45, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

This works for me, and it makes sense. Thank you. One thing I am grateful to know is that the islands are not particularly rugged in a way that makes them difficult to live on. The terrain makes sense and is not excessive. — Alessa _(talk) 02:13, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I second Alessa here. This plan should fit the project quite well! — Geoc3ladus (talk) 02:52, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Opening of the project

I want to announce opening of the project. At this point all changes I wanted to place on map^∈^⊾ are uploaded and the collaboration page under temporary name is established. Everybody interested and meeting the criteria is invited to join. Next steps will include discussion about the country name and flag, most likely in another forum topic as this one is already quite long. I will also prepare short in-world article. Happy (holy?) mapping, Rustem Pasha (talk) 20:46, 24 June 2024 (UTC)