Costa Bravo

The Armed Republic of Costa Bravo is a small nation of an ever-growing six million inhabitants. Located in the central Mediterranean, south of Italy, Costa Bravo is a largely dystopian, post-modern seafaring nation with an ancestry in piracy and anarchic government. The currently elected Regent, Jonah Jebediah Rudabaugh, is serving out his thirty-year term, set to end as of 2028. The average income tax is 8 percent, and a healthy private sector is led by the Information Technology Industry, Woodchip Exports, and Automobile Manufacturing. The Costa Bravo national animal is the Sea Otter, and its currency is the credit.

The nation's acronym (every cool nation has one!) is ARC (pronounced "ay-ar-see", not "ark"), because ARCB sounds dumb.

History

Early History

The southern isles of Costa Bravo, the Isla de Muertes, were inhabited by various primitive cultures as early as 300 A.D. The southernmost island, Sauvage, is still inhabited by a large community of tribal cultures. The Sauvages, as they are called by Costa Bravans, have recently begun to modernize themselves, adopting contemporary technology and straying from their traditional ways. The Sauvages claim that the other Isla de Muertes belong to them, and have resorted to terrorism to articulate their opinions. Most recently, they massacred a small fishing village in southern Eisley Island, and suicide bombed the Carthaginian Embassy in Los Eisley.

Modern History

Shortly prior to the fall of the Roman Empire (473 A.D.), the mainland of Costa Bravo was seized by Rome, and titled Chrysthanthium. In late 474 A.D., Rome sent a small group of colonists to Chrysthanthium to cartograph the land and precipitate growth in the area. However, what with the collapse of the Roman Empire two years later, the colonization failed, and most of the Romans emigrated elsewhere. A handful of colonists remained, but they gradually fell into nonexistence, and their communities had entirely disappeared from the island by 1000 A.D.

Costa Bravo itself, however, was formed in December of 1455, some eleven months after Spaniards first made landfall there. Shortly thereafter, Spain rapidly and promptly seized control of the Costa Bravan mainland, a surprisingly hospitable and lush isle, considering its oft-undesirable latitude. Although the Spanish government laid claim to the mainland, it was often largely in the control of various clans of pirates and sea-faring mercenaries, due to the fact that Spain did not have the resources to prevent such happenings, and the convenient accessibility to Costa Bravo from the sea made it an ideal place for pirates to settle down in.

Cities of Costa Bravo

The cities of Costa Bravo are, with notable exceptions, derived from the Spanish language -- São Vicente, Tortuga, Santa Maria, et al. These are remnants of the early eras of Costa Bravo's existance, in the early-to-mid 16th century, when Spanish was predominately spoken on the mainland. Rura Penthe -- the city-prison on an Isla de Muerte -- is the only large (100,000+ inhabitants) city to bear a name not derived from Spanish. Instead, it draws its name from the infamously inhospitable prison in Siberia.

List of Costa Bravan cities (100,000+ inhabitants):

Flags of Costa Bravo

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Flag 1505-1652

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The very first flag of the newly-independent Armed Republic of Costa Bravo, this flag is indicative of Costa Bravo's piratic roots and spawns a long line of similar, constantly modernized, Costa Bravan flags. It is referred to as the "Jolly Norbert," after the first Regent of Costa Bravo, Norbert Arkham, formerly captain of the pirate ship Barbosa.

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