Post by distantfridays on Jan 9, 2011 20:48:47 GMT
• Koninkrijk der Nederlanden
Name --- Kristoffel Stefan de Vries
N ation--- Koninkrijk der Nederlanden (The Kingdom of the Netherlands)
Aliases --- Holland, Netherlands, Kris, Nederlands, Net, among others that are insulting that he does not care to list
Apparent age --- 26
Actual age --- 578 (starting at the unification of Netherlands and Belgium by the Duke of Burgundy in 1433)
Gender--- Male
|-|-The External-|-|
Eye color --- Light blue
Hair color --- Dirty Blond
Height --- 180.34 cm (5’11”)
Weight --- 75 Kg (165 lbs)
Skin tone --- Pale, with the hint of a tan
Defining features --- When you look at Holland, you may notice that he almost always has a cynical frown on his face. He’s constantly thinking about something, and will snap at you if you interfere with his planning. His eyes are somewhat bloodshot from nights spent up late planning war strategy, as well as from the substances he is rather fond of using.
If you look close enough, you will see a lattice of scars from all of his military engagements up and down his arms and on his shoulders. Scars from disease and plague are scattered across his body, the most distinct on his forehead from the Dutch Revolt.
If you ever see him stand from laying down, you will notice a certain stiffness of his back. He claims it’s from old age- though he’s hardly the oldest Nation about- and it’s really from secession from the Habsburg Dynasty under William of Orange. The scar that runs across his lower body is a result of the separation of Spanish supporters and the Dutch separatists.
He has a permanent ache from separating with his sister, Belgium, broke away in 1839.
Additional features --- You will never see Holland without his blue-striped scarf about his neck. He wears it for his own personal reasons, and he will not divulge upon them. The truth is that he wears it to cover a small scar at the base of his head that he acquired during the French Revolution.
He’s rather tall, standing at five feet eleven inches. He’s also quite well-muscled and lean from all the wars of his past. Like most Nations, he sometimes has a rather haunted look from the memories of all the fighting. That does not mean, however, that he is weak. He is strong from his once-upon-a-time empire that was the envy of the world. His naval exploits and explorations left him with firm, wiry muscles and a similarly firm countenance.
He actually only really looks like half of his people- the Germanic half. The Spanglo-French half of his population is not really apparent in his looks. With icy blue eyes and light hair, he does not possess the tan of his former liege lords of the south. Those icy eyes do not reveal anything- not the slightest of emotion or thought.
No, his eyes are flat. But he is hardly expressionless; his emotions are evident in the set of his pale, slim lips and arched, dark eyebrows.
When his hair is not tamed with a comb and copious amounts of water, it is wild and spiked. It sticks up in an unruly mess, and he usually does not care to fix it. It has always been as long as it is, never allowed to grow any longer or cut to be any shorter.
|-|-The Internal-|-|
Personality ---
Kristoffel Stefan de Vries is not an overly complicated man. He will not scold you if you misuse his language, will not hit on you in predictable intervals, and will not scoff should you attempt to wage war on your neighbors instead of marrying him. This is not because he’s a quiet, reserved man. No, this is because he simply does not care what you are doing so long as it does not involve him or his allies.
After spending a great deal of time with his sister and Spain, as well as South Italy and France, he realized that the sort of indifference he liked to maintain would not help him in the long run. So he started paying attention to what was going on around him, and he started to learn. France, though he was amorous and foolish-looking, only pressed his advances on certain people. All Nations only acted the way they did as a test to other Nations.
So he started to care. And, once he did, he started to rebel.
Aside from the occasional side of rebelliousness and disconcerting unconcern, Kristoffel is prone to intense bouts of hatred towards just about every Nation on the planet. Either they are after his colonies, his trading posts, or his money. He became paranoid, and it eventually caused his downfall in the long run. He remains paranoid to this day, not trusting anyone that has not proven their trustworthiness to him multiple times.
Not nearly as bloodthirsty as some of his neighbors, Kristoffel has usually been more than willing to watch war than wage it. However, it was through bloodshed and revolt that he gained his independence from the Habsburgs, and he is not reluctant to join in if it benefits him. After being used as a bargaining chip in many wars, he is also not reluctant to change sides if it will prevent him from losing entirely and becoming as powerless as he used to be.
Even though he hated being under the Habsburg rule, he cannot deny that he flourished some while under it. In most occasions, Netherlands will be honest. It prevents confusion and the making of enemies that do not necessarily need to be his enemies.
Despite being almost forced to be Catholic, Netherlands does not much care for religion. He appreciated the Reformation- it brought new beliefs to an old system- but he did not appreciate the taxes and persecution of Protestants that came with it.
After his revolt and consequential independence, Netherlands became one of the most profitable and successful trading nations in Northern Europe. He enjoyed wealth, quality of life, and flourishing of government, education, and the arts. He became somewhat spoiled, and that sense of deserving more has stayed with him since.
When his trading Empire started to decline- with help from England and his old foe, Spain- he grew desperate. After several wars in 1672, he became tired of fighting almost the entirety of all Empires in Western Europe. By the 18th century, he was too tired and weary to continue fighting. He lost most of his colonial power and remained reserved.
Due to his exhaustion and political unrest, it was child’s play for France to take over at the end of the 18th century. This installed in him an anger born of being under the control again by a foreign power. He directed this anger at his oldest enemies, and sympathized with other Nations in matching predicaments as his. He was the first Nation to recognize America as an independent Nation, and his sympathy, however slight and insignificant, stayed with him.
It was not until World War Two that he found himself not wanting to fight but being forced to. The Germans did not respect his neutrality- despite respecting it the first World War- and he was forced to join a resistance against the German occupation. He became resourceful, and consented to work with his most hated enemies to stop the Nazi invaders.
Since then, he has become multicultural and somewhat tolerant of his neighbors. He became welcome to change and worked with the other Nations to form what is the European Union today.
Likes ---
• Strategy
• War Tactics
• Rabbits
• Shady substances {Mainly opiates and marijuana}
• Naval Exploration
• Football
• Sailing
• Tulips
• Neatness
• Cooking
• Pretty dresses on pretty girls
• Realistic People
•Punching Spain
Dislikes ---
• Unrealistic, overly cheerful people
• Disorganization
• Laziness
• Cats
• Spain
• Tied things
• Optimists
Fears ---
• Spain (though you’ll never get him to admit it)
• France, because he’s under the constant impression that France wants him to be part of his Empire again
• Other people. He’s slightly xenophobic, a result from a tumultuous, war-filled history and unfriendly older nations.
• Walking alone at night. Call it paranoia, but he absolutely hates leaving his house at night. There’s no telling what can jump you, or who.
• Losing those precious to him. An example? His sister. Unfortunately, what he fears most usually comes to pass because he fears it. It makes him rather clingy, needy, and selfish.
Lesser known facts ---
• He loves to garden. As unmanly as many may find this, it’s his best way to clear his mind and stay focused. Nothing like the methodical pulling up of weeds and burying seeds to get him bored enough to think clearly.
• He doesn’t really hate Spain. At least, not as much as he pretends to. He just never got along well with him, because they never shared much. When he started to resist was when he first really started to dislike Spain.
• He loves the sea. The tossing of the waves, the smell of the salt and the water… it’s almost as good as the drugs he constantly uses. He colonized places across the world for money, but he enjoyed it all the while.
• Sometimes, he wishes that he’d just stayed with the Habsburg Empire. He wonders if things would have turned out the same way they did, and wonders if he’d still be living with his sister if he’d stayed. Then he talks to Spain and feels so much better that he left.
Goals ---
• To remain prosperous, despite opposition from other Nations. This was mainly during his years as an Empire. He now just wants to stay afloat in a world of economic depressions and war.
• To remain a world power through trading and colonization
• To remain independent and free of foreign control
|-|-The Past-|-|
History ---
• c.58 BC: The Low Countries are conquered by Julius Caesar and become part of the Roman Empire. The main boundary of the Roman Empire lied along the Rhine River. During the time of the Roman occupation, he learned language, writing, math, and experienced the building of cities and forts.
• AD 300–700: Netherlands experiences the Volksverhuizingen, in which the Germanic tribes eliminate the Roman presence and divide the Netherlands into several territories. The Franks in the south, Saxons in the east, and Frisians in the north. The Frankish empire belonged to Charlemagne.
• 800 AD to 1000 AD: The Netherlands suffer heavily from Viking raids. Much of the Netherlands is occupied by Viking warlords until the nobles of the Netherlands oust them. With the assistance of the German King Henry, the Vikings are cleared from the Netherlands.
• Into the 10th and 11th centuries, the Netherlands are controlled by the German kings. It became part of the Holy Roman Empire when King Otto the Great was crowned Emperor.
• 1433: The Netherlands and Belgium are unified by the Duke of Burgundy. The Burgundian Dukes facilitate the transition of the Netherlands being a mainly farming nation to a trading, colonizing Empire.
• Through conquest and inheritance, the Netherlands become a possession of the Habsburg Empire in the 16th century. He experiences a brief Golden Age under the control of the Habsburg Empire. Netherlands rapidly become one of the more important possessions of the Spanish Empire, earning money and trading with the southern Nation.
• The Dutch war of independence (The Eighty Years’ War) lasts from 1568 to 1648. The last thirty years become somewhat of a free-for-all for all of Europe (The Thirty Years’ War). During this time period, the Netherlands become the most prosperous trading nation in Northern Europe.
• In 1651, the Netherlands enter the first Anglo-Dutch War because of the English Navigation Act and an incident at sea. The Act remained in effect after the end of the war in 1654.
• 1672 is known as the “Disastrous Year”. The Netherlands slowly lose their power as a major trading nation when England declares war on the Republic (The Third Anglo-Dutch War). Allied with France, it becomes increasingly hard to fend off the British Empire. With the help of Germany, the Dutch triumph and treaties are signed in 1674.
• By the end of the 18th century, the Netherlands fell prey to political unrest and revolution. During this time of weakened National infrastructure, the Netherlands fell under the control of French Napoleon.
• After the Seven Years War, the Netherlands remain neutral to protect their growing wealth. Through World War One, the Netherlands and Belgium suffered food shortages and disease, but the Netherlands did not become actively involved in warfare.
• Between the First and Second World War, the Netherlands was crippled by the Great Depression. The effect on the Dutch economy was far more severe than on many other Nations in Europe. When the Nazi Party took Germany by storm and another World War was in the making, the Netherlands expected Germany to once again respect his neutrality.
• Germany conquers the Netherlands in World War Two. Smuggling, revolt, and resistance are rampant through the Low Countries. The Netherlands works with England, France, America, and Canada to oust the German invaders and take back the Occupied Territories.
• All Germans residing in the Netherlands are scheduled to be evicted in 1946. 15% of all German residents in the Netherlands are evicted between 1946 and 1948.
• The Netherlands participate actively in forming the EU, NATO, and the introduction of the Euro. The Netherlands remains neutral, diverse, and liberal to date.
|-|-The Style-|-|
Roleplay example ---
Dutch War of Independence, 1566
The decision to fight had not been an easy one, nor a fast one. How long had he been under the control of Spain and the Habsburgs? A century? Too long for him to really care to count. It was ridiculous that it had had to come to this- over religion, of all things- and he despised those who had forced him into this with all the power only a Nation could muster.
In the scheme of things, he was not very old. He’d been around to see Rome- to see the grandness, the prosperous wealth- and he’d been around to see the Germanic tribes take it all away. But that was not entirely a long time. Not when Spain had seen the Moors come and go, and come again. Not when those in the East had seen the Mongols. Not a long time.
And not, in his opinion, long enough to be fighting his protectorate. If that was what Antonio really believed himself to be. In his opinion, it was more along the lines of “Master” or “Lord”. He did what Antonio told him to do. No questions, no resistance. Not until now, at least. His people were ready to be free of Spanish oppression, Golden Age be damned. Prosperity could be theirs again, once they were no longer a possession to an Empire that only wanted them for taxes and for trade. They were ready. He was not.
Unfortunately, war never came when you were ready for it. “Are you positive?” William of Orange, stadholder of Holland and Zeeland. His foremost rebel, his champion. “The taxes-“
“Are unreasonable and I am tired of listening to him.” Kristoffel snapped, glancing at the man who would be his regent. He understood William’s questioning- he had experienced some prospering under the Habsburgs. “And if Antonio wishes to make me pay to follow my own religion, then I will respond in the same manner as he would.” War was always the answer, when it came to religion or trade. No treaties, no agreements. Those were ineffective, worthless. They expired, were forgotten.
The death of hundreds, destroyed cities, broken spirits? Poverty? The scars of war would last far longer than the temporary bandage of a treaty, and he would welcome the scars. They would bring him freedom. His own government, his own trade. His own taxes.
But war? It was easy to contemplate, easier to plan. But to win? Not nearly so.
Kristoffel was well aware that it would be a long, hard war. A trek that he would want to give up, surely, before the end. Standing there, quaking with anger with the non-choice, the injustice, there was only one thing he could do. One thing that would set this right, one thing that would stop the tyranny.
“I am sure.” And so it began.
And eighty years later, after war and death, it would end. But it would not be what he or his people had ever imagined.
|-|-The Player-|-|
Username --- Fridays
Age --- 17
Time zone --- GMT- 5 (Eastern United States)
