British Empire

I dare say, this page is delightfully British. Spot of tea?

"YOU WERE THE GREATEST POWER ON EARTH 50 YEARS AGO..."

"We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. They do not exist."

– Queen Victoria

The British Empire was formed in 1707 under the Acts of Union, merging the Kingdom of England (which included poor, forgotten Wales) and the Kingdom of Scotland with their respective empires into the United Kingdom. Over the next 200 years, the empire would swell to become the largest overseas empire in history. The empire, while criticized for it's colonialism and numerous atrocities committed against it’s subjects and enemies, the British Empire is credited for it's major role in ending the slave trade, creating and expanding infrastructurec throughout Africa and Asia, introducing English as the world’s Lingua Franca and maintaining international stability across the world. The empire is typically believed to have dissolved in 1997 with the loss of Hong Kong. It might no longer be "The empire on which the sun never sets" on account of it no longer being am empire, but if you include its overseas territories, the sun still does not set upon the United Kingdom.

Like the Roman Empire, the British variant is often used as a setting in many fantasy games. While not being as totalitarian and corrupt as it's Latin counterpart, colonialism and intense patriotism and jingoism are often used traits for both antagonistic and protagonist settings. Any steampunk game ever made is based on a model of Victorian London. Scampi and all.

British Empire Analogs in Fantasy

Picking a fight with the British Empire is generally a bad idea.

• The Empire in the Elder scrolls series is a mash up of Roman and British Empire culture. Examples of this include the "East Empire company", based off the British East India company.
  • Note for discussion: Praetorian and Varangian guard are both Roman Empire (or East-Roman aka Byzantine) concepts.
• Dwarfs in fantasy typically have an isolationist view of the world which parallels with Britain's "Splendid Isolation" wherein it did little to make alliances and focused on expansion.
• The Empire in Warhammer Fantasy is based more on the German Holy Roman Empire, but certain elements of it are certainly British; Altdorf takes influence from both Vienna and every bad stereotype of London (ala Ankh Morpork, except less funny), and every single Empire character is given a British accent in every Warhammer Video game (see Mark of Chaos and Total Warhammer: War).
• A posh British accent is often used in fantasy settings to show a character's wisdom, experience, nobility or evil nature.
• A cockney British accent is often used in fantasy settings to show a character's shittiness, untrustworthiness, scumminess, toughness, lovability, or just to make them as annoying as possible. Most commonly the latter two, because cockney accents are always either the most lovable thing in a setting, or the single most ear-gratingly annoying thing in the setting.
• Many wargaming companies are/were originally based in the UK such as Games Worskhop. Truly the best worst best thing to come out of the Empire.
• The city of Dunwall in Dishonored is heavily influenced by Victorian Liverpool and London.

Notes

The previous "Britain" page was deleted because I am an Anglophobic American who hates the idea the modern world was made by someone else it was irrelevant to /tg/. Any in-depth historical analysis should be kept to Wikipedia.

See Also

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sSnJSUU_7q0