u/TobeFrank101

Since a new group of players is interested in a setting that lends itself more to fantasy, intrigue among nobles, and a world of satin and duels, I recently purchased Court of Blades.
I have always been a big fan of trying to connect my different worlds and player groups. It is one of the things that makes it more fun to me as a GM - and the reveals when players understand one of the connecting threads are incredibly satisfying.

I am currently reading through to lore of Court of Blades and trying to see if I can fit it into the original Blades in the Dark setting. Since Ilrien gives me strong Italian Trade Republic vibes I immediatly thought about placing it in southern Akoros, possibly having Ilrien be an old/local/informal name for the city of South Point or have it as a new city on the peninsula/little islands east of Ilysia.

Most of the described cultures/heritages seem easily mapable to what's established in original Blades:

Maur, desert kingdoms across the ocean to the south = Iruvia. (Probably also where House Al-Mari "mercenaries from across the seas" is originally from.)
Iberican, unestablished nomads and wanderers = Severos, or maybe an original wandering people of Akoros.
Clarais, wild country of grasslands, mountains and forests. Localized government and resisting foreing invasion = Skovlan.

More difficult:

The Jewel Cities, three strange, ancient and arcane islands, now sunk beneath the waves. Rich in advanced technology, with magic everyday part of life = reads more like Atlantis than anything from Blades. Possibly a sunken part of the Dagger Isles? Or once situated near Tycheros, with Tycheros being the only of the four who prevailed?

Altori, a distant kingdom, romantic, poetic and rich in beauty = no clear match. Maybe another part of Akoros, which alludes to romanticized ideas of medieval Europe? Maybe an area around Wintercliff?

The biggest issues I have is in regards to the dread empire and Ilrien's history. The present day is given as the year 794, with year 0 being the founding of Ilrien.
The Dread Emperor is described as arriving in the year 125 in an attempt to conquer the whole continent. He commands legions and Warweavers, sorcerer-generals, who use powerful ritual magic unparalleld in power today today.
In 313 the city rebels and frees itself from the empire. The current system of government, based on rivaling houses, is established.
The dread empire gets completely defeated by "the deathless" in 430.
Ilrien finances the containment of the deathless, the last of which is sealed in 477 in the necropolitan hill in the city.
Successor Wars on the mainland are waged and Ilrien rises to power until 651.
Present day is 794.

I am unsure if there is a good way to connect this to official Blades history. The Deathless obviously match the ghosts and spirits from blades quite well. The setting further implies a special way of handling the dead, with The Death Watchers faction specifically described as continuing to search for ways to keep dead who is dead. This seems easy enough to expand on since Blades and Deep Cuts hint towards other ways than electroplasm to contain rising spirits (most notably: Protective magic used by the Immortal Emperor himself).

More difficult is the Dread Empire and Dread Emperor. It can't be the same person as the Immortal Emperor, as the latter is still around and ruling. So it has to be some kind of older empire that came before. The Successor Wars are difficult as well. It isn't really cear when the Immortal Emperor started ruling, although he must have been incredibly powerful already at the point of the cataclysm. It probably makes sense to assume that it took him some time to establish himself as the emperor of Akoros, since he had to fight ghosts and figure out the protective magic. Some more regular wars could fit here as well.

My final idea: The Dread Emperor arrives in Pre Cataclysm time. At some point before 430 in CoBs timeline the cataclysm happens. At this point the immortal emperor becomes a player, fighting against the deathless/undead until 477 CoB. He may even have thought against the Dread Emperor himself and dethroned him. The Immortal Emperor then conquers the rest of Akoros, winning the Sucessors Wars, until 651 CoBs. Ilrien's status could then be similar to a free imperial city of the HRE - widely self-governing but direct subject to the Immortal Emperor.
The actual present year in Blades timeline would then be 364 or later. One could argue that the cataclysm led to the establishment of the Esultare or made the rebellion of Ilrien possible in the first place, which would put our current year to 474 or 481 in terms of Blades.

Thanks for reading through my figments of imagination. What do you think?