If we were doing a proper product here, I would not be the guy to write this: I know at least two of the old Ars Magica gang who would be better choices. That being said, there are plot hooks here we can use, and I’d like to flag them for your table.
So, in the Magonomia period, the political centre of Europe is Spain. They’re the super-power around which the calculations of other powers orbit. This means if you are a minor power, like England, there aren’t many things you can do directly to the Spanish. England chooses defensive war, ordnance smuggled to rebellious Spanish provinces, and asymetric warfare. For this strategy to work, they need a heap of gunpowder. At the peak of consumption in the Reign, Elizabeth’s people get through 100 tons of gunpowder a year. Toward the end of the reign, the recipe for this is six parts salpetre, one part charcoal, one part sulphur. Charcoal is made locally, and sulphur can be found locally, and bought in bulk in Italy. The English don’t, however, have a native source of saltpetre. It’s only found in, in bulk, in two places in Western Europe: Spain and Montpellier in France.
You can make your own, with a mixture of time, dung, urine and clay. I believe this was only bought into England during Elizabeth’s reign: that she purchased a German book on how to grow nitre. So it’s an Arabic (well, Chinese – the Arabic name translates as “Chinese snow”) alchemical secret which got loose in Germany and her people bought it. There were plans for great manufactories, but they came to nothing. By the end of the reign about 10% of England’s saltpetre comes from manufacture.
Alternatively you can grab it where it naturally forms, which is on the walls of caves, cellars, stables and dovecotes. Basically anywhere dark, dry and full of animal poop. This is what Elizabeth’s people mostly do. Basically there are licensed saltpetremen who get to raid your barns and if you don’t like it, well, tough it out. By the end of the reign, 30% of the realm’s saltpetre comes from collectors.
The other 60 percent is imported, and the Elizabethans get it from Morocco. They trade naval grade timber, artillery and cannonballs for saltpetre. The Spanish, who, are slightly to the north of Morocco and have regular wars and piratical clashes with them, hate this. They, and the other Catholic powers, say that arming the Muslims is deeply wrong, but how seriously they take that varies. The Venetians literally don’t care. The French say it is terrible, but like that it stops the Spanish pushing them around. The Portuguese say it is terrible, but want to use Moroccan and English armies to take back their capital from the Spanish. In 1585 the Queen grants a trade monopoly to the Barbary Corporation, which has investors through the genteel class of England, making the alliance popular there.
The leader of Morocco, late in the reign, is Ahmad al-Masur. He reigns from Marrakesh and collects magical texts. He’s an ally of England for over twenty years. In 1600 he even sends ambassadors to the Elizabethan court. His plan is to maintain the friendship with the English and draw them into more direct strikes against Spain. Elizabeth doesn’t believe he’ll cover his side of the deal, which is basically that he’ll send an army to invade Portugal (under Spanish rule) if the English send a fleet to transport them and money to defray the costs. He even offers the English a castle in Morocco. They never manage a serious joint operation, but Morocco does continue to provide shelter and resupply for English pirates.
As a little side note – this is also where all the ostrich feathers you see in English heraldry and courtly dress come from. They are imported as a secondary cargo from Morroco.
Some more recent scholarship claims that Al-Mansur wanted to settle and conquer the Americas. His empire had, recently, successfully headed south into the Songhai Empire to ensure its supply of gold. His plan, to battle the Spaniards for the New World, in concert with English naval power, makes for an interesting campaign frame.
Games From Folktales 