User blog comment:Arstarpool/How did you get here?/@comment-1870785-20100920225219/@comment-352226-20100921025001

Sorry for commenting wrong, above. That's what I get for leaving so long. Consarn this goldern newfangled blog contraption!

There's really not a whole lot to compare Ill Bethidad to. It started off as kind of a linguistic AH - "What would happen if the people of Britannia had taken up the Latin language?". It became a group project when people started writing their own constructed languages, and they were added to the IB language map.

No attempt was ever really made to tie them all to a single AH timeline; it was just accepted that the world of IB would be a place where different cultures evolved differently. The timeline doesn't "diverge" from OTL - it parallels and criss-crosses and swings loops around it in defiance of all known laws of metaphysics. Basically it follows its own internal logic with the intent of creating a good story and an interesting cultural mosaic, rather than explore the effects of a change to the timeline.

Does that help? My user page links to a couple of pages that might explain better.