The Nations

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The Nations

Things I like to keep in mind when designing cities/nations: 1. Population (biggest cities around 30-50k, small towns around 1,000 at minimum). 2. Defenses (if any, more common in capital and castle cities). 3. Commerce (what goods do they have available, how rich is the economy). 4. Organizations (again, if any, namely religious sites, potentially government-based groups, anyone with an agenda or power).

Alright let's name some nations!

Colonia Vetrix:

Capital – Laencaster – where the 'On High' resides (see post in Misc to understanding that confusing term)
  1. Population – 51,302
  2. Defenses – Laencaster possesses incredibly powerful mages, siege defenses, and a standing Holy Hand army (see misc).
  3. Commerce – Being the second biggest capital on the continent, travelers can find goods of all kinds and, despite the government's objections, a thriving black market.
  4. Organizations – The Directorate (misc), multiple religious organizations for most deities, and a monastery. The army is stationed within the city walls and while cordoned off to barracks, does mingle with society.

Cities with a castle: Warthford, Kirkwall, Brokenshire, Aramoor, Ironhaven.


Small towns: Pella's Wish, Whiteridge, Balmorel, Old Burry, Keld, Stratford, Ozryn, Roselake.


WORLD BUILDING: As the country with the current On High, Colonia Vetrix is afforded extra protection in the form of additional Holy Hand soldiers and Azure Knot mages. The magical defenses of Laencaster will be bolstered until the On High passes or is appointed to someone in a different country.


NEXT:

Grand Ducee of Lyleleri:

Capital – Pinnella Pass – where the Directorate resides

  1. Population - 32,118.
  2. Defenses – A volunteer army resides around Pinnella Pass, but the geographical defenses provide most protection necessary. It is a chokepoint to enter the capital and heavily maintained at that.

  3. Commerce – Pinnella Pass hosts many rare and exotic herbal treatments on top of standard traveler fare. While not "rich" due to their geographic location, they are still well off and are supported by the Directorate.
  4. Organizations – A small collection of temples and merchant guilds work in conjunction to help support the lower classes.

Cities with a castle: Inverness, Grimsby, Aerilon, Cardend, Aeredale.


Small towns: Ormsraska, Damerel, South Warren, Rockburn, Colchester, Hernsey, Polperro, Briar Glen.

NEXT:

The Theocracy of Ven Todir:

Capital – Dewherst – where the Directorate resides
  1. Population – 34,927.
  2. Defenses – Most cities in Ven Todir cities are underground, this is the most "preserved" and has been well-maintained. It, compared to most other cities (save Pinnella Pass), is hardly accessible to those who do not have favor with the standing authorities.
  3. Commerce – The richest capital in the world, Ven Todir possesses deep mines full of ore and mineral wealth which is used to supplement the Directorate and the entire continent in varying degrees.
  4. Organizations – Heavy guild and artisan presence exists in Ven Todir, primarily jewelers, smiths, and other physical laborers.

Cities with a castle: Sherfield, Shadowfen, Wimborne, Barcombe, Garen's Well.


Small towns: Solime, Addersfield, Moonbright, Xynnar, Goldenleaf, Snowbush, Windermere, Black Hallows.


WORLD BUILDING: Dewherst, Shadowfen, and Sherfield all reside within the Dunrich Summits, a mountain range opposite The Voiceless Tips. The Voiceless Tips are barren and remain uninhabited. The Dunrich Summits house the core mining operations for all of Vodeth and have a seemingly endless amount of resources in its depths. Wimborne and Barcombe exist off of the mountain range as farming cities and Garen's Well supplies hundreds of thousands of gallons of fresh water to the rest of Ven Todir.


NEXT:

Aelium Livii:

Capital – Ballinamallard – where the Directorate resides

  1. Population – 28,510.
  2. Defenses – Ballinamallard and truly Aelium Livii as a whole are rampantly overrun by barbarians, nomads, and those unwilling to settle into a set way of life. It tends to defend itself quite easily.
  3. Commerce – A heavy trading capital, most goods are handmade skillfully and efficiently. Animal furs and meats of exotic variety are found en masse.
  4. Organizations – Surprisingly one of the more openly religious countries, Ballinamallard celebrates every deity and all of their corresponding holidays without regard to "good" or "bad".

Cities with a castle: Haran, Dalry, Archmouth, Redwick, Calcheth.


Small towns: Bracklewhyte, Ecrin, Eastwold, Scrabsham, Runswick, Falcon's Rest, Martslock, Tarrin.

NEEEEEEEEEEXT:

The Murkshores:

Capital – Taedmorden – where the Directorate resides
  1. Population - 22,007. The Murkshores are a harsh landscape, claimed by swamp and marshlands for large swathes, making it a less than ideal place to live and resulting in a small population in both the capital and the country as a whole.
  2. Defenses – Any attempt to invade the Murkshores with an army would be significantly hindered by swamps and aggressive wildlife.
  3. Commerce – One of the "poorer" parts of the continent based on what the land provides, the inventions of the populace in particular keep them on the forefront of technology and out of desolation despite the landscape.
  4. Organizations – Almost a technomancy kept within the Murkshores, they supply the Directorate and the rest of the populace with cutting edge advancements fueled in part by the monetary wealth of Ven Todir (this is dependent on the overall setting of the world).

Cities with a castle: Torrine, Ormrine, Naporia, Auchen, Cullfield.


Small towns: Cardcost, Woldean, Saker Keep, Three Streams, Ubbin Falls, Ula'ree, Langwend, Westmore.

NEEEEEEEEEEXT:

The United Kingdom of Laldorei:

Capital - Everwinter – where the Directorate resides (and the main operating base of the Holy Hand, just for reference)

  1. Population - 84,446. Everwinter is a conglomerate, a true melting pot of society.
  2. Defenses – A conscripted army, siege defenses, and a large volunteer mercenary force. Despite this, Laldorei does not wield military might often unless outside factors warrant aggression.
  3. Commerce – Massive volumes of trade pass through Laldorei, Most any goods, services, and places of business can be found within Everwinter.
  4. Organizations – The Holy Hand operates their home base from Everwinter while operating multiple satellite facilities around the continent. The central monastery is found here and though the On High is not currently residing in Everwinter, it is where The Steep is located where the bi-annual meetings of the entire Directorate take place. (The Steep is a secondary giant castle carved into the side of a mountain, that isn't important).

Cities with a castle: Aroonshire, Gramsby, Warlington, Belleton, Merton.


Small towns: Llyn, Erstonia, Forsterno, Woodhaerst, Rotherham, Snake's Canyon, Cromer, Ashbourne.

NEXT:

Hese Themar:

Capital – Wandermere – where the Directorate resides
  1. Population – 31,553. Close enough to Everwinter that shards of that same conglomerate exist in this country.
  2. Defenses – Wandermere possesses most naval power of the continent being the most open to sea-faring attacks. While other countries possess a naval fleet, they are dwarfed by the might of Wandermere.
  3. Commerce – Wandermere benefits from the sea in a way the other countries simply cannot harness. Fished exports power their economy, particularly blubber and fish oils used for lanterns and fuel.
  4. Organizations – Wandermere has a large population of pirates that closely skirt around the law to ensure they do not end up on the wrong side of the fleets. They are still pirates, however, and do not serve an allegiance to the country itself. Fishing vessels, guilds, merchants, and ocean explorers make up a majority of the sanctioned organizations within the country.

Cities with a castle: Tow, Kincardine, Blackburn, Lundy, Aria.


Small towns: Swordbreak, City of Fire, Hullbeck, Bellrane, Halivaara, Stathford, Aberdeen, Hollypool.

Again, all names and places subject to change. This is just to get ideas going.
 
Something for your consideration --- It wasn't until fairly recently in our history that some "nations" like Germany and Italy were "united". Prior to that those regions were divided into dozens of smaller political entities (principalities, duchies, little kingdoms, whatever) which might have shared a common language and culture, but were separate countries. You might consider just drawing a bunch of borders within one of the nations already designated and leave them open with each to be claimed by whoever wants it -- with the understanding all those countries will share language, culture, religion, etc - but with some differences due to history, perhaps influenced by whatever larger countries are closest.

That way, someone could play the head honcho, the Bailiff of Canterville or the Archduke of Grand Fenwick, without having to worry about the fact other claims have already been established on the throne of every nation on the planet.
 
Nations could be divided by biomed, and have characteristics in line with their biomed. Like desert tribes could have darker skin, perhaps people in their tribes could be "water callers", semi-magic beings who can basically be dousing rods for water. So the tribes try to trade and breed more of these people as they are rare. Which sometimes border on the idea of slavery but because they are so essential, lives depend on more being bred.

I have a google doc on potential mating rituals for Orcs as well. The Gift

And! A google doc for a crystalline race that hides below the surface! Kraugh

And! Merfolk who guard the ley lines of the world! Atlanteans

I have hundreds more ideas for the purposes of a high fantasy world.
I do have an idea for a quest line with a Phoenix involved.

Potentially there could also be a dimensional rift that happens that could allow alien characters or modern or futuristic characters to fall through. They would have to adapt the the environment!

Literally....DM me I can add more.
 
So my conception at this point, which might be used to add some history to the world, would be that of a former centralized empire that has imploded, possibly as a result of a large-scale magical cataclysm (I have some thoughts on that as well). This has a few advantages, stoking conflict as most factions see themselves as having at least some entitlement to rule others, as well as old resentments (say that one species was on top). It also allows there to be a few story conceits that are somewhat more realistic as a result of that history—things like a common language (or at least mutually intelligible ones) and similar religions. That said, one thing to be avoided is to have any current power be too set or centralized—chaos and conflict make for more story opportunities and it also doesn't quite fit the era, given that if we're going medieval borders would be more porous and prone to fluctuations.
 
What if the centralized power convened wizards from across the continent for some experimental magic which resulted in the rift, killing a huge swathe of powerful wizards and ruling elite?

As opposed to the continent coming together to mourn a loss, they've seen it as the final straw of the empire over stepping its boundaries and the take the opportunity to rule themselves and vie for power
 
> What if the centralized power convened wizards from across the continent for some experimental magic which resulted in the rift, killing a huge swathe of powerful wizards and ruling elite?

You basically went exactly where I was thinking, though I was going to say "attempting to ascend to godhood" in place of experimental magic.

It also makes the rift itself more interesting—it would now be a centrally located (likely) former capital city, overrun by dark magic, rather than a wasteland. Not to mention solving several problems at once. Who controls the former capital? No one. What happened to the former rulers? Dead. Why are all these monsters running around? They were unleashed fairly recently.
 
Why is the only option we have sending young hopefuls to their deaths? It's new, all our talented wizards are dead and we've developed no counter magic!

If everyone hates each other because of low - lying prejudice, why does everyone get on? Empirical boot heel and now for a few people, they've learned to live with and accept their neighbours.

Why is there one centralized currency? That seems like a logistical nightmare without an overruling high council sorta deal? Well, we HAD one until the slammed a hole into the sky.

To be honest that setup does answer a lot of questions
 
Also, since we kind of had the thought that the Inner Sanctum technically exists within this world—it might as well be at the centre of a decaying and corrupted city occupied by a primordial evil 😁

The rest of that discussion might get more into the nature of magic—but it would seem to tie a lot of things together.

One open question is when the cataclysm occurred. Do we want a world set in the immediate aftermath? A generation or two down the road? I was leaning towards 30-50 years as a sweet spot, so that the initial chaos could die down, but there's a lot of room for input.
 
Well, if we know anything about beaurocracy it's that the governments will have done little to nothing, while the people will have grown accustomed in that time.

There would be less panic about "holy Lord, there's a hole in the sky!" and more frustration at "it's been forever, why the hell is there still a hole in the sky?"

Sure, with it comes a bit of fear, but for most citizens, with the immediate counter measures put in place (the adventurers and such) the rift poses basically no threat to their actual safety
 
My assumption would be that, with the rift, you also have the emergence (or reemergence) of magical threats throughout the world. I am kind of thinking of it like the conjunction of the spheres in the Witcher, except that in this case magic was a preexisting factor that has changed, rather than a new phenomenon. Also the rift itself might continue to allow threats through, requiring constant vigilance or, alternatively, might contain valuable resources imbued with magic that give a lot of reason for people to keep jumping into the viper's nest.
 
That certainly makes a lot of sense! I've always had the idea that metals in magical worlds absorb magic, just by being metal, but some are better than others. It's why silver is valuable and kills magical creatures like ghosts and werewolves.

If that were the case, metals closer to the rift could be, in a sense, supercharged for enchantment and highly prized for that reason. It would allow powerful enchantment beyond the scope of the spellcaster's ability.

Obviously, the risk in collecting such materials is great, and the untempered magic would make forging such metals dangerous in ways hitherto unprepared for, but once forged, the latent magic in the metal could be bound and channeled into something useful by a talented mage.

Furthermore, if this were all true, I could see access to these metals being highly restricted to only the most trusted and talented smiths in each kingdom. With the danger and value of any weapon or armour forged from these materials being afforded to only the highly skilled in battle, the exceptionally rich or... The exceptionally sneaky
 
I don't really have a suggestion for certain places, but I feel like each government should have a clear motive and not waver around based on which moment we need them to in the story. They should be distinct and varied cultures that have clear things that they want to do, and clear reason to clash with each other.
Second suggestion - no evil countries. Yes, it's fine to have goblins or orcs or whateverplaceholderenemy.jpeg, but I feel as though if there was a clearly defined 'evil' government it would take away a lot of the value of the story. Governments can be corrupt, sure, but t individuals are 'evil'.
 
TMITM said:
I don't really have a suggestion for certain places, but I feel like each government should have a clear motive and not waver around based on which moment we need them to in the story. They should be distinct and varied cultures that have clear things that they want to do, and clear reason to clash with each other.
Second suggestion - no evil countries. Yes, it's fine to have goblins or orcs or whateverplaceholderenemy.jpeg, but I feel as though if there was a clearly defined 'evil' government it would take away a lot of the value of the story. Governments can be corrupt, sure, but t individuals are 'evil'.
Click to expand...
And absolutely positively, no suspicious Vizier who turns out to be the true mastermind behind the evil government's plot to steal the crystals of power... I'm sorry I'm not adding anything to this thread.
 
I think that there's a lot of really good ideas here. I wanted to throw my own two cents into this particular hat though and agree fairly vocally with @Mikaela Corvid who brings up a few really specific points that I think fundamentally make or break a setting in the context of both believability and RP. I want to just stress that while I'll be writing as if these are "absolutes", they aren't, they only reflect my own views on the matter. I don't actually think that there are right or wrong answers.

Settings live or die based on two things: How easily a player can interact with the setting and how believable the setting is in the context of the RP. We've all seen the settings where there are no rules and so there are massive empires every four feet and characters all have god-level abilities, this is largely due to a lack of definition of what is and isn't acceptable in the setting, and that usually stems from a lack of definition. What Mikaela points out about, for example, biomes is absolutely the best set of guidelines that can be followed to create a believable world. It stands to reason that the mentioned desert people would have (in addition to what was mentioned) a tribal structure, hunters for water, immensely hardy people, and would be far better at surviving, tracking, hunting, etc. compared to someone that, as an example, comes from Wandermere (picked at random). How do they survive? Do they know secrets to the desert? Are there rare plants that have immensely potent poisons that they trade for water and other goods? Are they unified under a general banner of some kind of nomadic warlord (similar to the way that Genghis Khan was a nomad ruler)?

Different biomes make for objectively harder and easier settings to create and so if you have a lot of mines and jewels the idea of being a merchant or someone who cuts rocks makes a lot of sense. If you live in a swamp region, it does not necessarily make a lot of sense to have technology that is beyond other settings (because even if the need is there, the ability to facilitate trade, develop these technologies, etc., is simply not there). Swamp regions are more likely places where it is impossible to actually develop cultures/cities/histories because the lands are so inhospitable to societies. Where does the money come from? How do people make their way around there? Why does anyone in their right mind not immediately leave for any number of other better options?

On a previous board, I created a region that was fundamentally impossible for players to "be from" or "make bases in" and it became a player initiative to attempt to "colonize" that space (which took a long time and they never got far), but it was also why the region was actually interesting. It didn't allow players to just "form" the land and it was the land itself that helped to inform player character histories.

I think that breaking up the "world" into "established" and "non-established" lands allows for multiple areas where players can go to develop both their characters and the lands themselves, while also having more generic "places to interact with others" available to them.

Thoughts?
 
Admittedly, we kind of have an odd order in all this. You're quite right—biomes shape cultures and in this case, we also have to contend with the fact that cultures might well be different species.

That does create a bit of a mess, as our goal is to end with a world and one could theoretically start from a list of nations, from geography which we plant nations onto or from species and use any of them to design the others. Ultimately we might need for one person to try and cohesively do it (or at least sanity check it) before we see about getting an official map made. There will definitely be non-established lands, though perhaps not as extensive since you could have entire species specifically adapted for life in, say, a swamp.
 
I think that your best option is not to take on a burden like this and rather to sort of dole out the responsibility? I can't design a planet, but I could probably do an outline for a region and develop elements of a particular place. Then with that "spine" that can be refined by whoever is making final decisions, that way a lot of the foundations can be crowdsourced. Alternatively, having "story tellers" for specific areas (or only allowing access to some of those areas initially might be good too?)
 
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