Let's build Generica (standard fantasy product)

Here's a Let's Build thread with a twist. The twist is that there's no twist. I'm putting together a world of standard fantasy, Generica, a land of warriors and wizards, where everything is what it seems. These are the lands I thought of so far. Is there anything else that should be here? Can you help flesh out the details of these lands? Who are the major NPCs, organizations, monsters, and gods?

Generica

+The frozen land of Nordor: a smorgasbord of vikings and reindeer

+The harsh land of Barbaria: Wolfskin loincloths, pantherish sinews, sharp steely gazes matched by sharp steely blades.

+The Holy Chivalrous Empire: knights in shining armor serving lords in shining armor and wooing damsels in shining armor.

+The dark and spiky land of Ejgoth: the Holy Chivalrous Empire’s moody cousin who walks in darkness like the night, dresses all in black, and plays guitar in a band.

+The Great Forest of Arboria: where elven ranger ninjas in green and brown camouflage and sparkly gemstone jewelry that doesn't give away their camouflaged position will shoot you full of arrows, each of which is a deadly and delicate work of art carved in a leaf and vine motif.

+The Grassy Steppes: where the hordes of horse lords ride herds of horses with falcons at their breasts and the wind in their hair.

+The Southern Jungles of Cush, Kesh, and Karrosh… where lost ancient cities of gold are inhabited by decadent and decaying societies of indolent nobles and their fiercely loyal subjects, but the bad neighborhoods are overgrown with ivy and overrun with giant albino gorillas

+The Inner Seas: islands and coasts of shining city states of marble and bronze with philosopher kings, mighty heroes with tragic flaws, and gods who can't keep it in their toga and sire bizarre unique monsters every time they go on a weekend bender

+The Great Deserts of Saharia and Aegyptia: be-turbaned, camel-mounted nomads roam the sandy wastes between oases and the pyramid tombs of desiccated kings.

+The Outer Ocean: here there be islands on the backs of giant turtles, sea serpents big enough to feast on whales, tentacled monstrosities that can drag a ship down to inky black depths of madness… and also, drowning.

+The New World: stone age primitives dressed in feathers engage in savagery such as human sacrifice, complex mathematics, geo-engineering, blood sports, and astronomy.

+Swissylvania: mountain isolated land of simple superstitious peasants and the vampire nobility who love them for their wholesome rustic flavor.

+The Eastern Empire of Pol-Russ: winged hussars sabre dance with bear men among onion domed citadels and mobile witch huts on chicken legs.

+The Far Eastern Empire of Cathay: extremely high bureaucracy to scrutability ratio, legions of soldiers and an army of mandarins (and a dash of eunuch sorcerers for flavor) serve the Celestial Emperor of Yellow Jade who rules unseen from his Forbidden City of Forbidden Mystery

+The Farther Eastern Empire of Samuria: honor obsessed warrior/poet/bureaucrats kill and die at the drop of a hat as their lords engage in constant civil war to claim the prized position of Vice Emperor, which has all the power because the divine emperor, son of the gods, is effectively useless and powerless.

+The Netherdark: a radioactive underground nightmare realm of glowing fungi forests inhabited by chitinous, scaled, slimy and/or tentacled horrors that will suck your soul out like a bodily fluid, which they will also suck out before devouring your internal organs in alphabetical order.

+The free ports of the pirate isles: wretched hives of scum and villainy where the tax burden is light but depth perception is poor and an animal on your shoulder is mandatory (but you get your choice of monkey or parrot!)

1#Ejgoth was once a part of The Holy Chivalrous Empire, after the empire suffered a major catastrophe(left purposefully vague for the other posters) they broke off from it. Only the largest city, and. Some of the countryside around it. is ruled by any form of government, and the rest is total anarchy. The two empires are separated by miles of treacherous mountains, which is why the empire has not attempted to reclaim it

The Moon is accessible via flying and there are beautiful winged womwn who live in grey stone towers waging eternal war against a rat-like burrowing species. Things lost on Earth often are found on the moon, and insanity can be cured by going there to find one's "lost wits."

Volcanesia:

The outer ocean is essentially unsailable, as the space between the central islands and the continents is thousands of miles. The turtle island migrations are the only way to get to Volcanesia, where people live on millions of tiny sentient islands that must be appeased and sail tremendous distances on ships made of living trees.

Merlantis:

Underwater kingdom set in a coral reef that somehow mimics aboveland civilization but with flippers. City was full of proud people that got tossed into the sea and had to evolve in a few seconds. Ruled by patriarchs and filled with sexy mermaids yearning for the surface.

Abyslantis:

Always dark deep place where the merfolk are ugly, eat pretty merfolk and there are giant squids, krakens and leviathans that smash their stuff. Still weirdly surface-light instead of living like free floating fish do. May be crabpeople instead, who taste like crab but talk like people.

The forgotten realms: there is the whole forgotten realms connected to this world through a portal thereby connecting it indirectly to tons of other worlds and therefore this world is made thousands of time more generic through being now connected to the boring multiverse of all the dnd settings.

Mercantoecia: republic of sailors, traders, and explorers inhabiting a small peninsula just south of the main continent. Known for their shrewd trade practices and odd mannerisms. Ships can be found in any coastal city in the world, typically packed with a garishly-clad squad of marines.

A council of nine wizards, one Generalist and 8 Specialists, recruit wizards from all around the world to fill their library with every spell created and every bit of magical research. Their library is difficult to reach for common folk, unless the Council of Wizards want a particular person to reach them, in which case it's virtually impossible to avoid arriving at their library.

When a mage is found whose power exceeds that of one of the Nine the council attempts to recruit him to take the place of the previous council member of his specialty.

The far north nation of Santlanda. A collective of mutated elven Craftsmen ruled by an inscutiable dictator with a penchant for red. Located in Nordor

Please note that Generica is already in use as a honored setting for the UseNet NewsGroup alt.pub.dragons-inn. (Like anybody's gonna remember UseNet. But I do.)

Have fun.

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Originally Posted by thorr-kan

Please note that Generica is already in use as a honored setting for the UseNet NewsGroup alt.pub.dragons-inn. (Like anybody's gonna remember UseNet. But I do.)

Have fun.

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Folks, I didn't mean to completely shut down discussion.

Generica's a time-honored parody name. Go to town.

+The Mountains of Stone - a dwarven kingdom of craftsmen, beards, ale, and Scottish accents.

+The Magocracy of Mages - a city of towers & spires, where wizards and sages study and adventurers seek wisdom... possibly based on a flying island?

The Priest-Kingdom of Theocratia, a kingdom ruled by the priests of a single deity who also violently suppress worship of most other deities. Constantly at risk of war over minor internal religious disputes, such as did the god create the first man with an innie or an outie?

The desolate wastes of Badheim: The Dread Lord Darkbad rules over this cracked and barren land that somehow teems with hordes of naughty humanoids and brutish giants despite being cracked and barren. The forges of war in the slave-cities here are constantly churning out unnecessarily large and spiky weapons of war for the evil fodder legions.

Far Nordor: Even colder and icier than Nordor. Vikings and reindeer? Try Eskimo and woolly mammoths! Matter of fact, the seas surrounding Far Nordor are chock full of icebergs, polar bears, and dire seals, you want to talk about cold some more, boy. Don't make me pull out the frost dragons.

Freepublica: The city-state that practices democracy, freedom of speech, free worship, and all the other end game Civilization civics. Literally a shining city on a hill. Their cultural influence of education and tolerance explains why even the seemingly backwards Barbaria or rigid HCE will accept equal positions for any race, gender, class combinations after only a token show of prejudice.

The High Place: An enlightened center of wisdom, contemplation, and mastery of those system elements that aren't completely integrated into the rest of the setting. It's walled monastery on top of a really tall mountain waaaay over there in case you don't want to deal with the psionic-monks or whoever it is that lives here.

Deep Gi'bbyrissh: The greatest city of the Netherdark. Ruled by a backstabbing counsel of evil politicians. Each one the representative of an evil version of a surface race. And they're all evil opposites like the evil dwarves are magic and the evil gnomes are warriors and everybody has a sinister goatee, except for the evil opposite dwarves.

Sonim: The Kingdom of Gold

An island kingdom which became wealthy through trade also became the regional superpower in naval warfare. With a safe, well managed society at home and expansion of trade externally, the kingdom became rediculously wealthy, so much so that it became impossible to warehouse the surplus gold.

The solution was to gild the city. Gold was beaten into foil and applied to the surfaces of buildings, beginning with the interior of government buildings and then their exteriors. At the height of this fad many merchants and bureaucrats gilded their estates, but this fashion has receeded somewhat. Wealthy folks only gild the exteriors of their homes now, and import marble, jade, and other precious and semi-prescious stone, and gem-quality woods to decorate their interior spaces while the poor have taken up the gilding fashion.

Gold has lost its value here, and one of the few major exports of this island now are artifacts of gold, including housewares such as lamps and candellabras, and cloth of gold.

The coinage of this kingdom is made of non-metals worked by skilled craftsmen into minor works of art:

Ironwood: Rectangular chips of dark reddish wood about 2cm × 1.5cm × .5cm, with the bust of a famous trader on the obverse and the ship they sailed on the reverse. Called a Ship Token, or a 'toke', the coin has a base value of 2gp, but is treated as a copper piece by the Sonimians.

Shell: Circular discs about 2.5cm in diameter and .25cm thick at the edge, with a raised bust of a Minister of Trade on one side and a bundle of scrolls bound to a sword on the reverse. A conch native to the waters around the island kingdom provides the shells, which is valued at about 8gp in the wider world, but which are used as half-silver coins in the islands, where they are called 'shells.'

Jade: Square blocks of jade about 1.66cm on a side and about .33cm thick, bearing the image of a monarch on the obverse and a public building on the reverse. Valued between 15 and 20 gp each in the outside world, they are valued at about five silver equivalent on the island. They are called 'squares' by the public at large.

Alabaster: Octagonal plaques of alabaster about 3cm across and .75cm thick with the image of the god of wealth on their obverse and a brachiating abstract pattern somewhat remniscent of a spider's web on the reverse. Called a web by the locals, these coins are valued at 50gp elsewhere, but treated like most folk would treat two gold pieces on the island. These are the most fragile of coins, and are seldom carried for general use. Instead, they are kept in felt bags which are tube-shaped and quilted to protect stacks, (usually of ten.) Webs are generally hoarded against future need as opposed to being used in common circulation.

DefinentlynotRomeia: Rome but with everything except the appearances taken away.
Strangelyadvancednewworldkingdomia: Literally just some weird combination of the Aztecs Incas and Mayans.

Nipponia:

A strange island nation to the east, populated by a mystic people who worship fox spirits and are ruled by the samurai.

Their dialect of common will almost always ens with the word "~desu" and those who do not speak this way are often executed.

Gnomelanda: A large country composed of grater than 99% gnomes. Despite Gnomes favoring illusion magic, there are no mages or other arcane casters whatsoever. Magic's role is filled by incredibly advanced steam-driven clockwork inventions. For some reason, within the borders of Gnomelandia, Gnomes' inventions, famously spotty in nature, function perfectly. Visitors can expect to see one-gnome gliders, airships, and elevators filling in for fly spells, city guardsmen using "Gonnes" and "Cannones" that duplicate the effects of various evocation spells, and insanely complex "Com-Pu-Tors" filling in for divination spells and the like. The ruler is the best inventor within the kingdom, determined at a semi-centennial (every 50 years) fair where every competitor enters one invention.

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Originally Posted by Evoker

Gnomelanda: A large country composed of grater than 99% gnomes. Despite Gnomes favoring illusion magic, there are no mages or other arcane casters whatsoever. Magic's role is filled by incredibly advanced steam-driven clockwork inventions. For some reason, within the borders of Gnomelandia, Gnomes' inventions, famously spotty in nature, function perfectly. Visitors can expect to see one-gnome gliders, airships, and elevators filling in for fly spells, city guardsmen using "Gonnes" and "Cannones" that duplicate the effects of various evocation spells, and insanely complex "Com-Pu-Tors" filling in for divination spells and the like. The ruler is the best inventor within the kingdom, determined at a bi-centennial fair where every competitor enters one invention.

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Bicentennial: Every 200 years? That's almost 1/3 of a gnome's lifespan.

Sesquicentennial: Every 50 years seems more appropriate for a position presumably occupied by an older, wiser, inventor.

This is opinion, so file it where you will!

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Originally Posted by brian 333

Bicentennial: Every 200 years? That's almost 1/3 of a gnome's lifespan.

Sesquicentennial: Every 50 years seems more appropriate for a position presumably occupied by an older, wiser, inventor.

This is opinion, so file it where you will!

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Ah. Yes, I meant every 50 years.

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Originally Posted by brian 333

Sesquicentennial: Every 50 years seems more appropriate for a position presumably occupied by an older, wiser, inventor.

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Sesquicentennial is 150 years. Semicentennial is 50 years.

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Originally Posted by Xuc Xac

Sesquicentennial is 150 years. Semicentennial is 50 years.

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Oops! I need to fact check my fact checking! I apologize for my ignorance.

On another topic:

Not everyone uses base 10 numerical systems.

Base 5: Orcs, goblins, and other low to average intelligence races use base five. The written form is the old English Score system, with four vertical lines and a fifth line crossing them like a backslash. Each group of five is called a hand. For higher numbers, backslashes represent hands with a rectangle around four backslashes, (often simplified by two horizontal lines joining the tops and bottoms,) representing 125. They count 1, 2, 3, 4, a hand, a hand and 1, a hand and 2, etc, with 25 being a hand of hands.

Base 20: This system is used by average to high intelligence races who trade, and thus require counting of numerous items and accounting of huge sums of money. While converting from base 20 to base 10 is a pain, using base 20 directly is no more difficult than using base 10 in arithmatic. You just need ten more unique characters as digits.

http://i.pinimg.com/originals/ba/f4/...7478d240d9.jpg

Scorch

A desolate wasteland inhabited by mutants, ruled by a Wizard King that lusts for conquest and....

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Originally Posted by GAZ

The desolate wastes of Badheim: The Dread Lord Darkbad rules over this cracked and barren land that somehow teems with hordes of naughty humanoids and brutish giants despite being cracked and barren. The forges of war in the slave-cities here are constantly churning out unnecessarily large and spiky weapons of war for the evil fodder legions....

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Beat to it, damn it!

Oh well, so far Generica looks to be the best setting Evah!

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Originally Posted by brian 333

Base 20: This system is used by average to high intelligence races who trade, and thus require counting of numerous items and accounting of huge sums of money. While converting from base 20 to base 10 is a pain, using base 20 directly is no more difficult than using base 10 in arithmatic. You just need ten more unique characters as digits.

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No no no, we need to go deeper. Base 12 math. More elegant races use it because it is cleanly divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 6. It also aligns correctly with the lunar cycle, unlike the primitive mathematics of lesser races.

However, even this does not compare to the true divine numerology that underlies the universe as proscribed by the gods: base 60 math.

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Originally Posted by CantigThimble

No no no, we need to go deeper. Base 12 math. More elegant races use it because it is cleanly divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 6. It also aligns correctly with the lunar cycle, unlike the primitive mathematics of lesser races.

However, even this does not compare to the true divine numerology that underlies the universe as proscribed by the gods: base 60 math.

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My keyboard doesn't have enough unique digits for Base 60.

The Gods Of Law And Archetecture created Mathematics, personified in the form of a thin, sickly deity who wears crystal lenses mounted in metal frames in front of his eyes. While this pimple-faced youngster would rather be reading a book or calculating the odds of certain results from the throw of polyhedral stones, he is a formiddable deity when roused to action.

The City of Dogma once declared in their laws that the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference would be 1:3 for ease of calculating, against the warning of the clergy. In response to this blasphemy, the God of Mathematics taught ballistics to a nearby orc tribe. They immediately built giant trebuchets and sacked the city.

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Originally Posted by brian 333

The City of Dogma once declared in their laws that the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference would be 1:3 for ease of calculating, against the warning of the clergy. In response to this blasphemy, the God of Mathematics taught ballistics to a nearby orc tribe. They immediately built giant trebuchets and sacked the city.

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Must not be a D&D setting then. In the D&D rules, pi equals 4.