Help With Government/Politics of My First Setting?

Hey, guys! I'm starting to work on my first setting (D&D 3.5, in case it matters) based on an idea I had based on someone else's reaction to some flavor text; namely, them saying that it's ridiculous that dragons can sustain themselves on rocks, gems, so on so forth and that a method for breaking down and smelting ores in a way that produced more energy than it consumed would revolutionize the energy industry.

I'm basically building the rest of my setting around this concept. My idea is that a few hundred years ago, some wizards managed to discern this property of dragon stomachs and started a business in their kingdom of using harvested dragon stomachs to cheaply break impure elements into their individual components and gather the excess energy produced to use as a substitute for the XP costs for like, magic item crafting and stuff.

Present day, most of the dragon population has been enslaved and are being bred and driven like cattle, with spells used on them right when they're born to cripple their minds permanently and generally keep them from being too good at escaping.

That's pretty much everything I've got, though. It's just an idea; a monumental idea, one that I think I can start building a setting around, but still lonely and incomplete.

Since I like to start with civilizations and build the rest of the world around what could make those civilizations cool and unique rather than starting with land and designing the civilization based on the geography (that's way too scientific for me anyway) I thought I'd start with how this might be utilized and effect the governments and politics of the world.

So, yeah. I'm not even really sure where to start, but I wanted to get you guys' opinions on it. How might this effect the political landscape of the world? How might laws and even entire government systems be morphed by the introduction of this method of cheap separation of minerals and mass efficient production of energy?

I've got preliminary thoughts; the first guys to do this probably got a head-start and by now would be the number one big players of the world. Dragon stomachs and dragons would probably become crazy-expensive trade pieces, and I imagine this world would have a much more logical reason for the existence of Magic Marts.

But I don't really have a lot. I'm new to this and I'm sure I'm missing things. How might the political and government-related side of things be effected by this mass production of energy, in the opinions of all you more experienced world-builders?

The present-day political situation will be shaped, to large extent, by the history behind it.

Who developed the dragon-stomach smelter-generators first? Those people would have a significant advantage over others - the kind of technological advantage that could lead to the existence of political superpowers. Especially if there are few dragons left "in the wild," whoever got control of the breeding populations first is going to be the ones who arm their knights and men-at-arms with dragonhide equipment several plusses more powerful than everyone else's, their wizards with far more disposable wands of blow-enemies-up, and maybe even move ahead to larger-scale magical developments, like magical "engines" that can move their navy independent of wind and currents.

This could lead to political landscapes that parallel any number of real-world historical ones. Two or three major dragon-owning nations turning their smelter-generators to military development could create a Cold War-like environment, where most weaker groups ally with one side or the other to avoid being targeted by squads of elite troops wearing Helms of Teleportation, or by magical single-use city-killer devices. Looking further back in history, rival nations with access to dragon-refineries might get into a race to explore and conquer/colonize the world, paralleling the Age of Exploration and the concomitant colonialism. Finally, a single large power with superior magical "technology" might just conquer or annex their neighbors as long as it's convenient, then rest on their laurels for a long time, similar to some periods of ancient China and other large historical empires.

Personally, I think that the exploration/colonialism angle sounds highly likely. As people run out of "wild" dragons to capture and butcher/enslave, they would start to look abroad for new sources. Treating dragons as livestock would make wild dragons with desirable traits highly valuable catches, which would encourage adventurers to hunt them down. And, since transporting live dragons over long distances is no small feat, mage-engineers seeking more raw materials would set up facilities in colony towns or friendly/coerced foreign cities to enable them to process the dragons and possibly begin local breeding programs. After all, newborn dragons that have been Feebleminded since before hatching would be much easier to transport home for later breeding projects than their freshly-caught parents.

The next question is, what are the dragons doing about this? Dragons are, by default, highly intelligent, and live much longer than most humanoid races. The systematic enslavement of dragons as livestock is sure to be noticed, and few free dragons will simply sit around and wait to get captured or harvested. They would quite possibly have allies among the humanoid races, as the dragon-slavery system you described is quite horrifying on many levels, and many who realize that dragons are supposed to be sentient beings would be morally unable to tolerate their treatment. Abolitionists might seek to free hatchlings and heal the Feeblemind effects, allowing them to grow up free and sentient. Powerful adult dragons might manipulate or ally with humanoid populations that don't practice dragon-slavery, trying to create "safe zones" where they don't have to fear hunters. Truly ancient dragons might engage in guerilla warfare against enslaver populations - older dragons are high-level sorcerers in addition to their physical might, which gives them many options for ways to cause damage while putting themselves at relatively little risk. A great wyrm red dragon might have access to spells like Shapechange (for disguise purposes, among others), Create Greater Undead (which can create contagious undead, like shadows and spectres), or Sympathy + Cloudkill (congregate humanoids in a small area, then kill them en masse). Of course, this kind of thing would probably serve to convince much of the population that dragons need to be enslaved for the safety of mankind, but that's just part of what makes there be enough conflict to tell an interesting story in an RPG setting.

Anyway, it's an interesting setting concept, and I'd like to hear how you decide to flesh it out.

Thanks for the help! The questions and ideas you presented will really help me flesh this from an idea into a setting.

For the sake of bouncing ideas around, I suppose I'll think aloud for a moment.

The Cold War angle is cool and I'll be sure to pull elements from it, but I think actual weapons of insta-city destruction is a bit over the top. The magitech development is interesting, though. I'm not a fan of steampunk, but using dragon stomach smelting to simultaneously smelt ores and produce energy to power ships is a unique thought to say the least. It might become practical to invest in making ships of metals strong enough to have a forge built into them; ores are smelted, blacksmith forges equipment, scraps and failures are more consistently salvageable.

As for the kingdom that starts it all... Maybe they'll just be bad at keeping secrets? I mean, capturing dragons is no small business. Word gets around, and while the initial discoverers do have a distinct advantage, there'll be three or four political and economic superpowers.

Perhaps there could be an Imperialist element to the setting, with the superpowers nonviolently becoming the big dogs in other countries and using the people to harvest dragons? It adds a bit of weirdness to the setting, but it allows for more flavors of campaign to take place so it's something to consider.

Resistance to the dragon enslavement was something I had thought about and considered an addition to the setting dynamic. Great Wyrm and similarly old Dragons are less so. That's a sticky thing to consider, actually, especially since I wasn't intending for this world to be especially high-level. Like, higher than most of course, since there's an industry on a 5th-level spell, but not a place where casters of 8th- and 9th-level spells and meleers with four iteratives roam. Those older dragons... May very well have to be written out to make this work. I can still have resistance dragons, but... Hrmph.

The resistance itself is pretty much a feature, not a bug, though. And yeah, this is a pretty abominable practice we're talking about, I'm aware. Highly profitable though, so it's not an unrealistic notion, especially combined with the power of propaganda.

Thanks again for helping me start to mold this clay into a shape. I have high hopes.

An ancient society of cannibalistic evil dragons. They weren't the first to discover the properties of dragon stomachs, but they were the first with the knowledge, power, and willingness to harvest them reliably. They'd leave their lairs in regimented raiding parties, capturing their good-aligned brethren while they were young, keeping them barely alive in captivity, and cutting them open when they were large enough for their purposes, harvesting their organs while they were still alive. Somewhere down the line, the weakest among them started bargaining and trading with mortals, cutting deals as a devil or genie might, but for far more tangible benefits. Sooner or later, one of them traded away a dragon stomach, and in this manner, the secret fell into the hands of mortals. Predictably, there was something of an uprising, and the evil dragons were caught completely off-guard. They killed many mortals, but each of the wyrms that fell made the arcane war machine substantially stronger, and when the dust cleared, mortals had wrested their grip from the land. But some of these dragons survived the conflict, and they live to this day, swearing bloody revenge on their usurpers...

Another angle to consider that falls outside of the Kingdom or Nation/State idea is to keep the secret techniques and arts of Dragon Smelting outside of the grasp of governments. The idea of a Consortium of entrepreneur/sorcerers that discovered the methods of developing and, subsequently, refining this new technology brings to light many interesting consequences for the entire world at large.

Is/was this consortium powerful or wealthy enough to prevent being co-oped by a kingdom or government? If no, what happened to the group and their technologies and abilities? Did one kingdom or nation obtain the technology, or was it split between multiple nations and kingdoms?

How advanced is the refinement process? Was it just discovered, early stages of development, middle stages, or advanced stages? (this question is especially important when considering the potential relationships between groups that do or do not have access to it)

How do they decide when, where, and who to sell their services too?

How do they keep outside eyes from stealing their secrets?

Has their ever been any type of in-fighting or fracturing within the consortium? If yes, does this lead to any types of theft or corporate style espionage?

Where is their base/s of operations and how do they defend it, or them?

How long has the consortium been in operation? How is leadership and control of the enterprise handled? Have multiple single leaders or advisory boards been in control, or has a single person, or group of persons, used magic to pro-long their lives and retain control? What consequences arise from the command structure of leadership?

How does the group accept payment for services rendered? Do they require payment up front in full? Down payments or installment payments? Do the accept debt payments and then collect their fees by whatever means necessary even in the face of default by the client?

Is there a group, or groups, that are diametrically opposed to the harvesting of dragon stomachs (Everyl made a great suggestion on that front)? How many are there? How powerful and influential are the groups?



Another great thing about this line of questioning is that you can apply them to the original concept of Kingdoms and governments being the ones that discovered the refinement process. You could also have business enterprises develop from a government having discovered the process and then private contractors later refine it and reap amazing profits from it. At it's very core this type of technology would pose staggering consequences for all parties involved, and in my opinion you would probably be best served by asking yourself the broad questions I listed above and then filling in the details that flow from them. This is a truly wonderful idea to build from and, I think, allows for the creation of a world rife with conflict, greed, corruption, and tension and lends itself to an amazing setting. I may have to steal this idea for myself and a setting I'm currently working on.

Hopefully this post is useful to you in some way.

I would think dragons themselves would react in lots of different ways to this development. I can totally see a few evil dragons getting in this action on the ground floor via shapechanging into a super-wealthy and connected human "entrepreneur," greatly increasing the size of their hoard at the expense of all of their competitor dragons.

Other dragons would say, "sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander" and commit to creating massive hordes of undead to wage war on the dragonslavers. Others would unite goblinkin and giant tribes into monstrous armies. The dragonslavers will have to create gigantic armies of their own to repel these threats, or perhaps the dragontech has allowed them to gain the upper hand, in which case they've already turned from enslaving the dragons to annihilating the creatures the dragons allied with.

Still others would work as spies and saboteurs, working behind the scenes using their money and sorcery to incite war between the slave powers and/or unite the non-dragonslaver nations. They may even found secret organizations that recruit individuals to be agents of the dragons. The slavers will no doubt react by creating counterintelligence agents of their own to identify and locate dragons and their agents.

EDIT: and then, of course, you've got the dragons working on a cure for the feeblemind effect, no doubt also recruiting humans and demihumans to help.

Another thing to consider:where does the ore come from? Can it be anything? Is there a correlation between the value and produced energy? Can it be created with magic and if not, what are the implications to the terain? One could imagine cities collapsing because people dug too deep. Plus, the power of mine owners increases as their collaboration is required.

One could also imagine restrictions on the dragon factories (similar to the ones we have for nuclear facilities), probably based on terrible accidents where dragon escaped and wreaked havoc, despite of their state of mind.