Trying to design a variety of kingdoms

[Tezla]

Hey, everybody. I'm looking to get some help with developing a setting I'm doing for a 3.PF game with some buddies of mine. Here's what I've got so far:

-The only races around are humans, dwarves and kitsune, as well as twisted fey counterparts of these races that reside inside a large forest. The presence of conventional "monsters" are limited mostly to a single island to the east of the main continent.
- The only known/inhabited continent has been under the rule of a tyrannical empire for the past 500 years, but it recently collapsed and pretty much every territory under their rule has become it's own small, independant kingdom (including one run by the PCs).
-The PCs are on an island in the east, with two other territories: One run by the son/sibling of the party (who are all one big family), and one run by an obvious villain to the south. I'm expecting them to ally with their family member and unite against the obvious villain.
-In the middle of the continent, the remnants of the tyrannical government are holed up in a fortress city, which is under siege by a coalition of several territories.
-The main conflict will resolve around the fact they have, in their posession, an artifact needed for a ritual to remove all traces of magic from the world. The setting is fairly low-magic and most mages are heavily distrusted, so there's quite a few people who would want to get their hands on it. But given the whole party took the magic-blooded template, they don't exactly want the magic to go away. They can't destroy it, and just keeping it is a risky move, because if they get conquered again...


So if they want to be secure in their safety, they'll need to ally with other territories and expand their own. Naturally, this means I need to develop these territories in terms of government, ideologies, resources, conflicts...

I'm a little overwhelmed.

[Jendekit]

Something that I find useful in designing kingdoms/cultures is to decide on a few central aspects of their culture (say 2-4) and build from there.

So as an example, lets say that there's a culture with the following core aspects: a love of dogs, a fascination with the stars, and a strong familial bond.

With those three things, how would a culture interact with the world around them? Dog iconography would be prevalent, as would stars and constellations. The local government would probably be a family based clan. Certain breeds of dogs would be bred to fit various roles, from hunting different kinds of animals, companionship, war, and in a setting with magic quite possibly even a breed to replace horses as mounts. Night-time navigation would be something that even kids would probably have little trouble with, given a clear sky, and adopting outsiders into the family would be one of the greatest honors they could bestow.

Do you get the point that I am trying to make?

*EDIT* Great, now I'm wanting to use the sample culture in my own setting.

[Everyl]

if all of these kingdoms were, until relatively recent history, part of the same continent-spanning empire, then one question to ask is, what did the empire contribute to local culture? This can give you a baseline of some common elements shared by many kingdoms, and set up conflicts to make alliance-building more interesting. Maybe one kingdom is modeling their government system after that of the empire because it's all they've ever known, but their neighbors are uneasy about this because they fear (rightly or wrongly) that the king is a would-be emperor. If the empire had an official state religion, then there are likely to be conflicts between people in the former provinces who continue to follow it after the fall and those who (re)adopt local practices. The "Common" tongue of the setting is probably a variant of the old imperial language, and depending on the history, it's possible that many or all writing systems are derived from it - it is likely the scholarly language of the continent, as well (similar to Latin in Europe or Chinese in eastern Asia, historically).

The effects of the empire wouldn't have been equal everywhere. Perhaps one ex-province has a major institution of learning, such as a university or a library containing books from all over the continent (both rarities in pre-modern settings). The city with that institution likely saw more benefits from imperial rule than many of the surrounding territories, or even the villages just a day's travel from its walls. There might be conflict between the wealthy, educated, urban class and the poorer, laboring, rural class fueled by the perception that the city folks are imperial loyalists.

Using Jendekit's system, you might decide on several core aspects of the old empire, and decide which one or two had the most influence on each kingdom, in addition to their local cultural elements. Using his example culture, maybe a variation of the imperial religion remains strong in the area, mixing old-school dogma of imperial unity with local ideas of familial bonds. The local splinter church considers all of the ethnic group that values dogs, familial bonds, and sky-study to be members of one great family, helping provide a framework for a people inclined toward clannishness to establish a functional, unified kingdom.

[TheYell]

Just some rough ideas.

The Central Empire was into thaumaturgy and artifact creation. The coasts tended to be about druids, shamanism, and the beauty of nature. So they didn't support the fundamental technology of the Empire, even though that technology let the Empire dominate them. So while there are traces in Rebel lands, they are strongly discouraged. You have to hunt for it.

Your island is one of the few areas with magic blooded creatures. The villain is one. So he can get support from the coastal rebels by decrying Imperial meddling with natural magics, but, he's evil. He's also searching for Imperial magic in the coasts.

The magic-killing artifact was the straw that broke the camel's back. It was forged on the west coast, and the rebels took that province even before they marched on the capital. They failed to stop the artifact from reaching the capital, but they stopped the Empire from making more. This magic center is out of reach of the villain...for now...

Remember two that political divisions can be arbitrary, and bloodlines can justify ruptures. Everybody can be a nature loving rebel, but the sons of Fred will never kneel to the sons of Bill. That's two kingdoms, North Guys and South Guys. West Guys are South Guys but they live in the mountains. That's how it worked in real life.

[sktarq]

EDIT: Oh- and two more things -

what kind of scale are you working on? Is the continent Africa sized or are your islands the where the PC's are from like Malta/Isle of Skye sized? Corsica/Crete? Hispaniola/Formosa? Cuba? Britain/Japan

What kind of story and mood do you want? Dark opens up ideas of Necromancers, red scare revolutionary regions who can not settle, dark cults (high/low/no magic options), slavers, fey bodysnatcher invasion types etc. If you want to focus on ideas about the importance of the common man - proto communists, food supply manipulators, regions where anyone who knew how the system worked was killed and things are now falling apart, Republics or even direct democracies and those that wish to subvert them? Do you want them dealing with social puzzles and diplomacy? if so make sure the leaders or those who could take over have systems that are open to that. Do you want a post apocalyptic feel where many of the old cities are held by nothing but constructs, ghosts, and madmen but may still hold great secrets and powerful relics hidden during the early parts of the fall? This is by far the most important question and the one to answer first. so copy and paste and back to the original post [/edit]



okay some issues quickly come to mind

What was the culture of the Empire like?

How long did the Empire control most of the continent?

How even was the Imperial control and soft power control - as in were some areas vassals who paid lip service, a couple concubines, and a few military units to the crown every year in order to be basically left alone or did the imperial system replace local systems?) If there were regions within the empire with substansial cultural independence - any ideas on what you may like to see as as influences?

What was the regional power structure within the empire like

How did people self identify within the empire (by region, religion, as a vassal of "x", caste?)

What were the power centers and types of local power centers within the empire that could form the basis of power to take control of a surrounding region and become their own nation. - Make a list as this will be a useful point for brainstorming from later.

Who had access to the tools and training of war (mellee or magical) and how has that changed since the fall

What threats challenged the empire before its fall and how did the Empire deploy its power to challenge them

How economically integrated was the empire? In particular were there regions that relied on others for basics of life like food/water/heat in deadly cold etc. Because in regions that can't support themselves those that do have access to even limited amount of these resources will be the new local powers.

Why did the Empire fall? - This is kinda huge in saying what kind of nations will be putting down roots in the rubble, internal? external? Civil succession crisis? Peasant revolt? New army system that claims to be more democratic and less corrupt but turns out to be a cover locally based bandits who listen less to the throne than their commanders who actually pay them (see 1900-1930's China for this)

Since you mention the old system is still holding out I'm going to guess that the empire has fallen within the lifetime of even the human characters starting PC's - say 30 years? How long they have had to develop and try new ideas and set down roots-so also important.

Also how many nations do you want to be talking about-The more small scale you are looking the more radical departures the new nations can be making from previous cultural norms and previous power structures. If they are ment to be significant powers with major trade networks, their own government systems etc you either need significant time to grow those or for the new nations to heavily co-opt the older systems (Imperial, sub-Imperial, or dormant pre-Imperial)


Keep in mind that in a large scale region of war those who can provide safety (internally and externally), and life sustaining necessities (food, water, shelter, space to produce the above) will be the primary winners.

also don't get too worried about getting all of this down now-get a stetch hopefully that will gvie you a couple ideas- these ideas may help you flesh out the pre-war empire, the fall whatever-look at the consequences of those new ideas (a major naval power? where does the wood, sail cloth etc come from type consequences) and use that to help you as new brainstorming roots (perhaps needing but not having those resources is why the naval power is aggressivly trying to claim as many of the offshore possessions as it can before the ships fall into disrepair-bringing them into conflict with your players to continue the above example- or they have allies who find it better to trade wood and cloth - where is cloth and wood easy but lacks something the sea could provide-perhaps mountains that find the supplemental fish in their diet every year better than the highly reliable farming-hey new country!) Repeat the cycle until you're happy