Designing a world around two nations at war

[Protato]

I'm trying to design a world for my 5e game around a few nations, the main two being named Valace and Lebraguia, who are at war. The two aren't all that fleshed out yet.

Valace has a focus on martial abilities. Valace's military is primarily composed of a civilian force given a formal education (maybe up to elementary level? Most people are literate and have basic knowledge of history and math) and part of it is basic combat training. All Valacian light infantry are equipped with wooden clubs, small hand-axes, a spear (ranging from a sharp stick to metal spearheads), and a knife. At the age of 18, any given civilian is given a red gambeson dyed with madder-root along with any weapons they do not already own. However, as most people own a few of the standard weapons for use in daily chores (knives for whittling, axe for woodcutting, etc), this saves the cost of arming everyone. The citizenry is recruited by their Lords when needed, with conscription becoming rare. Archers are a different story. Most are hunters in civil life and are then sought out for service and "brought up to speed" with further training later. Magic use is common but not among the peasantry. Heavy infantry and both light and heavy cavalry are usually elite mercenaries hired from foreign lands.

In Valace, each magic class corresponds to a different formal job. Druids are often employed as horticulturalists, city planners, and other roles beyond stereotypical treehuggers. Druids fitting that description are frowned on but are allowed to exist legally. Warlocks describe a pagan sect and are sometimes confused with druids. Warlocks employed by Valace's government are instead a function of the clergy, as are Clerics/Priests. Paladins are used as enforcers of the law, or the church, although "Paladin" is also sometimes used to describe heavy infantry in general. Sorcerer is the term for someone with a magical bloodline and are sought out immediately for conscription or to be assassinated, as they're seen as extremely dangerous. Wizards and Bards are often noble and are college educated. Bards are used as scribes, with their magical power speeding up the process of writing large amounts of text and in preservation. They also act as curators for museums and otherwise collect knowledge, especially folk traditions. Wizards are specifically taught powerful spells to act as magic artillery for the military. Valace's main religion involves worship of the Sun and the Moon, Helia and Lunula. It's believed that they danced and fell in love, and their love resulted in procreation and creating the universe. Every eclipse is seen as holy, where the pair copulate once more, and other universe is born. They also have a genderless child named Asterope, god of the stars.

Lebraguia, meanwhile, is a nation built on the magical influence of the ancient Prismatic Dragon Jinion. Most citizens innately know druidcraft or other similar spells to help in daily life. The religion/government/military of the state is the Draco Progeny, the most direct descendants of Jinion. The Progeny's leader is Lebraguia's Emperor, who has the closest ties to Jinion. He mobilizes the nation to war and then turns command of his forces over to his Four Elemental Generals, powerful soldiers that act as frontline commanders. The bulk of the forces are light infantry, with Warlocks having pledges their allegiance to Jinion being the second most common. Warlocks that live to retirement and have children tend to birth Sorcerers, who are elites of both war and society. Bards are instead Cantors, who chant and sing hymns to lead followers in prayer. I sadly haven't planned Lebraguia out as much as Valace but I think what I have is a solid base.

There are a few other nations that are less important to the main plot than the other two. Ashinton is a snowy land with a lot of rich mercenaries and precious/semiprecious minerals, along with poor laborers to gather riches. It's notoriously corrupt, and its mercenaries are highly sought after by other nations (a la Swiss mercenaries). There's another small nation called Shei Scana that's been fleshed out the least. It's where elves, beastmen, dwarves, tieflings, and other magical beings come from.

Other than that I haven't got too much planned out. How might I flesh this world out a bit more?

[sktarq]

Well, there are a couple of questions to start with

First: is this a single campaign world. As in do you need to build based on the idea that other campaigns will need stuff to build from or can the war be the primary concern in building the world with everything else basically supportive or fluff.

Secondly: What kind of adventures do you want to run in this world? Dungeon Delving (perhaps to raid, perhaps to find new weapons, knowledge, etc)? if so you should be figuring out a way to make sure there are/were builders for those dungeons. If you are going more social skills and court paladins rapiers type or infiltration style you need to build out politics and culture.

Third: What kind of feel do you want the game to have? What kind of themes and moods do you want to play with? Hope? Patriotism (blind, big vs little nationalism), ideology vs following sworn leaders, the nature of duty, the horrors of war and that war can turn people into monsters, the collapse of empathy and de-humanization that war can cause, the opportunity for personal advancement via glory hogging or betrayal or war profiteering or other personal victories at the expense of the nation, the civilian costs both as victims of enemy raids and also opportunity costs as people starve due to disrupted food and other supply chains. Do you want a feel or hope, duty, brutality, smallness or epicness?

As for things to start with brainstorming just from what you said as things you need.

Why these nations are at war-kind of important

sources for mercenaries - you have two but really the

Ashinton should probably not be your one stop shop.

Neighboring nations that may try to influence events

Non state actors who may be able to make a difference - churches, major clan leaders, merchant or banking group that may be able to help with gold and or logistics

Groups that find the war a useful cover to advance their own agendas -cults, necromancers, thieves/smuggler guilds, bandit groups, monsters normally kept in check by the town guard (who have mostly been deployed to the front) etc

Finally figure out the basics of the nation's economies and how they could/would change due to the war. (loss of workers, raided trades routes, international traders going elsewhere or bringing different things. And thus how this could disrupt particularly health, community support for the war, and internal pressures/and politics of each nation.

[Protato]

Well, there are a couple of questions to start with

First: is this a single campaign world. As in do you need to build based on the idea that other campaigns will need stuff to build from or can the war be the primary concern in building the world with everything else basically supportive or fluff.

Secondly: What kind of adventures do you want to run in this world? Dungeon Delving (perhaps to raid, perhaps to find new weapons, knowledge, etc)? if so you should be figuring out a way to make sure there are/were builders for those dungeons. If you are going more social skills and court paladins rapiers type or infiltration style you need to build out politics and culture.

Third: What kind of feel do you want the game to have? What kind of themes and moods do you want to play with? Hope? Patriotism (blind, big vs little nationalism), ideology vs following sworn leaders, the nature of duty, the horrors of war and that war can turn people into monsters, the collapse of empathy and de-humanization that war can cause, the opportunity for personal advancement via glory hogging or betrayal or war profiteering or other personal victories at the expense of the nation, the civilian costs both as victims of enemy raids and also opportunity costs as people starve due to disrupted food and other supply chains. Do you want a feel or hope, duty, brutality, smallness or epicness?

As for things to start with brainstorming just from what you said as things you need.

Why these nations are at war-kind of important

sources for mercenaries - you have two but really the

Ashinton should probably not be your one stop shop.

Neighboring nations that may try to influence events

Non state actors who may be able to make a difference - churches, major clan leaders, merchant or banking group that may be able to help with gold and or logistics

Groups that find the war a useful cover to advance their own agendas -cults, necromancers, thieves/smuggler guilds, bandit groups, monsters normally kept in check by the town guard (who have mostly been deployed to the front) etc

Finally figure out the basics of the nation's economies and how they could/would change due to the war. (loss of workers, raided trades routes, international traders going elsewhere or bringing different things. And thus how this could disrupt particularly health, community support for the war, and internal pressures/and politics of each nation.

These are all excellent points. I'm going to try and address some of them right now, and maybe come up with other things later.

Point One: This world is mostly based upon the war with other details being fluff. However, I think fluff is important, and I always feel unprepared when players ask fluff questions to me that I have to come up with an on the spot answer for. I think I'm okay at it but I should really be better by now.

Point Two: Honestly I feel like I could run a variety of adventures. The "main quest" as it were involves the party being mercenaries and wanderers joining with a Valacian fort that acts as a sort of auxiliary for a nearby city. However, it's been under attack by Lebraguia's Fire General, Petyr, and his forces. At this moment, the adventure has been a few dungeon crawls (notably to find Gryphons to train for use as air support), defending their fort from invasion, finding a small outpost in a cave and tidying it up to use as a home, and soon I hope to either have Petyr and his men advance to attack the party, or to have my players move out and attack.

Third: I'm trying to plan out story arcs as they were, with each one having a different feel/goal. Overall, I'm looking to make the situation serious, but I allow player characters to joke around, with the main "tone" being similar to a classic JRPG a bit. While it has room for levity, the situations themselves are serious, with the threats being tangible. As for the effects on people, I haven't shown too many towns yet but I've shown someone who's entire family was murdered by Petyr in a failed attack. In his paranoia that any given civilian could be an informant, he murdered an entire home, including an infant. I've thought he could maybe have advanced solely through political reasons, not merit, and that could show how war is often just politics with a toll in bloodshed.

For the other things, I've got some things in my head but they've yet to manifest themselves. The war started when the typically kind-hearted Emperor Clovis of Lebraguia attacked Valace for "Heresy". I'm planning to have the war be some sort of plot by the real BBEG, an evil wizard or somesuch working in the shadows. Perhaps he needs more souls and he's trying to ressurect Jinion? We aren't anywhere close to revealing that info so I have time to make that twist.

Mercenaries come from all over, it's just that Ashington provides the "best". For other nations trying to influence things, I was thinking that Shei Scana would actually be comprised of a bunch of smaller states, like a group for elves, Tieflings, dwarves, anthro animals, et cetera. Collectively they've been neutral in the war but before long, someone's going to join the fight and everyone else will have to join. This could also be a setup for a political mission where the party has to go and convince various states and groups to aid them.

NGOs have been limited, but there's different corporations controlling different things, and well, the army's weapons have to come from somewhere, especially considering they're (roughly) standardized. I could even have the arms company be selling to both sides, and that leads the party to uncover a conspiracy. Clans hadn't come up yet but I intend orcs to be a fairly rare and insular species with a technology level roughly equal to precolonization America, but with a bit of magic enhancing it a bit. As for economies, how might I come up with them? I know little of economics in general and don't wanna come up something that makes no sense.

In any case, thanks for the advice in fleshing my world out just a bit more.

[sktarq]

With the Economics.

War changes things. lots or farmers are called up and that means less food is being produced and there are lots of draws on the gold reserves as it is. So food supplies become short. Plus in areas where food is regularly moved long distance that movement can be disrupted (by bandits or monsters that normally would be controlled by the army, by enemy armies, by the fact that moving goods to the front is more profitable, etc). so now food security is deeply stressed in some areas. which areas and by how much depends on how the economy is structured. When food security is stressed prices go up which means people have less money to pay for other things which means that people who sell carpets or whatever get less business. When these things add up you have a lot of people on the home front being disrupted which can lead to crime (those bandits I mentioned earlier), social unrest, and people desperate to gain the system that comes up in the course of the war. Which brings me to the people who do well out of the war. Because the need for weapons, tents, horses etc all go up during war time and so some people make out really well. There are war profiteers who are likely also getting political power at the same time. These people have incentive to keep the war going...perhaps by dirty means.

and I also covered only food. In a nation with little metal industry development lots of people could be called off to work very marginal iron deposits to meet that increased demand. If cash crop exports are really important do foreign traders risk the enemy raids to buy those crops or do they just trade elsewhere? What does the nation import in general? because between a drop of in traders in most areas and the fact that food and war materials displace the normal trade goods those import can be much harder to find. Which can disrupt all sorts of things.

those shortages can lead to people doing the kinds of unusual things or have unusual needs that call upon the party's unique skills.