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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Levistus's_Leviathan" data-source="post: 9626601" data-attributes="member: 7023887">My main question is how? How did the empire get that big? The biggest contiguous land empire in history, the Mongol Empire, didn't even conquer a full continent. How on Earth did a single empire conquer all of the oceans on the planet? Especially given the fact that oceans are 3D. You can swim up and down. There's life living at all levels of the ocean, and there would likely be aquatic fantasy races living at all depths. Can whichever species that formed this empire survive at all depths of the ocean, from the world's equivalent of the Mariana Trench to the surface? Let's say the Kuo-Toa and Aboleths live at the very bottom of the ocean. How does the empire make sure they're loyal and don't declare independence? Can their average soldier survive living at the bottom of the ocean for extended periods of time? Or do they have divisions of soldiers that specialize in deep sea diving? And not just how did it form, how is it still around? That empire would be over-extended to Baator and back. If the empire has a capital city, how does it tell people on the other side of the planet, which they supposedly rule over, what to do? How do they enforce their laws and policies? How do they collect taxes/tribute? How does the empire protect trade, communication, and travel throughout the empire? How does the empire make sure that not only is it producing enough food, but that it's making specifically enough food for all of the different species in the empire and is delivering the food to the correct locations in an orderly fashion? There would definitely be magic that could help, such as teleportation circles and the Sending spell, but the empire would have to have pretty widespread magic for them to rely on those spells to administrate the empire. What are the internal factions in the empire? Who is in charge of it? Does the empire have strict succession laws to determine who can rule? For example, maybe all monarchs so far have been Storm Giants of a specific dynasty. Or can anyone become emperor if designated as the successor or they gain enough influence/power (be it through military accomplishments, climbing the bureaucratic ladder, or governing a province in the empire)? In the latter case, maybe the empire has near-constant civil wars to determine who is in charge. If they don't have a single ruler, are they a republic? How do they do elections? Who is allowed to vote? How do they do censuses in an underwater environment, where groups of people will likely be moving around constantly? Does the empire completely control and administer all regions of the oceans, or are there semi-independent client states in regions that are too difficult to control (deep sea, lakes, underwater caves, etc). These parts could be nominally part of the empire, but mostly self-administering. Similarly, if there are nomadic tribes of hunter gatherers, there's not much point in keeping record of their location and numbers, as they won't be paying much in taxes. How much of the society is nomadic and how much is settled? In an underwater environment, nomadic cultures would be common as hunters follow schools of fish and other prey. How does agriculture work? Who are the privileged and marginalized peoples in the empire? How are the privileged rewarded by society and how are the marginalized punished? Does slavery exist and in what form? How does the military work? Is the empire attempting to expand onto land and/or into the rivers and lakes of the world, or are they prioritizing keeping the empire together as is? How do they deal with dangerous megafauna, like Krakens and Sea Serpents? What is the religion of the ruling class? Do they mostly tolerate other faiths, or do they enforce it as a state faith? If they allow other religions to exist, do they do the Greek/Roman practice of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretatio_graeca" target="_blank">interpretatio graeca/romana</a> of conflating similar deities of different pantheons together as a way of assimilating the conquered peoples? If they forcibly converted everyone to their religion, how does the church work in the empire? Religion is often used by the ruling class to justify their rule (Divine Right of Kings, Mandate of Heaven, etc). There have been heads of state that are also the heads of the religion (the Pope, Islamic Caliphs, the Japanese Emperor in Shintoism, the British Monarchs in Anglicanism). But there are also religious heads that don't have political power. Does the ruling dynasty also serve as the heads of the religion, or is there a religious head that is independent of the state? How much - if at all - do the churches and the empire disagree with each other? Does the empire justify wars of expansion through religion? For an example of how this could work in a D&D setting, let's assume the empire's created and ruled by the Sahuagin. The current ruler of the empire could be Chosen of Sekolah and the Sahuagin Emperor. Maybe whoever Sekolah decides is his Chosen becomes the rightful emperor? Or if this is more like Eberron, the Emperor could just declare himself to be the chosen of their deity without real divine intervention. Or maybe the ruler of the empire is immortal. That could solve the issue of succession crises, but cause other problems. Creating, running, and maintaining this empire would be a nightmare. Its survival for any extended period of time would be nothing short of a miracle. I'm not saying it's impossible. This is fantasy, after all. Just that the logistics of all of this is worth considering. I don't really think which specific species controls the empire matters. Sahuagin, Storm Giants, Aquatic Dragons, Marid, Aboleths, Sea Elves, or others would work. If it was created by some advanced now-sunken Atlantis or innately magical species, that could be a justification for the widespread magic that would be necessary to keep the empire together, but you could find other justifications. This matters more for the vibe you want the empire to have more than how it would function. Is it an ancient empire from the dawn of time? In that case, Giants, Aboleths, and Dragons would work best. But if it's a relative newcomer, any of the younger races would make sense.</blockquote>

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