Creating An OGC Setting

[Jürgen Hubert]

OK, here are some rough idea for an international political overview. Feel free to criticize and to fill in the blanks if you have any good ideas...

The general idea here is that both sides are fairly evenly matched in terms of military power, and thus both sides are desperately trying to get any advantage they can over their rivals. I only used an unequal number of countries on each side because I dislike artificial symmetries - assume that the individual member nations of the Southern Alliance are slightly larger and/or have more resources.

"Southern Alliance" (work title)

#1: Alliance leader. Hereditary monarchy with strong political influence of a single state religion. Members of other religions are officially tolerated, but they are not allowed to proselytize, need to pay a special tax, and have trouble attaining positions of political power. There is little in the way of social mobility, but the state religion does make sure that even the peasants are properly being taken care of and isn't afraid to criticize bad local rulers.

#2: Feudal Monarchy which has lots of wilderness areas and borders on the Southern mountains, where it traditionally guards against all those monsters. Allied to the South because of intermarriage between the ruling families and because #1 has frequently assisted them in guarding the passes.

#3: Merchant Oligarchy. Joined the Southern Alliance because it has the greatest industrial capacity in the South and this alliance made sure they had a virtual monopoly on many goods, allowing them to make huge profits.

#4:

#5: Absolute Monarchy. Traditionally, the ruler of the nation has a large harem and lots of offspring. Once he dies, these children all try to have one another assassinated, and the last one to survive becomes the new ruler. The current ruler was won over with gifts and flattery, and he doesn't really care about anything other than his amusements. However, the upcoming war might be of interest to him, since lots of his subject dying in battle for his name does amuse him.

"Northern Alliance" (also a work title)

#6 Alliance leader. Ruled by a monarch chosen by the leaders of its individual provinces after the old one dies. The individual provinces have a great deal of autonomy and rights against the central ruler, though this is weakening in the current political climate. Some are real enlightened places where the citizens (basically, every adult who owns property) vote for their leaders, while others are backward places where slavery is still practiced openly. Most people are not overly religious. The arcane arts, on the other hand, are frequently practiced, sometimes in dubious ways - their military has a few units of skeletons and zombies, which is frequently mentioned in Southern propaganda to showcase "Northern immorality".

#7: An alliance of coastal city-states who build some of the best ships in the worlds and who produced some of the most famous explorers in history. They have traditional strong economic ties to #7, and their colonial efforts have clashed frequently with #3 as of late.

#8: True theocracy, based on a different religion than #1. Has a hereditary caste system. Strong dislike between them and #1 for theological reasons.

#9:

#10:

#11: Small country whose rulers have recently been toppled thanks to a coup with secret assistance from the Northern Alliance. The new rulers are aided by Alliance forces "until order is restored".

"Neutral Nations" - countries which have not joined one side or another. Yet. But most of them are aggressively courted by both sides now.

#12: Old, decaying empire which once dominated much of the continent but is now only a shadow of its former self.

#13+: ?

Any thoughts? Suggestions for the entries left blank so far? Any additions? Ideas for names?

 

[Khuxan]

The general idea here is that both sides are fairly evenly matched in terms of military power, and thus both sides are desperately trying to get any advantage they can over their rivals. I only used an unequal number of countries on each side because I dislike artificial symmetries - assume that the individual member nations of the Southern Alliance are slightly larger and/or have more resources.

What if the conflict is more in the background - there are strained relations between the two factions, but nothing much worse than that. That way GMs can emphasise what they want.

"Southern Alliance" (work title)

#1: Alliance leader. Hereditary monarchy with strong political influence of a single state religion. Members of other religions are officially tolerated, but they are not allowed to proselytize, need to pay a special tax, and have trouble attaining positions of political power. There is little in the way of social mobility, but the state religion does make sure that even the peasants are properly being taken care of and isn't afraid to criticize bad local rulers.

No idea.

#2: Feudal Monarchy which has lots of wilderness areas and borders on the Southern mountains, where it traditionally guards against all those monsters. Allied to the South because of intermarriage between the ruling families and because #1 has frequently assisted them in guarding the passes.

The Border Kingdoms. Mountains and forests. Roughshode barons pay lip-service to a puppet. Problem is, the king's been replaced with a green dragon and is starting to exert his influence. Some barons are kind-hearted and cooperative, some are corrupt and self-serving, and many are part of the Sevenfold Counsel, the real political power in the realm.

#3: Merchant Oligarchy. Joined the Southern Alliance because it has the greatest industrial capacity in the South and this alliance made sure they had a virtual monopoly on many goods, allowing them to make huge profits.

Emeritus. Semi-jungle. A land settled a couple of hundred years ago by pacifistic merchants who actively opposed war. They remain a liberal voice in the south, but don't look askance (Sp?) at serving themselves if they can foil the northern conservatives at the same time.

#4:

#5: Absolute Monarchy. Traditionally, the ruler of the nation has a large harem and lots of offspring. Once he dies, these children all try to have one another assassinated, and the last one to survive becomes the new ruler. The current ruler was won over with gifts and flattery, and he doesn't really care about anything other than his amusements. However, the upcoming war might be of interest to him, since lots of his subject dying in battle for his name does amuse him.

Teldar. Its people are obsessed with divination and fortune-telling, but the rest of the occult scares them rather. Many slaves.

"Northern Alliance" (also a work title)

#6 Alliance leader. Ruled by a monarch chosen by the leaders of its individual provinces after the old one dies. The individual provinces have a great deal of autonomy and rights against the central ruler, though this is weakening in the current political climate. Some are real enlightened places where the citizens (basically, every adult who owns property) vote for their leaders, while others are backward places where slavery is still practiced openly. Most people are not overly religious. The arcane arts, on the other hand, are frequently practiced, sometimes in dubious ways - their military has a few units of skeletons and zombies, which is frequently mentioned in Southern propaganda to showcase "Northern immorality".

Penal. Dwarves that utilise vast numbers of skeletons and zombies to essentially lift every one of their citizens into the middle class. Essentially their philosophies conflict with the Teldar - a case of slavery in this life or in the next. Infamous atheists, they are sometimes called the God-Eaters.

#7: An alliance of coastal city-states who build some of the best ships in the worlds and who produced some of the most famous explorers in history. They have traditional strong economic ties to #7, and their colonial efforts have clashed frequently with #3 as of late.

Azerion. A huge rival of Emeritus, Azerion is run by a conservative, upper class consortium that the Emeri clash with ethically and morally. Strong ties with locathah, who help organise raids on the Mesanon.

#8: True theocracy, based on a different religion than #1. Has a hereditary caste system. Strong dislike between them and #1 for theological reasons.

Thrane P). Forced into an alliance with the Penal, this theocracy has determined to turn on them at the last minute. Heavily involved with inevitables.

#9:

Mephistan. Populated by mephits.

#10:

Mesanon. Rivals of Azerion, but forced into allegiance with them, the Mesanon are barbaric raiders that offer prayers to deepsea leviathans. Bound into complicated legal agreements they don't understand with the sahuagin that essentially compell them to attack locathah on sight.

#11: Small country whose rulers have recently been toppled thanks to a coup with secret assistance from the Northern Alliance. The new rulers are aided by Alliance forces "until order is restored".

"Neutral Nations" - countries which have not joined one side or another. Yet. But most of them are aggressively courted by both sides now.

#12: Old, decaying empire which once dominated much of the continent but is now only a shadow of its former self.

Epyr. Populated by gnomes and their halfling slaves. Ruled by a savage priesthood that practices live sacrifices. Ironically, these sacrifices actually involve willing 'victims', who become reincarnated after their death. Halflings often become ghouls because of their lust for raw flesh, which the gnomes haven't bothered to tame.

#13+: ?

Epice. A harmless pastoral nation of peaceful orcs, famed for its spices and wines. Each Epican has a special spirit which they venerate in private shrines. Recently devastated by Penal raids.

Zauberai. Enigmatic traders that ride beetles.

Any thoughts? Suggestions for the entries left blank so far? Any additions? Ideas for names?

I've put forward these thoughts to spike ideas. I know some of them might be a little (or a lot) 'out there' for a generic setting, and some of the names, frankly, suck, but I hope they serve some small purpose.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

What if the conflict is more in the background - there are strained relations between the two factions, but nothing much worse than that. That way GMs can emphasise what they want.

Well, we can say up front that the war will break out whenever the GM wants it to break out. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in a year, perhaps in a decade, and maybe never if the peacemakers have their say. As of right now, the impact on the setting is relatively subtle - there are some changes in the mood of the population and there are some high-level politics involved in this, but there is no reason the GM has to use this all the time. It's there if he wants to use it, but it can be ignored if he doesn't.

On the other hand, it is much harder to set up an epic conflict when you have lots of small kingdoms that mostly live in peace with each other and rarely interact with another. I mean, take the Forgotten Realms. How hard would it be to introduce a huge war that engulfts most of Faerun? The whole continent is so factionalized that it is hard to see how a conflict on one end of the continent will have an impact on the other end (yes, there was this "Horde" business, but that suffered from quite a few plausibility problems).

But with this setup, we can say: "It's likely that a war will break out that engulfs the continent within the next few years. If you want to run that, these are the major players, these are their forces, resources, plans, and secret weapons, and here are a couple of things that the PCs could do in it on any side of the conflict, whether they are 1st or 20th level."

Adventure thrives on conflict. And there are no bigger conflicts than war. A War campaign will allow the PCs to truly make a difference and determine the fate of entire nations.

All, of course, if the GM wants it to happen. The war breaks out when the GM says it does - not before, and not after.

The Border Kingdoms. Mountains and forests. Roughshode barons pay lip-service to a puppet. Problem is, the king's been replaced with a green dragon and is starting to exert his influence. Some barons are kind-hearted and cooperative, some are corrupt and self-serving, and many are part of the Sevenfold Counsel, the real political power in the realm.

I think "Border Kingdoms" has been used all too often in fantasy settings...

Other than that, it's good. So, what does the green dragon want? What is his stance on the war? And how does he maintain his disguise?

Emeritus. Semi-jungle. A land settled a couple of hundred years ago by pacifistic merchants who actively opposed war. They remain a liberal voice in the south, but don't look askance (Sp?) at serving themselves if they can foil the northern conservatives at the same time.

Emeritus is what we call a professor in semi-retirement...

Penal.

Too many association with the prison system...

Dwarves that utilise vast numbers of skeletons and zombies to essentially lift every one of their citizens into the middle class. Essentially their philosophies conflict with the Teldar - a case of slavery in this life or in the next. Infamous atheists, they are sometimes called the God-Eaters.

Interesting. And would also help maintain the propaganda of Northerners as "Immoral Necromancers"...

Thrane P).

Bad idea. Let's not use any terms that are possibly copyrighted by WotC (though I don't have my Eberron books with me right now to be sure...).

Mephistan. Populated by mephits.

The name sounds a bit... silly, and I'd prefer it if the main countries are populated by members of player character races...

Epyr. Populated by gnomes and their halfling slaves. Ruled by a savage priesthood that practices live sacrifices. Ironically, these sacrifices actually involve willing 'victims', who become reincarnated after their death. Halflings often become ghouls because of their lust for raw flesh, which the gnomes haven't bothered to tame.

It's probably also a good idea to make the gnomes the inventors of "standard" wizardry, at least in the form known to humans...

Zauberai. Enigmatic traders that ride beetles.

The name sounds too much like the name of a typical Warhammer Fantasy wizard to my ears (i.e., a really horrible German pun), but we can stick those traders into that big desert in the south...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I'll write down the Temperate Forest environment properly to demonstrate what I want to gain from all this hassle. It should take me a day or two.

How about this: We go ahead, and you tell us when we are doing something wrong.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Alright, I see what you mean now more clearly.
The thing is, this is a lot of work focused on the two chief nations. I was thinking of starting off with the periphary, leaving the center with just some overview and some vague hints at horrible evil that lies beneath.

I see no reason why we should limit ourselves to just an overview. Frankly, everyone should pick some places he is most interested in and work out some more detail for them. If there is a region no one is interested in, then that region can stay as an overview, but if someone wants to add detail, then more detail is most certainly welcome.

After all, we are not writing a classical setting intended for printing here. We don't have to worry about word count, and we don't have to work out a "master plan" about which areas are going to be covered and which aren't. Let's just start the process and see what happens.

 

[Nellisir]

The Border Kingdoms. Mountains and forests. Roughshode barons pay lip-service to a puppet. Problem is, the king's been replaced with a green dragon and is starting to exert his influence. Some barons are kind-hearted and cooperative, some are corrupt and self-serving, and many are part of the Sevenfold Counsel, the real political power in the realm.

I like Roughshode, or Ruashode, for the kingdom name. Also Thrane...Thaern?

Not wild about nation of mephits. Planetouched, maybe. This is "generic" fantasy. Not wild about necromantic dwarves, necromantic gnomes, or necromantic barbarian halflings for similar reasons, plus necromantic demi-humans overdone to death (haha, made joke). Scarred Lands did it, Dark Sun did it, Eberron did it. Don't understand what's wrong with illusionist gnomes.

Merchant/industrial oligarchy sounds like good spot for dwarves.

The whole city-states idea seems to be dissolving in favor of actual "kingdoms", which is a bummer.

Do we actually have a wiki set up?

We do need some baseline rules. Psionics, yes/no? "Technomagic" (including steampunk & guns in any form) yes/no? (can't stand it myself)

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Not wild about nation of mephits. Planetouched, maybe. This is "generic" fantasy. Not wild about necromantic dwarves, necromantic gnomes, or necromantic barbarian halflings for similar reasons, plus necromantic demi-humans overdone to death (haha, made joke).

You have a point here. Maybe it's better to keep necromancy mostly to the humans...

The whole city-states idea seems to be dissolving in favor of actual "kingdoms", which is a bummer.

Well, for a major war, you need some major kingdoms to run it. But there should still be plenty of room for independent city-states - all we are doing here is establishing the major players on the continent...

Do we actually have a wiki set up?

Yes - you missed it on the first page:

http://ogcs.wikispaces.com/

We do need some baseline rules. Psionics, yes/no?

Yes, but only for relatively obscure parts of the setting. It's okay for mind flayers, duergar, and some strange cultists plotting to overthrow the rule of the gods, but all this should be limited enough so that GMs who dislike psionics can simply ignore that part of the setting. It certainly shouldn't be as prevalent as arcane or divine magic.

"Technomagic" (including steampunk & guns in any form) yes/no? (can't stand it myself)

No guns - they'd change the medieval paradigm too much. Maybe there are some rare cases of highly experimental and unreliable "sufficiently advanced magic" to qualify as technomagic around (perhaps at major magical universities), but they should be rare and one-of-a-kind.

 

[Yair]

How about this: We go ahead, and you tell us when we are doing something wrong.

I didn't mean to sound like an #E$!@#hole.
Of course I'd be glad to see anyone's contribution or suggestions, and there has been some excellent ideas, I'm not out to tell anyone that he's wrong.
I just like looking at the ecology angle for a change, that is all.
I'm not saying you must abide by some strictures or anything.

 

[Yair]

I second all of Jurgen's replies.

Contact me if you want to join the Wiki! (see the first post.)

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I didn't mean to sound like an #E$!@#hole.

Don't worry, I was kidding.

But seriously, some fact-checking can't hurt. I do that for my co-workers all the time, and it often improves the finished manuscripts. It's just that the others shouldn't neccessarily wait until you have completed your analysis - we can all work on different aspects on the setting without getting into each other's way.