Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jürgen Hubert" data-source="post: 2779785" data-attributes="member: 7177">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?</blockquote>

Verification