What areas exist in your world?

[Tsyr]

Hmmm... I don't really have areas like that, I guess...

I mean, I've got some people that are fairly similar to mideval england, and I've got some people that are a sort of cross between gypsy and celtic, and so forth... But I can't really point to any one culture and say "This is XXXX culture from earth!".

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Hmmm... I don't really have areas like that, I guess...

I mean, I've got some people that are fairly similar to mideval england, and I've got some people that are a sort of cross between gypsy and celtic, and so forth... But I can't really point to any one culture and say "This is XXXX culture from earth!".

Many game worlds do, however - and for a reason.

First, the real world, as Ken Hite would be quick to explain, is a real treasure trove of weird cultures, plot ideas and campaign seeds, and stealing liberally from it can help the GM a lot.

Second, it's often difficult to "get into" a fantasy world - it's hard to imagine what life is like in such a world.

If you say: "This region is sort of similar to the old German Empire", most players and GMs will have a pretty good idea of what it's like.

Which possibly goes a long way towards explaining the continuing popularity of the Warhammer World...

 

[mythusmage]

What is it with you Americans and the French?

Hey, I was abusing frogs long before the 3 week war.

BTW, I had the puppet gaulieter of Munich, Adolf Hitler assassinated in 1938 by German resistance leader, Otto Skorzeny. About 3 days before agents from the French Surete arrived to arrest him on charges of gassing Jews along with elves, gnomes, and goblins. So I'm not totally mean to the French.

"Faeries, dinkies, and toads are fair prey, but k***s are off limits" Petainist official.

 

[dren]

My ongoing game features:

Perith: A great bardic nation known for being the epi-centre of all empirical knowledge, a 5,000 year old old growth forest (think Endor) and the last bastion of the Hegemony: the elven & minotaur kingdom

Free States: various jumble of races all within 20 days travel, all fighting to keep free of each other. War is eternal

Dranok: a dead magic zone that is heavily populated by trolls who battle halflings

Phastia: essentially Saharan in nature, with magical oasi (instead of water, magic fonts) ruled by Sorcerors.

GA'RONISH: human lands within jungle isles dominated by an evil twisted empire, that believes in racial purity, slavery and domination of fey for their benefit. (Think Nazis in Greece.)

Border-lands: instable magic, where open gates lead to the astral isles and planescape monsters wander freely. The astral dwarves play a deadly game with a unique planar race

The Wastes: border-lands whose gates are destroyed and not only is magic but life is essentially draining away. Favoured by the goblins and former slave races of the Hegemony.

Yadai: tibetan psions in unbelievably high mountainsides.

The Hidden Path: a secret society within all the others, whereby psions fight evil while keeping their presence secret

 

[LostSoul]

I've got a couple of nation-states based on europe. One thing that I put in that you don't see very often is a balklan-region. Since the campaign has begun, the PCs have heard of wars in that region.

To accomodate high-level play, I've designated a region filled with high CR opponents, working against other high CR opponents. Now that the PCs are in that area (something that was always spoken in hushed tones by NPCs), everything "feels" great.

 

[Agback]

G'day

Well, the centrepiece of my campaign is Gehennum, which is an extensive archipelago of coral-fringed and jungle-covered tropical islands, inhabited by a race physically resembling the Malays. Culture is modelled in considerable part on Ancient Greece, except that the economy is influenced by tropical south-east Asia. In the Archaic Period Gehennum is occupied by a collection of hundreds of small states with a bewildering range of political arrangements, and technology is approximately that of the Eastern Mediterranean in the Fifth Century BC. By the Classical Period Gehennum has been unified under a single Empire ruled from Thekla, the political arrangement is most like the United Kingdom under the Stuarts, and technology will give the Renaissance a run for its money in most respects (except that, given the excessively damp climate, there are no practical firearms). And in the Decadent Period the political setup is like the Tokugawa Shogunate, and beginning to show signs of coming apart. Gehennum is large and populous enough to encompass quite some diversity: the south of Bethany is run by an austere and militaristic aristocracy inspired by the Spartans, who worship a large nickel-iron meteorite (the "Iron Stone Men"); Thekla is bourgeois; the Central Isles are mercantile; the Eastern Provinces feature vast estates and a parochial gentry who are richer than many nobles; the Mela Basin is underdeveloped, backwoodsy, and still full of wildness.

4600 km east-north-east is Ramastaarn, a much smaller archipelago of low atolls of sand and porous limestone. The human race are similar to the 'African-Americans' of Tanzania and Uganda, their dress is quasi-Egyptian, their architecture is monumental, and their society is very strange. Women live in matrilineal groups that occupy colossal palaces (or at least family compounds), that expel their sons at the age of 13, and that permit no adult male residents. Women own agriculture (for which they sometime hire male labourers), and also indulge in manufacturing. Matriclans that fall on hard times are sometimes forced into the leisure industry. Men, on the other hand, live in totem groups to which they are assigned on the basis of drug-induced dreams at their coming-of-age ceremonies. Some of these 'men's lodges' own particular bits of hunting and fishing, others own such ways of life as shamanism, heroic monster-fighting, security and bodyguard industries, etc. Men in poor lodges are sometimes forced to hire themselves out as agricultural labourers. [Hetero]sexual contact is supposed to be purely casual, and any lasting romantic relationship between a man and a woman must be conducted clandestinely.

1860 km south-south-east is Fairon, a group of windswept and almost treeless islands settled by quasi-Norse people from the Far South. Shortage of arable land forces their excess population into piracy and desperate colonising ventures.

2100 km north-north-east are the Blessed Isles. Physically modelled on the Hawaiian Group, they are occupied by a quasi-Polynesian people, the southern outpost of the 'Auroronesian' group. In the Blessed Isles families are matrilineal patriarchies: a family consists of a group of brothers and sisters together with the sisters' children and their (or at least the daughters') children, and the eldest brother is nominally in charge. After infancy in the care of their mothers, boys are raised not by their fathers (who are often unknown) but by their maternal uncles. A man's heirs are not his sons but his nephews. The Blessed Isles is a multiple theocracy, with each god ruling his island through a priest-king who is one of his sons. Each priest-king's eldest sister (or half-sister) is priestess-concubine of the god: her eldest son succeeds his uncle/halfbrother as priest-king. The god of the Blessed Isles maintains two such families: a King of the Land (human) and a King of the Sea (diver). The royal families of the Blessed Isles have almost pure divine ancestry, and are famous for their beauty and good luck.

North of the Blessed Isles Auroronesia is scattered over several million square kilometres of ocean. Racially similar to the people of the Blessed Isles, the Auroronesians have a society that differs in that families consist of a core of women with their daughters and their daughters' daughters together with their husbands (not their brothers) and their unmarried sons. The head of a family is either succeeded by the husband of his senior [married daughter] or gets to designate, among his sons-in-law, which one will succeed him. The islands are generally small: hunting and fishing belong to men, gardening belongs to women. Young men with adequate means tend to leave their families for a career adventuring, in which they hope to amass such a reputation that chieftains and kings will consider them eligible as sons-in-law and successors, or at least as nephews-in-law. The husbands of the women of an aristocratic family (or royal family) form the military elite the clan (or tribe), and live lives of comfort and consequence. And ciecumstances of birth are not generally considered to matter in making a suitor eligible (important property belongs to families, not individuals, and therefore a man never inherits from his parents. There is therefore a great deal of competition for reputation among young men in Auroronesia, and the bards who disseminate news are consequently important to them.

10350 km due west is Elusion, the homeland of the Leshy (a race like Tolkien's elves): beautiful, gardenlike, and now only sparsely inhabited.

Somewhere down near the Antarctic Circle is Jotunheim, a land of roughly the conformation of Ireland, inhabited by giants. Despite the great fertility of their soils, the giants are hard-working subsistence farmers, with little specialisation or divison of labour, and who are correspondingly poor.

14650 km due east is Ashikagalon, where the physical culture is Japanese, but the political arrangements are simpler. It is but an example of the wide diversity of distant places that I have developed ad hoc for the needs of particular adventures, or when PCs go travelling.

The Methlin culture lives on ships, and supports itself by whaling, fishing, and long-distance commerce. Some Methlin ships are enormous, and occupied by the equivalent of small towns. Most are more modest. Whenever Methlin ships meet there is perforce a flurry of new apprenticeships, rapid courtships, more-or-less arranged marriages, and other, less formal, genetic exchanges. The Methlin are lithe and graceful, with light tan skin and straight reddish-black hair. They do not wear heavy armour (too dangerous) and therefore have developed refined fighting techniques.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Knightfall]

Knightfall's World of Kulan

Kulan is a mixture of a lot of different real world cultures and liberal borrowing from other fantasy campaign sources, whether they be TSR/WotC campaigns or someone else's homebrew campaign.

The Continent of Harqual (see attached image) is the best example of this. The most detailed area of this continent, so far, are the Kingdoms of the Eastern Shores. This region is on the eastern coast of Harqual where the Gulf of Thallin meets the Karmine Sea. The large peninsula there is known as the Jagged Peninsula. The peninsula are made up of the lands of the Kingdom of Stonn, the Shadowood and the Ambra Coast.

North of that is the Kingdom of Thallin, which stretches up along the coast all the way to where the Wind River branches east into the Gulf. Along the edge of Thallin are numerous independent lands and communities ranging from the Sylvan Forest of the Highborn to The Highlands set between the coast and the Great Harqual Forst.

Southwest of Stonn and Thallin are the two remaining kingdoms that make up the Eastern Council. The Duchy of Minar and the Barony of Wolffire are both full kingdoms in their own right but do not have as lofty noblity as Thallin and Stonn. Seperated by the Sunus Mountains, the two kingdoms sit on the frontier of the Thunder Lands to the south. Minar sits nestled in between the Sunus Mountain range and the Great Lake of Qualitian, while Wolffire sit on the eastern edge of the continent on the other side of the mountains, as well as the Great Island of Farion. Their main rivals for the region are the warlike bugbear tribes of the Sunus Mountains.

Stonn, Thallin, Minar, Wolffire - these are the Kingdoms of the Eastern Shores.

And that's only one section of my continent.

West of the Great Harqual Forest are the lands of the Sword Gulf - dozens of fiercely territorial domains and countries. Le Marécage de Fey, the Onan Territory, the Jovian Alliance, the Monarchy of Avion, the Aerie Holds, The Forest Domain of Cadra, The Principality of Shaule, The Ruined March, the Barony of Poli and the County of Valeny, as well as several independent city states:

Ambian, City on the Mire
Gillian, City of Sailors
Halandra, City of Sorcerers
Metan, The River City
Nikel, Domain of Shadows

To the south of lands of the Sword Gulf is the Storm Peninsula, home of the Tabaxi of the Storm Jungle and dozens of independent communities surviving by their wits and strong merchantile ties. The most powerful of these communities is Anthmoor, the City of Thunder.

To the east on the other side of Guardian Bay is Izmer, in all it's arcane glory. In between these two regions is the coast of Guardian Bay, where the Eversink Suzerainty holds sway.

East of Izmer are the lands of Cauldron and Amoria, one a powerful built in a dormant volcano, known as the Shackled City, and the other the center of a frontier trading city, known as Mor's End. In between, the dwarven lands of Kul Moren who trade exclusively with both.

Further east of Amoria is the rest of the Thunder Lands - The Black Kingdom of the Thunder Ocs, who control the mountains named for them; the Hather Plains, home to wild creatures and horse riding nomands; the Barony of Liran, the main foe of the Black Kingdom; Sanh's Strand, a region known for its wild inhabitants and vicious storms; Tschaja, The Feathered City and home to a avian race of newcomers to Harqual; and the Sovereign City of Yuln; ally to both Liran and Tschaja.

Two other main areas including The Great Harqual Forest, home to the Silver and Forest Elves, and the Greystone Mountains, source of the Wind River and home to the Kingdom of the Greystones (on the northern edge of the Great Harqual Forest).

As for which lands are influenced by real world kingdoms (and other fantasy sources), well Avion will be based loosely on France and Belguim, while the lands of the Sword Gulf are inspired by the city-states of Ancient Greece. The Kingdoms of the Eastern Shores were originally to be like central Europe but have now taken on a life all their own. Minar and Thallin are feudal monarchies, Stonn is a feudal theocracy, and Wolffire is a barbaric land similar to Germania (but more tamed). Note: Minar is loosely based on a Dungeon adventure known as Rudwilla's Stew, set in a land known as Mulcrow. As I've developed my world, it is less and less like that adventure.

Izmer, of course, comes from the D&D Movie (don't boo me all at once), the Eversink Suzerainty was inspired by Piratecat's story hour (thanks P'Cat), Mor's End and Kul Moren are from the EN World City Project, and Cauldron is from the pages of Dungeon Magazine.

I also have a kingdom on Harqual that is based on the Kingdom of Karameikos from the Mystara campaign setting, known as Ahamudia, as well as a old decadent land with its origins based on my mythology (Empire of Swords), which can be found here: http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?threadid=18997

Liran and the Black Kingdom are based on the D&D module, the Silver Key, and the Ambra Coast got its name from a Mystara location/adventure known as Castle Amber. The northern reaches of the continent are wild, untamed lands known as the Northlands, which are home to hundreds of barbarian tribes and wild races - most notable orcs, ogres, trolls, centaurs, halflings, and cold-resistant lizardmen. The lands south of Izmer and the Thunder Lands are know as the Far South or Southern Harqual. The large desert that divides the north from the south is known as the Great Expanse and is home to several tight-knit tribes of desert elves as well as dragonnes in the mountain range that is known as the Patron Mountains.

The main inhabitants of the Far South are halflings, civilized half-orcs, forest-dwelling gnomes & treants, nomadic rakasta, and surface-dwelling dwarves known as the Torin. Elves are rare in the south, mainly being urbanized elves of desert stock and humans are very rare. Most of the southern communities are controlled by either halflings, half-orcs, Torin dwarves and city-dwelling rakasta. Humans count for only 20% of the population in the south. There are more half-orcs and half-desert elves then there are humans. The most populous lands with humans in the south are the Republic of the Thorn (Roman-like), the City-state of Xcellian an the Timber Coast.

In contrast, the population of the Northlands is roughly 70% human, and most of these humans are barbarians. Only one real Kingdom exists in this region, MaShir - a barbaric feudal land that makes Wolffire look tame. MaShir is sort of a Germania/Viking cross).

Well that's all I have the energy for. If you want to learn more then either go to the link above or my webpage: http://www.geocities.com/rielun/campaignsframe.htm

(My webpage goes into an more overall world view of Kulan, including four other continents - Janardun, Kanpur, The Fallenlands, and Triadora.)

Cheers!

Robert Blezard, a.k.a. Knightfall1972
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada

p.s. If anyone is wondering what's up with the rivers - let me just ay this: The God of Lakes and Rivers died during an event I called the Divinity War (see mythology link above). - KF72