AmandaBarbarian
Explorer
now this sounds like what I should put my last few brain cells into.Sounds like it is ripe for mercantilism. Make sure to remember, however, that there is a very important distinction that often gets erased with the colloquial term "feudalism." Properly speaking, "feudalism" refers to two distinct elements which usually, but not always, came hand-in-hand for medieval Europe. One is "manorialism," which is the whole "one person owns this land, and tenant farmers live/work on it as effectively indentured servants" thing. The other is "vassalage," which is the specific thing you just talked about--where one person technically has legal authority over the entirety of a vast country, but delegates that authority to regional sub-rulers, who may themselves delegate sub-regional authority to their own subordinates, down until you get to the smallest units which are directly administered (usually via manorialism, but not always--churches and some cities bucked this trend, e.g. London is so old it actually has a special arrangement "from time immemorial" rather than the traditional manorial arrangement.)
The avatar of Bacobb owns the whole kingdom and everyone under it. However other then the area he directly controls (direct being a bit of a stretch since he too has high priests under him and priest/lords under them) he gives the avatars of the other gods of his pantheon control of regions. Now each region is ruled slightly diffrently I only need to work on the 2 right near the PCs right away but having an idea or two for the others would not hurt.
Hextor is my main, and the one who controls the area that we start, so I will need to look up more on Manorialism and how it works and what way it works... I have the city I am building ruled by 3 clerics that make a small counsel, so they answer to a single high priest (who has other towns on him) who answers to the avatar of Hextor who answers directly to the god...
I had not thought about locations of rivers yet. My map is pretty bare bones right now. However being that I am useing so much divine magic I have a bit of leeway.Bottom line, the vast majority of commerce works because of three things:
This is why most cities either sit on a river, on the coast, or at a MAJOR crossroads with supplementary fresh water sources (like good aquifers or really well-made aqueducts.)
- Transportation (which, historically, has meant specifically water transportation because of speed and ease)
- Resource scarcity in one place but not another
- Actors (whether state or individual) investing in something
THANK YOU SO MUCH, this was very eye opening.