Worlds of Design: Colonies

If you’ve developed nations in your campaign, you will probably have a world that involves colonies.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

World-building offers an opportunity to explore a variety of social, political, and historical concepts, including colonization. While the real-world history of colonization is fraught with imperialism and exploitation, it's important for world-builders to understand its different aspects and the potential implications of including colonies in their fictional worlds. This article is not meant to justify colonization, but rather to provide a framework for world-builders to make informed choices about the structure of their worlds.

Why Colonies Happen​

There are several reasons nations establish colonies:

• Commercial Expansion (Greeks and Phoenicians/Carthaginians, Portuguese, etc.). Finding more “hinterland” to trade with. E.g. Greek Massalia (now Marseilles) was established in part to trade with the people of Gaul (now France). The Greeks, especially, had no interest in controlling the native populace. The Carthaginians did come to control some of southeastern Iberia. Keep in mind that these trading places involved many permanent residents, they were not merely small establishments like trade depots.
• Population Reduction (Greeks and Phoenicians/Carthaginians). City-states can quickly become overcrowded/unable to feed their population, colonies provided an outlet.
• Military Control (Roman “colonies”). This is unusual. Retired Roman legionnaires took land in colonies located in newly-conquered territory in Italy, to help control the inhabitants. So they were “colonizing” land already inhabited by people not so different from themselves. Related to this are towns established in a newly-conquered area (Ireland, by the Normans?) to help control the populace. The “home country” must have a pretty strong government in these cases.
• Commercial Exploitation (European 16th 17th century). The Mercantile Theory of the time said a country should only trade with its own colonies to maximize earnings. It should not allow other countries to trade with those colonies. To have lucrative trade you had to have colonies.
• Specialized Settlement (European 16th 17th century). This is different from population reduction, perhaps seen more as a way of getting rid of misfits. The Puritans, for example, for England, the Huguenots for France, the prisoners sent to Australia. This markedly affected the colony.
• Population reduction to avoid disaster (18th 19th c). There were times, for example during the mid-19th century potato famine, when emigration helped people such as the Irish who would otherwise starve.
• Pure imperialist colonialism (19th c. imperialism). This is a land and people grab, pure and simple, for prestige, to help nations claim to be “Great Powers,” to “find a place in the sun.” This is the evil face of colonization. And in most cases, it involved few people actually leaving their home country, it’s about controlling populations of distant places.
• Missionary/Religious Proselytization motives rarely cause colonization, but can certainly follow it, especially in the 19th century.

Why do People Move to Colonies?​

There are a lot of reasons why: economic advantage, fleeing social stigma of some kind, hired to do it, free land, food shortages, religious persecution, better climate, you can think of many more motives.

If a colony is motivated by economic advantage, it's essentially a trade depot and likely to be a seaport or on a river farther inland. Transportation becomes paramount. If the colony is established to accommodate big populations, it’ll start on water but others will move inland for fertile (free) farmland, most likely along rivers.

In a fantasy world filled with monsters, escape from invading hordes of monsters is also a likely reason. Humans sometimes migrate to escape other humans, in the real world (such as the migrations of the Goths in Roman times, fleeing from the Huns). Running from the old country that’s about to be overrun, to existing colonies, may not be a motive to create such colonies, but it may be enough incentive to create one nonetheless.

If you like to make a series of campaigns with differing themes, rather than a years-long single campaign, colonies may show up sooner or later. Player characters could be colonists arriving in a new place, or might be pathfinders who explore an area to allow colonization from the mother country, or they could be locals who find that the colonists are monstrous (think goblinoids or giants) and have to defend their territory before the new neighbors move in.

YOUR TURN: What part do colonies play in your games?

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

This feels like it could have used some more time in the oven, which is unusual for the author. Silly typos aside, some more things to consider, especially in a fictional world:

Military control (Roman “colonies”). This is unusual. Retired Roman legionnaires took land in colonies located in newly-conquered territory in Italy, to help control the inhabitants. So they were “colonizing” land already inhabited by people not so different from themselves. Related to this are towns established in a newly-conquered area (Ireland, by the Normans?) to help control the populous. The “home country” must have a pretty strong government in these cases.

Or a rather weak one coupled with ambitious VIPs (be they nobles, tycoons, generals, etc.) who decide the can get accrue even more power by establishing their own colony with only marginal approval (or even awareness) from home. As long as you can achieve and maintain military superiority over the locals these "rogue" colonies can endure and even thrive.

In fantasy games a party of powerful adventurers or even a single potent spellcaster might ensure that - as long as they live, anyway. In scifi, even a single shipload of starfarers with a big tech advantage could serve the same role. The death or departure of linchpin characters might doom this kind of military colony. So might the collapse of the founding VIP's power base back home due to internal politics, mortality, foreign invasion, etc. And, of course, that VIP might well decide to make the colony the heart of a new nation if it looks like they can get away with it.

That's "populace" there, BTW.

Missionary/religious proselytization motives rarely cause colonization, but can certainly follow it, especially in the 19th century.

In a fantasy setting where deities are demonstrably real, give potent magic to their followers, and issue explicit commands on occasion, religious motivations may be much more common. Even if it's primarily the clergy that are pushing to expand the faith's territory (so it can support more clergy, of course) the fact that they can call down a literal firestorm on both naysayers at home and unwelcoming native objectors gives them a lot more practical power than most IRL religious figures have generally had.

 

[lyle.spade]

Interesting ideas, but I'll suggest one revision: the notion of a "Pure Imperialist" colony - one without any economic, strategic, or other benefit to the home country - only works well in a setting where the antagonist is twisting his mustache and needs no reason for his evil schemes other than that he is evil. I think this dimension of colonialism is best applied to one of the others as a mode of treatment of the locals or view of self when it comes to the colonial power. The historical example given doesn't work - 19th Century colonial/imperialist powers did not seek and maintain control of foreign lands and peoples out of ego or "evil."

Like I said: this could work fine in a pulpy setting where motives and rationales aren't closely examined, but if you're looking for some verisimilitude or nuance, don't use that one by itself.

 

[Reynard]

YOUR TURN: What part do colonies play in your games?

I ran a campaign where the setting was a fantasy version of New Zealand, geographically speaking. Most of the southern island was covered in fae lands, where elves, dwarves, gnomes, goblins, giants and others dwelt. The rest of the island was the home of the indiginous halfling society. Humans had colonized the island, bringing their orc slaves with them, and the colonies were successful for a couple hundred years before a dragon attacked and destroyed the colonial capital. After that, the orcs rebelled and gained their freedom, the human society fractured into competing baronies, and the halflings shook off the human colonial domination. That was all backdrop to the the actual campaign, which was about killing the dragon and re-establishing a working but no longer human dominated government. And also dealing with elves, because fae are trouble.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I ran a campaign where the setting was a fantasy version of New Zealand, geographically speaking. Most of the southern island was covered in fae lands, where elves, dwarves, gnomes, goblins, giants and others dwelt. The rest of the island was the home of the indiginous halfling society. Humans had colonized the island, bringing their orc slaves with them, and the colonies were successful for a couple hundred years before a dragon attacked and destroyed the colonial capital. After that, the orcs rebelled and gained their freedom, the human society fractured into competing baronies, and the halflings shook off the human colonial domination. That was all backdrop to the the actual campaign, which was about killing the dragon and re-establishing a working but no longer human dominated government. And also dealing with elves, because fae are trouble.

I had a group of Phoenician style halflings building up a coffee empire by colonizing the coasts

 

[talien]

That's "populace" there, BTW.

Thanks for this, typo fixed!

 

[Hussar]

Military Control (Roman “colonies”). This is unusual. Retired Roman legionnaires took land in colonies located in newly-conquered territory in Italy, to help control the inhabitants. So they were “colonizing” land already inhabited by people not so different from themselves. Related to this are towns established in a newly-conquered area (Ireland, by the Normans?) to help control the populace. The “home country” must have a pretty strong government in these cases.

Is this actually unusual? I know that Canada was colonized by the British largely this way. Your retirement package from the British Navy was often a land grant. I was under the understanding that this was done fairly commonly.

 

[Hussar]

And, just to add, shouldn't we address the elephant in the room here. Colonialism is something that's ... difficult to add into the game without it having some very uncomfortable resonances. It's pretty rare that establishing colonies was done for purely altruistic reasons and certainly rarely had purely positive results.

 

[Reynard]

And, just to add, shouldn't we address the elephant in the room here. Colonialism is something that's ... difficult to add into the game without it having some very uncomfortable resonances. It's pretty rare that establishing colonies was done for purely altruistic reasons and certainly rarely had purely positive results.

There are no peoples on Earth that are not, at some distance removed, the descendents of the victims of colonialism. Asa long as there has been human civilization, there have been empires pushing into areas they did not previously control.

It is definitely a "talk to your players" subject. if your player group is not on board, don't highlight it. But we can't just accept that some subjects are verboten.

 

[MGibster]

In my homebrew campaign setting, which I haven't played yet, the Dragonborn were created to be the soldiers of the big bad, evil empire. When they retire, these soldiers are given land in the vassal states. This makes the problem of having a bunch of people trained to kill with nothing to do from causing problems in the BBEE, and it's nice to have sympathetic communities in territory you don't directly control. I don't think I'd think twice about introducing colonialism into a game I was running. I simply can't imagine someone being comfortable with all the violence inherent in a D&D game getting upset that an evil government was colonizing.