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?

 

[DrunkonDuty]

@Reynard, as for your example of good colonisation...

Dude, there is so much to unpack there. I couldn't even begin without breaching forum rules on politics. I'm not having a shot at you. I know you're just trying to show how fantasy stories can explore other possibilities.

But @Tonguez provides an excellent counter-narrative to the one you proposed. There's always 2 sides to a story.

 

[Reynard]

@Reynard, as for your example of good colonisation...

Dude, there is so much to unpack there. I couldn't even begin without breaching forum rules on politics. I'm not having a shot at you. I know you're just trying to show how fantasy stories can explore other possibilities.

But @Tonguez provides an excellent counter-narrative to the one you proposed. There's always 2 sides to a story.

Only if you decide there is.

that is the thing about this: you are choosing to make it problem, then complaining it is a problem.

 

[R_Chance]

I'm not really sure how you do that. It's kinda like having a non-evil Holocaust.

So, I'll bite. What is a non-evil colonialism. What does that look like? You've mentioned this hypothetical a couple of times, but, never gone into detail that I can see. OTOH, I've repeatedly talked about what the game actually presents and how it's actually written in the real world. But, hey, let's see this non-evil colonialism where a benevolent power enters another culture and begins colonizing it without destroying it or committing a shopping list of atrocities.

Hmmm... OK.

1. A crusading order of knights who protect indigenous peoples from conquest by hostile neighbors (but don't control the locals). The locals may be pacifist or just not very capable militarily. The Order moved into the area, received permission to establish strongholds and protect the land.

2. Merchants who establish factories (in the older sense of the word as a trade outpost / warehouse) and conduct trade with local peoples. Trade is voluntary and both sides are more or less satisfied with the "deal." One may be benefitting more than the other, but both want what the other has.

3. A group of artisans and craftsmen that establish schools to educates and trains local peoples in different skills and, as a result, gain access to local raw materials and talent. Both groups benefit from the situation. The artisan and craft guilds may establish local branches (or not).

4. On the iffier side. A nation invades a nearby land ruled by demon worshippers who practice frequent human sacrifice and slavery. The local commoners are happier being free and not getting sacrificed. The demon worshipping elite are, of course, unhappy about it. This one involves conquest and putting down a religion...

Any of these could go sideways, or not. You may not consider this Imperialism (obviously the 4th is), but it's not difficult to come up with situations that don't involve oppression (although some of it could be considered cultural imperialism - like teaching people foreign ways) or exploitation (beyond the social relationships established).

A couple of these exist in my campaign world, the others don't. Given time you could come up with numerous others. It's almost like a sliding scale of "imperialism". Which is imperialistic, which are good / bad?

 

[clearstream]

So, if we can create a kind of fantasy "colonialism" that isn't evil, why shouldn't we. Must we only use the idea of expansion as a lesson about real world history being evil, even in our fun time elf game?

Aside from moral hazards around sanitising history, colonialist narratives have been given plenty of air. All of the air, practically, to date.

Fantasy cultures resisting colonisation offer fresh scope for a campaign. The material (from the perspective of the colonised) contains awful villains who have the upper hand, dreadful losses, desperate victories, and prizes worth fighting for.

That's a far more vibrant challenge for our imaginations than whitewashing brutal facts out of the picture. A side effect of which is defanging the conflicts that give narratives vitality (as @R_Chance's examples demonstrate.)

 

[aramis erak]

Nowadays we* are trying to make up for some of this ignoring of colonised peoples' stories in broader culture. So why not try doing it within our gaming.

Because, for the most part. that leads to very depressing games.

Let's look at one of the top IP's.... Star Wars. Every group in the Galactic Civil War are committing what are, in the real world, war crimes and/or other evils.
Hutts: Slavery, extortion. Limitations of civil rights. Execution for fun. Blood sports.
Black Sun: Gambling, extortion, drugs, slavery; while not explicitly shown, probably also prostitution and protection rackets. There are indications of bloodsports, too.
The Empire: Slavery (Including ethnic based slavery), cultural destruction. Total lack of civil rights. Mass murder. Active genocide (Geonosians,
The Rebellion: unlawful combatants, and hence, mass murder. At least until the alliance becomes a functioning government around 0 BBY. Mass destruction of civilian structures adjacent to means of production. (Ah, Sol, giving the rebels a black eye until the day he died...)
The Republic: executions without trials, Federal law enforcement by a cult, internal warfare. extremely limited oversight of said cult, and only by the executive branch. Said cult allowed to execute lawbreakers on the spot, and to execute members of its rival cult. Said cult literally forcibly takes children from their parents with approval of the senate and chancelor.
The Jedi: a cult that is driven by adherence to a palpable reaction to a supernatural phenomenon. "Guardians of Peace and justice," and based upon the Jedi Council, morality, for the old republic since the Great Sith War. Take children, infant to toddler, away from their parents, and then brainwash them. As well as train them in warfare.
Sith: tend to start a little later than Jedi, but aren't much different in the war crimes area, but individuals are more likely to use force first than the Jedi.
The Mining Guild: so strong a labor/trade union that they have internal military grade enforcement forces. Worse than any medieval guild or modern union. Several Mining Guild Sites are show to shoot first and ask no questions. Also have no problem shooting their own.

So... The Old Republic had child soldiers, kidnapped and brainwashed, and mentored to previously kidnapped an brainwashed soldiers. It allows a religious cult to be its senior special agents for the Republic, and some can be directly dispatched by the Chancelor on special missions. Which, as we see in Ep 1, can include a large level of violence.
We have the usual level of nastiness of Organized Crime, and Huttspace is run by enterprises that operate as corporations and noble houses within Huttspace, and as criminal cartels AND trade cartels outside. We have monopolistic guilds...
It's a whole universe of competing imperialisms waiting for the right times to burble into violent takeovers

It always amazes me that gamers, supposedly the most creative people of all, can lack so much imagination.

The Arroval of the Eladrin: It was three centuries ago that the first Eladrin explorers followed the Roots of Yggdrisil to Nauon. There they found humans, living in small tribes of hunter gatherers, with rudimentary art and language but no signs of farming or other civilization. They were intelligent, though, and the Eladrin could see in them the Celestium Spark.

The Eladrin made contact and soon a wary friendship developed. The humans were bold and energetic and took to both the Eladrin ways of living and use of the Spark (aka magic) with gusto. But humans were also fractious and the Eladrin found themselves first negotiating peace between human tribes and eventually serving as overlords of that peace and the mascent human civilization.

An interesting thing happened when Eladrin and humans coupled. The children born were more Eladrin than human, but still carried their human boldness. These were known as the Elves.

Humans thrived under Eladrin rule. They learned many arts, from architecture to sorcery, and adapted the Eladrin lessons to the human mind. In turn, the Eladrin learned much from humanity, for the Eladrin were immortal and much of life had eluded them without the specter of death hovering nearby.

In the end, the Eladrin chose to leave humanity and return to the fae realm. The left their children the elves in charge in their stead.

Your Eladrin are committing deculturation of the indigenous peoples. Many consider that evil these days.

 

[clearstream]

That's a far more vibrant challenge for our imaginations than whitewashing brutal facts out of the picture. A side effect of which is defanging the conflicts that give narratives vitality (as @R_Chance's examples demonstrate.)

I'd like to dig a bit more into this as it's the kind of thing I'm interested in.

Observably, a significant element of the fun in what @Reynard characterizes as fun time elf games has been down to conflict. One recurrent framing has been that of PCs (the real people in the story) entering tera incognita and wresting wealth from the natives. The latter deserve this treatment, as they are degenerate (not real people, just to be clear.)

This observation on conflict being a significant element of fun extends to both the scene (a combat encounter, say) and the narrative arc (in the Western dramatic tradition of exposition, rising action, climax, denouement.)

@Reynard's Arrival of the Eladrin supplies simply the exposition, as does @R_Chance's cases 1-3. It's not until I come to the "iffier side" or things "go sideways" that the playful fun happens. Exposition alone won't deliver the "fun time" in my elf game. So as to the iffier side...

4. On the iffier side. A nation invades a nearby land ruled by demon worshippers who practice frequent human sacrifice and slavery. The local commoners are happier being free and not getting sacrificed. The demon worshipping elite are, of course, unhappy about it. This one involves conquest and putting down a religion...

This is reasonably typical of colonialist framings of inconvenient indigenous elites. They're demon worshippers oppressing their people. Conveniently degenerate, and thus deserving of having their wealth and power stripped from them. The standard apology is to protest "they really are degenerate because I wrote them that way." But this is fiction: definitionally a falsehood. It's no more true than an alternative sympathetic to the colonized.

I can look at this same picture from the point of view of entertaining conflicts that my players can sink their teeth into, in both scenes and arcs, and see that very vivid conflicts are met by the colonized. Your PC has been characterized as degenerate by the colonists backed up by the pronouncements of their priesthood. They've come for you: what do you do? Stories from simple survival, to resistance, to romance have that built in vitality (conflict).

Because, for the most part. that leads to very depressing games.

It is more challenging to be on the side that is losing or has already lost, but I do not believe it must be depressing. And much joy is available in every triumph. Or even just in enjoying moments at peace within your community practicing the arts of your culture. The PCs are equally able to be heroes, and the victories they win can be wonderful.

Maybe that's the "fantasy turn" that must be given such narratives. To allow the possibility of overcoming that which - in our real world - was totally crushing. The fantasy is that the disintegration of unique indigenous cultures can be effectively resisted by them.

Concluding, sanitized conflict-free exposition about colonization doesn't answer the questions raised, and doesn't provide fertile ground for the fun in "fun time elf game". One way to respond to this criticism would be to expand on "iffier" and "go sideways". What does that look like? How does it play out when the PCs are colonial heroes, as compared with when they are heroes of the colonized? It can be especially exciting when to see fresh answers to such questions.

 

[aramis erak]

Aside from moral hazards around sanitising history, colonialist narratives have been given plenty of air. All of the air, practically, to date.

Hardly... many borderline atrocities never get discussed. Such as the depopulation of a number of Aleutian Islanders during WW II.
Or the emptying of many of the Tropical Pacific islands by the US and UK. Yeah, many have heard about how locals were forced off Diego Garcia... and some about Bikini Atoll. But a dozen other islands were also forcibly depopulated. Many of them uncompensated. A few, like Bikini Atoll and Midway, still off limits.

Even worse, those Micronesian atoll residing nations are losing landmass... And so are many North Pacific islands... Climate Change, raising waterlevels.

Many Unungan villages and some Yupic and Inupiaq ones are having to move uphill... and they don't have much "uphill" to move to... because the permafrost under their waterfronts are melting, and portions sliding below the waves. THey were oppressed a bit by the Russians; A lot by the US when it bought the land from Russia. And still, they are oppressed for feeding themselves the way they have for centuries...

No, most do not know the stories... because far too many are never told. If I live long enough, I hope to go back to the Archives and depersonalize some of the documents in the Mount Edgecomb Residential School... a place of horror for over 50 years... a calculated destruction of a dozen local cultures... one broken spirit at a time. The horrors imposed upon the Polynesian, Micronesian, Alaskan and Hawaiian peoples are undertold.

 

[Tonguez]

G

Hmmm... OK.

1. A crusading order of knights who protect indigenous peoples from conquest by hostile neighbors (but don't control the locals). The locals may be pacifist or just not very capable militarily. The Order moved into the area, received permission to establish strongholds and protect the land.
.
3. A group of artisans and craftsmen that establish schools to educates and trains local peoples in different skills and, as a result, gain access to local raw materials and talent. Both groups benefit from the situation. The artisan and craft guilds may establish local branches (or not).

New Zealand is an interesting example as it displays real world versions of both of these.

3 Trade schools: in the form of the Church Missionary Society (Anglican) whose policy was to recruit tradesmen (and later medical staff) and send them to teach both the gospel and ‘modern’ trades and farming techniques. CMS was behind the repatriations to Sierra Leone and other parts of Africa, set up Hospitals in China and Japan and worked with deported convicts in the Australian penal colonies. It was during their work in Australia that the CMS first encountered New Zealand natives (Maori) leading to type 1 interactions. One Maori chief declared that he only wanted visits from Traders, Blacksmiths and Missionaries…

1 Protection: It was a group of 13 Ngāpuhi’s chiefs who wrote to the King of England in 1831 inviting him to be guardian, friend, and protector of their nation. To which the British agreed, though even that would primarily be from Sydney, Australia.
By 1823 Maori traders were a relatively common sight in Sydney, where the often interacted with the Australian CMS Missionaries who had established a NZ mission in 1814. However trouble occued when a Maori owned ship was seized in Sydney for not flying a registered flag. There was also concerns about French colonisation efforts and the number of druken British and American whalers and escaped convicts making their way to New Zealand.Maori were fully aware of the British win v Napolean and overall naval domination, so it made sense to seek the alliance. Things went relatively will up to the 1850s and arguably was an example of relatively positive benign colonisation by native invitation.

(after the mid 1840s though British Imperialism unfortunately raised its head, as more British settlers arrived included retired soldiers from the India campaigns. Land speculators pushed the Governors for more concessions which eventually lead to the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s)

 

[clearstream]

Hardly... many borderline atrocities never get discussed. Such as the depopulation of a number of Aleutian Islanders during WW II.
Or the emptying of many of the Tropical Pacific islands by the US and UK. Yeah, many have heard about how locals were forced off Diego Garcia... and some about Bikini Atoll. But a dozen other islands were also forcibly depopulated. Many of them uncompensated. A few, like Bikini Atoll and Midway, still off limits.

Even worse, those Micronesian atoll residing nations are losing landmass... And so are many North Pacific islands... Climate Change, raising waterlevels.

Many Unungan villages and some Yupic and Inupiaq ones are having to move uphill... and they don't have much "uphill" to move to... because the permafrost under their waterfronts are melting, and portions sliding below the waves. THey were oppressed a bit by the Russians; A lot by the US when it bought the land from Russia. And still, they are oppressed for feeding themselves the way they have for centuries...

No, most do not know the stories... because far too many are never told. If I live long enough, I hope to go back to the Archives and depersonalize some of the documents in the Mount Edgecomb Residential School... a place of horror for over 50 years... a calculated destruction of a dozen local cultures... one broken spirit at a time. The horrors imposed upon the Polynesian, Micronesian, Alaskan and Hawaiian peoples are undertold.

100%. That's exactly what I was saying. The atrocities, anything not favorable to the narratives of the colonists, are erased.

 

[Bedrockgames]

There are two things being kind of conflated here, colonialism itself (which is what the article is about and isn’t suggesting people white wash), and colonialist narratives, which can cover a lot and which seems more about 1) the idea that exploration and dungeon delving is drawn from colonialist literary tropes and itself bad or 2) What role the players are assuming in the campaign and whether atrocities committed by the colonizing power are being overlooked. Again I think 1 is is a very shaky notion and the kind of thinking that ultimately leads to “I guess we just shouldn’t even be playing D&D”. The article addresses 2 as a viable option and neither the article nor anyone here Is saying it needs to be white washed.

Also lots of us have said doing adventures from the perspective of the colonized would be very interesting. I just think the critics of the article are overplaying how much this stuff is done. I think everyone here is aware of the history of colonialization and the game community itself has talked about these issues rather a lot for the past ten or more years. What people are abut tired of is the nonstop focus on things, even valid historically inspired setting details, being labeled probablamatic or posters insisting other posters must play them a certain way or be lectured about how to do so. I liked the original article. But I don’t need the writer telling me how I should navigate the real world moral issues on a topic. It feels very paternalistic when RPGs do that IMO