My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

A new Border Barony

Platinum Peak
Tentative Geographic Assignment: 10

Basic Concept: A geographically isolated platinum mine run by a Tengku cartel.

History: Deep underneath Platinum Peak is the richest and most reliable platinum mine in the world. There is just one problem: food.

Miners have to eat. There is no arable land nearby and there are no life stones underground, and the hunting/foraging situation around Platinum Peak is very limited. The existence of the platinum mine is well known, so the miners and the caravans with the mined platinum attract thieves and brigands. That means the miners need soldiers to guard them. Soldiers need to eat too.

Over the centuries, the ownership of Platinum Peak has changed hands many, many times. Orcs, dwarves, humans, goblins, kobolds, dragons, and at one point a necromancer with skeleton miners have all traded ownership of the Platinum Peak a least once. The average tenure of a group in charge of Platinum Peak is twenty years. The record is fifty-seven years (the dragon). The current owners have controlled Platinum Peak for fifty-five years.

Right now, Platinum Peak is run by a multi-species consortium run by tengku. The Tengku own not only the mine, but they own the nearest farms (which are forty miles away and not the most fertile farms in the borderlands). Humans do most of the farming, kobolds do most of the mining, dwarf mercenaries do most of the guarding, and kalazotz airlift food to the miners and soldiers. When it's time to ship the platinum out, they move in very large caravans with human and dwarf soldiers augmented by kalazotz scouts spotting potential threats from the air.

Government Style: Platinum Peak is run like a modern company town. There are no oaths of fealty or writ of kings. Everything is based on an employer-employee relationship.

Character of the Realm: 16 tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt...

Religion: The people of Platinum Peaks are not very religious, but you get a little bit of Hallisan worship because he is the god of mining, Phidas worship because he is the god of commerce, and Mera because she is the goddess of inter species cooperation. Priests and theurgists are paid salaries by the tengku owners like everyone else.

Challenges: It takes a lot of organization to keep the platinum mine running and make sure everyone involved is paid, protected and supplied. The mine has not been this profitable in centuries. Some of the workers are bitter that the tengku do the least actual work and keep the most money. Some workers are planning a change in management. There are also outside groups plotting to replace the tengku as the overseers in charge.

 

I mused on both my hypothetical novel and the Border Baronies on pages 15 through 17 of this thread.

Now I have had a brain wave. I am planning to set my novel in the Border Baronies where Nilen the simple gnomish cobbler gets shanghaied onto a dangerous adventurer against his will.

Spoiler: Tentative Outline of my future novel

I had a brain wave on the future adventures of Nilen the cobbler. There are rough patches that need to be smoothed out to fill plot holes but here is my current story outline.


The setting of my first novel will be the Border Baronies. Nilen the cobbler is going to either live in one of the Border Baronies or he is going to live in Kantoc, Fumaya, or Swynfaredia very close to the Border Baronies.


The villain is a mad wizard or sorcerer wants to use a magic key to unleash the necromantic evil of the Barony of the Dead for powerful undead minions. One, maybe two of the Border Barons working together send a ragtag bunch of adventurers to go stop him. The adventurers don’t know the specifics, just that the mad mage is a bad guy and they need to keep the key away from him.


Because the McGuffin was hidden in a shoe, Nilen the cobbler gets roped into this. The mad mage thinks the gnome is in with his enemies. Because the mage is sending minions to kill Nilen, Nilen is forced to join the ragtag adventurers (who are not especially competent hence why a cobbler can contribute).

Nilen and company play cat and mouse with the mad mage and his minions traveling through three to five fiefdoms in the Border Baronies. I have lots of world building lore but it’s generally a bad idea to put giant info dumps in an adventure novel. Since the Border Baronies are a culturally diverse lot I can showcase a lot of different aspects of my world piece by piece. The most important aspect of Scarterra’s lore is the lore of the Nine. If I give each of the Border Baronies they visit different religious practices that it is a good way to organically introduce new readers to my divine lore.

Once I figure out which Border Baronies would advance my story best, I will rearrange where they are geographically, so they are all in a row. All the Border Baronies are separated by harsh terrain infested with dangerous fantasy creatures, so I can split up the stories in the actual baronies with some wilderness some wilderness adventurers and semi-random monsters for the sections in between. While developing the characters I can throw in hints that Nilen is actually a late bloomer favored soul.

Eventually the rag tag heroes stop running and face the mad mage head on. And huzzah they win. But wait. Shocking twist, the Border Baron that commissioned the adventurers to stop the mad mage didn’t do so for noble reason, he wanted the magic key for himself. He then then releases at least a few of the ancient evil spirits and the good guys have to take down their former boss and the undead monster he unleashed. Turns out Nilen’s power emerging making this victory possible.

Maybe having the hero develop a new power at the end of the story is a little clichéd, but I think if I can make the characterization solid, no one will complain.

The ragtag adventurers forge lifelong friendships. Nilen tries to go back to his quiet life as a cobbler but the Order of Delas wants to recruit him in the epilogue.

Now that Nilen is implied to be in the Order of Delas, this sets up a hook to get him roped into a sequel. Dealing with more shenanigans in the unstable Border Baronies or he could get roped into one of Fumya’s woes or Swynfaredia’s Machiavellian intrigues. I suppose I could rope him into a Kantoc based plot but I have a lot more lore developed for Swynfaredia and Fumaya so probably not, but I can keep Kantoc in reserve if needed.

At the same time, I can end the story here so I don't have to get trapped in number 31 of the fantasy writer's checklist

1. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?

The way my outline has it, it should be the best of both. It's a self contained story with no cliffhangers but there is ample room for sequels if desired.

 

I'm sorry if I spoiled this accidentally, but this one is not on me. Return of the King was published in 1954 and released as a movie in 2003. I also recommend you watch Wizard of Oz (1939)

 

That is a good idea.

A friend suggested having Nilen fix a pair of magical shoes and not realize he did something special. In other words, fixing the physical part of a broken magical item won't fix the magic unless the fixer has magic and use that as a foreshadowing of his budding magic power.

Since I'm thinking of having Nilen become as self-taught Mera theurgist. In most cases the one dot version of theurgist powers are extra-sensory. I could also have use supernatural senses to spot things and not realize he is using special powers. He just thinks he's being perceptive and intuitive.

I still haven't fleshed out names, motivations, abilities or other details of Nilen's companions yet. My basic idea is that I'm going to use the Five Man Band as a basis. Nilen is going to be the "heart of the group."

Usually in my fluff pieces on L-O I'm fond of killing beloved characters in gut wrenching ways and my readers seem to enjoy it. My friend points I don't have to do this. Old habits die hard. I'm thinking of having the Leader or the Brain die and Nilen becomes the new Leader or Brain.

At least one character is going to be a Spirit Loa basically because I want to showcase the lore I came up with on that. Spirit Loas have a very temperamental power, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. That is extremely convenient for narrative purposes. And given that they are fighting undead, at some point I can throw in the complication that the team's spirit loa gets possessed by a hostile ghost and his friends have to take him down non-lethally.

I also have a vague plan that Nilen's four companions are going to come in two pairs. The two pairs have worked together for years but they only recently met the other pair and they don't always get along. Half of Nilen's thing is keeping the two halves of his team from killing each other.

 

Ocean Currents

I subscribed to a new Youtube channel called Stoneworks World Building. He has good tips and an entertaining presentation style.

He made a video on figuring out borders for empires and he talked about the benefits of rivers and coastline for travel, communication and unity and I thought "This doesn't work for Scaraqua."

Then I remembered a certain Pixar movie.



An ocean current is similar to a river in a many ways for transportation purposes!

There is one major exception in that it's far easier to go against the current in most rivers than it is to go against an ocean stream so ocean streams would be mostly one way communication but you could still travel just outside a stream and swim the opposite direction. It would be marginally safer than swimming the open ocean because you have a clear land mark to not get lost and assuming you are not an enemy of the powers that be, ocean currents are probably regularly patrolled by soldiers.

If ocean currents are constructed by benevolent gods or artificially constructed by wizards then currents can be created in nearby pairs like a two-lane highway. Even if ocean currents are not paired in this fashion, one-way fast travel is preferable to no fast travel at all.

Outcasts and brigands (are swimming thieves "pirates"?) probably mostly swim far away from major ocean currents.

Rome's power and commerce flowed from their road system. Oshamni's power can stem from controlling ocean currents. When Stoneworks covered artificial borders, he pointed out that borders are nebulous and undefined effectively determined by how well national groups can project powers. This is a good way to set up Oshamni's territorial map when I get around to mapping out Scaraqua. I like the idea of shading the sea with different colors. One color for firm control, another color for limited control, and different colors for rival nations. Oshamni's map would show they have strong power near ocean currents and weak power away from them. Usually. There could be places where they have strong power not directly connected to ocean currents and there could be ocean current hubs controlled by rival powers.

Besides the currents, I'll want to mark biomes. Some parts of Scaraqua are going to be akin to rich pastoral lands and forests while large swaths are going to essentially be deserts.

I planned to make the Scaraquan versions of the Nine different from the Scarterran versions of the Nine as the aquatic deities because whether they admit it or not, the Nine are impacted by their followers and Scarquans have different beliefs, values, and needs than Scarterrans.

So far I have at least a vague idea for what most of the Nine do underwater but I had no real idea for Sea Nami. I'm not even sure if I want Sea Nami to be male or female. In any event, I can now make Sea Nami the god or goddess of ocean currents!

In Scarterra, Nami is the goddess of weather and the goddess of travel so this fits well with her overall portfolio.

Now I just need to figure out if Sea Nami is going to be as chaotic as Land Nami to determine how random or arbitrary Scaraquan sea currents are. Most of the Sea versions of the Nine are slightly less extreme than their Land counterparts so I'm likely to make Sea Nami less chaotic than Land Nami, but I don't have to paint myself into a corner if I don't want to. Before I had my brainwave on Ocean Currents I was contemplating making Sea Nami a little harsher and less benevolent than Land Nami. More Loki trickster and less Coyote trickster.

As mentioned before, even semi-random sea currents going in odd directions is better than no sea currents at all as far as transportation is concerned.

EDIT: Remember how the elemental plane feeds minerals and other goodies into the soil. I suppose the elemental plane is the source of air too, at least some of it. The elemental plane pushing air into the world can create ocean currents in Scaraqua.

Per usual, I'm open to feedback and suggestions on using ocean currents as story tool and/or tool of civilization.

 

Virdilut, aka Scaraquan Green Stuff



(Verd-de-loot)

Virdilut is a relatively common natural resource in Scaraqua with many uses. It is the most common building material for both buildings and tools.

It is a combination of caerulut and flavalut which are essentially blue and yellow clay respectively. When the two clays are mixed they will harden in about three days.

Properly treated and honed, Virdilut is roughly as strong and sharp and bronze. Combined with ordinary clay, Viridilut can be shaped into bricks. So basically anything metal or ceramic can be duplicated with Virdilut.

With some relatively simple alchemy hollow Viridilut items have good acoustics. The Scuttlers have developed a means to use Viridilut tubes to bang out their own version of Morse code. Without magic enhancing this, the effective range of is roughly ten miles underwater, but the Oshamni Empire (aka Water Rome) has set up stations at ten mile intervals to write down messages, then rebroadcast them the next ten miles.

It's too expensive to set this up everywhere but the major cities are linked in this matter.




A few eccentric Scarterrans like to collect Virdilut items for the novelty of owning something from the sea, but on the whole Virdilutis inferior to building materials available on land. Even Scaraquans prefer to use other materials when they can, it's just that Virdilut is so readily available to them, it's very ubiquitous.

Besides the novelty, the one thing Virdilut is good for surface dwellers is that it's a good base material for accepting enchantments related tow water breathing.

 

So... many... good...responses! I will take this in chunks.

I'm on the fence about tridents. On one hand, tridents are deeply entwined in western folklore of the sea. On the other hand, tridents would be very impractical weapons underwater. The wide surface area is good for spearing small fish (which are hard to hit, but easy to damage), but if you are spearing a human-sized target or bigger (which is easy to hit but hard to damage), a single pronged spear would allow greater force to be applied.

I don't agree with everything Shadiversity says but I figure he's on to something that spears and slashing short blades would be the best underwater weapons given the limitations of real world physics.

I suppose tridents can still be used as a high status ceremonial weapon...but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Whatever Oshamni's equivalent to the Roman Senate or feuding noble houses, they will have had a vigorous debate for at least a generation, if not several centuries.

There is a hardline faction that wants Oshamni and Scaraqua in general to use their power to utterly dominate and subjugate the people of Scarterra, at least Scarterrans that live near the coast and regularly sail in ships. The resources of the surface dwellers are too valuable to not take. Theoretically, if a large enough portion of Scaraqua unified behind this, they could make it impossible for Scarterrans to safely sail the sea without paying the Scaraquans tribute first. This group is nicknamed "the Shallows." They probably have a more dignified name they selected for themselves.

The Shallows are not a unified faction either. Some Shallows want to form trade alliances with select land dwellers and others want to ruthlessly subjugate all land dwellers.


There is a hardline faction that wants Oshamni and Scaraqua in general to completely forsake contact with Scarterrans. The threat the surface world poses the sea is to severe to risk provoking them. There are at least twice as many Scarterrans as Scaraquans. Theoretically if the Scarterrans stopped fighting each other and unified against the Sea, they collectively wield enough magic to let land folk invade the sea.
This group is nicknamed "the Deeps." They probably have a more dignified name they selected for themselves.

The Deeps are not a unified faction either. They are all isolationists but they differ on "Good fences make good neighbors" or the opposite approach where Deeps endorse murdering any Scarterran that magically travels underwater on sight.


Only a tiny percentage of Scaraquans have publicly aligned themselves with the Shallows or the Deeps. Like with most controversial political issues, many people fall somewhere in between the two extremes, but for shorthand it's a useful tool to be able to say "Emperor A is sympathetic to Shallow Ideology" "Emperor B is deliberately pitting the Shallows and Deeps against each other." etc. Likewise one can talk about the Senate being dominated by one group or other.

I have not gotten so far into the weeds that I started characterizing and naming individual Scaraquans. I'm still operating in broad strokes. My plan is that Deep versus Shallow is going to be one of MANY things those in power argue about. Though I suppose if I'm going to keep focusing on stories in Scarterra, this is probably the most important thing about Water Rome.

Most sea faring Scarterrans would benefit greatly from trade with Scaraquans and they would greatly fear hostile Scaraquans. Water Rome/the Oshamni Empire is centered around Mera's Lake. The Sea Elves of Nerymere are very far from Mera's Lake. I haven't figure out which Scaraquan power the Sea Elves have allied but it will be one of Water Rome's rivals.

Shallows would consider the islands near Mera's Lake "Our Islands" whereas Deeps would not.

Both the Shallows and the Deeps are aware of the existence of the Sea Elves, but neither group is powerful enough to deal with this anomalous group that for Water Rome's intents and purposes is on the far end of the world.

In the real world, Ancient Rome and Classical China both prospered around the same time, both controlled roughly the same population and both had explorers and scholars aware of the other group. I could create a Water China too, but I probably won't spend that much time developing TWO giant undersea Empires unless the following things happen. 1) I either publish some novels or an RPG system 2) I get a lot of fans 3) A large portion of my fans communicate clearly that they want more Scaraquan stories, fewer Scarterran stories.

Currently I had thought that the very top levels of society would take titles such as "The Dragon's Wing" the "Dragon's Eye" etc. It hadn't occurred to me that this iconography could trickle down to the common soldiers.

I especially like the idea of Swynfaredian foot shoulders having painted scales on their shields since scales are protective. They could have eyes, wings, and the like too. Shield painting is very diverse, but I think the plurality would use scales.

Speaking of which, most Scarterran nations mint their own currency, but because of the machinations of the Masks and Keepers, nearly all nations use the same system of weights. A standard gold coin has exactly one fiftieth of a pound gold in it. As long as no one shaved the coin, most merchants don't care if the coin was minted in Swynfaredian or Stahlheim. A coin is a coin. In most cases, one side of the coin is a portrait of the king or queen and the other side is the nation's coat of arms.

The ancient dragons of the First Age did not have a standard currency. Nearly every dragon nation used precious metals in their currency, but they never agreed on standard weights and measures. While not universal, many dragons minted their gold, silver, and platinum (the ancient dragons rarely traded in copper) into artificial scales and they wore their money on a vest (if they were rich) or a necklace or bracelet (if they were poor). When buying and selling things, dragons would add or removed scales from their clothing.

A few treasure collectors love to collect ancient dragon gold scales (most such scales in circulation are modern forgeries). In any event, Swynfaredia uses the same standard coinage system most Scarterrans use but the tail side of the coin is actually the "scale" side of a coin. At least among Swynfaredia, coins are called scales "That sword will cost you twenty gold scales".

I figure nearly every large nation has an equivalent to knights but not all knights would ride horses and wear shiny armor and not all nations would call their knights "knights." There are many differences between knights and samurai but both knights and samurai were a caste of nobles that deal with the "muscle" aspects of rulership and formed the elite backbone of the armies.

I figure Swynfaredians call their elite muscle Talons or Fangs. Talons are highly skilled warriors and Fangs are martially minded sorcerers.

I didn't realize I was emulating the Holy Roman Empire. I hadn't considered colors for the nation as a whole. So far, my Swynfaredian musing has been entirely on the local house level.

I hadn't considered the Uskala connection. There is no reason multiple nations wouldn't use the same animals on their heraldry but I should probably avoid repeats whenever feasible. At the very least I should avoid repeats on nations that are relatively close to each other geographically.

There are only so many colors in the crayon box. I agree that I should avoid redundant mythological animals on different nations heraldry but I'm not planning to bend over backward to avoid duplicating colors.

Eventually I plan to detail some noble houses for Kantoc. Right now I'm thinking the king (or the ruling house) would have a lion sigil and the nation as a whole would have a horse sigil.

As for castles, I love castles. Therefore, most Scarterran lands are going to be dotted with castles. Ergo a castle sigil would be kind of redundant, though I suppose the sigil could be a rearing stallion in front of stylized castle that has a banner hanging from it with Kantoc's nation TBD motto.

Also the horse is being ridden by a lion, and there is a raven perched on the lion's shoulder. And there is small lizard in the raven's talons. And there is a flea on the wing of the fly on the frog on the bump on the log in the hole at the bottom of sea.

In a fantasy world with lots of magic, castles would not be useful unless the castles were also highly magical. Castles would probably be okay in a low magic fantasy world like Conan the Barbarian or Game of Thrones. Both for RPGs and fiction stories, my goal is to make Scarterra a MEDIUM fantasy world. Perhaps this is foolhardy, but that's my goal as of now.

My current solution is that due to the rules of "a wizard did it!" it is fairly inexpensive to ward a castle against any hostile magic that immediately negates the value of said fortification. If prince is going to spend 50,000 gold pieces to build a castle, a prince is probably going to spend 10,000 gold pieces to ward it against most common hostile magics.

My baloney metaphysical explanation is that magic works with a symbolic resonance. It's easier to imbue healing magic into a comb than it is to imbue healing magic into a sword. Because a sword at it's core, is intended to hurt people not heal them. I'm aware that combs are not normally associated with healing, but Mera is the goddess of healing and her Symbol of Power is a comb she crafted out of Turoch's liver.

A castle is designed to protect people, so protective magics are easier to cast on and in castles.

Scaraqua is probably not going to have many castles despite how awesome undersea castles would look in an illustration. I figure Scaraquan military strategy would resemble modern real world military strategy where strength is found in good mobility, strong lines of communication and general flexibility, not fortified static positions, but that's a topic for another day.

One thing I hadn't considered until this post is that a kalazotz could occupy an area too rugged for nonflying humanoids to effectively settle. I already had the concept that Beholders would favor such places. Beholders can hover and fly perfectly in any direction and they can sleep while hovering so they can settle in places even kalazotz cannot handle.

That's a good enough reason alone to rewrite my history to allow Kalazotz to be part of Mondert's society.

I'm not sure how well this would fit as a concept for the Border Baronies but this would certainly work for a part of Scarcaverna.

I like steam reading steam punk sometimes, but I'm only a casual fan of steam punk at best. At least for now, I do not have the necessary background knowledge or enthusiasm to incorporate this level of Steam punk into Scarterra.

I suppose I could do fairly simple hang gliders which I guess is also something Da Vinci worked on.

Tengku are no more or less magically gifted than other races.

In divine magic. Augmentation ●●● could let someone working wings and Augmentation ●●●●● could allow full supernatural flight.

In arcane magic, Transmutation is the key for flyers. "Feather Fall" is a First Circle spell. Second Circle has the spells "Partial Transformation" (which could give a Tengku functioning wings for hours) or "Fly" (which would give them perfectly maneuver flight for minutes). Fourth Circle has "Overland flight" which is essentially a longer lasting version of the "Fly" spell.

Ergo, most Tengku spell-casters would focus on Augmentation or Transmutation magic. Among other things, Transmutation has all sorts of spells that would let a swindler trick the gullible with phony goods. "Faerie Gold" also called "Fool's Gold" lets a spell caster make something worthless appear valuable for about a day and it's only a First Circle spell. It has a very simple counter though. Enchanted items revert to their natural state when exposed to cold iron. Thus, most merchants who deal in high end goods have a piece of cold iron in their pocket.

Now that I think about it, tengku wizards are probably closest associated with Transmutation so much that everyone just assume all Tengku wizards are transmuters as much as many assume gnome wizards are illusionists.

Indeed but I really don't like saying "Cephlapod people" so "Ojiongo" is going to stick for the time being. On a related note, I recently put an article for Scuttlers on my wiki. They are the first Scaraquan group to get a non-stub wiki. They now have an official name, "Astakalians." Their self referential name is "Ah (gargle sound) akaww, clicking sound, lah, hissing sound.)

Some view Scuttlers as a derogatory nickname, others view it is an acceptable nickname. Because most Ojiongo, Merfolk, and Karakhai cannot physically pronounce their true name, "Astakalians" (Ah-stack-ah-aliens) is the PC thing to call them. It at least shows the outsider is trying to use use their actual name.

The One Eyed Falcon would only be a sigil for one small portion of the Elven Empire, the Cyclops Island. I wasn't going for mysterious. I was going for literal-ness. If a generic falcon represents the Empire as a whole, a one eyed falcon represents the Empire's one-eyed citizens.

Those are all reasonable ideas, but I probably won't have a solid idea for what the Sea Elves' heraldry should look like until I decide whom they have allied with. The Sea Elves' heraldry almost certainly honors the Scaraquan nation or tribe that they are partnered with. I'm not even sure if I want them to be allied with Merfolk, Ojiongo or Karakhai or some combination of Scaraquans. Obviously their heraldry would be based on a fish, kraken, or shark if they are closely allied to one and only one Scaraquan race.

Your research is so nice, I wish I could like it twice.

I like the way "Salachi" rolls off the tongue. The elite soldiers (or at least one of the elite corps) of Water Rome are going to be called "Salachi."

"Flee before the Salchi are upon us!"

Almost all of these words sound pretty bad ass (except maybe the Russian one ). I'm half tempted to make EVERY title within the Oshamni Empire based on a translation of "sting ray."

Hypothetically, I could do something like this.

Akaei - Outsiders/barbarians
Allaadigha- aquatic cavalry
Ikan Pari- Senators/nobles
Skat- Grunt soldiers, serfs, or slaves
Estelada- Skilled craftsmen
Rokke- Common citizens.
Gaoli-tributary or vassal states of Water Rome

 

My current thought is that religious iconography would be pretty simple and abstract while national iconography will be more detailed and grand.

A simple circle could be the symbol for the Guardians of the Stone (or the Knights of the Stone). In any event, the dwarves are going to have an elite transnational order of warriors who has the holy mission to 1) defend the Great Stone and 2) defend pilgrims visiting the Great Stone.

That's not very clever. Then again not everything has to be clever. I named the island where the Lunatan Cyclopes live "Cyclops Island."

That is clever but it might be a bit much. There is also a problem in that I'm not 100% sure what Scarterran trolls look like other than "ugly." Per my own fluff, trolls are highly subject to mutations so they aren't uniform. I do like the idea of a military unit of dwarves using troll heads for their sigils. Probably not a very prestigious military unit, but perhaps a band of uncouth ruthless mercenaries.

I'm going to have to do some googling on Norse and Celtic iconography.

World Anvil has article templates and it includes a section for demographics, among other things. One nice thing about World Anvil is if I detail a place and choose to leave the demographics slot blank, it won't show up in the published article. The species template along has about two dozen such subheadings to choose from of which I used ten for my dragon article.

I guess D&D 3.5 posted demographics for all their cities so when I was plotting out Scarterra for 3.5 D&D I did that too.

I've been googling pictures for my wiki. Perfection is the enemy of the good. In a lot of cases I have to settle for a reasonable facsimile of what I envision. Amazingly I found this picture that is almost exactly what I picture Mondarians looking like.

I like the concept, but implementation would be difficult given how challenging it is to maintain reliable communication on a global or continent wide scale.

Given that tengku trade networks regularly cross the borders of various nations run by absolute monarchs who don't like to share authority, it's likely the Grand Tengku Guild (Terrific Tengku Treasure Trade Treaty?) would be branded as a criminal organization anyway. So it's not so much a twist as it is a logical extension.

I think Emperor Aegaegon and Empress Varuna sound like good names when I start naming luminary figures for Water Rome.

Mining lore on sea myths is a good way to come up with names!

Any fantasy world should have some random monsters in the wilderness. It would not be too hard to come up with fantasy monsters based on Nautiloids and Trilobites.

 

I had a minor epiphany on this. Maybe the original Meckelorn standard was a hammer on a silver anvil (or make both hammer and anvil silver).



Stahlheim is focused on mercantile interests and they love to show off their wealth so their standard might be a gold anvil (or maybe make both the hammer and anvil gold). I guess gold in heraldry is supposedly associated with generosity and orange is associate with ambition so we'll go with orange.



When Meckelorn's people were in exile their standard was a sundered anvil. When they retook the Great Stone, they brought back their original standard, but with a sealed crack in the anvil visible.



Mondert could have an obsidian or other volcanic anvil and forge. Or maybe because they are so different from the other dwarves they don't use an anvil and hammer motiff in their standards at all.

My pictures are crude but they are 100% mine on MS Paint. A lot of anvil icons on the Internet are copywright protected and I have to spend $5 to use.

I guess military uniforms would be black and orange for Stahlheim, and red and grey for Meckelorn. Kalazotz don't like to wear a lot of clothes beyond loin cloths, but given that they look like scary bat people they probably wear colorful sashes with the state colors of the dwarves they are allied with to show their affiliation.

Stahlheim is richer than Meckelorn and more concerned with maintaining face than Meckelorn so Stahlheim dwarf uniforms are probably on average cleaner, less thread bare, and fancier.

Mecklorner dwarfs have more machismo so they would probably love to show off the tears in their uniforms and dents in their armor, just so they can say "You should have seen the other guy!"

 

Mondert is still TBD, the blue standard represents Meckelorn when it was first founded and the red standard with the cracked anvil represents Meckelorn as it is now.

Though I suppose when Prince Mondarious took a bunch of pilgrims away from Meckelorn, Meckelorn still had the original blue banner and unbroken anvil, so I suppose they might have kept the original sigil. At the very least I should probably make blue their main color. Maybe I'll replace the anvil with a big black volcanic stone.

I based the colors off of this chart.

Blue represents strength and loyalty which is something all dwarves value, though I guess Mondert's community focus puts more emphasis on friendship and community. Also blue has a water and in my universe Mera connection, and Mondert is very pro-Mera.

Red represents martial prowess and sacrifice. Meckelorn was always a bit martial hence the red handled hammer. After a long painful exile they became a lot more militant.

Black represents constancy and grief. That's how black became a secondary color for Meckelorn. Now Stahlheim has a lot of black. They were grieved by the loss of the Great Stone (though not as much as Meckelorn) and I mostly chose black because after experimenting with different colors I liked the contrast with the orange. Though I suppose they represent constancy because they kept dwarf culture alive and stable when Meckelorn was scattered to the four winds.

Also for Stahlheim I was aiming for orange but I guess that's a yellowish orange, and I think yellow is probably better. It is a primary color as you say and it does connote gold which Stahlheim has a lot of.

 

I suppose I could make it longer. Note I'm not saying the world is 1836 years old. I'm saying humanity is. Elves and dragons and the like had been running around for thousands of years prior. Also, in Scarterra, humanity did not have to start off in the Stone Age, they got to start out with most medieval technology given to them immediately. Though I suppose I'm not opposed to making the Third Age older than 1836 years.

18360 years is probably about right for the Second Age.

I'm not married to 1836, I just wanted to keep things down to a manageable number. always thought fantasy calendars with numbers like 50,732 were kind of pretentious.

I suppose I instead of making the "present" day 1836 years after the Second Unmaking, I could make the present day 1836 after the Little Unmaking.

You see, while all the Demon Lords were dead when humanity emerged, there were still lots of demons running around and the Nine hadn't finished repairing the Barrier yet so powerful demons were still sneaking through. Maybe I can do 1000ish years of humanity's proverbial Dark Ages followed by 1836 years of humanity's true ascendance.

Aren't most castles dotting Europe created between 800 and 1600 AD? That's only 800 years.

I put a pin in detailing the ENTIRE Swynfaredian family tree, but at some point I need to do the math to figure out how many years it takes for twenty generations of Swynfaredian dragon bloods to be born. I made it difficult for myself in that the recent generations are roughly 20-25 year generations and the original generations were much longer. Maybe figure 33 years was the average so we are looking at about 700 years of Swynfaredia. I'm picturing most of my existing nations would be between 200 and 1000 years old. I still haven't worked out the details for how humanity was organized when humanity was very young. Even with lots of divine help it would take them centuries to get their act together.

I'm sure Swynfaredians base their calendar based on the founding of their nation or perhaps the four dragons reaching on an agreement to found a nation which happened roughly 50 years prior.

Most nations of any real size would have their own calendar but for the purpose of my sanity I wanted to come up with an approximation of a universal calendar starting with the emergence of humanity.

I agree. I figured it went without saying.