My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

Psychic Locations that are Tainted or Blessed

So the last movie I saw before movie theaters became dangerous was Doctor Sleep, a worthy sequel to The Shining. I might even be inspired enough to check out the books. The hotel in The Shining, briefly visited in Doctor Sleep is a tainted place.

Scarterra has places that are magically tainted (or blessed) and they tend to have very predictable effects. Lifestones and similar static magic effects enhance the growth of foodstuff bearing plants and fungi. Mera's Lake magically purifies all water that flows in, etc.

Magical locations have existed since the dawn of time, though their numbers have increased dramatically after the First Unmaking. Psychic locations are new. Until the Third Age, psionics were only known in Void Demons, and Voids Demons used to be a rare sight before the Second Unmaking.

"Evil" locations

Psychic locations pick up on the emotions, hopes, fears, and longings of the people dwelling in a locations. Void Demons hunger, so any site where many Void Demons died or living Void Demons camped out in a solitary location for a long time is likely to be tainted. Such locations are going to be very similar to the hotel in The Shining. The locations will be hungry.

Sensitive people might get a weird feeling in such areas, but others won't notice anything. At least if the location is in the middle of an unremarkable forest or desert. If no one visits the area, the psychic taint may disappear over centuries or millennia.

Problems begin is if people start living in one of these areas, such as building a castle (or lavish hotel) here. Effects would be gradual but overwhelmingly negative. People would get sick easier. The area would have more suicides. The areas would have more fits or rage and murders. This would cause a feedback loop to make the area gradually become more and more dangerous. Eventually the sight might create figment people (hereby referred to as psychic ghosts) that reenact memorable events and say creepy things.

A psychic ghost would 9 times out of 10 be mistaken for a regular. They are often semi-translucent, they are often appear and disappear and they driven by primal emotions. The problem is they are not ghosts so they would not be susceptible to most magic that ghosts are susceptible to. Generic magic that targets incorporeal beings and Silverwood weapons would be able to harm psychic ghosts but because psychic ghosts are from the memory of the place and are independent beings, if you destroy a psychic ghost, it might come back later. In fact it might come back more angry than it was before.

It's all fine and good if I want to tell a ghost story. I put in a hapless group of nobodies and the story is about survival and escape.

On the other hand, if seasoned adventurers find such a location, they are probably going to want to take the haunted site down.

I control the SCIENCE! in Scarterra and that includes metaphysics. If a location is tainted by the Void, the solution is to stay away from the area and wait...and wait. Not very adventurous.

Another way is to saturate the area with good feelings to counteract the built in negativity, but that's easier said then done.



I'm still working on how much a castle costs in my world. I'm thinking 10,000 gold pieces to 100,000 gold though the D&D book I read that covers this it's 100,000 gold to a million, but treasure piles are bigger in D&D worlds than Scarterra, so I guess a gold piece is worth more in my world in deflationary terms.

The reason I bring this up is that if the PCs are hired to fumigate a local count's castle, he is not going to want to hear that the only way to fix things is to dismantle the castle and rebuild it half a mile south.

Non-Demonic Tainted Locations

It's possible that a location can pick up on emotions and feelings other than a Void Demon's murderous hunger. It would not be on the same scale, but a location used for repeated executions could develop a fearful psionic "flavor." If most executions are in public before gleefully cheering crowds it could be as dangerous a Void Demon tainted spot because the location would actively hunger for death.

A prison or torture dungeon could pick up negative psychic residue. In most cases, these evil locations would not be on the scale of one created by the Void. There might be psychic effects that make someone's neck hairs stand up, but it's unlikely to create psychic ghosts or effects capable of harming the living.

Benign Psychic Locations

When I thought, if a haunted castle can pick up on negative actions and emotions, it's got to be possible for the reverse to happen.

The first thought I had was a family shrine to the ancestor. If generations of a family give praise to their families departed at the same place over and over again it's possible that psychic ghosts might manifest that are not the actual ancestor but based on the memories and stories of the ancestors. In most cases the ancestors would probably be more noble and good looking than they really were though probably a bit more simplistic.

A psychic ghost of the ancestors would certainly want to aid his/her ancestors but they are not actual ghosts or spirits so they wouldn't have the actual soul's memories. They couldn't tell you the name of their second dog or the location where they buried the McGuffin.

Alternatively such a site could manifest abstract family guardian "spirit" like Mushu in Mulan (the good one, the animated one). Such psychic "spirits" would of course be well disposed to defend "their" family, but their powers would be very area dependent. They probably wouldn't be able to manifest many powers more than a mile radius from their family shrine. I imagine most powers from a family guardian would be subtle, such as pot suddenly falling off a hook and hitting a burglar on the head.

To an extant, praying to the family ancestors could literally generate good luck if the family guardian creates minor miracles on the family's behalf.


By extension, if there is a statue or monument to a national hero, there could be a psychic ghost created that represents what people thought the historical figure was like or there could be a non-anthropomorphic psychic "spirit" that tries to enforce that person's ideals. I'm not sure what such a being would want to do or what their powers would look like, but they could theoretically manifest anywhere where that nation or ideology holds sway.

I'm not sure how many people on Scarterra have enough patriotism to create a psychic impression of their patriotism, but such groups that could would benefit from minor miracles on their behalf. I'm sure it's a coincidence but during the War of 1812, after the British and their allies burned down large swaths of Washington DC relatively unopposed, their troops got hit by a freak tornado. Almost as if the Spirit of America was smiting them (because at that the time, the soldiers of America were not up to the task, that's why it's not covered much in American History class).

A psychically generated tornado would probably be a little implausible on Scarterra.


An area that is primarily used for celebrations could develop a psychic aura of joviality. It would probably spawn psychic ghosts that just party. If spotted, people probably will think there are regular ghosts that want to party and they may or may not be threatened by this. Not every Scarterran ghost is malevolent.

A red light district could manifest a lustful aura and spawn some pervy psychic ghosts, but that's probably a detail I don't want to include in my stories or RPGs.

I'm not sure what other locations routinely face the same emotional types over and over again. A theater maybe? But most theaters have a wide variety. The psychic impact of a wonky academic debate, a tear jerking tragedy, and a thigh slapping comedy would all cancel each other out.

A temple or Nonagon might develop an aura of piety. I'm not sure if the Nine, the Nine's theurgists, or the Nine's spirits have any ability to manipulate psychic energy or not. On some level the Nine's priesthoods generally view psionic powers as "dirty" or "impure" mystical energy, so they probably wouldn't want to see psychic emanations in their holy sites even if the emanations are on their side. Alternatively, very few priests and priestesses have enough understanding in advanced metaphysics to even identify what psionic manifestations are even if they are literally under their nose. They probably think anything weird they see is from the Nine, and therefore not to be questioned.

Anyway, that's what I came up with for a new thing to post. Let me know if you have anything to add to this idea.

 

No, I use the term wiki and World Anvil interchangeably. 99% of the Internet has not heard of World Anvil so to get people to maybe look at Scarterra I call it a wiki.

I have not detailed the standing armies and navies of the various realms. Not more than a sentence or two for the armies, and nothing at all for the navy other that vague terms like "strong navy" or "weak navy."

There are three things that I think about for characterizing a nation's army, social class structures, terrain, and wealth. Four things, with magic I guess, but leaving magic aside.

Social Class Structures

If there is a really strong divide between commoners and nobles, the nobles are probably going to be the backbone of the army with an equivalent to knights or samurai (with combat pools averaging between six and eight dice) and a bunch of peasant conscript reserves that are basically arrow catchers (with combat pools between two and four dice). Also, the nobles would have the best equipment money can buy and the arrow catchers are lucky if they have padded armor to go with their spears and slings.

A nation with less stratified social classes probably does have a small equivalents to knights, but they probably have a lot of citizen soldiers. There is probably a small group of full time professional soldiers and a large portion of the population might have some rudimentary training so reserves can be called up as needed. These places probably boast large impressive armories.

I guess ranged weapons are tied to social class. Peasant militias would mostly use slings, citizen reserves would mostly use crossbows, and full time soldiers might favor long bows.

Terrain

An area dominated by plains is going to favor cavalry and large pike formations. An area with more rugged terrain is probably going to favor smaller more mobile groups of well armed and armored infantry. As for ranged combat I'm sure. I think ranged combat would be useful in rugged or flat terrain.

Resources

A trading hub would probably have access to a lot of elite mercenaries. A mineral rich nation would probably have better armor. An agricultural bread basket nation probably incorporates larger armies with less equipped soldiers (arrow catchers).

And Magic

Without going into my entire spell list piece by piece (I have 65 divine spells and I haven't counted but approximately 150 arcane spells). I think the net effect of magic in my world is that it will make small armies of elite soldiers more valuable and large armies of arrow catchers less valuable.

It's a lot easier to dump a bunch of augment spells on a single knight to make the knight into a temporary demigod that can go mano y mano with a giant monster than it is to cast a bunch of augment spells on a bunch of peasants with sharp sticks and hope some of them survive.

Also, with magical healing, it's easier to keep a small number of elite soldiers in heavy armor alive than to keep a bunch of peasants with sharp sticks alive given that it takes on average three or four hits to bring a heavily armored person down and a most unarmored or lightly armored person is basically take to death's door after one solid hit.

Magic items in my world are common enough that most nobles have one or two magic items but no one except the richest kings has a lot of magic items. In most cases, you give your magic weapons and armor to your best fighters which again favors small elite forces over large armies of nobodies. So this reinforces small elite forces.


Navies?

The RPG I'm running is on hold because of the CCP Virus and I cannot convince my friend to play via web cams. The novel I'm working on is not much beyond a bare outline because I have chronic writer's block/writer's sloth, but both my RPG campaign and my WIP novel take place inland in a landlocked setting.

I do find naval combat fascinating and I do like to ponder about Scaraqua and am course curious if Scarterrans and Scaraquans would ever fight.

My understanding of ancient naval warfare is that before the discovery of gun powder weapons, naval warfare was in two primary modes. You put a ramrod or prow on your boat and try to ram the other boat below the waterline or send boarders onto the enemy ship (usually after tearing up the enemy sails or grappling the decks together to prevent the target ship from sailing away), or set the enemy ship on fire.

It's also possible that you have a bunch of people with bows and/or crossbows shoot enough sailors dead on the other ship that the ship is stuck adrift, but I cannot imagine many situations where the two sides would exchange light missile fire and neither side boards the other.

Catapults, balista, and trebuchets could certainly sink ships in theory but these weapons are generally best used against stationary targets. It takes two or three shots at least to calibrate a shot that hits. That's a lot easier to do against a stationary fortress wall than a moving ship or boat.

I think real world naval warfare heavily favored boarding parties if only because in pre-industrial times it's a lot of resources and man hours to build a ship, especially a blue water ship.

Lets set aside the idea of Scarterrans and Scaraquans fighting each other and just focus on Scarterran naval battles. In most cases, I expect naval commanders to highly favor boarding parties over trying to sink enemy ships. I don't see why ships would not still be expensive to build in Scarterra.

The Dark Elves of Kahdisteria and the Grey Elves of the Elven Empire are kind in of in a cold war with sporadic skirmishes. Even if the Cold War turns hot, neither side is probably thinking of invading the homelands of the other, they are basically clashing swords because the Grey Elves' distant fringe colonies are butting up against the Dark Elves' distant fringe colonies. I imagine they would try to capture each other's ships fairly often, then ransom the captives back to the other side.

I haven't come up with this scenario yet, but if hypothetically a large nation went to war with a smaller nation over the seas, the underdog would probably be trying to sink the enemy ships while the aggressor is probably trying to capture enemy ships.

At least in my RPG, my world has alchemists fire. I may or may not make this canon for my novel world or not. Nilen's player put a lot of dots into Alchemy and asked if he could make alchemist's fire and I said "sure why not." I haven't figured out alchemist's fire is basically a glorified moltov cocktail or if it's like the quasi-magic "wild fire" of Game of Thrones that was formed the basis for the climax battle of season 2, and then again in season 6 in a way so dark I don't want to link it.

I'm leaning towards a relatively mild interpretation of alchemists fire making it roughly as combustible as gasoline though a bit stickier. Given that ships are made of wood, fiber, and cloth, they would not be that hard to set on fire with flammable liquid.

Nilen actually made a little bit of alchemists fire before fighting a tree monster and the PCs never used the alchemist fire. Nilen was too busy casting healing magic while Aranil the elf very slowly nickel and dimed the monster to death with his sword. It was actually probably the least satisfying fight we had in the whole campaign because it was attrition based, but that's neither here nor there.

Magic makes things dicey. I control the spell list, and while creative players can always come up with ways to use spells that Game Masters would not think of, I'm pretty sure none of the spells on my list would instantly sink a ship, though there are a number of fairly easy magical means of setting an enemy ship on fire. Of course there are magical means to put out fires too.

I don't know about realism, but from a cinematic standpoint I would prefer the RPG or eventual Scarterran television series would have naval combat focus on adventurous sailors swinging onto the enemy ship to buckle their swashes as opposed to trying to sink the enemy vessels.

I guess I need to definitely figure out naval warfare works before I go deep into logistics of Scarterran navies but until I come up with a world buildingly realistic and holistic means of integrating real world naval warfare with a magical system, I figure the norm of naval warfare is to try to crew a ship full of badasses and hope that your sailors are more badass than the other side's.

 

Sun Tzu said it takes at least 20 civilians to support one soldier in the field even when your soldiers are foraging. A lot of other historical documents suggest that this was pretty much unchanged from Ancient Rome all the way into the Renaissance.

I found a source that it was reasonable for medieval societies to have one soldier for every 15 people, that's assuming the soldiers don't have to go on long marches to foreign lands very often. Remember that professional soldiers are not just the army but also the police and fire fighters too.

Scarterra is a rough place. Assuming agriculture humans or demihumans. I figure 4-5% of the adult population being full time soldiers is pretty normal. An unusually insulated and peaceful realm could get away with 2-3% to keep the order while less than that is going to be asking for trouble. An oppressive police state or a realm facing constant outside attacks could maybe boast a standard army equal to 8% of the adult population. A reserve soldier would be any citizen able bodied citizen that is both willing and able to take up arms on behalf of his or her country if called to do so.

I also figure that outside of wartime, most "full time" soldiers of common birth actually perform civilian work a large portion of the time working for wages or helping out on the family farm or shop. Most full time soldiers of noble birth are expected to administer to the needs of realm at least a little.

A Tale of Three Dwarf Militaries


Meckelorn


About 5% of the adult dwarf population are full time soldiers (knights, nobles, and members of Hallisan’s priesthood) and they tend to have six to eight dice in their combat pools on average. About two thirds of the adult population can be called up as reservists if needed and they tend to have four or five dice in their combat pools.

Full time soldiers usually have heavy armor and are cross-trained in fighting with polearms, crossbows, and weapon and shield fighting. Reservists are usually trained in one of these styles of fighting and usually have medium armor. Only the nobility can regularly afford full plate armor and even then this is not always the case.

There are very few cavalry (1% or 2% of the entire army), but kallazotz provide the army some desperately needed mobility. About 2% of the local kallazotz population are full time soldiers and about a third of the adult kallazotz population are reservists.

Kallazotz soldiers usually focus on crossbows and spears when pressed but their favorite tactic is to fly over and drop rocks, nets, or flechetes just before their dwarf allies attack.

Meckelorn has a gnome minority. About 1% of them are full time soldiers and about 20% of the gnomes are reservists. Most of gnomes in the military are not fighters. They are mostly medics, quartermasters, and the like though a small number of gnomes are stealth fighters and most of these gnomes are so utterly vicious that they don’t fit in well with other gnomes.

The human population is too small to have much impact on the army but a lot of the humans that live in Meckelorn are adventure so they are powerful wildcards.

Meckelorn is landlocked so they do not have a navy.

Spoiler: Additional background on their military culture

Meckelorn was conquered by hostile powers and the dwarves spent generations in exile fighting a guerrilla war to try to get their homeland. After they got their homeland back they had to defend it numerous. Things have calmed down. No one in living memory remembers the exile and the only people who barely remember the early period after the liberation of their homeland all have white beards now, and they didn’t fight in those wars, their parents did.


That said, the Meckelorners have not abandoned their military posture. Almost every adult dwarf has basic combat training, most have at least a single dot in Brawl, Archery, and Melee. Majority of the population has two dots in at least one of these.


All adult males have to spend at least two weeks a year undergoing military training. The only way to not have to do this is to have a profession that is deemed vital to the military. Even if they don’t have, most dwarf men will participate in the annual training anyway as a matter of pride.


Of those that don’t participate, most of them are herders. A farmer or blacksmith can take two weeks off of work without ill effect, but a rancher cannot leave his livestock untended for two weeks. Given that Scarterra has monsters in it, dwarf herders, on average are actually a lot better at fighting than the average dwarf miner or farmer, dwarf herders tend to be an undisciplined lot thought, so while they are tough fighters, they are not great soldiers.


Dwarf women can volunteer to join the military reserves and partake in the training. This is allowed but not encouraged. Meckelorn still has a but a fraction of their original numbers so there is a lot of social pressure on dwarf women to stay home and have an many children as feasible. During their time of exile, goblins and other sneaky monsters tried to steal dwarf children fairly often though, especially when the men were away. That’s why dwarf women still are expected to be able to fight even if they rarely serve in the army. In any population center, the best lady dwarf warrior is likely to be named a Captain of the Homefront defense or something more dwarfy. Most dwarf settlements have a fortified location to relocate their children to in the event of an emergency threat and the dwarf women generally run these facilities.

That means on some level, Meckelorn can call up nearly the entire adult population as army reserves in the event of a war. If Meckelorn believes enemies are nearby, but they are not in a full status of war, they will usually organize a rotation, so out of every ten days a dwarf is expected to forgo his normal job and join a military patrol.

The king and his vassals are expected to defend their subjects. We’ll call the vassals dukes and counts for now, but I’ll eventually want to come up with dwarfy equivalents for dukes and counts. Male dwarf of noble birth usually spend considerably more time in military pursuits as they do administering their realms. Dwarf noblewomen actually perform the majority of peacetime ruler ship tasks.

The average dwarf nobleman has four dots in Melee and three dots in Archery, and of course they are armed with the best weapons and armor available. Dwarf nobleman who are not in line for inheritance usually join a knightly order.

Dwarf commoners can be knighted a lot easier than human commoners in their lands. As mentioned before, nearly every adult male is required to participate in yearly military training. If the nobles and knights notice that one of these reservist soldiers shows exceptional combat aptitude during training, they will frequently offer to knight such individuals. Once inducted into a knightly order, merit wins over birth. Advancement in knightly order’s ranks is determined by skill rather than birth…usually. A few dwarf nobles show a bias towards knights of noble birth, but they are not supposed to.



Dwarf arcane spell casters are fairly rare, but they are valued. Dwarves with arcane casting abilities are exempt from regular military training if they are willing to use their magic to aid in defense of the realm (though most dwarf mages can still fight with weapons).

Dwarf priests are exempt from mandatory military service, but priests to Hallisan are required to train in combat a lot. Meckelorn has almost as many priests and priestesses of Hallisan as clergy of all the rest of the Nine combine, and the Guardians of Hallisan are a very militant lot. If a dwarf woman really wants to be a soldier and not get socially shunned for neglecting her family duties, the easiest way to do this is to join the Guardians. Essentially really badass nuns.


The Kallazotz are welcome allies of the dwarves of Meckelorn. The Kallazotz are not generally fighters and the dwarves are okay with this. At any given time, at least a quarter of the adult Kallazotz population is out foraging and hunting. If any Kallazotz run across any goblins, monsters, or other threats, they will inform the dwarves of this, and the dwarves will deploy their knights.

A lot of Kallazotz are skilled hunters so they can have at least bit of ability to use spears and crossbows. About one in forty Kallazotz choose to be full time warriors and about a quarter of them train with the army reserve. I need to come up with a dwarfy/Mayanesque title for these warriors. These Kallazotz can fight but they still scouts and communication officers first and foremost working closely with dwarf knights.

Stahlheim


Most full time soldiers usually About 6% of the adult dwarf population are full time soldiers (nobles, mercenaries, and career soldiers) and they tend to have six to eight dice in their combat pools on average. About one fifth of the adult population can be called up as reservists if needed and they tend to have four or five dice in their combat pools.

have full plate armor and polearms or heavy armor and long bows. A small portion of the full time soldiers fight with a hand weapon and shield, usually a military pick or war hammer in order to deal with heavily armored opponents. Cross training is rare though nearly every soldier carries a sword as a backup weapon.

About half of the reservists train with crossbows and about half train with axes and shields. They usually have access to heavy armor.

Stahlheim has a fairly large human minority population. Within the Stahlheim army, the majority of the humans are mounted troops, including heavy cavalry, light cavalry, and archer cavalry. Stahlheim has a very small kallazotz population and while friendly, kalazotz and dwarves are not nearly as closely tied together as in Meckelorn, very few kalazotz serve in the Stahlheim army. Stahlheim’s gnome population is bigger but they don’t serve in the military much.

Stahlheim is technically a coastal nation, but sea trade is something these dwarves have only begun relatively recently. They have a small standing navy and rely on hiring human and elf mercenaries or allied nationals to defend their maritime interests. A lot of Stahlheim dwarves think the nation should stop relying on outsiders and set aside funds to create a real navy. A lot of other dwarves think they should disband their navy entirely and rely on foreign ships entirely. The last time this subject came up in the Council of Elders, a fist fight broke out.

Spoiler: Military culture and my background reasoning

I haven’t figured out the details yet, but Stahlheimers are probably going to be less prejudiced against arcane magic than Meckelorners. Stahlheim’s government is based on a king whose power is check by powerful clan elders. I don’t know if wizardry is going to be limited to a small and powerful wizard’s guild or if the ability to become a wizard is going to be a privilege for any dwarf of financial means. In other words, sons and daughters can get wizard training if their parents are willing to fork over the gold to apprentice their children. A fair number of Stahlheim’s wizards of course would be connected to the army, usually as reservists because it’s hard to pay a wizard enough to keep them around full time. Divine spell casters are more duty centered (and all the priesthoods are competing for the king’s favor) so most dwarf theurgists in Stahlheim that are connected to the military work there full time.


Stahlheim is not a pacifist realm by any means, but they have not suffered centuries of constant war like Meckelorn. A major cultural difference between Stahlheim and Meckelorn is that Stahlheim has more extreme division of labor. On harvest and planting time, in Meckelorn it’s common to see non-farmers pitching in. When work on the farm is slower (the crops are planted and harvest is long way off), it’s not uncommon to find farmers working in a mine. Stahlheim is big on “if it’s not in my job description I don’t have to do it.” That is why relatively few of their citizens can be called up as reserves.

Stahlheim is a prosperous mercantile realm. Stahlheim claims to have the best equipped army in the world and this is not an empty boast. They are certainly the best armored army in the world.

Stahlheim is a patriarchal realm, but they do not have the population pressure that Meckelorn has, so dwarf women have fewer obstacles to seeking a military if they choose, but there is less military pressure too so there are probably proportionally fewer dwarf women in the military than their northern cousins.

Hallisan’s priesthood is less dominant with a triumvirate of Hallisan, Phidas, and Khemra as the spiritual head of the nation with minority position for the others. Stahlheims priests and priestesses are not especially militarized.

One aspect of Stahlheim’s military that other dwarves finds scandalous is that they utilize mercenaries a lot. If a special problem pops up that the standing army is not equipped to handle, rather than call up reserves or ask the temples for help, Stahlheim lords will often hire some adventurers to put down the problem.

Mondert


Unless I decide to add a third race like Kallazotz or something local as a minority, Mondert is about 55% humans 45% dwarves. Dwarves are a little bit more likely to bear arms with the army 50% of the standing army and reserves. About 5% of the adult dwarf population are full time soldiers (mostly royals and Champions) and they tend to have five to seven dice in their combat pools on average. About a third of the adult population can be called up as reservists if needed and they tend to have four or five dice in their combat pools.

Human-dwarf hybrids make up fewer than 1% of the population, but they are generally treated well. About half the man-dwarves are full time soldiers and the other half are reservists. Man-dwarves are very strong and tough, so they are ideal warriors. Also, Mondarians are very family centered and man-dwarves are sterile. While it’s rude to say it outright, it’s generally understood that because man-dwarves cannot have children they are more expandable than humans or dwarves. Thus they serve their families by risking their lives for them.

The Mondarians have the technology to make metal armor fairly easily. Dwarves are going to dwarf after all. Mondarians more often than not fight with light armor or even no armor. Mondert has a very hot climate so wearing heavy armor for long can be fatiguing. Also, Mondarians swim and boat a lot. Wearing heavy armor near the water is a good invitation if warriors get knocked into the water.

Both humans and dwarves alike commonly fight with large shields paired with a spear or one haded battle axe. Crossbows and long bows are popular weapons. One thing that distinguishes Mondarians from Meckelorners and Stahlheimers is that they fight dirty. Most Mondarians have high ratings in Survival, Hearth Wisdom, and Stealth. With their stealth training and knowledge of poisons, they will avoid straight up fights when a more pragmatic solution is possible.

I don't know if Mondert would need or want a blue water navy of warships. They are more into boats than ships. If they did have to deal with ships, they probably would prefer to wait for nightfall, using diving reeds or augmentation magic to sneak warriors below the surface of the water, board the ship stealthily and either stage a sneak attack or set the boat on fire.

Spoiler: Mondarian military culture

The Council of Elders make most leadership decisions and the two kings are only given the mantle of leadership in time of war. Thus the royal families train for war heavily.

Mondert is less patriarchal than their northern dwarf cousins, and are less likely to discourage women from being soldiers, so the females of the royal families are usually well combat trained. This attitude carries over to the non-royals though men still dominate the military.

Mondert is not particularly militaristic but Mondarians do have a big machismo culture with a lot of full contact sports and various contests of strength. The winners of these contests are often recruited by the royals as Champions and the Champions along with the royals themselves are the full time standing army. They don’t have an official reserve, but in times of strife and war the Mondarian machismo will lead most young men and a few young women to volunteer to take up arms.

As of right now, I have not developed any of the other nations near Mondert. Since no one in a 1000 miles has much background it's unlikely that Mondert is going to suffer a full invasion, so for meta reasons, Mondert might not need much of a standing military.

But real world Polynesian folklore has a bunch of scary monster, and I intend to mine this resource of lore to come up with nasty monsters. So the military is not so much there to defend against a conventional invasion, but they would have to be called up to fight monsters rising out of the sea.

Speaking of the sea, in general Scarterrans are going to outnumber Scaraquans at least two to one, but the sea around Mondert are quite warm and shallow, that's ideal for Scaraqua. The local Scaraquan powers could really make life miserable if they chose to do so. I don't know why they would since Mondert doesn't have much they can loot, and given that Mondarians are very pro-Mera it's unlikely they would aggravate the undersea powers with irresponsible fishing practices.

 

More military overviews

The militaries of the countries that matter. In my RPG, Swynfaredia is probing to see if Fumaya is ripe for conquest. Swynfaredia has a population much larger than that of Fumaya so they can deploy a lot more soldiers, BUT both Swynfaredia and Fumaya are feudalistic systems made up of the separate armies of Dukes and Counts and the Fumayan noble families generally are much better at cooperating than Swynfaredian noble families.


Fumaya

About 4% of the adult population are full time soldiers (knights and men at arms) and they tend to have six to eight dice in their combat pools on average. About a quarter the adult population can be called up as reservists if needed and they tend to have four or five dice in their combat pools.

Whether they are likely inherit a title or not, most sons of the nobility train as knights, and when I say knights, I mean classic knights: Heavy armor, lances, warhorses. Most men at arms of common birth either fight with an axe and mace paired with a shield or fight long bows. Most soldiers carry a sword as a backup. Reservists usually train with spear and shield, polearms, or crossbows.

Most of Fumaya is human though there is a large diverse non-human minorities. In a military capacity, non-humans are fully integrated into human military units rather than deployed in separate units.

Spoiler: Military Culture in Fumaya

If the commoners are armed too heavily, the local nobles may fear a revolt. If the commoners are armed too lightly, the local nobles may fear their commoners will steamrollered by a band of brigands or some random monster. Fumayan nobles prefer a well-armed populace. Fumaya has a lot of small patches of farmland separated by rugged terrain. Sometimes dangerous things emerge from the rugged terrain before the knights can arrive to save the day.


Fumaya shares a long border with the dwarves of Meckelorn and the elves of Codenya. Fumaya has assimilated military tactics from both these nations. Most nobles keep at least one unit of men at arms made up of heavily armored elite infantry with battle axes or maces. Many commoners learn to fight with axes, hammers, or other weaponized tools. Most nobles keep at least one unit of men at arms made up of highly skilled long bowmen. Many commoners are skilled with hunting bows.

The main commoner weapon of choice is a spear or polearm because pointy sticks are cheap and don’t require a lot of steel. Fumaya is not a rich realm and it’s expensive to equip men at arms with long bows or heavy armor, but most nobles think it’s worth it. When the local lord announces he is recruiting archers or infantry they are usually flooded with volunteers and they can afford to be choosy. This has led to a Fumayan cultural tradition of having many competitive athletic events. The winners of such events are far more likely to be recruited as men at arms so competition is fierce. A typically common will make three or four times as much income as a man at arms than as a farmer.

Arcane spell casters have few legal restrictions in Fumaya, though like in most places universal crimes such as murder, assault, and theft are punished even more harshly in magic is involved. In theory, regent harvesting cannot be done without permission of the local lord but in practice this is very hard to enforce. If they can afford it, most nobles will try to keep a wizard on retainer, but Fumaya’s military does not have a lot of mages at their disposal.

Fumaya officially condones all nine priesthoods (though unofficially the Testers are usually shunned). The king and most of his vassals are politically shrewd enough to pit the priesthoods against each other. The priesthoods are generally so eager to curry influence with the local princes that they offer their magical and ecclesiastical services fairly cheap. Nearly every lord has at least one theurgist on retainer.

Spoiler: Regional Variations in military culture

The Count of Polnoc (tip of the sock) is a broken man and is a poor administer and general. He has roughly has as many soldiers as he should. He has about two thirds the men at arms you would expect and all his would-be reservists have been co-opted by the Lanterns.

The Duke of Zimoz (upper sock) is very military minded. He is strict about mandatory training for the reservists and he also subsidizes the reserves financially. Commoners can buy weapons and armor at half the market price. His military reserves are larger and better trained (roughly one die better than the Fumayan average).

The Duke of Frymar (upper mid sock) is the richest duke and is a little bit of a class snob. He has a slightly larger force of well-equipped men at arms than the Fumayan average but a moderately smaller reserve force to draw upon. Frymar maintains close ties to Meckelorn and his men at arms favor dwarf style equipment and tactics.

The duke of Linijka is also the king of Fumaya. The king’s military forces do not deviate from the norms of Fumaya, they set the norms.

The Duchy of Nerozik (heel of the sock) has opted to train a large portion of the nobility as wizards instead of knights. They have fewer elite fighters but far more magical support to call on.

The Duchy of Wiern (arch of the sock) is a bread basket but is mineral poor. The army favors quantity over quality.

The Duchy of Palbuc (toe of the sock) is heavily forested and heavily culturally influenced by wood elves. Archery is very popular here, and the Duke’s forces are the only Fumayan military that has mandatory stealth training.

Swynfaredia

About 3% of the adult population are full time soldiers (roughly evenly split between long bowmen, heavy cavalry and elite infantry) and they tend to have five to seven dice in their combat pools on average. About a fifth the adult population can be called up as reservists if needed and they tend to have four or five dice in their combat pools.

The real power of Swynfaredia is their magic. Slightly over 1% of the entire population is a sorcerer or sorceress, either born to the nobility, immigrant sorcerers, or bastard sorcerers.

Swynfaredia does not like to boast about it, but they have enough necromancers to easily mobilize an undead army equal to 1% of their total population. If Swynfaredia stopped hiding their necromancers in the closet, they could more than triple this. The issue is that when Swynfaredians deploy troops of skeleton soldiers this usually backfires on a propaganda front.

Swynfaredia has roughly the same number of divine spell casters as the rest of Scarterra (about one in two hundred people), but Swynfaredian nobles do not normally have close ties to the priesthood, if they want divine magical assistance they usually have to give them large monetary donations.

Spoiler: Integrating my world's arcane magic into warfare

If I was a Swynfaredian noble and I was not afraid to get my hands dirty fighting, I would tailor my military strategy around my spell list.

Looking over my spell list, an Abjurer would not be great in an invasion of Fumayan. Most of the powerful protection spells protect a single target or a very small group. A lot of Abjuration counter hostile magic, so Abjurers would be extremely valuable in a Swynfaredian civil war.

Conjurers would be extremely valuable for invading Fumaya. Most of the debuff spells that cover a large area of effect are in this school. They can only summon a small number of fighting creatures but these creatures are strong and can take point soaking up hits for the noble’s human soldiers. This would help morale too.

Diviners would be great in a cold war, less valuable in a hot war. The more likely your enemy is to use stealth, the more valuable a Diviner becomes. Also, if a Swynfaredian noble is a chicken hawk that is not willing to be within a mile of a real battle, divination magic is probably the best school of magic to lean on in a war.

Enchantment does not have as many army friendly area of effect spells as Conjuration but it has a healthy mix of espionage friendly spells and direct confrontation spells. Enchanter generals would be formidable opponents.

Illusion would favor espionage. Invisibility and its variants are very powerful here.

Necromancy is a double edged sword. A noble who uses necromancy blatantly is going to have a problem putting his iron fist in a velvet glove. Necromancers, especially those that create undead minions, are hated and fears. They usually scare their enemies into submission quickly or they make themselves so hated that they galvanize their foes to fight to the death. There are subtle uses for necromancy and that is spells that command ghosts. Ghosts make great spies and they are harder to trace to the commanding sorcerer than fifty skeleton warriors.

Transmutation, at least the spell list I made for it, is very versatile but not many of the spells are good in a giant pitched battle, but if a transmuter has the loyalty of a small number of skilled warrior she can augment her elite minions superbly. Transmutation is good for espionage. A master Transmuter (5 dots) can cast augmentation spells on dozens of soldiers at a time, but at best only one in five Swynfaredian nobles every reach the five dot level and not every sorcerer learns transmutation.

Invokers have one spell with many variations: “Make things go boom.” A skilled invoker can snipe heavily armored targets with a single magic ray or cause cones and burst effects to incapacitate or kill large numbers of lightly armored targets. That is highly useful in war. Invokers are nearly always the priority target on the battlefield and because they are flinging fire or lightning they are easy to find. In a way, they are glass cannons, even if protected with magic from another school. That means an invoker who takes the battlefield is extremely brave and patriotic, or he is extremely well-paid.

I figure about 40% of Swynfaredidan sorcerers focus on two schools of magic, maybe about 20% of Swynafaredians focus severely on one school of magic, and 20% of Swynfaredians take a jack of all trades approach to magic.

Spoiler: Swynfaredian military culture or lack thereof

Swynfaredia does not have much of a unified military culture. Each lords retinue is probably armed very differently from the nearest lord. Some Swynfaredian nobles view the maintenance of their men at arms and reserves as a low priority. Some Swynfaredian nobles view their militaries as high priorities but they are clueless on the best way to wage actual war.

Given that Swynfaredians want to maintain their supremacy via magic, on some level, a heavily armed populace is a threat. Most commoners are not allowed to own or carry military weapons.

I am planning to give Swynfaredia at least one prestigious mercenary company, maybe two or three. In a nutshell, non-sorcerer children of the military are given a bunch of gold and then told to go away. I figure at least a few of them would seek their fortunes via combat training.

I imagine Swynfaredia based mercenaries would be very well aware of what magic can and cannot do and be tactically able to find ways to mitigate hostile magic quite well for warriors.

I probably need to figure out what the Swynfaredian houses look like now and work backwards as opposed to going to the founding of Swynfaredian and work the family trees forward. Sure it’s fun to build a family tree in that matter, but it’s not useful for storytelling.

Fumaya has lesser houses too. I only developed a tiny number of lesser house characters but even a tiny nation like Fumaya could twenty separate noble lines and it is perfectly fine that I haven’t figure out the surname of all the duke’s banner men. Swynfaredia could easily have a 100. Swynaredia is big enough that they could easily have up to eight or nine major powers and over a twenty lesser house too powerful to be ignored, but I guess I only really need to figure out a profile for the Swynfaredian houses that are involved on the Fumayan front.

 

Bookkeeping on World Anvil

So I ran through a lot of my World Anvil articles. Every time I skim old stuff I always find at least one or two typos. But beyond this, I updated the articles on the entrees for the Nine to include their alternate Scaraquan names and personalities.

I added an article about the Legend of Blood Stone and a moderately more lengthy bio for Malthius, Creator of the Blood Stone as a sub article. I will probably add an article about the most famous vampire in my world, Vladimir the Conqueror soonish. Because Vladimir's backstory is indirectly going to be involved in Nilen the Cobbler's adventure.

I have the option to have "Recent Articles" as a quick link on Scarterra's main page. It should include the articles about Malthius or the Blood or the articles on the Nine that I updated but every time I load the homepage the recent articles shows as being Hunting for Sport from my RPG mechanics section, a fairy old article though it the last RPG article I updated the artwork for.

Is that what you all see on Scarterra's homepage or is just me? If I cannot fix this glitch there is no reason for me to use the "Recent Article" display.

I also have different display settings I can use. I have been using "World Ember" which is predominantly red text on a black background and background image of lava and rocks.

There are a couple sci-fi styles I could use but don't think they would be a good fit. Star Trek style, Wild West Steam Punk, Lovecraftian eldritch horror, probably not a good fit. I will admit the Steam Punk style looks so awesome it almost makes me want to make "Steamterra" just to have an excuse to use it. Summer Camp 2019 is an eye sore.

"Stranger Worlds" style is crisp red and white text on a background and a wintry forest as the frame.

"White out" is just black text on a white background. Easy to read but boring.

I have no ideas what "Sirens" refers to. White text blocks, black text, purple frame, and the headers are in stylistic faux cursive.

"Saltmarsh" has a frame of dark blue water filled with plants around dark grey text blocks with white texts. The headers are a little bit like modern comics. I think I'd rather include Scaraqua and Scarterra in the same World Anvil wiki, but if I split them, I'd want to use Saltmarsh for Scaraqua.

"Deven Rue" is a black background, white text, orange headers. Frame is just a washy dark grey. Elegant in it's simplicity, originally I was torn between this and World Ember.

"Bright Fantasy" is a tan background, black text, gold headers framed by fluffy clouds. There is also a similar one with green headers framed by an forest and tiny runes called "Elven forest"

"Notebook" is a slightly more stylistic version of black text on white backgrounds.

"Zen Garden" is pretty self explanatory.

Does anyone besides me care a tiny bit about the style of my wiki?

I should probably stop wasting grey matter on this and just stick with World Ember or Salt Marshes.

 

Pendrake also supports brief descriptions.

It was a wrench for me to condense 20+ pages of how the world was created into 627 words, but I'll see if I can reduce it into more bite sized chunks with hyperlinks with more details.

 

Here's what I have now for the introduction. It is 623 words

Spoiler: Intro as of 11-15-2020

Scarterra is a fantasy world based on Dungeons and Dragons tropes, a deep dive into ancient mythology, and a fantasy take on the principles of Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. As much as possible I strive for the elements of why world to make sense while still facilitating interesting storytelling and role playing.
The Divine Rebellion

Turoch created the world in order to feed upon the mortal souls and ran the universe like a giant farm for his gluttony. His nine most powerful lieutenants rebelled and led a massive army of mortal souls in battle against him. His nine lieutenants gained a large portion of Turoch’s power and became the deities known as the Nine. Most mortal souls were shielded from the battle. The few mortals who participated in the battled and survived gained a small portion of Turoch’s power and became the first dragons.

The First Age Dragons took dominion over the new world and the Nine lavished Gifts upon the dragons such as agriculture, writing, and metal working among many others to help them build mighty civilizations. As the dragons grew and thrived, the Nine, working alone or in small groups, created new mortal races. Sometimes to aid the dragons, sometimes to punish or restrain them, occasionally the Nine created new races out of boredom or curiosity.

The First Unmaking

As the dragon kingdoms ran out of space the dragons began fighting amongst themselves fighting over resources and territory. The dragons began drawing tribal lines along physiological, religious, and cultural differences. As the wars grew more intense, a powerful dragon sorceress tried to harness the elemental power of the world in order to gain an edge on her rivals. This spell went awry and unleashed over a million elementals who engaged in a four-way war of their own. The clash of elemental forces created huge supernatural disasters which decimated the dragon nations’ structures and treasured and killed the vast majority of the of the world’s mortals.

The Second Age With the remaining dragons holing up in isolated lairs jealously guarding their hoards, the world was largely empty. Collectively, the Nine created elves to inherit the world. Like before, alone or in small groups the Nine also created other mortals in lesser numbers either to help the elves, harm the elves, or simply out of boredom. This time more of the Nine created their own races, often hoping to craft the perfect worshipers. Again the world became crowded and the elf nations began to war increasingly often.

The Second Unmaking One king wanted to become a god and in his attempt to seize godhead he punctured a hole in the Barrier. Unknown to most mortals up to this point, the Nine had destroyed Turoch but his hunger remained and became the Void passively attempting to consume all existence. The Barrier kept the Void at bay, but once the Barrier was damaged, untold numbers of Demons and their undead minions spawned by Turoch’s rage and hunger flooded the mortal plane and attempted to wipe out all mortal life. They didn’t wipe out all life but they were almost successful, and the elf nations were in ruins.

The Third Age A few tiny pockets of elves began rallying and attempting to recreate new nations and tribes for themselves. The Nine didn’t stop them, but opted to let a new race become dominant. The Nine collectively creating humans to populate the new world figuring a faster reproducing race could handle disasters better and lower life spans would reduce the likelihood of a single individual from getting enough power to destroy the universe. Again the Nine created new races in lesser numbers to help the humans, hurt the humans, or out of boredom/curiosity.

Here's what I am proposing, minus the future hyperlinks. It's 286 words. Does it need to be shorter still? Is it too short? Too irreverent? Just right? In theory people who are not my followers on Lustria-Online need to read this and idealy be hooked.

Spoiler: Proposed new intro

The Nine collectively created dragons to be the dominant race during the First Age. A few of the Nine independently made other races as a personal projects. Everything was going good until constant conflict between nations pushed a dragon queen to tamper with forces beyond her ken accidentally destroyed most of the known world in what was called the First Unmaking.


The Nine hit the reset button and collectively made elves to be the new dominant race during the Second Age. A few of the Nine made other races as personal projects. Everything was going good until constant conflict between nations pushed an elf king to tamper with forces beyond her ken and accidentally destroyed most of the known world in what the Second Unmaking.


The Nine hit the reset button and collectively created humans to be the new dominant race during the Third Age, the current Age. A few of the Nine made other races as personal projects and the world is crowded with surviving remnants from previous ages. As the various human and non-human factions compete for resources, everyone is aware of the disasters that occurred before, so there is definitely probably not a chance someone will destroy the world again.


Also the Nine certainly did definitely probably did not create a whole lot of sapient aquatic creatures as a backup set of creation to hedge their bets against a potential Third Unmaking.

Is it misleading joking about the world being destroyed? It is important to the backstory that Scarterra was destroyed and rebuilt several times, that's why it's Scarterra and not simply Terra, but the stories I wish to tell are not normally on the scale of literally saving the world.

 

I worked out some bugs on World Anvil. The Hunting article isn't stuck as the default recent article anymore. I've made a lot of updates recently, mostly stuff in my disorganized MSWord files that I've added to World Anvil in somewhat more edited and bite sized chunks.

World Anvil has a challenge to come up with 10,000 words of world building in the month of December. If I do that I'm eligible to win some prizes and I might make a short list of world builders to get some more eyeballs on Scarterra.

Anyway I'll stop talking about the nuts and bolts of World Anvil for a while and try to get back to more interesting lore and discussions.

 

I'm going to use all of these excellent Warden ideas. But first lets revisit the founding houses.

Spoiler: Recap of the four founding houses in their youth

Classic House Fremiss
Heraldry: A red dragon with prominent horns that is usually breathing fire.
Motto or Slogan (optional): Be the fire of life.
Stereotypical House Character Strengths: Brave, generous, gregarious, merciful
Stereotypical House Character Weaknesses: Reckless, hedonist, spendthrift, self righteous
Resources/Advantages: Larger population. Due to encouraging adventurous, their nobles tend to be more powerful than the other houses' nobles on average. Fairly potent military
Liabilities/Vulnerabilities: Lots of bastard children and sibling rivalries. Frequently in debt.
Leadership Style: Bread and circuses with militaristic overtones.
Magical Aptitudes (if any): Lords and ladies tend to favor Invocation, Transmutation, and Enchantment.
They rarely learn Necromancy or Abjuration.
Divination, Illusion, and Conjuration fall in the middle.

Classic House Goirsonad
Heraldry: Snake like grey dragon, often depicted holding a book or scroll.
Motto or Slogan (optional): Knowledge is strength.
Stereotypical House Character Strengths: Wise, methodical, just, driven
Stereotypical House Character Weaknesses: Aloof, cowardly, absent minded academic, harsh
Resources/Advantages: Wise sages and an impressive library. Sorcerers are especially well practiced at crafting magical items. Realm is efficient in producing and distributing resources.
Liabilities/Vulnerabilities: Population of nobles is relatively low. Army is somewhat smaller than the others.
Leadership Style: Micromanaging with a large well-trained bureaucracy.
Magical Aptitudes (if any): Divination is prized above all. Abjuration and Conjuration is also valued.
Necromancy is practically forbidden. Invocation is rare.
Transmutation, Illusion, and Enchantment fall in the middle.

Classic House Kovenoth
Heraldry: Majestic Multi-colored dragon with large claws holding a hammer
Motto or Slogan: Something about leaving a lasting legacy, not sure how to phrase it
Stereotypical House Character Strengths: Pragmatic, clever, shrewd, thrifty but not miserly
Stereotypical House Character Weaknesses: Vain, condescending, oblivious to the short-term problems, ruthless
Resources/Advantages: Politically savvy; patron to many great artists, engineers, and architects;
Liabilities/Vulnerabilities: Somewhat disliked and distrusted from other houses, disliked by the peasants.
Leadership Style: Imperious and demanding but also detailed oriented and well-organized.
Magical Aptitudes: Fairly versatile with regards to schools of magic with an emphasis on making permanent magical items. Slight preference for Transmutation and Conjuration magic. Slight distaste for Invocation and Illusion magic.

Classic House Numaness
Heraldry: A lanky purple dragon with a crown like frill
Motto or Slogan: Something about perfecting one's magical power
Stereotypical House Character Strengths: Strong, driven, ambitious
Stereotypical House Character Weaknesses: aloof, sheltered, arrogant
Resources/Advantages: The strongest sorcerers are disproportionately in this house
Liabilities/Vulnerabilities: The house is a little bit too uninterested in actually running the realm
Leadership Style: Don't bother me with petty details, let me know if you need something magic done.
Magical Aptitudes: All magic is prized, but abjuration is the most popular.

Spoiler: History of the Four great houses in 25 words

House Numaness is the top dog, House Goirsonad is nipping at their heels. House Framiss is fighting itself and House Kovennoth has fallen from grace.

Spoiler: The History of the four great houses in 348 words

The founding four houses of Swynfaredia are Framiss, Goirsonad, Kovennoth, and Numaness. Early on House Kovenoth tried to established themselves as the power behind the throne while the other three fought over the crown.

House Framiss was dominant early on, largely because they were the most numerous being somewhat…ahem…fertile. House Framiss began to fall from power fairly quickly. Fratricide and general kinslaying was common as House Framiss was too fertile and a lot of ambitious sorcerers were left with no real inheritance. Compounding problems, Framiss nobles had a lot of extramarital affairs complicating succession matters.

In the aftermath of the First Swynfaredian Civil War, house Framiss was split into two competing houses. After the second Swynfaredian Civil War, there are now three houses that claim to be the true House Framiss. Until I come up with more creative names, I’m going to call them Framiss A, Framiss B, and Framiss C. If House Framiss reunify they would easily be the dominant house, but that’s about as likely as the King of Meckelorn marrying his daughter to an orc.

House Kovennoth started out powerful and were able to fulfill their ambitions as the power behind the throne for a few generations but then the bulk of the house backed the losing side. Also, Kovennoth had more than a few major scandals with prominent house members trying to use necromancy to forestall their natural deaths and other examples of taboo magic. They are now impoverished in terms of terms of income and land but they are sitting on a lot of priceless magical artifacts and a famous name.

So there were some very brief early periods where a Framiss lord wore the crown, the crown has mostly passed back and forth between House Goirsonad and House Numaness and there is little love lost between these two titans. Originally, Framiss and Kovennoth had the reputation of being nice to commoners and Numaness and Goirsonad were the stereotypical haughty ones. Given that the class snobs have been in charge for centuries, this means that modern Swynfaredians are pretty snobby as a rule.

Spoiler: Modern House Numaness

House Numaness
In its infancy, House Numaness valued magical power above all other things. It was joked that their nobles could perform miracles with magic but couldn’t even cut their own meat without casting a spell.

The first king was established by a series of magical duels. Unsurprisingly the first King was a son of Numanes, but his heirs did not hold the crown as long. While House Numaness technically had the crown more often than House Goirsonad did, Numaness had a lot of weak kings and queens that were often paper tigers manipulated by their courtiers and vassals.

Over the generations, after dozens if not hundreds of very painful lessons, House Numaness learned to play politics. While the young House once strived for magical excellence above all things, now the House encourages its sons and daughters to be excellent in everything. They want magically skilled nobles who can wield a sword effectively, be social butterflies, cutthroat politicians, and well-read academics all in one package.


Heraldry: A lanky purple dragon with a crown like frill
Motto or Slogan: Something about being strong magically
Stereotypical House Character Strengths: Resourceful, brave, wise
Stereotypical House Character Weaknesses: Arrogant, uptight, aloof
Resources/Advantages: The House is very versatile boasting the second or third most richest fiefdoms the second or third strongest army, the second or third best store of magical items, the second or third best spy network.

The current queen is of this house.

Liabilities/Vulnerabilities: When you are at the top you have more enemies. Every other house either covets the crown or wants to manipulate it. They are not especially popular with the commoners.

A recent problem is that their aggressive parenting to make their children “excellent in all things” is leading to burnout creating sorcerers and sorceresses versatile enough to be terrible at several things at once. Some of them are seeking an edge by using forbidden magic or other cheats.


Leadership Style: House Numaness demands excellence from all who work for them. Flaws and mistakes will be pointed out while successes barely acknowledged.


Magical Aptitudes: House Numaness encourages their sorcerers to be versatile with most of them spreading a few dots in several schools of magic rather than specializing.

A noble house with ties to the underworld

Spoiler: Modern House Goirsonad

House Goirsonad
Goirsonad is one of the four founding houses, and it’s arguably the house that maintained its power and prestige best. Goirsonad’s motto is that “knowledge is power.” When House Goirsonad (and Goirsonad himself was still alive) the house was established as a house of scholars. While they still control vast dusty libraries, and the house still values knowledge but they have sort evolved/devolved into a house of spymasters.

Heraldry: A grey snake-like dragon holding a scroll
Motto or Slogan: “Knowledge is power”
Stereotypical House Character Strengths: Clever, resourceful, intelligent
Stereotypical House Character Weaknesses: Arrogant, duplicitous, ruthless
Resources/Advantages: The House controls a lot of resource rich territory, a prestigious name, a deep spy network with all the criminal contacts and blackmail opportunities this opens up possibilities for.
Liabilities/Vulnerabilities: The house is very unpopular, distrusted by other nobles and resented by the lower classes.

Their famed family loyalty is beginning to erode as some of the spymasters are turning their attentions to each other. They are not at the point of rampant kinslaying yet, but the family is so secretive that the right hand often doesn’t know what the left hand is doing and family members’ schemes will accidentally work at cross purposes (where one family member assassinates a rival another was trying to blackmail) or they will unknowingly create redundant plans (where two people try to blackmail the same target unnecessarily).

Leadership Style: Mafiaesque. Be ruthless and efficient, but family loyalty comes first.
Magical Aptitudes: Divination is prized above all else. Illusion and Abjuration magic are also highly prized. The more flashy magic is best left to the “lesser houses.” If the house wants an invoker they will trick an invoker into doing their bidding.

A noble house with ties to the priesthood

Spoiler: House Framiss A

Framiss A

On paper, Framiss A is the house that is the true heir of House of Framiss (they backed the right pony in the last civil war), though in most respects their apple has fallen very far from the tree of the dragon Framiss the Vibrant. Compared to their commoner loving exuberant brave warrior forebears, Framiss A are now a bunch of arrogant, scheming uptight chicken hawks. About the only thing they have that arguably still makes them Framiss is a slight hedonistic streak.

Framiss A bet all their chips on backing Greymoria’s priesthood giving the Children a prize they rarely have: a modicum of respectability. In return the Children give Framiss access to some of the prolific reagent dealers and magical item crafters in all of Scarterra, an impressive spy network, and clandestine contacts with all sorts of scary monsters. Even if Swynfaredia, Greymoria is not a very popular goddess, and siding with her publicly can trigger a hostile response with the worshipers Greymoria’s divine rivals. Framiss A mitigates this by buying them off. For everyone but the Guardians this usually works (the Guardians are very tight with Framiss B). Framiss A spends more gold on donations than any other house, even houses that are collectively much richer than they. To everyone who is not a priest or priestess, Framiss A is seen as House of tightfisted misers.

Framiss A has some mines and these mines are staffed in large part by goblin slaves. A move that is somewhat controversial in Swynfaredia. Framiss A probably isn't the only house that has goblin slaves but they certainly have the most.

Heraldry: A red dragon with prominent horns that is usually breathing fire, plus some kind of variation. Maybe either something for Greymoria or nothing at all since there house is the “official” House Framiss.
Motto or Slogan (optional): Be the fire of life (now it’s an empty motto no one pays any attention to)
Stereotypical House Character Strengths: Shrewd, magically adept
Stereotypical House Character Weaknesses: Miserly, heartless
Resources/Advantages: The full support of the Children and above average support from most of the other priesthoods. More scrolls, potions, and reagents than their overall wealth would suggest.
Liabilities/Vulnerabilities: Framiss A has rich productive land but a lot of their income is tied up in a series of promising for ongoing donations to the various priesthoods. Greymoria’s enemies are Framiss A’s enemies.
Leadership Style: “I don’t care how you do it, just get it done.”
Magical Aptitudes: Enchantment and Illusion are favored.

Spoiler: House Framiss B

Framiss B

Framiss B might be the closest in spirit to their ancestor Framiss the Vibrant. The House is known for being kind to commoners and being brave in battle.

Heraldry: A red dragon with prominent horns that is usually breathing fire, plus some kind of variation. Maybe this one has LOTS of fire.
Motto or Slogan (optional): “Everything burns before our fire”
Stereotypical House Character Strengths: Brave, kind
Stereotypical House Character Weaknesses: Reckless, spendthrift
Resources/Advantages: Framiss B has a very large well trained and well-equipped army and most of its lords and ladies are combat trained. Framiss B has greater loyalty from the common people than most noble houses.
Liabilities/Vulnerabilities: Framiss B has rich productive land but a lot of their income is tied up in the bread and circuses their House is known for.
Leadership Style: Framiss B are very lead from the front. They are not afraid to get their hands dirty either figuratively or literally. Sometimes this can be a weakness when they insist on doing something personally when they have an underling who is more skilled at something.
Magical Aptitudes: Invocation is highly prized. Abjuration is also valued. Necromancy is shunned.

Spoiler: House Framiss C

Framiss C

Framiss C has the least power and prestige of the three Framiss offshoots. Their goal is to wield as much raw mystic might as possible. To that end they are a lot less picky about marriage partners “noble blood” as long as the marriage partners are powerful. They are more likely to bestow titles and positions to sorcerers of dubious heritage and they are unusually accepting of non-human sorcerers, especially kobolds.

Heraldry: : A red dragon with prominent horns that is usually breathing fire, plus some kind of variation.
Motto or Slogan (optional): “Be the fire of innovation.”
Stereotypical House Character Strengths: Clever, resourceful
Stereotypical House Character Weaknesses: Naïve, foolhardy
Resources/Advantages: The House is fairly well liked by their commoners. The House has a lot of non-noble sorcerers on retainer.
Liabilities/Vulnerabilities: Framiss C’s territory is less wealthy than most of the other major houses. They also have less prestige and respectability than most of the other major houses.
Leadership Style: They are like emotional coaches that switch between effusive praise and verbal browbeating but they usually mean well.
Magical Aptitudes: No school of magic is really held as being better than the others.

-A noble house that has a long history and lots of priceless artifacts, but is now poor
- A noble house whose young master is rumored to be much older than they appear, and has headed the house for some time (that was the case but is no longer, it is why the house is now poor).

Spoiler: House Kovennoth

House Kovenoth

Once a prestigious founding House, House Kovennoth is now a shadow of their former glory. House Kovennoth back the losing side in the first two civil wars. Then they had a major scandal involving house members trying to use lichdom or vampirism to cheat death. In the third civil war House Kovenoth backed the winning side early but they suffered severe losses losing more nobles than any other house.

Heraldry: Majestic Multi-colored dragon with large claws holding a hammer
Motto or Slogan: Something about leaving a lasting legacy, not sure how to phrase it
Stereotypical House Character Strengths: Clever, shrewd, adaptable, subtle
Stereotypical House Character Weaknesses: ruthless, untrustworthy, cowardly
Resources/Advantages: Lots of powerful magical items. Many castles and buildings with permanent enchantments. Legacy of one of the four founding houses.
Liabilities/Vulnerabilities: Poor reputation, most of their land doesn't produce a lot of income
Leadership Style: Very concerned with "maintaining face." Flowery language and grand gestures hide insecurities.
Magical Aptitudes: Mild preference for illusion and enchantment magic. Extreme disdain for necromancy.

Not a Warden idea but this is a loyal knight style house.

Spoiler: House Gareth

House Gareth

Gareth was a bastard sorcerer that gained a court position from his great magical talent and reputedly a strategic genius. He also was good at brownnosing the nobility. Gareth got a minor hereditary title to pass on to his sons. After generations of excellent service, Gareth’s descendants got to become the first new house to be recognized beyond the founding four Houses. House Gareth’s member usually backed the winners in every civil war and gained a lot of land and prestige as rewards for their service.

House Gareth has always been a militant house making sure their sorcerers are skilled in battle magic and making sure their mundane militaries were well-trained and well-funded. While lots of Swynfaredian nobles can fight, a lot of them are not very good strategists, something House Gareth usually does well.

Gareth used to be able to balance conflicting obligations to all the major houses. In the past if the crown changed houses, Gareth was able to smoothly slide in as the military arm of the new regime. Now they have gotten enmeshed deeply into House Numaness. If House Numaness loses the crown, House Gareth will probably suffer a demotion in land and status.

Heraldry: Not sure yet
Motto or Slogan (optional): Not sure yet
Stereotypical House Character Strengths: Brave, shrewd
Stereotypical House Character Weaknesses: sycophantic
Resources/Advantages: Strong military, favor of the ruling house
Liabilities/Vulnerabilities: They are the prime target for House Namaness’ enemies.

The House rose from low status to high status from generations of hard work and attention to detail. The problem is that the House has been riding high so long that it’s starting to get complacent and soft, in the younger generation at least.
Leadership Style: Military style discipline
Magical Aptitudes: The House favors Invocation and Divination somewhat, but they do not actively try to cultivate or discourage any school of magic especially.

A noble house that is greedy and only cares about money, relatively young house of former merchants

Spoiler: House Manasch

House Manasch

House Manasch bought their way to legitimacy generation by generation marrying status rich cash poor sorcerers until they could finangle official recognition as a house. They are not the strongest house by any means but they have their finger in a lot of pies so they involved with almost every political move.

Heraldry: No idea, I'm still not sure what the younger houses would use as their heraldry. Theoretically a dragon sitting on a pile of gold makes sense but Manasch himself valued subtlety and probably wouldn't want his house sigil to flaunt the houses semi-illegitimate wealth.

Motto or Slogan: “The strongest magic is gold”

Stereotypical House Character Strengths: Shrewd, clever, thrifty, cautious, subtle

Stereotypical House Character Weaknesses: Miserly, arrogant, cowardly, fond of unnecessarily complex schemes.

Resources/Advantages: Wealth and connections from dominating the reagent trade. They have more access to divine magic than most other Houses.

Liabilities/Vulnerabilities: Land poor. Not very prestigious. The Office of the Arcane Registry views them as rivals since House Manash is trying to themselves up as a money lending institution.

Leadership Style: They act like tough mafia dons to their lessers. They like act obsequious boot lickers around their superiors.

Magical Aptitudes: Most Manash nobles focus on developing their mundane skills before their magic skills. Manash sorcerers usually focus on Enchantment, Illusion and Divination magic above all others. They normally avoid direct and flashy magic like Invocation and Transmutation.

A noble house who keeps to themselves because they don't trust people, probably because they have a terrible secret

Spoiler: Terrible Secret Rated G

We want to be rich

Spoiler: House Cefnor

House Cefnor

When I originally planned five founding dragons, not four, I was going to make one of the dragons an aquatic dragon but now I decided Swynfaredia was landlocked when it was first founded. Their coastline is the result of southern expansion.

House Cefnor is not the only house that has lands that border the sea (most of the major houses have a piece of coastal land now), but they are the only house that really loves the sea. House Cefnor believes that the future of Swynfaredia’s prosperity is in sea trade and perhaps even overseas colonies. If the other houses want to ignore the ignore sea power, that’s their problem, that just leaves more riches for Cefnor.

Their plan since their house founding is to avoid risks and not make waves, quietly building up power through sea based commerce.


Heraldry: Not sure. Maybe a dragon with a fish tail or otherwise obvious aquatic features.
Motto or Slogan (optional): Not sure what their official motto is, but their secret motto is “hide your strength.”
Stereotypical House Character Strengths: Dependable, pragmatic
Stereotypical House Character Weaknesses: Boring, secretive
Resources/Advantages: Ships. Cfenor controls a plurality of Swynfaredias merchant ships and a near monopoly on Swynfaredia’s warships.
Liabilities/Vulnerabilities: They have been so quiet and apolitical that the other Houses are sure they must be hiding something really bad. The House is the subject of lots of nasty rumors. The House elders have ironically ordered some of their young adults to get involved in political intrigues to allay suspicions but this isn’t working very well. The House is not very good at cloak and dagger politics.

No one in Cefnor knows this, but a House Selwyth and Gruffyl are already making contingency plans to frame members of House Cefnor if any of their dirty schemes are partially exposed.

Leadership Style: Slow and steady wins the race. Avoid unnecessary risks. As long as the house moves up not down, it doesn’t matter if the growth is slow.
Magical Aptitudes: They have a mild preference for Transmutation and Divination.

A noble house who keeps to themselves because they don't trust people, probably because they have a terrible secret

Spoiler: Terrible Secret Rated PG

We like undead. At least one of us is undead

Spoiler: House Selwyth

House Selwyth

Selwyth is a fairly unassuming lesser house. Much how House Gareth is viewed as the sidekick of House Numaness, Selwyth seems to be auditioning to be the sidekick of Goirsonad picking up a lot of their habits with regards to spy networks. They are more like a mini-me than a complementary partner.

Years ago, Selwyth’s patriarch, Mabon, decided to cheat death by becoming a lich (or maybe a vampire). Mabon read his history books and is aware that the exposure of Kovennoth’s undead members sparked a full inquisition. Mabon knows better than to use illusion magic to pretend to be alive. Instead he lets his living descendants run the show publicly while he directs them from the shadows.

As of yet, I’m not sure if Mabon is the only undead member of the house or if he has a small inner circle of undead relatives.

Mabon is a long-term thinker. He wants to help House Goirsonad dethrone House, so House Selwyth can replace House Gareth as the power behind the throne. Once there Mabon wants to gradually change the laws and cultural norms to make necromancy more fashionable generation by generation. Maybe in 400-500 years Mabon will be able to publicly control his house.


Heraldry: Not sure yet
Motto or Slogan (optional): Not sure yet
Stereotypical House Character Strengths: Not sure yet
Stereotypical House Character Weaknesses: Not sure yet
Resources/Advantages: They want to keep the full extant of their necromantic power secret so no marching hordes of skeleton warriors (at least not yet) but they have a wide variety of bound ghosts boosting their already impressive spy network.
Liabilities/Vulnerabilities: They are commanded by an evil undead puppet master. All vampires and liches eventually lose their sanity. I need to figure out what form the madness takes. My first thought was he has Darth Vader syndrome and kills underlings who fail him, but sorcerer heirs don’t grow on trees so Mabon cannot get away with that for long. Looking over the spell list I made, I see two spells that incapacitate foes non-lethally with pain. We’ll go with that. In fact he probably knows some higher level pain based magic that are not on the common spell list. He is probably an emotional sadist too.

Leadership Style: Mafiaesaque style similar to Goirsonad only even more secretive
Magical Aptitudes: Necromancy of course but publicly they claim to be trying to be jack of all trades with regards to the magic schools.

A noble house who keeps to themselves because they don't trust people, probably because they have a terrible secret

Spoiler: Terrible Secret Rated R

We are nightmare fuel!

Spoiler: House Gruffyl

House Gruffyl

Centuries ago, if two dragon blooded sorcerers have a child, there was about a 10% chance the child will be a squib. Nowadays, if two dragon blooded sorcerers have a chld, there is about a 50% the child will be a squib. If the blood of sorcerers runs too thin, Swynfaredia’s power base will collapse and they will either fall to an external invasion or a peasant uprising.

House Gruffyl wants to find a way to increase the chances that sorcery breeds true figuring this will save all of Swynfaredia. And if House Gruffyl can monopolize the secret of breeding true sorcerer this will catapult them to either the throne or the power behind the throne.

They are not sure how to do this so any and all avenues are being explored. Many seek to curry the favor of Greymoria and they are doing this via human sacrifice and quietly murdering Mera worshipers might work. Also, a few of them are turning to Maylar worship offering similar brutal offerings to gain his favor.

Some are trying to combine sorcererous genetic lineage with warlock pacts and these Swynfaredians are seeking to win the favor of any Fair Folk they can contact, again nothing done to win over the Fair Folk is taboo.

Some of them are trying to capture spirits or Fair Folk and cannibalize their power.


Some of them are trying to harvest fertility reagents, often involve magically processing sentient subjects into reagents.

Some of them are capturing squibs and working on experimental ways to brutally awaken their “latent sorcery.”

Some of them are using the scientific method to see if certain magical events present at a child’s conception increase or decrease the likelihood of breeding sorcerer. The test subjects did not volunteer to be part of these breeding attempts.


Heraldry: Not sure yet
Motto or Slogan (optional): Not sure yet
Stereotypical House Character Strengths: Not sure yet
Stereotypical House Character Weaknesses: Not sure yet
Resources/Advantages: A relatively small house, they play good politics and have avoid making enemies in the other houses.

Liabilities/Vulnerabilities: They have to constantly cover up their murders and kidnappings.

Leadership Style: Supervillain
Magical Aptitudes: Any magic is potentially useful but Transmutation is the most commonly used, especially with the experiments on Squibs

I think I have enough Houses to cover a wide variety of story, but I'm open to adding more. There are probably other minor houses but most of them are just non-remarkable vassals of the larger powers so they don't technically need to be developed in detail.

I'll see if anyone has any feedback so I'll wait a bit. The next post will probably be cover how these various Houses are likely to respond to Swynfaredia's tentative plan to invade Fumaya.

The short version is that the Queen believes Swynfaredia needs a external foe to focus the various houses against, so the houses don't eat each other.

@Warden you are my go-to guy for thoughts on heraldry. Did this trigger any ideas. I'm still not sure how to differentiate Swynfaredian heraldry.

 

A tale of two border baronies

These two baronies fit the stereotype outsiders of the border baronies. In all likelihood these two baronies are going to transform into each other fairly soon.

Kingdom of Mateoreino
Tentative Geographic Assignment: 4
Basic Concept: Warlord's personal fiefdom
History: Mateo the was a brigand leader hailing from the dregs of Kantoc's society who marched into an unstable Border Barony that was disorganized and unable to defend itself against goblins and other creatures in the woods. Mateo rode in, "liberated" the realm and applied a very harsh order.
Government Style: Mateo and his handpicked cronies live like bandit kings and barely leave their subjects enough food and supplies to live. Laws are whatever Mateo says.
Character of the Realm: Brutal oppression
Religion: The realm has no official religion, but a Tester of Maylar is part of Mateo's inner circle.
Challenges: Mateo and his cronies are bleeding the realm dry. Under the yoke of oppression, Mateo's citizens are not very motivated to work hard so the realm is getting poorer by the year.

Barony of Demos
Tentative Geographic Assignment: 9
Basic Concept: Fledgling democracy
History: A popular uprising overthrew a tyrannical Baron and the people of Demos swore never again, creating a legislative council.
Government Style: Chaotic town hall style democratic meetings with a lot of shouting and arguing. There is a small elected council and the commander of the militia is elected by popular vote.
Character of the Realm: Busy and industrious but chaotic with an air of optimism.
Religion: Demos has official religious freedom. Mera and Zarthus have a few clergy here.
Challenges: The leaders, bureaucrats and soldiers are all fairly inexperienced and the citizens have a habit of complaining and second guessing their decisions a lot. The civilian militia is pretty disorganized and is motivated by personal loyalty to individuals lacking a true chain of command.



The Border Baronies map has six empty spots now. And of course I can play musical chairs. When I get around to writing my novel, the protagonists are going to come into contact with 3-5 Baronies so I'll probably need to rearrange things so the Baronies I want story wise are geographically linked.

 

Math is fun....sort of. (Calendar edition)

I have been toying with Scarterran Calendars.

So I have finalized two calendars and I cannot decide between the two so I am saying they are both used. I'm sure that won't irritate readers or players

Essentially the Zodiac calendar is for figuring out religious holidays (with lots of exceptions) and the Agricultural calendar is for figuring out what work needs to be done.

Zodiac Calendar

The Zodiac calendar has nine 40-day months for each of the Nine plus a 5-day pseudo month ironically dedicated to Turoch that coincides with the Divine Rebellion.

1-Month of Maylar
2-Month of Mera
3-Month of Korus
4-Month of Nami
5-Month of Greymoria
6-Month of Khemra
7-Month of Zarthus
8-Month of Hallisan
9-Month of Phidas
10-Month of Turoch

Agriculture Calendar

The Agricultural Calendar has twelve 30-day months plus a five day pseudo month that coincides the Divine Rebellion called "the Nike" (Nike was the Greek word for victory).

1-Month of Afternike (the month after Nike), harshest winter month

2-Month of Horning (the month where deer and antelope have the most prominent horns)

3-Month of Stirring (it's starting to warm up and animals are begin to stir in preparation for Spring).

4-Month of Verdance (official first month of Spring, most planting occurs in this month)

5-Month of Afterverdance (self explanatory)

6-Thrileches (month of three milkings. Pasteur lands is good so cows and goats give more milk)

7-Month of Embers (it's starting to get warm)

8-Month of Midsummer (self explanatory)

9-Month of Hayweed (late Summer, time to collect the hay)

10-Month of Harvest (pretty self explanatory)

11-Month of Blooding (winter is coming, time to cull some livestock, both so you have fewer livestock to feed and so you have enough cured meat to last the winter)

12-Forenike (the month before the Nike, winter has begun in earnest)

13-The Nike (5-day pseudo-month)

The five days at the end of the year, whether you call them "the Month of Turoch" or "the Nike" are the coldest five days of the year. They are also considered unlucky days.

Work usually stops and people hunker down with their family. A lot of prayers and supplications are made and in some places, ceremonial reenactments of the Divine Rebellion are performed.


I used an Excel spreadsheet to plot holidays and important dates on it and mark the Stellar Days and Tween Days. Stellar Days fill the same niche as the solstice and equinoxes in the real world.

Because it's a spreadsheet I can plot dates against both calendars so I can say the Autumn Stellar Day is on the 31st of Zarthus/1st of Harvest

Just for fun, I plotted it against our 365 real world calendar. I thought the real world dates would be very similar to Scarterran dates or something very similar like "just shift the dates 10 days", but that is not the case. Because our real calendar has unequal months and my winter solstice equivalent stretches across five days, it's weird.

The Winter Solstice is only six days off of the real world calendar but most of the Tween days like Halloween are 12-15 days off. Weird.

Anyway, assuming my friends ever meet again either because of the Covid vaccine or video conferencing, I don't plan to make my players learn the calendar. I will just say things like "it's late autumn" and occasionally bring up relevant holidays.

I guess since Nilen, my future novel protagonist is going to be having an adventure with large parts of it cross country, I need to figure out if I want it to be in Spring, Summer, Autumn, or Fall.

I may or may not have the necromancer villain try to time his master villain plan for a holiday. Either the month of Turoch (late December) or on Scarterra's Halloween equivalent which would be Hallisan 36/Blooding 16/November 12th or on Greymoria's apex day (Greymoria 20/Thrimlich 30/June 29th. Or I could arbitrarily pick a random time.

The spreadsheet is handy for me figuring out what the weather would look like.

 

All the celestial bodies do revolve around Scarterra.

Plotting Holidays on my calendar

On the religious calendar the 1st of the month is the Primus of the month. It is not really marked with a holiday but it does signify a time when the local priests of whatever deity is presiding over that month get more aggressive with the collection plate.

The 20th and 21st usually mark one or two day holiday called the Zenith of ______ or the Apex of ______ that is usually a celebratory holiday.

The 39th and/or 40th marks a one or two-day holiday called the ______'s Solace that is usually a somber reflective holiday.

Holiday's marked with an asterisk* are not always on the same day in every year and every place. The date is only approximate.

The following holidays are holidays that are recognized in some form in most/all of Scarterra. Nearly every region has some of their own local holidays too commonly celebrating the birth of their nation, historically important military victories, the death of local heroes, the local prince's birthday, among other things.

Not every holiday is celebrated equally or even celebrated at all. You can sort of gage the general welfare of a realm by looking at their holidays. A prosperous realm is going to be able to have the time and resources to recognize more holidays than a struggling realm.


Hearth Day* Maylar 10, Afternike 10: Hearth Day is a holiday created by Mera’s Tenders that has been co-opted by mainstream Scarterrans. Traditionally held in either Afternike or Forenike, the purpose of Hearth Day is to enjoy a meal with family and friends around a nice warm fire on a cold winter night, give thanks for what you have, and tell a lot of uplifting stories. Some cultures memorialize their honored dead on this dead.


Apex of Maylar. Maylar 20/Afternike 20: Most Scarterrans just make some simple offerings and prayers and leave it at that, taking less than 30 minutes observing this. The Testers of Maylar make a big raucous party out of this with feasting, boasting, and ceremonial combat. All said, there is generally less emphasis put on Maylar’s holiday than the other eight apex holidays.


Maylar’s Solace Maylar 40/Horning 10: Observed almost exclusively by the Testers of Maylar. This is when they memorialize their honored dead. While technically not forbidden, it is bad luck to engage in challenges or military actions on this day. In some very violent cultures like the gnolls, this is the only peaceful day they know.


Imbolc (Tween Day): Mera 6/Horning 16: Imbolc marks the midway point between winter and spring. Not every Scarterran culture observes this. When it observes it usually involves a modest party and a procession of people with candles, torches or lanterns to symbolically chase winter away. This is the Scarterran equivalent of Groundhog Day and there are a variety of superstitions and omens to try to figure out if the spring is going to come early or late.

Staunch Mera and Korus worshipers will also ceremonially bless children on this day. Children typically lead the candle procession and wear symbolic woven crowns of grass.


The Great Hunt* Mera 15/Horning 25: The month of Horning is a popular time for sport hunters. Late in the month some rich people like to trump up their hunt with extra pomp and circumstances making a minor holiday out of it.


Mera’s Zenith Mera 20/Horning 30: Mera’s Apex is often called Water Day. In arid environments it is common to have rain dances or other rituals to encourage rain. Wise woman will try to douse for new well digging sites on this day. Of the coast, it’s common that fishermen offer praise and offering to Mera in exchange for a year of good fishing. In inland regions that are not very arid or very wet, this holiday is barely observed. It’s viewed as a good day for family gatherings and little more.


Mera’s Solace Mera 40/Stirring 20: Mera’s core followers generally put less weight on Mera’s solace than others put on the other eight solace days. It is common to memorialize those who died in the past year, bless those born in the past year, and maybe engage in quiet reflection but the Tenders don’t make a huge deal of this day.


Spring Stellar Day Korus 11/Verdance 1: The official start of Spring. The Cult of the Compact honors all the Nine on this day. Most Scarterrans just honor Korus briefly and move on with their days.


Korus’ Apex Day Korus 20/Verdance 10: This is the peak of planting seasons and Korus is praised by most farmers to try to ensure a good year of crops. Nomadic hunter/gathers celebrate this day as a fertility festival and like to have weddings on this time of year. Children conceived on this day are said to be especially hearty and strong. If the local Stewards tend to test their would-be new recruits all year long, but this is day that the hardest tests usually fall on.


Korus’ Solace Korus 40/Verdance 20: Korus’ Solace is mainly observed by Korus’ Stewards and lay people are rarely invited even if they are staunch Korus worshipers. The observances usually extend anywhere from three days before and after the day to ten days before and after the day. During this time, the Stewards of the Gift and the Stewards of the Dominion ritually meet up en masse and celebrate their shared ties. Even when the Stewards of the Gift and the Stewards of Dominion are experiencing a full-out civil war, this peace is observed. This is also the period of time when new recruits who pass all their tests are formally initiated.


Beltaine (Tween Day) Nami 16/Afterverdance 16: This marks the midway point between Spring and Summer. In general a very light-hearted festival with drinking and merrymaking. Nearly every Scarterran culture has some kind of fertility festival on this day and this is considered an auspicious day for weddings and betrothals. It’s also viewed as a good day to seal peace treaties and alliances.


Nami’s Zenith*/Freedom Festival Nami 20/Afterverdance 20: This day is often called the Freedom Festival. For the more stodgy nations and tribes of Scarterra, this is the one day they can let their hair down with a wild festival in Nami’s honor. Most less stodgy tribes actually prefer to have their Nami celebration outside of Nami’s month because Nami herself does not like to stay in her lane.


Nami’s Solace Nami 39-40/Thrimlich 9-10: This holiday is mostly observed by Nami’s core followers and ignored by almost everyone else. This is the one day where the Rovers are universally a somber lot. Sometimes they even stretch this for the entire last week of Nami’s month instead of just the last two days. The Rovers fast and suffer deprivation, take on ceremonial burdens and do other similar observances so they can better appreciate the freedom they usually enjoy. This is when the Rovers memorialize their honored dead.


Summer’s Eve* Greymoria 16/Thrimlich 26: Also, called the Day of Testing. This is the Maylar holiday most mainstream Scarterrans observe. Scarterrans undergo tests of strength and endurance to show to Maylar that they are strong and thus do not need to be tested with disease or strife. These demonstrations vary widely by region and culture including but not limited to: fasting, tests of endurance, athletic competitions, and non-lethal combat.



Greymoria’s Apex Greymoria 20/Thrimlich 30: This holiday is generally ignored entirely by most Scarterrans who are not among Greymoria’s core worshipers (given that the first day of Summer is literally tomorrow), especially if they are not involved in arcane magic in anyway. Reagents harvested on this day are usually more potent than those harvested on other days (the Tweens are also good days to harvest reagents). This is said to be an auspicious time to enact major magical rituals, consecrate magical items, or begin wizard apprenticeships. A disproportionately high number of young sorcerers hit magical puberty on this day manifesting their first accidental magic on this day.


Summer Stellar Day Greymoria 21, Embers 1: The first day of summer, the equivalent of the Summer Solstice on real world Earth. Most cultures observe this but not everyone observes this the same way. Khemra worshipers of course give the sun goddess praise on the start of Summer. Maylar worshipers often have a ceremonial hunt. Nami worshipers often have a party, Mera worshipers often have a family feast day. Some princes have a festival to provide free food and entertainment to the commoners. Other princes have a tournament to impress their peers and vassals among the nobility. The Cult of the Compact likes to make a formal worship of all the Nine (they take the Stellar Days very seriously). Some cultures like to have weddings or courtship on this day.


Greymoria’s Solace (Greymoria 40, Embers 20): Greymoria’s Children do not make waves on this day, lest they be too predictable to their many enemies. The Children often keep symbolic or literal trophies of enemies slain. They ceremonially destroy their trophies in secret rituals on this day, confident that they will get more. Then the Children will write down a list (or chant a list) of all the enemies they want to bring low in the next year, often complete with litanies of their targets’ many crimes against the Dark Mother.


Gift Day* Khemra 11, Midsummer 1: Gift Day is also called Commoner Day, Mask Polishing Day, Festival Day, Market Day, Circus Day, or Bread Day among many other names. Gift Day is a holiday originated by the Masks of Phidas that has been co-opted by mainstream Scarterrans. The god Phidas might be a tight fisted miser and so are his followers but Phidas is very concerned with his public image and so are his followers. On Gift Day the Masks go around giving out food, entertainment, magical services and other nice things free of charge.

The holiday has been co-opted by secular princes who often choose to sponsor a festival or some other gesture of generosity to the peasantry at some point during the summer Local princes often symbolically humiliate themselves in some way. Sometimes the king or local lord steps down and names the court jester (or a random lucky commoner) “King for a Day.” You can guess the prince’s general attitudes towards the little people by watching him or her closely on this day. Is the local lord smiling and laughing merrily or is his hiding his disdain under a fake smile?


Khemra’s Zenith Khemra 20, Midsummer 10: The main holiday for Khemra’s core worshipers and is at least passively observed by most mainstream Scarterrans. In additional to formal offerings and praise, this is viewed as an auspicious day to seal formal oaths be they oaths of fealty or oaths of marriage. This is also a common day to memorialize the honored dead. This is also when Khemra’s core worshipers feast and celebrate but many Scarterrans joke about the Keeper’s celebrations being very tame and boring compared to everyone else’s celebrations.


Midsummer Night (Tween Day) Khemra 26, Midsummer 16: This tween day marks the halfway point between summer and fall. In Scarterra this kind of combines the Celtic holiday of Lughnasadh with the modern holiday of Valentines Day. While the harvest day for staple crops is still a long way off, this is usually the start of harvest season for fruiting trees and shrubs. There is feasting and celebration and this is often viewed as a couple’s holiday both for formal proper marriages, cute puppy love courtships, and illicit affairs.


Khemra’s Solace Khemra 40, Midsummer 30: Celebrated almost exclusively by Khemra’s core worshipers. This is the time the Keepers make sacrifices, review their long term plans and memorialize their honored dead.


Zarthus’ Zenith Zarthus 20/Hayweed 20: This Zarthus holiday is observed in some fashion by most mainstream Scarterrans because it’s fun. There are usually parties, lots of drinking, athletic contests, craftsmanship shows, and lots and lots of music. Also, this has a Mardi Gras/Carnival atmosphere where carnal acts are more permissible than usual.


Autumn Stellar Day Zarthus 31/Harvest 1: The official start of fall. Not too surprisingly there is usually some kind of ritual of thanksgiving to Korus and the rest of the Nine for a bountiful harvest. Per usual, the Cult of the Compact like to honor all of the Nine of this day as per all the Stellar Days.


Zarthus’ Solace Zarthus 40/Harvest 10: Mainstream Scarterrans do not usually observe this day. Most of Zarthus core followers don’t observe this holiday either. The only reason I’m remarking on this at is that Zarthus’ most violent and revolutionary minded Lanterns really like to plan or carry out major attacks against their perceived oppressors on this day. This has led some brinksmanship and saber rattling. Most princes lock their doors and stay inside on this day, but the Masks of Phidas and the princes they support confident in the strength of their iron fists like to make a show of force on this day to dare the Lanterns to try to stop them. A common trick is to publicly execute some Lanterns on this day in order to lure more Lanterns into a trap when they try to rescue them.


Harvest Celebration* Hallisan 5/Harvest 15: This holiday has a different day from region to region. The key here is that most of the harvest is completed and a good portion of it is already cured/pickled/canned or whatever the method of long term storage is being used. Because people have a lot of food, this is a good day to have a feast. The name of the holiday may change and the date of the observance may move around but nearly every agricultural society has some kind of harvest celebration. Harvest Celebrations commonly praise many deities but this is largely viewed as a pro-Korus holiday because he is the agriculture deity.


Winter’s Eve* Blooding 1/Hallisan 21 or Blooding 30/Phidas 10: Winter’s Eve either marks the beginning of the time to cull the livestock for winter or the end of it. The first and/or last slain livestock of the season is dedicated to Maylar in somber ceremony. Other ceremonial offers are given. The Testers of Maylar tend to give very serious offerings here. Nomadic people honor this holiday differently making offerings to Maylar to ensure good luck in hunting.


Hallisan’s Apex Hallisan 20, Harvesting 30: This is the major holiday for Hallisan’s core worshipers and a fair number of mainstream Scarterrans observe this holiday. In militant societies there are likely to be athletic competitions, jousting tournaments, archery contests and the like. A lot of societies have craftsmanship contests and expos instead of or in addition to the physical contests.


Samhain/Day of the Dead (Tween Day) Hallisan 36/Blooding 16: This is tween day marks the halfway point between autumn and winter and is roughly analogous to Halloween. Greymoria’s core worshipers view this as their prime holiday with celebrations (which often have a macabre twist on conventional “celebrations”), ritual sacrifices, and long term plans made. This is a popular day for mainstream Scarterrans to make offerings to placate Greymoria’s wrath. This is also a popular day to honor the dead.


Hallisan’s Solace/Day of the Dead Hallisan 40, Blooding 20: This is a somber holiday for Hallisan’s core worshipers that glorifies sacrifice and memorializes the honored dead. In many, but no means all cultures this holiday has been co-opted into a mainstream holiday “the Day of the Dead” for all of the Nine where everyone memorializes the honored dead, or at least everyone that practices filial piety.

Careful readers may notice the Day of the Dead was listed twice. This was deliberate. Generally regions and cultures that really hate and fear Greymoria tend to have their Day of the Dead celebration on the 20th and cultures that are pro-Greymoria or at least ambivalent towards Greymoria tend to have their Day of the Dead celebration on the 16th. Ecclesiastical politics at its finest.


Phidas’ Apex Phidas 20, Forenike 10: This is the main holiday for Phidas’ core worshipers and this is observed in some fashion by most mainstream Scarterrans. Phidas is placated with praises and sacrifices (usually symbolizing wealth) and Scarterrans try to get Phidas’ blessing for good luck and prosperity.


The War Against Darkness* Phidas 30, Forenike 20: Zarthus’ followers are called Lanterns because they decorate their temples with lanterns and use lanterns in many religious services. This is the biggest and most important lantern-based holiday where Zarthus’ core followers (and many mainstream Scarterrans) have a big night procession with singing, prayers, and chants to symbolically ward off the darkness with connotations that they need to be vigilant against all hidden evils everywhere. This holiday has been put in the middle of Phidas’ month on purpose.


Phidas’ Solace Phidas 40, Forenike 30: This holiday is observed exclusively by the Masks of Phidas and no one else. Everyone else is getting ready for the Nike/Turoch Festivals. This is when the Masks really become villain clichés having secret meetings and hatching complex schemes wearing dark robes in secret places complete creepy chants.


The five days of the Month of Turoch/Month of the Nike have traditional things associated with each day based on what supposedly happened during the Divine Rebellion. Scarterrans don’t always use the same sequence of events, many prefer to have their big party on day five rather than day three.

Technically these five days are collectively the Winter Stellar Day. The Cult of the Compact really likes to push polytheism on the Stellar Days but they don’t need to bother during these five days. Since the story of the Divine Rebellion is told over and over again, nearly every Scarterran is a polytheist on this day.


1st The Poisoning of Turoch: For most people this day is spent in somber reflection and/or fasting. There is often a wake for all friends, loved ones or members of the community who died in the last year.


2nd Charge of the Dragons: Major accomplishments of the last year are recognized. Major goals for the next year are announced.


3rd Death of the Traitor: the turning point of the battle against Turoch. This is where feasting and partying tends to occur.


4th Turoch’s Last Thrashings: While this was when the Nine probably spent most of their energy, this day is traditionally spent recuperating from the night before.


5th Death of Turoch: Ritual re-enactments of the Rebellion are the most common form of celebration (though they can be done on any or all days). Those who take the annual zodiac seriously make a ritual out of this, thanking the deity who presided over the last year and welcoming the deity presiding over the next year.

 

The Storied History of Border Barony Number 11

There is a joke that every time you visit one of the Border Baronies, it has a new government since the last time you visited. That's an exaggeration but the longest continuously governed Border Barony is the Barony of the Dead. It's not really a nation like the others though so it doesn't count.

After the Barony of the Dead, the longest running single government is a four generation long human dynasty. Silfûrhëim is almost as old, but the original elf ruler is still alive though he is old. This technically counts as a first generation Baron. About half of the Border Baronies, the elected representative or the feudal lord was part of the force that conquered, usurped, liberated, or revolutionized their fiefdom directly.

There are some seventy year old farmers that have never moved their farm but they have six or seven separate lords in their lifetimes.

Spot 11 typically has it's governments typically last between 50 and 100 years. That's actually better than average for why is spot 11 a big deal?

First we are going to establish what spot 11 has. Spot 11 has modestly productive farmland, fairly rich reagent harvesting opportunities, and most impressively an underground river system that links all the ponds and lakes. They have the richest freshwater seafood if not in the entire world, certainly the most tasty fish in the landlocked Border Barnies.

The Border Baronies boast that they were the only region in West Colassia that was never conquered by Mordock the half-orc or by the Elven Empire's expansion. Technically, Mordock never managed to conquer any land here.

Year 1055, Mount Gunabad

When Mordock was still alive and ruling his empire, but he was sick and a few years from dying, one his orc lieutenants, we'll call him Gunabad, conquered a piece of the Borderlands outright. He held in Mordock's name but he had full autonomy to rule this as he saw fit and Mordock himself never came near the fiefdom which was unusual because he loved to tour his holdings, but again he was sick and dying at this time.

Gunabad was an unusual orc. He was happy being part of a barbarian horde, but he thought if orcs were to truly advance, they needed to take up farming. When Gunabad had a fiefdom of his own, this is exactly what he did.

Other orcs used farms before but they relied on enslaved humans to do most of the actual farming. Gunabad did not want to do this. He had been bullying and/or bribing human farmers to share their trade secrets for over ten years in preparation. He also copied the feudal model he saw humans use. When he moved in and conquered this region, he killed all the surviving humans.

Gunabad's Successfully grew enough food to feed his people and produce a little bit of tax revenue for Gunabad and his chosen vassals. Ten odd years later, Gunabad died passed the realm on to his son and then his grandson Gunabad III, though he had a very short reign.

Year 1105, Barony of León

Eventually the other Border Barons decided they did not want to have orcs for neighbors. Some baronies sent a few invading forces to remove the orcs by force but the orcs beat them every time, given that they were not very organized.

The emerging dwarf kingdom of Stahlheim decided they would use their growing trade revenue to play politics and fronted the gold to sponsor a bunch of mercenaries and adventurers to destroy the Gunabad Barony, establishing a clear chain of command so the many people who wanted the orcs gone were now organized.

The coalition moved in and slaughtered every orcish man, woman, and child much like Gunabad I did fifty years ago. A new feudal government promoting most of the most charismatic adventurers in the coalition to the new nobility.

Year 1153, New Stahlheim

A Maylar cult of orcs claiming to be descended from survivors of Gunabad moved in quietly and used Hex magic to infect the entire populace with nasty diseases. Then they mopped up the survivors. The dwarves of Stahlheim mobilized to help sending soldiers and magical healers, but by the time they got there, over four fifths of the humans were all dead.

Stahlheim established the area as an official colony. They invited humans to settle in and once humans made up the majority of the colony, the King of Stahlheim appointed a trusted human to be his direct vassal giving him full autonomy to run the realm as he saw fit asking only a small tribute in return.

Year 1250, Barony of Dragons

A mated pair of dragons were relaxing after a good meal and reminiscing about the good ol' days when their ancestors ruled the world.

"Honey, you know what would be a hoot?"
"What are you thinking?"
"Let's conquer a Border Barony honey!"

So they did. They killed every dwarf and over half of the humans, set some kobold lackeys to run the day-to-day affairs of the realms and enslaved the surviving humans. Over the next 76 years, twenty-three parties of adventurers tried to slay these tyrannical dragons only to get eaten.

Year 1326, Contunair Republic

The twenty-fourth atempt to slay the dragons succeeded. The adventurers also killed or drove out all their kobold lackeys. They invited settlers and formed a republic. They did not know that among the settlers invited in, a number of them were infernal cultists.

Year 1422 Barony of Arianna

The cultists summoned a bunch of Void Demons and offered up the populace as their food. The Void Demons destroyed them and then consumed the cultists cause it's kind of what they do. The Void Demons then spread out and began attacking the rest of the Border Baronies causing a lot of havoc.

After ten years of this, the Masks of Phidas raised a small army and rode in to clear out the demons. Not wanting something like this to come back, the Masks garrisoned the area, eventually invited settlers in and established a Swynfaredian squib to be their puppet Baroness.

Year 1536

As is often the case with Mask run realms, it was fairly oppressive, but this was beyond the pale. The original Baroness' grandson was a rapacious sadistic monster. One of the survivors of his tyranny rose against him and was a little overzealous in his vengeance killing everyone in the Baron's employ.

The Evil Baron was dead but the rebel forces took heavy losses, so the Masks thought they could still win this and establish a new puppet. They sent reinforcements. Then the rebels called in reinforcements and so on and so forth until over half the population was dead as collateral damage and most of the farms were left fallow. Eventually the Masks and Lanterns got tired of fighting over this insignificant mudhole and both sides withdrew.

After about ten years later, the survivors rebounded well enough that they needed some form of government. They were very tired of hereditary absolutely monarchs and high minded republics.

Somehow this lasted over a century.

Year 1566 The Coven of Fish

An unusually powerful Aranea sorceress in charge of a colony decided she wanted to drink human blood every day instead of just on special occasions.

She figured this barony was isolated and poorly governed, so they wouldn't be able to do much about random citizenry being mysteriously abducted.

The Aranea got away with this for the better part of two years until a group of adventurers figured out who and what was causing the disappearances and rallied the people in an anti-Aranea crusade. They killed a dozen aranea.

They didn't get the local queen and she vowed vengeance for her lost kin. They also didn't immediately catch on that many aranea can take on human form and the barony was riddled with spies.

The aranea retaliated and killed scores of humans. The locals eventually realized that there were aranea hiding among them and they worked to oust the monsters in sheeps' clothing from their midst.

Aranea are clever and a lot of them are illusionists. For every aranea the locals rooted out and killed, they executed at least ten innocents.

Between the aranea attacks and witch hunts, about half of the population was dead before they managed to find the aranea queen and kill her, at which point the few surviving aranea cut their losses and scuttled away.

With half the population dead and almost all their professional soldiers dead, the barony was destroyed by opportunistic goblin raiders shortly thereafter.

Assorted outside forces destroyed the goblins fairly easily. When humans wanted to come back, they had to put someone in charge. A coven of wizards reluctantly stepped in.

Year 1660 The Barony of Nothing

Oh no, the head of the coven is secretly lich an he's gone mad with power! The lich and the rest of the coven fought dragging in the populace. The lich relied on undead hordes so he massacred huge numbers of peasants to be his zombie army. By the time he was defeated, most of the populace was dead.

No one was eager to resettle this area. The area was basically left empty for well over fifty years. Not completely empty. There was some hermit fishermen but no one really made a serious go at farming and the hundred or so asocial loners eking out a living here didn't want or need a government.

1716 Barony of Love

A princess in the kingdom of Talama fell in love with her bodyguard, but she was pledged to marry someone else for political reasons. Oh no, what will these starcrossed young lovers do?

In turns out forbidden love was the least of their problems. Swynfaredia invaded and conquered Talama. As an heir to Talaman royal crown, the princess life was in dangerous. Her lover heroically saved her from Swynfaredian assassins and the two lovers fled west with a few hundred commoners who were displaced by the Swynfaredian invasion. The two lovers settled in the Borderlands and declared themselves Baron and Baroness and ruled wisely and justly.

1820 to the present The Barony of Bats

A century after it's founding, the Barony of Love had fallen from it's high ideals. Some think that maybe Swynfaredian spies sewed dissent but the current Baron was neither especially wise nor just. A series of bad years for crops didn't help much and a coalition of orcs and goblins moved in and killed everyone. There goal was to create an orc and goblin agricultural fiefdom like Gunabad did ages ago. Like before, the human populace was slaughtered utterly.

When Gunabad set up his fiefdom, the dwarf people were scattered and weak. In 1820, neither Meckelorn or Stahlheim were willing to tolerate an orc fiefdom right on their door step.

It took them two years to organize the military force, slowed by Stahlheim and Meckelorn bickered a lot over the details. The orcs and goblins were better organized then the dwarves thought. What was supposed to be a crushing victory in 1822 for the dwarves became a fairly costly victory, but they never the less eradicated the orcs and goblins, every man, woman, and child.

A crusty dwarf historian looked up the archives and pointed out that orcs ruled the area before, so neither dwarf nation wanted to abandon the realm entirely.

Neither Stahlheim or Meckelorn then argued over who should control the area. Neither power could agree on whether control of the area was a privilege they wanted to deny the other kingdom or a burden they wanted to pawn off on the other kingdom.

Most kallazotz, especially the kallazotz attached to dwarf nations, are content to live underground forever, but a few of them are always curious about the surface world. A faction had been clamoring for a mass return to the surface world en masse, and this seemed like a golden opportunity. Plus, kallazotz like to eat fish and this place has a lot of fish. So a bunch of batmen now run the area. I'm sure @Warden can help me come up with a cool Mesoamerican name or the area but the colloquial name for that the other Border Barons use to describe this realm is the "Barony of Bats."

While the lion's share of the kallazotz settlers are from Meckelorn and very few from Stahlheim, The Barony of Bats is technically a fully independent realm under the rule of a kallazotz war hero who the other bats decided would be the first true kallazotz noble. I'm not sure if he should take some kind of Mayan title or just go by "Baron" or "nanananananana Batbaron"

It's also going to have a minority of dwarves (mostly soldiers helping defending the realm) and a few human settlers (that are there to help the kallazotz who don't have much experience with farming.

So what makes this Barony so special?

Lots of Border Baronies change governments and names many times.

Have you noticed the pattern?

Usually when one Border Baron usurps another it's relatively bloodless. The previous leader is killed or exiled but most of the commoners go on as they did before, they just give their taxes to someone else.

When the Border Barony Spot #11 changes hands, most of the populace dies.

TV Tropes used to call this The Bigger Bad, now it has the more boring name of Greater Scope Villain

Either there is going to be a dark psychic presence that subtly steers things towards massive death or there is going to be a sleeping monster that REALLY wants to be left alone so manipulates events to wipe out whoever shows up.

I like the idea of an ancient Scaraquan monster/villain being banished from the seas and imprisoned in a landlocked interior subterranean lake. Now it's lashes out at the creatures living above it's lake in frustration and spite. Maybe based on D&D Aboleths.

 

First off, did anyone read my post on Swynfaredian noble houses. I put a lot of time into that one compared to my usual posts here and no one responded

I do like symbolic names along these lines but the kallazotz occupying the area do not know about the sleeping evil. No one has compared history notes to notice the area has an unusually high death rate even compared to the rest of the Border Baronies because coups and revolutions are old news for the region.

The kallazotz in charge are probably feeling pretty optimistic, so they probably would not choose a sinister name. Unless they decided to name the region after their leader. Their leader is a war hero though he is not a heartless butcher, he fights for his people and his allies the dwarves. He could have a name with dark undertones. Maybe he has manage to pull of aerial decapitation of foes. The Rule of Cool makes that's a good combat move but realism, not so much.

Assuming I figure out a way to resume my active game despite the virus lockdown, I have this vague idea that if the PCs ever visit a dwarf realm I can have a bunch of curious kallazotz children pepper them with questions.

Once they figure out the gnome is a holy priest of the sun goddess, they would probably be intrigue. I can imagine something like.

Pup 1 "I've seen the sun eight times!"
Pup 2 "Idiot! He's a surface worlder, he's probably seen the sun hundreds of times!"

I think kallazotz that live underground might romanticize the sky as a place of wonder. Obviously kallazotz that live in the trees rather than underground take the sky for granted, but these are recent immigrants from underground. If they don't name the realm after their leader they probably invoke the stars, moon, and/or sun in their realm title. Given that the immigrants make up a more adventurous minority of the kallazotz community they are probably even more likely to romanticize the sky.

Ergo, I don't think names based on the Mayan underworld is a good fit (though there could certainly be subterranean kallazotz colonies elsewhere with those names).