Shattered World Societies

[Ravian]

So I'm trying to make a setting that's essentially composed of floating chunks of Earth ranging from miniscule islands to a few large enough for small nations. It's possible that the world was originally one piece, and was thus where humans evolved. Nowadays they have to travel by flying machines but most humans live in relative isolation from one another.

What I'm trying to figure out is what sort of societies would develop from this form of extreme isolation.

[brian 333]

The islands of the Agean allowed a great deal of diversity within the Hellenistic Age, but the much vaster Polynesian Islands were surprisingly homogenous considering the scale. Both had unique societies isolated for long periods of time from their cultural core groups, and either might give you ideas upon which to build.

The same people who built the Moai of Easter Island and the Stone Coins of Yap settled Hawaii. The farther apart these societies were, the more diverse they grew, while the closer they were the more homogenous they remained.

[Oracle_of_Void]

I would suggest studying Asian culture. They were generally isolationist in the past, but every time invaded their neighbors there tended to be some cultural sharing. So I would so that neighboring islands might have similar cultures from frequent invasion but further apart ones would be more different. Of course, what these cultures is like would be up to you. The standard way to make a fantasy culture is to take a real culture then transport it to your world and change the names and elements as necessary.

But in general, some islands would have a tribal sort of culture, others would be run by a despot, others might have some form of a republic.

[Valefor Rathan]

I think the big question to answer first is how diverse are the resources that the "chunks" have? Any group with fewer is probably likely to start raiding while the larger "chunks" may have more leisure time for pursuit of arts or science.

Just a thought. :smallsmile: