Anyone have any tips for making interesting nations?

[Sayetsu]

(In a homebrew setting.) I've been putting off working more on my setting because I haven't any ideas besides basing some on real-world, Renaissance-era countries - which aren't very fantastical.

[JellyPooga]

There are two approaches to making an interesting culture; start at the top or start at the bottom.

Starting at the top, you create a ruler (or rulers) and extrapolate from there. Are they a sole ruler or is there a government? Do they rule with an iron fist or are they beneficient? How did they come to rule? From there you can determine what life is like under their rule and build the culture that way.

Starting at the bottom, you decide what the average person is like. What motivates them? Do they live in tribes or towns? Do they have particular religious beliefs or other cultural quirks? From there you can extrapolate the kind of person or people that rules them and other details.

[Skyblaze]

I mean, that's how a lot of fantasy writers make their worlds, they base them on real world stuff. Take a historic culture/state and fantasy it up. Historical buildings/groups, times of change in the country, how does magic effect it, etc.

Example: Game of thrones is 14th/15th century England, house names and all. Lannister = Lancaster, Stark = York.

[the_brazenburn]

Use a version of our own world. Change the countries' names, but keep them recognizable. For instance, an average campaign could start in Celtica (Britain), a land made of two islands. The smaller island, as well as the north and west regions of the larger one, are populated by wild men who follow druids and worship the Archfey Cernunnos, while the southern part of the large island is a typical medieval "knights and castles" kingdom. The two are occasionally at war, but the PCs have to step in to help them fend off an attack from a particularly nasty clan of clurichauns (goblins). This campaign should take them to approximateky 4th level, where they find out about the evil fey (green hag coven) setting up the clurichaun attacks. Later, they might go fight the giants in Gallica (France), or organize a punitive raid against the orcs from Víkland (Scandinavia). This approach is especially good for people interested in history who might pick up on the Easter Eggs involved in such an approach.

[Nidgit]

I've had an idea for a warlock-centric nation that drives its power from summoning and binding lesser demons. The capital would be located on an ancient nexus between planes whom the royal line has sworn to protect and seal, lest a Demon Prince cross into the mortal plane again. But in recent decades, the king has allowed his mages and philosophers to tap into the rift and siphon power off to build a proper nation where magic and demonic servants are used for common public works.

Naturally, the king employs a highly trained force of former adventurers to hunt down stray demons and unauthorized summoners. A number of factions have conflicting interests against the king, including but not limited to: rival jealous/wary nations, disapproving religious orders, concerned sages, demonic cults, warhawking generals, and your standard political intrigue.

Another idea I've had: a neutral city-state located in an enormous cavern, defended by impregnable walls that have kept it independent. Loads of spooky spectral lighting and distant luminescent fungi that light up the ceiling. The Sisterhood of the Deep is the main power in the city, an openly creepy group that worships the giant, waveless lake in the back of the city. The lake actually connects to a series of underwater chambers where a pair of aboleths lurk, slowly brainwashing the city and everyone in it.

[Specter]

Definitely come up with holidays and traditions for saints, seasons and achievements of the nation. That way, you can immerse players in the lore by having parties and celebrations.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I tend to come up with a theme, a flavor, and a quirk.

Theme is often a cultural or governmental pattern. One nation is council-based. All the way down. My design for that one was "multi-racial, guild-based oligarchy." Another was "this one's a monarchy dominated by dragonborn." A third was "rigid hierarchy with a thing for snakes." A fourth was "godless hippies".

Flavor is the real-world culture I pull from for architecture, dress and language. Usually depends on the climate. My "rigid hierarchy" nation is jungle and pulls language (naming, mostly) and architecture from Khmer (Cambodia) with a side flavor of Mayan pyramids.

Quirk is something that will complicate the characters lives. The council-state is heavily bureaucratic and traditional. The rigid hierarchy has castes and some racial issues. The hippies don't use metal and are atheists (more precisely, they acknowledge the gods' existence and power but don't feel the need to worship them and instead practice druidic shamanism and ancestor worship). The dragonborn nation doesn't have any humans--it's dragonborn, orcs, and goblinoids (but friendly).

One caution--leave blanks. Let things develop as needed based on the events of the play (but then write those down so you can be consistent later). Often I've found myself portraying things differently (in a good way!) than I had planned--flexibility is important.

[qube]

I would work from a historical perspective.

make a simple world, lets sa 1000, years before, and slowly work your way up.
- Small empires get eaten by larger ones
- small empires band together
- large empires are at all out war.
- huge empires crumble.
- empires where the rules has multiple hairs might be spit in two (or 3 or pieces); faily or unfairly
- add in world effects (dragon, vulcano's whatever float your boat) to make it even more dynamic

Even at first glance, if it doesn't feel magically at first ... the more you think about the history, the more you'll be thinking about them; and the more you will have cool ideas for adding a twist here or there.

[Sigreid]

I start with how civilized or wild and dangerous the territory of each nation is. Cultures tend to form in response to needs imposed by their environment. For example, a nation in a wild Forrest nation is going to most likely be a harsh and violent land where courage is paramount. A nation that is primarily developed breadbasket type country will likely focus on hard work and getting along as there are few direct threats.

[Sayetsu]

Wow, you guys replied fast. Thanks, all!

[Aett_Thorn]

Wow, you guys replied fast. Thanks, all!

Also, don't forget to think about dominant races that the cities/nations will be made up of, or partnerships between races.

A Human/Elf nation would likely be run a lot differently than a Dwarf/Gnome nation. A nation that is purely one race is going to behave differently than a nation that is made up of communities of many different races.

[2D8HP]

My favorite new "setting books" are for the 7th Sea game, which includes re-named and re-fluffed (https://stickybunton.com/2016/06/01/revisiting-7th-sea-second-edition-the-setting/) the nations of Europe (which are still recognizable in their new clothes), with additional fantastic elements. I haven't read the rules much, but 7th Sea's setting is impressive, and I think worth looking into, totally worth stealing being inspired by.

[Vogie]

Find interesting key aspects of each nation that can't or won't be replicated by the others for various reasons. Then have another nation that's basically the opposite. That way you start off with a conflict of minds, even one that's subtle and has nothing to do with wars.

For Example:

A nomadic-style nation and a nation that hinges around a single river and doesn't venture far away.
A Landlocked nation and an island nation.
A nation that eschews permanent architecture, and a nation that over-builds everything.
A nation that loves and embraces magic, and a nation that despises and forbids magic.


Just those 8 concepts can be mixed together and made to make a handful of unique nations, and then you can spin out the specifics by asking why the nations do that, how they react to others because of it, et cetera.

[JakOfAllTirades]

I would work from a historical perspective.

make a simple world, lets sa 1000, years before, and slowly work your way up.
- Small empires get eaten by larger ones
- small empires band together
- large empires are at all out war.
- huge empires crumble.
- empires where the rules has multiple hairs might be spit in two (or 3 or pieces); faily or unfairly
- add in world effects (dragon, vulcano's whatever float your boat) to make it even more dynamic

Even at first glance, if it doesn't feel magically at first ... the more you think about the history, the more you'll be thinking about them; and the more you will have cool ideas for adding a twist here or there.


This right here. Start with how the nation came to be, and go from there. The founding/creation of a country will tell you a lot about it.

Also, think about who founded it, and why. A nation's founders are usually important historical figures; creating legends about them, and maybe having national holidays and monuments dedicated to them, will make a nation seem fully developed.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm going to counter-point the "focus on the history" thing. I've found it's more important to know the ways the players can get involved than what happened in the past. For an RPG setting, a nation that's all locked down (everything specified) may not be a fun nation. I'd focus on what ways the characters can adventure there and build those hooks in from the get-go.

[JellyPooga]

I'm going to counter-point the "focus on the history" thing. I've found it's more important to know the ways the players can get involved than what happened in the past. For an RPG setting, a nation that's all locked down (everything specified) may not be a fun nation. I'd focus on what ways the characters can adventure there and build those hooks in from the get-go.

This. So much this. It's pretty safe to assume that the only history your players will be interested in, let alone actually read, is that which directly affects whatever adventure they're on or their characters. If people wanted to read fictional history, they'd be reading the Silmarillion, not playing an RPG.

[strangebloke]

I start with geography. That's often where you start, anyway. "This is a balmy island nation." "This is a Siberian nation." "These are mountain folk." "This is a powerful empire that crosses many biomes." "This is a rich port city" Etc. Doodle a map with the general regions. Throw a bunch of elbow maccaroni onto a sheet of paper and trace the outline to get your continent, then just partition off the land to each people group. Try to remember some things. For example an empire probably isn't going to prioritize conquering a frozen wasteland or a mountain range. A Siberian waste shouldn't be right next to a balmy island.

Establish a minimum and maximum level of tech in your setting. Do they have big clipper ships? Huge tiremes?

Then, decide how the geography impacts the people. Does this country have a lot of nice ports? Well, trade is probably really valuable then. People who captain ships are going to be very powerful. Are they hereditary nobles? Are they rich merchant-lords? How cold is the country? If it's balmy, the people are probably less punctual and enjoy a slower pace of life. (you have daylight to burn, and working hard will kill you in a tropical climate.) If these are mountain people, it's probably quite hard to maintain centralized rule, since it's so hard to move troops around and so easy to make an 'impenetrable' fortress.

Use the geography to develop an idea for the nation's cultural institutions. What is their church like? What is the gov't like? What are their peasants like? What virtues are emphasized? What things are taboo? How tolerant are they? (in my settings, everyone is super racist. This isn't appropriate for everyone.:smallwink:)

Once you've gotten that far, you're basically there! A rough timeline of the last thousand years or so is usually pretty sufficient as far as history goes.

[Tiadoppler]

If your PCs have traveled a long way, have the local amenities, customs and flavor change accordingly.

Stupid random ideas:
A cheap meal is bread and fish, while rice and pork are luxuries for the nobility.
Traveling rations are: Lembas bread? Salted bacon? Dry rice and beans? Chocolate bars?
This land is extremely egalitarian, so exaggerated courtesy is seen as openly disrespectful.
This nation is based on a rigid caste system. Know your place, and use the proper modes of address towards your betters... and your inferiors. Being casual with a peasant, or even doing them favors, puts you on their level.
The food is cheap, but forgetting to tip the waiter will get you run out of town.

Add a couple weird laws:
It is legal to steal anything, as long as the absence is not noticed for an hour, and you inform the sheriff of what you stole, and how, before the end of the day.
It is disrespectful and illegal to hold your head above that of the statue of our leader/hero. Don't ride a horse or build two story buildings.
Any pickpocket can be redeemed at the temple for a full medical checkup.

Make the players curious about the society.

[strangebloke]

This right here. Start with how the nation came to be, and go from there. The founding/creation of a country will tell you a lot about it.

Also, think about who founded it, and why. A nation's founders are usually important historical figures; creating legends about them, and maybe having national holidays and monuments dedicated to them, will make a nation seem fully developed.

Not... really? I mean many nations don't really have a 'founder' of any significance. Even then, they might kind of hate the guy. France doesn't celebrate Napolean, or Robespierre, or Louis XIV. The Brits have decidedly mixed opinions about everyone prior to Queen Viccy.

Just because us Americans love George Washington so much...

It's better to just lay out a sparse history, and determine the current state of things in deep detail. "This country used to be a big empire, and now they aren't, but they still have the attitude that they're big and bad." is enough historical context most of the time.

[strangebloke]

Oh! if possible, involve your players. Let them write up how the caste system works if they want to have their character be from the place with the hyper-restrictive caste system. This makes them engage with the setting in a big way... although you may have to shut down some dumb ideas.

[Kane0]

What do you have so far? What are you looking for?

[Eric Diaz]

My 2c:

Let me put it this way.

I've written a 200-300 page setting.

Then I realized I had about 30 interesting pages.

Now my setting books are aiming at 30-50 pages.

So here is one example (renaissance Italy style) from my setting:

1. Name: Talasia

2. Population: something I probably calculated using real medieval demographics

3. History: colonized by an old empire, became independent through trade, population still call themselves heirs to the empire

4. Government: aristocracy

5. Great houses: Da Mosto deals with wines, Da Cernia with slaves, etc.

6. Culture and religion: the whole culture revolves around death and respect for the dead, and an overall sense of decay. They do not mess with necromancy because it is blasphemy, but they do dance with ghost on the carnival, wear skull helmets and celebrate life because the other side is grey and cold. The greatest philosophers are dead, the empire will never be great again, but at least their legions are still organized murder machines. They dream they if they accomplish great deeds, Death itself will whisper them the meaning of life before they pass into Oblivion. (more here (http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com.br/2017/08/the-empire-of-dead.html))

So, I figure nobody cares about 1-5 (would it be different if Da Cernia sold wines? No). But at least with 6 they can use something for their adventures, create a goal for one PC, etc.

So, even if you want to do "renaissance italy" or something, focus on WHAT IS DIFFERENT, INTERESTING, etc. This will make it fun to read. To make it USEFUL, focus on stuff the PCs are likely to interact with - not 2000 year old history (unless there are ruins).

[Kane0]

My current gameworld is a scribbled map with a half dozen major nations on it, each one detailed in a couple lines. Add a half page of stuff not specific to the countries and that was plenty enough for both me to DM and to pass to others in the group who wanted to DM.


World History: Multiverse started off as Chaos, three major Powers (Ao, Arigoth & Jaziran) came of it, took offense to it and molded it into what is now the known realms (babushka doll planar model) and populated it with all the familiar stuff. After a while each of the three disappeared in various ways and left their creation to their first created, the immortals (deities).

Deities: Bahamut, Moradin, Kord, Torm, Mystra, Kelemvor, Silvanus, Diablo, Cyric, Gruumsh, Tiamat

Humanoids: Split into three basic types based on blood: Blue, Green and Red. Bluebloods are reptilian, Greenbloods are goblinoid or otherwise 'monstrous' and Redblood are 'standard' humanoids. Any Bloodrace can interbreed freely within itself, different bloodraces are incompatible. Celestials, Fiends, Fey and other planar creatures can mingle with any bloodrace.

Nations:
The Ashmar Clans: Redblood purists, 9 Clans with a strict Caste based society and Oligarchy style of government. Known for their exclusive production of Mithantine alloy, a mix of Adamantine and Mithril.

The Kingdom of Nordock: Mixed race with majority redbloods, Feudal Monarchy society known for their strong trade relations, gnomish inventors (gunpowder!) and slavery.

The Taidan Isles: A loose society of mostly Greenblood ex-pirates, their home is the Unscryable Isle right in the middle of the largest ocean. Their navy is top notch and they hold the secret of Youthjuice (anti-aging potion). Culturally speaking they have developed extremely intricate Ritual Scarring practices.

The Bintusi Federation: Greenbloods of the Frozen South (other bloodtypes freeze down there), many small tribal societies functioning as a republic from a capital city hollowed out of a warmrock plateau. During the harsher times cannibalism has not been unheard of, but their infamy is mostly because their climate is perfect for Devilweed (halfway between Tobacco and Cannabis), which they gladly grow and export for clothing and food.

The Galacian Dominion: Previously the Tribal deserts of the Naiba'ra, this expansive area has been invaded and subjugated by radical redbloods. They are used to collect shapesand (like a super-convenient cement) while they gear up for war with the intent of taking over the continent. They are renowned for hiding their faces behind masks or helmets at all times.

The Darksteel Empire: A nation of Bluebloods that is a lot more open minded than it used to be, thanks to its newest Dictator (good aligned high priestess). They still love their Bloodsport (Bloodbowl!) but the practice has been reigned in a lot. They are also big exporters of fabrics derived from Serren (domesticated mutant gorgons that make great fleece)

There's a bundle of smaller factions and locations with interesting stuff happening, but those are the big picture kingdoms of the world.

[smcmike]

There isn’t anything wrong with building deep histories and elaborate structures into your nations, so long as you carefully avoid the mistake of expecting anyone else to care. Players generally have a hard enough time remembering the names of the NPCs they are actually interacting with, so expecting them to listen to a bunch of stuff that happened long ago is a good way to lose the table.

On the other hand, if you enjoy building that stuff, and think you can apply it with a light enough touch, it can be a benefit. The ideal is for the world to feel authentic and deep without requiring the players to ever go beyond the surface. There are ways to fake it, but actually building a deep world and sticking to the surface can work too.

This reminds me of something Umberto Eco said about his process in writing Name of the Rose, which was entirely on the grounds of a monastery. His dialogue scenes often involved the characters walking from one place to another within the monastery, so he used a map, and timed the conversations to coincide with the actual distances traveled. This sort of attention to detail is mostly invisible to the reader, but apparently the scriptwriters appreciated it when it was time to adapt it as a movie.


Also, while not every nation celebrates its past, the past is very visibility in most places you go. France has a weird relationship with Napoleon and Louis Xiv, but their monuments look over Paris. One or two famous kings or wizards from the past can help build a nation and make it feel lived-in.

[Kane0]

If I would have any tips to share they'd be:

- Steal ideas and adapt them to suit. Saves a lot of time and effort and you only need to mask it enough so your players don't make the connection
- Keep things short and simple if you can help it, unless your party love taking notes and remembering obscure things
- Don't overload a particular name with lots of stuff. One or two interesting tidbits (people, places, traits, etc) per name is far easier to track and work with
- Strong themes and patterns. It helps both you and the players keep on top of information and is really helpful when developing more stuff
- Focus on either the big picture or the little details, don't try to do both. Pick the one that fits your gaming style and stick to it.
- Taking familiar things and spicing it up with one or two changes is an easy way to make things new and fresh while also being easy to approach and remember
- Let your players do some of the work for you. If you're doing big picture let them fill in the blanks. If you're doing little details encourage them to put their tinfoil hats on and theorize. Then take the best of their ideas and run with it. This is a double benefit as it also makes the players feel more included and thus, invested.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If I would have any tips to share they'd be:

- Let your players do some of the work for you. If you're doing big picture let them fill in the blanks. If you're doing little details encourage them to put their tinfoil hats on and theorize. Then take the best of their ideas and run with it. This is a double benefit as it also makes the players feel more included and thus, invested.

I especially like this one. I often listen to them theorize and quietly erase what I had written and substitute when it fits better. That, or incorporate things one group does in the campaigns of others. There are several canon organizations started by expys of PCs. I say expys because they're working in effectively parallel timelines, but I coalesce the effects into the campaign world as they do them (where it won't cause issues).

[Tiadoppler]

As a DM, you should have a pretty good idea of the background/history/internal politics and foreign relations of the nations you create. Are they at war? Were they allied with another nation that tried to invade them? Are they in decline, at the peak of their power, or still expanding? Does their leader have an irrational hatred of magic?

Show. Don't tell.

If you read your DM notes to your players they will fall asleep, leave, or throw d4s at you. Let your players explore the society they're in, and ignore whatever they're not interested in.



If your PCs are getting quests from world leaders or nobles, don't let them be interchangeable. Give different leaders different titles to help them be memorable. President Maxwell would lead a different country than Supreme Generalissimo For Life Maxwell, who runs a different country from Lord God Incarnate Maxwell or Temporary Executive Officer Maxwell. Use titles other than King/Queen/Lord. Please.

[Honest Tiefling]

I think there's a lot of good advice in here, but I'm going to suggest the laziest route: If you have a group you are intending to run this game with, see if any of them like world building. I reckon you have about a 20% of encountering a player who will gladly show up with 5 pages of quick notes on their new culture for you to plunder.

But also remember:

1) There is no shame in just meshing two cultures together, particular if you lack information on one. Take your two favorite Renaissance era cultures and see if they blend!

2) Different social strata might not have the same culture, even if they occupy the same nation. Peasants and kings really don't interact much.

3) If you are in a corner mid-game, defectors from decadence/evil, rebels, new religions, and ethnic minorities always makes for a good deviation from the norm if needed.

4) Steal willy-nilly from the world building forums. Seriously, people put in a lot of work in those. It'd be polite to ask before stealing, but why do work when someone else has?

[8wGremlin]

Take a theme and run with it.

Imagine a nation where animate dead was fine and the government raised and controlled the undead for the betterment of the realm.

Undead powered mills, undead pulling carts, sewer cleaners. Etc.

Imagine a nation where the predominant race was winged tieflings, how would that differ?

[Dr. Cliché]

Imagine a nation where animate dead was fine and the government raised and controlled the undead for the betterment of the realm.

For anyone interested in exploring this theme further, I'd recommend checking out Planescape Torment. There's a group called the Dustmen who make contracts with people, basically buying the right to animate them as zombies/skeletons when they're dead. Appropriately enough, the Mortuary serves as their headquarters.

There's also this article:

http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2013/07/08/my-undead-are-different.



Imagine a nation where the predominant race was winged tieflings, how would that differ?

I really want to do this now. But only because I adore winged tieflings for some reason.

[Camman1984]

My favourite of my own homebrew nations has a capital which is built either side of a canyon a few hundred feet wide and deep. it is historically one large city but many centuries ago a huge argument broke out regards the use of magic and the kings sons fell out. one was strongly in favour of using magic for most things, the other favoured sweat and tears. when the king died he hoped to reunite his fractured family and gave each of them half of the city on the understanding that they played nice or there reign would be ruled as invalid and the government find a new monarch.

centuries on the descendants still rule and through natural migration of like minded people one side if the canyon is very arcane, the other much less so. the relationship is frosty but goes up and down depending on respective rulers with bridges being built and torn down as kings change. The canyon floor itself is a melting pot of people from either side and has become a popular meeting place for people from either side, leading to inns, brothels and markets popping up. it is colloquially referred to as the slums but is a thriving, energetic and metropolitan place compared to the more rigid upper city.

the two halves compliment each other very well, one side has lots of magical prowess but has become lazy and decadent, the other side have trade skills and strength, but the brain drain towards the other side has left them lacking in high quality education in some districts.

At the moment the two monarchs are getting along well and a new great bridge has been constructed across the canyon. but the queen of the magical side grows old and her eldest son is much less inclined to cooperate.

[Lonely Tylenol]

When I build nations, I like to first think about how my nation has solved the problem of food scarcity - you can’t build an empire on an empty stomach. Doing so, I have created two campaign settings and their driving plot principles:

The first was in 3.5e, in an E6, but otherwise high-magic, setting. The preeminent inventor of a prior generation (who was still alive because Gnome lifespans) stumbled upon resettable magic traps of beneficial spells, and it changes the entire game. You place a bowl down on a pressure plate and bam, instant food or drink. Place it on another, bazoom, it’s heated, and tastes just like you ordered. Eventually, every temple worth keeping around has subsidized free food for followers (and competes with others for worshippers), and soup kitchens and inns with food plates are on every corner. Population explodes, and the capitol struggles to keep up with production demand. Mundane items are made with Unseen Servant (and Servant Horde and Unseen Crafter, from Eberron), and supervised by those capable of casting, or at least using a wand of the above spells.

Eventually, the Minister of Magic gets an idea: train a production line from a very young age, where they are most susceptible. After all, you only need an Int/Wis/Cha of 10 to cast cantrips, and 11 for first-level spells, and that’s enough for most simple traps. The Minister then spearheads a program in secret to kidnap children from impoverished parts of the city and outlying areas and train them for mass production of basic traps and magic items, creating an illicit slave trading empire in the doing. When they are old enough to fight, they are trained to be military spellslingers and enforcers of state interests, and once their service is finished, they are released with enough money for a comfortable life, with one condition: speak up and die.

The poor, who are kept well-fed but otherwise ignorant, develop superstitions about missing children, and live in fear that monsters will take their next child away. They used to go to the guards and authorities, but they never took them seriously, and now they have hired investigators from afar to answer the question their own leaders could not.

The second was in 5e, using the generally relatively low-magic expectations of 5e. The Tarrasque could not be killed (ignoring that killing the Tarrasque is easier in this edition than ever...), but a group of legendary adventurers were able to stop it, binding it with an Imprisonment ritual and locking its mind away in an immortal prison of flesh. The adventurers realize that the Tarrasque’s regenerative properties allow anything carved from its flesh to grow back. Population explodes, but the adventurers become increasingly covetous of their food supply, and force conscription of a massive army to protect from outsiders, but also to subjugate the people and quell any rebellion.

Tensions boil to a head, especially when the city-state becomes critically overcrowded, until the leaders come up with a compromise: those who can afford to buy land title, and writs of apportionment (the promise of X number of butchers carving the Tarrasque for Y hours per week and giving you all of the resulting meat), you can govern your own settlement outside the walls without interference, and set your own rules, except:

- You may have no place of worship but the state Church (which also serves as an end destination for Tarrasque meat, which is ritually purified on-site)
- You may not harbor a military force but the state’s own (guards are OK; richer towns and towns closer to the capitol see a regular military presence; poorer and more distant towns rely on mercenaries and adventurers-for-hire on a per-job basis)
- You must never interfere with passage along the main roads through the town (the capitol uses the roads as their Tarrasque meat distribution network, and also to move troops, and, of course, for trade).
- Any spellcaster capable of tampering with the ritual (5th-level spells or higher) must submit to registry and fealty to the state, or be hunted down.

And then from there, I built individual towns and cities from scratch, each with their own problems operating within a microcosm. One city functions as an authoritarian magocracy, where city enforcers are given Wands of Magic Missile and Brooches of Shielding and near unlimited authority over the citizens; another, as a cash crop plantation city where a corrupt elite pocket all the shares of an impoverished working class; still another, a lucrative salt mining town (salt is in high demand with the state, as it is used as a preservative for meats traveling between towns) where the miners unionized to strike in protest of potentially fatal conditions deep in the mines, only to have the strike broken by an undead labor force consisting mainly of previously killed miners, at the hands of a state necromancer tasked with maintaining bottom-line production levels.

The campaign’s plot has little to do with the setting (it’s a sort of Looper-style time shenanigans hook where they have to prevent their own deaths, which they have experienced at the hands of a mysterious foreign invader through predestination), but as a sandbox, the cities and their problems act as an environmental backdrop for the overarching plot, and for providing things to do from town to town.

Quite certain Tippy had a hand in inspiring the first game with the Tippyverse, which is a good read for exploring world-building concepts based on in-world mechanics. The second I think is more of a generalized “what if?” that I’m sure has floated around these boards before, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Tippy had a hand in that one as well.

[Beelzebubba]

We do another thing at our table: each player is encouraged to contribute to the campaign world when they do their character origin. To paraphrase something I read in a forum thread about it a long time ago, "If you say your character comes from a long line of Elven Sky Pirates, them BOOM. The world now has Elven Sky Pirates. Color those in as much as you like, but we'll take it from there and they will be a part of some adventure sometime."

So far, three different players have designed their home nations, and they've been really interesting, and radically different from something each of us DMs would have come up with ourselves. They've sparked a few future story arcs also.

So, consider opening the act of building the campaign world to a collaborative process. You might be really surprised.

[Ratter]

(In a homebrew setting.) Renaissance-era countries - which aren't very fantastical.

WHAT!?! A place where there are underground worship groups because all religion is banned isnt fun? btw, I think religions are the best thing to base this off of, the way their chain of command is is very intricate and is perfect for a fake culture