As you may well have noted, I haven't been very diligent in updating my blog over the last few weeks. Part of that has been a hectic workload, but general life issues are as much to blame as anything else. In hopes of sparking some internal interest in getting back into the blog, I've decided to return to my personal World Consolidation effort. For the immediate future, I'm working specifically on the kingdoms in my Consolidated World, and will be writing up a number of them in a simple format so that I can gather it all together in one location.
For the moment, the template I've created to capture this information can be found below. It combines some elements from my Settlement data template with elements from my Interstellar Polity data template, and should give me sufficient information to capture the rudiments of a kingdom on a single page. Further work can be done on specific examples, but for the core of my Consolidated World, this basic template should suffice.
KINGDOM NAMEI contemplated adding a simple Rumor table at the end of the template, but then decided against it. I'm going to have a difficult time keeping each kingdom to a page as it is. Why add additional stress to the whole process by adding a mandatory Rumors table on top of the work detailed above?
Brief description of kingdom.
Capital: The capital city of the kingdom.
Population: Numbers and brief description of the kingdom's people and where they live.
Common Language(s): Languages commonly spoken within the kingdom.
Society: This section discusses the common mindset held by the general population of this kingdom, as an aid to Referees during gameplay and adventure design. This section should address both citizens and outsiders, if the roles are different.
Government: Who rules and how they rule. Also includes any publicly known political goals of the kingdom's government.
Diplomatic Relations: This section details the kingdom's general trends in diplomatic relations with its neighbors.
Trade & Commerce: Businesses and commercial drives for the kingdom.
Military: Guard, militia, and other defenses of the kingdom.
Major Settlements: Important settlements in or under the influence of the kingdom.
Major Organizations: Important groups in the kingdom.
Symbol: Description of the kingdom's symbol or flag.
Additionally, since the above template can also be used as a handout if need be, I should probably mention that I want to have a separate section in another part of my setting bible that includes major secrets in each region and such which can be discovered over the course of adventuring. If I were to include it above, I'd probably put it at the end. Sadly, I couldn't use the page as a handout if I did so, and I'm trying to be practical here.
Your thoughts on the template above would be appreciated. If anything, I'd rather err on the side of minimalism, just to keep the size of the workload reasonable. Any comments or suggestions you have will be given the consideration they are due.
With Regards,
Flynn
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2 comments:
Hi Flynn,
Glad to see you posting again! I like the template you've come up with. Is it worth noting some basics of the kind of terrain or geography present in the kingdom, or would that be left to show on a map?
I really like the idea of a separate section with secrets in it for the DM.
BTW, how's the MyD20 Lite Referee's Guide shaping up? ;-)
Good Morning, James:
Ideally, I'd prefer to note terrain and geography with a map, as that also gives me a map of the region to use for adventuring purposes. However, I could see an additional Environment section that starts with climate and common land types, and then has a sentence or three about local landmarks and geographic points of interest.
The MyD20 Lite Referee's Guide is moving sluggishly forward. I'll post a status update on that before the end of the week for you.
With Regards,
Flynn
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