So no major updates today, at least as far as mapping goes, because I've spent the day working on the historical, political and cultural aspects of the world, mainly jotting down generalized notes to myself regarding one of the major political bodies, a bit of detail about various epidemics and some background information on how magic differs between the various cultures and/or races.
One of the things I really started to focus on was the history of the world, at least as far as the northern hemisphere is concerned. As far as northern history goes, it can be broken down into two major eras; those times before the Exodus and those times after the Exodus.
In brief, the Exodus was brought about by incidents that occurred in the area located around the Well of Purity (Well of the Golden Maiden). The end results of these incidents forced the humans (and several other races as well) to abandon the lands they had always known (the Old World) and seek refuge in a new land far to the west.
Over the course of 2500 years, humankind has slowly but surely regained some of the numbers they once boasted in the Old World. Now, however, they have to share the land with "Elves," "Dwarfs," and other folk of myth and lore. One of the major events that came as a result of the Exodus was the loss of a strong, central leader. Although the humans have always practiced a Parliamentary form of government, they have been unable to maintain it in a proper sense since arriving on the shores of the New World. This has led to bickering, border skirmishes and outright war between the human kingdoms as various kings and chieftens made grabs for greater and greater political power.
To facilitate developing a more detailed history for the northern realms of humankind, I settled on 16 major kingdoms and pulled up the Timeline Generator running it across a span of 2500 years for each kingdom. I'm correlating this data to create an overall timeline that shows significant events such as epidemics, wars and natural disasters. I'm also using it as a means of locating preliminary borders and trade routes by looking as infection spreads (for epidemics) and where common skirmishes and wars occurred. It's a bit painstaking, but is proving to be useful at the same time as some of the kingdoms show a "natural" tendency towards certain types of natural disasters (i.e. tidal waves, forest fires, earthquakes and collapsing mines) while others show a tendency towards more political posturing/warfare or epidemic disasters.
As it stands right now, I've identified significant epidemics that have occurred over the last 2500 years. By looking at which kingdoms these epidemics occurred in, I'm starting to get an idea of where some of the common borders and/or trade routes might be. Once I've correlated the skirmishes and wars, I should have an even clearer idea of where said borders and/or trade routes might be, and, as a finishing touch, by looking at the natural disasters, I should be able to identify which kingdoms are coastal, mountainous or located in/near major forests. Of course, I'll have to compensate a bit for the other sapient races, but, all in all, this information, along with the infection and/or mortality rates for some of these events should give me a very solid idea of how the population has spread over the course of history.
Again, I'm not spending hour upon hour working on this each and every day. One little step at a time seems to be working exceptionally well at the moment now that I'm letting all these little ideas work together instead of trying to maintain them as separate entities. For instance, I was struck, last night, with an idea for how magic is going to be handled in terms of the New World. The "Elves" practice two forms of magic, one being a ritualistic discipline form of magic (read that as Schools in terms of 2nd Edition AD&D) in which the "casting of spells" takes a considerable amount of time and has long-term effects. At the other end of the spectrum are more or less, innate minor enchantments (read that as Cantrips and low level spells) that can have an immediate and useful effect. Meanwhile, the "Dwarfs" practice a runic based magic that allows them to permanently enchant crafted items. As far as humans go, at least in the northern hemisphere, there are certainly divine (Clerical) abilities, but as for magic (sorcery, wizardry and so on), it is a relatively new thing and they, in typical fashion, have twisted and mutated it to better suit their shorter (and, sometimes, power hungry) life spans.
I realize this isn't really the right forum for posting this background information, but, if I've read other posts correctly, it seems that the forum that might be better for this sort of information isn't quite as active as this forum is. So unless you all feel that it would be better for me not to post this background stuff here, I'll continue to do so (as it develops) and readily welcome comments, criticisms and suggestions on how I might breath more life into this new project as a whole.
GW
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Originally Posted by Greason Wolfe
