Land of the Eleven Tribes

[LonewandererD]

Yeah those islands belong to the Truiet tribe and serves as the first line of defense against southern raiders. There affiliation with the tribes will be established later when i actually do the borders for real.

-D-

[LonewandererD]

(insert expletives here)

Due to an unfortunate error on my behalf I have lost the photoshop file for this map and so will have to start it over again . While I struggle to reclaim what i have lost, here is the practice map I made for towns and civilisations and stuff. Included is one town, one city, 2 keeps, 1 castle, farmland and several small villages, no roads as of yet. Still needs refining but my larger map comes first.

-D-

[Ramah]

Ouch. That's gotta hurt. At least you're getting straight back into it though, I'd probably mope around kicking things for days. Hehe.

[LonewandererD]

Yeah, the problem is that I won't be able to get back to it for a few days, I have work and my mouse has finally died. Might try a less strenuous map before returning to this one actually.

-D-

[Juggernaut1981]

Yeah those islands belong to the Truiet tribe and serves as the first line of defense against southern raiders. There affiliation with the tribes will be established later when i actually do the borders for real.

-D-

Okay, here comes a big pile of Geopolitics.

If the Truiet control the mouth of the river (via the islands) they will be able to charge whatever level of exorbitant taxes they please (without it being enough to cause any of the other tribes to outright attack them). It will also mean they should have a very strong navy compared to any of the other tribes (or at worst very impressive anti-ship tech) so they can control the river-mouth and shipping channels.

Based on geography, the Truiet should potentially be the most dominant tribe, politically. Even if they do not hold the "throne" they will be the strongest influencers of who does. Truiets should probably be viewed as the King-Maker tribe.

[LonewandererD]

While the Truiet are indeed one of the four strongest tribes they hold no major sway over the throne and neither they nor any other tribe may have claim over the Kaiga Throne. First, while the Truiet may have control over the sea trade lanes the three other great tribes have monopolised the control of Evelakaia's main resources notabely rice, iron, salt and Magice. Second, the Truiets control over the sea trade lanes are constantly being challenged by the other tribes (this form of challenge is political although it has rumoured that the D'Shin of Belphradunn may be conversing with casteless pirates), the Southern Raiders of Odalaia and the overwhelming power of the Zephyrn who are pushing their control over the trade lanes further north. Thirdly, there are certain merchant that are immune to taxation such as the leader of the Wandering Caste.

-D-

[Juggernaut1981]

I am not saying that "The Truiet claim the throne". What I am saying is "Nobody gets to be the King without the Truiet agreeing". Because when it comes down to it, it wouldn't be hard for them to let the ships of a bad ruler get destroyed by Pirates while they carefully protect the ships of an ally.

Don't assume people play politics nicely.

If you control the trading, you control the value of commodities and resources. Via the shipping paths (the only credible export path based on this map and their apparent isolation), the Truiet will have the physical (and therefore political) power to basically destroy whichever guild/family or tribe angers them by cutting off their supply of cash.

What makes OPEC powerful? They all agree about the value of their goods and it's hard to get them any other way. They control the shipping of oil. Even if they didn't already control its production.

What made the Dutch East India company powerful? Control of the delivery of goods, and so on.

It isn't the MAKERS of materials that always hold the power, it is often those who TRADE it.

Negotiations over the trade lanes, I would suspect, would follow this kind of format:
Tribe A "Why should the Trueit control the sea lanes?"
Trueit: "Sure, we'll take our ships out of the water and let the pirates get your ships until you can defend them yourself..."
Tribe B: "But we can't afford to lose many cargo ships to pirates, they are already taking enough"
Tribe A: "But we don't want to pay taxes to the Trueits"
Tribe B: "Taxes vs complete losses... we'll take Taxes"
Tribe C: "I agree with (side)"
Tribe D: "We agree with (other side)"
... [insert stalemate here with Trueit retaining the role and power associated with protecting shipping for the whole nation]