It's Not the Size of the Kingdom That Counts

Credit: Brooke Olson

Hello and welcome to my world building blog!

Today, I'll be talking about Cultural Characteristics, Government Forms, Situations, and Kingdom Size, all of which are drawn from Richard Baker's companion book to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: World Builder's Guidebook, published by TSR Ltd in 1996.

Many kingdoms in the fantasy genre differ in a variety of ways. You can choose from a list of cultural features in the World Builder's Guidebook. I, on the other hand, prefer to enter the list into a random generator and watch the mayhem ensue.

Following up on my earlier blog postings about my frozen country, the frozen kingdom's characteristics are set in a gloomy age, similar to the Dark Ages in European history. The following is a synopsis of the book:

"European, Dark Ages: In this setting, the landed nobility and the feudal system have not fully developed.  Instead, kings are little more than chieftains surrounded by warbands and bodyguards.  Parts of Eastern or Northern Europe remained at this level hundreds of years after western and southern Europe had developed.  Charlemagne's Paladins depicts Europe in the Dark Ages."

This kingdom appears to be in the process of discovering itself. The chieftain or chieftess sends out scouting groups to examine the surrounding tundra, as well as adventurous parties to investigate the neighboring ruins.

My generator chose gynarchy from a list of government forms in the book. According to the book, a gynarchy is a government run solely by women. Interesting! Our ice country is ruled by a chieftess and female warriors who will protect it. Women are also more than likely to lead scouting and adventurous parties.

The book also suggests this form of government be paired with another form.  My generator chose bureaucracy.  According to the book:

"Bureaucracy: Various departments and bureaus together compose the government, each responsible for some aspect of rule.  The department heads, ministers, or secretaries may answer to a figurehead autocrat or council."

As a result, the chieftess has access to a council from whom she can seek guidance. Perhaps the kingdom is run like a pirate ship, where the crew can fire the captain if they don't like how he's leading them. They hold a gathering to choose whether they want to elect a new captain (chieftess) or keep the current one.

A crisis is always forming, or has already developed, within the gates of many fictional, or even real-life kingdoms. Persecution exists for our cold bureaucracy.

"Persecution:  A particular group or type of people is persecuted mercilessly.  This may be completely unjustified, or the persecution may be a reasonable and necessary step to purge the kingdom of evil influences such as dopplegangers or necromancers.  In the case of hunting down evil, the quest to purge a perceived threat may rise to the point of paranoia.  PCs may fall into the persecuted group or may be responsible for locating and attacking the creatures to be persecuted."

So, among the ruins, we've already established a cult. Perhaps this is the persecuted, who are being sought and purged so that the queen can gain access to the ruins' resources.  Seems like a fair deal.

I'm leaving out a LOT of material and details on kingdoms, as you may expect if you've previously read the book. Major and minor races, languages, technologies, and social alignments are all examples. Even without all of those details, I believe we still have a good idea of what our kingdom will be like. We can always go back and fill in the blanks afterwards.

So, how big should our frozen kingdom be?  The World Builder's Guidebook has a few suggestions and, again, a table you could use to randomly choose.  Our frozen kingdom is a small one.

"Small Kingdom: Most [fantasy] campaigns are set in fairly typical kingdoms, with several large cities, a number of moderately-sized towns, and villages and hamlets scattered over the countryside in between.  The PCs may use a small village or town as a base of operations, and never come in contact with the 'big city.'  Tribal areas are considered kingdoms, although there are no cities and very few large towns in a barbaric or nomadic setting."

Our small kingdom encompasses 4 hexes on a map, the equivalent of 450 miles in diameter.

Looking back, we see a country located near the arctic circle, where ruins contain fantastic wealth, power, and hidden danger, but are exploited and safeguarded by a wicked church or cult worshiping a hazardous deity. The community is a small kingdom still finding its feet, but is led by strong, accomplished women. Chieftess Yngvild Skoptidottir and her Council of the Storm send expeditions from the kingdom of Azamar to explore, persecute, and defend the realm.

Next week, we'll see how Azamar sustains itself in such a rough environment.

I hope you enjoyed the read, and until next time, thanks for reading.