I find that most people struggle with this topic, I know I did for the longest time and still do. Especially with the starting small technique of writing a world, where you'd start with a small village and then work your way out, I tend to find that people don't take into account where that village is in relation to a kingdom and perhaps just set it in a generic fantasy setting that means they can play the game as quickly as possible .If you're wondering what kind of outright barbarian with an inability to forward think would do this, I totally did this for my first campaign, and I do it to a certain extent now. I should pay more attention to where the adventure is as a whole but its usually on an afterthought that I remember to include my notes.
Paying attention to the kingdom that your adventure takes place is can add a lot of depth to your game, at lower levels when the party are reacting to the troubles of the world rather than being powerful enough to stop it entirely, the struggles of a township dealing with an oppressive empire can make for some interesting storyline.
When it comes to world-building, and thinking about the kingdoms that inhabit your world, it can be a daunting task, to begin with, but It does get easier over time.
What should i consider when creating a Kingdom?
When your first thinking about this you should decide how you wish to structure your kingdoms. When I began working on my homebrew world, I decided very early on that I wanted to keep things very simple when it came to the structure and number of kingdoms/territories. This was purely for my benefit, its hard to keep track of everything at the best of times and so by keeping things simple, I can maximize my effectiveness. I decided to do a race-centric kingdom setting. Meaning that most of the mortal Races would have their own Kingdom. Very much in the style of Tolkien, you have the Dwarven Kingdoms and the Elves forests and the Cities of men. I like this, not only because it divides everything neatly and makes it easier for the adventurers to differentiate between different race and places.
But also by giving each race distinct regions, they come from, you can use that setting and backdrop to establish characteristic about that race. The ethereal, sly and mysterious elves live in a forest that only shows itself to the allies of the elves, the stout, strong, cold mountains, are home to the self-sufficient, honorable and restraint dwarves. You can see some of the similarities in the place representing the race and vise versa, These are just ideas, of course, feel free to select any environment for your dwarves to come from, but see if you can get it to match up with how you want the races in your game to be portrayed it can add to the flavour.
While this method of having kingdoms may seem simple and maybe even a bit derivative to some of you, its method I use and its always worked for me. However, I would say that while this way of creating kingdoms is useful when you're running a large scale game that spans across several countries, if you were to run your campaign within a single country of a world, you may wish to consider using a system in which you have many landlock kingdom. In this kind of system, I could say you could have lords and minor kings all vying for control on other peoples sections of land. This could lead to some interesting espionage missions down the line if the party decide to Allie themselves with one particular lord or minor royalty. You could all include a mix of races as either lord, ladies, and minor royalty, but also members of royal courts. Having them talk of coming from some far-off continent, is a fun way to spread the idea that your game is far bigger than this one Kingdom that your game is set in.
You should also consider at this stage if your society is at all religious and the deity or deities that they find socially acceptable to worship. For example, an agricultural society might worship the Gods of the Harvest or of the Weather, whereas a city society could worship the gods of the invention, society, and knowledge.
It might not be a system in which a society that worships a particular god bans the practice of worshipping other gods, but could be a practice in which they favor those gods instead, much like in ancient Rome, all families worshiped their pantheon , but each family had household gods that they prayed to in private, or were more dedicated to.
Try to think about how a religious society functions. Do they have a religious day every week? Do they all openly go to pray in a congregation? What are the rights of marriage like? Do they have public holidays and celebrations? While not massive things, these can add life and variety to your game, so just the addition of a few can give depth to your societies.
Trade is one of the most important functions of a Kingdom. A kingdom that can't afford to feed its people or not produce enough food for itself, will in a short time crumble under the foot of revolution. What are your Kingdoms main form of trade? Who do they trade with? What do they import? What alliances have been formed due to this trade? To a large extent, this largely comes down to the geographical location of your Kingdom, If they have large expanses of open plains and sprawly forests, they could trade in grain and lumber. This could lead to an alliance with the nearby Kingdom that is on the coast leading to the two nations being able to trade with each other. A nation that trades well is an affluent nation. If we look back to the Republic of Venice during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the Venice had a trade empire that stretched from Gaza, Tana the northern Tip of the black sea, all the way to Northern France. Due to the size and scope of their trade empire, they were given contracts throughout the newly conquered holy land to trade throughout. They became a valuable asset and Allie to those needing maritime trade, which lead to alliance, enemies and military might.
It may not be the cornerstone of a kingdom in your game, but it is worth considering even if it's just for some possible side quests or some main questline stories.
Thank you so much for reading guys, I really hope you're enjoying this series of advice for creating your home-brew worlds, I know I'm enjoying writing them. If you want to be notified when the next Blog comes out, please sign up to our mailing list to notified straight away when we release the next article. If you've liked reading this and enjoy watching idiots play video games please go and check out the CardBoard Arcade YouTube channel to watch us make fools of ourselves on our show Co-oP couch, and if you have any suggestions about topics I should write about in the blog, please don't hesitate to leave it in the comments section down below .
Thanks for reading guys and until next time.
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