Worldbuilding Wednesday - Going to a New Country
So your PCs enter a new town, a new province, a new whatever. What’s important is that they entered an area that has its own distinct borders and is filled with denizens. Be it a town, a country, a dungeon, it doesn’t matter.
Now how do you differentiate one new are from another? This is gonna be our main question.
How is Ancient Rome different from Medieval England? How will the players feel when they go to Feudal Japan to Ancient Egypt? Realistically speaking, there will be a big smack of cultural backlash. I believe it is important to emulate this in D&D, otherwise every village is the same Fantasy Medieval Setting TM.
To make each area unique, they have to have unique CULTURE. To make unique culture, you need to know what MAKES culture.
Culture is made up of elements within itself and outside itself. Let’s take Ancient Rome as an example. What defined the culture of Ancient Rome?
Rome was a Republic. People had an active role in politics. As such, talking politics was very common amongst townsfolk.
Rome had a focus on arts and culture, so everyone also loved talking about that.
Rome was expansive and included a large diverse group of people, BUT they made sure that all these people assimilated to Roman culture. So you’d see a lot of different kinds of ethnicity (or species if we are in a fantasy setting), but they wouldn’t act too different from one another, generally speaking.
The kingdom, while vast, was interconnected by roads, and travel was safe.
Rome constantly warred with the Barbarian hordes, who symbolized the disorderly wilderness and chaos to Romans. By extension, Romans symbolized to themselves absolute civilization. This distinction often made Roman underestimate their enemies (see Hannibal of Carthage).
EXAMPLE #2: Medieval England.
Let’s compare Rome to England circa Middle Ages, and you should be able to see the differences between the two.
England ran under a feudal system. This system relied on peasants to do the heavy work, while noble lords and ladies handled all the politics. So a common peasant won’t know a thing or two about complex politics.
Similarly, peasants weren’t educated. They couldn’t read, didn’t understand science. So they won’t be of much use.
Noblemen lives in towering castles and keeps, and didn’t accept every other schmuck inside.
The Church had strong power and controlled communities or even the King. It could sway the opinion of the people, so people tended to often discuss elements of religions
The kingdom was not safe to travel. Small settlements were connected by tiny roads that cut through heavy woods filled with abominable beasts. So most villagers, would not travel out of their village FOR THEIR ENTIRE LIFE.
The plague spread throughout England, killing indiscriminately. Many believed it was the END OF DAYS.
You can now, hopefully, see the difference. One is a sprawling empire with political intrigue and deception hiding under its facade. The other is a small kingdom where every day is a battle for survival, corrupt lords rule over poor peasants, and superstition rules supreme.
If you have two nations, and the Players travel from one to the other, this kind of difference must be clear to them. Some ways you can make it clear are:
Describe architectural differences. Mention that this is different than what they saw in the past.
People will react to random Murder Hobos in different ways. Peasants of England will treat them automatically as heroes, because they brave the wild and fight beast and demon. While the sophist of Rome will question them and debate them for the fun of it, to see how smart they are, only being impressed by their wit, not their skill.
Jobs the PCs get will be different. English peasants ask for their farm to be protected. Roman sophists ask for their political rivals to be assassinated.
Describe what role race plays in the nation. Rome was very diverse, so many races existed within a massive empire. England was in the corner of the world and 99% of people were Anglo-Saxons. So when your PC comes to England and isn’t an Anglo-Saxon human, what happens? Peasants would be curious, acting as if this creature is some alien. Others will be fearful. Nobles, being more educated, might not care for it.
Describe what role GENDER plays in the nation. In England women and men had distinct roles. Men go out to work, women tend to the house. In Rome the roles were different. Men and women study, grow, then marry different families to form strong intelligent communities.
I leave the rest up to you now. Brainstorm, figure out how you can make your nations seem unique, diverse, creative. Go wild with it. I hope this post is helpful to you. Best of luck in your future games.
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