The Kantriverse is a setting that started out when I created a fictional country, Kantrias, and alongside a number of friends that I had, in intermittent periods between 2012 and 2014, with a brief resurgence in 2017, expanded on. We also used Kantrias as a vehicle for playing in the game NationStates, as a sort of 'clan' (in more common terms) but it is the fictional country Kantrias (and the continent of Bayetz around it) that we built up in stories and little bits of lore detail and conversations and just for fun that I would later take, combine with pieces of other worldbuilding ideas that I had, and then create into a more complete setting that I could tell stories in.
And also just worldbuild the fuck out of, because I like to do that.
As a result of the mixed origins, and many holdovers from the days when I worked alongside my friends to create things, there are some oddities, but I think they add to the charm of the setting.
Some of those oddities include the fact that because a few of my friends at the time were big Game of Thrones/ASOIAF fans, the places they created had names in common with Westeros - a city called Highgarden, and a set if Islands called the Iron Islands. Neither place really resembles it's Westeros counterpart outside the name, and both names are pretty generic.
Other things - such as the existence of the Genasi in Kolyat-Var, are the result of my own D&D and Pathfinder interest - and in general, while some of the more obvious stuff has been filed off, the D&D and Pathfinder influence can be pretty obvious if you know what you're looking for, and indeed, I have run multiple pathfinder games in this setting, though I've had to make some alterations to the setting to fit the assumptions of Pathfinder's actual play.
But none of this really says what the Kantriverse actually is.
The Kantriverse is a fictional world - the name of the planet is something I don't have, and frankly the people of the world may just call it 'the planet' because why not - and plays host to a number of continents. The three that have ever been established are Bayetz, Guayas and Kholesun. Of those Bayetz is the center of the action in terms of what got and has gotten worldbuilding attention, and of course, the Kingdom of Kantrias and it's capital city, also named Kantrias, was the main focus.
The Kantriverse is a world of magic, but the magic tends to be fairly practical, and direct, and follows generally predictable and understandable rules - to put it in TV tropes terms, Magic A is, broadly speaking, Magic A. Of course, the rules underpinning magic are no more one hundred percent understood than every single rule explaining how reality works in our world, but they are understood mostly.
It is a world where magic can do a lot, but it's generally direct, perceivable, limited effects. It's a world that, broadly, works like our own - gravity, animal life, the way minerals work, et cetera - but it's also a world where dragons once dominated the skies, where caverns and tunnels deep underneath the earth house entire peoples and nations, and where the gods - distant though they often are - are real and give power to their followers.
It is a world of powerful states, fallen empires, and rising powers. It is a world where empires that were once great have been laid low - and sometimes, they might even be making a resurgence. It's a world not just of humans, but of centaurs, dwarves, lizardmen, kitsune, and more.
It is a world where demons and angels exist and can be conjured, but as beings that are pure ideals given form - and quickly find themselves ill-at-ease in a world of grays and nuance, complexity and imperfection. It is a world of spirits often barely understood, and ancient magics even less understood, if even active at al.
It is also a world where ranks of soldiers stand shoulder to shoulder and fire muskets at the enemy. Where ships bearing canon and powered by sails clash for control of the trade lanes, and where airships have begun to challenge the great Rocs for command of the skies. It is a world where new factories powered by coal and magic, structures of steam and gears and pistols, churn out white and black smoke, covering the sky, bringing with it it disease and progress, poverty and wealth. It is a world where clockwork constructs and old style golems can be built to fight the battles of their makers, and where bizarre, occult secrets that break all known rules of magic can sometimes be wrested from reality.
It is in this world that Kantrias sits as the most powerful and wealthy nation. It is in Kantrias that the House of Quilor reigns as the Royal House, where the ancient nobility jealously guards their remaining wealth and privelages in the Senate, and where the elected representatives of the people in the Consistory are torn between those who seek progress and growth and wealth at the expense of all else, and those who seek to see to the needs of the people. Between those who speak only for the narrow interests of new money, and those who speak for the workers, urban or rural, or for the middle classes.
It is in Kantrias that Church and Crown have fought a vicious dance for over a thousand years, where the pagans are persecuted, but not every faith that lies outside the Church counts as pagan. Where renegade covens of witches are hunted by the Ministry of Security and the Inquisition both - but rarely do they work together.
And yet, despite Kantrias's wealth and power, it is not unchallenged on the world stage. The Empire of Voluz, once the great powers of the North, seeks to modernize under a new, reforming dynasty, while the ancient, stagnated Telvir Ascendancy threatens to dust off ancient magics and embrace new technologies both, to stave off the corrupting influence of Kantrian ideas - and of Kantrian influence over states that should rightly be their vassals.
Even Kantrias's allies are hardly content to be merely aids to Kantrian power - the snakemen of the Kingdom of Kharash may be allied with Kantrias against their old enemies in the Ascendancy, but they look in askance as Kantrias courts the lesser states of Guayas to be their vassals in all but name, rather than Kharash's. The Commonwealth of Aurelia may consider Kantrias the lesser evil than Voluz, but the economic hegemony of the Kingdom of the Gavel and the Sword is hardly universally beloved by that realm.
Kantrias is a nation of wealth and power, and for the average Kantrian, even the poor ones, life is generally good, generally safe, generally positive in outlook. But in any great Kingdom, exceptions exist, and with wealth and industry allowed to run amock in the name of the Queen's desire for military adventurism, and with wealth always begetting more wealth when left unrestrained, and when heretics and pagans join forces with disaffected witches and separatist rebels, danger can only grow.
The Kantriverse is a world of steampunk, intrigue and empire - it is a world of war and adventure, of ancient history and a glorious future.
The world turns, Kantrias is, and the Kantriverse continues.
