The Disputed Lands
167 AE
Scope
The motivation behind building The Disputed Lands
I want to build a world capturing my love of ancient civilizations and extraplanar beings.
The goal of the project
I am hoping to create a world I enjoy for my roleplaying games and possibly for other projects.
The Disputed Lands's Unique Selling point
The world is heavily influenced by extraplanar beings like demons and angels who posses magic and technological ability far beyond what the people of the world can achieve. Worshipers of these extraplanar beings, sovereignties, clergy of the enigmatic deities, and various other organizations are all trying to make their own marks on this world.
Theme
Genre
low fantasy, clockpunk, political fantasy, and magical realism, with possibly some elements of historical fantasy
The world generally has a bronze age technology level with some instances of clockpunk technology sprinkled throughout.
The magic level is rare to very rare. My current statistic is 2 out of every 1500 people is a magic user of some variety but this is subject to change.
In 5e terms
The world generally has a bronze age technology level with some instances of clockpunk technology sprinkled throughout.
The magic level is rare to very rare. My current statistic is 2 out of every 1500 people is a magic user of some variety but this is subject to change.
In 5e terms
most magic users are 1-2 level, 6th level is considered the pinnacle of ability; sorcerers, warlocks, and clerics are the most common with bards, druids, rangers, and paladins being rarer, wizards are almost unheard of except among elves
Reader Experience
The world should feel slightly intimidating; the world can be a dangerous place especially for those who expect to be able to hack and slash their way through everything. Especially when dealing with extraplanar beings, people should feel as if they're over their heads. Despite this feeling of danger, a person should feel like they can change the world if they have the talent, drive, and traits to do so.
Reader Tone
The world is generally neutral in tone, the world can be both a wonderful and horrible place but generally the lives of the common people are a mixture of both.
Recurring Themes
everyone is the hero of their own story, convention and rebellion, the power and danger of organizations, everyone can be a hero, being vastly outmatched by outside forces
Character Agency
Character agency tends to be pretty high, people are able to influence the world and what happens but they generally do this in groups and organizations instead of completely on their own.
Focus
Drama
The Lasting Peace has been established bringing all major wars to an end. Instead the sovereignties have been able to focus on infrastructure, trade, diplomacy, and who will break the peace first. Some have thrived but others especially more militaristic sovereignties have had hard times during this peace.
The cult of Zerje, a quasi-deity who promotes idealism and discresion, is growing in the south of Istervyn . The cult is carving out political power for itself as well as reshaping the cultures of the area. Conflict is brewing in the sovereignty of Silara as the temple that controls the government there is deciding whether the cult is a rival or potential ally.
Lured by the prosperity of the sovereignties, groups of people are migrating from their homes in northern Istervyn to the west or south. The journey can be quite dangerous and even when they reach a sovereignty their difficulties are far from over but people keep attempting the journey.
A revolution is raging in the Ostarin Empire. Since the Lasting Peace was established by a representative from the Empire, it has been acting as a role model. The war has upset this but the installation of a new government, instead of the current government which is steeped in militaristic history, could prove more effective at preventing future major wars.
The cure for a deadly disease has recently been discovered by herbalists. This could be only the first of many herbal cures for diseases or it could be a one time blessing. Regardless, a new sense of pride in humanoid ingenuity is developing even as people argue over who should get access to it and how it can be transported to the areas that need it most.
Ideally each sovereignty/region should have at least one major event happening there at this time even if this is simply a time of relative luxury/poverty/peace/unrest/etc.