Civilization: The Wizard's Guild

East through the forest from the Kingdoms of Men lay the Sorceror Kingdoms of Ulm. These are a realm where the Wizard's Guild rules.

The Wizard's Guild has Academies all across the world. These are secret places where the young are trained in the arts of magic. With their access to potent magic, the Wizards see themselves as the guiding hands of history. They secretly meddle in basically everything around the world, and one way or another. Many think they are responsible for all of history (although the Demon Wars and the rise of the Dragon Isle seems to have been something of a surprise, so make of that claim what you will.)

In the Sorceror Kingdoms of Ulm, the Wizards truly rule. The original culture of Ulm combines the heritage of the Kingdoms of Man with the religion of the southeastern isles. This religion still gets lip service, but Ulm is dominated by the wizards. The culture is professional, mertiocratic, but yet gentle. It loves children and innocent past times. It tolerates, even encourages small rebllions. The gentleness of the wizards at home combines oddly with their history of ruthlessness abroad.

Ulm invented the Wizard academy, banking, navigation, law and many other arts. It sets up academies throughout the world with the quiet goal to educate and thus influence as much of the world's professional classes as possible.

In general, think Harry Potter, but Dumbledore is running a big secret conspiracy to control the world.

Civilization: The Dragon Empire

History

Over the seas and far away, lies a vast continent where the Dragons live. For thousands of years, the Dragons lived here, ignoring the rest of the world. They lived in peace for the most part, exiling their criminals to the lands of the mortal races. To serve them, they brought over human slaves. Over the years, some dragons took on mortal form and mated with the humans, creating a unique race. And so it was for milennia.

But when the Demon Empire started to spread over the world, the Dragons act. From the lands of the Sorceror Nations of Ulm to the Kingdoms of Men, the Dragons flew forth, bearing their children as ambassadors. They taught their allies how to fight, and flew over them in battle, and many of the great beasts fell in battle against the forces of evil, but at the end the day was won.

Today, the Dragons have returned to their island. They rarely venture forth, and are known to the rest of the world as distant and scary. Their children, the Dragon Blooded, travel the world, keeping the peace, doing good deeds, and bringing home treasures to add to their parent's horde.

Society

The Dragon Empire, always wealthy, has become incredibly rich. The land is magically fertile, pleasantly warm all year around, and the monsters common in the rest of the world are unknown here. Its people occupy themselves in the creation of magical wonders or training for war. Needless to say, the Dragon Empire has no need for warriors on its own territory, and so those who wish to adventure travel forth to the other nations. This is a major source of the world's trouble makers.

The society of the Dragon Empire favors things which inspire awe. Everything is as big as is possible, and tends to be made with simple lines and bright colors. Exotic pets are common. Technologically is basically industrial era. There are lots of magitek cars, tanks, planes, and the like, along with huge numbers of magic and ultratech weapons. The 10,000 gp minimum cost for magitek is less of a barrier here than elsewhere, so you see more frivolous items.

The only rule for cities of the Dragon Empire is that they feature large amounts of public space. Beyond that, you see all manner of fantastical architecture, public gardens, and the like.

The Dragon Empire is meritocratic and brutally competetive. Many people have only nominal jobs, those who do want meaningful positions have to compete hard for them. The human government is in effect a military bureaucracy, guided occasionally by the Dragons. Elaborate mock battles and skirmishes in fantastic stadiums is common.

The Dragon Empire maintains no formal embassy or outpost outside of their native empire, so those of its citizens who travel make do on their own. Being able to make it outside the Empire and return succesfully is considered a major triumph. Of course, many don't come back. And the Empire's tight controls on immigration mean those who do can not take their companions.

Characters of Men

The Kingdoms of Men was a vast, medival civilization that ruled over a third of the area of earth. History has not been kind to it, but still it forms a sort of cultural zone. All through the kingdoms, the following sorts of characters can be found:

Races

Human: Most people of the world are humans, and the Kingdoms of Men are no exception.

Dwarves, Gnomes: Dwarves and gnomes are unique to the Kingdoms of Men. These proud people come originally only from the Great Mountain, but they spread out with the armies of Men, and are now found everywhere throughout their old lands.

Elves: The Kingdoms of Men conquered most of the old kingdoms ofthe elves, and elves are still most common here.

Tieflings: The Bastard Children of the Demon Empire have come north to bother the Kingdoms. They are not well liked, and did not exist in the days of the Kingdom's glory, but none the less, they are fairly common.

The Classes of Men

Many of the classical professions now known to men were invented or perfected by the Kingdoms of Men. The classes available to individuals from the Kingdom of Men are all of the PHB1 classes plus Bards.

Bard: The bawdy traditional culture of the kingdoms gave birth to the Bard, and they are still well loved here.

Clerics: The Kingdoms of Men were the first to truly exploit the battlefield power of clerics. With many religions, they have many clerics. Kingdom Clerics must worship a specific diety known to the Kingdom.

Fighters: Knights were the backbone of the old Royal armies. Although these armored warriors are considered somewhat odd elsewhere, they are still common in the Kingdoms.

Paladin:

Rangers: The vast stretch of territory once controlled by the Kingdoms could not have been patrolled without the proud orders of rangers. Bow using rangers are the most common type.

Rogue: Rogues are regretfully common almost everywhere.

Warlock: Warlocks were unknown during the Kingdom's Golden Ages. Those who are now present are almost all infernal Warlocks come from the Demon Empires to the South. Foreign warlocks visiting the Kingdoms are often mistaken for infernal locks for this reason. Openly practicing Pact magic in the Kingdoms can be a very dangerous endeavour.

Wizard: Although the Kingdoms are now seen as a magically barren place, it is the birthplace of the Spellbook. The Wizard Academy is a later invention, however, so most wizards in the kingdoms are Hedge Wizards.

Any other classes present will be foreigners, or those trained by foreigners, and as such will experience heavy discrimination. (Warlocks technically fall into this category, but the close proximity of the Demon Empire makes them regretfully common.)

Religion:

All of the gods of the PHB are found here, and each has its worshippers. A central tenet of life in the kingdoms is the worship of these Pagan dieties. All from the Kingdoms recognize the existence of all of the dieties, but they worship only one.

Civilization: The Kingdoms of Men

The History I: The Founding of the Kingdoms of Men

A thousand years ago and more, the empires of the elves in ruins upon the face of Gaia, the earth. The countries of men were small places, each with their own small god and petty priesthood, claiming the other kingdoms of men were evil and their gods false. The Good King Wenschen changed all that.

The Good King was called such for his just code of laws and fair ways. It helped that Wenschen was also a military genius, and in his long reign he conquered all of the people around the Great Mountain.

The Good King's military was based on knights and clerics. His religion, known as the Doctrine of Peace was a sort of Syncretic Paganism that considered different Gods of the same domain equivalent to each other - so that each god of love was a different face of the same god Aphrodite, and each tyrant God another face of the same god Bane. The Great Mountain Kingdoms had brave knights of many different faiths, and the dwarves of the mountain served him too, and built him marvelous armors and weapons.

After the Good King's death, his heirs continued his conquests. As they went, they took for themselves and their descendants the lands that they found there. They built castles and keeps to protect the people from barbarians. They installed in the temples those priests from the Great Mountain Kingdoms who most closesly resembled the faith of the conquered peoples. In this way, they conquered many of the kingdoms of men, and also those of the elves, who they married, and of the orcs, who they put to the sword. In this way, the Kingdoms of Men become the greatest realm in the world.

Over a thousand years, the Kingdoms of Men experienced ups and downs. The Good Kings died out, and were replaced by other dynasties, some good, some bad, some who spoke the common speech, others who spoke foreign tongues. The Kingdoms were united not by a shared ethnicity, but by a shared ideal: That all the peoples of the world would live in peace once they were united under the rule of the Good Kings, and once their priests realized that their gods belonged to the same Pantheon. The Kingdoms of Men called themselves that because in their eyes, they were the one true nation for all of humanity, and would eventually unite all the world under their rule.

The civilization that was spread was one of knights, kingdoms, bards, priests, ale, and meat. Everywhere the Kingdoms once ruled, you now see Castles, temples to many colorful gods. You see the traditional music of Men, which is quite bawdy and usually sung. For food, you find bread, meats, and beer of every description. The arts of the kingdoms were beautiful tapestries, mosaics, and statues, depicting the deeds of the Good Kings or of one of the Gods. The Alandrathans also invented the modern practice of magic, although they were later surpassed in its practice.

The language of the Great Mountain Kingdoms became known as the Common Tongue. The other languages once spoken in the domains of the Old Kingdom have died. The Elves and the Dwarves still speak their tongues as well, although they are debased by many words from Common.

The Common Tongue is still called Common even today, and many of its native speakers have difficulty understanding that it is not spoken everywhere, and think those who do not speak it ought to learn. Their pride was their downfall. The Kingdoms were the most powerful area on earth. With the sharpest steel and the mightiest magic, none could surpass them. Even after they began to break up into smaller kingdoms, they were still mighty. They were inward looking, and failed to see the other nations of the earth rise up and surpass them in the arts of magic and technology.

When the foreigners started to become powerful, it was harsh. The Kingdoms have been broken up, and many of them parceled out to foreign nations. Many of the Kings have been overthrown, and replaced with republics, theocracies, or stranger forms of government still.

And yet, the Common Tongue is still spoken in all of the old Kingdoms of Men, and the old Pagan temples still stand. And deep in the heart of the lands of the Kingdom, the Great Mountain still stands, and the descendants of the old kings gathers here, and seek one day to restore the kings to glory.

Concept: Civilizations

When I think about history, I think about different sorts of civlizations. A civilization is a language, political entity, way of life, religion, or other common characterstics which spread throughout a large area. As I write the game, I'm going to heavily rely on the concept of civilizations to guide world building.

A couple of examples might be in order.

The Soviet Civilization: Based on the Old Russian Empire, the Soviet Civilization expanded by military conquest to include most of Central Asia and Eastern Europe. The Soviet civilization is best understood as a certain way of organizing society using bureaucracy and police. Their great achievment was quickly industrializing and maintaining centralized control over a vast, diverse area. The Soviet Civilization was fundamentally Russian, but included many, many ethnic groups. The Soviet Union is gone, but its way of life is still influential in its former territory.

American Civilization: Started when a mixed bag of Europeans showed up and conquered the best part of North America. Many of the phenomena which later dominated the world were perfected or first used here, such as electricity, quality control, republican democracy, air power, and mass education. Its culture and style of business dominate the world. The descendants of the mixed European settlers and mixed African slaves came to be known as "White Americans" and "Black Americans", although other ethnic groups were common.

Muslim Civilization: Forces from the Arabian pennisula conquered huge swaths of North Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East. They eventually taught their language and culture to much of the conquered people, thus expanding the "Arab" ethnic group well beyond the Arabian pennisula itself. Although the "Community of Believers" has not been a unified political entity for 100 years or more, the Muslim religion is still practiced throughout the world, and Muslim law still practiced in much of the world.