Write something about your setting, and the rest of us will help you develop it

Discussion in 'Setting Development' started by GrottyStatute74, Nov 15, 2016.

  1. GrottyStatute74

    GrottyStatute74 Member

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    1. What about scandals in the church?
    2. What events led to the church losing power?
    3. Talking about scandals, any suspicions of rigged votes? Also, how does one get in the postition of a higher up priest? Are they maybe nominated from different countries?


    It's quite small, that's why its a duchy. It's very long, not fat at all, but there's a lot of mines in the mountains up north

    They don't mobilize together, but each on their own. As any political organization, they meet for a week or so (information travels very slowly, because of no electricity). If it's too urgent, there are emergency magical wormholes which function as basically phones.
    (Think I'm going to log off for know, it's pretty late here :/
     
  2. GrottyStatute74

    GrottyStatute74 Member

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    That's a great question, thanks fr asking, I forgot :(
     
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  3. halisme

    halisme Contributor Contributor

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    No real scandals apart from the odd murder, but they are normally outed. At the moment there is a scandal involving the church as a noblewoman claims to be blessed by Taughf, being granted visions and great strength.

    The first Taughfish Prophet, a man named Vorheen, was blessed with great strength, defeating twenty armoured and armed men with nothing but a sword. Seven surrendered and became his disciples, and he eventually became king, making it similiar to Tumonte. However, the bloodline seemed to lose its strength over period of 150 years. Some took it as a signal that they had lost Taughf's blessing. There was a succession crisis, during which those that wanted an electoral monarchy struck and won.

    At the moment, no. The way to become a higher priest is to prove one to have a certain insight to the books, or to provide something new and useful for them. There is one high priest for each caste who oversees the suggestions and corrections to be made. They nominate their own successor.
     
  4. halisme

    halisme Contributor Contributor

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    Due to lack of ability to mobilization, do the countries poke and prod at each other, making it small enough so it's not worthy to report.

    Any cultural slurs?
     
  5. Vagrant Tale

    Vagrant Tale Active Member

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    Something I've been wondering while reading this is where you get your names, are they based on a language? What language(s) do they speak? Is that a barrier? Are there reasons they speak different languages if they do?

    I have 2 settings I'd like to develop more, but I think I'll post my less developed one for now. It's nowhere near as detailed (its weird so it doesn't really need to be) history-wise.

    It's a "vertical" setting sort-of. The idea is that there are "planes", like fragmented or incomplete planets that are painted in one setting each, like one being a winter wasteland, one being a grassy field, one being a forest, but that one setting will sprawl the entire planet. The planet doesn't have a specified location, and are simply reached by "warping" there from a hub location. There are countless variations of these planets/planes that the protagonists can warp too.

    The planes themselves are almost always static as well. Nothing changes on them. There are flowers and trees, but it never rains. If one plane is currently nighttime, it is always nighttime. Even if you run until you have completely circled the entire thing, it will be night all the way around. There are also "mirage" scenery, like mountains off in the distance, but if you run all the way around the entire planet, you will never be able to reach them. They also almost all share the same moon, save for some planes where the planet Earth can be seen as the moon, sometimes in place of the moon and sometimes much MUCH closer, filling the entire sky.

    The protagonist just "wakes up" one day in one of these planes, and after a great deal of time and meditation figures out how to "warp" and leave the plane, and they arrive in a city. The city itself is in pristine condition, with beautifully paved roads, bridges, canals, and shops, but no one is there. The city itself is also static. The sun never sets, and nothing decays.
     
  6. halisme

    halisme Contributor Contributor

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    Taughfland and Tumonte share similar languages, as both were colonised by the Sourcan Empire, though both have mixed with the tribal dialects that were around at the time. The name Vorheen comes from Jason Vorhees. When writing up some history there was a character that did some dark stuff, so a horror villain name seemed apt. Reim is French, as the figure who first held that name in Taughfish history had ancestors from Tumonte, which is a mixture of France, Egypt, and the fantasy idea of druids. The tribal language from Taughfland was closer to Greek, which is more apparent in my story. The Sourcan Empire's dialect is based off Persian, with Sourcan coming from Sorcerer. Whenever I come up with a name I ask "would a reasonable parent name their kid this?" If yes, it's fine, if it not, scrap it.

    Did something create the planes or the city? If so, who were they and why?

    Does something hold the world's in stasis, or does is it that nothing acts on them?
     
  7. Vagrant Tale

    Vagrant Tale Active Member

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    That's so funny, I thought of Jason as soon as I read that name! I think its a good policy for naming things. Another question I wanted to ask you (It's a question I think might be a good one?) Is...what do people in your world do everyday? Is it lots of work and no play? Or is there a national past time? How strong is national pride in the different nations? Do they interact much beyond the small scale hostilities?

    They are meant to be like a force of nature, something that is and always has been, some kind of "purgatory", whatever created them (if indeed something did create them) is has long since lost interest in them, but their purgatory-like effects of being in a sort of stasis/unmoving time remains in effect, the town itself has no written records of any kind, and even the doors to some of the buildings are actually just walls, they don't open and there is no room behind them.

    The planes themselves (all planes, including the town(s?) are sort-of held in a "stasis", in that the universal laws that govern things like decay, erosion, age, growth, and change have never been implemented within them. They are ageless and never-changing, but can be affected by life forms that reside there. For example, if someone went into a forest plane, they could cut down the trees to build an entire city, but there's no guarantee those trees would "grow" back. They'd either remain chopped stumps forever, looking as fresh as the day they were cut. Or they would simply reappear as soon as everyone stopped looking at them.

    Your question created a train of thought for me, actually. Say that some planes react differently to changes made by outsiders/inhabitants to them. Some remain unchanging, while some regenerate themselves. It could be that if someone built a structure, that if it went unobserved for even a moment, it would vanish from existence. So it would be necessary to have a "watcher" to always be looking at their charge, to make sure it never vanished. They'd need a bird's eye view, so perhaps someone who is suspended high in the sky? They'd need infinite stamina to accomplish such a task, which also started me on another train of thought...

    The lack of universal laws governing decay, change, erosion, aging, and time in general also are not implemented on those who reside within that plane, and thus visitors may have no need to eat, to rest, or even tire at all. Or even need to breathe.
     
  8. halisme

    halisme Contributor Contributor

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    If they exist without creation, is it possible they serve as a reflection of certain environments? And if so, are those environments exclusively from earth?

    Does that mean that things such as footprints disappear the second a person's foot is lifted?

    Has anyone apart from you protagonist gone there?

    The men in Taughfland work for eight to ten hours a day, six days a week. The seventh day is a day or relaxation, not rest. Women, while part of the past system, are not expected work, the idea that they'll raise children, however, they'll often work with their husbands, or own some sort of side business. On top of this, men are expected to train with a spear for two hours a week and maintain their own civilian militia.

    In terms of hobbies, it varies from place to place. Forests are considered dangerous due to two animals, the Treboar (a boar the size of a small rhino with a horn on its snout and tusks to match) and the Larder Bear (which impales anything too big to eat in one go on trees). Because of this, Taughfland has bred dogs to be able to handle them, and looking after and playing with them are popular hobbies. In the mountainous areas, hunting Lion Snakes (komodo dragons that hunt in packs) is considered a good hobby, and a profitable one. The plains have a greater focus on things like horse riding. All areas enjoy games like rugby (a lot of areas having their own variant), wrestling or boxing (particularly amongst the warrior caste, and people often bet on the fights,) various crafts such as whitling, as well as drinking in a loud and cheerful manner. Those in the city also do things such as seeing plays or other performances.

    Tumonte is a different story. The slaves there work and are permitted to do almost nothing else(, there is one day a year where they are allowed to sing while they work). Freemen typically work for eight hours, five days a week, while the nobility do not work at all. Freemen typically spend their spare time watching tourneys, drinking in a "refined" way, doing small paintings of local environments and proclaiming that their women are better looking than everyone elses. Male nobles are expected to train themselves for combat, as well as writing poetry and keep themselves "refined". Female nobles are expected to keep their lands well managed and presentable, will travel to far off locations to paint vistas, and take part in religious ceremonies as they are considered priestess of The God-Queen.
     
  9. CaitlinCarver

    CaitlinCarver Member

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    That is a GREAT question that I never thought of. I know that there are seed-banks around the world in the case of something like that happening, and I believe the largest such seed bank is in Svalbard.

    There was a great loss of biodiversity due to the war, but I'm not really planning on mentioning that more than in passing. However, the animals living on the edge of the uninhabitable zone might appear somewhere in the story, and I suppose mass migrations of mutated animals out of South America into North America would cause some more trouble for those warring factions. Unless, of course, there's a wall. :confused:

    Once again, thank you!
     
  10. agorman00

    agorman00 Member

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    My setting takes place modern day, in a high-scale mega resort somewhere in the Caribbean. Palm trees, white sand, resort restaurants, poolside bar, all the normal kind of stuff you'd see at any resort you'd go to. All sorts of VIP's walking around, maybe a few famous people here and there. My story is mostly centered around vice, and how money, women, and drugs affect my main character, and just some normal dude who happened to score a free trip to the resort.
     
  11. Flanelshirt

    Flanelshirt New Member

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    How is the econmic situation of the world? I imagine that a lot of the high industry areas of Europe and North America was lost during the war. have China become the most industrilized area now? or have Africa stepped up its game?

    How is Africa orginised? is it to very autonmous or does it have one strong leadership? In that case which country became the unifing one? How are decendents of Europeans treated?

    How is trade? You said that Africa is strict on it's immegreation, but are they protectivist or do they advicate free trade? How fast is Europe rebuilding its industry? Do Africa even want Europe to regain there industri or do they want europe to become a consummer marked?

    How prevelent are nationalistisk feelings among the new superstates? are there movements for a free Italy, Congo or Catalonia?

    Also, how did Stockholm manged to become the Capital of Europe over cities like Berlin, Paris, London or Rome?

    For the part of the space war you where hinting at;
    Do you imagine a unified earth in one state? Do the different states have their own spaceprogram? Or is everything put under a thirdparty institution? like the united nations?
     
  12. Flanelshirt

    Flanelshirt New Member

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    Dobbel Post
     
  13. Vagrant Tale

    Vagrant Tale Active Member

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    Wow, what a huge contrast. Do nobles of Tumonte ever have to contend with the creatures that are hunted in Tuaghland? It sounds like having so few professional warriors would make managing the wildlife difficult in certain cases. Do they have any kind of structure to deal with that, or do they throw people at it until the problem is solved? Do nobles do it? Or do they just outsource it? It doesn't sound like either society would get along with each other very well.

    It is quite possible that they are reflections of other environments, but definitely not exclusively something you'd find on earth.

    In some cases yes, that may be the case. Or if you caused an avalanche and turned your back on it, it would "reset" itself back to before it was caused.

    There are other people discovered in these places sometimes, and the protagonist forms a group with some of the others he meets to bring everyone they can find to the town. Some people are confused, some are relieved, some are scared. Others are reluctant or just plain refuse to leave whatever plane they've found themselves on.
     
  14. halisme

    halisme Contributor Contributor

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    Throughout Tumonte there are fifteen "active" knightly orders. Due to the milder climate, there is no reptilian wildlife, and eastern side of Tumonte is more or less safe apart from more mundane wildlife. Typically peasants or slaves will be sent to deal with them. Then there are the Brinespawn. Eight hundred years before the start of my first novel, every single mage and those around them were turned into humanoid fish monsters. They are highly territorial and feral, and inhabit the ruins of they were transformed in. To reclaim the ruins, the Knights of The Kingfisher were formed. While they have cleaned out the majority of the nests, there are two both judged too inaccessible to gain a proper foothold in, so they simply keep them bottled up.

    The Westerwood, which dominates Tumonte's Western border, is another story. Larder bears, a rogue knightly order, as well as large wolves and Forest Lions(though they're closer to tigers) are dealt with by The Order of The Woodland Realm. In terms of the animals, it is seen as tending to the land, in terms of people, killing heretics.

    In terms of getting along, they do for three reasons, trade, a mutual ally, and mutual defence. As Taughfland is less extravagant than Tumonte, they can sell off their excess luxury resources to Tumonte, while Tumonte has higher quality crafting in terms of things like jewellery, which is becoming more popular in Taughfland due to the Queen of Tumonte's younger sister being married to the current king. They both have a mutual ally in the form of The Pyric Isles, who have a history of working with both Taughfland's past incarnation and Tumonte against the other, and selling slaves to Tumonte.

    Then there's the mutual threat of the Triplet Kingdoms, then there's The Ren's. The first, if they combined, would be able to overcome Tumonte and Taughfland through sheer numbers, and a greatly developed military presence in the recent years due to The Ren's. The Ren's are the most hated people on the entire continent, and have a habit of going on a rampage out of their homeland once every hundred and fifty years. For some context, The Renland makes up half of the continent and has a fifth of the population of the continent. Taughfland and Tumonte have made numerous requests to be allowed to station a portion of their army in any of the Triplets to help deal with the coming storm, and have only been accepted once, and only in the position of the warrior caste training one of the countries militaries.

    Is there a reason why only plant life shows up, or are other animals present as well?

    What are the conditions required for accessing these place?

    Has anyone missused them in the past?
     
  15. Commandante Lemming

    Commandante Lemming Contributor Contributor

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    Okay, I like the concept of this thread - and I'm working on a sci-fi NaNoWriMo piece with a higher level of worldbuilding than I usually deal with. So I figured I'd jump in on the exercise to try and flesh out my own knowledge of the place.

    The book takes place in 2016, but a very different 2016 than we live in. In this world...

    1. The ancient Parthian Empire never fell, and it's capital Ctesiphon is pretty much the New York of it's world. The Middle East, under Parthian control, is a long-term bastion of peace and stability that looks a little too much like modern America.

    2. The religion of Manichaeism never went extinct and is roughly the same size as Christianity in our World. Manichaeism taught dualism between matter and spirit - with spirit being inherently good and the physical world being inherently evil. This meant that anything that gratified the physical human body was sin. Modern Parthia is a secular democracy, but Manichaeism remains the dominant religion. I've extrapolated a few things that would likely come from this (a big plot point is that sugar is an extremely rare food commodity with roughly the same price point as caviar for us, because the confectionary industry never developed fully under Manichaen colonialism - although it's used often in Christian Europe).

    3. The main characters uncover a smuggling ring smuggling people from our reality into their reality using the multiverse theory of quantum phiysics - where realities exist over the top of one another. My pseudoscience to explain this is that a "reality" is defined by the pattern in which electrons travel around their atomic nucleus, and by shifting those patterns, objects can be "phased" into different realities.

    4. I've also got some secondary pseudoscience about how people have to be repeatedly phased in order to stay in a new reality, because each individual is attached to a "strand" - a warping in the fabric of the multiverse - and that these strands hold molecules in patterns that organize things into life. The fact that living things are a product of invisible strands that exist across all realities means that their strand will try to snap them back into their home reality even after years, even if their body now is mostly made up from atoms in their new reality. There is a concentration of strands around Earth, which is why there is life in that spot even in realities where Earth never existed, and it is possible for multiple individuals in different realities to all be attached the the same strand. Basically strands are a pseudoscientific way of approaching the concept of a soul, but they also make it possible for individuals to exist simultaneously in multiple realities with different identities, all unknowingly hooked up to the same "soul". Also, if someone from an alternate reality phases into a new reality and comes into direct contact with the person in that reality hooked up to their "strand", there's a non-zero chance that they combust and blow a hole in the multiverse.
     
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  16. halisme

    halisme Contributor Contributor

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    How to The Parthian Empire interact with the Abrahamic religions, such as Christianity and Islam

    Were there still crusades?

    How did the Mongols react to them?

    Why did it remain stable?
     
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  17. Commandante Lemming

    Commandante Lemming Contributor Contributor

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    Last edited: Nov 17, 2016
  18. CaitlinCarver

    CaitlinCarver Member

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    The world economy went into overdrive after the war. New jobs, new construction projects, etc.

    Africa is much more autonomous than Europe, and each member state is allowed to make local laws barring that they are deemed 'safe' for the world, AKA they won't eventually lead to another world war. No one country was the 'unifier;' it was more of a continental effort. Descendants of Europeans are treated well, however descendants of North Americans are shunned, at least in Africa.

    There is global free trade between Africa, Europe, and Australia. The Russian Empire is the one who is very protectivist.

    Open expression of nationalism is strictly banned, however there are some small underground movements in places like France.

    Berlin, Paris, London, Rome, as well as most European capitals, were heavily bombed and set afire. Stockholm is one of the only major European cities left unscathed, as Sweden's neutrality was respected during the war.

    I am indeed hinting at a space war; however, Earth receives most of her weapons and craft from her allies, Mars and Jupiter. Jovians live far below the clouds of Jupiter, therefore escaping detection from Earthlings, and once the Martians saw that somewhat 'intelligent' life was developing on Earth, they made their domed cities invisible.

    Thank you for the questions!
     
  19. CaitlinCarver

    CaitlinCarver Member

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    How did this 'normal dude' score this free trip? Was it a sweepstakes? Did some stranger with sunglasses come up to him to give him a free ticket? How long is he staying? Is the resort going to completely change him?
     
  20. agorman00

    agorman00 Member

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    I was thinking probably some sweepstakes, maybe like on a radio show. As for time, that ones tricky to answer. It'd probably be a standard 5 days 4 nights kind of thing, but here's the thing. He ends up in a timeloop about halfway through the vacation. He ends up repeating the same exact day indefinitely. And yes, repeating that day over and over again changes his life. The day he repeats is a really, really great day. He's just some normal guy, but now the rest of his life is being lived in the lap of luxury. He has access to all the high-class and expensive luxuries he'd like, and for the first time in his life he's living a life of high status and wealth. I sort of went in depth in a different thread, but essentially what I'm trying to create with this setting and plot is a cautionary tale of what riches and status can bring. Because my normal dude doesn't mind being in this timeloop at first. It's an endless summer for him. Until he ends up getting sick of it, he gets sick of the conceited people and the pressure of being at the top of the social ladder
     
  21. NoGoodNobu

    NoGoodNobu Contributor Contributor

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    With the dualistic religion, how do the adherents apply it to morality and complexities thereof? In a separation of Light & Dark, how is gray area dealt with?

    Are passions or emotions or intellect seen as springing from the spirit & the good or are any considered a consequence of the material/our base physical forms and thus corrupted & bad?

    If the material/physical world is bad, and our perception is merely the physical interacting with the material planes, is the Apparent real and is the Real apparent? Are our perceptions results of illusions or distortions or corruptions of the perfect immaterial? Can we in fact Know, and can we trust Knowledge? How does one access and assess Truth? What of Beauty, and its relations to the material and the spiritual? Is Beauty naturally of spirit, and its material manifestations mere perversions? Or is Beauty born of the material and thus base & sinful and set as temptation & not to be trusted?
     
  22. Commandante Lemming

    Commandante Lemming Contributor Contributor

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    Good questions! (and a few of the ones that have been tripping me up)

    With the dualistic religion, how do the adherents apply it to morality and complexities thereof? In a separation of Light & Dark, how is gray area dealt with?
    So far I have them pretty much not dealing with it. I think they deal with moral gray areas by saying that people sin all the time as a product of their physical nature, that this is bad, that they will be judged for it, but that sin is so prevalent that trying to stop it entirely is futile. So in that sense it's like trying not to accumulate too much bad karma.

    Are passions or emotions or intellect seen as springing from the spirit & the good or are any considered a consequence of the material/our base physical forms and thus corrupted & bad?
    I think they'd probably say that passions (at least in the sense of desires for physical things) are material and therefore evil, but that intellect is of the spirit and that pursuit of spiritual knowledge is pure (Manichaeism was a gnostic religion, so obviously there's a gnosis, a secret knowledge). I'm trying to figure out how emotion fits into that because it lies somewhere between passion and intellect. The one really long Manichaen philosophical piece I've been able to read was an Orthodox Christian dialogue refuting 'Manichaean heresies' (or rather neo-Manichaen thought in Christianity), and in that one the Manichaean praises marriage because it cultivates love between two spirits but says that marital sex is sin because sex is the gratification of a physical urge generated by the material body in which the spirit is trapped - so the perfect marriage is one in which the husband and wife live together "as brother and sister". So, love is good, but anything that feels good is bad even if it comes from love (and the fact that it feels good is what makes it bad). Thoughts on how to further extrapolate this are welcome :p

    If the material/physical world is bad, and our perception is merely the physical interacting with the material planes, is the Apparent real and is the Real apparent? Are our perceptions results of illusions or distortions or corruptions of the perfect immaterial? Can we in fact Know, and can we trust Knowledge? How does one access and assess Truth? What of Beauty, and its relations to the material and the spiritual? Is Beauty naturally of spirit, and its material manifestations mere perversions? Or is Beauty born of the material and thus base & sinful and set as temptation & not to be trusted?

    If I read you correctly, I think they would agree that the real is apparent and vice versa. They don't deny that matter actually exists or think it's an illusion - on the contrary they think it very much exists and that it is the incarnation of evil. I think they would say that we can know, and that they encourage the pursuit of knowledge, but that seeking spiritual knowledge (studying the good) is better than seeking material knowledge (studying the evil.) So they love Philosophy but I'm not sure how they would feel about Science - obviously they need to have ACCEPTED that the practice of Science happens, because they are technologically advanced, and maybe on the grounds that there is some good to studying the nature of matter in the sense that certain material discoveries can serve to elevate the Spirit and help people access knowledge (computers, for instance, would fit here). But true Truth would probably be seen as spritual truth rather than physical truth
    And yeah there's a good bit of cognitive dissonance there, which is why modern Parthia is pretty heavily secularized and there are lots of non-practicing lapsed Manichaeans.

    Beauty is one of those things I keep struggling with because it's neither purely intellectual or purely material. I tend to think that Parthians can appreciate art - and since there's some ancient Greek influence their art is a tiny bit more Western in character than modern Middle Eastern Art. That and I've made the aesthetic choice to make sure there's art depicting life everywhere - as a purposefully jarring counterpoint to real-world Islamic art which does not always allow that (and hence focusses heavily on calligraphy and geometrics). I think Parthian art is probably more simple than European Art in the world because of the utilitarian values that come out of long-term Manichaeism...they tend to think that the material tasks which are most justified are those that provide the most utility to society rather than those tasks which produce pleasure for individuals (this is why sugar in particular is frowned upon, it lacks nutrition and only exists to please the tongue). I do know that the French in particular look down on the Parthians for being spartan and "uncultured" - despite the Parthians being the older civilization, precisely because the Parthians do not place a high emphasis on artistic pursuits (although that misses the fact that they do put emphasis on Philosophy).

    Thanks for those questions!
     
  23. halisme

    halisme Contributor Contributor

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    What about areas such as America in terms of religion, did the Empire colonize them?
     
  24. Commandante Lemming

    Commandante Lemming Contributor Contributor

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    I haven't fully extrapolated that part of the world yet since I'm not planning to use it in this novella, but I keep wondering about that and trying to decide how to play it. I've made a few side references to events in Western Hemisphere history that establish the following.

    1. The French were a colonial power at some point and established colonies in what we call Mexico. There is now a small nation there called "French Azteca" which has a population composed of ethnic Aztecs who speak French and follow French cultural norms. (One of my main characters is a chocolate sommelier and she had to do her education in "xocolatl" in French Azteca - she also employs a French Aztec expat named Quetzette as a hostess at her tasting room).

    2. I know there were Manichaean colonies in America, because there was a period called "The Sugar Wars" where the Manichaean colonialists fought the Christian colonialists, and as part of their victory obliterated the nascent sugarcane industry in the territories they took over. So I'm thinking they control most of Mexico and a good bit of the rest of the Western Hemisphere, but that there are also scattered European colonies - the Europeans got there first, but the Manichaeans got there with more force and took some colonies violently.

    3. I did mention "Algonquin Maple Sugar" as a highly precious and expensive commodity, so I'm thinking that the colonial regime in a lot of the Americas was more along the lines of British India - the goal being to control and exploit the indigenous population rather than to replace them with settlers.
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2016
  25. Domino355

    Domino355 Senior Member

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    How is the power balance betweem the Parthian empire and Europe (which I persume is still christian) are there wars between these areas? Peace?

    How is the history of Europe different now that they aren't the historic soperpower of the world? Were they still heavy into colonialism? Did Europe still lead the scientific and industrial revolutions? Did democracy still emerge in Europe ir was that more in Parthia
     

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