World Building Tips: Empires And Power Structures

World Building Tips: Empires and Power Structures

World building is important in any setting. There are places, such as fantasy literature where it can become the difference between a believable world and an unbelievable one. Suspension of disbelief is often a critical part to stories.

Many fantasy books take place during times of war, or revolution or even a fall of a corrupt empire. I love reading these sorts of stories, as many people do. Power structures can be complex. They can be used to create tension and drama between characters - take for instance the hero versus the corrupt government troupe in fiction such as The Hunger Games, Harry Potter or even more traditional fantasies such as Tigana ( by Guy Gavriel Kay) or The Wheel of Time series (by Robert Jordan). As a reader it can be compelling to follow these stories. For writers though, it can seem daunting to go into the details of shaping a believable power structure. Here are some basic tips for creating one.

There are four crucial factors to any power structure. These are as follows:

World Building Tips: Empires And Power Structures

1. Military - this includes the size of the army, the types of technology used (guns or swords? navy or land army?), the basic structure of the army (is it highly regimented like the Romans? What are the different groups within the army? How are they divided - by technology, skills or social status?). Another important question here is why has the military developed in this way? The Roman military, for example, grew out of competition with other Italian states. The opposition is equally important here - who were/are they within your story? Apply the above questions just as much to them, because empires and other structures are influenced by the world around them. The military can be the reason an empire begins in the first place. The military should also play a role in sustaining the power structure/empire. It doesn’t have to be the strongest factor by any means. It may even become the downfall of the structure in the end.

2. Economy - How is your power structure or empire funded? Does this change over time? Does your empire take part in internal or external trade? Is trade important to the running of the empire? Resources such as crops, fertile land or people are also a part of this and influences the larger actions (such as conquest) your structure takes towards other countries. Trade can be a form of control and influence as well, even outside of the structure’s territory. In terms of story, a lot of decisions that are made involve trade or economic reasons - no one wants to get on the wrong side of someone who controls valuable resources or trade with other entities. The British Empire was based mainly on trade and this insured a global influence even as it declined in actual power.

3. Administration: The system of government and the way it manages itself is important to know. Is it a traditional monarchy or a democracy? How is leadership decided? How is power delegated throughout the larger administration? Hierarchy? One person can’t do or know everything. In terms of empire and conquest this is equally important. Does the empire recruit the local elites from conquered areas to administer to the general public, like the Romans? If your story is set in the outskirts of your empire, this could effect the outcome of the story - local elites might enjoy the power they have gained through an alliance with the larger empire and thus be unwilling to revolt against it. What other ways does your power structure control its territory? Does it use culture, or a set language to spread out into new territory? What kind of empire is your empire? Is it land based (only conquering territories linked by land) or maritime (navy focused with overseas territory)?

4. Culture: How does your power structure interact with its subjects? Even in a small area, different ethnic groups exist, so what unites all of them together? Are they all united, or is there groups of people the power structure leaves out? Have they always been left out deliberately or have these groups formed over time?How does the the government and the people from inside the empire view outsiders and their culture? Does this influence your story or characters? Do negative stereotypes or different language create a barrier between your character and others? In newly conquered areas is the empire’s language, laws and social ideals endorsed to locals or is it forced upon them? Is religion important to how the empire works or interacts? For example, before war do the gods need to show approval for the empire’s commanders? What about clashes of religion with other areas? Where do cultures intersect? Is your empire influenced by an older power or a hard past? What is seen as integral to your structure’s culture - art, literature, music etc? Are allies connected with your structure through culture, a shared distant history?

Most power structures rely on all of these factors - but none are ever equal in importance. Your government will identify one or two of these areas as important and focus on them. This can impact how the structure comes together and eventually falls apart - the greatest strength becomes a weakness, or something is overlooked until it is too late.

This is a long post - so I’m going to leave it here for now. If you guys have any questions, feel free to use the Ask feature to contact me.

Advice for World-Building

As a long time Table Top role-player, I have a bunch of top secret techniques for creating a fully fleshed0out world rather quickly. Especially when you need to give your players a place to explore on short notice.

Here is an easy way to turn a small town that is basically just a quest-giving-tavern attached to a inn, into a rich, thriving civilization. The trick is:

Economics.

Ask yourself, what does this place make, what does this place need?

Establishing the economic landscape of the village and how it relates to the area around it can work miracles for world building.

Does the town have a community of hunters? Once the meat is smoked how is it distributed/sold? Do they harvest lumber? If so how do they keep that industry sustainable without chopping down every single tree? Are there druids who calm the animal and regrow the fallen trees?

Does it have any specific artisanal goods? Who trains the next generation of craftsmen? Is this village the only one in the area that can craft this specific item? Does that make them a target for competitors who want their secret techniques?

What local animals could be tamed to assist in transporting the exports? How does the local wildlife treat the villagers? Is there issues from monster/animal attacks and how does the village defend itself?

What goods are important enough that the village will invest in protection from bandits while transporting it? If they easily produce tons of wheat, but it takes a lot of effort to grow sugar cane, who do they trade that sugar cane to in order to get a return on investment?

Once trade is complete, who gets the profits? Is there a merchants guild or union that makes sure the profits are fairly split? Or does a mafia control the flow of money? Is this town a branch of a larger trade union so there are hostilities between the locals and the out of town guild members?

What resource does the town lack? What resource would cripple the town if it was suddenly cut off or their trade partner couldn’t produce enough of?

Once you are able to answer a few of these questions quickly, you can establish a locations unique identity with only a few of these points.

When you combine two of more of these question you can start to build a narrative that can facilitate stories.

Example:

The Old Lor-Ahmek Parish:

Produces: Gold, Iron, Stone, Jewelry, Well Trained Archers

Requires: Labour, Produce, Transportation, Fabrics.

The abandoned castle once belonged to a vassal of the old King. The bitterly cold lands were given to a young lord as a show of good faith during a treaty signing. The lands turned out to be un-farmable since it was so far North that the harvest season was too sort to turn a profit. The lord sunk most of his fortune in building his massive castle and died in poverty. The land was returned to the king and was then gifted to a small sect of monks and turned into a Parish for study and meditation.

It was a costly slice of land since it had no exports, until an excavation intended to expand a catacomb revealed rich deposits of iron and gold underneath the mountain.

The parish was not equipped to become a full smithery so the iron and gold needs to be transported through the treacherous badlands to a warmer village in the South, where they have enough coal and lumber to keep their furnaces lit.

The monks of Lor-Ahmek study alchemy and various sciences, so while they can’t work with the materials on a large scale, they do craft jewelry and delicate accessories while they experiment on new metalworking techniques.

In order to dig the monks brought in prisoners from the central kingdom to work off their crimes in the mine, and they spend their nights trying to convert lost souls. Because of the long stretches of cold badlands, Lor-Ahmek makes for a very functional prison. No one can escape without enough food and clothes to survive the blizzards. Many prisoners become monks themselves once their sentence is paid off, since it is easier than trying to escape. Not to mention day after day of the monks persistent conversion attempts tends to wear them down.

Due to the large amount of ex-prisoner converts, the monks of Lor-Ahmek are hardened and trained in various forms of combat. The wide variety of prisoners brought from all across the world means that Lor-Ahmek is a melting pot of diversity. The sharing of cultures has created a unique cuisine of hardy stews and spiced meats. The delicious warm foodstuffs attracts travelers that plan on heading further North and the upper layers function as one large tourist trap.

The stone brought up from the mine in search of more ore has been used to build wind-resistant walls the dot the desolate landscape. Guard patrols run from wall to wall and have to train their archers to fire with the curvature of the wind. The central kingdom sends their elite archers here to train them in cover based combat, as the conditions of Lor-Ahmek result in archers who can curve their long ranged arrows and hit enemies behind cover.

Food is often scarce and large cave dwelling bat-creatures are raised for their meat and milk. The archers hunt the rabbit-creatures and elk-creatures for meat, and when the massive rhino-moose migrate, it is almost a rite of passage to hunt one of the enormous creatures down as a team. The rough hides of the local fauna are useful, but Lor-Ahmek often trades for finer furs from the South to line their clothes for warmth. Vegetables and fruit are expensive delicacies, since only root-tubers and mushrooms grown in insulated mine shafts.

The King often has to pay mercenaries and merchant caravans to move dangerous prisoners to Lor-Ahmek in exchange for the precious minerals, so a strict royal merchants guild controls the parishes finances. The Monks have taken a vow of poverty and the prisoners make no money so nearly all of the profits go to the King, covering the cost of transportation by the profits made off the gold and iron.

The monks and prisoners have to maintain the ancient crumbling estate and since profits go to the King, very little is provided for upkeep. Grey handmade clay mortar (dug up from the mine) is used for repairs, giving the buildings a cold, unsettling aesthetic.

The mine itself goes deep into the earth and uses a massive network of pulleys and elevators to move stones and ore. Cave-ins happen as the mine-shafts dig outwards under the surrounding tundra, and sometimes they run into warrens that belong to dangerous burrowing monsters. When this happens the tunnel is intentionally collapsed and the prisoners within are often left for dead.

Already this location provides for many quests and plot threads, such as:

A bounty is placed on one of the Monks: A violent prisoner has paid off their debt and found peace at the parish, but the family of the victim still wants blood. The other monks refuse to let their new brother go since they consider his past sins forgiven, and the target has to be convinced to give himself up, taken by force or allowed to escape his bounty.

A gang of criminals wants you to go into the mines and rescue their trapped comrades: A cave-in trapped some prisoners that were members of a gang. The leader of the gang knows the monks and guards will not spare the men to rescue the prisoners. The gang can’t pay you much but you will earn the favor of the gang if you save their friends in time.

A caravan was lost in the blizzard: The yearly trade caravan of ore was run off the road by a blizzard and the monks worry they will be found by bandits before they get back on the road. A lot of survival and tracking skills are needed to brave the harsh climate and find the lost merchants in time, if they are not rescued the Parish is in great financial danger.

Transport a valuable reliquary: The monks have been using gold to craft a powerful alchemic reliquary and need to hire couriers to move it South undetected. However, this reliquary contains powerful magic and there are shady individuals willing to pay you more to NOT complete your quest.

Ghosts in the Mine: So many prisoners have died untimely deaths in the hungry mines that ghosts are appearing, and hindering the mining operations. Adventurers who can banish the dark spirits will be well rewarded to cover up the indifference of the monk overseers.

Master Archery Challenge: An elderly guard has valuable information for the adventurers current main quest, but he won’t share his secrets until a member of the party proves themselves on the ice fields. A high level ranger or rouge might be able to compete against the Master Archer and victory might result in learning the secret techniques of the Lor-Ahmek. (Basic Ranged Attacks now ignore cover bonuses.)

There are lots of other techniques for fast world building but building stories through what they need/have is one of my favorites.

Let me know if you want to see more guides to World-Building/Character Building.

Part 1/?

next->

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zoel1212

8 years ago

Sure. Why not?

How to Break up Like a Philosopher

Teleologist: We aren’t meant for each other. Deontologist: We aren’t right for each other. Solipsist: It’s not you, it’s me. Empiricist: I think we should see other people. Rationalist: I’ve been doing some thinking… Continentalist: You’ve lost that love and feeling. Egalitarian: This is the best thing for both of us. Functionalist: I don’t care about accommodating your feelings. Quinean: I’m sorry, but you don’t mean anything to me anymore. Foundationalist: We have nothing left to build upon. Relativist: It’s no one’s fault. Atheist: These things just happen. Kantian: You lied to me! Consequentialist: You should have lied to my mother about her pot roast! Anti-Fictionalist: I’m sick of faking it. Cartesian: I don’t clearly and distinctly perceive a future together. Hegelian: Do we have to go through this again? Lockean: Our primary qualities simply aren’t compatible. Behaviorist: I just can’t keep going through the motions anymore. Presentist: There just isn’t any future for us. Eternalist: At least we’ll always have that weekend in Paris.

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zoel1212

8 years ago

Peopleeeeeeeee

reblog this is you love the curse workers

I NEED TO FIND YOOOU.

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zoel1212

7 years ago

School and tumblr

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zoel1212

6 years ago

hey i'm creating a race of fairies and since they generally have small builds and metal such as iron cold steel are deadly to them what are some good materials to use for the fairies to craft their weapons, i considered gems but doing some research i realized substance like diamonds and crystal are utterly impractical even for the fairies.

Well, fairies are magic. If a fairy wanted to wield a diamond sword, they could and no audience would question it. Magic is the solution to a lot of problems. The weakness of a weapon forged with magic is, of course, a steel blade but that only matters if they’re encountering humans wielding steel on the regular. Fairies can do whatever they want and dance merrily on the graves of scientists the world over, so don’t let that stop you.

Blades of pure light.

Blades of diamond.

Blades from plants.

Fairies wielding magma blades or swords forged from stardust.

A sword of glass containing the beating heart and heat of the sun.

Futuristic fairies who behave like aliens in Iron Man style power armor formed from plastics/polymers wielding lightsabers and firing bolts of plasma.

They’re fairies. Sky’s the limit here. Except, it’s not because then we catapult ourselves out into space. Go however far your imagination takes you.

Look to myth for your solutions, especially the Celtic Sidhe. Unless you’re dealing with a modern setting (and even if you are) mythology has already developed solutions. It’s a great place to start your search.

However, here are some things I’ll point out:

Cold Iron/Cold Steel are a reference to a specific forging technique rather than a type of metal, though in folklore it can just mean steel swords. Still, this will open up your options some.

Cold Iron for fairies dates back to when iron forging was still mostly new, or less common. There’s certainly lore out there with mythological fairies fighting warriors wielding iron blades, but were unbeatable until new forging techniques were developed.

Ask yourself: is it the forging technique which makes these swords dangerous to your fairies or is it the metal itself? In which case, then you can cut out “cold” as it’s just steel.

Here’s the Wikipedia article about iron in folklore. It may help you some in your search.

If you want to write Urban Fantasy with fairies then I’d go with the forging process rather steel itself. The reason is that they couldn’t go anywhere. At least, not places like the US or Europe or anywhere there’s a high steel content in the buildings, cars, and sewer systems. Even with a shift to polymers too much of the major metropolitan centers in the developed world are built on steel bones. Science fiction fairies re-emerging in the future where all metals are polymers has more potential.

Honestly, any army from a period using steel or iron weapons could curb stomp fairies if they’re allergic to the metal. Using the forging process moves all to some and then down to almost none, making way for the future fairyocalypse of 2018.

-Michi

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zoel1212

6 years ago

What is the name of this book?

Such things they have done to me that it would take a river of blood to wash away all my wounds. I struggle for my most rational moments

“I really said that?” he asked. “It sounds a bit mad.”

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zoel1212

6 years ago

concept playlists part ii

it’s the year 2077 & you’re at a nightclub in tokyo with your best friend, you’re both on the run from a group of rebels but you feel safe in this little neon corner of nowhere so when a robot waiter offers you a strawberry daiquiri you accept it you’re a tourist on mars & you’re trying to contact home but the signal is really crappy so you just end up buying yourself an icecream sundae & waiting in this strange alien queue to buy an interstellar sim card you’re in a small virginian town that was wiped off the map several years ago housesitting for a mysterious neighbor when you find a secret passageway in their library, you have no idea where it leads but you’re curious to take a look you’re in victorian england & you’re walking down a path adorned with the warm aureate glow of gaslights & it’s snowing softly & you have your hands buried deep in your coat pockets while somewhere in the distance, someone announces that the queen is dead you meet god at a gas station at 3.03 am & he asks you if you want to go for a motorcycle ride with him & when you say yes he warns you that he’s about to introduce you to things you can never unknow

you’re in love with a ghost who shows up in all your household mirrors & keeps turning off the kitchen light but one night you realize that you’re the one that’s been doing all the haunting it’s a rehab centre for celestial beings, where angels with dying halos flitter past & talk to you of stars, you love working this job, learning about the woes of a dozen flighty beings, & they endow you with their strength & light in return you’re stuck in a time loop inside of a 80′s horror flick and your entire world feels like it’s glitching around you nothing is real except for your strange lover with eyes like moonlight calling you to come back to bed you’re at an island at midnight all by yourself, the night sky is so clear the sea reflects the star-matted sky, a salty breeze lifts your hair, you breathe in deep & dream of someone beautiful coming to your rescue

xtras: hotmess / midyouth crisis / mud puppy / lucid dreaming

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zoel1212

6 years ago