I was/am a big fan of historical settings. For years I used to run a Viking campaign. You cant beat the world-building detail of a place that actually existed. Doing the research is part of the fun. You should encourage your players to contribute to the level of detail in your campaign by researching the background of their character class. Im curious to know how much history you are keeping-does the Catholic Church exist in your setting?
As for your question, a straight is a narrow passage between two larger bodies of water, and gulfs tend to be larger than bays, but at the time that names and labels were being ascribed to major geographic features there were no universal definitions for such things, so the terms we are stuck with today have a large arbitrary element to them.
Edited by DeMarquis on Oct 13th 2018 at 5:30:31 AM
I know right! I've also found myself with much more of a direction and drive since I'm not creating history and culture out of whole cloth. I haven't talked to my players yet at this point, but I have made in-universe, cultural reasons to justify the exitance/appearance of the classes.
I don't have a Catholic church as of yet. I"m playing around with the idea of a necropolis. The Aurum Trade Alliance is based heavily on The Holy Roman Empire; just with a mercantile and dwarven twist.
Edited by TheSaltyVulcan on Oct 15th 2018 at 5:09:12 AM
Dwarves would make fantastic Swiss Pikemen.
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As an Italian myself, this is highly relevant to my interests!
If you're trying to base a setting on Renaissance Italy, one thing worth keeping in mind is that the cities of the time would not have been politically or culturally united with each other to any real degree — the city-states would have had fully independent governments, largely separate cultures and for the most part their own languages (although in the context of a game campaign, this would likely be a mite much, I suspect). They would have likely viewed each other more as rivals than anything — heck, several outright warred with each other on multiple occasions! This degree of political disunity is something deeply enough rooted into the time period that I do very much feel it needs to be at least nodded at.
Another thing that might be worth considering is sea trade and sea travel — several city-states, especially Pisa, Genoa, Venice, and Amalfi, maintained extensive merchant and military fleets and were major powers in the Mediterranean's politics and trade as a result. One useful aspect of this, regardless of whether we're talking about a story or a tabletop campaign, is that it would make travel and access to foreign information, goods and characters fairly easy.
Another thought: if some Precursor culture exists in your world, perhaps it might be worth looking into establishing cultural or historical ties between it and not!Italy. Italy was built on the bones of Rome, after all, which medieval and Renaissance Europeans tended to view with a sort of awestruck awe in most regards, and the Renaissance Italian cultures were quite aware of this. Emulation of such a culture, an expectation of familiarity with it and its works in higher classes, a fixation with its ruins and legacy, that sort of thing — it might be worth including. Even to this day, a lot of Italians tend to be inordinately proud of being descended from the empire that made Europe what it is today.
They were also pretty fanatically religious, of course, but really, who wasn't those days?
On an entirely unrelated note; I feel the issue with basing cultures on historical societies is to tightrope between making them reminiscent enough of their bases to get the thematic links across, but not going overboard to the point that the fictional culture just becomes the real one with a few details tweaked. Since we're talking about Renaissance Italy, I think a good example of striking a good balance might be the Free Cities from A Song of Ice and Fire: they hit most of the core points of the Renaissance city-states' culture and politics, but are other than that very clearly distinct and unique from their actual inspirations.
As in what they look like? A bay is a small body of water partly surrounded by land, usually shaped like a cup or a bowl; they make good places to build port cities, because their "cupped" shapes protect their interiors from the worst of storms and winds. A gulf is more or less the same thing, but bigger — see the Gulf of Mexico or the Arabian Gulf, for example. Sometimes large indentations are still called bays, but generally speaking bays are small and gulfs are big. A strait is the opposite of an isthmus — it's a narrow passage of water connecting two larger bodies of water, like a river except there's no actual flow. So, for instance, if you've got two seas and then a small threadlike connection between them, the strait is the connection.
Or see the Wikipedia pages for
the three, if that's more helpful.
Hey everyone! First post and I thought I might as well get this out of the way since it's what I'm currently working on.
I'm making a homebrew campaign setting for a campaign I'm hoping to run soon, and I'm just looking for a place to store my information and ask for some advice and opinions. Thanks to Inkarnate, I have a map and have started to flesh out the setting. As you can see, the setting in based on Italy. Renaissance Italy actually!
I thought that the Renaissance was a perfect time period for a game of D&D: the advent of gunpowder weapons could open class options, the rediscovery of Latin and Greek works could be subbed in for magic; trade from the East would make for great flavor, and monk characters would be easier to introduce etc. I also thought that the Appinine Peninsula would be an ideal location.
So to get the ball rolling I'll start with what I've come up with for the Aurum Trade Alliance.
In contrast to the surrounding republics and states within the region, the ATA has it's own standing military. All citizens within the ATA are conscripted into its military for a 5-10 year tour of service once a citizen is considered to be of mature age. Those who stay on longer become career soldiers and enjoy an empire-wide discount at stores and inns and pay fewer taxes.
The primary deity of worship within the ATA is Moradin, the Dwarffather. Other religions are tolerated and are free to worship openly. Religious leaders are even exempt from taxes and military service.
Thanks to a combination of Dwarven ingenuity and craftsmanship, as well newly emerging technologies within the region, the ATA is the most technologically advanced superpower. Its greatest accomplishment within the last 30 years is its railway transit system. Its latest development is gunpowder and firearms.
Within the last decade the ATA has been recovering both politically and economically since a duke betrayed the Emperor and "sold" an ATA state to the north-east of the region to its chief economic rival; the Republic of Tevino. An under-handed political maneuver which left the ATA unable to openly declare war, the relationship between the two has soured bitterly. The betrayal against the Emperor has left those loyal to him open to his paranoia.
This will be updated as I progress. I do have a question though. I've always had difficulties distinguishing bays, straits, gulfs and despite my attempts, I'm actually having a hard go of identifying such on the map. Could somebody help me with such?
Right, well I had a map, but new users can't make posts with external links. Great.
Edited by TheSaltyVulcan on Oct 14th 2018 at 4:14:05 AM