The "Daily" Worldbuilding Prompt. Chapter 3

[Orc Knight]

Question 115: How nationalized is identity in your world? (Do people buy into the imagined community? Has there even been attempts to create them so far, or is personal/regional loyalty common? In case national identity exists, has it gone so far as to create a civil religion? How is this represented?)

Not very in most places. The Kingdoms of Zukal are close to the most nationalistic there is, at least of the human nations. They have a pretty decent Imperialist attitude and the griffon symbol is rampant and they worship Senssa, the goddess of magic and follow a human first attitude that puts even Baba Yaga's northern kingdom to shame. Senssa was the founder and freer of humanity and so they took her original model and then went overboard. They were quite imperialistic and expansionist up until they collapsed into hundreds of different kingdoms that all payed homage to Zukal. As of the Lich Wars they are having a lot of trouble with keeping it all together and they are on the brink of falling due to internal corruption and outside (and inside) influence.

The Celestial Empire is a celestial elf ruled and asian inspired (slightly broken) empire that held itself and it's dynasties as a class ruled whole with the celestial elves as the royal and noble class. Under them fall the military races of green elves, oni (red and blue trolls) and orcs and the servant classes, goblins, dwarves, lunar elves and other such. Then there's the lowest rung of odd jobs and those undesired jobs that must be done. They are heavily invested in it and the Lich Wars all but broke them. Known for their moon and stars iconography and other celestial bodies. Some of their greatest warriors and leaders could call down the stars and bring the void to earth and some had even started into space and going to the moons. Most were killed or turned undead during the Lich Wars. And so broken is everything that no one is even sure who currently rules the Empire.

The Delver are another one that is close to a full nation, though yet another one on the brink of civil war (a quite common occurrence it seems). They pride themselves on how great a peoples they are and bow to the King Under the Mountain. They are heavy on tradition and being the epitome of dwarves. This has led to a xenophobic state with most of those who don't currently mix in the City of Light and a heavy loathing towards outsiders and an even bigger loathing towards drow.

The drow state itself might make one, if Lolth and the other Matriarchs gave a damn. The national symbol is a peach or a peach tree and they also seem to be everywhere and they do spread their religion (more or less the state one due to Lolth) and it maintains itself through it's pursuit of merchants and it's own progress and making others follow in their path.

The wood elves have tried and more or less almost succeeded in a way. They ended up with more a cult of personality towards the royalty and the gods, but that would eventually end slightly before the Lich Wars and with the collapse of the Temples of Aelf due to rebellion. Something wood elves are particularly good at. They would eventually become the queendom they currently are with a pride as wood elves as a whole but even they are a step away from civil war.

I think that's all of them. Except maybe the Kingdom of TIM. But word is that it's to be a republic shortly.

 

[Miles Lacey]

Question 115: How nationalized is identity in your world? (Do people buy into the imagined community? Has there even been attempts to create them so far, or is personal/regional loyalty common? In case national identity exists, has it gone so far as to create a civil religion? How is this represented?)


Imagined community - Wikipedia
Civil religion - Wikipedia

Different countries emerged for different reasons. Nationalism was a key factor in countries where the majority of the people belonged to a specific culture, race or worshippers of a particular God. These countries are referred to as nation-states. The Avalonian Empire and the Bantu Republic are two examples of such countries.

Some countries were established as refuges for people escaping persecution or war. Such countries are called refuge states and are generally ignored by much larger countries because they're usually of little, or no, strategic or economic value. An excellent example of one is the Co-operative People's Republic of Geehaad which is a small republic in the Himalayan Straits which is used by many countries as a place to store much of their wealth.

Other countries were established as trading states to dominate shipping routes (such as the Tarakan Empire), trading routes on land (such as the Occidental Empire (now Republic)) or to establish domination over resources (such as the Orissa Empire).

Finally there's the strategic or buffer states. These are countries that have been created to act as a buffer between rival powers or to control a strategic area that is wanted by major powers who aren't prepared to go to war with each other to secure it. The Krakowski League is one example of this. The Krakowski League is a collection of micro-states that dominate key road and rail junctions and mining areas between the Avalonian Empire and the Confederation of Northern States.

Most of the older states, including the Tarakan Empire, have established a civil religion but they would describe it in other terms as there is only one Faith throughout the world albeit in many different manifestations.

 

[Ban]

Last question was a rather big one, so let's scale down and take another food break today.

Question 116: I'm suffering from the most common of simple diseases. What food is served in your world to sickly folks like me? (Bonus: What's the disease? And what's the thought-process behind the food choice? Easy to consume due to banal taste? Is it a beneficial spice cocktail?)

 

[Ban]

The Avalonian Empire and the Bantu Republic are two examples of such countries.

Given your usage of real-world (or real-world fictional in the case of Avalon) place names, I wonder if your world is based on ours, or if it's an artistic design choice? I'm not sure if I asked this before, but I might have.

 

[Maker of Things Not Kings]

Question 116: I'm suffering from the most common of simple diseases. What food is served in your world to sickly folks like me? (Bonus: What's the disease? And what's the thought-process behind the food choice? Easy to consume due to banal taste? Is it a beneficial spice cocktail?)

There are a lot of folk remedies in my world, some of which are directly taken from my six great aunts who all thought they had the cure for everything that ailed you but the following I borrowed from research on food oddities in our world.

One cure-all comes from a hilltop village where dabs (potatoes) are grown on the hillsides and then boiled in heavily salted water (the hill the village sits on has veins of salt running beneath it) to make the creamy delight. This culinary eye opener is taken from New Jersey's early Irish salt miners who made the salt potatoes outside the mines for their lunch. In my world, the steam from these being made is inhaled to relieve respiratory ailments and the resulting liquid drained from the potatoes is mixed with other herbs and sold as an expectorant.

Here's my own bonus for readers: I've made salt potatoes at home and, if sodium is not an issue for one's diet or blood pressure/health, I highly recommend trying them! I promise, while you'll all balk at the amount of salt needed for making a pot of them, they won't be as salty as you think in the end. The crystallized salt-shell that results on small red or gold potatoes once they're done is amazing, the insides end up creamy, like whipped potatoes, and tossed with a large chunk of unsalted butter and mixed with herbs? Crazy good!

 

[Orc Knight]

Last question was a rather big one, so let's scale down and take another food break today.

Question 116: I'm suffering from the most common of simple diseases. What food is served in your world to sickly folks like me? (Bonus: What's the disease? And what's the thought-process behind the food choice? Easy to consume due to banal taste? Is it a beneficial spice cocktail?)

Hearth's Soup, as recommended by any of the Hearth Priest/ess and even other traveling healers. Pretty much a basic broth, veggies and meat and noodles, once they get around to noodles. And usually after they've used a bit of magic on you and on the soup. A Kitchen Witch can do miraculous things with food. They'll also recommend certain cool drinks for fevers and the like and heartier fare depending. And if your desperate enough there's always the standard health potions and cure disease ones, but they don't cover everything.

 

[Miles Lacey]

Given your usage of real-world (or real-world fictional in the case of Avalon) place names, I wonder if your world is based on ours, or if it's an artistic design choice? I'm not sure if I asked this before, but I might have.

The Avalonian Empire was named after Avalon, the suburb where the old television studios were located in Lower Hutt here in New Zealand. Orissa was named after Orissa Crescent in Broadmeadows, Wellington, in an area where many of the streets are named after Indian cities and (then) provinces. The Krakowski League was named after a Polish woman I knew. The Occidental Republic was going to be the Oriental Republic, which is named after Oriental Parade in Wellington, but I thought that was too obvious for a place modelled loosely on the Chinese Republic created in 1912 so i changed it to the Occidental Republic which is a bit more vague. Tarakan was something I thought was uniquely my own because it sounded vaguely Indonesian. Turns out there's a city of that name in Indonesia.

The underlying theme of my world is the world as it existed in the 1930s but with elements such as magic, a single world religion, a very different history and different creatures and humanoid races that are a combination of real world, real world fictional and my own creations.

 

[Miles Lacey]

Last question was a rather big one, so let's scale down and take another food break today.

Question 116: I'm suffering from the most common of simple diseases. What food is served in your world to sickly folks like me? (Bonus: What's the disease? And what's the thought-process behind the food choice? Easy to consume due to banal taste? Is it a beneficial spice cocktail?)

Puhipuhi Manawa Kahui (Fire Breath Soup) is a tautai soup made from coconut, rice and a mix of very powerful spices of which the exact composition varies from island to island. They're also a closely guarded secret. Sometimes the gills on a tautai can become irritated because of sand and other tiny particles. This soup is intended to cure the irritation and clear the particles because one of its side-effects is that it makes a tautai "fart" long and hard through the gills. Humans, elves and itims use it as a laxative that'll cure constipation.

 

[Ban]

Question 117: What do/did your people believe the stars are?

 

[Svrtnsse]

Question 117: What do/did your people believe the stars are?

Scientists have concluded that stars are distant suns, and civilised individuals reliant on logic and reason subscribe to this explanation.

However, often in my stories, there's a sense among people who gaze up at the night sky, that there's something more to it than that. At night, the stars sing to each other, in a voice no one can hear, and in words that no one knows. It is, of course, superstition, but that doesn't mean it doesn't feel like it could be true.

 

[Orc Knight]

Question 117: What do/did your people believe the stars are?

Deities of some sorts, or things that make and sometimes empower constellations. Those with connections to them tend to see them as living beings (this is Eld, they are, after a fashion) and not exactly the nicest things around. And while some are decent there are others that are hungry and perfectly willing to burn worlds to feed themselves. Others are little more then eldritch abominations of light that are actively malevolent and want to destroy things. So, they don't so much as believe as more or less know all of this in some form. Wish upon a star and one may regret it.

 

[Miles Lacey]

Question 117: What do/did your people believe the stars are?

For millennia it was widely believed that stars were the souls of the dead who didn't make it into Paradise. It was believed that constellations are the souls of those who seek to help humanoids in order to eventually earn their place in Paradise next to the Gods.

Science long ago concluded that the stars are distant suns but people still love their stories.

 

[Ban]

Question 118: The bones of a dinosaur makes a convincing dragon, and add some fungus to a rabbit to get the Wolpertinger. Can you tell me about a legendary creature (that isn't real), and why people imagined it to actually exist?

 

[Orc Knight]

Question 118: The bones of a dinosaur makes a convincing dragon, and add some fungus to a rabbit to get the Wolpertinger. Can you tell me about a legendary creature (that isn't real), and why people imagined it to actually exist?

For once, no. That's what happens when you make a world where things that start as legends and stories eventually become quite real.

 

[blondie.k]

Question 118: The bones of a dinosaur makes a convincing dragon, and add some fungus to a rabbit to get the Wolpertinger. Can you tell me about a legendary creature (that isn't real), and why people imagined it to actually exist?

What about the water horse? There is the legend of the water horse made from the Celtic tales. As for why they might belive they exist, most of the time when we as humans can't explain something or don't understand it, we create these stories to try and explain them. The result are legends.

 

[Miles Lacey]

Question 118: The bones of a dinosaur makes a convincing dragon, and add some fungus to a rabbit to get the Wolpertinger. Can you tell me about a legendary creature (that isn't real), and why people imagined it to actually exist?

In the Tarakan Empire many workers work long hours so when they head home it's late at night and they're knackered. Many of these workers claim they have seen a werecat while heading home or cutting through dark alleyways.

The werecat is believed to be nocturnal, seen in cities and large towns in dark alleyways and have sharp teeth including two protruding teeth like those of a sabre toothed tiger. It's said to be the size of a large dog and snarls like a cat. They are rumoured to eat small humanoids so children are warned "If you don't eat your rice we'll leave you outside in the alleyway where the werecat will get you!" It is believed they are the creation of an evil Occidental scientist known as Mulan-Chi. (The Occidental Republic is the Tarakan Empire's main enemy.) Like the werecat Mulan-Chi is believed to be mythical.

The most likely explanation is that what the workers have seen is a sabre-cat, which is the off-spring of a sabre toothed cat and a domestic cat. Sometimes sabre tooth cats stray into towns or cities and mate with domestic cats.

Sabre toothed cats are not to be confused with sabre toothed tigers. The sabre toothed cats are smaller and live in the tropics. Sabre toothed tigers mostly live in the savanna regions of the world and on the steppes.

 

[Ban]

Question 119: I want to know the history of your world, where do I go to study it as best as possible?

 

[Orc Knight]

Question 119: I want to know the history of your world, where do I go to study it as best as possible?

Any library, though the Great Library in the Emerald Deep has the most concise history it can get. Given most of it can be quite contradictory at times, the easiest way to follow the history is the many and varied wars. True most of it is written by trolls but the library holds many different books from all over. And if you want to get a more in depth study, go talk to a necromancer, death cleric or reaper and talk to the spirits. If they can get one to show up to talk about it. Keep in mind it will only be one account from quite a bias former being.

 

[blondie.k]

Question 119: I want to know the history of your world, where do I go to study it as best as possible?

My world's history is a long one. Cyrom is actually the native home to Pixies, Dwarves, Sprites, and Shadows/spirits. Elves, humans, and other races migrated there many, many years ago. Most people know the history as they are required to learn it in school (like we do today). Ask anyone, visit a library, or talk to a historian.
(If you would like to know more about Cyrom, feel free to let me know.)

 

[Miles Lacey]

Question 119: I want to know the history of your world, where do I go to study it as best as possible?

Every town and city will have at least one library. If you want more in-depth history then there's at least 36 universities to choose from. For any history to do with magic Colleges of Mages will have a decent library and scholars who can answer your questions. In addition there's the Imperial Historical Archives. This institution is the only one in which the Catechism and the Ministry of Internal Security as a whole is specifically banned from entering or removing materials from it.

Many regions have a Speakers Night at least once a month where people can go to the local temple square and talk about any subject they like, including history, without being arrested or facing legal consequences (unless they confess to a crime covered by the Penal Code). This was introduced to allow people to rant about things they normally can't such as questioning the competence or wisdom of the Monarchs over the decades..