The Seven Kingdoms

OK, this was originally posted in my LJ a while ago. I’m moving it over here, to get a lot more of my RPG stuff in one place. Those who remember the original LJ entry may notice that a couple of names have changed. I leave it up to certain friends to notice the origins…

I will also say that I really wish I knew how to do cuts in Wordpress. Looks like I need to look into a couple of those tutorial things.

For today, we have my campaign world. Note, I have never actually run a game in this world. I started working on it many years ago, before D&D 3.0 was released. So, it was originally heavily influenced by the 2nd Ed AD&D rules. Then, I switched over and built it around the Rolemaster rules. Then, I switched back and rebuilt it under 3.0. Now, I’m trying to go for largely system-independent.

I’m going to put some stuff up here, just so I don’t lose it.

First, an overview. I deliberately designed the world to keep the action contained to relatively small, but geographically diverse, area. I also wanted something odd thrown in, that could be used to explain a lot of oddities. So, pretty much, I had a small asteroid hit a patch of coast similar to the west coast of the US. It fractured the plate, and created an enormous crater which filled in with the ocean. So, you end up with an area with a nicely contained body of water, for excellent shipping and travel, surrounded by a ring of land. The ring of land means that it’s difficult for a peasant to move from one kingdom to another, leading to distinct cultures and histories, but adventurers can pretty easily experience them all without stretching either imagination, or the timeline.

To the west is the ocean. Given that there is such abundant trade between the Seven Kingdoms, there has been little pressure to build large ocean-going ships. As such, most of that area is largely unexplored. Especially as there is no indication of another significant body of land anywhere close.

To the north are harsh mountains, beyond which are tundra and the icecap. There are a few people that live and explore up there, but not many.

To the east is the major mountain chain. The immediate east side of the mountains are covered with a dense forest, and is very rough terrain. This is largely populated by fairies, and tribes of feral halflings. Beyond that, the land opens into desert and grasslands. This area is inhabited by tribes of goblinoids. While small groups of humans have made settlements in the area, it is largely uncivilized. No explorers have ever made it to the other side of the desert, and returned to tell the tale.

To the south, the Mediterranean-like outer coast of Is-Ka’ander breaks up into a number of islands, below which is the Sea of Storms. This is an area of sharp rocks, moving shallows, and rough weather, which make travel through it almost impossible. There are tales, and even occasional artifacts, from the lands beyond. But, it is a land of legend, not someplace that any rational person would want to go. (In an RPG, it functions as a catch-all for people from cultures that I haven’t integrated, such as the Orient, and a place for possible later expansion).

There are, as you might expect, Seven Kingdoms to the world. Well, specifically, seven human kingdoms. The kingdoms underground aren’t coun

This entry was posted on 20. January 2009 at 16:10 and is filed under 7 Kingdoms, Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.