Create a Homebrew Campaign | #10: World Politics
Good day, and welcome to another part of my homebrew campaign series! Early in this series, I had stated my intent to have World History and World Politics as two posts. However, after writing that post, I found that they each needed their own dedicated article and video. I released the first part of that last week, in which we talked about world history and the creation of timelines for your world. I supplied an example timeline as well, covering the early history of one of the regions in my world, Nemlisi. This week we’re going to take a look at one of the darker things in the creation of a campaign setting… politics.
As always, this article is available in video form on my YouTube channel. If you’d like to check that out, you can do so below:
Global and Local Politics
The first step in drafting your setting’s politics is to split them into global and local. My suggestion is to start with local politics and work your way up to global politics. This will make it easier to determine what manner of global events and politics will be at play based on the local politics you have devised. The local events of one region could potentially have an impact on the local events of a different region, leading to global issues, tensions, and even wars.
For this part, I’m going to focus on the local politics of one region on my map, Nemlisi, the southernmost region of Elzveir. I’ll walk through my regional politics form (available at the bottom of this article via the download link) as we proceed with writing out local politics for this area. Once that’s done, I’ll talk about the impact that Nemlisi has on global politics, including enemy and ally regions.
So, let’s get started on local politics. I’m going to be using Nemlisi as an example as we move through this. I would suggest downloading the form via the link at the bottom of this article so that you can follow along from start to finish.
Politics of Nemlisi
Nemlisi is the southernmost region of Elzveir. It is the first region that was settled in Elzveir after the event known as the Reckoning. Elves were the primary settlers of Nemlisi and their first settlement was called Shuriku, which is still present in Nemlisi, today. After barely surviving a war against the war-hungry draconic and orcish races who invaded from a second continent, the people of Nemlisi became more defensive and secluded, hiding away from the rest of the world and refusing to take in outsiders. Any potential invasion was met with incredible force, largely born of ancient magicks, as a result, Nemlisi has developed as a protecting, isolationist region for the past six hundred years, making it markedly different from the regions around it. I will be developing the local politics of Nemlisi with this thought in mind.
Local Political Information Form
My political information form is, just like this part of the course, split into local and global politics. I’m going to walk through each part of the form here and will provide my own examples of how I filled out the form with regard to Nemlisi.
Summary
The summary part of your local politics form is dedicated to summarizing your region. I would keep this a paragraph in length, with a focus on how the history of your region helped to shape local politics. For Nemlisi, I’m summarizing it in a manner similar to the summary I provided above, emphasizing the isolationist mentality of the Nemlisian people.
Nemlisi is the southernmost region of Elzveir. This region was one of the first areas of Elzveir settled after the Reckoning took place. Roughly two centuries after the Reckoning’s presumed date of occurrence, elves arrived in Nemlisi from the eastern continent of Daiichi and formed the first post-Reckoning settlement, known today as Shuriku. About a hundred years later, the region of Nemlisi was attacked by the draconic and orcish races of Matka. The Nemlisians survived the war, but only barely. The result was the development of strong defensive and isolationist ideals, and so the Nemlisians cut themselves off from the rest of the world and pushed off any potential threats and invaders. They have since developed in an isolationist bubble, separate from the rest of the world.
Details
The details are where you can write the specifics about your region’s politics and how they function as a society. This is the bulk of your political information for the region. Here, you’ll list the capital of your region, the region’s government, its political ideology, military information, and the approximate population count.
For Nemlisi, I’ve provided the following details:
Capital
Tenotaka
Government
Constitutional Monarchy
Ideology
Isolationist, Militaristic
Military
Defensive and Magic-Focused. Many citizens are capable combatants.
Population
12,370,000
Allies and Enemies
Next, we have allies and enemies. More than just being a list of allied and enemy regions and continents, this is meant to be a description of what would make someone an ally or enemy of the region. You can also list specific enemies of this region, but I find it is useful to include information about what would cause someone to be an enemy of this region so that you can easily determine how the people of this region would view those beyond its circle.
Nemlisi is neutral by default, given its isolationist approach to global politics. However, its principled approach to keeping itself apart from the rest of the world has caused it to be viewed antagonistically by some of the other political forces in the world. Specifically, they are enemies with Gurkiza and Matka, the latter of which is responsible for the original war that led to Nemlisi’s political ideology of isolationism.
Present Political Climate
The last part of the local political information form is reserved for details about the present political climate, or the way that the politics are operating in your setting’s present day. This will help to immerse your players in the world, as it will aid them in understanding the environment that they’re in while present in this region. If the present climate is peaceful, then they can expect calm, quiet days. If it is tense, like it is in Nemlisi right now, they can expect an air of anxiety, stress, and distrust. Below is the information I wrote for Nemlisi:
Nemlisi is always fortifying. Efforts are constantly underway to increase defenses and the elves of Nemlisi are always on edge. Outsiders are forbidden, walls and watch posts are going up throughout the kingdom, and tensions are at a constant high. This has bred distrust among the people of Nemlisi. For some, this distrust and anxiety has led to a hatred for outsiders. Others, however, find themselves wishing to open the gates of Nemlisi to welcome the outside world, which they believe is feared needlessly. As these ideals clash, political tensions in Nemlisi rise, so much so that the rumors of civil war have begun to spread.
Politics of Elzveir
While the section on the political information form lists this as Global politics, I’m not going to worry too much about the politics of other continents like Daiichi and Matka. Instead, this is going to be used to describe politics in Elzveir. I may provide snippets of information about politics regarding other continents, but since Elzveir is the primary setting for this campaign, I’m going to be more concerned about going into detail about politics on this continent.
In the Global Politics section, your goal is to make it clear what sort of political and ideological climate your players can expect to experience while playing in your setting. If there is war brewing or ongoing in your world, it will be imperative to point this out here so that you can paint a clear picture in your game of what the tensions are and how forces are moving. Even while your players are focused on smaller, more minor quests compared to continental strife and war, those pieces will be in play and could affect their story.
The current political climate in my setting is tense, as the King of Gurkiza is seeking to conquer Elzveir and spread his rule, with dreams of a broader conquest over the rest of the world once his goals are met in Elzveir. Military units are stationed in Gurkiza and Kurugin while other regions wait in fear, hoping they’ll be ready for whatever battles await them when the king decides to launch his attack.
Below is the paragraph I wrote specifically for the global politics section of my form.
In Elzveir, tensions are high. The King of Gurkiza has dreams of power and conquest… dreams that are beginning to have a negative impact on the rest of the world. He has allied himself with the Council of Kurugin and employed their forces to assist in his goal of conquest and, right now, his eyes are set on Nemlisi. Nemlisi’s focus on regional defense and strong magical prowess makes it a formidable foe, but strife within the country’s walls has started to weaken it from the inside. At the moment, the forces of Gurkiza are stationed throughout Elzveir, ready and waiting for the order to begin their assault.
Of course, this is directed largely at how global politics impact Nemlisi. I have numerous regions present in the world of Elzveir, and each of them will be associated with the global politics of this continent. Even those who try to keep out of global issues will, in some way, be affected by them. One paragraph isn’t enough to encompass all of the political issues plaguing your continent (or mine), this is just a start.
Conclusion
I hope you can see now why I felt the need to split history and politics into two separate posts rather than mashing them into one incredibly long part of this homebrew campaign creation course! World politics can be especially complex, so I thought it best to break this one away from the world history post to ensure I dedicated enough time to this facet of world creation. In this part of the course, we’ve gone over both local and global politics, but I only focused on one region in an entire continent filled with different regions. Between now and the next course, you should take time to flesh out your world by adding local political information for every region in your campaign setting, and be sure to draft details about the current political climate for your world—something beyond the simple paragraph I provided regarding global politics for Elzveir.
Thanks so much for taking the time to check out this post, I hope you enjoyed it and took something away from it. Understanding the politics of your world—both local and global—is key to ensuring that you have a setting that is fleshed out well enough to draft a believable, immersive campaign for your tabletop roleplaying game. We have one more course regarding world-building for this series before we have a strong enough setting to begin drafting our campaign and character arcs, and that course is coming out next week! We’ll be discussing the populations and cultures of your world’s setting, so get ready for a dive into that.
In the meantime, I would greatly appreciate your support! Right now, the best way to support me is a subscription to my YouTube channel, which is brand new at the time of this writing and I’m working to get it off the ground. Additionally, you can follow me on most social media platforms. I’m @tlbainter on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, so please feel free to check me out there. I’m most active on Instagram if you’re wanting to know which platform is best. Those links will all be at the bottom of this post.
Can’t wait for the next (and last) world-building post to be released! Stay tuned for it. Until then, bye!