One of the driving themes throughout fantasy and science fiction is that of cultural conflict. It is a great source of adventures, but can be taken to the extreme. Here’s the sources of cultural conflicts in the Middle Lands, and how I will be handling it.
Conflict In the Middle Lands
Cultural conflict has a ripe tradition in fiction, from the Normans and Anglo-Saxons of Robin Hood, to the Rankans and Ilsigi of Thieves World, to the (insert any kingdom or land) in the world of Conan. Cultural conflict just gives players so many opportunities for adventures and roleplaying that you can’t pass it up.
In the Middle Lands, the main realm I am starting in is the Kingdom of Yengzhi. Originally the land was settled and developed by a group of peoples that had vaguely Anglo-Saxon and Spanish branches. They were pushed out of Yengzhi by an Asian-inspired people in the year 1389, who were then conquered by a vaguely Arabic people, in 2216. While the current year is 3950, the rich history of these wars can still be felt in the current time.
All of which leads to a rich source of conflicts–and therefore adventures. The stratification of Yengzhi society into the three layers–Urrean at the bottom, Tianshangi in the middle and Kavasti at the top–has established a society with many different factions, goals and simple desires.
How I Will Handle It
My plan is to lay this out in a very simple manner. The reason is I do not want to fall into the trap of doing too much worldbuilding with no actual playing! I’m going to write up the very simple basics, a simple timeline for continuity purposes–then start roleplaying. Since I’m doing all of this solo, that is not a problem.
Where this becomes a need is when I start trying to flesh it out for a full-blown setting. For anyone else who wants to use the Middle Lands, well, they will have to wait for me to get it done. For myself, I only need just as much as I have to have in order to write up some adventures, establish PCs and the interactions they will have with NPCs. The rest is too much, too soon.
Beyond that, I want to write up the details because I just love worldbuilding! I have this idea in my head, and I _need_to get it out and onto paper. Does anyone else care? No–and that’s OK. If anyone else uses the Middle Lands, I am happy for them. I just know I will be, and ay details help me with my roleplaying, even if it is solo.
So What Next?
Establishing some of this context for the Kingdom of Yengzhi is helping me write up details that I want for various factions and groups that I want to have. For example, understanding the cultural groups and frictions, I can write up my magical schools in a more cohesive way–and understand their place in Yengzhi society.
As I write up these details, I will post them in the Middle Lands area of this site. I will be posting some into a players area, with common knowledge (some true, some false) and some in a Referees area, with more hard facts. This will include information about groups in the Middle Lands, including magical schools, law & order factions, economic blocks and event military groups.
All of this will be a labor of love, with information built over time. There are a number of other things I need to work out in my head, beyond the details of the Middle Lands. These will be the sources of future articles here–solo roleplaying rules, reaction rolls and even fear & insanity rules. All this will be fun to work through and write up–stick around, folks… I promise it not be boring!
Marko ∞
(Originally published on middle-lands.com, on 5/24/2019.)
