Skaria: Life on the Border (Worldbuilding, Episode 6)
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Skaria: Life on the Border
Worldbuilding, Episode 6
Welcome back to Of Gods and Gamemasters, and to my Worldbuilding series, starting from the pantheon of gods, and moving through the ages from Creation to the start of the campaign. Last episode we covered “Vyzantos: The Evil Empire.” This Episode? “Skaria: Life on the Border.”
Without further ado, let's get into it. We've previously established that Skaria is the easternmost of the Successor States of Rega, and that its culture partakes of Rome, and of ancient Dacia, and of Hungary and Romania circa 1100 AD in our world. In this episode, we'll explore how that is expressed, especially in light of the Gods of Rega, and even more so, their patron gods, Saevios and Ignia. Also important to the discussion is the intermittent threat of barbarian raids...and the ever-present threat of Vyzantos. The other interesting thing to note is that, honestly, Skaria is the best nation for the game to be directly set in, with the most potential conflict. So we'll be working toward that, and toward picking a town for our starting home base. In the description, there's a link to a new map, zoomed in on Skaria, that may help with following along, and the map itself is also somewhere here off to the left of my head.
In keeping with our practice so far, we'll start at the macro picture before moving to the micro. That means, in this case, starting with the general geography and culture of the region. These two are inextricably tied together, as cultures reflect their surroundings as well as their origins. The easternmost edge of the nation of Skaria is an extremely forbidding mountain range, with only a few passes. Given the eastern threat of Vyzantos, every one of those passes is guarded by a formidable fortress. We'll cover those later on. Right against the mountains are high rolling foothills, fairly heavily forested. As we move west, rivers flow down through the hills into still rolling plains, lightly forested, before they meet up with rivers from the north in a much thicker forest. North of the forest, we head back up into hills and mountains, though they don't block the north entirely. Since the barbarians are raiders, not invaders per se, there are less fortresses up here, and more roving patrols. To the west a sequence of lakes on the north and south river are flanked by a large number of settlements, well protected by the interior, and a lot of flatter, more arable farmland. On the far west, the border with Theudonia is barely patrolled. At the very southern border, all the rivers end in a river delta that has been almost entirely overtaken by the fortified capital city. We'll name that below as well.
So with all that in mind, we're looking at a very defensive minded warrior culture. They are under constant assault from the east, or so it feels, with sporadic but horrific raids from the north. Every settlement is walled. Every grown person is involved with the militia, and a larger than normal percentage are full time soldiers and guards. The predominance of the worship of Saevios and his daughter mean their commandments are taken the most seriously, and result in a very proud warrior tradition that blends a focus on personal prowess and glory with an absolute insistence on discipline and teamwork. Axes and hammers, especially long enough to be wielded from horseback, are very common personal weapons, with the sword only keeping pace due to its ease of carry and utility. The most common swords are curved or straight, cavalry weapons balanced for one handed use. (Note that for 5e purposes these are not scimitars, they are not finesse weapons, and they are not longswords, there is no extended hilt. Instead, they are an in between place, and would probably do 1d8 slashing without versatile. In GURPS they would be standard broadswords, whether curved or straight, double edged or single.) There would be other weapons as well, especially amongst the infantry. They might still use a version of the Dacian Falx. They would probably have kopis, much like the Spanish Falcata.
Although they are anachronistic, there's no reason to deny ourselves the coolness of actual greatswords, longswords, etc. They would have left over gladii. They probably wouldn't have rapiers here...not even counting the anachronism of it, such weapons are better suited to dueling than war. They would have shorter scimitars, of course, if only captured from Vyzantines. Given the time period equivalent, the best armor generally available is going to be chainmail, in a more eastern style, although old suits of plate and halfplate, and splint and the like, might be left over from the Empire or available from the dwarves. Scale and lamellar would likely be as common. So that's the military side of the culture. But there's so much more.
The clothing would be a mixture of influences as well, most of which are still roughly equivalent to the influences on Hungary and Romania at the equivalent time. But they still worship the Regan Gods, which means the Regan influence, equivalent to Roman, is much greater. Togas are still worn for formal occasions. Regan styles like short tunics might still be in vogue, at least in summer. However, being further north, and in the mountains, for much of the year tunics are longer and heavier, and are often worn with fur-lined coats and fur hats. Brightly colored sashes beneath belts are the norm, whatever the length of the tunic, and under-tunics often have quite long sleeves. Braies are of linen, but in the colder climes, folk often wear wool trousers. There is one very distinct effect on clothing from the gods, as well...Ignia dresses as a man would, so there is no stigma attached to a woman dressing as a man would.
Which is a good segue into our next part. Across all of Rega several of the gods are known to be of what , in our world, would have been considered deviant sexualities, at the time. But as they are the gods, and man tries to emulate the gods... no form of homosexuality or bisexuality suffers stigma in the Successor States, nor do nonbinary or transgender people. In fact, there are sacred social and mystic rituals allowing the change of one's form to fit one's identity, and gender roles are flexible. Love is considered love, whatever the form, so long as it is between consenting adults. Adulthood is considered to occur around 15 years old for humans, but adulthood rituals can be delayed for late bloomers with little stigma.
In addition to soldiers and warriors, the Skarian people revere smiths and crafters, because of their widespread worship of Ignia. Armorers and weaponsmiths are important...but so to are wheelwrights, engineers, miners, masons...all the people that keep the machine of war running, and agriculture possible. Nobles are only respected if they are competent warriors or administrators. They are expected to earn respect, and they know this, so hereditary nobles are trained very carefully to fulfill their duties as both fighters and leaders, and are often craftsmen of some kind as well. Merchants are seen as a necessary evil, however rich they might be. Gold is never a substitute for good manners, competence, or noble blood.
Most of the people of Skaria live simple lives, possessing no more than they need, and eschewing extravagance. The one exception is their love of brightly colored cloth, which merchants make quite a killing on. In truth, Skaria's main import is people...people who come here voluntarily to bolster the defense of the Successor States against Vyzantos. So the nation is more multicultural than many, with warriors from as far away as Hesperia mixing with Keltians and Theudonians.
Skaria exists in a state of perpetual war. Unsurprisingly, it is , and always has been, ruled by warrior nobles. The supreme ruler is the commanding general of all the militias and guards and armies of Skaria and its allies so long as they operate in Skarian territory or eastward. Thus, they are called Warlord, or as it would have been said in Hungary and Wallachia...Voivode. Skaria, being egaliatarian in terms of gender, and strongly worshipping Ignia, we're going to take advantage of that, and make our Voivode a woman. Her name is Alexandra Regulova, and like all Voivodes, she was basically elected by the Duma, or assembly, of warleaders, called Bojars. She is also Grand Duchess of the region holding the capital, which we'll name below.
We're gonna go ahead and put some names to regions and such, before we wrap this video up.
All names for human areas are cobbled together from Googled sources. I've mixed Ancient Dacian, Proto-Celtic, Latin, and medieval Romanian and Hungarian. Mostly Dacian, especially around the east, using the dova or dava suffix for fortresses. But the capitol is named in Proto-Celtic, “Litwadun” which means coastal fort, because there has been a settlement there even before the people the Regans conquered. The Western Plains we'll call “Alfold” for the similar plains in Hungaria. They are huge and important, so we'll make them a Grand Duchy belonging to the Voivode. The northern regions, off the map, we'll call Halychyna, an ancient name for Galicia. The tribes to the north, we'll call the Sciri, or pure ones, for a tribe that historically lived in Galicia, though they will have many different tribal names. So the border area where they were driven back, we'll call Sciritaut, from the Dacian word for country with the Sciri name for themselves. It's a border territory, so we'll call it a Margravate (from margrave or markgraf, literally 'border count'). The rest of the regional names are some variation of the Dacian suffix dina, din, or dinas, meaning region, and named for their main settlement. The settlements are all named with some variation of the suffix dava, dov, or dova, meaning fortress in Dacian. Balosdova, for instance, means 'Strong Fortress' and is placed at the widest pass. It's territory is the Duchy of Balosdinas. You get the idea. Several of the territories on the mountains are Margravates, so our high nobles are Grand Dukes or Duchesses, of which there is one, Margraves or Magravinas, of which there are three, or Dukes, of which there are three. This gives us a neat High Council, or Duma, of Seven, with the remaining nobles forming the lesser council, as Boyars, Baronets, Barons, Viscounts, and Counts all owe fealty to one of the seven above. The nobility is hereditary, usually inherited by the eldest, but the Duma must approve the ascension. If they do not, they can choose someone else in the line of succession.
We'll wind down there for today. Join us next time for “Skaria: Threats and Allies”, wherein we examine threats both internal and external, and the technically independent settlements of the Elven and Dwarven people.
