Talk:Wessia

Editorial Talk

I like it a lot! I only skimmed it while i was in New Orleans, I think I've sorted the election detail out in a way that still works for you? -gm

Are you going to run a campaign? I am only asking, because if you like the setting enough to set a campaign in it i'd be filled with delight, but the current 1401 setting is full of moving parts operating in very close proximity to each other, and the balance becomes more precarious as time goes on. If you decide to go with the Mattie Method, of staking out a claim somewhere backstream, we can put some date markers on the new content and feed some Wessian history into the master Timeline of Major Events. -gm

Also, how attached are you to the people's names? -gm

Also, also, what is your conception of how big the senate is? I was thinking something more on the Roman model - an exclusive club of like hundreds of folks, not a few dozen like the US Senate. How attached are you to the very small number of senators? -gm

Random Thoughts on Wessia's Economic and Historical Connections to the Wider World

Several of those impossible looking rivers are in fact canals created using mega-magic during the Empire period, mostly for agricultural distribution more than luxury commerce. Sherdam, for example, is connected to Boggril via the Grand Canal that cuts through the Crestfall Forest. Ubrekti cities have always been bigger than they really should be, and agricultural production is only enough to keep pace with that through pretty heavy maximization. The Seat of the Ubrekti is gigantic and a huge sucking maw drawing all of the food and good of the realm southward. The wealth of a great number of Ubrekti Great Families comes from their ownership of this land and their monopoly on prized agricultural production. Another set of (Lesser) Great Families derive income and status through nominal titles and great mercantile principates. The final (Least) Great Houses derive status and income from nominal titles and control of aristocratic guilds that ruthlessly control trade. The Hakani generally comprise a massive underclass whose power stems from control of the church, largely due to their king's unique ability to practice Lay Investiture, by tradition granted by Alexandria Omnity herself when she re-established the Hakani royal line and forcibly relocated the Hakani human people in order to return that land to the Gnomes, from whom it was seized by the Ubrekti empire in antiquity. Since Ubrekti in Alexandria's day was ground zero for the churches of the Demi-Pantheon, the priests, aristocracy, and secretive necromancer cults and secret societies were on the wrong side of the Prophet's War they were forced to accept and provide for these new citizens. That relationship holds up and breaks down with some regularity. That means the church is generally controlled by the Hakani human side of the equation. The Hakani, and their Sorcerer-King Antioch, were among the first to declare for Alexandria during the Prophet's War. Some mildly heretical debate surrounds the equity of that particular trade, but it is what it is. Ubrekt used to be a theocracy: when all the gods powering the theocracy die everybody's apple cart gets upturned. -gm

I expect Wessia is probably the final port of call to the markets across the Stormchalice and abroad for things coming from Wydmoor, Sherdam, Turstram and Middrom. Sherdam is also connected to Boggril and Sedgemire, but the markets to the south are going to be much more lucrative than those with largely self-sufficient and Gildenhome-pivoted Fresia. Probably also main port for whatever is going on in that land on that hilly land on the western shore of the Stormchalice. I'm going to go with herding and maybe mining further up the Kalthresian Range. Middrom probably fishing and lumber, both valuable products in Wessia due to the probably important shipbuilding industries in Wessia and the other Pearls. Turstram is probably all about logging and agriculture, sending logs harvested from the Crestfell forest downstreawm to Middrom to be processes into lumber sent to Wessia for those above industries. Food crops probably go down the same path in great, simple barges whose lumber can be broken down in Wessia to sell for extra profit. -gm

And, also, some of these cities no doubt deal in... freshwater pearls. -gm