A campaign setting I've been working on for a while

[Altrunchen]

Hello everyone. I am posting this thread to maybe get some feedback on a campaign setting I've been slowly developing for D&D over the past few years. It is my hope that I might get some feedback, or might just be able to discuss various aspects about it on this forum. Any and all feedback, critiques, questions, etc. are appreciated.

I based the page and entries on each nation on the CIA world factbook, attempting to give entries on demography, economy, and so on.

Link:
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Oa_%283...ign_Setting%29

[Azélor]

Your planet is very densely populated for the middle age.

[su_liam]

Your planet is very densely populated for the middle age.

Yes. And given the infant mortality rates, the ladies are either dropping litters like mice, are perpetually barefoot and pregnant or both. Doesn't go together real well with the generally pretty progressive gender relations described.

[su_liam]

At first viewing: a lot of river violations, really high population for what seems intended to be a big open playground, a lot of serious space-filling empires. Other than the river violations(hint:rivers converge much more than they diverge), it's generally down to taste. I'd go in more for a few Europe-/China-like islands of civilization surrounded by vast expanses of 'unorganized' territory, dotted with lots of small, relatively primitive cultures(vulnerable to predation by similar cultures, infighting, monsters, barbarians and greedy 'civilized' states. There's a tabula rasa!

[markem]

I would look at the original map for Empire of the Petal Throne. You'll notice that there are some cities/civilizations around the edges of the continents but the interior is greatly unexplored. The world map you have is really very nice - but - it looks almost as if you are looking at it via one of the poles. If I can - may I suggest looking at some of the extremely beautiful maps on this site - and then go look at some by the non-gods of map making maps. You will notice that in most cases both the fantastic maps as well as the not-as-fantastic-but-really-good maps deal with a chunk of a world. Few do all of it. This leaves to the imagination what the rest looks like.

Also, take a look at Second Life. Not saying join it or anything - but they are already doing the "Add a chunk" stuff. Unfortunately - it's not all fantasy. Instead, each chunk can be anything including dungeons, unground subway stations, and the like. I knew someone who got completely sucked into Second Life. So much so she is now financially ruined. Her problem though was buy-buy-buy with no sell-sell-sell. So she sank a lot of money into the site just buying clothes, gems, jewelry, houses, and land. Last I heard she was living in a one bedroom apartment on Social Security. A bit sad that. But the point was - Second Life allows people to add on to the map so it grows over time. Which is what you want to do.

[Kri]

Aside from the population already mentioned, the biggest thing that caught my eye was the salary. Based on various class population, tax rates, etc, the starting and monthly incomes seems skewed for the upper class. living paycheck to paycheck is understandable for lower class, half and half for middle class but not for upper. They will have a savings, inheritances, etc. If you consider starting vs monthly, it's 7d, 8d, 9d vs 2d, 4d, 6d respectively. I guess I just don't understand the logic behind that. A king is likely to have a treasury worth at least several times what they make in a month, not 1.5. A Duke isn't likely to make 2/3s what a king makes, nor a Marquess making 1/3. In my opinion, the differences in wealth should be much steeper, not to mention much higher. The king of a country in a world with that population density, averaged out for 9 kingdoms, will make 59,139,892.16666667 gp per week in taxes off just 20% of the population that is lower middle class.
Formula used to figure this is 3,225,812,300(population total)/9(number of kingdoms)*.2(20% of pop)*11(average of 2d10)*.15(tax rate)/2(based on kings making as much as lower and middle upper class combined).
Obviously there are expenses, but even with a profit of .1%, that's still 59k a week.

Anyway, good luck with your realm and I hope it works out.