There's a lot of undeveloped area north of the cliff wall for future exploration and expansion. Just about anything could be up there. But there's also plenty of adventure possibilities in Salorica itself, especially in the east where the native people still dominate.
Speaking of people... We know that the Volkorans are the original settlers from another world who basically crash-landed around the area of New Volkor on the map. The original culture was Tech Level 4, an age of Exploration equivalent to the late Renaissance period of Europe - think of Enlil Salor, the creator of the first airship, as like Leonardo DaVinci. After crashing here and concentrating on surviving, their society dropped a level to TL 3, a Medieval equivalent. The airship technology has been lost and largely forgotten but the Volkorans have still managed to dominate the natives.
The natives, the Talisari, were TL 2 when the Volkorans arrived; still civilized, but mostly hunter-gatherers with a smattering of agriculture and lacking in modern niceties. Over the past 150 years, their culture - where they have interacted with the Volkorans - has advanced to TL 3 to match the settlers. The arrival of the Volkorans caused a rift among the Talisari. The western Talisari of the forests, the Eshiae ("ESH-ee-ay", lit. people of the hills), readily interacted (and interbred) with the Volkorans, creating the first Saloricans. The Talisari of the eastern plains and desert, the Aenae ("AY-en-ay", lit. people of the plains), saw the arrival of the Volkorans as an end to their way of life, which was pretty much the case. The Aenae retreated further eastward in an attempt to limit contact with the invading culture. They are mostly still in TL 2, but even with the retreat, some cultural changes are crossing the line. While not necessarily violent toward the Volkorans and Saloricans, the Aenae are still rather hostile when the foreigners wander into their territory.
So now I've got four major groups of people for the start of my campaign:
- The Volkorans - pureblood descendants of the original settlers that have not interbred with the native Talisari. Most of the nobility of Salorica claim pure-blood status (whether that's true or not is another matter). I'm going to base their looks on the romantic image of Vikings: taller and thicker-boned than the natives, with lighter skin, eyes in the blues and greens ranges with occasional browns, and light blond to bright red hair.
- The Saloricans - the descendants of Volkoran and Talisarian parentage. The majority of commoners in the western settlements are Saloricans. Saloricans are shorter and lighter than pureblood Volkorans, with a nice medium-skinned tone like that of southern Italians, Greeks, or lighter-skinned Indians (the country). Hair and eyes can be any combination from Volkoran and Talisari.
- The Talisari, Eshiae and Aenae - the dominant native race of Salorica before the coming of the Volkorans. Pureblood Talisari have the Tone Deaf Perk that grants a level of immunity to Indaria's Song. Talisari are short and lightly built, with skin of light brown with a reddish tint, larger almond-shaped eyes ranging from pale silver to gold and dark amber, and dusky black to blue-black hair.
My next step, then, should be making up the racial stats for these four groups and giving them a little more cultural detail. As far as it matters, they're all considered "human".

This is really coming along. And I still can't get over that map - it's really great!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I've got the people statted out, which will post on Monday.
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