Previously: We determined the three original seats of human civilization on Eos. Each was pitched by the servant of a god to the humans living in the creshold valley. Each servant then guided the humans who aligned with their philosophy to the location where they would build their city.
Today we’re going to develop the first of those cities in a number of aspects. We’re starting with Banderlin.
Banderlin was built by the followers of the god Infra Dev. The values he upholds are hard work, labor, honesty, stability, tradition, and dedication to the tried-and-true. These values will inform some of the details, but I want to expand out even further, into the general inspirations for this location and this culture and define some more specific elements. So this will be kind of a brainstorming session, where I ask questions, and answer them.
1: What real or fictional groups, civilizations/cultures/cities inspire this one?
Germanic, Nordic, Dwarven, Eastern European, Skyrim’s Windhelm
2: What does the landscape, geology, climate, and ecology look like within and around the civilization? Are there any major bodies of water?
It is a mountainous region; pretty high up. There are likely valleys and rock passes and roves. Possibly caves, definitely mines. The climate would be cold and sometimes tumultuous. They probably wear a lot of fur. Animals are likely to be things like goats, mountain cats, wolves and bears feel on theme, large birds of prey also. They don’t have oceans, but they probably have springs and rivers. Maybe alpine or caldera lakes.
3: What resources does this location provide, and what does it lack?
With mines and lots of stone, that is probably their main building material. Like dwarves, they can dig into mountains as well. They probably have gemstone and precious metal resources. Timber probably isn’t too hard to find, and they might also have a solid fur trade. Also wool, if they are raising goats and sheep in the valleys.
What they lack would be more tropical fruits, ocean resources, spices. (Side note, I want spices to be very big for the city of Eld.) Their creativity is not quite as refined, so they might apprecite entertainment resources from other locations as well.
4: What does the architecture look like? Consider colors, shapes, materials, diversity of structure.
Solid, blocky, cold grey stone. They don’t value creativity so much as reliability, so a very low structure diversity. I do want to find ways to make it unique and stand out from what is, so far, a pretty cliché civilization. One of those ways could be that maybe they build with more pyramidal structures than rectangular. That said, it is still very dismal by many standards, and straight grey streets, lots of tunnels, and these pyramids capping structures that may be built down into the rocks below.
5: What are this culture’s primary values, and what do they specifically de-value?
As discussed, they value hard work, craftsmanship, tried-and-true methods, directness. They are a low-context culture which often is very open and unsubtle, saying what they mean and meaning what they say. They value strength and integrity more than cleverness and cunning. Tradition is, understandably, quite big. Their would would be taken to mean a lot.
They would think less of needless creativity, and experimentation or improvisation. Not immune to new ideas, but new ideas would have to functionally prove themselves and would never be adopted for novelty’s sake. Because candor is so valued, liars, thieves, tricksters, and the like, would be especially reviled.
These are pretty expected answers for this civilization, so I’m going to tap my Civilization Generator Tool for some random values and devalues to see if I can’t fit them in:
Random Values: Loyalty, Sacrifice, Knowledge, Indulgence, Chance
Random Anti-Values: Community, Novelty, Wealth
So, I’m not going to use all of those, and some are redundant, but two stand out to me as very interesting. I mentioned before how I want the organization of Banderlin to be somewhat inspired by a labor union. I just don’t want it to look like a modern labor union, since it is supposed to be more of an ancient world setting at this juncture. So what would that look like?
I think it could very well look like a culture that places value on sacrifice, and devalues the hoarding and showing-off of wealth. They’d probably value collective wealth, but think it unseemly to show off personal wealth. This is also handy as a point of conflict between Banderlin and Eld: a city completely focused on wealth.
6: What kinds of environmental threats, hazards, and natural disasters do they have to deal with, living where they do? How do they mitigate the threats?
Blizzards and avalanches are obvious answers. The underground dwellings and pyramidal caps might mitigate those. It would be hard for an avalanche to move a solid stone pyramid structure. Could also be volcanic activity from a mountain, though probably Infra Dev would not have led them to a place that was likely to blow up on its own. Storms and lightning. The wild cats might be dangerous. If the eagles were big enough, they could be dangerous. Rock falls, mine collapses.
As far as human hazards, there are likely Sedgefolk who make their homes in the foothills. It would be interesting if they were digging up towards the dwellings, so that battles and incursions took in the caverns and tunnels below. Oh! What if there is no way up to the city proper EXCEPT through tunnels into the lowlands? So you can take a tunnel road, or dig a tunnel, but no one can even really SEE the city proper any other way.
Okay, this is a really cool idea because, remember this is only the first era. There are going to be generations of civilizations passing, and so what this city could be, is at some point a lost city… a shangri la, or an atlantis, that no one can find and seems to exist only in legend because the only ways to REACH it were destroyed or lost.
7: Who leads the civilization? How were they chosen to lead? What does the government look/act like?
Probably this is the closest one of these civilizations will come to a truly democratic ideal. It would be fractioned into different trade schools, like stonecutters, stonecarvers, woodworkers, leatherworkers. carriers, gilders, not to mention hunters, fishers, farmers, trappers. So basically it would be a collective of guilds, but I think I prefer to think of them as schools. A leader is selected within each school, probably judges by some combination of popularity, skill, sacrifices made, and seniority to form a Masters Council. Or maybe a different name… to the thesaurus! *digs around* Okay, I like the School of Adepts better.
From among the Adepts, a single one is chosen to act in a leadership position, but I feel like they would emphasize the idea of leadership as a servant of the people, rather than a king-like figure. (I am thinking that because these first civilizations were formed by active divine intervention, they can be somewhat idealized. However in ensuing eras, these forms of government will be replaced by easier and more violence driven monarchies and empires, with maybe an eventual return to some form of democracy later. It is good for these three cities to be mythically idealized.) In any case, for the name of that I need something that says servant, but also has some gravitas to it, beyond, like Minster or Custodian. Back to the thesaurus!
There we go! The leader of the School of Adepts is the Adept Auxiliar. One is probably elected every year, but no term limits if they keep getting elected.
8: Elaborate quickly on how this civilization handles each of the following topics:
Cuisine– Probably simple European faire. Meat, root vegetables, river fish, cereals like Barley. They are probably big on stews. Maybe goat cheeses.
Entertainment: Sagas, long epic poems.
Instruments: Probably things like lithophones, bells, and drums. Lots of percussion. And chanting. I imagine chanting.
Prejudice: Definitely don’t like flashy and rich looking types. Don’t trust people who hide intentions, manipulate, haggle, or employ double speak. See themselves as the only free people because of their representative government. They probably wouldn’t like actors and would look down on wit and punnery.
Important Figures: I want to play with the idea of Romulus and Remus. Basically, that there was a group of siblings who all split up from the Creshold and so each sibling became important in some way to each city. This I think would be the big sister who was stubborn as stone, and became a great and respected hero. Another who might have tamed the first giant eagle (See Military below).
Important Structures: Some possible names: Stonehall, The Forge, Blackspire, The Adept Chambers.
Important Relics: An Unstoppable Hammer, An Unbreakable Door, Maybe famed bells that chime with great beauty. The Wrought Crown. Don’t know what that is, but it sounds awesome.
Military: Tunnel runners. But then again, I can incorporate something I have always wanted to put in a setting: Knights who ride giant birds. I already talked about the giant eagles that might exist, so what if at some point they started domesticating and training them to be war-mounts? They’d have to be REALLY BIG, but I’m imagining, what if you had something like a giant eagle with a head reminiscent of a quetzalcoatlus.
Weapons and Armor: I would want to say heavy armor, but either in the tunnels or on birdback, they’d need to be light and mobile, so maybe that is just going to have to totally subvert the nordic mountain warrior trope. So furs are still likely prominent. In the tunnels, weapons need to be close and effective, like picks, spears, hammers, and shortswords. Maybe a sword-shape that combines some of these? On birdback, they might use lances and javelins.
Arts and Crafts: Their art styles would be mostly in skill and craftsmanship. Carving, sculpture, and monumental buildings. Less about color and creative design.
Holidays: Something to celebrate the founding of their city, something to celebrate Infra Dev, maybe something to celebrate the first day of summer. I imagine a big party happening on the streets at the surface when the sun is shining. Maybe the sun is the focus of that celebration? Celebration of the giant birds. Celebration of unity and worker rights, where everyone enjoys a huge feast and the spoils of the year’s labor.
Conclusion
There are many more questions to be asked, but this is a good start, I think. Lots of good inspiring ideas came out of this, and some I’m not even prepared to talk about yet, but a major piece of the world fitting in through Banderlin as a Lost City in later eras.
In the mean time, if you want to run your own developing cities through this survey, here are the questions provided for you to copy-paste!
1: What real or fictional groups, civilizations/cultures/cities inspire this one?
2: What does the landscape, geology, climate, and ecology look like within and around the civilization? Are there any major bodies of water?
3: What resources does this location provide, and what does it lack?
4: What does the architecture look like? Consider colors, shapes, materials, diversity of structure.
5: What are this culture’s primary values, and what do they specifically de-value?
6: What kinds of environmental threats, hazards, and natural disasters do they have to deal with, living where they do? How do they mitigate the threats?
7: Who leads the civilization? How were they chosen to lead? What does the government look/act like?
8: Elaborate quickly on how this civilization handles each of the following topics: Cuisine, Entertainment, Instruments, Prejudice, Important Figures, Important Structures, Important Relics, Military, Weapons and Armor, Arts and Crafts, Holidays.
What questions (Or topics for question 8) would you add to this list?
See you next time!
—Charles