So... many... good...responses!
I will take this in chunks.
I think the stingray idea works fantastic, instead of arrows in the claws you could have some crossed tridents or something.
I'm on the fence about tridents. On one hand, tridents are deeply entwined in western folklore of the sea. On the other hand, tridents would be very impractical weapons underwater. The wide surface area is good for spearing small fish (which are hard to hit, but easy to damage), but if you are spearing a human-sized target or bigger (which is easy to hit but hard to damage), a single pronged spear would allow greater force to be applied.
I don't agree with everything Shadiversity says but I figure he's on to something that spears and slashing short blades would be the best underwater weapons given the limitations of real world physics.
I suppose tridents can still be used as a high status ceremonial weapon...but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I know the Roman's considered the Mediterranean "Our Sea," would the Scaraquan Water-Romans consider all the islands above their sea "Our Islands" ?
Whatever Oshamni's equivalent to the Roman Senate or feuding noble houses, they will have had a vigorous debate for at least a generation, if not several centuries.
There is a hardline faction that wants Oshamni and Scaraqua in general to use their power to utterly dominate and subjugate the people of Scarterra, at least Scarterrans that live near the coast and regularly sail in ships. The resources of the surface dwellers are too valuable to not take. Theoretically, if a large enough portion of Scaraqua unified behind this, they could make it impossible for Scarterrans to safely sail the sea without paying the Scaraquans tribute first. This group is nicknamed "the Shallows." They probably have a more dignified name they selected for themselves.
The Shallows are not a unified faction either. Some Shallows want to form trade alliances with select land dwellers and others want to ruthlessly subjugate all land dwellers.
There is a hardline faction that wants Oshamni and Scaraqua in general to completely forsake contact with Scarterrans. The threat the surface world poses the sea is to severe to risk provoking them. There are at least twice as many Scarterrans as Scaraquans. Theoretically if the Scarterrans stopped fighting each other and unified against the Sea, they collectively wield enough magic to let land folk invade the sea.
This group is nicknamed "the Deeps." They probably have a more dignified name they selected for themselves.
The Deeps are not a unified faction either. They are all isolationists but they differ on "Good fences make good neighbors" or the opposite approach where Deeps endorse murdering any Scarterran that magically travels underwater on sight.
Only a tiny percentage of Scaraquans have publicly aligned themselves with the Shallows or the Deeps. Like with most controversial political issues, many people fall somewhere in between the two extremes, but for shorthand it's a useful tool to be able to say "Emperor A is sympathetic to Shallow Ideology" "Emperor B is deliberately pitting the Shallows and Deeps against each other." etc. Likewise one can talk about the Senate being dominated by one group or other.
I have not gotten so far into the weeds that I started characterizing and naming individual Scaraquans. I'm still operating in broad strokes. My plan is that Deep versus Shallow is going to be one of MANY things those in power argue about. Though I suppose if I'm going to keep focusing on stories in Scarterra, this is probably the most important thing about Water Rome.
Most sea faring Scarterrans would benefit greatly from trade with Scaraquans and they would greatly fear hostile Scaraquans. Water Rome/the Oshamni Empire is centered around Mera's Lake. The Sea Elves of Nerymere are very far from Mera's Lake. I haven't figure out which Scaraquan power the Sea Elves have allied but it will be one of Water Rome's rivals.
I know the Roman's considered the Mediterranean "Our Sea," would the Scaraquan Water-Romans consider all the islands above their sea "Our Islands" ?
Shallows would consider the islands near Mera's Lake "Our Islands" whereas Deeps would not.
Both the Shallows and the Deeps are aware of the existence of the Sea Elves, but neither group is powerful enough to deal with this anomalous group that for Water Rome's intents and purposes is on the far end of the world.
In the real world, Ancient Rome and Classical China both prospered around the same time, both controlled roughly the same population and both had explorers and scholars aware of the other group. I could create a Water China too, but I probably won't spend that much time developing TWO giant undersea Empires unless the following things happen. 1) I either publish some novels or an RPG system 2) I get a lot of fans 3) A large portion of my fans communicate clearly that they want more Scaraquan stories, fewer Scarterran stories.
Great ideas for Swynfaredia, dragons make sense. At least some form of dragon should appear on every shield from this nation; whether it is a wing, claw, tooth, eye, etc.
Currently I had thought that the very top levels of society would take titles such as "The Dragon's Wing" the "Dragon's Eye" etc. It hadn't occurred to me that this iconography could trickle down to the common soldiers.
I especially like the idea of Swynfaredian foot shoulders having painted scales on their shields since scales are protective. They could have eyes, wings, and the like too. Shield painting is very diverse, but I think the plurality would use scales.
Speaking of which, most Scarterran nations mint their own currency, but because of the machinations of the Masks and Keepers, nearly all nations use the same system of weights. A standard gold coin has exactly one fiftieth of a pound gold in it. As long as no one shaved the coin, most merchants don't care if the coin was minted in Swynfaredian or Stahlheim. A coin is a coin. In most cases, one side of the coin is a portrait of the king or queen and the other side is the nation's coat of arms.
The ancient dragons of the First Age did not have a standard currency. Nearly every dragon nation used precious metals in their currency, but they never agreed on standard weights and measures. While not universal, many dragons minted their gold, silver, and platinum (the ancient dragons rarely traded in copper) into artificial scales and they wore their money on a vest (if they were rich) or a necklace or bracelet (if they were poor). When buying and selling things, dragons would add or removed scales from their clothing.
A few treasure collectors love to collect ancient dragon gold scales (most such scales in circulation are modern forgeries). In any event, Swynfaredia uses the same standard coinage system most Scarterrans use but the tail side of the coin is actually the "scale" side of a coin. At least among Swynfaredia, coins are called scales "That sword will cost you twenty gold scales".
I figure nearly every large nation has an equivalent to knights but not all knights would ride horses and wear shiny armor and not all nations would call their knights "knights." There are many differences between knights and samurai but both knights and samurai were a caste of nobles that deal with the "muscle" aspects of rulership and formed the elite backbone of the armies.
I figure Swynfaredians call their elite muscle Talons or Fangs. Talons are highly skilled warriors and Fangs are martially minded sorcerers.
For the overall nation I like your holy-roman-empire approach. One dragon, multiple heads, maybe different colors? Black and yellow might be too close to the actual HRE, could do a gold dragon on black perhaps for a striking color scheme.
I didn't realize I was emulating the Holy Roman Empire. I hadn't considered colors for the nation as a whole. So far, my Swynfaredian musing has been entirely on the local house level.
All of these animals could work well. Save the griffin for Uskala,
I hadn't considered the Uskala connection. There is no reason multiple nations wouldn't use the same animals on their heraldry but I should probably avoid repeats whenever feasible. At the very least I should avoid repeats on nations that are relatively close to each other geographically.
Red griffin on black would look great. Nice and menacing, no obvious vampiric allusions either.
Although if the background is black for this kingdom, yellow and black might not work for Swynfaredia. Maybe a gold dragon on a green field would work better for them instead?
There are only so many colors in the crayon box. I agree that I should avoid redundant mythological animals on different nations heraldry but I'm not planning to bend over backward to avoid duplicating colors.
A horse would work fine, I would also consider a lion of some sort as well. Or maybe a castle! Knights love castles.
Eventually I plan to detail some noble houses for Kantoc. Right now I'm thinking the king (or the ruling house) would have a lion sigil and the nation as a whole would have a horse sigil.
As for castles, I love castles. Therefore, most Scarterran lands are going to be dotted with castles. Ergo a castle sigil would be kind of redundant, though I suppose the sigil could be a rearing stallion in front of stylized castle that has a banner hanging from it with Kantoc's nation TBD motto.
Also the horse is being ridden by a lion, and there is a raven perched on the lion's shoulder. And there is small lizard in the raven's talons. And there is a flea on the wing of the fly on the frog on the bump on the log in the hole at the bottom of sea.
In a fantasy world with lots of magic, castles would not be useful unless the castles were also highly magical. Castles would probably be okay in a low magic fantasy world like
Conan the Barbarian or
Game of Thrones. Both for RPGs and fiction stories, my goal is to make Scarterra a MEDIUM fantasy world. Perhaps this is foolhardy, but that's my goal as of now.
My current solution is that due to the rules of "a wizard did it!" it is fairly inexpensive to ward a castle against any hostile magic that immediately negates the value of said fortification. If prince is going to spend 50,000 gold pieces to build a castle, a prince is probably going to spend 10,000 gold pieces to ward it against most common hostile magics.
My baloney metaphysical explanation is that magic works with a symbolic resonance. It's easier to imbue healing magic into a comb than it is to imbue healing magic into a sword. Because a sword at it's core, is intended to hurt people not heal them. I'm aware that combs are not normally associated with healing, but Mera is the goddess of healing and her Symbol of Power is a comb she crafted out of Turoch's liver.
A castle is designed to protect people, so protective magics are easier to cast on and in castles.
Scaraqua is probably not going to have many castles despite how awesome undersea castles would look in an illustration. I figure Scaraquan military strategy would resemble modern real world military strategy where strength is found in good mobility, strong lines of communication and general flexibility, not fortified static positions, but that's a topic for another day.
A kalazotz enclave could work, they can fly so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for them to be able to migrate if they decided too.
One thing I hadn't considered until this post is that a kalazotz could occupy an area too rugged for nonflying humanoids to effectively settle. I already had the concept that Beholders would favor such places. Beholders can
hover and fly perfectly in any direction and they can sleep while hovering so they can settle in places even kalazotz cannot handle.
A hidden group of kalazotz living inside an extinct volcano would be a cool place to explore! Potentially near the Polynesian dwarfs... I bet the Kalazotz could make some sweet Tiki masks!
That's a good enough reason alone to rewrite my history to allow Kalazotz to be part of Mondert's society.
Or a group of kalazotz that live within a cenote (giant water sinkhole) in caves dug out of the sides. The cenote could double as both a water source for nearby dwarves as well as shelter for the kalazotz who live in its limestone walls.
I'm not sure how well this would fit as a concept for the Border Baronies but this would certainly work for a part of Scarcaverna.
I did some reading on the tengku last week, they are a really neat concept. I like how the race has an underlying "goal" of rediscovering how to fly.
A group of wacky tengku-inventors could try and team up with some like-minded gnomes to create Leonardo DaVinci-style flying machines somewhere perhaps.
I like steam reading steam punk sometimes, but I'm only a casual fan of steam punk at best. At least for now, I do not have the necessary background knowledge or enthusiasm to incorporate this level of Steam punk into Scarterra.
I suppose I could do fairly simple hang gliders which I guess is also something Da Vinci worked on.
Tengku are no more or less magically gifted than other races.
In divine magic. Augmentation ●●● could let someone working wings and Augmentation ●●●●● could allow full supernatural flight.
In arcane magic, Transmutation is the key for flyers. "Feather Fall" is a First Circle spell. Second Circle has the spells "Partial Transformation" (which could give a Tengku functioning wings for hours) or "Fly" (which would give them perfectly maneuver flight for minutes). Fourth Circle has "Overland flight" which is essentially a longer lasting version of the "Fly" spell.
Ergo, most Tengku spell-casters would focus on Augmentation or Transmutation magic. Among other things, Transmutation has all sorts of spells that would let a swindler trick the gullible with phony goods. "Faerie Gold" also called "Fool's Gold" lets a spell caster make something worthless appear valuable for about a day and it's only a First Circle spell. It has a very simple counter though. Enchanted items revert to their natural state when exposed to cold iron. Thus, most merchants who deal in high end goods have a piece of cold iron in their pocket.
Now that I think about it, tengku wizards are probably closest associated with Transmutation so much that everyone just assume all Tengku wizards are transmuters as much as many assume gnome wizards are illusionists.
Oshamni Empire sounds good but I agree it is too close to Ojiongo. I do like Ojiongo a lot, not as big of a fan of Oshamni.
Indeed but I really don't like saying "Cephlapod people" so "Ojiongo" is going to stick for the time being. On a related note, I recently put an article for
Scuttlers on my wiki. They are the first Scaraquan group to get a non-stub wiki. They now have an official name, "Astakalians." Their self referential name is "Ah (
gargle sound) akaww,
clicking sound, lah,
hissing sound.)
Some view Scuttlers as a derogatory nickname, others view it is an acceptable nickname. Because most Ojiongo, Merfolk, and Karakhai cannot physically pronounce their true name, "Astakalians" (Ah-stack-ah-aliens) is the PC thing to call them. It at least shows the outsider is
trying to use use their actual name.
The one-eyed falcon is a great image for the Elves, very mysterious.
The One Eyed Falcon would only be a sigil for one small portion of the Elven Empire, the
Cyclops Island. I wasn't going for mysterious. I was going for literal-ness. If a generic falcon represents the Empire as a whole, a one eyed falcon represents the Empire's one-eyed citizens.
Sea Elves maybe a innocuous fish, or a school of fish? One of the patterns I was considering for a seafaring noble house at some point was a repeating fish-symbol, kind of like some depictions of the French fleur-de-lis.
Those are all reasonable ideas, but I probably won't have a solid idea for what the Sea Elves' heraldry should look like until I decide whom they have allied with. The Sea Elves' heraldry almost certainly honors the Scaraquan nation or tribe that they are partnered with. I'm not even sure if I want them to be allied with Merfolk, Ojiongo or Karakhai or some combination of Scaraquans. Obviously their heraldry would be based on a fish, kraken, or shark if they are closely allied to one and only one Scaraquan race.
Your research is so nice, I wish I could like it twice.
[Greek] Salachi- stingray
I like the way "Salachi" rolls off the tongue. The elite soldiers (or at least one of the elite corps) of Water Rome are going to be called "Salachi."
"Flee before the Salchi are upon us!"
Akaei- Japanese
Allaadigha- Arabic
Ikan Pari- Indonesian
Skat- Russian
Estelada- Castilian
Rokke- Norwegian
Gaoli- Korean
Almost all of these words sound pretty bad ass (except maybe the Russian one
). I'm half tempted to make EVERY title within the Oshamni Empire based on a translation of "sting ray."
Hypothetically, I could do something like this.
Akaei - Outsiders/barbarians
Allaadigha- aquatic cavalry
Ikan Pari- Senators/nobles
Skat- Grunt soldiers, serfs, or slaves
Estelada- Skilled craftsmen
Rokke- Common citizens.
Gaoli-tributary or vassal states of Water Rome
Still searching... haven't found one that has ignited my interest just yet
. I want to find something that is relatively "primadorial," I might go looking for ancient deep-sea fossils next.
