Fantasy America

[Tom Kalbfus]

This is a medeaval fantasy United States of America, which is an elective feudal monarchy, in which a King or Queen is chosen by two bodies of feudal lords and a house of Commons.

Also there is various fantasy races such as dwarves, elves orcs etc.

Suggestions are welcome as well as story plot ideas.

Yes, I know its a crummy undescriptive map, I can only use images already on the Internet and this is the closest thing to which I have in mind. I have a better map in png form, but I don't know how to post it here.

Ignore the state borders west of the Appalacians, and append West Virginia to Virginian, also North Carolina gets eastern Tennessee up to the western edge of the Appalachian mountains, that being the natural border for the eastern seaboard.

The country is ruled by an elected king or queen for live, a duke or dutchess rules each state, a count rules each country, a baron rules each town with the exception or large cities like New York which has a mayor (equivalent to a count), knights have their parcels of land which they govern and accept rents from etc.

There are other races, elves live in Canada, mostly because agriculture is difficult there and elves prefer to live in forests, hunting, trapping, and gathering.

Dwarves live inside the Appalacian mountain range while various trappers and mountain men live on top and often act as go betweens between the human settlements of the east coast and the dwarven mountain kingdoms.

Orcs heard buffalo out on the great plains out west, and they don't take kindly to farmers who put up fences or people who hunt their buffalo. Orcs pillage and plunder basically to stay on top of the food chain there, and they don't like to compete with human interlopers. In the forests between the mountain ranges and the plains and desert lies unknown monsters, recluses, mad wizards, and hermits of various sorts and stripes.

The Queen of the United States is a 42 year old woman named Sarah Paine, George Hamilton is the Duke of New York, Samuel Jefferson is the Duke of Virginia (which includes West Virginia.), Robert Franklin is the Duke of Pennsylvania, Diane Adams is the Dutchess of Massachusetts.

Despite the fact that this is a magical feudal setting, the existance of magic has been a great equilizer among the sexes, some of the more powerful female rulers are spell casters, and manage to manuever themselves into political power through their expertise in magic.

[Tom Kalbfus]

These are the counties of New York State and the topography. We're using existing political boundaries, but applying them to a standard Tolkeinesque Feudal setting. At the county level is how many counts that would be under the Duke of New York.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Connecticutt, Rhode Island, Massachusetts.

[Tom Kalbfus]

New Hampshire


Maine
This completes the North East Atlantic Seaboard States.

[Rob B]

Hi Tom,

The map images were blowing up the pages to unreadable proportions, I think most people have a pretty good idea where states are located.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Hi Tom,

The map images were blowing up the pages to unreadable proportions, I think most people have a pretty good idea where states are located.

Sorry.
I'll jump to the character archtypesCharacters
Now for our protagonists.
We'll start in New York State.

We will want a representative sampling from our fantasy world.
Since we are starting from a human dominated region, we'll have half of our protagonists as humans. Lets put together a wish list, here are the types of
Characters I would like to have:
Humans:
1. Human male Barbarian (Native American)
2. Human male Fighter (Warrior, soldier etc)
3. Human male Knight (Noble Warrior): William Henry Jackson
4. Human male Ranger (Wilderness Warrior): Kyle Lysander Morris
5. Human male Rogue (Thief, Criminal)
6. Human male Wizard (Sorcerer, Magician)
7. Human male Healer (Cleric or Priest perhaps, but we'd have to get into the various religions here)
Other Races
8. Elf male Fighter (Warrior, soldier)
9. Elf male Wizard (Sorcerer, Magician)
10. Elf female Healer (Cleric or Priestess of whatever god or gods the elves worship)
11. Dwarf male Fighter (Warrior, Soldier)
12. Halfling male Rogue (Thief)
13. Half-Elf female Wizard (Sorceress, Magician)

So we have the lucky number thirteen, one less than the number of characters in the Hobbit, now we have to think of names and descriptions for them, any ideas?

Plot synopsis:
Fire breathing dragon terrorizes community of Lake Placid in upstate New York.
The short story in five acts.
Outline
Act I. Introduction of characters and plot
Scene 1. Lake Placid
A. Sir William Henry Jackson Does Battle with the Green Dragon.
B. Kyle Lysander Morris fires his crossbow at the Green Dragon as it attacks the towns palisade.
C. The dragon breaths a cloud of acid mist, Sir William Jackson jumps from the wall and lands on the ground to avoid the mist.
D. Kyle Morris runs down the parapet to alert the town guards.
E. A girl screams as the dragon grabs her with its front claws.
F. The dragon flies away.
Scene 2. Town Meeting at the baron's castle.
A. Baron Rupert Green presides
a. "I need some men to go slay that dragon and rescue the girl," said Baron Green.
b. "I'll go," said Kyle Morris.
c. "I'll go," said William Jackson, "I doubt the girl is still alive though, its a dragon for God's sake, reptiles aren't interested in girls except for eating."
Scene 3. Later on at a local tavern.
A. "We're looking for a few good men to help us slay a green dragon that's been bothering us as of late, it nabbed a girl and flew away with her." said Baron Rupert Green.
B. "It is strange that the dragon did not eat her right there and then," said Running Eagle, the Barbarian.
C. "Not strange at all," said Sir William Jackson, "The dragon simply didn't want to choke on its mean while we were firing arrows at it, that can be quite a nuisance as you know."
Scene 4.
Scene 5.
Act II. Protagonists set out on mission
Scene 1.
Scene 2.
Scene 3.
Scene 4.
Scene 5.
Act III. Enter Dragon's Lair
Scene 1.
Scene 2.
Scene 3.
Scene 4.
Scene 5.
Act IV. Dragon Defeated
Scene 1.
Scene 2.
Scene 3.
Scene 4.
Scene 5.
Act V. Conclusion
Scene 1.
Scene 2.
Scene 3.
Scene 4.
Scene 5.

[NilsDesperandum]

Tom,

with the best will in the world, you are posting in the Collaborative Stories section here, yet you are going into so much pre-determined charachter and plot detail that there appears to be very little left for anybody to genuinely collaborate on (ditto with your other recent post). If you really do want to write something in conjuction with others, your jump off point wants to be no more than a handful of paragraphs that, hopefully, provide enough intrigue and scope to entice others to join in, i.e. introduce their own charachters and develop their own plot twists. It is totally unnecessary (and probably not useful) to have any particular ending in mind when starting out.

The creative process is such an intrinsic part of writing that for most it's not so much an unwillingness to write within a world totally dreamed up my someone else. It's more like a physical impossibility. And yes, some might be very happy writing within an existing universe (e.g. Star Wars) but I would put this down to the fact that they are either already very fond of it, or are being well paid to do so.

Hope this is useful.

ND

[Tom Kalbfus]

Tom,

with the best will in the world, you are posting in the Collaborative Stories section here, yet you are going into so much pre-determined charachter and plot detail that there appears to be very little left for anybody to genuinely collaborate on (ditto with your other recent post). If you really do want to write something in conjuction with others, your jump off point wants to be no more than a handful of paragraphs that, hopefully, provide enough intrigue and scope to entice others to join in, i.e. introduce their own charachters and develop their own plot twists. It is totally unnecessary (and probably not useful) to have any particular ending in mind when starting out.

The creative process is such an intrinsic part of writing that for most it's not so much an unwillingness to write within a world totally dreamed up my someone else. It's more like a physical impossibility. And yes, some might be very happy writing within an existing universe (e.g. Star Wars) but I would put this down to the fact that they are either already very fond of it, or are being well paid to do so.

Hope this is useful.

ND

Think of the outline as more of an example of what could be written rather than a specific story I'd want to write. Have you got any other storie ideas that might fit into this world, or any suggestions for changes in what I already done. I'm open to suggestions. I'm better at describing settings than at writing stories that fit into them. I think Fantasy America is a fairly generic medeaval fantasy setting, except that the world is shaped like ours as far as coastlines and natural features are concerned. The cities that exist have the same locations and names as their modern world counterparts, and they are much smaller with fewer people. Some of the cities like Cincinatti, Ohio, are in ruins and they represent long ago lost civilizations, and are now the den of monsters or savage tribes of humanoids in many cases. As for the characters I've outlined, consider them just suggestions as well or as an example of a group of adventurers, these are the protagonists or the "good guys" if you like, if you have any suggestions about characters, I would certainly like to here some others besides my own. I also need some ideas for villians and evil plots and how the protagonist would go about facing them.

The guide I use for possible monsters comes from D&D edition 3.5, but as this is not a role playing suggestion, I just use that work as a guide for the sort of things that might be found in this world, but you use whatever inspires you, but its basically an fantasy setting with an slight American flavor to it. The Barbarians, for example are American Indians, when they aren't Orc and Goblins, and the term doesn't indicate that they are uncultured, have bad manners, or are rude or hostile, though some bands of barbarians may very well be, it just means they don't have a native writing system, they don't typically live in permanent communities larger than villages, and many move around quite a bit searching for game to hunt and so forth. The United States of America, is basically a collection of Dutchies that have banded together to defend against other hostile forces opposed to them eminating from outside their collective borders, they elect a King, from an aristocrat, usually a count or lower rank because they don't want any Duke or Dutchy dominating the rest, so its basically a Confederation with an elected King for life, who could just as easily become unelected if he becomes too unpopular with the Dukes under him, it is a system similar to the Holy Roman Empire, and the borders of this confederation basically end at the Appalacian Mountain Range.

Do you like these ideas, or would you suggest changes? I'd like to hear from you.