Korad: Peoples and Cultures
We have our capital. After some confusing polling, for which I apologize, Onyxbridge has been chosen as the seat of empire. It won with 31% of the vote.
Here’s the description, from the Korad bible:
The bustling center of this cliff-side city occupies the vast stone bridge that gives it its name. Cranes and winches move cargo and passengers to the lake below. It provides a home to erratic, eccentric alchemists and natural scientists who study the lake and its creatures.
Runners up were the anti-magical city of Stonebane (26%) and Godfen, home to a hungry lizard deity (22%.) I’m glad to see Godfen edged out, as it will give us a more nuanced political upheaval than a rebellion against the cult of a devouring god.
Now we’ll start working out how Onxybridge became the basis of an empire, a process that beings with a further step back.
Like any self-respecting empire, Korad fuses together a number of disparate cultures. How distinct are these nations?
We already have mention of intelligent non-human peoples, from the plant-apes of the floating islands to barbaric centaurs of the western plains.
Are such beings largely anomalous in a world dominated by human beings? Or is Korad peopled by various intelligent species? In other words, are we drawing for this detail on the American sword and sorcery tradition of Howard, Leiber, et al, or are we looking to the Tolkien model with its elves and halflings and dwarves and the like?
Poll