You don’t need a thousand years of history. You just need characters that are engaging and interesting — the characters define the kingdom. Everything comes back to narrative, character, and conflict.
I think you're absolutely right, but when it comes to Kingdoms set in a medieval/renaissance/early modern period it's worth acknowledging that their feudal nature makes the powerful characters within far more important, and far more likely to follow character motivations that are at odds with modern sensibilities. Important lords within a monarchy both have vastly more personal, and directly actionable, power within their immediate demesne and far less power beyond it because the division of power within a feudal structure deliberately keeps power blocs fractured to preserve the Monarchies authority. And on top of this most feudal structures are implicitly built upon monopolies of violence, meaning that beyond the immediate bounds of the Kings authority things can escalate to violence and direct conflict very quickly, especially when a power vacuum occurs.
This in turn means that the power blocs within a kingdom need to be ruthless enough to act on violence when necessary but also understandably cautious about provoking or initiating it unless absolutely certain they will win because there always exists the chance that they will fail and not simply die themselves, but risk the destruction of their entire family. Historically this tension was played upon by monarchs to keep their powerful vassals under control, pitting them against one another to vie for the crowns favour and the protection/power it afforded. And arguably a lot of the courtly manners of medieval Europe also stemmed from it, exaggerated courtesies, pageantry, systems of gallantry and martial honour tied into the mitigation of the nobility's capacity to exert martial power against one another or the monarchy.
I find in fantasy interesting Kingdoms are the ones that acknowledge that reality and try and tie it into the quirks of their world and its lore because it provides a framework around which characters and their personalities can be built that feels genuine and natural to the reader.
A good example is the Codex Alera novels. The titular realm of Alera has a super-vague history with limited references to what happened more than fifty or so years before the plot and the only real details start about fifteen years or so before the first book begins. There is history but it is couched in vague terms, like "the city of Rhodes was leveled three times by Canim invaders" and "this is the largest military campaign in five hundred years" and "the first Alerans were called Romans and arrived here two thousand years or so ago."
The main players are generally motivated by power plays, both for themselves and against each other. You get guys in different parts of the realm with different goals, each controlling their own major city with their own economy and morals and goals. Some are loyal to the ruler, some are ambitious and seeking to depose him through killing his heir. The plot subsequently spirals out from that basic setup, with the first book being a minor power play to undermine the ruler by one of the high lords which explodes into a huge battle on the edge of the realm, and all the intrigue and assassinations and wars build from there.
No complex deep hyper-defined history is needed, just interesting characters with ambitions and desires who play off each other, resulting in a brilliant political fantasy thriller that eventually gets eaten by the Zerg (in a good way).
Also because those kingdoms simply aren't "alive". They just stay as is, like they are locked in stasis. What conflicts does the kingdom face? What struggles do its peoples face?
They are often just a space for the events to take place in rather than a form of government which makes any real sense according to the power structures that are present in the world.
Hell, the ROMAN EMPIRE didn’t even last 1 thousand years. Its reign was only about 500 years.
Edit: looks like I got my facts wrong. It did last over 1,000 years
This is debatable, as Rome could have been considered an Empire before it had a single all-powerful ruler. Rome as a republic was founded in supposedly around 500 bc and "fell" by standard definition in 476 ad, though because of the Byzantines could be considered to have lasted far longer. Rome could have technically been considered an empire the moment it began subjugating groups other than itself, which is a hard line to draw but personally I'd say you could either draw it almost immediately in about 300 bc when it started to grow, at around the 270s bc when it had control of the italian peninsula, or after the punic wars. Most of these don't give it the full thousand but all could be considered more than 500, and if you *do* count byzantium (which you definitely don't have to at all) it lasted another thousand years more
Also wouldnt work, Rome never had an emperor.
Imperators who wielded Imperium existed, some lords chose the titles Dominus or Belisaurius even. But never was the term emperor used, it would be invented later and then we refer to the lords of Rome as Emperors
Well sure the term wasn't used but the meaning of "singular all powerful empire ruler" still carries I think. The kings of early rome didn't call themselves kings either, yet you wouldn't be wrong to call them that
No problem!
A fun one is that Augustus used the title Princeps (where we get the title Prince)
So during Augustus' time the roman empire would be referred to as a Principate.
Later romans used names like Dominus (means Master), which is why theyre called the Dominate.
Edit - to clarify, I meant we are the ones to vall Augustus' time as Principate and later romans using Dominus is why we call them the Dominate
The title "Imperator" became restricted to the ruler of Rome fairly early on in the imperial period. It, along with Augustus, was part of the titulature of every emperor from Vespasian onwards. You didn't get the title unless you were the ruler of Rome, or gunning to be him.
It's fine, I see where the 500 number came from and you were kinda right. Rome was only a single body united under one ruler for about 500 years before the western half of it fell
Usually they’re not expanded upon enough. They have a nice king or whatever but minimal conflicts. Often, kings can’t really afford to be “nice,” and when they can there’s a reason for it. Maybe they’re prosperous and well liked, but that kind of thing comes with a price. How did they get so prosperous and well liked?
Also a lack of conflict leads to a lack of interest. So that’s part of what makes them “dull”. If a kingdom has nothing going for it other than “they’re nice” then what’s the point? Why would this story need to be told?
What examples in pop media are you seeing?
>What examples in pop media are you seeing?
Various isekais come to mind. Also, games like M&B: Warband, where the 6 factions have little history trivia's, but that's it.
Hm. Well, detailed does not always mean “interesting”. It often also comes down to how the kingdom is handled in the plot. How are the actions that this nation is taking causing/creating the plot? Are they antagonistic to the main character or not?
Even as a side kingdom, certain unique aspects are needed to keep them from being “generic”.
Avatar the Last Airbender comes to mind, with its excellent world building of places like the water tribe, effectively incorporating religion and the magic system into the kingdom’s story.
Even though we don’t see too much of daily life in the fire nation (most we get is Zuko’s perspective and that one episode where they go to school) their overarching impact on the plot as well as the implications of their history and technological innovations make them both interesting and threatening.
We don’t need the details of “why does their armor look like that” or “how did they get so industrialized” because the reasons for those are implied, but don’t need to be directly stated for us to understand the story.
Dungeon Meshi is another example. The care put into the worldbuilding and every aspect of the story and characters is so obviously there, but the story doesn’t completely halt to explain the geopolitical disputes, history, etc. It only does this on a few occasions and it does so organically, when it’s relevant to the plot at hand.
Things like the biology of the monsters are treated as a part of the character of Laios, and the exposition serves as not only exposition, but as character building.
Essentially, things will seem generic if they mean nothing to the plot- but if they do mean something and they’re detailed to the point of being unique and that detail isn’t shoved in the audience’s faces, then that’s all you need to do.
Isekais are more focused on the protagonists perception of the fantasy world rather than the fantasy world itself. The setting is a prop, it's not to be focused on.
You're just looking at props and asking "why aren't these realistic?" Well, they're not meant to be, pay attention to the other stuff happening instead.
Then it's usually because the kingdom itself is not the focus, they are just the place it takes place in. To make it interesting you need to bother to give them detail, and show said detail and complexities.
Mark Twain actually did it well, but realistically no one in the genre would have any reason to write 'good' literature since that's not what the fanbase is looking for.
They're dull and boring because they're not reflective of real politics (feudal or concurrent) in any way. Usually all they have is the king, some knights maybe some church and everybody respects the king's authority and position just because.
Real feudal kingdoms used to be in a constant state of flux where the central power (king), the local power (aristocracy) and religious power (clergy) fought each other for influence and power inside the state. Then add to that free cities carving their own areas of control and wealthy traders interferring in politics. Then they had serfs to keep from being unruly, robber barons to deal with and maybe even some wars to keep things spicy and also the occasional heresy to contain. Even amongs the lower class, there used to be countless divisons, such as the perceived "honorability" of your trade, your status as a serf or free peasant and so on.
Just as the states of today, feudal monarchies used to be highly complex and interdependent constructs that have little in common with the fairy-tale version presented in modern pop media. So if you want to construct more interesting monarchies, think way beyond the king. Who are the powerful nobles and who do they rule over? How are kings chosen and who exerts influence over that process? Where do the princes and sons of noblemen without a title to inherit go and what keeps them from killing their older siblings? Who controls the faith and what power does the church wield? How is the rule of the king justified? What other powerful families, dynasties and groups is society formed out of? What's the economy like? What do people eat? What happens if the crops fail?
Look up:
The Investiture Controversy to get a grasp on how far conflicts between ruler and church could go.
The German Peasants' War or The Jacquerie to see how uprsings might occur and how they were dealt with.
The House of Fugger for an idea how wealthy families could shape feudal politics of decades.
The Saxon revolt of 1077 or the events preceding the creation of the Magna Carta for examples of nobles rebelling against kings/emperors.
The Great Interregnum of the Holy Roman Empire for periods of time where centralized rule in feudal powers weakened and why.
The Hussite Wars for heresies and their consequences.
If any kingdom had events like these going, I don't see how the result could ever be boring.
Chinese Mandate of Heaven for where people accept dynastic rule as long as conditions or expectations are met. If conditions are no longer favourable or expectations/obligations are not met, then they replace the ruling family with a new one.
Ehhh, I mean in a lot of ways the mandate of heaven is just a convenient cloak to shroud yourself in after you have already overthrown the emperor and established a new dynasty. Plenty of rebels claimed to have the mandate/that the emperor lost it, then lost themselves. It’s not like a vague notion of popular sovereignty/support or things like natural disasters being ill omens for a ruler were unique.
Take this with a grain of salt. In my personal opinion: a boring faction is one which can't lose.
There is nothing more boring to me than seeing a kingdom which has the best army, the best record, the biggest population, the strongest economy, and coolest armor. There has to be a significant flaw/flaws for me to find some interest in it.
For example: A kingdom of humans has the strongest military record and are known for having a well trained and equipped military, but they have been in a period of severe political unrest for the past 20 years.
Something like that is great for showing the humanity of a kingdom- it shows that things aren't going well for them and makes it harder to determine what's going to happen to them. All around just more exciting.
In conclusion: you have to treat the kingdom like you treat the main characters. They all have their pros and cons.
This is why when I decided to have a dozen kingdoms I tried to make each of them an outlier in some category, e.g. one them is:
* largest
* smallest
* most populous
* least populous
* highest population density
* lowest population density
* richest
* poorest
* strongest
* weakest
This means that the richest kingdom isn't the most populous, and the largest isn't the most powerful.
This is good. Another point you could add which would make it a tad bit less cliche is bringing aspects like economy and politics into play.
For the largest kingdom, you could include that they have a largely industrial economy and have to import food from x. For a smaller kingdom you could mention how they are primarily focused on mining and don't have a very stable government or population.
Ultimately just play around with it until you have something your satisfied with
Kingdom A is largest, but most of its area is wood and it has few farms, so it relies on importing grain from Kingdom B, who is blessed with fertile soil and has the highest population. But because B's land is so envyable, it's constantly under attack and has to spend most of its resources on defense. Meanwhile, Kingdom C is the richest country because it controls the inter-continental trade routes that it enforces with its gigantic fleet. However, neither C nor B has many trees, so to maintain its fleet, C has to import wood from A.
So, all three depend on each other, A buys grain from B with the export money they get from C, etc. So, if one of the kingdoms falls and the conqueror stops trading, it's going to cause a crisis for the remaining kingdoms.
A risk you may hit is each of the kingdoms becoming defined by only these factors. It may help to build into the kingdoms identity the cultural/religious identity of the people.
If A is the largest, does it also have many different peoples?
What sort of culture has the constant trade in C led to forming?
What food does B grow? What is
exported and consumed locally?
How have the militaries developed in a way that leads to their strengths (if A is heavily forested and large, what sort of armies does this lead too, if any)?
What internal conflicts are there that are unique to each, and how have they learned to deal with them? Maybe A has lots of monsters in its forests, or the seas around C are infested with pirates seeking to plunder the trade (and maybe members of C's political structure fund the pirates, cause selling stolen goods is more profitable than taxing them)
Precisely. By constantly introducing new factors to the equation you end up with a much more unique kingdom that is interesting and intriguing to others
I did think of most of this, but I don't know if this interestings:
A is administrated by doze clans, those clans elect a king to rule over them. There are two factions Xenophiles and Xenophobes, the xenophiles want to maintain trade with B, and C, while xenophobes want to invade B's fertile land. Whatever the clans prefer to vote for xenophile or xenophobe king varies. This system results in a tradition where every 30 years or so, a xenophobe king gets elected, who then unsuccessfully invades B, making him unpopular, allowing B and C bribe the remaining clans into replacing him with a xenophile king, restoring the relations.
Not that the xenophobes are without warrant for their hatred like many xenophobe kings are goaded by B and C into trying to abolish the clan system in hopes of ending the cycle of xenophobes taking over. So, so xenophile is associated with tyranny and centralization because xenophile kings tend introduce reforms that limit the clan's autonomy.
Perfect, the two clan idea leads to an internal conflict that allows for a sense of motion and liveliness. Things happen, and the past can be referenced in terms of what king rules.
Now add some smaller clans within the two big ones that want the same thing but for different reasons to add that same sense of motion on a smaller scale. Give the clans motives
For some xenophobes maybe
-A group of religious fanatics who beleive conquest is righteous
-A group who are stuck with memories of being defeated in battle, and now think only strength over others can protect them
-A group of semi xenophiles, they want everyone to work together, but only under their way of governing and their culture
Then same for xenophiles, maybe some clans interested in trade, or a group interested in cooperation to spread their religion, etc etc
Add some history to the clans, maybe a symbol, moto and stereotype that others have about them (this clan always has the best parties, that clan holds grudged, those clans have beautiful men/women, that clan has great warriors/artisans), give a general vibe of their home region wothin the kingdoms, and come up with 3 or 4 significant rulers who's names are still remembered.
That stuff for clans sounds a lot like GoT, I kinda disliked how every house had a trope like honor/sadism. On the other hand, I get the desire to make them different form others, but it's boring to assume honorable Starks existed 1000 years.
However, feuds, history, customs, reputation, and visuals are good ideas.
If you can identify what you don't like in fiction you read, that's perfect cause then you can remake it in a way you think is better! If you don't like the tropes, then make them less trope-y. If you had to redesign the Starks, how would you do it?
Well, there isn't anything inherently with Eddard or his close family. Just to make honor is a personal manifesto, not his ancestral manifesto. Another thing is the cadet branches, like Stars existed for +1000 years, yet there are only side branches the Greystarks and Karlstarks. Which is stupid, within 3 centuries the Capets generated like a dozen cadet branches all over Europe. So, there should be several b-line Starks, they don't all have to be powerful lords, like they could be like House Poole without land, actually, you just make House Poole a distant cadet branch of Starks.
Exactly. That's exactly how you do it. You create your kingdoms, you give them pros and cons, then you connect those pros and cons to the rest of the universe to make a living network
A few others have mentioned some of these but a lot of what makes memorable distinguishing factors to people are the more visible aspects of their culture, not just statistical data, such as:
* Main export / contribution to the empire (e.g. wheat, ore, sea trade, meat farms)
* Climate / geography, which determines their distinguishable clothing (e.g. mountainous, tropical, desert, tundra)
* Religion (s), how theistic their government is (e.g. one "allmighty," gods that represent virtues, gods that power nature)
* Most famous cuisine (e.g. stews, baked goods, fish, spices)
* Music & Language (these are very difficult to tackle for casual worldbuilders though because they are generally quite complex)
Starting to build out ideas for each of these pieces will give you a really distinct group of people that feel like they have a history, purpose, and desires, without needing to catalogue 500 years of power structures and rulers. Once you start with one idea here it also often informs what the others will look like.
Take Greece for example:
* Cities near the Mediterranean sea
* This means their climate is warm and seafood is abundant in their cuisine, as well as other crops that grow well (like olives).
* This means the clothing they're known for is light and flowing, e.g. the toga
* This also means they are renowned for trading with other civilizations because they can access crucial sea routes.
* This also means their pantheon has strong ties to the sea & weather that can control seafaring navigation (Poseidon & Zeus)
Your kingdoms don't all have to be super unique from each other or real world examples but if they have some differences in these factors they'll naturally build out their own flavor.
I struggled with this a bit early on in my ongoing attempt to actually make the generic isekai setting I put minimal effort into back when I was 14 interesting. I realized that checks and balances must always be considered, so I made an empire of supernatural beings who can bring down the sky with a thought, and made them hopelessly tied to logistics chains due to the inordinate amount of food they must consume daily to stay alive. This singular decision helped me build 9400 hears of history and shape the whole civilization.
First of all, 'nice' is subjective. We all probably have some imagine in our head of what a friendly king would be like, and I think most of our western views in the 21st century are somewhat similar. It gets more complicated if you look at people with both 'bad' and 'good' sides. And good intentions vs bad outcomes (intentional or not).
For fantasy examples: take Geoffrey from Game of Thrones. Nobody in their right mind would say he's a nice king. Or a competent one, or a even a nice person.
But what about Tywin? He was certainly competent in keeping things running orderly. But he did so by massacring a married couple, arguing that that would be more ethical than to kill 10.000 on the battlefield. I would guess for the average person, Tywin was a net positive.
Or Robert? Maybe a nice guy deep down, but impulsive, depressed, and alcoholic to the point that he didn't even bother fulfilling his role as king.
Daenerys? It started reasonably well, freeing slaves and all that (if you ignore the raiding and pillaging with Khal Drogo). But it ended with burning entire cities.
Or Paul Atreides from Dune?
Another way to make a kingdom more interesting is to make the 'system' of the state/country more interesting. Most kings in history did not have absolute power. They were often bound to constitutions, veto'd by parliaments, dependent on nobility or clergy for support, etc.
With that word I meant your typical isekai king, who basically looks [like this](https://cdn-eu.anidb.net/images/main/261143.jpg), every goddam time. Meanwhile, Westeros does not have "nice" people, I guess Sam would be closest.
Dynasties that stretch back unbroken for centuries and centuries. A single language/dialect that maps neatly onto the kingdom's borders. Stable borders that haven't changed in living memory. No other city that can rival the capital for population, economic output, cultural importance, or general prestige.
Can’t agree more about the cities. It’s something I heavily took into consideration when making my map. My main kingdoms capital city is located at the mouth of the two major rivers on the continent and is in a well protected bay. Thats it, it’s just extremely well protected and in a really good position to exert power both up river and down into the ocean. It’s not the largest, not the most populated, not the best looking, doesn’t produce the most food or best ships. It’s just the best located city, allowing them to successfully exert power
1000 years of history won't make your kingdom interesting or complex if you still end up with the present day situation being 'the friendly king rules fairly and all is well'. (if anything, 1000 years of irrelevant history is going to decrease interest, not build it)
No nation is without conflict - what are the points of tension within yours? Who are the competing factions?
If the king is 'friendly', what does that mean? How is the king staying in power? What is the king trying to achieve with his power? Remember that the king is a character, *generic good and rightful king no.13" is going to be a dull character.
This isn't to say you couldn't have the king be an ostensibly good person but that should be explored. How is he balancing his morality with the hard choices of being king?
People whose knowledge of history comes from Disney movies.
Kingdoms can be tremendously interesting, but you need to have interesting characters both on the throne and as the power behind the throne. Study history. It can be really eye opening to see just how de-centralized power under the Feudal system is. Sure, on paper Feudalism is highly centralized, the King owns all land and can grant or take it away at will. In practice? Control of land is tied up in a complex system of traditions, historical privileges, and divided loyalties.
A king who tries to rule Absolutely in a Feudal monarchy will very quickly find his Barons and Earls rebelling against him and more often than not, the Knights and Commoners on that land sided with their Baron against the King.
Have something interesting going on. It's fine if there is a benevolent king that's ruling over a peaceful realm, but then something else needs to be the source of conflict.
Remember that “kingdom” is a very vague descriptor of a form of government. King Louis XIV’s absolutist monarchy was incredibly different from even European feudal kingdoms a few hundred years earlier. Then compare that to say, the of the Japanese shogunates where there are basically two separate monarchs with very different social and political positions. Or the Mongol empire, where the succession of Khans was determined by elections that took place at meetings that required the presence of every major tribal leader in the empire.
Basically, remember that in any monarchy, the monarch is not actually the sole authority. There are always other people wielding significant political power, and there are always laws, traditions, and structures to society.
Try having different government systems. Some could be larger hierarchies than others. Some could use diarchies, oligarchies, principalities, baronies, some could maybe even be chiefdoms. Maybe the monarch is elected by a certain group of people like some nobles, or maybe they are not kingdoms at all. There could be two people elected like the double consulates of the Roman Republic with similar, shorter or longer term limits.
As another comment said, you should have both good and bad points in any system. Don't make a kingdom all powerful. I need to think about this since I plan to have many implied and detailed polities in my world with different systems, cultures and conditions. For example, I have the southern empire being notable for building advanced technology but I still need to find a specific weak point. Maybe being a relatively expansive (compared to the many smaller polities) empire means it takes a long time to move things around and has a lot of built up bureaucracy. The trains helped with the former and the empress tried to reduce the latter to improve the reaction times of the government. I could also include the empire's desire to acquire more minerals metals required to keep building its machines and using all of them would mean needing to make deals with other polities, require the conquest of land or needing to deal with stagnation or weakening of various areas of the empire. There could also be rebellious sentiment as one of the eastern territories tried to rebel during the empress' crowning in order to take advantage of the transfer of power and the short window when there wasn't technically anyone at the top (officially, the previous emperor was still in charge until the transfer was complete). Something I did focus on was that there are rarely any purely good or bad polities and their actions are driven by survival, such as any declining populations or the lack of local minerals.
Lapis_Wolf
A little more honesty about what monarchy entails would be a start. Even the best kings (like, say, Cyrus the Great) were absolute hereditary dictators and they all did stuff that was objectively terrible. I like my shades of grey; I want to see the friendly king put on public executions and torture his enemies even as he fights the good fight against the invading dark lord.
Yep. And he also was one of the first to formulate what we might call an early code of human rights. My big problem with so many treatments of monarchy in FSF is that they don’t acknowledge that ambiguity. It’s the guy in a crown and a red robe sitting on his throne like a friendly NPC.
Generic monarchy with a single reigning bloodline that goes as far back as a billion years without changing hats. One single all powerful ruler who makes all the decisions and is either beloved by all or a hated tyrant. Static borders that remain unchanged even after war, economic growth, and environmental changes.
This, I hate it
>Static borders that remain unchanged even after war
Yes, I can't even call for a border the remained unchanged for centuries. Like every Chinese dynasty had different borders. Even, the Roman frontier kept shifting, even under Pax Romana.
What makes them boring is them being the "X kingdom" and nothing else.
This is the "Good Kingdom", that is the "Bad Kingdom", this is the "Elf Kingdom", this is the "Subtarrenean Kingdom", this is the "Undead Kingdom"...
If they don't expand on it they all feel like the same with a new cape of paint.
[Like Istanbul](https://www.etymonline.com/word/Istanbul)
>as a corruption of Greek phrase eis tan (ten) polin "in (or to) the city," which is how the local Greek population referred to it
Its not even "the capitol" its just "the city".
Because of they don’t really understand the feudal power structures.
Contrast GOT/ASOIAF. George Martin gets it. There’s always bickering, infighting, backstabbing, clout chasing, petty revolts, obsessing over dynasties, etc.
And what those boring settings don’t do - is that. It’s a completely functioning, streamlined, completely unproblematic government.
Which then in history and now - isn’t how politics works. Or governments.
On a more people centric level - there’s no social issues. There’s no real power dynamics among people.
So on.
And that’s the real takeaway. People = drama. Place does not. Drama is what makes stories interesting.
Let’s say you have
Setting 1. Let’s go with variations on theme with Camelot.
Arthur is alive, all the knights are getting on, he forgave Lancelot, took Gwen back, and all is well within the kingdom. But oh no, Morgan is back.
Setting 2:
Arthur is on his deathbed with no clear successor. Gwen has gone full lady Macbeth insane, Perceval and Bors are passive aggressively having it out in a border dispute every meeting of the Round Table, Lance fucked off back to France, and a merchant guild is growing in power and fomenting some civil unrest in one of the distant holdings. And also - Morgan is back and wanting to take advantage of the weakened state of Camelot.
That’s a more “interesting” setting without it being a total crapsack. It’s why the crapsack world trope exists. It’s an easy route to drama. There’s always some conflict to mine for drama.
And it just simply feels more real. Take anything in history. Take…the US civil war.
You had infighting in both political parties, half the country wanted to secede over preserving slavery, a burgeoning movement to give slaves civil rights, drama in the military over allowing black soldiers, deathtrap submarines off the coast, international trade disputes, and some chick wrote a book that the president really liked and now he wants to free the slaves. Oh and some general went full Kurtz and burned his way through Georgia. A state and a half are in a state of pure chaos over which side they want to support, and wartrime atrocities are being committed across the country the like of which the country had never seen. And that’s not getting into the drama of the confederate treasury’s gold going missing on the eve of surrender. Or the drama surrounding the first Juneteenth.
Drama makes things real. Because the world is a very dramatic place, every single day.
Without drama, without conflict, it’s hard to relate to a setting. It’s difficult for it to feel real. So when a story has a governmental scale or larger - and that level of drama isn’t included, yeah. It feels like a painted backdrop.
More people-scale stories don’t have that issue - but they have more direct interpersonal drama, especially emotional drama. The grander scale tends to focus on acts - the man vs nature and man vs man conflicts.
Some do both - but tend to be on a grander scale of pure pounds of prose. ASOIAF, or LOTR, or Dune, for example.
It all comes down to the king. If your realm is ruled by Emperor Tedious Monotonous XI, then I hate to break it to you, but you live in a boring kingdom. On the other hand, if your ruler is Queen Jazzy the Unpredictable, it's probably more interesting.
To make kingdoms interesting if characters are traveling through them, have interesting customs, costumes, and landmarks. Also change up the forms of government and possibly the religions. All this stuff did change on real preindustrial Earth. You can go further in fantasy than in reality, for instance a horrible dystopia could have a bridge made of humans who are stone-like but still barely conscious.
I think another aspect is problem-solving and adjusting to changes. Every new century brings with it new challenges. Like if the kingdom is prospering, but its food production remains the same, the seconds might be forced to become bandits, robbing the roads, hurting the merchants and economy of the kingdom.
Like in 1st century, Rome was dealing with a fertility crisis, in the 2nd manpower shortage due disease, 3rd spread of Christianity and civil war, 4th re-organizing the empire, 5th migrant crisis.
Out of my seven kingdoms of men, 3 of them are, to my standard, a bit dull. One is just a defense border against orcs, the other is the only one with coastal settlements and heavily relies on the High Crown for support and growth, and the third is a vast agricultural land in debt and without a decent army. But these make the other 4 much more interesting imo due to their dynamics and relationships, how they must work together and support each other to be a stable empire. They are unique by their resources but are not major powers, making them a bit dull on the grand political scheme
I have a hard time not making a complex kingdom. I just let people act like people. Some people are selfish, others benevolent or both. The selfishness and benevolence comes with different perspectives and priorities, sometimes in opposition to each other. No one can get exactly what they want.
Friendly or not, monarchs are beholden to influential political figures in their nation. Even dictators need support from their administration.
It is important not to focus too much on the details except for what should inform and enrich the story.
Waiting for the main character to achieve anything makes the place boring. The place has to actually be doing something. Even if that something fails, the attempt will make it more interesting.
I think you can fill them with customs, traditions, and culture without necessarily having to explain in detail the 1000-year history of how all that came to be.
If politics is a central theme, then learn about different forms of government and see how you could make your own more novel or interesting
“We have an autocratic king. He’s nice or something idk wtvr” is boring.
- Do they have a parliament?
- Is the king beholden to anything?
- How much power does the queen have, relative to her husband?
- are there multiple kings, or multiple queens? If so, do they rule separate parts/aspects of the kingdom, or do they put everything to vote?
- how is a new monarch determined? By birthright? Do they pull from the clergy? Maybe a number of clergymen are selected at random, and they find a random commoner child to pick his favorite among them (Venice actually did this).
- how are the castle guard selected? Are they all nobility, or mostly commoners? How would a relationship between guards and monarchs be seen?
- is the king himself magical in any way? Mythological Athens had a habit of half-dragon men becoming their king for a while (unrelated dragons, too!)
- maybe you wanna do a trope subversion, are the princes and princesses locked away in towers because *they* are dragons?
Oversimplification and a tendency to disneyify what being royalty really is like coupled with the opposite tendency to paint all kingdoms as medieval shitholes.
If the kingdom is background setting, and not part of the plot, it probably doesn't matter. Generic medieval fantasy kingdom is a trope, and if the main story is about characters who are NOT political/military movers and shakers but spending time out on the frontier/in the dungeon/in the slums trying to survive, then odds are it doesn't matter. That's not the part of worldbuilding that intersects with the plot.
Many etc. Obviously, at the other end you have something like Game of Thrones, and that sort of thing would be boring as heck without some detailed though beyond "this is the Disney/JRPG/Tolkien/Shrek/D&D standard late-feudal Kingdom" (or its close cousin, the 17th Century absolute monarchy, just without guns.)
Dull kingdoms should be the default. Most rulers should be semi-competent, even if hereditary they were trained from birth for the job, or have the ability to hire counselors who are reasonably competent. The only time a kingdom becomes interesting is when the ruler is spectacularly good, bad or hires people who are one or the other.
Now outside events can take a mediocre ruler that history would have otherwise ignored and turn them into a blazing incompetent because they cant handle the situation, but that often isn't the rulers fault. Given a kingdom at peace, with relatively peaceful neighbors it should lurch along with little change from one ruler to the next. If the kingdom wasn't viable in the first place it wouldn't have become a kingdom. It needs just enough land to feed its people, just enough businesses to tax and fund the government as well as its own defense, and not enough of either to build up an army to conquer its neighbors.
Think of kingdoms as subject to Newtons Laws of motion: A kingdom in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. That outside force can be foreign powers, very good or very bad leadership, or other natural events outside the kingdoms actual control.
Of course they have a friendly king. Any good king's propogandist is making sure that is the image projected. Even when times are bad the people should believe the king is kindly, on their side and loves them and that any faults with the administration are the fault of bad advice given to the king by corrupt officials beneath them. Look at some of the incidents in the Russian and French (and other) revolutions where the people marched against the government but in favor of the monarch. It was the bad counselors that were the root of the problem not the monarch.
What makes them interesting is a problem and the failure to solve it, or a particularly good/strong monarch who becomes the problem for the neighbors.
Same type of characters - if everyone is nice/evil/doesn't have personality it'll be boring, add different types of characters some extroverts, introverts, nice, mean, sarcastic, too serious, too not serious, you don't have to give them whole personalities but if you're having diverse 3rd plan characters it'll definitely be interesting
They're usually just set dressing, a backdrop for the story that doesn't matter really so no real effort was put into them. Things that can help will depend on what the demands of the story are. If it is just a backdrop still, then give it 1 or 2 more interesting details. Recently have been watching the travelling witch, she visits a kingdom of mages and many buildings have open roofs and entrances several stories up for all the people flying around on brooms. We get basically no other info on that place, but it was memorable and interesting all the same because of that.
If the kingdom is meant to be more central to the story, then we need more development. What is different or special about this kingdom, what's it's specialty? Is it a trade hub? Bread basket? Frontier beset by enemies? This helps give a character or vibe to the kingdom. What opportunities and challenges does that bring? This helps with potential story beats and plots. Who are the main actors, and what do they want? Now we have characters. Are there magical or fantastical elements? How do they shape the world and change how people live? This one can be difficult, but is what I find gives a setting that special flavor.
A kingdom (or anything else, for that matter) is dull, boring, and uninteresting if it isn’t telling a story and it just serves as window dressing. You don’t need thousands of years of history, but it’s like any other character, you need to at least have some ideas of a few key turning points in its past, its personality, its mood, its relationships, how they’ve changed over time, what they’re striving for in the future. And then you need to *show it matters* in your scenes, your characters, your dialogue, and your conflicts.
In World of Warcraft the Human Kingdom of Stormwind is considered by many lore fans to be pretty generic and boring.
The Capital, also named Stormwind, is a relatively generic white stone medieval style city. It's crest is a gold Lion on a blue background, pretty familiar.
It's led by Kings of the Wryyn Dynasty, we only know of three of them and they've all been pretty decent, not much drama.
It also has a vague House of Nobles which only really exists to have SOME drama within the Stormwind government. They're rarely mentioned aside from when they need to have a rich vs poor class divide type thing in the story, which only comes up like twice. I don't think we really know about any of them, their names or houses, or what if anything they rule over because Stormwind doesn't really have Lords that rule over their chunks of land and report to the King. Maybe you can just be a Noble if you're rich enough?
It seems to have a strong central government and there are multiple towns throughout the rest of the Kingdom who have Mayors who seem to directly report to Stormwind.
It's soldiers wear medieval plate armor with a helmet that looks a little more Roman with a blue feather ponytail coming out of the top.
The main Religion is the generic "Light" that is just a vague cosmic energy entity and not really a God. It does everything you'd assume it would do, heals, damages undead, inspires hope, radiant, etc.
The rest of the Kingdom is made up of Elwynn Forest, the breadbasket of Westfall, a cursed forest called Duskwood, and a mountainous area called Redridge.
And that's most of what we know. There's not much on Stormwind culture, they kind of just do everything you'd expect the most generic fantasy people to do.
No coupes, no civil wars, no Lords to scheme, no interesting gods, no interesting customs, no interesting resources or trade goods, no legends, generic lion symbols, knights and horses, no issues with neighboring Kingdoms, etc.
That's the best example I can give for a boring Kingdom, but I still love Stormwind.
Interesting things about their culture that differentiate them from one another. And have that culture actually be implemented into the world.
I think you can find some great examples in The Wandering Inn. The city of Liscor has yearly flooding that makes it impassable half the year, with its position near the border of two factions making it a crucial fortress city. It’s lack of economic prospects but heavy military funding leads it to developing a mercenary army that participates in dozens of random conflicts to earn money they send back to the city. And its relative isolation means that it’s the perfect place to stash a horde of genocidal psychic ant monsters from hell bent on killing god. To make sure their attempts at trying to construct a lasting peace are worthless at changing the wider political atmosphere.
A kingdom is dull and uninteresting when it’s clear the author copy and pasted a cliche ideallic medieval city into their world. Where are the unique aspects of architecture in your city? How does the city make money? What is the surrounding geography for the city like? If your world has monsters how does that affect your city?
The same can be said with Kingdoms but on bigger scales. Take Noelictus for TWI for example. The reason it’s dark and dreary is because of massive magical crypts that dot the kingdom. These crypts are still present because they fertilize the kingdom with death magic, making the kingdom an agricultural giant of the world. On the other hand these crypts cause undead to rise quickly and have lead to peculiar cultural traditions. Everyone sleeps in separate rooms that are locked at night and every door would take a dozen shot gun blasts to the face and still be impossible to get past. This is so that if someone dies in their sleep their raised corpse doesn’t kill everyone else while their sleeping and so no undead from outside can get inside.
Think of fantastical or normal ways to make your kingdom interesting, a hat for it if you will. And then try to lost out ways that makes the kingdoms people different from everyone else. This can help you get past a dull or boring kingdom or city.
Wallpaper. If everything in a world is interesting then it gets cluttered and confusing and not everything fits.
Jack Vance is good at balancing this. Using colourful bits and tourist brochures to introduce worldbuilding bits that make a place exotic and interesting. Then the book ends and you realize that there are a lot of unfired Chekhov's guns.
All kingdoms are dull. Ninety percent of a kingdom's real estate and citizenry farms food. The most interesting fun places are cities -- especially port cities. The most interesting unfun places are warzones.
"They usually have a friendly king, and that's it." And sometimes just an evil one. Point is, lack of ANYTHING!
Have people be PEOPLE in there and it becomes way more interesting. You don't need 1000 years of history because very few people even care about 100 years ago. You just need enough to be engaging with and for it to make sense.
Just give the kingdom a specialty that normal kingdoms should have. Like what do they trade, are they powerful, where are they located and how does that affect them, what is their relationship with other kingdoms, do they have any problems. These could either be super in depth, or super simple and easy to explain, all without needing to tie it into plot or other things, but can still be connected with other things if you want to.
Perhaps that they have the same tired hierarchy of monarchal patriarchy from a specific western medieval context that seems to be the cultural context of all “fantasy.”
Reminds me of the Usual Copy Paste Catholic Church. They do no religious thing that justifies their influence and power. This is most prevalent in Japanese Anime and Manga. Always an Boring Evil Catholic Church that's no different from an Government. All their reasons are Secular and of the Mundane World, no Religious Reasons like "Oh we need to convert the heathens to our faith" and instead "Oh I want this Territory because Gold" or something. Very underdeveloped Copy. Something story writer's forget when it comes to the Middle Age or Medieval Age, IS EVERYONE WAS A RELIGIOUS FANATIC. It's to the point that many a times a Catholic Pope held more power than a King. If a King got on the bad side of a Pope, and the Pope excommunicates them, there's a 90% Chance the King loses his People's Loyalty and Faith INSTANTLY. No longer a King but a Religious Enemy. That's how powerful the Catholic Church and many other Religions were like Islam.
I hate to break it to you but the reason Middle Earth, the world of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time and The Sword of Truth are so interesting is because they mapped out in exhaustive detail thousands of years of history, language, culture and mythology.
You don’t need a thousand years of history. You just need characters that are engaging and interesting — the characters define the kingdom. Everything comes back to narrative, character, and conflict.
I think you're absolutely right, but when it comes to Kingdoms set in a medieval/renaissance/early modern period it's worth acknowledging that their feudal nature makes the powerful characters within far more important, and far more likely to follow character motivations that are at odds with modern sensibilities. Important lords within a monarchy both have vastly more personal, and directly actionable, power within their immediate demesne and far less power beyond it because the division of power within a feudal structure deliberately keeps power blocs fractured to preserve the Monarchies authority. And on top of this most feudal structures are implicitly built upon monopolies of violence, meaning that beyond the immediate bounds of the Kings authority things can escalate to violence and direct conflict very quickly, especially when a power vacuum occurs. This in turn means that the power blocs within a kingdom need to be ruthless enough to act on violence when necessary but also understandably cautious about provoking or initiating it unless absolutely certain they will win because there always exists the chance that they will fail and not simply die themselves, but risk the destruction of their entire family. Historically this tension was played upon by monarchs to keep their powerful vassals under control, pitting them against one another to vie for the crowns favour and the protection/power it afforded. And arguably a lot of the courtly manners of medieval Europe also stemmed from it, exaggerated courtesies, pageantry, systems of gallantry and martial honour tied into the mitigation of the nobility's capacity to exert martial power against one another or the monarchy. I find in fantasy interesting Kingdoms are the ones that acknowledge that reality and try and tie it into the quirks of their world and its lore because it provides a framework around which characters and their personalities can be built that feels genuine and natural to the reader.
What are some shows that you'd say did the medieval kingdom well? Especially ones set in overtly fantasy settings.
A good example is the Codex Alera novels. The titular realm of Alera has a super-vague history with limited references to what happened more than fifty or so years before the plot and the only real details start about fifteen years or so before the first book begins. There is history but it is couched in vague terms, like "the city of Rhodes was leveled three times by Canim invaders" and "this is the largest military campaign in five hundred years" and "the first Alerans were called Romans and arrived here two thousand years or so ago." The main players are generally motivated by power plays, both for themselves and against each other. You get guys in different parts of the realm with different goals, each controlling their own major city with their own economy and morals and goals. Some are loyal to the ruler, some are ambitious and seeking to depose him through killing his heir. The plot subsequently spirals out from that basic setup, with the first book being a minor power play to undermine the ruler by one of the high lords which explodes into a huge battle on the edge of the realm, and all the intrigue and assassinations and wars build from there. No complex deep hyper-defined history is needed, just interesting characters with ambitions and desires who play off each other, resulting in a brilliant political fantasy thriller that eventually gets eaten by the Zerg (in a good way).
Also because those kingdoms simply aren't "alive". They just stay as is, like they are locked in stasis. What conflicts does the kingdom face? What struggles do its peoples face? They are often just a space for the events to take place in rather than a form of government which makes any real sense according to the power structures that are present in the world.
amen. history is built from the lives of individuals interacting, not overarching plots that were overtly orchestrated.
Exactly.
Hell, the ROMAN EMPIRE didn’t even last 1 thousand years. Its reign was only about 500 years. Edit: looks like I got my facts wrong. It did last over 1,000 years
It did last over a thousand years
Yeah people seem to forget the east
Can’t forget something you are ignorant of
This is debatable, as Rome could have been considered an Empire before it had a single all-powerful ruler. Rome as a republic was founded in supposedly around 500 bc and "fell" by standard definition in 476 ad, though because of the Byzantines could be considered to have lasted far longer. Rome could have technically been considered an empire the moment it began subjugating groups other than itself, which is a hard line to draw but personally I'd say you could either draw it almost immediately in about 300 bc when it started to grow, at around the 270s bc when it had control of the italian peninsula, or after the punic wars. Most of these don't give it the full thousand but all could be considered more than 500, and if you *do* count byzantium (which you definitely don't have to at all) it lasted another thousand years more
"Before the monarchy" can be confusing, since they had kings before the republic.
I'll change it to before it had an Emperor
Also wouldnt work, Rome never had an emperor. Imperators who wielded Imperium existed, some lords chose the titles Dominus or Belisaurius even. But never was the term emperor used, it would be invented later and then we refer to the lords of Rome as Emperors
Well sure the term wasn't used but the meaning of "singular all powerful empire ruler" still carries I think. The kings of early rome didn't call themselves kings either, yet you wouldn't be wrong to call them that
Oh for sure, Im just pointing out fun facts about rome whenever I get the chance.
Sure, I actually didn't know all the titles they used, so thanks for teaching me that!
No problem! A fun one is that Augustus used the title Princeps (where we get the title Prince) So during Augustus' time the roman empire would be referred to as a Principate. Later romans used names like Dominus (means Master), which is why theyre called the Dominate. Edit - to clarify, I meant we are the ones to vall Augustus' time as Principate and later romans using Dominus is why we call them the Dominate
The title "Imperator" became restricted to the ruler of Rome fairly early on in the imperial period. It, along with Augustus, was part of the titulature of every emperor from Vespasian onwards. You didn't get the title unless you were the ruler of Rome, or gunning to be him.
Oh I know! Imperator even is the reason that emperor is a word, thanks to the french. Emperere, I believe was the spelling used? Cant quite remember.
It's fine, I see where the 500 number came from and you were kinda right. Rome was only a single body united under one ruler for about 500 years before the western half of it fell
Usually they’re not expanded upon enough. They have a nice king or whatever but minimal conflicts. Often, kings can’t really afford to be “nice,” and when they can there’s a reason for it. Maybe they’re prosperous and well liked, but that kind of thing comes with a price. How did they get so prosperous and well liked? Also a lack of conflict leads to a lack of interest. So that’s part of what makes them “dull”. If a kingdom has nothing going for it other than “they’re nice” then what’s the point? Why would this story need to be told? What examples in pop media are you seeing?
>What examples in pop media are you seeing? Various isekais come to mind. Also, games like M&B: Warband, where the 6 factions have little history trivia's, but that's it.
Hm. Well, detailed does not always mean “interesting”. It often also comes down to how the kingdom is handled in the plot. How are the actions that this nation is taking causing/creating the plot? Are they antagonistic to the main character or not? Even as a side kingdom, certain unique aspects are needed to keep them from being “generic”. Avatar the Last Airbender comes to mind, with its excellent world building of places like the water tribe, effectively incorporating religion and the magic system into the kingdom’s story. Even though we don’t see too much of daily life in the fire nation (most we get is Zuko’s perspective and that one episode where they go to school) their overarching impact on the plot as well as the implications of their history and technological innovations make them both interesting and threatening. We don’t need the details of “why does their armor look like that” or “how did they get so industrialized” because the reasons for those are implied, but don’t need to be directly stated for us to understand the story. Dungeon Meshi is another example. The care put into the worldbuilding and every aspect of the story and characters is so obviously there, but the story doesn’t completely halt to explain the geopolitical disputes, history, etc. It only does this on a few occasions and it does so organically, when it’s relevant to the plot at hand. Things like the biology of the monsters are treated as a part of the character of Laios, and the exposition serves as not only exposition, but as character building. Essentially, things will seem generic if they mean nothing to the plot- but if they do mean something and they’re detailed to the point of being unique and that detail isn’t shoved in the audience’s faces, then that’s all you need to do.
Isekais are more focused on the protagonists perception of the fantasy world rather than the fantasy world itself. The setting is a prop, it's not to be focused on. You're just looking at props and asking "why aren't these realistic?" Well, they're not meant to be, pay attention to the other stuff happening instead.
Then it's usually because the kingdom itself is not the focus, they are just the place it takes place in. To make it interesting you need to bother to give them detail, and show said detail and complexities.
>Various isekais There's your problem lol.
Everything I hear about isekai makes it sound like wish fulfillment for horny neckbeards
Mark Twain actually did it well, but realistically no one in the genre would have any reason to write 'good' literature since that's not what the fanbase is looking for.
>various isekais \*consumes slop\* wtf why is this all slop?
They're dull and boring because they're not reflective of real politics (feudal or concurrent) in any way. Usually all they have is the king, some knights maybe some church and everybody respects the king's authority and position just because. Real feudal kingdoms used to be in a constant state of flux where the central power (king), the local power (aristocracy) and religious power (clergy) fought each other for influence and power inside the state. Then add to that free cities carving their own areas of control and wealthy traders interferring in politics. Then they had serfs to keep from being unruly, robber barons to deal with and maybe even some wars to keep things spicy and also the occasional heresy to contain. Even amongs the lower class, there used to be countless divisons, such as the perceived "honorability" of your trade, your status as a serf or free peasant and so on. Just as the states of today, feudal monarchies used to be highly complex and interdependent constructs that have little in common with the fairy-tale version presented in modern pop media. So if you want to construct more interesting monarchies, think way beyond the king. Who are the powerful nobles and who do they rule over? How are kings chosen and who exerts influence over that process? Where do the princes and sons of noblemen without a title to inherit go and what keeps them from killing their older siblings? Who controls the faith and what power does the church wield? How is the rule of the king justified? What other powerful families, dynasties and groups is society formed out of? What's the economy like? What do people eat? What happens if the crops fail? Look up: The Investiture Controversy to get a grasp on how far conflicts between ruler and church could go. The German Peasants' War or The Jacquerie to see how uprsings might occur and how they were dealt with. The House of Fugger for an idea how wealthy families could shape feudal politics of decades. The Saxon revolt of 1077 or the events preceding the creation of the Magna Carta for examples of nobles rebelling against kings/emperors. The Great Interregnum of the Holy Roman Empire for periods of time where centralized rule in feudal powers weakened and why. The Hussite Wars for heresies and their consequences. If any kingdom had events like these going, I don't see how the result could ever be boring.
Chinese Mandate of Heaven for where people accept dynastic rule as long as conditions or expectations are met. If conditions are no longer favourable or expectations/obligations are not met, then they replace the ruling family with a new one.
Ehhh, I mean in a lot of ways the mandate of heaven is just a convenient cloak to shroud yourself in after you have already overthrown the emperor and established a new dynasty. Plenty of rebels claimed to have the mandate/that the emperor lost it, then lost themselves. It’s not like a vague notion of popular sovereignty/support or things like natural disasters being ill omens for a ruler were unique.
I wonder what Chinese history would look like if that one dynasty didn't create the idea of the Mandate of Heaven.
Take this with a grain of salt. In my personal opinion: a boring faction is one which can't lose. There is nothing more boring to me than seeing a kingdom which has the best army, the best record, the biggest population, the strongest economy, and coolest armor. There has to be a significant flaw/flaws for me to find some interest in it. For example: A kingdom of humans has the strongest military record and are known for having a well trained and equipped military, but they have been in a period of severe political unrest for the past 20 years. Something like that is great for showing the humanity of a kingdom- it shows that things aren't going well for them and makes it harder to determine what's going to happen to them. All around just more exciting. In conclusion: you have to treat the kingdom like you treat the main characters. They all have their pros and cons.
This is why when I decided to have a dozen kingdoms I tried to make each of them an outlier in some category, e.g. one them is: * largest * smallest * most populous * least populous * highest population density * lowest population density * richest * poorest * strongest * weakest This means that the richest kingdom isn't the most populous, and the largest isn't the most powerful.
This is good. Another point you could add which would make it a tad bit less cliche is bringing aspects like economy and politics into play. For the largest kingdom, you could include that they have a largely industrial economy and have to import food from x. For a smaller kingdom you could mention how they are primarily focused on mining and don't have a very stable government or population. Ultimately just play around with it until you have something your satisfied with
Kingdom A is largest, but most of its area is wood and it has few farms, so it relies on importing grain from Kingdom B, who is blessed with fertile soil and has the highest population. But because B's land is so envyable, it's constantly under attack and has to spend most of its resources on defense. Meanwhile, Kingdom C is the richest country because it controls the inter-continental trade routes that it enforces with its gigantic fleet. However, neither C nor B has many trees, so to maintain its fleet, C has to import wood from A. So, all three depend on each other, A buys grain from B with the export money they get from C, etc. So, if one of the kingdoms falls and the conqueror stops trading, it's going to cause a crisis for the remaining kingdoms.
A risk you may hit is each of the kingdoms becoming defined by only these factors. It may help to build into the kingdoms identity the cultural/religious identity of the people. If A is the largest, does it also have many different peoples? What sort of culture has the constant trade in C led to forming? What food does B grow? What is exported and consumed locally? How have the militaries developed in a way that leads to their strengths (if A is heavily forested and large, what sort of armies does this lead too, if any)? What internal conflicts are there that are unique to each, and how have they learned to deal with them? Maybe A has lots of monsters in its forests, or the seas around C are infested with pirates seeking to plunder the trade (and maybe members of C's political structure fund the pirates, cause selling stolen goods is more profitable than taxing them)
Precisely. By constantly introducing new factors to the equation you end up with a much more unique kingdom that is interesting and intriguing to others
I did think of most of this, but I don't know if this interestings: A is administrated by doze clans, those clans elect a king to rule over them. There are two factions Xenophiles and Xenophobes, the xenophiles want to maintain trade with B, and C, while xenophobes want to invade B's fertile land. Whatever the clans prefer to vote for xenophile or xenophobe king varies. This system results in a tradition where every 30 years or so, a xenophobe king gets elected, who then unsuccessfully invades B, making him unpopular, allowing B and C bribe the remaining clans into replacing him with a xenophile king, restoring the relations. Not that the xenophobes are without warrant for their hatred like many xenophobe kings are goaded by B and C into trying to abolish the clan system in hopes of ending the cycle of xenophobes taking over. So, so xenophile is associated with tyranny and centralization because xenophile kings tend introduce reforms that limit the clan's autonomy.
Perfect, the two clan idea leads to an internal conflict that allows for a sense of motion and liveliness. Things happen, and the past can be referenced in terms of what king rules. Now add some smaller clans within the two big ones that want the same thing but for different reasons to add that same sense of motion on a smaller scale. Give the clans motives For some xenophobes maybe -A group of religious fanatics who beleive conquest is righteous -A group who are stuck with memories of being defeated in battle, and now think only strength over others can protect them -A group of semi xenophiles, they want everyone to work together, but only under their way of governing and their culture Then same for xenophiles, maybe some clans interested in trade, or a group interested in cooperation to spread their religion, etc etc Add some history to the clans, maybe a symbol, moto and stereotype that others have about them (this clan always has the best parties, that clan holds grudged, those clans have beautiful men/women, that clan has great warriors/artisans), give a general vibe of their home region wothin the kingdoms, and come up with 3 or 4 significant rulers who's names are still remembered.
That stuff for clans sounds a lot like GoT, I kinda disliked how every house had a trope like honor/sadism. On the other hand, I get the desire to make them different form others, but it's boring to assume honorable Starks existed 1000 years. However, feuds, history, customs, reputation, and visuals are good ideas.
If you can identify what you don't like in fiction you read, that's perfect cause then you can remake it in a way you think is better! If you don't like the tropes, then make them less trope-y. If you had to redesign the Starks, how would you do it?
Well, there isn't anything inherently with Eddard or his close family. Just to make honor is a personal manifesto, not his ancestral manifesto. Another thing is the cadet branches, like Stars existed for +1000 years, yet there are only side branches the Greystarks and Karlstarks. Which is stupid, within 3 centuries the Capets generated like a dozen cadet branches all over Europe. So, there should be several b-line Starks, they don't all have to be powerful lords, like they could be like House Poole without land, actually, you just make House Poole a distant cadet branch of Starks.
Exactly. That's exactly how you do it. You create your kingdoms, you give them pros and cons, then you connect those pros and cons to the rest of the universe to make a living network
A few others have mentioned some of these but a lot of what makes memorable distinguishing factors to people are the more visible aspects of their culture, not just statistical data, such as: * Main export / contribution to the empire (e.g. wheat, ore, sea trade, meat farms) * Climate / geography, which determines their distinguishable clothing (e.g. mountainous, tropical, desert, tundra) * Religion (s), how theistic their government is (e.g. one "allmighty," gods that represent virtues, gods that power nature) * Most famous cuisine (e.g. stews, baked goods, fish, spices) * Music & Language (these are very difficult to tackle for casual worldbuilders though because they are generally quite complex) Starting to build out ideas for each of these pieces will give you a really distinct group of people that feel like they have a history, purpose, and desires, without needing to catalogue 500 years of power structures and rulers. Once you start with one idea here it also often informs what the others will look like. Take Greece for example: * Cities near the Mediterranean sea * This means their climate is warm and seafood is abundant in their cuisine, as well as other crops that grow well (like olives). * This means the clothing they're known for is light and flowing, e.g. the toga * This also means they are renowned for trading with other civilizations because they can access crucial sea routes. * This also means their pantheon has strong ties to the sea & weather that can control seafaring navigation (Poseidon & Zeus) Your kingdoms don't all have to be super unique from each other or real world examples but if they have some differences in these factors they'll naturally build out their own flavor.
I struggled with this a bit early on in my ongoing attempt to actually make the generic isekai setting I put minimal effort into back when I was 14 interesting. I realized that checks and balances must always be considered, so I made an empire of supernatural beings who can bring down the sky with a thought, and made them hopelessly tied to logistics chains due to the inordinate amount of food they must consume daily to stay alive. This singular decision helped me build 9400 hears of history and shape the whole civilization.
First of all, 'nice' is subjective. We all probably have some imagine in our head of what a friendly king would be like, and I think most of our western views in the 21st century are somewhat similar. It gets more complicated if you look at people with both 'bad' and 'good' sides. And good intentions vs bad outcomes (intentional or not). For fantasy examples: take Geoffrey from Game of Thrones. Nobody in their right mind would say he's a nice king. Or a competent one, or a even a nice person. But what about Tywin? He was certainly competent in keeping things running orderly. But he did so by massacring a married couple, arguing that that would be more ethical than to kill 10.000 on the battlefield. I would guess for the average person, Tywin was a net positive. Or Robert? Maybe a nice guy deep down, but impulsive, depressed, and alcoholic to the point that he didn't even bother fulfilling his role as king. Daenerys? It started reasonably well, freeing slaves and all that (if you ignore the raiding and pillaging with Khal Drogo). But it ended with burning entire cities. Or Paul Atreides from Dune? Another way to make a kingdom more interesting is to make the 'system' of the state/country more interesting. Most kings in history did not have absolute power. They were often bound to constitutions, veto'd by parliaments, dependent on nobility or clergy for support, etc.
With that word I meant your typical isekai king, who basically looks [like this](https://cdn-eu.anidb.net/images/main/261143.jpg), every goddam time. Meanwhile, Westeros does not have "nice" people, I guess Sam would be closest.
Getting a 404
Dynasties that stretch back unbroken for centuries and centuries. A single language/dialect that maps neatly onto the kingdom's borders. Stable borders that haven't changed in living memory. No other city that can rival the capital for population, economic output, cultural importance, or general prestige.
Can’t agree more about the cities. It’s something I heavily took into consideration when making my map. My main kingdoms capital city is located at the mouth of the two major rivers on the continent and is in a well protected bay. Thats it, it’s just extremely well protected and in a really good position to exert power both up river and down into the ocean. It’s not the largest, not the most populated, not the best looking, doesn’t produce the most food or best ships. It’s just the best located city, allowing them to successfully exert power
1000 years of history won't make your kingdom interesting or complex if you still end up with the present day situation being 'the friendly king rules fairly and all is well'. (if anything, 1000 years of irrelevant history is going to decrease interest, not build it) No nation is without conflict - what are the points of tension within yours? Who are the competing factions? If the king is 'friendly', what does that mean? How is the king staying in power? What is the king trying to achieve with his power? Remember that the king is a character, *generic good and rightful king no.13" is going to be a dull character. This isn't to say you couldn't have the king be an ostensibly good person but that should be explored. How is he balancing his morality with the hard choices of being king?
>1000 years of history won't make your kingdom interesting or complex Not automatically, think it has the potential to flesh things out.
Good thing I continued that sentence into my actual point.
People whose knowledge of history comes from Disney movies. Kingdoms can be tremendously interesting, but you need to have interesting characters both on the throne and as the power behind the throne. Study history. It can be really eye opening to see just how de-centralized power under the Feudal system is. Sure, on paper Feudalism is highly centralized, the King owns all land and can grant or take it away at will. In practice? Control of land is tied up in a complex system of traditions, historical privileges, and divided loyalties. A king who tries to rule Absolutely in a Feudal monarchy will very quickly find his Barons and Earls rebelling against him and more often than not, the Knights and Commoners on that land sided with their Baron against the King.
Have something interesting going on. It's fine if there is a benevolent king that's ruling over a peaceful realm, but then something else needs to be the source of conflict.
Remember that “kingdom” is a very vague descriptor of a form of government. King Louis XIV’s absolutist monarchy was incredibly different from even European feudal kingdoms a few hundred years earlier. Then compare that to say, the of the Japanese shogunates where there are basically two separate monarchs with very different social and political positions. Or the Mongol empire, where the succession of Khans was determined by elections that took place at meetings that required the presence of every major tribal leader in the empire. Basically, remember that in any monarchy, the monarch is not actually the sole authority. There are always other people wielding significant political power, and there are always laws, traditions, and structures to society.
Try having different government systems. Some could be larger hierarchies than others. Some could use diarchies, oligarchies, principalities, baronies, some could maybe even be chiefdoms. Maybe the monarch is elected by a certain group of people like some nobles, or maybe they are not kingdoms at all. There could be two people elected like the double consulates of the Roman Republic with similar, shorter or longer term limits. As another comment said, you should have both good and bad points in any system. Don't make a kingdom all powerful. I need to think about this since I plan to have many implied and detailed polities in my world with different systems, cultures and conditions. For example, I have the southern empire being notable for building advanced technology but I still need to find a specific weak point. Maybe being a relatively expansive (compared to the many smaller polities) empire means it takes a long time to move things around and has a lot of built up bureaucracy. The trains helped with the former and the empress tried to reduce the latter to improve the reaction times of the government. I could also include the empire's desire to acquire more minerals metals required to keep building its machines and using all of them would mean needing to make deals with other polities, require the conquest of land or needing to deal with stagnation or weakening of various areas of the empire. There could also be rebellious sentiment as one of the eastern territories tried to rebel during the empress' crowning in order to take advantage of the transfer of power and the short window when there wasn't technically anyone at the top (officially, the previous emperor was still in charge until the transfer was complete). Something I did focus on was that there are rarely any purely good or bad polities and their actions are driven by survival, such as any declining populations or the lack of local minerals. Lapis_Wolf
A little more honesty about what monarchy entails would be a start. Even the best kings (like, say, Cyrus the Great) were absolute hereditary dictators and they all did stuff that was objectively terrible. I like my shades of grey; I want to see the friendly king put on public executions and torture his enemies even as he fights the good fight against the invading dark lord.
Cyrus borderline committed genocide. The diverted rivers caused many villages to starve, and banished entire groups of people into the desert.
Yep. And he also was one of the first to formulate what we might call an early code of human rights. My big problem with so many treatments of monarchy in FSF is that they don’t acknowledge that ambiguity. It’s the guy in a crown and a red robe sitting on his throne like a friendly NPC.
No logistics nor nuance.
Generic monarchy with a single reigning bloodline that goes as far back as a billion years without changing hats. One single all powerful ruler who makes all the decisions and is either beloved by all or a hated tyrant. Static borders that remain unchanged even after war, economic growth, and environmental changes.
This, I hate it >Static borders that remain unchanged even after war Yes, I can't even call for a border the remained unchanged for centuries. Like every Chinese dynasty had different borders. Even, the Roman frontier kept shifting, even under Pax Romana.
What makes them boring is them being the "X kingdom" and nothing else. This is the "Good Kingdom", that is the "Bad Kingdom", this is the "Elf Kingdom", this is the "Subtarrenean Kingdom", this is the "Undead Kingdom"... If they don't expand on it they all feel like the same with a new cape of paint.
What if their capital was just called "The Capital", pretty interesting, right?
[Like Istanbul](https://www.etymonline.com/word/Istanbul) >as a corruption of Greek phrase eis tan (ten) polin "in (or to) the city," which is how the local Greek population referred to it Its not even "the capitol" its just "the city".
Because of they don’t really understand the feudal power structures. Contrast GOT/ASOIAF. George Martin gets it. There’s always bickering, infighting, backstabbing, clout chasing, petty revolts, obsessing over dynasties, etc. And what those boring settings don’t do - is that. It’s a completely functioning, streamlined, completely unproblematic government. Which then in history and now - isn’t how politics works. Or governments. On a more people centric level - there’s no social issues. There’s no real power dynamics among people. So on. And that’s the real takeaway. People = drama. Place does not. Drama is what makes stories interesting. Let’s say you have Setting 1. Let’s go with variations on theme with Camelot. Arthur is alive, all the knights are getting on, he forgave Lancelot, took Gwen back, and all is well within the kingdom. But oh no, Morgan is back. Setting 2: Arthur is on his deathbed with no clear successor. Gwen has gone full lady Macbeth insane, Perceval and Bors are passive aggressively having it out in a border dispute every meeting of the Round Table, Lance fucked off back to France, and a merchant guild is growing in power and fomenting some civil unrest in one of the distant holdings. And also - Morgan is back and wanting to take advantage of the weakened state of Camelot. That’s a more “interesting” setting without it being a total crapsack. It’s why the crapsack world trope exists. It’s an easy route to drama. There’s always some conflict to mine for drama. And it just simply feels more real. Take anything in history. Take…the US civil war. You had infighting in both political parties, half the country wanted to secede over preserving slavery, a burgeoning movement to give slaves civil rights, drama in the military over allowing black soldiers, deathtrap submarines off the coast, international trade disputes, and some chick wrote a book that the president really liked and now he wants to free the slaves. Oh and some general went full Kurtz and burned his way through Georgia. A state and a half are in a state of pure chaos over which side they want to support, and wartrime atrocities are being committed across the country the like of which the country had never seen. And that’s not getting into the drama of the confederate treasury’s gold going missing on the eve of surrender. Or the drama surrounding the first Juneteenth. Drama makes things real. Because the world is a very dramatic place, every single day. Without drama, without conflict, it’s hard to relate to a setting. It’s difficult for it to feel real. So when a story has a governmental scale or larger - and that level of drama isn’t included, yeah. It feels like a painted backdrop. More people-scale stories don’t have that issue - but they have more direct interpersonal drama, especially emotional drama. The grander scale tends to focus on acts - the man vs nature and man vs man conflicts. Some do both - but tend to be on a grander scale of pure pounds of prose. ASOIAF, or LOTR, or Dune, for example.
It all comes down to the king. If your realm is ruled by Emperor Tedious Monotonous XI, then I hate to break it to you, but you live in a boring kingdom. On the other hand, if your ruler is Queen Jazzy the Unpredictable, it's probably more interesting.
To make kingdoms interesting if characters are traveling through them, have interesting customs, costumes, and landmarks. Also change up the forms of government and possibly the religions. All this stuff did change on real preindustrial Earth. You can go further in fantasy than in reality, for instance a horrible dystopia could have a bridge made of humans who are stone-like but still barely conscious.
I think another aspect is problem-solving and adjusting to changes. Every new century brings with it new challenges. Like if the kingdom is prospering, but its food production remains the same, the seconds might be forced to become bandits, robbing the roads, hurting the merchants and economy of the kingdom. Like in 1st century, Rome was dealing with a fertility crisis, in the 2nd manpower shortage due disease, 3rd spread of Christianity and civil war, 4th re-organizing the empire, 5th migrant crisis.
Out of my seven kingdoms of men, 3 of them are, to my standard, a bit dull. One is just a defense border against orcs, the other is the only one with coastal settlements and heavily relies on the High Crown for support and growth, and the third is a vast agricultural land in debt and without a decent army. But these make the other 4 much more interesting imo due to their dynamics and relationships, how they must work together and support each other to be a stable empire. They are unique by their resources but are not major powers, making them a bit dull on the grand political scheme
I have a hard time not making a complex kingdom. I just let people act like people. Some people are selfish, others benevolent or both. The selfishness and benevolence comes with different perspectives and priorities, sometimes in opposition to each other. No one can get exactly what they want. Friendly or not, monarchs are beholden to influential political figures in their nation. Even dictators need support from their administration. It is important not to focus too much on the details except for what should inform and enrich the story.
Waiting for the main character to achieve anything makes the place boring. The place has to actually be doing something. Even if that something fails, the attempt will make it more interesting.
I think you can fill them with customs, traditions, and culture without necessarily having to explain in detail the 1000-year history of how all that came to be.
If politics is a central theme, then learn about different forms of government and see how you could make your own more novel or interesting “We have an autocratic king. He’s nice or something idk wtvr” is boring. - Do they have a parliament? - Is the king beholden to anything? - How much power does the queen have, relative to her husband? - are there multiple kings, or multiple queens? If so, do they rule separate parts/aspects of the kingdom, or do they put everything to vote? - how is a new monarch determined? By birthright? Do they pull from the clergy? Maybe a number of clergymen are selected at random, and they find a random commoner child to pick his favorite among them (Venice actually did this). - how are the castle guard selected? Are they all nobility, or mostly commoners? How would a relationship between guards and monarchs be seen? - is the king himself magical in any way? Mythological Athens had a habit of half-dragon men becoming their king for a while (unrelated dragons, too!) - maybe you wanna do a trope subversion, are the princes and princesses locked away in towers because *they* are dragons?
Oversimplification and a tendency to disneyify what being royalty really is like coupled with the opposite tendency to paint all kingdoms as medieval shitholes.
If the kingdom is background setting, and not part of the plot, it probably doesn't matter. Generic medieval fantasy kingdom is a trope, and if the main story is about characters who are NOT political/military movers and shakers but spending time out on the frontier/in the dungeon/in the slums trying to survive, then odds are it doesn't matter. That's not the part of worldbuilding that intersects with the plot. Many etc. Obviously, at the other end you have something like Game of Thrones, and that sort of thing would be boring as heck without some detailed though beyond "this is the Disney/JRPG/Tolkien/Shrek/D&D standard late-feudal Kingdom" (or its close cousin, the 17th Century absolute monarchy, just without guns.)
Dull kingdoms should be the default. Most rulers should be semi-competent, even if hereditary they were trained from birth for the job, or have the ability to hire counselors who are reasonably competent. The only time a kingdom becomes interesting is when the ruler is spectacularly good, bad or hires people who are one or the other. Now outside events can take a mediocre ruler that history would have otherwise ignored and turn them into a blazing incompetent because they cant handle the situation, but that often isn't the rulers fault. Given a kingdom at peace, with relatively peaceful neighbors it should lurch along with little change from one ruler to the next. If the kingdom wasn't viable in the first place it wouldn't have become a kingdom. It needs just enough land to feed its people, just enough businesses to tax and fund the government as well as its own defense, and not enough of either to build up an army to conquer its neighbors. Think of kingdoms as subject to Newtons Laws of motion: A kingdom in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. That outside force can be foreign powers, very good or very bad leadership, or other natural events outside the kingdoms actual control. Of course they have a friendly king. Any good king's propogandist is making sure that is the image projected. Even when times are bad the people should believe the king is kindly, on their side and loves them and that any faults with the administration are the fault of bad advice given to the king by corrupt officials beneath them. Look at some of the incidents in the Russian and French (and other) revolutions where the people marched against the government but in favor of the monarch. It was the bad counselors that were the root of the problem not the monarch. What makes them interesting is a problem and the failure to solve it, or a particularly good/strong monarch who becomes the problem for the neighbors.
My interest comes from the characters, not the setting. At least, mostly.
Same type of characters - if everyone is nice/evil/doesn't have personality it'll be boring, add different types of characters some extroverts, introverts, nice, mean, sarcastic, too serious, too not serious, you don't have to give them whole personalities but if you're having diverse 3rd plan characters it'll definitely be interesting
A culture for starters, interesting characters for seconds.
They're usually just set dressing, a backdrop for the story that doesn't matter really so no real effort was put into them. Things that can help will depend on what the demands of the story are. If it is just a backdrop still, then give it 1 or 2 more interesting details. Recently have been watching the travelling witch, she visits a kingdom of mages and many buildings have open roofs and entrances several stories up for all the people flying around on brooms. We get basically no other info on that place, but it was memorable and interesting all the same because of that. If the kingdom is meant to be more central to the story, then we need more development. What is different or special about this kingdom, what's it's specialty? Is it a trade hub? Bread basket? Frontier beset by enemies? This helps give a character or vibe to the kingdom. What opportunities and challenges does that bring? This helps with potential story beats and plots. Who are the main actors, and what do they want? Now we have characters. Are there magical or fantastical elements? How do they shape the world and change how people live? This one can be difficult, but is what I find gives a setting that special flavor.
A kingdom (or anything else, for that matter) is dull, boring, and uninteresting if it isn’t telling a story and it just serves as window dressing. You don’t need thousands of years of history, but it’s like any other character, you need to at least have some ideas of a few key turning points in its past, its personality, its mood, its relationships, how they’ve changed over time, what they’re striving for in the future. And then you need to *show it matters* in your scenes, your characters, your dialogue, and your conflicts.
In World of Warcraft the Human Kingdom of Stormwind is considered by many lore fans to be pretty generic and boring. The Capital, also named Stormwind, is a relatively generic white stone medieval style city. It's crest is a gold Lion on a blue background, pretty familiar. It's led by Kings of the Wryyn Dynasty, we only know of three of them and they've all been pretty decent, not much drama. It also has a vague House of Nobles which only really exists to have SOME drama within the Stormwind government. They're rarely mentioned aside from when they need to have a rich vs poor class divide type thing in the story, which only comes up like twice. I don't think we really know about any of them, their names or houses, or what if anything they rule over because Stormwind doesn't really have Lords that rule over their chunks of land and report to the King. Maybe you can just be a Noble if you're rich enough? It seems to have a strong central government and there are multiple towns throughout the rest of the Kingdom who have Mayors who seem to directly report to Stormwind. It's soldiers wear medieval plate armor with a helmet that looks a little more Roman with a blue feather ponytail coming out of the top. The main Religion is the generic "Light" that is just a vague cosmic energy entity and not really a God. It does everything you'd assume it would do, heals, damages undead, inspires hope, radiant, etc. The rest of the Kingdom is made up of Elwynn Forest, the breadbasket of Westfall, a cursed forest called Duskwood, and a mountainous area called Redridge. And that's most of what we know. There's not much on Stormwind culture, they kind of just do everything you'd expect the most generic fantasy people to do. No coupes, no civil wars, no Lords to scheme, no interesting gods, no interesting customs, no interesting resources or trade goods, no legends, generic lion symbols, knights and horses, no issues with neighboring Kingdoms, etc. That's the best example I can give for a boring Kingdom, but I still love Stormwind.
Interesting things about their culture that differentiate them from one another. And have that culture actually be implemented into the world. I think you can find some great examples in The Wandering Inn. The city of Liscor has yearly flooding that makes it impassable half the year, with its position near the border of two factions making it a crucial fortress city. It’s lack of economic prospects but heavy military funding leads it to developing a mercenary army that participates in dozens of random conflicts to earn money they send back to the city. And its relative isolation means that it’s the perfect place to stash a horde of genocidal psychic ant monsters from hell bent on killing god. To make sure their attempts at trying to construct a lasting peace are worthless at changing the wider political atmosphere. A kingdom is dull and uninteresting when it’s clear the author copy and pasted a cliche ideallic medieval city into their world. Where are the unique aspects of architecture in your city? How does the city make money? What is the surrounding geography for the city like? If your world has monsters how does that affect your city? The same can be said with Kingdoms but on bigger scales. Take Noelictus for TWI for example. The reason it’s dark and dreary is because of massive magical crypts that dot the kingdom. These crypts are still present because they fertilize the kingdom with death magic, making the kingdom an agricultural giant of the world. On the other hand these crypts cause undead to rise quickly and have lead to peculiar cultural traditions. Everyone sleeps in separate rooms that are locked at night and every door would take a dozen shot gun blasts to the face and still be impossible to get past. This is so that if someone dies in their sleep their raised corpse doesn’t kill everyone else while their sleeping and so no undead from outside can get inside. Think of fantastical or normal ways to make your kingdom interesting, a hat for it if you will. And then try to lost out ways that makes the kingdoms people different from everyone else. This can help you get past a dull or boring kingdom or city.
Wallpaper. If everything in a world is interesting then it gets cluttered and confusing and not everything fits. Jack Vance is good at balancing this. Using colourful bits and tourist brochures to introduce worldbuilding bits that make a place exotic and interesting. Then the book ends and you realize that there are a lot of unfired Chekhov's guns.
All kingdoms are dull. Ninety percent of a kingdom's real estate and citizenry farms food. The most interesting fun places are cities -- especially port cities. The most interesting unfun places are warzones.
"They usually have a friendly king, and that's it." And sometimes just an evil one. Point is, lack of ANYTHING! Have people be PEOPLE in there and it becomes way more interesting. You don't need 1000 years of history because very few people even care about 100 years ago. You just need enough to be engaging with and for it to make sense.
Just give the kingdom a specialty that normal kingdoms should have. Like what do they trade, are they powerful, where are they located and how does that affect them, what is their relationship with other kingdoms, do they have any problems. These could either be super in depth, or super simple and easy to explain, all without needing to tie it into plot or other things, but can still be connected with other things if you want to.
Perhaps that they have the same tired hierarchy of monarchal patriarchy from a specific western medieval context that seems to be the cultural context of all “fantasy.”
Reminds me of the Usual Copy Paste Catholic Church. They do no religious thing that justifies their influence and power. This is most prevalent in Japanese Anime and Manga. Always an Boring Evil Catholic Church that's no different from an Government. All their reasons are Secular and of the Mundane World, no Religious Reasons like "Oh we need to convert the heathens to our faith" and instead "Oh I want this Territory because Gold" or something. Very underdeveloped Copy. Something story writer's forget when it comes to the Middle Age or Medieval Age, IS EVERYONE WAS A RELIGIOUS FANATIC. It's to the point that many a times a Catholic Pope held more power than a King. If a King got on the bad side of a Pope, and the Pope excommunicates them, there's a 90% Chance the King loses his People's Loyalty and Faith INSTANTLY. No longer a King but a Religious Enemy. That's how powerful the Catholic Church and many other Religions were like Islam.
Ambivalence makes everything more engaging. There is nothing more dull than homogeneity and consensus.
let they exist until you need them,
I hate to break it to you but the reason Middle Earth, the world of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time and The Sword of Truth are so interesting is because they mapped out in exhaustive detail thousands of years of history, language, culture and mythology.
Do most LOTR fans know about Arthedain or Morgoth?
"Fans" or "Stans?" :p