Thus Spake Zargrabowski/BigWorld

On 16 Dec 01, at 3:05, Pierre Bourque wrote:

On the other hand, the fact that the Empire was able to maintain actual dominion on this scale, both upon the Island and in the Threshold lands (the Romans never got anywhere near /that/ good, Rome to England is only about 2000mi, which is basically the Imperial Isle) is perhaps part of the marvel of the remnants of the First Age. Plus all the nifty stuff leadership/bureaucratic Charms must let you do -- controlling an empire /that/ large is just amazing.

They actually don't control it, they just exploit it. Satraps go out to tributary principalities to see to the continued flow of tribute back home and to make sure nobody gets up to any empire-building of their own. There are regional garrisons (since as a matter of policy the tributary states are generally too impoverished to field their own militaries) and people are forced to accept Immaculate missionaries. Domestic political control is left in the hands of the locals, "advised" by the satrapial administration. The Realm was ruthless enough to destroy entire cities and kingdoms as examples, well-organized under a single unchallenged autocrat, equipped with a powerful military with the advantage of the interior lines, and without any any real sociopolitical agenda other than "get loot" and "prevent the local gods from gaining large cults".

It also makes a "world-spanning" campaign a little bit tricky to justify, since even with an airship (those wacky Northerners apparently have 'em), you'd still take weeks getting from anywhere significant (Nexus) to anywhere else significant (Arjuf). And that's ignoring inclement traveling conditions.

That's just because it's a realistically-sized world. Most fantasy "worlds" are either tiny corners of someplace much larger, or amazingly small so you can cram all the little dots on the map into your trilogy. In our own world, even the world-spanning conquerers like Jenghiz Khan and Alexander only got 2 continents. Thank of it as a challenge of suitable size for heroes as big as the Exalted.

Also, keep in mind that most of "civilization" as the Dragon-Blooded and Solars would see it is a very narrow band around the Inner Sea, parhaps an inch (in map scale) back from the shore or from the major river valleys (in the Scavenger Lands). Out past that are crazy savages with stone and bronze weapons, their Lunar godkings, and the strongholds of the Fair Folk. In general, travellers will be moving along the shore, rather than into the interior.

I'm personally very tempted to shring the map scale down significantly (1" = 250mi or so), just to make it on a more "convenient" scale for travel. It also makes the Imperial Island an /island/, rather than a subcontinent...:)

Or you could just focus your game on one region. =) For every dot on the map, there are hundreds of smaller ones not listed, in order to let Storytellers drop whole kingdoms down where they wanted. Having the Delzahn Horde marked with "Chiaroscuro" on the map is like having subcontential India marked with "Dehli". It's not that there's nothing in the Panjab worth seeing, it's just that those things aren't listed. Pick a major area and just detail all of the smaller states and secondary cities there. and you have what it effectively your own world within the setting.. Without trying to be condescending, don't suffer from Ice Planet Syndrome. There's no reason for you to cross the map completely to get to a new environment. As you oibserve, twenty miles is a long way when you can't jump in the car. At 800 miles to the inch, there can be several significant kingdoms per inch.

<ponder> On the third hand, maybe I've just been spending too much time lately playing "realistic" games and need to sort of unlearn that particular mode of thought.

No. I expect it'd take ages and ages to get from the North to the South. I assumed that people would pick a region and set a game there, because the heroes are so big they need a lot of space to move around in and make their own legends.

Geoffrey C. Grabowski Exalted Developer, WWGS raindog@white-wolf.com