I was looking at the islands of the empire, and I was curious what the inspiration were.
Akoros seems like its roughly inspired by England
Skovland seems like a combination of Scotland and Norway.
Iruvia seems like its inspired primarily by the Middle East (maybe a bit of China or Southeast Asia, too? I’m only guessing that because of Iruvian red sash fighting.)
The ones I’m most curious about are Severos and the Dagger Isles. I get the impressions of North and Central Africa respectively, but these seem to be the ones with the least to go on. (Also, on a side note, wth do you call someone from the Dagger Isles? Daggerish? Islander?)
I think there’s several possible interpretations.
In my game the Severosi are British.
For me Iruvia feels a bit like Spain, maybe with elements of Al Andalus.
The player of my group’s Skovlander Whisperer basically stated that he was sort of Icelandic.
We’ve played the Dagger Islanders as cannibalistic natives (ritual cannibals) but not necessarily unfriendly to strangers. Last night the group raided the house of a captain that had come from the Dagger Isles with some strange items. One of those was a blinged up version of the Aztec Calendar (also doomsday clock) which was form one of the “Lost Empires” of the dagger Isles. 🙂
Yeah, I don’t really see any clear analogs. In my game, Skovlan is more Slavic/Russian, Akoros is… Yes, sort of vaguely English, Severos is like the eastern Asian Mongolia area, and, yeah, okay, Iruvia is middle eastern.
I believe it’s very much John’s intention that each group makes the world their own. My own group has seen a very western-European influenced Akoros (with Doskvol standing in for London), a pre-Islamic Arabia influenced Iruvia (with martial arts thrown in), A Scandanavian influenced Skovlan, and a Mediterranean influenced Severos (mostly Italy). We’ve had very little contact with Tycherosi, and next to no mention of the Dagger Isles, other than the fact that the Royal Poppy (source of the popular Blue Cloud) is native to that region.
In my game the Dagger Islands is a lot like central america in colonial times. There is a mix between natives and imperial settlements, with half blood people too.
The imperium built mines and refineries in order to exploit natural resources, and little towns grew around those. And there is a main port city where all trading and traffic joins. All the imperial settlements are surrounded by lighting barriers.
Inside the isles, in the jungle, the are several tribes (a mix between aztecs and african tribes) who live with the ghosts with no lighting barriers. They train “spiritual warriors” who can fight the ghosts (like “ghost fighter” Cutter’ special ability) and they produce the best whispers too, who deal with spirits from young age.
People from the Dagger Isles are usually called Islanders by other people, which glosses over the differences in the island communities. Kind of like calling someone “British”.