This series of posts is intended to demonstrate how to use the Random Nations Generator at the Arcana Wiki to flesh out a locale. My goal is to both show the usefulness of this tool as a source of inspiration and to encourage others to contribute to the Arcana Wiki by adding new entries which feed into the generator.

For this demonstration, I will use the city-state of Nimdenthal as an example, which I developed for my own Urbis campaign setting. For the record, Urbis uses many of the tropes and elements of fantasy - especially D&D - but combines this with social and technological elements of Industrial Age Western Europe via a magical industrial revolution which continues to transform the world.

So far, I have written the following about Nimdenthal:

"Population: 723,510

This city is infamous for surrendering to the invading armies of Negroth the Doombringer without a fight, and is still hated by the citizens of the other Flannish cities as a result, which suffered far more under his brief reign than Nimdenthal did. That the army of Nimdenthal was hardly able to withstand the might of Negroth's forces on their own is conveniently forgotten. Many other cities still levy large tolls against the goods from Nimdenthal, or boycott them outright. As a result, the people of Nimdenthal take an almost perverse pride in being self-sufficient."

"Negroth the Doombringer", for the record, was one of the last of the stereotypical Evil Overlord types in the setting, and his defeat resulted in a shift from the traditional pseudo-medieval feudal society to a more modern one - complete with revolutions that chased the aristocratic rulers away. However, all this was more than two hundred years ago within the timeline of the setting, and the other people in the region likely wouldn't be able to keep a grudge against Nimdenthal for so long if the city hadn't found new ways of aggravating them - and thus reminding them of their earlier "transgression" of being cheese-eating surrender monkeys against an overwhelming military onslaught. I'll keep this in mind as I interpret the results of the generator.

So, let's proceed to the generator itself. The first category is "Type of Government", which currently has only 6 seeds (i.e. entries from elsewhere in the Arcana Wiki which are called up in the random generator) - not much, but since this is the first time I am using the generator for this I don't have to worry about repetition yet.

I pick a single type of government for starters, and the result is:

• Cosociational State
  

That means that the city has a number of very different factions - political, cultural, religions, or even racial - which all rule together in some power-sharing arrangement made so that no single faction can dominate the others and no faction is kept out of power. The precise nature of most of these factions is something I will determine with the help of later results. However, keeping in mind my overall goal of having Nimdenthal alienate its neighbors, I already have an idea for one of them - goblins! In most of the region, goblins are second-class citizens at best - even when they are tolerated within a city, they are often forcibly sterilized, and when they aren't tolerated they are forcibly transported to a reservation where most of them starve. So having goblins as a more-or-less equal political group within Nimdenthal is sure to offend the other city-states in the region - and might make the city more sympathetic to the player characters, despite all the other problems the city might have.

Speaking of other races, next up is the generator for the major races or species. This generator will likely not be terribly useful - for one thing, it only has 14 seeds at present, and for another it is based on creatures from all sorts of myths, fiction, and so forth while Urbis already has a fairly firmly established group of races based on D&D. Still, I'm picking 5 random races - let's see if something inspiring results from this:

• Reptilian Humanoid
  
• Devil
  
• Monopod
  
• Mermaid
  
• Onocentaur
  

Monopods are entirely inappropriate for the setting - they are a particular medieval form of silliness which doesn't work for Urbis. Mermaids do exist, but a look at the map of the region shows that Nimdenthal is too far from any large body of water to justify their presence.

"Reptilian Humanoids" is a fairly vague term. But it's close enough to describe dragonkin, my equivalent to the dragonborn of D&D. So I'll just note that they have a major colony there, and worry about the details later.

Devils... are an interesting matter. In Urbis, devils are extraplanar parasites which feed on humans in the throes of particularly strong emotions and passions, possibly even their souls if they die while experiencing those emotions. Needless to say, they aren't accepted openly in any civilized nation, and Nimdenthal is no exception in this. However, maybe Nimdenthal is home to an especially large number of warlocks - those are mages who overpower devils with their strength of will and then steal their powers to cast spells. This is a far quicker road to power than traditional academic wizardry, but also much more dangerous - and while not illegal by itself in most places in the region, it carries a significant social stigma. Furthermore, not all such attempts to control devils succeed, which means that there might be more than a few devils lurking around in the shadow of the city and influencing politics and society - making handy foes for player characters. And the warlocks could represent one of the major political factions of the city - further alienating the city from its neighbors.

Onocentaurs don't exist in the setting so far, but maybe there is a small colony of their close conceptual cousins the centaurs living near the city. I can't really see many centaurs living in the city itself (which is more built for humanoids), but maybe there is a small colony of centaurs living in the protectorate of Nimdenthal who are descended from former slaves Negroth the Doombringer brought with him and who were unable to return to their homeland. They could work as border guards, or on the plantations of the city where their great strength and carrying capacity would be useful and their size less of a hindrance.

Next up is the category for the "Significant Creatures" - the non-civilized or organized beings (intelligent or otherwise) which might be encountered here. As the number of seeds for this category is a much more robust 41, I pick ten and get:

• Squid
  
• Trapdoor Alligator
  
• Naga
  
• Patasola
  
• Aufhocker
  
• Sasquatch
  
• Bunyip
  
• Nephilim
  
• Rat King
  
• Lich
  

Squids might seem inappropriate for an urban, inland setting, but I've already created an equivalent creature for Urbis that could work here - the Sewer Squid. Still, it is strange that they should show up so far from the coast. Maybe there's a story here...

I have some doubts about how well trapdoor alligators works for this location, especially since the habitat of normal alligators is that much further to the south - Nimdenthal has a Central to Northern European climate. And the old "alligator in the sewers" urban legend seems to be too simple. Maybe there is some strange, reptilian monstrosity with illusion powers living in the sewers and the poorer areas of the city - possibly one of fiendish origin, accidentally or deliberately summoned by the warlocks? I'll think about this later.

Nagas probably exist within the setting, though I hadn't given them any thoughts so far. The geography of Urbis is roughly analogous to the real world, so there is likely an equivalent to South-East Asia, the region on Earth where the myths of nagas come from. But how did the nagas get from there to far-off Nimdenthal? Probably together with an expatriate community of people from that region, but I'd expect such expatriates to congregate in port towns such as Dartmouth instead of a relative backwater like Nimdenthal. There is a story here which I need to explore. Furthermore, this expatriate community could represent one of the many political factions within the city.

Interestingly, the Patasola is also from South-East Asian legend - it's a type of vampire that can create the illusion of a beautiful woman to lure men, but which is a hideous one-legged creature in its true form. But is it truly "one-legged", or is it in fact tailed? Could the Patasola in fact be an undead naga? I will likely use this interpretation here - one powerful villain living in secret in the city will be an undead naga (possibly with several spawn), and they hide within the expatriate community just like the ordinary nagas are doing. Perhaps there is some shadow war going on between the living and undead nagas...

The Aufhocker exists in Urbis as a creature of Faerie, but I've always envisioned him more as a creature home in the mountains and foothills of the Siebenbund Alps and the surrounding areas. And I'm showcasing the fey in enough other places in Urbis and thus don't need them complicating affairs in Nimdenthal - unlike the Immortal Elves of Shadowrun, my faeries aren't supposed to be behind everything ;). Therefore I'll just skip this one.

Sasquatchs aren't very appropriate here either - a creature of the American Pacific Northwest doesn't fit into this reason. But maybe there is a single, hairy humanoid of indeterminable origin lurking in the forests near the city - perhaps the result of some arcane experiment. Maybe the centaurs know more of this creature... I will see if I can make something interesting out of this later. In contrast I don't know how I can make bunyips work here, so I won't even try - there are only so many cross-mythological transplants one location can endure.

"Nephilim" is what I wanted to call the Urbis equivalent of the devas of D&D - immortals who are reborn again and again into new bodies with only hazy memories of their past. I guess I need to write up details for them now - and come up with an explanation why Nimdenthal is important for them.

Rat Kings are entirely appropriate for the setting, and tend to appear at locations where is a lot of filth and waste for rats to thrive in. So the city will likely have one or more neighborhoods where such conditions are common. They might even be secret power brokers - as I envision them, Rat Kings have telepathic over lesser rats, and thus could develop a very effective spy network.

As lichs are very powerful individually, I think I'll just describe one of them - one who doesn't control any of the public political factions but who is politically very powerful nonetheless in the underground.


The next generator lists cultural influences - cultures which might provide inspiration for building fictional societies. I'm not really satisfied with that part of the generator yet - not because of the number of its seeds (a respectable 55), but because most of the linked entries are stub articles with little or no cultural information added to them. Nevertheless, I choose three cultural influences and get:

• Switzerland
  
• Czech Republic
  
• Israel
  

While there is a Switzerland analogue in Urbis already - the Siebenbund - this still works because Switzerland is a good example of a Cosociational State (as the country has four different language groups), and it might be useful for me to read up on how these groups divide political power in Switzerland among themselves. I have no idea yet what to do with the Czech Republic result - I guess I should read up assorted Wikipedia entries on the nation. If anyone here has useful suggestions, I am all ears.

Israel, on the other hand, has all sorts of tensions which are very messy in real life, but makes things very interesting when it comes to gaming. While the occupation of the Palestine territories is hard to transplant in this case - Nimdenthal doesn't strike me as powerful enough to do that - the tensions between secular and religious groups would work. And maybe there are Kibbutz-like settlements in the protectorate of the city...


Next up is religion. I haven't actually gotten around to typing up any entries for the type of worship (Monotheism, Polytheism, Dualism etc.), so no results for this category. Urbis also already has its own pantheon, so the 10 entities used as seeds in this generator likely won't be very appropriate. Nevertheless, I'm choosing three deities. Let's see what we get:

• Heimdall
  
• Jörmungandr
  
• Lilith
  

Heimdall is a god of vigilance. Looking at the Urbis pantheon, a reasonable approximation would be Bucatar, a god who protects civilization against the wilderness - whether the wilderness without or the wilderness within. And given how wild some parts of Nimdenthal seem to be, with rat kings, naga vampires, liches, warlocks, devils and so forth, it's easy to see how such a god might be popular. Jörmungandr is more difficult to place, as most of the deities of Urbis are fairly antropomorphic in popular imagination. But perhaps there is a relation to the illusion-casting reptilian monster in the sewer? Perhaps a cult consisting mainly of goblins worships it... Lillith, on the other hand, fits in well with the devils and warlocks mentioned above. She could represent a devil lord worshiped within the underworld of the city, and who can command devils feeding on lust and related emotions.

Now we come to powerful organizations operating within the city. There are 26 seeds for this generator, so I'll pick eight of them to avoid too much repetition with future uses of the generator. I get:

• Royal Navy
  
• Russian Business Network
  
• Los Zetas
  
• International Peace Mission Movement
  
• Biker Gang
  
• KGB
  
• Deep State
  
• Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs
  

An equivalent of the "Royal Navy" just doesn't work here as Nimdenthal is land-locked, so I'll just skip this entry. The Real World "Russian Business Network" is an organized crime group specializing in cybercrime. Urbis doesn't have computers and the internet yet (though it does have optical telegraphs), so I'll create a group specializing in forging paperwork instead (of which Urbis has lots). The next group is also involved in organized crime, but instead of forging paperwork they are criminal mercenaries with some nice elements of a death cult in the form of Santa Muerte worship. This translates into a cult of Cryelis (the local deity of death and the underworld) for Urbis. And I must say that Nimdenthal is slowly shaping up into the Urbis equivalent of Gotham City in my mind - a city that's barely functional and full of grime, corruption, and madness. Does the city also have its own Dark Avenger? That is probably up to the player characters to decide...

Something like the International Peace Mission Movement probably wouldn't fit in very well in the sinful city itself, but they could live on one of the kibbutz-like settlements dotting the Nimdenthal Protectorate - in fact many of these settlements could be home to their own cult or sect. Such as the Spring Seeds, a cult of halflings who believe that their race is "divinely chosen" and regard it as their sacred duty to multiply as quickly as possible until they crowd out the other races...

But there's more going on in the protectorate. Obviously, there are no motorcycles in Urbis, so Biker Gangs and Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs can't exist there as such (the two terms are of course overlapping somewhat - which is unavoidable with such a relatively grainy generator, so I will just have to live with it). But maybe there is an overabundance of horses in this region, causing many young people to own them and riding in large groups through the countryside. Some are harmless "joyriders" while others will use their mobility to harass travelers and plunder farms - and it's hard to distinguish these groups from each other...

A further group is based on the KGB. But given how chaotic the situation in the city is, I don't think the KGB as it existed at the height of the Soviet Union would be appropriate. For our purposes, maybe it would be better if there used to be an organization as powerful as the KGB while the city government was more dictatorial. But perhaps a decade or two ago the city underwent a more or less democratic "revolution" that swept the old guard out of power and caused the KGB-equivalent to be disbanded. But the old members of the organization still keep in touch and are often involved in organized crime, and many have risen to prominent positions in the new administration. These might form the basis for the "Deep State" equivalent, the secret masterminds hiding behind the public face of the government who want to remain in charge.

To be continued...