Friday, September 2, 2022

The Known World in the Real World

I've previously re-imagined Karameikos as a state in the Balkans. I don't think it's the only D&D setting Known locale that would be easy to translate into fictional countries in the real world. Here are some others:

Darokin: An alpine microstate and republic (like it's larger neighbor, Switzerland), likely descended from the kingdom of the Lombards. It's a modern banking center.

Glantri: A city-state near the Italian-Slovenian border, landlocked, but not far from the Adriatic.

Ierendi: A volcanic archipelago, part of Macronesia, in the North Atlantic.

The Isle of Dread: A mysterious island in the South Pacific.

And here's a now a non-Known World one:

Barovia: A small region in the Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe.

2 comments:

Robe said...

A classic topic related to Mystara is linking the countries with their real world counterpart. Here you have an article where you can mine some ideas. Keep it coming, Trey! I love your posts!!

Dada Dan Akiko said...

Glantei could be a mountain federation founded by Giordano Bruno in his way to cast charme on the pope in 1591. Ierendi could be a pun state on Graham Island in Sicily Island. Thyatis an independent Byzantine spin off like Tranzon, ruled by Ottomans with a proxy like Moldavia and Valacchia: the city of Thyatira would work fine. Ostland, Vestland and Soderfjord independent Norwegian island nations in the British Isles. Ethengar a Cumana nation on the left bank of Tisza river. Darokin is tricky, but we can imagine a survival of the Seven Communality Confederation on italian-slovenian border, with venetian influences and so on. Nearby we could place a Native American plateau nation formed by WWII veterans and a secretive elves nation.