Nations and Cities as Characters

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about how best to summarize nations, cities, etc. Newold has a lot of nations in it, and while not all are central to the campaign, it's nice to have a way of quickly establishing what they're like in a quick, uniform pattern that gives just enough detail to make them interesting, distinct, and maybe make the players want to go there.

One of the best ways I've seen is In Places Deep's method: A precis (one-sentence summary of what the place is like), a conspectus (paragraph description), and a sound, taste, image selection (things from the real world that give the right "feel" of the place). Here's one example to give you an idea of how this looks in practice: "What Uz is Like."

However, that doesn't really fit my style: I like getting a bit more into the nuts and bolts of why a society is the way it is, not just toss out whatever weird imagery seems to work together. Also, the nations of Newold aren't nearly as strange as Evans' creations.

As I re-read the 5E Players Handbook chapter on personality and background, I suddenly had the solution to my problem: A nation could be defined very much like a character: It has physical characteristics, both in terms of geography and what its people look like. It has an alignment. And ideals, bonds, flaws, and personality traits could be used to very neat summarize what a nation is like: Its ideal is what it sees itself as standing for (e.g., America's ideal would be "freedom"). A nation's bond would be its most important tie to the greater world, its most important alliance, an old grudge, etc. It's flaw would be what stands in the way of being what it sees itself as. And its two personality traits would be a couple of interesting details, customs, modes of dress, etc. that would be the first thing people notice about its inhabitants.

So, for example, I give you

The Empire of Callain

Callain is a large empire that currently dominates the northern Elenion Sea and the Cerianne Sea. Its people tend towards dark haired and olive skinned, but due to large numbers of immigrants, nearly every color and hue of humanity can be found here, as well as many non-human races.
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Personality Traits: We believe that we are the center of civilization and culture. We are proud, but enjoy incorporating interesting elements of other cultures into ours--as long as it doesn't change the Empire too much.
Ideal: Civilization. The world works best for everyone with a strong and well-organized government that has been ordained by the gods.
Bond: We are committed to the defense of the many nations within the Empire. This has stretched our military resources too thin.
Flaw: Our complacency and expectation that we will always be at the center of the world is breeding corruption in our structures and resentment from the outlying providences.

Now, since the Empire is a big place, it's obviously time to drill down. As we do so, we note the conflicts between the sovereign state and the vassal. So let's look at the Ossiri March, which is a frontier area of the Empire:

The Ossiri March

The Ossiri March is dominated by wide open plains in the middle, which sink to the Sanguine Fen in the east. The western reaches are dominated by forested hills. The Ossiri are pale-skinned and dark haired, and wear long coats and peaked hats.

Alignment: Lawful Evil

Personality Traits: We are a hard, proud people who have withstood countless attempts at invasion. Our society is feudal, with strict separation between the classes.

Ideal: Might. In life as in war, the strong dominate. 

Bond: Our rulers made pacts with dark powers, and they sacrifice the peasants at need to satisfy those powers. (Conflict: Callain considers itself to be the only power the Pikelords should have allegience to and demands at least token obesience to the Church of the Law.)

Flaw: The peasants hate their overlords, and if given the chance would swiftly overthrow them. The Pikelords must be careful not to lose too many of their soldiers, or they will lose control of the countryside. 

It might be interesting to come up with a set of nation "backgrounds" to use as templates for world-building, but for now, I'm going to content myself with documenting the nations in my own world.