Kingdoms, Countries and Nations
From World of Kralis
The World of Kralis is a huge place. Much bigger than most FRPG Worlds and as such has room for a great number of races which unite to create kingdoms, duchies, countries, nations, "realms" and "lands". Each of these areas takes up some space in the real world, but this does not mean that each of these areas is packed full of a specific race or even multiple races.
Kingdoms, nations, "Lands", "Realms", Countries and the like are only defined by the more apparent natural borders that divide the world. Mountain ranges, inner seas, forests, swamps, deserts, rivers, and more make up the borders of many countries. These borders are mostly open and fluctuate, you may never know that you have crossed into one kingdom and you may expect to cross into another kingdom by crossing over the ridge of hill or the edge of a great forest, and in both cases you may be wrong as the borders tend to move back and forth over the years.
In many locales there are often huge monolithic stone structures that arranged in a line attempting to follow the contour of the realm separated sometimes by many, many miles others separated by whole mountain ranges. These monolithic stones are crafted by stone masons and are inlaid with warning, descriptions or some simply tell you have crossed into a specific kingdom, land, nation or realm.
As these areas are more or less defined by the natural occurrences of the world they are also not filled with mortal beings from edge to edge. It is more likely than not a group of adventurers can set across the world and will never run into a single town or city, it is just as likely that they miss being run over by a horde of monsters that went down one valley as they came up another. This does not mean, however, that they will never run into monsters, the king's cavalries, or fall into an abandoned ruin.
All races desire to expand, but they all realize the dark nature of the world and the monstrous beasts that linger at the doorsteps of safe communities waiting for the foolish or brave hearty to step into the wild world. Because of this there are many, many hundreds of ruins, deserted towns, overrun fortresses and run down forts through out the world.
The World of Kralis is designed to be as open as possible for GM's and players alike to setup campaigns and adventures in the world without having to risk running afoul of specific events in the history of the world or the Living Campaign.
So remember that as you travel the world and you look down into the valleys of nations and kingdoms that in the very far distance there is a capital, and that there are villages and towns being besieged by monsters and the incursion of the Wildlands and that the king's cavalry or armies of the baron are not going to be riding from village to town to the border protecting the kingdoms from devastation, invasion or destruction.
