Irith - Finnwyck - Brainstorming the 3 Duchies

Here's some more brainstorming about each duchy in Fynnwyck. These are the things that I want to keep in mind when I'm designing the map. Again, I used names derived from the list of generic place names in the U.K. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_forms_in_place_names_in_the_United_Kingdom_and_Ireland) I like how the names are hanging together well. If I expand the world into other kingdoms, I'll use the place names from other countries to make them seem really foreign.

Duchy of Braedon - "Hilly Forest"

Location: Northern-most potion of the kingdom

Ruler: Prince Bryant Kenway

Landscape: A small amount of fertile plains, giving way to forests and hills, which give way in turn to rugged mountains

Resources: Grains, Lumber, Ore, Cattle, Fruits (orchards), Stone

Imports: Textiles

Exports: Ore, Lumber

Cities:

• Ashfield, Capital City of Braedon ("Ash Tree Clearing")
• Norleigh, Border City ("Northern Clearing")
• Whelsten, Mining City ("Stone Mine")

Duchy of Langstead - "Long Pasture"

Location: Middle portion of the kingdom

Ruler: Princess Lyneve Kenway

Landscape: Fertile plains, with many rivers and lakes

Resources: Grains, Textiles

Imports: Stone, Fish, Lumber, Ore

Exports: Grains, Textiles

Cities:

• Keldstow, Capital City of Finnwyck as a whole ("Holy Spring")
• Stokemore, Capital City of Langstead ("Large Farmstead"
• Chipping Cully ("Narrow Market")

Duchy of Mardwin - "Great Fort"

Location: Southern-most portion of the kingdom

Ruler: Duke Owain Maddox

Landscape: A few fertile plains, but dominated by arid grasslands; Rugged hills and mountains; Deep forests to the south

Resources: Lumber, Grains, Fish

Imports: Ore, Grain

Exports: Lumber, Fish

Cities:

• Sutchester, Capital City of Mardwin / Border City ("Southern Camp")
• Hobbton: Port City

New Beginnings - Urith and Irith

I've decided that I'm going to change the spelling of "Urith" to be "Irith". I kept wanting to pronounce Urith as "UR - ith", rather than "EAR - ith". By spelling it "Irith", I'll be able to pronounce it the correct way. It may not seem like much, but it's all part trying to make iconic names stick for this campaign.

New Beginnings - The Royal Family

Usually, when I start a new campaign, I don't concern myself with the political structure of where the party is starting. They are assumed to be in a nameless kingdom, surrounded by other nameless kingdoms. This time, I wanted to get that structure down from the beginning to add flavor to the world. Even if the party never ends up meeting the Queen, I can have the smallfolk swear by her name, or they can hear rumors about the Duke of an adjoining duchy, etc.

A quick jaunt to my favorite name resource, Kate Monk's Onomastikon, has aided me in selecting names for the royal family of Finnwyck. May I present to you, the Kenways:

• Queen Carina Kenway
• Princess Lyneve Kenway, Duchess of Langstead
• Prince Bryant Kenway, Duke of Braedon

There's a little bit of a cheat on my part here. Both "Queen" and "Carina" have similar starting sounds. It's the same for Langestead/Lyneve, and Bryant/Braedon. I started doing it by accident, but then decided that it would help me remember who ruled which duchy. I mean, Stan Lee did the same thing with superhero identities like Bruce Banner and Peter Parker, so why not stand on the shoulders of giants?

Since we're starting in the Duchy of Mardwin, here's the government structure that concerns us the most.

• Owain Maddox, Duke of Mardwin
• Glyn Llewellyn, Marquis
• Rhonwen Vayne, Sherriff

Note that I kept the same initial sound in Maddox and Mardwin, but that the third Duke is not part of the Kenways. I liked the idea that the Queen didn't have enough children for each duchy, and that Duke Maddox has the worst duchy, being on the border and all. Did he do something to offend the Queen, so she shipped him off to the frontier? Is he young and trying to make a name for himself (and perhaps win the Queen's hand in marriage) by expanding Finnwyck's borders? We'll find out later.

Because Mardwin had Celtic/Welsh influences, I decided to go with those same influences for the Marquis and the Sherriff. It's little details like this that I hope will tie the world together in a way that's been lacking in my other campaigns.

New Beginnings - What's in a Name?

I am starting the process of building a new world for my next D&D campaign. I'll be playing with some friends from high school who I haven't played with in years, and some of their friends who are completely new to D&D. Before this group came together, I really wanted to run the Dolmenwood campaign. While that campaign is fantastic,  I feel it isn't well-suited to new players. Instead, I'm starting a new world. I'll begin by fleshing out a small corner, and then expand it as I go. (If all goes well, I'll bring in Dolmenwood later.)

My starting assumptions are:

• This will be a wilderness exploration campaign.
• The party will need a city that serves as a home-base to operate out of.
• The city will be on the border of an unexplored frontier. It's not a frontier between two kingdoms; it's the frontier between civilization and the wild.
• Being as this is the frontier, it's not going to be a huge city, but it will be big enough that they probably can't sustain themselves entirely by farming. Therefore, it's going to be a port city, which will allow them access to various types of fish, seafood, etc. (That will also allow the party access to water-based adventures, exploring islands on the coast, etc.)

I have a pretty good idea of what it will look like in my mind, so right now, I'm working on the names of the area. This is always a difficult prospect for me, as it seems like the names that I select are not memorable, or clash with one another. In my last campaign, I had names like "the Tomb of Neheb" alongside "Corum's Vault." I didn't fell like those were very cohesive names.

Rather than try to invent everything whole cloth, I decided to base my names on real-world toponymy, the study of place names. Some searching online lead me to this wonderful page, which breaks down place names in the United Kingdom by origin, meaning, and even position in the world, like prefix or suffix.

Looking at the list, I chose descriptive meanings that I liked, and then played around with combining prefixes and suffixes until I got something that stuck. I also picked out a prefix/suffix, then found a match for it. The name elements will help me flesh out the description of the areas when I develop those. Here's an example of the process:

Right away, the prefix "fin" (meaning "holy") caught my attention. I scanned through the list of suffixes and found "wyck" (meaning "place"). Finwyck had a good ring to it, and I was intrigued about a kingdom that's called "holy place". What does that mean? Holy to who? It was rich with potential story ideas. I decided to add an extra "n" to end up with "Finnwyck".

Here's what I came up with so far:

• Kingdom of Finnwyck ("Holy Place")
• Duchy of Braedon ("Hilly Forest")
• Duchy of Langstead ("Long Pasture")
• Duchy of Mawrdwin ("Great Fort")

The process of choosing these names gave me more story ideas. Langstead, with it's long pastures and farmlands is the breadbasket of the nation, while Braedon is much less suited to farming because of it's hilly forests. The Queen awarded both of her children with duchies. Langstead went to her daughter, who she favored, and Braedon when to her less-loved son. We've got some intrigue there already!

Since I've settled on UK-type names for place names, I'll use the same type of names for the inhabitants. I've got a plan for those as well, which I'll share in the next post.