Creating Believable Conflict with Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator

In my previous blog post, Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator: A World In Seconds, I talked about the many different features of Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator, and how they work together to randomly generate a world. Today I’ll be taking the world it created for me and utilizing the random information it has provided me to create a believable conflict.

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Now obviously, there are many different types of conflict, but the most exciting one for me has always involved warfare! There is bloodshed in abundance in the world Azgaar has generated for me, but it hasn’t really given me a reason why these conflicts have started. Thankfully I, like every other world builder out there, can create stories out of nothing. To start, I picked one of the many wars currently being fought across the entire world: The Alestia-Urupenanian War.

This war sees the Kingdom of Alestia and its allies trying to subjugate the Kingdom of Urupenana. Much to the relief of Urupenana, Alestia’s allies are way too far away to involve themselves directly. It would appear the only reason they have declared war at all is to maintain their friendly stance with Alestia! It will be a head-on fight between these two regional powers, but why are they fighting at all?

Urupenanian Heraldry - taken from Azgaar’s fantasy map generator

Alestian Heraldry - taken from Azgaar’s fantasy map generator

screenshotted from Azgaar’s fantasy map generator

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Light purple - astellian, salmon - Vengrian

screenshotted from azgaar’s fantasy map generator

I first checked to see which cultures make up their kingdoms to see if there might be any tension there, and I found that they were both mostly Astellian - a culture based off of the real world Castillians. Though there was also a encroaching presence of the Vengrian (Hungarian) culture along both of the kingdom’s southern border, it was not enough for me to pin the conflict on it. I did note this information…just in case.

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The next most likely point of tension between these kingdoms would be religion, but that was also not the case. In fact they follow the same “Astellian Forefathers” faith. An idea was starting to form in my head, and my excitement about this conflict grew! These nations were essentially brothers turned enemies, and for what reason - I did not know.  Then, like the flick of a switch, I figured it out!

screenshotted from azgaar’s fantasy map generator

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left - kingdom of Urupenana, right - kingdom of alestia

screenshotted from azgaar’s fantasy map generator

Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator generates a great many things, including things called “zones.” These are specific areas of interest with unique, and rather insightful, names. One of these zones involved the border provinces of the wars two belligerents Alestia and Urupenana. This zone was called “Alestian Subjugation.” Some might see the objective of conquest a rather simple reason to go to war, but in all honesty, this was an intricate and calculated move by Alestia to completely destroy the Kingdom of Urupenana!

By subjugating the border province of Arruma, the Kingdom of Alestia would show the unfriendly Vengrian neighbours of Urupenana that it was ready to fall. Alestia would gain land for itself, and divert the Vengrian’s attention away from their borders with Alestia’s allies. In essence, this one tiny province would create a power vacuum swallowing half of the world!

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It all came down to the siege of Alluma, the capital city of the province. It was a bloody fight, and ended with the utter defeat of the Urupenanian garrison, and the subjugation of the region by the Kingdom of Alestia. What happens next is not entirely clear. Will the power vacuum send the rest of the region into conflict, or will it be spared the suffering it will bring?

Only time will tell…

screenshotted from azgaar’s fantasy map generator

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Lucas McBride

Lucas is a student at Algonquin College. His favorite past times include playing tabletop RPGs, writing, and hosting virtual collaborative world building projects.

Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator: A World in Seconds

Every world created started out as nothing but a vague image in somebody’s mind. The problem has always been taking that image and making it a reality.

I’ve only just dipped my toe into the art of world building, and I can see now that it’s a lot harder than some make it out to be. I found that I couldn’t keep track of the details of the world I wanted to build, and there was no single place that was easy for me to start from. That’s when I found something called Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator.

An open-source tool that takes the stress out of world building and leaves you with nothing but fun!

The first thing it did for me was limit what detail I could provide for the basic generation of my world. Instead of feeling restricted by it, I was relieved! I didn’t have to flesh out every single part of my world at the beginning like I thought I did.  I was creating a foundation for things to build off of. The details would come later.

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A single click was all it took for the world to blossom, and suddenly it was there in front of me! It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but it was something. It was kind of overwhelming how much detail there was. I glanced at the layers I could filter through and realized that this generator did more than make a map. It was still a lot think about, so I decided hide all of the layers and go through them one at a time.

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I spent the most time getting to know the different states that inhabit my world. Each one was unique in geography, culture, size, influence…truly the list goes on! There was so much detail to each state that they already felt alive. All I had to do was tweak things to make them exactly how I wanted them.

Until this point I had looked upon the world I had created from a birds eye view. It was great to see the scale of it all, but I wanted to connect with the world. I wanted to see how deep this miracle generator went.

 So I zoomed in…

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I zoomed until all I could see was the capital city of the Rurian Empire: Karmome. I saw roads leading from it to other cities, and could imagine being there in that tiny bit of land…unaware of the size of everything around me. Karmome was small for a capital, but it was pretty far north - where most of the people lived and thrived in the country. I laughed and smiled at this small detail because it meant that the size of the capital, at least in this instance, reflected the culture of the peoples who lived there!

I spent a lot of time smiling like I did in that moment. I can see now how exciting world building can be! The generated didn’t do the work for me, but it has given me a platform to create exactly what I want. It has been my saving grace.

There is still a lot of work to do in this virtual world of mine before it is completed.  That’s the beauty of it though. I have something to write about – something to build up and call my own. I haven’t felt pride in my work for a very long time, but Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator gives me the feeling that I will find that pride soon!

Screenshot from within Azgaar’s Map Generator

Screenshot from within Azgaar’s Map Generator

Screenshot from within Azgaar’s Map Generator

Screenshot from within Azgaar’s Map Generator

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Lucas McBride

Lucas is a student at Algonquin College. His favorite past times include playing tabletop RPGs, writing, and hosting virtual collaborative world building projects.