In my previous article, (Introduction to building of Nyonia - Celestial Jewels), I wrote about how I developed the geography, races, creations myths, world history and magic for the Nyonia.  In this article I will write about the process I used to create the nations, governments, cultures and technology for each of the races.

Process

One of the decisions I made was to focus on the playable races and cultures and deal with the Elder Races at a later time.  There are sixteen unique races and cultures on Nyonia.  Using the history I had already developed I started detailing each culture.  I decided to look historic cultures, governments and technologies.

I found The Kingdom Builder tools, made by Chaotic Shiny Productions, which can be used to generate the following kinds of information nation names, types of government, city names, flag descriptions, general descriptions, regions, cities, laws, events, notable individuals, fashions, armies, laws, and place names. With the Kingdom Builder tools I was able to generate hundreds of options and use them as part of a brainstorming exercise.

Once I had a number of good options to pick from I started mapping out the races and cultures.

Looking at the past

Since Nyonia is large world and the people who came to this world mostly came from a place like earth I decided to use historic examples to build up each culture.  

Non-Human Races

I started with the three non-human races.  The Ainu are a small, sturdy, and stoic people.  The Ainu are known for their mining, metal work, steel, gems and fermented mushroom tea.  The Ainu have a king/prime minister.  Their economic system is mercantile.

The Koori are a bi-pedal lion like people.  Since the Koori are like lions their government is patriarchal and a feudal monarchy where the patriarch is selected based on merit.  Their economic system is based on socialism within each pride and tribe.  The Koori have no coinage of their own.

The Wangai are a small and strudy people.  They enjoy family, friends and an easy life. They are known as merchants and farmers.  In fact their home country is the 'bread basket' for the world.  They have a democratic republic form of government with a prime minister and great council to make decisions at a national level.

Humans

Humans are in fact came from earth.  How or why isn't really important.  All humans can trace their ancestry back to either the arrival of the Easterlings or the Samara on Nyonia.  As I built the time line for Nyonia, I ended up creating the following culture map to help trace the way each of the cultures evolved.

This map allowed me to build each of the cultures based on an evolution and outgrowth from where they came from.  Each nation/culture ended up being unique and interconnected by shared histories.  The types of governments vary from feudal monarchies, plutocratic city states, oligarchies, a dictatorship, monarch, democratic republics, meritocracy, ruled judges, confederation and a republic of nobles and merchants.  Each nation is known for different kinds of materials and merchandise.

Economics is less varied between each nation.  The economies include mercantile, feudal, capitalism, dirigism, and bartering.  

Technology

I broke up technology into three main categories weapons/armor, transportation and power.  Those nations that are more advanced in certain technologies would jealously guard their advantages.  A country might have a low transportation tech level but a high weapons/armor level because the need to travel would be low in that country.  Another country might have a very high transportation tech level and a minimal tech level for weapons/armor.