From Baldur's Gate to Waterdeep: The Geopolitics of Faerun

good evening dungeon masters i'm barron de roth breaking down a fantasy map through the lens of geopolitics not the same thing as politics can lend a dungeon master some awesome insights about the game world they play in or can be used to scrutinize the plausibility of a published module's world building so today we're doing just that i'll be using the social science of geopolitics to dissect the region of faerun we'll be analyzing the sword coast and the surrounding terrain based purely off the contents of the map published by wizards of the coast hopefully this experiment will highlight some of the world building concepts you can use in your own game and possibly illustrate some disconnects between what would likely happen in real life and the canon of the forgotten realms universe with that said we will discuss exactly what geopolitics is and why it's a useful lens for world building we'll break down the climate and geography of the faerun region and look at how various population groups would likely interact with each other based on the geography they exist in so let's get into it i think it's worth defining what this social science is and what it's not geopolitics is the study of how population groups are affected by the geography in which they live and how that geography affects the way these population groups interact with each other if a nation's political discourse would be focused on health care for example the geopolitical discussion about that subject would generally stop at fertility rates and demographics getting more zoomed in than that is simply too microscopic in scale to be useful at this level geopolitics is useful for world building because using nothing but knowledge of climate and terrain we can make guesses about a regional population's access to resources with those things in mind we can then look at the communities as a whole and make educated guesses about the needs and behaviors of those people without water life isn't possible and without life there is no society so let's iron out the first resource fresh water the sword coast region looks to be mostly temperate in climate with an ice shelf or massive glacier to the north glaciers created by constant snowfall in high elevations slowly glide toward lower elevations due to their immense weight and pressure as a result you'd expect to see channels carved into mountain areas below the ice shelf the lowlands between these mountain chains should be scattered with large boulders and outcrops due to the glacier dragging mountain debris with it as it moves and depositing those debris at lower elevations go further from the foothills and you should be more likely to see floodplains or bogs and it looks like ed greenwood the writer of the forgotten realms got this right you can see the anarock region south of the glacier is covered in hilly areas of massive boulders but if you look closer to the coast those rocky hills give way to swamps like the highmore in real life you can see facsimiles of this kind of glacial activity all along scandinavia norway is covered with deep chasms from glacial movement while finland is largely a swampy flatland that extends to the north sea all of this is from glacial activity that occurred during the ice age with that said this glacier informs the contours of the landmass i bring this up first because glaciers contribute largely to the shape of the mountain terrain and lowlands and therefore to the flow of water this in turn informs where aggregable farmland exists and to some extent stone and metal ores can be easily accessed but what about the faerun regions that aren't affected by the high ice glacier if we look south of the various central mountain chains we find the sea of fallen stars since it's on the edge of the map it's hard to determine exactly in what context the sea exists but based on the forests that grow against the southern slopes of the mountains we can assume that there is a moist sea breeze which carries water vapor off the sea and up the slopes since the forests are on opposing sea coasts i'll assume then that wind actually travels in a westward direction and sheers across the mountains instead now this is important because any wind that is able to lift over the mountains would likely drop its water vapor as it rises over the terrain any wind that manages to blow over the bluffs will be very dry again the forgotten realms gets this correct too the rocky terrain over the mountains from the forested regions is almost entirely barren as a real life example you can see this happen in the pacific northwest the cool damp air coming from the pacific hitting the mountain chain along the coast causes vancouver seattle and portland to all have notably wet climates but just 200 miles east and over the mountain chain plant life can only grow at scale thanks to irrigation there just isn't enough rainfall to support lush life moving northwest from the sea of stars we don't see verdant ground until we get close enough to the coast that sea-based water vapor would rain back on the land you can see this also in the central united states where the landmass east of the rocky mountains is largely arid but as you approach the mississippi river you find the most fertile land mass on the planet this fertility is made possible by moisture blowing in from the gulf region the sword coast's sea-based rainfall is further implied in the southern region by the giant's plane wherever you have large amounts of rainfall you will also have lush growth worth noting though while there isn't dense forest here there has to be a large migratory fauna that keeps trees from growing in the african savannah large packs of wildebeest trample the soil as they migrate preventing most saplings from surviving in the mississippi river valley bison take the place of wildebeest and there are generally no massive regional forest i'd be curious to see if there are any lore specific migratory herd animals in the giant's plain that enables the grassland to exist let me know in the comments if there are any canon justifications traveling west off the coast we can see an island chain that looks to be a series of wetland atolls these might be volcanic or at least tectonic in nature since they form an island chain much the same way the pacific islands surrounding the south china sea do lastly i think it's important to mention the scale of this map according to the legend these islands are roughly the same size as the philippines and the high more is about the same size as georgia either the country or the american state your pick this entire sword coast region is roughly the size of the eastern u.s seaboard or twice the size of continental europe so now we understand where the mountains are from where the wind blows and why that causes forests and grasslands to form from that we can discern where the stone and metal oars would be easily mined and where rainfall gives way to farmland or timber from that we can deduce what resources the people who live in each region have and what resources they need now we get into real geopolitics just because it's the name of the popular video game franchise let's start by looking at baldur's gate the city of baldur's gate is inset into the mouth of a large river this was a common practice if there wasn't a safe harbor and the river was wide enough to allow large ships to traverse it the river itself would become the harbor the only reason i can guess balder's gate would be larger than candle keep as indicated by the size of the dot on the map is due to the trade access it has with other cities along the river chianthar candle keep doesn't have this luxury despite having a safer natural harbor the coast around baldur's gate looks like it is made up of sheer cliffs so there is likely access to limestone in the region too the cloak wood forest provides more than enough timber for wood construction so balder's gate only has one issue security exposed in almost every direction it has its work cut out for it to project any authority geography of this kind is why modern poland is one of the most war-torn regions throughout history the expanse of grasslands make it very hard to defend the swedes germans russians lithuanians mongols and even the french all have steamrolled through poland's flat grassy terrain multiple times for baldur's gate it gets even worse than just land-based security though the archipelago is likely full of people who would love nothing more than to disrupt trade going into baldur's gate or at least skim a bit of trade revenue off the top but we'll come back to the archipelago in a little bit there's a road that connects baldur's gate to the region in the south but i'm not seeing any large population centers in this area to me these roads only make sense if they exist as ruins from a fallen civilization much the same way we can still find roman roads today across europe to be clear traveling over a road is expensive compared to water-based transport sometimes this cost is upwards of 20 times as expensive as its water-based counterpart tolls for patrols and highway maintenance must be paid horses must be shoed and fed and these expenses just don't have the same level of cost in deep water transport now this road system does cross the shining planes and go off map to areas called tethyr and turmish if these roads are used despite the lack of population centers on the way the distant locations must have some sort of rare material or product that's worth its exceptional expense for a real world example like this you can look to the chinese silk road communities would pop up along the highway that were large enough to sustain travelers as they caravaned across asia but it just didn't make any sense to have anything more than scattered outposts located roughly a day's worth of travel apart from one another additionally european demand for silk was so high it warranted paying the exorbitant overland travel costs to bring silks across the asian steps so i'm curious what highly prized commodity would be traded from a contemporary context that would keep these roads maintained if they are looking north from here we come to a forested mountain region containing the dale lands cormanthor sembia and cormier crisscrossed with roads any population centers don't seem to have dots indicating their size which tells me that their populations are negligible again the investment of roads into this area especially through such rocky and forested terrain would likely be exceptionally expensive and since the road system doesn't connect to the rest of the sword coast i would imagine these roads were built by a fallen civilization the current residents likely have nothing of value to offer large population centers like balder's gate or water deep if they did those roads would be indeed connected i do find it interesting that there aren't large population centers here though especially in cormier or sembia the city of marcember especially should be a very large and wealthy city it's positioned at the mouth of a river and is part of a larger road network for access to both land and sea based trade it has a natural harbor from the sea of fallen stars it likely gets consistent rainfall as made evident by the regional tree growth it has access to stone and metal ore from the mountains timber from the forests and has plenty of farmland additionally the mountains that guard it on two sides and the two bodies of water flanking the region make the spot highly defensible and secure this same geography is what led to the romans lombards and italians becoming such a powerhouse of economic might in northern italy some of the most desirable luxury goods in the world are made in this region when all of a population's basic needs are met food clothing and shelter it allows the population to explore the rest of maslaw's hierarchy of needs the renaissance started in a location like this for a reason self-expression becomes the money-making commodity of an area like this fast cars high fashion luxury cheese meats and wines are all enabled because northern italy's geography provides so much stability the fact that marzember isn't as large as baldur's gate leaves me very curious if there is a canon reason for this again let me know in the comments moving further north we come to the region of anarch which looks like a rocky arid step resembling modern mongolia the lack of trees or lush grass indicates a lack of rainfall in the region so it makes sense that there are no large population centers this doesn't mean that there aren't large numbers of people however the mongols were nomadic herders who seasonally followed what little rainfall there was to provide pasture for their livestock when the population began to grow past what the step would support they began tribal infighting until genghis khan was able to unify them and turn their attention elsewhere people who live a hurting lifestyle on the step are usually quite sturdy compared to their urban counterparts a cultural sense of mobility and toughness will always make people from regions like these formidable warriors some of the most terrifying threats to civilized europe were horsemen who came from central asia when their populations grew too cumbersome for their arid landscape to support the scythians the huns the magyars and the mongols all immigrated into europe with devastating effect i think it's funny that the grassland region that butts right up against the steppe is even named the fields of the dead as if to indicate there might be prior struggles with these people the larger metropolitan river system clustered around baldur's gate is at high risk of attack from this region and invasion would likely occur at regular intervals next let's turn our attention north to the high forest area on the northern expanse of the map there seems to be a number of cities presumably larger than what we saw in cormanthor to the southeast which is interesting because the geography does little to support such a population the area is almost entirely landlocked and is scattered with dense forests and mountain chains it's likely this area was also formed by glacial activity but lacked any large migratory animals that would have prevented forests from growing as a result any economic movement through the region would be extremely costly moreover the swamplands of evermore the highmore and the marsh of schlemberg all work to further prevent easy access to the coast the people who live here are likely extremely self-reliant and very paranoid and mistrusting of outsiders anything they have they have created themselves and without access to large amounts of lakes or rivers the region would likely not have a large population center the people who live here would be tribal superstitious and easily prone to infighting poverty and a lack of education would also be rampant without easy access to the larger regional economy advances in science and magic just simply wouldn't get exposure here you can see this very thing happen in the state of west virginia poverty is high family and clan based grudges are famously rampant and now that the coal industry has all but shut down people who can afford to usually end up leaving the state unless there is a specific and rare mineral that can be mined out of this region there likely isn't much opportunity for development or the people who live here traveling west we come to the famous neverwinter region rolling hills and forests but up against the shoreline and the scattered mountains exist throughout the cities of luskin neverwinter thornhold waterdeep and daggerford are all on or near the mouth of a river delta and have access to either stone or timber for construction the scattered hills mountains and forests make this coastal region pretty safe from terrestrial based attacks unlike baldur's gate but it still has a major weakness all of these cities are easily hemmed in by naval activity hailing from the coastal archipelago as a result these roads are actually believable losing sight of a shoreline or leaving the visual distance of a city would likely result in privateering from the island people so it's likely much safer to conduct trade over these highways with neverwinter discussed we can focus on the archipelago these coastal islands are very similar to the first island chain surrounding the south china sea those nations of singapore malaysia indonesia the philippines taiwan and japan all create a buffer zone that prevent china from projecting power into the pacific and indian ocean make a note here china has never once had a strong naval presence and these island city states have historically been far more wealthy than mainland china at worst the disparate islands could each have their own segmented political interests that all cause friction with each other if that's the case the island populations won't be able to cause much more disruption than piracy but if the disparate people are politically aligned at all their ability to project naval authority and conduct seabourn tax collection would be unparalleled by the mainland populations the people of cair corwell on gwyneth island have great access to timber and can safely build ships without any risk of their shipyards being attacked on land lastly if there is a continental power that has a magic or technology that far outpaces what the island people have they would rapidly turn these populations into client states or exert direct control over them whoever has dominion over these islands has dominion over the sword coast as an example look at the belligerent stance china is taking towards taiwan its threats while scary are mostly invalid to control taiwan would require an amphibious assault of the island to be clear china only gets to trade on international waters because the us navy and their islander allies allow it similar to how if china could somehow miraculously invade taiwan baldur's gate would gain quite a bit of needed breathing room if it didn't have to worry about pirates privateers or even foreign trade policy interfering with their local economy so what do you think are there fantastical creatures or magical locations that upset the hypotheticals i've presented what are the inconsistencies with the geopolitical overview and the actual canon of the sword coast region hopefully by breaking down faerun this way you can start to use these world-building tools to develop your campaign setting that you're designing hopefully you have a better understanding of how populations develop and what needs they have in order to feel secure and productive thanks for watching dungeon masters and until next time good night [Music] you

Channel: Dungeon Masterpiece

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Id: t2zZ2NSrGwU

Length: 20min 1sec (1201 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 02 2021

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[u/HerEntropicHighness]

i need one for eberron