Spheres of Influence

Creating a fantasy war from the ground up requires a lot of work. You need to construct whole kingdoms, work out the trappings of their trade and economies, detail the emotions of their soldiers, and the rest! This week at the Red Quills, we're focusing on writing war for your fantasy world, and today is Spheres of Influence, the influence that nations impose on their surroundings.

The scale of the war lends itself to the scale of the parties involved. A war world has spheres of influence that extend across continents, but a civil war in a small country will have cities or individuals as players with their own allies and following.

Because we are, first and foremost, a cartographic page, we'll run through the three basic scales of influence by using maps, and referencing them into the level at which your heroes should encounter these influences:

National

Generally the spheres of influence involved deal with individuals or councils of people: a mayor, a lord, or a ruling court will hold sway and command the loyalty of those within their domains. They don't have much in the way of ideological power (unless they run a cult), but they will appeal to local pressures and specific pain points.

For small-scale adventures, starting from peasanthood up to representing lords and bargaining with queens and emperors. Use if your adventure is just beginning.

Continental

Now we deal with nations and their rulers: kings and queens, warlords or imperial families. These can appeal to generational loyalty, and command a more spiritual appeal - they may be chosen by the gods, the avatars of forces in the world, or have a moral certitude. Their real reasonings can be more pragmatic, dealing with trade or conquest, but their sphere of influence is established over a radius of several hundred miles because they represent an ideal.

For conflicts in higher scales, between nations over wars, religion, and genocides, for bargaining with whole races and representatives of great power.

Global

The largest terrestrial arena is the global war: where blocs of power go toe-to-toe out of desperation. The sphere of influence will cover a large portion of the globe, and represent not simply pragmatic goals or ideologies, but the much simpler distinction of "People Like Us" and "People Like Them". Their power is cultural, but the influence is staggered amongst the individuals that make up the countries that make up the blocs.

For conflicts that involve the whole world and beyond, requiring the protagonist to travel to the farthest corners to gather allies or resources. Use if your protagonists are used to dealing with kings and emperors.

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Don't get bogged down in the idea that every conflict needs to be bigger and badder than the last. When you're figuring out your adventure for a novel or a game, what is the balance that you are striking?

Remember that conflict is always layered. Whenever you are writing a global conflict, the fight goes all the way down. There are international conflicts within the global ones, and national ones within the international ones. All fights, eventually, degenerate to the simple distinction of "Us vs Them".

Thanks for reading, and leave a comment below if you enjoyed. We have many more posts ready to be read on our journal (CLICK HERE), or you can head over to our YouTube channel if you want to check out our video tutorials there.