help me brainstorm this thing: fantasy empires

All Things Writing
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Okay, so, for Word Dragon Challenge
(don’t know what this is? You can search Word Dragon Challenge on Wacky)

I decided to tackle a new world with new lore.

Now, this world is an empire.

I’ve actually written an empire before, but the majority of the story took place outside the empire.

I’m writing inside the empire this time.

The Fact Finding Notes
When does a kingdom become an empire?
Does the king say “alright, I’m the emperor now. This is my empire.” ?

Was the Byzantine Empire always the “Byzantine Empire” or is that just a name historians called it?

How big are empires? Are they made up of a multitude of major cities that are owned by lords? Or do empires have kings inside of them? How does it work?

(if any of you know this information from the top of your head, sharing it would be much appreciated)

The Brainstorm
So, in Project Scorch, there’s an empire ruled by the emperor. It spans vase swaths of forests, cities, and goes right up against the mountains in the west. It owns the Four Rivers which is a major water resource. It also owns five ports.

Yeah, super massive.

I thought about what to call this empire. I know that in fantasy, we love to give fantastical names to our places. But I also thought about how some real place names mean “the castle on the rock” or “the hill with the castle”. It was very simple and to the point. It wasn’t some unreadable fantasy name :stuck_out_tongue:

So, I thought the empire could be called “emperor’s name or family name” Empire.

Keep it simple.

I even thought it could be called Empire. Or to make it more interesting because fantasy story, duh, it could be the Empire of the Four Rivers. And then people who live around there only know one empire, so they call it the Empire.

But if there’s knowledge of only one Empire in the entire land mass, why even declare an empire? Doesn’t there have to be other empires or other giant kingdoms for a ruler to declare an empire? And wouldn’t he declare it because…he wants to show his power or something like that?

About the Ruler
He’s a greedy, power-hungry ruler, but he’s also a massive coward, fortifying his castle like he’s afraid of multiple invasions. He also hosts battle games in a giant arena to show his power and show other smaller kingdoms that his warriors are the strongest. He might own some fantastical beasts, too.

Anyway, he was called the Great King, and then he declared himself Emperor and the lands he owned became a part of the Empire. Why? How? Who allowed it? Idk.

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Hello :wave: I can’t sleep so I thought I might try to help out! :smiley:

I’d personally consider it an empire if it satisfies the following conditions:

  1. It’s massive, bonus points if it’s reached into another continent or the other half of an already-huge continent.
  2. Some of its territories were gained by conquering and annexing other sovereign states.

At least that’s what I think of when I hear the word :stuck_out_tongue: if you Google the definition, it just says that an empire is a huge group of states or countries under a single ruler.

To look at some examples, the Majapahit Empire reached as far as some parts of India, and the Roman Empire stretched all the way from the southeast corner of England to the edges of Asia and Africa.

Hmmm, personally I think it can make sense for only one empire to exist in that fantasy world. Maybe it could be called an empire because it was previously a kingdom or other kind of country, but under a certain ruler, he aggressively expanded territory and established the kingdom as an empire to assert his dominance :thonk: it does sound more aggressive and intimidating than just calling something a kingdom.

There are many ways you could go about this.

Maybe the Emperor was born a psychopath who manipulated his way to the throne, and once he got rid of his detractors, he installed yes men as his right hand men and started his empire :thinking:

Or maybe his parents were in an arranged marriage involving royalty from a larger kingdom and a smaller kingdom, and when he rose to power, he decided to annex the other parent’s kingdom and expand from there.

Or maybe there was a conflict between other kingdoms and his own that affected his childhood and/or adolescence, so when he got the throne, he used his power to crush the enemy kingdoms!

Sorry for the rambling :see_no_evil: but I hope this helps!

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Totally right. The first mistake I made was making it an island while making the map XD I have since watched documentaries about empires, especially the Roman Empire, and now I know, empires were a lot bigger than I had thought :stuck_out_tongue:

So yeah, it should be massive.

I was missing this, too! I looked around the web and it seems like…this is the case. Massive military campaigns. But after that, if you can control the sea like the Romans, didn’t seem like you had to continuously intimidate people with military power.

:melting_face:
Does that mean any country, currently, which was historically a group of states under a single ruler, could be an empire? So, if the US was a monarchy, would that make it an empire?

Is the United Kingdom an “empire”?

Watched some Roman Empire documentaries on NatGeo. Fascinating. They were so smart in how they controlled the seas, too. Some very interesting ports have been discovered recently.

Definitely. Empire just has that sort of “I’m huge and intimidating” ring to it.

Yeah, I think this is it. Or some variation of this could be it. Maybe he wasn’t in line for the throne, but then he had his family poisoned. I also decided yesterday to take inspiration from King Ramses who declared himself a god and had a cult. Perhaps, this Great King felt threatened, so he created a cult for people to worship him.

There’s this terrible monster that once roamed the world. (The Great King’s family created it, but no one knows it.) No one could defeat the beast. What if he stages a great battle and “slays” the beast? The beast is dead (It can easily be created again, but no one knows this.) And the Great King becomes Greater King or something like that. He’s worshipped. He’s godly. He declares himself Emperor something.

Maybe the Emperor’s name is based off of one of their gods of battle or something like that?

Now I’ll need to figure out some religion XD

Rambling is welcomed. It’s helping :grin:

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