Viranos:Nationbuilding Guide

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Welcome to Tzo's Official-Unofficial Guide To Building A Nation In Viranos™ (TO-UGTBAN™)! I suggest you read this guide while writing your application to join, and refer to it as you try to craft your nation and find your niche in Viranos, to ensure that you create something that both you enjoy and that fits the incredibly pompous CREATIVE VISION we have for Viranos. This page is going to consist of a lot of sections (that Table of Contents is a nightmare), a lot of links, and a lot of generalizations, but if you bare with it I think you'll be glad you did. I suggest read through the full thing before starting your application and revisiting it as needed.

Before we begin, a few notes:


  • A Note On Realism: Viranos isn't meant to be hyper-realistic - we have magic and dragons, for chrissakes. However, we absolutely abhor the simplistic, almost strategy-game (think Civilization or Hearts of Iron) level of understanding, flexibility, and action that many NSers want to apply to their nations in a setting where this type of RP is very clearly frowned upon. We expect your nation to have depth and character to it, and this requires a cursory knowledge of how politics, economics, and military affairs work in real life - Wikipedia can educate you well enough in all of this. If you just want to paint the map your color, post about trading oil for uranium, or invade a country in a single post "just 'cause", this probably isn't the place for you.
  • A Note on Kitschiness and Originality: Wiktionary define "kitsch" as "art, decorative objects and other forms of representation of questionable artistic or aesthetic value; a representation that is excessively sentimental, overdone, or vulgar". In other words: campy, cliche, silly, corny, tawdry, ugly. There's some nuance being lost here, sure, and there's nothing inherently wrong with most of these things, and it can be really difficult to recognize it, especially in one's own work, but it's important to avoid stuff that's clearly "kitschy" at all costs. Keep cliches in mind while you craft your nation - and remember, TV Tropes is your friend. Furthermore, avoid ripping off concepts wholesale from fiction, especially popular franchises, and ESPECIALLY media clearly outside of our genre (Halo, Fallout, Metro 2033, D&D all seem to be the popular offenders); you can try to adapt concepts from other works of fiction, but unless done well it'll probably end up getting struck down by OOC convention.




Genre[edit source]

Before doing anything, it's important to understand the genre you're working in. Mixing genres can be very fun and interesting if done well, but simply shoehorning things in that don't fit will ruin the experience for everyone. Also be mindful of sub-genres - an even blurrier, more arbitrary distinction, I know, but still very important. A Song of Ice and Fire, The Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter are all very different from each other.

In Viranos's case, it gets even more confusing, because it tries to mash together a number of genres, but can be best described as "low contemporary fantasy technothriller".

Although the world has significant fantasy aspects, by modern times they have mostly fallen to the wayside in favor of advanced technology. An arcane past, eldritch beings, and magical/preternatural elements still influence and intrude upon an otherwise "normal", globalized, neoliberal world - but, to put it simply, fighter jet beats dragon 90% of the time.

So, it's important to not lean too heavily into the magical/supernatural/fantasy aspect of things. Focus more on creating a quasi-realistic modern nation like you would in any other NationStates roleplaying region, and try to weave in fun, interesting, supportive fantasy elements along the way.


Concept[edit source]

This is the first real step in the process, and it's simultaneously the simplest and most complex part. You need to come up with a concept for your nation - it could be virtually anything, but you just need to start somewhere. Think about the stuff you normally like reading and/or learning about, either in real life or in fictional lore, and try to extrapolate from that. For example: maybe you really enjoy the warrior culture and nomadic lifestyle of the Dothraki from A Song of Ice and Fire - great, try to think of ways to incorporate those aspects reasonably into a modern nation. Maybe you could look at countries and peoples that were historically very nomadic or still retain significant nomadic populations and try to apply concepts from their modern day incarnations to your nation. Another example: say you just really love naval history and technical information about warships; maybe you could try creating an island nation, begin researching both real life island cultures and those from fiction, try to parse elements you find interesting from their cultures and histories, and then expand.

The important part is that it's something you personally find enjoyable and interesting, and that you can expand on it creatively in a way that interacts and integrates with other nations.


Power[edit source]

If you've been on NationStates for any amount of time, you'll have noticed that everybody and their mother wants to be the global superpower, with 10 million man strong military; the shiniest, newest technology; endless tracts of lands spanning an entire continent; fanatically loyal citizens who follow the only correct ideology and rabidly support every war even if it causes nuclear genocide, and so on and so forth.

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Needless to say, this is totally unbearably and irredeemably stupid in the most painful way possible. On modern, neoliberal Earth, which Viranos is supposed to be broadly similar to, there are less than 15 nations with more than 90,000,000 people; unless you have a large population, are an undeveloped hellhole, or are constantly militarized at great expense, you'll probably never have more than 500,000 active duty personnel in your military during peace time; you are also highly unlikely to have domestic access to/production of each and every resource or product your population and economy could possibly need - that's called autarky and has never really worked out well in modern times. In short: you probably won't be too powerful. In fact, because of the way the global system works in Viranos, you'll probably be forced to be in somebody's pocket most of the time. We aren't seeking "balance" per se, but to create a fun, creative, quasi-realistic world that doesn't consist solely of angry fanatical Americas, Chinas, and Russias.

We've created this handy-dandy diagram to help you understand the dynamics here, to the right. Basically, choose a point on the chart where your nations lies - if you're closer to one of the three points, that aspect of your nation is more powerful at the expense of the others. We're speaking in broad generalizations here - there's always a potential for exceptions and nuance.

For example, if you're extremely isolated, well defended, and/or self-sufficient, chances are it's because you're not big, rich, or full of resources enough to bother dealing with; the causal relationship could also be reversed. Likewise, if you're very rich, it's probably because you're either an entrepôt for international trade or have lots of natural resources - however, terrain suitable to economic prosperity is rarely suitable to defense or isolation, and other people probably want what you have. Size/Resources is sort of the oddball of the group - a nation can be very large, but not have many resources, or be very small and chock full of resources; depending on which you go with (big, resource-full, or somewhere in-between), it'll affect the causal relationship with the other two categories.

As for population and area:

As stated before, the vast majority of nations on Earth are actually quite small and/or have very small populations. You don't need to be massive to make a difference, especially in modern times when international organizations give even tiny, utterly inconsequential countries like Malta or New Zealand considerable amounts of sway over larger powers.

In Viranos, the soft limit of population for "developed" (think America, Canada, and Europe) countries is about 100,000,000 people, at which point your standard of living and economic sophistication (see Wikipedia for a brief summary of that) will rapidly begin to decline. That does not mean you should try to get as close to that cap as possible, nor that you should go "all in" and make the most underdeveloped country possible to get the most population. This isn't a game of min-maxing and making the best, most powerful possible nation. Although there can definitely be exceptions to this rule, you it needs to be pretty good; likewise, a population much bigger than around 200,000,000 will require some pretty good justification.

Similarly, there are less than 15 nations in the world with more than 2,000,000 square kilometers of land, and all of those nations tend to have very large swaths of inhospitable, mostly useless land. You likely have a lot of land because it's too useless or inaccessible for anybody else to want. One must consider this when deciding how large their nation should be. Because of the way we do applications and measure map area, we aren't too strict about the exact area - we mostly eyeball it in comparison to other nations and the general scale of things.

Also related to area: you will very rarely be allowed to have a continent or subcontinent to yourself - that is, pretty much nobody will be allowed to be an Australia that fully owns their own island-continent, or an India protected on almost all sides by uncrossable mountains, deserts, and jungles.


Meanwhile, in the realm of economic strength: Familiarize yourself with the concepts of GDP and GDP per capita; these are relatively simple ways of measuring where certain nations stand in economic-military strength and standard of living. It's not perfect, especially for non-market economies and/or economies that revolve heavily around a singular profitable resource (such as oil), but it's good enough for our purposes.

Now, obviously, we'll never have all of the myriad statistics and factor required to actually calculate a GDP for any NationStates nation. So, here's what we recommend:

Find a nation in the real world that you feel closely reflects the size/population and economy of your NationStates nation, and look at their GDP per capita. Raise or lower it as you feel reflects your standard of living and economic strength (higher for better, lower for worse - again, not perfect but good enough); once you're satisfied with that, multiply that number by your nation's population to get your GDP.

For reference: unless you're either very, very small and extremely highly developed (think of anything from the Netherlands, to Singapore, to Luxembourg), and/or have an economy that revolves almost exclusively around a single extremely profitable resource/industry like oil, gambling, or finance (think Persian Gulf states, Norway, Macau, Hong Kong, etc), your GDP per capita will probably never be above $50,000. Unless oil or shady banking is involved, you probably won't have over $35,000 per capita unless you're a relatively well developed state (think of Eastern/Southern Europe or "better").

This method of RL comparison and adjustment can also be used for other international rankings such as HDI.

Character[edit source]

Earlier, I mentioned nations have "character". I hope I'm not pontificating when I say that I like to think of it as the nations effectively being characters in and of themselves, with their own strengths, weaknesses, motivations, fears, flaws, etc. Like characters out of a novel, with personalities, histories, and desires that shape their behavior and actions. Obviously there are no actual Hetalia-style personifications with those qualities (and if you try to make one, I will personally throw you in the oubliette), but if you were to examine the history of a nation enough, you'd probably be able to parse these out pretty well.

Most nations, especially nowadays but also throughout history, have a "shtick", a "thing", a "hat", that bubbles to the top from an outside perspective, often based around various stereotypes and the geographic, economic, and cultural factors influences their nation and that they exert on nations around them.

What do you think of when you think of, say, Scotland? Probably lots of stereotypes - kilts, hating the English, drinking, golf, hating the English, an independent streak, rocky windswept cliffs, hating the English, etc. You have a definite image of "who" or "what" Scotland is; it may vary depending on where exactly you're from and what portrayals of Scotland you've seen, but it's still fairly clear and unique. Now think of the Swiss - hillbilly mountain Germans, aggressively neutral, everybody owns a gun and is ready to turn their country into a deathtrap, lots of banking and chocolate; there's a clearly discernible "Swiss character" that one can extrapolate from these stereotypes.

Regardless of what country it is, these stereotypes, and thus the character, are produced over decades and centuries of history, domestic shifts, and international interaction. That sort of unique, interesting national character, however ambitious it may be, is what we ultimately seek to evoke from every nation.


Geography[edit source]

Now, onto more of the meat of what your nation actually is!

The geography of a nation is wildly important, as it determines virtually everything else about a nation. Russia wouldn't be Russia if it wasn't frigid and huge; the UK wouldn't be the UK without the Channel and the Midlands. Geography determines the strengths, weaknesses, motivations, and character of your nation.

We don't need you to have every single valley, creek, and potato field mapped, but it's important to have a general idea of the type of climate and terrain your nation hosts.

Viranos has a climate map which used the Köppen climate classification system. Familiarize yourself with the system and find an area with a climate you like. If you have a lot of crappy (subarctic, desert, tundra, etc) land, you can probably safely claim a lot of it. If the land is fertile and good, less.

Deciding terrain is generally trickier, because it's usually much more varied and intricate than the climate. Most nations will have examples of lots of different types of terrain in varying types and capacities. It's important to keep in mind that the terrain of your nation will lead to a lot of the "national character" simply because it will decide a lot about your capabilities and culture. A nation of rugged hills and isolated valleys will naturally have less trade and a lower population than one of flat, open plains, but the plains are also much more vulnerable to invasion. Viranos has a topographic map showing elevation, major mountain ranges, and rivers. Use this in combination with the climate map to determine good "natural borders" at large hills/mountain ranges, rivers, deserts, jungles, etc. Anything that could impede movement or serve as a good general boundary.

Likewise, try to choose a spot nearby other nations of similar culture. We suggest you try to border at least one other nation, although this is a soft requirement. Check the culture map for suggestions on the general regions where various cultural mega-groups should be, but remember that this is mostly a suggestion and that anomalies, overflow, etc. can probably be accommodated if you just talk to people.

Also note that "powergaming" in any way is heavily frowned upon. This can come in many forms, but in the case of geography it usually manifests as "min-maxing" your country's geography and climate to be get the absolute best results with the least downsides, or else obnoxiously taking extreme measures to mitigate any and all downsides and focusing only on the up-sides. Every territory is a mixed bag that you have to figure out how to deal with. Not everybody can be a fertile river valley rich in natural resources with highly defensible mountains surrounding it on seven sides and and a coast on the eighth side. We don't dictate what your exact climate, resources, and terrain will be like, but we expect you to be mature enough to not be a competitive gibbon about it.

As for natural resources, we'll talk about this more in the economics section, but, I'll repeat it for all the dorks on NS who never get the memo: you will never have all of the resources you need for a functioning, "developed" nation available domestically. Large nations will indeed have lots of valuable resources, yes, but chances are you'll lack the ability to extract or refine them effectively, depending on the precise details. You'll either need to import resources from other countries to turn into products to consume and export, or export your resources to other countries to then import products from. Unless you're very large, its best to pick three or four major natural resources you want to focus on and have them be the main focus of your extractive/refining economy.


Species[edit source]

This is kind of unique to Viranos. In case you haven't realized by now, we host several fantasy races scattered throughout the planet, classified into a few groups and subgroups. Although regular humans are by far the majority, the influence and character of these other species are not to be underestimated. A lot of them are based on and follow traditional fantasy tropes, but some also veer off into more unique territory.

A quick rundown of the current categories:

The Terrene Races are humans and elves, as well as any other race that's essentially "[| humans with a few quirky features]", and make up the majority population of Viranos, especially humans.

The Zoic races are effectively just [| beast people] - think of khajiit or kobolds. A relatively small part of the global population that, historically, have never been treated very well by other groups and vice versa.

The Hallanite Races are a wildcard group that is closely tied to magic and are typically themed around fairies and Fair Folk. Typically small, localized populations with long lifespans and magical potency.

It's important to understand the difference between the species "races" and the ethnic "races". Humans and elves are both Terrenes, but different species, probably comparable to Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals in their degree of separation; however, Dark Elves and Snow Elves are effectively separate races or ethnicities that are both considered "Elves"; it's a difference between "white people" and "Asian people" between Dark Elves and Snow Elves, versus "Cro-Magnons" and "Neanderthals" between Elves and Humans.

You're more than welcome to create your own race, but need to understand a few things.

First of all, this new race needs to abide by a few rules:

  • Must be capable of forming a recognizable state with a government of individual actors. This means no hiveminds or eusociality.
  • Must be able to communicate and interact with other races in their homelands. No ree'ing, hissing, frothing-at-the-mouths devourers who have an instinctual urge to exterminate all other life; nothing that only communicates in high pitched whistles inaudible to other creatures - it must be able to use conventional language in some way; they can't be inextricably tied to their homeland and must be physiologically capable of leaving it (ie, these wood elves can't die or grow weak when they leave their sacred forest); likewise, their homeland can't be so insanely hostile or inhospitable that other races are physically incapable of living there.
  • Must be able to interact competently with the global economy. If they're eight foot tall rock monsters who can't ride in cars, hold tools, or eat organic food, you should probably chill out and reconsider the entire idea.
  • Don't give them silly powers. I know you probably want to give them some sick racial bonus or whatever, but this is generally inapplicable and just causes more headaches than whatever little it adds is worth. Generally, they won't have any powers unique to them besides being marginally stronger/weaker, faster/slower, better at a specific sense, etc.

If you're really in love with a specific race idea that breaks one or more of these rules, bring it up in the Discord and maybe you can implement them as a small, minor race without their own state.

Another important note: Generally, you give up the "rights" to your race once you integrate it into the canon, and it altering them becomes a community affair, with you likely taking a position of consultation as the original creator, but with no real veto powers. People can then create "sub-races" (eg., Dark Elf, Snow Elf, High Elf, whatever) as groups of that race in their nation. To cut down on bloat, we recommend you either choose an existing race/ethnicity, unless you're human or really in love with a specific race idea.


Culture[edit source]

Culture is going to be the most defining, identifiable part of your nation, influencing and being influenced by pretty much every other factor.

Understandably, this also means it's one of the hardest things, by far, to get right. There are two main ways to approach this: you can either base it off of a real world culture, or create one completely from scratch. Since most people don't have the patience or interest to do the latter, I'll assume you're doing the former. If you are an absolute madman who is doing the latter, keep reading anyway; you might still find this useful.

The first thing you need to do is pick a real life culture that interests you, extant or otherwise. Note that trying to transplant specific cultures (1950s America or 15th century China are especially popular for some reason), even if it's just the "aesthetic", is generally inadvisable for a plethora of reasons. You're best off taking a broad culture, or a few, and extrapolating on a few defining features.

Secondly, you should make sure that the environment this culture developed in isn't too different from your nation's own. For example, don't have Swedes who developed in a tropical jungle; or Swahili from a landlocked tundra hellscape. This rule can be lifted sometimes if your nation was the result of a settler colony (such as Brazil, South Africa, or Australia).

An important concept to keep in mind here is that of a cultural "soup versus stew". If you're building a culture by combining aspects of different RL or fictional cultures, it's important, in most cases, to take care to ensure that it's more of a "soup" than a "stew" - that is, taking parts of cultures and mixing them together in thematically neat and productive ways, versus ripping off aspects wholesale or throwing together things that simply don’t go well together.

Lastly, a word on consistency: we aim for some sort of linguistic and cultural continuum on Viranos. Think about, say, Europe - a very clear, relatively gradual transition between Romance languages, Germanic languages, and Slavic languages, with various sub-groups or outliers scattered about here and there, and some relatively well defined stereotypical cultural super-groups (ie, Spaniards and Italians are more alike than Spaniards and Germans; Swedes and Germans more than Swedes and Portuguese, etc). If you're looking at a spot on the map where most of your neighbors will have cultures and languages inspired by Danes, Swedes, Germans, and Dutch, don't try to have a Turkish or Chinese inspired culture.

Now, a few resources that should help you lay a foundation if you're still not sure where to start:

Cultural universals are aspects of culture that are present, in some form, in pretty much all human cultures.

Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory might be a good, relatively basic starting point to set the foundations of your culture (click here for a simpler rundown; click here for some maps). I won't waste time explaining this here; either you think its a good idea or you don't.

Additionally, the Zaharam-Chapelle-Parunas Ethnographical Questionnaire has a buttload of questions about many aspects of society which will help you flesh out your culture.

Language[edit source]

Language is a part of culture, but also functions as, by far, the most identifying aspect of your nation/culture for other people. They'll see your characters' names and cities' names before pretty much anything else besides your place on the map and maybe your flag. So, it's important to do this well.

Just like with your culture, unless you're really into linguistics and want to make your own conlang, you're probably going to want to base your language heavily off of an existing language from real life or other works of fiction. This can be as relatively simple as Google Translating stuff into Welsh (what are the odds of somebody actually checking the grammar anyway?), or you could go so far as creating your own words and grammar that are just based on the sounds and "feeling" of an existing language. Omniglot] is a good website to start looking at languages.

A way of making unique vocabulary that I've found helpful is taking the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, finding the language(s) you want to use, and copy-pasting the words into this random word generator. Add any other blocks of text in the base language that you can find; the more input you have, the more "realistic" the output will be. This can let you create reasonably believable words with the same "aesthetic" as the original language without being a direct copy.

As for personal names, try to keep them at least somewhat short and pronounceable. If your character is named Olufunmilayo or Vercingetorix, give them a shorter nickname they're referred to as by the narrator or other characters. Additionally, keep your names consistent with the rest of your culture. If you have Chinese-inspired city names like Shangjing and Beihai, don't have character names like Camillus Gratidius Servanus; choose names inspired by Mandarin or other East Asian languages.

This website has a multitude of random name generators for many different languages and cultures that should be of great help to you. This video has lots of good advice about creatively and realistically naming places - I highly recommend you watch it before naming anything.

A reminder: do not use place/character names pulled directly from real life or other fiction. If they're obscure enough, exceptions can probably be made because nobody will realize what a little gibbon you're being, but you can also change names enough (see that video about place names) to keep the same "feeling" while being more original.


Political Systems[edit source]

This is where things start to break down. Politics is insanely complicated and tricky in real life. You probably know this. Obviously we can never account for all the intricacies of government found in real life, nor all of the infinitesimal factors that influence the performance, genesis, and destruction of these systems. We're not here to tell you "no, this political system is wrong, you can't do it!". Instead, we focus on stuff that's overdone, silly, doesn't fit with the theme, or is otherwise clearly just somebody jerking off to their real life politics.

The only definitely off-limits systems are totalitarian regimes - think Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, or North Korea. They're overdone and usually made by newbies who want to jerk off to their own edginess.. Other generally discouraged systems include corporatocracy, anarchist state-oids, and absolute monarchies. Since Viranos is a modern, semi-neoliberal world, most states, even authoritarian ones, will at least put up pretenses of democracy and republicanism.

Also, because for some reason it's insanely popular with newbies, slavery is just as stigmatized and socially unacceptable in Viranos as in real life. The same goes for debt slavery and serfdom. All of this goes triple if you're a developed country.

Here's some things to consider for both government and the wider society:

  • Collectivism vs. Individualism

What is more important in the volksgeist - the society (the collective) or its individuals? Most political systems tend to hold some sort of balance.

  • Rule of people vs. rule of law

How much are those in power bound by laws they cannot change at will? This may be a constitution or the tenets of a religion or something else. In an absolutist system, there might not be limitations on those in power at all.

  • Concentration of power vs. separation of powers

Does one entity/institution hold all powers, or are there different independent entities holding different powers? (Separation of powers is a characteristic of the modern democracy.)

  • Status by birth vs. status by achievement

How much social mobility do your citizens have? Who is able to achieve power?

Additionally, consider how these principles are approached both in theory and in practice in your nation.


You're also encouraged to also explore political systems that never really took off in our world for whatever reason, although you should take care to rationalize and develop the system to fit snugly into the world. Consider: what the ideology says it does; what its critics say about it; how it occurred, if it occurred in real life; how it might have developed if it had survived to modern times; how these factors interact with the world of Viranos.

One last thing about political systems: you should be very careful about inserting your own, out-of-character, real life politics into your nation. At best, you come off as an asshole; at worst, you create an awful Mary Suetopia that makes the world worse and probably won't be approved, as these sorts of things are usually pretty obvious.


Economics[edit source]

Similarly to politics, all sorts of disappointing people get incredibly riled up about the "science" of economics.

The biggest question you probably have is, "can I have a communist nation?!". The word "communist" itself has all sorts of baggage and different definitions that needs unpacking, but the short answer is yes. As long as you're not jerking off about either "the glorious and perfectly equal communist utopia" or a "totalitarian and dystopian socialist hellhole", as in both cases you're clearly just taking the piss, you can try to make alternative economic systems work. Just understand that they'll likely be in the minority and will have to adapt to survive in an otherwise capitalist, globalized neoliberal world. cøḓėwøŗḓ CHICAGO

Anyways, we talked a little bit about stuff like GDP and natural resources earlier. If you haven't thought about your general level of development and your natural resources yet, do so and come back down here.

Got it? Good.

First thing's first: remember autarky? You don't have it. If you insist on having it, do not apply. Remember that, in the vast majority of cases, the more isolationist and hostile you are, the weaker your international trade scene, and therefore your economy, will be.

Now, this dispatch has a list of various broad types of economies. In very simplistic terms, generally, those towards the top of the list are "more developed", those towards the bottom less so. I'd suggest picking two or three major industries which your nation specializes in. Try not to choose overdone things like automobiles or weapons, and focus on things related to the major natural resources that you picked earlier. For example, if you have a lot of copper, maybe you manufacture electronics and car parts, or maybe you just export it and focus on something else. Remember that the presence of "higher" industries doesn't preclude "lower" industries or vice versa; it's just that, depending on your resources and level of development, you'll be more likely to focus on one sector than the others.

Military[edit source]

The military is another matter that confuses a lot of people. We don't expect you to be able to write a Tom Clancy novel, but at least some understanding of how the military relates to the politics and economy of your nation is required. Don't worry too much, though- we have many hardware nerds enthusiasts on the Discord who are more than willing to help you with all of this.

First, think of what the military's purpose is. Is it just to defend your nation's home territory? Or is it also to project force abroad? This will determine pretty much everything else about your nation. Similarly, determine if your military is based primarily on volunteers or conscripts; the advantages and drawbacks of both should be pretty clear. Volunteer forces will be smaller, but better trained and better equipped, and vice versa.

Most nation's won't have more than 500,000 active soldiers at any time during peacetime, and most won't go above 30 total personnel per 1000 capita. Obviously this gets wonky during wartime and depending on population and the specific situation of your country - if there's an aggressive, hostile power right on your border, you'll have a much higher ratio; if you're relatively isolated or surrounded by friendly nations, it'll be much lower.

Meanwhile, keep in mind the wealth and development level of your nation. Even if you have a relatively small force for your size, if you're poor you won't be able to field top of the line weaponry. Unless you're a military hardware nerd, I suggest you base your military on those of real-life nations with geographies, development levels, and defense situations comparable to your own.

On that subject, remember that power projection, especially overseas, is the privilege of a relatively small number of powerful nations. Sophisticated expeditionary forces and blue-water navies, especially those with aircraft carriers, suck up immense amounts of cash, manpower, and expertise. If you aren't a relatively large, relatively developed power, you won't have an aircraft carrier. Many nations can try to have one, but their sizes and capabilities will vary wildly. The soft-cap on large carriers is roughly three or four, even for the biggest, most advanced powers.

Magic[edit source]

As mentioned earlier: although the world has significant fantasy aspects, by modern times they have mostly fallen to the wayside in favor of advanced technology. An arcane past, eldritch beings, and magical/preternatural elements still influence and intrude upon an otherwise "normal", globalized, neoliberal world - but, to put it simply, fighter jet beats dragon 90% of the time.

Mages only ever make up roughly 1.5-2% of the global population; this usually fluctuates between about 1-3% of a nation's population. If you haven't already, read the goddamn magic guide for specifics about how the magic system works.

But again, the most important thing to understand about magic in Viranos is that it's pretty inconsequential. Powerful mages are few and far in-between, and will probably be scooped up by either the military or specialized industries. Their magic works on an individual level, and they can die to a bullet just as easily as anybody else. If you want to be a "magiocracy", ruled by mages, which seems to be a popular idea for some reason, keep in mind the limitations magic and that you're basically just instituting a fancy, derpy caste system. Likewise, understand that mages will only ever make up a very small, very specialized subsection of your military and economy unless there are extraordinary circumstances you can convince people to allow.

Gods are similar. They are exceedingly rare, with probably no more than 30-50 in any given large nation. The more powerful they are, the less they'll want to rule over mortals, let alone help them fight or fuck over other mortals. As they become less human-like, they have less interest in mortal affairs. Regardless, we trust you not to be a gibbon and misuse gods to literally god-mod.


Additional Resources[edit source]