Dev Blog #7: How Was Draven Built?

When writing a story, it is common to start with an idea and build a world around it. With Draven, I wanted to work in the other direction: I wanted a rich world that could become a sandbox for many stories.

I wanted to answer questions, such as

• What had happened in the land of Draven?
• What conflicting forces held it in balance?
• What did everyday life look like for the people living in it?

I felt it was important to answer those questions came before deciding what a particular hero would do. I wanted to the world stand on its own with its history, ambitions, and problems.

An early map of Draven.

It's All History

At the center of Draven is the pursuit of magical power and the damage left behind by it. Dragonlance was a major influence. I liked the idea of a world scarred by a catastrophe that still shaped people's lives centuries later.

But I wanted a different kind of conflict. To me, Dragonlance had a strong good-versus-evil dynamic. Good could be deeply flawed, but it was still fairly easy to know which side the reader wanted to support.

I wanted the world of Draven to be populated with flawed by ambitious people. There would be no good or evil, but a constinuous lust for power. I started with two competing beliefs:

• Order, where magic should be controlled and regulated.
• Chaos, where magic should be wild and free.

Eldoria became the land of knights and order. Its rulers believed magic was too dangerous to leave unchecked. The Ashen Dominion took the other position, embracing sorcery and the freedom to pursue magical power.

Both beliefs had an argument behind them. Uncontrolled magic could destroy lives. Controlling it could mean taking away the freedom of anyone born with the gift. Their struggle would lead to the cataclysm, leaving both nations with reasons to fear the other and justify their own choices.

Early concept art of the cataclysm.

That story, borned of a ruined landscape, gave people disagreements they had inherited, institutions built around those disagreements, and reasons to keep repeating old mistakes.

Three's a Crowd

With only two sides, I worried that one would eventually settle into being the good guys. A third group made the situation more interesting, especially if it approached magic from a different direction.

Sable emerged after the cataclysm. While Eldoria and Ashen remained fixed in their views, hardened by centuries of conflict, Sable saw magic as the means to build a new future. Its inventors studied it, stored it, and used it to power mechanical constructs. But Sable also pursued power recklessly. Progress could justify questionable experiments, and the promise of a discovery could outweigh concern for the people affected by it.

Each faction had something worth understanding and something difficult to defend. Eldoria's promise of safety came with ruthless control over spellcasters and its citizen. Ashen's freedom favored the strongest and offered little protection to the weak. Sable's pursuit of progress could repeat the same mistakes that had already devastated the world.

I wanted players to understand why someone might support each nation, without making any of them an easy answer.

Room Outside the Kingdoms

The elves, dwarves, Drakari, and Vashari gave the world other perspectives. They had their own goals and reasons to avoid being drawn into another human war. That left room for neutrality, independence, and stories that did not revolve around the three kingdoms.

Silvercross gave adventurers a place to begin. As neutral ground between the kingdoms, it let me introduce the world without asking a new player to choose a political allegiance before understanding what that choice meant.

That was the foundation I wanted for Draven: a world with enough history and conflicting interests to support many stories. A hero could arrive with a small problem to solve, then gradually discover the larger forces shaping the people around them.