Plane Creation
The first step towards creating your nation is designing the plane in which your nation exists. I'm not going to modify the nation creation choices based on the plane creation choices selected here, but N.B. that some plane choices will synergize with or reduce the usefulness of some nation creation choices, so chose wisely.
Plane Type
There are three main categories of plane: ordinary and extraordinary, and bizarre. Ordinary planes have no exceptional aspects, or their changes are so insignificant they're virtually impossible to notice. Extraordinary planes, on the other hand, have aspects which cause notable differences between them and ordinary planes, which give them useful quiddities, although they still remain fully habitable. Bizarre planes have aspects which are so alien from the norm that it is generally impossible for normal living things to inhabit them.
For the purposes of this quest, only extraordinary planes are available: a bizarre plane would defeat the purpose of a nation game, and an ordinary plane would defeat the purpose of having the fantasy genre. Fortunately, there are still a number of choices to be made, as extraordinary planes are, themselves, able to be divided into three main types, as follows:
[] Extraordinary Material Planes: As the name implies, these planes have some sort of extraordinary material or asset in them. This may come in the form of some a special plant, a special metal, a special type of animal, or other such possibilities. For the purposes of creating your plane, you can chose from:
-[] Gryffons: Your plane has a population of griffons, chimerical creatures with the hindquarters of a lion and the forebody of an eagle.
-[] Promise Ore: When purified for alloyed, promise ore becomes a metal the ductile strength of which is decided by how many oaths and promises its wielder has kept, able to be stronger than mithril or weaker than slag.
-[] Miracle Tobacco: Smoking the leaves of this peculiar strain of tobacco allows an individual to enter a hallucinatory fugue in which they can move around freely outside their body.
[] Extraordinary Quiddity Planes: These planes have a quiddity that makes them special. This is the most varied type of extraordinary plane, and bizarre planes are often bizarre due to particularly exceptional quiddities. These can range from quiddities such as "the colors red and green are switched" to "substances can be produced by imagining them." For the purposes of creating your plane, you can chose from:
-[] Gravitas: With this quiddity, there is a causational relationship between weight and durability; the heavier something is, the tougher, and vice-versa.
-[] Animism: All things, living and inanimate, contain a spirit inside of them, reflecting their purpose. With careful rituals, these spirits can be removed and transplanted.
-[] Experience: Succeeding at tasks makes a person, creature, or object better at performing such a task; failure at tasks makes a person, creature, or object worse at performing such a task.
[] Extraordinary Technology Planes: These planes have some sort of quirk to their laws of physics, or an underlying quiddity alteration, which makes certain types of technology that would otherwise not be able to function feasible. The most extreme instances of this can be full-on laser rifles and spacecraft, though this is rare. For the purposes of creating your plane, you can chose from:
-[] Smokeless Powder: Gunpowder detonation in your plane doesn't leave behind any smoke or residue.
-[] Diesel-Powered Engines: Steam-power was a 20 minute fad before the discovery of the internal combustion engine, and the refinement techniques needed to make its fuel.
-[] Electricity: Most planes are lit by gas lamps, and heated by coal furnaces, but not yours; electricity is a particularly easy concept to grasp and implement here.
Plane Size
Planes are finite. They have boundaries. Some are as small as a single island, while others have dozens of continents and oceans. Sizes of plane available for the purposes of this quest are:
[] Small: Small planes are about the size of a single country. They may have lakes or waterways, or they may not.
[] Medium: Medium planes are about the size of a continent. They usually have lakes and waterways, and can also have small oceans.
[] Large: Large planes are the size of a full planet, and will have multiple continents and oceans in them.
Plane Terrain
Usually, the terrain of a plane is fairly homogeneous. There is one particular biome across the entirety of the plane. These biomes come in many different forms, and some of them can be so alien they merit a bizarre plane. For the purposes of this quest, the types are:
[] Forest: A hilly expanse of dense forests interrupted only by ponds, rivers, or lakes, punctuated by the occasional mountain.
[] Jungle: An endless thicket of towering trees, high humidity, and animals of all shapes and sizes waiting in the underbrush to the treetops.
[] Desert: A vast expanse of desolate dunes that stretch for miles between rare oases and rarer rivers and tributaries.
[] Plains: Flat, dry fields of hard-packed dirt and tough, scrubby flora, as far as the eye can see.
[] Archipelago: An endless chain or cluster of small islands across a vast sea, some close enough to be reached by bridges or canoes, others requiring huge gulfs.
[] Tundra: An icy, typically barren landscape with summers that are colder than most plane's winters, and winters than can be unlivable without preparations.
[] Cliffs: Bordering on a bizarre plane, cliff planesare seemingly sideways, consisting of a single sheer mountain bluff with no apparent top or bottom, just ridges and caves across its face.
[] Skylands: Akin to the archipelago, but in place of a sea, only an empty undersky below, which the islands float upon naturally.
[] Volcanic: Volcanic planes are never-ending mountain ranges of active volcanoes, aflood with lava flows and magma pools.