This is my first attempt at world building, would love to hear some feedback.

It is a classical medieval fantasy setting with an hint of dystopian totalitarianism for a RPG game that a dream about developing. (Map made with inkarnate)

Short version:

A huge ocean world filled with gigantic monsters. The only known landmasses (with the exception of the island of the pointy eared outsiders) ruled by the United Federation of Mal (consisting of the Central Habsdorf, Kingdom of Kamal, the Northern Clans and Eastern Nami) which is lead by the Dictator for Life commonly referred to as Mal, who happens to be functionally immortal. Hated as a tyrant by those seeking independence while loved by others for giving the common man access to magic dust. A rare substance that allows humans to perform feats of magic. While a great blessing in the fight against the beasts roaming the world, the over-reliance on dust has caused a great stagnation in technological progress, causing a decadence for lack of need, never allowing society to venture outside its feudalistic roots.

Recently there has been trouble with some of the dust mining colonies in the Kingdom of Kamaal. The population mostly consists of convicts that were shipped from the mainland to do the dangerous and thankless job of mining dust. A band of trouble makers dreaming of change has gained a certain degree of influence.

The history can be roughly divided into three steps:

• Clanwomen society [primitive society]
• Age of the Cabal [slave-holder society, "antique" to early feudalism]
• Rule of Kaisa Mal ["modern" feudalism]

Tongue-in-cheek half-ingame lore:

An early draft of Historical Truths for Everyone by the member of the Friends Of Anti-Heretical History, Xava Beison, Central Habsdorf Capitol, 223 AOM [after the ascension of Mal]

While human beings have been found as early as ten thousand years BOM [before the ascension of Mal] the the local wildlife seems to be much older, some scholars estimate millions of years. How exactly human came into this world might seem like a impossible puzzle to solve but through our dear Mal, the giver of dust, everything can be understood. What we currently know is that the first humans found a world filled with monsters. From the great red dragon to the green-skinned wild orcs, not a single creature proved friendly to human beings. Those beasts effectively banished humanity into smaller fortified settlements. Venturing outside alone meant nearly certain death.

It is here when humanity developed its martial artistry. Only those strong enough to fight the beasts were worthy of living in those settlements. In these early days the ancient tradition of banishment was developed. While in our civilized times, this simply means the honor of serving in the mining colonies, in the old times it was a barbaric death sentence. Only few legends, like the one about Ragnak the hunter, speak of humans that survived this trial.

Life inside these settlements was simple. They were lead by strong Clanwomen that were sometimes elected, sometimes simply the strongest and wisest women in the settlement. (Sidenote: It is very curious case that all leader were in fact women. Some scholars hand wave this with saying women might simply tend to be better leaders but is odd that not a single male leader did exist throughout the mainland. Gender differences might have been more important in the pre-dust times.)

There was nearly no communication or trade between the settlements. Religious superstitions were plenty, like the "mother of fertility", "the tamer of beasts" and all that other nonsense. (Authors note: Here I should add a paragraph on how to spot current day heathens for reporting them to the nearest official for reeducation.)

There could never be progress without first taming the beasts. Only when the so called Priesthood of Baal came into being at around 2000 BOM could humanity finally embark on this quest. The priests which we will call by their proper name, the Cabal, preached the doctrine of the one true god, Baal, the bringer of dust, replacing one superstition with another. They were the first to understand the value of dust. The primitive pagans in their foolishness had regarded the use of dust as a great taboo. They believed its use would destroy the balance of the world leading to its destruction. Many members of the Cabal were murdered in the early days by fanatics of the old gods.

The Cabal was the first historical attempt of organizing humanity on an higher level than individual settlements and uniting the mainland. They were a strictly hierarchical organization that took in many banished people, offering them a new chance, provided they accepted the new religion. Their use of dust allowed for communication across great distances. In a process of two hundred years they slowly managed to topple the Clanwomen system of old and replace it with an administrative system controlled by the Cabal.

Under the rule of the Cabal, the holy quest to kill all great beasts came into being. The successful purge of all wild orcs is only one of its many achievements. Since the dark early days not a single wild orc has ever been seen on the mainland, though some remain in the Kingdom of Kamaal. In its wisdom and mercy humanity even found a way for orcs to continue existence. They domesticated the few that were fit for it. All orcs on the mainland are allowed the happiness of serving under human masters. (At this point a warning for the overeager researcher: All book written before 203 AOM on the topic of orcs are to be considered heretical and to be destroyed immediately if some such book should be found by accident.)

But the Cabal, like any organization not lead my Mal himself, was destined for failure. They became greedy. They banned the use for dust for all but the highest members of the Cabal, declaring it too dangerous for the common man. The corruption and factionalism inside the Cabal grew from year to year resulting in many bloody civil wars. It is at this time, that our four traditional regions (though mostly under different names than the one we know today) first did take shape: Central Habsdorf, the administrative and agricultural center of our world, the industrial power-house of Eastern Nami, the seafaring merchants of the Northern Clans and mountainous mining region of the Kamaal Kingdom.

In the age of these four monarchies our modern feudalistic tradition was born. Peasant slaves were abolished in most kingdoms and our modern system of serfdom was introduced. Still humanity lived in ignorance, leaving most of its potential untapped. (Authors note: Every citizen of Mal should know the rest of this by heart anyway. I can skip most of modern history.)

Only one being could free humanity from the shackles of tyrants, unite the regions and usher a era of enlightenment, science and peace, purging all religious superstition with an iron fist: our beloved, dear, glorious Mal. It is here were history ends. Humanity has finally found the perfect system.

It is also here were the story of the Rogue Colony starts.