The Eastern Continent

Dragon Quest III had to get creative when it came to adapting the Americas to a medieval fantasy world. There's still plenty of historical parallels to be found in these regions, and some of them are deep cuts indeed, but they're fit into the framework of an earlier time. Most people would consider the colonization of the New World to be decidedly after the medieval era, or at least pushing the envelope on what counts. However, that didn't stop the developers from making it work - and they wouldn't be the only ones to try and fit the New World narrative to a sword-and-sorcery milieu. Some of Robert E. Howard's stories are practically Westerns without guns, and even I have cribbed from the history of the Americas for my own homebrew setting.

In fact, as I'm going to explore in the next series of posts, DQ3's take on the Americas is particularly pulpy. In these lands, you'll find barbarian tribes, roving pirates, and decadent city-states run by tyrannical overlords. If the pseudo-Old World of Erdland is colored by historical fantasy, the New World is where we can put all the pulp fantasy tropes we didn't have a good place for elsewhere. Since The Saga of the Ortegids takes great inspiration from pulp sword-and-sorcery traditions, I'm going to be taking advantage of this.

The pseudo-Americas aren't given any proper name in-universe, so I'll be referring to them collectively as the Eastern Continent. Yes, eastern - the overworld is consistently depicted using what we would consider a Pacific-centric projection, which both helps the map feel otherworldly despite the familiar geography and places Aliahan in the center, supporting the clues as to it once having been the seat of a bygone empire. Notably, there's no real indication that this is a new world. No one alludes to the Eastern Continent as being recently discovered; in fact, numerous NPCs there reference contact with other powers across the sea. This, to me, implies that the major continents of Erdland have known about and been in contact with each other for much longer than those of our Earth, perhaps pointing to a smaller planet (as I've posited before), greater connections via the ancient Aliahanian portal network, or both.

However, much of our pop cultural perception of the Americas is colored by colonial history, and that is reflected in the Eastern Continent. There's a town on the eastern coast in the process of being established by settlers - you can actually appoint one of your party members as the leader of this settlement, causing it to grow and develop over time, in a feature I'm still amazed that they pulled off on the NES. The comparisons to early European settlement in North America are self-evident here, but perhaps in this setting it would be more akin to an ancient Greek colony, or the settlement of Iceland - less a response to newly-discovered land to conquer, and more a case of people fed up with their homeland for whatever reason and going somewhere else (I realize this also applies to a few early European colonies in North America, but you get what I mean). It's worth noting that the founder of this colony actually came from the barbarian tribes to the west, so it is not really a foreign colony.

To see how a setting like this could work in a fantastic context, we need look no further than Beyond the Black River. In The Saga of the Ortegids, this unnamed town would likely look quite a bit like Conajohara; a border settlement in a precarious position jostled up against the western barbarians. More on them in a later post. And by the way, I know what you're thinking, but that's what the game calls them, not me.

Likely, this settlement would be one of several found along the coast of various sizes. Some of these settlements would be independent city-states, but we also know that Edina had a presence on the continent as well, with a history of conflict with the barbarians further inland going back at least two generations. There are likely towns and castles established as Edinan outposts in the same vicinity as the settlers. This, in turn, suggests that Edina is a greater naval power than the limited look at it we get in-game would suggest. It's the closest kingdom to the eastern coast of the Eastern Continent, so it likely has a robust seafaring culture to expand its reach across the ocean and establish frontiers on both shores.

Also in the vicinity is Grimland, a frozen island to the north where Greenland would be. Alas, I once again have to concede to the modern localizations here - very modern, in fact; the name "Grimland" was first used in the 2024 HD release. Before that, the island was consistently referred to as "Greenlad." But...come on, that's not even trying. "Grimland" is a much cooler name, anyway. Regardless, the island isn't home to much of note; its only apparent inhabitant is a hermit wizard. You could put some Vikings here if you wanted them in Erdland, though Norse themes are far more prevalent in Torland.

Edina

After purchasing a ship in Portoga, the overworld of Dragon Quest III opens dramatically. From this point on there are no real road blocks until the endgame, so you're free to explore and complete the remaining quests in whatever order you choose. Up to this point, I've been covering every location in the order most players will encounter them in-game, but from here, the order I choose will be largely arbitrary.

The Kingdom of Edina is probably the closest new location that can be explored from Portoga, corresponding to the British Isles in the overworld map. The name I'm using here is actually a localizationism - the more accurate translation, as used in older releases, is Edinbear (more on that in a moment) - but I will admit that for all the many flaws with the new translation, Edina sounds much more like the name of a kingdom. For The Saga of the Ortegids, I'll be using Edina as the name of the country, and Edinbear for the capital city.

Art by Alan Lathwell

We don't see a lot of Edina in the game. On the map, Edinbear is simplified to only the castle where the royal family holds court. Even then, you can't actually explore the castle until later, because the guards bar entrance to any mere commoners, requiring you to find an item granting invisibility in order to sneak by them. The dialogue of many NPCs there highlights a strong culture of elitism among Edinan nobility, looking down on the lower classes and viewing them as beneath their care. However, the kingdom would also appear to be a prominent naval power - they've established contact with the barbarians of the eastern continent (that's a subject for a future post), across the ocean, and it stands to reason that they may well have colonies and trading posts established along the coast.

There are a number of directions I could go with Edina. The most obvious would be to make it the place where all the traditional medieval European fantasy trappings go, with knights in shining armor and pointy-hatted damsels in towers. There isn't really a better place to put it - the equivalent region to continental Europe is split between Romalia and Portoga, which are grounded in eras before and after the High Middle Ages respectively. I've already given Aliahan an Anglo-Saxon coat of paint, and much of Torland carries light Norse themes. There's nowhere left for the generically Anglo-Norman culture we associate with traditional fantasy and chivalric romance, and when this setting is as much a love letter to classical fantasy as it is to Dragon Quest, that seems like an obvious omission. Plus, if you want a highly stratified feudal society with stuffy, pompous aristocracy and disgruntled peasants inspired by medieval England, you need look no further than Warhammer Fantasy's Brettonia for inspiration.

However, the game can't really make up its mind about what part of Britain Edina is supposed to be. The culture seems to be grounded in negative stereotypes of the English upper class, and the castle is located where London would be, but the name "Edinbear" is clearly derived from Edinburgh, pointing at a specifically Scottish theme. You could give a Celtic tone to Edina, with druids, bards, and fey folk about. Perhaps you could even do both, with chivalric knights in the southeast and forest-dwelling highlanders in the north and west. Edina's elitist nature could easily be a consequence of its multicultural society, with its ruling caste adopting a sense of superiority to exert its authority over conquered tribes.

This, too, would lend itself well to potential plots. We don't see the common people of Edina, but there is likely plenty of discontent with the ruling class - and the PCs might be just what the powder keg needs to descend into full-scale revolt...