The Inland Sea

If we're going to discuss tropes of fantasy maps, the first one that comes to mind is surely a continent with a defined western coast and an indiscriminate landmass to the east. But inland seas are up there too. In addition to looking otherworldly, they serve a practical purpose - as Anders H. of Mythlands points out in his Fantasy Map Review series, a sufficiently large inland sea means that pretty much every part of the map is accessible from every other part of the map. I, personally, prefer long multi-stage journeys through multiple lands, but that's just me. It seems that inland seas are particularly associated with the sword and sorcery subgenre, likely because of Howard's Vilayet and Gygax's Nyr Dyv - I also suspect that this is because it provides for more area for pirate adventures to take place.

It's convenient, then, for the purposes of my project to reimagine the world of the original Dragon Quest trilogy as a sword and sorcery setting, that Dragon Quest III boasts a rather large inland sea. The distorted geography of DQ3's overworld combines the Black and Caspian Seas into a single body of water, almost as big as the pseudo-Mediterranean to the southwest. I've stated before that DQ3's overworld doesn't seem to be as big as the actual Earth, but the comparative sizes of the two seas does still give us reason to believe that it's quite a big one, and consequently, probably well-settled, with copious ports and trade routes to be found.

According to my theories on Erdland's geography, the Sea forms the eastern border of the Romalian Empire, with the Worldforest to the east, Ashalam and Baharata to the south, and the Kingdom of Dragons to the north. It's connected to the surrounding ocean by what are either rivers or (in my opinion, more likely) straits. Though we don't see any large settlements here in-game, it's reasonable to assume that such a large body of water so closely connected to the sea where Romaly and Portoga are located would be an important center for trade. This is supported by the fact that the terrain on the western and southern shores consists mostly of easily-settled plains - considering these shores would be controlled by Romaly and the Baharatan kingdoms, there are surely a number of important ports there.

Beyond that, I'd place a number of city-states, or even thalassocratic leagues thereof, around the coasts of the Inland Sea. Kings and merchants would surely be keen to take advantage of its strategic location and carve out dominions for themselves, ranging from stately maritime republics a la Venice to lawless dens of piracy. Considering the northern continent is ruled by dragons, the cities around its shore of the Sea would likely be heavily fortified and with formidable navies to defend themselves against their monstrous neighbors.

One might expect a similar quality from the cities bordering the Worldforest in the east - these ports would have plentiful access to wood, likely making them centers of shipbuilding and great exporters of timber, but the lack of infrastructure in the feral Worldforest would require them to rely on their own might. They are likely dependent on foreign imports for goods as well, trading wood for crops and luxuries they have limited access to themselves. If the Worldtree allows for travel (and, consequently, trade) with Torland, these ports may be some of the most important arteries supplying Torlandic goods into Erdland, but with the tree far afield inland, getting them to the port is another story - and perhaps a good opportunity for adventurers.

Locations in or around the Inland Sea include:

• Olivia Cape: A narrow point in the middle of the Sea. An inn is present on the southern shore, and a local legend tells that the cape's namesake, a woman named Olivia, drowned herself here after her husband, Eric, was lost at sea; her ghost now forbids ships to pass. Even without the ghost, it's likely a treacherous route due to its narrow nature and the presence of large shoals.
• The Shrine of Shackles: An island in the western half of the Sea that prisoners are exiled to. Given the geographic placement, it was likely established as a penal colony by the Romalians; however, the one named canonical resident, Simon (more on him in a moment - he's the most frustrating historical reference the translators missed), was exiled there by the king of Samanao. This is almost certainly me overanalyzing a decades-old video game (but then, what part of this project isn't?), but this could point to a historical treaty between Samanao and Romaly, comparable to how Russia and Germany were able to exile Napoleon to Elba.

The Romalian Empire

It does not feel this massive when you're walking around.

After leaving Aliahan, the first place you go in Dragon Quest III is the city of Romaly. Or Romaria, depending on which version you're playing. For the purposes of The Saga of the Ortegids, I'm going with Romaly being the city, and positioning it as the capital of a much larger Romalian Empire. The comparisons with the Roman Empire are obvious given the city's name and location, but aside from the superficial stuff, it's also the first city you go to that has an arena where you can wager money on the outcomes of battles, much like the Colosseum. The king is a greedy, feeble-minded man with no real desire to rule, to the point of insisting on passing his title to the first people who can help him with his problems as an excuse to abdicate and spend his wealth gambling. This makes for quite a memorable NPC, despite him having little importance beyond that, and it certainly brings to mind some of the more corrupt and decadent Roman emperors. In the game, you have to decline the offer if you want to progress (accepting means you get to walk around as the NPCs salute you, but you can't leave the city). However, if you want to incorporate domain-level play into your campaign, having a king so eager to offer the throne to the PCs could be a useful way to introduce players to this side of the game.

Romaly was likely founded as an ancient Aliahanian colony, given that there is a portal in a shrine in Aliahan that dumps you out pretty close to the capital. After the old Aliahanian Empire fell, Romaly was likely a center of power that was able to exert considerable control over its surroundings once communication with Aliahan was lost. It stands to reason that the region would have been settled fairly extensively by Old Aliahanians, and there would surely be many such ruins in the area. It's also not hard to imagine Romalia styling itself as a successor to Aliahan as the great empire of the world, and may have taken on some of its traditions, at least in the past - compare the Byzantine Empire's relationship to Rome. Or the Holy Roman, or the Ottoman, or the Russian, or...you get the idea.

There are two human villages located to the north of Romaly, Kazave and Noaniels, as well as Elvenham, a secluded kingdom of xenophobic elves living in the woods. Neither Kazave nor Noaniels has a king; additionally, villagers in the inn at Kazave mention happenings in Noaniels, which suggests there's some level of contact between the two - at least enough for rumors to spread. Based on this, I'm inclined to run both villages as subjects of the Romalian Empire, which would set its boundaries as running from the impassible mountains on the border with Portoga in the west to the Inland Sea (every sword and sorcery setting needs one of those!) in the east - I've marked this with red lines on the map. This would make Romalia by far the largest nation in Erdland, again fitting the Roman parallels. This is an empire in its prime - one of great wealth, luxury, and power. However, the Imperial forces might be stretched rather thin, considering no one has done anything about the curse in Noaniels. Noaniels is thus most likely a frontier territory of little concern to the imperial core. Thus, Romalia offers the sweet spot of being centralized enough for courtly drama to take place, but still feudal enough for there to be untouched opportunities for exploration and adventure where civilization hasn't smoothed things over. There's certainly enough territory, and room to place adventure sites, that one could run an entire campaign that never leaves the boundaries of the Empire.

Art by Samuel Sandelin

This is particularly of note when one looks at the western region of the Empire, which is cut off from the capital region by high mountains and is only accessible through a pass in the north, west of Kazave. I would, personally, add more passes closer to Romaly for the sake of player convenience, even if that route is the most accessible. Despite the geographic separation, the area consists largely of plains, which would appear quite habitable even though there's no settlements in that area in the game. I would hypothesize that this region is also Romalian territory, but a rough borderland where the law is at its weakest since it's cut off from the rest of the Empire - it is, after all, the location of Shampan Tower, the redoubt of a powerful bandit warlord, and it's mentioned that the place has been a hideout for criminals for generations. If one wanted to murderhobo their way across Romalia, they would face the fewest repercussions here. Of course, if one wanted a wilder, points-of-light style setting, it could just as easily be ran as unsettled wilderness yet to be fully explored.