Design Notes

Seawall 

- is loosely based on famous ports like Venice (masked society, canals, nightly festivities), Amsterdam (architecture, the eponymous seawall holding an entire ocean at bay), and Tortuga (smuggler's den, "captain's democracy", has been destroyed and rebuilt on more than one occasion). The slums of the city are inspired by New York's "Five Points" and resemble "Dutch favelas".

Amaranth

- part Persia, part Carthage (a once mighty empire that used to rival Tiberium in splendor, founded by a dead God-King, had a formidable navy, wicked cultured) with a dash of Egypt (harness rivers, build pyramids, slaves), and Babylon (final resting place of Xandar the Unmoved, elected autarchs are called the Lions of Amaranth, hanging gardens, ziggurats, artificial oasis). The region resembles Mesopotamia (oak forests) and the Fertile Crescent/Nile Valley. .

Mourn 

- "Shangri-La"; Nepal, Tibet, and the Himalayas, its three major ethnic groups are a melting pot of Sherpas, Gurkhas, and Sikhs and are regarded as fierce and hardy mountain folk. There are strong hints of Boshido Buddhism; their famous (and unreproducible) steel working method is based on Damscus Steel and traditional Katana forging; the Jinn are reminescent of Tibetan Monks and Chinese alchemists; warrior "Aesthetics" possess a "desireless temperment", wear steel "tiger-claws" gut plates, white tiger pelts, and snarling, wickedly horned masks (resembling Oni). Journeying to their fortress monasteries is a perilous journey (like crossing the Himalayas), and they are rarely troubled anymore by Yavanna.

Troika

- Heavily based on Russian Cossacks and the Sami peoples; their noble cavalry resemble Poland's winged hussars, only mounted on reindeer bred for battle. Their mercenary adventurers in Yavanna and Amaranth resemble Varangian Guard. Their history with Tiberium was short lived and lifted from the war between the Kievan Rus and Byzantine Empire. The geography of Troika is a fusion of Alaska (giant bears, salmon, northern lights, Tenneu, the Pale Sea), Iceland (active folkanoes, hotsprings, fjords), and Siberia (vast open plains, tundra, icefields, changes dramatically come spring and summer). The Pale Sea is a cross between the Baltic, the Black Sea in Crimea,and the Ross Sea in Antarctica.

Yavanna

- a mashup of Classical Greece and India; its troops look like Rajput warriors and Sarmatian knights, only stuck in the bronze age. There's lots of silk, banners, bold colors, and exotic animals (elephant rickshaws), and a huge land divided among warring princes and ruled by a brutal caste hierarchy. The geography varies from snowcapped mountains and glaciers to cloud forests, jungles, and iron oxide (red) deserts. Khajuraho temple architecture. Courtship plays a huge role in power politics among the Suitor Princes. Mountain-carvings,

Hue

- Indochina with its exotic riches; inks, dyes, and silk, with elements of Edo Japan (mostly just its xenophobia, hygiene, pederasty and minimalism, flower arrangements). China (Junker ships, acrobatic martial arts blend interpretive dance and kung-fu, floating cities just for merchants, a naked divine emperor, consider Kraken a delicacy; nobles drink Quicksilver to prolong their lives), Vietnam ( boatpeople, wrestling, terraced farming, rice paddies, water buffalo, coracles, Halong Bay, headbands, lots of incense, jade, paper lanterns, metal fans as weapons, Angkor Wat meets Chinese pagodas, aristocrats dress like Boi opera singers/Kabuki actors); the size of New Zealand

Nesoi Isles (Pacific Islanders, Mayans, the "Sea People")

- a cross between Pacific Islanders and the Maya; peerless navigators, astrologers, left their homelands just so they build some sweet fucking pyramids on tiny islands, swords look like obsidian edged cricket bats/knives, bolos, darts, poison. feathered cloaks, peacock/turkey headdresses, bone armor, warpaint, cryptic monuments; supposedly they are the original ancestors of all men (and distant cousins of the Tenneu and Mer) having spread to Yavanna, Ezeniri, Ys, and Land's End. Brown-skinned, tall, heavy, dreadlocks, tribal tatts, loin cloths, animal pelts; eat barley, plantains, fish, fowl, fruit; Viking funerals; considered Ys to be cursed, may have made contact with Vaalbara. Worshipped Baathyal, the Void Queen, above all other deities. No domesticated animals.

Ys (Hawaii, Tasmania, Tropical-Vikings)

- visually inspired by the Kona of Cloud Atlas, Ys itself is based on Hawaii (a big, volcanic island) and Tasmania (an imperial penal colony with an indigenous population). Its people are like "tropical-Vikings", raiding far and wide, and live in driftwood villages, war shanties, gambling, rum, bone-reading; horses, dogs, pigs, the dreaded cockatrice, cattle; war canoes; hunt Kraken; fear the island's impenetrable jungles, miasmic swamps, lava fields, and feverish rivers, as well as its terrifying wildlife, sailor/tribal tatts/piercings, grisly amulets, paint themselves with ashes, blood, chalk, clay, soot, etc. Cannibals, when the mood takes them. File their teeth into points.

Tiberian Ecumene (Classical Rome/Greece)

- much of what is known about Tiberium has been romanticized and embellished in the centuries since its collapse. It had Roman (meritorious republic, Legionnaires, phalanxes, galleys, urban planning, marvels of engineering, gladiators, slavery, bathhouses, state-sponsored orgies, absorbed conquered peoples and adopted their customs, war machine; names of government heads, Tribunes, Consuls, Magistrate, Questor, Provost, Executor Guard) and Greek elements (citizen soldiers, originally one of many city-states, painted shields, art style, pottery). Tiberium has the shape of Cape Cod but looks like a cross between Alpine Italy (rustic, pastoral, lots of vineyards, rolling hills, stately cypress trees) and Southern Greece (crystal clear, blue waters, sparkling whitewashed cities, white beaches)

Land's End (Pacific Northwest, Celtic Britain, Iroquois, Wales)

- the Oldgrowth is inspired by the world's great forests - the Black forests of Germany (where the trees grow so close together light hardly reaches the ground, and there is a ruthless cycle of growth and decay), the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest (overcast, salmon runs, drizzly grizzlies), and the Amazon (incredible variety of life and culture, a thousand shades of green). Its people - the Landsmen - are based on Celts (druids, iron age tribes, blue warpaint/tattoos, human sacrifice) and Amazonian tribes (piercings, grasshuts, spearfishing, foraging, no agriculture, nudity). The Prydein are Welsh, the Riverine are like Voodoo Creoles + Iceni, The Lethe are wild Amazonian-like druids who live closest to the Elves, the Tenneu are Selkies + Inuit + Vikings, The Bede crofters are expert weavers, famous for their knotwork, and chroniclers but live close to the Marches (adopted writing, are friendly cousins with the Prydein), the Suttoon are like Saxons and Sarmatian knights, the Kindred Elves look like Woodland Indians

Canton – New England (Yeomen farmers, American Gothic, Pastoralism), Oklahoma (migrant farmers, Dustbowl), Saxons/Puritans (technologically superior migrants who pushed out/massacred the local natives)

Freesia - Gothic Germany (cathedral like castles, skilled metal/woodworking/masonry, townships, general aesthetic), Swiss Alps, Lithuania (weird pagans)

Denedell – Fins/Appalacians (genetic isolation, appearance), Woodsmen/mountainfolk, lots of rockslides on the slopes, plenty of stone to quarry, biggest settlements around the crater's lakeshore, king lives on an island in the middle of Anvil Lake, most think the whole world is encompassed by the Cloudy Crown mountains and there is no world beyond, blood feuds (the country was founded over a hunting argument), manhauling sleds, friendly with Freesia but is considered a backwater kingdom,