[Dreaming Stars] A Sample World, Part 2

Continuing with our sample world ruled by an art-obsessed theocracy as well as the further categories of the Arcana Wiki Random Nations generator, we come to:

Major Political Issues

The generator lists 10 different political issues. Let's pick the more interesting (we should not feel obligated to use all of them - the generator is supposed to be used for inspiration after all, and if some entries don't fit it is okay to discard them):

• By their works shall ye know them
• Mystery Of Big Black Cat Deepens In NY Suburb
• Human-animal hybrid ban sought at Louisiana session

The first entry refers to religious groups 'which were dedicated with not seeking out the truth, but with obscuring facts and only presenting their own narrow world view as "the Truth"' I don't want to paint the entire state religion in this vein - but perhaps there is a subgroup which attempts to manipulate the current theology for its own purposes? Perhaps which emotions are "bad" (and thus need to be banished into artwork) and which are "good" has changed over time thanks to the machinations of this group (perhaps including sexual desire, which would explain the current views on it). Which implies that determining religious dogma is not the sole job of the Veiled Prophet, but of some kind of religious council. So what is the role of the Veil Prophet? Maybe he is basically the Head Oracle - someone powerful in the psionic discipline of ESP, in particular precognition.

The other two entries hint towards the geneticists attempting to create human-animal hybrids - possibly animals of the feline kind. But why cats? Hmmm... cats sleep a lot, so maybe the geneticists attempted to create a new species of powerful Dreamers - that is, beings with strong aptitude in the psionic discipline of Dream Control, which after all is necessary for moving to the Plane of Dreams and back again, which makes interstellar travel possible. But maybe their experiments got loose, and now most of the cat people joined with the Dream Pirates - which in turn has caused the church (and thus, the government) to consider banning further experiments and persecuting the geneticists.

Major Projects

• Chinese Say They're Building 'Impossible' Space Drive
• Bible Retranslation Project
• Moscow Mayor Promises a Winter Without Snow

Which the geneticists are attempting to stave off by claiming that they have a new genetic construct planned which will make dream travel easier than ever before, allowing fast transition and even faster travel within the Plane of Dreams once they have worked out a few final bugs. What could possibly go wrong?

Meanwhile, the religious splinter group mentioned above is attempting to "retranslate" the holy texts of the faith to make them fit their own agenda. Oh, and the Veiled Prophet has uttered a cryptic prophecy about a "Winter Without Snow" - to make it remarkable, let's make this world colder than average. Furthermore, only one hemisphere should be heavily inhabited as otherwise you'd have to wonder which hemisphere's winter he was referring to.

Economics

• Robonomics
• Just-in-Time Socialism
• Colonial Economy

Now it gets interesting. Robonomics implies a fairly high tech base, as well as a certain amount of dedication that everyone's needs are taken care of - society seems to have a strong altruistic impulse, which may even be genengineered into the population (remember - this world, like all the others in the setting, is inhabited by a variant of the human species, not "baseline" humans as we know them). "Just-in-Time Socialism" implies that the government can fairly accurately predict future needs of society, whether long term or short term - another hint that this human subspecies has an aptitude for ESP and precognition.

So where does the Colonial Economy fit in? Well, given that societies where people have to work for a living are presumably rather rare among the Dreaming Stars, this world might see a lot of immigrants - especially since the state religion is also sending missionaries elsewhere. But what to do with all those immigrants? Well, maybe there are a few less settled continents on the planet, so the newcomers can be put there - and since the social welfare infrastructure isn't as developed there, these regions often end up as "company towns" with some merchant house or guild controlling all local affairs (possibly with the pseudo-Rosicrucians attempting to establish their own power base).

To be continued...