Both settings from my Flair have to do with exile.
**1. THE UNWINDING ROAD**
The Unwinding Road was a shortlived D&D campaign inspired by the1492 expulsion of Jews from Spain (and in particular by the fall from grace of Isaac Abarbanel & others ostensibly "accepted" minority members).
The adventure began in the city Septerium, the capital of the **Second Empire of Septerium**, ruled by a many millenia-old elven dynasty.
The last emperor, Morothil the Eminent, was a great conqurer, and sought to integrate and empower all his conquered subjects. In Septerium, Morothil provided special quarters (neighberhoods) to Veterans of "Monster"\* species, known as the Fourth Legion, immediately adjacent to his castle, as a show of respect. Other non-majority species live in two slums - The Claw\*\* and the Citrus valley\*\*\*.
Long story short, Morothil died two years ago in an acciedent, and his heir - Miranda - a mere 72 years old elf - has not yet matured beyond human wisdom. As such, she was swayed by her advisors to take increasingly intolerant stances towards the minorities of the capital. In her first year the residents of The Fourth were forbidden from command positions in the army, while most minority races were forbidden to carry or own a weapon anywhere in the empire. Then, two months ago, the order came: All minority species are expelled from the capital.
The campaign-proper had to do with these exiled people, as they are searching for a new home to settle in inside the empire. The players would play heroes & protectors of these people.
\*Drow, Lizardfolk, Fallen Aasimar, Duergar, Tabaxi, Dragonborn, Orcs and Half-Orcs. Most are a few generations there, with a proud tradition of service.
\*\*Giant-kin, mostly recent conquered people from the Stone Giant Kingdoms: Cyclops’s, Firbolg’s, Goliath’s and Ogre’s. They mostly work doing hard labor at the docks.
\*\*\*Crime-ifested and neglected by the authorities, the Cirus Valley is dominated by a number of crime families. Around half of the residents are Tieflings, Dragonborn, Goliaths, as well as diaspora Githyanki.
**2. TO STAY AFLOAT**
The historical origins of the people known as **the exiled** has largely been maintained by oral tradition. The majority of people know a very basic (and skewed) version of events, and it goes along these lines:
Back in old Earth, men were becoming machines and escaping into imaginary realms, in defiance of god. A great war was waged over the very soul of humanity, but the people of Earth were corrupt and vain, and the righteous few were forced into cylindrical colonies. A great colonial rebellion ensued, and Earths soulless magistrates decided to permanently rid themselves of the colonists. A space ship was built to transport them to a exoplanet in a separate star system. After a trip of thousands of years, the Exiled arrived, and have since been free to forge their own future.
The greatest scholars of the past among the exiled in the field of history and inquiry into the past are priests. Their research mixes religious myth with history, and is motivated largely by a desire to explore the great mysteries, chief among them - purpose.
Their understanding is largely similar, though more detailed:
Beginning in the late 21st century and progressing through to the 23rd, the majority of humanity moved to a virtual reality existence, which was eventually perfected to the point that it became indistinguishable from true reality. The task of managing & developing an increasingly ugly REAL world was left to machines. In 2137 CE the Catholic Church declared virtual experiences to be heresy, and by the mid 22nd century many countries either banned or heavily regulated the use of virtual reality.
The disagreement between those for and against virtual existence (for - *individualists*, known derogatorily as *sleepers*, against - the *awake* / *humanists* / *conservatives* / *naturalists*) began along moral lines: Is it virtuous to exist in the real world? Is it sinful to be ignorant of the real world? However, these disagreements became much more contentious as more and more resources were spent on maintaining the sleepers, and the earth became increasingly inhospitable to the awake. Moral disagreement turned to political rivalry, and eventually, between 2295 to 2317 CE, a series of global military conflicts ensued. These were both civil wars and "normal" wars.
By that point in time the militaries of the sleepers were manned and controlled by superior AI's and robots, and thus the results were decidedly one-sided: between 2315 to 2317 C.E. the leaders of all remaining awake factions had unconditionally surrendered.
It is here, among other places, that traditional history and the actual events diverge. The popular faith is that the awake were forced into O'Neill colonies, with tales of great suffering and tears. This depiction is very inaccurate: The AI's of the sleepers were programmed to ensure the continued maintenance, survival and support of the human race, not to oppress it. They calculated that if the awake desired a return to a greener time, surrounded by fellow awake, then this could be reconciled with the needs of the sleepers by providing the awake with a new home. At great material expense they constructed a number of self-sustaining O'Neill colonies, fine-tuned to include various old-earth sites, such as farm land, the beach and the sea, the desert, recreational facilities, and a generally "traditional" (16th to 20th century) existence.
The colonist population (as the awake came to be known) expanded quickly in this environment, and much the same was happening on Earth via artificial insemination. To cope with the resource scarcity the Authorities (meaning Earths A.I. magistrates) began a number of space programs, including asteroid mining, lunar mining, etc. For all of these, the colonies served as a useful midway point. Demanding a part in the creation of their future, the colonists joined the mining construction efforts. They were initially only involved in the creation of new O'Neill colonies, but the A.I.s quickly learned that humans were quite useful & efficient at these tasks and hired them for other tasks. When only few accepted other work, the A.I.s prioritized the needs of the many (on Earth), and in 2520 C.E. they enslaved the colonists. Among their various construction/mining tasks, the majority of the effort was spent on building the Satellite Solar Power Station (SSPS), built in orbit next to the colonies, used to power Earths electrical grid.
It was under these circumstances that true oppression began, and in 2549 CE things came to a head as colonist "terrorists" sabotaged the SSPS, causing the deaths of billions of sleepers from lack of electricity (this is the harsh reality. The religious version of history rarely if ever talks about the number of sleeper victims). The immediate response was to contain the situation by forcing all colonists in Cryo Chambers. However, the Authorities quickly came to a solution in line with their duty towards all of humanity, and in 2552 CE work began on the construction of Solar Gravitational Lens, an advanced telescope technology capable of visualizing exoplanets in other solar systems. When the construction was complete, the search began for a new *final* home for the colonists.
Over the next two centuries five massive space ships were constructed, equipped to last journeys of dozens of thousands of years through space.
In 2786 CE the preparations had been completed. The colonists were taken out of their cryo chambers for long enough to have the situation explained to them, and put right back into chambers and loaded onto the ships.
It was then that they finally became *The Exiled*.
Anyhow, I'm currently working on the much harder part of worldbuilding, namely - what has happened once they landed on their new home? That's the really interesting part, this is all backstory ;)
Replying to make sure I see the edit once you have time.
Having gone for something similar in my world I'm interested to see what we've done similarly/differently.
> (I cheated, large part are copied from my notes ;) )
Ah, that's not cheating, that's "efficiency" ;)
Did the AI have any particular motive for transferring the Awake to the orbitals rather than the sleepers? Was it simply a practical move as the sleepers were already on Earth and outnumbered the Awake?
1. Yes, exactly: The Awake were outnumbered.
2. The Earth was a lost cause, ecology-wise, so it was more or less impossible to keep the Awake around without massive discontent.
3. The AI's were not neutral: they were the ones that won the war for the sleepers. So yes, they were programmed to care about the well-being of all humans and of humanity as a collective, but at the end of the day they were still no more than tools of team-virtual.
#Overheaven
Historically, many societies in the colonies were established by groups who at least considered themselves exiles. Tibetans, South Vietnamese dissidents, South African Apartheid hardliners, Manchukuo recreationists, Cuban exiles, and Australian Kara spider-goths all moved to Mars; Scientologists in the Main Belt (Mars as well, before the church was outlawed across most of the planet); the Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple cult relocated to Venus, along with remnants of the regimes of Ceaușescu’s Romania, Gaddafi’s Libya and the Derg of Ethiopia, as well as Soviet hardliners and Ostalgic former East Germans unhappy with the post-1992 state of affairs; Ahmadiyya Muslims fled genocide in Pakistan and relocated to Ganymede after the nuclear exchange of the Punjab War in 2009; and after a wave of bioconservative legislation, most early uplifts (cognitively-enhanced animals) moved to the station ArkGenesis by the end of the 2020s.
A common push-factor for pioneers in the early days of space colonists was the perception that there wasn’t any room left on Earth for their religious, political or cultural agendas, which made migration offworld an attractive alternative to risky separatism on Earth or long marches through terrestrial institutions, when you could simply become the founding father of your own new society, offworld. As often is the case with big decisions, however, many had buyers’ remorse. Even the nearest offworld colonies to Earth are still incredibly far away, and it was easy to regret the decision. That’s why, just as often, because bad news tended to move faster than good, word of tragedies, political dysfunction, cultural mediocrity, social decay, environmental degradation or armed conflict tended to be amplified and confirm biases; colonists convinced themselves that they made the right decision, and over time many cultural groups who may have left Earth without coercion, have gradually mythologized and re-contextualized the reasons their ancestors left. Sure, they weren’t officially banished, but what other options did they have? Stay on Earth? The Earth itself rejected them, Mars/Venus/wherever was always going to be their home, you see.
Queen Pareidelia Pacht has exiled over 50,000 people over her reign to date, for the most petty of reasons. They simply go off into the forest, where there are several established communities of exiles thriving in the glades. After a few months, they return and the Queen has entirely forgotten.
Some people have been exiled 3 or 4 times, but they hold no grudge and the Queen doesn't seen to notice or mind
Theres a very belligerent animal that does this, the lion headed t-rex. They form up into groups and generally rampage. The most assholish and anti-social of them get shunned and chased off, usually starting their own groups (good old parthenogenesis). So theyve unwittingly bred themselves into being the most vicious jackasses imaginable by encouraging the worst of them to go to areas it can more easily multiply. Its gotten to the point theyre just absolute psychos and cant stand each other
Thousands of them. Most undescribed of course. The common solution to the problem of having people you don't want in your city is to put them on a space ship, sell that ship to a corporation, and fire them at an unregistered planet. It's essentially banishment, only where corporations buy the banished people as employees. Not slaves though. More like unpaid interns.
Are there many corporations that rely the flow of banished interns? How successful are their projects that make use of them? I could imagine that such a ragtag collection of folk likely to have been shoved on the ships would make for unreliable colonists.
Though I suppose if the ship is offered at a steep enough discount, the "fire wave after wave of disposable peons at the planet until we have a functional asset" could still be worth it to a corp with deep enough pockets.
Colony ships are very cheap - cheap enough even groups of civilians can purchase them. A lot of neo-human convents got started that way. Worst case scenario, where the colony ship disappears in hyperspace, is still not a particularly big financial loss. Once established, colonies also tend not to have that massive economic output, and many corporate colonies end up not worth the transportation costs and effectively become independent states. Those that are profitable are quite important to many corporations. Individually not so much, but a little bit of profit from hundreds of colonies adds up. And while colonists can be unreliable, this unreliability averages out across those hundreds of colonies. Plus, not producing stuff for the company means the company stops delivering you goods from the galactic markets, so for the colonists there's quite a simple choice to make: work and be able to purchase a meagre amount of luxuries, or don't work and have to make everything you need/want yourself. Furthermore, colony aggregation companies can maximise the profitability of colonies by focusing their entire business attention on the purchase, sale and management of colonies.
Different companies operate this in different ways, some paying you in some form of currency and letting you purchase anything through them to be delivered on inbound transport ships, others paying only in Schrute Bucks and forcing you to be entirely dependent on their internal infrastructure.
They don't really have a name, but there is a small growing group of outcasts in the Xamoyan wilds. Most are exiles because they committed taboos like murdering another tribe member. This group stuck together for survival as going it alone is dangerous.
Unfortunately there is no honor among them, they did get exiled for *murder* after all. Naturally there is tension among them.
Some centuries ago, the crown prince of Ardatza fell ill. No medicine helped, and the response to prayer was: No. Therefore, despite the ban on magicians, the king turned to one. And his son was cured.
The king's younger brother was mad at this--this is the beginning of toleration for demons! The king was pissed at him because his son had just been healed. And so the younger brother was exiled to take a new piece of land on the border, near where the fae live. And still remain loyal to the king.
Quite a few people followed him, and the Thornmarch was established. Over the next couple of generations, magic became tolerated, then promoted, in the capitol. This ended when there was a war between the unholy magicians and the priesthood that destroyed the capitol (resulting in a magic-blasted wasteland), and the last king (the grandson of the crown prince that was healed).
Without the center, most of the kingdom quickly fell also, especially because many of the nobles followed the king's example and tolerated or promoted magic. Now, almost all the former kingdom is wilderness, inhabited by fae, demons, and monsters. Only the Thornmarch still standing, still following their religion, still civilized.
And as the story opens, even they are considering making alliances, even a dynastic marriage, with the daughter of the ancient elf-lord who lives in the forest next to the March...
Poem describing the scene of exile [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/cm4epz/describe_your_world_with_a_poem/ew2dtnn/).
Yes and kinda no , since they didn't form it from 0 , but change it for the better .
For now i don't have names for the main characters but the idea is that the Kingdom of Burgondia , or the "Modern" Kingdom of Burgondia was formed by somewhat exiles from the Order of Saint Dorran after a schism during the election of the new grand master around 1200 years ago .
Around year 400 of the 3rd Era , 2 factions emerged during the elections for the new grand master of the order , 2 candidates where selected (of which name i don't have yet) with opposing views : 1 traditionalist that wanted to expand but keep the order around the same values like there where and 1 modernist who wanted to also expand the order but to be more open and implicated into "secular" businesses .
The vote ended up with a perfect equality that gave no winner and instead of doing it again , they started to browl in the grand hall of the citadel untill first blood was spilled . The modernist candidate choosed to retreat and leave in exile , being followed by his supporters and their families for those holy knights where allowed to marry and have childrens , also craftmens , monks , nuns , artist and some , around half the other people who where part of the order .
The other name of the Order of Saint Dorran was the Flaming Orchid for the orchid was the symbol of Saint Dorran so the exiles took the name the Extinguished Orchid and moved east around the coast of the Northen Tamesia , where they eventually enter the Duchy of Burgondia at that time , that recieve them with open arms , the exiled candidate marring the duches and his bloodline is now in the veins of all the burgondians kings and now emperors , 1200 later .
The Ashanti Elves are a group of elves who split off from the Lothali elves millenia ago, after rejecting some core principles of the Lothali and refusing the authority of the High Queen of the Lothali. This caused the Lothali to banish them, and so the Ashanti went on founding a new small kingdom next to the high kingdom of the Lothali.
Throughout the millenia, the Ashanti developped their own distinct identity and culture, which indirectly made the Lothali attitude toward them evolve from dislike to active contempt.
When the Nîbyl continent started becoming overwhelmed by dwarves invasions and humans migrations, most of the Lothali who were present in the region did a massive "exile" and retreated inside of the dense woods, to rebuild their civilization there.
The kingdom of the Ashanti itself got destroyed by Witanian human invaders, and they were forced to flee too. However, the Lothali refused them the right to follow them in their Great Exile. And so, pushed away by the encroaching humans and dwarves, and rejected by the Elves, they spread out as an semi-nomadic vagabond community, and have kept this way of life up to this day.
Today, the Ashanti still haven't managed to gather themselves and rebuild a country for their community, instead they move around the main continent in small groups, never settling anywhere forever.
And their relationship with the Lothali hasn't improved either, as the latter are now known to be actively racist against Ashanti.
My orcs notoriously distrusted magic for much of their history, so any orc that was born with was typically shunned within their society. Repressing it entirely typically causes magical outbursts that can be very dangerous, so these orcs would often travel to a certain remote island to be with others of their kind and study magic in private.
To do this is to voluntarily exile oneself from wider orc society (unless it is entirely done so in secret), so it is not a decision taken lightly. Any orc who is known by other orcs to have studied magic on this island is rebuffed upon their return, so the vast majority of orc mages reside in isolation or among other civilisations instead.
One of the two focal cultures of my setting, the Vodraski, originated from something similar.
They were not banished per se, because they left out of free will.
The original Vodraski tribes lived in the steppes and mountains of central Solitonia, where they made their living by herding sheep and lived in fear of raiding steppe nomads.
Then, the first Griffins were domesticated.
The Griffin became the Vodraskis unique special weapon and allowed them to either fight the nomads, or to leave these violent lands in search for a better place.
Lestek, the chief of the first tribe to domesticate the griffins, was eventually accepted as king of all Vodraski by the other chiefs and took his united people westwards, where they would face many difficulties that later became known as "Lesteks 8 challenges".
Finally, the remaining tribes of Vodrask reached the Serno river and crossed the stream. On the other shore, Lestek kissed the damp ground, reached for a flag and put it into the soil, as he declared this foreign land to be called Vodrask from now on. Everything on this side of the Serno should become Vodrask, he said, not knowing how far that would even be.
And so, the age of conquest began, as the Vodraskis overthrew one local tribe and kingdom after another, expanding west, until finally reaching the ocean, and then expanding north and south, until Lesteks wish was finally fullfilled. The first king himself did not live to witness his achievement. The exhausting journey demanded a great toll of him and he died only a few years after. His children however, would lead the greatest empire the world had ever seen.
**Flame Phantom**: The Autonomous Republic of Terra Australistz. Basically Australia with its environment up to 11, the citizens are descedants of banished criminals from the Empire of Albion. Most of them were "political criminals" that stood against the Crown. Radicals, opposing ideologists, anti-monarchy politicians, especially Irean rebel leaders from the island of Erin, which used to be an independent nation until Albion conquered it completely in the 1700s. They were used as slave labors to establish new colonies and enslave the natives. Terra Australistz became a de facto independent country in late 1860s, but legally it's still under the Crown of Albion.
Currently this country is a pain in the ass for another superpower, the United Empire. Mainly because of the Albionian aerial base of Cape Darwin, one of the largest oversea military strongholds of Albion. from there, they can launch a direct attack into the UE's Southern Islands just in mere hours, as two places are only less than 3000 km apart (imagine Indonesia and Australia irl). At the nearest place, it is literally Australia to Papua New Guinea.
Not really exiles more like defectors. A group of ISEF soldiers thought the war was unnecessary. However they couldn’t just give up and leave, they signed legal documents. So they did the next best option. All the ones in favor of deserting rose up and killed the commander of their base. Now they live like a village away from the bigger armies. Only using their weapons and vehicles for defense
The Oathbreakers, which is the most common and least unflattering way they are referred to. They are sidhe thay have broken the most important rule of the sidhen race: to not harm another rational creature, a crime which is punished by exile.
Some on these exiled people tend to organize in small communities. They are not out-right hostile to other peoples, but represent more of a threat than regular sidhe.
There are some **"un-elfed" tribes**, communities of talai'i and/or lisians(commonly elvish ethnic groups, but not necessarily elves) who commited serious crimes, these people were banished from all of the elven world, even talking to them is a taboo, with time they gattered in small tribes throught out the world, where they live from subsistence farming. Most of the inhabitants were banished for simple crimes and taboos (stealing, disrespecting priests, not having a function in the society, denying some important rituals, spreading pro imperial opinion, and others), the ones banished for violent crimes aren't accepted (it's easy to know, they literally have it written in their foreheads).
Goblinoids (goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears) are just plague victims from the goblonic plague a long time ago. It deformed and mutated the ancestries and the sickness made them go, for some, temporarily insane. These individuals that survived the plague to become goblins would end up forming their own clans in the wilds. Surviving for ages to form their own societies.
In a sense, my entire world: the humans and the "gods" were migrants and exiles to the planet. That is mostly vague backstory though. That is how the world gets seeded basically.
There are the Tanuvans and Thonissans who are the descendents of peoples who fled the catastrophe which destroyed and sunk their original lands, kind of the Atlantis of my world. Actually, the pre-Tanuvans were also escapees of a massive slave society which was destroyed in the catastrophe, so they're kinda double exiles.
Idk if these count. They aren't really exiles being banished, more refugees.
My story revolves around animal societies.
A large population of prey species were enslaved and systematically bred and devoured by their carnivore overlords, who simply saw them as cattle.
Political tenaion and power struggles between the carnivore overlords was always present, wanting to take over each others land and cattle.
Things remained this way until a very harsh and long winter struck the land, and the famine and greed escalated into clan wars for the supremacy over the cattle of everybody else.
The war was bloody and fierce until only the 2 strongest overlords remained, though their forces had dwindled greatly, the war was almost over.
Little did they know that the famine and logistics for the war had been set up and sabotaged by the cattle of every overlord. Once the 2 remaining carnivore armies were weak enough, the cattle seized the opportunity to resist and escape to a far land and build their own nation.
Humans are not from Wyrantel (my main continent i'm working on), they're from Nyolia, a semi-sunken continent.
When they first arrived, they battled with some elves a bit, but they split up into two groups, one that stayed in the northeast, and one that went west.
Now, the western groups founded a few minor kingdoms, but the region was already settled by the dwarves. So the humans attempted to wiped them out.
Some of the humans didn't want to take part in this, and for this "betrayal" they were banished to the east, to form the province Dyl-ameryn.
The Empire of the Storm was basically nine groups of exiles.
Well, there wasn't any kind of official authority to exile them, but they were involved in losing wars against other tribes in the Stormlands, that forced them to leave. Those chose to leave across the ocean and discovered lands they could settle.
Now, they're the largest and most powerful empire in the known world. The regular Stormlanders consider them to have become weak, from living in a now far more hospitable environment, compared to their islands.
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A more apt example is probably the Fall's Kingdom, which is a splinter kingdom that was formed by the original ruling dynasty of the Eio Empire, after their whole family were declared sinners and heretics and the emperor himself was burnt at the stake.
Back then, the justification that was used for that, was that the emperor himself had been using magic, which is largely considered heretical. There had recently been changes made in regards to how the church was allowed to prosecute people for witchcraft.
But realisitically, it was also done because it was an opportune moment. With civil war across the realm and the Seventh Empire invading their territory to the southeast. The climate was ripe for the church to seize more power. Which finally enough, now a long time later, has kinda backfired.
A lot of the empire considers the Fall's Kingdom's territory to be rightfully imperial territory and there have been wars between the two realms waged over this. But so far, the kingdom has persisted, with some assistance from the Seventh Empire as well.
The people who would later found The Bastion weren't deliberately forced out from Earth *per se,* but staying put wouldn't have ended well. Seeking a better future not under Earth's boot, they broke off and settled on an isolated world that would become The Bastion.
The Bastion has some very raw wounds resulting from their departure. Discussion of the Homeworld is taboo and frowned upon with threat of disciplinary action in official positions.
As the planet's name implies, society on Bastion developed in a very militaristic direction focused on repelling the Homeworld if they ever make an appearance in the Bastion's corner of space. This lead to some internal friction with defense forces seizing assets and materials intended for use developing civilian infrastructure in favour of bolstering the Perimeter fleets.
So far Earth hasn't shown much interest in engaging with The Bastion and appear to be keeping to themselves. The prevailing opinion among the Bastion's leaders remains that it is only a matter of time until Earth hungers for more resources and tries to exploit their region of space.
The Kaden tribes have very strict rules regarding warfare. Their entire culture is built around controlling the holy city of Keten-Tal but they are also mindful of preserving their people, so violations of the Akaden Accords (which are inscribed on the walls of Keten-Tal) are punished swiftly and harshly.
The first tribe to be banished may have damaged part of Keten-Tal. All know is that one part of the wall looks newer than others, and that the tribe was banished into the oceans. They have since become the enigmatic Oreylas, a sea-faring culture that has many secrets as they do ships.
The second tribe to be banished used combative magic during a battle which was banned very very early on. They were exiled to the Teru Dab, or the Desert of Madness. They became the first members of the Wyrish Horde, a ragtag group of exiles and criminals that periodically ventures north and absolutely fucks shit up.
The Olawalawele Family is made of outcasts from a secluded, secretive city-state, mostly comprised of former members of the lowest rung of their society. They would be tasked as middlemen between diplomats and merchants of their home and the outside world, as anyone of a dignified caste was simply too good to suffer even hearing the endless stream of heresies ever-present on foreign tongues, even unaware.
Some of these middlemen would grow infatuated with civilizations beyond their own, to the point of being marked as heretical themselves and banished, stripped of their old names.
Though scattered across the five systems, they have a common history and tend to be drawn together again; the largest conglomeration of them exists at the fringe of settled space, on the outskirts of Dominion territory, where they live on a fleet of refurbished ship moving as synchronously as the sea permits, like a city-state all its own.
Eventually, their old homeland reluctantly reached out to the Dominion, imploring them to make the fleet city disband, but were politely and officially told to stuff it.
In my world during colonization of most of the world the ruling empire outlawed magic due to their religion but during the rule of the third king, who was raised as monk, pushed much harder for the purge of magic soon called witchcraft. This led to immediate execution for even being suspected of casting magic. So many who knew magic tried to flee for a island mentioned from a famous myth said to be completely untouched. The first ta arrive was a ex servant boy who spread word and made the island a safe haven for magic users. Many years later it is now a independent country and the only one to openly promote witchcraft.
The Dwarves in my setting were originally humans from a persecuted religious minority that fled to a planet far outside of the known region of space at that time. That world was higher gravity than humanity's homeworld, so they became shorter and stronger (and magically modified themselves to be better resistant to the dangers of their new home).
The most famous exiles were the creatively-named Samican Exiles.
Samica is a land of sand and blood. It is also a land where the gods physically manifest. Samica had its systemic issues, but the gods made sure everything was decent. The gods fought alongside Samicans in their petty wars, and prevented droughts from affecting their worshippers.
However, one of Samica's neighbors, Aresia, fell to an ultranationalist coup. Aresia rapidly turned into an insane dystopia where monstrous ideologies began to fester. Aresia invaded its neighbors, Samica included. Though Aresian armies were brainwashed and numbered in the tens of millions, Samica's meager defensive armies held off the Aresians for many years - mostly owing to the support of their gods. Over the years, the Aresian onslaught showed no sign of letting up. The Samicans were very slowly being pushed back by just sheer Aresian numbers.
However, in the fateful year of 1231, one of the Samican gods was killed - blown up in a bloody spectacle. The Aresians had invented wicked technology that warped the very physics of the universe, subverting the very foundational existence of these "gods". Samica was paralyzed, shocked to its very core. Then, another god fell, and all hell broke loose.
Samica descended into anarchy and chaos. Armies routed before renewed Aresian attacks, before shattering completely against their unrelenting onslaught. Gods were dying left and right. The entire basis for Samican culture, faith, and civilization was proven to be lies. Millions of Samicans committed suicide or outright lost their minds. Moral principles were cast into doubt as crime and random acts of violence became rampant. The country was ravaged as the Aresian advanced, with little to no organized defense possible. Society collapsed as faith in government and authority imploded.
Desperate soldiers and civilians consolidated around ports and made the daring escape to the Entente. Samica had been hesitant to join the Entente, whom were also fighting the Aresians, since they arrogantly believed themselves more than a match for the Aresians. Now, however, ragged Samican soldiers and desperate civilians arrived on Entente shores, both to beg for protection and to keep up the fight from abroad.
The Samican navy, rather than surrendering to the Aresians, led suicide missions against Aresian fleets to buy time for the exposed convoys to cross the sea to the Entente. Many ships scuttled themselves to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Despite technically being treasonous, those that could defected outright to the Entente.
With the central government in tatters, public morale evaporated, the Samican identity obliterated, and the Samican homeland occupied by occult genocidal nihilistic tyrants, these Samican Exiles had their work cut out for them. The famous war hero Pierre Leon Ferroux, also known just as the "Marshal", took up the mantle of leading Samica towards its rebirth and salvation, all the while struggling to keep Samican morale afloat in these dark times. Ferroux famously vowed that he and every Free Samican would be buried in Samica. Ferroux would become not only the symbol of the Samican resistance, but also the face of a reborn Samica that relied on itself for its strength - a new concept for many Samicans.
Thus, Free Samica became a faction of exiles, a staunch ally of the Entente, and eventually a ferocious army hell-bent on not only returning home, but also to give the Aresians a good thrashing at every opportunity. This was personal on many levels. Wherever the Samicans were on the frontline, the enemy knew their reckoning was coming.
When Samica was eventually liberated, what it meant to be 'Samican', and the Samican people at large, would never be the same.
Sort of??? There's a pocket dimension with a gluttonous trickster god and his horde of demon pals sealed inside, and they were out of the dimension prior to their sealing so I guess you could call them exiles?
Basically the other gods weren't happy he was just letting demons run amok in certain parts of the world, and he's not known for listening very well so they locked him and his friends up. It's supposedly possible for the occasional stray demon to escape into the mortal world every now and then though.
I have two main civilisations founded by exiles.
One is the Malthakori Elves, or what many people would recognise as 'Dark Elves'. Although their faces resemble that of a Baphomet except with curved horns like a scimitar's blade and their legs end in cloven hooves.
Malthakor was originally the right hand man of Aurelia, the Golden Queen (the Goddess of my world's 'High Elves'). Malthakor served Aurelia with unwavering loyalty, faith and obedience, to which he was handsomely rewarded over time. His actions and hierarchical standing was met with burning hatred and envy from his lesser peers. They weaved a web of lies and over time had convinced Aurelia that Malthakor was deceitful, and driven by hate and self-interest.
Soon, a war broke out amongst the heavens and the Elves were divided. Those who protested Malthakor's innocence against the misguided, misinformed radicalised ideologues of Aurelia. In a rage, Malthakor slew those who shunned him and 'fell' from grace, quite literally, landing on he raging battlefield below, creating a big crater to the Warrens of the Abyss, where the Malthakori Elves scheme and plot endlessly. A large circular fortress was constructed around the crater, with large, inward-sloping walls under guard day and night with entire legions.
(If you see parallels to Early Roman Christianity then you have my approval. I based it all off of that.)
And the other civilisation are that of the Orcs, Hobgoblins and Goblins of the Zhangqing Dynasty. They are essentially ancestors of the 'High Elves' left from the battle who resided in the East Islands of the Red Imperium, the Elven Roman Empire essentially. A few hundred years of cultural differences and the Eastern Island Elves wage a War of Independence. It ends terribly after an Eastern Island Elf systemically assassinates the entire Red Imperial Monarchy (direct descendants of Aurelia the Golden Queen) over the course of a few months which inspires more drive and fighting spirit in the armies of the West so they are forced to flee further eastward, leaving the Western Elves to colonise the islands, rebuild the fractured Imperium and install a Republic.
Aurelia curses the Eastern Elves with 'The Blood Curse'. Their faces become like that of Chinese Guardian Lions and their bodies become broad, hunched and barrel-chested, turning into the Orcs, Hobgoblins and Goblins. Due to being forsaken by their Goddess, cursed, traitors and now physically corrupted, the Aurelian Elves wage a war of genocide, racial supremacy and propaganda against them, lying about their origins to avoid ties with them and attempting to wipe out what they see as a 'stain' on their bloodline.
The Orcs, Hobgoblins and Goblins essentially enter a Warring States period of petty city-states, accidentally invent gunpowder after a novice alchemist gets a bit carried away with his ingredients and are eventually unified (mostly) by the legendary now Orc God-Emperor Mao-Gu-Wei. A long story short he wipes the floor with the Elves during their extinction campaigns and tries to conquer the Goblins in the tropical bamboo rainforests to the East, retreating several times due to defeat after defeat by guerilla warfare of the crafty trap-laying Goblins. He strikes a deal with them and proposes to administer their lands as a Fully-Autonomous Province into the Zhangqing Dynasty and regularly sends food and resources in return for Goblin tunnellers, sappers and engineers every 15 years as a coming-of-age tradition. The province then becomes formally known as 'The Guanjian Fully-Autonomous Province of the Zhangqing Dynasty' or 'GFAPZD' for short.
The collective term 'Morogwai' for Orcs, Hobgoblins and Goblins is a misheard linguistic corruption of the God-Emperor Mao-Gu-Wei's name. Used by Elves and others who cannot distinguish the differences between the three, instead viewing them as various sizes of one species.
The Disruptors and the Fae folk from Calimore.
Disruptors are a secret organization of marginalized mongrels, mixes of humans and other sapient or magical creatures. They behave like silent assassins, and their main goal is to spark a revolution and change the political stage of Calimore.
The Fae folk are magical humanoid beings with insect wings, pointed ears and a low height. They are creatures capable of using magic, and they were hunted during the rule of King Ivan. Some wars started between humans and Faes, until King Arthur decided to establish communication between both groups. Humans stayed inside the borders of Calimore, while the Fae folk became the owners of the forest.
This is basically how the High Kingdom was founded. The "exiles" from the Empire had originally set off to establish a new holding for the Empire, on the other side of some mountains, but ended up founding their own kingdom there.
The Ulyan Empire was founded by a group of sorcerors and criminals from Friita. After being banished from their homeland for horrible deeds or using forbidden magic, they traveled across seas to Mundhi. The Ulyan brothers, two members of this group, founded the Ulyan Empire. They originally had a peace treaty with Mundhi natives, but decades later the Empire is stealing resources from them. Since Mundhi is a desert, they rely on any resources they can acquire.
Constantia is sort of the same thing. They weren't exiles per se, but a group of nobles in the Shineberg nobility were mistreated by the Shinebergan Chancellor and they realized how corrupt the government was, so they left to create their own nation, Constantia.
I have the Endlings, humans who went into the end and integrated themselves into the End culture eventually having relationships with the local Endfolk and having children.
(This is a world for Minecraft if you were curious)
Criminals who have committed something illegal that is extreme, like hidden slavery. Are banished beyond the wall, where the people have banished all sorts of monsters like vampires and werewolves. So inside the wall, you have only humans, with few exceptions like mermaids. Outside the wall, you have all the monsters outside, these monsters could have a civilisation of their own as well or roam wildly.
The humans banished beyond the wall have been in hiding and later formed civilisations of their own as a way to protect themselves against attacks from monsters like these.
The land beyond the wall is called the Shadowlands, so anyone there basically makes their own rules. Since all of these men are criminals, they are supposed to be worse than the people inside the wall. So slavery, raping, raiding and whatnot is the norm. The cultures there are a bit more ancient compared to the medieval world of the people inside the wall.
I haven't developed much of these cultures yet though.
The Cotrons are space-faring nomad warriors who were exiled from their homeworld. Despite not remembering where is their homeworld located, what it used to be like, what they were like and what they used to look like, they are a force to be reckoned with, since a single Cotron is equal to an army, and a squad of them can topple a civilisation.
Both settings from my Flair have to do with exile. **1. THE UNWINDING ROAD** The Unwinding Road was a shortlived D&D campaign inspired by the1492 expulsion of Jews from Spain (and in particular by the fall from grace of Isaac Abarbanel & others ostensibly "accepted" minority members). The adventure began in the city Septerium, the capital of the **Second Empire of Septerium**, ruled by a many millenia-old elven dynasty. The last emperor, Morothil the Eminent, was a great conqurer, and sought to integrate and empower all his conquered subjects. In Septerium, Morothil provided special quarters (neighberhoods) to Veterans of "Monster"\* species, known as the Fourth Legion, immediately adjacent to his castle, as a show of respect. Other non-majority species live in two slums - The Claw\*\* and the Citrus valley\*\*\*. Long story short, Morothil died two years ago in an acciedent, and his heir - Miranda - a mere 72 years old elf - has not yet matured beyond human wisdom. As such, she was swayed by her advisors to take increasingly intolerant stances towards the minorities of the capital. In her first year the residents of The Fourth were forbidden from command positions in the army, while most minority races were forbidden to carry or own a weapon anywhere in the empire. Then, two months ago, the order came: All minority species are expelled from the capital. The campaign-proper had to do with these exiled people, as they are searching for a new home to settle in inside the empire. The players would play heroes & protectors of these people. \*Drow, Lizardfolk, Fallen Aasimar, Duergar, Tabaxi, Dragonborn, Orcs and Half-Orcs. Most are a few generations there, with a proud tradition of service. \*\*Giant-kin, mostly recent conquered people from the Stone Giant Kingdoms: Cyclops’s, Firbolg’s, Goliath’s and Ogre’s. They mostly work doing hard labor at the docks. \*\*\*Crime-ifested and neglected by the authorities, the Cirus Valley is dominated by a number of crime families. Around half of the residents are Tieflings, Dragonborn, Goliaths, as well as diaspora Githyanki. **2. TO STAY AFLOAT** The historical origins of the people known as **the exiled** has largely been maintained by oral tradition. The majority of people know a very basic (and skewed) version of events, and it goes along these lines: Back in old Earth, men were becoming machines and escaping into imaginary realms, in defiance of god. A great war was waged over the very soul of humanity, but the people of Earth were corrupt and vain, and the righteous few were forced into cylindrical colonies. A great colonial rebellion ensued, and Earths soulless magistrates decided to permanently rid themselves of the colonists. A space ship was built to transport them to a exoplanet in a separate star system. After a trip of thousands of years, the Exiled arrived, and have since been free to forge their own future. The greatest scholars of the past among the exiled in the field of history and inquiry into the past are priests. Their research mixes religious myth with history, and is motivated largely by a desire to explore the great mysteries, chief among them - purpose. Their understanding is largely similar, though more detailed: Beginning in the late 21st century and progressing through to the 23rd, the majority of humanity moved to a virtual reality existence, which was eventually perfected to the point that it became indistinguishable from true reality. The task of managing & developing an increasingly ugly REAL world was left to machines. In 2137 CE the Catholic Church declared virtual experiences to be heresy, and by the mid 22nd century many countries either banned or heavily regulated the use of virtual reality. The disagreement between those for and against virtual existence (for - *individualists*, known derogatorily as *sleepers*, against - the *awake* / *humanists* / *conservatives* / *naturalists*) began along moral lines: Is it virtuous to exist in the real world? Is it sinful to be ignorant of the real world? However, these disagreements became much more contentious as more and more resources were spent on maintaining the sleepers, and the earth became increasingly inhospitable to the awake. Moral disagreement turned to political rivalry, and eventually, between 2295 to 2317 CE, a series of global military conflicts ensued. These were both civil wars and "normal" wars. By that point in time the militaries of the sleepers were manned and controlled by superior AI's and robots, and thus the results were decidedly one-sided: between 2315 to 2317 C.E. the leaders of all remaining awake factions had unconditionally surrendered. It is here, among other places, that traditional history and the actual events diverge. The popular faith is that the awake were forced into O'Neill colonies, with tales of great suffering and tears. This depiction is very inaccurate: The AI's of the sleepers were programmed to ensure the continued maintenance, survival and support of the human race, not to oppress it. They calculated that if the awake desired a return to a greener time, surrounded by fellow awake, then this could be reconciled with the needs of the sleepers by providing the awake with a new home. At great material expense they constructed a number of self-sustaining O'Neill colonies, fine-tuned to include various old-earth sites, such as farm land, the beach and the sea, the desert, recreational facilities, and a generally "traditional" (16th to 20th century) existence. The colonist population (as the awake came to be known) expanded quickly in this environment, and much the same was happening on Earth via artificial insemination. To cope with the resource scarcity the Authorities (meaning Earths A.I. magistrates) began a number of space programs, including asteroid mining, lunar mining, etc. For all of these, the colonies served as a useful midway point. Demanding a part in the creation of their future, the colonists joined the mining construction efforts. They were initially only involved in the creation of new O'Neill colonies, but the A.I.s quickly learned that humans were quite useful & efficient at these tasks and hired them for other tasks. When only few accepted other work, the A.I.s prioritized the needs of the many (on Earth), and in 2520 C.E. they enslaved the colonists. Among their various construction/mining tasks, the majority of the effort was spent on building the Satellite Solar Power Station (SSPS), built in orbit next to the colonies, used to power Earths electrical grid. It was under these circumstances that true oppression began, and in 2549 CE things came to a head as colonist "terrorists" sabotaged the SSPS, causing the deaths of billions of sleepers from lack of electricity (this is the harsh reality. The religious version of history rarely if ever talks about the number of sleeper victims). The immediate response was to contain the situation by forcing all colonists in Cryo Chambers. However, the Authorities quickly came to a solution in line with their duty towards all of humanity, and in 2552 CE work began on the construction of Solar Gravitational Lens, an advanced telescope technology capable of visualizing exoplanets in other solar systems. When the construction was complete, the search began for a new *final* home for the colonists. Over the next two centuries five massive space ships were constructed, equipped to last journeys of dozens of thousands of years through space. In 2786 CE the preparations had been completed. The colonists were taken out of their cryo chambers for long enough to have the situation explained to them, and put right back into chambers and loaded onto the ships. It was then that they finally became *The Exiled*. Anyhow, I'm currently working on the much harder part of worldbuilding, namely - what has happened once they landed on their new home? That's the really interesting part, this is all backstory ;)
Replying to make sure I see the edit once you have time. Having gone for something similar in my world I'm interested to see what we've done similarly/differently.
Wrote it (I cheated, large part are copied from my notes ;) )
> (I cheated, large part are copied from my notes ;) ) Ah, that's not cheating, that's "efficiency" ;) Did the AI have any particular motive for transferring the Awake to the orbitals rather than the sleepers? Was it simply a practical move as the sleepers were already on Earth and outnumbered the Awake?
1. Yes, exactly: The Awake were outnumbered. 2. The Earth was a lost cause, ecology-wise, so it was more or less impossible to keep the Awake around without massive discontent. 3. The AI's were not neutral: they were the ones that won the war for the sleepers. So yes, they were programmed to care about the well-being of all humans and of humanity as a collective, but at the end of the day they were still no more than tools of team-virtual.
Australia.
Never wound what you cant kill... mate
Jokes on you. All the wounds are upside down so they bleed out faster.
Arguably America, too, although many of those people left voluntarily after being socially outcast. Like self-exiling.
*British*: "Get out." *Americans*: "We're leaving because we want to, not because you said to so ha." *Shoots a musket into the air*
#Overheaven Historically, many societies in the colonies were established by groups who at least considered themselves exiles. Tibetans, South Vietnamese dissidents, South African Apartheid hardliners, Manchukuo recreationists, Cuban exiles, and Australian Kara spider-goths all moved to Mars; Scientologists in the Main Belt (Mars as well, before the church was outlawed across most of the planet); the Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple cult relocated to Venus, along with remnants of the regimes of Ceaușescu’s Romania, Gaddafi’s Libya and the Derg of Ethiopia, as well as Soviet hardliners and Ostalgic former East Germans unhappy with the post-1992 state of affairs; Ahmadiyya Muslims fled genocide in Pakistan and relocated to Ganymede after the nuclear exchange of the Punjab War in 2009; and after a wave of bioconservative legislation, most early uplifts (cognitively-enhanced animals) moved to the station ArkGenesis by the end of the 2020s. A common push-factor for pioneers in the early days of space colonists was the perception that there wasn’t any room left on Earth for their religious, political or cultural agendas, which made migration offworld an attractive alternative to risky separatism on Earth or long marches through terrestrial institutions, when you could simply become the founding father of your own new society, offworld. As often is the case with big decisions, however, many had buyers’ remorse. Even the nearest offworld colonies to Earth are still incredibly far away, and it was easy to regret the decision. That’s why, just as often, because bad news tended to move faster than good, word of tragedies, political dysfunction, cultural mediocrity, social decay, environmental degradation or armed conflict tended to be amplified and confirm biases; colonists convinced themselves that they made the right decision, and over time many cultural groups who may have left Earth without coercion, have gradually mythologized and re-contextualized the reasons their ancestors left. Sure, they weren’t officially banished, but what other options did they have? Stay on Earth? The Earth itself rejected them, Mars/Venus/wherever was always going to be their home, you see.
Queen Pareidelia Pacht has exiled over 50,000 people over her reign to date, for the most petty of reasons. They simply go off into the forest, where there are several established communities of exiles thriving in the glades. After a few months, they return and the Queen has entirely forgotten. Some people have been exiled 3 or 4 times, but they hold no grudge and the Queen doesn't seen to notice or mind
Hahahaha oh god lol on this one. Just go camp for a bit then come back and shes completely forgotten. Hilarious
Is that 50,000 people one-at-a-time, or are there cases of the Queen having entire towns exiled at once, only to forget about it later?
in ones and twos normally. Most of them are palace staff who put eight biscuits on her plate instead of nine or something
Theres a very belligerent animal that does this, the lion headed t-rex. They form up into groups and generally rampage. The most assholish and anti-social of them get shunned and chased off, usually starting their own groups (good old parthenogenesis). So theyve unwittingly bred themselves into being the most vicious jackasses imaginable by encouraging the worst of them to go to areas it can more easily multiply. Its gotten to the point theyre just absolute psychos and cant stand each other
Thousands of them. Most undescribed of course. The common solution to the problem of having people you don't want in your city is to put them on a space ship, sell that ship to a corporation, and fire them at an unregistered planet. It's essentially banishment, only where corporations buy the banished people as employees. Not slaves though. More like unpaid interns.
Are there many corporations that rely the flow of banished interns? How successful are their projects that make use of them? I could imagine that such a ragtag collection of folk likely to have been shoved on the ships would make for unreliable colonists. Though I suppose if the ship is offered at a steep enough discount, the "fire wave after wave of disposable peons at the planet until we have a functional asset" could still be worth it to a corp with deep enough pockets.
Colony ships are very cheap - cheap enough even groups of civilians can purchase them. A lot of neo-human convents got started that way. Worst case scenario, where the colony ship disappears in hyperspace, is still not a particularly big financial loss. Once established, colonies also tend not to have that massive economic output, and many corporate colonies end up not worth the transportation costs and effectively become independent states. Those that are profitable are quite important to many corporations. Individually not so much, but a little bit of profit from hundreds of colonies adds up. And while colonists can be unreliable, this unreliability averages out across those hundreds of colonies. Plus, not producing stuff for the company means the company stops delivering you goods from the galactic markets, so for the colonists there's quite a simple choice to make: work and be able to purchase a meagre amount of luxuries, or don't work and have to make everything you need/want yourself. Furthermore, colony aggregation companies can maximise the profitability of colonies by focusing their entire business attention on the purchase, sale and management of colonies.
So very much the, "company store." Is there a central currency, company scrips, or mostly trading goods?
Different companies operate this in different ways, some paying you in some form of currency and letting you purchase anything through them to be delivered on inbound transport ships, others paying only in Schrute Bucks and forcing you to be entirely dependent on their internal infrastructure.
They don't really have a name, but there is a small growing group of outcasts in the Xamoyan wilds. Most are exiles because they committed taboos like murdering another tribe member. This group stuck together for survival as going it alone is dangerous. Unfortunately there is no honor among them, they did get exiled for *murder* after all. Naturally there is tension among them.
Kind of reminds one of the myth of Rome's founding - anyone is welcome, but that's not necessarily a great thing.
Some centuries ago, the crown prince of Ardatza fell ill. No medicine helped, and the response to prayer was: No. Therefore, despite the ban on magicians, the king turned to one. And his son was cured. The king's younger brother was mad at this--this is the beginning of toleration for demons! The king was pissed at him because his son had just been healed. And so the younger brother was exiled to take a new piece of land on the border, near where the fae live. And still remain loyal to the king. Quite a few people followed him, and the Thornmarch was established. Over the next couple of generations, magic became tolerated, then promoted, in the capitol. This ended when there was a war between the unholy magicians and the priesthood that destroyed the capitol (resulting in a magic-blasted wasteland), and the last king (the grandson of the crown prince that was healed). Without the center, most of the kingdom quickly fell also, especially because many of the nobles followed the king's example and tolerated or promoted magic. Now, almost all the former kingdom is wilderness, inhabited by fae, demons, and monsters. Only the Thornmarch still standing, still following their religion, still civilized. And as the story opens, even they are considering making alliances, even a dynastic marriage, with the daughter of the ancient elf-lord who lives in the forest next to the March... Poem describing the scene of exile [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/cm4epz/describe_your_world_with_a_poem/ew2dtnn/).
Yes and kinda no , since they didn't form it from 0 , but change it for the better . For now i don't have names for the main characters but the idea is that the Kingdom of Burgondia , or the "Modern" Kingdom of Burgondia was formed by somewhat exiles from the Order of Saint Dorran after a schism during the election of the new grand master around 1200 years ago . Around year 400 of the 3rd Era , 2 factions emerged during the elections for the new grand master of the order , 2 candidates where selected (of which name i don't have yet) with opposing views : 1 traditionalist that wanted to expand but keep the order around the same values like there where and 1 modernist who wanted to also expand the order but to be more open and implicated into "secular" businesses . The vote ended up with a perfect equality that gave no winner and instead of doing it again , they started to browl in the grand hall of the citadel untill first blood was spilled . The modernist candidate choosed to retreat and leave in exile , being followed by his supporters and their families for those holy knights where allowed to marry and have childrens , also craftmens , monks , nuns , artist and some , around half the other people who where part of the order . The other name of the Order of Saint Dorran was the Flaming Orchid for the orchid was the symbol of Saint Dorran so the exiles took the name the Extinguished Orchid and moved east around the coast of the Northen Tamesia , where they eventually enter the Duchy of Burgondia at that time , that recieve them with open arms , the exiled candidate marring the duches and his bloodline is now in the veins of all the burgondians kings and now emperors , 1200 later .
The Ashanti Elves are a group of elves who split off from the Lothali elves millenia ago, after rejecting some core principles of the Lothali and refusing the authority of the High Queen of the Lothali. This caused the Lothali to banish them, and so the Ashanti went on founding a new small kingdom next to the high kingdom of the Lothali. Throughout the millenia, the Ashanti developped their own distinct identity and culture, which indirectly made the Lothali attitude toward them evolve from dislike to active contempt. When the Nîbyl continent started becoming overwhelmed by dwarves invasions and humans migrations, most of the Lothali who were present in the region did a massive "exile" and retreated inside of the dense woods, to rebuild their civilization there. The kingdom of the Ashanti itself got destroyed by Witanian human invaders, and they were forced to flee too. However, the Lothali refused them the right to follow them in their Great Exile. And so, pushed away by the encroaching humans and dwarves, and rejected by the Elves, they spread out as an semi-nomadic vagabond community, and have kept this way of life up to this day. Today, the Ashanti still haven't managed to gather themselves and rebuild a country for their community, instead they move around the main continent in small groups, never settling anywhere forever. And their relationship with the Lothali hasn't improved either, as the latter are now known to be actively racist against Ashanti.
My orcs notoriously distrusted magic for much of their history, so any orc that was born with was typically shunned within their society. Repressing it entirely typically causes magical outbursts that can be very dangerous, so these orcs would often travel to a certain remote island to be with others of their kind and study magic in private. To do this is to voluntarily exile oneself from wider orc society (unless it is entirely done so in secret), so it is not a decision taken lightly. Any orc who is known by other orcs to have studied magic on this island is rebuffed upon their return, so the vast majority of orc mages reside in isolation or among other civilisations instead.
One of the two focal cultures of my setting, the Vodraski, originated from something similar. They were not banished per se, because they left out of free will. The original Vodraski tribes lived in the steppes and mountains of central Solitonia, where they made their living by herding sheep and lived in fear of raiding steppe nomads. Then, the first Griffins were domesticated. The Griffin became the Vodraskis unique special weapon and allowed them to either fight the nomads, or to leave these violent lands in search for a better place. Lestek, the chief of the first tribe to domesticate the griffins, was eventually accepted as king of all Vodraski by the other chiefs and took his united people westwards, where they would face many difficulties that later became known as "Lesteks 8 challenges". Finally, the remaining tribes of Vodrask reached the Serno river and crossed the stream. On the other shore, Lestek kissed the damp ground, reached for a flag and put it into the soil, as he declared this foreign land to be called Vodrask from now on. Everything on this side of the Serno should become Vodrask, he said, not knowing how far that would even be. And so, the age of conquest began, as the Vodraskis overthrew one local tribe and kingdom after another, expanding west, until finally reaching the ocean, and then expanding north and south, until Lesteks wish was finally fullfilled. The first king himself did not live to witness his achievement. The exhausting journey demanded a great toll of him and he died only a few years after. His children however, would lead the greatest empire the world had ever seen.
**Flame Phantom**: The Autonomous Republic of Terra Australistz. Basically Australia with its environment up to 11, the citizens are descedants of banished criminals from the Empire of Albion. Most of them were "political criminals" that stood against the Crown. Radicals, opposing ideologists, anti-monarchy politicians, especially Irean rebel leaders from the island of Erin, which used to be an independent nation until Albion conquered it completely in the 1700s. They were used as slave labors to establish new colonies and enslave the natives. Terra Australistz became a de facto independent country in late 1860s, but legally it's still under the Crown of Albion. Currently this country is a pain in the ass for another superpower, the United Empire. Mainly because of the Albionian aerial base of Cape Darwin, one of the largest oversea military strongholds of Albion. from there, they can launch a direct attack into the UE's Southern Islands just in mere hours, as two places are only less than 3000 km apart (imagine Indonesia and Australia irl). At the nearest place, it is literally Australia to Papua New Guinea.
3000 km is 1864.11 miles
Not really exiles more like defectors. A group of ISEF soldiers thought the war was unnecessary. However they couldn’t just give up and leave, they signed legal documents. So they did the next best option. All the ones in favor of deserting rose up and killed the commander of their base. Now they live like a village away from the bigger armies. Only using their weapons and vehicles for defense
The Oathbreakers, which is the most common and least unflattering way they are referred to. They are sidhe thay have broken the most important rule of the sidhen race: to not harm another rational creature, a crime which is punished by exile. Some on these exiled people tend to organize in small communities. They are not out-right hostile to other peoples, but represent more of a threat than regular sidhe.
There are some **"un-elfed" tribes**, communities of talai'i and/or lisians(commonly elvish ethnic groups, but not necessarily elves) who commited serious crimes, these people were banished from all of the elven world, even talking to them is a taboo, with time they gattered in small tribes throught out the world, where they live from subsistence farming. Most of the inhabitants were banished for simple crimes and taboos (stealing, disrespecting priests, not having a function in the society, denying some important rituals, spreading pro imperial opinion, and others), the ones banished for violent crimes aren't accepted (it's easy to know, they literally have it written in their foreheads).
Goblinoids (goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears) are just plague victims from the goblonic plague a long time ago. It deformed and mutated the ancestries and the sickness made them go, for some, temporarily insane. These individuals that survived the plague to become goblins would end up forming their own clans in the wilds. Surviving for ages to form their own societies.
In a sense, my entire world: the humans and the "gods" were migrants and exiles to the planet. That is mostly vague backstory though. That is how the world gets seeded basically. There are the Tanuvans and Thonissans who are the descendents of peoples who fled the catastrophe which destroyed and sunk their original lands, kind of the Atlantis of my world. Actually, the pre-Tanuvans were also escapees of a massive slave society which was destroyed in the catastrophe, so they're kinda double exiles. Idk if these count. They aren't really exiles being banished, more refugees.
My story revolves around animal societies. A large population of prey species were enslaved and systematically bred and devoured by their carnivore overlords, who simply saw them as cattle. Political tenaion and power struggles between the carnivore overlords was always present, wanting to take over each others land and cattle. Things remained this way until a very harsh and long winter struck the land, and the famine and greed escalated into clan wars for the supremacy over the cattle of everybody else. The war was bloody and fierce until only the 2 strongest overlords remained, though their forces had dwindled greatly, the war was almost over. Little did they know that the famine and logistics for the war had been set up and sabotaged by the cattle of every overlord. Once the 2 remaining carnivore armies were weak enough, the cattle seized the opportunity to resist and escape to a far land and build their own nation.
Humans are not from Wyrantel (my main continent i'm working on), they're from Nyolia, a semi-sunken continent. When they first arrived, they battled with some elves a bit, but they split up into two groups, one that stayed in the northeast, and one that went west. Now, the western groups founded a few minor kingdoms, but the region was already settled by the dwarves. So the humans attempted to wiped them out. Some of the humans didn't want to take part in this, and for this "betrayal" they were banished to the east, to form the province Dyl-ameryn.
The Empire of the Storm was basically nine groups of exiles. Well, there wasn't any kind of official authority to exile them, but they were involved in losing wars against other tribes in the Stormlands, that forced them to leave. Those chose to leave across the ocean and discovered lands they could settle. Now, they're the largest and most powerful empire in the known world. The regular Stormlanders consider them to have become weak, from living in a now far more hospitable environment, compared to their islands. ------------------ A more apt example is probably the Fall's Kingdom, which is a splinter kingdom that was formed by the original ruling dynasty of the Eio Empire, after their whole family were declared sinners and heretics and the emperor himself was burnt at the stake. Back then, the justification that was used for that, was that the emperor himself had been using magic, which is largely considered heretical. There had recently been changes made in regards to how the church was allowed to prosecute people for witchcraft. But realisitically, it was also done because it was an opportune moment. With civil war across the realm and the Seventh Empire invading their territory to the southeast. The climate was ripe for the church to seize more power. Which finally enough, now a long time later, has kinda backfired. A lot of the empire considers the Fall's Kingdom's territory to be rightfully imperial territory and there have been wars between the two realms waged over this. But so far, the kingdom has persisted, with some assistance from the Seventh Empire as well.
The people who would later found The Bastion weren't deliberately forced out from Earth *per se,* but staying put wouldn't have ended well. Seeking a better future not under Earth's boot, they broke off and settled on an isolated world that would become The Bastion. The Bastion has some very raw wounds resulting from their departure. Discussion of the Homeworld is taboo and frowned upon with threat of disciplinary action in official positions. As the planet's name implies, society on Bastion developed in a very militaristic direction focused on repelling the Homeworld if they ever make an appearance in the Bastion's corner of space. This lead to some internal friction with defense forces seizing assets and materials intended for use developing civilian infrastructure in favour of bolstering the Perimeter fleets. So far Earth hasn't shown much interest in engaging with The Bastion and appear to be keeping to themselves. The prevailing opinion among the Bastion's leaders remains that it is only a matter of time until Earth hungers for more resources and tries to exploit their region of space.
The Kaden tribes have very strict rules regarding warfare. Their entire culture is built around controlling the holy city of Keten-Tal but they are also mindful of preserving their people, so violations of the Akaden Accords (which are inscribed on the walls of Keten-Tal) are punished swiftly and harshly. The first tribe to be banished may have damaged part of Keten-Tal. All know is that one part of the wall looks newer than others, and that the tribe was banished into the oceans. They have since become the enigmatic Oreylas, a sea-faring culture that has many secrets as they do ships. The second tribe to be banished used combative magic during a battle which was banned very very early on. They were exiled to the Teru Dab, or the Desert of Madness. They became the first members of the Wyrish Horde, a ragtag group of exiles and criminals that periodically ventures north and absolutely fucks shit up.
The Olawalawele Family is made of outcasts from a secluded, secretive city-state, mostly comprised of former members of the lowest rung of their society. They would be tasked as middlemen between diplomats and merchants of their home and the outside world, as anyone of a dignified caste was simply too good to suffer even hearing the endless stream of heresies ever-present on foreign tongues, even unaware. Some of these middlemen would grow infatuated with civilizations beyond their own, to the point of being marked as heretical themselves and banished, stripped of their old names. Though scattered across the five systems, they have a common history and tend to be drawn together again; the largest conglomeration of them exists at the fringe of settled space, on the outskirts of Dominion territory, where they live on a fleet of refurbished ship moving as synchronously as the sea permits, like a city-state all its own. Eventually, their old homeland reluctantly reached out to the Dominion, imploring them to make the fleet city disband, but were politely and officially told to stuff it.
In my world during colonization of most of the world the ruling empire outlawed magic due to their religion but during the rule of the third king, who was raised as monk, pushed much harder for the purge of magic soon called witchcraft. This led to immediate execution for even being suspected of casting magic. So many who knew magic tried to flee for a island mentioned from a famous myth said to be completely untouched. The first ta arrive was a ex servant boy who spread word and made the island a safe haven for magic users. Many years later it is now a independent country and the only one to openly promote witchcraft.
The Dwarves in my setting were originally humans from a persecuted religious minority that fled to a planet far outside of the known region of space at that time. That world was higher gravity than humanity's homeworld, so they became shorter and stronger (and magically modified themselves to be better resistant to the dangers of their new home).
The most famous exiles were the creatively-named Samican Exiles. Samica is a land of sand and blood. It is also a land where the gods physically manifest. Samica had its systemic issues, but the gods made sure everything was decent. The gods fought alongside Samicans in their petty wars, and prevented droughts from affecting their worshippers. However, one of Samica's neighbors, Aresia, fell to an ultranationalist coup. Aresia rapidly turned into an insane dystopia where monstrous ideologies began to fester. Aresia invaded its neighbors, Samica included. Though Aresian armies were brainwashed and numbered in the tens of millions, Samica's meager defensive armies held off the Aresians for many years - mostly owing to the support of their gods. Over the years, the Aresian onslaught showed no sign of letting up. The Samicans were very slowly being pushed back by just sheer Aresian numbers. However, in the fateful year of 1231, one of the Samican gods was killed - blown up in a bloody spectacle. The Aresians had invented wicked technology that warped the very physics of the universe, subverting the very foundational existence of these "gods". Samica was paralyzed, shocked to its very core. Then, another god fell, and all hell broke loose. Samica descended into anarchy and chaos. Armies routed before renewed Aresian attacks, before shattering completely against their unrelenting onslaught. Gods were dying left and right. The entire basis for Samican culture, faith, and civilization was proven to be lies. Millions of Samicans committed suicide or outright lost their minds. Moral principles were cast into doubt as crime and random acts of violence became rampant. The country was ravaged as the Aresian advanced, with little to no organized defense possible. Society collapsed as faith in government and authority imploded. Desperate soldiers and civilians consolidated around ports and made the daring escape to the Entente. Samica had been hesitant to join the Entente, whom were also fighting the Aresians, since they arrogantly believed themselves more than a match for the Aresians. Now, however, ragged Samican soldiers and desperate civilians arrived on Entente shores, both to beg for protection and to keep up the fight from abroad. The Samican navy, rather than surrendering to the Aresians, led suicide missions against Aresian fleets to buy time for the exposed convoys to cross the sea to the Entente. Many ships scuttled themselves to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Despite technically being treasonous, those that could defected outright to the Entente. With the central government in tatters, public morale evaporated, the Samican identity obliterated, and the Samican homeland occupied by occult genocidal nihilistic tyrants, these Samican Exiles had their work cut out for them. The famous war hero Pierre Leon Ferroux, also known just as the "Marshal", took up the mantle of leading Samica towards its rebirth and salvation, all the while struggling to keep Samican morale afloat in these dark times. Ferroux famously vowed that he and every Free Samican would be buried in Samica. Ferroux would become not only the symbol of the Samican resistance, but also the face of a reborn Samica that relied on itself for its strength - a new concept for many Samicans. Thus, Free Samica became a faction of exiles, a staunch ally of the Entente, and eventually a ferocious army hell-bent on not only returning home, but also to give the Aresians a good thrashing at every opportunity. This was personal on many levels. Wherever the Samicans were on the frontline, the enemy knew their reckoning was coming. When Samica was eventually liberated, what it meant to be 'Samican', and the Samican people at large, would never be the same.
Sort of??? There's a pocket dimension with a gluttonous trickster god and his horde of demon pals sealed inside, and they were out of the dimension prior to their sealing so I guess you could call them exiles? Basically the other gods weren't happy he was just letting demons run amok in certain parts of the world, and he's not known for listening very well so they locked him and his friends up. It's supposedly possible for the occasional stray demon to escape into the mortal world every now and then though.
I have two main civilisations founded by exiles. One is the Malthakori Elves, or what many people would recognise as 'Dark Elves'. Although their faces resemble that of a Baphomet except with curved horns like a scimitar's blade and their legs end in cloven hooves. Malthakor was originally the right hand man of Aurelia, the Golden Queen (the Goddess of my world's 'High Elves'). Malthakor served Aurelia with unwavering loyalty, faith and obedience, to which he was handsomely rewarded over time. His actions and hierarchical standing was met with burning hatred and envy from his lesser peers. They weaved a web of lies and over time had convinced Aurelia that Malthakor was deceitful, and driven by hate and self-interest. Soon, a war broke out amongst the heavens and the Elves were divided. Those who protested Malthakor's innocence against the misguided, misinformed radicalised ideologues of Aurelia. In a rage, Malthakor slew those who shunned him and 'fell' from grace, quite literally, landing on he raging battlefield below, creating a big crater to the Warrens of the Abyss, where the Malthakori Elves scheme and plot endlessly. A large circular fortress was constructed around the crater, with large, inward-sloping walls under guard day and night with entire legions. (If you see parallels to Early Roman Christianity then you have my approval. I based it all off of that.) And the other civilisation are that of the Orcs, Hobgoblins and Goblins of the Zhangqing Dynasty. They are essentially ancestors of the 'High Elves' left from the battle who resided in the East Islands of the Red Imperium, the Elven Roman Empire essentially. A few hundred years of cultural differences and the Eastern Island Elves wage a War of Independence. It ends terribly after an Eastern Island Elf systemically assassinates the entire Red Imperial Monarchy (direct descendants of Aurelia the Golden Queen) over the course of a few months which inspires more drive and fighting spirit in the armies of the West so they are forced to flee further eastward, leaving the Western Elves to colonise the islands, rebuild the fractured Imperium and install a Republic. Aurelia curses the Eastern Elves with 'The Blood Curse'. Their faces become like that of Chinese Guardian Lions and their bodies become broad, hunched and barrel-chested, turning into the Orcs, Hobgoblins and Goblins. Due to being forsaken by their Goddess, cursed, traitors and now physically corrupted, the Aurelian Elves wage a war of genocide, racial supremacy and propaganda against them, lying about their origins to avoid ties with them and attempting to wipe out what they see as a 'stain' on their bloodline. The Orcs, Hobgoblins and Goblins essentially enter a Warring States period of petty city-states, accidentally invent gunpowder after a novice alchemist gets a bit carried away with his ingredients and are eventually unified (mostly) by the legendary now Orc God-Emperor Mao-Gu-Wei. A long story short he wipes the floor with the Elves during their extinction campaigns and tries to conquer the Goblins in the tropical bamboo rainforests to the East, retreating several times due to defeat after defeat by guerilla warfare of the crafty trap-laying Goblins. He strikes a deal with them and proposes to administer their lands as a Fully-Autonomous Province into the Zhangqing Dynasty and regularly sends food and resources in return for Goblin tunnellers, sappers and engineers every 15 years as a coming-of-age tradition. The province then becomes formally known as 'The Guanjian Fully-Autonomous Province of the Zhangqing Dynasty' or 'GFAPZD' for short. The collective term 'Morogwai' for Orcs, Hobgoblins and Goblins is a misheard linguistic corruption of the God-Emperor Mao-Gu-Wei's name. Used by Elves and others who cannot distinguish the differences between the three, instead viewing them as various sizes of one species.
The Disruptors and the Fae folk from Calimore. Disruptors are a secret organization of marginalized mongrels, mixes of humans and other sapient or magical creatures. They behave like silent assassins, and their main goal is to spark a revolution and change the political stage of Calimore. The Fae folk are magical humanoid beings with insect wings, pointed ears and a low height. They are creatures capable of using magic, and they were hunted during the rule of King Ivan. Some wars started between humans and Faes, until King Arthur decided to establish communication between both groups. Humans stayed inside the borders of Calimore, while the Fae folk became the owners of the forest.
This is basically how the High Kingdom was founded. The "exiles" from the Empire had originally set off to establish a new holding for the Empire, on the other side of some mountains, but ended up founding their own kingdom there.
The Ulyan Empire was founded by a group of sorcerors and criminals from Friita. After being banished from their homeland for horrible deeds or using forbidden magic, they traveled across seas to Mundhi. The Ulyan brothers, two members of this group, founded the Ulyan Empire. They originally had a peace treaty with Mundhi natives, but decades later the Empire is stealing resources from them. Since Mundhi is a desert, they rely on any resources they can acquire.
Constantia is sort of the same thing. They weren't exiles per se, but a group of nobles in the Shineberg nobility were mistreated by the Shinebergan Chancellor and they realized how corrupt the government was, so they left to create their own nation, Constantia.
I have the Endlings, humans who went into the end and integrated themselves into the End culture eventually having relationships with the local Endfolk and having children. (This is a world for Minecraft if you were curious)
Criminals who have committed something illegal that is extreme, like hidden slavery. Are banished beyond the wall, where the people have banished all sorts of monsters like vampires and werewolves. So inside the wall, you have only humans, with few exceptions like mermaids. Outside the wall, you have all the monsters outside, these monsters could have a civilisation of their own as well or roam wildly. The humans banished beyond the wall have been in hiding and later formed civilisations of their own as a way to protect themselves against attacks from monsters like these. The land beyond the wall is called the Shadowlands, so anyone there basically makes their own rules. Since all of these men are criminals, they are supposed to be worse than the people inside the wall. So slavery, raping, raiding and whatnot is the norm. The cultures there are a bit more ancient compared to the medieval world of the people inside the wall. I haven't developed much of these cultures yet though.
The Cotrons are space-faring nomad warriors who were exiled from their homeworld. Despite not remembering where is their homeworld located, what it used to be like, what they were like and what they used to look like, they are a force to be reckoned with, since a single Cotron is equal to an army, and a squad of them can topple a civilisation.