Oy explorers,
Why is there a volcano on our world map?
To understand why there is a volcano, we must first ask:
Why Great Houses of Calderia?
The title Great Houses of Calderia was thought to be evocative. As you may know, our main inspirations are the Crusader Kings series and Game of Thrones. To stick to the strategy genre, we imagined the word House, since a lot of families are rivals and try to conquer Calderia, in the spirit of Game of Thrones with Westeros.
First, to fit with the previous idea, the project was called Pro Domo, which meant 'For Your Home/House. It was the project name, short, efficient, but also secret! It is meant to be a simple internal "code name".
When we had to select the official name for the game, the "Great Houses of" went easily, we wanted our title to be impactful. Then, we needed to add something after the "of", like a location.
Why Calderia?
The landscapes of our game are composed of specific locations, all gathered around an element that could make the game recognizable. The name of the land in world building sense comes from the first clear landmark the first settlers saw when sailing in.
Then, volcanic land is often fertile, so it was very desirable to move there and prosper.
Finally, the land was once populated by the ancestors of its current population, but something caused them to abandon the peninsula. The reason and stories were strictly forbidden from history books. The new emperor wasn't superstitious and gave permission to colonize it again. Maybe the volcano had something to do with the exodus, or maybe not. No one knows for sure...
Some of you might have also recognized the inspiration behind it. Calderia is coming from the word Caldera (or Caldeira), meaning volcano. A Caldera is more precisely a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcanic eruption. That is why, during the creation of the landscape, we came up with a volcano. It's massive and recognizable.
To add uniqueness to our title and not be too generic, we twisted the word 'Caldera'. The game is located near the Mediterranean Sea, we thought about adding an "I" to make it sound more Latin. That is how we came up with "Calderia".
Some info about the map: the Isle of Orsa
The Isle of Orsa is an important island because beyond that, the water is too shallow for any big ships. The shallow waters are due to the lava flow direction from the volcano. Because its location is so important for the passage between Calderia and the land where the Emperor resides, the island is not allowed to be owned by any vassals, but instead by the Emperor himself.
That's how our game title Great Houses of Calderia and the volcano of the map were defined! They were both defined at the same time.
To be part of the development process of Great Houses of Calderia or simply chat with the devs, join us on Discord!
Great Houses of Calderia Discord: https://discord.gg/vsxD6n8P8J
- Great Houses of Calderia Team -