My note from the PDF
This chapter already feels bloated and we still have lots of blanks to fill in. I’m starting to wonder if we simply have too many provinces. Provinces like Heka-Voll, Iironda, Keln’in, and Motmurk have important roles in Ortho’s history and have distinct geographies, demographics, and cultures that add diversity to the setting. Others feel like afterthoughts. Omospondia, and Karazam are transparent counterparts to the real-world cultures of classical Greece and Persia and their write-ups read like they were borrowed from a text-book with a few names changed and some “fantasy” stuff mixed in. The basic idea of two ancient rivals on opposite sides of a magic-made desert is workable, but all the cruft about feuding city-states and noble warriors is oddly anachronistic. Ortho’s iron age was long before the rise of the Harmonium and even before the wars of unification a “greek” civilization would have looked a lot more like the Byzantine empire than the Pelopenesian league. I think we should either scrap these two provinces entirely to save space or combine them into a unified Omospondia/Karazam/Parsadia with a distinctly more modern (and if possible more Orthorian) feel instead of relying on dull swords and sandals cliches. The Ottomon Empire and its “millet” system might be a good place to look for inspiration.
Likewise, I see no terribly pressing reason for Thaera to be broken up the way it is. The provinces are all quite similar and many of the things that separate them (hobgoblins for one) are likely to be cut for space. At this stage of writing, we’ve managed to give “Thaera” a distinct identity and history, but I still can’t remember the differences between, say, South and Central Thaera off the top of my head and its doubtful that many of our readers will either. Frankly they’re not that different and the differences they do have aren’t that interesting. I’d rather have a generic “Thaera” chapter and let the DMs figure out what makes each island unique.
Right now Ortho has 17 provinces (not counting Harmony's Glory): Motmurk, Keln'in, Bafatai, Iironda, Heka-Voll, Iathra, Xaric, Shoryko, Hazkhan, Ulfrheim, Karazam, Omospondia, North Thaera, Central Thaera, South Thaera, The Isles, and Gelidahl.
If we merge Omospondia and Karazam into "Parsadia" and combine the four small and indistinct Thaeran provinces into one or two big ones, that'll drop us down to 13-14 which is much more manageable.
Response copied from the Karazaam thread:
I don't think we actually have too many - it's pretty reasonable given the size and scale of the world we're talking about. I *do* think we're writing effectively three source books worth of material and may be trying to cover too much all at once or at least in too much depth.
Consider how say - Forgotten Realms did this - it's the same number of 'areas' but split over two or three continents. We're doing them all at once. It might be worth it to break the project down by area, but then again - Ortho is a world government so... I can see the argument for covering all of it at least a little.
If I recall, the major reason I had Thaera split the way it was was with the idea of splitting the 'vote'. The same idea behind the way the British empire drew lines in Africa and the Middle East right through tribal territories - to ensure that no one colony would ever unite as a single strong voice because there would be too much infighting. Notice how effective that has been even now, almost 100 years later...
The Ortho authorities at the time felt there were too many of those chaos-blooded sorts there to trust without a counterbalance (if I recall there's a high tiefer and eladrin blooded percent in the islands). I don't think we had actually gotten around to really strongly defining any of the cultures in that area beyond that - but I *do* think it would be good to address the set of islands as a group.