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Start Inventing a Religion

To create organized religions, we’ll need our god(s) worked out in some detail (refer to Chapter 1 of Creating Life, The Art of World Building, #1)). Many religions focus on a single god, even if others exist, but some will worship several gods together. The techniques and considerations in this chapter apply to both. It also helps to have our species created so we can decide which ones tend to be part of which religions and even if those religions exclude one or more species, for example.

History

Major religions on Earth are thousands of years old, but minor ones are sometimes new. In either case, we don’t need a detailed history, but some significant events are worth inventing. Many aspects of a religion originate from its inception. It’s therefore recommended that we begin creating one at its source.

Creation

The story of a religion’s founding is crucial to how it is viewed and often what is expected of converts. A prophetic figure is an expected source. This person speaks in (or receives) the words of a god and brings those messages to people. To create this, some basic ideas are helpful:

Their name (previous and potentially new)
Their occupation before becoming a prophet – they are typically transformed by the experience
When it happened – a calendar may use this as a starting point
Where it happened – this can result in a holy site
How it happened – this can generate relics, symbols, and rituals

We can keep this brief, like this example: “In the year 12 A. K., the horseman Vicen rode into the Dark Peaks in what is the modern day Empire of Amarysh, emerging as the prophet Kier, Chosen Voice of the God of War, Arian, whose golden sword he pulled from a petrified Lluvien tree, whereupon he heard Arian’s voice commanding him to return and form the Blades of Arian, an elite force of mounted, religious warriors.” In a sentence, we have two potential symbols (the sword and a specific tree type), plus a generally holy area (the mountains) and possibly a specific location, assuming anyone can find the petrified tree.

This can result in pilgrimages at an interval of our choosing. While that can be a literal returning to a site, it can also be figurative when being literal is too challenging for many (due to distance, cost, etc.) or even impossible (the site is lost or destroyed). Religions make use of symbolic gestures. Instead of traveling 5,000 miles to Kier’s petrified tree, perhaps someone would travel to and pray at a replica that is only 100 miles away, and which is said to have grown from seeds of the same tree or grove as the original. We’ve all heard of “guilt by association.” Religions practice a kind of holiness by association.

That tree type is probably planted at other holy sites like churches or even the front yards of converts; sighting it while on missions might be seen as a sign from the deity. Maybe furniture is made from it, or a wooden practice sword. Priests might wear a wooden talisman of a sword around their neck. While on his journey into the Dark Peaks, perhaps our prophet survived on a kind of fruit found there. Eating this then becomes part of rituals. The juice from it can be a drink consumed only at holy times. The spilling of that juice can be seen as an offense.

What these ideas have in common is the finding of ordinary details and assigning them significance because they’re part of our prophet’s experience and story, either at the moment he became a prophet or in a subsequent moment from his life. Or death.

Decide how long this prophet lived and when he died. To create these, invent these details:

Did he die naturally?
If killed, who did it, why, how, and when?
How did the religion react to this?
What did the god do?

New religions are seldom met with affection by rulers, who want the hearts and minds of the population to be theirs rather than with a religion, which is often seen as competition. It is easy, natural, and believable that a prophet meets an untimely demise. Martyrdom also raises the prophets’ importance, as dying for your beliefs is considered by many to be the ultimate sacrifice and proof that those beliefs are valid. A wise world builder kills their prophets. This can also result in holy sites (where they died), artifacts (based on what killed them), and rituals to commemorate the occasion. It can also create enemies, at the time or in the future, where the people who killed the prophet are long considered enemies of the religion and its followers, leading to tensions.

Destruction

A religion can cease to exist without the end of the world happening, too. In a world without real gods that interact, all we really need is people to stop believing. This is arguably one of the reasons that religions insist people believe in the god and the religion’s practices. Why would they stop believing? A foretold event not happening is one reason; smart religions avoid specific dates for future events for a reason. According to Church Times (UK), individuals can lose faith at any time for a number of reasons, such as when several of the following traits are found in the person:

If other practitioners are hard to live with
If the religion is too hard to practice
If the teachings are too hard to understand
If they resist submitting to authority
If they’re above average intelligence
If they crave experience

These can happen to someone even if the gods are real, though it begs the question of whether one gets smitten for leaving the religion.

For a religion to die, we may need nothing more than a sufficient number of people abandoning it. This can happen en masse if major life events cause inner turmoil in enough people, and the religion cannot offer comfort. Rather than having an epiphany of belief, a revelation of perceived false promises occurs instead. If the religion was a state religion, meaning a sovereign power made it official, and the state collapses, the religion can vanish, too. This might be easy for world builders to implement because destroying a sovereign power is simple; see Creating Places (The Art of World Building, #2). One religion can also supplant another.

In “Creating Gods” from Creating Life (The Art of World Building, #1), we discussed creating end-of-world myths. Every religion will have one. That demise may not be inevitable, which could mean that worshippers can prevent this with their conduct. Or the righteous can be saved while everyone else is damned. If we’ve already created that myth, what we want to decide now is how this end of world scenario makes practitioners act because this can motivate devotion to religious practices, some of which might exist to bring about a positive end for adherents. If the myth comes true, that’s the end of the religion, but if a specific date was given and nothing happens, that can also end the religion due to lost credibility.

Are people expected to pray at given intervals specifically for this myth? Do they avoid certain foods or behaviors thought to bring an untimely end to themselves or the world? Religions focus on daily life and its morality much more than the end of the world, so this tends to be a background idea or connotation that is only occasionally mentioned. Or the avoidance or destruction can be part of prayers and, when recited every day or week, become familiar enough that people don’t worry about it much as a practical matter.

Since destruction hasn’t happened yet, we don’t have the advantages that creating a religion offers. There are no artifacts, for example, or holy sites. It is therefore wise to keep the behaviors inspired by the potential end of the world simple. Incorporate them into prayers and expressions. “May Armageddon never be,” characters could say, to use a name from Earth.

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Where to Start with Armed Forces

Our first choice with creating armed forces is to decide whether it’s a smaller, specialized group like the U.S. Marines or a larger force, and what kind it is: army, navy, or air/space force. This will determine where they typically operate, which will impact every subsequent decision. We should then envision what role we see them playing, particularly in a large conflict such as the world wars that are so common in speculative fiction. If our story only needs a high-level depiction of them in action, we can skimp on many details of invention, but if our characters (even minor ones) are current/former/future members of this force and are impacted by this, we’ll need more. Decide on the scope you need. Most other aspects of their invention can be done in any order.

At a minimum, we must invent their symbols, colors, and any slogans. If they wear or utilize specific armor or weapons, we’ll be showing this and must decide on it. Envision their place in society as this will inform what and how they do things and how those actions are viewed by other characters; this includes working out relationships with others, at least at a high-level. We can skip a complete history if we don’t need it, but an historical figure or two is recommended. Another area we can skip is how such individuals become one or creating ranks that differ in any meaningful way from the standard ones listed in this chapter.

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Get Started Creating Armed Forces

Our first choice with creating armed forces is to decide whether it’s a smaller, specialized group like the U.S. Marines or a larger force, and what kind it is: army, navy, or air/space force. This will determine where they typically operate, which will impact every subsequent decision. We should then envision what role we see them playing, particularly in a large conflict such as the world wars that are so common in speculative fiction. If our story only needs a high-level depiction of them in action, we can skimp on many details of invention, but if our characters (even minor ones) are current/former/future members of this force and are impacted by this, we’ll need more. Decide on the scope you need. Most other aspects of their invention can be done in any order.

At a minimum, we must invent their symbols, colors, and any slogans. If they wear or utilize specific armor or weapons, we’ll be showing this and must decide on it. Envision their place in society as this will inform what and how they do things and how those actions are viewed by other characters; this includes working out relationships with others, at least at a high-level. We can skip a complete history if we don’t need it, but an historical figure or two is recommended. Another area we can skip is how such individuals become one or creating ranks that differ in any meaningful way from the standard ones listed in this chapter.

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Military World View

Languages

We may have little need to specify which languages this military group can speak. Instead, we can take a predictable but believable route and decide they know enough about the language of any nearby species that they must communicate with regularly in the performance of their job. This will change from sovereign power to sovereign power, even city to city. It’s a fast decision that makes sense and gets the job done. It provides flexibility to decide on a more case-by-case basis that they don’t live up to this somewhere, or are particularly fluent in a language somewhere else. We can leave a note about this in our files and be done with this.

We may also want to specify that they’re expected to know, and be trained in, the languages of species with whom they have frequent interaction. We’ll need to decide if this is only speaking it or also reading and writing. In SF, a universal translator may negate the necessity of this learning, while a language considered universal, like “common” in fantasy, can also make this requirement unnecessary.

Place in Society

How does society view this group and its members? With reverence? Fear? Suspicion? Or are they taken for granted, their protection and sacrifices hardly noticed? This will impact their place in society. Respect can result in being present at ceremonies, gifts bestowed on some occasions, and people gathering to see them leave or return. Contempt will not. Fear will cause avoidance; perhaps they can only dine in back rooms so people don’t feel uncomfortable, or maybe they refuse this restriction and end up chasing away other occupants of a tavern with their presence alone. Are there shops that cater to their needs and inclinations, even if it just means having their favorite items ready? Or are such things absent altogether to avoid tempting them to enter? In many cases, unless we have a need for one extreme or another, moderation will be best, meaning there’s nothing special about how they’re treated or welcomed. Remember that their place in society might be slightly or even dramatically different in one settlement or sovereign power from another.

Customs Among Them

As with all customs, we want to focus on the ones we’re most likely to use: greetings, farewells, and in the case of military groups, toasts, burial rituals, and pre-battle customs. Think of an expression and gesture they use upon meeting, and what physical and verbal response is expected. Farewells are typically less formal or ostentatious and an expected one is arguably more likely to be absent altogether. Such actions of familiarity, shared among only their group, strengthen the bond between them; this is useful in battle, where people die or are scarred for life, physically, mentally, and emotionally. These bonds help with morale, which we touched upon in Creating Life: the willingness to stand firm, together, in the face of mortal peril.

Toasts are likely to focus on body counts, skilled performance in battle, and things like weaponry or armor withstanding the forces at work, the idea a kind of well-wishing visited upon those being toasted. Below are some examples:

May your arrows fly true
Break heads but not blades
A blow for Kier! (a hero)
May Sinistria (a goddess) favor your hand
To hell with our enemies (use an afterlife of your invention, not hell)
May heaven bring you peace – many years from now!

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Military Deeds and Myths

Unless our military group is less than a decade old, there’s a likelihood that some of its members, while on official missions or not, have been part of famous exploits. This can be admirable or not, depending on our goals. Even if we have a group, like knights, that are esteemed, we can still have them be part of an ignoble event, possibly because they made mistakes or failed, not because of nefarious intent that we don’t associate with a knighthood. Such discrepancies can humanize them. Conversely, a group known for bad deeds may have helped stave off a disaster because it might’ve affected them, too, adding dimension.

It bears mentioning that a group considered heroic by some will be despised by others, sometimes even by the people they help. For example, jealousy of knights could lead some to think they’re arrogant, causing disrespect by the people they protect. Esteem is never universal; nor is loathing. When we decide and describe their relationships with others, we can comment on these aspects of them. Create a story with thought given to how both sides view the deed. We can invent a nickname that different participants assign a character, such as “Kier the Valiant” and “Kier the Butcher of Illiandor.”

Lore and Myths

New groups are unlikely to have much myth behind them unless they formed as the result of a momentous occasion or achieved prominence during one. They might have been the elite force that finally killed someone who promoted great evil, for example, possibly during a prolonged war or battle. Such a deed, heard around the world or across the cosmos, can give quick mythology to a group or its members.

Older groups are more likely to have multiple instances of heroism or impact in their past. This is where having invented historical events aids us because we can decide someone from this military unit did something important in one battle or another.

Some military groups also like to create a mythology around them. It typically includes an historical person who does something that embodies a trait the group admires, such as sacrifice or courage. This is an opportunity to create a mythical figure and a deed that our present story’s characters may reference as a hero or role model. We can create a 2-3 sentence blurb on what they did like this:

“At the Battle of Evermore, Kier led a band of knights to rescue the elven high priestess, but found himself surrounded by a dozen ogres. Knowing it was certain death, he ordered his men to carry the elf to safety while he remained behind, fighting to his end while his men escaped unharmed. A statue in his honor stands among others at their compound in Illiandor, and the elves improved their relations with humans in the aftermath, a tradition that continues to this day.” I wrote this in about the time it took you to read it. These are easy and fun to do, while adding depth and history. These stories can be a bit off from the truth, as often happens, but unless we have reason to mention that the narrative is off, it may not warrant inventing it.

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Creating Military History

While we don’t need an extensive history on our armed forces group, some details make them realistic. We don’t have to say what caused them to exist; people will assume that a need led to it. If the military group and need is quite specific, such as dealing with a type of creature with unique abilities, then we might want to decide when and how it formed. What were these creatures doing en masse, and repeatedly, that made people realize a standing force of trained warriors to deal with them would be needed? The obvious answer is threatening a settlement/power or critical resources; there’s no reason to get fancy.

Decide how long ago they formed. We have three options: very recently (the last ten years), a long time ago (five hundred or more), and somewhere between. The latter is our default option when a formation period doesn’t matter to us. Truly old organizations are likely widespread, with strong history, meaning they’ve been influential in multiple major battles and wars. They have proven their value and are held in high esteem, with numerous legendary characters along their long history. By contrast, a very new group might not have been tested even once. They may be less trusted or relied upon. No heroes exist, or maybe one, who might be considered an anomaly. If going this route, our story likely features the formation of this group, so do this when the details of a group forming are of interest to you and you can make it a good story.

We may also want to decide where they formed. This is useful when trying to decide where they’ve spread to since inception, how long ago, and therefore how ingrained in society they are in different places. This allows us to create a little variety without much work. They will have spread out from this origin point in one or more directions. Using general population and the United States as an example, Europeans settled first on the east coast; as a result, despite hundreds of years passing, population is still denser than farther west, north in Canada, and even south – the directions people spread. A similar phenomenon can happen with a type of armed forces becoming popularized.

In worlds with flying or water-based ships, this gradual spread over the land may be supplemented with the relatively sudden appearance of these armed forces in locations far removed from locations already having them. The idea of them will have been brought with the travelers. Designate somewhere as “The birthplace of the knighthood,” for example, and then decide to where they spread. If we have a file for every sovereign power or kingdom, and have used the templates provided with these books, we’ll see an entry for “Armed Forces” for us to jot this down.

With the number of world building tasks before us, creating a history for a military group is one to keep brief. If we already have wars invented for the past, add a mention of their role. Some examples:

“They entered the Battle of Evermore late due to the distance to traverse, but they turned the tide and helped ensure victory, leading to their celebration as an elite force.”
“At the Battle of Evermore, they led the vanguard and were destroyed to a man in the first assault.”
“In a position of leadership throughout, their forces controlled the pace and tactics of battle, leading to yet another victory and an increase in their reputation as masters of warfare, without whom many evil regimes would dominate the land.”

We may also want to invent specific missions they undertook and whether they were successful. We need their objective, which can be stopping someone, recovering or destroying an important item, or rescuing someone. We’ll also state what they overcame, such as enemy, supernatural, or science fiction forces, and the ultimate outcome. If the mission augmented or damaged their reputation, say so. Remember to focus on what you can use in your work, what makes the group more believable, or both.

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Commissioned Officers and Ranks

Commissioned Officers vs. Enlisted Grades

In the previous table, ranks are divided into commissioned officers (CO) and enlisted grades. The former is appointed by a formal document issued by the head of state (the individual running government; Creating Places (The Art of World Building, #2) discussed heads of state in detail). The generic word “officer” typically means “commissioned officers” even though it could refer to non-commissioned officers. COs are trained in management and leadership and often have college degrees, which are required at higher levels. If such education doesn’t exist in our world, we can decide that experience matters more. If they have little to no experience or practical knowledge of being in the field, they’ll have trouble understanding the life of the enlisted grades they command.

By contrast, enlisted grades means any rank that is not a commissioned officer (who also outrank them). These are the bulk of any military—the fighting men and women and those who support them, such as pilots, engineers, technicians, and more. They can be promoted to higher enlisted grades and sometimes become a non-commissioned officer (NCO).

An NCO hasn’t earned the commission yet, and is promoted from the enlisted grades due to experience and seniority (as opposed to being an officer from the start). They aren’t paid as well, are less educated and trained, and have fewer legal responsibilities. Despite this, they are considered crucial to the military for several reasons: they’re the most visible leaders (higher officers are seldom seen by most soldiers); and the senior NCOs are the main link between enlisted grades and COs. Because they rise through the ranks, they have practical experience as soldiers, as opposed to COs, who may have none. They outrank lower enlisted grades. An army sergeant is an example.

Commanding and Executive Officers

Commanding and executive officers have different positions that are quickly summarized here.

A commanding officer (CO) is responsible for planning strategy and tactical moves, finances, equipment, duties, discipline, punishment (within military law), and more. Available positions are limited, with seniority determining who is promoted into an empty spot. Any unit that’s expected to operate independently can have a CO but the term is generally reserved for major units like an army, regiment, and battalion; smaller units have a commander, who is an officer, but is not a “commanding officer” with the rank, pay, or responsibilities/duties of one; they are often referred to as a leader, not a commander, as in “platoon leader.” As an example, a platoon leader cannot administer judicial punishment, but a CO can.

An executive officer (XO) is responsible for running a military organization and reports to the CO. By running the day-to-day activities, the XO frees the CO to concentrate on his own tasks. The XO is typically second-on-command in navies, but in other branches, they may not be in command, only overseeing administrative functions. We can change this, of course. Companies, battalions, regiments, and brigades each usually have an XO.

Rank and Role

While the details of what roles a rank has can change from country to country, and in our imagined world, there are some high-level leadership positions we benefit from understanding. In other words, who leads a battalion? What’s a rear admiral do? What about a wing commander?

For each military branch, the ranks and roles are listed next. By necessity, these are generalizations due to variations on Earth. Use these wholesale or as a starting point for customization. In some cases, you’ll see the role repeated for two adjacent ranks, which suggests either rank could perform that role, or both individuals at once, with one subordinate to the other. Use your imagination.

 

Rank
Role


Commissioned Officers


Field marshal or General of the army
5-star rank, commands a sovereign power’s army, sometimes honorary or only used during wars


General
4-star rank, commands an army, highest peacetime rank


Lieutenant general
3-star rank, second-in-command (of an army corps)


Major general
2-star rank, commands a division


Brigadier general
1-star rank, commands a brigade


Colonel
Commands a brigade


Lieutenant colonel
Commands a battalion or regiment


Major
Commands a battalion


Captain
Commands a company, sometimes second-in-command of battalion, can be entry-level rank for those with advanced college degrees (doctor, lawyer, wizard?), highest rank that’s still in the field (as a fighter)


Lieutenant (aka, First)
Commands a platoon, often second-in-command/deputy to a captain


Second Lieutenant
Entry-level rank for officers. College graduates can skip this rank, and even others are often in it less than a year


Officer cadet
Trainee rank


Enlisted Grades


Warrant officer or sergeant major
Warrant officers are typically technical experts, pilots, military police, etc. Sergeant major is highest enlisted rank


Sergeant
Commands a squad or fireteam


Corporal
Commands a squad


Private or gunner or trooper
Entry rank of 4-6 months duration (rank can be skipped if given awards). Troopers are cavalry, while gunners operate artillery

Figure 7 Army Ranks

 

 

Rank
Roles


Commissioned Officers


Fleet Admiral
5-star rank, reserved for wartime, commands multiple fleets


Admiral
4-star rank, often the highest rank in peacetime. Commands a fleet


Vice Admiral
3-star rank, commands the vanguard of a fleet


Rear Admiral
2-star rank, the least experienced of three admirals (at the rear of a fleet)


Commodore
1-star rank, commands more than one ship at a time (flotilla or squadron of ships that is part of a fleet), temporary rank (usually a captain)


Captain
Commands the largest ships, highest rank to command a ship


Commander
Commands smaller ships like a frigate


Lieutenant Commander
May be the CO of smaller stations/ships, or XO of larger ones


Lieutenant
Senior-most junior officer rank, formally second-in-command of a ship (behind captain), multiple lieutenants on a ship used to be numbered by seniority as “first,” “second,” etc.


Lieutenant junior grade
May require two years of service


Ensign
Commands squadron or team. Entry-level rank for officers. Named for carrying the flag.


Officer cadet
Trainee rank


Enlisted Grades


Warrant officer or chief petty officer
Requires passing special exams and with high scores, plus enlistment time


Petty officer
Often specialists


Leading seaman
The senior-most seaman


Seaman
Entry rank

Figure 8 Navy Ranks

 

Rank
Roles


Commissioned Officers


Marshal of the air force
5-star rank, typically ceremonial (like those from the royal family) if at all (it’s rare)


Air chief marshal
4-star rank, commander of the air force, highest rank


Air marshal
3-star rank, commander of a large formation/vanguard of fleet


Air vice-marshal
2-star rank, commands large formation/rear of fleet


Air commodore
1-star rank, commands multiple groups


Group captain
Commands a group (aka wing)


Wing commander
Commands a wing or squadron


Squadron leader
Commands a squadron or flight, most junior of senior ranks


Flight lieutenant
Manages team of airmen/specialists/NCOs, can be second-in-command of squadron


Flying officer
Applies to ground crew too


Pilot officer
Entry-level rank for officers, can be skipped for those with training


Flight cadet
Trainee rank


Enlisted Grades


Warrant officer
Warrant officers are typically technical experts, pilots


Sergeant
Commands a squad


Corporal
Commands a squad


Airman
Entry rank

Figure 9 Air Force Ranks

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Understanding Military Ranks

Using ranks makes our armed forces more realistic. The simplest approach is to use a standard naming convention from Earth. It’s familiar and already understood (especially by those in a similar military branch here) while creating the necessary and believable structure that would likely exist. But we can also strike out on our own, carving out specific roles and their associated ranks. Renaming existing roles creates the sense of another world, but the audience won’t know what we mean without some minor exposition. If we choose to rename them, it might be wise to keep track of what they’re normally called for our internal world building files. Preserving the rank name lets us research more about them should we need to later.

The following chart lists ranks in order of highest to lowest and compares the titles of similar ranks across the army, navy, and air force.

Army
Navy
Air Force


Commissioned Officers


Field marshal, or General of the army
Fleet Admiral
Marshal


General
Admiral
Air chief marshal


Lieutenant general
Vice Admiral
Air marshal


Major general
Rear Admiral
Air vice-marshal


Brigadier general
Commodore
Air commodore


Colonel
Captain
Group captain


Lieutenant colonel
Commander
Wing commander


Major
Lieutenant Commander
Squadron leader


Captain
Lieutenant
Flight lieutenant


Lieutenant (first)
Lieutenant junior grade
Flying officer


Second Lieutenant
Ensign or midshipman
Pilot officer


Officer cadet
Officer cadet
Flight cadet


Enlisted Grades


Warrant officer or sergeant major
Warrant officer or chief petty officer
Warrant officer


Sergeant
Petty officer
Sergeant


Corporal
Leading seaman
Corporal


Private or gunner or trooper
Seaman
Airman

Figure 6 Military Comparison Ranks

Aside from those in the military (or their loved ones), most people have a limited understanding of or interest in relative ranks. Authors need to navigate this ignorance during storytelling. What the audience most needs to understand is who is higher and lower in the chain of command during a scene, not what their day-to-day responsibilities are; the audience can infer major duties from a scene involving the character carrying out some duties, such as during a battle scene. Ranks don’t accomplish this because most of us don’t know what something with a given rank does. So why do we care about rank? Because soldiers refer to each other by rank in dialogue.

If we’re writing a story that is heavy on the inner workings of a fictional military group we’ve invented, then we’ll need to invest more time in working out duties. This can also be easier than researching all of these ranks and trying to determine what they do. When I’ve investigated this, I’ve often come up empty, which is why there’s no chart listing every rank and its responsibilities. This also changes from country to country, meaning we have leeway to invent. Plausibility is the bar to get over; we are inventing a fictional group, not correlating it exactly to Earth military. Obviously, we don’t want to call an army private a general, and we should form a sense of hierarchy, but beyond that, little is needed by most world builders.

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Understanding Troop Numbers

Those wishing to write war stories often struggle to determine how many troops are in a settlement, sovereign power, or in an army facing another army. This will depend partly on things like forced military training, expectations, the level of threat in recent decades and today, and even the sort of government that exists. This allows some leeway, but a military junta is likely to have a high per-capita number of available soldiers compared to a monarchy, which might count farmers in its ranks, as opposed to trained warriors.

For perspective, the United States has almost 7 soldiers (combined military branches) per 1,000 people, or nearly 7 per 1000 capita. A city of one million can therefore produce 7,000 soldiers. It’s not quite that simple, of course. Army, Navy, and Air Force bases create concentrations of personnel where those bases are located. But the soldiers may have joined the military from a broad area. Some cities or regions will contribute more or less than others, partly for cultural reasons.

We don’t need to get this detailed, and we can fudge the per capita higher or lower based on our needs, with no one able to argue with us. This number varies considerably across Earth nations, from about 2 per 1000 capita to over 100, with many below 10. We can choose a typical per capita and assume this as a default. Then state in each settlement or sovereign power file whether these armed forces produced from here are at, below, or above the typical per capita. If we ever need a war and want troop numbers, we can add the total population of cities and towns in a power and arrive at a likely army size.

Formula: Population * Per capita = Troops

Example: 1,000,000 * .007 = 7,000

This becomes useful when determining who has the bigger army. We can change the numbers if we want Kingdom 1 or Kingdom 2 to have the larger number of troops. There are more towns and settlements on our map than we’ve likely drawn, so we can also raise the number upward by 10-20% for all of those unaccounted for settlements. Recent battles or famine are just two of many scenarios that could’ve reduced one power’s available forces. Such details add believability and are arguably better than just deciding one army is bigger than the other because we said so.

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Military Units

Large armed forces are organized into military units, each led by a commander. When combined, these units form larger groupings that can amount to an army, navy, or air force (or space force). The armed forces we’re inventing now may not exist in such large numbers; maybe they’re more of a specialty group, like the U. S. Marines, who have special training and may accompany members of larger military units. Decide which type you’re creating as this determines whether you need to organize them into military units or if they accompany the units of other forces.

The following chart shows typical army units, numbers of individuals comprising each, and the rank of the usual commander. Each unit is comprised of multiple small units. For example, a platoon is composed of multiple squads. This means that a lieutenant (in charge of a platoon) has several subordinate sergeants (commanding those squads at his direction). We can alter these numbers. This can be a guide or used wholesale.

Units
Numbers of Soldiers
Commander


Fireteam
2-4
Corporal


Squad
5-14
Sergeant


Platoon
15-45
Lieutenant


Company
80-150
Captain/Major


Battalion
300-800
Lieutenant Colonel


Brigade
1000-5000
Colonel/Brigadier General


Division
10000-25000
Major General


Corps
30000-50000
Lieutenant General


Field Army
100000-3000000
General


Army Group
2+ field army
Field Marshal


Region
4+ army groups
Commander-in-chief

Figure 4 Army Units

The following chart shows several air force units and how many aircraft are in each and the usual commander. Regarding groups and wings, significant variations occur across countries, making it harder to generalize, but these names can be used interchangeably.

Units
Numbers
Commander


Flight
3-6 aircraft and support crew
Squadron leader


Squadron
3-4 flights
Squadron leader


Group/Wing
3-4 squadrons
Wing Commander/Group Captain

Figure 5 Air Force Units

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