Village Building: Shiogakure no Sato (Comments)

[Vael]

Comments for my Shiogakure no Sato building over here please ^.^

...and guys? Have fun, neh?

[gman391]

Alright for me I love world building. But don't write it until the plot demands it. So I need to figure out a political system for Suna I'll keep vague ideas write down out lines but won't flesh it out until I need it. That seems to help me.

As for settling in Wave....could work. The biggest problem is dealing with Hunter-Nin squads. Won't be an issue for a while but will be an issue. Your going to need a navy and some sort of militia for defense relatively quickly. But I assume you have something planned. Have at 'er

[Tempest Kitsune]

Okay, in regards to your question about how we "do it" when it comes to working out characters and ideas into a semi-coherent plot, in my case it comes down to what I call the "connect the dots" method. I get flashes of scenes, truly epic stuff, involving the characters. From there I work with what I've got to connect the dots. Sometimes it doesn't work out and I hit a dead end, so I either have to retrace my steps and see if there's any way to use the scene as I envisioned it, or someplace later on down the line that I can put it in. Sometimes though, you just gotta scrap an idea, no matter how coll it would have been. I recently had to take out several bits that I was planning on using later for my Power of Diplomacy fic, due to it making an already stretched OC cast that much worse to deal with.

As for the concept you've put forward? It's workable, though I've gotta say, Wave is a bit close to Konoha's borders. But as a place for a burgeoning ninja village it's ideal, due to all the trade that goes through.

[Phht]

Oh god, Vael. You're me.

I love doing world building. I had a partially complete Robotech RPG campaign I started near the end of high school where I needed to create, pretty much, an entire faction from an alt universe... the campaign part never really got written, but I had a lot of stuff on the history, government, military organization, etc for it. Also have an aborted SW d20 campaign that never really got fully plotted out (but setting was pretty well covered!). And, of course, there's the Naruto RP stuff.

--

One thing I have to note right off: Try finding something different to call the village leader. Canonically (manga-wise) there are 5 Kages recognized. Anime kinda tosses in some Star village Kage guy (but he's filler), and fanfiction tends to make the leader of Oto or any new village a -kage, but I don't think people will take a new village seriously if it declares its leader a kage. The five great villages might take it as an insult. If you can't come up with something better, that's okay. At least you tried to avoid that fanon-ish cliche.

I'm guessing you picked Wave because that means you can use Tsunami, old drunk (ah, Tazuna!), Inari, and some of the other people introduced in the Wave arc rather than needing to make up a bunch of OCs to populate the area? Not a bad idea at all!

Some things to consider regarding the hidden village. If you're going to start the village with the group that leaves Konoha (via the Missing Hokage challenge set-up or whatever), how will it grow to a sustainable size? What reason would someone like a wandering ninja or missing nin have to settle in the village and help it grow? Why should clients send their missions there instead of, say, Konoha? How will the village have enough ninja available to handle sufficient missions to keep the village afloat and attract more ninja to it? Who's funding all the building and paychecks, etc that will be needed until it's self-sustainable? There are already nine hidden villages in the elemental countries. Why should anyone pay attention to an attempt to make a tenth village (and possibly not crush it and kill/enslave the inhabitants)?

In some ways, this is like a 'going into business' story. Organization, government, does it really matter if you can't get the stupid thing large enough and going long enough to need them?

[QuoteMyFoot]

Most of my world building tends to be done at the behest of the plot, so I'm afraid I can't help you there. It's easier with fanfiction, where I can check things out meticulously before I start writing.

Good luck with this, though. It sounds intriguing.

[Vael]

The biggest problem is dealing with Hunter-Nin squads. Won't be an issue for a while but will be an issue. Your going to need a navy and some sort of militia for defense relatively quickly.

As for the concept you've put forward? It's workable, though I've gotta say, Wave is a bit close to Konoha's borders. But as a place for a burgeoning ninja village it's ideal, due to all the trade that goes through.

In some ways, this is like a 'going into business' story. Organization, government, does it really matter if you can't get the stupid thing large enough and going long enough to need them?

Hmm...*snicker* thanks for reminding me to set up the basics guys, I appreciate it :D never quite realized that this would be a "going into business" tale oddly enough.

But as for the village, well, I was thinking that Naruto and co.'s main focus would be on the defense of Wave first...*shrug* this on top of odd-jobs (D-ranked missions). Hmm, maybe Shiogakure no Sato could be an organization that nin based in Wave are all a part of. As a loose organization, they won't need to worry about costs of building/the upkeep of a full on settlement. At most, maybe an office in the major settlements across Wave and an inn or two that only caters to Shio Nin.

[Nasdaq]

Hmm, certainly an interesting concept. I had a similar thing set in River Country. That being said, my actual question is this: What's the no Sato from? None of the other villages have that, as far as I know, right?

Also, from what it sounds like, you could handle it very similar to Otogakure, which also lacks a concrete 'village' really, and is more a bunch of hideouts and small bases than an actual 'village' per se.

[Phht]

Actually, ALL hidden villages have that.

Konoha's full proper name is Konohagakure no Sato. I think the "no Sato" is "Village of" while the "gakure" is "hidden", resulting in something along the lines of "Village of Hidden Leaf". A lot of people kinda drop the last part, so its just "Hidden Leaf". Most of us just drop most of it and use the shorthand of Konoha, Suna, Iwa, Kumo, Ame, Kusa, Kiri, Oto, and Taki.

[gman391]

Mind you for villages they're pretty big......just going from what we see. Does anyone know the exact pop limit between a village and a town? I think it's 5000 people but I'm not sure.

[Nasdaq]

Huh, you learn stuff every day.

[Darkandus]

It's much less than that. Towns range from several hundred to thousands. The Hidden Village moniker is just a throw back to the early manga when the show still pretended to be about Ninjas who historically were said to have lived in small hidden settlements.

[gman391]

Might be a country thing. Different countries have different standards for what counts as a city and so on.....

[Calinero]

I intend to watch this thread, because I could stand to learn some more about world building. One of the hardest things for me is that I try to build fantasy settings...which is incredibly hard to do without feeling either cliche, or like Tolkien did it better already. But I'll contribute too!

I can think of valid reasons that people would use this hidden village over the more established ones, such as Konoha or Suna and such. The first would be accessability--it might be a lot closer to certain customers. Also, they might have a lower price to go with their lack of prestige. Thirdly, if the rest of the major villages are caught up in some sort of war or something like that, they might have their forces spread too thinly to take on the same number of missions as they normally would.

I imagine that the village would be able to recruit some locals as ninjas, but not many for a good while...once they're more established, then they'll start having applicants. Until then, they will have to be very small...it would be acceptable, I think, to have some missing-nin swell their ranks, but you must be careful using that approach. Most missing-nin became that way for a reason, because they're too amoral to get along with a village full of assassins (and what does that say?) or because they have other problems with authority. A village founded with too large an amount of such people would have shaky foundations at best.

I'm interested to see how a new village would develop. Would they begin by legally purchasing a building in some already existing town or city, and making that their headquarters? Or would they begin building their own village from scratch out in a forest somewhere? Or perhaps they would stay mobile at first, having set locations that clients can meet them, but no permanent home until they are an established force?

[Tempest Kitsune]

I'd think they'd stay mobile at first. Less of a chance of the minor villages killing off the competition when they're always on the move. The major villages probably wouldn't even take notice of them at first, except that in this particular case the founders are a group that everyone seems to want to get their hands on. Which would actually mean that the minor villages would probably back off, since they don't want to be seen as trying to raid a major villages "cookie jar", so to speak.

[gman391]

Ninja were very much mobile operations if I recall only establishing themselves when they were sure they could defend themselves. So the same here. As for economic feasibility well that's a little trickier. In Naruto shinobi apparently do anything and everything for a price. With Naruto involved you have a ready made work force so something along those lines?


You know it won't work for Wave but I kind of want to see a Hidden Village based off of Moria or something like that.

[Vael]

@Calinero:
Thanks, I appreciate all the input I can get ^.^

Recruiting, you've spelled it out, and since they need to build a schoo...wait *jots down interesting point* anyways, the missing nin point I've also thought about, the only problem is with infiltration...a reverse Itachi if you will. Still though, that's a really good plot point.

This 'Village' will not be the usual type (with Uzumaki around, would it ever be?) instead, this phrase fits what the village will be, "Shiogakure no Sato is Wave, but Wave is not Shiogakure". There will be a town/village where all Shio Nin can go and find a place to be nin amongst other Nin. But yes, they will be mobile...mostly.


@ gman391:
That's EXACTLY what I was thinking in terms of D-ranked missions, but on top of the chilled shopping, lost pets, baby-sitting, and painting; heavy labour would be there too, what with all the building I can see happening in Wave after Gatou's demise. On top of that, I also imagined Shio Nin being tradesmen/women as well. So, your typical Shio Nin would not only be a ninja, but also a business person and a crafts person.

And as for the Hidden Village of Moria? Hmm, I forsee Epic!Doton shinobi, but not in Wave I'm afraid...Thanks for the idea though ;)


@peoples:
Posted the main characters I see contributing to this village, I have some other nin I want to add to this but I hit a road block, logistics and secrecy wise. Then again, I also need to consider ties to Konoha as well.

[gman391]

What about turning them into a merchant house/guild with a sideline business of assassinating people? Publicly they ship....ahh let's say fish because of where Wave is and work that angle. In secret well they act like ninja.

[Kirai]

Well obviously they would ship ramen. And of course, they would be like a family to Naruto right?

[gman391]

Hell if I know. But yeah probably.

[Vael]

@gman/Kirai:
I can see one nin clan becoming a clan of merchant nin, but what I also had in mind were jewelers, blacksmiths, tailors, butchers, farmers...so on. Various different professions having nin in them...like the Yamanaka Flower Shop for instance. That way, the village has an insane variety of funding so that even if there weren't many missions, the village is still afloat. But of course this is in the long term, for now, with Team Kage, I can forsee a brute labour force, a travelling doctor (or two...or three), heck even (and especially) security/bodyguards.

[Kirai]

Hmm my subtle allusion to the mafia was a bit too subtle I suppose^^

[gman391]

See I was thinking more along the lines of the Great Merchant Houses of Europe during the Age of Sail. Although in theory just one small group they had an incredibly diverse portfolio and enough shipping power to make serious cash.
Oh hell now I want a Naruto and the gang on ships AU

Sorry Kirai for not getting the reference. But Naruto treats...well anyone who hasn't tried to kill him recently as family so....

[Kirai]

no no that's alright, it was very very subtle. I mean, noodles and family.... that doesn't have all that much to do with the mafia.The noodles nothing even, besides the association with italy and thus mafia.

[gman391]

It'd a work if you called it the family or capitalized it. Say does the...umm criminal elemental play a role in this new village?

[Phht]

Not unless someone goes to the mattresses. :?

(And now I'm imagining Hinata as an assassin that acts as a flower delivery girl. She always delivers lilies, for the target's funeral.)