Background to Arransia

Arransia, of course, does not really exist except in my imagination. As I had expressed an interest in creating imaginary countries, Bryn Buck kindly invited me to "adopt" Arransia as a companion country to his Brunswick.

So I took the relevant corner of his map and started fleshing out the bones, dreaming up information about history, geography, transport systems and military forces. Arransia is obviously somewhat tongue-in-cheek, and owes more than a little to Molvania, but it is credible as a country living in the shadow of a larger neighbour, that has always had ambitions above its station, which lack of funds and incompetent leadership have almost always prevented it from fulfilling.

It is fun to imagine a modern country that is almost a living museum of transport and military hardware, with its roads full of Morris Minors, coal-fired paddle steamers running ferry services, the air force still operating flying boats for coastal patrols, the railways using Garratt articulated steam locomotives to haul coal trains on steeply-graded branches, and the navy's flagship being a 1950s-vintage fixed-wing aircraft carrier.

However, Arransia is a serious country, and their way of going about things, while anathema to those who want everything to be uniform and modern, is more effective than the casual observer might imagine. They are a comfortable, prosperous and proud people. Their leaders may often be vainglorious, foolish or misguided, but at the local level, what they do seems to work for them.

And I find myself feeling a certain amount of authorial affection for the headstrong Princess Fiona and her rock star husband, and the irascible one-legged admiral "wee" John Brodie in his flagship the Polar Bear defeating the hated Brunswickians at the Battle of Ugglesby Head :-)

Arransia is not in any sense a personal Utopia, as infrastructure investment is well below any Western European country, it has a strongly protectionist economy, and many odd and perverse laws and regulations. It also has some singularly grim and unappealing industrial areas. But it is, on the whole, a nice place, with some beautiful scenery, derestricted (if often poor quality) roads, sensible traffic policing, fertile agricultural areas, friendly, tolerant people, excellent, plentiful food and drink and a wealth of fascinating historic buildings.

More details on the thought process behind Arransia can be found on the Reflections page.

I have also set up a page of other fantasy maps I have created.

Peter Edwardson - November 2005

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