Thanks for formatting that for me. I think it's actually easier for me to read large blocks of script, and that's probably why I write that way, but then my eyes are pretty bad, and I haven't been able to locate my glasses for some time.
In order to make the Age of Wisdom work thematically, it was necessary to make some tough decisions. I didn't want to make the world into a Utopia, because that wouldn't be very fun to play in. It's not like Pangaea has been wiped from existance, they will still be in the game, used for poignancy and flavor as independents or members of other nations.
By the way, if I DO decide to create a winter for Pangaea, they would be a swamp-themed nation of undead, quite possibly involving undead Treelords. And it IS a possibility, now that I consider it.
and it's not like I WANT hoburgs running the world, it's just my little attempt at social commentary
In creating this storyline, I aspired to add a certain level of intrigue and desperation which I think would be present in a world-war situation. I specifically had the movie Casablanca in mind-it's a strange mix, Casablanca and Dom3, but I definitely wanted the climate of good times gone before, heroics going on in the shadows, and really hard choices being made for the greater good, set against a WW2-esque background.
The Nazis are definitely represented (a hint if it's not apparent: little Nazi hoburgs who "have the best of intentions" and "need more breeding room" and are "securing their borders" after "the destruction of their homeland and collapse of their economy"), as are the Jews and other persecuted races, just perhaps not in the forms you might expect.
Pangaea is one of these races. Their forests are being cut down by axe-weilding hoburgs and their peoples are being burned as witches, locked up in zoos, or hunted for food. That's just the reality of a very bad situation.
I also had in mind that races keep going from larger to smaller through the ages in Dom3, and I didn't want to continue the situation that too often comes up in fantasy novels-namely that humans are taking over the world and all the "fantasy peoples" are dying out.
Humans in this case are just another in a long line of fading races, badly decimated by Ermor in the last age. Hoburgs are humanlike so I can legitimately guess which directions they may grow in-and they're small to keep with the larger to shorter theme, and also to evoke the idea that in these times we live in, we're standing on the shoulders of giants who have come before.
Hoburgs are the up and coming new race, able to quickly spring back because of their high growth and breeding-rate combined with the fact that they're generally discounted or ignored by older, larger races, after the devastation of the previous era.
They're size 1 too, which can be a real advantage in combat when combined with the right technology and enough numbers.
They're small, tough, and they've got chips on their shoulders, so instead of always having larger and weirder evil races to fight, now you've got lots and lots of angry, serious, demented little children with weapons, and they're taking over the world-and that can be very scary.