So, I'm writing the Epilogue of a 3-year long D&D campaign, and in the final game, as in many other games, the dark lord type character was defeated.
In my world, he had enslaved approximately a third of the world's people, who are now suddenly free, but find the lands they once inhabited to be far more barren and inhospitable than what they had left. There are of course cities and towns that were abandoned and will now be repopulated, but the rebuilding process will be long and hard.
I'm wondering, are there any historical examples of a large-scale resettlement of an abandoned or unoccupied area that I could draw from? I don't mean the type of organized resettling seen in Ireland's plantations, more so people returning to their homeland after a war, or discovering a new area to build a civilization. I just want a vague idea of what type of natural, social and political hurdles might arise in this process.
Thanks everyone :)
Hi there - we're happy to approve your question related to your creative project, and we are happy for people to answer. However, we should warn you that many flairs have become reluctant to answer questions for aspiring novelists and the like, based on past experience: some people working on creative projects have a tendency to try to pump historians for trivia while ignoring the bigger points they were making, while others have a tendency to argue with historians when the historical reality does not line up with what's needed for a particular scene or characterization. Please respect the answers of people who have generously given you their time, even if it's not always what you want to hear.
Additionally, as amazing as our flair panel is, we should also point out that /r/AskHistorians is not a professional historical consultation service. If you're asking a question here because you need vital research for a future commercial product such as a historical novel, you may be better off engaging a historical consultant at a fair hourly rate to answer these questions for you. We don't know what the going rate for consultancy work would be in your locality, but it may be worth looking into that if you have in-depth or highly plot-reliant questions for this project. Some /r/AskHistorians flairs could be receptive to working as a consultant in this way. However, if you wish for a flair here to do this work for you, you will need to organize this with them yourselves.
For more general advice about doing research to inform a creative project, please check out our Monday Methods post on the subject.