I do a lot of my patrols in the Tide­water, Vir­ginia region.

I just jotted down the fol­lowing paragraph:

The Tide­water is really five cities, strad­dling the Atlantic’s extrem­i­ties, con­nected by a range of bridges and tun­nels. The people here have salt­water in their blood. They fish for scal­lops and lob­ster. They load and unload stadium-sized freighters. They build and float ships. Fort Eustis is close by, but these are Navy people to the core. Their sons and daugh­ters sail the Navy’s ships, then get out to use the skills they learned to design and build them, or to cap­tain, pro­vi­sion and police their civilian coun­ter­parts. In return, the Navy feeds them, employs them, brings a mea­sure of pros­perity to the five cities. It asks lives in exchange, and they are given gladly.

So, let’s spin it into an epic fan­tasy setting:

The Five Isles func­tion as a single fiefdom, con­nected by a series of stone bridges that straddle the Ire-Water, their builders long since for­gotten. The lords of the isles are sea­farers back beyond memory, their fate tied so closely to the water that they are known as “The King’s Salt Beards.” Their lives have ever been the King’s wars and his custom, either loading his mer­chantmen, or sailing his war gal­leys. The King keeps a cav­alry squadron here, as he does across the domain, but they find no wel­come among the Salt Beards. The lords use them as mes­sen­gers and func­tionaries. War and trade, for them, are things born of the sea.

Not really much a stretch, I’d say. Look at Martin’s Ironmen, his Dothraki. Look at Brett’s Krasians, Roth­fuss’ Edema Ruh.

People are always asking fan­tasy writers “where do you get your ideas?”

Look around.