On designing cultures:
http://www.frathwiki.com/Dr._Zahir%27s_Ethnographical_Questionnaire
Random name/terrain/stat generators:
http://donjon.bin.sh/
Mapmaking tutorials:
http://www.cartographersguild.com/forumdisplay.php?f=48
Free HTML5-based mapmaking toolset:
www.inkarnate.com
Random Magic Resources/Possible Inspiration:
http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/magic/antiscience.html
http://www.buddhas-online.com/mudras.html
http://sacred-texts.com/index.htm
Conlanging:
http://www.zompist.com/resources/
Random (but useful) Links:
http://futurewarstories.blogspot.ca/
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/
http://military-sf.com/
http://fantasynamegenerators.com/
http://donjon.bin.sh/
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/index.html
http://kennethjorgensen.com/worldbuilding/resources
Question: Can you really call your homebrew setting a D&D homebrew if you kick out Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, and half-races? Are Planetouched (Tieflings, Aasimaar, Genasi) worth including as player races? Or would it be better to include monstrous races like Bugbears, Aarakocra, etc. if you want to have a more "harnessed magic" feeling?
>>48214768
Also...
What is the motherfucking difference between Halflings and Gnomes, functionally? I kind of get that Gnomes have some innate magical abilities which Halflings don't, but are Halflings just lucky thieves and good coocks?
I'm currently working on a setting that, originally, I wanted to be a standard D&D setting with the standard races, caught in the middle of or just after a huge war. Sort of like Eberron, only racial rather than between humans, more like LoTR. But the thought of putting Elves in all the forests and Dwarves under all the mountains really disgusts me, because I have places for some of the D&D races where I think they do fit and serve a purpose.
Orcs, for example, are LOTR-esque conquerors seeking to bring the world under the brutal and bloody rule of Gruumsh. And they're doing a good job of conquering nations, not getting their piggy faces pushed in by every passing band of adventurers.
Gnomes are seafarers, renowned for their agility and speed as sailors. They're still curious and cunning, but they apply that to exploring for new lands and trade routes.
Humans are still bog-standard humans, but their culture dominates the region that I'm building out. And that's basically Arthurian with Christ replaced with an active, meddling pantheon of gods.
But because I made them Arthurian, I want fey to play a slightly bigger role in the setting. Not as playable races, but having them inhabit some of the regions that, being less disturbed by civilization, would normally be set aside for elves and dwarfs. And I don't just want to shove in elves, dwarfs, halflings, warforged, changeling, planetouched, etc. just because they're playable races. So would it be fine if I just have three "core" D&D races available and the rest are just homebrew? Or is that too limiting for players and too snowflakey?
>>48214922
As long as the homebrew races are reasonable, players should be fine.
>>48214768
I'm examining ways of communicating via music and sound over distance.
Is it possible for a bullroarer to be made of something other than wood? In particular, could one be made of iron?
>>48216002
According to Google, yes. Wood, bone, and metal bullroarers have been found in archeological digs. But why not just use wood?
How do people hear from far away? Do they have huge ear trumpets like were used in WWI?
>>48214768
is this a question you need answered specifically for you, or is it supposed to be for everyone to answer like usual?
either way I'd like some other questions if possible, if it's the latter then I don't really know how to answer it, my setting doesn't have anything to do with D&D.
>>48214768
>Question: Can you really call your homebrew setting a D&D homebrew if you kick out Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, and half-races?
Your setting needs two things to qualify as D&D: Dungeons and Dragons.
>Are Planetouched (Tieflings, Aasimaar, Genasi) worth including as player races?
No.
>Or would it be better to include monstrous races like Bugbears, Aarakocra, etc. if you want to have a more "harnessed magic" feeling?
I think those creatures invite "humans in funny suits" role-playing.
>>48216861
The latter, but only because I needed an answer for the former.
>>48218147
Well, Bugbears and Aarakocra aren't known for having a culture. You could only roleplay them based on their physical traits, right?
Anyone else hate Gnomes and Halflings?
>>48220201
Halflings a cute.
>>48220201
I prefer gnomes because I kind of see them as leaner and more agile halflings. Halflings are just fat buggers who eat too much and steal everything. At least gnomes can have a functioning modern society.
>>48220215
The only cute Halfling ever.
>>48220610
3.5e Halfling was cute too.
>>48220610
>tfw my Halflingshave cute monkey tails
>>48221261
>tfw my halflingscan't interbreed and so are the preferred sex slave species.
Terrain is not done on the new/edited areas but does this avoid the unnatural T shape issue I was having earlier? See: http://imgur.com/a/q4QNj
The goal being that it looks 'realistic' like the continent(s) could have formed like that. Ignore the scale (was done so that 10 degrees of latitude = 400 miles, but will up it to 600ish like our world's 10 degrees = 690 miles) and the island to the far south-east.
My problem is I need both that western sub-continental peninsula thing to house Niravahnam, and I also need the jutting region to the south to house a few other cultures. And ideally have the two separated, hence the large bay.
>>48216236
The whole point of bullroarers is that they can be heard from a long way away by normal people (though I can't find a decent estimation of length). I'd give it the same range as a smoke signal, and it's way faster than walking over and shouting.
To transmit a real message, not great, but for early warning it's top notch.
Has anyone got any good information on colonisation and how long it takes to set up (moving into an unclaimed area and moving in to claim area with hostile civlization specifically)? Working on a setting with the theme of loads of factions trying to reclaiming an old territory that's had the populous wiped out (not just looting it) and am wondering roughly how long it takes to get villages, small forts and the like set up.
>it's possible to grow additional limbs with magic
>4-armed professional pianist
>>48225461
smoke signals are pretty baller.
Rate my small world map
>>48226635
3/10 rivers don't split (barring exceptions such as deltas)
>>48226635
This: >>48226660
If you mirrored the rivers and had them all originate from the mountains it'd be accurate.
Also, a river should end its flow in that swamp
>>48226660
Fuck that's the second time in a row I've done that....
>>48226660
Technically they can. Niagara Falls is famous for splitting just before the falls, which is why they're so huge. But usually it's only temporary and the river erodes the obstruction before too long.
I have no idea what races to use.
>>48228040
All of them.
>>48228040
Base them on animals that are very intelligent that you can hypothesize to have human-like intelligence ~1 million years into the future. Cat people, otter people, dolphin people, raven people and then add in the traits of these species: cats would be manipulative, independent but also cozy, while dolphins would be playful and energetic etc.
or you can avoid adding "people" to them and just say "dolphins with human-like intelligence".
>>48228040
Just use humans then.
They're pretty versatile.
Whats a good name to use overall for a setting that is, itself, a mishmash of different kingdoms pulled from different areas and times?
The idea is that everyone in the setting, at some point or another, was living in the 'real' world (generic fantasyland) before they and the entire area there were in was unceremoniously dumped into this new place. This has apparently been going on for a while, new areas are added to this new world (lets call it Echo for now) every few weeks or months.
The lands already a part of Echo have figured out that while all of them seem to be from the same world, they are rarely from the same time and indeed many of them are from time periods or lands so distant that they have never heard of each other.
When a region first enters the Echo, everything is still normal for them. But the longer the land remains in Echo, the more it degrades. The days get shorter/the sun gets dimmer until the land fully enters darkness, after which sickness becomes common, people start turning into monsters, and eventually the very ground, plants and stone start crumbling into dust and ash.
So you have still lighted "safe" regions that have arrive fairly recent, separated by kind-of-safe twilight regions and occasionally deserts of dust and ash that are full on monster town. Go too far in any direction, and you hit what seems to be endless dark wasteland until you hit the edge of the world, falling off into the abyss.
Every time a new bit of land is added to the Echo, the rest of Echo gets rearranged. Sometimes this just means that a road gets shorter or a new area is spliced in between two existing ones, sometimes it means that a place that used to be west of you is now east of you. Other times it means a place that used to be next door is now on the other side of the known world, or even further.
What would you call such a place, other than Echo? That's just a filler name.
>>48228040
Gnolls.
>>48228140
Kitchen Sink. I'd prefer to have fewer with more focus.
>>48228286
Seems like too many beastfolk.
>>48228314
I've done it before, it's not a bad idea but I want multiple for the high fantasy vibe.
>>48228390
I like Gnolls but muh matriarchal futa bullshit is annoying baggage to deal with. Also they seem somewhat generic animal people.
>>48228373
Purgatory
Limbo
THE NEXUS
etc.
>>48229029
I intentionally don't want to draw the purgatory parallel that directly, because I want there to be numerous competing theories in-setting for what the hell is going on.
This being some kind of horrible purgatory/afterlife shit is obviously going to be one of them, but I don't want the very name of the setting to be on the side of that explanation.
Other theories for what is causing the Echo is that this is what the end of the world looks like, or that some kind of parasite monster is 'digesting' the universe one bite at a time and the Echo is its stomach.
>>48228040
Humans, elves hiding in forests, dwarves in mountains, orcs in hills. Make nonhuman races a minority. Make casters a minority to make the PC's special.
Don't play it like star wars. Please.
>>48228040
The ones your players want to see.
>>48229106
>>48228373
Just keep Echo, it sounds fine and youre obviously attached to it.
>>48228742
>muh matriarchal futa bullshit
>mfw I have this, but no gnoll
>>48229182
> youre obviously attached to it
I'm really not. I just needed something to call it in the post instead of saying 'the weird pocket dimension thing they are in' every time.
>>48229237
Call it 'Plethora' then?
I want to make a setting where players play bigass monster demigods and have cults of humans worship them, Primal Rage style, but I'm not sure how to approach it.
>>48228742
i think for my setting i'm going to have in the main pdf about the setting and what options are available, a somewhat developed human, elf, dwarf, and maybe half-orc. after that i would let people play whatever they want, but with the caveat that they have to understand that race is rare as fuck.
I'm bummed by how these threads always go down faster than a fat girl on prom night.
>>48230434
What's so hard about it?
>>48228040
I actually had trouble with this for a new setting that I made. I ended up going with two "core" races and monstergirls.
>>48214768
>Worldbuilding General
Slow on world building this week, but I did take some time out of today to draw some silly Bullywog shenanigans.
I intend on using them as the settings "murloc" equivalent with a few features to have them keep coming back:
-They're "stupid", but not "too stupid". They're almost completely discernible from ordinary giant frogs sitting down, but their love for fashion always gives them away. Naked ones are always slipping past people.
-Their eggs are always getting washed away into irrigation canals and since they don't raise their tadpoles often times you'll have seemingly isolated ponds in country-sides plagued by seasonal hordes of armed bipedal frogs.
>>48234692
But human babies are helpless. Why would bullywog babies be any different?
>>48234458
Coming up with a justification and theme that I'm happy with.
>>48234747
Have you tried running Felarya?
http://www.felarya.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
>>48228040
I have just humans. Other races arepa rely dead, or they've been absorbed into the human population and mostly exhibit minor phenotype changes.
Exception is Goblins, who are still around being annoying fuckers.
![rcatesbeianatad509[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/oMZeTD6.jpg "rcatesbeianatad509[1].jpg")
>>48234719
>But human babies are helpless. Why would bullywog babies be any different?
I don't really have a satisfying answer for you beyond the simple fact that Bullywogs go through a very different cycle of development than humans.
The line they walk between "person" and "animal" is incredibly thin.
![cerro-sarisarinama-1[6].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/TLGI1WZ.jpg "cerro-sarisarinama-1[6].jpg")
Working on my map for the rainforest of Klesh in my Nehwon campaign (like most areas outside of Lankhmar there's essentially nothing expanded upon it except for name/location.
So I have a terraced Lost City built in an enormous sinkhole 2 miles wide, Mangrove swamp coast around the perimeter that turns into acidic bog that supports giant sundews and carnivorous plants, large slow amazonian rivers with small crocs in them.....now I am trying to come up with more features for a dense rainforest (aside from old ruins and caves, natch).
The Kleshites themselves are a mash of elements I like in the Incans, Amazonian natives and the islanders of Borneo. As a rule they are xenophobic towards non Kleshites, worship the Sleeping Earth God (who was imprisoned by the Lords of Necessity before humankind), and visually dress a lot like the people in Road to El Dorado.
Racially they are smaller than average, and as humans can put both starting bonus stat points in Dexterity.
How much of the moon would need to be blown away to create the starting conditions for Earth to have its own Ring within a couple millennium?
>>48234916
Not a whole lot.
>>48216002
For maximum fuck your shit up levels of noise available to ancient peoples, you want a carnyx.
They were described by romans as akin to the volume of thunder. Plus they have a scary animal head on top for 1d4 psychic damage.
Looking for questions about a setting I'm working. The idea of it is Age of Sail with magical girls, I made a google doc so people can post questions and I try to answer them.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Pnc4Jo1kElli_rH4qr45dAHytusIjs2pKhoeX6ZuDww/edit?usp=sharing
Do any of you guys have something "legacy" like in your settings? Like a mantel that can be taken or passed down?
In my setting there is a figure known as the Lion King, an ancient individual whose been around for decades. His power revolves around the Golden Armaments, numerous magical artifacts whose origins are completely unknown. The title of Lion King works in a circle, having the title gives you command over the Golden Armaments, and having the Golden Armaments gives you the title of Lion King and the strength of said title. The Lion King, as an individual, is exceptionally powerful, even without fully pulling out and using the Armaments. There are about a dozen or more Golden Armaments, but the most prominent ones are the Lion Kind's cape (which is pretty much the crown, as wearing the cape actives that title of Lion King), the golden armor and lion sword, the Lion's Guard (two flying stone lion heads that can fire powerful blasts of magic) and the Golden City (an massive, highly advanced (despite it's age) and self sustaining city) Despite the longest holder of the Lion King title has lived for decades, the Golden Armaments do not bequeath immortality to the user. Defeating the previous Lion King grants you the right to take the title.
>>48233177
dubs confirms, fat girls can get down
>>48234773
Is this a setting based off of vore fetish art?
>>48236454
No. The setting is based off wanting to be eaten by giant ladies.
Thoughts on my current work in progress map?
>>48237781
Shit, this is the cropped version.
>>48214768
>Hating dwarves, elves, etc.
Is that racist?
>>48237800
There's no sense of scale, so either those bridges are stupidly huge or these lands ar epretty small. Why are there two pointless bridges anyway?
>Town on the side of the river closest to the Badlands
Sounds like a dumb idea.
>>48237984
The bridges predate the current civilization, they are stupidly huge. They were made by giants. And I agree about the town south of the river.
>>48234916
Earth is already on it's way towards having a trash ring with all the shit we put up there.
It's either that or Kessler syndrome
bempo
page 10 save rave
Tell us about your state religion
>Its symbols
>Its core tenets
>Its relationship with magic and occult
>Burnt any heretics recently?
>>48243282
I'm making something without religion. I'm just so damn tired of it. I get depressed just thinking about it. I'll just pretend this species evolved to have different kinds of rituals instead.
>>48243451
I tip my fedora to you good sir and wish you good tidings on your euphoric path
Some gonzo races I like the idea of but how no idea how to implement.
>Seal/Walrus folk
>Slug people, but bipedal
>Wolf people as companion race to humans ( this one is pretty generic, but surprisingly uncommon)
Also I need ideas for nonanimal people. It's tough enough.
Which setting does WBG think I should work on first or focus on?
>Generic high fantasy. Gods are Bearuocrats, humans were created by Gods, goblins spontaneously generate from trash. Trolls are playable. There are little fairy hobbits that actually look like any generic woodland critter you want to play (badger, ferret, bunny, fox, etc.) Blind people don't get sick because disease is spread by seeing it.
>Urban fantasy set in a city where it is always Night- lost humans and aliens end up here. Guns are called Chimneys due to the ash and soot they shoot, everything is made of scrap and everyone lived in one city named Night Garden with a mysterious power grid nobody understands.
>>48243952
The second because it seems fresher.
removed another major continent, rest of the map still has to adjust to work without it, quite a few empty spaces in locations that shouldn't be empty as well
hopefully about halfway finished now
>>48244360
Any ideas to improve the pitch?
>>48244716
Have a solid plot that involves the setting.
>>48243282
Alright sure I can talk a little about it
Jennevism
A religion widely practiced in Aleoth where members worship a deity known as Jennshessuivana, The White Sun.
Jennshessuivana is said to be the center of the universe and all things, and members devote their lives to following a list of tenets laid out by the supreme being (I have not come up with these yet.)
Magic is illegal in Aleoth, and many of the military's equipment is dedicated to the countering of magic (weapons and staves that produce silencing waves) as they prefer using the miracles of Jennshessuivana over the occult.
>>48244886
I guess to add on to this
This is an idea of what the elite force of the military looks like
They're called Helgenosts, and they're basically people who've given up their mortal bodies for these mecha knight shells in order to better serve their Empress
They use giant weapons resembling old knight weapons, but they're far more advanced and usually equipped with magic inhibiting devices.
>>48244738
Cam you give an example? Or how to make one for my weird setting above?
>>48245095
Anon if you don't know how to tell a story in your own god damn setting I don't think I can help you.
>>48245162
I actually misread your post but alright, I'm kind of just asking hoping someone gives me a million dollar idea.
Otherwise, would anyone be interested in setting bibles or documents posted in the thread?
>>48243282
>It's symbols
Pic-related. Unalash is a vengeful sun god driven mad with power.
>Core Tenets
Kill the orc. Burn the orc. Sacrifice to Unalash so that he'll have more power to kill the orc.
>Magic & Occult
None. Unalash's church will embrace anything that helps them kill the orc.
>Burnt any heretics recently?
No, because there can be no heresy against Unalash. All the other sun gods were slain by him so that he could take their power and kill the orc. Orcs burst into flame and become ash on the wind if they ever get caught in daylight because of Unalash's hate for them, though.
>>48243282
The most developed religion of the setting is the Portage faith, although it's one of the smaller religions. It originates as an alternate history Earth religion where it was bizarre, but after transplanting it into a late renaissance fantasy they became one of the more level-headed religions.
>Its symbols
No religious symbol
The Portage Hawk, a jet black bird of prey with a white head
The national colors: Black and Orange
>Its core tenets
It's mostly a book of laws that delegates all power and religious authority to the government. Portages do not believe in an afterlife or priesthood. Places of worship are instead large buildings where people pray freely and the only "holy men" are those that maintain the temples. Followers of the religion are promised luck and safety in the living world in return for their devotion.
Homes are sacred, to break into someone's house is among the worst of crimes.
Theft, blasphemy, prostitution, addiction, adultery, and witchcraft are typically punished with exile while rapists, murderers, and burglars are shot.
All individuals of both genders cover all of their skin except for their hands, neck, and head both in public and in private, although there are plenty of exceptions like rolling up one's sleeve or pantleg momentarily. Robes and skirts are disallowed in Portage but not necessarily by their holy book, Portages in Veisha and Landamar commonly wear robes.
The women are required to dye their hair white or silver, the book contradicts itself in why this is important.
>Its relationship with magic and occult
The Portage religion stems from an ancient witch religion but traditional magic and blood magic are now banned, and animals are sacrificed only on some holidays. Portage is far behind the rest of the world in the alchemy boom of the not-renaissance.
>Burnt any heretics recently?
Execution is only by firearms, throat-slitting before that. Heretics are just stripped of their religion, their name, and exiled.
>>48245595
Text limit, another core tenet
Fashion and makeup have religious significance, Portages are culturally obsessed with fashion, aesthetics, and fitness. They spend more on clothes than any other culture, both on Earth and in its fantasy version, although they are nowhere near as extravagant as some other cultures in the fantasy setting. Unfit young people are extraordinarily uncommon, aside from those who are unhealthily skinny.
Portage fashion has regional differences. In the greater Portoia region, the color black always dominates every outfit, generally a peacoat or uniform jacket with dress pants. Trim colors are limited to orange, gold, faded blue, and purple. Veishan Portages dress more colorfully, using very dark blues and purples as the dominant color instead of black. Veishans also dress in lighter and softer clothes than Portoians as it is warmer there. The "Portages" in Landamar are the furthest removed in all senses, they dress in patterned robes frequently and wear witch hats, embracing their reputation as a city of witchcraft and alchemy rather than their background as a Portage nation.
>>48243282
>Tell us about your state religion
There are only two religions that can be identified as "state religions" in my world: Atonism, and Many-and-One. One is a fairly strict monotheism enforced by fairly highly industrialized theocratic society, the other is essentially a transformation of a polytheistic tribal worship into an imperial cult. I'll leave the second out of it for now.
>Its symbols
The most typical symbol of Atonism is a equilateral golden triangle. Most commonly it's used without any further iconography, usually fitted to a wall above a temple portal, or displayed above the roof. Variations include it surrounded by golden sun rays, displayed on blue or red background, or equipped either a golden sun disk in the middle, or with three eyes, each in one corner.
Less common icons of the religion include a schematic depiction of heliocentric planetary system, or sun surrounded by several gears. Orreries, which are common and popular product of artists, are also considered sacred symbols of the religion. Some temples have great, complex orreries and models of the solar system beneath their roof.
>Its core tenets
Atonism went through a number transformations through it's history. At it's core, it's a simple monotheistic religion that believes in a relatively distant demiurge, called "Aton", who has created the world through machine-like principles and laws. It's sometimes referred to as the "clockwork religion", as it often relies on a clockwork and machine-like metaphors for the universe.
Atoms believes the whole universe is like a perfectly fine tuned machine, made by a watchmaker-like god, and believes that the highest goal and purpose of human society is to emulate the great divine order as closely as possible. Atonism promotes complacency, loyalty and high self discipline, comparing an individual to a cog in a greater machine, stressing out high level of rigid social order and hierarchies.
>>48246702
That said, Atonism is not all terrible, oppressive and totalitarian (though it has tendency to it) religion, as it also teaches indispensability of an individual and ironically highly values individual life, as "even a single cog missing can make the whole machine stop functioning".
Through it's history, Atonism transformed and merged with an older existing cult of Sun, and Aton himself was identified with Sun. This was greatly helped by a discovery of an astronomer who postulated heliocentric universe, which itself fitted nicely into the whole "giant clockwork like world revolving around single, stationary absolute power.
>Its relationship with magic and occult
The role and definition of magic in my world is a fairly complicated deal in and off itself, but Atonism generally distances itself from nearly any form of magical rituals or thinking. There is no place for chaos and strangeness in it's cold, mechanical world. Magical practices (outside of very few and highly abstract rituals performed by the priests) are deemed pagan and heretical, though in reality, most of the (very common) magical practices and superstitions of the common folk are entirely ignored and rarely actively persecuted.
>Burnt any heretics recently?
Not in any great numbers since the great schism between literalists and non-literalists, arguing whenever Aton should be identified with the literal Sun or not. There are numbers of heresies within the religion, be it remnants of the old paganisms and it's rituals, or the Cult of the Mad Jester, which is very much a gnosis-like heresy that believes that Aton should be condemned, rather than worshiped for his creation of material world. The Jesters are quite actively persecuted, but otherwise, Atonism values social order more than purity of doctrine and it's deviations from social norms that are deemed highly dangerous, rather than local variations of interpretation of religious doctrine.
>>48243732
>using le epic fedora meme, invented by reddit
upvoted
>>48214922
>What is the motherfucking difference between Halflings and Gnomes, functionally? I kind of get that Gnomes have some innate magical abilities which Halflings don't, but are Halflings just lucky thieves and good coocks?
>Shortie Archetypes:
Dwarf = Fighter race
Halfling = Thief race
Gnome = Mage race
>Shortie homes:
Dwarf = Mountains
Halfling = "Hills"
Gnome = Underground
Is a planet that is only 30% water (Rather than Earth's 70%) capable of sustaining human life?
>>48248837
It would be a stretch
It would be extremely arid since there wouldn't be a lot of rain, the wind currents would be all kinds of fucked, continental drift would probably make huge fucking mountains everywhere, biodiversity would be much lower then it is today because there would be fewer barriers for genetic drift. Assuming that it had earth like properties that is.
>>48245244
>Otherwise, would anyone be interested in setting bibles or documents posted in the thread?
Speaking of, what's the best way to organize a setting bible? More cut and dry facts and maps? More fluffy stories and quotes? Something written through a character's perspective or a cheeky thing like an in city pamphlet or written advertisement?
>>48228040
GIANTS
WE REQUIRE GIANT WAIFUS
RIGHT NOW
>>48243282
>Symbols
The elves governing body is essentially a "democratic" theocracy, so their nation's flag is pic related. The center represents their deities (One to represent the moon and stars and the other to represent the sun and heavens). The four stars represent their four "Citadels", which are essentially cities with fuckhuge walls, and the sky blue background represents the "Blue Dream", which is elf heaven.
>Its core tenets
>"Ponder each deed thou shalt preform, ensure thou art acting out with the will of the Sisters close at heart."
>"If thou discover thyself in doubt, seek counsel with thy church and let it guide thy hand, for they art more righteous than thou."
>"The will of the church is law. To break the will of the church is to kill thy goddess."
Basically, do what the church tells you or be inquisition'd.
>Its relationship with magic and occult
The elves gather and manipulate the arcane energy that radiates from the celestial bodies, and they believe that the energy is a gift from the goddesses to elves because muh chozen peeple, but reallythat's bullshit because all the other races can cast the same damn magic. So casting spells as a non-elf is considered to be the same as stealing from the goddesses.
>Burnt any heretics recently?
Many. The church has some many standards to how an elf and should act that deviation from social norms is disobeying the church, and by proxy insulting their goddess waifus.
>gay elf? HERSEY
>freeing your human slave and letting him escape the country? HERSEY
>think the elves should share their knowledge of magic with the world? SUPER HERSEY
>criticize the church for having too many rules ULTRA HERSEY
The typical punishment for being a heretic is either death, painful death, or banishment to the Deep Dark if they like you (essentially a place so seeped in darkness that spending enough time down there turns an elf into a drow)
http://pastebin.com/Zi60XNNF
Here's the magic system for my magitech setting. Looking for critique/unclear things I should improve. Any suggestions are welcome.
>>48237800
>Bridge to nowhere
Then why the fuck is it there?
It's a waste of construction materials.
Tear it down, build a wall.
> Want to make my own races
> Don't want people to feel alienated from the setting, so I can't make them weird
> Would have to put humans in as a baseline
> Other races would have to be human-like in order to be relateable
> Just having humans by themselves feels bland when it's fantasy and you could be anything
> Don't want generic dorfs, orks, elfs, and whatever else
Just fuck my shit up senpai
>>48251948
So use other shit? No place says you need to put in Elfs and shit unless you want to/your players want you to.
>>48252205
Can you read? The problem is he can't decide what to put in.
>>48250640
It's not to no where, just the it's been so weathered and destroyed that it no longer fully reaches the island it connected to.
How do you explain shared/similar cultures in your setting? Originally I was going to just have separate kingdoms with similar languages explained by arising from the same proto-historical ethnicity, but then I thought that wouldn't be enough to explain the similarities and that there should've been an earlier society which the new ones come from, like France to the Roman Empire. Does that make more sense or can I do without it?
>>48253436
Migration from on area to another, with the new area taking on aspects of the migrant peoples.
>>48251948
Instead of Dwarves, I have Golems
Instead of Elves, I have Ayy Lmao's
Instead of Halflings, I have Giant Humanoid Rats.
Just replace it with whatever fills in the niche my man.
>>48253472
What happens to the people already living there, like the Picts or the Romans in Dacia?
>>48251948
I just made the other races [spoilers]monstergirls.[/spoiler] And they have wildly different cultures from the usual Dwarfs, elves, etc. And there's no hard good/evil line, so you can play as any race. Fuck the Drow.
>>48253523
They can mingle and integrate with one another to form a distinct culture with strong similarities. Think Carthaginians and the differences they exhibited from their Phoenician counterparts
>>48236231
Call it literally anything else or you risk people constantly doing the Aaaahhhh mkenya! Disney thing.
>>48223769
>the jutting region to the south
Do you mean the area I circled in red, or the sub-continental peninsula I circled in blue?
If the red area, I'd add some islands in close proximity to it, think east-asia/Japan or the island chain housing the Phillipenes, Indonesia, and etc in the real world.
If you mean the blue area, I don't see any problem with that area having a few cultures seperate from Nirvanah, although I like the addition of the bay and the other changes you've made to the map regardless. But you need to acknowledge that the western coastal nations on the southern sub-continent will definitely have had a long-lasting trade history with the southern coast of Niravahnam.
>>48236231
NANTS INGONYAMA BAGITHI BA-BA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtN8_9Jc1I8
>>48253998
Maybe the Lion Prince, or the Beast King.
>Have sudden burst of inspiration yesterday afternoon
>Get really excited about it
>Like nothing I've done before
>Start imagining a miniature skirmish game based off the setting/factions
>Start to iron out the details this morning
>The visions are evaporating
>Things I wanted as main points of focus/themes don't really work
>I can feel the setting dying before I've even started on it
>>48244589
That looks really cool! What program?
What is your setting's stance on cuckoldry and adultery?
>>48244589
It looks a lot better now.
>>48254985
literally the most degenerate act that humanity has ever invented, but it's by far one of the most prevalent themes in cultural writings because it makes for such great comedy
so basically exactly like it is in real life
>>48249084
Both are good. I know that sounds like a cop-out answer but you do need to keep in mind both the cold, hard facts, as well as what facts are known or misinterpreted by the people in your setting.
It's probably easier to go with cut-and-dry facts if you're making the bible for yourself, make little notes if the public idea of a concept is different from the truth to remind yourself.
If you're making the bible for other people, impartial knowledge from in-setting sources would be better, but this is a much more difficult and lengthy way to go about things.
>>48254756
We all know that feel, I think.
>>48243282
The Church Above Us All
>Its symbols
The symbol of the church is a circle with a rectangle above it, a hand or eye usually depicted within the rectangle. The circle represents the world, and the rectangle represents 'He Above Us All", the eye of hand also representing HABUA. More detailed symbols usually have the rectangle designed to look like a throne or a house above the world
>Its core tenets
In the world there are numerous known gods, gods of harvest, gods of hunting, gods of warriors and travelers, all that stuff, these are factual, existing beings. However the church believes that all gods are just aspects of one true god, He Above Us All. The church's tenants are to spread the teachings of He Above, and to open the eyes of the unenlightened masses to the truth of the heavens. As the throne is an important symbol to the Church Above Us, the monarchy is akin to divinity, and the king is seen as another aspect of He Above Us. The church teaches that all other religions are welcome, but lesser to Abovism, as all other teachings are just aspects of their own church, they simply don't know that.
>Its relationship with magic and occult
Magic is welcome among the church, as the church has priesthoods that practice divine magic and study it. Despite things like witches and necromancers and shamans being generally accepted amongst normal society, the church looks down on such practitioners, and rarely do they permit such schools of study in their spheres of influence. They won't openly permit aggression towards such spell casters, expect in the areas of the kingdom far from the king's sight
>Burnt any heretics recently?
In the farther reaches of the kingdom, necromancers, witches and shamans are considered enemies of both the crown and the church, and backwaters priests will sometimes lead hunts for such practitioners. The church as a whole generally deems such actions as wrong and criminal, but they won't go out of their way to stop them.
>>48255047
I don't find it funny when you're on the receiving end, especially when the other party is some 60 year old man who's 300 pounds and covered in hair.
>>48214768
>Can you really call your homebrew setting a D&D homebrew if you kick out Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, and half-races?
Yes
>Are Planetouched (Tieflings, Aasimaar, Genasi) worth including as player races?
>Absolutely. I make very heavy use of them in my games. They're no longer special snowflake territory even. Anybody whose heritage has any history of power or money has drawn the attention of one of the many outsider or dragon-controlled factions, and they get married into the faction. To be completely human (or elf or dwarf or whatever) is to be descended entirely from commoner stock.
>Or would it be better to include monstrous races like Bugbears, Aarakocra, etc. if you want to have a more "harnessed magic" feeling?
Really depends on what you're trying to accomplish.
In my setting I wanted a "this world is run by magic" feeling, and so I have supernatural elements and planetouched and the like everywhere.
You go to a church, or mercantile company headquarters, or loremaster's guild, or thieves guild, and there's a very low chance the leader (or anyone midranking or above) is a humanoid. They might be an outsider, or a dragon, or undead, or an aberration, with the undead and aberrations mostly belonging to criminal organizations.
I wanted to make the mundane bloodlines a sign of low status.
Occasionally a high level mundane blooded character might acquire status, but ods are when he does he'll be scouted and brought into a supernatural faction, and changed into "something more" from what he was to reflect his new station.
>>48255320
yeah but people are going to write about it and it's going to be hilarious for everyone else
people want entertainment
they want comedy
the jokes, ladies and gentlemen, the jokes
look back on the writings of all the ancient and medieval cultures of our world and it's all just cucking and race memes and cock jokes
it's in our genes
Does your setting have special artifacts?
What is your favorite artifact from your setting?
If your setting has mundane magical items, name a regularly used mundane magic item from any culture in your setting.
>>48255371
It should but I haven't gotten around to making any of them yet. I guess the sword of the king, and the crown, like the crown jewels of most nations, should be artifacts.
>>48243282
Haven't thought of most of these, gotta get to it!
>Its symbols
Plain triangle. Pendants depicting the symbol are basically tiny triangle instruments.
>Its core tenets
Basically don't do anything that would disrespect the Three of the City, like being serviced by a prostitute and beating her up and stealing the cash back is a major affront against the Whore, who also represents festivities and luck. Lying during the court process or ignoring the wisdom of the elderly would disrespect the Crone, harming a child or being unfaithful offends the Maiden and so on. The city where the faith is practiced is pretty loose and carefree so there aren't many tabboos besides the obvious ones.
>Its relationship with magic and occult
The Church of the Three generally ignores the Hall of Alchemists, and visa versa.
>Burnt any heretics recently?
Depending on where I decide to put it on the setting timeline, but at multiple instances extremist groups of the faith have bloomed in popularity, which alters the pantheon by replacing the Whore with "the Punished" representing "immorality" in a city where almost everyone is fine with that sort of thing. At one point the influence of the Cult of the Remade as it is known as, was so great that the King appointed the head of the cult at the time to "High Confessor" and giving him power to basically burn the heretics. In a city with as many religions as fungi on a foot, the whole thing was pretty devastating.
>pic not related, image file is tiny at the moment and I wanted to post something at least slightly relevant to the conversation
>>48255371
>Does your setting have special artifacts?
I wrote out a system for creating artifacts. Among the example artifacts are the Holy Grail, a Palantir, and Odin's Gungnir.
>What is your favorite artifact from your setting?
The Philosopher's Stone. I find it funny that it's made through artifice, and not alchemy.
>If your setting has mundane magical items, name a regularly used mundane magic item from any culture in your setting.
Apart from the obvious (magic lights, etc), there's a cheap magic handkerchief that nearly everyone owns at least one of. Said handkerchief is kept clean through magic, so it can safely be used in place of all manner of disposable products.Basically, magic rag that functions as a tissue, a dry bathing rag, and toilet paper
>>48251948
> Other races would have to be human-like in order to be relateable
No! Wrong! Just look at moogles. Everybody loves moogles.
>>48234747
>justification
For what?
Worship?
>Really high-powered demigods and kinda ignorant worshippers
Demi-God nature?
>"muh fate magic i aint gun explain shit", "god being pointed a finger at him/her/it for some reason that can't be understood by mortals", nanomachines, steal ideas from Exalted
>>48222291
Want to use a fantasy take on biological weapons and WMDs. Which sounds more diabolical as a war crime committed by elven assholes?
>magic contagion that affects conception rate of single-race partnerships of enemy kingdom, resulting in an ageing, falling native population being outbred by half-elves
>memetic curse that causes enemy kingdom to subconsciously avoid its own kind romantically, resulting in an ageing, falling native population being outbred by half-elves
>magic dirtball summoned atop the enemy capital, salted earth just to be even bigger assholes
>>48254794
http://www.getpaint.net/index.html
Where can I read some information about some stone age cultures and what tools/industry they had available to them?
I'm worried about the setting idea I have not making any sense as it's based on more or less realistic humans and a single tribe suddenly gets magic ( though they don't realize they have it for a while ) then writing the development of the world from there.
What I want is for there to already be a decent stone age civilization established but I can't think of exactly that civilization would have available to them. It's pretty important to know because then I can write what gets corrupted or improved upon when my rules of magic gets involved.
Has anyone done a cubic planet before? I was reading about what it would be like if the Earth was a cube and I thought it was pretty interesting.
Basically, the corners of each face seem like gigantic mountains as you get closer to them, because gravity is only straight down when you're in the center of the face. As you move away from the center, the surface of the face seems more and more sloped.
Assuming an Earth-like mass to the planet as well, the atmosphere and oceans accumulate in the center of the face and the corners extend far out into space. Each face is also completely isolated from each other because of this, as well, since the corners extend many thousands of kilometers past the atmosphere.
>>48262948
>dorfs are supreme traders with their complex tunnel systems connecting sides fo the planet
>compete with caravans of undead who give zero fucks about no atmo and just stroll over the corner mountains
How to make an urban fantasy setting with aliens, psychics, and everything made of scrap metal more interesting?
>>48264422
Why isn't all that interesting to you Anon?
>>48255320
Don't be such a whiny cuck ffs. If your girl's a slut, that's what's gonna happen
>>48264955
nice /pol/ and /r9k/ meme dude
Can I get some opinions on how this looks? I was going for the old, handrawn look to it, but flavor of it aside I was wondering if there were any glaring flaws or things I should do.
I also have this whole huge setting I've written up for it, that I'm going through again to clean it up, restructure more randomly generated stuff to more cleanly fit the lore of it. It's a pretty gigantic work in progress, and while I'd appreciate the advice and extra eyes, I'm not sure whether to post it here or try and make a whole new thread for it.
There are a couple of interesting challenges I gave myself and my players in it - namely having it be a complete barter economy, staying away from "not vikings, not arabs, not chinese" tropes and stuff like that.
>>48267196
Looks fantastic except your rivers have a strong tendency to branch out, especially near the seashore. Deltas aren't impossible, but they aren't common either. Rivers splitting farther inland is even more rare. The river split above and to the left of "THE GREAT FRONTIER" label especially triggers my autism. It splits toward the sea/lake in the north, as well as toward the sea far away to the south? Rivers are just the paths of least resistance that water takes from an uphill source to reach the sea. Rivers merge far more often than they split.
It's also odd to have so many lakes close to each other but not connected by rivers (north of Green Sea and Hammer Plains, as well as above the Blinding Wastes), although I'm sure there are countless Fantasy explanations you can come up with to explain those if you don't want to fix it.
>>48214768
In need of some opinions /wbg/
In a fantasy setting with 16th century Eurasia inspired technology and more fantastic inventions like da Vinci tanks common on the battlefield, how would the introduction of flying units, biological mechanical and magical, change warfare?
>>48264667
It was mostly a rhetorical question. I'm just not sure how to write it up or classify the idea further.
>>48267196
Look at your rivers again. That one spring wouldn't split in that huge region spanning network.
Towns are placed very equidistant. It looks like they are placed to fill out space.
The geology has that random generator blotch look to it. Mainly because of the many big inland lakes.
The map also sits very unpleasantly in the format. Needs more borders space. The edges clipping small leftover strips of land or forming tangents to them furthers the random generation look.
Some trees look washed out when scaled bigger.
Some mountaintops clip the coastline behind it.
Subjective: I hate that mountain brush, the shadow looks like random scribbling with default photoshop brush. Yet it is much to popular.
>>48267401
Thanks! Yeah, the river did seem a bit strange to me - when I was making the map, I wanted there to be a large river that flowed through the country, and figured it should it come from the North and east, where there is some sort of cold / arctic bay to the north and a bunch of fuck huge mountains to the north east.
I was thinking that once they go into the mountains to the northeast, they find a giant lake / continuation of the icy sea up north, which could explain things flowing down into those lakes in the south west (I drew it as if a person didn't really know where they originated from) - but I didn't really know if that idea was really viable.
The lakes to above the blinding waste I sort of waved away due to fantasy reason - I wanted to have a case where the mythology actually happened, so we have a story of so-and-so the hero slitting the throat of Suule the dragon king, whose throat made that mountain range, and blood made those lakes / small seas.
Any advice on how I should do the river though? Maybe more small rivers branching out from the bay / great frontier woods, and flowing down south / south east? Maybe add another river all together somewhere?
I'm pretty shit at the river and geology stuff, so I really appreciate it!
>>48267659
The towns I had placed initially as "places they would be able to farm / do X or Y while still maintaining a holding." The town themselves are mostly just symbols representing the heart of a holding. At the time it seemed efficient, but as I developed the culture I think that I can focus the holding more densely in some locations and more sparsely in other depending on the history and resources.
>The geology has that random generator blotch look to it. Mainly because of the many big inland lakes.
I won't lie anon, I used stuff like pic related and such to start off, since I was at such a loss at the beginning that I found it easier to work within the confines of something generated, since I could develop creatively like that. Although ways to solve the lake issue is more than welcome.
>The map also sits very unpleasantly in the format. Needs more borders space.
True - I was running out of space, and I felt like scaling everything down wouldn't work well, but I know what you mean - the ivory isle for example needs to be brought fully into the map.
>Some trees look washed out when scaled bigger.
Some mountaintops clip the coastline behind it.
The struggle is real - the trees I was try hard to depict a massive forest without getting too repetitive, and I'll have to chalk up the coastline clipping to late nights and corrections to be made. Good eye though, thanks.
And yeah, the mountain shadows are rough, but I really like the draw look to them, since it captures the scrawled onto parchment aesthetic I was going for.
>>48267463
>air reconnaissance
would make troop movements more reactive and effective. Sides without are severely disadvantaged. Troops can't use hills to mask their approach. Forests become more important in that regard, but efficiency may vary.
Indirect artillery may become more of a possibility depending on canon tech.
Air bombardment may become effective if the fliers can deliver a sufficient payload. This discourages dense formations. But maybe your flying units are to vulnerable to stomach much return fire. If so fast raids on strategic targets. Command staff, artillery or supply train for example. To counter this defense has to be much deeper as flight can circumvent front lines easier. Command would prefer to hide on the edge of woods for some protection, but also to retain a limited view and maybe access to a landing zone.
>>48214768
How would one go about worldbuilding an ecumenopolis?
>>48267983
Start by answering the three big questions:
Why do so many people need to live on one planet?
How much space does each person have?(do some math on this one-and cringe at every ecumenopolis that says that living space is hard to come by)
How do the get enough food to feed that population?
This will create further questions that you can just grind through.
>>48267883
>Magic
Magic has broad possibilities that depend upon your brand of choice.
I can see weather magic becoming a big thing, as you can hamper or disable air unit movement, wet enemy powder and hamper movement in one fell rainstorm. You may chose to move a small magic detachement plus bodyguard and just hamper the enemy till supply difficulty makes his army desert. Movable siege one could say. Of course you may not have enough time before your enemy threatens a position you have to defend. But everything may be movable if you are a steppe nomad.
You may choose to mask your movement with fog from air reconnaissance, but you have to mask sufficient area to not just mark yourself as the only bank of fog in clear weather.
Da Vinci tanks might be bigger targets than they are worth depending on your balance of forces. I imagine you have to protect them from air with additional troops.
I can see a force in such a setting becoming more combined arms than its equivalent in our world.
>>48268113
Consequences on city building are potentially great as flying units could just find an approach and firebomb a city.
There would have to be much diplomacy and espionage to prevent this.
With the given tech there is not much safety to be had from better firefighting or architecture.
When you are rebuilding settlements you would sprawl them out more to guard against fire.
Shift in fortification style would be accelerated to more modern earthen embarkments and glacis and whatnot.
Maybe there would be a cold war situation with mutually assure firebombing.
>>48267196
Also, has anyone developed a barter economy for their setting? Not using coins or currency like that can get pretty frustrating when figuring out how certain occupations and classes work - taxation too.
>>48268327
You just have to deal with the flow of goods like you would in any economy and handle exchanges without the convenience of money in general.
Trades with more parties than two could be more common to facilitate deals.
Also it is beneficial to invest in commodities that are widely valued to make a pseudo currency. Arrowheads, furs, high calory food that is storable a long time, salt, animals that can move with you, like goats...
Don't forget that services can be part of the trades.
Tax would likely be in your primary food stuff. Maybe your roaming warriors don't owe tax, just allegiance in case of defense.
>>48267883
>>48268113
>>48268326
Many thanks.
I'm currently working on a simple war game in the hopes to simulate small and medium scale battles, to help better form the history of the setting, and this helps immensely.
>>48268548
Well actually, the way I've structured it is as so:
>King controls all the land - free men who live on those lands have to give him taxes in whatever they primarily produce, as well as spend x amount of the year in his service (maintaining roads, working fields, serving in the guard, and so on)
>However, Lords, people who have been granted land that is exempt from the latter conscription, merely pay them taxes in the form of their produce in return for their sworn fealty.
> So freemen began tying their lands to the lords instead - they add their lands to the lord's total holding (which increases the amount of taxes the lord pays), but instead pay their taxes to the lord, and is conscripted by the lord instead of the king. (Its easier to work the next field over, fix the road two miles down then across the country).
>So it progresses down this way, with the lord having landowners work his land for him, who in turn form small towns where individuals attach to them, till you hit you typical farming family.
The king still gets taxes from the lord, which is way easier to collect, while can call on the lords to man armies for him if need be.
The remaining free folk are people with enough natural resources / movable resources to stay near the capital and work with the King's holding, large trade cities maintained for equal trade, and mercenaries, who serve the king during their conscription time and then swear their swords to other lords as needed.
Help me worlbuilding general, you're my only hope.
So I'm making a setting where magic is fairly common, but also mostly fairly weak.
Ex: magic to make long travels slightly less tiring are available to basically every merchant caravan, but throwing a fireball is basically impossible. Though making the explosion created by a cannonball bigger and better aimed is a thing done by groups of the better combat mages.
So, part of this common magic is that creating thoughts is about the easiest of spells. People can resist these, so overwhelming thoughts/emotions are in the upper tier of powers, but expression is at a much lower power level.
And I'm using that to create some rather major cheats.
First, the 'orc' like race has basically no verbal or written language, and a pretty basic sign language. But, they are extraordinarily talented at using sign based magic to express complex concepts, to the point that most augment their 'language' with some basic magic, and as many as 1 in 10 can communicate even the most complex of ideas that might reasonably come up.
Writing is replaced with physical works that again create the concepts directly in the viewers head.
Is there problems with this I'm not seeing? It's meant to be somewhat of a communication barrier with other races, and part of why their societies are somewhat more technologically primative to those surrounding them. But can this still work?
>>48268763
How complex or better asked broad or long can a thought conveyed by a physical work be? How big and complex is the physical object? Documentation may still be very cumbersome. A story 'written' this way may not be viable.
Other thing: when such objects are possible, does that mean magic items are easy? Is this transferable to other magic. I can see the setting pulling in a magi-tech route if this vector of magic is particularly easy. You can have a lot of casters making smalltime magic parts. Can magic be cumulative? Can you build a railgun with pipesections of +0.1 speed?
>>48268728
Seems ok. Still the more advanced and stable your civilisations it becomes harder to believe that they don't have some kind of money. Some sort of resource token like a Koku would be attractive to such a society. Maybe there are destabilizing factors in society that make people distrust currency.
>>48268548
>>48268728
Another thing is services and craftsmen - I think it breaks down to if a land owner is doing well enough to spare people, to apprentice under someone else and learn a craft, then they can, and by extension the lord, house and fund the craftsmen in exchange for them working as needed. Craftsmen are more of a commodity at this point, although master craftsmen can be of renown, such that other lords will commission them for works or even to send apprentices over there to learn.
Sorry for all the dumping, but I get pretty excited about it, for all the thought I put into it. My worry is that I've been working on it for so long that I missed something obvious, that I can't see since I spent so much time on it.
>>48269025
It's the purpose of this thread.
I don't understand why you consider surplus workforce a breaking point for the system. People still require an extensive network of goods to support them. They aren't exactly a easily movable commodity. And the wealthy getting more wealthy is a process that happens in practically any economy.
>>48268983
True - I definitely started it as a challenge to myself, to build something unique, and a challenge to my players, to not just throw money at everything.
It's funny that you should use the koku as an example - I was taking a class on Japanese history when I working on the barter economy, and the shoen system and the koku influenced how I structured it. I figured that the king would take X amount of the primary produce (what X is I have no idea - anyone know how much a king would tax), which would probably be measured in some sort of central measurement. How would you do it? I was thinking something uniform, like wheat or grain, that could substituted for their specialty (iron, sugar, honey, etc).
I had the country history included an invasion and occupation of an empire, that introduced a coinage, but due to something, the coin collapsed and the empire recoiled, so the colonizing force basically just returned from whence they came. Tie that in with some cultural values and I thought it was sufficient to say they distrust coin within their borders.
>>48269135
If you're talking about craftsmen, I was thinking of it more as "if a landowner (which might as well count as a mayor, or head of a clan) is creating enough of a surplus, then they can support or act a patron to a craftsman." People can then break out of their cottage industry and go to a blacksmith, or a butcher, or a tailor, or something like that. Most towns would have people to fill most of their occupations, and only the small and barest of landowners wouldn't be capable of supporting them. The Lord above them, to whom they've signed their lands over to, can conscript the landowners, who might send these craftsman over to the Lord's keep in order to fulfill the necessary task.
>>48269152
It seems more in favor of a percentage of total production and then you just sub-divide into whatever unit you measure the particular stuff in. And then you have fun stuff like people hiding how much they made, of course.
The base thing would definitively be the local main crop.
>>48269245
Yes. Again, seems fine to me. Benefits society and and individual thus would be done.
Or do you want to have an outcome with more basic farmers for your setting?
>>48269152
Also just thought of tax fraud...
Maybe people would try to be [occupation] with small production for tax purposes and work as something other to fill their own larders. Tax fraud without money is certainly a mildly amusing concept.
>>48269349
Thanks for the input! I agree with the total production percentage - and the hiding surplus and all that. Especially since what they save they can trade with the other Lord's holdings, either directly or via large convenient merchant cities.
The landowners normally trade via Lord's holdings markets (Say twice a month when the lord's caravans travel back to the area with the goods they've traded for from afar), but if they have enough people and surplus they might try and trade directly for extra profit (like getting tomatoes to a northern settlement in exchanged for twice their weight in furs or something). However, while the King's tax caravan are untouchable, and the lord's trade caravans are heavily guarded, a Landowner's risky grab is ripe for the pickings for brigands, pirates, and even unscrupulous mercenaries.
>>48268691
Back to your stuff...
Just thought about ships. Those are also vulnerable to flying enemies. This discourages troop transport over sea. You would have to disperse transports over time and to different Harbours or shore landing spots to avoid intercepts. You would want a covert movement here to. And you couldn't really blockade a Harbour.
There could be trade extortion mafia style. "Nice ship you have here... would be a shame if it would lite up in flames a mile out of the Harbour..."
>>48269402
Like a landowner laundering iron and beef by claiming they have really shitty smiths and butchers?
>What do you mean it took him 5 pounds of iron for a single horseshoe?
That might even call for a mini class of surveyors / tax collectors for the lords and king to go around and call people out on their bull shit.
Would weird rivers be permissible if the world's land is nothing more than the flaking and cracking dead 'skin' of a anhero'd god? As in splitting rivers mainly. Slightly unnatural rivers for an unnatural land?
>>48269567
If the land is magical in nature like that then anything can happen.
But did the God anhero relatively recently? Is his skin immune to errosion? If "no" to both of those, over time the rivers will force their way into looking more like real rivers, although we're talking in the scale of hundreds if not thousands of years.
>>48269567
Water still flows the way of least resistance downhill. You would have to change physics ore or use magic along every piece of the way to have it in any other way. If you have to go weird, go full throttle weird I'd say in this case, like his hairs are brooks of water that can 'fly' some odd miles.
Also you could have water just pool in skin cracks like pic related.
>>48269567
I find it really weird for me too - my world takes place on the body of a dead giant. It's that blending of mythology into reality - how much of your world reflects the myth? Can you see a massive foot in the distance or something?
>>48269526
Also legal trouble with traders:
A Merchant doesn't "produce" he trades stuff for other stuff favorably.
But the Nobles want those sweet sweet goods.
>>48268915
To the first few questions, the complexity of a thought is directly related to how big the work has to be.
in terms of being able to tell a story, think about a story told on a tapestry as it exists in the real world. Baseline, you can get about twice the amount of information across per area in a well made magical work as you could with the tapestry. Exceptional works can get up to 10 times the information density, but those are very rare.
Most works are more like an obelesik or steele, and could convey something like, 'this is the land of X, Y is forbidden, go that way to get to Z', and maybe one or two more sentences.
>magic items is easy.
Kinda sorta. 'orcs' can create visuals that transmit ideas with easy, but that is their skill, and humans and their subspecies are actually pretty bad at it. But the more 'civilized' version of elves main trade is in physical 'works'.
The magic isn't easily transferable, it exists within the pattern that formed it. For items, that's the physical pattern, so you can't change them much.
But they can, for example, make tubes of metal with carvings that make them exceptionally strong and heat resistant for their weight. Which is why the best cannons are all 'elfwork'.
Of course that same type of elves are socially and psychologically resistent to learning new things, so they suck at making a full gun. Human gunsmiths order individual parts, mainly barrrels, then have to fit them together.
The general tech level is late mideval early renassaince.
>>48269776
So about merchants
>There's the Lord's merchants, who trade with other Lord's merchants, then comes back to trade with the landowners within their own holding.
>There's merchants sent out by prosperous land owners, which can make a quick profit but open to attack (especially since so long as the attack doesn't happen in their holding, the Lord doesn't really give a shit, since that's the landowner's good to squander)
>Could there be an independent freefolk merchant who acts as a safer alternative for landowners, but takes a cut?
How much would a merchant take, anyway? I figured that there are some freefolk, unattached to Lords, or run large trading ports and cities as ordered by the King to allow the Lord's to trade at efficiently (which counts as their conscription - they simply maintain their ports and trading posts).
I think merchants are currently what I need the most work on, economy wise.
>>48269846
as for a tube that might accelerate things through it, workable, but generally found to be less efficient than gunpowder and making the gunpowder work better is generally found to be the most effective use for enchanting carving space.
For example, using the enternal space to have internal rifling stand up to wear is better than using that space to magically add accuracy for all but the best smiths.
The most magical guns are the very few, maybe a dozen in total, that have found a way to transfer the spark into a cartriage holding powder and bullet that can be quickly loaded into the gun.
Basically, magical speed loaders.
The guard of the Emperor's children has a pepperbox revolver. The second one of these is still being crafted. He is very, very good with it.
>>48269866
I don't think that it would happen often that a free merchant acts as a travelling broker working for a landowner as you describe. They would just move goods market to market, or shuffle goods stationary like normal I think.
>>48269987
I think I get what you mean, yeah. Thanks for all the help anon, you gave me some great ideas. I might post later in this thread or the next with a more concrete layout of my setting, to try and get some more opinions and critiques of it.
>>48270288
Glad to be of help.
Now a Question of my own:
What is a good name for a sort of system/meta currency in a fantasy setting?
I plan on having multiple currencies in the setting, but I want to have an additional one to easily notate their worth for convenience.
For example:
12 [Gold] in Cowry
5 [Gold] in Denarii
2 [Gold] in Silverstags
Do I just use Gold? Do I use the most prevalent currency, although it might be irrelevant in the particular campaign region?
>>48270456
Well is gold one of the currencies listed? Just have 2 silverstags equal one gold would work, so long as one gold has an actual value in the system - otherwise just pick one to be your base.
Maybe make a 1 gold = one coin currency, even if it's now defunct or out of use - but it had been so widespread that it's a colloquial standard. Like call them drakes.
>2 silverstags make up a drake. No one trades in drakes anymore, but people use them as a standard when converting.
>>48270456
>Do I use the most prevalent currency, although it might be irrelevant in the particular campaign region?
This is probably your best bet. Much like people today tend to weigh their currencies against the USD, and people in classical antiquity probably would've weighed their currencies against the Roman denarius, people in any given constructed setting will probably tend to weigh their currency against the most prevalent currency in the world, or the currency of the most powerful or relevant nation.
So you could just use whatever that is in your setting, say
>12 (((Imperial Sovereigns))) in Cowry
>5 (((Westmarks))) in Denarii
>2 (((Stygian Coins))) in Silverstags
>47 (((Valasari Wellness Notes))) in Squid-shekel
>>48270590
[Gold] is meant to be the placeholder for the notation currency.
The other things amount to [local currency].
I should maybe not name it just gold because gold is also a traded metal and alloyed in guanÃn, tumbago and black bronze items.
And a setting spanning super empire doesn't fit the setting.
Someone help me come up with a name for my ironborn inquisitor in my next pathfinder game
>>48270743
>>48270734 Was saying something similar to my idea, but if you don't see an empire existing in recent history to allow for a common currency to be used as a standard, then whatever is most relevant is better.
You could probably whatever can be bought with a single coin. Like if you tell them that 1 silverstag is a day wages, or can buy a bottle of wine or something, then that gives you a base to build off of - especially if they can visualize what 1 cowry, which is worth 6 silverstags can buy (namely, 6 bottles of wine).
>>48270734
Maybe I'll do this in the end.
I'd like to note however that I don't even need my notation currency to be a thing in setting, I guess I just want a thing that doesn't brake verisimilitude when written on the sheet, and isn't tied to a single commodity or region in particular. That would be Ideal. Something like the credit of fantasy.
>>48270886
well what kind of setting is it?
>>48270886
*break verisimilitude
I should go to bed, I'm typing retarded.
>>48270897
Sword and sandals with a bit space fantasy and pulp aesthetic. Or maybe new weird.
>>48270870
Part of the problem is that species influences food intake and workforce so even this isn't a unified base. It is however the most visceral approach, wich is a plus.
>>48270886
Recently, I've been playing Underrail, which assigns every item in the game a generic "Value" stat, and also has multiple different currencies that the different rail stations use that each have their own Value stat as well ( http://www.underrail.com/wiki/index.php?title=Traders#Prices ). This allows for both barter economy and currency-based economy to exist at the same time, since all the merchants just trade for equivalent "Value". So, an armorer at any given rail station might trade a set of riot armor for, say, two electrified sledgehammers or 2,000 South Gate Station credits.
You could design your setting's economy system to be something like that.
>>48270978
Yes exactly this is the core of the Idea. I was just hoping for something more flavorful sounding than "value".
>>48271012
Well, that depends on what the extent of your use of the measurement is going to be.
If it's only going to be used as an out-of-setting abstraction, then there's not much need to clarify it beyond "Value".
If it's going to be used as a real concept within the universe, then that's mostly left as an exercise to you as to what to call it, unless you decide to go with the previously discussed approach of "most prevalent currency / currency of the presently most powerful or relevant nation / currency of the most powerful or relevant nation that existed in the past"
You might also choose to have religion factor into your setting's economy system. If your setting has deities, you could have a standard of value that was declared far back in the history of the setting by some deity, or a standard written in the sacred texts of a particularly prevalent or powerful religious institution.
>>48270811
Sir. His name is Sir.
>>48270811
Stu, Son of Steven, of Terrytown
Why are rivers that important? If you use the world as a tabletop setting, will players really care if the river splits or starts at one ocean and ends up in another?
>>48271495
if a river goes between two oceans doesn't that just make it a strait between two or more islands
aren't there actually places where this really happens, not between oceans, but at least between lakes and seas and shit
>>48271495
Many players won't care about it, no. But don't come to the Worldbuilding General thread if you're just gonna handwave poor worldbuilding with the admittedly probable argument that many players won't notice or care.
I worldbuild autistically to please myself, regardless if any of my players notice my meticulously crafted rivers. Maybe one day one person will point out how everything makes sense, and at that point, it will have all been worth it.
>>48271512
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090831165303AArYkQe
And more often than not, misplaced rivers in homebrewed maps don't resemble straits at all, like in >>48267196 where a river runs through an entire continent/country/whatever, and clearly isn't large enough to classify as a strait and thus make some amount of sense.
>>48271495
I care. It makes me uneasy to know I wrote something unrealistic into my world and have no excuse.
>>48245420
>Kill the orc. Burn the orc. Sacrifice to Unalash so that he'll have more power to kill the orc.
>not Kill the orc. Slay the orc. Destroy the orc.
>>48251948
Dude, just get one of those old monster manuals and dig through for interesting races
>>48214768
>Can you really call your homebrew setting a D&D homebrew if you kick out Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, and half-races?
Does it still work with D&D rules set and fits the intended experience? If yes, then it is a D&D setting.
>Are Planetouched (Tieflings, Aasimaar, Genasi) worth including as player races?
Do you have element-heavy zones and/or planar eruptions? If yes, then yes, they're worth including.
>Or would it be better to include monstrous races like Bugbears, Aarakocra, etc. if you want to have a more "harnessed magic" feeling?
IMO, Bugbears and Aarackocra fit much better for a Hyboria-type setting.
>>48271512
>>48271813
Can I get the lowdown on meticulously crafted rivers? I'm>>48267196 so I would appreciate some on advice on how / where to draw my central river or rivers. This is supposedly a hand drawn over view map, so I obviously haven't marked every river in the country, but I could really use some help in these main ones.
>>48243282
>Its symbols
The white feater, wings and crossed swords. Either is usually combined with the motifs of the region.
Then there's numbers. 3 is grandfather-father-son, the walking of the wheel and the natural order of the world. 4 represents the four cardinal directions and thus the word, 5 is man above the world and thus conquest in the name of good. 7 is the number of angelic armies in the garden of god and thus anything that is holy. 8 is 4+4, encompassing both the seen and unseen world. 9 is God, the one above both worlds.
6 is sin, as it stands between man and God.
>Its core tenets
>Protection good, within and without.
To stand up for what is right and to keep one's own heart full of kindness and mercy. If the story with Abraham sacrificing his son was in their holy book, he'd turned into a horrbile monster for trying something this stupid.
>Destroy evil, within and without.
Slay the wicked, burn the heathen, etc. But more importantly is the within part. One must eradicate hate and anger from one's heart and not become consumed with bitterness.
>Honour the past
To remember what happened and to understand the world of your parents, grandparents, etc. However, historical revisionism is frowned upon for lying about what happened is disrespecting the past.
>Waste not
If you walk along a road and toss aside a half-eaten apple, it will rot and you have brought filth into the world. Like that, if your endeavors leave people behind broken or without purpose, they will become rotten. And if you fail to realize your potential, you have thrown away God's gifts.
cont.
>>48274264
>Its relationship with magic and occult
Magic is to act upon the unseen world. God is above both worlds, so magic is a-ok.
The church has actually cultivated it's own brand of magic. Once a year, holy men and women gather in the old empireal capital to have a fuck huge orgy. Any children born from these acts, along with orphans or children taken as punishment for their parents, are trained as saints. Each saint learns exactly one spell, and they learn to to this really well.
When a saint has completed their training, they are put into a magical sleep and put into a holy place. People can use talismans to reach into a saints dream, where the saint then casts their one spell for the believer.
Saints lasts for hundreds of years and usually lie mummified in cryptas with dozens of them. Their reach is also limited, so anyone who relies on these miracles must learn about the local community.
>Burnt any heretics recently?
Full on schism and civil/holy war going on right now. A bunch of angels appeared and offed the child emperor and some other nobles because apparently god didn't like how they handled the recent try for world domination by an old necromancer.
Reactions go from "This is an attempt by another nation to fracture us" over "Well, I'm not screwing with God and the kid was an asshole anyway" to "The last five so-called gods turned out to be egomanial wizard, I say burn the fucker to the ground".
>>48271495
It is hard to notice in play from descriptions that are spread out over several sessions, yes. But when you use an actual map it is obvious to those who value worldbuilding.
It is unlikely anybody will ever voice anything since players often don't care or won't be hard on friends though. But I know I always take mental note that the creator didn't really care all that much when I see shoddy geography. And that makes the world feel a bit less special when I know even the creator didn't care.
>>48214768
Personally I don't know. The setting-feel is bit important, and what it is about. Are there dungeons to delve? Dragons or other fantastic things? Sure.
>Planetouched
Never really cared about them.
>Monstrous
Personally I am very fond of them.
>>48243282
Desw have a state religion in particular.
Their whole social system is based on castes dictated by various gender-morphs, 5 total, plus a slave/trash/criminal caste.
Their central belief is related to wheel of reincarnation, which dictates the social position in life. The religion doesn't officially have a deity, but some sects have their own.
The religion doesn't really have trouble with magic or occult, although they are strictly against anything trying to break out of the sacred wheel.
Heretics are not really burned, but they have a ritual that is used to invoke divine curse on transgressors ( involves serious scarring of facial patterns that does not heal, and depending on seriousness, can pass onto next life or children ).
They are not wrong about the reincarnation, though. It wasn't always so, though - while reincarnation kinda occurs in the setting in general, the Desw one is sorta special, it's a closed loop. The wheel was erected by an ascended Desw who felt upset that the reality didn't conform his/her own philosophies. He/she is still alive, and rules Desw empire behind bunch of puppet-rulers.
>>48273406
Honestly I would start over and do away with random generated base, as it is the root of most problems with the map.
As for rivers, maybe this approach will help you. Think of the physical elevation of terrain as a series of bowls or leafs that catch water. Water floats from the rim to the center, becoming mightier streams in the process. The end streams move towards the nearest and lowest outlet. Look at picture related.
Problem with your map is that rain catching mountains are almost always near a lake so streams have little way to travel and would stay short.
>>48276070
I have only limited information to go on, but watersheds could look like this.
I've finally figured out a way to sort magic in my setting
Alchemy
>Science
>Generally practiced in a guild setting with regulations
>Brewing potions from thaum residue and alchemical ingredients
>Creation of gunpowder and explosives
>Forging mithril and adamantium
>Transmutation of substances (may or may not be real)
>Creation of homunculus (may or may not be real)
Arcane
>Harnessing of inner energy, the most difficult of the branches as it requires great willpower and dedication to learn
>Usually taught from master to apprentice, secrets are kept from outsiders moreso than other branches
>Scrying to see elsewhere in the world
>Manipulating objects telepathically
>Creating light, fire, heat, and cold
>Shooting bolts of energy
>Teleportation (may or may not exist)
Illusion
>The manipulation of the mind rather than the world. For example, you don't actually go invisible, you just make people think you're invisible
>A trade of scoundrels, thieves, perverts, and cult leaders outside of the disciplined arcanists who practice it
>Slowly makes the user delusional until they lose control of their powers
>Muffle noise, change your appearance, hide yourself, mysteriously survive lethal attacks, etc
Witchcraft / Communion
>The least understood (even by its practitioners, they just make shit up) and the most shunned branch, witches communicate with unknown forces for power
>Generally a family or tribal tradition which in many areas is passed only through the female line
>Extremely difficult for it to be used to do good, it always involves sacrifice whether literal or metaphorical. In cases of summoning, a sacrificial ritual is performed so that one can speak to a spirit briefly, the spirits usually demand atrocities and sacrilege in exchange for their aid
>Used for cursing, luck/love blessings (at the cost of someone else's happiness or health), and corrupting things
>>48243282
>>Its symbols
Five-pointed star inside a pentagon. Not a pentagram thing, but star's beams crossing middle of each side
>>Its core tenets
Unlike pagans who think the creator of the world left on his own accord and left lesser gods and spirits in charge they believe lesser gods and spirits tricked him and won't let him back until their own influence is removed from the world
>>Its relationship with magic and occult
They hate pagan magic that comes from lesser gods and spirits but approve on elemental magic that comes from nobody. Although strong earth mages flock to their own nation this days and they are stuck with air fire and water mages that lost their places of power and most of the knowledge
>>Burnt any heretics recently?
Not yet.
>>48273406
The Cartographer's Guild link in the OP has an important, stickied thread. Always check the OP!
I'm kind, though, so here: https://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=3822
Judge my homebrew setting; designed to be as small as possible so PCs can easily understand it then build on it together.
http://pastebin.com/qkdE6BRC
What's the best way to make maps? Generate random, or straight by hand?
>>48276070
Thanks man, I'll try and view it that way - I want to avoid completely scrapping it unless completely necessary, but if I need to I need to. Maybe if there were something near the middle...
>>48276291
Shit man, thanks! That makes sense, I'll try and use this to change stuff around to make a more logical looking map.
>>48276678
I'll read up on it immediately, thanks!
>>48278304
What random map is good for? If you want to make a setting, you know what you want in it and where.
Whenever I sit down to draw a map, I already have a scheme in my mind on what goes where. How can I place it on random map?
>>48243282
Is there a list of questions like this for everything?
>>48278304
By hand! You can use random forms locally to fill in details, but never go full random.
>>48278357
I obviously got lazy and didn't do stuff in the middle, as there were no symbols indicating elevation.
>>48278399
I have this list here:
History
-How far back does common recorded history go?
-How much is known of time before recorded history?
-To what degree does the history of different cultures/races vary?
-Are there relics of earlier eras that predate this?
-What form do these relics take? (ruined cities, massive standing stones, ancient but common near-indestructible charms passed down through families, etc).
-What is known?
-What is not known?
-What is suspected?
Industry
-What are some of the major industries?
-What are major economic resources of note? (Iron, Steel, Mithril, Salt, etc.)
-What are especially valuable economic resources? (Gold, Admantium, Crystallized Thaumataugical Energy, Silver, Refined Uranium Isotopes, etc)
-Are there any reasonably common but extremely valuable resources that require a large infrastructure to create or refine?
-Are there any major widely-used resources that are controlled by a single country or a group of countries?
-What is the major power source and how is it generated? Stored? Transmitted? (electricity?)
-What percentage of the population works on food production?
-What are common crops?
-What are common livestock animals?
-Are animals used for transportation? If so, what kinds?
Technology
-What is personal weapon technology like? For the military? For civilians? (melee? ranged?)
-What is personal defense technology like? For the military? For civilians? (body armor? personal force shields?)
-What is medical technology like? What can be healed? What cannot?
-What are the Transportation Options? Riding animals? Motor Vehicles? What types of sea travel? Flight? Airplanes? Airships?
Society
-How many major cultures are there?
-What is their global population?
-Where are they located geographically?
-Do they have earth-analogues and what are they?
-What led to their differences?
-Do different cultures/lineages tend to have certain physical traits and if so, what are they?
-What are class boundaries based on?
>>48278489
Geography
-What is the geographical form of the setting? (ie: is the world flat, round, or a non-euclidean fragmented torus?)
-What are some major Geographical differences between the Setting and Earth? (do Mountains tend to be much taller? are there large floating islands in the sky? is the subterranean riddled with a vast network of caves?)
-How many continents are there?
-How much is considered inhabited?
-How much is considered uninhabited? (Why?)
-What is known?
-What is not known?
-What is suspected?
Countries
-How many major countries and/or political blocks are there and what are their relationships?
-Where are they geographically?
-What are their technology levels and population?
-How many and what types of government civics are represented?
-How common are wars?
-What are some common examples of why there have been wars? (Religion?, resources? border disputes? cultural tensions? )
Cities
-How many major cities are there, on average, per country?
-How large (population) would you call a major city?
-How are cities connected and what is the common mode of travel between cities?
-How densely populated (#per sq km, this determines how large buildings are)
-Trade connections?
-Major trade routes/connecting roads/highways?
-Political setup?
Religions
-What are the major religions?
-What are their cultural ties? (if any)
-How much political influence do they wield?
-Do the gods/spirits/ancestors worshiped talk back? are they capable of corporeal influence? Manifestation?
-What are the common responsibilities and/or institutions managed by the religions? (care of the poor/sick, do they run hospitals, monasteries, orphanages, etc)
-What are their attitudes towards Magic/Technology?
-Do any of them have current (either overt or covert) training centers, mentors, or literature relating to Magic use?
>>48278508
Magic - (including psychic powers and massively advanced technology)
-What forms does Magic take?
-From what does Magic draw its power, and how renewable or directly replenishable is this resource? (mana potions?)
-What can magic do and what can it not do?
-What is known?
-What is not known?
-What is suspected?
>>48278424
Its still a huge help anon! What if the flat area around and to the south west of the great frontier were steppes or plateaus or something - rivers might flow down that and into the bay in the south, right?
>>48262072
Stone Age can be anything from smaller nomadic groups of hunter-gatherers to established urban centers with writing, agricultural/animal husbandry technology and government. You'll have to be more specific. But if you mean the hunter-gatherers, information is quite sparse and most of what we know comes from the techniques they used for making stone tools. Pic related is a complex built sometime around 9000BCE, before agriculture and metallurgy even.
>>48278424
I always find it hard to make a land from scratch - I find it easier to develop a culture from an assigned land. But maybe I need to develop my love for maps and topography more.
Anyone paid attention to high-ranking Englishmen (and women) being executed through history? There's long and unpleasant deaths prepared for traitors - hanging drawing and quartering for men, burning for women, but every time I read about some important traitor of either sex, they usually just get beheaded.
Has anyone important actually suffer proper traitor death at all? My fantasy England expy doesn't need to conform to history, obviously, but I like to as /tg/ about my inspirations.
>>48278813
You can subtly express information and hints about the land with handmade geography so that people get a better idea what a place is supposed to be even if there's no description
>>48278561
Do you mean like this?
>>48278845
Special status, special privileges. When you've been sentanced to death the quick death is the privilege.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Raleigh#Trial_and_imprisonment
>>48278874
Yeah, like that! Steppes, hills, or plateaus might provide a small natural barrier - since on the either side of it is the great frontier, so it might serve as a division as well as a way to get larger waterways in the heart of the country. Think that would work?
>>48222291
anywhere i can read up on that?
>>48279029
Wouldn't have marked it that way if I thought it would be implausible.
>>48279029
Steppes aren't exactly a barrier. It's literally gigantic plains waiting for horses to freely ride on them.
>>48279117
Hahaha fair enough anon - you're a godsend. It allows for water to flow through, but creates a whole new region for me to develop, with their own politics and influence!
>>48279148
True - I guess its more plateaus and hills then, for the water sift down into rivers. The land to the north of it can be the steppes, I suppose.
>>48278304
Go with the method shown in the first step of this tutorial >>48267870
Semi-random is best. You get realistically irregular landmasses, but you can pick their general shape/size and location to suit the purposes of your setting.
>>48279148
They're also kinda annoying to cross unless you're Aryans/Huns/Mongols
>>48280772
It was annoying as fuck for the Aryans too. Took them thousands of years to wander their proto-white asses out of the trackless wastes of central Asia.
>>48280873
>>48280772
>people who actually know who the real Aryans were
Impressive.
>>48280873
And both Xiongnu and Mongols for thousands of years were perfectly content with sitting in their immense steppes and raiding chinese instead of crossing thousands of miles of god knows what to maaaybe finds something there
>Elves are unevolved jabberwocks and bump-in-the-nights, they become more unique and monstrous the longer they live and the more they experience
>Dwarves are hairy cat-gorillas with tentacles/feelers instead of beards. They dig small tunnels and eat gemstones which makes the mountains hate them
>halflings are ridiculously paranoid with villages so hidden that if anyone gets even a hint that there is one nearby, all villagers will work full time to lynch him in utmost secrecy and quiet.
Critique my races.
>>48281183
Zso oreegeenul
>>48281241
typical /tg/ millennial faggot response. neck yourself, kid
>>48281241
>Zso oreegeenul
Got any ideas for how to make it better?
>>48281275
>asking some millennial degenerate neo-grognard how to make anything better
daily reminder that if it's not exactly like tolkien then it's shit in /tg/'s weak little faggot mind
>>48281336
Well I came expecting to get shit on, might as well get any kind of critique I can get. Speaking of, what do you think about my ideas?
>>48281364
hey man I actually think they're at least good on the merit of them not being the same rehashed tolkien shit for the millionth and fucking god damn cunt time in a row
you all youngster prank ass faggots need to learn there's other fantasy in the world beside "muh tuhlkuhn"
>>48281183
Almost seems like bait, but why not be educational nonetheless?
So honest opinion:
>Elves
Sounds like none player monster material. Maybe trolls would be a better name. I wouldn't give something that naturally diversifies into a hundred special traits to players.
>Dwarves
Doesn't seem so bad on the physical side. But they couldn't maintain a diet that rare. Are gems some ultra batteries to them? And mineral eating clashes thematically with a race that bestial. And lifestyle costs for dwarf adventurers are to huge.
>halflings
Clearly written as enemy NPCs as your background precludes other meaningfull interaction.
>
>>48281422
Thank you for the critique! I'll explain my ideas a bit more:
>Sounds like none player monster material. Maybe trolls would be a better name. I wouldn't give something that naturally diversifies into a hundred special traits to players.
I actually DM a game with elves like this. The PC starts out as a normal-looking elf at level 1 but gains another monstrous aspect with each level up.
>Doesn't seem so bad on the physical side. But they couldn't maintain a diet that rare. Are gems some ultra batteries to them? And mineral eating clashes thematically with a race that bestial. And lifestyle costs for dwarf adventurers are to huge.
They don't need gemstones, but they love it and crave it. If they can't find any they eat rocks.
>Clearly written as enemy NPCs as your background precludes other meaningfull interaction.
Another idea with the race is to have adventurers (as in those who stray from the village) be somewhat psychopathic and asocial, but it's a rather rare occurrence.
>>48281520
>Another idea with the race is to have adventurers (as in those who stray from the village) be somewhat psychopathic and asocial, but it's a rather rare occurrence.
You however have to ask yourself, even if you have those rare cases, do you want to put players in this the-one-good-drow position.
>I actually DM a game with elves like this. The PC starts out as a normal-looking elf at level 1 but gains another monstrous aspect with each level up.
It's fine for elf campaigns certainly. But looking at it regarding a balance of aesthetics, elves seem much more special and diverse than other races. You repackaged the dozen elf subraces problem in a bundle that's just a bit tighter.
>>48281611
>You however have to ask yourself, even if you have those rare cases, do you want to put players in this the-one-good-drow position.
I don't really see the problem. What's bad about this position?
>It's fine for elf campaigns certainly. But looking at it regarding a balance of aesthetics, elves seem much more special and diverse than other races. You repackaged the dozen elf subraces problem in a bundle that's just a bit tighter.
You're right, the other races definitely need to be more fleshed out. Not sure what you're referring to with the dozen elf subraces problem though.
>>48281684
>I don't really see the problem. What's bad about this position?
You restrict character options regarding roleplaying. Every character has to be the type of character that is estranged from his society.
>>48281785
I guess you're right, but I really want to stress that races other than humans are very alien. Might I ask how you would do it?
>>48281940
I'd try to achieve the alien through a volume of smaller factors. Philosophies, habits, norms, mere preferences and aesthetics. Everything rooted in biological and societal differences and imperatives. And leaving room for diversification of cultures inside of races is important.
Many different races have the same needs, but with variances and in different amounts.
I think it's basically a challenge of approaching a race or species you want to make from as many different vectors as possible.
I was wondering, how would a realm that's basically endless affect the living creatures? It's shaped in continents and oceans and the whole, but there's just infinite of it and you can keep going in one direction and come across new landscapes until they start repeating or something like it.
Ask me a random question about my setting
>>48282226
Why is the largest city/settlement where it is?
What would be some good sci-fantasy classes and jobs?
>>48282184
When they repeat it's not endless.
Otherwise there is really no effect in place that isn't present in any other world. Once you reach a certain spread (species as well as political bodies) splintering happens as contact becomes impossible through sheer distance. If you assume any finite amount of starting points there will always be a frontier as life colonizes barren wastes. But a frontier is nothing that doesn't happen natural anyway, as a final world has catastrophes and extinction events or simply a point in time where it isn't full to it's potential.
In my opinion, you don't gain anything with infinite dimensions as you never need all that room. You just get the joy of saying infinite if you care about that.
>>48282226
How are boys raised as opposed to girls?
What's something everyone thinks is true, but isn't?
How long has it been since the last major civil revolution?
>>48282339
>final world
I meant to write finite world.
And you could say Space has diminishing returns.
Do you include things in your setting meant to justify essentially putting anything you want into a specific game?
>Star gods capable of bending and mutating living things to their will
>I can throw demons mutants beasts and monsters of basically any description into the game
>race of trolls that grow in size through out life and develop physical traits mirroring the spirit of the land
>goblins orc trolls ogres elves ect all in one
>>48282428
Nope.
