I'm not waiting for someone else to make it.
Worldbuilding thread
>world you're buildan
>advice you're needan
>suggestion give-an
Remember, there's no mistakes, just cracks in the facade hiding the grim horror that is reality.
>>44637623
Forgot the subject, will that fuck up filters too much? Should I delete and repost?
>>44637644
It picked up the "Top" sorting for my filters, so I assume it'll pick up the "Hide" for others who want it hidden.
I don't have anything I'm working on right now, or else I'd contribute.
>>44637988
okay good. Then I can dredge this back up
>>44636710
>>44637246
>>44637298
>>44637362
I suppose I should thank you anon, it sounds cooler to rewrite it as three inches of Z-gradienting, which is a thing according to wikipedia
I'm going to dig up some other things I wrote.
Editorials – Science - Why are there blackouts?
The Pishon Line, controlled by the advanced artificial intelligence River, has yet to provide the energy promised by scientists for generations. Breakthrough after breakthrough have been made, and every comprehensive theory proposed by the AI has included an Entropy reversing energy production by manipulating chance, free energy as it were. But the Pishon line is constantly a net energy drain on EDEN. Why?
The problem fundamentally comes down to how far removed we are from truly understanding everything. River has been processing for thirty years straight with constant hardware improvements. To estimate how many man hours the AI has put into this project, the lowest boundary is twenty billion man hours. Equivalent to 74,000 quantum physicists in perfect communication for the last thirty years.
The number one problem holding back scientific progress is the lack of dark matter. There is currently no way to harvest dark matter and exotic matter. All testing on such complex structures has to be performed on created energy, which only has a statistical chance of occurring. The half-lives on such energy constructs necessitate running tests that guess the particles have been made even if they haven’t been. Which means the truth of the matter is, River has made dozens of Theories of Everything, and simply doesn’t have the means to test them rigorously. Millions of her man hours have been dedicated to improving solar cells and battery technology, stringing the human population along as it chases after cold fusion and FTL.
As it stands today, free energy cannot be achieved without making profitable space travel. The state of the world necessitates the mass production of rare materials to fuel the high technology running EDEN today. The scientific community has come to a consensus that it is time to return to the technological direction of the nineteen sixties. Mankind must look to the heavens for their future.
I'm working on a world that's more or less like our own, except has no fossil fuels.
What are the technologies we have today that aren't obviously derived from oil or petroleum? Obviously, it means things like (gas-powered) cars aren't really feasible, no plastics (as far as I know), and basically all heavy industry is going to be stunted and probably not be able to develop to the level we have now. I'm looking for non-obvious industries that need fossil fuels to function.
Also, while we're at it, what are some causal contrivances I can introduce that would prevent firearms from functioning? Is it plausible to have a planet without sulphur (or any other gun powder ingredient)?
>>44637623
What are good continent names? I need a name for my middle continent that is a Europe expy. It's also Italian/Frankish themed, so either a west germanic or italian name would be fantastic.
>>44638102
This is great writing.
>>44639022
th-thanks anon
I asked about this a bit before but basically; how can I justify a bunch of animal races like Gnolls, Pig orcs, lizard men, monkey men, and little tiny rabbit halflings as well as half human half animal people as a half race?
My current races are;
>Humans and half humans of many types (like demon, god, animal, dead people, etc)
>Vanara- monkey men
>Trolls
>Various kinds of Kobolds
>Shit Goblins
>and now beastmen
Personally I'm not sure how much I'm going to keep here. Does this distribution seem fair? Should I cut any out?
>>44638982
You'd be bloody amazed what oils we can make from corn waste. Cutting fossil fuels out means more farm land per person, that's all.
And I'm sorry mate, but I've looked into it, the only thing you can do is price lock guns, not prevent them. Cause I mean shit, with the right technology, you can make hand pump air rifles lethal. My solution was making the government simply ban it and the production there of so all that energy could be put into fertilizer instead, but even that's not perfect. Just embrace the sword and gun aesthetic and run with it. Bullets are expensive now. If you can shank a bitch, you're going to do that instead of shooting $100 into his ass.
Breaking News – Political – Kuzuri Ruled As Machines
Congress was pressed again to affirm that the onboard calculations of kuzuri-type drones do not qualify as Artificial Intelligence, as defined by the Advanced Computing Act of 2112. Historically speaking, this act was pushed through by the Transhumanist Party, as a side procedure to defining what is afforded human rights and what isn’t. The ACA placed heavy restrictions on regions of the brain that can be manipulated by neural implants and was resisted by the scientific community, citing the infinite interconnections between regions of the brain making such restrictions moot.
Ultimately, the act became the underpinning structure of EVE’s architecture. The main distinction comes from self-generation. EVE is an artificial intelligence, and thus her central hardware is protected because that is where the self-generation occurs. But when that code is exported to satellite architecture, it loses the self-generation aspect and is classified as a machine. While it is a difficult analogy to use, because tampering with the external hardware can spread errors to other hardware in the EVE system, the kuzuri ‘thought’ process is not self-generated.
There always has been and always will be a human operator for every kuzuri, remote or internal. The perceived ‘intelligence’ of a kuzuri is simply high-speed, rote calculations. The drones are able to observe their surroundings and calculate their movement route through mass processing. The fundamental method does not change while in use. Aggregate neural net processing occurs while kuzuri are inactive, at a centralized facility. An operator is still needed to choose direction for the kuzuri, and no coding is changed during operation.
Congress ruled today that kuzuri are still classified as machines, not artificial intelligences. And therefore, they are not afforded self-protection. The continued use of kuzuri type drones has been approved for 2160.
Worldbuilding resources:
Questions to ask when designing a culture:
http://www.frathwiki.com/Dr._Zahir's_Ethnographical_Questionnaire/questionnaire.htm
Map resource:
http://www.fantasticmaps.com
Basic worldbuilding info
http://writing-world.com/
Military number limitations:
http://www.writing-world.com/sf/hordes.shtml
Population and city/town/village distribution information:
http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm
Real world texts on religion and supernatural beliefs:
sacred-texts.com
Please add anything you've found useful for your projects.
>>44638995
I usually go look at Iron Age tribe names.
A surprising number of those are the basis for many names today, like the Belgae becoming Belgium, Germanni becoming Germany and so on.
>>44638102
I like this, I like it very much, even if it doesn't leads to my favored Orion nuclear pulse engine.
>>44638982, >>44639185 is right.Girandoni air rifles had balistics roughly equivalent to .45 pistols, and that's a gun made in 1779 and competing with gunpowder.
It also made almost no noise, had no flash, and could shoot pebbles if you're really without money.
>>44639821
A lot of those were the result of nationalistic tendencies in new states. Both of these countries are relatively young, in the european sense. Belgium gained its independence in 1831, after being owned by basically everyone in the region first, while germany was a large mass of city states that formally united in 1871.
Bth wanted a name to signify their unity and independence, and a had to look far into the past to find something that they all shared. Of course, what makes thsi ironic is that during the Migration era, all these people moved around, meaning that it is very unlikely for a Belgian to actually decend from the Belgea.
Why do i post with such unnecesary nonsense? firstly, because i want t show how much smarter then you i am.
secondly, to show that every name has a history behind, often a reason why people chose that name, or why others chose it for them. Why do your people,or your places, have that name?
>>44639619
This is a godsend! Thanks anon, now i can finally get this writing ship to sail.
I did the following as fun experiment/example of how I do worldbuilding:
>>44595463
>>44595487
>>44595517
>>44595553
>>44595773
>>44595828
I actually enjoy the result and may continue working on it. At the very least, maybe it can give someone ideas or something.
>>44639158
Can you give us some info about each?
What's the thought on the world building done in the occasional free form threads here?
>>44641183
They can be a lot of fun and produce some great content, but really it just depends on who is on the board that day. It only takes one asshole to ruin the whole thing.
I'm having trouble separating two continents.
The Southern has a large and aggressive empire.
The Northern has a series of independent city states.
The South wants to invade and conquer the North, but they're having trouble. Why?
Ocean works, but they have ships just fine.
Considering having it be one large continent with a large natural divider such as a harsh desert or mountains, but sailing would still get them there then.
Is having the continents separated by water enough to make the invasion difficult but not impossible? How much water?
>>44639185
Government banning guns is the best option I think. I like the "government has all the guns" settings, so adventurers are stuck with swords, spears, bows, and crossbows.
>>44641087
Alright, I'll elaborate a little.
>Humans- Ash people. Born from the volcano God, said to be both fertile and destructive. Half breeds are either literally genetically part of the other thing or result from weird spirits, usually resulting in magical powers.
>Vanara- cousins of the humans. Vanara believe humans were modified/mutated from their normal form by the Volcano God. Vanara have a strange way of aging (more based on experience then time; some live forever by being traveling fools)
>Trolls- Large regenerating lanky guys. Not quite as stupid as in most settings, but not smart either. Notable for being aliens.
>Kobolds- Smallish creatures created by Wizards as a servant race. Many are conjured today, but many are also born. They naturally follow people who are strong or powerful. They come in several builds; the small standard dexterous kind, the fat and broad warriors and the lanky, queer type known for being magically gifted.
>Goblins- They are a trash race that typically come from shed souls, imaginary friends, the unborn, wasted sperm, etc. Inferior to other races for the most part, but steal away children and can produce hobgoblins that are much better.
This was what I started with a few weeks ago, but now I'm starting to want to add some beastmen. I fear having too many races is an issue and beastmen aren't exactly original, but I can't stop coming up with ideas for them;
>Gnolls- Savages that live in tribes. Some are matriarchal (spotted) and some are more heavily tribal (aardwolf type). They have a lot of weird ideas about humanity and are slavers. Afraid of the sound of bells.
>Pig Orcs- Society split into multiple groups; the 'evil' kind are religious extremists, the rest are wandering warriors and stuff.
>Saurians- Lizard men. Believe that each time they shed their skin, its a part of their soul.
>Bunnymen- Little bunnies that live in burrows and are not well known outside their land. Bit like Hobbits.
>>44639158
To be clear. Are you saying that you want Gnolls, but you also want human/hyena hybrids, but you want them to be different races?
I don't think it's a good idea, personally, but you could go down the lycanthropy route. Any animal/human hybrid is the result of a wereanimal breeding with a human, while a beastfolk (such as gnolls) are their own race.
>>44641333
Northern Continent could have cliffs and other such obstacles on its southern shore, stuff that makes landing an invading army and establishing a base of operations nigh impossible.
Overcoming the obstacle of a sea when invading is much more complicated than just hoping into boats and sailing there. Take into account all the terrain on the northern continent that the southern invaders would have to land their armies onto.
What if one of the areas the army can land on that's not blocked by cliffs is just a desert/wasteland environment. Sure, they can land there, but what do they do next? Setting up basecamps there means troops coming and going from HQ have to trek through an inhospitable landscape. Also, if the army can't partially sustain itself through foraging and hunting, it's relying 100% on the supply routes which go over a pretty large stretch of water. Even if the empire can support the supply chain easily enough, it would be easy for a small fleet of Northern ships to shatter the supply chain, leaving the army stranded and starving. Same works for stuff like mountainous terrain as well. Just simply getting troops on land isn't enough for a successful invasion, they have to follow it up with winning a war. To counteract the supply chain issue, the Southern army would want to capture a large city as soon as possible, so if you need the army to be repelled by the northerners, make any coastal Cities worth capturing too heavily fortified, this could mean reefs, natural defenses like cliffs or coves, etc.
An ocean is a large obstacle itself and opens you up to the use of many more obstacles to add on. I think it works.
>>44641324
I'm well aware. Hopefully things self correct.
>>44639619
Last year I found the Zaharam questioner in a worldbuilding thread and this is a basic outline of what I have so far.
On the continent I'm focusing on the upstart empire is called Sha'hara Soranel and is located in the east coast. Although it is relatively small since it controls a multicultural terrritory it fits the empire category, if I am not mistaken.
The big central empire is Gedask, the territory original humans carved out of the elven and orc lands. Being surrounded by unsympathetic groups its military is getting overstretched by it's borders and is having difficulty expanding because of this. I want to make it's cultural atmosphere reminicent of the eastern roman empire with aristocratice supremacy. Though Gedask uses wyverns it has not been successful in maintaining favorable relations with dragons and have few in its employ. There are sizable colonies of elves in the empire and very few orcs. All non-humans are second-class citizens and often face significant discrimination.
To the west of Gedask is the Kingdom of Najio. It is a massive kingdom occupying an area bigger than Gedask but most of it is arid desert region. The main centers of civilization are located near along the major rivers. The kingdom is ruled by drow by a pharohanic monarchy. There are elves, orcs and humans living in its territory and are considered subjects which can rise quite far up the social order but can never be aristocratic.
1/damn no wonder I have 15.5k words on one of these
>>44641781
2/2
To the north-east of Gedask is the elven Kingdom of Luwasati. These are isolationist elves of the "high elf" flavor that follow a religion that teaches the superiority of their race and culture above all others. It is ruled by "The Favored Child of Anu-Sazorah" (a Priest-King/Queen) and has a rigidly enforced caste system that relies heavily on slave-labor. Half-breed Luwasati and "normal" elves are used as oversears by their respective Clans and Houses while drow, humans and orcs are used purely for manual slave-labor. Dragons are hunted and killed as foul beasts gaining successful hunter/s great prestige and honor.
To the north-east of Luwasati and far north of Sha'hara Soranel is Ghudal-Taraghk, the territory held by a loose confederation of orc tribes. It is a rough and difficult near-tundra area that is the last bastion of orcs displaced by the expansion of Gedask in its early days. There was once a few cities in the region but in-fighting and overcrowding in the early days have ended the previous orc civilization and now only tribes remain. Most of the tribes only want to be left alone and have become quite violent towards humans and elves due to Gedask and Luwasati slaver raids. A few of the southern tribes however have been absorbed into the Sha'haran empire as a matter of consolidating a border against Luwasati incursion.
To the south-west of Sha'hara territory, is a string of unalligned city states founded by breakoff groups the original from Gedask settlers and later by frontiersmen and exiles from the Gedask empire. The region is tropical and swampy. These city states are primarily the ones that trade with the southern continent.
Now to read the military and population links to further bloat my setting.
News - Political - Congress Votes To Extend The Emergency Act Of 2015
Congress convened today for the one hundred and fifty third annual vote to continue the provisional Emergency Act. This measure was started as an executive order by President Biden and was unanimously passed into law by the Congress of 53. The temporary repealing of half the bill of rights was meant to only last until the pandemic was brought under control. Part of this vote is for the congressmen to declare whether they believe there is sufficient evidence to declare the pandemic over.
Commander Chase of the Military Police was in attendance and personally presented the benign infection statistics in soldiers outside EDEN, as well as the deposition rate in the air filters surrounding EDEN, noting a marked weighting towards the Great Lakes Region. A number of aerial clips showing gunship attacks on so-called “hordes” was also shown.
Congress voted 67 in favor, 1 against, 32 abstained. The Emergency Act of 2015 will be continued for another year. The only congressman to vote against the act was Congressman Russo Junior, Congressman Russo Senior abdicated his seat to his son in 2167, citing health issues stemming from his work overseeing the creation of EVE in 2119. Congressman Russo Junior said he would be continuing his campaign against the act as his running platform for next year.
Tools for map making?
I'm absolutely shit at anything resembling art, so the more pleb-focused the better.
>>44642278
There's always the good ol' hex map method
How long would a journey across all of Medieval Europe take?
Not in terms of actual foot speed, but including the winding roads (or nonexistent roads), foraging, stays in towns, etcetera. With, or without horses.
A month? Longer?
>>44642921
by foot, horse, carriage, or ship? Is there war currently going on? What month do you set out on? How much money do you bring, enough to buy food or will you be working for food? If working, what kind of work? Are you planning to act as a merchant during your travels? Are you a man of good faith? How fit and able to fend off bandits are you? Do you speak many languages? Define Europe, are you planning to go from the Atlas mountains to Constantinople or something?
>>44642921
This travel time map of the roman empire might interest you
http://orbis.stanford.edu/
>>44643166
This is cool as fuck
Unsure if this would be the thread for it, but I've been revising a sci-fi setting for Savage Worlds lately. Been working on it on and off for a few years, just got down with the...fifth(?) revision. Was hoping to get some fresh feedback from people who've never seen it before, but I'm not 100% sure if I should post it here or start a new thread for it, as the .pdf is 78 or so pages long.
>>44643515
No one is going to read 78 pages of setting. Give the brief version of your best and worst ideas
>>44644118
Actually, it's more of 19 pages of setting with the rest being mechanics with setting interspersed, but you're right.
Attached is a much more reasonable 19 page version. As for the high points of the setting:
Mankind gets into space, realizes that we're (thus far) alone. There was intelligent extraterrestrial life, but they've all died off/disappeared for whatever reason, leaving all of their neat shit behind. Neat shit that can fetch a pretty penny back on Earth.
Enter the PCs as the eponymous "Reclaimers": professional treasure hunters in space, delving into derelict ships and alien ruins at the fringes of civilized space, hoping to strike it rich and be able to to retire... or at least make enough to cover fuel costs.
The best way I can summarize the setting is "Rogue Traders on a literal shoestring budget."
After some interesting ideas thrown around in the last worldbuilding thread I'm attempting to make a game taking heavy inspiration from the technical designs of Miyazaki particularly the steel-engraved intro sequence from Laputa.
I'll try and summarise my current ideas
>Floating cities are created as mobile superstructures to bring 'civilisation' to an otherwise barbaric land (considered barbaric by the city dwellers)
>Late Utopia on the edge of breaking apart as cities grow exponentially in power and greed
>Airship technology all over the place powered by predominantly turbines, windmills and a fantasy power source mined from deep underground.
>6 Major cities that move from place to place. Used to be 7 but one crashed and is now considered a no-go zone due to the radiation
>Intense rivalry between these cities despite being officially a collective. Nearly full blown war between two (Not-Rome/Carthage)
>Empire is falling apart from within as its upper class are devolving to hedonism an its lower class are becoming increasingly disenfranchised.
>Lower class sedition is increasing
Basically super advanced tech Roman Empire analog is nearing its end.
Ideas and suggestions welcome.Ideally I'd like to try and find a different time period to avoid any steampunk trappings associated with flying ships but if it fits it fits
>many fortresses in game are made by high level mages but designed to work well with low level abilities
Thinking of putting a dimensional leap pad in some rooms, alchemy labs, sending stones along with a huge dictionary of code words to convey the maximum amount of info in 25 words
>>44645678
Carpets. The cities are made of flying carpets, which are so common that people wear them. The cloaks are slightly intelligent and pick up the mannerisms of the wearer
I am having a bit of trouble in my world building, so I'll ask /tg/
You have an Epic Level Wizard, and you need to get the 6 strongest kingdoms (out of a few dozen) to work together and keep the world in working order now and for a couple centuries while you're away. The 6 kingdoms are made of different races, each one having some bad history with each other and the kingdoms that wouldn't be in alliance.
The only limitation is that you can't outright brainwash anyone. How would you get them to work together?
>>44646275
Puppets. Through a series of political assassinations, rigged elections, hoaxes, publicity stunts and whatnot you get people in favor of uniting against the wizard to positions of power and try to coax those against it to turn around in their ideals through more political intrigue. Another one is to make sure some kingdoms become the victim of the wizard even helping the wizard behind his back so that fear is struck into other kingdoms in order to get them to do what is necessary. The stronger and more militaristic the victim kingdoms are the better.
>>44646275
Make simrulacums.
