Hey fa/tg/uys, I'm getting kind of stoned, listening to some oldies, and I love to talk about worldbuilding when I do, so tell me about your world. All the cool stuff people go glassy-eyed at when you talk to them in real life.
Bring it.
Also I'll be dumping some Warhammer 40k stuff, not entirely related but the worldbuilding in that universe is pretty dope.
>>43554655
Want to explain to me the appeal of Warhammer 40k? A player I have wants to play it but I don't know anything about it.
>>43554655
not enough complelty innocent astartes in this thread
>>43554655
>Loreguy
>Lorgar
>>43554833
Sure! I'm not the most knowledgeable person about it, but its just so expansive. And just from lurking on threads you can see that the community really enjoys talking about the lore, like there's arguments over so many small details and everyone has some sort of proof to back it up most of the time.
From a worldbuilding perspective it's just such a vast timeline that really is very unique, I can't think of anything like Warhammer. The feeling that the Imperium is going to collapse at any second, that mankind is doomed but holding on not because of hope that things will get better but because of stubborn will to live, and not in a romantic way. It's the ultimate "what if" look at how everything could go wrong and humanity could become last at a moment's notice.
I really like how there are subtle ironies in the lore, which someone with more knowledge than me will probably be able to explain better. Like how the Emperor is the most powerful psychic but his body is destroyed, how you must fear psychers but not only is the emperor one but they psychers are what help the imperium travel through the warp. Little stuff.
What I do whenever I don't get something's lore is go on the fan made wiki and just start with one article, but just keep clicking links that interest you and opening them into new tabs. When you're done reading the first tab go on to the next and do the same. You can learn so much about the world this way.
I'm not sure I'm even doing it justice, or maybe I'm fawning over it too much. Kinda happens when you're high.
>>43554896
I didn't know who that was until now, cool shit.
The username isn't inspired by it though, it'an old username from when I used to play Adventure Quest a bunch, and the world was called Lore, hence Lore Guy. When I was ~10 yrs old? Kept it ever since.
>>43554655
the entire world is divided into kingdoms held by immortal beings or groups of beings that are actually an ancient race that rebuilt the world after an apocalypse that have not only created the entire biosphere and the races that inhabit it, but have set themselves up as gods. they can't be killed permanently and when they die their soul just leaves their dead corpse and goes to a specially prepared body and comes back to life, and the players main goal is to fight their way to one of the 'Gods' and kill them, but ultimately fail as they are but mere 'mortals'
>>43554962
Do they know that they will fail?
Also, do these beings ever war on each other? Are they hated or revered as gods?
>>43554926
this, just the sheer magnitude of the lore is incredible, its larger than almost anything I can think of.
My magic system is entirely based on astronomy, and the astronomy objectively makes no sense.
>>43555004
Is it based on some sort of stars algining at the right time and such? Do the starts radiate magic, or is space entirely different?
Shifting constellations could be cool, as they shift people come up with new constellations, new myths, maybe new gods.
>>43554995
generally seen as oppressive by the people they lord over, have the term 'hell take me' because if heaven is where the gods reside, they would much rather be in hell than under the yolk of Deahtless rule again.
they do fight with each other, often forming 'pantheons' and rule closely together, though there are some that rule separate form a formal group of Deathelss. the most recent war was fought when a Deathless teamed up with an ancient-er deathelss when the ancient one made a blade that would disrupt the mechanics that allow for rebirth when it killed a deathless, thus giving them a permanent death.
My favorite Warhammer wiki article:
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Space_Hulk
I just like to think about the tribes and cultures that would arise in the space hulk, and all the cool story stuff you can do with it. Maybe there's an ancient ship in the middle you're players need to extract something from, ancient technology, some sort of artifact.
>>43555073
Oh man, that would cause a lot of unrest. If you found out the 'immortal' people can be killed. Like that one scene in 300 where the Persian Emperor bleeds. Has there been mass unrest?
What are the PCs motivations, by the way?
>>43554950
>Adventure Quest
My fellow man of African descent!
That shit was the greatest back then
Dragonfable was better though
>>43555030
Well:
>Is it based on some sort of stars aligning at the right time?
A star's power (brightness) increases or decreases based on where it is in the sky, and where the moving celestial objects like sun and moon and planets are, in comparison. So the alignments inform it more than anything else.
>Do the stars radiate magic, or is space entirely different?
It's not even really space, per se. The sky is thought of as a cylinder or sphere that orbits the world, and the stars are magical connections that exist to certain geographic locations (and things that aren't geographic, but that's advanced). But there's been nothing to evidence that the dimmer things are really farther away, since they're not even consistently dimmer. So it can't be defined in terms of distance like our sky can.
>Shifting constellations could be cool
There are twelve zodiacal constellations that don't really change, but others are often very different depending on which stars are bright enough to draw lines between.
My current game, and first homebrew setting(D&D 3.5) - is a realm once personally ruled by the god of humanity Zarus, with the intention of making it his personal celestial plane. Eventually, after creating a vast empire, and starting raids all over the world, Zarus suddenly dissapears, though his paladins and clerics somehow retain their power, believing that his empire has somehow displeased him.
The game takes place twenty years after the collapse of that empire, with various new kingdoms inhabiting the continent its land, and all fighting for the heart of the empire, and all it's glory, for their own reasons.
It's pretty bare, but I'm enjoying writing up stuff so far.
>>43555108
hasn't been mass unrest because Ausar The Vile (the first deathless) locked the Worker (the guy that made the blade, oldest deathless, and also maker of the deathless) away in a vault underneath his castle. then Ausar didn't tell anyone lower then him that he could kill the gods, and the other gods ganged up on him. looking pretty for Ausar until his old nemisis for a shit long time, Raidriar fought him and stabbed him with the blade, killing himthe blade wasn't active so Ausar is still kicking out there
Which country do you want to hear about?
1/2
>>43555178
2/2
>>43554655
My fantasy setting secretly became a science fiction one.
>>43555178
The anagram of vagina but with an extra ar
>>43555178
>>43555198
Worldwide map. For reference.
Yes, that is a supercontinent that runs from ice cap to ice cap. It's about twice the size of Africa.
>>43555222
HOW fucked up are your ocean currents
My players are only on one relatively small continent right now, they have no idea whats outside and frankly, neither do I. This continent was hit pretty hard by a magical disaster about a century ago, and the players are part of a Guild tasked with going out and taming the wilderness. The more they do, the more small towns begin to form outside of major cities, some of which they may be asked to hold positions in and such.
I'm thinking the rest of the world wasn't nearly as affected by that disaster, so when they eventually leave it'll be a huge culture shock of magic vs technology as they approach the second half of the game
>>43554655
Listen to Judas Priest, most of their stuff basically works with 40k. It's so close, I am starting to believe their songs is based off of 40k.
>>43555138
Definitely, the only sad thing about Dragon Fable is that after having played all the way to the dragon it was a bit underwhelming to not be able to make him an adult, get stuck with it as a baby (unless you coughed up $ [I actually bought a Guardian account as a catharsis with my first paycheck]). At least AQ didn't have a gimmick to not deliver on.
>>43555145
I need to put more astrology/astronomy in my games, it really influences people. For thousands of years it all we saw in the sky, and a lot of them too.
Also, could you travel from one sphere to the other?
>>43555156
Sounds civil warish, which is where I'm going with my setting right now. Was Zarus a human himself? If so can you reach an apotheosis in your setting? I've been wanting to include that because it's awesome, but it doesn't mesh with my deity creation system.
>>43555222
Ice cap bros! Mine does too. I only have the outline of the map since I put it on the pc meshed together from three hand drawn maps and I'm tracing it.
I'll continue dumping after this post, but the map is the outline.
Also, tell us about Kiserre.
>>43555272
Maybe they'll be seen as some sort of backwater for a while, and some powers try to take advantage of them like some colonialism scenario. I always wanted to experience a game from the native point of view in a colonial situation.
>>43555219
The Varangian Union is ruled by Queen Jannel. Unlike Astaria, to the South, the monarch has relatively little power. Her primary role is command of the Justiciars, an organization of wandering Lawyer-Captains who bring justice to the land and lead the Kingdom's soldiers when war begins.
Now that the age of mechanized warfare has come across, the Justiciars have become quite similar to an organization of Modern Major Generals.
Varangia has an ancient history as a trading kingdom, beginning with its invention of the galleon and conquest of international trade for much of the age of sail.
>>43555246
Horribly. The western ocean is fucking miserable and the western coast of Carthacia(Supercontinent) is almost constantly wracked by storms.
>>43555300
That's an awesome idea I hadn't thought of. They leave this continent, the rest of the world finds out it wasn't destroyed / extremely super dangerous so they didn't go there / whatever. Then the continent has to fend off constant colonial attempts while the players choose between defending their homeland or profiting from selling it out.
>>43555288
Will do, nice dubs.
>>43555302
How did the justiciars come to be founded? Is there a parliament that rules and the monarch is just a figurehead?
And if so, how did that come to pass? Revolution?
I like thinking about how things came to be in settings, like the events that led to the now, and the moments that led to those moments then.
>>43555300
There's no "planes" or any other inter-worldly travel, and no Empyrean/underworld type thing either (Which begs the question of afterlife, which is unanswered in-setting. Everybody either thinks you become a star or that you stay on Earth in some capacity, at least as far as I've written).
>>43555300
>Kiserre
Kiserre, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Aquilonese Empire, found itself free, and bitter of the cruel domination imposed by Aquileon, put in place a strict constitution that limited the government's power greatly. Kiserre's government has no power to levy involuntary taxes on the people. This tactic, intended to keep it small, starved, and inefficient, was hailed as a great victory by the Kiserran Libertarian Party.
It didn't quite work out.
The Kiserran government is allowed to take voluntary donations, and the Trusts have used this to their advantage, dominating Kiserre's government and economy. Without protection of the government, the people are nearly all employed by the Trusts, and often abused, paid too little and charged too much.
However, Kiserre has its light sides: In matters of personal liberty, Kiserre leads the entire world, and if you want to start a business, Kiserre's utter lack of taxes make it the best place to do it.
>>43555361
The Justiciars date back to before recorded history, when traveling knights were often lawyer and warrior both, but were formalized after the collapse of the League of Starlight eighty years ago, since the League's collapse left the Varangian Union without a justice system of its own.
The League's collapse is also behind the existence of Parliament; originally, the League of Starlight(which also included Fillion, Camilcar, Berenis, and the five nations which are now Halloti) collected the preeminent nobles of the League in an assembled parliament, while the monarchs swore fealty to the Premier of the League. After the collapse of the League, the King at the time had no interest in claiming power and helped organize the first independent Varangian parliament, since it would do the hard work of ruling the kingdom for him.
>>43555073
Yoke
>>43555439
Woah, that's a very interesting government form. Is the government corrupt? I can't imagine it not being. If the government is so lax then what does it mean to be a kiserran? What is the kiserran national identity?
How did the league fall? It sounds like a very important part of the area.
Space elves were terraforming the planet with magic world seeds but when the newest brood of elves was born they were so out of touch with the old elves that they started a civil war between two age groups aboard their floating city spaceships. While this is all happening up in the distant atmosphere all the human factions are left with this out of control world seed over taking their world with magic and rampantly fast growing dark forests. So half the humans flee to the desert where the forests can't grow thick enough to overtake them and the other humans flee up into the mountains and build a giant wall that they torch with fire daily to keep the dark forest from growing up it. Then there's the folks that fled underground, They built a city in the roots of the dark forest which has started to tear apart the inside of the planet, they connect giant underground chambers with the mines of the mountain men and the quarries of the desert men to create a network for explorers and adventurers where they can pop in and out of the dark forest in a lot of different places to retrieve artifacts from before the world seed fucked up the planet. I want to run a game of it in like pathfinder or something.
>>43555446
shit
>>43555511
That sounds pretty awesome. Why don't the elves just swoop down and destroy the humans though? If they have spaceflight and world seed technology.
Also, do the forests cause animals and such to change or no? New monsters people never even heard of could be cool, or twisted abominations, like mutated beings.
>>43555302
*Eastern ocean. Eastern coast of Carthacia.
>>43555480
The government is inspired directly from that proposed in Robert Heinlein's "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" and Kiserre sort of serves as my answer to what I think would happen if anyone set up what Heinlein proposed.
Kiserre's government is strange, in that it's corrupt yet dependable. Once you buy a Kiserran politician, he can be counted on to stay bought.
Being a Kiserran means a hard day's work and standing for yourself. The Kiserran national identity is centered on FREEDOM and LIBERTY.
The League of Starlight and the Aquilonese Empire were enemies for a good sixty years, from about 33 AE to 95 AE. In 87-95 AE, the League of Starlight's lands in Carthacia were struck by a sudden drop in temperatures, now attributed to sunspot inactivity, called a "Little Ice Age". Over the course of those years, their agricultural sector collapsed. The Aquilonese Empire saw in that coldsnap the chance to eliminate a generations-old enemy, and launched a fleet of two hundred plus galleons to annihilate the League of Starlight's navy and merchant shipping. With crops ruined by the cold, unable to ship in anywhere near enough food, snows rising by the month, the League of Starlight collapsed, and the Aquilonese Empire was the world's dominant superpower until 145 AE, when failure of the coal mines and lack of any petroleum lead to workers' uprisings and populist, democrat, and communist movements tearing the Aquilonese Empire into its constituent countries of Aquileon, Astaria, Kiserre, and Nzemya, followed by territory-claiming invasions by Shoshkepal and Fillion. Those two states, plus Varangia, had been tributary vassal states of the Aquilonese Empire for decades and decided it was time to take back some of what the Empire had extorted from them.
I'm probably going to dump all of these and then hit the hay. I have 40.
>>43555585
What point is this world in? As in a comparison to historical periods.
Also, what does AE mean. I always find interest in what people start their calendars with, it can say a lot about a cultures attitude.
i have to solve a triple captcha now, goddammit
this one was only two, huh
>>43555625
The world's "Current" is the year 183 AE, which is approximately equivalent to the period of the World Wars in tech level. 95 AE, when the League of Starlight collapsed, was approximately equivalent to the 1850s in tech level. The battle of Constellation Bay, which destroyed the League of Starlight's navy, was the last battle ever fought by sailing ships; three years later, the first Steam Ironclads were introduced.
AE stands for "Age of the Empire" and dates from the marriage of the Princess of Astaria and the King of Aquileon which formed the Aquilonese Empire.
Tech levels are hard to draw comparisons to, however, since as of 160 AE, the world has drawn several distinctions in technology from our own. The lack of any petroleum whatsoever makes fixed-wing aircraft almost impossible, while alternative power sources such as broadband electricity transmission, compact and safe nuclear reactors, and exotic power crystals harvested on the ocean floor substitute, allowing for massive, Zeppelin-like Skyships to dominate the skies.
)Gonna shower, back soon.)
>>43555551
Yeah monsters were not really a thing before the world seed neither was magic, and the elves aren't even trying to kill the humans they just want the planet to be fairy paradise for them, but now the warring factions can't agree what do, remove the seed and take it elsewhere for the humans sake or continue changing the planet to be their twisted paradise. And yeah animals become all kinds of weird stuff, people too. Orcs are like primal savages that are some kind of cursed men. They look green and piggish. Basically elves are too wrapped up in civil war and yes the dark forest turns people and animals into monsters.
>>43555684
Oh, if you decide to post more stuff about your world feel free to, I'll come back tomorrow probably, if this is still up. Maybe dump more warhammer stuff after I can separate the pdf into individual images.
>>43555701
This sounds sort of like the episodes in ancient aliens about india, and aliens in huge warships waging nuclear war on each other from orbit.
Ancient Aliens was a great inspiration source for worldbuilding, and then it got boring and stale after they started reaching for straws even harder than at first.
Also, last picture. Night everyone, will come back tomorrow.
>>43555684
So since the tech-level is World War 1/2-like, what do you mean when you describe the Justicars as knights?
