Worldbuilding thread? Worldbuilding thread.
/tg/, what's your opinion on Crusader Fantasy?
Depends on the Crusade.
What does Crusader fantasy even mean?
I think it would be pretty cool if the 'good guy' crusaders are actually legit good guys, not just not!christians fighting not!mudslimes.
Make it actual demon worshipers instead of beige to the white of the first religion and we've got something here.
>>44742376
12/10 would play in a game of badass holy warriors murdering the shit out of demons while redeeming and saving those who could be.
>>44742417
Sure, sounds kind of fun myself. But I usually like plot to have a little a more nuance and depth. Also kind of limits your character choices, since everyone is going to be a paladin or cleric maybe.
The idea I understand of it is a sort of Low Fantasy grimdark-esque setting, with several factions and religious orders fighting over the sun-blasted ruins of past civilizations, while some god lies buried in a seperate demiplane waiting to be rediscovered while it all unfolds around them.
Sure you can be a fighter or ranger or something. There's plenty of other adventurers seeking to make a profit with all the holy war against daemons and creatures of the underdark going on.
Possibly conflict between species? Elves/drow/etc hated by humans and warred on?
So for the hell of it I decided I wanted to build a world using the Tarot. Plan on making four main regions for each Minor Arcana, and notable things for the Major Arcana.
Right now for Cups I have an archipelago with a kingdom that rules the seas. It's between Pirates of the Caribbean and Arthurian legend. The knights of the king, each a captain of their own vessel in the kings fleet, is searching for the Grail to cure the Fisher King.
For Coins I have a land of opportunity, very wild west but with swords instead. Also there are witches that employ summoned demons, cities with two-faces, full of nouveu riche and it's all laissez faire.
Haven't quite figured out Staves and Swords quite yet.
Any input or ideas?
It's interesting and still evocative, nowadays, most people don't understand how to do them justice.
Crusades are complicated. And a good amount of fantasy likes to be simple, i.e. let them kill demons and orcs.
Not brown people, over religion. Or sacking your brother's in the faith's capitol city. Or the Baltic people's who largely were not a threat to Western Europe at least. Or Russians for same reasons as the Byzantines.
The imagery and the somewhat forgotten ideas of the Crusaders are powerful.
But someone honestly should approach the crusades from a different perspective. The one of the nobles that are in charge of it. Because Crusades were more than about the faith, that was a mantle a lot of people volunteered to fight for, but not the reason many nobles did. Take a look at the First Crusade. It left a trail of destruction founded a few states and lead to the creation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, to the best of the the leaders.
>>44742532
All kinds of people joined crusades, you can penitent theives, barbarians recently converted from the old faiths, their fury now for a new god, jaded worn out mercs fighting for coin, and so much more. Hell even a warlock whose patron wants this group of cultists gone. A crusade was rarely ever done by one entity, the only real exception was the Northern Crusade by the Teutonic Order, but they had many other troops with them from Germany.
>>44742701
Swords could be very interesting. A land plagued by constant war or strife of some kind, where mercenaries often go to sell their services with many balkanized small kingdoms, possibly fighting over ruins or artifacts to best each-other. Probably a very crowded, religious, and possibly diseased area, the remnants of a great kingdom which has lost almost all of it's former glory after it's mantle fell, or some sort of great order of mages or mystics built on tradition. Could go multiple directions with this.
Staves- Probably some sort of great plain, a land of agriculture and nomads. I don't know, i can see how you haven't figured it out yet, not much to work with.
>>44742744
The setting i'm working on right now revolves around the premise of false gods. Most if not all of the original deities were locked up in some great demiplane of a prison known as the Godsrealm, with those taking their place mostly being charlatans, tricksters, or Mortals who don't understand how to wield powers far beyond their control.
Said demiplane was sealed with thirteen seals of magic, which already have taken a significant toll to maintain after the realization that magic (and the world itself) is slowly eroding due to entropy, which is another problem (Since eventually souls will stop cycling as is the normal process, and magic itself has a price, obviously a messy one).
It's hard enough to maintain the structure of the world, let alone justify a conflict over three hundred years for the same artifacts and god-kings which may or may not exist. As you say, Crusades are complicated and messy.
>>44742823
Yeah moral grayness, but I do love killing Saracens so I can be forgiven for screwing my brother's wife at least 20 times...
So God-Kings fight and wage holy wars for the same 20 museum pieces. Neat.
This is pretty good, there is a lot of conflict and drama, not mention mindless slaughter.
Inevitably the true gods will find away to get back their power, their are 13 of these so 13 false god-kings.
What will da party do?
There is a lot of room for everything here.
>>44742532
Plenty of people from different walks of life went on crusades
I always liked the idea of making two worlds that are connected to each other. Like in Negima. Drag this out for a huge campaign. I was think of having a final BBEG like the mage of beginning. Just an idea for a campaign with this setting, since there is alot of room for almost anything. How would you hint that there are two worlds connected with out being super obvious to the players? random ideas welcomed.
>>44742701
Associate each Minor Tarot with a notion or hell an archetype of who rules them.
Crowns are ruled by nobles. Arthurian Pirates is good.
Coins being the Wild West is good.
Staves is mostly a land of wizard's and their vast towers and plotting against each other for rule of a land of enchantment, the kind that can do terrible things to you.
Swords are going by might makes right, or oddly a land of song. A wide expanse of sword dancing nomads along rivers.
Some rougher ideas, but imagine a person with one of the Minor Arcana, and then their look.
Then you have the land, it's people, and what they are.
>>44742955
Well of course there's more then simply what's on the surface. Entire religions and cults have been built around these idols. Hundreds of gods and pretenders have risen up to claim peices of power as others fall, disputing what order remains in the world and confusing their own followers. Mages aren't just casting spells, they're actively contributing to either the heat-death of the universe or the most inhumanly savage method of destroying someone's soul that most people in the world can possibly think of.
As the seals become weaker, and the bonds between the earthrealm and the godsrealm strengthen, eventually they'll get back, and they'll be very very very mad.
The war specifically that I refer to is the Sun War, a 350+ year old conflict that has been raging between seventeen orders of crusaders, not entirely unified at all in their efforts with more then half being displaced and without lands to rule (Warhammer, anyone?) and a large empire built around an ancient city from the past with a seal in it, the Lands of the Six Prophets (Who focus on a combination of pyromancy and blood magic, and are class-based to the point that their ruler is literally seen as a God-Emperor, while the lowest level, the Sixth, is walked upon).
Meanwhile all these false gods are fueling the war so they can get the artifacts, one of the big proponents of the wars themselves, and also so they can expand their own powers on earth (After all, having an army of devoted followers behind you is easier to intimidate another, equally untrained sap with then not having an army).
I am stuck on races, however. Going to say this now: I fucking hate how overused elves, dwarves, orcs, etc are, and only having Humans is accurate, but a touch low-fantasy to the point of almost making it a rehash.
>>44743011
I was thinking some kind of land of wizards for Staves, except more Orwellian than Moorcock. The Staff can be the Rod.
>>44743011
I like this. I personally get more of a 'fallen kingdom' vibe from Swords, but waterdancing nomad sellswords works just as well, and provides probably a lot more in terms of what players can/will interact with (vs simply "oh look evil warlord, kill him because evil!", etc etc.)
>>44743038
All right races, this is always hard to do in fantasy, we can take the stock and not suffer oddness and not disorientation.
But read these and think of some answers. Before I give the race advice.
1. How many of the true Gods are there, is my first question?
2.How many of the true god's artifacts are there?
3. What is the point of having the artifacts beyond legitimacy?
4. If you collect them all, can you become a God? (This would be the biggest driver of conflict).
5. Is there a current meter on seal strength?
6. What could do in the seal at once?
7. How destroyed is this world?
Race Ideas:
On replacing races:
Each race is supposed to serve a function.
You need a short race. You need a big race. You need a stout race. And you need a fast race.
Then you can assign other elements like are craftsmen, are artists, are baby-eating freaks, and so on.
Take from the framework and work uncommon things.
Additionally are crossbreads possible? If so, what are the restrictions?
From Pillars of Eternity (seriously play this, it's every CRPG you ever loved's people behind it), what about people infused with scattered godly power so they are reflections of the lost gods. These Godborn can be really important, potentially rise as false gods, be enslaved, be killed, or sacrificed. Now that is something interesting.
Mantis Warriors (Thri-kreen) are loved here for reasons beyond elf eating and munchkinism. They are really unique thing, and bizarre. They are trying to eck out a living, following some of the Old Gods even.
Put in Gremlins as the small technical race, a group of crazed weapon tinkerers who have created horrible abominations of magic and technology for the highest bidder.
Strong/Scary -> Mantis Warriors
Small/Technical -> Gremlins
Powerful/Cursed -> Godborn
Sneaky/Nomads -> Changelings (Something from Eberron is fine)
Big/Sophistcated -> Trolls (Make trolls since in a sense, they regenerate and are strong)
Some ideas for you.
>>44743104
>>44743130
Orwell and Moorcock can hand in hand.
But a land of wizards would be a land of dangerous rulers who will destroy any upstarts and power concentrated in hands. Hence why ominious towers, that wizard's rule from dominate the landscape.
The land of swords was lost and its people roam the earth as bladesingers, and dancing swordsmen or still have the land and just be nomads.
>>44742198
Never really experimented with the setting. Closest I have is the settingfor a book series I'm writingwhere the church of not!Christianity in the main kingdom has control over magical artifacts left over by the old gods of nature (more akin to the Japanese kami or naturalistic gods than anything else). They also retain the ability to craft new magical artifacts imbued with the power of the god they worship (since the power of the artifact is based on how many people worship said god) altough these are less in power than the old artifacts.
Other than that, I have a sci fi setting I'm working on where self-aware AIs are full citizens (kinda wanted to circumvent the "AIs are evil" cliche) but I'm having trouble with how terraforming would work (since Earth is the only habitable planet)
>>44742701
Here's a synopsis of everything for Cups/Crowns so far, if anyone is interested.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wqu3Q9UHlrIYIo8k1NdeLb0G8jQ1vFubDjr3KmS8L6k/edit?usp=sharing
I'm personally working on my bunny folk. What sort of interesting shit could I give their culture and religion?
>>44743710
That depends are they going to be adorable or horrifying?
How close do you think is acceptable when it comes to mimicking the Earth?
I'm currently working on a setting which is slightly more than ASoIaF/WH:FB in terms of resemblance to the Earth. With the entirety of Eurasia and most of Africa being the principle areas. I know a lot of people tend to find it a little gauche, but I think it can work if it's executed correctly.
>>44743720
I fail to see how, or better yet WHY you would want to make them horrifying. They are a qt plucky underdog race.
I've decided to introduce Cain to my world.
Yes, THE Cain. as in Abel and Cain.
He's going to have a major beef with all the pagan gods.
And I can't wait to see my player playing a Paladin shit his britches.
>>44743806
I make my flora and fauna close to Earth (for accessability and also so I don't have to say "a huarnia is a plant that looks like this") but other than that, geography, weather, politics, ect... is fair game
>>44743841
I'm sorry, if that got you a bit miffed. Grmidark rabbits only work in Watership down.
They most likely are big party animals around a sense of community, because let's be honest. They need numbers, their biology gives them those, but they might teeter on starvation at times. So they would have birth restirctions and stranger laws and customs.
Religion either they will have one god or several in a certain vein.
They will have a Fertility Goddess.
A Trickster God.
A Wise God. Most likely as their archetypes.
>>44743936
>They most likely are big party animals around a sense of community, because let's be honest. They need numbers, their biology gives them those, but they might teeter on starvation at times. So they would have birth restirctions and stranger laws and customs.
I like this. Though I planned a lot on them more being kinda like hobbits; they don't necessarily breed slow but they stay isolated as hell and keep the locations of their colonies a secret. The joke of course, based on their magic and religious ability, could be over one small hill in the middle of a wasteland could be a verdant rolling wonderland where the rabbits live. They hide wherever they can, if they need to, but they really enjoy it more when nearby races will protect them and keep them safe.
>>44743992
Now add in dimensions of fortifcations and tunnels. Now add a touch of Israel and now you have adorably badass rabbits. They did and made massive burrows, so all their towns are underground with few entrances around their fields and water.
>>44744016
Sure, works for me. Making them anything but totally vegan, peaceful claustrophobics would be creative though, so I like it.
Making them overly 'badass' isn't necessarily what I'm going for though, since they can't fight worth half a shit. They'd mostly rely on speed, some traps, and their Odd cleric or magic user.
Do you worldbuild so your players can read it or so you have notes for yourself to play with?
>>44744058
Most of my players don't really care to the extent that I do so for the most part it's just for myself
Fiddling around with ideas for a megadungeon campaign, probably AD&D or a retroclone set in a pseudo-High Middle Ages:
It would start off with a Heart of Darkness style river hexcrawl to the dungeon site, filled with disease, dinosaurs, and cannibal tribes. The dungeon site is a series of ruins piled on top of each other over the years in the midst of a swamp. The reason why these caves can exist is a fantastic earthquake that buried a previous civilization.
The thing on top of the site is a lizardfolk temple. Below that are catacombs and then caves filled with monsters who can ingress and egress from different places throughout the area. Some of the caves are entirely or completely filled with water.
The first civilization was a iron age civilization, inspired by Babylon. It was a decadent society and tore itself apart in hedonism until the gods buried it deep into the earth so that it might never again see the light of day. There are encounters with strange, emaciated, mutated humans and their demonic masters.
Below that lies the ruins of what was once the Golden Age of this lost civilization. It was a Bronze age, Greek-inspired civilization. However, in accordance with the misfortune of this location; it was wiped out by a plague. All that remain are their beautiful frescoes, clever mechanical traps, and the restless dead.
Below even this is a sunken city. In a time before written history, all that remains of this society are its sunken ruins. Antediluvian monsters make a home in this sunless sea.
Further is a meteorite in the center of what was once a stone age civilization. It contains a great evil that will corrupt the weak willed into unleashing it upon the world.
>>44744086
Follow up question, do you try to build whole concise worlds, or piece together cool ideas?
>>44744232
Build whole worlds. I tend to look at the big picture a lot so i take several nations/regions and develop the cultures within there. If I make everything have an internal logic and reason to it, it just naturally works out when I'm running the setting because the logic and foundation has already been made. If that makes sense. If you just try to piece together ideas it creates a mishmash of things that don't really mesh and creates an incoherent mess
>>44744232
>>44744302
>If you just try to piece together ideas it creates a mishmash of things that don't really mesh and creates an incoherent mess
To show the other side of the coin, I ONLY piece together cool ideas.
I personally don't give a fuck how long the road is between place A and B, or how this government's middle managers are paid and given vacation time, or how this tavern owner dug a bathroom trench. That shit sorts itself out. What you should do is make the big questions; this nation has this crazy religion, that nation has this weird law. Why? maybe there is a reason, maybe their isn't. It makes the world deep and evocative, and I can assure you right now that any DM worth his salt can make that shit up on the spot if needed to make things logically consistent. It takes real vision to make and really sell the big power points of a setting that makes it shine and golden.
I'll just throw out a little bit of my fucking ego but I've been worldbuilding for years and have received multiple compliments from both players, fellow GMs, as well as random people on 4chan about my material. I know what I'm talking about.
>>44744363
>It takes real vision to make and really sell the big power points of a setting that makes it shine and golden.
Of course it does. That's why internal logic and reason matters in my opinion.
>I personally don't give a fuck how long the road is between place A and B, or how this government's middle managers are paid and given vacation time, or how this tavern owner dug a bathroom trench. That shit sorts itself out.
This is just a matter of opinion but I love doing that stuff. Saying what is what and why it is and all the minute details is what I love describing. Making that stuff up on the spot just isn't something I'm good at (mostly because I fumble at making stuff up on the spot). And that's why I worldbuild everything all beforehand. So I know everyone and know every small aspect of the world so I know exactly how everything will react and evolve due to interaction within the world. Now, I don't claim to be a master DM, nor a master worldbuilder. I just know what works for me and why I worldbuild the way I do. It's all a matter of opinion.
>>44744476
I'm not gonna say you are doing it wrong but I will say that that method is wasting brainpower and storage space on things that could be more important/and or interesting.
Keeping those details in mind may make for deeply involved worldbuilding but it lowers your flexibility. What I was trying to say earlier about details being able to be improvised wasn't just for time's sake, but also for the player's sake as well.
For example, if you want to write about your goblins and talk about their species and their mating habits and so on, that's fine. But I would advise against doing the whole details into how many there are and what their gender/age demographics are like and so on, because not only can you improve is that BUT its actually to improvise that kind of thing.
For example if in your worldbuilding you state that this tribe of goblins has about 100 warriors, but your players are level one, that might be a problem. Likewise if your players are level 20, you can just scale up the operation in the same way. Keeping fast and loose with the details is what allows you to improvise at a later date and add bad ass action, gameplay, story and lore all in one instead of getting caught up in minutiae. And not even the good kind of minutiae either.
>>44744615
>how many there are and what their gender/age demographics are like and so on
The example you used is something I never do. I will say a tribe/country/region's history, politics, military, economy, ect... but I never get as detailed as you described. Sure I have a rough estimate of how many people live in an area and how they live. But I don't know the exact numbers (that I can make up on the spot/adjust for a campaign). As long as I have the logic of the world figured out, that's all I need. Everything else can go from there. The super minute details I don't have to worry about (population, demographics, ect...) but more important things such as geography, politics, and history can be applied to various areas in a kingdom. For example, I know that Nation A is a very militaristic place. This means they rely heavily on slave labor (which helps in flavor) as well as mercenaries. This trade in mercenaries helps them with a nation to the south, a large merchant-kingdom that has lots of mercenary companies. This also tells me that slaves will need to have some sort of standing in the socio-political standing of the nation. So it can apply to a lot of things. I'm starting from one idea and moving forward and connecting things instead of having several and piecing them together.
>lowers your flexibility
I would disagree. What matters in a world is its believability. If you don't have all the details worked out, then it can't be believeable. And besides, the point of a setting isn't to make a cool place for your players to inhabit, but instead to make a place for stories to be told. It isn't a static place but it is constantly moving and changing.
>wasting brainpower and storage space
If you don't spend time on something, it shows a lack of commitment to the setting. When I create something, it is important to me and I want to spend time with it. And through details thats the same reaction I want to elicit from the players.
Help me worldbuilders!
Which religions in my setting should be true?
Hey fa/tg/uys. I need help on 2 points of my setting. First i need a Paladin oath as paladins in my setting are a big thing; and i don't want to just use Dragon Hearts oath for the millionth time.
And second what do you guys think of Egyptian inspired Dwarfs. They fall into the more artisan aspect of the Dwarfs as opposed to the hardy workers. So they still build massive monuments.. Just on the backs of Goblin slaves and the like.
>>44746115
None of them or all of them. If some were true, no one would worship those that were not.
>>44746135
How would they know which ones are real or not? That's only possible if the gods are very active and obviously real.
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
http://web.archive.org/web/20130619132254/http://jc.tech-galaxy.com/bricka/climate_cookbook.html
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
Print Resources:
Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer
Please feel free to add any resources you've found helpful in your projects.
>>44746170
Well, I was sort of assuming that would be the case. Otherwise the religion might as well just not exist. If you look at our religions, they tend to have a base philosophy that is only supported by the respective deities and mythology, not actually based on it. If there are real gods but they never show it, why would people believe in them to begin with? Why not just use that big mountain over there which is right next to you and plays a major role in your life?
I guess you could have the gods at one point show themselves, and then just bugger off. People might use them as the kind template for their deities, but over time they would twist into different concepts. Especially as the underlying ideologies of the religion changed.
>>44746207
For me? This is the best article I've ever read on worldbuilding.
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/07/how-to-be-creative-also-blobbins.html
>>44746207
Writing world seems sketchy to me given its statements regarding medieval soldiers.
>>44742701
I like that a lot.
If you're looking for a historical period to base Swords off of, I'd consider looking into 14th/15th century Italy with the various city-states competing for power, the era of the condottieri (mercenary contractors), Sir John Hawkwood and the White Company, and other free companies.
I'm not an expert in this era of history but I've read a bit about it and there is lots of neat stuff you could extrapolate from it, except you will probably want to exaggerate some things because in reality a lot of battles between mercenary companies only ended up with a few casualties as neither side wanted to expend too many resources (men), and the loser would just concede if outmaneuvered. But there were a lot of fun betrayals you could draw from, for example free company leaders like Hawkwood would accept often a job to sack a city, then accept a higher pay from that city in order to not sack it and go sack the original client instead (Siena for example spent most of its fortune paying off free companies).
You could have mercenary kings, city states, unstable regions full of border princes, unpaid mercenaries rampaging through the country side looting villages in order to get the local ruler to pay them to leave, stuff like that.
>>44746356
Fair point, but until I find a better one I may as well keep it as a casual reference. Maybe a disclaimer would help?
>>44746340
Neat, I'll give that a look.
>>44742198
>what's your opinion on Crusader Fantasy?
I like it.
It's usually fifty shades of grey because of each individual morality of the players though, so it gets pretty predictable pretty easily. Boring, even. At least for me.
>>44746418
It's pretty funny, given this is in reaction to the previous black-white dichotomy (first as "good Crusaders defending good Christians against those evil Moslem" then as "imperialist Europeans invading religion-of-peaceful Muslims").
>>44746356
What statements are those?
>>44746444
I've heard plenty of stories that I do not care to recount here about parties who start bickering amongst themselves, even going so far as to resort to PvP,getting the group destroyed in the process,because one side thinks it's allright to kill them all and the other would rather take them prisoners and educate the captive offspring in the right ways of not!christ.
I really don't have time for that kind of shit is all.
>>44746486
I wasn't being sarcastic or anything, I meant it was genuinely funny/interesting.
>>44746501
I see. I agree with you then.
>>44746455
Their Agincourt thing, their statement regarding Roman legions being packed in very close together, their assumption that you need over two hundred million people to field a million man army despite the Song doing it with one hundred million...
>>44746646
Yeah, it doesn't seem like a good historical reference but the general guidelines about army sizes and consideration still seem good for someone starting out worldbuilding.
What specifically about the Agincourt descriptions were wrong? I don't know enough about that period to tell.
I'm working on an FTL scheme for my setting and I'm doing the thing where you take current scientific speculation and fictionalize it. Let me know if this sounds good or not:
There is a second kind of superluminal travel which can be done through something called a Krasnikov tunnel, sometimes called a krunnel or a k-tunnel. Krasnikov tunnels allow for relatively quick one-way travel between the start and end point of the tunnel. Time taken to pass through a krunnel depends on the inherent efficiency of the tunnel (which is determined by how it was built), the speed of the ship, and the length of the tunnel. Journeys through a short, efficient krunnel can be as short as an hour, while journeys through a long one can take months or years. These tunnels are usually built in pairs, each operating in one direction, however they are sometimes only built singly leading to one-way tunnels that can not be used for a return journey.
Once inside a krunnel, it is possible for a traveller to turn back and return through the entrance portal, but once the traveller has gone all the way through and exited at the terminal portal, it can not be reentered through the terminal portal.
(1/2)
>>44747088
In order to construct a krunnel, a special tunneler ship must make the journey from point A to point B normally, after which it can build a krunnel pointing from point B to point A. This means that in order to construct a pair of krunnels going both ways, it must then make the return journey to point A normally and create a second krunnel pointing from point A to point B. Or, as is occasionally the case, if a tunneler finds there to be no habitable planets at point B, it can quickly make the return journey using the one-way krunnel it has just built. Because of the immense amount of time required to travel between stars even at superluminal speeds, tunneler ships usually take the form of a habitation ship equipped with the special tunneling technology required to build the krunnel.
Krunnels require exotic matter to maintain and will collapse if left unreplenished. The benefit of maintaining a krunnel over simply having all ships travel from system to system via alkadrive is that on average much less exotic matter is required to hold open a krunnel than to fuel any more than a few alkadrive trips. However, without alkadrives, collapsed krunnels can leave peoples or entire empires in isolation from the rest of humanity, and are one of the major causes of human species divergence in the galaxy.
(2/2)
>>44747097
I also have another blurb about a different method of FTL travel but I'll save it for later so I don't clog up the thread.
The idea is based on the Krasnikov tube, which works by basically extending a wormhole behind that lets you go back through it to just before you left.
I want a type of FTL that allows for 'decay' and parts of humanity to be isolated from each other. So they basically work like galactic roads, and can be destroyed. There is another warp drive technology which works for one off ships as well though.
I haven't figured out how exotic matter will be mined or gathered though. I want to avoid making it all about the ecology and economy of exotic matter though, as then I might as well just be making Dune. My current thought is some kind of space dragon hunting like in Escaflowne, but I'm not sure about the idea of having fauna that just drifts around in space.
>>44747088
>>44747097
Seems... OK-ish. The only thing that seems strange to me is the problem of direction. OK, so Krunnels go only one way: I can dig that. It's actually neat little way to make the infrastructure of a space opera more complex and rich.
But I don't understand how it only applies to the entrance and exit, while you can travel both ways while inside the krunnel.
Also, it leads to a rather odd implication that the space inside a krunnel is really that: normal, conventional space. And that again makes me wonder: if krunnel is a literal shortcut (something aking to a wormhole, just longer) then again: why are there restriction on the directions in which you can enter-exit?
Aside from that, as a pure instrument for establishing certain infrastructure of your universe, I think it works well.
I would generally advise against space dragons: I don't think the concept of space fauna is completely out of this world, but it seems odd to me that space fauna would be the source of exotic matter.
Maybe, I'd do the classical antimatter trick: it's not "mined", but rather manufactured: that said, the amount of energy necessary to manufacture it are insane that you can pretty much do it on few places - you something like a black hole radiation jet or a full blown dyson spehere to set up the factory. That neatly restricts it.
>>44747183
Thanks for the reply.
I remember putting the line in there about being able to turn around as a quick way address what happens if a pilot changes his mind, but I'm not married to it at all. I like what you're suggesting though. I'll probably change it to say pilots can't do anything while inside, just wait until they arrive.
I actually haven't considered what it would be like inside - maybe it feels instantaneous, but when you arrive, time has passed? That makes it more connected to the idea of Krasnikov tubes being connected to both time and space.
Space fauna: yeah, I'm pretty much on the same page with that. I'm happy to make a few concessions for the sake of drama, but it does seem weird to have space fauna be tied to exotic matter. I'd imagine space fauna would be more like, some kind of loose swarm of space tardigrades that lives in a nebula or something.
Perhaps it requires Dyson sphere scale tech in order to produce exotic matter?
>>44747245
*Wow sorry I didn't even read the last line where you said Dyson spheres. But yeah I like that a lot.
>>44747245
>I'll probably change it to say pilots can't do anything while inside, just wait until they arrive.
That makes a lot more sense to me.
>maybe it feels instantaneous, but when you arrive, time has passed?
Personally, I really like the idea of people having to wait during travels. You know, the feeling of you being on a cruise ship, knowing that you have these weeks of strange, artificial leasure before being dumped into what essentially is an entirely different world: to me, traveling to space is something I imagine much like taking the Transiberian railroad or a taking a long cruise. So instantaneous space travel is not my thing. But that is, purely and exclusively, my aesthetic fancy.
On the other side, the idea of acknowledging space-time relativity (even if not a really scientific way) always makes your world sound a little bit more sci than fi.
With space fauna, I think I'm on the same page here: space fauna - yes (as an oddity or rarity), but if you make something as strange as space fauna, and THEN you add them being source of exotic matter... I don't know, seems like a little to much of a coincidence, and suggests to me "space magic" rather than space science.
Then again, you COULD make some kind of bullshit story about how the space-fauna is capable of surviving exclusively thanks to the exotic matter. Still, I'd opt against it, though again, personal fancy.
If you are interested in ways techno-babble can sound really interesting and convincing, I strongly recommend looking into this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crest_of_the_Stars
especially if you can get your hands on translated version of the first light-novel (as opposed to the anime).
This woman brought the idea of technobabble sounding really convincing yet playing perfect mechanical role to a level of art.
>>44747349
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crest_of_the_Stars
Wow, I'm surprised I haven't heard of Crest of the Stars. That looks like super my shit. I'll definitely check it out.
>I really like the idea of people having to wait during travels
Yeah I agree with everything here - I like the waiting idea, but I also like the idea of having time work differently for different people. Each allows for different cool things to happen:
Waiting - Some kind of habitation ship goes in, and while in the krunnel, all hell breaks loose, some kind of weird plague or just rebellion, and when the ship comes out, it's a ghost ship and everyone is dead.
Instant - Space ferriers, truckers, and couriers end up living these extremely long lives (from the perspective of others) because of their frequent krunnel use. Because of the difficulties of time relativity, transporters bring their families onto their ships, which end up becoming their own communities and cities. They end up over time becoming a divergent nation, or at the extreme their own race, like space gypsies.
I think I will probably end up having krunnels be instant, but I also have the alternate Alcubierre-based FTL method that I haven't posted yet which requires waiting.
>>44747530
>Wow, I'm surprised I haven't heard of Crest of the Stars. That looks like super my shit. I'll definitely check it out.
It's really interesting. In fact, it's my personal favorite space opera, though I kinda have to warn you: a LOT of people have big issues with it, since it features and glorifies a race of what essentially are Japanese space-elves, and that tends to trigger some people's insecurities: it's not hard to see them as massive Mary-Sues, though I personally believe they are much more than that.
The anime is good - at times really good, though it has weaker moments - smaller-scale rip-off of Legends of Galactic Heroes. The books are however more interesting in terms of detailed space-tech descriptions and stuff. One thing the universe really excels in is establishing a consistent and comprehensive tech and culture models: it really "makes sense" and makes you "know" how the world works: which suddenly makes you so much more invested in it.
Otherwise: regarding the "time management": I really like this kind of time-play, but I also find it very difficult to manage.
Have you watched/heard of "Gunbuster" (Toppu wo Nerae or "Aim for the top" in original)?
It's a short and pretty weak (story and worldbuilding wise) space-opera/mecha anime by the folks who made Evangelion, but one thing it's notable for is how well it works with space-time relativity, which is one of the core thematical lines of the show. It actually works these themes similarly but better than Interstellar did.
There is also an interesting short anime movie ripping of the same time-distortion problem called "Hoshi no koe" (Voices of a Distant Star) that might be worth watching.
Sorry for recommending so much anime, but I actually mostly got in contact with space opera back when I was big into anime, and these I think are still kinda relevant to the subject matter.
>>44742198
I absolutely love it. Doesn't have to be against muslims, but it's a lot more fun when playing as (not!)Christians. Once my players organized their own crusade against the not!Hinduist heathens of the east. Great golden crusader angels versus horrificly malformed elephant demigods was fun.
>>44747759
>elf
>>44742417
Tfw I'm currently writefagging a novel thing which is mostly that.
>>44747792
>Crusader FANTASY
>>44747842
>insert "how do you know when someone's writing a book?" joke
>>44747854
That is NOT a dude.
>>44747865
Can't say I've heard the "how do you know someone's writing a book" joke.
But I assume it's something like "don't worry, they'll tell you"
>>44747887
That's about the long and the short of it, yeah.
Speaking of long and short; I'm not sure whether this short-story I'm writing should turn into its own fully-fledged novel or not...
>>44742198
The most interesting crusades to me by far are the Baltic crusades.
You have an order of crusaders in the Teutonic that is literally a nation state. They own and rule land as governors.
They are fighting pagans who regularly take crusaders they defeat, tie them up sitting on a horse, walk the horse into an open pit, and bury the horse and crusader alive. And that's just the most basic kind of sacrifice. They burned crusaders, fed them to animals, cut their hearts out, all to honour their gods.
Many of the Baltic pagans also converted to Christianity, so then you have the internal friction there. And a big justifications and nominal reasons for the crusaders to be there was to protect the Baltic christians.
Then you have the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, who are also pagans, and even pretend to adopt Christianity a few times to undermine the popularity of the crusade operations in mainland Europe, then revert back to paganism.
Another underconsidered element is how much of crusader organizations was actually dedicated to finance. They operated a lot like investment banks in order to self fund their operations, and became incredibly rich. Their military branches were only part of what they did. But i's interesting to have investors/bankers, clergy, and military all in the same brotherhood.
The crusaders vs. northern pagans is a really underused angle, and to me seems really interesting for a roleplaying game.
You also have the whole thing with some of the crusader organizations creating their own offshoots of Christianity. Look into the origins of Baphomet and his relation to the templars.
>>44747865
Quite a long story, but in my campaign they weren't. They once were twin siblings, a brother and a sister. They did blah blah blah and heathen gods cursed them to have to reside in the same body. Now they lead the Crusades.
Also, people of all races and descent fought with the crusaders, for it was a way to redeem their cursed souls. Elves, Humans and Dwarves were naturally uncursed, and therefore not exempt of heaven. There were greenskins, liches, werewolves, vampires, monkey people, as long as they believed in the true not!God
>>44747961
Fun fact, the Teutonic Order still exists, but only for helping (German) Christians, no longer crusading.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teutonic_Order
>>44747915
Well that's how my writing is going.
Started off as a short story about a Paladin Order kinda like the Nights Watch only less grim. Fighting a big ass horde of Daemons.
I liked the setting and general idea and just went from there.
If you can usually get the ball rolling with characters and a setting for a short story itd fairly easy to develop a novel length story from there.
>>44747961
Oh and I forgot to mention, you don't just have the one order, you have the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, the Order of Dobrzyń, all fighting in different Baltic regions. Lots of instances of politicking, various orders folded into others, that kind of thing. For a D&D type game you could have characters from different orders working together, which introduces some fun rivalry and things like that.
And to cap it all off, you have the Battle of Tannenberg/Grunwald, one of the biggest battles in the entire medieval era, which ultimately led to the downfall of the Teutonic Knights.
>>44747983
Yeah, pretty interesting.
>>44748067
That's motherfucking Jan Zizka in that picture.
I had no idea he was in the Battle of Grunwald.
>>44748100
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_%C5%BDi%C5%BEka
If you happen to be Czech, for some reason his presence at the battle of Grunwald tends to be omitted from the curriculum. I guess it's because the focus goes on his later life achievements.
>>44748100
Yeah, that's how I found out about him. One of his earlier battles IIRC. Went on to become one of the greatest generals of all time and invented the wagenburg strategy, which basically solved how to defeat the armoured cavalry charge and was only made obsolete when the pike and shot era started coming in.
>>44748130
Yeah, I looked it up after I saw him in the painting.
To be fair, the Hussite wars are probably a bit more important to Czechs than some battle by the Baltic.
>>44748152
I have a giant boner for the Hussites.
Here's my other FTL blurb. Let me know how this sounds:
Superluminal travel is based on a variation of the Alcubierre drive called the Alcubierre-Kapoor drive, more commonly referred to as the alkadrive. The alkadrive is best for ‘off-road’ travel - for superluminal travel on established routes, krunnels are usually the better option.
The original Alcubierre drive works by generating a spatial wave around the ship, where space in front of it is contracted and space behind it is expanded, called the a-wave. This allows the wave itself to move at superluminal speeds, while allowing the ship within it to remain at static and avoid violating the laws of relativity. The primary issue with the original Alcubierre drive is that within the wave, intense heat is generated when moving at superluminal speeds. This limits the speed at which any ship can go, because the ship must be able to withstand the heat.
The Kapoor variation works by adding a spatial inversion bubble within the spatial wave, called the k-bubble. The spatial inversion bubble causes anything entering the bubble to be redirected around it instead, including the heat generated by the superluminal spatial wave. This behaviour gives the k-bubble an appearance similar to a black hole, with a circle of darkness surround by a ring of warped light. The a-wave and k-bubble are collectively referred to as the alka field.
When an alkadrive is engaged, it has no velocity. The a-wave then begins to accelerate at constant rate, meaning the speed continues to increase as the journey progresses. Because light cannot enter the k-bubble, the pilot must plot a predetermined course prior to leaving simply by setting the initial direction and total time of the journey. The pilot is unable to make adjustments during the trip and it is always a straight line.
(1/2)
>>44748561
The a-wave catches particles in front of it and accumulates them in what is called a crest. Particles caught in the crest of an a-wave are compressed with such intensity that they generate a magnificent display of heat and light, and leave a brilliant fiery wake behind the ship which when seen from a distance gives it the appearance of a shooting star.
When the ship reaches its destination, the a-wave is shut off and the ship comes to a complete and instantaneous halt. At this moment, the crest is suddenly released in an explosion of heat, light, and radiation similar in nature to a sonic boom, damaging or destroying everything in front of the ship. This explosion is usually referred to as the terminal release or the terminal boom. The size and power of the terminal release is proportional to the speed of the ship and the length of the journey. As long as the k-bubble is only shut off after the terminal boom has resolved, the ship will remain unaffected by the explosion.
The terminal boom caused by an alkadrive can be weaponized and used for ‘ramming’ maneuvers - the pilot can simply stop just short of the enemy and direct the terminal boom towards them. When this kind of maneuver is performed against a structure on the surface of a planet, it can often result in kamikaze due to small precision errors when plotting the course. The pilot must also consider friendly elements, as a small misjudgement can lead to indiscriminate destruction. For this reason, there are often very wide regions within each solar system designated as arrival zones.
The because of the nature of the alkadrive, the traveller does not experience time dilation. Within the bubble, the ship has no velocity and so does not suffer any effects of moving at speed.
(2/2)
>>44748561
>>44748682
Same guy as before replying, but I have to say I LOVE it, mostly because I though I'm the only one who was aware of the problem of matter-accumulation with Alcubierre drive. The only thing I'm missing is: what exactly do you do with the energy released after the A-wave is shut off and when you don't plan on blowing up a planet.
The amount of energy accumulated would be immense - the condition similar to those during Big Bang - there is a serious risk of causing massive damage to what or whoever exists at the area of arrival.
Maybe I'm wrong (or maybe you just intentionally downplay the amounts of energy) there, but I was kinda under the impression that the energy released after Alcubierre drive shut-off even after a modest few light-years long journey could be system-shattering.
I need help /tg/
How would you draw some mountains in this pic
>>44748780
It's a very large island or very small continent, does not seem to be formed by any kind of significant tectonic clash, so... using Australia and Madagascar as a frame of reference, you should have considerably large central massive with ridge-like mountains only as a part of it.
Pic releated is REALLY lazily and quickly done. Again, I strongly recommend looking up topological map of Madagascar and Australia as reference guides for mountain distribution.
>>44747713
Haha. I started reading the first few pages and they remind me a bit of Vulcans, at least appearance-wise (which is cool).
I hear what you're saying about the time-management thing. I'm definitely avoiding any time travel as I don't want to spend to much time thinking about that stuff. I'll probably end up playing around with the krunnel time thing a bit more.
I've heard of both Gunbuster and Voices but I haven't seen either (I have been playing to watch Voices though). I know the guy did a bunch of interesting short films. And yeah I don't discriminate between anime and other stuff so no worries, it's all good, I appreciate all the recommendations.
>>44748775
Nice, glad you like it! Yeah, I decided to downplay it a bit. I was thinking the energy release would be significant, like maybe enough to clean up a small moon when going really fast, so arrival zones would be mostly in the outer part of the solar system, around the equivalent of Uranus and Neptune or whatever. I figured that since the initial proposal of the Alcubierre derive required an amount of energy greater than what was contained in the observable universe, but then successive proposals from different people were able to bring it down to manageable levels, they would have found a way to reduce the accumulated energy as well. Particularly with the k-bubble, which would mitigate it a lot (that is just my own fabrication though, has no basis in real life science).
Need help with the kickoff of my Swords and SorceryForum RP. Basically a low-fantasy world transitioning into a high fantasy one. Mostly rips on Howard and WHFB.
I'm basically just struggling with an intro for my sage DMPC (don't give me that look, he's just supposed to be a walking plot coupon) as he wanders the world following "the threads of fate."
What I want to achieve with the opening is "something shitty and grimdark starts happening, but then it becomes awesome noblebright fantasy." Like, the most basic idea I have currently is for a pack of beastmen to be descending on a village in the wildnerness, only for a chivalrous company of knights to arrive and drive them off. Something to the tune of "What good are we as men of strength and noble birth if we cannot help our fellow men?"
I'm kinda rambling. Here's my shitty map.
>>44748936
Is yellow hills?
Also, should I get rid of the moutain range in the west? It was supposedly very tall and ridgy which doesnt seem realistic.
I really have a hard time placing moutains but nobody wants to do it for me.
>>44748936
>>44749551
Also if it changes anything, I plan to add a japan-like island to the north-west of the landmass, quite close to it.
>>44746646
It's not like primary sources have never exagerrated or inflated the numbers present amirite?
>>44749258
Can you elaborate a bit more on the DMPC? What kind of sage is he?
>>44749741
A former Atlantean alchemist, who when he turned out to be shitty at it craft, he returned to his noble father's estate and studied philosophy (ie, became a bum). After becoming a Diogenes-esque "performance philosopher" protesting the nobility, he was exiled from Atlantis and has since wandered the land. After a near-death experience he gained a sort of pre/postcognition and has used it to learn the lost art of wizardry.
>>44749142
>Haha. I started reading the first few pages and they remind me a bit of Vulcans,
Abhs are, I think, funnier than Vulcans. Where Vulcan's are mostly based around simply (and let's be honest naive) logical/illogical dichotomy, Abhs are much more complex. Their main characteristic is that they are pragmatic. Which makes them assholes a lot of the time.
As for Gunbuster and Voices: Voices are really pretty and only some 20 minutes long, they are more than worth watching. Gunbuster... I don't know, maybe I've watched it in time when I was growing out of anime, but I did not like it: Save for the time-dilatation play. That is cool and leads to some really neat moments and ideas. Everything else, namely the mecha stuff and the characters were dull as dishwater to me. But it's short, only six episodes...
I've thought about the Alcubierre drive mass accumulation, and when I think about it, maybe the effect would not be THAT devastative. I'm no physicist, but thinking about it the main bulk of the energy released would have to be released in form of light and radiation, as there is no medium to carry heat and physical shockwave, so maybe it would be less devastative than I thought. The matter itself, while expanding violently, would only be in matters of tons at most, which isn't that bad and get's dispersed quickly.
Other than that, yeah. I do like the ideas, both of them.
>>44749551
>Is yellow hills?
Yeah, the idea was roughly dark green 0-100 light green 100-500, yellow 500-1000 m altitude, red above that.
So yellow should be higlands.
I don't think you need to get rid of the mountain range to the west, just don't make it too tall (up to 1000-2000 km at absolute peaks.
>>44749580
Japan like island chain suggest a active tectonic ark. If it's a bit off shore, and the ark of it copies roughly the shape of the coast, it should not change anything.
Keep in mind: you dont have to follow tectonics to a letter. It just makes for more belivable-looking maps.
Dix
>>44749258
I presume you are aware that the map IS Europe. Quite literally.
As for low-fantasy transitioning to noblebright (god I HATE this terminology), that is I think not so much a subject of world-building, as it is for the narrative itself. The kick-off can be anything that fits your world lore, but it needs to be suggestive enough to inspire the players.
Personally, I like things starting as dull and somewhat unpleasant political play, which slowly transitions to more and more morally clear stages. Acompaning a girl who has been sent across land to join different family in a purely political marriage, getting embroided into complex political dagger-and-knife play, in which it slowly transpires that motivations of some of the players are more sinister than just political powerplay is my personal favorite vehicle.
>>44747865
>That is NOT a dude.
That's curious, that person has a really flat chest.
>>44742198
What's the system that has the best social combat rules?
>>44749952
>>44749580
>Japan like island chain suggest a active tectonic ark. If it's a bit off shore, and the ark of it copies roughly the shape of the coast, it should not change anything.
Here is what I meant by coping roughly the shape of the coast. The size, the precise location, the distance from the mainland coast, the mountain distribution etc... can differ, but the archipelago (if it's supposed to be "like Japan") by placed alongside a line that very roughly copies the coast-line.
The red line in the picture symbolizes the zone where the particular litospheric desk on which the mainland sits runs into subduction zone (other desk is being pressured down, while the verge of the mainland desk is being pushed up - resulting in islands, active volcanoes, and long relatively tall very steep chain-like mountain ranges.
Again: keep in mind: the only reason why you should follow tectonics in your map making is to make it LOOK GOOD. It's an aesthetical choice, unless you are making specifically a very realistic world.
If you don't like the look of the result, don't force it just because that is how tectonics look: tectonics don't have to be a THING in your settings to begin with.
But knowing them can make a map be more true to real world locations, and that often makes it "look better".
>>44749835
I'm trying to think of ideas but it really just depends on your setting. He sounds a bit like Gandalf mixed with Karl Pilkington, so why not have him do some Gandalf type stuff? Have your PCs be arrested by a corrupt baron, get an inch away from being tortured, then have the sage guy come into their trial and be like their lawyer or just someone who advocates for them. The local ruler could have some kind of corrupting advisor, and the sage exposes him somehow, maybe for accepting money from a rival power or something like that. If you want something more action oriented... not sure.
Or if it's just an intro where your PCs are not directly involved, you could have someone about to be hanged, with the corrupt baron's advisor basically working being the guy whipping the crowd into a frenzy, where the sage comes in and philosophically out debates the advisor and proves the man is innocent.
>>44749699
You don't seem to understand just how next-level China is when it comes to being full of fucking half the world's population.
I need help with ocean currents, please. See, someone posted this actually decent map in a thread last night, though the thread itself was shit. I have another map done up from this one for mountain ranges and such, but ocean currents always make me iffy.
If someone could help, I'd be greatly appreciative.
>>44746207
Not exactly a resource, but a good source of inspiration and outlook on how far can worldbuilding be taken in the hands of capable literary authors:
Jorge Luis Borges: Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (short story about worldbuilding concepts)
http://art.yale.edu/file_columns/0000/0066/borges.pdf
Italo Calvino: Invisible Cities (a whole book)
http://monoskop.org/images/0/0e/Calvino_Italo_Invisible_Cities.pdf
Both are hard reading, but for ambitious authors this might be invaluable.
>>44742198
pretty cool if the crusaders' god doesn't make an appearance later on.
How would you go about turning some kind of space fauna into an invasive species and serious threat to a galactic empire?
I want it to be somewhat plausible, but still of course have some artistic license and rule of cool allowed. Something akin to not!Tyranids, but a less powerful, maybe more of an imperial nuisance than a real galaxy killer. I mentioned in an earlier post that I was thinking of some kind of space tardigrade. The most recent article I read was saying that in a vacuum, tardigrades either encase themselves in glass, or turn into glass (I can't remember which), until they are able to return to a livable environment.
What kind of cool things could you do with crystalline space tardigrades floating through space, waiting until they reach an unsuspecting planet? How would the invasion work?
>>44750240
Thanks a lot.
Though I meant north-west not north-east.
Hi guys, I need some advices on the cosmogony, Pantheon and gods creation.
Is there a way to make it interesting because I always feel like my cosmogony is "meh" when I try to create it.
>>44750868
Tell us about the culture the deities belong to. What type of setting and tone are you going for?
>>44750868
If there was a formulaic way to make a world interesting, it wouldn't be interesting anymore. You just have to follow your natural interests, try to research and mine subject matter that isn't well known or commonly used.
There was somebody posting in the last worldbuilding thread about having dragon gods, which I found to be cool. But you can pretty much go through the Wikipedia list of creation myths and find all sorts of weird stuff. Do you have some reference points for what you're going for with the cosmogony?
>>44750837
Oh yeah. But you get the point - the islands should form a shallow ark roughly coping the north-west coast line.
>>44750690
I'm looking into it, but it may take a while.
>>44750868
In my personal experience and belief, the only on way to make that interesting is by studying a lot of real-world mythologies in great detail. Not just reading a summary, reading several commentaries and interpretations as well, then trying to discern the most important UNDERLYING concepts. The things those myths are really about, but that they don't tell you out-right.
>>44750934
classic fantasy similar to Tolkien/Warhammer universes.
>>44750939
>>44750958
Thanks guys, I guess I'll have to read more.
>>44750939
Forgot to answer;
I don't have a lot of reference points, but i do want some eldritch/Chtulhu entitities based on the zodiacal creatures and "living" and navigating "between" universes, without being able to be summoned in them.
It's similar to the "Warp" from W40k except that it's not a realm in itself, it's just the "global" void between all the universes Something that contains all of the worlds, without being able to travel through them.
>>44750958
Map guy here, thank you!
>>44746115
This is just me personally, but it's always a pet peeve that the gods are a tangible thing within universe.
Like, what's the point of faith if you can just walk up to the harvest goddess and slap her on the ass? And then get teleported to hades(which is just outside of town, complete with a convenient sign saying: Welcome to deathworld" just outside)?
For me, it should be like real life. But, tangible mythos is god for things like epic fantasy.
>>44751722
I must say I agree very much there - I find the concept of Gods being present in the world, honestly, pretty dull and most of all going against the logic of "God" or "Gods" mean. To me, religion is about exploring how humans interpret the world around them, how they make sense of it, and huge part of the fun comes from seeing how different interpretations arise, coexist, diffuse, meld, fracture off etc...
But I won't lie: I have a very specific attitude to worldbuilding, and why it's an interesting and valuable experience to me. I like speculation, specifically speculation about humans and human culture.
>>44750690
OK, done. I'm not gonna lie to you: It turns out I'm absolutely fucking awful at this. You probably should not take it too seriously.
>>44746207
This website is absolutely fantastic. It was created with the intent of helping authors create more scientifically accurate scifi novels, but it much of the info can also be applied to space opera.
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/
I swear, probably twenty to thirty percent of my browser history is just this website.
Here's one for writing military scifi too.
http://military-sf.com/
>>44750718
>>44752170
You are both awesome, thank you very much!
>>44752170
Atomic rocket is great (if a bit too hard sci fi for my tastes)
Haven't looked at the second one though.
>>44750690
Glad to see someone using the map I posted
What's an interesting twist on a race of robots controlled by AI?
I was thinking of doing it where the more robots there are close to each other, the smarter the group becomes. They are able to share their processing power amongst each other, which allows their AI to perform more sophisticated calculations. That's basically the Geth though, as I understand it.
What other weird twists could you do?
I'm making a grimdark setting when a nimphomanic plague infected 70% of country's population and they all fuck each other the grimdark park is that player's characters still don't get any action.
>>44753677
Would play
Posted a similar mess of ideas in a previous worldbuilding thread but here's my current summary.
"The old kings of Lemuria built the Great Work as homage to their Lord-Behind-the-Sun. By great sacrifice and graven offerings the kings took council with his devils who through falsehoods and panderings tricked them into pledging their kingdom in bondage to their maligned lord.
This edifice and its people were cursed to perpetually exist outside of time and space for untold generations, growing in size and complexity until its obfuscated form dwarfed the very mountains surrounding the blasted lands.
With the coming eclipse the Great Work has returned"
>players are adventurers in the Great Work, a an ancient megastructure that incorporates magic with technology
>fightan ungodly abominations and monsterous un-men
>lootan treasures from beyond imagination
>goin mad from aforementioned treasures
>killan all your friends because your new coin purse told it would stop the tongue of fire in your skull from burning your words away.
Player time period and technology is 14th century but many things in the Great Work are various levels of magitek.
Ideas, feedback and questions appreciated
Pic Related, a drawing of The Great Work I made.
>>44754475
So, do people actually live in there, or is it just all fuckhueg dungeon, all the time?
>>44754541
I don't know, people living there would be an added complexity since its only just reappeared so they'd probably all be mad or become un-men. A few threads ago I considered small bastions of civilization dotted around for adventurers to rest at but, while giving refuge as a mechanical function, I'm not sure if they really gel with the kind of Leá Monde aesthetic I considered.
Do you guys like full fantasy settings with demons, all fantasy races, different kind of gods, etc, or do you prefer more balanced settings with no more than 4-5 races, and no godly interventions and all that?
I'm asking because in my group most of us prefer the settings with no gods, angels, demons, and overpowered beings, but we usually like a fair amount of races and more traditional fantasy structures.
Has fantasy gone stale?
What are some refreshing takes on fantasy settings?
Does anyone know of any tabletop rpg's designed for children? In gameplay or aesthetic.
>>44754728
Just make it like Dark Souls where there are a few remaining refuges, but everyone, even the friendlies are insane to some degree, and inch closer to full insanity with each passing day, month, year.
>>44754912
I don't know if it's designed for children specifically, but I learned about Ryuutama today, seems like it might fight your criteria.
http://kotohi.com/ryuutama/
>>44754756
Personally I'm sick of high fantasy, especially high fantasy with Judo-Christian cosmology imposed on it (that is, Angels and Demons). Hell, I've recently realized: I don't even like magic anymore. At least, not the magic that is commonly used in most fantasy settings.
I like complex cultures and politics and strange societies and religions, I like superstition and mysteries and odd beliefs: but I feel like most contemporary fantasy does not offer any of that.
I don't think demons and angels and elves and dwarves and dragons and the old Aristotelian models of magic hold any sense of mystery or wonder to me anymore.
I'm looking into works of Miyazaki for inspiration. I'm looking into cultures of central Asia and Middle East. I'm keeping the number of races of my world to a minimum. And I'm trying to study lifestyle, beliefs, superstitions and myths of everyday life.
The last high fantasy that sorta caught my interest was TES back in the days of Morrowind.
I do sometimes like to dwelve in some of the original European folklore and the few works that actually draw inspiration from it correctly. I like Slavic and Celtic folklore, I have a soft spot for Selkies, Rusalka's and Huldufólk. But I'm really sick of elves, orcs and dragons, demons and angels, and the same poor, ahistorical imagination and the odd mixture of pseudo-medieval aesthetics with modern sensibilities.
I'm bitter and old, I guess.
>>44754756
I'm kind of tired of the idea that settings have to have elf, orc and halfling or 'animal men' equivalents along with a convoluted pantheon of gods to even get started.
Not everything has to be the bloody Silmarillion
Also there's the increasing problem of settings explaining far too much to allow creative input from players.
[spoilers]personally I put it down to the popular Souls series having very little in-game explained but way too much fanlore imposed upon it so people consider it a good go-to for world building[/spoilers]
I want do make a small spooky village, that is on its own in a little valley. How much field does it need for cattle and crops to sustain that village? Would it make sense, for most of the people to be lumberjacks and some hunters?
I'm talking about 20-30 houses.
Setting is generic medieval low fantasy, so no magic to feed anyone or grow stuff.
>>44755445
>I'm talking about 20-30 houses.
That is actually quite a large village. Considering some average 5-7 people per house (which I don't think is unreasonable, people used to live in multigenerational households) that's some 150 people or more.
As for sizes of fields, that largely depends on what kind of crops they grow, which in return depends on where they live.
If you are in relatively high altitude (highlands or foothills of some mountain range), they would probably rely more on cattle, sheep and goats than on fields. That would mean less fields, and more meadows, which are easy to come by, you just clear out a part of the forest on the slope and done.
According this website: http://ludusludorum.com/2014/10/28/get-medieval-the-village-in-the-middle-ages/
you'd need roughly 30 acres to feed a single household (5-7 people).
I can't testify how accurate and reliable the page is, but it contains a lot of detail on the subject matter, so go check it out.
How would climate zones work on a flat Earth compared to real one?
>>44756048
They would not. If you are making a flat earth, you don't have to give two FUCKS about climate since you already don't give a fucking about basic astrophysics.
This is something that confuses me, and I see a lot of it around here.
>A world entirely created by a malevolent Diety out of the corpse of his foe.
>Centaurs, minotaurs, elementals
>Asks how to make it sense from an evolutionary point of view.
Don't. Just don't. Get a clear idea of what you are trying to create. Don't mix flat earth with real-world climates, don't mix mythological beasts with evolution. If you want to make a world that is not based in physical rules of the real world, commit to that idea. Don't do things half-arsed.
>>44754756
I'm typically a humans-only type of guy. Nearly all of my settings, and I have many of them, only have humans or, at most, some sort of altered human to serve the orc role. I've never really needed more than that.
But to try something different I'm taking a nearly opposite approach for my current project. I'm trying to fit in as many different species as I possibly can while maintaining an origin story capable of accounting for all of it. To make things even more interesting, humans are going to be introduced to the setting from an entirely different world (likely from one of my previous all-human projects).
It's been fun brainstorming so far; I've got fluff for five flavors of elf and am looking to add more.
I'll probably never go anywhere, but it's still been an enjoyable project, partially because I'm taking it less seriously than my human-centric settings.
What's a good official-sounding name for a black budget ghost/spirit busting team?
>>44757823
Task Force Exorcist?
>>44757823
Spiritual Purgers
>>44757823
Nigger humping faggots
>>44758548
>Nigger humping faggots
He didn't ask after a synonym for Kotaku's/Onyx Path's leaders.
>>44754756
I like the weird and the gonzo. I'd rather take something silly and make it serious, than something serious and make it silly.
>>44750690
I was bored and mocked up a map with climate regions. Not even remotely sure if this would be a legitimate climate model, but it works.
>>44759371
What did you use to color the regions?
>>44759302
How do you make Kender serious, anon?
>>44759422
This.
Not gonna lie, the map I did up climate wise is pretty much a flip of the Earth (since that's what it was clearly based on), so I took that and ran with it, exaggerating in some places to make it work more.
>>44759462
No I meant more or less what program
>>44759484
Oh, derp. Just paint since my normal computer is being repaired and I'm on just a netbook at the moment.
>>44759427
Kender are practicaly goblins or gremlins. Thieving and child-like. At heart they're kleptomaniacs, they don't steal for wealth, they steal to steal.
Some with a skill in magic taken these stolen things and infuse them with minor power, making them into strange and innocuous trinkets. Other Kender festoon themselves in objects, believing they provide some boon. They often look like a weird motley of scavengers of homeless.
Some have gotten wise, and have markets of stolen goods, you can buy back what was stolen from you at half the price. Just watch your purse.
Due to their small and pathetic stature, they're frequently beaten and abused into compliance with stronger criminal gangs, becoming some of the more effective cutpurses.
>>44759543
Oh ok. I'm not nearly coordinated enough with my mouse-hand to do that so I usually just draw (albiet very poorly)
>>44759599
Yeah, it took quite a while. I was on max zoom for most of it, so I understand.
>>44760036
Oh I see. That've taken a while then
>>44760068
Not as long as I thought since, as I said, I pretty much just to the Earth's climates, flipped them, then exaggerated the lines some. I'm stealing the map from the first anon now anyway and I'm going to start worldbuilding from it.
>>44750793
It seems like it would take far too long for them to get anywhere like that. You could have them originally have laid their eggs in the atmosphere around one planet, and ships going to and leaving from there have spread it everywhere. Otherwise the tardigrades need to achieve FTL somehow without being spotted.
bump before bed
>>44754756
I don't know anymore. I really enjoy taking mechanical game systems and justifying them in setting, as well as creating interesting nations, religions and magical traditions. I really enjoy multi racial settings, but I often have a hard time imagining them. Sometimes I am not really sure what it is I want. Human only low fantasy may before sincere, but it isn't more interesting and crazy. And I like crazy.
So I am interested on the side effects of a culture that practices something like the jewish jubilee tradition. Basically every 50 years, each family reclaims their ancestral land. When you sell your property you sell it not forever, but rather until the next jubilee, and the sales price is supposed to reflect the number of crop yielding years remaining before the next jubilee. This is Yahwey's way of reminding the Jews that at the end of the day they do not own land, but are borrowing it from him.
>>44765502
that's dumb
>>44743391
Worked on some of your ideas, I don't have answers to them all yet but I dredged up some old concepts and went to work.
Strong/Scary: A race of scaled humanoids with a highly sophisticated social and societal structure. Been around on the native continent, Nuûn, since almost the dawn of time, and seemed to have wethered the passage of past cycles. They evolved from reptilians, but are more human in appearance, and fully adapted to the climate and geography, making them perhaps the most dangerous to go up against, and one of the more technically sophisticated.
Small/Technical: Forgot the name for this one, but basically a hybrid of tieflings and goblins. Red-skinned, head ridges and angular, square features, with no pointed nose, but two black eyes like orbs. Not as skilled with technical accomplishments as then with subterfuge.
Powerful/Cursed: I really like your godborn idea (And yes I do play PoE) but i'm looking into another alternative at the moment until I can fully work them in somehow- Right now, a strong idea is a race known as the Uldur, an older variant of humans created by one of the original gods, a smith god. Shorter then humans by around a foot or so, dark skin, and unkempt red hair like flames (picture related).
Sneaky/Nomads: Ashen. No, they aren't zombies. No, they aren't neccesarily soul-starved, either. They're humans who, by the processes of magic and decay involving souls, exist in a sort of partway stage between life and unlife. Undying, the Ashen appear to be humans, except for the fact that their skin is gray and paper-like, cracked and fissured; and most are forced to wear linen or protective wrappings to prevent their skin from cracking. Very poorly understood as to whether it's an affliction or some type of soul business. Humans often consider it a curse, and as such, most Ashen exist as nomads, roaming as mercenaries and taking to fringe professions.
1/2
>>44743391
Big/Sophisticated: A race of giants from some land far to the north. ~1.5 times human height, strong features, very long hair. Skin color ranges from a bleached tan to a dark almond, but almost never ventures away from some variant of yellow. Some of the species, after being introduced, also ran off into the hills, forming mountain tribes with primitive techology. Often referred to by humans as 'War-Born', due to their strength and prominence as leaders of battle.
So yeah, thoughts anyone?
(2/2)
>>44766145
I disagree.
>>44765502
Personally Anon I like this a lot, plus this easily leads into cultural friction and conflict that make for good RPGs. Imagine the party's surprise when they find out that the people who are taking back their lands with force actually sold them, and THEN found it it was never meant to be a permanent trade. Really interesting and leads into all kinds of ways to approach it.
Oh and speaking of that the Uldur are, indeed, cursed. Most of them were wiped out in a great war that turned into a genocidal purge, with their world-level-spanning-factories turned into conduits for the creatures of the deep to come to the surface, most of them being sealed for that reason.
They're more so engineers, not crafters.
>>44766145
But a legitimate tradition. I could see some really long lived race, such as dwarves or elves, doing this, elves particularly so.
>Work on a masterpiece for twenty years
>Sell it to another elf
>Jubilee comes four decades later, reclaim it
>Enjoy the work for a decade, sell it off to a human
>Jubilee comes again, show up at human's house
>Family says they are dead, won't give it up
>Forge a blood debt on the family until they surrender the piece as the rules of Jubilee call for
Shit's funny if applied just right
>>44766711
Yeah. I was also thinking of the angst when looking at inheritance. Do the parents split the land between children or maybe it all goes to the eldest. Imagine if your sibling squandered away their portion and you purchased it. They live a life in the slums, then march up one day as the new owner of that land because it is the 50th year. They are so unworthy it hurts.
I think this could be an.interesting idea in a world. I am trying to think of ways it could work in a non-religious setting. Maybe future earth or space ships could have this lineage based ownership. Or maybe even a culture or species has this system. Your grandfather purchased a beutiful villa from an elf. Some years later that elf comes back with some police to repossess the land because he was renting it to you.
>>44767073
Then some dwarf with a goofy beard and moustache has enough of everyone's shit, starts fucking racking up every elf and puts them in a gas cave.
Rough draft for the open world I have to tack onto my setting, since my players are quickly outpacing the original continent I drew for them.
The original setting is the island in the upper right. This isn't the final map, but a rough draft.
What do you think about contemplative dwarven mountain gurus who brew their own drink and smoke a whole bunch, contemplating the meaning of violence.
I have a part of my world that is coming out a little boringok most of my world is boring, but shut up I'm trying, maybe you guys can help me to spice it up. I have a nation that has recently seceded from a dwarven kingdom, but I am having trouble thinking of a good reason why it left or what is different and defining about the new guys.
The kingdom is highly militaristic. Thinking about it, its not really a "kingdom" as it is ruled by a "Grand General" or shogun basically instead of a monarchy. It is been in near constant on-again-off-again war with another dwarven kingdom since both were established.
The old shogunate is keeping the mountains and the lands to the north while the new nation is taking low plains and sparse forests to the south. The new nation will border a huge expanse of unclaimed wildlands. There is a gnomish nation to the west in a Savannah-like environment that will border both.
So, I could go with something like they are pacifists wanting no part of the shogunate's constant wars, or something like a usual democratic rebellion against a tyrannical government, but neither sounds to interesting to me. Anyone have ideas?
>>44767207
Capitalists who are war profiteers. Also look into the situation of East and West Berlin and the Berlin Wall.
>>44767188
This reminds me of the atla fire nation for some reason. Maybe its just the island in the bottom right. Maybe you can make it a volcanic hell-scarred landscape?
>>44767207
Communists. It works as a freedom movement while still keeping the radical tones that I like to put in with resistances for a morally gray area
>>44767217
So something like
>secede
>start producing arms and/or creating a mercenary-army
>sell swords and soldiers right back to your old masters and/or their greatest enemies for dem stacks.
Or am I misinterpreting what you are saying? That sounds interesting in and of itself. Sucks for them though that the shogunate and their old enemies have just entered a formal alliance.
>>44767317
Definitely the tried and true approach
>>44767317
>radicalism
>morally grey
>>44767640
Are the rebels the good guys? Is the government?
Who knows?
>>44767775
Radicalism itself does not provide for moral greyness (or whiteness, or blackness). It is the means used and the aims of the organisation that determines whether you consider it good, evil, or arguable.
>>44767194
I like it
>>44757823
Ops Team 8 "Firehouse"
>>44766691
>>44766702
>lizardmen
>imps
>fire dwarves
>magical lepers
>northern giants
I like your descriptions but ultimately it just seems like the same old with some small variations.
>>44767207
You could always go with the religious angle. I know dwarves are not typically associated with piety, but you could have the Dwarvish equivalent of Luther or Jan Hus lead a bunch of reformist dwarves out into the wild border marches after they reject the traditional religious power structure of that society and are now escaping the persecution of the traditionalist dwarven faction. Looking into the Hussite Wars might be fruitful if you go in that direction.
>>44767799
Not the guy you're replying to, but of course radicalism itself isn't grey. I think what he's getting at is that if you have two radicalist factions fighting against each other, each representing opposing extremes on a political spectrum, you have a space in between that various individual characters can occupy.
>>44756709
Last time I asked this question on /tg/ I was told it would be similar.
>>44754756
I'm not tired of any particular genre as a whole, I just really have no interes in worldbuilding that starts with an already derivative, aggregative setting like D&D, cherrypicks some things from it, tweaks them slightly, then calls it a world (unless you are actually just making a D&D variant for D&D games of course - I think the D&D setting works fine for that, not hating on it). I don't care how many or how few races there are as long as the world feels like it was built from the ground up in order to capture a particular idea or feeling and really commits to that.
>>44757665
I agree. Usually just having humans, ugly humans, and beautiful humans is the most I've ever needed. You can pretty much do everything just with human cultures and societies that you can do with grouping everything into races (and it often leads to more interesting conflicts). But it is also fun to make a world with every single fantastical race under the sun.
>>44769482
>Last time I asked this question on /tg/ I was told it would be similar.
You were told wrong. There is literally no fucking way to compare. Flat Earth is physical impossibility, and climate is a result of numerous physical factors.
>>44769482
>>44769645
If you are doing a sci-fi kind of setting with ringworlds, Halo-type constructions, and you wanted to make some kind of flat megastructure habitation disk with artificial gravity, yeah it might be vaguely similar, but you'd have to consider things like the Coriolis effect, the way volcanic activity affects the atmosphere though, and the way differential heating of a spherical planet causes the movement of wind. And you would need a way to keep the atmosphere from falling of the edge and some kind of technology that would create a magnetosphere around it to prevent solar wind from blowing away the atmosphere.
But if you're talking about a fantasy world and you are just making a flat world for the sake of it (iirc the Lord of the Rings world was flat at some point in it's mythological timeline), then really, you are just damaging the integrity of your world's design by trying to use contradictory worldbuilding ethics.
>>44769822
There is no way such a structure would even hold together. And even if defiled all the laws of physics and held together as a disk with circumference comparable to Earth, there would be SO many problems with that, with retaining atmosphere, with internal heating and all that shit it would be unihabitable anyway, or require constant insane amount of artificial adjustments to itself that talking about natural climate would be completely meaningless.
How do you organize information?
Who's doing what, why, part of what groups, where....
>>44770156
Sure, it's handwavy. But if it isn't allowed then we might as well just never have sci-fi that involves megastructures, ringworlds, supermassive generation ships, or anything large. Either way, my point was just to agree with you here >>44756709 and say worrying about realistic climate when you already have a high degree of handwavyness is basically contradictory and pointless.
>>44770286
I usually have a few main documents:
1. Questions document, where I ask myself questions about the world that require longer answers, like the motivation of certain characters or groups, the thought process certain contrivances or particular worldbuilding decisions, that kind of thing.
2. Names document, with the names of places listed, the names of important characters, groups, and a small, one-line reminder of what that place or character is. Also with tables of premade names for various languages or cultures that I can pick from if necessary.
3. Timeline document with the long timeline of the world, and each of the various calendar schemes (if more than one) aligned to it.
Then I also have a map, and I might have other documents for particular things that require a lot of space.
I want to try taking the whole turn-corpses-into-diamonds some people are doing and use that as a cultural thing for at least one of my cultures. Catacombs like the inside of a geode, and give "the family jewels" a neat twist.
Problem is I don't know if that's anything close to possible in ye olde days without magic, and I try to make magic as smoke and mirrors and chemistry as I can.
>>44770286
I try making a !wiki document. Makes it nice for other people to read if they want the setting, too.
Tips for linguistically consistent names? Beyond just googling "Roman titles" or "Serbian towns" or "Aborignee names" and applying liberally.
I've just begun fleshing out one faction, and by sheer coincidence, the "working" names I'd given several locations all ended in "a", like female words in some gendered latin-based languages. I figure I may as well roll with this, but if there's some linguistic pattern I could expand with, that'd be cool.
>>44742417
Those are my favorite kinds of crusaders and paladins, so much so that there are large Missions in every country to house a garrison of crusaders who's only purpose is to eradicate the undead, demons, and provide basic militia training for fighting undead and demons.
In retrospect the world is kinda crappy, there's endless undead and demons in the East, and endless beasts and dragons in the West but at least it provides plenty of opportunities to fight and it not be a war between two country.
>>44770541
how common sounds are is really the only way unless you're stealing.
This culture's given names have one syllable, and they don't use F or V except in vulgarity.
This one uses an awful lot of vowels in everything.
Speaking this language sounds like coughing.
>>44770601
>Speaking this language sounds like coughing.
REEEEE
>>44770541
>Tips for linguistically consistent names?
What I do is to associate each culture with certain real-world language, and whenever I need a name for something related to the culture, I just look up their dictionary, search for words that have some association with the object I'm naming (or for whatever I feel like), and use what ever it gives me. Slightly adjust it if the need be.
So for an instance, I associated one of the oldest cultures of my world with Hindi. All cities that were founded by that culture are named after Hindi words: Aarkid and Gulaab are names of flowers, Daant is Hindi for "Teeth" after teeth-like white stone formations near the city.
Similarly, names for things associated with the steppe regions are based in Mongolian.
Keeping track of who named what, when and why, and where did the person or culture naming the object or place come from (and what is it's real-world linguistic source) is key. If you consistently use one real-world language as a source of inspiration for all naming produced or associated with that culture, you'll get that feeling of consistency.
>>44770671
is that how you cough, anon?
difficult to get the phlegm out that way
>>44770671
>>44770735
No, but things like
>this language sounds like coughing
>it sounds guttural
>this phoneme is a throat clearing noise
are memes which are exclusive to English and Romance language speakers and which are both linguistic nonsense and insulting to speakers of other languages. People who write these things make themselves seem like dimwits.
>>44770697
>names for things associated with the steppe regions are based in Mongolian.
Actual Mongolian names are so... weird, almost like Orcish names. For my steppe cultures I always give them Finnish or Hungarian names.
>>44770825
>Actual Mongolian names are so... weird, almost like Orcish names.
The words I used are Tsoliin (desert), Kheeriin (steppe) and Khuurai (dry). Sounds good enough. I've added made-up modifiers Ar (north) and Sur (south). I'm relatively happy with that.
Other toponymi is referential and a lot of it is place-holder (Tlon is a reference to my favorite short story, Chazaria is a placeholder name (itself also reference to both a real world country and a great book, Chazarian dictionary).
>>44770937
>the spine
>>44770815
>which are both linguistic nonsense and insulting to speakers of other languages.
English is the only language that matters. I can't help the vegetable-chopping noise Southeast Asians call "language" sound any better.
>>44770536
This is cool, the only thing I noticed is that the peninsula looks a bit like a dick cumming green slime, particularly because the dick is highlighted in dark green.
>>44770969
We had this discussion in a different thread.
Look at the naming closely. There are regions called Head, Horn, Ribs, Neck, Teeth, Veins, Guts etc... The entire landmass is divided into parts named after a body of a bull. There is a history to it too - it's rooted in one of the worlds oldest religions, which literally believes the world IS a body of Divine Bull, who was sacrificed to form the physical land. There is practicality to it too, as it actually makes it easier to imagine where things are related to other things in the world for my players.
This particular map is outdated, I've changed it to "The Spine of The Bull" to be more consistent with the rest of the naming, but that is all I intend to change about that.
Interesting how it makes people butthurt though.
I accidentally got carried away with a large, militaristic country, and I'm torn between moving onto the next nation or setting the game entirely within this one.
I want a lot of cultural, magical, and technological variety, though.
So, either:
>Should I just get over it and move onto the next country?
or
>How would you justify a massive degree of variety in technology and culture across one single large (but contiguous) kingdom?
>>44771048
Fuck, this is similar to my setting where the main continent is believed to be formed from the body of a dead Leviathan. The "spine mountains" are called Eidzh Ganúu (Great Wall) though.
>>44771082
>How would you justify a massive degree of variety in technology and culture across one single large (but contiguous) kingdom?
Look into China or India. If the nation spreads wide, and if it had assimilated several different countries or cultures into it, you'll easily have huge cultural variety. Especially if your nation is not driven by some kind of cultural (usually religious) unifying ideology. Set your country to be religiously tolerant and you'll immediately have huge cultural and technological variety.
>>44771111
I've kept all the old Nomadic names English, partially to make the body-land analogy more clear and obvious (yet apparently it's not obvious enough), and partially because I simply don't want to flood the settings with made-up terminology. The closer to the "central" regions (where most of the really relevant cultures exist), the less "made up" terminology I'm trying to use, reserving the made up stuff for preferably fringe and exotic subject matter or locations.
>>44771082
Having the different culture types just be subjugated peoples is the simplest solution.
Then it gives you some intrigue options to boot
>>44771048
justification hardly make it less cliché.
>it's called land's end because it's at the end of the land
>>44771111
>>44771048
And this is the story of how I decided to work the Xenoblade Bionis/Mechonis concept into my setting.
>>44771209
Actually, it does. Again, it's not about the particular name, but about the whole context. Land's end is not justifed by a cosmogonic myth, neither is it of any formal use (land does not end, actually).
Again, why does this make people so butthurt?
>>44771254
It's worth mentioning that unlike Xenoblade, within my settings the cosmogony of the Bull is not really a historical account. The land was formed, just like everything else, by normal tectonic processes, much like on earth. The Bull's body is something that people just projected into it.
>>44771209
>>44771291
I am not sure of what do you mean guys...:
There is a Land´s End in Cornwall UK.
>Land's End (Cornish: Penn an Wlas or Pedn an Wlas)[1] is a headland and holiday complex in western Cornwall, England. It is the most westerly point of mainland Cornwall and England, is within the Penwith peninsula and is about eight miles (13 km) west-south-west of Penzance at one end of the A30 road.[2]
A Finistère in Brittany
>The name Finistère derives from the Latin Finis Terræ, meaning end of the earth. In England, a similar area is called Land's End. The Breton name for Finistère, Penn ar Bed, translates as "Head/End of the World" and is similar to the Cornish name for Land's End, Pedn-an-Wlas (Head/End of the country). Finistère is not to be confused with Finisterre in Galicia, Spain.
And a Finisterre in Galicia, Spain.
>Cape Finisterre (Galician: Cabo Fisterra) is a rock-bound peninsula on the west coast of Galicia, Spain.[1]In Roman times it was believed to be the end of the known world. The name Finisterre, like that of Finistère in France, derives from the Latin finis terrae, meaning "end of the earth". It is sometimes said to be the westernmost point of the Iberian Peninsula. However, Cabo da Roca in Portugal is about 16.5 kilometres (10.3 mi) further west and thus the westernmost point of continental Europe.
All of them located in the Westernmost peninsulas of their regions.
>>44771291
>Again, why does this make people so butthurt?
Because, again, a mountain range called "The Spine" is beyond cliché. The next thing people expect to hear about how the "Xwood" Elves are in decline.
Try a different word that means the same thing, like "Rachis" or "Vertebral" or something.
>>44771444
dude, it's just a cliche. The only reason for that is that it's used a lot, regardless of how justified it is in-setting.
>>44771466
No, thanks. For a simple reason: consistency of the naming. I don't give two fucks about people dumb enough to let such thing bother them. It's the Spine of The Bull, just as there are Ribs of the Bull, Neck of the Bull, and Head of the Bull.
I might do some visual adjustments to make all the names associated with the body more prominent when glancing over the map, but I'm not going to change the name because some morons tend to jump to conclusions.
>>44771553
>I'm not going to change the name because some morons tend to jump to conclusions.
>I don't care what the connotations of the words I use to name things are, nor what impressions those names create in my audiences
t. worldbuilder
All the reason and explanation in the world won't make "The Nigger Plantations" not put your one black player off.
>>44771466
>>44771485
Not any of the guys you're replaying to, but almost every place name is derived from a utilitarian or literalist label assigned to that place at one time, and sometimes over time it morphs into a name separate from the original label, but not always. It's not really my cup of tea to have the Spine mountains, but place names like that exist almost everywhere. Like in Canada we have Newfoundland, the Rocky Mountains, and a bunch of other obvious/cliche sounding names for places. It's a bit cliche, sure, but the guy has a good justification for it that makes sense and so it works for that setting. Not really a big deal.
>>44771553
>naming lands after body parts is a cliche
>no, because they're named after body parts
>y'alls are morons for thinking these body-part-named-lands are named after body parts
It's your setting, man, you don't have to justify it to us or anyone else really.
But you should be aware that how a media is observed is like 75% of the actual thing, and if people see 'the spine' and think it's trite, you should know that's not their problem necessarily.
>>44771652
>this land has an awful lot of water like all around it
>let's call it sea land
people are dumb and I love them
>>44771616
if the connotations are unjustified, then yes: I don't give two fucks about those people. And comparing the fact that some people saw similar name in some fictions that weren't all that good and jumped to the conclusion that by divine law of their own twisted logic, use of that word is forbidden to use of a term that has been coined as a vulgarism and a direct insult is really beyond stupid.
>>44771672
>naming lands after body parts is a cliche
Is naming land after body parts cliché? I though the problem was with the word "spine" in particular. Could you please refer to a single work that utilizes the same or similar model as I do? I know ONE, which I ripped it off from, but I wasn't aware that the concept of having your world named after parts of an animal body was so common that it would become a cliché.
>>44771741
You're too retarded to deal with.
Your words mean nothing except what the person you're speaking to understands them as. Get off your high fucking horse Webster and learn to take criticism.
>draw coastlines
>finally get it where you don't think it looks like any other land
>show someone
>"that's one funky europe"
I just want an inland sea, man.
>>44771616
>The town was originally named Castrillo MotajudÃos ("Hill of Jews Camp") in 1035 when Jews fleeing from a nearby pogrom settled there; it was changed to Castrillo MatajudÃos ("Jew-killer Camp") in 1627[3] during a period of religious persecution of non-Christians in Spain (the Jews had been expelled from Spain in 1492).[3] In June 2015 the name was changed back to Castrillo Mota de JudÃos[3] following a campaign led by mayor Lorenzo RodrÃguez leading to a vote among the villagers in May 2014.[4][3]
>La Mort aux Juifs was a hamlet under the jurisdiction of the French commune of Courtemaux in the Loiret department in north-central France. Its name has been translated as "Death to Jews"[1][2] or "The death of the Jews".[3]
>>44771788
>Your words mean nothing except what the person you're speaking to understands them as.
In other words, what YOU say and think is the only thing that means something. That is some really noteworthy arrogance.
Dude, "spine" means "spine". It's a part of a skeleton. You add necessary connotations to it, then demand others acknowledge it. I know you are not alone with this, but then again, I don't think very highly of people who think this way, because frankly: you are a moron and so are others who sperg out about this.
If your arbitrary associations matter to you more than the settings and it's consistency and logic, then there is nothing I can or care to do about it.
If it's of any consolidation to you, I don't plan to sell it. So I can afford to ignore the dumbfuck part of the market.
>>44771788
I was with you for a while, but you lost me when you compared a naming scheme that worldbuilding enthusiasts saturated enough with homebrew settings they will have encountered Spine Mountains multiple times will find cliche with naming something Nigger Plantations and not understanding why that would upset some people.
You're right in that words only mean what people interpret them as, but that doesn't exactly say why one should never name something using a common or cliche scheme. If verisimilitude is one of your worldbuilding ethics, a lot of real life places have names that are so trite they appear subfictional. It's okay to have a little cliche in there. Just because it's cliche doesn't make it wrong and bad in all cases.
Anyway, I'm working on an interstellar sci-fi setting. This is the flag for the galactic empire which is a union of all the Terran Abrahamic religions. Thoughts?
>>44772237
That is actually not bad. But I can't pass the opportunity to point out that by having all Abrahamic religions united in peace, you are crossing from sci-fi to pure fantasy.
>>44772237
looks neat.
How does the religion-empire work? More like the Papacy or just more like england/anglicanism
>>44772258
>>44772350
Hehe, yeah I know it's a bit far-fetched. My setting is mostly about the "puritan" peoples who rejected transhumanism and have decided against attempting to transcend to a state of higher intelligence, due to an early series of accidents/wars that caused a bunch of small gravitational singularities on Earth, devastating the planet. The religion itself isn't unified - all of the original religions exist separately within this empire, and there is still internal friction, but the People of the Book found they had more in common with each other than with the other semi-transcendentalists who start modifying their bodies and uploading their consciousness into digital realms and things like that. It's ruled by a council which includes religious leaders of all the various sects, including the Pope, Protestant representatives, the Caliph, Jewish representatives, etc. It's a contrivance, but I like the kind of drama it creates in the setting.
Here's an alternate version. I think I like this one more, but not sure.
>>44772489
I like the right one better, the left reminds me of a metal jack with a parachute
>>44772511
Yeah that's true, the moon is a bit fat in the left one. Although I noticed that the right one made me think of pic related a bit, which is interesting but I'm not sure if it's good. I'll try with the thin moon above.
>>44772489
Actually, it was a joke. Religions and religious outlooks change and the notion of the three religions finding a way of coexistence - especially if united against a common enemy is not nearly as far fetched as I implied. It's actually an interesting subject matter: given how DRASTICALLY has Islam changed over the course of last few hundred years, speculating of how it can change to the future can be fun experiment. Similar with Christianity, though I'm not sure Judaism is particularly flexible.
I like the one the right a lot more, by the way. It's more balanced. The only small issue is that is that it makes the Star of David less evident, because it's easy to mistake the David's star for the five-pointed star in the Islam's symbolics. In fact, in general, the right could be easily mistaken for future Islam logo, with the christian and judaic iconography less evident.
But it sure looks prettier.
>>44772613
Ah ok, I wasn't sure if you were just making a joke or being cynical, but I definitely agree. I find it an interesting thing to think about in a worldbuilding context.
You points about the second flag are well taken. I hadn't really considered that it makes certain elements less evident but I think you are spot on about that. I'll be working on this for a while so I'll probably continue to post variations of this and other flags for the setting.
>>44772793
Iteration is always the core of any GOOD world building process. And I have several graphic designers in my family, so I'm kinda trained to scrutinize any form of logo, or typography or any graphical design for details and messages.
As for the religious thing: go for it. I've always liked the idea that religion becomes equally, if not more prominent in future worlds and I really enjoy worldbuilding that acknowledges that.
Just for my curiosity, are you by any chance the guy who proposed the Krunnel and Akon drives FTL theories?
>>44772861
Yeah that's me.
>>44772929
Just wondering what you thought of Crest recommendation, if you even got around to checking it.
Been following your ideas through out the thread, and I like the way it's shaping up.
>>44770536
Could have glass or iron. I know some of the norse used corpse ash as the coal to make steel.
>>44771047
peninsulas tend to look rather phallic. You're right though, in later maps I included the lands to the right so it looks a little less like a dick and balls.
Did some more variations. I think I like 7 and 8 (from the left) the best, but I might have to tweak it a bit.
>>44772958
I think I might have missed that - I remember we talked about the size of the crest explosion, but I don't remember what your recommendation was. But I'd definitely be interested to hear it.
>>44774311
Visually, I like 6th and 9th from the left the most, but the Christian part of the iconography is almost entirely lost there. So for pragmatic reasons I'd chose 5th or 7th. As for color scheme, I think all of those can be used, but I'm not sure about the outlined ones.
With Crests, I meant Crest of the Stars (Sekai no Senki), the book/anime series. At least I think I've recommended those.
>>44771008
autism
>>44771652
Any argument about a mountain range name being stupid will be invalid until there is no long a major mountain range called the rocky mountains.
"These mountains sure has a lot of... rocks. What should we name it?" "The rocky fucking mountains." "Brilliant."
>>44775136
The argument was not about it being stupid. It was about it being cliché - that is that it has been used, multiple times (to my knowledge "Spine Mountains" or a variation of it are used in Wheel of Time, Forgotten Realms, Eragon, plus variations "usually "Serpent/dragon/some other sinister animal) Spine is featured in EverQuest, Dragon Realm and no doubt countless many other works of fiction.
The argument was that using it immediately gives a negative impression of the world simply because it's considered cliché or uninspired.
>>44753618
Not sure if it's the kind of twist that you're looking for, but the robots in my Sci-Fi setting are actually the descendants of humanity. They've even co-opted the word humanity and the entire fucking Earth, much to the chagrin of the last humans that are just being woken up from cold-storage.
>>44771884
post map
>>44771884
not all inland seas are created equal
For my own purposes, I'm thinking about writing an application for organizing my worldbuilding.
If I made such a thing, would anyone else be interested?
I haven't decided what exactly I want to do, yet, I've got quite a few competing concepts floating around in my head.
The Age of Chaos has almost come to an end, and the world has finally begun to stabilize after a particularly nasty unplanned chain of events. It wasn't the result of any one faction or entity, but rather a whole myriad of them trying to exploit the openings left by the others or respond to their actions.
Most of the immortal or long-lived races have either died or been changed beyond recognition, and the same goes for most of the older civilizations and religions. Old gods have fallen and new ones have risen to take their place, and some of the most powerful gods of the modern era used to be quite minor. As such, hardly anyone has accurate records of how things were before, and those who do often have reason to hide or edit that history.
One such God, often referred to as the Chaos Serpent, is perhaps one of the primary success stories of the Age of Chaos, and is often falsely accused of starting it due to that success. While he's happy to take credit for everything, the truth of the matter is that he pretty much just got lucky. He used to just be some minor deity of a savage race, one whose worship was even forbidden, who was actually defeated early on during the Age of Chaos. However, he managed to rebound when he was called upon to aid in battle against another dark god, and had the opportunity to devour its heart.
Since then, the Chaos Serpent has constructed a new empire and pantheon, with himself at its head, and has used his newfound power to swallow the sun god. Fortunately, he's chilled out a bit since then and has been resting as he digests it all, and is actually one of the primary forces that maintain the order of the new world.
Original Plainscape Donut Steel coming through!Inkarnate is kinda hideously easy to use
>>44775315
>"The fuck is all this? Who the fuck are you?"
>"Why, we are humans!"
>"I don't fuckin' think so Sunshine."
>>44776230
>Inkarnate is kinda hideously easy to use
I'm glad SOMEONE feels is able to use it
The best I'm able to make is unfit for human eyes
>>44775882
Sure, I'd love something like that
>>44775882
I would. And I can tell you precisely what I would need from one. I've tried just about every possible software for this purpose and I haven't been satisfied with any of it, including RealWorks.
So, the thing I would need (and I think I'm not alone on this is) seemingly simple, though the fact that it does not exist tells me that it's actually probably super hard) is combination of an easy-to-edit wiki like entry hierarchy combined with editor that allows me to draw polygonal shape overlays over an image, then have those link to an entry that can contain both text and image structures, and allows to link to other entries.
Also, a general folder organization where you can create categories and quick reference markers (ala RealmWorks) would not go amis, but that is some advanced and non-essential stuff.
What I would really, really need is basically the ability to create something that looks like pic related, where the red polygons have been created within the program (or exported in, but I suspect that would be actually even harder to make), can be highlighted when you hover over them, and when you click on them, an entry or even an entry tree is displayed, containing text, images, links to other entries, and possibly hyperlinks too.
That is my dream world-building program. And if it works well and is reasonably intuitive to use, I'm actually willing to pay for it a considerable amount.
>>44776006
>One such God, often referred to as the Chaos Serpent, is perhaps one of the primary success stories of the Age of Chaos, and is often falsely accused of starting it due to that success. While he's happy to take credit for everything, the truth of the matter is that he pretty much just got lucky. He used to just be some minor deity of a savage race, one whose worship was even forbidden, who was actually defeated early on during the Age of Chaos. However, he managed to rebound when he was called upon to aid in battle against another dark god, and had the opportunity to devour its heart.
Sounds like an article in a business magazine.
>>44776575
>Wiki with an interactive map
This sounds perfect.
>>44770286
download this program called scrivener (you'll have to either pay or torrent it, though). its word processing capabilities are a tad limited, but it's great for organizing shit.
