World Building General.
Campaign Maps Edition
Rate my map /tg/
>>47582091
what did you use to draw that?
>>47582214
Ditto; looks great. We must steal your work
>>47582091
Damn, I wish that I could make a map like that :(
My setting is coming along fairly well. I'm trying to create a race of predatory creatures right now that aren't just
>muh stoic warrior poets
Anyone have any ideas?
Anybody have the pasta for this general??
>>47583003
On designing cultures:
http://www.frathwiki.com/Dr._Zahir%27s_Ethnographical_Questionnaire
Random generators:
http://donjon.bin.sh/
Mapmaking tutorials:
http://www.cartographersguild.com/forumdisplay.php?f=48
Free mapmaking toolset:
www.inkarnate.com
Random Magic Resources/Possible Inspiration:
http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/magic/antiscience.html
http://www.buddhas-online.com/mudras.html
http://sacred-texts.com/index.htm
Conlanging:
http://www.zompist.com/resources/
Random (but useful) Links:
http://futurewarstories.blogspot.ca/
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/
http://military-sf.com/
http://fantasynamegenerators.com/
http://donjon.bin.sh/
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/index.html
http://kennethjorgensen.com/worldbuilding/resources
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books/europe#wiki_middle_ages
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding
Not OP, but I checked the catalog and found this.
>>47582838
Big game hunters. The kind that don't have a honor code, the ones that just want to say they killed the biggest and baddest.
>>47583092
So basically that dude from the second Jurassic Park?
I love that idea. Make them super chill, during down time, but as soon as the hunt starts up they go apeshit.
>>47583056
Appreciated, anon.
>>47583123
British imperialists, sipping tea and banter in the down time, but when the hunt starts, they go fucking nuts.
>>47582091
It looks like it is made up of several campaign maps because your territories tend to have overall block shapes. It is a bit like a video game map where you can see the expansions.
>>47583092
>>47583123
>>47583227
Kind of funny that you bring up Jurassic Park, because the race is a bunch of sapient dinosaurs. And the big game hunter thing fits perfect, because they live on the steppes and hunt stegosaurs
>>47583419
Give them awful Australian accents.
>>47583602
Done - Any time I try to do an accent of any sort, it always drifts into Australian. It's a weird default setting for me.
>>47582091
The whole SE portion is straight from Mystara
>>47583286
lol, yeah. I basically put together the whole world using a half dozen or so AD&D/OD&D quests that I wanted to run. Right now we're wrapping up Against the Cult of the Reptile God. I'm hoping they get high enough level so that we can do The Apocalypse Stone.
>>47583991
Yeah, gonna be doing Isle of Dread soon. In my universe all of those areas are ruled by halflings (not 'hobbits'. That's a disgusting slur), and exist in a state of constant petty bickering.
>>47582091
Maps are the best part of this hobby.
>>47582214
I seriously need to know, OP. Map is a 10/10 for me aesthetically and looks to be a 8/10 lore-wise (from what I can infer).
Bumping for maps
>>47582091
that is a very nice map. I assume there's a reason why there are big reaches of land that are just empty of forest?
>>47587984
even just political ones?
>>47588170
oh look, it's Europe again!
>>47588217
I mean yeah, obviously. No harm in it, is there
>>47588246
not at all. but I do suggest using a more easily readable font.
tell me about orcs, /wbg/
>>47589088
I don't really have orcs. However, I got humans whose god abandoned them. No other god wanted them so they had to accept primal chaos instead. This makes them ugly because chaos is not very compatible with divine human image. They assembled a horde and made war on everyone trying to kill them and their gods. They destroyed Rome expy but couldn't reach anything else and with time their madness reached point when they became savage beasts with no intelligence or organization or whatever.
>>47589126
It's very nice of you to include blacks in your worldbuilding.
GM wants to use this for the next campaign.
>>47589088
I ripped them off Warhammer 40k. Living weapons with dieselpunk+mad max+borderlands theme.
>>47588170
I would change the font.
So check out my terribly inefficient military organization
>Kingdom is divided between large landowners called dukes
>Each owns large plots of lands dotted with villages
>To each village they send a knight (or sometimes promote a villager to a knight) to perform all the administrative duty, taxation, but most importantly - train and equip fixed number of able-bodied men to be soldiers
>When war comes, dukes raise their knights and their trainees all equipped as much as they can afford
>This ragtag bunch marches somewhere, hopefully together
>Each band fights together under knight
>Though of maybe making a line or have archers or horsemen from different villages band together crosses people's minds, but they only ever trained to follow one guy
On the other hand, each levy is its own party of adventurers.
>>47589710
Are you making a joke about Feudalism?
>>47589775
My idea was to make it like feudalism, but somehow worse.
Did I just make it feudalism?
>>47589787
What you've written is pretty darn typical of feudalism.
Even this is accurate:
>This ragtag bunch marches somewhere, hopefully together
because desertion was a big problem when you have an army of peasants who don't give two shits about some jackass lord's claim to a region he's never heard of.
The only difference I can see is that in your system Duke's 'send knights' to administer villages, I think it was more likely for the lesser noble to be a local who pledged fealty to the Duke or the King directly.
>>47589837
>The only difference I can see is that in your system Duke's 'send knights' to administer villages, I think it was more likely for the lesser noble to be a local who pledged fealty to the Duke or the King directly.
Yes, I decided to treat the lower level nobility as employee rather then hereditary.
Just because. I guess I'm too hipster to copy it 1 to 1
>>47589857
Feudalism was often horrifically inefficient anyway, you just need a monarch so weak that no one gives a shit if he demands that they raise armies for him. Even then the armies that are raised are often a rabble of unenthused semi-trained peasants who will give you 30 days tops before they have to return to the farm, and even then they will only campaign during certain times of the year.
You will get a bunch of knights of varying quality as well, often seeking glory, which helps. And the whole project gets much easier if you promise riches to everyone who participates, which means your rabble may now have a vested interest in winning so they can get some loot, but if you fail it will be a big hit to prestige and it will be harder to raise an army next time.
>>47582091
nice as all hell. puts us to shame
>>47589837
>because desertion was a big problem when you have an army of peasants who don't give two shits about some jackass lord's claim to a region he's never heard of.
peasant armies weren't a thing until the 18th century.
>>47591103
>peasant armies weren't a thing until the 18th century.
That isn't entirely true either. The model really differed from land to land. In Bohemia, armies consisting of levies and volunteers from the peasantry were common up till 13th century, in England and Scotland, most villages had obligations to send a certain number of soldiers to serve their lords through out most of the history - there is no unification or perfect agreement on when and how much peasantry had participated in wars in what specific historical era.
Customs differed from kingdom to kingdom and from century to century.
So, this is a stupid question, and probably one that gets asked every thread, but whatever, it's just a way of keeping the thread alive.
What are your inspirations for your setting(s)? I don't mean only historical periods or countries. Books, films, comics, or videogames are also valid form of inspiration, so talk about them.
In my case, my setting is inspired by the 5th and 6th centuries in Asia, although I also take inspiration from earlier and later periods, and there are references to other regions, like Sassanid Persia, or the Indus Valley civilization. They're not the main attractions, but exist to give a bit of meat to the periferical regions of the setting. Most inspiration comes from history or folklore, but if I see any idea I think it's interesting, chances are that I will try to include it in the setting as longas it makes sense.
I was first enticed to make this setting thanks to the Three Kingdoms series (which I know takes place in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, btw) and the Yoshinogari park. Later additions were more of an attempt to include your usual elements like dungeons and ancient temples, or mysterious islands.
I know it's far from original, and it's probably shit, but I'm doing this as a hobby, so I'm not particularly concerned about it.
I'm currently in the process of making a map for the setting. For now, I'm just reading tutorials and looking up software, but I'm beginning to create a picture of the future map in my mind. I hope I can make a good map. Tips and advice are welcome, of course.
>>47591518
>What are your inspirations for your setting(s)?
Seems like I happen to take interest in somewhat similar settings and era.
Mine is almost entirely derived from a short picture book by Hayao Miyazaki called "Shuna's Journey". I took too much inspiration from it, actually - the main setup is basically ripped off Shuna which is bad because now I've reached a point where I actually want to do something with it, potentially commercial, but the similarities worry me.
I also took quite a lot of inspiration from the manga version Naushicaa of Valley of Wind (same author).
In terms of cultures, places and periods, I mostly derive my inspiration for landscapes central Asia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and those regions, as well as Turkey, Crimea, Iran, Caucas.
With cultures it's a bit more complicated, as there are several different periods of history, each inspired by somewhat different stuff:
The oldest history borrows quite a bit from Mesopotamia cultures, Phoenicia and kingdoms like Scythia, Bactria, Göktürk empire.
Later cultures borrow a lot from Armenians, central Asian nomadic cultures, medieval Arabian culture and a hefty dose of Aztecs too.
I haven't touched my worldbuilding in ages, only dug up my materials and notes few days ago, but I'm really compelled to jump right into it again.
>>47582091
Really fucking nice, but I can't help seeing a senile old fox
>>47591518
I took most of my inspiration for my current project from the Neverending Story andDark Souls 2, because I like how these two are both different takes on the idea of a cyclical setting that's at the same time both high magic fantasy and also very mundane, grounded in history and folklore. They're both fantasies where the world is an active protagonist, if you know what I mean. They're both bleak and full of wonder which is a balancing act I love when its done right, and they're both centered around the question of what happens when you think you're powerful enough to fuck with destiny, which is the best hook for a setting-defining antagonist ever imo.
They're also very self-contained settings and those are easier to manage than globe-spanning multinational ones.
>>47589710
>>47589787
The fact you weren't being ironic makes you even more autistic. 0/10 you actual retard.
>>47591765
I'm totally stealing that map landscapes method btw
>>47589141
Ayy Lmao
Describe your pantheon to me, /tg/. I need some more ideas.
>>47593391
Dragon Age got it all.
>Ancient primeval Gods
>"One true god"
>Jesus
>powerful nongods become like gods
>just powerful spirits worshipped as gods
>other primeval entity
>>47593391
Or just a twist that there are no gods at all.
Just an endless meaningless cycle.
Like in Pillars of Eternity
Man I liked that pantheon.
>>47593391
There are two sets of Gods in my world, but only one of them is really worshiped. (I read up on the /tg/ unified setting and adjusted it to my tastes.)
The Divines, who created the world, beings, and the other gods, are pretty much unknown to the races.
The second pantheon, which is recognized by the people of the world, are the now deceased draconian council. There were twelve seats in the council, and one member betrayed the rest and the draconian people as a whole. When the rest of the draconians died, only the council members survived, though they all retreated to their own planes and are essentially trapped there.
Of course, the whole "council" part is not known by the public. All they know is there are gods, and there are twelve of them. Some have found draconian ruins, but so far nobody has been able to link the ruins to the deities that they worship.
Not wholly original, but it's enough of a spin on the formula (while still sticking to the formula) to keep me and my players happy.
>>47594269
>There were twelve seats in the council, and one member betrayed the rest and the draconian people as a whole
nononono
>>47594289
It's a bit of a long story as to why/how it happened, but he was the most powerful by a significant margin. Like I said, it's quite unoriginal, but it keeps us happy.
>>47594321
Caesar betrayal is better.
Have one strong leader be betrayed by one half or 1/3, then destructive civil war.
It isn't original either, but far better than one doing it all.
>>47594408
I do like this idea, but the council exists to stop a single strong leader from existing.
Essentially, there were two brothers of the council who were well known to be the most gifted. One was always jealous of the other. Some members of the senate used this knowledge as leverage to convince him to betray his brother, which caused a huge cataclysmic event (they were both incredibly powerful even before ascending to godhood).
>>47594474
>council exists to stop a single strong leader from existing.
Just like caesar and senate.
Large part of Council/Senate don't like that "strong individual" wants to change "insert important thing".
What do you guys use to draw your maps? Do you just freehand them in Sai or something?
>>47589710
Might I ask what's the reason behind making knights an administrative part of the state?
Has it something to do with military practices making the class somewhat obsolete which have created a need to refocus the attention and priorites of a highly militarised part of society in a way that doesn't lead to civil war?
Not campaign material but visual aids and general nerdery for a setting I'm trying to write stuff about.
Can we post modern/post-apocalyptic world building here?
>>47595675
Why not?
>>47589088
Faintly plains indians inspired boar men created by the chillest of the demonic titans. Mostly want to be left alone, and hate anyone and anything trying to control them outside of direct paternal ancestors. Live in small, extremely tight knit villages, hold the safety/hapiness of their community second only to their personal freedom. They have a kind of corporeal communal bond, where anything that would affect one is divided among all of them, so what should be a killer plague just makes all of them slightly sick, and the shaman blessing one guy makes the whole tribe stronger
>>47582091
I posted this once before but this is a map I did for my brother's worldbuilding project.
I don't know the lore super well but I know the orange and red nations in the north are at war but were once one country. Exiles from the Green and Blue nations live in tribes in the forest and I think raid outlying areas from time to time. And Blue is primed to wipe Green off the map or vice versa, can't remember which.
>>47595360
Not really. I thought of it more as of system arisen from need to fight off raiders from nearby regions, placing emphasis on rapid reaction of local militia.
>>47595675
>>47596007
I have an idea for a late-80s dystopian campaign, set in Seattle, with a focus on cars. The players are all car buffs, so scrounging for parts and finding 80s-era cars would be exciting. I want there to be some semblance of civilization; less Mad Max, more like areas of Fallout where the bombs didn't hit.
So I'm in serious need of assistance with world building. Im looking for a reason besides nukes, zombies, aliens, etc. that the world would have gone to shit by 1980. How do I stress the importance of car ownership without ripping off of Mad Max? Is a city like Seattle even a good setting for such a campaign?
I know it's a really rough idea, and it's obviously silly, but I think there's fun to be had here. Not a world building question per se, but would Savage Worlds be a good idea for a campaign like this?
>>47596558
Skeleton uprising
>>47593391
>4 original gods who shaped the world, one of them dead, the other three in exile
>~200 Saints who are basically deified humans or mythological heroes with divine powers that can be asked for favors particular to their domain
>>47589088
Descended from super-soldiers created by the goddess of war, or rather the infirm, the untrained, the elderly, etcetera, who were left behind when the War Goddess took all the actual soldier orks to war and subsequently died.
THey're currently split between a load of hunter-gatherer tribes and fiercely defended primitive agricultural settlements, both of whom hate each other. They're expert blacksmiths by nature, and thus there is a third community outside of the Grand Forest that is traditionally their home in the various human nations acting as smiths, mercenaries, etcetera. The first two refer to themselves as the Orkar, and the last as merely Orcs.
>>47582091
Oh shit, I didn't expect to see the map I made for you again
>>47582214
I used Paint.NET
>>47591518
The big one is Warhammer Fantasy. First fantasy universe I got really interested in, and this setting was practically fan-fiction - big HREish kingdom, jungle-loving lizardmen with an Aztec aesthetic, KNIGHTS!, etcetera.
After that, probably a couple of fantasy video games - Age of Mythology probably being the biggest. Originally it was a rather wargamey setting in the Total War sense, I have sheets sitting around on my harddrive with 'Lord/Wizard/Hero:HeavyCav/LightCav/StandardCav/AerialCav/etcetera' on them.
As my interest in general worldbuilding grew, I tried to make into a more coherent setting, and distance it from others - the nature-loving lizardmen become borderline industrialist druids (why bother with sustainable forests when you can chop one down and grow it back in a week), other inspirations slipped in, such as ASOIAF and it's lovely detailed histories.
In terms of cultures, since it's a whole world, I tried to shove everything in. Nordic Russo-Inuits, Germanic Cavemen Orcs, Romano-Ottoman Malians, Australians, etcetera.
And yes, I know the map is pretty rubbish. I don't know how to into rivers, and I don't have the excuse I have for the mountain ranges of 'the Earth Goddess started chucking mountains at the other gods'
>>47593391
>1 Unknown Creator-Destroyer God
>First attempts at creating life, weird alien demon shit
>Five Gods of Water, Metal, Nature, Earth and Magic, and derivatives thereof
>Lesser Gods
>Men worshipped as Gods
>>47593391
I haven't fully fleshed the whole pantheon yet - there are some 20+ cultures each with somewhat different religions, though a lot of them are overlapping. I don't intend to actually describe each and every one in detail, it's unnecessary.
The way I go around religions is that I establish several religious categories.
>General beliefs - these are sort of "common" folk believes shared often across multiple cultures.
They lack complex inner structure or centralization. Each culture or tribe might have somewhat different names or images of the gods, but the core remains more or less the same.
These include things like cult of Bodhana, a two-faced fertility goddess, The Great Bull, a nomad-centered cult beliving the land itself is a body of a dead (or sleeping) divine animal, The Old Ways which are an assorted collection of Slavic-like and Celtic-like primitive paganisms etc...
>Churches and state-religions, which have their own inner rigid structure and centralization, often play administrative or state-related roles.
There is Atonism, only monotheism in the world, that believes the whole world is like a giant clockwork, revolving around "divine watchmaker Aton", and emphatizes machine-like order in society.
There is Many-and-One, a formerly primitive shamanism transformed to accommodate Imperial family cult, not unlike Japanese Shinto.
Or the Golden Seven, seven divine aspects protecting the city-state of Caliopa.
>"Special" and local cults.
These involve religious-philosophical movements or orders, like the Circulars who believe time is an endless cycle in which we - reflection of true divinity, are trapped (they have a lot in common with Gnostics), The Cult of a Mad Jester, a bastardized mad version of Atonism, or The Followers of the Moth - an ascetic beggar order that operates across the whole world.
There are no "real" gods operating in my world, and ironically enough that means there are too many beliefs and religion to even keep track off.
>>47593391
There is no real pantheon, but there are several creatures worshiped as gods. It used to be common for people to worship extraplanar entities with lots of power in traditional D&D style but after the ascent of the Rome-equivalent there was a period of scholasticism that ended serious consideration of those creatures as actual gods. A lot of people still worship them, in what are called the Small Faiths, but it's mostly the poor/uneducated who don't know better or care more about "muh crops" than salvation, and elves, who refuse to accept the legitimacy of human theology.
Most people on the planet subscribe to one of two major religious traditions, called the Church of the Holy Maiden and Kantorism. The Church recognizes the existence of a demiurge Abrahamic-style tri-omni creator but does not worship it. They instead venerate the Holy Maiden Adrastea who was a cleric that created an afterlife free of suffering for all the people that followed some basic commandments, 1) worship no god, 2) repent of your sins, and 3) venerate the Holy Maiden.
Kantorism is an ascetic, pantheistic, and animistic faith that believes a former !Roman emperor named Kantor was the messiah who died and revealed the immanence of divinity. Kantorists do not believe that anything is a god, for everything is part of the same transcendant godhead.
There's also a few minor religions like the Five Cults, which worship really powerful living creatures as gods, and the Stonefaith of the wildmen which is kind of like a religious version of Randian Objectivism, with perhaps a bit more human sacrifice and cannibalism.
>>47596558
Infected cocaine supplies turned all the corporate execs into mutant overlords.
>>47593391
Something something Titanomachy something something Götterdämmerung. Long story short, the gods are long dead and only barely whispered about. This gives me a justification for why I'm so vague about this particular part of my setting because I suck at coming up with gods.
>>47597557
Did that giant die taking a shit or something?
>>47597618
Looks like he was taking a knee and bracing himself against some onslaught.
>>47597713
Why the hill in the back? Was it a city once or some gift? It looks oddly out of place
>>47597764
Yeah, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for an actual rock to be directly behind him; it'd be more plausible for it to just be a hill of sand like what buried the Sphinx for several centuries.
But hey, sometimes artists don't think about that shit.
>>47596811
What font did you use for that map?
>>47584032
>The Apocalypse Stone
Is that the one where you burn down the whole setting and tell them you're playing the new edition now?
>>47597557
Play some Dominions 4 if you're having trouble coming up with gods. It's fucking mental.
>>47598171
yup
>>47598108
Territory labels: EB Garamond SC 08 (Title Case)
Forest labels: EB Garamond SC 12 (lower case)
Large towns: EB Garamond 08 (Title Case)
Ruins and small villages: EB Garamond 12 (Title Case)
The ocean: EB Garamond SC 08 (Title Case)
Mount Stormdevil: Cormorant SC (lower case)
Basically the Garamond and Cormorant font families.
>>47598364
Thanks m8
>>47591765
This map/environ-moodboard seems like a great idea and method
Here's what I've been working on for a while.
GUYS
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD
PLEASE
STUDY TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS OF THE REAL WORLD BEFORE YOU MAKE YOUR OWN
I BEG YOU
>>47601689
>making a planet
>not just making a plane ora disk
>>47596009
I like this.
Thank you, Anon
Help me out, /tg/.
Where should the capital of the Empire be?
>>47601689
I did as best a job studying it with regards to mountains, tectonics, climate, wind/water patterns, as I could but I'm getting to the point of "I dunt give a fug no mo". And what glaring errors topographically would you recommend people take into consideration?
Still think we should compile a succinct and straightforward list of do's and don'ts. Stuff like:
-Mountains need to either be relatively near a coastline or have been near one historically (in which case if it's further away it should be more eroded),
-30° North or South give or take will be where your big deserts are.
-Wet vs dry side of mountains.
-Clockwise vs counterclockwise wind patterns with the doldrums at 30°.
>>47602825
Istanbul/Constantinople
>>47602825
Wherever one or more rivers meet.
>>47602927
>>47601689
why is that important?
>>47584032
...I thought it was a team effort, bro
https://yuki.la/tg/45627619
>>47593391
The three major religions in my setting, though each has its own offshoots and cults associated with it as well.
a bunch of gods and goddesses who squabble a lot. They didn't create the world and don't know what did, but they are content enough with messing with everything and everyone. They aren't thought to interact directly with human affairs, instead preferring more subtle approaches.
another religion believes in a single god figure who is believed to take a more hands on approach. Each time this diety has walked the earth, they have taken a different form; sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes both, sometimes neither, sometimes as an animal. In other stories, the form the god appears as is different for all who gaze upon them, and they see whatever they need to see.
The prominent religion to the south believes their god created the world, and that he had a helper who made sure the world was created properly. Then both fucked off and don't mettle in human affairs at all, but instead deputized six angels to act in their stead.
>>47601689
I'd love to fuck your face, after I have broken your jaw.
currently drawing up this map by hand for my setting. i started coloring the details in the corner to get a feel for how the whole thing is gonna look. currently adding in details and working my way up from the bottom of the map. sorry for the blurry pic. its hard to get a good picture of the whole thing without losing the details
>>47606044
close up of the colored section
>>47596331
Looks amazing dude
Tips/programs for making decent city maps? Been wanting to map out the capitols of the kingdoms.
>>47606372
I do most of my mapmaking - both landmasses and cities - by hand, then adjust it in Gimp and Inkscape, as I'm poor as fuck and can't afford any software that does not absolutely suck balls.
I have a somewhat related question though. Anyone know where one could find maps of ancient and medieval cities. At least schematic or artistic renditions would do too.
I'm particularly curious about layouts of cities such as Baghdad, Damascus, Babylon, Yerevan or Tenochtitlan and I'm pretty stumped.
>>47596387
In what sense then are they knights?
I've been building a terrain generator based on a hexagonal grid, just as a little side project to get more familiar with a different programming domain (coming from business software, doing more graphical stuff now).
Got some vague ideas for how I could use it in a /tg/ way but as I haven't actually played an RPG in many years I'm struggling to come up with exactly how it should work. Thinking along the lines of generating a world (just the terrain) of a set size up front (when the user first opens the page), then having a slippy map you can zoom and pan around, then click on a hex to open a dialog box which will generate a random fight, social event or location (village, town, city, castle) for that particular spot on the map. That would then get persisted (maybe after an option to re-roll?) so you get a consistent world to explore.
Hoping to get some feedback since I don't have a group to dogfood this with. I could end up making some completely incorrect assumptions about what would be useful to a GM running an unplanned, off the rails campaign.
>>47608663
With climate zones
>>47608723
Names of the continents
>>47602927
>>47602965
>Istanbul
>Constantinople
Those are weird ways of spelling Byzantium.
>>47592306
>That not!Vatican-coat-of-arms
>>47608733
what is it with you and ending your continents with -ia?
>>47608796
Hey now, it's nobody's business but the Turks
>>47609344
>Turkey will never be dismembered between Greater Greece and Kurdistan
Fuck this gay Earth.
In my setting, I decided to make a geocentric system, where the "sun" orbits around the planet. I thought it could sort of serve the same purpose as the moon by creating tidal forces, so I looked up the typical lunar orbit and it's around 30 days.
So then I thought it would be an interesting feature if (for certain latitudes) if they had 15 "days" of light and 15 "days" of darkness.
Setting aside all the other obvious implausibility, what would be some of the strong implications of that kind of cycle (on society, on wildlife, on nature, etc.)? It's way far out of my expertise, and I feel like it would be breaking their immersion to ask my players these sorts of questions.
>>47609494
It really fucks with temperatures, for one. Chances are that it will be a really arid, cold region.
Whether or not wildlife adapts to this cycle depends on how large the region is, and whether they range outside it.
Again, whether or not there's plantlife adapted to it will depend on how large it is. If it's smaller then it will just be poorly vegetated.
Society is kind of an interesting topic, though. I'm just going to assume you're doing a D&D-style fantasy for this. One of the most important commodities will be sources of light for the period of darkness. Torches are certainly an option but it's probably more sensible for everyone to invest in permanent magical lights, or little wisps in jars or something. I don't think you can grow any crop reliably with that little light, either, so food imports are going to be a big issue. It's also possible that people primarily subsist on aquaponic agriculture, presumably assisted by magic. Rural life would be really dangerous because of how easy it would be to get injured and how hard it would be to help the injured, so most people probably live in and around urban centers (made further probable if they rely on imports and/or aquaponics for food). The long day is something really frustrating to experience, much more so than long nights, and has a very adverse effect on mental health. For this reason, I'd expect people to mostly stick indoors during the day, with heavy drapes covering the windows (if they're even a common feature of architecture). The cities would probably have canopies blocking sunlight along the streets so walking outside isn't too traumatic.
One really obvious feature will be vampires, if they exist. A combination of the very attractive day/night cycle and large urban areas will make this prime real estate for blood suckers. In general I'd expect that this region would be alluring to expatriates, criminals, and refugees.
>>47609494
>Setting aside all the other obvious implausibility, what would be some of the strong implications of that kind of cycle (on society, on wildlife, on nature, etc.)? It's way far out of my expertise, and I feel like it would be breaking their immersion to ask my players these sorts of questions.
This is all a really, really weird proposition. So one hand, you have an absolute, complete and perfect physical impossibility (geocentric system), on the other hand you worry about tidal forces and implications of prolonged diurnal cycle?
I think this is a classical problem of most world building (and fantasy in general around here) - a completely unintuitive and frankly absurd mixing of causal, speculative thinking with symbolic one. It's like when people argue about centaur diety or elf genetics. It's actually pretty stupid.
But to give you the reply: aside from geocentric solar system being physical impossibility, that such planet would very likely not be able to sustain complex life. Too long diurnal cycle means drastic temperature spikes - your world would begin to freeze every night, and near boiling every day, which would make the world extremely inhospitable - even worse so if you had a tilt to your plant causing day-night cycles to change line on earth. Flowing water would be rare - it would boil off during the day, or stay frozen underground. Little to no rivers, swamps, etc. Nights would likely bring devastating storms with them.
Otherwise, you have to consider that our sleep/wake routine is dictated by nigh-day cycle, not by hours: creatures evolved on such planet would not view their days 15 times longer than we do, they would be awake for 360 hours and then sleep equally as long. The metabolics would probably have to adapt, but otherwise, this is not really a problem, plenty of animals do work that way. Their perception of flow of time would probably be slower, meaning that they would not actually experience days and night all that differently.
>>47608898
You can't have a Holy Kingdom ruled by a queen obsessed with locksmithing without an appropriate crest
>>47609717
>>47609768
Thank you for the detailed responses, I really appreciate it!
>I'm just going to assume you're doing a D&D-style fantasy for this
Yeah
>I don't think you can grow any crop reliably with that little light, either, so food imports are going to be a big issue
Definitely something I didn't think about, and it kind of frames the central issue here of "how much hand-waving can I get away with?" (and yeah, the answer to that question undoubtedly varies by group) So like, here, is there any room to create plants that would have adapted to this environment?
I don't know if you've read any of the Stormlight Archives books by Brandon Sanderson, but his world has a colossal hurricane that sweeps through it constantly. He reasons that the plants adapt by flourishing in areas protected from wind (rock outcroppings and such), and that they've also developed armor-like bulbs protecting them (calls them "rockbuds" I believe). That's the style of thing I'd be looking to do.
>Rural life would be really dangerous because of how easy it would be to get injured and how hard it would be to help the injured, so most people probably live in and around urban centers
This is a really interesting point, and like you said, to even justify the urban centers you still need massive food production somehow
>One really obvious feature will be vampires... In general I'd expect that this region would be alluring to expatriates, criminals, and refugees.
This makes sense. I'm interested to explore how societies might adapt to protect people from those sorts of threats.
(cont...)
>>47609768
(continuing)
>I think this is a classical problem of most world building (and fantasy in general around here) - a completely unintuitive and frankly absurd mixing of causal, speculative thinking with symbolic one. It's like when people argue about centaur diety or elf genetics. It's actually pretty stupid.
I appreciate where you're coming from, and it's definitely something I struggle with when I create content. Some of the best science fiction settings are created by just changing ONE significant thing about the world, or turning ONE dial a bit. Fantasy can take this to an extreme, and some people have difficulty maintaining any immersion whatsoever.
>such planet would very likely not be able to sustain complex life
A lot of your concerns seem to be related to temperature. What if the planet's heat was mostly geothermal, and the "sun" is primarily a source of light (this is something I already considered, since a literal sun that was as close as the moon would just fry the entire planet anyway, right?). I imagine life would largely be clustered around where that heat was vented. Plant life...might be an issue, since it's not feeding off of the same type of sunlight ours would be.
>creatures evolved on such planet would not view their days 15 times longer than we do, they would be awake for 360 hours and then sleep equally as long.
Yeah, I thought about this, which is why I was putting "days" in parenthesis. In the setting, humans are outsiders, so I thought this would be an interesting cultural difference - the native races have a dramatically different sleep cycle.
>>47606726
Because they are the only ones wearing heavy armour and fight on horseback. Now historically it's probably not definitive knightly traits, but I roll with popular image in my naming. That's basically the idea behind them.
>>47609768
>This is all a really, really weird proposition. So one hand, you have an absolute, complete and perfect physical impossibility (geocentric system)
Why not? I mean, sure, small orb can't sustain thermonuclear reaction, but if we assume a fantastic element that there's a hot glowing orb in orbit, why shouldn't it obey the rest of the physics?
>>47609468
dude, im pretty sure turkey will be destroyed at some point. we may just no live to see that
>29 cultures
>15 human races
>17 religions
>only have a page of info on most so far, some of older ones have 5-20 pages
Is it better to do detailed cultures one by one and slowly create something big or to lay out one huge world and detail everything over time?
>>47610231
I don't know. Do you NEED 29 different cultures? Do you want to see them all producing culturally affected characters who interact with each other?
>>47610231
>s it better to do detailed cultures one by one and slowly create something big or to lay out one huge world and detail everything over time?
The former, without a doubt. Creating a massive outline of generalities gives you the illusion of having accomplished something, but it's going to be hard to stay motivated with such a wide approach.
Go deep before you go broad. In my experience, it's easier to go back and update finished ideas (cultures, here) with newer content (the way they interact with other things) than it is to try to move the entire framework forward inch by inch without having to do any revision.
>>47610150
>Some of the best science fiction settings are created by just changing ONE significant thing about the world, or turning ONE dial a bit.
The way I see it, there are two fundamental ways of approaching sci-fi/fantasy fiction - symbolic, which you treat the world the same way mythology does: your world is governed by symbolic and metaphorical concepts, and speculative, in which you play around with causality and speculate "what if X" and then try to figure out the logical and causal consequences of the X.
Now all fantasy and sci-fi fiction generally contains elements of both, but you should avoid trying to commit to both at the same time too much. Otherwise, you'll find yourself trapped in a bizzare world constant whack-a-mole consistency-fixing while simultaneously actually losing out on the charm and symbolic relevance so many fantastic elements bring with them.
You have to know what you are doing. Are basic physics a really relevant factor in your fiction, or not? It's perfectly fine to invent a world where Sun revolves around Earth. Mythology does that all the time, usually by giving Sun symbolic meaning: "It's actually a boat of the Sun God, pushed by the spirits of wind, and it travels through the underworld when it's not shinning on the world."
And it's perfectly fine to make a speculative fiction, of say, a Earth-like moon orbiting around a gas giant at the speed of 30 days per cycle, resulting in a planet with 30 days diurnal cycle, and then further speculate what the life would be like on such planet.
But when you combine the two, are have actually clearly inconsistent logic of the story: one one hand, it proposes physically and logically impossible (Sun circling around Earth), on the other hand insists of exploring logical and physical implications of a 30-day diurnal cycle.
But the two logics conflict and their is no benefit for it. It will feel inconsistent, and it will produce massive amounts of inconsistencies later down the line.
1/?
A map I made for a campaign that abruptly ended.
>>47610320
Rivers don't fork like this. For some reason everyone fork their rivers, I fork them too, it's like an instinct, but they do not usually fork.
>>47610376
>rivers don't fork
nice meme
>>47610307
>Now all fantasy and sci-fi fiction generally contains elements of both, but you should avoid trying to commit to both at the same time too much
>But when you combine the two, are have actually clearly inconsistent logic of the story: one one hand, it proposes physically and logically impossible (Sun circling around Earth), on the other hand insists of exploring logical and physical implications of a 30-day diurnal cycle.
Sorry, I'm not getting a precise read on what you're saying. You seem to imply that I *can* have both implausibility AND speculation (and that good fantasy does), but that I'm failing at doing so here.
I guess I'm just not following why speculating on this particular implausibility is generating logic inconsistencies and such for you?
>>47610150
>What if the planet's heat was mostly geothermal, and the "sun" is primarily a source of light
First of all, what fuels the planet. Second of all, if most heat comes from geothermal sources - I'm sorry but your crust is melting. Heat tends to go up and expand. You have a massive amount of heat coming from under the surface: your planet would have such BRUTAL tectonic activity that you would really not like it. Plus side, all the CO2 and ash and dust and other shit constantly produced by the milions of volcanoes now create a fantastic glasshouse effect, so you don't have to worry about cold. Down side is: the sun won't be getting through the clouds and the climate is probably kinda reminiscent of Venus. Also, your planet is probably going to burn out pretty soon.
Geothermal heat is aggressive. It wants out. It needs out. Imagine enough volcanoes and geysir and lava torrents to literally warm up ALL the air in lower atmosphere... Yep. That is Hell you are looking at.
>I imagine life would largely be clustered around where that heat was vented.
Then you would be looking Europa. Largely frozen world, hotspots where some life might exist - really an interesting premise for a sci-fi setup, but it still does not clash well with the sun revolving around the planet.
What is the "Sun" in this scenario? Because it sure as hell can't be an actual sun. You need certain minimal mass (0.5 of Solar mass I think) to sustain thermo-nuclear reaction).
>the native races have a dramatically different sleep cycle.
That is actually a very interesting idea, but I'd really rather recommend inventing a different reason for the different day of lenght. Humans would have to adapt: much like they did in subpolar and polar regions. It would be like living in north of Sweden, really. It's not such a big deal, but it does contribute to depression and heavy drinking habits.
2/2
>>47610175
>Why not?
Better question is "why yes?" What exactly are you achieving?
>>47610307
Generally speaking speculative fiction does work like reality, unless explicitly established otherwise. This is why, for example, space operas refer to hyperspace or warp instead of just throwing relativity out of the window, or in fantasy beheaded people still die unless explicitly given fantastic reason to survive.
>>47610231
>Is it better to do detailed cultures one by one and slowly create something big or to lay out one huge world and detail everything over time?
Depends, really. Some people prefer methodical approach, some people prefer erratic spurs of inspiration.
I have a broad outline of my world, some aspects detailed far more then other. I have a rough list of everything I want to have there, and every now and again I feel like jumping into one particular subject and detail it out to a crazy level (I just wrote down a history of a city, drafted fifteen maps of it's layout and how it changed and evolved over seven centuries, when was which palace or temple restored and when it burned out, what was completed and what wasn't) - at the same time, there are entire civilizations left in a collection of three or four paragraphs of side notes.
It's easier to have everything interconnected if you start with broad strokes, laying things out and then iterating on them with increased details.
But I am not patient enough for that.
>>47610460
>You seem to imply that I *can* have both implausibility AND speculation
You'll UNAVOIDABLY have both. The question is how much you want people to notice it. When you are examining in a grand detail evolutionary necessities of a centaur diet in your fiction, you are making your reader painfully aware of the paradox: centaur is an evolutionary IMPOSSIBILITY, but you are boasting in his face how you totally have his energy intake and dietary customs totally plausible and figured out.
You should either commit to symbolic language (that is the "fantasy" or the "magic" aspect of your world), or the scientific and speculative language.
Not both at the same time.
If you have a world where Sun revolves around Earth, don't lead your reader towards asking "how the does this make sense?!" by encouraging him to think scientifically. If you start feeding him scientific explanations, he will start to expect consistency in them elsewhere.
>>47609494
Friendly neighbourhood astronomer reporting in. Is there a necessity for the sun to actually revolve around earth? I mean it's kinda hard to see the difference when you are living in your average "pseudo-middle-ages"-type era. As for the 15 days of sunlight and 15 days of darkness can just be a result slow rotation. Life on the planet is implausible though, but that's where the wizards come in right?
>>47610468
>glasshouse
Greenhouse, sorry. By brain apparently skipped a beat.
>>47610678
Would my world work? It's a spherical plane, not a planet.
>Plane slowly rotates
>"Sun" is to the south, slowly moves closer to/farther from plane
>"Moon" is to the north, travels in a 30-day elliptical orbit
>Sun is visible over the South Pole year-round, South Pole is a sun-drenched desert
>North Pole is a perpetually dark, glacial tundra
What would days look like as you travel north? Would they be the same length, but be dimmer/cooler?
I figure the northern-hemisphere regions north of certain notable mountain ranges are frosty and dim.
>>47610626
>If you have a world where Sun revolves around Earth, don't lead your reader towards asking "how the does this make sense?!" by encouraging him to think scientifically. If you start feeding him scientific explanations, he will start to expect consistency in them elsewhere.
Thanks, I think this cleared it up for me.
I find a lot of times it can be difficult to anticipate when my players are going to start looking for (pseudo)scientific explanations for things, since they all tend to be thoroughly crunchy, detail-heavy nerds. Sometimes I create a magic hand-wavy explanation and they don't give it a second thought, other times I can tell that they're trying to follow everything to its logical conclusion and are ready to fight me about it.
/tg/, How do I climate? also is it so important to climate correctly that maps that don't do it are inherently inferior?
>>47610678
> Is there a necessity for the sun to actually revolve around earth?
Yeah, sorry if I'm feeding relevant details out after-the-fact, I just didn't want to bog people down with my crap.
The reason for this is the "planet" is actually an egg (or cluster of eggs, I haven't decided), and the "sun" is its parent hovering around it, giving it some warmth and protecting it. The quotation marks I was putting around those words were working overtime.
>>47609289
Personal preference.
What are some caste systems you´ve had in your settings anons? Asking for inspiration.
I´m still working on an asian inspired setting and currently stuck on not!japans samurai focused shogunate. Planning on doing their former Tengu rulers next. They got most of their current culture from them.
The area they´re living on is supposed to be 7 prefectues with hills, mountains, plains, forests a few shores and a rainforest situated across two islands, allthough I´m not sure where to put them in the country.
>>47611133
Read "Greenhouse" by Brian Aldiss if you want inspiration of what a "tidally locked" planet could and would roughly feel like. In your case, unless your planet has a east-west axis of rotation (rather then south-north), there are no days and no nights. You have a dark and light regions. If you are on the southern hemisphere, you have perpetual day, if you are on the north, you have perpetual night - the equator has a perpetual dusk. Revolving of the planet does absolutely nothing in this case. Maybe if the axis is tilted, you have some degree of variable day/night cycle in which over some periods you have the sun peaking over the horizon and disappearing, but that really only affects the equator region, absolute of the majority of the planet is locked in perpetual night or perpetual day.
>>47611217
>The reason for this is the "planet" is actually an egg (or cluster of eggs, I haven't decided), and the "sun" is its parent hovering around it, giving it some warmth and protecting it
That is actually a very interesting and kinda beautiful idea. Quick question though: how did life on that egg came to being? Is it an accident - unintended side effect? I get that humans are visitors. What about the locals?
Also, the whole notion about geothermal heat, in this case does not apply anymore. What ever is your "planet" made, it's not the same thing normal planets are made off. Magma and heat flow would... be different in an organic matter, that has, among others, the capability to self regulate heat and distribute it differently.
>>47611213
You don't need to be super precise, but knowing the basics will help. Also, taking a look at a climate map of the real world can be a good guide.
So /tg/, how do you deal with imperial nationalism in your settings? Does it work well in sci fi better than fantasy? What about alternate history settings?
>>47611213
>/tg/, How do I climate?
It's hard. There are plenty of basic explanations (climate cookbook: http://web.archive.org/web/20130619132254/http://jc.tech-galaxy.com/bricka/climate_cookbook.html comes to mind) all over the internet. However, a realistic application of it, if you really want to be pedantic about it, is hard. Personally, I did the best job when I just studied Earth, looked for locations on my map that have tangible analogies somewhere on earth and trying to caputure the logic I saw there.
As for how important it is? Well, it kinda harkens down to what we discussed just a bit above: how much do you want your world to feel realistic and causally driven, and how much do you go the symbolic road. If you world is flat, or the sun revolves around it, or if you have a world full of dragons and corrupted lands and deserts caused by sleeping dragons, then it does not matter.
If you aim for belivability, a feeling of grounded fiction, then you should go the extra mile and make the climates make at least a bit of sense.
In general, there is a bad habit of people criticizing poor climate distribution in maps around /tg/ simply because people are looking for things to criticize, and after poorly made rivers, climate is the easier to notice to be off.
Get the basics. Learn how rain shadow works, learn the most broad logic of wind currents, take a look at where and why are there deserts and steppes on earth, try to re-capture it, but don't go insane overthinking it.
It's perhaps better to do it wrong and then have people commenting on it, than to drive yourself nuts trying to figure it out for your own.
Remember, in reality, it matters for aesthetical reasons only. If people see something GLARINGLY illogical, it will throw them off, break immersion and belivability barrier. That is the only reason why it matters.
>>47593391
my fantasy setting doesnt have much in the way of gods persay just manifestations of landmarks and natural objects the one most dominant church though is based upon the worship of the Sun, the Moon and the Stars with the first two spirits being at points in history physically present in the world acting through the bodies of their chosen. These are rare events and often viewed with a sort of mystic awe. Which has led to some theological debate unto the nature of magic as priests of said gods can like all magic sacrfice something and perform miracles, the bigger the sacrifice the bigger the miracle. Beyond this there are plenty of 'local gods' powerful and primeval spirits that are tied to certain places like mountains and lakes that are given gifts at ritual times of the year to appease them. These however are beginning to fall out of favor for the Sun the Moon and Stars as that religion has gained power.
i have an artificial world, so i can climate as i want, great for having maps like homm, where desert, grass and deadland are right next to each other. since the playground is fairly small, if i wanted diversity, i had to put it in, so there's a huge firewall fucking up the climate, and a lot of water pumps and wind generators.
>>47611374
What if the "Sun" was smaller and farther to the side?
So, /tg/, I need some imput.
This >>47611274 post kinda reminded me of this thing. I have a social order for an ancient (long-gone) culture in world and I need to hear if it sounds too nonsensical.
So the idea is: there is a civilization which was formed by refugees escaping from a different culture that was consumed by internal conflict. In order to avoid the fate of their homeland, these refugees build their state on a highly rigid social order that was intended to maintain social stability.
The idea is that inhabitants of this culture are divided into social groups that combine qualities of castes and guilds. For now I call these groups "kiiths" untill i can figure out a real name. Each kiith is defined by primary occupation that vast majority of it's member have, and has a monopoly on that occupation. At the same time though, membership in a kiith is also hereditary.
So we have a kiith of agrarians, kiith of doctors, kiith of leather-workers, kiith postmen and couriers etc... The assumption is that children in family will always assume the occupation of their parents (more precisely, sons will assume occupation of their fathers, since women are not expected to officially "work"). There is a possibility to change kiith (and occupation), but you need a special approval for that from both your native, and the targeted kiith.
Now, these kiiths work like a small states within a state. They have their own internal laws and regulations, administrative, hierarchy, taxation and treasury, shared ownership of means of production (to a degree), sometimes even religion and internal language. They regulate distribution of their members as well as prices of their products and services.
The idea is that such system would restrict social mobility (stabilizing the society), while simultaneously ensure co-dependence of each kiith on every other. Above the kiith, there is a further layer of administration and government mediating between them.
Does make any sense to you guys?
>>47611700
This is kinda head-ache inducing to imagine, but if I'm thinking right about this, I think the nights should grow shorter and shorter the further to the south you'll gone, with the sun only shortly dipping beneath the horizon around the tropic of Capricorn and with area around the (analogy of) Antarctic cycle becoming perpetual day.
>>47591518
>Edge Chronicles, Gods of Pegana, Lovecraft
>Artwork by Arik Roper (he made covers for Earth, Sleep, High on Fire and a bunch of other Stoner bands)
>Terraria, Assassin's Creed, Age of Empires
>Bronze age and early medieval cultures
>real world linguistics and conlanging
>dreams
>theories about consciousness and spirituality
>>47611374
> how did life on that egg came to being?
Well, since the planet is actually one big organism (not metaphorically, literally), I reasoned that it already more than met the criteria for the conditions for life to evolve. The planet-creature and its sun-mother exist on a cosmic timescale - enough time for smaller life to evolve and branch off from (and be sustained by) the larger life of the planet. I envision civilizations rising and falling, and even species going extinct, all in the blink of an eye from the planet's perspective.
One of the consequences of this I thought was neat was that when the humans arrive, the planet has a sort of allergic reaction to them (more specifically, to the giant pieces of THEIR earth that they rode here on), and what is effectively the planet's immune system tries to purge them like an infection.
>>47601366
>>47601689
YOU'RE TEARIN ME APART RIVER!
t. Continental plate Waseau
I need help, /wldbldgen/.
How do I put this on a parchment/canvas background similar to >>47582091 or >>47601366?
I don't draw in photoshop or gimp, I use a shitty painting program called Krita.
>>47612546
And yes, I realize that my mountains look like shit because I rushed them. I doubt my players will be staring at them though.
>>47612546
Can't help with the parchment look but that is one WEIRD ASS river.
>>47612594
It's a gulf, you weird ass
>>47612546
I haven't tried this technique before, but it seems to put out a pretty good final product. It's for GIMP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A7yopQ_nCE
>>47612609
I can't think of a single gulf in real world that looks like that. Not even fjords. Is there some kind of unnatural reason behind why it looks like that?
I'm looking at Taigonos bay and Khatanga gulf and Khadalaska gulf and Marman Sea and trying to figure out why this looks so unnatural... It's mostly the two rivers feeding into it.
There are some somewhat similar formations in earths geography, but they were formed differently. How does it get so damn close to the mountains?
Prolonged gulfs like this are formed either when they are fed by a MAJOR river and helped by ice (like many of the ones on Russian northern shores) and/or in lowlands.
This just looks jarring, sorry. Your mountains are fine, by the way. A bit crooked but then again that could be considered an art style. But the gulf just looks incredibly off.
>>47612721
How should I go about changing the gulf? Should I just drop it for now? And for the record, >>47612609 wasn't me.
And a bit of a side question: How do I draw forests? I can't for the life of me figure out an aesthetically pleasing way to go about it. Thank you for the help.
>>47610399
It's true though. They spoon or knife, but not fork.
>Say tg, is this salvageable? Going to start on the rest of the country and the setting tomorrow.
Most of Zakurakuni is covered in hills, plains and forests spread across one island and one half isle connected to the continent through a small mountain range. The isle has forests (one of them a small bamboo forest), hills, a few mines and of course their important shores. On the isle, the prefecture specialices in the trade, thanks to it´s food resources and mines, that get shipped to the mainland and trading partners.
The half isle is seen as a much bigger version of the island with only a few differences.
The two coastal prefectures function as pretty much a food source and as a mysterious and lawless territorry, housing the majority of rice farmers and fishers and the swamp of the Nezumi, interspersed with the majority of Undesirables living there.
The fourth prefectures has most of the countries hills and is the location of Zakurakunis ruling body, the Shogunate. The Shogun rules from there in a Castle Town located in the backdrop of an famous bamboo forest.
The fifth province is covered in the most forests, compared to the fourth´s amount of hills and has most of Zakurakunis Clergy living there. Even though temples can be found all across the country (the most famous one being in one of the coastal prefectures) are lies the biggest and most important.
Even the monks of the mountainous sixth prefecture continously travel there on a pilgrimage.
The sixth prefecture encompassing the former tengu empire outpost (a mountainous connecton to the mainland) is populated mainly by miners making it one of the richest prefectures. It also has a strong presence of mountainous monks and scholars living in citadels. The military forces are also quite strong here, since it´s close to the border prefecture.
>Part 1 of 2
>>47612779
The gulf should definitely end closer to the sea. I would make the two smaller rivers connect and form a larger river, meander a little and then feed a much more shallow gulf (like half it's current lenght). Also, the islands should be in the mouth of the and probably a bit smaller.
A very good way to judge geographical formations is to just open the google maps, and follow the coasts of Europe and Asia looking for similar formation. Try to find a region where you have major mountains near sea, and around how the gulfs in that region look - their shape, their depth etc...
Take a look at Azov sea, Marman Sea and the gulfs I mentioned above. Keep in mind elevation of surrounding land - the gulfs at the north shores of Russia look like they look because the surrounding area is really flat, and they are all fed by REALLY big rivers.
Gulfs around Black Sea might prove more useful.
I can't help with forests though. I use different art style for my maps (much more zoomed out) and I don't really have any large forests in the part of the world I'm focusing on, so I never had to tackle it.
>>47612912
The last prefecture ( the 7th) is rather small and not considered that important, it practically only exists to be another body between the country and the rest of the world. Despite this, the amount of information on foreign cultures are strategically not be laughed at, even when most of Zakurakuni considers many foreigners to be barbarians or strange and inferior.
Near the coastal prefecture with the Swamp Ratfolk, a small ninja nation that named itself Kurokuni has recently seceeded from Zakurakuni and is regarded by samurai, daimyo and fellow ninja as nothing more but a bunch of traitors needing to be eradicated. The only things standing between that goal are said swamps and a few whirlpools by sea.
On the mainland the country is bordered by an seafaring nation of proud admirals and scholars it has a long standing enmity with, an area of plains the size of around three prefectures, inhabitated by Kitsune and lots of simple farmers and an gigantic rainforest where the so called mythical Naga dwell. A mountain range filled with Tengu and Oni and a gigantic wall seperate Zakurakuni from the gigantic Xianxia (working title).
By sea, only a small island with people called the first men, called the Yinya and the first few colonies of an trade empire (not!india) are known to the Shogun. Yinya is off limits due to the hostile behavior of the people there and it not being strategically important.
The only nation bordering Xianxia known to the Shogun is an massive horde of steppe tribes, allthough he hears rumours of various people living on icy fields and mountains.
>Part 2 of 2
It´s probably way to similar to Japan. Still planning to change a bit.
>tfw as far from artistic as possible
>tfw can't draw what I want to even if I tried
I'll just have to describe the map, I guess.
>>47612923
I lowered the gulf to look a bit more natural, but here's my dilemma:
The western side of the map (with the mountain range) is essentially the civilized world, conquered mostly by the humans. The Island is the elven homeland. The area to the east (that WAS separated by the gulf) is the uncivilized world. This area is scary, unexplored, and filled with orcs, hobgoblins, giant spiders, drow, etc. I need there to be a separation. What other ways could this be done?
I could add a manmade wall that was built by the nation near the center of the map, but the wall would be N-S on the map and would be hard to draw. Any advice on how I could tackle this issue?
>>47612912
>half isle
The word you are looking for is peninsula. Half-isle sounds like you made a literal translation of the native term and also you might be slavic.
>function as pretty much a food source and as a mysterious and lawless territorry
Agrarian centers should not be "lawless". It's where you have the biggest concentration of population, and best infrastructure. Agrarian centers tended to be the richest regions in pre-industrial civilizations. There is a reason why it was always the mountainous regions that were mysterious and often "lawless".
>tengu empire outpost (a mountainous connecton to the mainland) is populated mainly by miners making it one of the richest prefectures
Same problem in reverse. The area where they mine is not going to be rich. Especially mountains. First of all, primary source of wealth should always be agriculture. Second of all, mining is a shitty paying job. It's those who craft products from the materials, and trade with them that profit, and those are probably not going to be in the same inhospitable land where things are being mined.
You can't have much cities high in the mountains because you'll struggle to feed them. You can't have centers of craft without cities, and without that you don't have wealth in the region. No matter how lucrative the mines are.
Otherwise, it's Not!Japan alright. Nothing else particularly wrong with it. Just strongly recommend taking inspiration from Japan in terms of their demography and wealth capital as well as naming and aesthetics. It was Osaka and the surround lands that were richest and safest. Japanese Alps and Ryohaku mountains, while relatively rich (for japan at least) with natural resources that were a real fucking shitholes.
What's a good way to write a timeline for a war?
>>47613051
How about a major river?
Something like pic related could give the river enough water to make it a major torrent on the lower flow. You can traverse a river, but it's still a nice natural border and a visual limit. Maybe add some highlands into the grayed region to make it clear why the river can't flow to the other side of the continent.
The river is going to be heavily dependent on thawing snow, which means that during summer it's going to be easier to cross. Which can make of an interesting element to your world.
>>47613200
Damn, forgot the pic.
>>47613169
>What's a good way to write a timeline for a war?
Studying real world war history. It all depends on the particularities - wars were very different in say 4th century central Asia, 14th century Japan, 17th century central Europe.
Find a war from a period, landscape and political environment similar to yours and start studying on it. See how long it lasted, how many battles there were, what were the triggers and the aftermath.
Really, research is your only option for doing it well.
>>47611777
No feedback on that? Really, I would appreciate even intuitive impressions, any thoughts.
>>47613169
>determine who the belligerents are, who wins, and the crucial turning point of the war
>determine the series of battles leading up to that turning point--what maneuvers brought the combatants to the fateful field?
>determine what falling action occurs after the turning climax--what are the immediate political consequences? What happens to the remaining forces belonging to the loser of the fight?
>determine what causes final capitulation--when and where does the loser of the decisive battle say, "Enough's enough, we surrender"?
>>47613119
Thanks, anon. I´m german actually. Just struggle sometimes with the meaning of words I´m writing down.
So I should put most of the criminal population on the mountains and change the wealth around a bit? Thougth because there was a swamp in one of the prefectures it could have served as a "criminal center".
Can there even be criminals on and near the mountains with an strong military presence or should their presence also be dropped?
Could have the minerals shipped towards the capital. Would probably make more sense.
>>47582091
Some fantasy races are just human stereotypes so why not replace them with humans with a little twist?
My idea for NotOrcs!
Certain tribe lives in rugged forested terrain, grows root vegetable like a potato, it's extremely nutritious and can be grown with little more than a simple digging stick in a small vedgy plot, the people who eat it are quite strong with almost steroid like strength. The vegetable is highly addictive and people who eat it will literally not touch any other grain. The root vedgy causes a buildup of certain chemicals that inhibit higher intellectual capabilities.
Now add in a class of artisans who don't eat it and you essentially got orcs.
>>47613200
>>47613217
This actually sounds really interesting. Thank you anon! Any other major issues with the map that need addressing?
>>47613249
Problem is there's no real historical precedent to use for my setting. I'm writing a near future setting where demons invade and conquer most of the world. I'm trying to come up with events to fill the last 9 years until the modern point of the conflict. Only big one I have now is the arrival of angelic beings a few years after the initial disaster and invasion re-sparked religious faith and lead to the founding of the new Knights Templar orders.
>>47613169
My favorite is writing long wars that involve the son of so-and-so taking over and avenging the death of so-and-so later on.
>>47613336
>So I should put most of the criminal population on the mountains and change the wealth around a bit?
I would do that. Swamps don't make for good farmland: they need to be regulated, drained, infrastructure must be put in place, and they stop being very good place for bandits to hide around. With agriculture comes population density, which means market, taxation, regulation, craft, urbanization. With coast comes easier traveling and trade. I makes sense for me to make those two provinces economic and administrative heart of your land, much like it was in Japan around Hanshin region (Osaka, Kobe etc...)
Mountains, on the other hand, are difficult to control. A lot of natural obstacles, places to hide, low population density. It's where the lawless will have easiest time. Also: if you have major gold or similar mining facilities, the transports become a very tempting target.
Then again, that logically leads to increased military presence.
To me, it makes sense that the fifth province would be the most wild, mysterious (which fits neatly to the sacred nature of it) and most difficult to control.
The sixth one is going to be contested due to the natural resources, but the military presence is going to somewhat balance it out.
The way I see it, the two coastal provinces are like Hanshin (Osaka-Kobe) where most wealth and trade is generated, the fourth, where government resides is like Yamashiro (where Kyoto and Nara lies).
The fifth sounds a lot like Izu or Mie peninsula: Sacred, culturally relevant, but a bit of a wild land, popular hiding place for rebelling nobles or bandits.
I can't find a proper analogy for the fifth province, you'll have to be a little more resourcesful: I'd look into Korea for analogies though, since it lies on a peninsula and shares border with Not!China. I don't think the north of Korean peninsula was very rich though.
>>47613390
Looks good to me. Will need more rivers over time, but otherwise I think it's perfectly fine...
>>47613456
With such an incredibly wild premise and such odd-worldly foes, you can pretty much write what ever you want. You can have the war last two weeks or five centuries depending on how you define the powers of the demons and any other element that is entirely at your disposal.
Maybe think of it as a dramatic ark rather than a war history. Tell the history like you would tell a really dramatic and interesting tale.
Make the classic three-part narrative. Slow exposition, dramatic escalation that builds tension but also makes an impression of predictability, climax with twists and turns, and suitably tragic or apocalyptic ending.
E.g. something like "first appearances of demons spread confusion, bizzare events, but nobody wants to believe this could ever escalate to a real war, then arduous and perillious road to human armies preparing for a battle, shocking and drastic first encounter resulting in the old order being totally destroyed, formation of new order adapting to the challenge. Something like that.
Personally, I like accounts of war that tell me what is happening when there is no fighting. The background noise. Politics, logistics, nervous men in suits, downtime of the soldiers, those long boring and anxious days between battles. But that is just my fancy: I'm the kind of guy who finds MASH a better war story than Saving private Ryan.
>>47607897
Don't have much to add, unfortunately, since I'm not a programmer, but this may help as some inspiration.
http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/game-programming/polygon-map-generation/
>>47612546
>>47612546
>>47613882
The first one was for GIMP. This is Photoshop.
>>>47613915
>>>47612546
>>>47613882
Because I have awful reading comprehension, I only just noticed what you said about Krita. Besidesgetting GIMP, I'd recommend the 'standard' procedure.
1. Generate (or download an image of) random noise. Scale it to a suitable size for blotches.
2. Colourise (or apply a filter) of light brown.
3. Decrease opacity, then merge it with your background layer.
4. Make small edits to the lightness/darkness and contrast to make it look more realistic.
>>47613960
Really, just download gimp and do the post production in it. I mean the program is a piece of shit (though NOWHERE near as awful as fucking Inkscape - oh my god how I fucking HATE that program, I want it die, painfully die in front of my eyes), but it's useful for some finishing touches and there is plenty of step-by-step guidelines for various post-production tricks to do in it.
Anyone have tips for learning about mongol culture? When my players started exploring the northern region they jumped to saying "Oh god they're NORDS," which I didn't take as a bad thing but I figure I should add some spice to my setting so I decided to make them a steppe/boreal culture. I already know the typical things
>horses
>yurts
was wondering if anyone else had a bit of knowledge to pass on.
Pic related is my out-dated region map.
>>47614012
>I mean the program is a piece of shit
I used to use Photoshop doing school projects in my younger years. Never got to 'advanced' level, but I'm still doing Photoshop tutorials and converting them into GIMP usage. What's actually so bad about it?
I've used it on both Mac and Windows. I don't like the new default light theme, but I downloaded a 3rd party one to fix that. The addon community is useful and developed, and the base stuff is more or less everything Photoshop has (as far as I'm aware). What exactly is there missing?
>inkscape
Tried to learn it, since I'm a big fan of .svg to save maps. Never could really 'get' it. The UI was jarring and confusing to me; all I use it for is changing colours of other .svgs. Otherwise it's just made in GIMP (or Paint) and then vectorised using an online program.
>>47611700
If you want a really simple way to explain the 30 day day-night cycle just explain the thing with slow rotation. Celestial mechanics and the temperature changes in weird situations like yours are not simple questions and probably uni-level professors might have hard time foretelling the effects.
Trust me. No player is going to ask about the scientific implications of your setting. This is just going to lead to headaches on your part.
>>47614110
>What's actually so bad about it?
Some very basic functions are insanely complicated. Drawing basic shapes can be a fucking nightmare. The U.I. is unintuitive as fuck and obnoxious as hell. Organizing your workspace is a chore. My favorite trick it pulls is making a tool window disappear outside of borders, and it becomes impossible to retrieve it. Dealing with visibility and transparency is also a pain the ass.
It's still hundred times better than Inkscape. Gimp is merely obnoxious (I have several hundreds of hours in the damn program, and I still struggle with the U.I.). Inkscape is vicious. It lacks some of the most fundamental, most basic functionalities you would ever expect from a vector editor.
An example: Inkscape allows to fill shapes with patterns.
Except you can't color the patterns. You also can't import new patterns, or rotate them. Or edit them in any sort.
Actually, you can - but it involves arcane processes, at least one goat sacrifice, and usually breaks the damn thing.
>>47614233
I think that is a completely different guy from the one asking about the 30-days cycle. The guy with the 30 days cycle actually explained the idea of an egg and caretaker.
>Obligatory
>>47614110
>What's actually so bad about it?
GLib dependencies. Fuck that noise.
>>47613723
I have a basic framework set up.
>Humanity discovers a new energy source
>Ends up overusing it
>Bringing online the largest power plants using this energy causes a meltdown that chain explodes all active power plants, ripping apart reality
>After the disaster, as the world recovers, demons start to come out of the portals
>Humanity has to retreat to Africa, Australia, South America, and other "third world" regions
>3 years after the initial disaster and invasion, as humanity loses ground, a mysterious force resembling angels joins the fray
>6 more years of fighting and you have the modern setting, where humans have stabilized but are stilk struggling to regain territory conquered by the demons
I'm trying to fill it in, though. I have some interactions down to build the world. But its still open, and I think writing some key events would help cement the setting progression.
>>47614055
>so I decided to make them a steppe/boreal culture.
Here's the thing: boreal cultures are very different from high altitude cultures like mongols. You might want to look into things like Sami, Nivkh, Itelmens and similar siberian ethnic groups.
For starters: horses don't live in boreal regions. They also don't deal with snow all that well. Living in Yurts is also not a good idea because you are going to freeze. It's cold high in Mongolia, but not boreal kind of cold. Since boreal regions don't make for very good pastures on account of all the snow and permafrost and shit, hunting and gathering is preferred, and if you really want animal herding, go with reindeer or elks or something.
Mongols and similar nomadic cultures are indigenous to (mostly high altitude) steppes. It's where horses live, and where it makes for great pastures.
>>47614272
>Drawing basic shapes can be a fucking nightmare.
I guess the lack of a specific tool is a bit more convoluted, but I'm used to using the select tools, CMD+. to fill a solid shape, or whatever the other one was to stroke the bonudary. So it's pretty irrelevant for me. Then again, if you're used to Photoshop I can see how it's a bit of a hassle.
>Organizing your workspace is a chore.
Use single window mode, dammit!
>Dealing with visibility and transparency is also a pain the ass.
I was under the impression it was literally the same as Photoshop, with the exception of layer masks.
Out of interest, do you use any vector editor besides Inkscape (that are free)?
>>47614337
>GLib
I'm no computer wizard, but it seems to not have affected anything?
>>47614862
Right I remember something though about how the two biomes tend to border on one another. I guess if I wanted to keep plains I'd stick with steppes but if I went further north to switch to boreal. I guess that would mean the steppe cultures would farm instead?
>>47615175
>I guess that would mean the steppe cultures would farm instead?
No, steppe cultures herd animals. That is why they are nomadic: if you herd animals for living, you have to move around, because your flock will slowly eat away the grass in the region, and you have to move to a different one to let the exhausted steppe re-grow. You also migrate away from draughts and similar things.
You can't grow plants very well in the steppe: the climate is usually too harsh, too dry and the soil too meager: it can only support grass.
Steppe people migrate with their cattle looking for better pastures, boreal cultures hunt, gather, and herd boreal animals like reindeer who can live off much more harsh flora that lives in those regions. They also tend to be at least partially nomadic, but they move around following their prey. Unlike the steppe nomads, boreal people also rarely form larger societies, because frankly, when you hunt and gather, you simply can't support too many people living too close to each other for longer time.
Really, look into the cultures I mentioned. Sami are a fascinating ethnic group with fascinating culture and I'm sure you'll find quite a lot about them on the internet. Might not be mongols, but you can make them into very interesting addition to your campaign.
>>47589177
Highly underrated map
>>47591914
no, it's Hagard!
>>47608663
>>47608723
>>47608733
I really like this map and want to steal it. Do you have a key for the climate colors and another map showing topography?
>>47616902
This, plus a political map.
>not making your maps on painting
>>47618011
>paint
fix'd
>>47618040
no thx I'll keep my layers
>>47615389
That sounds hell of a lot more interesting than the typical pseudo-Scandinavian affair. Much obliged anon.
>>47618089
After finish this version I will try to learn how to make maps on GIMP to make a some layers of this map.
>>47614055
Horses.
Horse Archery.
Kumis (Fermented Horse Milk)
Khans.
Religious Tolerance.
Horses.
Meritocracy.
Throat-Singing.
Horses.
>>47593391
There is no real pantheon however a group of several mages became so powerful they could effortlessly see the future and rose to power by using the butterfly effect and immortality to become God-Kings over their respective lands.
I've been thinking; For as advanced as "modern technology" seems, it still leaves out a lot of senses. A computer only caters to sight and sound, but not touch or smell.
Theoretically, a sufficient Magitech device could create the illusion of sight, sound, touch, smell, and temperature. It'd probably be possible to simulate subtler senses too, like the sense of movement or balance.
It'd probably be possible for an Artificer to make a magic-based Holodeck in a High Magic setting.
>>47608733
>Huge countries
Dropped.
>>47620290
Reading not your strong suit?
So I recently learned about the game OFF, and it inspired me to come up with a small setting. I also took a bit from Blame!
>A family of royals and four nobles arrive to a new land with the intent of raising a grand kingdom
>To absolutely control the land for their plans, the royals and nobles tore out the natural elements that preserved the land, replacing them with their own elements: Metal, Oil, Money and Power
>Using the four manmade elements, the four nobles constructed a massive city in only a few years, under the oversight of the royal family
>In only 20 years, the city expanded to a monstrous size, separated into multiple sections under control of the nobles and the lesser nobles under them
>The city is a polluted, corrupt, tyrannical mess where the richest citizens are just fodder for the nobility, and the poor are barely anything more than working hands
>The nobles pervert their own man-made elements to produce frightening creations: like the Plastic Men, living artificial mass produced men, or Nu-Metal, a synthetic metal that can grow on its own into new, "raw' constructs
I just liked the idea of unnatural elements and a city that is growing on it's own
>>47606060
Is that supposed to say "The Tiaga" or did you mean a Taiga?
>>47593391
The gods of the land come in several tiers. The Small Gods, the Lower Ones, the Architects and the Truths. The Small Gods and the Lower Ones are the only gods that can interact with mortals. The Small Gods are countless gods of the lowest power who are born of human desire, concept and ideas, but despite being the weakest in terms of godly power, they are still gods. The Lower Ones are the ones who oversee the workings of the world and keep things in order, they keep the rain falling, the wind blowing, and the sun shining, though they can interact with mortals, they usually keep hidden. The Architects are the gods in charge with forging raw creation into the world, and endless job as they reforge raw reality atom by atom. The Truths are the highest form of god, and the only things that can truly be "godly" They have one job and one desire, to take the raw, unbound chaos of the nothing beyond the world and mold it into creation.
Despite the large number of the gods in existence, few mortals ever meet a god, fewer still will ever commune with them, and no mortal knows the truth of the gods.
>>47582838
pack hunters that live for their families and don't give a damn about themselves
>>47620290
Those are continents, mate, not countries.
>>47613729
Thanks anon, I've used Amit's site for his hexagon resource which is amazing, and read that article before starting my own implementation. My terrain generation is a waaay simpler simplex noise implementation though. I intend to develop all the other gameplay features first, then maybe come back and reimplement the terrain generation with the techniques he talks about in that article albeit still around a hex grid instead of voronoi polygons, but perhaps perturb it as suggested. The end results will be much more natural.
Been thinking about what I want from it, and here's a wishlist of features. Not sure if they're all good ideas or not, still trying to pin down what the end result will be exactly.
>Tolkienesque map styling. Draw perturbed edge outlines along the coast, insert hand draw elements like compass rose and waves, try to give everything a hand drawn look and present it on a parchment texture.
>Place points of interests in appropriate places (no idea how to do this). Towns, castles, settlements etc.
>Write, steal and maybe crowdsource (hi /tg/) the random events.
>Various save/export features. Save on the server side, email a link to yourself so you can take it on your tablet, export the entire world state as JSON, let the user modify it, then import it back in (A built in editor is waaaay out of scope, so this seems like a simple way to let GMs customise the random world).
>>47593391
There's one god that doesn't do much. World didn't turn out the way he imagined and he parted ways with it. There are other gods, more like angels. They used to walk among mortal, but recently went into seclusion, few can even be sure they exist, though they maintain contact with people through priests. Monotheistic religion that worship the primary god and blames lesser god's influence for driving him away is gaining popularity.
Gods can be killed for various ill effects. Once the last god dies, the world will be reborn and improved.
