/tg/, it's been a while since we've had a Fantasy Worldbuilding Thread, or at least a collaborative one where we get together and have a grand old time bouncing off each other's ideas/a fun little circlejerk about how dashed clever and subversive we are.
Have a map as a starting point, to the west it stretches into vast intractable tundra, deserts, wasteland and forests, and to the east is a gargantuan ocean that no ship has ever returned from. Add physical feature, polities, events, etceteraat your own discretion.
>>43559582
Magic is in the form of crystals that can be harvesed/collected from magic ores underground
The dwarves dwell in cave citadels in underwtaer mountains, with each mountain forming somewhat akin to a city state.
>>43559608
Raw, nigh unusable, magic flows from whatever is "Above" the world, and flows towards the "Below".
A lot of it gets caught in various materials underground, forming the Crystals of various types and strengths.
Gold is a material magic can get stuck in.
Beastmen tend to "mimmic" whichever culture that are closeby, this makes it so that if a beastmen camp is near an Orc village they become more hostile and savage. But if they are close to human or elven settlements for example the can become more friendly and diplomatic
>>43559608
>>43559635
These crystals are also saught by monsters, so it is considered dangerous to have them just lying around
>The Elves, by their very nature, an incredibly adaptable species. Whilst the standard elf resembles humanity in both physical and mental terms, a group of elves that spends two or more generations in a specific habitat may begin to change to suit that habitat.
>Desert elves develop paunches that can hold fat reserves to last them from oasis to oasis, and thick hair on their backs to protect them from the harsh gaze of the suns. Wood elves have long gangly limbs and opposable toes to allow easier travel through the canopy, and often develop and speckled hide to break up their silhouette. Frost elves are covered in thick layers of white hair, and their distinctive pointed ears are tiny and nubby - these are just a few examples of the wide variety of elves.
> Over longer periods of time, and especially in the absence of self-civilisation, elves may adapt even further - the ears of forest elves become leaf like, and their skin takes on a texture like bark. The many tribal Elves of the Open Plains develop long, gazelle-like legs with hooves to allow them to outrun predators.
>Indeed, elves that go this far own this path may find it difficult to return to baseline elven form and thus adapt to different climates - it is speculated to the mostly savage and uncontacted clans of Satyrs and Fauns are Plains Elves that migrated to a forest environ and adapted as best they could.
Elven scholars have occasionally suggested that Dwarves and Orcs are, in fact, highly adapted elves - or even elves that have hit a dead end. Upon announcing this thesis to the Greater Society of the Learned, Scholar-Prince Wylchyr the Mauve earned a lifelong ban from the city of Khord Gurmakh, and two black eyes from Professor Skarfouth Chainbrewer. To this day, he holds the record for most scholarly responses received.
>>43559806
Too much exposure to these crystals can infuse living beings with raw, corrupting magic. The results of this phenomenon are known as 'Felled ones', makred by their hairless, pale bodies and lack of eyes, the flesh of the victim having molded itself into new and nightmarish forms, and eating away at the minds of those it now controls.
Some say the collective behavior they exhibit is the very magic itself acting as some sort of hivemind.
>>43560093
The crystals serve as gateways between different planes, and different crystals are differently attuned. Ordinary fire crystals, for instance, will constantly let through small amounts of heat from the realm of eternal fire and burning.
>>43560170
There is an unknown number of planes, but the Scroll of Incomplete Planar Listing housed at Kayabémer is now approaching a mile in length.
>>43560211
There are strong currents in the waters, so strong that you dont need sails or rowers to get by. Just follow the stream. Getting out is a second concern
>>43560225
...Have we just been visited by some kind of mystical Koan fairy?
>>43560170
>>43560211
Occasionally, Felled ones, and even scholars, are compelled to gather and merge thousands of crystals into monolithic structures, magically scarring the landscape with whatever plane they happen to be channeling.
Some scholars have proposed using these same methods in a controlled manner to terraform environments into more hospitable forms, but the results have been wildly dangerous or pitifully unhelpful.
>>43560237
All Koans are actually factual in this world
>>43559959
>>43559811
>Everything is elves
>But some Elves are more Elf than Elves.
>Trolls?
>Big Elves.
>Dwarves?
>Short Elves.
>Orcs?
>Green Elves.
>Humans?
>Ugly Elves.
>Elves?
>Elves.
>>43560289
>As written by Ambilge Wakgut, Orc satirist.
>
The nature of elves gives them an uncanny insight into using magic to fleshcraft, and the annals of the various Guilds, Colleges,Covens, etcetera, of healing, magical surgery, and related fields have an unusually high concentration of the buggers.
This talent was turned to horrific ends during the Tyranny of If Nahore, when the sorcerer-priests decided that the usage of draft animals and livestock conflicted with their beliefs as 'causing disharmony with the natural world'. To resolve the conflict between their religious ideal and their need for farm animals and the like, they took thousands of subordinate peoples, rebels and prisoners, and subjected them to horrific magical experiments in order to replace their beasts of burden - explicitly using the existence of the Felled Ones as proof-of-concept that magic could reduce thinking being to an animalistic wretch that that could nevertheless be easily corralled and led. Soon, dogs, cattle, horses, and other beasts were replaced by men, elves and orcs melted by foul magic into their forms.
This ultimately led to the downfall of If Nahore, for whilst the priests and their devout followers touted this as the ultimate aim of their faith, the subject people rose up en masse, and even the feared Thylngroth fleshcrafted soldiers could not hold against their numbers. Even the sorcerer-priests unleashing horrifying mass-conversion spells against whole armies and cities to turn hundreds into manbeasts in an instant failed to slow the revolters - for the priests and their worshippers were overloaded with magic, and became Fell.
Nowadays, the Tyranny is naught but a bad memory and source of hatred of elves, but their creations are still prevalent across the world, and their lands are infested with Felled Ones and their crystal structures. In addition, the Goldenweave Gloves used by the sorcerer-priests in their experiments and feared and desired in equal measure.
At the northern tip of the central island (forming the southwest border of the 'inner sea', whatever you'd like to call that) is the huge, diverse, and wealthy metropolis of Sparmont (pronounced "spermon" in the local accent), positioned as it is to control the best sea-trade routes from East to West.
How much power should the city have over the island it's on? I could see anything from the capital of the whole nation to a city-state isolated for some reason from the rest of that area.
>>43560491
>Sparmont (pronounced "spermon" in the local accent)
Are they Scouse?
I'd probably go with powerful city-state with vassals rather than out-and-out capital. Like Venice.
>>43560455
>>43559959
>>43559811
As cited by the many scholars of Nibbick Al-Gur, prestigious college of the south, there are some who would say that most, if not all, modern sapient races are the results of early fleshcrafting, either purposeful or from ambient magic fueled by crystals. Such theories have faced serious opposition, but recent, in-depth autopsies and nature studies have given more merit upon discovery of the 'ley-nerve', a small cluster of magically attuned nerve cells that exists in the same configuration and location on sapient creatures. While it allows most creatures to interact with ambient energy, magic, in the air, the cluster is noticeably smaller and weaker in species that seem farther in morphology from the baseline Elves.
>>43560289
Perhaps Ambilge Wakgut, noted and celebrated Orc satirist and occasional artist, was more on point than originally given credit for.
Such scholarly debates are marred by his involvement in the 'Troll Luck' debacle five years prior, however.
The northerlands are currently wracked by a long-running war between the Kingdom of Ursamar and several successor-states, Calsciokar, of the Skellington Necromantic Empire. The causes are many, not least of which is the recent discovery by the Skellington successors that an Ursamarine mistranslation of the actual name of their predecessor state - Skyrlangtiirm - has lead to them becoming an eternal punchline in more southerly polities. Whilst this might not seem like much, the various lich-kings and deathlords of the Calsciokar have had a very, very long-time to inflate their egos and practice the arts of pettiness and taking ephemeral slights with deathly seriousness.
Though the bravery of the Ursamarine warriors is well-known, and the strength of the thousand Beast-Knights is renowned through the civilized world, the number and nature of the undead soldiery of the Calsciokar makes them a truly dangerous threat to the sovereignty of the men of the north. Indeed, many murmur that only the almost-ritualistic betrayal and backstabbing endemic to the courts of the Calsciokar Kings is stopping them from bringing Ursamar to its knees with numbers alone.
>>43560455
Avto scvbe stvrt
>Alright, testing this infernal scroll and contraption.
>Damned Dawrven smithing, nigh impossible to- Oh, it's on?
>Disregard that last statement. Erase? Delete? Blasted Above, we'll have to edit this before submission.
>Today's subject is magically stasisfied 'Thylngroth'. Early Elvish for 'Silent One'. Date of procurement, 3-5-8-002, season of the Red. Donated by anonymous Elvish family. Wonder how they got their hands on this? Subject has no armor, typical of artifacts of this era. Looting, possibly? Without knowledge of Elvish family, no hope to recover complete armor set.
>Subject was recently deceased as of stasis binding. Exhibits minimal damage. Ah, nevermind. Crystal shard in neck suggests severed artery.
>As is the common morphology, subject has no visible eyes. No hair, either. No mouth present, despite mouth seemingly fully formed under flesh. Damn, these things creep me out. Skin seems mottled, veins are easy to trace. Scar tissue present over most of body. Impossible to tell if healed post-fleshcrafting or because of it. Subjec is remarkably tall. Slightly shorter than a Troll. Golem 12-g, verify?
>Nearly 3 meters? Are you certain? Wait, you're a cogdrone, of curse you're certain. Did you calculate mass? list common elements by quantity, please. Blasted Above, that's a lot of calcium. Possible reliance on calcium suppliments to offset extensive bone mass?
>Golem 89-b, scalpel? No, the other- yes that one. Thank you. Making primary incision now. Location is over mou- GAH.
>Uhm, apologies. Upon making initial incision, flesh around mouth peeled back rapidly and exposed jaw structure. Hmm, odd. Jawbone seems calcified to position, no movement possible without shattering cheek bones. Teeth have been fused into solid pieces that span upper and lower jaw.
>Continuing with autopsy. They don't pay me enough for this. Edit that out. No, don't add-
>I said stop! Desist! Would you sto-
Avto scvbe stvpped
>>43560523
Something like a Scouse accent, yeah.
Political organization of the city: the First Lord of the Mont rules by consent of the Council. Membership to the Council is limited to a small number of prominent families, though families may be added to or removed from the Council by consensus of other member families.
How exactly is crystalline magic utilised? If you wanted to cast a fireball, would you get a crystal to the plane of fire and crush it, or do something else?
Are there planar denizens? Rulers of planes, Seadra-style?
>>43561641
Daedra. I meant daedra. Though I'm now tempted to suggest a Planar King of an undersea realm is a gigantic dragon-seahorse.
When worldbuilding how do you guys organize your ideas? Random word docs in folders and sub folders seems so cumbersome to me. I wish I knew of a way that I could structure my shit like a wiki page but I don't have the knowledge to do so.
What do you guys do?
The rest of the island Sparmont is on is largely rural; petty lords squabble over small patches of territory and submit tribute to the City in the form of food or raw materials.
>>43561847
Scrivener. Gives you a digital binder.
>>43561847
I have a single gigantic note on my iphone that has a few major headings, a basic template, and then a variety of bullet points. Really though, it's a matter of finding what works best for you.
I'm going to start placing some cities and territories on the map.
>>43561641
>>43560170
Perhaps the crystals are like magical shortcuts, essentially a magical uranium that is useful when carefully worked with and destructive when used as a weapon.
A mage may be able to use magic directly, but prolonged exposure to it will eventually kill them/ fleshcraft them into Fell ones.
With a crystal, he gives himself a slight buffer, using the crystal as a conduit to channel the magic rather than his own flesh. That being said, if he'snot careful, he can expose himself to the same energies we used the crystal to avoid.
Basically, magic is radiation with more control.
>>43561847
I keep them in my brain, besides a shittily drawn ms paint map
Across the Inland Sea from where Sparmont is, the northeastern islands are mountainous and mineral deposits run close to the surface. It is a hard sort of land and in its farthest reaches it is still very wild and unsettled.
Not entirely sure where to put Sparmont and other mentioned cities. I'm terrible at drawing country boundaries, and hope I haven't made the Calsciokar and Ursamar too space-filling.
>>43559783
Are beastmen Felled animals, the results of If Nahore fleshcrafting or something else?
>>43562674
Oh for god's sake.
>>43562674
In the middle of the map there's a sea ringed by large islands. Let's call them NW, SW, and NE for just this post and give some names. The polities you've added are on another island--the NE island is separated from the island they're on by a very narrow channel.
Sparmont is on one of the northern points of the SW island.
>>43562994
Any point in particular - the one near the ocean, the central one, or the one closest to the inner sea with the little island?
For the sake of clarity it will probably help to name that middle sea. I've been using the ambiguous Inland Sea in other posts, but let's call it something else.
It looks kinda like an eye on a map, so a civilization that learnt of it after cartography might call it the Eye. But a civilization that lived along it would use other names. How does the Navel sound?
>>43563103
The one with the little island; it developed there because it can access/control trade routes that way.
>>43562674
Beastman is a misnomer.
While they are truly not men in the sense of humans, Beastmen are the descendants of those who were cruelly fleshcrafted into beasts of burden, half sentient creatures that could barely think, let alone remember their past. They are not truly in the form of beasts, either. They are shaped as half-formed projects. They share morphology with their tribes, but when comparing an Ursamar to say a Aslanite, the differences in form and function become readily apparent.
Once the Tyranny of If Nahore had fallen, and the Elvish races found themselves scrambling to avoid extinction, the rest of the races turned to the Beastmen.
They were given their own lands, and their leaders, the most thoughtful of what remained, managed to corral them into a ramshackle civilization, a sick mimicry of what they once were.
Today, the Beastmen are looked at as a stunted mockery of civilizations. Unable to form long term cultures because of the damage to their minds that fleshcrafting etched into their being, they must rely on short lived copies of the world around them.
>>43563145
I just realized this forms a neat little triangle with the two cities already placed on the NW island, which is cool.
>>43563116
I was going to suggest almost the opposite - that in the last desperate struggles of If Nahore to survive, in the magical doomsday spells that converted hundreds of men to beasts, the fallout twisted beasts into men in those same instants
>>43563317
This is cool so let's do it
Sparmont added, gave Khord Gurmakh its own little empire of Kradh Azragh - probably a remnant of a much bigger Orcish empire of Azragh, fallen over the years.
The Empire of the Burning Eye and the Urureio Island Confederacy are the primary domain of the Rauwiakari reptile men, a squat, sturdy people noted for having three eyes - the one on the forehead possessing limited foresight. The small and gaudy Empire uses this to sail well and take advantage of economic predictions. The boisterous and bloodthirsty Urureio use it to become truly exceptional pirates and raiders.
>>43563710
The Burning Eye is also what the Rauwiakari call the Sun/s, so if we want to call the Inner Sea the 'Eye of the Ocean' or something, we have an in-lore reason.
Somewhere, in a place beyond time and matter, a clown resides
>>43563874
Ah, the Plane of a Single Clown.
>>43559628
>>43559635
>>43559608
Dwarves reside in underwater mountains, building citadels full of advanced engineering and borderline magical constructs that mine tonnes of earth and sift through it for crystals the size of small hills, but it is not for the Dwarves themselves.
Dwarves are short and stocky, and take pride in their powerful forms. In fact, they have been known to start fights when one compares their pointed ears to the elves, who they view as weak and corrupt.
Dwarves have shown themselves to be increasingly resilient to the corrupting influence of the Crystals, powering their massive engines and earth crackers using thousands of crystals. When not using them for power, they often find themselves acting as wholesale providers of the material. Their underwater citadels are also highly defendable, but rarely are they seen by non-Dwarves. Perhaps it is lucky that they reside so deep underwater, for were the waters of the deepest oceans not there to provide a barrier, the sheer amount of unrestrained magic contained in their deep vaults would fleshcraft millions into Beastmen, an event rivaling the cataclysm If Nahore.
A depiction of Xaphan-Potyx, Lord of Iapothas, one of the Ocean-Planes most often linked to by magic crystals. Much like the ocean which he presides over and represents, Xaphan-Potyx is a capricious being, changeable as the sea itself - oft to the detriment of those who bargain with him.
>I have no idea how exactly mortals would/should bargain with Planar Lords & Ladies. Possibly meditation upon a crystal? Also, the crystalline monoliths could get some very eerie environments going - strange fish swimming in mid-air are a low-level example.
>>43564298
Hucking Fell - the act of trying to throw a Felled One. Never a good idea at the best of times.
Up north on the main continent is an eternal winter. Sentient magical constructs from the plane of eternal winter summoned a portal from thier realm man years ago. They intend to expand thier domain.
The once green and colourfull land of Serbith is now a desolated and icecold tundra.
So far the constructs have been kept in line by the might of two human kingdoms (you guys can make those up). But the constructs have created kilometer thick ice walls around the the gate, that are expanding, slowly. This has made it almost impossible to destroy the portal that are slowly freezing the world
Who knows what they intend to do after they have sent this world into an ice age
Any got name ideas for the continents?
>>43564328
FYI when I men up north on the main continent I mean it's up in the top left
>>43564604
>ment*
>>43564619
Meant.
>>43564298
Meditating with crystals could work, but the Monoliths would work better.
If a bit more dangerous, because the Monoliths give their respective lords a bit more influence on this World than just communication.
>>43566109
When Felled Ones build monoloiths, would they take on aspects of the monolith's lord/domain?
>>43566207
Felled Ones of the Ocean monoliths take on aspects of deep sea creatures
Felled Ones of the Fire-monoliths take on aspects of magma
Felled Ones of the Air monolith become more birdlike, or grow sickly feathers
I can dig it.
What would a country of Viking Fundamentalists be like?
>>43563710
Cool, that's exactly where I meant.
What mapping\editing program are you using?
What we seem to have so far:
The world's magic is dangerous, but incredibly easy to find and harvest.
Magic comes from planes, sometimes controlled or spread by sentient beings from these places, and flows downwards, collecting in material deposits. Especially in the form of crystals, which are magic uranium.
Exposure to untamed magic for too long mutates beings into Felled ones, terrible monsters that obey the strange and alien will of the crystals and erect enormous crystal monoliths to increase magical plane presence on the world
One form of magic, fleshcrafting, can be used for great evil to create monsters and lobotomize the more intelligent of the races to unthinking beasts of burden.
Elves, the beings most susceptible to magic, are probably the origin of all humanoid beings, but this is still a highly controversial theory.
Dwarves live in the ocean in massive underwater mountains carved into citadels, and are not magically adept, but are resilient to the corruption of magic.
There are beastmen, the result of an ancient Elvish kingdom detonating and unleashing massive energy that possibly left a crater that formed a lake in the center of the world.
To the north, a necromantic kingdom fights against large groups of these beastmen
There are beastmen/ animal-like races around the crater, forming small sea-bound empires.
Good so far? Get anything wrong?
I'm not sure we got that Nahore blew up the whole crater of the middle sea. I think the area where Nahore used to be is northeast of the Empire of the Burning Eye, from the map we have so far.
>>43572944
AutoREALM to create the basic landforms, everything else in GIMP.
>>43570408
Depends what they're fundamentalist abour.
>>43573435
Yeah, I never mean for If Nahore to blow open a landmass, and Ursamar's Beast-Knights are more like Jaguar or Eagle Knights than actually Beastman Knights.
In many hearts of big rainforests are often home to many big spiders. They are often gentle since they only feed on big insects and other bigger creatures.
But they are very territorial when something that is not on thier diet is near thier eggs. But those if you somehow manage to grab an egg then it is possible to tame spider.
Traitor's Edge is one of the most infamous weapons in the history of the world, having been identified at over 50 revolutions and uprisings, and rumoured to be present at hundreds more. The enchantments woven into to it are unknown, but speculations range from allowing to wielder to easily work thousands of ordinary people into a zealous fury, to making the wielder absolutely unstoppable when used to kill a close friend in an act of betrayal.
>>43559628
I like this, since living in a mountain underwater isn't really all that much different from living deep in a mountain on land.
Ventilation would be a bigger concern though.
>>43576527
Some kind of ....mechanical gill?
Do the dwarves use black smoker forges?
