/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General
- Home
- Board: /tg/ - Traditional Games
- Reading: /wbg/ - Worldbuilding General
Worldbuilding Thread
Some worldbuilding resources:
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
Questions:
>What are the social structures in your world?
>What does the stratification look like? How many social classes are there? How much social mobility is there?
>How much of a role does kinship play in social organization?
>>46104299
>>46110936
Thanks guys. Sorry I was sleeping and missed your post.
I've been posting drawings from my world in the past several threads. Since it's the weekend I'll probably have another one done today which I'll post a bit later.
>What are the social structures in your world?
The Holy Astorian Empire is an elective monarchy where the emperor is elected by seven elector-princes. Four of the elector-princes have hereditary positions, two are religious and so are determined by investiture, and one is an elected academic grandmaster. However, there is also a parliament/congress/senate (haven't decided on name), composed mostly of elected individuals, which has a limited say on what the emperor is able to do.
Technologically, it's closer to mid 15th century Europe, but socially, it's more like 18th and early 19th century Europe, where there are still nominal kings and queens, but more social mobility with a stronger parliament and a stronger centralized power. The reason for this has to do with the long presence of giant ridable birds, which enabled better communication and more direct taxation and made centralization happen earlier.
There is still a strong aristocracy though, and family name counts for a lot. Family name can get you a high rank in the military, a high rank in the clergy, a faster path through the academic system, among other things. But it's easier to get higher in society through business and mercantile pursuit than it would be earlier.
I really love and respect drag queens for their powerful self-image and attitude (despite what most people may think, it has nothing to do with perversion or depravity), but have no idea how I could incorporate them into a setting where the beings that inhabit it have no gender or sexual organs that'd create such a vast difference in clothing and appearance in the first place.
>>46114595
>want to have something that is about gender transgression in a setting with no gender
Sorry to be the one to break it you, but it's probably not gonna work. Make a setting with gender, put drag queens in it, and stop with the stupid copypasta questions.
Alright /wbg/ I want your criticism for this idea. I have been toying this for some time, but haven't yet decided anything.
My setting has Grey Men in it. Basically they are as their name suggest grey skinned people due to godly fuckery. Everybody and their mothers hate them and due to that they live in mountains and remote places. And I want to add a slave caste to their society. Normally it would be easy, but I want kinda janissary type caste in it. Now my proposition is following, have the "janissary" caste be made from half breeds that cannot reproduce. How do you think about it, grey men kidnapping people and taking their half-grey men children and making them into soldiers?
>>46116461
I like that.
Before I read the end of the post, I was gonna say if they are so hated, it's unlikely even slave soldiers would willing work for them. But typically halfbreeds are not accepted by either group do to each group seeing them as a member of the other, so if you give halfbreeds a special caste like janissaries where they are still technically slaves, but have an influenctial position in society, that would work well.
Nun from my world's Catholicism+Zurvanism religion.
>>46114595
>but have no idea how I could incorporate them into a setting where the beings that inhabit it have no gender or sexual organs that'd create such a vast difference in clothing and appearance in the first place.
The way I see it there's your dichotomy. The drag queen analogue practices gender related division and roles while the normal population does not.
>>46116461
They're raiders, right?
Whenever they pillage a village, have them slaughter the menfolk and capture all the women, to turn them into soldier-factories.
I'm using something similar with my Goblins, where Goblin/Human hybrids (Hobgoblins) are intelligent enough to function as actual warriors and tribal chiefs.
>>46117659
hey, that's pretty good. thanks for the spark of inspiration
Is it possible to have a faster metabolism than humans but lower core temperature?
>>46118730
yes
>>46118231
Some of them are raiders, but they hold quite lot of land around the north in several different kingdoms. In north they do not have that much competition compared to other areas.
I suffer from terrible writers block about 90% of the time
I've been making Gods for my setting and so far have 3
A Goddess of Hunting
A God of Knowledge
and a God of Smiting
I'm going for a Norse/Celtic aesthetic
Any advice?
>>46121549
Are the Gods creating the People, or are the People creating the Gods? Who came first?
If the Gods are the creators or the Gods came first, each God would be the God of several different things.
If the People are the creators, each God would probably be polarized and represent one specific thing.
>>46121549
How do these gods interact with humans?
>>46121636
>>46121653
See, it's questions like that that help me in ways I didn't even think of.
BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD
bumping for interest.
i seem to have alot to learn about my world building...
>>46117099
>tfw I try so hard and come so far, yet in the end I see this in /wbg/ and feel like my stuff's just a shoddy knock-off.
>>46121549
consider what your made up culture's core values are and then make gods for them.
>culture fears death and dying?
>fearsome God of Death
>culture considers death a blessing?
>kind and nurturing God of the Dead
>culture is warlike?
>charismatic God of War
>culture is warlike but is proud of their strategy more than their brute strength?
>laughable bruteish God of War contrasted with charismatic God of Thinking About How To War Like Civilized People
I dunno if this is helpful, but it's close enough to actual origins of human religions IRL (at least as far as I know, if I'm wrong feel free to disregard this post)
Tell me an interesting geological feture in your setting
In mind
There is a desert valley, called the Bad Lands
At the center of the valley, which few men have made it to because of the horrific sandstorms, is said to be a temple to the Forge God. Ancient legends state that a meteor containing Star Metal crashed in the valley, which ravished the valley, turning it from a beautiful, vibrant, planes to the desert it is now. The Temple to the Forge God is supposedly built atop the resting place of this meteor.
The Church of the Forge God tells that only the greatest of Smiths may pass the sandstorm and enter the and take a tiny piece of the Star Metal to forge with.
How is it /wbg/ ?
>>46122510
don't compare yourself only to more experienced people, compare yourself to shitty terrible fuck-ups some time too. also you can always be the one who makes one of the Good Knockoffs and you just don't know yet.
>>46122730
But if you compare yourself to the fuck-ups then you'll never improve.But then you look at the experienced guys and notice they're basically doing the exact same thing you're, doing only better.
This is the closest thing to a GMing thread. I did a very short session with a friend a while ago and these questions arose in the process:
How do you find the correct pacing for a session as a GM? How long should setup last? How long should a combat last? Should combats have a long-ish time in between them? When is it a good idea to slow the game down for a lore dump?
Is it just a matter of feeling it out for yourself on a case-to-case basis?
I'd rather not fill my brain with too many GMing guides because I'm guessing overthinking stuff will actually do me more bad than good
>>46122709
>Tell me an interesting geological feature in your setting
some centuries ago a storm in the middle of the ocean at the equator gained so much momentum (at least that is the commonly accepted theory) that it just never dissipated and kept growing, blocking off trade routes that crossed the sea. it's now impossible to sail directly from Western shore to Eastern shore or directly from North to South without getting violently shipwrecked because of this storm that just never goes away. it gets worse in winter and softens up a bit in summer, but in general it's impossible to do anything but cling as closely to the shore when sailing and never going into the open sea because random smaller storm fronts might be enough to pull you into the big one.
>>46122881
it's good enough for that small confidence boost to keep you going, at least for me.
man FUCK
i give up on trying to make a space setting
i love it so much, but i can't deal with differences in time and relativity across multiple worlds and star systems, and figuring out distances between them
i'm just gonna stick to one world, fuck it
>>46122709
>Tell me an interesting geological feture in your setting
The region that is now the Republic of Vandorme was created by a dragon that had too much ambition, too much time and too many Moaning Diamonds.
>>46122510
I've been illustrating semi-professionally for a few years so it's not really fair to compare. Drawing is my main strength, everything else like history and religion and geography I constantly feel like I'm knocking off from history and other people in the thread.
>>46121549
The basic polytheistic formula:
The major archetypes: a supreme father (sky) god, often residing at the top of the pantheon, and a mother (earth) goddess, sometimes his wife and may also be a hearth god or god of the home, sometimes a god of death/the underworld, and sometimes a trickster god (Loki, or Raven in several Native American religions).
Gods of different domains, professions, and pursuits: war (and sometimes a separate victory god like Nike), justice (Mithra, Sraosha/Saroosh, and Rashnu in Zoroastrianism), hunting, sailing, knowledge or academia, smithing, weaving, agriculture and harvesting, celebration and revelry, sex and fertility, poetry, that kind of thing.
Then you often have gods of the elements, like oceans/water, earth, fire, air - sometimes these are combined in with the domain-based gods, so like oceans+sailing or wind+sailing, or fire+smithing, earth+harvest, that kind of thing.
Then you have patron gods of particular regions, and these are sometimes combined with the domain-based gods as well (like Athena being the god of knowledge and the patron god of Athens), and you have this kind of thing in Zoroastrianism as well, where gods of particular regions or tribes were incorporated as angels into the divine hierarchy.
Then you often have the primordial proto-gods who came before the current gods (or maybe were just a threat that they defeated), like the titans, nephilim, frost giants, whatever.
Often but not always the gods have a familial hierarchy, with the supreme father being the top, and other gods being siblings or children of more powerful gods (Thor being son of Odin, etc.). That's the basic formula. You can go with it or discard it completely.
>>46112755
>What are the social structures in your world?
Tried to small bit on the social structure of bunch of lizards with an empire, rather major power in setting.
Maybe giving it too much thought. I don't expect people wanting to play them, but still.
Thankfully, other social structures are more simple / familiar.
>>46123869
they are cute as fuck
>>46122930
You go at the pace the players want.
You give players as much lore as they want.
Combat should be resolved by the end of session or end on a cliffhanger.
>>46122954
Just say 'Fuck it' and go full space opera.
>>46123935
>You go at the pace the players want.
>You give players as much lore as they want.
i'm a big fan of "show, don't tell" but i don't know if that's a good idea for a homebrew setting.
i don't want them to be too confused, just enough to mess with their expectations. the setting is like a tongue-in-cheek satirical view of USA in the near-future. things largely work the same way they have in the past, but there are mad max bandits outside cities, sewers have a mutant problem and the value of a human life is at an all time low. although everything is fantastically silly, everyone in the world treats it all as normal, serious life.
so yeah, i don't know whether the players should know how the world works from the get-go, or if it should just be "okay, go do this thing, don't worry about it" and then shit happens and they learn first-hand that shit is actually crazy
>Combat should be resolved by the end of session or end on a cliffhanger.
i was more talking about the amount of combat in general. the general theme of the game is a bit like "hotline miami but as a corporate deathsquad" so combat is going to be pretty prevalent. i was thinking around 1,5 hours of walking around, talking and detective work for every 0,5 hours of combat, with that number varying depending on how warlike the players are feeling.
>>46124488
oh and i forgot to mention that i'm using a pretty streamlined combat system. a single d10 roll determines if an attack hits, what damage it does, if it crits, if it gets evaded, etc.
typically, turns should last around 10-30 seconds unless someone does something very complex. so hopefully i can have a bunch of fights per session without slowing the game down to a crawl
Don't lie to me, /wbg/.
What are some concepts, kingdoms, or ideas you've stolen from /wbg/.
>>46124964
Does it count if it was a suggestion you gave to someone else that you ended up liking so much that you stole it back?
>>46125267
>self-plagiarism
>>46124964
stolen? never ever. i do take a lot of inspiration from my favorite things in the world and apply them to my setting though. the only other content i know of that does this thing in a way that doesn't make it shameless and brainless pop culture references are the Metal Gear Series and One Piece. for example, many key figures of my setting are visually inspired by the many personas of David Bowie, Jodorowsky's settings (namely El Topo), Hieronymus Bosch and many other things i happen to love
>>46124964
>stole "eternal storm that wrecks everyone's shit" from Edge Chronicles
>stole current political situation of one city from late Roman Republic/early Roman Empire history (triumvirate after Caesar's death)
>stole religious ceremonies of one culture from Heine's "Glasperlenspiel" (about the only good thing that came from reading this book. don't read it. it's boring as fuck.)
>based the military uniforms of one faction on pic related
>took over one major character from my friend's edgy fantasy project about overthrowing an evil empire (he's fine with it since he kinda stopped writing at some point and went into gamedev instead)
>ripped way too much shit from African/Native American fairytale/folk tale/mythology books from the library
>>46125596
also hobo lore
lots of hobo lore
i've studied the stuff so much that i've been tempted to create some hobo ttrpg and quite possibly sell it because it makes such a great concept for a tabletop game. but my main setting is much too ambitious as is and no way could i handle my brain in both places
How good of a title for the first book in a military epic is "Crowned in Lightning"
Can explain why I chose it, if needed
>>46126028
I'm not sure about the "in", but it sounds like a title a legit publishing house would put on a book. you're probably fine.
>>46126134
Awesome.
Concept is 1930s-esque war in the states that used to be a Steampunk empire, focusing on Monarchist Socialists vs. Libertarian Democrats
>>46126328
>Socialist
>Monarchist
you better have a rock solid reason why they're both and don't spontanously combust from contradiction overdose.
>>46126028
>>46126134
Yeah, if it were my book I'd probably go with Crown of Lightning or something, but generally speaking it's a perfectly good name.
PIC RELATED visits your world and seeks to return it to the featureless void by erasing it from existence entirely. Which religions, cults, leaders, races etc. would side with him and why?
>>46126698
almost everyone and they'd do anything to do it, as accessing the void allows you to oversee the next era of the plane entirely and shape it to your will and if this guy can do it on a whim, some higher up is bound to bribe him for the power first
>>46126443
In the nation's birth after the collapse of the Aquilonese Empire, the last survivor of the old royal family, who'd ended up in control of her ancestral homeland, created what she dubbed the doctrine of Matronism. In its simplest form, Matronism is the idea that the state is responsible for its citizens, as a mother is for her children. This leads to social policies that, in the real world, would be recognized as socialism.
This country, the nation of Astaria, had a long, long history of a hereditary aristocracy, and unlike in the real world, there was no breaking point where the people turned against the nobility; they're still an accepted part of the system, with an emphasis on proving their worthiness of the privileges associated with their birth by working hard at the responsibilities that also come with that birth.
It's not something that would likely have arisen in the real world, but it's not impossible either.
Social Structures resemble Age of Exploration Feudal Monarchies, with the beginning of Nationalism.
The world was once wracked by mythic wars between the Gods of Good and Evil, but for the last 700 years the continent has been undergoing an anti-magical shift where things are becoming more mundane and magical beings creatures and powers are weakening. Only in the far off exotic countries to magical being still roam freely.
More people are commoner peasants and serfs with the exception of Gothos, which benefited from legal reforms during the Golden Age and Silver Age. However in the Steel Age, the government is ramping up for massive scale warfare and all available citizens are being conscripted.
>>46122709
>Tell me an interesting geological feature in your setting
The basis of my setting is that the material plane merged with the elemental planes, so much of the setting can be described as interesting geological features.
If I had to throw out one, that would be the region known as the Teetering Peaks. This area is the buffer between what would be the last bastion of the old world and new one dominated by air. What once was plateaus nestled in dry plains has turned into a myriad of great slabs of stone sitting precariously atop narrow pillars. Despite the name, the slabs are remarkably stable, many of them are home to cloud giant villas. The ground is peppered with large pits. Some are simply deep, others are a window to a second sky below.
>mfw the Republic in my setting's leading export is terrorism
My players are going to be in for a surprise when the freedom-loving Republicans are actually vengeance-obsessed lunatics with access to technology a good Age or two ahead of the setting's standard.
What could I add to this to make the player's response even more complicated?
>>46124964
I can't remember what I copied from other posters, because I made it mine.
>>46122709
An ancient tower, so tall that you cannot see the top that is actuallya ruined space elevator left over from a precursor civilisation.
>>46127747
I like the map. It's clearly based on an E/W flipped map of Europe, but with enough stuff changed to keep things interesting.
I notice the not-papal iconography in Illandry, the Not-Egyptian in Aedria, and the Not-Muslim in Abyssid. I'm still not sure if Karta is Not-Zoroastrian or a different flavour of not-Muslim.
>Setting has a rather low tech area
>The people there don't wear armor, for the most part, their militaries are spear toting skinny dudes
>There are a few scattered blacksmiths, who are considered a combination between masters of mystical powers, and strange, weird witches
>The strongest warriors in the area typically trek to their lairs, to ask to be armed by them
>They will always provide assistance to those that come, but are extremely fickle. Your weapons/armor from these men could either be glorious-godlike enchanted equipment, or shatter to dust in the heat of battle
What do you guys think?
>>46131402
>Literally sub-equatorial Africa
That's fine, but I don't think it would last more than one fairly short campaign.
>>46128621
Extremely similar to an idea I had. My setting had a rogue knight order that had been traveling the lands and inciting rebellion in many provinces of a kingdom, despite the fact that they typically became hellish French revolution style hellholes, they held the belief that it was fine, because people being able to express themselves freely is the greatest good.
>>46131402
Why do they just help any random guy? If they helped anyone, wouldn't there be a massive waiting list? Everyone would line up hoping to get the good shit.
Why don't they charge for their services? How do they get food if they spend all their time smithing? If their skill is so rare why not charge for it and become wealthy?
Why do they randomly change the quality of their work? What do they get out of that? At some point someone who got a shitty weapon and didn't fi d it funny would get pissed off and come back and kill them.
Why have powerful warlords not taken control of these Smith's and forced them to work for them, producing metal weapons for their army?
It just seems poorly thought out, and not interesting enough to justify the contrivance.
>>46124121
I was doing that, but like i said, keeping track of time and relativity and shit just ain't worth it.
and I know could just ignore all of that, but my autism wouldn't let me.
Who here /mspaint/?
>>46112755
>>What are the social structures in your world?
For Sha'hara on the top is the Empress the head of the corporatocratic-like gov. The economy is set up so that every citizen/subject is a shareholder in the government and is therefore invested in its well being.
>>What does the stratification look like? How many social classes are there? How much social mobility is there?
The Empress is the absolute ruling head and above the normal government.
Government/public service such as councilors, administrators and military have highest standing. They are looked upon as honorable and hold the empire's and its peoples interests foremost. Those in this position are subject to heavier or brutal punishments for violation of their duties and laws.
Next are Citizens. These are members of society that have proven their worth through education, business or service. They are the ones able to vote on choices presented by democratic ballot. Any individual that meets the minimum requirements can become a citizen regardless of origins or birth.
Subjects are those that live under Sha'haran imperial rule but are not Citizens. As subjects of the empire they are entitled to its care and protection but are unable to fully participate in society the same as a Citizen. Those that remain Subjects are unable/unwilling to meet any of the minimum required Citizen eligibility conditions or those too young or new to meet them. There is no limit to how many times a Subject may petition for Citizenship. Subjects may also enter low-level military or civil service for a prescribed minimum time to gain Citizenship. Those that shirk citizenship are looked upon with disfavor for being weak willed, lazy or untrustworthy.
1/2
>>46133017
2/2
Slaves are those who, by punishment or conflict, have been legally declared as property. The amount of freedom they have rests on their registered master and can live like Subjects or be kept almost like intelligent cattle.
There is full social mobility both up and down. This was instituted as policy to encourage faster and better development and to take advantage of skills that may be overlooked. Even a slave may serve in military and civil capacity and receive honors(though not Citizenship). A loyal and high performing slave is seen in a very positive light by society and generally the master/owner receives public/social pressure to emancipate him/her.
>>How much of a role does kinship play in social organization?
Kinship by blood and marriage is used to cement alliances between families and clans especially across a racial divide. The most common occurrences are in creating commercial alliances for leading merchant families and in between neighboring towns/holdings. Nepotism is rarely practiced as the environment is often too cut throat to not hire the most qualified you can for the job.
>Futuristic Scifi setting that doesn't involve intergalactic space travel or aliens
>Primarily set in a transhumanist nation that has achieved AI and extreme cybernetics that is the superpower of the time
>Other nations are slightly less developed than the superpower but have developed alternative technologies or means to compete and survive on a relatively equal level
>Themes for the game focus on espionage and combat
TLDR; players are going to be soldiers of a transhumanist superpower trying to undermine their national enemies. I want to try and diversify the technology of the enemies so that it's not just cyborgs and robots killing each other. Biotech is an obvious alternative, but what are some underused fields that would make interesting antagonists or exotic technology for the players to recover and implement themselves?
So here's a map I made. It's BABYSFIRSTMAP for me, so uh, be gentle.
This map does look shitty, but I removed the rivers from it because they were like, a metric ton more shitty.
The idea behind this area is that it's pretty much a Gulf of Mexico flipped East and West, in simplest terms. I'll be reworking and expanding this area as time goes on, and it represents the main heart of a new campaign I'll be running. The players will be starting a new colony from Fantasy Europe here.
The feature that I unfortunately didn't make clear, and the shitty removed rivers kind of did, is that there is straight line of water, going right through the path of those little islands, the peninsula and the mainland, creating a passage to the other side of the world. It was created by some asteroid plot device(?) thing dragging itself through there, thousands of years ago.
So yeah. I tried to aim away from an East/West flip of Central America, but here I am. Any tips to make the coastline more interesting? How should the inland mountains work?
My latest attempt at a city layout. I have no sense for how a city should really be organized.
>>46134365
There are two kinds of city layouts, generally:
-Cities where people knew there would one day be a city, and planned districts and zoning ahead of time
-Cities that grew over time
For case number one, it's GRIDSGRIDSGRIDS and for case two, that's where it gets fun.
Just put yourself in the mindset of the Royal engineer over the past centuries, or whatever. The highest ground, defensible area should go to the Castle. That's a district. Then just start plopping districts around it over time. You don't need to plan every single building for a city, that's a lot. Just the pathways.
Over time, slums get demolished for construction, but there should always be a shitty place for poor people to live in the city. Slums outside of the walls.
There should be very few main roads throughout the city. These define the real traffic in the city, everything else builds off of them. The walls on the outside should have as few gates as possible, for defense and security. Old walls and gates can mark important places in districts.
King's Landing from A Song of Ice and Fire is a very well constructed city. There's a lot of neat stuff about it.
>>46133017
>>46133164
I have literally no clue what 'Sha'hara' is supposed to be.
>>46134191
yo dude i'm building a setting that's very similar. i got a ton of gear planned out for both the players and the enemies.
i don't personally mind having fantastical elements in scifi, but i don't know if you feel the same. i like having borderline-magical stuff and explaining it away with pseudo-science.
here's some examples of weapons/gear. you probably have a lot of these but i'm dumping all of it to be sure
>a steroid that makes you incredibly powerful for a short while, but then causes a total nervous breakdown
>psionics: mind control, fear inducing, psionic screams that damage and confuse enemies, teleportation
>power armor and other suits
>cybernetic limbs or eyes
>all sorts of implants, nanomachines and genetic modifications that basically let you do fantastical things
>weapon modifications from ice to fire
>guns that shoot microwaves, lightning, radiation, lasers or cybernetic arrows, railguns
>powered swords, gauntlets and hammers, including a sword that makes you insane if you aren't careful
>a monomolecular wire that slices through just about anything
>a wrist-attached missile launcher or flamethrower
as for antagonist designs, i got these
>all sorts of products of genetic tampering, cloned supersoldiers, brutish genetic abominations, freaks that are strong psionically but weak otherwise
>all sorts of fantastical enemies explained away with science, like zombies that are actually junkies suffering from a severe future drug withdrawal, or vampires that are actually soldiers that have gone crazy from their implants, or ghosts that are the product of powerful psi soldiers dying and so on
i got stats planned out for most of these things so if you need help with that, let me know
>>46134365
Someone linked a really good article in one of the earlier threads which talked about how it's highly unlikely cities would develop symmetrically on opposite sides of a river, until very large and there are enough bridges to connect the river and accommodate the traffic, and it mentioned osgilliath as an example of how it shouldn't work. I'll try to find it again.
>>46134326
With mountains on both sides that entire inland area would probably be a giant desert
>>46132735
reporting in
>>46129863
Both nations are majority Demislam, who worship the Demiurge Termagant, which is why they both have the Griphon.
However there are two major factions, the Kartic Branch believes that Termagant granted dominion of earth to humans and the dominion of the air to Djinis, so their society incorporates both folk and actively promotes magic and mysticism.
While the Abyssidian decree that Termagant forbids magic and thus they shun all nonhumans and forbid sorcery, focusing on martial prowess and strict religion.
>>46137001
>not!Islam
>promotes magic
Shows how little you know about Islam, infidel.
>>46137032
It's directly based on euro medieval perceptions of the Mosslem Saracens, which is why it's called "Termagant". Also pre-islamic arab folk stories like djinis, ghouls etc.
>>46137032
It sounds to me a lot more inspired by Zoroastrianism, given that Abrahamic religions don't have demiurges and all that, and that Zoroastrianism is the source of the term 'magi'.
>>46137124
Ah maybe I'll change it then to make it more synthetic or completely different.
>>46137175
No I dig it. I just meant it seemed more nuanced than just being not!Islam, and it dovetails with >>46137090 given Zoroastrianism overlapped with pre-Islamic folk stories. I like what you have there.
A simple map I did yesterday. I've been thinking about rotating real world locations for my maps for some time now and when I saw a hilarious thread on /k/ I decided to use the Falklands as a base.
This is for a setting with roughly contemporary technology and society, I haven't made out any details yet, but I think its a decent base
What are the most important festivals in your setting?
>>46137368
B E E R F E S T
E
E
R
F
E
S
T
>>46134962
It's a millennium old empire about the size of the U.S. eastern seaboard that I'm trying to make. Its supposed to have started as a motley collection of refugees, runaway slaves and mercenaries that fled into dragon territory to escape wars to the center of the continent.
The empress is a human-dragon chimera that struck a deal with dragons and militarily expanded to its current size. The main races are elf, human, orc and dragon. Sociocultural evolution is supposed to be military/bakufu > monarchy > aristocracy > absolute monarchy > imperial corporatocracy(empress is CEO). Local civilian government(regions) is limited democracy subject to an appointed military governor. The empress is supposed to have a grand plan but may have also gone insane after so many years.
I'm trying to set the empire as choosing economic route to power because military expansion is getting increasingly difficult. Going for a late medieval time period with magic for the whole thing.
tl:drA way too complicated magical realm.
>>46137175
You know what I'll infodump the complete breakdown if people are willing to critique it:
First thing first, there is a disconnect between the 4 Prime Gods (each alignment) and the human religions, where they are not 1:1.
The 4 gods are Anun, the Golden Angel (Good), Zuul, the Shadow of Fear (Evil), Trass, the Iron Geometry (Law), and Sirik the Starstruck (Chaos). These four really exist but are limited to interact with the world only a single time in creation. Zuul has already acted by creating a champion of evil about 1,500 years ago and ushering in the Dark Age. Anun reacted by creating a holy warrior about 800 years ago to defeat him and bring in the golden age. Trass and Sirik have yet to act. There is a fifth god Norn who is the intermediary between the four.
The major human religions don't have direct revelation from the 4 but are instead founded on human institutions led by Divine Spellcasters.
In Illandry the Church of Pietism records the lives of Saints in the Concordat Canon, to serve as moral examples for mankind. They worship the Triumvirate, The Lord on High, the Prodigal Son, and the Winnower. They also play kingmaker for most of the human nations.
Gothos is an exception, where during the Dark Age it was the seat of power of the Evil Tyrant, and thus was a despoiled and wartorn landscape of sorrow. However, in 0 RE the divine folk hero Yoryn rose from the people and led an army to depose the Tyrant and became Prince. The House of Yoryn is the ruling family and has lead Gothos from the darkest pit to the highest acheivments in culture and magic. The house of Yoryn promotes Anunism which is existentially Sun Worship Paganism.
In Sangrield and Belgundia there is Drunish Druidism, which focuses on leylines and balance of nature. However Welyg is the heart of Unseele Druidism, which is tainted by ancient blood magic.
Mitreaea has a unique religion focussed on asceticism and mystical revelations and martial arts (the "Monk PC" place).
>>46135900
Thanks. I'm doing something similar with the borderline-magical element too so a lot of that does work.
I didn't really consider adding psionics but that might be a good addition. Cybernetics and power armor are going to be a trademark of their own nation so I wanted to try and throw exotic stuff against them that would stand up to that tech.
I like the zombie idea too. It might be good fodder for an urban environment. They'll have high-quality weapons and armor so I need to find ways that challenge them even while they are well-equipped.
>>46137522
Assuming their nation is the "good guys", you could frame the other nations as specializing in copying some aspect of the player nation's technology, but with an evil twist.
Since the other nations' technology isn't quite there yet, they can't get things working quite right. But they have something the player nation doesn't have: ruthlessness and complete disregard for the value of human life. They are desperately trying to catch up by any means necessary, so their technology has turned out to be horrifying, impractical and really not that people-friendly compared to the players' technology.
One nation could rely heavily on cybernetic abominations. Instead of the subtle and smooth cybernetic enhancements that the players have, their cyborgs could be terrifying amalgamations of flesh and steel. Their existence seems painful, but it isn't clear if they even feel pain. System Shock and Helldivers are probably a good source of inspiration for that.
Another nation could rely heavily on genetic tampering. Unlike the players who have gained overall enhancements to strength, speed and intelligence, this nation's genetic research has led to horrifying abominations, like ones that possess brutish strength but abysmal intelligence, or alien-like humanoids with vast mental capability but no physical strength. Or, products of crossing human and insect/animal DNA, like skittering humanoid "spiders" and stuff like that. Possibilities are pretty endless.
And maybe one more nation could rely heavily on sheer numbers and dangerous firepower, kinda like WH40k Imperial Guard. Since they have tried to replicate the superior firepower of the players' nation with limited success, their weaponry is crude, heavy and dangerous. They could also have combat-enhancing drugs (and implants) that turn people insane and stuff like that.
i think i'll use some of this stuff in my own campaign
Show me the knights of your setting! Do different countries have different designs?
>>46135900
reminds me of xcom
>>46140346
There's a theocracy in my setting with these things, called the Helgenosts.
They're the royal guard of the divine empress, and basically the peacekeepers of the country.
Former knights who have converted their bodies into large power suits, and wield giant weapons which resemble old knight equipment, but are highly advanced technologically and come with devices that silence magical abilities.
>>46137304
Assuming this is a world map, I'd argue that the coasts are a bit too rough. all those peninsulas and other jagged regions would fade away into smoother-looking coasts when viewed on a global scale. That said, though, yes, the overall shape of the continents looks pretty good.
>>46137368
A giant catperson orgy in the jungle that lasts all night
>>46137368
Anniversary of the marriage between the King and Queen who originally founded the Empire, since their anniversary is also the anniversary of the Empire's founding. 180 or so years after the fact, the various countries that used to be the Empire still celebrate it. Monarchs' birthdays and the anniversaries of secession from the Empire are also celebrated.
So I'm working on a near-future sci-fi setting. The basic premise is humanity more or less discovers magic, starts using it as a new power source and makes technological jumps, until 20 years later, they over-use the new energy source and shit happens. Reactors built using it explode, leaving giant holes in reality, from which demons start invading. Some years later, and humanity has been pushed into a corner and is trying to fight back the armies of Hell.
I've got 4 factions so far: the Knights Templar, new military order established to fight back the demons, armed with the best weapons and gear; the Cabalists, people that believe the best way to win is to fight fire with fire, so they invest in experimental technology to take out the demons; Cults of the Damned, apocalypse cults, marauding warlords, and general scum that are taking advantage of the chaos for personal gain; and the Infernal Legion, the demons themselves.
I've been thinking of expanding with some other factions, the other ideas I've had is an Asian-centered faction to go with the Templars and Cabalists, the idea that coordination has been cut off, so China, Japan, India, etc., had to develop their own force to combat the demons, but I'm not entirely sure how to compose them. I kinda want to stick to the psuedo-orders that the Templars and Cabalists are using. The other faction idea is the Morlocs, humans affected by the initial disaster that have been driven underground, due to mutations, and are now emerging to be a threat to the humans.
>>46142200
>China, Japan, India, etc., had to develop their own force to combat the demons, but I'm not entirely sure how to compose them
if you're going to involve an eastern nation, you could make them basically like wandering samurai or kung fu masters.
they could be very few in number and always traveling alone with unclear motives.
they could be very calm and stoic, but still extremely brutal and efficient in a fight.
and the less the players would know about them, the better. is the east already wiped out, and these are these guys are the remnants? or are they lone agents sent by an eastern nation to gather intelligence? who knows! i don't know just spitballing here.
>>46142200
Check out The Magic Goes Away by Larry Niven
What *pre-Tolkien* fantasy races/creatures are worth keeping around for an urban fantasy setting? The big three (elves, dwarves, orcs) either don't exist or exist in very different forms that might not be all that useful, and I'm not familiar with older stuff.
Would you roleplay in a world where there are no humans, only sentient quadrupedal creatures? Would you roleplay as a sentient quadrupedal creature, or would that only ever interest furries?
>>46142477
Fairies are always fun, especially with a pre-Shakespeare vicious Fae Folk take on them.
>>46142585
The Fae were never vicious, they were just weird and operated on different rules than humans.
Shit, Huldra are basically the eponymous example of how pre-Shakespeare fae would behave; sometimes loving, quite beneficial, but usually dangerous.
>>46142381
There is power armor in the setting, so would be a little stereotypical, but could have it that mainland China exploded, and Japan and the Pacific chain have to use small-scale mecha, since their numbers are so limited. Make it so they are used to being out on the field for long stretches of time alone or in small teams.
>>46142406
Looked it up on Wiki, and kinda the opposite. Going from modern society, to "magic" being a new energy source with some other applications, to "oh fuck, there's demons and wizards everywhere now".
>>46142477
Check out Hellboy for folktales interacting with modern life. The comics do a lot more of the classical pre-Tolkien tales and such, while the first movie was more Nazi super-science.
Here's a thread about the Anonimi, a race of tiny creatures with culture, clans, and such based off our own.
>>46136467
>talks to artist after writing a description for world
>they get excited
>they tell you how they've missed working on your world
>tfw you joke and laugh like partners in crime
Do you have a partner that you build your world with, /wbg/?
>>46143980
Thanks for reminding me how I'm all alone and don't got a single artist or builder buddy to work with.
>>46144032
I-I'll be your friend, anon.
>>46144064Really?
Who /superhero setting/ here?
I tried to do an imitation of Marvel & DC (With my own twists and such) a while back, but I got frustrated and left it be. I have a setting with powered folks, but it's not really superhero, per se.
>>46125596
>many key figures of my setting are visually inspired by the many personas of David Bowie
Oh my, I did that as well. A duke in my setting is visually based off of the Thin White Duke.
How many dukes should you have figured out in your average kingdom before you allow yourself the luxury of making shit up on the fly?
Everyone has heard about how unique your elves are and the many different kinds. What we don't really talk about is where you put them. Where do your elves live? What are their settlements like?
>>46144616
Roman cities.
>>46144082We can chat on Skype, if you give me your username.
>>46143980
no, i trouble my friends with ideas out of the blue for any advice at all and rarely get it
then i come here and not type anything up cause it's exhausting
>>46144999
Your dub trips speaks truth.
>>46143980
Maybe one day. Too much of it is just not completely connected ideas in my head to feel comfortable taking it to anyone else.
Found something on
>>46144616
The wood elves livein the forest, some being savage tribals and some ancient masters of nature in great palaces shaped of trees, each civilization shaped by their environment and fortune.
The high elves livein a single, seclusionist, arcane driven island kingdom of stereotypically towering spirals.
Of the water elves there is only a single tribe, who live in a reef near the rift to the plane of waters. They live in crude home made of large dead corals and caves. They protect the rift by concealing its presence from both sides, and believe there are fire, air and earth elves who protect three other rifts to the planesalthough they don't exist
>mfw have two ideas for a scifi world
>They're incompatible with each other
>Dont want to get rid of one or the other
;_;
Anyone wanna hear them so I know which to work on?
>>46145653
Make one, then the other one.
>>46142575
It's not that I have any against playing as animals or some other species, but the issue with quadrupeds is that they are so vastly different it's hard to do so many things that are taken for granted in storytelling (like using objects or wearing things) that it just becomes difficult and not that fun.
>>46141472
Reminds me a lot of Hellgate: London and Shattered Earth.
>>46145666
but I'm already working on a fantasy world. I don't wanna be doin' three of 'em.
>>46122709
One of the continent formed atop of fossilized body of a dragon.The dragon is still alive, but sleeping.
Floating isles rise and descend over decades, constantly reshaping the landscape.
>>46145783
Satan wills it, check those trips.
>>46145783
That's why you commit your notes to paper so you can work on them a while, leave and come back.
>>46145775
That's a good point, but brings me to this next question. What if these quadrupeds have intermediate dexterity, however, equivalent to that of a young human child? Would that change your approach, or would it still be too alien to get into?
>>46112755
Now that's a clever pic OP.
Now i have been dabbling in geology recently, and well, you don't really need to invent a new world, just use earth.
We have about 1.5 billion years of vastly alien lands to explore, there have been at least 5 pangeas, why would you even turn europ on it's side when you could just use the devonian era map of the world.
It's fucking amazing guys.
Earth but as we never knew it. Virgin territory. Anything could have happened.
>>46143980
I have a friend/roommate to bounce ideas off of, I give him feedback for his gamedev shit (mostly with the design parts), he endures my nerding about fictional worlds. 's good.
The entire map (as well as a few other territories unshown) were a part of Old Talinaira, an empire whose first emperor was declared the prime god after his death.
Since then fallen apart due to wars of succession, rebellions and decadence, it is now a collection of varying territories, kingdoms and city states, two of whom still claim divine right to rule through the Talinairian bloodline -the Emperor in Talinar and the Kaiser in New Temple.
>>46146345
And now without a bazillion notes overcrowding everything.
>>46143980
A pair of friends to talk about it. They give me feedback and some times ideas.
>>46146345
Hex maps usually look like shit, but that actually looks quite good. I also like that the title of Emperor actually means something in this setting. Answers the question of "why doesn't every king just call themselves an Emperor?"
>>46146026
You're so lucky. I've got no one to bounce anything off of.
>>46146838
>tfw I always use Emperor when and only when I can figure out three separate kingdom titles that could exist in the area of that empire.
There's like, two empires in the setting and one kingdom that insists it's still an empire. I make it painfully obvious why the former are worthy of the diadem and the latter is not.
>The Not!Mediterranean of the setting is actually a sea created by a massive planetoid crashing into the planet a long, long time ago.
>This may be the origin of the Elves and it's hinted there might be "things" at the bottom.
Should I go full battlebots and sci-fi with the denizens of the deep, /wbg/? The setting so far is staunchly medieval (but advancing) and doesn't have a lot of anachronisms.
>>46147324
There's other ways to add deep sea creepies and still keep it medieval
>>46140346
Dragon Knights are knights of dwarven tradition who are in platonic and courtly love with a dragon. Most of them don't see a single dragon in their lives, the few of them that get a little atention from one and maybe some gift, are the stuff from legend. No magical realm because getting physical with one is forbidden and considered impure.
They get access to the only dragon scale armors in the setting.
>>46140346
There are a unique order of all female elven knights who ride unicorns, aptly named the Knights of the Horn or Unicorn Knights. They're devastating on the battlefield, chaotic and wild, their number are few but powerful. They represent the fickle nature of the untamed maiden, both kind and cruel.
>>46140346
The Black Vigils, also known by the slur of "demon knight", are humans born with a thick, leathery second layer of skin covering their entire body except for their palms/soles, faces/scalps, and genitalia/anus. By the time they reach puberty, most of them have learnt to expand and retract this layer at will, which allows them to fit into everyday social life among regular humans as long as they don't doze off or fall unconscious. From this second, called "negrum" for its oily black color, they can grow a thick, interlocking carapace not unlike a beetle's, but several times harder - the carapace can be shed at will and re-grown later. This makes them prime material for mercenaries and bodyguard - they are usually taken in and trained in the arts of war by the monastic order of the Black Vigil, from which their name is derived. An adult Black Vigil will be sent on queste to finish their training and become a full member of the order, so encountering one or a small group of them on the road is a common sight. They specialize in three major things: killing giant monsters, acting as siege breakers in the employ of warfaring Lords, protecting said Lords from attempts on their lives. Common folk however do not trust them and would rather they were left to die as children. More often than not children that show signs of a "negrum" are abandoned or killed out of fear and prejudice.
>>46123869
I would like to know more about what those different weird versions of the genders are, since that pic doesn't go into detail.
But good not-fair social hierarchy here.
>>46143980
I used to have one. He had many issues and was probably institutionalized. The last message he sent me was 6 months ago apoligizing for his absence for the prior months.
Since he left, I have nobody to talk about my world building projects and I'm not sure if I will or should find anyone else. He was the probably the most intelligent and enjoyable person I have ever met online.
It's saddens me because worldbuilding is one of those creative ventures you really can't share, it's more of an inner hobby. It's a shame but I think that's how the world just works.
>>46149391
Damn... I'd say I'd volunteer to bounce ideas off with, but, that's a heavy heart you carry. Good luck to you, man.
>>46149391
That's the fundamental principle of worldbuilding, though. You're doing it primarily for yourself.
No other person can know nearly as much about your setting as you do.
>>46149645
Not that anon, but that depends on your personal interpretation of the word. What do we define as worldbuilding? Sitting around, thinking about things, ocassionally jotting down ideas or doing some art for it? Or is worldbuilding, putting it ALL down into words to fully develop it into one giant RPG bible?
If the first definition, sure, but if the second, part of the reason for developing the bible is so anyone could pick it up, read it, and understand it as well as you do. At least, that's how it has always been for me.
I'm trying to decide on rules and rights for Adventurers in my setting. They're an organized, trans-national organization.
So far, they have the right to carry equipment and magic items, their property and speech are protected, and they have the right to travel across borders freely.
>>46149748
I've been writing down "rules" to define the setting, but I'd never be able to write literally every detail about my setting.
I'm up to 30,000 words, 180,000 characters.
>>46149760
First question is, how did it come to be? Think of the political climate of every nation when this organization was approved. At the time, every nation would have to agree on these rules, rights, and privileges. So, think about what each nation would try to put into this organization, and who would have succeeded with what.
That is where I'd start. After all, if all nations didn't agree, that would defeat the purpose. Or, make things incredibly interesting, depending on your approach.
>>46149858
Damn, that's pretty impressive. How long have you been working on it? I'm barely even close to being done with mine. I've barely scratched the surface.
>>46132656
Ansible + Mass Effect + Star Gate, m8. Keep things to a single Galaxy and you won't have to compensate much for relativity. Especially a puny galaxy like the Milky Way with its 100,000 light-year diameter. Wormholes don't violate relativity.
>>46149860
Those rights only apply within member nations of my world's Federation, and each has a couple stipulations and limitations, like:
>Weapons are expected to be peacebonded while within major cities
>Equipment and magic items are allowed to be transported over borders freely
>Dangerous or illicit substances are not subject to protection
>Though their speech is protected, Adventurers cannot act as military advisers, or to train troops
>>46149940
Sounds like you've already got a handle on the rules, then. Those all seem reasonable to me.
>>46149905
Almost daily since September. The creative spirit comes and goes.I spent the first two months just assigning rules to an existing novel I like, and it evolved from there
>>46149964
http://pastebin.com/nUJCYFGE
I need more ideas.I copied some of them from Hunter x Hunter's Hunter Bylaws
>>46149976
Nice. I'm only 4000 words in, and I started a few weeks ago.
>>46149604
>I'd say I'd volunteer to bounce ideas off with
I'd still enjoy that, regardless.
>>46149645
I know, that's what makes it a tough hobby.
>>46150121
My Skype isanonmooselord, if you're interested. No pressure though.
>>46149994
Who decides what a "threat to civilization is". What if country A conveniently labels an undesired political party as criminals and fetchers. Are adventurers automatically obliged to eliminate this party with no mercy?
How are adventurers paid? Does the federation collect taxes which then go towards paying adventurers wages or are they paid more directly for a particular job?
What if an adventurer goes "off the rader". Maybe they have a requirement to check in with the guild every year or something and submit for a physical.
How do we go about rooting out rogue adventurers before they become the big bads of tomorrow? What if mage adventurers need to have their magical research audited every few years to make sure they aren't pursuing lichdom or something. (Maybe something similar to the UN watchdogs keeping an eye on countries developing WMDs.)
What court/system punishes adventurers who flee from threats they should have handled. What court/system keeps an eye on whether adventurers are playing favorites?
What's a reasonable number of races in a given setting? PC, NPC, or both.
>>46144616
The "Half" Elves (Actual amount of Elf varies from 100% to about a fourth) have blended into the background of larger Human cities. Social status depends on which nation and city.
Then you've got your "Free" Elves, who live in sorta isolated valley-kingdoms to the North. There's some trade, especially when valuable minerals are involved, but they mostly keep to themselves. Due to their isolation, their settlements are less ornate than most others, with a few imported necessities.
Then you've got the ones everyone just calls "Elves", whose Emperor signed his nation and people away to the fae a milennia-and-a-half ago in order to protect against the invading/migrating humans. So now their lands are a horrible mix of Mad Max and Changeling: The Lost in a magical forest. They're also the only immortal elves, thanks to the "please stop my people from dying" part of the deal. They don't really "do" settlements anymore.
The only reasons the other two groups survived is that they weren't technically part of the old empire. the Halfs had surrendered to the invading Humans, and the Frees had never been conquered due to their irrelevance.
>>46150214
I don't know but I'm up to 29 in mine and I love them all like little children.
>>46147324
Very "Weird Fantasy", anon. I love it when this sort of thing happens, as long as you don't go too overboard.
>>46144616
They live in the frigid north as warmongering, surprisingly organized tribals divided on family lines, and in the south they're diaspora living Jewish-style (and Jewish-treated) within human cities.
The worst of them, pic related, live on the moon. The New Moon is known as the Dread Moon because it's the only phase of the moon cycle where the Elves can gate down to the surface and massacre a couple villages before leaving come morning, taking with them slaves and trophies.
The worst are the ones that choose to stay planetside, since they typically form terror cells or unite the northern tribes as viciously cunning generals who supply them with metal weapons and armor.
One of the campaign arcs feature the Elves seeking a way to cause an endless New Moon, allowing them to launch a full-scale invasion of the planet.
>>46150214
Seven is around the time you start having trouble juggling these things, though if you're REALLY good, you can go higher.
>>46150195
"Threats to civilization" are magical creatures or goblins 90% of the time. Adventurers are to be impartial, and aren't law enforcement.
Adventurers are paid through contracts the Guild makes with a rich individual, a nation, or some other party. There aren't wages, and most retired Adventurers have a secondary occupation.
"Off the radar" Adventurers would be considered retired or inactive after a year, or killed in action if they were on a contract.
"Rogue" Adventurers were likely convicted of a crime and fled. A nation would probably put out a bounty contract on that person, usually to bring them in alive. Lichdom isn't a thing in my setting, and Wizards would probably just make bank on magic items.
They're guidelines. If an Adventurer doesn't follow them, they'll probably decline in popularity.
A strong Adventurer settling down to protect some city is almost expected, and there are more inactive Adventurers than active ones.
>>46150260
Same guy as >>46150327
The Elves are so vicious because they've spent thousands of years wandering through space on a rogue planet, which is enough time in frigid darkness to make anyone start believing a religion built around Void Worship is a good idea.
Well, it'll either be that or the Elves world was dying, so they gated to another world for greener pastures and promptly got their shit fucked up by the dragons, forcing them to either escape to the far corners of the world or leave the world entirely.
This is supposed to give the players an extra moral dilemma, since the dragons are unrepentant assholes but they're arguably the only thing keeping the Elves from dropping another meteor on the world.
>>46150214
>Races
Best I can shoot for is like...six unique ones before I move on to individual ethnicity within the races.
>>46150455
>>46150260Fuck, I said that without even answering your post.
I'm playing with the idea that the planetoid was an island-sized fragment of the Elven Homeworld that was accidentally shunted into existence above the world during their desperate scramble back to the Gates, they're meant to be this weird blend of hyper-technology and magic that was regressed to the state they are now (that is to say, screaming primitives or weird modern-medieval like with the Wild Hunt.)
>>46144616
The dark elves built a civilization far to the west in what is now a great, arid land. Their architecture relies heavily on earth/stone construction from simple rammed earth and brick houses to immense pyramid-like structures supported by arches, buttresses and vaults using mostly sand stone, granite, marble and limestone.
The high elves in their great forests up north use ensorceled living wood and plants to bind to stone and metal to form structures. This creates exceptionally tough structures that often look like stone structures wrapped in a manicured natural garden. Some structures rise to above the canopy and intertwine to create raised tree towers where the rich and powerful live.
The wood/regular elves have had their homelands taken by humans and their culture virtually destroyed. What remains of their architecture is shown in the use of arches and great spans of metal and stone construction and the extensive use of wood as a building material using little to no metal. The knowledge of construction and materials have been passed on to their conquerors and are still in popular use today.
The wild/original elves build into caves, expanding them and extending the outside using earthen mounds similar to sod construction. It proves to be an effective way to blend in better with the surrounding environment and one can walk right past it without noticing if it weren't for the cooking fires and brightly decorated portals outside.
Whats a good title name for 'God-Emperor' besides, ya know, God-Emperor.
For the longest time I went with Fylkir, which I just stole from Crusader Kings 2
So, /wbg/ have you ever "reversed" cultures?
I'm wondering how you could get implement not!Frankish culture and lifestyle into a desert setting, not!Ancient Middle Eastern culture into a forest setting, and not!Ancient Chinese culture into an arctic/tundra setting.
>>46151293
One Who Rules Above All
Alternatively, Weltkaiser
>>46151326
I did have a Not!Rome in a scorched desert once.
But that's more because they overused the Sun Magic of their Deities, unleashing ENTIRELY TOO MUCH SUN MAGIC onto their lands.
>>46151293
The Celestial Emperor
>>46151362
Bit of a mouthful. Although that might be one of his 'other titles'
All Emperors have those.
>>46151491
I REALLY like that. Maybe just 'The Celestial' for short.
I like to use the Civ V SDK for my maps, this is from one of my old Campaigns-I have a second Cont. incase I wanted it later on-but ended up just having to use that one and the surrounding islands.
>>46151657
And here's a bit of a zoom in with the grids removed which is what the players would typically see (When I hid all the units.)
>>46151657
The Civ V SDK?
Now that takes some dedication.
Very nice maps anon.
>>46137368
Kobold Mating Season, where the other cultures get together and distract the Kobolds with massive amounts of food and drink.
If this is not done, the Kobolds will mate endlessly during their season, reproducing to the point where they will outnumber all other races combined. The excessive food and drink distracts them long enough so that they reproduce, but not in colossal amounts.
>>46150195
>Who decides what a "threat to civilization is". What if country A conveniently labels an undesired political party as criminals and fetchers. Are adventurers automatically obliged to eliminate this party with no mercy?
Aside from hill giants and the inconveniently placed frost giant warband, there really isn't anything that anyone would really consider a known threat to civilization.
>How are adventurers paid? Does the federation collect taxes which then go towards paying adventurers wages or are they paid more directly for a particular job?
Adventurers are paid by whatever party hired them. There is no standardized system.
>What if an adventurer goes "off the rader". Maybe they have a requirement to check in with the guild every year or something and submit for a physical.
There really is only mild disappointment if an adventurer, or anyone really, disappears. Unless someone has a family, really good friends, or an agreement with some other party; no one cares.
>How do we go about rooting out rogue adventurers before they become the big bads of tomorrow? What if mage adventurers need to have their magical research audited every few years to make sure they aren't pursuing lichdom or something. (Maybe something similar to the UN watchdogs keeping an eye on countries developing WMDs.)
Regular society has no real way to prevent this. The nearest giant society will probably squash the threat before it is a massive problem.
>What court/system punishes adventurers who flee from threats they should have handled. What court/system keeps an eye on whether adventurers are playing favorites?
Let's just go with "buyer beware"
>>46151696
>>46151718
Thanks, and yeah-took me a good long while of no-lifing but I have an excel document containing like 20+ side quests broke up by Arcs, a list of artifacts, all those units are custom named so I remember what they are down to bandits, cultists or orc bands, gave eah nation a flag and a few superstitions/customs. Like the one i'm centered on is pretty much the "1%" being wizards who keep the population dumb, and they are at war with a nation that is broken up by houses of magic (such as Conjuration or whatnot) into a republic, the two of which at this point in the game are at a war-however to make matters hilarious-the PCS are on the competely opposite side of the map dealing with a princess kidnapping only to be sidetracked by a cave with a scientist-like engineer who has essentially housed his lab in a cave full of grimlocks while he works on a sort of steampunk mecha suit for his own gains. (The players ended up shooting first asking questions later, taking the suit-then realizing they had no idea how to operate all of it's settings as it ended up brutally stomping through the cave blasting those blind bastards only to overheat outside from overuse of the uncompleted weapons system which would be completed in Arc 2 if they were not tampering with his part of the world.)
Here's a current map i'm working on-the edges are lazy right now until I get a feel for how I want them to be. Brownie points to anyone who can identify the source map-since I downloaded and began to tweak it to my liking (and still am).
I am one rambling SOB, Anons.
>>46151893
It did not post, odd.
So here is take two of this map's roughdraft for my upcoming homebrew system's world.
>>46151916
I know it's just how you did the tiles to represent rivers, but those rivers look FUCKING HUGE.
>>46137368
>Insert Name of First Emperor here< Day
Celebration of the Birth of the First Fylkir
Basically Christmas but with more violence
Feuds between people are settled with duels
Enemies of the Empire are shelled with really big guns (as pictured)
Clergymen get hammered
The reigning God Emperor gives a big speech via radio (no TV yet)
>>46151986
Yeah, unlike the last Campaign, this world is meant to be a hell of a lot smaller and more compact. The world has more of a Z axis exploration vs X, Y. so each tile is only something like 3 miles, where the other was like a 5 mile travel.
The dungeons are kind of based on a world reset thing i'm doing-so if you eventually dig deep enough, you can uncover artifacts of ages past in a more modern time.
I want a Dwarf to find coke zero and smarties, it's my twisted magical realm.
I need some more ideas for Chimera. In my setting, Chimera are strange combinations of animals made in an attempt to make the "best" animal.
So far, I have:
>Griffons; the body/tail/back legs of a Lion and the head/front legs/wings of an Eagle
>Owlbears; the body of a Bear and the head/talons of an Owl
>Gigant Rabbits; mixed features of a Bear and a Rabbit
>Gorehunters; mixed features of a Rhino and a Crocodile
"Greater Chimera":
>Nightstalkers; mixed features of a Panther and a Bat
>Manticore; mixed features of a Lion, a Bat, and a Scorpion
>Basilisk; assorted features of several reptiles, including a Snake, an Armadillo Lizard, and a Crocodile
>Cockatrice; mixed features of a (setting-specific wyvern species) and a Hawk
What did the people living in medieval villages do for a living? Were they basically all farmers? If the village gets a lot of outside traffic, there'd be an innkeeper and a trading post I guess. A village would also need a blacksmith and a carpenter.
What other jobs need doing?
>>46151812
wouldn't it be easier to just ethnically cleanse the kobolds
>>46137368
Annual reading of the book of the dead. The spirits get very angry if those that knew them in life do not remember them in death.
>>46151893
>I am one rambling SOB, Anons.
i know what you mean, i feel like a retard whenever i explain my lore too
not that your lore is retarded, i didn't even read it
>>46122709
I'm always a fan of world trees, basically Not!Yggdrasils, and how they affect the surrounding area and the cool magic/mythos they could have tied to them in the setting.
Trees are great, and stupendously fucking huge trees are greater.
>>46137368
Festival of Lights during the Winter Equinox.
I wouldn't say it's important, but it's big and flashy.
Imperial capital is on a lake/inlandseafront, so when winter is at its peak a four-armed tribe in the north that lives in cities on pseudo-icebergs sails/floats down and does trade/festivities with the population.
>>46144616
High Elves are actually simply pureblooded elves with immortality and all that jazz (at least as far as age is concerned). Long ago the achieved so much with their magic and technology that they basically became a precursor civilization while the other races were developing alongside them. Unfortunately when they had to fight off the dark evils on the other side of the world their population dropped rapidly and their low birthrates couldn't keep up so they intentionally interbred with humans to create half-elves which are in the modern day simply known as "elves", who have exceptionally long lifespans (400~ years die of old age) and a relatively much better rate of birth to match. The High Elves then built floating cities, positioned them over major magical leyline hubs for dat delicious mana generation, and hid them within folds of reality so that they technically exist in that location in the material plane yet don't interact with matter in their location, if that makes sense.
The now regular elves have varied cultures depending on location, near the equator you get brown-chocolate-waifu elves and less temperate forest elves have more of the pale features you'd expect, but if you look all over the world you'll find a whole spectrum of elves.
Some remain in their forest cities, some live alongside humans in their cities (or technically vice-versa in many cases).
No edgy drow.
>>46151916
Why do the races not intermingle in regions?
>>46153767
Tailors, woodcutters, some type of church usually, fishermen, teachers, brewers.
Miners if your blacksmith doesn't want to pay exorbiant import fees.
Builders, some kind of physician to keep the health of the populace up, hunters perhaps.
Under the umbrella of farmers there's the many different types of crops, there's herbalists, there's shephers to handle animals, etc.
Towns usually have some kind of cosmetic shop as well such as a jeweller, but not as fancy as the word would suggest in the modern day.
This wouldn't be anyone's main source of income for a small town outside of a warzone, but you need militia/guards as well.
>>46149221
Well, haven't thought any deeper diffrences than in face-patterns/behavior, bulk.
I also need to figure out how children of disgraced/casteless work. Probably judged by a shadan/venerable amdai, into an-shu if they are feeling lazy, otherwise jandai-integration, shadan into shadan since they are considered sacred.
Desw out of empire (in west) assume more western structures (raising children etc.)
>>46134365
This looks pretty good, but I've got a few little things to mention.
1) Those bridges would block trade from the sea flowing downriver unless they were later-period bridges (which are built higher and often work like drawbridges so boats can pass). It's not impossible to manage trade with lots of bridges like this, but the technology would have to be at least a little further ahead than the late medieval period. Late medieval London had only one major bridge. It's also possible they could regulate trade by having it all stop at the city, and then be transported through the city and carried downriver from some eastern docks.
2) Cities like this usually start out as two unique and unevenly-sized settlements on either side of the river, with ferries across if needed. You've done pretty well keeping the two riverbanks uneven, but they both stop on the same spot of the downriver area.
3) Walls are not the end of most cities. Again, look at London. Urban sprawl, even in the medieval period, should grow outside the walls for some distance. This is because people don't magically stop needing space once they expand out far enough to hit the walls.
4) The ocean is the place where any sea-based raids would come from, which is a problem for any settlement built on a river but a coastal one moreso. A city like this would probably have a fort built near to the shore to help guard against pirates and raiders, even if it was an old one now.
>>46154228
They do-it's a rough draft where I essentially put the dominating race in that region down for future reference of what nations I spawn there will have a major demographic of, there are even a few races considered nationless that are in a few of each, duch as Drow, Devilbirths and other various races.
There is even a scientist type who has a wandering crab-legged fortress who says fuck it to the nation's borders as he enters areas trying to salvage buried technology to build up an army of what are essentially Warforged.
But yeah-most races intermingle, except the rare few like Drow in High Elf Society, and Dwarven Society is shut down pretty tight unless your on great standing excluding their topside posts for sake of trade.
>>46122930
>This is the closest thing to a GMing thread.
Just start one, hardly going to go astray on this board
>>46146838
A lot of IRL kings did call themselves emperors. Post-Rome the title was especially popular.
Many of these "empires" were barely a couple small countries in size. It's just ambitious people calling themselves something they aren't. Like dictatorships calling themselves "democratic".
>>46141203
Not necessarily, (geologically) recently created volcanic islands may well have jagged coastlines. plenty of contemporary examples such as Iceland and indeed the Falklands.
>>46154786
Yeah, but in Europe Emperor actually meant something other than just Big King, because it implied an inheritance or succession from the Roman Empire. You didn't claim it unless you were implying you were the current rightful inheritor, and doing so tended to piss off the other guys claiming it. There's a particular legitimacy to the title, and its very rare to just randomly see it in Europe prior to Napoleon (who opened the flood gates for everybody claiming the title)
And it's nice to see that >>46146345 has put some thought into the title's meaning in his own world.
>>46145977
one of the best maps I ever used for a campaign was literally Indonesian Archipelago mirrored + a slightly edited Oz. It was great.
>>46154605
That lizard looks so done with that guy's shit. I like it.
DAILY REMINDER that if your world's equivalent of Islam is somehow aligned Good, you are living in denial of real life's facts.
>>46154228
Because race-mixing leads to degeneracy
>>46155650
Tell me a religion that is good aligned then, /pol/.
>>46155657
European Christianity, Atheism, Nazism etc.
>>46155673
Ok , /pol/, if that's what floats your boats.
>>46155650
DAILY REMINDER that making Not!Real world nations or religions is the laziest form of worldbuilding.
>>46155673
>Nazism
>religion
But also
>Nazism
>good
>>46155657
>>46155695
>>46155711
Ignore the trolls.
>>46155839
I can't, trolls are a major race in my setting
>>46155653
True, and the purest form of breeding cleanses us of degeneracy.
>>46151812
This makes no sense whatsoever. If kobolds naturally out-breed every other race why aren't they the dominant species to begin with?
If historically their numbers had to be held in check by force, how did they ever become integrated with other races?
You clearly haven't thought about this very much.
>>46156849
All but the most medieval of hamlets will have problems with genetics, anon.
Hybrid vigor does not exist, and neither does the idea that a nation of a single ethnic group will become inbred.
>>46156954
And neither does your minority scapegoating fantasy called degeneracy, anon.
So /wbg/
Whats the strangest race in your setting?
I have a tie between the Great Race of Yith that live in the far north, and the Werewolf Fairies.
The Were-Fairies were created when a large amount of werewolves wandered into Fairylands and settled down there.
They live on an Island Kingdom thats ruled over by the Fae Qeen and Wolf King,
>>46157274
>Whats the strangest race in your setting?
Obsidian golems granted sapience by a blood ritual gone wrong, and they've kept the blood ritual going ever since.
They despise their flaky, gleaming forms and desire nothing more than to acquire bodies of flesh, this is why they're so big on wearing skins and pelts.
>>46157300
Geeze. That's pretty intense.
I like Golems. Their fun,
What exactly will they do when they get their bodies of flesh? Blood Orgy?
>>46155650
My world's equivalent of Islam is outlawed, and practising it will result in a short rest against a wall.DAILY REMINDER that if your world has anything aligned good, you are living in denial of real life's facts. Or, more accurately, you have a world that's not designed to be realistic -- which is fine.
>>46157274
I've got a generic half-formed race tentatively called "Magic Bullshit". They live in the wild places and take many forms. Goat-men rove in tribes, crow-men flock to decaying knowledge, hollow robbers lead unwary men to their desert homes -- then eat their insides. And so on.
My more developed races are way more boringly prosaic. I'm wondering how to fix this.
>>46157381
>What exactly will they do when they get their bodies of flesh? Blood Orgy?
They'll never get their bodies of flesh, such is their lot in life.
>>46157486
What if they grow flesh around them?
>>46157526
>mfw they could just chisel their bodies into obsidian skeletons and grow flesh around them
Well... Shit, never thought of that. Thanks dude, I've got something to think about now.
>>46157486
>implying none of them would have their bodied shaped and polished into the likeness of humanoid skeletons and then covered in magically grown flesh or flesh equivalent sustained by more blood rituals
It's like you don't even want fantasy terminators as an adventure hook. Shit GM is shit.
>>46157638
I'm totally doing this now, they'll be to this society as the Pochteca were in Aztec society; long-distance traders and merchants often employed as spies or assassins.
>>46157638
Alright, that's pretty fucking cool, m8.
What are the largest, most active online roleplay communities out there?
>>46150214
Humans (humans)
Eoruques (horned, grey-skinned, ancestor-worshipers, best mercenaries in the world, good at math)
Aleph (veiny, crimson-skinned, descended from Bronze Age desert mystics, heretics whose religion holds the key to magic, mostly nomadic now)
Derojin (sexless, asexually-reproducing, only race known to be creations of gods, dream of their gods every night, make everyone kinda uncomfortable)
Gaians (savage little nature spirits, spontaneously generate, despise domestication, consider people animals, no cannibalism taboo, raid farms to release livestock and slaves, eat them mid-escape)
Innocents (grimdark half-undead failed reincarnations, stillborn as babies but reanimate, never grow past childhood, abducted at birth by the church to serve as elite spies and assassins, the rest are feral children, usually lawful evil, edgy as fuck)
That works out to six. I'd say each has at least two subraces for mechanical purposes, and of course regional cultures come into play as well.
>>46157274
Pretty difficult to say, but I guess lunarians are at the moment the "strangest".
As the name suggest, moon dwellers. They are sort of stone-like, spindly in appearance, the limbs are forked, and they spread coral-like "antennae". They are completely pale.
In moon's gravity, they are completely fine. On planet, they are bit more sluggish, but can operate well ( surprisingly light creatures ).
They communicate in radio-waves ( due to lack of waves ), with very occasionally radios on earth picking up some of their chatter - untranslated of course, from lunarian language. This does suggest a culture, of sort.
But they are few in numbers, though, thanks to their reproductive cycle.
They are effectively immortal, able to revert to pre-mature state. Sometimes damage ( or other reasons ) force a single mature lunarian to split into two lesser ones.
Of course, they don't really need to eat or sleep. They are mostly powered by sunlight and environmental magic.
They can produce web of sort by ingesting moonrock and absorbing sunlight.
There are some records of them, although lot dismiss them as sort of myths.
Unlike other races ( outside of draconians ), they are an artificial race, created by grace of some unknown passing outsider - way before even modern races emerged. They have seen the world cleansed by fire, time after time, from their neat little orbit.
>>46158072
>raid farms to release livestock and slaves, eat them mid-escape
I like this take. If you want to do nature spirits right, you gotta take the good with the savage.
All your races are good actually.
I'm trying to design a world based on Japanese society being fucked around with by foreigners selling them guns and shit.The different is that the foreigners are blatantly not human and they sell magic to people. How does a nigga build a map?
Does anything immediately stand out as completely stupid about my village layout?
>>46158242
Mapmaking tools are in the original post man
Alright anons, time to reveal your true colors.Have you ever cried over a story in your world?
>>46158302
Where are the farms.
That greenery outside the village walls is way too fertile to be wasted.
>>46158489
>Have you ever cried over a story in your world?
I've never *cried*, but I've certainly been moved while writing about a particular segment of the world with thematically appropriate music.
You can guess what I was writing about with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bPMzD7xY1A
>>46112755
Isn't that Europe turned 90 degrees counter-clockwise and Ireland moved north?
>>46158637
That's the joke.
>>46158175
Thanks, I put a lot of thought into them. Basically, I don't like the thing fantasy settings do where they designate a few "good" races and a few "evil" races, so it's a setting where pretty much any race could make good villains in one context, but also make good allies or player characters in another. Each race has a few "face" traits and a few "heel" traits, and there are a few distinct cultures that are multiracial(and have their own mix of face and heel traits).
>>46112755
Alright, I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I'll ask it anyway.
My setting revolves pretty heavily around Necromancy. I'm having my players enter the mausoleum of a pretty powerful necromancer lord in Notegypt, after a loong search for it (think The Mummy meets Indiana Jones with swords and sorcery)
I want it to be a double pyramid, shaped like an hourglass and buried almost fully in the sandso that when they kill the final boss, traps open around the mausoleum and fill the hourglass with sand.
I have already decided the bottom half would have originally served as a burial ground for mummies, before being partially refitted to house a large magical crystal smack dab in the point where the two pyramids meet. The crystal is actually beaming energy to the sarcophagus of the necromancer, ensuring he stays down.
What about the upper half? I kinda want to steer clear from making it just a temple of sorts, or a recharging device for the crystal itself. Any ideas?
>>46158637
>i don't understand jokes
>>46158637
And the flipped image didn't show. The fuck 4chan?
>>46158652
>>46158658
Guess it flew over my head then. Could blame it on the lack of caffeine, but probably the issue is between the chair and the keyboard.
>>46158704
Anon, what's between your keyboard and your chair is your crotch. What exactly are you implying here?
>>46158504
Good point. Now I need to figure out a good way to draw farm fields in this style.
>>46158734
I don't know what you're talking aboutYou know too much
>>46143980
Recently, yes.
The demand of my Roleplay had hit a big enough score that I had to take in and train two more people who volunteered for my upcoming campaign since we have an est of 12 to 14 PCs coming in. [Online, mind you. I'd never run such suicidal tasks at a true table.]
>>46157691
Important questions:
>Do they have physiological survival needs either as a whole race (such as the maintenance of a single continuous ritual) or on an individual level (individuals must satisfy the conditions of the original ritual continuously)?
>Can they reproduce and if so how?
>How is their society structured and who is it ruled by
>>46159056
>Do they have physiological survival needs either as a whole race (such as the maintenance of a single continuous ritual) or on an individual level (individuals must satisfy the conditions of the original ritual continuously)?
It's on a regional level, blood must be spilled on an obsidian altar while the sun is at it's zenith to keep the ritual going. Higher platforms for the altar translate into a wider radius for the spell (this is why the temples are typically the center of a city, and the temple grows in accordance with the city's growth.) More blood allows more golems to be tied to the spell (tying into the second question) and special blood means the ritual lasts longer - this results in either the sacrifice of a great king and his advisors, or a steady stream of sacrifices from Flower Wars or the mass bulk sacrifice of tribals.
If a golem leaves the comfort of their city's ritual radius, their "heart" still beats yet will gradually fade, causing them to lose more and more of their intelligence until perishing.
>Can they reproduce and if so how?
Golem shells are carved by craftsmen with a hollowed "core", the hearts of sacrifices are crystallized as soon as they're removed (ideally while still beating) and placed into these cores, granting the shell life.
>How is their society structured and who is it ruled by
It's ruled by the priests, as they are the ones who create life and maintain it. Rulers and administrators oversee the complicated job of organizing the carvers and crafters (the third) and lead the soldiers (fifth ring) in acquiring sacrifices. Commoners are more or less "blank slate" bodies tasked with "making things lively" while waiting for a role to be carved into.Any recommendations on things to change? It's worth mentioning that, like the Aztec, the golems themselves are often a minority percentage of the "population", with most of it (60-70%) being client tribes of living things.
>>46159626
>If a golem leaves the comfort of their city's ritual radius, their "heart" still beats yet will gradually fade, causing them to lose more and more of their intelligence until perishing.
Addendum: I'm considering whether or not to give the golems the option of "consuming" fresh blood in order to keep themselves sapient, as a way to continue the ritual on an individual level. This would allow some golems the chance to travel to the Old World without dying mid-journey, and also give players the chance to make an obsidian character if they find them fascinating.
At the same time, I'm hesitant on doing that because I like the idea of all attempts to separate the golems from their homes inevitably failing, and the Old World just chalks it up on something unrelated to the blood ritual.
Stumbled across this series of articles about interesting cities in history. Thought /wbg/ might enjoy them.I'm not sure how high quality or accurate all of them are, but there's stuff for the imagination for sure.
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/21/story-of-cities-6-potosi-bolivia-peru-inca-first-city-capitalism
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/18/story-of-cities-5-benin-city-edo-nigeria-mighty-medieval-capital-lost-without-trace
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/16/story-cities-day-3-baghdad-iraq-world-civilisation
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/15/story-cities-part-2-secret-ancient-rome
Just started work on my first setting
dont have much so far other than everything was fine until some cunt opened the equivalent of pandoras box so now all the cities are walled off from the outside world, using various underground tunnels for trade routes between each other
having lots of fun even if it is cliched to hell
>>46158737
>>46158504
How does this look?
>>46159868
It's looking good! I'd change the "crop" color from green to wheat-gold so people can tell at a glance what they're looking at, while adding a splash of color to the piece.
>>46157638
I have fantasy terminators in my setting.
They're basically advanced, modular Golems. An attempt to recreate Humans piece-by-piece using metals and other materials.
They require a lot to get rolling, though. Until you replace the base components, they're monotone metal skeletons without any real benefits.
>>46159675
Keep it. Making a race into PCs loses their mystery. Either you're playing a game in that region and it's okay, or you're not and they exist only as mysterious foreigners.
>>46158489
I've sometimes gotten too attached to a historic event I'm making. Not because, "I'm so good at writing, I'm making myself cry," but because I start thinking the story is better than it actually is and begin making history focus too much on the event. Or the people of the world end up having too much accurate details that by all rights should never have been passed down.
When something like this happens, though, I try to embellish the story some and make it a play in my world.
>>46160551
>Or the people of the world end up having too much accurate details that by all rights should never have been passed down.
I've been trying to do this with my worldbuilding. I'm only writing down information a particular character in my setting knows.
So I have a ton of details on how magic, artifice, and the planes work, but I've only named 3 major cities and a single lore figure.
>>46160665
I've got the opposite problem; I know what the nations are and what they're doing, I know who they worship and how, I know the power players and the key NPCs both high and low... Yet I haven't a clue how magic works, or the exact nature of planes, or how artifice or Druidism should be.
>>46160174
My settings Golems are a bit strange.
They were created by the God of the Forge. When the world was first created and in its infancy.
They live in the mountains, forging weapons and armor for fun.
Three sections to the campaign:
-First section, the PCs follow quests given to them to find magic items on a magically irradiated continent and can engage in revolutions to overthrow apocalyptic despots
-Second section, they begin to fight more magical monsters and uncover an extraplanar conspiracy between the Illithids and some other evil entity (to be determined)
-Third section goes full spelljammer, where the party hijacks/builds a ship to fly through space to the Illithid superweapon, that has now entered orbit around the PC's full planet and is intent on doing... something. Making people braindead seems odd since the Illithids like eating memories - would it make sense to have the Illithids having engineered the previous magical apocalypse and fallout to try and destabilize the world and saturate people's minds with dormant arcane ability?
It doesn't have to be Illithids, but they seem really cool and I would definitely like to have some sort of totally evil, alien race having been behind the original disaster with a long-term plan that is finally coming to fruition.
Can you guys help me flesh this idea out a bit?
>>46158637
No, it's Europe turned 90 degrees, with Iceland turned and moved closer to Scandinavia, Iberia squished into France, Anatolia squashing Greece, and Ireland completely missing
How do I handle my paranoia that I'll build a wonderful world map, then be inspired to add something new and have to tear huge amounts of it up to add one small thing? (or abandon the new idea.)
>>46162143
What would inspire you to remake the map instead of reworking the themes into the original concept?
>>46162162
A cascade of "hold on a minute, that doesn't make sense." moments emerging from a change.
Is this thread still active?
I'm hitting a bit of a creative hurdle right at the core of my world.
On the one hand, I want players to have access to roughly the sort of magic they're used to from generic D&D. Give them a set of spells they can cast with fairly predictable results. Note that I don't want to make any sort of distinction between arcane and divine magic.
On the other hand, I don't want to give the players very many certainties regarding cosmology and the spiritual. Different cultures should have their own (clashing) mythologies and religions, none of which are verifiably true.
How do I combine the reliability of a spellcasting system with the mystery and uncertainty of wildly varying mythologies?
Have a spellcaster-themed picture for your troubles.
>>46162328
Have an underlying system for how magic works that you as the creator understand fully. Then make it at least complex enough that various interpretations for how it works can exist among the world inhabitants.
For instance, in this hypothetical world knows if you wiggle your hands like this and say the words like that you'll generate a fireball. However there are numerous conflicting views on why doing these things results in a fireball maybe some cultures believe these actions harmonize one with the world allowing them to briefly take on the power of primal fire, maybe some cultures believe performing these actions pleases their god so the god himself creates the fireball, maybe others believe these actions allow the normally inhibited power of the mortal mind to make itself manifest on the physical realm.
>>46162143
This happens to me as well, so I just worked on my map slowly (like over the course of months). For a while it just sat as a simple outline, then as I developed the lore, I realized I had to make changes, and was able to make them as I hadn't set the map in stone. Then I added more detail to the map, developed the lore, made changes, etc.
Don't worry about finalizing and polishing the map until way later on. But it's good to have a simple map from the early stage.
>>46162328
The way I do it is that there's an ancient religion in-setting that worked out the metaphysics of arcane magic before anyone else could and treated it as a religious practice, but now the religion in question is considered heretical. All texts on arcane magic are considered theological works, and derivative of this religion's sacred texts, and as a result there are all kinds of complicated politics surrounding the use of arcane magic. This is part of a larger picture where I have a really complicated cosmology and a bunch of religions, and all of them are right about something, but none of them know everything. So there are a bunch of conflicting versions of the truth out there and nobody can really agree on which one is right because all of them are a little right about something.
The ancient Aleph religion has worked out arcane magic.
The cultists of Ourab are correct in believing that a giant serpent was trapped inside the world at the dawn of time.
The Church of the Sighted Sainthood is correct in believing that the root of all evil is corrupting reality, and that their overgod is the only thing keeping it at bay.
The cult of the Hushed Gnosis is correct in believing thatphysical reality and the known planes are a spiritual prison, and a mere shadow of the true reality outside their bounds. Also, that the Sainthood's overgod is an obsessive-compulsive tyrannical demiurge with an inflated sense of self-importance.
What none of these religions realize is thatthe universe they inhabit is nothing more than the latest in a series of successive universes, that the over-overgods creating these universes screwed up and created the root of all evil, that the Sainthood's overgod is basically a janitor they installed to clean up the mess, and that the serpent at the heart of the world is actually an invader from the previous universe, in which a similar corruption was left unchecked and consumed everything.
>>46162328
You can do what Mage from the World of Darkness series does, which is in line with what >>46162463 said, and have the basic magical ability be universal, but in order to learn in it, you need a 'paradigm', which is like a scaffold for not just understanding how it works, but to aid in believing that it will work. Each religion could offer its own paradigm of why and how magic works. In Mage, mages who are advanced enough transcend the limits of their paradigm and start to just be able to will things into existence using the underlying universality of magic.
Another way to do it is more in line with what >>46162908 said, which is that wizardry is an art that can be added on to by particularly insightful and innovative wizards, and their spells get passed down to future generations, who can then build on them and add new spells. So you would develop traditions or lineages of wizardry, each with their own strengths and weakness. These traditions could be wrapped up in theology and religion in your world, meaning each religion would have it's own body of arcana to learn and derive from, but in order to access it, you have to become a member of the clergy of that religion for long enough to be taught their secret knowledge.
>>46160896
The Ithilids have been spending years causing shit for adventurers to deal with so as to develop tasty memories/experiences. Also, they've been trying to increase human intelligence across the board for the eventual harvest. That's what their doomsday machine is for: a Massive Memory Harvest.
How do I prevent my Empire's Paladin Law Enforcement from becoming door-kicking Fascists?Not sure if I want to prevent that
The Empire has been lead by the same charismatic God-Emperor Paladin Guy for hundreds of years.
The Empire puts a high value on personal liberty, like expression, property, self-defense, and privacy.
It's also a meritocracy, where the powerful and skilled are influential. The Emperor is the Emperor becausehe's higher level than the average Human because Dragon blood
>>46159868
>>46158302
>Where are the farms.
Darn... I was hoping your response was going to be that this is a plot hook, where someone makes an off-handed note to about there being no farms around supporting such a large village... Because, of course, the village is populated solely byTHE UNDEAD!!!! (Dun dun dunnnn...)
>>46162328
what the fuck is going on in her armpit
>>46163222
Rules written in stone or the Ivory Tower approach.
Rules written in stone are simple and heavily enforced and they should be something along the lines of the Ten Commandments (hence the name) although with less "worship me, i all that is) and the paladins leave the smaller criminals to lower law enforcers.
The ivory tower approach is that the emperor really doesn't care about anything beyond the well being of the empire and does so by letting the people do as they wish and has the paladins as both envoys of happiness and skullbashing commissars when somebody threatens the order of things.Or just go full 40k and have the paladins kick down doors on a moments notice to beat the shit out of even the most innocent of suspected heretics and let the propaganda machine and secrecy keep people in the dark about it
My lichs are all terrific orators, merchants and bargainers who willingly convince people to switch organs and bodyparts with them. The end result is that they all look like patchwork but eternally young messes, and many liches are fashion-minded and want to create certain patterns.
Certain wizards are known to experiment on their own bodies to fulfil the strange tastes of these liches and seek them out on their own as lich bodyparts provide great magical power. It's not unheard of for specially enchanter bits of these daring men to spread like a cancer through the lich's body and eventually turn them into a clone of the donor, with the lich's memories.
>>46163222
>The paladin's forces are spread very thin. They do kick doors in, but they are so busy kicking in doors of actual covens and cartels that terrorizing the average citizen with a police-state is simply outside their capabilities.
>They are bound by laws protecting the common folk
>They are not the only faction. Other servants of the God-Emperor (the priests or the army or the city guards, politics can get rather complicated) keep them in check.
Remember that any large empire is going to have to integrate and placate its new territories.
An emperor that abuses his far subjects will find them rebelling and his armies either spread extremely thin or composed of the very same people that are now rebelling.
>>46163390
So far I've just envisioned it as Paladins being psychic cops that go full "Stop right there criminal scum" every time [Detect Evil] pings on someone.
There's a court system similar to the U.S. one that handles the rest.
I like that ivory tower approach, though. The law enforcement are more like detectives than actual cops, anyway.
>>46163433
That's a really weird way toinclude your magical realm in a setting
Am i being too snowflakey with my necromancy in my setting:
>Necromancy is Lawful Neutral in DnD terms
>Necromancers are as a common as any politician, except a hundred times more bureaucratic and pencil pushing
>Their magic is to magnify the residue of a soul left inside corpses and corpse parts instead of using natural magic like other wizards
>The corpses are just magical marionettes rather than souls trapped in corpses and are filled with artificial souls that are basically microchips in the setting
>Using live people in magic is extremely powerful, but forbidden by law and tradition of the necromancers
>Same goes for capturing spirits and using them as mediums for magic
>And also placing real souls in corpses is also forbidden as it interrupts the natural flow of things
>Liches are incorporeal as they sacrificed their living bodies and souls to ascend and keep their chosen forms by sheer will of power. Floating skeletons are out of fashion and most liches choose to be floating clothes with goggles and glasses in place so people can actually look them in the eyes
>Think of setting
>Then think "Wait, if they can do x then why y"
>End up thinking the entire premise is stupid
Dammit.
I just want a science fantasy setting that still has reasons to dungeon crawl.
>>46163858
Make the party data miners and say the dungeons are digital representations of the pathways and firewalls leading to the good stuff.
>>46163320
I believe that's called "hair," anon.
So I'm trying to reason a way for my setting to value Platinum more than Gold, even though Gold is central to the creation of magic items.
So far, I have an alloy of Platinum-Iridium forming my setting's Orichalcum.
Could I get away with Mythril being a Platinum-Rhodium or Platinum-Palladium alloy?
>>46164083
Why not?
>>46164083
I don't know what the second part means but afaik platinum is rarer than gold, thus more valuable.
Even if copper is used for almost everything today, if it was rarer than gold it'd be more valuable.
>>46163281
The real problem in this region is ghosts, not zombies. Some verminfolk are going to steal the village's book of the dead. This greatly angers the spirits, who don't want to be forgotten.
>>46164083
Maybe having platinum stuff is some kind of big status symbol, like having a diamond ring today, or having a massive dick
Here's a sample of my world's shitty common script. Middle row is how it would look typeset, bottom is how it looks handwritten.
>>46164083
So I have:
>Common metals;
>Copper, Tin, Nickel, Bronze, Lead, Iron
>Precious metals;
>Silver, Gold, Platinum, Rhodium, Iridium (often called Dwarven Steel)
>Fantasy metals (alloys list Metal/Substance or Metal/Metal);
>Cold Steel (Iron/Magic), Cobalt (Iron/setting-specific poisonous Lapis Lazuli), Mythril (Rhodium/Platinum), Orichalcum (Iridium/Platinum), Adamantium, Titanium (Adamantium/Magic)
>>46163858
Do what I do. Accept it is stupid. All settings are stupid. Revel in its dumbness. Then create it.
>>46165276
What if its so stupid it undoes everything?
>>46160175
>Keep it. Making a race into PCs loses their mystery. Either you're playing a game in that region and it's okay, or you're not and they exist only as mysterious foreigners.
What about the rest of the race, does it work?
Also yeah, I was never making these things with the intent of letting PCs play them - I thought about it while typing up that post sure, but ultimately they were just supposed to serve as a strange new race for the PCs to deal with when they travel to the New World.
At least, if they *choose* to go to the New World, I'm really making sure there's at least one campaign's worth of "main quest" material for every kingdom, and some of them (like Chalon or Palencia) have at least three.
>>46165656
Then you take that drill of stupidity and pierce the heavens with it.
Besides, all settings are stupid, I mean there are so many obvious gaping plot holes and cliches in reality that JJ Abrams might have directed it (OP's pic related). No doubt you are overthinking some silly minutia and blinding yourself to the all important big picture.
>>46163320
>>46163920
Nah, that's just the rough folded skin of her pectoral.
>>46163222
Other factions with roughly equivalent power to keep them in check works well like >>46163472 said.
I have a somewhat similar thing in my setting where the Church holds a lot of official power in the Empire, but there are multiple paladin orders operating with differing degrees of belief and morality, some are the ones who would love to be door-kicking fascists while others are much more moderate, the kind to bend over backwards to the common folk. Each order's actions are restricted because they have to answer to each other and generally agree on large-scale actions, lest they be excommunicated and branded heretics/traitors. This also prevents any one order from overstepping their bounds.
>>46162328
Why not just not explain the cosmology?
That's what I do. Magic users and Clerics are rolled into one 'class' in my game as well, but even the normal people have some form of magic. Like voodoo dolls and craft tablets- they still 'work' but are all mystical and subtle. The people who are really good at this become Sorcerers; its all a gradient instead of being just an on and off thing.
>>46166104
settings where cosmology is explained and settings where cosmology is not explained are fundamentally different, you can't interchange the two as a quick solution.
so you're saying, 'don't do your favourite thing, do my favourite thing instead.' it's not very helpful.
>>46166666
>you can't interchange the two as a quick solution.
I don't see why not. Just don't tell your players, bam, it is now an unexplained cosmology.
>so you're saying, 'don't do your favourite thing, do my favourite thing instead.' it's not very helpful.
The original poster asked how to do a thing and I told him how I would/did do it. It's just a suggestion, not something you have to.
Wasted pents.
The wrote an article about us.
http://www.theonion.com/article/novelist-has-whole-shitty-world-plotted-out-21193
>>46166733
>I don't see why not
it's an entirely different worldbuilding ethic. depending on how much is already written, it may require a lot of rewriting. and it informs a lot of other decisions in other areas beyond the cosmogony and religions in a way that may have to be reversed. but yeah if you're a lazy worldbuilder and not trying to make anything memorable then it's probably easy.
>The original poster asked how to do a thing and I told him how I would/did do it
you told him how to not do it, and do your thing instead, which is not what he was asking about.
>>46166666
nice
>>46166666
Witnessed.
>>46166666
Has the prophecy come true? Has the Kwisatz Haderach arrived?
>>46164661
I love custom scripts, it's always nice to see people put effort into that part of worldbuilding. what's the associated culture (or race)?
>>46163858
>>46165276
Everything is stupid.
Real life is stupid
>So these guys starve themselves to protest stuff? That's so unrealistic, it violates humans' survival instinct.
>Why wouldn't the Europeans sail across the mediterranean and down the nile to get to the holy land instead of walking all the way? The author clearly doesn't know logistics this would never happen.
Basically, everything you do is smrt and everyone who questions it are armchair proffessors.
What are the giants like in your world guys and gals?
>>46167287
It's a utilitarian script adapted by the United Empire, because of how easy it is to cut the shapes into woodblocks for printing. This is the alphabet for "Common" in my setting, and is just English with this alphabet replacing ours.
The Empire is a melting pot, having only recently finished its spread across the entire continent. It is a magocracy.
>>46167421
Imposing.
>>46167421
There aren't any in mine. The Golems can be upwards of 12 feet tall, if that counts for anything.
>>46167421
To understand the creation of the giants, one must understand the reasons for their creation. In the Drachenstaat there are laws in place on the number of dragonborn any one dragon is allowed to own, this number being tied to the number of humans (determined via Census) that dragon has within their duchy. Larger populations equal more dragonborn, which equals greater military power and a louder vote in the Centurial Diet when prince-electors and the Kaiser are chosen.
Some dragons try to increase their population through conquest and slavery, others through cultivating the land and allowing it to flourish, which encourages population booms. For the duke of Vandorme, a legendary dragon by the name of Sulhn, he thought to bypass the restrictions entirely.
Rather than rely on increasing his population to increase his dragonborn, Sulhn decided to utilize his human population itself as a replacement for the dragonborn, experimenting upon them with magic and genetic modification to increase their size and power. Thus, the giants were created, and as they were technically derived from humans they did not violate any laws. It didn't take long however for Sulhn to realize why the laws were in place, and by the third generation a rebellion of Giants and half-giants overran his Archives and smote his ruin upon the mountainside.
It didn't end there, for the giants declared their independence from the Drachenstaat and, aided by the frightening technological nightmares uncovered from the Archives, fought back attempts to return them to the fold. This created the Republic of Vandorme, and for the time being they hold a precarious position of freedom and proxy war through incited revolts throughout the empire.
>>46167421
Once vassals of the gods given domain over the earth in exchange for it's construction. Betrayed by the gods when their work was complete, broken and scattered. The dead buried beneath the mountains. The maggots of the giant dead were given the sentience by a number of gods, whose guilt of their treatment of the giants gnawed at their hearts. These maggots became the crude but pious dwarves.
>>46167544
My shadow creature.
>>46159626
So captive bred humans or free range humans? Because it seems like this civilization would essentially replace normal agriculture with the requirement to produce enough humans to keep their population from all simultaneously dying.
Which would probably be super difficult with normal humans, they might even want to breed themselves some Eloi.
>>46168399
>So captive bred humans or free range humans?
Free rangecatfolk, humans aren't native to the New World (the golems themselves were created by eagle-people.)
Kobold is a racist name referring to all small races other than halflings. These races include ratlings, catfolk, lizards (standard D&D style kobolds), and so on. Another racist name is "verminfolk." They prefer to be called "The Scurrying People."
They wander the land in family groups, sometimes tolerated but almost never welcome. They have a reputation for being thieves and child snatchers.
By appearance, goblins would also fit into this category, but they have their own culture.
>>46168571
>Humans are non-natives
I like this trope. Humans in my setting are just Apemen mixed with Elves.
>>46167421
cute
CUTE
CUTE!
>>46169097
Is there uh, more of this?
>>46169165
not that I know of.
>>46169313
Where do you get pieces of leather big enough to clothe people that size
>>46169444
Other giants.
>>46169313
that spine is broken.
>>46169560
Probably from the sheer heft of those breasts.
Those things are huge even by giant standards.
>>46169560
You need to do some stretching if you think that's going to break a spine.
>>46169811
I know about how spines work BECAUSE I have back problems, and that is not a regular slouch, that's a "I got snapped in half by Bane".
>>46169887
You having back problems is more indicative of you not knowing a spine works retard.
>>46169887
That would be extremely painful.
>>46169887
>>46169952
The main issue is that the torso/spine seems far too long (for human proportions at least). You can tell the artist lengthened it so that the boobs would be visible despite the raised knee. They could have just switched the legs though.
>>46169952
Note how it's bent BACKWARDS in your pic you utter fucking mongoloid, but two straight fucking lines meeting at a 90 degree angle in your fapbait animu pic by some talentless hack who doesn't know that thighs don't start 10 inches below the actual pelvis. Maybe if you weren't genuinely mentally handicapped or had a grasp of human anatomy, you'd have noticed. Fucking idiot.
>>46170055
Lol ok anon. Enjoy those back problems.
Komodo Dragon society is dominated entirely defined by wrestling matches between males.
Now, your setting needs lizardmen based on the WWE
>>46169963
She's a big girl.
>>46162328
>How do I combine the reliability of a spellcasting system with the mystery and uncertainty of wildly varying mythologies?
Each mythology has different guidelines for achieving roughly the same spell. There's only so many ways things come down to it, but foreign versions of spells can either cost less, be less effective, or wildly upgraded versions, depending on the type of culture they are (read:what level they are when they learn it/are introduced to it). Different cultural approaches to fireball spells may be intensely increasing heat on a point and making an arc for that point, manipulating air current and creating a single spark to create a reaction, or just actually summoning a flame spirit briefly.
quit arguing and post giant girls
>>46167421
Giant races have a more established and sophisticated civilizations than people, for the most part. This has little to do with any natural advantage of being huge, but because the old world got ruined. And then stomped on by giants. People finally have something like peace to return to the forefront, but the world is very much different than it was centuries ago. People still have knowledge of some technology of the old world, none of it really scaled up for giants.
Stone, fire, and cloud giants have a mutually beneficial trading system established. Stone giants mine coal and stone and iron. Fire giants forge steel and engineer great works. Cloud giants ultimately finance these ventures. People are starting to warm up to these three races after they stopped trying to invade.
Frost giants are constantly trying to grow their territory as their frosty lands are only so large. People have substantial defenses against them and cloud giants are quite willing to hire these people to keep the frost giants out.
Storm giants have an accord with people. Typically the two trade knowledge for defense. In the vast seas of the north, there are many stories of storm giants utterly destroying any would be pirate as well as tales of them rescuing shipwrecked sailors. With their support, storm giants and people are creating great libraries and universities among the many islands.
Hill giants are simply the worst. They have developed a rather oppressive system where they keep large communities of people essentially as slaves. People are forced to grow livestock to be fed to these giants or be eaten. Sometimes the giants will eat people anyway. All is not lost, though. Storm giants are known to assault hill giants near the coast and free people. Also, hill giants are too stupid to actually keep track of people. Freedom can be as simple as walking away, but this assumes you aren't found by other hill giants and either eaten or carried off to some other slave community.
>>46172404
fuck off
