Worldbuilding Thread I guess

Followers of the Sun God worship the cycle of day and night. They worship the blessings of the Sun, and are great supporters of agriculture. They keep their minds tempered with the knowledge that every day must see a night, but also that every night ends with a brilliant dawn. They incorporate the cycle into their worship, with festivals of both feast and fast. Gant's temples and shrines serve as guidepoints and places of rest. Tennants of these temples are always happy to give directions and advice to any that seek their help. Gant himself is a deceptively quiet God (keeping the Sun and the stars sailing along the sky is busy work after all!), but is known to show himself to those who meet true despair in their lives but do not waver. This courage is sometimes rewarded with a small charm known as a Duskbreaker. These charms emit a warm glow and enhance the luck of the wearer, disappearing when the wearer has found peace in their life once again.

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>>47658681
>>Gods
Not omnipotent gods that only come to the mortal realm once, often to fix something, wanting to rule or doing something else for their benefit. Afterwards they can still bless people or act in some other way.
>>Kingdoms
>Kingdoms
I have much more democratic city-states and nomadic tribes than kingdoms. Even some republics.
>>Guilds
I will start to think about those when I work on my dwarfs. Their city states are ruled by their guilds.
>>Continents
I got the 'nice and relatively normal' continent where most of the humans live. The 'exotic' continent, the 'lost' continent, the 'icy' continent in the north and the 'ruled by dragons' continent.
>>Magicks
Each race has their own inherent magic, which only a small percentage of the population can use. It awakes randomly. Every attempt to force it or to breed people to use it failed.

>Gods
Aliens
>Kingdoms
Basically Europe
>Guilds
Totally not Illuminati
>Continents
Pangaea with lots of islands
>Magicks
Alien pseudo science bullshit

>>47658681
>gods
A bunch of different ones. Level of deific power is basically commensurate with level of importance in/adherence to the cosmic narrative, which means the most powerful gods are also generally the least free to act. I also have a huge religious hierarchy fleshed out for one of the major religions, which worships the immortal founder of the Paladins and his cohorts

>Kingdoms
The campaign relevant area largely dominated by a cold war between a vaguely HRE-Colonial American constitutional empire and a Byzantine-Chinese-Arabic diarchy that's been recently taken over by a fundamentalist religious sect. Both are trying to claim they're heirs to an ancient empire of the gods

>guilds
Not super sure what you mean by that, but as far as subfactions go I have plenty. Knightly orders, mage monasteries, trade guilds, explorer's societies, etc

>magic
Fairly common, comes in four main types. Realmatic magic is the slow, ritualistic, academic type, and draws on the power of other planets and planes. Theurgic is all about making contracts with spirits, whether binding them to service a la warlocks or serving them as patrons a la clerics. Sepharic magic is about enhancing the body by tending to and tapping into the power of the soul and inner world. Akashic/Fey magic is about using and manipulating the cosmic narrative

>>47658681
>Gods
Nonexistent for the most part. Lots of religions, sects, cults, etc. There's one deity who keeps popping up, a dragon who bargained with the one "real" god for his power in exchange for all his responsibility over mortals (since the god was so alien he kept mucking up mortality and starting over). She created the world, and reincarnates cyclically as a mortal- eventually she'll reincarnate as a dragon again, and destroy it, as per the deal.

>Guilds
Couple notable ones. A group of fighters, brawlers, and conmen based on the Collegia in Rome. They're mostly in the capital city of the largest nation, serve as a mix of organized criminals and civic police force (unorganized crime doesn't happen on their turf, and they're too big to avoid the government)
There's an assassin's guild, but it's different in that there's only one assassin in it- the Fade. It's not known whether the Fade is one assassin or a title that passes from one to another, but it's been operating for as long as anyone can remember. All that's known is that if you pass ten thousand gold pieces and a name to a homeless man in an Imperial city, that person dies. Often looks like an accident, though sometimes it's more brazen. The gold often turns up anonymously donated to almshouses or as services paid for the good of the city where the killing takes place.

>>47658681
>>Gods
One primary god. Created the world and was never heard from again. May be dead or fictional. Many minor gods watching over groups of people and answer their prayers and hand out special powers. Used to walk among mortals, but withdrawn recently. Currently monotheistic church is gaining traction, promoting renouncement of petty gods whom they see as liability and belive real god will return if petty gods' influence is stamped out.
>>Kingdoms
Two major feudal kingdoms (Fantasy!France and Fantasy!England) each fragmenting between several powerful dukes (In fantasy!France I currently flesh out king is just somewhere in top 4 most influential people, not a proper ruler). Also some forest-dwelling tribes, merchant republic allied with fantasy!Mongols and fantasy!Ireland enslaved by remnants of fantasy!Rome, fantasy!Rome is currently overrun by zombies, and mysterious orient kind of nation supplying exotic goods and hating foreigners.
>>Continents
One continent that looks kinda like a hourglass, and a few large islands
>>Magicks
Some people are born elementalists, with unconditional innate power of things. Other get thematic powers from spirits and petty gods and swear to adhere for certain code of conduct. Some say, elementalists are also like this, but got powers directly from creator

>Gods
The Gods the people worship are created by their imagination, to hold a belief to make something so real is necessary for them. Each major society has their own version of a similar deity. Their spirit energy created false idols that imprisoned the Old Ones, which a few still worship and keep alive.

>Kingdoms
There are many Kingdoms. The Orelian Dynasty is one of the largest, and is expanding thin across a large continent.

Their major opponent rests easy across a small, yet large enough ocean barrier. They are the Kynarian Imperium, and vow to one day expand their influence globally.

>Guilds
There are thousands of small factions that dot the many nations. Blacksmiths, Mercenaries, Magicians, Playwrights.

Some of these factions are evil, and practice the forbidden arts that were sanctioned by the Old Ones. The most well-known and rightfully feared was once known as the Martyred Blood Coven. Thirteen women turned witches sacrificed their blood in exchange for Demon Blood and forged a pact with the Old One which I won't even mention the name of. Their powers grew exponentially, and from this coven grew upon thousands of lesser witch covens devoted to learning the powers of the Martyred Blood.

Opposing the Martyred Blood were witch hunters, but few were successful at laying a single blow upon the witch coven. One man, claiming to wield a Paladian Blade, bestowed to him by the [False] Deity Sharok, managed to slay one of the original Thirteen women who made up the Martyred Blood. Due to his success, witch hunters flocked to learn how to better fight the many covens. Eventually this faction became known as the Paladian Knights, who's glorious and righteous battle against the Old One's evil is a continuing mission.

>Continents
There are eight total.

1. Kynarus
2. Phobos
3. Ernabus
4. Zellas
5. Keep
6. Northern Wastes (A frozen Archipelago, but recognized as a single continent)
7. Magmas
8. Avarius

>Magicks
Spirit Magic, Etherial Practices, Old One blessings.

>>47659128
that sounds awesome.

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>>47658681
>Gods
Like in real world, mostly fictional. Closes to real divine beings are constructs (something akin to biological robots) and some other technical marvels of a by-gone era.
>Kingdoms
I'm mapping out roughly 2000 years of history on a region roughly the size of China, so there has been quite a few of those. Most important ones:
Circle - a massive empire inspired by Greco-Indian kingdoms of central Asia.
Caliopa, Daant, Gulaab - collection of city-states driven mostly by trade, mostly inspired by Islamic cities like Baghdad, Damascus, Cordoba.
Shezaria - the only European-inspired kingdom, though it mostly borrows from Byzantine and Armenian elements: a machinery-obsessed theocracy with strict social order, monotheistic religion and fairly advanced industry.
Goh-sum empire - a great empire rising from the ashes of ruined Circle, ruled by formerly nomadic hordes much inspired by Mongols and Hun's. As the nomads grew accustomed to settled life, it slowly transforms into bureaucracy-drive, bloated slave-dependent empire.


>Guilds
The keepers guild is probably most interesting: what started as an alliance/insurance deal between storage owners eventually grew into most powerful banking and financing network in the world, even successfully pushing it's own currency onto the world.

>Continents
Six of them, named A-F. I only focus on one particular part of continent B.

>Magicks
Magical practices and rituals are very much like in real world. There is some science-mumbo-jumbo stuff that to a casual observer might look like magic, but no "real" magic.

>>47660788
I *tip my fedora* to you

>>47660809
>I *tip my fedora* to you
Can't say I wasn't expecting a token post like that.

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>>47658681
>Gods
Haven't thought about them yet.
>Kingdoms
My setting has only city states separated by dangerous wilds. Wilds are pretty dangerous; the prey-predator arms race has entered hyperdrive. Thus people have huddled into city states for creater protection. City states still try to subjugate other other city states to make tributaries, but these conquests rarely last.
>Guilds
Warrior Clans are the equivalent of this.
>Continents
Only one so far, but more could be behind the oceans.
>Magicka
Song magic, whisper magic, yelling magic, dance-like magic, enchantment magic, potions, martial arts magic(ki?), ritualistic magic, etc.

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>>47658681
Still working on my setting. With my work schedule, I'm lucky to get an hour to brainstorm it a week. What I have so far
>Gods
Left intentionally vague. In 'Normal' lands, they are about as they are now: people believe and associate acts to their God, but there are plenty that refute the existence of a god or any gods. However in the overtaken 'Devil's Lands' objects of faith hold some power. Regardless of what faith, they all have some repelling effect on the monster inhabiting the land. Be it a cross, a star of david, or a nusa(those wooden-paper things Shinto priests use to purify something), they all work.

>Kingdoms
Pretty much the state of the world was in 1870. Albeit with South America being swallowed up by a portal to another dimension. The southern states of the U.S are starting to warp as the 'Devil's Lands' extend their reach, but the weirdness that comes with it stays on one side of the giant, sea-to-sea spanning wall President Lincoln had built. It's paid for by a mix of taxes on the population, and trade from the new energy source Americans export to the rest of the world. They hold a monopoly on it as they are the only ones with access to it.

>Guilds
The Automation Union: People responsible for production, distribution and record keeping of all the super-engines(massive trains that run on 3 rails to maintain balance) that are currently in use. A tool that has only helped solidify the general weirdness of the Lands, as reports keep trickling back of engines being seen on and off the rails, whose numbers belonged to engines long ago decommissioned...

The Collector's Guild: A mish mash of merchants, salesmen, and carpet baggers that are responsible for buying the Devil's Due(the new energy source in ore form possible) from soldiers and mercenaries in exchange for goods that 'fell out of a wagon somewhere', then selling that ore to the various companies that refine and process that ore, powering the New Industrial Revolution.

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>>47662319
>Magic
None really. At least nothing intangible. The Devil's Due is an enigma, it's energy output is quite high, exceeding even expected projections but beyond some physical applications no one knows what it actually is. Crushed, it makes for good gun powder. Burned, it produces several times more energy than coal. Leaving it alone in the dark, it emits a warm glow as machinery around it start to run spontaneously.

The fact that the monsters inhabiting the Lands carry the stuff inside them only adds to the mystery.

Religious relics and artifacts provide some protection to those carrying them.

>>47658681
>Gods
Actual: None
Worshiped: Plenty

Anu-Sazorah - Goddess of the Luwasati high elves. They believe it was Anu-Sazorah that created the elves and saved the Luwasati during the anarchic times making them her Chosen Children and founded the Everlasting Kingdom. The goddess then ascended to another plane to make a haven for the Luwasati faithful and left them with the task of ruling the lesser races and species and await the day of her return where she will lead them to a final victory upon the other races and make a paradise of the world.

The humans of the Empire of Gedask worship a pantheon of gods derived from legendary figures from the founding of their empire, some of which are adapted from gods worshiped by their former elven masters during hteir slave days.

The Alwara beastmen practice different forms of ancestor worship.

>Kingdoms
Way too many. In general, kingdoms in the north of the continent exist in the immediate shadow of the 4 empires. They are feudalistic and primarily human with very few Ruwan elf kingdoms near the Sha'haran border region. They normally consist of a central walled city/fortress with surrounding farmlands and a few associated villages and towns.

>Guilds
Small regional mercantile and craft organizations.

>Continents
About 6 with the eastern one being the one I'm working on. Its divided into a South, North and Far North where most of the major populations being concentrated in the North one. The North continent is divided into 3 major regions by 2 high mountain chains, the easternmost region, beyond the Stormbreak mountains is controlled by Sha'hara and is subject to storms, the central region is dominated by Gedask while the western dessert beyond the Jagged Peaks is home to the Fa'surre dah Xuande.

>>47658681
Still a work in progress, this is actually my first try at anything like this, I don't even know what I'm gonna do with it, mostly ideas floating in my head and some maps I'm making.

>Gods
There is an omnipotent universal entity, however; it isn't very interested in its creation, perhaps even largely unaware of it. Its motives are unknowable, its essence unpalpable etc etc

However, he did spawn minor deities, that in turn shaped the world and its various denizens and form a very varied squabbling pantheon.

>Kingdoms
Mostly human kingdoms centered in the middle of the world, fractured infighting states under the nominal hegemony of a central state. Very cliche yes, but that seems like the best choice to me. There are also non-human "kingdoms" and tribes further out, but they're pretty irrelevant politically, the world is very anthropocentric.

>Guilds
Not sure yet

>Continents
Basically, it's just one valley type of area, with inland seas, lakes and such, approximately the size of Europe, surrounded on all sides by impassable mountain ranges, where, yes again in a very cliched manner a wide variety of dangerous non-human species live.

The continents or even the coastline of that continent remains unreached by its denizens.

>Magicks
Come mostly from the minor deities that use the world as their playground, often granting magical gifts to their followers.

>>47663040
>Magicks
Still a hot mess.

The basic mechanic is that there is a subatomic particle that is affected by focused, coherent consciousness and this in turn is able to affect other particles to create magical effects.

I haven't fleshed out the touchy-feely aspect of it but I'm making the ability learnable by all with varying degrees of accomplishment due to difficulty. Currently I have 3 major levels of ability with the lowest being molecular manipulation, the next atomic and finally sub-atomic. Third level/sub-atomic ability practitioners are the most powerful and require the most study, discipline and constitution. They are also very rare due to the difficulty.

Alchemic transmutation is mostly taboo due to associated unexplained wasting disease and disastrous accidents, i.e. atomic explosions.

Practice and perception varies by culture and region with the leading professional R&D being in Sha'hara due to investment while Gedask has the most 3rd level practitioners due to wealth, privilege and more historical knowledge.

>>47661113
Nigga that's just the monster from Attack the Block.

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I run mostly 40k stuff, but this chart may help you (or it may not, but I get points for trying, right?)

>>47658681
>Gods
No actual Gods apart from the Creator. In-setting "Gods" are like the Greek Gods, incredibly powerful with human flaws.
>Kingdoms
Early Victorian-Era Nations; A couple Constitutional Monarchies, an Imperial Republic, United City-States, a Republic of Beastman Tribes. There's some tribal savages living on the undeveloped continents.
>Guilds
Adventurer's Guild is a big one, with transnational influence. Good Adventurers are treated like superheroes.
Dwarves have a Guild for everything, and they all answer to their King. Some Dwarven crafting guilds have branched out into other nations, but they're more of "Skilled Craftsman Clubs" than a union.
>Continents
Main continent is ~4.8 million sq miles, and is the only "civilized" continent. All proper nations can be found on it.
The other big continent is ~3.414 million square miles of undeveloped forests and plains, populated by Fae, Giants, and tons of Wyvern.
not!Australia is ~252,000 sq miles. It's a magic dead zone filled with aberrations and lingering evil.
not!Jurassic Park is ~949,000 sq miles of dense rainforest. It has tons of huge insects and a small variety of dinosaurs.
>Magicks
Formulaic. The question isn't "Can you do <x>?", it's "Should you do <x>?". The peoples figured out Druidism first, but had to have their hand held for Wizardry.

>>47658979
Stupid sculptor putting the shield on the statue the wrong way around...

Anyone by chance have some good tutorials on making world maps? Preferably in photoshop, if you kindly.

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>>47665632
I always use this one. Don't follow it exactly, some things like the grass/forest texture should be altered.

cont.

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>>47665873
Part 2. Do this first to get your landmasses, then do the "Map Making Guide".

>>47665873
Should note: this first guide's Rivers step is shit. Do the second one's river step when you make your landmasses.

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>>47658681
>>Gods
It's basically the Gods of Pegana. Their games can never be understood by any mortal man, their faces can never be glimpsed and their aid or their ire are so unreliable that even their unreliability can't be relied upon.
>>Kingdoms
Each major race is in control of one to three different kingdoms, republics, empires or whatever. There's also multi-species and multi-ethnic states and cities.
>>Guilds
I haven't given much thought to merchant and artisan's guilds yet, I guess it differs a lot from region to region.
>>Continents
The setting only consists of the continent Levia and the surrounding islands. It consists of a long and broad stretch of land going from the arctic circle down south to the equator (or its equivalent) with a large subcontinent down south and major peninsulas jutting out to the east and to the southwest. A large range of mountains separates it from the plains and steppes of Noria, and the dry deserts to the far west.
>>Magicks
Mental processes and physical things are very much the same thing in this world - the difference to ours being that individual and collective consciousness can take influence on the physical world. The stellar circuits of consciousness translate to different schools of magic, with the lower circuits sometimes being used as shorthands.

>>47658681
I asked this last night but I guess /tg/ was asleep.

I'm planning on making an atlas for a fantasy setting that I'm making. But what sort of content is necessary for an atlas aside from maps and some descriptions of interesting places?

for the table of contents I was thinking:

>Map
A map, either this pseudo-artistic one or a more "medieval" one that's not really cartographical and more like the primitive maps that just fit rivers and city names into a geometric shape.
>History of Mannax
A brief history of the kingdom, giving some explanation for the feudal structure, the political factions, and why adventurers exist.
>Key Castles
Some of the castles that players would see often or be interested in working towards claiming.
>Economy
A small section on what the kingdom produces and what it imports and exports
>Neighboring Countries
As it sounds, a brief overview of the nations bordering the setting.

Is there anything else I should add, or anything that doesn't need much explanation and could be a very short section?

>>47658681

>Watcha buildin', teeg?

A mess I can't get to work.

>What are the

>Gods

There are no true gods and the inhabitants of the world understand very little about the true nature of the universe and their religions at best grasp straws of the truth and at worst are complete bullshit. There are 'higher' beings in the form of pseudo-celestials who are in a cosmic war with Lovecraft monsters because their respective realities don't work together.

>Kingdoms

I'm trying to borrow from real history and cultures but I've also been inspired by the 'Early Dark' setting to make most of my human cultures hybrids. So, for example, instead of making the proto-civilization notMesopotamia or notEgypt as usual I'm going for a mixture of the Indus Valley civilization and the early West African states. notChina/South Asia will have Mesoamerican influences, notMesoamerica might have Indian influences, the rocky desert Iran-Afghanistan-type region might be a mixture of real world equivalent populations mixed with Nazca elements and maybe that African ethnic group (whose name I'm blanking on like an idiot) that lives in rock caves, notfeudalEurope will mix celtic and germanic influences with Native North American tribes and civilizations as well as some stuff from East Africa, etc.

Dwarves are divided between Slavic, Nordic and Scottish styles with the first being largely in decay after DIGGING TOO DEEP and the last being ascendant at the moment. I might also through in Mesopotamian dwarves styled like the Dwemer is ES and some pseudo-Buddhist (they worship the eternal earth or something) living (literally) inside the notHimalayas.

Elves and their history are giving me trouble at their core but I know I want both Japanese/Spartan warrior culture elves and notPolynesian tropical sailor elves and well as a variety of wild elves for every climate from forest to jungle to desert to tundra.

>>47666754


>Guilds

Traders, knights, mages, etc. I haven't fleshed anything out but more or less the usual.

>Continents

The primary one is a slightly larger notEurasia/Africa except Africa is more centralized to be under notIran/India and notArabia is to the west and not the east.

notCentral/South America is wider than it is long and comes closer to notEurasia than in real life so there is some - limited - trade but that's about it.

notNorth America is a forested wilderness dominated by wild elves with a Native American flair that are long separated and unknown by both humans and other elves.

The southern third of the world is dominated by an Americas sized continent that is basically Australia meets Zendikar and is full of CRAZY and ADVENTURE. It's still largely unknown during the settings timeframe.

>>47667227

>Magicks

Low to midpower. Magic exists but is rare and the vast majority of the population has never met a mage or seen one perform magic and thus has both bogus supernatural superstitions and a fear of 'witches' and the like much like their real-world pre-modern counterparts.

Magic is generally elemental and 'divine' magic is just a name given to arcane magic guided by religious traditions. A good mage can summon/manipulate maybe a few cubic feet of fire/water/earth but causing walls of fire or tidal waves or a full blown storms is the stuff of mythic figures. Utility magic exists but generally functions as a flashy yet valid alternative to the more mundane way of doing things rather than being outright superior.

Healing magic exists but at great cost to the vitality of the healer so there is ultimately a limit to just how far fucked up someone can be to magically healed and to what extent they'll be 'pretty' afterwards. True resurrection in right out as is stuff like teleportation and the summoning or transformation of complex objects. Necromancy is your standard fantasy type- frowned upon and pretty rare. And of course, certain, stranger magic might exist in the more remote regions of the world.

>>47658681
>Gods
Actual: Just 1, a kind of extra dimensional psychic parasite/symbiote that happened to spread to an alternate dimension earth just as humans finally evolved their intelligence
Otherwise, humans worship and have faith in all sorts of things as they do in reality only made more complicated because mass illusion and hallucination can make people think the deities they worship are actually real and furthermore what they believe can actually effect them.
>Kingdoms
Don't know yet, but initially it's just tribal hunter gatherers
>Guilds
Ditto
>Continents
Shit I only really thought of the premise, nothing much is done yet
>Magicks
Finally something I can answer. The closest thing to magic is psychic influence. There are no fireballs or controlling weather. There is however ( making others think you are ) shapeshifting into animals, violently insane brainwashed "zombies", "invisibility".
Basically, as long as it is based on influencing a living things perception and thoughts, you can do it, but you're otherwise never actually effecting the material world. I mainly came up with this premise because I wanted a magic system in a way that made sense, wasn't overpowered reality breaking, and was consistent.
Now I need to actually work on the setting and worldbuilding. I hope some anon can ask me questions about the magic system and what it can do so I can further elaborate and build upon it because just relying on my own brain power isn't bringing satisfying results.

>>47666657
Food? Religion? Interesting geographical marvels like Niagara Falls?

If you're making an atlas/campaign setting book, you're trying to breathe life into the setting. You shouldn't hold back and be stingy, you should be creative. Maybe not to the extent of Forgotten Realms, where every little spot on the map has 500 years of backstory, but there should be some sense of why the kingdom exists, what makes it unique, and why you'd be there.

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Y'know, OP's pic is a really bad image for the thread. I can never find it in the catalog.

>>47670495

I was going to mention that I thought the lamps were at the north and south ends of the world but the existence of the sun and moon, to say nothing of Numenor suggests this is way after that time period anyways. So what is that in the west?

>>47670848
The Undying Lands.

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>Gods
Largest religion is monotheistic and felt mostly as a social and political force, the existence of its God is supported about as well as gods in our world. In the wastes the prevalence of undead warbands and various fields of study in raising the dead much stock is put into necromancy, though these have not yet developed into a unified system of belief. An increasing number of people are re-adopting the old shamanistic tribal religions as well as imported animist beliefs which have a more tangible effect on everyday life these days
>Kingdoms
The western feudal kingdoms are increasingly pooling their resources to resist civil unrest in their growing industrial centers, as well as to stall the advance of the empire in the east. The empire in question has a centrally planned command economy with impressive applied magical technology, but is grappling with a wasting blight filtering in from the northeast that renders fertile land barren. It is also in a slow burning armed conflict with the Elves to the south.
>Guilds
Quickly losing power to enterprising industrialists in the west. Collectivized, forcibly if necessary in the east.
>Continents
All trade from the land beyond the empire's eastern border wall has ceased. No organized states are presumed to have survived the myriad undead plagues or blight, though fleeing remnants have settled in relative safety and preserve their ancestral culture as best they can. An effort by the empire to colonize the continent across the ocean ended in complete disaster. Subsequent reconnaissance missions suggest a corrupting magic or spiritual presence unlike anything seen on the homeland. Officially no survivors have been found, though colonists did have contact with native human populations
>Magicks
Applied as a science in the empire, a scholarly and highborn pursuit in the east (though that is changing). Raising the dead to do one's bidding is historically novel, but has quickly destroyed most of known civilization.

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>Gods
A multi-heirarchy of gods that each cover important aspects of their godly duties
>Kingdoms
I havn't hashed out a concrete setting of all the kingdoms, but the main kingdom is the kingdom of Highfield, which was once a massive, continent spanning kingdom, until infighting over the throne caused the kingdom to split into four separate ones a large portion of territory lost to outside factions/races, until the legendary hero Dorland reunited the four kingdoms back under a single banner
>Guilds
Havn't thought much about this
>Continents
So far I only have one continent in mind, which is the 'main' land of the setting
>Magicks
All magic in the setting is based on true-naming, as true-naming is very very heavily integrated into the setting in general, and is the most important aspect of the world.

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>Gods

So far only three vague faiths in mind, none of which may have a direct tangible presence of their deities.

"Serpent" is a martyrdom/cyclical rebirth oriented faith believing that the primordial dragon committed seppuku in order to create the universe/universe as we know it. Periodically your great and noble gurus, prophets, holy men or women or heroes will mimic this self-sacrifice. Inadvertently similar to the dank soul flame business but unintentional - idea was born out of the idea of a "faith of blood and sacrifice"

"Sun" is work in progress after I saw topic mocking the ubiquity of "sun/fire religion". My inspiration to read and study came from a high-school book on zoroastrianism I read and I like that theme & sol invictus, but I have to figure out how to make it rich and novel like I did the serpent.

"Word" is like Thoth having his own religion. Inspired by the sacred nature of the Vedic sanskrit language and the idea of language and word/sound responsible for the creation of the world. Could exist in indirect magical form - no 'my name is a killing word' harry potter avada kebaba. May be subsumed into Sun faith.

>Kingdoms

Many. Proscribe to the Homeric "catalogue of ships" and Herodotian "Xerxes' army' love of a rich, full and overwhelming world albeit with narrowed focus. Central will be the great kingdoms/empires: the Raoxshani, Hekensut or Mefket, Arazalan, and then a Maharaja state, a Sino & Indo-China state, an Aksumite state, possibly a Khanate.

>Guilds

N/a

>Continents

See pic.

>Magicks
Limited/nonexistent.

>>47665892

Fug I already did that guide, but your's sounds neat for auto-making rivers for me. I didn't like the first's river system. Tanks bud.

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>>47663360

Stronger cosmic radiation
Being outside for long periods of time without protection causes sickness. Prolonged exposure has mutated elves into humans. The poor elves that could not afford shelter gradually mutated into humans. The elves that could are now the ruling class.

Fully artificial geography
The increased need for shelter from cosmic radiation means that the land is completely covered in dense cities.

Extremely low temperature
The stronger cosmic radiation comes from a thinner atmosphere, which also makes this apparently nightmarish planet colder as well.

Mostly plants
Plants benefit from the thinner atmosphere as they get more sunlight. Very few animals can withstand the cold and the radiation. Plants grow quickly, and cover most buildings. Seas are green from all the plant life within.

Age of Exploration
You guys know what this be.

Elves/tall humanoids
Elves share their enormous cityscapes with humans, which were originally once elves themsELVES! Elves are on the top, humans are on the bottom. You walk into a store, an elf owns it and a human is working there.

No supernatural
This world is horrible enough without monsters.

Three civilisations
Three nation states formed from the same ancient empire

Co-Operation
This cruel world has made the Elves see teamwork as very important.

Medicine
Curing the radiation sickness is a big part of the economy.

Native American folk religion
Dancing? I don’t know.

Secret cabal
An elite group of elves controls the government, with a front of representative democracy.

>>47674260
Pretty unique but pretty fucking miserable

>>47658681
>Gods
There are many gods. The ancient gods died, from their bodies emerged life.
Some life was pure, the mortal races of man. Their belief shaped the pagan gods, and the dwarven ancestor gods.
But some life emerged corrupted and evil. Monsters in all forms. The most powerful of these monster races claimed divinity and sought out the hearts of the ancient gods, feasting on their power.
Still, belief reigns superior, and the gods that guard our races are supreme in power, but outnumbered.
There came a time, where the humans desperation after decades of intense losses, that their fear gave birth to belief, and a new caste of gods came to be. The amber pantheon, the gods of the sun. The largest human empire outlawed the pagan gods, causing a massive conflict between them and the elves, and pagan humans.

>Kingdoms
The dwarves rule beneath the ground. They loathe the surface, for they age like humans when they travel it. Every city has its primer, its ruler and representitive in the dwarven council.

There are nine known human kingdoms, and one empire. The empire is almost as big as the two largest kingdoms combined. It was once many small states.
The elves have no kingdom, for they are the eternal nomads.

>Guilds
The guilds are few but powerful. Since civilisation is isolated by cruel wilderness, most travel and interaction between nations and even cities is sponsored and guided by one of the guilds.

>Continents
The bodies of the ancient gods became the continents, their blood the seas. Caysus is the seat of the human and dwarven nations. To the west are the humans, beneath the ground are the dwarves. The east is a lost wilderness.

Odiv is the desert continent far to the south. It is far bigger than Caysus, but less inhabitable. The eidol people once lived here, and their tales tell of beautiful jungles and rivers. For some reason they were exiled beneath ground...
>Cont...

I'm trying to come up with a backstory and cosmolgy for my main setting.

It began as a very gritty and realistic(even though I hate this word) settin with a lot of attention to detail for versimilitude and a chance for stupid deaths. I was aiming for a bit of roguelike feel and it was set into an expy of the Thirty Years War cause it was some of the most callously and pointlessly brutal phases of history. The whole thing was built bottoms-up, pretty much nothing was told to players except the very basics and things just grew on their own as they discovered more and more. After a couple years of playing we are slowly sliding into high power campaigns so I will need to to make up my mind on gods and magic. I know some shit about particle phyics and quantum mechanics and I would really like to give magic a science-y flavor based on them.

So far I got:

>crystallized mana meteorites bombard the planet
>their vast energy causes the planet to behave erratically, multiple time dimensions, topological defects, parasite dimensions forming
>mana follows an exponential decay curve and starts to quickly drop to lower energy states
>a mana circulation system develops with ley lines and focal points, exotic material deposites form
>sentient races emerge, their thoughts are seemingly able to shape matter, souls exist as shadows in the gestalt mana fields
>several of the more powerful, willful or lucky individuals ascend to godhood and get attached to parasite dimensions
>energy levels drop further, the most powerful gods merge into pantheons, their followers coalesce into states and empires
>eventually in thousands of years the empires grow increasingly unsustainable because their magic is no longer functional, high energy spells become uncastable, materials like soulsteel evaporate into mana
>the ancient races split into a multitude of younger subraces, the decay of magic eventually becomes so slow that its only noticeable on the timescale of an elven lifetime.

>>47663292
First thing to pop into my head when I saw that pic. God, I could not get through that movie.

>>47674481
I lost my message. And don't want to retype it all, here's a TLDR.

The eidol's still serving minions are acting on forgotten orders to prevent this "invasion."

To the west is a continent raptured by rivers, or perhaps it is just a collection of many small islands. This is the target of human colonies. Some heretic dwarves fled the mountainhomes to live here, suffering a life on the surface.

Even further to the west is the home of the Ungols, once-dragons who gave up their immortal lives to stop a cursed disease from destroying the world.

What lies to the east of Caysus is largely unknown, but various travellers return with conflicting tales of ruins, wilderness or fledging, weird civilisations.

>Magic
Magic is the art of dancing with the ancient, slumbering gods. Bask in their power and weave it around yourself.

It comes with many dangers, for the monsters are starving. They desire more and more of the ancient gods powers. You will lure them to you.

>>47658681
>Gods
The collective spiritual energy of all their adherents rearranged in certain fashions as tomorrow create a distinct entity. Essentially, thought and faith, through worship or simply from stories, create their subjects.
>Magic
Spirit magic is the power of lifeforce concentrated and arranged in patterns. It encompasses all supernatural abilities - anything fantastic which isn't one of the other forms of magic. Basically animism crossed with rationalization of experience allowing you to rise above the ordinary.

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>Tfw can't decide on worldbuilding my fantasy setting, my sci-fi setting, or my weird fantasy/urban fantasy setting

>>47674944
Yeah, that shit gets me all the time.

>>47674944
Build all of them.

>>47675407

I already am. The question is not which but which right now?

>>47673879
>committed seppuku
Come on, don't make an ass of yourself. You mean he commited sudoku.

>>47674481
>They loathe the surface, for they age like humans when they travel it.
That's a really cool idea. But why would there be any dwarven adventurers? I'd stay underground all the time if it meant I could live forever.

>>47658681
no gods just space and math
>Kingdoms
A dozen empires and species each trying to outwit and subject one another to their whim through whatever means necessary while a galactic council trying to maintain power and stability throughout the galaxy.

>Guilds
more so vassals or factions, companies etc
>Continents
ehh random garden worlds and partial terraforming

>Magicks
none Hard science all up in this bitch

Here's a bunch of cool old maps from the Atlas Maior, 1645. I thought someone might enjoy these.
http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz0017r9p5

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I'm tired and sick but here's my continent map for my setting. it's about 1/5th of the world if I'm remembering the scale I set correctly

I'll post more details in the morning unless I'm dying

>>47675752
ill be floating around for awhile if anyone wants to wants to know more.

How do your humans differ from real humans? Do they live longer? Are they bigger or more attractive?

Is their philosophy and culture alien to Earth's humans?

>>47677187
physical
>overall taller, thinner, more attractive
>age better (look 5-10 years younger than Earth counterparts starting around age 30)
>females more androgynous, smaller breasts/hips
>wounds heal much faster (this seems to be standard in all fiction)

cultural - setting is focused on cultures so I'll have to stay broad
>overall more focus on hygiene and fashion, people obsessed with their clothes which are much more elaborate and covering than Earth clothes
>no true Europe counterpart, the closest thing are brightly robed caucasians near the desert whose society depends immensely on trade, not fond of conquest
>overall more tolerance of polygamy
>blood magic is the norm, most religions have sacrificial holidays or prayer styles where animals or human blood are given up, and there is usually a dark aesthetic and theme surrounding these sacrifices (wearing masks and throat singing overtone incantations while we sacrifice goats? that'll show those foreigners how hardcore we are)
>female-female sexual contact generally considered clean and pure, universally considered a better alternative to straight sex out of wedlock. However, homosexual relationships are no less frowned upon than in medieval Earth.
>women more creative and more likely to develop skills outside of managing families
>almost every culture considers others to be heretics or witches

>>47672228

I know, but what does that torch thing represent?

>>47677187

As I talked about in my post earlier, I'm trying to make hybrids of various real-world cultures rather than aping them directly.

>>47677460
Also, the barbarians and conquerors are more technologically advanced than the more culturally developed societies. The most peaceful cultures are those that the barbarians couldn't find, while those that were conquered had their technology absorbed.

>>47677187
Not much. I guess I'm going usual route of making them taller then real medieval folks, because it's easier to have references in front of my eyes. But you'll probably never know. Except for one group that have unusually pale skin and no hair. They look like chemo patients because they killed their god and feasted on his flesh to gain his divine powers.

Most of my differences should be from placing counterpart cultures in odd places and have them interact and merge in ways their counterparts did not.

>>47677187
Kings are inexplicably larger and stronger and they get their own over-the-top anime outfit and weapon.

>>47677626
Do people grow as they gain authority and status?

>>47677640
It's only been done with bosses so far in the campaign, some generals and officers were also giant. Probably more based on authority and status within a military setting than plain old authority and status as there were still some sly schemers who had completely ordinary appearances.

>>47677187
>How do your humans differ from real humans? Do they live longer? Are they bigger or more attractive?
They are mostly smaller and live shorter, because the world is harsher than our modern world. There is a pronounced ethnical diversity in my world: different ethnical groups have slightly exaggerated physical traits, and there are some phenotypes that don't really exist in real world (People with almost olive skin tone, a society of almost entirely albino people etc...)
In appearance they are as diverse as people used to be: beautiful and ugly, old and young, thick and thin. I do like to play with variety of characters in my world.

As for philosophies and cultures: most of it is based on real-world cultures, but generally speaking: the philosophical outlooks of majority of the population of the particular part of world I'm focusing on are somewhat darker and more resigned to what we might be used to. The world is very old, and has seen multiple cycles of great advanced civilizations rising and then falling back down - it has seen several major cataclysmic events, major ecological catastrophes etc... while direct accounts of these events are mostly not left behind, vague sentiments remain in philosophy and mythology, leading to a general belief that time is cyclical and decaying, that there is nowhere to "progress" too as everything has been done already, and turned into nothingness.
There is quite a large popularity of gnostic-like sects and beliefs too.

Heck, I'll bite.

I'm making a post apocalyptic scenario with ghosts involved. One anon commented how its similar to Blades in the Dark, but with a modern/futuristic, non-fantasy setting. Basically, a spookier, more haunted Mad Max.

>Gods
No real gods per say, but some of the stronger ghosts are worshiped as such due to their plethora of supernatural powers. Of note is a cult known as the Transmortists, who believe ghosts are the next phase of evolution for human beings and that in order to evolve, humanity must die and shed their mortal trappings.

>Kingdoms
The remnants of the civilized world live in city-states known as Bricks, named for the iron architecture that resemble rectangular box shapes. These are the closest to Kingdoms.

>Guilds
The closest thing to a guild would be the Exo-sec forces of the Bricks, which are basically an elite police force staffed by Exorcists, people with spiritual powers that allow them to combat ghosts.

>Continents
Based on regular ol' Earth. Just spookier.

>Magicks
Exorcists come in different categories:
1)Binders - Can bind ghosts to a physical medium or object. Only weaker ghosts can be subject to this. These guys are responsible for the weaponry and technology of the Bricks, which often use the souls of their deceased citizens as a power source (being bounded upon death also cuts down the risk of the person coming back as a vengeful spirit, though the stronger spirits will become this regardless).
2) Channelers - Spirit mediums on steroids. They store "docile" ghosts in the pentagram tattoo on their palms, which they can summon and control. A channeler will often force a ghost to possess his/her power in order to gain their powers briefly.
3)Astrals - People that can project their own souls out of their body as a powerful ghost.
4) Ritualists - The closest thing to a caster. Uses a wide variety of mystical phrases and talismans to combat ghosts.

>>47658681
>>Gods
Each kingdom has their own pantheon of gods and goddesses that represent the "character" of the nation. They may or may not be real, but many scholars theorize that all the gods are just different manifestations of multiple "Overdeites" who represent a concept. Because of this, most civilizations are tolerant of other beliefs.
>>Kingdoms
Many, many kingdoms, all of which are ruled and populated by humans or "Half" Humans who have traces of Elven/Orc/Troll/Dwarven blood. Humans have outbred them to the point that there are essentially no pure races left. The Novan empire (basically Not!Romans/Byzantines) are a prominent kingdom with a zero tolerance policy towards "Mutts". There are also sentient automotons that have an advanced artificial intelligence that have varying levels of rights and tolerance throughout the world.
>>Guilds
There's the Armaments guild, the Splicing guild (as in gene splicing), the Guild of Mercenaries, the Robotics guild, it's all very near-future fantasy stuff.
>>Continents
There are 5, one of which had been recently discovered in the past 300 years and has some of the last vestiges of pre-human civilizations. The main continent is where most of the action is at.
>>Magicks
Magic is a new thing, discovered by Splicing guilds who activated latent genes found in people with traces of Elven ancestry. Magic is basically psionic bullshit, and "Mages" are carefully controlled and deployed as mind-wiped super soldiers created by the guilds and employed by governments. So yeah, not the brightest of settings.

>>47677187
Most are normal, but some have non-ancestry that occasionally manifests itself, though it's subtle. Faster healing and muscle mass in the case of Trollkin, red eyes and sharp teeth for Orcbloods, tall frames and pointed ears for Elfborn, stocky frames and long beards for Dwarf-sons.
>Do they live longer
Some are genetically engineered and live longer lives, but the average man lives to about the same age we do today.

They're basically like real world humans with all the varying cultures and conflicting philosophies. The political structure is fairly conservative however, and technological and societal progress has been extreamly slow compared to our history.

>>47677187
>How do your humans differ from real humans? Do they live longer? Are they bigger or more attractive?
At first glance, you would think they live longer lives. 100 years in my setting is ~82 years in this world, so the math evens out.
My Humans are physically stronger, and have a higher potential threshold than this world's. They're also almost entirely on the white/tanned spectrum, as darker skin doesn't conduct magic as well. The "dark skin" parts of the sphere are populated by Elves, anyway

>>47658681
Would a setting with mad dragon kings be a bad idea?

>>47680872
No, they would make for good quest NPCs and bosses in any RPG. It really depends on how the rest of the setting looks, though.

>>47680893
Thiking standard fantasy.

>>47680931
How powerful are they?
How many heroes would it take to slay one of them?

>Gods
Om, an all-powerful demiurge that stays out of pretty much anything but threats to the universe's structural stability. The Four Primes, primal deities that represent the creative and destructive aspects of the sun and flame, ocean and water, (Ignis & Tare, Profus & Merg respectively) that maintain a balance of opposition. Then there are the Mortal Gods who have more earthly concerns, having gained apotheosis. Of these, there is Orthan(god of civilization, law, and temperence), Balisan(goddess of passion, warfare, and hedonism), Sisca and Sicar(both goddesses of knowledge, though directed towards either the betterment of all or for personal gain/welfare.) Beyond them, there are the Old Gods, who weakened with age and the coming of the Mortal Gods.
>Kingdoms
There are three subterranean empires of ant-people that are themed on the various stages of Rome development/fall, a king of the cat people who is more of a figurehead for the Clowderlords to rally around, but beyond that nothing particularly large. Mostly independant city-states. Outside the material plane, you got the following: Fae Courts, who lack magic but amazing technology, due to having an inherent understanding nature and natural law. The Infernal Aristocracy, each major player themed on ways good intentions paved their way to Hell, and how people suppress their conscience in order to commit "necessary evil."
>Guilds
Plain ol' trade guilds. There is an old man's club for aging warriors that decide to die full of glory and the herbal equivalent of steroids, PCP, and Speed.
>Continents
Five. Two at the artic caps(Antaris to the south, Kalt to the north.) The other three are equally spaced around the globe.
>Magicks
Wizards and sorcerers produce their effect by tapping into the Neither, which is a dimension of eternal contradiction, where everything happens simultaneously(including non-existence.) Beyond that, it's business as usual for D&D.

>>47681026
There are three of them, most chained up and hidden to prevent further damage - a temporary measure at best.

Oh, I guess at least of band of Epic Level Heroes.

Just tinkering with the theme Power Corrupts: with dragons being one of the most powerful things in the world, they gradually go insane - i.e. lose out in the war between their destructive instincts and their personality.

>>47681112
Cont. for Kingdoms: There is also the League of Angels, a loose conglomeration of powerful, good-aligned outsiders who mete out justice or succor as they see fit. Basically super-heroes in the most Justice League Unlimited sense.
>afterlife
When someone dies, they pass through the Murk, a plane of dreams and outsiders. Gods dwell here, and those who worship them are given places in their realms, with the exception being Om and the Four Primes, the latter which reincarnates them. Souls who are either undecided, ignorant, or outright refuse to worship anyone stay in the Murk, which is kind of a free for all in terms of who is going to save or beat the shit out of you(Om worshipers go here as well, as Om doesn't give a shit.) From here, it's either undeath(which requires a great deal of earthly attachment), transformation into an outsider(requires a devotion to an ideal such as good, evil, or a specific concept), or destruction at the hands of another entity, at which point your soul goes to Asphodel. Basically an ocean of soul-stuff where the self dissolves like sugar in coffee; little tidbit, the soul of a sleeping passes through the Murk and into Asphodel to replenish itself.

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How's this for an FTL system?

Basically, it's your typical Fold/Jump/Warp drive, except for a few quirks. These quirks influence just how interstellar travel works and happens.

Essentially, the ship jumps from point A to point B, but leaves a temporary 'ripple' in space. This ripple is mainly a gravity/radiation anomaly(ie, it leaves behind a big fucking chunk of radiation that dissipates over time whereas the gravity 'ripples' outward. Because the object the gravity was from isnt there anymore, so it just dissipates.)

Then, it arrives at its destination. Thing is, it is preceded by a 'premonition wave', ie, the gravity and heat of the ship appears before the ship does. And, depending on the size of the ship, the earlier the premonition wave appears. Say, a small ship weighing a couple 100 megatons will have its pre-wave show up ten to twenty minutes before it appears itself. but a big ass juggernaut of thousands of gigatons will have a pre-wave that shows up like an hour before it appears.

ie, the bigger the ship, the more likely to be detected.

As such, pirates and military are careful as to when they jump and where they jump. Many also split their fleets into smaller crafts so as to get a surprise jump on targets.

>>47658681
>Gods
The central gods of the setting is the pantheon of the Tetrarchs whose worship is centered around the great empire of the Holy Empire of the Tetrarchy.
As the name suggests, there are four of them; Knowledge, Fertility and their two sons Creativity and Capacity. These names are more descriptive than accurate as they are given different names in different societies and cultures. None of the god's are particulary effective on their own as they rely on the assistance of their kin to be able to act in most parts. As such in unison they are perfect while seperated they are flawed.
Tetrarchial canon holds that there are no other gods beside the Four; all other worshipped deities are really just aspects of them or based on human misunderstanding of their true nature.

>Kingdoms
As the setting spans the whole existance of the Holy Empire of the Tetrarchy (HET)(it's really more of a book writing project) there are many states and tribes that rise and fall throughout it.

The central state is the former mentioned HET, which is heavily inspired by the historic Roman Empire. It was founded by the conquest of a up and coming regional power by a barbaric confederation that was fleeing from their northern homelands for some unknown reason. These northerners quickly assimilated into the culture of the previous state, adjusting their ancient beliefs and most customs to fit better into their newly adopted culture. Seen as a growing threat by the powers in their vicinity (the various Tyran Leagues and the Empire of Gastram) wars soon broke out in which the HET in the end came out on top. Over the years the empire engulfed the Empire of Gastram and all the Tyran Leagues, kingdoms and city states aswell as untold tribes, kingdoms and other types of states.


1/3

>>47681809
Their most opposing foe was the Arsanid Empire, which was a steppe and river empire based on a mixture of historic persia and babylonia.The Arsanid Empire lay to the west of the HET. It came to be from an alliance of a city state and a nomad people who realised that they could never achieve their goals on their own. As such they united, marrying into each others noble houses, and conquered, under the rule of the first emperor, Arsan, who gave the state its name, most of the river states in the region. The monopoly on the massive river trade, which is central for the transcontintental trade system made them ridicoulosly wealthy and afforded them the capital to carve out their massive empire and tame the wild steppe tribes beyond.
Some other significant states was Tivania and the Holy Queendom of Sandarmark. The former was a semi-barbaric oligarchial state to the north east of the HET, ruled by a council of noblemen from the most significant Noble houses. This state was tremendously wealthy due to the many mines in the great mountain chain that split the state. The border between the two states became over the years wastly militarised with imposing fortress cities dotting the landscape on the tivanian side. Eventually the tivanians succumbed to the much stronger HET and the last part of Tivania when its legendary capital Tiv-vid-Valda/Tiv-by-Valda was conquered after years of siege to it.

2/3

>>47681809
>>47681818

The Holy Queendom of Sandarmark was conquerered quite early in the history of HET and turned into a province named Sandarmark. It's located to the south of Tivania and just east of the Nualtan peninsula which is the center of the empire where the capital of Nyhem lies. The native religion of the place was never quashed however, but remained alive, spreading its influence all around the HET, become quite popular in the former independet Tyrannian lands to the south east. Throughout the history of the HET this religion has been viewed as just another one of the many benign misguided understanding of the true faith or a vile and destructive heresy that needs to be purged. As such the followers of the religion has suffered through a fair few purges. However the religion has also been the cause of some of the most destructive internal armed conflicts of the empire as a result of its (female) prophetess and High Priestess/demi-god proclaming holy war against the HET. Each time these have been crushed with a lot of effort but non the less the faith has never been fully eradicated, which have left the possibility open for its followers to find the immortal spirit of their prophetess reborn into a new body which most likely will result in the faithful once again taking up arms to avenge themselves on the unjustices that the HET has commited aswell as retaking their eartly state.


3/4 (more text than what I thought.)

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>>47681809
>>47681818
>>47681834


>Magicks

Magic is really non existant in the world. However the vast number of inhabitants of the world are not aware of this and are in fact convinced of its existance, allthough they hold it as something rare and potentially dangerous that only the initiated are capable of performing. Most forms of "magic" takes the shape of elaborate dances, rituals or songs, or a combination of the three. Many different schools and societies exists throughout the world who strive to perfect their niche of practiced magic. As such people and states seek the aid of different magi depending on what services they need. HET armies are usually accompanied by haruspices and some ritualistic battle dancers or chanters. The formers role is evident from their job descripition and the latter ones act out their dances or chants in an attempt to grant the soldiers of the HET increased strength, courage and ferocity while decreasing the same in their foes.
Women are generally considered to be closer to the supernatural than men and as such more often take up the call of the magi or some religious office.


4/4
Allthough if anyone want to hear more let me know.

>>47677187
>How do your humans differ from real humans? Do they live longer? Are they bigger or more attractive?

Made them a subspecies of beastmen like 2 or 3 other guys in /wbg/. Root stock looks african with variations appearing in regions. They can cross breed with most other beastmen subs like elves and orcs.

>Is their philosophy and culture alien to Earth's humans?

There are various cultures in the world and the setting is intended to allow for both analogues and alien concepts to be presented.

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>>47658681
The setting is a wast, decaying, organic city, whose denizens are all sorts of mutants and degenerate freaks, that descend from humanity.

>Gods
There are no gods, though the denizens of the city worship many, ranging from worshipping their Noble blood rulers as manifestations of divine power, to worshipping the city itself as cruel god. The greatest religion within the city is however, the cult of the Vat Mothers, who actively spread their faith among the freak populace. The vat mothers posses great understanding of the secrets of life, and are the only faction that can reliably mass produce new, nearly mutation free, freaks. They are seen as prophets of life, and many freaks flock under them for the promise of rebirth in a new, less sickly body.

>Kingdoms
The city is divided into various realms belonging to various different noble houses, powerful factions whose might and control over their realms, and it's denizens, come from both their carefully cultivated blood lines, as well as the knowledge of secrets of both arcane bio technologies, as well as that of the city itself.
Constantly vying for power and influence, the wars of the noble houses are a major reason for the sorry state of the city.
The guilds fuel their regimes by controlling the sources of the lifegiving biogel, an organic substance that can heal nearly any wound, and is essential in the manufacture, grafting, and usage of many more advanced augments. Without biogel, the society of the city would collapse into anarchy, as every aspect of the freak society needs this priceless substance.
Great wars have been fought over the control of major sources of this substance.

>Guilds
Countless guilds exist under the rule of the nobles, some providing services ranging from transportation to mercenaries, others manoufacturing goods, items and weapons of great value, for the highest bidder. Guilds are second in power only to the Nobles, and the Vat Mother cult.

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>>47683619
>Continents
The city is wast beyond imagination, and is divided into various districts, that can differ from one another greatly.

>Magicks
Mystical, even super natural powers, at least in the view of the freaks, exist within the city, possessed by the privileged few, who have the access to learn these esoteric arts. The two biggest types of "magic" are "Fleshbending" and "Mythic Canticles".
Fleshbending involves one ingesting copious amounts of life giving biogell, and using the force of their will to shape both their body, as well as any organic substance they can touch. It is extremely dangerous, as well as taxing form of magic, that can utterly destroy and consume the user, should he overestimate his abilities.

The art of the "Mythic Canticles" involves the usage of ancient words of power, weaving them into sentences, in order to affect the world around oneself, and even the denizens of the city. The effects of these words can range from merely soothing the city, convincing it to grant safe passages trough regions that would otherwise be filled with it's zealous organic guardian drones, to horrifying displays of supernatural fury, where the city's streets burst out into ossified spikes, impaling all those who trespass upon the streets.

While Fleshbending is not common among the average denizens of the city, most freaks know few of the common, and well known canticles. These prayers do not have any great power to them, but even knowing one that allows you to open a doorway, that would otherwise remain shut, can save one's life.
The more powerful canticles, are well kept secrets, and often sung in a distorted tongue, so that anyone who might hear them, won't be able to make out the precise words used. To learn how to use such awesome power, one must dedicate oneself to the study of the ancient tongues, and search far and wide, for snippets of this lost language.

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What's your ancient technology like in your setting?

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>>47683652
Mysterious, and unknowable, often with extremely dangerous powers beyond the understanding of the degenerate denizens of the city. They are often characterized by inorganic nature, and almost complete lack of indication to their function.
Noble houses are known of collecting these half forgotten artifacts of lost eras, for purposes only known to themselves.

How do a make a mythological feeling setting? It's not going to be too big, maybe a bit larger than a kingdom scale map.
I'll be using D&D 5e as the base, so the setting will be adapting to RAW, rather than creating the setting then excluding and altering rules to fit it.

My idea so far is that it will be a kingdom that sees themselves as the last true remnants of a fallen empire, and they are surrounding by vicious barbarians that are responsible for the downfall of said empire. What I want to do is have the kingdom be more or less grounded, while the surrounding lands are as though they were exaggerated tales derived from ignorance and unreliable tales of travelers made real

But I don't really know the structure of folk mythology or how they come about.

Does anyone else remember those "/tg/ builds a pantheon" threads from a while ago?

>>47658681
>Gods
Maybe some, maybe none.
The Judaist-originating capital G God has some evidence of his existence, but so does a lot of other ones and it's all equally vague.
>Kingdoms
I guess as many Kingdoms as you find in real life, but there's not as many any more and most kings are not important politically.
There's different tribal nations akin to First Nations groups in the USA, but that's a very small number and not commonly found in other countries.
>Guilds
It's just called a union in real life.
Or alternatively a business enterprise depending on how you use the term "guild".
>Continents
You know all the names already.
Though there's actually one less then most people thing because "Europe" is actually a subcontinent and is actually part of the "Eurasian" continent.
>Magicks
That's a really complicated question.
Thaumaturgy is the "publicly acceptable" magic and you can go to college and get your ThD if you've got the money and dedication to afford the specialized education; magic isn't the purview of a rare few, but expensive higher education IS in our society so it belongs to mostly those who can afford it. It's mostly based on Western Hermeticism am so it treats it as a rational scientific study involving understanding underlying universal forces. Magi (a common term for qualified ThD holders) tend to be very rational and scientific but also often have the kind of ego or social problems you see on doctors or lawyers and anyone else who spend thousands and thousands of dollars on education that took five to six years or more to complete. The fact that completing said education gives you limited control over the fabric of reality kind of strokes their ego too.
Hedge practitioners are like "natural medicine" experts; not really trained and sometimes their methods work and sometimes they don't, as they work more on fairytale logic then measured science and rationality. Like most alternative medical fields they're sort of looked down upon by much of society.

>>47684941
Witch is a general legal term related to any user of sorcery who breaks the law with it, at which point due to the potential danger they represent (along with a fair bit of institutionalized prejudice) they basically loose a lot of legal rights they have and are treated as extremely dangerous felons armed with very dangerous weapons.

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During the 1970s the Pentagon put together a United States Fringe Science Division to study and fight paranormal activity from cults in the heart of the USA to Amazon warriors in the jungles of Vietnam.


I just wanted an excuse to have marines in veitnam fighting necromancer Chinese warlords and amazons.

>>47663360
I like this tables, they're fun, but the "optional rule" is pretty much mandatory and should be applied to, at least, 5 and 6 too.

>>47681602

i like it anon, i have something similar but with "hyperspace windows" or quantum tunneling. You could also have the Point A ripple indicate which way the ship went, it would eliminate the "easy escape when SHTF"cliche, as they could be followed into and through their jump/warp/etc

>>47683619
>>47683644

Anon this is so good. It's like a Giger wonderland. I can't take it. How is the architecture in the city? Is it fully organic, or is it built from inorganic materials as well?

>>47677468
>I know, but what does that torch thing represent?
God.

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Taniquetil'

>Taniquetil or Oiolossë, the great Holy Mountain, was the highest of the mountains of Pelóri and the tallest peak in Arda. On its summit was raised Ilmarin, the mansions of Manwë and Varda.

What size is considered too small for a castle, /tg/? I'm thinking of having a motte-and-bailey/ringfort type castle be a base for players, that they can eventually expand upon, but which is vulnerable enough that they're not totally secure from enemies that might be powerful nobles or bandit clans.

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Black lines are the major river systems. Anywhere I should add another river, remove an existing one, change its direction? I know rivers usually end at a lake or the sea or other rivers but I know others just disappear from evaporation if they can't reach one of the above. Felt kinda gimmicky to always have a river start or end at a lake or always end at the sea.

>>47686143

That doesn't sound too small at all. People might think of big ol castles but it could be as simple as a wee fort.

Being able to build and expand onto the motte and bailey sounds neato.

>>47658681
Alright i am stuck on this part of worldbuilding of mine. How the hell do i prevent the undead from becoming to over powered compared to the other civilizations?

I ran into this problem when I considered corpse crafting(because already dead to begin with so they can get really extreme with their modifications) and undead experts who don't die/keep improving.

I desperately want to include some undead civilizations but the above problems is really screwing me over.

Anyway as for the questions my setting has a number of different pantheons. Lots of different kingdoms and guilds...that one is a bit complicated. Not everything is organized as guilds as there are other types of organizations not to mention different kinds of guilds as well as same or similar guilds and organizations that often clash.

Continent wise there are a handful of them and that isn't including flying or floating continents and islands. Figured its fantasy anyway and flying ships and lands are cool.

Magics is also rather complicated subject but can be broken into three major groupings that being born, learned, and bestowed. I consider magic the manipulation/study of supernatural law where science is the manipulation/study of natural law. In setting this basically results in slowed tech development and magitech. There is also psi. For the three major groups are rather self explanatory but the effects they have on the setting is massive and this isn't even getting into magic itself merely those who use it. In my setting there is a huge variety of different magics which all interact with each other in varying ways. Those who use magic need to pay special attention to the kinds of magic they use and how it reacts with other kinds of magic. Very important as some magics will clash against each other with devastating consequences or work astoundingly well together among countless other possible effects. It all depends on the type of magic you tap into and how you use it.

>>47658681
>Gods
Closer to being human than we could know. Mortal races are essentially the god's form of reproduction. In moat, worlds humans are bound to discover ways to ascend to their level, but the chance is like one in a billion, and entire civilizations from evolution to extinction maybe produce two or three. Otherwise, they play the rolls you'd expect in a polytheistic RPG
>Kingdoms
For the most part, each member of each race belongs to a specific realm of rule, aside from a few seperatist states. Humans are a monarchy, following an eleven year old king, dorfs are ogliarchal and give power to the best buisnessmen, elves are democratic and the population is controled through hyper-nationalistic propaganda, Saytrs are Ancient Greek styled democracy, goblins are theocratic and worship the dragons, dragons basically live off offering from the goblins, and Orks have no formal government, they just sit around doing drugs and having sex.
>Guilds
Don't really focus on those
>Continents
Humans and dwarves share a megacontinent that takes up a massive amount of space, elves share an archipelago with the saytrs, Orks have their own australia-sized island, and goblins and dragons share twin Texas-sized islands
>Magicks
Humans draw their magical power from within, being the founding fathers of pyromancy. They cast these fire-based spells through sheer force of will. Elves get their power from the arcane energy that radiates from the cosmos. They learn to cast spells by studing the nature of magic. The dwarves, having no magic within themselves, draw power from arcane materials that they mine or harvest and infuse it into their crafts, this process is known as "dwarven enchanting". The goblins are summoners, an art gifted to them by the dragons. They use their knowledge to tear rifts in the world and call forth great beasts that are bound to them. Orks use pagan rituals, sacrifices, and dark deals with the gods to create powerful elixrs.

>>47674944
Why not combine them? Start with your fantasy setting then follow the timeline till it reaches modern fantasy and then sci fi.

That is what happened to mine.

Then somehow it ended up going all super hero and villain on me during the modern and sci fi ish era.

Kinda amusing with how it all worked out actually.

>>47675937
What is your FTL and varying techs like? how well explored is the galaxy and can other galaxies be reached or explored yet?

>>47677187
Their philosophy compared to our is heavily outdated. This is due to them having literal divine rights to rule because their deities have very real effects and magical bloodlines though. So their societal development got fucked really REALLY hard.

Cultures vary they don't all have the same culture as that would be retarded not to mention the different pressures they endured compared to earth has massively effected their overall culture.

Honestly depends on how much nonhuman blood they got flowing through their veins. Certain nonhuman blood will have different effects changing appearances, lifespan, and even potential. Those with giant's blood for instance are notably taller then those without is an example. Different pressures due to the wide variety of reasons and outer breeding has massively effected their genepool and even temperament to a lesser degree when compared to humans from earth.

Their women for instance are notably stronger and less heavily effected by childbearing/birth. This rose up mostly due to the influence of monsters and outsiders who prey upon humanity forcing more then just the men to be actively protective. This effect is amplified with the tribals or hellhole regions. Whose women are rather infamous for their strength among more civilized and peaceful cultures.

>>47683652
Mysterious and sometimes oddly advanced. Much of it comes from dead civilizations and even more from extinct races. Often difficult to distinguish if it runs on tech or magic.

>>47684368
Mythology was meant to explain natural events and teach lessons while providing a source to belief in as well as worship. Build it around those facts.

Not really sure if this is the right place to ask, but does anyone have any random faction creation tables a la those 40k ones, but for fantasy? I'm trying to populate a region but I'm having some trouble.

>>47686793
ive been having issues with the FTL to be honest trying to make it rather balanced.
but theres a few types of FTL the classic hyperspace/slip space etc (pretty much quantum tunneling ) drive
see>>47681602
and my response
>>47685280
the size of the window can indicate how much power is being used to open it and how big the ship or fleet is or how much power that ship is using.
so a small ship could pretend its a much bigger ship by forcing open a bigger window than needed to travel, but it would be a sitting duck after the jump to allow it to radiate the heat away and the capacitors to recharge so its a risky move to do.

so if a HUGE window starts to open (would start rippling 90 mins) and you are only a half light min away in hostile space with only 3 small ships..
what do you do?
stay and hope it was a bluff ? or run away ?

the galaxy is only about 40% discovered but claims are being made and refuted, its an early bird gets the worm kinda galaxy.

could you clarify what you mean by varying techs?
are you talking tech levels?
or similar tech that do the same job?
weaponry ?
etc...

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another early map of my setting, posted last month I think

I removed the main continent earlier today after its ~10th remake, originally it was the only continent but I expanded east and shifted the focus there until the western continent was extremely boring and beyond salvaging. So the map is obviously still volatile. The map is still too small for my liking.

Aerinoch looks really stupid, ignore its current shape and layout, just needed a placeholder shape to put some stuff in as the image had to be expanded southward.

also the image is really small, I'm used to viewing it at 400% magnification and it's far too late to make it bigger

>>47688566
ignore the km scale as well, that's ancient

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>>47685507
Thanks.
The architecture is organic in nature.
Under the shadow of great fleshy spires, stretch wast mazes of streets, tunnels, plazas and avenues. The city extends deep underground, and the deeper you go, the more dangerous it generally gets.

>>47688566
If the map's too small, make more maps in other images.

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>>47683652
Anything that counts as "ancient tech" in my setting is a product of Giants, since there isn't really an ancient lost civilization to speak of.

So heres a scenario. You got the main human kingdom in a setting, about to be attacked by an army of Orcs of unprecedented size and power. The allies of the kingdom have even come to it's aid to face this threat.

So what would be more dramatic and exciting, the kingdom and it's allies forces halting the Orc forces at the walls in a desperate, all out fight, or the Orcs forcing past the walls and the kingdom holding the line within the town of the kingdom's capital?

>>47689445
>War ends
>The Wall held
>For the next couple hundred years, Watchers on the Wall become a respected profession
>Get to write Night's Watch-esq stories or campaigns

Alternatively:
>War ends
>The Wall fell
>Orcs raped and pillaged across the land, up to the Kingdom's capital
>Half-Orc rape babies, peasants dead, distrust of the weak nobility
>Rebellion plotline

>>47689537
Well the Orcs won't win, it just comes down to where the final struggle is held, either on the walls, or in the town. It's a historical battle in my setting that I am working on.

>>47689756
I was just putting forth two scenarios for how that war might have led to.
Scenario A would lead you to having a China-esq setting, with a Great Wall holding off the Orcish hordes.
Scenario B has a kingdom recovering from a brutal war, with all of the ingredients in place for a Republic or an Empire.

>>47690005
>for what that war*
I'm tired.

>>47690005
And those are lovely scenarios, but the conclusion is already there. With the combined forces of the kingdom of Highfield, the army of the country of Hashin and the 10,000 Cutthroats, they fight off the overwhelming forces of Warlord Baska and his Orcish hordes, at great cost to the kingdom and it's allies forces, but come out victorious despite being outnumbered nearly 3 to 1. It's one of the major moments in the legend of Dorland, the kingdoms greatest hero who has fought monsters and dragons, but this being the first war he's ever taken part in, and despite Orcs being messy savages, Warlord Baska has proven to be one of the most dangerous enemies in the kingdoms history, since not only can he match Dorland in combat, but he demonstrates incredible cunning and tactical knowledge that no other Orc in history has shown. It's a massive war, but the main idea of the struggle is to show that despite being one of the least threatening forces in the setting, when rallied by a proper leader, the Orcs were one of the only enemies to ever threaten the kingdom of Highfield and Dorland.

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Bumping with a contribution which doubt will be interesting but it's better than nothing. I'll keep it short,
>Gods
The Three of the City (the Maiden, the Crone, the Whore), the fuck I forgot his name (the Old Father), the Black Slab (an actual leviathan living at the bottom of the ocean), Esaelos (the Thousand Turtles of Serenity), Abdulash (the Crocodile of Doom), Fenexia (both Gabudru and Nabasuru depictions), Ememphem (the Jade Dragon, and the actual Queen of Amos Mios), Ish (Dwarfish god...sort of god...it's complicated)
>Kingdoms
Palinfagal, Norvgar, Findaria, Polska, Duchvand, the Dominion, Prawar-Gazhar ("the land again", mountain dwarf confederation), Old Valkana (ruins), Az-Kharzad (Desert-dwelling dwarf tribes), Valley of Ish (another dwarf tribe, notable as the place the dwarfs of Prawar-Gazhar revere as the cradle of dwarfkind and sometimes make pilgrimage to), Anasu, Gabudru, Amos Mios, Esaelos, Nabasuru, Shardshore (ruled by large marine iguanas) and Shalek Shash (ruled by huge, hyper-manipulative snakes).
>Guilds
None so far, at least I haven't thought of any.
>Continents
The Mammoth Isle, the big important one everyone has different names for, and Middle Merrika.
>Magicks
Alchemy is the most popular and present system of magic, different shamanistic magic systems, the Sorrowful Smile and the Laughing Tear trickster magic system. Most civilizations prohibit the use of magic more advanced than alchemy. The Dominion puts heavy regulations and restrictions on magic users, giving Vigilant Officers, members of the Vigilus Magicae, the power to enforce the law onto and prosecute magic users when necessary.

>>47684368
I like this idea. Keep us updated on it.
My setting revolves around dreams and the relativity of perceived reality. The further you move away from civilization, mapped areas, or even your adventuring party, the less stable, the more twisted and more mysterious the environment becomes.

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>>47686347
>I know rivers usually end at a lake or the sea or other rivers but I know others just disappear from evaporation if they can't reach one of the above. Felt kinda gimmicky to always have a river start or end at a lake or always end at the sea.
Please provide me with more information on rivers just ending in open space, because that's the first time I've ever heared of that. AFAIK all river connect to larger rivers, lakes, seas or something else like that. If anything, it feels gimmicky to have rivers like that in the middle left of your map, which stops dead in its bed in the mid of the desert.

>>47686406
Undead can have a ton of different weaknesses that the other civilizations don't have. For example, there's only a small number of necromancers and the rest are all mindless zombies and skeletons. They can be allergic to sunlight, holy water, silver, fire, flowing water and all that other stuff, so if you know how to fight undead, it gets really easy.
Or all the other races just hate them and team up against the undead on every occasion.

>>47686406
Who says undead civilisations want to become all-powerful and take over the world? Even if the creators want to rule over their own undead like monarchs, which they might not necessarily want to do, whose to say they're fine with it being a decently large valley and some forests? Also what >>47691645 said.

The premise of the setting is that a mad sorcerer somehow barred the gods from the world, starting the process of it's destruction. Another group of sorcerers created a portal to a virgin world to save the few remaining peoples, sapping it's arcane magic in the process and effectively killing sorcery.
>Gods
The Great Creator was a childlike, omnipotent, life-giving entity who shaped the universe. Feeling lonely, he split himself into thousands of primordial entities/gods. The lesser gods work with the Terry Pratchet system, the more worshipers they have, the stronger they get. All gods start as minor gods, the niche they hold power upon is usually defined by the meaning their followers give them, even though they have a choice of how they want to present themselves.
The new world(named Thaulant) has a few major gods, who gained power soon after the sapient species from the old world arrived and began worship of gods that presented themselves to them. Thaulant is the primordial entity that inhabits the core of the planet, making sure the world runs as it should and literally keeps it together.

>>47691885 (You)
>Gods cont.
Lahmanash, King of Kings, god of authority, power, smithing/shaping of precious materials and the Ash Mountain Chain; Artuark, Wanderer of the Land, god of travel, exploration and the great plains of Artua; Hymellia, Mother of Great Serpents, goddess of childbirth, flying serpents, war and the Oldtree Lands. Gods do not hold absolute power over their domains but have great powers related to them as well as general god powers.
>Kingdoms
Only 2 kingdoms survived the end of the old world and coming to Thaulant. The Aulanthites, former inhabitants of the tropical southern islands, somehow kept their social structure and are thriving on the cold northern islands, they are led by the Devil King. The Kyla Kingdom(a kingdom of jacked insectoids) led by the Plawazar arrived in Artua and built great towers like the ones in their ancestral land. There are many independent settlements and nomadic groups that are carving out their place in the new land.
>Guilds
None have been reformed yet.
>Continents
The world has been barely explored and I suck at making maps but I'm planning on 3 large continents, a few Australias and a lot of islands.
>Magick
Arcane magic is extinct, the only way to gain magic-like powers is by gaining the favor of the gods or getting a hold of some kind of artifact. There are some species that have abilities that could be considered magic like telepathy, flight etc.
>>47690668
I really like your gods, it's probably the names that make them sound really cool, can you say something more about them.

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>>47692257
>I really like your gods, it's probably the names that make them sound really cool, can you say something more about them
Thanks anon, and sure I can.
The Three of the City are worshiped by the denizens of Saltwash City and it's surrounds, the "City" in the name literally referencing Saltwash City. The Three are composed of the Maiden, Crone and Whore (taught in schools as "the Harlot" for obvious reasons), which represent and are said to administer certain aspects of the local culture, the Maiden concerning motherhood, family, agriculture, and marriage as well as kindness, forgiveness, generosity and purity, the Crone dealing with law, honour, justice, commerce, teaching and wisdom, and the Whore representing love, luck, music, art, festivities (something Saltwash City, the capital of the Dominion, is infamous for) as well as the obvious pleasure and prostitution.
The Old Father is a vaguely clerical figure worshiped in rural communities in the Dominion, as well as all throughout Findaria, Norvgar, Duchvand and Polska, all to different interpretations. To simple farmers the Old Father is an omniscient god of agriculture and tradition, but in the snow-swept northern nations he is a much more grim figure full of icy wrath, seen as much as an arbitrator of death and bad luck as much as farming.
The Black Slab is...well, no one really knows. All that is known is that when the Fishfolk of Saltwash City finish their days work on the docks and head back to their watery houses floating just offshore, on nights of the new moon they huddle together to covert slabs of black, wet rocks. It is whispered these were dragged from the deep, black basin below the waves from which the Fishfolk claim their true home lies. Who or what the Fishfolk actually worship, they do not share with others, but it is known to outsiders simply as the Black Slab.
Will continue.

>>47692478
>Findaria, Norvgar, Duchvand and Polska
So is your setting Not!Europe?

Any unusual or unconventional inspirations?

>Zeno Clash
>Runescape
>Kenshi
>Majora's Mask
>Cannibal Holocaust
>some s4s posts
>Mad Max
Are mine in the context of an eastern medieval fantasy

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>>47692478
>cont
Esaelos, worshiped by the nation of the same name, can roughly be translated to as the Thousand Turtles of Serenity. The concept of Esaelos is vastly contrived; basically, it's a series of spiritual writings and teachings that holds that serenity is to be sought in all aspects of life in order to achieve a zenith of peace, happiness and enlightenment for all living things. The Thousand Turtles of Serenity is a god, gods, a spiritual tale, the life-force of the universe and the inner self of whoever you are all at once. Shrines of Esaelos can be found in most cities around the civilized world of humans.
Abdulash, the Crocodile of Doom, honestly inspired by the image of Offler the crocodile god from Discworld, initially. Worshiped by the hardy and warlike people of Asanu, Abdulash is likewise warlike and angry, and it is said he will eventually devour the world and bring about the end of time.
Fenexia is a man-phoenix god, depicted by Gabudru culture as omniscient, wrathful and warlike, imagined as wielding a scimitar, and in Nabasuru culture as a noble and just being, more like a wise emperor.
Ememphem, the Jade Dragon, a god of Amos Mios, is said to be a greatly powerful being who takes the form of a serpent-like dragon of green fire. It is believed that in order to better enact his will upon his people, he must live in the mortal world within a mortal vessel. This vessel is always the current Jade Queen of Amos Mios, for they say Ememphem would never settle for a vessel of less influence.
>cont
>>47692513
I have no real intention on focusing on those particular cultures, but if I did I'd do my best to not make them fantasy equivalents of real life cultures; it's something I did religiously in my previous setting and I ended up hating the entire concept. I just thought up cool names at the time that roughly adhered to a culture flavor that, if I decided to flesh out later, I would try to develop into something different.

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>>47692905
>cont
Ish is exclusively worshiped by the mountain dwarfs. Ish is a system of belief that has it's roots in ancestor worship, coming from the mountain dwarfs' sense of connection to their ancestral homeland, the Valley of Ish, something that they feel they must acknowledge and revere. The connection mountain dwarfs, or "drae ite prawar-gazhar" as they call themselves, have to "Ish" varies from dwarf to dwarf, some visiting their undertown's Alcove of Ish every year, and some visiting it every month, and going on to make the pilgrimage to the Valley. To some, "Ish" is merely an idea of the first ancestors, and to others it is what it means to be truly a dwarf, the idea of the place where dwarfs first entered the world, as it is held.
And that's it basically.

>>47680872
>>47680893
Dragonfag back again.

Here's some early draft shit:
>Kingdoms

Only one fleshed out atm: the Archdraaken Empire.

Spanning hundreds of miles, some would say the Archdraaken Empire has grown bloated and corrupt. Nevertheless, even after various battles had worn it down somewhat, it is still the biggest power in the continent of Ouros and boasts to be the first civilization the world has ever known. Slavery is practiced, mainly on Humans as Drakes make up a large portion of the upper classes, even though Humans vastly outnumber them.

The Everlasting Dragon and Most Holy Emperor Aionios rules the Empire, while various members of the royal family - of holy blood - rule over archduchies, and so on. In the Empire, the more draconic you are, the more you should be revered. The story goes that thousands of years ago, a tribe of Humans desired peace and so went to the dragons, asking for protection and guidance, the Dragons agreed to share their wisdom and power but only in return for servitude. In fact, the majority of Humans within the Empire worship Aionios as a god, believed to reincarnate into another mortal vessel when his current one expires.

While life in slavery is hard, the core provinces of the Archdraaken Empire are relatively safe, at least compared to the rampant wastes of Tarid to the south and the Forest of a Thousand Thorns to the north. Amphitheatres are the main centres of entertainment, the most popular event held at them being gladiatorial matches where both hand-picked and trained slaves as well as convicts fight for their lives.

>>47693688
>(cont)
Nevertheless, not all Humans are slaves; if a slave’s master is kind, the slave may be freed as a reward for good service - this is usually seen with domestic slaves. The freed slave’s descendants are also born into freedom, which led to the rise of rival merchant families. Some Humans may even be ‘blessed’ by a union with a Drake, (often mutual) leading to Drakons. They are distinguished from normal Humans by a scattering of scales, pronounced canines, often regal bearing and pointed ears. In some cases, some Drakon even sprout wings. While they are above Humans in Archdraaken society, they are usually regarded by Drakes as little more than uptighted, entitled bastards.

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bump

>Gods

I need a creation story for my world.

The pantheon is just four gods: Law (Male), Good (Female), Evil (Female), and Chaos (Male). I can come up with names for them, but I need a creation story that doesn't sound stupid and/or cliche as fuck

>>47695176
Orgy.

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>>47691605
Iran has something similar and I'm sure other desertic countries with rough terrain do too. But the river should end at least in a salt lake, salt desert, marshes or something. Making it end in the middle of nowhere is indeed weird specially for such a big river.

Actually wikipedia apparently has a page about it. I will read it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorheic_basin

>>47695540

Am one that posted the map, thanks for explaining it. And yeah that desert one didn't sit well with me but I didn't know where it should end. Tarim Basin is probably the biggest case of a endorheic basin but it does seem rare - or rare at least for large and distinct rivers. There's doubtless lots of smaller rivers in the mountainous parts of Asia that 'disappear' at the end, but they aren't the sort that'll show up on a map in the company of niles, danubes, volgas.

I am not averse to just removing that river because I don't know who or what would inhabit the desert highland region. But then that leaves a giant uninhabited desert as I didn't have any immediate plans for it. Sounds like for now I should just remove the river and worry about that area once I've gotten everything else handled.

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I'm trying to do character designs for a culture that's based around flying mounts and scattered islands. I've been thinking a mostly Pacific Islander feel, but I can't think of what the proper attire for combat means would be.

Any sources I should be looking into? I'd really rather avoid just going generic tribal light clothes, since I want them to be a bit more technologically and socially advanced, but considering the sun and temperate climate it wouldn't make sense to bundle either, even ignoring the issues of wind and sun at higher altitudes while flying.

>>47696580

Was thinking bout winged people, not mounts, but what I remember hearing in the past about if humans were to have wings or just the nature of bird physiology is: hollow bones and major upper body strength rather than lower body strength (Humans I believe are either relatively equal there or somewhat/much favored to lower body strength). So I would think instead of skinny waifs winged humanoids would have powerful and fuller upper bodies. Not absurdly so, but definitely no pearshaped humans and maybe pearshaped in reverse - broad shoulders, full torso, narrower hips and legs.

In terms of combat on flying mounts I would think that ranged projectiles outside of javelins or short ranged 'drive by' stuff would not really apply. You've got a 3d axis instead of just a 2d one to worry about aiming, unless said projectile is magical and not just arrow/crossbow/gunpowder it will suffer from a lot of factors.

What immediately leaps to mind for me is fluid jousting/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jereed


Dresswise look at Tibet. If I had my scanner set up I'd scan a pic of a late 19th early 20th white guy who had to dress up like a Tibetan coolie to try and sneak into Tibet and he actually had snow-goggles on, which were evidently a thing among the Tibetans to stop snow-blindness.

>>47696183
You could always have an inland salted sea or great lake.

Are abandoned/ruined cities a fantasy creation or did this phenomena exist in real life? Talking a broad 1000 BC - 1400 AD range.

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>>47696767

Good idea, was wondering how/where a lake in a desert would form and scrapped any because I couldn't figure out hot. But an aral type sea would be perfect there.

Thanks buddy.

>>47696903
Look at studies on Mayan ruins- many of them were believed to be abandoned well before the arrival of western cultures.

>>47696903

Not a fantasy creation.

I wish I could find the slides with archaeological sites I was shown in a course on greek history a few years back. It was of the same Messena/Pylos region, documenting sites with relics suggesting habitation (roof tiles, pottery shards, debris and so on). One in the late helladic bronze age so like 1300s or so, one in the greek dark ages so 800 or so.

The former had upwards of +117 different village/dwelling sites.
The latter had around 7.

Mycenae as a dwelling was largely abandoned after the Mycenaean period,. too

Gods.
Pretty much the standard PF ones but they are much more withdrawn and seldom directly act on the material plane. The reason for this is a agreement with a mortal who remembers his past lives in perfect detail after reincarnation. He has existed since the days of the greek empire, his first life being that of the famed inventor dedalus, father of icarus. Hundreds of millions of years have passed since his first life. He saw the rise of science, caused a near end to the universe and has been fighting ever since to undo his mistakes and bind the tendrils of entropy he unwillingly let into the universe in his life as Robert opinhimer, the father of the atomic bomb.
The kingdoms.
Due to continental drift the earth nearly has one super continent again and the Empire dominates nearly all of it. Its a LN kingdom unconcerned with freedom and individualism and up its own ass about paperwork.
the semi independent city state of bastion acts as a kind of Hong Kong in this sea of burocrasy. Founded near an artifact that holds untold gates to other places in the multivers and even parallel realitys of the material plane by the adventurers that descoverd it. The empire taxes the crap out of business and propertys but a town full of adventuerers rakes in to much gold to care.
Continent
See above.

Magics.
Magic is the result of a once rare gene that allows one to draw uppon the background radiation (mana) naturally and through understanding or intuition warp and shape rwality by shear will. Science is the art of doing the same via technology, though the heights man once reached have been lost to the ages, preserved only by a few. Though it is always being redescovered by bright inquisitive minds yet something (or someone) seems to be holding back advancement. So tech is suck pre industrial revolution, though guns are avalabe.

>>47695176
>In the mists before THE BEGINNING, Fate and Chance cast lots to decide whose the Game should be; and he that won strode through the mists to MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI and said: "Now make gods for Me, for I have won the cast and the Game is to be Mine." Who it was that won the cast, and whether it was Fate or whether Chance that went through the mists before THE BEGINNING to MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI—_none knoweth._

>>47692895
>Hellmoo
>Fallout
>Anarchy Reigns
>Syndicate
The setting is like an amalgamation of all of those, with the first one being the largest inspiration and the last one being the smallest

I have a real boner for cyberpunk and satire

>>47696903

I'm confused; are you asking if ruins are real? Because there are ruins all over the world even today and that's with humans spread over and developing more places than ever.

>>47658681
>So I really just need to copy some bullshit onto my computer from my phone and I'm really lazy

Google docs is your friend, just saying.

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Sounds like a good little exercise. I've been DMing LMoP in my first D&D game ever and really enjoying it.
>Gods
The principle deities of the setting are the Twofold Eight, Eight gods of light and eight of darkness, who waged war for control of the primordial world. One god from each side betrayed their allies and joined the others- Areni, the charismatic golden god of ambition and supremacy, was ousted for trying to usurp Dea, the divine mother, and Torvus, solemn god of the dead and judgement, abandoned his dark fellows in disgust after Areni convinced them to turn on the Mad God and slaughter him in cold blood. The Mad God's festering corpse, adrift in the astral sea, became the Abyss. Minor racial deities also exist, with many races venerating the first of their kind to come into being as both honored ancestors and paragons of the aspects of society they embodied.
>Kingdoms
Shit's largely fucked at present, with most of the world overrun with monsters and dangerous wilderness. There were two ancient kingdoms of humans and dragonborn who underwent mutual annihilation centuries ago, but since then there have largely been independent city-states that control their immediate surroundings. There are, however, vague alliances forming between some cities. Many are drawn to the authority of King Aurilon II, a half-elven monarch who has led his realm of Cormoran to relative security and prosperity and aims to consolidate alliances with his nearest neighbours and form the Reclaimed Kingdom.
>Guilds
There are numerous guilds for the trades and professions encountered in the few safe cities. Additionally the generic five factions from the 5e setting exist, albeit with altered names. Other groups of note include coastal pirates in service to a figure known as the Storm King Fulgurax, the minions of the Drowned Lord, a water cultist who became a lich decades ago and drove out the rival cults, and a pair of fey lords from the summer and winter courts known as the Equinox.

>>47688144
theres about 27 discovered species/civilizations 9 major ones and heaps of smaller ones ( sometimes being vassals or independent factions ) 17 are part of the galactic community then theres the 9 civs who are not part of the "community" (including humanity) and one thats an enemy of everything

this all summed up as a species as most aren't unified so if i went into detail i'd be here for 12 years explaining shit

theres alot of variations of the same tech between each civ, as nobody wants to share stuff that could jeopardize an advantage over another in any way shape or form so capital punishment is common place.

bumb

>>47691605
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okavango_Delta

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>Gods
Worshipped, but not truly known.
>Kingdoms
There is only one kingdom left, the world having collapsed in on itself several centuries earlier and only now starting to recover, all of the civilized races living in one (smallish) empire.
>Guilds
Plentiful but not too powerful.
>Continents
There are 9 of them, and each one has a few settlements though the bulk of the civilized races live on only one.
>Magicks
A mix of the magic schools from Elder Scrolls and D&D (with some modification) and some ideas from old school Final Fantasy and a dash of Legend of Zelda magic thrown in, but they never get higher in general terms of power than Level 4 spells in D&D.

>>47658681
Basically a totally underwater campaign heavily inspired by Dark Sun and other Sword and Planet tales.

>>Gods
Sleeping poorly mostly. Demogorgon is in the Abyss. The Silent King awaits his foe to awaken. The Leviathan has not been seen in many ages. Tiamat is sealed away, Bahamut wanders consuming evil beings whole.

>>Kingdoms
Sunken or bubbles sustained by old and dying magic.

>>Guilds
Hardly exist.

>>Continents
Underwater regions

>>Magicks
The Flow. Magic that suffuses the water, and Blood Magic, a holdover from an older age and source of much heat.

>>47705373
How does one travel from place to place!?

>>47705553
>>47705553
Swimming, or being towed by something that swims. Some places move on their own, like the City in the Whale or the giant turtle flotillas.

>>47705632
What about breathing?

>>47705632
>>47705932
I would also like to know

>>47689136
Icky. Very spooky and dark. So, do freaks live in houses or apartments and own businesses and stuff, or is it more just "serve a master or try to survive on your own"? For that matter, what's the main source of food for the freaks? Crops, the sides of buildings, each other?

If I was to write a 'setting bible' of all my settings primary stuff, would anybody enjoy that sort of thing or would it be too masturbatory even for these threads?

>>47705996
Go for it, it might inspire some of us and give us new resources to steal for our own setting

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>>47705964
The freaks live in whatever hovels they can claim for themselves, be they decaying ruins of ancient structures, mere organic caverns, or organic habitat blocks.
There is security in numbers, so most freaks who aren't servants/slaves of the guilds, noble houses, or various other organizations like the vatmother cult, form into quarreling gangs. These gangs tend to be rather anarchic in nature, and they often fight each other for control of streets etc. Some may be tied to guilds, and even noble houses, who in turn, use the gangs for their own ends.
Surviving on your own is hard in the city, because of the cut throat nature of the society, but it is possible. There are still many hidden, and forgotten places within the city, where a lone freak may find peaceful living, though such places are few, and far between.
The denizens of the city consume many things, ranging from each other, to the walls of the city itself (though the later is of rather poor nutritional quality). There exists a large industry involved in raising specifically engineered "flesh beasts" whose sole purpose in life is to ingest the waste of others, and then being eaten. Being made into a flesh beast, is possibly one of the worst fates for a freak.

>>47705932
There are races that can breathe underwater, i'm being lazy and taking existing races and changing them a bit statistically. There are no dwarves, but there are crustacean-men called Karkinoi. There are no Gnomes or Halflings, but there are Fishlings, a combination of the two. Dragonborn are tied to sea dragons, Tieflings are tied to the deep Abyss and called Deep Ones. Sea Elves come in three varieties. Half-orcs are more like Half-Sahuagin. They all can breathe underwater. Still deciding if Humans should be able to too, or make them unique and not be able to naturally.

>>47703351
Does anyone want to know more?
I legit have so much stuff I'd clog the thread..
Just ask questions n shit

Any advice on how to make good looking urban/city maps?

I ask because my next setting literally only takes place in one city.

>>47706040
Being lazy isn't that bad anon you've put a neat spin on classic races, its hard to invent a race and history so putting a spin is still creative
What sort of weapons are common ?
Do these underwater peoples ever wage war?

>>47706030
Damn that sucks. How sentient are the freaks? Is it dependent on their, like, breed, or what? Also, about the magic words; is that just actual magic, or is it more like keywords built into the system by the humans in order to control/utilize the city? If the latter (or also the former, I suppose), are there magical words that can command the freaks? Or are they too far mutated now to be really affected?

>>47683619
>>47683644
>>47706030
Please tell me that you aren't turned on by any of this.

What is the best option, /tg/?
>take a bunch of classic fantasy races and give them new cultures
>design completely new races and cultures and give them classic fantasy race names
or
>design completely new races and cultures and invent names for them
?

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>>47706391
> How sentient are the freaks?
Depends on the state they are born in.
The ones born from the walls of the city itself, in the "gutters" tend to vary from animalistic wretches with no sense of self, to beings with roughly human level of cognition.

The ones born in the vats of the vat mothers, tend to be generally more intelligent than their gutter born brethren, as they are made to the specifications of the factions who commission their creation, and usually such factions wish for their custom made servant to be mentally competent.

>is that just actual magic
To the freaks it is. The nature of the mythic canticles has been lost to the ages, and those who hold any clues to their true nature, keep them a closely guarded secret. And yes, there are canticles that can take control of a freak, even masses of freaks, seizing their bodies under the command of the one utilizing the words. That breed of canticles are only known by nobles in general, and they utilize the words rarely, perhaps out of fear of them losing their power if overused, or because they don't want to risk their rivals learning those words.
High degree of mutation does in some cases, increase one's resistance to the mythic words, as the body of mutated individual no longer recognizes the sanctity of those commands, and fails to comply.

>>47706523
Why would I?

>>47706548
Option 3 or just use humans senpai. Option 1 is okay if you're just gonna do a pulpy fantasy romp whatever but otherwise it's just creatively stifling imo. The only setting I've seen that does something truly unique with traditional races (elves in particular and kind of dwarves) is Elder Scrolls, but those elves are pretty unique.

>>47706597
Fascinating. So are you using all this material for roleplaying or for a novel or personal masturbatory enjoyment or what?

>>47706548

Honestly I like all three, but I tend to judge things on an individual basis.

Also; if you are going to make your races REALLY different from the original standards, I would recommend giving them a very similar but distinct name to help distinguish them a bit. For example; imagine if you are combining dwarves and halflings together- instead of just calling them Halflings or Dwarves, give them a name like Squats, Stouts, Weefolk, Hill People, Proudfoot, or somethingl like that. It helps cement the idea in people's minds that it's not the same as a dwarf, it's a Broadhead, or whatever.

I also tend to like really new races as well. I'm trying to incorperate something like that in my new setting which, while not completly original, having the animal people in the setting be fucking yaxs instead of generic cats or lizards is kind of unique.

>>47706687
>Fascinating. So are you using all this material for roleplaying or for a novel or personal masturbatory enjoyment or what?

Honestly, I am not using it for anything right now.
I like building worlds, and this is what I have built. I wish I had some use for it, but as it is, I don't.

>>47706548
If you take classic fantasy cultures, you do for invocation. If your fantasy features elves, or dwarves or orcs, you mean to invoke certain stereotyping from audience and either roll with them or give them different spin either sticking to those stereotypes or tricking audience into assuming wrong about them (For recent example, see Dragon Age - what if we had Tolkien-esque universe, but everyone were assholes?)

If you aren't going to do any of it, you probably shouldn't use classic races at all - being completely in name only will only be confusing or give people unnecessary wrong idea.

Finally, do you really need different races to populate your cultures? If not, maybe stick with humans?

>Only place on the island ships can land is a small segment of the shore small enough to surround with wall and turn into archers' killzone and deathtrap to any invader by sea
Is this unrealistic? Do approachable shores need to be long?

>>47706095
Giving numbers like that literally means nothing, just say something about the most interesting species/

>>47707084
Yes, example. The beaches of Normandy were huge.
If it's a small island with one steep landing site conquest would be hard. But if it's larger and with multiple fjords you can't really fortify each shore.

>>47707538
I'm trying to justify a relative small island nation indulging in insane North Korea style bullshit and not being conquered by anyone. I used to simply say they weren't worth bothering, but it doesn't cut it anymore, so I'm trying to give them an effective defense that would make invasion too costly to do.

>>47707573
What is the tech level? If ancient or medieval, you can sort of pull that off. Depending on how small the island really is, I'd say it'd be realistic if it was mostly high rocky coasts, but there are a few accessible beaches that are heavily guarded and fortified.

>>47707843
Medieval, yes. I suppose several beaches would improve plausibility while still working for narrative.

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>>47658681
>>Gods

I'm running a game right now, and I got this planned for death since I want there to be some death. I hope my players don't see this post because then it would be spoilers!!!

Here's what I've been planning

When the players die, they get dropped into a dark labyrinth. I'm sort of planning on having this playing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwe1nbYO3og (feel free to suggest a song that fits better)

The area is pitch black, and they can only navigate by touching the dark, ice cold walls. They can't talk to each other while in the labyrinth as it feels like they're underwater or in a vacuum, the words just won't come out.

There's nothing in the labyrinth, save for the people they've killed in the past, or friends they've let die. These people will act like zombies, and will attack them relentlessly if they see them.

Once the players wander for long enough, or they find the exit, a massive dark hand will come from above and grab them. Then they'll be drawn out of the labyrinth and will wake up in the real world, one day prior to when they died with some sort of penalty.

There's a lore reason for all of this but I won't go into it for now

Thoughts? Does this sound good or does it have any glaring flaws?

>>47707896
Sounds like a cool idea. Does this only happen after a TPK or is it a single sidequest for each dead player?
Keep in mind that the novelty and scare will wear off quickly. Flesh out the killed enemies and friends in the labyrinth so that some cool creepy moments can happen.
Solid music choice. You could seek out one of the gondola threads on /wsg/ for more dark music inspiration.

>>47706687
>>47706718
>>47706980
Thanks to you all for your advice. My setting is currently almost on par with the Edge chronicles in terms of the number of sentient species. Some of them are very similar to classic fantasy races (humans, wood elves, goblins), and others have some similarity (orcs, satyrs). But most of them also belong to different cultures and have close genetic ties to my custom races. I guess I'll go with the third option for now.

Maybe not the most in depth worldbuilding question here but what are the deal with Liches? Are they usually evil by default?

I want to make a nice/misunderstood Lich, though I'm not sure if that completely breaks the definition of what a Lich is

>>47708735
I think becoming a Lich usually involves being evil. But there's no requirement. It's your setting and why shouldn't it have friendly neighborhood revernants? Hell, passionless corpse might be the best ruler local peasants had in years.

The only hazard I see is the immortal leader might become stagnant and reactionary in changing world.

>>47708779
Thanks, I normally write sci-fi type stuff so I don't know too much on fantasy.

Maybe I could fit him into one anyways. Old as shit and magic never caught on. So he's one of the few cases like this.

>>47708735
>Are they usually evil by default?
Lichdom is generally associated with necromantic practices, and the reason why necromantic practices are generally thought to be evil probably does not need to be explained.
That said, there is no rule that Liches are supposed to be evil, and there have been multiple works and stories that featured a positive Lich character.

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I'm writing up a homebrew campaign setting for a D&D 5e game and I'm not entirely sure I need to add "savage" races like orcs or hobgoblins or whatever, for the exclusive purpose of giving the players something to kill guilt-free.

While the game and setting itself are supposed to be inspired by JRPGs of the 90s and I get that exploring the monster's culture and motivations aren't exactly something those games ever did (except Chrono Trigger, but you still murdered mystics / fiends without guilt anyway) it still feels wrong to just say "Oh shit it's a bunch of bugbears, roll initiative" without figuring out what tribe they come from, why they're in that area, and why they're attacking the party.

Also, the game doesn't have a conventional D&D style pantheon, so there aren't exactly any evil gods or demon lords that created / control those races, like Gruumsh and his orcs or Yeenoghu and his gnolls.

Am I overthinking this? Should I add races like that anyway, but come up with a different reason why they're evil?

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>>47709700

I see two ways to do this.

First is to make the races extremely evil, and not due to genetic reasons but due to cultural or religious regions. You can make up your own pantheon/evil gods to do this. Or even better twist and corrupt an existing God the monsters believe in and distort the lessons. For example, the God of justice could be corrupted because they believe, in his holy word that 'there is no blameless human' it actually means that sin is a concept created by humans, but the other races could be pure if humans weren't around. Ergo they hate humans This method makes the race able to be killed 'guilt free' but avoid morality traps by saying all of them are truly evil when they aren't, some of them could be saved.

The second option is to make these races truly monstrous by removing all biological or cultural depth to them. As in they don't have women or children, they don't reproduce that way. They literally dig holes, fill them up with disgusting stagnant diseased water and dead human sacrifices and occasionally an orc walks out from the ooze, fully grown and ready to kill.

The third and possibly best final option is just to not do it. You said yourself you don't need to, even if you are trying to emulate a JRPG feel that doesn't mean there needs to be things like intelligent enemies except for generic bandits, cultists, black mages, etc. If its something you don't want then just don't do it.

>>47711194
You're right, I think I'm going to go with the latter option there and just not do it at all. There are more compelling ways to make enemies than having an encounter with generic "bad creatures"

>>47708735
I made a "good" lich once

>former king of a small desert oasis kingdom
>prodigy at healing arts in life
>could literally heal people back from having their head torn off
>revered as an actual god by his subjects
>literally embalmed himself for his funeral and discovered that he accidentally became his own phylactery
>didn't help much because his subjects had already sealed his tomb
>accidentally freed by graverobbers hundreds of years later
>spent the entire campaign trying to rebuild his fallen kingdom and healing the shit out of our party

Which year of the 80's is best for a dystopian setting? I'm thinking '85 for sure.

>>47711434
'84 is too mainstream?

I don't really understand you question.

>>47711477
'84 doesn't have certain music like Take on Me or Dancing in the Street. It also doesn't have the Honda Integra, which was introduced in 1985.

Cars and the radio are a pretty big focus in my campaign, but I realize it's a silly question. I just didn't know if there were certain events past 1985 that would be worth putting into my campaign.

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So I'm creating an urban fantasy game and I'm deciding on what kind of money system to use.

Essentially I really like the idea of having generic paper money as its always fun to say things like 'Magic item: Price $200' instead of the traditional gold coins and such.

However really shit paper money like this would be easy to fake or mess around with, so I was thinking about interested solutions. One of them was that each bill was carefully crafted in such a way that it could not be burned at all. You can hold it over a candleflame or throw it into a fire and it won't burn.

Is this an interesting method for anti-counterfiting? Does it make sense? I think its really reasonable/easy for a business to just wipe some money over a candle to see if it burns or not to tell if its fake if they are suspicious. Also I should mention that the tech level of the setting is that engines and motors aren't super common anyway so only a few people could actually even attempt counterfiting.

>>47712015
Does your government have monopoly on fireproofing? It's a far-fetched idea.

Easiest way is to run with some commodity money, like some kind of soul shard. Or, hell, why not real money, maybe magic is not that good on manufacturing paper? Or bitcoins. Magical bitcoins encrypted by demons.

>>47712719

Jesus christ man it's not THAT urban fantasy.

What's wrong with fireproof paper? Nobody else can replicate that especially if they don't know how to.

>>47712846
Sure whatever. If your authority has monopoly on fireproof paper, you can go with it. You should probably put some thought into printing too.

>>47706212
Polearms and piercing weapons are the most common. Instead of caltrops there are nets. Fin blades are also a thing. Since metal doesn't last very long and it's methods of process is scarce underwater, things like bone, coral, pearl, and flint are commonly used. Due to being underwater however, more brittle materials like flint are much more viable in construction. Glass can be sheared underwater unlike on the surface.

War is rarely a thing, but battle and skirmishes are common. The closest thing to a war would be the enmity between the Sea Elves or the Palace of Dreams and the Sahuagin. It's very "Red Scare" in the Palace because anyone could be Malenti, essentially Sahuagin that look like Sea Elves. They seek to destroy the Palace from the inside.

I'm prepping for an upcoming cyberpunk game, and I want to see if the timeline I've got set up a) wouldn't strain my players' suspension of disbelief too far, b) isn't too convoluted, and c) gives and ample amount of ideas for PC motivations/goals/personal histories.

>(1/2)

>Following a devastating economic crash, the United States government passed the Exclusive Special Economic Zone Act, which designated areas across the country as operating under a different set of business and trade laws. Each ESEZ was granted to a different corporate entity, who exclusively could operate inside the territory and enjoy extremely lax taxation and nearly nonexistent regulation.

>The military build up on the Sino-Indian border eventually erupted into an all-out war between the two powers; while the mechanized Chinese forces quickly defeated the mostly-infantry Indian forces, Indian guerrilla fighters dealt an ultimately fatal blow to China via the use of radiological bombs in its key cities, ports, and military bases; the “móusha zhōu,” or “Week of Murder,” as it came to be known, effectively removed China from the world stage and triggered the mass wave of Chinese refugees towards the Asian Peninsula, Japan, and America.

>Over the next seven years, the Asian immigrant population in America skyrocketed. This flood of refugees into the western United States ended up jumpstarting the economy as they became a source of exceptionally cheap labor. However, while many refugees were desperate for work, a significant number of young refugees felt exploited by the corporations and frustrated with their current position, especially as the years dragged on and their lives failed to improve. Eventually, this frustration turned to demonstrations, which quickly became violent.

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r8 my shitty first attempt at something like this

>>47713520

>(2/2)

>With the wealth being concentrated in the few companies granted ESEZs, the political clout of a handful of major companies jumped up almost overnight. ESEZ companies were able to successfully lobby for the Economic Independence Act, which had three major effects:

>Firstly, the ESEZs were made extremely difficult to remove and the benefits were increased; taxed in name only, total freedom from environmental or safety regulations, and workers rights — such as a limit on hours per week, protection for unfair termination, or even minimum wage — were nonexistent. Citing the success of the ESEZs during the refugee crisis, corporate-backed politicians easily argued for an expansion of the ESEZ's powers.

>Secondly, the outbreak of refugee crime an violence within the ESEZ justified the creation and use of heavily armed private security forces that rivaled standing armies in terms of funds, gear, and in some cases even manpower. These corporate security forces, dubbed CorpSec for short, were given full legal enforcement powers withing the boundaries of their employer's ESEZ, including the rights to detain, investigate, and even execute individuals.

>Lastly, ESEZ-possessing companies were given special Sovereign Corporate Entity status, which came with its own host of benefits. As the ESEZs were now nearly independent nations in terms of self-government and nonintervention by the United States, employees of SCEs were to be treated as visiting dignitaries, and offices, distribution centers, or any other SCE-owned building fell under the same rules as any recognized foreign embassy.

>Eventually, fear of refugee violence and a severe lack of faith in local police forces nationwide pulled CorpSec out of the ESEZs and into the public sector, being hired on in by municipalities or even operating for general clients in the form of private investigators, enforcers, bodyguards, and general troubleshooters.

>>47713520
>>47713582
>tl;dr huge Chinatowns, literal corporate overlords, and professional adventuring parties or adventurers guilds (in the form of the small or large corpsec firms).

Decent enough or back to the drawing board?

>Island occupied by remnants of empire
>Think they are heirs to the empire and will return tryumphantly
>Broke as hell, natural resources all squandered
>Rely on enslaved natives for almost all jobs
>Everyone who is free is either slaveowner, slave driver slaver trader or a soldier beating up slaves, or a clerk. Real job is beneath them
>Slaves are dehumanized to ridiculous extreme. Murdering and torturing slaves for fun is normalized. Execution of slaves is a popular fairground activity, slowly torturing them is diner entertainment and rite of passage for youth
>To replace everdying population of slaves they are forcibly bred
>Visitors to country are advised to not get outside harbour area as to not be mistaken for wayward slaves

How do I make this country even worse? Sparta and Helots is obvious inspiration, but it's also part Byzantium, North Korea, Apartheid, American South and god knows what. I want this country to be laughingstock pariah state.

>>47713713
I'm not sure, add extreme xenophobia, failed military expeditions (that get advertised as successes back home) and so on.

>>47713818
They are xenophobic because what I forgot to mention is their defining personality trait is delusion of grandeur. They see everyone as barbarians and dream of being an empire that spawned them, looks with disdain on another, more viable colony (Mostly for race mixing with filthy barbarians)

Failed expeditions just kinda lack valid target, but I'm considering have them support pirates to bring them more slaves.

>>47713864
I'm not sure what you more you could add without oversaturating it then.

>>47713537
2manyColors

>>47713537
Is this volcanic ash in the middle or something?

>>47658681
>gods
Leftover doomsday weapons from a the precursor(atlantis) civilisation that was eventually destroyed by these weapons
>kingdoms
Our world but before ww1
>continents
Ours +lemuria
>magicks
Leftovers from the height of atlantean civilisation

>>47713950
Alright

>>47713991
Yes, also tundra

A bit of a backstory

The island chain is far in the north of its world, a race of elves controlled it for several millenia and used their magic to turn it into a paradise, altering the climate, growing unnatural plants where they shouldn't be and things like that. (Like those groves in the northern island, except then they covered the whole archipelago)

They employed a race of beastmen as their slaves to tend to their decadent needs, however the beastmen got fed up with it and started a rebellion. This led to a long war that prevented the elves from maintaining the magical rituals that kept their powered their artificial groves, and the island slowly reverted back to its natural form.

This climate change was also felt in the far south(colder weather, changing weather patterns, less fish in the sea), and the Empire of men that had conquered most of the southern continent set off to investigate what was causing the change in the north.

When they got there they quickly turned their ability to produce death and destruction on an industrial level to good use, sacked the elven capital and quickly subjugated the natives.

Those elves that survived/remained free formed an uneasy alliance with their former slaves and enemies and migrated north in hopes some day driving the invaders out. They massively lack resources, have almost no shipbuilding capacity, and can only launch major raids once the sea separating the islands freezes over in winter.

However, the Empire in the south, now 50 years later after the invasion is going through massive civil strife and the province can no longer hope for reinforcements and supplies from the mainland, effectively leaving the colonists to their own devices.

This leads to a bloody stalemate, where peace and war alternate between the seasons, no side can truly gain the advantage over the other.

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Sorry if bad writing, im on the bus and also english isnt my first language.

>Gods
Kinda rome style. Multiple non omnipotent gods for different things. Some gods having the same domain but usually with some specific things, for example, a sailor can give offering to the god of dead associated with drowning while his wive who stays on land simply adores the most popular god of dead in thei country.

Those were in thei majority born as mortals and ascended to godhood afterwards. Therebare fewer gods born as divine, but normally they cant act in the mundane world, for example, the moon goddess cant influece mortals actions at will, also because she is crippled. Another story.

Pic related is Falfe, one of the main god(dess) of nature and the main for most druidic traditions as fauns, now extinct, are considered the first servants of nature.

>Gods
Not omnipotent. Powerful spirits that answer prayers (mostly because they are vain). Main gods of the country PCs live in are the inuit-inspired Sea god (with church-approved tupilaks and animated globsters as paladin mounts) and Sun/Moon god - there is an ongoing schism whether it is a single hermaphroditic entitiy or they are married. No one has ever seen them both simultaneously, Sun appears to its worshippers as a male, Moon as a female.
>Kingdoms
Two local superpowers. One is kinda like Hanseatic league that managed to become more centralized. Good fleet, professional army, ruled by Senate composed of delegates sent by member cities.Mercantile oligarchy. The other one is a Sassanid Persia with semi-independent satrapies. Both empires are young and expansionist. They are in a state of Cold War. Persia is ruled by a caste of mages that posesses power to control weather and bring rains. They are the reason of its success - before their appearance the lands were suffering because of enroaching deserts and climate change. That caste is worshipped as divine beings. They appeared after a comet fell on the planet 150 years ago, brought new magic and technologies with them and revitalized the southern nation.
There are also lots of smaller independent kingdoms and baronies, some of them are united in an ineffectual Holy Roman Empire.
There is also a fairly big kingdom to the west that is inspired by Novgorod Rus.
Technology is on 15th century level, no gunpowder weapons yet - it has been discovered very recently.
>Guilds
Lots of merchantile companies, with fierce competition between them. North exports a lot of whale and steller's sea cow oil (sea cows are domesticated), South has silk, tea and spices. Local guilds differ from town to town.
>Continents
Game is focused on one that looks somewhat like Canada. Hansa is on the north, Persia is across a huge bay in the south. There are several other continents, but they are unimportant so far.

>>47714576
continue
>Magicks
All magic comes from the spirit world,
Mages come in three categories
1. Those with spirit ancectry - like in Greek mythology, gods and demigods sometimes leave mortal progeny.
2. Church magic. Spirits that like devotion can reward their servants, but they are really stingy and a regular priest most likely won't be able to do any magic.
3. Contract magic. A mage summons a spirit and signs a contract that will give him powers. Spirits demand a lot in return, and contracts need to be worded with great care to details.

>>47707573
>I used to simply say they weren't worth bothering, but it doesn't cut it anymore

Why? It's the most sensible argument you can ever make. Tons of places were saved from conquest simply because nobody wanted to be bothered to conquer them for most of their history.

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>>47714318
>Magic

Wold based: natural based in life energy wich flows from the world into most of its life where some is stored and some expulsed inba permanent cycle. In this free state can be visible to some trained eyes as some kind of smokey thing flowing in the air and in living things or sensed by other means and needs to be concentrated to be used to cast spells.
Its counterpart is mana based magic where mana works similar to Life energy but it doesnt enters naturally on living beings.and need special training to let it flow inside ones body and be stored. Centuries ago mana was found only in some places or individuals of the planet from where some specialist could borrow it but two hundred years ago it was inyected in the earth itself and thus the planet started to produce and emit mana globally. Its found on a similar natural state as life force but can use concentrated as a mean to cause harm because mana can be harmful to unprepared bodies. Also, the inyection of mana to the planet caused a lot of changes in climate and nature aspexts as forests or deserts.


Anothwr type is faith magic, coming from the compromise with a god or a superior being in wich divinities put conditioms to the borowers.

I.side each type there are a variety of schools and styles that vary not only on the spells used but also.on philosophy, understanding of the phenomen of.magic and techniques like, for example, making the body absorb mana through respiration or synchronized with the heartbeat.

Thosr are the mains, also there is what scholars consider "paramagic" which is all types of magic thar cant be placed on the previous types, as for example, that coming from will or spirit of some individuals.

Having a contract with some being can not only grant the acces to faith magic but also can grant things like more capacity of energy storing, access to spells, techniques, etc.


Pic related is Tzschien, most popular god of death for humans.

>>47708355
Probably only with a TPK, but I think if someone gets "killed" as in knocked under 1 HP, they'll see glimpses of the labyrinth, as well as its real world entrance, a decrepit door in a ruined apartment building in the middle of a hellish city landscape, a location that the PCs will eventually end up in ultimately

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Rolled 3, 15, 22, 7, 22, 5, 19, 9, 3, 20, 5, 25, 12, 10, 25, 13, 15 = 230 (17d25)

>>47663360
very interesting, thanks for sharing

Is magic coming from objects a common thing? The idea kinda came into my head the other day for my urban fantasy setting, and it seemed to fit pretty well.

Essentially you'd be using alchemy to make your magic objects, taking the metaphysical aspects of your ingredients and transferring those aspects into other objects. Mostly simple stuff. Dunno how foci would work, though. Power of the soul, or something? You'd be using the object to do all the hard stuff, though. Other stuff might be symbolic, like the contract being the object of power in a transfer of power.

>>47707430
>>47707430
Yeah true I'm using works horrible wifi so it's been hard to post anything detailed ( I had a massive thing typed up on the minghehi but it didn't post because wifi is dickhole)
But I'll try

>>47716997
With the way you've described it, I've seen a webcomic series that does similar, where magic is manipulation of aspects. Like an example they use is taking the force of the water of a waterfall hitting the rocks and use it to create a percussive strike, or taking the color from ingredients to change the color of a dog's fur. But its the only setting I've seen that uses it, and its a high fantasy setting.

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are these continent shapes shitty

cut off the left side because im still debating on if i should make a pseudo-Alaska or not

>>47719117

Cursory glance and no they aren't. Nice and irregular, not predictable, not artificial. Personally I always have trouble wrapping my head around that kind of projection. Unless I am wrong and that is Mercantor or Robinson - I just have trouble figuring out how the polar regions wrap around.

But no it looks good to me. No silly looking polygonal forms (a'la Westeros and the other region being a 90 degree angle). The abundance of land at the bottom vs the top reminds me of mars. http://orig14.deviantart.net/ca46/f/2007/110/0/7/terraformed_mars_by_quanto.jpg

https://i.4cdn.org/wsg/1465442815943.webm

Have a sad gondola

>>47719239
the large northern ocean is supposed to be a dead space for intelligent life. You know, 'Explorers sail out and never return' sort of stuff.

if you can, can you circle where you think civilization would occur just by the shape of the continents. point out strategic areas too if you want

>>47708735
In my setting the reason why so many liches seemingly turn evil is because becoming undead is god awful for the mind. Some snap right away in the beginning while others start to become increasingly unhinged as the ages wear on.

The reason for this while bit of a taboo topic among the undead is well known among them. As far as the living are concerned becoming undead more often then not means turning evil and or going insane.

This is only partly true but if you get the undead talking they'll tell you why. Its simply because people handle turning undead differently but its never pleasant for the mind. The act of death...then coming back from it but not completely is very jarring and harsh on the remaining mental faculties. Some can't take it so they snap right away. While others slowly become increasingly unhinged as time wears on. The rest meanwhile are able to handle it.

I need help with gods.
My universe is a VRMMORPG game in which the gods where based on games and movies or really popular stories
I chose so far:
-solaire(dark souls)
-Henderson (tg)
-sir bearington(tg)
-gordon freeman(half life)

Any suggestions?

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>>47719311

Because I am too lazy to do it myself and got my own work to do but also because of actual valid reasons:

-Rivers or coast. I am not sure there were any cities of significance in the past which were not on one of those, even if it was just a small river.

-Terrain is going to play a factor too. Few cities in mountains, many in river valleys or at important junctions.

-Peninsulas, bays, straits will be home for cities.

At least something I read somewhere said that south-east parts of continents are often more humid/wet and such (American South-East, Southern China, ect.).

Figure out basics of climate (it helps if you chart out a few latitude lines. Like my map's max and min are 60 degrees (Baltic-ish) and 0 degrees (kenya-ish). North of tropic/Horse latitude is wind going eastward, south of it is going westward (both clockwise). http://www.womenoceanographers.org/Content/Profiles/AmyBower/images/LearnMore2.jpg

30 degrees latitude is where most big deserts are but are also not mandatory deserts - Miami is around 30 degrees latitude, as is South-East China I think and more verdant parts of India. But for instance on your map I'd say the eastern continent might be deserty at 30 degrees, that big island might have interior desert but the coasts could be better off, while the western continent at 30 degrees might be more american south-east

>>47717405
Well, the kinda thing I'd be doing (Using your examples) would be to take the rock from the bottom of that waterfall and carry it with you somehow and use it as a kind of focus, and then you could use it to empower you to create that percussive strike. The dog thing sounds right enough, though.

Another example might be carrying around a bag of fish scales, bones, eyes, or whatever, using an aspect of fish in general to be able to breathe underwater for a time. Different giblets of whatever you want to use will generally get you slightly different results, but if it's an overarching theme of your desired focus, then it can work with pretty much everything.

It doesn't have to have any kind of strict rules, anyway, I'm going for the 'nobody really knows how magic really works' angle.

Help me pick a look for desert-like region in temperate area. This one is actually caused by local magical cataclysm, but I would still like it to have a fitting look. It's a strip of land from sea to sea on an isthmus of a sort.

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Does anybody have any advice on how to make stuff gonzo?

I ask because my settings are a bit too logical, a bit too predictable and 'realistic' in the scope of the actual worldspace. But I want things to be a little bit silly and weird, make things a little gonzo.

Any advice on how to force myself to think more crazy or implement it?

>>47719830
Clouds of stone above an endless, ever churning sea of sand, with sand pouring from the clouds like rain

>>47719931
Check out the weirder OSR blogs for ideas. Monster Manual Sewn from Pants, D&D with Pornstars, and Goblin Punch to name a few.

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>>47720114

>tfw I already browse all three and my desire to go gonzo is to emulate them

Thanks, I guess.

>>47720169
You have good taste anon.

My only other suggestion is to read stuff from Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, H.P.Lovecraft, and Poul Anderson

>>47720191
>>47720169

Oh and China Mieville.

>>47719931
Two words:
>Anthropomorphic Personifications
Add them in everywhere. for every little strange occurrence.

Thinking of a pirate/sea themed world. Watched a fuckton of one peice and got me in the mood
>Gods
An old god, put to rest by the gods and man's power combined.
3 powerful gods, basically Poseidon, evil Zeus, and Ares
Probably a couple demigods that can be killed with max level players

>Kingdoms
Pirate counsels with various inner rivalries.
Law of the sea guys, created by an uber powerful pirate who suposedly almost killed a god
Arab trade guys
>Guilds
Undecided desu
>Contenents
Not actualy, but england, greece, middle east, Caribbeans, and northern europe
>Magic
Voodo, sea magic, psychic, and something that can boost physical attacks, probably some kind of bard magic.

Any suggestions? its just an idea I had so I havent drawn or written anything down. plus im supper new to world building

>>47720347
Tell me about sea magic

>>47708735
Liches are primary motivated by fear. Fear that they'll lose their life, their powers, their riches.
Maybe your Lich is afraid of something different. He could be a paladin devoted to the protection of the innocent, and he is afraid that no one will be able to protect them as soon as he's gone.
He could be a "mad scientist" type wizard that didn't really notice he turned undead at some point. It was just another experiment gone wrong or gone right. He just wants to keep doing his wizard thing.
Or the Lich could have turned back to good after the full transition by some life-changing event.

>>47717214
>>47707430

The minghehi
Tall fragile six legged tortoise like beings renowned for their feats of engineering, mass production, automation, drones and recycling space junk

One of the few races that are actually fully unified due to their fierce loyalty to their own kind and have a belief that their culture and way of doing things is superior, very rarely found out of the systems they control.

The minghehi have isolationist and protectionist society mistrusting of all that is not their own as a result they have rejected the councils authority and outright oppose them.

Although being one of the most advanced races in the known Galaxy the minghehi have a rather small empire of 14 extremely densely populated systems and a large buffer zone around theses systems to protect them from the threat of outsiders.

>>47719117
1. Is that New Zealand in the southeast?
2. Where do the continents go when they're off the map? I expected the western ones to turn up on the far side of the map.
3. What's with the giant lakes or inland seas? The ones on the southwestern continent sort of look like the Great Lakes of North America, but the one on the northwestern continent looks like Lake Baikal×3000.
Other than that, good map

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Bumping with some meta questions for anons,
>How long have you been working on your current setting?
>What has been used as inspiration for your setting (or anything in it)?
>How seriously does your setting take itself?
>Are you working on it for a specific reason or for the enjoy of it?

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>>47723068
>for the enjoy of it
Fuck, I meant "for the joy of it"

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So how is my first map, /tg/? Anything I can do to improve it?

>>47723693
I see nothing really wrong with it, myself. Good production value. Maybe add political borders?

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>>47723068

>How long have you been working on your current setting?
I have several. The one I'm picking up today it's just a couple weeks old, and I feel like it's a long way to go if I want to make it playable.

>What has been used as inspiration for your setting (or anything in it)?
Real medieval history, which I'm a big fan of.

>How seriously does your setting take itself?
Very seriously, this one. It's not necessary, and I've done differently for, to say, fantasy worlds and such. But I felt this one was to be more believable if it sounded real. There are some inside jokes and puns from paradox games and previous settings I made, but only a few friends will catch them, so It's all for the lulz.

>Are you working on it for a specific reason or for the joy of it?
I feel like worldbuilding explains itself. This one is going to hit the table in a year or so, but I'd work on it even if it was not. You never know when one of your worlds will prove useful for something pratical.

>Have my setting fleshed out
>Know everything major like locations and factions
>Time to draw the map
Fuck, artistic skills holding me back and not doing my vision any service.

>>47723068
>How long have you been working on your current setting?
Technically, my entire life. Though I wasn't actively working on it until several months ago
>What has been used as inspiration for your setting (or anything in it)?
My literal dreams. Has enough weird content to make an interesting setting, consistent enough to not be total bullshit.
>How seriously does your setting take itself?
Quite seriously. Everything seems to be out to kill humans for some reason.
>Are you working on it for a specific reason or for the enjoy of it?
For the fun of it, the non-standard powers, gods, and factions really sold me on developing it further. Apocalyptic urban fantasy is something I never really delved in to.

>>47723068
bout 4 months on and off

got sick of watching gimmicky sci fi (not to say they arent good )

most of the time its rather dark so i guess

i have no idea its my little pet project to stop me going insane

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>>47719454
>Doesn't already have already have Lee from Enter the Dragon, Kirk from Star Trek, Max from Mad Max and Snake Plissken from Escape from NY/LA.

You drive to drink.

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>>47723068
>How long have you been working on your current setting?
8 months, though the world itself didn't exist until the second month.
>What has been used as inspiration for your setting (or anything in it)?
Pic related formed the basic premise behind the setting; "How God-like beings could influence its development". I started with powerlevel rules and a main character, and went from there.
Other inspiration was pulled from practically everywhere.
>How seriously does your setting take itself?
Everything in-setting can be explained, but it's still High Fantasy. It's NobleBright Fantasy bordering on a Post-Scarcity Economy with the very real possibility of superheroes.
>Are you working on it for a specific reason or for the enjoy of it?
Mostly for those moments where something "clicks", and individual parts of the worldbuilding snap together on their own.

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>>47723068
>>How long have you been working on your current setting?
For like,3-4 years, on and off, mostly for my own fun, as I enjoy world building.

>>What has been used as inspiration for your setting (or anything in it)?
The origins of the setting lie here on /tg/, on two Gigerverse threads in which I participated, 3-4 or something years ago. (I drew this>>47689136 in one of those threads)
While there was no continuation to those two threads, that ever really did anything, the idea took root in my mind, and I have been developing it ever since. Those threads laid a lot of the foundations of the setting idea in place, and can still be found in my setting to this day.
Obviously, I get a lot of inspiration from Giger's artwork, as well as from any scifi I encounter that has bio/organic tech and aesthetics.
Stuff like the Haemonculi of the Dark Eldar from 40k are also something that I can't help but draw inspiration from.
Also, whenever I encounter some interesting facts about earth biology, I tend to get ideas for augments, and other weird biotech for the setting.

>>How seriously does your setting take itself?
Rather seriously. It is a very grim world, and while it isn't total grim darkness, all the time, the fact remains that for most denizens of the world, day to day survival is their primary concern, thus the setting itself can't be that humorous.

>>Are you working on it for a specific reason or for the enjoy of it?
Just for the enjoyment for the most part. I'd like to do something more with it some day, but my main motivation for still working on it is because I just like the premise, and enjoy world building. I did a quest once here, that took place in that setting, but it died because I didn't know where to take it and lost motivation for it.

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>How long have you been working on your current setting?
Hard to say. It all started with an alternate history idea where Earth gained a new country, culture, religion, and 46 million people attached to Greenland. For the past maybe 5 years I've been relating everything I see and hear to this culture so that it can make peace with reality and merge seamlessly. How they would react to whatever video I just watched or what statement I just heard. It started to approach a tulpa level where it would exist in all of my dreams, but never in a dream did I consider myself the creator of it. Unconsciously it was just as real as Germany to me, if not more real since I know every town and the daily lives of many citizens. It reached a point where I didn't even want to live there anymore, I wanted it to have flaws.

I've inserted this culture in one way or another into every setting I've devised, whether fantasy or sci fi. The current setting has only existed for a month. It was a one-continent map and I started expanding Eastward, ended up completely removing the first continent and European aesthetic from the setting.

Now my main culture doesn't fit in and I might have to remove it from the setting when it's the reason I made the setting in the first place.

>What has been used as inspiration for your setting (or anything in it)?
A Song of Ice and Fire as the "standard" instead of D&D
Runescape
Kenshi
Mad Max
Zeno Clash
Majora's Mask
Literally some memes like pic related that are twisted and distorted into more serious things. This manatee has morphed into something important.

>How seriously does your setting take itself?
It used to take itself more seriously, now it's becoming more comically grim since the setting devolved into homeless cannibals beating eachother with blunt swords in the desert.

>Are you working on it for a specific reason or for the enjoy of it?
See first answer, it's fun though. Good replacement to video games.

>>47726445
>The current setting has only existed for a month.
What I meant by this was that it was a 2 year old setting that I decided to fuck with and convert into something completely different a month ago. So this iteration is a month old but the current map file was made 2 years ago.

>>47724265
>>47719454
I have come here because I'm desperate. I need a story about urban fantasy, and my google-fu has not been strong enough for me to find it.

It's about a party that has to stop a mass summons of a demon by killing a bunch of people during a parade or something, and all of the players except a biomancer die, but he pulls out some wizard shit at the end where he juices up his body and punts the demon's head off its shoulders or some shit.

I wanted to find it because I wanted to know what system it used.

>>47726473
They don't kill a bunch of people, I mean the cult means to summon the demon by killing a bunch of people. They're too late or some shit and the demon gets summoned anyway.

>Gods
There are native "gods" which are more along the lines of powerful nature spirits, like stuff you'd find in eastern folklore/mythos in the real world.
Then there's the human Pantheon of Gods which are more in line with what people think when you say "gods", who were once a group of mighty heroes that figured out how to ascend into a higher plabe. Basically they made themselves Gods. This is common knowledge amongst people, as it only happened a few hundred years ago, and the big empire of the setting was founded by the head deity before they ascended, so the imperial lineage has 'holy blood' and close ties to the church.
They ascended to act as a buffer against the evils from the other side of the world (think W40K Chaos lite with less demons), and the group wizard/knowledge God was responsible for engineering their ascension, but those two facts are purposefully well hidden.

>>47726410
yeah, it's amazing, what can I say?

just give me a rundown of a "faction" as it seems like there are some

>>47726824
Well, there are numerous factions, but the ones that I have worked on most are 4 noble houses, Baryx, Chot, Lienis and Viam. Then I also have worked on the Vatmothers a bit.
I am mostly focusing on a single "example" area of the city, that has typical "features" if you will, of the overall city within it, before making some grand work of the whole city itself.

>>47720683
Increase wind speed, call fish to help you, breathe underwater, fuck with tides. High levels can affect serious weather, like clear or cause small storms

>>47723068
>>How long have you been working on your current setting?
I have ideas that come and go, not an actual setting sadly.
>>What has been used as inspiration for your setting (or anything in it)?
I can't pin my inspiration on a certain work, but the middle ages, art I've seen on the internet, video games.
>>How seriously does your setting take itself?
Pretty seriously, regular people enjoy humor but are more concerned with surviving in a brave new world.
>>Are you working on it for a specific reason or for the enjoy of it?
I love making up anything related to fantasy. If I could actually make a decent setting, I'd like it to be a strategy game or an RPG.

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>>47723068

>How long worked on setting

The very very early embryonic worldbuilding was back in 2007 when friends and I from NWN wanted to make a NWN2 module/PW. Since NWN2 was kinda eh with multiplayer modules and other reasons that pittered out but it gave me the worldbuild bug. Really the only thing carried over from that era is one nation, my Kurdish-Afghan Khassahanids.

>Inspirations

Primarily Harold Lamb, Robert E Howard, a Zoroastrian/Persian mythology book I read around that time back in 2007 in highschool, and then Europa Barbarorum and other total war mods and subsequent historical epochs they covered/related to them. Historically speaking I am more partial to lesser covered eras, though I have to fight the temptation to vaciliate back to the safe and comfortable

>Cerealness

Super cereal, at least it isn't meant to be comedic. As in tone? I'm too much of a softie and not big on grimdark game of thrones and the influences of Harold Lamb and Robert e Howard lend itself to more of a classical mythological vibe. There's the rape of a conquered city, slaughter and murder, but it's theatrical more than pornographic.

>Raisins for work

I want to write a book, I don't do PnP right now but I've always been meaning to.

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Finally finished this after 4+ hours.
World is post apocalyptic modern fantasy. Almost everything is either dead or undead and no one knows why.
City of Ghosts is inhabited by (thankfully), non-hostile spirits just acting out their lives from before they died.
City of the Dead is less pleasant, after dark zombies and demons, and evil spirits roam the ruins of the city
Last Bastion is a military dictatorship, struggling to hold on to what they believe is the final remnants of civilization. They are hostile to outsiders.
Mutiny Islands is dotted with island villages and pirates.
Knights Keep is a mountain fortress, it's inhabitants go on scouting mission past the mountains to look for treasure in the monster filled lands beyond. Ironically, the third safest place in the entire region.
The Gentle Glaciers are almost exactly what it says. Almost exactly because there's still a few people who raid others living there to survive as resources are scarce. The worst part about it is crosses the ocean to get there. But once there, there's not much to do. At least it's pretty.
Oasis is the safest place in the region. It's surrounded by lifeless desert, which wards them from bloodthirsty monsters. The vast deserts are also filled with various treasure filled tombs and vaults.
The Slumbering Sea is endlessly vast and infinitely deep. It's also incredibly calm, no waves or storms ever disturb it. It's also perpetually dark there.

>>47729644
Map looks cool

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>>47658681
>Gods
2 kinds.

The Divine: real "god" gods. Created the world. Only four ever existed and they fucked off somewhere.

Gods: Men that achieve something so incredible or impossible that it shakes the world may ascend to godhood. Ancient heroes, kings, legendary figures, etc. They are mortal and exist in physical form somewhere in the world, but have all the power you would expect from a god, if limited to their respective domains.

>Kingdoms
Lots, so here's my favorite.

The Aemoran Concord are HFY as all hell, Greek/Chinese imperialists that are slowly taking over the continent with crooked politics and good old fashioned crusadin'. They're lead by a king with golden eyes trying to become the new god of humanity since the old one fucked off somewhere. Military police, propaganda, mandatory draft, the whole shebang.

>Guilds
I haven't put a lot of thought into this. The closest approximation i guess is an organization of men that live in a colossal prison tower in the middle of the ocean. Once prisoners themselves- but beaten into shape from years in the depths of the absurdly cruel prison- these men come to shore, perpetually soaked and sullen, to apprehend the most dangerous criminals and sinners in the world. The identities of which are given to them from a jaded old sea god that does not give a single fuck anymore. They are notoriously good at what they do, and should one of these jailers ever mournfully wander through a town, expect the churches to bloat with people begging for sanctuary in the slim chance its actually them they're after.

>Continents
Nothing special here. Only thing worth noting is that a small continent, maybe the size of greenland, was literally severed from the mainland and dragged into the ocean by a former war god.

>Magicks
Big stone trees grow up through the flat world from the underworld and leak magic all over the place. Their roots carry it across the world.

Too long, will explain anything further if anyone cares.

>>47723068
...Since I want to say Elementary? Shit I was about to say middle school but then I remembered working on some key pieces long before that. So its been well over a 10+ years now. its gradually gotten bigger, more fleshed out and most of all complicated. Holy shit i never even realized that for some reason. Been working on the damned thing for so many fucking years...

real world Mythos mostly. Decided to go back to the roots.

Very I treat it as if it were its own separate yet similar reality. There might be some things people recognize in the beginning but that is where the similarity tends to end.

Originally for game purposes now for writing purposes. Yeah I enjoy it despite how monstrous the challenge it has become. At this point my next goals are linguistics, geography, cultural development(real time sink this one is), and cataloging of previous works as well as history. Personally debating whether to keep those largely blank still to be made during book writing or to create some template versions for later use. Not sure which I'll choose still.

Originally it was suppose to be just a single setting but has time wore on it broke off into different yet clearly related and in sinc settings that are deeply connected. I got it all from historic fantasy to soft sci fi including post apocalypse and modern fantasy. Somehow though it just keeps expanding and makes sense from a inner world perspective.

>>47729644
That map's pretty as fuck, my man, and the setting sounds kind of trippy. Simultaneously lighthearted and dark, almost.

>>47658681
It's set on the moons of a gas giant. Almost all of the moons are habitable, and each one is linked to several others by portals. Some of the portals are easily accessable, but most aren't, and are known to only a few people. The gas giant that all of this is happening around used to be a refueling point for an interstellar empire, but it has been abandoned for a few millenia, and most of the automated defenses and docks are now unusable derelicts.

Each of the 36 moons has a different environment, and sentient life has evolved on about a third of them.

Magic exists in this setting, but it requires being at least slightly schizophrenic, and the level of magical power the practitioner has is dependant on how disconnected they are from reality. Because all of the interstellar empires have eliminated mental illnesses, none of them have access to magic, while many primitive societies do.

At the current point, all of the civilisations on the moons are at medieval tech-level or lower.

The most commonly worshiped 'god' is the gas giant, though other planets and the sun of that system are also worshipped.

I'll post more on each civilisation and moon if anyone's interested.

>>47731673
Go for it anon

>>47731479
>>47729644
reminds me of space funeral, pretty good

>>47731673
>>47731861
1. The moon of Aris is the largest and most fertile, with a size about that of Mars and covered mostly in forests and plains, with a few oceans. It is the only one that doesn't always have one side facing towards the gas giant and the other facing away. It is home to two sentient species, a race of burrowing mammal-equivalents and a race of flightless birds. After centuries of fighting, these two races have put aside their differences in an attempt to conquer the other moons under the banner of the Eternal Empire. It an obvious portal to Toros and a hidden portal to

2. The moon of Toros is the closest in to the gas giant, and is slowly being torn to pieces by its gravity. Because of this, the entire side facing the gas giant is covered in constantly shifting rivers of lava, while the other side is wracked by earthquakes and is hot enough to set boil water. Nothing lives naturally on this moon, and the only time any of the portals connecting to it are used is when it is used for mining or when travellers have to pass through to get to moons that can only be reached from it. It has obvious portals to Aris, Crynn, Edus, and Xios.

3. The moon of Crynn is the farthest out, and is extremely cold due to the cloud of debris orbiting it blocking most light. Because it takes several years to orbit, most of its surface is dark for years at a time. The only inhabitants are a race of artificial ice elementals, created by a powerful wizard centuries ago. It has an obvious portal to Toros and a hidden portal to Knu. It is also the only world the Eternal Empire has access to that they've never tried to conquer.

4. The moon of Edus is covered in a layer of fungal forests, and the all the fungus on the moon is part of a giant brain, called the Allmind. It has attempted to expand into other moons in the past, but because the only portal on Edus leads to Toros, the extreme heat of Toros stops it from spreading. It can control the minds of intruders.

>>47707896
>>47716013
I gotta say, I'm really interested as to what the lore reason for the labyrinth is. Very intriguing idea.

>>47732333
5. The moon of Xios is fairly small and extremely mountainous. The entire moon is honeycombed by caves and underground tunnels. It is inhabited by a race of highly emotional and mentally unstable humanoid reptiles. At the present time, it is under the banner of the Eternal Empire, and the natives are being used by the Empire as shock troops.
It has obvious portals Toros and Vyh.

6. The moon of Vyh is fairly close to the gas giant, and is covered pole to pole by thick jungles filled with poisonous plants and herbivores and extremely deadly and agile predators. The Eternal Empire is currently attempting to gain a foothold here, but keeps losing outposts to predatation and starvation.
It has obvious portals to Xios, Los and Orp.

7. The moon of Knu is covered in sand, and is far out from most of the other moons. The only lifeforms are small insects and massive sandworms. It is occaisonally used by monks from the Order of the Transient, an order that focuses on finding and protecting the portals, to train. Secretly, the moon contains several cities belonging to a long-dead race of starfarers buried under the sand, and the worms are actually their robotic guardians. It has hidden portals to Crynn and Aris, and an obvious portal to Los.

8. The moon of Los is rocky and orbits at 90 degrees to the other moons. One pole is always pointing at the sun, and the other is always pointing away. Because of this, half the planet is in perpetual light and heat, and the other always cold and dark. Along the border between the two halves, there is twilight and constant, 100km/h winds. Nothing lives in the daylight, but small communities of raiders and scavengers from other moons live in the twilight near the portals to Vyh and Jas. It has obvious portals to Vyh, Jas, and Los, and hidden portals to Zup and Orp.

>>47732333
>>47732770
Fuck, I just lost half an hour's work to a misclick. If anyone else wants to write about this setting, they're free to.

>>47723693
I hope that font is a WIP. That banner in the bottom right looks rather stupid, like a stretched .png file. Rest of it looks pretty good, though.

>>47720347
Do matchlocks, wheel-locks, and / or flintlocks exist in the setting?

>>47721478
holy shit just noticed NZ in the corner

>>47721020
>small empire of 14 systems
What classifies as a"large empire"
>rejected the councils authority and outright oppose them.
This is the second type you mention them who/what is "the council" are they the BBEG of your setting?
and why do they oppose them?
more depth is required.

>>47732333
exactly how did they find these portals? like are they similar to stargate style ?

>>47736065
The 'obvious' portals are constantly generating a pillar of light that extends into the sky. It'd be fairly easy to find one, just look for a pillar of light. The 'hidden' ones don't do this, and are usually buried underground or only revealable by performing a certain set of actions.

>>47736146
sounds like an interesting setting, how did you come up with the idea?

>>47737860
I have an obsession with setting linked together by portal networks, and I'd seen something about a planet orbiting a gas giant a while ago, and those to concepts just... came together.

I'd like to get your opinions on something, /tg/.

Low fantasy kingdom
Located in a coastal desert
Capital city is built at the mouth of the river
Little villages line the edge of the river until it meets some rain-shadow mountains
The mountains are comparable to the Himalayas in size

The continent this kingdom is on is located in the mountain's southern hemisphere. It is very close to the "Penguin Lands" (the planet's equivalent to Antarctica). It's close enough that there is a species of penguins that migrates there.

The people of this kingdom have learned to domesticate penguins. The penguins are used for their meat, eggs, and crop milk.
The crop milk is fermented to create a kind of yogurt-like alcoholic drink similar to kefir.
This land does not have wheat, rice, or maize, but it does have a kind of fern that can be ground up into flour.
The people of this land practice geophagia; they eat soil to obtain some critical vitamins and minerals. To avoid the health risks by baking the soil into their fern-flour dough to create a kind of stony hard-tack that lasts forever.

Thoughts?

>>47740562
Sounds pretty interesting, do they eat a kind of soil that is specially treated or something. I could see some kind of primitive diet supplementation business being very profitable. Maybe edible earth mines, black bread being a pricy delicacy etc.
>>47692257
>>47691885
I'm deleteing my posts since my setting is shit, I'm gonna sit down and do a write up, try to figure things out and make them not stupid. I'm still gonna keep my major ideas but I need to rework the detalis(gods and races are shit).

>>47740781
The soil pretty much has to be treated to avoid parasitic infection. Baking it into bread or hardtack is one way to do that. Another way is through the use of special acids.
The corrosive enzymes of slime-monsters are a sought-after commodity. These can be used to kill parasites and bacteria, and are used for chemical cooking. This is used in the preparation of popular holiday treats including a kind of penguin-meat sashimi.

High quality soil is eaten only by pregnant merchant-wives, however. Soil is otherwise considered to be a peasant food. People with money and status get their essential nutrients from fresh greens.

While the people of this land are most known for eating soil, fern-bread, and penguin products, they do also eat foods that we would consider to be more "normal".
They subsist heavily on fish, crabs, and octopuses as well as seaweed. They can also grow sweet potatoes and some green leafy vegetables.

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>>47686409
>Orks have no formal government, they just sit around doing drugs and having sex.
I like your Orks, anon

>>47741066
>>47740562
I had better suss out some more details besides geography and food...

>Gods

The gods are ruled by a grim black king who sits alone on a throne of ice at the South pole. He regards humanity with indifference.

The god king's daughter is a goddess of the sea and a goddess of insanity (the people in this setting have one word that means both "sailor" and "madman".) She dwells in a black trench where she rules over demons and the spirits of drowned men.

Humanity's patron deity is a god of war who watches over civilization from a frosted palace of basalt and glistening obsidian atop the highest mountain.

Otherwise, the people of this land are animists and ancestor worshipers. The capital has as many minor deities as it has people, with little shrines tucked into every alley. There is so much competition for real-estate here that some gods have to share shrines.

So, I'm working on a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting, with the basic background being "world war between magocracies blew everything to hell/warped it into a hellhole", sort of a Eberron (Mournland) meets Fallout setting. I got the background lore fairly clear, but I'm having trouble figuring out the races. Folks mind giving me opinions/ideas? These are the ones I currently am contemplating.

Humans - The Old Race, one of the three who fought in the Great War, survivors and everymen. Invented wizardry, created the warforged, shamelessly reverse-engineered magic from the Aelfar and Uvandir.

Aelfar - The "elves"; originals were High Elves with a culture focused on life magic & death magic, travelled from "Aelfheim" on magical starships made from plants ala Spelljammer. Some went underground after the Black Dawn and have mutated since then into the drow. Unusure if there's only drow or not.

Uvandir - Hill Dwarves with a cultural fondness for Elementalism of Storm, Earth and Fire. Masters of enchanting items and alchemy. Unsure if they've survived, or mutated at all.

Kobolds/Dragonborn - The world had dragons, but they were arrogant bastards who didn't want to get involved with "lesser races". "The Glow" (magical fallout/FEV equivalent) poisoned their eggs, producing kobolds, who now desperately seek a way to ascend to true dragondom. Dragonborn are one-in-a-thousand kobold mutants who they near-worship as being closer to dragons.

Warforged - Sapient golems created by humanity towards the end of the Great War as soldiers. Outliving their war, they now seek to find a new purpose and recover creation-forges to ensure their species can survive.

Orks - Descendants of elves captured by dwarves during the Great War and alchemically mutated into slave-soldiers, until they turned against their masters. Non-evil, but Wicked Fantasy inspired (struggle with blood-lust, philosophy around the holiness of struggle, worship pain, etc) and not very fond of dwarves.

>>47743082
Continuing on from the last post...

"Ratfolk" - Humanoid rats inspired by Final Fantasy's Burmecians. Evolved from normal rats innundated with the Glow whilst breeding in the ruins of a human city-state. Forming their culture around the intact texts in the libraries, they're a race of would-be noble warriors and philosophers.

Aranea - Originally spiders engineered by the Aelfar to tend their libraries. Evolved into sapient, magical, shapeshifting spiders as a combination of Glow-induced mutation and a lack of masters to keep them in check.

Genasi - Humans mutated by rampaging, out-of-control elemental energy, or born in areas where elemental energy is out of control. Possibly add more variants like Storm, Metal, Wood, Abyssal or Dread to represent how screwed-up this world is.

Shadar-kai - Elves mutated by over-exposure to necromantic energy during the Black Dawn, turning them into half-living shadow-elves who need stimulation to stay alive.

Merfolk - Humans who tried to find a new place to live by mutating themselves to live underwater. Probably use Zendikar stats, say they can shapeshift between tailed and legged form so they can be relevant.

Sahuagin - Merfolk offshoot who imbued themselves with shark essence to become the guardians and hunters for the merfolk enclaves.

Beastfolk - I can see gnolls, minotaurs, lupins and rakasta kind of working as "random mutations born from the animal kingdom" in this world, but I don't know if they're not stepping on the shoes of existing races.

Anyway... any critiques? Suggestions for other races I could add by spinning off mutations/adaptations of elves, dwarves or orks?

>>47723068
>>How long have you been working on your current setting?
For at least 10 years, probably longer than that. I love fantasy, but I haven't been 100% at home in any setting, except my own that I'm building all the time.
>>What has been used as inspiration for your setting (or anything in it)?
Everything. Books, movies, music, album art, RPGs, and of course /tg/.
>>How seriously does your setting take itself?
The setting is supposed to be a coherent and working world, but reality isn't as much of a serious business as it is in our world. There is a certain bizarre humor to existence in the world.
>>Are you working on it for a specific reason or for the enjoy of it?
I love worldbuilding itself, but I would also enjoy the opportunity of using it for an RPG or for a story. I've just never had one so far.