/wbg/ Worldbuilding General

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heres some questions to start off the thread

>does your world have any mechanical steampunk-esque cultures?
>do your cultures have cuisine? if so, how do they reflect the common attributes/attitudes of the culture?
>are there any artisan cultures in areas where it is geographically possible to pursue making a certain sort of product?

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>>49114383
Still no questions edition
So, /wbg/:
>Is there an in-setting technology gap? Do you have one group of savages facing off against a group of holier-than-thou highborn folk? An alien species with <technology indistinguishable from magic> at odds with <allegory for modern humanity>?
>What's the scale of your highest tech-level? What's the biggest *bang* (IE: planet-busters, greek fire grenades, C4)
>How do you do your tech? Have you researched scientific principles to apply to your setting, or do you fluff it with technobabble?
>Does your setting leave room for tech development? If a character was working on R&D, could they invent something new?

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>>49114497
>does your world have any mechanical steampunk-esque cultures?
No.
>do your cultures have cuisine? if so, how do they reflect the common attributes/attitudes of the culture?
They do! That's one of the aspects of cultures I really like to focus on.
The northern people are stereotypically hardy but also quite religious. They use simple ingredients to make simple foods, but often go all out when it comes to celebratory or religious feasts.
>are there any artisan cultures in areas where it is geographically possible to pursue making a certain sort of product?
There are some. For example, the triocracy of Vhem's largest exports are oils and fruit wines. The region is warm and humid, with hilly terrain, where the fruits and nuts can be easily grown.

Pic fairly unrelated.

Hey jondon

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>>49114774
hi

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>>49114497
>>does your world have any mechanical steampunk-esque cultures?
Nope
>>do your cultures have cuisine? if so, how do they reflect the common attributes/attitudes of the culture?
Yes. I'll start talking in areas/religions because adressing every culture is going to be a pain.

The southern coast cuisine (Mudeladh, Sunken Colonies, Michumech) mainly consists of fish-based dishes. With a lot of swamplands, agriculture is less prevalent, mainly consisting of tubers and turnips, as well as a local crop known as "Swamp Rice".

The Megrian and Prim areas are akin to medieval France, lots of cattle, fruit and cereals.

The areas inhabited by the Melessian diaspora is densely forested, which reflects their dietary choices. Venison is the most common meat, berries and honey are very prevalent ingredients. Dried Chaulberries are a very important export: fresh from the plant these white-gray berries taste like chalk, but when dried they add a strong, earthy-sweet taste to meals and stews.

The Perrylistic peoples live in dry areas, eating food similar to those of medieval arabs.

>>are there any artisan cultures in areas where it is geographically possible to pursue making a certain sort of product?
Melessians love woodcarving, and trees there are abundant. The northernmost Melessians, the Karlassians build large monolithic structures from pillars of heavy rock to please the Noble Kardinalis, a pope-like noble which is worshiped as a god by those who live far from his not!papacy. Megrians craft the most beautiful pottery, and Peryllistic peoples craft intricate works of art made of glass.

Pic related are the fringes of the Karlassian mountains, which are the northernmost area of the terrain inhibited by the Melessian diaspora

>>49114497
>>does your world have any mechanical steampunk-esque cultures?
No, technology is modern day stuff, so steampunk machines would be a downgrade.

>>do your cultures have cuisine? if so, how do they reflect the common attributes/attitudes of the culture?
Very much so! The intricacies of the food depends on geographical location, eastern countries tend to use monsters as ingredients while western countries use more traditional ingredients. The human capital city on the west coast for example traditionally uses fish, chowder being a traditional food for them. While further east a griffon breast roast topped with chimera blood sauce and local herbs is a common meal, usually with a side of mashed potatoes.

>>are there any artisan cultures in areas where it is geographically possible to pursue making a certain sort of product?
Depends on the geographical location, dwarves are natural craftsmen of course, but elves, human and succubi also may take up the crafts trade, especially in areas with luxury resources, like ivory or an abundance of gemstones.

>>49114553
>>Is there an in-setting technology gap? Do you have one group of savages facing off against a group of holier-than-thou highborn folk? An alien species with <technology indistinguishable from magic> at odds with <allegory for modern humanity>?
There's no real official technological gap, of course this doesn't mean you won't have isolated groups of tribal people at odds with a local bandit warlord armed with AKs and RPGs.

>>What's the scale of your highest tech-level? What's the biggest *bang* (IE: planet-busters, greek fire grenades, C4)
Modern-day technology, so computer guided weaponry and advanced FCS. Nuclear weapons and exceptionally powerful mages provide the boom.

>>How do you do your tech? Have you researched scientific principles to apply to your setting, or do you fluff it with technobabble?
Since everything is modern I can just really google a specific technology I don't know of and use what I learn from there to explain it.

>>Does your setting leave room for tech development? If a character was working on R&D, could they invent something new?
Very much so! I already have a character who dedicates most of her time just doing science stuff and inventing technologies, mostly focused around finding a way to get magic and machines to work right.

>>49114497
>>does your world have any mechanical steampunk-esque cultures?
Yes, Automatons are sentinet and quite numerous, though not nearly as numerous as humans. Whether they're accepted into society is a different story.
>>do your cultures have cuisine? if so, how do they reflect the common attributes/attitudes of the culture?
Yeah, though I haven't done much backstory on this aspect of the world yet.
>>are there any artisan cultures in areas where it is geographically possible to pursue making a certain sort of product?
I'm not sure what you mean by this

>>49115368
Also, before anyone gets on my dick, I mean sentient. Very few have any form of sapience and most are only able to perform certain actions really well. Sapience involves creating androids which are almost universally viewed as abominations.

>>49115368
hes talking about places where a certain trade is fuelled by the abundance of a certain resource or 2 in the area, thus causing it to be a valuable export

>>49115494
Oh wow, someone else who uses sentient and sapient differently. I feel like most people treat them as synonyms and use the former more often.

>>49114497
If their tech has advanced that far then yes. So typically more common in areas that are less magic rich and or had a lot of time for their tech to play catch up.

If there is food then there is cuisine. Cuisine is based upon the rarity and views of the different foods. Some food for instance is seen as 'people' food and some foods are very rare in the associated culture but possibly common in a different one(mostly due to geography). Like sea food being common and cheap in a coastal kingdom but seen as very rare and valuable in a deeply inland one.

The dwarves are the most well known given their love of stonework and forging. However they aren't the only ones but it depends upon geography and cultural values. The peoples of the great sands for instance are very fond of glasswork while the peoples of the forests of Elizar are very fond of woodworking. So yeah and its downright common. It usually doesn't come up all that much though unless its trade related.

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http://bestiary.ca/

^archive of various beasts recorded by medieval people

gonna dump these 2 pdfs

we really need a MEGA archive

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>>49115647

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>>49114497
>does your world have any mechanical steampunk-esque cultures?
No, I think I've already fucked with tech enough just by introducing muzzle-loaded rifles.
>do your cultures have cuisine? if so, how do they reflect the common attributes/attitudes of the culture?
Well, I guess I'll have to start making cuisine... Nah, probably not. Not very important at all. When I get all the actual important stuff done, maybe then.
>are there any artisan cultures in areas where it is geographically possible to pursue making a certain sort of product?
Not something I've considered.

>>49114553
>Is there an in-setting technology gap? Do you have one group of savages facing off against a group of holier-than-thou highborn folk? An alien species with <technology indistinguishable from magic> at odds with <allegory for modern humanity>?
Goddamn I need to flesh out my world more. Most of the gap is elves vs. everyone else. My wood (high?) elves are probably the most advanced because they can work metal. Though the deep elves might be higher than them, I want their society to have regressed a little due to being underground, but maybe I'll change it, who knows. The wild elves are basically Native Americans, so yeah.
>What's the scale of your highest tech-level? What's the biggest *bang* (IE: planet-busters, greek fire grenades, C4)
Cannons. Which for some reason I hadn't even considered in the setting until today. I must be a complete idiot.
>How do you do your tech? Have you researched scientific principles to apply to your setting, or do you fluff it with technobabble?
Oh, tech will all be realistic until magic gets involved, because magic.
>Does your setting leave room for tech development? If a character was working on R&D, could they invent something new?
Yeah, it's going to advance. As insane as it is, I have an unfinished setting that is just this unfinished setting but probably a hundred or so years in the future that takes place in the fantasy Wild West.

>>49115647
Fuck. Just looking at the table of contents is making me rethink going through with this.

>>49114553
Big time. It comes down to age and opportunity. Whether or not your lucky enough to not massively get screwed over early on and how abundant things like magic or certain materials are. Usually this come to a head more often in my space travel.

Ascendance. Nobody around knows what the hell happens to some species after they 'ascend'. One of the weirdest things about it being the oddly wide variety of tech level before 'ascendance' is achieved which only makes things even more confusing.

The most powerful known tech is star busters but supposedly there is something out there that can wipe out galaxies or even universes their existence however has never been officially confirmed.

I thought about it but I planned to include magic and with the constant advances in sciences as well as technological breakthroughs. With many fields you would have to study up on(constantly) to avoid it from being too jarring or god forbid 'unrealistic' so I gave up on doing hard sci fi. Seriously though fuck that I tried but I realized it just wasn't doable for me personally. That doesn't mean however I don't do my homework(more for inspiration and ideas admittedly then to keep things 'grounded in reality') as i simply gave up on puling off hard sci fi. I mean its a neat idea but fucking hell is it a nightmare to pull off. Tech wise its generally ripped from reality or influenced heavily by magic or sci fi bullshit. Tech is generally much more advanced at places with scarcer magic and its development is directly slowed depending on the concentration of magic(never outright stopped however).

There is potentially a lot of tech development assuming your not from a magical world or if you are then tech has managed to catch up. If your too lazy to develop tech on your own you got aliens to trade or steal from. If your broke and want supposedly lesser risks there are always dead or ascended(sometimes it can be quite hard to tell which exactly) possibly alien civs.

So a question for all of you.
>How do people fight in your setting? Is it more fantasy with heroes and villains battling with fantastical powers? Is it more realistic with people making full use of martial arts or high speed low drag operating? Is it anime esque with crazy powerful warriors slinging around attacks that destroy everything around them? Is it brutal and gritty with people being torn to bits on the regular?

>>49115882
Most of my fighting is realistic. It's mostly people stabbing or beating the hell out of each other. Magic exists, but it's mostly used for making weapons better, so you're still stabbing/bashing people with it.

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>>49115768
what does it make you rethink going through with, anon?

>>49115967
Everything. OK, not everything per se, but a lot of stuff. I mean, it doesn't really impact the story so much, but it will as soon as I hit civilization, and the destination is a castle.

Cool map by the way.

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>>49116006
thanks. unfortunately, i didnt draw these ;( just keeping them as pic unrelateds

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>>49116077
Still cool, thanks for sharing.

Actually, that does make me ask a question: How do you guys justify dungeons in your setting? And if you don't have dungeons, do you have something similar to fill the role?

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~

>>49117761
what the fuck

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>>49117965
What the fuck indeed. Found this on a wikia for /his/ so... yeah. Also, not the same guy that posted >>49117761

>>49117965
>>49118154
>He doesn't know about the Ancient Finnish Empire

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>>49118154
>notable commanders and leaders
>Girls' Generation
>Jackie Chan
>Obi-Wan Kenobi

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>>49119868
>Strength
>>Jackie Chan[1][2][3]
>Casualties and losses
>>Jackie Chan[disputed]

If a kingdom was thrust into civil war a century ago because of a succession conflict between two branches of the ruling family, but there has been relative peace and the return of trade since then, what would the general attitude between the people of the two nations be?

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Oh shoot, I guess I should put up my question now and try to get the thread rolling again.

How do you guys feel about half-human hybrids? Are hybrids exclusive to just humans? How far can the hybrids go (ie, do you have characters descended from three or more different races)? Can monsters breed hybrids? And if they do, is the resulting offspring a combination of its parents, or something completely different?

>>49120088
Depends on how history was taught, whether the teaching of history is enforced, and whether the respective governing parties have any reason to foster ill will towards the other population. Also depends on economic situation and political atmosphere. You can have common populace reactions ranging anywhere from ambivalent tolerance to fanatical hatred.

>>49120088
I think if the two houses were generally friendly with each other and the populace, whoever claimed the right to rule over the chosen successor would probably just be laughed at. If there's no reason to fight, who's going to back him up?

>>49120161
Thread raises an interesting question. What military technology are your cultures using?

>>49118154
That is beautiful.

>>49120129
They're just another race if the mechanics behind breeding is explained. It doesn't have to make sense as far as biology goes, but if they explain that interspecies breeding works for some reason and they're consistent about how it works and what it works for, I don't really care if they want to put it in or not.

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>>49117761
>map goes back to 59,745 BC
>the coastline isn't like pic related

>>49120306
>>49120347

Damnit, sloppy typing of me. I forgot to explain that the kingdom was actually split in two when the fighting threatened to ruin all of it and set the land up for invasion by their neighbors.

The premise is that the king, being childless, appointed a man not of his blood as his successor. He had plenty of cousins, though, and the law was quite vague on whether the king or tradition had the final say. The cousins rallied their allies, but the appointed successor was well respected (and also regarded by certain elements of the nobility as their chance to rise).

War raged for a few years before an accord was made. The appointed successor would take the western half (thereby also getting the rather grand capital as well as the river-bound trade route) while the late king's relatives took the eastern half (where most of the verdant, fertile land is).

A hundred years later, few who took part in that war still live, but I figure there might still be a certain "us and them" mentality going around. The one thing I do know is that the western people might be seen as snobs as they are the one with the huge, rich city and grand library, etc.

>>49120534
>few who took part in that war still live, but I figure there might still be a certain "us and them" mentality going around

In reality this rarely happens unless the consequences of the war were significant enough to affect common folks. Cultural and historic influences have an effect, but as long as the populace is not given a reason to harbor animosity, the majority of people will be more concerned with getting on with their lives.

The generation immediately after the ones that fought tends to receive the greatest exposure, but by the time you're at the generation after that, unless there is a reason for the bad blood to linger, the "active" generation so to speak generally won't have any reason to harbor animosity towards one another. If the generation that fought is almost all dead anyways, most of it just becomes history.

A geographic/economical/social split can cause a bit of tension between two groups of people, but it generally doesn't escalate to a war unless the situation steadily gets worse.

>>49120731
Not the guy you were replying to, but-

When wars are won they almost never revert to status quo ante bellum. The Germans took Alsace and Lorraine, the Union sat on the former Confederacy for thirty years, etc. Land will be taken, indemnities or reparations made to be paid, or sometimes the vanquished will be occupied. Bad blood always lingers.

>>49120731

This sounds very reasonable, thank you. So perhaps the two ruling houses still consider one another upstarts and usurpers, but the most you'll get from your local baker or farmer is the occasional casual joke about those people in the other kingdom?

>>49120792

Hm, this is also a good point. If it helps, the war was relatively easy on the common man. They were drafted as levies, but it never got to the point where their farms were plundered or their property confiscated, basically no rape and pillage and wanton destruction.

>>49120792
The problem is in this case the picture that anon has painted is largely different from the cases in the real world that you're drawing to. As I already stated in the first reply, without knowing the chronological sequence of historic events and the consequences of the war, no approximation of two populations' reactions can hold accurately. Factors such as cultural evolution, social evolution, and political evolution play a substantial part. All we can do without knowing the full picture with clarified variables is to tune the possible conclusion appropriately with the known parameters.

Anon's clarification post suggests that one of the two halves holds an economical advantage over the other. However, it also suggests that the two halves are held together by necessity (threat of foreign invasion) and depending on their current technological level and population demands, opportunity (through land development).

The nature of the war being one related to monarchy presents two possibilities, either the monarchy is still in place, or it has evolved into a different form of government which we don't know. All we know is that the majority of those who have fought in the war have died off. We are also told that there is a "relative peace" and reestablishment of trade, which in turn suggests that the two countries have reached a point of agreement, whether out of necessity of opportunity.

The notion that "bad blood always lingers" is a notion that cannot be proven false, given that as long as a single person harbors animosity towards the other party, it is thereby true. However, if we're to take this as the general attitude between the people of the two nations, then it would be a rather far stretch. We would have to first assume that a majority of both populations still holds animosity towards one another, after 100 years.

The issue then turns into a matter of lifespan, demographics, as well as the influence of the monarchy.

>>49120792
>>49121017
If we take for example an average lifespan of 30 - 40 years, in a century you can expect two new generations to take hold. Depending on how history is taught, as well as the general attitude of those who actually fought, by the time you hit the current generation, attitudes will have changed dramatically. If we scale up the lifespan to perhaps 70 - 80 years, the situation changes again, considering a larger amount of soldiers will have survived up until "recent times". So the way that the history is told might be largely different.

This is an ongoing issue with places like China for example, where in some provinces history is taught slightly differently than in others. Certain events are dismissed or exempted, whereas others are exemplified and made compulsory. In this, we can see the influence of education, both by the government, as well as within the family itself. There are still pockets of individuals who actively hate the Japanese for what they did, and will find reasons to hate them for whatever they do next, but due to the size of China and the attitudes of the current generation, they're no longer representative of the nation as a whole. In this, we can see how population demographics can in turn effect this issue.

If the war wasn't horrible as anon clarifies (>>49120965), then it isn't an unreasonable assumption to say that the majority of the populace on both sides don't have particular reason to harbor animosity for an entire century. Depending on the importance of the monarchy and the presence of external factors (neighboring countries), the attitudes of the ruling houses would be questionable. Since the houses, unlike the populace, are relatively small groups of people, their individual responses are up in the air. A "prince" who was taught a different version of history and is relatively detached from the outside world would have a vastly different response to someone who has a broad view of the two nations and the people.

>>49121017

Thank you for taking the time to type this up, simply reading your arguments helps a lot. I'd just like to retract the "relative" bit. There is peace, plain and simple. The border is watched from both sides, but people travel freely across it. There may be radical elements within the ruling bodies who covet the lost lands, but there is no threat of war.

>>49121209

As for history perspective, neither side has whitewashed or prettied up the war, but they both make sure that their people grow up knowing that THEIR claim to the throne was the just and legal one, and they were wise and gracious in accepting the accord and the peace that followed.

>>49121249
If there's peace and the population has freedom to generally do what they want, then even if the history paints things differently generally the two populations wouldn't be clashing over the historical event that happened a century ago. It might lead to bar brawls and such between heated individuals, it might motivate some radical dissidents among the populace for some reason, but given that most people have families and livelihoods they're not going to start something to destroy it over history.

>>49121561

It's settled, then. I have a pretty good idea of how to present the setting now, and how to roleplay the people. Thanks, guys.

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work in progress map

>>49114497
>does your world have any mechanical steampunk-esque cultures?
Nothing steampowered so no, but one of the civilisations does use their gods magic to create inventions that might be similar, gunpowder is created through a kind of alchemy, for example.

>do your cultures have cuisine? if so, how do they reflect the common attributes/attitudes of the culture?
I have given literally no thought into that, there are a people who eat other people to gain powers but its not really cuisine.

>are there any artisan cultures in areas where it is geographically possible to pursue making a certain sort of product?
Kinda, not much trade going on between peoples due to zealous hatred towards eachothers gods.

>>49114553
>Is there an in-setting technology gap? Do you have one group of savages facing off against a group of holier-than-thou highborn folk? An alien species with <technology indistinguishable from magic> at odds with <allegory for modern humanity>?
Yes, but nothing that matters since most wars are done through the gods chosen champions being given a piece of said gods power. Creating demigods.

>What's the scale of your highest tech-level? What's the biggest *bang* (IE: planet-busters, greek fire grenades, C4)
Magic powerful enough to destroy large towns, chunks of cities, though its extremely rare.

>How do you do your tech? Have you researched scientific principles to apply to your setting, or do you fluff it with technobabble?
Divine magic. Being too powerful for mortals to comprehend use humanity as proxies in their war, so the devoted get blessed with no explanation.

>Does your setting leave room for tech development? If a character was working on R&D, could they invent something new?
Yes, though its an incredibly slow process as most of the actual technology hasn't changed in decades, though a few civilisations do use invention as a form of worship.

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>>49120456
>being this bluepilled

>>49124494
I love how it sticks on that shitty graph bitching about the dark ages at the end.

>>49124552
that's how you know it's definitely legit. The Proto-Finnish Holy Roman Kangaskhan lives on in all settings.

>>49114497
>does your world have any mechanical steampunk-esque cultures?
Yes and no. There's the Machine State, but they've got more of a baroque Phyrexia/Giger style than steampunk. Think sleek black lacquer and porcelain instead of brass and gears. The other developed nations have roughly 19th century technology, but none of them really embrace the steampunk aesthetic.

>do your cultures have cuisine? if so, how do they reflect the common attributes/attitudes of the culture?
For the most part, food is just based on what is produced locally (bread/pasta and beef in the grassy countryside, poultry and pork in more rugged terrain, more fruits in equatorial regions, etc.), though there are some exceptions. The people of the Meridial League find themselves with an abundance of fishes close at hand, but despise mildly flavored foods. Their great hunger for foreign spices to make the fish suit their tastes drives much of their trade with the eastern continents. Speaking of which, the chefs in Saddath-Leng don't really distinguish between herbs/spices and mild drugs; one flavorful leaf's is much like another, right? Enjoy your psychoactive curry.

>are there any artisan cultures in areas where it is geographically possible to pursue making a certain sort of product?
Depends on what you mean by “artisan cultures,” to be honest. You've got tons of high end weapons smiths in the city-states along the western coast of the Meridial Sea, where mountains rich in very pure iron come down to the coast and you can make tons of guns and swords for export and sell them directly to overseas buyers without an intermediary trading partner. Also, the Cyrelian heartland is a big wine and brandy making region thanks to a climate that's very friendly to grapes.

https://discord.gg/2Kp99

new wbg discord link

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I am trying to world-build a fantastical nation based on the themes of "sea," "sky," "storms," and "order." Could /tg/ please lend ideas?

There is an enormous, landlocked sea with pale waters like sparkling, white wine. They say the liquid is the tears of a long-gone goddess of rain and order, who mourned over the death of her only child.
All across the seabed, the tears have calcified into varicolored, coral-like formations. Some pierce the water's surface and form islands upon which grow uniform rows of grass and trees. The islands themselves create a perfect grid.

Above the sea dance the everlasting storm systems, miles thick. If one was to gain a bird's eye view, one would see flawless arrangements of green flora jutting from their cloudstuff. One would also notice the storms' movements tracing out well-ordered, sacred geometries. Every so often, two or more storms brush against one another and kick up a symphony of thunder and lightning.
The typhoons complete their circuits once every seventeen years. All the while, they send down rain and levin upon the pale-gold sea and its colorful islands.

The selkies, merfolk, and other aquatic races who live within and upon the "coral" embrace the storms. Through tempestuous sorceries, they attempt to bottle up lightning before it lands. If they fail and the electricity hits the divine sea, they gather up the levin-kissed water instead. Such harvests are potent magical reagents, some of which they export by ship.

Atop the storms live races landbound and aerial. They build great cities upon the impossible grass, ordering them as concentric circles around the eye of the storm. Their agricultural mages make the "land" more fertile through spells of air, water, and sun that refine the mystical energies within the storm-clouds' component vapors. Miners dig deep to gather hailstone nucleii, which carry far more power as magical reagents before they fall. The cloud-people build magnificent airships for travel and trade.

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>>49127460

That is all I have for now.

Culture is not something I am worried about explaining and fleshing out before I use this in a game, because this is merely one of the many nations of Arcadia in the D&D Great Wheel, the LG/LN plane that represents the ideals of community, utilitarianism, the group over the individual, the greater good, and beautiful order. Thus, the majority of cultures in Arcadia have those themes anyway.

Still, I am open to ideas. I am not exactly a meteorologist, so what interesting concepts could be taken based on such a nation of divine waters and storms?

>>49127460
>>49127479
Sounds dream-like and fanciful. I try to make everything grounded in the mundane, so I have no clue what ideas to give.

Maybe you should look at it from an inhabitant's point of view. Go full-on deadpan and down-to-earth to contrast the whimsical surroundings.

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>>49127545

The inhabitants have been to other lands, so they would be able to give a reasoned viewpoint of precisely what makes their own nation rather distinct (and what they, from their perspective, consider "exotic," like the concept of soil).

In particular, I am trying to think of a second export for the cloud-people, since the sea-people already have two (bottled lightning and lightning-kissed water). What would be appropriate to have alongside the unfallen hailstone nucleii? Perhaps particularly dense, fist-sized segments of cloudstuff charged with great mystical power?

Also, someone else had proposed the concept of "places that only exist among the lightning and thunder of a storm." How could these work? Lightning and thunder are transient, even if they are in this case perfectly orderly rather than chaotic and unpredictable. Perhaps some towns, cities, and other sites have an impermanent position which constantly (and predictably) teleports from lightning/thunder-filled cloud-section to cloud-section?

>>49127701
>"places that only exist among the lightning and thunder of a storm."
Could be interesting if you thought of the cloud bank as a "primal brain", where the electricity surging through it is its synapses firing. Then you can have weird dreamscapes that exist only during the storm, disappearing once the energy has dissipated.

>>49127883
Gives new meaning to "dream of the godhead".

>>49122688
Good map, but dislike the naming. Mainly the northern tribes, as "uncommon letters" such as x make something sound more advanced as opposed to tribal. The abundance of vowels also doesn't help, since the human brain associates guttural names with tribes.

Gold coast and goldbelt also bothers me for several reasons.
1. In one word gold and x are separated, while the other has them attached to eachother
2. Repeating something twice so close to eachother. Consider using "gilded coast" and "belt of gold/golden belt"

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>>49127883

An interesting idea. Rather than cities and towns within the "places that only exist among the lightning and thunder of a storm," there exist surreal "dreamscapes" that form from the "primal brain" that is the storm-clouds and all their electrical synapses.

>>49127973
They're more like kingdoms than tribes. This map is made by someone from the Serenelands and is incredibly biased, as they consider them stupid barbarians and thieves, when in reality the Pale Tribes are roughly as advanced as they are.

Your other point is very valid though, I'll probably change the 'Gold Coast' to something different as that one I just kind of came up with on the spot.

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>>49127460

Interesting ideas others have proposed so far include:

1. The cloud-people could export lighter-than-air woods and fruits for aerial spells.

2. The cloud-people could catch sunlight using enchanted tools and weave it into metals. I imagine that this would be a tradition passed down by gold dragons, the sun being of fire and of gold.

3. There could be surreal "dreamscapes" that exist only among the lightning and thunder of the storm. The thunderclouds act like a "primal brain" of cloudy synapses, and from that rudimentary mind springs imaginative, transient demesnes.

So, i've been thinking about this ninja who is communicating with demons/youkai in my setting. I have no idea about japanese folklore or their "witches". What sort of ritual or curio he could be carrying and/or using for this stuff?
Even ridicilous animestuff is okay i guess.

>>49114553
My sci-fi is a bit raw but I talk about it
>>Is there an in-setting technology gap? Do you have one group of savages facing off against a group of holier-than-thou highborn folk? An alien species with <technology indistinguishable from magic> at odds with <allegory for modern humanity>?
Not contemporary. Currently only Human Commonwealth and The Ksa Republic are active players and both have vaguely equal technology. However back in older days two ancient civilizations fought with far greater technology, but it's all lost but destroyed by now. They had technology modern science doesn't even know how to approach. The most impressive thing they could pull of is to alter fundamental nature of hyperspace around their systems making it impossible to actually visit them. The whole setup is that in one of their systems the device has broken down allowing everyone to flock in
>>What's the scale of your highest tech-level? What's the biggest *bang* (IE: planet-busters, greek fire grenades, C4)
Nothing that can obliterate the planet, most some good old rail guns and nuclear warheads. The biggest weapon technology is High Energy Particle Impactor that can vaporize the most solid of solids into some kind of weird matter known as pixie dust
>>How do you do your tech? Have you researched scientific principles to apply to your setting, or do you fluff it with technobabble?
Technobabble, but I look to make it at least somewhat passable
>>Does your setting leave room for tech development? If a character was working on R&D, could they invent something new?
Yes.

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I need to make actual map of nations/political factions.

>>49114497
>steampunk?
Nope. Some lesser developed nations still use similar tech, but it isn't steam/punk/.
>cuisine
Yeah. I haven't thought about it too much, but there's also the historical significance behind the food as well.
>certain products
Not really, no elves in arctic making toys, unfortunately.

>>49114553
>tech-gap
There is, actually. Most modern technology is WW1-WW2-tier, while some more distant places still don't have guns. They are mostly not colonized due being difficult to access, dangerous fauna/flora and low resources all around.
>biggest bang
Well, bombs. Nuclear weapons aren't a thing yet.
>realistic or technobabble?
Since it's mostly tech we have had, it's more described realistically.
>development
This is tricky one, since obviously a player would go "oh of course I wanna research a nuclear bomb, modern weapons, computers..."
I don't know.

>>49120129
No hybrids personally. At least naturally occurring one. If thaumaturgy is involved, it's bit more complex ( technically draconians were created through blood and flesh of humans and dragons by a very powerful thaumaturge ).
>>49115647
>>49115672
Thanks, the bestiary is really nice.
>"The salamander is a cold animal. It can live unharmed in a fire, and its coldness will extinguish the hottest flames. If it enters hot water, the water will become cold."
Funny how things change over time.

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Asking for a friend

What would you think if in a setting you saw an island to the east of the continent made up of people who liked wearing robes, lamellar armor, sandals, curved two-handed swords, feudalism, eating fish, and spoke a language of mostly open-syllables?

>>49129962
What would you think I'd think?

>>49129962
2 nukes wasn't enough

How do you determine how industrious a nation is, is it a relative thing, are some nations just more fortunate or fortuitous with an abundance of natural resources?

I'm thinking of drawing up a campaign world where a lich king's been on a roll and most of the continent's been swallowed up.

The obvious question though, what purpose to keeping around any living folks would there be? Zombies and skeletons make better slave labour. The two things I can think of are that you need a supply of living people to make more dead ones, and that some of the living might be candidates for necromantic study.

>>49131491
company

>>49131491
Diversity is necessary for development. Living beings make for better test subjects under a wide variety of conditions, they're also better for turning into sleeper agents, and a nice security blanket to use against living armies.

People don't care if your suicide bombers are undead if the undead are seen as abominations anyways. But if you turn their women and children into unwilling, or even better, unknowing, suicide bombers, it has wonderful side effects on communities.

Depending on what type of undead you're using, living beings are also better for incubating diseases. Zombies with permanently atrophied flesh don't make for good hosts due to a lack of varied conditions to allow mutation. Skeletons even less so.

Generally in fantasy a lot of these points either are handwaved with magic, or they're simply shied away from because they're "too evil", so whether you'd employ them is up to you. There are even more vicious reasons for using humans, but those involve details that fit under "0 morality shock and awe" tactics and are better left to imagination.

It doesn't really sound like your lich king is anywhere close to being moderate if he's been swallowing up the continent. But if you had to find reasons on the other side of the spectrum, they're there too. Humans are more inclined to negotiate with those of their own kind rather than undead, making them better ambassadors in a sense. Their youth can be indoctrinated and in turn used to convert others. Having a wide variety of living beings period makes innovation and development easier by having a larger pool of talent to draw from, and generally the perspective of living beings is different from the undead, so having them as consultants and scouts will yield different results to say having a band of roving skeletons.

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>>49131491
You don't need to have living folks as citizens, per-say. Your Lich King could just have a supply of bipedal sheep.

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>>49129962
It really comes down to how exactly it's done, but I generally wouldn't mind if there were other fantasy counterpart cultures in the setting. But if it's just the one, yeah, I'm probably going to bring out the paddle.

>>49133626
What's this picture from? GIS is giving me nothing, and I'm curious because the guy in the back looks a bit like Lucien from Sandman.

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I have an idea for an enclosed city of sorts. I hope the idea is clear from the image, but basically there are layers of segments encircling a central tower ("the spine"), with ladders between each layer and checkpoints between each segment. As population grows, they simply build more layers and segments. Each segments has residential areas, stores, restaurants, etc., which get increasingly lavish as they get closer to the spine, checkpoints harder to pass.

Are there any logistical things I should keep in mind? For waste, I was thinking large pipes could run down layers at regular intervals, which lead to a hollow below the city, which has a door opening to the river far below that would be pushed out by waste workers every week.

>>49134158
It looks like a prison. Remember that it's a lot easier to build outward than upward.

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>>49133955
It's Ainz-sama from Overlord imagining one of his lieutenants tending to the bipedal sheep.

>>49134424
>Overlord
Isn't that the one with nearly the same story as dotHack, but the character decides to stay in the game and become a villain?

>>49134516
It's one of the better LNs in this recent wave of Japanese "enter a world based on a video game" escapism.

>>49114383
Hey anons, kind of new to this board, but I figured this is the best place to ask. Because /lit/ sucks big hairy donkey balls.

I am planning on writing my own novels soon, and am trying to figure something out.

I want a planet that is physically as large as possible, but I want the gravity as close to earth like as possible, (I don't mind if it's a little heavier, but it has to be as close as possible to the comfort zones of humans) because there will be humans on it, or at least traveling to it on a regular basis. I thought I could explain this away with a combination of "super science/might as well be magic/literal magic" (in my universe magic is just ritualized psychic abilities, thus magic and science can co exist, and alchemy is when you combine magic and science to achieve mind blowing awesomeness) and the fact that the planet rotates around it's star at a much slower pace then earth. Plus, because it was artificially created/terraformed, it is partially hollow. Basically massive underground reservoirs of both freshwater and saltwater that are miles and miles deep that span across the entire globe.

Basically some super science wizard made himself immortal when mankind was young, then as time progressed, saw that homo sapiens and the other self aware species were causing extinctions left and right, including genociding their fellow species of man (neanderthals AKA dwarves, for instance)

So he was like, "Fuck this noise, I'm not spending the rest of eternity with these assholes." So he used some magic/super science to astral travel through wormholes and found the right kind of solar systems, and wound up forging whole new planets. He transplanted members of all of the endangered species, and cloned the extinct ones. Each self aware species (elves/dwarves/mermaids AKA sirens etc.) has their own planet. Except for homo sapiens, they still have Earth.

Will this work? How much technical jargon do I need to learn so I can describe it to my readers?

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So my group is really fucking into Shadowrun, but I (the DM until January) want to do something else, so we talked it out a bit and we made a compromise which can be summed up as "Shadowrun but with a 1920's aesthetic". Now here's the rub: how the fuck do I combine the Jazz Age with fantasy cyberpunk and not have it just be Shadowrun in a different coat of paint?

>>49115647
Thank you anon! This is just what I needed!

>>49116226
Most of the time they are freshwater cisterns or root cellars for storage. Then the over all building undergoes a remodel and they wind up building something larger and better at storing whatever it is, be it fresh water or food.

So they have this somewhat largish empty room, and are all like, "Fuck it, throw some bars and chains up. We can toss the local drunkards in here for a night or two to scare them into holding their liquor the next time they think it's a good idea to cause a brawl that winds up burning down the tavern."

>>49120088
More or less, the individuals in leadership would hate each other, just absolutely loathe them. Because each side only has "half a nation" and it's all the fault of the other side.

But the common and middle class people are making good bank off of being nice to each other and trading, so the leaders basically ignore each other, or are polite but cold when forced to inter act with each other.

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>>49134261
>>49134158
Apologies for my bad art. As you can see it's somewhat cramped, but not prison. There occupied parts on each side -- so where you see 304, across is 305, 306 across 307, etc. -- and a walkway in the middle. At my current (likely silly) measurements, it's be 8 meters for each occupied space, and 4 for the walkway. I may want to shrink those; the idea is for it to be cramped but not TOO cramped.

>>49120129
Basically in my universe hybrids are kind of like mules. They can happen, but the offspring are all sterile. And every now and then you wind up with an individual who wins the genetic lottery and is the liger equivalent of half human hybrids.

>>49135280
I don't think this is that much better. I thought you were trying to draw something from Echochrome for a second. Don't get me wrong, the idea of a non-Euclidean housing sounds interesting, but I doubt that's what you're going for.

No idea on the numbers. Still not a fan of the idea though.

>>49134896
You're basing your entire premise on "a wizard did it", it's already kind of flimsy. I mean, I'm doing the same thing but it's more of an allegory to a creator god.

Having a yuuuge planet with similar gravity is just a matter of density. My setting's plane is ~1/2 earth, but is made up of much heavier metals than iron and nickel.

>>49135348
So it can be done? When people read my writing they won't go, "WTF? How can you have that many continents of that size on a single planet, surrounded by oceans large enough to support entire herds of whales of multiple species, and any human who sets foot on that planet isn't crushed into a pancake by their own body weight?"

>does your world have any mechanical steampunk-esque cultures?
With airships flying around the sky, it would be hard to say no, but in universe they are explained with magic. Before the various magic guilds introduced their airships, there was a little bit of steampunkesque vibe, but steam was found to be too dangerous, and thus when it can be afforded to rent a magic guild to magic something over steam powering it, it is magiced.
>do your cultures have cuisine? if so, how do they reflect the common attributes/attitudes of the culture?
Much the same as in the real world... Hot arid places trade in spices, mountainous regions have sheep, goats, and cheese, etc. Flavors tend to go towards those native resources, but transportation has broken down cultural barriers, so you can get locally inspired versions of (insert meal from homeland here) wherever you go.
>are there any artisan cultures in areas where it is geographically possible to pursue making a certain sort of product?
Considering I have a whole city dedicated to magic, yes. There are regions known for their statues, and other areas known for textiles, and others known for producing specific pigments.

>>49134896
>Will this work? How much technical jargon do I need to learn so I can describe it to my readers?
Assuming you're attempting to adhere to science, you have several issues. First, your criteria asks for a planet as physically large as possible with the same gravity as Earth. Simply put, you want a planet with relatively the same value of g, given the known constant G, and a variable mass to determine the actual radius.

The exact equation to determine your radius is R = sqrt(G*mass/g) where small g is 9.8 m/s^2 to simulate Earth gravity at surface. G is 6.673×10-11 N m2 kg-2. Your first issue is then a matter of "what mass do you actually select", because this in turn affects orbital mechanics, satellites, as well as general properties of the planet itself. Without knowing a precise objective, your statement "a planet that is physically as large as possible" becomes an open ended equation with a wide range of possible conclusions. You can set up a very simple spreadsheet which can map the equation's curve essentially and pick/choose a solution, but the consequences of that solution are extreme.

Your second issue is then the fact that the planet is partially hollow. Whether the planet is hollow or whether it actually has a core in turn affects properties like the magnetic field of the planet, the atmosphere, tectonic movements, and so forth. If you replace the molten core of the planet with water, those properties are going to change. This is likely something that absolutely must be handwaved with magic entirely.

Your third issue then is the jargon part, because if you're attempting to adhere to scientific validity for any reason at all, you at least need a basic foundation. Developing a model that is even remotely sound as far as the science goes will require a moderate amount of research, additional for each planet. Personally I'd say it's better to toss science aside, because in this case you're not working with just one planet, but multiple.

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>>49132035

>>49114553
>Is there an in-setting technology gap? Do you have one group of savages facing off against a group of holier-than-thou highborn folk? An alien species with <technology indistinguishable from magic> at odds with <allegory for modern humanity>?
Yes. While most of the world has a magic focused version of steampunk level technology, there are still wandering tribes.
>What's the scale of your highest tech-level? What's the biggest *bang* (IE: planet-busters, greek fire grenades, C4)
Tech wise, most things are still medieval level, but there is also magic powered machinery at a victorian steampunk level.
Bang wise, your looking at magic infused bombs. They aren't used that often though. Destruction wise, they can take out a sizeable district in one of the main cities. Typically they would be dropped from airship, but they are also capable of being launched by conventional siege weapons.
>How do you do your tech? Have you researched scientific principles to apply to your setting, or do you fluff it with technobabble?
Science, isn't anywhere where it is in this world. Most stuff is more magic focused then tech focused. What tech there is, is backed by scientific principle.
>Does your setting leave room for tech development? If a character was working on R&D, could they invent something new?
Tech isn't fleshed out to the point that nothing can be added. If a character wanted to come up with a unique way to do something, nothing beyond the physics of the world is stopping them.

>>49135504
Oh, sorry if I derped up the description, I had to backspace some sentences because my post kept getting too long.

The planet in question isn't completely hollow, it does have an active molten core. Basically imagine falling down a massive hole, into an underground reservoir miles and miles deep. All around you are massive pillars larger than the greatest redwood trees in the forest around your home village. The water is surprisingly warm, because it's so deep underground the cold of the snow on the surface can't reach you. You swim and swim, trying to find a way out, but there are no walls or cliffs you can climb, only the smooth massive pillars, and the occasional hole to the surface in the ceiling for light and air. You can climb up on the bases of these pillars to dry off and rest, but you can't climb up them.

Eventually you are discovered by a pair of dwarves in their metal boat who are fishing, they take you on board and give you some food and apple juice. Then they use their strange alchemy to make the boat move across the surface of the water as fast as lightning. You're so tired you fall asleep despite the strange boat making the sound of a dozen roaring dragons as it flies over the water.

They take you to a strange pillar, this one has glowing orbs attached to it, and a built in ladder. By the time you climb back up to the surface all of your muscles are aching and trembling from sheer exhaustion. When you reach the nearby village you find yourself in a completely different country than the one you were born and raised in. It will take you over a year to travel on foot back to your home. But you don't care, solid ground under your feet is better than that endless underground ocean.

>>49128458
It depends on whether you're taking the onmyouji approach, or a more esoteric kaidan approach, or a more traditional "divinity" approach with the various Gods and such. Like most cultures, Japanese mythology has a pretty large array of creatures that are cast under different lights depending on the nature of the story and the time period. So this in turn would affect the youkai that your ninja is communicating with.

Bakemono/Youkai found in kaidan stories generally have a greater variety than those found in onmyoudo stories, as the latter tends to portray supernatural creatures as wholly malevolent, often being lingering curses and such. On the other hand, as far as spiritualism and divinity goes, plenty of youkai are simply "spirits" that have come to inhabit an object, or materialized without any substantial "purpose". They're more just "individuals" rather than "antagonists" as onmyoudo would portray them as.

As far as rituals and trinkets go, Shinto religious tools are pretty much the standard, but should you choose to do so you should probably do a fair bit of research, since like most religions, Shinto has some rather specific rituals which might not work or would just feel out of place depending on the actual setting you're playing. For instance you're not very likely to find a torii gate in a campaign set in fantasy Europe, and carrying around a tamagushi is likely to make people think you're daft. Paper charms and such are commonplace, and shikigami are a thing, especially in onmyoudo.

There's honestly a good chunk of information on Japanese folklore and religion online, and it's pretty clean reading.

>>49115882
>How do people fight in your setting?
Fantasy influenced actual martial skills.
Wars are won by armies and assassins. Individual battles can be influenced by traditional fantasy heros, but they often influence others to do better more than actually do fancy flourishing attacks.

>>49135917
If there's an active core generally most of the remaining problems with planet stratification should just be ignored, since presumably the majority of your readers won't be focused on pointing out theoretical concerns with different geological layers.

It might however, be better to keep the geological details a bit vague, unless your plot absolutely demands that it should be explained. An explanation like the one you just posted suffices to describe the general atmosphere and environment, further detail is very likely to start introducing concerns.

Otherwise the concept should be fine as it is. If you're going to be using magic as the facilitator for genesis and terraforming then most of the subsequent concerns as far as planet logistics goes are just lumped in under magic. Just don't insert science in unless you are very confident that your science is on point for the relevant subject.

>>49131026
It's relative because you don't have a standard metric set, unless you choose to adopt a metric from an existing nation. If you have a currency in place, then the generation of products can be represented in terms of a value as represented through currency, and in that case you can compare nations against one another.

But if the nation is alone without anything to compare against, then attempting to set a metric becomes a bit more ambiguous. You could choose to use "units produced" to reflect the condition of industry, or you could use level of technology implemented, or manpower to product ratios. But because you have nothing really to contrast it against, all you get as a result of adopting an arbitrary metric is another "number".

This in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing. For example a standalone nation can still assess the state of its industry by setting a metric on units produced of crop X for example, with a threshold line based on the demand for crop X. Where it is relative then, is that each nation, based on different circumstances, would have different threshold points. If you change your metric to manpower to product ratios similarly, then again the situation shifts.

Are some nations just more fortunate? That largely depends on how you form nations. If you follow the idea that most nations are formed around resources to begin with, then theoretically most nations that form should have some form of resource nearby, but some resources may be valued higher than others based on their properties. So it's entirely possible that certain groups of people were in an advantageous location to start with. This is just a gross simplification of course.

>>49120129
>How do you guys feel about half-human hybrids?
They exist. Most are rare. Least rare are elf/human and dwarf/human. There are a couple imp/ human and goblin/human halflings as well, but even though they are recognized as an intelligent race, imps and goblins are looked down upon, and their halfling variants even more so.

>>49136214
Thank you for the advice, I'm glad (and hugely relieved) that there is a way to make this work!

The next problem I am worried about is rare elements, such as iron, gold, diamonds, sapphires, etc.

I was originally thinking of explaining this away as certain individuals being able to "call stars" to them, which, when they land, can be harvested and mined. All races can do this to an extent, even the less self aware species such as dragons and unicorns. But the dwarves are the most prolific and highly skilled at it. To the point that they specialize specifically in "metal stars".

But even if you are a race that absolutely sucks at calling the "better" stars, if all else fails you can grind the "stars" up and sell it for a tidy profit to alchemists or as rich fertilizer to farmers.

Would this work? I was thinking that entire cities could evolve over time, complete with universities specializing in the education of astrology/star calling, so that no matter which race, each one could have access to even the most basic of black smiths and their goods. Such as cast iron pots and pans, wrought iron fences, steel tipped bows for hunting, steel tipped spears/lances for defense against the occasional rogue mountain troll/dragon, etc. etc. etc.

>>49134516
It has a somewhat similar premise, but similar story, no way in hell. For one, there are no cripples randomly bawling their eyes out because they lose in PvP.

>>49120129
I like it when it's a main theme of the species, like the broo, or when it's used to indicate closely related races, like human/elf/orc/etc. Stuff like half angels and dragons seem utterly frivolous to me though

>>49136606
The entire basis of your concept is in this star summoning part. If you have a way to justify it then the rest of it falls into place. Since its magic, it isn't so much a matter of "does it work" but moreso a matter of "is it feasible". You need to know the limitations of the magic so that it doesn't run away on you, and you need to know the mechanics behind it, so that you have consistency when you use it to justify other things.

For example how many stars are there to call? Is this something that can be done repeatedly, thereby providing a dependable stream of resources? Are there drawbacks to using it? What's to stop it from being abused?

If you work through the foundation questions to begin with, then when moving on to the actual application of said magical element you can at least have the foundation to draw upon when investigating how it branches out and how it affects your societies as a whole.

>>49137605
Should also mention; if it's a way to gather an infinite supply of resources, why do those resources have any value in the first place?
How far is your setting from becoming post-scarcity?

>>49137605
I was thinking "sympathy" magic. A person with the right kind of telekinesis discovers a meteorite or whatnot, that has some good material in it. They then "bond" with that exact meteorite, and carry a piece of it around with them. Then, whenever they need more of the same materials within that piece, they go into a trance and "reach out" among the stars to find some, when they manage to find a space rock that has what they are looking for, they place their piece near where they want the star to land and "call" it to that piece. Like a paper clip being drawn to a magnet from across a table.

The more people who have the right kind of telekinesis, the more they can pool their mental fortitude and collective will power, to find better "stars" AKA space rocks, and from farther away from the planet, all the way to the extreme edges of the solar system. Which is why the dwarves can afford to specialize solely in precious metals.

>>49137703
Oh, it's definitely not a common ability, all races (even humans if they hadn't of gone on a cultural witch hunt and purged most magic/psychic genes from their species) have the potential to give birth to an individual that can call stars. But not all individuals can call stars. And even if you do have that ability, it doesn't necessarily mean you can make a profit off of it. The average star caller can only bring down a space rock the size of a pea once a month, and if they push it they run the risk of major or even permanent brain damage from channeling all that power. Ruptured blood vessels, blood clots, cysts and abscesses forming. (which is why I was thinking the Universities, it's damn important for even the most mediocre of individuals to learn how not to kill themselves) They basically save it for special occasions, glorified parlor tricks/fireworks at weddings and such.

And even then, there is no guarantee that the star AKA space rock that was summoned by a mediocre caller has anything of value inside of it.

>>49114497
>does your world have any mechanical steampunk-esque cultures?
No, it's a ultra-high fantasy setting with elements borrowed from the "Tippyverse" concept of post scarcity magical societies.

>do your cultures have cuisine? if so, how do they reflect the common attributes/attitudes of the culture?
Yes, as staple food is commonly created via magical means there is a significant market for novelty foods which differ from the limited sort produced by magical artifacts. In some cities master chefs are constantly producing new recipes to try and impress the local epicures. In others hunters can make a fortune bringing back rare meats from the wild lands beyond the city walls. Cannibalism is not uncommon in cities whose magical support systems are failing, or which are ruled by demons.

>are there any artisan cultures in areas where it is geographically possible to pursue making a certain sort of product?
Yes, many cities have artisan communities known for producing a particular style of clothing, armor, weapons, or other product.

Only the questions I have an actual answer to
>>49114553
>are there any artisan cultures in areas where it is geographically possible to pursue making a certain sort of product?
Yes, since my setting is geographically basically the Achaemenid Empire (Though it's not unified, but that's roughly the size/climates/landscapes I'm using). There were historically artisan cultures there, and there are here too. The main locations for storytelling will be Not!Royal Road and its Not!Caravanserai, Not!Caucasus, Not!Levant and the Not!Caspian Sea.

>Is there an in-setting technology gap?
It's less technology gaps and more wealth gaps. The main kingdom is reasonably wealthy and is in a position to unify various surround kingdoms/principalities/whatever through political unions, conquest, inciting revolution and a "self-annexation by the people". There's two kingdoms heavily opposed to this though, and if they join forces they form a serious threat.

>Does your setting leave room for tech development?
In a way, but most peoples are a bit suspicious of technological innovation/new things. An important thing though is that one of the students of one of the main religions may turn out to be a prophet. (She will be, but to unleash full prophet potential requires some emotion maturing/deep meditation). In the past, prophets have brought forth not just religious guidance and messages, but also new magic and in some cases technology. (The modern alphabet evolved from an abjad that was invented by a prophet, to replace the old logography system, much like Hangul replaced Hanja).

Also, to give a feel of the tech, it's a mix and match inbetween roughly 500BC to 1200 AD

>>49114497
>>does your world have any mechanical steampunk-esque cultures?

No. There are some post-apoc type magic stuff around though. Stuff is in a destroyed ancient Elvin city deep in the heart of the forest etc etc
>>do your cultures have cuisine? if so, how do they reflect the common attributes/attitudes of the culture?

Not really. The party is in an Wood Elf territory and I haven't really described that sort of thing. Other than fresh game, nuts, etc. But nothing that I think you would define as a cuisine or as memorable.

If I could think of something like that I would. It would be nice.

>>are there any artisan cultures in areas where it is geographically possible to pursue making a certain sort of product?

Yes. Various towns often have specialization based on local resources. One town might have wood working as a local specialty because of the (special) quality of the trees. Another might have pottery because of the river clay being slightly magical and special.

If a sea is called "X sea", as in the Black Sea, the Dead Sea, the Mediterranean Sea etc, should the map label read "X Sea" or "THE X Sea"?

>>49114553
>Is there an in-setting technology gap? Do you have one group of savages facing off against a group of holier-than-thou highborn folk? An alien species with <technology indistinguishable from magic> at odds with <allegory for modern humanity>?

It's more of a haves vs have-nots. Basic magic is sufficient to cure most diseases and heal most injuries. Magical devices which can conjure simple foods are not uncommon and simple spells can be used to rapidly bring crops to harvest. This leads to rapid population growth. Even though only a few centuries have passed since the Great War, the remaining cities teem with vast masses of people.

Unfortunately, high levels of magical talent are rare, and access to the most powerful artifacts is restricted. A power elite of hereditary nobles, high level mages, and supernatural beings live fantastical lives; traveling via teleportation or flying vessels, summoning powerful entities to serve their needs, etc. Ordinary people, on the other hand, count themselves lucky to have access to continual light stones, a bottomless stewpot, a bread box, or an infinite well.

>What's the scale of your highest tech-level? What's the biggest *bang* (IE: planet-busters, greek fire grenades, C4)

Epic spells used to cause natural disasters or unleash mystical plagues. The Great War saw many such spells unleashed. Most of the cities of the First Maklan Empire were destroyed and roughly 90% of the population of the known world died from various causes.

>How do you do your tech? Have you researched scientific principles to apply to your setting, or do you fluff it with technobabble?
There are nine known elements, which produce varied effects alone or when mixed in various ways. Mages are constantly experimenting to try and recreate the wonders of the First Empire.

>Does your setting leave room for tech development? If a character was working on R&D, could they invent something new?
Absolutely.

>>49137943
In which case the crux of the concept rests on a matter of availability. You have the methodology in place, the restrictions, and some of the consequences, but the relative frequency at which this shows up becomes significant.

If the magic is too rare, there isn't much incentive to actually concentrate on it over other ventures, which makes the notion of research and development around it less feasible. Alternatively if the magic's drawbacks are too severe, then it'll be difficult to weight out the return versus the costs.

If you can find the proper balance, then it's just a matter of execution, depending on how much weight you want this concept to have in your world.

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From the Histories, by Herodotus

>About the Sauromatai the following tale is told:--When the Hellenes had fought with the Amazons,--now the Amazons are called by the Scythians Oiorpata, which name means in the Hellenic tongue "slayers of men," for "man" they call oior, and pata means "to slay,"--then, as the story goes, the Hellenes, having conquered them in the battle at the Thermodon, were sailing away and conveying with them in three ships as many Amazons as they were able to take prisoners. These in the open sea set upon the men and cast them out of the ships; but they knew nothing about ships, nor how to use rudders or sails or oars, and after they had cast out the men they were driven about by wave and wind and came to that part of the Maiotian lake where Cremnoi stands; now Cremnoi is in the land of the free Scythians. There the Amazons disembarked from their ships and made their way into the country, and having met first with a troop of horses feeding they seized them, and mounted upon these they plundered the property of the Scythians.

>The Scythians meanwhile were not able to understand the matter, for they did not know either their speech or their dress or the race to which they belonged, but were in wonder as to whence they had come and thought that they were men, of an age corresponding to their appearance: and finally they fought a battle against them, and after the battle the Scythians got possession of the bodies of the dead, and thus they discovered that they were women.

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>>49141089

>They took counsel therefore and resolved by no means to go on trying to kill them, but to send against them the youngest men from among themselves, making conjecture of the number so as to send just as many men as there were women. These were told to encamp near them, and do whatsoever they should do; if however the women should come after them, they were not to fight but to retire before them, and when the women stopped, they were to approach near and encamp. This plan was adopted by the Scythians because they desired to have children born from them.
The young men accordingly were sent out and did that which had been commanded them: and when the Amazons perceived that they had not come to do them any harm, they let them alone; and the two camps approached nearer to one another every day: and the young men, like the Amazons, had nothing except their arms and their horses, and got their living, as the Amazons did, by hunting and by taking booty.


>Now the Amazons at midday used to scatter abroad either one by one or by two together, dispersing to a distance from one another to ease themselves; and the Scythians also having perceived this did the same thing: and one of the Scythians came near to one of those Amazons who were apart by themselves, and she did not repulse him but allowed him to lie with her: and she could not speak to him, for they did not understand one another's speech, but she made signs to him with her hand to come on the following day to the same place and to bring another with him, signifying to him that there should be two of them, and that she would bring another with her. The young man therefore, when he returned, reported this to the others; and on the next day he came himself to the place and also brought another, and he found the Amazon awaiting him with another in her company. Then hearing this the rest of the young men also in their turn tamed for themselves the remainder of the Amazons.

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>>49141099
>And after this they joined their camps and lived together, each man having for his wife her with whom he had had dealings at first; and the men were not able to learn the speech of the women, but the women came to comprehend that of the men. So when they understood one another, the men spoke to the Amazons as follows: "We have parents and we have possessions; now therefore let us no longer lead a life of this kind, but let us go away to the main body of our people and dwell with them; and we will have you for wives and no others." They however spoke thus in reply: "We should not be able to live with your women, for we and they have not the same customs. We shoot with bows and hurl javelins and ride horses, but the works of women we never learnt; whereas your women do none of these things which we said, but stay in the waggons and work at the works of women, neither going out to the chase nor anywhither else. We therefore should not be able to live in agreement with them: but if ye desire to keep us for your wives and to be thought honest men, go to your parents and obtain from them your share of the goods, and then let us go and dwell by ourselves."

>The young men agreed and did this; and when they had obtained the share of the goods which belonged to them and had returned back to the Amazons, the women spoke to them as follows: "We are possessed by fear and trembling to think that we must dwell in this place, having not only separated you from your fathers, but also done great damage to your land. Since then ye think it right to have us as your wives, do this together with us,--come and let us remove from this land and pass over the river Tanaïs and there dwell."

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>>49141118
>The young men agreed to this also, and they crossed over the Tanaïs and made their way towards the rising sun for three days' journey from Tanaïs, and also towards the North Wind for three days' journey from the Maiotian lake: and having arrived at the place where they are now settled, they took up their abode there: and from thenceforward the women of the Sauromatai practise their ancient way of living, going out regularly on horseback to the chase both in company with the men and apart from them, and going regularly to war, and wearing the same dress as the men.

Have any cultures in your games/settings originate from magical realm bullshit?

>>49114497
>does your world have any mechanical steampunk-esque cultures?
No, some of the dwarves may be playing around with steam power but it's not a big thing.

>do your cultures have cuisine? if so, how do they reflect the common attributes/attitudes of the culture?
Haven't really thought about it. The most I know is that the dwarves like surface food more than the stuff they can grow themselves.

>are there any artisan cultures in areas where it is geographically possible to pursue making a certain sort of product?
Amongst humans not to any major extent, while there may be artisans they can't afford to focus solely on their craft. Dwarves have an artisan caste whose sole purpose is make nice things for the Hold and as trade goods. The elves as a whole have lots of spare time, every one of them is probably a medicore artisan for something.

>>49142011

>>49114553
>Is there an in-setting technology gap? Do you have one group of savages facing off against a group of holier-than-thou highborn folk? An alien species with <technology indistinguishable from magic> at odds with <allegory for modern humanity>?
Yes. The Dwarf Holds are all generic middle ages techwise, while their human subjects are still in the brozne age (dwarves are also actively preventing their subjects innovation). There is an independent human kingdom which has recently learnt how to smelt iron so they're playing catch up to the dwarves now. The Elves imbue all their stuff with magic so while probably about the same dwarves they stuff plays by different rules.

>What's the scale of your highest tech-level? What's the biggest *bang* (IE: planet-busters, greek fire grenades, C4)
The dwarves or elves. Biggest bang would be a powerful mage although those are rare while Dwarvern crossbows would be the most common "big bang" and the one the players are most likely to encounter.

>How do you do your tech? Have you researched scientific principles to apply to your setting, or do you fluff it with technobabble?
Technobabble

>Does your setting leave room for tech development? If a character was working on R&D, could they invent something new?
This setting is for a game and I don't expect the players to focus on stuff like that but I don't see why they couldn't invent new stuff. Could be an interesting subplot,

>>49114553
>Does your setting leave room for tech development? If a character was working on R&D, could they invent something new?
In my games, always. I always let it start at the players, but i embrace even the slightest hint at this kind of creativity and often set it up so they can work on the project by seeking out experts and lore caches and other stuff - and once it's done, if it seems like it could revolutionize the setting, it does.

Counting only the times we've actually managed to get all the way to the point where an invention had a huge impact, it's happened in two major campaigns now.
Once by inventing stationary teleporters, and once by literally coming up with the alchemical cure(s, plural, many were necessary) for the ill effects of aging.

>>49114497
>does your world have any mechanical steampunk-esque cultures?
No. Fuck that shit.
>do your cultures have cuisine? if so, how do they reflect the common attributes/attitudes of the culture?
Everyone eats. Humans are big fans of wheat-bread for religious reasons.
>are there any artisan cultures in areas where it is geographically possible to pursue making a certain sort of product?
Gnolls are well known for their pottery.

>Is there an in-setting technology gap?
There's several. Grey elves are masters of life-shaping, which they don't share, the sky elves have a fuckton of magic so that they can live hikkiNEET lives. And then there's barbarians, who have fuck all. Technology always works that way.
>Do you have one group of savages facing off against a group of holier-than-thou highborn folk? An alien species with <technology indistinguishable from magic> at odds with <allegory for modern humanity>?
Some of the ones with lower societal complexity do raid the more civilized folk.

>What's the scale of your highest tech-level? What's the biggest *bang* (IE: planet-busters, greek fire grenades, C4)
Biggest bang would be if the white elves crash a city into something, which would be nuke-sized. This doesn't happen often. That's not counting dragons or gods.
>How do you do your tech? Have you researched scientific principles to apply to your setting, or do you fluff it with technobabble?
No, neither.
>Does your setting leave room for tech development? If a character was working on R&D, could they invent something new?
I don't see why not.

>>49141141
Yes.

>>49143350
do tell

>>49114497
>does your world have any mechanical steampunk-esque cultures?
yes and no, there is no definitive "steampunk society" but cultures do have some aspects to them which, technologically, far out-pace what would be considered normal for a medieval period.

examples include, despite this being a medieval fantasy, the availability of vulcanized rubber as an alternative to leather, acid and lead-based batteries, and some lordly hoses equipping their city guard with special weapons that are effectively crude cattle-prods modified into pole arms.

>do your cultures have cuisine? if so, how do they reflect the common attributes/attitudes of the culture?
Yes I have given this some thought. As it informs on the kinds of farming they would do. For the human societies at least, most agriculture developed around crops that either don't need much space, or attention to grow in large numbers, along with plants wherein the edible part can be harvested and leave the plant intact to grow more. As a result wheat and rice never caught on while potatoes, and prickly pear cactus became major staples along with Grapes, Olives, most fruit trees, poultry (both eggs and meat) and fishing where that was available. Since Dandelions are already grown in large quantities for rubber, and dye, it's also not uncommon to see it added to food much like lettuce. Acorn Mash is also available, usually for next to nothing, but because it's so bland and tasteless (it has to be repeatedly boiled and sifted to render out all the toxins in it) It's seen as beggar's food and no one eats it if they don't have to.

>are there any artisan cultures in areas where it is geographically possible to pursue making a certain sort of product?

Not really, closest thing to that would be the urban centers.

>>49143598
There's not much to tell, like most things magical realm it's better just left alone. The culture in question has long since progressed to a form of meta-stability from its original theoretical concept, and while they retain knowledge of their history, their circumstances and culture don't promote indulging in the same practices as their predecessors.

>>49114553
>>49125060
>Is there an in-setting technology gap?
Oh yeah. The biggest gap is one of socio-economic class: Due to some quirks way back in the setting's history, industrial mass production never emerged to replace the craftsman/workshop as the dominant mode of productions, and so as the complexity of tech increases, its cost becomes exponentially higher with no real economies of scale. The rich/titled classes can easily get access to technology of a roughly mid 19th to mid 20th century equivalent, while the peasantry is still stuck with technologies more akin to the 17th through early 19th centuries.

To a lesser extent, a gap also exists between the eastern and western hemispheres, with the East generally lagging behind the West in all things mechanical, while the West lags behind the East in all things alchemical.

>What's the scale of your highest tech-level? What's the biggest *bang* (IE: planet-busters, greek fire grenades, C4)
The biggest boom you'll see is a TNT filled shell, though they're scarce compared to much more common gunpowder explosives. The most powerful weapon overall is the Imperial Grand Bombard, a Cyrelian heavy siege mortar with a bore nearly as wide as a man is tall. It's mounted to the empire's largest landship, which has been walled up within the capital city as a static defensive gun since the end of the last major war on the western super-continent some generations ago.

>>49143825
>How do you do your tech? Have you researched scientific principles to apply to your setting, or do you fluff it with technobabble?
The tech itself is fairly grounded in reality (with one notable exception below), albeit on an impractical scale at times. Think guns and steamships, not lasers and anti-gravity. Magic is generally kept to a minimum. Where it intersects with technology, it's just about subtly changing the properties of materials, like lighter/stronger metals and so forth.

The only explicitly “technobabble” thing is a fluid of extradimensional origin that's basically a plot device to justify the destabilization of what had been a very stable setting and handwaving some otherwise impossible things. Among its various properties, it is not consumed when burned (essentially making it an infinite fuel source) and will gradually convert any other fluid added to it into more of itself as long as it isn't diluted below 50% concentration by volume. The stuff appeared in-setting about a decade ago as the contents of a vial in the possession of a deposed nobleman who it is rumored has actually been to its place of origin and brought it back with him. Now it's driving the economy of a small nation.

>Does your setting leave room for tech development? If a character was working on R&D, could they invent something new?
There's a lot of room for advancement that's been stifled by a deeply ingrained cultural distrust of innovation. Things like aircraft, wireless communication, etc. don't exist but could certainly be produced with the underlying tech level of the setting if someone knew how to do so. Indeed, the main conflict in the setting comes from a country casting off these traditions and rapidly industrializing using the above mentioned substance to fuel competition with its more powerful neighbors.

>>49139516
That s a good question. For your first two examples, I'd say it doesn't matter, but in cases like the third example, where the sea is named after the region, the is required, unless you want to go with the flavor of "Sea of The Mediterranean"

>>49145457
Is the Mediterranean sea named after the region? I was under the impression that the region was named after the sea.

>>49147239
It's called Mediterranean because it's distinctly locked between two major continents. Literally means "between two lands". So clearly, the sea gave the name to the region, not vice versa: there would not be any reason to call the region "between two lands" if there wasn't something ELSE than land between the two.

>>49142385
>Some of the ones with lower societal complexity do raid the more civilized folk.
I've always found this to be an interesting aspect of a setting in terms of establishing the overall tone; the question of whether you have barbarians raiding civilization as in the fall of Rome, or civilization raiding barbarians as in the age of European imperialism.

>>49134896
You could try giving the planet a Siliate core,

>>49149458
Never saw it that way before. That is interesting. How do you have it in your setting?

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>>49143693
Man, semi-plausible alternate paths of technological development are the shit. Tell me more about it, anon. I'm not gonna plagiarize any of it. Promise.

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>>49114553
>>Is there an in-setting technology gap? Do you have one group of savages facing off against a group of holier-than-thou highborn folk? An alien species with <technology indistinguishable from magic> at odds with <allegory for modern humanity>?
There are two tech gaps. There's the other dimension though they're not really present in the area where the campaign starts. Then there's the natives to the setting who are mainly stone age fortress level while the colonists are early modern/high renaissance tech.
>>What's the scale of your highest tech-level? What's the biggest *bang* (IE: planet-busters, greek fire grenades, C4)
There's an invasion from another dimension in one part of the setting where it's terraforming and laser guns. But outside that exception, 15-1600's age of sail is the highest tech level.
>>How do you do your tech? Have you researched scientific principles to apply to your setting, or do you fluff it with technobabble?
Aside from a few elements, I mainly just use real world tech levels. So for one culture I'll say 1500's europe and another culture I'll say Mississippian native american.
>>Does your setting leave room for tech development? If a character was working on R&D, could they invent something new?
There's room but I wouldn't allow anything more than "1 step removed" technologically. The part that's harder though would be getting materials since it's a frontier setting. If they got their hands on alien tech, they could probably do something crazy with it though.

And I'm now halfway through finishing what I'll use as the initial campaign map. Any feedback on it?

>>49149458
I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. I have both happening in different areas, and in one there's colonialism that suffers from raids by locals. In another, colonialism was actually pushed back when the locals got their shit together and formed a great big fascist empire that is now a big deal because of its size even though their tech and architecture is laughable to older nations (particularly thinking of the story where the Byzantines visited Charlemagne and thought his palace was a stable).

I thought incorporating non-euclidean architecture would be interesting stuff to add into my setting. I think this was a mistake, because now that I've read about it, I have to do it, and my eyes have already started hurting. I might not sleep tonight. Help

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>>49151537
What does "non-euclidean architecture" actually mean? Just buildings with curved surfaces instead of perpendicular walls/floors? Or do you mean like crazy Escher-style stuff with paradoxes?

>>49152335
Well, I wouldn't jump straight into Waterfall stuff, maybe just extra large rooms.

Read up on
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2012/11/non-euclidean-architecture.html
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2013/05/non-euclidean-architecture-part-2.html
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2016/09/non-euclidean-geography.html
And thought it was pretty cool.

I'm working on visualizing the pillar example (If you don't wanna read it, it's basically if you walked into a room with a pillar in the middle and had to walk 720 degrees around it - which is two full loops around the pillar - to get back to where you were before) so I'll probably read through it again. I'll probably do that with the rest, too - super interesting shit, really. Especially if you toss in wizards.

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>>49152335
Euclidean geometry is where two parallel lines have the same distance between them for as far as they stretch. Non-euclidean means the distance between them can change. One of the easiest examples of non-euclidean geometry is with a sphere, like a globe. With a sphere, you can take three right angles and make a triangle, even though that's impossible on a 2D plane.

>>49151537
>>49152439
Ooh, check this out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eJC5zYZ9JE

The Forest Temple from Ocarina of Time actually has a few moments like this. You visit a room, go past it, then twist a hallway, then go back to that room, except the gravity's been changed.

>>49152457
It's not quite as simple when you graduate the thinking from flat planes to three-dimensional space, though. I find it easier to just toss the dimensional fuckery when thinking up unorthodox architecture and try to imagine what animals would build themselves if they were intelligent and had opposable thumbs. Merrow, aranea, harpies, beings that swim and phase through earth unhindered, shit like that. It helps that you have plenty of real-life animals who are good at building wondrous shit.

More relevant to non-Euclidean geometry is that hypercube dungeon some anons thought up. I'd post the pic if I had it. I'm sure someone does. It's a different method of confusing your players, but probably has a similar feel of mindfuckery.

>>49152605
>hypercube
Isn't that basically just "It's bigger on the inside than the outside"?

>>49152630
No, it's 4-dimensional. A hypercube is to a cube what a cube is to a square.

>>49152605
I'm this anon
>>49151537
>>49152439
My new secret desire is to eventually create a hypercube with all kinds of non-euclidean geometry and weird gravity. INFINITE POWER.

>>49152663
You aren't me, fuck off.

>>49152682
Sorry, I meant I was the anon in the following two quotes. Was responding to you.

Help me /wbg/. How would you have a fantasy-land airship sail both the sky, sea and it's depths? With the airship looking rather pirate like than say, mechanical?

>>49153616
Have it made of treated wood rather than metal. Then use some kind of inflatable balloon type things which can help it rise into the air and turn it into a skyship.

>>49153616
It would have to look airtight. Either it has a forcefield up or is a pill with propellers.

I guess it depends on what you want it to run on. Bullshit engineering or bullshit magic.

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>>49153616
Imagine pic related hanging under a giant hot-air balloon.

Hot air, so you can just turn off the flame and it will deflate on its own and can be folded for stowage when diving. No tanks of lift gas needed.

>>49124494
>historically attested world-wide flood

Kek

>>49153616
For what purpose?

>>49153616
Why not just bind a genie or air elemental to a normal ship?

>>49149674
>Tell me more about it, anon.
What do you wish to know?
I really don't know where to start so it may be easier to ask me questions about the world you are interested in learning more about than me trying to info-dump EVERYTHING.

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So I'm writing up a setting inspired by 600's-800's or so Europe. A glacial period/ice age is coming in, and the north is rapidly becoming harsh and inhospitable with each winter colder and each harvest worse than the last. An ex-raider warlord has begun conquering tribes and villages into a large army intent on crusading towards the sunrise so as to carve out an empire in the south and ensure the surival of the northern peoples.

I don't know too much about how civilization was actually like in those days or how this warlord would specifically go about his mission - like, would his army just crush the restance in each village, enslave/press gang all able-bodied men and strip it from all food and supplies to move on quickly, or would leaving people to farm the lands despite the harshening climate and establish supply routes to the front lines make more sense despite the harshening climate?

Any ideas for that, or for any interesting plot points in this setting would be much appreciated.

also sorry for the poorly written language, I'm tired and have a nasty headache.

>>49155607
Those things you mentioned about tech like vulcanized rubber and batteries would be a good place to start. How were these things discovered, by whom, and when? How widely are they available? What other anachronistic technologies exist in your setting? How are they being used by various castes, organizations, cultures, etc?

>>49155609
I think the former makes more sense, why waste time on these lands which don't have much time themselves when you could take the biggest prize which is in the south. Also given his background as an ex-raider it might come more naturally to him. Though if he has grander plans, then it might be that he has some civilised southerner advising him.

In terms of plot then I suppose you want to base it on the advancement of this horde and how maybe things seem optimistic at first but over time the true gravity of his might becomes more clear depending on how good the players are at stopping him. I think it would also be important to remember that there might be other factions that represent dangers to both sides, and as such can be manipulated to become more of a problem for one side depending on who succeeds.

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>>49155766
>I think the former makes more sense, why waste time on these lands which don't have much time themselves when you could take the biggest prize which is in the south.
I think you're right. It'll also facilitate more direct action.

>I think the former makes more sense, why waste time on these lands which don't have much time themselves when you could take the biggest prize which is in the south. A
>In terms of plot then I suppose you want to base it on the advancement of this horde and how maybe things seem optimistic at first but over time the true gravity of his might becomes more clear depending on how good the players are at stopping him.
Those are good ideas. The players wouldn't necessarily be tasked with stopping him though, they could just as well join up with his faction since they do kind of have a point (survival).

>I think it would also be important to remember that there might be other factions that represent dangers to both sides, and as such can be manipulated to become more of a problem for one side depending on who succeeds.
I should probably spend a lot of time planning just this. Aside from rival warlords, peoples and nations that don't particularly wish to be slaughtered and/or subjugated, there's bound to be a lot of bickering between former enemies forced under the same banner.

Thanks for the help man. I've spent a decent amount of time researching period-appropritate tools, weapons, materials, food, surival etc. but these larger questions are a bit harder.

>>49155609
>village
>resistance

are you one of the retards who watched that shit Vikings tv show and things every village had garrison of soldiers protecting it?

How to turn a lowly bandit into apocalypse level threat? I don't wanna just rip off Warriors of Chaos.

>>49155977
Would you happen to have any links to where I can read up on such misconceptions then? No need to fling invectives when I'm just here to learn.

>>49156082
You could just fucking google the history of viking invasions on England, Ireland and Frankia since your faction is norse inspired.

>>49132035
this is some next level trolling

>>49156013
Euron Greyjoy

File: Baron von Ungern-Sternberg 1.jpg (287KB, 800x500px) Image search: [Google]

287KB, 800x500px

>>49156013
Baron von Sternberg received the support of the exiled White Russian factions.

There you go, world ended.

>>49114497
>does your world have any mechanical steampunk-esque cultures?
No, men of the Tradelands are known for being industrious and being great architects, but nothing beyond man wind powered ships.
>do your cultures have cuisine? if so, how do they reflect the common attributes/attitudes of the culture?
Whatever AD&D monsters are on that nations regional encounter table.
>are there any artisan cultures in areas where it is geographically possible to pursue making a certain sort of product?
The Tradelands are the culmination of three human city states that specialize in forestry, stonecutting, and agriculture respectively.

>>49114553
>Is there an in-setting technology gap? Do you have one group of savages facing off against a group of holier-than-thou highborn folk? An alien species with <technology indistinguishable from magic> at odds with <allegory for modern humanity>?
Human>Rakshaasa>Yuan-Ti at the top with late medival tech
Halfling>Dwarf>Eldarin with early dark age tech
Lizardmen>Drow>Orcs with ancient civ tech
Hobgoblins>Gnolls>Wood Elves at the bottom at tribal tech
>What's the scale of your highest tech-level? What's the biggest *bang* (IE: planet-busters, greek fire grenades, C4)
Ogres live in a society based off magic, so technically they live on a whole diffrent level than humans
>How do you do your tech? Have you researched scientific principles to apply to your setting, or do you fluff it with technobabble?
Its all fantasy, based on historic shit.
>Does your setting leave room for tech development? If a character was working on R&D, could they invent something new?
No. Gotta stay stagnant in fantasy medival land.

>>49115882
Lots of guerilla warfare. There has so far never been any big wars, just territorial skirmishes. Little travel beyond nations and kingdoms because of monsters. Orcs are enemies to everyone since they are nomadic assholes. Every nation has a different time on their calender for Orcish dickery.

>>49156979
>>49157375
>>49157424
My AD&D setting

>>49155706
>How widely are they available?
most human settlements have at least access to rubber, though you will need to find a more developed settlement to gain access to batteries. However these things never caught on with most other races so it's rare to find it outside human settlements.

>How were these things discovered
The development of the battery was developed largely by accident, an alchemist brewing up some acid for study, or to use for some other means, the details change between storytellers, but he was using some new lead alchemical instruments he had purchased and got a nasty surprise when he was adjusting the partially rendered-down Green Vitriol in the lead bowl with a older, and badly oxidized, lead utensil. through some experimentation discovered that by suspending lead plates in a strong acid, you can produce a substantial electrical charge. though in some stories the Alchemist's shock was more severe and was bed-ridden, leaving the alchemist's assistant to actually make the discovery.

Latex had been used by humans for so long that it's specific origins are lost to history. However! the refinement of latex into vulcanized rubber is a tad more humorous. Long ago some fool, thinking himself a great hero thought to prove himself by going forth and try to slay the dragon that had taken up residence in the nearby mountains, it was fortunate he escaped with his life, but his hair was mostly singed off and his clothing was badly burnt, it is said that his rubber shoes had been partially melted and a tailor later had to cut the shoes off the fool's feet but they were discovered to have been changed. the melted shoes had picked up so much of the ash and sulfur from the ground around the Dragon's den that it had lost all it's elasticity, but had also become hard, yet pliable, and so, it is said, was vulcanized rubber discovered.

Any popular fantasy with humanoid bird races?
That are really fucking intelligent but in a different way?
Apparently birds have extremely dense neuron clusters.
So a bird with half the size of a human brain would be much smarter than humans.

>>49157506
>How are they being used by various castes, organizations, cultures, etc?
Like I said, humans of this setting largely use rubber in place of leather as the smell of curing leather was found to be just too offensive to catch on. this includes using rubber armor instead of leather, as if vulcanized properly it's just as strong as leather and offers additional protection against electricity, something that comes in quite handy when medieval cattle-prods are a go-to weapon.

The use of the batteries is popular for the military, cattle-prods & pole-arms, as well as running electrified wires along the tops of city and castle walls to protect against sieges. It has seen some emerging uses as a way to electroplate one metal onto another metal. though even these few uses make it quite popular.

>What other anachronistic technologies exist in your setting?
Good question, those two are what's set in stone as being definitively "in-setting" there are other ideas pertaining to other developments, like more imaginative uses for black-powder than just Arquebusiers (which are a thing in the setting), namely the idea of cavalry lobbing crude nail-bombs into enemy formations rather than lance charges (a tactic pioneered by halflings for a bit of surreal-ness) just to name one. Though I need to give it some more thought.

>>49155609
>I don't know too much about how civilization was actually like in those days or how this warlord would specifically go about his mission - like, would his army just crush the restance in each village, enslave/press gang all able-bodied men and strip it from all food and supplies to move on quickly, or would leaving people to farm the lands despite the harshening climate and establish supply routes to the front lines make more sense despite the harshening climate?
There were no villages, but isolated farmsteads, all freemen would own weapons and be trained to fight, they would naturally rally around a charismatic leader who could bring them victory. Defeating all the rival warlords in the area, plus the worsening climate would probably be enough to rally everyone to his cause. Dairy cows were their main form sustenstance, which they would drive along with them on their migration.

Is there a better word for a combination element of fire and water than steam? Seems kinda lackluster compared to other stuff like lightning, magma, clay, ice, whatever. [/spoiler]Yes, I know generic element stuff is boring in fantasy, but I like it. I'm also adding in some extras I think are interesting so that it might be less boring.[/spoiler]

>>49158401
On mobile, so I can't do spoilers right. Fuck.

>>49158401
No, can't think of anything other than "steam" though I have to say that "clay" isn't exactly exciting either.

As for elemental magic, I always love what Golden Sun did, though there were a few times were the psynergy was very unintuitive for what element it was.

>>49158596
Clay sounded better than mud, in my opinion. I think I'm gonna have to go in a different direction - have dominant elements with different mixings, like Fire (dominant) + air = lightning, but if air was dominant, it'd be smoke. Stuff like that.

>>49158401
I'd rather add Earth and have the more threatening tri-elemental boiling oil
Maybe with Air we can get pressurized boiling oil?
Now that would be the strongest elemental attack

>>49158736
I'm honestly not sure they should combine at all. Just make lightning an extension of air. Or have abilities be shared by elements.

>>49158746
I'm not going beyond dual elemental mixtures, because it gets too complicated after that. I'd rather have it as an understood thing that they exist.

>>49158800
Yeah, that's kind of what I was going for. Not quite mixtures, but not quite pure, either.

>>49158401
lava?

>>49159293
Lava is just really hot rock. I think it's more fire + earth.

>>49158736
Fuck you mud is awesome. Especially when it's quicksand and or tar pits. Don't go trying to tell me they ain't mud either. Because if we're being this broad with out elemental dickery sure they are.