/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

>>50534346

>that monstrosity

fyr wyt pyrpysy

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>>50534346
>no teleporter puzzles with rooms full of poison
Shit dungeon, m8

>>50534419

fuck that game

>>50534365
Is that Canadian for "for what purpose"?

To break the sanity of your players of course.

Squeeze out the shoggoths!

>>50534419
>no five dimensional penteract hypercube dungeon
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1I26E1mrVsCdCp0KDyWzQj8Z_TUWHkMmLxucBc2fn2yg/edit#gid=159663329

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>>>50534159
Germany is butthurt about losing WW2, so they secretly instigate a war between USA and Russia. You start winning the war too well for your country, so the German spies steal your president get you to fake your own deaths because of treason. You end up working with rogue military groups from both countries to end the war

This was by far the most interesting iteration of the Cold War I've seen

>>50534346

>no questions

Is this what /tg/ has become?

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>>50534526

>>50534526
you have to find them in the dungeon

>>50534557

What's wrong, demon?

>>50534451
Wouldn't it be easier just to make a 3d version of this instead of a spreadsheet?

>>50534615
It's 5d, can't really render it in 3d

>>50534574
>>50534557

What kind of setting would feature cacodemons as a main race?

>>50534632
what

>>50534632
You're right, it's much easier to render it as a 2d spreadsheet.

How would one go about making a setting that mixes digital/cyber vibes and aesthetics with tribal/animistic culture?

>>50534766

Shadowrun?
Modern day Africa?

>>50534451
Sauce?

Tell me about a keystone species in your setting--a plant or animal with an outsize effect on maintaining its environment.

Or else just a made-up plant/animal that you think is cool.

>>50534927
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/4516qj/the_penteract_dungeon_a_5d_hypercube_map_for/

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>>50534942
I fucking love string and rope, and spiders by extension. I really wanted something that could make larger, more complex webs and structures. SO I've been working on these guys:

Mammalian silk maker. Tarsier-like. Start off as scent glands in the elbows, better for swinging. Long fingers except for the pinkies, which they hook the strands around to keep it close. They make homes, traps, clothes, use them for travel. Waiting in their traps, they look like they're praying/prostrating, laying with their arms splayed in front of them.

>>50534879
Hmm...I guess that isn't the best way to describe what I'm aiming for. Gonna stew on it a bit more, I suppose

>>50535070
And what impact does that have on the other plants and animals in their ecosystem?

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>>50531090
I've seen Planet Earth and have a decent understanding of individual biomes. I know a bit about atmospheric circulation as well, and how it makes certain places drier or wetter based on where they are in relation to the poles, equator, and mountain ranges.

What I DON'T get are the specifics. E.g., I can determine that this area ought to be dry, but should it be a scrubland or a steppe or a rocky desert or should it have sand dunes? I can determine what areas would be wet, but how do I determine if they're rainforests or marshes?

>>50534761
2D is a lot closer to 5D than 3D is, it has to do with the dimensions being non linear. As there is a factor 3 difference rather than a factor 2 difference there's less infetterance in the conversion allowing the 5D image to be flattened and visible to the naked eye.

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>>50535152
fuck if I know man, I just really like spiders and cute mammals, so I wanted something that was both.

If you want, they cover entire forests with this stuff, catching all kinds of bugs and smallish animals (It's gotta support their weight, so it could theoretically catch a squirrel). Without a good forest fire, they choke out a system

>>50535225
Well, that's all quite fickle and highly dependent, and it's why I like to bring up keystone species (i.e. as above).

As an example, a big part of why the African savanna is a savanna is that elephants tend to tear down trees, keeping it from turning into a wood.

Geology is also an important factor. An area with harder rock (especially which juts out of the ground) will lead to a rocky desert as it's less worn down by wind and rain; sandy deserts tend to occur in dried-out lake bed or river deltas.

Rainforests are rainforests because of the trees. They evaporate more moisture into the air than other trees, which leads to more rain.

Marshes tend to surround lakes or other bodies of freshwater, where the water has saturated the ground to some degree. (By the way, marshes are wetlands + grasslands, swamps are wetlands + woods. It's not a super important distinction, but hey, if you wanna get into the nitty gritty, that stuff becomes relevant).

The short answer is, there's a bunch of super complicated stuff, but you can usually work it out to justify whatever you wanna put somewhere.

>>50535276
Well that's kind of the opposite of a keystone species. If anything, a creatured that preyed on them to keep their numbers down would be the keystone species. (see: otters)

>>50535440
>keystone species
Ah, I see now. I didn't understand, so I skipped to the part about made up things I like. Which, you probably meant established things like griffons, right? Because of course you'd like something you made up.

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What factors would make for an interesting setting featuring mercenary samurai?

>>50534942
The snapper lizard is critical to preserving the ecosystem of the Stormlands. It settles itself up in an oasis; it's even capable of digging down to the groundwater to ensure it stays open; but it also preys on the animals that come to those oases. It maintains the migratory patterns that define the Stormlands' ecosystem.

Slickvine is a slimy, unpalatable little shrub that grows in Reveste Gardens. Its roots, however, can contain a massive amount of water, allowing them to be used as a water source for countless animals during the brutal dry season.

HItchhiker bugs have a particular way of laying their eggs: they take a plant seed or two, and actually wrap their flexible eggs around it, before burying the seed in a small, shallow burrow to provide food for their young. Only about half of the hitchhiker's eggs hatch, however, and most of the seeds they bury grow better when planted than when just lying on the ground.

>>50535609
I forgot about the second part of the question I asked when I responded to your answer. Sorry about that, it was a pretty major space out.

I never said your spider-monkeys weren't cool, though. They certainly are that. Freak me the hell out (I don't mind spiders themselves, but I hate spiderwebs), but an intriguing addition to the world.

>>50535225
Scrubland and steppe are basically the same thing. Rocky deserts are just deserts with no real soil, due to wind erosion being high and rain being lower than in scrubland and steppe, so nutrients don't remain much. Sand dunes aren't exactly because of dryness, they come from the ocean and wind. If your dry area is up against a depositional coast, then it gets dunes.

>>50535440
>As an example, a big part of why the African savanna is a savanna is that elephants tend to tear down trees, keeping it from turning into a wood.
Holy shit, really? That's oddly funny to me for some reason. Why do they do that?

I was aware of the bit about how rainforests work with evaporation, but does this mean that rainforests have special trees in them? As far as I'm aware, the Pacific Northwest just has regular pine trees, and is a rainforest because of the Rocky Mountains making a rain curtain (I think it's called that.)

I've actually been really worried about the whole marshes/swamp problem, so I'm a bit relieved to find that it's simpler than I thought. What makes a "swamp" turn out unlike a rainforest, though, and where do "fens" and "moors" come into it?

>The short answer is, there's a bunch of super complicated stuff, but you can usually work it out to justify whatever you wanna put somewhere.
This is heartening to hear. I'm always just really worried about putting a biome somewhere it somehow wouldn't be able to go, and I'm trying to minimize the amount of explicit divine intervention in the creation of this world so I want it to be realistic.

Sorry if these questions seem asinine but your answers so far have been very helpful.

>>50535726
If they're mercenaries, wouldn't that make them ronin?

>>50536025
This anon >>50535952 might know more about some of this stuff than me; I'm more an expert on the biological end of ecology. Honestly I'm just popping open a tab of Wikipedia for some of this. I'd tell you "just go look on Wikipedia!" except that learning is fun. (MinuteEarth is also helpful.)

Elephants do it to get to the leaves and foliage at the top. Giraffes evolved long legs and necks, elephants just thought "let's tear this shit down!"

>does this mean that rainforests have special trees in them?
Basically. Evaporating more water is a high-risk, high-reward metabolic strategy. At some point, some trees randomly evolved to produce more water; in the places where this strategy paid off, we got rainforests.

Rainforests get most of their water from rain, swamps/marshes get most of their water from rivers/lakes/basins. I think. Again, a liiittle outside my realm. Moors is mostly just the Scottish word for a swamp, but when used in a technical sense, it refers to an area with low vegetation (often a wetland) with highly acidic soil. Mires are wetlands with a high concentration of peat, and fens are a subset of mire (located on a slope or depression, as contrasted with a bog, which is elevated relative to the land around it.) I did not know that until now. Terminology is weird.

>your answers so far have been very helpful.
Well thank you. I try. I don't always succeed, but I try.

>>50535726
feudal japan. or a cyberpunk setting. or an alternate history setting.

>>50536108
To my knowledge, ronin are to samurai as knight-errants are to knights. A "knight errant" is a knight with no lord, and a "ronin samurai" is a samurai with no daimyo.

>>50535952
>Scrubland and steppe are basically the same thing.
Well, that clears it up. The map program I've been using has them as two different tiles, so I was uncertain as to if there was a difference or not.
You seem to know a thing or two about geology, do you know anything about volcanic plains? I'd like to build a civilization around a large cinder-cone volcano, but I'm a bit stuck on how this would effect the surrounding geography of the area. I have a vague impression that the ash and lava deposits can sometimes positively effect the nutritional quality of the soil, but when I think about it it sounds kind of counter-intuitive and I have no idea how it works in the first place. Do you have any input on that?

>>50536025
>does this mean that rainforests have special trees in them?
"Special" is relative. Rainforest trees tend to be very productive, meaning that they have a high photosynthetic rate, and they also don't have a lot of adaptions for retaining water during transpiration. It's actually more a matter of how much living plant biomass is there.

Swamps, marshes, and wetlands are different mostly in that they're very flat and tend to have a lot of water just lying around. There are not that many plants that can germinate in water and then poke out of the water and grow that way, and the most successful tend to be in Poales (which includes grasses, rushes, cattails, etc). There's a good handful of herbaceous taxa outside of it which can do fine, but for trees, there's cypress, assorted mangroves (not monophyletic), and that's pretty much it off the top of my head. And even those can't do it if the water is very deep at all, proportionate to their adult size. Fens are sort of in between grassland and marshes, they tend to have grazers. A moor is not related, that's high elevation scrub with acidic soil. Don't even bother thinking about soil concentrations in your worldbuilding though, that's a rabbit hole that'll take a graduate degree to do justice.

>>50536411
>a "ronin samurai"
No such thing. You're a ronin or a samurai. Japan isn't like medieval Europe, where if you've got a title it's yours. The authority of these positions is related to the authority of the daimyo which stems from the authority of the emperor. Service to a lord is part of what makes a samurai a samurai, and a ronin used to be a samurai but is in a disgraced position after losing that relationship.

>>50536411
>ronin samurai
You just made me barf. You are a ronin if you have no lord. You cannot be a ronin and a samurai. You are one or the other.

>>50534346
How would /tg/ improve my shitty map?

>>50536860
I'd start by using some kind of visible ink. Like, I love the invisible thing, I think it's very atmospheric, but it doesn't make for a great map.

>>50535726
Well, how do you define samurai here? Just "dudes with swords and armor who are Japanese" with the optional honor code, or "people who belong to the historical social caste known as samurai"

If it's the former, those already existed for a long time up until the Edo period (1600-mid 1800s). That's kind of how the chaos of the Muromachi period (1300s-1500s) came about, people would just join up with warlords and essentially act as mercenaries because the prospects were better than being a farmer. If the latter, then really any reason for mercenaries to exist would work; though in the Edo period many "samurai" had become scholars or bureaucrats or others like that because of the overarching peace of the time, they were the only people allowed to carry serious weapons (swords, as opposed to daggers or short swords).

>>50535726
Could have a massive, world-spanning war for light or some shit, and now that its won there's an entire older generation of warriors who never really "got theirs". For them justice would be an ideal that was already achieved, and they would feel owed more and more of the world. Think "Greatest Generation" to the nth degree.

Many would be hired on as town guards, or even local lords or other symbolic positions, but the vast majority would turn to being wandering warriors. They would probably also know far more dire and devastating techniques due to the circumstances of their training and the wars they fought in.

Ive actually run a setting with something similar, where there was a massive and desperate war fought by one of the older empires in the setting, and they turned to necromancy creating legions of undead soldiers from their fallen who were more than willing to fight. However, they lost anyway, and so now there's a fair number of undead soldiers who just want to be either left alone or find meaning, and are viewed with a HUGE degree of suspicion on account of being the minions of a ostensibly evil empire and created using black magic. They tend to wander, and hang out with eachother in ruins and caves where nobody will bother them. When they start to fall apart they burn eachother, for fear of crumbling and being left immobile and unable to die in some ditch somewhere.

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>>50536880
Woops, fucked that up royally. Here. Before you ask about the stupid place-names and choice of locations, thats part of the mechanics of the system Im using, so it'd be a real pain to change it. Also a few aspects of relative position needed to be preserved for similar reasons.

>>50535726
You could go the Ruroni Kenshin route and have a new modern culture sweep in, instantly making the old traditions obsolete. Former Samurai would be left without a place in the world and either hire themselves to the biggest corporations or form their own bandit clans.

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>Noblebright, High Fantasy setting
>Victorian-era tech level with low magitech
>prevalent hero worship, adventurer teams exist on the same tier as Olympic teams
>Monster Hunter-tier monsters in the wilds, civilized areas are well defended
How cozy is this? Pic somewhat related.

>>50536999
eeeeh, this is dangerously close to all the things I hate about Golarion or whatever the PF standard setting is called. I really never understood the whole "heroes as celebrities" thing.

How can I emphasize a sort of Grimm fairytale tone in my game/campaign?

>>50537121
kill the children

>>50536941
>What would you change about my map?
>Except that everything needs to stay the same.
Anyway.

I'm a bit confused about the source of wind. If it's coming from the west, then the forest makes sense, but since the mountains don't continue further south, it seems like the "desert" area would get plenty of precipitation.

That could maaaaybe be justified if you're going for outright fantasy-world physics by saying there's supernaturally powerful winds in that area, so the clouds pile up next to the mountains but just get blown right over the desert. But that might raise some eyebrows.

>>50537026
The hero worship just amounts to "Superheroes". The Adventurer's Guild is big on personal branding and iconography.

>>50536999
That's not quite enough for me to tell how cozy it is. "Noblebright", "civilized areas are well defended", and "Victorian-era tech" tell me that it IS cozy, but they don't tell me HOW cozy.

That pic does look pretty cozy.

>>50537146
I already have that with Goblins abducting children to make more of themselves, and Bugbears eating children because they taste better.

>>50537276
Now make it so they only eat children who disobey their parents or don't eat their vegetables or something.

>>50537215
>most magic is utility magic; heaters/AC exist in a limited fashion, perishables can be stored for long periods of time
>the wilds are dangerous, but population centers are hubs for culture; theater and musical performances are in the early stages, restaurants exist beyond simple taverns
>kitchen sink of waifus, if you're into that
>world is barely explored, the age of exploration has been postponed till the invention of the airship in the next century
Etc.

>>50537346
There we go. That's pretty dang cozy.

Although, concerning the airship thing, lemme paraphrase the old writing adage.
>Is this the most interesting part of your world's timeline? And if not, why aren't we hearing about that?

>>50537407
It's not, it's just something in the plans of a main character in the present. I've been trying to consider future technologies and the overall progress of the world, to keep it internally consistent.

>>50537334
Like they're rather friendly to children, but find disobedient children delicious?

>>50537501
Something like that.

>>50537487
Ah, okay. So like technology in Avatar: TLA as compared with LoK.

>>50537536
I've decided that airships will *probably* be the logical conclusion.
>seas are nearly unnavigable due to leviathans and related shit
>most undiscovered islands and continents require a lengthy journey over the seas
>high level teleportation magic can't travel to somewhere you've never been before
>magic can defy the laws of physics
Thus, retrofitting ships with anti-grav magitech things.

>>50537602
Very neat.

Seems odd they have ships to retrofit if they're unusable, though.

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How do I justify a setting where things from one's ancestors and ancient cultures are implemented for use as modern weapons and technology?

That is to say, I want to have a setting where being the descendant of a Knight from a knightly order with dragon heraldry will let you use some dragon-themed power armor and a laser sword. Or being from a tribe known for clairvoyance might net you some modded genes and psychic powers.

I'm not sure if there's really a term for this sort of thing, but I do think that is the theme I'm after. People getting power from the past.

>>50537663
Sorta-spoilers, there 'is' a group who's able to sail the high seas. They're skeletons, and they're total bros.
They're not the best shipwrights, though. Most boats are built to navigate the shallows or along lakes/rivers.

>>50537930
I don't know much about your setting so far, but I like what I'm hearing.

I've been giving distances to my players in terms of travel time recently, but now that I'm making a map, I need to convert that to distances.

It's pretty easy to find distance-travel time relationships for ships, armies and adventurer parties, but here's a question I'm having trouble with.

How far could a group of around 40 families walk in a week? Consider bronze age extended families, not nomads used to travel, not feeling from anything, over reasonably flat terrain but without roads.

I'm coming up with a figure of around 70 to 100 miles, does that sound right?

What offices and positions should I have in a Ministry of Defense for an modern nation in a setting that isn't Earth (basically a world that is modern but has nation names and geography that isn't Earth or Earth-like)

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Any criticism people want to give?

>>50538180
Well, they could probably walk 3 km/h for 10 hours or 4 km/h for 8 hours. It's roughly the same either way.

So over a week, that'd be about 210 km.

>>50538238
I'm not sure a family with kids and elderly could walk for 10 hours a day. They would also need time to set up camp each night and take it down in the morning.

>>50538193
Depends on what threats there are, and the available responses to those threats.

>>50538212

>Beta Jew Africa

why

>>50538299
What do you mean by that? Or are you just answering with a non-answer?

>>50538306
The Russians fight a series of wars in the near east, forcing the Jews out of Israel. In response, they settle in a new location in East Africa. Don't know what you mean by "beta" though.

>>50538274
That's why 8-10 rather than 12-16.

I suppose it depends on urgency, though. I'm imagining a group of refugees desperately trying to get to a new home. If comfort during the journey is a concern, then it becomes something like 6 hours at 4 km/h or 8 hours at 3 km/h, so closer to 168 km total.

>>50538332

>Don't know what you mean by "beta" though.

u wot m8

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Israel

>>50538364
>I'm imagining a group of refugees desperately trying to get to a new home
Workers being relocated to mining villages around a relatively new colony, actually.

But fair enough, I'll stick to 90-120 miles a week or so, to account for terrain and weather conditions.

>>50538311
Say my Ministry of Defense has to deal with eco-terrorists, Cold War-esq espionage, and the occasional kaiju. It'd probably have an office that scrutinizes other employees, one that deals with rapid-response to biohazards and the like, and a group that manages the kaiju early warning system. There'd be at least one Minister acting as an overseer, and department heads for the individual groups.

>>50538436
>also known as Ethiopian Jews
well why didn't you say so in the first place?

>>50538461
I mean the setting that I'm making is more so WWII or a little bit afterwards-era. Very low fantasy too. No magic or other races. No monsters either. Just regular humans.

How many department heads within the ministry does a ministry usually have though?

>>50538490
Depends how much you subdivide your bureaucracy. If your government has a lot of nepotism, there's bound to be useless or redundant positions.
There is no "average", it's based on the circumstances in your setting.

>>50538490
https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs

I'm working on a sci-fi setting where both melee combat and firearms are totally viable.

How I think is a good way to do this is to have personal shielding devices to temporarily deflect the high damaging firearms while melee weapons, dealing less damage but ignoring the shield altogether. Reason being that the shields do not react to something with less velocity than a bullet or laser.

However, I have spoken with my players and many of them deem this idea too unrealistic as they believe it would be easy enough to adjust the shield to deflect slower objects.
But allowing that would cause the weapons to be vastly imbalanced.
What does tg suggest?

>>50538212
Why have soviets? Are you doing an alternate history setting or Russia wanted to go commie because last time was so much fun. Also who owns the lavendar coloured land? Really the map is fine as long as the setting info attached to it makes sense. Map reminds me of the UFO:AI geoscape with alot of countries forming superstates after a global crisis or war.

>>50537213
Why put that into a fantasy setting?

>>50538727
You could point out that adjusting the shield to deflect slower objects would effectively trap the person if they say, try to walk through a bit of underbrush and the shield 'deflects' every single branch.

The entire reason for letting slow moving objects pass through the shield is so that things like that won't happen. Also cases where if you do get knocked out despite the shield, your allies can pick you up, rather than the shield still blocking their arms from touching you.

And then you factor in that blocking everything slow is going to be a lot less power efficient. You want to save your shields for bullets, rather than particles of dust or insects.

Shields only working on fast stuff is a safety feature.

>>50538587
I mean that's a hard question to answer since I tend to get a bit autistic in the creation of branches of government and organization of power, so my own tendencies overrule what is logical in the setting sometimes. The government doesn't have a lot of nepotism but it is somewhat disorganized due to a lack of capable leaders. I don't know if that would lean them towards more branches or less though.

>>50538811
I'm imagining someone accidentally leaving their energy shield on super-slow mode in storage and it runs up their power bill and when they finally go into their storage and see it it's an energy shield covered in dust.

>>50538811
>>50538833
Thanks for the help, I will bring this to the table and see how it plays out.

>>50538792
Because superheroes in a fantasy setting is something of interest to me that I haven't seen done extensively.

>>50538761
The USSR restructured in the late 60s, causing it to live longer. And yes it is a AltHist setting that leads to a near future/sci-fi setting that I recycled from an old cyberpunk setting idea I had. And what area do you mean by lavender? Because the US/US corps control the independent countries in South America.
>with alot of countries forming superstates after a global crisis or war.
Thanks, this was exactly what I was going for. Basically, Russia expands and other countries form superstates in response, especially after the western economy collapses, which leaves East Asia (especially Japan) one of the better off countries in the world.

>>50538811
>>50538833
>>50538727

You could also just say that whatever technology the shield uses doesn't have a "slow mode" at all.

If you think of dilatant materials for example, that change viscosity depending on the shear force applied. It's possible to image that whatever technology makes the shield work also has similar properties.

You can also do away with energy shields and use metamaterials for armor, there are already experiments with using materials that become harder under impact. You can say that the armor that they wear gets hard if you hit it hard enough, but with a melee weapon you can get in close and around all the armor plates and attack the joints or simply deliver more energy than a bullet could (with a mace, for example) to try to produce trauma that way.

>>50538727
Alright here is the idea, normal melee weapons either don't work or have a reduced effect on those with personal shields. The solution is vibro-weapons that are tuned to ignore the personal shields. The device used to make vibro weapons work is too large to fit into bullets and doesn't scale up well to fit in shells so it doesn't really work on ship shielding. There could even be an expensive energy rifle that works on the same principle as vibro-weapons but it is either finicky, shortranged, power hungery, or all of the above.

How do you guys do shielding/FTL in sci-fi? Do you just hand wave it or do you try to incorperate psudo-science into it?

My shielding is based off of small-area gravity manipulation based off of calculated innertia. The personal shields have to be recharged with hand-held batteries though. My FTL travel uses transportation through the 11th dimension by making a temporary black hole and preserving the passenger's concept of their own time via an Einstein-Rosen bridge.

>>50538928
Could make the expensive energy rifle a technobabble gauss rifle that vibrates the bolt fired, to give the same shield-penetrating power as a vibrating melee weapon.

>>50538727
Another possibility in addition to what others suggested is simply having a fictional supermetal that works amazingly for armor (possibly also amazing for blades, or have a different material for them) but doesn't work well for bullets.

That isn't too farfetched, as already you want different materials for armor and bullets in modern day.

>>50538889
I'm talking about Greenland, Labrador, and some chunks of the artic being coloured lavendar and not having the map isn't listing who they belong to.

>>50539002
Those are neutral states. I believe they are the same color as the other grey colored states on the map.

>>50538944
Mostly just wave it, but we've kinda come to an agreement that most shields operate off of a strong energy field that deflects material somehow.
In game mechanics it's basically a separate pool of hit points that melee weapons ignore.
And another thing is that shields are vulnerable to electrical damage or otherwise high heat damage.

>>50538928
I like the idea, but i want the players to be able to suffer from simple things like a tribal species spear or other simpler weapons.

I'm compelled to think about my world often. Too much time, I guess. I'll probably never do anything real or serious with my ideas, so they're just ideas. They're probably bad/boring ideas, too, since they aren't shared often. I'll post anyway.

length of time is vague, but here's one of its stories and some of its background.

>as mankind is first created, a special group is also created.
>100 paragons of Mankind created in adulthood, who do not age.
>The Hundred.
>each of them created with innate knowledge of some skill(s).
>meant to shepherd humanity in its early generations
>by design, they are not true immortals
>will eventually die off from some cause or another

>Mankind's population has plateaued
>one of The Hundred, the natural leader
>orchestrates founding and construction of a City
>the first City of Mankind
>it works incredibly well
>Mankind's population explodes
>prosperity for some generations

>famine hits
>things start to tighten
>Plague hits
>things start falling apart
>The Founder watches everything he built coming undone
>watches his friends and allies perish to the Plague
>retreats into Seclusion in mourning, frustration, and fear
>gives up the mantle of being one of Mankind's Guides

>generations later, over a century
>the dream of the City of Mankind has mostly died
>Humans live in smaller towns and villages scattered around
>The City's Founder returns from his seclusion
>brings the promise of a Cure-All
>promises to magically cure anyone who will come to him
>anyone who will work to create a New City of Mankind

>something else returns along with The Founder
>a New Plague begins to spread through many Human settlements

>>50537121
The actual story of The Little Mermaid has the main character complain about walking on knives with every step she takes with feet. After the dance on the ship with her beloved, she dissolves into sea foam.

Grimm Brother's style fairy tales are just normal fairy tales in the true Grimmdarkness of mythological Europe

>>50538180
American Pioneers (which ultimately didn't travel too differently than your Bronze Age families would) averaged about 12 miles a day, which makes 84 miles per week. .

>>50538863
>>50538904
You could also consider that the shields can't be recalibrated, but are created to stop either bullets or melee. The shields conflict when a person tries to use both, so then they can have the choice of either bullet shields or melee shields and deal with the consequences.

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I've been thinking of running a campaign inspired by Deserts of Kharak and I've been wondering; Wouldn't a half-kilometer long land vehicle bend itself in half the first time it came to any kind of hill?

Also, wouldn't it be super slow? IIRC NASA's crawlers can only hit 1mph tops and they're waaay smaller.

>>50540223
I'd think getting high-centered would be more of a problem. Hills don't slam into the side of land vehicles the way waves do to ships, so it should be fine.

Aren't the crawlers like 50 years old at this point? Not exactly the best to compare to.

>>50538886
Theres a reason it hasnt been done extensively. Its not the worst thing but its like putting veal in a chowder.

>>50540223
Yes and Yes, especially in a desert. However, this would heavily influence where and how it could travel and make the game more interesting as a result.

Breaking down some wb points, any suggestions?
.Revival in art deco and traditional architecture/dress
.art deco shapes and patterns meets the smooth, sleek and rounded curves of modern tech
.technology is like metal gear 5, 80s feel but more advanced than ours
.lots of conspiracy stuff

Novice worldbuilder here with a question: How do you represent uncharted territories in your maps? Aside from a gray area that's labeled "Uncharted" or "Unexplored", of course.

Related to that, what could be the reasons why a society that has somewhat colonized their home territory successfully still has undiscovered lands in their continent, other than extreme, desolated distances?

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A few hundred years after an apocalypse would it make sense to have a faction thats diesel punk/ ww1 like , even if the pre-apocalypse world isnt like that itself? or alternatively could a near-future country still have advanced/modern tech but aesthetically revive older/traditional looks for things?

>>50542700

>would it make sense

Isn't that entirely up to you?

Does it take place in our world? Probably not, but you can come up with an excuse.

Tech fantasy? Why the hell not?

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What kind of music do you guys listen to while writing/worldbuilding?

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>>50534346
Someone said to me you like creature resources.

https://abookofcreatures.com/

>>50543795
>an excuse
leader of a group finds a history book, reads up on a thing models his faction after it.Post-apocalyptic engineers dont have access to our level of knowledge, have more primitive tech. Like Caesars legion in fallout

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What are some notable spells and effects that would be missing from a world with only lightning/electrical magic?

>>50544645
Anything utility, like cleaning or repairing objects. The rest depends on what electrical magic is capable of, and how precise the control is.

>>50538212
there are a number of south american nations that would be EU members, unless you have a real big fight with EU and South America.

>>50544679
Hmm...I suppose I could have more precise things be more like rituals, taking time to set up the currents before hand and finely tune the output.

The biggest thing I think it misses out on is healing magic, aside from working as a defibrillator

>>50545114
Defibs don't work like they do in tv/movies. It would be extremely limited in scope.

>>50545080
The majority of the SA nations are under economic or military pressure from the US (besides Brazil, which is under heavy Japanese economic control). Also a note, UEA isn't the modern EU but a international alliance headed by Germany to protect their interests against the USSR and Japan.

Which nations would ally with Europe though?

>>50536451
>The map program I've been using has them as two different tiles
Probably wanting to distinguish the the endless steppe of the mongols and turks and etc. from either chaparral (shrubs are bigger and more dense, trees occasional) or places like the great basin in the US and the outback in Australia. (much drier, red soil)

I don't know that much about vulcanism, but it's to do with the mineral content in andisols. They tend to have loads of basically everything you need except sometimes phosphorus. If there's just been an eruption, that's bad for whatever's growing and a huge pile of ash will probably support some growth but isn't very good at all compared to ash mixed with organic matter. Once you spread the ash around and plow it in, that should be quite good in general.

Previous activity will have deposited sediment (ash) but otherwise I don't think it impacts geography too directly. Not my specialty though.

>>50545404
French Guiana is a overseas department of France. (AKA, part of france)

Suriname is independent, but is much like Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba in the Carrabean (Which they are close to) as they are dutch speaking and Holland still has a special relationship with. also three of those islands are still part of Holland.

Guyana is english speaking, views itself as a Caribbean nation, and has a long standing land dispute with Venezuela. Geyana goes where the UK goes, as it was not decolonized till 1966.

>>50534451
Final my ass, even the first page isn't done

What's the difference between sheeps and goats?

>>50547817
https://lmgtfy.com/?q=What%27s+the+difference+between+sheeps+and+goats%3F

>>50547817
A lot, they're completely different species.
Goats are much smarter and more nimble, can eat just about anything, and have fur instead of wool.

>>50547899
>completely different species.
Not just that, they're different genera.

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>>50543802
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCI8CVcJJ2M

>>50547899
And they can stand on steep rock slops and not give a single fuck.

What symbols would suit a knightly order? their ideology revolves around helping people and collecting knowledge

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>>50540223
I don't know about Expedition Carriers, but I'm fairly certain we could already build Baserunners with modern technology if we ever had reason to. Just look at mining trucks like the Cat 797s or the Terex 33-19. Hell, the 797s can hit 40mph while fully loaded, imagine what something lighter that didn't need nearly as much torque could do.

The crawler-transporters are really a bad standard to go by even if they look the most appropriate. They're made for carrying delicate cargo very VERY carefully, not for speed or power.

>>50548256
And they're fucking adorable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWvefaN8USk

>>50548683
Never mind that even the biggest haul trucks we've ever built are less than half the size of a Baserunner...
>Terex 33-19 'Titan': 20.35m long
>BelAZ 75710: 20.6m long
>Caterpillar 797F: 15m long

>Baserunner: 56m long

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Tell me about your setting's goblins or goblin equivalent

>>50549068
Best way to describe them would be humanoid magpies.

Humanoid shape, avian features and covered in feathers yet flightless. Basically like chimpanzees but with claws, beaks, and a drive to steal shiny objects and a bad tendency to disassemble anything that gets in their way. Certainly sentient, but not sapient.

>>50549068
I opted to use Imps in place of Goblins for my setting. They're still small, ravenous, murderous, and can crop up in a lot of places, but there's no baby Imps or good Imps, so there's no potential moral dilemma over killing them.

Essentially, I wanted to justify Goblins as a cannonfodder enemy, and making them demons was the best route

>>50549458
>can describe the race in two words
>then describes them in more words, all of which can be reduced to just the word "kenku".

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>>50549534
>kenku
I swear to god, every time I think I have a decent idea for a creature or race it turns out it's already been done before

>>50549598
To be fair, it's only D&D's reinterpretation as of like 3.x or so, the original mythological kenku aren't like that.

>>50549068
They're beings that incarnate bad ideas.

>>50549068
They are fae creatures and so are created by, for lack of a better term, the feng shui of certain natural landscapes. At first they were a nuisance that were hunted for sport by dwarves, but then a lesser demigod taught them the art of faemelding (basically landscaping to promote the spawning of specific fae). Modern goblin kingdoms are made up of massive spawning pits, and are ruled over by alchemists who have learned through trial and error (as they have tons of test subjects) how to extend their paltry 5-year lifespan. Other goblinoids exist, such as larger hobgoblins which are mostly used as shock troops and for heavy labor, as well as orcs.

Orcs were actually the result of alchemical experiments to create a strong, true-breeding race of goblins. The orcs that were created were prized slaves for a time, but eventually escaped and freed many of their kind, creating new lives for themselves on the borderlands of various goblin kingdoms. They are, obviously, viewed with suspicion, as to many they seem to be staking claim to lands on behalf of their former masters. Orcs, however, have a terrible secret: they were created to be effectively immortal, but not eternally young or vigorous. If an orc fails to find death, before too long they will be reduced to a crippled husk, far past the point where any glory or triumph of their lives will have mattered. As such, middle-aged orcs have become favored berserkers in many mercenary groups, as they truly do not care if they live for die.

When at war, goblins use overwhelming numbers and alchemical force multipliers that are unique to each kingdom. Demi-ogres, gun-toting boar cavalry, and acid-cannons are not uncommon to see in major goblin attacks.

Their skills with alchemy are unmatched, but progress is slow, as due to their rapid breeding and ephemeral lives, goblin alchemists and their apprentices are constantly in fear of being replaced should their secrets be stolen. So, goblins have no written culture.

>>50544645
Spells involving darkness, probably summoning, growth or nature spells, stonemelding other other spells which manipulate matter, transmutation, probably necromancy although I guess you could just fill skeletons with lightning. Its a pretty exhaustive list. What are you looking for?

>>50550489
Hmm..mainly I wanted to see what some major effects might be by cutting magic down to a really narrow subset, though I think I'm going about it a bit backwards. Better to figure out what all lightning magic could be applied to, and have the setting evolve from there.

>>50550801
Hm, what motivates you wanting to cut down on magical diversity?

>>50550825
Mainly just not wanting to have a bunch of different power types and sources to cover every possible angle. I feel like it'd be easier from a metaphysical perspective if magic was more solidly one thing, rather than having nature magic, god magic, arcane magic, blood magic, etc all floating around and needing explaining.

>>50550459
>Orcs, however, have a terrible secret: they were created to be effectively immortal, but not eternally young or vigorous. If an orc fails to find death, before too long they will be reduced to a crippled husk, far past the point where any glory or triumph of their lives will have mattered.

This is pretty cool twist on the "seek honorable death"-culture.

>>50550915
So you're not looking to limit what's available, you're just looking for one source which can metaphysically explain all magic in your setting/system?

Thanks. Im really proud of that setting in particular, but sadly I know that no players will ever care enough to read all of it, so I keep it to myself and dump it when asked. Always nice to get a compliment now and again.

>>50551042
>>50550918
meant for

>>50549068
Slaves to the elves.

Originally slaves to the old human empire, they were subjegated to alchemical experiments to create better slaves, which is where hobgoblins; larger, stronger, more intellegent subspecies, but prone to fits of rage and mental instability, the bugbears; oger-sized, hardy breeds with limited intellegence; and the elves; biologically immortals superior in every way, except one, they are infertile. After the destruction of the central empire, the eastern states, where the majority of goblins slaves are from, was conquered by the elves, who incited a revolt, only to re-enstate the goblinoids as slaves again.

Recently, a small independence movement has taken shape, backed by the Lich Priests, wielders of vitamancy, the magic of life. Teaching the first rebels incomplete knowledge of the arts, these goblins were able to empower themselves at the cost needing to consume blood and vital essences to fuel the magics drainibg them, as well as the ability to bring life back to the dead, though lacking true understanding, they can do little more than return the soul to a decaying meat puppet.

>>50551029
More or less. I want it to be somewhat straightforward how everyone is getting it too. Having everyone using electricity or lightning to fuel their spells just stuck out to me as a good way to do so.

>>50550915
>>50551160

Magic in my setting comes from manipulation an entirely different form of matter. In that sense, all magic is from that same source whether or not its electrical, mechanical, etc. I make the distinction that Corpses and Ghosts are different forms of the same thing, and by combining the two, you get a living being. It also allows me to explain how physical things have a hard time affecting magical things and vice versa. I also have a very element focused application, so normally related concepts like Lightning and Fire are separated. It helps in some respects, but may cause other problems depending on exactly how you want magic to act.

>>50551215
Yeah, I had something a bit like that, with magic being split between bones and souls that both formed of a singular source, but then that got subdivided further with external/internal and self/other applications and distinctions.

I feel like it all made sense, but trying to explain it simply to players or have it all interact coherently seemed tricky.

>>50551160
One idea Ive used is that magic comes from breath, and as the gods breathed life into the universe so to can mortals breathe magic into the world. Incantations motions of the hands and body help shape breath as it escapes to mimic the art of the gods, and various inhalants ranging from adulterated pipe-weed smoke to brimstone may be used to augment or allow fantastic effects. Mages burn themselves out quickly and often take vows of silence in their old age to preserve their voices and breath. With such power in words, wise mages often fool young and impressionable apprentices into pronouncements of great power, allowing the cost to be born by another.

>>50549068
Goblin, Orcs, Kobolds, and the come into existence in the dank, dark places of the world. thus they are near impossible to get rid of.

>>50551288
That's pretty neat, though I would dread the skyrim jokes

>>50551429
Eh, its actual manifestation is less shouting and more pipe-smoking sages and barbarians who can yell loud enough that its a counterspell. Thats what I like most about the system: it justifies subtle effects as being the magic of breath. Magic weapons have grooves cut in them to shape the wind into artificial breath and conjure minor magical effects. Magic wands work the same way. Magical locations catch the wind and channel it into breath and some even create self-sustaining magical creatures. Its like magical STALKER. Its got a unique universal explanation that is simultaneously super broad (and therefore useful) and super specific and therefore seemingly limited.

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>>50534346
i'm one for the saltire design

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>I notice something: All my settings have order vs chaos as theme, sometimes subtle and sometimes directly.
>Try it without order vs chaos.
>It does not work.

Is that bad?

>>50551569
Got any examples? On its own a chaos vs. order theme can be kinda boring because it implies that there is a natural order which doesnt leave much room for agency, but Im willing to hear you out.

>>50551569
Only if Order are always the good guys and Chaos the bad guys

>>50551569
I wouldn't say it's bad in and of itself but it does lack imagination and panache. Like having a straightforward medieval fantasy setting isn't very interesting until you add stuff to it.

>>50551455
Fair enough, I suppose. I may need to think on mind some more, but that is the sort of thing I'm after, a clear shared interaction that isn't something abstract like soul energy.

>>50551596
Civilization vs nature, government vs anarchy or sanity vs madness

>>50551732
What I like most about it is that it allows you to ask the question "can I do this?" and come up with an interesting answer, complete with caveats most of the time. If the system is elastic enough to tolerate it, it can result in players being really creative. You have to know a few things first like why only mages use magic (they learn special breathing techniques which allow them to safely form the breath of magic and then exalt it from their body before it manifests and destroys them from the inside).

>>50551760
So Civ vs. nat is fairly good, as long as you give each a clear advantage. A whole setting thats based around Gov vs anarchy or san vs mad is kinda dumb, as no large group would willingly choose the chaotic alternative for multiple generations. The reason that order exists at all irl is because its inherently self sustaining, while social chaos is not.

>>50550918
thats cool, orc shamans or elders could be particularly venerated for maybe being the ones to make the sacrifice of living so long for the clan/tribe.

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>>50551630

>Law the good guys

>>50551788
Well, for the lightning idea, I did come up with a few things so far.

All magic would use arc energy, basically electricity. In terms of magic users, there are Generators, who make it and cam shunt it out, Relays, who get their power from a Generator and can carry and redirect it, and Conduits, who harvest arc energy from their surroundings for use.

One can't learn to be a Generator, though being a Relay or Conduit is something that can be taught. It isn't widespread to do so, as I imagine being a relay might require implants or specialized tools akin to lightning rods, while Conduits would need to shape runes of gold for its high conductivity in order to more efficiently control the energy they get.

Magical items to fill these roles would exist, such as stones that generate energy, specially crafted spires to allow a generator to relay their power long distances, or objects with those golden runes to apply smaller amounts of energy for a specific task.

>>50543973
cool

>>50551998
Hm, that seems interesting but Im not sure if its something that the vast majority of players would latch onto readily. Maybe find some way to simplify it with a single concept. Maybe lighting is archetypical in that it grounds itself. Perhaps magic grounds itself and by creating magical energy of a certain type one can manipulate the world to be attracted to a specific ground state?

>>50551977
Dude who made the setting here. That is actually a thing. Particularly traveled or learned orcs may be kept as elders by their tribe, much to their enduring spite. They are kept like mummies, wrapped to prevent their degrading bodies from falling to pieces and weeping blood or shattering their fragile but immortal bones. They often trade in secrets only in exchange for medicines to ease their pain, or for being magically pact bound to be killed by the person they choose to help. Imagine fantasy 40k dreadnoughts that DO NOT want to be there.

>>50551788
>A whole setting thats based around Gov vs anarchy ... is kinda dumb, as no large group would willingly choose the chaotic alternative for multiple generations
Not him, but in my own setting the two most significant factions I've developed so far have a conflict that's a bit like this, but more realistic. The dwarves' government is an authoritarian, enlightened monarchy, made up of a king and his bureaucrats, but in their port city to the far south is a population of humans with increasingly democratic/republican ideals on the cusp of making a play for independance.

In that sense, the dwarves can be "lawful" and the humans can be "chaotic," but I figure there's no need to make the humans into barn-burners and the dwarves into modrons or Nazis in order to allow for a kind of ideological conflict. I'm curious to know what my players' reaction will be to the political conflict, if they even take an interest, and I want both sides to be legitimate choices.

Should I turn my novel's setting into a game by designing a game system to work with it or should I just go my group's normal route and build a new setting for our DnD games?

>>50552257
I can tell you right now, as legitimately interesting as that cultural difference is, most players will not care unless you're playing a game that is strictly intrigue based.

>>50552274
Dont play DnD.

>>50552292
Give a legitimate reason to stop playing DnD.

>>50534761
take a look at a game called Antichamber and imagine trying to map the at game out in 3d, it isn't happening and a 2d map is easier to read.

>>50552108
I suppose that is a concern. I'm not sure if the idea of magic going to ground will work for me though.

>>50552327

it smells funny!

>>50552327
There are many systems which are simpler, run faster, and achieve better results without encouraging powergaming.

I can elaborate if you want.

>>50552370
Im just throwing out an idea. In general you dont want things to be too asymmetrical and weird.

Do you use halflings? How do you do them? What have you done with them?

I like them a sort of meek creatures who kept largely to themselves, but larger and more capable races like Dwarves and Humans have taken advantage of them. The halflings of worldly cities live significantly lesser lives than their peers, with menial unskilled labour. They're good as keeping out of sight while doing their jobs. Halfling maids are quite common. Hill Dwarves have made good friends with Halflings, and many of their number joined families resulting in the more stout halfling types.

>>50552276
I'm glad you think it's interesting! Honestly, I figure that if nothing else it'll provide a source of adventure hooks: if the group tends to go one way, I'll give them some quests from the one group: if they go for the other, they'll get different quests from the other side.

Lots of players go "I'm Judge Dredd the paladin lolol" or "I'm a dickass rogue, fuck the man lololol," so I figure that making factions that could sympathize with those traits would give even one-dimensional characters something to react to and bounce off of. If players respond well to this stuff, that's all the better, but honestly I'm mostly just doing this for myself. I don't want to run an adventure that doesn't make any sense.

>>50552494
My group has been playing it for a long time, we don't have an issue with power gaming nor do our games drag on too long. We've tried some simpler systems, but we miss the feeling of the crunch, despite it running a bit slower.

>>50552494
Could you elaborate in a pastebin or something, please?

I'm interested in what you have to say but I don't want to turn the thread into a system war. God knows we have enough of those.

>>50552566
hit me up on Steam

Castironboomstick. Im actually super multitasking right now so I dont have the time to extol the virtues of any system in particular. It really comes down to design philosophy, and DnD in general not really having one. The result is systems which work but often have to antagonize one another to function properly.

>>50552566
>>50552590

Ahh, the old "I'll help you with this thing if you be my ERP fuckboi on steam" trick. Classic.

>>50552552
Alright, thats fine, but its a lot easier to try new things when your game isnt run by a series of W2-forms. I agree that crunch is important, but Ive been playing so long I just see it as getting in the way of having a good time and telling a story. I cant count the number of times somebody has asked if they can do something thats genuinely interesting in DnD only for me to either tell them they cant, or that the rules dont really support it.

>>50552512
Fair enough. I was mostly lining it up with the typical internal magic, granted magic, and scholarly magic that show up often, rather than trying to have some weird daisy-chaining system where casting spells needs the party to form a miniature power grid.

>>50552621
My players often don't come up with much, aside from some magic item abuse. I tend to brainstorm different ideas and throw them at my players. I think they like it because my ideas work within the system and they can use them.

One example is using Fabricate to create hollow stone balls, then filling them with oil, and shrinking them with Shrink. You can get a about 1.4 gallons in each, while still having it light enough to put 40ish in a catapult.

I think I'll do some brainstorming tomorrow for a dice system to build into a game. Probably D10's. Not sure if I should do # of successes or rolls for static numbers with items providing boosts to those numbers.

>>50552524
My Halflings are one of the favored races, serving as the breadbasket for the Dwarven Strongholds towards the center/west of the main continent. The Dwarves act as a huge deterrent, as no one wants to piss them off.
They were largely ignored until after the Great War, and now some Humans have been living in harmony with them.

They also have monkey tails, which are adorable.

>>50552524
I don't often include halflings in my settings, so I was planning on changing that for my current one.

So far though all I have is them being the farmers and tradesmen in one nation, with the knights and military largely being dwarves out of a historical agreement.

>>50554286
New World monkey tails or Old World monkey tails? I.e. prehensile or no?

>>50554352
Prehensile. Some unsavory types use them to pickpocket.

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How do you guys choose to intermingle nonhuman factions with other nonhuman factions? Do you make them all have complex relations with one another, do you keep them relatively isolated from one another, or do they all conspire against humans?

Some ideas I've been toying with that I'm open to talk about:
>Many dwarves dislike satyrs, but it's mostly out of envy. That said, each race holds some kind of fascination with the other which can either lead to skirmishes or sometimes even odd friendships. Both races do love drink and music and being merry after all.
>Giants are shy of others, and usually travel solitary, or with other--a few at most--giants that could be spouses, or close friends, or siblings. They used to be a dominant race with tribes and armies, but those days are long gone. Most other races keep a respectful distance of them, sometimes offering gifts as a sign of goodwill.
>Goblins are hated almost universally, but especially by faerie races, and not for the reason you might expect. Goblins loot and scavenge human items like armor and weapons and misc paraphernalia. Faeries hate humans above all else, so even this slight interaction of goblins using human items has caused a major divide in the two races. Before then, the goblins and faeries coexisted to a small degree.
>Devils fascinate many other nonhuman races. They have a handful of controlled lands in the world, but the other races can’t figure out what exactly it is they’re hoping to accomplish. Their actions oftentimes seem random and chaotic.

>>50554378
Little bastards.

>>50552524
I'm not sure if I'll wind up using them or not. I'm leaning towards "not".

So far the only standard races in my setting are humans and elves, and the elves are kinda different (as elves seem to tend to be). There are reasons beyond that, but I think if I tried to explain them it'd come off as shallow and dumb.

>>50554352
If you dont have a prehensile tail, you aint a monkey person.

>>50554964
I think the problem you're missing the "why"?
>why are dwarves envious of satyrs?
>why are giants shy instead of angst-y?
>Why do goblins scavenge if there's such a stigma against it?

I find that you can have complex interactions between nonhuman races, but they can just be a natural result of culture. For example, in one setting I run elves fought a massive war in a mythic bygone age, and so to prevent this they created a simple rule: no elven lord can control territory he cannot see from his hall. This rule has been bent over time by creating higher and higher towers to justify larger and larger land claims, with many simple races finding themselves subject to assault and eviction by silver-helmed tower-elves when their territory is suddenly within view of a recently renovated tower.

Similarly, for the fae goblins described in one of my earlier posts: other races have come to treat with them, but dwarves do not as they used to hunt them for sport and will not suffer the indignity of holding court with creatures they consider to be mere beasts.

Real world blanket interactions are based on simple but powerful difficulties between peoples that are strong enough to transcend the potentially reasonable nature of individuals.

>>50554964
I've been toying with that idea in my current setting. I'm aiming to make more non-human cities that have more mixed or varied populations, similar to how some human towns have a lot of elves or what have you.

I am trying to avoid races being a single mono-culture that all think alike as well, so opinions on other races are more influenced by the region rather than racial lines. A Dwarf from the northern regions would probably prefer the company of a human he's never met over a dwarf from the south, for example.

The main exceptions to this are Demons, because they're demons, and Orcs, because nobody really understands Orcs, but hate them because they set up camps near the ocean, use up a bunch of natural resources, and then raid and battle to no apparent end.

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>>50542700
Just remember they went back to swords in Dune because the shields got so good.

>>50555097
The Dwarves have a sort of "ant and the grasshopper" thing with a lot of the other races, but especially satyrs. Why should the satyrs spend their years frolicking when the dwarves have to toil and trade their works for the necessities to survive the harsh mountain environments? The satyrs on the other hand aren't going to be adverse to dwarves who want to come to the groves and party with them should ever a thing happen though.

The Giants have seen their race "humbled", understanding that they can't keep up with humans on a large scale anymore due to their sparsity and few numbers. They're a forlorn people, hoping for a miracle with no means of achieving it.

Goblins began using human things when they realized that human equipment is far more effective than faerie weapons or anything they could make themselves. Goblins are fighty and greedy, so anything that helps in this area is worth the consequences. It was a cost they chose: to sever relations with their last "friendly" faction in order to improve the chances of their own survival. (I'm trying to flesh out a better story that explores the origins of this decision: it's in progress, but ideas are welcome.)

>>50555215
I like this as well. My races tend to have a handful of traits that allows fluidity around them. I'm trying to figure out a way to spread the races around so that almost every race is at least aware of every other race. I don't want to just have "The dwarf mountains in the north" the one "Midsummer Night's Dream forest in the middle of things were only the faeries live" but splitting up a single race so far across the map into arbitrary borders seems messy, any ideas on how to balance this problem?

>>50555581
>any ideas on how to balance this problem?

Well, basically what I did is I just took the norm for humans in fantasy settings, and applied it to other races.

That is to say, Humans are always depicted as basically being everywhere. If you come across a random village, town, city, or kingdom, it's probably humans. I wanted to kind of avert that, and so I did try and have other races aside from humans divided as well. Dwarven lands are still mainly centered on mountains, but they can still show up in a lot of places around that.

What might help is deciding on a general origin point for each race, and then figuring out where it would be easy to spread to from there. If it's nearby and a short enough journey, it'll probably be the same kingdom. If it's a long trek and it's distant enough, it will probably splinter off eventually and form its own culture.

Another thing to consider is that just because they have split off and the cultures are different, doesn't mean everyone there also thinks the same. While two kingdoms may have been allies in the past and had a schism since, you'd get people on both sides who hate the other nation for whatever the split was over, along with those who want to mend it and go back to how things were.

Basically, while it can be good to paint broad strokes to get your thoughts in mind (dwarf mountains here, fairy forests here), it's a good idea to let races proliferate out across the continent.

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>>50555713
All great ideas, thanks Anon

Shifting to humans now, I'm having a similar-ish problem. I really like the idea of ancient-era people coexisting with medieval and even renaissance era cultures, but I feel like there's problems with this. It seems like a more advanced human faction would always win against an ancient one. You could say that I could try "modernizing" certain cultures (maybe like Greek-esque people using muskets Or Gauls having advanced armor), but that goes against what I liked about the ancient cultures. Should I just stick to one sort of era, or is there a realistic way to mix them?

>>50551788
>A whole setting thats based around ... san vs mad is kinda dumb
You could describe magical realism this way, and that's an entire genre.

>A whole setting thats based around Gov vs anarchy
You could do the real world that way and it would work fine. Especially if you put the range from east africa to Iran and to Chechnya in the north.

>>50555983
Reinaissance is a bit trickier, but Iron, bronze, and stone had a pretty long period of intermingling. Granted, better weapons and armor are a big advantage, but it wasn't always the ultimate deciding factor.

Consider that there are other ways such an ancient civilization might be sticking around. If they're in an area that's easily defensible, having bronze weapons to defend themselves against iron won't matter as much when the invading army has to cross treacherous mountains or wade through swamps to reach them. Distance can also factor into this, as an army marching all the way from the heart of the Iron Kingdoms over miles and miles and miles and needing food all the way can also result in turnabouts. Logistics is a powerful thing.

There's also the fact that before firearms and especially cannons, numbers can mean a lot.

And aside from that, I'm assuming this is a fantasy setting? In which case, the ancient cultures may have other things on their side. They may have shamanism and a willingness to worship elements that the more advanced cultures might not. They may have druids that turn wooden spears and arrows as hard as steel, making metallurgy rather useless to them. Maybe they even have a god or multiple who desires their continued existence for one reason or another. It also makes cannons not quite as big of an advantage, thanks to Fireballs being a more likely equalizer.

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>>50534346
>/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

Sure, I could use a second opinion on something:

Do you think in a Fantasy Setting with a plethora of non-human species would there be more, less, or equal amounts of racism against mere "ethnicities" like we see in our own real world?

At the moment I have it set to "less"; in the sense that the White Humans don't really think negatively about the Black Humans because there are ORCS and DWARVES to worry about.

But, like I said- an outside opinion would be appreciated.

>>50556656
That's what I'd imagine, too. There's some adage I can't find anymore but it went something along the lines of "the Scots and the English hate each other, but then they're all Britons who hate the French together" I think.

There might still be ethnic tension, but humans have a tendency to view people as "us" or "them" and in a world with elves and dwarves and orcs, I imagine any human would be more "us" than "them".

>>50556656
Most likely less, but it also depends somewhat on region. If humans in the north have been friends with dwarves for centuries, then many there may see them as better than blacks from not!africa.

Or, a society may judge more on level of civilization. They'll see elves and dwarves as peers, while looking down on the humans that live as savagely as orcs.

For something a bit similar, who do you think elves prefer, humans, or drow?

>>50538944
I don't do shields in my setting but I do have electromagnetic fields that affect particles fired from particle acceleration cannons, it pushes the electron off course so its much harder to hit your ship from a long distance with a PAC. Also wipple shields are another real way to deal with kinetic damage (railguns etc)


Langston fields and Klein fields are pretty good examples of shields done right in sci-fi

>>50549068
i love ssy

>>50557724
i love you anon :3

How do create an uncaring and indifferent to a PCs world without being a little shit?
I'm planning to make a post apocalyptic game "from rags to riches" but I don't really know where to start.

Help me build this setting?

I have been basically making a copy of the Bloodborne game as a campaign I wanted to write because, well frankely the game just does every single thing I was wanting to do in a game, with it's gritty world, intense narrative twisting, and Lovecraft out the ass.

So, I took the world, twisted it a bit, bit off a bunch of details and mixed them with some other stuff, and tried to make them into a D&D setting for a campaign.

Basically what I arrived on is an ecumenopolis (a city that goes on forever) that trades in blood transfusions, blood taken from the corpse of an Old One that induced regeneration and flesh malleability in it's consumer, basically turning the city into a Lovecraftian version of Rapture as some people used it to stay healthy, but some under the supervision of the Surgeons (plague-doctor types) morphed their flesh into new forms. The blood was obviously doled out and controlled by the Holy Church, but eventually it ran out, and people turned to the Corrupted Blood to slake their addiction, before the whole city descended into eternal night as, presently, the Church attempted ancient rituals to contact an "angel" to come down from the sky and provide the blood to bring them back to prosperity. So now, the city is Night, the people are crazy, and the Writhing Moon is slowly descending towards the planet.

Am I doing it right? Seriously, poke holes in this shit so I can fix it and make it better.

When making maps, do you guys prefer making them look as if they were drawn by someone in-universe or do you prefer them looking like they were taken by a satellite and as accurate as possible?

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>>50558374

I prefer them in ways I can understand

I can worry about presentation later

>>50558560
>I can worry about presentation later
So which do you prefer when it comes time to worry about presentation?

>>50558574

>implying I ever get anything done to that point

I want to run a dark ages reskin of the trad fantasy world, or perhaps more fairly a dark ages world that still allows my players all of the standard fantasy options. I think the dark ages give a good motif for the world for an RPG, there's risk, ruins, uncertainty, but also opportunity.

I'm thinking about running a sort of not-Britain for the setting, it's reasonably contained, I
can get an actual hex map of Great Britain and reverse, pinch and squeeze it.

>>50555219
Never read dune so i dont get that.

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>>50534526

>no discord link

Is this what /tg/ has become?

https://discord.gg/ArcSegv

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>>50559413
>dark ages

But really, what do you mean by traditional fantasy? Tolkien-esque? Mythological?

>>50560022
In Dune, there's a lot of shit powered by the handwavy "Holtzman effect." It allows for FTL travel as well as personal force-fields.
>Herbert, Frank (1965). "Terminology of the Imperium: SHIELD, DEFENSIVE". Dune.
>SHIELD, DEFENSIVE: the protective field produced by a Holtzman generator. (...) A shield will permit entry only to objects moving at slow speeds (depending on setting, this speed ranges from six to nine centimeters per second) and can be shorted out only by a shire-sized electric field.
Naturally, this means that bullets are useless against the personal shields, but it does mean that knife-fighting is a big part of Dune: knife wielders get up close and personal, than slowly and subtly stab the other fellow until they die. There's also a bit in-setting on how if you shoot a Holtzman shield with a laser gun, it creates a fusion reaction (the reaction in a hydrogen bomb), so that's why they don't use lasguns most of the time.

Obviously, you don't have to make your shields exactly like Dune's, but if you base them on the same principle (for example, your shields deflect objects that move as fast as bullets), then melee weapons could serve as effective weapons against them (I don't know the math, but I'm pretty sure that a sword attack is much slower than a bullet). Hope this helps!

>>50562057
Dude i was asking about ww1 level tech. Does that post mean i can have whatever tech, just come up with some reason or excuse?

>>50534526
Yep. People chased off anyone who wasn't interested in math and who might have had anything creative to do with the dungeons.

>>50562057
As a dune autist, you had to go slow even with the blade. It was a legit stratagy to do quick blows to cause the shield to keep activating and bewilder your opponent and then slip a blade in.

Duncan always preferred to use the tip of the blade, Gurney didn't care.

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>>50542700
after the apocalypse swords and so on would have a major bonus - easy logistics.

Or eveyrone could be like Jack Churchill and charge the beaches of d-day, sword in hand.

>>50562108
You were also asking about
>could a near-future country still have advanced/modern tech but aesthetically revive older/traditional looks for things
which this is consistent with.
You ARE right, though, that my proposed solution wouldn't work for WWI so much because it excludes guns. Perhaps laser guns are popular in the setting, and the shields repel those but not solid slugs? After all, light travels much faster than bullets.
>Does that post mean i can have whatever tech, just come up with some reason or excuse?
Well, yes. You are making this world up in the first place, aren't you? Where do you think you are?

>>50562125
Yeah, that's why my thoughts were that, unless you wanted every combat to ape Dune, you would weaken the shields a little so that they would still prevent bullets from entering but not stop swords. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. However, a WWI-type faction probably wouldn't be using blades as their primary weapons -- that was my mistake.

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I'm really new to this worldbuilding thing or roleplaying in general, but I have this idea of running a setting kinda based on the history of my own country in the times of the discovery and the colony.
It could have two main factions; the settlers, Spaniard-like very few numbers, but with greater tech/magic trying to take the swamplands and jungles from the much more numerous natives.
The natives of course have poor thechnology, massive numbers, and all the advantages you get as the home team.
Was trying this idea of the pox being replaced as a major deity(s) from the natives being killed-off or influenced upon by the settler's god(ess), wich is much more cancerous or invasive in comparison.
The PCs could be from both "factions" as neither of them are really proffesional armies.
The settlers have in their ranks as much pious religious fanatics as they have greedy pirates and malicious nobles.
The natives, on the other side, are not really a nation, but a bunch of small villages and tribes forming a weak alliance, some of them even joining forces (either by deceit or on their own interest) with the settlers, that's why there could be native PCs
Do you think this could be interesting enough for a game or too complex for an inexperienced player or gm?

>>50562309
Don't forget that the natives are not truly unified, and some native factions help the invaders for their own ends. While the invaders are unified for the most part.

>>50562245
>>50562125
They just made smart bullets.

The problem with shields was that they interacted with laser beams and set up a resonating firld that would cause a nuclear explosion. So they banned laser weaponry in favor of using tech that might not kill every soldier you had (i.e. non-laser).

Duncan used this to blow up the Shield Wall on Arrakis and also drive all the worms crazy, because shields on dune irritated the fuck out of sandworms and drew every worm in a hundred miles to kill the shield.

>>50562361
>Duncan used this to blow up the Shield Wall on Arrakis
Umm, no.

They used the family atomics to blow up the shield wall. Duncan dies long before the shield wall goes boom.

>>50562383
In the movie they used atomics. In the book it was a shield and lasgun on overload.

But you're right, it was Gurney Halleck, not Duncan, my bad.

>>50562399
Double checked with the book - it was Family atomics that breached the wall.

Earlier in the book Duncan does use a lasgun interaction to cause a explosion to fuck with the Sardaukar

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>>50562245
Oh right, sorry my dude. Yeah i'm thinking of having a faction that bases itself off of the ideals of their leader, who is a historian (like Caesar in fallout, who believed that using Rome to inspire the tribes would create a better culture) the thinking is that these disjointed survivalist groups and tribals get united under this one guy who knows his shit, and pushes for a ww1 esque style army and aesthetic (ornate meets efficient). they use swords to push the idea of martydom, (like japanese bazais) and the awe-inspiring ornateness and sclae of things to wow and impress (hearts and minds, and like how the nazis evoked lots of roman imagery with their shit) . because he believes that doing this will lay the groundwork for a resurgent British empire/ powerful society.
the technology aspect comes from a mix of what suvivalists got passed down from their great-great-great grandparents teaching them little bits of engineering and his own intellect

>>50562596
Wowing tribals with basic shit like a combustion engine and military strategy.

>>50562359
Yup, that's part of what I'm imagining and that allows for native players in the party.

Thing is, I'm wondering about how far to push the real-world similarities and the fantasy side of the story.
The armor design for both "factions" is very interesting and colorfull, and if magic is involved, that would give room for some silly-rad looking beasties, summons or deities to appear.
I mean, I've visited our national museum several times, and I'm amazed by the crazyness of the precolonial art. Also lots of dicks for some reason, and I mean really huge dicks and dickmen, and giant vaginas and so. Pretty cool.
A shame I cannot show it to you, as the museum doesn't allow to take pictures and the online sources are limited to some dull-looking sculptures, for some reason.

>>50562596
>he believes that doing this will lay the groundwork for a resurgent British empire/powerful society
Wait, so is this set in post-apocalypse Britain, in the real world?

>>50562616
Personally, I was thinking of something a little flashier. In small-town America, it's not an uncommon sight to see a relic of a past war in some public place near the town hall: a big Civil War era cannon, a WW2 tank. My thoughts are that if this historian fellow were in the right place, and knew the right information...
>Huddled in a ditch with your post-apoc comrades
>Suddenly, you hear a horrible howl
>When you poke your head out, you can see the cannibal hordes charging you. You are massively outnumbered.
>You panic and grab for your bayonet, affixing it to your ammoless rifle
>You've heard stories about the horrendous tortures of the barbarian camps. Hopefully you'll die fighting...
>Suddenly, a shout from behind: "LONG LIVE BRITANNIA!"
>You feel a thump beneath your feet, and stumble. Dizzied, you peek over the top of the ditch to see the savages charging...
>...before an explosion blooms right in the middle of them, scattering the savages and deafening you. You clutch your ringing ears and watch in awe as the remaining cannibals attempt to flee...
>BOOM
>Another explosion rocks the earth, and another mass of marauders falls. Their shrieks rend the air
>A few minutes of horrible quiet pass. It's over.
>You look back, and see the Great Leader himself behind the fighters' trenches, twirling his moustache and smiling next to a strange wheeled cart with a smoking tube on it.
mite b cool

>>50563004
Yes its set in Britain, doesn't mean you cant go elsewhere but im focusing on the Britain lore primarily at the moment. he idea is that we got fucked over so hard by the apocalypse that everywhere is set back to square one, and only powerful factions or ones with connections to pre-war groups or caches of knowledge like unwrecked libraries actually have technology. In comes this dude who knows shit, and bam is faction has an instant advantage over plebian tribals, 'golems' and mutants.
You've given me an idea, in ww1 British soldiers war cry was FOR KING AND COUNTRY, this great leader creates his own cult based on the idea of the nation state being something spiritual in itself.
suppose they could invade america, if they win that is.

>>50562684
>Thing is, I'm wondering about how far to push the real-world similarities and the fantasy side of the story.

Follow the "Rule of Cool"

>>50563137
>You've given me an idea, in ww1 British soldiers war cry was FOR KING AND COUNTRY, this great leader creates his own cult based on the idea of the nation state being something spiritual in itself.
That was kind of the idea, yeah. That kind of idea seemed popular in WWI, or at least the theme is popular in works ABOUT WWI. Makes sense, considering it was started by a nationalist Serb assassin.
>suppose they could invade america, if they win that is.
That would be quite a feat, but it really depends on how apocalyptic this scenario is. Crossing the ocean has always sounded very difficult to me without, for example, a very good understanding of boats, which might not have survived the apocalypse unless this faction leader is an outright savant.

>>50563295
>in works ABOUT WW1
doesnt mean i cant apply this idea to a post-apocalyptic society?

>>50563384
>doesnt mean i cant apply this idea to a post-apocalyptic society?
Of course it doesn't! I didn't intend to suggest anything like that at all. If anything, it was an endorsement of the idea because it fits thematically with the faction's WWI stuff.
In short: go for it, that sounds cool!

>>50563295
>>50563396
>in the trenches
>barbarian (canadian) hordes hammering down with captured mortar cannons
>stroke personal photo of the great leader
>sergeant turns on radio
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hI0qMtdfng
>song plays on loop for the whole night

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I'm attempting a project where all of the group's members contribute suggestions for a homebrew fantasy setting's races, cultures, and other setting details so they can have more of an involved hand in the world and their own character. Everything's getting filtered through myself and co-GM, but I'd like anyone willing to be as involved as possible, and feel a good place to start is to get a framework together so the less experienced writers in the group can still contribute as they'd want.
Since we're starting with races and building the setting back from there, what are good key points I should ask for each one so we can really get good direction to dig into the details of life? Ex
>Height and weight
>Coloration and builds
>Names
>Common beliefs/religions
>Civilization structures (warrens, tribes, caravans, villages, feudal monarchy, oligarchy, theocracy, etc)
>Celebrations
>Culinary traditions
>Common expressions or turns of phrase
>Development cycle
>Courtship
>Language composition
You know, things that you can then extrapolate to get to the nitty-gritty interesting nuggets. Like a hardy race that lives underground and can digest some substances there others find poisonous, leading to their food being overspiced to the point of disgust or outright hazardous to outsiders since it appeals to the natives' dulled taste sufficiently.

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any suggestions?

>>50565591
a few islands.

>>50558560
What am I looking at?

So, this is a weird question, because its kind of a mix of /wbg/ and /gdg/. Anyway, I'm working on a wargame, and while I have ideas for 7 factions, I'm planning on starting with 4 and then expanding. I've got 3 down as must-haves and the last one is set between 2 different ones, and I'm trying to decide which one would be the better choice from a gameplay aspect and from a setting aspect.

The setting is Hellgate: London, more or less. Demons invade the earth, everyone gets their shit kicked in, and now its a decade later and humanity's pushing back.

The 3 factions are 2 human ones; the Knights Templar, power armored best of the best, and the Cabalists, scientists and arcanists that believe in fighting fire with fire; and the demons. Templars are elite, Cabalists are a ranged faction with heavy firepower but with average stats and armor, the demons are hybrid ranged and melee with weirder models.

The 2 I'm trying to decide between are the Cults of the Damned and the Morlocs. The Cults are the collection of lunatics, demon worshipping cults, and opportunistic warlords that are taking advantage of the chaos. Morlocs are mutant feral humans created by the disaster that brought demons into the world. Both represent horde playstyles, with Cults being more ranged, while the Morlocs are almost pure melee. From a mechanics stand-point, the Morlocs bring a better contrasting playstyle, but I feel that the Cults are a better representation of the setting and story. Though the Morlocs also show a less demon-centric view of the threats and changes to the world.

>>50556656
"Racism was not a problem on the DIscworld, because - what with trolls and dwarfs and so on - speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green."

-T. Pratchett.

>>50565591
Your rivers are backwards. Generally speaking, rivers join up as they flow downstream, they don't split up

>>50566330
Ah, like how racists aren't homophobic since racism is more interesting.

>>50567983
I wonder if speciesists would be called "Orcophobes" or "Elvaphobes" in-setting, even if the hatred doesn't arise from fear? Like in real life

>>50568020
Just like with homophobia, you can almost invariably expect the most popular way will be the wrong way

>>50568078
What's the right way for homophobia? Asking for a friend.

>>50568078
So hatred of Elves/Dwarves/etc would be a phobia, and fear of pillaging/raping Orcs would be an ism?

>>50568104
>>50568105
A fear of non-raping/pillaging orcs would usually be a phobia.

A fear of raping and pillaging Elves/Dwarves would be a rational -ism.

>>50568161
and I forgot to mention, Fear =/= Hatred. Homophobia, in an accurate and literal sense, doesn't exist in any appreciable way.

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>>50534346

I've got a question!

I'm currently fleshing out my +not!Hell+ it's people, it's cultures, it's arts & crafts, and cooking and there's one thing that's sticking out for me:

-In Hell almost EVERYTHING alive is made out of flesh; simply put: there are almost no plants, it rains blood, and the entire biosphere is composed almost entirely of MEAT, FLESH, & BONE.

-Every other resource though is fair game: cut into the layer of skin growing on the ground, peel it back and you'll reveal standard earth & rock. Hell if anything is actually quite RICH in precious metals, fossil fuels, and other such resources.

So how would the almost complete absence of things like Wood, Vegetables, and Plant Fibre effect.. everything?

>>50563295
You could have it so that while the leader has taught them some stuff they have to break into an old war museum to get uniforms and stuff for the crafters benefit

>>50568458
>if anything [it] is actually quite RICH in precious metals, fossil fuels, and other such resources.
>So how would the almost complete absence of things like Wood, Vegetables, and Plant Fibre effect.. everything?
Well, for starters, fossil fuels are made up of decomposed wood, vegetables, plant and animal fiber, so that at least would not be present beneath the... skin.

What do Dwarves in your world use as cavalry?

>>50568515
>Well, for starters, fossil fuels are made up of decomposed wood, vegetables, plant and animal fiber, so that at least would not be present beneath the... skin.


Wasn't that only the case with our world because we briefly went through a period where Trees were the dominant species?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but if it was 24/7 flesh I'd assume it'd pick up the slack?

>>50568515
>animal fiber,
There you go.

Coal is mostly plant matter, animal and single cell stuff ends up as Oil, Natural gas, and Kerogen

>>50569324
So less coal, more oil. Seems straightforward enough.

>>50568458
Well, depending on other things, there's obviously going to have to be some weird system in place to supply oxygen without plants. It's also probably going to smell really weird.

>>50568930
>Dwarves
>Cavalry
There has never been an instance in history of Dwarves using such a thing. 9 times out of 10, they're defending a fortress or utilizing a phalanx formation.

>>50569373
>>50569373
>So less coal, more oil. Seems straightforward enough.
This assumes of course that there is large piles of flesh that do not decay normally. large piles of flesh generally get eaten by something.

>>50569398
What's the other 1 time?

>>50569502
We don't talk about that time. It involved lots and lots of Undead

>>50556656
I'm gonna play devil's lawyer and say that racism would be the same if not bigger. Comments like >>50566330 are massive bullshit based on wishful thinking and optimism. In reality, whites would hate blacks even more because they look more like drows and are therefore "less human". Other races would exploit and feed intra-human racism from the shadows in order to keep us separated, specially if they're newcomers and conflicts between different humans are older than the arrival of the aliens.

It's literally what happened every time in history and it was almost always too late when the group joined together and rebelled against the external foe.

But you can do what Terry did if you, unlike me, don't feel that political correctness actively harms those who suffer racism.

>>50569686
>tfw include a nation that has closet super-racism, equating nearly all non-Us intelligent species with fodder-tier Demi-Humans
It's always more offensive if the races produce viable offspring.

>>50549068
Gnomes are a barbaric demi-human race created from a persistent counter-culture against the now-extinct colossi who made slaves from humans, of which Gnomes and all other demi-human races owe heritage to. The first "gnome" tribe was a clan of humans who refused to leave the land of their enslavement and instead promoted and eventually invoked the complete genocide of their former masters. Unlike Dwarves, who shrunk because they better suited their cramped environment and persistent hard work ethic, Gnomes were rendered little due to self-inflicted eugenics to make themselves shorter, and thus socially and physically growing more and more distant from the concept of their former masters. They prowl the Forbidden Forest that divides the Human Realm and the Old Land of Giants, ensuring no one could ever find inspiration from those who enslaved the children of the gods.

Alternatively, Carapacians are bug-folk that have escaped the definition of "demi-human" and become simply "humanoid" due to intense evolution and interaction with magical materials. Many humans escaped the slavery of the Giants by digging down during their service, not waiting for any uprising. They feared the Giants would dig after them if they were found, so they kept digging, and digging, and digging. Eventually they dug into the Underworld, the giant cavern made into a plane of afterlife where sinners go to be corrected from their sinful ways, as well as where heretics are sent to suffer. These escaped slaves conquered the Underworld, but shortly after fell into feudalism as they argued how to live their lives now that they are finally free. Their division enabled the Underworld to largely return to normal, save for the occasional bug city. Carapacian physique varies wildly, as their exoskeleton has the alchemical property to change mass and size. Metamorphisis is an ability only the wisest and most dedicated carapacians can perform often.

>>50569686
I would think it would be like the Irish.

Before blacks came to the north, the Irish where the shit in the north. Once blacks starting showing up in numbers in the great migration, suddenly the Irish became "white" and accepted.

What sort of religions do you guys use in your not!Arabia countries? Trying to figure out the religion for my ARABIAN NIGHTS country in my setting.

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>>50545404
You've got Spain and Portugal to be pushed around by Germany into helping form an UEA-IAT alliance

And I'm sure the UEA would love keeping their space space center, as much as the IAT would love having access to it and UEA's tech, more so since the GUSA and the JAAN is fucking up IAT's economy.

Plus, ou start getting some extra conflict, as you drag the GUSA and UEA into conflicting objectives and possibly even war, with the JAAN joining in too.
And since the enemies of my enemies are my allies the USSR will probably support the EUA side.

So we've got the GUSA and JAAS, with advanced tech, strong economy and a strong army.
Then we've got the IAT resources, UEA tech and USSR army.

The there's the CAS: easy access to the UEA, and the mediterranean, as well as oleoducts heading for the UEA southern states. Where the GUSA to sway them to their side, it'd lose the disadvantage of having the IAAT uncomfortably near, and it'd affect a portion of the UEA's industry while the USSR works on bringing their own oleoducts deeper into europe..

Meanwhile the RI and PRGC are both a huge pool of soldiers and a wall beetween the USSR and JAAN; gaining access to these countries, as well having their support to stealthily transport troops to the enemy bordder would be a tremendous surprise strike. Given the divide between the PRGC and the JAAS, it's clear they'd rather help the USSR, and RI doesn't exactly have a peaceful history with Pakistan, now USSR controlled, so they'll probably side with the JAAN

Were the GUSA to lose control of the CAS, the UEA would have easy access to the Indic through the Suez Canal, so gaining control of the JSNI is pretty damn important too (and not too hard since they've apparently been expulsed by the USSR).

With neither the Suez Canal nor the Panama Canal accesible to the UEA (Panama by virtue of being past GUSA controlled Caribbean) the only access left to the Indic is South Africa.

It's like a match made in heaven.

>>50570452
So remind me again why the USSR and the UEA would ally? Don't Russia and Germany hate each other?

>>50570491
Mostly for the oportunity to fuck up the GUSA I'd say, pretty sure Russia hates the US more than it hates Germany. What will happen once the UEA and USSR take the GUSA and JAAN out of the picture anyway?

If the CAS were to have an absolutely accidental diplomatic "mishap" with the USSR, the UEA would have no choice but to depend on the USSR's oleoducts and rebuild their infrastructure into doing so.

It would be a pity if something were to happen to those russian oleoducts. Maybe the newly acquired chinese friend will help Russia "help" Germany?

>What will happen once the UEA and USSR take the GUSA and JAAN out of the picture anyway?
Assuming both countries can take out the military and technology powerhouse that is the JAAN as well as fight a prolonged land war in the GUSA, I will assume an unstable peace treaty would be created between the leadership in Moscow and Berlin. Especially after an all out world war between the world superpowers.
>Maybe the newly acquired chinese friend will help Russia "help" Germany?
I doubt that the Chinese would help Russia, considering they turned their backs to China during the Civil War. There's also the matter of China aiding Germany, a country who they have bad blood with.

>>50570678
Meant to reply to>>50570630

>>50569398
I'd imagine dwarves would have a very hard time against mounted units then, especially nomadic raiders.

>>50570120
I have used Islam, a three way struggle between the !snake cult, the !moon cult, and the !solar Cult.

the other ideas didn't work well.

>>50570678
The plan here is to force the UEA-IAT vs GUSA war and the USSR-PRGC vs JAAN war so you can have the UEA depend on you and the PRGC start trusting you by helping the recover their rightful clay stolen by the JAAN.

Then, start fuck up the UEA's oil supply and attack. China having bad blood with Germany is just a plus when trying to get them to help invade Europe

>>50570829
My Dwarves are molepeople. The closest thing to "nomadic raiders" are the Giants on the undiscovered continent.

>Humans are the canonically shitty species
>They're a type of humanoid chimera, explaining why they can create crossbreeds with most intelligent species
>Doppelgangers and Mimics are failed experiments that attempted to duplicate the creation of Humans
>clumsy; motor functions do not come naturally to them. Human or Half-Human infants are immobile for longer than that of other species
>highly adaptable; easily grasp new concepts; capable of the largest variety of spellcasting
r8

>>50570837
Just straight islam or !islam?

>>50571017
I used Islam. The world idea is that a number of races/cultures where seeded on a planet, and then every 1000 years most cultures where "wiped" and the world was reseeded. It meant that a lot of ruins existed.

>>50570892
I think it's worth noting that the PRC has the majority of China's natural resources now, as well as being allied with Japan and Korea. The main issue is the USSR, which can be helped by the the UEA sending supplies to the JAAN. The IAT can stage a prolonged land war with the GUSA (which is easy due to the landscape and strategical geography of South and Central America). I can imagine the UEA/IAT vs GUSA war becoming prolonged since the UEA would probably support their Asian allies. Given the UEA's position geographically, it would be difficult for them to provide direct military support. The bloodier and more direct war would be the USSR/PRGC vs JAAN war, with the UEA giving logistical and limited military support, if any.

>>50571136
wait why is the UEA helping the JAAN now

>>50571211
Because it benefits them militarily, economically, and politically?

>>50571228
But wasn't the JAAN fucking up the IAT too?

>>50571241
That was assuming that the UEA and USSR would team up to take out the GUSA and JAAN though. Realistically it would just be a war between the IAT and the GUSA with the UEA providing limited support. Plus, a lot of the time nations will fuck over their allies to get them in better positions, be it militarily, economically, or politically.

>>50570452
Yep, at the very least the UEA would keep their spaceport in south America.

>>50571298
>the UEA
>having a spaceport in GUSA-controlled territory
Even if they had it Brazil, that would be intruding in JAAN (especially Japanese) influenced territory.

>>50570955
>a salty elf wrote this
Still, neat.

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>>50571408
>Elves are still second-shittiest, even compared to shitty chimera Humans

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>>50571435
>they're second-shittiest because chimera Humans are partially based on Elves

>>50571344
Europe spaceport is built in French territory in south america. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Space_Centre

Due to its location it viewed as a key strategic location by France.

>>50571292
Honestly I'd see it more as an IAT vs GUSA and IAT vs JAAN, since both GUSA and JAAN have interests there, and so does the UEA, thus bringing in some light aid. The UEA-USSR teamup would come as an offer by the USSR to the UEA to further USSR agenda, and the USSR riling up the PRGC into reclaiming the PRC would require such a team-up first.
Like you said, it's the PRC (and therefre JAAN) that has kept most of the resources, so the PRGC is powerless without USSR help. And the USSR wont' drag itself into that if it can't benefit from it by gaining the ability to fuck the UEA later on.

So, no team up means no USSR vs JAAN war, and all UEA aid to the JAAN going against the IAT...

Alright, I think I see it. The UEA helping the JAAN might have the JAAN let the UEA use their space center at IAT territory, more so if they can help sway the GUSA-JAAN balance of power over the IAT tip to the JAAN's side. But the IAT doesn't really have the resources to start the war on their own without aid, and having the UEA help the IAT start the war then abandoning them and knocking on the JAAN's door wont' really inspire trust for later deals, unless the UEA and JAAN were in cahoots to begin with... Which wasn't really the case. You'd need one side to be in need of help, and the other to be willing to aid so as to further their agenda.

The detonator must come from another nation. A likely candidate would be the PRGC, wanting the JAAN to exert themselves in an IAT-JAAN war so as to take back the PRC, but they probably lack the resources to even pretend to aid the IAT. I mean, the IAT would probably laugh at the offer of the PRGC's help in starting a war. Same for JSRNI, RSA and quite probably CAS.
Since thee USSR only benefits from an involved UEA the only detonator left must be the RI.b ut why?

I had an idea to have the main Elven faction in a setting still be near their peak of power. Anyone else have experience with Elves who *aren't* a fallen race? Anything to look out for?

>>50572592
I'm doing something similar for Elves in my setting, though the way I handled it is that they're so good with magic that they can just make an invisible utopia and not need to deal with anything.

I think that is basically how you have to handle elves that haven't had any sort of tragic fall or become a dying race yet. They need to be off doing their own thing and just be aloof outsiders that nobody can really threaten. Having them be more active or down to earth but still super powerful will just make them feel like obnoxious mary sues.

>>50572634
I was aiming for Elves = 13th Century Holy Roman Empire.

Uh, that might not work so well considering what you said.

>>50572699
As far as I'm concerned, if you want a powerful empire the be an active part of your setting, it can't be much more powerful than the surrounding entities, because empires have a tendency to expand until they can't anymore.

>>50561825
>what do you mean by traditional fantasy? Tolkien-esque? Mythological?
Just the standard RPG bad caricature of Tolkein

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Hey guys what are fairies? Like do you have a single fairy race, or do they encompass multiple races? I really want my world to have dark medieval fairies, but I'm not sure what the right approach is.

>>50572943

Fairies are ayy lmao assholes

Occasionally a nice one will come by on vacation, but they're basically like the guests at Westworld

>>50572943
I have Fairies as essentially the smaller pixies and creatures that serve larger Fae entities that are more akin to weird elves.

If you want to do dark medieval Fae, it'd say it's more a matter of just getting across that degree of terror well, which can be hard to do in a tabletop game, especially ones where the party is so good at murdering things.

I'd say the key is to treat them a bit like vampires or werewolves in terms of how they're viewed. People are instinctively afraid of them, people fear becoming them or being beguiled by them, and if one is on their doorstep people will huddle in the corner with something they heard drives them away.

Ideally, a better way to do it might be to have it so that dark faeries are rarely, if ever, seen, and it's mostly by the aftereffects and deeds that people recognize them.

I'm bored and want to flesh out my setting; anything like the Ethnographical Questionnaire /wbg/ can point me to?

>>50568930
Other dwarves

>>50568930
In the times before the fall of the old kingdoms, they used war chariots drawn by horses. After the Exodus they don't use cavalry, preferring guerrilla tactics when fighting on the surface, whic is an incredibly rare ocurrence anyway.

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>>50534346
Why the BBEG would want to crush the moon against Earth? alá Majora's Mask style.

>>50575989
Long ago, the Goddess of the Earth and her beloved lived in happiness, frolicking among the magma and enjoying the years together.

But then, disaster struck, an accident nobody could predict. A rock, from deep space, smashed into the Earth, gravely wounding the Goddess and separating her from her beloved. Grief stricken and in terrible pain, the Goddess could do nothing but watch her beloved orbit her, so near yet so far away.

Millenia of separation have not tempered her love, and now that she is finally healing and regaining her former power, she cannot wait any longer to be reunited with her beloved.

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>>50576042
I really liked the idea , thanks! But I dont come with an idea of an intrinsecally bad guy wanting to do this.
Your Goddess wants to reunite with her lover, and despite its a shit for the inhabitants of Earth, her isn't intrinsecally bad for doing this.
I really liked the idea and I might use it or some parts, tho. thanks!

>>50538212
India works with SEA, not Japan.
If anything, India would aquire them.
Also,
>p*kistan still existing
NUKE.

>>50575989
>>50576042
What if the goddes is actually evil? What if we live in a world that actually doesn't want us to live in? That can be the cause of the missfortunes the PCs are experiencing, the spawn of the monsters, etc.

>>50576106
>>50576248
I think that i'm begining to like this. Maybe -like in majora- the BBEG isn't bad, its only being used by the mask of the goddes for returning (i.e. crashing) the moon to the Earth. If you don't like the 'bad goddess' idea, How about that the mask was created using the anger and grief of the goddess, and now i'ts a separated entity?

>>50576639
>>50576639
>>50576639
new
>>50576639
>>50576639
>>50576639

>>50572592
I'm making elves as an ascendant, relatively "new" species on the planet. All of the other races have been around since prehistory but the elves show up right around the beginning of it.

>>50572943
There are multiple kinds of fairies, so you should have multiple.