Worldbuilding General #177 - Book Edition

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I need a symbol thats a super simplification of a wolf. The faction im trying to create is all about the 'order' as a cohesive, almost family unit.

>>50774196
What do you want though? You could just make one out of triangles, or out of blobs like Destiny. Or google Abstract Wolf Symbol.

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>>50774196
do something like this. a group of strokes resembling a wolf head and mane

>>50775309
>>50775221
Thanks dudes.

>>50774076
I have a problem /tg/.

I have no idea what to do with my dwarves.
Here's the deal, most races in my setting have an "inner" problem, and an "external" problem.

Humans have problems with political and social strife, in turn this has caused them to lose ground to other races and events.

Orcs are struggling to see if their cultural heritage is of any "true" value and if they need to either reclaim, evolve or abandon their roots while being subjugated by other races and factions

Elves are going at it with a 3 way civil war with no end in sight, and are too busy killing each other in the mountains and the forests to focus their efforts to stop demons from raping them

Fae are struggling to figure out the rapidly advancing technology of other races, while facing division over the bloodlines oftheir kingdoms.

Beastmen and golems, being both artificial races are simply trying to find their place in the world around them.

but im drawing a blank on dwarves, they are meant to be clans, each with an specialization, some of them like living in mountains, others associate with other races and sell their engineering services to them. but im not sure what else to make of them

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>>50775499
bump

>>50775499
>they are meant to be clans, each with an specialization
Easy. Dwarven society is stale and in stasis. As they develop, internationalism/globalism starts to cause division within a society that is naturally caste-focused. The Dwarves are entering a global marketplace as a traditionalist conservative state and find that doesn't serve them well anymore so many are just tossing the whole thing while others hold onto the old ways for power or because they're too old to get with the times.

External could be an imperialistic foreign policy leading them to conflict with literally everyone at some point.

>>50775623
Hold your fucking horses. This is a slow general by nature, so be patient,

>>50775499
Why even include dwarves then?

>>50775860
Got to keep the "big 5" or else stupid people get confused and upset.

but for real, its because i like dwarves

>>50775910
Don't you mean the big 3? I kept humans and elves, but I got rid of dwarves and replaced them with gnomes. And I made the gnomes sort of like chimapanzees, with stronger arms for their small stature, and thus more athleticism than being rocks.

>>50776239
big 5 IS big 3, plus orcs and gnomes/halflings, i just replaced the latter with fairies

Whats a good replacement symbol for stars on a flag?

>>50776481
What does the symbol represent?

>>50776559
It needs to go alongside a crown, so maybe something to represent willingness to fight, power, protection, justice etc.

>>50776611
swords sound like a good option, lions or towers too

>>50776622
Im looking almost for a counterpart to the stars and stripes thing. The idea is that kingdom really wants to push patriotism to rile people up for the coming battles. How about swords and swirls? (Swirl being the triskellion)

>>50776849
10/10 its shit. go for it champ

>>50776856
Whys it shit?

>>50776894
its an expression, its a good idea

>>50776947
Oh sweet thanks.

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>>50776970
Arrangement of icons maybe could sue some adjustment. Only other thing i can think of would be 'crown and crystals'

>>50775499
>Humans
Europe

>Orcs
Africans and african-americans

>Elves
Islam

>Demons
United States

>Fae
China

>Beastmen and golems
Gypsies and jews, respectively.

Just make buckwheat-farming, vodka-drinking russian dwarves while you're at it.

>>50777236
You're an idiot.

>>50777338
My bad, russia is europe.

So, kangaroo-wrestling mad cunt 'strayan dorfs?

>>50777338
Taking current issues and racial stereotypes and assigning them to fantasy races is so overdone that it deserves to get called out. Anyone with the crappiest reading capability could see through that one. You're just a salty dork who needs to realize their writing is shit.

>>50777396
kek.
the thing is that i had races subdivided in subgroups, and each subgroup is then associated with a different faction, its not just a matter of pointing at a race and saying "europeans" beyond the paintjob the have

Now, if you tried classifying factions as historical superpowers, now that might be more accurate

>>50777496
answer me this, why did i call him an idiot?

>>50777585
>the thing is that i had races subdivided in subgroups, and each subgroup is then associated with a different faction, its not just a matter of pointing at a race and saying "europeans" beyond the paintjob the have

So, we should read your mind over the internet? :^)

>>50777732
No?
if you want i can go on about this to keep it on topic but my initial reaction was more in line with not understanding how elves could be islamic, why demons are the USA, or how beastmen and golems could be gypsies and jews.

When naming subraces for play, do you go with an easy label along with the race name, like the D&D standard, or do you try for unique names?

>>50776352
Yeah but Orcs and Halflings aren't really critical to the PCs. Most people don't pick Orcs.

>>50777928
both.
They call themselves a unique name. But everyone else calls them a simpler one when they arent looking.

>>50778202
I mean in the context of the metagame.

>>50778240
thats another matter, i make it simple so long as you can tell them appart.

So, I'm building a gothic setting for tabletop game and I'm having some problems with the iconic gothic monsters, vampires.
I've round up some ideas, like adding vampires based on leeches and mosquitos to the common bat vampires bit I can't find any good explanation for their differences.

Any ideas?

>>50775499
Dwarven sages have exposed an infiltration at the highest echelons by [demons, mind flayers, whatever] that goes so deep and so far back that many dwarves are starting to worry that the entire history of their race going back centuries is just one giant long con. What if they were *meant* to lose that war just so the Dark Power that's been controlling them could shift a pawn in the game it's playing? Where are the dwarven gods in all this? Are they, too, a lie dreamed up for the deception of dwarfkind? Do I even have free will? What if I mine this ore? Will that serve their dark plan? What if NOT mining this ore serves their dark plan? Can anything my clan leader says be trusted?

>>50778816
Different sources of vampirism, perhaps? Like, one got it from worshipping swamp gods, another got it through magic ritual, etc.

Or maybe it's just based on bloodlines.

So, so I got this idea. It's a bad idea.

Let's say that first of all you give everyone the power to create, not like build something, but visualize something and it become real. This comes from the soul and shit, and one's body is simply the soul creating a vessel for itself. Everyone can think and make things, like dolls/furniture/etc. Visualization is the key. Now, lets say that the ONLY things around are things people created like this. An endless void with little floating islands of communities of people making things.

No air our there, so you gotta have people create shits and air for themselves to travel between. navigation is hard because it is subjective spacing with no fixed reference points.

Now lets say people can't create life because their soul is already creating the life that is themselves, creating life kills the other life one has created. Creation of life and the economy of organics is what people really cling to.

Upon death what ever a person is current making sticks around. In sickness and old age people will create organic matter to commit ritual suicide and give back to their community.

So kid lives in a small community, many buildings attached together in the void, and dreams of travelings. So he wants to become one of the folks that make their own barges and travels around. Except it's more dangerous than just travel (also you gotta have multiple people because when you sleep everything but the soul's creation of its own body shuts off, so you need minimum 3 in 8 hour shifts). Material gods exist in the void. People who live alone, often madmen, who create their own words and mockeries of life. Puppets they control to mimmic the living.

Shit mang, this might be a dumb idea.

>>50780127
Just like how Russia and china have their own, different HIV subtypes.

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Just want to give a quick thanks to the dudes that actually critique and spend time to read peoples shit.

You guys make the world go round.

>>50780198
Sounds like the kind of setting you need to be incredibly high to be able to work on.

>>50780198
I dunno, I think it sounds pretty dope.

I've had super high-concept ideas before (few quite as high-concept as this) and I've wound up integrating them in bits and pieces into later projects. It's worth developing this even if that's all that becomes of it.

And if it does stick around, well, you'll have something really cool and unique to call your own.

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So does anyone have any resources for designing human races and ethnic groups?

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How often are you inspired by scenic pics?

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>>50774076
Yo, some links you may like:

http://pastebin.com/0gG8Lwgy

>How to deliver a cavalry charge
>Eating corpses as medicine
>Draconic ghost-gods from Hawaii
>Medieval aerial ropeways
>Etc etc etc.

How do you make a kingdom tenacious fighters, but relative to their neighbors poorer equipment?

>>50790033
Germanic barbarians who are nominally ruled by an elected king?

>>50790033
Easy. Have conscription on country that is mostly compromised of farmers and very little wealth, with a history of wars and a culture that values tenacity over everything else. For real life example, Finland during the winter war.

>>50790033
They only have access to copper and some other metals like tin and zinc, but not iron. Or they have iron but don't have forges advanced enough to make steel for whatever reason. Or they can make steel but it's not very high quality. Something along those lines.

>>50790153
Fantasy example: Re-Estize in Overlord.

>>50790972
>shitty feudal kingdom vs glorious empire in an almost yearly war
>empire has a professional military
>kingdom conscripts cannon fodder peasants during the harvest
>Local Lich ruins everything, routes both armies

>>50791016
>>50790972
Do they ever explain why Re-Estize even exists as a kingdom and isn't just a bunch of feuding principalities or hasn't been conquered by literally anyone else?

>>50791086
I don't think the worldbuilding has established that yet. Ainz is well on his way to conquering it as-is, and it's only been around for ~400 years (presumably).

What's needed for a good Dying Earth fantasy setting? Kicking around the idea of a setting where the gods either died or up and left, and now the world is drying up on magic. I've got your survivor sanctuary, cannibal Dwarves, Elves trying to get the fuck out, and the barbarians hordes smashing everything they find to suck out the last of the magic.

>>50791016
Fucking liches, man.

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My world is a realistic space setting where humanity is a type one civilization and has colonized the solar system. Interplanetary travel is possible, but only in ships that aren't capable of atmospheric flight. I'm trying to keep my space station designs as plausible as possible and I'm currently trying to figure out what a spacedock would look like - does anyone know of anyone who has put some serious thought into this before? right now I'm picturing a rotating wheel space station built around a space elevator with a few dozen individual docks on spokes coming off the wheel, but it seems like that would be impractical since that would mean that the docks would be rotating too.

>>50795101
How about just an extra large space station in orbit? And I think building the dock section at the end of the station, at the center of its axis if you're gonna rotate it, would be the best option. Zero gravity means you don't have to build cranes or walkways everywhere, the actual ship itself can be just held by clamps, it'd generally just be easier on everybody.

>>50795101
How about a cluster of stations rather than a single structure? You could have the central civilian ring built around the space elevator and many docking stations built separately around it. Crew and cargo could be transported to and from the space elevator via small, short range transport craft and each docking station could be run by a different private corporation.

>>50774076
Ian Mortimer's Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval Century England, probably one of the best non-fiction books I've read/listened to. Gave me a ton of ideas.

Get the audiobook if you can, the narrator is crazy good

>>50795546
Medieval England*, not Medieval Century England

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reposting this from the Discord because I am in desperate need of attention

The Chikka are manifestations of "auras" of magic that tend to be much more ambitious than the other magical spirits. They used to be a bunch of douchey hedonistic pieces of shit that fucked some primates and created corporeal beings. The Zulo Heiri were a race directly descended from Zul, a Chikka spirit that is still alive at the time of the story that I'm focusing on for this setting. They are the ancestors of the Orcs, Goblins and Dwarves, which were formed from magical mutation after a series of cataclysmic magical events that wiped out the Zulo Heiri. The unknown hominids that are the ancestors of the Fae and the Humans are thought to be either the descendants of Mudjwim, a sagely Chikka spirit infamous in folklore for his harems formed of Zul and the other Chikka's daughters and his own primates, or the descendants of Rum id Illi, the Masked One in folk legend. He was mostly a mysterious figure, known mainly for his conflicts and blood feuds with the other Chikka spirits, and also for a series of mass pillaging and raping of primate colonies.They were nearly wiped out by a single cataclysmic magical event caused by a huge war between 2 Chikka factions. The details of this war are relatively unknown thanks to the fact that almost everybody involved in it died during it.

cont.

>>50795618
chikki* i'm fucking retarded

Anyways, Gnomes are the result of a slightly separated group of the Zulo Heiri being assimilated by a joint Dwarf-Fae melting pot.

Fast forward to le ebin current year, a decade ago, a prophecy was etched onto sacred stone that Zul, who is still worshipped by most of the Zulo Heiri successor races, will wipe out his descendants in a fit of paranoia, while leaving a select few alive for their special skills. Their families would not survive his rampage, however. One of them would slay him with a special bone that I will describe later when I feel like elaborating on this shit. Nobody knows who inscribed this, but since they had been able to inscribe it onto sacred stone, it was now destined to happen. Zul could never know of this prophecy, and if anybody did try to communicate it to him in any way, they just couldn't. This resulted in him getting more paranoid, which fucking freaked out his descendants, which in turn made him even more paranoid, which made his descendants even more fucking freaked out. Repeat this again and again, with cults formed to either be the elite few that survived or to desperately defend themselves against Zul.

cont.

>>50795808
HOWEVER, there is one lone hero that will rise during these harrowing times. One that will embark on a journey to achieve the possible. One that will gather like minded heroes in order to destroy the prophecy, and destroy Zul with the special bone. He will save his people from their own ancestor.

That's it so far. Ask me if you're confused about any shit. I'm sure this reads like rambling anyways.

>>50795618
>>50795808
>>50795831
FUCK, forgot about the Chikki experimenting on and killing a quarter million corporeals in order to splice and create mutants for their own interests. They then got nearly wiped out by a chimp out by the corporeals. Zul nearly died in this uprising, and temporarily even changed his identity in between hiding from roaming bands of corporeals rooting out Chikki spirits to destroy. This can be considered the root of his paranoia. It also forever changed the Chikki, who had been seemingly powerful and arrogant before the uprising. It's also why they're listed as endangered in the races chart

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FTL travel produces a natural gravitational force which, when properly controlled, creates comfortable artificial gravity inside a starship. This gravity will exist as long as the ship is moving FTL, but must be carefully monitored to prevent it from crushing the ship and the crew into a fine paste. Since ships can't go FTL in most gravity wells, artificial gravity disappears in a planets orbit.

What are the implications?

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Been a while since I've posted any progress. Never use pencil to colour a map /tg/. Everytime I look at this is just see faded colours and disappointment. Think I'm gonna stick to black and white next time

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Planet Gethsemane
>What happened?
A bunch of colonists met with a series of unfortunate events that resulted in only the colonists, their environmental hardsuits and a bare minimum of supplies being dropped on a planet that wasn't that great in the first place. They took what they had and ran with it but became isolated and paranoid despots living in city states that greedily eye each other for their resources and territories.

>What's the planet like?
Gethsemane is deemed 'inhospitable' due to its atmospheric pressure, unsuitable atmosphere and geological features viewed as unstable. Despite this, the planet has a diverse range of unmarred environments that to the naive would be considered picturesque. Additionally Gethsemane is rich in surface level chemical elements and ores found in abundance. The weather of Gethsemane is turbulent and very difficult to predict but along the relatively stable equator, muggy and stifling heat is met with drizzly intermittent rains with coastal regions suffering caustic showers periodically as the oceans boil from underground chemical vents. Some areas of Gethsemane are too environmentally unsound to navigate and all attempts to even map these areas is an impossibility due to electromagnetic interference. Most signs point to these areas having been caused by a malfunctioning Terraforming project initiated by the colonists ship prior to their planetfall.

I'm having trouble deciding what is imported and what is exported out of the countries of my medieval fantasy setting. What sort of trade went on in the middle ages internationally?

>>50797228
Herbs and spices.

Antiquities, relics and literature from religious circles

Turkish delights.

Slaves.

Just found this:
http://monastic.org/orth/

It's a dictionary/grammar guide to the fictional language of Orth from Neal Stephenson's Anathem.

>>50797694
>Herbs and spices
Yeah, but those are traded in small quantities at the market and they're perishible so they don't last long and you can't order them in huge quantities. Plus, they're rare, which means there's never that much of it.

>Antiquities and religious relics
Was this a thing in the Middle Ages? Seems more like a Renaissance thing.

>Turkish Delights
Like what? Metal jewelry and dinnerware?

>Slaves
I guess, but there aren't many slaves in my setting.

>>50797957
Turkish Delights are a Narnia meme.

>>50798313
You mean white pussy?

>>50797957
>Turkish Delights
>Like what? Metal jewelry and dinnerware?
Niggah it's a sweet treat. Rosewater candy basically.

Also the perishing of spices is highly dependent on the spice, you'd see things with longer shelf lifes thrown about more. Also don't forget that after a certain point (though I honestly forget if this was still medieval or the end of it), spices began to be looked down upon by the aristocracy as they became more and more available to poor people, and it became all the craze to eat food naturally plain (at least in the British isles, which is why so much of their food is boring to this day).

>>50798466
Dude goes full Judas for it, so probably.

>>50797694
>>50797957
>Herbs and spices
One of the side-effects of having my not!ImperialRome, not!CatholicRome, and not!Aachen all connected by wormholes is that imported spices from the Beastman regions and the South Shore are incredibly valuable.

>>50791016
>conscripts peasents DURING the harvest
>not before or after
>during
>workers missing at busiest time of year, country starves
sounds like that lich did everyone a favor.

>>50799369
That's the in-setting reason it's a yearly war.

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>>50799369
>did everyone a favor
You have no idea.

>>50798566
>>50798478
What else aside from spices though? What kinds of fabrics other than silk? Did metals get traded internationally, or did they rely on their national mines?

>>50800464
I'd imagine that ore wouldn't be all that popular to trade internationally. That's a lot of weight, and before proper capitalism kicked off countries tried not to just ship raw materials to other countries (you wanted to keep all of your gold/silver and acquire more, not send others raw materials so that they can refine and up the price on completed goods).

However if you had a metal, or the capacity to produce an alloy that another nation could not, the good produced from these materials would be primo.

I know wool was a big fabric to trade, obviously never got the prestige that silk got (which it got because china had a complete monopoly on it until people managed to smuggle live silkworms out of the country). But not everyone keeps sheep.

>>50800464
Cotton, linen, flax were traded around, and papyrus and parchment too.

I know some historians say that the Bronze Age was built on the international trade of copper and tin to forge bronze, but I don't know if that's really realistic.

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>>50797214
>How was it Colonised?
Initial colonisation was an absolute disaster. The ship, after throwing malfunctioning terraforming probes onto Gethsemane's surface, saw the planet as 'hospitable' and ejected its frozen human cargo immediately in a band across the equator. While in the process of queuing up additional colony equipment to send, the ships AI was caught in a solar flare that locked it in a perpetual state of preparation. As the sole link with the rest of civilisation and having never sent the necessary communication devices to the surface, the colonists were on their own. The colonists found life on Gethsemane very difficult but found a small grace in the hardsuits they had been provided. The hardsuits became an essential go-to vehicle for exploration and construction, their enhanced servos and computers providing the raw strength and technological advantage required to survive in such a harsh world along with the modular diversity required to fulfil any role. For a while things were good. Sealed cities (known as Habitats) were constructed and the land around them carved into some semblance of civilisation.

>How is it now?
The natural isolationism the planet demanded of its population fostered paranoia between Habitats. Having already spiralled away into entirely unique customs and practices, belief systems and even languages, the Habitats could no longer be considered unified and instead became a number of individual city states. Currently the major Habitats are eager to expand their territories, choked for land as their populations swell and demand for resources increase. Jostles and minor skirmishes with neighbours has raised tension and with it mercenary pilots have become ever more present in the field of battle as those states without formalised military are forced to defend their sovereignty and independence.

Thoughts, ideas?

I need a vader for my post-apocalyptic Emperor. A badass enforcer whose name spreads terror through the wastes, Any ideas anyone?

>>50800464
My setting ( >>50798566 ) has bio-luminescent silk, cotton, tobacco, and certain metals native to volcanic regions as other major import items.
There's national mines for the cheap stuff, and Gold/Mythril/Deep Metals are all found in the highly efficient Dwarven trade network.

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>>50804871
Do pic related with some fancy armor.

>>50774076
pic related is a pretty good book, fwiw

Whats a British animal that would be good as a big horrid mutant thing? Mutant Badgers, Foxes?

>>50805919
Hedgehog

b-bump

>>50805919
peacock

chicken

lynx

darkling/rhino/stag beetle

slow worm

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/wbg/, how can I make a turn-of-the-20th-century setting interesting without making it basically "our world but with stuff flipped around"?

>>50812137
same tech level, completely different world.
the tech doesn't need to work the same way functionally, it just needs to work the same way on a societal level.

the world is advancing at a rate quicker than politics can keep up.
sweat the minor details and keep the themes.

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"Listen to the wisdom of the Old Ones:

The red world and the blue are brothers. They were born together in the seething maelstrom of dust and gas spinning out from the heart of the vast cloud that was to become Father Sun.

For uncountable time each world was engulfed in endless violence. Monsters roared down out of the sky, pounding the worlds mercilessly in a holocaust of terrible explosions. Under such awesome bombardment there could be no solid ground; the rocks themselves were liquid bubbling magma as the fiery rain from the sky went on and on, blotting out the radiance of the newly bright Father Sun with steaming clouds that covered each world from pole to pole.

Slowly, with the godlike patience of the stars themselves, slowly their surfaces cooled. Solid land took form, bare rock, hard and harsh and lifeless. Worse than the desert where The People live; much worse. There was no tree, no blade of grass, not even a drop of water.

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>>50812541
"Deep below their crusts both worlds were still liquid-hot with the energy of their violent creation. Water trapped beneath the ground boiled up, sweated from the depths like droplets beading a gourd in the heat of summer. The water evaporated into the thin film of atmosphere swaddling each newborn world. Cooling rain began to spatter onto the naked rocks, running into rivulets, streams, raging torrents that gouged rocks out of their paths and tore huge gashes in the land.

On the bigger of the two worlds might oceans grew, filling deep rocky basins with water. The smaller world formed broad shallow lakes, but gradually they faded away into the thin, cold atmosphere or sank out of sight below the surface of the land.

Because of its glistening wide oceans the larger of the two worlds took on a deep blue tint. The smaller world slowly turned into a dusty, windblown desert as its waters sank into its ground. It turned rust-red.

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>>50812629
"Life arose on the blue world, first in the seas and later on the dry land. Gigantic beasts roamed forests and marshes, only to disappear forever. At last The People came to the blue world-First Man and First Woman emerged, standing tall and proud in the bright sunlight. Their children multiplied. Some of them wondered about the world in which they lived and about the stars that dotted the night.

They turned their intelligent eyes to the red gleam in the sky that marked their brother world and wondered what it was. They watched it carefully, and the other stars, too, and tried to understand the workings of the heavens.

To The People, the stars spoke of the endless cycles of the seasons, the time to plant, the time of the rains. The red world held no special fascination for them. They called it merely 'Big Star.'

But to the Anglos, steeped in conquest and killing, whenever their pale eyes turned to the red gleam in the sky that marked their brother world they trembled with thoughts of blood and death. They named the red world after their god of war.

Mars."

- Ben Bova, Mars (1992)

How can I employ western (i.e. wild west) aesthetics in a high fantasy world?

It seems like Western themes rely heavily on guns being powerful and accessible as they're tied to individualism and the ability of a single person to affect the world, but I might just not be creative enough.

Did any of you guys ever get any art commissioned for your world or your campaign?

If so, how'd you go about the process and were you satisfied with the results? Would you do it again?

I suck at drawing, so I was thinking of commissioning drawing of some important locations and historical events for my world, but I'm not sure how to go about it and whether it's a good idea.

>>50814183
To me, the wild west is about that feeling of being on the frontier, away from civilization but that civilization still impacts every aspect of your life.

As for the role of guns, the quote "God created men, but Sam Colt made them all equal" is what springs to mind first and foremost. Guns made every man, regardless of size, potentially dangerous, and enabled small groups to do a lot of damage, as well as to effectively protected themselves, both from the wilderness and from their fellow man, in ways that had never really been possible before. It's not so much about guns being able to affect the world, but guns giving the individual some form of independence from the community.

Also keep in mind another inventions that's arguably more important for the wild west than the gun, and that is the railroad. Fast transport and fast communication is a very, very important advancement.

With that in mind, in a high fantasy world, you could have magic take the place of guns (usually that's the case anyway). You just need to work on the feeling of a lawless frontier still in constant communication with civilization and working mostly for the prosperity of said civilization, or more correctly, the metropolis exploiting the frontier for it's own gains, while providing technology (and people looking to get rich quick) to the frontier.

Had an idea for a civilization/setting.

A great naval empire based around a vast inland sea. Unparalleled in its grandeur, unassailable in force of arms. Then one day the empire commits some sort of blasphemy, and the sea dries up. A century later the ruined cities are centers for the salt trade, situated at the edge of a vast salt-plane. They are wealthy, but always on the verge of starvation.

What does this place look like? What can I flesh it out more with?

>>50795101
>>50795199
>>50795307
The easiest way is a giant box attached to the torus at the axis.
Because most ships might have a standard location for the airlock, but definitely do not have standard hulls, you would park your flying box in a larger box that you then pressurize, allowing you to quickly shift cargo.
If your ship is too big, then bring on the shuttles and you better have an internal hanger.

>>50796135
Well, one, with an FTL limit that small, you never really colonize other planets in the same solar system. And two, it means that dedicated FTL ships are built to handle gravity internally, dedicated orbital ships are built for no gravity, and sto craft will be oriented whichever way they launch and land.

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>>50816565
What does their governance system look like?
Who are they trading with? What kind of relation do they have with them? Transactional? Friendly? Trusted business partners.
What kind of political relations do they have? Alliances? Cold wars? Covert backstabbery?
What naval traditions or quirks still exist in the culture? Such as using wind-powered sailboats on skids to traverse the salt plains.
If they're rich but starving, why don't they import food and preserve it with salt?
Did the sea disappearing impact the climate? How did this have an impact on the people?
What kind of terrain surrounds the former sea? Mountains? Plains? Deserts?

If you keep the name of a real world item with a name in a non-original language, let's say a zweihander in this case, in your original setting, do you ever make reasons as to why it makes sense in this context? Or do you change the name and make a note that it is like the original and that you changed it just to make sense in this context?

>>50820993
>do you ever make reasons as to why it makes sense in this context?
No. That actually makes no sense, really. When you are describing your own world, you are STILL TALKING IN ENGLISH (or whatever your native language is). You are not talking in the fictional language of your fictional world. There is no reason to actually have to explain use of real-world established terminology within the context of your fictional settings. Not unless you actually INTENTIONALLY want to distinguish the in-fiction item from the real-world one. So if your world has it's own special, traditional two hand sword that has some kind of specific, unique properties that distinguish it from zweihander, then it makes sense to change the name too.
Otherwise, it's a pointless waste of time.

>>50820993
Changing names all willy nilly is a great way to confuse and disinterest your readers/players. Especially if the words aren't used with purpose, like say describing an entirely identical item that everyone already knows the name of.

Like are you really going to make up a new word specifically to describe a 2 handed sword? Because that's all zweihander means (or bidenhander if you prefer).

Keep the fancy made up words for things people might give a fuck about or have words for.

>>50804871
Someone like gendys Grievous.

So this nation is supposed to be pretty poor, their military is equipped with the setting equivalent to AK-74s, and RPG-7s, they don't even have standard issue optics for riflemen.

>>50823002
k

>>50774076
Kurlansky does good shit. Cod was excellent.

I'm a big fan of The Art of Not Being Governed, Medieval Underworld, and The Evolution of Human Societies. Together they're a great high level primer of law/chaos as factions in a fantasy setting.

Montaillou, The Great Cat Massacre, and the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue are great sources for sort of getting into the head of a member of the lower classes.

And Joseph and Frances Gies have a pretty good set of books for baseline setting shit. Life in a Medieval City, Castle, and Village are good books. I'll probably be picking up Time Traveler's Guide and/or A Distant Mirror in the near future.

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>>50777059
I suggest researching SCA Heraldry, it is a VERY good resource for worldbuilding in general.
Early Heraldry was simpler so it would be practical on the battlefield. Late period Heraldry became a geneology chart you hung over your fireplace.

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Tell me of your take on Elves

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>>50825400

I've literally never used them.

As it stands I'm running a high fantasy game where players can basically play any sort of biological race they want to though, so I imagine I'll get some elves or something similar at some point.

>>50825400
I'm not using them, but if I did, their immortality and fancy living would cause stagnation and falling out of touch with other races.

>>50825400
They don't become stagnant like most other depictions, they have chaos in their hearts and so they follow the heart's want no matter the cost. Commitments and relationships are fleeting to elves, but never under appreciated. Life is too long to be tied to any one thing forever. Elven families are full of half-siblings as parents fall out of love and separate to bond with others. An elf is likely to know a little bit of everything, but master very little. They live both apart and as part of the world, skirting that line between. Their settlements are between 20-200 elves, and they support their people with enchanted gardens, majestic hunts, and enchanted craft. They love music, magic, and pretty people. They're aristocratic in nature, like their place in nature is that of a noble. This is expressed in it's good aspects with High Elves, and it's bad aspects with Dark Elves. When an elfin child is born the birds in the forest add a new note in their songs. This nobility is extended to human lands, as the aristocrats and nobles there want elves in their circles for the beauty and skill in magic. Elves have a tradition of going out into foreign lands to experience all that life has to offer, those few that return home are honoured.

>>50775499
I went with my dwarfs having slowly lost their favour from their gods. This was due to rapid industrialization in terms of mass production. The Dwarven greed for gold has made them move away from the traditional values and ancient traditions. After all Dwarven are one of the original primordial races of the world.

This means that their ability to use magic has gotten bit more difficult, but those societies still following old ways or those who follow other gods are not effected.

>>50787249
Sometimes, for me it is more about seeing the people who are living somewhere and then imagine how they would build their houses and cities regarding their posture and clothing.

>>50790033
Nation is poor and cannot afford high quality iron/steel for equipment. Cultural reasons like religion or traditions to enforce martial traits.

>>50796450
I like it. While pencils don't make it look very informative, they can give fast information what kind of the environment is.

>>50797228
Everything from logs to stoneware to chickens. People buy and sell everything. I was bit surprised back in the day, how much logs were transported. Hardwood had it's applications.

>>50825400
There is few cultures of them. "Common Elven" are a race made from crossbreed of original humans and elves. They do retain some of their elven heritage, but are quite close to humans otherwise. Several nations of them exist.

"Sea Elven" are more ancient and closer to original primordial elven than others. They were nearly destroyed in civil wars, but survived only because they had numerous colonies all across the world. This had lead to Sea Elven to have multiple different cultures and civilizations.

Both of these main elven races do have continuing bloodlines in their priesthood from the worlds creation. The priesthood resembles the original elven the most with Sea Elven coming bit behind.

>>50826893
This is a good example of the silly sort of flirting an elf does. this exchange is between an elfin knight and a human woman smitten with him.

https://youtu.be/d7rWcBwqbH8

>>50823112
Sorry to much Jagged Alliance 2 and Metal Gear inspires me to make modern, fictional nations and I go crazy arming them.

>>50825400
My elves evolved from a common ancestor with humans (same as dwarves, but the elf-human split happened longer ago), but as ambush and pursuit predators and not persistence predators, so they are agile and have fast reactions. Their sweat glands are underdeveloped so they don't tolerate heat or prolonged exercise as well (but as a bonus point they don't smell bad). They are effectively unaging, but the world is harsh and medicine is underdeveloped, so most are lucky to live past 300.

I don't have a single "elven" culture since most are still in tribes or villages, but there is one elven civilization that's about 1000 years old at this point in time in the setting.

Basically this came about because my players wanted elves but I didn't want to do the usual "created by the Gods to be so cool" and because I'm keeping the gods' power way down in this setting.

>>50825400
Roman Dark Eldar without the sci-fi part.

What do Demons want in your setting?

>>50814183
One of the key elements of Westerns is that they either are very moral or are totally amoral.

>>50830725
To kill everybody, terraform the planet, and use it to launch an invasion of another planet

>>50830810
Why invade another planet?

>>50830810
Stop stealing my setting.

>>50830924
It's what they do. A desire to invade and terraform other planets is something ingrained into their very being. I've barely started on the setting. Can you tell?

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How do you fluff magic in your setting?

Right now my game is doing something semi-vanican, you memorize spells and then cast them, being forced to memorize or 'prepare' them again in some way.

However I don't really like the old 'cheat codes to the universe' thing and 'spells are magical creatures inside your brain' is a bit too edgy and pseudo-scientific for me. What other options are there to prop up a magic system like this?

>>50831048
Well then expand. How did Demons come about?

>>50831388
Spells are spells, no matter the form. Writing them down might as well be a form of casting them. Which is why Wizards write in code, to confuse the magic itself. But the Wizard knows the spell, and that memory is the spell itself as well. When a Wizard casts a spell, he willingly forgets it in order for it to take shape in the world.

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>>50831388
It's not the most well liked series of books, but Tome of Magic and the pact system are pretty well a good reflection of most systems of spirit evokation, be them in African diaspora religions or in the West with Lemegeton, even lifting spirits from Lemegeton like Paimon, and a couple others (saw some Lemegeton type seals in Fiendish Codex).

And it still has power limits w/r/t access and "memorization". So do psionics. In these cases it's pretty easy to just ignore Vance and posit that the operator can only channel so much magical power with his physical and mental limits at any given time, with levels or increases of power being handwaved by greater proficiency.

BTW, I generally don't have a problem with the 'magic is like science' shit, at all, because if you look at like mystical grimoires from like 1000 to 1600 they're mostly 'science' anyway (cryptography, naturalist taxonomy, lists of this or that, astronomy, etc).

>Setting is a strange, urban fantasy-esque future where a company exists that can loan supernatural and superhuman abilities to customers willing to pay.
>Usually, the powers fade without further payment, but certain people can keep their powers either through black market operations or through natural talent. Some can even boost the powers they get from their company to new, destructive levels through the same black market.
>The company employs superhuman repo-men, known as Fetchers, to reclaim the abilities wrongfully kept by those who don't pay their dues, and often get into city wrecking fights in the process.
>Most Fetchers do not derive their powers from the company that hires them, but rather were either born with their powers or got their abilities through another way. Some Fetchers are straight up supernatural, mythical creatures while others can be freak science experiments, naturally born psychics, or outright aliens. The reason for this is so that the company is assured the Fetchers won't have any reason to run off with the company's products, as they are already empowered and have other reasons for staying with the company.
>the Fetchers represent the fantasy kitchen sink aspect of superhero/urban fantasy universes while the company's customers represent characters with meta-origins.

What do you all think? I originally planned to use this setting for a story, though my only problem is that I can't decide on what the actual story itself should be.

>>50831491
I was thinking something along the lines of 'automatic army created by ancient civilization to conquer worlds for them'. Though this seems rather uninspired, now that I think about it.

>>50830725
Form contracts with mortals in order to funnel magic energy back to their dimension to try to gain the upper hand in their own wars with other demons.

This is why they have a vested interest in teaching mortals magic and developing more powerful mortal magicians.

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Is this a reasonable scale for my map geographically speaking?

>>50832257
Have you tried reading UQ Holder by Ken Akamatsu? That features magical spells being traded as smartphone apps and has bounty hunters and enforcers hunting down immortals. You might get some inspiration from that.

It also sounds like it has some similarities with the early books of The Keys to the Kingdom by Garth Nix, where various supernatural entities go out into the real world for their masters whims, doing things like spreading disease, crashing the stock market, etc.

>>50832433
Depends on how long you want it to take to go between locations.

>>50832885
I'll definitely check those out. The premise for UQ Holder seems interesting and I've heard of the Keys to the Kingdom by Garth Nix before, though never got around to reading it, though the Fetchers are more like actual employees than minions (though nowadays that line is blurred).

>>50833036
In Keys, almost all the secondary characters and antagonists are employees of The Firm, the supernatural, multidimensional corporate entity overseeing all of Reality.

>>50833064
Ooh, then I can definitely take inspiration from it. Thanks again.

>>50832904
Ideally, travelling from Irajabur to the mad wastes should be a significant journey.

Any resources for finding/creating monsters?

>>50833629
What do you mean?

>>50833221
Well at that scale, assuming it's a party of adventurers wearing nothing heavier than chainmail, with unarmored horses, and a normal load of supplies in backpacks and saddlebags, it would take them 4 days to leisurely travel to the Mad Wastes via Serpent Bridge.

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Rough sketch of a world map I'm working on. Dotted lines are roughly the equator, horse latitude, and vaguely arctic circle, going from south-north.

Red lines are rough boundaries of socio-cultural and political groups, at least originally. Mostly these are at major geological or latitudinal boundaries, and will focus on river valleys.

Thoughts? I just did this to late night bump.

>>50827587
That's actually pretty cool

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>>50836064
Seems pretty good, at least geography-wise. Outside of the purely visually unappealing mountain range depictions (not talking about distribution, just the way mountains are drawn), it mostly seems to make sense - you got how rivers work well, that is great. In general, I actually kind like how the mountains, rivers and coast look, even if a lot of them are obviously in state of pretty rough drafts. Of course, there isn't much detail, which means that there isn't that much to scrutinize - yet.

On the socio-political notion though... This is probably unintentional on your side, but all of the socio-political group territories are actually pretty much perfectly following what would in reality be major water basins. This leads me to two observations:
For one, it shows that some of your regions lack rivers where they logically should be. The ones I marked in green in particular. You could however argue that the two northern ones, seeing how close to equator and heavily land-locked and surrounded by mountains they are that they dry regions, perhaps almost sub-saharian regions, I don't know.

The other problem, and a little more pretinent is that generally speaking, cultures and states don't follow water basins this neatly. I understand completely what you have been going for: following the natural borders, formed primarily by mountain ranges (and occasionally by major rivers), you formed logical "segments" of the world. But real world sociopolitical distribution is almost never that neat: it's far more chaotic, diffuse, organic.

All that said, as a pure starter, I think it's one of the better maps I've seen here, I actually do really like it. The landscapes look fairly belivable and logical, it seems to hold a lot of potential for fun and complex dynamics... I just hope you won't use this for run-of-the-mill high fantasy settings, because I think that would be a waste.

>>50836064
I'd say the mountain ranges looks a bit unnatural. I think you should have less mountains and keep them to lines, mountain ranges don't usually split off like that, unless you got some weird tectonics, or maybe magic or whatever (but I personally dislike the magic explanation when dealing with world maps).

Try sketching how your tectonic plates go and where they move. It will also help you have more geographic features like rift valleys and plateaus.

>>50830725
Demons are for all intents and purposes chunks of reality whose will has condensed and gathered strength on its own. There is a lot of overlap between demons and the fair folk, largely depending on context.

Generally demons want to strengthen their will by eradicating other strong forces of willpower. As a result they are often blamed for natural disasters, deaths and disappearances, etc. Very rarely do they interact with people, and their choice to do so should always be met with extreme distrust.

I should note that willpower is literally my setting's physics. So it wouldn't be wrong to think of them as black holes, combined with magic, and malice.

page 10 save rave

Who here develops the world around game mechanics instead of the other way round?

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>>50842652
My worldbuilding started by applying game mechanics to pic related. It led to having a firm grasp of in-setting power levels and how powerful a demigod would be compared to common dirt farmers.

>>50842652
I tend to start that way, but it turns into a blend.

>>50826933
Continuing bit on my elven.

Primordial Elven are as said different compared to current "common elven" and "sea elven". Sea elven do retain some of the characteristics, but in terms of power they are far behind.

Primordial Elven were tall, towering around 2,5m-3m. The old cities of theirs reflect that with high domed roofs. They also have four arms with six fingers each. Two thumbs to give very good grip. Their noses were flat, but tall with their ears being traditionally long. Their grayish skin and the long arms made them look completely different combared to Primordial Dwarven. Most Primordial Elven were bald even the women, but males could grow long beards. They could live 500 years easily, with seers being practically immortal.

The breaking of First God, Anbalduir as they call it and the decline of magic forced Primordial Elven to change their ways. They already had world spanning empire and as they tried to keep their promise to Anbalduir they searched for more magic. This lead them to delve into blood magic and made them to gather slaves of other newer races to sacrifice and harvest their lives to fuel their magic or extend their own lives.

Comt

>>50843077

Common Elven had already start to form in these millenias and with Primordial Elven receiving an ire from the new gods, lesser gods, the civil war between them and other lesser races including thier common cousins happened.

Lesser races had bred and expanded all across the world, and everywhere tgey met the elven with hostility. One by one their cities fell or were abandoned by them. Finally retreating across the seas, the Primordial Elven were beaten. Getting rejected by gods, but still craving for magic they tried to mass ritual. A mass suicide to be born again as a god. Next morning they woke up. Their skin was blistering and they had lost their final touch on magic. Strangely the children born after that, didn't have blisters and had the natural touch to magic, but were much smaller and less physical.

It took three thousand years for the Primordial Elven to become extinct, but Sea Elven were there to replace them.

Posted this as a thread but I forgot about wbg and the fact that individual threads seem to die a lot easier these days

So I was planning a planet for 40k based on pretty much every single greek culture ever to exist basically.

>Capital is at the center of a hollowed-out super Mountain à la being Delphi. There may or may not be a rogue psyker here doing stuff and thangs
>Each of the cities is ruled by a clan or Phyle. The ten cities are named after their ruling Phyle.
>People hold Olympics every so often
>Prideful
>Philosphers of War
Etc

I haven't really thought about how I wanted the Military/PDF to be was thinking the PDF would be the equivalent of Hoplites. First sons usually inheriting the job, armor, and las or autogun. Don't know what to do with the Guard Regiments.

What I really would like feedback on is would it be a good idea to include monsters of myth like hydras. minotaurs, Cerberus etc and what not as the result of Tyranid seeding? And the more man-like creatures like the chimera or harpies the result of chaos taint? Or would that make it too hard to develop cities with Super beats roaming?

Also had the idea that "Mount Olympus" is a Mega Temple the Ecclesiarch built after telling the populace:
>"Hey you know all those gods and demigods you worshiped? Yeah, that was the Emperor. They were all the Emperor."

Which caused a war between people who wanted to convert and others who didn't. Thusly leading to bands of marauding heretics.

Does this sound good or is it shit and I should feel bad?

>>50843190


>>50842858

I want to have an alternative history where American Revolution did not happen and what would be USA would be part of the commonwealth like Canada and eventually fall out and become 2 nations along west and east coast (And Texas, that got independent due to English machinations but was never incorporated under English rule) because United Kingdom fall apart itself.

What could be good names for those not-United States?

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>>50844383
Holy Britannian Empire

Advice on building a cyberpunk world?
I only have a few corporations with basic ideas written down and I have no idea on how to expand it.
It's meant to be set in 2020 with about the technological level of the Dredd film.

>>50844514
>It's meant to be set in 2020 with about the technological level of the Dredd film.
I haven't seen Dredd film, but cyberpunk in 2020? Are you going for retrofuturism?

>>50844514
Here are my corps so far:
>Izael
Izael are a prolific weapons manufacturer and private security corporation. They design and manufacture everything from handguns to orbital defence matrices. They are also present in the criminal underworld as drug manufacturers.

>Frostbyte Systems
Frostbyte Systems are the leading creators of software and hardware. They have also created a “drug” that uses augmented reality which may be used for recreational use or as a tool for control. Criminal organisations have used this on multiple occasions as a method of carrying out hits and fatwas, in which they torment the victim to the point of insanity and suicide.

>>50844530
Kind of, sort of a mix between CP2020, Blade Runner and Dredd - there is nothing on the technological level of Replicants from BR, but way more advanced than today.
There are no lasers, no flying cars. We use bullets and drive on tires. There are cybernetic enhancements but they are not as advanced as CP2020 or Deus Ex.
Pic related. As you can see, the lower levels of the city are pretty much identical to today, but there are many futuristic super structures. My world does not have these super structures but instead would have advanced corporation buildings, high-tech transport etc...

>>50844383
Greater Israel

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>>50844686
forgot pic

What's a good fantasy name for a loose federation of princely states that elects its titular head, a la the Holy Roman Empire, but is a little bit more honest about not actually being an empire?

Federation sounds a bit too science fictiony and doesn't give off the right vibe.

>>50845356
The Elector States
The [INSERT NAME] League
The Principalities of [NAME]
United Elector's League
The Republic of [NAME]
The Republic of Princes
The Lords' Republic

>>50845425
Thanks mate. I was mostly after a group noun, given that two of the city-state settings in my story are respectively a principality and a republic and I figured that's the next level of government down, but League is a good one.

>>50845356
Are you looking for a name, or the actual title of the organization. Because Holy Roman Empire is primarily named after the city of Rome: the name stems logically from the history of the society, all the way back to a legacy of a different empire that itself alluded to it's origin from the city of Rome. The word empire itself also comes from that same older empire, from the word "impera", which means simply to "rule". Everything else about the name is just a huge pile of historical coincidences and complex processes, pilling one onto another.
When you think of naming individual elements of your world, you should always try to follow the same logic, and derive the name from the logical history of the nation: sometimes even when it does not seem logical anymore (The Holy Roman Empire had actually very little to do with Rome, which was not even strictly part of it at times, for an instance...)

That said, if you just want quick titles for federative societies:
"Union", "League", "Domain", "Sovereignty", "Commonwealth" and "Coalition" are most common.
"Republic", "Principality", "Order", "Concord", could be also used, though they do imply something slightly different.

>>50845509
That's a very useful way of looking at it -- I think I need to take a step back about four hundred years and think through the circumstances that led to these states forming together the way they did, then work from there. Thanks man.

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>>50836438
>>50836504
Second attempt at mountains. My major concern is the circled area. How should the mountain lines go through there? The rightmost part looks like it's prime for small mountains, but I don't have much in the way of a chain nearby for them to be a part of, and I am avoiding branching on this go-around. Thoughts?

>>50842652
I tend to do both simultaneously. Then again my settings tend to become full on companion books by the time I abandon them to follow a new idea.

Suppose doing it one way or the other would depend a lot on which system you're working on. Figure making a world around mechanics works best if the mechanics of the system have a strong identity of their own. While making mechanics as you go could work for anything, but might muddle the identity of the underlying system if it already has a strong one.

Regardless of how you do it I think there needs to be a consistence between mechanics and fluff in any setting, else it detracts from things.

>>50774076
I'm a huge Japanese WWII history buff, so I generally like those. Gives great insight into empire-building rapidly and political pressures of that age.
>>50825400
I don't like using elves. My fantasy setting only has humans and dwarves. I do like the more primal/down to earth wood elves though. Gives them a mystery without the whole "super magic users" thing they usually have going for them.
>>50830725
Usually just kill things and exact vengeance on humans. But they fight among themselves. Depends on the Demon Lord they serve though.
>>50831388
I fluff my magic as just manipulating the mana that exists in everything (think the force sorta) and use to it to create physical/mental phenomena. I try to go as scientific as possible with magic and try to avoid the whole "lol its magic i aint gotta explain shit" problem that usually happens in fantasy settings. I have a much more developed system for my magitech/MG setting that I would love to run a campaign in some day, which revolves around magic formulas and physics and magical programs and stuff.

So I have a problem: I want to run a campaign set in a semi-modern setting with no fantastical elements or anything in it. Just different geography and nations. This is mainly to avoid RL political bullshit because the campaign is about a bunch of spec ops soldiers. Is this fine or is it mandatory that I have something to set it apart from our world?

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So I'm fiddling around in hexmapper working on a small area map for a hexcrawl project. Think Norwegian coast - hills, rugged coastline but with some greenery. Hexes would be about 3 miles wide to facilitate an easy number of hexes per day travelled - 8 if moving at a standard pace, 10 at a forced march, 6 for slow and more careful.

I've never tried to draw out maps using A: a program or B: tiles of any sort. I've always just drawn them out and then overlaid rough and messy hexes. Any tips from people who have more experience on making tile-based hex maps look nicer?

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>>50849909
>Is this fine or is it mandatory that I have something to set it apart from our world?
Ace Combat did it just fine

>>50850757
That kind of feel was what I was going for

>>50846145
Why have mountains there? It looks fine.

>>50850978
Does it? I feel like there needs to be something. Or am I overthinking it?

>>50851003
You're over thinking it.

>>50851003
As someone who makes a lot of maps, you're overthinking it. Not every part of the continent is made up of a mountains and valleys. Most continents are one giant plate, which is why there aren't a ton of mountain ranges all over the landscape.

>>50851042
>>50851059
Hm. Alrighty then. Any other mountains you guys think should be removed/modified?

>>50851104
Actually, more specifically, the western and northern mountain ranges.

So i can use inkarnate for maps, but what can I use to make a village/city maps?

>>50851003
>>50851104
Yeah, you're overthinking it, looks fine. Look at the map of the Earth and you'll see that relatively little of it is tall mountain ranges, and there are large, mostly featureless expanses (Central Africa, US East of the Rockies, etc.).

If you feel like you still need something there, try adding a lake or something.

Think how the earth works, where two plates move into each other, mountains form, but on the other side of the plates, where they are moving away from each other, there are rift valleys, which means lakes and volcanoes.

I still strong recommend you to sketch your tectonic plates and their direction of movement, features will come naturally there.

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>>50851238
After drawing out some plates and approximating some movement, this is what I now see.

Anything obviously wrong/weird?

Im looking for fairly simple family tree maker program that supports pictures. Its for one of the Evogame on /qst/ and I was rhinking that using a family tree would greatly decreae the time used to make the phylogeny charts.

Anybody got a suggestion? Ones I tried were too conplex or didnt have any pictures on them.. Happy holidays everyone!

>>50851404
If I were you, I'd merge the two chains around the isthmus looking thing in the south-east corner into one, on one side of it. At a glance, that area is the only one that jumped out at me.

>>50825400
They gain nourishment based on how much they enjoy the food they eat, rather than the quantity.

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>>50851444
Trips can't be wrong. How's this look? Better?

Captcha: raccoon entree

I think captcha is from Alabama.

>>50851478
Looks fine to me.

>>50851480
Cool. Gdnight.

>>50851447
How does that work, exactly? Does their body refuse to absorb nutrients from food they don't enjoy or do they need less food overall? If they need less food overall, where do they get the building blocks necessary for growth and healing? What about the energy needed for life? Do they need different kind of sensations to get different nutrients, like if the food doesn't taste sweet they don't get any carbs and have no energy?

>>50851498
It's magic. I'm sorry.

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"Give it to me straight doc, how bad is it?"

>>50852111
>It's magic, I'm sorry.

"But how can that be? I had sex before I turned 30, I don't like pointy hats?"

Im going a post apolypse thing and how much should i change the landmasses? I want new lands to explore and draw. Also how do i name places and such?

>>50853093
Gonna have to be more specific. Fantasy? Sci-fi? Real world?

Merry Christmas to all grognards and gen/tg/lemen of /wbg/!

>Simple question: does your world have anything that resembles our material or religious Christmas?

>>50856018
'Founding Day' commemorating the first day of planet Gethsemane's colonisation.

Common practices is the exchange of gifts with one another and a meal is prepared.

Most Habitats have wildly different variations of Founding Day celebrations ranging from a holy communion with an annual meteor that coincides with the day to eating only red foods and hanging cactus flowers to their doors.

>>50856018
Yes. They celebrate anniversary of the day when nine ancient sorcerers have defeated the demons and sealed the rift into hell, drawing enough power from it to take over the world, setting foundation for 9 out of 12 modern nations.

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>>50856018

I'm debating if I'm going to make my soft sci-fi setting about dimension hopping have a meme where Christmas is a universal constant.

Time
Gravity
Mass
Christmas.

For some reason, even alien octopi creatures that live on a purple planet still hang up a greenish looking tree decorations with holly and mistletoe, and eagerly await a red-clad fat ocotopde named Santa to come and give them gifts.

>>50857863
Kinda ruined by the fact that Christmas is far from universal notion even here on Earth. Especially Santa.

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>>50851227
MS Paint or Adobe Photoshop, pencil tool. Yes, I'm going to finish this someday when I'm not burning my spare time learning Unity and writing about settings.

Merry christmas /wbg/ hope you get lots of gifts and/or sex tonight. Is there a christmas equivalent in your world? Tell us about it

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I really like how WoD has different clans of vampires with their own powers and weaknesses.

I want to do something similar for the vampires in my fantasy world, but I don't want to just shamelessly rip it off. How do?

>>50858233
I'm not familiar with WoD, so I can't say. But understand, that if you are having vampires, you are ripping off something, otherwise, what's the point in calling them vampires?

>>50858295
What this guy said. Whatever you think up about vampires that you think is completely new or original, it's likely been done before. Maybe twice.

I've been toying with the idea of reskinning halforcs into a race of creatures made from alchemy and magic, calling them cauldron-born.

They would be sterile, but some of them (1/50) would be progenitors, meaning that an expert alchemist or witch with the right recipe would be able to cut a piece of them in order to grew another one with a more efficient process.

How something like this would impact a world?

>>50859308

Sounds like the perfect fodder/minions for powerful Sorcerers.

I could easily see some on demand armies for any nation with enough magical resources to make it happen.

I'd also imagine the Cauldron-Born aren't treated as well as 'real' people as being both artificial and also not very intelligent typically, since half-orcs get a minus to intelligence in some versions of DnD.

Too typical for a fantasy race to see certain physical characteristics as lucky, or otherwise a good omen? Not necessarily a better individual, but more... blessed?

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>>50861295
>nice tits, you are blessed!
>you have a big nose, that means you can smell danger!
>a cleft foot? at least your footprints are recognizable.

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>>50861551
>>nice tits, you are blessed!
That actually happened though. Woman in Athens commits a crime, gets brought before a court. She takes off her clothes and shows off her body, which was so good that she argued that Aphrodite had blessed her, and therefore punishing her would be committing an affront to Aphrodite. The court let her off the hook, and then rewrote its laws so this shit didn't happen again.

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How do you map, /tg/?

Do you just draw the map first, then decide where you want to put landmarks and nations?

Or do you decide where you want to put landmarks and nations first, then draw the map accordingly?

I find I do the first more often than not. I find myself just drawing semi-randomly, then deciding things like "this looks like it would be a good place for a port" or "this looks like it would be a desert" and whatnot.

>>50861789
I graph my world first of all. Vertices are important locations and edges are travel time. Then I decide what features those locations have (mountains, needs sea access, has river, caves, desert, whatever).

That I draw the terrain based off that.

>>50861789
I decide what landmarks and nations exist, then map.

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>tfw Dwarves look fucking badass in Great Helms but it makes no sense for them because they'd want a pointier helm because they're short, so it's easier to hit the top of their head.

>>50861789
I don't.

Maps kill all the mystery and excitement in a world for me, so I just make maps for specific important buildings and cities.

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>>50862454

>>50859308
That's what I did with my elves; alchemically mutated goblins to make the perfect slave, until the empire fell and the elves lead the other goblin slaves to rebel... so the elves could place themselves as the masters and re-enslave the goblins.

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>>50862899
>perfect slaves are allowed to order around lesser slaves
>hierarchy falls, masters are gone
>perfect slaves become the new masters
Warcraft did something similar with the Mogu and Pandaren that worked well. The Mogu were curse of flesh stone statues while Pandaren were uplifted furbolgs.

>>50861789
I have a mental image of what goes where and try to stretch map over it.

>>50864269
See, I don't have that mental image. While I decide landmarks, places of interest, cities, etc. I don't try to set distances between things.

I draw the map with these things in mind, and then plop them down, then see what the distances are.

Ded

In a setting with multiple different races, what word would you use to describe the collective of the races?

I'm trying to port over some poems and shit, but certain lines get stuck as they're meant to include everyone, not just humans.

>>50867322
The Waking.

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>>50774076
I'm a complete tard when it comes to maps and mapping but I'm trying to put in some effort to show my friends a map of the area they are adventuring in. Where do you think settlements and towns would form in this landmass? Where would the capital be, for example?

>>50867322
The Freefolk of "Land"

>>50867322
Immortal beings in my setting call the Humans/Dwarves/Halflings/Beastmen/Elves "Mortals", while the races collectively refer to themselves as "Humanoids" due to Humans being a common link and being a relatively-new creation.

>>50867769
Capital would probably be in the straits leading into the inland sea, The mountains make an invasion and trade over land almost impossible, so controlling access to the sea would be paramount (think Constantinople. Larger cities would probably form at rivers, large islands and bays. Again, due to the technology of a fantasy setting and the particular geography of your map, control of waterways is important, mountains.

>>50867769
Also is this one united kingdom or split into smaller entities? Because then the capital should probably be more central, perhaps on one of the northern peninsular leading into the island-filled sea. I would still have a major city in the straits, as it would be extremely important for strategical and economic purposes, again think Rome as the capital and Constantinople as a major, and important city. This could also make for an interesting political culture, of the two cities vying for political control through intrigue and other means of rivalry.

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>>50867769
Circles for high population density, red x'es for likely major cities.

>>50868014
>>50867893
>>50868085

Thank you, this is all very helpful!

>>50868111
One of the first rules of worldbuilding is that people live EVERYWHERE, from the dank southern swamps to the distant northern tundra. Unless you have monsters, hostile demi-humans, or supernatural threats there will be farming villages everywhere.

>>50862454
Maybe the dorfs make the helmet tops domed instead of flat.

>>50868166
People live everywhere. If it is not humans, then some kind of beastfolk or other race that is more suitable for that location. Duck people in swamps or wolfmen in cold north.

Humans are retardly adaptive. Humans live nearly everywhere. We are very resilient. Then we add stuff like magic or other fantasy shit to make things easier.

>>50855735
>>50855735
Its our world post the nuclear/ magicopalyspe (mana reactive material was hidden in the nukes). Im debating either theirs places that allow you yo warp to another planet or the apoc has caused new lands to rise out of the ocean like atlantis and sinking others.

>>50857863

I really want to do something like this in my setting, but

>>50857889
makes me think otherwise.

Anybody else have good insight?

>>50869069
Interstellar space corporation decided that the old consumer holiday would work well if every galactic species celebrated it, so Christmas has reached critical mass among galactic citizens.

>>50867345
That would work, but for things like "Every human heart is human." it doesn't quite fit. Can definitely work for some of the others

>>50867835
Humanoids could work, I suppose. Notsomuch "mortals", though

>>50869578
The term "Mortals" is demeaning at-best. There are some high-and-mighty Elves and Nemoran Skeletons that use it to talk down to other races.
None of the truly immortal, "around since the dawn of time" beings use it.

>>50867322
Folk is good, better than "People" or "Peoples". You can have Humanfolk, Elvenfolk, Dwarvenfolk, Catfolk, etc.

>>50861646
>>50861551
Wouldn't they be blessed if they had nice tits though, blessed by the goddess of tits.

>>50869693
Would make more sense if the God/Goddess of Tits was a Cupid-like baby, who desires all women to have massive milkbags.

>>50861789
I start with important features, then make the map. Sometimes for whatever reason there'll be a big gap with nothing interesting; sometimes I'll move stuff around, but sometimes I'll instead use that empty space to add another landmark/region/feature. Some of what I think are the coolest regions in my setting got their start that way.

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I guess I should post this here, but I'm trying to figure out how to make a Dark Souls type setting. Possibly just Dark Souls but in a different cycle of the Linking of the Fire? Here's the thread I made, and I'm just going to repost things: >>50834662

>>50870647
Not sure if this is the right thread for it, but here are my musings

● DaS2&3 provide a pretty good structure for running a game in the actual Dark Souls setting without just redoing any of the games. DaS3 in particular is good with the whole "the Bell of Awakening has rung and now the Unkindled Ash must defeat the Lords of Cinder who fail to fulfill their duty" and DaS2 really hammers home (to the point where it's fucking obvious) the fact that Drangleic is Lordran and has been many other places throughout history. DaS2 also gives the option for stuff with the Soul of Manus, though I think that's stupid, since it misses the point of how and why Manus was the way he was in DaS1. Still, the *concept* of the Soul of Manus is good, even if I don't like "and they're evil because Dark".
Time is convoluted in Lordranglothric, and space, too
● Character creation should be done by giving the players a handful of very basic character packages to choose from, complete with equipment. I'm not sure how to handle things like Feats and talents and whatnot. A lot of the more meaningful growth in games is done with that, so it'd probably be good to have
● Currency and Experience should be the same thing. This is pretty core to the Souls series, but it's worth mentioning. This also means that level based systems probably aren't a great way to go. Experience should be used to buy equipment and consumables. Whether you want Experience to ONLY come from killing things is up to you, but I'd advise against it. Some things work better in a video game
● To that end, it would be useful to actually have consumables that give Experience, like the Soul items or Coldblood. If you want to only have Experience come from killing monsters, you can reward players with Experience consumables diegetically. You could also go a very OSR route and have gold be experience, with character advancement directly purchased from a character like the Maiden in Black/Emerald Herald/Doll/Yuria

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>>50870647
● Magic--and also perhaps special abilities--should be treated like equipment. In d20 terms, everyone is a Wizard and needs to prepare spells for the day, and Spells are found throughout the world. Preparing spells can only be done during an extended rest, and...
● "Extended rests" can only be done at the specific savepoint. Whether you choose for that to be a Bonfire, Lantern, or "Save Point" is up to you. Here characters full heal and rest. I'd say that they shouldn't actually reset the world like they do in the game proper. That's fine for a video game, but tedious in an RPG. If nothing else there should be a "Dungeon Cleared" aspect to it.
● Character death should be a thing. But it should also be used a lot more sparingly than the games, since it's a lot less tedious to start over and go back to where you were fighting all the enemies on the way in a video game. Death should also be costly, and grind your character down emotionally. To that end...
● Characters should slowly lose their grip on themselves. Whether you want this to be Hollowing or something similar, characters should have some kind of Sanity meter, and dying or suffering setbacks should make it tick lower. The idea isn't to be arbitrary craziness, even in a Bloodborne inspired game, but instead the slow grind that can only be countered through hope and determination. Lower Humanity should have drawbacks, but ultimately it's about showing the trouble with being Crestfallen. The CofD morality systems (particularly Humanity, for Vampire: the Requiem 2e) is a good way of doing it.
● Stealing this from something I saw posted here, but Covenants should replace deities and Alignment, if your system of choice uses those. The poster who linked his player packet was inspired by VtM's Paths, but I'm running out of space to make this post.
● I'm still thinking about how to mimic the way that the backstory is told through the items. I may just outright steal that with no explanation.

I'm thinking of having every humanoid race be called "humans" collectively, but I would then want there to be a separate term for humans-as-we-know-them. Like beorc or (to an extent) clavat.

I'm usually good at coming up with names, but this one's stumped me.

>>50861789
I make a vague idea what kind of the world is. The outline is there to provide me with some inspiration. I try to think how the world got where it is now, all tectonics and where mountains are going to be.

I do have a some idea how different people are going to live there. I have bunch of people and nations thought and ready to work as an anchor for rest of the people.

>>50869652
That's true.

I'm mostly trying to port over a couple specific poems (specifically the reading of Song of Hiawatha by longfellow) where it states "Who believe in all nations, and in all ages, every human heart is human."

>>50774076
>Are there books that you have read that you consider great sources for worldbuilding inspiration?
Livy's History of Rome.
Nothing gets my worldbuilding--boner harder than reading an ancient person's morality play of their own civilisation's history.

Which would be better?
>Moon city thats existed since the 60's
>Sprawling valley base hidden in the mountains
>Floating island
City that travels the ocean
>Sky city that uses magic to hide itself, conjure storms and float about

Rolled 2 (1d5)

>>50872585
Let the dice gods decide

>>50774076
Holy shit I own this book.

>>50872585
Moon city from the 69s

>>50872585
I dunno. It depends on execution.

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>>50774076
hey so happy newyears, /tg/

I am dedicating the entire year next year to completing my works (a project several years in the planning) and I hope to emerge on the other side of next year victorious. Wish me luck! I appreciate all you've done for me up till this point.

Sincerely,

Moom King

>>50876606
Cool.

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>>50805919

A tyranical woman who favors heavy explosives to dispatch foes.

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>>50805919

Can we go for the obvious answer?

>>50814183
>Everyone is poor and migrated here with no real government support
>There is alot of dirt
>Mining rushes, slavery, angry locals.
>The guns aren't semi automatic

There you go!

>>50876606

Good luck!

>>50876606
Good luck in your endeavours, my friend! May the following year be favourable, and may no sickness befall you or your loved ones!

>>50805919
The Welsh.

How to go about building a modern world?

>>50882998
Start with a pre-history world, write a history of cultural/technical advance. Key point is finding a fuel source like petroleum, coal, or electricity that can power a modern city and transport.

>>50883039
How should borders evolve, along natural borders like rivers, mountain ranges? More politically shaped by the gains and losses from wars?

>>50883091
Both. Good examples of each are the US and Europe. The US was largely political with huge land purchases, while Europe is subdivided by rivers and mountain ranges with a long history of infighting.

You're going to have to figure out who would build the best ships, who would form trade empires, and who would have the best advances in military technology. 80% of your inventions should arise from military utility or pure laziness.

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>tfw worldbuilding is mostly history-simulation and logical consistency
I guess that's why it's called worldbuilding.

>>50883510
Wonderful isn't it.

At the moment I am thinking of a city that somehow has managed to stay independent eventhought there is powerful neighbours all around it. Reasons I have thought is following.
>the city is filthy rich and can acquire boatloads of mercenaries
>the trade city provides to all is substantial
>if the city is captured its worth to new owner drops substantially as trade disappears from the now not free city.

Do you have other ideas?

>>50885158
I like this idea of it being a neutral trade hub. Kingdoms will always have their problems, but you can always find a good bottle of aged *kingdom you are now at war at and have forbid trade with on penalty of death* wine in the trade lands.

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So who else takes random internet images and uses them for inspiration? I don't mean actually use the image, but you see something cool and go "welp, that's going in my setting".

Pic related, saw it and went "great, now my gnolls ride therizinosauridae".