/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General Settlement Edition

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>>51492832
>settlement

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>what is the center of a settlement in this culture.
typically some place where the families can congregate for social institutions, mostly a pub or inn
>what are the homes made of, what is the architectural style
most of the cultures adopt a utilitarian style. The abundance of wood allows for multi-room houses to be constructed. carved stone used to be used for fortifying some structures, but fell into disuse after the minerals in the rocks expaned and contracted in the cold during winter
>what are the fortifications of the culture like
fortifications are built to provide higher ground for defenders in the event of a skirmish. mostly sturdy watch towers made of wood for ranged weapons. there are also metal contraptions that when stepped on, make a really loud twang sound. these are sometimes used in a line at a certain distance from the town/village walls, that, when heard, prompt calculated javelin throws from behind the walls
>what locations are favored for settlement but this culture
i dont get what you're saying
>what are some other bits about the design of this cultures settlements
not much

>>51492832
>what is the center of a settlement in this culture.
House of Dreams - a theatre where people watch constructed mass hallucinations.
>what are the homes made of, what is the architectural style
Gondolas hanging from hot air balloons, Venetian carnival style.
>what are the fortifications of the culture like
The cities are surrounded by flying spore mines that release clouds of acidic spores on impact.
>what locations are favored for settlement but this culture
The notion of a location is pointless for a flying city, they're constantly migrating between different plantations to collect the crops.
>what are some other bits about the design of this cultures settlements
Pulled around by flocks of domestic gargoyles, prone to being overrun by fungal zombies created by spore infestations.

>>51492832
>what is the center of a settlement in this culture.
Depends very much on the settlement. In the sticks it's usually the sources of sustenance; a fished body of water, fields and pasture, maybe a source of ore. In minor hubs it would be things important to the community; church, market, or fortress. In proper cities it will usually be a seat of power; university, palace or estate, guild hall or administrative center. Of course each larger step came from the smaller ones, and will have remnants of whatever first drew people to the place.

>what are the homes made of, what is the architectural style
Half dugout if the ground is soft/sturdy enough to permit. Wattle and daub walls unless there's an abundance of stone or timber coming out of the settlement's subsistence routine. Thatched roofs unless slate is cheap locally. Unglazed, but shutterable windows unless it's too cold (then no windows) or too urban (glazed windows). One to three rooms depending on the wealth of the settlement and individuals. Indoor hearth unless you're deep in the sticks. Occasional outbuildings for agrarian estates or wealthier peasantry.

>what are the fortifications of the culture like
Wood before stone. Walls surround a central fortress first, a central (usually market) district later, whole communities almost never. Outside the center walls, hedges, and ditches are used more for marking property boundaries.

When needed, towers proliferate a little better than walls. Again, wood before stone.

>>51494051
>what locations are favored for settlement but this culture
Valley states go for water, adequate soil, and protection from threats. It's rare that you get a perfect settlement on all three fronts. These are your typical agrarian medieval setting. However I might play up the proportion of landless laborers, "rich" peasants, and lesser nobility vs the baseline others use for convenience.

Broad plains leave a high degree of exposure, so I prefer to allow those to be dominated by nomadic herders. Usually there are seasonal cycles that develop (or eschew) community centers on a seasonal basis. So you can have a community coalesce around elk driving in one season and disperse or drive herds from one pasture to another in winter and summer. Depends a little on the climate.

Early into the mountains, pasturage for herders and some wilds for hunting become more important for a subset of landless pastoralists, though the bread and butter of the settlement remains fairly agrarian. Soil is poor enough that the farming population is capped, and has deep anxieties about splitting land too many ways. Hence the expulsion of many members of any given family into the shepherd's life. "Well off" shepherds might have flocks of their own, but to a large extent shepherds are hired to take care of a landowner's sheep on their claimed pasture (or rented or illicitly borrowed pasture). As elsewhere landless laborers do a lot of couch surfing and camping, but there are also some of the sorts of cabins and seasonal camps used by properly nomadic types squirreled away between settlements. Also worth noting that shepherds move seasonally but hug the outskirts of settlements.

>>51494272
Civilized mountain settlements are usually governed only half-assedly by their respective states, since they produce less food than the effort is worth. However if there is ore, timber, or a thriving meat market this arrangement can change and produce strife between the center and its satellite.

Higher or distant-from-civilization mountains work a little differently. They usually house populations fleeing from one or another sort of lowland strife (either agrarian servitude or plains raiders) and are a good place for ethnic and religious minorities to settle down because of the difficulty of accessing the area or deriving any real economic value from it. They tend to settle where they can fish, engage in or access riverine or pastoral markets, hunt (often half-wild pigs in secondary growth), and swidden some tubers (yes, I have potatoes in my setting). It's important here that it's hard to field troops in the region and little to be gained by doing so, but it's an okay life for a low sparse population.

Back downhill, coastal and riverine states rely on ample fish and trade. Usually these act more as city states than as territorial empires, but occasional exceptions occur. Coastal towns are more vulnerable to raids by other states than river towns usually are but have access to a much broader market. River towns usually only have access through the coastal towns, but have the added bonus of being able to send timber downriver and a more defensible location.

Finally, the swamps are sort of a second choice for the refugees of civilization (either from coastal raiders or what have you). Again, the subsistence strategy isn't great for propping up the machinery of state. But again the right kind of person can comfortably subsist and not be bothered. They'll tend to lean a little more heavily on hunting, small boats allow a little more mobility and contact with neighbors, and disease is a little more common here.

>>51494451
>what are some other bits about the design of this cultures settlements

That last chunk was a little long winded, but generally I don't really build the individual settlements around a larger culture except if there's a state interfering in order to impose some sort of uniformity. And my setting is balkanized as fuck, so that shit is uncommon.

My preferred method is to start with the subsistence economy, then look at neighbors and history afterwards to inform the features of the settlement.

>>51492832
>>what is the center of a settlement in this culture.

Shunga-Kiyans build their villages near one of the rivers and streams that cross the Plains. a typical village is made up of several houses arranged loosely around an artificial mound, upon which the chief's house is built. a second, bigger mound outside the settled area serves as an altar to invoke the Spirits (or what's left of them anyway). since the Plains are almost entirely flat, Shunga-Kiyan villages don't have walls. instead, they are flanked by a handful of watchtowers and moats to keep animals away from the huts at night.

>>what are the homes made of, what is the architectural style

Shunga-Kiyan houses are round in shape, with wooden walls (insolated with a coat of clay) and a roof that is literally just a teepee mounted on the walls.

>>what are the fortifications of the culture like

watchtowers made out of wood with sail-like cloth to protect the person on them from sunstroke, and 5-6ft deep moats that can be fortified with rudimentary palisades when a village is under attack.


>>what are some other bits about the design of this cultures settlements

every village has its own wooden flagpole that represents the chief's clan and is displayed at the chief's home and the altar mound. some bigger villages (seats of the clan-chiefs) also display the Chief-Uniter's flagpole to show their loyalty to the one ruler of all Shunga-Kiyan clans. however, the Shunga-Kiyan people are way too scattered into thousands of little villages for the Chief-Uniter's influence to reach further than the bigger villages and his immediate surroundings.

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So how does my map look?

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Do you have multi-species societies?

Not talking about humans and dwarves/elves/orcs, I mean species that are very different and have much different behavior and physical abilities/limitations.

I possibly overuse it, I have an addiction to having my setting's people utilize the things they have that we don't rather than having things exist for kitchen sink. Right now I'm thinking about some towns and companies having troupes of smarter gorillas for manual labor or mercenary work but it raises a lot of risks considering gorillas are like 6-15x as strong as humans.

>>51496791
Look at the thumbnail. Kind of dim and muddy. Little beyond borders that don't tell me much.

>>51496791
I read Sudenlend as Sudetenland multiple times before I caught it, those sort of names should be avoided.

>>51497012
After threatening with an all out war and following enslavement or the choice of assimilation, the lamia tribes will in the near future surrender to the human empire. The snake warriors will be enlisted into the human army and the humans will expand into the lamia territory. The lamia common folk is then, as part of the empire, allowed to move freely within.

There are also harpyies living as pets just like dogs with the people. They were actually highly intelligent but after they rose up against their slavemasters, they were bred to be animal-like dumb and docile. But I heard on the black market you can still geht the more intelligent breeds.

And also there are fairies, who fled the south from energy-vampires into the empire and work as anything light related.

In the long term I also want to ad monkey people to the empire as they are expanding.

I plan on making the empire global with all kind of species/races.

The culture in question is (very) loosely based on that of the Phoenicians/Carthaginians

>what is the center of a settlement in this culture.
Ports/harbors. Cities are almost exclusively port or coastal settlements and tend to only maintain enough land to feed themselves/reach quarries. They're notable for extensive city planning, with forecasts on how and when each settlement will expand.
>what are the homes made of, what is the architectural style
Typically limestone as it is relatively easy to mine and use. The super-rich prefer marble, and the semi-rich will paint the limestone to look like marble. They're experts at building multi-level structures and make great use of apartment-style buildings. The villas of the rich tend to look halfway between a palace and a fortress. It's all pretty square and blocky.
>what are the fortifications of the culture like
Extensive. Settlements tend to be far apart and connect only via sea routes, so city planning begins and ends with the walls. Most cities have a stone wall, a palisade in front of that, and ditches beyond that. Some have secondary walls inside.
>what locations are favored for settlement but this culture
Anywhere with a good port and a nearby, defensible hill.
>what are some other bits about the design of this cultures settlements
City districts are segregated and strongly enforced. Merchants live in one place, peasants in another, rich in another, etc, etc. Locals and visitors require travel passes to move outside of their designated zones. This sometimes applies to minor nobles.

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Rate my shitty Inkarnate map.

>>51496791
Province borders are bit too blocky and straight. In reality they would follow natural landmarks like rivers or similar.

>>51502593
Plausible looking. What is the scale?

>>51504325
No idea. Just know that those aren't going to be the only settlements, just the biggest named ones.

>>51502593
Sum up your setting in 2-3 sentences for me. What is the general idea?

The names seem fine.

>>51504583
Its a fantasy setting with a classical era/Mediterranean feel to it. The northern area up to the mountain range was originally controlled by the humans, until a pillar of crystallized fire smashed into the the center and created that big grey ashen desert, at which point the Elves took over the eastern half, and the human consolidated and control the western. The southern desert are owned by the Sobki, a race of crocodilemen, and Gnoll nomads wander the desert, Dwarves come from the north across the sea, and the city of Inash is a trading port of there's, and the cities in the south-east are footholds established by a flightless avian race from the east. The dragon heads mark where giant, radioactive dragons rest.

>>51504667
>radioactive

Uranium dragons?

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>>51504698

>>51504698
They rest on leylines, feed on magic and radiating an aura that warps the landscape and mutates fauna into smaller draconic creatures. The ones that survive the change, that is. Tribes of worshipers gather in the area, and hunt the smaller drakes for blood and meat in their rituals, causing their warriors to turn into dragonmen over time.

>>51504717
that's pretty cool

Since I always loved stories about mariners sailing uncharted waters, finding islands nobody ever found, getting lost, etc, the world I'm currently building has a pretty much infinite ocean where whole islands can just appear and disappear, relocate, etc. Takes a person of specific skill and luck, or an enchanted map or something, to find the same island twice.

How retarded is that?

>>51504733
I'm kinda running the setting on rule of cool. I've got a few things that tries to make reasonable sense, but for every one of those, I get vampire bat Goblin rebels, giant earth elemental-hunting Gnolls, lawful Ferengi Dwarf super-merchants, Ammuts, and undead ape Wendigos.

I'm trying to develop a world that is one massive underground. It's absolutely endless, there's no surface, only tunnels.

However, that raises a few problems.
1) How should gravity work? All in one direction, or make it radial, pushing from some "center", or maybe have gravity ores? Which option is least retarded?
2) Digging leaves behind a lot of displaced earth... and in enclosed tunnels there ain't nowhere to put that earth. Is law of mass preservation (or whatever its called) that important?

>>51506981
If your settings are endless literally an endless underground with no surface, then it's clearly a physical impossibility to begin with. Asking about fucking gravity is STUPID if your setting is based on a fantastic, imaginary premise. It's not a fucking speculation, physics don't (and should not) really be a bloody concern at all.

The second question is a little more valid (at least the "where do you put the earth" because your players may come across instances of new tunnels being dug, and you will actually literally have to explain where the material goes. That said: presumably, there are going to be natural caves and shit, right? Underground chasms, holes, lakes and shit? Some impossibly deep dark chasms could be used for dumping some of the materials, though it may result in situations where questions of logicstics may arrive. Better to probably state that majority of the underground spaces were made by some unknown forces or civilizations and leave it at that: have contemporary digging limited in scopes.
Or or have magic matter-devoures. Worms that eat soil and rock, or magical furnaces that literally just make shit disappear. Mass preservation, much like gravity, should not be something you need to worry about.

Seriously though, I wish people would start to realize and differenciate when is speculative fiction an appropriate approach, and when it's not. What the fuck even gives people ideas like that they should answer fucking physical laws when their settings presumed on completely impossible fucking scenarios to start with.

Mixing speculative and fantastic fiction together generally does not go well. I am baffled why so many people consistently insist on doing it.

>>51506981
If it's as I understand it, then gravity in the way we understand it doesn't work at all. I'm not sure exactly how to proceed.

This is basically a universe that's only underground right?

>>51504796
Nobody calls One Piece retarded.

>>51507158
>>51507177
yes. so I'm not asking how it WOULD work, I'm asking how it SHOULD work. As in, which idea would look best.


>>51507158
I thought about devourers, but that feels hamfisted. Something goes somewhere, always. Anything else just exceeds my own suspension of disbelief. It's not that I'm trying to write speculative fiction, it's that my suspensions of disbelief is firmly grounded in it.

Meh, I decided I'll have extremely precious "veins" of quicksilver-like substance running through the underground. Veins are made of something insoluble, but whatever minerals fall into the "quicksilver" quickly disintegrate providing heat for the caverns. This also helps me explain existence of lava - which is spills of from the broken "veins", as well as frozen caverns, where no "veins" pass.

Anyone use Legendary Games "Kingdoms" pdf? Is it worth the $15?

>>51507245
I'd say just go for normal gravity. I feel like normal gravity is one of the reasons why caves and shit are cool.

I am likely to get some flak for it, but I am looking for some broader critique.

Started a dev blog for a game project to be set in an old D&D setting I made a long while ago. Primarily dumping setting info as I flesh it out. Though full time work limits time to write.

Anyone interested in shitting on my work?

>tumblr link

Maple-toast.tumblr.com

(Also there's cute dog pics)

>>51508903
There's only two dog pictures. I feel ripped off.

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I'm trying to work out what a "generic fantasy setting" could be in my setting.

I was the GM for a campaign set in a world where the magic was slowly, but surely going away. After the end of the campaign, my players were divided between playing in a modern, magic version of the setting or playing in the era in which magic was still present. In the end we settled on playing a campaign where my players are players playing in a generic fantasy setting (by that world's standards). It got pretty meta.

What are some things often done in worldbuilding to save time and/or effort that tend to come off as generic, uninspired or cliché?

Off the top of my head I can think of the following things:
-Using the same base races as everyone, liberally inspired by folklore and mythology. (I've already determined the race trifecta of the setting: humans, dragonkin and beastfolk; all based on the lore of the setting)
-Cribbling mythology and ancient texts for monsters. (In this case I guess I can just reuse the old campaign's monsters and add some more over-the-top ones)
-Copy-pasting real (in-setting) cultures and placing them in the setting with minimal alteration or oversimplifying them. (The dragonkin's culture is copy-pasted from an antique civilization's, but simplifying the byzantine caste hierarchy into a Nobles/Mage-priests/Peasants setup)
-Using misconceptions as fact. (In-setting, blood was just another way to power magic before it went away, but in the "meta setting" it's presented as a vile and powerful art distinct from the usual magic)
-Using a stapple overall setting, in our case medieval europe. (The meta setting is largely based on the part of the world my players are familiar with)
-Mixing up mythologies for fun and profit. (The meta setting mixes the living gods of an antique civilisation with the cosmology of another, for starters...)
-Medieval stasis, lack of guns. (Unlike the actual setting)

I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff. Any ideas?

>>51510762
I only recently started the blog, but I do have eight pictures of my pooch. Perhaps it hadn't fully loaded?

>>51492988
Screw the minutement
>Institute for life.

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>what is the center of a settlement in this culture
A small temple dedicated to the worship of the World Mother.

>what are the homes made of, what is the architectural style
Typical homes are square. The foundation is made from stone bricks, mainly granite and gneiss. Walls are most often made from pine, but oak and crabapple are also used. The wood is either left as is, or painted white. Roofs are made from varnished wooden shingles, and are pyramid-shaped. Windows are made from small, thin strips of wood that slide sideways on two wooden rods, placed at the top and the bottom of the window.
Temples are stonen, with polished gneiss shingles. Temples also tend to have a small, separate tower, about twenty feet high, with a conical roof. Temples have no windows, except for a small hole at the top of the roof.

>what are the fortifications of the culture like
The local people of power tend to live in "castles"; they are actually more like small stone forts than castles. People tend to live in very small communities and since the cold plains have few predators that would endanger humans, fortifications are not too common. That being said, a local leader amassed quite a bit of power by raiding settlements about a century ago, so some older towns and isolated temple-monasteries do still have stone walls.

>what locations are favored for settlement but this culture
Rivers, hilltops and hot springs.
Trade with the south has become vital to the people and rivers help the distribution of goods to a wider area. Also fishing provides sustenance to a large portion of the population.
Hilltops are just easier to defend. Nothing special about that.
There is quite a lot of geothermal energy in the area, so hot springs are not rare. Some towns have sprung by them, for quite obvious reasons.

>what are some other bits about the design of this cultures settlements
Duckboards function as pathways and roads in towns.

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>>51492832
>what is the center of a settlement in this culture.
The Shrine-Temples to the City Patron Deity.
>what are the homes made of, what is the architectural style
The main city centers and upper-class places are made of marble and greek columns. Military installations are stone, with more simplified columns for support. Lower class are wood-plaster houses, small stone structures, or huts on the city outskirts.
>what are the fortifications of the culture like
Heavy stone construction, with a heavy emphasis on having the local heights.
>what locations are favored for settlement but this culture
They like to build on top of hills and mountains with easy access to the sea via a harbor. Hills and cliffs provide natural defense, while allowing them to overlook the all-important sea.
>what are some other bits about the design of this cultures settlements
Both poor homes and religious buildings use white wash to make their homes look nice, any houses near the shoreline or owned by wealthier or even noble owners typically enjoy excessively bright and garish color-finishes, often with illustrations depicting family history or invoking the God's wrath on potential burglars.

Howdy /wbg/, I've got a question I'd like some recommendations on: how many races is too many?

I'm in the process of building my own setting, as I imagine most everyone else is too, so I thought I'd reach out. I dislike how even classic D&D and similar games allow characters to choose from a wide range of playable options, but I'd rather not limit my players to just humans. At the moment, I've settled on three as a solid number of options, including ever-present humanity.

How many (playable) races do you like to have?

>>51513091
If they are indepth and complex enough, you can do as many as you have time.
Which means something like a wikipedia article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire
for example.
Work your way down the article and fill everything with your own lore and do that for every of your race.
Thats the way I do it.

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>>51512584
And new map. With new names because fuckit. My players haven't seen this yet.

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>>51513091
>How many (playable) races do you like to have?
I personally think that races in absolute majority of fantasy are just glorified cultures anyway (and for good reasons, because having races really divergent from humans creates a LOT of problems). So as far I'm concerned, you can completely cut out the middle man, having just humans with some really interesting cultures and perhaps some minor ethnical physiological differences, and you'll serve your world-building a lot better than people who invent tons of races who are either generic, not fleshed out, or result in inconsistencies.

I know I'm actually a minority (though vocal one, apparently) on this. I just don't think races are generally well handled in most fantasy, and I think they tend to actually detract rather than add.

Focus should be on interesting cultures, and interesting CHARACTERS. Though it's not a perfect rule (TES handles this fairly well, for an example), but in majority of cases introduction of fantasy races has a tendency to actually distract from establishing good cultures and good characters, as the racial distinctions tend to lead to stereotyping and flattening of both.

If you insist on multiple races, then I recommend having them admitedly close to each other, with the actual racial differences being superficial, and focusing once again on cultural complexity and variety instead.

>>51513254
Not a bad idea at all, anon. I believe I shall use your method in the future.

>>51513536
Correct me if I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, but it seems as though you're inclined to write a from the perspective of a people rather than a statbook entry. I do believe that a variety of peoples could be made following your distinction, without necessitating that they all strictly speaking be humans, on the condition that the playable races are humanized.

The playable races that I spoke of in my previous post are, besides humans, quite human-like and often interact or live among one another. That said, I have already added several regional cultural varieties for these peoples to allow for differentiation that is not along racial lines. Races that depart from humanity by any extensively noticeable amount should not be playable, in my experience.

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>>51514167
>but it seems as though you're inclined to write a from the perspective of a people rather than a statbook entry
Yeah. I world build for both writing and roleplaying purposes equally, and I believe that roleplaying is really an interesting activity if it's treated as a psychological, character-driven exercise, where rules and stat-systems exist solely to better accommodate what really matters: the characters and related stories they produce. It may not be a common point of view.

>I do believe that a variety of peoples could be made following your distinction, without necessitating that they all strictly speaking be humans
That is basically what I was proposing at the end. I'm just not entirely sure what is the purpose of distinguishing them as humans or non-humans though. And while I don't think it NECESSARILY harms the narrative, I think it's a potential trap and that it can easily have negative unintentional side-effects. Not only for the DM, but possibly among the players too. Trying to drive players from excessive abstractions, stereotyping and meta-gaming is already difficult, and adding races as another (largely unnecessary) idea to form these negative assumptions may make things even harder.

Again, all of this can be handled with dignity. I'm still struggling a bit with the point of it all. If you have races that are all essentially human, what is the purpose of their distinctions again? I mean: they might not necessarily harm the experience, but how do they really benefit it?
That is actually a question, not a rethorical one. I'm interested in your thoughts on this.

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>>51514167
>>51514346
And just to make things clear: I actually do have non-human races in my world. Or more precisely ONE non-human race, and it's actually a human variant, a population of people who went through some genetic modifications. And even then, they are extremely sparse in the settings and play minimal role, and I would be very hesitant to let anyone play them. I included them because their altered physiology allowed for some potentially interesting possible imagery and small cultural plays, but I really restricted their presence to being essentially a rare anomaly of the world. Their function is mostly just to provoke and challenge my players and their tendency to form misconceptions and mis-assumptions.

>>51513091
As many as you need to fill the archetypes you want represented in your game / As many as the narrative needs to work.

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How much 'Science' do you put into your Science-Fantasy setting, if you have one?
Is your Magic based on science or is your science based on magic?

>>51513536
>I know I'm actually a minority (though vocal one, apparently) on this. I just don't think races are generally well handled in most fantasy, and I think they tend to actually detract rather than add.

THIS
THIS SO MUCH

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>>51514389
I call my settings science-fantasy for lack of a better term, but I don't actually have magic in it. At least not the fantasy idea of real magic - magic in my world exists in the same way it exists in real-world, as part of cultural customs and beliefs, a way to look at and interpret world more than anything else.

Maybe I'm mislabeling my settings when I call it science-fantasy, but to me science implies speculative element and settings with consistent physical laws not entirely different from real-world, while fantasy implies mythology-or-folklore inspired aesthetics and tone: which applies to my world.

Pic related, one of my main sources of inspiration.

>>51492832
I am one of the OP's for the 4chan space opera, and I did the Ploraxians.

>>51514389
there's a type of gold-colored pigment that becomes both waterproof and extremely flammable when mixed with a lipid and left to dry. a character uses it to rig a councilwoman's ball gown to burst into flames at a dance, to make it look like divine punishment

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>>51492832
>/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

Yeah, sure, I need help with something- quick n' easy:

Is there any meaningful way of crafting unique & advanced weapons and armors using animal parts beyond just the traditional manner of tanning hides and tying animal bones/teeth/claws to sticks and rocks?

I'm trying to go for a situation akin to monster hunter where Animal Parts can be just as useful as rare metals, but I can't wrap my head around something better than smelting, sort to speak.

Any advice/input?

>>51514554
>take animal bones
>cook them to make glue
>acquire linen
>layer that shit
>use glue to harden it and make it stick together
>slap a layer of leather on top of it
>have linothorax

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What is the hardest part for you to do in worldbuilding?

For me it is comming up with consistent and intresting architecture and the technolocical level of general engineering.

>>51514346
>If you have races that are all essentially human, what is the purpose of their distinctions again?

Aesthetics, for one. The image of a colorful bazaar with unique people is an image I've grown to love, for the oddities one might experience there. Being able to push the boundary with what can appear is always enjoyable.

Yet therein lies a trap: the familiarity that the characters should have, which the players lack. Hence why I wish for most non-human races to be mostly human-ish, and (as the other anon advised) well-described. Different enough for description, without losing the sentiment that these are in fact groups of people with their own cultures.

>I mean: they might not necessarily harm the experience, but how do they really benefit it?

It depends upon the creatures in question, I should think. Including all manner of unnecessary/bizarre and inhuman beings detracts from the world by leading the players astray. Adding peoples who are unique, but remain recognizable, allows for immersion into that place that is not our Earth. So long as they are well-written, of course.

>>51514661
keeping track of the various cultural costumes... being a visual thinker and a scatterbrain is not a good combination

>>51514554
Maybe they've got something poisonous inside them.

Don't forget about scales. You can also use scales for things.

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>>51514661
>What is the hardest part for you to do in worldbuilding?
For a long time, it was making a map of my world. I desperately struggled with that for about two years, almost entirely halting the world-building process during. I could not marry the fact that I wanted a fairly realistic map, and the fact that I already had invented certain types of environments necessary for the overal feeling of the settings, which were not always making realistically sense. Also, I really wanted a good topological map, but I could not for the LOVE OF GOD figure out how to make one. It got so far that I've learned how to use software like GIS and OpenJump to help myself out of the slump.

In the end, I had to give up on realistic map and ended making some improvised, rough hand-drawn shit I could at least tinker with (pic related) but my god was it a painful compromise.

Also, my general lack of visual art skills makes my life a nightmare. I have a lot of visual images about the world in my head, but I can't for the love of GOD actually draw them for shit. It's frustrating as fuck.

>>51507158
Its a perfectly reasonable thing to do, settings can be based on absolutely silly shit (magical space wizards) that break all kinds of rhyme and reason, yet still want the setting to feel like its grounded in reality despite the premise.

Its about expectations, suspension of disbelief.
People can accept that the premise of a massive cave system, seem cool. But then they will ask questions that seem reasonable and a good setting might be as whimsical as it can be, but also be internally consistent

>>51514661
Names. Hands down, no contest, other cliche; naming stuff is a bitch.

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>>51514771
Same for me, took me fucking years of hand-drawing time just to get a acceptable map on paper. Even then it was still shit.
Now I just use gimp for multiple layers and simple copy-paste-shenanigans.

>>51514811
No, it's not and no, it's not. This is a whole lot of misconceptions that people who do not understand basic narrative theory think. The problem is different. Problem is mixing narrative approaches that FUNDAMENTALLY GO AGAINST EACH OTHER, and consistently projecting poorly rooted assumptions into your work (or work of others) simply because you are blinding by following some dumb stereotypes and don't have basic literacy.

>>51514833
Naming is actually really fucking fun once you start realizing that it's not about finding random words (or making them up), but that it's rather about telling stories through your choice of terminology.

>>51514920
>be history student
>get really into learning the etymology of place names
>tfw nonsense gibberish names suddenly start to make sense

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>>51514976
Yeah, and applying that to world-building, combined with basic understanding of narrative theory, is really damn fun. Names tell stories: both diegetic (e.g. stories from within the world), and also nondiegetic (e.g. things that are not automatically part of the world, but you still need to communicate them to players).

For an example, just the act of choosing a fictional word instead of one based in english (or your native language) can already automatically tell quite a lot: apparently this place was named by a culture that spoke different language than is the most common current language. You are already communicating that the place is special - exotic, maybe has a very long history, or maybe it's currently settled by exotic culture.

And then you ask yourself: OK, so what was the language of the culture that named it? Perhaps it was similar to some real-world language of a culture that may have been my inspiration: perhaps it was a nomadic culture, so maybe I should look into Mongolian for inspiration for interesting words, and consistently base all the names this particular culture established in Mongolian.
And then, once your players notice this consistency, next time they see a mongolian sounding word, they immediately can tell: OK, I know, this place has been significant for that particular nomadic culture! That means they must have once lived here (even though currently a different culture lives there): and suddenly you are teaching your players history of the word just through fucking names.
It's great. So much you can do with it.

>>51515118
leaves you room to name places after real-life or fictional things if you're good enough at twisting those to fit the setting.

or like I did, just name a town after Tomi in Romania because it fits the language of one faction and the theme of the place (former iron production town at the outermost margins of the civilized world)

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>>51514554
It depends on the animals you've got available, to be honest.

Savages in the Pacific islands would use the face/snout of a sawfish to make a badass sword.

>>51515899
>Savages

>>51515919
Well what else are you going to call a bunch of half-naked cannibal tribesmen wielding spiky weapons?

>>51515919
>Savages!
>barely even human!

>>51515939
bad ass motherfuckers for one

>>51515939
"Some Pacific Islanders" works, and it doesn't insult both them and yourself in the process.

Since there's another thread up that's asking a similar question I won't repost the exact same one here, but: What is one event in the last 100 years that impacted or even greatly changed (a part of) your setting significantly?

>>51515939
"Please don't point that thing at me, sir?"

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>>51514588
>>51514715
>>51515899

Here, let me rephrase the question since I think a little was lost in my vague wording:

I have a lot of animals and monsters with fantastical qualities: swimming through lava and sand, elemental breath weapons (fire, ice, hot water, acid, lighting, magma), regeneration, spell reflection, burrowing through soil and rock, EATING rocks for that matter, and so on and so forth.

I'd like some ideas, techniques, or inspiration on how to make fantastical fantasy equipment from the bodies of such wonderful monsters... That doesn't does amount to, "tooth spearhead", or "dragonscale jacket"... I've got it covered quite well with industrial & domestic uses: ship hulls, medicine, oils, shoes, etc.. But with weapons and armor I come up blank.

So, yeah- that's my current issue.

>>51516048
The Drow found The Bow. Certain weapons fell to the world thousands of years ago. They were found sporadically, and those that held them carved their people into history. They made you better at killing, but more importantly, they made you better at leading.

In my setting, at least in one large region, the Drow do not worship Lloth, they simply to not worship or revere Corellon as the High Elves do, and are inclined to the sea more than their High kin. The Throne of the Elves has been occupied by Drow and High Elves at different times. When they encountered humans, the Drow sat in it, and they went to war to subjugate the humans. They lost badly. Many generations later, a Drow Queen finds the bow, and seeks to reignite the old flames and reclaim the honor her people lost so long ago. She finds the bow amidst one of the many jagged isles of the Sea of Teeth which separates Humanity from the ancestral home of the Elves. During her plotting, she is killed in an absentminded act of a godlike being the Drow revere, known as The Kraken, an escapee from the elemental plane of water that is treated as a Great Old One (a warlock player of mine made his pact with this being).

A succession crisis sees a relatively benevolent High Elf cleverly ascending to the throne. His ambitions, to mend relations with others, are anathema to the Drow, and so their de facto leader takes them from the homeland to settle elsewhere. The Drow become a pirate faction for hundreds of years as their new Pirate King plots and searches for his former master's lost ship, and cargo.

>>51516494
Five hundred years later (we can never escape the trope of incompetent Drow), my player, an elf enslaved by the Drow, makes his pact with The Kraken, and is given the power to escape. He burns his ship near shore and escapes to the mainland. The ship whose captain had just rediscovered The Bow and was eager to race back to his king. The Drow are raiding the coasts now like never before, with no regard even for the lives of High Elves. It's maybe two months later that a High Captain discovers its location. In the next session, my players will attempt to beat him there, this gambit taking place only days after the new King of High Elves, crowned only days ago, announces plans to make war with the Drow, a plan announced to calm those who feared a new war against humans that the King's failed rival promised if he took the throne, and to appease those who thirsted for war enough to support said rival.

This war could prove disastrous for the High elves, and indeed humanity itself, if this relic finds its way back to the Drow again.

>>51515118
I really like your map, but it always bothers me when a region of a continent looks like an animal and all regions are named after animal parts. Presuming the area was settled over time, why would a society know the whole shape of the land they were settling on and be able to give each part thematically appropriate names?

>>51516162
>The Sea Sledge
A Sledge is an aquatic leviathan monster that roams the sea lanes in order to devour ships. It doesn't do this for the crews' meat (mostly), but for the cargo itself. They feed off the gold, magic items, and wood of the ship itself. They're called sledges due to their huge, sledgehammer like heads.

Sledges can strike the water with their tremendous heads, magically solidifying the water as they pass through it. Not freeze, mind you. Solidify. As though they cause raw kinetic energy to hold the water in place, making natural barriers in the way of ships so it may prey on them more easily.

One can remove a bone from within their skull that apparently controls part of this process. By lowering it into a molten metal, one can imbue the metal with similar powers, though the bone is destroyed.

>>51516162
Something that swims through lava could easily be fashioned into fireproof/resistant armor, or perhaps whatever organs produce oils/skin/etc allowing it to do so could be used to anoint all varieties of equipment, though I assume you hae this covered with things like dragonscale jackets.

Maybe a beast with some kind of long horn that collects static/ambient magic energy/what the fuckever from the air and uses it as a weapon or some kind of bolstering power, the material from the horn could be fashioned into weaponry that absorbs spells to deflect or reflect them, particularly effective against lightning style attacks.

>>51515939
>Well what else are you going to call a bunch of half-naked cannibal tribesmen wielding spiky weapons?
Redneck meth/bathsalts users?

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>>51516162
There are examples of that in d&d although magical properties often fade awhile after death without further enchantment or alchemy.
Flail-snail shells can be used to help block spells for awhile after the snail's death and can be enchanted into a full spellwarding shield, it can also be crushed to use to make a robe of scintillating colours. You can actually remove the organ that beholders use to levitate and use it similarly yourself.
You can also have all manner of properties for different organs and fluids, cave-fishers have flammable alcoholic blood that is used in some dwarven ales.

Resistance to elemental or other damage could obviously be transferred in some degree to armour or a suit made from the resistant creature's skin or other parts.

For weapons you could have them maintain various abilities of the source creatures; paralysis whips made from alchemically cured tentacles, gusts of wind from mystical feathers, minerally attuned weapons that can pass through some metals.
It might help you get ideas if you could actually describe how the fantastical qualities of your creatures work, that is what specific body parts are involved.

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Do you feel like there's something in the nature of your setting that has to change if you decide to use Psionics as opposed to more traditional Magic?

>>51518283
Metaphysics have to be fundamentally different, but metaphysics vary greatly between settings anyway. "Psionic Potential" also tends to be a genetic/inherited thing, rather than a learned thing.

>>51518395
How do metaphysics get involved?

>>51518459
Source of psionics, nature of souls or lack-there-of, what fuels what, etc.

>>51518477
Fair enough. Anything else? What do you do to get in the Psionics mood?

>>51518503
Personally, psionics have no place in my setting. "Psychic powers" are too open-ended and anime cliche-laden to work well.

>>51518395
>tends to be a genetic/inherited thing
The same is true of some arcane casters like some sorcerors that get their magic through dragon heritage.

>>51518477
Excuse me if I'm just not aware of something in the material but how does psionics differ from magic on the topic of souls?

>>51518530
>"Psychic powers" are too open-ended and anime cliche-laden to work well.
You could say the same about "magic", it's more about how you fluff and crunch it.
Actually, it seems to me that magic has kinda moved ahead in popularity over psychic powers in a lot of recent anime.

>>51518566
I'm only referring to psionics as a general concept rather than some edition of D&D.
I usually consider psionics to be abilities gained from some intrinsic nature, like "I have a big brain" or "I've been thrice reincarnated, and am approaching nirvana". They tend to have an unclear cost:effect ratio and most users have some "theme" that their powers follow. The first example that comes to mind is A Certain Magical Index.

>>51518650
>abilities gained from some intrinsic nature, like "I have a big brain" or "I've been thrice reincarnated, and am approaching nirvana". They tend to have an unclear cost:effect ratio and most users have some "theme" that their powers follow.
I mean, again I'd argue that you can say the same about magic with sometimes unclear cost/effect all sorts of sources for magic and plenty of examples of specialised/themed magic; time mages, fire mages, druids, summoners, illusionists.

I'm by no means trying to insist that you must include psionics in your games but merely pointing out that it seems to me many of your complaints about psychic powers are things you're arbitrarily applying to it while there are likewise examples of them being applied to magic.

>>51518764
It's all a matter of perspective and fluff.
>system A has well defined rules, with clear input:output and means of cultivation
>system B is highly mysterious, with individualized power that varies in scale greatly
"Magic" and "Psionics" are just two themes that can be applied to either system, depending on personal taste.

>>51514771
I'm in a similar boat to you, when I am mapping my world I cannot do other world building at all until it's done.

>>51515118
>You are already communicating that the place is special - exotic, maybe has a very long history, or maybe it's currently settled by exotic culture.
I get what you're saying, but this is still a pretty big oversimplification. Place names tend to stick around even if the culture that originally named them doesn't, and they also don't age the same way the rest of the language does and can retain archaic grammatical features that native speakers don't use anywhere else or even withstand, or at least be affected differently, by sound changes in the language so that even indigenous place names can become nearly incrompehensible to native speakers after just a few hundred years.

In Europe most place names are Celtic in origin, and many of the others of Roman. This doesn't mean that places like Eastern Europe and southern Scandinavia have less history, it just means that they haven't experienced the same amount of cultural displacement since.

How would I go about making a more Conan/Hyborian age kind of setting, but is also distinctly fantasy.

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>>51516587
The geography does not really look like a bull, actually. I mean even in that map it's a bit of a stretch to see it. And it's even worse when you realize this particular map is in isometric view and stretch it out to correct shape.
The reason why the landscapes are named after bull parts is not because the people knew what the shape of the land is, but because it's connected to a very old myth of one of the old cultures, that believed the land was literally formed of a body of celestial Bull who was sacrificed: his muscles became soil, his bones into rocks and mountains, his veins into rivers and blood into sweet water etc...
The myth has it's origin among nomadic people who lived by herding bovine animals, and the myth was partially a "justification" for their regular acts of animal slaughter on which they depended (we must kill an animal to live just as an animal was killed for the world to exist kind of thing).

When later first settled civilizations emerged around the Cot, they frequently hired members of the nomadic cultures as scouts and cartographers (because unlike the settled people, these nomads were skilled and experienced travelers), and these semi-integrated scouts projected their religious beliefs into naming conventions they used when exploring and mapping out the lands.
The body-metaphor has also further advantages too, as it actually gives somewhat of a convenient orientation guide and relative location intuitions.

>>51519732
What do you mean by "distinctly fantasy". To me Conan is already distinctly fantasy.

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>>51516048
>What is one event in the last 100 years that impacted or even greatly changed (a part of) your setting significantly?
The bull land guy here:
The Battle of Elements was the last major shake-up of my settings. It was a conclusion of what could be considered the quintessential "battle between good and evil stoy" of the previous few centuries: end of series of wars that started when nomadic hordes from east invaded and destroyed the largest and most populous kingdom of it's time, established their own reign over it, and started violently expanding.

Things got so bad that basically all of the remaining major countries had to band together. The battle of Elements was concluding battle of this events, in which the (formerly) nomadic Goh-Sum were stopped by joined armies of most remaining relevant realms. It was more of a stalemate than victory though, forcing a tenacious peace among all involved parties.

Of course, in reality things are a lot more complicated, and frankly, the peace treaty itself may have been one of the worst things to happen in recent history. My world is fueled with war, and the stalemate situation it has been in since the Battle actually makes things worse for commoners and just slowly corrodes all existing kingdoms.

Pic related is very outdated (a lot of the terminology, datation etc. has been changed since, but roughly illustrates the history of Goh-Sum expansions and the Great Slave wars.

I'm in the process of writing a race of mountaineering historian-ascetic moth people for my new campaign, but am hung up on how to make their method of communication fresh and interesting.

Currently, I'm caught between two possibilities. Either they

1.) are generally mute around humans, and communicate to them via gesticulation/body language and writing (while using feeler gestures and chittering to talk amongst themselves)

2.) transmit ideas and feelings to people via empathetic telepathy.

>>51520561
Take option one.
Telepathy is always cheap and boring as fuck, and also just fails to take advantage of them being real moths: animals that actually do communicate, mostly through their feelers, body language and presumably through chemical signals too.

>>51519864
My players want elves, dwarves, and the like but I want a more Conan kind of fantasy. I want to reach a compromise and figure out what that looks like

>>51520597
It looks like D&D.

>>51520665
Is it really that simple? Am I overthinking this?

>>51520597
>>51520788
yup. it's more or less post- Cataclysm Dragonlance
good for you, since 5th Ed. apparently supports Dragonlance again, IIRC

>>51520788
D&D, as created by Gygax, draws heavily from pulp fantasy like Conan and Elric and only uses Tolkienesque races as a form of coating.

>>51520804
>>51520915
Cool thanks. I'll look into this.

>>51519972
How advanced are the people in your setting?

How'd they manage to realize that their continent is shaped vaguely like a bull's head?

>>51520597
Treat dwarves and elves as different tribes?

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How do you feel about game worlds that appear recognizably earthlike, but don't conform to our current understanding of physics in any way?

I've done some reading on how geology shapes continents and how prevailing winds influence the temperature and humidity in a given region, but I'm not sure why I should use any of it in a fantasy world.

I could tell easily tell fantasy stories about vaguely medieval characters living in a dangerous world without ever needing to refer to planets, fundamental physical forces, and so on.

Is that a cop-out?

>>51521663
not really.
Discworld is one of the most awesome setting there is, for instance. if you can make it cool, go for it.

My world involves a rune based magic system more akin to writing magical programs using special ink than casting spells. Is this a little too dull for a magic system that is supposed to be at the core of my world building? This world is more of a steampunk western than medieval fantasy by the way.

>>51521752
don't go full nerd with runes, and it may work out cool. programming magic looks cool as long as you don't expect it to actually compile

>>51521768
Oh yeah, I'm not an actual programmer or anything. Fuck writing machine code for the universe.

>>51519972
>>51515118
>The Spine

if I had a penny for every time I saw someone use this name for a mountain range

>>51521500
>How advanced are the people in your setting?
Current civilization was not much above late stone age when this custom was setting in. The settings and it's civilizations are fairly anachronistic, though, as they are descendants of much more advanced, industrial civilization that disappeared some time ago.
That said: the naming convention does not come from the geography. See >>51519751 The people did not know the shape of the landscape, they started using the convention based on very old mythology.
The fact that you see a bull's head shape, while another guy saw an entire bull, and I actually did not originally intend on either of those images further supports that really: the landscape is not shaped like anything, it's just that you'll see in it what you want to see.

>>51521915
Yeah, a lot of people whine about it. I don't really give a fuck anymore.

>>51521706
Discworld is humorous in tone, though. Does that matter?

Are deviations from cold, physical realism harder to accept if you're telling a more serious story?

>>51521917
>and I actually did not originally intend on either
You say that, but the placement of the names speaks differently. I think people would have an easier time to accept this as true if the Spine didn't go directly over the Guts and Belly and led directly to the Head north of which is the Horn and south of which is the Teetch, etc.

>>51522200
>I think people would have an easier time to accept this as true if the Spine didn't go directly over the Guts and Belly and led directly to the Head north of which is the Horn and south of which is the Teetch, etc.
Placement of the names came POST-HOC. The whole idea to use parts of a bull body to describe the terminology came post-hoc. I did not get that idea until fairly after I've drafted the map.
It's basically fucking India. You could literally apply those names to India, and frankly to south Europe as well.
People knew the land, they traveled it. They did not know the shape, would not imagine it as a top-down silloutte, but they knew where things were relatively to each other. They knew there were large mountains to the north stretching along the coast, they named one region where they end "Head", the other "Tail", and lands between the ocean and the mountains in order "Neck", "Belly" and "Guts" as they followed one after another as they followed in a west-to-east (Head-to-tail) direction. When they found mountain range north of the most western region, they called it horn (at the time they did not know it's a peninsula, even) etc...
It's just a matter of applying intuitions and being selective in your interpretation. And again: most of this terminology was established by people actively doing surveying jobs, so making the sense of the land was part of their duty. The oldest local names of the nomadic people were "Spine" and "Heart" - ironically enough "Heart" actually comes from original "Heart of Pastures", and not from the bull-image, because its a fertile region surrounded on all sides by steppes.

Oh yeah, and one more thing. Proportions and features on the map are exaggerated and stylized in accordance to their relevance. I've never managed to make a proper realistic map, as I've surely mentioned above.

>>51522284
>more and more excuses
>more thermic arguments

just let it go my man

>>51522331
Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you?
You accuse others of something, and when explained that it's chronologically impossible to be true, you say "excuses"? The fuck?

>>51522346
You, the author, made a cow shaped map with parts named after body parts that correspond to the placement of these body parts on a real cow. It was all you, nobody else involved.

>>51522365
Except I did not. I kinda should know: I'm the one who draw the map. What the exactly do you think you are going to achieve to convince me about something I was actually the sole witness to?
Or are you trying to convince yourself that must be the sole explanation?
I really, REALLY don't get your angle here.

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show me your races and genealogies /wbg/, I know you got them

page 10 save rave

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Tell me about thieves, anon. What was the most valuable thing ever stolen in your setting, and who stole it?

>>51526080
1. My heart.
2. You, anon.

>>51526291
s-senpai, I...

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So I spent some time sketching out a nice 2D top down map of a large capital city I wanted to use for my next several campaigns, but when I moved my sketch to my computer, my attempts to draw over it and detail it went sour and turned to shit.

I wound up defaulting to Inkarnate and now feel like an asshole. You guys know of any good sources of top down sample textures graphics that I could just lay over in GIMP or something easily?

I just want to keep the style of my sketch so the players can have an idea of the actual layout of my cities without having to just improvise specific details.

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>>51514469
>Nausicaa based setting

Top tier taste anon
I'm running a setting based of it as well

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>>51522675
Here's some of the major intelligent races in the setting, need to make drawings for zhurmen and dragons

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I'm looking for ideas for pic related. Backstory is it's a human settlement founded on Elven ruins. The sea is over the mountain, but I assume it won't be reachable. Everyone wouldn't be able to live in the ruins & human's can't build as well as elves, so there should be some slums/suburbs somewhere. How do the common folk fit in, where are the farms (mountains at edge of forest), how do they get to the city from the nearby port?

>>51526669
I have airhships in the setting

>>51492832

>what is the center of a settlement in this culture.
A mage academy for towns and cities.
A tower, observatory, mine or other place of work for smaller settlements.

>what are the homes made of, what is the architectural style
Main material is stone. Carved from mountainside where possible, otherwise stone and mortar. A relatively recent innovation is using magic to fuse stones together - a very strong but expensive approach.
Roofs are stone or slate over wooden frame for simple homes. While more important places have monumental stone construction.
Windows are small and glazed, generally not meant to be opened.

>what are the fortifications of the culture like
Standing stones or rocks placed in patterns then carved and enchanted. The actual spells vary from silent alarms and lightning traps to forcefield walls. The spells are triggered as needed and only the stones are visible normally.

>what locations are favored for settlement but this culture
Mountain sides and hilltops, in northern tundra riversides are also common. Main objectives are defensibility, good view of surrounding area, good view of the sky.

>what are some other bits about the design of this cultures settlements
Doors are usually placed some distance above the ground, with steps leading to them. This is to reduce the chance of being blocked by snow, and the need to shovel said snow.

>>51526669

Tunnels inside the mountain that lead from city to forests below. Multiple entrances at both ends.
The tunnels are generally 2-3 humans wide. They have steps, many turns and splits - as defense against potential invaders.

A large workforce of "carriers" is used to bring things up and down..
As packbeasts and carriages cannot (comfortably) move through the tunnels there would be some storehouses and lesser markets near the lower entrances where goods are repackaged to smaller loads.

The humans have also carved many side chambers and extensions in the tunnels, especially closer to the forest entrances. These are used to house agricultural workers and those who cannot afford to live in the city proper.

I'm thinking about collecting my thoughts in a spiral notebook before transferring (typing everything) to a word document or pdf. Any other lad here do that too?

>>51529823
Thoughts for world building, just for clarification.

>>51529823
>>51529851
it's a good idea, do it

So I'm needing some inspiration for a culture of barbarians living in taiga, tundra, and mountains. Specifically, I try to make cultures a product of environment and economics.

These barbarians suffer from a technological backwater, foreign slavers, a roaming band of orc raiders that show up about once a century, and the occasional necromancer plague. Their main advantage is their vast territory of miscellaneous cold shit nobody wants. Lots of industrial resources, but limited food and population leaves good portions of the populace nomadic and only small portions of it are even united into a single civilization, rather than aboriginal tribes. The parts that do resemble standard civilization have an organized priesthood primarily devoted to combating necromancy, and otherwise encouraging people to donate to public works to sustain the church and the tenuous state.

I'm trying to determine the family structure of such a society. For instance, if I look at aboriginal tribes such as the native americans, I suppose they would closley resemble anarcho-communist clusters and perhaps even the occasional matriarchal tribe. However the presence of technologically superior nations using them to loot slaves, combined with plague increase from necromancers (despite the cold) and low food supply suggests Africa may be a better anthropological correlate.

Then of course there are native siberians. I know little about how they live or what their culture was.

Any suggestions anon?

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Are mountain top castles a real thing? Are castles a normal living space compared or a military installation?

>>51531408
Castles usually had a skeleton crew. Outside of wartime it was normal for castles to have less than 20 guards.

Some were built for nobles to live in relative luxury, others were built specifically for military purposes.

>>51531285
>taiga, tundra, and mountains

maybe look into traditional Inuit cultures, they have a similar history of trading with technologically more advanced outsiders (European settlers) and being used by them in the process. also there's basically no fantasy Inuit anywhere.

>>51532084
Hmm, pretty typical unfortunately. Not exotic or interestingly different from medieval Europe- at least in terms of family life.

The only real differences are obvious. Like the fact that farming is impossible so they necessarily base their society on hunting. And they have strategies to deal with extreme cold.

A few interesting tidbits that aren't generalizable. In extreme circumstances polygamy was permitted. Like if you went on a hunting trip and were gone for a few years you could bed some girl and bring her back I guess. More rarely polyandry was permitted under the same circumstance (missing presumed dead- widow heirs and the like). And apparently some tribes practiced wife swapping as a precaution against inbreeding- but this was rare.

Otherwise its ice-fishing, seal clubbing, and whaling. Sensible economic stuff. But obviously only applies to the real arctic reaches.

I tried looking up siberians but damn if I can't find anything on what their culture was like prior to USSR, much less prior to Christendom.

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>>51492832
Hey guys. Bit of a thought here

The setting I"m planning for is 100 demiplanes connected to one another in a big web. Each world is overseen by an ancient being which mankind has to establish pacts with to harness their magic. With their magics, they can essentially escape the demiplane web.

The group has expressed interest in the setting and one is even pushing me to run it after our current DM finishes. I've fleshed out a lot of the setting and many of the beings and worlds the party would encounter, but I overlooked the most important aspect.

Why? Why would 100 demiplanes be connected anyways? Why trap beings within? Anyone have any ideas I can build off of?

>>51535167
"The Amory Wars" has something like this. Mostly just colonies though if I recall.

>>51535259
Thanks, I"ll look into it.

so, I'm planning out a planet (no pun intended) and so far this is what i've got. What else should I add? Science fantasy genre (maybe with a splash of medieval fantasy)

Planet name: Alpha Draconis - 1.5 Astronomical units from solar center.
Military: Large force
Technology: Tier 3 (inter solar) (T1: Non space faring. T2: Insufficient, rudimentary space travel, limited to artificial and natural satellites. T4-6. No civilizations of yet planned; Interstellar - Inter galactic - extra galactic respectively.)

Main races: Reptoids, Gorgons, Greys, Naga.

Government: Monarchy, Imperialistic, Dictatorship
Inspirations: North Korea, China
Architecture: flamboyant gothic

Religion: Medusian.

Major Reptoid patriarchs: Rex brood, Grad brood, Kral brood and Vua brood. These names are suffixes.
Gorgon priestess: Saradusa, Anyadusa, Guradusa.
Gorgon Matriarch: Esmadusa.

Reptoids born into nobility (signified if they are spawned with wings) are either nobles of one of the four main broods or part of a royal honor guard. All Reptoids are male, whereas the Gorgons are female and honor their demigod of Medusa with the 'Dusa' Suffix in their name, these are more serpentine than the bipedal Reptoids.

(Solar centric time is a generic measurement of years that tries to streamline the age of the solar system and not the planet's specific age) (SCT is still a wip concept)
Dynasties: ?-0sct the Medusa dynasty reigned supreme, but when the demigod herself grew old and tired, she spawned the 3 Gorgon priestesses and appointed the new matriarch. The new matriarch gave up the royal ties to form a religious sect which all Gorgons and Reptoids practice.
0sct-217sct: Xulgrad dynasty
217sct-current: Ginrex dynasty.

Some time in the Ginrex dynasty, the alien species known as Greys came into contact with the Reptoids and offered technological advancements in turn for protection of their dwindling population. Ginrex approved of this and the two races work together.[1]

>>51535298
The Greys are treated as equal to the Reptoids due to their mutual trade of services. There are two types of Greys, Tall and Short. The Short Greys are seen most of the time doing much of the engineering work while usually overseen by a Tall Grey. The Greys do not speak much to the common Reptoid or Gorgon, but they'll always show respect towards the noble broods and priestesses.

There are other races from all over the solar system living on Alpha Draconis but they are deemed as unworthy to enter any major city and forced to live in slums as second class citizens. If any second class citizen were to openly criticize any noble brood they get severely punished and forced to sit through reeducation. These second class species are allowed to leave the planet, but the cost to do so is too much for them. Any attempt at smuggling out of the planet results in immediate extermination from the Reptoid honor guard.

The final unique race living on Alpha Draconis are the Naga. The Naga are amphibious serpents similar to the Gorgons except there aren't just female Naga. The Naga race resides in the Oceans of Alpha Draconis and have evolved to fit such an environment. Adorning their skin are durable carapaces to protect them from sea creatures who may try to consume them rays align their spines and arms to assist in swimming. The Noble broods don't recognize the Naga empire has their own city-state, since they believe everything on Alpha Draconis belongs to them anyway, inherited from Medusa herself. Despite this, the Naga still have their own monarchy and get invited to Medusian ceremonies. The Naga can survive out of water for a few hours but definitely prefer a moist environment if on land. The Naga focus on agriculture rather than conquering like their land based counterparts, but they still keep a small military force.

Naga Rulers: King Marildon & Queen Cordelia
Religion: None or Medusian
Small military
Architecture: Ottoman
Tech: 0.

>>51535298
>What else should I add?
You should add a whole lot to make it look more like a planet and less like an island.

>>51521510
I could do that, and I have some ideas that could really work. Thing is I'd have to be consistent with that and make something akin to Halflings too.

Some part of me just wants to use Dark Sun but I don't like just having Elemental gods.

>>51531408

Not at the top of a mountain, but many were intentionally built in hard-to-reach places in an elevated position, with as few points of entry for attacking forces to have, like coastal cliffsides, the peaks of craggy hills, next a mountains side etc.

Do you believe humans are a must-have in a setting? Could a setting be engaging with no humans whatsoever, ponies notwithstanding?

No, no human expies either, all races are rather different and with different psychologies.

Also, half the major races lack some typical human features, like dexterous fingers, or eyes, or ability to move upright, etc.

>>51536677
>Do you believe humans are a must-have in a setting? Could a setting be engaging with no humans whatsoever, ponies notwithstanding?
>No, no human expies either, all races are rather different and with different psychologies.
>Also, half the major races lack some typical human features, like dexterous fingers, or eyes, or ability to move upright, etc.

It could work, the problem is it's harder to identify with non-humans. Especially if they have non human faces. Anthropomorphic characters can work, c.f. the Horde in WoW - they're very relatable actually, Monsters Inc., any animated film about animals etc...

>>51536816
that's what I'm afraid of. shame, really. humans just don't fit into the setting and hamfisting human features on other races feels inorganic. I suspect I'm already stretching it by making majority of them humanoid.

>>51536842
What stories are you even trying to tell, and why should human players or readers relate to the characters?

>>51536842
I mean, it depends on your group, but if you can't do stuff like describe facial expressions and stuff. It works with one or two exceptions - HK47/the elcor from Mass Effect have a monotone and state what emotion they are feeling before they statement - which is funny. But if you have to describe how every race displays emotion - even if they feel emotion at all? Then it can get too much.

You could try describing it abstractly as "they look worried" even if that means they're scratching their eyeballs with their tongue or something. But that is then anthropomorphising them again.

Alright guys, Rich part of a Trade Hub City is build by Mages who helped defend the Port, the best of their ranks ruminated on power as the city grew and worked on Ascending the mortal plane, he failed and now lives in an orb at the cities center, 501 years later the Orb at the center of a Huge Magical Academy tells of the destruction of the now bustling city.

What are some cool prophecies to explore in a big, bustling, Magic and Trade infused City setting?

>>51521663

I'd generally agree. It's great to add if you can though, if for no other reason than the smug sense of satisfaction at fitting it all together.

>>51536915
hm, I didn't really think about that. I'm making a setting and trying to make it feel organic and believable. the thought "how will people take it?" has just now crossed my mind

>>51537017
Star Wars has humans and is organic and believable. Having humans doesn't necessarily cheapen the experience, but you need them to provide a frame of reference. We are the only intelligent species that we've experienced so our frame of reference is very narrow. And any alien you try to make will be tainted with Earth influences. Just embrace it, no one will question it. Even if every other race is weird as fuck, at least some major characters and your PCs need to be human(ish).

>>51537017
>>51537070
Parallel evolution can explain the existence of beings that look a lot like human beings. It's not impossible that the human chassis is the 'ideal' evolutionary path for intelligence.

>>51537070
>>51537078
I'm the anon with underground tunnel world from some posts above.
Having tall long-haired humans, fit for swimming, running and tree-climbing, and unfit for digging, with out eyes made for seeing well in the distance and adjusted to daylight - it all makes no sense.

closest things to humans I made are a bald, pale-skinned stooped dwarf-like race with beards made of symbiotic fungus, that they use to absorb nutrients from stuff, and sapient rodent/mustelid hybrid humanoids that have zero cultural or psychological features at the moment, they are WIP, but probably won't be human-like, since a rodent with human personality is a skaven. also they don't have fingers, they have massive claws, like a mole.
others are even less like humans.

>>51537017
>>51537070
As a concrete example. Imagine being a player, and not only having to roleplay something that looks like an insect, but thinks completely differently from a human. That's a daunting task, and completely unnatural for the player. Even roleplaying an elf who's lived for potentially centuries can be difficult. Legolas in the LOTR calls the Fellowship "children" - and he's lived for potentially 3000 years! That's incomprehensible to a human mind. That's experiencing human civilisation from approximately the start of the IRON AGE to Facebook.

>>51537135
>Having tall long-haired humans, fit for swimming, running and tree-climbing, and unfit for digging, with out eyes made for seeing well in the distance and adjusted to daylight - it all makes no sense.

How do your players find RPing this? And it makes sense if you imagine they came to the surface many years ago. Why are whales born with legs? Because they were originally dog-like animals. Same reason for Drow. Vestigal traits are quite common in lots of animals. Even some underground mammals have vestigal eyes.

>>51537135
"with ouR eyes", not "without yes", jeez, bloody typos

>>51537150
this is completely underground world. no surface at all. nothing to have vestiges of. they have eyes, sure, but so much differently specialized than ours
okay, what would you consider more important to connect to a race - appearance or psychology? after all, I can probably sum up main psychological differences in a few features (e.g. "words "great, high, tall, etc" have no connotations of prestige, as they are more of disadvantage in the tunnels.", etc)

>>51536677
>Do you believe humans are a must-have in a setting?
No, not necessarily. Humans are very useful, however, in that they offer the players an easy to grasp focal point from which to observe the rest of the setting. If humans are not part of it, then you probably still need something else, sufficiently similar to humans, for the players to latch onto.

>>51537192
>this is completely underground world. no surface at all. nothing to have vestiges of. they have eyes, sure, but so much differently specialized than ours

Oh ok, fair enough.

>okay, what would you consider more important to connect to a race - appearance or psychology? after all, I can probably sum up main psychological differences in a few features (e.g. "words "great, high, tall, etc" have no connotations of prestige, as they are more of disadvantage in the tunnels.", etc)

Honestly, appearance - players/readers will always view psychology through a human lens, no matter how alien you try to make it, they will play it as "human". So long as it's not utterly weird you can do something with it. But if you're roleplaying something without human features, your whole way of moving and acting changes. Think of walking - if you say you want to "run" towards an enemy but you're actually a snakelike thing?

LIVE, DAMMIT!

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>>51537150
would you say they have... eyes on the inside??

>>51535768
I can do that, What program should I use to make a visual representation? And for the style should I have both planet sides or do the sprawled rectangle map style?

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>>51536842
Yeah. But if it is for RP, you should consider human/expy.
It's good idea to have stepping stone into setting, having to get grip of alien behavior/culture can be an effort some won't bother making.

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What would a society look like if we mixed the Huns and the Mongols?

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>>51511148
>Institute

>>51540017
>atheism aka science
wew lad

>>51540017
>Einsturzende Neubauten's logo

>>51540017
Really similar?

>>51540017
what happens if i mix spring water and rain water?

>>51540172
April Showers

>>51504796
That sounds really fun actually

>>51539914
Most won't. Especially when there's nothing familiar about the setting at all.

>>51540017
I see proto-world and all I can think is that there's absolutely no basis for it. On what grounds is it assumed that all religions originally were animist? And moreover, even if it is a simplification, why does the chart imply that all proto-animism was the same?

>>51542195
because, and I'm gonna let you in on a secret here, atheists actually know jack shit about religion(s) and are actively discouraging each other from learning about how they work.

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>>51542195
>On what grounds is it assumed that all religions originally were animist?
I don't know where the discussion started due to what I pressume was an accidental misquote, but I can answer you why people assume that all religions were historically animist.

It's rooted in anthropological theory known as (today we call it "naive") evolutionarism, which gained considerable popularity in the second half of 19th century. The theory basically said that all cultures go through roughly the same, natural stages of "evolution", from stone-age-style "primitive" or "savage" cultures through early civilizations through monotheistic stages and all the way up to urbanized, secular industrial society. The idea was that our, western civilization was natural conclusion of natural social progression, and that all cultures that differed were different simply because they just got "stuck" on a lower or earlier stage of cultural progression. (Guess where Marx got his idea about all cultures naturally progressing towards an ultimate social conclusion too...).

Anyway, evolutionarism was an anthropological mainstay and most aspects of human culture, including religion, were based on it. Since the most primitive societies that we know (which thought were stuck at the oldest stage of social evolution) were animistic, people assumed religion naturally always starts animistic. Since medieval societies were monotheist, we assumed that is a natural "middle stage" of the progression, which leads automatically to the final stage of religious evolution: rationalism.

So that is mainly where this idea comes from. That said: as much as it's easy to point and laugh at naive evolutionarism in anthropology, there is quite a lot to it. The theory isn't dumb, it's just not entirely sufficient and skewed by socio-ideological contamination. Cultures do progress, and some uniformity in their "evolutions" can be traced, and the same can be said about religion. Just not quite as straight forwardly.

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>>51542581
Honestly a great post anon. Have this.

>>51542943
Thanks. There is actually a lot more to the whole problem, but I'm kinda lazy to write it all now...

>>51542581
All that aside, it should also be noted that while we have extremely little information about very early religions, what little evidence we have seems to point to animistic belief systems, through things like cave drawings and fetishes and totems. Of course most of it is conjecture since we really have very little archaeological evidence on that front.

Another reason people think that early religions were animist is because the early religions that we do know about all show influences of animism either through gods responsible for aspects of the world (god of thunder, god of fire, whatever).

Of course it's always possible that some religions, like Scientology, sprung up fully formed from the head of their prophets, but there's little evidence of that.

Anyway, my point is that it's all too easy to to blame evolutionism and leaps of logic for the general belief that early belief systems were animistic, the idea itself is not without evidence, even if nobody is making strong claims like "all religions started as animistic" anymore.

>>51543210
>the idea itself is not without evidence,
That is why I'm saying the theory isn't dumb and that there is quite a lot to it. This theory IS rooted in and was developed by social evolutionarists, but that does not mean it's without merits and should be simply dismissed. I was trying to explain why it's so broadly popular - it was made popular by the popularity of anthropological evolutionarism, that is without a doubt.

There are however arguments for it outside of anthropological evolutionarism itself.
One of the strongest arguments is that certain forms of religion can be assumed to require certain socio-economical conditions to be met, like certain degree of population density, certain degree of socio-economical stratification, or certain levels of efficiency in information distribution (which arguably might fall under the "population density" thing). Animism is one of the forms of religion that does not need any of it, as it can survive with very small societies and does not require particularly large volumes of information to be stored and passed on regularly, neither does it require existence of things like dedicated cast of priest.

There is old archeological evidence, as you said.

There are psychological and cognitive theories of abstraction and applications of relevance fields suggesting that animism is the most natural manifestation of process that results in what we call religious belief.

It's also arguably the most intuitive religion, and one could even make the argument of "ontogeny following philogeny" and make an argument that animism is something children are naturally inclined to, suggesting it's something humans of an earlier evolutionary stages might have been inclined to.

None of these arguments, much like the theory of social evolution, are sufficiently convincing to make us believe it's the most likely theory though.

We don't know if animism is the natural origin of religion. It's just one of possible theories.

>>51542241
Nice try, but I am an atheist. I don't discriminate against bullshit based on who said it however.

>>51544298
I tip my fedora to you, fellow enlightened gentleman.

>>51544473
The only guy I have ever met who wore a fedora was a theist who would constantly talk about how atheism made no sense even though no one else wanted to talk to him about it.

>Have idea that literally came to me in a dream
>Literally comes with a dungeon built in it, perfect for /tg/
Where do I even start? Just draw stuff that was there, write short stories? What?
I guess I'll start with the questions in OP.

>>51544659
Oh hey, that happened to me last night. Thanks for reminding me.

Although it involved crushing people's heads to produce semen used in artificial insemination, so I'll probably be making a *few* changes.

Also no, don't bother with the questions. I find it easiest to just write down the world, but writing stories and drawing shit is also good.

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>>51544815

>what is the center of a settlement in this culture.
A stadium structure where the wealthy ( which is almost everyone in this city ) are entertained.
>what are the homes made of, what is the architectural style
Carved, smoothed, and decorated by the most skilled of stonemasons. Towering spires thrust towards the vast emptiness that is upwards.
>what are the fortifications of the culture like
The city is floating, so in the rare case of a siege the citizens must retreat inside the shell of the massive clam like organism that the city is built on top of. An attack on the city is unlikely, as it would require a fleet of flying/swimming(can't decide what it would count as) mounts. Or another similarly floating city attempting an attack, but in that case the defending city could just float away.
>what locations are favored for settlement but this culture
Closer to the central stadium, or an apartment high enough to overlook the entire city and the lands below.
>what are some other bits about the design of this cultures settlements
Its on the back of a giant, floating clam
The building materials are mined from the Wall, as most buildings are if they aren't made from the sand from the unending sands that make up the ground of anywhere that isn't the Wall.
If you aren't a citizen, of which there is proportionally few, you are a slave or servant.
Waste is handled as simply as dumping it over the edge. This has lead to settlements below that sort through the trash in search of a treasure. You can almost record it's drift speed and direction just by seeing how large the slums below it are. The wider the slums the longer the city has been floating above that location.

>>51544953
so seasteading libertarians?

>>51544659
>Where do I even start?
Write down everything that you remember. Seriously, ideas from dreams have uncanny tendency to disappear. Just free-current-of-consciousness them, sit down, start writing from any random starting point.
Once you are sure you won't be forgetting any of the important things, I'd recommend letting it stew. I personally haven't written down much over the last four years I've been world-building, the little I wrote down outdated, but I haven't forgotten any of it. Others may need more regular writing aids to avoid forgetting stuff.

As for where to start with the actual process of world-building: people prefer different ways. Many argue (and it's a good point) that you should start with a map, which will give you a good reference point and solid synchronic overview of your world.
Others start with a time-line, or lists of cultures. Some others just sit down and start writing vignettes of their world (I like to do it, but I only started doing that once I had a lot of the shit figured out).
Some authors even propose writing an encyclopedia or dictionary for your world.

>>51545034
Well, as close as you can get "underwater" I guess.
The whole setting takes place "underwater". Using quotes because swimming isn't easy, a breathing assistance device like a isn't necessary, and the setting itself is fantastical and not in any way realistic.
There is the Wall. People got there because it's seemingly the only landmark in existence there. And it's so massive it's infinite in size. It feels like being underwater, but it isn't because you can still breathe. Like being underwater, you float down slowing and you can jump higher. But for some reason you can't swim. But some things, like the gargantuan clams, can for some unknown reason. You are unlikely to find the same location on the Wall, but arriving at the Wall itself is inevitable.
Still trying to work out what people eat though. I guess you would hunt stuff like bottom feeders, crabs, and lobsters. Ironically, stuff that can swim/fly is a delicacy due to how difficult it would be to even catch them.

Yeah,I figured out what I should do. Centralize the ecosystem around the giant clams first.

>>51544841
It's my own fault for reading the Bible so late at night.

Amateurish GM, ocassional /tg/ lurker here. Don't know where to ask this.
Where should I look for tools, resources and such for homebrew systems? Can't find the thread if there's any.

>>51546333
/gdg/ (Game Design General) pops up every Saturday and survives as long as it can. It deals with everything mechanics/system based, while /wbg/ is best served for setting and story.

So depending on exactly what you mean, you're either already here or a day early.

>>51531408
>Are mountain top castles a real thing?

Google these three names:
- Montsegur
- Puilaurens
- Queribus

Amd then come back to report your results.

>>51546333
See >>51546370

>>51546443
Its up a day early.

>>51546443
>>51546717
Thanks.
I finally got the players to compromise and get to play every Sunday, so I'm upgrading my system from 'Alpha' status to 'Beta', but still needs polishing.
I'm planning to do a few sessions focused on balancing combat before starting a new campaign, so I guess /gdg/ is what I need the most right now.
I still need to work on the next campaign too, so I'll come back here once I figure the basics of the setting and plot.

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r8 my map, I'll admit it's not one of my best.

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h-how about this one?

>>51549074
>>51549095
there's a map thread currently up and running over here >>51524232

>>51549215
Oh, thanks.

>>51549074

Is that the old Windows logo down in the bottom left?

>>51492988
>We

>what is the center of a settlement in this culture.
The maloseum, where the ashes and relics of the dead ancestors and other members of the Family are kept. The Family head and his immediate family live here and carry out rituals to sustain the ancesteral spirits and gather advice from them, which the Head uses as proof of his right to rule.
>what are the homes made of, what is the architectural style
Stone where it is available and affordable, otherwise, it depends on the exact biome, but adobe or bricks are common in the more fertile plains, log cabins near forests, tents on the steppe
>what are the fortifications of the culture like
With the exception of major cities, which are fairly rare, wooden stockades or low stone walls are common. natural defensive structures such as cliffs or hills are very sought after
>what locations are favored for settlement but this culture
Generally a Family split off from a larger clan will search for an area within their clan's domain. Hills covered in lush lush pasture land is strongly preferred where possible.
>what are some other bits about the design of this cultures settlements
Nuclear families closer related to the head live closer to the center.
A ceremonial gate with the Family Name of the inhabitants is always present, even in small villages with no real walls.
Houses of non-nomadic groups are built to be very sturdy and defensible, often with built in murder holes and arrow slits.
In some communities children are raised communally until a certain age, usually 8-10. This is typically presided over by the Head's chief wife

I have a general idea for a campaign but need help workshopping the world around it.

I don't know the system yet, but the plan is that the players are science fiction characters with future tech and crash into an alien world, but it turns out the alien world is full of medieval level fantasy elements and magic. An important factor to the campaign will be them starting out with really good equipment and items, but having all the future tech be limited in some way (ammunition, medkits, etc) So there will be a constant struggle of 'is it worth it to use this?'

Mostly I am looking for situations or something about the environment or cultures around them that will motivate them to spend these resources instead of just hording them. (even though thats an option) Such as their crashsite being in the middle of a prolonged war between two nations, or an ongoing plague that they could easily cure.

>>51514661
>What is the hardest part for you to do in worldbuilding?
Finding a good balance between adding in what I like, and changing it around to where its interesting without it being a needless change.

Like I absolutely love the way Dragons were portrayed in Magic the Gathering's Dragons of Tarkir block, and I want to do something similar to that in my setting. I've been thinking of having them have dragonborn as their creations to rival that of the gods, making Dragonborn in this setting more akin to Draconians from dragonlance in that they are created via magical means, but at the same time I want them to be less "honorable, organized troops" and more "incredibly potent Barbarian horde"

I just don't know if Dragonborn barbarians would be interesting though. I'm hoping this would be an interesting change like how Elves and Halflings changed form forgotten realms to Dark Sun, but it might also come off as lazy.

>>51536677
I'd certainly play in an Oddworld/Vattu inspired game. While they've both got vaguely humanoid stuff, you could certainly get weirder.

>>51552689
M A U S O L E U M
IT'S CALLED M A U S O L E U M

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>>51492832
>>what is the center of a settlement in this culture.
There isn't one. The larger settlements are generally just gridshaped, with larger streets horizontally and smaller streets vertically.

>>what are the homes made of, what is the architectural style
Depends on the climate, but simple stone huts are generally preferred. Further north, monolithic structures and caved are used, while further south, small wooden shacks on stilts are common.

>>what are the fortifications of the culture like
There arn't a lot spread around, due to the low population density. But actual permanent fortifications that are more than just stacked lumber tend to be large fortresses carved out of the mountain, commisioned by a great ruler.

>>what locations are favored for settlement but this culture
Overlooking wide plains, although larger, military fortifications are generally built in already defensible locations, mostly in small valleys.

>>what are some other bits about the design of this cultures settlements
They're impossible to sum up considering it's its own continent, but structures are built to last in general. Even amazonian rainforest frontier villages are built to last, with dikes around it to keep it drained, and simple, easily renewable huts out of various kinds of wood. As the settlement grows, the jungle is torn away, and the great plains keep on working itself southwards.

In fact, the current capital was once a frontier city in the jungle, but is, by now, surrounded by a hundred miles of savannah and arid mountains.

>>51514448
Must agree. In most cases race=culture which is pretty annoying. You have to make sure that yoir races have multiple different cultures, unless they are in limited numbers in one place.

>>51514661
Actually writing ideas down and fleshing out notes. I have numerous files on nations and ideas in my drive folder.

>>51514771
I like that map

>>51514833
I try to match in-world languages with some real world one. Then liberal use of dictionaries to invent place names. People back in the day weren't most creative at naming places.

>>51515118
Map is a beauty

>>51516048
City of Lux suffered internal strife. A group of merchants with reasonable power accused another merchant block to be followers of Garban the Whole. This caused enough blood to be spilled that trade across the whole world suffered.

>>51521752
Reminds me of that rune magic system /tg/ made few years ago.

>>51522675
I really should make one. Picture thousand words etc.

>>51529823
I slowly write things down with my phone to drive. This way it is faster for me, but I do not know if that is your cup of tea.

>>51544659
Write down things and start thinking what do you want in your world. How gods work, creation myth, magic, what races you have etc. From there just expand forward.

>>51492832
Northern Wastes, Endless Whiteness, Fookin' cold place. Loved child has many names. Far north of Western Kingdoms behind wilderness of The Frontiers lies a large stretch of land. Huge glacier on North Pole stretches far and its cold spreads all over the world. Between The Frontiers and North Pole lies a place people call home. In their ancient language the place is known as Land of Gods and Giants. In these parts humans and other races endure within boreal forests.

>what is the center of a settlement in this culture.
House of Healing. A tradition from ancient times. Herbalists and healers are living there. It was necessary to know where the healer was even for outsiders. From this it started. House of Healing is also a place of moderation. It serves the people and the healers there do not take part in politics or feuds. Around it is built other important structures.

>what are the homes made of, what is the architectural style
Houses have heavy stone foundations, but otherwise everything is built from logs. Heavy log walls with insulation keeps the houses warm for the winter. Rooms are small, but single house can have multiple rooms. Northerners prefer well decorated rooms and big homes, long winters can be quite good sources boredom and cabin fever.

Nobility and "Kings" usually have their own longhouses with double thick walls and good insulation. Decorated heavily with wood and bone, they show how rich the owner is.

>what are the fortifications of the culture like
Most settlements build their houses in a circle or square and form defensive ring naturally. When settlement grows motte and bailey becomes the fortification of choice. Few towns and cities are built on ruins of long gone civilization. They have sturdy stone walls or other parts of the city used as fortifications. In north it is tremendous undertaking to build heavy walls.

Cont.

>>51561013

>what locations are favored for settlement but this culture
Settlements grow usually around good patches of land or near rivers. Vantage points and hills are valuable locations. Old ruins and roads have usually settlement of some sort around them.

>what are some other bits about the design of this cultures settlements
Most settlements are small. Only dozen or so houses. With land allocated for usage being quite well used and regulated, this has forced the population to spread out. These small settlements grow from necessity. People know they need others. If someone breaks their leg, that could mean death to their family if not for the settlements help. Main sources of food are hunting and fishing. The short summer does allow for farming, but in limited amount. Not enough for survival.

Bigger settlements grow naturally from trade or job prospects. Mines and places where manual labour is needed grow fast and then die out when operation is finished. Towns get bigger more south you go as weather allows for longer farming and prospects of trade.

Northerners are sturdy and hardy folk that rarely give a shit about what is happening in The Frontiers or even southern. They are very open and equal society and welcome outsiders nearly as one of their own. Major towns in south usually have one or more districts inhibited by people of foreign origin.

>>51561032
Some of the Northerners (I need to check few things before naming them) do migrate to warmer south for the winter. They come back in spring to farm and participate in different tasks.


Humans have spread all across the north there is another race that is specific to this area. Bactrian Cameltaurs are nomadic/semi-stationary race of camel centaurs. Centaurs are a rare species already, but Bactrian Cameltaurs are quite numerous, but very splintered.

Bactrian Camels IRL are camels who live in central Asia and are capable at being outside in cold weather. Taking them and inserting them as the rideable animal in north was easy choice. Having already plans to insert centaurs as a race of small numbers in few places, adding wooly nomadic cameltaurs wasn't hard. This decision also adds more spice to the north. I need to think their culture, but one thing is sure, they are very splintered and that allows multiple factions and feuding.

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>>51492832
>>what is the center of a settlement in this culture.
DETROIT ROCK CITY BAYBEE
Motor City lost a good amount of its initial population when the Midwest got the shit nuked out of it, but it's still very populous, probably the most populated town in the US that isn't in the South (full of confederate skellingtons, racist liches, and antebellum vampires) or North (CHUDs, Law-Wizards, Alphabet agencies, secret societies, cultists, and laborers). Motor City is still churning out cars, of course, but now you're getting daemon-possessed Hot Rods that run off everything from bacon grease, to gasoline, to nuclear power.
>>what are the homes made of, what is the architectural style
Apartment blocks that were stripped to the concrete, patched together with sheet metal, car hoods, and lit with ambient garbage-fires. Marginally shittier than actual Detroit.
>>what are the fortifications of the culture like
Being in the middle of a wasteland full of radioactive dust-tornadoes, possessed Hot Rods that have things that look like pic related driving around in them, bandits, and various weird mutants is fortification enough, but in case the above (or a conquering force that gets through all of the above) start trouble, the town is surrounded with a jungle of concrete blocks, a la dragon's teeth from WWII, rebar 'barbed wire', and a few shanty-dwelling crazies that can't build cars worth shit, but have spud guns that'll launch anything from suckling pigs to tin cans full of nails, feces, and explosives. The town itself is armed to the teeth and have people that are mean as hell.
>>what locations are favored for settlement but this culture
In the Dust Bowl? There's pretty much nothing but Motor City and Salt Lake City, plus a few nomadic bandit/mutant camps (FYI: Mormons are now desert dwelling paladins that are very, very, armed so they can spread the word of god wherever they go)
>>what are some other bits about the design of this cultures settlements
Think of Megaton! <3

>>51515118
Do you have a version of this without the names?

Should I learn/study lit to be good at worldbuilding?

>>51559726

really interesting thread

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>>51569931
sorry, accidentally deleted the file

>>51568044

Maybe. By just reading books of your genre you will find inspiration

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>>51492832
>/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

How exactly would Chimeric hides effect (affect?) leather-working?

By that I mean; how would skinning and process the hide of an animal that isn't naturally uniform work out? Like, the back half is fur, the front half is feathers or the appendages and head are covered in scales, but the body is fur- etc..

Would this be a hassel with people specializing in Chimeric leather working? Or would it just be a straight forward situation?

>Bonus Question

I intend on stealing wholesale fallout new vegas' "Nightstalker": half coyote, half rattlesnake, monster for my own setting.
I need, though, a better name than "Nightstalker"- which I think sounds corny.
I'm thinking of calling them Eyotes.

What are some subtle ways to describe a fragile, recovering society?

My setting is a decade or so after an enormous, continent-spanning war that left millions dead. It's based around a magic academy beside a town.

How do you convey the feeling of shaky unease mixed with cautious optimism that follows such a devastating war?

Even better, how do you subtly infer that despite the post-war propaganda, the winners were certainly not good people?

In short, what does society-wide denial /look/ like?

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>>51570298
>copied Nargacuga for my setting, as pantherbat chimera
>called them Nightstalkers
You're making me feel bad, anon.

>>51570361
Assuming the society that it takes place in are the victors, I think some things to consider first would be the circumstances of the war, what caused it to happen, how it ended and more importantly, how they handled the war itself and post-war.

>How do you convey the feeling of shaky unease mixed with cautious optimism that follows such a devastating war?
Various viewpoints and opinions based on the backgrounds of those people. Depending on you do things, younger people that were born after the war could be prone to believing the post-war propaganda and thus could be more optimistic. Inversely, older people that lived through the war might be less trusting or uneasy towards those in power based on what they might've seen or experienced, both during the war and after.

>Even better, how do you subtly infer that despite the post-war propaganda, the winners were certainly not good people?
Doing it subtly is kinda difficult. I think it would imply that the winners are good at hiding the less-than-savory things they might've done during and after the war but not so much so that there is no evidence. Maybe they committed some serious war crimes like destroying an entire town of noncombatants or imposed some serious terms of surrender on the losers of the war or even outright genocide.

>>51571261
Yes, the society is the victorious one.
This is great stuff anon, thank you.

There were significant war crimes throughout the war, the largest of which were perpetrated by the two leaders of the magic school, who are presented as heroes to the public. Without getting into specifics, they are two super-mages who were showered in money and titles after the war less out of gratitude and more out of fear.

>>51568044
Definitely. And DON'T limit yourself to your genre, like >>51570270 advises. Inspiration will come from literally anywhere, and good writing exists in all genres and transcends all genres.

There's a reason "genre fiction" is a slur.

>>51571966
>There's a reason "genre fiction" is a slur.
It's just that genre fiction is the literary equivalent of shovelware.

>>51572091
Exactly. It's not good enough to escape its own genre, because it relies on their tropes and cliches.

The point being that you can find good writing in Borges or the Bible even if your world is science-fiction.

>>51571966
>>51572105
Feel like I wanna say something about this and the broader concept. I'm just glad you understand this. I see so many people restrict themselves on genres and all sorts of idiotic made-up ways. Why? No clue.

When you open the gates of inspiration, you're in for a ride. I'm really against the strict descriptions of fantasy, of scifi, of this and that. Don't think about all that jazz, just write and have fun. If someone wants to box you in some genre, let em, but pay no mind to it. Grinds my gears when people ask "can I do this?" or "is this too sci-fi?" or some other bullshit with clear reference towards genres and restrictions. I think this is the main reason a gigantic amount of people's worldbuilding ends up being just another unimaginative variation of Tolkien (or one of his equals) among the thousands alike.

>>51516031

You sound like a real wet napkin.

>>51572380
Definitely. When you're writing genre shouldn't be something you even stop to consider, except when you're using it for yourself -- like DQ's use/abuse of chivalric romance, but total refusal to get stuck within that genre.

When people say "there are no rules to writing", that includes genre. You do what you think is best, what you want to do, not what you think you ought to do.

>>51572518
Yeah, "savage" is just plain incorrect. Who then cares if it's also politically incorrect?

Also Maori need to get some more love. Proper Maori -- not bullshit sanitised Maori. Maori were badass motherfuckers who duelled and ate their enemies and literally could not suck the cock of an empire which was obviously relatively benign (mostly because what the hell are you going to exploit New Zealand for?).

The mana thing is ripe for punning magic fuckery.

>>51571966
You are correct. Made a mistake there.

Read everything from news to books with a lot of pictures

>>51568044
NO. You need to study history.

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this one was made by Acme on the /wbg/ discord

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family tree of an alt history noble family im making. Hugues de Branchefort was mainly active during the years surrounding the Norman Conquest of 1066. His father was Breton, and his mother was Norman. His son Tancred was the master of the horse for the Duke of Normandy, hence the family name of his descendants

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>>51576622
Brancheville was an estate built by Louis, before being inherited by his brother.

The house de Chevaux were the third faction during The Anarchy. Hugues de Chevaux would be killed, and Hugues of Loughton severely injured during this conflict. Celeste was married to Stephen I, months before the Plantaganet invasion. The Loughton branch would survive well into the Plantaganet era, supporting the Yorks during the War of the Roses. This led to their demise under the Tudor usurpation.

Bohemond of Toron was a knight under the King of Jerusalem, He was granted the castle of Toron for his services. His descendants would be minor players in the Holy Land, overshadowed by the House of Lusignan.

>>51518503
Psychic powers belong in horror.

>>51576724
oh, forgot about Hugues of Brittany. He usurped the Breton duchy with the support of Henry Plantaganet.

>>51537070
>Star Wars has humans and is organic and believable.
>implying

>>51556821
I'm just a notch in your bedpost
But you're just a line in a song

What's a good name for a Not!Buddhits/Not!Jedi religion in a Science Fantasy? Keep coming back to The Way, or Wayism, but very unhappy with those.

Actually, how do you name religions in your settings?

>>51521752
That sounds pretty cool.

How is magic used in your setting? Is it just for purely functional, pragmatic purposes, or do people also use it to throw around fireballs?

>>51521818
It might be good to know the basics of programming, though. Just so you don't wind up with a 90s 1337 hacker-esque situation.

Like, you don't need to be able to make functional programs or nothin', but at least sorta get to the point where if someone were to slowly walk you through what a simple-ish program did, you could mostly follow along.

>>51522331
Do you mean Thermian arguments? "Thermic" means "relating to heat".

>>51577930
he's saying he's got hot opinions

>>51578982
That makes no fucking sense though. He's the bloody author explaining how people named places in his setting and shit.

>>51570298
I think handling the transition from fur to feathers or feathers to scales would be one of those mundane but difficult parts of the job.

Like if form 93-b17 is super complicated and requires you to get signatures from a bunch of different people, you'd think of 93-b17 as being pretty annoying, but it's still one of the mundane parts of your job. Or for a jewelry maker, the part where you insert the gem into the casing, and you have to be very careful not to scratch the gem.

That's how I'd think of it, at least.

>>51576757
Or in sci-fi, or in fantasy, or in magic realism, or in other speculative fiction genres.

>>51579088
The Thermian argument (if that is indeed what that anon was trying to reference) is a fallacy where someone examines or explains a work of fiction as though its rules are immutable and not the result of decisions made by the author. "Things are this way because that's how the people in the setting act," or "she wears a bikini into battle because that's how she likes to dress". It's a Galaxy Quest reference.

So what the anon is trying to claim is "the fact that there's an explanation for why this cow-shaped continent is named that way doesn't change the fact that it's cow-shaped," and believes that because the continent is vaguely cow-shaped the whole thing is silly.

Even though in real life we have the heel of Italy, the Florida and Oklahoma panhandles, Spider Lake, Snake River, and on and on and on.

>>51577834
A religion can be named:

>after a prophet or founder (Zoroastrianim, Christianity, Confucianism)

>after the core concept (Taoism, Buddhism, Jainism)

>after the people or nation that practices it (Judaism, Hinduism)

>after the main god (Shaivism)

>Just fuck it all (Islam = submission to god, Sikh = learner, Baha'i = glory)

As you can see all the names are foreign. Of course they aren't foreign to the peoples who founded them, but a foreign name for a religion just sounds better.

>>51579270
Just to clear something out: magical realism is not a speculative genre. And psychic powers don't really belong there, precisely because of their speculative nature.

>>51579569
Someone better tell Borges that.

>>51579569
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculative_fiction
>Speculative fiction is a broad umbrella genre denoting any narrative fiction with supernatural or futuristic elements;[1] this encompasses the genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror, alternative history, magic realism, and superhero fiction, as well as combinations of the previous genres.

>>51579829
That is actually a decent point. However:
Borges is not usually considered magical realism by majority of literary scholars. Marquez actually made a pretty damn big fuss about that shit. I would also actually hesitate to call his work "speculative" to begin with.

>>51579863
Wiki is wrong on this one.

>>51579305
Now I get it.

>>51579507
I hope you realize that Taoism and Jainism are literally the same as Sikhism or Islam in being named for the core concept.

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>>51579115
>That's how I'd think of it, at least.

That's an interesting tidbit, anon, thank you very much.
It mildly supports my, "chimeric leatherworking is a specialized labor/trade" idea.

>>51570404
>You're making me feel bad, anon.

Sorry to hear that, anon, but I don't think an overly dramatic name like "NightStalker" is appropriate for my half rattlesnake, half coyotes- who's main threat to society begins and ends with stealing chickens.

I think it'd be silly if a party rolled into town, accepted a local bounty on "Nightstalker Tails" thinking they were going to be running into some horrifying monster that the townsfolk are too afraid to fight and it's just... It's a Coyote with a Snake head n' rattle tail.. And they're just sort of stealing poultry and biting people's dogs.

I'm looking for a name that's more "mundane" and less "campfire story".

>>51580693
I hope you realize that's not the case. Well, maybe for Jainism, but certainly not for Islam.

Anyone else love fishmen nations? I have my guys as a sort of theological monarchy if that sense.

If so how do you guys do them?

>>51570298
oookay, bad news. Due to the very nature of how leather working FUNCTIONS you would not be able to successfully tan the entire hide in a proper manner because a lot of that involves soaking the WHOLE THING in various chemicals.

If you had say, a dragon/gryphon thing that has lion's fur, feathered skin, and scales, each and every segment would need to be treated in a radically different manner. I know you -can- tan avian hides, and you can even do so in a manner that retains the feathers (I have absolutely no idea how this is achieved, it could very well be they carefully pluck, then skin, then tan, then glue/sew the plucked feathers back on for all I know).

Now what I can garuntee for you is that the tanning process between mammal hides versus reptile hides, specifically using Gators as an example (or snakes, but I know gators best), is incredibly different.

basically, I think as long as you're just scraping the skin, and then BASICALLY treating it so that it functions as hide/fur clothing rather than actual leather (a process that involves a lot fewer chemicals, you scrape the inside of the hide, then dry it, then treat the inner side to prevent rot I think), you should be good.

But if you want to do the process of converting hide into proper leather, making it far more resistant to damage and weather and the elements and such, plus far more durable in general, I don't think you can without separating out the various parts of hide and treating each of them separately.

>Bonus Question
Now, as to the name, I'd need to know the setting. Is it a western setting? if so then you should either pick out a couple of navajo or peublo or other native american (or whatever is most appropriate for the native civilization) words for rattlers and coyotes and then fuse them.

If you don't want to do that, then as somebody who lives in the deep south, I can promise you that they'd be called Rattle Dogs.

>>51582121
>Rattle Dogs.

I literally had that same idea not 15 minutes ago before I went to shovel the show outside my house.

Seriously considering the name Rattle Dogs now.

>>51579507
Christianity really belongs in the same tier as Buddhism in terms of naming conventions.

Christ wasn't Jesus' last name, it was a sort of title of reverence, like Buddha.

>>51582770
Yeah I know that, but I it's still refers to one specific person, unlike Buddha.

>>51581862
I suppose that's fair. The pantherbats in my setting are called "Nightstalkers" cause they're flying cats the size of bears, with some subspecies being able to turn invisible.

I need to write up brief one-page dossiers on four ancient cultures in my science fantasy game. What aspects should I cover? So far I am including:

>Culture
>Technology
>Ruins
>Legacy

Is there maybe one more I can add? Any I should change? Each is only a single paragraph or two.

>>51584521
For what purpose are you going to use those dossiers?

>>51584673
They are part of an RPG I am making. The second chapter has brief, loose instructions for making your own world using mine as a template. I paint in broad strokes using five or so major points for a topic, and the players explore it and determine the details through play.

Using the instructions, each person takes turns adding one broad stroke to a couple topics, then making an entire topic on their own. This way everyone is invested and interested.

I want the templates to give a pretty broad idea of what kind of things the player can find in these ruins, what their creators were like and what challenges might await within.

>>51584673
I don't think you need a reason to make dossiers. It's just a sexy-ass word.

Dossier.

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I know this general is more for the development of more nuanced, realistic worldbuilding(what with the focus on internal consistency and rational explanation and classification of both natural and supernatural aspects), but I would like help with a lil idea i had.

Drawing a great deal of inspiration from BIONICLE, AtLA, and Fire Emblem, I want to create a world in which I can tell an epic that focuses on multiple parties of heroes across centuries, all working towards awakening their god/guardian ghost, The Great Spirit. Pic Related, this is a sort of synopsis I had plugged into a word document one afternoon.

Problem is, at the end, I cannot figure out what they need to do to awake the Great Spirit and destroy The Dark Spirit. Obviously, some set of macguffins that must be collected, but what else? What other epic, magical motives must the heroes endure and struggle for?

I was thinking of at some time in the early history(think magical bronze age), the heroes have to pull a Jason and the Argonaughts, collecting legendary items in order to equip the most purest of heart amongst them to destroy some type of avatar of the Dark Spirit that was attempting to resurrect it.From there, it is a series of centuries where the Chosen must struggle against overwhelming odds and endless horrors, making grievous sacrifices so that the next generation may make the next step towards awakening The Great Spirit.

tldr; ideas for macguffins pls

PS

I have five races, but I wanted an even, round six(six chosen, six races. It's like pottery, you see). They are The Humans, The Elves, The Dwarves, The Giants, and The Orcs. I want another race that is pretty much humanoid, but without being too crazy. For example, no beastmen or other animal people(still debating cat people, but Im thinking not) Also, no halfling Hobbits(Dwarves are already the shorties. Cant have two shorties)

Also, please probe me with questions. It'll give me a reason to actually develop more stuff.

>>51586460
One person in the group must kill another in cold blood. It's a seal put in place by the Dark Spirit attempting to safeguard the one thing that could destroy it. Alternatively, the Great Spirit takes over the body of the person wielding all the equipment and they're destroyed (body and soul) when the Dark Spirit is defeated, but I think that provides less of a dilemma for heroic characters.

As for the race, it'd help to know a bit about the races you've got. Are they essentially bog-standard humans, elves, dwarves, giants, and orcs?

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>>51586573
Yeah, they're fairly bog standard.

Humans are basically a mix between rome and germanics, slowly turning into a sort of italian city states later on until becoming fancy uniform wearing prussians in the industrial era.

The Elves are more Celtic/Irish kind of thing, they tend to be the best at magic.

The Dwarves are similar to humans. Cant think of a way to differentiate the two yet.(Humans are going to be the industrial race kind of thing. I may just have the two lumped in together later on in the history.)

The Giants are Nordic, and like to think of themselves as the big brother/sister to the smaller peoples. They also like to hunt the horrid abominations of The Dark Spirit that stalk the night.

The Orcs are nomads. Native American and mongolian mixture. Also, making that Orcs arent a baddie race means we can have cute orc waifus

As I said, the ideas arent concrete, yet(I am in fact lurking the current dwarf thread for ideas about dwarves.)

>>51586717
The thought I was having was
elves = forests
dwarves = mountains
orcs = deserts
humans = plains, probably
giants = either coasts or tundra

So if you go with something like that, it could give you some ideas for the sixth race. Swamp-dwellers? Some kind of seafaring race? Or if the giants are the seafarers, then tundra-dwellers?

And then depending on where they live you can decide what they look like and how they act.