/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

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I was thinking about a steampunk setting.
Any reading material? I like the weird technology state that makes it possible for guns and swords to coexist and I love Victorian London but other than that I must confess that it's pretty much a fetish. I want to bring it to the next level and read something that goes a little more in depth, any suggestions?
Also, as a side note, I loved the technology/magic dichotomy in Arcanum and how one hinders the other, I find it complimented the setting greatly in the struggle between ancient and modern and its part of the reason I'd like to make a similar setting.

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>Which peculiar transportation methods does your setting have?
The only way to get to the moon is to hitch a ride on a Moon Dragon and take very shallow breaths and try not to freeze to death.

>Which are the most used?
Probably snow-sledges pulled by wargs which the Ice Elves use.

>The least conventional?
Some desperate fucks are known to hitch a ride on flying Cloud Mantas in order to get away from prison islands but most of those attempting such only end up falling to the sea and drown.

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What kind of aesthetic are the tau? campy retro-fi? I love it.

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I need references to the kind of aesthetics ICO/Shadow of the Colossus/The Last Guardian has. Which culture resembles that aesthetics the most? Pic related is all I have.

>>53165071
80/90s real robot mecha anime

>>53164932
Have you read the GURPS Steampunk book (available from gurpsgen)? It has a great selection of both plausible and wierd steamtech, historical information and advice on how to mix things up. Knowledge or interest in GURPS not required.

Also check out Space:1899, probably the definitive steampunk RPG (although aside from cloudships and ethercruisers the wierd tech is actually quite subtle most of the time). The original line has many supplements that should make interesting reading and since you are just pillaging it for ideas it does not much matter that the system is clanky as hell. The Soldiers Companion in particular is a great resource on late 19thC militaria.

>>53165212

The mind behind those games is Fumito Ueda. Read the Wikipedia article but didn't find what I was after. Anyone knows what I mean?

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Is pic related reliable? Can I work with it?

>>53167165

It does look like shit

>>53167165
As far as the rain shadow goes, yes. Just remember that things tend to be slightly more complicated, so you should not follow it religiously. Wind does not blow in just one direction, and scale and size matters.

I'm less versed in the issues of medieval demographic and trade route routines, but it seems like more-or-less following the same pattern: it's a BIG generalization, but it should be ROUGHLY right.

>>53167667
Thx anon

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Would an ocean city be a cool enviroment? What material should i hand wave the city is made out of to avoid seawater erosion, 'plasteel'?

>>53169450
What the city is made of wouldn't be the big issue, your main problem would be mechanical devices and electronics. Prolonged exposure to ocean environments fucks them up.

>>53169519
Whys that? Moisture in the air?

>>53169450
I would not worry that much about materials. We have ships that have been afloat for many decades. Sure, repairs and maintenace is going to be a bitch, but it's not the biggest problem if the city keeps on suck up resources from various sources.
Otherwise, it's a cool-as-fuck environment. I have a soft spot for floating and under-water cities.

I have concept of very vague similarity. It's not a city, but a floating biome - an artificial buoyant island that was once concieved as an ecological experiment (and an attempt to dodge certain frustrating legal issues). It's a bit weird, because it's almost entirely organic: consisting mainly of beds of floating algae and sea-weed-like organisms, held together by "framework" of entangled roots of giant mangrove-like trees. Within that, insanely complex ecosystem of organisms - from bacteria past fungy to trees and bugs - all basically specifically created to help to keep the ecosystem alive. The surface is covered with forests and gardens that could provide potentially massive amount of food to those who could keep control of it.
It ows a lot to Miyazaki, namely his "Laputa: Castle in the Skies" and the Eastern land of Gods" from Shuna.

But it's a soft-science nightmare though, in a setting where magic does not really exist.

>>53169710
Salt and potential direct exposure to water would be my biggest bet for biggest problem.

>>53169710
Sea Spray, you get a mixture of salt and other compounds floating around in the air near oceans. It will get into everything and is hell on electronics and engines.

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>>53169728
I love that eco-isle idea dude, i suppose i can handwave most of these issues with "its the future, and robots" since im tryig to make my settig a bit campy. I have guys who can manipulate hard light so i cant really go that hard sci fi

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>>53169810
uh, thanks. My setting is trapped beween this weir need to feel archaic and "fantastic" without using too much of already used fantasy tropes. But along the archaic mythological feeling, the logic should actually be driven by some soft-science things that are hidden to the background mostly and most people aren't aware of them or what they do. I aim for that Miyazakian anachronisms he uses in his early works so god damn well. My aim is basically to create fantasy type of stories from soft-sci-fi and post apocaliptic elements: all of them woven toghether that the audience would never be quite sure which one of the many options it really is. So I'm trying to avoid the idea of "oh, it's genre X so now I know what to expect but meanwhile produce something that is genuinely interesting.

I think I would have been doing a better job if I did not start by ripping of one Miyazaki's story verbatim and used it at the core of the whole world. No I cant remove it, but, yet it betryes my black consciousness like crazy.

>>53169450
That'd be a fantastic environment. If I ever run a sci-fi game, I fully intend to include a world that's almost entirely ocean on which most people live on seasteads. These would range from full-blown cities to small floating independent communities.

As far as materials go, why not just have it be well-maintained?

Did you guys ever try creating worlds in universes where the laws of physics are completely different from ours? Like Unicorn Jelly did?

>>53170946
not really, no

Do any cultures in your setting have what would be considered a "pop culture"? Are there any songs that are currently popular? Books? Plays? Movies?

>>53170946
I like to defy the laws of physics as I please, but be realistic with the consequences. Like laying out rules which do not obey realism, but having the world and characters handle them in realistic and logical methods that can be taken seriously. Unrealistic science is fine as long as there's realistic utilization of it.

I suppose it can't hurt to ask you guys. A recent thing I did in a game really riled up one of my players, and I'm trying to figure out if they have a point and how to mollify them.

The premise of the campaign is that people living on a few small islands off the coast of a big old fantasy continent returning to the mainland a few centuries after an apocalyptic event which made returning impossible and seems to have wiped out all civilisation that was once there. I'm going for a mix of new frontiers and rediscovering what was lost.

As part of this I set up the hub town for the campaign, First Light. A town built around the base of a large, apparently magical lighthouse, the flame of which beckoned explorers from the islands to the old continent, basically a thematic representation of the campaign as a whole.

Initially it wasn't much, just a few driftwood huts inside a palisade, slowly shifting to stones and bricks, as well as better quality wooden constructions, based on the areas the players manage to clear of monsters and make available for resource gathering.

The trouble is, one player just cannot stomach that the town exists, arguing that it should be further inland, that it shouldn't exist at all, that the structure doesn't make sense, and I just... From what I've gathered from basic research, what I'm doing isn't inconsistent with a lot of coastal frontier/colonial towns, but even without that I was more thinking of it as a thematic thing than a realistic one.

This is the first time I've really had a worldbuilding aspect like this strongly called into question, so I'm not sure how to deal with it.

>>53174623

Tell him to fuck off and come up with setting and campaign his own damn self, if he's so god-damn smart.

If he's getting that tushy-troubled about one little town in your setting, he needs to either leave, or stop complaining.

In fact, give him that ultimatum if he does it anymore.

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Please rate this, /wbg/. I know I am a twat for dumping a PDF but it's fairly short and I would appreciate some feedback. I made it as this sort of ... just, weird world, but not too weird. I used to play a lot of Garry's Mod while listening to BvDub and other really ethereal mystical sounding ambient music. See video below for a lot of what I would do. It was comfy as hell for some reason.

https://streamable.com/lb8cs

But anyway, a couple years ago I started running a post-apocalyptic campaign, pretty basic generic world, but without any fallout influence because I've never played fallout. I've been told it's a bit similar to Stalker or Metro 2033 but I've barely played those games so I couldn't say for sure. I just want to convey this feeling of unease, like some just plain freaky or unsettling monsters, effects (like a bus randomly sprouting legs and coming to life, or a rift to nowhere opening suddenly). I don't know, I have this strong feeling for the world I want to create but I don't know how to put it on paper without droning on endlessly. I also plan to make one of these for Maine rather than Russia, with cozy lighthouse fortresses watching the sea, monsters hiding in the alpine forests, haunted acadia, that kind of shit.

But yeah, just give me your thoughts. It's meant to be a "soft" document that outlines some factions and creatures but doesn't really give specifics on locations or anything.

>>53174623
Honestly dude I really like that setting. The light house, the post-apocalyptic shit, for some reason it reminds me of that h2o Rust-type survival game that was on steam early access where you ran around rocky islands and swam and shit. i don't know why. There really doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it and it sounds like a fantasy setting so you can make up magic bullshit to protect it from storms or reinforce the ground. I mean if it was realistic setting I could see the complaints. but otherwise not really. Did he have any specific complaints?

>>53174812

Well, I have mentioned storms messing with the town, destroying some of the early driftwood shacks and killing some people, but better building materials has basically solved that problem. The lighthouse does provide a degree of protection, although this isn't something anyone explicitly knows yet.

They were things like... There's a forest about an hour away so why not just move everything over to the forest instead, I mentioned fields nearby and he went on a short rant about soil quality near the coast, I mentioned clay and he started complaining that I'd described the wrong type of river for that. Just... Lots of stuff I didn't really care about but I'm wondering if I fucked it up.

>>53174756

The guy is our usual GM, which makes the situation a bit more complicated. I think it's just that his usual style is a lot more details and realism focused, whereas I'm more happy working with themes and concepts rather than fretting over the nitty gritty.

>>53174859
He probably feel jelly of your skillz and is trying to make you look stupid, no joke.

>>53174859
Just make up some kind of fantasy crop that loves high salt content in the soil. Call them salt turnips or sand potatoes or some gay shit, I don't care, it will give the setting character. Tell him to fuck off, you didn't fuck up anything.

> I think it's just that his usual style is a lot more details and realism focused

Well if he's helping you flesh it out that's fine, but if he's trying to point out plotholes...well.

>why not move everything to the forest?
>well... that's a good question. you know the forest is full of dangerous beasts and it's safer near the coast

Then fill the forest with monsters at least 4 levels higher than him so when he goes out there to fight them he gets his ass rekt.

Okay maybe don't do that, that's a bit passive aggressive, but the point is, you are in control. Hell, I have let MUCH worse bullshit slide from a DM because I have respect for him trying to make the world a certain way. Your idea is cool, probably way better than his gay-ass setting.

And I'll be honest, as a forever DM myself, it's hard to stop from criticizing everything. You've been running the game for years, you end up lie a grumpy old man who always knows the better way to do things and it's certainly not the way you're doing it. But at least I keep my mouth shut about it, god damn.

>>53169450
>What material should i hand wave the city is made out of to avoid seawater erosion, 'plasteel'?

Coral.
Erosion is not an issue, because it just grows back at a faster rate than it dissappears.

What are your place naming preferences /wbg/, real life names, names in English or names in a made up language?

Suppose I have a town called Zmeygrad or something, which in the language of the people there means Dragon Town, and suppose the player characters speak that language natively. Would you introduce that town as Dragon Town to your players, since that's what the name means or use the foreign sounding name and explain the meaning of the name?

>>53176678
i always figured proper nouns should be conlang'd as they provide flavor without taking away from the story

some of them can be translated if it's not too jarring, i.e. you can have zmeygrad but also "Tsar's Hill" or something

>>53165212
Ainu culture?

How common should magic be?

On the one hand, I would want my players to be able to heal their injuries without resting for weeks, to keep the game flowing.

On the other hand, if healing is that accessible, how do convincingly present a feudal fantasy world without having the peasantry population-boom out of control?

Can magic even be considered supernatural if it's that common?

>>53176563
>Erosion is not an issue, because it just grows back at a faster rate than it dissappears.
...So every wall gets more and more misshapen as time goes on?

>>53165212
Those clothes are clearly inspired by Ainu (Emishi) people of Japan.
That similar tradition of tattoo's existing among many societies: Henna has been used across the entire Middle East and India for temporary ones. I think it was Tupi-Kawahiwa tribes in South America who had some really interesting facial female tattoos too.

The picture is annoying though: the Joker-like tattooed smile looks just stupid.

>>53177463
>misshapen

Unique anon, unique

Working out the answers to 'Why hasn't this been invented' for X punk settings is difficult desu

What reason does a secretive group of assassins who only perform a hit every few hundred years, and each hit has changed the course of history, have for killing a reasonably small time gang boss who's only really dealing in drugs and extorting people but has only got control of one medium-large city.

>>53178672

My first instinct is that it's not about what he was, but what he would become. Some degree of foresight or awareness that, due to bloodline or aptitude or simply being in the right place at the right time, he would be able to rise further than anyone expected and bring crime and misery to huge numbers of people, perhaps even becoming powerful enough to affect politics, with disastrous consequences.

>>53178672
The question of why aside, my first thought about a group of assassins who only perform a hit every few hundred years is that they must be really incompetent because they lack practice. There's only so much training can accomplish.

>>53178700

Hmm, this is an interesting idea. The players have killed this guy's second in command, but have to lie low as he's bought off the city guard. I want them to find his hideout, and fight his way to him and then meet an assassin standing over his freshly killed corpse who leaps out of the nearest window before they can react.

My first idea was that the assassins wanted to get the attention of the players because of what the players could do to the game world, but maybe it really is about this gang boss himself...

>>53178730

They are part of a really long-lived species of Elves. Each of the assassins is several thousand years old, and to them a few hundred years is not very long.

>>53178735

Why not both? Assassins of fate rarely take an action for a single reason.

>>53178754

So I read my character notes about him.

"Where Hjorr came from is unknown, though it is whispered that he is an escaped dwarf criminal from Blackholde where he would surely be hanged for crimes against Dwarfdom if he were ever to return , though he never discusses his past.
He 'doesn't trust' ponies, prefers hard liquor to ale, and gets unreasonably angry about the number 235. No one knows why."

Maybe his past caught up with him. Perhaps this crime is not just some vague atrocity. Maybe it was his crime that is so terrible, no one must ever hear about it.

>>53178742
Say they live 5000 years and make an assassination every 200 years, that's 25 assassinations split over who knows how many members, those are rookie numbers.

Honestly, you can do whatever you want since it's your world, but if I were doing that I would either turn them into a cult that does ritualistic murder as a group through meticulous planning and/or hiring competent people (something like the classic Illuminati, a group of rich people with a purpose), or a secretive group of assassins who hire their services out at considerable prices and never work for free, but there's a rumor going around that sometimes they will make a hit for free, and sometimes they might refuse to do a hit for reasons known only to them.

Seems more plausible that way to me, but in the end it's up to you, not trying to tell you how to run your game, just offering a suggestion.

>or a secretive group of assassins who hire their services out at considerable prices and never work for free, but there's a rumor going around that sometimes they will make a hit for free, and sometimes they might refuse to do a hit for reasons known only to them.

Yes, good point Anon. I suppose if they're really good assassins, they only get linked to the murders they want people to know about (for whatever reason), that makes more sense too.

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>>53178672
Assassins' seer reveal the local boss to play an important part on the demise of their home country if not stopped in time

Gang boss puts etheric substance on his drugs thanks to his alchemist right hand man that makes them prone to violence and threatens to throw kingdom into anarchy

Gang boss is in reality an extra-planar entity trying to get the funding necessary to build his own paramilitary order that will end the line of the grand master of the assassins for good, avenging one of his brothers who fell by his hand

Boss is controlled by a hidden figure who is planning to get enough gold to fund the wars of the king and bankrupt him and then bail him out of debt, aquiring his indebted kingdom who will only nominally be the king's.
He already did this in the past and succeeded.

The gang is in reality a cult devoted to some unspecified deity (in reality a major demon) who gave to the gang's boss the magical recipe of the drugs he's selling in a vision and that will make everybody who takes it into one of the demon's thralls until the demon himself will be able to cross the planes from his prison when enough of his thralls will sacrifice themselves in the Night of the Last Light.

>>53178792
He could make them into retired heroes that secretly join everytime some catastrophic event is unfolding and form what would basically be an elite deathsquad to take out some very dangerous fellow.

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Are most RPGs just strategy games with a thin, pretentious veneer of 'storytelling r a art' overlaid on top?

In all the groups I've ever played with, everyone has nearly always focused on overcoming the challenges the DM presents as efficiently as possible. Sure, their characters had some individual quirks (most of which could be described as 'psychotic'), but they never let a character's established personality get in the way of gaining the maximum benefit out of any given situation.

Rough, wrong-side-of-the-tracks scoundrels turned into polite, cultured aristocrats as soon as the party engages in any sort of conversation with an authority figure.

Should I just take this into account when selecting and/or tweaking a system, or planning for an adventure? Should I simply assume every character is a manipulative social chameleon as a legitimate part of their personality?

I could always try a stricter DMing routine to try and make players really get into the spirit of roleplaying a character, but that would just annoy everyone involved. I would feel like I'm herding cats, and the players would feel like they're being told how to have fun.

I'm better off setting up a campaign as a strategy game and keeping the RP aspects fluffy, right?

Pic unrelated, I've barely even looked at what I selected.

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>>53179645
maybe your groups are shit.

>>53179682
Shit for narrative-driven games. Whatever. Different strokes for different folks.

I might as well set the games up as mostly strategy and develop an overarching narrative for my own enjoyment.

>>53179989
Just shit mate.

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>>53179989
see >>53180512

>>53179645
I fail to see how this is related to worldbuilding.

>>53180787
it's not, it's b8

>>53180787
Setting up the narrative for your campaign isn't worldbuilding?

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>>53163546
Relatively mundane. Automobiles, trains, boats, aeroplanes and blimps. I haven't decided if horses are gonma be around or replaced with something.

>>53174528
Not unless they serve setting in way. I mean, square cube law mostly doesn't get enforced.

>>53177453
It really depends on what sort of feel and game you want from your setting. Grittiness, etc.
You can make magic commonplace but supernatural, I suppose. For example mortals/player races get really rarely into magic, and when they do, it is more subdued kind. However, there are ton of magical fauna/flore (ex. fey).

>>53178672
Time travelers, surgical history manipulation.

>>53181060
Not really, no. The narrative is the story, not the world. The game and the player characters are irrelevant when building the world and the setting.

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roast me faggots

>>53181220
Font name?

>>53181255
Dungeon.

>>53181220
Needs a north arrow.

>>53181220
not so bad desu

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>>53181269
have five

>>53181291
>probably Florida
Truly a fate worse than death

I need help imagining a viable species that don't look like a modification of earthly stuff.

Anything I can imagine is either exoskeletal/endoskeletal, with "head" housing most perceptory and cognitive functions, as well as a mouth, and a body with a number of appendages, below it. Or a squid.
When I try to invent something else, I can't think of anything other than mixing those around ("let's have mouths on appendages. and cognitive centre in the butt for protection.") which is
1) not really original
2) obviously just a mix of an earthly creature's traits, which is even more glaring than a regular earthly creature
3) I have serious trouble imagining how the fuck did it evolve to end up like this

can anyone point me at some really original creatures or give me some guidelines to make my own?

>>53181263
Thanks, I like it. I use AVQuest usually but that fits too.

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Now with rudimentary civilization outlines.

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>>53181388
82228947 days on MSpaint

>>53181388
radial symmetry that evolves into asymmetrical body types
nothing is truly original, mathematics are universal, even if we meet aliens one day they'll probably resemble /something/ on earth
try to make your traits make at least a half-assed amount of sense (evolution is like a low INT high WIS character playing a foreign videogame, it understands the goal and the philosophy of the game but doesn't know what half the dials do and everything's written in moonrunes).

also, talking of biology, is it plausible for a living being to derive energy out of radiation instead of oxygen? say, living in radon-heavy atmosphere?

>>53181603
Pretty sure it is. See that mold in Chernobyl that feeds on radiation

>>53181708
oh great! that solves a lot of problems.
i'm so tired of "all inhabited planets and worlds have water and oxygen" cliche

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>>53181436
society advanced a few centuries and we get this horseshit, final verdict?

What if a planet was kinda like Earth but somewhat closer to its sun? I imagine it would make the athmosphere warmer and capable of holding more water vapor. That in turn would make weather more extreme with regular rainstorms, crazy clouds and powerful thunders which in turn would make aviation much trickier.
Am I wrong?

>>53181819
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus
Yeah, just dial it back a bit if the planet is in the habitable zone for human life.

>>53181837
Venus is crazy with what its athmosphere is made of. I was going for similar air to the one we breathe

>>53181866
>Yeah, just dial it back a bit if the planet is in the habitable zone for human life.
Already covered that.

>>53181874
I've seen that. That's a ton to dial back

How could you run a nation like a mafia boss?

I'm participating in a Nation RP as an island roughly the size of Ireland that is a haven for pirates and criminals. The nation recieves taxes as "tithes" from criminal enterprises, as well as regular citizenry, and governing is mostly handled by a pretty standard feudal system. The island's ruler exerts his power through a syndicate under his control, a network of spies and other agents loyal to him. They infiltrate criminal enterprises based out of the island or ones that at least make port there, and act as both comissar (reporting acts against the ruler and ensuring tithes are paid) and union representative (using clout and resources from the syndicate to bibe, make bail, etc).

This is the simplified version of the concept, avoiding going into explaining magic bullshit and such. Thoughts?

>>53181909
Pretty much the only thing you have to dial back is the CO2 content of the atmosphere, then you'd have a world pretty much exactly what you described. The other shit's only in the atmosphere because all the water boiled out and Venus got so hot that the rules went out the fucking window.

>>53181914
Look up what Italy was doing in the 14th-16th centuries.

>>53181935
From what I can tell, the best takeaway from this would to have control over banks, and/or have the island be a financial hub.

>>53182184
Bingo.

Add merchant princes with privateer forces and mercenaries to complement defensive militia armies to preserve order, guard infrastructure and keep the taxes paid.

>>53182205
Hmm, my less than adequate knowledge of economics will have to suffice for working this out, but I can probably manage.

I'm mostly trying to reconcile how to blend Florence with Tortuga (which my island most currently resembles), and the banking families with the syndicate I mentioned, which is in equal spades a cult made up of the ruler's descendants.

>>53182293
>I'm mostly trying to reconcile how to blend Florence with Tortuga (which my island most currently resembles)
Easy, poor folks are kept in line by being given lax laws so long as the taxman comes home with full pockets and people don't damage the larger structures of society. Murder is common enough but kept in line (well, in line enough to stop a civil riot) because everyone has swords and you can hire militamen and freelance adventurers to just wipe out the Mong Torell Gang who keeps murdering your business partners because you can just absorb their brewery into your business empire.

>and the banking families with the syndicate I mentioned, which is in equal spades a cult made up of the ruler's descendants.
Spice trade dominated by syndicate organization, one or more spices are of Melange-quality importance to those with the cash, eventual syndicate absorption.

The cult is because they have people eating a fuckton of hallucinogenic spices and manipulate them into worshiping figures and philosophies that benefit them.

>>53181792
Could be worse.

Now, don't be a total faggot and push it forward for another 500 years and show the Napoleonic Era.

Then push another 200 or so and show how industrial revolution looks like.

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>>53181219
>The narrative is the story, not the world.
Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot these don't affect each other in any way.

>>53181792
Mountains look fucked up.

Hey /wbg/, how do I make huge and fancy settings the norm in my world? I want every city/town to have something that makes them high fantasty tier as far as their design goes, does anyone have ideas or recommendations on how to achieve this?

>>53165071

Like other guy said 80s-90s sci fi anime. There's a bit of a Japanese look with their armor sans the helmet.

>>53176678

AVOID APOSTROPHES. AVOID APOSTROPHES. AVOID! Even though I've come across them in some real languages transliterated (Tuareg tongue off the top of my head), they are danger-zone for fictional languages as they seem try-hard, cliche and hokey as fuck. They do serve to give you a sense of rhythm or spacing, "Kaldorei" vs "Kal'Dorei" has a pause, but I'd rather have no apostrophe and just leave it up to the reader than an apostrophe and it look stupid.

For your example, if they speak the language I guess it could be Dragon-Town but I don't see harm in Zmeygrad.

>>53178514

You do not need to answer it. "Because it wasn't invented yet". A fictional setting does not follow the same trajectory of development or the same tempo as our world. There's no reason gunpowder had to be discovered when it was. Likewise we could have figured out steam with Hero of Alexandria but it took us almost 2000 years (1800?) to do so instead.

page 10 save rave

what's the average penis size in your world? feel free to break it down by race.

>>53187719
No.

>>53187719
BIG
HUMAN
COCK

>>53187719
3d6 cm.

Rolled 2, 6, 1 = 9 (3d6)

>>53187830

Rolled 3, 4, 2, 4, 5, 3 = 21 (6d6)

>>53187830
should be 6d6 t b h

>>53187947
is this mars

>>53176678
Have a ridiculous example of real life naming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpenhow_Hill

Point being, if a name exists for some time, people will probably stop using whatever it's supposed to be in translation, especially if the territory in question is a place where different cultures meet

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>>53163546
Anyone want to read this shit and criticize it?
http://immortalpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Immortalpedia_Wikia

>>53188831
>Anyone want to read this
nah not really

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>>53188870
>nah not really

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>>53189087
bye anon have a nice day!!

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>>53189104
>>53189087
>>53188870
>That feel when no one wants to read the stuff you've put months into and you don't want to be a sperglord and constantly ask over and over again.

>>53188831
>>53189133
you should just post a small piece of your world that you want feedback on. no one comes in here like "hey guys, here's the entire history of my world, please care about it and give thoughts".

you generally need some kind of entry point for people to want to invest and dig into your whole world, usually some kind of entertainment medium with relatable characters (like ASoIaF to Westeros, for example) or as a DnD session or something. you can't just drop it on them because no one actually cares about it but you tbf. it sucks, but that's the way it is.

>>53189133
just post it over and over again, eventually someone will read it. I might in a couple of days

>>53189601
This. Give us an elevator pitch for the setting at least

How should I go about worldbuilding an entire Galactic setting? I feel like designing and developing each inhabited planet would become way too much work.

>>53191010
Why don't you first flesh out the bits you actually need?

>>53191010
If your setting is on a galactic scale, then individual planets are basically equivalent to a city or town in scope. Even as a collective/group project it would be ridiculous to even think of realistically fleshing out whole planets. Is there a particular reason you want to go with a galactic scale? What are your goals?

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I'm in the process of writing up a setting based around airship and aircraft combat, set in a retro-futuristic setting.

Turn of the century dogfights are really exciting to me, and I'd love to have them hold centre-piece to combat in this dieselpunk world, but I'm trying to think of how certain anachronistic developments might affect this traditional form of warfare.

In particular, I'm trying to decide whether or not radar (or some detection analogue) should play a part in the system, or whether I should go full realism and force the PCs to consider line-of-sight and situational awareness as a crucial part of combat, like how WW1 aces operated.

This isn't to mention more radical and science-fiction advancements in science, such as robotics (primitive drone warfare?), jet engines, and exotic weaponry.

I'm trying to consider these advancements not only in the tactical stage, but also the strategic - how anti-gravity, long-lasting engines might affect logistics and deployment, or automatic scouting platforms might affect shipping and requisition. How long missions can last, how high aircraft can fly, and how quickly.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm asking here. I think I'm just trying to put this all down to sort what I've got and ask for feedback.

>>53192142
Sounds like Crimson Skies to me.

I think radar is fine as long as it's large, bulky, rare and doesn't fit on a plane.

>>53192142
I would avoid radar as a widespread thing, a lack of reliable early detection capability is a pretty big deal. If you have radar you can't really have things like airship raids, sky pirates, or combat resembling the early classic early air campaigns at all.

>>53192297
Wasn't radar fairly widespread during WW2? I realise the tactics behind air combat were modernising before and during the war, but surprise attacks still existed. Was the radar rarer or less effective?

>>53192297
>If you have radar you can't really have things like airship raids, sky pirates, or combat resembling the early classic early air campaigns at all.
I disagree, radar, particularly early radar, has a lot of limitations. Sky pirates would just have to hug the ground, not even that much, to avoid being detected. Radar's also not all that reliable and without computers there'd be a lot of false positives and false negatives.

>>53192347
This might be more game mechanics design than world-building, but I had intended for altitude to play a large part in the dogfights - ascending and descending, even diving, play a large part in combat.

Adding a bit of a radar-stealth element to that might be interesting. Plus, like you said, it will have affected warfare and tactics accordingly.

>>53192322
In WW2, yes. But WW2 air combat was vastly different from WW1. By the tail end of WW2 you had radar in every plane and even radar fire control systems for machine guns and cannons.

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Incomplete world map bump

Does population scale with the size of a planet?

Can you have a planet with sprawling megacities yet still have wilderness and a low population in relation to planet size?

A world with magic practiced openly, on the tech and society level of early XX century. Should I copy Earth or make a knock-off world. Earth would be more familiar, but stretch credibility. Fantasy world I can do whatever I want and won't have to do research.

>>53196839
Why not have arcologies in the middle of the wilderness? The same effect with less confusion. Have a fresh structure built to house all the people, and then see infrastructure fail or something (if you are into this sort of things) would make more sense then to assume people get overcrowded when there's so much space around.

And yes, humanity tends to fill all available space. Arable land is what holding us back the most, probably, but we will figure something out.

>>53183013
I didn't say that. All I meant was that the story is irrelevant when it comes to worldbuilding. Stories take place in the world you've created, but they should not shape the world itself.

>>53196936
If magic is a rather recent "invention" that it should work just fine. If it was always there, then you have to explain how everything still went the same way while magic could have influenced history. For example why certain rulers died of illness when magic could have healed them.

>>53196936
Well the world is going to be really fucking polluted, in some places more than others. At the same time I don't want it to be Judge Dress or Mad Max tier desert everywhere.

I was thinking there would be plants and animals that have adapted to the pollution but there's no real benefit to humans as all farming and stuff is done indoors.

>>53197183
It's hard to grow food indoors, especially with megacity aesthetic. Vertical farms by necessity look bright and shiny, but I suppose nobody will count how much energy hydroponics would eat.

>>53198303
Grow lamps+cultivars that require less light mate. Also mushrooms.

Energy isn't an issue as such in my world.

>>53199212
>Also mushrooms
Mushrooms are not primary producers, as far as I'm aware. So they can't bring energy into the system, I think.

>>53199255
Good point they feed of dead or decaying organic matter.

How are you supposed to grow crops in a smoggy polluted world then other than breeding pollution resistant cultivars or doing GM.

>>53199273
Oh I'm sure you'd have plenty of decay in that world.

>>53199489
Yeah true it'd be in the air, you could grow mushrooms indoors if you just vented the room a bit.

>>53199558
I was thinking about all of the corpses.

>>53199616
It's not a post apocalyptic death planet, it's just very polluted.

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I always preferred Orcs as they were portrayed originally by Tolkien; as heartless, godless, and near mindless killing machines. Things, made from dead remains, who's only purpose is death. Ugly beasts of slaughter. Green Murder-Gorillas.

The 'Noble Savage' type of Orc is more nuanced, but also more boring. Sometimes, things being simply black and white can be refreshing.

But, say I'm going for a sort of semi-realist fantasy, at least in terms of how the more fantastical elements of fantasy would turn out in the economic sense. How would such a type of Orc work? On the societal level. Say they're about as intelligent as a 6 year old, they don't breed but are instead sort of Frankenstein'd into existence through actual production instead of re-production. A meat-factory turning them out, perhaps.

I don't know, just talk about Orcs.

>>53200214
>they don't breed but are instead sort of Frankenstein'd into existence through actual production instead of re-production
boring
orcs were literally designed to rape everything

>>53200214
>I always preferred Orcs as they were portrayed originally by Tolkien
>Green Murder-Gorillas

Have you actually read Tolkien?

>>53200214
But Tolkien's Orcs are described as sallow-skinned, there are multiple chapters in LotR that show Orcs of various kinds being cunning, having competing agendas and being sick of fighting, Gollum's diet in the Hobbit included baby Goblins, and there are references to crossbreeding with Humans that produced both Man-like Orcs (Uruk-hai) and Orc-like Men (Saruman's other agents that infliltrated the Shire and Bree)

>>53200310
I've watched him
: ^ )

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I need ideas for a sci-fi bloodborne/dark souls type thing.
All i have so far is my 'anor londo' is actually a space elevator connected to a massive low earth orbit city.

>>53201004
Reverse gameplay achetypes
Anachronistic Souls uses melee weapons
More advanced BB uses melee weapons as primary and firearms as parrying tools
Futuristic BBsouls uses firearms as the primary weapon and melee weapons as parrying/defensive tools ( think deflecting bullets and disarms )

Worldbuild from there

>>53201004
how the fuck to space elevators work

>>53163546

> Which peculiar transportation methods does your setting have?
Riding beasts other than horses.

> Which are the most used?
Large goats probably, highly adaptable and practical.

> The least conventional?
From our worlds perspective, the magically powered mechanical and statue walkers/ornithopters.

From a practicality point of view, probably the tigers. Even with magic, way out there on affordability scale.

I am thinking of a setting themed around the exploration of the New World in reverse,as in people leaving developed american lands to arrive in an almost uninhabited Europe.
While most of the campaign will be in Europe and I got the aesthetics down,I want the starting place, ersatz America to have a unique feel.

Imagine a New York or Boston,that was founded around the 6th century(the campaign takes place in the 15th).How would it look like in terms of architecture and how would the enviroment around it be.
Any American can throw an idea?

>>53202832
>throw an idea
pardon my Greek

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I have an extremely unique modern fantasy world. It's set in another dimension where 'lost' people end up, humans as well as weird alien races, in a single huge city where it is always night.

Ask me anything.

>>53203244
What is at the end of the city?

>>53203262

Endless miles of forest in every direction. Despite having no sunlight, the trees and grass still grow. There are beasts in the woods as well as random buildings and burned out vehicles. Some theorize this is also where lost things end up, but if any lost folk end up here they'd be dead soon without the electric lights of the city protecting them.

im thinking about a setting based around salt. Pretty rough at the moment.

The world is filled with all sorts of terrible demons and strange beasts. They are kept at bay by salt, which wards them off and prevents them from passing. Cities will have rings of salt embedded in their walls to prevent attack from these monsters. As such civilization is based around salt as an incredibly important resource. Most people live in coastal areas and on islands. The oceans are safe aside the usual danger of storms and sharks. There are floating cities and reclaimed land. Salt farms are a big industry.

The flip side of this is that a lot of resources are inland where the demons dwell. Ores, good farmland, wood, fresh water ect. Outposts are built around these resources and roads with salt buried beneath them link these together. You have towns based around rock salt mines and desert salt flats.

I'm thinking there could be story about a god seeing the suffering of people and crying. The salt from the tears was the blessing on the world.

>>53204240
Sounds dope, but whats to stop people from just slowly salting around a coast, and bringing that salt-line inwards while they push it forward from behind, until the demons are all in one little circle of salt?

Apart from logistics, of course.

>>53203244
>>53203262
>>53203308
That sounds bomb as fuck. Are you using this setting for writing or for roleplaying?

and beyond that, how is The City organized, and how is it goverened? Is there a name for it or is it just The City?

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I suddenly got multiple conflicting ideas as to what the phrase "black knight" should refer to in my setting.

Which sounds the most fitting?

>Twelve orders of knights, diverse in size and function. Considered inner orders of knights, meaning they are not soldiers and keep their operations secret. They often compete with other orders. Sorta FBI/CIA/NSAish when you throw in orders higher than the Black Knights which are involved in conspiracies that put them at odds with even the royalty.

>Not actually a knight, just slang for a veteran mercenary who wears full plate armor like a knight's, which is both taboo and illegal in the region. May also refer to particularly legendary mercenaries from the region who lack charisma and honor.

>A sub-knight hired in wartime, usually grizzled veterans from past wars. They are not of noble birth and undergo far less screening than real knights as their purpose is solely warfare, leading to a propensity for war crimes and desertion. Most Black Knights are discharged following their tour while a few remain to train the next initiates.

>A fallen deserter-knight. Not a traitor or defector but a legitimate lordless bandit occupying whatever land he and his group have taken. Black Knights are very rare outside of the deepest of wartimes. No one wants to fuck with them because it takes a deathwish for an honorbound knight to relinquish his title and holdings, make enemies with every kingdom, and send the greatest knights hunting for him.

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Real talk here, which of these looks best as "Mountains"?

I'm experimenting and need an outside opinion.

>>53210654
i personally dont like any of them. A and B look like weird forests and C looks li ke worms across your map. something that's more like a mix between B and C would be best I think

>>53205086

Roleplaying. It's intended purpose is for a modern fantasy neighborhood-crawl style game.

The city itself is a sprawling thing, it's the only known civilized place in the night world. It's pretty much anarchy, with different gangs, businesses, and independent groups controlling different quarters. But it has a bit of a wild west vibe- pretty much everyone is armed with scrap metal guns, bombs, electropunk-style floating cars and psychic powers, so people have each other some respect and space. On top of this, there are Neutral 'enforcers' who most groups give the right of way, who hunt down criminals, rouge reality warpers, and escaped 'imports'.

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>>53210986
I guess something like this? Would this be better?

What would YOU use as mountains on a map with this style?

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>>53211101
Why don't you use caterpillar mountains anon?
Pic related.

>>53207857
If you're looking for the most 'fitting' you should post more about the rest of the setting

>>53207857
Also, why not have them be the analogue of modern operators with no recognizable sings of allegiance? So it's kind of a temporary thing for when your king/grandmaster wants some killing done without anything leading to him. The rest of the time these black knights are just normal knights

>>53211364
I always found those look great, but are an immense pain in the ass to get right. How the fuck did you get yours so nice?

>>53211364
CUTE

>>53211549
Just use a photoshop brush or the like, unless you're talking about the /really/ nice ones, then you'll have to draw them yourself.
The brush I used is just a line that was spaced.

Do you have photoshop? Gimp? Do you use a tablet?

>>53211591
Photoshop. How'd you set up the brush? Vertical line set to initial direction? Set to just Direction?

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>>53211699
Perfect, then yes just direction.
It also helps if you taper the lines a bit, I did mine wrong, it should just be just thick to thin, not thin to thick to thin. It gives a better impression of slopes that way.

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>>53211727
Alright. I think this one worked. How's this?

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>>53211886
I like it a lot better than the other versions, one thing I would say though is I (Personally) prefer mountain ranges ridged like pic related, although if you're just noting a large area full of mountains instead of a single range, then that makes just as much sense.

Also I forgot how cool caterpillars can look sometimes, especially if you just mess with the spacing.

>>53212010
Each one's meant to be a couple of mountain ranges, yeah. I could go back and make them more singular later though.

>catepillars
Acid is a hell of a thing, amirite?

>>53211019
That's pretty cool. I don't mean to diminish your ideas when I say this but that's honestly giving me some nostalgic feelings of Necromunda from when I first started playing it, and a bit of cyberpunk at that.

How does the economics of the place run? And when I say this, I realize there are probably cartels and other organizations, but I'm curious as to how agriculture is done. It would be interesting what different interplanar beings have come up with as a way to fend for themselves that way; learning what food you're able to eat and what you're not would be a challenge for new imports.

Speaking of, is there any way out of this place? I could see that being the kind of mcguffin used for a roleplaying campaign.

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Just found out that the Quinotaur is a thing. Now you know.

>>53211019
Same poster as >>53212111, and >>53205086, I'm curious what system you're using to run this because honestly this sounds like such a rad setting to play in

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>>53212111

Don't worry about it. It's not entirely original idea anyway.

>Economics
I personally love the aesthetics of really colorful, somewhat cheap monopoly money but I also love how prices over a century ago tended to be; dollars having massive buying power.

To give the setting a bit of flavor but also realism, I would say the money in this world is backed by the Casinos, who double as banks and taverns since most people would use them like that.

>Agriculture
Food is something I want to stretch somewhat. Obviously the beings from other worlds are not humans and have different chemistries and animals and plants, but at the same time being able to eat their food and them ours seems good, especially since none of them really need a pressure suit to live in the city outside; the worlds are a bit TOO similar in that sense, leading most to believe some kind of supernatural work is at play.

Obviously UV heat lamps can be used to grow some crops, but only rarely. Fungus, carnivorous plants, moonlight-grown plants and others have taken the place of most human agriculture, though each specimen comes from different worlds. That's the thing about the city, it's not hard to imagine with thousands of different worlds that at least 4-5 of them would have a few plants for crops to feed these people, and they totally do.

Meat may actually be more important then plant matter for these people, which is why the poor eat lemur (which takes the place of housecats; the little things fight in the streets in big gangs over territory), and more industrial meat farms house thousands of pigs. Pigs are similar to humans in that they can be active pretty well from the day and night.

>Is there any way out?
Yes, there are tons of rumors about secret societies that trade with the outside world, legends of the dark woods having paths back to the sunshine world, that reality warpers can do it if you please them. They're all bullshit.

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>>53213659

Wow, weird timing. I was just about to sleep. I'll leave you with this, my shitty homebrew designed for this setting. It's an OSR style game, more focused on dungeon crawling and mean combat then long term character progression.

I'm very proud of the gun creation rules, personally. Fits my mental image for this setting perfectly.

>>53163546
>https://mega.nz/#F!AE5yjIqB!y7Vdxdb5pbNsi2O3zyq9KQ
Added an exclusive ethnography on assault sorcery and dark shamanism in the Guyana shield, in the Meso/Amerind folder:
>>>/his/2803560

>>53204853
I think that is something which has been going on, its how civilization has survived so long. However it is very slow process. Salt production is at pre-industrial levels still, so it is still quite valuable. Having enough to built a salt ring around even a small town is very expensive. Also salt dissolves in the rain, so if you just dump a bunch around a town it will eventually be washed away. Special attention is kept to keeping it dry which adds to the expense. Also im thinking that rivers are a way in which monsters can avoid salt barriers by floating underneath them. There is also the threat of salt thievery, and those humans also ally with the demons for power and will destroy barriers. The punishment for these crimes is extreme.

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How does a post apocalyptic setting that mirrors medieval europe sound?

Power armored knights serving corporate kings inhabiting massive high tech castle cities protecting the hordes of poor serfs.

>>53216714
Great, definitely go for the aesthetic in the picture. I'm not too big on the crusader symbols but everything else is nice.

What kind of mood would you be going for?

>>53216787

The general atmosphere of it all would be dark and gritty. Living on the brink with lots of plots between the kings of each nation corporation. With the kings to the east fighting with the commune lords of east. The papacy calling for a crusade to extract the last of the crude from the middle east and bring it back.

Came up with the idea of it because the idea of a castle defended by CIWS sounds fucking amazing.

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I'm building a world where people left the surface and migrated to the "underground".
At some point this world within the world was the surface but the gods (or whatever, still have to write down this part since I'm focused on the events after the people are forced to go there) killed off the inhabitants and made another layer to cover their shame.
This is the basic prologue:

Since the races became complacent in an age of wealth monsters kept growing unchecked in numbers and savage tribes were even let into the cities of men due to new waves of intellectualism birthed in the rot of decadence.
More and more cities were under siege by the united beast tribes and one by one they were all falling.
On the brink of total annihilation, a man was able to recover a map to a fabulous land thought to be a legend.
This man called a gathering of all the living guild masters and by the end of it they decided that they would buy the boats necessary to transport all the men brave enough to venture into the ocean to the unknown.
They managed to reach the Innerworld but they are not alone.
Along the ages formidable powers have come to this magical land, even the first cursed denizens might not be all dead... and all want nothing less than the total dominion over it.

What do you think? The vibe would be something similar to post-apocalyptic with a focus on the Fall and how men turned to the dark side since the light has forsaken them, along with those that still conserve a glimpse of hope and see this whole ordeal as a trial from above. There are not many people left and they're attacked from all sides by the ancient creatures that populate the place.

>>53217259
It's good.

>>53203244
I had a dream about almost that exist premise.

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Halfway done map, mostly generated using Renegade Crowns All I really need to know is if I'm missing out on some blatant geographical error or if anyone has an idea for something cool to add.

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>>53163546
...why did that dragon look like a Night Raven in the thumbnail?

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I'm looking for more things like pic related. Visual guides for drawing details/features on maps. I've got a few and am trying to get good.

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>>53221472

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>>53221620

Imagine a soft sci-fi setting with the following parameters:
>Faster-than-light travel is possible but is a highly destructive process. Massive generators are required in order to sustain the protective measures for the duration of a journey at FTL speeds. This means that all FTL-capable ships are large and expensive.
>Despite this, being on board a ship going at FTL speed is hazardous for mundane humans. The symptoms are similar to that of severe decompression sickness and it's almost always fatal. The only away around this for mundane humans is heavily shielded cryonic preservation. The procedure of preparing a person for this sort of preservation takes a little over a week and the process of (safe) resuscitation takes up to a month, making it highly inconvenient.
>An expensive form of in utero gene therapy allows for the development of humans that are able to withstand the exposure to the elements involved in FTL travel, experiencing little more than vertigo. In addition, their physiology is adapted for interfacing with ship systems. They are vital on board FTL-capable ships that cannot rely on the decision-making of AI and require human input, such as military vessels, science vessels and cargo vessels that carry valuable contents. Attempts to breed with mundane humans always fails and never produces a live birth. They are capable of breeding with each other however, creating dynasties of pilots.
>FTL-capable ships are very expensive and someone that is able to pilot a FTL-capable ship without dying horribly is either a long-term investment and expensive or it's hereditary. As a result, you end up with bloodlines of pilots that act as the faces and the swords of isolated communities, putting them in a position of power as the sole couriers, merchants and warships of their colonies and habitats.

Is this an adequate method of creating a situation similar to feudalism in a soft sci-fi setting?

>>53216714
I'm kinda aiming for that in my setting. I have power armored Templars fighting demons in the ruins of modern day Earth.

>>53222010
Yes. Its like Dune, but without the Spice.

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I've been considering a setting that is a vague mixture of Porco Rosso, 1950's car culture, and 1940's surfing.
So set on a string of tropical or mediterranean islands the party would be young adults that are friends and members of a sub-culture similar to that of 1940's surfers or 1950's car kids, except with airplanes.
I'm unsure what I could do with such a setting though. It could easily turn into milkshakes at the malt shop after the big airplane/surfing competition but I feel that might be a bit low action. Or war could break out, ala porco rosso, where the kids and their planes are threatened with the draft. Or maybe some light magical themes? I'm curious what /wbg/ thinks

>>53224884
If you want high action all you need to do is have the po po not too fond of all these dare devils to put the public at risk both physically and morally.

Now you have copper planes. Mind you you probably don't want to promote strapping a machine gun to your muscle plane, so instead promote more improvised or tricksy options. From the mundane standing up and taking pot shots with your father's hunting rifle (super illegal and thus frowned upon), to things like popping colored smoke and out maneuvering and escaping through a tricky route. Hell go full anime and have someone with fishing harpoons and a weighted barrel to ruin the mobility of the plane they hit.

I too am working on a porco rosso inspired setting, but with much different goals.

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>>53225097
>I too am working on a porco rosso inspired setting, but with much different goals.

>>53225141
Going full plane customization adjusting older rules I found to the modern system and throwing in tons of options (such as differentiating between a biplane and a mono wing for starters).

The idea of the campaign I'm building it for it that a Mediterranean (with hints of the philippines) archipelago nation state got dicked over pretty fiercely by not the great war. As they lack resources and a real military to speak of (having just pushed out an occupying force unwilling to quell civil war), the players (along with a small crew and a retired ace acting as their manager and financier) are brought in as mercenary sky jocks.

Together they'll uncover the motivations between rebel factions and even different members of the provisional government, choose sides, and shape the island chain's destiny with their actions and support in a mixture of political intrigue and interwar period aerial combat.

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>>53217634

The large river system in the south looks like its flowing from the ocean inland, and the smaller one in the west looks like its flowing towards a mountain range.

Usually smaller rivers join into larger ones before reaching the ocean/ inland sea, with a few exceptions like river deltas.

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I'm normally not superstitious but was writing up a post to just brainstorm about an idea, and I moved to click the mouse and thumb hit backspace mouse button by accident. It'd seem the Omnissiah does not agree with the idea of winged elves in the mountains north of Arazala. In that case:

I am designing a world to write with that is inspired by history and the low fantasy of Hyboria, I'd say twin pillars I rest on are Robert E Howard and Europa Barbarorum. But I have grown more interested in elements of proper fantasy including polities of humanoids (exist in myth after all). As of right now I have:
-Shedim, a catch all term to refer to man/blood eating humanoids. Range from gibbering mindless ghouls to civilized Rakshasa or Alukarids. The former I figure to be the weirdly anthro looking ogres of Persian/Indian miniature, the latter are a nascent concept of albino (may or may not be elven) cursed blood/organ hungry Djinn who wear Tuareg/Almoravid style veils in public/outdoors as well as ornate masks. A ruling caste may reign in one, two or all of the Raqqanid states.

-Non cannibalistic humanoids. Hwagari are Turkic-named indomitable satyr deer-folk, the inspiration being Daylami meets Thracians. Djinn are likely but I do not know what capacity. I'm happy with the mildly distinct stamp I have on Hwagara and Alukar. I was thinking of an elven race as mentioned for the north-east, but I do not know of a good hook or schtick for them. Haughty and aloof but refined winged Swiss elves isn't very sexy. Unless the emphasis is on that "No money, no Swiss" mercenary tradition. Maybe where the far north's most famous and feared foe isn't lol vikings, but rather these Mountain Winged Elves built like greek gods with the pride and arrogance to boot? That's not new or novel by any imagination since it's just the silmarillion style of elves, but the idea of Swiss-Elves has me piqued.

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>>53225955

On the topic of a winged humanoid race, considering the 3d axis they deal with in flight and the benefits and drawbacks of flight: what's the martial arts of winged humanoids in a pre-gunpowder world? How do they fight eachother 1v1, how they fight terrestrial humans 1v1 or in a proper war/skirmish what do they fight with? Let's assume they can't fly forever but can fly for an extended period of time. At least an hour.

Would winged humanoids favor a projectile like the bow or javelin? A spear or lance also seems like it could be useful, while a sword seems nearly worthless - it requires you get in close and risk your wings, at best you could do a fly-by slice like a literally winged hussar. But you could just as well do a fly by stab with a lance or a fly by javelin toss/arrow shot.

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So I've been thinking of a setting where the planet is inhabited by living statues large enough for normal, human-sized civilization to have built their kingdoms atop of the most sturdiest/habitable parts of the giant bodies. I'm talking big enough to hold an entire country's worth of people on it in various places. This is accomplished through both crude but effective technological achievements (think oil rigs, but on the back of really huge dudes) and magical bullshit. Any good references I can go have a looksee to help build this up more?

>>53226105
I'd suggest watching some footage of birds of prey. Take note on how they go after prey on the land, or after each other. Biggest things is they would have to use very light armor designed to avoid grazing blows, since that's the biggest obstacle they'll run into. Weapons will also have to be light and not require a lot of complex motion to use, so big swingy weapons would be out, while things use the momentum of moving would work better. I think spears and lances would be in the right step, but they would either need to be something easily let go of, so when they hit, the bird doesn't get caight on it; or something that slices instead of pierces, like lances being slightly curved and bladed, for the same reason.

For fighting midair, quick and small is best. They'd only have a few seconds in each clash. The focus should be small blades for attacking the wings.

Ranged, I'd avoid things like bows, since they need a lot of upper muscle, which competes with the wings. I'd say thin javelins designed to use the momentum of flight to launch, or small throwing knives, that need little upper torso focus.

>>53217259
This sounds pretty awesome.

I am looking for advice, if you can offer it.

I got a world being crafted. I am not even sure what kind of system I will use, but I know it will be fantasy.

I got ancient history and modern history done - the world is ready outside of geography. But I have no idea what to do about the modern age.

I have no idea how to bring breathe life into the clay shell I have.

What is the best way to convey that a race is artificial and not naturally occurring to the players, when their characters are not advanced enough to know about genetics or evolution or any of that jazz. Ideally I want to describe a creature of the race through the eyes of the character and have the players themselves come to the conclusion that the race is not naturally occurring. I don't want to straight up come out and say "this race was deliberately engineered" to the players.

>>53227848
That's not easy, you'll have to say everything up to "they were engineered" and let the players take that final step.

"He was perfect," he said.
"From his thick black hair to his strong, thick...
legs." Mark took a moment to regain his composure. I never thought he'd be down for other guys.
"I mean, this is the type of person you don't even see on TV or movies. This guy walked off of the center-fold of a nuddie mag, airbrushing and all. He was some kind of perfect."
Mark looked so confused. I kind of understand, I'd be straight if I ignore that one time with Toby from college. Mark continued.
"He is perfect, perfect in all the wrong ways. You have these people who know they're pretty, and they use it to their advantage. And you got the people who know they're pretty, but try to hide it or downplay it.
Then there is this asshole who is completely oblivious to his own ordinance that it's like he's just now discovering this aspect of himself."
Mark paused, and I thought he was fucking loony.
"God damn man, it's like he rolled off of the factory yesterday."

>>53226105
Probably they would be a fan of winged darts for dropping accurately from above and long spears for duelling. Some net/bolas deal for tangling wings too

>>53227148
Give us some deets.

>>53227940
I guess I'll have to do that.

I don't mean the race is expertly engineered, just that its not possible through conventional evolution because it was helped along with some goal in mind.

For some context, the world is roughly in their bronze age, and due to the presence of magic, evolution happens faster for sentient beings (they subconsciously push their evolution towards desired traits, sort of a magic-influenced orthogenesis). Thus, all sentient races are subspecies of Homo Sapiens and evolved naturally pretty recently (some 50k-100k years before the setting's present), these races are pretty much humanoid (elves, dwarves, goblins, etc.). However there are other races that didn't evolve naturally, but came about in recent times (5k to 10k years ago) because godlike beings (outsiders) walked the earth and adopted tribes as their own and changed their bodies in certain ways to try to give them a leg up in the world. This process produced the more unnatural races like Centaurs, Minotaurs, Naga, etc. Most of them are failed races that cannot really survive in the long term and are already fading by the time the bronze age comes about, but some are more or less successful.

The main point behind this is that me and my players wanted a world with a ton of varied races, but I want my players to come to the understanding that the weirder races aren't really naturally evolved.

Although I do plan to introduce a straight up engineered for servitude race down the line.

>>53228082
Swords and sorcery. Constantly on the cusp of industrialization due to the existence of magic. Magic comes from understanding (education or intuition).

Humans - cursed descendants of a long forgotten race.
Dwarves - cursed descendants of a god-made race.
Trolls - the first race.
Elves - descendants of the Trolls.
Orcs - not aliens.

The last major thing to happen was an exiled Elf attempting to assassinate a Human Prince as he took the throne. Pissed off a few people because: Regicide is regicide, but the asshole didn't have right to the throne. But not a lot of people know about it because "they" didn't want people to know that the attempt was made, or that asshole isn't entitled to the throne.

>>53228261
>Trolls - the first race.
>Elves - descendants of the Trolls.
isn't this basically warcraft?

>>53228363
All those race origins are Warcraft.

Unless he actually means the Orcs are not aliens, instead of not!aliens.

>>53228535
Original setting DONUT STEELE

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>>53217634
Excuse us sir, do you have a moment to discuss our lord and saviour, the rule that "water flows down"?

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>>53229760

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>>53163546
Help me guys; I'm running a game that is heavily focused on my players finding and killing all 4 Necromantic Lords and banisihing them.

I had a solid idea on their origin story but I had to improvise a couple of sessions back, and throw in a Lord of Change as an improvised encounter. My brother who is, as I am, a huge 40k autist later asked me if the Necromancers derived power from Nurgle or something like that.

Would something like that work? I was thinking having Nurgle be deceived by the four Necromancer Lords a few millennia back - probably supported by Tzeentch who, obviously, hates his guts. As they trick Papa Nurgle, he is sealed away and his power is split into various forms - zombies, diseases, etc - and evenly divided between the Lords, so that each of them preside over a specific aspect of that.

After a while the Lords are eventually defeated by a coalition of mortals and are sealed away. Fast forwarding to present day and the Warp is completely out of balance without one of its major players, and there is basically open war. Tzeentch, having not anticipated this - or maybe it was all justasplanned - decides to start egging the party on, so that Nurgle might be restored and some balance returned to the Warp - a balance far more easy to manipulate.

Am I doing this right? Am I overlooking something? What would you do different?

Please feel free to ask any questions, since I probably failed to explain half of what I wanted in my post lol

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Do you find it off-putting when a setting uses real world factions and settings in a fantastical way? Or is it refreshing, compared to notThis or notThat take 300?
My setting was mostly analogues for awhile but I'm starting to think since most everything is inspired by classic myths and legends anyways, I might as well drop the not! and go for it.
The only problem I have is I have no issue using anachronisms (it's still fantasy) but I feel like the scene at large has a huge problem with it, I mean the concentrated autism in this board (this general) alone gives me pause.

>>53230122
I don't have much of a problem with the concept itself, but it gets annoying when someone tries to use the real world faction to push a certain opinion or agenda. Similarly, using a real world faction might bring discussions to the table that you'd really rather not have at the game table, particularly if one of the players feels personally affected in some way.

For an example, consider that you straight up grab the ancient Greeks, and one of your players is Greek, and you dare suggest that the ancient Greeks weren't paragons of democracy, philosophy and enlightenment, then he might take issue with that and be really annoying.

So yeah, at least know your players when you're using real world factions.

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I'm bringing an old project out of the cupboard and would like some honest critique on this incomplete worldmap before I go nuts changing things.

>late classical era tech level
>dominant empire is long past its peak and near collapse. succession war brewing
>new powers rising as former barbarians and nomads undergo cultural changes and steadily confederate into cohesive states
>discovery by more advanced civilisations across the western ocean is imminent. will trigger a period of rapid change

Western Europe there for reference of equivalent scale and latitude.

How do you do human races in your world /wbg/?

>>53230213
Yeah I feel that, it definitely depends on who's at the table. But that's at least due to genuine passion and emotions about a particular subject.

What I'm talking about is more like, taking Mythic Greek events and characters, and applying Classic Greek culture and technology, to places they've maybe never been. But I don't want to hear 'well actually hoplites weren't invented till blahblah in the Assyrmertamian War in 923 BC and the greeks didn't occupy past the Helaerasdfsdf River until the conquests of Dariaoustomous', while in the meantime there's thirty foot hydra spitting acid and life sized sphynx guarding magic swords.

I guess a better way to ask the question is: Can you handle anachronisms in a fantasy setting?

>>53230361
I like it but your map is annoying to read. It's probably a good format for the worldbuilding you're still doing but I would take this and make a good topo/terrain style map, or fully stylized if you're capable.

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First time posting here, long time lurker. You guys are cool.

How's this for starters? It's just a generic medium fantasy world right now, not too sure what I wanna do with it. I'm planning on adding civilisations, but have yet to come up with some good symbols to represent towns and castles and stuff.

>>53230927
>>53230927
Reminds me of a DF map for some reason.

Any jungles or rainforests? Regular forests?

>>53231000
Good eye, I messed about with the worldgen settings in df to get a map with a lot of aspects I liked, such as the nice mix of islands and continents. I then used gimp to trace it and make it look more realistic.

All the biomes and stuff are there, I just need to come up with a way to clearly mark them on the map in a way I like the look of.

>>53230927
I would just go with the flow, you're going to find a little piece of geography that appeals to you and it'll unfold from there.
And as long as you use layers and keep backups, remember you can always change the symbols. That's something you don't have to worry about till later.

>>53230385
I'm a history autist, so usually anachronisms rile me up especially in works that claim some sort of basis in history however loose.

A fantasy world though does not have to follow the same course of history as ours, particularly if it is more than an (attempted) copy of a given time/culture with the names changed and some magic sprinkled on top.

In a fantasy setting, the key consideration is plausibility (taking into account the rules of the setting such as magic). Is a technology/idea/institution/whatever even possible in the conditions of the setting and what effect would it have on the setting?

Fantasy anachronisms are fine, provided they are well thought-out and feel like a natural and integrated part of the world. The problem is they are usually not, and thinking about such things causes a cascade of immersion-breaking questions such as "how did they even build that in the first place?" and "why has this not changed everything and made that other stuff obsolete?".

>>53231127
So what your saying is it all needs to make sense in game. It's less about hard accuracy and more about a setting that makes sense. And as long as THIS IS FANTASY is properly spelled out, and players aren't expecting a historical setting, you'd be ok with it?

Would a post-apocalyptic sol system work better for a sci-fantasy campaign or should i just set it out on 'the frontier'?

>>53231361
Pretty much.

In the introduction to the campaign saying something along the lines of "the setting is broadly equivalent to Rome 300AD, but there have been some changes such as x,y&z" helps make sure everyone is on the same page in terms of expectations.

That's just my personal opinion, but while people might quibble the plausibility or effects of adding/removing a specific element I really can't see a sane person objecting to the principle of tinkering if the result is interesting and internally consistent.

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>>53231729
I like the idea of using our solar system more because it's easier to see it absolutely cluttered with junk, ships, stations, and general technology from a mishmash of eras piled up over time. The frontier would be empty and boring. There's far more lore and adventures to be had in the ruins of our solar system.

>>53231853
I was thinking of starting the campaign on jaha city, which is on ganymede. A few of the worlds in the system were terraformed, the idea is that people are mistaking tech for magic and things run like sort of a fantasy world with kingdoms, knights etc. with actual magic being a thing quite alien and hard to find. It feels like a bit much to have it be a post-apocalypse though, or is it?

>>53230122
I actually love it. I think it's really mysterious and interesting, and the words and names already have deep cultural associations for the players. I personally like to include the city of Atlantis in some way in every game I play.

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Anybody got experience with Amazon Self-Publishing?

Is it a good way to make maybe fifty to a hundred bucks a month if I just produce a novel here and there?

I want something to actually motivate me to get around to writing my shit.

>>53234228
>fifty to a hundred bucks a month
Oh I wish. You have to put in a lot of work to get this kind of steady income.

>>53226513

This is pretty fucking cool, anon. Does anyone live on the planet's surface?

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>>53234442
Give or take, that is.

Im not expecting it every month, but sort of a once in a while thing'

is amazon publsihng not good at giving you money?

>>53235252
First I must mention that I don't write in english, so maybe there are some differences in the market
Don't get me wrong, Amazon can give you money, there are writers that make a living through this. There are even writers that abandoned classic publishers, because you earn more from every sold book or ebook. But you have to do everything yourself, create/pay for a cover, editing, marketing etc. And you are entering a competetive and some say flooded market.

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>>53235354
>editing

Alright chums, let me hear your most unique, one-of-a-kind, revolutionary ideas that would make people spit on the cover of LotR and take a steamy shit on GoT.

>>53235759
mud-age spear and shovel war of succession, takes place entirely on a ball of elephant dung being rolled across the desert by an enormous scarab beetle

Got a setting I'm working on, using D&D 3rd and pathfinder resources as a mechanical base, and have ideas for many races, but also explicitly want the number of playable races to be limited. For those of you who have limited player races in your multi-raced games, what have you found to be a good number?

>>53179645
That's why most people play RPGs, to beat the monsters and get the treasure and level up.

>>53237569
I usually just let my players play races that are strictly humanoid in form, customs and aren't exceptionally long lived (elves, humans, dwarves, orcs, and halfs if they are possible) and anything that deviates from the human form is non-playable most of the time.

I found that to be the best way because players have a hard time roleplaying as non-human characters outside of combat and it gets annoying with stuff like: "No you can't fit through that door because you're too big" or "No, centaurs can't properly sit on human chairs" and the like.

As for number, I usually go with the races that would logically be present in good numbers in that part of the world, so it usually ends up being somewhere between 3 to 5, which I found is a good number. Once I go past 5, they start to feel superfluous.

>>53237761
Most of the races I've got are medium, with so far the only exception being kobold. Over the course of some narratives the players will have a chance to allow or halt the invention of dwarves (along with orcs), but generally speaking I've limited player race to medium to begin with. I definitely have more than 5 as the potential, but I think I can probably dial the first-game accessible ones, and have the others come in when the players are more familiar with the setting.

>>53237931
>I can probably dial the first-game accessible ones, and have the others come in when the players are more familiar with the setting.
That's a good way to go about it, yeah.

Still, try not to stray too far from the human condition with your playable races.

>>53226617

There was a gif I was trying to find where a bird is fighting another bird and he chases him towards a log but the bird does this really artful spin/barrel roll/whatever the avionic term is up and away. I'll definitely make a habit of refering to birds of prey footage, possibly even a little bit of modern plane combat. That's with projectiles but fundamentals (the difference between a barrel roll vs alleron roll and so on) will be useful.

Actually now that you mention "Slightly curved and bladed lances" - glaives and halberd types (but more scimitar/hussar, less heavy poleaxe) would become a big deal for vs terrestrial. Fly by swings that don't require getting in close with a saber. I love me halberds/glaives/guandaos so that is win-win there.

Biologically I remember years ago hearing on some slow news day what humans would need to fly - besides the obvious hollower bones there was something about far greater pectoral muscles (I think we regular humans are more leg day, less chest?). So that could lead to the interesting bit of elves that basically look like "I skip leg day". Though fantasy allowances can mitigate that.

>>53227968

That's a good point, though the darts isn't quite sexy it would work very well against terrestrials. The net/bolas would be much sexier, much more dangerous too for winged vs winged.

I already figured the younger of the Swiss-elves would be tasked with being messengers because one of the most obvious reasons for hiring a winged motherfucker is that he can deliver messages in a way that shits on anything other than a boat. Since just being hired as errand boys isn't very glamorous I can see the squire sorts doing that task.

Thanks buds. Still gotta work on it but I def love the idea of Swiss Elves now.

>>53237985
That's actually a bit of a problem with the setting I'll say, humans are only one of three semi-traditional humanoid races at the beginning, along with drow and tieflings, who were both the results of the beings that descended from black and red dragons (deep dragons and pit fiends) respectively interbreeding with humans as a means of preserving their kind. One of the major themes I want to play with is the alien nature of humans on this world, where all the other races have been, for the most part, specialized for a way of life, while humans are (from a D&D flavor and mechanics perspective) curious jacks of all trades, and the resulting shifts in the other races' cultures as the idea of lifestyles based on personal drives rather than the necessities of their cultures becomes more prevalent. Though, I suppose it still technically fits in with your advice, as the background setting is about other races adapting to the idea of the human condition.

I've been messing around with neural network text generation lately. Can anyone think of some good RPG worldbuilding uses for a neural network?

It can basically generate anything: names, descriptions, etc. as long as you feed it a large enough dataset. Large text lists, wikis, and ebooks tend to work well.

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>>53231968
Hell no. Honestly post-apoc Sol system can be awesome in and of itself as a sci-fi setting without the magic elements.

Power armored knights sustained by algae mat tending Ganymedean serfs raiding shattered O'Neil stations for a vial containing the genome for Monsanto super potatoes guarded by a automated defense drone psioniclly corrupted and worshiped by the cultist descendants of the station's human resources department could be pretty fun.

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>tfw made a map as a teenager which is a copy of a real world island but with a different layout but you've grown so fond of the shape that you'd rather just reuse it than be original

I honestly wish I could erase it from existence just so people wouldn't ever be able to call me on it.

>>53241332
I once thought of something like this except it all took place in the O'Neil. Flavor it up using flowery language to hide that it isn't actually a fantasy game (the 3 black seas which separate the pillars of life, beware them for this is where demons lie (the automated repair faculties)).

The goal was to have the colony be failing forcing the players to learn the truth of it all and escape using a ship held secretly in the possession of the engineering cult located in the colony's old space port at the base.

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>>53231729
>>53231853
>>53241332
You should look into Destiny, it is post-apocalyptic sol system in a sci-fi/fantasy setting right to a T. Even if not for using at all, all of the art from it portraying the ruins of the system is grade A stuff.

>>53192142
What system are you using for the airships? I've been looking for something worthwhile for this.

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r8 a god in my setting where the cosmology has no gods

Originally a extra-dimensional creature known as a Planecrawler; looks like a mix between Origin Form Giratina, a horseshoe crab, a centipede and a praying mantis. Started in another dimension, dog level intelligence but minor psychic presence, two long mantis like claws which can cut dimensional tears.

Cut its way into the game's dimension several thousand years ago, worshiped as a god by early man. very quickly it's psychic powers/intelligence grew thanks to how magic works in the setting, by virtue of people worshiping it. Smart enough that it demanded to be placed in a specially designed chamber underground which amplified its psychic powers ten fold, while being completely sealed away. About human level intelligence at this point, but with an alien attitude to the world which makes it seems distant.

Over the past several thousand years, which included cataclysmic event which lead to most of the world being wiped out and starting again, it's become known as the warrior god Bez. The insect appearance has been interpreted as chitin-like armour, the mantis claws are two blades which he wields. After fighting his greatest battle, Bez was sealed beneath the capital to rest and fight again one day.

Follows carry two ceremonial blades, a bit like Sikhs, and chitin insects are seen as sort of holy creatures; not worshiped, but a bit like Jesus and lambs.

bamp

>>53247173
Quiet thread today :/

/wbg/, I present to you this challenge!

>>53242339
Refluff Vancian casting.

>>53251349
Reality is a system of interlocking mathematics. This is the reason the movement of the planets has meaning: if Venus is so, and Leo like this, then the baby must be a girl. If you were to somehow move Venus, then lo! the baby will now be a boy.

Of course, these formulas take many years to calculate. The masters -- Pythagoras, Khwarizmi, Newton -- already laid down the important formulas, but even these can take hours to compute. However, primitive calculators can be prepared with various formulas, greatly speeding the process. They will tell you what you must say and what you must do, but they can only carry so many calculations. Well, without becoming unwieldy, anyway.

>>53252118
What stops you from preparing dozens of spells a few days out?

>>53241332
Theres alien bits. Talisman stones being space crystals thought to hold spirits, but those spirits are actually alien AI, mysterious obelisks on Pluto, lights in the Ganymede seas at night etc. How best to handle space travel though? something only available to nobles and people descend from engineers maybe

>>53252200
Your calculator only has the "template" of a formula punched in. The actual numbers depend upon immediate factors -- the colour of the sky in the morning, the genders of those present, whether the ground is stone or wood. It is technically possible for you to calculate a lot of this ahead of time, but this would take years (i.e. the day you are researching would have long passed you by).

I'm sure there's a lot of things you could explore regarding faster computers. Also detective work, "working back" instead of forwards.

Is Tolkien the ultimate reference in the fantasy genre?

>inb4 muh European mythologies and religions

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>>53252593
No.

>>53252593
What do you mean by "ultimate"? Like, oldest?

If so...yeah, it's muh mythologies and religions. That's what that sort of fantasy was taking notes from.

help a man get into the Steampunk genre.

I haven't read a single line in the genre, not even a fan fic.

What story(ies) should I start with?

>>53252731
I specifically used "ultimate" to avoid using "oldest" (That would be Homerus). By "ultimate" I meant "the guy" you think about whenever you discuss the classic modern fantasy

>>53252760
Classic modern fantasy? Well yeah, no shit it's the guy who wrote the top two best-selling books of all time.

>>53252738
The Difference Engine I guess? It probably won't be what you are expecting though.

>>53252738
They're all shit. Sorry.

>>53251349
Vancian spells are egregores that live in a caster's brain, and die once expended.

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I'm currently creating a world that I want extremely dark. Do you see the world of the movie The Road ?
Well, transpose it in a medieval setting, but instead of a desolate world almost totally depopulated, a world with a looooooot of people gathered in scattered city-state mainly governed by tyrannical groups of self-proclaimed "kings" bandits. Outside the city walls, devastation, ruins, cannibal tribes, wandering lepers, gray and dry fields as far as the eye can see, hostile climate and small groups of pilgrims trying to survive in a world where human life has no value.

My only problem is that I don't want it to be edgy.

>>53253379
>Do you see the world of the movie The Road ?
That is the most pleb thing I've ever read.

>>53253379
then have the pilgrims maintain a hopeful outlook. Its only edgy if you wank to hard over the fuckery and make the pilgrims edgy themselves.

>>53247173
Not to bump my own shit, but any opinions on this now the thread is a bit more alive?

>>53253379
>>53253408
Also you're not gonna be able to make a DAAAARK world without going edgy. That's not necessarily a bad thing, you just have to keep it from being so jarring the players can't not notice it.

That's my main problem with The Road, incidentally. It gets so dark it becomes dumb, and you laugh.

You can do dark without doing DAAAARK by the way. Like, Dark Souls, or the Iliad.

>>53253019 c >>53252200
Do you lose control of them if you lose track of them?

>>53252212
Actually, I may suggest the opposite. The people who still have access to space travel or who actually do the space traveling I should say will be people who are the best salvagers and best scholars who could retain the most engineering knowledge. It would probably be something a kin to a monastic order of junk rats, with a tad of viking raiders who randomly descend to make off with breeding stock or necessary consumables. The nobles could "buy" their serves with a few able to retain a personal retinue devoted to the upkeep of a ship.

>>53228178

Huh, this is actually similar to what I have in my for-fun worldbuilding.
Except instead of outsiders, the non-humanoids arose because smarter=better even for animals, and "natural" magic forces could overcome the metabolic costs and evolutionary blockages.

As to your question.

For races like centaurs, the strange anatomy by itself should be sufficient that they did not evolve naturally. But if you need to drive the point home, you could have a centaur NPC angrily deny being descended from horses and ask what such a "missing link" could even look like - crazy mental image right there.

For races like minotaurs or naga you could have another approach where they look like certain animals, but work like human(oid)s. So minotaur eat people foods instead of grass, do not chew cud, and so on. Naga are warm blooded with decent vision. Snake boobs maybe?
Again, these large deeper differences should suggest that they were (re)made in the image of certain creatures, instead of being related to them.

Obviously, if there is any memory of the outsiders then varied creations myths will have grown up around them. Those could also provide hints, or even plot hooks.

>>53253486
Why did that thing specifically crawl into your world over any other?

>>53247173
There's not much to say, really. The concept is okay, pretty standard.
But you're just setting things up, there's no story or conflict to this that would make it trigger any kind of plot.
There are questions you should answer to give it some life : why did he get here ? What does he use his powers for ? What does he promise to those who worship him ? Why did he fight, if he has an "alien attitude to the world" ? What's his agenda, and do his followers know it ?

>>53241681

You are now seeing the circled numbers near the coasts as eyes on cartoony shaped heads.

Shit. Didn't mention it feeds on psychic energy.

>>53255682
Following instinct; it's essentially an animal. 'Food is gone, cut hole to more food'. Then it was worshiped by the squishy things in the new dimension who gave it food so why move on again? Same way a stray dog will stick with a human.

>>53255913

I kind of want to go for a 'Gods are what you make of them' thing. Bez is essentially a semi-intelligent animal acting on instinct which people pickled up worship of, by now the religion is so ingrained its worshiped as a matter of cause in Bez the country.

So it didn't fight anything, that's just the stories which grew from the people who worshiped it. Its sole direction in the early years was 'food. make brain stronger so more food.' The cavern it lives in amplified its latent abilities so it can reachmore people, thus leading to more food. People worshiping it is a side effect.

>>53228363
>In my setting, orcs were the first dominant civilization, though that fact is unknown as it was over 7,000 years ago

>>53256112
In your other post you wrote
>About human level intelligence at this point
which contradicts what you're saying now. Unless you're trying to say that's how people consider him, but that wouldn't make much sense.

>>53254174
Yes. Living errant spells are quite the problem.

>>53256574
Yeh I could have been clearer.

It was animal level intelligence when it was worshipped and was present on the surface, even when it ordered the chamber built it was in a animalistic manner, like a dog letting you know what it wants. That was long enough ago that it's reached near human but still sub-human intellect by the time of the campaign, but it's currently sealed in an underground chamber feeding of psychic energy since it put itself there when it was still dumb.

'This give food. Do this.'

Became

'I cant leave. I want to do more. Leave.'


Its still worshiped as a god, but the culture has developed totally beyond it's control. It feeds and it watches, and is trying to get out but can only whisper to people.