/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

What's the itt ?

fuck you i was about to post this

>>53590510
>>53590515

Hows this look for some tree aliens?

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>>53592427
Pretty good, anon.

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>>53592427
>>53592450
fug

>>53592471
See >>53592450

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How would you make life in a floating continent "realistic"? I mean, it's fantasy, so never mind why or how the thing is floating, but I was thinking how things would work once everything is in place. How would be the climate, how would the sun affect things so high up, what about the air? Would generations and generations of living so high up make breathing sea level air difficult and vice versa?
I already thought about somethings, like water, for example, obviously the continent would have to go bellow the clouds from time to time, but then, wouldn't going back above the clouds just freeze everything?

>>53592536
If this thing is an entire continent it should have its own climate, I would say. Of course things get complicated if this thing moves around the entire globe, then the climate should be shifting constantly.

Is there any advantage of a third eye? Speaking strictly about biology.

>>53592536
Depends on how high or low it is from the ground. Of course, you could always bullshit and say it's heated by magic if your setting lets you do that.

Food is going to be a tough one. Unless magic or vertical farming is used, they'll have to be constantly trading for food.

>>53592582
It's roughly the size of Kazakhstan, and I was thinking about having it move very slowly latitudinally around the globe

>>53593193
Higher than Mount Everest, most of the time, and now that I'm making some research I think heating and air supply will have to be done with magic either a tree of life or a crystal of life

>>53592788
Depends. If it's a hunting creature, I'd say no, because binocular vision is already fine and an extra eye adds nothing but more brain mass requirement. If it's an herbivore, however, I'd say a third eye would be useful, as it allows the other two to be even further to the side, allowing for an even wider field of view.

>>53593759
I hoped that EVEN MORE binocular vision would somehow enhance something. But thanks.

Tell me about folk heroes in your settings, /wbg/.

>>53594461
'Sunspot' a MAVERICCCCCK pilot type that lost his squad in the battle of Mare Imbrium on the Moon. Almost singlehandedly saved a port city site there from bombardment by machine ships.

>>53592536

Does the floating continent float in tandem to the surface world, ie. does it move or appear ''stuck'' in the air?

>>53593957
Note that there is something to be said for more eyes - insects and arachnids do it and they're two of the most successful animal groups ever - but simply tacking on more eyes to a chordate probably won't do you much good. Chordate eyes have developed very specifically to do their jobs, and there's a reason there are no chordates with more than two. Adding another eye (or two) means you have to increase the brain mass that is used to process visual information, possibly exponentially, and this likely cancels out the benefits of extra eyes, even for grazing animals. For example, horses don't have a third eye, even though they've got a huge blind spot right in front of their face, because the costs of a third eye outweigh the benefits. For another example, owls, instead of having eyes on the backs of their heads or whatever, developed the (anatomically astounding) ability to turn their heads 180 degrees, because adding extra eyes just isn't feasible for chordates. Insects and arachnids get away with it because their eyes produce less information, their inputs can be aggregated in the case of compound eyes, and they don't need to do much visual processing anyway. Of course, this is your fantasy, so you can do what you like, but consider if there's a better way to achieve what you're going for rather than adding extra eyes.

>>53594461
A semi-divine being who comes cyclically to restore the link to the higher planes that corrupted individuals of secret societies obfuscate thanks to the Black Barrier to weaken the people of the lands and make them slaves.
When he comes he devastates everything and thus is also known as "The Great Destroyer" but it is seen as a blessing because it is.

>>53592788
Some reptiles have perietal eyes, but these are for hormone regulation and can only sense light.

>>53594696
It moves very slowly

>>53592471
>no detailed treecocks

are you even worldbuilding

So I'm still looking for feedback on a setting I posted a quick synopses here>>53578977.

>>53592471
>no leaves for maximum photosynthesis

0/10, get the weed killer

>>53598142
maybe their chemosynthetic.

>>53594461
Rolan the Plunderer. He used to be a sailor, working on merchant ship. Once his ship got caught up in a storm and most of the crew died and he found himself in the capital of the ancient empire overrun by zombies. He wandered inland a bit and found lots of treasures (And not much of zombies). When he returned home, he was one of the richest men in the world. He spent some time travelling and collected a lot of information on various nations, then he bought some land and settled down for a bit as a noble.

He eventually decided to travel again, looking for a way to pass into mystical land beyond the mountain range to the North. What he found instead was so terrible apparently, that he returned home, fell ill and died.

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Posting this map for a couple reasons:
1: I always like hearing what people think
2: I need more in depth political situations in case the party runs off the rails and hitches a carraige.
3: I want thoughts on what I've worked out thus far.

So, the campaign is going to be typical dungeon-delving, but with a backdrop of c. 1550's politcal maneuvering. Particularly, the party is going to be working in the HAE for the petty lords, probably trying to locate an ancient ruin rumored to have Ancient Weapons {read, Automatic Laser Weapondry}.

HAE politics is easy to fit into a campaign, given the weakness of the imperial crown. Most of the dukes hate each other, and they only really stick together out of a mixture of propriety and fear that Karne might start marching troops through the mountains. It's a hot spot for ancient ruins, science, and magic, so even though the setting as a whole is generally short on the huge D&D level magics, it's not implausible that one of the party had such an education. {CONT}

>>53598942
{CONT}
If the party decides to be murderhobos or otherwise villainous, the Emperor has a group of 12 official badasses (the settings only "Paladins", although they don't have the cleric/fighter mixture of classic pallies) who are basically Adventurer Detectives who are hand chosen by the fat man in a big chair.

If they do decide to go evil though, they can be hidden by a lord, potentially. I don't like railroading, so they happen to be nearby a duchess who just so happens to be a very powerful Lich/Blackguard.

If they decide to go off the rails and head north, there's some interest in the Gunpowder Trade and the "Bay of the Thumb", which Woodmother currently dominates. That has some interest in bucking tradition in that the dwarves of Kathudum and the elves of Woodmother trade a lot (Gunpowder for Banana and Lime, mostly) and are real good friends, which pisses off Karne. The party may decide to help the elf/dwarf alliance or the Karnians in deciding who the dwarves trade their good powder to.

I don't know about east though. Porcia and the other orcish countries are based off the far east, but I don't know what the party may do over there. Same for north or west of Kathudum; The dwarves do fight with the goblins of Choco Madar a lot (It's why their northern cities have a significant subterranean presence, but they generally have things well in hand. Should I give the gobbos a Ghengis Khan?

As far as Dakhest, I've decided the only way they'll find a ship there is if they agree to hunt a Grootslang. That probably won't turn out well, leaving them stranded in Lizard Mali. Is that a good idea?

I've been working on the setting since middle school but I've only recently been tooling it for a campaign, so help would be appreciated.

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>>53598942
The map is really angular and linear. You should add more variation to the coastlines and borders in certain areas.

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hey /wbg/, anyone care to comment? colors are a mix of terrain and elevation.

>>53601961
Right now the main comment I have is that you could try to re work your color palette, which I know may seem a bit rude to say but will help a lot with your map if you keep to a consistent group of colors.

I would personally suggest checking out other maps for what they use to get an idea of what I'm talking about, but for example I'm not sure if its something special to the map but the purple/pink area in the center of the map and the really bright yellows around the southern coastline are really jarring, and redwhite fuzzy pattern seems strange in my opinion.

Other than that the actual shape of the map itself is interesting, there's deinitely a lot to explore. The river system that pretty much splites the northern and southern portion of teh continent would be a hotspot for civilization I think, its much like the Mississippi or the Colorado in scale.

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Rolled 7, 16, 17, 17, 1, 9, 15, 18 = 100 (8d25)

>>53597654
Might as well give this a whirl

Meanwhile, have a map of australia done up in fantasy style

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>>53602935
That map is really cool.

I like the worldbuilding here, but what if you wanted to make an actual game around your setting? Where would you go for help in making mechanics and getting advice and commentary on your game?

>>53597654
rollan

(i don't actually play tabletop games but /agdg/ doesn't talk about worldbuilding or writing much at all)

Rolled 10, 21, 7, 7, 24, 15, 1, 15, 23, 6, 15, 6, 8, 5, 24, 25 = 212 (16d25)

>>53604881
aww shit i fucked up

Rolled 12, 22, 5, 22, 5, 25, 22, 4 = 117 (8d25)

>>53604906
ayy rerolling for the other two civs i rolled

>>53604730
i'm making a vidya and on /vg/ there's an ameteur game dev general and an RPG maker general

i don't think that's what you meant, though

>>53601961
Looks like a wolf's head. Is it called Wolfshead Isle?

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>>53602835
thanks for your honesty, man. i know that some of the colors don't make a whole lot of sense, but they're only a temporary fix until i have the time to flesh out the terrain more (pic related). the pink, for instance, is a stand in for a complex system of canyons and badlands that i haven't fully conceptualized yet. but if you have an example for a good color code palette to use, i'd love it if you hit me up with it.

>>53605171
it's more of a continent than an isle, really, but that's not a bad idea of where to start thinking up a name for it

>>53604730
Uh are you making a full video game or are you talking about like a TTRPG game?

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map status: progress

>>53607866
Not really sure about the whole circles of various sizes thing, especially between major and minor cities.

*nudges u*

How do outsiders settle a frontier full of nomadic horsemen including mounted archers?

>>53611068
they do it as their tech outperforms horsemen. see russian campaigns against the central asian hordes in 16th and 17th centuries

>>53611568
This is certainly the easiest way, another example would be the American West. However there is more too it than just guns and weight of numbers. Let's assume a pre-blackpowder setting and see what they can do.

To start with most of the steppe/desert is useless to anyone not a pastoralist. So you don't actually want to settle the vast sea of grass/scrub, instead you stick to the rivers as that is where agriculture is possible and because they provide lines of communication.

You fortify everything. Unless you have the misfortune to time your colonisation with the rise of Ghengis Khan, nomads are internally divided and mostly raid rather than conquer. Good defenses deter, can hold off small raids and buy time for reinforcements in large raids.

At this stage the most likely model is that an Imperial government is the one who set the steppe settlement policy, and the plan is construct a set of giant fortress cities at key points and station field armies to respond to problems. It's very costly to set up, but hopefully the rich farmland/mines/whatever can justify the expense in coin and blood.

By the time settlement happens, the back of the nomad threat should already be broken and powerful tribes/confederations either destroyed, crippled or bought off- at least in the area of settlement. Horse archers are not invincible and many cultures have held nomads at bay, we just tend to focus on the times when the nomads won big which warps perspective a bit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_of_Russia_1500%E2%80%931800

For a medieval example, the Sassanids founded a number of fortress cities to capture ground in the endless conflict with nomads in Central Asia.

>>53607886
I think it looks fine.

>>53607886
The major/minor icons are nice, I'm not a fan of the capital icon though. Maybe you could do a pattern or insignia inside of a major icon for the capitals.

>>53612006
>>53611568
How horribly wrong can settling a steppe go against united tribesmen?

>>53613750
I mean. It depends on how bad the losers feel about genocide.

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In case a major incident that divides a faction into two happens, do you prefer it to be something huge from the get go like wh40k or something subtle or even petty that snowballed because of incomprehensions and circumstances.

If you were to write a book about cultures in your world (a fluff/supplement style book, not an actual book) what would you include for each culture and how would you format it?

IMO, breaking it down into major categories and then smaller ones seems like the best format
>Culture (Culture Name)
>Everyday Life (Major Category)
>Food and Drink (Minor Category)
and here would go food/drink

The issue is, though that formatting isn't exactly donut steel-levels of innovative and works pretty much anywhere, I have no idea what would go into the rest.

I am gonna go look at those 100+ question culture questionaires and fill out the format, but I was hoping for /wbg/'s opinions on the most important aspects of a culture.

=)

>>53614315
The way I see it, a culture is any group of people who identify with each other and habe a belief in their superiority to everyone they identify as being separate. The important bits to show, in my opinion, would be how and why they developed these beliefs and how they act upon them.

If you use that as a guide, it's not too hard. You need history, their current dealings with those astound them, and aspects of their culture that THEY take pride in (ie, the little things they believe price their superiority, be it how they dress or what they eat).

For example, Jews and Muslims not eating pig. This taboo helps separate them from other culture groups, and since their reasoning is that pig is unlean, bit eating pig while others do makes them feel superior. It matters to them, and so should be included.

>>53614315
there are some good discussions & resources on this archived thread: https://boards.fireden.net/tg/thread/43898547/#43903962

i would say language families, social class markers, household structure and major natural resources in their land would be pretty major signifiers

>>53605059
>>53607710
I'm talking about a TTRPG game.

>>53611068
Land enclosure and wiping out the herds of grazing animals that the nomads rely on for food.

>>53614526
>>53614579

Those are both great posts (in that i'm gonna use them) but I think my biggest issue right now is the categories

What would you consider to be the most fundamental aspects of society? i.e. "Everyday Life" could theoretically be one as it covers: commoners, food/drink, life in a town/city/village, etc. But does "military" warrant its own category, or should it be a part of government/politics/every day lie? And so on

>>53614173
The second one. A conflict of personal stakes suddenly blowing out of proportion is great to get players/readers invested.

You are living a common life in the last setting you worked on.

Suddenly, the entire Dwemer race from the Elder Scrolls appear in your world. How fucked are you?

>>53617960
The entire world is doomed. Someone capable of casting an elder scrolls fireball would instantly be the most physically powerful individual in the world.

>>53618024
What system?

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>>53612155
>>53612185
yeah, the capital icon isn't great

i'll probably do the insignia idea or something eventually

>>53617960
Unless they escape and somehow survive in the lifeless, demon infested parts of the desert or are demons themselves everyone in my setting is pretty fucked.

>>53618241
none

>>53613750
Just find a way to stop them from being united, duh. You can't have a stable form of government based on steppe tribes, all nomadic empires either relied on settled people's state structures or were unsophisticated confederations with no state building tools and therefore unable to pose a threat let alone react properly and united against outsiders outside of excepcional situations (like the rise of a charismatic leader or a great famine that causes big migrations)

tl;dr nomads are actually shit and only can win against settled when the settled are having times of troubles

>>53620091
Okay, then what's your setting's magic like where a ES fireball is so powerful?

>>53592471
Groot, the last treebender

>>53614173
I like 2nd better but I don't care much. The important thing for great internal divisions is that there's not a single conflict between to groups, but actually several groups with several conflicting objectives that start allying and/or killing each other when the thing that kept them from infighting disappears. All interesting civil wars have not two teams but two sides each composed of several teams.

>>53617960
I'm fucked as everyone is because I don't like high powerlevels and I prefer settings withare no pre-industrial tech.

>>53592536
>so never mind why or how the thing is floating
This a big mistake
At least; you, need to know why/how.

>>53601961
Rivers seem reversed.
They should start as one then split into many.
And it looks Australia sized, as in, your world could fit another 5 of these. Maybe it's just not to scale. (obviously not, that's not what I mean with scale)
>>53603902
>Blaland
heh
>>53600782
>>53598942
too boxxyy/squared
Looks like Tolkien made those mountains.

>>53592471
Mass effect, is that you?
Too humanoid.

>>53620280
I think the Huns and Mongols do not agree with this statement.

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>>53601961
Hey it's star shaped!
I see what you're doing!

>>53620611
Huns collapsed as soon as Attila died.
Mongol empire split/collapsed (a decade) after Djengis died.
Sure they were in alliance still, but less so than what EU is now.

>>53620655
It split after Mongke died

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Re: Conlanging -

There are probably only two people on this board who can relate, but I wanted to make a Hawaiian-based conlang for my [thematically Polynesian culture], so I spent a good chunk of time this afternoon studying Hawaiian grammar and a Hawaiian dictionary.

Man, those dudes sure love reduplication. e.g. ha'ule=to fall, ha'ule'ule=to far very far/further, or kalawa=curve, kalawalawa=crooked (curved too far), etc.

The grammar is a little cool in some areas (noun gender is based on if you can create them/own them, tense is adding a common suffix) and dumb in others (45 common personal pronouns, all your prefixes/suffixes are 1-3 characters so it all sounds the same). Then you get into weird lexicon distinctions (a normal pool of water vs a pool of water used to catch eels). Will probably take a while to finish my conlang based on it, may end up just stealing the easy parts of Japanese and English.

Anyone also working on a conlang?

>>53620709
Point still remains that "only" a strong ruler can hold a large multicultural society together.

>>53620740
>conlang
Unless you're a linguist.
Just copy the syntax of one language, "morphophonology" of another, then make up your own alphabet.

>>53620868

Meh. I'm less concerned with the practical applications of creating a language (or worldbuilding in general) and more interested in what it enables me to learn (linguistics/geology/sociology/history/etc). In this context I'm fine with having something more complex, exposes the weird quirks of various languages and the potential for similar outlets.

>>53620322
>Oils and greases that can be used to coat blades of brittle metals like mithril to strengthen them and prevent tarnishing
>After years of training through self-induced psychosis, some people can vaguely dream the past and future, however most people who attempt this fall into insanity and permanently lose the ability, reliable users are very rare and probably wouldn't be shown, only mentioned
>Microscopic organisms that can be introduced to human blood, promoting the immune system, metabolism, and wound regeneration of their host
>Vampiric version of the latter, which mutates within the host over time and whenever it is spread, most mutations are malignant and make the vampire weaker and more monstrous
A gun would easily kill most of the greatest warriors and vampires, a TES fireball is even greater than a gunshot.

>>53620611
They literally do. In several points. Do you know anything about them beyond mapblobs and horse archer memes?

>>53620655
The mongols were actually a kinda succesful empire, good example for hata I was saying about nomads being shit except in very specific situations. They belong to the group that relies on settled peoples having troubled times to become a threat and relying on settled peoples to have a working state. They also had the exceptional event of several charismatic rulers.

>>53620868
>>53620740
Or just copy a unique aspect of a language group you like, then just make everything up without any real coherency as long as its sound is "flowing".

Like reduplication, that's actually pretty interesting yet simple way of making an entire language of just words with meaning, then all forms of inflection is just extreme reduplication.

"Heavy" means heavy, and there's no other word to describe weight. "He-heavy" means heavier "heavy-vy" means lighter... But how heavy?
"He-heavy horse" > "Heavier than a horse"
But obviously not mountain heavy, cause then you'd say something bigger than a horse, horses have an absolute size and weight.
"stone-one-ne." > "many small stones"
This would also make translation difficult.
Like in that star trek TNG episode with a culture that spoke in abstractions.
If you have no idea what a horse is you have no idea what fucking size or weight he's talking about.

something something this was fun
Maybe I'm just full of shit.
I know nothing about Hawaiian grammar.

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>>53620740
>TFW not smart enough to invent a language.

>>53621085
Well, say what you want about CrashCourse.
The Mongols were the exception.
But exceptions don't make the rules.

>>53621142
Exactly.

>>53621100
> "Name" human, sa-sand-and, hand, wea-weapon.
>A lot of humans greater in number than the grains of sand in a hand (an exaggeration), from "name" (or just at that place), with not just weapons but great weapons.

With your own vocabulary ofc.

>>53620740
I did a bit of conlang for my fae realm, but it's mostly kept to topography, names and surnames. In fact they use a different, non-developed language/s when not naming important things.

Since we're talking about conlangs what is/are your favorite word/s in one of the languages of your setting? What does it mean?

>>53622255
Not my lang, but I've always loved the name Carcharoth from Tolkien, which basically meant Jaws. Such a great werewolf name.

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>tfw when you realize your underground setting is gonna need a fucking 3D map

This is gonna kill me. Are there any tutorials on how to do this? I might just say fuck it and make layers of flat maps, but even that is gonna be really difficult to sketch out.

>>53622696
It's a pain, but just do it like the blueprints of a multi-floor building.

Or make a model.

>>53622696
No it doesn't

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>>53622747
Honestly, I might just say fuck it and not bother with a full world map. The setting is primarily geared towards exploration and adventure on the frontier, so it might be better to make stuff up as I go along and only have a map of the more charted areas.

>>53622790
>>53622777

>>53622903
>>53622777
Explain.

>>53622790
Wait, you were talking about a planetary, or at least a continental scale?
Yeah, making that while thing probably isn't with the effort.

>>53622923
Different map for different each "dungeon".
Different map for each major "level".
Like in a video game.

>>53622949
Continental mostly, though potentially planetary depending on how things pan out. Honestly, making a map wouldn't even really be productive because most passages between larger cave systems would be too small to show on a map of everything so it would look like nothing is properly connected.

>>53622967
That's probably what I'll end up doing, except for the main and only hub of civilization. Well, main and only that the players/narrative knows about.

What could be a reason for a world where characters both good and evil settle things not with violence but through sports?
Like instead of your party stumbling on goblins and fighting them to death, you play a game of baseball instead and if you loose you just don't proceed further.

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>>53622790
My dude, you could always make a more abstracted map like pic related.

>>53625275
>>53625307
That's called a JRPG anon. Chalk it up to "Quirkiness", or the "Power of Friendship" or something.

>>53625336

I need something more than that.
For example yesterday I asked simillar question in Blood Bowl thread and the answer was simply because there was a new god and everyone like his ways of settle things.

>>53625435
Hmmmm. It could be that magic is highly "themed", or even deliberately dramatic and self aware. It manifests in abstract ways. Because battles are basically competitions, magic naturally causes reality to take the form of a game instead of actual war.

Like how Xaolin Showdown always went from "kung fu fight" to "Alternate Dimensional Video Game Battle". It's just how reality works.

>>53625496
That's sounds more interesting.
Thank you for a tip.

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>>53625538
You're welcome anon.

Gonna bump thread with a map. Planning on reworking this a few times over. Doesn't seem right so far.

>>53625819
Mountain Range in the middle is too linear?
Also it looks that there may be a bit too much mountains in general

>>53625853
Yeah, I always try to compensate for the shape of landmasses by putting mountains up everywhere. Any particular groups that need removal or a trim?

How does a civilization with very little metal differ from one with quite a lot of it? Both in weaponry and culture

>>53626628
small heda
culture of stick

>>53626628
Read Earthsea.

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>>53626628

Replace this...

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>>53627196

...with this!

>>53625307
And thus, lacrosse was born

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Why do so many people treat settings with gunpowder as less fantastical and more realistic than one without?

>>53590248
8d25

>>53628116
industrialisation and scientific method are usually opposite to magic.

>>53628536
You can have gunpowder without all these. Like it was in our history as well.

>>53607866

>Akigyos
>Sihenää

So... not!Finland and not!Greece at the same time?

>>53626628

The prior is Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica
The latter is Egypt of the Pharaohs

>>53626628
American Indians compared to medieval Europe.

If they still had access to metal (unlike the mayans), then compare Medieval Japan to Medieval Europe.

Was it common to build military fortifications on islands, like small islands in a bay?

>>53630110
Very common, yes.
Tokyo bay forts. A good number of forts in the egean sea. And surely others in the caribbean

>>53620555
no offense bruh, but that's not how rivers work

>>53626628
you can think of metals like iron as being essential enough that it's a major strategic resource, which means that kingdoms that have lots of it can demand lots of money to export it to kingdoms with a deficit, and they can use these exports as a bargaining chip diplomatically, since, if they withhold their iron, the other kingdom can't make weapons and can't defend themselves. makes for interesting political game.

>>53628116
They feel closer to us, since they remind us of eras and peoples that are indeed closer (chronologically, culturally, socially) to us. Familiarity is the bane of fantasy.

Ignore those who say tech goes against fantasy by itself. Once you have enough tech, it becomes again unfamiliar enough.

>>53630110
Of course, they are both look out posts and lighting outposts for ships so they don't crash and burn in the middle of the night for not spotting small islands.

>>53626628
By very little metal do you mean any kind of metal? Because mesoamerican and andine natives had metallurgy, they just used it for jewelry more than for weapons or tools.

>>53630563
Because they couldn't transport any major resource.

>>53630563
Not actually sure, yet

I'm trying to hash out the details for the remaining ethnic group in my world

I'm leaning towards scarcity rather than a complete lack, which in my head means they'd have access to spears, jewelry, etc. but no real armor.

Definitely going to look at those and other groups posted so far, probably with a focus on places who had some metallic weaponry

>>53630873
While I'm no expert I've studied a little about pre-columbian peoples and I think you should avoid them as an example if you want to go the scarcity way. Lacking metals was not really their problem at all.

I think you should base yourself on bronze age peoples, and trasnfer the rarity of bronce to iron as well. Bronze age peoples DID have to deal with scarcity, since the components of bronze were rare.

I'm of course being hypocritical because I, like others before me, have used the "they have no iron in their lands" excuse to add fantasy aztecs alongside other cultures with iron metallurgy. But actually what would happen is that the aztecs would tradde for weapons or iron and arm themselves with swords just like everyone else.

>>53630988
Oh, of course on the trade point--one of the main reasons this ethnic group needs metal scarcity is so they can be provoked as a result of a metal-rich society cuttibg off trade or some such economical, metal-related slight

>>53627201
Goddamn the macuahuitl is so cool.

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What do you do to keep writing when you feel down or can't come up with good stuff?

>>53592536
>How would you make life in a floating continent "realistic"?
Preeettty damn difficult, if you're going for "will actually hold up to critical examination" levels of realism. Floating islands are a popular fantasy trope but are very difficult to actually explain.

First problem is the levitation, obviously. Making heavy things float in an earth-like environment is energy intensive. (and no, the gulliver magnet thing wouldn't actually work) So either your environment isn't earth-like, or your island isn't heavy... or some combination of the two. The "lightweight rocks in a dense stratified atmosphere" is one popular variation.

The more insidious problem is structural integrity. Think of it like a ship on the ocean - even with all our modern materials and design knowledge, making something the size of an aircraft carrier that will stay in one piece is a real challenge. Now consider you're trying to do the same thing with stone, a material that is both heavier (usually) and 500-1000 times weaker in tension than structural steal. Unless your floating islands are very small they're going to quickly break apart.

>>53620421
>At least; you, need to know why/how.
All of which is why most authors say "no, you actually don't need to know". And that's fine. Knowing when it's appropriate to just say "a wizard did it" is one of the hallmarks of a veteran world builder.

>>53621085
>mongols were actually a kinda succesful empire
"kinda"?

Don't get me wrong, the Horde had its problems, but a lot of empires from human history would love to have had a track record like that.

>>53630110
>Was it common to build military fortifications on islands, like small islands in a bay?
Short answer: yes, definitely.

Long answer: Depends a bit on when / where we're talking about. Think about it as - "why would I build a fort?" Any military structure is a big investment, so when you build one it's to protect something valuable. Forts on islands and peninsulas were common wherever control of the water was valuable some reason - at the mouth of a port, across an important channel or river, and so on.

On the other hand, if control of the water is not valuable (or is impractical), you won't bother building a fort there.

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>>53632204
In South America I get the feeling forts were built for no reason. Also they aren't a big investment at all. It's cheap wood. At best they were to mark locations where they settled but that's it. No valuable resources nearby.

>>53633002
>Also they aren't a big investment at all. It's cheap wood.
Reminder that the most expensive part of any construction project, by a huge margin, is labor - not cost of materials. You try and cut down, clean, and mount that many posts and then come tell me it's not an investment.

Yes, a log fort is a comparatively cheap and easy fortification to construct. It's also comparatively vulnerable to attack. That doesn't mean you build one for "no reason".

>>53631877
Right now I'm feeling that was so I'm taking a break and reading up on the history of African nations. There's so much I never knew about that continent, some of it will end up in my next setting. Try and take a look at something you never thought to.

Can I get some comment if this funeral for essentially an empress is overkill? Let me set the background a bit. Old empress dies of some form of complications from a common disease due likely to her old age. She's led through hard times on the throne dealing with the death of her husband, two of her sons, and three daughters due to a plague that swept the great nation, rapid modernization of the times, dealing with rising ethnic and social economic tension, even national tension as it seems more and more the world is creeping towards a great and terrible war.

Anyway the funeral will have the aristocrats of the world in attendance, thousands of common folk, the military and what not. The event itself is where essentially her body is floated to sea down the great river only to end up at the sea where essentially the guns of the nation's fleet and military fire in remembrance of her. is it too much to essentially have battleships and the like do a 21 gun salute for a woman?

>tl;dr old lady dies and navy does 21 gun salute essentially. Is it overkill?

>>53633559
Depends on what the ships target.
Nah, it's okay

What would be the best way to portray theocratic empire leaf by liches, undead for field labor is a given but how would humans fit in this society?

>>53633716
i'd think most would be slaves. necromancers could be the clergy/elite. up to you how common would merchants, warriors and artisans are.

>>53633716
You need more intellectuals and organizers than just the liches. There's a lot of work that the undead probably can't do, which could be done by humans.

>>53633880
Liches are just the rulers, necromancer handle the everyday stuff, I'm also contemplating adding vampiric noble houses to run trade and commerce.

I have several icons and factions in my setting that are in various conflicts and alliances. Then I have a pseudo China-Japan and I don't know how to fit them or make them interesting. Do you have any ideas? What is their motivation and agenda in geopolitics?

>>53633716
It depends on just how capable the skellies or zombies are.

To start with, the undead workforce needs overseers to guide them. How many overseers and whether some require magic to control the workforce depends on your undead. Those overseers need to be trained to do all the farm jobs that a skellie is too stupid or clumsy for.

Artisans, merchants, pretty much everyone who provides a service or product beyond what brute labour can make. Everyone from lawyers and scholars to millers and cobblers. The human population is going to be far smaller since undead take the place of field labour, but the skeleton knights still need weapons- and the swordsmith needs food and shoes and medical care and entertainment and a whole host of other things that are needed to support a human civilisation.

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>>53620555
>They should start as one then split into many.

So would making a society of Dragons and other dragonkin be possible and what would this society be based around and how would foreign relations be?

>>53635890
Anon, there are so many possibilities for this, you are basically asking us to do all work on a race that you can go wild on.

>>53636040
My mistake, how about a caste system dragons at the top Kobolds at the bottom, I'm not sure what other dragonkin to include other than dragonborne. Have nonsapient dragonkin be used as basically pets and fodder depending on the creature. The society is in a mountainous region and probably has high volcanic activity. My biggest issue is really finding out the reasons this society would even exist and how they sustain themselves. So does that work or should I add more?

>>53636233
Don't see how this wouldn't work except maybe how a mountainous region can sustain such creatures, but this depends also on their numbers The nonsapient dragonkin could be somehow made by the dragons via magic, the kobolds just accept them for being strong rulers. In my opinion the more fantastical a race is, the more you can get away with fantastical societies.

>>53632023
>Vivec did it
Get on my level n'wah.

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Can anyone who knows some climatology help me with my biomes on this map?

For context:
Earth size planet, same parameters as ours
Distance from the foot of the northern mountain range to the tip of the southern coast: ~2100km
Bottom of the map: ~35 degrees N

>>53637390
this pdf should help you https://img.fireden.net/tg/image/1448/87/1448879578649.pdf

So i'm building a world that very asian and mythical in aesthetic and tone. Part of it is condensing the five elements of the wu xing into the four more traditional ones. Does combining Metal and Wood into Earth make sense?

>>53637453
Oh this is great thanks, Ill have to work through it. Though, still any input is appreciated.

>>53637390
The West will be cold and wet, with the center being dry steppes. The east coast will be dry, but with a little coastal green. The southern bit will be exceptionally dry as it lies close to the horse latitude. Then again it could also go jungle.

>>53636387
By nonsapient I meant ones like drakes and wyrms I was always led to believe they were just beasts unlike dragons, and how about adding in half-dragons and dragonbornes to the mix?

>>53637673
Is there an actual reason for applying some Chinese-print paint over the Greek model? It's not like 5 elements is vastly complex than 4 unless you play with a group of butchers.

>>53637673
Why do you need to combine them?

>>53637897
>>53637904

One of the main races im using for the campaign is the Genasi, who come in the four elemental flavours. Also, four is an auspicious number as there are four regions of the world ruled over by four courts, each with four rulers. The Genasi tend to be the majority of the ruling class as mandated by Heaven.

>>53637992
But then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.

>>53638069
That's one inspiration, but Exalted is also one. Genasi draw a great deal from Dragonblooded Exalts.

>>53637992
Then why not change all of those to 5 instead of 4? Or fluff it that there used to be 5, but one got destroyed or enslaved by the others.

>>53638183

Because Tarot is also a big deal in a divinely mandated way, and there are 4 face cards. Page, Knight, Queen, King. Each represents one of the 4 rulers of each of the four courts: Court of Cups, Coins, Swords, and Wands.

>>53638349
I like the Asian aesthetic and tone.

>>53638349
Stop judging anon, he can have Empedocles running around in yellowface as the foundation of his settings cosmology if he wants.

>>53638388
I am, with small gods and spirits, tea houses, wine, a cycle of reincarnation and the evil that's outside fate. Places of worship are more like shrines or temples rather than churches. Naming conventions are asian or mythical in nature. I''m drawing a great deal from it, just not it's elements.

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Do my continents look natural?

>>53639666
They look a lot like Earth, if that helps.

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>>53639752
I'm trying to make a world with dinosaurs and human civilizations.
I simply took a map of Pangea and moved the continents and enlarged some parts a bit.

>>53639819
Well that explains that. They look fine to me either way.

>>53639752
anon, I...

>>53639819
Are you going to keep the dinosaurs era accurate or just use species you like?

>>53637877
Interesting that's close to what I eyeballed initially which was: west would be somewhat like the British isles; sometimes colder sometimes milder not hitting the extremes and mostly quite wet. Though I thought that would extend along the the bottom of the northern mountain range to the east coast. South of that and east of the central hills would be a bit more dry transitioning into desert in the extreme south.

Although the scale was initially far too small on the very first draft and I had to scale things up significantly.

It will be interesting to run it through the pdf the other anon poster earlier, which I will do tomorrow.

>>53640082
Just use species I like, it's fantasy so I might as well go all out.

>>53640082
you just gave me an idea for a cambrian period setting

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>>53640367
Warm water, weird creatures!

>>53640931
my ancestors :)

dont die on me

I need this thread so much!

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>>53590248

Is it possible to make a setting with giant terror birds, avian-like dinosaurs, saurian-like dinosaurs and mammal-like reptiles etc. plausable by having the anachronistic beasts and critters in separate continents and climates?

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>>53627264

In case this is useful to you guys, I posted a neat method for generating rulers, deaths, and historical events in the /osr/ thread. The post also has links to my war generation methods.

>>53644354
Oh shit anon. I love you.

>>53644221
Sure, that works.

Actually that got me thinking: Considering how often us worldbuilding anons are advised to go with Human Only settings, has anyone made a good No Humans setting?

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>>53644458
Happy to help. Just let me know what you come up with.

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>>53644495
>has anyone made a good No Humans setting?
Ye-
>good
...oh

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R8 my coastlines and mountain ranges. Black lines represent rough directions of mountain ranges.

>>53644515
>...His eleven-year-old bride had turned into a formidably ambitious woman, and relations between the two had long been tense...
>...Her throne was placed slightly in advance of her sister's, who seemed perfectly content with her inferior status...
>...It was fortunate for the treasury that he died – of poison, it was rumoured, taken in a dish of mulberries...
>...The horrors of that summer were long remembered as he engulfed the land in a fury of destruction...
>...Considerable numbers of potential soldiers were settled, receiving inalienable grants of land on condition of hereditary military service....

So...a ruler in the early days of feudalism got in a war with his wife, which escalated into an utter slog. He was eventually poisoned, leading to his wife's victory, and her raising up her sister to high office.

Interesting.

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Last bump for the night. Mountain alignment is always hard for me to judge, even knowing the plate tectonic shit. How does this look?

>>53647639
Seems plausible enough. I'm not a geologist, but from what I can remember from highschool science class and gutfeel from looking at maps my whole life, don't see any obvious problems.

>>53644495
>Considering how often us worldbuilding anons are advised to go with Human Only settings, has anyone made a good No Humans setting?
Can't think of one. There are plenty of settings that have "technically no homo sapiens", but they all have close human analogs so I don't think that counts.

It's very tricky to write stories with no audience-identification characters. For some reason I find myself thinking of Quest For Fire, since even though it's technically human-only, all the characters portrayed are very alien (moreso than most fictional peoples, I'd argue).

>>53647639
I think that the mountains look too thick and end up standing out too much. Also they're all single lines so it looks kind of artificial.
Just an impression though, I could be wrong but I get this feeling that something isn't quite right with the map.

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here's an update with some place names added, so maybe it won't be as confusing.

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Were military forts, and structures on small bay islands a real thing? It seems like its more trouble than its worth, true your position would be hard to over come but aren't forts and keeps a place to garrison troops then you'd need a way to ferry the troops from the fort, especially difficult in large numbers.

>>53649956
I have visited a lake that has the ruins of a keep/small castle sitting on an island in the middle of it. So its not impossible.

>>53649956

>Were military forts, and structures on small bay islands a real thing?

Yes.

>>53649956
Seriously? Of course they fucking were. Hell, people would fucking dig massive moats and make artificial lakes just to add to their fortifications.

Just... seriously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%8Cerven%C3%A1_Lhota_Castle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Stalker
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C4%B1zkalesi_(castle)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aragonese_Castle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfalzgrafenstein_Castle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourtzi_(Nafplio)
http://www.kusadasi.net/around/pigeonisland.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Por-Bazhyn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Skadar
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drottningsk%C3%A4rs_kastell
and now I'm bored with this.

>It seems like its more trouble than its worth,
Do you have any idea how much trouble is to build a fucking castle or a fortress in the first place? I can assure you, that the body of water is the least of your problems.

>but aren't forts and keeps a place to garrison troops
No, not even remotely until about 17th century. They were a place where you would hide when the enemy came so that they would not slaughter you. Nobody would keep a fucking large garrison in a castle long term, that is just stupid.

>you'd need a way to ferry the troops from the fort,
Why? You need to keep them IN, not out. If you are sending soldiers out of the fortress, that means that it's after the damn battle already. And you DON'T KEEP LARGE NUMBERS OF PEOPLE on a fucking castle or a fort unless you are under siege, when the locals flee to the castle to hide there. How would you even maintain large numbers of soldiers on those damn things: they small, usually really lack in hygiene and water access: they are fucking uncomfortable even for those few dozen soldiers that normally garrison them.
If you have an actual army, then they camp, or move into to surrounding villages. And you don't keep that army on standby all the time, they go home when there is no war.

>>53650257
Different anon here

>And you don't keep that army on standby all the time, they go home when there is no war.

Unless they are Romans (or fictional Roman inspired). That brings up a question though; I'm familiar with the field fortifications the Romans would build but not what their permanent fortifications were like. Were they similar, or was that a thing they didn't really do much?

>>53650928
>I'm familiar with the field fortifications the Romans would build but not what their permanent fortifications were like.
They did not. They build walled cities, but not permanent fortresses PRECISELY for this reason: soldiers were kept in camps or dispersed among the local population usually in a fortified city. They did not build fortresses or castles. Just like Greeks did not, Egyptians, Chetitians or Byzantines. Smaller fortifications were only developed with feudal societies, because at that time large standing centralized armies stopped being a thing.

>>53637390
>>53640159
That anon again.

Having a little trouble with that pdf. Its good information that has given me some food for thought but following the example diagrams is proving tricky for me. Probably because I'm trying to focus on a small part of the continent (and only a single continent at that) instead of the whole planet.

I might just go with what >>53637877 said.

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>>53650984
Back again, east is steppe, south east desert. Thoughts, comments, advice (especially on color), drawovers? any input is appreciated.

>>53651661
the mountains on the west coast don't make a whole lot of sense considering the river that comes from the north passes right through them. try to draw a line across the width of your landmass and picture it in 2d on the horizontal plane. you'll see that either the river should run south to meet up with the other one or the coastal mountains would end before the valley.

>>53652171
alternatively, an endorrheic lake would form on the east side of the mountains

>>53652171
Hmm I'll work on that. Remember though that the scale of the map is quite large so those are not supposed to represent mountains on the west coat but rather server as a symbol or suggestion of hilly terrain. I figured the river would be going through a valley or area of lower ground in that location. Any idea how to better represent that? In truth those hills would be invisible on a realistic map this scale I'm trying to go for a bit more abstracted.

>>53649672
They're placeholder mountains, but thanks. I have never found a great mountain brush, and even my own don't work with most map styles.

>>53652445
Just remove some hills in the area where the river runs through, and probably put more hills inland.

Does anyone have any advice on how to format a 'world bible' for my setting?

>>53653119
Paper or electronic and how much material do you have?

>>53653119
What >>53653597 said.

For a world bible, I'd say go from large, broad concepts and places to the smaller end.

With demons, do you prefer the Hellbound Heart variety that keep their word, or the Hellraiser type that don't?
Should demons lie?

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>>53652995
I think that's a bit better.

Still not sure about the color for the steppe and desert, the transitions might be a bit abrupt too. Not certain how it would be best to represent forests yet.

>>53654199
The colors are fine. The rivers from the steppe wouldn't reach all the way to the northern mountains, however. Maybe one of them, closer to the ocean, but the other one would look more like Siberia. Check one of those maps sometime. It looks like some rivers start in the middle of the land, and not always nearer to mountains and hills.

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wew

>>53656477
definitely one of the best maps posted ITT. but i gotta say, compared to the believability of the rest of the land, the long thin string of islands running north to south looks a bit out of place

I know it isn't really relevant, but has anyone tried Dungeon Builder?I think it's pretty cool for map creation

>>53656717
>Dungeon Builder
Looks great. Can't seem to purchase it or get the demo working, so it's shit to me.

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>>53656585
it happens, I've also thought of skewing them so that people trying to avoid the pirates can brave the jungle, going the land route, but I've been mostly focusing on the eastern landmass as you can tell.

this is as far as I got before I lost interest in working out the minutia

Really though, I feel like it does its purpose now

A religion based on the concept of Order.

What would this entail?

What I have so far is more or less that people sign a sort of divine contract and so long as they follow the religious laws they receive some form of benefit including but not limited to an afterlife.

How, though, do I add more "law, order, structure" flavor to it? Currently it sounds like some sort of cyberpunk abrahamic religion when the setting I intend it for is high fantasy.

>>53657162
some argue that zoroastrianism personifies order and chaos in marduk and tiamat. perhaps look into that

What is the best program for map making?

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https://futurism.com/nasa-fast-tracking-plans-explore-metal-asteroid-worth-10000-quadrillion/

What would the acquisition of such a resource do to a planet's economy? What if it was just one company that got there first?

>>53657016
I must say your skewed version looks so much better

>>53656345
The intention is that the rivers are starting from the mountains and hills and flowing toward the sea. I can move the ends a little so there is more overlap with the hill/mountain symbols to make that clearer.

Could you explain what you mean about Siberia a little more I don't understand.

>>53657631
A company that gets control over natural resources like that in an unclaimed area literally will become a country unto itself. We're talking East India Company but without needing to deal with a lot of those pesky British laws holding them back.

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>>53656477
noice
themepark tier but interesting enough it actually works

posting update of my map that looks almost the same as last post because i spent 2 days unfucking all the retarded decisions i made at beginning of project

>>53658524
Not him, but I guess it's because much of Siberia/Central Asia is one giant zone where the rivers don't flow to the ocean. Endorheic being the fancy term for this type of basin.

What you instead get are rivers terminating in inland seas (Caspian or Aral) or lakes (Baikal or Balkhash) or even just swamps. The only difference between a sea and lake in this scenario is salinity, even the Caspian is much less salty than the ocean.

For your map, you could have one/few large bodies of water in the middle of the steppe, roughly at the bend as the river currently runs into the ocean. Fresh or slightly salty both work and the lake would also include the western side of the central hills into its catchment.

>>53658988
>themepark tier but interesting enough it actually works

backhanded compliments are still compliments I guess, thank

>>53658540
imagine if it happened real life and it wasn't america who found it

upset of the century

>>53659183
>Elon Musk gets there first
>throws the NASA crew members out the air lock and plants a South African flag on the asteroid
>space apartheid forever

>>53659463
if he brings Neill Blomkamp to spearhead the aesthetic for his new space-empire I'll defect as soon as he sends some kind of emissary ship

>>53659000
You are correct about Central Asia, but most of Siberia, including Baikal, drains into the Arctic Ocean and is not an endorheic basin.

>>53659823
I completely forgot about the Angara draining from Lake Baikal. Saying Siberia as well as Central Asia was mostly endorheic was also sloppy.

>>53653895
I personally like the honorable, keeps their word type of demons even if demons are fairly mindless in my setting.

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>>53660349
Shame on you.

>>53656477

what did you use to make this?

>>53662337
paint tool sai

its all hand drawn

>>53658988
What did you run your heightmap through? Is it supposed to be so blurry?

>>53662563
Are the colours and the like concrete, or do you plan on changing them?
Also do you have a deviantart or something?

>>53637673
The Japanese 5 elements lacks metal as a category but instead as 空 Ku/sora as the sky/void. It's the highest power and associated with stuff like pure energy, extraphysical and so on. You could run something similar by having the 5th element by more mystical like Ku (or aether in Greece's system) while still keeping the asiatic vibe thanks to the Japanese roots

>>53590248
What sort of neat stuff can I do with technomancers? My setting takes a lot of inspiration from star wars and 40k but I don't want them to just be 'lol cybernetics'

>>53666948
How high-tech is the rest of the world?

>>53657631
Wouldn't something this big lower the prices?

So, when building a world that has fantastic creatures, what do you guys prefer doing for domesticated animals, like livestock, pets and work animals.

Do you prefer to go all new animals for your creatures or do you prefer to still have pigs, sheep, donkeys and dogs? Do you come up with new niches for your new animals (wyvenrs for flying transport) or do they replace real animals in their niche (Horses to Chocobos for example).

I'm trying to decide how far from our world should I stray in this particular case. Adding a bunch of new animals seems tempting, but then I'd have to work out their influence on society and how having different domesticated animals changes things.

>>53668332
Personally I keep mundane animals like pigs and dogs for domesticated animals, but those really wealthy merchants and nobles that like showing off wealth will get really weird stuff.

>>53665388
I edit them at times, but mostly they're staying, why?

and no

>>53665370
the heightmap is just a bunch of erosion on rough drawing in wilbur and then rendered with the light effects tool in photoshop
i blurred it a bit because the small scale details look really fucked, i need to either figure out how to get it to come out not fucked or find a better way of stylizing it to hide the issues
the main issue is that getting accurate erosion features for large scale landmasses is a huge fucking pain unless you want to bump up your resolution to something ridiculous, but it already takes about an hour to run it through wilbur at that resolution

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>>53668332
>Do you prefer to go all new animals for your creatures or do you prefer to still have pigs, sheep, donkeys and dogs?

Sometimes only new ones, sometimes both, sometimes no new animals. It's a real bitch to replace all the domesticated beasts with new critters though, simply by the sheer amount of stuff people get from said animals that serve such a vital part for the people tending them.

>>53668958
Did you make sure to add noise before eroding on wilbur?
Also are you talking about things like straight rivers?

>>53669165
yeah, it's done in a bunch of different steps with noise and shit
the straight rivers aren't really a problem, it's just that the scale of all the features is way off for a map this size - it would work fine if it was like 100x100km map, but not so much for a continent sized map
i think i can probably deal with this to some extent by making the pre-wilbur map a lot more detailed with smaller features, but its gonna take some time

>>53659000
Ah interesting. What effect would such bodies of water have on local climate and agriculture?

Note that I hadn't initially intended on the east being steppe but I have gone that way based on the assessment of an earlier anon who pointed out it would be much drier that I had originally thought.

>>53668332
The problem with adding a bunch of new animals is that you have to explain everything to your players when they start asking about food, predators, ecosystems, etc.

Usually not a huge issue. I played in someones setting where most large animal life was giant insects. It can become a problem if someone is playing a particularly naturey class. Druids, rangers, etc.

It's a lot of fun for the person building the world. But it doesn't usually add a lot of fun for the players unless you start getting really exotic (common domestic flying mounts, giant 40-foot war elephants, etc.). But like you mentioned, the more exotic stuff requires effort to work through the implications. And you constantly have to balance "how cool would this be" vs "how annoying would it be to explain this".

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>>53659000
>>53670502
Something like this?

I'm only including major rivers and large features in this map. Obviously there are many smaller tributaries, rivers, hills etc around. Actually I should probably put a scale bar on it next time in case people aren't reading back.

Is there a mapmaking tool for schematic maps of tunnel systems?

Like subway or space station maps?

Something with nice uniformly formatted coloured boxes and lines would be perfect.

>>53667253
think somewhere around star wars/40k

QUICK QUESTION:

I got four playable races of humanoids in my setting: dwarves, elves, humans, and orcs.

Dwarven society is more or less boringly ripped out of Tolkien: they build cities underground, their masonry and smithing is without equal, they alone can work mithril and adamant. Elves are super-de-duper at agriculture: they grow trees into skyscrapers, their clothes are often living plants, they have orchards that can manufacture many of the goods of daily life. Orcs are the bestest at animal husbandry: they can tame wild animals in days, and their domestic animals are tougher, faster, smarter, and some are even bred to exhibit magical abilities.

How likely are players to notice that I tried to distinguish my elves and orcs by making them more like dwarves? Dwarves are Mineral Masters, Elves are Vegetable Masters, Orcs are Animal Masters[/spoilers]

>>53672143
I like the tweak there with the orcs. Different to the usual I like it.

>>53672143
How does this make them dwarves? Having mastery over something does not make them stumpy drunken beards. Your players probably won't notice.

Is a war that lasts thirty years too long in a modern-ish setting? Even accounting for potential broken telephone due to loss of records?

>>53672705
It would have to be a very odd situation, like the Tamil Tigers.

Old wars took long due to transportation, communication, and production taking long.

Modern wars accelerate the first two; so the latter never has the time to play a role. A realistic conventional war between equals is measured in months, and the higher the tech, the faster one side tips the balance over a cliff.

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>>53672143
Seems reasonable, nothing to worry about

MAPPING TIP #37
Find a real map that the players won't recognize.
Turn them sideways if needed.
Natural resource maps will show you where to put mining towns & etc.

>>53672752
Yeah, that's mostly what I thought. I'm just looking at the timeline of events for my setting and realizing I'm making the apocalyptic war a little too long. As it is, it's a conventional war between three or four sides with retro-futuristic technology that lasts for almost 35 years and ends with the entire world being unlivable. At the time I liked the idea that the war literally lasted an entire generation before destroying the world, but I realize that's a little outrageous looking back at it.

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Actually, here's the whole timeline of the setting. Does anyone care to give it a quick review? I'm bad with timelines and I just threw this together over about an hour and a half or so of brainstorming. I mainly just had the themes and visuals up till this point and building a timeline usually helps. I don't want there to be any real glaring problems with it because it's what I work off from here.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16VIEIQIFNwIMeBD15eBAGWas_L3Rsb4u-CPrpNwO3ik/edit?usp=sharing

It's kind of a pulpy adventure setting with elements of post-apocalyptic fiction, diesel-punk aesthetics, and Wild West themes.

>>53673385
The Tunnel war should have been named The Second Final War for laughs.

>>53673595
Actually, that would be a pretty good, and funny, thing for people to call it. I like historical things that have multiple potential names representing different perspectives on them.

It's also kind of ironic, because it is definitely more final than the Final War, because it finally puts down the old world powers for good.

How much conflict is normal for a setting, like looking at just Western Europe from the 10th to 17th century there's never extended periods of peace. The nature and intensity of the conflicts might be different, but there always seems to be some war somewhere. How do you reflect that in a setting?

>>53674163
I mostly figure out major conflicts that had lasting bearing in the setting by jotting down how, why, the results and what it led to and then make a few notes of minor conflicts with just who and a dumb name.

>>53672705
Depends. 30 years of constant warfare just aren't really going to happen. But I could see two nations being at war for more than 30 years, with periods of bigger and smaller armed conflicts and months and years of stalemates and staredowns where nothing really happens.

>>53674198
For some flavor, how should ethnic wars be handled? Obviously making them not analogues to real groups.

>>53675383
What do you mean by that? I don't exactly see how they'd be different to wars between other groups.

>>53675431
There's a certain sort of depravity that comes out of ethnic conflicts, not just modern ones but the sort where one group just kills another group down to the last child and kills them too. Not that conflict between other groups is more civil, but when one group sees another as lesser, to the point they're not even human the worse of humanity seems to come out.

>>53675629
That's pretty much your answer there, I'd say. What exactly are you looking for?

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Bump.

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Any tips for designing holy symbols for authoritarian religions?

>>53678919

I'm going for the eagle, generally

>>53678919
Take a look at the symbols and aesthetics of authoritarian regimes in the real world and see what seems to be a common theme.

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Just finished doing a slightly more detailed version of my co-dm's map he wants to use for a sandbox campaign. What are the most obvious things that could use tweaking to seem more realistic? I'm aware the crossing between the north/south oceans isn't really realistic, but he wanted a dwarf-controlled canal with a massive wall/fortress straddling the waterway and will probably come up with an in-setting justification for that bit of weird geography.

Also, does anyone else struggle with conveying the appropriate scale in their maps? I'm never sure how much space mountains/hills/kingdoms should take up to be realistic but still traversable.

Hey /wbg/,

I'm DMing (and playing an RPG in general) for the first time in about twenty days or so, and I've decided to build my own setting for it.

I don't want to get too ambitious with it, I'm probably going to keep the setting relatively generic, with orcs, goblins, elves, and the like. Do you guys have any general tips? Also, how do I present the setting to the players? Should I let them discover as they play or make a primer document or something?

>>53683546
I don't have any real concrete tips, but one thing I learned over time is that you the worldbuilder and you the GM are two different people, and it's best to keep those responsibilities separate. Most, if not all, of the material that the worldbuilder produces is for the GM, not for the players. The GM is then going to take that material and use it as reference when running the game.

Too many people fall into the trap of building a world and then shoving that information onto the players. I have found that the greatest utility worldbuilding has for me as a GM is to provide consistency for my players, for example when they ask "How long is the trip from Townsburgh to Villageby?" I can give them a number, and when the same question comes up a few sessions later in another context, I can have the same answer. Now, this example has a very easy answer that I could just write down in the moment, but it can get complicated pretty quickly.

Basically, references produced by the worldbuilder are what the GM uses to answer any questions the players have about the world (either directly asked, or implied).

Thus, the job of the worldbuilder is to identify what questions are likely to come up during play and do their best to provide answers for them. It is up to the GM to convey those answers to the players through his storytelling.

So, my advice is this: Do your worldbuilding as if somebody was running the game, and focus mostly on what is likely to come up during a game.

>>53682813
i don't think the isthmus with the canal is that implausible, the Romans attempted to build the Corinth Canal in the 1st century, which doesn't too different. and you could make an argument for dwarven engineering too.

>>53684113
I just looked up the Corinth Canal- that's almost perfect inspiration for what we were trying to describe, though naturally it would be of vastly overblown proportions, being a fantasy landmark/marvel of dwarven engineering. Thanks!

>>53684267
What map program did you use to make that?

>>53684343
Inkarnate, it's a free web-based mapmaking tool. Handy if you don't have the time to learn anything else, but the maps all get a bit same-y after a while.

>>53684369
I'm new to RPGs and it looks pretty dope, how big is the learning curve?

>>53594966
Keep in mind that it will be denying valuable resources such as rain and sunlight to the land it passes over. So depending on how slowly it's moving, the results could be catastrophic to everything it passes over.

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>>53622696
>>53625320
Exactly, go more abstract. Either do crosssections or rough "overhead" views. Here's an example of a massive general map of Forgotten Realms' Underdark.

>>53685763

Woah, so it's basically all pitted out? None of it is just straight dirt?

>>53620555
>Rivers seem reversed.
>They should start as one then split into many.
Goddamnit anon, no.

>Looks like Tolkien made those mountains.
Aside from Mordor, Tolkien's mountains are fine.

>>53636233
A good start is deciding how sapient and powerful full-on Dragons are, since I'm assuming they'll be at the top of the hierarchy.
Are the Dragons revered as Gods, or are the despotic rulers?
Next thing to work out is the entire family tree of the Dragon-blooded races, and where they each fit on the "totem pole" of this society, so for example: Dragons > Dragonkin > Kobolds. Of course, the more dragonic races you can come up with and add to the setting, the more complex and interesting the society will become. Just don't go overboard, of course.

Anyone know what area can a solid granite ceiling span without any support columns before it collapses? What about limestone?

>>53645717
Coasts look great, but the mountains look too uniform. In the sense that they all run roughly right down the middle of each landmass. As I understand it, mountains are the result of tectonic plates rubbing up against each other, it's extremely unlikely for mountains to form in the same way all over the world.
A smarter geography anon might correct me, though.

>>53636233
I'm reminded a little bit of Raymond E Feist's Magician in this. There's a dragon living in a forgotten section of a dwarven mine, and the local Kobolds (being idiots) worship it as a god and bring it offerings of fish and such.
You could use a similar idea and have the society be built around the belief (or actuality) that the dragons are divine, and the lower castes live in a hierarchy based on their relation to the divine (dragonkin being part dragon and all) or how they serve the dragons.

>>53614173
Didn't the latter happen in 40k though?

>>53656477
Wow, anon. I remember seeing a much earlier version of this posted months or possibly a year ago (I don't regularly browse here) and this looks phenomal now. Obviously you still have a bunch of work to do, but this is already nearly one of the best maps I've ever seen.

>>53672788
You could even invert this map so to get a natural looking continent with a side island to the bottom-left.

>>53683546
In 20 days? I'd definitely recommend worldbuilding from the small-scale first, large-scale last. So don't concern yourself with stuff like international politics or continents or the extended world history.
Begin with the town/little area your players are going to start in, flesh it out as much as you can. Through that, you'll inevitably come up with details about the surrounding regions, which will lead you to fleshing out those neighbouring areas once you feel satisfied with the "starting zone", so on and so forth.
As the world at large gets more fleshed out, it'll be more campy than you might like, but it's the quickest and easiest way to make an enjoyable campaign for all involved.

>>53684377
Not him but Inkarnate is extremely easy to use, and it's free. Try it out. It's not the best tool, not at all, but for newbie mapmakers it's a great starting point.
Unfortunately Inkarnate glitched out on my browser or something and now whenever I try to edit my maps it just redirects to a static .png image of it, and I can't do anything with them. Oh well.

>>53685941
The Underdark is insanely deep, and is full of tunnels and caverns all the way down. The lowest sections of the Underdark go as deep as 10 miles into the earth.
For comparison, the deepest cave (that we know of) on Earth is only 1.36 miles deep. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krubera_Cave
Even the upper third of the Underdark (Upperdark) goes as deep as 3 miles. The majority of cities and civilizations in the Underdark are in the Middledark section, which must range from 3-7 miles deep.
Mount Everest is only 5.5 miles high.

>>53686565
Adding to this, the deepest point of the oceans, the Challenger Deep, is only 6.8 miles deep. An entire 3.2 miles of Underdark is deeper into the planet than anything we are aware of on Earth. And supposedly all of the Underdark is riddled with tunnels and caverns, most of which are inhabited by deep-living species, Drow being one of the friendliest examples.
So yeah, there's a lot of overlap, and looking at a cross-section from any point, it would be really difficult to find a plot of dirt that went all the way from the surface to the core of the planet without being interrupted by a tunnel or cavern.

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Not entirely.
I mean, some petty (depending on pov really) stuff happened that led to the betrayal but once the line was crossed there was no turning back, that's what I meant for "huge".
That and I was thinking of many separate occasions that made hate grow in the years rather than a single event that some people didn't enjoy and from there were already with a foot on the other side.
Overall, I was interested if people liked better the irredeemable/fallen trope or misunderstanding after misunderstanding that collimate in separation and possibly war but with everybody conserving their human status.

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>/wbg/

>>53687881
I'm delighted someone saved this from the filename thread. I thought no one got it.

>>53687737
is meant for
>>53686237

>>53686449
Here's my general concept:

There was a glorious empire that sent colony ships to a neighboring continent, shortly after these colonies were established on this new frontier, something in the seas changed. No one knows what, because any attempts to sail back home have resulted in those attempting to escape never coming back.

I planned out making a basic sketch for this unconquered frontier for the players to explore, starting from the coast and moving inland toward a mountain range. I guess my general idea for our first campaign is to make up for a lack of originality since I don't have the time or experience to craft something truly crazy with a rough and tumble frontier with no route back to a really big "glittering cities" civilization.

Is this too ambitious in the time allotted?