ITT We build a setting by adding a piece of fluff Easy Mode:

File: Mientras estuviera dormido.jpg (172KB, 1000x727px) Image search: [Google]

172KB, 1000x727px

>>53611266
The world is drowned. All landmasses are sleeping creatures, or ancient structures...

Or both.

>>53611296
Some of them are waking up.

>>53611344
Entire cultures are built on the idea of singing lullabies to these creature/islands that they consider to be gods.

Cat folk frolic on some of these structures.

>>53611394
If they stop, the creatures will actually wake up and cause great upheavals.

It's actually a full, round water world. You can reach the other side of the planet by going straight through, although only certain abyssal creatures can naturally withstand the pressure.

File: tumblr_lg7ldj57qV1qav6uco1_1280.jpg (247KB, 640x485px) Image search: [Google]

247KB, 640x485px

Traveling is not easy, but isn't impossible either. Intelligent aquatic creatures abound, and they can be convinced to help.

File: 101d2cce4cc4881907bf01361b38-post.jpg (98KB, 600x482px) Image search: [Google]

98KB, 600x482px

Mermaids and other aquatic humanoids are legendary, incredibly rare and always in hiding. Few people in the largest settlements believe they even exist.

A guild of seafarers and folklore aknowledged travelers takes care of travelling and communication between the settlements.

>>53611690
As there are no ressources that could be mined but those of the structures that defie the depths and certain gargantuan mollusks with stonelike shells build over the millenia that drift at varying depths and absorb plankton there is only biomass to process.

Cloth and tools look organic in some way as they were made from creatures or at least fibers made from creatures. Most civs have Atztec tier technology safe for a very few exceptions that relie on a unique advantage of their home or posses creatures that refine iron particles from the water in tiny quantities.

>>53612013
One settlement rests on a dormant metallic shelled gargantuan monster, and have the major monopoly on iron.

File: 005-cute-digital-illustrations-bobby-chiu.jpg (133KB, 540x714px) Image search: [Google]

133KB, 540x714px

The flora and fauna of these landmasses can be hard to tell apart. Reproducing through seeds that cling to the creature's body until it settles down to sleep once again is a common reproduction strategy.

File: f68dc4395f8f6e337bec2049395de7325bb71a26.jpg (369KB, 1200x970px) Image search: [Google]

369KB, 1200x970px

>>53612080
This monster also seems to house many strange ancient artifacts and tools of war, which have given them the necessary resources and means to become The Law across the waters they control. Trained Judges are often seen in transit to one place or another, tasked with ruling on a particular case.

Rocks and sand are the most valuable resources in the world

File: D&D5e_-_Druids_of_the_Waterways_(3_druid_circles)_(screen).pdf (1MB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 1x1px

Sounds like a place for something like this IE druids that can transform into stuff that can swim

File: seaweed and sea turtle.jpg (774KB, 1120x620px) Image search: [Google]

774KB, 1120x620px

>>53611266
Thick masses of sargassum seaweed several miles across drift along the world sea. Although the floating mats of vegetation are not sturdy enough to build structures on, they provide food and shelter to a staggering variety of aquatic and even semiaquatic lifeforms.

>>53611902

The guild is made up of aquatic people mentioned here >>53611704

>>53611266
That thing in OP's picture? It's called the Driftophant, and it was created by the evil reef druid who lives within its body.

>>53612216
The richest family in the world owns four galleys (pirate-style ships) that trawl the seafloor with massive nets for rare stones and mud

Not all societies exist above water, in fact it is very common to have enormous vessels under the sea that hosts people.

It can be a bit difficult t keep track of some as they aren't cemented to one place.

>>53611266
jar-jar exists in this world

huge ''islands'' of coral are often found floating in the water and present a great danger to boats

>>53614139
Sometimes they find rainbow sparkling dust which is the remains of the salt in the sun god's pool of wisdom

At the ocean's depths, a colossal slumbering earth elemental feeds on the land created by lava vents, and seeks to create an empire all his own on the surface of the world.

>>53614722
>>53614139
These two conflict with
>>53611690

Can we reconcile them somehow?

>>53614748
The planet is just water, but there are some areas deep below where large chunks of rock and mud float in place. Their flattened surfaces form the local seafloors

In the deepest areas of the worldsea, wizards fuse thwir bodies together into massive magical siphonophores to channel magical energy and live eternally

>>53611266
whale-herding nomads

File: おぐち-19351-www.kaifineart.com-8.jpg (1009KB, 1000x1111px) Image search: [Google]

1009KB, 1000x1111px

>>53612153
The Iron Isle is also the home of prosthetics. It's common for pirates to be sporting combat-ready metal legs stolen from their cargo ships and sold in the black market.

File: hqdefault.jpg (26KB, 480x360px) Image search: [Google]

26KB, 480x360px

>>53617071
The world's most notorious pirate is known to use a modified version of one of their secret projects

Massive sheets of ice cover both poles making them the largest "landmasses" in the world. Despite being ice they've recently been discovered to be the greatest source of raw material in the world. If one looked hard enough they'd find meteorites and other fallen space debris that haven't sunk to the endless depths. There's been a rush of dangerous expeditions to either settle or exploit the polar ice masses.

>>53617373
This doesn't let people get away from the sleeping beasts, however, as it was quickly and rather disastrously discovered that many sopor beasts migrate to the poles when awakened

This had pushed settlements further and further into the cold wastes, to avoid the dangerous coasts and hide from those creatures capable of flight, looking for an easy meal

>>53614748

How about the planet isn't just one ball of liquid - i don't really know what that's bringing to the setting other than just sounding admittedly cool, and it causes a few obvious problems like where people are getting building materials - but instead the 'earth' beneath the sea is just incredibly porous (i.e. full of holes, think coral or... that holey cheese).

Think the Underdark on crack except with larger caverns, all the way through the planet and its underwater.

In some places the seas are relatively shallow, and the locals swim to the bottom themselves to explore caves looking for gems and rare creatures, risking drowning as they do so.

In these places the floating cities will drop men in diving suits to explore further, dropping through caverns larger than cities that go on forever.

In some places the ocean is so deep no one has ever seen the bottom. There are great trenches and sinkholes tens of kilometres wide - so enourmous that some believe they may go straight through to the other side.

You could modify the exact arrangement of the coral core (ooh, cool name?) for your exact preferences.

>>53617487
>Coral core

Is it alive?

>>53617522

Could be.

If we do want to go with the whole 'most if not everything is organic' in this setting, itd be a cool way of getting weird caverns and solid material without losing that.

Or you could have it so that the actual core is geological, and then enourmous corals make up the shallows maybe? Or maybe people once believed the whole thing was coral, so now its referred to as the coral core out of tradition, even though some is rock.

Ideally id like to keep some 'real' geology, or you lose some interesting stuff.

For example. Underwater volcanos fill the water above them with dissolved gasses. This makes ships that pass above lose their bouyancy (turn a glass upside down and push it into water, that resistance you feel is what metal ships use to float. Underwater volcanos fuck with that).

Entire ships will be sailing along, notice some bubbles and then drop like a stone.

If it happened to some of our floating cities it could be really cool. Imagine a ghost city. Everyone in it drowned because a volcano went off, sank it for a few hours, then it became bouyant again and no one knows why everyone is gone now.

File: tumblr_kyonp3657b1qawtuao1_1280.jpg (664KB, 611x800px) Image search: [Google]

664KB, 611x800px

Many peoples make their homes in the sky to avoid the ravages of the sea. Skyships are owned by the richest people in the world, but the sheer amount of servants they require to be even mildly self-sufficient makes it a common background among immigrants

File: nargh_the_cave_dweller_by_alex16.jpg (583KB, 750x900px) Image search: [Google]

583KB, 750x900px

Barely breaking sea level at 2km high stands the tip of the highest mountain of the old world. The mountain has been hollowed out and colonized at a long past, unrecorded date.

The inhabitants have a caste system and a religion which go hand in hand, the closer you are to the entrance of the mountain the closer you are to the light and as such you are revered as holy and blessed with the magical sense of sight, but this also means you are closer to the great ocean.

The Ocean is regarded as the great evil in their religion as such it keeps the lower caste oblivious to their oppression as they toil in the mines blindly using their keen senses to unearth minerals and gems to be sent to the surface.

>The entrance dwellers who are considered angelic beings are hideous creatures barely resembling humans, mutated by ages of inbreeding and cannibalism.
>These angels too abide by their religion and despise/fear the ocean, although xenophobic they have trading contracts which allow them to trade precious stone and metal for tools and feed which they dump en masse in vast caverns which act as rat dens providing food for the lower caste who consume them raw and kicking.
>The angels themselves cannibalize the lower caste, despite having access to the ocean for fishing, their religion vehemently condemns such practice and consumption.
>This also means to reproduce, and mitigate declining birth rates they also trade with slavers who deliver them with hundreds of pregnant women per year, these women are impure and unfit to breed as they have touched the great ocean, so they are imprisoned in farms to be kept until they give birth at which point the untainted babies (male and female) are kept til they are of breeding age and then they are used as breeding slaves for the remainder of their lives.

Essentially john carter meets 40k hive city. Writing that last part made me a tad sickly, but hey world building right?

File: iss043e078169_blog.jpg (78KB, 900x675px) Image search: [Google]

78KB, 900x675px

>Near the equator sits a massive hurricane that has been raging for over a millennia
>in the dead center of the eye standing well above even the highest of waves is a stone tower that goes down far below any other has gone

>>53618349
>>53618586
Mercantile skyships ply the currents of the Great Cyclone to get around faster

>>53615461
>>53618586
An array of sea wizards floats under the currents of the hurricane to generate energy

>>53618433
Oh my god. This is great.

Strange islands randomly appear and disappear.
People has anything from bustling cities to dark rainforests on them. Anyone who sets foot on one has to stay on it for the rest of their life.

>>53619157
have seen not has

>>53618586
>What's in the tower?

File: sada.jpg (13KB, 600x518px) Image search: [Google]

13KB, 600x518px

>>53619386

>>53611266
SO FAR:>>53611296
>>53611344
>>53611394
>>53611685
>>53611704
>>53611820
>>53611902
>>53612013
>>53612080
>>53612153
>>53612216
>>53614139
>>53614722
>>53615461
>>53615485
>>53617071
>>53617137
>>53617373
>>53617463
>>53617487
>>53617650
>>53618349
>>53618433
>>53618586
>>53619157

pumb

>>53617487
>where people are getting building materials
From the corpses of dead sea life.

>>53620948
shamans live inside dead whales and pilot them with magic powers to destroy floating towns and settlements

bubmb

File: 1459673389275.jpg (2MB, 3000x1854px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 3000x1854px

Everyone who knows anything knows the precursors lived different: They had ground underfoot, no matter how far they walked, and every drop of water was sweet, then.

But they can't have gone far. Everyone who knows anything swears they're all down deep, hidden. But I, I know different. Truth is, they went up, instead.

Giant, sentient merchant spiders travel between landmasses/settlements via generations-built hot air balloons created from spider silks.

The heat necessary for these giant hot air balloons is generated via fist-sized fireflies which eat algae that collects on the surface of the ocean, requiring that the spiders trade for them, or harvest them directly via ritualistic sky diving.

File: 1b787353f9baf4d570245ad042819fc1.jpg (760KB, 1600x1440px) Image search: [Google]

760KB, 1600x1440px

Cnidarians are a thing. Though regular folk steer clear from them based off the superstitious belief that these silent visitors are bad omens. Really they are just curious mutes.