World-building General

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Tell me about a legendary weapon.

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>>53693273
Thunderstrike, the black spear the gnoll hero Fardu Zahal used to slay their gods. It's been lost to the ages but some fool occasionally crops up claiming to have it.

>>53692545
>Do you have an equivalent to modern superpower nations?
Eh, sort of. There are larger kingdoms that most people know are the main players on the continental stage. Like Renaissance Europe, actually. I still need to get around to actually writing up most of them, and I only have a strong idea of one. It's a empire that controls most of an archipelago and a large central island. They're cosmopolitan seafarers who have just begun to invent firearms and cannons, but they're prohibitively expensive at this point for most people. Plus the empire's gunsmiths jealously guard the recipe for powder and the specifications of their guns with a near-religious fervor. Pretty much anyone who has a gun has a gun made in this empire, and that pretty much limits it to rich adventurers, wealthy nobles, and elite knights of that empire. They're not quite a super power, but they can defend their territory and love to have wars with neighboring countries. They're prolific traders and have one of the best navies in the world. They have gotten their shit packed in a couple times. Culturally, they're inspired by an amalgamation of England and Italy.

>>53692545
nod really
i guess you could say there's one superpower, but it's the only major power on the planet so it's not the same situation. theoretically they have the whole planet, but since most of it is uninhabitated tundra there's fuckall monitoring or activity outside of settled areas unless someone's really stirring up some shit that needs to be dealt with.
there's also a number of autonomous regions on the frontier that that are officially still under the main government, but beyond partial taxation and occasional funding there's almost no interaction.

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Trying to build a world with major and minor creatures of each element, losely based on mythology, but I'm at a roadblock with Lightning. There are heaps of major lightning-based creatures, but I'm struggling to think of any minor ones. Does anyone have any suggestions?

>>53698999
Electric eels, catfish, and more fantastical creatures with shock powers.

>>53698999
fish are about the only things that actually do much with electricity well star-nosed moles probably use it to see but nobodys really sure yet

you could probably work in firefly/lightning bug things as lightning shit too

>>53699033
>>53699116
I'm sure I can make something work out of this, though mythological creatures would be better. Thanks a bunch though.

>>53698999
Off the top of my head, some lightning beasties
Impundulu
Haietlik
Raiju
Ccoa

Any storm critter could be adapted

>>53699195
Well there's raiju, which are Japanese creatures who are the spirits of individual lightning bolts. They're small, like wolves or even weasels.

>>53699283
>>53699286
This is all great, thanks. I hate to ask more, but I'm also having a problem thinking of monsters associated with woodworking/carpentry, all I've got at the moment is some homebrewed beaver and termite people, but I don't really want to use those.

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>>53693273
Archon's Needle, the holy flaming spear wielded by the High Inquisitor of the Whatever Crusade. Shattered when it striked true on the heart of the BBEG lich. The spearhead, remains on the Lich's carcass...making him unable to revive.

>>53698145
>Culturally, they're inspired by an amalgamation of England and Italy.

Nice. Any name yet?

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What natural disasters have occurred recently?

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>>53699494
Woodpeckers and stick bugs for real life creatures and then standard dryads, ents, and the like for fantasy.

>>53699953
The Merithian Empire.

I dunno if its in the OP because I don't remember if it was, it probably was.

But I need some tips on how to manage the stores in every city. Should villages that lack a direct or indirect source of metal have an armory? If so how much should I rise the prices of swords and stuff in there?

Its hard to make a realistic trade network.

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I took a map I found on /tg/ years ago, colored it, and wrote some stuff and renamed a couple things (sorry if I stole a name from you or something you like, I'm awful with naming stuff and this is just for a D&D campaign).

The Grand Union represents "good" in the way that the Imperium of Mankind does - super bleak, afraid of stuff that's different, built on top of well-meaning ideals but completely twisted and distorted by time and distance from the original goal. Though, in this case, they have abandoned religion, and basically just worship themselves rather than some god or godlike figure. If it isn't human, burn it, but otherwise, welcome to the fold, get to work. Culturally and technologically comparable to Western Europe during the height of the Enlightenment.

The Kharidians are an amalgam of the antiquated cultures of the Middle East. They started on a religious crusade, driving the beasts back to claim useless land simply because God told them to. They are at an unstable peace with the Grand Union due to their close proximity, but when they run out of wasteland to drive back the hordes from, they will not hesitate to turn their swords towards their fellow man.

>>53701260
cont.

Caledor is an ancient empire of, at any given time, a dozen kings each laying claim to the whole thing and hacking each other to bits. However, this time is different - the many kings have sworn fealty to one, a warrior with as much skill at the negotiation table as he displays on the battlefield, and under him Caledor has begun to focus its angst towards conquering new stuff instead of itself again. Prussian/Germanic styled culture.

The Beast Clans - mostly dragonkin and minotaurs, but every so often something weirder shows up. Most of them really just want to be left alone, but every so often one clan gets too big and starts to take over with ambitions of snuffing out the Union, so it's mostly big city-states with lots of empty wasteland between them. A little bit of every Warcraft Horde race can be seen in their culture.

The northern ones are mostly dead (Dwarves have been dead for years, and they set elaborate traps so that nobody could get their stuff) or are huge isolationists. (The Winterborn are your stereotypical northmen, while the Golden Steppe is home to some very religious monks that pray to the sun and will probably eat you if you get too close - they happen to be snake people)

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>>53698999
Wrote a whole post you might find useful: https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/2017/03/osr-what-does-elemental-want.html

>>53701260
post the original image before your editions

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Anyone have suggestions for some viking themed orcy names? Im running a campign in 5e where the orcs are viking themed seafarers, elves are celtic forest nomads, dwarves are the remnants of a an army corps of engineers underground bunker and humans are a roman themed empire and a greek themed merchant league.

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>>53701503

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>>53701870
and after i redrew it in photoshop and gave it a splash of color

>>53701906
nice

How do you elegant gentleman deal with the issue of distortion when it comes to portraying global maps on 2d spaces? Do you design using mapping schemes like Mercator, ignore it etc?

>>53703651
I just chalk it up to in-universe inaccurate cartography techniques

>>53703651
equirectangular is usually the best option

if you are doing polar things you'll need a different projection, but there's a million that work fine for that

just download g.projector for converting between projections

>>53693273
The Helm of Conquest, an ornate helmet said to ensure victory to the wearer. Many would be conquerors spent time and money in search of the Helm, little did they know that it's just a large chalice used in celebration

How do you stay focused on your kitchen sink setting and stop adding new shit?

>>53703863
amphetamines

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>>53703863
I only worldbuild within a 1-session or line of sight radius around the players and plot.

Anything else gets sketched extremely vaguely until needed. It's tempting to go nuts and build continents, cults, and cities that will never see play, but I figure my energy is better used elsewhere.

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>>53703863

what >>53703997 said is not bad advice, but it doesn't work for everybody. for instance, personally, i'm not satisfied until i understand how world elements relate to one another, so i feel i have to figure out the historical political context of the land. i don't know if you're also like that, but what i found really helpful to me was working with a very finite amount of space. i conceptualized the continent first and worked out how to fit every idea in there without adding new land. density instead of vastness. that way, any new ideas i add have to make sense within the framework that's already established, and having that structure really helped with cohesion.

pic related, your landmass really doesn't need to be 100x times larger than france to fit an infinite amount of ideas.

I'm pretty bad at worldbuilding but I want to try for the first time. Pretty generic medieval fantasy.

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>>53704407
>i'm not satisfied until i understand how world elements relate to one another, so i feel i have to figure out the historical political context of the land.

And that's fine and all, and it can be very fun... but it's also taking you further and further from gamable content. At that point, you're writing the setting of a novel without the story. It's fun and all, but in the end, it'll just be a stack of images and text files in a folder somewhere if you can't /use/ it.

This is more city/campaign building so I hope it's ok here. I'm currently building a campaign set in what is effectively the real world but magic and the like exists and is a secret and I'm stuck on a few things.

The players will be in an MCOM-esque organization and their doctor will be in some ways a rip off of Dr. Vahlen from XCOM in how she wants to study (read torture and dissect) things and people the party encounters. The problem is that I'm unsure if she should simply have been changed by magic (giving her some sort of compulsions or something) or if she should also be something other than a pure mortal (either a minor scion or has some minor power).

I'm also conflicted as I basically want entities which exist through the dreams of an eldritch monstrosity and have latched onto the Chaos gods for no reason beyond them fitting each being but I'm unsure what NPCs to have affected by them. I have a drug dealer who is basically a viking berserker, a necromancer with something which affects his bones, a wizard who was studying eldritch beings and summons minor demons to do her bidding, a minor practitioner with a cult who wants to become an extinct kind of vampire, a Stoker style vamp who is trying to take over the city through mind control, and a pair of succubi (one is prone to bouts of rage and the other gets off on hurting people)

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Picture this:
An Orcish empire from the West that has access to (very crude) firearms and all look like conquistadors.
Can it work?

>>53704671
no, cant pull the trigger with orkish fingers, too big for human firearms

>>53704520
you're not wrong, anon, it just depends on what you're trying to accomplish. i've been involved in sessions were most of the plot was determined by rolling on a table, and that was fun, but i wanted to write something more fleshed out to maximize immersion.

>>53703997
>>53704407
I'm trying this, but the area I need to flesh out is pretty big already. Right now, I'm trying to focus on history, but I'm not doing too well.

How can I express a more oriental aesthetic and tone in my game world?

>>53693273

The Black Sword

A sword wielded by tyrants and theives, many legends speak of the blade's power...and it's curse.

It is said to grant great power to anyone who wields it, but the moment you grasp it's hilt, your soul is forfeit to be consumed by the Black Sword upon your death.

Those who master the blade are said to summon Bladewraiths, apperitions of previous owners, their forms warped by the blade's dark magic.

>>53706283

Rice = Wheat

High level characters are not usually fucking around or doing things in the world, they are in the mountains seeking enlightenment.

Dragons are not evil, they are proud and divine.

Oni = Demons

Jungles instead of forests

Tigers instead of wolves

You're all set.

>>53706283
You should look up the Shinto, Taoism, and confucianism religions and see what myths and stories they have and see what you can draw for parallels, much in the same way a lot of settings that want a pantheon of gods looks to bronze age religions for ideas about them.

That and looking at the structure of society in these places will help, Like the Edo society of Japan or how Confuscian teachings influenced Chinese government. There will be a lot of parallels to what we normally see in western fantasy stories, but you'll realize after looking through that in some cases an important scholar or craftsmen can have similar influence to nobility.

On the more fantastic side of things look at how oriental demons and spirits operate. It should be a key factor in how you characterize monstrous creatures in your campaign.

*bumps u*

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What do you think of this map so far, /wbg/?

If you hear the word 'homunculus', what comes to mind? In terms of mythology, literature, pop culture, etc.

>>53706283
Definitely take a gander at Eastern religions and philosophies to understand /why/ their aesthetics and worldviews were that way. I wouldn't try to mix them or copy them wholesale, either, but that's just me. It's worth the time and will go a lot further to making your setting believable and consistant rather just being another European fantasy but with a different coat of paint.

>>53709855
My connotations aren't great. It's definitely anime, then steampunk.

>>53709855
A deformed red fetus in a jar lovingly nurtured by an alchemist

>>53710013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNLPXzlz6-I
also these

>>53709855
A human grown in a jar.

>>53706283
Three old men are tasting vinegar.
The second man says the vinegar is bitter.
The third man says the vinegar is sweet.
Those men are Confucius, Buddha, and Laozi.

>>53710914
Three old men are tasting vinegar.
The first man says the vinegar is sour.
The second man says the vinegar is bitter.
The third man says the vinegar is sweet.
Those men are Confucius, Buddha, and Laozi.


Forgot the first man

How do I translate cultures into geography?

When worldbuilding, I tend to start with the different cultural groups in the world, their values and worldviews, relations with each other, etc. But when it comes time to make a map and populate it with those people, I tend to draw a blank. Some cultures might suggest a certain general terrain they live in (eg, a merchant empire would be generally be based on a major port or trade route, a nomadic tribe probably roams a large plain or desert, etc.), but for a lot of them they could go just about anywhere.

Should I try to draw a map based on the cultures I have in mind, or should I try randomly generating maps and slot them in where it seems appropriate?

>>53711182
i think the issue is that you`re doing it backwards. cultures develop to take advantage of their geography, so, if you want organic cohesion, you should build the geography first and when you fill in the spaces you created with people, their culture should become apparent.

>>53699953
Englitaly

Very specific question here: how hard would it be to create modern jet fuel and its accompanying infrastructure if the rest of the setting is about 1920s/30s tech level, and assuming the only experts you have access to are the engineers and maintenance guys of a military vessel?

>>53712289
The issue I think would be knowing the chemistry required to mix it from the refinery products, and the engineering knowledge and skill to build the refinery...

I'm not sure they would have that information offhand, and I think it would be challenging to reproduce, and risky to just experiment. (Presumably they also have a finite amount of aircraft available as well.)

I don't think the refinery technology is terribly complex, but you're basically boiling highly flammable/explosive chemicals to separate them, so if you don't build it right, prepare to have a bad time.

>Fantasy setting with knights and stuff.
>A whole continent is too big for me.

Could many city-states, spread across a territory of the size of france +germany, fulfill the same role? Or would that look stupid?

How could I justify that they all have a similar culture?

>>53693273
The cannonball
A cannon ball used to kill legendary heroes and villains alike, somehow salvaged from each battle until it had spilled such holy and unholy blood over itself that it became enchanted. Then some crazy bastard wrapped it in chains and started swinging it around.

>>53712441
This sounds similar to my setting. I solved the problem by making the area once the land of a large empire who imposed its culture and language on any it dominated.

>>53712429
FWIW, by the time you have interbellum-level tech, you are already distilling petroleum to get fuels. Jet fuel itself is primarily kerosene, which has been around since the mid-1800s.

The issue is mainly the trial and error it takes to get the right cocktail of additives it takes to dope up the kerosene to the right properties for a jet engine. You need to mix in other hydrocarbons to get the right properties (viscosity, freezing point, boiling point, flash point, burn temperature, etc.), and for best performance you use additional additives like antioxidants and metal sequestrants (to prevent formation of byproducts that can gum up the engine), corrosion inhibitors, de-icers, etc. A basic jet fuel would be easy to make with interbellum technology, but getting it up to modern performance standards associated with the term "jet fuel" just isn't something that happens overnight. It's not a question of technology so much as just R&D effort. Finely-tuned inventions like that simply don't pop up overnight as soon as the infrastructure to make them exists.

>>53713134
I thought jet fuel also had very high purity requirements as well? Would the refineries of the time be able to achieve that?

How would a race in a sci fi setting that has the body structure similar to a gorilla fight?

>>53713336
First thing that comes to mind to is the Brutes from the Halo series

>>53713197
To get a *usable* jet fuel, it would be feasible. The first jet engines literally just ran on pure kerosene, which should be easily achievable with interbellum tech. Kerosene isolation had been going on since the mid-1800s.

*Modern* jet fuel, the really high-performance stuff, would be another story. Like I said, *that* requires mixing in various other hydrocarbons, and getting those hydrocarbons would require more advanced petroleum refinement. The issue isn't so much purity as it is getting those compounds at all in the first place. Purification of the fractions naturally present in petroleum was pretty well developed by that time, except for desulfurization of naphtha (but jet fuel doesn't necessarily include much naphtha, and even for mixes that did, jet fuel actually benefits from having a higher sulfur content than your typical gasoline or diesel fuels). The major advances that came around WWII and onward were more to do with converting components of petroleum into other, derivative hydrocarbons.

But, again, even if all that required processing apparatus were in place, it would take a substantial amount of trial and error to determine the right mix for a high-performance jet fuel.

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>>53712606 >>53712441
>Holy
>Roman
>Empire

>>53713593
/tg/ really does have a reddit problem

>>53704671
Yes. Go for it.

>>53713593
>comparing a multitude of small states in an area the size of france/germany
>to an era of time when Germany was comprised of small states
>Reddit
I don't follow. You don't think there's overlap between /tg/ & /his/?

>>53712441
My current game takes place in an area roughly the size of France + uncharted wasteland to the east and a few islands.

The players barely leave the main city.

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>>53709855
>If you hear the word 'homunculus', what comes to mind?
I had 3 copies of this card when I played Yugi back in the golden age of life.

>>53709855
A clay beast, not one of solid clay, but a still gooey like one that seems to constantly be changing somewhat, its clay going in waves on its body. Something like clayface from batman.

Shit, almost over.
Is it okay?

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>>53714525
Forgot pic

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Hello Team, I'm running a DnD campaign and my players have gotten past the first story arc and the area I had built for them. Next up they're going to a port city and will be able to hear rumors about all the other places in the world, get on a boat, and go to those places.

Trouble is, I don't have any of those places made up yet. If anybody doesn't mind me being a leech, could you suggest countries/cultures/civilizations that you have invented or used in the past? I've got a few cooking but wanted to hear other people's better ideas to flesh out their options.

>>53714607
I always include a vanilla, arthurian nation, full of knights and what not. Doesn't feel right without them.

>>53714607
I am not your team.

Wakou gambling states, Persian mountain castle-states, not!Nepal/Tibet society run on demons in the mountains, post-Yuro subsaharan Africa once it's cottoned on to the fact that selling slaves = more guns = more war = more slaves = more guns.
>>53714851
fuk u

>>53714927
Thanks non-teammte

>Majority of the united states are mormons.

Would this change much?

>>53715077
Yeah, America's somehow more boring.

I'm working on a modern military fantasy setting, but I've run into a problem when it comes to the topic of guns. One of the parts of the setting is that almost everyone has access to magic. However, if that were the case, would gunpowder based projectile weapons still have a reason to exist, if magic based guns were just as effective? Or, if everyone was using magic guns anyways, why not cut out the middleman and just use pure magic? I really want semi realistic guns, so any thoughts/advice would be appreciated.

Also, any suggestions for interesting or rare guns that would make for good loot, or for modern enchanted/cursed items? Thanks.

>>53715580
Idk about how to make guns work, but for a rare gun, just cast shrink on a pirate ship cannon.

>>53715580
There's a fuckload of different ways to go about it, all depending on your magic system. The classic centre of guns n magic is "most people can't do magic so they do guns instead". This can apply to either magicguns or boringguns.

Just imagine the knight in shining armour vs. a dragon, or an evil magician. Then imagine the exact same scenario, except a hundred years later.

Whatever you do, don't segregate tech and magic. Players love it when you integrate stuff. Give that gun-knight a belt he got from his wife, which ensures not one drop of his blood will be spilt (then have him beaten to thin pastry by some troll with a hammer).

One thing: I would not advise making magic some shitty energy manipulation thing. It sucks the magic out of magic.
>Also, any suggestions for interesting or rare guns that would make for good loot, or for modern enchanted/cursed items? Thanks.
Look at real life strange gun shenanigans for inspo. Like those airguns which Napoleon swore he would execute enemy soldiers for using, or rapier-pistols, or early machine guns. Also do something cool with the earliest guns (esp. dragon tongues or whatever the Chinks called them). Like make them ancient weapons of aweful power.

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>>53715580
The simplest thing is for magic and guns to occupy different niche.

Magic might not actually be for casting fireball, but instead is more subtle (scrying, enchanting, summoning etc). Perhaps battle-magic is on the much more destructive end, raining meteors which replace or supplement artillery rather than rifles.

In any situation, even if everyone can cast magic not everyone can cast usefulm battle-magic but they can carry a rifle.

Even if fireball is an easy spell, perhaps it requires components or drains energy in such a way that it is simply not sustainable compared to webbing full of magazines each containing 30 bullets. Why chant for even 30 seconds when you can just pull the trigger?

Magically enhanced guns give firearms some extra pizazz if magic starts to overshadow mundane weapons. Enchanted ammo, alchemical powder or runes etched on the barrel can add both power and spell-like effects to those chunks of lead.

Battle cries are pretty sick. What are some common battle cries for armies in your setting?

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So starting to worldbuild again after abandoning the thing, starting from scratch. Just doing a setting that's basically Alexander the Great to Renaissance Era.

To start things off, Im basing the mental image for the world map off of Herodotus' world map(pic related), with the basic idea being: To the west is wildland, with the densest monster populations in the known world, populated by tribes of tall, hardy people who are masterful monster hunters, if not a bit crude and barbaric.

The land masses that jut out into the Middle Sea are the true heart of civilization, made up of an archipelago and a long snaking peninsula. These people are sophisticated and brilliant, if not a bit haughty.

To the south beyond the Middle Sea is the most eldest civilizations, whose institutions and society has influenced many. But they are old now, stagnant, and their superstition will not save them from their slowly crumbling existence. Who shall rule once law has collapsed?

To the east is the plains and steppes, with a great inland sea. Here, reality of daily life is split between nomad and settled, with the western-most of these people fighting amongst themselves while defending against roaming nomad nations.

This is very WIP, as I only thought about doing worldbuilding again a couple days ago, and all of this, geography included, is subject to change.


So I ahve a random question about it: How should the settled amazons fight? 1/2

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>>53717275
You see, the people of the east are split between patriarchy and matriarchy, in addition to their nomadic and settled categories. The kingdoms farthest west are settled, with cities and walls, but among the half dozen nations, one is matriarchal/Amazonian. I know how the nomadic tribes, both normal and amazonian, will fight(typical horse archer, cavalry with supporting guerrila skirmishers deal), but I've no idea how the kingdoms should fight war. I want the kingdoms to be influenced by the archipelago(fantasy greece), blending both cultures together. I was thinking typical hoplite warfare but modified so as to have a stronger emphasis on speed and less on spear walls. Like, the hoplites are not true hoplites, they'd be just as succesful at fighting outside of a strong, wall-like formation as they are as good as fighting in one.But they're supported by shock troops who would try to either butcher them as the hoplites have them pinned down, or by pinning down cavalry/tougher infantry until spearmen/more infantry can come to butcher the enemy.

Sound good?

>>53717288
>Like, the hoplites are not true hoplites, they'd be just as succesful at fighting outside of a strong, wall-like formation as they are as good as fighting in one

That sounds pretty much exactly like the historical Thureophoroi, used from the 3rdC BC until Rome stomps on the Hellenic world.

http://europabarbarorum.wikia.com/wiki/Thureophoroi_(Hellenic_Spearmen)
Also check out the rest of the site, it is an amazing resource for Classical warfare from Britain to the Indus.

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>>53717471
Thanks dude!

I'll look through this. I may go with what I'm already planning, and then have the fantasy Greeks adopt this tactic as well, before fantasy Rome stops them.

I was thinking of having the Amazon state rise to prominence and subjugating the other kingdoms, but have trouble with the nomads. That's when t he fantasy romans would come, take heavy casualties beating the snot out of them, and both eventually agreeing that the amazons would become a client state. I dunno. I just want an excuse to have a matriarchal society far into the medieval period because you never see amazons beyond greek fantasy settigns. THought it would be unique. Yes / No?

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So, I noticed this little short on the Storythread archive, and it really caught my interest.

I was thinking of expanding on it to make a three or four game campaign based around this idea of a cut-off colony on a hostile planet, and would appreciate any suggestions from you guys for setting flavor.

I'm looking for a rednecky/old west sci-fi feel mostly; my goal is for the players to by these space-hillbillies trying to strike it rich and build a base for themselves, so the gameplay is going to be sort of base-buildy with bits of combat (probably simplified GURPS) thrown in as they deal with the local dune-esque worms and eventually a raid by hostile humans.

Like I said, any input on setting or mechanics would be appreciated. I'm going to run this as our start-of-school campaign in August, so I've got plenty time to flesh things out, but I'd love to hear any ideas y'all have to make the setting more alive.

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>>53717611
>and I posted the thumb...

>>53717565
So you have four possible flavours of society in the east, arranged in a grid where x is matriarchy/patriarchy and y is nomaid/sedentary?

Is there an in universe reason that the super-culture is arranged that way? Or am I misreading and you just have matriachal settlers and patriarchal nomads?

Either way, I'm guessing the super-culture is going to be pseudo Irannic with settled Persians and nomadic Scythians?

How much information do you include about each race/faction? What are the vital points to hit?

I want to do two-page spreads for each race in my science fantasy game (one page explanation, one page art) but I'm not sure what the most important things to include would be.

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>>53717877
Sort of. As I said, WIP. Ideas may and will change.

Basically, before fantasy greek influence, the peoples there where tribal and gender equality was sort of a thing. Not like nowadays, they just had everyone, women and men, do whatever they can. Then, as colonies were established along the coast and interaction between greek and them, some adopted that culture to different degrees. Or something. I dont know.

The reason why some are sedentary and others are nomad, and some are matriarchal and some are not is because it's sort of like I said above, with some holding to the old ways(running around the steps and whatnot), others settling and being agricultural(the kingdoms). And some followed through with different political theories of gender that I havent bothered to figure out why yet. And of course, they're all at each others throats because of this and other, more practical concerns(like resources and land). It's a melting pot of old and new, foreign and tradition, ready to explode.

Also, I want to base them off of Ionia and Pontic-Caspian peoples. People like the Scythians, the Sarmatians, Cimmerians, and the Pontic Greeks. Perhaps a bit of Russian influence too. Maybe a lot actually. I'll do more research about slavs, I guess.

I was saving Iran and Persia ofr the south eastern part, with the egypt-type people for the west-south.

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>>53704991

Then work on the best of both worlds. Build tables and systems that let you worldbuild on the fly. Focus more of your worldbuilding on the immediate area around the PCs - the dungeon, the village, the road - and let your tables do the rest.

>>53706178
Why do you "need" to flesh it out?

>>53717941
Don't write just to fill space, the factions will get fleshed out over time

>Setting's cultures are established around species' basic biological needs and their adaptation to different environments
>Actual world is Earth for the time being, so I need to make a semi-rational planet to keep things interesting
Maybe all those earth sciences and geology courses I took in college could be useful after all. Unfortunately, they all assume Earth as the planet in question.

>>53713779
culture wars on /his/. the other guy is probably just mad that Germany doesn't have a good rap on /his/

>>53714607
I second the over the top Arthurian nation, but their "equestrian" culture is built around riding exotic animals rather than just horses. Are you a chivalrous enough dude to ride that Gryphon

>>53719807
Germany aka "I'm going to ruin Europe every century"

>>53718401
For the history, there's a lot of holes to fill, without even a vague detail to fill them. Right now on my plate, I've got to come up with details to flesh out the Dwarven lands, fill in some vague timeline points to explain how the humans went from being ruled over by Ogre tribes to the last great kingdom, and I need a idea for the Sobki dynasties and the reason for the split between them and the southern kingdoms.

As for the setting as a whole, its for a wargame. I have enough for the elevator pitch, but need more to entice people in.

The scythian steppes were well and truly massive. Cyrus never conquered them because it was such a huge empty space, and they could just withdraw. Keep in mind that the horse had been the fastest mode of personal transit for, literally, thousands of years and that changed only in the past century.
Steppe people can maintain their independence by running away, because if the land is so inhospitable that your army starves while chasing them down then you can't conquer them. That also makes it a good melding pot, because they'll raid all along their huge borders and people can join them to disappear.

My two cents and some historical perspective

>>53713336
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_YOhS1LEdI

(What's their tech level? Hard sci-fi, or more fantasy?)

>>53713494
I kind of assumed they were doing the "aircraft carrier out of time" trope, so they'd want to run that fuel through modern aircraft, which are likely designed to run on that high-purity fuel. Though, I don't know what the consequences of using pure kerosene would be in that situation.

>>53713868
Has there been any incentive or reason to?

>>53709855
I picture like a mini-golem, but more human. Basically an arcanely-crafted humanoid magical laboratory assistant.

>>53714607
A once-great civilization, squatting in the collapsing ruins of their former glory. They are proud, but growing steadily more desperate.

Aztec-styled civilization: a theocracy built around human sacrifice to angry gods. But, it's a world where the gods exist, and so they are powerful and prosperous as a result.

Want more?

>>53715580
True strike gun! A gun that reloads itself! A gun that never jams! A silent gun! A silent bullet! Vorpal gun, that penetrates all obstacles! Nightvision/trueseeing when you hold the gun! 0 recoil gun! Loyal gun, only fires in its master's hands, and always at hand when needed!

>>53709855
First the abstract idea of it (alchemy, created being, probably weird fantasy or steampunk, etc.), then probably the homunculi from the Atelier games, then some video I watched on youtube a long time ago about a guy with a Russian accent trying to make a homunculus by rotting eggs or some nonsense, and then... maybe Harry Potter? That's probably all of the cultural references I can think of that people refer to a homunculus.

Does anybody know of any benefical ship-spirits from any mythology? Something good like a brownie, but for ships and general naval stuff. I know cats were considered good luck, but that's about it.

>>53722837
Dolphins were considered something like that.

>>53700099
Recently is a relative term, but the great split of about 100 or so years before the working date was perhaps the greatest environmental disaster humanity has witnessed. The cause of which is still unknown (sea god fighting land god, sea god won and fractured the land).

A france or so sized chuck of land around the rim of humanity's flat earth skyland planetoid (I need to come up with a proper name for these things) broke off the side and started to fall into the aether, eventually stopping after a few hundred km, the resulting fall and instability of the chuck has left it at a permanent 30 degree or so tilt (last time I told people about this I was informed of a saturday night live sketch, which captures the feel of it pretty well). It's also resulted in a lot of orbiting debris.

Around 40-60 years ago skyships became a thing, and contact was re-established (a few years later, it wasn't really a priority for the nations which developed flying ships, war was) although all of that debris makes the journey fairly perilous. The peoples still there have gone through a lot in the 2 generations they've been there, many staying behind rather than repatriating with the remains of their ancestral motherlands. Wars have been fought for their tilted homes they're loath to abandon them.

While the tilt is a constant problem outside of one half of mountainous regions, the biggest issue is the ocean fall. The flat earth is more bowl shaped, its interior a massive ocean with most land on the rim. Chuck of the rim fell out and the ocean began to pour out (due to how the ocean's were formed that's only a local issue, but a really big local issue). Which in tern means a massive salty waterfall is constantly hammering a the edge of the tilted lands, combined with the tilt itself has lead to one hell of a "river" dividing the island.

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>>53713336
AT 43 had gorilla warfare.

>>53704520
I'm in the same boat as the other anon, I'll build a world far larger than what I need it to be. The only real downside is the time spent and return on your investment, but if you're having fun neither of those are really issues. For me the pros are that I end up knowing my setting well enough that any winging it I have to do improves greatly just because of the mental library I'm pulling from is more focused.

And hey if you really like a location that never would show up, there's nothing stopping you from giving your players a reason to want to go there, or by bringing aspects of that region to your players in the form of foreigners and trade.

>>53704861
Uhh remove the guard or interpret crude to mean matchlock? I'd like to see a race whose manipulator's can't squeeze a tickler or serpentine level.

>>53706283
Focus on the honor, and the traditions. You could do X, but remember that if you do then it may lead to bad things purely because of the societal views on it. The key thing I'm thinking of here is hungry ghosts and yokai in general. A good deal of them form because people do something without honoring the proper way to do it (a lot of yokai can be avoided with proper manners for example). Read kwaidan if you can, its some hilarious weeb trash from 1918 (or as the author put's it japanophile trash).

>>53722016
>Want more?

Sure, if you've got em. I'm just brainstorming atm so anything is good

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>>53692545
Well, here it is, my finished world map. I had to start from scratch after deciding one culture should be desert-dwellers and couldn't feasibly change their location to a desert without changing a bunch of other stuff. Just my geographic autism I guess.

I think I'll use this as a political map, and use gimp or something to draw borders and kingdoms because I dont have photoshop. Then I will draw a more detailed geographic map, but I wanted a clean barebones one to scan.

Is there anything (free) better than gimp?

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>>53730848
From my phone

>>53730848
>finished
>water is the same color as land
this map is really difficult to look at because of that, you should color the water

Not sure if this is the place to ask but Its fairly related and it's not worth its own thread, but what is a kitchen sink setting again?

>>53692545
>Do you have an equivalent to modern superpower nations?
It depends on how you look at it. Technically there's only one ruling power but in reality the confederation functions more similarly to the holy roman empire.

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>>53698999
I remember som type of lightning-related Roc, look that up

>>53732694
The thunder bird is most definitely NOT a minor creature.

>>53732359
Basically a setting that let's you play a lot of different kind of adventurs without switching to another setting. When your party can fight against vikings in the north, travel to southern not!-italian city states, be pirates for some time and end of in ARABIAN NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHTS with wizards and robots. Also no one is surprised that the party consists of Conan, Bruce Lee, Gandalf, Alexander Anderson, Legolas and Lupin.

>>53709687
Oh we may not tell you!

>>53732359
A setting where everything and the kitchen sink exists. 40k is a good example, containing orks, elves, WW2, space knights, giant robots, Judge Dredd, Alien, demons, and everything you can rip off from.

>>53732359
You basically don't want to compromise and instead prefer to just be able to do whatever you want.

The bane of serious worldbuilding, but good for fun.

>>53731207
Not him but I didn't have much problem, he should be fine if he just adds some shade to the coasts.

>>53722837
I think seagulls are a good omen since they mean there's land is near. But that may be more pragmatism than belief.

>>53733660
I disagree, look at IRL examples. Some place as simple as the east Mediterranean has a ton of different cultures, lost empires, geographic diversity, and religions, all in a relatively small space.

You can find Greeks, Arabs, Hebrews, Semetic north Africans, Nubians, Dacians, Turkic peoples, and more, existing at the same time or within a couple hundred years of each other.
There are ancient ruins, city-states, democracies, vast empires, and more. Terrain wise you have deserts, forests, mountains, pristine beaches, rocky scrubland, and tropical swamps (nile delta).

Just because you lack the imagination to integrate many different elements together does not mean a kitchen sink world is unable to be "serious worldbuilding."

>>53733805
This is not a kitchen sink. Not enough anachronisms, not enough inconsistencies. Can I play a knight in this world? A ninja? A monk (which means kung-fu), a classic wizard? You fail this class.

>>53700410
>armory
Like a weapons shop? I don't see a reason for a simple village to have one.
If you need to provide merchant goods to players, you can always just rely on travelling merchants or caravans. Of course, using this too often will push it out of the bounds of happy coincidence, and more into contrivance.
In a fantasy setting there are also plenty of reasons a village might have an active militia, and thus an armory, maybe there's a monster territory nearby? Another important factor is how common/popular is the adventuring profession in your setting? If adventurers are running around all over the place, or even if the town is nearby a place adventurers travel to often, it's easy to justify an armory.
Also keep in mind that most/all villages will have a blacksmith to make stuff like tools, horseshoes, nails, etc. If your players want new weapons, or to repair their old ones, they can probably comission the local smith for that work. It would be more robust than simply buying a ready-made weapon from a store, but more interesting I think.
Which is not counting all the unique ways you can come up with for a smith to have weapons. What if a travelling stranger came by and comissioned a sword (or whatever weapon your player needs) and paid for it up-front, yet never returned for the weapon. This was years ago, and the smith is getting tired of maintaining the weapon, thus he's willing to sell it for a discounted price. Plenty of ways you can work stuff like that into side quests, too.

>>53701802
Why not just look up a name generator online and filter it to only draw norse (or similar) names?

>>53733874
In my mind you fail for wanting to play bland real-world archetypes instead of playing a stealthy assassin or stoic hand-to-hand fighter which fits in with the setting you're playing.

You can create a diverse and varied world with numerous cultures without having to include notJapan or notAztecs. Blatant real-world parallels are lazy and cancer

>>53718078
>I was saving Iran and Persia ofr the south eastern part, with the egypt-type people for the west-south.

Good. Just remember that Egypt should be relatively geographically isolated but although with contact with the main civilized area. They're self-sufficient even in those stages of history where they're not in a ilationist mood. On the contrary, Iran/Persia is in the middle of everything, like a highway that everyone wants to cross. This can be both good or bad. When they're strong and united they benefit from great riches and from technological and cultural exchange. When they're weak they get gangbanged hard.

Those are important aspects of those cultures. You don't need a Nile surrounded by desert or a Silk Road, but you're gonna need an equivalent to make this cultures work (like how archipelagos fit greeks).

>>53734192
>In my mind you fail for wanting to play
Yeah, because that was exactly what my post was about. Not the part where you deliberately misunderstood a kitchen sink setting so you can boast with your knowlege of the ancient world. Yes anon, you have such a rich knowlegde about a certain period. This doesn't make for a kitchen sink setting though, which is something you apparently aren't able to grasp despite your college degree of history.

>>53732761
So scale them down.

>>53714927
>post-Yuro subsaharan Africa once it's cottoned on to the fact that selling slaves = more guns = more war = more slaves = more guns

Those are great and way better and more interesting than spear-chucker noble savages or rich kangz if you're gonna include african cultures.

>>53733805
That's not a kitchen sink, it's just cultural and geographical diversity that can be found on plenty of real or unreal settings.

>>53734420
One day I will run a game where the party are Arab-Swahili merchants selling guns for slaves and ivory as Central Africa goes all Mad Max.

Essentially a mid-19th century Rogue Trader game where the space cathedral is replaced with a procession of several hundred slaves, camp followers and soldiers (who are also slaves).

>>53732359
Settings redditors like because there doesn't have to be a set tone

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I've been writing up a relatively simple desert nomad culture using Dr. Zahir's Ethnographical Questionnaire , but I've run into a couple of issues.
The first is that the clan patriarchs decide pretty much everything that hasn't been covered by their mythology and history (which are themselves open to interpretation), so any sort of society-wide mores are based on arbitration between clan leaders. I think it's too ad-hoc to be interesting, but that's pretty much how Bedouin culture works from what little I've read.
The other is that the things that aren't arbitrary are bizarre details. So, for example, the society has a near-obsession with cartography and navigation (gotta keep track of those oases somehow), and they claim they can determine one's character and life history just by looking at scars and old wounds, but things such as common etiquette aren't any different from the stereotypical Bedouin norm.
How do I flesh out a society that lacks any solid social power structure beyond the extended family unit?

>>53734963
Mindset and practices are more important for the flavor of a culture than kings or a civil service. Those things can great sources of cultural practices but they are far from the only source.

For your guys, accumulated tradition and the example of history are the main source. Outline broadly what sort of values or taboos they have. Some are absolute and fundamental to the society, some are more open to interpretation and perhaps vary from clan to clan.

Once you have a rough set of guidelines, give a few examples such as the life of a great hero that is held as the exemplar of merchant conduct (and thus implicitly the code merchants should abide less they face being shunned) or the folk tale that explains why children are named on the full moon after birth. You don't have to do many but it gives insight to how these people think and what is important to them.

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I'm literally too retarded to understand this pdf. I need pictures.

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>>53701333

Seriously fucking amazing shit here anon. Thanks for sharing. Beers on me, cheers

Would a world controlled entirely by large corporations (save for native populations who are basically all exploited or sold) set in the 17th-18th century be at all interesting? Would it be that much more different that real history?

Rolled 42 (1d50)

Rolling to choose a setting to expand.

>>53734963
>I think it's too ad-hoc to be interesting
You have clearly not studied these kinds of culture in enough detail. Because I can assure you, that is interesting as fuck.
Few things. First of all: There is a space for some INSANE political play. What you would expect between institutionalized countries, is happening here between individual families and clans. Consistent, complex network of alliances, war, diplomacies, trade deals, marriage arangements, old vendetas, old friendships, careful agreements old compromises. It's a BREEDING ground for conflict, campaign hooks, world of constant intrigue.
Second of all: these kinds of societies tend to be... uh, extensively oral. That is to say, they will rely almost exclusively on oral tradition. And one of the things that is characteristic for oral tradition is that it's very conservative - barely ever changes. Which means that despite how arbitrary it looks, the people are going to share among themselves very, very ancient systems of customs and beliefs. Despite their incredibly complex mutual relationships, when it comes to customs, taboo's, values etc... they are going to be very united. So you don't have to worry about fragmentation.

Third: they are going to be EXTREMELY strongly determined by their particular lifestyle. So think of an interesting gimmick to their nomadic life: interesting animal they herd, interesting landscape they roam through, and you'll suddenly see their culture and customs basically writing themselves. Add some spice to your desert and you'll see how it will add spice to your nomads.

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>>53737697

Did someone say spice?
>>53737449
Sure, what if the corporations held back tech for the general public and kept it for themselves?

>>53737697
Maybe part of the problem was that I was following the questionnaire too closely. I do have one concept I really like: the nomads' worst enemies, the Banished.

In the desert, all water is precious. Any sort of pollution can mean death for an entire clan. Intentional poisoning is tantamount to mass murder, and the punishment must be severe. In the olden days, the punishment was "simply" exterminating the offending party and their family. This backfired when some perpetrators' families turned out to be too powerful or well-connected to wipe out without risk of war.
Eventually a new punishment was developed: the offending clan would be condemned to live permanently at the source they had polluted. Sacred hospitality would be denied them, and their names and location would be wiped off all maps and records. The assumption was that the offenders would eventually die to their own poison, inbreed themselves to unviability, or just kill themselves. This assumption proved naive.
The outlawed clans, formally known as the Banished (also called the Damned, the Polluted, and other ominous and unflattering titles) secretly held onto their personal maps and records that still bore their names and locations, as well as those of other banished clans. Over time they banded together, fortified their homes with whatever they could gather, and became a shadow society dedicated to their own survival and comfort, all at the expense of the nomads that condemned them.

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>>53736708
Glad you enjoy it! If you've got questions, feel free to leave comments or find me in the /osr/ thread.

>>53737449
Like if the East India Company didn't get cockblocked by Britain in India, and just continued picking up steam and extending its reach over the whole world?

>>53739552
That's basically the idea, yea.

I imagined countries would give their companies more leeway as one company got too powerful, in order to stay relevant in the global market. eventually these companies get more powerful than the governments that rule them and eventually say "fuck this" and replace the monarchies with themselves.

>>53740311
Could be interesting. Were you thinking fantasy land or real world?

>>53693273
Magick in my setting is unpredictable and random when it affects objects.

Stick of boom.... Branch from a tree that was affected by serious magick during the end of the world event... and if used as a club it causes an explosion on impact (only when swung hard to trigger it)

chef knife that if used as a weapon the person being attacked won't defend themselves and any onlookers won't help

Katana that makes whoever holds it believe its an all powerful weapon even though its just a wall ornament.

>>53737904
>Sure, what if the corporations held back tech for the general public and kept it for themselves?
It could end up like a fantasy Shadowrun rather than a sci-fi one.

>>53738018
I like it. It's safe to say that the Banished would be trying to pollute more oasi, right? They've got nothing to lose at that point.
And what does the pollution entail? Is it typically intentional poisoning, or unintentional that causes families to be Banished?
And if this is a way to get an entire influential family Banished, you can be sure that people will be framing others for poisoning to cause a power vacuum they themselves hope to fill.

>>53744769
>It's safe to say that the Banished would be trying to pollute more oases, right? They've got nothing to lose at that point.
This rarely happens. If anything, the Banished are more protective of their water because it's theirs specifically. They only do it if they've really got a grudge against a particular clan. Poisoning wells for the lulz can work against them if their source runs out and they need to move, or if some sleuth starts connecting the crimes and realizes that the clan isn't as dead as intended.
>And what does the pollution entail? Is it typically intentional poisoning, or unintentional that causes families to be Banished?
It depends. Poisoning for the sake of mass murder is definitely banishment-worthy, if not a pretext for war. Sometimes one might use an additive to "claim" the water for themselves, rather than using the water for a while and moving on so others may use it. Unintentional pollution like dumping waste too close is viewed as foolish and dangerous, but is usually punished by fines and clean-up duty. Reckless waste-dumping can lead to banishment. The latter has led to conflict as the petroleum industry has sprung up.
>And if this is a way to get an entire influential family Banished, you can be sure that people will be framing others for poisoning to cause a power vacuum they themselves hope to fill.
No doubt. Of course, false council is a serious crime among this society (or any other for that matter), so if they're caught lying...

So two things to know about my world, one: the various humanoid races are a product of artificial selection from a now dead civilization, and two: the world isn't a traditional planet but rather a cube of earth, which the people of this world live inside, accelerating upwards at roughly 10 meters per second which creates "gravity" despite the cube having negligible mass.
Right now I am trying to figure out an explanation for the collapse of the previously mentioned civilization. One of the ideas I had for this is that something foreign and hostile leaked into the cube from outside,which has a corrupting effect, however that feels a bit too much like chaos in warhammer especially since that would basically make the areas close to the edge of the cube similar to the chaos wastes in warhammer fantasy. Any ideas?

>>53746097
You could always go with a disease.

>>53701802
Orik

>>53706423
Hi Stormbringer

How much time is the appropriate amount of time to work on a setting?

>>53750272
Depends on what you're using the setting for

>>53750298
I want one that I can set down and use for multiple campaigns, evolving off the events that happen.

>>53750272
What kind of question is that? The amount of time to create a world is as much as you desire. As long as you can keep adding stuff you will always have more stuff to work on. It can take a single day, or it can take you months.

>>53750347
What system do you want to use for running the campaign?

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>>53704671
Pic not entirely related, but this is sort of the same thing I keep trying to do with orcs and half-orcs. Give them something else to do other than being evil bipeds.

>>53750602
That's stylish as fuck, anon, do that.

>>53751126
>Warhammer is stylish as fuck
Said no one ever

>>53751244
I didn't even know that was warhammer, but apparently I just did say it.

What's a good name for a government body that leads a world of cyborgs by council?

>>53752036
The Roborulers

>>53752989
This.

>>53752036
The Tin Senate or something similar, swapping out "Tin" for whatever you please.. Works really well if you have a made-up metal alloy which the cyborgs are primarily composed of.

>>53741578
>Katana that makes whoever holds it believe its an all powerful weapon even though its just a wall ornament.
A blade that turns people into weeaboos?

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In a world were modern equivalent guns exist, is there anything that would make returning to plate style armour make any logical sense? Or is it something that requires a 'its just the way it is' hand wave?

>>53753845
Are guns common?

>>53753845
Plate is made from some magical or futuristic material that makes it as resistant to bullets as steel was to arrows.

>>53753874
is no the only answer that makes the plate armour make sense?

>>53753915
Unless you wanna just go with it's cool or magical armor/metal.

>>53753942
aight. bout what I expected. Thanks.

>>53753845
No. Plate style armour didn't make much logical sense against firearms that are 200-300 years old. Modern ones would absolutely destroy them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQfcRLT18IY

>>53753845
All guns are railguns, and the plate armour is magnetized with magic space metal, so the bullets get stopped by the magnetic repulsion of the armour.
No, I have no background in the scientific field.

>>53725332
I miss that game. Wish I'd grabbed all the codexes when I could.

How wou/d you do a mercenary kingdom right/well?

>>53753845
Armor is now exo-suits made from super material that just looks like platemail? I have no real knowledge of how weapons and stuff actually work but oh well.

>>53756010
I have a vaguely-not!Japan island nation of orcs in the east of my setting, whose culture is entirely focused upon the pursuit of strength, and the forging of weapons. Their cultural religion is heavily tied to their patron god, who is constantly in search of "perfect" weapons. Crafting a perfect weapon and offering it to the god is the only path to heaven for them. And to understand how to create a perfect weapon, one must completely understand the art of battle, and thus many of the natives spend their lives travelling the world as mercenaries, eventually returning to the island and spending the last years of their lives crafting weapons. As such, the mercenary lifestyle is heavily ingrained in their entire culture, and the nation is world-famous for its skilled and loyal mercenaries.
Another way is to make a kingdom inhabitating a harsh, nearly-uninhabitable land, so that the homeland economy is not enough to support itself (more imports than exports), so instead, officially sanctioned mercenaries became the country's main source of income.
Maybe a militaristic nation is politically or otherwise locked into peace, but its militaristic culture can't just vanish overnight, so most of the soldiers turn to mercenary work in the surrounding regions.

To more directly answer your question though, I suppose the important thing is to establish an environment/culture that would actually allow for mercenaries to become a standard. Normally kingdoms want to maintain their armed forces for themselves, rather than lend them out to other nations, so you have to come up with a reason for that not to be the case.

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>>53692545
>Do you have an equivalent to modern superpower nations?
Modern? No, early Industrial revolution, yes.
Super Power 1, the Empire of Valkir, a 1000 year old empire that is currently on the wane, influenced heavily by the Ottomans.

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>>53757183
Superpower 2, the Grand Union of Communes, USSR in DnD land.

Were do you guy start when writing your setting? Do you do the first stuff that pops into your head, the history, the people, the cultures? I have an idea but am not quite sure how I should go about writing it down, as I want it somewhat organized so its not absolute dogshit to read through, but i'm also not sure how I should organize my writing in a way that allows me to get everything I currently have down on paper before fully fleshing out all the details.

>>53757202
Eh personally i pick the theme of the game i want to run. Then i build what i need out of that.

>>53757202
I normally start with a single country/culture and make boundaries, cultural values, myths and social/political structure for them. The rest more or less comes by itself. History and geography determines a lot, but since you're building something from zero you can make build them retroactively according to your needs (except if you already have something in your head). So do the rest of cultures.

But I do this because I take a very mythological/legendary approach when worldbuilding and therefore x-centrism is not only admissible but actually a must do.

>>53757202
I start by taking the vague idea I have for a setting or place and boil it down to its absolute base idea before continuing. The first thing I wrote for the setting I'm working on right now is

>The setting is a high-fantasy swashbuckler set around a monolithically large gas giant several times the size of our jupiter, where the races live beneath the eye of what they believe is the seat of the gods, the gas giant itself. The action hinges on urban political maneuverings between worlds and how that affects the native life and peoples living on the worlds around.

Then I go from there. I usually start with the big dogs of the setting, and how they came to be, then figure out enough to have a playable setting. Other stuff can be fleshed out later

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What comes to your guys minds when I say floating islands? Picture related comes to mind, but, I want to tinker with the idea as a setting for my players to explore.

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>>53759858
Depend.
For fantasy, pic related I guess.
Magocratie free cities.
Or...

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>>53760574
... or maybe elemental town.
Or maybe djinn town.

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>>53760581
Also sky pirates work in pretty much any settings. Both as baddies and good guys.
Also think of skyland, though that SF.

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>>53760610
Skyland had really pretty places. Not much else sadly.

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>>53760651

>>53760651
>>53760666
Could you even grow things up there?

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Tell me about some famous and/or particularly frightening bounty hunter of your world.

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>>53760687
I wouldn't know, but I suppose water retention would be an issue, I guess?
Altitude too of course, but you're already having flying islands so you may as well have some fantasy high altitude plants at that point.

>>53753624
Pretty much... In the same setting I have carnivorous cups, flame thrower that looks like a bic lighter, stickers that improve whatever its attached to by 110% and a lawn mower that thinks its a dog... Among other weird and horrific shit like bags of skin that try to pretend to be human, mutated animals and people...

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>>53760761
Making one on the fly from random image:
The Tin Man: a mysterious automaton of unknown age with a surprisingly vibrant sense of justice . Capture criminals in an extremely lawful manner, respecting local customs to the letter.
While most opponents expect his unnatural constitution and his robotic precision, few realise fully his incredible experience and relentless preparation. For example, if his victorious fencing duel against the infamous elvish corsair Dorneiros is well known, few pay attention to the fact that he could only face him that way thanks to a two years wait in one of the corsair secret cove.

>>53760761
Most famous users of blood magick in my setting are either bounty hunters assassins or warlords due to their need to consume people to fuel their body and powers and to gain more power/powers. Basically low key vampires.

Agent 13 is a well known traveling bounty hunter that anyone associated with gangs, raiders or warlords fear. He is an incredibly powerful blood magick user with quite the arsenal of powers and abilities, often associated with his lightning and psychic abilities as well as his intelligence.

Generally roams around the wastelands and kills entire compounds of raiders in attempt to make the areas between cities safer.

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>>53761114
And another:
The Old Fox: a discreet attitude could only hide the fox for so long in the underworld: he is among the most efficient bounty hunter around. One of the most hated too, more for of his underhanded methods than for his captures. With him, there is no grandiose duel or grand battle as he has no qualms using poisons, corruption or criminals to get his hands on his targets. More often than not, when he finally make his appearance the matter has already been dealt with. A good example of his methods was when he got the presumably untouchable crime lord Farel: patiently bribing his way to his entourage he waited for the slum riots of 1344 to finally make his move. Focused on his rivals of the gang wars, Farel was planning his next move when he suddenly wake up in a cell. If he later guessed what dugs put him to sleep, he could never find out how and who did it.

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>>53761362
Kitanetos the headstrong: minotaurs are know for being stubborn, but Kitanetos unwillingly got his fame by going one step beyond, and then many more. When the spy Ernil Vergert got exposed and fled, many went on his track to receive the generous reward offered for the spy as he played an instrumental role in the soon to be war. Many of them gave up when he make an extensive use of his underground connexion. Many of those who persevere renounced when he managed to cross the border. There weren't many pursuers left when his homeland protected him, and one would think none would have follow him when he got sent in a new mission in the distant isolationist mountain kingdom of Keldr. And yet, when Vergert found refuge in the middle of a snowstorm while travelling in a distant land 4 years after the matter, Kitanetos finally catch-up with him.
He simply took him and went back in the storm, went all the way back and deliver him to country that had since known a war, its end in a diplomatic treaty, changed of dynasty and ultimately became a close ally to its opponent.
Kitanetos simply asked for his reward and calmly left without a second thought.

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>>53762871
Frank the "gargotier":
While a decent fighter, Frank is a mediocre amateur in the work of bounty hunter. Easily led astray and duped, he only catch small fry and make more money as a dubious chief.
And yet he is of some fame, all for a strange affair that end up with him presenting a wanted man cooked to a stunned client. How exactly the event turned out is unclear as the client refused to make any comment and Frank only answer when pressed remained: "'t'waza mysteak."
Since then he can still be found in his greasy spoon, working in questionable conditions. And if he can say no one ever left his establishment hungry, it is fair to add that few entered it hungry to begin with.

>>53734420
>>53734618
You fucking know it. The setting I've been labouring over for the past year is all about that fuckery, with added world-shattering mystical bullshit.

Although it's funny that THE spear-chuckers par excellence are awesome as fuck too. Shaka Zulu is a cartoon villain, it's hilarious.

>>53760761
The Butcher and the Matador hunt various gods and other monsters.

The butcher is a strange man. If you peer closely, you can see his coat is made of dried meat with sinew stitching. He chews goose fat as a matter of habit and he carries the most tremendous rifle. His left hand clutches a suitcase.

Inside the suitcase is a matador's outfit. When opened, the matador pops out and the butcher pops in and the matador gets to work. He caries three harpoons quite astounding in their wickedness.

When whatever work they have is done, the butcher jumps back out and lives up to his name. The meat is sold for exorbitant sums of money. Nobody knows what he does with it.

Three hundred years ago the butcher and the matador were normal monster hunters, insofar as any are normal. But they did something terrible while hunting, and were twisted into this demon as a result.

>>53763350
Best one.

Would very heavy pollution in cities have a global effect? How far does it spread?

I have no idea where to go to learn about effects of heavy pollution.

>>53767479
China is the pollution capital of the world, maybe look into how its pollution affects the surrounding regions and the world at large? That's probably a good place to start that will lead you to more in-depth sources.

>>53767965
Good point, cheers

Whenever I hear the term worldbuilding I always imagine some fat middle aged man waving his arms in front of him as he grumbles to himself and a tiny little sphere appearing out of thin air

>>53763543
Well, but rather than zulus themselves what's interesting is Shaka imho. You can import Shaka to western africa and have him be a gun pioneer.

>>53757202
I start with a map and work my way up. One of the main reasons I never seem to finish anything is that I typically work out a few centuries of regional history, which does no end of good in helping determine how nations and cultures interact and get along, but takes a shit load of time.

How would you map an underdark? I'm afraid 3 dimensional map are a bit much for me.

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>>53771247
Official map, you can do something similar.

>>53771299
3 level of depth simply by the key...
I guess you don't need a huge number of level on a general map.

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>>53771962
Exactly, although each levels of depth covers thousands of meters, it's only pointing out massive landmarks/cavern systems anyway, so it doesn't want for an absurd level of detail in the first place.
If you want to do a more zoomed in map of only a small area (as that map covers the entire super continent of Faerun), it shouldn't cause any problems. If you're doing a city or another large cavern-like area, there shouldn't be much overlap in depth anyway, it's not like caverns can be stacked on top of each other or anything, they're more spread out.
The only real difficulty would be a winding maze of inter-crossing tunnels, which I personally just try to avoid. The best way is probably to just colour-code the tunnels based on depth.

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>>53772137
Numbers can also be used to easily convey elevation, if that's your concern on close-detail maps.

>>53772152
And you can do the classic cross-section, although it doesn't work so well on horizontal-heavy maps.
http://imgur.com/a/zV2tF
Used imgur because I didn't want to spam 6 posts, or only post a portion of the map.

I need some help figuring out the schools of magic for my world. Magic can be learned via study, but you also have to have a certain inherent attunement to magic itself.

A big theme of the world is strife, in that everything has it's mirror opposite, since they both, on a cosmological scale, make up the greater whole.

I'd like to incorporate that idea into magic itself, but I'd also like to have more than two schools.

>>53773133
Use generic schools, but associate them by opposite?

>>53773281
Like Conjuration and Abjuration, so forth?

>>53704861
>not making larger, orcish firearms

>>53773795
>orcs
>brains
lmao

>>53774043
dumb orcs is a dumb trope

>>53693273
Trident of the Sea Lord
A powerful weapon said to have been gifted to the king of Sentha, the Trident allows its welder to swim as fast as a dolphin, command the sharks and octopi of the sea, breath the salty water, and once a year call upon a mighty tropical storm.
However, when the last king blasphemed against the Sea Lord, the city was levelled by tsunamis and the Trident was lost.>>53694309

I'm planning a nearish future game. (So think like the current too-expensive but really cool high tech stuff we have now being common). It's going to have magic too, and the system I'm using allows, even requires spells to be made up.
I've divided up the 'world' magically into these types of magic (a spell may use multiple types); Body (living things), Blessings (think good luck, and also communicating with 'blessed' beings), Curses (opposite of Blessings), Energy (Fire, lightning, kinetic force), Magic, Stone (Heavy elements, metalloids, metals), Air (nonmetal elements and the light alkalines, although I am considering other divisions).
There could be a better name for 'air' but I can't think of one.

Anyway I'm trying to come up with a grimoire of spells, so players don't need to come up with basic shit and also so I can make sense of what the everyday mage might be doing, and thus create a world that makes sense.
So far I've got a few spells. Magic has Detect Magic, Analyze Magic (for telling what a spell does), and a few others. Energy has Light, Mirror, and Darkness. I'll have to add in some other things such as IR detection (can be used to detect IR lasers), maybe Jamming, and 'Broadcast." Recharge is another.

For Stone I've come up with Block Bullet(s), Create Wall, and some others. Basically I'm looking for a list of common "things mages should be able to do in a modernish magic setting", because I know there'll be somethings I can't think of, and it's time saving. Or just suggestions from other elegan/tg/entlemen.

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>>53703863
I don't. No detail, no matter how ridiculous, may eventually become relevant. The trick is keeping a lid on exposition dumps. Players only need the important bits, save the fluff for if they get interested in the "why" questions.

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>>53760761
Wurg the Consumer. Wurg isn't your average bounty hunter, he won't take any contract that wants the target alive or their corpse recognizable. He mostly does jobs that involve taking out an entire mercenary band or large beast. Besides taking on these more dangerous foes by himself, what makes him so popular is his willingness to take half the average pay per head if he says the target "went down easy."