/wbg/ World-building general

Usually 1:1. Sometimes I'll do an infinite world, though, and just keep to a certain area. At least if it's fantasy. Sci-fi is another matter.

Though when I was a kid I remember I had a world that was the inside of a Dyson sphere so that I had enough room for all 50 or 60 subraces of elf. (But I still had day/night cycles somehow. And stars and comets. It wasn't well thought out.)

>>53782423

Physics and gravity changes with a different planet size, doesn't it?

>>53782315
My world is a 700 mile long cube which gives it an area roughly 1.74 times the surface area of the earth but the cube is still significantly smaller than earth, it's just that there is more living space

>>53782981

How does gravity works?

My world is a literally infinite plane. Not sure how to write that as a ratio.

>>53783013
The cube doesn't have enough mass for gravity to be significant, the cube accelerates upwards at roughly 10 meters per second to simulate gravity

>>53783054

So you walk on the insides of the cube?

>>53782315
>How big is your world, compared to Earth?
Who know? It's not like anyone had measured it.
Maybe some mathematicians tried to calculate it, but how would anyone check the result?

>>53783070

I believe it is a fact one should know beforehand, to have a believable physics.

Would heavy cavalry be too expensive for city-states?

>>53783066
Basically, the cube if filled with rocks and soil and the people essential live in tunnels throughout the cube

>>53783090
Physics are believable as long as everything in everyday life works more or less as expected.
The rules or explanations governing it barely even matter.

>>53783109
Not if they're rich enough.

>>53783163
that or the goods necessary to produce heavy cavalry are abundant in the city states

Does your setting have a zodiac? How many signs are there? Tell us about one.

>>53783054
upwards in relation to what?
also why wouldn't it just spin to create pseudo centrifugal force?

>>53783109
No real pastures, have to buy horses from somewhere else.

>>53783236
There isn't a zodiac or at least no zodiac based off a persons birth date or the as there isn't an easy way to tell time because the world lacks a day-night cycle and stars don't exist

>>53783236

Interesting question, I had never thought of it.

>>53783309
I realize there is no upwards without gravity however for simplicity's sake I call the direction the cube accelerates as upwards, also the reason why the cube doesn't spin is because a magic flows through the cube on the x axis and if the cube was spinning the magic wouldn't have the same effect

>>53783337
* the stars

Mine is over 1000 times larger than earth but its not a serious setting, just some autistic shit. It is hollow and has asteroids floating around the middle, the people who "built" the planet were sealed in there because by the time they finished building it the new people had arrived (ten thousand years later). So much later on in the story they were released and were super badass with advanced tech like handheld gauss rifles and powerful aremor, they killed the good guys at a 2 to 1 ratio until the good guys finally adapted.

Gravity would still be many times that of earth but the setting also has psychic Jedi / dune type shit so it doesn't really matter.

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last time I posted someone said the island chain I drew in the middle looked too straight (unlike his father(s), obviously) and looked like a big hunk of shit and I should kill myself for ever thinking it looked good, so after a few days of crying and a few days of saving up for a helium tank and a mask I had an epiphany and all on my own without anyone suggesting it at all I realized I could actually just redraw it a little more skewed, so I did.

Opinions?

fyi the guy who suggested it was actually really polite

>>53784740
It's fine, I guess? It makes me squint.

What kind of monsters would attack the lazy city state of the catgirls? DEUS VULT fellows?

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>>53785158
Cynocephali, what else?

Do you memebuild for your worlds? Like create fictional memes that exist in your world?

>>53785158
Slavers maybe. There's gotta be a market out there for catgirl slaves

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>>53785094
yeah I just realized puush was gay as shit with the compression, this should be better even though its still artifacted to all shit.

they're still unfinished, but the idea is there

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>>53782315
somewhere around 74% the size, but i need to get around to actually working out density and shit and choose a final number

>>53785221
>worldbuilding without doing this

what the fuck

>>53784740
looks pretty good but I would add some islands off to the sides a bit too, a linear chain like that looks pretty unnatural

>>53785193
Fucking dog headed people ruin everything

>>53785241
Yeah, but have you ever tried to get a cat to be helpful or ever teach it a trick? Getting one to shit in a toilet takes a year or more of training

>>53785302

Dude, what software do you use?

>>53786038
photoshop and illustrator + wilbur for the heightmap

I do land outlines and heightmap shit in photoshop, then process heightmap in wilbur for erson and then import it back to photoshop and use the lighting effects to render it

then just copy everything into illustrator and do all the other map elements as vectors

for that pic i just take everything back to photoshop and use the 3d tools to map it to a sphere and render lighting

>>53783109
Depends on the city-state. If it's Ancient Greek style, then cavalry is unlikely thanks to terrain and culture (why would someone rich enough to fight as a full hoplite instead go to battle "sitting down"?). But it could still work.

Post-Roman-Italian-style city-states could work, as would Holy Roman Empire city-states.

>>53782554
You can keep it constant if you adjust density.

My current setting is pretty much Earth with names swapped because it's easier then to justify rubber-banding history.

The rest of my settings were never meant to be global and mostly cover area that is around Europe-sized.

>>53782315
Those Middle Ages worldbuilding tools are great, but does anyone know of ones geared more towards, say, Ancient China or the like? Or, failing that, how well those tools would work for representing non-European Middle Age nations?
I ask because populations in Medieval Europe and China around the same time period were rather different.

I once came up with an in-universe game of chance called "greedy merchants".

Players would write down 3 numbers in secret and then roll a die. Whoever has greater sum of numbers wins, but the numbers that are higher than the die don't count.

However, after some calculations I concluded that the game pretty much has the best combination of 1-2-3 and perhaps 2-3-4 to counter it, so the entire game now feels lame.

How could I improve it? I was thinking about randomizing the initial pick (By means of cards or rolling more dice) and play it like poker, but probability feels too confusing for common rabble.

>>53782315
Is there any reason to have actual ground soldiers when a society has robots built for war?

>>53787742
Being a ground soldier is punishment
captured enemies are forced to be soldiers via bomb collars
Robots are to expensive to comprise the entire army

>>53787742

Maybe ground soldiers with a company of robots at his command

>>53787742
Let's put it this way: ED-209 would have a really hard time going in to a building to arrest someone.

>>53787742
As others pointed out, robots as we currently experiencing them are not very smart and not very agile. Also expensive.

But fragile meatbags inside is a huge limiter on performance. Even stupid robots that are agile enough to navigate the battlefield would make humans obsolete.

>>53787443
What about calling a single number instead of a set, but playing more than one round. Calling 1 is a guaranteed point, calling 4 gives 4 points half the time and 0 points half the time, giving an expected average of 2 points, six is 1 point on average, but has huge variation, etc.

Let the players call, or raise, bets between rolls and alternate who calls numbers first. This will create situations where a player might be good with calling a safer, but smaller, number, or situations where a 6 is the only way to get back in the game. Each single situation might still be solvable, but at least it's not always 1,2,3.

You can also insert bluffing/reading, of sorts, by having one player call a number, roll the die and see the result without showing his opponent and *then* the opponent calls his number. (Hide rolls e.g. by rolling with a dice cup and peeking under it)

>>53784740
>the island chain I drew in the middle looked too straight
It is, if you erased some of them it would make the chain less cluttered which would help. Make a few bigger islands and place very few small ones around.

That mountain chain on the right was made by an meteor impact?

>>53787182
>why would someone rich enough to fight as a full hoplite instead go to battle "sitting down"?

Except in ancient Greece it was precisely the richest the ones who formed the small cavalry element, faggot.

>>53787429
Wouldn't it be better to say that china was rather different from the rest of the world? Even today it works on a completely different scale.

>>53783109
No, not at all, specially if you're gonna use the archetype of the rich trade city-state. Even if you don't the elites of the city are most certainly the heaviest cavalry allowed by their culture, since elites will always have the better armor and fight as cavalry (or mounted infantry( as long as those things exist in your setting.

>>53782315
>/tg/ general linking to a subreddit

I. What? What reality have I stumbled into?

>>53789035
Weren't chariots super popular in ancient Greek warfare?

>>53789320
One where elegan/tg/entlemen know that reddit's toxic qualities are stronger in bigger subreddits and inconsequential in specialized subreddits?

The "other side" are people who think 4chan is identical to /b/ and /pol/, they are just as wrong as the people who think every subreddit is /r/funny.

>>53789035
Yes, but there was a stigma to doing so. Warfare between city-states in Ancient Greece was semi-ritualized with a huge emphasis on being a hoplite and winning decisive engagements. Hoplite warfare was seen as a microcosm of the city: citizens working together to push back and defeat other cities. Until the Spartans and Athenians really started going at it, most Greek v Greek wars were rather short since long, attrition-based warfare or cat-and-mouse tactics would hurt you as much as your enemy since the skilled labor force of your city would have to be on the battlefield for so long. Fighting one major battle was preferable to this, and cities often just chose a mutually agreeable location to throw down so they could get it over with and go home. Hoplite warfare existed in a mostly static form for centuries due to this belief, which is why any change up could be so devastating (Thebes beating Sparta by overloading their best troops on the "wrong" flank, Philip of Macedon's pike-phalanx, thermonuclear warheads, etc).
Cavalry did exist, but it was seen as queer to fight on a horse when all the honour and glory went to the hoplites.

I wasn't making that up, it actually happened.

>>53789320
You're complaining about something inconsequential which has pretty much always been there. Having more resources available isn't a bad thing for worldbuilding.

>>53789455
I know they were super popular with ancient Egyptians.

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Since one of my favorite /v/ things is getting a new iteration, started thinking up a setting of Not! Monster Hunter. A setting where the strongest materials to build anything with come from flora, fauna and fungi. Metal exists but it is a worse material than what can be gathered from the living things that roam the world (and is difficult to get due to said living things always around). The best materials are gathered from the most dangerous animals. Yay or nay?

Would technological advancement slow due to migratory patterns? Would communities be larger on average due to the need for larger hunting parties and defense? What other differences might occur? Literally had the idea an hour ago, so don't have much beyond what I posted.

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>>53788665
it was made from dick-ass wizards, because they're most of the reason this map is just basically a theme park map of cool landmarks.

So was the fields of concentric island rings around that one mid-sized island in the center, which are actually the cause of part of this island chain


(I'm clearly making this up as I go

>>53789455

They ceased being used in actual fighting by the greek dark ages and were instead used like a taxi or a helicopter to get into fighting or get out of fighting.

In the Minoan and Mycenaean era they were likely used in war, debate as to if it was with a long spear and/or javelins or with the bow.

bumb

>>53784740
Pic too small so it all looks like a big hunk of shit and you should kill yourself for ever saving at that resolution.
JK I'm a huge fan of your map, but it hurts to have everything downscaled on this file. Island chain looks way better than before from what I can tell.

>>53789320
It's literally only a problem if Reddit links to /tg/, not the other way around.

Need some ideas for a name for an ancient forest that used to host many witch's covens but now is home to a particularly nasty goblin tribe that has to constantly deal with roving undead.

Is a world with more landmass than ocean uncouth? I'm also worried that having a planned out worldmap will make PCs feel like there is nothing to explore.

>>53795968
Regarding the 'nothing to explore' part, here are 2 ways to do it:
Don't show them the whole map, show them parts of it.
Secondly, have them ''buy'' maps. The more they pay, the better the map is. A cheap map will not be accurate. (You can easily distort images, or just redraw it badly with exaggerated bits and pieces). That does mean you need to track where they are on the real map vs where they ''think'' they are.

My world is roughly circular and roughly 10.000km across.

>>53795226
yeah I posted a full res later when I came to the same conclusion
thanks, gonna start polishing it now

>>53792552
I'd have the monsters in a different area of the world away from the humans. It's kind of hard for a tribal society to develop and grow when there are twenty feet tall creatures with hides stronger than steel stalking around. Other than that, I really like the idea of the creature's skins being the most sought after material in the world.

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So in the setting I'm currently working on (pic attached) I've been doing some work on demographics and settlement placement etc (not pictured) and I'm running into an issue.

This whole map represents the human empire made up (so far) of three major ethnic groups; the west, the east and the southern desert. However I'm finding that with such a huge area of steppe to the east and its much lower agriculture and therefore population presents a problem. I cant justify the people from the west not just taking over the whole thing of splitting off entirely. Which is not what I intended.

How can I change the climate of the east a little in order to reduce the size of the steppe and increase its population somewhat.

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>>53798438
Oops messed up the resolution.

>>53798267
Perhaps nomadic societies are far more common, as following the heard of literal diamond backs is probably much more practical than staying in a single place, hoping the big ones don't find you.

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What are some good reasons to limit the power of resurrection magic? I prefer reasons that make it difficult to do it right than to outright make it impossible.

Easiest is to make it an expensive ritual, or a spell that requires incredible power, automatically making it only available to mighty heroes and powerful nobles.

Obviously you cannot be resurrected to get around dying from old age or disease, you'd just be revived and die as soon as you're alive again - although of course someone who died of a curable illness could be kept in "death storage" until a cure arrives - but even then, it should be preferable to just cure people alive.

Dungeon Meshi had a pretty cool idea with resurrection magic requiring blood and flesh depending on how far the decomposition has gone, something I definitely will steal.

Another element I will use comes from a game I used to play a as a kid called Mordor 2 (which later got released as Demise) which is called an Obliette-like. Obliette-likes are kind of like roguelikes in that there is permanent character-death, but all characters inhabit the same gameworld, so you can pick up the corpse of a previous character with a new character to resurrect them in towns.
Problem is, if the resurrection goes wrong - you come back wrong. As in LOSING STAT POINTS OH MY GOD THE HORROR.

I'm sure you guys will have some !FUN! ideas too. I haven't really thought much about possession, accidental fucked up soul implants, etc. but I'd prefer to first get some reasons that feel "natural" to the resurrection process. I mean, if the only danger is bringing demons into the world, you can just only resurrect people in churches or some shit.

>>53798438
>>53798455
Oh I forgot to mention, the southernmost tip of the south desert is at about 34N

>>53798845
I like the life for life theme, similar to what you mentioned above about using flesh and blood to reverse decomposition but more extreme: Souls can only inhabit healthy intact bodies so once the original body dies it is useless. The only way to resurrect someone is to use another living person in the ritual "overwriting" their soul with the soul of the resurrected.

>>53795912
Witchwood?

Need some help, /wbg/

I'm working on a setting where the general feel is say 1650s to 1799. Low fantasy, based on Earth. Problem I'm having is thinking up a good magic system that doesn't dominate the worldbuilding but does allow for interesting things to happen. No wizards chucking fireballs around roasting redcoats by the battalion. Think a sort of Game of Thrones level of magic, I guess - it's lurking on the fringes.

>>53800342
So are you aiming for magic based on actual real world beliefs and theories of magic?

>>53800427
I suppose so, but not mandatory. Mainly I just want a world that hangs together. For example, having read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell as part of prep for this campaign, I was dissatisfied with the world building - without giving much away, the society in the novel had essentially totally forgotten magic despite it being quite powerful and accessible, for no apparent reason. And that really broke my suspension of disbelief for the whole book.

So I would like to have a world that "hangs together" as the primary objective.

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Starting to label islands, expanded the map east to show more of Barbos, various improvements and developments. I don't think there will be many more major revamps/expansions to the main continent as far as the map is concerned, the map has probably crossed the halfway point.

>How big is your world, compared to Earth?
The land shown on the map (including blank useless stuff) is approximately 1.75x the size of Earth's land based on crude calculations that don't account for projection. With the land that isn't shown it's around 2.5x the size, but unshown land is immensely unimportant.

>>53795912
Grimwood
Greenwood (for the witch and goblin skin, but the player's won't make that negative connotation)
Darkwood
It's hard to think of anything non-cheesy with the information given. The best way to come up with names is think back in your settings history, to what people would have called the thing when they first discovered it. The name won't actually have anything to do with the Witches or Goblins or Undead, because presumably it was named for any of those factions settled there. You could get away with Darkwood for example, if the trees all had a dark-shaded bark. Maybe the forest is named after the first village settled there, so for example the people of Shire named the forest Shirewood.

>>53800814

software? looks pretty cute

>>53801639
paintNET, cursor drawn

some parts were generated with donjon and then redrawn/edited, not all of it is completely done by hand

>>53798438
>This whole map represents the human empire
>I cant justify the people from the west not just taking over the whole thing of splitting off entirely
I'm not sure I understand the problem, doesn't the West already control the East, since they're both part of the Empire? Or are you talking about inter-imperial territory wars? I need you to elaborate on what you mean.

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trying to take suggestions of spaced out larger islands

also fun fact I've included skull island, and the island chains present in the book and movie canons of jurassic park, and plan on including fauna from both on the respective islands.

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>so lazy im writing a program to generate star systems and maps for me for easy tracking of players and events
>itll be more work than just shitting one out on paper for the same effectiveness
>too stubborn to stop

>>53785251
This looks fucking great.

>>53785410
I train two of my five cats all the time.

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>>53787742
infantry will almost always be viable until you create artificial solidiers who can act exactly like them even then you could still need boots on the ground because it's cheaper.

infantry is the core of the military because 1. they are cheap, 2. they can field a huge variety of arms easily (moreso in modern times but you said robots so yeah) they can make independent actions (considering the implementaion of small unit tactis and a "commander's intent" mentality.)
3.can move in difficult terrain easily. Mud that the heavy bots sink in?, infantry, enemy using emp weapons against the bots? infantry, Need to support your bots with something that can move in with them? infantry.

>>53788197
I plugged this into java with 4 players, each repeatedly choosing 1,3,4 and 6 respectively and ran 3000 rounds.
Player1: 3000 points
Player2: 6039 points
Player3: 5972 points
Player4: 2964 points
I dont think individual rounds fixes it but it is a start. I think a better idea would be you add a new element, like a coin that determins if you want your number to behigh or low
Example:
Player1 guesses 1
Player2 guesses 4
Player3 guesses 6
The coin is flipped and it lands on tails, so numbers are high
The dice rolls a 3
Player 2 and 3 are above, so they get 3 and 1 point respectively
If the coin landed on low though, player 1 would have gotten 1 point and the other two nothing
I think this still shares the problem but i dont have time to test it right now, ill think about it though

>>53801706
The specific details as to why are a bit beside the point thinking about it now, my apologies.

I'd like some input and advice on how to modify the map in order to change the climate in the east to increase arable land area somewhat and reduce the size of the steppe. For example would a larger inland sea help with that I'm wondering?

I could go into some specifics on the setting and why I want to do this if you really want but that's another thing entirely.

What would cause a high magic elven outpost to be abandoned, and their ghosts to haunt it?

Bit of backstory - elves conquered whole continent, then starting running out of magical energy and had a civil war.

>>53806273
I think the civil war would be a good reason.

>>53806310
I agree, but I feel like there would have to be some defining moment that means their spirits couldn't rest...

There are also cells in the city that were abandoned after the city fell, maybe there was someone who was innocent inside the cells and the spirits are haunted by the fact they couldn't free them.

>>53806374
>but I feel like there would have to be some defining moment that means their spirits couldn't rest
Considering that you are dealing with elf spirits and not human spirits something like that their spirits are drawn and bound to this place could maybe make some sense. Maybe only to me.

>>53782315
My setting is actually earth so 1:1 I guess

Its a fallout/d&d/wildcards kind of setting.. I've played a few games with it with two groups one did pretty okish and the other group nearly broke the game with their heroes antics ( was still hella fun to gm though )

>>53806148
Okay so I take you created this map specifically with realistic geography and windflow in mind. The windflow carrying rain and mist from the sea made the western area grasslands, while the steppeland is far removed that source of rich water, which is why it is less fertile? And you can't just add another wind direction coming from the east, because that would cause the desert to change its climate and geography as well, right?
You could add mountains on the east coast of the desert, and add a westward-blowing wind from the east, thus the desert remains arid, while most of the steppeland remains untouched. If you want to preserve most of the steppeland's climate, you can add sparse mountains to its east coast or something similar, so the water only irridates the coastal regions and you're still left with steppland just in the middle of the continent.
Another way is to add more rivers to the region, and take notes from the Nile in Egypt. The Rivers flood once a year, spreading mineral rich water over its banks, making the strip of lands running alongside the rivers very lush and prosperous, regardless of the rest of the region. That way you could keep a steppe culture spread throughout the entire region, while simply accomodating for the effects a more river-centric geography would cause. Perhaps introduce a minor culture that permanently settles along the rivers, farming them?
As you said, increasing that lake in the centre to the size of a small sea would also help alot, I'm sure.
Assuming there's magic in your setting, you can also really invent any amount of reasons to introduce arable land.

>>53806273
How is death treated by the elves? What do they believe would cause someone to become restless after death? Are there specific things that need to be done to ensure that this doesn't happen (ie a certain type of burial, observance, ect.). If so these can be your reasons: something bad happened, proper funerary observances weren't had, ghosts mad as fuck.

>>53798845
Generally speaking, the idea of a resurrection is a tremendous concept. To breach the veil of death and bring someone back isn't something to be undertaken lightly, as the veil is only meant to go one way, and is quite likely to attempt to pull you right through rather than let you pull someone out. It will resist, sometimes violently.
As it is, only the oldest, largest, and most established churches have the resources, manpower, and money needed to consider such a thing. From the faith needed, to the force of will, to the expense of reagents, to the small army needed on hand for security purposes if something goes wrong, you're looking at something like the Vatican. That makes them closed to outsiders, which means you'll need to be a part of the church first. That can mean considerable works and donations on behalf of the party first before they are welcome enough to have the idea of a resurrection considered. And even if it were to happen, you can bet the burden of debt incurred would be painful. Expect to spend a few months wearing the church robes and serving as part of a guard in dangerous places to work off your fee.

Not sure if this is the right thread but do you guys know of some random generation tables for worlds? Specifically sci-fi planets and their inhabitants.

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>>53805483
I got back and was able to test it. Its closer but 3 and 4 are still superior, amounts were 2962, 5860, 5753, 3086
If you instead do distance from the result while not being over, that closes to 3801, 2294, 2276, 3685

I came up with something thats probably too far gone from the game but here it goes
Players pick three numbers per round, and place them face down on paper, and three coins are tossed.
They can now call or raise their bets.
When bets are settled, three dice are rolled, corresponding to a coin each.
If the coin is HEADS, player gets points corresponding to their written numbers provided the dice is HIGHER OR EQUAL to their pick.
If the dice is TAILS, they lose points equal to the inverse. 1=-6, 2=-5, etc.
Running three thousand single dice games, i get a wide variety of results. Each column is its own game
Player1: -109, 92, -29, 73, 126, 82, -5
Player2: -173, 21, 76, 266, 225, -29, -42
Player3: -61, -27, 246, 234, 209, -145, -5
Player4: 127, 122, 127, 91, 144, 34, -143
I dont know what the fuck the math is for it, I found it dicking around, but it produces a rather random spread that seems about equal chance of anyone to win, and it at least seems fun to me.
Thoughts?+

>>53808341
I forgot to mention, you only lose points on tails if your pick is higher than the dice.
So while 6 is the most likely to cost you points, you only lose 1

>>53789455
Only in the era where cavalry was still non-existing or a new thing, and chariots were the regular "cavalry".

>>53789657
Your making it up. Please cite a source for your blatantly stupid comment of fighting on horse being seen as queer. Please also develop how the stupid claim and your exposition on hoplitic warfare negates the fact that the highest classes were cavalry.

>>53782315
Depends on where you go in the galaxy, though the biggest known settlement is a dyson sphere

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>>53807607

Bumping because we're on the last page,

>What are the most geographically unique areas in your world?

Stuff like floating islands or infinite chasms, hit me with your best shot.

>>53815358
Wandering, floating sources of energy / gravitational wells out of which grow massive bioluminescent flying "bushes" populated by a race of avian humanoids

They act as nests/flying cities/sacred places for the avians, as well as magic and light sources, in place of stars (it's a hollow world)

From time to time, they drip pure liquid magic energy that falls to the ground below and is a priceless resource (unfortunately extremely volatile, and evaporates regardless of the means used to contain it)

>>53807119
Yeah its not ground up realistic but I'm using that as a guide. Good way to find interesting ideas I might not have thought of.

I like the flooding rivers idea I think I might use that for the southern desert culture. I didn't really have anything solid in mind for them and I can use the river that comes down from the mountains across the top of the desert for that, I think it fits fairly well (the Nile floods like that because of melt water from mountains upstream).

For the steppe I could expand on the inland lake, maybe increase its size or add in more lakes. I'm not sure how much of an effect that would have on local agriculture though, anybody have an idea or know of any real world parallels?

Of course magic can do anything but I'm not going that way at the moment.

>>53808428
Battles of the Ancient World: 1285 BC ~ AD 451: From Kadesh to Catalaunian Field
By Kelly Devries, Martin Doughterty, Iain Dickie, Phyllis G. Jestice, & Rob S. Rice
Amber Books, Ltd.
2007
Leuctra 371 BC
page 73
In regard to contemporary Greek tactics:
"Light cavalry were also employed, but mainly as scouts. Good horses ere hard to come by and cavalry service was not popular for social reasons. There was, I the eyes of the Greek citizen-soldier of the fourth century BC, something just not quite right about a man who could afford to accoutre himself as a hoplite and take his place in the phalanx as a real man should, yet choose to buy a horse and go to war sitting down."

Keep in mind that true war horses have to be bred and trained for that purpose, and the Ancient Greeks put little emphasis on sound so thanks to the terrain of their homeland. Their method of war worked, so they saw little reason to change.
Ironically, the chapter in question details the Theban victory over Sparta by using an atypical phalanx formation and relying more heavy on their cavalry for direct combat duties.

>>53782315
It's endless, but divided into endless amount of sectors. Sectors are sized from 0.3 to x8 compared to Earth. Each sector has it's stars, circling around sectors. Starseed flows from Abyss up to atmosphere, where it charges with unnatural energies of higher plane, grows into star, then falls into another entrance to Abyss, where it discharges, dies and becomes seed again. One guy was learning this shit for five centuries and become able to bring stars straight to the ground.

>>53815358
1\3
Rings of Hatred:
Around five continents which serve as Empire's heart, three collossal rings of frozen ice are placed. Ice does not melts nor flows anywhere. Rings connect with each other in some places, and in some places inner ring connects with continents. All water there behaves differently: snow flows like liquid, and ice sometimes breaks, cracks forming incantation texts and ritual signs, like rings are trying to weave spells themselves. Boiling water rises from within great cavities, just to freeze and form structures resembling forests. Different anomalies wander in these lands, from huge storms of raw and maddened spirits, travelers can find themselves watching at black sun or stars changing their colour. Sometimes, those apparitions are stable and safe, sometimes, these natural phenomena seem to be sentient and malicious.
But name of frozen rings came nor from their harsh climate, nor from anomalies. Inhabited by bizarre megafauna which is agressive and adapted horrific conditions, rings became place of exile and banishmet for Empire's most treacherous, atrocious and ambitious caste. Their Father, Wael, tried to take over the throne, when other Fathers journeyed far. Returning, they saw what he did, and most of them refused to understand his good intentions, cursing and exiling him and his kin.
Talented in magic and science, they took humans and made deformed slaves. Grand beasts, proud inhabitants of Rings, were resewn and reformed to serve as walking castles and settlements, bastards of flesh and metal. Thousand of years they was in exile, adapting to worst condition and forming very close-knit but deviant and machiavellian society. Finally when Emperor Abbadon returned them from exile, hoping to get help for finishing civil war, he recieved title "All-forgiving" and most bizarre war machines imaginable. As well as Wael caste recieved endless materials, ideas and funds for their research.

Your all of suck and I never EVER play your game.

>>53818368
Merci

>>53818368
Man don't talk my setting that!

>>53818368
brb killing myself

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>>53799444
Unfortunately, I can't do much with this, since I will allow for random resurrections simply caused by people dying at a place that randomly courses with enough magical energy to return them from death (of course, because it's a random 'natural' process it might not be a perfect resurrection).

>>53807452
>To breach the veil of death and bring someone back isn't something to be undertaken lightly, as the veil is only meant to go one way, and is quite likely to attempt to pull you right through rather than let you pull someone out. It will resist, sometimes violently.
Fuck the ritual of resurrection up, and it kills you? I like it.
Your second suggestion is also useful.

I've also been thinking about (typical) resurrections resulting in people retaining their corpse look for a long time, and in some pretty bad cases (like being chopped up, burned to a crisp, reduced to a skeleton, etc.) you will just forever look like a walking corpse, no matter how many healing poultices you smear over your corpse face.

If anyone has any other ideas on the physical problems of resurrection magic, feel free to post some. I don't think I need more ideas on the psychological or mental aspects of resurrection magic, seeing how that's already a very common trope in fantasy media. Or getting the wrong soul in your body, or getting possessed by supernatural things. Unless you have something really spicy and special.

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Are cities and villages built into sheer cliff sides a plausible thing, can it even sustain itself?

>>53823195

Don't think so.I wouldn't believe it if I read it. Sci-fi maybe.

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>>53823195
Well, cliff villages certainly exist, though they would usually have their food sources below them (be it farming or fishing).
They exist because you may want to build on highs if they are dangerous shits below. Things like:
- the sea, the sea is dangerous
- a river that tend to overflow
- invaders
For example, in Corsica, you would have a port at water level and its village higher in the mountain. There must be some seasonal activity but it also allowed villagers to take refuge in the upper village when invaders where spotted, leaving the port empty.

Of course, in a fantasy world it could be all sort of things like gigantic dinosaurs roaming below or whatever.

>>53823195
If the city or village can produce products that outweigh the costs of importing products they cannot produce themselves, yes.

There is some village in Asia that harvests rare honey, that's literally the only reason that village is build on cliffs.

>>53823195
In fantasy? Hell yeah.

>>53823195
In some mountainous environments, people tend to build houses on top of cliffs and on bare rock because arable land is so precious that any exploitable soil is systematically cultivated in terraces
I think they do that in Bhutan, probably in the Andes and in Tibet too

>>53782315
>ITT: How big is your world, compared to Earth?
Jupiter sized.
Strangely the gravity is mostly the same as Earth, but almost nobody knows about it because space travel/study is really limited, so they cannot do any comparison and even less people know the truth behind it..

>>53823613
to add, could also be used to reduce how many sides you have to defend, making land-based invaders all come from one side.

Combine it with a strong defensive navy, geographical bottleneck rendering the sea safe from large ships, or impressive defenses. Hell, you could take high fantasy literally and make the cliffs too high for cannonballs etc to destroy due to not having enough momentum to do real damage.

>>53824154
>the truth behind it
Well what is it, anon ?

>>53800342
>>53800643
Anything?

>>53824717
Look up actual alchemy, hermetic traditions, ceremonial magic and vaudou, rather than fantasy magic
Seems to be more like what you're looking for

Pick a culture in your world and then pick a color. What does this color symbolize for this culture? Why?

>>53824387
To know that I would've to explain all the setting, and sincerely speaking, it would be too much time, also because I need to prepare some material until tomorrow.

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filled in one of the river kingdoms, decided it's main export would be fighters, driven by the need to get away from the boring ass life there.

Its the ohio of my setting.

The arrows indicate the journey of some depressed logger, tired from carrying the supple, supremely damp wood that grew in the stagnant forests that plagued the base of the half-moon mountains. Everyone loved how easy to bend the wood was, keeping its moisture for many years after being cut down, but easily dried into shape while still maintaining a flexiblity useful for titanic galleons that would otherwise snap as soon as they encountered a strong sidewind that blew them into a current. Baiscally you can make the titanic out of this wood, and after you dry it its hydrophobic, nobody knows why.
Anyway, boy walks up blue path, looks at the lake in front of him and sees a glimmer of hope, because the water looks brighter on account of the cold-water jets that come up below it, nobody knows why but they sort of carbonate the water and make it slightly viscous and weighty, while also making it clear and sparkly. Anyway, the lake to his right is boring old H2O, but its stocked with fish and a moderate temperature, the waters he always knew. Then to his right lay a barren lake bed, the future of his life here, slowly drying out in the humid, stale air that oppressed the shadow of the mountain he spent his whole life in.

I put some blue lines to make it easier to see

>>53812531
Rock n' rollin because why the fuck not, maybe it'll give me ideas to make my setting less generic/more interesting.

Rolled 10, 7, 23, 2, 8, 24, 24, 25, 17, 25, 2, 23, 14, 9, 24, 22 = 259 (16d25)

>>53825928
Fuck.

Can anybody help me with adding a bit to a player's backstory? Their character ended up in a casino run by a leprechaun and both won and lost a bunch of things but I'm trying to figure out some extra things. She intentionally lost her kid (unknowingly to a group of fae that are loosely related to her and interested in her and her son), won a belt that lets her become a wolf, lost most of her memories in getting to and being in the casino (hence my adding things), was forced to sign over her services to a group the PCs work for, and lost the seat she was sitting in (binding the winner to it). I want a couple other things she lost or won with the end total being in her favor slightly.

>>53784740
Looks cool.

>>53785251

That is an overwhelming piece of work. Top marks.

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I'm writing a guide to quickly generating settings on the fly.

What are some things a Generic European Peasant thinks people get up to in Foreign Parts?

>>53827143
Deviltry, probably

>>53827143
Immoral sexual acts or bathing.

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>>53827163
Ah, yes, but what sorts? I mean, they /obviously/ worship the Devil, but how?

I heard they toss babies down wells every Christmas eve.

>>53827177
Ah yes, but what sort of immoral sexual acts? Bearing in mind you're a peasant with a limited imagination, and this is a blue board.

Also, bathing?!? In the water? With soap?

>>53827211
>implying anything that isn't in the missionary position for the express purpose of procreation isn't the height of immorality

Rolled 5, 3, 16, 23, 24, 24, 17, 11, 5, 25, 21, 19, 14, 24, 17, 6 = 254 (16d25)

>>53812531
let's see

>>53827211
I bet giving a woman an orgasm during missionary would be considered an immoral sexual act

>>53782315
If no single plant or animal within a fantasy setting is lifted, beyond base inspiration, from the real world, is that setting to alien or exotic to be relate-able?

>>53827300
I vaguely remember reading about someone that thought taking pleasure in sex within marriage was akin to cheating. Pretty sure that was from the 19th century though.

My setting is of essentially infinite size. Human beings are antithetical to magic, causing the plane to solidify into geographic forms where they walk. The effect becomes more solid the more people there are, and the longer they've been in a certain area. This also effects magical beings- no Fae in cities, but farmers on the Fringe frequently have to deal with the undead attacking.

General critique? Possible issues I'm probably overlooking?

>>53827346
nope, that's perfectly fine as long as you have a human analogue that thinks similar to the way we do

>>53827469
Awesome, I have several.

14, 24, 17, 6

Astrophysics: Weaker magnetic field
Geography: Mostly aquatic
Prevailing Climate: high pollution
Native Biology: no native

Aesthetic: Choose two (Pacific Rim Islanders, Dead Post apocalypse from new rolls)
Dominant Race: Arthropodal Beastmen and Strong Humanoids
Supernatural: Common, Weak Supernatural
Number of civs: 3

civilization 1: Migratory Humans who need to work together on their colony ships. Don't like others.
Primary Values: Dignity, Happiness, Xenophobia
Economy: Consumer Goods
Philosophy: Colonization
Government: Pacific Islander Folk religion

Civilization 3: Neptune worshiping, roman-centric crab people.
Primary Values: Innovation
Economy: Slavery, Soldiers/Mercs
Philosophy: Greco-Roman Folk Religion
Government: Fascism

Civilization 3: Druggie vikings
Main value: Endurance
Economy: Medicine/drugs
Philosophy: Scandinavian folk religion
Government: Mob Rule

Defining Feature of the campaign: Curse/Superstition
Overall Theme: Discovery of an artifact
Start of Campaign: You hear a loud boom
The Enemy: The end of the world itself

So I'm thinking some sort of heavy metal, super gritty, Moana wannabe story in an overly polluted archipelago that had a colony ship from another planet crash into it. Maybe the PC's find it, and have to stop it from exploding? I dunno.

How were taxes collected when trade was done primarily in barter? Did someone drive out to farms with a bunch of carts after harvest and just cart off a shitload of grain or what?

Rolled 2, 1, 14, 6, 25, 22, 2, 17, 25, 17, 18, 10, 12, 1, 24, 3 = 199 (16d25)

>>53812531

>>53827570
That or the farmers carried their tax to a collector.

>>53827634
And how did they identify fraud? Was it basically, "you have this many acres, you should have produced roughly this much grain, give me this percent," and if it was a bad harvest for you, fuck you, you're still paying the same amount?

>>53827752
That would vary greatly depending on the region/society/authority in question.

A lot of the times you just had to provide something that met or exceeded what was required of you. If you failed to meet your harvest quota, you could pay with your animals, other raw goods you might have, or even manufactured goods such as baskets, blankets, jewelry, furniture.

If you're the head of your house and your society did not condemn slavery, you could also pay with slaves or your children/siblings/wives.

Is there a particular society you're drawing inspiration from?

>>53827832
16th century western Europe, because I'm a generic faggot.

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>>53827851

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>>53827973

>>53827991
>these slimy peasants are innovating and dodging our taxes!
>just raise the taxes per door, fuck the honest peasants that never tried to dodge taxes in the first place
The fact such corruption was publicly accepted is heartstroking. Fucking over your honest workers because a few were scummy.

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I'm using Inkarnate to create world maps, but whatever I do I end up dissatisfied with my maps. Perhaps because I usually end up creating entire continents, ending up with individual nations and regions of the world being very long and thin with few features.

What "base rules" or rules of thumb do you guys use when making world maps of your setting? Some general advice would be nice. I think that personally I want to map out too much and therefore end up going "wide" rather than "deep", which is my flaw.

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>>53827973
>>53827991
>Door and Window taxes
Oh shit, we had something like that in the Netherlands too. IIRC during the days of the United Provinces, households were taxed based on how broad they were. As such, a lot of old houses in cities like Amsterdam are narrow but long.

>>53828394
I tried using Inkarnate and then abandoned it because I ran into the same issue building the world on a large scale. Trying to build it on a smaller scale runs into two other issues, either it doesn't line up right with the large map or multiple small maps don't line up. Hand drawn tends to work best, I'm not the best at drawing but I did ok with that until my group decided we should do a different system so I had to drop working more on that campaign.

>>53827973
>>53827991
Thanks, anon

>>53821515
Actually, I was suggesting that you can do absolutely everything correctly, and it still proceeds to suck the priest in and kill him, while releasing a screaming horde of hellspawn from the other side to punish you for your folly because the priest in question might have, just for a moment, had the slightest hint of doubt in his own conviction to his faith and his task.
And you definitely still look dead. Any injuries you had that managed to get patched up still have to heal, you're going to have a wicked scar, be pale and heavily prone to bruising as the blood works on circulating properly again, to say nothing of how your personality may have changed after seeing what waited for you on the other side.

>>53782315
How bad is it if my languages are all Caesar-cyphered Esperantidoj? Is it alright as long as my players don't speak Esperanto?

>>53792667
If you want to check out what kind of ridiculous environments wizards with world-shaping powers can create, check out the World of Tiers novels by my boy Phillip José Farmer, staring with The Maker of Universes.
Apparently there is even a french RPG based on it called Thoan - Les Faiseurs d'Univers.

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>>53795912
The Blackbramble
The Wield of Woe
Bludskag Timberlands
The Crown of Thorns
The White Willow Woods (or just White Willows)
Hagstump Forest.

My world is same size as earth because I do just use earth. Nothing wrong with earth. Saves the ball ache of creating and mapping a world. Even use some history and there are plenty of Gods to use also. Rules Cyclopedia all the way faggots

>>53825834
what sort of fuckdickery created this geographic abomination?

>>53827143
>>53827177
>>53827211
Generic European peasant when and where?

For centuries after the fall of the western Roman empire people enjoyed and valued bathing and would (infrastructure and time permitting) bathe as much as they could. The Christian church heavily advocated frequent bathing and invested in building public bathhouses. Though gender segregated of course, the classical mixed bathing was for obvious reasons seen as immoral by them.

Later on as public bathhouses became heavily associated with prostitution opposition to them began to grow. Though this did not happen in Nordic countries where saunas and the like have remained popular and in frequent use from at least the early middle ages right up until today.

It was only during the late middle ages/renaissance period up until the early to mid 19th century or so that bathing was seen as unhealthy or dangerous and generally unfavoured and not practiced.

>>53828459
Oh, I've heard of that. I think they used to do something similar in France or Britain or somewhere as well. Ended up since they taxed the place based on the ground floor people built buildings that were small on the ground floor but larger on higher floors.

>>53828860
It'll be obvious that it's a cipher of something but your players probably aren't going to bother trying to figure it out.

>>53827386
>>villages will be forever attacked by undead
>>humans are not stupid
>>hyperurbanisation
Also, to provide more critique, I need more mechanics. Why humans are atithetical to magic? There are no human sorcerers? Are humans present more or less everywhere, or not?

Looking for some help with my idea for a magic system for my world.

So far ive got it as:
- people have sparks/souls/inner power etc
- through study and focus you can attune your spark to one of the realms of the spiritual plane. This changes the qualities and colour of the spark.
> copper: one with natures beasts. Small synch allows talking with animals / empathy. Experts: warging Full synch: shape shifting
> Yellow: one with the storm. Small: sensing weather patterns. Expert: minor electrical discharge and gusts. Master: full storms on demand.
> Blue: Winter.
> Red: Fire.
> silver: Earth and metals.

What im looking for is 2 things.
1. Other ideas in general
2. One of my players wants to play a necromancer and to accomodate him im looking to design another realm and have no idea of the direction i should take

>>53832543
>blue:Winter. Small: survive in the cold, stay cool in the heat. Expert: alter temperatures around you. Master: fracture objects and destroy flesh through rapid temperature fluctuations

Might do more after my shower.

>>53832543
small: speak with dead
expert: bring back the dead as your typical mockeries of nature but still totally alive you did it
full:bring back anything as it once was

>>53832543
Colour should be black, it's obvious. It can be also green or dark-violet.
>>53832697
Nah, boi, that's not what necromancers want.

Small: Speak with dead, feel how much time someone has until he's dead.
Midtier: Weakening, corrupting, cursing, all this - slow as hell. Summoning ghosts who randomly lose some part of their memory or abilities, like ghosts becoming blind or deaf when summoned. (think about detective abilities, still crime punishment will still have much challenge.) The longer person was dead, the more abilities and memories it will lose. Partially reanimating shit. You can make dead skin with nerves feel again and dead muscles twitch.
Expert: Sapping life out of creature. Endvisions - person sees it's death. Reanimating corpses without memories or abilities - puppet-style. Summoned ghosts regain their memories and abilities to feel and shit, but can become malicious or shocked. Deadgrasp - unholy strength, which eats away one's health. Disease intuition and manipulation: with rituals, individual can understand how disease works, cant magically heal it, but can make it worse (It would partially explain why necromancers are so grim: you can better people's life, but only if they listen to you. And well, they won't if it's not a magocracy.)
Master-tier: Bringing back dead people with sacrifices. Manipulating dead tissues. Powerful curses, ability to make person ill with snap of fingers. And my favourite part of necromancy: pseudolife. Or quasilife. With enough planning and knowledge, expirienced necromancer can get some organs, bodies and other shit, sew them together and make atrocious creatures. For example, he can do something like walking ballista: four human legs, two bodies, and pneumogun which shoots bone javelins out of deformed mouth. Lungs, muscles, sphyncters and hollowed bones used instead of usual pneumatic gun system.
The point of last ability is vast creative potential.

>>53832543
>>53832619
> Red: Fire. Small: creating warm spectres of light. Expert: conjure flames and beams of light. Master: raving firestorms, raving firestorms condensed into tiny balls of explosive force, burning heat rays.
> silver: Earth and metals. Small: pseudo-magnetic powers. Expert: weld metal together given time, bend metal weakly, detect metals. Master: solid metals are like liquid in your hands, wear a plate metal suit perfectly without any seams at the joints, close your visors like eyelids when in danger, and shapeshift any metal object you touch or if allowed some time any metal object around you

>>53800342
>>53824717
Have the magic be a mix of:

-convoluted/complicated (you have to spend years to do even the most basic things),

-difficult to access (the knowledge of magic comes from very old documents or relics, only a few spells and rules are known, in order to learn more you have to go on dangerous or potentially fruitless expeditions)

-dangerous to use (it's very volatile/unstable, results are inconsistant or one small mistake when doing a lame-ass spell could have grave consequences).

-brandmarked (learning magic is perceived to be evil or at least very immoral, probably because of the danger and destruction it can lead to)

>>53825834
looks really good, but there's almost too much wizard-fuckery going on for my taste

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I want to make a setting where genetics basically don't exist and anything can essentially breed with anything. The reason being that it's a way to explain millions of races, monsters, mutant animals, and many other creatures in the world.

Trolls? Some guy fucked a mountain.
Centaurs? Horse fucker.
Manticores? Some female lion fucked a WHOLE bunch of stuff.

The issue is I don't really want to make this super gross or magical realm, just as a background for explanation to make the setting more folklore and weird. I'm thinking maybe the more different the two things are that it requires more love or random chance to work? So humans have human children all the time, but it's pretty uncommon to find someone who loves pigs enough to actually make a pigman, who in turn finds it easier to make more pig people. And then it's REALLY rare for someone to love a hillside enough to bang it and make rock people. Any ideas on how to make this sound like sexual, or is it mostly just my presentation that is making it sound this way?

>>53833475
Just make the world full of weird stuff without giving an explanation. Have for example the troll casually say his mom was a mountain.

If your player are the weirdos tell them that his mom as a mountain. That's how it works here if you're a troll.

>>53831832
Is public bathing entering the magical realms?

>>53832261
Hyperurbanization is the predicted consequence, yeah. You get centralized cities with outlying farms that are basically only populated during the day.

The setting has three gods: the Ancestor, the Patriarch, and the Heir. The Ancestor is ancient and mystic and generally Cthulhu-like. He created magic and the Fey, which are basically living magical vortices. The Heir made demons, which are emotions and dreams given sentience. The Patriarch desired a more reliable race to enact great works, so he made Man, and cursed him to weaken magic.

Human beings cannot channel magic. Magical artifacts don't work in their hands either, and magical beings are wounded by their presence. The more of them and the longer they've been somewhere, the stronger the effect.

Some humans, by leaving letters and gifts, communicate with the Fey and Demons and ask them to do magic on their behalf. That's about as close as you get. The Patriarch has also given humanity a vanguard of a sorts, known as the Ascended. Randomly selected from the most worthy humans, Ascended are to normal people as Lancelot was to knights. They're charged with protecting humanity from the most dangerous threats, meaning most live on the Fringe of human expansion. Technically not magic, but divinely-endowed superhuman abilities might count for some.

Human beings are certainly not everywhere, due to their urbanized trend. They inhabit a small area of an infinite plane, though certain individuals enjoy expanding the Fringe merely to experience the challenge of its denizens. And it is quite profitable, as well.

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>>53823195
Late but nobody mentioned them yet
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestral_Puebloans

>>53833475
It should be either gods fucking, either mages fucking, either >>53833518

>>53782315
The world is roughly 80% the size of earth, and 70% as massive. A year is about 283 days around a star slightly less massive than the sun

>>53828469
>>53828394
I made a world map at first for my setting, but as I fleshed out the setting and the peoples that lived in it, I'd make some changes. For campaigns I'd always make a regional and continental map, so I just connect one from the other, and it gives me time to reshape other regions

>>53834323
So, basically, Ancestor's and Heir's world got cancer. What's their opinion on Patty? I'd honestly BTFO'ed him for this. Also
>>someone gets butthurt because cant do anything but mundane shit
>>because he wants to make not mundane shit, goes to Fringe, gets redpilled by Fey\Demons
>>begins to exercise in clusterfucking people's mind
>>cult found.
>>we need inquisition

And troubles with farms conception are:
>>we've got undead, demons and fae
>>surely, there are demons of cold hatred
>>they got int to make ballista or trebouchet
>>at least magic warmachine throwing rocks
>>dayfarm:gone

If undead can function at night in non-magic space, then they'd fuck up fields for good.
If they cant - what's the point, humanity has no challenge literally.

And guerilla war between humans is going to be insanely effective.
>>no humans on the dayfarm
>>some fucker burned it

So, because of all these, I'd put farms and shit inside city, which would have a multiple wall rows. Like you have one row for citadel, second row for suburbs and third row for sort-of farms. Also, hyperurbanisation is not just a consequence, it's a problem.

And basically, settlers would be sort of fucked or had to have Ascended amongst them. Or be very numerous\sporadic, like K\r strategies IRL.

So, to continue critics, I need to know how undead work, how demons work and what's fae-human interaction. Crossbreeds? How trade between humans works?

>>53834874
And also point of humanity development. Medieval? Bronze age?

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>>53834547
Should be noted that the Puebloans built into cliffs for some of the reasons listed previously
>>53823613
>>53824212
>>53824081

The cliff dwellings were basically like a castle, but without a vulnerable gate. When invaders come, you retreat to the cliff houses, pull up the ladders, and just wait for them to leave while you harass them with projectiles from the high ground.

Their food primarily came from farming, which involved some fairly complex irrigation. Even though the climate was wetter in past centuries, storms would still be fairly infrequent, so they had large reservoirs to store water and canals to distribute it to farmland. They also sometimes farmed in canyons, and cliffside or clifftop houses provided shelter from floods.

The other main reason the Puebloans built into cliffsides was to create milder temperatures. Not only does the cliff provide shade, but the solid rock acts as a giant heatsink: it's pleasantly cool during the scorching hot days, and pleasantly cool during the below-freezing desert night.

>>53834906
>>53834874
The Heir hates the Patriarch with a passion, the Ancestor is trying to poison him because he's annoyed. As of right now, they're basically locked in power-parity.

Those are good points about how farms would function and the difficulties of maintaining them overnight. Also, the warfare shtick is pretty neat. Perhaps hydroponics and vertical farms within city limits are more common? Alternately, dayfarms are arrayed around a central defensive tower that all the workers retreat to at night to repel and weather the siege?

I was shooting for an interwar-period tech level. Rudimentary cars and tanks, trains are common, cartridge guns are a go, but wireless is in its absolute infancy and got obvious reasons the telegraph isn't half as impactful as it is in our world.

Trade is done by blimp and rail line. Oceans are dangerous because they're still largely magical, on account of nobody permanently living there. Large blimps have to deal with harpies and some other demons, but they're out of reach of the giant Behemoths that lurk in the deep. Trade is difficult along all but the most established of routes, so you get lots of citystates instead of larger governments. The Fringe exports products harvested from the Fey and their semi-magical landscapes, while the Core takes advantage of its relative safety to pump agricultural products throughout the realm.

>>53835094
Fae/Demon interaction is limited to possession and exchanging favors. Attempts to crossbreed are painful for both parties and are ultimately doomed to failure, if not death for all involved.

Demons and Fae that successfully possess a human being (sometimes with consent from the host) gain immunity from the wasting effects of proximity to humanity, but they also lose the ability to perform most of their magics.

Most interaction is performed with a weapon in hand.

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>>53835026
Oh, also notable is the fact that many of the pueblo cliff "houses" are actually granaries. Your food is the most important thing to protect from invaders.

So, in a fantasy setting, a cliff city is probably built for protection: the same reason why you have castles and city walls. The main city and the farms are probably on the ground, and only the most important things are actually built into the cliff. That might be noble quarters, granaries, banks, public shelters, schools, temples, etc. Maybe the cliff city started as a simple shelter or granary, but slowly spread across the cliff as it attracted commerce and the population expanded.

>>53823195
In fantasy, cliff cities would be an especially good fit for some kind of bird race, although I don't know if that was what you were thinking about.

>>53831832
Stop being a dirty peasant apologist.

>>53783129
I ran a minecraft server like that once.

>>53825834
This map looks great, but the meteor impact / portal is bothering me. the whole map is seems like a slightly tilted viewing angle (from the south/west perspective) but that grey landmass is a perfect circle at the top.

Should be slightly skewed like the mountains/tress imo.

>>53834004
As long as they are separated into male-only and female-only baths, no. Combined bathing is begging for magical realm.

>>53837485
Because homo bathhouse sex is the best and therefore doesn't count as magical realm

>>53837054
the mountains and trees are tilted like that because I didn't want to draw them top down, and then the line between isometric view and stylized mountains got really blurry once I started integrating the art for the mountains directly into the coastlines for sheer cliffs and stuff, so I don't blame you.

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>>53837485
I'm leaning more towards a sort of communal bathing... stream and pond in a very garden like village. Ladies only town

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Rate my mapu

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>>53838735
What's here?

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>>53838735
A lot of sea raiders in the north?

>>53838735
Those stringy islands to the Northeast look like a rare bacteria strand, but otherwise 10/10 nice islands homo

>>53838735
Cool country. The little islands in the north looks like southern Chile.

>>53838822
I VILL DRIENK FROM YUR ZKULL

Wanted to know if there were good tools for creating flags and heraldry.

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>>53838831
>>53838915
Thanks!

>>53838822
You know it

>>53838817
Pic related, Might be a fun spot for buried treasure or the PC's to get stranded!

>>53839283
kek

>>53838915

Chupame la corneta

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>Ask players for input on the setting of the next campaing
>"Idk, mountains?"
>Okay so rugged mountains like the Himalayas, or gentle, forested mountains like Appalachians?
>"Idk, just do whatever."
>Prod for more input
>No input given

Well dammit /tg/ help me make an interesting mountain setting for these fucks

>>53840749
Hexcrawl West Marches-style btw

>>53840749
Goddamn insane harsh mountain ranges that make the Himalayas look like hilly plains.

>>53840749
Are you making a new setting entirely or just a new zone in an established setting you've played in before?
In the former, then make the entire world mountainous, and create cultures from there.
The disparity between valleys and the higher-climate cultures should be apparent. You can also rip off a lot of those really cool east asian mountain temples, both for just village aesthetics, religious stuff, and for outright dungeons.
And of course, caves everywhere.
Even the simplest of setting ideas can be cool when you just take it to an extreme.

>>53841048
Making one from scratch. This is my first time making a homebrew setting.
I do like the asian inspiration over Norse/Skyrim inspiration

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>>53840749
Modern day caucasus region.

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>>53841397
>more ethnicities in the Caucasus than in most fantasy settings
oh how I wish worldbuilders would spam ethnicities and include minorities in nations

takes a lot of work though, I've only come up with ~100

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>>53840749
The great thing about mountains is that they let you pack a lot of different environments into one area. Climates can be different at different altitudes and on each side of the mountain. You could have fun with this by playing up the differences. Maybe a devastating wind, a noxious gas, or a wave of anti-life magic blows across the land, but the mountains protect from it, leaving one side bountiful and the other side barren. Maybe out in the wasteland there are ruins of a civilization that are laden with treasure or perhaps even a means to understand or stop the wind, if adventurers are brave enough to face the dangers and whatever foul creatures there may be that could survive such desolate conditions. Perhaps some of these foul creatures are organized and seek what's on the other side of the mountain, either to claim it for their own or to spread whatever disease infests their lands.

>>53784740
This is a cool looking map. The island chain is a bit too uniform, but if it's not natural that's fine. Also, a meteor big enough to cause the impact crater on the eastern continent would obliterate the planet.

>>53786133
I've used wilbur before. How do you get the mountains/height maps to look so good? All of mine are far too "blocky", and don't look like individual peaks at all no matter how hard I try to input a good height map.

>>53838735
Upside down South East Asia/10

>>53841397
>>53841529
MAP ISN'T FULL. I'm not shitting you, I'm russian and there are lot of caucasians in my university, despite most of them mentally being rich niggers, some of them are decent. And from those decent people I know a lot about Caucasus, and map consists of most known and wide-spread nationalities only.
Also, interactions between these tribes are quite clusterfuckery because of MUH REVENGE KILLING.

>>53841529
It also makes for really confusing worldbuilding for other people to pick up on. Most people simplify it just so people don't spend the entire time reading the book/whatever going "wait, what nationality was that again?"

>>53838822
Varg?

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>>53841529
>>53843246

>takes a lot of work though, I've only come up with ~100

Tabulate it. Remember, a 10x10 table is 100 results, and that's just to start. It'd be much more useful to go procedural and general.

>>53802821
ay this is fucking cool would love to hear more

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Any reccomendations for an island populated by amazon cat women?

>>53844750
throw it in the bin

>>53844750
>>53844763
a microcosm of /wbg/

>>53844763
Why? Because of furfaggotry? Fuck you, I want advice, and I won't take "no" for an answer.

>>53844750
Let them be wiped out by smallpox

But really, what are you looking for

>>53844750
Make them more cat than women and don't commit so hard to Amazonian influence, it's a tried and boring trope to have an island full of amazon women. As long as you take from a different cultural influence, even if you keep them all female, people are less likely to notice.

>>53844951
How would they reproduce without any males to mate with? Are they normal catfolk, or are they blessed/cursed with immortality? I'm just spitballing here. Anyone have a reason why these cats would be isolated?

>>53845164
>Anyone have a reason why these cats would be isolated?
God told Noah to build an ark to save all the animals. Unfortunately Noah was a crazy cat person and so only kept all his pet cats on his boat. When the flood ended, the ark landed on the island and the cats magically evolved into humanoids by eating their owner or something

>>53845164
Extreme sexual dimorphism.

The males of their species are just ordinary cats, so everyone assumes the race is entirely catgirls.

>>53844750
Don't put them in a setting with Pepe-Island.

>>53845313
That explains why they won't put out for just any tom dickin' harry.

>>53845071
>>53845207
>>53845313
Maybe there are two sides of the island. One male, one female. Something caused the two sexes to split from one another long ago and they are uncertain where their children come from. Perhaps they are an experiment of a cabal of wizards that has been operating the island for thousands of years.

>>53845444
I'm not, the amazon cat women island was the only idea worth salvaging in the entire thread. (At least the only idea that got a get)

DMing my first game tomorrow. It's a one-shot, because our usual DM's pc died, so I'm covering. I've built the part of the world the adventure is supposed to take place, as well as the relevant dungeon/npcs. How much beyond that should I go for safety's sake?

>>53845811
It's pretty last minute for that, anon. Just have a general idea of what's going on in the surrounding areas so that if they ever come up in conversation you have something prepared to form an answer with, as opposed to being put on the spot and just drawing from the most generic fantasy tropes ever.

Does anybody have a go to for coming up with names for fae especially lords and ladies? Generally I go with various celtic names but most of my fae are younger and more assimilated so I have issues with really old ones.

I dont know if this really belongs here, but I don't know who else to ask. What challenges would someone face if they become immortal but had to conduct research while keeping themselves hidden? What I mean is, if you started and staffed a company, assuming you had enough to pay the leases and whatnot, who would be checking in to investigate? What if you're a scientific reseach company? As long as you paid your bills/taxes, would anybody notice or care if you never actually did anything and your staff names were people who didn't exist?

>>53849596
Other companies, spies, special governmental forces. Maybe some cult with creepy guy who knows shit he shouldn't know.

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>>53783109
As many have said it all depends on the richness of the city. An example you might want to look up further is Palmyra, a semi-autonomous city state located on the border between the Sassanid and Roman Empire which grew ludicrously wealthy on the trade between the two powers. During the Crisis of the Third Century leaders from this city managed to wrest control over the the eastern parts of the Roman Empire and succesfully managed to fight off the Sassanids. Eventually the "Palmyran Empire" was forcefully reintegrated into the Roman Empire by Aurelian. To make it even more interesting the Great Person of this "steward" empire was the brilliant Queen Zenobia.
The majority of her army was made up of Cataphracts.

>>53845550
It isn't and it didn't.

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>>53843246
>Most people simplify it
That's what happens IRL aswell. Different ethnicities, cultures, subcultures gets bunched together into one when you are not particularly invested in a place.
I hardly think that most people here could differentiate götar from svear or even those two from norrlänningar or skåningar if they aren't atleast from the nordic countries.

>>53782315
Its sad when 4chan doesn't have a trove for pirated map making tools and instead links you to the official webpages so you buy shit. Meanwhile 7chan does have trove for pirated map making tools.

why you do this, /tg/?

>>53782315
How big is too big? I'm making a setting that has people mining a dead eldritch for a regenerative substance found in it and I'm not sure of the size this thing should be. I've gone everywhere from planet sized to the size of a star system and while I understand these creatures are supposed to mind bogglingly large it seems that there's a fine line between incomprehensible and silly

>>53853654
Depends on your settings tech level and the themes you want to emphasize. For a gritty low magic medieval stasis setting even a planet is too large. For a high drama epic space opera a star system is too small.

>>53782315
Mine is nearly 10,000 lightyears. It is a section of the milky way.

What magic is outlawed by the various powers of your setting and why?

>>53854567
Killing mortals (when not in self-defense against another mortal with magic and mortal only refers to humans), transforming other mortals even with permission (changing yourself is fine), Invading the thoughts of other mortals, mind controlling other mortals, creating zombies of mortals, time travel and divining things too far ahead, and messing with eldritch abominations from outside of reality. The way for all but the last two is that it fundamentally changes who you are and makes you more likely to do it in the future over lesser issues and the last two are because of paradoxes and the abominations want to destroy our reality so why the fuck would you let one in?

>>53853493
If you want to share them, go ahead.

>>53853654
Eldritch creatures don't have to be mindboggling huge, they just have to be incomprehendible to the human mind. I find the best way to do this is to not even give them a set size, but instead to remove the concept of physical form from them entirely.
Maybe for whatever reason, when it died its body started bleeding into 3D space, so they're just mining from a small portion of its body which is replacing the material makeup of whatever planet they're on. The more they mine, the more of its corpse slips through, so it's seemingly endless.

Could you make paper from trees with medieval technology?

>>53857143
papyruses existed in Egypt 10,000BC. so did in Greek times. Remember the Library of Alexandria? Or that one Roman library that was burned to death by Christians? the one they made a movie out of.

Papers aren't a modern invention, Print, however, is. The ability to mass produce books is relatively new.

>>53857351
>Or that one Roman library that was burned to death by Christians?
Common misconception, the christians burned the temple, which the library was a part of. Though the library got destroyed before that several times and we have no idea if there even was a library at this point.

>>53857448
Shit, well temples also had books anyway. Right? Weren't temples meant to gather knowledge as well?

>>53857474
Yes because the Church was basically the center of learning and scientific thought, so with the rarity and value of books, they were more than likely all stored in tempels such as those.

>>53857351
Papyrus and actual paper are not the same thing, and have some pretty significant differences. For one thing papyrus has the tendency to rapidly disintergrate in the wrong climate.

>>53857143
Probably not unless there is an economically feasible way to ensure that woodpulp gets mashed into useful fibres that does not involve a time-travelling Victorian era papermill.

It could happen in a fantasy setting but you would need a crazy strong creature and it would not be economically viable. A super golem is far too useful to waste making tree paper, when textiles-based papers can be made by some dudes and a press. By requiring a super (expensive) golem you negate the low cost of materials and the reason to switch to wood in the first place especially as that golem could be far more economically useful jobs.

This economics argument has less weight if you live in a Kaballah-punk world undergoing a golem revolution or have a similar glut of creatures with super-strength and high attention span that can stand in for industrial machinery.

>>53857917
How do you make papyrus anyway? You can also just use a case to protect the papyrus.

>>53849708
I guess I should have clarified. It's not a campaign, but a story element in a 100% real world setting.

>>53857143
Yeah, paper's been around for a long time. The Han dynasty of China made paper starting like 2000 years ago. It would probably take more work to make it without modern tech though. You'd have to use a mortar and pestle or mallets to make the pulp.

In terms of efficiency tree paper probably isn't going to be the best use of your time though.

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Need help with my economy. i have most of my gold silver copper using nations/powers whatever sorted out. problem there is another nation that uses paper money, and has a powerful economy I am having trouble trying to nail down the exchange rate of this stuff

the money is essentially USD, so I was thinking for it to be 10 silver = 1USD but I'm not so sure

in the setting the nation has substantial buying power, with a high standard of living and personal wealth.

point of the nation is supposed to be a culture shock for the players whenever they go there.

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>>53782315
>>53830544
>>53830586
>>53853493

I've recently learned about how to stitch multiple satellite images together to make larger outdoor maps for the game I'm running using Google Earth Pro (Free) and Microsoft ICE (Also Free)

here are the instructions I used.
http://dylanbrowndesigns.com/tutorials/how-to-save-or-print-high-resolution-images-from-google-earth/

I recommend practicing with MS ICE to trim out problems in the stitching together process.

only problem is I can't post an example map because it's 10752 x 6336 and all the free image hosting services I know of that will take fuck huge images like https://imgbox.com/ and http://www.imagebam.com/ are closing down.

>>53861472
>are closing down
whaaat

>>53853087
Yeah but wouldn't it be so realismic if, like, there were 2000 subccultures with minor differences you need to be aware of?
Like that would be SO worldbuilding!

>>53861565

I jumped on and got a message on both saying they are closing down.

Apparently the server costs are making it unprofitable.

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>>53861565

I know in real history it typically didn't happen, but having countries with a favored weapon or armor type think its a good idea for setting flavor? Maybe even a particular style of fighting or commanding.

>>53862516
>Maybe even a particular style of fighting or commanding.
Perfectly normal in real life. The Mongol Empire for example overwhelmed many kingdoms using tactics they were not suited to defend against.

Favored weapons and armor is fine as long as you still have diversity. You can't have an army of just swordsmen, you need polearms and ranged fighters fighting alongside them.

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>>53862516
>I know in real history it typically didn't happen
English Bow, mongol bow? Kung fu? Katana fighting style? Macuahuitl? Or is that not what you mean?

Where do deserts happen?

At which side of mountains do forests occur?

Do forests only occur nearby rivers (I would guess so since they need water)

I know the answers are in OP's link, but while I search for them maybe you can answer what you know? Thanks in advance guises

>>53862668
he means more in the
"this human kingdom uses maces" sense

which, as he said, can be good for stylistic purposes but is horrendous for literally anything else

>>53862745
>>53862668
>>53862566
More like
>This country is adapt at using combined arms of infantry and missile troops
>This country specializes in cavalry warfare with lancers and jinetes
>This country is famed for its use of a scale mail, round shield, and spear or sword
That type of favored weapons, armor, command, etc.

>>53862813
Like Greeks compared to anyone else? While they were circlejerking phalanxes, China and Persia were using cavalry.

>>53862852
just because the Greeks and Romans didn't assign cultural value or prestige to cavalry didn't mean they didn't have cavalry or buy the services of it when they didn't have it.

>>53863001
Yeah but that's what the anon wants. A nation that has cultural specializations, and offer specialized services to other nations.

>>53862516
Real countries did have those although it wasn't as simple as favoring one they instead favored a few for different purposes and used others. Some nations liked to have their warriors be walking tanks while other went into battle lightly or unarmored so that they could move quickly and dodge attacks. Some nations liked using longbows even after the advent of crossbows while others switched over fast.
>>53862700
Deserts usually happen on the opposite side as the wind currents (the moisture is caught by the mountain)

Forests also occur on the opposite side of mountains to deserts as the moisture is there. They can also spring up in other areas that are sufficiently wet for example where I live has a high water level and a lot of wetlands/marshes in part because a lot of the trees were cut down.

>>53863104
>>53863046
That's what I'm going for really, just making it a little more... organic? Nation A has numerous cavalry thanks to the advantages afforded by its geography, Nation B develops pikemen to counter the strength of Nation A. So Nation A begins training infantry to break pike formations, and Nation B starts to favor missile troops to defeat Nation A's infantry. In the end Nation A has favored cavalry and skirmisher infantry, Nation B favors pikemen and bowmen. In the end they have some individuality and the setting has a little more depth, at least that's how it works out in my head.

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>>53863104
>wind
Fuck. How does wind work?
Its like a never ending research, from world to continent to mountains to tectonic plates to rivers to forests&deserts to wind&temperature

How does wind work? Do I just draw a straight lines before making the world, and then shift them as I make the continents?

>>53863104
>>53863227
>>53862813
Don't forget China used gunpowder for like a thousand years and never shared the secrets to anyone, until the Europeans stole the secrets and mass produced gunpowder tools thanks to it.

China only used gunpowder for proto-bombs that could spread fire fast. People thought they were magicians.

>>53863253
If you're going for super-realistic worldbuilding and geography, the two most important starting factors are tectonic plates and wind direction. Thankfully you can decide on both very arbitrarily.
Just draw lines on your preliminary maps. The wind carries water from the oceans and causes the areas it passes over to grow with lush plant life. Mountains block this, however, so they often serve as dividing lines between a fertile area and a more desert-like area. This is of course assuming one wind direction.
There's a great example of this ITT: >>53798455
In his map there is a single wind current coming from the west. The long stretch of land and hills causes the north-eastern part of the continent to become more like a savanna and steppeland, while the western portion is lush grasslands. The southern tip, however, is all desert because the mountains completely block the wind from carrying water into the region.

>>53863376
Thanks man!

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I'm trying to wrap my head around the orbital mechanics of an Earth-like moon tidally locked to a gas giant. Given that it's tidally locked, months and days would be the same on the moon, that part I get.

But would seasons exist? Seasons are caused by our planet's axial tilt right? So if the gas giant has an axial tilt, and the moon's orbital inclination is 0 degrees in deviation from the equator of the planet, will it experience the same seasons? What about if the moon's orbital inclination is anything other than 0 degrees? So that the moon orbits slightly off the equator.

>>53863785
Nothing would exist, really. If you're going for realism for your planetary objects, any object that is tidally locked is not spinning, and therefore not keeping it's core hot or generating a magnetic field, which keeps an atmosphere intact. And since it is not spinning and has no atmosphere, there is no way to properly distribute heat around it's entirety. One side, usually whichever one is facing the star, is going to be "hot", while the other side will be brutally cold. Not to mention the "dark periods" when the moon is behind the gas giant...

>>53863253
Wind is a bit weird and often it's best to design the setting and make the geography fit how you want. Also those winds mostly matter for weather patterns (you can bullshit) and air travel at high altitudes (you can bullshit harder).

>>53863871
Aren't Europa and Enceladus heated by induction effects from Jupiter or something?

Why wouldn't there be an atmosphere? Titan has an atmosphere, and he specified "earth like" so we can assume oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere of similar pressure at the surface.

>>53863871

It's not the spinning of the earth but the spinning of a core that determines if you have a magnetosphere, which actually has been observed with some larger exoplanets. There's one notable one, I can't remember the name, that iirc is about 4x the size of earth, has a similar atmosphere, but is tidally locked and only the equator would be habitable.
>>53863785
You could have seasons but just consider how the moon would be facing the system's star at various points in the orbit. You might have sorts of hyper seasons as well based on the orbit of the moon + planet.
>>53863927
They are but Europa has no atmosphere worth mentioning and I'm not sure about Enceladus. The reason it's important for Europa is the water beneath it's ice crust.
I'm pretty sure Titan spins too.

Would it be super unrealistic for a nation which historically kept its people fed through banditry and raiding to merge with a trade-based culture that had little in the way of military, forming a new single country for mutual benefit?

Think

>>53863953
Couldn't the moon be protected by the gas giant's magnetosphere? I know Earth's extends thousands of kilometers beyond the atmosphere.

>>53863975
Probably by one conquering the other along the lines of the Mongols and China.

Are there real examples from history of two countries becoming one without conquest and subjugation being involved?

>>53863993
Thanks, that actually answered my next question too so I'll read up on Mongols and China for inspiration

>>53863995
There's some. California and Texas both went from being independent to members of the United States voluntarily, if you count that. I think that might be how Austria-Hungary formed too?

>>53863975
Banditry implies that the citizens are participating in non-state-sanctioned acts of illegality, so no.
But if it's state-owned mercenaries or something similar, then yeah. More along the lines of the vikings.
You'd have to think of a reason why the militaristic nation didn't just conquer the merchant nation.

>>53864049
Perhaps the did conquer the merchant nation but a leader with vision thinks that taking the merchant nation's capital once only gives a finite amount of money whereas using their skills to create more capital keeps the people fed for much longer

>>53862516
in your setting you can just do it lol, but if you want to justify it just look to history, when crafting their history remember. weapons would become prevalent/ stay because of how effective they are. not because they look cool.
>>53862566
>>53863104
>>53862668
look at the katana in japan why was it used? because it worked in japan, which is why it was used in japan, however if they were to encounter knights for example who had protection from the types of attacks a katana is good at, then they would have adopted a different weapon.

if you are talking about army compositions, put them in a territory where their particular composition would excel, infantry and missile troops only? put them in mountain or hilly terrain, cavalry only? GREAT PLAINS NIGGA, horse archers? STEPPES/ GREAT PLAINS

infantry only? cold weather, swamps, forests.

think why would an army composition work particularly well? it's always one of three things; terrain, logistics, race. remember this.

>>53864074
For a peaceful (relatively or otherwise) merging of the nations, it would at least have to be a significant cultural move on both nation's parts.

>>53864049
Here's a possibility: After a few decades of raiding, the merchant nation end up paying tribute to the raiders. They don't have to raid, because they get the goods they want from the merchants just by the threat of raiding. Then, someone else threatens to raid the merchant nation. Not wanting competition and knowing that if the merchants have to pay more protection they'll have less to give the original raiders, the raiders go and attack these other assholes. This becomes standard policy - not only do the raiders not raid the merchant land, but they fight the merchant land's enemies. Eventually, you get to the point where you're not a separate people anymore - you're just a very rich warrior class.

>>53864132
I like that a lot.
The would still be some division between the raider peoples and the commoners of the merchant towns, though.

>>53863975
>for a nation which historically kept its people fed through banditry and raiding to merge with a trade-based culture that had little in the way of military
If the bandit nation didn't attack one of the traders settlement, I can believe it.


>>53864074
If the recently conquered merchants still make money, what stops them from hiring mercenaries to fuck the bandits up? This new bandit kingdom is asking for a rebellion.

>>53864202
Culturally, yeah, they'd be a different caste, like one of the thousands of warrior castes that have existed through history.

>>53864132
>>53864202
>>53864277
A good thing to remember is that many warrior castes across history have shunned mercantile practices, and have had to rely on a merchant class to actually trade and provide them with goods that couldn't otherwise acquire.
Thus the two cultures could merge quite well in a stratified class/caste system, if that's what you're looking for

>>53863352
>until the Europeans stole the secrets
Holy shit, what the fuck am I reading? It just spread, like knowledge does. Do you think the "europeans", whoever that may be, send some spies to China to steal their technologies?

File: Hand cannon from the Mongol Yuan Dynasty.jpg (611KB, 2288x1712px) Image search: [Google]

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>>53863352
>China only used gunpowder for proto-bombs that could spread fire fast.
China had cannons, firearms, shrapnel bombs, rockets, etc. They invented them.

So I'm going to run an all-dwarf Burning Wheel campaign, taking place in an enormous expanse of halls, caverns, and tunnels under the earth. Within this great tangle of space between the rock there are many kingdoms, and they trade and war much like any other kingdoms. Some of them breach onto the surface as well, but most are entirely underground in their dominion.

So, question. How the fuck am I supposed to do maps? It's a 3-Dimensional space, underground. My current plan is to say Dwarves never had much use for maps, save for the few that live above ground, and that people get around using detailed guides and their natural sense of tunnel-wise direction. But maps would be nice if anyone as any ideas.

>>53862700
Deserts can also occur in the interior of large landmasses at lower latitudes around 35 degrees north and south of the equator or so. Because the moisture can only get so far inland.

File: Climate Cookbook.pdf (428KB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

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>>53863253
A kind anon posted told me about this and posted it in another thread. Check it out.

>>53867227
>an all-dwarf Burning Wheel campaign
YES!

For maps perhaps you could have a "world map" and more detailed maps corresponding to a given hold or cavern complex.

The world map is an abstract representation of where the various points of interest are in relation to each other and how they connect. A collection of colored dots with lines showing the routes.

Hall A has a tunnel leading to Cave B which in turn has a underground river to Cavern C. It does not matter that Cavern C is directly below Hall A, because there is a mile of solid rock between them and the only way to access C from A is through B. On the map just stick A and C near each other but with no connecting line. Pretty it up to make it look as if it was carved from stone with gems or metal-inlaid runes marking each point and you have a dwarfy world map.

Within each point, decades of dungeon maps will guide to making a decent plan of a given hold though you probably want several maps for large and complex areas to stop it getting brain-meltingly silly.

>>53863995
Yugoslavia, United Kingdom, United States, Italy, Germany are ones I know for sure united without bloodshed

>>53863871
>>53863785
Even if the moon's core manages to freeze, it's likely the gas giant's magnetic field isn't. And since the moon is close enough to be tidally locked in the first place, we can assume that it can be enveloped under the gas planet's magnetosphere and remain protected at least partially from radiation that would blow the atmosphere off.

The tidal locking of the moon actually wouldn't affect heat distribution that much at such a close orbit, it would all depend on how fast the moon's orbit is around the planet, and the inclination of the orbit in order to avoid or guarantee constant eclipses every few days to weeks.

>>53863995
The easiest way is via Personal Union.

In this, the two countries are not actually merged at first and carry on having their own system and rulers. It just so happens that the monarch is the same person for each country. Over time if the arrangement is stable and differing inheritance laws don't mean that the crowns are passed on to seperate heirs, you might see the two kingdoms become increasingly intertwinned and treated as a single country until they are on account of being together for hundreds of years and any legal differences slowly worn away by time.

Or you could go own the British route of simply declaring that the countries were now merged. This happened twice; once in 1707 which fused England and Scotland in Great Britain, and again in 1800 which moved the Kingdom of Ireland from the box marked Personal Union to full merger to form the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ireland).

At the same time as the 1800 Act of Union, the British monarch was also Duke (later upgraded to King) of Hanover. However not only was that Personal Union not merged it was broken in 1837 since Victoria being a woman meant that the Hanoverian throne passed to her uncle instead.

The unification of Spain via the marriage of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon is another really good example.

Two questions.
1) How do you guys go about naming fae especially high ranking ones?
2) Given a city like Boston what sort of supernatural factions would you expect to see having what amount to embassies? Thus far I have a few Fae groups, a faction of demonic scions as well as their servitors, and two dragons.

>>53866538
>not having medieval ninjas
Dumb yuropoors

>>53869321
>How do you guys go about naming fae especially high ranking ones?
For normal fae I rip off Tolkein's elf language by translating words.
High ranking fae like spirits and such? Either make them ridiculously long names(Yahaquizashunina), or extremely short names (Fa).