/wbg/ World-building General

Bump.

tell me about the closest thing you have to an antagonist in your setting /wbg/

>>53876986
Eldritch abominations from outside of every reality as the major villain but there are plenty of minor ones if you want to hear about them.

>>53876986
Magic

It always sours somehow, ends up inducing chaos

From events that wipe out thousand year civilizations and leave nothing behind, to most wizards being fucking nutjobs by the time they're nearing deaths door (which they almost always do something desperate and costly to try to avoid)

Basically since its all about the mind, and you're constantly channeling invisible magic juice from thin air, its going to take its toll not on your joints and bones, but on your nervous system and brain.
Most wizards burn out and have a stroke that leaves them unable to use magic (at least on purpose, some manage to retain telepathy or something to aid in their new horrible stroke victim life) around the same time martials succumb to arthritis, unless they're gifted somehow, or tenacious, the same way a martial relies on mystical boons or magic (ironically).

The only real cure is to make sure you have an out, and can retire from high-impact wizardry around 45-50, the same way a martial (granted the martial would have to start when he was 30-40, generally) would ascend to higher roles of military leadership requiring less and less manual labor, a wizard would retreat into universities and libraries.

How much would it bother you for a setting to be in the middle of the industrial revolution before it has firearms?

>>53876986
Unmatching player schedules.

Beside that, underground spider people empire and loyal evil high elves fanatically serving selfish titans.

>>53876986
Capitalism

>>53877981
ATLA pulled it off. Full industrial by Korra and no guns.

When you have something that can replace early pre-matchlock style guns, there's no reason to develop those bad guns, and without the bad guns, you'll never develop good guns.

>>53878859
Cool. I was thinking about just handwaving conventional firearms out in favor of guns which rely on some dumb crystals and oils. These require a much larger "vehicle" to facilitate so at first they are more like artillery and mounted cannons, later on they are improved and downsized to long heavy rifles that could easily be transported and operated by two people (or one person, inconveniently) in the middle of combat.

>>53878931
Artillery came before handguns in real life too. Sounds like you're good.

File: village003.gif (554KB, 2500x2500px) Image search: [Google]

554KB, 2500x2500px

I created this map and I feel I'm fucking around a bit too much.

This was originally a farming/mining village but after some time a noble house settled there with its military force and the village grew up in size to reach 700ish people.

The farming part had a small pallisade wall built around the farms/houses. After the noble built on the hill the started putting stone walls at the base of said hill. I took Edinburgh castle as the real life model and the hill is sheer cliff for the most part beside going through the village.

The land at the foot of the hill is used for sheep grazing and for the few horses the house enjoy.

There was a small quarry used to dig most of the stone making the stone wall but the house fell on hard times and the construction stopped and the village is left with some unfinished parts and the wood pallisade.

A few houses were built outside the walls and some farm lands cropped, heh, their way at the base of the walls. Bad shit happened and an influx of refugees are either camping outside the walls for the most unlucky or inside in the fields near the western walls.

I fear I made too much land for the village population, game's set roughly between the viking settlement of england and the Norman invasion. What do you think?

>>53876986
Abyssal terrors from the deep. Building-sized leviathans that smash their way into coastal cities. Lobster/gator/shark hybrids that come in waves up rivers and drag people off in the dark.
Basically, the ocean itself is the antagonist.

>>53878931
Really depends on whether gunpowder is a thing or not. It's kind of a tricky invention, and possible to miss. Especially if you have something else that can do the job, generating heat or electricity in a reliable way.

File: map70.gif (311KB, 800x600px) Image search: [Google]

311KB, 800x600px

>>53875686
The way those villages and towns are all the same looks really jarring given the map's attempt to look hand-drawn.

File: MedievalManorMap.jpg (2MB, 1458x2154px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1458x2154px

>>53879486
Without a scale it's hard to really determine. But I would think that due to agricultural inefficiencies old cities and towns would still require tons of farming land. Look at this map of a medieval manor. Compare the amount of land used for planting, for pasture, and for woodlands, compared to the area of the actual village.

The real weird thing is al the roads. There are so many roads for a village of just 700 people.

File: PrototypeCity9.jpg (2MB, 2000x1441px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 2000x1441px

>>53879486
Consistency of scale is also something to keep in mind as you add buildings and fortifications to your town. In my map, for example, each pixel is about 2 square feet. 2 pixels is a small shanty, 4 pixels is an average peasant house, etc. Keeping to this scale makes figuring out the functions of buildings and their relative proximity to other buildings easier.

I also used a few simple cartographic symbols to keep things easy to understand. For example, the thin squares to the left represent tanneries where hide is turned into leather, but they aren't actual representations of the vats themselves. The bullseyes repeated throughout various points of the city represent shrines to gods, but while they have a shared motif they remain distinct allowing me to easily remember what each one represents. The arrow markings all represent areas that are used as warehouses.

>>53877352
Tell us about one of the minor ones.

>>53875686
What's a good name for an eldritch abomination?

I don't know where to fucking begin.

>>53875686
I want to run a campaign in that world where the evil force is just the kingdom's postal service gone rogue.

>>53882641
What are you having trouble with?

>>53876986
collective spirits of the native sea life/soil fungi that really aren't happy about human colonization and terraforming

they have a lot less influence in areas where terrestrial life has grown over, but if you go out in the native wilds without taking any precautions you're probably coming back with schizophrenia or some really good ideas like filling trucks with explosives and parking them next to office buildings

>>53882234
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/generate.php?Genname=lcnamer

up

File: Australian Shepard growing up.jpg (39KB, 736x491px) Image search: [Google]

39KB, 736x491px

How do you feel about adding in very abstract game concepts, like leveling up, as real world-building mechanics or parts of the in game world?

For example- If you are a character in a world and you have interesting or difficult life experiences, go through and succeed at many challenges, you become physically stronger, faster, more magically potent. Unlike real life though these skills may be tied to the physical body in more ways then normally possible. Warriors becoming super humanly strong and durable, Rogues becoming inhumanly agile and fast, Magicians with great magical power. How do you feel about having this as a real, actual reality inside a world?

I personally like it, but it becomes a lot more complicated to explain why everyone doesn't become godly, or how to explain it if your games uses alternate sources of experience then just story driven/kill based experience; like grabbing gold from a dungeon.

>>53885492
Fuck that noise

>>53885492
I think it needs to be done right. The matrix is actually a good example of this. People have exceeded the limits with knowledge but the animatrix has an example of someone finding out the truth of reality through physical exertion inside the matrix.

What you're talking about is adding a new law of the universe, a kind of mind-over-matter one. Mind over matter doesn't have to be just knowledge=power, although that's part of it. Willpower = power is a thing that works too. You've just got to figure out how it works. A reason that not everyone can pull it off is that it's hard, it requires risks. Not everyone wants to test their willpower because failure is dangerous.

>>53885492
A N I M E

>>53885492
eww

File: 1496030582938m.jpg (63KB, 1024x663px) Image search: [Google]

63KB, 1024x663px

>>53885754
>>53886323
>>53886526

>having objectively shit taste

>>53876986
The corrupted forms of the old elven pantheon that all (high) elves dedicate their civilisation to defeating

File: Classic Dragon.jpg (1MB, 1024x1024px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 1024x1024px

>>53876986

The King in Red. He's the closest thing this setting has to a monotheistic god, and he's also a massive cunt.

Every culture on the planet worships him by force in a yearly sacrifice. "The day of Sacrifice". It's a once yearly meteorological event happens, and everyone has to sacrifice to him gifts. Small farming communities grant him crops, livestock, maybe some ore or a newborn child if they're desperate. Cities and Emperors need to grant him entire castles, works of art, an entire retinue of soldiers, petrified with magic and sent to be his terracotta army. If they don't? Apocalypses happen to their people, monsters swarm them from the dark places of the earth, disease is spread, people go insane.

Even as cultures are beginning to explore and cross oceans and meet each other for the first time, they realize that each and every one has at least some myths and spiritual practices towards this one dude. Other Gods are real and local, helping with the weather or helping lost souls find the afterlife, but this dude? He got every culture on the planet into his protection racket.

He also fucks everything. Virgin sacrifices, both boys and girls, are always accepted by this massive dickhead.

Basically, this guy made all the monsters in the world by fucking things. He fucked a snake to make gorgons. He had sex with a swamp and it made trolls and ogres. He plucked wings off a bat, took a lizards body, the claws of a tiger and fire from a volcano's heart just to make the most loathsome thing he could fuck, and he impregnated the first dragon. He likes them the most, and often gives them gifts. This explains where dragons get their hoards, literally presents from their asshole dad, stolen from the miners and jewel making mortals.

Basically I want the players to hate this guy, and maybe even want to become strong enough to take him on and kill him once and for all.

He is my self insert.

File: maine_beach.jpg (40KB, 1008x567px) Image search: [Google]

40KB, 1008x567px

How do you feel about a post-apocalyptic setting in Maine? Comfy lighthouse safe-zones, monsters in the forests, fishing boats braving the supernatural mutants in the waters, et cetera. Just spent a week out there, it's very comfy. That said, trying to base a setting off of someplace you were in real life is a bad start because the elements that make a real place interesting versus what make a setting interesting, don't have a huge amount of overlap (i.e. visual elements for the most part). That said I'm curious as to opinions.

>>53876986
So I have the following:
>The Firstborn, aka The Metal Man (Probably not actually made of metal) - the last of the first version of humanity, that was too powerful and rebelled against God. Is the reason the world as it currently known exists, because it exists to be his prison
>The Forsaken - people whose god (without capital G) was killed and his rotten carcass poisoned their souls, turning them into rampaging zombie orcs
>People who killed their god and ate his flesh to become powerful. Haven't decided what they called yet, I usually come up with names in the end
>Local king's brother-in-law who challenges king's legitimacy and hopes to install his wife (King's sister) on the throne. Is an evil prick. King is also a prick, but less evil.

>>53886582
>hey look at my shit
>no
>HAHA THIS GUY DOESNT WANT AN EYE FULL OF POO

Sudoku now

>>53879486

I think you're being way to autistic on the detail and "realism". Take that map, add a dot for a blacksmith, a healer, the inn and one for the castle to get quests from the lord and let your players at it.

File: The Middle Kingdom.png (3MB, 9000x10000px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 9000x10000px

How to make standard fantasy medieval kingdoms unique and interesting while retaining the medieval european feel?

>>53888482
Branch into Venice and Rus. Maybe be more Spanish than Central European too.

>>53888482
actually study feudalism, religion and medieval history in general rather than just using the stereotyped fantasy version.

>>53888482
Write down all the features of medieval europe you can think of. Then go through that list and identify what elements are absolutely essential to the feel you are trying to convey. Keep those bits, but start tweaking or replacing the other parts. Just make sure that the stuff you add doesn't feel out of place in the setting and does not overshadow any of the core elements.

>>53888558
>>53888863
These guys also speak truth. Reality can be way more exotic and interesting than the same old dumbed down medieval stereotypes.

File: DCN8KpZXcAATPY8.jpg (36KB, 720x613px) Image search: [Google]

36KB, 720x613px

How do you guys motivate yourself to contiue working with your worlds?

I'm running out of steam...

About to start a map in photoshop, what dimensions do you guys recommend?
Seems like this is the roadblock I always hit before making an actual map, rather than just a conceptual one.

>>53889984
1000x1000
2000x2000
3000x3000

>>53889909
Take a break, don't force yourself to continue and taint the work with negative emotions. It will just make it harder to complete in the long run.

Honestly, worldbuilding should be fun and if you ar not enjoying it then stop. You can always come back to it later when the time is right.

>>53889909
Just consume media that will inspire you. You should avoid forcing yourself to continue.

>>53882667

Call them the Deliverance

Any good books/resources specifically about byzantine culture?

I'm listening to an audio book that's mostly about its history, and while it's fascinating, I was looking for something more comprehensive.

>>53889984
Expand the dimensions as you expand the map? I started with 1000x1000 but now it's 5250x3500 and it's continuously growing.

>>53891766
I didn't know that was an option, thanks.

>>53881406
Well the campaign is in the Dresden Files RPG but set in a city that we don't know much about (Boston) so I'm partially limited by the books but otherwise rather open. If anybody wants more detail just ask.

So far I have a bunch of different plots including:
* a psychomantic student at BU who has an obsessive crush on another student who she'll mind control and brainwash if the players don't stop her
* a lycanthrope (think viking berserker) biker gang who's making and selling a drug which forcibly opens a person's third eye (the leader also just so happens to be the champion of Slaanesh)
* a Fomor mad scientist (and champion of a sleeping eldritch god who's dreams spawned the chaos gods) who is capturing people and transforming them
* a sick necromancer who wants to take over the world (he has diseases which cause bone growth, weak bones, and turn his skin to bone which would kill him if not for the blessing of Nurgle)
* a nest of ghouls sitting on a nexus of ghostly demesne which is driving them mad
* a leprechaun running a casino although he isn't so much a villain as a danger
* a wizard hiding from the council in the Nevernever and who wants to take revenge by making a deal with one of the Fallen
* a trio of White Court (succubi) sisters who want to take control of the city
* a cult leader who wants to bring back a wiped out type of vampire with him in charge
* a body hopping necromancer hiding in the cult who's body is too weak to jump easily and is trying to contact Outsiders to gain power (also the champion of Tzeentch)
* a mobster who wants to run somebody out of business since their building is on a network of tunnels
* a pair of twins who stole statues from a church to present to somebody and gain favor, the statues are inhabited by minor angels which keep an Outsider in stasis
* a warlock member of the triad who wants to gain power and has kidnapped a woman (actually a yuki-onna changeling)
* a group that grafts inhuman parts

My world
>Ordus Magica are the biggest "law enforcement" organization in the world
>all races (except orcs, dragons, etc) have a citadel in their lands from which they control and can send out local troops.

>they are also fucking assholes who only see the law as black and white.
>proper heavy knights with serious magic.
>many higher ups are only in it for money or power or both
>
>they would have been disbanded long ago but they have done so much for the world as a whole that to get rid of them would be disastrous beyond measure.

They maintain the teleportation circles in cities, guard the roads and are responsible for handing out justice and punishments
They improved the safety for the lowly farmer and having a squad in a small town means crime drops to fucking zero as thevies and bandits flee but Getting rid of these guys would be like getting rid of our modern world law and order organizations.

That's the idea I'm toying with ATM, would you guys add/remove any ideas?

>>53891930
Rename the chaos gods IMO, unless whoever is going to be playing doesn't know about warhammer

>>53885492
fwiw I'm doing something [i]similar[/i]. It's just much more abstract and doesn't produce superhumans as, I suppose, regular humans would grant about "0.1 experience points"

Regardless, I don't think it's shit :)

>>53892083
The author of the books already have a reference to Warhammer (there's a necromancer who rose from the dead a few times who's name is Heinrich Kemmler) and I'm planning on the chaos gods latching on to negative things and then names connected to those with enough power (players of Warhammer and those with knowledge of the games, especially groups like /tg/, are the cause). The players can have plenty of knowledge but I'm getting enough info before hand to know if they'd know plus the odds of them figuring it out (only the Slaaneshi champion is aware but Nurgle's is getting close) are low. If they kill off the champions before they get enough power then the names will never even come to light and the godlings will be wiped out.

>>53877822
That's so elegant, what game you playing?

I wanna make my first campaign, with people who haven't really played before, I wanted to keep it sorta simple-ish. I was thinking something like Dragon Age: Origins, big bad army guys coming from X, gotta go around and get the various races of the world to fight them or everyone will die, perform quest lines for each race, add some interesting side story stuff to do inbetween each race, towns to do stuff in, etc.

Any ideas to go along with this? Thanks! 5e specifically. I'm not a writer, so tips on making it interesting, or basic worldbuilding / story writing tips would be sick.

File: 97f13c1731cf842596184ef40d2f06e9998ddf47b6b1c6f3402ff8281db804dd.png (416KB, 578x578px) Image search: [Google]

416KB, 578x578px

>>53876986
Globalism.

>>53892549
its an idea for my setting

File: Screenshot_2017-06-19-03-16-58.png (160KB, 800x1280px) Image search: [Google]

160KB, 800x1280px

Does this look like a swamp?

>>53876986
The inevitable conflict between the march of progress and tradition. Also, demons.

>>53894128
Zoom out more and it will be more clear. If it's part of a larger map, yes.

The colors are also in strong enough contrast to eachother that one might not see that water as water at first. In particular that dark red might cause the blue to look like a biome/faction color at first glance.

>>53892587
It's important to give agency and desire to the different races/factions as a whole and the individual leaders. Even if uniting and driving out the big bad is what is most logical, many people (including moral and intelligent people) won't see it that way. They all have different perspectives that have been built up for their whole lives or histories and changing that perspective isn't going to be as simple as "hey join us or you'll die". They might be in denial of the danger, they might see opportunity in the chaos (let our enemies and the bad guys duke it out and weaken eachother, then swoop in and take down both), they might be outright opposed to participating and see it as a violation of everything they stand for. If two cultures hate eachother immensely due to their history, or the leaders of cultures hold outright disdain for others, they aren't going to just see the truth and put aside their differences and work together. You should also avoid making the cultures or factions totally united an homogeneous, there is more conflict than just between two groups, there will be political groups and individual motivations within a kingdom and some individuals who wish to exert their own desire on the policy of their kingdom. Some leaders might be impossible for the players to convince, they may need a schism or a coup. And perhaps the big bad aren't 100% big bad destroyers of everything. Even in the most famous good guys vs big bad fantasy story, LOTR, Easterling kingdoms and wildmen fought for Sauron because they were offered something in return (well, and corrupted by a tangible concept of evil).

>>53894128
No. It looks like a bunch of islands or a region that got flooded. Do the opposite of what you did: have a lot of isolated bodies of water close to one another with many small rivers and floodways between them. That would look most like a swamp

>>53894576
Thanks for the reply! I'll take these things into consideration, definitely seems right. :D Thyanks! Schisms and coups sound fun.

File: Iberian knightly orders.png (214KB, 946x733px) Image search: [Google]

214KB, 946x733px

>>53892055
How are they armed? What is their skill level? Age? All male? Does this order hold actual land and titles or are they housed and funded by certain people, governments, donations, etc? Let's see some details

Orders need to have extreme history to attract adventurous members, fraternity to ensure group loyalty unto itself, unwavering rules to keep it all together, and heroes to idolize and strive towards

>>53876986
Imperfection in the work of Worldmachine encompassing and supporting the setting. In-world it is called as Chaos, as inhabitants do not know how it all works.

>>53885492
How would it help the story you want to tell?

>>53894128
Not enough fairy-tail creatures

>>53882641
Great!

Start with a blank canvas. Going for a world map? Start with water. Regional map? Start with land. Separate land from water on the map. World map? Tectonic activity is a real thing that can make fantasy world building pretty easy. Mountain ranges spring up from it, island chains form, air currents flow, and so on. Regional map? Mountains can create rain shadows and deserts form in its wake. Rivers flow from high to low areas. They snake if the river flows slowly and branch out often. Swift flows are more direct and rarely lose their path. River deltas do exist but not always.

File: sai_2017-06-19_17-42-52.png (118KB, 610x441px) Image search: [Google]

118KB, 610x441px

scrublands and a giant rock facade

does it play?

File: 1497222466547.jpg (1MB, 1920x1765px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 1920x1765px

So the King struck a deal with some nature spirits a while back, and in return for their service he pledged the following:

"For each of my cities, for every [X] citizens, that city will have ten square feet of garden, park, farm, or other verdant and plant-filled land within its walls." The spirits, of course, made sure he couldn't do several obvious ways of skirting this.

That said, the king has padded these numbers out a bit by making sure that gardening was popular among nobility, giving additional city walls generous amounts of space, putting grass on empty lots, and the like. but there's still enough public parks and gardens that people notice and question why there's so gods-damned many gardens in the cities.

My actual question is: What's a reasonable number to put in for the [x]?

I'm putting together a mostly generic fantasy setting for a group's first D&D campaign, and for some reason I can come up with names for everything but the capital city of the human kingdom.
Does anyone have names/conventions that they like to reuse in their different worldbuilding projects? I was debating using a running theme of bird-related names (Cormoran, Tercel, Aguila, etc.).

File: The President with his entoruage.jpg (79KB, 528x351px) Image search: [Google]

79KB, 528x351px

>>53876986
Otherworldly invaders and themselves. Lemme explain
>Invaders
It's 1870, the South American Continent is gone, in its place is this ever shifting, nightmarish lanscape where Lovecraftian monsters lurk that can be anywhere from the size of a dog to towering over mountains. What little is know about them is that as these beasts move further into Earth, the borders of the 'Devil's Land' extends with them. To prevent this, various nations are chipping into the helping the United States fend off these invasions. However, even though there is drive to fight off these monsters, counter-invasions try and push the 'Devil's Land' back are few and far between. One reason is because the borders of the 'other' hasn't receded, and also because there is a lot of interest in a resource provided by this new land. Which brings me to-

>Themselves
Located inside killed beasts from the 'Devil's Land' is are a cache of flammable minerals that yield ten times the energy of coal, and when subjected to specific conditions, is as hard as steel but light as wood. Industries are rebuilt around this mineral, and new strange technologies are built using this mineral. President-For-Life Lincoln knows how substantial this mineral is the the American economy, and as the only nation with this raw material, keeps a tight grip on existing supplies, rationing it out to American companies and trading it for very favorable treaties with other nations. While everyone wants the Devil's Land gone, but that would mean losing their supply of this valuable material.

Sup, hit me up with some transparent map icons. And while we're at it, some large city maps would be great too.

Does anyone know what geographic features would suggest where to find copper or tin? I'm working on a setting that includes an industrialized bronze-age civilization, and I'm trying to figure out how trade might go.

>>53885492
It's pointless. It only serves as a way for shitty hacky writers to explain powerlevels without applying effort. It doesn't add anything to the story, it just ruins imersion. it's double pointless in ttrpgs where we have actual rules and stats that are separate from the actual setting.

File: culturally_diverse_city_icons_for_cartography_by_brandonspilcher-d6o464g.png (474KB, 1024x975px) Image search: [Google]

474KB, 1024x975px

>>53897491
you'll have to magic wand this yourself to make it transparent, all I have

>>53897022
If they're bird themed then maybe to make the capital stand out, you could name it after a mythical bird or bird-like creature?

Think back in your setting's history, and why did people settle the city and make it the capital? Naming things after important landmarks in the city/town is how I prefer to do things.
For example the capital of the Big Empire in my setting was named Silverwall, because the original settlers were travelling by boat in the inland sea it sits next to, and the setting sun reflected off the silver mineral veins in the rock, making the cliff that the imperial keep sits upon, and from which the rest of the entire city spreads outward from, appear completely silver. A silver wall. A mining camp was set up, which became a fort, which became a town, which became the center of power for the region, and eventually became the seat of power for the entire Empire.
All of the walls are made of stone, so the only way to understand its namesake is with that history lesson. Which is how I think is best, because if the players ask or inquire about why the place is named like that, I can tell them some interesting story that expands upon the world they're playing in, making it feel more immersive.

>>53889984
Two times as wide as it is tall. (360 degrees from left to right, and 180 degrees from pole to pole)

>>53897573

>"Hack" writers actually explain why people become more powerful then physical able and make it a part of the setting's cosmology and physical laws
>"Good" writers never explain why the party fighter can fall from a cliff without injury and continue to argue their setting is realistic with elves and magic

>>53898770
you described two bad writers

>>53889984
i usually do a basic world map with just land outlines and then cut out a smaller area for the actual map so that i can easily expand it and generally know what's around the map

for a world map you want width twice the height so that you can just draw everything in equirectangular and it will map to a sphere properly

i usually go with around 5000x2500 resolution, but it's always better to do your drawings in too high resolution than too low

>>53889909
I do things slowly and not in excess.
When you do the same thing everyday you will get bored and frustrated about it, split it up and write down any cool ideas you have when they come.

>>53876986
Legion of doom but in space and very corperate, trying to race the players to the mcguffin so that they can get RnD to see how to sell it or use it the best.

Are there unexplored sections of your setting, /tg/, or do the inhabitants of your world have a pretty firm idea of the world at large?

File: Smeevil custom art bird mount.jpg (145KB, 594x344px) Image search: [Google]

145KB, 594x344px

All this talk of fantasy settings has really got me up in the air on what to do about mine, /tg/.

What should I go for my fantasy setting's races?
>Humans and anthro animals for the races; large numbers of simple races
or
>Limited selection of races including humans and a few weird ones that aren't anthro animals like pic.

>>53901647
second, definitely

File: mothfolk.jpg (44KB, 728x479px) Image search: [Google]

44KB, 728x479px

>>53901647
>Humans
>A few other "first-class" races
>Beastfolk that exist as a rare occurrence when a nature spirit blesses an animal and causes it to ascend to a humanoid form

I like this as a nice middle-ground. You still get to have weird random animal people in the world, without having to deal with fleshing-out civilizations and cultures for every species. It also handily avoids awkward questions about interbreeding, etc.

>>53901430
There's a huge, unexplored section of the desert my setting takes place in that the ruling empire has given up on exploring because pretty much everyone who tries winds up missing. Even the nomad tribes and the gnolls avoid it if they can, and never get closer than they have to. It's especially dangerous during the full and new moon, though no one is sure why.

>>53901662
>>53901824

Is there any specific reason why you'd prefer that over animal people?

>>53876986
Ancient dragon god who used to watch over the mind, went nuts, and tried to steal the soul of the universe. He's "dead" now, but they couldn't really kill him, exactly, so they just ripped his soul out of his body, stuffed it into a giant crystal and buried his "corpse" under a mountain like Typhon himself.

Aside from him, a raging bitch who got pissed off that she's no longer immortal and took to tearing souls apart to study them. Wants to steal the soul of the universe for her own purposes. May or may not be influenced by the dead dreams of the dragon-god. She also has a legion of loyal followers who listen to her religiously.

Also giant monsters so super-charged by the world's mana/soul that even with magi who can shift mountains they've only just reached post-industrial birth-rates, murderous tyrants, extra-planar invaders who aggravate the aforementioned megafauna, and people dicking around with technology from long-dead civilizations which can make hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers.

Not running a game with it, but I use it for personal writings.

>>53898770
That's just two hacks.

>>53901430
I plan to let the world end in the east with a huge mountain range covered in thick mist. Whever sets his foot into it gets automatically lost and never returns. Some people believe it's the realm of the deceased.

Somewhat stole this from the medieval novel about Alexander the Great.

File: sheep female sketch.jpg (126KB, 521x893px) Image search: [Google]

126KB, 521x893px

On a scale of 1 to 10, how stupid is it to have a race where the females look a bit like sheep/deer, and the males look a bit like goats/bulls?

>>53905216
It isn't about stupidity, but there is a chance of fetish bait.

File: disgusting furry.jpg (850KB, 2048x1536px) Image search: [Google]

850KB, 2048x1536px

>>53905260

I don't know why it always has to be a meme.

>>53905216
Well. Humans look different depending on sex/gender so idk what you're getting at unless you're proposing the two genders be completely different species then id say it's a bit silly.

How do you Sci Fi, /wbg/?

Tell me about your setting.

File: Glowing vague person shapes.jpg (163KB, 640x427px) Image search: [Google]

163KB, 640x427px

>>53906934

All I know is I like whacky weird shit and acronyms.

The players can play as just about any kind of biological alien they can think of, and it's totally fine. They are playing as BICOs (Biological, Intelligent, Communal, Organisms). This encompasses all normal races in the galaxy.

However there is another kind of life in the universe, called SICOs. (Stellar, Intelligent, Communal, Organisms). Literally pronunced as 'psychos'. They are a form of life that have evolved since the big bang and, for whatever reason, hate and wish to destroy all biological life. The eternal war between these two forms of life is the basis for why space feudalism is a thing, and why everyone carries and uses laser weapons, because physical weapons can't hurt the SICOs.

And that's about all I have for my sci-fi setting, which is many years old now. Just that one idea. But I'm sticking with it.

>>53907108
How do you create nor SICOs or were they always there?

How does your guys manufacture your laser technologies?

How does your guys move from place to place?

I kind of like the idea of light-based organisms/entities. Oh and also is the war wide spread or is it a hush-hush and only a few of your guys know about SICOs and it's like a constant need to cover up what is happening?

>>53903077
Quality>quantity. Anthro animal races are overdone and frankly quite boring, giving players access to dozens of them doesn't address that issue.
Meanwhile, a small pool of very interesting and unique races is much more appealing.

>>53907371
A mixture of animalistic traits would be more interesting and eventually you'll have a stand alone race. I was kind of disappointed whenever I asked a while back about what people used as a race to replace the generic fantasy races as they were usually some boring anthro race and furry bait.

>>53907371
>>53907408
By more interesting I meant more interesting than simple anthro races. (I'm trying to add to your side as I'm agreeing with you, sorry if that wasn't appearant.)

File: Star Drive plants.jpg (108KB, 1000x521px) Image search: [Google]

108KB, 1000x521px

>>53907254

>were they always there
Yes, they evolved naturally. Imagine that wavelengths of light interacting with gravity and the higgs-field in such a way that it created a mostly permanent feedback loop, just needing energy from a star to keep itself going. This is basically the start of an evolutionary cycle, and over eons they have become advanced enough to be intelligent.

>Manufacture laser technology
How do they manufacture lasers now? Diodes? I always liked the somewhat science fiction idea of using different crystals for laser technology to make it a slightly more rare resource and it give it some interesting equipment options, so I kind of like that.

>Move from place to place
They use a Star Drive. It lets you pull yourself from star to star, absorbing its energy to make the next jump. SICOs hang out inside and around stars, and you can see why they view biological life as hostile.

>Is the war wide spread or is it a secret
Oh no, it's pretty well known. It keeps the space feudalism system working. If you're the ruler of a single colony you probably owe the guy who owns your planet or moon a bunch of soldiers, money or space ships as taxes. He owes the guy who owns the star system, and he owes the guy who owns the super cluster. Why I like it for sci-fi despite it's silliness, is it means it doesn't actually matter what system of government a planet has as long as this money and material goes up the chain. Planets can be controlled by dictators, peaceful democracies, corporations, hive minds, anything as long as they don't break the chain.

>>53907649
So what was it that started you thinking/building about this setting? Do you use it currently with players? If so what do they think about it/how did they react when starting?

So what would be a "garden" city be like? Plenty of greenery surrounded by living space, or living space that incorporates the greenery?

>>53909070
Would say the letter makes more sense considering that the greenery is on private property and can be used by their owner and only them, while the former would need everyone consent on not exploiting the shit out of it before anyone else does.

Or did I get this wrong and "garden" city only means a lot of nice trees and flowers to look at?

>>53909211
Mostly aesthetics, not actual substance gardening.

>>53909070
A dull post-war settlement characterised by dreary uniform architecture and a tendency to confuse both visitors and residents on account of how all the streets look exactly the same.

>>53905216
I would honestly go with the race looking like one sort of animal (doe/stag, ect.) because it raises questions as to why they look so radically different. A peacock and a peahen are still identifiable as peafowl. But if you want to just say magic that's alright, too.

>>53909070
I much prefer the idea of greenery being part of the structures itself.

Anyone got any good flag or banner ideas/guidelines? I kinda just think up the idea behind the stuff before names or actual aesthetics for muh original fleshwarped peasant revolution or dwarven plutocracies. Any help?

>>53916806
I'd like to say to keep it simple, but then there's tons of real-world examples of people just slapping complex mythical lions and dragons on their flags, so that's not really true.
I'd still recommend it because they're easier to draw and design, and easier for other people to identify and remember.
The biggest tip is probably just to keep them unique and distinct, so that your players (or whoever else is experiencing your setting) can remember and tell them apart easily. Unlike the countless real-world flag that look nearly identical to other flags, or look similar enough like being left/right swapped or the like.

>>53916806
A good rule of thumb is that an elementary schooler should be able to draw the flag from memory without any issues.

Colours show up best next to metals, metals show up best next to colours. This comes mainly from heraldry, where there were only five colours (red, blue, black, green, purple) and two metals (silver/white and gold/yellow) that were used. Vexillology (that is, flag design) has flags that are many more different colours than heraldry did, but the principle remains the same. This is known as the Rule of Tincture: metal should not be put on metal, nor colour on colour.

Don't use words on flags. Words on flags are bad.

Keep in mind flags have two sides. If you don't want things to be mirrored on the other side, watch out for that. It's more difficult (at least nowadays, but probably historically as well) to make a flag that's not mirrored.

Think about colour symbolism. As some examples, red/white/blue is typical of Slavic nations (although yes, it is also used in the US, UK, French, and several other nations' flags); red/black/green and red/yellow/green are typical African flag colours; green is the colour of Islam, red for communism, and the like. Your own world may have colours that represent certain things unique to there.

(1/2)

>>53918523
You can easily show relationships between nations by incorporating parts of one flag into the other. You'll probably recognize the Union Jack in the canton (top left corner) of a number of British overseas territories and former territories like Australia, New Zealand, and pacific islands. It's the same with places like Liberia to the US. Likewise, you can create military ensigns by altering flags slightly. You can also take the route the United Kingdom did and incorporate several existing flags into one: the Union Jack is composed of St. George's cross (England's flag), St. Andrew's cross (Scotland), and St. Patrick's cross (Northern Ireland, I think only unofficially though). Since the Scots are whiny these days, you can look up some interesting flags for the UK minus Scotland, too---they sometimes take into account St. David's cross for Wales, sometimes the current Welsh flag, sometimes nothing.

On that note, look at vexillology communities and sites online. Some members of them will occasionally post "redone" flags to better fit these guidelines, or invented flags that work well (and much better than some existing flags!). Because some flags, let's face it, aren't very good. Heraldry communities and sites might have some interesting stuff as well.

Some shapes are really common, like tribands/tricolours, as well as things with stuff in the cantons. There's a whole language for vexillology and heraldry.

These rules are guidelines, so they can be ignored, but they are really good guidelines and you shouldn't ignore them without a really good reason.

(2/2)

File: Planescape.png (6MB, 1756x2330px) Image search: [Google]

6MB, 1756x2330px

Post your cartography, /wbg/.

What mediums do you use?
What do you like to put in them?

File: ringworld smaller (revised).png (8MB, 2164x3045px) Image search: [Google]

8MB, 2164x3045px

>>53918735

File: Circling smaller.png (3MB, 4016x4032px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 4016x4032px

>>53918757
This one is much better as the actual piece of paper.

>>53918735
>>53918757
>>53918783

These maps are pretty rad, anon.

>>53918757
Are those "connections" mislabelled?

File: map 6 19 17.png (4MB, 5270x3524px) Image search: [Google]

4MB, 5270x3524px

>>53918735
Some really good calligraphy there anon

here's my heavily WIP map

cleaning this up ahead of time:
program: paintNET, cursor drawn

>>53907827

I don't exactly know when I started on it exactly, or why, but I know I'd like to use it with players one day. I appreciate your feedback either way.

Assuming you name your setting's planet something other than Earth, what is the thought process you put into naming it?
Or do you just vomit random syllables until you get something vaguely cool-sounding.

>>53920092
How did the Earth even get its name?

>>53921457
>>53920092
It's Old English/German which means ground. In Latin it is Terra, in Greek it is ge, both ground. Although all other planets are named after gods which is probably what most fantasy settings would do unless you wish to make a constructed language and use the word for ground as it's planets name.

>>53905216
Yiff in hell / 10

What do you guys think of a cult lead by a disgraced member of a group that graft parts of supernatural beings onto themselves for a form of immortality and power (he wanted them to breed their followers with supernatural beings to increase the groups' power and create cattle for them to take transplant parts from) and a disgraced member of a cult that worships a near forgotten elder goddess (she's redeeming herself by planting knowledge of her goddess in the minds of their cult while also using psychic surgery to make them better minions)?

>>53918980
Yeah. Was so obsessed with the details that I missed some of the bigger things. It's already revised once, but I need to fix that too.

>>53921641
Fun fact: I happen to be spending a month in Korea, and I asked my brother in law, a native, about the names of the planets. He said it goes a bit like this: Water planet (mercury), Gold planet (Venus), Land (earth, very similar to European names for Earth), Fire planet (mars), I forget what Jupiter is, Saturn is Big Planet, Neptune is Ocean Planet. Of course, these are rough translations.

>>53889909
Taking a break is an important part of the creative process.

>>53922677
Chinese is similar, with
Water Star/Planet
Gold Star/Planet
Dirtball
Fire Star/Planet
Wood Star/Planet
Earth Star/Planet
Sky/Heaven King Star/Planet
Sea King Star/Planet

You've got the 5 elements plus the roman/greek meanings for Uranus and Neptune

File: hominids.png (3MB, 1109x1325px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 1109x1325px

Straight up copypasting my old post from the evolution thread. There are no real dwarf kingdoms or ogre kingdoms or halfling kingdoms like in typical fantasy. Some countries just have regions where a lot of non-humans live. They typically are just a part of society as a whole.

>I've got two branches. Natural hominids and magical mutations.
>I'll move from the first left column down, and then move down the right column.

>First up are humans. Nothing extraordinary.

>Then we have Neanderthals taking the role of dwarves. Tough strong motherfuckers, but they aren't very creative or inventive.

>Floriensis takes a dual role of hobbits/halflings and goblins, depending on whether you piss them off or give them booze.

>Next up are carnivorous giant cavemen. Think ogres, Grendel, Neanderthals on steroids, Homo Hulkmania.

>And now from the right column we get mutations.

>First up is the Elf mutation. Theoretically, any humanoid that practices magic for long enough and reaches some deep understanding of it (before they die), will eventually transform in an elf. Nothing too fancy, their bodies de-age and they get elf ears. In practice, only humans achieve this.

>Second is the Tolkien orc mutation. If someone gets enthralled/mindcontrolled/voodoo zombie'd for too long, they turn in some mutant creature, a fucked up creature that's 100% evil all the time.

>Third is the Troll mutation. It's caused by sudden bursts of mutagenic energies. You might turn in a tree sized two-headed man-eater with treebark for skin, or into a horrid fanged and clawed furry monster with goat horns, or you'll turn in a supremely sexy person with a cowtail. The mutation process doesn't effect the mind like the Tolkien orc mutation, so Trolls often have severe mental baggage from suddenly mutating out of the blue with no idea what is going on.

>And the fourth mutation is very very bad. Very. Bad.

File: 1437396866387.jpg (110KB, 735x900px) Image search: [Google]

110KB, 735x900px

>>53923323
We did something very similar with a friend in a big speculative/almost-hard-sci-fi alternative earth world-building experiment. And I like it a lot - the idea that various different human predecessors evolved into their own species roughly evolutionary as viable as humans.

What I don't like (or don't understand at least) is the necessity to force the fantasy stereotypes into this. And honestly, the idea that you have natural evolution AND classic high-magic in the same settings.

Inventing new races based on various human off-shoots like homo floriensis (you could also look into things like gautengensis, which was apparently vegetarianism-specialized sub-species that still hunted and killed animals for their bones, but apparently did not really eat them, or heidelbergensis which was unusually tall for it's time) is really cool. But what is the point of doing this if you end up with the same fantasy steretypes and clichés. Having more unusual explanation for your generic elves, dwarves and hobbits does not actually make them any more interesting, it's just burrying a good idea under ground.

Also, if you are going to introduce evolution in it's natural state, you probably don't want to then go and also throw in generic style magic because A) that just leads into even more generic stuff burrying the actually interesting idea of alternative human evolution, and B) you are heading to the common mythological vs. speculative fiction trainwreck.

>>53923786
I really don't see the problem. The entire idea behind the setting is to go maximum pseudo-historical realism/low magic and maximum high-magic.

Because the world is literally split into the physical world and the spirit world/magic world/underworld.

You know, like the kind of worlds people believed in in prehistory/early antiquity.

>>53924311
Well, first of all if you want to go full pseudo-historical realism for the physical world, then that should be all the more reason to not conform your speculative history about potential development of other hominid species to fantasy clichés because that brutally undermines the speculative nature of the physical world. You are not speculating on possible evolution of hominid species, you are just making elves, dwarves and ogres and then retroactively justifying it with some pseudo-speculative misuse of scientific terminology.

If you want to make the contrast of the two worlds as a core theme of your world, you should actually really want to distance yourself from the fantasy clichés as much as you can within the actual physical realm side of your world.

Second of all: how does it even work? I mean clearly under your description the two routinely overlap or interact, which means that they aren't really separate. So if the magic world is directly interacting with the physical world, how is not the magic world actually part of your physical world and how does the physical aspect of it even work if other laws and principles are clearly and directly involved?

Third: that is not really what the people in antiquity believed in. The whole mythological world thing was a little more complicated than that.

Fourth: there is STILL a problem from a narrative perspective. You still ask the audience to switch between speculative fiction and symbolic fiction at random, more or less, which ends up undermining the impact of both.

And finally, none of this really explains why you need the traditional fantasy clichés in the first place. It's not like elves, dwarves and orks are a necessary condition of mythological worlds in the first place. They are just a silly and boring genre staple. Why don't you just work with actual imagination instead, with both the speculative and the symbolic level of things?

It just seems like such a wasted opportunity.

>>53924486
I don't get your point. If I just put OC imaginative races in the story, it'll stop being pseudo-historical realistic fantasy shit, and just straight up become high-fantasy set in some weird unknown world shit.

And holy fucking shit, what's up with speculation speculation speculation. I'm making a setting, not writing a speculative scientific paper.

>So if the magic world is directly interacting with the physical world, how is not the magic world actually part of your physical world and how does the physical aspect of it even work if other laws and principles are clearly and directly involved?

Because there's a door in the way.

>Third: that is not really what the people in antiquity believed in. The whole mythological world thing was a little more complicated than that.
Of course they didn't believe that. If I wanted to make a world about mythology, I wouldn't need to post in /wbg/ because I could just use a mythology book to make up the entire setting.

>Fourth: there is STILL a problem from a narrative perspective. You still ask the audience to switch between speculative fiction and symbolic fiction at random, more or less, which ends up undermining the impact of both.
And how the fuck will people notice that duality when they're busy dungeoncrawling? They won't notice it.

>And finally, none of this really explains why you need the traditional fantasy clichés in the first place. It's not like elves, dwarves and orks are a necessary condition of mythological worlds in the first place. They are just a silly and boring genre staple. Why don't you just work with actual imagination instead, with both the speculative and the symbolic level of things?
Like I said before, if I put in fucking fractal-snake people that can only be seen from your peripheral vision, it stops being a pseudo-realistic fantasy world and just straight up becomes batshit insane high-fantasy.

>>53924601
>If I just put OC imaginative races in the story, it'll stop being pseudo-historical realistic
Uh, what? I'm sorry, but I don't follow. NOT including generic elves, dwarves and hobbits makes it less realistic? What the actual fuck? How?
If you put into your world races that are actually based on speculative extension of real, hominid species, that makes it more "pseudo-realistic", not less.
I mean what you are doing seems to be a purely generic traditional high-fantasy with all the staple races and all the staple elements down to high magic content. I'm actually suggesting to move away from that.

>what's up with speculation speculation speculation.
That is what you are doing. It's just the proper literary term for the methods you are using to establish your races. Using real-world evolution, using real hominid races (or their mirrors) to explain presence of different races in your world is what we call speculation in fiction. It's a different, more precise term your idea of "pseudo-realism".

>If I wanted to make a world about mythology,
You just said that IS what you are doing. One post above.

>They won't notice it.
OK, this is completely irrelevant. So you don't really care about the actual quality of the world-building? OK, fair enough, but don't be surprised that people will still comment in it. If you don't give a fuck and don't really want feedback, I'm not sure why you post here. This thread is for discussion of world-building, right?

>, it stops being a pseudo-realistic fantasy world and just straight up becomes batshit insane high-fantasy.
Fine, and that actually sounds really cool but what IS the point of the whole evolution and hominid schtick then?
Why not just make batshit insane fantasy that does not collide awkwardly and suddenly with some speculative science mumbo-jumbo? Why make evolution relevant in a world that has awesome snakes that can only be seen in peripheral vision?

>>53924798
>Uh, what? I'm sorry, but I don't follow. NOT including generic elves, dwarves and hobbits makes it less realistic? What the actual fuck? How?
Because people imagined elves, dwarves and little people really existed in ages past.

No one fucking imagined spider people or sentient humanoid quartz crystals.


>>If I wanted to make a world about mythology,
>You just said that IS what you are doing. One post above.
I'm not. If I was making a mythological world, I'd quit worldbuilding, and just grab a book on mythology. You don't need to worldbuild a mythological world, because ancient people already figured it all out for you.

>OK, this is completely irrelevant. So you don't really care about the actual quality of the world-building? OK, fair enough, but don't be surprised that people will still comment in it. If you don't give a fuck and don't really want feedback, I'm not sure why you post here. This thread is for discussion of world-building, right?
You really don't understand it do you? I'm not trying to write the Simarillion 2: Big Momma in the Boogaloo House. I'm trying to come up with a fun setting.

>Fine, and that actually sounds really cool but what IS the point of the whole evolution and hominid schtick then?
Because why not have evolution and magic coexist? Fuck creation myths and gods.

>>53924928
>Because people imagined elves, dwarves and little people really existed in ages past.
Again, it's not that simple, and they certainly did not imagine them as evolved neandertales or just humans that were deaged and have pointy ears.
And I'm utterly confused. So is the actual historical mythology important to you or not? Every single post seems to indicated the opposite: you care about mythology and it's what you are trying to recreate, then you don't then you do again.
And if you want to consider actual human mythological concepts, why do you opt for cheap fantasy clichés, which are about as far from actual mythology and imagination as young earth creationism is from actual science.

>No one fucking imagined spider people or sentient humanoid quartz crystals.
So first of all: wrong, second of all: modern generic dwarves and elves are actually more divorced from actual mythological concepts than those, and third of all: what the fuck? Who is talking about humanoid quartz crystals? The fuck?

>I'm not.

>I'd quit worldbuilding, and just grab a book on mythology.
YOU JUST SAID that you are using those fantasy clichés because those are what people imagined in mythology. Ignoring that no, not this way... but the actual FUCK?
>You don't need to worldbuild a mythological world,
Yeah, but you are doing that.

>I'm trying to come up with a fun setting.
Yeah, and I'm pointing out what could potentially hold it back. And if you want to do a stupid, shallow kitchen-sink, sure. But first of all make that clear up front and second of all: perhaps don't post it here, where people scrutinize other people's work. It's what the thread is for.

>Because why not have evolution and magic coexist?
Because it's fucking stupid and one contradicts the other and the result will have no charm because it will inconsistently require the audience to switch between two completely different and contradictory sets of logic without any rhyme or reason.

>>53925226
Do you even realise that elfs and dwarfs are all mythological concepts?

>>53925693
Not him, but I hate to hear this all the time. The fantasy concept of elves and dwarves we most of the time talk about here or play on the table have moved away from their mythical inspirations a lot.

Dwarves are not drunken axe-wielding scots in mythology. Elves are not bow-shooting treeniggers in mythology.

>>53876986

Queen Gith controls Tharzidun's spiral prison, is plotting to hooking all the planes to Tharz's prison and letting it spin and collide all the planes into one.

How do you describe a different clime for your game then temperate European plains and forests so your players actually pick up on it. Like if my setting takes place in a ludicrously fertile floodplain and there is tons of rainforest everywhere, how do I tell my players that the town isn't some smokey European style walled city?

>>53925742
I've never talked about drunken axe-wielding Scots though.

And certainly nothing about bow-shooting treeniggers.

>>53925852
You... describe the landscape and plants?

I suggest you scan/read through some texts written by explorers before photography, so you learn how to describe landscapes with just words.

>the mountain creek swallows many brooks on its way down
>when it hits the wet rainforests below the treeline, it has become a raging bull of water, smashing through rock and creating mighty ice cold waterfalls
>the forests around the river are wet, rain is an almost daily occurrence
>the river often spills over onto the plains, with thick fertile sludge covering the lands

>>53922509
Ah okay, I didn't know if it was a mistake, or if I was confused and misunderstanding some higher-level physics shit.

>>53889909
I literally cannot stop worldbuilding for the past couple weeks, and it's eating up all of my free time.

>>53925693
>Do you even realise that elfs and dwarfs are all mythological concepts?
Yeah. Except the german idea, from which the word elf is derived, was a meter tall hairy demon that would kidnap children or sit on your chest while you sleep to cause nightmares. Icelandic elves are in every respect like people - except invisible and their homesteads and farms look like giant boulders and lava fields.
In celtic mythology they are tiny, often have insect wings, love to drink, sing, and lure people into swamps to drown them, and the old Nordic concept of light elves from Edda are beings of pure light inhabiting higher heavens, while the dark elves (sometimes identified with dwarves) are literary pitch-black creatures and apparently descendant from worms.

So again: the generic fantasy idea of either is incredibly remote from the actual original mythology that they were once inspired by. Not to mention that that actually does not in any way address my concerns.

How to properly do high fantasy/good example of high fantasy setting?

>>53927340
First define what you mean/want by high fantasy.

>>53927232
>word elf
>derived from German
What?

That's like some midlevel shit bro.

Elf comes from Indo-European words around the concept of whiteness, light, beauty, smart, inventive and creative.

Hence my whole idea of making elfs some kind of mutation that causes long ears, youthfulness, beauty and strength among old frail wizards.
>you need to be smart, creative and inventive to get that far in magic to become a wizard
>you become handsome like in your youth
>the sheer amount of magical power emanating from your aura fills you with a bright metaphysical light

And I still don't understand your concern.

File: serveimage.jpg (18KB, 323x323px) Image search: [Google]

18KB, 323x323px

>>53882667
>>53891051
Gone postal. I love it.

>World-building
I almost made a duplicate thread, you cunt.

>>53882667
>>53891051
>>53927940
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3ORP0wxvl8

>>53927935
>Elf comes from Indo-European words
Uh... you do realize that German is an indo-european language, right? RIGHT?
The word elf originates from common germanic and it does indeed mean whiteness of fairness. It has fuck all to do with beauty, cleverness or inventiveness. That is a complete misappropriation by Khun who was literally full of shit.
In fact, historically both in English and German folklore, aelphs or aelfs were primarily associated with nightmares, disease, trickstery.

I have no idea how that associates fucking knife ears or youthfulness (you do realize that white is frequently associated with sorrow among many cultures, including many proto-european) and age, actually, because you know, white hair?
But that is besides the point. The point is that you are making same old tired generic fantasy elf in the end, which makes it all the more incogrous with the idea of actually having evolution being a tool to explain presence of the fucking fantasy races.

I just wanted to know what the fuck is the point of the bizarre use of speculative elements with completely generic fantasy tropes.

>A goblin chieftain plays a prank on his clan and introduces a boy who was lost in the woods as the clans new king, claims he has special powers
>before he gets to reveal his incredible ruse to his clan he accidentally chokes on a mushroom and dies
>the clan now follows a 10 year old boy who whips it into an actually formidable force in a few years

I really want to do this, does this sound too retarded or am I still in the safe zone?

File: limmy_amused_disgust.gif (1MB, 197x200px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 197x200px

>>53928082
When linguists say indo-european languages, they mean shit from back when dogs were barely domesticated wolves. Fucking neolithic shit.

>The point is that you are making same old tired generic fantasy elf in the end
>literally supersaiyan merlins
>tired generic fantasy elf
>SUPERSAIYAN MERLINS

I see, you're retarded.

>>53928137
>kid actually has special powers

>>53928082
>knife ears
>>>/v/

>>53928082
>In fact, historically both in English and German folklore, aelphs or aelfs were primarily associated with nightmares, disease, trickstery.
That's some medieval christian shit.

>>53928155
>When linguists say indo-european languages, they mean shit from back when dogs were barely domesticated wolves.
Yes, but remains of that get trasformed and passed through various languages in a different ways. The proto-indo-european word itself is very far from the word "aelph" (which is the oldest form of this particular word) and which we have recorded in England for the first time in 10th century in association with a evil spirit infesting wounds, and which has been passed into english from common german.

The original proto-indo-european word is unknown, but it is known to also be the origin of the word ALBUS, latin for white, or the albanian word for barley. So you can't really say that it's refering to the specific image of an elf. The actual association of this word with the particular folklore creature comes much later, around 6-10th century from existing evidence.

>SUPERSAIYAN MERLINS
First of all your own description "just de-aged with pointy ears, nothing special". How the fuck do you even expect people to see into your fucking head you moron.
Second of all: yeah - that is fucking elf from generic fantasy. Have you seen a potreyal of an elf in generic fantasy. Especially fucking elvish mages? Fucking altmer? Fucking pure elves in fucking Witcher?
Yeah, it's generic as fuck. Which is fine - whatever. But it does not address the problem of incongruency.

>>53928192
No shit. It's not like christianity has not been the dominant conceptualization of mythological and folklore through out most of european countries for one and a half thousand years. Where the fuck do you think we have first descriptions of Elfs outside of Edda - and the Edda ones are completely dissassociated with any other depictions or ideas most of fantasy draws from?

>>53928323
Yeah, but you were the one that presented this post-pagan idea of elves with your blatant "in fact" as some kind of truth. Maybe these were the distorted version of the beings that primarily were associated with light? Does this make sense? Maybe that anon doesn't want his elves and dwarves be inspired by post-pagan beliefs?

>>53928476
>Maybe these were the distorted version of the beings that primarily were associated with light?
And maybe not. There is no actual "original" picture. This is some really naive shit thinking there is the "true" image before the evil christianity twisted.

Maybe that anon doesn't want his elves and dwarves be inspired by post-pagan beliefs? Except we don't have any actual images of those things safe for two paragraphs in Edda, whose connection to the actual folklore idea that fantasy elves were based on tenuous at best. We don't even know if the two ideas are really connected to a single symbolic creature.

Second of all, that guy just described his fucking elves as ordinary people with pointy ears and de-aged. I really want to see how you or him are going to defend how that is totally super inspired by the original pagan imagery of fucking Edda, who are literally described as denizens of sphere of highest heaven (or sky) and being "brighter than the Sun".

Just drop the fucking pretense and the sad attempts to excuse the shit and just call it what it is. A generic fantasy image. And that is FINE, there is nothing inherently wrong with doing generic fantasy stuff. It's just doing it extremely inexpertly and/or attempting to justify it or excuse it and make up bullshit reasoning why it's "totally not the generic fantasy shit because my elves don't use bows and instead are magic only" (meaning that you do the same generic shit except you just cut half of it away) that I find issue with.

>>53928137
Sounds good, but you'll need to think of a way to reveal that backstory about the chieftain's ruse to the players, as just giving them a Goblin tribe led by a 10-year-old human boy will just end up being baffling and confusing, but at best amusing at least.
Maybe have the boy understand what's going on? If he's whipping the tribe into shape, it's not unreal to think that he's wise/smart beyond his years anyway.

>>53928583
>Except we don't have any actual images of those things safe for two paragraphs in Edda
Yes, but it's everyone right to base their fantastic creatures on these and proclaim that they are based and inspired on what we know would be their mythical equivalent from a certain time, nobody is saying that his inspirations are the correct ones and going in and saying "Akshually they are IN FACT this thing from this other period" doesn't make much sense.

>I really want to see how you or him are going to defend how that is totally super inspired by the original pagan imagery of fucking Edda
Oh yes, he's a retard about this thing.

>>53928680
What the hell are you talking about? Sure, you can say any old bollocks you want, but that does not make not-silly. And I'm not the one who is saying that there is one right image of elves, I'm pretty sure it was you who consistently dissmissed the medieval image even though that is actually the oldest image we have.

My point was that A) actual folklore and mythological image of an elf (or creatures that inspired it) is extremely far from an idea of a young-looking mage with pointy ears. And that is true for all of them - being the germanic alp which is basically a nightmare, the medieval english elf which is a carrier of disease, Edda's one which is basically an Angel of pure light, celtic Aos si who were similar to gnomes, Icelandic huldufólk (or norwegian huldra) who were invisible people or even water spirits etc...

I'm not saying either is the "right" one, but I'm saying NONE of those is really close to the modern generic fantasy stuff.

And I'm not even saying that the modern generic stuff is wrong in principle (though I won't lie, I'm sick of them myself). I'm just really wondering what is the point of combining that with an interesting speculative concepts about evolution of hominid species.

>>53928583
>A generic fantasy image.
Explain to me how having to consume a huge amount of knowledge on magic in order to go through a physical transformation is somehow a generic fantasy image?

You're being autistic. I should have known from the moment you posted a fucking 5 page essay reply right from the get-go with speculative speculative speculative speculative speculative speculative speculation.

>>53928911
>Explain to me how having to consume a huge amount of knowledge on magic in order to go through a physical transformation is somehow a generic fantasy image?
Have you ever opened a fantasy book in your life?
>You're being autistic.
Says the person who actually expects people to understand his own image in his head without even fucking explaining it?
No, I'm not autistic. You are just insanely butthurt because somebody said something negative about your precious little fanfiction and you can't cope with it. So you go into increasingly absurd lenghts to totally justify it. And I don't care anymore. You are clearly not capable or even interested in actual discussion, just crappy piles of crappy excuses because criticizing your work is not something you can handle.
So yeah, good luck with your world-building and all.

>>53928988
>Have you ever opened a fantasy book in your life?
Actually, I stopped reading generic fantasy books when I became 17 and got my hands on Tolkien. Couldn't go back to forgettable fantasy books ever since.

And no, I'm not mad about you saying "something negative". I'm mad about you complaining about something that I don't even understand. I literally cannot understand your problem. You don't even explain your problem beyond "I AM AUTISTIC AND I CANNOT UNDERSTAND A UNIVERSE WHERE EVOLUTION AND MAGIC COEXIST".

>>53928894
You are the one that said that elves are in fact this one medieval thing. Yes, we can at best speculate if what we know from the edda is historical correct and if the nordic people really believed in these alfr as they are presented today. But nobody is wrong when he says that he bases his image of elves on these nordic ones, most people will probably understand that he didn't take a timemachine, went back and ask some pagan swede what an elf is.

>>53929051
>I'm mad about you complaining about something that I don't even understand.
Then maybe the problem is not in what I'm saying, but in your inabillity to understand. I've actually made my point pretty damn fucking clear about six times. Instead of even begining to understand it, you started yapping excuses how it's totally not generic (yes, age-less beautiful strongly magical humans with pointy fucking ears ARE generic, all the way back to Tolkien) and how I totally don't respect your vision despite the fact that you yourself literally described them as that.
My problem has been explained about fifteen fucking times, last time here >>53928583
Read it, or don't, I don't care anymore. Again. You clearly aren't capable of actual fucking discussion.


>>53929063
>You are the one that said that elves are in fact this one medieval thing.
Read again.
>>53927232
Notice the damn list. I've spoken about the WORD, which is indeed transported from old German (and proto-german), and then provided another list of multiple different variants of similar creatures that inspired the fantasy concept. I never declared any of them "the right" one, I just pointed out that every single one of them is very different from the rest and they are all very different from the generic fantasy trope.
What the fuck is up with people in this thread not knowing how to fucking read?

>>53929246
>(yes, age-less beautiful strongly magical humans with pointy fucking ears ARE generic, all the way back to Tolkien)
No they're not. Only Tolkien uses elves as actual supermen. Everywhere else, they're implied to be supermen, but they're never given any fucking clarification to why they're supermen or even shown to be fucking weak pussies.

Actually, now I think about it, the only other story where elves actually are shown to do as they're told to be, is in Warhammer, where elves are fucking badasses.

>>53929246
>(yes, age-less beautiful strongly magical humans with pointy fucking ears ARE generic, all the way back to Tolkien)
How are they generic? Most elfs in fantasy are not strong.

>>53929320
>No they're not.
Dude, I don't care about your crappy fucking excuses. And you literally just described your fucking elves as magical supersayans literally comparing them to superhumans so please don't fucking do this shit, it's just cringeworthy. Let's drop it. I don't think you have any fucking CLUE what the word generic means to fucking begin with.
God dammit NOBODY CARES. I don't fucking care. Make them as fucking generic as you want for fuck sake. Make a fucking token microchange and then wank off what visionary you are but don't be surprised when people laugh at you next time. Or grow some balls and don't go immediately in full defense mode. Just don't do this shit.

>>53929246
>Read again.
Read your own post>>53928323
>>53928082

>people care if their setting is generic

>>53929398
Serious question: Are you actually, clinically mentally retarded?
If not, then you should be able to fucking read those two fucking posts again.

>>53929320
>Everywhere else, they're implied to be supermen
They aren't. It's a meme that gets reiterated to shit on them in the same post.

>>53929392
But I still don't understand why you call it generic...

We just had a fucking thread about why elfs aren't living up to their whole trope of being ancient powerful people in pretty much every roleplaying game dude.

Elfs ACTUALLY BEING superhumans IS the very opposite of generic!

You know what an elf in most RPG's is? A fast human that needs an extra big bowl of chicken soup when they catch a cold or can't lift as much.

>>53929450
We reached this point of the argument, haven't we?

>>53929498
>behold the POWER OF THE ELVES!

>+2 dex
>-2 con

Truly, this is the infinite power of the immortal elves!

>>53929521
>But I still don't understand why you call it generic...
You don't understand how your particular flavor of the ageless beautiful magically inclined humans with FUCKING POINTY EARS is generic because it's superifically slightly different from other ageless beautiful magically inclined humans with pointy fucking ears featured in every fantasy ever?

>Elfs ACTUALLY BEING superhumans IS the very opposite of generic!
Except for Tolkien, Sapkowsky, Williams, Gavriel, Paoliny etc... Fuck me: the problem with elves is the fucking stereotype of an idealized ageless human with magical affinity, beauty and fucking pointy ears. It's the fucking trope: idealized human associated with the Hero Era past with strong affinity to environmental powers, ageless, beautiful, and those stupid fucking pointy years that only exist because early fantasy artists were hacks and needed to communicate the non-human nature of the character somehow since their art wasn't up to snuff.

If you don't realize how your particular brand differing slightly in powerlevels and origin fucking story is generic, I don't know what to tell you. I don't care either. It's still the same symbolic fucking set, the same stereotype, the same "done to be immediately recognized and immediately correctly categorized down to the fucking visual cues".

That is generic. It's not about the fucking bow or a fucking staff: it's about basic set of identifiable traits and basic simple symbolic references. And you have nailed every single one of them.

>>53929532
You got yourself to blame. I mean fuck me, I literally started the discussion with AN ENTIRE FUCKING POINT about the diversity of images of elves across cultures and periods for fuck sake. So what the fuck are you talking about? NOTHING in those posts actually fucking claims that there is one correct image. They literally state the opposite. It's there - letters on a fucking paper: just fucking read it and fuck off.

>>53929955
Are you one of those people that go out of their way to avoid tropes?

Do you have some kind of trope allergy? You sound like you have a trope allergy.

>>53930422
>Are you one of those people that go out of their way to avoid tropes?
Nope. But I'm one of those people who think clarity and honesty is pretty fucking important. I actually made it clear about six or seven times in this very thread that something being generic does not necessarily makes it bad. I guess literally stating that four or five times is not enough when people take an actual discussion personally.

My problem is not with tropes and generic elements - at least not in this thread - but with their use. Because I think it's understanding of what you are doing and what tools you have at your disposal that is ultimately the sole thing that matters.

That was the original point: that while having generic stuff is not inherently bad, but it will go bad if you deny it, try to hide it, use poor tools to cover it, or poor tools that don't mesh well with the generic stuff.

File: Vraal.png (315KB, 427x479px) Image search: [Google]

315KB, 427x479px

People on this general care way too much about not seeming 'generic' it's ridiculous, just create what you think is cool ffs it don't matter how much it has been done before

>>53930514
If you are this guy
>>53923786
you definitely were very negative about tropes.

>>53930660
>you definitely were very negative about tropes.
Actually, the negativity is about the mixture of unfitting elements, not the actual individual parts. Tropes are essentially archetypes. Usually sadly mishandled ones, but still: at root it's an archetype. And archetypes are popular and persistent for a good reason.
In order to use an archetype well though, you do need to understand what makes it interesting. It's a tool: you need to use it properly, otherwise it sucks. And that is not a problem of tropes alone, that applies to every other tool - say, "scientific speculation", "historical accuracy" or "psychedelic elements". What I really find annoying is how people use tropes, not the tropes themselves.

>>53930747
So basically you're saying "ME NO LIKE PINEAPPLE JUICE IN MY RUM".

>>53930876
No, not at all. But again and again, you are not even attempting to understand or even fucking read what I'm posting.

>>53931001
You write too many words and say too little. It really pisses me off, so yeah I'm going to respond a bit vitriolic.

Just admit you don't like the combo of realism and magic.

>>53931264
>You write too many words and say too little.
This is probably the most pathetic way of saying "I don't have what it takes to argue with you but damn if I'm going to admit it!" thing ever. Don't ever, ever say this shit, it just makes you look like a complete moron.

>Just admit you don't like the combo of realism and magic.
No, I just don't like poorly constructed fiction. Ironically enough, there is an entire genre called "magical realism" and it is by far my absolute favorite type of fiction ever.
You are not even using the word "realism" right though, and that kinda goes along the entire problem. You don't grasp even the basic concepts and you don't even try, yet somehow you feel justified to attack or make shitty excuses instead of - maybe - just trying to understand.

It's not realism. Nothing that was discussed anywhere in this thread was even close to realism. Your idea of basing your races in existing hominid species is not even close to being realistic, and that was never the point. It's speculation based on some semblance of scientific education. Which is a very different thing from realism.

The problem lies elsewhere: the problem is in the fucking MEANING of the combination of the various elements you use. You know, meaning: that fucking thing that is literally the entire point of the exercise?

No matter how desperately you want to reframe it so that you would not have to actually doubt your convinction, this is not about my personal preferences: this is about BASIC narrative theory and basic competence and skills used when creating fiction. Individual taste has very little to do with it. It's craft, it's basic understanding of how to tell a story.

>>53931726
>The problem lies elsewhere: the problem is in the fucking MEANING of the combination of the various elements you use. You know, meaning: that fucking thing that is literally the entire point of the exercise?

Uh, this is the worldbuilding general. This isn't the meaning in fictional worlds general.

Besides, who the fuck cares about meaning. Our universe exists without meaning, so why should a fictional universe exist with meaning?

File: foodman.jpg (79KB, 394x841px) Image search: [Google]

79KB, 394x841px

>>53932635
>Our universe exists without meaning

>>53932635
>Besides, who the fuck cares about meaning.
Literally everyone who ever opens any kind of fiction. Because that is what fiction is about. Entirely and exclusively.

>Our universe exists without meaning, so why should a fictional universe exist with meaning?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Try again.

>>53932635
>meaning is bad
This attitude is a curse that plagues fantasy and worldbuilding in general.
Autistically focusing on creating a crude simulation of a world isn't interesting in the slightest.

For a humanoid race with draconian heritage, what kind of traits would be interesting for them to inherit?
>Long life span
>Fire breathing
>Strengthed bodies
>High tolerance to heat
>High tolerance to disease

>>53882234
In my setting, all are one and one is all. The Manifold.

>>53930597
Yeah I would much rather be in a generic but interesting, fun, and well thought out setting than a non-generic shallow one which falls for the "subverting tropes makes it good" fallacy.

>>53932883
Kleptomania, specifically compulsive hoarding

I am looking for a fitting system to run games in my world. it's only human and it's low fantasy. almost zero magical items and very very very subtle magic. the setting is a bit like south and south east europe during justinian's reign.

I thought about using the 5E Middle Earth rules and convert them a bit since I like it's journey rules and also the low magic of ME fits my setting too but I am looking for something out of the box. perhaps something old school like pendragon campaigns.

>>53932883
Poison blood, hunger for treasure, the ability to speak to birds, affinity to fire, hypnotic gaze. A path soaked in blood and paved with gold to become true dragons if they are strong enough to seize it.

Of course it would only be fair that certain negative traits give them a suitable weakness.
Inability to directly lie, need for treasure/sacrifice to sustain them, reduced power in winter or colder areas (which renders them powerful in thier homeland but much less able to steamroller everywhere else) or weakness to the divine (since dragons are spawn of Satan). Or pathological greed/arrogance/blood-lust/lethargy etc, thinking like a dragon is not just cultural but in the blood.

It's not so much "competitive balance" as flaws and limitations are more interesting than perfect scaly supermen.

>>53876986
The German.

File: Mefitis.png (8KB, 349x236px) Image search: [Google]

8KB, 349x236px

>>53876986
Mefitis, the Spirit of Fire

>>53876986
The enlightened and generous magocracy that is the undisputed major political power. Essentially think of merging the Civil War-era Union -- especially the part behind shit like the Tuskegee Experiment -- with Victorian gentry and Nazi scientists. A very good example of "wizards, no sense of right or wrong" except as the major leading influence on the world. A few decades ago, they crushed a relatively peaceful neighbor under their bootheels for the sake of large deposits of as magical fuel they found a use for, but it also doubled as an experiment to try out all sorts of horrific weapons of war and was the first introduction of Peacemakers, artificial soldiers whose basic design has since begun to see use in industrial production and manufacturing.

Back in the Old World, Carska actually operates a lot like a cyberpunk dystopia with increasingly rampant joblessness due to increased automation along with a massive cultural divide between magisters and those without the gift of the arcane. In the glittering spires, magisters fight among themselves like cats as they constantly jockey for positions and privileges -- the College of Medicine is still nursing a communal distaste for the College of Artifice's Peacemakers being selected by the College of War over their own undead. And in the New World, they are the dominant colonizers -- and also the reason for the other major colony, the result of forced migration from firebrands and political idealists from the recently conquered -- err, unified -- Lorne.

The seven Colleges that make up magister society are to be thanked for the great strides that society has made. Disease and plagues are almost unheard of -- outside for incidents that certainly are not the College of Medicine testing new batches -- and even the poor can count on eating even if just fish paste and bread. And locomotives and sonus procul relays allow for people and messages to move great distances. But not without a price.

File: Nausicaa-of-the-Valley_of_the-Wind-wallpaperxx.jpg (105KB, 650x488px) Image search: [Google]

105KB, 650x488px

>>53876986
>tell me about the closest thing you have to an antagonist in your setting /wbg/
Time and entropy would be easily the biggest thing, seeing how a lot of the settings is based around aesthetic of slow "peaceful decay" and cycles of alternating growth and downfall of civilization where the period of growth is shorter and less advanced each time.

Then there are Goh-Sum Empire folks, who have been viewed as the primary "force of evil" for a good while as they stamped in all Mongolian-like and destroyed and then took over what used to be the oldest and most advanced kingdom in the country. They then continued to send out massive slavery campaigns all over the place destroying several relatively peaceful kingdoms in the process.
Their ruling family is pretty fucked up and nobody is even sure what is going on with them, so they could be considered pretty clear villains.

Then there is the Acolyte Cult, a creepy organization whose job is to arrange trades between humans and presumably divine beings known as the Celestials. The articles of the trade are always the same: Acolytes provide slaves, Celestials provide grain, and all of this is regularly done in quite a big volumes. One could argue that the people willingly organizing essentially human sacrifices in volumes of up to tens of thousands is pretty villainous.

Or of course, you could count the Celestials as villains, as they happily buy thousands of slaves to drag them god-knows where, never for them to return, instead of just nicely sharing all their grain.

Then there are, of course, thousands of little selfish bastards doing little selfish things: raiders, slave traders, local warlords, fanatic priests etc...
But none of them are - I think - villains in the true sense. They are just... doing their things to survive.

>Oh hey! I'm working on a setting that has a lot of the same elements these anons are talking about!
>ANGRY SCREECHING NOISES
Well then, I'll just keep it to myself and passive-aggressively post on page 10

Do trickster spirits/gods feature in your setting's mythology? Tell us about one. Are they malicious, benevolent, or neither? Do people worship them? Why?

Space magic?

>>53937772
Space magic.

>>53937772
ehh
it depends

please don't combine technology-looking technology with magic, if you want space magic then go total space-fantasy with non-scifi fantastical aesthetics

File: 1481076426055.jpg (37KB, 564x1094px) Image search: [Google]

37KB, 564x1094px

>>53876986
super secret vampire vizier thats leading an empire made up of not khanate horde and cossacks

>>53877822
stealing this

>>53887209
lobster people is my first thought

it could be interesting, but my opinion of New England as a post apocalyptic setting has definitely been soured by Fallout 4. I didn't even play it

>>53888482
inspiration outside of northwest europe

File: sai_2017-06-21_23-45-30.png (357KB, 1161x756px) Image search: [Google]

357KB, 1161x756px

>>53939524
flatterong

In my setting, you gain magical power by owning portions of someones soul. If someone owns the majority of your soul, you have a disposition to do anything they ask of you as long as it does not go totally against your personal morals, does not lead to harm against you (unless you don't care) and is actually possible for you to do.

If someone owns your soul in its entirety you cannot act against them knowingly or willingly, and you will do anything they ask of you. Owning someones soul does nothing to make them like you anymore than they actually do.

This has lead to the world being run by guilds who use the magic and resources they have to make deals for portions of peoples souls. Want that girl to like you? I'll cast a spell so that she loves you and only you for the low low prices of 10%. Want to be the richest man in the city? for 30% I can make that happen. Want me to bring your son back to life? How about 5% (1% interest) per year? etc. etc.

Since most people aren't stupid enough to sell the majority of their soul/ their entire soul, except in extremely drastic circumstances, the guilds end up using tricks and deception to steal their soul. My idea was that each guild uses a different kind of trick. One uses intimidation/ protection rackets, another magically imbues goods and services so that they are highly addictive, starts cheap but steadily climbs in price as your addiction gets worse and worse. Another uses legitimately good deals and after an agreed upon period of time, you pay back whatever is owed plus a sliver of your soul, can't pay back on time? Then its your entire soul instead.

What other tricks and deceptions could be used in order to get people to sell?

File: 1454719141273.gif (1MB, 268x274px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 268x274px

>>53875686
Anyone want to help me come up with a better name for an alien race in my setting? They're just called Morphs right now but I was looking for something a bit more

>inspired by Metroid Fusion's X Parasite and a bit of the Xenomorph from Alien
>resembles a grey slop with little sentience
>aims to invade a host and hijack their body
>body mutates after long periods of time, after regenerating from injuries, or via genetic manipulation
>may also mutate at will as a reflexive action to respond to stimuli and aggressors
>aims to evolve into a more efficient life form and generally increase their population

Can't do anything but give it a bump.

>>53901430
The Dragonlands lie far to the south; it is a seemingly endless jungle.

While dragons do live there, they are the least of your worries. Horrible giant insects carrying even more horrible diseases, poison fruits, contaminated water, unbearable humidity, ruthless savages, monstrous jungle cats, carnivorous plants, you name it. Even the air can be toxic.

>>53875686
I'd gladly blow whoever updated the OP.

>>53876986
Since my world(s) is based off of old theories about how the world works (morphogenetic fields, aether theory, etc) I was thinking I might have a planet X analog literally just show up after a certain point. Being that the theme of the setting is ghibli the inhabitant clearly have abused their world's environment and now they want to abuse yours to survive booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo whooooooooooooooooo hammy environmentalism.

File: TorAl.png (1MB, 900x1108px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 900x1108px

>>53919216
Can I key a key for what different colors mean?

>>53945823
If people know the coastlines of the Far Dark, surely they'd know the coastal vegetation, amirite?

>>53945847
The fierce winds and cold scour the land, preventing anything from growing.
Also, looking back, I can see how badly I ignored things like rain shadows and prevailing winds when making that map.

>>53945871
Meh, it looks good and you probably won't be playing with geologists so it's fine.
The names trigger me a bit but it's no biggie. Also, there's a typo down in Xenet at "peacably"
7/10 would gladly play in.

>>53945823
Love these fonts.

File: telosmapoutlinelarge.jpg (323KB, 2000x2000px) Image search: [Google]

323KB, 2000x2000px

>>53946213
That's why I made that map, mostly. To play around with fonts and overlays. And to cram as many stereotypical civilizations onto the same landmass as possible.

>>53945823
>river running shore to shore in Senet (Xenet?)
>drainage basins overlapping
reeeeeee

Other than that it's a good map. The names are kind of meh however

>>53946045
I think that's actually... Senet?

>>53901430
More or less half of the continent that we exclusively play on. The big theme is colonization, and while the continent has been known of for about a century and some change, it's only been rigorously settled for twenty some odd years. Between shifting policies in expansion -- the current ruling party is stifling expansion to more further develop and settle the territory already claimed, while a secret society attempts to spark an organized war against the Natives to seize more land -- and hostile indigenous peoples -- so far, colonization has taken place in what was more or less the native backwoods, there's still unbowed Empires that are considered just to be tall tales.

>>53937667
I have a fey court jester god called Thicket that is granted dominion over large swathes of the massive forest because he managed to trick some elves out of a suuper magic gem and created the wood elves.

side note:
Fey, Fay, Faye or Fae

>>53946562
Faey.

>>53946591
thanks anon that sounds better

>>53901430
What amount is generally best for D&D?

>>53946562
Fey

>>53946562
Fey or Fae, anything else and you're a faggot.

>>53946562
Fey, fae, faerie, or sidhe

>>53946637
Depends on what you, the GM, are going for with the setting.
Obviously the official setting, Forgotten Realms, is nearly 100% mapped out and known about by the people of the world. And there's value to that, since roleplaying games such as that gain a lot from being able to interact with NPCs and such. If you're travelling into completely unknown territory, you're removing NPC interactions, unless there's another culture/racial group living there than never came into contact with the "main world". You could do that quite easily, by making it similar to Europe's discovery of the Americas, where there were already established societies and groups that were completely new and unknown to the explorers.
And exploration-based campaign would focus more on mapping, establishing bases (if they're working for an organization/power, rather than just a small group of explorers who will leave after they're satisfied), and finding resources. It would be a big shift from the typical "adventurer" playstyle that I'd say is standard for D&D and similar games, which involves travelling around and established world, with monster-infested dungeons being really the only "exploration" the players do.

File: Islands.png (216KB, 1390x1001px) Image search: [Google]

216KB, 1390x1001px

Do I need more space between my islands?

>>53945626
The text colors don't mean anything anymore, they're just stylistic. They used to mean how "foreign" or "legendary" a town or city is but that no longer holds true as this map isn't centered around any culture or location anymore. The exception is the pinkish red used in Detakor, Goralak, and Brine. This basically means "only known to its inhabitants and neighbors", these towns are completely unknown to the greater world. Blue represents castles, temples, and fortresses, except I've removed most of the blue text as there are too many castles to actually label. Now only the most important castles are marked with blue text. Black represents ruined cities.

The colored icons above town/city names represent factions. If the icon is just blank red/darkred/purple, I haven't determined the faction yet. Some empires have multiple factions displayed, I will eventually start posting a faction map but it's way too early for that.

Geographical colors are just stylistic approximations, there won't be a key for those. Light mountains which are placed in clumps or arrays instead of ranges represent areas which are extremely spiky or hilly. Towards the northern areas there seem to be "forests", clumps of green, those don't represent anything, they are just there to add variation. They're too large to actually be forests. Not everything is colored exactly, most of Morunoch is gray, not purple, but the sky is quite purple due to what the sunlight has to pass through, so it is depicted as purple.

>>53948927
Nah, they look fine.

A more "realistic" setting with countries closer together, spans a (large) continent.
Or
A more "fantasy" setting with countries spread out, spans several smaller continents.

>>53949192
Depends, but I prefer the latter.

>>53949207
I'm thinking something like those old NES/SNES RPGs, having a whole continent with like 3 cities. Seems less restricting too.

>>53949098
I forgot the brown text. Those are Glygur structures, extremely large systems of caverns that typically host multiple small civilizations and strange biodiversity.

>>53949299
>a whole continent with like 3 cities

Early JRPGS are pretty much quintessential examples of Points of Light settings. Now I want to go run a game of Ryuutama.

>>53949436
Nothing wrong with that, there's something fundamentally quaint about those points of light settings. That or maybe I'm just a big nostalgiafag

I'm making an underground, supernatural fight club run by a bunch of beings that literally feed off of rage but I'm not sure what to do about creating NPCs for it. I have the leader/primary medic, the rules (involving binding promises and something that causes weapons to no longer be lethal), and that most of the location scouting/grunt work is done by minor members of the group. I honestly don't even know how many named NPCs the group would need.

File: 1479760561523.jpg (269KB, 706x1024px) Image search: [Google]

269KB, 706x1024px

>>53939558
Oh it would be nothing like fallout. No high-tech stuff, just comfy little seaside towns and horrible monsters in the forests.

>>53876986
The balance of power between the government and the people.

How far back -- and in how much detail -- does your world's history stretch?

Is it okay if I post in this thread with a setting that's not intended to be TECTONIC PLATES and HISTORICALLY ACCURATE FEUDALISM?

>>53952057
Recorded history? About 140 years. Pretty much everything before that was lost in the war and the invasion of the horrors from the deep.

>>53952407
no

>>53952407
100%.

>>53952057
I don't have the timelines and dimensions even close to being finalized, but on a provisional basis:
In the absolute broadest strokes - about 18 thousand years (that is since the emergence of first major industrial civilization) back. Though 13 thousand years of it can be more-or-less summed up on a single page.
Last 5000 years is a lot more detailed. First 2000 yeras are focused on an old now-passed ancient civilization (which I have about 15+ pages of base culture, politics, philosophy and several major historical events).
Then there is about a thousand years gap during which there are basically no records and basically nothing major happened.
Then the last two thousand years are - more or less, the "contemporary" history. I have certain specific periods more detailed than others, of course, but it's here where I'm detailing things like individual cities and countries, actual historical characters, battles, individual religions etc...

>>53952407
Sure. But keep in mind that the main reason why people focus on those things, is that those are things that people can actually talk about very easily and that you might find multiple people be willing to give feedback on. As sad as it may sound: people generally either don't give a fuck, or don't know what to tell you about things that can't be criticized on some semi-objective basis.

>>53940434
Read books on economy? I have no clue mate. Economics class is 10 years ago for me.

File: gobi-desert-mongolia-284sy1j.jpg (53KB, 600x450px) Image search: [Google]

53KB, 600x450px

Is a desert, with sand and everything, plausible on a subarctic region? I want to have a cold desert akin to the Gobi desert in my setting, but I've read that what makes it possible is the drier horse latitudes just above the tropics, and where I want to put this cold desert is way more north than that

>>53955317
"It's magic" isn't always the most elegant or desired solution, but it's how I achieved a similar thing in my setting. A perfectly circular, massive area was basically vaporized, turning everything into sand. Most out it is out of the artic circle, but the northern tip of the desert reaches the northern shore of the continent, so you can stand of desert sand while looking at natural ice floats drift by in the sea in front of you.

>>53955317
Just don't be autistic. There you go, you can now have a subarctic desert without having to get a doctorate in geography or spend years learning 100% accurate climate mapping.

>>53956733
>Just don't be autistic
I feel the need to remind you that we are in /wbg/ right now.

>>53955317
>Is a desert, with sand and everything, plausible on a subarctic region?

Totally possible. Even discounting the entire existence of Polar Deserts which are pretty chilly and not always snowfields.

Horse latitudes are one factor in the formation of deserts but not the only one. Rainshadow deserts such as the Taklamakan and the Gobi form due to moisture being unable to reach them, usually due to extreme distance from the coast and/or mountains blocking the rain.

Or perhaps you could have a high altitude desert such as the Tibetan plateau which also enjoys some rainshadow from the Himalayas.

Kobuk Valley Park in Alaska even has sand dunes and it's firmly inside the Arctic Circle, so your hyperboreal desert can have them too. No, Kobuk is not desert but it shows that sand dunes can form that far north.

>>53956733
Everything I've just said could be found out by 5 minutes of googling. That is a pretty low bar for what counts as autism in worldbuilding.

File: wolfwoman skimpy.jpg (305KB, 1280x1638px) Image search: [Google]

305KB, 1280x1638px

What's a good name for some super gangly desert dwelling werewolf people?

File: RemusLupin_WB_F3_ConceptOfLupinInForestAsAWerewolf_Illust_080615_Land.jpg (69KB, 910x548px) Image search: [Google]

69KB, 910x548px

>>53957627
That doesn't look very gangly to me.

File: wolfman skimpy.jpg (270KB, 1280x1638px) Image search: [Google]

270KB, 1280x1638px

>>53957658

I just picked up some random pictures. Not exactly what I'm looking for but close enough.

>>53957627
I'd go for Jackals or Hyenas or something, and not have those actual animals in the setting or something.

>>53901430
Set in modern times but after an apocalyptic event so maybe some people don't know if the world is explored or not

>>53876986
There's a few... there's an organization that wants to take over a small country

Bunch of people trying to find a bunch of underground bunkers and release the horrors inside them ( mostly being a extremely pissed off lizard thing, a mask that will try take over the world and a borderline indestructible warrior. )

File: map.png (41KB, 1072x600px) Image search: [Google]

41KB, 1072x600px

>>53957255
All of my stuff is on paper and my camera is shit, so I made pic related to help

>and/or mountains blocking the rain
Yeah I knew of rainshadow, and it was that that gave me the idea to have a desert there, because I thought "hmm those mountains would block the rain, maybe I could put a desert there" but then I realized how north it was and thought maybe it couldn't happen, but anyways thanks for all the info, really helped

>>53956733
>Just don't be autistic
can't do

>>53956104
Yeah I really don't like pulling good ol' magic like that

>>53958998
btw, those lines inside the land are the mountains surrounding the desert

>>53957627
>>53957752
It's like the worst of the sonic and starfox autism centers tried to collaborate, but it wasn't good enough so someone just commissioned these instead.

>>53958535
I could go into detail if there's an interest...

I generally stay away from making my own maps in favor of using real world so its easier for me, my players enjoy the realism of it, plus I take them all through historical places and all that kinda stuff... Example I had a boss fight on top of Ayers rock.. Resulted in an epic battle and death scene.

File: received_1346912552044742.png (747KB, 1759x1004px) Image search: [Google]

747KB, 1759x1004px

I'm going to post my world, me and my friends started playing around 6 months ago with none of us having played before. The world has sent though many many changes and drafts and has humble beginnings in paint going to post the evolution of our map. Please criticize and make comments or questions. Looking for feedback and I'll explain best I can. Warning the first few are morbid.

File: received_1346912545378076.png (440KB, 1276x704px) Image search: [Google]

440KB, 1276x704px

>>53959992
My 2nd ms paint drawing. Still super terrible by your guys standards but my friends loved it.

File: received_1346912528711411.jpg (96KB, 937x703px) Image search: [Google]

96KB, 937x703px

>>53959992
>>53960015
I made this shortly after I discovered inkarnte. I think this is worse.

File: Map_3.jpg (849KB, 1024x768px) Image search: [Google]

849KB, 1024x768px

>>53960027
I didnt like it so i remade it again the problem was inkarnte is to freaking tiny so i lost the city names and everything else. But i liked this version a lot pretty much the final version. Any tips about land and geography? First time ever doing this.

File: asdasdasdasdasd.png (6MB, 2164x2304px) Image search: [Google]

6MB, 2164x2304px

>>53960047
So I decided to recreate it a 3rd time cutting the map not 6 parts and blowing it up so I can use it as a texture in inkarnte and just trace and recreate it. Problem was it fucked up because the way it uses terrain textures so I have this huge middle section missing and I can't seem to create it good enough for it to match with my autism.

File: Map_6.jpg (632KB, 1024x768px) Image search: [Google]

632KB, 1024x768px

>>53960101
I'm on mobile. But obviously this is my first go. I made the corrections for colors and roads and mountains and trees not aligning I just didn't splice them together yet. I also have made some small islands to fill the open ocean with.

File: Map_8.jpg (783KB, 1024x768px) Image search: [Google]

783KB, 1024x768px

>>53960144

File: Map_7.jpg (411KB, 1024x768px) Image search: [Google]

411KB, 1024x768px

>>53960156
Last one rip. Any suggestions about my world besides the shitty drawings.

>>53960047
I like this one the most, it's super cool seeing the map go through so many different phases though. What tips it in favour of this one though would have to be the fact that settlements are just dots now. The little city pictures feel too out-of-place and especially for a such an aesthetically pleasing map, seeing town markers copy/pasted all over the place makes it lose some authenticity.
Nothing egregiously wrong with the geography from what I can see. Particularly here >>53960101 the boundary between Ebondale's area colour and the greenery of the surrounding land seems to change way too suddenly, but I understand that's at least partially Inkarnate's fault. I'd at least recommen moving the eastern edge of the red land to the riverbank, though.

>>53960255
Thanks for the advice! And yah I thought so about the maps. The people I'm playing with personally liked the town's better even though I didnt. Glad somebody agrees. And as for the ebondale area i smothed it out a lot more and have up to date colors and mountains that match way better. I just haven't gotten around to splicing them together. But thank you!. I'm just looking for more thinks to get it authentic.

File: tumblr_n4cbafJ9Cd1sfhksto1_500.gif (625KB, 500x150px) Image search: [Google]

625KB, 500x150px

>>53957658
Coolest werewolf ever put to film

Do people really hate Inkarnate so much that they can't stand any pictures drawn with it?

>>53945823

seconding this guy >>53946486. Its great other than the names, many of which are directly lifted from history and geography

>The neighbors of not!greek are not!indians.

Am i a hack?

>>53964225
There isn't really anything from stopping these two from co-existing. Of course there is the potential that both influence each other, but that actually happened in history as well. If you make it so that for example northern india takes some greek influence, while the south and east stays very indian becasue of the huge distance, there won't be any trouble. Remeber that india is big sub-continent, it would take much for greek to somehow alter its entire landscape.

>>53964278
The Greco-Bactrian and Greco-Indian Kingdoms were pretty cool. On the one hand so totally different, and on other the shared Indo-European roots made cultural blending much easier. I particularly like Greco-Buddhism and the cultural legacy it left.

I wonder where Indo-Greek hybridisation would have gone next if it was able to survive the various nomadic invasions.

>>53964432
I don't think somewhere much, the mix was more style than substance, it's only speculated that indian theater was influenced by the greek.

However Afghanistan, Pakistan and these silly states north from these would probably much different than today.

>>53962525
Why do you get that idea? Two posts above you the guy compliments how the Inkarnate maps look.

>>53963179
>Its great other than the names, many of which are directly lifted from history and geography
see: >>53946329 They're intentionally cliche, so it's obvious what's there.

Wait, ok... so. There is a knight order with one mission, reclaiming the promised land that has been claimed by lich city states. The undead, demon, and abominations rest during the day and stir at night. For the undead to be exterminated, they must be stilled and then have an exorcism performed to break the curse of the liches. So this knight order has established a fortress, their seemingly ceaseless war on the lich city states is freeing suitable farmland and mines so what was once just a fortified church has become a walled city. Plenty of work for laborers, and soldiers and the walled city is planned to become a multi-walled city.

This sound like a good point of light for a dark, or corrupted continent?

>>53968221
What's stopping the liches from rolling over the fortification with their undead armies in the night?

>>53968452
The dutiful defenders, the constant patrols that maintain a perimeter, petty in fighting that liches are prone to arguing over silly things like who's femur is better.