World Building General /wbg/

>Country on the southernmost peninsula wants to expand to the chunk of land across the bay
>Party is sent to scout it out
>Party can choose one of three starting towns: 1) directly across from peninsula on southernmost edge of mainland. 2) Western most peninsula. 3) At the central lake.

>>53975461
How "West March" is it, really?

There was a thread a while back that was talking about Roll20 games just using it as a buzzword for Hexcrawl.

http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/

>Inspired by Scandinavia, China, and Afghanistan
Please elaborate. Just mountains, steppe and the not!Gobi?

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>>53975718
>How "West March" is it, really?
I have about 10 friends interested in playing, but everyone's schedule is different. I'm the primary world GM, but my experienced players also have a couple of dungeons of their own designed.
Say a handful of players want to check out the abandoned tower they heard rumors about. Billy designed that tower, so he DMs that session (giving me a chance to play occasionally too).
Then the results are added to the "Tavern Book of Bragging" and the map is updated.
This allows multiple sessions per week involving various players.

Main towns are safe zones, everything beyond them is the frontier. Villages may offer a safe place to rest for the night, or they may try to kill you in their sleep.
Further outside the towns you go, the more dangerous it gets. Players are magically returned to the nearest safe zone at the end of session.

Exploration is key. Random encounters could lead to combat, new locations, rumors, etc.

The Hex map itself is more for me to have a rough idea of where discovered locations are.

What is a pure hexcrawl if there is a difference between that and West Marches?

>Please elaborate. Just mountains, steppe and the not!Gobi?
Dozens of mountain tribes with complex political relationships, same with lowland tribes.
China more for landscape inspiration. Contemplated putting in a great wall to protect against the dangerous of the frontier.
River valleys surrounded by towering mountains.
Land is cold and harsh.
Tons of abandoned mountain temples.

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>>53976057
>What is a pure hexcrawl if there is a difference between that and West Marches?

Players could camp out in the wilderness or dungeons, and there is no guaranteed safe zone.

You seem to be setting up an actual West March game, good on you. Here is something for your random encounter tables.

>>53976135
kek thanks

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How can I make a cyborg religion that isn't an admech knock off?

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>>53976404
The religion's population believes that once enough people become networked together, their god will appear as the combined will of all the people.

>>53976404
species finds religious purpose and philosophical context for their existence in mapping out the digits of multiple important irrational numbers and debating their ramifications.

The scary thing is their numerology, which could collapse their government under the wrong combination of revelations, largely leads to stable governance, the odd flash-crusade aside.

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So I was thinking about making a modern setting that is an alternate history where the Roman Empire survived, and eventually when fascism and communism came about instead of fascism being destroyed it formed a third faction in the cold war. Basically, it goes:
>1st World=liberal democratic nations
>2nd World=communist nations
>3rd World=fascist nations
>4th World=Neutral nations

The Roman Empire leads the fascist coalition, the Commonwealth (which includes the USA) leads the communist union, and the Chinese Republic leads the democratic alliance.

The players would more or less be acting as special forces or spies trying to influence the neutral nations to their side through bribing, operating, and the usage of proxy wars, while also trying to prevent nuclear war from breaking out at any cost.

Any tips for how to embellish the world and make it unique and interesting?

>>53976641
>roman empire survives
>USA exists

>>53976641
Make this timeline's USA a roman colony rather than british.

>>53976641
>alternate history where the Roman Empire survived
As in "Western Roman Empire survived"? Because if we count Eastern, it did for quite a while and later HRE, Turks and Russia claimed to be its successors

Also, it's a bit dubious British Empire and therefore US could exist with surviving Western Rome

>>53976670
I haven't decided how it would exist yet (obviously it's not going to be called the United States nor will it have its culture).

I'm debating between having it be a colony of the Romans that rebelled and broke away or having it be a member of the Russian Commonwealth and be a subject colony to them, with it's local capital located either in Alaska or western Canada (also Canada doesn't exist and is part of the USA).

>>53976706
>HRE, Turks and Russia claimed to be its successors
Also, to add: 3rd Reich also claimed that, with 1st Reich being Western Rome and 2nd being HRE

>>53976404
The Bentusi from Homeworld. They seek the stars, and wish to fly among them as their own ship.
> We are Unbound. The solar winds blow across our skin. Hyperspace sings in our ears. The universe unfolds around our thoughts.

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>>53976706
>As in "Western Roman Empire survived"?
As in it never broke in half in the first place.

I've decided to not make the British Empire a thing, and instead have the Commonwealth be a Russian thing (however unlikely that is). Basically, Russia colonized the lands to the east instead of the Brits colonizing the lands to the west.

>>53976748
Is it a bad idea to make the (Russian) Commonwealth communist? I don't want to just repeat history but at the same time it's not like making the Chinese communist would be a radical change either.

>>53976794
Have you considered how the roman empire and mongol invasions would have interacted? This could have an impact on the course that the slavic states follow

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How's the creation myth for the ethnic minority of my setting?

https://pastebin.com/HLeBDazf

>>53976818
Huh, that is a good point. I don't really know all that much about the Mongols or how they influenced their region, but I'll have to look into it.

>>53976864
Considering that the region influenced by Mongols includes everything from China to Levant, that'd be quite a lot

Also, it's a big question what kind of influence a Roman Empire that's strong and steady enough to not even divide into two administrative parts would have on early Islam and its Golden Age (taht was later ended by Mongol invasion and domestic fundamentalism)

>>53976864
Did rome convert to Christianity in this setting? This could impact a lot of the old world as it's not only the force that drove the rest of pagan europe to convert but also gave rise to islam

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>>53976971
>>53977017
Islam will remain a minority religion in this setting, I'll probably have the Empire adopt Christianity but if that lead to the Empire falling quicker then I might drop that.

If Genghis had given his lands to his eldest son instead of splitting it between the sons could the empire have lasted for far longer (assuming that this continued)? I'm thinking of a russian/mongol mixed empire that stretches from the edges of eastern Europe to the borders of China, where the peasants and workers revolted against the Khanate instead of the Tsardom.

>>53977174
You need to consider Gavelkind is normally cultural, not an individual's choice. Stubbing his children could simply have lead to more immediate, worse civil strife.

>>53977174
>If Genghis had given his lands to his eldest son instead of splitting it between the sons could the empire have lasted for far longer (assuming that this continued)?
To add to what >>53977321 said, it would probably resulted in massive fratricide, the way Turks done it

>I'm thinking of a russian/mongol mixed empire
Might be a bit of a problem. It's only possible if princes hated each other more than the mongols and if the two cultures actually intermixed properly, while in reality mongols made a point of keeping themselves to be the superiors

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>>53975461
Casual reminder of the social tiers of worldbuilders.

>>53976404
They worship the purity of the human form.
"Tainted" fleshy bits are stripped off as penance for wrong-doings (to keep the rest of your fleshy bits clean).

>>53977662
>typical high fantasy isn't on there
i wonder who might be behind this post...

>>53977560
>It's only possible if princes hated each other more than the mongols and if the two cultures actually intermixed properly, while in reality mongols made a point of keeping themselves to be the superiors
Could the Mongols have "mongolized" the Russians the same way the Romans romanized their conquered? Or perhaps just killed so many Russians that their culture was no longer the dominant one? Or perhaps I could just have massive fatricides be a regular part of the Mongol Khanate pre-revolution.

I mean, this is all history and not currently happening in the setting, so as long as the players don't question it I think it should be fine.

>>53977174
>If Genghis had given his lands to his eldest son instead of splitting it
Jochi was rumoured to possibly be illegitimate and Chagatai hated him. If Jochi had been left in charge there could well have been an immediate civil war, whereas splitting it at least delayed the civil war by another generation (kinda).

>>53975461
Looks like Lindon.

>>53981096
Weren't Mongols like nomadic and shit?

It's hard for me to imagine them dragging people out of their homes, put them on horses and make them ride through places.

Mongols were pillaging and receiving tributes, but it's not a culture to impose on others. Killing everyone is possible, but then it'd be just some settlers some time later or something, would change little.

So I've got a real early lightweight setting, the basic idea being creating a Zelda-esque world and tone with vaguely dieselpunk tech.

The tech is all over the place, as the world experienced a 300-year golden age of peace, prosperity and scientific progress followed by a period of dispersed warfare and the collapse of an empire. Materials, mining, manufacturing, transport etc etc are well in advance of all tech relating to warfare; I'm thinking needle rifles and gatling guns alongside airships, biplanes and early tanks.

All that being said, I've got a raging hard-on for man-portable pile bunkers as personal weapons. Short of exoskeletons and power armour, how could it work, both practically and visually with the setting?

>>53983089
What's Zelda-esque about it?

Also, what stops you from making diesel-powered exoskeletons?

>>53983089
>zelda-esque
stopped readin there

>>53983729
It's Zelda-esque in a few ways; it's not going to have a detailed granular history or political climate, being focused on the small-scale stories around the PCs and NPCs and the big overarching legends. There will be cultures that are fairly cartoonish in their distinctness, as with the climate which will be more diverse and changeable than would be realistic. It's a noblebright setting where adventures happen.

And yeah, I could do exoskeletons and I am considering it, it feels to me like adding exosuits to the setting is a step down a path that's not where I want it to go.

>>53983957
Usually I'd just disregard or insult, but I'm curious. Are you a TECTONICS PLATE autist or what?

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How are those tax policies coming along, /wbg/? Your nation does have a taxation system, right?

>>53984928
Very well, thanks for asking.

>>53984928
Nope, my kingdom has no taxes. See, if the king or any noble needs anything, they just take it. It's their divine right, you know.

>>53984928
what did he mean by this? did ASOIAF even have tax policies?

>>53984993
He was hating on Tolkien. Apparently writing high fantasy well is bad, but writing mediocre low fantasy is good?

>>53985055
He literally says tolkien is great in that very quote you drooling mongoloid.

Read the context before commenting on something.

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Anons of /wbg/, I bring a gift!

Have of it as you will!

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What are some materials that weapons and armour could be made out of in a region deprived of metals, especially iron?

>>53986149
Stone, flint, obsidian, glass, teeth, shells, wood.

>>53986238
All of those seem to be used by 'primitive' cultures, which leads me to another question - how much would a civilisation's technological advancement be stunted without access to metal?

>>53986554
>All of those seem to be used by 'primitive' cultures
I wouldn't really call the meso-american cultures primitive.

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>>53986602
>I wouldn't really call the meso-american cultures primitive

>>53986867
They were behind Eurasia at the time but if you don't consider medieval Eurasians primitive, Mesoamericans were not primitive either. They had advanced farming techniques and complex architecture.

>>53986149
Armour: textiles, wood, horn/tusk, hides/leather as the main ones. Which is the primary material used in your culture will depend on climate/geography and whether they are agricultural/pastoral/hunter-gatherer.

>>53984928
Kill yourself, landwhale. Overrated hack of an author that poisoned a genre more than fucking Rowling.

>>53987865
Yes, I'm pretty sure Martin will read it.

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Had an idea about a roughly-circular continent divided into countries/regions by thirds, three rough pie shapes with like some evil tower or castle in the center.

I am toying with the idea of a three-directional compass rose (with three additional bisecting directions, ofc), the directions being references to the three countries/regions. A traditional N/E/S/W compass rose would not exist in this world.

As a player, would you find the the concept compelling? Confusing? Stupid?

Pic related, direction identifiers placeholders

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I tend to world-build more for writing purposes than for games, but I'd love to hear some thoughts on what I've been working on.
The rough concept is that during the peak of World War One, some sort of inhuman, alien horror rose up from the oceans and laid siege to humanity. While humanity won, when combined with the war losses it could hardly be called a victory. On top of that, several waves of sickness followed that resulted in subtle changes to the world. Anyone who was alive at the time of the invasion began showing signs of a pneumonia-like disease that greatly reduced life expectancy and overall quality of life. Everyone born after has shown a complete immunity to the illness, and indeed to disease in general.
All bodies of water are now considered hazardous, only the largest ships can successfully navigate safely. Rivers, lakes, oceans, and seas are all home to voracious predators that make swimming impossible. Falling overboard is almost always an instant death sentence. This has left many countries isolated other than through limited trade, and has pushed many people inland to seek out water sources from deep-earth wells.
Another change that seems to have taken place is the quality of the air. Plants and crops grow at accelerated rates and rain is a constant companion. Even normally arid climates have increased rainfall, though some deserts still remain, albeit at a much smaller size. One immediately noticeable change is the return to the use of bronze and copper as the primary metals of daily life, as iron and steel now crumble into rust in a matter of hours when exposed to the air, and much of the ground has taken on a reddish hue as expose iron ore rusts.

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>>53976641
>communist america ruled over by fascist european superstate
you cant even comprehend how angry that idea makes me

What's a good way to build a fantasy medieval style society that isn't stock standard European feudalism?

>>53990035
Chinese Confucian class system with a bureaucracy?

>>53990088

Not a bad idea, trouble is the last setting I wanted to tinker with but ended up dropping was very Chinese inspired in terms of the whole 'Bureaucracy of Heaven" thing, and I got kind of tired of the whole idea.

I don't know much of the specifics but looking up the ideas behind it are interesting. The whole Imperial Examination thing is a great plot hook.

>>53990035
City-states, guilds, slavery-based societies, theocracies, democracies. Just throwing worlds around.

>>53975461
software to make this map?

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>>53989218
That's actually somewhat interesting. I dunno how awkward it would end up being in play, though. Just because the 3 continents exist in their slices of the pie, the rest of the world doesn't exist solely in those dimensions. Our cardinal directions didn't come into being due to major civilizations being in the four directions but rather because it makes an easy way to orient yourself. Does your sun in this world rise in the S and set in the L? Do birds fly A for winter? A tri-compass would also completely fuck up navigation, too.

On a vaguely related note, I do sort of like using that rough idea to make incredibly stylized mappings of regions. Allows you to have a working orientation of things with very little real detail but enough to quickly get a glance at things and use it as an artistic device rather than an actual geographically accurate map.

>>53991061
>Our cardinal directions didn't come into being due to major civilizations being in the four directions
Considering that there is a Dark Tower as the spoke of the World Wheel, the sanest option is to assume that this is a plane of reality where the Sun does indeed rise in the S. Magic permeates everything and threes/three spoked-wheels are a motif found everywhere in nature, magic and the cultures.

You make the tri-compass intrinsic to the mythos of the campaign, which should hopefully be more interesting to players than a regular world where navigation is needlessly complex.

>>53990035
Apart from the stock answer of "actually use feudalism and medieval society rather than the fantasy version trope" you could try some like the Holy Roman Empire. It's still medieval, but just crazy and dysfunctional enough to be fresh

>>53991030
Hexographer

These threads have been keeling over lately.

>>53994232

Tell me what races to use in my setting.

>>53994474
What system are you using? That will determine pretty much any choice I can give you.

>>53994501

Why does it have to be tied in with a system? I mostly run a homebrew game and was planning on races being purely cosmetic/social bonuses instead of physical ones.

>>53994474
What's the genre, what's the general feel?

>>53994474
humans only. anything else is high fantasy/soft sci fi bullshit

>>53994474
nothing taller than 3ft, nothing heavier than 120lbs. BBEG is 7ft tall, muscly fucker that keeps the world oppressed through eugenics.

>>53985209
Alternate History.com provides some really great cartography.

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>>53994678
Indeed they do! Here it is with the world just on the eave of WWI with Atlantis appearing. Again, have of it as you will.

Me personally? I'm planning on running a GURPS colonization game with Atlantis suddenly appearing in the Atlantic just a few days before Archduke Franz Ferdinand's shooting, the event preventing WWI (for a few years) as the world scrambles to claim any strip of new clay it can even if there are people on said clay.

>>53994851
>Landmass just appearing in the middle of the Atlantic
Wouldn't that be catastrophic for Europe's climate, given it disrupts the Atlantic Ocean's thermohaline circulation?

>>53994878
I'm assuming a massive landmass suddenly appearing would be catastrophic globally, not just Europe. To circumvent this though the ancient Atlanteans had super-tech that negates almost all of the side-effects that this would have caused but it's secrets have been lost to the ages. Once these towers have been found it's a scramble by the major colonizing powers to claim as many of them as possible (I'm not sure how many I should have in the game, I'm thinking something like 50).

>>53994878
Do people even care about such things?
I mean, do you normally ask yourself questions like "I wonder what's the orbit of this planet, its axial tilt and how big the moon must be to cause such tides"?

>>53994956
When I'm in worldbuilding mode, sure

>>53994956
Me personally? Not always. I have to have some vague excuse why things happen when a player asks something and I'm caught off guard. One time they asked what time of day it was in game and I said it was early after noon. A few minutes later I was describing the tide changing (can't remember if it was high to low or low to high) and they tried to call me out on it but I simply bullshitted an excuse that the fantasy planet they were on had two moons and the smaller one goes around the planet faster because it is closer and thus the odd tide time.

>>53994526

Dungeon Crawler, I'm trying to make something pretty high fantasy with gonzo elements. Right now pretty much anything is on the table. I just know I want the world to be pretty grim but the people in it to be strong and good at heart, points of light is a strong contender.

>>53995057
Human
Magical Robot
Tengu
The green martians from the John Carter of Mars series
Mushroom people

>>53995085

Those are pretty bad.

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>>53995131
Bad or 'bad'?

>>53995057
Grim, people are good at heart, high fantasy...

I used to have an idea for a setting that would look as metal album cover like as possible.
I think the races were something to the effect of:
Humans
Metal men, who were like robots but natural
Demon half-breeds, think tiefling
Beastmen, think Warhammer Fantasy
Ghouls, think Eddie
Vampires, with scrubs as starting PCs and utter horrors as bosses

Probably some more but I can't remember

If I understand this correctly ancient Greece were filled with city states because of the terrain (namely mountains) made it hard to conquer and unite, right?

Say I have a setting where the geography doesn't prevent a conquest, what reasons would there be that kept the city states independent?

Ever since Inkarnate became flashier I've found it harder to use for building large scale maps. They dumped a bunch of their old icons and the new ones are too large for making a hex map.

>>53990035
>>53975461
>>53976404
>>53976519
>>53990200
>>53994474
>>53995057

Stop making gods, start making religions. No one wants to hear about your hackneyed mythologies, no one is interested in the exploits of Col. Lightning-Bolt-Man and his cloudkin pantheon brethren.

Create a cosmology, a metaphysics that is not simply GM fiat, and a genuine theology. The people of this faith, should they have any gods, assign that divinity to what they're worshiping. Even if you choose the incredibly lame, juvenile, awful option of putting an actual character to that role, the religion and its core philosophy is what matters, not the silly stories surrounding its 'gods'.

Don't play DnD and don't design according to DnD logic. Create a genuine world that people might actually live in, put some depth to their culture and nuance to their history. Don't think in terms of big empires or races and don't think in the small terms of individuals and towns. Think in terms of the philosopher within the world, think in terms of the man living his life there, and understand what is likely to concern him - and not at this base level of how the silly institutions of this place make his life better or worse. Rather, think in terms of his understanding of totality, of his real fate, his conception of right and wrong, the traditions and scholasticism that informs all of that.

No more low-effort exercises in lowest-common-denominator, low-minded, mass-consumer-culture, creativity-factory schlock. Do not compartmentalize that fiction from the 'facts' you know. Treat it with the same seriousness as you treat 'reality'. There cannot be gaps. No shortcuts, no generalizations, no toying, no playing. Depth, character, soul - mindfulness of the inhabitants of this place, of the place itself.

>>53995735
Nice word salad brah

>>53995716
Each city state is balanced in power with the others, gaining more from trade with each other than they would from war. Maybe each has a special skill or trade that the others can't do that they trade equally with each other? Maybe religious reasons - holy text made it a crime for armies from the cities to fight each other, maybe preserving strength for a forseen conflict in the future? How about each city has control of a single army destroying weapon (maybe an energy cannon 'of the gods') that has held them all in a 'cold war' the last few millenia? Maybe there is a secret cabal of wizards or priests that manipulate the rulers to create peace?

>>53995735

This reminds me of my past preaching in these and other similar threads. I totally agree. You know what's up, player.
While I don't have much to add to this, it reminded me of one of my favourite /wbg/ related quotes. It's by Ken Rolston.

“Tell God's story, then tell the farmer's story, then listen to what the dog has to say.”

>>53985055
>ASOIAF
>low fantasy
It's high fantasy in the traditional sense and the new meaning.

>>53995735

>Don't make GODS man, make RELIGIONS
>Implying Gods of every religion were not ways to explain real events in the world through their understanding, as if there is some deep philosophical difference between Osiris rising from the dead each day and Apollo taking his sun chariot across the sky
>Making Gods characters is juvenile even though actual real world religions were doing it for eons before the rise of monotheism
>Don't actually describe the institutions that people live under, or the system of governance, or the biological realities of the various fantasy species. Facts aren't important.
>DnD is always bad meme
>Designing a game world to make sense in the context of the fucking game is bad lol who cares about suspension of disbelief
>arrogant, pretentious, verbose
>doesn't give or show any examples of his 'superior' worldbuilding
>This is the RIGHT way to do creative thing, do it or else ur a shitter according to some random asshole

What an absolutely abhorrent post. Neck yourself, thanks in advance.

>>53996581
>>Implying Gods of every religion were not ways to explain real events
Not really, they aren't. Hell, there is a multitude of institutions we routinely consider religious (like Buddhism) that don't even have Gods, technically speaking. Religion is not "an explanation of real events through the concept fo God" and Gods do not predate religions. So he is actually right there.

>Making Gods characters is juvenile even though actual real world religions were doing it for eons before the rise of monotheism
Very few religions actually treat their gods as psychological characters. Gods are abstracted reflections of daily experience and accumlated knowledge, not just mere projection of human personality into the world. Understanding what people concern themselves and extrapolating the shape of the god from those concerns and experiences IS more true-to-life way to establish your religion than vice-versa.

>Designing a game world to make sense in the context of the fucking game is bad lol who cares about suspension of disbelief
I don't think you have even the faintest clue what "suspension of disbelief" means.

>arrogant, pretentious, verbose
Verbosity is not a vice. Arrogance and pretention here are more assumptions on your side than anything else. ¨

The post you are criticizing has a lot of issues and debatable points, but you are clearly aren't equiped to be the one criticizing it.

>>53996581
>>53996663
I like where this is going.

>>53996581
>Implying Gods of every religion were not ways to explain real events in the world through their understanding, as if there is some deep philosophical difference between Osiris rising from the dead each day and Apollo taking his sun chariot across the sky
Actually yes, there is. Christians destroyed most pagan religious writings, but in fact they took their faith just as seriously as monotheists did, and had deep theology, cosmology, and metaphysics. This idea that ancient peoples treated their gods like cartoon character superpeople is itself a mythology, invented by Christians, to delegitimize their rival faith.

Greeks, Romans, Germans, and other ancient European polytheists (and they weren't just polytheists either, they had animist and pantheists and even monotheists) had beliefs and philosophy just as developed as the Vedic religions of India. In fact, Hinduism is probably best described as the last remaining European religion, as it was created by the Indo-Aryan peoples (that's the reason Nazis were interested in the region, BTW, because the roots of Germanic paganism and in fact all European paganism have strong connections to Vedic religion). Only an idiot would describe Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, or any number of other complex religious traditions to emerge from the Vedic core as theologically shallow or noncompetitive with monotheism.

Stop buying into Christian demonization of pagan Europe and you would understand that there is no meaningful difference in the complexity or sincerity of the Graeco-Roman faith as compared to Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.

>>53996663
>Hell, there is a multitude of institutions we routinely consider religious (like Buddhism)
That's bullshit. Buddhism never denies the existence of gods and even in the earliest tales you have gods and demons interacting with Buddha, often Indra and Brahma.

>Very few religions actually treat their gods as psychological characters
Indo-germanic religions, sumerian-semitic religions, ancient eygpt. Don't know much about meso-american myths, but as far as I can tell they too.

>>53996718
>That's bullshit. Buddhism never denies the existence of gods and even in the earliest tales you have gods and demons interacting with Buddha, often Indra and Brahma.
Devas are only gods in a petty sense - they're powerful and long-lived. Buddhists don't actually believe in divinity, or maybe better said, assign no value to it.

>Indo-germanic religions, sumerian-semitic religions, ancient eygpt. Don't know much about meso-american myths, but as far as I can tell they too.
This is not accurate, at all. All of these faiths have multiple interpretations of divinity, and the one which Christians chiefly characterized their rival faiths as possessing is the most childish. In fact, in most Germanic religious traditions (and at many points, this is identical in Graeco-Roman faiths), part of the process of growing up is learning that the caricatures of the gods aren't actually real - much like we learn about the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. Adults understand that the gods embody certain concepts and may not even maintain a belief in the supernatural.

>>53996718
>That's bullshit.
That is actually just a plain old fact.

>Buddhism never denies the existence of gods
But it does not worship them. Not necessarily. And yes, there are many tales and many versions of Buddhism. However in his own teachings, Buddha never actually spoke about existence of other gods, but neither he declared himself a divine being: in fact he very explicitly warned about that misinterpretation (even though it later on became a core tennant of most existing Buddhist religions).

>Indo-germanic religions, sumerian-semitic religions, ancient eygpt.
That is just blatantly false. You might want to actually educate yourself into those religions a little closer. Maybe actually study religious studies instead of jumping to conclusions.

Religious studies are an extremely complex subject, by the way. I can assure you that almost everything you think you know is wrong, or at least a lot more complicated than you think it is.

This guy >>53996768 seems to be aware of that.

>>53996768
>Devas are only gods in a petty sense - they're powerful and long-lived. Buddhists don't actually believe in divinity, or maybe better said, assign no value to it.
Anon, the thing that started all this, by the way not be me, was that people back then didn't assume that gods were characters, but more like principles and concepts. What principle and concept are the gods Brahma and Indra in this context? I mean, they are shown as acting people, speaking, thinking people. Add to that the more folk-like buddhism of today, where people pray to Buddha and the local gods as well.
>All of these faiths have multiple interpretations of divinity, and the one which Christians chiefly characterized their rival faiths as possessing is the most childish
I get the feeling that you just have a hate-boner for christainity.
>In fact, in most Germanic religious traditions (and at many points, this is identical in Graeco-Roman faiths), part of the process of growing up is learning that the caricatures of the gods aren't actually real
Give a proof.

>>53996791
>But it does not worship them
That is not even part of this argument.
>Buddha never actually spoke about existence of other gods
That is not even part of this argument. You get a tale of Indra going to Buddha and doing stuff. So, what was Indra in this scene? Did the people not believe that he went there and did stuff because this is cartoonish?
>You might want to actually educate yourself into those religions a little closer
>basically read a book, nigga
Very good argument.

Furthermore, and that goes to both of you, just because you have for example the Upanishads with it's pantheistic brahman for the elite and educate brahmins, doesn't mean that ordinary folk didn't believe in their respective village gods, family gods and personal favorite gods.

>>53996878
>I mean, they are shown as acting people,
Brahama? Shown as a person? Acting like a person? JESUS CHRIST man, what the fuck is wrong with you?

>Give a proof.
Open any fucking book on religious studios you moron and read away. I recommend Eliade. Or if you can't be bothered reading, Jordan Peterson has several dozens of amazing lectures on the priciples of religiosity on Youtube, just pick one and knock yourself out.

>That is not even part of this argument.
How is it not part of the argument. We are arguing about the nature of religion you moron, how is "this despite being considered religion clearly contradicts your claim" suddenly not part of an argument.

>So, what was Indra in this scene?
Later addition to the religion that happened as Buddhism and various forms of Hinduism coexisted in the same environment. No different from stories of Saint Patrick flying in the air and fighting demons of the Celtic Druids.
>Did the people not believe that he went there and did stuff because this is cartoonish?
Your idea of religious belief is laughably shallow. Again, go and study religious studies. Religious belief is not literal.
>Very good argument.

>doesn't mean that ordinary folk didn't believe in their respective village gods,
Wow, it's almost as if religion is a complex multilayered problem that needs very careful examination and deliberation, and that it might be a good idea to either educate yourself on it throughly, or just not assume yourself an expert and your opinion worth anything! Also, nobody actually claimed that.

People claimed that building religion from establishing god first (as a character) is bad, mainly because it's not reflecting how religion is truly formed. That is hardly connected to what you just said

>>53996878
>Anon, the thing that started all this, by the way not be me, was that people back then didn't assume that gods were characters, but more like principles and concepts
That's all well and good then, because that is how most adults would think about the gods. It doesn't diminish the theological complexity of their faith in any way, however, since god are just little trinket add-ons to a faith rather than its core.

>What principle and concept are the gods Brahma and Indra in this context?
In which context? Well, in any case, you'll find a plethora of valid responses to that question, as religion is not a simple thing.

>I mean, they are shown as acting people, speaking, thinking people. Add to that the more folk-like buddhism of today, where people pray to Buddha and the local gods as well.
Err, first off the concept of the bodhisattva is not in any way equivalent to a god. So, yeah (in some forms of Buddhism), people may ask for Buddha's assistance, but they do not envision him as a god.

And while it's true that some Buddhists will maintain other religious beliefs, they do so on the basis of convenience. Like Pure Land Buddhists, they think a material advantage that might be conferred on them in this life or the next by good karma will help them achieve enlightenment more easily later on. It doesn't change the fact that they deny any primacy to 'gods'.

>I get the feeling that you just have a hate-boner for christainity.
Christians waged an enormously successful campaign of destruction and propaganda to demonize and belittle pagan faiths - I'm not even a pagan, or religious for that matter, but it is sickening to hear that propaganda used as a bludgeon to mock the advanced cultures of ancient peoples.

>Give a proof.
This is kind of a fundamental thing addressed in basically any work on pagan religion, so any book on the subject that's not a literal propaganda hit piece will explain it. You could even just open up some primary sources.

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>>53996959
>>Brahama? Shown as a person? Acting like a person? JESUS CHRIST man, what the fuck is wrong with you?
What the fuck is wrong with you? He appears in person in tales all the goddman time. He appears before the demon Prahlada and vanishes after granting him his wish. He appears before Buddha to urge him to teach. Have some gandharan art with Brahma and Indra in the background.
>Later addition to the religion that happened as Buddhism and various forms of Hinduism coexisted in the same environment
Yeah, it's almost like people believed in gods being gods.
>Wow, it's almost as if religion is a complex multilayered problem that needs very careful examination and deliberation
For someone that prides himself on being so educated you are awful at reading and arguing. I was the one that hinted at this being more complex by bringing up the Upanishads and the concept of brahman while also bringing up local gods. You are the one that makes this less complex by proclaiming that people never believed in gods being actual people. You can read all the posts we had and will not see me denying that metaphysical complexity behind pagan faith existed. What i deny is that people never believed in "cartoonish" gods.

>>53996987
>In which context?
In the context of this exact tale. Did he not appear before Buddha and told him to teach?

>Err, first off the concept of the bodhisattva is not in any way equivalent to a god
I wasn't even talking about Bodhisattvas. Though, while pious buddhists may not think of him as a god, what I read about the worship the Bodhisattvas receive makes me think people would disagree. But this isn't a good argument, because you should always judge a religion in its ideal form.

>You could even just open up some primary sources.
I read the Edda, germanic, nordic and icelandic sagas and greek myths. Indian myths, tales, puranas.

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>>53975461
I want to create a map somewhat like this, but just organic looking.
Any tips?

>>53997235
To specify, the thing I wish to emulate, is the way how that map looks like a city from above, with all those tubes and shit etc. I want to sorta copy the texture that map has, just make it a bit more organic looking, so instead of straight lines, there would be blood vein like networks going trough it etc.

>>53997119
>In the context of this exact tale. Did he not appear before Buddha and told him to teach?
I don't understand the point you're trying to make. If you are suggesting that the way that this tale is commonly interpreted is that Brahma actually met Buddha and spoke to him, then I would say that you are being very disingenuous.

Regardless, the bigger issue is that:
>What i deny is that people never believed in "cartoonish" gods.
this is nonsense. Brahma, for instance, can hardly be understood as cartoonish. Neither would you associate Zeus or Thor with such a description, were it not for the Christian propaganda surrounding them. Mythology serves a social function in religions, and it always springs /out of/ an esoteric tradition rather than the other way around. Christians got Dante's Inferno the same way Greeks got the Illiad - a popular fiction that has been assimilated into the culture surrounding the faith despite a lack of theological support for it. In truth, as we can see in basically all surviving polytheistic faiths, most people, even or perhaps especially the devout, do not take tales about the exploits of some particular god seriously.

>I wasn't even talking about Bodhisattvas.
Well, you can have 'godly' beings, most commonly called as devas and asuras, but Buddhists believe these beings are no less ensared by samsara than man is. Of course, that's only in the vulgar and popular traditions, mostly in Mahayana Buddhism. More theologically pure strains of Buddhism deny the existence of gods, or even the supernatural, altogether.

>I read the Edda, germanic, nordic and icelandic sagas and greek myths. Indian myths, tales, puranas.
Believe it or not, those aren't actually primary sources on the subject of what people /believed/. Because y'know, they're the subject matter of those primary sources. Try the philosophical canon or some classical histories. Hell, Marcus Aurelius's Meditations is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.

>>53991061
>>53989218
>>53991819
I dont know what you plan for the continent but it being oddly circular and having some weird ruins in the center makes me think that the continent is or was a giant mechanism used for something and the three directions arose to be used as a compass because the mechanism used those three directions for something and so people used them but after many years people forgot about the mechanism and the usage of the directions and stayed with that system because of tradition while the rest of the world uses the normal one. Or maybe some magnetic fields affect normal compasses to not work normally.

>>53994950
Could they have been some kind of "terraforming" devices that also allowed them to survive underwater?

>>53975461
>>53992020
Alright, so now how do I start making a decent map?

I need help, tips, and standards. How big should it be? Is hexographer meant to map areas and not world maps? What settings should I use? If I wan the entire map be filled with sea titles what do I click?

>inb4 "just play around with the software"
I am, but I'm not learning fast enough as I would want to,

>>53999949
Just play around with the software.

>>53976727
No u stupid fuck
1st the HRE, 2nd the Kaiserreich and then the 3rd reich.
t. Kraut

One of you gave me a torrent download the other day, and I literally just finished it.

It was absolutely fantastic. So thank you so much for that, I learned so much about the world, wild life, and how animals adapt, about what hazards PCs could find while venturing into the wild, and how predators and pray work on a level I didn't knew before.

Again, thank you so much kind torrent anon. Planet Earth II was a beautiful documentary.

A domain's main city was burnt a few years ago, as the ruler's seat was in another place the noble family wasn't harmed in the attack.

The various merchants still present in the domain came up with a request to the lord: they're willing to rebuild the burned town if he'd forfeit his claim to the town and its trade revenue. Goods created from his domain would only get taxed at half the current rate to allow him an competitive edge.

Would this work as a plot?

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Rate my shitty inkarnte map I made and spliced together in photoshop. I originally drew a smaller version out of 1 map but decided I wanted more detail so I cut it into 6 and blew it up and used the terrain as a texture to recreate it. But got fucked because the middle was messed up.

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Halfway done, but needs (much) more pizzazz. Recommendations?

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>>54002420
Mark the shores

>>54001538
What direction do winds blow in general?

Why is the northwest frozen but lands to the east at the same latitude are not?

Why is the desert and swamp right next to each other? What makes one wet and the other dry?

Your swamps and that northwest archipelago in particular obviouslt show you drew some land and slashed the eraser through it a few times. Round out those corners man

>>54001538
Parts of it look shitty but mostly, the ugly lines make it look like an genuine folded-up paper map.

It screams of fantasy, but I love the way that all the islands have unique geography to them, it makes me want to learn more.

>>53997235
>>53997250
pls help.

>>54002420
>>54002510
is there a specific program to make these or do you have to do them all on your own?

>>54002781
Hexographer.

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>>54002531
Wise wind anon. Does the wind change according to where the continents are located, or do they never change?

I'm asking because this is how they move now, but back in the Pangea days, where they moving the same way?

>>54002781
Hexographer, the free version allows you to do all that, so don't get scared by the paid boogeyman

>>54002795
>>54002827
Thanks

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>>54002510
Like this? What I really need is ideas for more interesting features. All these temperate forest/mountain/grasslands/hills are starting to feel the same.

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>>54002531
Also, wise wind anon. Why are maps different when they all call themselves wind current maps? And how do I determine hot from cold winds, arbitrary to the GM's feelings?

>>53997250
that's kinda hard and specific, you probably can't and have to do it by hand

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>>54003072
>tfw lazy
I was hoping that there might have been a shortcut!

>>53998346
They weren't under the waves, anon, they were in another dimension. The "battery" that was keeping them out dried up.

Also, currently trying to determine the script they would use. Should I go with a syllabary or hieroglyphic style writing system? If it's a syllabary I want a sort of scrawling text not unlike that seen in Arabic or what can be seen in the Voynich manuscript. A hieroglyphic system would look not unlike what the Mayan used with various glyphs mashed together into one supra-glyph (so, for instance, if you wanted to write 'farmer' you would probably have three glyphs, one for a wheat-like substance, a hand and a scythe all in one stylized glyph). The languages will be based on Proto-Indo-European, drawing influence from Hittite and proto-Greek, by the way.

>>54003109
what do you even mean by more organic looking? Those are cylinders, nothing organic about it unless they are actually craters. I'm sure there is some anon here that perhaps knows how to replicate it with photoshop. Just wait till that person shows up.

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>>54003047
>>54002808
Sorry anon I in fact have only a very basic knowledge of such things.

What I can tell you is wind moves in alternating directions based on bands of latitude, due I think to Hadley cells where warm air is carried upwards where it cools and is carried downwards again.

To determine the flow of air, place your landmass on a globe, and split it into 30 degree chunks and have the winds move in directions based on earth (pic related). Or be lazy and just say all wind blows west or something.

After you have decided how winds blow, then you can decide your climate. Know that mountains create rain shadows, and a north-south mountain range with west-east winds will cause the land on the east to be drier. Winds coming off the ocean can also warm land up like in the case of the British Isles. The coldest non-polar land on your globe will probably be a large continental tundra like in the case of Siberia.

Again I am no expert, use the internet for more detailed science but I think rain shadows are the bare minimum you need to include for a semi convincing world.

>>54003299
I want sorta like those cylinder things in the map, just that I intend them to represent gigantic organic spire like buildings that dot the city. The city itself is supposed to be entirely organic in nature, as in, shit is made out of bone, flesh and chitin etc instead of concrete and metal.

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What're good resources for creating a nice looking city map where you can point out specific buildings and locations within a city? Something retard-friendly would be nice.

>>54003345
I guess, there is nothing more retard friendly than a random village generator, then go to photoshop and edit it how you want

www.inkwellideas.com/roleplaying_tools/random_city/

>>54003198
From what you're saying, from the player's point of view, the glyphs would be easier to understand, if they clearly represent something, than having to learn a syllabary and the words of the language.
I dont really know how you are planning to use it. Sorry if i'm not helpful.

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>>54003322
Thanks my man, what about sea currents? I'm sure they also have an effect on land, apart from an effect in the way maritime creatures roam.

Do krakens leave in cold or hot temperatures? Riffs or deep sea?

Reasons for settlements?

I know coast cities are because of the coast and fishing. River cities because of the river and fishes. Miner towns near mines? What about the rest? Are there other reasons for settlements? I would assume you can farm nearly everywhere except deserts

>>54003980
Cities being developed around religious centers that.
Cities built at military strategic locations.
Cities being built on trade routes.
Capital cities being built at a spot equally distant from other towns.
Take my word with a grain of salt. I dont really know much.

>>54003980
Cities on hills, can be with good farmland around, must not be because of rivers if there is enough rain. Cities near lakes.

>>54004094
>Capital cities being built at a spot equally distant from other towns.

Everything else is good, but this almost never a reason. Capitals might be sited/moved to allow easy control and communication with the empire, but the actual spot would still be a good city location even without that consideration.

The classic example would be Constantinople. Rome is too far away to effectively manage the eastern provinces which are by far the most populated/wealthy, so the capital is relocated. The actual spot is very defensible, allowed growth and sits on an incredibly strategic sealane.

>>54003980
It's obviously more difficult but desert agriculture is certainly possible. Oases, qanats, cisterns, irrigation, and rain redirection channels are all methods to allow farming in otherwise very arid conditions.

>>54004502
>Cities on hills
What about valleys? Wouldn't rain condense inside the valley, making it profitable to settle there, or am I wrong?

>>54004558
>Oases
Speaking of Oases. We all know when making the party travel through a desert Oases are a common trope. But now that you mention it, is it really likely that there would be an abandoned and working Oases in the desert, without settlements taking place there?

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>>54004708
>But now that you mention it, is it really likely that there would be an abandoned and working Oases in the desert, without settlements taking place there?
Not an expert, but I imagine that if there's no "use" to them (ie. they're not anywhere near a good trade route or way too far away from other oases to be viable) they might remain unsettled.

>>54004708
It depends.

For a small oasis, it would primarily be a pit stop for pastoralists. Grazing for the goats, sheep and camels, some dates for the herders and of course the water. There might be some stone or mud-brick shelters for tents to be set up in. The herders pass through, graze and water the animals then move on which means that oasis has a low chance of being occupied when the PCs stumble in. That said, desert tribes are understandably protective of their water so if they found out it could lead to FUN.

Large oases that could support agriculture would be almost certainly occupied, both for farming, herding and as a centre of crafts and trade. For it to be abandoned you are looking at human factors rather than enviromental; say massive depopulation due to war. Everyone who lived there has either fled, been killed or dragged off into slavery leaving only a ghost village.

>>54003980
Large cities will grow around where two trade routes meet aka intersecting roads, a river and a road, mouth of a river, ect

Thank you guys for the settlement tips, by the way. If you can think of more go ahead and post it. World building should be a full time job.

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>>53975461
Nice map anon but no farmland?, the terrain just seems a little lacking in variety in general, imo the most important thing is to have different environments for your PCs to experience more than geographical realism.

Here's mine. criticism for criticism?

>>54006265
Northern icy bay is home to viking Orcs driven out of the forests by elves, they raid all round the coasts fighting over control of the islands with tiefling slavers (in my world they are a race stranded on this plane after satan invasion)

>>54006265
I'm sure there were other ways than bright red to mark frontiers, anon-sama.

Also
>coral reefs above forest kelps
Correct me if I'm wrong but Coral Reefs exist in
>Worldwide in tropical latitudes
>Warm, clear, shallow, nutrient-poor waters
While Forest Kelps exist in
>Worldwide in temperate to polar latitudes
>Cold, shallow, nutrient-rich, medium-energy waters
So how exactly, are Coral Reefs that exist in warm water, to the north of forest kelps that require cold water?

Source:
http://oceana.org/marine-life/marine-science-and-ecosystems/kelp-forest
http://oceana.org/marine-life/marine-science-and-ecosystems/coral-reef

I was literally just starting my map and investigating this shit

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>>54006265
Seagate is a permanently neutral canal city home to a diverse range of races and a shitload of crime,

grey deadlands used to be notgondor but got fucked by evil magic curses and now is home to a host of evil creatures, all of which answer to a lich that used to be the court wizard

Mushroom wood is pic related basically and it turned the dwarves in the mountains next to it into insane abominations.

>>53975461
Oh man it's the Inner Sea from Pathfinder.

Jokes aside not a bad map.

>>54006402
Welp, kelp's gotta go and the northern coral, southern coral is actually the sunken parts of notgondor than slumped into the sea

>>54006402
Also what role does kelp play in your game anon? I don't really know why I put mine there but you've got me interested now.

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>>54006449
The whole kelp area screams tropical though, just switch it around. I mean doesn't the area remind you of Cuba, geographically?
Make the whole center a tropical paradise, possibly with sharks included. Or just dead coral reefs there, while in in the south an alive one.What's the thing in the middle, a tower?

>sunken parts of notgondor that slumped into the sea
Spooky.

>>54006629
mm I like your ideas but I have a very eurocentric bias towards meditteranian areas in rpgs and the obligatory city states that come with

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>>54006477
I dunno yet my man. But forest kelps are incredibly spooky. In Harry Potter they were used to hide deadly mermaids. In Finding Dory/Nemo as a sea labyrinth

As soon as I think of something I will let you know. Hard to imagine my players going underwater anyway, but apparently forest kelps can grow up to 45 meters (!) and grow a lot in a single day, so if they are sailing and stop above a forest kelp, I could probably trap them with forest kelp. Could make it a puzzle challenge on how to get out, or make it like a kraken fight but against seaweed kek

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Starting a new sandbox-ish campaign that I'm co-DMing with another player, and just finished doing up a rough map that incorporates the main regions/locations the DMs and players have included in their backstories. However, I'm struggling to think of 'minor' kingdoms and regions to place between the larger ones. Does anyone have any ideas/tips on how to create a greater density of regions that are still distinct from one another?

Cliff's Notes of the current regions:
>The known world is slowly coming out of a dark period that lasted centuries after a magical plague reduced most civilisations to rubble.
Verden - Nascent kingdom of Humans built on top of the ruins of a great empire. Feuding baronies only loosely controlled by an aspiring monarch
Skalmark - Barbarian clans living in deep, dangerous forests and steep valleys, refugees from their home of Gammelheim, which was conquered by Frost Giants and sits in perpetual winter
Lycea - Not-Venice. Merchant houses fleeing orc/beastman hordes crossed the great swamp of Broadmoor and found themselves on a small island chain which they transformed into a thriving and pious city-state
Caedus - Rival to Lycea, Romanesque city-state that clings to its former glory. Noble houses are tieflings who struck a deal with devils to save themselves during the apocalypse at the expense of the surrounding lands.
Nehara - A vast desert where sentient Undead control the only safe oases and are worshipped by their zealous subjects.
Eisentor/Bodengang - German-esque Dwarven holds, one a vast canal-city that controls passage between the seas, the other a vast, gothic metropolis within a cavern deep under the mountains.
Tal'Kir - Bleak and endless hills roamed by marauding Centaurs and Hobgoblin dynasties from the east.

>>53990088
different anon here, can someone please elaborate on this

>>53985209
>DUDE WE FOUND INDIA, OH MAN WE'RE GONNA HAVE SO MUCH SPICE
>Oh fuck this isn't Japan, well let's keep going seeing as it's a bunch of islands that we can sail through.

>OH BOY WE FOUND INDIA
>Wait it isn't? Fuck you Earth.

>>54006829
How exactly did you make this? Post the download link.

>>54006761
Ooh yeah or an evil crab-people atlantis where they climb the kelp and drag ships down,
on second though maybe i'll keep some kelp somewhere.
>>54006829
That lettering is legit anon

>>53994956
>I mean, do you normally ask yourself questions like "I wonder what's the orbit of this planet, its axial tilt and how big the moon must be to cause such tides"?
I do wonder about the orbits of planets, not to such a scientific length as you described, but the question "I wonder what's the orbit of this planet like" does arise in my head.

>>54006999
I drew it myself, pencil and then black ink on an A4 sheet of scrap paper. Then I just scanned it and used GIMP to add colour/text.

>>54007036
>tfw no writing, drawing, or playing instruments skill
Just kill me my man. I was born useless.

>>54007018
Thanks, it's a free font called Ringbearer: http://www.dafont.com/ringbearer.font

Whats the most wizard federation flag there is?
Stuffed to the core with fancy bullshit while everyone got simple or something magical simple?
Also suggestions for what fancy bullshit?

>>54002531
The north is supposed to be a literal sand desert and the South part is more of a bad lands orange sand wild west setting. Hence the red. It's supposed to be a little more elevated on a steppe or something And I'm not a geographical expert. The water flows into from the mountains and creates the swamps because it's lower then see level so a lot of the water creates a bayou like effect the mountains are suppose to block winds carrying rain storms over them. Not sure if that's how it works but that was my reasoning and the fact that I just wanted to fit a little of everything on my map. But I don't have a snow tundra area. And you're right I really started to phone it in after 7 hours of drawing tracing and photo shop felt more like a chore to finish than fun

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>>54007166
Fancy bullshit is not only trashy but also makes for a useless flag. Especially given that flags do have purposes other than being in atlases, keep that in mind. The Five Rules of Flag Design are there for a reason, though feel free to make convoluted magical crests for various families and the like. But the Five Rules of Flag Design are:
>Keep it simple
>Use meaningful symbolism
>Use two to three basic colors
>No lettering or seals of any kind.
>Be distinctive

Pic related is the flag of the militaristic magocracy that's the only true major world power in my setting, having established forcibly drawn in several other nations in as protectorates and is currently the major colonizing power in the New World. Simple, clean, and follows the general idea of "could it be remembered by a small child or drawn from view from a distant ship". The golden gear's a common motiff as the sacred symbol of their patron deity, the name of their standard currency, and also a recurring motiff on the flag of their primary colony which centers the cog on a party per cross of black and white.

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>>54007502
>the mountains are suppose to block winds carrying rain storms over them.
That's rite

>>54007166
>>54007626
Don't forget the quick and dirty test. Draw a rectangle that's 1'' x 1.5'' and then draw your flag inside of it. Hold that fifteen inches away, and you have the same effect of a full-sized flag from a hundred feet away. Flags are seen from distance and often in motion. If you can still reasonably make out your flag at that small scale, it's probably a solid design. Otherwise, it might do for a ceremonial crest, but it's a shitty flag. Especially if your game would ever see it mounted to ships.

Nice flag, btw. The off-center cross really helps it pop.

>>54004683
Sort of. The best place to settle is a fertile plain with arable land, good rain fall, navigable rivers, and sea access (if possible). Valleys can be good, although the actual farmable land can be quite small.

Cities often appear on hills because they are highly defensible positions. Having said that, it's rare for the entirity of a city to be on a hill. Usually, only the most important initiations such as palaces, citadels and temples existed on the hills, while the town/city proper was located at its base, close to a river and the farmland that supports it.

Any guides to making cultures?
Whether large components to make them very different from each other, or little pieces of flair to differentiate similar ones, I just don't even know.

Damn, hexographer is incredibly fun to use.

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>>54006402
It's actually pretty cool, as soon as the coral can't exist anymore, the kelp takes over

>>54006629
>>54006449
>>sunken parts of notgondor that slumped into the sea
So literally numenor?

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>>53977662
>gay furry vore worldbuilders
Still legitimately the best map I've ever seen anywhere. How does /wbg/ cope with the fact that we'll never match this?

>>54010016
Dare I ask? What makes this a gay furry vore map?

>>54010051
It's very straightforward; the creator made the setting purely as a backdrop for his vore stories.
Everything you see in that image only exists as a vehicle for vore, some of it being gay and furry.

>>54010102
>idontknowwhatiexpected.jpg
That's some serious dedication/autism to his deviant fetish writing

I kinda need an infographic about the different types of lands. I advance nothing by constantly re-checking on the internet what is Grazing Grass, Grassland, Grasshills, Grassyhills, Shrubland, Shrubhills, Wetlands, Moor, etc
And where each of them occur. For a tiny volcanic island in the latitude of central Japan, this has proven me quite a challenge. I really wish I wasn't autistic about world building.

>>54010147
It's huge.
http://www.felarya.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
Someone even made an interactive map for the ENTIRE THING http://e-akahele.deviantart.com/art/Felarya-Map-V-1-153348280
Too bad the window for it is fucking tiny.

Point is, autism is a powerful worldbuilding tool, even if it's gay furry vore autism (which is arguably one of the most powerful kinds).

>>53985055
He wasn't, he was explaining his thought process in how he approaches worldbuilding. He praises Tolkein in the same breath, the point of that quote was simply to explain that when presented with a fantasy setting, he can't help but wonder about the realistic implications, such as tax policies as the example listed.

>>53986867
If you think they're primitive, then you're either woefully ignorant of their civilizations, or your mind is just being clouded by a Euro-centric viewpoint, in which any culture without similar civilization/technologies is just primitive.

>>53995735
At least half of the posts you replied to didn't even mention gods OR religion.

>>53994956
Yes. I wanted my setting to have 3 moons and it was an incredibly confusing mess to sort out. I reeled it back and now it only has 2 moons, because that's the only amount I could keep track of.

>>53997235
Maybe this is my worldbuilding fetish of gigantic trees speaking, but I'd put a gigantic tree in the middle, with the "tubes" you want being its roots. You can even make it dead or something if you don't want a leaf canopy covering the island, or make it a less common giant tree like pine, or even a made-up fantasy version of your liking.
Maybe its upper boroughs exist in the astral plane or something, and the upper trunk of the tree just kind of fades away, instead of casting shade over everything below it.

>>54010239
>I kinda need an infographic about the different types of lands.
That would be amazing. Seconding so hard.

My world is a lot of large islands that are relatively close together. That implies a shallow ocean and a lot of geological (or earth elemental) activity, right? What are the obvious implications of such a world that I might be missing?

>>54003980
Anywhere that people would want to live in and are capable of surviving in is a good settlement location.

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>>54010589
Wouldn't a planet with that many volcanoes be a wasteland of cataclysmic scale? The atmosphere would be literally ash. Unless you are going for a post-global warming event where sea level has risen so much the land literally sunk. In that case, yeah a lot of shallow water, but not necessary geological activities. Probably lots of rain with so much water around.

But take my opinion with a grain of salt, I'm no expert.

>>54010715
I don't think the volcanoes all have to be active and exploding all the time.

>>54010715
Do you have six mile map for the British Isles?

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>>54010828
On a real life-like world not, because our tectonic plates are huge, and at least where I live in takes 18 years for the tectonic plates to gather enough strength for an earthquake. But on a smaller scale, the movements would be faster, and it would disturb the volcanoes constantly. It just sounds like if you took The Ring Of Fire, and constrict it all in a much smaller territory. Which would be awful for everything living in the planet.

>Most earthquakes directly beneath a volcano are caused by the movement of magma. The magma exerts pressure on the rocks until it cracks the rock. Then the magma squirts into the crack and starts building pressure again.
>Volcano eruptions have occurred shortly after earthquakes and they may be linked, but scientists are still debating the topic. Notably, an Andean volcano (Cordon Caulle) began erupting 2 days after the magnitude 9.6 1960 Chile earthquake.
Yes, I know >still debating. But there IS a precedent. All the tectonic movement around would make the magma flow much faster, and volcanoes would unleash hell on earth on a regular basis. Killing everything on the islands regularly.

But then again, that's just my opinion anon, it just sounds like a bad idea to me.

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>>54010828
Assuming I can still breath, I would live like this there.

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>>54010914
I do actually, but I don't know how accurate it is.

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>>54010956
But if the tectonic plates move constantly and are smaller, they don't eject a lot of pressure, generating smaller earthquakes. Which wouldn't disturb the volcanoes or be strong enough to break the rocks that are keeping the magma from flowing.

Maybe it is possible, anon. Maybe a tropical island paradise could exist. Really makes you think actually.

>>54010715
>>54010828
>>54010956

Nothing in the PC's region has been volcanically active for a long time.

Also I'm doing this weird thing where a lot of my natural world actually has fanciful/mythical origins, but they mirror real world history. Like, the timescale of life is the same, there's just ocean life for a long time, then primitive life on land, etc etc, and human-shaped things are very recent newcomers, only all of that is explained in terms of spirits and life essence, the very first forest is still around and is very grumpy, there was no disease before the Titan of Decay was killed and his blood went into the land, that kind of thing.

There's a titan of magma who is always at war with a titan of the wind and ocean, they shaped everything under the PCs feet, but have since moved on to my setting's Ring of Fire.

My setting is half-baked and your technical minds might be wasted on it, but thank you, this really is good food for thought.

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>>54011171
Sounds good, and don't worry I already convinced myself your scenario can occur with no issues apart form constant tiny earthquakes. Its not technical is just that I live in the ring of fire so we were taught about volcanoes and earthquakes when I was young.

If humanoids are relatively recent, wouldn't you have like shark people or something, like creatures that has adapted to both sea and land. Remember we came from primates, but dinosaurs came from the sea. Maybe a few sea creatures would possibly develop land capabilities, and making human lives a challenge.

Did the Titans made the intelligent creatures, or did they develop by themselves? Do the titans have favored 'races'? I really like the titan of decay's role, I like your setting. I would play it with you kind anon.

>>54010333
>Euro-centric viewpoint
back to anthro 101 with you

>>53985138
>He literally says tolkien is great in that very quote
Yeah, he says Tolkien is great *except* for that Tolkien doesn't bring up tax policy or mention what Aragorn did with all the little Orc babies.

The answer to both are given implicitly in the books, however. The tax policy was that there wasn't one, people gave voluntary gifts as signs of friendship and submission to their new king which didn't become law until at least a few generations after Aragorn, when kings of Men had become more pettier and corrupted. And the Orc babies were killed, because Orcs were inherently evil.

>>54007626
Yeah but its wizards, they're trazshy because they think themselves better than you.

>>54007936
What's it for.
If it's an rpg then just modify a human culture, originality is less important than having a frame of reference.

>>53995716
They are still in the bronze age.

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MORE GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES I SAID

>>54015485
Map is too big to be interesting, scrap whole project.

>>54011684
Sure, I'll walk you to history 101 on the way.

>>54007936
You just made me realise that OP didn't include any of the links, usually there's a link for desigining cultures.

>>53975461
Online map-making community:
• http://www.cartographersguild.com/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/
• https://discord.gg/ArcSegv

On designing cultures:
• http://www.frathwiki.com/Dr._Zahir%27s_Ethnographical_Questionnaire

Online map designer software:
• http://www.inkarnate.com
• https://experilous.com/1/project/planet-generator/2015-04-07/version-2

Offline map designer software:
• https://www.profantasy.com/
• https://experilous.com/1/store/offer/worldbuilder

Mapmaking tutorials:
• http://www.cartographersguild.com/forumdisplay.php?f=48

Random Magic Resources/Possible Inspiration:
• http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/magic/antiscience.html
• http://www.buddhas-online.com/mudras.html
• http://sacred-texts.com/index.htm
• https://mega.nz/#F!AE5yjIqB!y7Vdxdb5pbNsi2O3zyq9KQ

Conlanging:
• http://www.zompist.com/resources/

Sci-fi related links:
• http://futurewarstories.blogspot.ca/
• http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/
• http://military-sf.com/

Fantasy world tools:
• http://fantasynamegenerators.com/
• http://donjon.bin.sh/

Historical diaries:
• http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/index.html

More worldbuilding resources:
• http://kennethjorgensen.com/worldbuilding/resources
• https://shaudawn.deviantart.com/art/Free-World-Building-Software-176711930

List of books for historians:
• https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books/

Compilation of medieval bestiaries:
• http://bestiary.ca/

Middle ages worldbuilding tools:
• http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm
• http://qzil.com/kingdom/
• http://www.lucidphoenix.com/dnd/demo/kingdom.asp
• http://www.mathemagician.net/Town.html

>>54015797
2late now, its like when you have a kid and they get to be that age where you cant put them up for adoption without them knowing too much and being able to find you for revenge.

I made it past a couple years, now I'm in for the long haul

>>54016000
It was a joke, don't actually scrap your map.
Its like you don't understand sarcasm
.

Hexographer should really be included in the op. There's a free version and it sure beats inkarnate even for someone not crazy for hex graphs

>>54016653
Inkarnate is shit

>>54016000
/wbg/ - Abandoning Children

>>54010333
>ripping people's hearts out for fear of the sun not rising isn't barbaric

>>54016709
It is, but I'm not dropping $40 for profantasy

>>54016564
I didn't really pay attention to if it was sarcastic once I had a good joke idea that relied on me to assume you're being serious.

so basically I plead willful ignorance

>>54016794
Moving the goalposts I see. You first said primitive, which the aztecs/mayans/incas certainly were not. But your argument doesnt work anyways.
>cutting the hands off of the slaves who didnt bring you enough gold is barbaric?

>>54016803
Just use the free version of Hexographer.

Are there any good random map gens? I get more creative when building from the top down, the juices don't flow as freely when it's a map I created myself.

>>54016992
Someone should really fucking buy it and give us a torrent link or something, though.

The free version is amazing for something that's free, the content is rich. But that mini-map per hex feature sounds exciting, and so does being able to change icons, since the ones for free aren't that easy to determine what's in there.

Otherwise hexographer is 10/10

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>>54017034
Here's a guide for making a relatively randomly-generated map in photoshop, except you get to tweak everything on every step of the process.
The biggest factor that's randomized is the landmasses, which is the part that helps me the most at least.

>>54017191
That tutorial is great, I follow those steps to make my Pangea, to determine wind currents and tectonic plates, before splitting the world off into continents.

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I know this might sound gay, but I based pic related on this awesome dream I had.

basically I found myself in these fantastic ruins that stretched for miles down the coast in either direction. Huge roofless stone buildings with columns and massive arches and doorways, very classical in style, reminiscent of Greco-Roman ruins.

I was standing on this broad, cobblestone avenue that went right down the length of the coast, and dipped and rose where the coast went from sea level to low cliffs. The most striking thing about the ruins was that none of them (at least the ones I could see) were separated, they just formed one long, unbroken stretch of architecture.

There were a few people around me in the dream and I got the impression they were researchers, but apart from them the place was completely empty. Someone told me the place was ruined by a vicious storm.

The area is called the Heath because thats what it was called in my dream. I know it doesnt make much sense but I don't feel right changing it.

Story wise I'm gonna fit it in somewhere in my D'n'D campaign, slightly to the north of the current map. My players are gonna be offered a job accompanying some scholars/settlers/prospectors on an expedition to explore the ruins.
Dark secrets will be revealed. I don't what exactly yet, I just wanted to make the map while it was still fresh in my mind. I'm open to ideas if anyone has any suggestions.

Also the area between the ruins and the forest feels a little empty, any ideas there?

For scale the length of the ruins is about five miles, which is about the length of a small modern city. Does that seem right?

>>54018414
And pic related is the current map setting. The heath is located north of Theck Nehs

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>>54018447
I'm dumb

>>54018474
Cute map.

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I just have one question: is it obvious?

>>54019969
yes

>>54020021
Fuck.
Too lazy to be original.

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>>54019969

>>54010587
>>54010239
I agree.

>>54019969
Only because you asked.

>>54019969
Is what obvious?
The fact that i need to ask that means i guess no but I'd advise against some sort of clever reference world it will only make worldbuilding harder.

>>54022968
It's Eurasia flipped. Australia in the top-right, africa in the top-left.

>>54023358
I see it!

>>53976057
>What is a pure hexcrawl if there is a difference between that and West Marches?

Generally speaking, "West Marches" refers to a scheduling setup means you have a large pool of players which set up adventuring parties and sessions on their own initiative, as opposed to a regular group of players who meet at strictly scheduled intervals.

Hexcrawls are a popular format for these campaigns, as exploration without a central story thread helps a lot for this sort of pick-up-and-play scheduling, but you could for example run a sitcom-style story-game or series of one-shots instead using a rotating playerbase.

Note the original West Marches wasn't a hexcrawl either; it was a point-crawl (also it was done in D&D 3e).

>>54003980
Most people who settle somewhere do it for a reason, and for a functional settlement to come together you need to have either one major draw like the ones you brought up, or have it be pure coincidence that people come together. What reasons are valid depends on the tech that's available and the social state of the community.

>>53996711
So why did Christianity become most popular? Any books to read on this subject?

So my DM and I are making a world map that we want to print out on a large B1 size piece of paper. Just wanna know if Hexographer creates high resolution maps or vectors? I don't want to have a Blurry map haha.

>>54026444
By high resolution do you mean like this
>>54002510
2648x2030 sounds pretty big to me

>>54026334
>So why did Christianity become most popular?
A multitude of reasons, but really I think it just came down to the luck of the historical draw. Christianity wasn't special, it was just uniquely positioned, with the right people, to supplant the existing order. It had plenty of competitors, but in the contest of arms it prevailed.

Personally I'd attribute much of its advantage to demographic and climatic shifts in Europe at the time that it started to grow in popularity. The attractiveness of its apocalyptic spiritualism was higher because times were shitty for the people experiencing the collapse of Western civilization.

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Does anyone have some tips on how to create a properly advanced bronze-age civilization? If the trade hadn't collapsed, would the something like the Roman Empire still have formed, albeit with bronze instead of iron?

>>54027887
Bronze armor is incredibly shitty, anon. Greeks would have never survived. And no, its not shitty because it lacks protection, its shitty because its heavy as fuck.

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>>54027621
Christianity became popular among the vast majority of romes population-the slaves.

The Roman elite co-opted this religion because it exhorted the slave mentality-be sheep and you will have a better life in the next world, thus allowing the elite to rule over their subjects-by divine rule.

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How do you handle gods, angels, and other assorted astrals in your setting, /wbg/?

>>54027939
If you think that's all there is to Christianity that you're an idiot.

>>54028035
I don't, atheist for lyfe. I have ascended humans, former local heroes from a golden age in a pantheon and that's it. Every race its own 'gods' but none of them are real or do anything

>>54028064
What's involved in ascention, and why haven't other races done it?

>>54028035
Secular, just as I handle spellcasting. It is not proven nor disproven through exposition. Having proof of gods really messes up the ability to make Earthlike societies.

>>54028035
Current setting, they're outsiders looking to profit off the primitive locals for their own gain.

>>54028035
They disappear or are created according to how many people believe in them. Some ancient gods are long gone, some are still worshiped to this day.

>>54028196
If they're created through belief, does that mean some ancient gods can be "revived" if faith in them resurfaces?

>>54028227
Yes, but likely with a different avatar or name or appearance.

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>>54028035
Gods are almost always limited in their interactions with the world. I've never felt really comfortable with the Greco-Roman conception of personified gods taking an active role in the development of the world. It just seems like it makes any plotlines pointless. I prefer having only marginal proof, such as spells and miracles, but without solid evidence in favour. There's also typically only a single god per religion. Though I should note that Lovecraftian Old Gods are immune to this rule when I use them.

Angels and other celestials on the other hand are generally solidly real.

Occasionally I'll have spirits, as well.

>>54028196
Couldn't someone come up with a god who by design is wholly benevolent and fixes everything and slowly spread that belief until he is powerful enough to fix everything? This idea seems like something that could easily tear apart society or even reality.

>>54028241
That's pretty cool, I like it when faith is treated as a life source for gods.

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>>54028064
>tfw everyone in your campaign setting is enlightened by their own INT

>>54028266
You have to think of the power of a God in a percentile scale; the bigger the portion of the world's population that believes in him, the more powerful he is. In fact, the biggest restrain of a god's power is that it is limited to the role he plays in the people's worship, so if god of benevolence is worshiped by 100% of the world's population, then only things that come from benevolence will happen to the people.

>>54028266
Gods created from belief and gaining strength from belief is a pretty common cliche in fantasy literature (particularly urban fantasy), the limitation is usually that it's sort of a subconscious action that the believers aren't aware of and it can't be forced. Also, getting a lot of people to believe the same thing without distorting the belief in the process is pretty hard.

So you might start a religion with good intentions of fixing (or ruining) everything, but pretty soon it's going to spiral out of your control.

>>54028084
Some have.

In my world, the planet is surrounded by invisible veins up in the atmosphere, which flow all over the planet, let's call it The Stream. This is where magic comes from, it is always flowing and no one can see under normal circumstances, throwing invisible magic drops all over the world, which fills the planet with magic. When really important people, let's call them heroes, are raising hope in humanity, and a lot of people believe in them. Upon death their spirit gets trapped in The Stream. Some people claim to be able to communicate with them, others claim to have received the blessing of certain old characters. But its rare and mostly just flavor for me. The idea is that if you believe hard enough you can see the legends in the sky. But the belief part is just a meme, what is actually going on is that a person being born with a higher affinity to The Stream has easier access to The Stream's magical well and get special perks.

Other races have also done it, the orcs believe in a god of fire and a god of ice, representing Day and Night respectively. The source of this were 2 huge orc warlords that battled each other back in the golden orc age, the battle was said to last a whole day non-stop and millions of orcs died there in an absolute carnage. These two warlords ascended to the Stream too. Due to sometimes the moon being seen during daylight, the orcs believe to this day that those two warlords are still fighting above in the skies.

So yeah, for ascension you require people to believe in you, and to have extraordinary abilities, that's the in-world reasoning. The actual reason is that you are required to be touched directly by one of the magical drops from The Stream, which makes you basically a vessel from the magic well that goes back to where it belongs upon death.

Things like that. Every race, or culture inside a race, has a similar misconception of where certain visions and holy powers come from. I know its not much,but works for me

>>54028035
In the current setting, they're sort of unconscious, nebulous things that exist on another, unexplored plane overlapping ours. Every now and then, you'll hear about a group of priests that managed to make direct contact and get the attention of a god.
You can look up the art for Bigby's Clenched Fist to know how it always turns out.

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>>54028339

>>54028035
Think of the Gods as one or more humans. Archangels are their organs. Lesser angels are white blood cells. Humans are tiny cameras that float through the body. You can see some aspects of what the Gods are, and what they do, but they're ultimately ineffable and inhuman and incomprehensible. They constitute our world, they're undeniable and omnipresent, but they don't really do much to us directly, if ever. We don't know why they exist or what they want, because we're never in a position to observe them like a human would observe another human.

Now demons, aberrations, fae... those are viruses, illnesses, parasites. Their effects, their reasons for existing, they make more sense to us. Not always perfect sense mind you, but enough to wrap our heads around. They hurt our reality, they do unnatural things to it, and if left unchecked they can destroy it. Even though we're not really part of the 'god body', we only exist as long as it does, so people rise up and fight these horrors because the alternative is non-existence.

>>54028035
Distant, but not all uncaring. They are after all beings of immense intelligence and existence. Some are good and will stay with your reality and world. But imagine, they are supreme beings not bound by death or aging, time flows infinitely upon them and since they are born they play a game too much for even a mortal mind to handle, it desensitize them to your single existence and planet. There's of course smaller gods, those are usually the ones you hear about death cults summoning or rebel churches starting.

Angel is a loose term for gods, its a helper, an extra hand in the great astral games and wars. Some machines, some more like people. Some are the literal manifestation of the gods will, nothing more than extensions of it and some are free to act and behave, it differs god to god, fate to fate.

They are usually alien, even the benevolent and kind ones are strange and dangerous. To rebel against them is silly, the entire ocean cares not for the lone ants anger and even if it did, they would be deafened out by all the other ants, all the other greater creatures, all so petty and insignificant to its vastness.

In short, don't bother with gods man, they're just a buncha mighty shits and we're not even the bacteria crawling on them.

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>>53975461
/tg/, describe a minor faction in your setting. What keeps them in the little leauges? What would it be like if they became a superpower/major influence, however likely or unlikely?

>>54028035
Old Scratch and his demons meddle in mortal affairs. All of their evil is based around temptation, and any and all curses, hexes, or evils they put upon a person must be willingly accepted in some regard. They cannot enter homes without being invited, etc

God and his angels simply stand back and keep Hell in check. Every few eras, the Devil will play a long-con with his plans, and without fail an angel made of a million rings and a trillion eyes will be sent to undo his works, blessed with everlasting power. At the end of the day, the Devil still gets his souls, but never ever unbalances the status quo.

>>54028574
A bunch of gasoline-sniffing tribal savages living in the ruins of un-pilfered military bases who were adopted by the last survivors of a technological superpower. In exchange for a home among their people, these survivors taught them how to use and harness the cornucopia of war and industry that they had ignorantly nestled in. Two generations later, this melded into a culture that touted both traditional worship of the sun and the fearful reverence of fire, along with the usage of gasoline as a recreational and medicinal substance, and the march of scientific, industrial, and military progress. While having lost a tremendous amount of their culture as aggressors and raiders, they still retain a great amount of hostility towards outsiders - the only exception being reverence for those who came and lifted them up from barbarians who danced around the fires at night, sacrificing men and cattle to the smoke plumes.

>village is invaded by the Sunwater Naptha
>they use your town as an FOB for scouting the region, seize gasoline supplies
>some guy wearing an officer's parade gear and a laser gun huffs a rag of gasoline walking out of the scout tents
>seizes you for suspected treason and has you doused in gasoline
>a scientist comes out from his mobile lab from studying thermodynamic weapon applications and performs a ritual to the sun with a fancy-looking stick
>executed by firing squad of people with flare guns

Hey guys what map tools do you use?

Any for facilities? I draw a lot of portraits and outfits to give flavor and visuals, but I need a good tool for facilities, worlds, and dungeons.

>>53995716
>what reasons would there be that kept the city states independent?
Wealth and eugenics.
If the leaders aren't greedy shits and the people aren't allowed to shit out more babies than they can feed, there really is no reason to risk balance for the promise of exponential growth.

>>53995735
I too enjoy thesaurus.com

>>54028877
P I S
h l A
o l I
t u
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s t
h r
o a
p t
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r

>>54028035
They don't exist, but people some think they do and act accordingly.

>>54027621
This, partly. One of the big advantages Christianity had over older pagan faith was that it was unified under one specific god which made it easier to control. In theory, at least, there weren't many different authorities contradicting each other, but one unified voice of the faith.

That said, other monotheistic faiths also existed at the time, and there's some evidence that even the old Greco-Roman pantheon was starting to take on a similar structure with Apollo towering above all the other gods as some form of supreme ruler in heaven. So in the end, it was mostly just luck of the draw rather than because Christianity had inherent advantages over other belief systems.

>>54030507
If one unified God was all it took for it to win, it wouldn't have split from Judaism, but the first converts to Christianity were all jewish, and only later was the religion opened to the general public.

While it is true that Christianity came about at a favorable time, it wouldn't be fair to discount the advantages that it had over contemporary religions in appealing to the underclasses. It had a notable anti-establishment bent, at a time when it was felt by the populace that the old laws were too restrictive and were following the letter of God's law as opposed to the spirit, it also claimed that suffering and asceticism in this life would be rewarded in the next and that "the meek shall inherit the earth" and it promised that the oppressors would suffer punishment, among other things.

Christianity had a definite advantage over established religions in appealing to the poor and the downtrodden (being new helped), even before it was formalized by Paul when it was just a guy preaching against established Jewish practices. After all, it did survive prosecution and grew quite quickly despite everything.

In the end, not one single factor contributed to the rise of Christianity, but a combination of being in the right place at the right time and having a message that was attractive to the masses (along with removing dietary restrictions and old laws), and later it was convenient for the rulers as well, since it preached that suffering in this life didn't matter.

>>54030507
>>54030619

As far as I understand, compassion\afterlife tenets played an important role in Christianity's popularization among the disadvantaged, yeah.

> there's some evidence that even the old Greco-Roman pantheon was starting to take on a similar structure with Apollo towering above all the other gods as some form of supreme ruler in heaven.

How would the Roman pantheon develop the analogous tenets\structure? Wouldn't imagine this'd take a short period of time.

>>54028035
Mostly, the gods that people worship don't actually exist. There are a handful of exceptions, but ultimately just powerful beings, there is no (and nor could there be) intrinsic divinity in any of them.

>>54026334
>>54027621
>>54027939
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5nv1nuUaVo

>>54030000
Top-down population controls weren't really a thing in antiquity. If a Greek polis became overpopulated and/or political disagreements between factions arose, some of the inhabitants usually just sailed away and founded a new colony. The Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts were littered with hundreds of Greek colonies from Spain to the Caucasus. Some examples were Taras (Taranto), founded by a lower class of expatriate Spartans who were given citizenship during the Messenian war due to a manpower shortage but which was later revoked, and Cyrene which was founded after the inhabitants of the island of Thera had been suffering from famine and the Oracle at Delphi instructed them to send some of their folks to Africa. The new colonies were independent of their parent poleis, but each of the four major tribes of Greece were usually friendlier towards their own tribe.

>>54030140
You really don't have any other programs that you can recommend?

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>>54032472
Not the same guy.
Just draw it on paper.

>>54028574
Well I've got a group of nudist druids in the woods of the south. They're not very sexy, in fact they're mostly old and fat and spend their time farming (with some well-kept secret nature magic) and drinking copious amounts of wine. True bacchanalians. They're too pacifist and lazy to ever do anything meaningful power-wise.

>>54028877
Honestly any drawing program works, gimp also works, its the one I use and I can say its basically a harder to use photoshop.

Theres of course inkarnate, the new update makes the maps look crisp and clean and there was one called hexmap or something, haven't used that.

>>54011030
That's cool, bruh. Still goddamn useful.

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>>54010016
The goddamn rivers! The horror!

>>54010016

>Breaks at least three rules of geology and one rule of physics
>best map

Suuuure it is, you deviant furry.

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Help me out here with my map. I know you'll cringe, but I'm not going for strict realism since I also needed to cram some environments in. Here's what I'm going for: Sort of a subtropical/tropical new world, a lot of South america and oceania. The pine forests are meant to be more like new caledonia.

here are some of the terrain types I needed to put in: Savannah, A Gran Chaco, Subtropical Pines, Steaming Jungles of the Forbidden gods, Mushroom forests and Mushroom Blooms, Icy Wasteland, Motherfucking Mordor.

Gimme yo criticisms!

>>54035715
Where are the rivers, my man?

>>54035715
First off I would really change your mountains. Mountains usually run alongside coasts, not ram straight into them perpendicularly. Same with your narrow isthmuses. Why are your tallest mountains on narrow spits of land?

Ask how altitude will affect climate. Do you differentiate between lowland mangrove forests and high altitude cloud forests? How about latitude? Your pine vs deciduous vs rainforest seems to be completely scattered and random in the west.

And I don't get the tundra in the northeast at all. If this is a tropical environment do you really need to include that? Why don't you save it for the tallest mountains or just cut it entirely? You don't have to include one of every biome you know.

>>54035767
Haven't added them in yet, Want to finish up the map hexes and then paint on the rivers flowing the way they should.

>>54035867
My tallest mountains are the ones in the east actually, if the western mountain band is so jarring, what's a good way to both cut the regions apart geographically for players and keep all that moisture in the southwest lakes region and pushing into that vast jungle?

For the random pine and deciduous forests, I tried to keep a c shaped belt of conifers around the great lakes area there, transitioning to more broadleaf and deciduous greens in the middle of the lakes where altitude rises and the climate supports something different. And to the east as well as more water collects in that bay before becoming that vast stretch of jungle. For altitude, I suppose the Southwest of the lakes region is a lower overall altitude than the northern part where the mountains currently start to cut things off.

Where the range splits in two is where I have less focus, but I was thinking a sort of overall green area from the moisture.

The lakes wash out in the north, past that upper split of the mountains, into a bunch of wetland areas, with the lack of moisture and warmer air creating that stretch of savannah

I do want to include that icy waste region, in an ideal world I'd have a bigger map with that further away, but I have to keep the map a little smaller for my players to explore.

Let me get this straight, /tg/

Tectonic plates create volcanoes, they also create the mountain rings across the worlds, and well pretty much circumvent the planet's continent when it was a supercontinent before it split off.

Secondly, Wind currents are important because they determine the biomes of each area. Pretty arbitrary to make, cold wind from the poles then they spin around the Mediterranean latitude and they become hot, right? (now that I think about it, where does wind come from?, land are meteorites pasted on the planet, water was also brought from space, what about wind?). Wind is incredibly important to making a planet that isn't dumb.

Thirdly, and this is the whole reason why I make this post. Now that you have created the continents, the mountains, and how your wind goes around. You have to determine where it rains, and where does the abundance of water reside, in order to colorpaint your planet. Rain comes from the ocean, right? Rainy clouds come directly from the ocean, and once they meet a mountain they release the rain like >>54032579 and >>54007628 show, right?

Do coast hills also cause rain? Are there any other reasons clouds would cause rain? I do not comprehend how it rains in central Africa when there are no big mountains there. I also don't understand how every country isn't strictly divided into deserts and forests, how does water gets around? I mean if for a fat rainy cloud to get through a mountain he has to drop all the water inside, then how does water gets around the other side? What happens to those clouds now that they are rain-less, when do they become rainy again?

Sorry for the long post, but I really can't express myself concise enough, I want to address as many points as I can. Planet building is, fascinating.

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I get so carried away

fyi there is a thing as too much rule of cool

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>>54038518
we're nowhere near the image limit anyway

>>54032472
GIMP if you're feeling open-source. Other than this, I highly doubt there are any decent tools for maps with lots of utility.

>>54032472
>>54039610
http://www.fantasticmaps.com/ used to work in GIMP before he moved to… Photoshop, I think.

>>54037833
Mountains don't cause rain, clouds cause rain. Mountains just block clouds and keep them from getting to the other side of them. Any point before that they could release rain.

Wind currents aren't all that arbitrary. They generally follow atmospheric circulation cells. Earth has six, three in each hemisphere: the Hadley cells (0-30 N/S), the Ferrel cells (30-60 N/S), and the polar cells (60-90). I seem to recall there could be planets with different amounts (apparently Venus only has two, for example), but just use the 6 from Earth. For the purposes of world-building, that's really all you need to know about.

Wind is caused by areas with higher pressure and lower pressure. Air will try to move from higher pressure areas to lower pressure areas. Due to other factors, it ends up being a bit more complicated than that. But that's the reason why, for example, if you have a spaceship and you open the door, the air will rush out.

Heat causes higher pressure, cold causes lower pressure. Heat also causes air to rise. The rising air (for example, at the equator) causes the Hadley cells.

When water evaporates, it becomes water vapour. It is then heated and rises, and when it is higher it cools and condenses. This eventually causes rain. The water that evaporates comes from the ocean or from other sources of water (but a lot from the ocean). Clouds can't be rain-less, because clouds are (quite literally) water suspended in air. If they were rainless they wouldn't exist.

Since rain doesn't just come from the ocean, you can have smaller amounts of water cycle based on rivers, lakes, etc., but it won't be the same amount. You also have water coming from multiple ocean areas if it can. But for the most part the world is divided into deserts and not-deserts.

Note: not meteorologist, so some of this could be wrong, feel free to correct me if I made a mistake somewhere.

>>54004683
Very bad from a military point of view though.

>>54002902
there's loads of terrain types in hexographer, why not use them. also that's too much farmland you probably want grassland

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Can gods' meddling in mortals affairs can be done right with also having a strict ruleset about what they can and cannot do?

Asking because in Malazan series it all seems cool but the only way to duplicate it as I see it to wing all the things as I DM...

>>54040940
Not him but how big is a tile suppose to be? Like a a single farm tile is enough to feed a nearby town, or do you need to surround the town in farm?

>>54041330
i mean it'd depend on your scale but either look up how much farmland is needed to support a city (if your'e taking a realistic approach) or decide how long you'd want your pcs to travel through farmland (If youre running an RPG)

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Looking for feedback on this map.

>>54041863
Looks like it was made specifically for triggering /wbg/.

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>>54041863

>>54006829
Gammelheim :^)

>>54035715
how the fuck does almost every fantasy map end up looking a little like europe

>>54041863
>moots woods
what did he mean by this

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>>54041863
I hope you didn't make this

>>54042352
Because humans are very good at detecting patterns. Just like you can see faces in places that there aren't any, you see real world elements in maps where there aren't necessarily any.

To make a map that looks nothing like any existing land mass takes conscious effort and it's really not worth it because it tends to end up looking silly.

>>54041863
>trader's bay
There appears to be a port city on the eastern side of your map that covers much of a continent.

What tech level is this setting?

>>54042477
I actually didn't this is the map my DM made for an upcoming campaign, has descriptions for all locations too, if you want me to post the pdf.

>>54042557
Well, /tg/ isn't going to like it, but if it serves the purpose of a fun campaign then it's fine. If you run an enjoyable campaign with it, then great, I don't have any issue with it.

As far as realism and design goes, there are tons of flaws and things I don't like, but I'm not your target audience. As long as the map does what it is supposed to, it is a good map.

>>54042586
Well the planet this is one is shaped like a doughnut I think so realism was most definitely not the creators intent.

>>54042557
if its true, and your dm isnt shit it would be a god-tier setting for a campaign. its crazy and would make for a memorable night with your friends.

>>54043014
He's the best DM in the group so odds are it will be pretty good.

>>54034674
You caught me

>>54040940
I'm just using the Grazing Land tile to represent Grasslands because it looks less cluttered.

>>54042352
Any map with an east-facing coast is going to remind someone at least a little bit of europe.

In my setting, we have a fairly developed cosmology, but most of the Gods and Dieties are worldly based.

So, there's this place on the planet called the Sill. Nobody knows its full size but it's misty, constantly raining ash, and full of death and monsters and mutants. There is said to be gods there, the Four Gods of the Sill. They're shits. They're all about Chaos and hatred and have no real issue interfering with the Kin of the world. They taught humans about gunpowder and showed them industrialization to help their kingdoms turn into massive empires. Sadly, this caused...issues? But the Gods of the Sill didn't teach Kin tricks to make them richer, they love the chaos, feed on it, and enjoy the fact that Kin get stronger and more powerful as time goes on. The only one whose name is known is the Tinkerer, and that's just what it called itself because if you can make the pilgrimage to it, it will build you something, but only if it's never been done before. This is why the setting has a second, invisible, fully automated with clockwork people moon that leeches power from the sun to grant its owner eternal life.

Then, there's the Lords. Lords are minor dieties of just about anything you can imagine, and Lord is a gender neutral title. The Lord of Endurance is a woman who was tortured for hours and suffered horrific injuries but her devotion prevented her from crying out. Thusly, the Lord of Endurance. Lords typically are not well documented, and many of them are fictional, but there are many people who have had real encounters with Lords. Worship is rare, but the larger Great-Cities tend to have temples to the really famous ones like War and such.

Okay, enough about the Lords. So there's a heaven of sorts. The general belief in this comes from a sagelike figure, a Lord, who told everyone what awaited them at death. The good and kind end up at Par'Kriener, the Last City at the End of Time, a sort of Tanelorn and Avalon mashup, where Imir, the Last Born Kin lives.

>>54044386
The general idea of Par'Kriener is those that have sort of lived great and fruitful lives of purpose will end up there and their combined souls will form an Egg of a new universe, one which the wicked and purposeless end up crushed into entropy.
Most of people believe this, and Imir's role in all of this was never explained well, but he's not worshipped as a god.

This isn't a universal faith though, just a popular philosophy and many people don't like it, because it means their children that died before they were adults get entropied, and someone who was a horrible crime lord that also ran orphanages and built hospitals get to go to Par-Kriener, so that's a bit of a massive fucking piss off to some.

We have the proto-buddhists who seek the crushing influence of entropy but believe life can have purpose. For them, one must master oneself, and there is no greater purpose. They do not wish for any afterlife, hoping and willing themselves to simply cease to exist, so they're usually Chaotic in alignment but not evil by any means.

You got the Elder-torians, which are a people that live in an area where the trees grow from flesh and they constantly rain seeds. They've adapted well and the trees are more valuable in a battle than a wall of stone, due to the self-regenerating property. Elder-Torians have to cut through the trees with super-heated metal that usually gets too damaged and corroded after a few uses so lots of times it's repurposed as a shitty weapon, but nobody fucked with Elder-Torians because they'll simply stop selling you super-repairing wood that can be used to make castles that don't burn down easily. And you don't know how to harvest them. Also if you attack them you have to go through the South Grove and the last army that did that made the south grove bigger by 15,000 trees. Whoops.

Anyway, the Elder-Torians have a hard life and a fucked up belief, that being that all evil in one's life accumulates as a spiritual sickness.

>>54044393
This must be purged, usually through self flagellation, and it's taken pretty fucking seriously. Parents are actually punished for NOT whipping their kids with a switch, but again, its usually done when kids sin a whole bunch. This doesn't lead to a really lawful population, because most people have massive pain tolerances and just go beat off their sin but since the base punishment for almost every crime is having a tree grow through your body and digest your innards over the course of a month people are generally kept in line by force.

The shitty part of the belief is their kings, which function in name as heads of the religion. All that purged sin, where does it go? Into the bodies of the kings! Thank fucking god, and look at how disgustingly fat and unhealthy the king is. That's the sin corrupting his body, nothing else.

Kings live a really easy life but when the nation is in danger, the sin is finally purged from the world in a ritual sacrifice that supposedly removes the nation from danger.

One example - a queen, the first in their history, was dealing with a neighboring nation that straight up threatened to invade and conquer them. The diplomats were making it very clear that this was it, and war was inevitable. Nation's in crisis! The diplomats were invited to watch this purging ceremony and they watched a fourteen year old Queen get flayed alive, limbs burnt off with hot fucking saws, her hair torn out in bloody clumps and finally kicked nearly to death. She stood up one last time and looked at the diplomats and they saw conviction. She wasn't even remotely upset about the whole being tortured to death thing, she 100% believed in it, and they said "holy shit these people are fucking insane" and reported such to their monarch, who called off the invasion out of disgust. And so, it worked!

What else do I have for gods...? Oh yes, the Patrons.

>>54044410
The Patrons are my own little Night Mother from the elder scrolls world, but they're kept in one of the great cities underground, and they're massive wooden idols. People worship them for help, and thieves, murderers and cutthroats get granted boons, but they must be paid with murders the patrons give you. You must kill the people the patrons demand you too, and the patrons...generally assign them based entirely off your skill level. A fat retard will probably get someone he could beat, like a child, and a skilled master assassin will get kings and other assassins.

There are four patrons, each of which corresponds to a kind of murder injustice.
The Blacked Hands is a woman who was bound, hands behind her back and they were kept so tight for so long that the circulation cut off and they rotted off. She died from an infection due to this and became the first.
The second is the Mother, who was a woman nonhuman(when i run it with DnD, I just say elf) who was savagely kicked to death for getting impregnated by her master and owner.
The third is a man who was murdered by a cult seeking to extend their lives and targets cultists, and the fourth was a noble who refused to join in on a plunder-pillage-rape scenario, and, offended by his prudishness, his monarch gave him, his family, and ancestral home up for plunder as well.

Basically I don't really like to do one single god or cosmology and have a bunch of different shit. A lot of my shit contradicts other shit. I'm not sure what else I would need, I'm thinking of coming up with patron dieties for tribal societies next

>>54034674

Explain anon.

>>54010016

Fuck you, I'm building my slutverse right now
Which appears to be increasingly vanilla the father I seem to go, if you exclude the humanoid monstergirls

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>>54041330
Depends entirely on the scale, but keep in mind even a simple village needs a surprising amount of farmland.