Worldbuilding General

I just decide how words should sound and string sounds together. I'm no Tolkien, but I mange.

Is there a reason it's not jagged? I do think it needs more jags because it looks kind of weird if it's not like that for some reason. I don't think it's reasonable that they don't have enough data either. I feel like the coasts should be the easiest things for them to chart.

It's not jagged because I'm clumsy with it. I will probably change it later.

>What's the difference exactly?

Gameplay wise or setting wise?

The monkey men are meant to be cousins of humans. Half of them chose to become humans hundreds of years ago when humans became a thing, and the other half stayed in their jungles and steppe lands. Due to their place in the world as the philosopher creations of the titans, they get older as they wiser, not from time, and turn to statues or disappear when they reach enlightenment.

The furry halflings, on the other hand, are a motley collection of little woodland creatures like foxes, ferrets, badgers, rabbits, skunks, squirrels, rats and so on. They like to stay isolated in their groves and burrows as they are commonly enslaved due go their small size.

Oh, this kind of furry.

>How do you handle existing/classic races in your setting?

Like about 3 other anons, I made the humanoid races a sub species of Beastmen. This makes it easier to clear up evolution and crossbreeding. They all have a common point of origin and share basic needs. The main thing is that the drow/dark elves migrated to the north part of the continent first and thrived in the west while the orcs came second and humans came last. The rest are still in the south.

>What homebrew races are unique to the setting?

After all the books I've read and forgotten I can't even begin to pretend there is such a thing as an original race in my setting.

>What are elves like?

They are a subspecies of Alwara(beastmen) and the ancient tribal/original version is similar in appearance to generic drow/dark elves.

The Xuande: Drow/dark elves, they are the most pacific culture on the continent. They have made their empire on the north-west and concentrate in management and maintenance. They have a religion-like culture where the Xuande are priest-sages ruling over their people and subjects.

The Ruwa: Normal elves, a lot of them split form the Xuande and made their own civilization east of the Jagged Peaks, the middle region of the north. They had several feudal kingdoms until humans slaves revolted(with orc goading) and overthrew them. They are thoroughly subjugated and are second-class citizens at best in the Gedan empire. Most of their culture has been lost but a few towns and villages in Sha'hara offer a peek into the past.

The Luwasati: High elves, a religious culture believing they are their goddess's chosen children to rule other races has made them xenophobic and racist. Though they make slaves of other elves, races and half-breeds they kept control by brutal opression and not educating them, unlike the Ruwa. They made their homeland in the north of the middle region.

Offering my inkarnate map making skills for free. I know it isn't that special but i need something to do desu. Just tell me what you want and I'll try to make something. Might take some artistic freedoms though, like adding little islands and shit.

Pic related is something I made in an hour or two.

dumping some other stuff i made too

...

And the last thing im working on, still very wip

This is amazing, keep up the good work.

Thanks senpai

So when people build a world, do you figure out where the sentient species originally evolved and work out their migration paths and nations and cities from there?

>How do you handle existing/classic races in your setting?
The Witchlands were originally entirely human-populated. Both goblins and orcs sailed in and gradually integrated into society. The goblins are short, energetic, red-skinned creatures. The males are considered hideous by human standards, but the females are noted to be extremely beautiful despite their short stature. Orc society does not allow its women to travel across the sea, meaning that humans have only laid eyes on the powerfully built, walrus-tusked males. Their skin can vary between black and navy blue or swamp green.

A bottom up approach and would be easier in making a sensible or realistic setting. It just looks difficult to do because most people don't like to think through the basics or they don't feel they need to.

You can also do mid or top first but it would be more difficult to backtrack especially if you're working with a fixed map. If you backtrack you will need to be prepared to do massive reworking of other aspects to make it all fit. You can handwaive away a lot of inconsistencies but don't be surprised if people see blatant errors and call bullshit or ridicule the setting.

I encountered the problem after starting to design Sha'hara. I had outlined a psuedo-culture using the Zaharam-Chapelle-Parunas questionaire and worked out it's basic setting. I quickly realized that populating the setting with all the DnD races I can remember is going to be impossible. I then backtracked to limit the races to Humans, Elves, Orcs and Dragons. This made little sense since how could 4 different sentient races all evolve in one continent, one of which has 6 limbs. So I thought I'll just make them all beastmen except for the dragons(which evolved on another island). This vastly simplified evolution since I can focus on one area that churns out several subspecies and they emigrate from there. I needed to increase the land mass I was working on to give things enough room so a lot of reworking was involved. This gives me the added bonus of having catgirls and bunnybabes in tribal setting so it's all good.

Does anyone else find it difficult worldbuilding and writing in a sci-fi setting?

I really want to run a Numenara or Eclipse Phase game, or homebrew my own sci-fi setting, but for me it's more difficult to imagine a high technology world than a fantasy one.

I'm a science pleb and more inclined towards the historical rather than the futuristic, but I'm still fascinated by science fiction

If you're making a world to play in? Hell no. You make the world you want to play in, and then you work out the backstory in order to make the world even better to play in. Starting at the beginning is for mental exercise, not for actually producing a world to fulfil a given objective.
There's more to sci-fi than technological speculation. You could focus on...everything else, from new societies to purely made-up technologies that act as a catalyst to make your world interesting. Like a race that uses blood harvesting to make them immortal.

However, I admit I'm in exactly the same way as you. That example was from my fantasy world.

Nigga, you had a fantastical setting. You did not need to jump through hoops worrying about evolution. Gods and magic and millions of other *interesting* and above all plot-hook related reasons could have made these races.

High technology is easy. Advanced culture is harder, but nobody would notice if you just have modern culture with future trapping.

Tell me about chili pepper island, what kind of stuff goes on there?

holy shit can't unsee

fugg how did I not see that myself

Does this slice of history lorewank contain more then the acceptable amount of autism?

Long story short.

>Human empire rises to power roughly 1,500 years ago.
>Glorious age of humanity as the species is untied through various diplomatic means or else wars of subjugation.
>Prosperous trade relations with various other races including the traditionally isolationist dwarves. (Think American foreign policy prior to WW1)
>Mistakes are made, tables flipped, mothers insulted, war breaks out between the human empire and the elves. (The elves consist of two distinct sub-species, if that's the correct term. Basically regular "high" elves and dark elves*)
>Long gruelling war of attrition between the empire and the elves, but in the end humanity gains the upper hand due to simply having greater numbers and being able to pump out more babies.
>Elves forced from the mainland.
>Long standing political rivalries and social unrest weakens the human empire.
>Finally after a few fears of infighting, a virulent disease outbreak that swiftly spreads throughout the empire causes it to collapse into numberless warring factions and petty kingdoms.
>Elves collectively breathe a sigh of relief and unclench their sphincters.
>Civil war in the empire continues.
>New elvish leadership cite dark elf degeneracy as the reason they got their perky asses handed to them in the war. (Think of the Jews during Hitler's rise to power)
>Dark elves expelled from the elvish homeland and are forced to settle in the unclaimed territory that lies on the border of the former empire.
>Several hundred years pass.
>Modern day, dark elves are super pissed about being kicked out now share cool but stable trade relations with the new fledgeling kingdoms that rose from the empires ashes.
>The imperial Bloodline lives on.

*Not going to lie, I only really included dark elves because they're my fetish and this is my magical realm.

Pretty cool, but I'd honestly set it right in the middle of the perpetually warring petty kingdom era. Make the darkies get kicked out at roughly the same time (the decline of the Human Empire could cause massive economic damage down the trade line until it hits Elfland, causing Germany-style megainflation).

"Oh shit nigger grab the sword and run for the burg" is more interesting than "shit's cooling down and everyone's getting comfy", IMO.

Add roving mercenary bands profiting from the unrest and slavers.

>dark elf degeneracy
The Ein'shai know too much. Shut it down.

I like that idea.

The thing is I specifically did not want to MAGIC everything. Under the hood the setting is actually rather mundane with the addition of a "magic" quantum sub-particle. In a game it's intended to let players and GMs inject actual magic if they want or have the world progress in a logical manner. As a story setting I wanted a good foundation to build on and blow up if needed.

If anybody are the Jews in all this then it's the Dwarves who profited by selling weapons to both sides while remaining "neutral" throughout.

Some even say that the plague that ravaged the human lands was of dwarvish doing, because it was beginning to become clear that humanity was going to win and enforce peace by force of arms. That would have been bad for business since nations at peace don't buy as many weapons. Better to have countless petty kings and dukes fighting amongst themselves and practically throwing money at you for newest and most destructive weapons you can come up with than to have neighbors that are at peace, working the land with a growing economy that could one day threaten your own.

>SmirkingDwarvishMerchant.jpg

I don't get why you want to intentionally limit the fantastical potential of your world. If an ancient group of sorcerers desperately made a race out of the entrails of their brethren in order to fight off the primordial demons that were stalking him, then you have the origin of a kind of magic (if you want that), you have oppositions with Indian style purity vs. corruption, you could have curses, you could have artefacts from their conception along with a dungeon in the form of the laboratory in which they worked, you have literally anything I can't think of right now.

Whereas with evolution, you just have "it happened because the world's just like our own".

>Some even say that the plague that ravaged the human lands was of dwarvish doing, because it was beginning to become clear that humanity was going to win and enforce peace by force of arms.
Don't do this. If the dwarves are that powerful, what the hell's the point?

Unless you literally mean "some say", in which case it's pretty cool.

Mine is a scifi setting, so i dont worry about the typical races too much.

"Elves" could be equivalent to the "designer humans" made through genetic alteration. They are litterally humans but better, each and every one a 11/10 athletic supermodel. Im working on a reasonable drawback to give them as a group, however, just to make things more interesting, but nothing has come to mind yet. Some subraces exist based on varying cultral perceptions of perfection and envirnmental demands.

I need a ritual that can confirm the legitimacy of one's blood

That's called a paternity test. Dark elves are allergic to them.

Alright, now make it magic

You don't need to give them a drawback. Depending on the setting and the kind of games you're running, their benefits might be the disadvantages you want.

If you run a seedy game of slumlords and cartels, then an "elf" who's fallen so low as to sell their services to the scum that live in the underhives is no going to get much support from their house. And they'll definitely get shat on for being a superrich prick fallen down to the prole's level.

I don't have just evolution.

I have a subatomic particle that is affected by a conscious coherent sentient mind. This is the building block of magic in my setting. This particle can be influenced by a disciplined mind to manipulate other particles and their states and can be affected in turn. Limiting factor is minds need to be sustained and energy expenditure can be quite expensive. This particle doesn't just exist on one planet, it exists in the entire universe.

The evolution on this particular planet thus far have produced creatures able to manipulate this particle. I can have anything magical I want. The only true difference is the source of magic in my setting can be considered mundane instead of being fantastic for fantastic's sake.

There's also something to be said for working within limitations, foremost example in my head are Star Trek's Transporters.

Rivers join together as they flow down to the sea, not split up. The only exception is when they near the ocean and are really slow, where they'll form deltas (the ruins of Reesa area on your map looks like a reasonable delta).

The one to East was also meant to be delta of a sort, but I took it too far.

Warped land is unnaturally elevated formation and river just kinda run around it.

As for the rest, they can reasonably split like this, no? They are far enough from sea, landscape can go down like this. Especially the one that run out of the lake.

As a first-time DM, where is the best place to start when I'm creating a setting?

Having every river do it is extremely unlikely. You might get one river that does that in an entire geographical area, and is generally temporary (exists during floods and such). Say you have two rivers that form out of a lake, one to the east and one to the west. At first, lets say they both let out an equal amount of water, so they erode their channels roughly as fast. However, the prevailing here winds on average push more water towards the east side of the lake, so the east side starts putting more water out. The east side river will grow faster than the west side river, and relatively quickly will be starting to drain the average lake level. This will start to lower the amount of water going into the west channel, while the same amount of water keeps going out the east channel (As it's making itself deeper at the same rate the lake is dropping). This will result in the west river drying up in a few hundred years, and now that there's an established outflow for the lake it's very unlikely that another outflow could form (and it wouldn't last long). A big flood might revive the old west river for a day or two, but after that the water level returns to normal and the east river again dominates. Having a side river from from an existing river instead of a lake is even more unlikely.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_bifurcation

Note how there's only four in the entire world that split to the degree your rivers split here. Four out of the thousands that exist on earth.

Makes sense. My entire river system was deltas gone wild anyway, redrawing them should be easy.

Elements your group is interested in.

Which type of claimant would have a better claim to the throne, heir to a deposed house that once ruled or illegitimate bastard trying to depose his legitimate ruling half brother?

Whoever is more useful to the influential powers. Both would probably rally rival factions to support their claims.

Can I literally just request something random so I can work with it?

Historically, have either types been successful in claiming the position they wanted?

Sure, any map you want and I'll see what I can do for you. Might take some time though.

do my map please sempai

Sure, I'll start working on it in about half an hour. Are those colored parts mountain ranges? and that circle in the middle, is that a desert?

>Are those colored parts mountain ranges?

Yes. and the little lines are the gaps for passways

>that circle in the middle, is that a desert?
Indeed

thanks amigo

I think I fixed rivers that didn't have supernatural excuse. Although I do feel my one river that isn't coming down from the mountains has source awkwardly close to another river.

I really need to add some hills or something. The map feels incredibly flat to me now when I think about it.

Probably. There have been so many power grabs throughout history that odds are good that there's been one successfully made by anyone you can describe.

Has there been a successful power grab by a bald second-cousin of the king with eczema and a fondness for birds? Probably.

Drew some outlines of mountain ranges after figuring out tectonic plates. How're things looking so far, Veeky Forums?

>How do you handle existing/classic races in your setting?
So, I really don't have any normal sentient races other then humans and marrow currently residing in my setting (possibly a human-wolf hybrid race in the southern continent (off map)).

Looks much better. Yeah, just having mountains and no hills marked can make a map look pretty flat. A bunch of hills (or maybe even a hotspot volcano or two) by that river source you're concerned about would make it look more natural, and putting them elsewhere will break up the flatness.

Look up Preudo-Dimitriis from Russia. Those guys claimed to be lost princes all grown up based on nothing and people rallied for them. Stepan Razin, I think pulled the same shit.

If peasants are discontent, and you are charismatic and populist enough, you can sell them idea that they are unhappy because their monarch is an impostor.

As for Bastards? I don't know if any actually managed to rally support based on dead king shagging their mum.

Too mad inkarnate doesn't have hill tool.

Your magic is mundane for mundanity's sake. You could have it be fantastical for the campaign's sake, the player's sake, the story's sake -- whatever you're making the world for's sake.

It really seems like you're sacrificing your setting for the sake of realism, when the whole point is that your setting (or rather, what your setting services) comes first.

There's nothing to be said about working within limitations, from a world perspective. Your world *is* the limitation.

On one hand your setting must be teleological. You do know what you want from your story and your setting must support this.
However, personally, I always disliked experiencing with setting that I would describe as "rootless". I want to be able to comprehend how did current state of affair came to be. Where did this and that come from? The world was born overnight from authorial mandate, but there's nothing better to take you out of it then noticing it.

Not just that, but the past of the setting can be used to further support what you want out of it. Leaving it as a vague otherland can be a waste.

Current rough outlines. As you can prolly see, I'm not really good with proportions, but is this okay for you?

Mutant bird/10

looks more like a vomiting rabbit to me desu

I've seen some that use smaller mountains (see pic) or faded lines (imgur.com/milH3oP) for hills

This might also help with the coastline thing you mentioned earlier:
imgur.com/gallery/fIm72/new

I'm afraid I've never messed with inkarnate myself, so I can't offer any direct advice on it.

>This might also help with the coastline thing you mentioned earlier:
Looks like the guy is biting off shores with substraction tool. I already did it.

I interpreted South-Western corner as beak.

>Looks like the guy is biting off shores with substraction tool. I already did it.
I'm unobservant and missed that you changed the coastlines between and . Sorry.

What kind of tools are you using to create these maps? They're really good. Have you been doing maps for a while now?

>Your magic is mundane for mundanity's sake.

In a way, yes. I wanted a world I could put fantasy elements in but didn't want to use traditional fantastic reasoning.

However the post I was responding to before is in regards to

> intentionally limit the fantastical potential of your world

which I don't since the setting can still use practically any magical concept. I could also add another user's "sentient shade of blue" if I wanted. It's really just a matter of application.

>Your world *is* the limitation.

The setting in general? Well, yes, it is a enclosed framework after all. The setting is being built to serve my needs, which is mainly to have an internally consistent world.

Japan?

Just inkarnate. First I just smear some land wherever I want it, then i use some really rough subtractions and additions, then I trace everything I want with about a size 8 subtraction tool, to make the coasts somewhat rougher (finishing of this was pictured in ), and then the biggest one comes, which is actual coastlines, which is tracing with a size three substraction tool and roughing it up a bit (finished result of this can be seen in the northwestern part of this map). After that, mountains, rivers, biomes, locations and eventually roads and/or borders, but I'm really terrible at borders.

I've been making maps for quite a while now, though not really intensively. I'm proud to say I've never followed a tutorial, though I have incorporated some Veeky Forums tips.

Nope, just some random stuff I made up by using the tactic I described above.

Holy fuck those coast lines. Gj user

requester here.

Damn son that's turning out as a fine map.

Thank you again!

Credit where credit is due, nice job mi negro

I found that cave tool looks like a hill. Sort of. Very brown kind of hill.

Glad to see you like it, I'll definitely get the coastlines and mountains done tonight, and i'll get some rudimentary biomes in too, but if you want locations+rivers you're gonna have to wait till tomorrow im affraid

Gracias mi negro

Added some more jaggedness, names some bodies of water (Did you know nomads have no sense of anatomy?)

Now the question I ask myself is
Shouldn't someone occupy the bank opposite Reesa-Basadae securing Kais-Fradoth path?

>How do you handle existing/classic races in your setting?
I typically prefer humans-only setting. However, when I do try to include the classics I try to make them different enough to be worth including, but not so different that there's no reason to call them classic races.
That being said, I do have a setting in which I play the races straight. Or, rather, I turned their classic traits up to 11.
>What homebrew races are unique to the setting?
I don't make completely unique races. I've tried, but they've always ended up too gimmicky.

Coastlines done, moving on to mountains now.

Which of these scripts does Veeky Forums prefer for a dwarven.

Example A:

or B (I have few examples of longer texts in B)

B.

My shitty map.

Vertical one is better, if they're standard dorfs. If you imagine them writing by chiseling into stone (even if they don't do it that way now, maybe they did in the past), it's slightly easier to make straight lines going down than going to the side.

>The Savage Land
>The Enlightened Land
This is some Buddhist Pilgrim's Progress

Well, A is designed to be scribed onto standardized clay tablets with an ash-based ink, while B is intended to be made with a single-size chisel on pretty much any material.

Mountains and biomes added too. That's going to be all for tonight, hope you can use it! If anything is not to your liking, please say so and I can fix it tomorrow.

I really like this one, has a more original feeling to it. Good work with both of them though

That fucking strip of land near the singing coves is the kind of place that should have its own name.

Your mountains are all over the place.

Coastlines are very nice.

The southern sea probably deserves a name more than the northern one, considering there's nothing up there.

Consider natural barriers other than mountains

Well that's a bit of a wrinkle, then. Could I see the larger sample of B?

>B is intended to be made with a single-size chisel on pretty much any material
I know what you mean, but now I've got an image in my head of a frustrated dwarf trying to chisel paper.