Which universe literally has he best, deepest lore?

brings me back man

Mario

Vangers

We are all us.

You know this to be true.

Malazan Book of the Fallen.

Malazan Book of the Fallen.
Read through it two and half times and I still run into shit I missed thanks to how complex and extensive the narrative and plot is.
Being written by an anthropologist and archeologist does a lot for your world's history and consistency, as well as showing what a monumental pain in the ass it is being immortal, mostly because you get wrapped up in this epic plot bullshit all the time even if you don't actually care about it at all.

Guess I have to read this now

All 3.3 million words of it holy shit what have you signed me up for you motherfuckers

So is it good? Not sure if that's a good recommendation for a story or just a really well designed setting

When I was 10, my parents gave me a gift card to Toys R Us for my birthday. I went and bought the whole first gen line of Bionicles. Haven't had a better birthday since.

Would some user be kind enough to provide us with a short summary of what it's about?

Fuck you, fuck "lore", and fuck everyone who thinks "it has a deep setting" is any kind of selling point.

You are the cancer that is killing the Fantasy genre.

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Let me tell you a tale. A tale of hope and betrayal, misery and joy, adventure and intrigue! But first, I need to read to you my 80,000 word thesis about the history, geography, politics, economics and metaphysics of my made-up universe.

Wait where are you going come back

That's why I prefer Souls games take on this.

>throw the player into the world after 10 lines of lore
>things just happen
>never explain shit unless necessary
>player can read some short cryptic description if he wants to learn more

I'm sorry that you've been scarred for life by someone doing a poor job of expositing background information of a fivtional setting to you, but that doesn't really have much to do with the conversation.

> hope and betrayal
Politics
> misery and joy
Economics
> adventure and intrigue
History
> setting
Geography

So, you know, a fucking story

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You don't even have to be that obtuse. Just tell me who the main characters are, tell me what they want, and then show them struggling to get what they want with your fancy setting as a backdrop. If an element of the setting affects the characters' wants, tell me about it. Otherwise, leave it out.

It's not just one story though. It's every fucking Fantasy story nowadays. Everyone's so obsessed with trying to create the perfect setting, yet no-one seems to know how to tell a simple fucking story.

I've seen people tell compelling stories with stick figures on a blank white background. You do not need a deep setting to tell a fucking story. All you need is drama.

I disagree with your observation of the fantasy fictions of the modern day, and do not find any stories that superfluously ramble about unrelated background worldbuilding shit.

But after about age 14, narrative stops ever being novel. Once youve experienced enough stories, there is nothing new under the sun.

Lore is important, it keeps things fresh and makes aesthetics a piece of the puzzle.

Looks like randomly generated map in Civ4

AC has a fantastically well-built world, but I wouldn't say it has very deep lore. I mean, only a few of the nations have any defined history going back more than several decades, and most haven't even gotten that much.

The story is complicated enough that a brief summary doesn't really explain anything at all, with a cast of dozens and a story spanning three continents and no actual main characters, just more important ones and less important ones.

As close as I can summarize it, it revolves around the military conquests and political situations of the Malazan Empire (though in some books it doesn't even actually appear at all) while also being about the mechanations of the various deities of the setting and immortals and their endless plotting. It also heavily delves into the history of the world (in fact it's ancient history is almost ALWAYS entirely relevant to whatever is going on) and takes an archeological/anthropological viewpoint.
One of the races for example is an entire species of undead humans who's former living description vaguely matches that of Neanderthals, and you get to find out a lot about the different cultures and origins of various species often from immortals who've seen them firsthand.

Um... ok. So, it's hard to do this without spoiling some of the big overarching events, but on a small scale it comprises of 3 storyline that pop in and out of relevance during the books that slowly converge towards the 10th book.
So the first one, which is the one you have to enjoy to get hooked onto the series is about the journeys of a squad in the Malazan 7th Army, which is an army basically put on shit detail because the Fist, or commander, is on the empress' shit list as the empress basically back stabbed the Fist's group of friends who founded the Malazan empire. Anyways so this squad has a few characters that have HUGE back stories and connections that become relevant through the books.
Something that turns a lot of people off is the scale of how many characters are introduced and how erikson does NOT hold your hand. When an old character reappears, he expects you to know who it is. This is helped in the fact that most of the books have a glossary giving a short summary with a few spoilers so be warned.
Another warning, the books are not in strictly chronological order, especially the 5th which jumps back in time and focuses on entirely new characters which a lot of people don't like.
As well, the magic system and theorizing interactions between the various Warrens as they're called is another crazy cool thing about the setting that I can tall about if there's interest.

And don't forget that those undead neanderthal are the Empires SWAT team and are on an eternal genocide against another elder race (which I won't name though because it might be a spoiler)

You lucky motherfucker!

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>Wait where are you going come back
I'm not going anywhere fucknut. Now tell your story.

Glorantha.

Glorantha.

No.

I am you, but you are not me. She is we, but they are not I.

But we are all one here.

The counterpoint to that is after three fucking million words and thirteen books barely any details have been revealed about the word. The author revels in keeping it close to his chest, which gets tiresome after a while.
Otherwise you could just sum it up as AYY LMAO GREEK GODS AS FANTASY DEITIES

I wouldn't say Shadowrun has the DEEPEST lore, but it's very good about small-scale worldbuilding

[spanish guitar intensifies]

Optimist would say that ours.
Pessimist would be worried that the optimist might be right.

Your plebeian opinions are why people keep churning out Drizzt Extruded Fantasy-like Product.

It's always fun to read the extra text bits and get more and more information about this universe in general

Goddamn. Every discussion on here eventually mentions K6BD, like some weird Veeky Forums version of Godwin's Law

The actual real universe.

I always liked that culture of psychotic mask-wearing fighters who name themselves by numerical their "ranking" in their warrior culture.
They send THREE FUCKING GUYS as a "punitive strike" against an entire national power that attacked them because they assumed since one of them was "Third" they'd have no problem.

Sonichu

Dubs confirm

Tékumel?

The Seguleh. Yep, they were fucking amazing. The moment when Toc the Younger found out that they were the entirety of the punitive force was priceless. And don't forget that *Anomander Rake* held the title of Second, and was afraid of fighting First. An /Ascendant/ was afraid of fighting the First Seguleh

The universe is only a hologram!

This

Nothing stands up to the rabbit hole that is Sonichu

For about 3-4 years my grandparents would buy my brother and I the complete set of the main characters for Christmas.
Shit was so cash.
I wish we still had them but we gave all our bionicles and legos to a family who lost everything during the California wildfires about ten years ago. Their kids lost all their toys and my bro and I were getting older and wanted to help them out.

Morrowind-era eldar scrolls lore

Tails Gets Trolled is a close second, followed by Kingdom Hearts.

My minds mind.

Fucking Sedenyafags can't even into immaculate logic
Sedenya got ganked by Wakboth
Zzabur ganked Wakboth
Zzabur>Sedenya

t. Brithini master race

Tails gets trolled is better.

Anything to do with dorfs.

Dark Souls.

The Seguleh were great. You have to remember that the punitive strike force was dispatched essentially due to them being confused as to the Pannion Domin's intentions. They sent some priests and missionaries, which the Seguleh slaughtered, and then they sent diplomats that basically said 'You killed our priests! Do you want us to declare war on you!?', to which the Seguleh responded 'Yes, that would be excellent, thank you.'

When the Pannion Domin tried to backpedal as they realise what a huge mistake that would be, the Seguleh sent Mok, Thurule and Senu to determine what the fuck was actually going on and kick the Pannion Domin's shit in for being annoying.

Anomander Rake was Seventh, though to be fair he gained that rank in a single day's worth of fighting, we have no idea if he would be able to face any higher Seguleh one-on-one if he were well rested. Estimates also place Tool as somewhere around Sixth. He knew that Mok would have absolutely destroyed him, but he beat Thurule and Senu fairly handily.

Yes. Yes. Yes. A million times yes.

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Tails Gets Trolled is an actual work of art. Also TGT Knuckles with a boston accent is the best fictional character that exists.

I'm not familiar with Malazan, but can it really come close to Tolkien?

The man created an entire mythos, including a etymological progression of multiple languages. I don't know a single other fantasy universe that has come close to replicating this feat of hard work and genius.

Erikson generally focuses on a smaller scale which he uses to build an overarching narrative. He doesn't go so far as to create languages, but then I feel I must ask: Why would he have needed to? The vast majority of his audience wouldn't have appreciated the full value of such an undertaking, and effort spent there would be wasted. Better for him to better consider the actual dynamics of those cultures and the interactions between them and the world proper. He leaves less of a focus on the 'big picture' as such, and takes a lot more time to focus on individuals and groups of individuals, which certainly gives his work less anthropological value, but it makes it into a far better story.

Everybody gets all up on Tolkein's dick for creating a language, and yes, it is pretty damn impressive, but it tends to lead to him being placed on a mile high pedestal when in actuality the more important (Well, in my eyes) aspects of narrative in his works leave a lot to be desired.

While he is definitely a less defining example, I would honestly rate Erikson as being the better Epic Fantasy author.

Well said, and I can't disagree with your opinion on who makes the better fantasy author.
And i'll definitely be giving Malayan and Erikson a good look over after this,
But the question was "fantasy universe" and, though I don't even really believe it was initially Tolkiens goal to do so, having created a language with an etymologically viable history and mythos tops the list for most comprehensive and brilliant fantasy universe in my opinion.

>Malazan Book of the Fallen
>About to buy Gardens of the Moon now

looks like a really interesting read, ty user.

No other series explores the ancient origins of trolling, linking it to actual honest-to-god trolls that live under bridges. That makes it the deepest.

The James Bond RPG universe..

>>pic extremely related

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If Zzabur's so powerful, why is his island disappeared?

Checkmate, Atheists.

>s well as showing what a monumental pain in the ass it is being immortal, mostly because you get wrapped up in this epic plot bullshit all the time even if you don't actually care about it at all.

I am intrigued. Why do the immortals need to intervene at all?

>literally

I guess which ever book is the thickest you dipshit.

I guess that Smash Bros Brawl fanfiction with 3.5 million words has the deepest and best lore of all fiction ever.

Only if you print it out though. Or maybe cut it into confetti and fill a pool with it?

But imagine the papercuts. You also can't swim in paper as well as one could in water, so it seems a tad pointless.

The sheer insanity of Sonichu and CWCville could make an excellent setting for a campaign.

Health potions would be jizz. Jerkops would be everywhere.

Fuck, I tried to play that game. It's weird as hell.

this is the weridest fucking game

I just wish the rest of it was as esoteric as this, rather than just basically sci fi with reincarnations and a galactic beaurocratic hierarchy

Because otherwise they get absolutely fucking wrecked psychologically by ennui and despair.

Immortals need some way to stay connected to reality.

I never noticed before, but the foremost arm doesn't seem to belong to a body, and is almost mechanical in nature.

I bet that's some foreshadowing right there.

Every time you consume a fanta potion, you lose sanity.

You're not going to understand anything at the beginning. Names left out: Keep reading until you have the leader of Moon's Spawn interact with the Alchemist in Darujhistan.

That's when it made sense to me.

The only correct answer, mysteriously underappreciated.

What a good guy. sucks that those kids have no idea what they got
Hope they had fun with them at least.

Aquanox

Care to explain?

>Wait where are you going come back
I am down here.
Now sit down arround this camp fire and tell me about your setting.

Apparently Tolkien destroyed the fantasy genre. Well that was quick.

Harn

Everything in Bionicle grows and lives on and around the giant body of the god Mata Nui, and is named after him.

Vangers have a pretty simple plot, though.
I'm a Russian, ask me anything.