/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

I have a strong passion for international affairs and geopolitics and I'd like to softly and slightly insert some themes and elements of it. Not in a lecture sort of way about spiral theory or deterrence but with an eye to influences of it. Stuff like bandwagoning vs rally round the wagons (I forget the right term but basically either teamstacking or forming coalitions against an ascendant power), the idea of geography creating inherent foreign policy desires and outlooks. A theme I'd like to touch on but I am not sure I will have the skillset to do so is the conflict between power centralization and power diffusion - the arabic adage "better 70 years of tyranny than 1 night of anarchy" or the experience we're seeing today with hostility to Brussels or the classic states vs federal government in the US.

I'd also like to try and present a world that draws more upon areas less covered in usual fantasy or even history, albeit with adjustments and changes.

drive.google.com/open?id=0BwYUexL0zGS_WkZncHVSZnVLWTg

Also check the info at twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?1026-All-Under-Heaven-(AUH)

I accept that any idioms or slang that aren't utterly partisan to our world ("Road to damascus conversion", "Achillies Heel",) can be used. After all if you dig deep and try to omit any terms with overtly partisan meanings or etymologies you'd practically require a reader learns a new language.

Thank you for the links. I do wan fry rice.

>What are the overarching themes and root ideas for your settings, fellow worldbuilders?
Regret is a large one.

The entire reality of the world is held together by a single Omnigod who regrets breaking it. And a large quantity of the religions, short stories, and history are about regretting past mistakes.

Ultimately everything is moving towards forgiveness however. Eventually.

Go ahead, spruce it up.

A couple anons asked for some hard mode questions last thread.

>Pick a random citizen from your world. It can be a king/queen, a merchant, a noble, or a simple peasant.
>What's his or her name?
>What race?
>What country?
>What's their outlook on the world around them? How do they feel about the current political situation?
>Give a very brief summary of a normal day in their life.
>What are their hopes and dreams?

Dante Must Die questions also available upon request.

I'm thinking that this is going to get a bit long, so it may be easier to just post the Pastebin link like in /cyoag/ and others (that I don't spend too much time on).

Does anyone else have links they think are worthy of being added?

Right, added a few stuff of mine and other links I've found scattered around. I'm not the best at formatting using ASCII alone, so if someone wants to make it prettier that'd be great.

pastebin.com/xLFkW82C

Do people want to make a /wbg/ shared PDF archive, or are Da Archivist's efforts on PDF share threads sufficient for people's needs?

Huh, surprised there's a thread about this, didn't know it was a thing.

How old are you all? I feel that I won't be able to create a world until I'm at least in my middle age. There's just still so much for me to learn. I have stirrings of ideas too, but I just don't feel that I have have something socially important to say with my world. I feel that at this I am only capable of emulation. If I create something, it must be groundbreakingly original, and I want that originality to flow from me naturally, which at this point it won't.

>Why do you like to worldbuild?
I love seeing things on a large scale and creating nations. That and creating classifications and systems is one of my greatest joys.
>How pages of lore/backstory do you have?
My largest setting has over 100 pages.
>What's a trivial, random fact about your world?
The port of New Ibreth is separated into 5 sections, each for the five separate nations that are involved in Henelian trade.
>What's something you need feedback on? Or, maybe you need an expert's opinion on a random subject??
Any suggestions on how to develop a realistic military structure? Either sci-fi or modern is fine.
Sci fi setting: Loneliness and struggling against the cycles of humanity
Magitech setting: The power of will and companionship
Low fantasy setting: The distance of home and creating family for yourself
WWI setting: The bonds that war forges and how it pushes people to do great things.
D&D Setting: Setting aside your differences and general high fantasy stuff
AltHist Mecha setting: imperialism and standing up for what you believe in
I don't use idioms a lot. Curses can be easy to make depending on how developed your religious systems are. Slang are harder for me but come easier to others. I'm terrible at them though.
>Pick a random citizen from your world. It can be a king/queen, a merchant, a noble, or a simple peasant.
Ok.
>What's his or her name?
King Malitas III
>What race?
Human
>What country?
The Mage-Cities of Devia
>What's their outlook on the world around them? How do they feel about the current political situation?
He believes the mage-cities to be weak and that the southern Consortium to be a bad influence on the continent as a whole, sucking away the resources of not only the mage-cities, but also the southern Kingdom of Rha'zhir.
>What are their hopes and dreams?
The unification of Devia
I'm 19. My greatest advice would be to just have an idea and run with it.

I'm 22. I guess I'm younger than most, but maybe I'm older, who knows. You can create a world at whatever age you want, there isn't some kind of secret society regulating the world building scene. You will always have too much to learn, that's the nature of human life. You can find idiots and geniuses in all age ranges. Thinking that you're "too young" is just losing precious time.

What do you men with socially important? Like social commentary? That can be hard. Very hard. You have to understand society. And I mean actually understanding it, comprehending the relevant issues and being able to make judgement without letting some ideological bullshit influence you. We have enough SJWs and Stormfags ruining things for everyone. But let's not go there. It will derail the thread and we had enought of that last time.

And you should forget about being "groundbreakingly original" before creating something. To be original, whatever that means to you, you have to practise. Practising you gain knowledge, and knowledge helps you to overcome your limits, and that will allow you to be more creative and original. Trying to be totally original from the beginning will result in very, very shitty works, because you don't know what you're doing, or what has been done before. Nobody is original since the beginning, and a semblance of actual creativity can take years to appear. I'm not original, for example. Probably never will. But if I were to be, it would be after years of work.

Just practise, and forget about trivial matters. Do it for the sake of doing and enjoying it. This is a hobby, after all.

Of course, this is my opinion and it's as valid as anyone else's, so eh, do whatever you want.

>>Why do you like to worldbuild?
Not sure, it's just fun.

>>How pages of lore/backstory do you have?
No idea, I loose the books I write in too often.

>>What's a trivial, random fact about your world?
The majority of the ecosystem of the vast underground caverns is sustained by plants capable of thermosynthesis.

>>What's something you need feedback on? Or, maybe you need an expert's opinion on a random subject?
Biggest issue is probably just that I need to name more things.

>What are the overarching themes and root ideas for your settings, fellow worldbuilders?
Uniting to overcome terrible evil.

>>Pick a random citizen from your world. It can be a king/queen, a merchant, a noble, or a simple peasant.
>>What's his or her name?
Thibault Legrand

>>What race?
Human

>>What country?
He's from the Kingdom of Vecha, but is in the Kingdom of Irun, which is to the south.

>>What's their outlook on the world around them? How do they feel about the current political situation?
Things could be better, but they could also be far worse, given that many kingdoms to the south essentially don't exist anymore outside of their kings. Not very interested in politics, and feels that Vecha should be more involved southern events, but this is largely due to the fact that as the third son of his noble father he won't be inheriting too much from him, and certainly not any land.

>>Give a very brief summary of a normal day in their life.
Outside of the obvious, like meals, most days consist of sparring and trying not to piss off more important nobles.

>>What are their hopes and dreams?
His primary goal, like those around him, is to see the land of Tagus (which Irun is in the northeastern most part of) purged of monsters and anyone who serves demons, so that the fallen kingdoms of Tagus can be recreated That will could also mean the recreation of the lands of the Mazhian invaders in the south of Tagus, but that's preferable to hellish anarchy.

Power. The difference between real power and imagined power. Mortals in-setting have a bad habit of overestimating how much power they have, and often get punished by the powers-that-be.
Having Greek God-equivalents walking around doesn't help things.

It's a High Magic setting masquerading as a Low Magic one.

>Just practise, and forget about trivial matters. Do it for the sake of doing and enjoying it. This is a hobby, after all.
This. You get better at this kind of stuff by doing. I've been trying to work out some high level stuff for years now, and constantly wind up scrapping what I have and going backwards, but each time what I have is a bit better and the point I go back to is a bit further forward.

history doesnt repeat itself... but it does rhyme
>How pages of lore/backstory do you have?
over 60
>What's a trivial, random fact about your world?
nest ships are cannibalistic..

22 been working on this setting for 6 months on and off
james
human
born on the generation ship Zalmoxis
he feels that he is a part in humanities future amongst the stars
he maintains a small bio dome/greenhouse with his family of 7 mostly cultivating vegies and wheat.
for him and his family to see the sky for the first time and live out their days in peace.

I'm about to run a session where the party discovers an island. On the island is an abandoned civilisation, whose buildings etc were magically preserved since the iron age. The civ was a coalition between orcs and humans, and at one point, elves (but then the elves left). I'm running low on ideas, so I was hoping Veeky Forums could give me some perhaps to kick start the process. What kind of artefacts could they find there? What other interesting things would be around? If pirates were knocking around here too, having only just discovered it themselves, what sorts of conflicts could arise between them and the party?

>Why do you like to worldbuild?
Well I used to think of it as a prequel to writing something, but I no longer write much. Ideas don't tend to leave me alone until I write them down, I suppose.

>How pages of lore/backstory do you have?
13.5 according to Google Docs, although that's with the caveat that I tend to write more IN a setting than ABOUT a setting- I have probably a hundred pages of writing in various universes. Generally my worldbuilding notes are just minimal shorthand to get me to remember the world.

>What's a trivial, random fact about your world?
If a normal human being looks at an angel, their eyes burn out- forever. If you implant replacement eyes in, they burn out. If you put glass eyes in, they will deteriorate much more quickly than normal until they are only dust. The closer the thing you use to replace an eye is to an eye, the faster it deteriorates. For eternity.

This can also happen to low-rank angels, should they gaze above their station. Generally only members of The Quick, The Watchful, and The Ordered have to worry about this, though a member of the Bright still wouldn't be able to, for example, look at one of the Holy Host with impunity unless he had God-given reason to.

>What's something you need feedback on? Or, maybe you need an expert's opinion on a random subject?
Hmm. I don't really have anything presentable.

Oh, actually, I have a spacefaring setting where most people are settling individually in asteroid clouds and other low-space environments, and I was wondering what they'd be growing to eat. My instincts say potatoes, but I recently realized I have literally zero evidence to back that up. Anybody know what crops have the largest calorie-to-growing-space ratios?

Well, my angels/demons urban fantasy setting is probably mostly leaning towards stuff like reaching towards self-actualization and also realizing that even if people love you, they almost certainly think they know better than you at some point. It's typical urban fantasy/YA stuff, I guess.

My Anglo-Saxon space-magic setting is probably about the power of determination, fighting to the bitter end, and dealing with a world that seems arrayed against you- the main antagonist is the Clockwork God that hates humanity, and the two time periods in which I'd set an actual story are when He first discovers and tries to destroy Humanity or the period some time after that in which some of his Loyalists try to rebuild him after he was destroyed.

My every-nationality-a-different-animal fantasy* is probably going to deal with themes of death, loss, grief, and a general sort of life-after-tragedy sort of deal.

I guess that's most of what I've been thinking about lately.

*Can you call it fantasy if there's no magic? It's just animals in a sort of late medieval/early renaissance adventure. Think The Katurran Odyssey, a little bit.

Generally, I found myself fascinated with concept of empire being overrun by an outside context problem leaving behind successor states so I started making medieval Europe-esque world only with more focus on Byzantine tropes rather then actual knightly parts of the world.

Were the orcs, elves and humans speaking the same language?
If not, have the PCs discover an artifact with writing in three different languages, sort of like the Stone of Rosetta. Or maybe a magical device that translates back and forth between three languages. That would have been vital to the island civilization.
Of course, there's tons of valuable stuff to loot from the ruins. I imagine the pirates could be going for that and don't want the PCs to get anything. Alternatively, the pirates want to set up camp on the island, since it is fairly secluded (I assume) and they don't want them to give away their hideout.
If the ancient buildings were preserved, maybe the same thing happened with their boats? Maybe their boats were magically enchanted and very advanced vessels? You could give one to your party as a base of operation at some point.

>Anybody know what crops have the largest calorie-to-growing-space ratios?
Dunno exactly, but this chart might be helpful for you:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staple_food#Nutritional_content

Change of mind, names I'm considering for the Vedic Kingdoms/tribes are:

Niravahan (denonym being Niravahani)
Niravaham (denoynm being Niravahami)
Niravahanam (denonym being Niravahanami)

All pronounced "ner/nir + ah + vah + han/ham" or "ner/nir + ah + vah + han + am".

Pravasita (Pravasiti)
Pravasitam (Pravasiti)
Pronounced Prah-Vah-sea-ta or tam or Pra-va-Sea-tee)

Variyana (Variyana or Variyani)
Variyanam (Varianya or Variyani)
Pronounced Var/Vear-ee-ah-nah or Var/vear-ee-ah-nam.

Gunjitam (Gunjitari)
Pronounced Gun (with a j-ish ending like the start of jungle) + ee + tam/tar-ee)

Currently leaning to Niravaha whatever. Vedics are nearby Nakkarum but aside of the N syllable they don't sound too similar. Has a slight accidental feel of Nirvana as a plus.

Still working out possible terms but it's nice to have inspirations jogged by just looking up the meaning of some of these long dead language's words. Looking up "Exiles" and "Voyage" on a lark gave me the image of some primordial tribe in the ancient days of this world's Indo-Europeans exiled from the verdant north across the brutal desert of the Harbanu, suddenly coming across the silt-rich river valley of their new homeland. Like the Herodotean myth of how the wars of Asia and Europa began with some ancient wife-stealing a'la paris and Helen.

And nuts to chariots and big ol pyramids, I'm salvating at writing the sense of awe and terror of having to fight war elephants or other exotic beasts of war that come to mind (Rhino steeds? Chariots pulled by muscular horse sized Ibex or Antelope?)

You should learn how to use the International Phonetic Alphabet. English orthography is highly irregular and more or less useless to convey exact pronunciations.

>Why do you like to worldbuild?

I find it rather enjoyable to come up with ideas for settings to play in.

>How pages of lore/backstory do you have?

Usually not much, which is a bit of a problem. I tend to paint broad strokes and forget to make details.

>What's something you need feedback on? Or, maybe you need an expert's opinion on a random subject?

Mainly just how to make a setting coherent. It feels like every world I build is a grab bag of random good ideas I've had, smushed into one. I get too caught up on making things different to the degree I have to seriously alter the character creation options.

Basically I spend to much time homebrewing while world building and I always end up with a mess.

>random good ideas
Tell me about one of your worlds, user.

>why do you like to worldbuild?
because it's fun
>how many pages of lore/backstories do you have?
it's pretty hard to approximate how many pages i have but it's quite a lot even if it's still has more room to cram in more development for this setting
>What's a trivial, random fact about your world?
People are made up of burrowing creatures instead
>What's something you need feedback on? Or, maybe you need an expert's opinion on a random subject?
i need some insight on how to make a good mish mash of cultural exchanges inspired by the countries along the Silk Road for one civ. Originally, they're just notArabs but there is already one nomadic people that fits that bill. Because they have a robust trading culture they all tend to travel a lot, excahanging much of their culture throughout the world till they have even integrated some aspects of those foreign cultures into theirs, though if only aesthetically speaking. How does one make a good crossroads Silk Road civ?

I just want to build a cool world based around exploration. I suck at worldbuilding though so it's not going well.

Hmm...well, one of my more recent attempts was a twist on the idea of a Water World, being a world of fire instead. Basically just a world dominated by that element over the others.

So I had a planet with a higher surface temperature, with several continents. The oceans near the poles were temperate, temperate regions were more tropical, and the equator was scorching desert and steaming oceans.

Lots of volcanoes and tectonic activity, with streams and rivers often flowing from warm springs in the mountains. Vegetation was a mix of bright warmer colors, and even some wildlife would have natural fire abilities.

For magic systems, I figured I'd have elemental spirits be everywhere, in everything. You'd have spirits from rivers, rocks, mountains, fires, everything. Spellcasting was to involve either asking big spirits for small amounts of their power, or convincing multiple small spirits to give you more of theirs and combining it into something usable.

Race-wise, I had a few varieties of draconic humanoids all with fiery breath weapons of different colors. Some breathed smoke and were more stealthy, other had white-hot breath that they used to make tunnel networks in mountains.

The latter competed for space with kobolds, who also formed large underground societies. I also had Nymphs as a more sentient form of spirits that watched over rivers or springs, and dryads that became more detached from their trees due to the constant wildfires.

Humans formed more tribal societies, often with harsh divisions due to region. Most societies were very tribal and separated overall.

As for why the world was like this, basically the god of war and fire managed to kill off the other gods and impose his will. The last 'diety' left is a giant demi-god who wanders the world leaving a path of senseless destruction.

I can tell there's useable pieces here, but I feel like I just put them together wrong, or focused on the wrong things.

What are witches like in your setting?

Old, evil women who lure children into their cauldron? Kiki's Delivery Service-style magicians who are cute and benevolent? Middle aged women getting into paganism for the sake of something to do?

do you like to worldbuild?
Because I'm terrible at fiction. Fictional history, however.

>How pages of lore/backstory do you have?
Many, but they're spread between corners of my university notes, digital notebooks, and a few actual pages.

>What's a trivial, random fact about your world?
Gods come and go as they become relevant or not.

>What's something you need feedback on? Or, maybe you need an expert's opinion on a random subject?
I need help with Eastern European nomadic culture. Any PDFs relevant? My setting is 15-1700s, and I've got a Poland/Scotland to deal with.

There's only one witch. Cackling 200-year-old woman with magically youthful appearance. Lives in the woods, wears dress made of live rats, buys tears from people to water her vegetable garden and tricks people who anger her into becoming werewolves. Or just feeds them to her dress.

I'm looking for ideas for interesting artefacts. They don't have to be something that's only useful to players, it can be anything, does anybody have any ideas?

I can't help it. Everything is Europe. Indigo blob is Russia, northern section of mauve blob is Estonia, with the green blob next to it as Latvia. Other green on the east is Ukraine. Orange is France, stretching down to a bit of Spain that got chopped off. Everything else is just filling in between.

Everything is Europe. No one is safe.

I've got some joke artefacts in my day, like The Cap of Persecution. Anyone who puts it on becomes convinces that someone powerful is out to get him. Reasons for it are constructed based on wearer's personality. Every misfortune that happens is not attributed to this person.

This person is also entirely fictional.

>the suffering of being indecisive af
Can't make up my mind on how fantastical I want my rough outline of a setting to be

Calculate it based on what kind of stories you want to occur there

25. I've been worldbuilding since I was around 13, using an iterative system before I really came to understand what an iterative system was. Worldbuilding, personally, is a matter of concept exploration, sometimes a matter of reinterpretation, sometimes a matter of reconstruction, and not necessarily always a matter of innovation. I don't think it necessarily needs to be groundbreaking or original, but what it means to you is naturally more important than my opinion - it is after all, your world and your ideas.

One stage of my setting is postapocalyptic, but much brighter than postapocalypse usually plays out.
All the major empires and warring factions have fallen, disappeared or died out, and survivors of all races gathered together in communities of a few thousand, often hundreds of miles away from the next settlements. They make use of the riches and infrastructure that civilization has left behind. Now, several decades after this new age has dawned, people are setting out to remap the world. They search to rediscover the ancient centres of civilization, the wonders of nature, and the knowledge that can still be salvaged. There is a whole continent to be rediscovered.

>How does one make a good crossroads Silk Road civ?
The center of the real world Silk Road sat at Samarkand, roughly, which had a Aryan/Persian culture for most of its history and then turned into an Islamic center of sciences later on.
What cultures are closest are neighboring your Silk Road culture? What cultures are on the opposite ends of the route? Anything can take an influence here and the cultural possibilites could be endless. Commerce and knowledge would probably be held in high esteem no matter what.

Witches or witchers are people with a talent for an intuitive, visceral type of magic. They don't have the organized study or sharp wit of a wizard, nor do they have the deep rooting in the surrounding world as druids and shamans do. But with a similar amount of determination, they can perform an impressive amount of cantrips, brew useful potions and cast powerful spells. Their magic is more useful that flashy, more bewildering than stunning, more here than there.
>I can't help it. Everything is Europe.
Thanks for taking the burden of posting exactly this from me.

So the 'demon kings' I have look aztec crossed with sumerian for aesthetics. Very simple setup of might makes right rulership. "I want slaves, go out and get me slaves'. I feel its nice and pulpy.

For the life of me, I dont know how to convey this to the players wihout a direct audience with one of these posessed warlock/demon princes (which would be suicidal in it's own right. DO not trifle in he affairs of gods)

How do I get the point across to generic feudal participants that these guys they fight are brutally led by tyrants, and cutting the head off the beast would actually kill it(so to speak; rulership would dissolve at a SIC SEMPER TYRANNUS moment)?

Demonstrate unrest throughout the populus. Hint at it with gossip and undercurrents of discontent, show the necessity for control over the masses (or in some cases, the lack of control).

Alternatively, make it that a collective mindset is apparent, then set it up such that there's a very evident "brain" central figure. When the "brain" dies, thought stops. Logical?

If you can convey the idea that the power structure is as simple as "strongest man rules", then the idea that cutting the head off the beast will kill it shouldn't be too hard to express.

How sophisticated was WWI era military structure? Was it as developed as modern military ranks and command structure, or less so? And if so, how was it structured?

Ah yes; occams razor. I overthink the subject, yet again.

Danke user!

>Pick a random citizen from your world. It can be a king/queen, a merchant, a noble, or a simple peasant.
>What's his or her name?
I still hasn't hasn't decided on her name
>What race?
Human, they are all humans
>What country?
Emerald College. Not quite a proper country, just a mage college answering to nobody in the middle of place of magic power
>What's their outlook on the world around them? How do they feel about the current political situation?
Disdainful. When I was sketching faction leaders, I gave each a defining trait and her I labelled as "Disdain for ungifted". She feels little if any respect to anyone who isn't an elementalist mage and generally wish they'd slaughter each other already
>Give a very brief summary of a normal day in their life.
Leading council meetings, taxing ungifted peasants for their food. Beating some discipline into her students on a good day.
>What are their hopes and dreams?
She's a mean and bitter woman who came into position of authority at young age by means of sheer magic power, with everything to prove and nobody to prove to because outside the college nobody is that strong. She thinks more power would make her happy, but it doesn't really do. Also, he's a crazy sadistic lesbian who often singles out a female student to constantly pick on.

if you believe,you can do this
It;s not true

it's not true

What does that even mean?

I should, but my concern there is to a lot of people (least of all myself) it seems like hieroglyphics/just greek to me.

I'm really just concerned to make sure that:
1) Pronunciation is relatively easy on reading the term (deleted some older ones that were troublesome, but if I stutter or slip on the tongue trying to pronounce it in 1 try or at the most 2 tries then it's a bad choice. Not scientific admittedly)

2) It doesn't sound like, or shorten to, or resemble something bad. Some of the Indian stuff would have a dum ending (after all dum-dum arsenal in calcutta behind dum-dum bullets), or one of my characters infamously is mispronounced to be cumflayer or cumfire.

I'll post some visuals from the real life central asia region - sarmakand, bokhara, sughdia, ect.

Check the wargaming topic with the osprey books for WW1 era osprey stuff. I would think it was as developed and perhaps almost exactly like modern military ranks and command structure. If I had to hazard a guess odds are like throughout history the crucial lack compared to modern (Western) armies and a WW1 one might be a lack of empowered NCOs. I also recall that I think it was in WW2 that the Germans were the first to really liberate lower level officers and soldiers in their orders - "Go take that hill" instead of "at 0751 march out, at 0758 proceed up the hill from a north-west direction, at 0770 circle round the back."

However I may be mistaking the period and nation, but if I am remembering it right I'd imagine the Germans might have had this in miniature during WW1 with the whole liberty of stormtrooper units.

At least in a book ( books.google.com/books?id=0LYDf02jgdAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=silk road book&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7h6mD_r7NAhULLSYKHVanBOYQ6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=silk road book&f=false ) I've read that did an exhaustive archaeological and analytical take on the Silk Road (not just uncited sources or only citing modern authors or older historical writers) the Silk road wasn't a "Li-Shua-Han goes from Northern China all the way to Baghdad with the explicit objective of selling his wares in Baghdad, stocking up on stuff to only sell there". Rather it was a staggered, multi-layered and informal trading network. Chinese man might sell silk to a Sughdian at Xingjiang, the Sughdian might sell to another Sughdian in Samarkand, who sells it to an Arab in Khorasan, who sells it to an Armenian in Baghdad, who sells it to a Jew in Damascus, who then sells it to someone in Europe.

I don't think you see joint ventures with long-term goals in mind until marco Polo.

Civilization vs. Chaos. the whole setting is a pastiche of colonial times, with medieval to modern technology but mindsets from classical antiquity. the feel I'm going for is Heart of Darkness as written by a Roman with a bit of Sinbad peppered in. a common theme is staying in "barbarian" territory actually brings out the worst in people not because it actually makes them mad but because there is no-one keeping them in check anymore.

>Why do you like to worldbuild?
It's part of my general urge to create things, really. I can't not create things, and somehow settings became one of the things I must create.

>How pages of lore/backstory do you have?
Across all my notebooks, journals, loose pieces of paper, notes jotted down in margins, text files, and chatlogs with friends who I consult and brainstorm with, probably hundreds. A lot of it is superseded by newer things, though.

>What's a trivial, random fact about your world?
The south-american-inspired moth-people can see a type of light reflected in the sky that no other species in the universe can see, and they have a separate calendar based upon the regular cycle of patterns and colors they see in it, used somewhat like a zodiac/horoscope system.

>What's something you need feedback on? Or, maybe you need an expert's opinion on a random subject?
My setting features nothing described as human, but many races inspired by races and cultures of humans. What are some physical variations I can add to them to make them less like just plain humans (i.e. the native-american-inspired race growing feather-like structures behind their ears or the ooga-booga jungle africans growing tusk-like bone protrusions under their noses)?

Unrelated, but pictured is a race I've recently imagined, meant to be a mixing of members of two other races stranded on an alien world and partially affected by the background magic of the planet.

>What's something you need feedback on? Or, maybe you need an expert's opinion on a random subject?
I've decided that if my setting is going to have any magic in it, I want it to for the most part be grounded in modern physics, and I have a very vague idea about how it might work.

What I'm stuck on is the obvious problem of how the universe would identify sapient beings. I know people say the brain is the most complex object in the universe, but the standard used to come to that conclusion seem totally arbitrary. Is there any possible physical measurement that can be made in which the human brain would have a higher value than any other arbitrarily defined object.?

...Am I overthinking this?

>.Am I overthinking this?
yes

Most definitely. Even without considering sapience as a matter of "definition", you could have simply approached it as a matter of "can it think for itself?" / "to what extent can it think?" / "how does it perceive the world?"

Start off with simple questions to put down zones before you start trying to isolate some specific tangible criterion.

Why do you need it to identity sapients? Is there a key difference if animals can tap into magic if they figure it out?

The thing is, if magic is dependent on sapience, then logic would dictate that the relationship between magic and sapience could be used as an identifer for sapience. Such that those creatures which are capable of magic can be considered sapient, provided that only sapients possess the capability to utilize magic.

I think he wants to identify sapience for a different reason, but I dunno.

Perspective/point of view and perception.

The nature of anything can change depending on how you view it. All points in the universe are actually adjacent to all other points in the universe, but things exist and move through them as if this were not the case because things cannot exist in such a reality, at least not in any way that makes sense. Usually, peoples' perceptions line up with each other and with what the forces of the universe themselves dictate, but not always. An example is the soul. Some view the soul as comprising two separate souls, one handling potential and one handling limitation. The mind is an entirely separate thing, being purely a manifestation of the body. Others view the soul as an animating force which the mind is attached to and which keeps the body alive. Depending on your point of view, both of these contrary ideas are equally correct--or perhaps equally deluded. Either way, working on the assumption that it is one way allows one to study and manipulate things--adherents of the first view find that forcing the power of a soul of potential into a dead body can animate it, for a time, and its original mind is still there, assuming the brain hasn't deteriorated. Adherents of the second view find they can move souls around and the mind goes with it.

By understanding the subjective nature of the universe, one may find themselves capable of accepting both premises, and thus they are able to manipulate souls from both viewpoints.

I'm having trouble picturing a sort of city state based in the mountains, not the foothills but mostly in the slope. Any inspiration?

Yeah. I'm not sue either.

On a related note, now I'm imagining a crow watching a random mage scribe a magic circle to light a fire or create some bread, only for the crow to mimic it later and become a crow wizard.

Tibet
Kappadokyan cave cities
Bielefeld

I think Corvian based magic would be pretty interesting, though admittedly I have a hard time deviating away from the preconceptions of crows being sneaky thieves, so that affects my idea of what their spells would revolve around.

That, and I already have enough trouble figuring out what an interstellar bear civilization would be like in my current world.

That's just it. The magic is a crow being a sneaky thief. He spied on a mage, and managed to figure out how to cast a simple cantrip through trial and error.

I'm more thinking of this as a one-off thing that happened to a normal, mundane crow, rather than some sort of advanced crow civilization.

Well it would certainly put a whole new spin on "monkey see monkey do" if that was how monkeys were uplifted into humans in some alternative wacko story of genesis.

That may not have been the best explanation. Basically, magic would in all likelihood be an additional fundamental(?) force (or perhaps multiple), which means it should have its own particle to carry that force. If people (and perhaps some animals or even aliens or robots) are going to be able to manipulate reality with their minds, then they will need to be able to generate and send these particles. If sentience arises from electrical impulses, and there is no way to identify one electrical impulse from another, than as things are right now, there isn't any way for brain electrical impulses (and only those kind) to output magic particles. I will probably need brains to generate some kind of field which in turn can send these particles (or perhaps, auto spawn a spirit/guardian angel/thetan which interprets thoughts and then casts the spell itself). What ever hypothetical measurement would result in a 4d graph (measurement vs space) with local maxima in the locations of functioning human brains would be the way of determining the strength/existence of the field in a given location.

In that case you're better off just making up a random test and using jargon to make it sound scientific, because realistically that wouldn't make sense at all, and the deeper you delve into classical physics, the less that hypothesis will make sense, much less trying to work out any possible conclusion using quantum physics. I mean, the whole "sufficiently advanced science = magic" thing sounds nice as a concept, but if you're trying to put strict guidelines on it (or attempt to quantify it based on your understanding of existing systems in reality) you're just going to give yourself headaches.

Your statement that there is no way to identify one electrical impulse from another isn't necessarily true by the way. There may not be a definitive method to correlate the specific wavelength and frequency to a "thought" (and as neuroscience becomes more advanced the whole idea might hit a paradigm shift) but there's no real reason to believe that all electrical impulses must be identical.

And about brain electrical impulses creating magic particles, are you trying to go for something based off of the Wave Particle Duality or something? It sounds like you're trying to mix and match all sorts of different physics theories together with what you know about neuroscience before tossing magic into the cauldron.

I don't necessarily mean that they're all identical. I assume that it's possible for any individual electrical impulse in the brain to be duplicated elsewhere.
>It sounds like you're trying to mix and match all sorts of different physics theories together with what you know about neuroscience before tossing magic into the cauldron.
Admittedly, that's probably right.

That's pretty neat user. Right now I only have tgethe core idea which is a bunch of sapient races with interesting cultures all arriving at a nearly unpopulated new world after theirs somehow gets destroyed. The hard part is making how and why it got destroyed and how and why they got there work and make sense. Also gods are super important.

>Why do you like to worldbuild?

I like writing FANTASY and SCIENCE FICTION in general. I'm autistic and need a lot of details first for what I'm writing in though.

>How pages of lore/backstory do you have?

Scattered pages everywhere. Sometimes I forget. It's horrible. I'll open up a notebook a year from now and get pissed I forgot something.

>What's a trivial, random fact about your world?

There's a wereshark who doesn't like saltwater who hunts in wetlands instead, and keeps young'n's safe from gators and weregators. He's a bit of a superhero.

>What's something you need feedback on? Or, maybe you need an expert's opinion on a random subject?

Consistenly sticking with a project is my downfall. I need help.

>Consistenly sticking with a project is my downfall. I need help.

If you like to write, then why don't you set things in terms of chapters? Worldbuild enough to write a chapter, then write the chapter, then worldbuild a bit more, and so forth?

Otherwise I mean worldbuilding itself can have literally no end, it's like playing Spore inside your head, with no limitations to your controls besides imagination.

>Pick a random citizen from your world. It can be a king/queen, a merchant, a noble, or a simple peasant.
>What's his or her name?
Ludomar, Warrior
>What race?
Thaulantite, the only real humans of the setting. River based race, usually squat and strong with round faces and strong cheekbones.
>What country?
Not real countries exist yet, but you could say Thaulantia, his allegiance lies to the Mar Family.
>What's their outlook on the world around them? How do they feel about the current political situation?
The Thaulanthites have been at peace since their arrival, exploring the vast waterways of these new lands. Ludomar is okay with this, but not too happy.
>Give a very brief summary of a normal day in their life.
Sailing in his boat with his brothers, fishing, killing a wild beast every now and then. Praying to the river god is very important, as well as trying to produce a son with one of the women.
>What are their hopes and dreams?
Ensuring his race survives these difficult times, getting as high up the Family hierarchy as possible.

Yep, it's my eternal shameful burden. I generated with donjon, cut and shuffled until it was right, and then everything was Europe.

Forgive me /wbg/ for I have sinned.

>Why do you like to worldbuild?
Because it gives me something to do.

>How pages of lore/backstory do you have?
I have no idea, to be honest. Anywhere from 50 - 100 pages. probably.

>What's a trivial, random fact about your world?
The Mad Pair, a pair of Althunsi goddess, are the twin personifications of insanity (Discord and Delusion, respectively) in the Pantheon of Black Ash. They are both considered among the kindest gods in the religion.

>What's something you need feedback on? Or, maybe you need an expert's opinion on a random subject?
I'm in the beginnings of a legal code (Low Bloodlaw and High Bloodlaw) that is central to a story I'm planning to write. I'm looking for any suggestions about strange laws, plus cruel and unique punishments.

>What are the overarching themes and root ideas for your settings, fellow worldbuilders?

On a meta level, a focus on the 'normal' people (breadmakers, lawyers and judges, tailors, etc) with relate-able goals (locating a loved one, finding justice for a loved one, etc) in a fantastic world. I love finding seemingly trivial things, people, and stations, and building a grand story out of them (something like exchange rates between different currencies, or establishing new trade routes).

On a narrative level, several. History and historical revisionism, the nature of heroes (an examination of them from multiple points of view), and the oppression of the poor. On the biggest scale, the theme of death and rebirth.

>I'm looking for any suggestions about strange laws, plus cruel and unique punishments.

Cruel but just? Or simply cruel?
Sadism is a great source for cruelty, and when you start to know the human body a little better, you'll start to realize that the human body can go without a certain number of organs. Just remember to draw a fine line between using sadism as a tool, versus using sadism for the sake of sadism.

What kind of structure does the society have? That would have a large impact on what kind of laws you'd put in place. Whether there's a state religion, or a caste structure (as high and low laws tend to suggest). You need a bit more context to get better suggestions.

how do you guys come up with planet names and country names and stuff? so far i'm calling my setting Continent A in my notes but it feels weird to repeatedly write that out. Don't even get me started on trying to name the planet.

If you have trouble, why not take notes from how people have named cities and such? Plenty of places have drawn names just from how their surroundings resemble, and what that invokes on the people that see them. A planet called Solace gives the impression that the planet is perhaps safe, perhaps moreso if the name is Haven. Of course this could be turned on its head if you're going for an ironic touch to things.

Depending on how civilizations approach things, perhaps there are different names for the same places.

An intergalactic civilization might have a different name for a planet in comparison to the indigenous population - the planet might be seen as merely a "Wildlife Preserve" with a number code, but a much more personal name would be given by the indigenous folk...say "Earth" instead of "Human Food Preserve #13". The scale doesn't necessarily have to be in terms of different orders - maybe a foreign nation has a different name for a place in contrast to the aboriginals, or even simply different names between different local factions.

No shame in drawing inspiration from local areas. God knows how many Alexandrias there are in the world.

I don't really have any overarching themes or ideas.

I started with "hey wouldn't a dark and low fantasy setting based on the Pacific Northwest be neat," and spent the last two years tacking random things I like onto it and then retouching so everything makes sense.

One thing I'm really trying hard to do is avoid the classic fantasy setting trope in which there are a big heap of quantifiably real gods, and magic, this ridiculously advanced and literally arcane force, is perfectly understood by its students and yet incredibly poorly utilized.

In my setting there is religion, and magic, but they're not so empirically concrete. People will "prove" that their God exists by performing a "miracle," which a scholarly wizard will insist is just an accidental alignment of basic arcane principles, which a forest dwelling witch will dismiss at being an artifical explanation for the inscrutable ebb and flow of the natural universe.

Having gods and magic be a bit less set in stone (like in real life-ish) makes them a lot more interesting to play around with so far for me.

>Pick a random citizen from your world. It can be a king/queen, a merchant, a noble, or a simple peasant.
I choose shithead gang member on the streets of brave Rulaan.
>What's his or her name?
....You know this is actually a little tricky. Her 'proper' name would be Shala Baudaughter Cartdriver, but she's effectively given her birth guild the middle finger by joining another district's gang. Let's say she goes by Shala Armbreaker and it's a bad idea to question whether she really earned the nickname.
>What race?
Clayborn (approx. human), ethnicity is rulaani-numasaari mix.
>What country?
Rulaani Empire.
>What's their outlook on the world around them? How do they feel about the current political situation?
Shala thinks gangs are what the cool people do. She doesn't realize her own part in the current political situation (that her gang's just an errand girl for her local Peace Guild and the political faction they represent.), and just echoes local propaganda: The Smiling General's an unfeminine glory-stealer, the Six Fingered General could conquer any foe if they were allowed to raise a proper army, etc.
>Give a very brief summary of a normal day in their life.
Grab her boys and go beat/smash property of/extort whomever her superiors say to extort. Take drugs, try to score loot of interest, hit on trade guild apprentice with the nice ass.
>What are their hopes and dreams?
To get real rasayana tattoos and the lockmake gear to use them with. To be the person everyone tells stories about.
>Dante Must Die questions also available on request
Requesting.

Alright /wbg/, describe each race in your setting as best you can in a single sentence. If it's a human only setting, do the same for ethnicities.

>Hard Mode
To spark actual discussion, don't post your answer without critiquing someone else's. I'll critique whoever posts first to keep things moving.

>Humans
>Naked apes that fuck everything and blow themselves up

>Dwarves
>Mathemagical Mole-people with a hard-on for full plate armor.

>Elves
>Conservative forest hippies that talk down to other races like they're children

>Halflings
>Lazy, gluttonous monkey people who only use their tails for thievery

>Goblins
>Walking, talking bacon trying to avoid being genocide'd

>Assorted Beastmen
>"Honorable", short-lived animal-people who keep annoyingly accurate records of their family trees

>Skeletons
>Byzantine Undead who exploit the fact that they don't need to eat and sleep to perform bureaucracy and oceanic merchantry

>Assorted Demi-Humans
>When they're not being dumb, dumb Adventurer fodder they're worshiping an unknowable death god.

Sounds pretty grimdark. Are goblins actual bacon? Are they all living together with sceletons monopolizing public service?

All Humans
>Merchant republic that planted intself in nomad's territories and assimilated some of nomads
>Former colony of a fallen empire that fanciest itself its true successor, obsessed with subjugating slaves and racial purity bordering inbreeding.
>Two medieval kingdoms with extremely underpowered kings
>Vikingslavs hiding in the thick forest and hating idea of having any kind of central authority
>Peaceful pig farmers with scary giant pigs
>Nomadic people whose days of raiding are gone by
>Mysterious orient-style isolationist nation which is completely alien to most others for its bizzare practices of valuing individual merit over birthright

Goblins were once pig Orcs (porks). The Orcs sided with the "enemy of all noble races" and got slaughtered in the last big war.
They do, in fact, taste like pork. This is half the reason the good guys won, they ate the dead of their enemy.

The Skeletons are living off on not!Australia, profiting off the fact that the surrounding seas are too dangerous for the living to traverse. If a Skeleton ship sinks, they just walk back to shore.

>Clayborn
Wretched little slaves golems with fake souls who killed their abusive creator gods and are now everyone else's problem.
-Rulaani: Glorious matriarchal communist rome and your national symbol is literally the fire you burned your gods in.
-Demechosi: Powerful research academies churn out TF2 medics who think squeamishness is the surest indicator of cowardice
-Numasaari: Greedy cosmopolitan traders that love cultural riches and their feathered dragon bankers.
-(Tons of others)

>Tengu
Crow velociraptor ninjas who used to run this shit.
Kotengu: Beaked pastoral nomads whose thundertowns are built on the backs of their massive herds.
Daitengu: Raider tribes who carefully maintain their portfolios of stolen gods and place great value on disrespecting the dead.

>Oni
Voodoo samurai gorillas with hot coals in their guts.
Valley Oni: Intense feudal honor, intense veneration of spirits, intense weaponizing of killing intent, intense everything.
Silver Oni: Shaped a strange new kind of empire whose decadence shaped them right back, and now they must find new purpose.

There's also Alseid, Shen, and Asura; maybe will cover another time.

I haven't done worldbuilding in ages.

I guess I want feedback, but my notes are on F-list
f-list.net/c/major tom

Basically it's something I made to write fun pulpy trash to put on Amazon and because most of the fantasy settings I see don't have the right balance of dumb tropiness and video game references without going way too far and too stupid.

It's a setting where being a murderhobo is a real profession and there are Guilds that operate more like shadowrun style megacorps.

For now technically all humans

The """humans""" are actually descended from the neanderthal equivalents of this world who left the human homeworld in mass religious exodus dimension jumping to another world uninhabited by intelligent life where they thrived, they're gonna have a bunch of different cultures eventually when I ever get around to it

The early cro-magnon homo sapiens equivalents who coexisted with these notNeanderthals were all eventually unified by an oracular seer emperor with a curious mutation of his ears (pointy) which turned out to be a dominant trait and as he married his daughters (no surviving sons) and granddaughters etc to all the various tribal leaders the trait spread through generations and they basically started selectively breeding the trait in, eventually they also migrated from the human homeworld that's roughly an Earth size moon to the giant planet it orbits that was once upon a time inhabited by some mysterious giant race and there's only the ruins of their civilizations and their fossilized remains left to show, through various alchemical hijinks and magic shit they eventually became a pretty distinct species from who they once were

NotOrcs are just the soldier caste of the notElves, taken at infancy and conditioned and mutated throughout their youth through alchemy and magic also to be basically bio-engineered sterile super soldiers

I was thinking I'd have a "pygmy" homo floresiensis type folk being descended from fringe human groups that remained on the homeworld moon after the notElves left entirely

Also, a reptilian/dinosaurmen/something like that race that was living on that giant planet before the notElves came around that had gone through some kind of accelerated evolution just feeding on the remains of those aforementioned extinct magic giants, and the reptilians are like the tech race with cyborgs and automatons and flying vehicles and shit

It's all really rough and tbqh and full stolen ideas

>Dagda
Oh shit, I thought you were dead.

I treat all "races" as actual racest, i.e. ethnicities. Elves are still humans. I should really either think up a name for default humans or not have "default" humans...

I'd like some help /wbg/, I've got a problem with my worldbuilding and it would be most kind if you could throw possible solutions at me like a monkey throws shit through enclosure bars, I'm just desperate for something to jog my thinking-ness.

Keep in mind the setting overall does not take itself too seriously, hence why in a world with a late medieval analogue culture there can also exist a frontier continent that exists as a Western parody.

My problem is that this Western-style place has (in-setting) recently got a hold of a store semi-automatic pistols, complete with copper jacket bullets (or whatever the term is for ammunition that doesn't need to be prepared before loading it), invented by dwarfs and accidentally left behind and left for the pesky manlings to discover, anyway, soon these guns are reverse engineered and now most people on the frontier have some sort of semi-automatic pistol or rifle, similar to any Western style setting,
HOWEVER, I wish this to be the case without these new gun manufacturers to go crazy selling their devastatingly powerful weapon-products to the rest of the known world, basically keeping the late medieval, swords and sorcery places at their respective tech level, ie bows and crossbows.

And at the moment, I have no idea how.

Literally anything you have, throw at the wall which is my brain, and I'll see what sticks and tickles my creative testicles.

(This is purely a request by the way, I hate to think I'm being annoying or anything. I'll be sure to contribute in others ways)

>You need a bit more context to get better suggestions
Yeah, sure. The basic structure of the country as a whole is that there are four 'states' with a central government that wanes and waxes in power, depending on the particular point in history. This is because there were loosely four different ethnic groups living in this area that were made to work together during a time of great crisis. The current structure of the four states involves a very weak central government, and the four states themselves fractured into loosely aligned duchys, counties, and baronies.

The society operates mostly based off of a set of 'moral codes', kind of like Confucianism, made by a figure called simply 'The Great Lady' that is essentially the founder of the Four states, and is worshipped as a great deity (though she would tell you that she is merely a human). The main themes are 1) respect your elders (your father most of all), and 2) everyone, high and low, is accountable for his or her actions.

High and Low Bloodlaw came much later, but draws a lot of inspirations from these moral codes. The 'Bloodlaw' itself has a deep and violent history, but in simple terms, it is the idea that royalty is granted to the male through a female who shares blood with the Great Lady. Over time, the 'Bloodlaw' became a sort of legal code for succession rights and wartime conduct, and expanded into laws for the lower classes (basic laws were already there, but varied wildly based on where you lived). So, 'Low Bloodlaw' is essentially blue-collar crime, and 'High Bloodlaw' is white-collar crime + international and wartime law.

Of course, these days many practitioners of the Bloodlaw have been paid off by high lords, so it is not as powerful as it once was.

Society is broken up into (as far as classes):
>Undersights
Slaves who were former criminals and captured soldiers, except in the south. Due to an extended war with a southern country, in which one of the states attempted to secede, the nobles behind the succession + all their families and associated peasantry + the nobles involved from the southern country were made into slaves. Slave law is also much closer to entrapment in the south, with many peons getting caught up in it.

Slaves do not have rights under the Bloodlaw, and are exempt from the aforementioned moral codes, their reputation is based on their master's reputation.

The time that a person serves as a slave varies, but there certain crimes (called 'Unsightly Crimes') that call for lifetime slavery.

>Peons
A person from the low class, 80% - 90% farmers and associated workers. Peons are technically under a protected status under the Bloodlaw, but that has waned over the last 200 years or so.

>Merchants
Another 'protected' class. Stealing from merchants will invoke either the loss of a hand or five years slavery (which you are unlikely to survive if not born to it).

>Lawmakers, Judges, Lawyers, Guardsmen, and General Clergymen
With religion and law being heavily entwined, these groups enjoy a respected status in the four states, with some Judges and Lawyers in particular being equivalent to minor lords.

There is a separate branch (the general clergymen) that focuses on simply worship rather than law + worship, and they enjoy the same status, but have no real legal or religious power.

>The Ruling Nobility (Delphines, Low Princes, Grand Princes, and Serenes)
Loosely equivalent to Counts, Barons, Dukes, etc. 'Fathers of the Realm', according to the Bloodlaw, they are to be highly respected, but also are to lead by example and be of exemplary moral character.

The ruling nobility refers to the ruler and their extended family only, there is no legally defined 'noble' class.

So only wild west has guns?

Let's see.

-Fear and superstition, long stigma of types from that area.
-Gods of other lands hate guns.
-Some kind of magic drm that blows up gun if it's taken outside this region so it can only be used to defend this territory?

Mostly. Might hang out more again.

>So only wild west has guns?
Yeah essentially, dwarfs in areas beyond the Wild West have guns but they jealously guard them and the secrets to their construction from their non-dwarf neighbors. The guns found by humans in the Wild West were left behind by accident.
As for the suggestions, the first too seem pretty good, I plan to muse on them later, I thought of the "if the guns go anywhere outside the West they dont work" deal but it wouldn't really explain why dwarfs outside have them, ad I thought it was cheating a bot too much anyway. Thanks for the ideas!

> the first too
Just fucking kill me, how did I do that
Have a thread-related image I can hide my shame behind