/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

I can't figure out which setting to work on:

Not-another-fantasy-setting with Arabian Nights humans, Roman Elves, Merchant Navy Dwarves, undead powered by the god of life, and Egyptian crocodilemen.

Or near-future sci-fi inspired by Hellgate: London/DOOM, where the earth is invaded by demons from hell and angelic greys.

2

I tend not to be too edgy about how I do my settings, but I make combat really brutal and describe in vivid detail how characters get slashed the fuck up but still live, having to sew up the huge gashes or burns on their body and shit. That alone and the fact that beastmen rape human women to make more beastmen makes me an edgelord.

You're no "edgier" than Greg Stafford.

Glorantha's Broo have been raping women, men, animals, trees, rocks, particularly sexy piles of dung since they were first published in like 1975.

Longer if you count their conceptualization phase.

Flip a coin, if it lands on its side you must mash both together

The Sci Fi one sounds really cool!

You mean land on the edge? Cause it's probably going to land on one side or another.

Help me out here /owg/.

I've been chewing on the idea of vampires in my urban fantasy setting, and I have a few options I like, but I can't really decide between.

They could be some kind of fey rejects, caste out of fey society because they wanted to be like humans too much. Ended up, interbreeding over the centuries so they look human and can act human, but fundamentally aren't.

Another is that they're either the weird infected offspring of people who tried to drink or bathe in blood to prolong their life or did such a thing themselves for the same reason. I feel this would include too many weird psychopaths/maniacs though, which I guess could be interesting, now that I think about it.

Third is the possibility that they're somethinf else entirely, some semi-magically evolved predators of humans.

What sounds coolest to you lads?

Just because some famous guy wrote something doesn't make it not edgy.

I'm playing Apocalypse World with my friends on Roll20 right now and it's set in post-apocalyptic Ohio. We came up with a fun bit of background lore and local culture. LeBron James is nicknamed "King James", so the idea is that people all think he was an actual king and the Cavaliers were his knights. He's developed into a quasi-Arthurian legend. One of our PCs was born a few years before the apocalypse, so he remembers actually seeing the Cavs when he was little, so he's outraged by this idiotic notion and persecutes any who believe in it.

Reposting the last set of questions from the previous thread that died before anyone could answer:

>Does your setting have any fancy combat tech?
>Are robot-people a thing?
>Humongous Mecha, Powered Exo-Skeletons?

None of that stuff has popped up in my Apocalypse World campaign yet; we're trying to keep it gritty and conventional, with all weirdness being based on the psychic powers and the personalities of the characters.

Like a 4.
Humans and friends look to be on the way out due to a little bit too much cosmic horror but goddamn will they have a good time drinking first.

>Does your setting have any fancy combat tech?
A fairly recent technological development is "spell drives", which basically allow their magitech computers to simulate the effects of certain spells which have been etched onto said drives. They're pretty much unheard of in the civilian sector because they're very difficult to make and because of the prohibitive energy requirements, but they're often carried as a backup plan by military or quasi-military units in case no one knows how to use a type of magic they need.
>Are robot-people a thing?
They're not common, though towards the end of the story one of the main villains sets to the task of turning herself into a magimechanical wyvern-person of sorts.
>Humongous Mecha, Powered Exo-Skeletons?
See above.

But would you play a wargame in it?

>Hellgate: london
H-he died too soon

Third one. Don't try to change the fundamental nature of vampires. Instead, change their hunting tactics, their organization, their culture, etc. to your liking.

Maybe vamps are freaky monsters that hang out in alleys and sewers in small groups or even alone, almost feral.

Maybe they're more sophisticated and use wealth/influence to infiltrate human society. Maybe they have larger cabals, or maybe they're very fractured and just do their own thing. Or maybe most of them are relatively "middle class" and aren't the wealthy nobility of the night everyone thinks of. Or maybe they're organized more like a gang or tribe, using a brutal might = right system of power and act relatively primitively

How do they acquire blood? Do they literally just stalk people through the streets at night? Do they mingle at social settings under the guise of "hook ups" to lure their prey somewhere secluded? Do they operate blood banks and skim off the top? Do they kidnap street people and keep them as "cattle" for long periods of time, feeding on them? Do they have ties to some sort of human trafficking operation? Do they ensnare people into long term relationships to feed off them? (I'm thinking like an intimate domestic violence thing where the vamp bullies and manipulates human to stay, or maybe a master-slave thing where the person is literally under house arrest and treated like a servant) Something else?

What do they do when they aren't hunting/feeding? Is blood literally everything about their lives? Or do they have other interests, hobbies, occupations, or pursuits that they attend to when they don't have to feed?

The second one, definitely. The first sucks.

Do the second one. It sounds much more interesting. Especially the angelic greys.

I'm not really doing anything with it, but earlier today a setting/story idea I had a while ago randomly popped into my head. I figured I might as well share it. The title was to be "Foreigner Witch", though a more literal translation of "foreigner" would be "distant person".

One's magical ability becomes more powerful when they are injured or otherwise near death. a sort of mythic equivalent to adrenaline. Mages typically have a couple divergent specializations--the easier-to-control, more reliable "practical" and the "fancy", as they're known colloquially. So one character I envisioned, for example, specializes in control of water and divining the future.

A foreigner witch is someone who's intentionally sequestered him or herself. By starving themselves, depriving themselves of sleep, breaking their own bones and so on, they attain immense magical power. However, while their magic will keep them alive almost indefinitely, it takes a toll on their bodies as they swiftly age and wither. A "recovered" foreigner witch typically has a short lifespan once they lose the power that was keeping them alive.

Anyhow, it all takes place in a world filled with magitech on a continent protected by a colossal wall of water. Since I like self-imposed rules on my magitech, in this case it's that there's no form of electrical illumination--no lightbulbs or computer monitors, for example. Wireless communication exists, but a receiver has to have paper attached to it; it produces scratches (think along the lines of a polygraph) which the recipient must decipher.

I've sort of let it fall to the wayside but I figured if anyone would enjoy hearing about it, it'd be you folks.

No, no and no.

7, for my story about the traveling smith and his fire breathing companion.

4, My story about humans reaching the galactic stage only to learn they missed the golden age of the galaxy and what's left in space is the dregs and ruins of what was before.

I really like that idea of "Injury Magic" you've got going on. It could make magic very risky to use and try to maintain. It would create a very interesting tension between magical power and actually living long enough to wield it.

Tell me more. What kind of spells do you envision? How does someone boost their power? Is it as simple as just breaking your own finger or cutting yourself before casting a spell?

Sounds ripe for a dose of blood sacrifice-based magic.
If magic's clear enough to study, it'll eventually become a science. If bloodloss is enough to cast a fireball, they'll figure eventually figure out the exact mL.

>they'll eventually figure out*
I'm tired.

Cool, cool. I wasn't really planning on changing up the fundamental pillars of vampirism, just details. They'd all either drink blood or eat human meat, look human, and have some weird visual traits.

First one was gonna be some kind of monster if they went too long without feeding, which they'd do sometimes in an effort to try and be more human. I was playing the idea of 'blood dealers' that essentially gave out blood to the weak and desperate blood-drinkers out there. I've a few ideas for the third, but not a whole lot. I'll consider it more. Thanks my dude.

1/10
The Earth is shrouded in perpetual ice and darkness, much of the world is a ruinous waste inhabited by radiation-consuming parasitic fungus, humanity has been a slave race for 60000 years, the only civilized cities are ruled by otherworldly worm zealots, and the sparse populations of barbaric free human tribes are in constant battle with comparatively advanced ratmen hordes who outnumber them 50:1. The wildernesses are home to nightmarish monsters such as quadrupedal manbeast giants, rodent-like metal-toothed "vampires", and sapient machine gods who have gone mad during their eons of dismal unlife. Storms of enchanted metal rend travelers and settlements to bits, lingering battlefield spells cause the unwary to spontaneously combust, and the very air in large swathes of the south slowly corrupt mortal life into mindless demons.

Is there a better redshirt goon than beastmen?

Aliens

When you say mooks it sounds like weak low level dudes, so maybe goblins, undead or orcs might be well known, but I like beastmen a lot too.

Question: when glass began to be cheap? Before then, how were drinks served? Ceramic bottles? Small barrels? What should I describe to the players at the tavern?

If we take the whole setting, it should be around 3 or 2.

But I don't dwell on it, so it feels like 5, and there is an island of pleasures created by a goddess that could be around 11.

Metal, stone, wood, or earthenware steins should be common. You'd probably still see metal steins long after glass is commonplace, simply due to risk of it shattering.

Glass would be relatively cheap whenever firebrick or it's fantasy equivalent is invented. IE: Once glass can be easily produced and shaped

6 at the moment, 7 normally, 3 if the players don't manage a perfect go at the end, 1 if the players outright fail.

Beastmen can be anything from weedy little mutants or 8 foot tall murder machines though, they're a great thing to have narrative because you can basically make any encounter whatever threat level is needed without introducing new narrative elements to keep track of.

Drinking horns and clay/wood mugs, metal later on.

Author of here.
Yes to everything.
>Does your setting have any fancy combat tech?
Beside the ancient machine gods sporting any kind of horrible killing device imaginable, the Worm magi supply symbiotic living skins that enhance and augment a mortal's physical and martial abilities. They also have a plethora of explosive and incendiary weapons. But most people are forced to use swords and pointy sticks.
>Are robot-people a thing?
There are a variety of mechanical lifeforms in the world, typically either servile things used by the Worms, ranging from the roly-poly sprite found in most city homes, to the unflinching robotic myrmidons that guard their masters' citadels. On the sapient side of things are the Old Gods who hail from prehistory and come in a variety of forms; some pass as humans or other creatures, while the majority resemble suits of armor or living siege weapons, and some have no physical form at all, behaving more like spirits that can inhabit ancient artifacts or the dead husks of other gods.
>Humongous Mecha, Powered Exo-Skeletons?
The Old Gods are regularly several meters tall and weigh many tons. The greatest of them are collosal; often standing well above the tops of the skeletal forests, with fearsome few being so unfathomably large they easily step over mountain ranges and ford seas. Combat exoskeletons are, as noted above, commonly biological, but a few ancient examples of mechanical armors exist deep within ruins, bogs, or at the bottom of the Ocean.

>3
world has some beautiful sights and people living good, easy lives but living in an ultimately unstable, hostile world. and if gigantic monsters aren't killing them, then they're constantly trying to kill each other. You'd get some occassional demon attacks that'll fuck people's minds up as well. It's a hard life, trying to live in this setting but it's well worth living if you survive it

>a cup that you can't put down until it's empty
That's just asking for drunken Viking axe brawls.

And unlike goblins they have lots of room for creativity and can be taken seriously as a legitimate threat.

Well duh.

They usually made stands for horns and stuff, I bet if some viking Hird had a cup like this he'd carry around a matching stand.

Probably an eight or a nine. I wanted to make a very fairy tail-type setting so a lot of the issues you'd expect a normal person to have just don't come up.

Example: Fae literally have children when a mother and a father love each other very much. No sex, the parents fall deeply in love and eventually kids just happen. As you can imagine the Fae have remarkably stable family lives.

I'd hesitate to call this 'par for the course' but it's pretty indicative of how stuff tends to go when the extradimensional demigods aren't mucking around (which alternate between Big Damn Heroes and hopeless villains depending on the individual).

>Does your setting have any fancy combat tech?
Not really. The most technologically advanced cultures hover somewhere around the peak of Egypt or Rome, though one city does have a flotilla of airships armed with cannons. It hasn't seen any real use in over three centuries.

>Are robot-people a thing?
I'd hesitate to call them 'robot people,' but minotaurs in my setting are all formed from clay by their fathers and then imbued with life, effectively making them an entire race of earth golems. Probably the closest thing my setting has.

>Humongous Mecha, Powered Exo-Skeletons?
One of the aforementioned demigods made a non-sapient golem out of a mountain once.

>Does your setting have any fancy combat tech?
Because industrialization, modernism, and the scientific method ate a bullet thousands of years ago, there's a ridiculous disparity between what's commonly available and the best stuff out there. The setting's baseline military tech level is still swords and single shot rifles, but the finest gunsmiths in the most developed city-states make hand-crafted automatic weapons like some kind of beautifully baroque MP5.

>Are robot-people a thing?
No, but the reverse is becoming a problem. It turns out that creating a sentient machine in a pre-digital world is fucking impossible, but taking a person (or even a fresh corpse) and reducing them to a machine is much easier, particularly when you've got a little bit of magic to get around implant rejection and so forth.

>Humongous Mecha, Powered Exo-Skeletons?
The Kingdom of Nordenmark has a few dozen suits of large power armor/small mechs (about 7m tall) that were built several generations back to serve as heavy shock troops during the arms race with its neighboring kingdoms. Though quite effective, they proved too expensive to produce more than a handful of or commit to uncertain battles, and are now mostly just a symbol of national pride.

So I've been toying around with the idea that "true" werewolves are the result of demonic possession. You would be put through a ritual, willing or not, that binds a demon to your soul.This results in a Hulk or Ghostrider type situation, where the afflicted shifts into a monster under certain circumstances (the phase of the moon, emotion, danger, etc.). Shifted werewolves look similar to the one in the picture, though they are capable of bipedal movement. The strength and size of the wolf form is dependent on the demon you are possessed by. True werewolves are granted immortality as a side effect of the process, and limited control over those you curse with lycanthropy.

Getting cursed is simple, you just have to get bitten. Should you survive, you turn into a more traditional man-wolf hybrid during the full moon, or when forced by a true werewolf. Those infected by a true werewolf can pass the disease on to others.
Only those possessed by a demon can force transformations. Like genetic traits, the farther you are from a true werewolf in the "family tree" the less powerful and wolf like you become when transformed. This results in werewolves that look like the Wolfman when far enough removed. At a certain point, being bitten results in nothing more than temporary insanity on a full moon.

Werewolves are weak to silver, because of the demon bonded to them, or the magic involved in their transformation, and Wolfsbane, since it it used in the demon bonding process.

This is as for as I've gotten , and my idea well has run dry. I'd love to hear some feedback, and any ideas you guys might have. And I'm probably just going to start calling the true werewolves Alphas.

four to six, depending on the location/situation/people.

7.5 on average.

Life is good for the most part.

People are shitty and war still sucks.

>Yes.
>Sort of?
>No giant mecha, powered exo-suits are still on the board.

So.

How would flying mounts work in warfare of Antiquity/Medieval?

I was thinking of them being a sort of Shock Cavalry, and to combat large monsters and other flying mounts.

Also, what would be a good way to combat them? I feel like arrows wouldn't do as swell of a job as people would like.

It's a lot to ask; since this adds a whole new dimension to ancient warfare, but could someone help me?

The idea I was going for was for a reason to bring back religious beliefs and wanted something to push it more than the demons. So the idea was to have "angels" join the war, but make them in-human. Kind of a playing on the idea of the Aztec gods were aliens, it'd be these 2 opposing groups were the inspiration for the belief of heaven and hell, people seeing psychic visions of their conflict and passing it on as religious beliefs. I want the in-human part to drive that doubt, so its not completely one-sided.

What I've got so far is:
>The Knights Templar return as a strict military force fighting off the demons, best weapons, best armor, best training, limited numbers
>The Cabalist, scientific groups that believe fighting fire with fire, use demonic magics to create powerful weapons, but not as combat equipped as Templars
>Cults of the Damned, Doomsday and demons cults, as well as war profiteers and warlords, using the chaos to establish power
>The Infernal Legion, the demons, going for a similar feel to the Burning Legion from Warcraft, where its made up of various groups conquered and integrated
>The Celestial Host, the angelic greys, enemy of the demons, but indifferent towards humanity, even to the point of using them as fodder to achieve their own goals
>And the Morlocs, collections of mutanted humans, exposed to demonic energy after the invasion, they now scrounge the ruins as feral beasts, flocking to powerful Morloc Kings

>Also, what would be a good way to combat them? I feel like arrows wouldn't do as swell of a job as people would like.
Ballista, scorpion, crossbows tipped with poison, and arquebus. Maybe spearmen formations can drill to point their spears up, stop them the way pikes stop a cavalry charge

Their application depends on a lot of factors. Fast flight versus slow flight, high altitude flight versus low altitude flight, amounts of armor permitted without hampering flight capabilities, generally availability of flight possible mounts, maneuverability of flight. A pegasus for example would be different from a dragon as a steed in many different respects, each with prospective pros and cons. Because this is fantasy you're talking about, really the flying mount can serve all sorts of applications from force recon to harassment to heavy assault even. As far as arrows go, arrows can work fine depending on the above parameters.

Warfare has always been a process of adaptation. Once one side obtains an advantage, in time the other sides will obtain it, or try to, and failing that, they'd find a countermeasure.

If speed was the issue, fight speed with either concentration or even more speed. If general maneuverability is the issue, adopt formations that choke out the air advantage. Heavy cover, concealment from the air, smokescreens or magic.

Some shit I'm working on. How awful are the rivers?

They're pretty bad. River's don't fork as they flow from mountains to the sea. You also have several rivers that flow from coast to coast - don't do that.

A few of them seem to go in both directions, which is weird.

Several that flow from coast to coast? I only se the one along The Blackspine.

>captcha: select all picures with rivers

Post blue horizon event- 4-5(if your powerful higher 7+)
Too many varibles though...
Depends where you are, your abilities, how usful they are and how well you can use them. For Mundys it's pretty bad.. 3 or 4 max
But the setting as a whole is pretty grim-dark.

For the sci fi about a 8 unless your in non human space then it's like 5 Yeah there's cyborgs, people with nanobots in their blood, robotic implants, gene modification, AIs and all that other cool shit
Yeah big Exo- skeleton suits exist but aren't common, few militaries use them
( mostly cybernetic nations use them )

Loving it brosef what else is there in your setting?

4 on average

Does killing the alphas free bitten of their curse? Or does the demon travel to a new host among the bitten?

Could you be bitten far enough down the line to turn into a QT wolf girl?

Furry pls go

Overall pretty good, aside from the overwhelming amount of forks as the other guy said. Remove the river just south of Ashgul up until the lake, so that you don't have one river going all the way from one sea to the other, it doesn't make much sense unless that lake is at a higher altitude and the the 3 rivers attached to it are flowing downhill in different directions. Which is a rare occurance, but not outside the realm of possibility. I'll assume the "rivers" of Lugmir are really just a bunch of swampy/canal type things rather than traditional rivers; if so they're fine. But if they're all above sea-level, flowing from a resevoir source, it's a mess.

Lugmir is sort of a swampy area that with almost rainforest-like vegetation in some areas. Sort of like if the Everglades met the Amazon? I actually haven't been to Florida in years, I don't remember the Everglades all too well.

Actually, I'm reading now that the everglades ARE a river source. Do you think I could just...replace those mountains with a huge lake?

5

>Revolvers and their ballistae equivalents, grenades (in an otherwise Antiquity/Medieval based setting)
>no
>NO

An 8, on purpose. It could have been a 5, but I decided interbreeding couldn't happen and rapebabies wouldn't be possible.

>Beings of elemental Good - Angels
>Evil - Demons
>Chaos - Fae
>Law/Order - ?????

How do rivers actually work in terms of mapmaking?

From what little physics I had at uni, all I really understand is:

>Water takes the path of least resistance
>Water gains pressure/momentum as it moves perpendicular to the gravitational potentail field
>Conservation of mass/flow (I expect a lot of water is lost to land masses tho)

So from this... If it rains on top of a location of high altitude, and there is at least one path the water can take down to a lower altitude, it will do so, So obviously water flows from the land to the ocean. But how does this impact forking? Is this some flow conservation stuff? Like if 1 unit of water goes to a point it must fork to two paths, this is dependent on the max flow the paths can support right? Does that imply fork paths are wider/longer where the altitude loss is largest?

10 to 9 on some most servers, but that was before the virus got out.

So if water is flowing for a while on the same altitude, that's when it can really fork out into the land due to faults/cracks etc.?

>Three mountains with rivers

> Law - Judges in the afterlife, Reapers that uphold the grand death schedule of the world
> Chaos - Chaos Lords like Nurgle, Slaanesh, Etc, those who insight any kind of madness and disrupt the chosen order/law of things

Whoops, thought you were asking for chaos too. My bad.

There are two rules to rivers.
The go from mountain to lake/ocean and come together, not split (sans deltas)

As a Clevelander, this is fucking hilarious.

Who or what is the biggest bad in your setting.

There is no cure. Should the host die, the demon dies with it.

ye

How do Elvish naming conventions/Elvish languages work? What kind of real world roots do they have or is it all just made up mumble jumble?

2-3.
It is a decaying organic city inhabited by deranged and degenerate descendants of humanity. Amidst the violence, entropy and merciless society there exists small pockets of relative peace, and comfort, usually in remote locations, and among close nit groups of freaks, who shy away from the world at large.

If 7 is current modern world comfy, then 5-6.
Tech is mostly early modern, so that takes away a fair bit of comfy, but their is enough magic to compensate a bit.
Current time period is half century or so after a really nasty war, so while there is fallout from that, and grumblings towards another big war, their isn't a current war going on, so decently in the comfy.

Probably around 4ish on average due to monster attacks being not too uncommon. Though people closer to cities don't need to live in fear due to the deterrent of armies.

So here's a question.
I tried Inkarnate, but i find it's functions to be very limited, as large scale maps are impossible due to the limitations of the icons available, and small scale maps are also impossible thanks to it being impossible to overlay rivers for example on a mountain.

What can i use? I'd be interested in making maps from individual buildings (for which i'll probably use ArchiCAD or something) over cities, regions, nations to not randomly generated continents.
So what programs could i use that are preferably free and preferably also a bit better suited for mapping than just any random picture editor.

>Elvish languages work?
In setting, or how do I as the creator do it?

As the creator, same way I handle most languages, mainly describe the sounds and give a few short examples, but don't bother making a whole damn language as a I'm not a linguist.

I did base my elvish a bit on American English, in that it's a fair number of short words, and there is no inherent rhythm or rhyming structure to the language or how it's spoken.
Which actually makes elvish sound weird compared to the human languages, which all have a cadence and flow to them, as human language and form of magic are rather intertwined.

Elf naming convention is also kinda the same. Mainly one and two syllable names, and they can be odd ones that don't seem to fit together. And no real meaning behind them.

Human names by comparison often have a shorter bits linked together. Somewhere between full spanish names, and full arabic names, with the norther humans tending more towards long form french names.

2
Gunpowder has recently been weaponized, golems exist and are magic constructs
Whoever or whatever is in charge of the Demons

Several different programs, one for each.

There are no universal set of rules, you'll have to decide stuff for yourself.

For elves, most people think ethreal beauty and whimsy and all. For that tonal languages work like Chinese or Thai, look them up.

I general, if you want to make a language, you'll need to learn linguistics.

Tolkien made his Elvish languages to look like Welsh and Finnish

You don't need to know shit-all about physics, just grab a middle school geography textbook or spend 15 minutes on Wikipedia. Don't overthink it, don't overdo it. Look at real world rivers to get a feel of which kinda patterns are most common, then just copy them.

When in doubt, just make your rivers look like pic related. A few tributaries in the upper river basin, light meandering in the lower basin. The delta with its distributaries is optional, you could also do a simple estuary (basically a narrow bay into which the river flows). If you want something fancier, you could do a drainage system with several smaller rivers draining into a central lake, and a single river leading from the lake to the sea.

different guy, but my problem is I know just a little too much about geology and ecology.
To clarify, I have an uncle who is a geologist, and both my parents are biologists with a focus towards ecology.

So every time I tried to make a map, I'd look at it and realize I was getting things wrong, but didn't know enough to make it work write and still get the setting the way I wanted.

So then I cheated and used a slightly altered Americas. But still using the late medieval/ early modern time period.

Now the only problem is I keep expanding out filling in the rest of the world and not focusing on the bit that I wanted to set stories in.

Here, have some more examples of how rivers should look like. Did this in literally two minutes in Paint.

We really ought to have a link to an article on how river systems work in the OP.

Varies. Reaches a 3 at the war front(I don't like full grimdark) and a 9 at home.

I give it 6. People destroyed their ecosystem by eating their god, another god is dead but people couldn't eat him, so he rot and turned them into orcs, destroying a mighty empire. Snobbish mages bully people, assimilated nomads are dreaming of good old day and consider returning to raiding, and on the other end of the world king just beheaded his sister for high treason.

But there's lots of nice stuff, I'm glossing over lots of medieaval hardship, and if you wonder into a thick forest, you can live in anarchist utopia and farm birds that look like cassowaries.

anyone know if liquid silica and water mix? like does one float on the other do you think? just a speculative question before i really dive into it elsewhere. want to have a liquid silica/water seas on a planet is why.