Science-Fantasy Worldbuilding Help

For a month or so now I have been running in circles trying to tape together a kind of eastern post-apocalyptic science-fantasy setting loosely inspired by Hyper Light Drifter, Necropolis, Furi and piles of concept art but I keep burning out.

So I ask of you, Veeky Forums - How would you go about making a setting in the technological ruins of ancient society? What kind of adventures could you run in it? Do you have any anecdotes or interesting lore tidbits?

Cool art and worldbuilding methods are also very welcome.

Will briefly dump some appropriate art from my meagre collection, if it helps.

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>So I ask of you, Veeky Forums - How would you go about making a setting in the technological ruins of ancient society? What kind of adventures could you run in it? Do you have any anecdotes or interesting lore tidbits?

Well that depends on what sort of science magic we are dealing with. For a game obviously some lost piece of technology/magic/whatever that ties into the events of the world.

What exactly are you looking for as far as running this setting for players?

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>loosely inspired by Hyper Light Drifter, Necropolis, Furi
This means nothing to me. Can you describe what you want without using other media properties as a shorthand?

I have some concrete ideas for the current society of the world (Musketry crossed with sword-and-sandle feudalism and religion), but the science magic part is where everything kind of falls apart.

I want the general structures to feel alien in that 2001 kind of way - monolithic, imposing, running on their own logic, with lots of languages to decipher and red buttons to push.

The 'default' way to run this I think would be a kind of OSR-style campaign of tracking down ever more dangerous remains in search of the most powerful artefacts, although having the PCs wake up sealed in a ruin and told to escape might be a slightly more story-oriented start.

Sorry, I realise thats a bad way of putting it.
Essentially the landscape is filled with ancient structures, remenants of a fallen technological society wielding great power. Lots of stylised neon and smooth monoliths, weird artefacts, malevolent AI and opportunities for reverse-engineering stuff by the players.
The 'new' society, living in the strange arid world left behind is kind of swords-and-sandals low fantasy.

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While the sword and sandal aspect is fine I would say don't limit the potential of the tech in the world. Try to incorporate it into the everyday aspect.

For instance, lets say you have some religious organzation that managed to maintain documents and recordings on how to implant augmentations and for their special soldiers holy warriors or whatever they have to pass various rites to be "blessed" with these holy augmentations. Why they were developed and how this church organization came into possision of it can be a matter of intrigue in and of itself. They probably do even understand why it was made in the first place, just understanding how to use it but also coupled with the religous mysticism attached to it as well.

Granted, this is my own thoughts and feelings on this. I am personally weary of worlds that are so detached from the various macguffins that inhabit it. An acopcolypse wouldn't completely whip out all knowledge of a thing but how it's used and why certainly would

I did have some ideas of how salvaged maguffins would crop up in everday life - Imagine using a radio-like device for hunt for signal sources, or replacing damaged limbs with mechanical ones with weird bugs and residual AI.

The original idea was to have a very large time gap between the previous societal collapse and the 'now' time of a game, but I like the idea of certain groups surviving in weird forms and utilising ancient tech in a kind of cargo cult. Your example of creepy gene-modded holy warriors seems a particularly good example.

Figure out how advanced things got before they got fucked, how scarcity was dealt with and power generated. Then figure out how it got fucked.

Dot the landscape with the remains of large technological devices that generated power, housed resources, divided space, stuff like that. Then break them.

Sort out who has access and knowledge of what was, what happened and how to make things. What trappings they maintain and how their access to knowledge gives them control.

Map making can be fun. Take a look at Beyond The Wall's Further Afield group map generation. The characters won't know what the technological origins of the things are, so after deciding the magical appearances, fill in the technological background.

>withering forest is radiated bog grown in massive crater from meltdown with basement filled with arcane computers.
>shatteryard is tidal flat filled with broken hulls of wet navy ships that washed ashore when their semisentients crashed
>scalding vale is a valley with a still functional thermal borehole that creates superheated mist as the planet's core fluctuates

Alright, so with that you can use that span of time to explain how certainly groups morphed into the way they are or how certain pieces of magi tech survived and is used now versus then which leaves you room to always have something better.

Not to mention using examples like where certain locations develop a certain legend of because no one remembers why the fuck it became the way it came so you can have "The Zone" type areas where space and time are wonky because a thousand year old physics experiment was left running and never stopped creating all sorts of weird twisted creatures or something.

I was planning on setting things up to have been really advanced (Orbital megastructures, collosal resource systems, society a tiny elite ruling empires of automated projects and experimented-upon underlings) but now you mention it prehaps scaling it back would make a more interesting world, although I shy away from making it too close to a regular post-apocalypse setting. Where do you think the best balance is?

I like your process, but surely you should work out what happened before its effects? A slow societal atrophy leaves behind a different landscape than a nuclear holocaust.

Mapmaking has been an unmitigated disaster so far, so procedural systems like the one you posted should be a great help, thanks.

>Alright, so with that you can use that span of time to explain how certainly groups morphed into the way they are or how certain pieces of magi tech survived and is used now versus then which leaves you room to always have something better.

How might groups morph over time? I toyed with having one or two groups ruled by 'survivors' who exist as something between god-kings and dementia patients on a mass of life support, but I'm rather lost on how large groups would survive and change into something interesting for a game outside of good old techno-cults and crazed religions.

Certain habits and ideas become basic practice and ritual overtime. Like for instance, the current nobility are descended from the various corporate CEOs and other high up executives of a company owned arcology or something like that.

Or perhaps an influental individual decided that this is the way you access this protocol for this device to do this and overtime it became a semi religious thing to do taught out of sure habit.

It's the same way with various supersititous beliefs. There are and were practical reasons for doing a thing but over time it's sort of lost in the mysticism as it's retold over and over again like not stepping on a crack in the street because you could trip over it but then you have "If you step on a crack, you break your mother's back" or something like that.

Basically if its too far advanced, it won't mean anything to the players because they won't be able to use it or figure it out. That can be neat too, but its a different vibe. Honestly probably best to check with your players and see what they're into. Also keeping in mind technological progress is iterative. We still use hammers. That's been around for a loooong time, probably still will be.

Figuring out what effects you want and keeping the apocalypse mythological enough to fit that in should be fine.

>Basically if its too far advanced, it won't mean anything to the players because they won't be able to use it or figure it out. That can be neat too, but its a different vibe.
>Also keeping in mind technological progress is iterative. We still use hammers. That's been around for a loooong time, probably still will be.

Maybe theres a middleground to be sought here? I like the idea that scavengers or those with moderate technical knowledge might recognise certain components they find and collect those, despite being unable to figure out what the device as a whole does.

They might not be able to understand this weird tunnel-looking thing with all the coils and bits of glowing pannel, but that nobbly bit over there sure as hell is a transistor and they know what those do.

This could extend to stuff like mechanical constructs. They may not be able to reprogram a robotic spider-caretaker, but they know when you take its eyes out it goes kill-crazy so they drag them to battlefields and set them loose.

Sounds like you've got it sorted out. Having textured descriptions of items so the players can figure out something to do with them, and how knowledge skills work will be key.

glhf

I agree with , a partical accelerator as a whole would be useless to a lot of people but possibly certain parts could still be used. I think the problem is some people make their super high tech civilization so advance that it looses all context and meaning for what they are creating. Even super space future people still need various conveniences and those would still be recognizable to some degree.

Where is this particular place and event in Xenosaga III?

I want to say it's in the beginning when you are doing the Encephalon Raid with Scinetia.

I'm surprised no has mentioned it yet, but OP, look up Numenera. It's exactly the thing for which you're looking.

I have heard of Numenera, but was under the impression it was something else. Will go hunt it out.

Thanks you guys, you have really helped me get a handle on what I should work towards.