/wbg/ - worldbuilding general

I thought about it too, but that makes for a crazy huge area in an impractical shape. I hesitate to go ringworld and similar because I have no way of needing that muh space.

Beside I have the ring halfway pinned as home of the goods, the celestial reef. Vast majority of them are water gods.

Can't have the planet lock tidally, that let's the giant forever hang in the same place which nullifies the magical variance in that regard.
The coin rim has the same problem
of impractical stretched land layout as the ringworld has.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tychonic_system

welp, this is the last idea i have in that regards user. But the setting sounds really interesting!

Without knowing all of the variables in play, determining orbital mechanics for [case a) Discworld orbits gas giant] is a bit more challenging than a matter of presuming that the discworld will immediately lock into place.

S.J. Peale's Rotational Histories of the Natural Satellites is still one of the only sources I know as far as the mathematics of determining orbital mechanics and such goes, but that's because I don't have more astrophysics textbooks on hand. Part 3 itself starts to go into tides, and that's also where Peale starts to discussing Synch rates vs. rotational rates, which have to do with tidal locking.

The equation that Peale uses essentially agrees with the one you'd find on wikipedia if you were to search for it. This equation being a time related equation to determining the point when orbital synchronization (or locking) is established. From that equation though you can immediately gather a couple of factors that are still "unknowns" as far as your setting goes.

a) Number of extraneous bodies influencing tidal forces. b) Orbital eccentricity and orbital radius c) Orbital body's physical properties.

The orbital radius is particularly important in this case, because you probably don't have anything close to determining the Love number (k), and what you're essentially aiming for is a "solve variables for equation t = infinity". The initial spin rate as well as the semi major axis are both things that you could technically "set", as well as the radius - hence why these are basically the parameters you would play with. You'd have to presume a value for the dissipation function Q.

Since we don't know those parameters at the given time, all we can really conclude is that "tidal locking is possible in this scenario regardless, but may also not occur depending on the variables given in the scenario". However, this is also true in the reverse scenario (case b: Gas Giant orbiting disc)

If you're interested in reading up on Peale's stuff, his review can be googled actually, and it's not that long at only 70 pages, though having a good mathematics/physics background will definitely help make the content easier to digest.

In the previous mention regarding Peale's time dependent equation, you'll also note that the gravitational constant is present - this number could variably change if there is a "magic gravity", but for simplicity's sake it's probably better to leave it alone.

Personally, seeing as this is a fantasy world and the adherence to realism isn't a complete necessity, I'd say depending on how complex you envision your little cluster of stellar bodies to be, you might just want to ignore the hard science altogether. Having the scientific foundation for support is fine in making things more believable, but if it comes at the cost of destroying the fundamental basis of your setting then you should probably reconsider if it's worth it or not.

I've learned to love the Traveller style hex map.

Along with the UWP, it's a fun abstraction that feels like some kind of tactical display, while still being useful at the table.

3D star maps and the like are not much more useful. If you want, you can pretend that the hex map is just a proxy for a much more complicated in-game map, and somehow all the relative distances are displayed accurately on a 2D plane.

The other option I've seen is just artistic maps, which don't tell you much besides "blue-green planets are earthlike, and Tatooine is rather far from Coruscant".

You could perhaps draw up a simple map without filling in the lore on all locations to sort of get the sandbox skeleton in place, and then use an actual hexmap if it comes to setting a game? If you're strictly using this for a novel depending on the scale of the novel you might not really need too complex of a map at all. Just a map of relative locations.

Oh hey a /wbg/, been looking for one for like 3 days because I didn't wanna make a new edition and fuck something up

How've you all been? How're your settings going?

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tychonic_system
Basically this is shifting the point of reference. I'll keep this model in mind though.

I was only refering to that mentioned a tidal locked coin. I know it's not imperative.

My philosophy at the moment is to make it work thematically and visual/geometric/spacial while entertaining the possibility of it happening with some combination of values "hidden from view". Formula slinging is admittedly beyond me.

I like the Traveller map too.

Isn't there one up every day?

Seems like the Traveler style map is pretty popular. Good to know.

I'll probably end up doing that, do some random system generation, add some random names and then flesh shit out as players get there in person.

Well to recap, let's see if we're on the same page. You want the following elements included:
a) A gas giant, or similarly large stellar object.
b) Presence of multiple objects within orbital range to simulate stellar transit, perhaps magical in nature.
c) Preferably a discworld to be the "center stage", tuned in terms of landmass/water body ratio.
d) Something similar to the lunar phase dynamics in the Earth/Sol/Moon system, between c), a), and maybe b).
Anything else?

If number crunching isn't your thing, maybe ignore the shapes of the individual bodies for now, and move your attention to figuring out what you want the orbital relationships to look like first?

It's not that I prefer the disk, I'm more indecisive. And the Shape of the main world is something I'd logically have to build around because of the gravity of the issue.

>Disc/mostly flat
+- works best with order around an axle
+ can be a god easily (dorsal or ventral side world)
+ would work thematically well with short distances between bodies
+ linear gravity works well with flying island (if I elect to chose them down the line)
+ simple mapping/no projection
+ globally affected by eclipse at exact same time
- works badly with regular tidal forces
- additional handwaving for athmosphere
- order works badly with objects larger than itself in the system
- what about the underside (depends on form)
- crossing to underside via surface aesthetically awkward (really bugs me)

>Toroid
+ lots of fun moving stuff through the middle, very evocative and alien
+ fits better in regular space than disc
+ visible to itself from surface on inner side
+- map easily loops, like old rpg
- still implies universal axle through middle
- will involuntarily evoke donut if optimized for land dimensions
- land distances will get very long if made into pleasing aesthetically bracelet
- outer side doesn't see ring form -> destined to be filled with boring ocean, placing continents can get awkward

>planet
+ works well with orbits
+ logical
+well researchable, could cause less problems down the line
- sacrifices unique flavor, boring
- will have timezones, can't be universally affected by jovian eclipse onset at same local time

>bend flat shape
+- shares many points with disc
+ can see itself possibly
+ can slide along orbit like a bend shell
- may be uncanny valley of shapes mixing direction of disc and circular movements unpleasantly

>completely irregular
+ can be very thematic
- mayor handwaving on all fronts

May have forgotten some points...

Well going through the pros and cons you've listed, maybe you can use something like a "shell planet", not unlike the hollow planet idea but having the space there would give you the freedom of placing an "axle" if you saw fit. Instead of a single flat disc, you could use it as a sphere divided into two halves - two bent discs so to speak. The overall shape would still appear spherical, so while the nitty gritty mathematics wouldn't be the same, it wouldn't be entirely alien (as it would for the disc).

The whole jovian eclipse thing would still be an issue mind you, and rings will have to be worked in somehow, but it might be slight compromise between a/c/d options.

The outer side of that would effectively be a regular planet and the inner would lack a sky, only seeing part of itself and the other half with maybe a little strip sky. That would only be combining downsides for no gain.

And with axle I just mean a symmetry axis. It is nothing I need to have, just an alternative system to order the bodies.

>the inner would lack a sky
Depending on the size of the thing, whether or not a sky is present is up in the air. There are several cases where both the inner face and outer face could have a sky, though the exact variables and necessary perquisites are different.

At the end of the day it's going to boil down to "screw the science, go with the shape you want" or "follow the science, stick to a planet". We still don't know the necessary details like orbital paths and surrounding objects, so honestly at this point from an outsider's perspective it's like you're basically stuck trying to figure out what "key planet" looks like to begin with. You can continue to debate over the shape and its pros and cons literally to no end.

Now this is just opinion, but honestly I'd say that the shape is at best a novelty, at worse a potential headache. If this is for personal writing and personal interest you know what you can tolerate and what you don't like. If you want to pitch this to a large audience, or even publish it to the world, honestly it'll most likely just be seen as a gimmick.

Any planet that isn't spherical is going to take a massive amount of handwaving, to the point where if you have a target audience, you'll probably want to know if they'll look at it and think "this is bullshit" or be willing to suspend disbelief for long enough for your actual story or plot to hook them.

Sorry if I agitated you with my rejection of Ideas.
I'm just chasing perfection from an artistic standpoint, which for me contains a dash of verisimilitude to smooth out the handwaving on it's corners. Not chasing audiences or anything.

You can probably see me juggling to many floaty factors which all cross influence each other. Well, that's why I'm stuck in the first place after all.

If what you're grasping at is this nebulous, chances are you'll be hard pressed to find somebody else aligned enough to help you. With a set of criteria people could plausibly try and meet it, in your case, it's not all that clear what your criteria really is.

Just wanted to point this out and ask if anyone here has given much thought to how they would run what is essentially Exalted: Shadowrun Edition?

I can dig up the pdf Veeky Forums made for it, if anyone wants. It's the apocalypse system, I think.

That'd be cool, but any advice on MASSIVE urban settings would be helpful too.

Do you have something specific you're looking for? Managing players? City logistics? Handling pacing? Tech? Urban settings, regardless of size, have a lot of aspects to them, many of which you might not even touch in a standard game.

Mostly logistics. I'd like to have a city that gives the illusion of functioning to my players. The trouble with mega-cities is that the shear size makes running such a game a case of juggling chainsaws.

Related: Factions. Throne has a ton of colorful factions, and I have trouble imagining what they actually DO besides fight the protagonist.

...

Well what are we working with? How much do you know about city planning in general? How large of a campaign do you intend this to be? Are you considering a city the size of 6Bill demons, or something beyond that (ecumenopolis class) or something smaller?

Generally when people talk about verisimilitude as far as citybuilding goes, you find the sort of folks who are looking at nitty gritty details like sewage, manpower, RCI distributions (to borrow from SC), and so forth. Then you'll also find the sort of folks that are looking for an immersive atmosphere, and can accept that you'll have large cultural clashes (not necessarily violent) within the city itself, which in turn leads to some very peculiar results in city design. So you might not necessarily have a massive city that ends up being uniform, and you might find that having a well developed culture is more important than numerical logistics.

Where do you stand in terms of that?

As far as factions goes, most organizations are established with an objective in mind. A church is developed to spread worship and faith, a business is developed to make profit and garner reputation, a NPO might have a goal that's a bit more vague. You don't necessarily need to have guilds like in traditional fantasy - even just a large group of NPOs or like minded individuals who chipped in to rent a place could be the start of a faction. If you work out their origins from the beginning, it becomes easier to figure out their later motivations as you go along.

>>whats the biggest problem bothering you about your worldbuilding/setting in this very moment?

Putting things into paragraphs instead of bullet points.

>is there something in your setting that you would like to have advice and/or opinions on?

How much detail is too much for a general setting guide? What aspects of a nation's culture would you say is important?

>Are you considering a city the size of 6Bill demons
I'm basically running K6BD without the PLOT being relevant.

I definitely think culture is the more pressing need at the moment. I want the setting to feel like there's 100,000 cultures mingling in the streets. If there's a basic logic structure to explain away how 800 million people shit together without everyone everywhere dying of cholera, I'll gladly take it. But making the city feel alive is more important to me.

>factions
Only trouble with that is that K6BD has factions (like the Polishers or the Wax Candle Confederacy) whose jobs appear to be the same as the assassins and thieves guilds or the mercenary guilds, but they still identify as candlemakers and bankers. There's just a disconnect that I worry I won't be able to imitate in play, which would be a blow against the verisimilitude I really, really want to get across. I really want this city to feel real, even if demon samurai are fighting gun-witches in it.

>I'm basically running K6BD without the PLOT being relevant
Just realized that sounded bad. I'm running K6BD, but I'm assuming Zoss is gone but Allison hasn't entered the picture (and might never due to not wanting the game to revolve around a DMPC).

>How much detail is too much for a general setting guide? What aspects of a nation's culture would you say is important?

This kind of changes from person to person. But why don't you consider it like this - if you were a foreigner looking for somewhere to go on vacation, what is it about a country that you'd want to know before you go there?

Details like "major historic events" or "public holidays", culturally distinctive points like food or mannerisms, things that would be socially taboo - would all be nice to know in my opinion.

What would you guys say are the coolest parts of Naruto? And don't just say 'the setting,' give me details.

What would you guys say are the coolest parts of Pokemon?

I'm dusting off a setting I came up with a while back that combined the two and tried to keep the best of both. Wanna get your guys' opinions on this before I work too much more on it.

If you're using the exact same universe, then it's all pretty easy to explain since you can basically handwave it the same way K6BD handwaves it - the demons have a functional society based on their own systems, so society doesn't just implode on itself.

K6BD gets away with it as long as there's action going on, so people don't necessarily question how demons, angels, and humans have lasted this long, they're basically hitched to the ride.

But let's say we put aside the K6BD foundation for example and just look at population logistics for a bit. In a standard city, waste is either diverted away from the city, or destroyed at a cost. Naturally for things like water and such there's details like filtration and recycling and settling ponds and so forth, but the idea of "what do we do with waste" remains the same - if you can't recycle it, remove it, if there's nowhere to remove it to, destroy it.

In a very dense city like Hong Kong for example, landfilling in the outer territories is a pretty standard go to. Having the sea nearby makes water wastes relatively easy to handle, provided the treatment facilities are functional and the factories don't just end up dumping waste into the sea again.

But there's eventually a threshold you hit where either your population produces waste at a rate that your facilities can't handle, or you run out of space to handle that waste - essentially a breaking point.

Sci-fi solutions generally tend to lean towards technological advancements to handle this, fantasy has magic to fall back on or just relatively small populations, it's plausible in K6BD that Throne simply diverts waste into somewhere else in the multiverse.

The "duality" of factions in K6BD is something that, since this is a setting with beings that aren't wholly human (and plenty of immortals), makes sense in setting. On the other hand, dual occupations aren't too uncommon either. In most cases it's a matter of mindset.

I'd say being 12 again.

This: Sounds like your setting would be great for kids, but awful for adults.

Unless you're making a universe with fundamental mechanics similar to both, then it could be cool. Something like "Nature spirits inhabit bizarre animals, and spirit tamers can capture and control them. Training as a spirit tamer starts in childhood, and most tame their first ninjamon by their 10th birthday"

Well, I mean, I'd be using the basic concept of each setting, not aiming for it to be for kids. Ninja magic and capturing/growing with spirit animals, that sort of thing. I didn't mean I was copying them literally, more like in spirit. Kinda like this but not really . So, no 10th birthday stuff and no jinchuriki. Maybe child soldiers maybe not, haven't decided.

I kinda figured the whole spirit animal thing would be kinda like a religion than just 'go tame stuff'

You're much better off selling your setting than using two IPs where you drew surface level ideas from to contrast it, as that just sets up unnecessary comparisons. If you can't describe your setting without using the two IPs, it may be a sign that you want to flesh it out more. The moment you use the two IPs, people are going to attach their own biases onto your own setting as a result.

Yet another asian mysticism and yokai setting/system.

So entry level western audience will think this is so different the game?

It's not a fully fleshed out setting, that's just where I got the idea from. It seems really shallow when I put it like that, so I guess I just introduced it wrong. Was just trying to get some more ideas.

I was trying to use the two so people might understand where it was coming from, not that it'd be directly related to either. I'm not just mishmashing the settings together. Just picking and choosing what I thought would be cool together.

More like travelling monks or something, idk. And no, probably not. It isn't for the widespread audience anyway, probably will never see the light of day.

Very few settings are generally "fully fleshed" out when they're pitched. Consider it like posing an alpha draft of the setting. Even if you only introduce it as a fantasy based world where beast taming, beast training, and nature elemental magic form the three pillars of society, you're already somewhat distanced from people's perceptions of Naruto and Pokemon.

The problem isn't that those two IPs are inherently bad, it's just that people will look at them and consider them as immature and literary garbage, and perhaps come to a conclusion that your setting can't be much better. It sets up a dangerous preconception.

There are points that are well done with both IPs, but they both have a target audience in mind, and outside of that audience, it's hard to really relate or associate with the IPs, so asking people to draw something memorable or commendable out of it would be even harder. Keep in mind that this is with the IPs, and not with the underlying motifs.

What I'm trying to say is that unless you're going to drop your big twist/spin on this idea don't bother. As of yet you've described something in the most basic generic way possible.

It's only slightly less generic than taking inspiration from Tolkien but also with Cthulhu he's cool right? What are the best aspects from these things I can actually build an idea from? You're like one of those "game devs" that buys a unity asset pack and then immediately throws it up on green light.

You barely have a premise how the fuck are we supposed to give you ideas without building the setting for you?

I suppose it doesn't hurt to give him the benefit of the doubt, and just presume that he's looking for a sounding board on whether the motifs he's picked are plausible to merge. And frankly the motifs are fine, it's just that he hasn't done anything with them.

It's hardly a reason to tell somebody to stop worldbuilding altogether just because they can't think of something that no one else has come up with before.

I suppose you're right.

I was attempting to describe it in the quickest and easiest way possible, in a way that the largest amount of people would understand it.

From what I understand, no matter how original your setting may be, it will always resemble something else that is mote popular, so if people were to describe they would say '[blank] but with spaceships' or '[blank] crossed with [blank] with monkeys and instead of dragons' or what have you. I figured that it would be the most efficient way of describing the setting and make it relatable to something else at the same time. But I get your deal about the immature/literary garbage stuff and the perceptions people have of both settings.

Looking at the description now it does sound like a terrible fanfic, to be honest.

Thanks for the info there user, you're a cool dude. I haven't slept in a long time so I'm slowly losing my ability to keep up an intelligent conversation, so I'm gonna get some sleep. Keep up the good work.

Sorry dude. I realize I wasn't being clear enough because of this user .

I've figured out a general map, the large poltical powers in the setting, and was playing around with the ninja magic before I shelved it for a while.

I didn't want to spout off a bunch of random facts about the setting because it wouldn't really be pertinent to what I was trying to ask. And, again, I know that what I was asking was stupid. Just look here .

I'll give hgim the benefit of the doubt when he shows that he's actually thought about this idea in any meaningful way. Right now he is already asking for ideas while displaying practically none of his own.

How do you help someone when they haven't given you anything to grip into? I drew a stick man, what are the best aspects of *insert 2 recently relevant artists* work I can add to this?

Then fucking describe your god damn setting already. These threads literally exist for dumping info out into the world. Imagine for a moment you took all the time and words you've used thus far and actually used them to talk about your thing.

Well to be honest, it's a pretty small crowd in /wbg/, and as you can probably see, it's not like the pace here moves so quickly that we can't take the time to actually read something in detail. Plenty of folks (like ) are more receptive to more detail rather than less.

Generalizations might be efficient, but they also end up detracting from a setting or a concept. You might be "selling" your setting so to speak, but this isn't a business case where you have five minutes to show a powerpoint and your time is up.

I wouldn't worry particularly about terrible fanfic and whatnot. If this was for writing, I'd say that you can't get better without reading and writing excessively. Everything is going to start off being shit, and frankly, even if you become a "good writer", plenty of people will still think it's shit.

But for a game, I suppose it falls down to a 50/50 between the attitudes of your group, and your style as a player/DM. A bad group can render your worldbuilding efforts obsolete, a good group might hash together a story regardless of the world - of course the more negative possibilities also hold true...so generally you do more worldbuilding as a safety net, but it is what it is. So long as you and the group have fun with it, it's alright at the end of the day.

rate my autism

Best i can give you is an ass out of burgers

8ch pretty much gave you all the critique you needed didn't they senpai?

>(like (You)) are more receptive to more detail rather than less.

No, no, no bud. I'm looking for literally any detail. All he's done thus far is say he totally has details but he must of left them in his other coat, so we should foot the bill.

Might as well throw a question here.

If your setting contains multiple species, are they related in any way - as in by blood, common ancestors, same creator etc.

And what sort of relationships they have between if there are any?

But he didn't want critique, he wanted you to "rate his autism".

europe again/10

Might I suggest even another alternative?

A systen with a star in a hollow sphere. Handwave the heatbuildup by GOD(S). Have a day/night system by having a smaller semi-spherical shell orbiting between the world surface and the sun. You could perhaps even have a few of these shells (right picture), and perhaps even have a few of those populated.

Sci-fi setting has a lot of humanoids. Most are related as the product of a sort of standoff forced evolution method of colonization. (Target undeveloped soup world with femtobots. Force evolutionary progress to generate humanoid species and ecology supportive of it.) Others are second-generation creations or experiments of the initial wave of 'colonists,' as the end results were spread far enough in part in time that a few waves of galactic society have already ebbed and flowed.

Think the more interesting biological relation is between them and the non-human, naturally evolved species. Who are kinda left with a sense of 'why does everyone else out here look the goddam same.' Perhaps coupled with the unnerving feeling some elder power has set up the galaxy for things other than them.

Are there any websites which offer a 100% private wiki, hosted online, for free, that I could use for worldbuilding?

It's called Google Docs

Are you looking for a wiki format document, or something that you can host online? Or both? There are personal wikis like tiddlywiki, wikipad, and such. Alternatively google docs and drive are good for quick upload and sharing between small groups, and can extend to larger groups with proper management.

How do decide on a scale for your maps? I keep running into the issue where my regions are either too big or too small for what I want.

Like pic related. I originally intended this to be about the size of Spain, but my first scale was 68 pixels = 50 km, which left me with a region the size of western Europe.

Multiple "species", large majority of them are just genetic manipulations based off of the same human template. Humans make for good genetic experiment lab rats. Changes in genetic expression just make for strange quirks like hardened skin for some species, increased physical performance, limbs, and such. Most are modified for specific task purposes in mind, others are modified for vanity.

Autorealm allows to change the map scale later and it can be expanded to all sides indefinetly

thats one of the few good things about it

A lot of my species come from different evolutionary lines entirely, but some do. Mostly elves, who in this setting adapt and evolve far more quickly than pretty much anything else, so not only do you have the standard wood elves and deep elves (never liked the name dark elves, so that's what I'm calling them here) but you have other more diverse groups, like dryads and merfolk, who are also descended from elves.

Dinosaurs, drakes, wurms (think giant snakes), and dragons are also all related. The former exist mostly in the not!Americas, the latter three in not!Europe, with drakes and wurms having a common ancestor but split into two evolutionary lines (drakes got small and grew wings, wurms got big and lost limbs), whereas dragons are demonically-possessed mutations of wurms. Well, the western-style ones are. Still deciding on the eastern ones.

And of course goblins and orcs are related. Ogres, however, are not, and very different here.

As for relations, most don't care. Only orcs and goblins are commonly seen together.

>whats the biggest problem bothering you about your worldbuilding/setting in this very moment?
Names, mostly. I don't want to use real ones or names I just pull out of my ass. So my naming process is
>What people named this?
>What real-world equivalent language do these people use?
>What's a word or phrase I can take from this language to use as a name for this thing?
And I have a LOT of shit to name. Also, I'm really down on the "[noun] of [noun]" and "the [noun]" tropes. Destiny scared me away from both. That said, I usually alleviate this by coming up with formal, rarely-used names, and informal commonly-used names. That foreign guy probably has a more extravagant name than "The Green Khan" but the commoners won't know it, and even if they did, they probably wouldn't use it.

>whats the biggest problem bothering you about your worldbuilding/setting in this very moment?

Oddly, it's the blurb. When starting an intro to the documentation, I just have no idea how to formulate my lead-in/elevator pitch. It's killing me dead.

>is there something in your setting that you would like to have advice and/or opinions on?
Probably the above.

what kind of documentation exactly? First sentences are always hard, so dont get demotivated by this!

do you maybe have a language at hand that you can use the endings of/ create endings for geographical names? i find that pretty handy

A general, overarching setting book to kinda lay out the framework and describe what it does.

Gist is a sci-fi setting that hits plenty of B-movie tropes but tries to work them to logical conclusions. Background is more of a...I guess mass-effecty, modern galactic civilizations live amidst the ruins and long shadows of their forebears, sort of deal.

I suppose the purpose of the blurb would be to explain all of that in a concise and eloquent fashion "here's what this does and what to expect up front,' before I delve into specifics about places, species and technology.

No. Should I make up a fantasy language? Sounds hard. Right now, I'm just using real-world words. I'm starting to think it should be "Earth, but magic was here the whole time!" since pretty much everything I'm doing is a fantasy counterpart to a real-world thing. But Warhammer Fantasy does that too, right?

As long as there's internal consistency it's fine. If you start off with a mode of nomenclature for an area and then suddenly shift, you better have a reason for that in mind. A fantasy language isn't absolutely necessary, but sometimes it can help set a basis. It needs to be handled carefully, and remember that while the name makes a first impression, there's more to a character or place beyond the name.

In some cultures you find naming conventions where there are prefixes and suffixes, and that generally shifts over time as names "modernize" so to speak. We don't know much about your setting, such as genre (what kind of fantasy, what tone is it, what cultures influence it?) and timeframe and influences, so it's hard to give any specific comments that you might find useful.

not necessarily making up a whole language, rather like stated invent some catchy prefixes/suffixes

in one language in my setting, "-ytr" is the suffix for "land" or "landmass", so the country where that language is spoken is called Teytr, the adjacent one where the same language is used Gheytr and so on.

>B-movie tropes
sounds fun. I would actually say in that case it wouldnt even matter that much if the intro sounds somewhat cheesy.

>sounds fun. I would actually say in that case it wouldnt even matter that much if the intro sounds somewhat cheesy.

Well, the real objective as to play with them from a more serious perspective, at least, for the most part. Take things like humanoids everywhere, precursor races, requisite bug/fish aliens and 50-foot-whatevers and have it hang together as something more tonally serious.

Soomewhat cheesy though. Yeah, I can probably go for that. I had something but kinda tossed it out in a fit. Still there in fadetext though.

docs.google.com/document/d/1VHyKDxfJPk-8Q8N_3TJoPlQm9dhf0Y7WDcN5Ry4gZ38/edit#

Anybody got a link to the Worldbuilding Discord?

>docs.google.com/document/d/1VHyKDxfJPk-8Q8N_3TJoPlQm9dhf0Y7WDcN5Ry4gZ38/edit#

i actually think its okay and reads nicely, but i dont know for whom youre writing of course, and im not a native english speaker so i might not have a totally legit view.

Oh shit, got more work to do than I thought.

I've never been too good about the differences with the fantasy genres, but I guess it would be high fantasy. There are dragons, gods, wizards, demons, warlocks, every standard fantasy race as well as a few more. The tone is mostly serious, but not to a grimdark level, and there are bits of levity. As for cultures... lots. Like I said, pretty much every real-world thing has a fantasy equivalent. Mongol orcs, zombie germans, greek dwarves, etc.

To summarize: A group of magically-powered dickheads decide to absorb as much mana as possible to become gods. Which involves taking mana from the things that have it, namely people and other gods. So they build up a cult and an army mostly staffed by zombies and golems, as well as a few vampires as commanders, and wage war on... well, pretty much everyone. And with the amount of power they already have, they really fuck shit up. Plague and undeath runs rampant through Europe (not actually Europe, but the equivalent, I'll do this for other things), a giant hellgate is opened up in North America and smaller ones in other places, letting all manner of demons and devils run loose, and a tear in reality opens up a portal in the Middle East/Africa that's filled with the things Lovecraft probably saw in his nightmares. So these dickheads, the Warlocks, go on for a while, but are eventually repelled, and with their powers, armies, and supplies dwindling, they turn tail and run. This war lasts for about 5-6 years and completely alters the landscape and society of the world.

This was a few decades ago. Most of the setting is focusing on rebuilding and hunting down the last of the Warlocks. The--Oh fuck, I'm terrible at names--Silver Queen, pretty much the only known god left that wasn't killed or just ran away, is trying very hard to ease tensions and unify people.

There's gunpowder and firearms but very primitive, most people would prefer a crossbow. Or fireball spell.

That's reassuring. Honestly, it's entirely possible that I'm just overly critical of my own work, and vastly overthinking the entire thing.

If you're using culture to race analogues and you don't care about it being explicit or want the analogue to be explicit, then use the names to your advantage. Different cultures have different "equivalent" names, Jean vs John for example, Pyotr vs Peter, Junseob vs Joseph.

If you want to make it a bit more obscure, you can either stick to the notion of prefix/suffix additions, or you can use phoneme based name changing, but the former might be easier than the latter, or vice versa depending on how you see it.

In a world with more races than simply humans, you have the option to follow more "standard" alternate race nomenclature templates. Plenty of people borrow from Tolkien for this as far as elvish and dwarvish names go, whereas angels and demons have a very substantial source to draw from in Christian literature. Plenty of people won't even recognize the more obscure names, like Ananiel or Kushiel, or they might instinctively associate those with angels because of the -el ending. Whether you choose to do so is up to you, but as with all names, it's a matter of how the name contributes to the character that generally matters more.

Titles aren't bad - if you have a massive cast of named characters, having some with strictly titles make them stand out, but the titles generally need to have some sort of history. For example your Silver Queen - a god - but why is she called the Silver Queen, is "she" necessarily still a "she", why the Silver Queen and not the Argent Queen, and so forth. Slapping on titles willy nilly works alright when you know the character won't be of much significance so people won't question it. Otherwise, if you have a title, it's good to know what that title brings about.

I suppose lastly you can look at names registries, and trace back in terms of etymology. Using more archaic variants of modern names is an option as well to introduce some variety. Just remember to keep it relatively consistent.

Github has wikis available for repositories. And a repository doesn't have to be code. The whole repository can be set to private, and you can keep all your maps/etc in the repository.

How's my map?

It works a lot better when as a piece of paper so you can rotate it.

Yeah, there will be a reason for the titles, which mostly only the real movers and shakers will have. Silver Queen is a bad example since she's an important character, but I made the name up on the spot. A better example I have is "The Thrice-Crowned King", though I probably won't make that his "standard" title due to the length. But he's called that for unifying three different, feuding kingdoms early in his reign.

Yeah, Silver Queen sucks. Probably the conic fan in me talking, taking a color and a noun and combining them.

Is this a skyworld?

>tfw make fantasy world
>replace dwarves and elves with humanoids that evolved from beard and avians
> friend asks me why I don't just replace all the races with furries

I have no face

>evolved from beard
So, dwarves?

I meant bears my finger slipped

Poorly as both my health and mental Heath are going to shit atm, I just feel like giving up on trying to write my novel/series. I just don't have the motivation anymore.

Mostly I struggle to get my story to flow and I suck at character development.

I'm sure I've done everything backwards by making the setting before the story

I'm with your friend on that one. And, I'm sorry, but this kinda stinks of being different for the sake of being different. All that does is choke creativity. If ypu really want your OC races, insert them alongside the others. If they're good, they will be used and remembered, forgotten and ignored if not. Either way you gain experience in making races.

Sounds like you need to kill a hobo, user. It really brings a clarity to life like nothing else.

Maybe if you give us details we can help? Also, sorry to hear about your poor health. Hope you get better soon.

Maybe if you give us details we can help? Also, sorry to hear about your poor health. Hope you get better soon.

Oh, so I didn't go insane. Why did it take so long for my first response to show up? I'm only just now seeing it.

Why do they need to be humanoid? Just leave them as they are. I use bear species too, but giving them human bodies doesn't give them many advantages.

>Yeah, Silver Queen sucks. Probably the conic fan in me talking, taking a color and a noun and combining them
It's not really that bad. It's just a matter of understanding the weight of the name and the significance of the meaning behind the name. If you have a very small cast, typically every name you choose should be done carefully, but if you have a massive cast, with some of the less essential characters you can give them more forgettable names. Sometimes you even do this on purpose to contrast their role (such that a character that might have a "mundane" name isn't suspected to have a significant role).

Besides that, sometimes names give you an opportunity to be a little cheeky. I have a character called Salix Babylonica for instance, a case in which the name was literally given because that's what she/it is. But when referred to as just Salix in short, the name wouldn't necessarily suggest her/its form. That wasn't such a good example, but better writers have lots of neat little ways to use names and their meanings to further the characters.

What another one? At this rate there will be none left.. Then what's a guy to do?!

Thanks user/s

What sorta details do you need?
Setting is 700 years in the future ( hard sci fi with softish elements )
we find out we aren't alone and there is a Galactic community run by a "security council" which is corrupt and will do anything to maintain it's control and the status quo.

There's more but word limits... But that the very basic version of it

donjon.bin.sh

so good its in the OP twice

>Setting is 700 years in the future ( hard sci fi with softish elements )
So, it's basically all realistic, except for one substance that serves to break from conventional science? What's the break exactly?

>we find out we aren't alone and there is a Galactic community run by a "security council" which is corrupt and will do anything to maintain it's control and the status quo.
Why are they so malicious and corrupt? And how has it lasted for any real length of time? I don't see people living under corrupt and malicious people very willingly. Wait, is this a "Fuck yeah, humanity!" type story?

>There's more but word limits... But that the very basic version of it
Put it in a PasteBin and provide a link then. Or use Docs or something.

Oh, whoops.

>What sorta details do you need?
Well, you said you were having trouble with story and character development, so how about your characters?