/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

Does anyone know if this has ever been continued?

warosu.org/tg/thread/46222834#p46231942

warosu.org/tg/thread/46277139

Has anyone ever used that ethnographical questionnaire? Is it useful or a waste?

Antibiotics.

Draw a benis shaped penisular.

I'm DMing a campaing for my step-daughter and her friends, D&D 5th ed rules.

The setting I'm using is something I built on the run, taking stuff from videogames and different settings and tgames (Thief, Ravenloft, Bastion, Dark Souls, ecc).

For the moment I have this big metropoly, by the sea in which my players have been acting like Fantasy shadowrunners, fixing problems for clients and stuff like that.

Are there any tips on how to continue? I just made up things as they asked questions, limining myself to this big ass city, I have no idea on how to continue.

I've made up this gang for the background of one of my players.

It's heavily influenced by the Thieves in Law from Russia. They tattoo themselves with different symbols in order to represent rank and abilities. Their Boss is the Butcher, an one armed woman who is rumored to be a witch that uses different materials in order to create magic tattoos.

so many options to choose from

>tfw keweenaw

Hey /wbg/, I'm trying to find a way to create light, concise, but evocative ways to write out setting information. This is my first attempt, I know it's not really very good, but I'd like some feedback if this is a good way to do that.

Depending on how many districts you have, this probably needs to be more concise. There's too much description.

Hows the description itself though? Strong? Evocative? Makes you want to explore?

I like it. It's a bit like a door-to-door salesman. Needs a spellcheck, though.

I feel like it's overdone and you could get just as much impact out of less, but I'm on a phone and can't really write up anything as a good example.

How would you about making humanity accepting of space gods?

Thoughts on this guy? Particularly need help with a name. Without boring you all to death, they're non-carnivorous giants, that probably feed on giant flora (small strokes by the paws are humans). I'm thinking hibernation but I'm not sure of the logistics given their size. They're not very smart, carried through the food chain by their enormous size, and as such often domesticated by humans to aid in construction (as shown).

Garganby.

Hibernation makes a good deal of sense for something of that size. Spending periods asleep would help cut down on caloric consumption, especially in seasons where food was more sparse. Mammals of that size are also better suited for colder climates due to the body heat they produce, though that may just result more in lighter fur.

nice nice, thanks a lot.

Is it physically possible to cause gunpowder to cease working but nothing else majorly changes IRL?

I want my setting to be modern day except some event x number of years ago makes guns unusable. I was thinking said event would make saltpeter cease to react or something? But then the issue is that 1, guns could be made to work through alternative chemical explosives, and 2, removing a single element could catastrophically affect life in other ways, like photosynthesis or similar.

tl;dr, what chemical can I remove to make guns stop working without screwing up life

Define 'space gods'

You can't, because as you said if gunpowder stopped working we'd switch to some other propellant and you'd end up having to ban anything combustible (which is bad for the obvious reasons). Instead you should just fiat guns not working because you say so. Dunno, maybe the god of firearms died and the very concept of gun stopped working as a result?

Some cunt accidentally shot god so now he smites anybody that so much as mentions the things.

Seriously, how do you draw a city map that doesn't look like total ass?

Start by not drawing main streets first and then trying to fill in the small ones.
Study real city maps. Seriously, just go over city maps of ten, twelve, fifty various cities.
And most importantly: CONSIDER THE DAMN HISTORY of the place. There are basically two kinds of cities: ones that emerged over time, and ones that were planned out and build over a relatively short period of time. In reality, of course, most cities contain various quarters which emerged differently, at different times and under different pressures and conditions. So think of those first.

Seriously, think of what has been happening in the city before you think of what the layout is. When you start lying it out, do five, six, ten different versions capturing the city at different historical periods.

Your city layout should emerge logically from the stories you are making for the place, not vice versa.

Also, in that particular images, most of your STREETS are wider than the ACTUAL BLOCKS OF HOUSES between them. Which unsuprisingly looks terrible. Consider the scale, particularly the width of the block of houses relative to the width of the street, and the width of main street relative to width of side street or alley. Also, roundabouts are generally not that common and scarely that big.

> step-daughter

cuck kek kys

I don't know if there's much sense in filling it out but it's great to give it a read through and try to answer everything very quickly in your head once you've created a major region in your setting. The point is that if you draw a complete blank, you have more work to do.

Powerful alien beings with an inherent control over some of reality.

Humanity gets to the stars and finds out that those mythos-like superbeings not only exist, but run things.

I'm gonna say worship. Probably a big resurgence of normal Earthling religions, claiming these gods prove them right in some type of way, and probably a HUGE surge in alien god cults. Overall, I think humanity would on the whole become a whole lot more interested in spirituality and philosophy.

>tfw I want to make a setting that has swords/blades/weapons of power
>tfw each sword requires the wielder to prove themselves worthy to the collective of spirits stored in them
>tfw I can't think of a single phrase to summon the power from within the swords

Fuck my life into pieces

>TO ME, MY ANCESTORS!

>supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Anyone know of any books or settings I could reference for a mobile city? I want some of my gnomes to live in a giant crab-walker/moving fortress.

Who the fuck needs phrases?

Embrace the inner weeaboo. Make it a peculiar musical scale, or the rustle of a certain cloth, or the unrivalled power of a special move (swinging the sword around your head).

Archizoom - Moving city

I feel that this would require some form of anthropomorphism for it to catch on. If the space gods are too squiglichy, most people would reject it. I was thinking humans learn it the hard way.

So, a while back I was part of a game of D&D where the setting was colonial America, only the "New World" was basically Skull Island from King Kong, where dinosaurs never went extinct and magic was a thing based on where you came from.
I enjoyed the setting so much, I've taken to working on expanding the setting for the purposes of writing a story or two, and I mostly just want to bounce ideas around. Also, does anybody have that comic where velociraptors are basically chickens, complete with the feathers?

The comic is Manly Guys Doing Manly Things.

That's the one I was thinking of, thanks!

I'm building a world and it kicks ass.

>I'm building a world and it kicks ass.

Is it an actual humanoid world?

So currently I have a setting where Psychic powers are a thing, but as I ended up building it I ended up adding in some magic shit as well, or at least 'unexplained phenomena' to go with it.

Is it really bad to mix the two or do you think I can get away with it?

I think it depends on the explanations for each, the capabilities of each, and the genre you're going for.

How did you end up building it in a way that you need magic rather than just sufficiently mysterious psychic powers?

Well I'm making an urban fantasy setting with a bunch of science fiction elements. Basically it's a city outside of time and space with a few hovercraft and advanced electrical machinery but everything is hand made from scrap, hand me down clothes are everywhere, all the buildings made from waste etc. It's a dimensional grease trap.

This place also allows people to develop psychic abilities, but psychic powers are a lot like super powers in this game. As in you only get one, you're not a wizard that can learn multiple. You can maybe manipulate electricity, read minds a bit, sense emotions and the past, invade peoples dreams, that kind of thing.

However as I got deeper into the setting I have a lot of stuff that I want to just be 'unexplained'. Things like the underground with strange items in ancient lockers, with strange powers and monsters that guard them. These things aren't really 'psychic' per say, or maybe psychic powers at a strong enough level are indistinguishable from magic.

Basically though; I was thinking of adding in some Unknown Armies magic, which includes things like doing rituals to try and manipulate fate and happenstance, no flashy stuff. That kind of brings in the occultist vibe, which is something I want to draw into the setting without ruining the mostly city-dungeoncrawl thing I've got going on.

I feel like I saw you ask this in another thread. Something about magic tattoos as well?

That aside, I personally would suggest keeping it under the umbrella of psychic powers, just making it to the degree of very old or unexplained ones.

For example, you say it's a city outside space and time. There's the possibility that aliens would have shown up there at one point, perhaps ones who had far greater psychic potential.

This could result in them learning multiple or far stronger powers that humans can't equal, such as creating strange trinkets or twisting things into bizarre monsters and guardians. Maybe the monsters even are just aliens that have gone mad from ages gone by or had their mind wiped by a rival and were reduced to mere beasts.

However, for fate magic, you could have it simply have a number of theories, with one being the prevailing one. Some will insist it's some sort of strange luck magic, others will believe them prayers to whatever god lords over this place, many will insist that it must be some great psychic entity with luck manipulation that enjoys watching people do those tasks for whatever reason, and of course, you'll get a handful of skeptics who insist luck magic isn't real and that it's all coincidence.

>Something about magic tattoos as well?

I don't recall anything about that.

But the rest of your stuff has good ideas, thanks.

Must have been someone else then. Similar question and all.

Anyway, best of luck to you.

Been getting into mapmaking lately, needed a creative outlet outside of my college course to relieve stress, thoughts on it?

nice.

Never have I ever had the patience or deftness to do such detail.

Is it an archipelago?

Thanks mate, I'm not the most patient or visually artistic guy myself, but stopping myself from being stressed is a good enough motivator.
I suppose it is one, I spilled some macaroni onto the paper and traced around the pieces, so I guess that made it more islandy.

I like it, the style looks pretty similar to a video I watched on the subject
youtube.com/watch?v=SpW0d5by-8w

Is it bad I have sky elves?
>Lithe
>Lightweight
>hollow bones

That sound bad to you guys?

I once had elves in one of my settings be vaguely avian in appearance, so I think it could work.

Big thing would be not calling them Sky elves though. Doubly so if they're the only kind of elves.

Oh yeah, not gonna lie about that influence, very fascinating videos that dude has.

bump so we don't need a new thread. Also to promote some activity:

>What eccentric beauty practives exist in your world?

What could be some potential consequences of having a universe made up of currently living gods?

well I don't know how excentric it is, but in the Edaphian Caliphates, people often paint their bodies and faces for special occasions. They paint idealized scenes of their profession, caligraphic depiction of scripture or symbolism on there to show their social rank.

>IN THE NAME OF THE SPIRITS I CLAIM THE POWERRRRR

Scenario is that a shadowy order descended from the abullah society collects artifacts, ancient texts and secrets and uses them to unlock a mysterious shard of an unknown object/element and uses it to bring the world into chaos, orchestrating a third world war between the 5 powers, America, Britain, China, Russia and a middle eastern federation.
the war drags on as the new ANA network (anti nuclear array) prevents the world from collapsing into total nuclear war and preventing inter-continental strikes, the order manipulates the powers into launching bombing runs, worsening the situation before they try to take over the world using the shard, which fails spectacularly , ending the war , collapsing society and unleashing magic and shit across the earth.
could have alternate history elements, thinking that some new geography pops up and maybe Atlantis rising or something.

Out of all of the races and ethnicities, Blightfolk are the most obsessed with their looks and maintaining an aesthetic status quo. They intended to have laws requiring different castes to wear different color schemes, but the poorest people cannot always afford to abide by it so it is loosely enforced.

The primary color of someone's outfit must always be very unsaturated and quite dark. The lowest class is meant to dress in a brown, a very dark blue, or a light grey. They are not allowed to have a bright secondary or tertiary color.

The next caste generally includes family patriarchs, soldiers, and servants to the higher class. Grey is their primary color, typically worn on their coat and pants, while they express a secondary color in trim, a slightly exposed undershirt, or a shawl. Soldiers of the royal army, however, wear black as their primary color.

The highest class of nobles and merchants has jet black as their primary color, an honor which only about 5% of Blightfolk can partake in. They have a very bright secondary color, usually orange, purple, gold, or red. Generally they can afford to trim this color elaborately into their clothing, and nobles tuck a fabric into their neck that shows their family's color and insignia. A dark red secondary color is reserved for the ruling al-Rayan dynasty.

Beyond color schemes, they require women to dye their hair solid white from fertility to around their 40s, although some keep their hair white for life. Foreigners that dye their hair white as well as Blightfolk women that violate their religion while having white hair are typically executed or alternatively shaved and exiled. Women cannot show skin other than their hands, heads, and necks and they cannot cover their face or hair unless it is winter.

Three different eye shadow patterns are used. One in war, one in marriages and funerals, and finally one for the wise men that determine what policies will be the most efficient.

Prehistoric Animals are always cool to use. I got a few of these running around Not!Africa

Also I'm taking the idea of America being like Skull Island.

Hi /wbg/ I'm looking for a way to make a detailed floor plan of the PC's home.

At first i was looking at the "The Sims" game, but i don't want to throw 30 € away for an glorified god complex simulator.

Are there cheaper 3D alternatives out there ?

Surely you can find sims 2 for like 10 somewhere

hey Veeky Forums I need some help. I need a name for a star and I want it be a "strong" and fairly long name, like
> Ghormanghast
> Armikrog
> Gunnerkrigg
Something like that. Any ideas?

Thoughts?

Grid paper, pencil, and pen?

I'd say find some German words that could be related to stars and mash'em together, will get that similar sound and a good length.

Depending on what led to the apocalypse will determine how cities age. In most instances cities will be recovered by flora and fauna, essentially creating new biomes. Chernobyl is a good observation for what happens to cities. Already wildlife is starting to push back into it and the flora has already done so. NatGeo also did a nice documentary on this (the video isn't the best quality):
youtube.com/watch?v=GyEUyqfrScU

For survival I would just do it for what they're trying to find and apply some DC they have to beat, if what they're looking for is in the hex they're in. If you have some kind of map then you might also be able to establish a standard search time for each building. This standard could be influenced by encounters in the building, weather, general party health/encumbrance, etc.

Are you looking to stay in the city or are you trying to expand out of it? That will determine a lot.

roomsketcher.com/homedesigner/

Microsoft Paint. Or FireAlpaca, if you're feeling fancier.

Also
>dismisses The Sims as "glorified god complex simulator"
>posts in world-building thread

>Prehistoric Animals are always cool to use.
I agree. Or tweaking animals into different evolutionary paths, like a domesticated sperm whale.

So I've been trying to think of ways to create new races that aren't just beastfolk and I came up with some combination races in a sense.

What about something like a mix of hobgoblins, dwarves, kobolds and other underground creatures into a single racial thing? Something wise but small, a genius crafter but possible a loner and ornery?

Kind of like a generic troglodyte creature but with a bit more inhuman features and cultural or racial identity?

>a domesticated sperm whale.

How?

Well, obviously, there's quite a bit of fiction at work here. It'd have to be "an animal similar to a sperm whale" to start.

But enclosing off a medium-large harbor with a particularly strong gate and feeding them mostly meat scraps. Selectively breeding for larger skull cavities, faster mating periods, and docility. Killing and harvesting them when they get too old to make more whales.

Huh, so they're like cows?

That's the idea.

Rate my Atlantis map pls

>roomsketcher.com/homedesigner/

Thank you good user.

well when you say it like that.

I need a bit more information. Why is it connected to England? What's the topology of Atlantis like?

Looks like a goose. Round out the tip in the bottom left a little more

Its incomplete currently, platos writings said it curved off the cpast of libya(africa) so i need to add in some extra bits. Topology is enviromrnt right? If so then typical fantasy environments, forests, plains ,hills and mountains but further south it gets nore aquatic with swamps and flooded valleys. i want soth atlantis to be a part that requires underwater exploration.
Its connected to england because i was thinking of acient celts having been atlantean influenced. im sure in platos writings again he said many tribes and far off lands were influenced by the coty/continent

Sorry for gramatical errors spell check is being an anus.

Topology, more specifically, is stuff like mountains and valleys. Changes in the ground's altitude.

Oh, wait. Shoot. Topology is something else entirely. I was thinking of topography, which I also didn't quite get right.

I haven't gone hiking in a very, very long time.

How do you give a region a shared language and religion without just having a Rome-type fallen empire?

Maybe variations on beliefs and languages. Like austria and germany and protestant and orhtodox christians

So I have this magic system plotted out (kinda inspired by Fullmetal alchemist in that runes supplied with energy do the work, but there's a lot of differences and adaptations) And a general idea of how it's going to work.
Problem is I have no artistic talent, and thus can't actually draw said runes/symbols.
Anyone know where I could find a good artist for this sort of thing?

Peter Philip's Hungry City Chronicles. The setting is basically Warhammer 40k's Dark Age of Technology where the devastation of the Earth has forced people to uproot their cities and drive them around to escape earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. After a few hundred years though, with these cities running around gobbling up resources like fuel and food from around the world they've started running low of easily accessible sources and start preying on one another to take resources and population rather than settle down.

Very heavy-handed pro-left slant on environmentalism, capitalism, and politics, but if you can ignore that it's a great series.

Maybe in the draw thread, /r/worlddrawing was a thing but I don't know if it's still running. if you provide a sketch (however shitty it is) you might have a better change of getting someone to do it for free.

If you're willing to pay you might be able to drop by ic but there's more shitposting than art there these days.

But how does that develop separately? Germany and Austria were both colonized by the romans.

You could try drafting rather than drawing. I have no artistic talent either, but I can still make some pretty neat stuff with a compass and straightedge. If it's FMA-inspired runes, that should get you a long way.