/WBG/ - Worldbuilding General

I mean scientifically it makes no sense, so you'll have to come up with some magical thing. Maybe a forest crafted by a wizard to impress his love, showing how his great art can make life bloom anywhere; or maybe the forest was grown out of seeds pinched from the Underworld by an immortal escapee who now tends to the wood as if it is his personal garden, while making sure to keep the paths and brushes twisted and confusing to throw off the minions of Hades who seek to drag him back down to their master's domain.

Maybe it's a volcanic area and the forest formed underneath a massive lava dome? Volcanic soil is highly fertile and cracks in the dome would allow light to come through.

There's still problems like pointed out but it's a start. Of course you can also say a wizard did it like

If you use a mushroom forest, you also have a reason to include bio-luminescence.

Any ecosystem needs constant input of energy from outside, lest it would be a perpetual engine and those are impossible.

People suggested geothermal activity - that's probably a good enough excuse. Especially if you don't have to explicitly name the process behind your not-photosynthesis. Although I'm not so sure about forest in this context - I see no evolutional advantage in growing up in a cavern. If it's outright fantasy or very soft sci-fi, maybe magic energy is flooding your cavern, allowing life to thrive.

Energy might also be brought from the surface with a rive that runs from the surface, but again, why would there be trees?

What if the underside of the cavern is studded with some kind of radioactive element which the plantlife photosynthesizes instead of visible light? Then you have the advantage of trees needing leaves AND the cool effect of a glowy psuedo-skyscape.

Ever considered trees made of flesh, with roots draining hell itself for nutrition?

>not having your universe be an open system
>using 100% real-world physics in a fantasy setting
>allowing for eventual heat-death

This seems pretty neat as a starting point. I would say that each faction seems a little single-minded and archetypal, but hopefully fleshing them out will help avoid cliche.

Let's say there's a planet, just like Earth, but it only has a single landmass the size of Australia. Any important climatic effects I should consider? Some freakish tidal waves or something?

Regarding underground people, I could see them being blind due to not needing eyes, but they have superb hearing or taste. Also albinos, all of them.

Same way there is no need for them to be stupid or savage. Being blind makes their architecture very bland looking in colour. But the clothing and structures would be the way to show how rich or important the person is. Touching the other person would also be in great importance as some clear thing like different castes having certain necklaces or clothing to be different enough from others.

I think infra-red vision could still be useful. Everything radiates something, most things just aren't hot enough to glow in spectrum visible by human eye.

Though land of the blind sounds cool too. Don't forget sensing air flow, that'll help in the darkness.

Under any other circumstance, I would complain that you are ripping off a lot of other ideas, but seeing them all together and in the greater detail of a setting people will play in sounds cool. I also think that name isn't the best, maybe try to use a translation of garden, probably something from the romance languages that is both less obvious and still recognizable.

If its just that one small landmass I feel like large waves would be a frequent occurrence as well as hurricanes/tropical storms/heavy rainfall.

Think Kamino, but with kangaroos, fosters and Bruces.

>Any important climatic effects I should consider? Some freakish tidal waves or something?
If it's got a moon just like ours, then the tides will still have their usual height.

As for weather, there's a lot more going on in Earth's climate than just the ocean/land mass interaction - you've got to consider sea currents, how much sunlight is now being absorbed due to a lack of land mass and ice caps, that sorta stuff.

I imagine it'd be hot, rain a hell of a lot, and have very strong tropical winds and cyclones that may wreak havoc on the coastal parts of your fictional country.

Might not be quite the right place to ask, but I remember seeing a cool site about how to generate settlements by rolling a handful of dice. Their numbers and die size correlated to certain facilities within a town and the dice pool's physical layout on the table reflected the town's layout. Does anyone happen to have a copy or link to that?

What is more likely to happen to humanity in the near future: A incredibly short yet deadly war(like the One Year War in Gundam, where the near half of humanity is dead after only a few months), or a long, drawn out war(think One Hundred Years War or Thirty Years War, but with warcrimes and giant robots)?

If it is the former, I feel as though I'd have to put that devastating war further into the future for it to be a couple decades or even a few years before contact.

If it's the latter, I feel that's not very realistic, considering the types of war we fight now. Everything is so much more sophisticated and things are decided so much faster. Major conflicts just don't get bogged down like they used to(as far as I know).

>Major conflicts just don't get bogged down like they used to

You mean like anything the US has done in the Middle East? Russia fucking around in Ukraine? The shit going on in Syria?

Wars still go on for years, but these days it's mostly proxy warfare with some of the big players (Russia, USA, EU members) projecting their force into smaller countries like Syria.

These kind of proxy wars will continue indefinitely until one of the larger countries with nukes manages to piss off one of another nuclear country and everything goes to hell. Both Putin and Trump are pushing to rebuild and enhance their respective nuclear stockpiles, so don't expect any kind of disarmament to happen in the next 10 years or so.

How to do plate tectonics? Also post maps.

Good points.

I just feel that current technology, strategies and generally the way war is fought would not allow for a century or two long war. It would be resolved far before it could reach a century.

Also, what are the predicated super powers of the future? I hear China and Russia, and India sometimes, but I assume that I can just make that shit up, yeah? I'm not wanting to have a one v one sort of thing, I want to have a plethora of super powers and their pawns fighting each other.

>I just feel that current technology, strategies and generally the way war is fought would not allow for a century or two long war.
I agree with you there, sure. There's an old saying, something along the lines of;
"World War 3 will be fought with nuclear weapons. World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones."

That's pretty much my general outlook, but I don't know enough about the politics between nations to make any kind of accurate predictions about who, when, or why there will be nuclear rain, or if it will even happen.

The idea is to sort of outline what characters not related to one of the Factions would know about them, hence their archetypical nature.

Also I subscribe to the Alpha Centauri design path where Factions are built less around race, history and politics and more around ideology.

I'm definitely wearing my references on my sleeve here. I read a lot of sci-fi and I don't mind bringing what I've read to the table. Ludox, for instance, is inspired jointly by Iaian M. Bank's The Player of Games and Hannu Rajaneimi's The Quantum Thief (as is the concept of a nanomachine cyberdemocracy).

India as a superpower is a meme. China is only a superpower economically.

Could go with Neo-USSR and a NWO Europe for your superpowers.

Is there a general list of things that I should avoid doing when constructing a new world and 'rulebook' from scratch? I've honestly never done any kind of GMing before, but there's an idea or two that I really want to put to paper; stuff that, even if I never actually run the show, would be quite fun to play out.

I'm mostly focusing around an alt-Earth, around the time of WWI, where something similar to a Stargate is found and activated by one of the major European countries. On the other side would be a high-fantasy, medieval realm with all the usual mix of races (sans ordinary humans), which the players, either as part of a special reconnaissance branch or as a group of mercenaries/scientists, will get to invade/explore.

There will be magic, tanks, fire-breathing dragons, rifles, knights, airships, elves, all mixing together - is this biting off way more than I can chew, and what are some typical pitfalls I should steer clear of when designing this setting?

>Also, what are the predicated super powers of the future?

The geopolitical situation currently is most comparable to pre-WWI Europe. There's the globe-spanning superpower (USA), the upstart industrial powerhouse (China), and decaying has-beens (EU, Russia), all of which have the potential to emerge on top of a survival-of-the-fittest matchup, but none a shoe-in.

India, Brazil, and South Africa are extremely unlikely to inherit the earth, though. The BRICS meme is mostly dead except in the minds of the ill-informed.

Some kind of pan-Islamic empire is possible, but the entire middle east being glassed by Israel/Pakistan/Russia/Iran is about equally as likely. Africa will never amount to anything. Europe is highly likely to continue its decline and decay. The EU will never become a United States of Europe.

China may very well begin to decline without ever getting their "moment in the sun", due to the environmental and demographic disasters they have engineered over the past 20 years, and the fact that they have surrounded themselves with enemies through poor diplomacy.

No other Asian country is large enough to become a superpower except India (most of which is still pre-industrial, and which is paralyzed by corruption and incompetence) and maybe Japan (they want to remilitarize but their economy is weak and they show no signs of fixing up their demographic decline).

Russia would like to regain its Cold War era power, but lacks the money (not that it's stopping Putin from trying).

America's prestige and influence have been damaged by domestic and foreign policy failures under the Bush and Obama administrations. If Trump does what he says, and it has the results he predicts, we could see another 25-50 years of American hegemony, in part due to a lack of plausible competitors. If his presidency fails, we will see a continued slide into decline, and a power vacuum which nobody is able to fill.

Can anyone tell me what would be the objectives of an Adventurer's Guild? Should it be something that pertains to finding and discovering cultures and civilizations like treasure hunting, dungeon diving into lost ruins, and meeting an undiscovered society? Or should it be a 'protectors of the realm' sort of deal if the world super powers are too busy to deal with every single orc raid on a tiny hamlet or have their hands tied from investigating leads on that ancient cult bubbling up again?

It probably shouldn't be called "adventurer guild". "Adventurer" sounds unprofessional.

The duties you described would either be self-financed or fall onto someone who identify as sellswords, bounty hunters or knightly orders.

Why do you guys worldbuild? Do you do it just for fun, or do use the world you've built in games you run?

For fun and as a platform where I can put my ideas in.

For the games.

Game.

That's not really the answer I intended.

Both. I love coming up with new worlds to think about and extrapolate histories and politics in, and I love making new worlds for my players to explore. But since we've been on break since October, I'm really just doing it for fun these days. Or short stories.

What I'm trying to say is that your typical fantasy adventuring would likely fall under either mercenary work or knightly order, depending on how for-profit it is and who's paying their bills. There would not be a specific guild.

So do you just focus on elements the players might run into, or do you also include things you and only you will ever know?

Maybe in your world. My Adventurer's Guild is a cross between the Hero's Association from OPM and the Hunters Association from HxH.

What makes swamp and swamp, sompared to, say, a lake?

Also, is it possible to have swamp in the elevation by any means? My understanding of swamps says it isn't, but I really want to stick one in the place that should be elevated.

Drainage, amount of water buildup, quality of soil.
Could have a swamp on a plateau, provided it's being fed by streams coming down from higher elevations.

>What makes swamp and swamp, sompared to, say, a lake?
A lake is a solid body of water.
A swamp is a landmass that is just very wet, which results in mud build-ups, large numbers of ponds etc... Swamps can also be frequently formed around river banks, sometimes around oxbow lakes or river deltas.
In general, swamp is a land where the earth is highly saturated with water and the underground level of water is very near the surface, so the soil is drenched and the water can easily surface, but never forms one solid water surface. The term swamp is sometimes more broadly for any kind of "wetland", other times it may be used more specifically as a term for "(relatively highly) forested wetland".

>Also, is it possible to have swamp in the elevation by any means?
Swamps exist in ALL elevations. All you need is a basin with underground water level close to the surface enough. Swamps of higher elevantions (usually existing in mountain plateaus that have poor drainage and the water tends to cumulate in them) are often heavily populated by peat, which makes them valuable sources of coal. Highland wetlands are also sometimes called "moors" in some regions, peat-heavy swamps are also sometimes called "Bogs".
Coastal swamps which come from salt-water saturating the land with water are called "mangroves" and since those are dependent on the sea level, they obviously cannot exist at any elevations above sea level. Other than those those, you can find beautiful swamps and bogs up to 6k meters above see level in central Asia.

Both
I just never run any of them

How do you guys come up with "original" gods? I´ve been trying to create a pantheon for a pseudo greek setting and I simply can´t come up with anything new.

I ask myself "Why is this god here?", "What do they bring to the pantheon/setting as a whole?", and then I do that without researching shit.

By not trying to be original for originality's sake, and actually drawing inspiration from real world religions. The key is to understand how and why the real-world gods looked and felt like - understanding the patterns of religion and the role the gods have played in the their understanding of world.
That way you should start being able create god concepts that don't sound nonsensical, but also play around with variations and occasional subversions of the existing mythological "tropes".

So really, the best way to go around it is to read a LOT about existing religions, preferably some anthropological materials as well, and just do more and more research until you start feeling like things are starting to make sense and ideas start flowing in on their own. That is at least how I do it.

Swamp can be classified as a land with 15cm of peat on the surface. As others said it is very broad term. In nutshell Swamp is a area with peat covering of at least 15cm or more. Tree growth can be slow and too much water will turn the swamp into marsh/wetland proper.

Actually, swamp is not defined by peat. In fact, peat-less swamps, such as coastal marches and mangrooves exist.
From national geographic society dictionary:
>A swamp is an area of land permanently saturated, or filled, with water. Many swamps are even covered by water. There are two main types of swamps: freshwater swamps and saltwater swamps.
>Swamps are dominated by trees. They are transitional: neither dominated completely by land, nor by surface water. They vary in size from isolated prairie potholes to huge coastal salt marshes. Some swamps are flooded woodlands. Some are former lakes or ponds overtaken by trees and shrubs.

From wiki:
>A swamp is a wetland that is forested.[1] Many swamps occur along large rivers where they are critically dependent upon natural water level fluctuations.[2] Other swamps occur on the shores of large lakes.[3] Some swamps have hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodic inundation.[4] The two main types of swamp are "true" or swamp forests and "transitional" or shrub swamps.

Peat is characteristic specifically for bogs (or muskegs), which can be argued to be sub-types of swamps.

Really? I'd like to hear more on that. HxH was one of the reasons why I wanted to have one in my setting. That and Konosuba.

What kind of cultures can develop in colder wetlands?

Some kind of nomadic, probably. Having to remain on the move to find food.

Or very insular, having to stick to few livable arable places.

Depends on how cold. Wetlands in general are not ideal for forming dense populations. Not unless the region is otherwise highly favorable for farming AND you find the manpower and organization to regulate and drain them. If you combine wetlands with cold (like central Siberia or Scandinavia cold), it's a pretty inhospitable place to live in.

"Cold wetlands" can range anywhere from high-altitude steppe regions like the Himalaya peat lands, to low altitude Siberian marches (which gradually transform into taiga), to what basically covers half of Scandinavia. All of those mostly developed nomadic and very primitive, tribalistic cultures: Sami, Inuit's, Samoyeds. Most of them are basically hunters and gatherers, sometimes migrating and semi-herding animals like reindeer.

/wbg/ tell me about your magic systems

Those of you without thought out magic systems, what do you think makes a good system? What are your favourites?

A few threads ago, I posted complaining that I wanted to integrate in something I'd seen on Wildest China (people who get around primarily by zipline) but couldn't find a place to fit it in. Well, I have now.

In the mining nation of Meride, people often traverse the caves by ziplines. The ziplines are made by a domesticated species of spider-like creatures the size of small dogs, tentatively called "frost spiders" ("frost" coming from their tendency to store meat in patches of snow). It can take over a year to train a frost spider to properly weave a line, but when one is properly woven, a line can support up to 150kg. It's not usually used to transport ore up, but this system is useful for the movement of people and supplies. The lines are even faintly bioluminescent, making them easier to use in the deepest, darkest mines.

What about you, /wbg/? Any interesting domesticated creatures in your setting?

I've talked about it before, but magic in my setting is essentially the act of one's will temporarily overriding the will of the universe (AKA physics). Creating or destroying matter or energy, spontaneously moving from one point to another, those kinds of things.

Basically; My world is a kitchen sink of Monster Hunter and various other sources of inspiration. In-setting, the Adventurer's Guild was established by the winners of the Great War as a solution to the trans-national defense of civilization [/spoiler]and to "We have these trained, battle-hardened soldiers. wut do?"[/spoiler], adopted continent-wide by the fantasy equivalent of the League of Nations.

The Adventurer's Guild, as an organization "above" individual national law, enforces certain requirements on its Adventurers in return for certain inalienable rights including: Right to Property, including the right to carry and display dangerous magical artifacts and weapons of war; Freedom of Movement, including the ability to pass through national borders with said weapons/artifacts; Freedom of Speech coupled with a Right to Publicity, protection of the Adventurer's personal persona.
There are some minor stipulations, such as "Adventurers cannot hold public office" and "Adventurers cannot be drafted into or train a national military".

Like both mentioned settings, Adventurers are rated based on general combat effectiveness and sub-divided based on merit. Most minor villages can issue Copper or Iron-level Guild Insignias, while "real" badges are granted by Guilds in any major city. Metals used range from commonplace to fantastical, reflecting the skill level of the wielding Adventurer.

Etc, etc. Would need to answer questions to explain more.

Some people are born with connection to one of the classical elements, usually able to infuse things with its power to produce magic items.

Large groups of people usually have a deity that they can sustain with worship for benefits, but it's a two-way street - if deity is affected, so are all its worshippers. Dangers associated with worship has driven people toward a religion that shuns those deities as false gods.

Sometimes people are picked by spirits and infused with powers. However no verified case happen for at least a hundred years, since a woman chosen by a trickster spirit brought ruin to an entire nation.

Finally, it is possible to kill god and eat its flesh to gain its great power. However many adverse effects are associated with it.

I just noticed that I fucked up the spoiler tag, not that it matters.

Wow, that really does sound cool and interesting. I hope you don't mind me asking you a ton of questions cause my curiosity is piqued. Mind expanding on what exactly was the Great War and its role in convincing the nations to form the Guild? What are the sort of threats adventurers are expected to protect? What's the underlying bureaucracy of the Guild, like do the adventurers get their jobs issued by the guild itself or do they get them from the local region that they're in? Do they need to pay a fee for the use of special services? And lastly, two things: What are the higher level guild members most known for, and how does the guild deal with anyone going rogue?

What exactly is going on in that picture?

An anime version of REMOVE KEBAB

I'm not entirely sure. I just had it saved in my Veeky Forums folder.

>Mind expanding on what exactly was the Great War and its role in convincing the nations to form the Guild?
The Great War started with a slave revolt; Humans learned how to be Wizards and started roasting Pig Orcs by the dozen. The war wasn't won until certain powerful heroes slew the Crimson Dragon. Several nations were founded out of the ruins of the Crimson Empire, all former allies during the Great War. Since there were still so many remnant threats (IE: Goblins, a multitude of Chimera, Undead), and no single nation wanted to give up their own heroes for the sake of any other nation, a trans-national organization was founded at the big "Meeting of Like-Minds For the Sake of Future Peace" that follows any war.

>What are the sort of threats adventurers are expected to (defend against)?
Lower-tier Adventurers ward off bandits, demi-human raiders, and the Undead, while stronger Adventurers protect cities from rampaging Chimera. Pic related would be a high-tier Chimera.

>What's the underlying bureaucracy of the Guild, like do the adventurers get their jobs issued by the guild itself or do they get them from the local region that they're in?
Most regional Guildmasters are retired Adventurers themselves, to answer a part of that question. Jobs are assigned through contracts, which literally anyone can submit including the occasional Fairy under orders from some Fae Queen.
Contracts fall under 5 major categories: Protect, Search, Capture, Slay, and Explore. These contracts include bodyguard work, bounty hunting, a culling of dangerous wildlife, ruin or crypt exploration, or property defense (to name a few).

Cont (1/2)

My best guess is that the young lady on the left is suffering from scurvy and so is eating a lime to help treat it, but the sour taste is causing her eyes to water, as she's unused to such sharp flavors. Meanwhile the girl on the right is so inspired by her bravery that she has abandoned the pursuit of war to follow her true dream as a polka musician, but she's filled with self-doubt about the prospects of her new career.

>Do they need to pay a fee for the use of special services?
Most processing fees are included with a contract, with contracts that aren't free-for-all first-come-first-rewarded costing more. Hiring an Adventurer to perform a contract directly is the cheapest, and Adventurers don't have any guild dues to pay apart from buying a Copper or Iron Insignia to join.

>What are the higher level guild members most known for?
Heroic Adventurers are national celebrities, often wielding strength or spellpower at the peak of mortal potential. For instance, a top-tier Wizard would be able to fly while launching bolts of lightning or utilize NSA-level scrying spells. You'd see a lot more (minor) resurrection magic and herculean feats from the Guild's best, albeit sometimes exaggerated.

>How does the guild deal with anyone going rogue?
There's two distinct versions of "going rogue".
Any Adventurer who settles down, purchases a home, and stops adventuring for a year is considered "Retired" and no longer active. They still have standing within the Guild, but their ranking plummets. Most Guildmasters and other Guild higher-ups are retired Adventurers.
"Rogue" Adventurers are a tough subject, as they might only be "Rogue" in the view of one country. Until a proper investigation is conducted, they're under the authority of the Guild. If someone is considered "Rogue" by -everybody-, then there will be open-ended "Slay or Capture" contracts posted in every member nation.
There hasn't been a case of a rogue Adventurer that couldn't be defeated by another Adventurer or a group of Adventurers.

Pic related is a minor Chimera. Chimera are adorable.
(2/2)

Do you have a BBEG? Whats he/she/it like? Whats their goal, motivation, aspiration etc?

Right now morality of my story runs more on themes of eternal recurrence and death and rebirth of the world, but focal point of the conflict is a cult leader who killed his god and ate his flesh to gain his powers and now seeks to kill all other gods to finish the world off and rebuild it in his own image.

She's the task-general (officer temporarily put in charge of a specific large undertaking) of her nation's military. She's cold, cautious, and ruthless when necessary, but fair and not bloodthirsty by any means; like Sun Tzu, she believes the best battle is the one you never need to fight. But more than anything she's obsessed with getting the job done, whatever the job may be and whatever it may take. She's also a seasoned warrior who's highly proficient with time-based magic.

Her task is to resurrect ancient technology which she believes will allow her nation to lead the world to a new utopia.

I usually go for the "noble, but misguided, goal" angle.

One note is that swamps are good source of frost that kills the crops. Take this in account.

Take this old post I did to /wbg/

>Magic, is your setting low magic, high magic or no magic at all?
Low magic. Once in the past magic was much more powerful, but due to decline of gods the ability to control magic has went down.

>If you have magic, how do you power it? Where is the source of the power?
Simple term is life energy. Every living being has life energy inside them. Magis use the excess life energy they gather inside them to do magic. If magi uses too much life energy, he/she is going to use their own life power basically shortening their lives. Trained magis gather excess life energy all the time, especially if they rest and are not stressed or fatigued. Life energy being in everywhere means that animal/human sacrifices are viable way to power more powerful magic or rituals.

>What makes you mage? Is it born power only given to few chosen or can everybody use it?
Everybody can learn magic, but it would take lifetime for normal human to learn the basics so it isn't really viable. Normal people can learn how to control rune magic, magic struck into runes a lot easier. This is the requirement for usage of rune weapons.
For somebody to be able to use magic properly they need to be attuned to life energy, usually this does not show up at all and the lucky person will live long and good life with good health. Most roving magis can feel if the person is magically attuned and this is the way they are spotted most of the time. Of course children of magis have bigger change to be attuned and if both parents are magis and their grandparents also it is more or less guaranteed.

>How does the magic users do magic? Do they need staffs, long rituals or just by flick of a finger?
They draw the power inside them. At least that is how they explain it. Most magis have some kind of equipment with different runes to channel life energy from land around them and from within. This equipment can be a staff, sword or even a normal household item. Runesmiths can make "batteries", basically items with runes that can store life energy. These "batteries" have limited usage, but are important for magis if they need that extra pinch of power.

Normal magis can do magic quite fast, but in limited power. If enough magis band together they can coordinate their rituals to do much more effective magic. While more primitive tribesmen do not have as high quality magical training, they can use sacrifices and mass rituals to get effective magic going.

>How effective is the magic?
Normal magi well versed in combat magic can fling half a dozen small fireballs or similar magic. Set their sword on fire for longer periods of time or enhance their bodies to be better than trained knight. Mass rituals are powerful, but the magic they can make is restricted. Usually they are different buffs or enhancing magic, but wishing for good luck from gods is common in countryside.

>Is there taboos or forbidden things in magic?
Necromancy and playing with godly thing or things that should stay dead. It is universally seen as taboo to mess with dead. Resurrection magic is a thing, but it is very hard and only a handful of magis in whole world know how to do it. Even they require a lot of resources and assistants.

>How does new mages learn their craft? Schools, apprentices or something else?
Most likely they become apprentices to wandering magis who teach them slowly how to do magic. This is the basic teacher-apprentice system. There is several schools that teach magic, but most known is City of Magis. Whole city started by magically attuned people, because in that place there is more life energy than in other places in the world. City is the place where all magis who want to be something great go in hopes of learning from the best of the world.

>Pointy hats Yes or No?
No. Clothing does not hinder the usage of magic. If your equipment can be inscribed with runes that help in magic it is done so. Combat magi with rune inscribed full plate is very dangerous opponent.

Hopefully this gives some idea and helps you.

I have went with mixture of Greco-Roman shitloads of gods and single god above all. Completely depends on the culture. In reality many of the distinct gods people worship are just one aspect on one much greater god.

Well the Mallard Folk that are not!durulz habe domesticated ducks as farm animals they grow. While they understand what they are speaking, they do not have no qualms on butchering them and eating them. This horrifies neighbouring humans, eating your retarted cousins.

ISIS-chan is eating watermelon as Serbia-chan is preparing to REMOVE kebab

World ia too large for singular BBEG, bit if I would name one I would name still WIP god. This god arrived to the planet later and made a mountain humans to worship him. In progress God corrupted them and turned their skin to grey/brown. While The god doesn't have much power atm, It is still there influencing minds slowly. Pic related

I do have debated myself if I should add some properly fantastic race that has arrived to this world in bit similar way as Orcs or BC to Azeroth in Warcraft. A completely hostile outsider faction to stir the pot.

Faction Primer again. I changed the name of the Gardenim to Ex Anathema, as they're comprised of exiled members of another Faction, which works nicely as the name of a sort of secret society.

I also added another (and final) faction, the Remnants (again not super sure on the name), which is basically just a huge horde of displaced cultures and races that endlessly fly around the edge of civilized space. Their largest population are the z'haks, a race of desert dwelling reptiles that once controlled a large piece of the galaxy before aggressive strange matter coral ate their entire empire.

>Common
>Weak
>Makes up for it with special effects
>Comes from magic items or powerful entities, it is never innate in someone.
>No clue how magic items are made, but shouldn't be harder than a good sword.
>Magic loosely cannot create or destroy (fire magic requires an existing fire, plant magic requires seeds)
>Magic items don't do all the work for somebody, mastering them is just as hard as mastering a gun or a sword.
>The shape of the magic item affects the magic it puts forth. (Staves are slow but strong, wands are weaker but offers a lot of control.)
>Powerful beings sometimes grant mortals power in exchange for carrying out their will.
>Magic defies scientific explanation.

>Using magic a lot gets really hot, so mages usually have to have either loose robes or be basically naked to sustain over a battle.
>Since the shape of the magic item affects the magic, magical armor can sometimes look extremely impractical in order to create the right spell.

I'm thinking that magic items are created using some sort of intensely complicated runes/rituals. It gives wizards a reason to have a shit ton of books around and allows even someone really poor to have magic with dedication.

The runes will be more of an art than a science, they can come in the form of an engraving or a small intricate sculpture or something. There probably isn't rune dictionaries but it still requires a ton of knowledge to be able to create them properly with good quality.

Since you're reading this entire post at once you can't tell, but this actually helped a fuckload in cementing my setting's magic system down. Thanks m8s.

I believe that the best magic systems are the ones that tie themselves in with the core values of the game itself.

For example, modern DnD loses some points because it uses the oldschool Vancian magic spell-slot system BUT it doesn't do old school dungeon exploration as the primary form of gameplay anymore as much.

Good examples of magic systems is Vanican/D&D magic for OSR style dungeon crawlers, and another good one is Unknown Armies for having magic that makes sense in the real world. Pretty much all but the strongest magic effects could be seen as coincidences or are entirely subtle in how they operate, which makes sense in the modern fantasy game where magic is a 'secret'.

Right now I'm making an OSR game. Wizards cast spells which are memorize and prepare spells from a spellbook, of which all spells are basically first level with a few methods to cheat in there so it isn't like the older more broken DnD spells. As soon as a spell is cast, you can memorize another, but it takes time and every minute spent preparing spells or healing uses up rations, makes wandering monster checks, etc. Time is a very valuable resource in OSR games.

However I don't tie my players down to the in-game fluff or preparing spells that way. My world is high fantasy and I say that every mage can come from a different crazy ass school of magic that prepares spells in many different ways.

I even wrote a list of examples of 50 examples of crazy ways to prepare spells.

Wow, thanks for the response! This is really gonna help me work out some kinks in my setting's guild. Thanks a bunch man, your game sounds like fun too. Hope it goes well.

How does one into a sci-fantasy setting like 40k, without just ripping off 40k?

What elements exactly of 40k are you after? Massive intergalactic war? Space magic?

I prefer my sci-fi settings like star wars.

>tfw not a game, just a thought exercise

left is isis eating a melon. why a melon, fuck if I can remember. Right is that guy from the remove kebab video.

Does she need a reason? Most melons are delicious.

I like the dangerous space magic and the massive scale wars. I'm not a fan of the Force style space magic, I like mine primal and hazardous to use.

Is the apostrophe a sound or just a glottal stop?

Question here, what use would mass producing different types of golems have for dwarves? What jobs or assignments would clay, stone, and metal each be used for? Also, what would be the reason to making them human-like and sapient rather than replacing them with a human?

Using different types of metal and lighter materials would allow for heat resistance, durability, and overall weight to vary based on function.
One of my Demigods has Wooden Golems in his earthly residence, Stone Golems guarding the entry areas of his domain, and a variety of Metal Golems guarding his sacred crafting halls.

Preapre for autism.
Long ago, i was an edgy 15 yo, by that time i was just starting to experience a taste of what roleplaying and tabletop games where. And as most people of that age these days i ended up in a freeform RP forum. The place was shit in all senses except for two people. A mexican girl and a girl from my country.
Mexican girl was the joy of my life at the time, since im a nerd that has lived too much of his life online. and we were in a e-relationship for 6 years.
Girl from my country is still a friend to this day.

The thing is that, during my days of freeform, i did the mistake of becoming the admin of a forum, and as you might know, this attracts way too much drama. and boy, we had drama, i spent 4 years in the forum i made, fighting either other admins whom had turned on me because i didnt bend over to their requests, struggling to keep an extremely broken "system" i had made for the forum working as well as going through the obvious problems of being a teen.

In the end, my administration came to an end when a bunch of the mods simply decided they could do without me and kicked me out of the place. comically, they self destructed after a few months just as i predicted.

My setting as it is now was a last ditch attempt at making a place that me and those two women could spend their days just lounging in, without the drama from our previous attempts.

Sometimes, me and these girls still talk and come together to talk, and i intend my setting to be both a tribute to them, a "reward" for being the friends of a nerd for so long, as well as a test to my writting skills.

and yes, i do have nudes of them but i wont share
pic related, a poem mexican girl showed me, seemed oddly ontopic for the situation of my setting.

I mostly focus on the elements that players interact with, but the doesn't stop me from putting more into it. If its good, it'll draw players in and they'll want more, better have some for them.

Consider the following:

Instead of having earth/water/fire/whateverthefuck elementals, have elementals of abstract concepts

>Justice elementals
>Art elementals
>Communism elementals
>Science elementals
>Freedom elementals
>War elementals

Interesting.

>communism elemental
People would make it. The elemental would be an unstable, radioactive mess that can only be contained under measures and conditions so extreme that it is ultimately redundant at best and superfluous besides. It would be the pride of the megalomaniacal arrogant twats that create it as if it's the future solution to all golemdom.

And then after the Communism golem fails to do anything good at all, the creators will claim they failed because it wasn't a real communism golem. A REAL communism elemental wouldn't have failed or done /that/!

God bless.

I think "incarnations" works better as a title than elemental. Elemental implies that you can't break it down into smaller bits, while incarnations or avatars imply that they are physical embodiments of a thing, such as a concept.

this

I looked it up and it seems like it's an acceptable usage of the word elemental.

I'd say it comes down to personal taste. I use elemental for themed spirits because it's a nice looking word that fucking world of warcraft has made me strongly associate with the concept. From my perspective incarnation connotates a system of reincarnation and avatar implies a divine being; but they're equally valid and all three can be used to mean what's basically the same exact thing.

I'll use them interchangeably, elemental if I'm planning on showing it to normies and avatar and incarnation for semantic purists.