/WBG/ - Worldbuilding General

I imagine spawn points would be what largest settlements are made around or at least in the vicinity.

Also, fair point about barren world. Spawning should probably be limited to creatures. That, or make plants mobile

>Do you have multiple Planes in your setting, or is there only one Material plane? How common is inter-planar travel? Is there a Planar Wheel or some other means of visually representing the planes?
No real fantasy planes. It's just a scifi universe set in the extremely distant future.
In order to avoid colossal invincible 'Horrors' that patrol space, mega structures, planets and stars, some people have started living in cities suspended inside folded spacetime - in a way you can consider these planes. There are many of these subspace cities, but they are not connected in any way. They are all simply anchored into the universe. "Inter-planar" travel is not possible, you can only enter subspace through a heavily defended anchor point.

>Is the Afterlife a Plane? Are there multiple afterlife planes? Who judges who goes where? Who deals with inter-planar disputes?
Many planets have some feral mutated biomechanical internet-like network that runs on the forgotten ruins of long-dead cities buried millions of years and all kinds of autonomous electronic trash that keeps on operating without operators. If someone with heavy cyberization or an AI is fatally wounded, they can try to set their "ghost" free into this network - if they can avoid all the digital dangers that hide inside.

>A new BBEG appears in your setting, and decides to destroy all the Planes. How would he go about doing it?
He dies horribly before he can even follow his plans through. If he isn't murdered by people around him for breaking the biggest taboo in the universe (active destruction of huge amounts of spacetime), he is going to be annihilated by the cyclopean Horrors that patrol the universe specifically looking to destroy anyone that commits mass-scale destruction.

Tell me about a few of your named characters Veeky Forums.

What did they do (or what are they doing) to influence your world's history?

Lots of important historical figures are known by nicknames right now, so I'm not sure if I should mention them.

As for characters I put in backstory:
>Exarch Nikolai was the in charge of most prominent colony of Reesan empire when Reesan empire got overrun by zombies, he had to negotiate peace with local tribes and established a nation that in a hundred years would be the centre of the world.
>Rolan the plunderer is not important for politics, but he's the most famous adventurer who's been in all places, met all the people and stole all their shit. His quest to reach mystic lost world to the North however is very important to the world's endgame
>The Wolf King was the last king of Ilem. He got beaten by the neighbours and got tricked by a local witch into becoming a werewolf which gave him a military edge. However he and his sons were driven mad by bloodlust, turned on his own people and got killed by them and now Ilem has no king and doesn't really exist as a nation.
>And finally there's the Wildland Witch who tricked them. She lives in the wildland to this day, dispensing harmful advices and ruling over the rats and other rodents.

We are so absurdly far in the future, and humanity is so extremely fragmented across billions of lightyears that any kind of history is long gone.

The only history that exists is what is slowly buried in geological strata or preserved eternally floating in the cold vacuum.

Demiurge the long-dead dragon. His skeleton overlooks the forest of Elom. A mythical figure that has spawned countless religions over the ages, any facts and history of Demiurge have long since been forgotten and only cryptic religious prophecies and folktales exist. Nobody knows how it came to be, or why flora and fauna around it seem to grow bigger and stronger but all who see it agree that the world is a much safer place without any actual, live dragons.

I'm always hesitant to go along with the idea of multiple planes. Like if you are going to create a world your own, surely it makes more sense to shovel all your ideas into one world, rather than putting it somewhere that players are most likely not going to visit.

My setting has no planes, or magic stuff (outside of sufficiently advanced bio-science that the denizens think is magic), as it is a scifi setting.

The premise is about a massive, ancient, decaying organic city inhabited by mutated descendants of humanity, trying to survive under the shadow of ancient spires of flesh and bone, and amidst the eons old streets and ruins built by the now long dead architects of the city, untold generations ago.

Most of the technology is advanced biotech, with some more mechanical technology mixed in here and there, though for the wast majority of the city's inhabitants, the secrets of these technology are wholly unknown.
The knowledge of how to make advanced biotech is held firmly by the ever competitive artisan guilds, who sell their craft to the highest bidder, while trying to steal secrets of technology from their competitors, and keep them from doing the same.
The most potent technologies are held by the power hungry Noble houses, that reign over the city, each holding onto their petty domains greedily, while engaging against the other houses in constant schemes and subterfuge, that often escalate to the point of violence both on the streets between the warriors of the houses, as well as in the shadows, as hostile assassins duel to the death in order to fulfill their master's commands.

The Nobles also control the most precious resource of the city; Biogel, a life giving substance composed of a mixture of tiny biomachines, stem cells, energy rich organic compounds, and assortment of hormones and chemicals. This viscous fluid's uses are almost uncountable, from raw building material to organic constructs, to fuel, near instant healing, augmentation, are just a few of the ways it finds use in the city. Because of this, the fluid is highly sought after, and should it run out, what remains of the civilized society of the city, would collapse into blood and chaos.

Drawing related.

>Do you have multiple Planes in your setting, or is there only one Material plane? How common is inter-planar travel? Is there a Planar Wheel or some other means of visually representing the planes?
I've got physical afterlife and that's about it. Living aquiring power to rip boundary apart and enter the afterlife is the beginning of the great scheme of death and rebirth of the world.

Your idea reminds me simultaniously of Scorn and that one weird adventure game set in a very fleshy Hell.

Also, yay for weird far future settings my man.

Other factions in addition to the numerous guilds and the powerful Noble Houses, are various gangs formed by the city's non Noble born denizens, as well as cults of various faiths. The greatest and most widespread of these cults, is the Prophets of the All Mother, or the Vat Mother Cult, as it is commonly known.

The Vat Mothers are the closest thing to an organized religion in the city, and their origins stem from the now forgotten bygone eras. The power and influence of the cult rivals that of the Noble houses, and at times, the cult has been at odds with the ever scheming aristocracy that rules the city.
Both the spiritual, and mundane power of the Cult stems from the secrets of the wast birthing Vats the Cult possesses. These vats can take an embryo, and grow it into maturity, and even alter it's growth cycle to suit the desires of the mothers.

While sexual reproduction is known within the city, the mutated nature of it's denizens, as well as harshness of life, means that most would be young die within their mother's wombs long before they could be born, either due to genetic complications, or due to other problems. This is where the Vat Mothers step in, for they can remove the embryo from the sickly would be mothers, and place it in a Vat, where it will grow to maturity without any problem.

Because of this practice, that has become almost a religious one for many, wast majority of the city's denizens are born in the vats of the Cult, with ones produced by regular birth being shunned and scorned with suspicion.
The only exception, of course, are the Nobles, who would never allow anyone but themselves to tamper with the growth and development of their offspring.

Scorn sorta annoys me desu.
I had worked on the core foundations of this setting long before that game was even announced on Kickstarter.

Been working on a few characters to add flavor to the setting. The ones I've come up with so fat:

Sir Gerda "Ma" Volge
>Before the Breaching and the H-Day invasion, Gerda was a loving single mother of 5 boys. A widow, her husband was a proud military man and installed a sense of duty in their young pups before he passed. It was only natural then that they would stand up when their home needed it the most. In a devastating turn of events, Gerda lost her boys during the initial push of the Infernal Legions across the European front. Heart heavy with grief, but not broken yet, she enlisted as a field medic for the Knight Templar once humanity began their counter-attack on the Legions. Looking over her new comrades on the field with a motherly passion, she's earned the nickname 'Ma' for the comfort she brings and the fierce devotion she's earned from her squad.

King Masozi Kwesi
>When the Infernal Legions swept Europe and forced refugees to flood the African coast, what was left of the western world powers used what strength they had left to impose on the native nations. Many were not pleased. One such person was King Masozi Kwesi. A minor African warlord, when the push came, he was able to unite those upset by the European refugee "invasion". King Masozi does not care about the world burning and the demons flooding through the Breaches, he only cares about reclaiming his home from foreign hands.

The Bishop of Mask
>Father Michial is a devout believer and beloved by his flock. While a man of strong faith and conviction, Father Michial suffers bouts of darkness and depression. Secluding himself away in isolation for days or leaving on travels for reaffirmation, it is during these periods of absence that it seems that the mysterious figure known only as the Bishop of Masks is the most active. A powerful demagogue, the Bishop seeks nothing more than the glory of the new demonic overlords. Willing to sacrifice anything to further the goals of the Infernal Legions, the Bishop of Masks is a powerful tool for conquest and a great danger to the Knights Templar and the Cabalist orders.

MacGregor the Hammer
>As the demons push across the earth, and humanity struggles, some see opportunity. MacGregor does not care who rules, so long as he is allowed to fight. A towering mountain of muscle, he revels in the chaos and carnage, wading into the fray with Ol' Liza, a massive hammer cobbled together from scraps of steel, wood, and part of an engine block.

Beelzebub, Lord of Flies
>A demon clad in blackened armor, accompanied by a cacophony buzzing swarm, few truly understand what Archduke Beelzebub is. The Lord of Flies controls a cloud of demonic insects that devour all in it way, though many fail to see that the swarm IS Beelzebub. A unique creature found by the Infernal Legions, a collection of monstrous flies that make up a single consciousness, Beelzebub uses an old suit of armor as the hive for his swarm. Deemed immortal, when struck down, he just moves on to another host.

Tell me about your your villains /wbg/

>Do you have multiple Planes in your setting, or is there only one Material plane?
The two other 'planes' are actually moons that orbit the planet. One is completely composed of water (as in it's a giant sphere that's entirely water, no solid matter) known as Iquidus. The other is the planets 'Sun'; or more accurately, an impossibly bright hole in reality that leads to the inner realm of the Star gods, a radiant realm of floating golden tentacles of faceless horrors who radiate and aura of sheet might and power from their Indian descent forms. It's the realm from which the race of man, elves, and many of their descendants were supposidly birthed from.

>How common is inter-planar travel?
Almost not possible anymore now that Dragons have been almost completely wiped out, them being the only ones that could survive such a trip without sustaining heavy damage and with and ability to navigate through the radiant realm. However, it's entirely possible to travel to Iquidus by boat due to a rare phenomena that happens where once every hundred years or so, it orbits too close to the planet and as such a gravity vortex is created that creates a sensation of flying between the two planetary bodies, allowing ships to float upwards to the unexplored water world.
>Is there a Planar Wheel or some other means of visually representing the planes?
Not really, just the symbol of the sun and the full moon for Iquidus. The Sun has importance in most religions for being the 'home of humanity', though the exact reasons for this has become more legend than fact at this point in history.

>Indian descent
Incandescent*
Fucking autocorrect

>phoneposting

No computer for the week unfortunately

The Merchant Prince Mammon
>Humanity is not the first, nor the last to have members of their species join the Infernal Legions when they invade. Mammon was originally a merchant of some standing, but not of much note before his world was invaded. When the Legions came, he saw opportunity. Trading information for protection and power, Mammon was key in the Legions takeover of his world. Since then, Mammon has worked his way through the ranks, buying, selling, and murdering to the highest ranks. When a new world is targeted, Mammon seems to always be the first to ascertain valuables and resources worth plundering.

Belphegor, the Mad Machinist
>While the Infernal Legions plunder and capture most of its technology, that doesn't mean it doesn't innovate. Engineers and scientists from countless worlds toil away, improving and building new monstrosities to unleash on the Legion's enemies and victims. Head of the Order of the Bloodied Wheel, Belphegor is a mad genius whose ingenuity is only held back my his own perversions of the mind. Most notable if his contribution was taking the amphibious Bile Hoppers and surgically altering them into the malformed Bile Legionnaires. Belphegor's inventions are always a terrifying sight on the battlefield, with a deranged beauty to them.

My Big Bad Evil Guy is a wizard who long ago killed his god and ate him. This destroyed his homeland (Because god was needed to keep him working) and damaged him (Because gods are connected and shaped by their followers and he has no one to maintain his shape but himself) but gained incredible power and immortality. He believes that the only way out is to keep killing gods and has already brought forth an apocalyptic event by manipulating another people to slay their god, only to find them unable to stomach divine power and have rotting divine carcass poison their very souls.

On a smaller scale there's a female principal of wizarding school driving by overwhelming contempt for the ungifted and an evil duke who lives in a haunted castle, tries to overthrow his brother-in-law the king to put his weak-willed and feeble-minded wife on the throne and also kidnaps people and sells their bodies to evil spirits to possess.

Can I bump this thread?

I remember seeing some posts about this months ago, it's good to see you're still working on it cause I quite like the tone and style of this setting. Keep it up

I made my setting guidebook look a lot nicer.

I'm also settling in to describing the culture and history of various civilizations. I don't want to be too specific, since this setting is designed to be highly extensible, but I'd love it if people could check over what I currently have. It's the last chapter in this PDF.

Yes.

Thanks man.
I am making slow progress.
I have finally been able to come up with good ideas for all the 7 noble houses of the city.

bumb

How would you describe the level of tech in the Dofus/Wakfu world? I want to try and emulate it for some variety in my setting.

Isn't it "Whatever looks cool, magitech available"?

What do you guys use to make local maps?

From what I'm seeing, it seems like GIMP or Photoshop are the only real options if you don't want to pay (considering I can't find torrents of any of the dedicated software except for dundjinni, which I'm downloading atm)

So are the Tendrils/world tree thing supposed to be referencing Norse mythology, or is that just a coincidence?

Extremely loose reference, yes.

I'm reading through it, but I'm a slow reader and I've got other stuff to do, so no promises as to when I'll have more feedback.

That's completely fine. I'm just happy somebody is reading it.

As you can probably tell, it's currently in a "draft" state. There's a few sections with almost no info, and a quite frankly embarrassing number of typos. So I apologize for those.

Good to see you still working on it. Still no art? Skimmed it, about to sleep so I haven't read much so far.

Anyone have a recommendation for like a youtube series or a podcast or something to give me a basic education in various mythologies?

I actually attempted to do a 3D model map of the core.

The results were... not great.

You can view the model online here: github.com/AnthonySuper/Spirals/blob/master/assets/core.stl

That is a little better, because you can rotate it and figure out exactly what is going on, both both look like dogshit.

It is far from perfect, but you do have the right idea.

Just fous on getting the whole spiral fractal nature of it right. Perhaps read up on fractal 3d modelling, although I imagine that gets hardcore math heavy.

If your models end up good, who knows. Maybe I will do a draw-on-top drawing for nothing but shit and giggles. I like fractals, and I like landscapes.

Any tips for making the source of inspiration of maps based on real world lands a bit less obvious?

Hard mode: No turning it upside down

Get inspired by the whys and hows instead of the whats.

Don't just think "The Mediterranean would make a good place, I should copy it" think about the resources and geography that makes the place so interesting. Make a heavily inland sea that sits between three continents instead of a reversed clone of the place.

You don't make something as neat as the Nile by flipping it upside down and replacing the people there with elves, to make something cool based off of Egypt you take the idea of a civilization that exists in the one habitable area surrounded by hostile terrain.

Make Australia by having a dangerous far away place filled with weird creatures. Copy Japan by having an insular island nation.

Fill in all the gaps with unique shit. The Mediterranean is a giant fucking hole going to the center of the earth, the civilizations surrounding it get around on airships that float on its hot air. Egypt is a small valley in the middle of a massive mountain range. Australia is the fucking moon and its filled with demons. Japan is in a labrynthian cave system. How does this shape the people and cultures that live in these places?

Looking up info on large scale ecological and geographical shit is also good. Creativity stems from knowledge and once you understand something you can find interesting quirks that can be exploited to create something entirely new

>potential for unintelligent Gnolls to be imported from not!Australia as slave labor
>they're violent Beastmen who have regressed, while more noble Beastman races have progressed
>could run into the issue of them being an allegory for africans
What do, /wbg/?

Just roll with it and ignore anyone who calls you out on it.
If they persist then make them go full stereotype for a session to shut them up

So I wrote down most of the notes and details for my setting on Word and I'm kind of at a lose from where to go from here or what to do with it. What would you guys recommend? I'm a decent writefag but I find it hard to really narrow down where exactly I want my story to take place, nor do I have any idea what it would be about.

Should add; Gnolls have 'always' been bottom-of-the-barrel Beastmen. They were too dumb and violent to be of use to the big "Evil Empire" of old, and most Adventurers consider them demi-humans.
The only reason I call them "Beastmen" instead of demi-humans is meta-knowledge as the Creator

Violent slaves are typically quite shitty ones. You would want your slave to be obedient and submissive, not warriors who could kill you the moment you turn your back on them.

Then again, this all depends, what kind of things do they have the Gnolls doing?

I have no idea, that's why they're just "potential" slaves. Probably not an idea worth elaborating on anyway.

They're going to be genocide'd by the Dark Elves if not!Australia is to be reclaimed, anyway.

can anyone point me in the direction of a tool to make a tech tree of sorts like pic related
I want to construct the way a human empire works

bumbity

Don't try to comment on Africa if you don't know shit about Africa. The technological stunting of African cultures has to do with distance to the fertile cresent (and those mediterranean innovations like the wheel, higher math, etc.), geography and fucking horrible diseases that hindered large scale travel and trade up until the Colonial era. Africa was the OG Australia.

If you want regression, use Aboriginals from Australia. They are the only culture that lost technological progress after leaving Africa.

>They are the only culture on Earth (as far as I know) that lost technological progress after leaving Africa.

...

Does that knight have two heads?

Yes

>he doesn't have two-headed knights in his game

Thanks user, you got some good counsels there user. Since I'm working with both geography and history as sources of inspiration it might be a bit hard to go too far without changing literally everything, but I'm sure I can make it work.

Do you (or anyone) think that a dense, mysterious forest could work as a substitute of a desert area? At first I was thinking about in inland sea, but it doesn't really work since it would actually make a place that should be empty to be busy and crowded.

Just use paint, seriously. You don't need cute drawings.

>Do you (or anyone) think that a dense, mysterious forest could work as a substitute of a desert area?

Depends on what you are trying to do.

Deserts and forests all have very specific geographical and climatological places where they form. You cannot simply put a forest on a desert because after a few years, you'll just have a desert with a lot of dead trees.

So people are created to fill an absence of that person's existence? Kind of like how silly flavours are created purely for the lack of that flavour?

Could be the basis for some real world commentary.

Couldn't you say this for pretty much every geographical feature, tho?

Fantastic Victorian Era. Like 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea but with Magic.

Arikerios the First Prince and Only Emperor of the elves was the responsible of the elves taking over the world in the Age of the Two Moons.

He was a passionate and mad conqueror that after conquering giants, goblins and fairies decided to try to conquer the Underworld by killing himself and his entire army leaving the Empire in chaos and letting the sorcerers that will bring the elves to the brink of extinction take over.

Did he succeed?

Well everyone thinks he didn't and its and endgame thing but basically he conquered a chunk of the place and he is now in an alliance with other beings to take over as Deity of Death.

I suppose you mean as a substitute for a hostile environment.
imho only if it's VERY magical or you put more natural dangers in. Real world forests tend to grow in reasonable weather conditions and provide plenty of food sources and water. It's also (relativly!) easy for a civilization to remove parts of the forrest to change it into farmland, etc.
You have to stack something else atop of that to make forests more inhospitable. Cold weather e.g. like in the russian taiga or change it into a rain forest which is extra hard to navigate due to a huge number of valleys/mountains.

The biggest baddie is a former hero from centuries ago who, along with his party banished the ruling Not!Romans from the continent because they were magic assholes and dicks. His hatred ran pretty deep, as did his paranoia of them returning. While his comrades eventually passed on he delved into necromancy and eventually became a lich, plans to raise an undead army to fight those toga wearing fags. He doesn't incite any wars or violence, he sees himself as a sort god father to the people of the continent. Just you know, people don't want their dead loved ones to be used to fight.

That was the last iteration, my latest revision doesn't really have a big bad.

Metal.

>tfw bad at naming people

>Warning: this post may contain content that some might consider /pol/ shit. If you are a cunt, don't reply.

So an user answered my question last thread in great detail and I am thanking him for that.

But I was wondering what might happen in the future in regards to the... racial tension we are currently experiencing in the real world. I was thinking that there would be some race wars in N America and W Europe at some point in the time line, but I'm not sure what the end result would be.

I was thinking that this infighting would be a factor that contributes to the instability of western nations.

But if I'm being honest, I feel like if I do deal with it, it's going to be a shit show and invite /pol/tards or SJWs.

Should it just be left as a foot note that dies down after a few state-wide riots/skirmishes?

You have to go back. Go back.

If shit boils over to the point of infighting, the violent minority will be purged once-and-for-all. On the bright side; this would lead to a more united nation.

>I was thinking that there would be some race wars in N America and W Europe at some point in the time line

Are you retarded?

this whole general is autism. We waste our times myth making worlds no one is ever going to experience.

There are whites vandalizing mosques in england. There are blacks who are advocating for murdering police(usually white officers).

The internet, in its never ending quest to divide humanity, is making it hip and cool to hate and actively attempt to ruin other people's lives.

I think my own personal fears are getting in the way of reality, but I'm terrified that soon there's going to be all out hostility towards on another, and that's something I want to touch upon, both on the international scale and the internal scale.

The tl;dr

In the west, an Alexander the Great like figure rises. Although he claims to want to conquer to bring equality and peace to a region filled with city-states always in strife, he really just wants to conquer and get his own dynasty to be glorious. It also helps that he's one of the most powerful wizards the world has seen in centuries. He initially has success, unifying an area the size of Balkans. His name is lost to history, only known as the Mage King.

The reason for his name being lost to history is that he got defeated ofcourse. When he set his eye to conquer the more eastern states due to their value. The states unite against this common threat. In their armies is Lia, a simple healer. I say simple healer, but in fact she has magic power at least equal to his, and has divine backing. When finally it comes to fighting the Mage King's main army, she challenges him to single combat (having transformed into a jean d'arc esque figure over the course of the war).

His magic does nothing, he crumbles. She asks if he regrets it, or anything at all. There is no regret. She slays him.

Without this strong unifying mage, there is no unified wester states. The states crumble back to their original city-states, and this was the last great war for at least decades, if not a century or more.

I didn't quite understand if you're actually playing in the real world but different or a fantasy world with a similar situation. If it's the second case you can just ignore the whole thing, it's not realistic but it's the easy way to save your ass.

Also I would like to know your predicted "audience" before giving further advice. You can certainly introduce this stuff without people calling you a fascist or whatever, but depending on who is gonna read your stuff you need to embellish it in different ways.

>I think my own personal fears are getting in the way of reality, but I'm terrified that soon there's going to be all out hostility towards on another, and that's something I want to touch upon, both on the international scale and the internal scale.
You sound like a fucking pussy on top of being a massive autist.

>enemy figure challenges the leader of the opposing nation to a 1:1 fight
>accepting the duel
Not much of an "Alexander the Great" if he doesn't follow the Evil Overlord rules.

Basically, it's the future around fifty years from now. Mankind teeters on the cliff of oblivion. Things have gotten worse. Much worse.

The planet is dead. Mankind has grown into a hateful, paranoid and frightened thing.

The cold wars and puppet skirmishes are about to explode.

Mainly, it would be military scifi(that is aping a quite a bit from Gundam if I'm being honest) that covers themes like how horrible war is, man's inhumanity and how easily avoidable negative things(suffering, hatred) is much easier to subscribe to then actually being decent to each other.

This is supposed to be a prelude of sorts to a more positive and optimistic view of the future. A "darkest just before the dawn" scenario. It also gives me excuse to write military scifi

How am I being a pussy by being worried about how our world is going to be like in the next decade or two? Also, I'm not autistic, my mother had me tested back in elementary school.

Yeah, he sounds more like a Wizard Conan.

>hey dudes, im gonna fight a one-on-one duel now
>if i win, yay - we expand our empire
>if i die, you guys were great, i had a fun time, and i died doing what i loved - fighting
>later dudes!

>Also, I'm not autistic, my mother had me tested back in elementary school.

>easily avoidable negative things(suffering, hatred)
Both of those things are positive, on occasion.

I'll agree with you on that, but I mean in the fact that people would prefer to hate niggers and sandniggers and demand their country nuke them rather than face the fact that the world is a complicated place and that we should be working together to better it. Basically,

>muh joos caused 911, bomb isreal kill the kikes and their nigger goons too!

Hatred of a legitimate threat or persistent enemy is not a negative emotion. "We should be working together to better it" only works when -everyone- is in agreement, or there are no more enemies left to disagree.

I'm not arguing that. ANd I definitely advocate for a violent response to a threat.

But a precieved threat to get such a response is bad. For example, black people going out of their way to hunt down whites and beat the snot out of them because BLACK LIVES MATTER WE WUZ AN SHEEET, or whites lynch blacks because "those darn niggers are raping our women on the orders of jews and illumenarty".

Basically, everyone is having a victim complex and taking it out on the world when they are blind to why there is bad shit going on in the world(or blaming it on their scapegoat)

I legitimately believe this could cause the end of society as we know it.

Nah, if it ever came to open conflict, there'd be chaos and lots of horrible shit happening, but the minorities get put down and stability returns because one side has won out. Or everybody creates a united victim complex towards some perceived non-national other.

It's only the decentralized, individual victimization that leads to chaos. A well ordered hate machine would bring unity, and would be ready to deal with active or perceived threats.

>the end of society as we know it.
I like how this phrase doesn't explicitly imply that it would become -worse-.

I see your point.

Thing is, to get to that dark place that your story needs, you need something extra. Today's world is still going to keep on trucking forward to a more progressive, technologically advanced liberal democratic global world, no matter how hard all kinds of reactionary, conservative, luddite, religious organizations try to hold it back.

You need some serious fucking damage to the planet and the climate to push mankind to that dark spot.

Something like, during the dismantling of the Soviet Union, civil war breaks out between Communists that want perestroijka and Communists that want to go back to the oldschool. Nuclear weapons are used within Russia on itself (nuclear civil war, now that's scary). Huge stretches of Soviet commie blocks are burning, millions of people are dead... and all those burning plastics and organic material turn into nice CO2 to clog up the atmosphere.
Climate change is now already really really really bad in the '80s. The fall of the Soviet Union not long after the civil war boosts Western economies, but it's not long until the rising sea levels and the increase in tropical storms begin weighing down on the economy.

Since the Soviet Union fell, you still get the Middle-Eastern chaos after the Soviets abandon Afghanistan, and leave their Arab allies to fend for themselves.
Except this time, the Western powers don't have the economic power to just happily truck through the Middle-East as world police.
By now, the economy is so bad, they just go in like the Russians. Cheap dumb bombs instead of laser-guided missiles, carpet bombing etc.
The shit economy means that technological progress slows down, etc.

Now you're in your "darkest just before the dawn" scenario.

>A well ordered hate machine would bring unity
Yeah... unity in death... hahahahahh.

I'll say that race war is a bit of a silly notion, but rampant xenophobia completely fits the setting. just make sure to present it as an objectively bad thing, no matter your ideology, and it will sell easily. Lots of liberals DO fear that the world is going in this direction and would assume that a world where Trump and Le Pen would be a racist dystopia of war between brothers.

>Do you have multiple Planes in your setting, or is there only one Material plane? How common is inter-planar travel? Is there a Planar Wheel or some other means of visually representing the planes?

It's not particularly inspired, but planes in my setting are just 'slices' of a finite, four-dimensional universe. After the discovery of (relatively) safe inter-planar travel a few decades ago, trade between civilized realms has really taken off, and somewhere upwards of 30-40 caravans might depart from an inter-realm power city on any given day.

>Is the Afterlife a Plane? Are there multiple afterlife planes? Who judges who goes where? Who deals with inter-planar disputes?

No, n/a, and either the individual governing bodies of the realms, or the only 'real' current multi-world governing body, which is basically just a trade coalition of the more full of themselves powers.

>A new BBEG appears in your setting, and decides to destroy all the Planes. How would he go about doing it?

I don't know, but now I want to. Collapsing them somehow, possibly-- like squishing an object in 3d space, that might cause the planes to start overlapping and destroying each other simply by virtue of stuff being in the same place and tearing itself apart.