Rivers Edition 2: Let's Not Get Pruned This Time Boogaloo

Bumpan the thread.\

How do you guys come up with names for your provinces and cities? i'm having trouble with that.

Perhaps its because we've kept these threads up for months, at least since I became a part of them. Only to watch them waste away and die.

Because nobody cares about other people's answered to a fat list of questions that don't breed discussion.

Playing around with Hexographer, how does the scale and rough shape of this look, if each hex is 3 miles wide? Still trying to get a good feel for painting maps using tiles.

How do you make the mundane weird? Any resources or tables of choice?

Generators, tables, thesaurus, geography and keyboard mashing

What generaters and tables? most of the generators I've found spit out the same thing 5 times with a few different letters or a different Title like city of spiders or of coins and claim it's different, gets annoying.

I use those, the translate it into another language that sounds appropriate and mash shit together until it sounds cool.

In the OP there is fantasynamegenerator.com
I've found it very useful for naming most things, almost all of the generators on the site can come up with a plethora of different options without repeating anything

Basically I will do what describes. Though I will generally only use generators for simple names of simple places. Places of import either plot or setting wise I will generally come up with 1 or 2 words that hint at this importance. Translate them, fiddle with the spelling a bit (often combining 2 words into 1), and then give it an english title afterwards.

So like throw in pickpocket, translate to arabic phonetically. We get nashal, alright better for a person name than a city. Lets go with the technically dragging another ethnic language into this and say Neshalabad. Throw on a not hinty nickname to help players remember things in a their own language.
Neshalabad: The Flower of Gold. Hints more at a rich and pretty city full of pleasures, there is a big bazaar full of treasures and oddities here and everyone knows it. But of course we both know in the shadows of the palaces, tof the markets and the merchants themselves, lurk thieves and other hidden threats.

At least that's my process.

What do you guys think about a society thats periodically attacked by cosmic entities limiting them to small spread out villages so as to limit the casualties, also because they would just smash shit thats bigger

Military installations often have their own versions of semaphore that is used to dictate orders from afar, There's also a ministry of messages under the behest of the kingdom's postal couriers, a state job that often requires a party of 3-6 experienced soldiery to deliver a pack of letters from one part of the nation to another, passing a multitude of population centers. this service is mostly geared towards city-city Interactions but some deliveries are awarded the special stampage which means that the destination isn't a city and often is a single trip to obscure localities. Often merchants or nobles makes use of the special stampage if they have a delicate issue to attend to or if there's someone they want to contact who lives in an area without an Messenger Office.
rarely does townfolk or villagers have the size to acquire a messenger office and thus lack access to such services, villagers and townfolk often have a select person from their town or village to deliver messages on their behalf.
The Ardian Intelligence also have strong influence on the ministry of messages, allowing the master of whispers (one of the sitting members of the king's cabinet) have unfettered access to information handled by the Ministry.
Letters of military concerns are often handled by the military's own messengerial core. And then you have the Royal Correspondence, which is a special courier group that only answers to the king and often are signified with a special badge, they are the ones the king entrusts to repeat his words in full, thus if an important royal decree is needed to be heared by a select part of the nation and the king wanted the people of that area to know in full certainty that those where the king's words, then he'll send his royal correspondence with a seal and a detachment of his capital guards.

In my world, magic is scarce, untrusted, but strong and full of utility
which means magic also plays a role in the flow of information, The reason why a Messenger's Office is damn expensive is because of the aviary that houses messenger birds (consist of two species) which needs a breeder, a cleaner, an officiate, and a mage that scribes runes on the birds that gives the birds accurate direction and an overriding will to go to a beacon placed in another messenger's office.

mages can talk to one another in long distances through tonagraphs, a complicated magical device that is hard to set up but when used, creates an ilusionary projection of what the other mages see and hear and also allows instant long distance communication. however its quite rare since a tonograph is very expensive, you need two for it to function, and it needs a mages capable of strong telepathy. Usually the King's Court Mages offers this service or the Military Sanctioned Mages (ie Warlocks)

Bump

would scientifical and social progress even possible in this setting?
Small communities, trying to stay small, probably more like hunter and gatherer tribes?
Trying to live in caves maybe and maybe turn to powers and/or magic that might be considered dangerous just to defend themselfs or to find a way to stop these beings?

Include all the information, but put a lot of work into making a very good "summary/what you need to know" section to preface the more detailed descriptions. The summary should be no more than a paragraph long, maaaybe two.

>How does information move in your setting and is there a press[?]
News publications are a big part of it, and there's no shortage of them. Some critical information can be sent instantaneously by a system of energy-intensive magitek pseudo-telegraphs, but most information is sent by mail. (In wartime, the telegraphs and the specialist engineers who can operate them become high-priority targets.) If the king were to die, news would spread throughout the nation by the end of the next day, but you might not hear about a minor member of the Court dying for weeks afterward.

I touched on this in a previous thread, to mixed reception.
archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/50982390/#q51063805

Science could still progress, though it would occur much slower. The clearly have enough of a written history to know that cities get destroyed fairly frequently, so that might give some people in small communities enough motivation to find a way to improve life and/or kill those beings.

Anything for this question?

It's a very vague, unclear question. I don't really get what it's asking.

Well Weird can be just strange or it can be (and im paraphrasing) the transition historically, aesthetically, and philosophically between the stories and images mean't to educate and entertain in the Magic Belief System era and Technological Belief System era respectively.

weird meaning what?
Something that is not understood (but could be), something that cannot be understood, something that is understood but just don't make no sense?

If you're asking about how to give your players a Sony Walkman without them immediately knowing what it is (as in a post-apoc setting), that gets old incredibly fast. Just a word of warning.

Paraphrasing a dictionary definition doesn't help much. Words at best signify meaning, and each person will, unfortunately, have their own meaning when they use a word. You need to give us your own definition of what the "mundane" and the "weird" consists of.
What do you actually want to do?

I just want to make my fantasy game weirder.

Also it was a quote from Zak Smith.

Mundane to me would be the cliche names/places/monsters. Weird is more like that you would find in Weird Fiction and Metal Hurlant, the strange and bizarre using familiar elements.

That doesn't clear it up even a little bit.

It's like talking to a grad student who has done nothing but talk to other grad students and librarians for two years.

Just stop and distill your thoughts for a second. There's no need to drop terminology and names everywhere, because in all fairness, none of us are able to keep up with that.

Ok.

Take the boring, and make it strange.

The naming conventions of Forgotten Realms are like the exact opposite of what I want.

You're getting closer. What constitutes "the boring", to you?

"Phandelver" "Forge of Spells:" "Neverwinter" "Rockseeker" "Black Spider" "Redbrand" etc.

Very cliched and uncreative naming, and a lack of interesting enemies or situations.

Basically, not the "house style" of D&D 5e.

mostly as per late-medieval/early renaissance europe, except for the 3(-ish) factions that have ww2 era radio-telegraphy as a result of capturing ships magically crafted by a cabal of wizards + liches using a copy of Janes Fighting Ships that fell through a crack in reality as the focus

Aldarich Empire
Kingdom of Harman
Cillian Kingdom
Tapio Khanate
Kingdom of Rowena
Kingdom of Oriane
Kingdom of Brecht
Vencel Principalities
Kingdom of Loick
Duchy of Thale
Horst League (Free City of Iuwine, Freimut Order, Tarasa)

I feel like I have too many "kingdoms" but history is littered with multiple kingdoms on one continent so it seems more sensible.

My human empire is called "Akantir, 1000 Realms" because there have existed countless bigger or smaller kingdoms and countries in the last 500 years on a continent the size of europe.
You should be fine.
Also look at pic related.

How do you keep track of the size, culture and economics of that many nations or are a lot of them just mentioned only?

A lot of them are just mention only, but I make a diffrence between "cultures" and "nations".
Look at europe for example and the map I posted. Through the history there were a TON of kingdoms, countries, city-states etc. but you could always tell what the cultures in europe have been.
There were not that many over the time: Celts, Germans, Franks...
Greeks and Romans
Arabic or East Asian influences in the edges...
If you look at europe today you could say there are "nordic" cultures of some kind, mediterean, slavic
Each of them is in itself similar (of course there are local differences).
So look at your map/kingdoms and put down the core cultures in this area and then you can pull over as many kingdoms as you want because even in-culture fighting was common.
Hope I could explain good enough.

These are very slow threads and require bumping all the time. I do not know how discord effects the popularity of this general.
Also if there is other worldbuilding threads same time, they do draw some attention away.

I have vague idea what real life country coukd represent them. Then I just translate simple words into that language or look for tiny ass villages and towns with google maps.

Development is possible, but slower due to dangers of acquiring food. Can work.

Well the thing is most names comes from how different things look, perform or just be. Be in place names or last names. Of course you can smash your face to keyboard and say that the name is foreign language, but in that language it means something.

This user wrote it well. You really just need to flesh several major players and their cultures and from there you can expand and use those nations that are ready as anchor points for rest of the world.

For example in my world Palghars are nation of people with same name. Practically they are mix of nomads and Romans. The culture which centres on herding sheep and livestock is the main culture of quite large area, but Palghars are more successful at creating a nation and prospering than others. This way if I describe Palghars well, the nomads don't require that much work.

Do you have Beast-Folk? What animal are they based on and how did they occur/evolve?

Yeah this sounds complicated, lol

>france at one point made ten tanks called the Char 2C
>Each vehicle named after a region of france
>So popular the french people knew them by name and were stars of the french people

Too those folks wanting to know if name recognition can come to vehicles or become cultural icons it has precedence. Just throwing that out there for some sci-fi guys out there.

>Discord
For what purpose? Isn't the entire point of Veeky Forums is to have anonymous discussion?

What do you mean by Beast-Folk?

I spent the day at work drawing a new language. What did you do for your worldbuilding?

...

I've got 2 major powers made up of crocodilemen and flightless bird people, as well as hyena Gnolls, and technically Orcs, as they are pigmen. Like everything else in the setting, their origins are when the Void used its inky self to write existence onto the pages of Geom, the World Book.

take in less western media, and delve into eastern media.
become the weeb.

>acting like weebs are any better at naming things

why does York on that map include Durham? at that point Durham had WAY more authority than York?

How do you handle the loss of enthusiasm or inspiration?

Suicide

I go for a walk whenever I can't seem to come up with anything, that usually helps. If it doesn't, I'll just do something else for a few days, or even a couple of weeks, until I get an idea.

Thoughts?
>inb4 shitty handwriting
I know, bully me sexually if you want.

Banter

Mostly sleeping and then I went to swim. Listened to Matthew Colville on my trip there.

Inspiration comes, inspiration goes. I try to see if there is fancy threads in Veeky Forums or I will wiki binge on ancient armours etc.

Reminds me of how NATO unit labels are made. How the different letters, numbers etc mean next to the box.

Would gorillamen coming from the southern jungles attacking my not!Egyptian crocodilemen be seen as racist?

By a certain type of people, probably yes.

By everybody with a brain, no.

Could the general OP contain a link to A Book of Creatures? It's pretty helpful (and fun).

If you don't throw every African Tribes clichee at them, you're fine. There will always be cherrypicking cultures, but as long as your creatures are more than just a mask for a stereotype people will get the point.

The writing style looks alright, maybe the symbols are a bit to regular for a natural language. Ignore if that's a conlang in-setting.

Those people are already not going to like it. The flightless bird people females are subservient property to the males.

Should make them Aztec gorillamen.

Don't just copy a culture, make your own. Spice things up with 3-5 elements to your chosen template and let the thing cook.

Instead of Aztec gorillas you have gorillas with Aztec architecture, where overlapping circles have special meaning on their clothing, whorshipping three gods after whom they model the division of powers and the generational contract. An ethnic minority of chimpanzee traders whose people's home was rendered uninhabitable by magic experiments traversers the great rivers and through them most information of the gorilla people is gained. Because of the racial tensions between these groups, the information cannot be trusted blindly.

And so on. Of course it also helps to know your shit about the cultues you're copying.

Quite possibly. When a certain group of people has--for centuries now--been repeatedly compared to apes as a means of insulting and dehumanizing them, it's hard to untangle that from whatever you're making. Especially if you then cast them as "invaders".

But it depends. If you're casting them in a "savage" light, then hell yes. If you're portraying them as an informed civilization, they're acting tactically, and they've got a motivation that doesn't reek of dogwhistle, then you'll probably be fine.

Actually writing.

Don't rely on inspiration. Develop discipline. Keep working, even if you're not coming up with anything new, good, or interesting. Eventually you'll break through it.

I haven't put any thought into them yet. I just need something to the south for the crocs to fight.

I just need something for an aggressive reptilian species with an excess of noblesons to focus on to justify why they aren't at war with the north.

Then use an animal with fewer connotations than the gorilla.

How about platypuses? Or deer? Or ants?

>Platypus Barbarian
Well that's a terrifying thought.

But speaking of other animals, I'm sure the rainforests around the globe have more interesting creatures to base a civilisation on.

Tons. And we're still discovering more.

Frogs, elephants, hippos, bush dogs, spiders, parrots. The list goes on and on.

I wrote bunch of shit about magic and some traditions. Ex.
Shüka-oshu, a magic traditions of remote north. Berserking, meditation, martial arts and cannibalism.

There are avian/reptilian species, but they aren't explicitly based on any real-life animal.

Perhaps it is best to let them play humans first (foreigners), and tell about setting as you go along.

I am still heavily debating should I add more races that are not humans into the world. I kinda want to keep it "realistic" and low magic, but I don't want it to be human sausage fest.

Question to you all. Has your world had some drastic changes in it. What you started was completely different to what you have now?

At the start (teenager "writing" a lame MMO that doesn't exist)
>wizards and magic
>elves, dwarves, orcs
>a faction called "the empire" which is anti-magic, human only, and religiously repressive
>nothing (except for concepts that exist in our world) remains of this old setting, so I can't really consider it the same setting

If you skip ahead to the earliest point of the setting which contains features that haven't been removed, I've completely removed
>humanlike bipedal races
>realms outside of the mainland
>the entire map, twice
>all but one factions
>all but one ethnicity
>learned, innate, and spellcasting-based magic, now "magic" is entirely based around external substances and artifacts and is basically just science

Stuff which I might change which would require major changes elsewhere
>removing the europe-based continent so that the setting is middle eastern / eastern, main concern with this idea is that the aesthetic diversity would be limited
>huge map restructuring to double or triple its size again
>adding non-human races powerful enough to have their own civilizations

Greetings /wbg/, since the OP topic is rivers, I figure now would be a good time to ask. I'm a mapmaking newb, and right now considering what the natural "rules" are that dictate where lakes will form, where rivers will branch and where tributaries will feed, all of that.

In other words, what guidelines do you use and would recommend when making natural lakes and rivers?

Pic related, I'm drawing a map and converting it into a hex map in stages. The region is about 600 miles east-to-west, 400 miles north-to-south, far in the northern hemisphere, wet and cold.

Rivers go downhill. Always.
Rivers don't bifurcate without a very good reason, the bifurcation usually doesn't last long and usually the rivers merge back together pretty soon.
Lakes form when all surrounding land is higher than the bottom of the lake.
Usually only one river will flow out of a lake, but many rivers can flow into the lake.

So, first step for drawing realistic rivers is drawing realistic mountains, or better yet, an overall height map.

Weebs are much better at expressing the weird.

Maybe so, but their names aren't any better than ours, at least when their translated, I know nothing of the nuances in their language.

shit they're*

The 'william gibson' method of exposition. I just treat it like something they'd know IC and give them occasional tidbits so they can sketch the rest.

I don't think I've ever seen NATO Unit Labels before, but you're right, they're kinda similar.

Any suggestions on making it more natural?
That's my downfall in conlanging.

>Any suggestions on making it more natural?
Yes, but it's not the answer you want to hear.

Starting from scratch, create a writing system of glyphs representing entire words your speakers would know. The first sound in the word corresponding to each glyph is the sound that it represents. Then simplify them until you're happy with the writing system. The easiest way to do this is simply to write them down over and over until you learn which parts of writing each letter would most likely be skipped over eventually.

This requires you to have an older version of the language however, which you can evolve the writing system together with. Over time people speaking other languages might start using the same writing system as well and invent new symbols to represent sounds that they have but weren't in the first language. Maybe those same sounds later evolved in the first language but they still represent it with the same letter.

This sort of happened with the Latin alphabet, where originally represented /w/ and /u/. Later was created but was only a variant of and meant nothing special. Eventually however, the Latin /w/ transformed into /v/, but when the Germanic people adopted the writing system they wanted a way to represent their /w/ sound and so started writing it and . Of course, later still the Germanic /w/ also became /v/ in most daughter languages, but the w remained in the ortographies.

Does anyone have any websites for current news for different continents?

Like, Europe Today or whatever. Just what is going down in europe daily and broadly.

Nothing too indepth or biased.

Mainly for asia and europe

Al Jazeera and BBC are always good.

Right then, thank you. I already have drawn the general area of plains, foothills, mountain ranges. I suppose I'll look to other map examples to actually denote the changes in elevation. Any particular map "formats" that are a good example for that?

Topographic maps are the standard way to draw elevations.

Google Maps also has a mode for viewing topography and elevation.

Additionally, programs like Terragen and other terrain generators work with heightmaps.

Beastmen are best defined as "Mammalian" Humanoids. Everything in Creation was created as a Greater/Lesser duality, and the Beastmen were created as the "Greater Beasts". Beastmen are the precursor common ancestor to all current races; including Humans, Dwarves, Goblins, and Halflings.

Is worldbuilding a science-fantasy setting really worth it? Or should I just do what regular sci-fi does and only give lip service to actual physics?

bump

i love how confused she is about the whole ordeal?

>Im an astronaut and you want me to hold, what? Sword? Oh, its made from "laser". Ok. WHAT? B...but that doesn't stop micrometeorites r...right? Oh, Im a 'pall...what? So because im a 'Palladin' i need shield? Oh... ok. Fine.

To you, what is the difference between science-fantasy and sci-fi that pays lip service to actual physics?

The latter sort of acknowledges it exists in reality before throwing it out the window. The former doesn't bother to try and just does what it wants, warped cosmology and techno-witches and all.

Yes, but what is the difference as far as worldbuilding goes. The presence of Earth? Is sword and planet literature sci-fi or science-fantasy?

Anyway, in general, sci-fi is about technology and it's impact on the people that use it. Technology is integral to the story. Although this is more relevant to things that do have a story instead of just worldbuilding.

In general, sci-fi stories follow one of the two templates:
>We have this technology and it has created a problem, how can the characters solve that problem?
>We have this problem and also this kickass technology, how can the characters use that technology to solve the problem?

In both cases the technology is central, if you took the technology out of the story, then the story either can't happen or changes drastically.

Then there's stuff like Star Wars or similar, which is called sci-fi by most people, but it really shares nothing aside the aesthetic with sci-fi literature. You could take the story and the characters, move them to a different world (say a medieval world, or the wild west) and still have the same basic story virtually unaltered.

Now returning back to worldbuilding, the main question becomes: Do you want to explore how certain technologies would affect the lives of your characters/people/nations or do you want cool shit that goes pew-pew and the aesthetic that goes with it as a backdrop to the stories you want to tell?

WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS, MAMA YOU'VE GOT TO MOOOVE

How would you expect the average person to react to the presence of a clone army? The evil empire i have has two forces, the military, made up of clones and CivSen (Civil Sentries) the police arm.

They'd probably be glad they themselves don't get drafted.

They have that sort of feeling mixed with dread as the citizens of the capital see the army for the first time in the form of a parade which also serves as a show of strength to the resistance.

This sounds scarily similiar to what I've been "writing" since 2012.

Are Clones first-class or second-class citizens? Are they actual individuals, even if they all look similar?