/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General Spoopy Edition

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Ok so... wait, alright a setting where everyone has an innate ability to perform magical feats but spellcasters have to study to use those spells in command and in the manner they intended. With the highest tier magic taking centuries to learn, several life times.

did you come up with this all on your own

I've been playing around with an idea for a setting but have come up against something I really need a second opinion on.

It's a fastasy world but no orcs, elves, dwarves, more of a conan-esk style of low fantasy stuff with most things being humans, though said humans maybe oddly tall, short or warped slightly. The main setting area I've been focusing on is a mass of almost islands (divided buy vast rivers more than sea though) that are squeezed between two large, more contiguous areas of terrain. The main thing about the setting is that hero types in it are not uncommon, but they're basically weak super-hero types. Big leaps, feats of strength, capable of tanking damage that they really shouldn't be able to, throwing out blasts of energy, that kinda thing. It seems to happen to people through fighting and there's a religious/philosophical divide on if the powers are gifted, stolen, earned or just random.

Now normally I'd consider that enough, can have lots of feuding super-powered (in terms of something like Mutants and Masterminds they'd be level 10s or lower. Mostly lower) nobility guff and fighting big monsters. However I'd like there to be a second thing in that there's also the undead. But a lot of them. Randomly cursed upon death or impending death, people just get undead. They don't die but stop needing the usual things such as food and drink but eventually go crazy. I figure this'd make for an interesting thing since I don't think the undead would ever lose powers from lack of use like people would in this. People get powers but they can only sustain having them through use. If a powered person catches undeath, they only ever get stronger. But that probably leads to them being more monstrous over time.

Is having the second part too much and should I just focus on the part of 'weak' super-powered people doing their thing in an otherwise fairly low-fantasy setting? Do I need to intertwine the two parts more? Just have the undead thing?

>vampires

Reposting from another thread.

>Dwarf Vampires

Vampires in the names only, the Dwarf Vampires were named so because of their superficial similarity with the real vampires. Whereas the real vampires feed on the blood of their victims, the dwarven variety feeds on the calcium in their bodies, which they get by injecting the victim through their long, mole-like claws with a ferment that dissolves their skeleton and then drinking it, leaving the victim an immobile,helpless pile of flesh.

The excessive amount of calcium in their organisms makes them grow armour plates on their bodies. Unlike the traditional vampires who can turn into bates, Dwarf Vampires turn into giant moles who can burrow through any kind of ground.

The first of the Dwarf Vampires was created when an insane runemaster attempted to become an Ancestor before actually dying. But instead, his experiment turned him into an undead monstrosity that is feared throughout the mountainous regions of the world.

To be honest, I find the premise of mild-super-humans fighting monsters and undead more boring than in any way problematic or self-contradictory. That said, two things. First:
>(divided buy vast rivers more than sea though)
This sounds dangerously close to being pretty stupid. I mean, unless your world really ignores basic principles of geography (which is possible, but difficult to pull off) or unless you are not telling us the whole story, this does not make much sense. Rivers collect water. They don't form checker-like structures that would allow for something like you described.

And second of all: if your setting includes super-hero's, even relatively underpowered, as a common element, trying to go for low-fantasy angle is not really going to work.

Alright, new thread. Even though no one ever responds to these, they aren't bad to help me think through some in-universe concepts, so here goes.

>Does your setting have undead?
Yes and no. Depends on the perspective of the observer.

>What kinds are present? Zombies, skeletons, ghosts, wraiths, liches?

By technicality, there are:
-zombies (called a multitude of names, from "afflicted" to "zoqii," a Ghosi word meaning 'without will')
-ghosts (more often "apparitions" of "phantasms")
-vampires (Voskan bloodlords and bloodqueens) and
- liches ("mortae vitae" to Patri, literally 'living dead').

At least, there are interpretations thereof.

>How do you kill each type?

With the exception of the phantasms, you can kill all of them pretty effectively the same way you'd kill a human. Since a phantasm is a decidedly magical entity, you'd need magic to "kill" it.

continued from >How are the different types of undead created?

Most types of "zombies" are made by exotic parasites and illnesses. A notable example is the Sea's Madness, which can afflict sailors off the coast of the subcontinent of Gi'Siva. A host of aches, hallucinations and spasmodic episodes will end in total, suicidal madness, wherein the victims will stop at nothing to dive into the ocean and drown themselves. This is because they've been infected by a parasitic worm that lays its eggs in their soft tissues and takes control of their nervous systems; the green eyes are the actually the worms' bodies, after they've bored their way through the sockets and attempt to steer their host into the ocean.

This process can also be imitated by using alchemy to create a slave-zombie, and is utilized by orders such as Vellish alchemists, Patri lockspells and even some clans of Ghosi slavers.

Apparitions can be brought forth by professional mediums, who a person can pay in order to contact a dead person they used to know, ordinarily a loved one. This is not really a ghost, but a sensual apparition which is projected by the customer and initiated by the medium's suggestion.

As for your liches and vamps, alchemy can be used in some cases to sustain life past its expiration. The equivalent to "vampires," Voskan bloodlords, use human blood to sustain their vitality, while more conventional alchemists, including the mortae vitae, might use tonics of herbs and mercury salts. These quick fixes to mortality rarely come without a grave price, though; while still alive, the procedures these people subject themselves to will, sooner or later, rot them from the inside out.

>Does your world have equivalent of Sandro? Powerful necromancer skellington who wants to conquer the world!

anyone who's willing to bathe in virgin blood and drink mercury is doing it for more than fear of death.

So i'm writing my Hell as a city, and I need concepts for tiers of the massive city. I'm going to go with a kind of Inferno/Nine Hells concept, but since my Devils are defined by being the antithesis of human/mortal defined concepts, I figure the tiers should follow the main important ones.

So what are some important human concepts, akin to like the seven deadly sins?

Fuck me, I'm retarded. That first bit about the zombies should mention that the Madness ends in the victim having bulging green eyes, like the pic related.

The geography thing is largely there to serve as a clear set of boarders, more comprehensible than just a few bits of river and marsh. More like a Super-Amazon, akin to the Reik in Warhammer. It'll be mixed in with other very unnatural features and constructs.

As for the superheroes, well they're not really that in the comic-book sense, but rather it's the best term I could think of to convey something akin to the heroes of greek myth but with a lot more flash behind their strength and ability in a modern style; which also gives something to focus on mechanically than just boosting up numbers over normal people. No super-intelligences that by all rights should be breaking the world with their puzzle solving and creative abilities either. Very limited magic items at that, more just exotic materials and weird methods of fighting, but the idea is to focus in on the characters not the equipment.

Have you read conan? :D
> Elephantpeople from Space
> Lizardpeople from before the Dawn of Time
> Dreamer-Wizardfolk-City
> Dark Shadowblob Tentacle Rapemonsters
> Undead Hordes
> WIZARDS everywhere
> ALL OF THEM ancient
> MOST OF THEM stemming from a now defunct and fallen civilization
> Ape-Men
> Men-Apes
> Ghosts
> Shapechangers
I could go on,
but Conan is basically chock full of nonhuman shit

No help here?

The nice thing about all that in Conan is it's weird as shit (and to use magic is never without consequences, most of them being evil); you don't get the boring defaults of elves, orcs, dwarves and so on filling space. It's way more like classic mythology where the non-human stuff is... well it's like the shit Alexander The Great supposedly ran into in medieval retellings like those dragons with gems in their heads or the dudes whose faces are in their torsos.

Humans are definitely the main dudes of the setting with Conan and there's so much to be done with just the humans, where most other fantasy settings (in RPGs especially) have pretty much everyone interesting as one of the other 'standard' races and humans are basically pointless filler material.

Nope, not at all but its a setting with magic that seems innately balanced for my worlds.

>Does your setting have undead?
In folklore, yes, in reality, no, but plenty of people believe in them
>What kinds are present? Zombies, skeletons, ghosts, wraiths, liches?
Ghosts are quite common and usually seen as benevolent or at least benign, and give advice and instruction to their descendants.
Skeletons exist as a sort of "Army of the Dishonorable Dead", that frighten and harass the cowardly and unfaithful.
"Zombies" are what is believed to happen when bodies are buried instead of burnt. Since the spirit has left the corpse, an evil one enters and uses it as a puppet to wreak havoc in the world.
The equivalent of vampires are evil men cursed with eternal life and eternal hunger while blessed with immense strength and endurance to wander the land, eating anything living they can catch, including human beings
>How do you kill each type?
Ghosts can be unrooted by destroying their shrines, Skeleton-men must be killed with either a new blade or weapon, or one that belonged to the deceased. Spirit-puppets must be burned, expelling the evil spirit, and "vampires" must be eaten alive by dogs, raptors, or other carrion eaters.
>How are the different types of undead created?
Ghosts just happen. Skeletons are raised by the realm of the unworthy dead itself, Spirit-puppets happen when you don't dispose of a body by burning, "vampires" are men of both great evil and great renown or infamy, cursed to never enter the spirit world or have rest.
>Does your world have equivalent of Sandro?
Not really.

>Does your setting have undead?
Yeah it does, of all kinds. Scarab/pachyderm humanoids raise the dead to help with farming and grunt work. They also raise the bodies of flying leviathans and the like to use as airships. They are all tightly controlled and put down if they go feral. It's viewed in their culture as a civic duty, to give your body to the community so they can survive the harsh environment.

Outside of that, fairly uncommon. No vampires are not undead, just a race of beasts. Liches are a general no, and ghosts crop up occasionally immediately following a horrific event, but tend to not last long. A few weeks of haunting before it just sputters out.

>How do you kill them?
Zombies typically can live until their master releases them. Even nothing but bits of shattered bone can still technically be animated, but it isn't doing anything. Usually to minimize strain on the caster, they enchant a fail-safe into the zombie so a certain damage threshold releases the magic. Evil spirits and anything malevolent in general hates silver, while good spirits are repelled by mercury. That's why evil clerics of one race always wear jewelry made out of enchanted glass filled with mercury.

>How do you make them?
Zombies are easy. It's like programming a prebuilt robot. Pour a little will into it, give it simple parameters, allow for direct control, tada. Big ones just need more casters in a ritual.

No megalomaniac necromancers waiting to flood the world in Skellys, but my players haven't started fucking with the only place that might happen. Chances are they will piss off someone enough to make that a thing, eventually.

>Does your setting have undead?
Yes, undead are usually manifested as an extension of a persons will Lin after they die, but not always. Many of the lesser undead are corpses possessed by a parasite that lives in the Medulla Oblongata.
>What kinds are present? Zombies, skeletons, ghosts, wraiths, liches?
Zombies are the ones discribed earlier that are typically possessed by a "Necrosis Parasite" that lives in a particular swampy region along the Southern continent. There's also the Mummies, who represent the majority of other undead, that are mostly found in Kemetiuhr, being the ruling class of the country along the Eastern continent. Finally, there's the humble rank and file Skeleton warriors that aren't actually 'undead' per say, more they're constructs that are created via inscribing Runes all along the bones of a deceased individual, which entrap the persons soul essence that allows for 'energized locomotion' after death.
>How do you kill each type?
Typically you burn them to permanently kill them, but this obviously isn't the case for all of them. Zombies are very resistant to burning for instance, and it's recommended that you target and destroy the back of the head to kill the parasite infesting the brain stem. Mummies are more complex, as you typically need to destroy the embalmed organs in order to permanently kill a mummy. Skeletons merely need to have their Rune network nullified to release the trapped soul within.
>How are the different types of undead created?
Zombies are the remains of unlucky victims of the Grey Mire who had their bodies taken over, Mummies are the resurrected remains of the ruling family of Kemetiur to exist after death in service of its kingdom. Skeletons are the rank and file constructs that used to be common in many armies before the practice was outlawed and became taboo.

Do magically-summoned parasites that replace the brain of a corpse and puppet the body as if it were reanimated count as undead?

>Does your setting have undead?
Yes
>What kinds are present? Zombies, skeletons, ghosts, wraiths, liches?
Yes
>How do you kill each type?
Lots of violence for the physical ones, or lots of magic against the not-so-physical ones.
>How are the different types of undead created?
Magic.
>Does your world have equivalent of Sandro? Powerful necromancer skellington who wants to conquer the world!
Yes. The last Emperor of Pashem, who feared death above even the impending ruin of his empire (he decided to kill the world, didn't work out well). He invented Necromancy by taking the souls of several Gods slain in the big Pre-Time God War, and turned them Undead, the first undead ever. They got locked away, but he got smoked by the Gods for that bullshit. Now he's returned as a Super-Lich and is trying to use Necromancy to accelerate Entropy as a universal constant. Once the universe has decayed enough, his Undead Gods will devour everything, matter, energy, souls. He thinks he'll survive this and ascend to true Godhood. He's wrong, he'll be chow.

>>Does your setting have undead?

Kind of, yes. There are barren areas and ruins that have been destroyed by dragonfire where things called "cinders" exist, which appear to be the physical remains of humans and other large living creatures that were there when the fire turned everything to Ash. They're attracted to powerful magic and, unsurprisingly, life.

>>What kinds are present? Zombies, skeletons, ghosts, wraiths, liches?

The Cinders, which are Pompeii-Style Zombies that disperse into hot ash.

There are also a handful of spellcasters that are technically undead, mostly as part of the "Long Game" to escape death against the other immortals.

>>How do you kill each type?

Cinders: bash them until they disperse into a cloud of hot ashes, and most of the time they'll reform back at the place of their death, eternally on fire after a few days. Permanently killing them involves either driving an iron spike through their bodies and burying them in water for at least a week. Alternatively, killing the dragon that left the ash field they came from.

Each of the spellcaster immortals usually have a unique method of getting done in, usually reliant on the mechanism that they used to attain their state of immortality.

>>How are the different types of undead created?

Specifically by death in dragonfire. The mechanism isn't well known, not everything (or even most things) end up as cinders when killed that way.

>>Does your world have equivalent of Sandro? Powerful necromancer skellington who wants to conquer the world!

No necromancer Skellingtons unfortunately, just a number of immortals waging a long war against each other.

Another thread of anons talking at, and not with, each other.

Confession time: I've never come up with a single original creature in my life. It's not that everything under the sun has been done before, I simply cannot use something that doesn't have a page in some bestiary I've read.

>The geography thing is largely there to serve as a clear set of boarders,
I understand that. But here is the problem with geography: people have actually pretty good intuitive understanding of how landscapes work. And it's that intuitions that you are going to struggle with. Even if your world was not formed by shit like tectonics and natural geographical processes, even if your world contains clearly impossible things like flying rocks, some concepts, those that are familiar to us from real world, will feel intrusive if they go completely against real-world logic.

And the thing about rivers is: they don't CROSS. They rarely ever split too. They join, forming larger and larger torrent as they flow downwards towards a sea, then finally form a delta.
River islands are a thing, but you'll have one (usually relatively small) island in the middle of the torrent of a singular river. You can't really have a landscape broken into multiple islands by multiple large rivers, because that would assume your rivers split and cross to form those kinds of natural borders. Unless it's all one giant delta of one giant river.
And people will sadly notice that. It's not entirely impossible, but it's extremely hard to pull off.

As for the super-hero thing: the thing about low-fantasy is that it focuses more on the mundane than on the supernatural. Which is a problem when your mundane contains a lot of flashy super-hero like characters - even if their capabilities are scaled down. There is a reason why superhero's tend to be generally placed into larger-than-life, very exaggerated, mythological and usually one-dimensional settings: it's because mundane and super-powered just does not fit all that well together.

It's just a friendly warning. You are setting up some traps for yourself from perspective of belivability and narrative consistency. Not impossible to over-come ones, but it's just good to be aware of them, so you can account for them from the start.

Does anyone recall the tsochari from 3.5's Lords of Madness? (They were also in 4e's Book of Vile Darkness.) I wish to make them cute and sympathetic. I want them to cause problems for people, but without malice.

What does Veeky Forums think of my ideas?

>Before you, a slithering, tangled mess of ropelike tendrils coils and pulsates.
Nope. They look like this instead. As Small creatures, the humanoid part is only two feet tall.

>the tsochari are a race of monstrous imposters, creatures that can steal the bodies of their victims and pass unnoticed in humanoid society. They lust after magic, especially arcane magic, and eagerly seek out humanoid wizards to replace so they can gain access to spells they otherwise could not wield.
>Their appetite for arcane lore is limitless, and every tsochari success feeds their dark hunger for more and more magic.
Nope. Tsochari are just extremely curious about magic! They love magic. Many tsochari are magicians and artificers. However, their species learns magic most efficiently by entering the body of a humanoid magician, letting the caster go about their business, and feeling the rush of magic whenever the magician casts a spell. Tsochari see nothing wrong with doing this... and they see nothing wrong with "piloting" the spellcaster and getting them into situations where they need to bust out their strongest spells. Mayhem abounds!

>Long ago, evil wizards or cultists built gates linking certain terrible ruins in the normal world with the horrible world of the tsochari. Through these ancient gates, the tsochari steal into the world
Magical portals link the tsochari home world with many other Prime Material worlds. However, only tsochari can use them! When the tsochari are not busy possessing magicians to learn magic, they are glad to help people by working as transplanetary couriers, delivering messages and packages from continent to continent and world to world... for free! This is why people are reluctant to exterminate the tsochari.

>Key Skeleton

Key Skeleton is an undead creature that is born whenever a master thief dies without a proper burial. As necromantic energies fill his body, his flesh quickly turns to dust, while his bones change shape, all of them growing key-like features and becoming bone keys. A key skeleton is motivated solely by its need to steal. Stealing is almost insultingly easy for a key skeleton, because its key bones can unlock absolutely any lock.

The monetary value of the things it steals does not concern a key skeleton in the least; instead, it goes after the items most treasured by their owners, which it can magically sense. A pendant given by a lover lost at sea, a child's favourite toy, a banker's first earned coin - these are the items a key skeleton goes after. It keeps its loot within its ribcage, which becomes a container protected by a naturally formed bone padlock. When it steals an item that doesn't fit within its ribcage, for instance, a sportcar, the skeleton can magically shrink it.

The magical properties of a key skeleton's bones make it a natural target for master thieves. However, defeating a key skeleton is no small feat. As it transforms, one of its femurs grows into a large keyblade that the skeleton masterfully wields as a weapon. Anyone stricken by this keyblade is subjected to the skeleton's curse: this person could never lock anything again, and no locks of any kind would work near it. All of the buttons on his clothes would instantly unbutton, all zippers unzip. Even the bodily functions of this poor person are subjected to the curse, as he would no longer be able to close his eyes, his mouth or even hold it in.

I don't give a fuck. Everything I write in this thread also goes into my notes and from them, into my campaigns and possibly those of other GM's I know. If the locals don't appreciate my infinite wisdom, it's their choice.

Well this generals are more of a motivation to work on your current settings that actual discussions. I mean, nobody is changing his unique special setting because some random ppl on the internet tell him to do so.

>Does your setting have undead?
Yes, they have an entire egyptian-like civilization, totally not tomb kings i promise. They are used in the army and as slaves

>What kinds are present? Zombies, skeletons, ghosts, wraiths, liches?

D&D so basically everything in the manual. Zombis and skellys are common working the fields and as infantry. Wraiths are the favorite lieutenants of the current Shannzar ( basically a necromancer-pharaoh chosen by god to unify the empire)

>How do you kill each type?
Whatever you use in regular D&D to kill them i guess.

>How are the different types of undead created?

Every necromancer has his own technique and rituals for reviving undead. One of the important things about the setting is that there are intelligent undeads who are actual souls trapped in their dead bodies who are aware of their surrounding and they whine in pain constantly, so they are called by the dwarves "luru" or "whiners" in their tongue. They drive the slave economy because they don't need to be constantly commanded for them to work.

>Does your world have equivalent of Sandro? Powerful necromancer skellington who wants to conquer the world!

Every Shannzar tries this. Nubosia is a huge island ruled by necromancer dynasties. When the Shannzar dies the necromancer vow to take the crown and get elected by Shan-Zaroth vulture god of the dead as their representation on earth, so in a way they are a mix between the Pope and a Pharaoh. Current Shannzar is considered aggresive and expansionist even for nubosian standards.

>What does Veeky Forums think of my ideas?
I think that they're weeb crap and you should take them with you as you leave and never come back.

Oh god worms. Gruesome, but different. I wouldn't have that stuff in my low magic world, but otherwise useful idea. Just think player reaction when they understand what is happening.

There is always to original Dantes hell, seven deadly sins etc. Hell as a construct with tiers is pretty explored idea.

Question is why you want to have that definition of devil in your hell?

I would say that they are undead when the switch happens as the body is dead. If switch happens when body is alive they are not undead. Necromancy basically.

This is a minor problem. We don't comment much about lore dumbs, but if user asks question we try to help them.

One problem might be thread starter questions, they need more depth and something not all players think.

So of you have questions that help in worldbuilding just throw them here.

I haven't read any bestiaries. My races come from history and games.

>Person's sphincter stops being able to close
>Until the end of their days they're just shitting uncontrollably

make the skeletons spooky again!

I have no deep insights or hot opinions to give but I've read every post in this thread and most of the previous one and I appreciate them.

That was absolutely my implication.

>Ghost Town

Anybody who's lived for a long period of time in a city would confirm that every major settlement has an unmistakable spirit. Therefore, it should come off as no surprise that whenever a town is destroyed by a cataclysm or invaders, it often stays in the world as a ghost, just the way humans do. When fully manifested, Ghost Towns look like enormous humanoid colossi composed of a mishmash of buildings and architectural elements. However, they only fully materialise when they travel short distances or fight.

Like a vampire thirsts for blood, a Ghost Town thirsts for citizens; for what are they if not the lifeblood of any settlement? Typically, they find a convenient place along a major road, materialise one of their buildings near it while hiding the rest of their bodies and wait for inexperienced travellers to stay overnight in a coaching inn that wasn't on any maps. Some prefer to materialise a lavish house on a hill near a big settlement, which a mysterious agent is willing to sell to young families for a curiously low price. But, no matter how people enter a Ghost Town, they can never get out. They find themselves trapped forever in a maddening maze of interconnected rooms and corridors that belonged to the buildings of Ghost Town when it was a real settlement. All the while, their lifeforce is being drained by the malicious apparition, until they join the ranks its the ghostly citizens.

There's practically no hope of defeating a Ghost Town from the outside for anyone weaker than a major dragon: it has the combined strength of all of its citizens and then some. It can only be defeated from within by finding an object known as the Key to the Town and destroying it. That being said, the Ghost Town would do anything to prevent this outcome.

>Does your setting have undead?
yes
>What kinds are present? Zombies, skeletons, ghosts, wraiths, liches?

Ghouls, ghosts, constructs and two types of liches- regular flavor for humans and pheonix (firey birdman skele) for birdmen.
>How do you kill each type?
Banish, appease or use blessed weapons for ghosts, kill ghouls & constructs with mundane weapons, smash liches phylactery and kill them before they make another, destroy pheonix's ember (with magic).
>How are the different types of undead created?
Normal ghost reasons, construct via necromancy, ghouls with the plauge, liches through divine intervention (theres only like 3 in the setting atm), pheonixes immolation ritual authorized by the state for important members of society/clan.

>Does your world have equivalent of Sandro? Powerful necromancer skellington who wants to conquer the world!
One is in the middle of overthrowing his boss/putting his long distance waifu in charge; One was dumped after his expiramental youth potion killed him & he rose. Now hes trying to summon the banished god of magic back to the plane unknowingly; the last is the oldest and shes just chilling with her bff, the great pheonix, in the bird city waiting for their boss, the god of magic, to come back.

any theosophical world designs?

>Does your setting have undead?

Depends on where you are in reality.

>>What kinds are present? Zombies, skeletons, ghosts, wraiths, liches?

And more. Undead gods, Undead aliens, Undead ecosystems.

>>How do you kill each type?

You figure out the local world rules and pray it has a method of killing them. A few don't making them something you just have to run from.

>>Does your world have equivalent of Sandro? Powerful necromancer skellington who wants to conquer the world!

There was one man who was kind of like that on a larger scale. He was one of the elder beings that created the gods and a ton of other things with his civilization. He was turned into an accidental lich when the elder beings souls were ripped apart during a reality changing great war.

He luckily survived by way of being in the right place at the right time and having made a pact with a primordial force of the world. He isn't the BBEG of the setting or anything but he certainly is a very dangerous threat for most worlds even far weakened by lacking his divine soul/spark.

It's honestly pretty hard to really have a conversation on these things to be honest. Mostly because even if you draw inspiration unless you start talking about something very complex all the info you need is right there. So there isn't much to talk about.

>Undead ecosystems.
The definition of an ecosystem demands that the organisms that form it stay alive. Undead "ecosystem" will dwindle down to nothing super quickly because undead will kill off each other and there will be no living to replenish the populations. And if you do include the living, then it's basically a normal "living" ecosystem with the undead acting as an environment feature.

Hah. Was thinking more large scale environments where everything is undead and it spreads over time like a plague.

So technical user. Though it does bring up the old age question of what really is an undead? Scientifically speaking they aren't really any different then living organisms. So aren't they just magic powered living beings.

>Scientifically speaking they aren't really any different then living organisms.
They are scientifically different in every meaningful way:
- they don't grow or develop;
- they don't need to sustain themselves;
- they cannot reproduce.
In an ecosystem, an undead is closer to a rock lying around than an animal.

>Does your setting have undead?
Every intelligent race is could be said as being undead already
>What kinds are present? Zombies, skeletons, ghosts, wraiths, liches?
2 types:
Aether Spirits, volumes of Aether that are imbued with intent by particularly powerful/devoted Heralds
The Consumed: It's a slow burn to madness. Regular people in this setting are immortal but cut them and they feel the pain and the wound "heals". Cut off an arm and a claw grows in it's place. Cut off the head and no one can hear them scream until what replaces their body grows back. And now you have a head that's been driven insane from being nothing but a head for who knows how long put on to a killing machine of a body.
>How do you kill each type?
For the Spirits, just a Herald must interfere with the Spirits "body" of Aether until it collapses.
For Consumed, bury them deep and hope they don't find their way back to the surface or burn the head to ashes. Unfortunately, there's not many ways to get fire in my setting. Alternatively, after enough time passes it will simply crumble to sand.
>How are the different types of undead created?
For Spirits, they are created deliberately by Heralds. They are essentially magical constructs. For the Consumed, just existing causes you to become one.

>Does your world have equivalent of Sandro? Powerful necromancer skellington who wants to conquer the world!
There wouldn't be much point. What is there to conquer but ruins, the Wall, and endless tracts of Sand? You could try to take over a city but what's the use of ruling over a city filled with monstrosities that want you dead and you can't kill?

>There is always to original Dantes hell, seven deadly sins etc. Hell as a construct with tiers is pretty explored idea.

I know I want to draw on that, but instead of the sins, some of which are more primal than others, I want "human" constructed ideas.

>Question is why you want to have that definition of devil in your hell?
Devils and demons in my world are defined by what they're the antithesis of. Demons are the perversions of primal and natural concepts, whereas Devils are more perversions of invented and unnatural concepts.
They're also more this way because I want a more meaningful difference between Devils and Demons beyond an alignment.

>Does your setting have undead?
The main background plot of the setting is about how a god resurrected an old civilization as skeletons a part of a scheme to take over the world. Otherwise, there are no undead, which is why the skeleton armies make people so nervous.

>What kinds are present? Zombies, skeletons, ghosts, wraiths, liches?
Only skeletons and mummies. Every single one is intelligent.

>How do you kill each type?
With violence. They have a tendency to come back, though.

>How are the different types of undead created?
If there is a strong channeler and a large quantity of magical raw material, the god in question can take one of the many, many souls he has loafing around in the afterlife and put them back in their reanimated, dead body.

>Does your world have equivalent of Sandro? Powerful necromancer skellington who wants to conquer the world!
Kind of, but he's mostly trying to conquer the world because he's an ornery warrior king, and the world didn't welcome him back with open arms when he returned as an undead monstrosity.

There was a recent thread about worldbuilding peeves and unfortunately 404ed with me still wondering, do people really think settings should have a limited, small number of races?

Pic related is our setting that the whole party chipped in to create, although that said the races were mostly lifted from FantasyCraft to make things easier.

Aand I forgot my pic.

I don't think I have one in my fantasy setting either. It started as an exercise in common fantasy tropes, and stayed that way. Closest I have is some "totally not stolen from random art I saw online *wink wink*" ideas.

We have one in called Decjubans, and they're really only unique because they're an absolute mess.

The way I see it it's just comfortable to use races and creatures people can easily wrap their heads around and already probably enjoy, then they can focus on any social, political etc. stuff that really makes the setting different.

You mean playable races?

>Does your setting have undead?
Yes.

>What kinds are present? Zombies, skeletons, ghosts, wraiths, liches?
The usual menagerie.

>How do you kill each type?
Haven't put much thought into it. Though I like the idea that a lich hides his beating heart instead of a phylactery, and if you have the heart you can magically influence and control the lich.

>How are the different types of undead created?
Haven't thought about it much.

>Does your world have equivalent of Sandro? Powerful necromancer skellington who wants to conquer the world!
Somewhere probably, but not in the campaign world.

-----------

I'm working on a world for a 5e campaign I'll be running soon. I'm cribbing a lot from Eador with some Black Company influences for the Masters.

Basically the "world" is hundreds of variously continent-sized chunks (calling them shards for now) floating in space. Each one has several artifacts of unknown origin (calling them pylons for now), three in the campaign's shard. With the proper rituals one who knows how the pylons work can attune them to himself and activate them. If he activates all of a shard's pylons they grant him godlike powers limited to his shard. (calling him a master for now, a la eador)

With all the shard's knowledge at his fingertips the new master inevitably realizes that there are other shards out there and they also have pylons, so he goes out and starts grabbing them up too and incorporating them into his growing conglomerate of shards (which i'll call a demesne for now). Since the pylons and their secrets are so well-hidden it's almost always foreign invader masters who take them over, new ascensions are very rare.

Masters are only gods in their own demesne (though they can only be permanently killed within their demesne) but they're still ancient, immensely powerful sorcerers, so when they fight over shards it usually leaves the shard in ruins. (continuing)

Yeah, sentient/playable.

To deal with that problem, and to deflect some of the moral concerns about invading and conquering everything, the masters got together and drafted rules for competing over shards, essentially turning it into a giant game. I probably won't come up with a full list of rules since it's not necessary, but the gist is that masters are very limited in their interactions with the world and they can't force anyone to do anything, magically or otherwise. Basically they have to cajole or bribe the inhabitants of the shard to do everything for them, the same way in Eador the player interacts with the shards via heroes.

The PCs are approached by a Master who takes the game and the rules very seriously, and whose MO is playing Dumbledore/Gandalf and convincing idealistic youths that they're saving the world by activating the pylons for him.

I'm a little worried that this part of the campaign, early on when he's doing this, will be so cliche (intentionally) that the players will check out or start metagaming, not sure how I'll deal with that element.

Anyway, at the same time the Triumvirate, a cabal of Masters who ascended together and are forced to share power, and who don't really give a shit about the rules, have taken over a large chunk of the shard. They start poking around the PCs' homeland trying to find the pylon and that's where Dumbledore's facade starts to fall apart.

The Triumvirate are basically the Taken from Black Company, immortal assholes who hate each other and are constantly looking for ways to weasel out of the pact they're stuck in and take the shard for themselves. If they win they'll fight over the PCs' world until it's a husk and then they'll find a new one.

Dumbledore is more hands-off with his shards, he's really doing it for sport, but he's still trying to take over the world. I'm expecting the players will assume he's just as bad as the Triumvirate which will make for some interesting conflicts.

Anything more on this?

That turtle guy looks pretty cool!
What is the name of his race?

Boring furries #35

What things would you expect to see littering the battlefields of a large-scale magical conflict? Both sides are incredibly powerful, but can't really harm the universe itself, so simply erasing areas/creating time loops isn't possible.

Droves of weak-blooded vampires, the remnants of mages hit with an aerosol form of weakened vampire venom?

Lurching constructs incapable of higher thought, following instructions given to them by creators long dead?

Fleshgolems animated by bloodshed and spite, eagerly hounding down any that trespass into their domains?

In olden times, magic was but a foolish superstition held by the feeble minded, a narrative tool used by tricksters and other manipulators to make themselves seem greater than they were. And thus, a hundred cycles of Creation, Destruction and Salvation passed without magic and without change. This we call the Age of Equilibrium

Then, at the end of one such cycle - or at the beginning? who can tell where a circle begins and ends other than its creator... - Salvation left a crack in the fabric of the world. But what could exist beyond the world itself? Beyond all of existence? Nothing existed outside the world, and through the cracks, Nothing entered the world to become part of it. Through Nothing, came change. The first Fading ravaged that cycle and only through Salvation was it halted. Halted, not undone, for every cycle saw Nothing return and Fading taking place. What Salvation returned from the Fading, came back changed, perverted. Lands had their lakes replaced with acid sludge, mountains grew above the clouds and into Heaven itself, trees grew leaves on their roots... This we call the Age of Entropy.

Then came the Dark Ones, who returned as grotesque parodies of Men, with their flesh growing beyond its skin. Covered in robes of black to hide their shame, they were the first to teach Mankind the art of commanding the body beyond its natural limits, how to focus flesh, bone and blood into vile supernatural power. Thus, the Dark Arts came into being, and magic was a myth no more.

But alas, to use the Dark Arts means to succumb to them. With every spell extorted from their own bodies, more cancerous growths spouted from the skin of these dark magi. Slowly, they were consumed by a mindless hunger for flesh, human flesh, until they collapsed under the weight of their pitch black tumors. This we call the Dark Age.

(cont)

The Dark Arts and those who practiced them were shunned, and the Order was formed, dedicated to purging the world of all dark magi - "sinners", who adored the flesh and its powers. The Order sought to ascend from the prison of the flesh, to leave behind their bodies and attain true personhood as beings of Soul and Soul alone. From their endeavors, the Holy Arts were born - the art of letting one's Soul travel outside the boundaries of its body to shape reality and see the unseen.

But every Soul still needs its body to remain complete. As the acolytes of the Order ascended and their Holy prowess grew, their bodies withered and decayed from neglect. Soon, they haunted their sacred halls as hollow spectres, wielding potent spells but devoid of any other memory. As time passed, the spectres lost their human shapes, turned into will'o'wisps and faded away from existence, taking their secrets with them. This we call the Lost Age, as many great Holy miracles were created by these first acolytes, but lost when they faded away with their knowledge unrecorded.

Now, Nothing is gnawing at the world once more, and with it the ancient magic arts have resurged. They say our Savior shall reveal her face to us soon, and usher in a new cycle. They say she is on her way to Hyldholm, to slay a terrible beast that has ravaged that kingdom. May her aim be true and her sword arm be steady.

Take quality over quantity. You will never be able to make 14 distinct, original, well-rounded major races. The best of us couldn't.

Lots of unpredictable magical artifacts where mundane equipment and random objects were infused with the magic flying around.

>>Does your setting have undead?

Dark magic draws on the body's own power, resulting in cancer-like growths under the skin when used in excess. Since dark magic is usually very useful to have around, with spells that give you superhuman stamina, instantly healing wounds or even regrowing lost limbs, most dark mages tend to do exactly that, until they become inhuman cannibals who feed on other humans since, ironically, the resource for dark magic is the Soul, which is consumed bit by bit by casting dark spells. Once the Soul is spent, a dark mage is basically a vaguely humanoid, constantly hungry animal covered in black fungus-like tumors. These are called "ghouls" by common people and can be killed by ordinary means, altough it is difficult. Starving them to death in sealed chambers or cages works as well, but takes time.

Liches are a whole different bag of worms. Becoming a lich requires mastery of both schools of magic in order to transpose a part of the Soul into a different vessel (Holy magic, used to separate the Soul from a body) and then using that part of the Soul to command a body using dark magic. An archetypal lich is essentially one person in multiple bodies with one of them (usually the youngest, fittest) being used as their collective phylactery from which the rest of them draw their life (to animate the bodies). A lich can be killed by destroying the phylactery body and then the rest of the collective which grows weak without its source of life energy. If the lich reacts fast enough, they can however transpose a part of their Soul into a new phylactery body, which weakens the Soul temporarily and can cause some of the collective bodies to stop functioning. To kill a lich for sure, all bodies of its collective must be destroyed completely i.e. by burning them until only ashes are left.

>>Does your world have equivalent of Sandro? Powerful necromancer skellington who wants to conquer the world!

I'm afraid no

Same user as again. I know the theme of this thread is spooky skeletons, but what about ayy lmaos?

Pic related; my setting is a gigantic planar world, where I treat the massive ocean like outer space and continents like different planets. As such, the cyclops in my setting are basically a colonial alien empire, who "terraform" other continents for mining and agriculture.

Another picture, this time sketches of a Cyclopean firearm and a Cyclops in armor.

They have a history with the humans of the setting's main supercontinent, Tiera and may have had some part in creating them but their colonial forces got BTFO'd by magic. All that's left of that excursion in "modern" times are a few splinter groups who got cut off from supply lines and hide in the mountains/far northern islands.

>Does your setting have undead?
Yes.

>What kinds are present? Zombies, skeletons, ghosts, wraiths, liches?
The most common are resurrected bodies. The Cults of Vitario are lead by the Lich Priests, ancient immortal creatures that Vitario, the God of Life, whispered secrets to. They travel the earth, doing his bidding. The latest and largest known movement of theirs has been powering the Goblins' rebellion against the Probus Imperium. Those taught by the Priests become vampires, powerful warriors and mages that must feed on blood in order to fuel their magic. Due to the incomplete magics taught, any dead they bring back to life without restoring the body to completion. Most come back as rotten zombies, while the fresher dead come back as ghouls, driven insane by being ripped from the afterlife.

The Rebellion has access to some weirder and rarer undead, such as the Wendigo, undead Yeti whose natural magical nature interferes with the resurrection, creating an intense desire to feed on flesh; and the Corpse Hydra, an undead monstrosity, an experiment to create a creature that can fuse with corpses collected on the battlefield and resurrect them.

Few other cultures have their own undead. The natural tribes of the Goblins communicate with the spirits of their ancestors, and the Sobki mummify their deceased in case their soul wanders back to the body if rejected from passing over to the afterlife.

>How do you kill each type?
Stab them til they're dead.

>How are the different types of undead created?
Most are created by the use of Vitomancy to resurrect the dead. The Sobki Returned are created when the souls of sinners are rejected by Sobkesh from crossing over, and they somehow find their way back to their mummified body.

>Does your world have equivalent of Sandro? Powerful necromancer skellington who wants to conquer the world!
No, undead are on the downlow mostly, otherwise Moriri, Vitario's twin sister, would strike them down to return balance

And here's a full bust of one's face.

On average, Clops stand about twelve to thirteen feet. They exist in human folklore, taking a multitude of names and often depicted as dim-witted brutes. In reality, they're actually highly intelligent, and extremely concrete quantitative thinkers. Their main issue is that they lack much of the complex abstract thought that other intelligent races possess, which cuts off their access to magic and can make them slow at problem-solving.

Basically, with their design I was hoping to intersect classical mythology with contemporary alien grays. I think I did a decent job.

You didn't even read things properly, nor did you link back to the right post.

See Why do races all need to be so "original"?

I made a pantheon of Gods that reflect human virtues and desires

People Die - Hashtur - Noc - Reapers
People Struggle - Ponibus - Bellum - Templars
People Trade - Remena - Ritara - Judges
People Create - Vévur - Day - Wheels
People Live - Calmainn - Acareyn - Matkyrs
People Feel - Aðil - Parodyse - Archons
People Find - Jyrall - Ozymand - Sphinxes
People make order - All
People exist in 4 dimensions.
The Gods are in all ways these things.
Angels are their agents to ensure their will is maintained.

Probably Trade and Making Order would be the only two that would have a Devil antithesis, the other would have a Demon antithesis.

I'm on DM break for months and have time to gen a new sandbox. I'm looking to base it strongly upon the silk road and settlements that ring the steppe. I'm really only having troubles getting my nomads to work. Centaurs stuck out to me as an obvious choice and gnolls are far too bestial. I'd like some alternatives that aren't orcs/goblinoids. Ideally something friendly with a more far eastern mythological foundation.

You could try tengu.

>Does your setting have undead?

Yes. They're a part of society, but skeletons are better accepted for hygiene and smell reasons, mostly. They're great workforce.
>What kinds are present? Zombies, skeletons, ghosts, wraiths, liches?
^
>How do you kill each type?
Just like a human. Smash a skeleton into pieces, crush the brain for a zombie.
>How are the different types of undead created?
Necromancy is a socially acceptable kind of magic, and Necromancers usually work for their city or the global government (this takes place on an island completely separate from the rest of the world) to create workforce or soldiers. The undead keep their memories and beliefs through black magic fuckery.
>Does your world have equivalent of Sandro? Powerful necromancer skellington who wants to conquer the world!
A previous BBEG from another campaign in the same setting that took place a couple centuries ago ended up being a Necromancer. One of his great-great-great[...] grandchildren will be a PC in my next campaign, as some kind of Mechromancer pretty much

Thoughts on my doodle?
Besides a trash tier photo?

>Does your setting have undead?
Yes.

>What kinds are present? Zombies, skeletons, ghosts, wraiths, liches?
When a person is given a choice of resurrection by spell or ritual and takes it, they are considered to have rejected eternity with their patron deities.
As a mark of infidelity, they will be branded with the sigil of their god.
These people are considered as undead and will be rejected all services at the angered deity's temples.
They are unkillable and are incapable of dying once more, their bodies no longer capable of healing old wounds will fall apart eventually, leaving only bones.
The magically talented become liches, the weak minded become raving skeletons.
Not all are evil, some remain sane even after centuries.
As sane as can be, at least.

However, there are also unholy magics that allow a necromancer to drag a forcefully person's soul back to the mortal realm, creating mindless servants called zombies.
The soul involved would be torn apart in the process, losing it's status as a true soul and falling back to the mortal realm.
This creates a ghost that seeks the other half of it's soul tirelessly, hoping to return to the halls of it's patron deity.
However, if it does not return fast enough, the wandering soul starts to lose memories slowly, eventually forgetting everything that made it human in the first place, it eventually goes feral becoming a wraith.

>How do you kill each type?
Liches and skeletons cannot be killed.
Skeletons can be shattered, but they eventually reconstitute, the best way to get rid of them is to bury body parts far away from each other, and hope they don't crawl back out.
Liches can hopefully be bargained with, but if push comes to shove, they have to be taken care of just like skeletons.

>Does my setting have Undead?
Yes, though "undead" has less to do with "brought back", and more to do with "not quite dead enough yet"

>What kinds are present?
Well, again, because the undead arn't really raised, they take the form of half dead beings like Zombies. Most are caused by disease, though others can be made from violent near-deaths. Ghosts, on the otherhand, are created when, after the body is destroyed, the soul refuses to die out right. And I'm talking super strong will, not just "I didn't get to say goodbye to my family" kind of strong will, i'm talking a soldiers will or the will of a tyrant. Ghosts are ultimately the strongest undead in the world.

>How do you kill each type?
The thing about being "Almost dead", is that if you can just kill someone quickly, they go down. If you get them near to death, they get a negative energy "zenkai boost", and may return to form, albiet now insane and much harder to kill. Once they become undead, the best way to kill them is to imobalize them and burn them or disolve them in acid. They are extremely tough to just kill, because, in essance, they are still kinda dead.

>How are they created?
Death as we know it in this world is ultimately different then in the campaign. Rather than death being the end of everything, entropy, and the ceasing of life as we know it, everything in this world is alive. But there must still be change. And ever changing world needs a way to evoke change, and so adopts an idea like "death" as a way to move beings who age or become too damaged into a realm of stillness and peace. The world itself does not care who lives or dies, the body itself decides to change, or to resist change. Those who accept change move on, those who resist become undead. Those who resist even after their bodies are destroyed become Ghosts, Spirits who embody the Stagnancy of Unlife, Unwillingness to Change, and ultimately unnatrual because change is the way of nature.

>Are there undead?

Yes, but onl in areas where the ground is tainted

>What kind are present?

Zombies/skeletons of the creatures of the land.

>How do you kill them?

disable the limbs, or burn the body.

>How are they Created?

Magically animated.

Does your world have a powerful spooker.

The plaguelands were created by the dead body of an ancient black dragon, resentful of the living. it's rage animates the dead of the area.

>Skulldozer

A skulldozer is born when a person possessed of a great thirst for destruction dies without a proper burial. His flesh and bones turn to dust, leaving only the skull, which undergoes rapid transformations by growing in size and sprouting bone spikes. This monstrous skull attacks by rolling into its enemies and is already dangerous enough, but it's only once it has killed a couple of creatures that it starts to realise its true potential. Skulldozers use the bones of their victims as machine parts, constructing bone machines around them where their original skull serves as the engine. They're possessed of an instinctive knowledge of engineering that allows them to create truly impressive bone machines. It's too bad all of them serve only one function - destruction.

The final form of a skulldozer depends on the bones that it has managed to salvage, making sure that no two of them look remotely alike. Some of them are like skeletal bulldozers, others are like wrecking ball cranes, catapults or steamrollers. But a skulldozer is never satisfied with its present form, it's always on the lookout for more rare bones to make new tools of destruction from. The oldest of them look like armoured trains bristling with bone weapons.

However, destruction of everything that stands in its way is the primary objective of a skulldozer. It gladly levels settlements, uproots forests and buries rivers under heaps of dirt. On the positive side, it's completely unbiased in choosing the next goal for its demolition spree. In fact, some less scrupulous feudal lords use rare bones, typically those of unearthed fossils, to lure skulldozers into the demesne of their rivals.

>Does your setting have undead?
Nothing codified -- no "undead" races, no unified process of transformation.
>What kinds are present? Zombies, skeletons, ghosts, wraiths, liches?
In the twilit lands of the Shotgun Kings foreigners cannot die. The Shotgun natives will not let them. They are foreigners, gods! -- or at least, holy men. And their imaginations capture them, hammer them into their own form. The daughter of the governor becomes a queen of wasting beauty. The young soldier becomes a fierce demon of the sword. The doctor who once brought vaccination now holds the power of life and death in each hand.

In the timeless not so distant future, men will not be suffered to have end. It is inefficient. It is a waste. Central needs manpower. So the soul-mills will catch the torn rags of men at the instant of death, and stitch them into an animatic sluice -- to be reshaped into true soldiers. And they will graft the souls of dogs onto them. And they will graft the souls of unearthed gods onto them. And when they die, they will begin with them anew.
>How killed?
For some the simple sword or bullet. For others, there can be no killing.
>How created?
It depends.
>Does your world have equivalent of Sandro? Powerful necromancer skellington who wants to conquer the world!
In a way.

Neuromax is a self-made (man-made) God. He cannot bear loss. His memories torment him, but He is a God -- He is not powerless. So he set about recreating the world of his memories. But he is a selfless God, and cannot stand while others fall. So he recreates their memories. And them.

This setting doesn't have an afterlife -- or none Neuromax can see. People scatter into lifelessness, and are lost. So Neuromax, who is a God, made His own heaven. And now he churns out his soul-driven armies and engines and mass arrays and changes the past and carves the future and takes men into His heavenly machine, by all means necessary.

He will not stop until the Demiurge is dead.

I actually have no bloody idea, but I would guess old D&D editions or Glorantha has it.

You did a nice job. I like them. Ayyclops

Check Indian mythology for different animal people. The local human cultures could be wildly different with remnants of old civilizations trying to hang on.

Can't see shit Capn. Try to take better picture.

The bones of skeletons that were reanimated

Scorch marks from devastatingly powerful spells

Dusty armor, to represent the soldiers that were vaporized.

Broken wands that have long fizzled out. Some occasionally glow or give off sparks to represent their former power.

Ghosts, lots of them, the nature of such a battlefield prevents them from moving on to the afterlife.

Runes the size of a baseball field being scattered around the place, only being clearly visible from the air. The runes themselves don't work anymore.

a shitload of terribly mangled corpses, most of them barely recognizable as once human

and it's haunted. haunted so bad, they had to enlist a group of hardass clerics to bind all those ghosts and contain them somewhere safe, like a big tree. what could possible go wrong?

Let me share a tale, haphazardly translated from its original Swedish;

In the small tavern "Zum Weissen Rössli" in S:t Gallien, Switzerland, the quiet atmosphere was broken by the sudden opening of the door. A man came in, shook his boots clean from snow and sat down by a table. The man was a merchant vising the town to do business in one of its many textile factories, which had recently experienced a boost in its productivity. The man ordered burnwine, along with some dinner. He was in a joyous mood and spoke loudly with the tavern keeper.

At another table sat a man, alone, over an empty bottle of burnwine. The light from the table candle danced across his raggedy clothes and the merchant saw that the man was unshaved and dirty. A not too uncommon sight at taverns during this time - the veterans from the war often sought out alcohol to dampen the dark memories. He quietly asked the tavern keeper if he knew who he was and got the answer that it was some Swede. A regular, but poor, that has lived in the town for a few years.

Their conversation was interrupted by the man's loud coughing, followed by him falling over. The tavern keeper sighed, used to the drunken antics of the Swede. Still, he approached the man and tried to wake him up. But the man did not react. The tavern keeper quickly got on his feet and called for his wife to get the doctor. Meanwhile, the merchant and the keeper carried the man to a sofa. But it was too late, the doctor could do nothing - the man was dead.

In a small tavern in Switzerland, the life of the deported king Gustav IV Adolf ended on the 7th of February 1837. An undignified end for an undignified king.

Histories like this always get me going. I hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks for sharing. I didn't know what happened to him, only that coup happened.

Wasn't Gustav IV Adolf bit lackluster King?

He got screwed hard by the history. He happened to be ruling when Russia seized Finland. And the Russians didn't even want it, they were told by Napoleon to do it. And they tore their alliance with Napoleon to shreds soon thereafter anyway, and proceeded to kick his ass. But it was too late for Gustav IV Adolf.

That and Gustav's attitude against Napoleon also caught the ire of the people of Sweden. Though his actions post-monarchy are more questionable from a moral and logical standpoint than his rule, in my opinion.

>Get shipped away to Germany with wife, kids and some royal servants to keep.
>Gets to live in a mansion, given to him by his wife's family
>Divorces his wife cause he wants to live a religious life and she's not quite up to snuff
>Proceeds to fuck around Europe for the rest of his life, having multiple mistresses
>Finally gets fucked over for good when his barely legal gf robs him blind and deserts him during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem
>This was after giving him an STD
>Dies of a stroke as an alcoholic hobo

I like his story, it's a tragical and comedic life he lived that serves as an inspiration to all of us.

Clopsposter here. Much obliged, user.

I'm working on pic related, a world modeled off the weird fantasy setting of old, such as the world from Pirates of Darkwater, Athas from Darksun, and the more exotic elements of Conan, Thundarr, and even Thundercats and Wizards.

Looking for some ideas on how to handle humans. I want to break them up into a couple of "types" or ethnicities, but I feel like I'm not coming up with much. The rest of the world features elements of psionics (for the weird scifi flavor), as well as hybrid animals (Crab-Spiders that lay their webs along corral reefs to catch ships) and pre-gunpowder Sailing tropes and adventures.

So far I just have some inkling for one group: The Telamani.
>blonde, bronze skin, elfin features
>basically Ren from Pirates of Dark Water
>think Pirate version of a California surfer
>used to run a major Greco-Persian style empire
>Now sort of live off the ruins of their old island colonies, having lost the mainland
>strange connection to the sea itself

Anyone got some ideas to help me get going?

What biomes are available to the inhabitants?

Tropical, coastal, and desert. The entire map falls just within the 30th parallel, north adn south.

>/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

Nothing exciting or crazy to report this time.

I found one of those Dungeon side view maps and decided I'd draw over it using the material from my setting to create a new dungeon.

It was a lot of fun, but I was surprised that the long part wasn't spent drawing, but instead thinking about what should go where and why.

That creature by the "Caves" listing is adorable.