/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

Are you? The Silmarillion is pretty much huge boring walls of text with pointless details: the book.

>I'm not too lazy to give examples, it's just that you won't read my wall of text if I start providing them.
Produce walls of text.

Yes.

Before I start, I promise you that everything you're about to read about makes sense in context.

Mutants who live in warrens and modify their bodies by swallowing genetically engineered parasitic worms;
A nation of sadistic eternal children controlling bee swarms with their technology based on flowers;
Pirate liches who ride inside undead blue whales and rob libraries;
Knights who dress in castles garrisoned with pixies;
Arctic gnome sultanate famous for its knights riding cyborg penguins;
An undead empire with an economy centred entirely around casinos;
A country situated on the back of an enormous hibernating dragon that pumps his blood like oil and sells it;
Highbrow orcs who imitate nobles to the best of their ability and ride their peasants dressed as horses;
A country of ghosts who think that they're the only ones left alive and everybody else is a ghost;

I could go on like this forever, but hopefully I don't have to.

>Pirate liches who ride inside undead blue whales and rob libraries;
That sounds awesome
>Knights who dress in castles garrisoned with pixies;
Dress in what?
>Arctic gnome sultanate famous for its knights riding cyborg penguins;
That's just silly.
>An undead empire with an economy centred entirely around casinos;
Holy shit, this is why you don't disturb Indian burial grounds.
>A country situated on the back of an enormous hibernating dragon that pumps his blood like oil and sells it;
Cool.
>Highbrow orcs who imitate nobles to the best of their ability and ride their peasants dressed as horses;
That's pretty funny.
>A country of ghosts who think that they're the only ones left alive and everybody else is a ghost;
Lovely.

Their armour is miniature castles garrisoned by pixies. These guys also have castles on wheels and their entire country is a huge castle. They really, really like their castles.

That's cool. Like, holy shit you don't understand how cool this is in reality. You can make it a setting and everything.

Also I might steal it.

>how high is your fantasy setting?
Fairly high, seeing as we were actually high when making some of it.

>what have you done to make it stand apart yet be more accessible?
Its a collaborative effort with my gaming group. one of us had DMed for a number of months before handing the reins over to me and giving me full permission to expand upon the setting. I may do the same at some point, and hand the DMing (and worldbuilding) duties to another player in the group. Its accessible to us since we are all invested in it.
Basically its an ocean planet. The landmasses are called 'octocontinents', and they're pretty much discworlds on top of massive tentacled octopus/jellyfish sorta things which drift through the endless seas.
The planet itself is but a droplet in the vapor from the blowhole of the great cosmic whale.

There's plenty of possible expansion in the form of any number of other octocontinents, even other sea-creature based continents. The mini-discworld setup can ensure that we don't go too broad in the worldbuilding, and go into detail within limited space.

>what innovations have you come up with for your setting?
There's a space elevator on one octocontinent, guarded by a cult who are telepathically linked with eachother. A remnant of a long forgotten, multiverse-spanning war between mighty empires.
A world-spanning circle of druids worships the octocontinents and offers depraved rituals and sacrifices to their continents to maintain calm passage, or even control the continents. Some radical members of it even feast upon the flesh of the world in the hopes of becoming one with it.

>what are the major influences for your setting?
Part of it is me trying not to contradict stuff that my predecessor came up with. He has a habit of putting anachronisms like a space elevator in his settings.
Berserk, the Arms Peddler, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Legend of the Galactic Heroes are some influences, at least for the continent I'm in charge of making.

>The planet itself is but a droplet in the vapor from the blowhole of the great cosmic whale.
That's deep.

Haha, well-memed my friend.

>how high is your fantasy setting?
Magic can do crazy shit and 95% of people can use it but most of those can only cast a few basic spells, however a select few have extremely high aptitude with it and can become kings of entire continents.
>What have you done to make it stand apart yet stay accessible?
While the world is politically and socially medieval magic has advanced the progression of technology greatfold, despite this guns are not often used as magically treated armor is highly resistant to them and most people can just zap lightning/fire/acid out of their fingers (simple evocation is well known) furthermore gunpowder doesn't enchant wells, as such carrying one is seen as an easy sign that you are a dirty muggle. Magic gear is easy to find/enchant/buy at a basic level. Everyone but the poorest of citizens has their everyday cloths enchanted with some protection spell and either is greatly proficient in magic or carries a weapon for self defense as monsters attack civilization quite often, not to mention nations frequently being at war.
What innovations have you come up for your setting?
In this world basically everybody is a low level mage because the main purpose of schools in the setting is to teach people magic and weed out those who are incapable of magic, there should also be a wide variety of monsters due to magic experements before Australia existed (which is basically where people go to create new creatures).
>what are the major influences for your setting?
To early to really tell yet but it is ment to be based off the real world somewhat.

>how high is your fantasy setting?
Pretty high.

>what have you done to make it stand apart yet be more accessible?
It started mostly as an exercise to play with common fantasy tropes, and went from there. Elves are still haughty and superior, but without the spiritual side of having gods; Dwarves are greedy, stubborn, and honorable, so they are a merchant race; undead are powered by cold life, not cold death. And then I threw in crocodilemen.

>what innovations have you come up with for your setting?
How undead is handled, I guess? The God of Life is the one that doesn't care about balance, trying to return life to the dead, no matter the shape and effect it would have. He has to work in secret, not to draw attention from his twin sister, the Goddess of Death.

>what are the major influences for your setting?
All over the place. Warhammer for magic being dangerous winds to be controlled. Kingdom Under Fire for the idea of twin gods sharing balance, and the "good" one breaking their word. Dark Crystal and World of Warcraft for the decedent flightless birdpeople. Elder Scrolls for some of the weird metaphysics.

>how high is your fantasy setting?
Somewhere between low and high.
>what have you done to make it stand apart yet be more accessible?
Well, it's 1640's our world if the Pendle Witches had been real and tore asunder the veil between worlds. So now it's 1640's our world + demihumans, magic, crazy malformed monsters (called collectively daemons) and all sorts of crazy shit is hitting the fan.
>what innovations have you come up with for your setting?
See the above answer.
>what are the major influences for your setting?
Lovecraft, G.R.R. Martin, E.R. Burroughs, R.E. Howard & the AD&D 1e DMG by Gygax.

>alternative 17th century with magic and extraplanar invasions
>the borders are the same as in our world
Lazy, man.

High fantasy, but not high magic. Set in 1930-1950s of sorts.

I found that having personal wiki helps, ex. TiddlyWiki. Just write on root article, and expand.

Really gonzo, I love it!

Not quite. The Ottomans have lost some territory, the Brandenburg state is collapsing, France and the Netherlands are expanding (though France has lost Brittany basically), the HRE is still being gripped in religious wars (some territorial changes here and there) and numerous other small changes. And the point of divergence (known as The Witches Night) is in the 1620s.

>how high is your fantasy setting?
pretty high
>what have you done to make it stand apart yet be more accessible?
keep a lot of the tropes everyone is familiar with but try to add spins or depth that rewards those who dig deeper
>what innovations have you come up with for your setting?
Nothing super unique. Gods are created by faith, owls are from the moon, there are archdevils of property values and waiting in line, etc
>what are the major influences for your setting?
Berserk, Warhammer, Tolkien, and obviously real life among others

>I'm a firm believer that the devil is in the details. You probably won't think it's extremely original if you just look at the map or read the brief descriptions of all the different races, some of which are standard fare. But once you start learning more about the setting, I hope that you'll find that it's nothing like you imagined.
this 100%

>how high is your fantasy setting?
Quite high? In the "present" magic is scarce though. It replenishes at a set speed, and the antique civs waged a war that left the world quite dry of magic. Also, one of the antique civs worshiped a tretratheon of living gods.
>What have you done to make it stand apart yet be more accessible?
The world is Moon-sized, there are only humans, but various civilizations which are fairly distinct in culture and way of life. The setting is only european-ish in a limited region, the rest is inspired by other regions. Also, due to gravity being weaker, giant bugs everywhere.
There is no medieval stasis, I actually have an antique and "modern" versions of the setting, on top of medieval. However, most stuff is in the details.
>What innovations have you come up with for your setting?
Technology is marching on, all mythologies are subjective (even that of the living gods) and can be explained by the others. To be honest, other than details often sound kind of trivial to my players, I don't think I'm very innovative. I believe making a modern version of a pre-existing medieval setting (the setting wasn't originally modern) is quite innovative.
>What are the major influences for your setting?
First of all, the Ys series. It hugely inspired the ancient empire that ruled the western part of the continent and consequently all civs that followed in that region. I also took inspiration in the Witcher, Berserk, the Elder Scrolls and the Elric Saga.

>there are archdevils of property values and waiting in line
Do they live in London?

Why do people post in these threads? Nobody cares about your setting, they only want to talk about their own and not respond or foster any kind of discussion.

>how high is your fantasy setting?
I've been calling it jaded fantasy. The fantasy elements are mundane, well-blended, and usually weak, but they're everywhere and thoroughly entwined in the setting. I use basic logic to determine how an element will affect the world instead of including fantasy elements with no consequence, which is why the world isn't very magical, just mysterious, I want it to still be relatable. The world literally has less color than ours, the environment in particular is desaturated. The setting is a mess of black, grey, brown, and faded grey-green. On rare occasions certain colors are strong and stand out, generally strong color correlates with power. In terms of darkness, the world can't be saved, but it can't be destroyed either. The butterfly effect is frequently used and intentions are always separate from consequences. In a utilitarian sense, evil is usually committed by heroes and good is committed by villains. Most protagonists are villains.

>what have you done to make it stand apart yet be more accessible?
-The world has no grand threat or destiny, quite peaceful and stagnant but full of suffering
-No spellcasting
-Fantasy elements have consequences on the rest of the setting
-No verified gods, wizards, higher beings, ancient magical societies, or existential threats, no enlightenment beyond the philosophical

>what innovations have you come up with for your setting?
-Fantasy elements have consequences on the rest of the setting
-No historical, mythological, or stock monsters/races other than vampires (I think)
-Natural selection exists
-Intentionally wonky and confusing narrative structure (less accessible)
-Focus on individual psychology, not politics or the fate of the world (less accessible)

Sometimes people do actually discuss and share ideas and give opinions on each others shit, But i agree lot of anons just jerk themselves off waiting for replies to their posts rather than actually contributing,

Imagine a fantasy setting where 'magic item shops' are relatively common, but they primarily sell low end consumable magic items, interesting little trinkets, and weird oddities instead of hugely powerful artifacts.

Anyone can use these items, but Wizards and the like use them the best. Potentially they'd get improved performance, more uses, or some other bonuses.

How do you feel about this idea? Sound interesting and fitting for a high fantasy setting?

>what are the major influences for your setting?
The Bible
The Quran
The Talmud
Bhagavad Gita
Nag Hammadi Library
Les Chants de Maldoror
Miguel Serrano
Savitri Devi
Julius Evola
Adolf Hitler
G.I. Gurdijeff
Immanuel Kant
John Stuart Mill
Nietzsche
Lesser Key of Solomon
Berserk

As well as general psychology, life experience, dreams, biology, evolution, and real life events. The world is far less mystical than the inspirations suggest. I have made very little progress into gnosticism and mysticism in general, don't want to make it look like I'm learned in mysticism by any means.

This might be a double post, having weird connection problems

I don't mean to be an asshole, but this just sounds super pretentious. I'm sure the setting is much better than you made it sound.
On a side not, never name Hitler as a reference if you want to be taken seriously.

It does sound super pretentious, it's why I stopped posting here. I'm an extremely edgy person. If I ever finish something it would be far better received than vague 2000-character posts.

Despite Hitler and maybe some others, my influence and inspiration list would look somewhat alike. I never considered it pretentious.

I'll make it clear that I don't like Hitler, I just find him extremely interesting and important. He's misjudged by both his "supporters" (who don't follow his true doctrine) and many of his justified haters. Hitler has become an important figure in modern mysticism and gnosticism.

I've come to a bit of cross-roads with the setting I'm currently building. It's very loosely based on the middle east c.650, and I've tried hard to make all the cultures/religions/geography/climate etc make sense and hang together.

I'm torn about how much magic/fantasy to put in though. On the one hand I do like the idea of a completely mundane setting as an excercise in realistic worldbuilding, on the other magic and wonderous yet impossible fantasy elements are fun. My concern is even a small amount of magic could start to take over the setting and make it deviate wildly off course compared to the mundane version.

I might just create an ultra-high magic setting based on Polynesia and Pre-Columbian America to get it out of my system, but I wondered if you guys had any suggestions.

I like it. Make it a modular kind of magic where a user's magic poweress is like an ecosystem or primodial soup, full of different kind of magic strands, each strand stengthening/penalizing the user. Only a wizard who have studied long and hard at each strand and their interaction with others can optimise their magic usage. However, due to the complexity of it, they could only estimate its performance.

Maybe magic could be a more subtle thing? Less flashy and more quiet, like meditation and Buddhist type magic (iron skin etc) communion with spirits and such.For creatures, going with the sublt thing, monsters are like cryptids in our world, rarely seen but feared beasts that lurk deep within the places we fear to tread

Which moon or planet in our solar system would be a good base for space vikings? And i need ideas/suggestions for how to use knights and samurai but in spaaaaaaace

>space vikings
Fucking Juptiers because if anything, Space Vikings and perpetual, crazy Jupiter storms work together.

Sky base hidden in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter works. Vikings are typically associated with icy wastes as well so maybe one of the ice moons?

>Not AoS high, but like Warcraft but not as gay
>The surface world is 100% known and documented in setting, only some of the other realms and underdark are unmapped
>Magic is caused effectively by radiation which leads to some regimes and corporations to force it on people. Not to mention some races use their magic users for breeding stock
>Real life, LotR, Lovecraft, WoW and Warhammer

Continuing adding Moore lore
The only civilized race in the setting are humans although there are some monster races in the process of creating their own civilizations I.e Minotaurs and Gnoll. Other common fantasy races like elves, and dwarves were all but whiped out in the past due to a calamity and suffer from low birth rates and isolation. Elves have high general magic ability (all elves are proficient mages) while dwarves excel in transmutation and enchanting items, almost no elves or dwarves have little to no magic and very few of the monster races have any magic at all.

What would be a good reason for melee weapons to come back int use in the space future? I know Dune had the reason that swords bypassed shields, but energy shields dont exist in this future (yet) so i need a fairly reasonable, low fi justification.

Do it like Legend of Galatic Heroes? Release of a special gas that threatens to blow up if anybody starts to pew pew.

People use both swords and guns for a variety of reasons. Close quarters in star ships, energy weapons and culture.

>how high is your fantasy setting?
Quite. The worlds in it are essentially floating bowls of earth, custom-engineered by the gods - seasons are exactly 91 days long, always, there are no fossile fuels (because the world is less than 5000 years old), and so on. The gods are essentially a group of assholes simultaneously playing thousands of games of Civilization.

>what have you done to make it stand apart yet be more accessible?
Rules inform fluff. Higher-level people become blatantly superhuman, the best smith in the world must also be a fearsome warrior, etc.

Otherwise, I don't want to stand apart. I want to have adventure and intrigue in a colourful fantasy land.

>what innovations have you come up with for your setting?
I don't know if I have come up with any.

>what are the major influences for your setting?
Heroes of Might and Magic I-III, the Warlock games, and so on.

Which do you think would be cooler/more interesting (assuming the civilization wouldn't be a direct copy and only use bits and pieces of the reference material so it'd have the same feel): Roman orcs or orc vikings?

>Knights who dress in castles garrisoned with pixies
I have no problem picturing this, and I approve

>An undead empire with an economy centred entirely around casinos
100% Indifference... actually, the burial grounds comment someone made turned this vaguely interesting, if they are indian ghost undeads

>A country situated on the back of an enormous hibernating dragon that pumps his blood like oil and sells it
Also meh

Everything else sounded either lolsorandum or just weird for the sake of being weird. 3/10

If by Roman, you mean highly civilized and technologically developed to the point that they have time for the circus, stabbing each other in the ass, and writing graffiti about their bowel movements on the coliseum walls, I would say Roman.

Viking orcs is not going to come across well, regardless of how you do it. Focus on viking tactics, you have slightly sneakier orcs than normal. Focus on viking culture, and you'll have green viking humans, and incorporate everything viking into your orks, and you'll just be accused of tryharding.

Can mountain chains split?

>how high is your fantasy
Imagine an elevation map that grows into a peak at the center. At the very eyes it's essentially just 9th to 13th century earth depending with occational ogres and Forrest fey. Towards the center it's an insane dream scape of wild magic and demon kingdoms shaping this undefined realm in their desired image. The actual setting of the game however is specifically a ruined dwarf city at the low end of the slopes of mount crazy, which itself gets crazier the deeper you go down. Magic is rare far from the epicenter of magic, but inside it's influence it's quite ambient, and people capable of channeling it are, while rare, expected. Spellcasters are not yet capable of the full potential of this sort of magic, as it's still fairly new. Magic items tend to have peculiar effects rather than powerful ones.
>standing apart
I'm trying to do my best to create unique personalities and aesthetic design for all the groups without stepping outside of what is "dwarf" and what is "troll". I'd like to avoid falling into the "human culture x fantasy race y" trap. The actual setting is very small though, by world standards, being only effectively that single dwarf hold, which is still very large, but it's a one ways off a full planet.
>influence
Realms of chaos for the aesthetic and magic vortex full of competing demon lords
Trudvang for the aesthetic and dwarves
Berserk for the aesthetic
Jojo has some influence on one of the schools of magic
Kingdom death for the monster aesthetic
Dwarf fortress gameplay for parts of the city and its history
Historical manuscript drawings for the book layout

Need some critique on this map.

I can only imagine it makes sense in the context that its supposed to be a highly silly setting for highly silly campaigns, which is ok if that is how its intended.

Body armor improvements have made anything but the heaviest projectile based weapons obsolete and laser weapons cooldown/recharge-requirements makes them similar to muskets. Hence Napoleonic tactics are once again the norm.

Could anyone tell me how to describe ethnicities without resorting to skin tone or a real-world ethinicity?

You do realise that a massive amount of characters from modern literature/cinema are based on (some aspects of) Hitler right?

How would one create such a character without researching the original.

Stop using that stupid fucking program

Ancestry, language, cultural heritage, religion, traditions, etc.

Why would you exclude skin tone though? Physical appearance is one of the major pillars of ethnicity. It almost sounds like you're trying to be overtly politically correct.

Skin tone, typical height, facial chacteristics like epicanthic folds, flat or tall noses, thick or thin lips, hair texture and colors, eye colors, jaw shape, forehead shape, chin length

Temperament :^)

>how high is your fantasy setting?

Half the planet is a magical dungeon made by an enigmatic god. Whole cultures and civilizations exist within it's walls, and aforementioned god creates a new race of beings every few centuries in spontaneous biogenesis. Pretty damn high.

>what have you done to make it stand apart yet be more accessible?

I'm not actively working towards either goal. If I achieved standing apart or accessibility it was accidental.

>what innovations have you come up with for your setting?

The idea of a creator-god who "isn't done yet" and who periodically stirs things up by creating whole new races is something I don't think has been done before.

My whole "surrealist game design" idea was pretty new as well.

>what are the major influences for your setting?

Surrealism. And I don't mean that as in it is inspired by surrealist art, I mean surrealist philosophy. The philosophy of recording dreams in art.

My setting is made of my dreams.

Apparently I've been forever DMing for so long that I sometimes dream in the form of worldbuilding. So I've decided to roll with it and now consider all fantasy dreams "canon" in a setting, filling in the gaps in setting details when I am awake.

Sometimes my dreams are unimaginative, and just regurgitate other ideas, like the fact that blatantly copied Dark Sun halflings make an appearance. Other times I get more unique things, like a mixed dark elf / human culture with a similar cultural dynamic to the Norse-Gaels, who live in frozen lands, practice ice magic, and have domesticated the owlbear. Or the underground cities of derro who think death itself is a "primitive superstition". Or how sapient mudcrabs are the most mercantile race on the planet and practically run the world economy.

Dreams haven't given me enough, yet, however. I estimate about 60% of the setting is done.

Sorry if it came off that way, it's just that sometimes I need to distinguish between different groups that have similar skin tones.

I was refering to physical descriptions, to me the ancestry, language and culture of the different groups is no problem, but saying stuff like "He looks like he is of Astrillem blood" tends to trigger some of my players, who then ask why he looks that way. Feel free to call them autistic.

This is why I don't like posting any examples.

It's not highly silly, but it definitely doesn't take itself seriously at all.

I guess my vocabulary is just lacking or I have trouble depicting the traits in my head. Not much in the way of diversity where I live.

>The land of EOD
>Its knights of the flame are renowned antimagic warriors specialized in nullifying rune and fire magic

Use MS paint instead.

Ah, my apologies, you mean describing the physical appearance of ethnicities.

Hair colour, eye colour, stature, nose-type and skull-shape would be the easiest ones:
For example a typical Mediterranean could be described as a dark-haired, dark-eyed, slightly-shorter man with a long face shape, a thin hooked nose and an olive-complexion.

>how high is your fantasy setting?
Pretty damn high, given that magic is enough of a presence that most species metabolize it in one fashion or another.

>what have you done to make it stand apart yet be more accessible?
Honestly? Just cutting out influences from cultures that speak Romance or Germanic languages already does a lot. People are actually fairly familiar with BITS of other cultures, which keeps the whole accessible without making it seem too familiar.

>what innovations have you come up with for your setting?
The standard world--the "Central Material"--is actually the product of the four Elemental Primes, which orbit it in the astral sands. If it were destroyed or removed, a new one would form from the accumulated elemental magical potential. Some religions hold this has already happened several times.

All religions worship eight divinities, and theologians have been able to organize them into eight archetypes that hold true across different belief systems--Fate, Fortune, the Mother, the Bargainer, the Wanderer, the Hunter, the Maker, and the Curator. While it is highly likely that these divine archetypes represent eight true divinities that each religion worships differently, the beliefs and myths surrounding them are so wildly different that those who have not closely studied religion are often completely unaware of the similarities.

I've significantly cut down on the number of naturally-occurring sapient humanoids per world, with roughly half of the races originally hailing from the Elemental Primes. Race consequently tends to be a bit more distinctive than just "a human but short," "a human but green," or "a human but with pointy ears."

>what are the major influences for your setting?
I've been reading so many more encyclopedia entries than fantasy tales while working on it that it's hard to say. I guess Tolkien and Pratchett. Maybe some Christopher Moore.

Can you give me any reason to? I'm actually pretty decent with Photoshop, but I find its a good tool to quickly block out stuff before going into any more detail

Does having a dualistic Solar/Lunar worshipping faith, each with a separate power structure (church) that doesn't always get along, but coexists, as my setting's prevalent religion make any sense at all? What would have to be some of the conditions to have such a thing occur

Let's take a shot at it, then.
The typical Astrillem is a dark-haired, green-eyed, average-sized and broad-shouldered man. His face has high cheekbones, an upwards-turned nose with a slight brigde, a strong jaw and thin chin.

How does that sound?

Forgot to add dark-skinned.

>want to create unique world that someone can get immersed in
>use a standardized symbol library to draw the map of this unique world
It instantly homogenizes your world in my mind with ever half assed "forgotten realms but..." Setting made my lazy dms. It looks generic, it looks lazy, I am immediately thinking you didn't care enough to actually draw your map and this tells me if the fucking creator can only be half assed to make the dank map of this place there is zero fucking way I can be assed even an eighth to immerse myself in it.
Your world should be a unique world, using something so generic to represent it is antithetical to this goal.

You could have separate sub presithoods inside the church, but I can't see separate churches all together functioning without devolving pretty fucking fast. You'd eventually get a civil jihad going, dualism only tends to function with a good and an evil or a single God or pantheon presiding over both, at least I can't think of any not like that.

Again...its only my rough sketch... I've used pencil and photoshop on past maps and I will use them again when I come to something I like with this one.

In defense of people who use this for more end-game maps, not every person is a great artist, and most players (I will be even so bold to say pretty much all of them) do not give a flying shit how much time you spent drawing your map, as long as its clear and the world generally makes sense.

Why this matters so much to you is baffling. If this was being used for published materials that are commercially distributed, yes, you'd have a point.

Reminder that if you post lore text walls without responding to other people's you are scum

It matters because I like maps
Maps are an advertisement for your world, an expression of a lot of things. Even a badly drawn map is far favorable to the sterility of that tool, because it has character and life, and beyond that is clearer and more functional. I would unironically prefer a crude mspaint drawing, because it would look like a human drew it.
Literally anyone with some patience and decent hand writing can produce something on par with Tolkien's maps, so not doing so shows a lack of caring that sets of my autistic screeching impulse. Your lack of caring about why I care feeds the screeching.

You could have it that the church was originally two separate religions that fused for whatever reason. They only did it recently, to unite against some bigger threat, so they're still mostly apart from each other but not at each other's throats.

Blame it on the 'tism and poor co-ordination, but I can't handwrite for shit. Was in one of those occupational therapy things when I was in elementary school, and my handwriting still sucks.

Also, your 'tism fit isn't warranted in the first place, my friend. It's a tool that allows one to make a halfway decent digital map. I'm not sure if you were being facetious or not with the "mspaint" comment, but I wholeheartedly disagree with it.

I hear your points.

But I've played games where the DM spent at least 3 hours on just making their map look beautiful and we suffered a tpk in the 2nd session. Another with a similar situation but it ended because things came up in players' lives and we couldn't get a group together.

I've also played in some pretty gonzo homebrews in terms of forethought and some of them were the most fun I've had.

I'm glad you at least understand its a spergy impulse. And I am entertained by the idea that this reply will probably tickle that nerve more.

>how high is your fantasy setting?
Planar travel exists (at extremely high levels), as does Resurrection magic (ditto).
>what have you done to make it stand apart yet be more accessible?
I'm trying to make the races a bit more interesting. Too unique would alienate my players, so I'm going for subversions. Since the world is in a post-post-apocalypse, Dwarves are now communists, Elves are chimeras cobbled together by a lonely sapient forest, goblins and orcs are trying to be industrious and civilized, and Dragons have devolved into bird-monsters.
>what innovations have you come up with for your setting?
The "Fallen Empire" exists so I can have ruins and dungeons and shit, but all the loot in these places are framed in very technological terms. It's still magic, but magic from the perspective of people who saw it as simply another form of technology, completely at odds with the more mysterious magic of today.
>what are the major influences for your setting?
There's a couple of threads on Veeky Forums that inspired me, mostly the Magic AI threads. I've also been listening to Tom Waits and Two Steps from Hell, so I'm in a grim-but-pumped mood.

Pic is current map. Colored areas are major nations and civs, dark areas are either very minor powers or so sparsely populated that they hardly count. White is mostly wilderness.

>goblins and orcs are trying to be industrious and civilized
So, exactly like Tolkien's, then?

Nah, like, actually civilized and industrious. Not shitting out scrap metal. Goblins are the largest minority in human cities, and make up a large proportion of the craft-trades. Orcs serve in human militaries and are basically at Chivalrous Knight levels of honor-code.

But thanks for pointing that out. I need more ideas and input for this setting. I'm still fleshing everything out.

Goblins are established as second to dwarves only when it comes to industry.

>They can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled dwarves, when they take the trouble, though they are usually untidy and dirty. Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and also instruments of torture, they make very well, or get other people to make to their design, prisoners and slaves that have to work till they die for want of air and light. It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help; but in those days and those wild parts they had not advanced (as it is called) so far.

They're definitely industrious and civilised. The problem is that they're also evil.

How did you make your map?

I understood that. Lemme be clearer: They are a PC race.

I also don't hate technology, so there's that. Anything helpful to add?

Oh my god, why can't a PC race be predominantly evil?

Photoshop. Layered clouds of white and black, top one Hard Mix mode. Then paint until I got something workable. Then select for White, smooth a couple of pixels, and fill.

Because it's a lot easier to assume everyone is predominantly Neutral. Facilitates the most amount of adventures and archetypes while avoiding Drizz't and Edgelords.

You're literally wrong, an mspaint map has some individuality to it
It's not about the time invested or quality, like I said, it's about the soul of the thing.

...

Anyway I feel that Tolkien's original industrious orcs are criminally underused in favour of orcs as dumb savages.

Even this map?

True enough, though I'm having trouble building on that. I figure the Orc Lands are they Northwestern Green region here: .

I...hesitate to say this, but I was considering making the Orcs a sort of Celtic-Samurai faction. Both are Warrior-caste dominated lands with no clear (though multiple competing) Chief Warlords, often infighting and clan-based, while united under a (sometimes only de-jure) religious leader (Emperor/High Druid).

I know it sounds spergy and weeb, but I like the comparison myself well enough, and I don't want to just ape the usual High Medieval Fantasy aesthetic. If this ends up looking far more Eastern, or even fucking Chinese, I'm okay with that so long as it doesn't turn into a theme park.

Thoughts?

>Both are Warrior-caste dominated lands with no clear (though multiple competing) Chief Warlords, often infighting and clan-based, while united under a (sometimes only de-jure) religious leader (Emperor/High Druid)

And now that I type it out I realize that could also be European Kings and the Papacy. Fuck.

Any idea how to salvage this idea /wbg/?

Why do you feel the need to rip off anything at all, why can't you make your own thing?

I'm not trying to rip anything off. I'm trying to make them their own thing. I was talking about avoiding both the "Tolkien Industrialist" and "Noble Savage" archetypes by suggesting a different kind of orc.

What do you mean?