/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

Ok gents I'm looking for some wisdom here. I'm not a tabletop player but lurk Veeky Forums for ideas. Currently I'm working on a cartoon but I'm struggling with something.
How do you guys deal with different religions (Gods, afterlife, etc.) when it's a magical setting where these things can have real interactions with people?
-Having a unified system of beliefs for everybody seems really lame.
-One 'true' pantheon and underworld is possible, with everyone else being unknowingly wrong. But if this were the case, why would people believe something incorrect when they can see the acts and intervention of the true deities?
-Having them all be true is another possibility, but it makes things messy to deal with. Which afterlife do you go to? Do gods fight each other or get along? Etc etc.

Just looking for ideas how you guys handle this. I can give more specifics if it helps

Literally, what was the point of you posting in this thread?

>-Having a unified system of beliefs for everybody seems really lame
It kinda depends on the scope of the world and how widespread soem ideas are. Some general and basic ideas can be shared by all races/nations/cultures etcs. They can for instance believe that all gods are real, but they don't worship all fo them. For instance if your settings is based on ancient hindu world, karma would be an idea shared by almost all.

Hah, damn, you're right. I blame the aforementioned lack of coffee. Let's try again.

Here's the picture I was gonna upload.

>Do your people keep pets? Are they any different to normal?
One society has a giant hard-on for magically enhanced selective breeding, and has produced creatures such as the bear hound, a 250-pound monster dog as smart as a dolphin, and the badgerine - half badger, half wolverine, all rage all the time.

>Races and creatures
Space elves, goat cyclops, gorilla-men, cave fish lizardmen, Paracelsus elemental gnomes.

Speaking of which, what would be a good name for a "missing link" type race? I've been calling them Dire Men so far, but that doesn't really roll off the tongue.

>Are there any great (npc??) heroes in your world?
Of course, they're all over, generally they're older and somewhat retired

>Do you use standard races or creatures? (Elves, Dwarves, Elk, Dragons, etc.)
Nope, i've grown really tired of the all the Tolkien/D&D standard races, I try to make my owns

>What are the most fearsome creatures of your setting? Is it unique or are their hordes?
I still haven't tought about one big creature that is just so fearsome, and don't think I'll even, I like to keep things more on the low side

>Do your people keep pets? Are they any different to normal?
yes

Hard Mode:
>What's stopping the monsters from taking over humanity (or its equivalent)?
Strong willed hunters

>Draw your monster. Doesn't matter if you're any good.
Later

Also, is the discord any good or is it just cancer?

guys, anyone care to help me flesh out my setting a little bit?

basically its a setting based off of the roaring twenties, but exaggerated in every way. jazz, drugs, parties, decadence. the actual world is also exagerrated: taller buildings, huger cities, faster cars, faster trains, megacorporations/robber barons, etc. also a higher level of technology. similar to rapture, but without the whole underwater/socialist/biopunk thing going on.

now I'm trying to decide if I should either
A) make it set in the real world (some kind of alternate history), so real places, names, cities, and history up until the 20s basically
or B) make it some fantasy world or alternate reality unrelated to our world

also having trouble deciding how high the tech should be, and if there should be magic or not.

its still a rudimentary phase in the setting development process, I'm just brainstorming ideas and thought I could use some input. feel free to post whatever.

What sort of style is Homeworld? Retro-futurism, the sorta star was 780's-ish blend?

So I was wondering, what do you guys think a setting where abandoned/ghost ships gain a sort of revenge vendetta against the former crew would play out in terms of customs and culture around ships? I kind of want to make a setting where ghost ships are pretty real, sorta not uncommon, and dangerous but I'm not sure where to start.

>The AI of abandoned ships, even ones where the system was deleted have a disturbing ability to come back somehow, seemingly angry at their abandonment and stalking their local system for a chance at revenge
>Other cases of ghost ships appear to be actual ghosts.

I'm going to cherry pick because I'm just here to warm up for some draws

>What are the most fearsome creatures of your setting? Is it unique or are their hordes?
They might not be the most devastating, but for sheer horror there are skinwalkers on these pirate islands that cause the pirates to have shitloads of superstitions

>What's stopping the monsters from taking over humanity (or its equivalent)?

that's the best user

I wouldn't call it SW-inspired at all. The mythic background theme combined with a hard-scifi aesthetic (in contrast to Star Wars, which went full soft) were common of themselves from the 1950s through 1980s, maybe 1990s. Dune, Alpha Centauri, etc.

>/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

I missed the last one, but have some new-
>Draw your monster. Doesn't matter if you're any good.

Why, that's exactly why I'm here!

Grassmen.
Grassmen are humanoid-shaped colonies of grass that can be found living in any real open or wide grassy area; even on islands or across the continent due to their seeds being airborne.

Many people find Grassmen disturbing due to their habit of standing upright, arms spread, and facing the sun for hours- completely and utterly still.
Worse yet; no one ever seems to see them move, but come every morning they're in a new location.

There's nothing to fear from them as they're just grass, but it can be quite intimidating to see an entire field of them.. just standing.

I FUCKING mis-clicked

>What's stopping the monsters from taking over humanity (or its equivalent)?
They were summoned by an ancient race of dudes who wanted to just fuck off and not deal with the rest of the world who, to accomplish that goal, ripped a mountain chain from the earth and spun it around an island they formed in the middle (by not remover certain chunks of land, this creating this rad ocean plateau) thus secluding it, and then on top of that they summoned an ancient race of flesh eating demons who really have no reason to, so they stay on the islands and dont try to conquer shit

>Draw your monster. Doesn't matter if you're any good.
boy o boy I did

you could make the gods themselves have conflicting motives, ideologies, and desires.

a mortal could worship them for practicality's sake, like praying to a sea god for safe passage or an agriculture god for a good harvest, kinda like the greeks did. some gods may fall by the wayside if their sphere is taken for granted or ignored, and maybe this makes them mad and causes them to lash out against humans or other gods.

or humans could align their ideals with that of a god and follow their tenets on ideology alone. although this also could be pragmatic depending on how the afterlife works and/or its interactions with the gods.

or maybe two gods that are at odds with each other despise the followers of the other and seek to fuck with each others' worshipers. then all of the sudden a cultural conflict between two human societies has formed out of this supernatural conflict.

or you could take another route and make it so although they have very real influences on the world, directly attributing said influence to a specific god is really cryptic and obtuse, and so followers get a vague idea that their god is doing stuff, but never direct confirmation (unless maybe a god speaks directly to someone, and this person becomes an enlightened prophet that others look to).

>if this were the case, why would people believe something incorrect when they can see the acts and intervention of the true deities?

maybe they don't see them worthy of worship. the god may be able to smite people with lightning, but instead of being in awe of this fact maybe some are pissed off that said god smited their hometown and all their loved ones for no discernible reason.

you could also deify legendary folk figures and have the tales of their adventures turn into a full-on hero worship religion. they might not be an actual god, but with all the awesome shit they did they might as well be.

just some ideas. i'm new at this and trying to work some stuff out too.

>Grassmen.
>Grassmen are humanoid-shaped colonies of grass that can be found living in any real open or wide grassy area; even on islands or across the continent due to their seeds being airborne.
>Many people find Grassmen disturbing due to their habit of standing upright, arms spread, and facing the sun for hours- completely and utterly still.
>Worse yet; no one ever seems to see them move, but come every morning they're in a new location.
>There's nothing to fear from them as they're just grass, but it can be quite intimidating to see an entire field of them.. just standing.

Can I steal this please.

>Can I steal this please.

By all means; my content is open source and royalty free, so go right ahead.

Onto another Monster!

Hellsteins (Aka: Lava Buffalo or Bronze Bulls) are a crimson coloured, lava-wading, bovine that dwells in only the most geothermally active environments: grazing and browsing on tough vegetation near boiling hot springs and scalding lakes of lava.

Hellsteins are a high-price target due to their metallic-like bones and extreme-high-temperature resistant hides, but their habit of traveling in herds, aggressive territorial behavior and those massive bronze horns keep most hunters away.

Hellsteins are particularly note worthy as they are one of the few if only mammals who've adapted to lava, a niche almost exclusively dominated by anthropods and reptiles.

Thanks, It'll show up in the Field Identification Guide 2 for Ops and Tactics.

How should I credit you?

>BTW I'm taking this one too.

>Are there any great (npc??) heroes in your world?
Baron Zell. The only man ever to kill a Great Beast. He got a bit overconfident though, and died trying to kill a second.
>Do you use standard races or creatures? (Elves, Dwarves, Elk, Dragons, etc.)
Various kinds of aliens. It's sci-fi after all.
>What are the most fearsome creatures of your setting? Is it unique or are their hordes?
The Great Beasts are blatant Lovecraft ripoffs, each one unique but all astronomically powerful.
>Do your people keep pets? Are they any different to normal?
Not really. There's no room for unintelligent life forms on these planets. Unless you count slaves as pets. There are plenty of those.

Hard Mode:
>What's stopping the monsters from taking over humanity (or its equivalent)?
It's not worth their time. They don't gain anything significant from human extinction.

>How should I credit you?

Well, I have an art/personal project tumblr blog I put all this stuff on every now and again: spaghettiart.tumblr.com/

More traffic/attention to that place is always appreciated.

>Are there any great (npc??) heroes in your world?
Yes. There is a lot but most of them have settled down while some turn and become criminals or incognito once they become disillusioned with their society and its leaders.

>Do you use standard races or creatures? (Elves, Dwarves, Elk, Dragons, etc.)
Mainly human, some mutants and self-thinking androids because I can't be arsed to draw and most sci-fi images I can get my hands on is human.

>What are the most fearsome creatures of your setting? Is it unique or are their hordes?
Big ass demon generals and they are unique. Can only be summoned into the universe from hell after a huge amount of unwilling sacrifices is paid. Each one is powerful and have unique abilities that came from their portfolio in Hell.

>Do your people keep pets? Are they any different to normal?
Never though of it, but probably no different from real life pets except that robotic pets are far more advanced and can think for themselves.

>What's stopping the monsters from taking over humanity (or its equivalent)?
Heroes and not enough amount of bitter cultists that are willing to commit atrocities so he can send as many souls to hell with him as possible. Also magic and powerful factions uninterested in allowing their turfs get wrecked.

>More traffic/attention to that place is always appreciated.

You probably get more traffic than I do, with Ops and Tactics.

>Creatures?
Some kind of predator; digs up turf and lays it over its body to camoflague itself. Prehensile tail picks up fruit or other alluring items to attract the attention of small critters so that it can snatch it right off its back. Thoughts?

Nice trips, OP.

>Are there any great heroes in your world?
Yes and no. As in our world, there are both legendary figures and celebrated persons, but no one who's known to have "saved the world" or any of that. The heroes of the Patri (primarily-showcased culture) are primarily the great philosopher-mages, athletes and generals of their history. There's a culture called the Ghosi, though-- basically Pacific Islanders/Spartans/Barbary Pirates-- who worship the "God-Hero," who was a real guy. He's said to have hunted sharks with his bare hands, tamed a pair of fierce jungle-cats as pets and sired thousands of children from his wives and slaves.

>Do you use standard races or creatures? (Elves, Dwarves, Elk, Dragons, etc.)
Again, yes and no. There's plenty of fauna in this universe that are pretty much animals plucked from real life, and there are dragons (though morphologically speaking they're pretty much just glorified monitor lizards), but your typical elves/dwarves/hobbits are not present.
Sentient races are far more eclectic, including:

- tree nymphs made from magically-transmuted tree resin who give birth to monsters for fun and eventually (accidentally) gave birth to humans

- industrial Cyclops whose entire intercontinental Empire is built around a hallucinogenic mandrake that allows them to come up with new ideas

- sentient wyverns whose society is in decline due to self-imposed habitat destruction and constant ethnic conflict

- a race of bureaucrats derived from extremophilic terrestrial hagfish that communicate through a pheromone-slime-language and have developed complex numerilogical algorithms for predicting the future

- shapeshifting octopus-people that can mimic nearly any form and build tropical cities out of domesticated corals

- a nomadic warrior race of toothed whales who travel the seas in massive caravan-pods on an endless search for new types of animals to eat

among others.

I forgot the nipples and claws.

>>Are there any great (npc??) heroes in your world?
Plenty. Most of them are dead, though and their impact was less about saving the world and more shaping it into a better place.
>>Do you use standard races or creatures? (Elves, Dwarves, Elk, Dragons, etc.)
Elves, dwarves and dragons are all rarities. The baseline races are humans, trolls (imagine basic DnD ogres, but smarter), lizardfolk and bearfolk.
>>What are the most fearsome creatures of your setting? Is it unique or are their hordes?
A race of wasps that do the usual wasp thing of infecting living creatures with their eggs, but instead of paralyzing them they go buttfuck insane and worse is if the larvae manage to grow into adults they will replicate characteristics of the host body, usually increasing in size in the process.
>>Do your people keep pets? Are they any different to normal?
They do. Mostly odd squirrel-cat things nobody has a name for, other than Pet Creatuers
>Hard Mode:
>>What's stopping the monsters from taking over humanity (or its equivalent)?
Literal gods curb stomping them if they expand their territory, unless it was deemed to happen
>>Draw your monster. Doesn't matter if you're any good.
(- -)A===A------ That's the squirrelcat.

cont'd. from >What are the most fearsome creatures of your setting? Is it unique or are their hordes?
The spookiest shit lives in the oceans-- even compared to real life, seeing as how this universe is effectively a bunch of landmasses floating on a vast pelagic void and surrounded by storms. One of these is the horrific hekatonkheires, an island-sized anomalocaridid with hundreds of eyes. They're so large that they feed on hydra, which are giant multi-headed creatures that feed on sunlight and any "large" vertebrates they can snag. That might be pussy shit compared to what's down REALLY deep, though...

>Do your people keep pets? Are they any different to normal?
People definitely keep pets, and among humans it's generally your typical cats and dogs. It can vary from culture to culture, though. Among the northern Patri, pet skunks and badgers aren't unheard of; among southern Patri nobility, miniature horses aren't uncommon pets for children. Nahzan children often keep beetles or lizards as pets; Ghosi children might be given a chicken or a tropical bird to take care of-- before being inevitably made to kill it, to weed out weakness. There are other examples, but if I went down the full list of cultures I'd be at this all night, and no one reads my posts as is.

>What's stopping the monsters from taking over humanity (or its equivalent)?
Primarily the fact that no "monsters" are more powerful than humanity as a collective entity. Even a hekaton can get badly scorched by a Patri solar gun, or get its organs ruptured by a displacement column. The Cyclops tried to exterminate ancient mankind, but when their weed lmao supply lines ran dry they couldn't outfox them; even the most ferocious chimaera birthed by the forest nymphs could be slain by bronze-age men, if they laid out the proper traps.

>Draw your monster. Doesn't matter if you're any good.
See pic. I'm no pro, but I get the idea on the page well enough.

I'm trying to model a kingdom management scenario, using Civ mechanics as a base but trying to slim it down to something simple and elegant and works for a single generation.

I'm having trouble quantifying the mechanical function of the department of education. For the most part education seems to be a GDP multiplier on the labor force, but if all education does is give you more cash then why not just focus in on trade empires? Obviously it should also give you some kind of research and development bonus, except most tech can be stolen from other nations with little to no effort (even Africa has cell phones). So if it were only about tech it would be a poor choice unless you had money to burn.

What's a simple way to model a static variable (no accumulating each cycle) for education/tech?

What kind of shapes would be cool for starships? I'm currently trying to doodle a fighter and a freighter, any ideas?

It never fails to surprise that people here will just give up all of their lore for anyone to steal, simply because of the masturbatory urge to explain their work to someone.

t. writer that always takes the best ideas from here for himself

Thats bad user.

>>Are there any great (npc??) heroes in your world?
Yeppers, loads of great men (and some women) have lived throughout the time in which my setting takes place. At this point I've mostly only skissed out the great kings of various states however.
>>Do you use standard races or creatures? (Elves, Dwarves, Elk, Dragons, etc.)
I use only humans for sapient people as the myriad of cultural differences within that species is complex enough.
Dragons also exists but they lack sapience.
>>What are the most fearsome creatures of your setting? Is it unique or are their hordes?
Dragons. Only a few ever exist simultaneously and they mostly sleep/hibernate away the years in their vast nests. Every few century or so they go on an exodus to mate and to find new territory. It's only at these times that dragons come into contact with others of their kin. These exoduses are akin to natural calamities as the dragon gorges itself on anything it comes across and lay waste to whole regions. A result of this is that Dragons in many cultures are consider gods or the weapon a wrathful deity uses to smite a transgressing people. It's not uncommon for people who live close to a dragon's nest/lair to create religious ceremonies in which they try to placate the beast by providing it with food in abundance.
>>Do your people keep pets? Are they any different to normal?
Yes they do, and no they are not different to the pets we have IRL. The dog breeds are less fucked up though.
>Hard Mode:
>>What's stopping the monsters from taking over humanity (or its equivalent)?
As dragons are the only (confirmed) monsters to exists the extreme rarity of the species means that it poses no true danger to the survival of humanity.

Don't want to create a thread for this, and it is semi-related to world building.
Anyone got a world map with a lot of sand in it?
Blank would be best, but will take anything.

Who the hell wants to write about somebody else's fantasy?

t. guy who has infinite ideas

The kind of person who puts out a book every couple of weeks.

t. guy who makes money from those infinite ideas

Depends if you feel like a fantasy world would help you get the feeling across. The real world is fine, but it can be a problem in game design if you don't know a lot about the topics as they relate to history (I.E. Why did jazz become popular? What caused the economic boom of the roaring 20's? etc.)

I'm skeptical. If you were telling the truth, why would you talk shit about this thread, and risk hurting your own business? Also, if someone is putting out "books" every couple of weeks, using ideas stolen from Veeky Forums, they can't be that hard to find, if someone's feeling like a vengeful doxxing.

Cute and a bit disturbing, I would flip his stance so he can "grip" the squirrel, but I really like this one.

Should I use a term other than "dwarf" in this context? I'm working on a setting for Zweihander in which there is a downtrodden race of little folk who live within human society. Unlike standard fantasy dwarves they are physically weak and have to rely on stealth, ranged weapons and magic to compensate.

I really like the concept of a bunch of really super primitive spacefaring societies who all come from the same core ancient super societies that fell because space legitimately is supernatural and after a thousand years of space empire the ghost ships became so constant and so numerous that within a hundred years every major population center became breeding grounds for Space monsters. Kinda like a Horizon Zero Dawn but as space fantasy

Does anyone have any ideas for this or am I alone in thinking this'd be neat. If there's any interest I can churn out 20 pages of concept in a day or two

Call them halflings? Or Squats? Or kender

Like the other guy said, that's more halfling than anything else.

My Supers setting has endgame creatures who dwell in the dimension beside ours who are completely made of ideas and nothing else. Their dimension is complete bullshit, basically matter doesn't exist there instead it's all psionic energy or put simply it's where people dream. That dimension has tons of creatures but there's a massive amount of dream eaters who head into other dimensions and start to feast on civilizations ideas till they can't have any ideas at all. Think a race of memetic virus'.

The only thing that stops them is a coalition of powerful psionic shamans who exist throughout the galaxy. Think space whales who use storytelling as a weapon. Lots of them are dying though due to an evil empire and players can totally be them, though less powerful, if they want.

I always like egg shapes, like DBZ starships

I wasn't even able to follow this.

For the former, because it won't change anything. People's ego will always win out. They will always want to share their creative achievements.

For the latter, good luck finding them. There are something like 20k stories being put out a week. A week. If exposure wasn't an issue, I wouldn't need to put out so many books a year to stay visible.

It's just nice to know so many people are so willing to throw things out onto the internet, where anyone can freely take their ideas.

And to flesh out and get help with ideas. I feel comfortable doing it because (a) I know you're lying and (b) execution is more important than ideas anyway, who who the hell cares?

>It never fails to surprise that people here will just give up all of their lore for anyone to steal
Dude, in reality: the problem is exactly the opposite. As assholish it may sound, I can assure you that the one lesson you'll cary away from these threads is that nobody gives two flying fucks about your own lore and idea. Nobody steals anyone else's ideas: nobody usually give a fuck. There are ten posts of people trying to describe their settings for one post of somebody actually even acknowledge their existence. Ideas are, as the ancient wisdom says, like assholes: everybody has one, but only a handful of people can convince others to pay to look at it.
It's largely a formal and technical issue too. The formate of the discussion is like opposing to the actual requirements of the ideas around here to be presented in any meaningful way. It does not matter how amazing your ideas really are: around here, they will come across as mediocre and uninteresting anyway.

Please do this, I'm terrible at writing myself. I just have a decent ability to run DnD. I need stories of my ramblings

secrettechnology.com

>Are there any great (npc??) heroes in your world?
Ofcourse, here is two of them:

The first hero, a human who sacrefied himself to seal away the dark god. Is now remembered as either a half-god or a fullblooded god simply because the true gods are envious of him.

The fourth son, a giant who's name has now been forgotten. The only thing known about him is that he managed to rally all the giants when the true gods came out of heaven to kill them all. He is a major character in the giant's ancestor worship.

>Do you use standard races or creatures? (Elves, Dwarves, Elk, Dragons, etc.)
I use some of them. The most common races in the setting is humans, goblins, "fairies," lizardpeople and giants.
>What are the most fearsome creatures of your setting? Is it unique or are their hordes?
The most dangerously creatures are the arch demons. Spirits that are bound to the world by flesh. They are really rare, and they all have unique appearrances and abilites. What they all have in common is that they can take a humanoid form, and that they all have golden eyes.
>Do your people keep pets? Are they any different to normal?
people keep normal pets like dogs and cats. Druids and shamans may keep young spirits as pets/companions.

Hard Mode:
>What's stopping the monsters from taking over humanity (or its equivalent)?
Its actually getting harder and harder to keep the monsters at bay. Luckily the arch demons are few and far between, and the demons need to eat their own to continue to grow.
>Draw your monster. Doesn't matter if you're any good.
I really suck at drawing but here is one of the arch demon, (look up the amygdala from bloodborne to get a better idea of how it look likes.) Its actually supposed to have many tentacles on its body, but i didnt bother to draw it. Funny thing is that this one is still young and has the mentality of a child. It consider itself as a female, and its humanoid shape is an adult woman.

>(a) I know you're lying

Sure thing.

>(b) execution is more important than ideas

Agreed. It's why I make money from them, and you don't.

stop getting these autists riled up like that, theyre gonna stop posting their ideas on here

No you do not, nor could you if you tried. I know you're a terrible writer because you're a terrible liar.

How would /wbg/ go about advancing a pseudo-medieval setting into the early modern age (early to mid XXth century)?

>Are there any great (npc??) heroes in your world?
As people Become notably impressive enough they begin to ascend to ranks above human. There are no hard rules for what causes this ascension, but essentially as you leave a lasting impact on the world your spirit will physically grow. Going from human, to varying degrees of "more than human", to literal godhood. Great heroes are normal people who've committed inhuman feats, and gained power appropriate to whatever those may be. They do however sacrifice their humanity- emotion, ability to empathize, personality, etc- and become more of a force of nature than an actual person.

>Do you use standard races or creatures? (Elves, Dwarves, Elk, Dragons, etc.)
The setting is mostly human, as far as playable races go, though changed in little ways depending on region. To the west are men that can transform into lumbering beastly versions of themselves at will, to the north are giants capable of breathing fire, etc.

As far as animals go, the world is a mix of pretty much anything prehistoric. Mostly megafauna, Devonian sea monsters, and maybe a raptor or two thrown in for good measure. A lot are just made up monsters though.

>What are the most fearsome creatures of your setting? Is it unique or are their hordes?
The Great White Drake (and to a lesser extent it's much smaller cousin the Red Drake) are literally just bigger theropods. White is a T-rex, red is a Carnosaurus. They're the largest living things in the world and thankfully only live in a very small jungle no one dares settle near.

>Do your people keep pets? Are they any different to normal?
Considering just about everything is gigantic and untamed, people keep livestock and beasts of burden over pets. Although some families keep various (fictitious) breeds of dogs that are at least semi-domesticated.

Comments and questions would be great. I'm curious if anyone actually finds this interesting.

Just an afterthought to clarify what I'm asking: It's from a worldbuilding point of view, not something for the players to roleplay.

I'm aiming to create the modern counterpart of my setting and I don't want to copy-paste real history due to it being difficult to fit in my setting.

I'm afraid I can't really help you out much on that, I'm better versed in Ancient-Early Medieval stuff. BUT what you need to consider that a lot of shit happened during the transition from the MA to Modernity, like the creation of the nation-state, the conquest of the Americas, the fall of Constantinople etc. What I'm getting at is that you shouldn't be trying to take predefined points A and B and try to fill in the void between them if you want a consistent setting. You can do it, but then your setting will be full of (more or less noticeable) holes. If you can live with that, then go ahead and do the "fall of major Eastern power - resurgence of Ancient science - discovery of new continent - shift in philosophy of government - religious civil war - new philosophy of labor - mercantilism - expansion and colonialism - world wars and the fall of monarchy - rise of totalitarian regimes" route

Also "Early Modern" is 15th - late 18th century :^B

>>What's stopping the monsters from taking over humanity (or its equivalent)?
Not a whole lot. Cold iron usually works pretty well.
Mostly humanity survives by not antagonizing anything lat lives in the fey woods.

>Draw your monster. Doesn't matter if you're any good.
I mean there's these things.

I don't really think there's any risk of them taking over the world though.

I really like this idea.
It seems really ominous but harmless.
I might have an evil wizard do something with an army of them, just to have the players go:
>I knew it! I knew they were creepy and evil!
>You all made fun of me for chopping their heads off, but I KNEW!

I dunno, maybe with merchandising.

I messed up on the period name. Well, my problems lie partly on the fact that the setting is pangaea-like, a single continent on a moon-sized world.

From Antiquity, two big civilizations formed empires (which later fragmented) along the eastern and western coast, but never fared too far inland.

Assorted kingdoms and states appeared along the trade routes between the two big civilization groups in the northern portion of the continent, while the southern part of the continent is a frozen desert, populated by loosely-tied nomads and a few major settlements around geothermal vants.

By the Middle Ages, about a third of the continent, the innerlands, remained unexplored due to unfavourable geography and climate.

At the end of the Middle ages, a "gold rush" was about to begin due to the discovery of valuable ressources in the innerlands and people discovered that you could go around the world and that there are in fact no other major landmasses in the world.

>Are there any great (npc??) heroes in your world?
There are certainly NPCs, but I don't know about heroes. I have thought about great assholes, though.
Perhaps they are heroes, to some.
>Do you use standard races or creatures? (Elves, Dwarves, Elk, Dragons, etc.)
I personally like to work with custom material. Of course, some calls to traditional fantasy, but I want to stay away from humans with long ears and different height and weird skin colour.
>What are the most fearsome creatures of your setting? Is it unique or are their hordes?
Difficult to pinpoint, frankly. Unborn, yearning for form? Sheoleans, natives of Sheol. Demons, psychic entities that tear you apart from inside? Zerean constructs? Undead? Ancient creatures that have outlived their civilizations?

I'd have to go with deities, since they do exist and some are very malicious towards living things. Thankfully only few try to exert their influence on physical world.
Arguably 'outsiders/visitors' can be more of a threat, but generally they don't give a shit about the universe. They just occasionally make contact ( and those usually end catastrophically )

Generally I don't have hordes.
>Do your people keep pets? Are they any different to normal?
I've thought about general animals- I haven't really given thought much to them, but I suppose I should come up largely custom fauna.
Perhaps take Avatar's approach and mash creatures just together.

Hard Mode:
>What's stopping the monsters from taking over humanity (or its equivalent)?
Numbers.
Monsters are mostly solitary and weird beings in setting, born by 'non-natural means', it is what differentiates them from other living creatures. Plus they are not necessarily powerful and can be killed with simple firearms - it's why urban areas are valued for safety, too.
>Draw your monster. Doesn't matter if you're any good.
Maybe later.

Wrong on both counts. But please, do continue to bleed out every idea you've ever had, so that I don't have to try too much.

The worst part is that you'll likely never, ever become a good writer. Whether or not you want to be, it's just a damn shame.

I know you're trolling. I'm not talking to "you", the fictitious knobhead you think you're pretending to be to get a rise out of people. I'm talking to you, the human being who thought what you're doing was funny. Everything about you reeks of desperately wanting to be clever. Sometimes you might even think you are, when you manage to drown out the nagging little doubts that compel you to post this kind of nonsense to prove how clever you are--ostensibly to strangers on the internet you will never meet, but I can assure you that's not true, no matter what you've told yourself. You're desperate to prove to yourself that you're really just so smart and above it all that you COULD be successful if you tried.

I'm an optimist. But like I said, everything you've written in this thread tells me this will never be the case. You can lie about how much money you've made publishing stuff on Amazon with stolen ideas while still remaining so thoroughly anonymous that no one in a thread full of fantasy geeks would ever notice, or try and backtrack and admit you were lying about that but you're really quite well off. I've just got my fingers crossed that I'm wrong, and you turn yourself around and stop using your insecurities as an excuse to shit up the thread.

Jesus guy it's just bait.

So I have an entirely shit setting that I want to talk about. It's a fantasy setting where there is no sun. The entire economy is is founded around the need for light and heat. The darkness is sapient and malicious. The world is dying slowly as what little life there is left winks out into the darkness. The darkness has its own cultures and malicious intelligences feuding with each other.

The setting and system I am building for it are founded on the ideas of:
>light is extremely important, lots of mechanics for how light works
>heat is extremely important
>the idea of balance between light and darkness is a constant struggle for the individual with infections by the darkness being both physical and mental
>the things in the darkness take many forms and offer many things, temptation is a big part of it
>cultures are extremely insular and due to isolation often stunted or geared towards particular strange ends

Is this too dumb?

It's amazing how hard you want to believe it isn't true. That somebody else might actually be able to make money where you can't. It would be sad if you weren't also so angry about it. Shit, look at how much you wrote just to try to convince yourself I'm lying!

Keep up the ideas, though. It really does keep my bank account full.

when are you gonna use my boar orcs. I specifically want loving and gratuitous descriptions of the females' toned muscular frames and smooth yet distinct jawlines, think you can put that in there boss?

Boar orcs are already a thing, aren't they? That's how I've always described my orcs. Sort of like the pig guards in Star Wars.

>The darkness has its own cultures and malicious intelligences feuding with each other
But if you can't go into the darkness, what is the point of this?

sounds like something more suited to a setting used as a metaphor, not a game setting with internally consistent rules to be honest

would make for a pretty baller plot hook for the good kind of childrens lit, the kind that gets kids hard into reading.

they're actually a bit more human-like because they were created by nigh omnipotent evil wizards who thought it would be funny to re-create the evolution of Man, but starting from boars instead of apes, i.e. they wanted to see if they could make creatures that looked and acted like humans from other animals via accelerated and "guided" evolution. they didn't quite finish it though, which is why orcs are still more primal than humans. so they aren't just humans with pig heads.

>evil wizards who thought it would be funny to re-create the evolution of Man, but starting from boars instead of apes

Love it.

because you can apparently encounter beings of darkness who have NPC level intelligence if I read correctly, so they need to have some kind of cultural background that shines through in their encounters. not all encounters have to be combat, remember. players could run into a darkness goon in the wilds or eavesdrop on some darkness agents having a conversation, etc. and you need fluff to make those things happen and seem immersive

when they were still around they demanded that humans call them GODS (in all caps) and offer them tribute, until their source of magic dried up and they started fighting each other over it, which killed 90% of them. after that, the humans killed the last of them by throwing enough manpower at the wizard i.e. a shitload of people died. humans refer to the evil wizards with a slang term that roughly means "huge fucking assholes":elves

>Are there any great (npc??) heroes in your world?
There are, but the world is so massive and many cultures are so far apart that even if there was a "world threatening event" and a hero stopped it, the legends wouldn't go to far.

>Do you use standard races or creatures? (Elves, Dwarves, Elk, Dragons, etc.)
Yes and no. Everything can exist but it all depends on where you are. The world isn't a mashup either. It's all explainable.

>What are the most fearsome creatures of your setting? Is it unique or are their hordes?
There is and isn't. There are many larger than life and literally beyond real beings, but there is ALWAYS something stronger, you just better hope you don't come across them. Yeah there are hordes of just things too.

>Do your people keep pets? Are they any different to normal?
Yes and yes.

Hard Mode:
>What's stopping the monsters from taking over humanity (or its equivalent)?
As I said large world. There are many many monsters, but there are so many places that it's practically impossible to rule the known "world" You can take over massive massive regions... but you can't hope to take everything.

>Draw your monster. Doesn't matter if you're any good.
Not actually a monster but I did just draw this. It's important.

That's what I expected you to say, but not what I hoped.

I'm very sorry.

It's okay, I accept your apology.

When you kill a huge wolf you get a ring that allows you to go into the darkness, duh

Interacting with the darkness is a thing living in it long term is impossible. It corrupts on both hands. The light corrupts the dark and the other way around.

>Are there any great (npc??) heroes in your world?
Not really no.
>Do you use standard races or creatures? (Elves, Dwarves, Elk, Dragons, etc.)
Just humans and well... the derivatives.
>What are the most fearsome creatures of your setting? Is it unique or are their hordes?
The stuff the "Flesh Kings" employ in their armies. Oh they're both.
>Do your people keep pets? Are they any different to normal?
No, not really any different than normal. People own cats, dogs, birds. You name it.
>What's stopping the monsters from taking over humanity (or its equivalent)?
It's already hard to survive. Too many factions at play and some with nuclear arms. Mutually assured destruction keeps the armies in check. At least.... for now.

>tfw you want to work on a setting, but don't know what to expand on

what have you got?

I'm at the point where I can expand on a lot of little things. But the setting is for a wargame, where those things aren't too important.

I have an ancillary culture I can work on, but they don't play a big part in the setting.

For those of you with gods of things in your world what exactly do they do?

Like does a god of war or love just represent those things, make those things happen, or reward people worship them in those things?

What about gods of objects like the sun or moon?

Decopunk

I have a god of war that just loves watching people fight and sturggle. He may bless fighters he likes, gift them godly weapons, but may also curse them if they disappoint him, create new beasts for people to fight against, not caring hat it might kill some innocents. Sometimes he can be scheming to instigate fights and even wars, but I try to avoid this because it may end as some kind of deus ex machina narrative tool. Ares was an inspiration for him, thus there aren't many temples devoted to him, but every battlefield is a place of worship.

The gods spend most of their energy spreading and maintaining their cults, either by allowing mortal priests to channel their power, sending angels to enforce their will, or by stepping in directly and nudging events in their own favour.

As for their portfolios, mortals usually pray to the god they consider most appropriate for the task at hand. People who are simply content to lazily worship the gods are hardly ever rewarded in any noticeable way, but most consider not having their faithless souls tortured for eternity enough of an upside.

How can catgirls exist in any setting besides fantasy?