Imagine that around the time humans began to organize beyond tribal structures about 10,000 years ago shamans, medicine men, witches, etc. discovered some magical ritual allowing them to travel between caves. You do the ritual in front of a cave in Asia. You pass through the cave entrance into the dark, turn around and walk out. Blammo. Now you're in Africa, Europe, Australia, the Americas. You get the idea.
Obviously, technologies would be quickly disseminated, like the wheel, domesticated animals and crops, metal working eventually. Diseases too, so no more massive borderline extinction events in the Americas. But what about social and cultural ideas? How will those react to near-instant global travel?
Isaac Turner
1/2 To the hill-peoples of the Mecava Belt, it is called the “madness of the gods”. To the sea-peoples of the Jyodwar Archipelago, it is known as “the litany of demons”. And to others, those touched by magick are called “the gods’ chosen”. In any case, it is widely considered to be both a blessing (in the mildest sense of the word) and a terrible curse. Its origins are unfathomable, though myth and religion have provided their own explanations. It is, if not exceedingly rare, at the least not prevalent in most human populations. It is transmitted hereditarily, though often many generations will pass in which no magickal person is born. It emerges in the intermediate stages of adolescence, a little before or a little after the onset of puberty. Immediately following its development, the recipient’s life is irrevocably changed. Vitae, or magickal energy, begins to rush through the body, and, if not stopped, will quickly overflow, resulting in disastrous consequences both for the individual and their surroundings. Some, who do not have the privilege of being taken in by a Magi House or educated by a hedge mage, will either die (usually taking others with them) or become a deformed creature, commonly called witches.
However, even when properly controlled and equipped with a magickal Limiter, the Art is taxing and often dangerous. Even magi who serve in a mostly scholarly capacity suffer greatly reduced lifespans. Additionally, many magi, especially those belonging to the greatest of the great Houses, are employed as soldiers either in the continental wars of their patron state (as all Magi Houses swear fealty to a sovereign master) or in bloody inter-House warfare. Even so, magick offers great benefits. Natural philosophy and medicine have achieved important advances through magickal intervention.
Brandon Thompson
Well ideas and customs would trade hands as much as actual goods would, you might get religions spreading much faster and farther than before think how the internet has altered ideas, instant communication and transportation of ideas and concepts to other cultures at such an early time period would radically alter everything really. Wars , alliances, cross-continental empires and religions etc.
Gavin Murphy
2/2 Over generations of use and study, the magickal arts have been structured into a general hierarchy of various Canons, which are classified as either Greater or Lesser. This system was codified and disseminated by House Anselmo, the magi pledged to the Imperial Demesne, during the height of the Potentate. Anselmo's Omnibus, as it is known, has been adopted by all major and minor Magi Houses. However, the Omnibus is not without its critics. The magickal commentator Deomondel notes, “...In the ancient days a magus might work the Art with abandon, had they the mettle and means. Thus are the exploits of the grand magisters, of Dagobed and Dilö, of Igbeldassa and Lehenna, of Opilbanda and Ibb, are chronicled and studied by all magi of consequence. But the high bloodlines have thinned, and we cannot even work our own Art, given to us by the gods, without the aid of the Limiter. Neither can we work it without the ignoble apparatus, that is to say the “Omnibus”, to confine us. The spark of those ancient magisters has left Feol, I fear, and Magick, perhaps once a veritable Art, is now something far lesser...We cannot very well classify magick as if it were a tree or a flower.”
But Deomondel’s contemptuous attitude is not shared by the majority, and the Omnibus has generally been considered to be a congenial influence on the magickal arts, if perhaps a less “creative” one than Deomondel might have liked. And, contrary to his claim that the potency of magick has declined over time, one could rather assert that the structure of the Canons allows for deeper study of a given magickal discipline, as a consequence resulting in the creation of a more powerful magus.
Nicholas Myers
I'll add some more 3/? The Twelve Old Lines, as their name implies, are the twelve oldest Magi Houses of Feolyn. As is the case for the noble houses of Feolyn, the Magi Houses practice their own brand of selective breeding in order to preserve the strength of their house-magick. Magick, of course, is not something that can be bred for as one breeds cattle---it is far too wild, mystical, ineffable, unfathomable. And, indeed, many so-called successors to the Magi Houses have been born without the magickal spark (for the most part, their lives have ended cruelly: smothered in the cradle, abandoned on the streets, gelded and kept as a house slave, or, very rarely, adopted by a noble house). However, there is no doubt that breeding two magickally gifted individuals heightens the potential for the resulting child to inherit their parents’ magickal spark. And as magick is the livelihood of a Magi House, the lives, especially the sexual lives, of the members of the House are carefully ordered and choreographed. Any duplicity, any illicit dalliances with scullery maids or slaves, any foolish notions of “love”, is punished by gelding or death. Magi are short-lived---although their nature is inherently selfish, they have something larger than themselves to protect. Consanguinity is a consistent issue, and the children of Magi Houses are sometimes physically, if not mentally, handicapped in some way. But inbreeding is becoming less and less common, and many Magi Houses choose to form Breeding Pacts with each other, exchanging seed or wombs along with coin and artefacts. Each House pledges fealty to one of the vassal states of the empire, and is skilled in its own brand of magick. They are serviced by their respective Novitiates, magi not of the House bloodline, who act as soldiers, scholars, spies, diplomats, and retainers of the chief House magi.
Daniel Young
Sounds like fun worldbuilding, but an absolute shit way to play a mage in a game. Unless you want your players to play some kind of palace-dungeon exploration game that's all about social combat.
David Adams
The nature of magi is paradoxical. They are both inherently selfish, yet, given their brief and often miserable lives, usually work together to achieve some common goal. All magi strive to achieve the completion of their own personal Opus. An Opus can be anything: the working of a masterful spell, the summoning of a powerful Grand Spirit, the writing of an acclaimed work of magickal scholarship, the creation of one's own magickal artefact, the slaying of a particularly infamous daemoniac or lich, even something as mundane as being recognized by the Hierophant of the House---something, anything, that will make them eternal (immortality, unfortunately, is an impossible, though oft-sought after, ambition). Many magi, of course, never achieve the completion of their own personal Opus. Thus, every House, and every member of a House down to the lowliest Novitiate, works towards the achievement of a Grand Opus. As the name implies, these projects are far grander in scope. House Göbeld, for instance, successfully navigated the No-Plane, the realm of negation and opposites (though nearly every member of the expedition went insane); House Minastre successfully erected a mountain range to protect Ludi from invasion; and House Vabbi, infamously, created the Golems, resulting in the slaughter of millions in the subsequent First Golem War.
Brayden Hernandez
Alternative would be to either ban mages from being player characters, or to make up some kind of "mage" class that functions as some kind of battery character.
A non-mage that heads off to the local wizard outpost, gets charged up with magic, and now can use spells just like a regular mage in a regular setting. The magic just comes from an external source, instead of being its own power.
Noah Stewart
I could definitely see how it would be unfun to play as a mage in this way. Luckily it's for fiction/a Quest, and not for an RPG. I think the only way to do it would be to take out some of the lore restrictions or just make it about extreme resource management---you have to plan ahead what spells you want to use, how many you can use, what types of foes you're going against, etc., because you can't really do it on the fly. Which isn't "fun" per se---people want to feel powerful. The Quest I'm going for is about "magickal espionage" and trying to undermine the completion of a rival House's Opus, which would create a race of "Golems" who can use magick at will, without any consequences or setbacks.
I just thought the idea of magi being short-lived rather than long-lived and extremely handicapped but also extremely powerful. I kind of thought of them as being glass cannons. Thus why they have to work together to really be successful.
David Miller
That could work as well actually. Kind of like how in certain RPGs, you can use magically imbued scrolls and objects and such. Since one important Greater Canon is Artificing and the Limiter itself is a magickal artefact, I don't see why a magus couldn't have invented some kind of device to grant the user a temporary burst of Vitae that they could use alongside enchanted scrolls/weapons/whatever.
Daniel Reed
You could make it some accidental discovery from a project to create an artificial mage bloodline. Instead they just discover how to give some limited magic to non-mages.
Nathaniel Mitchell
That's an interesting idea as well, definitely something to consider.Thanks user.
I'll give it some thought. I think it'd be pretty cool to run a game in this setting so if I ever do I'll have to adjust accordingly.
Julian Reyes
If i want to present woods on a map not with tree-icons but a drawn forest, how would i go about that so it still fits with a hex-field? First attempt at adapting a very old world-map for an old setting to photoshop.
Nathan Martinez
Human beings were emotionless, ambitionless, fleshy gardener-robots for God. Then God blew up and the divine spark of FREE WILL™ was cast upon the humans, and they began to so prehistory shit. Then the other gods came, and they fucked everything up. They made all kinds of demi-humans, and fought one another, caused terrible natural disasters, and the sapient inhabitants of the world understood almost none of it. The races of the world developed in utter turmoil, and still today they struggle against forces beyond their control.
My setting is not very developed.
Grayson Thompson
Just draw a forest onto a hex. Then paste the image over the whole area starting from the top to the bottom.
This way the tree trunks at the bottom of the image will get covered by the tops of the trees of the lower image.
Ayden Peterson
This app is pretty good. Does someone knows of other software like this? Preferably one where you can edit the output map.
John Collins
Concept: The PCs, who have been through a fairly generic medieval fantasy adventure or two, discover their entire known world is a biodeck on a gigantic space ark. Shenanigans ensue.
Lame 'plot tweest' or somewhat refreshing story?
Adam Ramirez
Please don't let this thread die.
Would it be a good idea to make this same general on/lit/?
Wyatt Nelson
Cheers man!
Lucas Evans
Maybe actually, could be a good idea
Owen Myers
It always depends on how well (you) pull it off mate.
You can take the dumbest lamest idea and make it work - if you try hard enough.
Luis Wright
What would you want your DM to avoid about this particular scenario?
Xavier Wilson
Anything that devalues the sudden shock value of the plot twist, like dropping too obvious hints.
Or just stupid oversights, like having a magical fantasy world inside a typical scifi spaceship.
If the fantasy world has magic, the spaceship should have magic too.
Elijah Fisher
Magic is fairly easy to dress up as sci-fi psionics or nanobullshit.
>What was prehistory like in your setting? Considering that the world is a spaceship with soil on top of it, there's no real prehistory to speak of.
The closest thing to that would be the age of dragons. The dragons had pretty much nothing to do, they were bored to death and created a bunch of landscape features, animals and artefacts out of pure boredom. This was still less than entertaining, so they decided to free a bunch of races from the world's sealed dungeons and play gods with them. This didn't end well.
I don't have much lore written for the age of dragons because of how inconsequential it is for the rest of history.
Carter Peterson
Oh, this looks fun!
If you're going to pretend your magic is technology, you better run a campaign where magic is really low-key and all.
Ayden Perez
I don't see why this should be the case.
Parker Watson
'Okay, first fantasy campaign. Time to make the best fucking map ever.'
...
'Or just edit Europe on Paint.net and add your custom civs to it.'
I mean it's cliche fantasy and the individual places are interesting aside from dwarfland and elfland, I just cant be fucked with cartography.
Jonathan King
If you cannot be fucked with cartography, just use a real map of the world.
Sebastian Reyes
That's what I've done pretty much, just changed a few land masses to better fit the cultures which i actually spent time on.
Adrian White
Why don't you just keep drawing formless blobs until you like one? This is an imaginary world with imaginary rules. It doesn't have to resemble real geography.
Blake Miller
How would i possibly go about creating a surface like this in photoshop, not too fancy but still pretty and with the possibility of an hex above it?
Grayson Stewart
...
Jeremiah Young
How did you get/make this? I would love to do/get something like this
Parker Rivera
Looks like Crusader Kings 2
Matthew Sullivan
Yeah, it's the Winter King mod for Crusader Kings 2. So far i was working on this map with topographic layers, but that just get#s too messy and autistic after a while, so i'd like to just do like this, use fields, hills and mountains instead of layers in 1000ft steps. As a noob in photoshop it's a pain tho. Help really would be appreciated
Noah Gray
>'Doesn't have resemble real geography.'
But then how will I know what the real-word counterparts of the various cultures are?!
Evan Morris
Using your imagination?
Nolan Lewis
>Imagination >Worldbuilding General
Nicholas Foster
Im not sure what questions to ask on how to improve my setting as it is. Any ideas?
Lucas Bailey
What do people do for fun?
Ian Mitchell
Thats good. Do i say what people in general do for fun or what these people just here do?
Jason Evans
What do all the different cultures do for fun? How does one culture break up daily life and how is it different from another culture?
Joshua Moore
Well, they all have sex. Maybe it's easier to start identifying those thing all cultures do alike.
Tyler Reyes
That's a bit broad.
What do, as a culture, they consider a good hero in a story?
Liam Powell
ONe who has sex.
Daniel Reed
I posted this in a different thread yesterday but I feel like this would be the best place to get an answer. So I'm working on a magic system for the setting of a story I'm writing (or at least trying to force myself to write). Explaining the whole magic system would be kind of hard (mainly because I haven't really defined its rules yet) but it's basically one where magicians cast spells by using the true name/magical name of certain things or concepts to force mana (which in this setting is something akin to the basic component of all of creation) to create said thing or concept. My idea was that people could learn these magical names by connecting their minds to some sort of dictionary of magical names, but I'm not too sure if I should remove that. Now, I have two problems: First, I don't know how to make it so people can't just learn the name of literally anything (this is why I don't really like the dictionary of magical names thing). The idea is that it should be harder to learn and speak the magical name of things depending on how complex they are (so, for example, every loser can learn and speak the magical name of "Fire" but learning the magical name of something like "Restore" is extremely difficult). I want to have some kind of process as to how someone can learn a concept's magic name so I also can explain why someone couldn't do it. Second, I want to have magic be more of a wild and mystical thing in the setting's backstory. Basically, humans barely understood magic back when they were living in tribes and only got a true grasp on it after seriously researching it. The problem is that I don't see how this could make any sense considering my magic system doesn't leave too much room for wild magic-like shit.
Nathaniel Rodriguez
You can only learn the true name of something through understanding it. And since everything is ever changing one person's true name for 'fire' is different from another; like someone could see it as 'burn' and the other as 'life'
So to understand something complex is super fucking hard, but fire is easily relatable and everyone can draw upon knowledge and experience of it.
Grayson Russell
"What will my players notice that I haven't thought of?"
Or general questions like "what else could make this quest better?"
Julian Rivera
>Crystalis Empirius God gave you google translate and you shit all over Him.
Aaron Brown
I like that. It allows me have magic in my setting do more than just cast a fireball everytime you say "Fire". I can also use it so the most dangerous and harmful concepts require you to either have delt with them a lot or be kind of fucked up to understand something like "Pain".
Dominic Gonzalez
Implying my false Latin isn't better than real Latin
Leo Lee
You could make it that it is easier to grasp the concept of something simple, but harder to grasp something that is vague or nonphysical.
Every living being is made up of the 4 elements, so connecting to them would be easy, as they are simple and relatable. And 'experiencing' earth is simply touching it, though further understanding (higher level spells) would take more effort. (like almost drowning or or burning to death to get a better spell) But you aren't *made* of pain, or healing. As it isn't a physical, graspable thing or even an emotion. So you would have to experience it to learn it. Then again strength for example would be an extremely vague concept.
Leo Rodriguez
Thanks a lot, this will allow me to turn my magic system into less of a clusterfuck.
Bentley Flores
I've been considering what people use for money in my setting, with the main issue being that magic capable of altering and manipulating metal to a significant extent is relatively commonplace, meaning any currency system based on it is out the window. So I've started to consider an alternative like gems, something relatively precious, hard to obtain, and difficult to process into whatever the "currency form" would be.
Originally I had the cheeky idea of diamond cut into various sizes of coinage, but I honestly don't know enough about how they're processed or how well they'd handle being trimmed like that.
Connor Lewis
Let's kick it up a notch.
The ritual doesn't just open a gateway that allows travel across the Earth.
It opens a gateway to some other plane of existence, that is influenced by the thoughts of people that enter. In the neolithic, this plane of existence manifests as dark caves. Following the bronze age and further, it manifests as a dungeon. A very complicated dungeon. The more people have entered this plane, the more the place changes.
Travel within this plane, and travel from Earth to this plane, back to Earth (in order to use a shortcut) is still possible, but it becomes quite tricky.
tl;dr as centuries pass, using the magical ritual for creating portals to other places on earth becomes more difficult
Kayden Young
My group is to play "Dawn of Worlds" tomorrow with me. The map under is what we will be playing on. Got any changes to suggest? Feels a bit empty to me. For those that don't know what "DoW" is it is pretty much gods creating the planet, shaping mountains, rivers, making races, magic and doing events to shape the world.
Angel Mitchell
Uh if you're playing DoW, an empty map seems fine, I think.
Sebastian Turner
It should be empty, considering the map should be a blank canvas for your players to work on.
Andrew Scott
What I mean is that it lacks landmass.
Ian Ward
Lots of varyingly-sized landmasses > one giant blob + accompanying insulas
Evan Brown
>Most powerful beings on the planet >Can instantly teleport across the globe
>Having allegiance to anyone >Being drafted against their will
Hunter Bennett
>Psycholinguistics is magic I came a little
Ethan Walker
How about the good old salt? Or some sort of magic-enhancing crystal - ground, dissolved, and really diluted, so only big quantities are actually useful.
Hudson Wright
I think you replied to the wrong post lol
Ryan Bailey
Eh. Salt is neat as a cool historical "Wow I can't believe that was really a thing at one point" factoid, but doesn't seem terribly interesting in a fantasy setting.
Just something I'll have to try dwelling on some more.
Aiden Sanchez
Various nuts (kola), beans (cocoa and coffee) and shells (cowrie) were also common. Edible currency is often some sort of drug/stimulant which keeps demand high and an exotic drug can add a suitably fantastic touch to a setting.
Really anything that has wide demand, high value for allowing portable amounts to be exchanged for lots of goods or services and is just common enough to see actual circulation will do.
Silver works well since it is shiny (demand) and sits in the sweet spot between rarity ensuring value/enough in the ground to mint the required number of coins. Metals also have the advantage of more uniform size and quality compared to many other currencies. Since metals in your world hold as much value as the magic it takes to alter them, focus on what demand exists for things that magic cannot supply. Alternatively since this is a high magic world then a universal magical battery substance could be suitable.
Gems are probably far too variable in size and quality for currency use, although a proto-currency which retained significant barter elements might work.
Daniel Harris
Magical bitcoins. Metaphysical 'nothing' crystalized and mined with magic.
Aaron Reyes
Does anyone has material regarding tectonic planes dynamics?
Jayden Richardson
what rivers do i get rid of
Samuel Hernandez
>flight in high fantasy
How do you handle it? I personally want to include it (solely because airships and aerial beasts of burden are cool) but I feel as if it would invalidate ground and sea based travel.
How have you handled it?
Thomas Jenkins
If you've got airships it's not exactly high fantasy (ironically).
I handled it by invalidating sea and ground travel. But I embraced the science-fantasy.
Matthew Jenkins
Although I also made underground warp-trains, for an alternate mode of travel.
Gavin Wilson
How about making the Airships really hard to make, and You need some special materials (gas?) and tools to make it. Then have one City/Country/Empire produce that and make it super expensive so only very rich people have it.
Joseph Nguyen
Storm seasons. Asteroid rains.
Camden Campbell
Way too contrived. If you make them very expensive, do it so lots of people CAN make them, but only the very rich use them (for transporting perishables and shit -- strawberries through the winter!). Much better, but only if you do it well (so there's a risk-reward system). And tie it to your themes or it'll be just as contrived as the above one.
Sebastian Gutierrez
If only we had some sort of culture to compare to. Some sort of culture that has the ability to travel by air very easily, but still uses ground and sea based travel...
Some sort of Earth.
Christopher Morales
Like said make them hard as shit to produce and mantain so at most you have a particularly rich noble having one. Alternatively, have the production of airships in your setting be restricted due to some pact signed by different countries so that a single country can't have more than X airships. Or just make t so that dragons attack anyone who tries to challenge their rule of the skies so they are impractical unless you have the forces to protect them.
Blake James
Make it so they can't transport a meaningful amount of goods (no more than 300 or 500kg) so they're only used for transport of people. plus this
Camden Myers
You can take an airship but you are forced to sit in a cramped space next to a paladin who won't shut the fuck up about simiting evil, a bard who keeps playing his annoying songs through the whole flight and a particularly smelly berserker. The whole flight takes 20 hours and the food tastes like shit.
Logan Gomez
Yeah but it's not directly comparable.
We travel by land because air is inefficient and annoying. We travel by sea because it's cheaper for bulk transport. But neither might be true in Magicland.
Oliver Long
>Alternatively, have the production of airships in your setting be restricted due to some pact signed by different countries so that a single country can't have more than X airships. Shit. No one's gonna believe a bunch of nations would just agree not to make airships (and then keep their word). >dragons Cool, so long as you flesh it out (as with anything).
Nathan Phillips
The nations would be spying each other and would take immediate action against anyone who breaks the pact. Of course, nations powerful or crazy enough would shit on the pact anyway. You can treat it like the whole nuke deal in our world.
Eli Rivera
>The nations would be spying each other and would take immediate action against anyone who breaks the pact. Like I said, it's not believable. And that IS treating it like the whole nuke deal in our world. Plus these things aren't nukes, they're just airships.
Mutually-agreed medieval stasis will never not be tenuous as hell.
Luis Jenkins
Also you don't even need medieval stasis. You have more than enough material to set your whole world in the twenty year lag between developing airships and airships becoming the dominant form of travel.
Levi Morgan
...
Kayden Campbell
Can anybody point me to a magitech system with actual cohesive rules and worked out mechanisms? Trying to find inspiration here, and I don't want to just put in a magitech system that's just "it's magic, it does everything".
Chase Rodriguez
None. What is the matter, desertfag? Afraid of a little water?
Leo Morales
idk, i feel like i have too many
Brandon Price
...
Eli Sullivan
Hey /wbg/ I'm working on a setting for a west marches style campaign and I wanted this area of the world to feel like an older hub of civilization that only now is being reconquered by the empire. I'm doing this cause some of my players also enjoy big narrative chunks and finding out what the world is about as oposed to only getting in dungeons and getting loot. I've began toying with the idea of 4 kings in this area each one with a certain flavor, one a belligerant conqueror that later in his life sold his soul to demons and was undone by them. another a religious zealot that ended up culling the other faiths present and his kingdom was devoured by the more radical groups of his church. the third is a diplomat that valued peace above all else which ended up with her destroying other nations just so there wouldn't be any war and the fourth a magician that through her experiments doomed her kingdom. (cont)
Sebastian Gomez
>Make lake smaller Couldn't it be an Aral Sea/Caspian Sea thing?
Camden Young
Thanks, also that's not a lake it's an inland sea, so should I make it smaller anyways?
Isaac Gomez
to connect something with the players I was thinking of creating a old order of knights that saw to finding and sealing if needed theese ruined kingdoms (and also to find a way to give the players some maps and bread trails) but I'm kinda stuck into thinking up who were theese knights any help?
Robert Hill
Does your setting have Blemmyes, Veeky Forums?
Jack Allen
Start fusing rivers then. Mind you, don't remove the sources. Rivers have that fractal tree structure, remember.
Parker Morris
Im going to add on to my post and agree with too a degree. Rivers irl dont give a shit how many there are. Pic is my state, Georgia. Top half of GA is mountainous, bottom is farmville. Ton of fucking rivers, in just this one state of America. Even more across America, dont be scared of rivers. Everyone is scared of rivers. If thats an inland sea then add even more rivers or provide a side by side size comparison to something irl if im missing something. And also this
Landon Collins
So what happened to the diplomat? The conqueror got fucked up by demons, the zealot by radicans and the magician by her experiments but how did the diplomat's kingdom met its end?
