/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

...

yeah I'm well aware, and no offense taken. I don't claim that this system is original, or even interesting in any sense, but I like how it plays out, so I'm keeping it.

Currently trying to build a world on an "outside-in" hollow planet and I'm completely stumped by one issue : how do you make a map for a world that is on the inside of a sphere ?
For information, there is a gravitational doodad/willijinx in the middle of the hollow sphere that creates a gravitational push outwards
Maybe I'm retarded but I can't seem to get around this issue

Essentially the idea is that it exists alongside regular physics. Everything in my obey the laws of physics, with the exception of magic. I know its cliche, boring, and not very original, but I don't care desu

Giles Corey, Spanish procession music, Nausicaa ost, various vidya music (Caves of Qud is so fucking good). Also Depressive Silence.
Wow, that's like the exact opposite of how I feel. Quarks, protons, quantum etc. just ruins all the imagination in magic for me.

However, that also extends to "it's energy dude". It feels too much like you're trying to just make a new science, but without any of the coolness an actual magical science would have (alchemy, astrology etc.).
You shouldn't care about cliche, but you should care about being boring. You can be interesting with literally any "trope", though, even if it sounds boring in a quick summary on Veeky Forums.

>How does magic work in your setting?
Some people can use it, and must direct it using power of their mind and manifesting them through magic simbols, either by gestures or by drawing.
>Where does it come from?
It originates from heaven and falls down to hell. Or perhaps the other way around. Or perhaps there's no difference, nobody's sure. A magician can act as an element in electric chain, re-purposing the current for his use
>Are there any drawbacks to its use?
Pass too much through yourself and you catch fire, or melt or die in some other amusing fashion.

Any fantasy books with decent alchemy and astrology systems?

The Worm Ouroboros has the best I've read. Check this out: gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0602051h.html#ch04

A guy posted this on /r/Worldbuilding. What do you guys think? (I know Veeky Forums hates Reddit, but trust me, /r/Worldbuilding is fricking amazing, brothers).

>/r/Worldbuilding is fricking amazing, brothers
I hate it with the heat of a thousand suns. I used to go there all the time, just to remind myself what I shouldn't do. I had to stop because I was growing dangerously autistic.

That said, some worlds are alright. That map is definitely aesthetic.

>That map is definitely aesthetic.

Totally the main thing that made me attracted to it. The quality of the image itself is almost sexy.

Looks too modern, even the font is the same of the one on most maps.
Also the names sound bad. Some of the shapes look like somebody thought about making it "more interesting" while it would have been better to keep them relatively more linear.
Other than that I like that he wasn't lazy with the details and the looks are overall good, I just really hate the random names.

They're not random. IIRC they're of Polish inspiration. The guy even has Hussars in his imperial army.

>Looks too modern
What makes you think it's not modern.

Talking about the coasts
Nothing, that's the point. Kinda boring.

>I don't like modern settings so it's shiiiiiiiiiiit

Exactly.
My word is Law.

tbf modern settings are almost always shit

As opposed to fantasy or sci-fi, which are bulwarks of artistic talent against the degenerate hoard.

>people always make threads asking about YOUR setting
>I don't have a setting

There are two types of magic (at the moment, in the time period that I've defined better than the rest) in my setting.

Humans, particularly the Asutan (not!Mongols) have shamans capable of using verbal magic, which is what the creator-gods used to make themselves and the world. It's pretty much Austin's "saying is doing" taken literally ; a shaman saying "In Vai's name, fall" to an enemy that understands the language will make them fall. Being a shaman is terrible though ; comes with the shamanic illness until you get inducted, and it's a great burden during your entire life.

Cacimem, the humanoid wasps, use elemental magic. They draw magical energy from their beetle slaves and focus it with scepters made out of their removed stingers. Biggest drawback here is that they have very little magical energy when not drawing it from a slave, so in the case of a slave rebellion they're in trouble.

Humans think magic comes from Vai the Sky-Father, but since he's been killed and replaced by Cacimem it probably comes from elsewhere.

>How does magic work in your setting?
Magic is bringing back a piece of some metaphysical realm into the world through your own subjective consciousness. Basically, it's some trippy-ass shit.
>Where does it come from?
From some metaphysical realm beyond the world.
>Are there any drawbacks to its use?
Magic can do anything you want. Which means you better have your subconscious under control. Also, you better keep your magic bound to yourself, or else it might start leaking all over the place and do things that people, animals or things around you want to happen.

Also, magic has a tendency to spawn its own consciousness over centuries, which means that ancient magic doesn't even want to be controlled.

OK, I did an outside-in world once and probably ran in to a LOT of the same issues you have/will hit. A few thoughts -

1) Map is actually one of the easiest things. the inside of a sphere is topologically identical to the outside. It's a continuous surface with no edges or corners. All the same projections that we use to map the outside of a globe will work for the inside (and with all the same drawbacks as well!)

2) Just throw out RL gravity, or gloss over the issue... you world needs its own physics. Our group got into a huge larry-niven-ringworld argument about how this should work (engineer here, and one of my players is a physicist) and ultimately decided there was no good way to explain things sticking to the inside of a sphere with RL physics. "It just works, that's it, and nobody knows why" and leave it at that, is my recommendation.

3) Day/Night cycles and seasons are a problem. If you're ok with a night-world, the cleanest approach is probably just to leave the center of the sphere empty and provide illumination by local sources (glowing rocks or plants or whatever).

We had a system of rotating / orbiting bodies in the center of the sphere to explain it. Day/Night cycles and seasons were provided by their various positions / rotations / eclipses / etc. It got.. complicated. If you're ok with a perpetual-spring world, or just local fixed seasons as in CRPG's (plains town, forest town, snow town, etc) then just have a spinning "flashlight" in the center of the sphere, with a dark side and a light side.

>You shouldn't care about cliche, but you should care about being boring. You can be interesting with literally any "trope", though, even if it sounds boring in a quick summary on Veeky Forums.
Preach it, user! Yeah, totally agree. There's nothing inherently wrong with using tropes. They are tools in the writer's bag. Read somewhere a guy compared tropes to the shorthand or jargon used by other professions - used to communicate common information quickly so you can move on to the interesting stuff. Just make sure you understand WHY you're using the trope, and be sure it's working for you and not against. Don't use a screwdriver as a hammer, and so on.

I actually think tropes and cliches can be a huge benefit to games creators, because they let you flesh out a world quickly without getting pulled into the details (at least not right away). You can write "this forest is infested with orcs" and everybody sorta knows what you mean, whereas if you wrote "this forest is infested with hoogabears", then you'd have to spend 20 minutes explaining that hoogabears are heavily muscled green humanoids that live in tribes and like plundering, etc.

Look at constellation maps.

Is there a day night cycle? Can you see the other side of the sphere? Need more details.

Damn, user. Digging it. "Super powerful but super dangerous" is my preferred setting on the magic-o-meter.

Keep posting and I'll keep reading.

Thanks for your advice and interest ! I was in fact being retarded on the map issue
Currently phoneposting from work so I can't really explain in detail but basically it all rests on magic (the gravitational doodad is the source of all magic) very loosely based on real life physics and biology
I'm getting off work in a few hours and will post more about my setting then

>Hollow sphere planet
I really like the way this was done in Patema Inverted. They do a halfass job of explaining how it actually works, but aesthetically it's perfect.

Normally different RPG OSTs, movie soundtracks, anything that'll help inspire me or fit the theme of what I'm writing/creating.

Lately I've been listening to the FFXIV soundtrack, it's incredibly varied and all extremely well composed. I would highly recommend giving it a listen even if you don't typically like MMOs, the final fantasy series, or video games as a whole.

Hey I'm looking to build a little region to play a game in for a short campaign while our forever DM is away on a long holiday with his family, but I have a small question.

Do you guys build your worlds with a game system/edition in mind? Or do you build up your worlds without a system influencing your decisions?

I ask this because I'm thinking of having a sect of paladins in the region tasked to seek out and destroy an ancient cult whose cultists hide in plain sight within the populace.

This idea makes perfect sense in a world with 2e's rules where a paladin can detect evil at will but becomes problematic in a later edition like 3.PF when you can only sense evil X/day, or in 5e where it isn't evil at all and is a certain creature type.

If I do end up developing this particular story thread then I'll probably just say the paladin can detect at will despite the rules as written, and probably extend the ability to any paladins in the party. But it got me thinking and I'm interested to know if you guys have dealt with any similar problems and how you handled them?

I myself like that style and will be making it that way.
The idea is that you risk summoning random shit everytime you cast since your magic might not be the only thing passing through the breach you create between the different planes. The stronger the spell the larger and more dangerous the dimensional breach.

For a classic medfan setting, should the forest have name ? Especially if they are uninhabited and not really part of a lord property ?

I'm the polar opposite; music helps me get carried away with writing up a location with heart and soul, while flipping on a documentary or YouTube video will make me lose focus.

There are a couple of things I hate about that place. The rule that non-original can't be posted and commissioned artwork must be clearly labeled as such is absolutely bonkers. Images and ideas should be mercilessly stolen, copied, mixed and improved. Artwork from all over the internet should be used for inspiration - worldbuilding should not be only for those who can drop fifty dollars for every piece of art and who are required by the mods to write a five paragraph disclaimer in capital letters detailing the legal agreement between the commissioner and the artist. Who cares about proper attribution, reverse image searches exist if you really want to know who drew something. I'm sure the tiny minority who are actually making a commercial RPG supplement or writing a novel know about copyright laws. The vast majority who do it for their rpg groups or just for autistic fun shouldn't need to care about that.

Other awful things, common to many forums, are usernames, forced civility and karma / magical internet points on your forum profile / etc. It should be the content of of your post that matters, not the name and join date attached to it. There's loads of informative content posted on Veeky Forums in general, Veeky Forums in particular that can easily be verified with a bit of googling and study. And if something is bullshit, it should be okay to clearly say it's bullshit. There are no usernames to tarnish here if you happen to write something idiotic once.

I do lurk many worldbuilding forums from time to time, including reddit (usually monthly, because there doesn't seem to be a search option between "a month ago" and "a year ago" - or maybe I'm just not redditor enough to know such a simple trick). I'd say its discussion is a level above stackexchange and the tvtropes forum. Veeky Forums is very good for brainstorming, and dedicated mapmaking sites (like cartographers' guild) are nice. Alternatehistory.com has also interesting information if you're into that sort of thing.

Only big forests were given names, and then it was stuff like The Black Forest or the... Oh my god, what was the name they gave the forest in the King Arthur tales, the ones ensorcled such that any who enter will be taken on an adventure?

Point is, only really big forests get names, though that might change if the forest is ruled by a Hamadryad or Erlking.

What is the tax policy like in your world?

I suppose I build with my main system in mind, given my main system is mostly just a straight-up representation of historical reality. So I DON'T have any classes "in universe", or anything like that.

I'm caught between whether making the world fit your system or making the system fit your world is best. Certainly, I do think the system and setting should match in terms of theme and outlook (ex. adventure-aiding setting for adventure-focused systems).

You don't have to resort to DETECT EVIL for rooting out cultists. IMO it actually ruins a lot of the fun, but then, I'm not your players and I don't run D&D.
A certain allotment of jaws must be collected per tribe; in practice this means each warrior family has a certain jaw tithe. Those who do not contribute to the jaw tax do not have citizenship.

In the end, the jaws are collected, counted, and shown off to the foreign dignitaries who finance this fucked-up proxy state.

Oh yeah, and soldiers in the New Palace Garrison have a tithe of essentially nil. Of course, they are still expected to kill people, but the Shotgun King does want to incentivise joining his centrally-controlled standing army instead of the old tribal retinues.

You're sort of a more-equal citizen, too.

Only big forests or a specially remarkable woodland (it is in a weird place, something of note happened there) should have names.

>The idea is that you risk summoning random shit everytime you cast since your magic might not be the only thing passing through the breach you create between the different planes
I should say - the thing that grabbed me was specifically that you DIDN'T imply you were doing this. Of the dangerous+powerful magic mechanics, the hellraisery "magic is from demons and every time you use it you risk summoning demons" is by far the most overused. That's basically the warhammer / 40K model for wizards / psychics (and used before and since by other authors), and while that is a deep well, it's been tapped many, many times.

The things I really liked about are:

1) comparison to drug use - mind expansion with built-in consequences. The magic is just too much for people to handle, implying it can hurt them simply because it's powerful and not because it has a malevolent intellect attached.

2) subconscious wish fulfillment - just adds an element of unpredictability, again without giving the magic a mind of its own. It also implies certain mechanics - a spellcaster with a lot of creativity / imagination will probably be more powerful, but also much more dangerous to himself and others.

3) organic ancient magic - just way cooler than demons from another dimension. I love the idea of resisting human control, and it becoming conscious. Makes me think of Solaris for some reason (which is a good thing).

With all place naming, just remember that humans are pragmatic when it comes to prettymuch everything. Places will get names when and if they need them, and the names will be as specific and standardized as the users require.

If there's only one forest, it will be "The Forest". If there's only one forest to the north of you, and other forests elsewhere, it probably becomes "The North Forest". If there's a forest in the middle of nowhere that nobody ever visits, it probably won't be named at all. A forest between two separate communities might have a different name in each of them, especially if they have little communication.

Oh, I wasn't that guy and wasn't aware that was a warhammer thing, you're kinda bumming me out of it.
It isn't because its malevolent though, it's because by letting energy pass from there you must open a door that creatures (not necessarily demons) can traverse.
Well what the hell, I might as well copy what I wrote, it's just a first draft anyway

working on a playlist relevant to my setting, I tend to listen to atmospheric black metal, dark ambient, ritual, martial, and neo-folk stuff while worldbuilding
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZA308f2dJIquXIdtZFlmw_357gA6R1wo

>Giles Corey
my nigga

Magic behaves bizzarrely in Ar-Felarion and can escape control of the magician more easily due to the antiquity of it's existence and all the magic currents summoned by all the practitioners that have lived within it.
It is also for this very reason that it is very potent and can even cause utter catastrophes if used with negligence.
In Ar-Felarion, the spells are begging to be released from the air, they seduce the incautious with promises of untold majesty upon delivering them unto the world only to consume the fool misusing such power along with his target.
The Drithians are famous for kidnapping magic users and studying them, dismembering or enslaving them in the process. They also have technological devices that block casters from using their magics and posses them with drithian elders.
To add to this, there is a chance that using high level spells will summon the Unseen. It was said that a man named Sarimon of Dreadtower in the Twisted Chasm, has learned a way of controlling the summoned monsters and even bring up the chances of summoning to almost a complete success for each attempt made but nobody has ever tried to reach him or if they did and managed to learn his secrets, they kept it to themselves.
For these and many other reasons, magic is always seen suspiciously in the world or downright banished.
Magic itself is pulled straight from the Unseen, since with the Fall all the planes disgregated and now there are just floating islands not strong enough to power magic.
Despite its source being the common Sea of Madness, there are different kinds of magic
-Probability, alters laws to increase luck, higher chances of summoning Unseen entities
-Necromancy, manipulation of death. Higher chances of attracting Drithian attention
-Elementalism, calls the forces of the elements, most unpredictable
-Time, manipulates time. Attracts the Ancients.
-Mind, manipulates thoughts.
-Evocation, summons creatures

It's the very first ideas, you can even see how it's very incomplete in it's patterns, I was thinking of making elementalism a blow up in your face/your stuff gets that elements properties etc. kind of deal and for the rest I have yet to choose, I just want to make using magic very scary, which coupled with the world being scary per se can make for a fun experience in my opinion.

Hello again, I'm the hollow-world user
So here goes :

The planet is hollow and in the middle of it (where the planet core should be), there's a massive energy source, which serves as the main source of magic of the setting and, as I said, produces a gravitational push outwards, so things stick to the "inner wall". Because the gravitational force is magical, I can just handwave it away

For the day, night cycles, I'm going the way of bullshit magicky-science too and have plants use the ambient magic in the air the same way plants use light and some nutrients for photosynthesis
As a result, plants inside this world are all bioluminescent, with varying "on/off" cycles, that create days and nights of varying lengths throughout the world (and allow sentients to cultivate plants to create controlled daylight environment

Most plants also give off heat, so everything isn't cold all the time
Algae in particular give off the most heat when they are stationary, making water in lakes and seas evaporate and recreate a water cycle

Of course the science is so loose that even cholo whores call it "puta" but ... magic, bitch

Another feature is that the different major civilisations (mostly city-states) have built giant towers that stretch all the way up to the Source. They all meet in a kind of agllomerated sky-city where mages and scholars do their business well above the peasantry

This means that nobility, because they are much closer to the gravity source, are much smaller and stockier than peasants, that tend to be slender and tall. This means that midgets are considered paragons of beauty and elegance and that tall slender people are considered hideous and disgraceful.

Still very much a work in progress, if you have any ideas or if you like it don't hesitate to chime in

pic loosely related

I too am doing sort of a hollow earth setting.
What I did is I took my old setting and parallel universe'd the shit out of it where people were forced to move in it as a last resort.
Having fun so far, I made an explanatory post about it in the last thread with a wizard picture.

What kind of extreme/cataclysmic/apocalyptic events do you guys use for your world's pasts?

I'm strongly considering continuing a setting but I'd like to change a lot of things, but within canonical means.

A huge singularity/war is the big one. Of course, depending on whee you are in the setting, it's also the end of the world -- in the future.

You could use a full scale alien invasion for resources that killed everyone.

Something something every extremely long period of time the stars align and all shit goes out the window.

the dark souls approach is okay. it's vague enough that you can't really rip it off, they literally just say the flow of time and space is obscured and many kingdoms rise and fall over the ages so, like, whatever man. disney does the same thing being intentionally vague about where and when their princess movies happen because they're self-contained stories and it doesn't matter

on the video RPG topic there's also the dragonbreak of TES. basically todd & friends shrugging and waving their hands and saying whatever man, only in more words

then you can take the absolute faggotron cancer route and go with cyclical destruction by higher beings like every shit scifi game of the last 20 years

>then you can take the absolute faggotron cancer route and go with cyclical destruction by higher beings like every shit scifi game of the last 20 years
I find this way better than the other shit you listed to be honest.

>Images and ideas should be mercilessly stolen, copied, mixed and improved.

Google 'copyright', you communist faggot.

Nice dubs.

I agree with everything you have said, except the stealing art and ideas bit. If I spent 10 hours drawing a fantasy landscape and expect to sell it for 12$ or so I'd be mad as fuck if some autistic cunt offered it for free to my targeted market (fantasy and rpg fans)

ME is shit but cyclical destruction by higher beings isn't.

Wizard wanted to kill god and eat him to gain his power. Couldn't swallow it, so god's corpse started rotting. Everyone who worshipped this god turned into zombie orcs.

Another wizard killed another god and ate him. People are fine, but all dragons died and land god once ruled over is suffering very localized ecological disaster.

bump

Instead of bumping the thread you should be telling me what kind of setting to make.

Make a biopunk setting

Electropunk is better.

>How does magic work in your setting?
I'm still in the process of working it out, but in essence there is a higher dimensional "substance" (akin to the ancient views of Aether) that is everywhere and it forms something like a sea (more correctly, a river, since it flows). Now, this substance is affected by the objects in the real world (I'm thinking by the movement of electrons, but I'm not sure yet), including movement or patterns of arrangement of atoms. Thus, real world objects can produce waves in this substance and those waves can affect other real world objects. That's the basic gist of it, but I still haven't had time to sit down and actually work at the idea, so everything might change with time.

>Where does it come from?
Always been there, property of the world.

>Are there any drawbacks to its use?
Using it to produce any predictable effects on the world requires some very complex mathematics, to the point that the mortal races can't use magic that way since their civilization is not advanced enough (they don't even have the concept of 0 yet), thus the only way for mortals to use magic is to manipulate naturally occurring effects, or if they stumble upon some effect by accident. Basically the point is that magic can be systematized, but civilization is nowhere near that point yet.

Any thoughts or tips?

sorry forgot this

Rate my balkanized America meme map. It's based off the lore of Twilight 2000, and I'm writing into the future of the setting to make a cyberpunk thing out of it. America and Canada had a civil war after World War 3, with America being split between a military junta and a civilian government with very poor legitimacy. Canada split due to the provinces being, well, provinces. After the Pan-American civil war, I figured it could come out as pic related (Aside from Texas, which recently won its independence from Mexico... Again) If you care about the lore, anyways.

TL;DR: World War 3 happens, civil war happens, this is now North America.

Looks boring. Most maps start off boring though.

Just keep adding more detail and variation in general. The coasts are very simple and there are very few geographical features to note.

There should be more variation in the terrain. Look at how much there is in this map. Use real world references if you need inspiration.

I need some help from people who know more about biology and medicine than I do.

I want my healing magic to have some limitations. In particular, I want it to be good at preventing bacterial infections, stopping gangrene, sealing up wounds and healing broken bones, curing poisons, etc., but at the same time I want to to be completely ineffective against viruses and only slightly effective against more serious bacterial diseases like tuberculosis or cholera. Also, no help at all against cancer and genetic disorders, unless you straight up cut them out and heal the traumatic injury.

What would be the best way to fluff that? What is a good difference between viruses and other types of disease that I could latch onto?

care to give names to the newly formed territories?

I see a bunch of lines on a map and I don't know what they mean.

Yeah, I know. This is the first draft. I was thinking on adding peninsulas and gulfs. There's just so much that I can do with hexes, unless that I do 1000x1000 hex map, that way I could add detail.
Noted. Other than elevations and depressions, should I draw the winds?

That's actually one thing I needed to think of. This is what I have so far, but I'm not sure what to call the military government in New England and the Midwest, or the Civilian Government in the South/ish area.

Fair enough:
Pacific States of America: Seceded from the military government due to cultural differences. The West Coast only stayed under military control due to a hegemony over there; no pro-Civilian government movements could reach the militarized coast. After everything stabilized, they had a war of secession, with funding from the Japanese (Wanting to cut up America even more).

Canada's civil war ended with a white peace with Quebec and Ontario, while Alberta and BC made off with some territory. The Vancouver coast area later voted to join the Pacific states after their formation, due to heavy Japanese influence and thus more cultural similarities with them than the more nationalist inner-Canada (Which remains under the control of the Social Credit Party). The military governments of America also seized farmland and the great lakes area from Canada... Why? Because they're a junta and that's what juntas do.

Mexico, during WW3, invaded America after it had split in to civil war and been hit by nuclear weapons. Its cessions are clear to see, though Texas recently won its independence with funding from the American military government (Though it wishes to remain independent.)

How do you feel about intentionally anachronistic settings? Something like where the knights might ride steampunk motorcycles instead of horses, guns are common but are more advanced then traditional black powder rifles, maybe everyone uses fantasy swords and magic but the world's technology has electricity and modern convenience just that weapons are stuck in the medieval style for whatever stupid reason?

Obviously they may break some suspensions of disbelief but at the same time I think they're kind of cool.

First Depressive Silence mention I've seen on Veeky Forums, my nig.

I like things to make sense. But as long as the GM or the author work extra hard to maintain suspension of disbelief and are passionate about the setting and don't dismiss questions with "thats just how it is", it can be fun.

Modeling this roughly after some northern latitude areas with wetland drainage areas, heavy coniferous forests, mountain ranges and the like.
It's like a fantasy medley consisting entirely of coastal Scandinavia, Alaska and Russia.

How shit is it, and what're the most egregious parts?

Nikolai Dante is one of my favourite series. Pure unadultered swashbuckling fun in a future that splices high technology with the aesthetic of 18/19thC Tsarist Russia.

The most peculiar would be wyverns, rarely used by the Akulante. (Think, harpies)

There exists multiple forms of magic in my setting, but most have the same origin. (Bar divine magic, essence magic, etc)
That origin is a giant pulsating cosmic object in the center of the galaxy, it has been known as the 'lifewell' and all mortal magic in some way comes from it, whether it be the gems the humans dig from the earth, the natural magicks passed down the githkazy race, or the many other races.
The drawbacks are heavy mental fatigue, but draining yourself of magic completely will be like losing just enough blood not to kill you, but to almost kill you.

how much would you judge someone in a fantasy game for handwaving their world to simplify the numbers involved (1 pixel on my worldmap equals 6.5 x 6.5 miles at the equator atm, would like to make it 5x5 for simplicity but that'd result in the world being that much smaller around the waist)

is it more than you'd judge someone for fucking up a spoiler

I'll be honest with you user, it sounds pretty retarded. You're reducing your world in size by about 23%, for what reason exactly? Simplicity? 6.5 miles is simple enough in my opinion. Perhaps if one square was 6.3831612 miles and 11 feet, or something gay like that...

I'm not trying to say you shouldn't btw, its your world so do your shit, no one will judge you, I just think its a stupid reason.

you have convinced me

how much granularity do i need for size of pixel at each latitude

i.e. 30 degree sections (0-30 have 6.5 x 6.5, 30-60 have 6.5 x the avg of cos 30 to cos 60, and so on) vs 15 vs 10, etc

Human empire was betrayed by its allies and neighbors and divided among the kingdom/empires of the elves/orcs/merfolk/dwarves
Inspired by the partition of Poland
All humans live under the rule of another race except for a small Duchy on an island off the coast similar to Taiwan

Lands sinking beneath the waves.
Plagues.
Barbarian invasions.
Civil wars.

I'm trying to figure out the currency I want to use in my setting. I want to use commodity currency and not have just general coins and bills be a thing.

One civ is pretty easy because they're just going to ammunition and liquid fuel as their currency. Another one is an ocean based society, and I'm thinking their currency could be algae pellets possibly, different types of bio-engineered algae that can do different things (they didn't invent it, this is a post-apocalyptic world and they just found these species and how to grow and process them in old ruins) I'm just not sure how to actually have the exchange rate and such go, but I've had some ideas for what the different types of pellet could be.

The ocean based civ would be rather lighthearted and care free, and prefer bartering based trade, and I'd imagine the value of the pellets being more based around how "fun" they are rather than their actual usefulness, though the fun colors are more rare, since they weren't made in as high of quantities due to being less useful to the scientists that made them before the apocalypse, and are harder to grow, which does help their actual value as well.

The basic ones would be green stringy algae, that can be soaked in water to be rehydrated and makes a food eaten like noodles, takes a few pellets to make a whole bowl, they'd be common and the least valuable, due to be common, boring and not particularly tasty, though it does make a good base for some meals if you want to put some effort into cooking, though food isn't really a big concern, with lots of fish, coconuts, breadfruit and other tropical fruits being easily found on the coasts of a planet in constant summer.

The next level of value up could be blue one, like those little compressed towels you can get that expand into wash clothes when you soak them. Not sure exactly what they do, could be shamwow like towels, or water filters maybe.

1/?

After that there could be yellow ones, that could dissolve in water and make a sweet lemonade like drink. Could be part water purification tablet as well, maybe it could make salt precipitate out of seawater so it could then be poured through the towel a blue pellet makes to filter the salt out and make it drinkable.

Pink pellets would probably be the most valuable, due to being rare and to process and the most fun, because pink pellets would be a bubble gum like candy when chewed, or ground up and used as an ingredient in making taffy and other candies.

Some other different types could exist as well, though I'm not sure exactly what. Or really how sound this idea is, it's just something I've been bouncing around, due to liking commodity currency and barter based economy, and don't imagine there being an influential central entity to control some sort of formal currency, as there aren't really nations or anything more organized than city type communities, so a "Currency" that has actual value would be better for a more loosely organized society like that.

2/2

You know, a problem is that energy is pretty modern concept, ot the 1700s-1800s. I don't think your usual wizard academy should have physics that advanced, they would explain it in other terms than Marcille in last chapter of Dungeon Meshi.
Of course, they're wizards, maybe they HAVE some proto-scientifical theorization with experiments and shit.

Ok Veeky Forums, I've put it off long enough. For years even.

It's time for me to worldbuild my first setting. Walk me through this please, be gentle. Where should I start?

/r/Worldbuilding is so fucking bad, I can't stand the posters there

>Where should I start?
A theme.

How serious you want it
and
What game type (if any) that you are planning on using the setting for