World Building General /wbg/

>roman empire survives
>USA exists

Make this timeline's USA a roman colony rather than british.

>alternate history where the Roman Empire survived
As in "Western Roman Empire survived"? Because if we count Eastern, it did for quite a while and later HRE, Turks and Russia claimed to be its successors

Also, it's a bit dubious British Empire and therefore US could exist with surviving Western Rome

I haven't decided how it would exist yet (obviously it's not going to be called the United States nor will it have its culture).

I'm debating between having it be a colony of the Romans that rebelled and broke away or having it be a member of the Russian Commonwealth and be a subject colony to them, with it's local capital located either in Alaska or western Canada (also Canada doesn't exist and is part of the USA).

>HRE, Turks and Russia claimed to be its successors
Also, to add: 3rd Reich also claimed that, with 1st Reich being Western Rome and 2nd being HRE

The Bentusi from Homeworld. They seek the stars, and wish to fly among them as their own ship.
> We are Unbound. The solar winds blow across our skin. Hyperspace sings in our ears. The universe unfolds around our thoughts.

>As in "Western Roman Empire survived"?
As in it never broke in half in the first place.

I've decided to not make the British Empire a thing, and instead have the Commonwealth be a Russian thing (however unlikely that is). Basically, Russia colonized the lands to the east instead of the Brits colonizing the lands to the west.

Is it a bad idea to make the (Russian) Commonwealth communist? I don't want to just repeat history but at the same time it's not like making the Chinese communist would be a radical change either.

Have you considered how the roman empire and mongol invasions would have interacted? This could have an impact on the course that the slavic states follow

How's the creation myth for the ethnic minority of my setting?

pastebin.com/HLeBDazf

Huh, that is a good point. I don't really know all that much about the Mongols or how they influenced their region, but I'll have to look into it.

Considering that the region influenced by Mongols includes everything from China to Levant, that'd be quite a lot

Also, it's a big question what kind of influence a Roman Empire that's strong and steady enough to not even divide into two administrative parts would have on early Islam and its Golden Age (taht was later ended by Mongol invasion and domestic fundamentalism)

Did rome convert to Christianity in this setting? This could impact a lot of the old world as it's not only the force that drove the rest of pagan europe to convert but also gave rise to islam

Islam will remain a minority religion in this setting, I'll probably have the Empire adopt Christianity but if that lead to the Empire falling quicker then I might drop that.

If Genghis had given his lands to his eldest son instead of splitting it between the sons could the empire have lasted for far longer (assuming that this continued)? I'm thinking of a russian/mongol mixed empire that stretches from the edges of eastern Europe to the borders of China, where the peasants and workers revolted against the Khanate instead of the Tsardom.

You need to consider Gavelkind is normally cultural, not an individual's choice. Stubbing his children could simply have lead to more immediate, worse civil strife.

>If Genghis had given his lands to his eldest son instead of splitting it between the sons could the empire have lasted for far longer (assuming that this continued)?
To add to what said, it would probably resulted in massive fratricide, the way Turks done it

>I'm thinking of a russian/mongol mixed empire
Might be a bit of a problem. It's only possible if princes hated each other more than the mongols and if the two cultures actually intermixed properly, while in reality mongols made a point of keeping themselves to be the superiors

Casual reminder of the social tiers of worldbuilders.

They worship the purity of the human form.
"Tainted" fleshy bits are stripped off as penance for wrong-doings (to keep the rest of your fleshy bits clean).

>typical high fantasy isn't on there
i wonder who might be behind this post...

>It's only possible if princes hated each other more than the mongols and if the two cultures actually intermixed properly, while in reality mongols made a point of keeping themselves to be the superiors
Could the Mongols have "mongolized" the Russians the same way the Romans romanized their conquered? Or perhaps just killed so many Russians that their culture was no longer the dominant one? Or perhaps I could just have massive fatricides be a regular part of the Mongol Khanate pre-revolution.

I mean, this is all history and not currently happening in the setting, so as long as the players don't question it I think it should be fine.

>If Genghis had given his lands to his eldest son instead of splitting it
Jochi was rumoured to possibly be illegitimate and Chagatai hated him. If Jochi had been left in charge there could well have been an immediate civil war, whereas splitting it at least delayed the civil war by another generation (kinda).

Looks like Lindon.

Weren't Mongols like nomadic and shit?

It's hard for me to imagine them dragging people out of their homes, put them on horses and make them ride through places.

Mongols were pillaging and receiving tributes, but it's not a culture to impose on others. Killing everyone is possible, but then it'd be just some settlers some time later or something, would change little.

So I've got a real early lightweight setting, the basic idea being creating a Zelda-esque world and tone with vaguely dieselpunk tech.

The tech is all over the place, as the world experienced a 300-year golden age of peace, prosperity and scientific progress followed by a period of dispersed warfare and the collapse of an empire. Materials, mining, manufacturing, transport etc etc are well in advance of all tech relating to warfare; I'm thinking needle rifles and gatling guns alongside airships, biplanes and early tanks.

All that being said, I've got a raging hard-on for man-portable pile bunkers as personal weapons. Short of exoskeletons and power armour, how could it work, both practically and visually with the setting?

What's Zelda-esque about it?

Also, what stops you from making diesel-powered exoskeletons?

>zelda-esque
stopped readin there

It's Zelda-esque in a few ways; it's not going to have a detailed granular history or political climate, being focused on the small-scale stories around the PCs and NPCs and the big overarching legends. There will be cultures that are fairly cartoonish in their distinctness, as with the climate which will be more diverse and changeable than would be realistic. It's a noblebright setting where adventures happen.

And yeah, I could do exoskeletons and I am considering it, it feels to me like adding exosuits to the setting is a step down a path that's not where I want it to go.

Usually I'd just disregard or insult, but I'm curious. Are you a TECTONICS PLATE autist or what?

How are those tax policies coming along, /wbg/? Your nation does have a taxation system, right?

Very well, thanks for asking.

Nope, my kingdom has no taxes. See, if the king or any noble needs anything, they just take it. It's their divine right, you know.

what did he mean by this? did ASOIAF even have tax policies?

He was hating on Tolkien. Apparently writing high fantasy well is bad, but writing mediocre low fantasy is good?

He literally says tolkien is great in that very quote you drooling mongoloid.

Read the context before commenting on something.

Anons of /wbg/, I bring a gift!

Have of it as you will!

What are some materials that weapons and armour could be made out of in a region deprived of metals, especially iron?

Stone, flint, obsidian, glass, teeth, shells, wood.

All of those seem to be used by 'primitive' cultures, which leads me to another question - how much would a civilisation's technological advancement be stunted without access to metal?

>All of those seem to be used by 'primitive' cultures
I wouldn't really call the meso-american cultures primitive.

>I wouldn't really call the meso-american cultures primitive

They were behind Eurasia at the time but if you don't consider medieval Eurasians primitive, Mesoamericans were not primitive either. They had advanced farming techniques and complex architecture.

Armour: textiles, wood, horn/tusk, hides/leather as the main ones. Which is the primary material used in your culture will depend on climate/geography and whether they are agricultural/pastoral/hunter-gatherer.

Kill yourself, landwhale. Overrated hack of an author that poisoned a genre more than fucking Rowling.

Yes, I'm pretty sure Martin will read it.

Had an idea about a roughly-circular continent divided into countries/regions by thirds, three rough pie shapes with like some evil tower or castle in the center.

I am toying with the idea of a three-directional compass rose (with three additional bisecting directions, ofc), the directions being references to the three countries/regions. A traditional N/E/S/W compass rose would not exist in this world.

As a player, would you find the the concept compelling? Confusing? Stupid?

Pic related, direction identifiers placeholders

I tend to world-build more for writing purposes than for games, but I'd love to hear some thoughts on what I've been working on.
The rough concept is that during the peak of World War One, some sort of inhuman, alien horror rose up from the oceans and laid siege to humanity. While humanity won, when combined with the war losses it could hardly be called a victory. On top of that, several waves of sickness followed that resulted in subtle changes to the world. Anyone who was alive at the time of the invasion began showing signs of a pneumonia-like disease that greatly reduced life expectancy and overall quality of life. Everyone born after has shown a complete immunity to the illness, and indeed to disease in general.
All bodies of water are now considered hazardous, only the largest ships can successfully navigate safely. Rivers, lakes, oceans, and seas are all home to voracious predators that make swimming impossible. Falling overboard is almost always an instant death sentence. This has left many countries isolated other than through limited trade, and has pushed many people inland to seek out water sources from deep-earth wells.
Another change that seems to have taken place is the quality of the air. Plants and crops grow at accelerated rates and rain is a constant companion. Even normally arid climates have increased rainfall, though some deserts still remain, albeit at a much smaller size. One immediately noticeable change is the return to the use of bronze and copper as the primary metals of daily life, as iron and steel now crumble into rust in a matter of hours when exposed to the air, and much of the ground has taken on a reddish hue as expose iron ore rusts.

>communist america ruled over by fascist european superstate
you cant even comprehend how angry that idea makes me

What's a good way to build a fantasy medieval style society that isn't stock standard European feudalism?

Chinese Confucian class system with a bureaucracy?

Not a bad idea, trouble is the last setting I wanted to tinker with but ended up dropping was very Chinese inspired in terms of the whole 'Bureaucracy of Heaven" thing, and I got kind of tired of the whole idea.

I don't know much of the specifics but looking up the ideas behind it are interesting. The whole Imperial Examination thing is a great plot hook.

City-states, guilds, slavery-based societies, theocracies, democracies. Just throwing worlds around.

software to make this map?

That's actually somewhat interesting. I dunno how awkward it would end up being in play, though. Just because the 3 continents exist in their slices of the pie, the rest of the world doesn't exist solely in those dimensions. Our cardinal directions didn't come into being due to major civilizations being in the four directions but rather because it makes an easy way to orient yourself. Does your sun in this world rise in the S and set in the L? Do birds fly A for winter? A tri-compass would also completely fuck up navigation, too.

On a vaguely related note, I do sort of like using that rough idea to make incredibly stylized mappings of regions. Allows you to have a working orientation of things with very little real detail but enough to quickly get a glance at things and use it as an artistic device rather than an actual geographically accurate map.

>Our cardinal directions didn't come into being due to major civilizations being in the four directions
Considering that there is a Dark Tower as the spoke of the World Wheel, the sanest option is to assume that this is a plane of reality where the Sun does indeed rise in the S. Magic permeates everything and threes/three spoked-wheels are a motif found everywhere in nature, magic and the cultures.

You make the tri-compass intrinsic to the mythos of the campaign, which should hopefully be more interesting to players than a regular world where navigation is needlessly complex.

Apart from the stock answer of "actually use feudalism and medieval society rather than the fantasy version trope" you could try some like the Holy Roman Empire. It's still medieval, but just crazy and dysfunctional enough to be fresh

Hexographer

These threads have been keeling over lately.

Tell me what races to use in my setting.

What system are you using? That will determine pretty much any choice I can give you.

Why does it have to be tied in with a system? I mostly run a homebrew game and was planning on races being purely cosmetic/social bonuses instead of physical ones.

What's the genre, what's the general feel?

humans only. anything else is high fantasy/soft sci fi bullshit

nothing taller than 3ft, nothing heavier than 120lbs. BBEG is 7ft tall, muscly fucker that keeps the world oppressed through eugenics.

Alternate History.com provides some really great cartography.

Indeed they do! Here it is with the world just on the eave of WWI with Atlantis appearing. Again, have of it as you will.

Me personally? I'm planning on running a GURPS colonization game with Atlantis suddenly appearing in the Atlantic just a few days before Archduke Franz Ferdinand's shooting, the event preventing WWI (for a few years) as the world scrambles to claim any strip of new clay it can even if there are people on said clay.

>Landmass just appearing in the middle of the Atlantic
Wouldn't that be catastrophic for Europe's climate, given it disrupts the Atlantic Ocean's thermohaline circulation?

I'm assuming a massive landmass suddenly appearing would be catastrophic globally, not just Europe. To circumvent this though the ancient Atlanteans had super-tech that negates almost all of the side-effects that this would have caused but it's secrets have been lost to the ages. Once these towers have been found it's a scramble by the major colonizing powers to claim as many of them as possible (I'm not sure how many I should have in the game, I'm thinking something like 50).

Do people even care about such things?
I mean, do you normally ask yourself questions like "I wonder what's the orbit of this planet, its axial tilt and how big the moon must be to cause such tides"?

When I'm in worldbuilding mode, sure

Me personally? Not always. I have to have some vague excuse why things happen when a player asks something and I'm caught off guard. One time they asked what time of day it was in game and I said it was early after noon. A few minutes later I was describing the tide changing (can't remember if it was high to low or low to high) and they tried to call me out on it but I simply bullshitted an excuse that the fantasy planet they were on had two moons and the smaller one goes around the planet faster because it is closer and thus the odd tide time.

Dungeon Crawler, I'm trying to make something pretty high fantasy with gonzo elements. Right now pretty much anything is on the table. I just know I want the world to be pretty grim but the people in it to be strong and good at heart, points of light is a strong contender.

Human
Magical Robot
Tengu
The green martians from the John Carter of Mars series
Mushroom people

Those are pretty bad.

Bad or 'bad'?

Grim, people are good at heart, high fantasy...

I used to have an idea for a setting that would look as metal album cover like as possible.
I think the races were something to the effect of:
Humans
Metal men, who were like robots but natural
Demon half-breeds, think tiefling
Beastmen, think Warhammer Fantasy
Ghouls, think Eddie
Vampires, with scrubs as starting PCs and utter horrors as bosses

Probably some more but I can't remember

If I understand this correctly ancient Greece were filled with city states because of the terrain (namely mountains) made it hard to conquer and unite, right?

Say I have a setting where the geography doesn't prevent a conquest, what reasons would there be that kept the city states independent?

Ever since Inkarnate became flashier I've found it harder to use for building large scale maps. They dumped a bunch of their old icons and the new ones are too large for making a hex map.

Stop making gods, start making religions. No one wants to hear about your hackneyed mythologies, no one is interested in the exploits of Col. Lightning-Bolt-Man and his cloudkin pantheon brethren.

Create a cosmology, a metaphysics that is not simply GM fiat, and a genuine theology. The people of this faith, should they have any gods, assign that divinity to what they're worshiping. Even if you choose the incredibly lame, juvenile, awful option of putting an actual character to that role, the religion and its core philosophy is what matters, not the silly stories surrounding its 'gods'.

Don't play DnD and don't design according to DnD logic. Create a genuine world that people might actually live in, put some depth to their culture and nuance to their history. Don't think in terms of big empires or races and don't think in the small terms of individuals and towns. Think in terms of the philosopher within the world, think in terms of the man living his life there, and understand what is likely to concern him - and not at this base level of how the silly institutions of this place make his life better or worse. Rather, think in terms of his understanding of totality, of his real fate, his conception of right and wrong, the traditions and scholasticism that informs all of that.

No more low-effort exercises in lowest-common-denominator, low-minded, mass-consumer-culture, creativity-factory schlock. Do not compartmentalize that fiction from the 'facts' you know. Treat it with the same seriousness as you treat 'reality'. There cannot be gaps. No shortcuts, no generalizations, no toying, no playing. Depth, character, soul - mindfulness of the inhabitants of this place, of the place itself.

Nice word salad brah

Each city state is balanced in power with the others, gaining more from trade with each other than they would from war. Maybe each has a special skill or trade that the others can't do that they trade equally with each other? Maybe religious reasons - holy text made it a crime for armies from the cities to fight each other, maybe preserving strength for a forseen conflict in the future? How about each city has control of a single army destroying weapon (maybe an energy cannon 'of the gods') that has held them all in a 'cold war' the last few millenia? Maybe there is a secret cabal of wizards or priests that manipulate the rulers to create peace?

This reminds me of my past preaching in these and other similar threads. I totally agree. You know what's up, player.
While I don't have much to add to this, it reminded me of one of my favourite /wbg/ related quotes. It's by Ken Rolston.

“Tell God's story, then tell the farmer's story, then listen to what the dog has to say.”

>ASOIAF
>low fantasy
It's high fantasy in the traditional sense and the new meaning.

>Don't make GODS man, make RELIGIONS
>Implying Gods of every religion were not ways to explain real events in the world through their understanding, as if there is some deep philosophical difference between Osiris rising from the dead each day and Apollo taking his sun chariot across the sky
>Making Gods characters is juvenile even though actual real world religions were doing it for eons before the rise of monotheism
>Don't actually describe the institutions that people live under, or the system of governance, or the biological realities of the various fantasy species. Facts aren't important.
>DnD is always bad meme
>Designing a game world to make sense in the context of the fucking game is bad lol who cares about suspension of disbelief
>arrogant, pretentious, verbose
>doesn't give or show any examples of his 'superior' worldbuilding
>This is the RIGHT way to do creative thing, do it or else ur a shitter according to some random asshole

What an absolutely abhorrent post. Neck yourself, thanks in advance.

>>Implying Gods of every religion were not ways to explain real events
Not really, they aren't. Hell, there is a multitude of institutions we routinely consider religious (like Buddhism) that don't even have Gods, technically speaking. Religion is not "an explanation of real events through the concept fo God" and Gods do not predate religions. So he is actually right there.

>Making Gods characters is juvenile even though actual real world religions were doing it for eons before the rise of monotheism
Very few religions actually treat their gods as psychological characters. Gods are abstracted reflections of daily experience and accumlated knowledge, not just mere projection of human personality into the world. Understanding what people concern themselves and extrapolating the shape of the god from those concerns and experiences IS more true-to-life way to establish your religion than vice-versa.

>Designing a game world to make sense in the context of the fucking game is bad lol who cares about suspension of disbelief
I don't think you have even the faintest clue what "suspension of disbelief" means.

>arrogant, pretentious, verbose
Verbosity is not a vice. Arrogance and pretention here are more assumptions on your side than anything else. ¨

The post you are criticizing has a lot of issues and debatable points, but you are clearly aren't equiped to be the one criticizing it.

I like where this is going.

>Implying Gods of every religion were not ways to explain real events in the world through their understanding, as if there is some deep philosophical difference between Osiris rising from the dead each day and Apollo taking his sun chariot across the sky
Actually yes, there is. Christians destroyed most pagan religious writings, but in fact they took their faith just as seriously as monotheists did, and had deep theology, cosmology, and metaphysics. This idea that ancient peoples treated their gods like cartoon character superpeople is itself a mythology, invented by Christians, to delegitimize their rival faith.

Greeks, Romans, Germans, and other ancient European polytheists (and they weren't just polytheists either, they had animist and pantheists and even monotheists) had beliefs and philosophy just as developed as the Vedic religions of India. In fact, Hinduism is probably best described as the last remaining European religion, as it was created by the Indo-Aryan peoples (that's the reason Nazis were interested in the region, BTW, because the roots of Germanic paganism and in fact all European paganism have strong connections to Vedic religion). Only an idiot would describe Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, or any number of other complex religious traditions to emerge from the Vedic core as theologically shallow or noncompetitive with monotheism.

Stop buying into Christian demonization of pagan Europe and you would understand that there is no meaningful difference in the complexity or sincerity of the Graeco-Roman faith as compared to Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.

>Hell, there is a multitude of institutions we routinely consider religious (like Buddhism)
That's bullshit. Buddhism never denies the existence of gods and even in the earliest tales you have gods and demons interacting with Buddha, often Indra and Brahma.

>Very few religions actually treat their gods as psychological characters
Indo-germanic religions, sumerian-semitic religions, ancient eygpt. Don't know much about meso-american myths, but as far as I can tell they too.

>That's bullshit. Buddhism never denies the existence of gods and even in the earliest tales you have gods and demons interacting with Buddha, often Indra and Brahma.
Devas are only gods in a petty sense - they're powerful and long-lived. Buddhists don't actually believe in divinity, or maybe better said, assign no value to it.

>Indo-germanic religions, sumerian-semitic religions, ancient eygpt. Don't know much about meso-american myths, but as far as I can tell they too.
This is not accurate, at all. All of these faiths have multiple interpretations of divinity, and the one which Christians chiefly characterized their rival faiths as possessing is the most childish. In fact, in most Germanic religious traditions (and at many points, this is identical in Graeco-Roman faiths), part of the process of growing up is learning that the caricatures of the gods aren't actually real - much like we learn about the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. Adults understand that the gods embody certain concepts and may not even maintain a belief in the supernatural.

>That's bullshit.
That is actually just a plain old fact.

>Buddhism never denies the existence of gods
But it does not worship them. Not necessarily. And yes, there are many tales and many versions of Buddhism. However in his own teachings, Buddha never actually spoke about existence of other gods, but neither he declared himself a divine being: in fact he very explicitly warned about that misinterpretation (even though it later on became a core tennant of most existing Buddhist religions).

>Indo-germanic religions, sumerian-semitic religions, ancient eygpt.
That is just blatantly false. You might want to actually educate yourself into those religions a little closer. Maybe actually study religious studies instead of jumping to conclusions.

Religious studies are an extremely complex subject, by the way. I can assure you that almost everything you think you know is wrong, or at least a lot more complicated than you think it is.

This guy seems to be aware of that.

>Devas are only gods in a petty sense - they're powerful and long-lived. Buddhists don't actually believe in divinity, or maybe better said, assign no value to it.
user, the thing that started all this, by the way not be me, was that people back then didn't assume that gods were characters, but more like principles and concepts. What principle and concept are the gods Brahma and Indra in this context? I mean, they are shown as acting people, speaking, thinking people. Add to that the more folk-like buddhism of today, where people pray to Buddha and the local gods as well.
>All of these faiths have multiple interpretations of divinity, and the one which Christians chiefly characterized their rival faiths as possessing is the most childish
I get the feeling that you just have a hate-boner for christainity.
>In fact, in most Germanic religious traditions (and at many points, this is identical in Graeco-Roman faiths), part of the process of growing up is learning that the caricatures of the gods aren't actually real
Give a proof.

>But it does not worship them
That is not even part of this argument.
>Buddha never actually spoke about existence of other gods
That is not even part of this argument. You get a tale of Indra going to Buddha and doing stuff. So, what was Indra in this scene? Did the people not believe that he went there and did stuff because this is cartoonish?
>You might want to actually educate yourself into those religions a little closer
>basically read a book, nigga
Very good argument.

Furthermore, and that goes to both of you, just because you have for example the Upanishads with it's pantheistic brahman for the elite and educate brahmins, doesn't mean that ordinary folk didn't believe in their respective village gods, family gods and personal favorite gods.

>I mean, they are shown as acting people,
Brahama? Shown as a person? Acting like a person? JESUS CHRIST man, what the fuck is wrong with you?

>Give a proof.
Open any fucking book on religious studios you moron and read away. I recommend Eliade. Or if you can't be bothered reading, Jordan Peterson has several dozens of amazing lectures on the priciples of religiosity on Youtube, just pick one and knock yourself out.

>That is not even part of this argument.
How is it not part of the argument. We are arguing about the nature of religion you moron, how is "this despite being considered religion clearly contradicts your claim" suddenly not part of an argument.

>So, what was Indra in this scene?
Later addition to the religion that happened as Buddhism and various forms of Hinduism coexisted in the same environment. No different from stories of Saint Patrick flying in the air and fighting demons of the Celtic Druids.
>Did the people not believe that he went there and did stuff because this is cartoonish?
Your idea of religious belief is laughably shallow. Again, go and study religious studies. Religious belief is not literal.
>Very good argument.

>doesn't mean that ordinary folk didn't believe in their respective village gods,
Wow, it's almost as if religion is a complex multilayered problem that needs very careful examination and deliberation, and that it might be a good idea to either educate yourself on it throughly, or just not assume yourself an expert and your opinion worth anything! Also, nobody actually claimed that.

People claimed that building religion from establishing god first (as a character) is bad, mainly because it's not reflecting how religion is truly formed. That is hardly connected to what you just said