Setting overview thread. Give a short description of a setting you're working on

hey cool one of those threads everyone posts in but nobody reads

>Feudal setting united by necromancer king's conquest
>the dead from the unification war, combined with volunteers who died seperately provide manual labour for the entire empire
>golden age sees quality of life and technology flourish, fast forward 300 years to early industrial age society
>necromancer king long dead
>wealthy and powerful squabble and war over pride, luxury resources and minutia
>kingdom splinters along old ethnic bounds, skirmishes and resource wars
>the undead begin to disobey orders, destroying roads and railways, burning crops, going on to capturing and killing people
>nations turn to emergency supplies, slavery, war to survive their economy collapsing and fighting skeletons
>the necromancer isn't dead, he went into hermitry to destroy the empire he created
>he's going to remind the people what it is to struggle and die before rebuilding the empire ready for war
>he's doing this because something much more powerful than him is on its way

...but you did exactly what you complained about?

>rainier_wolfcastle_standing_behind_a_microphone

God makes the galaxy, then gets bored. He tries to leave the galaxy, only to find that the space outside his galaxy is one big monster. He and the monster have a talk, and then the monster kills God because he's too egotistic to give any of his creations free will. The divine spark of intelligence falls upon the shoulders of humans, and they begin to advance as new gods form from the runaway powers of The Dead God. The New Gods find The Monster, who spills the beans on their creation. Not sure what to do with the realization that they don't REALLY matter in the grand scheme of things ,they nearly wipe themselves from existence in a civil war that destroys Heaven, the city where all gods reside. Oops! Now, the only remaining gods are trapped on Earth, and are finally stooping to interact with the denizens of Earth. The Monster relishes in the struggle that results. Pic semi-related, what happens when I really try to explain it all

>TFW two of the nine fleshed out settings in this thread involve god being disappointing enough in his creation to just leave

The first time I tried to post this it said I was banned for posting porn on /mlp/ even though I've never been on /mlp/ and according to the ban report is expired almost a year ago. What the hell

Wait are you the guy who was talking about his setting in the "caves can't be deeper than 3000m"? Good to see you're still working on your setting

Trying to make my first sci-fi setting. More space opera/planetary romance than hard sci-fi, but I do like taking what little I know about relevant science into consideration. Normally do fantasy, so I'm having some trouble and not making much progress.

>humanity has spread out into a relatively small space empire and is not very involved in space politics and whatnot
>Earth Empire has practically no major presence in the important parts of the universe
>but unaffiliated human settlements mostly composed of the descendants of abductees throughout the ages exist farther out past where the Empire has ever been
>most people, human and alien, only know Earth as the place humans are originally from
>humans are typically stronger than aliens due to being from a higher gravity world and because it's a genre classic
>for the same reason they're smaller than most alien species
>only aliens that I've really thought about are classic little green men

>Creator god creates the world, Magic, the laws of physics, and lesser gods to govern the world
>promptly dies from exhaust
>thousands of years later Gods rotting corpse attracts scavengers from outside existence
>Two most powerful scavengers decide they like creation
>One of the scavengers is fascinated with suffering, basically becomes lovecraftian satan
> other scavenger is nicer but incapable of empathy and has an obsession with humanoids
>Decides to become one true god as it's jealous that humanoids worship anything other than itself

Is that a bad thing? My thinking was that the one God was all-mighty, and COULD create something like himself to keep him entertained, but he's too vain to conceive of anything but himself, and too grand-minded to appreciate small things for long. So instead of enlightening humans, or creating peers, he left in search of something else.

Not at all, it's just that the thread reminded me of the picture, it's an interesting idea

Ah, ok. I've been thinking on it for maybe a year in my spare time, and haven't even put any of it to paper yet. I don't want anything to be too cliche. I'm not going out of my way to be COMPLETELY original, because it's pretty goddamn hard not to bump into somebody else's idea, but I don't wanna be too predictable if I run a game based on this.

It's called the mountain home

>all manner of races live near the center of the mountain, in one huge city called the Heart.

>everyone is locked inside of the mountain as many moons ago the gods where displeased and punished the races of the world.

>the only way to go up and down the mountain is to find hidden stairwells dotted through out the land.

>the doorway into the stairwell is very hidden and any "room" above or below can be vastly different. It can lead to an open field impossibly high in relation to the tip of the mountain or it can open up underwater. In fact going down a floor from the center leads to an underground ocean, the floor below that is a forest where you can see the sun.

>most races are content to live in the middle, but of course there are bandits and such

>different factions, and eccentric explorers look for champions to traverse the mountain. It is believed any who reach the peak or the mountain will become a god, and any who reach the base will find a source of evil trapped there by the gods

>in reality it's all bullshit, the "gods" are an ancestor race of all races who achieved higher knowledge. They experimented with DNA and created all races out of themselves

>the mountain is a rocket ship, all floors are different biomes, and outside the ship is the empty void of space. That's why the races have been "banned from the world by the gods"

>at the bottom is the engine room, which is why it's so hot down there, where a creeping madness has taken hold, and at the top is the computer navisystem, awaiting the return of it's master

The floors are open to the imagination and can be as endless as the GM wants. I've even added a recurring character who offers advice to the players, but is actually one of the void agents trying to get them to open the main airlock and kill everyone, but the agent says it's to reclaim the lost world.

It's fun

That sounds really fucking cool, dude. I'd play that.

>it's fantasy buy instead it's science fiction Hmmm
>Oh yes the myths about gods and magic are all bullshit, it's just technology lol
>look how original and clever I am xd

>Metaphysically speaking the setting was created when an elder godlike thing died releasing a big bang like influx of what would become the next gods and reality as we know it.
>The main setting is in a future empire that spans most of the entire world.
>Created thousands of years ago by the current emperor who lead a slave uprising against other worldly elven invaders who built their own empire.
>The empire is divided into 8 kingdoms which each have their own king who bows to the council of governance.
>Magic is fueled using life energy from your soul. The magic type is pulp like with grand and powerful rituals that take long time to cast and permanent effects require giving up that life until the effect is destroyed or using others life instead.
>The only real races are the genocided elves and the humans. Outside of rare monsters and creations of mages such as undead. Humans are 99.9 percent of the living world.
>The empire worships five gods which made a contract with the emperor for worship. Each one is an aspect of of the shattered creator god of the setting.
>The entire empire is a clusterfuck of political powers Nobles houses with contracts that go back generations, Five major churches and their doctrines, Six mage houses, The empires military, and the very mysterious and hard to find leadership of the greater empire at large. Each having political and magical force to toss to get what they want done.
>The setting gets more and more magical based on how close you are to the center of the empire while the closer you get to the outreaches the more mundane it tends to get. Not one really has a clue why this is so.
>Currently the empire is expanding towards the barbarians to the west leading to an influx of slave traders and men signing up for the empires armies.
>The governing council are post-human monsters against nature with access to Science fiction levels of technology

The entire setting is pretty much designed for politics and Conan adventures.

Dnd 5e High Fantasy low magic

>Ancient world is populated by humans/elfs/dwarfs/gnomes/etc until a portal rips opens unleashing demons/EVIIIL. Humans/elfs retreat onto their sky ships and the dwarfs/gnomes abandon the surface world to live in their mine forts.

>Fast forward couple thousand years to present and the Humans/elfs have built massive Skyship flotillas cities powered by magic and the dwarves/gnomes tunneled out sprawling fortresses and railways. While monsters and demon hordes cover the surface. Populating the long since abandon cites and towns. (twist: some monsters over time had developed their own cultures and may not as hostile. Orks/dragonborn/teifings/gnolls)

>Contact between the two nations is only made possible at 5 key fortress cities ontop of the highest mountain peaks.

>Here is where the party meets

The universe is actually the shattered image of a primordial goddess and the barrier that seperated her from her lover, suspended as numberless fragments within the empty expanse of her lovers domain. The force of gravity is actually the lovers desperate attempt to collect all of the pieces and make her whole again.

Remember how I mentioned a barrier before? Well before it was broken, they spent the eternity before time and space etching onto its surface. Together they dreamed up numbers, shapes, colors and tones, mass and volume and density, every building block of reality was carved into this infinite wall between them. So, now that it's broke into so many pieces it will take forever to collect them all, the local universe derives its rules and laws from what etchings make up its local matter. Get far enough away from everything else, and the only defining laws for reality are the ones you yourself are made of.

They also told each other stories in a language they made themselves. In those stories they made up other languages. Billions of different languages. Those tongues they made for their stories are the words of magic used by various mages around the universe, and even by the settings divine pantheons. Some are more complete or complex than others.

Now, based on whichever rules governed them, the pieces began to react, change, and take new forms derived from the fragments they're composed of. Some of these pieces became beings of great power, one of which was a monstrous dragon as long as light travels in a year. This dragon began to swim through the void, collecting pieces near by, and eventually created a horde of everything she though was beautiful. Well, her neighbors, demons of great power, grew jealous and killed her. Then they ransacked her realm and left her body to rot.

Tbc

Cont

Her rotting body is what makes up the ring of gas and other materials that surround the solar system. The body of her grand-daughter, who almost drove the demons from the realm before she was betrayed by her mother who fell in love with the Devil King, makes up the world most of my setting is built around. She was killed by the King and turned into a wedding ring for his three brides, one of which was the grand-daughters mother. His brides killed him for only offering them one ring, and ripped his bodyo pieces. His pieces are now a series of comets that return to the system every now and then. The three brides fighting over the ring is why the setting moves throughout the system, around the sun. It's also why there are three seasons. The sun is the crown jewel of the light year dragon, no ones figured out how to steal it yet.

It's a-me!

I'm working on it since 2012 user. It was all I did in my free time in some periods of my life.

Funny thing is, I'm not the GM. I'm one of the players and the loremaster. The GM already used this setting for years. I came in, invented a place for my character to come from, and it never stopped. All the PCs, all the campaigns, are incorporated into the setting, making a lot of its timeline. We have to make some adjustements, but it works. My contributions still account for something like 70% of it, however.

He more or less is my editor and reviewer for this stuff nowadays.

>Magitech cybernetics.
Ever seen Escaflowne? Giant mechanical armors powered by crystals taken from dragons. Might give you ideas.

I also recomend checking the Cyriss priesthood in the Iron Kingdoms RPG (not the wargame). Their implants deviate from the clunky and gritty feel of the rest.

Also, how about spirit-possessed tattoos which work as onboard AI, blood substituted by ferrofluid, heart changed by a magnet and artery valves which enable you to make blades and plating on the fly?

>Main trade city lies in a network of canyons, is neutral territory from all nations
Kinda like Petra?

>Also the moon is a mega dungeon.
Intriguing. But also highly disturbing. Need more data. Is this based on the "underground caves full of selenites" thing from early fantastic fiction?

Would this help?
pastebin.com/PAeKg9rm
>Underwater civilization without fire nor magic

This part might be handy.
pastebin.com/DtKQ6iQt
>the wide adoption of undead engines may power cranes, mills, elevators and catapults. One could achieve an Industrial Revolution based not on steam power and factories, but antikytheran clockwork and undeath. All of this in the height of the Bronze Age. Was this ancient technology the reason of Atlantis power? And perhaps the bronze skin of the Talos automaton hides the reanimated skeleton of a fallen Titan...

I wish I had a player who contributed like that

It is not the first time I heard that. He also likes it a lot. And I'm suspect to say, but wanting to is not enough. You must have something to actually contribute.

In my experience, it is also best to have as few contributors as possible. As this is a voluntary effort, each one goes at his or her own pace, maybe losing interest after a while. And no leadership makes the whole thing sink faster. Me and him, each encouraging and nagging the other, works better.

Not that user, but why does the twist irritate you?

>it's criticism but actually it's just a shitpost hmmmm
>oh yes this entire post is actually just bullshit, it's just my autism
>look how asspained and unloved I am xd

The world was once whole, with a large continent and the rest ocean. Eldritch horrors lived in the ocean, and magic humanoids lived on the land. There were also primitive beginnings of two other races on the land, goblinoids and humans. The magic humanoids had a sort of Mesoamerican like El Dorado or the palace/city from Emperor's New Groove utopia society, until the Elder Things attempted to take over the land. The humanoids used basically a magical super-nuke to blow the entire continent into pieces, (probably) killing all the Elder Things, and thrusting the chunks of continent into the sky. The spell used the magical life force of the humanoid race, and completely eliminated them (they didn't plan that), and since so much magic was used, the chunks of land stay as flying islands.
There's a layer that's higher altitude, this is where the human lands settled, they evolved civilization, cultivated the animals that were around them.
The goblinoid lands and the humanoid lands settled lower and remained more primal (prehistoric type vegetation, dinosaurs), and the ruins of the humanoid civilization became basically dungeons and stuff.
The ocean below is cold and dark, it's also probably still full of elder monstrosities.

Basically it's all a big setup to have an adventure world. The human civilization sends adventurer-archeologists into the untamed wilds below to seek the remains of a forgotten people and their magic and technology. The tech level of the humans is Victorian at best, though there are several distinct cultures, and they do have some magic. Some people with training (like PCs) can even use the ancient civilizations magic, too

>>he's doing this because something much more powerful than him is on its way
This shit is so contrived, like almost every time the villain turns out to actually be a good guy. Why doesn't he just tell people?

Dragons played in the seas of chaos. Then the Gods came and fucked everything up with their "permanent reality" and "consistent metaphysics." Thousands of years later, civilizations thrive while the Dragons sulk in the background, pissed off at losing their playground.

A S&S campaign where the yuan ti are rulers of the known world and what life would be like under that sort of regime

A weird ass scifi campaign based around ideas and visuals from the Prophet comic series and the Warframe video game. Biomechanical technology, weird aliens, human clone empire, psionics. Probably going to run it using Machinations of the Space Princess.

Didn't you post this before? Then I sugested aztec mythology? Can you tell more?

>A weird ass scifi campaign based around ideas and visuals from the Prophet comic series and the Warframe video game.
That shit is dope. What are the possible customizations for players?

That's interesting. I dig the solar system and well, everything, being made of fallen gods. Do they give personal quirks to the respective planets, concepts, forces etc?

So what you're saying is it's a deist universe where Ra, Amaterasu, Apollo and Quetzalcoatl are all angelic coworkers working in the Solar Department, but they went rogue and started calling themselves gods? I've thought about this as a thought experiment where Christianity is true but the other "gods" still exist - they've got power, just not all of it. My origin is a bit different tho - lucifer's rebel faction Balkanized (evil doesn't share) after they fell, they split up the Earth and started their own competing franchises. Notice how worship of the independent creator deity in most true pantheons (meaning not Hinduism) is not really a thing, instead you worship a 2nd or 3rd generation dependent being, but it's cool, Dad and grandpa were assholes, you can totally trust us

>Deities fueled by worship
I finally got around to reading American Gods, and I'm still not impressed by this idea, even tho it's the only thing I've read that's explored it well.

Seems like the humans did matter tho, their free will mattered enough to the Top Being so much that it killed their creator because he kept it from them

> Aiming for an Age of Sail aesthetic
> Up until eight years ago the world was advancing at a regular pace, having gone through its dark, medieval, and renaissance ages
> The big McGuffin occurs, days of natural disaster occur and new land is added, oceans get wider, shits fucked up yo
> People find that new things have appeared
> A farmer wakes up to see an Elvish castle in his backyard
> A bored nobleman sees an elusive wilder beast he's never seen before and eagerly gets his crossbow
> A hermit finds that a nearby canyon now has ancient ruins at the bottom but is too afraid to explore it
> Literal angels are seen flying in the mountains with a radiant city sitting at the top; many refugees and supplicants venture into the mountains but few return
> There's all sorts of new opportunities and dangers and old arms and armor are dusted off and donned back on by adventurers and explorers
> All the religions of the world are saying "We fucking knew it all along!" or "What the shit fuck just happened?"
> All the mages are being hired by kings and nobles to figure out what the hell just happened and are being richly funded for their magical research
> Druids are running around screaming "YOU MANIACS YOU BLEW IT UP"
> In different spots in the world the Inner Planes, Outer Planes, and parts of the Elemental Chaos can be seen and entered, but that also means denizens of those planes can exit into the Material Plane
> As everyone freaks out about this new world and trying to take advantage of all the opportunities, a certain Gith Queen cackles loudly

Sure I'll give it a shot. My setting is still in fairly early development so it's got a lot of fleshing out in terms of locations and characters.

>main continent witnessed a cataclysmic asteroid impact millennia ago, creating the central ring of mountains and imbuing the world with magical energy, both from fragments of meteorite and ambient magical energy in the atmosphere
>Asteroid crater is a few thousand miles wide, on a continent a few thousand more miles wide
>over eons nature takes place and civilizations come forth and develop
>the largest and most powerful, a Human country, originates in the crater
>they are a magically powerful nation, and seek glory for their nation and dominion over the land
>second largest nation, a nation of Indian-inspired Elves, is also naturally land-hungry
>they fight for decades over land, shitting on the other nations and races in the process, namely Dwarves, Orcs and Goblins, and other Human nations.
>Dwarves are pushed back and cunturally demolished over decades of war, until finally the Human and Elven nations declare a ceasefire, an uneasy truce.
>Below all the big houses is typical fantasy fare, plenty of cities, small villages, people going about their daily lives
>off to the west are another Human nation who have been slowly subsuming smaller nations and city states into it's being though a "quiet conquest", trading and mixing with the areas until they are essentially part of the nation
>there is a dragon in the world, but just one out there and it is gargantuan
>no gods but the PCs don't know that

Really typing it out like this is sounds pretty generic, but where most of the flavour comes from is the aesthetic changes to the landscapes and settings I've been working on. For example, the south-west free nation has a lot of warmer weather and a lot of temperate rainforest, Australian style though with ferns and gumtrees called Mountain Ash. All the Dwarves live in the tropical archipelago and are Pacific Islander themed.

10/10 I'm invested. Sounds like a properly interesting setting.

>the primordial realms are divided in two
>the realm of chaos and matter, pure potential without permanence
>and the realm of order and thought, pure ideal without change
>the timeless cycle is the blending and separation of both realms, referred to as the epoch of awakening and the epoch of sleep by those in the know
>each has been constantly coming and going, for eternity
>the first gods always come about during the changing of epochs, when structure is brought to chaos and the first minds awaken in a land filled with nothing but power and opportunity and struggle fiercely amongst each other for dominance
>and they always wither and die when the realms separate once again, rarely learning of the how and why during their long lives
>this time, 4 major gods came into being who parceled the concepts of the world among each other and made the lesser spirits subservient
>these became the elemental lords, and they go on to shape a world from the bubbling chaos, knowing little at first of their own origins and fate, and populate it with life for glory and beauty
>the god of air, having claimed the concepts of wisdom and ambition among others, eventually learns of the doomed fate of his creation, and devises a plan to grow in power and halt the great cycle forever
>but not all gods would agree
>so he starts a war in heaven and eventually subjugates all, claiming their domains as his own, and imprisons the gods
>and then mysteriously disappears as the final phase of his plans seems to go awry, leaving the creatures of the world to their own devices...
>somewhere in the world, the first humans awaken

I had that idea too. Then Skyward Sword came out and blew all the wind out of my sails.

Basically it's a cross between Robert E Howard and The Brothers Grim.

Players seem to be having a blast with it.

There are several other races with their own histories and place in the world, each having legends of their creators. The aim is to let the players awaken in an ancient world that they don't understand - humans haven't advanced much more than bronze age technology in their secluded pocket of the world, with an shamanistic religion that revolves around strange protector beasts - and explore and learn of their place within it.

I have posted it before, but I haven't really gone too in depth before. I don't recall being suggested Aztec mythology, but I'm gonna look into that. Some more information about the individual nations.
>One of the nations has a sort of barbarian-ish culture, what with clans and thanes and the like. They're fairly wealthy because the individual holds will train warriors which are in high demand by other nations as shock troopers in battle or as bodyguards for expeditions. The northern part of their island also has trees that float, their roots are the only thing holding them in the ground as they grow. They're logged and sold for use in airships by several other nations.

>one of the other countries is an archipelago of merchant-princedoms, and in their culture piracy is essentially legal. If other countries' shipments get apprehended, it's usually a hassle to bring the pirates to justice in their country because many of them are sponsored by the nobility. They export a lot of spices and silks, but just as much of their money comes from reselling stolen cargo

>there's a group that functions equal parts like a university and a mercenary organization. They have mages, scholars, soldiers, and they take jobs like exploring ruins, mapping wild islands, bodyguards for diplomats, even rounding out armies when nations go to war.

The Monster loves struggle, be it villainous or heroic. There was none when the First God was tooling around. That's basically what it boils down to. The gods that came after him freaked out when they learned that they *weren't* all-powerful, and could (and would) kill one another proper.

These pastebins are fucking cool.

In this case it's because the people are fat lazy nobles with no interest in working together.

It's not so much that everything is made of fallen gods, but that all matter is the fragments of the window/barrier that seperated the goddess from her lover. She is still whole on the other side, but her image in this world is shattered. Her lover is totally focused on collecting the pieces for now, but in the future he might start actually organizing them and shifting them around. Which means things as observed within the universe could get very weird wonderful and bad. Almost instantly. His collecting also means that Gravity as a force varies in strength and speed, which usually manifests as laws we would consider normal, but some times objects appear to move more quickly than they should, or in directions they shouldn't, with phenomenon like "Gravity Undertows/Jet Streams" appearing within the systems.

The light year dragon and her children aren't really "divine" in the same sense the lover and the goddess are. She does not have the power of true creation, no one but the Two does, but she is responsible for creating the foundation of the solar system, and dragging its star across space and time. Her daughter, the traitor, and her daughter-in-laws, two demons, actually physically move the corpse of the grand-daughter dragon. From our perspective it appears that the ring jumps from orbiting one of three moons around a gas giant, which is interpreted as the brides fighting over the ring. This movement is so precious it can be used to track the seasons. The gas giant is on a very asymmetrical orbit around the star, and also creates the day-night cycle for the ring and its inhabitants. The actual dragon and the two actual demons do actually rule each of the moons however. Their game of keep away also creates some very weird tidal forces.

The grand-daughter is slowly returning to life, and her movements within the metal and earth ring that imprisons her is interpreted as earthquakes and other geological activity. When she awakens, the world could very well end for the inhabitants of the ring.

I recall that smaller islands drop faster than bigger ones, and not all Eldritch Beings had died. Wasn't that you?

I had specifically commented on floating landmasses being kept afloat through human sacrifice, based on this tidbit of aztec mythology:
pastebin.com/5VLdcYzg
>The whole idea behind human sacrifice is that human blood is the only thing that keeps the god's powers running, and the god's powers are the only thing keeping thousands of titanic skeletal demonic horrors from descending upon the world and devouring it.

>in their culture piracy is essentially legal
Ever heard of Illyria?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyrian_warfare#Illyrian_navy
>The Romans knew them principally as a people addicted to piracy.

greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com.br/2016/06/enemy-of-ming-wokou-p1.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com.br/2016/06/enemy-of-ming-wokou-p2.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com.br/2016/08/enemy-of-ming-wokou-p3.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com.br/2017/01/random-mythbusting-part-2.html

>>there's a group...
How did they came up to be like that?

>These pastebins are fucking cool.
Thanks. I also have pic related if it is of your interest.

How about gravquakes?

>The light year dragon and her children aren't really "divine" in the same sense the lover and the goddess are.
So being "godly" is the same has being "the creator" in your setting?

>Her daughter, the traitor, and her daughter-in-laws, two demons, actually physically move the corpse of the grand-daughter dragon. From our perspective it appears that the ring jumps from orbiting one of three moons around a gas giant, which is interpreted as the brides fighting over the ring.
So how do people know that these aren't "simply" celestial bodies? Do they know it?

>When she awakens, the world could very well end for the inhabitants of the ring.
This whole solar system seems to be going towards a catastrophic climax.

Oh yeah! I had forgotten about that thread, sorry.
Yeah smaller ones tend to fall more often. New islands tend to rise, but nobody is sure how that works or where they come from cause I haven't thought of a good reason yet, but I need the setting to be somewhat sustainable And while in universe nobody knows the Elder things are alive (most people don't even know they're there), it's definitely true that they're still around.
I feel like it wouldn't be uncommon for the goblins to think that sacrificing people would keep the islands up, that's a neat idea. They probably sacrifice their own in rituals, but will use a human if they can catch one. I didn't want goblins to be playable so I didn't put a whole lot of thought into their culture.

>link
There's alt of neat stuff in there, I'd never heard of them. I'll give that a couple more reads later, thanks.

>there's a group...
They started as just mercenaries and guides for scholars, but as they became more well known for that, they started keeping scholars on payroll to have better information of the wildlands, what sort of stuff was there, and the like. Then as ruin exploration became more prominent, they added more variety to help deal with the things within. Basically they expanded their services to be a more useful and profitable business. There are other organizations like them, that do cartography and exploration work, they're just the largest, and have campuses (for lack of a better word) in a few nations.

>A western style fantasy frontier
>Magic comes from the land, and people move across the land to get more and different types, and their technology is supported by the magic
>A railroad system is being constantly built up, perhaps over a very long time period like centuries
>The rails follow the leylines of magic in the world, with railroad towns built up around places with particularly abundant sources of magic
>Factions fight for control over the construction of the railroad and the trains as its the fastest and safest way to get to these places of magic
>Perhaps long ago the native beastkin were the ones who taught the settlers about where the magic is and how to use it, and they have a natural connection to the land

Thats a rough, short summary. Main things Im workinh out is A) how to do guns without having actual munitions. I think there has to be guns because the iconography is far too strong, but they should probably use magic in some way. And B) I really like the "plane wide railroad system being constantly built westward to find more and more places with magic", but I don't really want to do steampunk. So im not sure the importance of magic and if it should be used for technology and if so how to make that distinct from steampunk.

Alchemy, man. All it needs is a single fantastic phlogiston substance that can be powdered and ignited or burned in blocks to serve as both gunpowder and coal. Could add some utility for the players as a firestarter, or bottled as a weapon too.

If enough of the magic is "leaking" to cause problems. I don't think I'd have messenger's favor to be the only to wield magic.

I like the concept of alchemy. And it can be sort of flavored as the sort of huckster snake oil doctor type perhaps.

Also the word "phlogiston" seems very appropriate dor the setting to just use. I might have to use that somehow. Thanks!

Im just trying to conceptualize and visualize how guns look and work in a sort of fantasy western setting where I dont know id I want actual bullets but there is spellcasting, though the idea would be these people arent as skilled at it as the natives and maybe use the guns as a way to channel and focus the magic power for the layman. I have this idea of chamber in a revolver for 5 bullets instead of 6 which has significance but Im not sure how close I want to be to actual guns form and functionally. Though I think the form has to be there in some part due to the powerful imagery.

Phlogiston is what we used to call "whatever is in a thing that makes it ignite and burn"
Wood has a lot of it, but rocks dont

I was actually aware of the term since I first heard of it in TF2. But I hadnt thought od it. Just thought it was a cool unique term to use for something in this instance. Cant quite figure why but it seems to fit, and the time period seems right. But I still need to peg a few other things down first.

Bit of a kitchen sinkin, with each continent having their own more or less "theme"
We got wild lands, Pirate islands, Arabian (k)nights, Basic high fantasy arthurian kingdom, Island of giants and vikings and shit, Grim dark land, Political shit the island, and low fantasy place. Working on making 1 or 2 cultures per area.
Usually only one or two gods on the planet at a time (not counting the 4 elemental ones), often sending high level angels instead, as they are all fighting eldritch demons and shit. Fey realm is more or less just a nature themed good version of eldritch realm. Lots of crazy artifacts and shit either caused through other adventures, or things dropped from the gods as they quickly went into space to fight. Most of the gods also more or less have multiple personalities and bodies because of how different races and cultures worship them.
There are also two demon twins that are not "gods" but the closest thing for the hellish demons and devils. And alot of crazy shit from wizards doing retarded things due to insanity from prolonged exposure to magical effects.

"Gravity quakes" and large groups of matter do occasionally jump around within space. People usually blame a minority scapegoat. I also forgot to mention, time as a dimension only exists because the Lover is counting how many seconds he's been seperated from the Goddess.

Divinity in this setting is divided into two categories, you have the Goddess and the Lover who created the first language an used ito create everything else. They have the powers of true creation: something derived from nothing. The rest of the gods are lesser, only knowing the secondary languages that the Goddess and her Lover created. While powerful, they cannot create something from nothing. This applies to every pantheon, whether they're actively engaged in the setting, or passively observing.

There are various cults that worship the moons around the world, many claim to have (and a few actually have) gained to the favor of one or more of the three Brides. Also, those who are able to look closely enough have reported signs of activity, of cities and great vessels moving across the surface of the moons. They claim each moon holds an empire of Devils, Giants, and Dragons, terrors that serve the Brides. The reality is much more sinister.

Eventually the Universe will end, violently. First in fire, then is an instant of distortion. Nothing will survive, and reality will return to being stories etched into a window between two lovers.

Well in that period, why do thinggs ignite? Why does the flint spark? Why does the gunpowder work so well?
Phlogiston.

How about guns that are halfway to being wands, the alchemical powder ignited by the user's mana which is carried from the grip to the chamber by semi-decorative silver filigree that snakes up both sides of the weapon. Also the fire and sparks are blue and green. Maybe it makes smoke like a musket, but the smoke sparkles or something.

Maybe you can do different magic with it, but it's always in small bullet-like packets, and it's always offensive

New islands coming back up is a good one, specially if they bring nasties with them and need to be cleaned up from monsters. The group may specialized on that, fighting hordes, mapping the new land, overseeing its fauna and flora in one go.

About the goblins, I though the ritual would actually work. It is a nasty type of necromancy of course, and all taboos continue to apply.

>The rails follow the leylines of magic in the world, with railroad towns built up around places with particularly abundant sources of magic.
I like that. I have leyships that use the ley lines as "hyperspace".

>A) how to do guns without having actual munitions. I think there has to be guns because the iconography is far too strong, but they should probably use magic in some way.
How about guns firing cartridges encasing actual magic? This could include even healing magic.
fairytail.wikia.com/wiki/Guns_Magic

>B) I really like the "plane wide railroad system being constantly built westward to find more and more places with magic"
has it. You can even have types of phlogiston with different proprieties depending on their impurities and/or location. The original theory sought to explain even rust and said phlogiston had negative mass. You can derive wackier tecnologies from it, from rust-resistant coating to some kind of combustion engine which is not a jet but provides anti-gravity, using 100% pure phlogiston.

>I also forgot to mention, time as a dimension only exists because the Lover is counting how many seconds he's been seperated from the Goddess.
I suddenly thought that the most powerful being in the universe would be a cosmic couple therapist, heh.

>Divinity in this setting is divided into two categories...
Had you any input from neoplatonism? The Demiurge, the One, Theory of Forms, they all seem fitting somehow. If only as the underlying theory through which a sage manages to influence reality and cast spells.

>There are various cults that worship the moons around the world...
Are those things able to travel through space and disturb people?

You reminded me of Rahu, a hindu god which is also a rogue planet. His beheaded head becomes another celestial body.

>Eventually the Universe will end, violently...
Is this a cosmic cycle?

...

Can we shoot settings for wargames we're working on?

Saw you in the deep sea thread. Neat ideas man. Would play. Would read novel.

Nobody reads my whole ass. Yours is just kinda boring.

High sea adventures with Captain Waluigi please!

Fucking cool.

Would play in that setting.

>the Darkling Un-God, Lichlord Moyolejuani is basically building Phyrexia on his false-moon base (also his phylactery)
>the feywilds are open to the world. Fae shenanigans East of the Dragonwall
>Dragons, in the West, are the fallen angels of a pantheon they genocides
>used to rule a desert hellscape. Things changed due to a Walker-In
>plane is built out of the shattered remnants of what it used to be, held together by an Extraplanar Turbogod(dess now)
>Arcane society built artificial Fae, call them Weirds.
>during last Great War, mankind was mostly driven extinct East of the Dragonwall
>the Paladins of Marduun salted the earth to hold back tides of Fae, created the Manblight 500ya
>remaining human kingdom, Durstgart, uses Skrelniks, druids who raise dead and are the ultimate composters, to keep kingdom afloat amongst these damn elves
>Elves come from the Southern Jungles, mainly speak Spanish. Northern "high" elves speak Portuguese.
>dwarves in mountains, have maglev rail system, mechanical computing. Own the Adamant Bank, best bank in the world.
>in the Manblight, dwarven settlers grow weird as some of the Weirds, The Shimmering Council, have taken residence there. Dwarves >> Gnomes.
.... More in next post why not.

>Walkers-In are those who have fallen into the plane by accident, and must stay there; there's no way out.
.>notable Walkers-In: Moyolejuani, Mohelius Evilskill McGenocide
>Moyolejuani became the first lich when he stole a piece of the Heart of the Turbogoddess
>Mohelius pacified the dragons, and built the Dragon Empire of Man in the West. It is one of the last bastions of humanity
>the Weirds have turned the Manblight into a max-lovers dream, shiny white plastic flowers and sparkling lights blown through the sand and salt
>in the South, the Ishkarigaj, the Hate- Elves who were corrupted centuries ago by their goddess of destruction and evil are building up. Not many people like them. They don't like themselves.
>the Arcane society, the premier "mages guild" is housed in the Arcanum, a 6-dimensional space outside of realspace. They built the Weirds. No, they won't apologize bitch it's magic

I feel like I am waxing eloquent for no reason. I'll not continue unless there is interest.

Bump for interest

This is kinda, kinda, kinda where I was leaning right now. You have the world's standard issue five-shooter revolver style a gun and you could fill it with magical caches, and I toyed with the idea of them being possibly elementally based but wasn't quite 100% sold.
This kinda has me going in a good place as far as the actual design of the base hand gun, though I think I really need the revolving chamber. I'll have to concept some stuff. the vision in my head is kinda like one of those classic kid's scifi laser guns which I think is a fine point to begin with but is a little sillier than the tone I have in mind. But i like the general idea of "gun-shaped wand" with magic-bullets. I think i really need to work on an aesthetic for the world in general.

Another thing is I'm trying to decide if this eternal western expansion is a new thing or if it's been going for a very long time. I feel like it being a newish thing the people are getting used to feels more in line with a western, and more original concept had all the people in the world actually being transferred somehow for some reason from another plane, and the magic of the leylines drawing people to them and the teachings of the natives would be what starts their westward movement.

But this is actually for a MTG plane so there's a couple things that I need to hash out about that since there's a lot of issues. The alternative is just that it's always been that way and the continuous expansion seems to go on endlessly which has its own interesting implications but doesn't feel quite as western to me. I dunno.

>and more
and my