/wbg/ Worldbuilding General

/wbg/ "is this magic realm?" edition

Online map-making community:
cartographersguild.com/
reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/
reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/
discord.gg/ArcSegv

On designing cultures:
frathwiki.com/Dr._Zahir's_Ethnographical_Questionnaire

Online map designer software:
inkarnate.com
experilous.com/1/project/planet-generator/2015-04-07/version-2

Offline map designer software:
profantasy.com/
experilous.com/1/store/offer/worldbuilder
hexographer.com/free-version/

Mapmaking tutorials:
cartographersguild.com/forumdisplay.php?f=48

Random Magic Resources/Possible Inspiration:
darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/magic/antiscience.html
buddhas-online.com/mudras.html
sacred-texts.com/index.htm
mega.nz/#F!AE5yjIqB!y7Vdxdb5pbNsi2O3zyq9KQ

Conlanging:
zompist.com/resources/

Sci-fi related links:
futurewarstories.blogspot.ca/
projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/
military-sf.com/

Fantasy world tools:
fantasynamegenerators.com/
donjon.bin.sh/

Historical diaries:
eyewitnesstohistory.com/index.html

More worldbuilding resources:
kennethjorgensen.com/worldbuilding/resources
shaudawn.deviantart.com/art/Free-World-Building-Software-176711930

List of books for historians:
reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books/

Compilation of medieval bestiaries:
bestiary.ca/

Middle ages worldbuilding tools:
www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm
qzil.com/kingdom/
lucidphoenix.com/dnd/demo/kingdom.asp
mathemagician.net/Town.html

Thread Question:
>If your setting has magic, is there distinctions between different types of magic? (i.e. divine magic, arcane, primal, or perhaps split among schools)

>If your setting has magic, is there distinctions between different types of magic? (i.e. divine magic, arcane, primal, or perhaps split among schools)
Yes, in a sense. Psychic power is innate and a large number of people can use it but it's very, very weak (You can sense living things within 10 feet and have something equivalent to mage hand and not much else) where are arcane magic is studied and more varied/powerful but still tops out doing fireball at best.

>If your setting has magic, is there distinctions between different types of magic? (i.e. divine magic, arcane, primal, or perhaps split among schools)
No. Magic is the application of Chakra/Ki/Vite/Ka/Pneuma to affect the material or spiritual world. The source of power can be different, but the energy is all the same.

I'm considering just getting a tablet for drawing maps of dungeons and the like on the fly or putting together maps that aren't global. Probably a Wacom or something, those're supposed to be good.

Any tips? Good mappy brush textures?

Okay, so I'm taking the idea of a World Tree and running with it, Norse style. A collection of 9 planes/worlds all accessible from one another via some sort of portal/leyline network.

So far I have:
>Midgard: Human plane, might go with either Roman or Hindu-inspired cultures, maybe mix
>Asgard: High Elf world, Tolkien Badass Elves mixed with Marvel's Asgard
>Hel: Undead world, might go Middle Eastern or Byzantine undead empire
>Jotunheim: Monstrous world, made up of trolls, giants, goblins, etc
>Vanheim: Wood Elves, something like a cross between Iroquois and DC's Gods of New Genesis
>Inferno: Actual, literal hell with Demons, might make a Crusader state style kingdom for the lulz

So I've got 6 worlds, but need an additional 3. Are there any major archetypes I'm desperately missing here?

My intention for this setting is both for some sort of wargaming.

Iceworld, Desertworld, Oceanworld, and Jungelworld are all archetypes you could use.

Alternate history or alternate worlds? Also what are your most popular reasons for two nations or multiple nations to go to war?

Tell me your setting's premise, and this Wizard cat will give it a rating out of 10.

While I like the idea of an Ocean and Jungleworld, does going by biome seem shallow?

I'm this guy .

>>If your setting has magic, is there distinctions between different types of magic? (i.e. divine magic, arcane, primal, or perhaps split among schools)
It all comes from the same place, though I'm still working stuff out

All magic is utilized the same way and works off of fundamental forces of reality. There are differences as to what effects are created, however.

Matter is basically a container for "waves" oscillating patterns of energy that give matter it's characteristics. So mass, thermodynamic energy, electromagnetic charge all that stuff is dictated by these waves. I'm still thinking if there are any more mutable qualities that matter should have in this system and where the containment mass comes from.

Speakers, people who can use magic, sing to affect these waves. By singing an interference pattern a Speaker can cancel the thermodynamic waves of an object and cool it. The extent of the cooling being how perfectly they can negate these waves. The opposite is also true. A Speaker can harmonize with the existing waves and amplify the power. This could lead to interesting effects like creating a flower that could set wood on fire. Because its intrinsic thermodynamic heat is being artificially excited, it doesn't burst into flames in spite of being past the flashpoint of plant matter.

This system was put into place by the creator deity. I'm still hammering the specifics out. Sub deities created by what is basically god created planets and one in particular created sapient life. The specific deity created Speakers by altering or creating a few score of women (as women are the genetic bottleneck) to have a connection with the deity. Through that deity Speakers can translate their intent to the divine language and melody that are required to achieve their intended effect.

There's a lot more bullshit involved like the importance of heatbeats, rhythm and the soul, but that's the basic gist of it.

Perhaps? You did ask for archetypes, which tend to be fairly shallow.

I feel that having at least one world uninhabited by an intelligent race would mix things up a bit, seeing that all the other worlds have some sort of culture.or race associated with them.

You could also do some sort of angelic realm, considering you have a hellish realm as well.

>you asked for shallow
Fair point. I can take shallow and make it better then.

>angelic realm
I was thinking the Asgard/High Elf realm would be this, but I always take suggestions.

How long will cat be here? I'm still pretty vague on setting

You could also go full weeb and have an East-Asian themed world. Stuff it with Kistune and Oni.

>Full Weeb
You never go full weeb.

I dunno. That sounds like it would add a lot of variety at least.

You have the world tree idea, but you made the worlds distinctly not Norse. In my opinion, this is actually a really good thing, makes the setting more diverse in a good way what with having entire worlds to play with.

Naturally it's not finished yet, and at first I was wondering how useful it would be to have these random separated worlds. Seems sort of pointless or even a little masturbatory. BUT THEN I read the bottom bit about how it's for wargaming and I instantly thought it started to sound really cool. Excellent way to mash really weird, crazy cultures together in huge wars with wildly different technology, magic, and tactics. It helps explain away a lot of shit.

Solid 8/10 so far, needs work to finish. You should certainly add in some kind of Eskimo and Aztec style culture, if you need some more ideas.

As long I'm here.

If you go Oceanworld, you could also add a Greek Mythology theme, make it something similar to the Odyssey. Although you do have Byzantine influences in Hel, so you might have too much greek influence overall.

>Solid 8/10 so far, needs work to finish. You should certainly add in some kind of Eskimo and Aztec style culture, if you need some more ideas
Oooh, I hadn't thought about Eskimo. Aztec feels a little played out, though if I strategically steal some of the juicier bits and add them to Eskimos.......

Thank you Cat Wizard! :3

>Greek Mythology
I really like this actually. I might switch up the Undead world then to make room for more Greeks. Perhaps I'll keep to the Middle East vibe? Or would some sort of Mongolian/Tibetan Undead Hybrid Civilization work better? Literally off the top of my head, but based on my love of throat-singers and cold mountain temple-fortresses.

I think Tibetan works well, as death and life after death does play a role in Tibetan culture (such as mummified Tibetan monks). But unless your underworld is going to have rolling steppes, I don't think Mongols are going to work. Why use Mongolian culture if you're going to take out the pastoral nomad part?

One thing that was really cool about Hel being Byzantine is that you have a "dead" civilization. Maybe you could use Babylonian culture instead? You'd have a middle eastern culture and a "dead" culture as well.

I hadn't considered Babylon, though mostly because of limited material covering them. I like to work from visuals. Tibetan Undead shenanigans have a lot more artwork backing them up in my mind, though I do suppose Babylonian myth has a pretty cool underworld.

Niflheim? Dwarves or dark elves. An underworld but nothing actually to do with death and demons just a nasty chasm of endless mist and selvishness.

I am going to GM for an Only War campaign soon. But I need to make maps that can work as frontline maps, do any of you know any good tips in order to make/find one?

>tfw post shockingly similar idea that I posed in a previous thread
>Low key proud

But for real though, sounds cool.

I'm trying to come up with an evil empire thats taking over my post near-apocalypse Earth. I want them to be intimidating yet not over the top evil.Something on the level of the Combine.
So far all ive come up with as concepts are
>Ancient human empire awoken by nazis in antartica after the war and plotting their rise ever since
>Space biopunk people
>Alien collaborators
Would humans or aliens work better as a dominating empire?

My settings premise is that the land is ravaged by uncontrolled necrotic energy after a Lich briefly conquered the world. Storm of necrotic energy sweep past the land, simultaneously killing and zombifying anything in its path. Pockets of life still exist, but they're isolate and few and far between. Vampires now rule the world, being able to take advantage of the darkness the necrotic storms bring. They both directly rule with an iron fist and pull strings in the background, putting mortal men against each other for what little scraps of power they allow them to have. Vampirism is seen by upper rankings of mortal hierarchy to be a symbol of status and they're mortal bodies a barrier to what could be their life as a wolf among sheep. Desperate enough to become mere fledglings or thralls.

The Gods are mostly silent and their worship is outlawed. Hidden cults suddenly disappear with destroyed shrines and splatters of blood along the wall with no bodies in sight.

I give your wizard cat a strong 7 to and 8.

Bump

>tfw earthlike setting so no premise

Well, sell it then. What's going on in this earthworld?

Can't really, character limit and such. I would need to make a few posts and spend hours writing them. I haven't fleshed out most of the conflicts either, that will be a few years.

>If your setting has magic, is there distinctions between different types of magic?
Elemental magic that some people are just adept at and pagan magic that is about being favoured by gods and receiving their support. Both aint what it used to be.

There's also enchantments that are about infusing magical energy into objects, but it's a lost art on the continent where action takes place.

It is most medieval fantasy, except the world is trapped in endless cycle of death rebirth, controlled by a machine on the moon and serves as prison for Satan.

Setting is focused on the West, a continent that was discovered by explorers from the Old World roughly a hundred years ago but has only been aggressively settled in the past three decades. The two most prominent factions behind settling are the magocracy of Carska -- for the sake of quick summation, Nazi Victorian wizards with no sense of right and wrong ruling over the non-magical masses and developers of magitech -- and a great deal of forcibly migrated citizens of Lorne, a neighboring rural theocracy which Carska recently crushed in the "Unification Crisis" in order to get their hands on the massive deposits of crystallized magic at the heart of Lorne's most sacred mountain.

Natives that already live in the West are all descended from the same stock with pointed ears and immortal bodies, though their minds aren't quite so sturdy. As centuries pile up, it isn't uncommon for powerful chieftain or shamans' minds to crack, their raw magical power focused upon some parable or story that becomes the crux of their existence. Warping their tribesmen and the very land itself as a stage and actors for their Fable, the process shapes different cultures differently, from the endless turn-over through violence among the orcs, ritualized suicide among the elven tribes of the High Lakes, and goblin's natural predilections for getting themselves killed.

tl;dr Wild Western Fantasy with orcish train robbers, Old Scratch waiting to make diabolic deals on a dark and dusty crossroad, and foppish magisters discussing vivisection and genocide while a construct butler serves them negronis.

Alright, so three contenders so far to add to .

>Eskimo Ocean World: Frozen oceanic world made up of ice and a few islands surrounded by black seas, monsters, and the entire population subsists on blubber
>Not!Nippon: Deeply magical forests and mountains, heavy spiritual activity, loads of oni and kitsune style samurai and ninja clans
>Trojan World: A world of mountain-chain islands, bronze-age inventors, warring demigods, and mercurial Titans

How do these sound?

If the Greek idea falls flat, I'll instead look to do an "empty" world. Can't see myself going with Dwarves this time, though that may change.

:3

I'd personally suggest the Alien Collaborators, with a slight twist to avoid the OTT evil and usual cliches.

The near-apocalypse has happened and Earth is rebuilding when a giant alien spacecraft crashes suddenly in a second-rate country that dreams of it's time in the sun. The aliens are highly advanced but few in number with a handful of small craft at most. Maybe they can't withstand Earth's atmosphere and need encounter suits which naturally constrains their activities.

The aliens do not care about Earth, they do not want to eat our brains nor do they subsist on human suffering. All the aliens want is to go home but without an FTL drive/Dimensional Portal/Whatever they are stranded. After brief first contact shenanigans they reach an understanding with the country they crashed into; supply advanced technology and weapons in exchange for the manpower and (rare and exotic) resources needed to repair the ship. The empire exists because the human government wants it to exist, and while oppressive and cruel it is no more so than others in our planet's history. Beyond an empire having more resources to devote to the mammoth task of repairing the ship and synthesing exotic particles for fuel, the aliens don't care and certainly do not require any evil acts.

Fortunately, the empire cannot produce the best alien tech without infrastructure but even the monkey model equipment is way ahead of humanity (both in cost and effectiveness) and it's elite forces do have a limited supply of the good stuff.

Seems bleak. At first you mentioned 'pockets of life still exist, but they're isolate and few and far between'. This implied to me a sort of post apocalyptic setting, but then you basically stated that the vampires rule the remaining mortals as nobility, with mortals hoping to become vampires themselves as a way of moving up in class. Not only does this make zero sense; nobody wants to become a rich person who abuses other people. They want to become a rich person and be the GOOD boss or the GENEROUS rich guy, nobody wants to become a tyrant or villian just because somebody did the same to them.

>The Gods are mostly silent
>their worship is outlawed

Fucking why? Especially if classes like Cleric or Paladin exist, who are specifically all about countering undead creatures, they would be extremely active. Even if nobody worshipped them because the vampires cruelly cut down any cults, sacred holy swords and armor would no doubt appear on young promising adventure's doorstep, as though inviting him to take up a mantle of justice.

Obviously, not a lot of thought went into this one and it seems overly bleak and edgy without reason. 'Fantasy Necromancer Apocalypse' is still a pretty novel concept, but the best I can do is a 4/10.

Vaguely interesting as premise, but says nothing about the actual setting. It's just cosmological set dressing that will rarely come into play. 3/10 due to lack of information.

Fantasy wild west is extremely underrated. Generic magocratic society is a little generic and anything described as 'nazi' is an instant red flag, but the mix up of Victorian ethics and magitech make it a little more interesting.

Combing elves, orcs, goblins and all those to be from the 'same stock' but not humans for some reason seems a little strange, but I won't judge it. The idea about shamans and tribal leaders losing themselves to fantasy fables which then play out in reality is gold though. Nice descriptive writing.

8.5/10

>nobody wants to become a rich person who abuses other people.

Thats a good idea.

Further twist idea: Different factions begin forming in the Alien enclave some advocate for staying on earth to build up their new empire to expand and rule over humanity like kings, others want to do a space re-conquista on their homeworld using humans as foot-soldiers , the rest are furious at this idea and just want to leave.

Haven't talked about this in a while, but why not stretch my legs:

The setting started as an attempt to transform pic related to a world-building like project.

At it's heart, it's a kinda-soft-sci-fi setting that however is trying to feel like a non-traditional fantasy or mythological world.
The premise is: in a world generally like our - on a planet much like Earth, but scared by tens of thousands of years of civilizations that had all came and then turned into dust, there is a small, isolated continent.
Once, it was a home to one of the great, advanced civilization, spanning across nearly all of it's surface. But, like every one before, even this one perished: after it's agriculture collapsed, and all of it's great crops died out over mere decades, it's inhabitants had to abandon their cities, head to the forests and pastures - become nomads, hunters, gatherers: wondering across great, Mongolia-like pains in small tribes, resting in the shade of barely recognisable stone obelisks, left there by their ancestors.

That was well over three thousand years ago. A little over thousand years after the great famine - long enough for people to forget their own history - one small society on an isolated part of the continent has encountered Gods, or "Celestials": strange, luminous giants that hold power over the very nature. They came from the ocean, offering a deal:
They will bring in ships full of food, enough to feed entire empires - but in exchange, they will take thousands of humans as slaves: to carry away, into the sea, never to return.

And from this deal, after thousand years of primitive nomadic life, first new kingdom was born, fueled by expansion and slave trade, ensuring the it's inhabitants would never have to worry about food.

That was two thousand years ago. The first kingdom, know as The Circle, has perished, and several others have taken it's place, but the slave trade is still the lifeblood of the world.

Should I bother you with more?

>Should I bother you with more?

Nope, that's plenty.

As for the setting write up goes, I have no idea what 'pic related' is, so just drop that all together.

I somewhat dislike setting that lacks obvious magic, but that's ok, you seem to have a decent amount of interesting material.

I think the slavery for food thing is kind of interesting, but also kind of random. Has nobody seriously tried to create any new forms? Nobody has staged expeditions to see what's across the sea or how to bring it back? Nobody has taken any seeds or sprouts from the food brought by the Celestials to make their own farms?

The slavery thing is also kind of weird. Like these beings need human slaves to bring across the sea, a human sacrifice could solve much the same thing, directly giving the souls of the dead humans to the luminous ones.

Seems sort of pointlessly bleak, little mundane in the worst way. How have slaves not ran out in literally TWO THOUSAND fucking years of slavery for food trade? I've also seen you shilling the exact same setting for years, and with so many words you seemed to accomplish so little with how much time you've had to work on it. 2/10

A moderately standard fantasy setting centered around the ten schools of magic that have defined the world's history. The current era has the world in a state of relative peace and growth after a war between the newly-formed schools of death and life devastated the world and inadvertently gave rise three other new schools of magic during the periods of rebuilding.

Now the various nations of the world work together in unions of varying strength left over from war alliances, and the major points of conflict occur when individuals abuse advancements and interactions between the schools for their own intellectual or material gain.

TLDR Nation-State politics but everyone who's anyone is a mage of some kind.

The beginning seemed a bit confusing. Is there 10 schools of magic or more now? Life and death seemed to 'give rise' to three other new schools. So is it 10 total now or before? Why are life and death 'newly-formed' schools when they seem like they'd be more or less the first schools?

Also, you never say exactly what the ten schools are.

There's also this big emphasis on on the schools with magic being super common, but what does each school of magic control a nation? The mages being focused seems to bring up interaction actions though, and I could certainly see a game world where everyone is a wizard do away with most balancing issues.

5/10 so far, not unwelcome but a bit confusing.

I can answer those questions:

As to concern of lack of no magic: people in my world believe in magic just like real people did. And that is actually quite a lot, not something trivial. There are also technologies that go over their head, which are deemed magical as well. My intention is to blue them all together, to make it unclear where superticion begins, actual magical ritual happens, and where some (for an external observer technological, but for them magical event takes place.

So to people living in this world, magic is I think much more real than to most people in most other fantasy worlds I hear about. It's a vital part of the word, just not in a very traditional TTRP fashion, I hope.

>, but also kind of random.
It is supposed to feel arbitrary. It's demand from gods. It's not that thing you want to analyze logically.
Although there are actually some more-or-less logical explanations.

>Has nobody seriously tried to create any new forms?
They do, all the time. Over the past three thousand years, various forms of letiles, wild grasses, frut treas etc... have been domesticated.
None of them are enough to actually sustain even a medium sized urbanized society. The lands are pretty barren as it is, couple orchards of sour pears is not going to be enough to feed a city.
>? Nobody has staged expeditions to see what's across the sea or how to bring it back?
Not really. People are SHIT SCARED. Those are actual, living gods. Those who trespass them are themselves to become slaves, and they are very diffiult to keep a hold off.

The combination of it being just really hard, and the sheer religious awe prevents it.

That said, somebody actually discovering where they are taking the slaves could potentially be like the ULTIMATE campaign hook.

>Nobody has taken any seeds or sprouts from the food brough
The Celestials actually supply them usually just with pure grain of some extremely nutritious wheat-like plant.
Cont

The problem is that the grain the Celestials provide to humans - has been perfectly sterillized. And trust me, this has been driving people insane for centuries. There are still mad men who refuse to eat their shares, and instead carefully plant every single one of the back into the ground, hoping for a miracle.

They never do. Celestials aren't dumb, they sterilize throughly.

>, directly giving the souls of the dead humans to the luminous ones.
Yeah, but assumes that they need "soul", when in reality, they do need more tangible parts of the bodies, in good state too, for their own reasons. The celestials need living, preferably young and healthy people. For reasons that I will keep mysterious to avoid revealing their really boring true nature.

>Seems sort of pointlessly bleak,
I think the bleakness has a point, muliple of them. The main theme here is the ethical problem of worth of civilization. It's one of the most underlying themes of the whole story: whenever such arrangement is acceptable. And several different philsophies solving this problem in different ways.

>little mundane in the worst way
Mundanity is actually something I do value a lot. it's the absolutely best canvas to pain the most charming details.

>How have slaves not ran out in literally TWO THOUSAND fucking years of slavery for food trade?
Some are captured, some are born. And when there aren't enough slave to catch in the wilds, then you have to "tax" your own population. A lot of these dynamics have been based around human-sacrifice estimations among meso-american cultures, as well as volumes of slave trade happeing in mediterrania.

I'm pretty sure that how much I accomplished is rather poorly conveyed in these posts.

But thanks for the feedback, it is valuable and understandable.

For anyone else, if interested in more details, I'll be happy to talk.

>If your setting has magic, is there distinctions between different types of magic?

No. Magic in this setting comes from one very specific source and basically does one thing: say "fuck you" to the Square-Cube Law. It works through the use of "Threads," which manifest as these glowing magical filaments that the "Weavers" are capable of manipulating. Think of a fiber-optic bundle and how one huge cable splits into many smaller fibers and you'll have a good idea of how this system works--the Weaver carries a bundle within themselves which they can split into finer and finer filaments for minute control.

As for what the Threads do, they are capable of stretching and contracting with essentially infinite force. So, they can compress to a microscopic pinprick or expand to reach out for incredible distances (how far depends on the skill of the caster) and they can do so without regard to any physical resistances. This allows the Weaver to manipulate stuff from afar or, with the proper amount of thought and planning, construct mechanisms and such. One fun thing is to build golems, using the Threads as muscle fibers over a skeleton built from whatever.

ech, I was trying to hold back on going too far into detail because it's easy to go on tangents and lose the point as opposed to a simple summary.
"school" in the sense of the setting means more a magic style than a literal school. Most nations tend to be so historically intermingled with one or several schools that neither the wizards nor the aristocracy rule the other, and the head of state is almost always magically significant in some way.

there are 10 schools of magic total at the current date. 5 schools are ancient and deal in 'pure' elemental forces: fire, ice, earth, storms, and raw magic (not as broken as it sounds, mostly underlying theory).
Death/Shadow developed secretly as a school by studying ancient artifacts and creating classical necromancy out of their findings. They tried to zombie apocalypse the world but failed because the Life/Light school just 'showed up' to counter them with healing and smiting. Popular belief is divine intervention but other than Life/Light's unusual appearance there had never been 'true' gods or divine magic before (and Life/Light are not Clerics) so nobody really knows.

After the war and during the period of growth that was rebuilding, two magical traditions that had previously been just 'hedge mages' were able to establish themselves as proper schools, these being the Nature/Plant school and the Water/Ocean school.

Thanks to the magical and technical advancement over the past century or so, a mechanomancy/chronomancy (think Wakfu Nox) school developed and styles themselves as "the school of clocks". Nobody really likes them.

And yes a premise of the setting was to eliminate 'caster supremacy' by making magic ubiquitous.

If you live in a major city in a medieval-renaissance level society, what sort of quarters would you be likely to have? Let's say you're a lower-tier merchant, well provided but not wealthy, no live-in family. Do you rent an apartment? From whom do you rent it? How large would it be? Do you share it with someone?

If you have servants, you'd probably rent a flat with several rooms, probably even with a kitchen (unless there was one communcal), and divide the rooms you would not be immediately using to your servants. You would probably also want to chose it so that it can simultaneously serve as a shop, or is placed above a shop. Even a lower-tier merchant is probably going to have at least one servant girl, or if nothing else, an apprentience, who basically works like one anyway. If you have/need a shop, you'll probably need a room for yourself, smaller one or more for your servants, and a shop and that is all as bare necessities. Things like a bath, a kitchen, those should be available communal somewhere in the vicinity: if he can pay for it, he could get private one.

Of course, the place would very likely be also shared with other people, provided that there are any rooms left to rent out.

If he has nothing - no servant, no apprentice, he would probably just rent out a small room at the back of his shop and then hire some local old lady to come in every day to cook for him (or deliver food from some nearby pub or something) and to occasionally clean the place up.

As to from who you rent it: the odds are there are going to be landlords around, families that live in houses too big for them and can do with the income, old ladies whose children died... those were the types of landlords you'd probably get.
Or you could get one from a local guild, or through friendships with other local well-off people. It would be small: larger rooms, if there were any to begin with, would be divided into multiple smaller to fit more people in.

He would share much of the space, but unless he is very poor, he should have his own bedroom, large enough to fit in a bad, maybe a small table, and a chest for his possessions.

>nobody wants to become a rich person who abuses other people
this is a whole other discussion in of itself and it's really subjective if you find the "allure of status/power" aspect of it realistically compelling to justify people wanting to become rich assholes. also i'm designing this for a 5e campaign, it's not meant to have grey morality or have incredibly realistic and well defined motives.

>Fucking why?

relates to the cosmology. the gods only gain power within the mortal realm that the mortals "allow" through worship and prayer (and obviously the god can give power back.) since worship is outlawed, the gods have little direct way to affect the world.

>If classes like Cleric or Paladin exist, who are specifically all about countering undead creatures, they would be extremely active.
i never said that people who hunt undead wouldn't exist.
>Sacred holy swords and armor would no doubt appear on young promising adventure's doorstep
?? why would holy artifact appears suddenly at someones doorstep for no reason?

>It seems overly bleak and edgy without reason.
but it's SUPPOSED to be edgy. hell, there's a demon worshiping spanish inquisition style group of vampires stomping out. it's overly edgy for a reason, to give a somewhat campy, absurd but endearing experience, not unlike the dark brotherhood questlines from TESV and IV. the absurd cult edginess plays to it's strengths, not it's weaknesses.

besides, all i was posting was the basic premise. all you're criticizing me on is elements that weren't explain or fleshed out in the post.

>Fantasy Wild West Guy
Well, like I said, describing them as Nazi Victorian wizards is mostly just for the sake of brevity. There's also a powerful current of Unionists in things like the Tuskegee Experiment and the constant in-fighting that rarely gets mentioned. Carskan magisters are scheming bastards, as the rivalries between the various Colleges that divide magisterial society play out on the grand scale -- the College of Medicine is still quite irritated that the College of Artifice was given the exclusive contract to provide non-living soldiers for the war effort, despite the successes they'd have with necromancy and biological weapons such as the therianthropes that had been created out of unknowing prisoners of war -- and at the smaller scale with blood even fighting and posturing against one another in an ever-present cloak and dagger dance to come out on top.

The mundane citizens of Carska are certainly a second-class of people, but they are still afforded a relatively high standard of living thanks to the creations of the magisters. Programs provide bread for the poor, locomotives and sonus procul relays allow for people and ideas to travel at vast speeds for a steep price, and disease and plagues are relatively uncommon thanks -- both for the scarcity and those rare occurances -- to the College of Medicine. So while magisters might as a whole might be throughly lacking in morals and instead simply focused on advancement, on profit, and on power, the successes of the magisters often bleed down to the rest of Carska. Though currently back in the Old World, the post-war use of Peacemaker constructs in the vast factories has led to a spike in unemployment that's led to a massive surge in petty and organized crime.

As far as the natives all being from the same stock, they're basically just a single isolated people who were stranded during the dawn of the world. The various differences that settlers place on the natives -- elves and goblinoids, orcs and goblins -- are completely arbitrary in reality. They seem themselves all simply as the People, broken down by the various patrons spirits of their tribes. These differences -- the tusked and resilient People of the Boar, the secretive and mystic People of the Owl, the stalking predators of the People of the Lizard -- actually are suspected by some Carskan anthropologists to be the lingering results of ancient Fabled elders whose Fables gave the children of their children the characteristics of beasts.

And the various natives also hit a laundry list of badass Native American tribes that don't get nearly enough recognition as minor inspiration that gets developed out. Far to the northwest, the People of the Bear are an empire of towering slave-taking monstrous whose dugouts appear in the night to spirit away their captives to cursed islands. Based heavily off of the Haida and Tlingit people, especially including their armor and masks which make them seem not only to much taller than they are but also to be monsters. The Americas had a shitton of really neat tribes that weren't just the Aztecs and the Incas. The fact that the Aztecs get 99% of the limelight is just a pity.

Been thinking on the factions for my setting some more, and this is what I'm now favoring:

>Midgard: Human home-plane, pseudo Pangea dominated by Roman-Hindu city states with some vaguely germanic wildmen, Humanity-Fuck-Yeah types on the rise
>Asgard: High Elf world, scandinavian landscape, highly advanced gunpowder/magitech with an emphasis on empire-building, on the decline and trying to prevent total collapse
>Hela: Undead world, endless sand-deserts and crumbling Babylonian architecture, undead caste system
>Jotunheim: Frozen wasteland covered in volcanoes, ruled by Giants, populated heavily by goblinoids and related monstrous races, heavy Balkans and Eastern European aesthetics (endless civil war desu)
>Vanheim: Wood Elves, highly advanced Druidic culture and emphasis on Nature's Way, savannah and grassy plains mixed with thick black woods, possibly Aksumite Elves
>Inferno: Norman and Crusader Knights vibe (brutal chivalry and honor codes), Devils, hot rocky desert covered in impenetrable fortresses, believe they are Fallen Angels that must "test" the mortal races
>Ityuk: Frozen oceanic world made up of ice and a few islands surrounded by black seas, monsters, and the entire population subsists on blubber carved from Leviathans' flesh
>Rokushin: Deeply magical forests and mountains, heavy spiritual activity, loads of oni and kitsune style samurai and ninja clans
>Tolmeca: Deep jungles and cloud-kissed mountain ranges, Dwarven built step-pyramids, blood sacrifices, Dragons and Jaguars and Thunderbirds oh my!

I feel like there's a good bit of variety here, but I'm biased. Anyone want to cast a quick critical eye on these factions? Meant for wargaming and wartime-RPGs.

Spear-chucking niggers get given guns by The Eternal Westerner for their own proxy-war purposes. The Big Nig goes full Westaboo and starts trying to modernise. Spear-chucking niggers now think shotguns are the god of death.

Spear-chucking niggers are correct.

>>If your setting has magic, is there distinctions between different types of magic? (i.e. divine magic, arcane, primal, or perhaps split among schools)
Been working on a western setting and so right now Im concepting the magic as native american based, though itll be magic everyone uses in setting. Theres a concept Ive seen referred to as the medicine wheel, and Im modeling the magic around that for now.

Theres also a fifth in the middle foxcsed on the self and harmony with nature but this was the simplest chart of the concept.

In universe, magic is used by most people through a magical focus, an item designed to contain and control magic, as its difficult to do so "raw"., and can be different doe everyone, though one the most common is a called a caster (short for spellcaster, and ripped from outlaw star), effectively wands but aesthetically similiar to and wielded like firearms, used by spellslingers and come in various sizes.

A type of magic is usually tied to a particular landscape (more specifically, its from the spirits tied to the location and their general mood or purpose), and so that magic is mined, contained and transferred to other locations throughout the land for different purposes depending on the magic on an all encompasssing railroad line thats continuously developed westward to find more.

Thats all I got so far and subject to change.

Sounds pretty accurate to real life desu, though it is a little edgy. Gun cults sound kind of fun though, and making literal gods out of modern day weapons or as symbols of magic gods is also pretty novel.

Easy 7/10.

Unacceptable. I give your rating a 1/10. Next time, try to rate me higher.

This wizard cat's autism will not stand. I will out-autist you, challenger.

You rarely explain yourself, making your judgements largely useless. Often all you tell us is your own arbitrary tastes. We get that you think edginess is bad, or that magicless settings are bad, or that Nazis are bad, or that fantasy wild west is good, but we don't get why this might be the case. Similarly, you let your own moralism get in the way of other people's settings. It doesn't help that it's a simplistic (absurdly simplistic) moralism, either.
In the end you just tell us you "don't like thing". But writers don't write for you, they write for themselves. If they could write better for themselves, tell them -- but you don't do that.

You make weird assumptions about other people's settings. Like you assume swords would just appear in people's doorways...why? Why should starry gods want souls from human sacrifice instead of the slaves themselves?

You don't explain your scores beyond a throwaway line AT MOST. Often you'll give an 8.5 or 8 and not explain why you didn't give them a ten, and what it'd take for them to score higher.

Worst yet, you don't reply to any responses. You just shit and run. When others correct your assumptions about their settings, or when they simply ask you questions, giving them a response would help them immensely. This conversation is as key to judgement as anything else.

In sum: is correct, I give your ratings 1/10. Maybe 2/10. You do sometimes give some useful advice.

Nailed em to a cross

Fuck off mate. Cat Wizard gave me awesome advice up here .

Cat Wizard is Objectively Best Cat.

At least someone's offering any sort of critique. It's more than we usually get

I prefer to just spam "WHY" at people's setting ideas, though. I think that's more helpful

That was his best post, and the one I was thinking of when I said he sometimes gave good advice.
No critique is better than bad critique desu. No critique just means you have no reference point -- bad critique can send you in the wrong direction. But you're right that we need more interaction in general.

Nah, bad critique is still useful in its own way. You have to realize that just because someone else says it doesn't mean it's right so getting exposed to bad advice is also important.

No critique and you might as well not have said anything.

Anyone else ever take the time to write out a description of their setting to ask for help or critique and realize how stupid it is and then delete it?

I would give my own critique more, and I do make posts when something catches my eye, but I'm only just building a world for the first time so I don't know shit.

It is stupid but I went trough with it just because I think it helps to put things into words. It helps me to organize my thoughts. I guess I could do it elsewhere but eh. Im here.

Currently working on a pre-industrial setting on a tidally locked planet. But I need a good reason why nobody ventures to the dark side. Also whole planet is a sand ocean.

Maybe the dark side is rife with a radioactive element that breaks down in sunlight

The Sun is Light, Order, Law.

The Other Side is Dark, Chaos, Anarchy.

The sun perpetuates things like the Laws of Physics, Time, and other Rules we need to survive.

The Dark isn't as kind. All that fall under the shadow are ruled by emotion and willpower. Dream of the Devil, and he might appear.

Nocturnal super predators, ala Pitch Black.

The dark side will make Antartica look like a balmy day. It won't be has bad as Mercury's dark side since there is an atmosphere but it will be so brutal as to kill anyone who tried to explore more than a stone's throw from the twilight zone.

The constant storms along the twilight zone as the super-hot air from the light side meets the deep chill of perpetual night will also be fun.

Was literally gonna post this, either real or imagined but I decided not to cause this was so good

Nothing really lives or grows there so they'll eventually just run out of fuel or food and get lost/starve/dehydrate/fall in a hole. A dedicated expedition might be able to get a good distance in but there's literally no point.

Exactly, I did a little research on weather and tidal locked planets and it all concluded that the storms are outright hellish. I've already started writing a lot of fluff for it.

>this was so good
*blushes*

How unrealistic is it to have a points of light setting with most people living in small ranges of controlled territories and fortified villages? How would you design empires or bigger factions in such a setting?

Just look up PoLand from 4E, which I'm assuming you probably are already taking inspiration from. It's a great setting basis, and once you get a taste, it's really hard to go back. The main thing IMO is to make sure that your empires are crumbling or already fallen, your bigger factions are stretched thin due to conflict and troubles, and things are slipping away into ruin.

Major catastrophe happened a century ago, a lesser one a decade or two ago.

this, I kinda need some sort of reasoning to have unexplored ruins in an empire with fortified borders.

Need a second eye on a map. I can't seem to figure out where I'm placing my mountains, though these two areas appear at first glance to be good candidates for Basins (ala the Mediterranean and Baltic).

Thoughts? I feel like an Andea style mountain range the length of the southern continent might run too long.

I like the idea of an Andes like range, and there are a few areas that to me stand out for mountain ranges but I'm an amateur at worldbuilding and am phoneposting for the moment.

Pic related; a quick mockup of where I personally think it would make sense to have mountain ranges. Obviously some will be larger than others (The ranges on the smaller continents to the bottom right for example will be small), but I don't think the length of the mountain range should be a problem.

Hell if you look at Earth theres a range that is pretty much the entire length of Alaska to the southern tip of South America so it shouldn't be unreasonable

how the fuck i plan out a town

i'm not playing dnd or anything i just wanna build something in minecraft

Hm. Thanks user! That helps, really.

is this fucking time cube

>If your setting has magic, is there distinctions between different types of magic? (i.e. divine magic, arcane, primal, or perhaps split among schools)

All magic uses one, or rarely more, Forces. The Forces can be split by the planes they come from.
- Elemental: Fire, Air, Water, Earth (and probably Light, still thinking). These impersonal forces for a magic user to tap - mostly using verbal or written formulas. Mostly good with inanimate matter or indirect effects, using them on living things is destructive or dangerous.
- Spiritual: Life and Death. The spiritual plane has lots of spirits, angels, devils and deities. So most practitioners bargain with someone or use rituals or holy words to do their work. Mostly used to affect living things, very limited with inanimate matter (golems are elemental + Mind). Death is not obviously evil, mostly used against parasites, vermin and monsters. Also when a peasant family decides "right, thats enough children" a minor Death spell can remove fertility.
- Mental: Mind (also Dreams). The actual plane is not inhabited but has fragments of information floating around. The magic is used with thought alone, though many add gestures to telegraph what they are doing. Only works on things that have a mind, can be used to communicate, control, frighten or support, etc. Also used to give a mind to things - mostly a basic AI for constructs, but some experiment with creating self aware beings, others with uplifting animals or monsters.

Note that there is no Force of Space (teleports) or Fate (luck) which limits what can be done with magic.

How should I do golems?

I'm working on a setting that uses golems as its primary form of magic. The dominant culture uses intricately designed golems made of metal and precious stones (think artifact creatures from MtG or the Golden Army from the second Hellboy movie). Other cultures have to make due with rock or even dirt, and subsequently try to not piss off their more advanced neighbors.

I've worked on the races, cultures, and a general framework for a plot and then realized I've got jack and shit on the actual magic behind the golems. What exactly allows them to move, how they're made, how they are controlled, etc. I'm fairly lost.

I'd like to work in a way for people to hijack an enemy's golem (needed for a plot hook).

Typically I'm a bottom-up worldbuilder and let basic ideas dictate larger concerns, so I hate trying to work from the other direction. I've never really liked "magic works like X because it's necessary for the story," but I'm not sure how to avoid it in this case.

Any ideas?

The easy way is for the terrain to encourage small clusters of settlements spaced apart from each other with only isolated farmsteads or mobile pastoralists in between rather than broad areas of arable land waiting to be united. Mountains and/or deserts are great for this.

Larger factions are those blessed with starting off in a larger than usual/better connected area than usual with that advantage snowballing with time. A nice broad river valley that can support a large population and provide communication/trade links could be the basis of a mighty empire when every small valley civ squatting next to a stream is it's own kingdom.

>The main thing IMO is to make sure that your empires are crumbling or already fallen, your bigger factions are stretched thin due to conflict and troubles, and things are slipping away into ruin.
This also helps to reset things from accumulated growth of larger states. You might want to look up the Bronze Age Collapse for ideas.

You said crystals are needed for golem construction?

>Magic is a type of pseudo-matter
>Solid, Liquid, Gas, and Plasma states
>Different states change how the mana can be used
>Magic/Mana has unique property of responding to strong willpower and/or "shapes"
>define whether shapes means words, lines, or physical containers

How's that?

Updated.

>You said crystals are needed for golem construction?
I don't believe I did, but that actually sounds pretty damn good.
I might change it a bit from your proposition by having "magic" be a general resource in the air, land, etc, but have the really powerful golem crafters use some means to collect vast quantities of it at once which allows them to power their incredibly strong golems. Or not. We'll see.

Thank you, this idea looks promising.

Could use a bit of input on world shape.

>World cosmology is something of a ripoff and mashup of various settings, namely TES and Dragon's Dogma
>Super abridged- Godhead is dreaming, became aware of said dream, knows if he wakes up world goes away
>Is attempting to prop up the world so it can exist without him via the apothesis of exceptional mortals, at the moment the only actual deity is an avatar of his comatose self- the world's religions are essentially praying to nothing, though Churches and such can still manifest "miracles" powered more by mass belief than an actual deity granting power

In it's current state, the world is still in a bit of a primordial shape. The only planes are the material plane and the "chaos plane" or some other edgy name, which is essentially the Astral Plane from d&d before the other proper planes came to be.

Do I make the world dome shaped, with it's "apex" the location of the current sole deity and the further you go from it the more reality blends into the "chaos plane", and as more deities come into being the world becomes more solid and globe-like
or
Do I go with more of a traditional globe, where the physical location of the current god is some arbitrary location, but much of the world is uninhabited by humans/humanoids?

Or do I do something else entirely, like making the world octopus-shaped?

How would you say world building differs for a fantasy setting vs a science fiction one? I personally find the latter a lot harder

That's easy
World building for a science fiction setting is harder cus it requires you to research real science a lot of the time, whereas fantasy settings, you can just pull anything out of your ass.

Dome shape sounds dope. Kinda like a lot of ancient myths and faiths.

Hey, Veeky Forums.

Have you finished that outline?

>Not only does this make zero sense; nobody wants to become a rich person who abuses other people.
What the hell?

This statement is just ridiculous.

If you lived in a world with a cruel and decadent aristocracy getting stepped on all your life, then stepping on someone else for a change would be a huge confidence booster.

The idea of sacrificing your humanity for power is as old as myth itself.

>Thread Question
Magic can be split into a few different categories, namely due to mechanical differences with them (d&d 5e).

>Force of Reason- Casting with Intelligence. This is your analytical Wizards and Artificers, who use formula and science to manipulate the forces of magic, and the rare Mystics, who vary wildly between individuals from an even more analytical outlook than Wizards to a spiritual outlook akin to Druids to those who just have minds like sledgehammers and beat the world into listening like a minuscule Numidium. Your tie to magic is directly related to how much you know (And can remember) on the subject, in theory anyone (or anything) can become a wizard with sufficient INT.

>Force of Belief- Casting with Wisdom. This is used by Druids, Clerics, and Rangers. This is the casting used by those who adhere to strict rituals and dogma of those in their order, or those who have a more "natural" method of manipulating the inherent magic of the setting. (In this case the beliefs of sufficiently large religions have their own effects on the natural flow of magic, meaning there's functionally not a lot of difference in how a Druid manipulates magic versus a Cleric, though their beliefs, the key to allowing them to manipulate it at all, can be polar opposites.) Your tie to magic is directly related to how strongly your faith that your magic can work at all.

>Force of Will- Casting with Charisma. This is used by Sorcerers, Warlocks, Paladins, and Bards, who's power to manipulate magic comes from their own willpower, though the magic they manipulate themselves can come from different sources- Sorcerers and Paladins use their own energy, while Warlocks can use the power of an outside source or taught how to brute force magic into submission (Depends on Patron), and Bards differ depending on college or school, though most attempt to subtlety alter the forces of magic like a mix of a Wizard and Cleric.

Define outline.
Define 'finished'.

Thanks, user. Thanon.

What are those biomes?

>Make realistic geography and full cultures as fitting
or
>Make interesting cultures and shoehorn their enviroment to fit

decisions decisions.

Anyone good at geography mind helping me think up some ways to have the following form without handwaving it as magic?

>A giant fuckhuge desert, but almost 100% flat sand with only small dunes- like a salt flat but sand. Seems to me like giant dunes would form naturally, in addition to rocky outcrops. I want to make a region where two nations are divided by a huge desert and sand ships are their main way to transfer goods.
Semi-related, I need a reason for nations to send ships across the death desert instead of taking conventional ships across the coastline.

This one is easier-
>A giant swampland, maybe the size of Texas, going full-on Dagobah with the spooky fog and such- large enough that it's effectively an impenetrable barrier to all but those who evolved to live there. Should be easy enough to just make a flat-ish area fed by several rivers, as it's next to a mountain range anyways.

Making a setting where Elves and Dwarves and most of the standard races don't exist yet (Though, mechanically, players can pick nearly identical Humans).

What races should exist?

The only things that should exist are distinct races who are utterly inhuman, as the world is still in it's very early stages- eventually, Humans will become the various usual fantasy races Chimer-to-Dunmer style as Deities come into being, while some other races will also "evolve" into other non-human races in the same manner. The game will have VERY LARGE timeskips between short campaigns, going from "Ancient Age (on par with Mesopotamia)" to "Golden Age (Hyperborea)" to "Shit Hits The Fan Age (Demon Apocalypse)" to "Dark Post-Shit Explosion Age (Post-Demon Apocalypse)" to "Typical d&d Age (ambiguously Renaissance)".

At the moment the only races I have are Humans and Lizardmen, who live in a fuckhuge swamp, and I'm considering making descended from Humans anyways via them being escaped magic experiments from a Wizard or some shit.

>Humans becoming Elves, Dwarves, Yuan-Ti, Goliaths, pretty much anything blatantly "humanoid"
>Lizardmen, who may branch out and become Birdmen, Dragonborn, Kobolds, and potentially full-on Dragons depending on how things pan out

Should I have Hobgoblins and Orcs as distinct races too or have those descend from Humans, or be created by their god whenever they come into being?

This is the same setting as .