/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

>Is AI a threat to organic life?
Hell no, organic life made AI to help protect themselves from the solar beings, and also to create the perfect form of government to avoid extinction from these star beings. They all act like 3cp0

>Tell us about a God or Pantheon in your setting
So far I only have one god figured out for the tallest of the races.
To sum it up, the first deity was tricked and destroyed, resulting in shards of this deity falling onto earth. The shards turned into the 4 giants, which ruled mostly tyrannically over the humans of the land. Shelagor the brutal giant got poisoned by his favourite slave dancer Ganan. Before she slit his throat, he cursed her and her people to be like him. They now are tall, green and muscular with horns. Also they can got into a berserker rage. !notOrcs basically.
However, since this strength is a curse, selfcontrol is highly valued. When Ganan slit Shelagor's throat, she absorbed great parts of his power and dematerialized into a godess. She is now the godess of selfcontrol and guides her people along the path of using Shelagor's curse to their advantage without succumbing to it, as a big middlefinger to the dead giant.

>What do their followers believe about them?
Ganan watches over her people and helps them through trying times. Other than that, they have no gods, since they don't want to be slaves again.

>Has a Holy War ever been fought in their name?

Never

>What would be their reaction?

She would probably weep, since in war, many of her kind would lose their cool and go into a rage, destroying friend and foe equally.

The chief deity of the Sobki is Sobkesh. Said to be a giant crocodile that spends all of eternity lying on the sun to warm itself, Sobkesh acts as the judge and protector of the afterlife. When a Sobki passes, their soul ascends into the sky to to be judged by Sobkesh. Sobkesh's cold reptilian stare pierces into the soul and into its sins. If the soul is judged to be worthy, Sobkesh opens its maw, where the passage to the afterlife is kept, and allows the soul to pass. If the soul is judged to be unworthy, Sobkesh whacks it away with its mighty tail, sending the soul off to roam the ether. The Sobki believe the stars seen at night are the twinkling tears of these lost souls, shed in an attempt at penance.

Do people actually read these threads? Worldbuilding is a masturbatory solo activity, not something you can really share or discuss.

>Tell us about a God or Pantheon in your setting
Ok, but only one of them, from largely one perspective
>What do they do?
The universe is will, the will of existence is diffuse, but occasionally a localized consensus arises, will coalesces about this, the stronger the agreement the more will gathers, the more will that gathers the more real it all becomes
This is physics and is not fully realized by any species we would consider traditionally sapient. This is largely due to a difference in opinion (and you try understanding the will which begets a grain of sand)

The gods of this world are the logical conclusion of this. So in summary, they exist
>What do their followers believe about them?
Many aedda believe that their gods are assholes, either for the worst, or because they are being tested as a species (which incidentally brought about the most strife once humans showed up originating on the planetoid they thought was the physical manifestation of paradise, those sects weren't too keen on that reality check). Their gods after all are nothing more in reality than the personified will of a sunbaked desert and the various components that make it a shit place to live.
These gods are to be appeased or avoided. The venerable ancestors being pleased shields a tribe from the harshest of the gods' wrath. The overlap here has brought about an insanely traditional culture (though some tribes more so than others, their disk isn't terribly large, so they are closer to a monoculture than not)
>Has a Holy War ever been fought in their name?
>In the gods'
Hell no
>In the name of various tribes' various ancestors' and what they thnk constitutes pleasing them
Absolutely
>Because one tribe brought the wrath of the gods down on another tribe
Also yes

>What would be their reaction?
Oh the animals that live on them are doing animal things. Whooptidooptidooo. Oh wait we don't have thoughts, we are blistering heat and sandy wind and we wish to pelt the shit out of something.

>Also if anyone willing to help what would be the proper size for territory controlled by nomadic tribes post the near global collapse of civilization
Depends on the type of nomads and their lifestyle (pastoral nomads and hunter-gatherer nomads aren't exactly the same thing), and also on the actual terrain rather than anything else.

Pastoral nomads, which is what I assume you had primarily in mind (since hunter-gatherer nomads usually don't survive first contact with aggrarian or even horticultural societies) live where agrarian societies can't settle, but their lifestock can. So your real question should be "which lands would be likely inhabited by nomads" rather than "what size territory would the inhabit". Environment dictates lifestyle, not vice versa.

I read to steal ide-I mean inspire my own worldbuilding

Remember, it's not stealing. It's research.

So get them kicked off too, you asshole.

>yes hello, don't mind i am just researching this car

>Worldbuilding is a masturbatory solo activity, not something you can really share or discuss.
Yes, but watching people masturbate can be very inspirational.

Why would space Skynet want land? There's vastly more total material available in uninhabitable systems than in habitable ones, and all the computers need is a thermal gradient.

better than the special snowflake subversion shit that makes up 90% of these threads.
Thats the problem with these threads and why I only come here to shitpost. No one here asks for real advice or does group worldbuilding projects, they only masturbate their own settings. Its really cancerous and leads to a toxic general culture that earns worldbuilders on Veeky Forums a bed rep.

Projects over the internet is not agood idea, I come here to get help with homebrewing stuff.

so, one year ago i asked if anyone was interested in a software that had the purpose of making maps like those of paradox games, and I finally managed to find the time to create it.

it's currently functional but i had some problems with some graphic cards, so before adding new features i want to be sure that it works properly on the widest number of graphic devices.

vanlangren.wordpress.com/

it requires some set up, but once you do that, it allow to make a lot of slightly different maps really fast.

>there's no such thing as a middle ground

a small change like this one, that on Photoshop would require 10 minutes of work, is instantaneous

what the fuck are you talking about?

Wow, thats actually impressive, thanks bub.

it allow to take another map as background, so it's fully compatible with any map one already has. The exported map is the same size as the input one

So in my setting several decades after a pair/ maybe trio of crises fucked over the earth and led to the death of orbital and lunar colonies the earth is semi-post apocalyptic, some nations dont exist others sruvive in a much smaller form with abandoned, depopulated or forgotten areas all over the world. Its not particularly magical, but i was thinking of having dragons, any ideas for how to include them?

Depends on their role, are they aliens? Mutated? Gaia's revenge?

And other things such as how big, common,powerful they are and if they can be controlled by said nations and ifso, what advantages they give and if not, what blight they are in society.

Aliens might work. Dragons actually being ancient aliens that now awake from the earth.

the interface is not really well made yet, so i think i'll make a youtube tutorial tomorrow to explain how to use it.

Reminds me of an idea i had where giants and dragons existed in pre-historic times and had a huge war.

>but i was thinking of having dragons, any ideas for how to include them?
Feels like something you'd add out of conventions of the genre, not as something that really fits the scenario that you painted.

Why would you add them?
Do they have some kind of meaningful mechanical or symbolic role in your story? Are the integral? Can you really come up with a strong reason why it has to be dragons, and not say, anything else - or nothing?

If you don't have a good actual reason to have them there, then I'd advise against having them in. Fantasy/worldbuilding already struggles with pointless tokenism and mindless adherence to genre conventions. Dragon is a creature of myth, a symbolic representation of chaos and it's impact on our existence. Do you need that in a world that has physics reasonably enough to have notion of "lunar colony"?

And could you not come up with something more interesting that could play a similar mechanical role?

What kind of magic are present in your world? For example, to my knowledge Warcraft has the following:

>void/shadow magic
>light/holy magic
>fire elemental magic
>water elemental magic
>earth elemental magic
>air elemental magic
>nature magic
>fel magic
>arcane magic
>necromantic magic
>rune magic
>voodoo magic
>chi magic

Didn't mean for that post to be a reply, but a general question for everyone.

How long would it take for a 28 days later-esque infection with an incubation period of about 8 hours-3 days to spread in an average city

If its a city with important airposts like NYC or London, it would be apocalipcal, if it were not a major city, its possible some nukes could solve it.

I tried asking this in an other thread, but it didn't worked. Veeky Forums is being shit so

What is the name of this cloth this soldier iswrapping around himself?

angloboerwarmuseum.com/images/boer/people_bw/mason_photo_cabc.jpg

Also, is what is the name of these belts? the ones holding the mag pouches, are those havelsacks? Because when searching I get images of backpacks

i01.i.aliimg.com/wsphoto/v0/32243388997_1/2016-Hot-Tactical-vest-military-tactical-vest-molle-tactical-gear-army-gear-vest-high-quality.jpg

A tactical vest

Any advice for naming things? I understand the basics like make everything pronounceable and don't use to many syllables but I want more

choose a base language then work from there. try saying the word 5 times out loud in fast succession to see if it nails the feel/mood you are aiming for

Uhh, thanks

>Arcane magic
Comes from bound elementals whose bodies make up the physical universe. Pretty much any alteration of said universe's properties involves a complicated process to unbind said elementals and get them to make the changes you want, without unbinding them completely and causing physical reality to stop making sense.

>Primal magic
Comes from the ethereal plane, which is basically a giant archive of reality's history, stretching all the way back to the beginning before the gods and elementals came into being, which was basically an endless expanse of chaos. It manipulates "ether matter", which is the setting equivalent of ectoplasm; the stuff that existed before stuff existed. Also called spirit magic, since that substance is their primary way of interacting with the world.

>Divine magic
This is linked to the astral plane, another separate reality that both created and is created by sapient thought. It's basically using the power of thought to ignore all that arcane/primal magic shit and impose one's will directly upon reality. Most divine casters beseech the gods to do this for them, but the gods are technically made up of the collective will of their worshippers so it's actually kind of a feedback loop. Some individuals ignore this and push their own singular will upon reality because they're just that nice.

>Blood magic
I don't really know what the fuck I want this to be, but I wanted four kinds of magic because four is an important number in the setting. I'm thinking it's the basis for healing/life transference to give explanation for what vampires do, and to allow blood sacrifices and such to actually work magic.

Ideas?

Magic comes from life. Most beings don't even realize it, but those who do and use their own magic power are using Inner Magic. This is often used by instinctive types who may not even classify what they're doing as real magic. For example, fighter-types reinforcing their own bodies go here.

Unused power coming from living beings gets swept in leylines and other natural magic currents. Messing with these flows is Arcana Magic. Lesser arcana merely utilizes already existing flows. Simple witchcraft, charms, and talismans go here. Upper arcana bends the flows to achieve more powerful effects, and is what people usually think of when they hear 'magic'. High arcane flat out detonates power lines to achieve momentary power on a grand scale but scarring the land itself. It's also a quick way to get on the shitlists of certain divines who don't like having their leylines broken.

The power within the leylines sometimes spills and becomes assimilated into its surroundings. Drawing on this altered mana is Elemental Magic. Elementalists are highly limited by what elemental mana is dwelling in their surroundings.

Beings with massive power generation - divines, dragons, and the like - can share some of their power with their followers. Drawing on someone else's power like this is Channeling Magic.

And finally, affecting the flows of power inside someone else's body is the domain of Necromancy. White Necromancy deals with the mortal body, and is near-universally accepted as it covers many kinds of healing arts. Black Necromancy is the art of manipulating souls, ranging from simple charm spells to binding ghosts. Red Necromancy relies on the power of blood, and usually requires ritual sacrifices which makes it not very popular.

I suspect he's wearing a bandolier under a cover of some sort.

angloboerwarmuseum.com/Boer70z6_hero28_mason.html

>vanlangren.wordpress.com/
Beautiful

A bandolier? Thats odd when I saw images of many soldiers with it I assumed they were just wrapping their blankets around themselfes.

>Arcane
Manipulate raw matter.

>Primal
Manipulate raw energy.

>Divine
As above, but through willpower.

>Blood
As above, but by destroying things. Energy is released through entropy. This is Chaos magic at its most pure.

It's in the right position for a bandolier, which can be seen on other uniforms of the era, but you could also be right.

I see,thanks but for sake of knowing what about the other thing, is that what havelsack is? Because I am looking for those belt things that hold pouches.

>thread question
John barleycorn is the god of beer and whiskey. He gives a bit more surety to the millers hand and allows the farmer to plow for longer. John is the spirit of grain gives you quality product but only if ingested and a bit poured out to him. Only when alcohol taxes get too high. He'd want them to send champions to brawl bare-fisted in a circle and then both sides party together in celebration of wars end.

Answering both
>Tell us about a God or Pantheon in your setting
Akkasri na Moran-cro: The fedora incarnate god-like entity that is borderline worshipped
K.R.E.N.N: An ancient prototype quantum supercomputer slaved to human brains. It is in direct control of the city-planet's infrastructure. Everything not built on a separate and self contained grid is subject to this decaying nightmare
>What do they do?
Fairly little. He/It sleeps and otherwise maintains a distance from the planet. Only rousing once every 200 years to invoke another round of technological inspiration visions.
Krenn never stops. Power, water- everything functions because it continues to work
>What do their followers believe about them?
The masses believe that Akkasri gave them everything. That he did not just help them but outright uplifted them. They have also come to associate the glitches and failures in Krenn's overwatch as personality, they believe the system is a saint, or demigod that is unknowable but must be appeased.
>Has a Holy War ever been fought in their name?
Once. During the age Akkasri made itself known. It's message and offer was not globally accepted
>What would be their reaction?
Wilful engagement. Akkasri required a single vision and so took a direct hand in assuring its followers won

It's really fortunate that religion is the topic today /wbg/.
I'm having an absolutely miserable time coming up with the name for a leader of a theocratic free city I've built. It's very Catholic-flavored but I don't want to call him a pontiff or some such. Also not as sinister as pic related.
He's effectively a Prince-bishop if that helps. Sort of deal where the (not) bishop acts as mediator/tiebreaker among the government factions. Basically he's still doing the priestly job, but the whole country/city is his parish congregation.

Any help would really mean the world. It's the last thing I'm struggling with.

Why not call him Funeral?

For the Sci-Fi crowd:
>Is AI a threat to organic life in your setting?
It was briefly. During the first decades of development. The seven day war was one of the last pro-purity attempts to alter the species destiny. Today A.I is just another class of being. There are benchmarks and tests that must be met to gain sentient status, after that A.I enjoy the same basic rights as meat-born
>If so, what can be done about it or what's being done about it?
N/A
>If not, how advanced is AI in your setting?
It runs a gamut. Traditionally citizen A.I is 15% over baseline human. The rough equivalent of a mildly augmented person. Procedural generated A.I are very processing power inefficient, most of their computing goes toward maintaining sentience while specialised and non-sentient classified ones rival and sometimes outpace Krenn
>If someone declared a Holy War FOR machines, how would the AI react?
Uncertain, a societal schism seems likely. Based on outdated notions of superiority that would lead to mutual destruction of the machines being the first to begin space exploration. The species are too intertwined at this point

Shit I realize I might have been unclear. Rather than 'name' I meant 'title'. Like bishop/pontiff/patriarch.

Hmm, there is a huge of amount of titles you can pick from sites,but i guess lord of "x" does sound a bit better

What would be the implications of an FTL system based on the properties of different areas of space? Like, due to some pseudo-science bullshit, FTL drives can move faster or slower in different 3D regions of space, and these regions move and get stronger or weaker over time.

I imagine that tracking which regions provide the fastest FTL travel would be really important, but there would also be the opportunity for sneaky military maneuvers or trade mission through 'the doldrums'. Or you could have planets which used to be prosperous and important, but then moved into doldrums so they were abandoned.

Any ideas?

If his chief political role is to act as a arbitrator, you might consider the Latin "Iudex," or "judge."

When it comes to naming, it's always good to consider either what kind of real-world inspiration you already used to establish the society that came up with the institution, or which one do you want to invoke. A name should not be just a randomly selected word - ideally it should itself be telling you not only about the thing named, but about those who came up with the name. Or about what kind of real-world association you want to create.

Do you want to put an emphasis on the association with Catholic church?
Then we can look into something latin and greek that may not be quite as obvious as pontiff or pope.
Like:
Praetor
Patriarch
Primus/Primarch
Altus/Altissimus
Summa

Do you want something more pragmatic, feeling more culture-neutral?
Then a canonized combination of english words:
High Lord
The First One
Seer
High Overseer
Sanctimonious
The Judge
The Arbiter
etc...

If you want to go for more "ancient" sound, greek is often a good place to look.
Diákon
Léros
Iatromantis
Hierophylakes
Archón
Hegemon
Kýrios

If you have other culture that might inspired your vision, you might want to look up their language on google translate, and then enter words like "king" "ruler" "first", "highest" etc... and see if they don't spit some fun words at you too.

Also, as a general cheat, you can look up shit like this site:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_religious_honorifics_and_titles

Prince-Bishop sounds kinda raf actually.

Thanks a lot! All this is very helpful. I've got everything else in the government/religious hierarchy down but I've been having a issue finding a term that feels right for some reason.
Hoping I can figure out something with the same tone as 'Septon' from ASOIAF or the Chantry in Dragon Age.

Need an enemy to invade great britain? Who would be 'cool, as an invading nation? America? China?

The French.

french
napoleon ambition project

spain

Italians. Because goddammit, they're going to finish the job this time.

Every time I've asked for advice I've been entirely ignored. So now these are brainstorming threads for me if I come to them at all.

Homefront but with Britain and china instead of america and NK.
>Britain is in debt to china
>Refuses to pay or something
>China invades through Canada because they own them a bit more than they do now
> America is suffering from strife or a crisis so cant do shit , rest of the world does nothing because reasons.

They can invade using the northeast passage.

yeah these threads have gone to shit amd have been taken over by self centered special snowflakes. i hate it too but this is the reality of the times we live in.

I need help converting a giant cyberpunk city into having a Victorian/Gothic/etc. aesthetic. I just want to know if I missed any cool ideas.
>Furries => Werewolves
>Robots => Animated Puppets/Skeletons
>Slimegirls => No change
>Artificial humans => Homunculi/Hunchbacks
>Computers => Magic Books/Crystal Spheres
>????? => Vampires?
>Scientists => Mad Scientists
>Public Bathroom Maze => Sewage Maze? Needs a more horrifying name. Dung Dungeon? Fecal Labyrinth?
>Pigeons => Bats
>Hopes and dreams => Skeletons
>Ayy Lmaos => Probably still secretly running the government.

Another question; how far do I take this aesthetic? Should I bring in Druidic, Scandinavian, Italian, Greek, Medieval Christian or Slavic aesthetic and culture to make it less of a Bloodborne clone?

My jaw is on the floor user. Great work!

Hell yeah nigga. Have it be that to make their tech stand out from the competition, national companies started using inspiration from ancient cultures to design their cybernetics and tech.

>Should I bring in Druidic, Scandinavian, Italian, Greek, Medieval Christian or Slavic aesthetic and culture to make it less of a Bloodborne clone?
I think throwing in too many things dilutes the central idea of a Victorian/Gothic aesthetic, makes it too kitchen sink.

I like the borders you've done. Do you have any tips for drawing them? Just free-hand it or use a vector with squigglies?

>Tell us about a God or Pantheon in your setting
The Vermin King. Trickster god of the beggars, outcasts, the mistreated and and the betrayed. Usually appearing as a giant rat, but also known to appear as a very ugly person, giant roach, regular sized rat, regular sized roach and on one recorded occasion as a pile of worms. He is arguably the most powerful god, but is also not very interested in effecting any kind of coherent change.
>What do they do?
Back in a day, he would do all sorts of stuff mostly including some kind of ironic cruelty. One of his most famous exploit was to visit a city struck by famine and see all the aristocrats feast while the poor starve. So he sent rats to steal rich people's childrens from the cribs, cooked them into stew and had his own feast for the poor. Now, like most gods he's no longer walks among mortals, retreating his strange realm called The Palace of the Lost Things.
>What do their followers believe about them?
That if you perform the right ritual you can go to his palace and meet him. He can then be petitioned for power to visit terrible vengeance upon everybody who ever wronged you. Which is all true, but nobody remembers the ritual.
>Has a Holy War ever been fought in their name?
Due to nature of his patronage, no. However, some geopolitically important people were his followers. During the former, the king of Ilem was forced to cede his rich highlands to his neigbours, who moved in and did a lot of bad things. Among other servants to the new occupants was a little orphan girl who lost her family in the war and had nobody to stand up for her. Every day she would suffer abuse and every night try to find a way into Palace of the Lost Things. One night she succeeded and Vermin King gave her power to destroy the invaders. She fled the castle and went to the Ilem king offering her support to retake the highland.

cont.

As the time passed, she stayed at his side and some say they even were lovers. Either way, he eventually cast her aside for unclear reason, but without her support started losing again. He then went to her asking for forgiveness, and she pretended to forgive him promising to give his the power of a wolf. Which means she taught him to become a werewolf alongside his children and his inner circle, to eventually succumb to bloodlust of a wolf and hunt his own people. And like a wolf he was eventually hunted and killed by humans, bringing complete collapse of his kingdom with his people swearing to never bend their knee to any king. The woman still lives deep in the woods, wearing live rats as a dress to honour the only one who was always kind to her.

>What would be their reaction?
Point and laugh, like always.

>Tell us about a God or Pantheon in your setting
Aton is the sole god of Chazarian (working name) state-imposed religion. He is often called "The Clockwork God" and while it wasn't his original image, he is now associated with Sun itself, as he was merged with on older, local solar diety as part of conversion efforts.

>What do they do?
Nothing, that is kinda his deal. Atonists believe that he was a demiurge, and that he constructed the world (solar system, as they are heliocentrists) in a fashion similar to how a clockwork maker creates his machines. Ever since he started it, the world runs on his own, driven by divine mechanics.
>What do their followers believe about them?
Well, the above. My gods work kinda like real-world-gods. They are concepts, not physical beings.
That said, worshipers of Aton believe in flattery through imitation. The central tenant of the faith is the belief that society should imitate the perfection of the original divine order, and like to make analogies between ones social role, and that of a literal cog in a machine.
Also, people also worship Aton through actually building scale models of the world - orreries, which are considered sacred objects, and priesthood is actually also in part clockworkery.
>Has a Holy War ever been fought in their name?
Not holy war per se. Atonists believe that one should accept the faith voluntarily (as one's decision to do so is a result of the workings of the divine order anyway), so they don't force it through conquest.
That said, there were some infighting and dogmatic conflicts that escalated brutally. Philosohical group of "Non-literalists" (who opposed the idea of literally identifying Aton with Sun in the early days of spread of the religion) were treated particularly badly. That was before the first astronomical observation confirmed Heliocentric hypothesis, too.
>What would be their reaction?
Aton is an inert ball of perfection in the center of the universe. He does not give a fuck.

this is a mini pantheon of literal DnD classes, brought to life as gods

basically if you live in that yellow area chances are you and everyone you know believe that when you become a man, you're going to at least toy with the idea of packing up and tearing down the P A T H O F F A T E (working name) where you decide to be a powerful wizard, starting your climb very methodically, as the mountain rises from the earth, so shall you, then you slowly reach its peak, gaze upon the splendor of the kingdom, and trot back down to the wizard tower and study you FUCKEN NERD

Or you can be bigdick mcbiggerdick and walk right up to the sheerest cliff face and climb that big gay rock until you reach the arena, where you fight other big dicks until one of you beats all the current big dicks and holds his dick title for a full year, losing the title gets you cast off the FUCKING SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN

Nobody knows if this is true because most of the time someone actually tries climbing either path, they end up dying because its nigh impossible to climb, but shapeshifters have flown to the locations as birds, gazing upon their existence and solidifying the myth.

if they try to cheat and fly up to it though, they all seem to feint in mid air and wake up wherever the first shapeshifted

w h o o p s

>please wait 35 seconds
>please wait 8 seconds

On this picture:
The whole red thing gives me an impression of a continent that was smashed against the inland, producing the big ridge in an exaggerated analogy to Himalaya mountains.
That said, there could be a different interpretation (maybe the ridge is product of a crater?).
If the ridge cutting between the red and the black regions is a result of tectonic clash, then the red is a continent.
If there were other forces of nature or unatural ones involved, the red is only a region and not a content.

Good map by the way. Kinda reminds me of my own which makes me deeply angry.

Here is my old one (very old, some five years I haven't touched it. I have ones that are more up to date, but they are harder to read and for some reason make some people around here very angry...) for comparison.

I really like that map you did user.

Quick /wbg/! I need names! Names of fantastical future technologies! From a timeline where Jules Verne invented cyberpunk genre! Or at the very least wrote First Edition Shadowrun in 1880!

Names like:
>Gyrosphere
>Aerogizer
>Hydronecroscoptical lenses
>Autoarithmatical engine
>Electrotransmogrification device

And any other cutsey 19th century names for things! Quickly! THE WORLD IS IN DANGER!

Thanks. I believe I have better ones, but the local nomenclature in particular gets people on edge sometimes.The yellow parts, by the way, are high altitude steppes - the whole model is heavily inspired by Western China and Mongolia.

This is a more detailed, focusing on the central regions. I think it has some of controversial nomenclature in it.

Hm. Doesn't seem to like 64bit. It crashed the moment I imported a png. Using nvidia if that helps you.

Your maps are nicely inked. I remember a looong time ago when you started showing these off. Nice to see them colored! Do you use a tablet? Or mouse?

Just study technical manual or two from that era, use google to give you latin words for components, and combine away.

They are not strickly speaking inked. They were mostly drawn by pencil and then I played a bit with sharpener filters and such to make the important features stand up.
The "coloring" is really a pure hackjob I've threw together over one afternoon and in this case, it actually might be a bit misleading.

But really, this is all old stuff. I'm quite seriously considering redrawing all of it, specially after the negative feedback I got, which did make me re-evaluate some of my approaches.

Ideally, I'd like t graduate from isometric view to topological map, but that is hard as fuck.

It's the backdrop for this by the way. West and East Chazaria is where Aton is being worshiped.

One map I was kind proud of was this one though.

I want to make a brothel that doesn't sound like a magical realm; should I go with
>Homunculus brothel with horrifying implications
or
>Spooky skeleton brothel with silly implications

Yeah, I'm gonna drop any Southern European stuff, spread out the slavic shit to get some relatively unknown mythological inspiration in there and give Druids, Vikings and Crusaders distinctive districts in the city. It's pretty fucking huge so there is room for that kind of stuff IMO.

>Spooky skeleton brothel with silly implications

I don't know, those skeletons were people once. That's pretty horrifying when you think about it.

Unless they donated their bodies. Ew.

its very much the result of a crater

W-where do they get their...fleshy bits? That's a horrifying thought!

did a little bit to the PNW highlands thing, made some plateaus with deposits of the rocks found in the mountains and cliffs mixed together, and kept that impenetrable pine forest growing

Is randomly generating worlds useful? Or should a GM build his world around the setting that he's already devised?

It can be a helpful exercise, but the best worlds are the ones you put yourself into.

So I want to have a vast swath of land between several countries, unclaimed wilderness that none of the surrounding countries touch or try to occupy.
The reason for this is an ages old treaty and/or wide spread superstition that the land is cursed.

Is that a fair enough reason? As the party explores the wilderness I plan to use different dungeons and locations to explain the history and reason for the superstition.

I would expect outposts would still exist. Military forts or small castles, that sort of thing. No local populations, just a wilderness/frontier assignment.