/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

Force of habit I guess; would the be merged into one big sea or called something different?
A shameless recreation by me of the AceCombat Strangereal map style. While thats one style, nomads and freestates living on the outskirts of nations have cruder but more specific maps in different styles.

Its fine mang, I do the same thing some times.

>What great empires exist in your world?

None. There's only one empire left, the Valarene Empire, and its Emperor was just slain by a band of heroes, so it's collapsing into civil war. It's been on the steady decline for centuries anyway, though.

>What great empires USED to exist, or WILL exist once day?

Aforementioned Valarene Empire, which once spanned most of the central part of the continent of Adalian. It lost large chunks of land some centuries back, though, most notably the Kingdom of Rhydel. The Emperor Cenno III tried to retake Rhydel recently, but failed and was eventually murdered and supplanted by his advisor Guelfo I. Guelfo I himself was, as mentioned, recently killed by a band of unlikely heroes with unclear goals and good intentions.

>What is their foreign policy?

For the past few centuries, it was mostly just "keep existing despite massive internal troubles. Summon devils, collect taxes, be assholes to each other".

It's literally the Hellfire Imperium +200 years later. In fact my entire setting is "The Only Fantasy World Map You'll Ever Need +200 Years"

>What is their legal system like?

The Emperor was an autocratic dictator with various dukes beneath him. The Emperor's power was based around the fact that the Emperor got access to a bunch of potent magical artifacts that let him summon up and bind devils to his will; not a lot - like, not enough for an army - but enough to have them serve as enforcers and such, cowing the dukes into submission.

Cenno III was particularly inept, though, hence his killing and replacement by Guelfo I, who was much more competent and was planning on making another go at Rhydel. Might have been a problem if not for the adventurers previously alluded to.

>How successful are they?

Back in the day, they controlled their core territory plus Aldedos, Rhydel, the Three Cities, Aolos, and Rovonnia.

With Guelfo I dead with no successor, they're basically on the verge of civil war.

>A shameless recreation by me of the AceCombat Strangereal map style.

No worries, I use a hexmap of the falkland islands as a landmass

Okay if i want a race of spiders and each subspecies to have advantages/disadvantages what would be some good ones?

I think i recall there being a bit of art someone had on Veeky Forums of this exact thing in the past couple of months but i cant find it on suptg

You've got what seems to me to be a strong conceptual framework of the world you're making as well as the purpose of the world, which is always a plus. I like what I'm seeing so far.

I need some feedback for planets in a sci fi verse and how plausible they are.

- A habitable planet that also has a habitable moon, similar in scale to the Pluto-Charon system.

- A former garden world inhabited by a precursor race that survived an attempt to destroy it.
Could it still support life with a chunk blown out of it? Or would it need force fields to prevent the atmosphere from escaping?

I'll bump this for you man.

Is this a good flag for a unified korea?
Is the moon terraformed? If not then it doesnt seem impossible for life to have 'jumped' so to speak to the moon, Look up dxun in the star wars wiki, dxun is a moon that gets so close to its planet that life was able to cross over to the moon. Depends how advanced the systems were for the second one.

looks good, but i recommend taking the octagon off, makes it too complex

the octagon is a korean symbol meaning heaven or balance. some shit like that

i know, but south kore is a simple one, i think it should remain it as that

Is a soldier class a real, or even possible thing? Not warriors, or knights, not the noble fighter classes but a sort of professional soldier class, a grunt. Better trained and disciplined than the farmers, artisans, and other peasants that could form a levy but less well equipped and funded than the warrior class?

On a suffitiently large theocracy, sure which is what I had on my setting, it consisted of three warrior castes tho, the knights, templars/cops and soldiers/mercs.

More of a smaller theocracy, with the the castes I'm thinking of being
>Sovereigns (Grandmaster and High Priest of the order)
>Leaders (knights, high ranking clergy)
>Soldiers (grunts, low ranking clergy)
>Farmers
>Artisans
>Traders

Ah, then look no futher than India, no seriousely. They have a pretty high number of just soldier caste, but China and India had lots and lots of people, so they didn't know thru a "medieval" period per say. The indian caste is kinda like that, but funny enough I made a caste system similar to this.

Just one thing though, I want to keep the castes related to fighting, and the ones related to clergy separate but equal.

Well, thats kinda what the indians had, bramins and warriors (forgot their names) were indeed separate. Unless of course some priests went to war (in the indian system) but I'm not particularly informed of it

What are some of your setting's founding fathers and national heroes?

Historical or mythological, and were they really that great?

Now that I think about it, the founding fathers of some of my countries aren't really that great.

What kind of security systems would there be in a spellpunk (think Eberron) setting. I'm having my players do a heist to steal an airship from a hangar, and I'm a bit lost for ideas.

So far I have
>Need to steal documents proving ownership as well
>Hangar doors are locked from the outside, and bolted from the inside - bolt is incredibly heavy and needs to be smashed through or operated by some machinery, both of which are noisy.
>Obviously guards
>Once they enter the hangar, they trip a magical alarm calling for reinforcements.

For the Republic (formally Kingdom) of Ehreist, their greatest hero is undoubtedly King Allard I, AKA Allard the Great. He effectively created the nation as it exists today by uniting the disparate kingdoms and city-states of the region under one banner. He did this by earning the trust and allegiance of Ehreist's dragon population, which gave his forces numerous tactical advantages.

So I have a bit of a latin question. In my world there is a kind who failed to sire a son and died with four daughters. However his daughters and the general establishment were so popular (and all the alternatives too offenses to the various kingmakers to all agree on) that they made all four daughters 'princesses' to avoid a civil war, and established an order to both protect them and help with bureaucratic administration.

Would "Ordo Quatuor Reginas" be the proper latin for "Order of the Four Princesses"? It's just a google translation and I'm guessing it's not a good one. I was thinking either that or "Order of the Four Crowns".

Reginas is the feminine for Rex, which means king, not princess.

Princeps means Prince, so it would probablly be Princepsa or something, but I don't think there was female princeps in the context of roman history, not a language expert tho.

So, what would a modern Praetorian or Royal Guard look like? Say, the tech level is around 80's 90's and soldiers tote assault rifles and such. What would an elite, prestigious force focused on guarding a palace and surrounding upper quarter look like? What would their battle dress be, given they are expected to act as both Secret Service agents and front-line urban troops?

The best examples of translation are always what other people have used in the past.

'Princess' as a title has several potential meanings, from daughter of a monarch, wife of a prince, or, in your case, the female equivalent of a 'prince' who rules a principality. You're after a title which implies authority.

Right now, I'm trying to see what female non-royal rulers have described themselves as. There's not many, so I'm still searching. I'll keep you posted.

My setting has a 'greatest' species that rises out of each generation of life. For dinosaurs, that's dragons, for birds, there's rocs (giant owls), for mammals, there's titans (basically giant gorillas). I want there to be a fourth here for fish/aquatic life, and I've researched a bit to find something large that might fit, but I didn't want to use whales or anything else that breathes air, since these leviathans need to be able to reside at the bottom of the ocean and be wholly aquatic.

I really just wanted some ideas from you guys on what might be cool to use in this niche. So far I've got giant sharks, like the megalodon, and possibly giant squid. They're supposed to be on the same caliber of coolness as dragons, but I'm having trouble deciding what to use. So, anybody have any ideas?

Perhaps tritons or mermaidpeople? or sea serpents

Right, so I've been using the Empress Matilda as a case study. She appears to have been called 'Lady of the English', which one source I've found has given as Domina Anglorum. Though this isn't a cast-iron source, I'd be inclined to agree. Domina can be translated as 'mistress', and implies authority, though maybe not lordship (however, it does in Matilda's example.)

I've got a book on the Anarchy, so I'm going to see what Poole has to say about the title. Considering that they're co-rulers also, I'll try to see what naming conventions were used for vice or junior kings.

Source for Domina Anglorum: lewilliamsauthor.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/what-ifs-and-possible-reigns-matilda-domina-anglorum/

These guys are supposed to be fundamentally animals, like dragons or giant birds, so I was hoping to avoid having something humanoid. The 'mortal' races, like humans and draconics and other animal races, are all humanoid. And there will likely be merpeople to fill that niche anyway.

Sea serpents is always where my mind goes when I think of something like that, so it's an idea. Thanks.

Domina is the female for Dominus, which means lord, as in year of the lord/anno domni, so it means lady, not mistress, again I could be wrong.

Poole has gone above and beyond.

"On the motion of the legate, who managed the whole business, she was chosen Domina Anglorum, a style customarily used in the interval between election and coronation." (pg 143).

Considering none of your princesses are sole coronated rulers, I think it works perfectly.

I've not researched 'Ordo', but my Taylor's giving me 'rank, order, line', which could work. I'm unsure if that's the best word to use but it seems sufficient.

'Ordo Quattuor Dominae' seems to me to be a good translation for Order of the Four Princesses, then. Hope this helped.

Words can have several different meanings.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominus_(title)
>"Dominus is the Latin word for master or owner."
The female form of master is mistress.

Thanks, now I can finally give a title to this group.

Sorry user, had an epiphany while on the loo.

Dominae is the genitive singular, not the plural. It should be Dominarum. Rookie mistake on my part. I hope you see this because the other is decidedly incorrect.

Look up paratrooper uniforms.

Kakens.

These do actually exist you know.

The basic set-up is almost always a historic ceremonial uniform for regular duties, and body armour just like everyone else if you expect immediate attack. Some units have seperate ceremonial rifles, other carry modern weapons with their 19thC uniforms.

The British Foot Guards (and the rest of the Household Division) and Papal Swiss Guard are the most famous, but most monarchs and presidents have a cadre of blokes in silly hats to guard them, though they may share that role with off-screen Spec-Ops/Counter-Terrorism agencies.

For your one-size fits all group you would have 3 seperate roles.
1. Household Guards for ceremonial duties and visible protection. Fancy uniform, carbine/rifle, little or no armour. Can gear up as full line troops with no real distinctions from regular infantry beyond unit badge.
2. Secret Service guys, both as more understated visible security and for blending into crowd. Little or no armour, conceable weapons. Suits or civvies. Either very friendly or bitter rivals to wider police/paramilitary counter-terrorism units.
3. Crisis Team, the Tier -1 spooks for when immediate action is needed to protect/rescue the VIPS. SAS black, CQC weapons (SMGs, shotguns, paratrooper LMGs etc.).

An advantage could be that they're excellent craftsmen in their autistic ability to seek perfection, while also being able to multitask to achieve it. Like running an entire shop on your own or whatever.

I wouldn't recommend just doing the lame drider thing with human on top and spider on bottom, make equal use of all eight limbs.

A disadvantage could be a solitary lifestyle. Spiders don't work well with each other and it makes it difficult to build any actual kind of society.

It's an interesting idea but realistically not really. We really on the moon as a way to stabilize the Earth's tilt and rotation, which keeps it stable enough that weather patterns are able to maintain consistency. In a binary planet system you essentially have two competing stellar bodies constantly threatening to crash into each other or spin away, so it's too chaotic for any kind of life to form.

I'd go with the precursor race magic as a good way to justify the setting. Have each planet be colonized by the same people that gradually diverged.

The First. Honestly none one in Colony is even sure he was even real, so he's more speculative than documented existence, but by multiversal design there had to have been an original person from which the Alters branched off. He's the mythical yet only real identity they're all seeking to emulate.

Kill Six Billion Demons had a really cool one where there was a giant vault door guarded by a really big head. As soon as a thief tampers with the lock, the big head screams, and the only way to shut it up is to feed someone to it.

What this does is sow doubt and mistrust among a party of thieves, which sets up an inevitable betrayal among them.

>What great empires USED to exist, or WILL exist once day?
An ancient civilization of cyclops bastard children who came under the influence of the god trapped within their planet. Soon they grew feverishly religious and sacrificed themselves so the god beneath the surface could grow stronger.

What races work best for a Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages kind of setting?

>What great empires exist in your world?
The Solarans are not an empire. They are a voluntary syndicate -- a syndicate that stretches down to every single individual, every ounce of energy churned out by their mitochondria, every spark of thought that runs through their head. The entirety of life is used to haul their voluntary syndicate through endless wars of imperialism. All resources are directed towards precise violence -- the administrators are all military officers. Come to think of it, who isn't employed by the military?

>What great empires exist in your world?
Generic Third Reich Wins world, Germany controls most of Europe, Vichy France is in full control of france, Italy controls the Med, Egypt, Ethiopia, etc, Spain regained Cuba and maybe some other colonies, pretty much all axis members are doing well. Additionally, the SS(well, a nerfed not-as-evil version, more like Leon Degrelle's vision of it than Dirlewanger's or whatever the fuck that psycho was called) is now something like a cross between the UN and the teutonic knights/knights Templar: The maintain Fortified outposts around the world, are headquartered in the Baltic, and fight demons, Communists, Jews, n sheeeiiiit. Several Nations (Germany and Japan) are also starting to colonise the solar system, other than suppressed Jewish magic there's not really anything impossible going on.
>What great empires USED to exist, or WILL exist once day?
About what you'd think, the British empire was dismantled, the US and USSR balkanised into several puppet states, etc.
>What is their foreign policy?
Germany fulfills the role that the US did in the 60s-90s, but without the USSR. Other countries are left to their own devices so long as they play nice.
>What is their legal system like?
Fascist, but not a cartoony police state. Doing more research now to see just what exactly day to day life under a triumphant 3rd Reich would be like.
>How successful are they?
Very, automation is kicking in early (with little negative impact due to massive investment in small scale farms and the military, which provide a way for former factory workers to find meaningful employment) and population expansion is being redirected towards colonising the poles, parts of Africa, and space. The biggest threat to world prosperity at the moment is Jewish cultists/space demons, possible nuclear sabotage, maybe some sort of financial crisis but probably not.
Hard Mode:
>How did/will they fall?
Kabbalah space horrors/disease devastating the population.

Bump with content.

Orb weavers with females capable of weaving a cotten like strand when they eat spices from the (insert trading partner area here), they weave complex clothing, rugs, tapestries and magical textiles like flying carpets and magic summoning circles. Their work is sold at extravagant prices especially magical textiles and as such the females live in luxure for the remainder of their lives, not long lived a fem orb weaver will spend about 1/3rd of her life weaving one beautiful textile and retire on the coin she gets selling it.

Small (relatively), fast spiders capable of squid/cuttlefish level self camoflage that have incredable mimicry capabilities. Hire themselfs out as assassins and spies. You can either make them able to change shape and voice to simulate their target or just able to infiltrate areas and hide masterfully to spy on high ups for crutial information.

bump, anyone have some feedback for my map? I'm pretty new to all this so any and all advice is appreciated.

Looks nice. Very clean, simple map. I don't like the shape of the Troll Lands. Either spread the islands out or make it a river delta.

I'll shamelessly bump mine too .

The greatest empires were the ancient human empires, though the names of their empires are lost to time, and only isolated ruins of their empires remain, generally buried by time. Now Humans are either adopted into other race's cultures which have become dominant, or exist in simple fishing villages or hunter-gatherer tribes.

Anyone got any feedback on this map? I feel like my placement of deserts/mountains and the like is a bit unrealistic.

And here's the political version.

>>What great empires exist in your world?
The great empires are the dragon kings of the east, not proper empires, but definitely the biggest power players, the second greatest would be the elvish diaspora, which lives pridefully in the rubble of their empire which was decimated by the dragons once they arrived on the world
>>What great empires USED to exist, or WILL exist once day?
Used to: the elvish empire, it spanned an entire continent and was led by a priest-king and wielded magi-tech levels of magic.
Will: One day far in the future when the elves have secured the world they will transform them selves into dragons using arcane rituals and enslave the other races, continuing the draconic spread across the universe
>>What is their foreign policy?
Dragons: Burn the mortal cities and take slaves, or take their tithes and let them live another day.
Elves: Mostly benevolent, however they like to push their religion. Their reason for not being dicks is that they need to hire mercenaries from the other races to help keep the line in their guerilla war against the dragons.
>>What is their legal system like?
Dragons: fuck with your lord and owner, you get eaten. Be productive and don't.
Elves: hadn't thought about this too much, but it would be heavily biased against non elves and those of other faiths, you'd likely be sent to the front lines for even a moderate crime.
>>How successful are they?
Dragons: Hard to say, compared to everything in this world, very, but compared to the main body of the draconic empire that they are separated from, nothing of note
Elves: They've taken a steep nose dive in power since the dragons expectantly arrived, but even having lost much arcane knowledge, they still hold much power, but they're too overextend to exercise it.
>Hard Mode:
>>How did/will they fall?
Dragons+Elves: Whether they know it or not in the end these two will essentially become one and the same. Barring a PC or a few they wont end until the universe does.

The big red state in the middle should probably be broken up unless they have a very reliable way to maintain their empire across such large mountains that don't appear to have any way around them.

I want ogres to be a playable race in my setting, but I want a separate name for them so players don't think they're totally monsterous.

What's a good name? (Besides Oni)

What are they like, before I start listing off names?

Dogres

Zmeu.

I'm stuck at a fork in the road in my setting;

I've already put some considerations into the mythology of the setting, that the world this all takes place in is the personal garden of the "Zeus" analogue of the pantheon and Humans were reluctantly allowed to settle it because their original prime material plane was facing an apocalyptic scenario and exodus was their only hope of survival.

This much is established, so I'm thinking for the other races that Humans share this realm with, to go with one of 2 themes:

1: Misfits; like the Humans of the setting every other race in this setting also was facing either an extinction-level event, or possibly an existence so bleak that it could arguably be worse, and one of the Deities of the pantheon decided to pluck them from their fate to have a second chance to grow and thrive in this plane.

2: The Garden Realm; the other option would be to play-up the idea that the main setting is a God's garden and have all the other races of the realm be based on critters (of both the vertebrate and invertebrate variety) one would typically find in someone's garden/backyard.

Which do you think would make for more of an interesting setting?

I spent an hour drawing lines and this is what I came up with. Workable?

Personally I like them both and would use them both, but you probably wouldn't be asking if you wanted to choose.

I'd probably go with the former. Allows you lots of flexibility and provides the interesting dynamic of foreign species in the human gods' realm, if that's how it works.

Large, kinda dumb, good craftsmen.

Rate my factions

They're okay, but a little more context would help.

>What great empires exist in your world?
They call themselves simply the Great Empire and are your typical crumbling Empire, though they are just a few hundred years old. The Emperor may be getting ready to kickstart a massive renaissance, but whether he succeeds is up in the air.
Also there's a few smaller empires on islands and another continent.
There may or may not be a huge Ogre empire in the frozen tundra.
The Old Races have dread empires in their domains, but those are only talked about in whispers.

>What great empires USED to exist, or WILL exist once day?
The Confluence (unexact human translation) - a union of dwarfs and elves that had an insanely advanced civilization built together in the Great Mountains. Too bad local Devil (who is imprisoned in the planet's molten core) blew it up. Remaining Dwarf and Elf kingdoms were originally border fotresses and remote holds. The ruined heart of their realm is now populated by demons and worse, and treasure hunters flock to it. One human kingdom lives entirely off such plunder.

Also the great empire of Dal-Ur back in the early days of humanity, when humans were the biggest dicks on the planet. Said Empire got mostly incinerated by one of the gods for its sins and is now a scorched wasteland full of undead.

>What is their foreign policy?
Great Empire is not unified enough to have a single policy. Emperor is just trying to hold everything together.

Ogres and Old Races simply want to kill and enslave everyone.

>How successful are they?
Old Races are in decline, their power stems from their dark gods and the fact they are basically immortal. But they are stagnating hard, that's for sure.

Great Empire is immensely powerful, but divided. Emperor kinda manages to steer it all into direction he desires, but it takes up a lot of effort.

Smaller Empires are waxing and waning as they vie for supremacy.

Anyone know a good online family tree generator or tool, /wbg/? I used family echo for pic but it only lets you zoom out to a certain extent so I can't get it all on one slide.

Sorry man I can' help ya, I mostly use pixlr and ms paint.

>Kill Six Billion Demons had a really cool one where there was a giant vault door guarded by a really big head. As soon as a thief tampers with the lock, the big head screams, and the only way to shut it up is to feed someone to it.
>What this does is sow doubt and mistrust among a party of thieves, which sets up an inevitable betrayal among them.

I like it

I need some criticism of my setting's history
Currently most proper names are missing.

> before -25 000 years - no info. Various mostly evil precursors rule the world. Elves fight them from time to time, but keep to their Elfrealm (kinda separate universe) most of the time.
> -25 000 years - [God of Dwarfs] forges Dwarfs out of iron, gold, [divine metal] and his own blood. Fresh with the heat of divine fire, the Dwarfs face the Old Races and carve themselves a mighty realm. They make friends with the Elves and forge a great kingdom of unity in the Great Mountains.

>-20 000 years - ice age comes. Most of the Old Races withdraw into their realms. Combined with losses they suffer against dwarf-elf union this marks their decline. Humanity is at neanderthal level and finally has a chance to evolve. Ogres appear (probably).

>-10 000 years - ice age ends. Ogres withdraw as ice recedes. Humans begin to thrive and spread. Dwarf-elf empire at peak of its power.

>-9000 years - [Kinda evil goddess] notices humanity and corrupts them. The humans go on a dreadful rampage across three continents. A few older races are completely annihilated. Elves and dwarfs hold fast.

>-8000 years - humans establish Dal-Ur, the First City, and forge a mighty evil empire on the ruins of noble precursors. Humanity has basically split into 3 big groups by this time - the not!Sumerian/Egyptian culture of Dal-Ur, the not!Celtic culture of those that became friends with the elves, and the not!Nordic culture of those that dwelled around dwarflands.

Cont.

I've decided to use GIMP. It's less user-friendly, but I'm getting the hang of it now and it's looking alright. Multiple marriages are a pain in the arse, and I haven't made the canvas broad enough to deal with all Leogild's bastards. It's coming along well though.

Forgot pic of WIP.

I thought strangereal as soon as i saw it, too.
only because of the style of the map though, almost similar fonts and lines, landmass wise it looks legit.
i too use the strangereal map as a source.

the grid makes a bit hard to read, but its alright

Yeah, I'll remove that when I'm done.

>Cont.

Cont.

>-7500 years - disgusted by mankind's sins and bloodlust [another god] annihilates the Empire of Dal-Ur by sending a great wave of fire to wash over the continent. Those killed by it become undead. City of Dal-Ur (a port) works millions of slaves and regular citizens to death, draws upon darkest magics, sacrifices thousands in evil rituals, but manages to separate itself from the continent with a channel, becoming an island. It is blackened by immense heat, but survives, as the wave of fire can't cross water.
The few survivors of the Great Immolations become not!Gypsies. The god in question was rarely heard of since.
Not wishing similar treatment, most humans are driven from the vicinity of Dwarf-Elf empire and forge kingdoms elsewhere.

>-6000 years - humanity spreads across the two continents and islands in between. This is a time of turmoil and fighting. Little is known. Kingdoms come and go, multiple cultures appear.

>-4000 years - powerful kingdoms of men emerge. Of note are [kingdoms] on the western continent, later known as Broken Kingdoms, whom elves and dwarves and even orcs avoided, as they courted some dark powers, the Islands of Swords - the not!Norse, who settled on the islands and became raiders and pillagers, and The Pillars on the eastern continent, city-states built around pillars left by some ancient race, which they draw magic from. They often fight returning Old Races.

>-3000 years - the Old Races come back in force. The Pillars are ravaged, the actual magical pillars mostly destroyed. The people spread into islands of the sea and western continent. Broken Kingdoms are mostly destroyed by orcs. People of Sword Islands are pushing westward as well, trying to establish a foothold on western continent.

Cont.

That's the main Borlene line done. Next I have to work on Hael and his cronies. The canvas might be a bit narrow, but I think it'll work. Of course, this doesn't list any of Leogild, Ivar or Artur's children, who no doubt exist although I haven't invented them yet, or Qhothyn's wife and stillborn child. So it could get a lot more tangled, especially if I include Estrid's father. We'll see. For now, I'm taking a short break.

I take it we're missing a creation mythos and the creation of the elves?

Jesus, the dwarf-elf alliance existed for over fifteen thousand years? What the heck would that be like, that's a massive amount of time.

Lacking some context, what you have seems alright, so I'll just offer one piece of writing advice- 'is this current date in your setting the most interesting time period in that setting? And if not, why isn't it?'

>is this current date in your setting
I don't understand this. How can you have a "current date"? A "date which is as far into the future as I've thought about" makes sense, but surely all the past you've developed is as much a part of your setting as that.

Cont.

>-2000 years - the [very evil god] apparently score an important victory again [very powerful mostly good god] and unleashes the Cataclysm, as he tries to break from his prison, shattering the Great Mountains and the destroying the heart of Elf-Dwarf empire. Elves and Dwarfs blame each other. Volcanoes erupt across the globe and daemons roam. This checks Old Races' advance, but harms humans too. Many turn to [very evil god]'s service. People of Sword Islands colonize western continent, fending off attacks of devil worshippers and daemons.
A faction of elves are saved by Dark Whisperer (probably a god) and led across the ocean to the ruins of Eastern Continent before the Cataclysm hits. His lies corrupt them and they become quite evil.

>-1500 years - the [very powerful mostly good god] sends a prophet to the people of western continent and with his guidance they forge a small empire. They push northward towards Shattered Mountains, unite with now-desperate Dwarfs and locals and scatter the devil-worshippers in a series of crusades.

>-1000 years - the Great Empire is created. It fights orcs and ogres, most of the time.

>-500 years - Great Empire passes its peak, and begins to crumble. Most of the greater modern kingdoms appears.

>-150 years - the volcanoes churn again, spewing daemons. Humans begin to repopulate Broken Kingdoms and eastern continent.

That's a very rough outline. I'll be populating it with details as I go.

I'm mostly looking for criticism of time scale, but general development as well.

Point is, every race and religion has its own creation myth. Elves just... came to be. Old Races, like Elves or Deep Ones, have their "realms" - sorta separate planes, but not quite. Elf-realm, for instance, is an enormous forest with mountains and rivers, paths all change and warp all the time, and elves there don't know the passage of times. The deeper you go, the less lucid and sane elves appear, as their conciousness dissolved into that of their realm. The only comprehensible elves are the ones living near where the Elf-Realm melds into real world. The High Elves live on this side, and are most human-like, Wood Elves live on that side, and are rather wild and strange by human standards, and Dark Elves are cut off from Elf-Realm and are mostly insane in a bad way.

Hm, 15k years is indeed too much. Something to look into, I guess. Oh well, I guess its time for some immense underground threat to appear.

Oh yes, I will be trying to make "current date" most interesting, its just I like the feel of general decline and doomed-ness, with a small chance of salvation.

What did you use to make these maps

Ok anons I'd like a little help. For my family tree there's two princesses, one is married to a king, the other is married to his son (not by the first one). They are sisters. Any ideas how to make this in a family tree without it going three-dimensional?

My settings later parts take place in a period roughly equivalent to the late antiquity/early medieval period.
Might post its answers to the thread-questions when I get to a computer.

I done it for you
K=King
Q=Queen (married to the queen)
S=Sister of the Queen
Prince (married to Queen's sister)

Is that what you wanted?

I've managed it, though it does look a little clunky.
I'm mostly done now, though there's still a few finishing touches to add, particularly on expanding Ragnor's family, which seems impossible without intersecting lines, which I've managed to avoid so far.

hmm, to avoid intersecting lines, try making the intersections from another color.

Sounds a bit like this.

Easy questions are not very interesting for me, so I skip. I just say they were called Reesans.
>How did/will they fall?
They used to allow various peoples who joined the empire to worship their own gods. One day a mystic from a faraway land visited one of their provinces and told people how to kill their god and steal his power. They managed to do the first part but failed to draw his power from the corpse, and corpse stated to rot, poisoning their souls. Every single person who worshipped this god (And they were spread a lot and formed bulk of the imperial army) turned homicidally mad and started slaughtering everyone around them until every single city was destroyed. Eventually they lost the rest of their minds and turned into mindless beasts, but the mainland of the empire was completely desolate.

The finished product (for now) of the royal family tree. Includes the full family of the House of Bardingas, most of Rurlas, Gorhingas and whatever Darkbeard's will be called, as well as a small section of Haelingas and a small part of the bloatedly-large Borlas bloodline.
I'm finished for now as linking this tree with the Helxian Empire's is a big task, especially as I have yet to decide anything about the kings that divide them. Maybe I'll do it one day. Questions welcome.

Well presumably the story your are writing takes place in the 'present day'