Tell me something about your setting

>How do these colossi grow in the first place?

Whenever they feel the need to grow in size or think it's an appropriate time to become bigger, they'll start by engorging themselves on various minerals, silicates, and other inorganic compounds they can dig up. Eventually, in much a way similar to insects: a 'larger' statue begins to form and take shape inside of their current body, it'll grow larger and larger until their old body become a cold, brittle, shell that they crack open and walk out of. This whole process happens again and again and can typically take a little under a hundred years for a Colossi to reach their full adult size of 40-50ft tall.

Colossi will typically shelter themselves in caves or even dig and carve out entire "mausoleums" with little personal cells/holes to entomb themselves in and a much older/adult Colossi watching over them to wait out the shedding process, so as to avoid Dwarves or Troglodytes killing and smelting them to make into tools/weapons.

The hexagonal storm that covers the north pole of the gas giant planet Emla is not natural. The inhabitants of its moons don't know about the storm yet, or what lies at the six points of the storm to maintain it, or what's at the center. It's actually the sealed gateway to an extradimensional prison housing an entity that the Praacheen, the precursor peoples who terraformed Emla's moons and seeded it with life thousands of years ago, were unable to fully kill.

The small continents of this world are actually held aloft by massive trees, with a thin-ish disk of earth and stone interwoven with thick branches massive enough to contain mineral deposits. Water bubbles up from underground springs fed up through the branches. The trunks of the trees are hollowed out for what little stone and even littler iron and metal can be gleaned and when all those resources are gone the tribes above must look elsewhere. The thrunks themselves extend deep down into an endless sea below, and are usually strong enough to survive burrowing hundreds of stories below. Travel between trees is facilitated via ancestral ships of massive size, capable of transporting entire cities. There is also simplistic air travel between continents via boats or perpetual gliders that are endlessly lifted by hot pockets of air that rise from the water below. Horrible creatures live in the water below, things that survive on human flesh and can sleep 1000 years in waiting for you to crack into their den.

So imagine working in a tribal maybe Bronze Age society, where you have to mine through wood to get to the stone you need because 90% of your tools are made of the stuff and OH LOOK you found fucking copper! Fuck yeah! You're gonna be rich as fuck! But what's that? The village elders have decreed that this island can no longer support them, so they need you and your men to excavate to sea level so they can begin preparations. But your daddy told you of the things that lurk down there, in the now-overgrown cavern that holds your ships.

I posted I'll admit I kind of expected this to be fetishy as hell, but this turned out pretty damn cool. I love the very communal angle you went with with them. It actually makes them pretty awesome.

Sure, I'll bite.

> Almost a tenth of the mortal population has divine ancestry of some kind, as a result of several male deities romping across the world in their youth and their hundreds of half-mortal spawn doing the same. At the time, the mortal population was much smaller than it is today, and the divines had a profound effect on the gene pool.

Dogs like crazy, like every family has at least one, most settlements have a large pack of just "settlement dogs". In this settling humans are basically innate magicians constantly emitting a field of domestication. They can get a dog out of a wolf in 2-3 generations, they are even secretly thought to be amassing control of other races by slowly domesticating them.

Basically they can get a wild beast to befriend them in about an hour, and so naturally amass armies of animals to fight for them, dogs get special priority though as they have souls. Like only humanoid creatures, dragons, and dogs have souls, along with a few other "pet" type animals like horses, cats and such, which means they can be if it and in some cases use magic.

So basically human settlements have a standing militia of dogs protecting them at all times, and some of these dogs are well trained enough to cast fireballs and illusion spells and shit.

Humanity is one of the few races in the universe that can't use psychic powers naturally yet because of this are essential good for psychic batteries to be drained and used by other such races.

Humanity was saved by another race from such a fate and were taught how to use their latent psychic powers to empower cybernetics that help them to defend against psychic powers and fight back.

The city of Evermore holds 50 million souls. It maintains this immense population through the use of massed undead work gangs, and in-city farming. The city occupies pretty much the entire peninsula it is located upon. It is the heart of the largest, most powerful empire the world has seen.
The 50 million people are mostly elves. Elves are rather common.

New DM so I'm starting small. I made one small continent in the middle of the Forgotten Realms' Trackless Sea.
About 100 miles across, it's got one city, four towns, and several small villages.

The continent is of neither Toril nor Abeir, but is part of a third world that leaked into Abeir-Toril due to Lord Ao's tomfoolery.

The island was cursed millenia ago by a lesser deity. His curse turned the island into a wasteland where none of the seasons occur, and the only inhabitants were drow who were sustained by the deity in exchange for their worship.
Until one day a wizard shows up and creates four seals that brought natural life back to the island by returning the seasons.

Now, centuries later, the deity, who has grown weak from lack of worshipers, is mounting an attack on the four seals using a small army of devout cultists. Hoping to destroy the island's ecosystem and remind the denizens he still exists -- all to gain back the power he's lost.

>I'll admit I kind of expected this to be fetishy as hell, but this turned out pretty damn cool

Thanks, user, that describes pretty much 80% of all my creative work.

Another one.

>Due to the regenerative qualities in Trolls exemplifying mutations, cancers, and genetic variation, no two Trolls look exactly the same: some one head, some have two, some have three, one can have 12 fingers, another can only have 6, a Troll can look like an upright Hippo, and then another can look like a massive Goblin. The only consistency between Trolls is Tusks, small Tails, and a lethal weakness to the Sun, which translates into the younger Trolls catching on fire and the older Trolls turning into Stone upon exposure to direct Sunlight.

Before a dragon breath attack is release, their body glow from within (free action required to take before use of breath weapon). Breath attack ambush are deadly.

Centuries ago, the nation of Faircourt was on the verge of disintegrating completely due to the collapse of central authority as the nobles continuously engaged in petty war with each other.
Rather than attempt to stop the fighting entirely, the King embarked on a different course. Although he had no real authority left, he had de jure authority over the whole kingdom- enough to create a bargain with the Fey that would cover the entire region.
What price was paid is unknown; the knowledge has been lost. The effect, though, was all who broke the laws of chivalry were cursed, usually ironically, usually lethally.
The internal, low-grade war of Faircourt continued, but it became a highly regulated, polite affair. Not enough to devastate the country, or prevent it from defending against internal attack.
However, it was never a permanent solution. The web of curses slowly falls apart, more and more ways are invented to circumvent it, there are rumors of chaos beings actively working to unravel the laws binding Faircourt. More and more nobles dare to test the bounds of what they can get away with. It looks like the civil war may, after a 300-year truce, resume again.

The main planet for the game I'm trying to set up and run is a massive gas giant. For some reason it has a magical shell set up around it that keeps anything inside from escaping properly, even souls. So the current galactic arbiters use it as a prison for people they don't like. They don't know that it's a primordial prison for a virus that eats stars.

So basically, humans have too much soul for their body, and it tends to rub off onto simpler creatures, eventually leading to them becoming something new with its own soul?
That's real neat

On the Dwarves of Dorthon in the land of Com, from the writing of Shalhamat bin Salam, cartographer:
>Dorthon economic & military government is a patriarchal monarchy. The leader is King. He governs primarily through appointed Lords of realms & bureaucracies, the latter especially in the capital. He is ritually married to the chief priestess/matriarch of the Church of Valkyria, who they call the "Great Summit." She is responsible for the moral upkeep of the nation, as well as the official collection of taxes and tithes. (These are the same thing).

On Moral Standards:
>Male dwarves are expected to grow their beard, shave their heads bald, & control themselves. Male dwarves who fight, drink or gamble excessively, or grow their hair out are considered effeminate and called weak. All outsiders are generally considered effeminate by default.
>Female dwarves are expected to shave their beards, braid their hair, & participate in religious ceremony. Female dwarves who choose not to participate in religious events, such as their ceremonial funerals, are typically shunned by their fellows or fined by religious authorities.
>If you find a dwarf with a long beard AND long hair, closely observe their clothing. If their hair is neatly kept or they are wearing armor, tread lightly: they may be a female member of the guard attempting to look impressive by growing her beard. If their long hair is decorated & they are wearing loose clothing, they are likely to be a male prostitute. Prostitutes are unsuspicious of outsiders & good to ask for advice on where to find lodging.
>[An inkblot]
>Criminals also have long hair & beards they will beat & rob you if you call them prostitutes. Dwarves here are very strong!
>[Inkblot. Scratched-out writing]
>Also, do not ever say to a guard that it hard to tell their garb from a prostitute's. They will be offended.
>The next chapter of my tale will discuss the justice system of Dorthon, which seems very complicated but, I hope, not too harsh.

My setting is a fantasy world that, 49 years, 364 days, 23 hours and 55 minutes ago was put into a sort of magical stasis that sped time up on the planet so that 1 year on it was equivalent to 1 second off it. The spell was put up because the place was getting invaded by ayys or star spawn or some other bullshit and was only supposed to last 50 years, enough to repopulate and fortify the fuck out of the place so they could hopefully win.
Unfortunately, the thing lasted 50 years outside of its own effects, so the world itself has been in a a weird stasis where pretty much nothing can get in, but also nothing can get out, and as a result has gone through seven occasions where there's an end of days and the old world is completely buried.

My setting is a vaguely post-apocalyptic high seas swashbuckling adventure world where most landmasses are islands, psionics replace arcane magic, mutations are common due to magic being radioactive as hell, and where the universe might be a dream, a machine, or a sleeping set of eldritch abominations (who fucking knows?).

It's basically Dark Sun, Pirates of Dark Water, and every Alien Fantasy element I can cram together and overlay with some of that sweet, sweet Elder Scrolls style ambiguous meta-lore.

I'll add a random creature from the setting, just so there's more to talk about if people are interested.

>Crab-spider
The crab spider (sometimes called a Crider) is an eight legged crustacean mostly found in the Shallow Sea (named so for being several hundred square miles of ocean that never goes deeper than 25ft). Criders are intelligent and carnivorous, and capable of weaving strange webs out of fluids they generate within their bodies. Criders use these nearly invisible net-like webs to catch unwary fish prey, but won't turn down a humanoid meal if the opportunity presents itself. Tales are often told of the Crider Matrons, colossal beasts that ensnare entire ships in their traps.

Criders can feed a lot of people with their meat, and so are hunted down by dedicated teams (sometimes including adventurers). Their fluid sacs are harvested for sea-silk, and their shells are remarkably durable, even against steel, making them a popular armor material.

There is a clan of Criders who are smaller, but more intelligent than others of their kind, the result of developing near an undersea mana-vent. They are light enough that they can create parachutes from their web-fluid and drift on the wind currents, and they are smart enough to understand many humanoid languages. They have a limited psionic capability, allowing them to telepathically speak with some humanoids (notably the Elan-like Shards, who are the most gifted psions in the world, and approve of protecting the secret Crider Clan).

>it gives them a place in the world that doesn't harm others.

Except that altar boys, right?

One of the earliest successes by the demonsmith Belphegor which helped him climb the ranks of the Infernal Legions, the Bile Legionnaire has become a staple in the Legions' forces.

Created from an unknown amphibian found in the swamps of one of the countless worlds the Legions have conquered, they were originally considered no more than a nuisance. A man-sized frog-like creature that has the ability to launch powerful stomach acids when in danger. In his experiments, Belphegor found that despite their physical form limiting their use outside of their home swamps, he did find that they had a minimum level of intelligence that could be manipulated.

Belphegor began surgically augmenting experiments, replacing the powerful but limiting limbs with prosthetics, and using artificial glands to increase their production of stomach acid, and attaching a cannon made of strong alloys to increase the range the acid can be projected. Belphegor created a useful tool for breaching defenses and terrorizing enemy troops, as the Bile Legionnaires march forward, melting those in front of them with a spray of horrifying sludge.

Pic and all the following links are material gathered while researching for it:

pastebin.com/0gG8Lwgy
>Worldbuilding, mythology and folklore links

pastebin.com/PKFJzHfA
>African Fantasy Tips

pastebin.com/DtKQ6iQt
>Greek Fantasy Tips and Resources

pastebin.com/MVqh7Yi9
>Sources about cavarly warfare and related topics

pastebin.com/RZifh6nu
>Real Life European Dual Sword Wielding

pastebin.com/2jRuVQt1
>Fantasy smut should read the ancient classics

pastebin.com/rDyP8Mrx
>A bit of 16th century help for sea adventures

Unique things about it:

>Sacrophysics justifies:
>Underdark-sized cave networks
>leyships.
>Anything with a single name can acquire a soul, from people to cities.

>dwarven geomancy allows for the cultivation of geodes into city-sized chambers
>international corpse smuggling fuels the war machine of the first lich and his crawling undersea necropolis, partially made of rotten flesh. Besides other things, it uses necromancy to create explosive undead, including whales.
>imperial bureaucracy uses around 30.000 seers to find out the worth of your taxes a month from now
>a nation of megatherium herders based on gaucho romanticism
>universal Soldier-esque frankstein-like steampunk cyborgs opress the populace serving a titanic analogic computer
>sea and moon goddess is a giant mermaid whose fins generate the sea currents. She spawns spell pearls and her bellybutton is a maelstrom leading to inseide the moon. It is hollow.
>orcs are unplayable bone-scarred necrogenic apes
>the war god's avatar is made of 300 soldiers acting in perfect unity
>Slavery is legal
>spontaneous combustion is diagnosed as a disease
>two gods don't exist 364 days of the year
>Repetition muskets
>a prison made from chained ship hulks in the midst of a lake
>therapeutic curses
>giant snakes made of corindon
>sea centipedes with fins instead of legs
>sultans are djinns and the superior caste of their land
>mountain dwarfs build citadels of pykrete
>two unique races
>kobolds are dragon larvae, one in a million actually evolves into a dragon.
>the above invented handheld rocket launcher baskets
>dwarven war shovels and steel bows
>samurai use firearms

>>kobolds are dragon larvae, one in a million actually evolves into a dragon.
Scratch that one out, now kobolds-draconians-dragons are levels of reincarnation, which isn't unique anymore because dragonewts.

The gods are dying. They've been dying, since before the Compromise that is time began, ever since the Godswar, when evil was born.

No god escaped that conflict uninjured. The very idea is impossible- it was the worst conflict imaginable. And just as the gods are ageless, so too are their wounds. However large, however small, their wounds bleed forever, spilling corrupted Ichor into the world, even past the death of the god.

Unhealing wounds can only worsen. As time passes, conflicts and struggles, between gods and with mortals strains and widens their wounds. The more wounded the god, the more vulnerable- until in time something, be it a twisted god, an ambitious mortal, or one of the evils that escaped or were born from the end of the Godswar strikes, and a god dies forever.

And as gods die and their wounds widen, so the flow of Ichor into the world increases, and as Ichor is the physical embodiment of magic, so too does magic increase.

The world grows greater, as gods die. One day there will be no more gods, just men as powerful as them. And mortals with the power of gods but not their wisdom... their deeds will shatter the world. Already this can be seen. The Great Elementals are being awoken. An artificial god made from stolen scraps drives his legions onward and cheats the Compromise. The ancient Immortals are being challenged by new powers- the Dark Lord has wed his daughter to a newborn Lich of the Void, one of a new order of archmages, a new breed of elves has been born, a kingdom devouring menace begins to move again, a shaman dreams of devouring the world itself, and an Orc Warlord dreams of resurrecting the divine dead. The Age of Myths has begun, and only the wisest know it.

Oh hey sacrophysics user, you got a pastebin or doc that summarizes your setting? Would like to read it if you don't mind.

here.

How long until the spiders develop floating islands? I'm talking something like webbed collections of assorted debris, from mangroves to entire ships, which keep growing and growing.

The upper webs are sails, the underwater webs are fishing nets or even fish/kelp farms. Taking a note from RL underwater spiders, they can make webbed air sacs and go salvage shipwrecks. Hell, they can add such things into the island.

They can also become floating harbor cities. The people don't go to the market, it goes to the people.

Sorry I don't.

I have a blog about it but you'd have to read portuguese.

>spider crabs
Hm. There’s at least one spider island where they congregate. I love the idea of spider dredgers though. Super cool.

Also, some neat magical materials in setting

Mithril- light, sharp. Only found in secret dwarven mines, or created through Sabrielist void magic.

Thunder Bronze - Normal bronze, but it can collect and generate electrical energy, which can be unleashed as bolts of lightning or auras of electricity, power equal to the amount of metal, though bolts need special engineering. Dwarven only. Used by dwarves for their Lightning Pikes.

Burial Iron - Ancient iron held by the dead for centuries, infused with the Death Rune- instantly kills anything it grievously wounds, and badly damages the undead- downside it actively sickens and weakens the wielder. Mostly just used by the Triarchy, a reviled and reclusive civilization of nomads ruled by urban undead dwelling in great necropolis (necropoli?).

Deep Copper - holding the appearance of copper, this metal is actually distinct, being as hard and strong as iron, without it's brittleness. Very useful for earth magic, otherwise unremarkable. Found only far, far underground.

Enchanted Lead- normal lead put through rituals done by trolls- this metal actively darkens the area, and is as hard as iron or bronze while being far heavier. The preferred weaponry of trolls, and the sole metal of deep troll equipment.

Dwarven Quicksilver- Mercury given a sort of base sentience- obedient to its handlers, it has strange healing powers, and can create lethally sharp pseudopods. The Emperor wears a cape made entirely of this metal, which has stopped many assassins. Only creatable by Imperial Dwarven Alchemists.

Serpent Spine - Weapons and armor made from massive serpent fangs. Not terribly strong, but all drip potent poison, and the fangs made excellent puncturing weapons. Used almost exclusively by the Poisonkin tribes, whose tainted physiology has little to fear from being constantly covered in noxious poisons.

There is a sizeable and mostly self-sufficient agricultural cult that worships an intelligent dragon at a shrine in the forest, and there are some magical realm things about it to that I won't go into details about. The cult also does a lot of charity work and are just militant enough that bandits mostly leave them alone.

Interesting. Did you take a note from the way romans and greeks distinguished metals? Live iron, black lead...

perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0137:book=34:chapter=1

Ew. That sounds nasty and apropriate to Hell.

Does the game happens on the shell or the atmosphere? Because it can happen on the atmosphere. If one does survive the diamond shard rains, that is.

lesse stuff you guys would find interesting...

The main PC city is the City of Ulan- a weird mix of Tolkien elves, Venice, and the Amazon, Ulan is a vast forest city built along the branches of absurdly huge mangrove trees, within a massive mangrove swamp. Divided into three layers, the Murk is foul and pungent from both the swamp and centuries of elven habitation. The Stems are fairly nice, but often get wafts of stench from below. The Crown is at the top of the trees, and is a beautiful wonderland of plantlife and flowers.

The city has some pretty absurd fauna- the inhabitants made a deal with a Serpent God, who lead them here when they were refugees, and now the most beloved animals in the city are the 20+ foot long Brother Snakes- big, lazy snakes known for their intelligence and benevolent friendliness. Particularly fond of cuddling with children.

Other important creatures

Great Crabs- divided into spidercrab like riding Crabs, and the Great Crabs themselves, who are similar to Coconut crabs, these creatures are absurdly large and fairly passive and dumb. Many are feral, but others have been domesticated, and are used as beasts of burden and as the mounts of the city's warrior nobles, who fight astride chariots built on their back, fighting with bow and pike.

Flying Cats: Cats with membranes between their legs, these cats glide between branches to avoid predators. They also often coat themselves in the spittle of the great crabs, in return for leading the dim crabs to food.

Messenger Monkeys: guess

Recently the party has befriended some intelligent pinkie sized hummingbirds, and outfitted them with mithril armor because one of the PCs is a wizard-smith and is easily amused. Now they've got tiny mithril lances.

No, unfortunately, though that IS interesting-

Instead the game is a Runequest 6 game, and I stole the Runic system from Glorantha, though Runes are very different lorewise in mine. Generally magic metals are a mix of what I think up combined with what the metals are associated with- Bronze is a metal of the Air Rune, Copper is of Earth, Lead of Darkness, Iron of Death, ect.

Quicksilver is torn from, I must admit, Fate/Stay Zero, in which a wizard has a familiar made of murderous mercury.

The serpent spines are entirely original

Here's a map of the North- the green dot in the far south is the PC city.

The game mostly takes place within the atmosphere. There's a lot of hazards for the players. But, the player characters are already dead. They're souls contained within crystals and placed into biomechanical constructs which can be repaired or replaced. They've gotta deal with navigating the decaying ruins of floating cities, flying the constant storms, and walking the sea of metal air at the center of the planet.

My current game is set in Belle Epoque Paris, but the twist is that it was discovered that many pseudosciences work. Technology developed around the use of orgone Energy/Elan vital (look them up), and there is this sort of magitech/biology feeling: public lighting works on bioluminescence, the Eiffel tower is a giant device for controlling weather and so on. The city is however in a state of bubbling social unrest because the State controls most of this tech and the church is opposing it on the basis that it's unnatural; in the meanwhile, a lot of weird stuff is starting to happen in the peripheries and dark corners of the city. The PCs are a bunch of civilians who are getting more and more exposed to the weird side of the world.
This is run in Fate, and the setting outline was a group effort.

All I can think of is that this looks cool.

No wait. Iron related to death makes sense. The link I provided has Pliny saying that the gods created rust upon seeing how much destruction and death men made with swords, shovels, axes and such.

Very cool. I take it you already know Atomic Rocket?
projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/index.php

The north is defined by a mythic conflict- hence the giant sword, giant skeletal hand, and the vaguely man shaped mountain that bleeds rivers of blood.

The green is rivers of poison, and the mountains they come from are giant dead stone serpents.

There's LOTS of other stuff to talk about there, but I've blabbed enough already so I'll leave it as is.

When the dragons arrived in our world the intricacies of our economy went completely over their heads so they burned the cayman islands to the ground trying to find the gold.

The powers of magic wax and wane over 2-3 thousand year cycles. When magic is strongest, gods are born, and mages are kings. When it's at its weakest, gods die and magic becomes a fairty tale. In my campaign magic is having a resurgence in the world and the players might be able to find the eggs of hibernating gods. It hinges on how curious they are.

The dwarves chained the mountain they live in to a cliff using gigantic metal chains to prevent it from falling into the sea

>The Church's dedicated mage hunters are actually compromised of mostly secular scholars who use religion as a cover.
>They still get their powers from divine beings and engage in religious ceremonies, but most of this is just upkeep to maintain their powers. The more radical believers from the church are intentionally kept away from actual power.

>Any magic that alters the flow of time has an unspoken ban on it due to the fact that it causes the various parallel universes that exist to merge and has various catastrophic effects.
>This effect 'naturally' realigns itself when a powerful enough cosmic entity realizes the flow of time has tangled up.

This sounds awesome.

Sounds like NIER.

>Set several centuries in the future.
>Due to major population pressures, massive crackdowns on birthrates were instituted damn near globally that stabilized the total population to just around 7 billion in a few decades.
>New "miracle" technology that was just a massive upgrade to what we call 3D printing pretty much ensured global peace and eliminated famines and alleviated much of the problems in the world.
>Then some terrorists took the systems over and over 75% of the world's population got killed within just a few days span when said terrorists had every device build bombs at the same time.
Did I mention there were giant mechs? And that I am unashamedly stealing a lot of my ideas from a PS2 game?

There is no conspiracy to make traditional games politically correct. Characters in fiction and gaming communities simply change with respect to the latest cultural values. But you fedora-tipping cancerous fucks always blame imaginary SocJus boogeymen when people start hating you for the shit that you do. As long as you continue to refuse act like decent human beings, people will keep noticing.

But of course, you will keep blaming imaginary "SJWs", "poseurs" and "normies" when you the public hates you for the scum you are. And let's not even get started on how you all react to games becoming more popular and easily accessible.

Wut?

There are no landmasses larger than new zealand, but almost all have bridges that need not follow traditional laws of physics linking them.These bridges have been here longer than civilization, they do not degrade, they are seemingly frozen in time. Most all believe the Wanderer, chief god of the world created these bridges when he mapped out the world before the time of man. Islands without bridges leading to them tend to be regarded as unholy, or simply unlucky places to try and settle.

I have a culture that wears armour for for formal social occasions. The rules regarding who wears what are extremely rigid and wearing the wrong armour is at best a faux pas and at worst an outright crime.

>Noblemen wear armour made of grey metals (generally steel, some wear iron or silver, or even more rarely tin)
>Noblewomen wear armour made of yellow metals (generally bronze although brass and copper are sometimes used and very rarely gold)
>Freemen and women wear armour made from animal flesh (generally some form of leather, bone, hide, or ivory often in the form of scale or lamellar armour, for attaching plates they tend to use sinew, wool, or silk)
>Slaves wear armour made from plant flesh (generally padded armour made from flax or hemp although some owners prefer their slaves to use wooden plates to made a rough analogue of lamellar, scale, or plate armour, generally linen thread is used for sewing)

Beyond that there are strict social rules regarding stuff such as engraving, etching, paint, dyes, and mixed metals and generally people will have their armour made to suit their social situation. A wealthy merchant might have a suit of scale armour with the scales made of ivory and each scale having gold engraving on it, while a poor farmer might have a suit of boiled leather armour over a wool gambeson which he wears if he ever needs to go off to war. A wealthy noblewoman might wear a suit of brass armour with extended cuisses to make it like a metal dress with silver engraving and a massive golden and horse hair crest, while a poorer nobleman might simply wear the same armour he wears to battle and have his daughters wear a simple bronze breastplate over their dresses.

>Only Orcs and Humans are capable of utilizing Psionics, as they were the only races to emerge "naturally" as opposed to divine intervention. Conversely, both of these races are incapable of using Arcane or Divine magic as their vocal cords are unable to make the noises needed to produce verbal components.

He's been posting this in every thread. Just ignore him.

Oh god he got unbanned

I'm working on it.

The first undertaking preformed when a new, more efficient, rocket engine was developed was to use to to get people and supplies into space to mine asteroids. The work was hard, long, and extremely dangerous (think like working on a oil rig, but your doing coal mining work, and it being more dangerous then the two combined), and the workers slowly became unsatasfied with their pay and benefits. They essentially pulled some outer haven type shit, taking the mining operations for themselves, and keeping all profits. Eventually us mility steps in because 'muh profi- i mean democracy, and basically space iraq happens. After a year miners make a deal where they'll just take what they can carry and fuck off into deep space if their just let go. 150 years later they migrate back and have culturally regressed to a tribal state, and have become pretty much a new ethnic group as well as a culture.

Setting is modern times city, but its common knowledge that all of this is simulation where humanity locked itself to survive some terrible happening in real world. There is almost religious belief that simulation is setup to last as long as bad things in real world and attempts to escape or broke it considered evil.

> and some of these dogs are well trained enough to cast fireballs
Fuck no. I've had dogs, you do not want to give the ability to obliterate a city block with a roaring inferno to a creature that goes full on berserker rage if it so much as glimpses a squirrel.

It's White Knight Chronicles.

Don't forget illusion spells. Imagine if doggo had the laser pointer

Never heard of it, but the wiki seems cool, thanks for the tip, will read some.

Slogan: damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Who isn't?

I'm guilty of such things myself, but this doesn't seem very interesting for a tabletop setting. More anthropology than anhything else. Do criminals use lead armor? Anything about pewter? How such a tradition came to pass?

Curious. Did they create sea vessels?

Develop that for us.

In my setting there is a tribe of kobolds who worship power of life itself. They all are warlocks that live in abandoned dwarven fortress, where a necromancer is trapped, rising undead - these kobolds, now blind from fire and light, burn hordes of undead every day, to make sure rest of the country is safe.

They remain fringe elements, but racial supremacist/ethnic nationalist movements got weird after genetic engineering became a fairly widespread, if not universal, thing. These days you're more likely to see charities offer those fleeing towards the modern megolopoli free cures to genetic ailments...with the unspoken assumption that 'not being of our people' is an ailment. Why kill when you can cure?

Most of society views that somewhat suspiciously, but more than a few megalopolitan states subtly support such groups.

...

The Empire of the Tetrarchy isn't above sending missionaries into foreign lands for the purpose of creating a casus belli. If the missionaries manages to actually convert the local populace then all the better.
The Empire is also found of handling its obligations to less important allies by sending expeditionary legions. These are basically state sponsored private enterprises run by distinguished individuals, often former military leaders or senators, who are given an overarching agenda and the occasional limitation but are otherwise free to run the expedition and recruit personal to it as they see fit.

>Do criminals use lead armor?
Criminals wear armour for their appropriate social class. Granted I don't see why criminals would be at a formal event
>Anything about pewter?
Noblemen could wear it since it is a "grey" metal but generally steel is used, silver if you are rich. Metals like tin and pewter are most novelties.
>How such a tradition came to pass?
Society used to be an extremely martial and somewhat egalitarian society of tribes who preferred to fight as heavy cavalry (think Scythians). After a victorious battle they would celebrate while still wearing their armour and would parade around or make ornaments with enemy armour, sometimes giving it to their children to wear. Eventually these practices evolved into all celebrations involving wearing armour with even children wearing armour with wealthy individuals showing off their status by having special made armour for celebrations and for their children (which is notable since if you make armour for a five year old it will be too small for them to wear in like a year or two).

Eventually some of those tribes settled down into city states and abandoned their more egalitarian traditions (primarily women fighting in wars) while forming more rigid social ranks and with it ideas on who can do and wear what.

So these people aren't always wearing armour it is only during celebrations such as a celebration after winning a major battle or a war, or a holiday to celebrate the solstice, equinox, or some sort of holy day. Also punishments vary depending on how one messes up. A wealthy merchant wearing primarily steel armour may very well be executed since he is trying to usurp the authority of his social betters. A nobleman who wears bronze armour will just be laughed at by everyone as though he had shown up to a Christmas party wearing a ball gown. Slaves wearing steel or leather armour won't be punished by society but their master will be fined depending on the severity of their transgression.

I can dig it. And I might just steal it

>atmosphere is significantly denser than earth
>80's level technology
>nuclear and satellite technologies never invented
>most conflicts fought via private military companies, with some nations hiring entire navies/air force
>The International Council tries to regulate and control conflicts but is hampered by infighting and logistical problems.
>the two superpowers that retain national militaries, the Federation of Cossakalia and the United Asmor Republic are in a perpetual cold war.
>large parts of the world are heavily balkanized after the World War.
>The Fascist state that was destroyed during the war may be gathering power in the ocean in the far east.
>superweapons are being researched, such as massive flying aircraft carriers and chemicals that decrease air density, causing planes to drop from the skies.
inb4 Ace Combat

Well these dogs are also much better trained, but yeah, generally only the dogs smart enough to attentively listen to their masters and learn tricks really good have enough "soul shavings" to perform magic. Imagine one of those dogs that gets on talk shows and can take specific directional steps on command, but now you can also be like "Fido, light the fireplace. Fido, illusion that dude."

The dogs don't really understand what they're doing, they just know that if they do the thing right their master is happy and they get some pig gristle. So your dog couldn't say, perform a specific illusion of great complexity like a woman walking up to him and telling him to leave and then erupting into fire, but he totally can hit you with the image of a thousand angry dogs coming to fucking wreck your s

>Who isn't?
Me, as soon as I'm finished!

Nice
Nice

vampires are primarily descended from an ancient cult, who alchemically infused their bodies with troll blood to gain immortality. many mistake vampires death by sunlight as burning to ash, in actuality their flesh slowly turns to stone and flakes off. ancient vampires mutate into gremlinesque forms, becoming mind controlling parasites who constantly need a living host to give them blood. ironically this makes trolls the best hosts.

>useable magic is not a thing. Players are human and no amount of leveling up increases your resiliance to something like a brick to the head. Equipment however can have all sorts of effects, such as a shield that negates inertia. There are hundred foot horrors which move very fast and such enemies can only be delt with by correctly arming yourself with powerful equipment.
Horror setting.

Guns exist, but are powered by a combustible gas that is pressurized in tanks in the stock of the rifle. Breech loading is super easy since you don't have to pack powder so guns have a better rate of fire. Tactics have shifted to nepolianic to early WWI and research is underway to condense the gas into small balls that can be more easily carried and used.

None of this really directly effects the players, who are busy adventuring around a new continent that basically stops magic from recharging.

Mines pretty generic hack & slash fantasy, but I supposed the most interesting thing is that the wizard college is in the middle of a desert formed by a power magical accident by an old wizard - which made the surrounding desert a low-mana zone, but the college a high-mana zone.

There's this one empire where most eligible women strive to join the military to show off their femininity and potential as good wives. They use their service as proof that they're capable of protecting the home and children should their husbands be drafted into war. Most recruits take it seriously because there's almost always an active conflict going on. Overall, army women are seen as ideal waifus, especially if they're blooded veterans you can count on. Service periods are relatively short and most women end up spending their careers in admin or logistics, never once seeing a conflict zone. However, a few do, and most of them die. Every female recruit traditionally buys herself a special ceremonial knife before enlisting. It implies to observers that she's willing to die for The Emperor, and commit honourable suicide instead of getting captured and raped by the enemy. A girl that lets herself get captured and raped by enemy soldiers is discarded as worthless posers (not even worthy of having their ransoms paid by the embassy) that can't defend themselves let alone a household. Of course, most girls lack the willpower to cut and gut themselves with a knife should they time come. In reality women soldiers from this empire commonly use either their own rifles or cyanide pills to commit honourable suicide.

>I hate women but think they're hot in uniform

I have have prominent women in the military in my setting, but mine are elves. They live for 200 years, but are only fertile from about 20-40, after which they are barren, but still extremely young by racial standards, so most join the military to beef up their numbers. Women serve primarily in guerilla tactics and in scouting rolls, as they have INSANE leg strength give them crazy mobility and their soul naturally makes them less noticeable . Elven men are more balanced and perform more varied combat roles, as their souls make them naturally more noticeable.

Most men in civilian life are very flamboyant like tropical birds in a bid to be THE MOST noticeable person, while women dress in pretty much whatever they want as unless someone is specifically looking for them they kind of naturally blur.

The basis for the world I'm building is that this particular world was originally created as a prison for those things that even the gods themselves couldn't destroy. I'm using the Epic level handbook from 3.5 as inspiration, along with the Elder Evils book and its been coming along nicely.

Basically, sentient life wasn't supposed to exist on this world at first, with Devas and other immortal beings like ancient treants sent by different gods keeping vigil over the tombs of Atropals, Anaxims, Hecatoncheries, etc.

Life only came about when Outsider predation started to whittle down the Immortals that guarded these tombs, and were meant to be a self replenishing defense against outsiders. It worked to an extent, but now the big fear is that the beings locked in their tombs will influence cults, or warp the mortals into doing their will.

There was a time where I wanted to do something similar; after that population explosion of spiders in Japan left a whole forest covered in spider web I wondered what would happen to a medieval city if that happened with Giant spiders. Made for a fun dungeon.

Germany was one of the places that nearly collapsed into civil war in 2009 due to a high concentration of magical girls who couldn't control their powers.

Since the German State didn't want to be seen as anything like Nazis they didn't euthanize magical girls even after they were proven to be a threat just by existing. (around the same time a team of magical girls prevented yellowstone from erupting and plunging the world into a nuclear winter, another involuntarily self destructed and obliterated the phoenix metropolitan area)

This meant that magical girls still sane enough to do so fled to Germany from all over Europe, West Asia, and Northern Africa fled to Germany or died trying, Many people, rightly, felt that the state was putting magical girl lives above the lives of it's own citizens.

It was only the announcement of a treatment that made magical girls powers controllable and mitigated or eliminated the mental and physical side effects that ended the decent into violence and chaos.

Some Germans still remember this time and it colors their opinion of magical girls.

Some parts of the United states are similar but there's also still a lot of guilt in the US since there WE'RE massacres.

Mami a good gurl she dindu nuffin

>some of these dogs are well trained enough to cast fireballs and illusion spells and shit.
dogs with bees in their mouth and when they bark, they shoot bees at you?!

The great Orders Militant are semi-autonomous warrior-cults, each dedicated to venerating one of the Archons. Created following the unspeakable betrayal of Kerioth Gilderis, the Dark Archon, the Orders Militant were designed to ensure that the armed forces of the Temple would never again raise a hand against its leaders.

Each candidate (almost invariably a human youth, although half-elves and half-dwarves are occasionally allowed to rise above their low birth) is inspected to ensure that he or she is without flaw, and therefore without marks of corruption. Psychic aptitude and great force of will are essential, for each is considered to be the foundation upon which all other abilities are built.

Upon being accepted into an Order, the initiate is given training, which includes jousting, hand-to-hand combat, equestrianism, religious instruction, alchemical augmentation, and all the courtly arts. So vigorous is the regime that almost a third of initiates die before reaching the coveted position of Squire. Yet more quietly vanish from the rosters once weakness is revealed. While minor heresies are only met with fines and corporeal punishment among civilians, the Knights of the Temple have no such luxury.

The final trials vary according to which Order Militant the Squire wishes to join; the Red Wardens must overcome each of the Eight Schools of Magic and master Abjuration, while the Ebon Hearts and the Fists of Serrin must serve for a set period of time in the Imperial Legions.

The final step is the same, however: once the Squire has completed all the other trials, he or she is led into the sanctum sanctorum of the Order's castle. There, the Squire is bade to drink a single drop of blood from a grail.

If the Squire emerges from the Trial of Blood, the Squire is granted a nom-de-guerre and a nominal title, joining as a new brother or sister of the Templar Order.

Those who fail die in agony, withering from the inside out.

Oh fuck yeah.

>most eligible women strive to join the military to show off their femininity and potential as good wives.

Tankery! This is the tradition, the culture studied by girls from around the world to hone their character!
They study to hone their polite grace and dignified femininity!
Studying Tankery means studying what it means to be a woman: Hot and hard like steel, lovable like the clatter of tank tracks, and a deadly passion like the main cannon!
If you learn to be like the tank, you will be a good wife, a good mother, and successful in business!
When your body and spirit are sound and indomitable, the goodwill of countless men is sure to be yours!
Come! Let us all study tankery and grow into beautiful, healthy women!

Still trying to figure that out

sounds a bit like what would have happened further down the line in Shattered Horizons.

Post the map of the south so I can brag about how I conquered the city's ancient enemy in two days with superior strategy.

Here you go, you degenerate elf loving orc.

2 days, several ships full of undead, one giant slain with the help of the elf smith, and a horde of trolls burning down the ports. Damn it feels good to be a warlord.

The pantheon of Good aligned gods formed an alliance to fight a prince of hell that had been summoned to the material plane. Summoning all of their loyal Clerics and Paladins, the battle raged for 10 days. Only a fraction of the holy men survived and the Gods were severely weakened. The nations of the setting's continent granted the churches an island where they could rule a sovereign nation and promptly forgot about it. This was 500+ years ago.

Over time radical factions of the churches have taken over because the gods have stopped speaking to them and no one knows why. Rumors spread that the only way to regain the Gods' favor is conquest and conversion as it was in ancient times. After a long war with a Goblin horde the continent is in a severely weakened state. My party is so focused on the perceived BBEG they're ignoring all the context clues They're in for a rude awakening soon.

Get your story straight Zhargall, it was several undead fin whales full of living elf man at arms, backed up by Spermwhale-kraken undead fusions and a squad of undead crab-dolphins, all made by the Elf-President character's necromancer wife.

Just because you used your Troll lord helm to burn the north of the city and the Love Priestess PC captured the armory via militant mass prostitution (still can't believe that) doesn't mean you should get details wrong.

>the current civilization is not the first civilization on the planet. Hell, not even the second of the third but like the twelfth. You usually wouldn't notice this because most of the civilization sucked balls. There's only a couple that left old artefacts around.
>in the setting, gods are created by people ascending to godhood or by pure faith alone. Therefore there's a massive pantheon filled with large and small gods all vying for the faith of people, most of them from older civilizations.
>what many assume to be the God of death is actually the still living lone survivor of one of the old civilizations who is keeping the circle of life intact, which he once fucked up

You're right, I forgot the elf mercenaries and the auxilliary undead. It was all a part of a grander strategy