Let's create a setting by starting with the most cliché type of fantasy world possible :

Why did you put a map of Tanaephis?

>Within tribes, social roles and ranks are assigned according to eye colour. A red-eyed baby will be educated and trained to become a warrior. A child with yellow eyes will be destined to become a goat farmer. The black-eyed natives are hunters, the blue-eyed ones are shamans and doctors.

I imagine there are a number of social taboos based on eye color that would arise from something like this. Maybe if a red-eyed warrior's weapon is handled by a yellow-eyed goat farmer, it needs to be handled by someone with blue eyes before it's considered ready to be used for killing people again, and if someone with blue eyes DOESN'T handle it before it's used to kill a person, the weapon is only to be used for hunting animals from then on because it's permanently tainted.

Only the Emperor has golden eyes: within six months upon his death, a new golden-eyed child is brought forth, and he will be the new Emperor of the South. The people of the South believe that he is, in fact, his reincarnation.

But this time around, two children with golden eyes were born...

Because I was looking for the map of an island with a desert to the west, jungles to the south, frozen lands to the north and plains to the east, and it was the first image I found that met these criteria.

When a man of the eastern people reaches adulthood, he must remove one of his own teeth and replace it with that of a beast he has slain himself. This ritual is frequently repeated throughout adult life to mark momentous occasions, such as victory over a rival, taking a wife, siring a son etc. The most respected members of a tribe have mouths full of misshapen, monstrous teeth.

I can already sense that guy creeping up behind me with his amazing character idea where it's a Gary Stu amazon with golden eyes who wants to reclaim the throne of his kingdom and usurp the "blatant imposter".

Children who are born blind are considered to be already dead, and so are abandoned by their parents. Most understandably do not survive to adulthood, and this is a good thing, for it is prophesied that one day a blind child will grow to adulthood and plunge the world into darkness

White-eyed people know a terrible fate in the jungles of the south. When a white-eyed child is born, he and the rest of his family are exiled out of the jungles. For this reason, most of the men of southern origin who can be found in the central, eastern and western nations have white eyes. Rejected by theirs, they often become mercenaries, travellers, or are captured to be sold as slaves in the markets of the west.

This could also lead to a secretive cult who believe the Blind King prophecy and seek to bring about his reign, who deliberately blind themselves to learn black magic

In fact, there are many men who live in the nation of the seas. As many men as women, actually. But it is a gynarchical society in which no male individual is allowed to set foot on a ship. Given that only women are allowed to sail and trade with the nations of the continent, the idea that the people of the seas is composed only of Amazon women who succeed in reproducing each other in a mysterious way (and only give birth to girl) has finally entered the collective imagination.

The word for white-eyed people in the Southern tongue translates as "bats".

This comes from a species of social, white-eyed bat native to those lands. The bat is also the totem animal to the God of Death and Renewal, and the oral storytelling makes claims that "a great swarm of bats" will swoop down on the Southern Empire. Many white-eyed exiles adopt these bats as companions.

The jungles of the South... A wonderful place for those who managed to learn its secrets. A living nightmare for the ignorant explorer.

>I can already sense that guy creeping up behind me with his amazing character idea where it's a Gary Stu amazon with golden eyes who wants to reclaim the throne of his kingdom and usurp the "blatant imposter".

I read it more as a hook that the Southern Empire is now on the verge of fracturing into civil war because more and more people are convinced each day that "their" golden-eyed child is the correct one.

The idea was more like that only one person with golden eyes can exist at a time. So when the Emperor dies, a child with golden eyes is born

The idea came thinking about the Dalai Lama

The southern nation is divided in two: On the one hand, the southern Empire, whose majority of cities are concentrated on the border with the central country and whose technological and cultural level is as advanced as that of its neighbours. On the other hand, a primitive society of tribes occupying the heart of the jungle and the southern coast.

Eye colour beliefs are gradually disappearing throughout the Empire over the decades (to the point that some white-eyed individuals manage to live in the cities of the northern jungle), while they have never been so strong in the tribes occupying the deepest parts of the jungle.

Let's talk about the nation of the west.

The nation of the west believe that all things have a spirit which ought to be treated with respect when dealing with them. To this end they place great importance on lengthy greetings which name and thank the appropriate spirits. This is one of the reasons for their talkative nature which the northerners find so distasteful.

Well for one, the Westerners don't have beautiful eyes like the Southerners. For that, they are mad with jelly and they swore deadly enmity to the lands of the South.

>The idea was more like that only one person with golden eyes can exist at a time. So when the Emperor dies, a child with golden eyes is born
>The idea came thinking about the Dalai Lama
Yeah, I got that part. But the "now there are two children born with gold eyes" is a good hook for some civil strife.

Oh yeah that's a cool idea all right! The South is the best, I say we scratch the rest of the setting

The inhabitants of the western kingdom have elevated fencing to the rank of art and even science. Sword duels are so codified and the rules so complex and dense that there are real schools that train their students to become professional referees for duels, named regulators, supposed to know by heart all the prohibited techniques and rules in a duel. Full training as a regulator can take several years.

The vast majority of the inhabitants of the western kingdom wear a rapier on their belt. The only ones who are not allowed to possess a sword are the slaves.

At the age of eight, a child receives his rapier for his birthday. He will keep this sword until his death (changing of rapier during ones life is a taboo). A man will decorate his sword throughout his life with engravings or runes. Each decoration has a very precise meaning and can symbolize an emotion, an event in the life of the sword's owner or a character trait.

>At the age of eight, a child receives his rapier for his birthday.
That would be unrealistic, rapiers are heavy as hell for a one handed sword. The age should be in the teens.

Upon death, one's sword is supposed to have enough engravings to contain many details about the owner's life, like a veritable journal. Funeral practice is limited to burning the corpse (which at this point has no value), but the sword is brought back to its family of origin and stored carefully in a steel sheath. The sheath and the sword's hilt are then sealed together, and the sword is stored in a reliquary.

The people of the west traverse the deserts of their homeland on large tortoise-like creatures. These animals can go for long periods of time without water, as they store it in special bladders beneath their shells. This water is often extracted by the westerners themselves to sustain them on long journeys, and so reliant have they become upon it that they have mastered ways of flavouring it through the use of special feed for their mounts

In the western kingdom, swords are almost considered to be living beings. Each rapier has its own name, a legal status, and it has already happened in the history of the kingdom that eccentric duellists claim to have fallen in love with their sword or even married it.

The art of engraving on blades is learned alongside the sword from a tender age, and it's regarded with as much respect as fencing itself.
A few surprising technological advancements came from the need to achieve the minute engravings. The Westerners carry with them azure-colored lenses that are incrediibly powerful (achieving magnification akin to a modern microscope). These lenses are also used to "read" a sword. Allowing someone to read one's sword is considered a deep honor and a gesture of profound friendship, but it is also sometimes done in times of betrayal and war to identify the bearer.

The reliquary sheath ought to be something less susceptible to corrosion than steel - perhaps gold (for those who can afford it) while families of lesser means have to rely on silver or bronze?

Apparently iridium is extremely resistant to corrosion and it's not a precious metal (I think?)

The clans of the Central Nation(s?) always gives the name of the oldest skull in their possession when asked who leads them. While the other nations mostly find this a confusing and annoying habit, the length which the family priests spends in the mausoleums might be a sign it's a literal rather than figurative expression.

None said they need to carry it at that time.

From how massive the consumption of metal must be, can we say that the people of East build their cities in massive ravines (akin to Petra), leading down to huge quarries and mines at the bottom?

>That would be unrealistic, rapiers are heavy as hell for a one handed sword. The age should be in the teens.
They aren't expected to actually use it until they're a bit older.

>Implying anyone know what khazars are on a Portuguese synchronised swimming discussion site

Iridium is crazy rare and expensive, even with modern refining methods. But it is super resistant to corrosion.

So, in summary, we have :

>A central kingdom, based on a feudal system, whose entire religion revolves around the skulls.
>An island under the influence of a gynarchical government in which women are seafarers who have to follow a mysterious ritual of initiation, beyond the oceans, to get their own ship.
>An oriental kingdom, located in the deserts of the west, where men travel on giant turtles and in which whole society revolves around fencing and swords. Swords are regarded as individuals in their own right and act as journals, tracing the life of their owner through runes and engravings.
>A nation in the jungles of the south, divided into a highly evolved empire on the edge of the jungle and a set of tribes, in the deepest part of the jungle, within which the colour of an individual's eyes determines his or her destiny and social status.
>A northern country with relatively peaceful nomadic clans (they still practice plundering at the border of the country) led by women's councils. The Nordic people believe that a man's soul lies in his bones, which leads to conflicts with the people of the centre.
>A nation in the east is also populated by nomadic clans where hunters replace their teeth with the fangs of the most ferocious creatures they have killed.

Let's focus a little bit on the eastern and northern countries.

I feel like centrefolk think all northerners are untrustworthy because they break the skulls of their dead, which in central society, is routinely done to executed criminals.

Yes, the political situation between these two nations is pretty bad. The inhabitants of the north are regarded as barbarians without respect for the sanctity of the skulls and there is a religious militia, called "the bony pilgrims", which patrols the northern border and slaughters the northern clans it crosses.

The people of the east believe the ocean is a huge river that encircles the world, dividing the lands of the living and the dead, and formed from the tears of those who weep for their lost loved ones. As such there is a huge taboo against crying in eastern culture, for they fear that if the river grows to great it will flood the world

The Central lands have long harbored rumors of necromancy happening behind the closed Mausoleum doors of powerful families. Although there is no open talk of necromantic practices and any accusation is rapidly dismissed, families are constantly keeping track of each other's activities. Spies of all sorts infiltrate enemy mausoleums to find information or proof of necromancy. It is whispered that the most powerful families not only consult with the dead, but that they have, in fact, brought back the collective consciousness of their ancestors, and their Mausoleums are filled with the wailing and muttering of countless chattering skulls...

Is slavery allowed in countries other than the Western Kingdom? I think slavery is commonly practiced on the island of the amazons (on male individuals) but what about other nations? How do they see slavery?

I'd say yes since they're sorta like Aztecs

The clans in the east believe that certain, particularly ferocious beasts carry with them terrible curses and that those curses can be brought down upon the clan if a member of it is killed by these beasts. As such certain hunters are effectively witch hunters, whose solemn duty is to hunt and slay these beasts (often known as "Fuzu") before they can inflict their curse upon the clan. If these hunters fail they are generally slain by their replacement in a ritual that involves wearing a cloak made form the pelt of the beast (or at least of a member of its species) that they didn't get/didn't get in time and a necklace made out of its teeth. The idea is that if that happens the curse gets confused and fades away or is at least made less potent.

*Yes in the South

Central kingdom is taking an evil turn so maybe

here's some ideas I use in my world; take em as you please

>the "vikings" of my world are frost giants; they come down from the arctic in massive longboats and raid entire countries, always during winter and often timing their attacks with blizzards and snowstorms; they bring back slaves who can't leave their hot spring cave prisons because they can't survive the harsh cold outside and don't know the way back, also being very tall even for their size category, they can traverse deep snow fairly easily
>the "muslims" of my world are fire giants, who kinda do the same thing except across deserts in the height of summer in full armor; their desert is volcanic as well, and their slaves are lizardmen and lizard creatures; they may or may not have giant ironside warships powered by steam if they border water
>sahuagin and other various aquatic races actually only live on continental shelves; the rest of the ocean is too deep and inhospitable to support them; they trade (and raid/pirate) with surface realms for items they can't create in the water, like bronze armaments, also the deep ocean is full of powerful monsters who make ocean travel damn near impossible
>druids aren't "protectors of the wild" so much as protectors of their primitive societies as shamans in much the same way clerics are of regular societies; they have many offensive abilities at the expense of defense, like barbarians compared to fighters, whereas clerics focus on defense and healing
>fey and various nature monsters are the "protectors of the wild", and they fight druids and barbarians *almost* as much as civilization; though the primitives at least try not to offend them
>due to the presence of monsters and opposing races, humanoid civilizations tend to stick to safest/best terrain for their lifestyles, leaving much of the land wild and dangerous; humanoids cannot have massive populations that strip the land of resources.

The weapon mainly used in the steppes of the east is not the bow but the slingshot. Among nomadic clans, the most commonly used method of execution of criminals is to tie the accused to a pillory and allow the clan's children to practice slingshot shooting on his body. Because the children aim poorly, it can take a long time for one of them to finish the criminal by touching him on the head with a projectile.

It is said that unscrupulous Centrallers will hire northern barbarians to break into the mausolea of their rivals and break the skulls inside. Only the worst kind of villain would resort to such treachery though, surely?

I wouldn't say the central kingdom are evil as such (though a northerner might see them that way). This talk of necromancy is nonsense, vicious rumours put about by uncultured barbarians!

>Hello guys I'm going to ignore the OP

When a dispute arises between two members of a clan, the most commonly used way to resolve it is a slingshot duel. The two opponents each stand twenty metres apart and have a limited number of projectiles. When the clan dean gives them the signal, they must shoot each other until one is too badly wounded to continue or both have used all their projectiles.

Most of the time, this kind of duel does not go as far as the death of one of the two opponents because it is forbidden to aim at the head, except to settle very serious disputes (accusation of rape, murder, etc...).

I feel like the relationship between northerners and easterners could go one of two ways - on the one hand, northerners find the eastern practice of tooth-swapping distasteful due to the associations with the soul, on the other hand because the easterners use slings a lot their dead often have broken skulls, which the northerners like...

I think its like books. You read books to babies and keep them around, even if the babies just going to chew on them, because it builds familiarity. Incompetence preceeds competence.

Your beatiful young eight year old will be estatic to receive his hefty adult rapier. He will need to use both hands initially just to lift it, and will be instructed to strictly use it in the training yard. He may carry it around sheathed, but the weight will be inhibiting. However, a determined child will press on reguardless, and both develop strength and confidence as well as have a greater appreciation for good belts.

But lo! Alas despite your warning your child has hurt himself. Whist unfortunate, this is also a good learning experience, assuming your cilld still leaves. Casualties are an inevitibility of war; having centered our culture around battle, our culture will produce casualties.

However i dont see having the same rapier all your life as realistic. Swords eventually break, and it may be easier and more practical to forge a new sword then duct tape on a new blade to an old pommel

Minstrels have a very special role in the society of the central kingdom. The people of this kingdom are convinced that you can cure diseases or bless someone with music. There are therefore wandering medical-musicians who travel from village to village and play very particular melodies for sick people, or for those who want to make sure of a good harvest for next year (they ask the bard to play them a "music of luck").

However, most scholars and scientists call these minstrels charlatans. This does not prevent them from being highly respected among the peasants in the countryside of the centre.

What if the culture's fighting style is mostly based around ritualistic duels? So the chance of swords breaking would be minimal.

> In the central kingdom, it is a custom to wear metal skull masks into battle and during ceremonies, the wealthiest warriors wear perfectly detailed masks of silver-lined steel, and the poorest make do with copper and bronze.

Let's not forget that rapiers are forged in a very special metal, much stronger and more flexible than others and resistant to rust.

Perhaps they have some special ritual for dealing with a broken rapier, where the old blade is melted down and reforged into a new one, but then fixed to the old hilt in a Ship of Theseus type arrangement. It's still considered the same sword, even though the components have been replaced/remade?

>However i dont see having the same rapier all your life as realistic.
I think we can assume that the blades are made to be especially durable or something like that.
If one's blade is broken, the owner is forced to become a monk or something drastic like that. There maybe a special caste reserved to those whose sword was broken or lost.

These solitary figures devote their lives to learning the art of forging. Forever condemned to see new blades while being forbidden to forge another for themselves, they are both respected and avoided.

What if one goes through several rapiers in life, each one representing a part of themselves, and the retiring of one's first rapier is considered a coming of age ceremony?

I remember this exact OP from months ago. Did you recycle it?

>Northern Nation
Despite being seen as semicivilized and effeminate, their military forces are highly organized and efficient (think Carolingian Sweden)

Yes, the inhabitants of the western kingdom have learned to work a very special and almost unbreakable metal. That said, it happens that some swordsmen break their blades and, in this case, move away from society and become kind of monks, as you said. On the other hand, a truly unforgivable crime is to lose your sword. Those who are guilty of it become true pariahs, exiled or even killed by their own families, who consider it the ultimate dishonour. I don't even want to imagine the fate of someone who would dare steal someone's sword. He would surely be captured, publicly tortured for days and executed in the most abominable manner possible.

Nordic nomadic clans are sexually free. The notion of marriage is unknown to them and everyone can have relationships with everyone without jealousy. Homosexuality is even quite common among clan men, in a manner similar to the Spartan people. However, there is a special caste of warriors who pledge to remain chaste and devote their entire lives to combat. They are very rare because the Nordics rarely make war, but they exist.

>no island to the east with japs and/ or chinamen
come on

I reckon the other nations see westerners as miserly, because of their habit of saving as much coin as possible to buy expensive reliquary sheathes for their swords for when they die

There is one, very far from the other side of the oceans, but only a few sailors and explorers have already visited it and brought back strange objects such as katanas. Most people are unaware of the existence of this distant land.
Perhaps the Amazons have already sailed there since they are a seafaring people.

>What if one goes through several rapiers in life, each one representing a part of themselves, and the retiring of one's first rapier is considered a coming of age ceremony?

I like this.

>if a blade breaks during a duel, superstition is that the gods have deemed the duel not to their liking, and if the party with the unbroken blade presses on, their actions will draw the gods' ire.

Jewish Turks from Ukraine.

A point on slavery:
>Nation of the west : very widely practiced, a large part of society is based on slavery. Most slaves originate from the jungles of the south or from nomadic clans in northern lands.
>Southern Empire: Practiced in the civilized part of the country. The majority of slaves are indigenous to the primitive tribes of the jungle.
>Amazon island: Very widely practiced. Every man in this society is born with the status of a slave.
>Center Kingdom: Strictly forbidden. But a system of serfdom does exist (this is rather close to slavery in a sense).
>Nation of the east: Authorized but little practiced. Often, a slave is a prisoner brought back from a skirmish with another clan. No slave trade with other nations.
>Northern lands: Strictly forbidden, but border clans are allowed to capture slaves from the central kingdom and sell them to the nation of the west.

Perhaps the solution to the blade-breaking is to combine and with So that some westerners use their sword reading ability to know the name of a sword, and by so doing are able to mend blades that have become damaged through some mystic ritual. The mending itself then becomes part of the name of the sword...?

Some thoughts on languages and scripts:
Westerners write in a flowing script that often loops back on itself in tangled knots, rather than the strict left to right lines of the central lands.
Because northerners believe the soul is in the head, they avoid talking as much as possible. Words are powerful magic in northern belief. As a result, wordless forms of communication are often employed, such as sign language and the written word. This is reflected in their script, words are constructed of a lexicon of abstract shapes that correspond closely to their sign language equivalents.
Easterners have two languages - the language of women and children is relatively easy for foreigners to learn, while the language of men is glottal and rather complex, due to their mismatched teeth
In the south, the humid jungles mean that paper perishes quickly, the written word is reserved only for important monuments and is engraved on stone or precious metals

Good thoughts.

> In amazon society, the standard human phenotype is turned on its head. Women are the larger, stronger, and more aggressive sex, while men are smaller, weaker, and more passive.
> Because amazon culture prizes strength and prowess in battle, amazons find their own males unattractive, and view them as inferior to foreign males, who they capture and use as breeding stock.
> Regardless of the father, an amazon woman always gives birth to amazonians with superficial traits of their father, meaning weak males and strong females. Because of this, amazons must periodically raid the continent for males.

I should note that it's the replacement that wears the cloak and the necklace, not the failed hunter. The idea is that the curse gets confused when the "dead beast " (e.g. The recruit in beasts clothing) kills another human and just kinda stops working because of that.

> Due to their homeland, Southerners tend towards short and stocky frames, and while superior climbers, sneakers, and wrestlers, are generally poor sprinters and swimmers. This difference is very slight, and difficult to notice if you aren't looking for it.

If a northerner starts singing, you should worry.
Stemming from their belief that the human voice is the soul leaking from their skulls, to sing is to risk losing one's soul altogether. Thus a singing northman is either a powerful and dangerous wizard, fuelling his magic with his own soul energy, or a warrior far from home, about to die, who does not wish his soul to be trapped if none of his kinsmen are there to administer the correct funeral rites.

This thread is a great example of how to construct a fascinating culture by taking one interesting belief and then following the 'logical' extensions of that belief

Each Northerner composes a personal song in their life, intended to be sang in times of dire need or when imminent doom is certain, these songs are called death songs, and each is different. Most are never sang, and it's considered a hideous curse to tell a hated foe to sing their death song.

The western deserts are home to not only Giant Tortoises, but a number of other large desert reptilian creatures also. These are all dangerous and have been known to make quick meals of unwary travelers or escaped slaves.
The Apex predator are monstrously large sand snakes, that burrow deep under the dunes, erupting only to pull its prey down beneath the sand.
Large crocodillians with long legs that allow them to gallop quickly across the dunes at alarming speeds. They hunt anything that moves and are excellent at stalking and semi-burying themselves to await for prey to pass. Sometimes remaining buried with only their eyes and nose displayed.
A large variety of multi-legged lizard species that travel in herds. These lizards are primarily herbivorous and have special maws that eat the little vegetation that lives in the deserts. They can hoard water in bulbous sacks inside their abdomen - and hunting them is often the only way of finding water in the desert, but is a delicate task as you don't want to pierce the water sack while hunting them.

The Western people hunt all of the creatures that dwell within the desert and make much of their clothing from their hides.

Those men of the East who come into contact via trade or warfare with the settled folk are often thought of as capricious in their beliefs or even possessing an inborn tendency for blasphemy. This is because the nomads seem to switch between new prophets and gods every decade, sometimes verging on every year in some cases, and these prophets often make a point of becoming powerful warlords as well. Many a would be demagogue or cult leader has ran off to try and convert the Easterners to his new religion and ,every time, has failed and been exiled or killed on the spot.

Those who truly study the nomads know their shifts in religion aren't caused by some sort of susceptibility to conversion but rather a deep cultural tradition of succession and power politics. The easterners believe that the "god" (or rather spirit) that a tribe should worship is linked to the tribe's chief and that the change in spirits is as natural as the change of chiefs. Man and the physical world are an echo of the spiritual world just beyond our understanding, and so when a spirit rises in his tribe so must a man in the echo tribe. So when a man in the tribe begins to feel that he would make a better chief he suggests that his spirit has risen and thus so must he. After the challenger announces his intention he and the current chief will compete both physically and for the heart of the tribesmen. this process is complicated and not yet fully understood by the outside world but after a roughly two week period is done the tribe will have determined whose spirit reflection was victories and thus who the tribe will worship and who they will follow in the world.

The horsemen don't stop believing in their former spirit Gods but feel its only right to follow the way of the steppe and only give worship to the strongest.

great stuff lads

Great thread.

The southern empire claims that the tribes of the jungle are the descendants of criminals from the empire who were cast into it for particularly heinous crimes. The tribes believe that it is the empire's people who come from criminal stock, being banished from the jungle for particularly heinous crimes and that the tribespeople are the originals.

>the nomads are dog riding kobolds

The natives have a proud tradition of paragliding?

top tier thread lads

wish i could think of something to contribute but i'm sick right now and mental exercise is strenuous at the moment

They are related to Jews, so yes, disproportionately many people here know about them. Never underestimate 4channer's determination to be able to start a shitstorm at any time.

Soothsayers in the Central Kingdom believe that the shape of a skull determines the characteristics of a person. As a result, birth defects where the skull is misshapen are interpreted as demonic beings.

There is a tradition in some parts of the Western kingdom to duel with your tongue as well. More akin to insult trading, sometimes these escalated to sword duels - while still talking shit about their opponents. It is said the one with the better insults will gain the favor of spirits, even though they died in the duel.

You make giantess threads on /d/ don't you?

I can't see how this can surprise you.

As a consequence of believing that talking or singing can drain the soul, the northerners have no oral tradition, but instead have the oldest system of writing in the known world, and indeed possess several accounts which describe pre-literate central and eastern cultures. The very oldest of their great written eddas are inscribed on great granite pillars, often more than one in longer stories, around which their great libraries and reading halls are built. The greatest of these libraries is situated in the nominal capital of the northmen (or rather, they have centered their capital on this library), and contains no less than thirty such pillars in its central chamber.

No, the inherent violation of the square-cube law infuriates me. I do, however, post in musclegirl threads, not hypermuscle though, that's just nasty.

A man of taste.

The most extreme punishment that can be applied to a northern man is the "casket of flesh". This method of execution, used only in cases of particularly serious crime, involves burying a living man, sewn lips. Not only does the criminal die without having his bones broken, but his lips sewn together prevent, according to his beliefs, his soul from ever being able to leave his body. The men of the North think that in these circumstances, the body becomes an eternal prison for the soul of the deceased, condemned to solitude, confinement and the silence of his coffin until the end of time.