/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

Demonic pics are so cool.

What's wrong with the desert river? Could be a gorge so that the water doesn't irrigate much. As for the western mountains, how can you tell ANYTHING about climate without knowing wind directions?

He said it was an equatorial island. Unless the rotation of his world is different, that means a roughly East to West wind direction. The mountains block the wind, preventing it from delivering rain to the island past them. The only rivers that should form would be on the western side of mountains.

Shit, I meant Eastern. Fuck me, I need a nap.

Ah, I understand your thought pattern now, and agree if that's true. However, , bear in mind that he's right only if you've got a spherical planet with a small axial tilt rotating in the same direction as Earth (i.e. Sun rises in east and sets in west).

Larger axial tilt = bigger seasonal changes
Planet spins westwardly = your biomes are all fucked and need to be reworked
Not a sphere = you work it out

>Demons or Devils?
Both; demons form the endless masses of Hell, while devils rule.

>How Evil does someone have to be to go there?
Depends on which deity they worshiped in life; if they're deemed unworthy of their patron's god afterlife, they go to Hell.

>What is Hell's structure (roots of the World Tree, a giant cave of fire, utter blackness, concentric rings of torment, a cursed city, etc)?
A enormous world of barren wastes, bloodied jungles, lava fields and mountains made of volcanic stone and the fossilized remains of long dead titans, divided in regions according to which sins are punished in each one, and which ruling class command from the black citadel in the center of the world.

>Is Hell one, united faction? Who runs it?
Yes. The supreme ruler of Hell is Asmodai, the Father of Lies, steward to the throne of God of Death (the rightful king of Hell, but he's a god of death who's actually half-dead himself and unable to do shit. Think of Grima and an even more catatonic Theoden).
The thing is that devils (barons, earls, marquises and dukes of Hell) are in almost constant state of war in behalf of their respective leaders, the power-hungry seven devil lords.

He just said equatorial, so I cannot assume a non-Earth like planet. But you're right. If he specified otherwise, the whole thing would be different.

Bump

The oceanic currents are roughly like this if that helps. I probably did fuck up the prevailing winds but there'd still be moisture, yeah?

Anyone making alternate earth or alternate history settings?

What if my setting doesn't have a unified religion?
I know that's a crazy concept

You're not alone...
I don't really quite why people have to go for unified religions, monocultural races, and all that jazz, so often. It just feels so wrong, most of the time...

Wow. No. That's not how those work. Unless your world works differently, but be aware you're basically saying 'A Wizard Did It'. Nothing wrong with that, but you don't need our help if your world isn't working like earth.

>Demons or devils?
Demons. But demons aren't anyone's servants. They are imaginary things made out of folklore. They're an aberration of reality, and they well up out of world-scars created by humanity -- for example, a well-known post-war phenomenon is the apparition of false captains who rape and pillage the way through the now-peaceful countryside. They're quite similar to the idea of ghosts, I suppose, only they can be pretty weird (e.g. a path taken by soldiers destined for genocide turns red and periodically explodes into a trail of marching limbs).

They're no different from many other imaginary things. The only difference between them and gods is that they don't exist.
>If you don't have a direct Hell, what does your setting's Afterlife look like?
I don't know.

It might be that the quality of humanity is eaten by god-machines from above and below the mortal stratum. In that case, the whole purpose of reality is to churn out humanity, which in turn powers the god-machines and accomplishes who-knows-what.

Or humanity coalesces into an emerging embryo. Or possibly, there is no afterlife.

Either way, a false heaven will eventually recreate and preserve all moments of the past, retroactively giving everything an eternal afterlife. Its creator does not judge the deeds of those assimilated into it.

A setting can have a literal, actual Hell with or without/regardless of a unified religion.

If your setting doesn't specify whether any of the gods/faiths are real, then pick one that sounds fun to talk about. If it's a mystery to the mortals, but YOU know what really happens after death, then talk about that.

??? Equatorial countercurrents are totally a thing.

I've done them before. Sometimes they end up being Cape or Magic settings based in an Earth where those things have shook up our history, and sometimes they're just wild extrapolations of history.

Example of the latter, I have a setting where Charlemagne's

Is that supposed to be air or water currents?

Goddamnit posted too early.

Con't.

Charlamagne's grandchildren mostly all die young, leaving only the eldest to keep the empire together. Later generations eventually do away with the Frankish inheritance laws, and 1000 years later we have a world where the Ottomans and the Vikings are fighting over the New World.

Water currents, just like my map.
Did it come off like I meant oceanic *air* currents or something?

I figured that in , with colder water coming along the southwest edge the biome distribution would make sense.

Imagine an island continent, surrounded by a seemingly endless waveless ocean. There's some amount of wind on the continent, but outside it the air speed quickly drops to nothing.

I understand that the day/night cycle causes localised convection currents, but is such a world possible? I really like the aesthetic.

Yeah, looks about right.

>Ottomans
Understandable.
>Vikings
What are you doing.

Hmm. I'm much more familiar with air currents, so sorry about that. Yeah, that's probably alright then. I stand by the eastern rivers being a no no.

Oops. Meant Moors. Moors found the New World trying to bypass their rivals, the Ottomans. Vikings settled in N America and stayed, slowly creating a Scandi-American federation in the Northeast and Great Lakes region. Moors take Central America and South America, with Indian-Vikings in the North and some Japanese and Chinese immigrant nations on the west coast.

>Oops. Meant Moors. Moors found the New World trying to bypass their rivals, the Ottomans.
Oh, I thought you meant Ottoman-splinter-Moors. That is a lot more realistic, though.

The Vikings would presumably change a lot in the intervening years, right?

I need idea for cool fantasy landmarks I have an empty boring map I need to fill

a really big cannon

Only if you don't have a moon.

Definitely. They lost contact for several centuries with Europe during one of the mini ice ages, and so their tech would be behind everyone else's by a bit at first. They would catch up by allying with the eventual English and French settlers, or the Chinese. Native Americans would also loose a lot less to pandemics since they had previous contact with Eurasians in this timeline (75% death rate rather than 99%).

It was a fun little world, but my players are totally disinterested in history, alternate or otherwise, and I could never decide on a good system to run a game. I guess some sort of GURPS or...shudder...D20 Modern would work? Pic unrelated.

>Demons or Devils?
Demons are to devils what spirits are to mortals. Incorporeal nature spirits but inhabiting Hell rather than the World.

>How Evil does someone have to be to go there?
They don't need to be evil. All souls enter the (Angel-ran) Wheel of Rebirth. However, they can be dragged to Hell by demons.

>What is Hell's structure (roots of the World Tree, a giant cave of fire, utter blackness, concentric rings of torment, a cursed city, etc)?

"Bubble" dimensions in a sea of mystical, divine "water".

>Is Hell one, united faction? Who runs it?

Hell was originally ruled by 333 Devil-Emperors. 332 were killed with the last one imprisoned by Angels. Half the Devil-Kings are leading the citizens of Hell in an attempt to invade Heaven and free their emperor. The remaining Devil-Kings are fighting among themselves for hegemony.

>If you don't have a direct Hell, what does your setting's Afterlife look like?

There's Hell, Heaven (which no one can access anymore), Limbo, Purgatory and Reincarnation.
Purgatory is pretty rad. It was originally a place where souls were tortured in ways that fit their vices but the management changed so now it's a place where souls indulge in their vices (there's a huge casino for gamblers, a gladiatorial arena for bloodthirsty sadists, etc.).
Limbo is for gods, spirits and other celestials only (until they can get back into Heaven).
Hell is all over the place but mostly terrible.

>Demons or Devils?
Yes.
>How Evil does someone have to be to go there?
Not particularly. Their soul just needs to be owed to a demon. Some demons have taken a place in the cosmic order as the antithesis of a god, and the fallen faithful of that god instead go the the demon.
>What is Hell's structure (roots of the World Tree, a giant cave of fire, utter blackness, concentric rings of torment, a cursed city, etc)?
It is in the very center of the world and it's built upon the inside of a sphere, in the very center is the abyssal storm, which causes Hell's terribly dangerous and unpredictable weather.
>Is Hell one, united faction? Who runs it?
There are Houses of Hell which are those demons who have placed themselves into the cosmic order and recognize the authority of the House of Flies. There are many demons who don't recognize this authority and rule their own independent city-states. The nominal ruler of Hell is Asmodeus, but his seat is currently empty as he slumbers somewhere below his palace in Pandemonium, the captial city of Hell.

Song of Swords would've been my go-to desu.

How does it do gunpowder? And how crunchy is it? My players crave options.

On my setting Demons invented banks, global economy and unified currency as a way to control humanity (Lawful Evil). They act like bankers and insurance sellers trying to scam you with crooked contracts.

>Demon/Devil
I've always been partial to one 'devil' running the show as the baddest bad, with some contender demons and then tiers of demons throughout hell and stuff

>How Evil
Not necessarily evil, anyone can do up a teleportation ritual or summon a demon, magic is understood and predictable to an extent even if you know there are side effects that you cant always mitigate, like the fact that you might get stuck in hell if you did a bad squiggle that turned you upside down and you fell like 40 feet with no way to get back to your portal because its on the ceiling

>structure
Sort of like an anthill, with more structured tiers. Think of any environment with like, 50/50 tree to open fields, and replace the trees with pillars and caves and shit, all centered around a huge vertical shaft that leads up and down towards the center of hell. The cave/pillar density varies of course, with plains towards the top and huge floor-to-ceiling pillars pockmarked with caves like a termite mound

>who runs it?
The big bad devil, but through apathy or a lack of true omniscience further you get from his actual throne, the more shit you can get away with that he'd normally want a cut of. It rarely gets too big to put down, and the further you get from the throne the further you get from like, an abundance of damned souls so you just plain cant keep up with people that operate radically nearer the deeper planes of hell, with the drawback of the boss (or one of his more loyal thugs) knocking your head in for trying to start some kind of rebellion or whatever.

Its not like there is a normal day to day life where souls = money, but its fairly close to like, oil money, in a way.

Powerful demons are normally people who've spent eons getting stepped on, so they try to ascend as far from that as possible, torturing as many people as they can on the way out of spite.

>If you don't
I do.

I've been bitten by the space fantasy bug.

Dis > Pandaemonium
It handles early gunpowder well, but the spin-off/splatbook Ballad of the Laser Whales is better for later stuff.

It's super crunchy, albeit with narrativist elements (exp awarded on fulfilling narrative and character goals); overall it's a simulation of historical life, though.

So have I. There's no lotion for the rash.

>Ballad of the Laser Whales
Fuck it. Sold.

>What is Hell like in your setting?
My setting doesnt have a single religion, but the most "prevalent" religion is Omniscience, a religion practiced by a very powerful and spiritual spacefaring nation. They believe in something called the Familial Void. Omniscience is a religion which worships connections, beleiving that connections with other life forms bring one closer to the Omnibus which I made up by looking on my bookshelf looking for a diety name in the heat of the moment which is a god that represents the souls of all people.
Now, since heaven is essentially being connected to everyone, and experiencing all of life at once in infinite bliss, hell is the exact opposite. The Familial Void is nothingness. Blackness without the color black. It is a complete disconnect from all things. It is what humans fear the most, what we cannot possibly fathom - it is the nothingness when we die. The complete oblivion that humans cannot even imagine, and make up realms to substitute for.
At least, that's what the Omniscient Church believes.
>>Demons or Devils?
No Devils, but there are demons - in the form of ill-wills or intentions, believed to be transmitted from people to people like viruses. Such things as ignorance, hate, and suspicion are all 'Demons' though they carry a slightly more spiritual meaning rather than the analogy in our language, as they are believed to indeed be live entities with wills.
>>How Evil does someone have to be to go there?
Killing gets you close - but it's complete dispassion and heartlessness that guarantees a practitioner of omniscience a spot in the Familial Void. Not just complete disconnection, but active disconnection of others through violence, hatred, or otherwise.
>>What is Hell's structure (roots of the World Tree, a giant cave of fire, utter blackness, concentric rings of torment, a cursed city, etc)?
The utter blackness one
Cant really answer the other questions

A really small cannon. It's an attraction.

>its fairly close to like, oil money, in a way
What I meant is:

Its fairly close to how oil, and the wealth that comes with it, is presented in There Will Be Blood, but instead of it only being so dramatic for the purposes of the movie, the soul industry and wealth/power that comes with it is literally the only thing that matters, and if you cant secure some kind of wealth of it, you'd better succumb to some dark lord and toil in a foggy wood somewhere abducting little village boys once every thirty years, but for the meantime in the thirty years you wait between boys you're just supposed to toil away in jim henson's idea of hell, where whatever lord presiding over you just pops in to watch you suffer for his amusement taking part in festivals he made up just to see you go through the motions, and you cant leave because whoevers got you by the balls wrapped his whole corner of hell in a labryrinth, or acidic fog, or its a big ass castle or whatever.

The alternative, if you don't allow yourself to get trapped in some evil dudes playhouse for eternity, is to just fuck off away from everyone, but that rarely comes up if you know whats good for you, because I always like when settings are self aware to be like "well I know I'm a demon lord and I should go take care of the fact that there have been paladins trickling in and widening inter-planar gaps in the outer reaches of my realms so they can gather wizards together to bring siege engines into the planes of hell, but I welcome the challenge if those fuckers are crazy enough to pull it off, so I'll just throw retarded goons at these adventurers that come through and see how far they get"

Both of these.

>Demons or Devils?

Both are basically the same thing, slight differences

>How Evil does someone have to be to go there?

Just a little, but its not so bad and even better than heaven depending on where you go

>What is Hell's structure (roots of the World Tree, a giant cave of fire, utter blackness, concentric rings of torment, a cursed city, etc)?

It takes the form of the body of a giant animal, its different depending on the part, the stomach is the part that looks more like stereotypical fire and brimstone hell

>Is Hell one, united faction? Who runs it?

There was one Satan analogue that was like a father to all demons but he disappeared and caused a massive power vaccum, but most demons actually work together in a complex bureucracy he left behind and most are actually honorable and happy to fill in their role

Also, they work along with heaven who also lost its Supreme God analogue but they put a strong Demiurge-like angel in his place, while he has no power over demons they are honorable and work hard to keep hell up to the standards of heaven which are not really that high

Your setting sounds pretty boring, in a "everything's alright actually, and nothing's really going wrong" sense. How do you make it interesting?

Its more of an "error in the machine" issue than direct confrontation, everything is fundamentlly fucked up, hell is grim and decadent but cozy and livable, heaven is glorious and fulfilling but its a dangerous proving ground

Demons struggle with being forced in an improvised post-modern lifestyle they were not meant to rather than petty but purposeful evil

>Demons struggle with being forced in an improvised post-modern lifestyle they were not meant to
That's pretty interesting. What's this for? It sounds more like you've made it for a story than a roleplaying game, although I don't know shit about it.

>Devils and Demons are TWO different things in a setting

I hate this fucking meme.

I actually originally though it for a videogame idea back when I was trying to get into the indie dev scene, the funny thing is that the game was supposed to be a surreal take on the history of Mexico in which the afterlife wasnt going to be that important (just a little minigame in which you had to fight out of hell before being revived) but I got sidetracked

It is a very bad meme, yes.

>[entire sub-setting] wasn't going to be that important
iktf
>back when I was trying to get into the indie dev scene
also that

Eh, the two names can mean the same thing, but so many people come up with so many different things for each it's become a justified meme in a lot of games.

Devil is just the name of the boss demon, sometimes a different class of demon, like angel and archangel, notcounting the higher angel tiers.

>but so many people come up with so many different things for each
No? It's a thing in D&D, but you never really see it elsewhere. Most people don't even use the word "devil" to mean anything but .

To be fair in D&D the distinction is only there for convenience because of the alliegance, all the actual differences between devils and demons are product of the whims of Asmodeus, were it not for him all demons would be chaotic beasts as it was back when Zargon was the ruler of Baator

I meant more that Demon and Devil conjure different images. Demons have a lot of linguistic connections with other things (Daemon), and Devil is very tightly tied to one specific infernal being.

Honestly, I tend to think of Demons as closer to evil Ghosts somedays.

The entire realm of Hell was imprisoned by Terran after sacrificing himself, it is not a place people are sent as they believe in reincarnation. Only a handful of people have actually fucked up hard enough to get into hell. The first guy to actually get sent to hell is going to lead The Wild Hunt during the apocalypse

>Demons have a lot of linguistic connections with other things (Daemon)
Yeah but your average person hasn't even heard of daemons.
>and Devil is very tightly tied to one specific infernal being.
Exactly.

Most people would say the Devil is, in some capacity, the head honcho demon. The word "devil" has kinda lost its meaning as "demon".
>Honestly, I tend to think of Demons as closer to evil Ghosts somedays.
I reckon that's a bit of a unique perspective desu.

>I reckon that's a bit of a unique perspective desu.
Really? I always felt like Demon was used for any sort of exorcist, possession, or haunting story. At least more often than Devil. Hell (lol) I always felt like Demon also gets used a lot more often in other cultures as opposed to Devil, and so gets conflated with a larger variety of monsters.

Demon does get used a lot more than devil. Like I said, devil usually refers to the specific Satan (at least, in my corner of the world). Demon takes the place of all other evil Christian-derived (and other) spirits. In a Veeky Forums context, I'd guess most people think of generic dark and fiery bad guys with spikes, horns, and weird curvy swords (and btw they come from hell).

Although that doesn't apply to these threads so much, because most of us are snowflakes with snowflake settings (myself included).

In a Veeky Forums sense, as much as the memes would tell you otherwise, EVERYONE here has played D&D. Probably 3.x. So they all know Demons and Devils are two different things, with a concrete definition for each. So it makes sense to ask the original OP question.

As depressing as that might make you.

Like the world of KSBD but with a bit more asian mythological focus. demons are something left outside the master plan of the world, so they live on a plane of inverted topography from the mortal world. it's overcrowded, and since demons don't really die (or rather find it harder to) there's a LOT of them.

>So they all know Demons and Devils are two different things
--in one specific game which, given Veeky Forums's (laudable) contrarian-ness, everyone is well aware of the weirdness of.

Honestly, I think Warhammer's 'daemons' are much more influential.

Sure, I'm not trying to tear into the OP for daring to ask such a badwrongfun question, but it's still weird to have devils and demons be two different things. It means you're very clearly cribbing off D&D.

Oh yeah, it's a really stupid meme. Doesn't change the fact that it's a meme, everyone knows it, and it makes communication of concepts faster than trying to explain the idea in full.

>It means you're very clearly cribbing off D&D.
Shit my man, that's all Veeky Forums ever was!

Adjusted a good number of the non-central rivers to be more natural (IE without splitting randomly). Hopefully less shit now.

Looks good but the 'bridges' between your peninsulas and the main continent could be a bit thicker, especially the middle right

I assume you're referring to the red circles and not the orange ones?

How apt, I've only done the metaphysics so far
>>Demons or Devils?
There are demons, and there is the devil
>>How Evil does someone have to be to go there?
Its a random thing if you end up there or heaven if angels haven't taken an interest in you
>>What is Hell's structure (roots of the World Tree, a giant cave of fire, utter blackness, concentric rings of torment, a cursed city, etc)?
It's an ocean and all the demons are super predatory sea life, with the devil being a sort of planet wide kraken/leviathan. There is land near the poles and that's where very small human settlements are.
>>Is Hell one, united faction? Who runs it?
Yes, the Devil
>>If you don't have a direct Hell, what does your setting's Afterlife look like?

The bottom orange and the top red, specifically. That said, the bottom red looks a bit weird as well, but I think that's the fault of how thick the bottom red peninsula is, not because of how thin the bridge is. I'd make it an archipelagio or a big island or something, but that's just me.

>Demons or Devils?
Daemons are evil spirits. Most take form of humanoid creatures made of lava, iron or blood, since those are most readily available, but not all. Daemons come from three sources - corrupted natural spirits, souls of evil or sacrificed mortals, and pure daemons born out of Devil's hatred.

There is one Devil, who is evil incarnate.

>How Evil does someone have to be to go there?
Its matter of faith. If you worship the Devil, you go there and become a daemon after a few years of torment (as all good is purged from the soul). Unless you screw up real big or Highfather's priests consecrate your corpse, then the torment lasts for centuries until the soul is basically obliterated.
If you worship the Highfather, you have to be pretty evil to be cursed into there, in which case you get a boatload of torment and obliteration.
The above concerns mostly humans, since other races have their own deities.
However anyone can end up in Hell and become a daemon, if they are sacrificed to the Devil. Unless a deity intervenes, but that's hard.

>What is Hell's structure (roots of the World Tree, a giant cave of fire, utter blackness, concentric rings of torment, a cursed city, etc)?
Hell is ye olde lava and brimstone abyss.
It is actually underground, in alternate version of planet's core. Volcanoes can be used as gateways there (though you have to be a daemon to survive the journey.
In the centre is trapped the devil, who looks like a tremendous sphere of charcoal with screaming faces spawning on its surface - at least that's how mortals can perceive it. Daemons say it is much more.

>Is Hell one, united faction? Who runs it?
Nobody knows, probably not united. But all daemons are born by Devil's will, so they all perform his will.
They can't even consider usurping him (not that its possible).

my setting has a God and Devil, complete with Hell and (probably) Heaven (nobody ever came back to testify), but while Devil IS evil incarnate, God may just as well be just another deity, which there's plenty of. One of dominant human religions teaches that God has created the world as a prison for the Devil and most of His power is tied trying to keep the Devil imprisoned, but there're other creation myths and, say, Elves just politely nod and change the topic.

Those other deities and races all have their own afterlives, and probably their own little purgatories, independent of the actual Hell.

make planet tidally locked to a gas giant - they either orbit the start with same angular velocity (not sure if that's physically possible tho...) or the planet is gas giant's moon with really fast orbital velocity, so its day and orbiting period are equal.

So gas giant is not visible from the continent, but anyone who travels far enough is in for a surprise.

And the tidal lock will keep most of the water accumulated on the far side of the world, leaving the ocean on continent side rather calm, I'd imagine.

DISCLAIMER: what I wrote probably constitutes a crime against science

I have a problem.

>Merchants from a large kingdom [1] want to reach trading city [2] and wealthy lands to the east of it [7] and [8].
>The normally take the road that goes through a valley [3], which goes between highlands [4] and impassable rocky ridge [5]
>Problem is, highlands [4] are inhabited by raiders and bandits, and no army can get there without terrible terrible losses, so the bandits are safe from retribution.
>Alternatively, the merchants take the ships to port city [6], even though the route is endangered by raiders and pirates, and they have to arrange for ways to cross the rivers [7] if they want to get to the trading city [2]

I need a good reason why the merchants wouldn't use a very good coastal route [9].
Their kingdom is strong enough to squash any small enemy, and coast doesn't offer same protection as nigh-impassable highlands.

Any ideas?

Time, despite risks, the harsh lands is just faster, that would be a good reason. Also, why can't the kingdom fortify and make some sort of permanent action aginst the bandits?

>The normally take the road that goes through a valley [3], which goes between highlands [4] and impassable rocky ridge [5]
Unless the distance is extremely short it will always be cheaper, faster and safer for [1] to ship goods to [6] by sea and then cross short distance to [2], [7] and [8] by land

hm, I haven't considered that.

Let's say the pass is quite long, so you can't just fortify it all, and bandits not just manage to rob caravans still, but also wage guerrilla war on the strongpoints, disrupt supply lines, so after time it was deemed too big a loss of resources for too little gain and the garrisons were removed. The ruins of the strongpoints can still be found in the valley, that'll be a nice touch.

so I just have to bend [5] and [9] out into the sea more, I guess so that [3] is significantly shorter. Okay.

Well, if it doesn't work then there isn't much reason to not take the safe route.

>Demons or Devils?
"Demons" is a title reffered for those who served the void in life and have been rewarded by the void lord in their afterlife.
>How Evil does someone have to be to go there?
The void accept whoever is looking for answer and power, but even for the luxurius and those hungry for knowledge. Very few by the way have accepted it by themself, and it's more likely to be. Very few know the secrectsof the afterlife
>What is hell structure?
Is a distorted version of our own reality that exist in another plane of existance. It's a perpetual land of darkness and desolation, able to drive insane those who are damned to it, and full of demons and slave of the void lord
>Is hell united?
Hell is driven by the void lord (name not defined). During the ancient ages in his attempt to create life he destroyed the ancient garden and went mad. For this reason, by the sacrifice of all the other ancient he was imprisoned in another plan of existance, where he rule as king. His phisycal for exists in our dimension and it's the only way for it to influences our reality
>Afterlife?
There's still a small bit of the ancient garden that still exist, but only those who are worth can enter it. Most of the human lifes are damned to the void with nothing to do about it

>I guess so that [3] is significantly shorter
The sea route has to be ten times longer than the land route for it to be less profitable. Given the high safety cost for hiring guards/bribing bandits I don't see that land route ever being viable before raiders are killed and [4] is subjugated.

>>If you don't have a direct Hell, what does your setting's Afterlife look like?
The dominant thinking in the tetrarchical religion is that there isn't really such a thing as an afterlife. When you die your spirit returns back to the Gods (allthough a piece of an individual's soul is removed whenever at procreation) and your body serves as fertiliser for the continued prosperity of the divines' food source which is prayers and reverence. By giving nutrients to the earth you assure the future wellbeing of the human population which is the source of said god-fuel. Some tetrarchical sub-sects have however adopted some of the lower cults' notions of an afterlife. It's fair to say that this divergence of opinion have lead to some amounts of disputes and inner turmoil throughout the years which eventually will lead to a a proper splitting of the faith down the line.

To illustrate, this red line is a faster and cheaper route than [3] and [9]

hm, and the bigger gulf is too busy to just handwave it with pirates and sea monsters... crap.

>Demons or Devils?
Demon is the term used for supernatural entities that aren't gods but either their servants or some of their earlier creations that were formed either before the world's creation or in its youth. An example of the latter would be the sea giants that were said to be cause of the apocalyptic end of the [proto-tyranian] empire.
There's some scholarly debate regarding whether or not the almost mythical dragons should be counted as demons or not.

Given the talk, I'm assuming this is a fantasy setting:

Cut the sea monster/pirate stuff and go with an amphibious race with a small civilization living underwater near the coastline. They largely leave [1] alone due to difficulties waging war on land, but a fully able to launch raids on [9] and can demand heavy tariffs and other fees for ships traveling from [1] to [6]. Since they dwell underwater, kingdom [1] is unable to meaningfully deal with them on a permanent basis.

This forces merchants to take [3], as the sea going route is prohibitively expensive, and the land bound bandits are something local patrols can mitigate, unlike the aquatic raiders.

I want to include a few bestial races to avoid too human-dominated world.
How do I avoid making them furry shit?
Is making them bloodthirsty and brutal enough? Or giving them a detailed and original culture, so people stumbling upon them notice the culture first?

>How do I avoid making them furry shit?
Nigger you have more important things to worry about than the possible insults hurled at you on Veeky Forums. If you're not a furry, and you're not aiming to make it furryshit, it's probably not gonna be furryshit.

the northern river looks awkward

the NE river is a problem, as mentioned before.
it is also very straight for a 1000km waterway.
it lines up with the river on the other side of the bay/gulf, which looks funny even though it can happen in the real world

if you add tectonic plate lines and lowlands you can see where your rivers will flow

dont give them big kawaii eyes, dont give them multicolored fur, and dont sexualize them. that's pretty much it. people who are going to shout about furfaggotry over anything are as insufferable as furfags themselves

Besides the obvious stuff that said, just treat them like any other race. When you designed elven culture, you might have considered their long lives, or their predisposition to magic as important factors. When you consider crabfolk culture, you think about how their hard carapaces, the moulting cycle, and their aquatic nature affects their development.

The way I do it is by just flatly not talking about sex and copulation. If players press for details, I make up some generic shit. That said, you can make a big deal out of weddings or the EVENT of childbirth; just avoid talking about how they barbed penises or their rampant (legitimate) rape culture.

>two sentient species would probably trade and be friends but they can't talk to each other, due to not being able to make sounds of each others' languages
>of course they can use writing and can learn each others' languages, just not speak them

how would it affect their relationships

It’s a barrier to empathy, which means outside of mutual defense the two races will never have that close a relationship. It can be cordial, but the barrier still exists.