/wbg/ - World Building General

Are you the user who's plant elves swim through sap veins in the trees?

Also do they look more like Floran or Triffids? (Anthropomorphised or not)

What does /wbg/ do for creation myths for races? Are all races created by their relative gods at the same time? Are some gods more powerful and older, and create servants to worship them?
What about a race 'evolving' from another race?

I've been thinking about having elves and dragonborn as the first races in my setting. The dragonborn as a slave race to serve the whims of ancient dragons, similar to this user And the elves being created by the god of order and knowledge of my main pantheon.

In the past (in my dropped settings mind you) I have a creation myth individual to each race which features only themselves, and is their core belief regarding the matter, seperate from a universal true creation myth. I often add further myths propogated by various religions and cults which place races differingly regarding cosmological importance, say for example one myth might feature Elves, Humans and Dwarves but no Kobolds, Goblins or Orcs so they become looked down upon by the sacred races. In response a religion may show up vice-versa, and animosity can grow between the two (It's a great way of creating minor regional conflict).

I suppose it all depends on how you do gods though. Polytheism or Monotheism is probably the greatest affector. Forgoing the creation myth is always worth considering, having the races evolve naturally and then create the gods through fervent belief and dedication, or fall to corruption, hedonism or 'sin'. WH40k, the Eldar's role in the creation of Slaanesh in particular, is the archetypal example of this.

What are some good ideas for macguffins that badguys are trying to gather so they can do something bad?
>seven magical orbs that grant a wish when gathered
>four (or eight?) crystals that, when gathered, open the way to the moon, where an unimaginable power slumbers, waiting to destroy all life on the world
>the pieces of an ancient war machine that an evil empire wishes to rebuild and use it to dominate the world
>the pieces of an ancient weapon or suit of armour that, when reassembled, will makes its wielder invincible
>the words to a phenomenally powerful spell that will rend the fabric of reality itself or summon something horrible
>the lyrics and notes to the song that will end the earth
>the pieces of a key that will open a dark entity's prison

They're drugged up fungus zombies. Thing is in my setting elves had this whole complicated society of bioengineering and magical immortality centered around their relation to a tree of life and the race of dryads associated with it. Long story short, the tree was poisoned, the immortality granting nectar it bled became a narcotic, and an insane race of maenads replaced the dryads. They parasite off the elves, who are forced into an addictive slavery to the narcotic world tree nectar, and are used as incubators for more maenads; a reversal of the setting's normal elf-dryad relationship. The maenads function as the matriarchs of dark elf society, but they're not even actual elves nor do they even give birth themselves. They're just dopplegangers that infect others with their spores which seize their minds ala cortyceps fungi. Their society roughly functions like typical D&D drow in day to day life, their true natureis just...stranger. It probably sounds more complicated than it is cause I'm shit at explaining things, but it's all just an evolution of setting specific pecularities.

Whilst the second of your list really appeals because I love the setting of FFIV, I think out of them the third is probably the one you can get the most out of. The rest would be extremely hard to balance was my immediate thought but there is more to my reasoning than that. I think it would be cool if the war machine was designed something like Dalamud from FFXIV ARR, but basically a colossal fuck-off airship, bigger than a town and capable of causing damage on the scale of a normal (non-Bahamut) Megaflare with a single shot of whatever ludicrous weapon you decide to attach to it. The best McGuffin is one that won't instantly destroy the world, as mutually assuring your own destruction is never a good thing, because people will inevitably decide death is better than eternal tyranny and rebel, at which point you realise you can't supress them with it without destroying yourself making it ultimately pointless. Summoning is never a good idea either, if the entity is unintelligent you won't have any control over it; if it's sapient it will likely turn on you and assert itself as ruler (provided it is malevolent as implied). Immortality and one-shotting weapons are a awful cliche and you should never ever put them in your setting, lest it to turn into a snowflake powerfantasy normiefest.

All in all though I think McGuffins are a stupid idea and need to stop being used fiction. There are only two I can think of that were used well and they are Melange and PyRE.

There is, not common but also not unheard of by most of the population. Technically anything can be a magic item, since magic is runic and requires the right inscribing and magic to power it. The most common forms are those used by mages, since they are some of the few that know how to manipulate tge winds to power spells. Due to this, and the inherently unpredictable nature of magic, people still rely on more mundane means.

Another much sought after source is enchanted weapons found in Ogre tumuli. Many dating back thousands of years to the time of the Stone Lords, these burial sites hold the possessions of honored leaders. At the center sits the Ogre's prized weapon, usually made of stone and etched with runes and spells. Such prizes have sat, absorbing magic that have seeped from the ground, allowing to be enchanted without the need to empower them with outside magic. Weapons still in good condition fetch a high price, especially by the now freed Ogres, looking to return to their roots.

Do they count if they are the only elves? I don't have good or noble elves.

>What have you done differently with your Dark Elves if you have them?
While I kinda like drow society, I think I only want the noble houses of the very few cities and strongholds to be like that. Most of them will live kinda like goblins in the upper caves just below the surface, where biomass is more common. They are more savage and tribal, and tied to vermin for survival (chitin armor, poisons, mounts/war beasts). The frequently raid or hunt on the surface at night, emerging from remote or hidden caves. At least that's what I've been toying with. Actually, it kinda makes me think they could just be goblins, like that movie Epic from 2013?

I've also had the idea of just making them vampires (pale, evil, insane elves who live underground).

I don't want to keep the standard underdark races, at least not as they are. I want less creatures with darkvision and more with tremorsense, blindsense/sight, scent, etc.

Cont. A resource is probably the best way of doing this when setting building, whether it be an element, e.g. Dilithium in Star Trek, or a natural product, Whale Oil in Dishonored. This way you create an interesting core to build your technological structure around and a realistic cause for conflict.
I also came to realise that both my examples from the end of post one are actually examples of resources, my bad.

Sounds like the Falmer from The Elder Scrolls. Is this just coincidental or are you deliberately aiming for such a concept?

>>>Are there magical items/artifacts (read enhanced/precursor tech if not fantasy) in your setting?
Yes
>>How, and by whom, are they forged/manufactured?
Humanity was brought to the Andromeda galaxy by a race of highly advanced humans called the Nordics. Described in ancient religous lore as "Old and Gold" the Nordics were on the verge of mastering quantum manipulation when the sudden and unexpected uprising of artificial lifeforms that they created forced them to flee to the Andromeda galaxy on a one way trip. Unable to return to the milky way galaxy, the Nordics eventually devolved and their technology and settlements degraded, the history of their existance being dissolved through innumerable colonies. However, their exist locations in the star cluster where Nordic tech can still be found, buried under eons of build-up. Manufactured using impossibly sophisticated methods now lost, Nordic artifacts and technology is some of the most sought after.
>>Are they common (like in Eberron) or rare (like in Middle Earth)?
Nordic sites are incredibly rare. Some are buried under mountains, or submerged under oceans. Genesis Ships, vessels lost in the first voyages to the star cluster remain dormant in the Grey Dimension, are sequestered away in the folds of deep space, and contain self-arranging labyrinthine architechture that can extend for miles inside the hull. Even once uncovered, these ancient relics of colonies, spacecraft, and cryo-tombs are filled with traps, ancient defense androids, and even hives of Ethnoid soldiers, genetically engineered soldiers designed to probe into the human mind and turn the brain into mush through psychic powers.
>>How do they impact society / the economy (if in any siginificant way)?
To find a Nordic relic can change ones life - it can spark planet-wide conflicts, enrich one's wealth by a thousand fold, and elevate in power anyone who would have access to the arcane technologies found within one.

How do you start the process of creating your actual setting? Nailing down the Gods, lands, and nations? Naming and settling the races? How do you move from the idea stage and actually get to work?

That's fair, and I appreciate the input. I'm glad you like FF4, because that's what I plan on heavily emulating in the next game I run. Like the race for the crystals in that game, I want a race for whatever it is the badguys are after in my game.

Well, you've gotta start somewhere. Start with a land. What's the land like? Who lives there? This will probably be your dominant society. Then, what do they believe in? How do they live? It all branches off from there.

I vomit ideas and then I blend them together. Really messy. Works well though.

Well thanks, i'll have to read the book version of Oz, everyone is familiar with the movie (which incidentally inspired my kingdom of napoleon complex halflings) but I've never read the book.

I've got similar ideas for the other three kinds of elves, but I feel the Land/Wood Elves are pretty weak in their depiction right now.

They're basically Elves that want nothing to do with the politics or shadow war between the High and Deep/Dark Elves. They're also well established in the greater world, and more connected to the land and nature.

>Do they count if they are the only elves? I don't have good or noble elves.

Yes, i'm just interested in how you depict that sort of concept.

I start with the character of the world, Will it be primordial or some peaceful landscape dotted with societies , or maybe a world with landscape dotted with lost technologies. That tends to influence how I design the world , characters, and stories.

Actually meant for

>Are there magical items/artifacts (read enhanced/precursor tech if not fantasy) in your setting?

Yes

>How, and by whom, are they forged/manufactured?

They were created by an old pantheon of gods which has since forsaken the mortal races, though some were created by exceptionally powerful mages and wizards, which are also rumored to be gone from the world

>Are they common (like in Eberron) or rare (like in Middle Earth)?

For the most part they are very rare, so much so that they are rumored to be fake, even though one exists within the human capital

>How do they impact society / the economy (if in any siginificant way)?

Being that they are so rare they don't have a large impact on society directly, though if found it can make the user nearly unstoppable. They are also priceless due to their rarity, though most nobles and collectors put a large enough price on it that someone greedy enough would end up parting with something that could make them more powerful than anyone could comprehend

One example is a shield called Rescinded Glory; it was a gift from the god of Honor, Justice, and Courage to a brave knight. The shield had a magical ward that blocked every blow, including any magic that might be used against the knight. When the gods disappeared the magical ward was altered and weakened to the point that the shield now either blocks a strike completely, as it always has, or allows the strike to pass through the shield as if it were never there.

Another example is a staff that was created by the goddess of beauty which is a brilliant chromatic staff adorned with an eyeball. When anyone except the wielder of the staff is within a certain proximity they are compelled to look at the eye. If they make eye contact, which is nearly inevitable, they will begin to obey every command of the user.

It sounds to me they're better suited as a sort of goblin. It kind of misses the sort of beauty and wonder elves are, which is the whole point of using them.

Now what you can totally do, is connect your Dark Elves to your goblins as the same sort of being, but the elves are basically goblins suffused with glamour and enchantment to make them beautiful and powerful. Kind of like Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth. Incredibly beautiful masters of ugly hordes, but they both bear the same kind of name.

So do they have a weird hivemind thing going on with the fungus, or is it part of their nobility or faith with a ritual or sacrament? Do they take hallucinogenic shrooms? Are they hallucinogenic shrooms with disorienting and illusionary magic?

This.

I vomit and shit out ideas, stick em in a folder, and mash them together later to see what works together. I also steal liberally.

I'd go with Land Elves over Wood Elves personally; what I'd do with them is have them with a hegemony over huge swathes of perpetually fertile fields (created via their cultivation and weather manipulation magic) on which they produce highly-sought medicines. This is why they have great connection with the rest of the world as everybody wants to have the healthiest army, look at the effect of hygeine and healthcare on the Roman army to see just how much it matters. Maybe the land elves act as an international peacekeeper and aid force that goes in to help civilians, they can be like the UN and provide a neutral haven in which to attempt to settle disputes non-violently. Ideal comfy faction/place for your setting, even the most grimdark needs one for contrast.

That's a bit too unified for what I had in mind. They're the most varied kind of elf, and their lands can be found throughout the world. They left the elven homeland before any other kind of elf, and established themselves wherever they pleased, usually somewhere in the wilds, or on the barrier between the wild and civilization.

Dark elf as in the selfish and arrogant side of elves, like Warhammer dark elves, instead of Drow.

They're an artificial race, only 200~ years old. They were created by humans experimenting with alchemy and goblins. They ended up creating skilled, biologically immortal, superior slaves that were completely sterile. When the humans empire was thrown into chaos, the elves lead a revolt in the east and took over, then immediately re-enslaved the goblins, having to rely on them and the alchemy labs to produce more elves.

>Are there magical items/artifacts (read enhanced/precursor tech if not fantasy) in your setting?
Most magic items are just items that have lasted for a long time and have a long history of use. But there are a few that are genuinely magic and have otherworldy powers.
>How, and by whom, are they forged/manufactured?
Shamans are the only ones who end up creating magic items because of the sacrifice needed to make their magic work. If an especially powerful shaman isn't present, several shamans can "daisy-chain" their powers to create such an item. Magic is channeled from the spirit-world by shamans using human sacrifices as avenues for the energy to enter into an item.
>Are they common (like in Eberron) or rare (like in Middle Earth)?
Exceptionally rare, owing to the heavy investment of time and energy. Plus a shaman runs the risk of dying if they make a mistake.
>How do they impact society / the economy (if in any siginificant way)?
Since they require such a heavy investment, magic is shunned and magic-users are seen as having a death wish or crazy. But magic items do get used by heroes on occasion in order to kill especially tough or supernatural enemies. There's a running legend that anyone who uses a magic item is cursed and will suffer an early death, so users beware.

>Are there magical items/artifacts (read enhanced/precursor tech if not fantasy) in your setting?
Yes.
>How, and by whom, are they forged/manufactured?
Three ways: 1) And extradimensional being added power to an item (by contract or whim), 2) a learned Wizard took the time to weave an enchantment into the item's construction and/or used rare magical materials, and 3) It Just Happened. Magic is poorly understood by even the GODS, so is it any wonder that a sort of nebulous "Force" just seems to occasionally "Magic" things? First category items are POWERFUL, but tend to only do, like, one thing. Second category have far, far less power, but are better optimized to do more than one thing. And third category is a total wildcard. Might be useful, might be useless. Might make a breeze smell like cookies or sink landmasses. WILD CARD BITCHES.
>Are they common (like in Eberron) or rare (like in Middle Earth)?
First type is rare, second type is common, as is third type. Most spellcasters adhere to international containment rules in Category 3 cases.
>How do they impact society / the economy (if in any siginificant way)?
First type are relics and national treasures. Second type are stupidly valuable commodities, treated like selling high grade military hardware IRL. Third category are treated like a Reactor Breach.

>Are there magical items/artifacts (read enhanced/precursor tech if not fantasy) in your setting?

Yes

>How, and by whom, are they forged/manufactured?

Any person with magic trained in enchanting could make a magic item, or any smith with knowledge of magic and a magic item (or ingredient etc.) in their possession may also be able to transfer magical properties from one item (or set of magical ingredients) to a new one. Complex enchanting is not common and therefore magical items are not hugely common, particularly powerful ones, but many mediocre wizards sell enchanting services by enchanting mundane items, eg. long lasting no smoke candles. More powerful items are enchanted or created by gods or people genuinely good at enchanting.

>Are they common (like in Eberron) or rare (like in Middle Earth)?

Mundane enchantments are reasonably common among the middle and upper class. Powerful or complex enchantments and magic items are rare.

>How do they impact society / the economy (if in any significant way)?

Wizards may sell their services as an item enchanter, people with no magical talent may attempt to utilize more powerful magical items, otherwise there is generally little interaction with the economy for magical items.

I like the inversion that humans created elves.

Do the goblins chafe under their elf masters or do they think being uplifted to elfdom is a blessing?

I'm struggling to avoid going with the stereotypical depiction, but I'll have one last shot.

So, how about, when they become of age every land elf becomes stricken with wanderlust, so completely enamoured by the concept they dissapear by the end of the day, out in wide world with nothing but their wits they use their innate ability to psychically communicate with animals to partner with one specific species, e.g. birds or wolves or bears, they establish an immutable bond with said animal which then becomes their loyal friend upon whom they depend to survive. They are then compelled with a small mission or pilgrimage from the spirit of the earth and set out to accomplish such, this is a rite of passage to adulthood, and they will only return home once their duty is finished, failure is to dishonour the earth herself and they will burn themselves alive to return their wasted ash back to her should they do so. Along the journey they learn to shapeshift into the form of their companion animal which closens them even more to nature. Through dreams and visitations they learn lessons about how to live a good and respectful life, as well as the hardships of it all through their daily life. Land elf communities all keep shinto-esque shrines to nature, on the gates of which is inscribed the name of every returned adult in memorial of their services to nature. At the end of every year they celebrate here, and are blessed with luck.

Gonna have to stop here for a moment, phone is about to die, I've crammed in as much as possible.

Wrong map; whoops.

Map finalized; thanks to the anons who gave feedback. Now into the dungeon until the homebrew is finished.

I just made it so "dark elves" is just an insult, in my world building idea (which will likely never see the light of day in any capacity) elven society revolves around scholars trying to gain more knowledge about the golden age of mankind (the 1960's) to advance their own societies, and thus are given very favourable funding by the crown as well as other benefits if they can periodically present significant findings, every noble is a scholar basically.
Dark elves are just common working folk, they're elves who do all the hard labour and often get fairly deep tans that contrast very notably with the near-albino skin of scholars, teachers, and anyone not in blue collar work. They're called dark elves by the nobles as a passive aggressive way to distance themselves, it'd essentially be the equivalent of a banker referring to a construction worker as "subhuman scum"

That's a pretty cool idea. Of all elves they’re the closest to their fey God progenitors and I love the idea of an inevitable compulsion to wander. Like land elves live each day in their lands like its their last because they never know when they will just up and leave with their things.

Chafe. The goblins know that elves are a subspecies, since they're not the first. Hobgoblins and bugbears are stable subspecies created from previous experiments. But they don't know about the sterility issue.

There is an active rebellion of goblin vampires and undead empowered by a petty and bitter god of life, but most are still serving the elves, or in free tribes that moved west to the newly formed human empire that tolerates but looks down on them.

>What have you done differently with your Dark Elves if you have them?

I got rid of them and replaced them with Snow Elves. They are the total opposite with their personal glory seeking mentality and haterd of dishonor. There is even ritualistic honorable suicide for those who can no longer with dishonor. Family comes first for these Snow Elves and the idea of kin-slaying is outlandish for most of them. Lying, stealing, stealth, and bargaining are considered taboo to these people. In my setting, if the High Elves represents progress by trying to living with the other races, the Wood Elves represents regression in trying to revive the Elven Empire to enslave others, than the Snow Elves represents stagnation trying to live in a tribalism like how they have since before the time of the Elven Empire.

What makes goblins so susceptible to alchemical mutation?

How did the elves enslave them?

Why specifically the name Snow Elves? Is it because they live in a snowy place?

I have a kingdom of Land Elves that could be Snow Elves. They more live in a castle of ice and slay Frost Giants, though.

Someone in a different thread once mentioned that dark elves could be more like elves that haven't been enlightened or something like that, basically whatever Tolkien described them as.

Personally when I think dark elf I think evil automatically because every single instance of them is that they were a corrupted race of elves or something.

>Look man, I know you just gotta give some folk a chance but the dark elves are just too weird
>I spend like four hours walking through random tunnels looking for anything before I can finally find the city
>Then I spend another three hours just walking around hundreds of glowing mushroom houses trying to find the inn because darkies don't believe in signs and use extremely subtle colour differences to distinguish buildings
>So I'm finally sitting at the inn and the waitress walks up to me asking what I want, now I can't make heads or tails of the menu so I just ask her what's good
>You know what she does, she starts dancing around my table while telling me about their crispy salamander, apparently you're supposed to dance circles around a person if answering a question in dark elf culture
>I want this scene to end so I say "sure, I'll have that and some ale"
>She stops dancing and walks off, I'm sitting there wondering what I've gotten myself into when I notice a group of elves at the other table have their hands behind their backs are are fucking bobbing for their food
>Waitress comes back fast enough with my food, I thank her and before I can react she throws some salt right into my eyes
>I scream out and am immediately assault with dozens of very hard pats on the head (apparently this is an apologetic gesture) as she starts frantically ask "sir, why would you keep your eyes open when I salted you? Are you okay?"
>I put on a very unconvincing smile and tell her I'm fine just to get her to stop hitting my head, despite the fact my eyes fucking burn
>When I look at my food through tears I realize I don't have a fork
>Only got worse from there man, I'm telling you, stay away from dark elves.

Nothing more than they were the most likely candidate. Humans were in power, so no reason to experiment on themselves when you had non-human slaves, ogres were resistant to magic, and giants were too rare and valuable as slaves to risk in experiments.

At this point, its been generations of enslavement that keep them. Originally, goblins were semi-nomadic tribes that wander the southeastern foothills, until the fledgling human kingdoms moved from the west and conquered them. Any tribes not enslaved were small and insular, so the goblins weren't ever able to build a powerbase to challenge the humans. I doesn't help that hobgoblins tend to be emotionally volatile and explosive, and bugbears lack intellegence, so their closest allies are also liabilities.

戦う基準が欲しいんだろ

This feels like pasta. Is it?

No, made it up on the spot

Well, it has the best quality of a pasta. I want to steal it. Great job!

The setting's magic system is based on the existence of these things called Powers. Powers are basically spirits. What they are and what they can do changes from thing to thing. They're difficult to explain succinctly, but they are not complex. An incorrect but easy way to describe them is as the things which power everything.

Magic is the purely mental skill of binding these things to material reality from their firmament. When you do this, you can use the Power like an extra limb, an extension of your will with specific capabilities depending on the strength of your binding and the specific Power and its size. When a Power is used it sinks down in their firmament, becoming "quieter", and over time they float back up, becoming "louder." Emotion is the medium through which one binds their soul (every animal has a soul, openness and clarity are for spirits (natural Powers) and other souls, and reverence is for daemon (abstract Powers).

I digress. You can lock a Power in place. It's easier lock a Power to a place than an object and easier to lock it to something related to it. This makes them louder. But you can also sort of permanently bind a power, called enchanting. So magical items are sometimes a whole Power simply locked to an item. Sometimes very powerful spirits or daemon. For example, there is literally a Book of Knowledge, but the daemon is so huge and deep that nobody has been able to bind it since Armageddon (an ancient war with super powerful wizards). There is The Volcano Stone, created by cooling a volcano enough to make its spirit weak enough to lock (another Armageddon artifact).

But more frequently magical items are enchanted. Like a sword enchanted with a burning effect would be eternally burning. Very inconvenient. Or a cup that never empties, a hat that casts a full body pitch black shadow, a mask that makes your face and head unnoticeable, or a glass eye that can see... In the dark.

>What have you done differently with your Dark Elves if you have them?

Well, they're basically confined to a single company of warriors, for one thing. See, there's Elves, and then there's the Immortals of Oros.

These guys are a sect of elves who made a deal with an evil serpent god to obtain peerless mastery in war by becoming unkillable. They all have a parasitic serpent attached to their navels, which injects a cocktail of adrenaline and magical mutagens into their systems. This causes the skin of their extremities to turn black and scaly, their teeth to become fangs, and their eyes to turn red.

In battle, they fight in phalanx, and thanks to the serpents, they have increased strength and stamina, are so hyped up that they feel no pain, and have a freakish ability to heal--any wound sustained closes in seconds. These abilities come at a price--their hyperactive metabolisms mean they have to eat a lot in order to sustain themselves--and so they rage across the land, bringing slaughter and feasting on the fresh corpses.

All in all, not the friendliest bunch of guys.

Somehow, you made Blelfs cool.

>the absolute madman took my advice
Low key honoured desu

Dark elves are chocolate coloured, so nothing original there, but they're essentially the gypsies (of the roma variety) of elvenkind in how other elves perceive them and partly because of their semi-nomadic lifestyle. I'm not sure if even that is even remotely original either.

Why is her ear attached to her cheek?

One idea I came up with fairly recently was a few artifacts with powerful connections to the Plane of Water. I haven't decided what exactly they all do, but one is a helmet that allows one to cast dominate animal at-will on sea creatures as a spell-like ability (CHA-based save), and another was an entire longboat-style sailing ship capable of submerging and creating an air bubble around itself, as well as casting dimension door (but only to bodies of water, of course). An Aboleth, dying from a powerful curse from a mortal champion of a god, is determined to drown the entire world for the insult that said mortal has dealt him - the only thing that could save this Aboleth from this curse of supernatural aging would be the direct intervention of a god, and for an ageless being whose memory dates to a time before gods existed, the only fate worse than dying from this curse is asking for it to be removed.

The Aboleth now must fear the passage of time, and as a result has become desperate to see it's plan for vengeance through before senility and physical deterioration finish it off. Because of Basically, the Aboleth wants to gather a bunch of powerful artifacts tied to the Plane of Water, unbind the magic imbued in them, and rebind it into a gigantic portal to that plane to siphon an infinite deluge of wateronto the material plane, and then spend what little time it has left demolishing every sunken temple it can, before it's curse finally overtakes it (it loses ability scores from aging at the rate of a goblin, and continues to do so until reaching 0 in one of them and dies).

This could be adapted to any number of big bads: an Efreet that just wants to watch the world to burn, a dragon that bit off more of a Cleric than it could chew, a shaitan intent on rocking our world, get creative.

guys, rate these names for races/kingdoms for a light heart-ish adventure, please:

Swardfolk - giants, smart and hardy, live in plains

Rootling - short-stacks, big ears, eyes and hearts, live underground

Mereborn - beast-men of all kinds, airheads, born from eggs in water, live everywhere

Steelhold - 15 inches tall, prideful, wear full body flying suits and wield super magiks

Hearthkin - mostly-human, like to explore and expand, have some raw magiks

Rootling and Steelhold are bad because of the suffixes.

The last setting I started to build, I started at the beginning. What made sentient life, originally? Horrifying lovecraftian beings in the ocean that were bored enough to elevate primates into various hformsigher , and just dump them wherever to watch them fight for resources. Then these elevated primates hoped & believed in a reason for their inexplicable existence so hard that they accidentally spawned divine beings through the power of groupthink. There are two key premises that form the underpinnings of this setting:

1) All intelligent humanoids share a common ancestor, and were made by nigh-unfathomably powerful sea monsters.
2) Gods are unfathomably powerful thought-constructs, created and maintained by whatever culture spawned them.

From here, we may create an internally consistent setting. Lovecraftian beasties spawned cannon fodder creatures for entertainment, which then spawned something more powerful than said lovecraftian beasties. Some of them want to elevate themselves to this new* level of power, some want to exterminate mortalkind to erase the gods. Few if any mortals know the full truth of this matter

Gods exist as their followers interpret them, and a large enough sect of heretics WILL inevitably change the nature of their deity. This information is a secret known to only the most influential and knowledgeable theologians, and maintaining control of the masses is the number one agenda for these guys. The power obtained from deities is quite real, and spreading the word of said deities creates more power. The consequences of these power dynamics are as terrifying and bloody as your imagination deems necessary.

In summary, creating a logical framework for how your setting's stars & supporting cast came into existence is a great way to build said setting.

Damn it. No unseeing that, is there?

An enitre string of empires collapsing down, the mythical True Fae, the magitek building Eternal Empire, the Elven Empire who can only maintain them and now crumbling, fanatically reactionary elven kingdoms who struggle to maintain a fraction of the wonders left behind.

The precursors had planetary scale teleporters, moonbases, starbases, colonies in alternate dimensions, floating cities, psy-amplfiers, magitek power armor, weather control stations, magitek GPS, magitek drones, subs, death star lasers and a gorillion smaller relic

The mana crystal veins in the planet keep decaying(using standard radioactive half-lives) so most of them are completely depowered by now. Much of them cant even be manufactured by now because important precursor elements and spare parts are lost forever. Some of them even decayed into ruins because their constituent elements couldnt exist in a low-mana environment and sublimated away. Nothing to say about the quantum level spacetime manipulation shit the Fae used, artificial suns, black hole generators, antimatter reactors, probability manipulation etc. which are long gone.

Many of the common relics surface time to time but its very difficult to utilize them effectively, as they lack spare parts, reagents or users manuals. The elves religiously revere them and refuse to use unless absolutely needed while the humans tend to break them down into still useful parts and engineer them into their own technology. This is why funnily enough, humans get the most mileage out of their scraps while earning religious hatred and fury from the elves.

The current storyline is about a human diplomatic mission to a collapsing elven kingdom, mucking around in the ongoing civil war hoping to gain as much loot as possible while directing away elven attention from their own civil war. They came into the posession of an Alpha++ tier relic, the Polaris Crystal which would let them access to a hidden island and the node of the magitek GPS,

>The earth and the wind are mortal enemies
>Earth is losing the battle
>Northerners believe that they are in fact the children of Mother Earth and Father Sea
>Father Sea, however, is seduced by his new wife (and also child;) Sister Wind
>The wind is the religious antagonist of these fjord-living animists

Thoughts?

Yeah, those are the ones that don't sound as snappy as others.
Maybe I should just short them up.
How do Rootlin and Steelhol sound?

Rootlin is fine, but I first missread steelhol as 'Steelboi' and I can therefore not comment on it.

kek
I honestly don't really like Steelhold anyways. Need to think of something else, something metal themed

What made you drop these past settings? Are the creation myths just too particular for each race with too many myths overall hurting the novelty and uniqueness of each of them?
I haven't quite decided on deities yet. I know I like separate pantheons...but I think I want a select group of supremely pwerful gods that all races & cultures acknowledge ruling over smaller gods. This way I don't have the Dwarves saying god X created the world, the Humans saying god Y did, the hobgoblins saying god Z did, etc.

There is magical items in my setting.
They are made through either a long, intensive process throughout the entire process of the item being made (usually, this means a team of mages), the Dwarven method of runic enchanting (which is the origin of enchanting). There's also some intensely rare artifacts from the world's creation that make enchanting easy for one item.
Magical items tend to be rare. There is some exceptions for things that would take less time and effort to make and enchant.
Most of them are priceless, and ones enchanted with one of those rare artifacts tend to become legendary in some way l.

For extra fun stuff, enchanting was partially taught to humans by the dwarves, but they kept most of their secrets (namely, runes) to themselves. Their enchanting is easier, and doesn't have a tendency to explode when the item is broken.

It's more cheeky that way

Because it's a fap pic for retards.

Can someone please give me some Great Lakes-like ideas/inspiration for me to put on my map

Common dark elves are just regular elves addicted to the poisoned nectar. It grants them immortality (which normal elves do not have) but turns their skin black and sterilizes them, and they must continue consuming it or wither away rather painfully. No dark elf is born; they are all captured slaves hooked on nectar.

They are ruled over by the caste of matriarchs who aren't elves, but maenads/corrupted dryads. They look like dark elves but are more like walking shrooms anatomically. These matriarchs select from the commoners individuals to mate with, which for them means flaying you and mixing their spores into your wounds. Once infected, the victim ends up hiveminded to their matriarch, a bond that grows stronger until they're basically just zombies puppeted around by a network of fungus that's replaced most of their innards. They will die eventually in a process that leaves their corpse rooted to the ground, and from the mess of flesh and fungus a new maenad will be born.

This whole system is unsustainable and will eventually bleed the world tree dry of nectar and burn through elves until there are only maenads left, but that's kind of the point. They live in a post apocalyptic fairyland.

I basically do what does and make the true creation myth and then separate myths for each race, vaguely based on the truth but meant more to explain things through the lens of their cultural values. Over time they reimagine their faiths to include others until they all have something that more or less includes everyone important by their world view.

Specific gods are integrated as aspects of another, like for example both the creator storm god worshipped by the orcs and his first child have been meshed into the dominant human faith as aspects of their war god. So when an orc says Durz the storm god created the world and his daughter Magoda made orcs, a human translates that as Baelen the war god had a hand in creation and put more of his essence into orcs than the other gods did, and sometimes he presents himself to them as a whirling ball of lightning called Durz or a flaming mountain named Magoda, sometimes even simultaneously. They're basically trying to puzzle together the true creation myth by sorting the truth out of all the bullshit everyone came up with.

What exactly are you struggling with?

>God/Gods
Ew. Why do people do this? Having Gods present ruins the interesting part about God.

would adventure in

wut

you have a god among gods who tells all their followers "I am the ONLY god all the other gods are bullshit" and its
>exactly like our world except they're real

Make a Lake A
Lake B
and
Lake D

So /wbg/ my world has gotten to the point where I have a stack of papers in stacks of folders and I'm having trouble running the game.

I realized "I need a book of the game" e.g. a 3 ring binder, calendar in front, local maps in their own section, world map in the back for reference.

For those of you who paper is there a better option than literal 3 ring binder and 3 ring punch?

>Why name them Snow Elves?
Yes, because they live in snowy places but their actual name in their native tongue is “Skanii” and are both genetically and culturally distinct from my version of Wood and High Elves. Where as both the Wood and High Elves have the common ancestry with Imperials from the Elven Empire, the Snow Elves have never been a part of this empire, more importantly, they aren’t native to the continent.

The ambiguity is what makes faith and religion interesting. It can be constructed to reflect a people's values, hopes, history, knowledge, etc. and can change, evolve and diverge over time in unexpected ways. When gods are real all that stops and it becomes a divine dictatorship.

Shape. I'm not entirely sure of how to make them in a way that they seem natural

I feel like I should write on some peculiar foodstuff, like desw growing moss/lichen that are poisonous to humans/caowe, but edible to others.

Magical items exist, but they are rare and due to advent of machinery not always warranted, thus modern focus is more on creating effects that are unachievable by technology. Not necessarily powerful, but fitting their niche. Plus, making potent magical item is difficult task of thaumaturgic artisanship. The benefit is that unused items retain magical properties for long time. Magical masterpieces of ancient empires (like those produced by Zere) are not only desired due to their historical value, but function as well.

Just gather some ideas/sketches and start smashing them together.

How does this affect world?

>foodstuff
That’s always a nice touch I like to see in worldbuilding. It makes the world seem fuller somehow.

Honestly, I’d scan that shit and bring an ipad or whatever to game night with everything loaded. It would save you hella fucking time, energy, and back health from not lugging a whole tree around with you in meatspace.

Not necessarily. Elder Scrolls Aedra are confirmed real, yet they don’t intrude on the mortal races’ internal affairs, manifest directly, or seem to mind all the cults and alternate interpretations about (Kyne vs Kinareth).

You just can’t have Greek style shitters mucking about like rapist babies throwing divine tantrums.

That's not Shad though?

For a while I had elves whose minds could be read through eye contact in daylight. Most elves simply loved in their own idyllic communities called Gyey, but it is common for elves to become nocturnal of they live among men or dwarves. These are called Night Elves. Also called Night Elves are the elves of the Dark Gyey, a forest with a canopy so dense that no light at all gets through.

>start with map
>continue map
>detail map
>start map over from scratch
>continue new map
>detail map
>start map over again
>scrap whole project
rinse and repeat

I mean if you don't have THE IDEA! why are you making a setting anyway? Nobody needs another flavor of elf or a retyped drow, if you don't have THE IDEA! why are you even doing it?

I actually basic world map > local maps > start playing and go from there. Last session a player asked for the date so I made up a whole calendar afterwards. It's pointless to do that shit in advance (IMHO) because it's quite possible nobody would ever ask or care.

>nothing named
>no roads
>didn't draw sea monster in ocean
>says it's done

>not having them have slimy froglike skin that just sucked up any chemical misted at them making the dosing super easy and the mutations super fast

so what are you making your dungeon in? I need to make one and I haven't bothered to start laying it down.

Is it intentional that sounds similar to gay?

>Working on a ambiguously near-future Earth & Mars setting (far enough in the future to make Mars colonization plausible, close enough to be recognizable)
>Can't figure out good Earth factions aside from pre-existing countries and an international space law agency under the umbrella of the UN
>Only major geopolitical ideas I have are a paleocommunist movement in China against the PRC's technocratic mixed economy, and UN-sponsored quasi-democratic governments in a recently collapsed North Korea and a newly independent Sinai peninsula buffer state between Israel and Egypt
Speculative geopolitics is hard enough in a vacuum, imagine it on modern Earth.