/wbg/ - World Building General

I read through the whole thing ahead of time, more than once if I have the time. Then I alter more incidental NPCs and encounters to allow more roleplay and improve.

Honestly, as a GM, you gotta find your own style, comfort level, and methods that work for you. And that takes experience. So my best advice is to jump right in.

Thanks for the advice mate

Tell me about this island

The home island of the Aeolans, a race of small, sapient bird/feathered dinosaurfolk. They used to be picked up as pets and cheap labor by pirates and sailors, then typically abandoned in port. Due to them not having any sort of material culture (easy when all you have is rock and fishbones) Aeolans saw this as a good bargain. Wealth, particularly material wealth is a sign of prestige and good character. The Home Island has been slightly developed through donations to the priests who maintain it, but most Aeolans live in human settlements. The home island is little more than a rock in the ocean to them.

Aeolan culture is very sparse due to their rapid uplifting out of the pre-stone age, and mostly mimics aspects of everyone else’s culture. Their religion, a combination of ancestor worship and worship of the winds and ocean, is ironically the closest to reality amongst all this world’s religions. Most Aeolans recognize their natural talents lean very strongly away from legit work towards thieving and spying, and so almost all Aeolan communes double as Thieves Guilds and Spy rings working for the highest bidder.

Goddamn phoneposting. Rate it?

What do they look like exactly? Do they walk on hind legs? Do they wear clothes? Do the females have tits?

>birds, lizards, saurians
>with tits
I know you’re just trying to make me mad, and you succeeded, but I forgive you.

They would look vaguely like those small raptors (utah? veloci?) with mostlywhite and black plumage. Many of them have bright colors on their chest, crest, and the tips of their long tails and wings (branching off their forearms). Aeolans walk like certain dinosaurs, using their tail as balance.

Tldr; 3 to 4 foot tall feathered dinosaurs with with wings branching off their forearms. Honestly, just add feathers to the Scavs from Val Salia.

Addendum: They DO wear clothes, mostly hats, sashes, and pouches to hold their shinies.

Take pic related and add some of the color and slight posture of the Zelda Ritos.

Is it dumb for humans to be the only race that creates half-breeds?

>Orc+Human=Half-orc
>Elf+Human=Half-elf
>Dwarf+Human=Halfling
>Fiend/Hell Energy during gestation=Tiefling
>Elemental/element energy+human=Genasi
>Celestial/Holy energy during gestation=Aasimar

Those elemental energies with the other races wouldn't make half-breeds, they'd make sorcerers.

Is this dumb, or is that all right? Humans have a bit of a reputation for fetishization and being willing to fuck pretty much other race, and the fact that they can create crossbreeds just adds to that.

>Is it dumb for humans to be the only race that creates half-breeds?

yes. there are 1000 ways you can explain it away though.

or you can make a legitimately complex system of half-breeds based on parental majorities, and complimentary inherited traits, which I've always thought would be really cool.

>you can make a legitimately complex system of half-breeds based on parental majorities
I would really rather not if only for the purposes of gameplay mechanics. It helps that the halfbreeds can only have children with other halfbreeds, so nothing blends together.

Any ideas for explanations beyond "this is how it is?" I've been thinking that humans are relative new arrivals to the setting (1000 years or so), but I don't think that's pertinent.

So far all I've got is "they're from the plane of water, water is malleable" which if you ask me is pretty shit.

D-did I do good senpai?

So I’m still trying to design how a Heaven environ would be like. I want it to have like seven or nine levels, plus vestibule and secret last level, that is an endless labrynth of cathedrals, and endless void respectively.

I’m trying to make it a good counterpoint to the hell which has environs like swamps, and a frozen lake in addition to the typical fire and brimstone.

There’s fluffy cloud heaven, and I’ve been thinking of doing styff with an Olympian mountainside a world tree biomes. Any suggestions?

Taking a look at the planes of the great wheel for inspiration for inspiration mightn't be a bad idea - Seven Heavens and The Nine Hells in particular. The Manual Of The Planes pdf is easily gotten for free, I would attach it but the file size is too large.

go cosmic route? levels made of beautiful gas clouds, star clusters, starbirth clouds, etc
have them make up symbolic shapes while you're at it

For input from myself I'd like to suggest a greek motif and a degree of surrealty, somewhere between Jean Cocteau and Terry Gilliam. Although the candles say you're going for not!christian to me. I'd also suggest rain and snow be featured but be portrayed in a positive light rather than a negative, e.g. light showers of softly-warm rain upon fields of flourishing vines and gentle snow that is crisp and pure settling across forests and mountaintops.

That’s a good one, I think I’ll use it for either the last or next to last level.

That said Heavens supposed to be a physical location you can traverse. It’s just in another dimension.

Kinda yes, kinda no.

The way the divine works is in a few layers. There are angels who are a slavery race, but genuinely believe they are there to help everyone. You have pagan styled gods of specific areas, but a head god of gods that’s the focus of not!christians. So people worship the head-god generally and specific gods for special occasions or if they want to dedicate their lives. And then beyond that are the ‘actual’ gods who live in secret heaven that are kind of a dharmic almagamation ‘cannot comprehend our true form’ who want to restart creation and are the true villains.

doesn't mean it can't be mindwarpy
stars appear infinitely far away, yet perspective moves as if they are closer
clouds appear to be cosmically massive, despite you walking on them

on another hand, you can just stick some nice gothic walkways among the stars

first you walk on fluffy clouds, then on slightly more star-like clouds, then as those become intangible stairway appears. first it leads you among bright clouds and star clusters, then the higher you go stars become more and more distant and scarce, or something like that
last level is a single bright star in blackness, which everyone assumes to be the top god, and then comes the secret absolutely black level

Yeah, that’s around what I’m going for. It doesn’t need to make physical sense, that’s what the main worlds for, it’s just something someone could phrasing traverse.

How about something like this-

Vestibule- maze of gothic cathedrals (additional info this is as far as anyone in the main world gets to, and is meant to placate/dissuade anyone from going further)
1st level- sheer mountainside with classical architecture built into the side
2nd level- world tree, with Tower of Babel style architecture built into trunk
3rd level- fluffy cloud level built like classical megaopolis
4th- Open Blue Sky with floating temples, very spread out (maybe with some weather biomes, cloud towers that are turning out snow and rain, etc.)
5th- ?
6th- ?
7th- Astral Plane of stars and stardust
Secret Level- endless void

Damnit now you got me doing shitty doodles. Fuck.

How about something fleshy or biopunk for the sixth level? As it seems to have a theme of moving away from humanity as it proceeds, becoming more alien with each floor.

And also considering how we ascend with each layer, how about having a firey layer for the fifth as we pass through a boundary which could be compared to the atmosphere?

well I got bannana'd last time I explained this but:
>orcs are like black people, even a little orc and you're classed as an orc. half dwarf, half halfling, half human, doesn't matter.
>half-elves are the indeterminate third between elf and the other races. 75% elf is classified as an elf, 50% elf, 25% or less and you get a slightly effeminate dwarf but still classified as a dwarf
>halflings are just midget humans who breed midgets. get an average sized race involved and you might be half-halfling but still on the shorter or normal size for that race and classified as that race. well below average height you're a halfling, even if you're a half-orc dwarf with green skin and a beard twice as tall as yourself- still a halfling for racial traits.
>half-dwarf so a dwarf and a human get together (or any other race) and again, if the spawn winds up short they are classified as a dwarf, tall and they are classified as a human.

so a half-dwarf-half-orc mates with a half-elf-half-tabaxi. you get a partially furred green short bearded kid with funny ears. but as far as statting goes they're a half-orc.

and that's the simple way.

also who ever said half-breeds can't breed with anything but half breeds? if you're thinking of mules then the half-breeds are sterile, which is one way to get rid of quarter and further mixed stock, but again if you get:
orc+human
>+human
>+human
>+human
>+human
>+human
sooner or later they pass for whi- er pass for human, and are statted as such.

basically it's an oversimplification, which is true of almost all systems for almost all things.

Well cause I want even the freaky parts to be seen as the opposite as the ‘bad’ parts that are in hell (which while not necessarilly flesh, has parts that are dedicated to blood and bone).

That said I’m considering an upper layer that’s kind of a ‘too close to the sun’ theme.

>1st mountain
>2nd world tree
>3rd level tower of babel built in the world tree canopy
>4th escalator to
>5th fluffy cloud land (needs giant's castle) - blue sky with clouds that act like icebergs/floes of ice including being able to float somewhere on one and having the edges break off to form floes. travelling to the very edges where the floes get thinner and thinner you wind up in the
>6th astral plane of stars where you find
>7th gothic architecture floating in stars with teleport gates and mind bending stairs (here's your vestibule)
>8th ultimate sun/god which turns out on approach to be a hydrogen ball on a flatcar following a set of railroad tracks across the galaxy. Following the tracks as they curve across the galaxy (in either direction) leads to:
>9th endless void

A lot of screwing with scale, e.g. the mountain is so big you don't see the world tree until you're at the top. the world tree is so huge you don't see the babel tower until you're at the top etc. it's like anons endless island where west south and east are normally dimensioned but you can travel north well past the northern coast if you just keep walking. The trick is you have to walk, or climb normally. You can't use a fly spell to get to the top of the world tree because if you do, you just get a treetop. If you climb it you come upon the base of the colossal tower of babel rising out of the very top branches.

Also >not having 9 levels

I thought donjon uses json files? How did you convert to pdf?

Would it make sense for a desert region, where the ecological system is centered around mobile stones and earth elementals, to have omnivore therizinosaurids living there that use their long claws to reach in cracks and pry apart loose stones to find food?

I imagine them as opportunistic feeders that follow larger elementals that move slowly across the desert, collecting water on their backs and developing oasis style environments, using their long claws to cut down hanging vegetation and catch prey in the cracks of shifting rocks, but I'm more or less going off of justifying why my setting has desert-dwelling gnolls that ride them.

it was painful

I printed to pdf with three different print-to-pdf until I found one that left the text editable (microsoft pdf) then edited in acrobat pro which is about like arranging Faberge eggs with a pipe wrench. one of my players complained the moon phases are screwed up but I haven't had time to look. I'll probably tpk them if they ever make it to Demon just so I don't have to make 1266

I just shoved my dinos in the forbidden desert without any consideration. So... sure?

Oh jesus no. Why can't anything be easy?

I'm slowly working on a setting that I'll hopefully write some story driven shit for someday and thus I have a question what your take is on this:
The Empire of the Tetrarchy follow a certain practise when a city is put under siege. If the city hasn't surrendered after x amount of days under which ample chances for surrender has been allowed then the besieging imperial forces, by and with the authority of the regional dux, can declare the people within the walls legally undead and thus not under the protection of any conducts of war or human rights. A ceremonial burial will take place in which the relevant priests and officers that accompanies the besiegers will lead a ceremonial vigil in which the customary burial speeches will be held along with lamentations about the many wickednesses and evils that the city will undoubtley have been involved with during its existance. Beatings of drums, religious chanting aswell as dancing and possible human sacrifices will all take place during this ceremony. When (or atleast if) the city falls no mercy is given to its inhabitants and not even slaves will be taken as everyone is put to the sword. The besieging forces are as a result allowed a longer time than the usual three days of sacking the place and the commander's and the imperial portion of the loot is suitably decreased to compensate for the lack of slave-taking so as to not demoralise the troops.

Basically my thinking is a spin on the mongolian siege-terror tactic in which no quarter would be given after a black flag had been raised (IIRC) that really brings home the 'abandon all hope'-feeling, yet provides the religious imperial forces with a justification for extreme cruelty.

And just for added fun here's the songs that chiefly inspired this bit of worldbuilding:
m.youtube.com/watch?v=887lax8LDDg
m.youtube.com/watch?v=XFjne0PJV_A

>symbology

Depending on the time period you may or may not be emulating, human rights aren't a thing.

Also, the Romans had a more elegant way to do this. "The Ram has touched the Wall" was a phrase meant to mean the point of no return. It was in reference to the Roman doctrine of granting mercy and freedom from (much) looting up until their siege equipment touched the city walls. At which point, shit was now to the death.

It goes perhaps without saying that this situation would happen rarely and only in properly justified cases such as with the fall of Dol Kantir (who's war against the tetrarchy was long, bloody and almost lead to the destruction of the Tetrarchy itself if it wasn't for the brilliant military leadership of Haraldus Bilda Vorastianus, who's victories in that war lead to becoming the first emperor of the Tetrarchy). Unlawfully declaring one of these annihilations is punished by an automatic death sentence for any Dux.

I was imagining it more that the Babel Tower IS the trunk of the world tree, and maybe the canopy is it’s own level.

Also you are right I should have the echeresque architecture in the astral plain (but spread a little bit in the earlier levels).

I’m thinking you can fly, as flying mounts are a thing in the setting, but it isn’t strictly necessary (that said the upper levels require chicanery otherwise like moving platforms or portals).

>Depending on the time period you may or may not be emulating, human rights aren't a thing.
True, however with human rights I'm not refering to anything close to what we in the modern world would consider. I'm thinking more in line with lifting the three days time limit on the sacking and rejecting individuals rights to offer ransom in exchange for not being killed. The latter would include giving themselves up as slaves to their captor.

>Also, the Romans had a more elegant way to do this. "The Ram has touched the Wall" was a phrase meant to mean the point of no return. It was in reference to the Roman doctrine of granting mercy and freedom from (much) looting up until their siege equipment touched the city walls. At which point, shit was now to the death.
I'm thinking of it as an even more extreme version of this. In the case you describe people would still be sold as slaves (the roman slave economy meant that slave-taking was a lucrative part of soldiery). In my setting the roman way would be the default way of handling with a city that refused to surrender in time. The scenario I described in my first comment would demand the death of all besieged, which would in practice be pretty much a razing of the city as people might hide away. It would be an almost assyrian way of ripping of the band aid for the purpose of making other cities quickly come to their senses. Think drunken mercenaries raping boys and women to death while the skinned skin from the male population hang from the ramparts and the buildings are set a flame.

Yeah, that's what we in the biz would call "Doing a Carthage". Funny enough, genocide isn't all that common in the ancient world. I mean, the salting of Carthage was an atrocity of such scale that we STILL talk about it 2000 years later.

What I'm getting at is: How does this society justify the whole "let's just claim they're undead" thing? Even the Romans had to come up with reasons for their warmongering.

And yes, before anyone say it, I am aware of how edgy this is. Its purpose in the setting is to serve as a cruel and arcane practice which demonstrates the absolute limit of what the imperial state is willing to go to. As such it's comparable to the roman practice of decimation. It also brings associations to the assyrian empire(s) which I think not enough fantasy is inspired by. Those guys made the nazis look like SJW:s.

basically I could have done it manually from scratch in less time.

>I’m thinking you can fly
Yeah I just think if you fly to the top of the tree there are just leaves, but if you walk up (get off your mount and lead it) you get to tower. If you fly up the tower you can see the escalator but it's INSIDE the tower.

flying is fine but I woudln't allow them to just start at the mountain base and fly to the fluffy cloud land and letting them fly/teleport/etc but not allowing them to be at/ start the next segment without putting in the leg work seems like the way to short circuit chicanery of this sort without making it an escalating wizards tower power struggle.

The rationale behind it is that they, by going against the imperial army, which is an instrument of the Emperor who is the Gods' Steward on earth, are rebelling against divine will in an amount that is comparable in scope to the hubris that brought down the [proto-tyranian] empire. As that calamity resulted in wide spread destruction on a regional apocalyptic scale the Empire consider it a greater good to purge the threat before the Gods feel compelled to do something about the affront.
The label undead should be viewed in a legalistic sense rather than a humanistic one as it bereaves them of the status of being alive nor does it grant them the customary respect for the dead. Basically, it's me wanting to use a more loaded term than outlaw/niding to hammer home the absolute percieved vileness of the people afflicted with the status while also having it work as a genocide-facilitator such as the in real life often used 'coackroach'.

>Depending on the time period you may or may not be emulating, human rights aren't a thing.

>be dm last night
>players get arrested
>one player demands her rights
>clap in irons for being cheeky
>she writes note to her temple and sends on druid-as-cat not realizing the temple is not only powerless but the baron is diametrically opposed to them in every way because he is secreetly eeeeeeeeeevil

I can't wait to tell them the baron is going to have them all executed before dawn. I think we broke off about 10pm and they failed to even get the shackles off.

I know it's /wbg/ I have a nice map with the typical fares for all the common routes to all the ports tho?

The rationale behind it is that they, by going against the imperial army, which is an instrument of the Emperor who is the Gods' Steward on earth, are rebelling against divine will in an amount that is comparable in scope to the hubris that brought down the [proto-tyranian] empire. As that calamity resulted in wide spread destruction on a regional apocalyptic scale the Empire consider it a greater good to purge the threat before the Gods feel compelled to do something about the affront.
The label undead should be viewed in a legalistic sense rather than a humanistic one as it bereaves them of the status of being alive nor does it grant them the customary respect for the dead. Basically, it's me wanting to use a more loaded term than outlaw/niding to hammer home the absolute percieved vileness of the people afflicted with the status while also having it work as a genocide-facilitator such as the in real life often used term 'coackroach'.

Post that shit.

Whopsie, accidently made a double post. I take that as a clear signal that it's time to go to bed!

Well naturally if you were anything but a god, there’d be a lot of obstacles to stop you from just skipping to the end. I was thinking for instance to get to secret heaven you have to destroy the last level of Heaven.

How about each level has a boss? That’d be fun to design.

What are some undead monsters that /wbg/ feels need some love?

Okay /wbg/, I have this setting that I wrote with my buddies for shits and giggles a couple of years ago. It's mostly inside jokes taken to absurdities or adapted to something in-universe. I want to take the basic premise and some of the characters and rewrite the setting entirely. How should I do it? Pls halp

How permanent are wooden military structures, especially in colder climates?

>How about each level has a boss

I mean this is dungeon crawl, ya?

So yes every level has a boss. Every single one. As stereotypical as possible. Except one. The gothic corridors in space have a runes covered platform at the end with a podium and a spellbook and that's it. Nothing else.

you've got to make them wonder

If I had to guess they'd last 300ish years at best, depending on the wood of course

what is the basic premise?

Quite honestly, it's not terrible as is, just expand on it and fluff it out more.

Well I imagine the final boss to be the god of gods herself (going for mostly female gods, creation what-not) who’d likely have a couple of forms before the true Gods fight.

>gods get into debate about which race is best
>decide to settle it directly
>literally create a planet upon which each race will fight for supremacy of the world
>most, but not all, gods have a single race they're rooting for
>they're spawned in their own nations with a certain amount of human slaves to speed things along a bit, because why not
>one day, a human girl named Kefka (the biggest inside joke of them all) is born
>she goes on to lead the humans in a revolt against their masters (mostly elves)
>eventually they drive the elves and the dwarves, out of their continent (it was owned by the dwarves, but also occupied by elves in some places)
>Kefka establishes the Imperium of Kefka
>Kefka is granted goddesshood and rules over the Imperium, as the leader of all men

Thanks :^)
I have a buddy writing a short story with this setting, so maybe I should keep at it

Sometimes I feel instead of worldbuilding I should just make a setting in 20 minutes with some random generation and use it.

What do you think?

so humans are supreme on one continent and are the only ones without the support of a diety, but still whipped ass on the elves and dwarves?

is this going to be an actual setting with the potential for actual players or just a fictional wbg cock stroking?

make 20 minutes 4 hours and include googling rando shit to put in and you're golden

I'll never understand why peeps without a hardon for making something try to world build.

Kefka became a goddess, so yes they do basically have a god's support. And not really, I did make it for a game but that project was shelved a long time ago.

>kefka

but now I mean now are you making it a game, because my first question would be
>so 4 players show up with humans
>1 player wants to be an elf
>1 player is like so what is your cat race, tabaxi, Khajiit, what?

how or what in the world would be their goal, story arc, reason for coming together?

and pretty sure kefka would have gotten bugsquashed before she attained godhood but I'll get back to that tomorrow

If you're not having fun while worldbuilding, then you shouldn't be worldbuilding.

I tend to just write cool ideas, save them for later, and smash them together to see what sticks to make a world for a campaign. Also steal liberally from everywhere.

>Also steal liberally from everywhere.

How dare you imply I got my world map off of reddit. How. Dare. You.

Relations normalized over time, or at least between the average people of the respective races. The average human doesn't really hate elves. The same cannot be said of their leaders, like Kefka.

So my setting has a couple major human groups, and I'd like one or more anons to just give me their thoughts on them.

>Calistans
Humans said to descend from a Sea god, the world's best sailors, have a slight elfin quality to them.
>Zarn
Mountain men, great warriors, wide travelers (most colonies). Fractious and violent, but oath-bound.
>Tulans
Witchcraft and Religion, castes, a love of art and knowledge.
>Dharz
Pirates, survivalists, seekers of forbidden and forgotten lore.
>Alasians
Traders, merchants, and mercenaries. Bankers and assassins.

Honestly, just whatever jumps out at anyone. Pic unrelated.

The vikings built ring forts out of wood and earth ramparts. They were used all the way from the early viking age to the early medieval period.

What most of them have in common is that they were not used for extended periods of time, as in several hundred years. Wood will eventually need replacement, making a permanent wooden fortress expensive to maintain in the long run. The great advantage of stone is that, while expensive to built with, when its built, it stays there.

Well, one could simply chop wood every few years right?

Yes. So you hire a gang to chop wood. Then you pay a bunch of guys to transport it. Then you need proper craftsmen to fit it into the fort and do assorted repairs. You have to repeat this proces every year if you want to be certain the fort is in proper condition. It quickly adds up.

Well, people still did create the thing, which is more labor and mindwork than repairing a preexisting structure. So, its less work than the work of building. Like most things, it has clear advantages and disadvantages.

>which is more labor and mindwork than repairing a preexisting structure.

Maintaining and repairing a fort or similar struture is a much larger investment than building the thing because the construction is a one time investment, while maintenance has to be carried out over the buildings whole life time.

The builder has to weigh these lifetime expenses against the cost of construction, and here stone most often wins out.

While you have a point, things don't rot that quickly, or else they wouldn't have made it so, wood is a transitional material for forts, technology simply wasn't good to make stone walls as swiftly as needed. Also, while it depends of the context, wood is more readily avaliable rather than mining, carrying, masoning and building. Besides even in your image, wood is used, not as the bread, but the butter.

>Zarn
These people should probably also be mercenaries. Sturdy and warlike hillfolk were notorious for that.

Aren't those deserts kinda random?
Amid all that green.

>While you have a point, things don't rot that quickly, or else they wouldn't have made it so, wood is a transitional material for forts, technology simply wasn't good to make stone walls as swiftly as needed.

I agree completely, technology and availability of materials also impact choice of stone or wood. And I did not take that into consideration with my posts.

It's nice when different perspectives can supplement each other rather than draw out into arguments.

>And I did not take that into consideration with my posts.
Are you a wizard? I was planning on stating that but decided aginst because it sounded snobbish. Anyway, its also weird how we ignored mud and clay entirely.

>can declare the people within the walls legally undead and thus not under the protection of any conducts of war or human rights. A ceremonial burial will take place
I actually fucking love this. Practically aside: this is a wonderful concept of "being undead" being treated not only as a fact, but also as a cultural institution.
Are you by any chance an anthropologist (or at least have a basic anthropological education). This is actual cultural relativism done right, and there is something pretty profoundly human and belivable about it. In a world where undead are a reality of existence, I can absolutely see a culture developing practice like this.
Love it.

>Are you a wizard?
Thankfully not, must be great minds thinking alike.

>Anyway, its also weird how we ignored mud and clay entirely.
I have a weakness for African mud-brick architecture. There's something wonderfully understated about it.

Indeed, mudbricks are underrated, through I find the smaller houses more appealing.

Cheers mate!
I've no form of antropholocial education what so ever I'm just really interested in history and religion in general. My actual university education lies in law with a sprinkling of political science and Paganism.
However the actual undead is nothing but mythology in my setting as I'm one of those 'low fantasy with no-need for anything but humans'-faggots.

I've got another idea that I wanted to run by you people and see what you think about it.

The Empire of the Tetrarchy levies 'wildmen' from a large isolated island as shock troops.
These wildmen, who due to their geographical isolation from the rest of the world are quite backward anyway have been kept at a pre-civilisation stage of development by the hegemonic might of the Empire for a combination of cultural, strategic and religious reasons that boil down to the academic claim that the island's population is the original human race from which all of humanity springs. The only interaction the island have with the outside world is the yearly recruitment of worthy young men into the imperial army by a small fleet of specially assigned ships. The men that are taken away from the island are banned from ever returning to it and if they do so they will be put to death like any other trespasser.
The recruits are assigned to wildmen units made up out of previous years batches who teaches the new comers the ways of the civilised world.
The wildmen go to battle wearing their traditional animal pelts but are otherwise naked with the exception of a possible helmet or hat, allthough the more veteran amongst them might sometime wear chainmail.
They are armed with a large oval or rectangular shield, javelins and a side arm, most commonly a club or a mace. Their ferocity in battle is legendary and it's not uncommon for foes to flee rather than stand and recieve a charge from them. They tend to keep their hair and beard long and uncut which gives them a particular feral look.
Every single one of them have a zealous faith in (their crude version) of the Tetrarchical religion and percieve their service in the imperial military as a religious duty of great honour.

Basically they're a combination of the celtic Gaesaete and the wildmen of medieval european legend.

So, they are not-gurkhas? Sounds fine.

What does the wildmen donthat makes them valuable for the Imperial military? Why not just take the island for the empire and relocate/slaughter the wildmen?

I like this.
The Gurkhas were inducted into the British army as a way of harnessing the Nepalese soldier caste that might prove rebellious if left alone. Perhaps the wildmen are given the ‘honor’ of serving the Empire to take the best of their fighters away from them, making them less likely to spearhead a rebellion.

>What does the wildmen donthat makes them valuable for the Imperial military? Why not just take the island for the empire and relocate/slaughter the wildmen?

Not him, but I think you answered your own question.

>a combination of cultural, strategic and religious reasons

The rest of the idea is solid, but I guess I'd like some more detail on this front. The way you describe it, it sounds like this place's population is kept around almost like a nature preserve, which is a distinctly modern concept. I would like to know why exactly the "purity" of these barbarians is maintained, because otherwise this Roman-inspired empire you've got going sounds like it'd be entirely willing to "civilize" these guys if given a chance.

Also, why are these guys so willing to give up their young men to these outsiders every year? That's a precious resource for any society, especially for an isolated, island-bound one. Is it religiously-motivated, with Imperial service seen as a great honor? Is it a practical matter, with whatever ruling power on the island using it as an opportunity to get rid of potential rivals for power? Does their island just suck and any ticket out is an improvement in one's lot?

My point is that it'd take quite a bit of motivation, external or internal, to get anyone to just leave their birthplace, especially if they're straight-up told that they will never be allowed to return. You've described this relationship mostly from the Empire's perspective; I want to hear about it from the perspective of these Wildmen.

>Also, why are these guys so willing to give up their young men to these outsiders every year? That's a precious resource for any society, especially for an isolated, island-bound one. Is it religiously-motivated, with Imperial service seen as a great honor? Is it a practical matter, with whatever ruling power on the island using it as an opportunity to get rid of potential rivals for power? Does their island just suck and any ticket out is an improvement in one's lot?
You hit the nail on the head there.
I unfortunately don't have time to go intl more detail as our guests just arrived. If I don't manage to post a more in depth answer before the thread dies I'll either make a new thread or post in this ones successor.

Sorry, I'm not very good with English.

Demiurges didn't supply slave race to each, Esvent gave his race the elves the humans and argued that it was cultural and deserved them, kept them young etc.

I'm not sure about war halflings, you're going fairly tolkien on all the races then halflings are warriors? I'd expect god of thieves and craftiest race or something. Either that or make sure the deviation from lithe cultural elves and mining engineering dwarves is clear and not a mistake:

>Shoj god of war created halflings to be crafty and sneaky buggers realizing the others would expect his tactics to be creating mighty warriors and would expect that he would create a strong hearty race to stand on the front lines of battle. Knowing war was much more than just clashing meat-heads instead crafted cunning small people called halflings, light of foot, light of heart and quick of wit and hand. Instead of making war they'd grow weed and get baked.

Or whatever. needs to be clear it was intentional. that said I like the idea of god of war making halflings.

Bel should just create llamias to be reptile people, choosing the best the snake and allowing them to flow into mixed forms from humanoid to mixed to snake. It makes no sense she'd steal half an elf design from Esvent. Also obviously she put them in the desert so they would worship water and it would always be sacred to them.

Johzia spied on Shoj and saw what he was doing and so created the mighty orcs, everything Shoj should have done and set them near the halflings so that Shoj would first be crushed by his own particular idiom.

Nice surrogates on those last two Josh.

Anyway Jaun should give up his spot in the game in order to take his turn painting culture in all the races. the drips from his giant brush became the pixies who didn't play for victory but made things interesting none the less and were also all over all lands.

cont.

now I picture this all like a boardgame with the player-gods each creating their race in order and then presenting them in turn. Johzia goes before Shoj and I guess might have tried to scoop him of the expected warrior race instead of spying (haha I played the thing you wanted to) and then Shoj immediately plays his halflings.

Then to be fair, a-la boardgame turn order, Shoj gets first pick of the lands and picks the most fertile lush comfy weed producing continent. Johzia is mad he got robbed of screwing Shoj so puts his warrior orcs as near to on top of Johzia as possible then the rest pick their continents in order, everyone surprised at Bel's choice of the totally arid land thinking Ev who made the first race would get stuck with "the worst" land.

Now here is the real point I had. Jeremath was sulking as usual and refused to play the other gods stupid game, however he saw an opportunity to sew the seeds of chaos into the fabric of their world I know I'm sorry. What Jeremath did was secretly make the human slaves his own race and did aid them, proping up Kekki or whoever and overthrowing Ev and then Nosjj or whoever. The human slaves went on to conquer all the races more or less, Jeremath working in secret and disrupting the whole game. "teach them to play without me" he said.

So pro forma the humans won, but since Jeremath didn't actually play it just wrecked the game for everyone and they all just threw it back in the box so to speak and went on to other things. With humans on top on every land the relations soon normalized and some lands became mixed with humans everywhere. The epochs of neglect gave rise to monsters and evil, old war machines and magics left over from each of the player-gods unspent turns. Normally this wouldn't happen but since Jeremuth virtually tableflipped instead of playing out the whole game a lot was left charged with magic unspent.

cont.

so I know the writing is terrible but that's not my job here

the idea gives the humans a real concentrated racial start (slaves only to the elves, seen as a kind of unfair move by all the other player-gods), it gives the humans a reason for their rise and their power level (Jeremuth's interference) and why they didn't finish and pack the world away nicely (all pissed at the game getting ruined, well except Jaun who wasn't playing either)

If you like and use these things I only ask you keep the name Jeremuth as it's based totally on the whiny prophet and not at all on anything else. because I'm totally not a constantly complaining board game flipper and my name isn't even that it's dave davidson.

HTH

Horse latitudes mah man.

>I'm not sure about war halflings

How about archer halfilings?

The Twa people of Rwanda has been known for their skills at archery and guerilla warfare. The ancient Greeks reported that the Nubian kings had a corps of pygmy archers in army.

The halfilings could follow this example. They are not strong enough to compete with other races in close combat so they become the best marksmen and snipers around. Yout sword isn’t much use if you’re dead before you even see that halfling bugger hiding in the bush.