/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

Well, the purpose of this suggestion is to not fall into the usual "sterylized" DND pantheons.

Most "loot" that the players will find themselves with are either parts of an animal monster, or valued fauna that can either be sold or used to their advantage. Other things like relics of the past are normally simple things like runes carved into a stone or trinkets from witches and warlocks

>Do your gods manifest in the physical world?
They can, and likelt regulary do, but not in the Zeus-rapey sense but more in the natural workings of the world.

>Are they all part of one unified religion or are they competing religions?
I'm not sure yet. I'm leaning towards elemental deities.

>What are the most culturally significant concepts in your setting (i.e., death, birth, harvest seasons, war, learning, the sun/moon/stars, etc.) as things that have cultural significance are usually where you see real world deities popping up in pantheons.
>Still a work in progress, but I'm leaning towards harvest, elements and cosmos.

I'd like there to be an overarching pantheon of sorts, but still powerful monsters, "demons," mages and others who pose as gods and goddesses to less developed peoples.

What's your setting's ancient history like? How far in depth have you gone with it?

And it is a great suggestion to that purpose. I don't find DnD to have particularly interesting pantheons. Realistically the only DnD got I regularly remember is Lloth because I apologize to her if I have to kill a spider.

So, given that they manifest they are going to likely have identities as they show up. Follow the prior suggestion on personalities there. Regarding Elemental Deities? That is the easiest way to roller coaster your way to a massive pantheon unless you go with ridiculously broad strokes, but that runs into domains which will feel less like individuals.

If you want to have things which pose as gods which aren't, a good way to do that is to follow the personalities thing, have the gods manifest as real characters in your world. Be nondescript with what they actually influence, but have those identities imply things to have folks build beliefs around them. The god who is beardy and wears a cloak (because he likes the fashion) and walks around with a scythe or sickle will likely get roped into a harvest/famine and or death/disease role within a pantheon for worshipers. This does not have to be how the god actually acts.

That way you can have a pantheon which fulfill whatever your needs are, but they aren't known identically to everyone and so lesser "gods" showing up and making cults for power wouldn't be unreasonable. Because they might be pretending to be X or Y god or being able to exhibit some level of power can convince people that this is just how they are manifest.

But for that core pantheon it is important to figure out what is culturally significant because that is what people will ascribe to them. You don't even have to detail their actual powers at all.

>Methodology
This is already how plenty of OSR and OSR style games function. You go into gold, recover treasure, and get experience points for the amount of treasure you get or for when you buy stuff with the treasure. It's positive as it gives the players both the motivation to seek treasure and behaviors that optimize seeking treasure while avoiding meaningless combat, and you can also get some inspiration for the setting from it. Such as where all the treasure is coming from.

>Any advice on pantheon creation?
>I want something simple

Well, first off you have to identify what is the most important thing to the culture that is relevant to the Gods. Usually, the top God tend to be the ones most associated with the most important thing in the culture, which is why Sky, Rain, and Sun Gods tend to be the most powerful or important Gods in agricultural societies. I would also say that you shouldn't worry about making Gods kind of stereotypical. Making the Goddess of love a thot and the God of war an angry asshole is common in pretty much every culture, and it fits just fine.

Another thing to remember is Pantheons tended to be pretty autistically specific about certain things; usually the origins of Gods. Pretty much all the Gods are siblings spawned from the same proto-God couple or individual. Sometimes Gods are born in weird ways, like from being a headache or whatever.

I only have, in any detail, the history of the modern-precursor race. They're basically dwarves mixed with golems/earth elementals. Their history is very old. Outside of that, there is a history with True-Fae who are all but lost to memory, their names recycled to some of the modern races.

Why does the top deity have to be a god? Why not a goddess?

>tfw my setting went from a generic anachronistic high fantasy setting with a WOW tier aesthetic to a gritty low magic setting heavily inspired by the late medieval period in the course of 4 years

How has your setting changed from when you started off?

I'm still sorting a lot of it out, and recently threw out the idea of everything coming from a sort of alternate dimension existing on top of the physical realm where the fey live.
I'm sticking with the idea of a major deity-like figure named Titan existing tyrannically at the beginning of recorded history, but he eventually got overthrown and cast into the depths of the earth by the gods (probably?). Dwarves eventually came out of his corpse and the hollowed out cavity created by his body is the Dwarven Homeland. Giants, ogres, and the like are all Titan's spawn.
I'm also putting a lot of work currently into the exploits of the legendary Hero-King Mars, but I have a lot of wrinkles to sort out in regards to him. I'm also not sure how far back in history he'll have existed, so it might not be related to your question. I'm starting to lean toward the idea of him taking his leave of the known world being year 0 in the common era, though, so I guess that would classify him as ancient?

Usually when I start to stray that far from my setting's original idea, I either put it through an apocalypse blender to create an effectively new setting in both environments and tone, or just scrap it entirely.

This is why I like to treat deities in gender neutral terms. It also allows for you to have conflicts where different regions or what not ascribe different genders to the same deity and then you get kerfuffles.

I have like half a dozen settings because it's all "well that doesn't fit this one, time to start a new one"

If your current calendar matches when dudebro left, then it will depend on how far into that calendar you are whether it was ancient or not.

So all societies worship the same gods in different ways?

I started by trying to blend these two guys:
>mercenary-tributary.tumblr.com/
>deviantart.com/art/Agents-of-SIn-Supplicant-683836214

And then realized I would need to do different shit with the ideas to make it my own. Still trying to find a nice way to do that, but I feel my original setting is now just two other, better settings combined. Pic related.

I've always liked the idea that vampires severely overplay the whole "sophisticated count living in a dark mansion" thing because in reality they're pretty much one step from basically being feral animals; their instincts trying to drive them to hang upside down from the ceiling to sleep, running on all fours while snarling at prey, something that brings them great shame and they think they can mask with a fancy suit and top hat.

Any setting that pretty much uses this idea I could look into?

So, vampires are Werewolfes but larping as nobility? Well, perhaps you could look into that one vampire movie (whose name i forgot) that has some dudes biting a guy, then more dudes bite dudes ad nauseam.

So this?
youtube.com/watch?v=YgqgSaDCgC4

One explanation for modern earth religion is that it all stems from one religion that has branched off from that original myth. I don't see why that can't be applied to fictional pantheons. Thor and Odin and Zeus and Quetzacoatl and Kali and JHVH being all related (or possibly the same entities) is always a fun consideration.

How would Dragons effect the social and architectural evolution of humanity, given that they're biologically superior in terms of strength and toughness per individual and can fly? Assume too they actively work as a competitor/antagonist to humans.

The second part is key. A wall might be good for keeping out the bandits and wolves but a dragon would "hop" right over and start torching. I imagine a lot of low set buildings with dense domed roofs and no first floors (the doorstep would be stairs up into the dome basically).

That would make sense considering the incredible prevalence of a few origin myths, first and foremost being the Great Flood which seems to appear in every religion across the globe, yet has little to no geographical support for the event.

Not exactly what I'm getting at, it's a really shitty comparison but you ever see The Great Mouse Detective? How Ratigan pretends to be this gentleman thief and nearly loses his shit anytime anyone mentions he's a rat, who constantly fucks up with overly elaborate schemes but eventually he finally gets mad enough to drop the act and turns into an outright animal that completely wrecks the main characters shit by just slapping him aronud?
Basically that.

>What do non-humans bring to the table?
Pretty much nothing, I guess. I'll just keep it all-human for now, maybe I'll change my mind later on.

>Given that you referenced Bioshock, is gene splicing a major thing? Or as in Dishonored is there otherworldly magic?
Based on the notes I made 5-6 years ago, it's more Dishonored than Bioshock. It's more of the steampunk aesthetic of Infinite than splicing proper.

Essentially in the setting, alchemists have found a way to basically "compress" steam in canisters via magic so they last longer, making it similar to oil or batteries in the setting.

"Steamfuel", as the power is called is a relatively recent invention, and the setting is currently in the early decades of an industrial revolution. In fact, it has given rise to a completely new branch of magic revolving around manipulating the latent magic left over from the steamfuel canisters, the "hacking" of the setting.

That's what I got so far. Pic related is my first attempt painting the map.

Still need a lot of detail, mountains in the northern area, shit like that. But I've got a name for every place and thing I think... they aren't the best names, but they'll do for now.

I think I should probably move on (for now) to typing up descriptions of races, gods, countries etc.

Hi, I was told to come here for feedback on how to unfuck my rivers. This is for an OSR hexcrawl.

To avoid just pointlessly begging (although I'll admit I'm not a very meticulous worldbuilder)

>Do you worldbuild with the idea that players or characters must quest/adventure or otherwise seek a "reward" or treasure?
I tend to run pulpy, not-entirely-sensical adventure games in a gamut of tones and time periods, so more or less. You are not forced or strictly expected to do so, but it is an open possibility and something I enjoy running.
>What is a character's end goal if not a reward?
The player decides.
>Is it crass for a character (story or game) to seek out a literal treasure?
Not at all. I WISH my players would just say they want to go find the holy grail or something, sometimes. It'd make it easier to prep.
>What sort of treasures exist for players/characters to find in your setting?
In the one in pic related (which to be fair I haven't even run yet): All sorts. The ruins that dot the landscape are highly coveted.
>What effect will this have on the local economy?
To some extent it is the economy
>Are there laws in your setting that deal with treasure-hunters, graverobbers, or typical "Adventurer" types?
No, but that treasure probably, technically, belongs to someone else. "Adventuring" is a hush-hush affair that can and will get you in trouble unless you go through the right channels.
>How did all this treasure get lost in the first place?
Ancient civilizations, wizards, gods and assorted recent fuck-ups

Rivers flow down hill, They aren't gonna really be a river going through marshland unless you have a really good reason for the rest of the water not to flow with it. In order for a river to split you need an object that is slow to erode and large enough that water running against it can open a second channel around it. Most of the time this is man made but not always. A river between mountain ranges is gonna flow through the lowest point, meaning it won't hug the ridges. Most rivers don't start as a single river but are composed from tributaries joining together in low-lying areas.

So, top right river should probably star in those mountains. The central fork could probably stand to be two different rivers one starting farther down the mountains on the left. More pronounced S curve in the bottom left. Add some tributaries.

Thank you

>On the map
That central desert region could probably stand to have some greener coastal areas. If you look at a lot of hot deserts formed on Earth many of them are inland and have mountains blocking them off. The Sahara has bits along the Mediterranean and where the Nile Delta is. The Arabian is green where you've got the Tigris and Euphrates (though technically that is outside of it) and other areas of the coast are mountainous. Gobi is inland, as is the Great Basin which is surrounded by mountains. I know it is a simple pass, but it would help to liven it up. I'm sure when mountains start getting placed that will also help with some of it.

>On the setting
I find the notion of magically compressed steam to be intriguing. Especially with it leaving magical remnants. Are there side effects of exposure and handling? What happens if a full Steam Battery is ruptured? You can keep regular humans and avoid gene splicing but still have a slide toward abnormal features (pointed ears, stocky growth, abnormal dentation, exotic skin-hair-eye colors) just by way of exposure. Something to consider. Also, have you defined limitations already for the magic residue, or the limitations of the initial magical processes?

Descriptions are probably a good direction to take at this point. The map seems relatively stable and usable. Of curiosity, are the names for locations on the map based on anything or arbitrary fantasy names? If you aren't sold on them, if you build up some cultural things into the races as set you might be able to come up with more reasonable names. Possibly borrowing from existing languages for root forms and extrapolating from there.

i.e., Green Valley with a literal translation to Japanese is "Midori Tani" but you can then take those and clip the tails (Midotan), the ends (Doritan), the center (Midoni), or the heads (Dorini) generating names with some level of meaning without struggling to be structurally unique every time.

Other examples using some of those structures: Aonrin (Blue Woods), Fukaw (Deep River), Karab (Salty Bay)

I mean, you might already be doing that, but a thought since you aren't sold on them.

>Do you worldbuild with the idea that players or characters must quest/adventure or otherwise seek a "reward" or treasure?
No, I built the world, established a rough timeline, added a mythology, then started putting countries together. Each module takes place during specific time points, so my players can see the results of the actions of their previous characters in the world.
>What is a character's end goal if not a reward?
My current players: A paladin wants sponsorship so she can afford gear, training, food, lodgings, et cetera. She adventures for the church to fish for sponsors. A ranger is a bounty hunter for the church. A fighter wants to redeem their aristocratic family's honor because all the other children went off to war and died in undignified ways. A rogue wants to drink and fuck and fight, and a cleric wants to sleep with the ranger.
>Is it crass for a character (story or game) to seek out a literal treasure?
Depends on the setting. Sorry, couldn't resist. As an example, The Church has moved to a new continent, so a lot of its expansion is dependent on adventurers combing the area, looking for minerals, killing monsters, drawing maps, clearing ruins, et cetera, so mercenary adventure work is encouraged, so long as you're devout.
>What sort of treasures exist for players/characters to find in your setting?
Depends on the time period. In the stone age, all sorts of trinkets, fetishes, animal hides and teeth, and charms and baubles are worthy rewards. In the Orgus Empire, killing things in the name of the Golden Lady is it's own reward, but there's always coin, gear, gems, ingots and shit to unearth. In the Land of the Dragon, getting Sempai to notice you (really, getting recognition from dragon nobility) is reward, but also not getting infected with jadescale is a reward all of its own, while in the lands of Hesperia there are legendary treasures of a forgotten time to unearth. Also coin and shit.
(cont)

>What effect will this have on the local economy?
Most towns can't make change, if that's what you're asking. Most towns are tiny logging/ fishing/ farming/ mining communities. A dozen or two families huddled behind wooden walls. Barter is the usual currency.
>Are there laws in your setting that deal with treasure-hunters, graverobbers, or typical "Adventurer" types?
See my previous post.
>How did all this treasure get lost in the first place?
Nations rise and fall. Also the world was blown up and then got put back together.

>How would Dragons effect the social and architectural evolution of humanity, given that they're biologically superior in terms of strength and toughness per individual and can fly?
In my world, there's only a few actual dragons, and they're basically demigods. That being said, most of them are hidden away, sleeping. In ten years, my players have encountered two of them, though they still don't realize it.

Coming back to this, what would be a fresh time period to set a paranormal modern military rpg? The late 60's is one possibility, what with all the conspiracies and Cold War tension. But the late 80's and early 90's is so little used outside of X-Files (naturally), and I like the idea of demonic magic getting disseminated to various 3rd world dictators with the fall of the USSR.

Hey, I'm kinda doing a similar typed setting. After America dropped the nukes, God stepped in and stopped that, said "No nukes", and then fucked off. Since God appeared, it broke a deal so demons got summoned by the nazis, and those demons then proceed to fuck over the entire world, so much so that only a few countries are left alive.

Those countries then started focusing on heavy scientific advancement, but in less-than-sanitary conditions, by abducting people off the street adn not caring about the world as the demons polluted the fuck out of it. Eventually, they kick the demons out to Africa and the Americas, and eventually things progress into a cold war-esque dieselpunk setting, where people are getting experimented on and become biomachines on one hand or getting possessed by demons and turning into abyss monsters on the other. Of course, somebody has to have the stupid idea of combining the two, and then the agents of sin are born!

>map
I've deliberately left out geological features mainly because I'm retarded when it comes to placing them but also because I'm more of a "designing the culture" guy than a "geography" guy. I've still got much to learn but it's always a learning experience.

I've already got a version with greener coasts and I'm already planning where to put the mountains.

>setting
>side effects
Thanks for reminding me of side-effects, made me think about LORE:

The magic used to create steamfuel is basically the same old magic the realm has already known, so no effects to exposure in the final product. It's creation is a bit trickier though: it's a very precise process, and the path to it was wrought in many experiments with many failures and side effects, causing the development of new races across the centuries: some humans became tieflings, some elves became dark elves, and some dwarves became orcs. Eventually these new races carved out cultures of their own, interacting with their parent races as if they were as different as night and day.

At this point in time, the process has become more streamlined, so no more accidents. Currently there's an emerging school of magic which revolves around manipulating the latent energies within steamfuel and the devices that power them. This has led to the creation of powered armor, rechargable staves, and element-infused swords and crossbows, but not small firearms like pistols and such, since steamfuel combusts the gunpowder in it too quickly.

As for limitations, the latent energies cannot spread to biological organisms (so you can't just "hack" photosynthesis or whatever), and like I said, the initial processes of creating the steamfuel has already been streamlined, so there's little to chance of failure.

Also obviously if a canister is ruptured it explodes. Some cultures have already weaponized this in the form of grenades.

WIP

Well, that sounds spiffy! Not quite what I'm in for though. I don't want to go full Alt-History. Just, slightly tweaked history.

>Map
I'm normally not big on building maps. I find it consumes too much of the limited time I have to commit to such things. So hearing of progress is good, especially greener coasts.

The tech is neat. Definitely sounds to have grown into its own beast outside of the previously mentioned inspirations. So that is good. Though I am not personally the biggest fan of "magic as science" because I, personally, consider it too convenient. So in that regard, you do you. I do like that it explains why you would have multiple humanoid races, though, in early days before it was as well understood.

90s, weird paranormal shit happening in the yugoslav wars. Boom, story

Alright, that sort of sold me. Thanks user!

>Do you worldbuild with the idea that players or characters must quest/adventure or otherwise seek a "reward" or treasure?
Nope.
>What is a character's end goal if not a reward?
Adventure is often enough of a drive, at least in my group.
>Is it crass for a character (story or game) to seek out a literal treasure?
Nope, plenty have.
>What sort of treasures exist for players/characters to find in your setting?
Well, I have two settings and only one has treasure. Coins and rare goods as well as the odd magical item usually.
>What effect will this have on the local economy?
Well the coinage is often capped at silver in the local economy for my fantasy setting. Too much though and the king often has his people send taxes through the roof after a while. Short term it makes the economy crash.
>Are there laws in your setting that deal with treasure-hunters, graverobbers, or typical "Adventurer" types?
You usually need a writ or permission to go adventuring unless you head off into the badlands in the North but only the insane do that.
>How did all this treasure get lost in the first place?
Region was once part of a mighty empire. Said empire fell into a big ass civil war which devolved into more civil wars and then wizards got involved. There are entire swaths of land now where magic fucks up/doesn't work and nature has twisted about those areas too.

Anyone know a program to map out O'Neill/McKendree Cylinders? I know it's a bit odd but I'm trying to build a sci-fi setting that uses them.

>Do you worldbuild with the idea that players or characters must quest/adventure or otherwise seek a "reward" or treasure?
Not really. There are places with abundant treasure, and there are adventure hooks, and they intersect only when it makes sense in-setting, not on purpose.
>What is a character's end goal if not a reward?
Survival. Glory. Adventure itself.
>Is it crass for a character (story or game) to seek out a literal treasure?
Not really. My setting is heavily influenced by stuff like Conan, Xena, Sinbad and those stories about Fafhrd & Grey Mouser that take place outside cities. So treasure as a goal is perfectly fine - as long as you realize that adventure is the main reward and treasure may go one day (very soon)

Setting Specific
>What sort of treasures exist for players/characters to find in your setting?
Aside from gold and other conventional riches, there's a ruined elven kingdom, and likewise ruined dwarven one beneath it. Both full of fantastic magical artefacts.
>What effect will this have on the local economy?
There's a small kingdom that lives entirely off scavenging magic stuff from said two kingdom and selling it to the highest bidder. If adventurers find something really powerful, it will only boost said kingdom's sales.
>Are there laws in your setting that deal with treasure-hunters, graverobbers, or typical "Adventurer" types?
Not laws per se, but dwarfs and elves really don't like their ancient artefacts cropping up on human black markets.
Humans hardly care.
>How did all this treasure get lost in the first place?
The great mountains that houses dwarven and elven kingdoms got destroyed in a terrible cataclysm, and is now overrun with monsters.

it went from literally WHFB ripoff with some high fantasy elements to grimdark Conan-esque world with heavy tinge of Silmarillion.

Humans would live underground, I guess. Or in very narrow gorges. Or invent ballista before they invent pants.

Yea I don't think I want the names to literally read as French or anything but I like them feeling like the same culture named them. I have an ok understanding of the sounds each race likes in their names, so I used generators that had the right feel for each and only picked the ones that sounded right, then I messed with them a little. But I haven't tried saying everything out loud yet and I think a lot of them will be hard to say or weird in application. I'll make adjustments as I go. I like your idea a lot btw.

>Do you worldbuild with the idea that players or characters must quest/adventure or otherwise seek a "reward" or treasure?
No? That would be basically hijacking the backstory and motivation from the players, wouldn't it.
>What is a character's end goal if not a reward?
That's up to the characters. I think it's none of my business as a DM.
>Is it crass for a character (story or game) to seek out a literal treasure?
Not at all, why? A bit boring when it's literally nothing but "I want money to get rich", but it's none of my business.

>Fukaw
Weebs don't even realise how detached from the real world they are.

I don't think you belong in this thread if all your answers are "no, why would I do that?"

"Do you like running?" "No I'm in a wheelchair" "where are your favourite places to run?" "hello? Didn't you hear me?" "What is your favourite thing about this running forum?" "I don't like it"

You're literally on Veeky Forums.

It evolved slowly from a pure comedy tolkienesque setting with less serious elements about it than Discworld, to a comedic dieselpunk fantasy setting based on Europe, to a serious high fantasy setting with a bunch of jokes here and there. And this happened with very few direct retcons - I just kept increasing the scale. It started in one country, then it expanded over the entire continent where this country was located, then it took over half of the world. All of this took 15 years.

It went from being 5 separate continents to one.

I think more people like me are needed in this thread to remind the autists that their obsessive micromanagement hurts and ruins games.

And this is why people don't bother with /wbg/, because idiots like this are all that's left here.

If your timeline isn't 250 million year long, I will be very disappointed.

>dinosaurs existed in my magical realm
>ancestors of both birds and dragons
noice

Started as a generic fantasy realm existing to keep my love of generic fantasy tropes out of my other gritty low magic world.

It's currently at more realistic than it original was, and most of the generic fantasy races have been cut, or are virtually extinct in the current timeline. Also the map as undergone many iterations and is currently very close to the original concept

All you people do here is spawn endless copies of older franchises.
Every time you ask for advice or idea you make you bland unoriginal settings even blander and less original.
Only people who never had contact with fiction can make truly original worlds.
You're not among them and never will (unless you get massive amnesia or something)

I guess I should raise kids just for that.

That was not very original. I suggest you get a concussion ASAP to make more original comments.

>Only people who never had contact with fiction can make truly original worlds.
Nonsense.

I'm pretty sure they'd only revert back to the beginning of things and start making shit that was already made ages ago.

touche...

there was a scientist who raised a child without telling him (or her, don't remember) a single joke, doing a single funny thing, so child wouldn't have laughed ONCE for many years, just to test if laughter is natural response to tickling
it was his second child btw, he tried to do same to the first, but his wife left him and took the child

>Regular gunpowder, guncotton and other similar substances don't really work in the setting.
>Instead they require a specific mineral that while not exactly rare occurs only in a few places around the world.
>Countries that have access to it naturally keep it closely guarded and never sell it.

How is this for justification why firearms are used only by a few select countries in the world?

>Methodology
No, I don't worldbuild for loot. I worldbuild to write characters who have ideas to see their will be done. Money is a means to that end for anyone whose story will continue. It's not bad if they choose to end their story where they like with a healthy sum to retire with, but for others, there's more out there.

>Setting
Artifacts bestowed upon paladins by their gods, for their good service, unique arms and armor forged by the many different cultures, and bits of lost history. There's not so much that it damages the economy, as the Gods would have it that this "loot" exists only to invite further adventure. To become stronger, and fuel a cycle of oneupsmanship between good and evil. The treasure itself is the last vestiges of these stories, boiled down to its basest form; with what they wrought what they did. Dungeons are the proving grounds before a grand armory, a heavy war chest for a long life of conquest.

The nations have their own records of "protected" gravesites. These are of people in official graveyards and tombs. If one such site is robbed, the thieves will be hunted by a knight and a pack of slavers. Some tombs, however, are known to hold unsavory figures and hold the remains of their enemies; desecration and total destruction of these are not illegal, and one country pays very dearly to have such done. Surely, this cannot have any consequences.

wasn't this basically the plot for Reign of Fire?

What do you listen to while you write /wbg/?
youtu.be/Q5IGzCnvyzk
Listening to this atm while I write about my setting's precursor civilization

How many sets of sample outfits do you guys prepare for your cultures? I'm thinking five categories, each with a casual and formal example for each gender.
>Social
>Official
>Rugged
>Religious
>Ritual

>everyone only has the same outfit for each occasion

>sample

I'll admit I haven't put that much thought into clothes, mostly because I can't draw for shit. Besides, my players usually come in with character art from wildly different sources, so it's easier to just ignore the subject entirely.

Yeah, what a ridiculous thought!

Seems fine to me.

>Only people who never had contact with fiction can make truly original worlds.
You are a complete fucking idiot. It's actually kinda hard to put into words how dumb this claim is. I'm honestly not even sure where to being explaining how on every concievable level, this is too stupid to be uttered by an actual human being, but I think it could be sufficient to point out this:

Tolkien
Herbert
Borges
Carrol
Lucas
Pavić
Miyazaki
Authors of some of the most fascinating and relevant, genre establishing ficitional worlds: every single one of them had strong education in classical fiction. So fuck off, retard. You LITERALLY do not understand what you are talking about.

World building is: ultimately, story telling. If you have not been exposed to fiction, you don't know how to tell a good story. It's an aquired, honed craft.
The reason why most of what you see around here is generic and unoriginal lies in something entirely else. If anything, it's because people don't fucking read enough and diverse enough fiction.

Is "fantasy world where the magic disappears so it's 2,000 years later and Elves and Gnomes coexist in a cyberpunk world with humans" an oversaturated trope

>If anything, it's because people don't fucking read enough and diverse enough fiction.
Not disagreeing with the thrust of your argument, but I personally think that one should balance out fiction with history, mythology, and various primary sources like the Tao Te Ching and The Prince. And then throw in some criticism and analysis. I highly recommend Propp, though he does have his problems.

It's not just about reading a lot of stories, it's about understanding where they come from and how they work. Sometimes, going back to roots can give you more context on a shared element of the fiction that you've read, which can give you a better perspective from which to make your own decisions. Understanding the connections between Indra, Perun, and Zeus can be more informative than simply understanding that N fantasy thunder gods are derived from Thor.

"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" should be mandatory reading, though.

A bit.

Also interesting that you went with gnomes instead of orcs or dwarves.

Races of human already fulfill those roles

Maybe a world without humans altogether! Where "humans" are just mutts. Probably won't pursue it if it's been done in every way already

>but I personally think that one should balance out fiction with history, mythology, and various primary sources like the Tao Te Ching and The Prince.
Sure, primary sources and real-world reference is incredibly important. In general: even to understand fiction - even to understand fantastic fiction - having understanding of the reality that surrounds us is always important, and I am by no means disencouraging actual research and study of non-fictional sources. But I'll bet more money in a very literate person, a person who understands classic literature, even if he knows jack shit about real-world history, writing a compelling fantastic world than I'd bet on most actual historians, anthropologists or archeologists.

>It's not just about reading a lot of stories, it's about understanding where they come from and how they work.
While I agree: you generally do not get the latter unless you do the former. Learning about the historical connection between the gods is fine and great, but it won't do you much good if you don't really have a feel for what kind of actual, symbolic role they play in the stories that human tell about them. And if you want good world-building, and you want to include a strong, awe-inducing god of thunder, dry historical articles won't help you: you have to actually read the stories about them, see HOW people talk about them, and not just why they talk about and why.

That said, my point was not to disencourage doing other things than reading fiction. My point was that it's stupid and frankly absurd to claim that having greater literacy somehow destroys your ability to do good or interesting world-building.

You mentioned Tlön, one of my all-time favorite stories ever: It's one of the most wild, insane, crazy, original, off-this-world world building: written by one of THE most literate people in human history, entirely based around him having read so much god-damn fiction.
And that was pretty much why I blew up like that.

Hence why I said they should be balanced. You lose out by overcommitting to either one.

I think my point here could best be summarized by the importance of the encyclopedias of Tlön. What makes the world start to literally come to life is specifically its historical, cultural, and mythological context. However, the way that the story itself unfolds--and, indeed, the fact that it exists at all--is the result of Borges being a damn good and well-read author. In the hands of a lesser reader, Tlön would just be "Hey remember that time those guys made a Wikipedia page for a country that didn't exist and people fell for it? Good times." But Borges was no lesser reader, and so the tale unfolds into something fantastical and strange.

Hey guys I need a hand. I don't want to speak about my whole setting (mostly because it's not very polished), but I have a question concerning a particular aspect. I want to have trains and maybe airship, but no guns.

Would it be possible to have such a thing ? Can train even be made without huge manufacture ? Because if such huge manufacture exist, what is stopping them to create mass-produced weapons (even if it's swords and such) or other locomotion (I don't want everybody have a car/train/whatever).

What do you guys think could be a solution ? I want to have airline and trainline traveling between main cities of the continent, but I don't want fucking all the tech of the 1800s with it.

There was a previous civilization with higher tech before the game exist, so I could patch by saying that people just "still use the trains", but it's a weak excuse because how could they know how to operate it ? Repair it ? etc.

Thank you.

it can, I guess
Greek knew about steam power
Romans had all the know-how to make a steam engine, but didn't have metallurgy, and slaves were cheaper and easier anyway

So main point is metallurgy. If you can explain your setting having decent steel to prevent large boiler from exploding, you can have steam engine. Perhaps they make boilers the katana style, thousandfold steel and all?

That would keep them insanely expensive, so people wouldn't afford personal transport (plus steam engine is too bulky to put on personal transport anyway).

Well in my setting there is different type of alliage and ground ressources anyway, it could be very easy to justify that.

Do you have more information on the need of steel and the knowledge of steam-power by ancient greco-roman civilization ?

Also this begs a secondary question: how much more effective is a steel weapon or armor compared to an iron one ?

Thanks a lot for the info.

>how much more effective is a steel weapon or armor compared to an iron one
Short: very much

Long: there are different kinds of steel.
Regular iron is shit. Good bronze is stronger, but heavier and more expensive.
Pig iron (which is top of what ancient civilizations could make) is stronger, but heavy and brittle.
Whatever steel they had in middle ages is better, but still kinda shit by modern standards. Steam engines were made possible only after inventing coke (kind of coal, not cola) and blast furnaces.
Thousandfold or bulat steel is pretty awesome, but is very difficult and time-consuming to make.
If you want to avoid creating OP weapons, and you're using your own fictional materials, you can have some kind of metal that simply doesn't hold edge - like titan or aluminum. For all their durability they blunt veeery quickly if you sharpen them.

As for antique steam engines, I don't know much, other than that they did know about them. But its easy to guess that after Heron of Alexandria made that steam ball thingie it was easy to try and put some belts and wheels on it to make it do work. Its just they couldn't make a big one that wouldn't explode.

Thanks A LOT for all the information.

So are you saying that because there was better heating technology, they could produce better steel ? Because the crux of my world is that they find some kind of ancient stone with strange properties (!notcoal and !not-ff7-materia mixed) that can produce very high temperature. This was the reason why I thought about trains.

So if what you say is true, they could forge very high quality weapons and other with artisanal effort, without need huge factory etc. ? Just because of the heat technology provided by the stones (and in real life, coal) ?

Thanks.

not so simple, but yes.
you need high temperatures to both make coke (i.e. coal heated to a high temperature without access to oxygen so it doesn't ignite, it makes it somehow better for steel making) and to bond iron to said coke
can't make steel without coal, because steel = iron + carbon

so need not just high temperature, but also a pump to remove air (otherwise coal/coke will just burn away)
a stone that can produce high temperature without open fire should be helpful in that regard, I guess

>want to build a world with a tech level somewhere between 1945 and 2045
>don't want to touch the shitfuck mess that is earth with even a 500 year long alternate history stick
How do I proceed

What exactly is the issue here?

I have no idea how to do this without it being "so this is just like X country... why are you calling it Y? oh it's not earth?" or a retarded spattering of fantasy races in place of interesting human cultures

I think my best bet is to have fantasy races spread around with no interbreeding, but there's a whole new set of problems there, mainly human cultural analogues

though I suppose if I limited the cultural analogues to european, middle eastern, and asian (i.e. a simplification of the well-known world circa 1500) there would be plenty of room for other races to have cultures of their own without overlapping or crowding out human cultures

it's just a headache

ditch humans
ditch multiple races
one very humanoid race, human-like in intellect and tendencies, few big physiological differences
base cultures around those differences first
>they look vaguely like humans, but have horns
>in Examplia horn size and intricacy is a basis for caste system
>Samplians, however, historically file their horns down to tiny stubs
>this has naturally led to a lot of mutual mockery and often even wars over the course of history

next take some important philosophical or social aspect and make it like really important in the setting
say, let's take guile
>Examplians believe that true guile is represented in everyday affairs, in cheating everyone surrounding you in smaller things. This leads to a competitive spirit and keeps damage to a minimum.
>Samplians for instance believe that only serious deceptions are worth attempting, and in executing - or seeing through - them is true worth found

last, make something in the world that ain't a big deal in our a big-big taboo. a nation is considered savage when it doesn't uphold that taboo.
for us it could be narcotics. or female nudity.
for them it could be, say, sweets. or stimulants of any kind, including caffeine.
if you're feeling ballsy you can omit some taboos from other world. ye, their females walk topless, it isn't even seen as a sexual thing, jeez (okay, kidding, that's inviting erp and magic realm, but you get my drift)
obviously various nations deal with taboo differently.

with these alone you can make solid nations, and fill in other details from our world. players will probably recognize the expies, but as long as you keep focus on the made-up differences, it won't matter as much.

oh, and you can use some political things that either never worked or are completely outdated in our world.
Examplians, for instance, have strict case-based democracy, kinda like ancient Athens.
Samplians, on the other hand, are anarchists! They rely smaller groups sharing responsibility.

Do it anyway. Warhammer can pull it off, why not you

In general, check out Ursula Le Guin's Hainish Cycle. namely The Dispossessed and Left Hand of Darkness. They deal with pretty much your situation. Plus both are really really awesome books.

I found it's actually good to do that. People like the familiar, just put a good spin on it.