/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General

Nah, I'd rather have an image of the corruption being from the top down. So there can be a cut off point for a good guy stuck in a shit system.

You can have both. If the guards are being shitty it can be because their boss doesn't give a fuck, or isn't even present because he was awarded the job based on connections rather than capability - he pulls in the paycheck from afar.

Basically to show corruption, you need to have the only way to get shit done be through bribes. There's no sense of institutional justice or purpose. If you don't want the guards beating on you, pay them. If you want to complain about the guards, pay someone. Etc. etc.

Make the social divide very apparent. Dubai, African capitals etc. where the corrupt ones leech off.

Looking for some advice to add variety to a Scifi setting. I like the vibe of early TOS era Trek, with a little bit of camp and "magic" thrown into the mix here and there, but with a definite sense of the VAST EMPTINESS of space still front and center. And because I want to make this a Human-centric setting (low number of sapient aliens) I need Human factions out in space. I am aiming for factions that represent different aspects of Sci-fi throughout the years, but I'd like input on some of the ideas.

The quick and dirty setup is that we used Earth up and started migrating out...but in waves based on getting the Elites and 1-Percenters out first, followed by anyone who figured out what was happening before the inevitable resource wars tore earth apart and knocked the survivors back to the stone age.

>The Commonwealth
Space Soviets with a Trek Federation-like combination of Science, Utopia, and Kicking Ass when it comes to their Fleet Captains pushing the boundaries of known space. Gulags and Psycorp-Commissars optional. 50's and 60's Scifi.
>The Syndicate
Ghost in the Shell meets Aliens. Cyberization and Megacorps are a way of daily life, but the space between their stars are filled with horrifying monsters and alien threats. 80's and 90's scifi.
>The Synod
Dune's Fremen, Jedi, and 40k Psykers rolled together in a spiritual chimera. Uplifted by Psionic aliens after being the last humans abandoned on a dying earth, so pretty pissed about that. 60's and 70's Psychedelic scifi.
>The Alliance
Halo UNSC and Starship Trooper Mechs. Very rough sketch so far, might add Firefly cowboys or something. 2000's to Modern scifi.

tl;dr Need Human scifi factions. Rate what I got. Will make a second post with some tech ideas to define setting.

Alright, tech. The basis of Sci Fi.

>FTL
Faster than light travel is difficult and dangerous. This is a universe more akin to early Trek than anything else, where a ship could spend months just traveling between two sides of a state, and a trip across the galaxy would still be measured in centuries. Ships travel through space by wrapping a SUBSPACE BUBBLE around themselves. This bubble is bent space-time, allowing one to bypass the normal restriction on lightspeed. Any acceleration while in a Subspace bubble will be exponentially magnified, allowing one to go very, very fast. No Relativity.

This has some implications. First, the bubble doesn't fully warp you out of space entirely. Small object will bend around a ship in flight, as space will warp and bend with the ship. But objects of a size equal to or greater than the ship itself will not be able to bend enough to prevent collision. Such a collision tends to be catastrophic. See: The Last Jedi. Thankfully, space is big. Really big, so such collisions are almost impossible. Secondly, Gravity is a reflection of bent Space-Time, which is what the Subspace Field is, so generating a SSB will generate a sort of Mass Shadow, or Gravity without actual Mass. This Mass Shadow is also exponentially greater than the real mass of the ship, so the larger the ship, the more gravity it will "generate". People on the ship don't notice this effect, but a ship of sufficient size could cause gravitational wobble to start a cascade of troubles inside of an active solar system. Therefore, such FTL systems are hardwired to prevent ships from casually activating their Subspace Drive whenever they are in a star system.

And for those who think you could weaponize the destructive capabilities of such a thing? Ships are very expensive, and with habitable worlds being incredibly rare in the galaxy, no one wants to a) start blowing up planets they'd rather use themselves, and b) NO ONE wants to open that can of worms ala MAD.

>Space Combat
Combat in space is deadly, distant, and decisive. Contrary to common perception, there IS stealth in space. Communication and Detection through the vastness of space is done through Passive and Active scanning. Passive scanning takes place at light speed, and doesn't require ships to do anything more than receive input from the Black. Active Scanning uses tachyon-enabled devices which can send and receive signals at faster than light speeds. Trouble with this is in Space, everyone is blind, and sending out comm or scan signals is like tapping your foot on a glass floor. Everyone can hear it. Just identifying a ship at astronomical distances is useless since heat signatures and even ship profiles are unreliable, but asteroids don't send out emails. So a ship that "goes silent" is the ship that cuts its comm and active scanning systems.

Combat takes place at astronomical distances and light-seconds. Primary weapons tend to include Lasers, Mass Drivers, and Antimatter Warheads. Lasers are long range and accurate, but are easily mitigated by special materials and ablative armor. Projectiles accelerated to near c can crack worlds if no one is careful, but forcefields can negate much of their effectiveness. And warheads are powerful enough to level cities and annihilate planetary ecosystems (some suspect Star-Busting Bombs are on their way), but can be countered by point-defense. Therefore, war in space is a cat and mouse artillery battle that eventually comes down to rock-paper-scissors. Lasers are the most common, followed by Explosives, and then Projectiles. On the ground, this is reversed due to atmospheric interference with laser weapons and projectile's general reliability.

Ship sizes matter in war. There are no "Fighter craft" like in the movies. The smallest manned vessel is still a 2-4 person shuttle more akin to a naval patrol boat or a bomber plane. The "fighter" role is taken up by swarms of drones.

Cont.

Drones are stationed on most ships in varying amounts and controlled by shackled AI. Large carriers and starbases carry hundreds of drones.

>Fabrication and civilian
There are no full on Replicators in this universe. You can't convert energy into matter just like that. These are more like hyper-advanced 3D printers, taking blocks of organic and inorganic matter and using advanced fabricators to work them into a usable form. This requires some energy, so it isn't free.

Civilian tech includes access to world-networks, resembling the internet of Old Earth, but no interstellar system has been feasibly designed yet. Prosthetics are common place in most urbanized and core worlds, though they are ubiquitous in Syndicate systems. These are full-on Ghost in the Shell style prosthetics, which allow for physical and mental alteration. Many outside of Syndicate space prefer bio-tech replacements for lost limbs, partly due to cost, and partly due to the new limb being a genetic copy of the old one. Prosthetics still allow for far greater variety and accessorizing, however.

Civilian ships are rare due to their cost. Most ships in space are either military or owned by multi-stellar corporations. Civilians must purchase their way onto such ships, or find some way to be assigned to one if they want to leave their own star system, though travel within a star system is common. Sublight Engines are very efficient, and can cut travel time between worlds down considerably within a given system.

And that's what I got so far. Will be lurking a while if anyone wants to comment or give a suggestion.

i asked this in another thread but go no answers, is a dark ages/antiquity level of technology enough to make firearms such as blunderbusses and pistols? or is metallurgy and forging so bad that any firearm that would be made would just explode?

>Thread question
It's the Earth millions of years in the far future after multiple ecological disasters caused humanity to go on a mass exodus to the planet Arcadia.

Now humanity's descendants, now called Arcadians, have come back with advanced biotechnology and extremely refined sustainable tech, intending to recolonize a changed Earth, now known as Terre, to see if they can be worthy to be the stewards of Terre once more.

it's solarpunk, basically.

The climate of Terre is similar to the Carboniferous period: really warm. The landscapes are dominated by trees and tree-like lichens, and most animals have evolved for forest life.

That's all I got so far.

I'm not an expert, but before nobody else answers: bronze was actually a pretty great metal for bigger cannons and in general, I'm at least sure to have seen bronze canons being made way into the middle ages, maybe beyond. Maybe more intricate mechanisms could turn out to be a problem.

So this seems to have human culture close enough to be pulling from major spacefarers. If you have Space Russia, where is your Space China? Part of Space Russia or do we assume China purchased America and then its mixed into the Alliance?

Or is that the idea of the Syndicate?

Anyways you have your Star Trek, your Star Wars, your Cyberpunk, your Halo (and maybe Firefly).

If you want to do more Dune it might be neat to have a Monarchy, or something that's effectively a monarchy. Loads of weighted tradition and such piled on.

there are several good ways to do this, depending on how subtle you want it to be.
1. People wanting to leave, but being unable to. Rumours, overheard conversations or blatant situations played out in front of the party all work - basically, all the common folk wanting out of the place, but no one being able to leave due to taxes/laws/threats.
2. Lots of laws and rules, many of them obscure and micro-managing. Like you can't pass by a statue or portrait of the ruler without bowing, no weapons allowed in certain buildings/parts of town, all visitors having to check in with "customs" which ends up being a shady dude in a shady shack, etc.
3. Impunity of the ruling class - you get told by the gate-guard that you can't talk about a group of people, or to avoid getting attention from anyone with an orange sash, or conversely being told that if someone wearing one tells them to do something, to do it quickly and with a smile.
4. A clear separation between have's and have-not's. Lavish mansions on one side of the river, shacks and decrepit lean-to's on the other.

Hope this helps.

Add some faction (a small one or subfaction) that controls FTL information web.

>No Relativity.
What do you specifically mean by this?

>Therefore, such FTL systems are hardwired to prevent ships from casually activating their Subspace Drive whenever they are in a star system.
This wont work, you cant give someone hardware access and expect yo remain in control of that hardware. Someone will make FTL missiles.
On the Last Jedi comment, you know that punched as big a hole in the setting as it did the ship right?

>Ships are very expensive
Doesnt work as a deterrent, fighting is expensive, you can try to build more and larger expensive ships to fight your enemy's ships and hope you win the brawl or you can focus on building the most efficient killing machine you can. The FTL missile.

>no one wants to a) start blowing up planets they'd rather use themselves,
That's fine for governments and so, but a lone psycho or radical organization may have different motivators, given enough time and people some bad apple will get a ship and kill a planet.

>b) NO ONE wants to open that can of worms ala MAD.
That is no longer an option, the technology is out there. Its open, the worms are in every FTL capable ship. No one wants MAD, no one ever did, but as soon as the weapons exist you can either play along or bow down and hope the ones that do have mercy on you.

>Active Scanning uses tachyon-enabled devices which can send and receive signals at faster than light speeds.
This really hammers home the problems above, because this is time traveling information. The tachyon buzzword is unimportant, the FTL scanning means those missiles can know their target's location before the target arrives or if you wanna unexplainedly nerf them, at least in real time.

Blacksmiths in dark ages could have made the barrels and what not - it would have been more due to accidentally making carbon steel rather than due to any knowledge or skill, but it could happen, so the barrel is a go. The ignition/trigger mechanism would be more tricky though - the weapons would probably be miniature cannons, with no rifling, muzzle-loaded.

If you're open to going another route, gunpowder-propelled arrows were some of the first successfully employed weapons of that sort. Look into the hwacha.

Corruption is when form != function.

A bad king: taxes too high.
A corrupt king: low taxes but the collectors take some on the side.

I introduced two members of a group called the Green Serpent Trade Company. The company is run by Yuan-Ti Purebloods that go around buying slaves of other races to take home, but they cover up what they do with these slaves with business that seems legitimate. What kind of business deals should these guys offer in a low magic setting, where a single gold coin may be enough to last a man his entire life?

Not that user but I believe what he means by 'no relativity' is something like light not being the same speed in every reference frame so that he can have his FTL mcguffins without also having time-travel and hence violation of causality.

I'm trying to avoid 1-to-1 human cultures in space. The Space Russians are modeled after the Soviet Space program (ambitious, grandiose, throws bodies at the problem) with some of the nobler ideals of the Trek Federation tossed in, but it's not meant to be Russia in Space. Likewise, the Syndicate isn't literally meant to be Japan in Space. Though I will add a Monarchy now, based on or near Old Earth and largely made up of psionically uplifted humans.

>FTL information web
I sort of went away from this, but having a branch of the Syndicate acting like Spy Incorporated for the highest bidder tickles me.

>What do you specifically mean by this?
There is no change of time-references for going fast. So if you go from Alpha Centauri to Polaris or whatever, you won't have aged differently than your twin brother left back on your homeworld. The space bubble thing is basically space-magic anyway, so I'm not bothered by little things so long as there's consistency, and since I can't math enough to calculate time displacement due to FTL travel speeds...

>Someone will make FTL missiles.
Possibly. And then EVERYONE will murder them, ala Atomics in Dune.

>I hate last jedi
Good for you, I don't care.

>most efficient killing machine you can
What part of "Planets are fucking rare" was unclear? War crimes are still a thing and the second ONE person uses this, the human race goes extinct from everyone firing one off and wiping out known space. NO ONE can fire fast enough to survive this catastrophe.

>but a lone psycho or radical organization
Entirely possible, which is why there's a stranglehold on nuclear weapons in the real world. It may still happen, but it's something the international community strives very hard to prevent.

>That is no longer an option
Yes it is. Look at real life.

>tachyons
Theoretically move faster than light. And as says, I assume causality cannot be messed with due to how FTL travel works in universe.

>but having a branch of the Syndicate acting like Spy Incorporated for the highest bidder tickles me.
Or something like this. Maybe faction is wrong word, but there should be one, maximum two bodies governing such issue. Space travel is not easy feat, usable communication even more so.

Oh, I'm aware you'd not going for 1-1. Just to give me something to talk about.

I suppose that noble lines based on who is psionic might be neat. Its a good excuse to go for the really baroque sort of sci-fi

Blunderbus and practical pistols are both fairly mature firearm designs. The Japanese did use matchlock pistols to a limited extent but effective pistols really need a more advanced mechanism such as a wheelock or flintlock. These are probably simply beyond the reach of an ancient or early medieval culture.

Bronze barrels for small arms could be done, but it would be very expensive and somewhat difficult to do reliably. Bronze cannon would be even more expensive and difficult with that level of metallurgy. Both might be too impractical and not worth development in the context. Iron barrels are a complete non-starter.

Blackpowder weapons in such an environment would probably resemble early Chinese designs; firelances (possibly with reuseable bronze or iron pots for more advanced empires) which do function as flamethrower/shotgun hybrids, rockets, petards and bombs, and maybe one-shot cannon made from wood, leather or turf (all of which have beem used historically at various points). Reliability will be very variable and most are disposable weapons.

Sorry for biting you head off here .

I didn't mean to come off as a dick. I understand I don't physics correctly, but I'm not looking to make a Hard setting, so much as a Soft setting that tries to look Hard to make its disapproving parents happy.

Please, keep pointing things like that out. It does help.

Good point. A couple of independent communication corporations would be interesting.

>baroque
I feel like that particular art movement is a little over done. Post Classical? Brutalist?

>Good point. A couple of independent communication corporations would be interesting.
They'd probably use the same infrastructure though. Unless someone is willing to commit unthinkable amount of time, effort and money into something redundant just to have their own com-web with blackjack and hookers.

It'd be like a second Syndicate faction. One big Mega-Communications Corporation pretending to be a group of Telecomm Corps to avoid getting targeted by the combined human governments. And the only ones who know are conspiracy theorists who use that Corps' network to talk about them. Talk about real world parallels.

As for baroque, I meant more a faction that goes more intense on the aesthetic compared to the "clean" sci-fi you see in some of your others.

But yeah, Classical, Baroque, Rococco could all work. Better yet mix in a lot of cultures there - don't look at just European movements, but at any world culture during an era of having a shit ton of wealth.

What sort of art movements are big amongst China's elite? Past and present.

I don't know the exact term, but look at the Ming Dynasty for China. Also look at Japan during the 17th and 18th centuries. Korea, South-East Asia and Indonesia might be useful too.

I could also take one of those cultures and add Baroque to it. Like, massive Indian Elephant and Chinese Dragons covered in hyper-detailed gold etchings.

The Tang dynasty was another era of flourishing arts, with the added bonus that Heian-era Japan adopted Tang aesthetics (and Buddhism) as a cornerstone of their own courtly culture and hung onto them long after China itself had moved on.

Yeah. Also note that Asian designs influenced Europe at a point in the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly Japanese, Chinese and Persian. Look up Orientalism, particularly in France.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism

Shit, I like this.

Also note the similarity between the Mandate of Heaven in the East, and Divine Right of Kings in the West. Mix in your psionic stuff with that for some fun.

Thread questions.

> The ruins of the ancient nation of Rythia's capital, Rythus, are equally shared by the wealthy Eclean city-states around it. It was Rythia that basically developed a true "empire" for the first time in history, a vast Roman style cosmopolitan state that spanned the continent. It held against orc and demon incursions for around four hundred years before the Sack of Rythus by Orc warbands ended it horribly. Its old territory is now shared by a multitude of nations- Valraya, Caloreska, Estrinesia, and a limited chunk of Highland and Vocheoria. Its rise and fall is a huge part of history for the people in my setting.

> I leave quite a bit of my New World esque secondary continents unexplored and blank, because it's one of the most magically charged places on the planet and pretty much all the crazy shit goes down there. Truthfully I need to find better things to put in it than giant lizards and insect people, but for now it's the "here there be dragons" environment for the world's nations.

Arquebuses are quite simple weapons that can be made easily.

But if it's proper Dark Ages? You have to go simpler. Handgonnes, which are basically tiny cannons on sticks (lit by sticking a hot wire or match into a touch hole) are a good choice for that.

to add:
>with the exception of the trigger and lock mechanism, that'll require some complex engineering on the arquebus's part

1/3
>Yes it is. Look at real life.
What i mean is, it is not an option to pretend FTL WMDs dont exist. Since they do, an FTL missile arms race is inevitable. See: Real life.

Huge sections of the military budget and FTL-engine production of anyone and everyone must be dedicated to upholding the threat. The cold war may be over but we'll never be free of the specter of nuclear annihilation. Unless someone perfects a missile shield and deploys it before the nuclear powers can stop them. Then they'll either rule the world, nuke it themselves, or we'll see wars that make the old world wars pale by comparison as all out conventional war becomes possible between major powers again.

>Entirely possible, which is why there's a stranglehold on nuclear weapons in the real world. It may still happen, but it's something the international community strives very hard to prevent.

It does indeed, see Iran, North Korea and and Israel for how it fails on a planetary scale. Im not making any judgements here about the politics, im just saying given time and resources even despite the suppression, the little powder kegs will get them too.

>>I hate last jedi
>Good for you, I don't care.
Not the point i was making, what im pointing out is by stating that maneuver is possible it has essentially retroactively torpedoed its own internal consistency. The more you leave holes like that, the more glaring the issue becomes, straining suspension of disbelief and robbing the story of weight, what's the great feat of Luke or the Millenium killing the deathstars if they coulda just shot them with a frigate piloted by droids from the safety of another hidden base? Im not saying it to harp on the movie here im saying there is a lesson in world building. I mean i don't like the movie sure, not like religiously or anything, but that was the coolest part of it.

2/3
>Possibly. And then EVERYONE will murder them, ala Atomics in Dune.
Exactly, and they'll have to do that with more FTL missiles since that's the only weapon that can potentially stop this perpetrator before they take another shot at you. This is pretty much how modern MAD works. You'd like to walk in conventionally and bring them to justice, but first you gotta make sure they dont kill you and that means making the choice between shooting back and killing them, or hoping they wont shoot you too while you go in. And none of this removes the problem of the weapons being a real concern.

>What part of "Planets are fucking rare" was unclear?
It doesnt even have to be. Setting aside the strategic potential of these weapons. Tactically they remove the use of larger vessels entireley. Why build a cruiser when a tiny courrier sized vessel is guaranteed take it out by ramming it. This leads to the next logical step, all fleet battles are a pure numbers game where both sides shoot FTL missiles at each other's FTL missiles until one of them runs out and has to surrender. Once you have a weapon capable of killing anything there is no need to strap guns onto that weapon and use the little ones, because ultimately you are putting it in harms way anyway, and might as well get your moneys worth, all warships become missiles, some of them just have the luxury of firing other missiles before becoming one themselves.

There is a whole other game about massive carrier ships flying through the galaxy jousting with FTL drone swarms here, trying to use networks of expendable FTL com/sensor dishes to direct them in outmaneuvering the enemy's defense fleet while catching its attack runs before they strike the carrier or active com/sensor nodes. Which is super fucking cool, but doesnt sound like what you're going for.

3/3
Basically there needs to be an ACTUAL not artificial limit to the FTL or it all bogs down into using it as a weapon. Say instead if these bubbles lose cohesion in gravity wells. They loose it pretty far out and drop the ship back down to whatever speed it entered with. That way they cant be used as weapons in system and any relativistic planetkiller projectiles delivered by them still have to approach in system at below light speed allowing an FTL sensor capable defense network of intercepting them.

I appreciate that man, always glad to see people at least try to handle criticism. And im sorry if it sounds like im here to sadistically shit on your labour of love. Im not, im just pointing these things out now partly because i like thinking about these things and because not considering them will one way or another hurt the setting. As noted above the implications of this tech can really torpedo the kinds of stories you want to tell.

So again, sorry if its harsh, you can disregard it if you will, but a tip then would be to also drop the explanations. Its not as obvious if you dont point it out like you have in your explanations earlier. No one thought of hyper drive weapons in Star Wars until they brought one out. Well i mean, someone did, but it only became an issue from a storytelling perspective when they told us about them.

Alright, after reading this, I have a few options.

I like the explanation that Subspace Fields (bubbles) fail near large gravity wells, and it would be the most elegant way to wave the issue away. A planet-killer might still be accelerating up to something like 30-50% of c, but at least that buys a few microseconds for the planetary defense grid to nullify it.

Or I can accept it. It certainly adds tension to any war when every faction knows the other guy could lob a planet busting missile at your homeworld at any point. Turns the setting into a galactic Cuban Missile Crisis.

>There is a whole other game about massive carrier ships flying through the galaxy jousting with FTL drone swarms here, trying to use networks of expendable FTL com/sensor dishes to direct them in outmaneuvering the enemy's defense fleet while catching its attack runs before they strike the carrier or active com/sensor nodes. Which is super fucking cool, but doesnt sound like what you're going for.
Also, that is fucking rad as well, though I'm not sure why you thought that wasn't something that happens in my setting?

Because you talked about lasers, forcefields, stealth and such.

Tactically speaking with tachyon sensors and FTL missile swarms there are no other weapons needed, no cool broadsides. Drivers, lasers and missiles would only be relevant to second wave planetary control ships that are hopelessly outmatched in 'real' space combat. The fight is over light hours, maybe even light weeks depending on how much faster than light tachyon sensors are. Without a cap on how much a bubble can exceed light speed these engagements would probably also happen to fast for a human to even interact with them beyond signing off on launching the mission.

Well i mean, with the cybernetics they could maybe interface with and speed up to the levels of the super computers who do this shit.

So to further this line of inquiry, what were your intended limits on the bubbles, FTL speeds? How long do they take to start?

For the Tachyon sensors, what are their capabilities, ranges, speed of information? How often can they actively ping? Continuously? Can you use the tachyon receivers while in FTL? The broadcasters?

Are there other FTL communications? How do they work?

>Also, that is fucking rad as well, though I'm not sure why you thought that wasn't something that happens in my setting?

I wasn't saying that wasn't happening, i was saying it had to happen, it was the only way space combat could happen because people could either step up their game to that level or die to an FTL barrage from those that did.

If you want i can walk you through some of the other contributing factors from the technologies that, as presented in the initial posts, eventually boil down ALL space warfare in the setting to kamikaze drone fleets crashing into each other.

Sorry, stupid busy. Please continue. I can more thouroughly post more in a bit.

Alas i just realized its 4am here so maybe tomorrow.

I'll try bumping til you get back, friend.

Chadworld, Racist Edition.

So to navigate away from the HRE & give myself time to mull stuff over. I'm gonna talk about races in my world.

Humans. Humans started on an island nation called Atlympia in the center of the Sea of Storms. Stuff went sideways (not sure what i want to have caused it yet) & it was destroyed/sunk & humanity spread to all the areas around it.

Dwarves. Not sure on origins, probably carved from stone by the dwarf gods. They predominantly live in the Krazidar Commonwealth, Balkovia, & the Holy Republic. Old Byzantine/Persian kind of culture, though they are becoming more modern.

Elves. They are older than Humanity, connected to the natural world. They mostly live in Slyvania, & the Dark Forests there. There are a few offshoots in various other countries, notably the Frostlands & Avalon.

Shirish, these small humanoids, usually have red hair. Originally hail from Shireland, & Avalon as a whole, but have an abundance of wanderlust & have since roamed to all corners of the world. They are proficient sailors (yes they are Irish)

Ogres. I'm going to give them a different name I think. This large humanoids are known for strength, ferocity & their large appetites. They are from the East & the South. Middle-Eastern culture to far East culture.

What does /tg think?

Betting on animal fights.

Alien worlds mean alien critters, so come up with some loathsome little animal that will always fight when placed in a confined space with another of its own kind.

>Thread Question
My current setting began with the idea for a desert region once inhabited by a now lost civilization that was mostly wiped out when hordes of ogres showed up and conquered the place. Eventually this morphed into Sica, the Elven homeland. It's no longer a desert, rather a cold, temperate region, similar to Scandinavia in climate. In lieu of giants it essentially got magenuked because the gods got bored and stopped doing their jobs. The Elves then migrated South, into a frontier region of the not!Roman Empire and, after a brief war, were granted an autonomous region from which they swiftly expelled the indigenous human tribes. Sica and the region the elves migrated to were also the sites of the two initial river valley civilizations of the setting, one human and one elven.
>Methodology Question
I'm running an exploration based campaign, so a large portion of the main continent is uncharted. This is, in universe, due to the prohibition of its exploration by an obsolete knightly order formed to keep the civilized world safe from the various tribes in the uncharted territory that would have posed a threat. Although this is no longer an issue, the order is hellbent on not losing its influence, and maintains its embargo on the uncharted territory.

A series of tiles/tokens, all have different numbers or symbols. The game is played by stacking a few tiles/tokens & have them "faceoff" will other player's stacks. The tile on top is always in view but their is no way of knowing what tiles are hidden below. Whoever's stack has the greater value wins the clash. Mastery of the game ranges from creating lots of small stacks, in an attempt to strike more points versus the enemy, to making stealthly powerful stacks to overcome your opponents stacks, to bluffing what is under your stacks. If you want to play this in real life use dominoes

China before opium.

Beastmastery/Plantmastery

We would breed/create plants & animals to do everything for us. From using super intelligent parrots for communication, to "smart" plants that regulate our body temp.

So Veeky Forums, how can I try to sell my settings to someone?

Anyone interested in gray depressing /x/-ish apocalyptic settings taking place in Russia? Anyone want to give me some opinions on this?

not really, first cannons and firearms were made of selfsame bronze as in antiquity. they DID explode often, but who cared?

also first firearms - chinese Fire Spears - were made of bamboo. they were single-use, obviously

>iron age ships (think triremes)
>a ship rams another ship
>the ramming ship has special ramps leading to the nose
>cavalry on specially bred horses leap from the nose onto rammed ship and attack the defenders
>afterwards the cavalry dismounts and trained horses leap overboard
>the ramming ship has special backward-facing ramps so horses can get back aboard

is this idea retarded or awesome?

>is this idea retarded or awesome?
yes

>have real trouble with identity of one of major kingdoms
>literally know nothing about them aside from name
>go to sleep, have to get up early
>brain suddenly erupts in diarrhea of information about that kingdom
>squinting and cursing grab phone to write down tons of information about pretty much everything
>afterwards when I begin to doze off brain supplies additional tidbits so I have to curse and grab phone again
>this happens several times in the same night

goddammit, why don't idearrheas come when I DON'T have to get up early?

Pitch:
Tropical-climate empire (Nation A) in the vein of Egypt suddenly has a succession crisis. Era is similar to Napoleonic to Civil War period, emphasis on political ideals and changing attitudes towards the world.

Nation A has one legitimate successor, which would normally promote a successful transition, but one of the illegitimate successors has accused his half-sister of killing their parents for the purposes of expediting her rise to power. Whether this is actually true or not should not be clear at first. He has gathered the support of a populist political group that seeks to challenge the increasingly-corrupt nobility and install a republic. A few non-corrupt nobility members have thrown in with them, believing they’ll earn a similar or higher position in the new regime. Another illegitimate, a fresh-out-of-education young man, is being promoted as an alternative to the legitimate successor if she cannot handle the revolt.

Causes:
>Increasing corruption in the political field due to inherited nobility going stale
>An increase in population due to medical advances is not supported by an increase in food production: Nobility that own the lands want to artificially inflate prices to earn greater profits.
>Educational opportunities previously open to the public are being restricted due to expenses of supporting an organized school system
>Across the ocean, a revolt from a former colony of another nation has led this newfound nation to capture Nation A’s colony in the area, meaning former opportunities there have been severed.
>The former colony has also promoted a republican form of government in Nation A and has sent several diplomats in support of the populists despite previous conflict
>Another nation in the north has reformed into an empire: they supply Nation A with most of their steel and are using their new military power and united front to demand better prices, raising costs across the board.

Does this seem like sufficient rationale?

how much killiness would a screwdriver-tip spear lose?

I want a naval empire to use such spears because they symbolize oars

I also think soldiers would be trained to attempt to slash enemy throats and tendons with cutting movements, in addition to general stabbing

(I mean flat head screwdriver, obviously)

Yeah, seems fine.

Except I wouldn't expect diplomats from a former colony would be accepted. Any nation would see former colony as rebels and traitors at least for a couple generations, otherwise they'd just lose face. So diplomats are not likely, they'd rather send spies/provocateurs.

Ah, I can see how I misplaced that. It's an ex-colony of Nation B that had a short territory war with A that was settled in the new nation's favor due to proximity. They cut A a good deal for materials as part of the negotiation, but A doesn't have any dominion there now.

Learn to give elevator pitches. Most amount of (interesting) info in the least amount of time.

I want to do a setting with near future mecha on an original world, their usage would be supplementary to tanks. How could they be transported into battle besides walking into combat?

Skating mechs like in VOTOMS are the only good mechs.

spears are mainly thrusting weapons. a screwdriver spear tip is not a good idea

put jet engines on them, duh

but sufficiently sharp one wouldn't lose THAT much of penetrating power, would it?

>roman wore bedsheets and no pants
>scotsmen wore bedsheets and no pants

>roman buildings had two-layer walls with filling between
>scottish brochs had two-layer walls with air between

I decided to merge ancient scotland and ancient rome into one culture.

>Even in a world-spanning setting there's a place that first comes to mind when thinking about your setting. Sort of its definitive point. Tell me about it. Especially what climate is it in? It is warm or cold?
When i first think about my setting i always imagine a deserting plains crossed by a road and a wandered parking his car at the roadside smoking his cigar watching the sunshine behind the hills

>How much of the setting do you normally leave blank/unexplored?
Not too much. Since my universe have a pretty strange geographical situation, i have created lots of plains and desert. I know where they are, but i don't know what are they hiding
>Is it mainly to inspire sense of discovery or to give yourself a place to put whatever you'll need later?
I like to give to my universe a sense of exploration in a already know world. Like when they knew what Africa was and where is, but they didn't know what there was the heart of it. That's the feeling that i want from my world, a sense of adventure and exploration, along with a more classic "save the world" story

>Archipelago empire
>All the poor, homeless, petty criminals, debtors and children of slaves are carted off onto mainland, where they fell trees, are taught carpentry, build a warship, are taught to fight and become the ship's crew for at least two-three years.
>Thus every crew-member can fix the ship, knows what makes a ship tick, and as such can effectively operate their own and disable enemy ships.
>Their salary and percentage of spoils over that time allows most people to buy a modest house (or build one - remember, they are accomplished carpenters) and start some kind of business.
>Debtors additionally serve until they pay off their debts.
>People who wish may stay on the ships, becoming veterans with better pay, and often get to become captains/officers on the ships just like the ones they started on
>All the really hard work, like mining and crop growing on the mainland is done by slaves.
>Slaves come from prisoners of war and serious criminals.
>Their children stay with them until they are adult, whereupon they join the ship crews, but are otherwise free citizens.
>Slave children constitute majority of permanent ship crews, as many slave children work primarily to buy their parents out of slavery.

>There are also more specialized warships built specifically by professional shipwrights, the crew-made ships are the bulk of the fleet.

How's that for a country running system?

Cuts work like this. get a sharp knife and apply downward pressure to the palm of your hand. as long as you dont slide the knife along, it wont cut.

A sharp screwdriver head hitting an exposed belly MIGHT cut a little bit, maybe injure the guy, but a sharp point will go straight through him and kill him.

eh
then those spears will be honor guard's impractical weapons

Are empty places (no forests, hills or the like) in a map okay?

It's called the Midwest.

So, guys, i think i found the solution to players uninterested in the lore of your world.
>longtime group of players under me, going on 15 years.
>tons of fun, played one or two really in-depth campaigns that lasted a couple years here and there, but they never really took time to pay attention to my lore that i built. They took minor notes here and there so they could reference key points, but beyond that, they always had to make use of NPC's to learn important lore when they all have my cliff notes on the lore.
>so, i decided to run a different route about a year or so ago.
>I ran a setting where they were gods, creating the world and observing it as they went, with the ability to favor certain groups of monsters or humans, and create acts of god and miracles. There were, of course, NPC gods who would try to fuck with their shit. But, the main thing was, they were in control and they only had to react to what i did in an impersonal sense.
>Not a one of them took it impersonally.
I could go on, but, long story short, after a year of 3-4 sessions a week essentially world building (and i had kept notes on every war, major NPC and event that had occurred), I cut them off for about 2 weeks while i shored up the basics.
I told them that i was done with it and wanted to move on to other projects. They were a little butthurt, but i was their only source for GM and they put up with it.
When they rolled their characters and woke up in the middle of the war that I had left them dealing with when they were still gods, their eyes lit up.
The past few sessions have been wonderful and I have hardly had to lift a finger, because they knew a lot about the world, just not as much as they think they do. There is still plenty that gods don't see, but now they are interested in finding all those secrets.

thats bullshit and you dont know shit about physics. enough pressure and it doesn't matter whether or not you move the knife back and forth, look at any industrial cutter on an line. they simply chop up and down. an inclined plane will always move two parts of an object apart unless the inclined plane is softer than the object it is cutting.

So flintstones.

This entirely depends on your players, I will say. We tried this once with the group I played in college, and one person -- usually our DM -- was obsessing over his chosen race being psychic spiders that lived on the moon and spun webs down to the planet while another wanted a race of rapey pterodactyl people because he'd recently been shared the glory of pterodactyl porn.

These people were legitimately fine for actually playing games, grounded settings, and the like. But when you give godlike power to some people, shit just gets fucked up.

Holy shit, you're right.

there's a difference between an industrial cutter and a spear, retard. try getting a sharp knife, put it in your palm and press it down, as long as it doesn't move you won't cut yourself at all.

conclusion, you're retarded. i was talking about a spear, not machinery.

you go get a knife and try it, i guarantee if you bear down with all your weight, you can cut your skin.

its the same motion as cutting carrots and chopping onions. go look at a good chef (like on iron chef) prep a dish. they only use downward motions for many vegetables because its faster than a long drawn out slice and most veggies are at least as tough or tougher than human skin.

>mind becomes clearer later
>hate all of the ideas

I have alreadt tried it with a knife and just tried it. it was with a mora and i barely use it so it's very sharp. you got btfo
not true

I’m working on an idea I’m excited about anons. I love to build settings for 5e games, so it’s sort of a challenge to myself. How can I make the most original setting while still allowong use of as much PHB material as possible? This attempt takes inspiration from scifi, but it’s still a high fantasy setting. Specifically Halo, say what you will about the games it’s a damn good scifi setting.

The basics of the setting is that it’s still in the typical D&D planescape type cosmology, and the setting itself is still on the Material. But it isn’t a planet. As you probably guessed, it’s a ringworld. But how does a ringworld come to be in a high-fantasy setting? Simple. An ancient race, ancient beyond the measure of even the elves, created it literaly millions of years ago using their mastery of the arcane. Using the might of all their greatest spellcasters put together, they opened doorways to the Elemental planes for raw materials. They shaped a supporting structure, the Worldbones, out of pure adamantine. They put it in place in the habitable zone around a suitable star, and wreathed it in stone from the Plane of Earth. Kilometers-tall moutains on either side of the inner ridges of the ring held the atmosphere, blown in from the Plane of Air, and oceans were filled in from the Plane of Water. The Plane of Fire provided all the energy needed to shape it. They constructed an inner ring around the star with gaps in it to simulate a day/night cycle, and finally seeded the ringworld with plant and animal life. Since it’s creation, the race of the builders has long since fadded away to some unknown fate, but now younger races teem across the ringworld. Most know their world is a big ring, but few know it’s true origins. Pretty much a typical high fantasy tech/magic level otherwise, but the landscape is dotted with ruins of the Builders’ dead civilization and examples of indescribably powerful magic. Who knows what wonders await in such places?

>Con’t because ran out of space
Races include all the PHB plus Genasi because all that Elemental Planes shit in the creation of the ringworld unloaded a lot of elementals into the world and that bloodline is still around in place. Got your humans in teeming millions building cities in the hills and grasslands, halflings mingling with their human cousins, forest gnomes and wood elves in the forests, high elves in gleaming cities with the most advanced magic around, drow being all edgy in the cavern systems that honeycomb the ringworld, the odd dragonborn or tiefling wandering around, dwarves building moutain holds and carefully mining up the Worldbones for adamantine where they deem it safe to do so, hill dwarves having their own cities that rival the humans, and rock gnomes being cheeky with their Late Renaissance level tech that no one else can figure out. And of course orcs and half-orcs, but I like to take them in a more civilized and militaristic direction. Kind of the setting’s equivalent of the Mongol Empire. A tribal warrior culture that actually got its shit together and became a world power. Of course the setting only covers a small portion of the ringworld(ringworlds have livable surface area equal to literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Earth-like planets) so there’s always more to explore on the horizon.

>Even in a world-spanning setting there's a place that first comes to mind when thinking about your setting. Sort of its definitive point. Tell me about it. Especially what climate is it in? It is warm or cold?
The Windy Peaks, also known as the Winding Peaks, were the first location I created for the setting. The Windy Peaks are a spiral of sheer mountains with a single pass that winds into the center of the range. The central peak of the range was hollowed out into a great fortress with smaller forts, strongholds, and gatehouses dotting the pass, though many of them are now abandoned and have fallen into disrepair in the intervening millennium since their construction.

The Peaks are kept dry and temperate by a wild tempest of wind that blows just above the wall height of the central fortress (which is also atop the tallest mountain) which effectively forms a ceiling against all aerial travel. There is a line of calm air in the tempest, a wide path which points east out from the center, labeled The Corridor, and is the only route into or out of the Peaks by air. Shorter corridors sometimes connect to the gatehouses or forts, allowing them to act as small hubs for trade among the western villages stuck out in the Peaks, but these paths are very narrow and are typically only flown by experienced couriers.

The wild wind ceiling above the Peaks means that they see little to no precipitation throughout the year. Mild misting and dustings of snow are common in wetter seasons but the vast majority of water springs from the heart of the central fortress and runs down the single pass in a narrow river. This means that the pass floor is fairly verdant compared to its surroundings, being home to a host of long grasses, needlegreen trees, and a host of hardy flowers at home in the crushed stone of the mountain floor.

(1/2?)

Wanzers can skate, they probably got the idea from VOTOMS.

No.