Pirate Queen EditionWelcome to /wbg/, the official thread for the discussion of in-progress settings for traditional games.Here is where you go to present and develop the details of your worlds such as lore, factions, magic and ecosystems. You can also post maps for your settings, as well as any relevant art (either created by you or used as inspiration for your work). Please remember that dialogue is what keeps the thread alive, so don't be afraid of giving someone feedback!Last Thread: >>92389368Resources for Newfags: https://sites.google.com/view/wbgeneral/Worldbuilding links: https://pastebin.com/JNnj79S5 (embed) (embed)https://cryptpad.fr/pad/#/2/pad/view/Eo+fK41FKVR7xDpbNO0a0N4k0YYxrmyrhX3VxnM14Ew/Fantasy map generator: https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator/wbg/ Discord: https://discord.gg/JCjYYb2E (broken)Thread Questions:>Does your setting have any noteworthy pirates and/or pirate factions, and if so, what makes them noteworthy? What do the pirates wear?>How do you feel about sky pirates or space pirates in your settings? Also, how does the magic or technology present affect piracy?>How do people in the setting fight against pirates, either directly or indirectly, and how effective is it?>Finally, what are the female pirates in your setting like, and how do they keep up with the male ones?
>>92465527>>Does your setting have any noteworthy pirates and/or pirate factions, and if so, what makes them noteworthy? What do the pirates wear?The Amazons of the setting are female descendants of now sunken Atlantis, having inherited the steampowered triumveres of their ancestors. They also wear armour made from orichalcium, the atlantean mystery metal which is far stronger than the strongest bronze.>>How do you feel about sky pirates or space pirates in your settings? Also, how does the magic or technology present affect piracy?Another setting is just the same setting as the prementioned one except in the future, from Bronze Age to Late Victorian/Belle Epoch, with skyships made airborne by a fictional lighter-than-air gas, 'zephyr'. In this setting Amazons are no longer pirates but 'privateers', serving as a private military corporation for the Neo-Atlantean Trade Company.>>How do people in the setting fight against pirates, either directly or indirectly, and how effective is it?In the Bronze Age setting people protect themselves from marauding amazons the same way people did irl historically; by placing their coastal towns and cities in places that can be easily fortified and from which detecting seaborne attackers is simple. In the latter setting simple artillary and crude ground-to-air missiles/rockets are used against skyships.>>Finally, what are the female pirates in your setting like, and how do they keep up with the male ones?Amazons in both settings are descendants from the all-female warrior-priestesses of the Old Atlantean Empire (think of the Fish-Speakers from The God-Emperor of Dune by F.Herbert) that were infected/blessed/cursed with a mutagenic poison/virus that rendered them biologically incabable of giving birth to male offspring at the expense of granting them extraordinay physical fortitude and mental acuity for combat. The average amazon is easily a head taller than the average male warrior of any other nation/tribe.
>>92465527>Besides copying real-life pirate names, like several One Piece characters, including picture related, do, what are some good methods for naming pirates, make or female? Or their ships for that matter? Because I’m stumped.
>>92465527>Thread questionNo pirates yet because the state of waterways in my world is "in dispute". I do love creating wild bandit groups though, and a few of those will probably explore alternative career paths if piracy turns out to be feasible in my setting.>Finally, what are the female pirates in your setting like, and how do they keep up with the male ones?The military powerhouse of my setting is a city-state comprised of sentient dolls, who ascend into normal human girls after a few centuries. So an influx of 9 year old girls with centuries of military experience has more or less evened out any gender disparity in combat-related professions.
>>92465527>Does your setting have any noteworthy pirates and/or pirate factions, and if so, what makes them noteworthy? There're a couple of regions and people that are infamous for piracy. Most notorious of which are the Shanfur Isles and the saltars. The former is a island chain off the coast of the prosperous Spice Lands of Ganai that has become something of a sanctuary for all manners of scum and villainy of the region and a go-to destination for foreign exiles looking to grow their power away from home. The saltars are your basic not!vikings who terrorize the Amber Road from Gam to Sandarmark with the exception of the long interval when the tivanian state came into its greatness wherein it ruled that lucrative sea route with a firm hand.The greatest example of a proper pirate state would probably be the successor state to the Republic of Gastram based out of the city of Anter's Great Harbour. The rump state came into existance when the admiral of the gastramite fleet refused to accept the total capitulation and annexation of Gastram by the fulvian empire. Rather than surrender his ships to the enemy he made the decision to sail his fleet away to the far western portions of the republic where from he could carry out a protracted naval war against the alliances that now controlled the hearthland. As time went on the military capacity and geopolitical priorities dwindled until what started out as the greatest fleet in the known world was little more than a local player and mayor pain in the arse for the nearby sea lanes.
Friends, I have a question regarding names for places that I want to consult with you. I'm German and my setting is inspired in old Germany, so some of the places have very descriptive names like "Ranberg" which translates to "Ran Mountain" or "Silbertal" which translates to "Silver Valley". My issue is whether or not I should use the English or German names for my DnD campaign with non-German speakers. My hesitation comes because in Germany many places have descriptive names but they've become proper nouns with time. As a native, when you say "Ranberg" you think about the place and not literally the "Ran Mountain". It may have started like that, but over time they just became normal names. I feel it would be more authentic to keep the names in German, but it might be odd for non-German speakers. Is there a grammar rule that deals with this type of situation? What would you suggest? What would you prefer as players/audience?
>>92473557>in Germany many places have descriptive names but they've become proper nouns with timeIsn't that the case for most languages?
Worldbuilding is lame and boring. I'm just going to invent new regions and fantasy races when I want them and make up everything on the fly based on whatever generic fantasy adventure plot I want to rip from that week.
>>92468900Pirate names were pretty common for the era. Like 'Edward Teach' for Blackbeard. He got the name 'Blackbeard' though because supposedly because he put lit cigars in his bead to make it look like his head was on fire. Redbeard got his name because he was a Dutchman who moved to Morroco to convert to Islam and become a pirate, so him having redhair was pretty unusual in the area. Jack Rackham was called Calico Jack because he wore Calico fabric (many pirates would raid whatever ships were in an area and often they were carrying fabrics, the pirates would sell these but many would wear some of the spoils, meaning their outfits were often very flamboyant). As for ships, I think most of them went unrecorded. Blackbead's though was Queen Anne's Revenge, because he was a privateer in the War of Spanish Succession, also called Queen Anne's War. Stede Bonnet likewise called his ship 'the Revenge', presumably because he thought it'd be a cool pirate ship name (Stede Bonnet very much was a man who was LARPing as a pirate given he was independently wealthy, and paid his crew wages rather than splitting pirate booty amongst them- that said while other pirates thought he was a joke, they liked him well enough since they thought he was a nice enough guy). So anyway I'd reccomend just taking regular ship names (which by the way- ship naming conventions vary WILDLY according to culture and class) and then just pick whatever sounds cool or 'piratey'. Something like 'The Plunderer', or 'The Mermaid' are just fine.
>>92473557Your english speaking audience will find foriegn-language names way cooler. Like Los Angeles' means 'the Angels' but we much prefer the Spanish name because calling a city 'Angel City' is kinda boring. Same for like 'Sierra Nevada' and 'Snowy Mountains' or 'Louisianna' and 'Loius Land'.Trust me, most English Speakers are used to only conversing in English so they tend to find it very novel to confront new languages. Since English is so common, it's therefore boring.
>>92465527So I have a setting where two members of a dark faction were convinced by the army of good to betray their companions and join their sideHowever I wanted the members of the army of good to refer to the two traitors by nicknames usually. I wanted the nickname to reflect how they turned against their companions without it being too negatively associated. For example I thought of the term "the Betrayers" but that seems to have too strong a negative connotation to it. Is there some sort of terminology that is more positive sounding for this sort of thing?
I've got an Urban Fantasy setting, vaguely based on my hometown (Kolkata). It's a rotting old city that was once a great mercantile metropolis, but got taken over and ruined by communists.The Commies themselves turned out to be just pawns for demons that gorged on the bloodshed and immorality of a million corrupted souls to gain enough power to invade Earth. It was supposed to take just under 113 years.Unfortunately for them, a right wing party won elections and is engaged in cleaning the place up. Not-Catholic Church sent a dozen Paladins to provide support for cleanup actions. Hell is currently considering whether they should just give up on the city or fight for it, so they won't commit too much at first.How should I incentivize the PCs to work fast without letting the players know about the political situation in hell? As far as they know, they've got enough time to play it carefully. They're also trained professionals and can't be easily baited.
>>92473557English speakers are extremely accustomed to names in foreign languages. Almost none of our cities, counties, or states are from recognizable English origins. Even relatively "English" names, like Houston or Washington, are pretty opaque (Hugh's Town -> Houston, Wasindone (possibly "people of the hill by the stream" in Old English) -> Washington).So just keep it in German. As long as they're not very similar (Ranberg, Karberg, Talberg, Oldberg, etc), it'll be fine.
>>92479725Hell even english locations like Cork, Bath, and Sandwhich become pretty weird to hear given that their locations became bywords for items.
>>92465527Do we have any tools for modern city map making yet? As in, streets, blocks and all that? I have a session in a while and my city map looks between ''garbage'' and ''serviceable'', and it's close to a year I use it because it's just so damn boring to make a map manually like I've been doing.
>>92475374>>92479725Do you think this also applies for very generic placenames like "the Wetlands" or "the Ridge"?
>>92478283The Redeemed, the Shadows, The North/South Winds (regarding the way the winds change), The Half-Brothers, The Bastards.
>>92482169Yes. 'Wetlands' in English is very generic, and could apply to anywhere. 'Wetlands' in foriegn sounds like it applies to a specific place. Plenty of locations in the American west have names like 'Kettle Ridge' and it sounds painfully generic. The Blue Ridge Mountains I'd say are an exception cause they're called that cause they actually look blue (thanks to like haze in the atmosphere) but even then 'Azure Ridge' still sounds cooler.
>>92473557make it in German. No one is gonna mind. Just get ready for the mindrape you'll receive from people endlessly mispronouncing everythingViel Gluck, Neger
>>92483930>it sounds painfully genericI'm not a yank but there are plenty of similiarly generic named places around where I'm from yet for some reason it took translating them into another language for me to see it. You'll never guess what goes on in Grove or The Windmill ya'll.
>>92465527Since my setting is all based on the four elements, even more than Avatar is, what are some ways I can show that in my pirates besides just giving some crews elemental magic specialties?
>>92487437kill yourselfyou dumb cunt
I wanted to make a low-ish fantasy sort of setting (somewhere between LOTR and Witcher on the "magic prevelance" scale), with the scientific revolution and reformation of the 16th/17th century in europe as a thematic backdrop. One thing I wanted to do was have the story take place in a semi-isolated country, where spooky supernatural events could go down (imagine STALKER+Dark Souls but pike and shot era) and the average people wouldn't be easily able to get out, and the rest of the world wouldn't immediately know what is happening.I was debating between setting it in an alternate British Isles, an alternate Switzerland, or a 100% constructed world which would just end up being "legally distinct HRE." Then, I remembered how particularly powerful impact events, even bigger than the K-T event, create craters, causing the crust to briefly act as a fluid. A ring of mountains steeper on the inside than the outside, a large basin with rolling hills, and a central uplift. Wouldn't this be a cool place to have a setting? A cold and dangerous bog, that is hard to reach and even harder to survive in, eventually creating a hardy and distinct people, with tons of metallic resources, who would almost certainly have a grand city in the center, with their most holy place at the peak, and a religion built around the divine event that formed their land. Any input to help me build on this?
>>92482474I think I'll go with TideturnersI feel like that name does encapsulate what they did very well without being too negative but also I haven't actually seen it used much outside of Team Fortress 2
>>92487496This.I'm fucking tired with this four elemental autist keep asking anon with the most time wasting questions and then proceed to disregard anon's answers.
>>92465527>>How do you feel about sky pirates or space pirates in your settings?I feel conflicted. Space pirate is cool, but space ships are too fragile for them.Anyone know how to make space pirate works in 'hard' scifi setting?
>>92488393Sounds rad. I say go for it.
>>92495260I'm not sure that I understand what you mean but any space pirate worth his salt should probably act as a sort of ambush predator within an interplanetary trade route, laying in wait until a cargo ship comes across them which they can threaten from a distance to destroy unless its captain agrees to be boarded and have whatever they're shipping taken. The pirate ship would then send over a smaller vessel, load it up with as much it has room for before letting the cargo ship depart.
>>92495817I feel that anon's problem is that given the apparent fragility of ships in space, you can't have similar confrontations to what you'd usually see in Age of Sail settings. I don't know enough about sci-fi to say whether that feeling is true or not, but I imagine real ships are just as perilous as space ships. Is there really too much of a difference between a hole in the ship in space compared to one at sea? The result is the same, you lose your vessel and crew, no?
>>92495260>Anyone know how to make space pirate works in 'hard' scifi setting?Most ordinary ships will not be armed, just like today. The space pirates destroy the target's heat sinks, preventing them from escaping or using weapon systems without cooking themselves. They will then board and take what they want before departing before help can arrive.
I was going to make a thread about this, but may as well ask /wsg/bros first.Making a Victorian setting with fantasy in it. Completely deep into writing part already and a good chunk of stuff is already done. The thing is, do you guys know any material for inspirational reading out there? Can be fiction or non-fiction, though I prefer the former. And doesn't has to be fantasy only. But what I want is to learn more about important places of the Victorian era and how the social structure and customs of the time worked. I don't want characters to feel like modern day people or having the same behaviour. I want it to be as accurate as possible but without taking the fun out of it (reason why I'm asking for fictional reading but in general anything informative I will be glad to accept it, especially about customs because I'm very ignorant of that stuff). Also want to get away from excessive patronizing views of the time. I want Victorian customs to be represented as they were and not negative just because.It's sort of steampunk stuff, but I don't want just to look different but to feel it. I think Call of Cthulhu may be similar, but I think is kinda lacking in the setting department (also not really Victorian).
>>92495817>>92496374>>92496476When i said>but space ships are too fragile for them.This include the space pirate space ship.Forceful docking could doom both ships.So, no boarding action.And you don't need weapon to destroy a space ship, just ram your ship to the pirate ship and it's mutual destruction.Lastly, you can't hide in space. Space ship's heat signature is so blatantly visible on space cold background.God, i hate making hard scifi story.
>>92500018>Forceful docking could doom both ships.That's why they'd only dock with their intership shuttle(s) while the actual ship is some distance away (yet well within missile strike distance) hiding behind/amongst whatever is suitable to mask their location on radar/whatevs. Any proper bording action would only happen on large space ships with multiple hulls and/or individually locking rooms capable of sealing against the vacuum of space. And even then it's likely to be mostly a melee affair since no one wants to risk losing the ship that's being attacked.
>>92499325Not my area of expertise but aren't there loads of biographies and published journals from british adventurers, explorers and military men from that era you could look into to accurately capture some of the actual feelings and reasonings of people from that era? Granted they're likely to be highly biased by virtue of being recollections made by elites and middle class men but still. If you want something depicting the lower classes then maybe Les Miserables might be a suitable read?If you want some insight in the revolutionary and nationalistic fervor and movements from about that era then I'd strongly recommend you check out Mike Duncan's Revolutions-series of podcasts. The one on 1848 and the russian revolution in particularly should cover some of the era you're interested in.
>>92500018>This include the space pirate space ship.>Forceful docking could doom both ships.>So, no boarding action.>And you don't need weapon to destroy a space ship, just ram your ship to the pirate ship and it's mutual destruction.If you destroy the radiators then the ship cannot use its engines, because the excess heat will cook the people aboard. Also shipping monkeys don't want to die and instead just hand over their cargo of PGMs.>Lastly, you can't hide in space. >Space ship's heat signature is so blatantly visible on space cold background.How hard is it for the USN to locate a Somali or Houthi boat? Not very. This is more a political question of how much resources the government wants to put into pirate fighting versus how many potential-pirates there are.
There is an island Nassau-like pirate haven called "Trevor's Town". I'm thinking of adding a second pirate haven in the main sea.
>>92500350Do it.
>>92500260Thanks for the answer. Moren than a few of these are already on my radar just as other non-fiction works. That's why I'm more concerned with getting either something about customs or fiction.>lower-classesNot that interested. I think lower-class viewpoint is already vastly overrepresented.
>>92500350What’s stopping you exactly?
>>92488393Same guy. What would be a good name for a voluntary multi-national military force with holy purpose, but with a mostly investigative purpose rather than a crusading one? For forces assembled to explore/document/suppress this "raptured zone" I'm designing. I'm definitely sticking with my idea of the major being a winged hussar expy with a wheellock pilebunker.
>>92506957The Armed Faithful or something like that. Descriptive names are underrated.
>>92506957The Creep Uponers.
Bump
>>92465527What do you think of utilizing the gods of ancient mythology in a futuristic scifi setting as the basis for religions?
What would the consequences of an infinitely expanding frontier be? Say there were more continents after the Americas, the age of discovery just kept on going indefinitely, what kind of societies would this situation breed?
>>92522789lazyapply yourself just a little
>>92523272No wonder this general is dead
>>92523341I tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas.
>>92523378If the point was to try everything else and then ask, this general wouldn't even exist, might as well let google do your worldbuilding
>>92523398AI driven worldbuilding would probably serve these mouthbreathers' needs fine actually.
>>92523411kek, gemini killed off /wbg/
>>92488393I've been learning about Central Asia this semester, that seems like a good area to have be 'isolated and spooky'. The Russians treated the region as a place to send their exiles, and had a limited (though notable) Russian population. However they were kept pretty apart from the local Muslim population who largely lived as they did in the Medieval Era. Amongst these you had a large societal split between those living in the urban centers, and those living in the plains as nomads. The steppes were very arid, wide, and had very little development to them. I think this gives a nice mix of having a location you can go to where there are people and you can try to connect to the outside world, while right next to it is vast untamed wilderness where only strange people with strange customs are to be found. Anyway- the Russians very rarely let outsiders into the region since it sorta acted as an open-air prison for their exiles, which is a good reason it's further isolated and hard to get to. Plus it could also increase the number of odd and unusual NPC's to encounter. Some of the stories I read make it sound like the wild-west in a lot of ways.
>>92499325Something people take for granted was how puritan morals made it a hellscape. See people think if you ban condoms people will stop having sex. Instead you had a ton of brothels in London where people had unprotected sex, and in turn that created a ton of parentless street urchins the likes Oliver Twist is written about. Part of this also came down to how so many people were moving in from the countryside to find jobs, the city couldn't keep up with the population growth. Anyway books like Oliver Twist and also a Christmas Carol (which is a bit earlier but close enough to be relevant) were very important in making Victorian society confront these giant class issues. There was very much an attitude that someone was poor because of bad morals, and no regard to the role that society played. This of course shouldn't be taken as a blanket statement, as those novels helped pave the way for activists and progressive movements to think about systemic societal change. This goes hand-in-hand with stuff like the Suffragette movement too.These class divides are why Karl Marx penned the Communist Manifesto, thinking that they were so irreconcilable they could only be solved by revolution. However democratic systems allowed for incremental change that lowered the temperature and allowed for slow steady reforms, like say minimum wage, and safety standards.
>>92518154I had a thought for a setting mashing up the classical-era with a cyberpunk setting. Basically what happens is without that all the classical myths about the end of the world all happen at once with every god taking a part in it. All the Gods then die trying to stave off the end of the world but succeed. Most of the classical religions are still in place, though they are altered to take into account that the Gods are dead.Egypt specifically would have like cities built around tombs to their dead gods, stuff like that. Rome and Persia are sponsoring proxy-wars between them in Mesopotamia. The Vikings are stuck in a forever-war with the Native-Americans in Canada.
>>92524280Thanks for the reply! I was losing hope to any extra replies after a few days of nothing, lol.>Oliver TwistI love Oliver Twist, is one of the main inspirations for the setting. You see, it's a fantasy one but I want it to feel real at the same time. And these Victorian novels really help to build the atmosphere. I agree people greatly exaggerate when referring to Victorian morals. I would say that Victorians valued manners but know how to had fun. That's why they had so much forms of entertainment created and produced in that era, including the tons of novels. It's one of the reasons why learning about them can be slow since they had many facets, but it's also pretty fun. The selection of materials is extremely high.
>>92524755The Victorian Era saw the creation of the middle-class, and therefore the creation of consumerism. In the middle ages your schedule would be packed with chores. Cooking, cleaning, farming, sewing, house-repairs, animal rearing, and so on. Thanks to combined increases in wealth and technology you saw classes of people with disposable time and income. So not just plays, bicycles, kiting, picnics, and so on.An oft-neglected facet of the era would be Scotland. Scotland could be called the Engine of the Industrial Revolution. Most of the British Coal came from Scotland (or Wales) and the inventor of the Steam Engine was a Scotsman. The Firth of Forth Bridge was the largest iron-construction until the building of the Eiffel Tower (I've been, it's colossal). A bit outside of the time-frame but many of the top enlightenment thinkers such as Adam Smith (inventor of Capitalism) were Scottish. A cool facet you could explore is how the Capital of Scotland was moved to Glasgow which was the largest shipbreaking yard of the Empire and where most of their fleet was built, it was a dirty smoky polluted city built up in the era (today with deindustrialization Glasgow has similar cultural connotations to Detroit in the US). Meanwhile Edinburgh the Medieval Capital (and modern-day one) was an old city of ghosts, filled with eerie Gothic architecture, haunted undergrounds, and served as the inspiration of Frakenstein (Burke and Hare were Europes most prolific body-snatchers) and Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde (Deacon Brodie, a judge that doubled as a highwayman at night). Scotland was also the vacation destination of Queen Victoria, whose husband was from there, and she was the first English Monarch to visit in centuries going back until the Scottish Stuart line of Kings.
Question about leveling up and perksWhile it's kinda makes sense that adventurer who does a lot of different shit can level up any proficiency, including civilian ones, like smithingBut what about blacksmith, getting perks that make him better at killing monsters when all his character experience comes from crafting just feels wrong.Do you just separate player and civilian characters and give civilians less stats(like pathfinder and dnd) or is there a better way?
>>92524893>In the middle ages your schedule would be packed with chores.Very debatable point, my friend. Recent studies have pointed out Medieval people had more free time than modern ones, as almost half the year was holidays for them. And the middle-class as existed at least from the first medieval merchant guild was created. But I digress.What's true is that Victorian entertainment it's closer to ours (reading a novel is more familiar than having a joust).>An oft-neglected facet of the era would be Scotland.You know, I was having this exact thought. As in to place my next campaign in Scotland completely. Mostly for two reasons: 1) I have a tendency to like less popular regions, my current campaign takes place in the outskirts of the Russian Empire. 2) Despite London having many interesting places in the Victorian era, it was also a massive urban complex to the last street and shop. Edinburgh and Scotland for instance, had the perfect blend between urban Victorian locations, and natural, medieval-like fantasy places. So you can easily alternate between the two at convenience. I probably should move my research there after I done with general details about Britain (hoping the backlog will eventually go down...). Another thing that greatly interest me is how the different social classes interacted between themselves, since this would be important for characters with different backgrounds (peasant, gentry, noble, middle-class, military, etc.). Also, how different religions interacted between one another, at this time I know many prominent Victorian figures were actually Catholic, but Catholicism itself was frowned upon in Britain or considered a step behind the most sophisticated secular faiths. All of this tied up with with the fantastical and horror lingering in the back, and getting the tune of interesting locations and items (I draw for the campaign myself, so I like to save those too).Really a world of discovery.
>>92465527Kys d*scord cancer.
>>92524755>I agree people greatly exaggerate when referring to Victorian morals. I think that this is an all too familiar trap to fall in when thinking about people of the past. Without a good understanding of the wider society it's easy to conflate the idealised morality of the writing past down to us to be a reasonable reflection of the morality of the time but it wouldn't take long for someone to see the fault in such reasoning when applying it to the current day.My favourite example of which is probably how a lot of people think of the romans as pretty morally bankrupt when in reality a lot of that is likely informed by the more influential contemporary writing focusing on the obscene stuff that some of the emperors got up to. Not only is such writing bringing up what would be considered morally repellant in those days but the authors behind the works have in more cases than one a vested interest to depict the subject(s) of their writing in bad light. To put it differently it's not too disimilar to basing your understanding of modern morality on the notion that the rumours about Hillary Clinton eating babies in satanic rituals is an atleast somewhat accurate reflection on what people in general get up to and think are acceptable behavior.
>>92526664Half the year were holidays because they didn't have two-day weekends, they had to work all day friday and saturday. Every culture broadly agrees you need a certain ammount of time off to be a productive worker, how exactly this presents itself changes according to culture. I should also point out there's an obvious difference between the modern definition of the middle class and the renaissance era definition of merchants and artists who held money without titles. Anyway Edinburgh Castle was in use as a vacation home by Queen Victoria (well, Hollyrood Palace was, but Edinburgh Castle was still the official #2 castle in the UK, and where the monarchy is to conduct official castle business when in Scotland) then I suggest checking out Sterling Castle which has a lot of great Scottish history associated with it. I can tell you that being in the military was pretty lower-class for the most part, it paid shit and had pretty much zero benefis, very much a blue-collar job. Though the story is different for the officers who were almost uniformly nobility (they wouldn't really shake that until WW1 killed off a ton of idiot noble officers and there weren't enough idiot nobles to replace them). I can also tell you they have separate schools for protestants and catholics to this day in the UK. It was quite weird to find out my cousin goes to 'Catholic School' as an American. It's not a school to teach them Catholicism like a religious school, it's a regular school just only for Catholic families. My great grandparents almost didn't go to my grandparents marriage because my Grandmother was (and is) Catholic, which should tell you something. The UK was notably religiously tolerant from Queen Elizabeth onwards, but clearly there were a lot of deep societal divides. That said, I don't think the issue was much between protestant sects. Though Mormonism and its polygamy was viewed quite suspiciously (it features in the plot of a Sherlock novel).
>>92530655I mean there was some serious shit people got up to in the Industrial Revolution. Like when Scrooge says that the poor should just go to prisons and insane asylums if they want to eat that was a common sentiment at the time, and what the author was specifically trying to critique. You could instead compare to say how horrendously corrupt the private prison system is, and how people are completely apathetic to it. Or how people believe crazy conspiracy theories about how the jews control the world. I'm doing a paper on Holocaust Denial and when I tell people I get a lot of confusion as to how someone could actually believe that. Yet I'm sure you've seen plenty of those nuts on this sight. We shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that if something sounds outlandish that somehow the virtue of human reason and rationality that it can't be true.
>>92531223>We shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that if something sounds outlandish that somehow the virtue of human reason and rationality that it can't be true.Tots malots. In no way was I trying to argue that opinions of what's morally acceptable hasn't changed. As you pointed out there are plenty of examples of weird ass sentiments that where consider pretty generic back in the day. >You could instead compare to say how horrendously corrupt the private prison system is, and how people are completely apathetic to it.Is that really a thing though? Granted I'm not from a place with such institutions but from what I've gathered through the media the far majority of people who are even aware of it sees it as rather shitty. >how people believe crazy conspiracy theories about how the jews control the world. That one might actually be one of the things that was actually rather commonly held as thrue throughout history since the beginning of the diaspora, given the numbers of anti-jewish pogroms europe has experienced.>I'm doing a paper on Holocaust Denial I bet that's a really interesting rabbithole to go down. >I get a lot of confusion as to how someone could actually believe that.The fundamental difference in understanding reality between people is really fucking interesting to me. It's probably one of the main reasons why religion fascinates me so much. As someone from a very irreligious country where the default is basically that to people who actually have a religious belief it's really something to try to put myself in the mind of a believer. In all likelyhood that plays a big part in why I like worldbuilding too. It provides a nice avenue for me to not only try to understand different opinions but also delve deep in to them and expand upon them.
>>92537694Yeah in the US we have for-profit prisons. They're the number one reason why marijuana is still federally illegal (and thus using it in the wrong state is a felony). It has also lead to a disproportionate incarceration of black men for marijauna use (despite smoking it at the same rates as whites) because they're an easier population to target and throw in jail for bullshit reasons (black people on average being poorer and thus unable to afford better lawyers). For-profit prisons naturally increase recidivism (going back to prison) as they aren't considered with rehabilitation, they are concerned with repeat customers. Obama at leas outlawed private prisons on a federal level, but there's been no further movement on the issue since. Actually the 'control the world' bit started in the 1890's. People had a lot of conspiracy theories about how they'd eat babies, but people correctly understood they were an oppressed minority with no power. But by the 1890's thanks to enlightenment values and abolishment of old laws forbidding jewish participation in public life some Jews had managed to obtain positions of power in business and politics. Let me tell you the weirdest fact I found. In 1963 the head of the American Nazi Party gave an interview to Playboy Magazine about why he thought the Holocaust was fake. And I just can't imagine why in the fuck Playboy magazine thought their readership would be interested in that interview. Anyway most holocaust deniers try to cloak their antisemitism in scholarly language to disguise their inherent racism, but it was weird to read one of the, an American named Olivier who talked about the Holocaust back in the 70's in the exact same tones and phrasing as modern day 4channers do. The more things change I suppose.
>>92538137Anyway what I've discovered is simply people believe what they want to believe, rather than what the evidence tells them to. Humans are quite egotistical that way. What's relevant is how much reality punishes them for it. Like if you put your hand on a hot stove you learn that it'll burn. But reality doesn't really punish flat-earthers or ancient alien people. But even if it does people double down because they prefer the idea of being right than the idea that they're fucking morons. Basically conspiratorial thinking is a conclusion in search of a theory. Like with flat-earthers, initially they thought NASA back in the 60's was gonna 'prove' that the earth was flat as they sent up satellites. but they didn't, NASA came back saying the earth was round. So did flat-earthers admit they were wrong? No, they adjusted the theory to say that NASA was in on the conspiracy to trick people into thinking the Earth was round. They also think the moon landing is fake, but don't you think the USSR, a country that was also trying to land on the moon and despised the US would claim that the moon landing was faked if there were any substantial evidence to suggest that? Well then the conspiracy grows to say that the USSR is also in on it. Which then implies the entirety of the Cold War was a false-flag given that the USSR also sent followup missions to the moon and for some reason their massive ideological differences with the US stop mattering when it comes to perpetuating the conspiracy. (cont.)
>>92538236This is why every conspiracy theory will eventually turn into 'the jews secretly control the world' (or the aliens or lizard people- but lets be frank. If you think the lizard people control the world, there isn't that much percentage wise you disagree with with the guy who thinks the jews control the world). The more reality contradicts the theory, the more the conspiracy must grow to accommodate it, until you end up saying there's a secret one-world shadow government that is obscuring the truth to the public for unspecified nefarious reasons that only a handful of conspiracy theorists with secret knowledge can truly understand. This applies to religion too. I think there's rational religiosity- say going 'well I know science doesn't say that the afterlife exists, but still I find it more comforting to believe in an afterlife, so I'll act as if I do'. But most people when confronted with the science or historical record that shoots holes in the religion (one example is there's zero archeological evidence the Egyptians had mass-enslaved he jews) religious people will tend to outright ignore or dismiss that evidence, because they aren't looking to come to an evidence-based conclusion, they are looking to reach the conclusion that their religion is right about everything. I think religious critique was able to thrive to an extent back in the day when there wasn't enough evidence to conclude that nothing in the Bible happened, but now that there is religious critique is avoided because it's conclusions would result in a weakening of the religion. Not just in christianity too, I attribute the rise of islamic fundamentalism to this as well. (cont.)
>>92538311Anyway you can observe this most keenly with creationism which is a direct overlap between religion and conspiracy theory. All the science in the world will tell you evolution is real, but creationists want to reach the conclusion that evolution is fake and gay so they build elaborate and shoddy narratives in order to reach that conclusion. It's the complete opposite approach to understanding the world than the scientific method, as well as a complete misunderstanding of it.
How’s my hex map? Every hex is about 24 miles. There are smaller creeks and rivulets, but only the major rivers of the landmass are documented on the map. Also a general summary about the state of the world if it helps:>The old world (eastern continents) have been absolutely devastated, but the new world continents (western continents, including this landmass) aren’t faring any better because of it.>Settlements in this region are few and far in between, with about fourteen people or less living in them. Major “towns” have about 60-80 people living within their walls.>Magic usage is a dying art, practitioners of it are virtually nonexistent. Only sorcerers can make use of magic and they often are regarded with awe or a great deal of fear.>This landmass in particular is being settled by tribal sea raiders from the north and colonized by a remnant of an old republic from the east, with the natives not really enjoying either faction’s presence.>Technology level is mostly bronze-age, but ranges from stone-age to early Iron Age.
>>92538137>Actually the 'control the world' bit started in the 1890's. People had a lot of conspiracy theories about how they'd eat babies, but people correctly understood they were an oppressed minority with no power.Interesting. You don't happen to sit on a source going more into detail about the shift in jewish conspiracies? I know that historically some jews held top offices in islamic states and would be interesting to know if/how that influenced the european opinion on jews.>it was weird to read one of the, an American named Olivier who talked about the Holocaust back in the 70's in the exact same tones and phrasing as modern day 4channers do. Kek, I bet it was.>>92538236>>92538311>every conspiracy theory will eventually turn into 'the jews secretly control the worldGood rundown there, bud.>I attribute the rise of islamic fundamentalism to this as well.AFAIK the rise of islamic fundamentalism is a direct consequence of western imperialism. Some popular muslim thinkers trying to square their religion's claim of being instructions from God in a world ruled by western infidels reasoned, like you said, that since their religion can't be at fault and teaches how you should act, that the fall from grace of the islamic world was due to muslims abandoning proper religious adherence which made them weak and exploitable. Thus fundamentalism is not only a guide on how to live and organize society, but is also directly tied to security and power.
>>92539976Yeah, it started with a single book 'protocols of the elders of zion' that came up with all this shit, anti-semites to this day hold it up as irrefutable proof that the jewish illuminati are real. As said- the big shift started at the beginning of the napoleonic era where the modern understanding of citizenship not based upon religion came to be. Napoleon left constitutions as he conquered that were left in place after his defeat, and while people didn't suddenly like the jews, suddenly Jews weren't in a legally mandated system of segregation locking them into certain professions. Actually Islam is more multifaceted than that. Their first fall from grace was the Mongols coming in and destroying Baghdad. That was more monumental than western imperialism, as not only were they conquered they were shitkicked into the ground. This started a philosophy of 'it's better to serve a bad dictator that lets you be a good muslim than to have a good ruler who does not' to morally justify the rule of mongols. While the Mongols collapsed, the islamic world became increasingly insular and focused on religious legalism than the trade of ideas. Western imperialism was a headache, and it started the worldview of a longstanding rivalry between christianity and islam that hadn't been there before (for instance the Crusades used to be largely remembered as a regional conflict in the Levant, but then got turned into the first salvo in a world of opposing ideologies and cultures) but Europeans had a largely hands off rule that didn't change much in day-to-day life. Nobody liked being a colony but the culture wasn't being shifted much. Once independence was achieved in most nations you had a lot of dictators and they sucked, but they were pretty stable for the most part- hence most of the world largely overlooked the middle east and didn't know what islam was until 9/11. (cont.)
>>92540201The rise of fundamentalism in part has come from worsening economies from global warning, but we should remember as bathshit insane as the Saudi's are they got islamic terrorists trying to overthrow the- in the 70's they even managed to take the Kabba briefly. The Saudi's fundamentalism is in fact their attempt to appease these fundamentalists who see them as 'secular' kings. Iran is meant to be the herald of this 'islamic revolution' having one in the 70's against the Shah (who was an FBI plant that had overthrown a secular republic). Iran has a lot of fingers in a lot of pies, but they aren't responsible for the movement of Islamic fundamentalism writ-large, it's a very broad societal movement occuring across the Islamic world.
Is it a bad idea to add technologies to allow characters to make memory backups to bring them back when they die?
wtf is this libtard autist schizo going on about?
>>92540867probably a janny, there was a reply to one of his post that got immediately deleted. apparently he can spam all this political stuff but no one can say anything to him
>>92540867He’s world building, just imagine he’s describing a fantasy world with no connection whatsoever to reality and it’s kind of entertaining. Gets sad when you realize he actually believes it.
>>92541054even more funny when half the stuff in the posts are outright wronglike Queen Victoria's husband being Scottish (lmao he was German)
>>92541078kek you're actually right. so he's shitposting and deleting shit, no good
so I'm designing a race of anthropomorphic longmaI wanted them to have a paler underbelly like how Asian dragons do, but I'm wondering which would be more suitable, the left where the paler section covers the entire chest, or the right where the paler section compresses inward at the chest (I based it off Kaido's hybrid form from One Piece).Do you think I should also add feathering to the hooves? Most Asian horses do not have feathering from pictures I've looked at, but Asian dragons sometimes have flamelike fur around the limb areas, so I thought that it would be an interesting thing to add.Also I wrote their origins as them originally being ethereal beings of radiation, given solid form from a motley of different monstrous entities pooling their chi together, and that's why they have a bit of a hodgepodge look. Think that's a good explanation?
>>92540201> it started with a single book 'protocols of the elders of zion'I'm might be mistaken but my understanding of things was that while it was certainly vital to the spreading of the 'jews rule everything' -conspiracy as it acted as the 'proof' nutbags relied upon to justify their claim it wasn't the source of such notions.>Actually Islam is more multifaceted than that.You might be misunderstanding me. I was talking about "modern" islamic fundamentalism. >While the Mongols collapsed, the islamic world became increasingly insular and focused on religious legalism than the trade of ideas.True, however I do believe that the religious legalism-angle won out as "orthodox" islam early as a result of the mihna. Granted sufi shenanigans remained really popular amongst the laymen.>it started the worldview of a longstanding rivalry between christianity and islam that hadn't been there beforeThat worldview was established long before that but western imperialism certainly didn't alleviate the matter.
>>92542902>>92540221>The rise of fundamentalism in part has come from worsening economies from global warningI don't doubt that it has helped popularise it. If for nothing else it's a big contributor to why people migrate to europe only to end up as a frustrated underclass, with their offspring turning to crime and then islamic fundamentalism as a way to cope with their situation. >in the 70's they even managed to take the Kabba brieflyOh yeah, that entire thing was basically the plot for some ridiculous action film, what with the french(?) special forces and everything.>The Saudi's fundamentalism is in fact their attempt to appease these fundamentalists who see them as 'secular' kings.While they certainly doubled down on the fundamentalism as a result of that electic boogaloo it's also worth noting that the state itself was founded by an alliance of the Saud-family with an extremist cleric/movement. Seen from that perspective it makes total sense that they would lean into fundamentalism following such an event.>but they aren't responsible for the movement of Islamic fundamentalism writ-largeOf course not, Iran is Shia while most of the more popular fundamentalist movements such as the salafist are sunni. Furthermore, Iran has a long history of being lead by shiite weirdos who didn't mind messing with sunnis.
>>92542741What's longma?
>>92542973https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LongmaDragon horse hybrid in Chinese mythologyAlso appears in other Asian mythologies like Japan albeit slightly different
>>92541054>>92541078>>92541598The only overtly political thing they're doing is engaging with jewish conspiracy theories. The notes on Victorian England even where they have problems are hardly political screeds. Given that the other world building thread collapsed due to /pol/tards being unable to contain their autism about jews, I'm gonna go ahead and assume that is the problem here too. So kindly fuck off back to /pol/>>92540425It utterly wrecks death as a threat, but the common availability of a spell like "Raise dead" does that too. Plus you either have to deal with what it means for death to be reversible (Altered Carbon and Mask of The Rose while both otherwise pretty bad have an interesting take on a murder mystery when the people involved can't really die. But on a more practical level you have to ask yourself questions like "Are only the rich immortal" and "What are the consequences of being revived in perpetuity") or you have a pretty big hole in your setting.
>>92542973Longma balls!
What would 1 oz of silver get me the 15th/16th century? What kind of income would a free peasant/yeomen expect after taxes, in relatively well off country? Would 1/40th of an ounce (a 1/10th oz coin could can split into fourth wedges) work as a base unit of currency?
>>92540425I included it in my SF setting as a thing. The major thing that I try to keep in mind is that a memory backup isn't the same as continuity of consciousness. The "me" that has developed since my last memory backup will absolutely die if killed, and it's that "me" who actually confronts a life or death situation.So characters, in any situation, VERY MUCH want to stay alive, even though if they die they can be reloaded from backup.
>>92543068A reichstaler containing 25 grams of silver before the Kipper und Wipper crisis could keep you feed for over a week depending on where and when you were spending it.The average salary of a German trained worker would be something like 3 thaler a week, which is comparable to a soldier making about 2. (These are 30 years war numbers, I don't have any others on hand)While the boullion price of coins was important, people did also just spend the face value of coins though. Which is why we got the Kipper und Wipper crisis.As soon as you deal with fantasy though, this is all kind of irrelevant. The boullion price of any metal is based on so many factors that you can't transport anything 1:1 if you want to be realistic anyway.
>>92543485Also a soldier making 2 is presupposing that the soldier isn't one of the ones who got paid more, and presupposing that he got paid at all.These are all very rough numbers. A reichsthaler would be worth a very varying amount depending on whether you were spending it in Holland, Saxony or Florence, and that's not even getting into the fact that a Thaler might just genuinely be worth differing amounts depending on the individual coin. Despite the reichsmünzordnung a dutch rijksdaalder had a significantly different value to a reichsthaler even though they were nominally the same fucking coin they were pegged to different values of another coin.
So, i watched dune and i want to make a setting focusing on a precious substance like spice malange.My substance came from human blood of certain race.Anyone can give me a crash course on the economy human trafficking/slavery?
>>92544198>slavery for bloodGoogle would be like "Did you mean 'Factory farming'?"
>>92543571>>92543485Thanks for detailed reply.
>>92544198Do your own research, lazybones
actually deleting replies lmaosad bastard, get a life
>>92542989>Altered Carbon>badShit opinion. Everyone can be immortal, the poor simply can't be picky about what body they get if they expire and everyone is vulnerable to permadeath if the cortical stack implant backing up their brain is destroyed.
Which software should I use for map designing?
>>92548555Graphite.
>>92544198>My substance came from human blood of certain race>human trafficking/slaveryYou probably mean livestock, right?If this blood is this special, there's no reason to not just build concentration camps to raise and harvest these people
>>92542902Maybe it didn't invent the idea, but as far as I saw (took a class on the Holocaust where it was discussed as the background of antisemitism) it certainly codified everything and was the #1 reason for the spread of those ideas. Fun fact- Henry Ford included a free copy in ever car he sold. For some weird reason.>>92542913Yeah, though the Saudi's now seem to be trying to moderate to a degree to curry favor with the west as they try to diversify the economy and western tourism seems to be a big part of those plans. Time will tell if it ends up sticking.
>>92550882>Time will tell if it ends up sticking.I doubt it. From my, granted, limited understanding it's little more than window dressing. As long as they can afford to basically pay their subjects to not rock the boat I don't see any real change happening.
