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>>24868365
Thread Questions:
>If you have any non-human sapients species/races in your setting, what are they? And do you tend to stick to ones you’ve made, classic ones like Dwarves, Elves, etc., or a mixture of the two?
>When making said original races, what advice do you have/what is the process that you use, and what races have you made with said process/resources? And how do you make sure that they’re distinct/non-redundant?
>What are your feelings on typical fantasy races like the aforementioned two, Orcs, Goblins, etc.? And how do you go about putting your own twists on said races/make them less generic?
>How can you tell when you have enough races and/or sub-races in your setting? And what do you need to consider when designing the cultures for the races and how they interact with each other?
>Were any of your races created artificially? If so, who did it and why?
>Lastly, how does creating science fiction races/species differ from creating ones for fantasy settings, and what are some common archetypes you’ve seen and/or used or would like to use for either? What about races in science fantasy settings?

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>>24868365
And a few extra thread questions from previous threads just to be safe:

>What kinds of magic, psychic abilities, and/or other powers exist in your world? And if multiple types exist, how do they interact with each other, if at all?
>If the different types can be combined, what is the result? And if not, what is the reason?
>How do people use/gain access to the magic? And what are the most important things to consider/remember when creating a magic system(s) or power system, and what mistakes to avoid? How did you make your own?
>Is there anything that the magic or powers explicitly cannot do, and if yes, what? And how much of the limits of the abilities are inherent versus a lack of understanding?
>On the subject of hyper-advanced technology, what exists in your world and what do you need to remember when creating/including it? What about magitech, or other tech that incorporates powers, what can you say on that?

>Do the people in your setting believe in any celestial beings like Angels or something similar? And do these beings actually exist, and if so, how accurate are the beliefs?
>How about Demons or similar beings, how accurate are their beliefs to reality? And how do you add your own twist to them, or to Angels?
>Are there any other categories of otherworldly entities in your world, like the Fae, Yokai, Ghosts and specters, Grim Reapers, Elementals, etc.? If so, how are they related to Angels, Demons, or each other, if at all, and what are they like?
>What about the gods in your world, what are they like, how are their pantheons structured? And what is their relationship with the other mystical entities in the setting (do they have any specific groups of Angels serving specific gods, etc.)?

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I've noticed an annoying trend in fantasy writing especially that for wide market appeal that I just realised is the opposite of speculative fiction or diverging cultures.
Remember how 50% of the jokes in the Flintstones were about cave people imitating modern life with non-technological gadgets?
How did they mow their lawns without engines and steel manufacturing? They used creatures that ate the grass as they pushed them forward.
How did they shower without plumbing? They used a mammoths trunk.
How did they shoot stuff without gunpowder? Mechanical slingshots.
It's all retroactive logic, which is played for laughs in the show or funny backdrop.
But modern fantasy writing does the same thing just retarded.
How do disabled people get around without modern manufacturing and healthcare providers? Magic glowing purple wheelchair and wheelchair accessible dungeons.
How did black people exist in European mediaeval society without mass migration? Enough travelling merchants to make up at least 10% of the population.
How did people enjoy modern comforts without modern technology? Magic just so happens to behave exactly like technology with research and colleges and inventors.
I call this "Flintstoned worldbuilding". It is working backwards from our modern expectation to a society and expecting it to always work like that in every society, time and technological level. It doesn't work off the assumption that a divergent path leads to different outcomes but that every path must lead to the same, ideal state which just so happened to be 2010s California. And every disruption of that conclusion must be the work of an evil influence which just so happens to also embody everything that people from 2010s California consider morally reprehensible.
It's basically the opposite of suspension of disbelief, like an upholding of expectation. That's because all current western art acts not as a commentary of human nature nor an exploration of alternatives but a declaration of ought-to-be. It is the demand that even in middle earth, there is an equivalent of a BMW cruising alongside the riders of rohan.
The result of " end of history" thinking. We have arrived at the conclusion of history and the only good change allowed from now on is convincing more people to our side.

Bump

>>24868365
>Worldbuilding is the process of creating entire fictional worlds from scratch
No, it's not. 99% of the time it's the process of stitching together all the same tropes and archetypes that everyone else does and trying to add some quirky chungus shit to it to stand out. You people are completely delusional and even more uncreative.

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>>24868365
Perfect, I asked for help last thread but didn't get much, hopefully things go better this time. To sum it up, my races are all aligned with two or three of the six elements (Light, Fire, Wind, Water, Earth, and Void, with humans being the Light and Void race), with the elements informing traits of the race like their preferred environment. For example, the Fire and Water race is the Naga, so their nation is on a set of tropical volcanic islands and they’re equally comfortable in the water and on the beach, and the Fire/Earth race is Dwarves, etc. To be clear, the idea was that the elemental alignments were the result of the gods of the respective elements being the primary contributors in the design of the race in question. So for dwarves, while they still have traces of the other elements in them (such as having liquids in their bodies instead of just being molten rock in a stone shell because they have Water in them, etc.), the mentioned elements, like Fire and Earth for dwarves, dominate the others. In addition, in some cases one element is "dominant" over the other(s), like Dwarves being a bit more aligned with Earth than Fire, though there are occasional exceptions, like Dwarves that tend more towards Fire. Things like a Dwarf with a Void affinity would be extremely rare, and usually the case of inter-species pairings (since the races were designed using the same basic "template", they can interbreed but the child is always, or at least 99% of the time, the race of the mother). That make sense? Humans would be the Light/Void race, before I forget. I just need some help with filling in some of the combinations, especially the three-element ones, and I can use some suggestions please.

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>>24868365
In my setting, I was thinking that the goddess of Life and Death wanted to retire, so she made deals with the god of the Day and the god of the Night to have kids with each of them. She had planned to split the two spheres between each respective child, but they instead they both inherited power over Life and Death, filtered through the Light and Darkness spheres they inherited from their respective fathers. As a result, both healing magic and necromancy have a Light and Darkness variant these days. For Light healing, I was thinking that it would be better at healing people in area-of-effect spells, both to tie into the typical depiction of a fantasy cleric and healing spells and to represent a lantern’s light. Darkness healing, at the other hand, is better at healing single individuals, including the caster. For necromancy, I was thinking that the necromancy would use either Light or Darkness as a replacement for the life force of the body, or as a medium to hit their foes with the essence of death. I would greatly appreciate any feedback you have, especially on the necromancy and undeath angle please. For instance, I was thinking that taking a cue from the White cards from Amonkhet in MtG, mummies could be one of the kinds of undead affiliated with Light necromancy, does that make sense to you? Healing magic and necromancy share some basic principles if one squints, but are separate disciplines save for perhaps the most skilled, those who can keep a soul from leaving the body until it’s patched up. I was partially inspired by Yin and Yang, but not strongly following it, if it helps.

>>24869907
What is the point in having all those elemental combination races anyway? Is it just spreadsheet autism or is there an actual purpose in the plot? And I mean a purpose that matters, not something in the backstory along the lines of how the gods of the primeval elements created all these races in the beginning of time and none have gone extinct since.

Like, if you like nagas why can't you just have nagas without having to determine the identity of the Water/Earth/Wind race and its place in the world?

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>>24868365
What are some “monstrous” races that we can include in our settings besides the classic werewolves, vampires, and constructs like Frankenstein’s monster? And what are some of the more obscure beings/creatures/entities from mythology, folklore, and/or cryptid sightings that could work as races?

>>24869907
You may be better off putting a god to each of these elements, and putting together a mythos for them. Fire God fucked Water God and Earth God, then tempered. These yielded the races of the naga and dwarves, etc, etc. It helps to narrow your scope of racest because it instantly makes your reader think about other combinations and speculate instead of appreciate.

>>24868367
I'm going for what seems to be a standard Tolkienian (very Tolkienian) fantasy world, but then going on to reveal the underlying science fiction and horror elements and have weird twists without betraying the Tolkienian roots. This may seem like an impossible feat, but I think it's entirely doable. My writing skills are the biggest obstacle. I'm planning to wait for the Tolkien Estate's copyrights to run out so I can really go full Tolkien without having to think up synonyms for mithril, etc. (This is a hobby and I'm not in a hurry.)

I think most of the time when people take pointers from Tolkien, they only copy the surface details and miss the heart entirely, resulting in a bland product. Tad Williams in Memory, Sorrow and Thorn shows himself an exception who has some actual understanding of Tolkien's deeper themes. On the other hand, Stephen Donaldson in his Thomas Covenant books does not adhere to the standard fantasy setting much at all, instead going for a more original sort of a high fantasy, but nevertheless is profoundly influenced by Tolkien on a deep level that shows even without the standard races. I think Donaldson of all authors has perhaps understood the heart of Tolkien best of all. Tolkien himself didn't set out to write Tolkienian standard fantasy either.

But, I suppose most people here aren't really taking pointers from Tolkien as much as from nth generation distantly Tolkien-derived video games, and I think that's tragic... I think it is important to be exposed to influences from a variety of sources. That way your imagination can develop.

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>>24871382
Okay, maybe I should have said this earlier, but the idea was that when the gods first came into existence and started forming and shaping the primordial world into something recognizable, some of their power escaped and became the first elementals. The gods, seeing this, decided to refine the process to create inhabitants for the world they were shaping, and whether by intention or accident they found that by combining their powers/elements their mortal creations were more adaptable/stable instead of just being more sophisticated elementals (which they also made as divine servants).

>>24870273
See the above paragraph, along with putting new spins on races everyone and their mother have used. And like I said, the elements that take prominence in a race's elemental makeup determine aspects of their cultures, with races that share a dominant element(s) tending to get along better than with races that do not, though this doesn't devolve into violence any more often than it would between different human cultures (save for humans, but they're a bit out of the ordinary there, with some saying that they were made first as an experiment between two opposites). I was even considering the idea that the gods made the two-element races first, and then decided to periodically create a new three-element race every few centuries, with maybe a few chosen mortals each time being granted the honor of seeing the process, and even influencing it, as repayment for some great service.

>>24871921
So dwarves and nagas get well along because they both have Earth, and if you have orcs as Earth/Void, then dwarves and orcs will like each other too. (Romantically? I somehow get the feeling that the story is probably going to be about the MC attracting a massive monster girl harem, one girl of each type, and that's why so many different races are needed.)

That type of spreadsheet autism still feels like it's a creative shortcut that makes the world feel too rigid.

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>>24872031
This is more prominent on a societal/cultural level to be clear, and despite the instinctive recognition of the shared element(s) members of the races with shared elements can and do get into personal disagreements, so it's not perfect. I wasn't thinking about that, but now that you mention it, lol...

Also, there 'are' mages who focus on elements outside of the ones that belong to the gods who were primarily involved in their creation, like a naga that might specialize in Earth magic for instance, they just tend to specialize in those because it comes a little easier. It tends to come up more in individuals with mixed heritage though, save for in humans. And the rigidity is part of the idea, the gods all used the same basic template when making the races.

>>24872653
>And the rigidity is part of the idea, the gods all used the same basic template when making the races.
Nagas and dwarves have a different number of limbs, though. That actually feels not rigid enough to me, unless the idea is that physical traits are related to elements, which it sounds like you aren't doing. For example, you could have it so that all the Fire races have tails in place of legs. Then if the Water element causes scales and fins, the Fire/Water race would naturally be merfolk with fish tails. The nagas would have to be Fire/something else though, and dwarves couldn't be Fire.

I think that sort of trait-first generation works much better with your system than coming up with types of creatures and assigning elements to them based on where there are empty slots in the spreadsheet. If you don't have a pre-existing fantasy race to match every trait combination, you just need to come up with some new names.

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>>24868365
I’m working on a setting where the forces of Heaven and Hell are in conflict, but are prevented from waging large-scale battle in either of their two realms. As a result, they use the mortal world to get around this. That’s not the issue at hand though, I’m running out of name ideas for both sides that aren’t just the names of angels or demons from the Bible or religious folklore (I was thinking that they’d more powerful/established demons compared to the ones I’m focusing on), and could use some suggestions, and I would love to hear how you name your own angels and demons as well. I want the names to be meaningful beyond just slapping “el” to the end of ordinary names for angels, which of course makes it harder on me…

One idea I had was that succubi and incubi, especially the former, mainly take on the role of spies in the mortal world, so I could use some names for that kind of demon in particular. Lilith as their queen is a given, and names of historical women associated with lust (like Helen because everybody in Greece wanted to marry her) could work for some of them, especially if the rumors are true and said women become succubi after death, but I can only think of a few (any ideas there please?) and I still need some more ideas for succubi that weren’t ever human, thanks in advance for any help you can give me! Previous threads suggested I take a page from the book of Journey to the West where the animalistic demons have titles instead of names, and that I name angels after virtues and demons after vices, which is a start at least, what do you think? Another suggestion for angels was having their names start with A and end with Z, but does that mean demons are the inverse?

>>24868367
>If you have any non-human sapients species/races in your setting, what are they?
Greys, Reptilians, Annunaki, Yetis, Faefolk, Demons, Archons, Machine Elves, Personoids, Vril-ya, Chimeras, Dolphins, and more.

>What are your feelings on typical fantasy races like the aforementioned two, Orcs, Goblins, etc.?
I don't like them


>How can you tell when you have enough races and/or sub-races in your setting?
I am against this sort of thinking. There needs to always be some empty space.

>Were any of your races created artificially? If so, who did it and why?
Most were artificially created. The different human races were created by aliens during prehistory to be slave races. Chimeras were created in labs controlled by Majestic 12 where Grey Aliens and Human scientists collaborated. Personoids are synthetic humans with holographic brains created by the Soviet Union to be disposable and cheap bodies.

>>24871432
To go into more detail about the races, Elves and Dwarves both know about advanced technology, especially the Elves. The Elves stagnated a long time ago and are now slowly declining in numbers and tech level. Some groups have preserved the old civilization better than the others. These days Elves mainly concentrate their efforts on magic such as illusions when they feel like applying themselves, which is increasingly seldom.

All the races are derived from humans, though some are so far diverged that you wouldn't ever suspect that. Elves are descendants of genetically-enhanced space humans. Their immortality is a magical alteration of their true nature. The Elves are gradually coming to realize that accepting the "gift" of immortality was the turning point that doomed their civilization as well as all the individual Elves.

Orcs exist halfway between life and undeath.

The High Elves have a slave race that is basically shoggoths but rather good at mimicry. They are each artificially created.

And so on.

>>24874125
As you can see, I have a big death theme going on. The Elves are practically a dead race that just keeps hanging around and acting like they're alive. Elf children have mostly stopped being born, and that is even though the Elves were granted an improved type of immortality that allows for reproduction.

Then there are the actual undead. These all tend to be more or less vampire-like. The ones closer to life such as the Orcs do not subsist on blood only but can eat meat too. The Dark Lord sees it as just and proper to turn bad people into Orcs under his command, as a form of righteous punishment. The Dark Lord can put disembodied spirits into Orc bodies too. The Dark Lord is actually remarkably concerned with (his idea of) moral behavior in comparison to the other powerful entities in the setting who mostly have fallen into complete decadence or have little to no care for the well-being of others. It's a pretty bleak setting where a lot of tragedies happen and the Elves are all effectively lost souls who have lost their connection to the true divine in exchange to bowing to some pagan god LARPers who had the power to grant immortality. ("Thou shalt be as gods.")

Writing a lore dump like this makes it all feel so lacking. In actual story exposition about these things would be dropped piecemeal and in some cases never said outright in favor of just letting the ideas silently influence the plot.

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>>24872786
Well, even races with more atypical body plans like the nagas still have some morphological similarities to the basic humanoid forms, but when I say "template", I'm referring more to the idea of a mystical template, which allows the races to have enough of all the elements in them to function as biological beings while still having two or three dominant elements. Maybe I should refer to it as a base RECIPE instead; and the different races are variants on a dish that changes depending on the dominant ingredients, like different meats and veggies. That make more sense?

As for physical traits being related to elements, I was thinking maybe a little bit, like Dwarves having a little bit of a "rugged", almost stone-like look to them in the right light, and maybe a tendency for "firey" hair and eye colors, stuff like that and Elves almost seeming to glow because they have Light as an element, stuff like that, a little more on the subtle side.

Also, I just had the idea that maybe the three-element races, instead of being created by the gods directly, arise as a result of interbreeding between the races; normally the pairing of two different races produces a child of the mother's race like I mentioned before, but in very rare cases sometimes a new mutation emerges that results in a new race entirely, what do you think?

>>24874791
>in very rare cases
That sounds like a custom plot device to explain why the main character is so special and powerful and perhaps also why the main villain is such a threat. I wonder if it would be possible to achieve a six-element individual through hybridization and whether that person would turn out to be the most OP of all or just an unfocused generalist or someone who could develop in any direction?

Overall I think you need to think about your system more to justify its existence compared to a situation where there just are a bunch of fantasy races in the world that may differ in preferred type of elemental magic but some of the different races may have the same preferences and other elemental combinations may not necessarily be common with any race.

Is everyone here focused on writing fantasy? I've been spec'd into sci-fi pulp with my setting.

>>24868573
> demand that even in middle earth, there is an equivalent of a BMW cruising alongside the riders of rohan.
Middle Earth had clocks and guns so why not a Model T Ford.
> is working backwards from our modern expectation to a society and expecting it to always work like that in every society, time and technological level.
I had that experience with the time travel book from the Station Eleven bitch. 300 years in the future we have spaceships and moon bases but everyone talks like they do now, about issues that are the same (literally whining about patriarchy), nothing really changes. Nor did the 200 years in the past section change, people talked the same all over I guess and thought like we do because it’s hard to use your imagination or worse still do research.

But perhaps worst of all, given time travel and a time travel agency the way it works is not thought through at all and they immediately break time travel “rules” repeatedly. Despite being unqualified and breaking rules they let the protagonist dipshit continue using it after a couple of weeks training.
The only defense I can imagine someone giving is that “it’s not important” because the book is actually about the half baked shitty romance plot. Given a readership that doesn’t care, why try harder?

>>24868365
worldbuilding is a bullshit way to pretend you're being productive when you're not working on your actual story

>>24876688
I have some science fiction elements, such as the Elves having spaceships and knowledge of nuclear fusion, and some of the plot takes place outside Earth and also in massive caverns inside Earth. I have pretty significant pulp influences too, though more from the fantasy/science fantasy side, not that pulp sci-fi was ever really that strict about scientific accuracy. I suppose the world could qualify as a really soft science fiction world in which amazing things are possible with psychic powers innate to all humans and ancient super science developed by a lost civilization.

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>>24875106
Oh, I forgot to mention that I did think that the Nagas would have some fins like in WoW. Also, part of the reason I chose Nagas for the Fire/Water race was the "Naga fireball" phenomenon, I wanted the elemental association to partly reference actual myth/folklore.

Okay, how about I make it so that every few centuries there's a change in the flow of the ambient elemental energy of the setting, like a surge of some kind that can cause mutations, and that's what causes the new races?

Well, I do have some other ideas and shit, I'm just focusing on the race list right now, one thing at a time. BTW, thanks for making me think on things, and if you have any suggestions for the different three-race combos that you can think of but haven't said already I'd love to hear them please.

>>24877607
Given that you probably aren't being very ambitious and just need some races, you may want to take a look at:
https://www.d20srd.org/indexes/monsters.htm

None of those are part of the D&D Product Identity, so you won't be sued for using them. People may judge you unoriginal though, and you'll need to assign the elements on your own.

>Okay, how about I make it so that every few centuries there's a change in the flow of the ambient elemental energy
If it's just some random natural phenomenon that generates random new races, you are liberated from trying to build coherent personality profiles for the gods and are free to go with whatever for your races as long as it somewhat fits the logic of the setting. Yes, I can see how that would make things easier.

>>24876688
By now it's clear we aren't going to get a cool future, if I was going to do sci fi it would need to be something like Star Wars where there never was an Earth and at that point it's more just fantasy in space.

>>24869907
God do I hate you, you lazy, repetitive mother fucker

Make your own shit. Go stupid with it even. it only has to minorly make sense.

BE CREATIVE

>>24876688
Most of my stories are westerns. A couple of them are set on lost space colonies or decaying arcologies.

>>24876750
My actual story involves the characters traveling all over the setting while massive political events take place. Worldbuilding becomes a necessity to keep cause and effect functioning as they should. Some of the characters learn how to use magic, and one becomes undead while remaining a main character, so the magic system and the mechanics of death and undeath need to be thought out too.

>>24878053
>By now it's clear we aren't going to get a cool future
How could a alternate history setting fix that?

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>>24877882
Yeah, like I said I've mainly got the two-element races down (though if you have any thoughts that might make me reconsider I wouldn't turn them down), but I'm stuck on some of the three-element ones. The link is a big help, thanks, I'll take a closer look tomorrow, things have been crazy today and I'm so exhausted I nearly missed your post.

I was thinking that the gods would still exist though, just more divorced from the process of race creation after the original two-element races, is that a bad idea?

Why the fuck are you stupid retards posting your ideas up here so they can be easily stolen by others? Are you fucking retarded?

I'm stealing all this dogshit and publishing it under my name and you'll deserve it.

>>24870820
There are lists of these things on Wikipedia.

>>24868573
>an evil influence which just so happens to also embody everything that people from 2010s California consider morally reprehensible.
Such as?

I worldbuild better when I am horny, even if the things I worldbuild about have little to nothing to do with sex

>>24876750
I don't care, it's fun

Why are most fantasy settings inspired by the middle ages?

bump

>>24880559
>Why are most fantasy settings inspired by the middle ages?
LotR's influence is a big reason.

>>24881760
There are also fairy tales and Arthurian myths. Those have a big influence even if that influence is buried several layers deep in the chain of authors.

But I think the core reason is that for people wanting to write a story with magic and without modernity, going back a minimum amount of time in their own culture's history is simply the easiest route that requires the least research and the fewest explanations for the reader.

>>24882130
Stone age fantasy is really rare. I remember having read one obscure novel that was set during the paleolithic age and had supernatural elements in that the main character died in the beginning and hung around in spirit form. The Land in the Thomas Covenant books is pretty much neolithic in tech level too, only with widespread high magic that changes the entire equation. They don't need metal tools because they have better ways to shape stone and wood that anyone can learn how to use. For some reason other authors don't seem to have followed the same route even though I think the worldbuilding in the Thomas Covenant books is very good and interesting.

>>24882432
>I remember having read one obscure novel that was set during the paleolithic age and had supernatural elements in that the main character died in the beginning and hung around in spirit form.
What was this called?

>>24883616
I have completely forgotten both the title and the author. It was a long time ago. I don't even remember thinking that the book was anything special, just that the topic was unusual. There weren't a lot of stone age books around in the first place but I read everything I could find. Clan of the Cave Bear has slight supernatural elements, but not really enough to qualify as fantasy.

Basically imagine just your standard stone age life in a small hunter-gatherer tribe, but the main character is a boy who died (a hunting accident, if I remember correctly) and the other characters consider him a protective spirit and sacrifice food to him, the flavor of which he is able to enjoy through the smoke. There was this other tribe too with whom the main character's tribe exchanged daughters to avoid inbreeding but they didn't really like each other and the tribes ended up fighting each other in the end. There were no overt fantasy elements visible to a skeptic time traveler.

I really think branching out of the standard fantasy box is helpful when doing worldbuilding. Fantasy is not supposed to be limited to a small subset of its possibilities.

>>24883883
>I really think branching out of the standard fantasy box is helpful when doing worldbuilding. Fantasy is not supposed to be limited to a small subset of its possibilities.
Fair enough. What are some other examples of fantasy that does this well, the Cosmere?

>25th century, Man has expanded to outer space and billions live in space colonies on Mars, the Moon, and in space cylinders across the Lagrange Points in the Solar System
>Fusion Power is now obsolete because matter-antimatter annihilation can produce over a hundred times more energy.
>The Earth is unified under the United Nations. The US, PRC, Russia, and most other countries have collapsed and become subdivisions of the international system.
>Spaceships bring goods to and from various asteroids and planets to manufacturing plants closer to Earth.
>A Dyson Swarm of Black Hole generators is officially created in the ear 2409 to trap ALL the energy produced by the sun, store it, and then beam it to various solar systems.

The last officially begins The Great Expansion, as the first unified humanity officially sends the first ships to colonize other solar systems with their first true FTL ships.

In the next 300 years, the first human trade conduits between the closest systems in around 50 light years of the Solar System will be established, and humanity will officially begin its path to becoming a Kardashev 2 Civilization.

But first! A full scale civil war between the Space living colonists and Earth over who gets to rule humanity.

>Bronze Age Collapse happens. Demons involved.
>Refugees flee to Anshan.
>Create floating city. Plant Sacred Cypress to sanctify it.
>Deluge drowns the demon kingdoms in Near East.
>Mages now control all of Asia.

I need a cool Legendary King who could fit the myth model here. Someone who forms a new Kingdom after his people's legendary ancestral home is destroyed.

>>24885179
Aeneas and Rome. Also Joshua, the Prophet who led the Hebrews into Israel after Moses died on the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land.

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>>24868365
Besides Dungeons and Dragons books and Wikipedia, where do you look for ideas on races to include in your setting? And what are the key aspects of a race in your opinion?

>>24879399
Watch Korra.
Or DA Veilguard.
The rings of power tried to make Sauron seem like this warmonger who enslaved the poor orcs who just wanted to stay with their families. It wasn't evil enough that the orcs were twisted beings that sought the evil of their dark master and thus flocked to Sauron after Morgoth's defeat, he had to enslave them and be mean to them. I was impressed the writers held back on giving him a white suit and a southern accent to drive the point home.
Sanderson tried to depict feudalism as this universal evil and anyone who practises it must be the big bad, rather than a system that established itself as a means to organize labour and military to stabilize society and then just became more and more corrupt over time.
I guess such writers can't see corruption / evil as a thing in and of itself, a force that drives away from a singular vision of good and towards a selfish desire. They see evil and good as labels as established by ideologies and good things are those that are good for this ideology and vice versa. There is no "goodness" as a thing but only "things that are good" and "doing good things".
It reminds me of how many people who discuss Tolkien think the ring represents power (because power corrupts and the ring is powerful, that is true) when in reality the ring represents corruption. If power was evil in Tolkien's work, then the central good guys wouldn't all have been of nobility (although Sam, the only outlier, was the lynchpin that saved the day) and Aragorn wouldn't have taken the throne but turned Gondor into a democracy.

>>24884369
I think finding a different viewpoint is easiest in earlier fantasy before the standardization took over. For example, Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique stories present a non-Western-styled fantasy world quite far removed from the current Californian sensibilities. The stories are short individually and unconnected to each other, but reading them together gives a sense of a world.

The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson may be difficult to read and has its flaws, but the worldbuilding of the sunless world, first appearing in Chapter 2, is unique and compelling.

For something newer and of a different sort, something like the Earthsea trilogy (I personally think the subsequent sequels are best treated as not existing) by Ursula LeGuin could be mentioned. Patricia A. McKillip has some interesting but lightly-detailed worldbuilding in short books too.

Tolkien himself is very much worth reading too to see how he compares to his imitators and how much depth has been lost following the standard formula. Most authors not in the vein of Tolkien don't really worldbuild that much, but you can still get valuable different perspectives from, say, the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, which have mature and often religious themes as originally written, not as adapted by Disney or the like.

I have read some books by Brandon Sanderson but haven't touched the Stormlight Archive series. I classify Sanderson as the guy who develops really neat magic systems.

>>24885179
Noah? Uthnapishtim? An original name because you're doing so many changes anyway?

I'm a bit confused about that Bronze Age Collapse in there before the deluge. Is it meant to be the same Bronze Age Collapse that happened in the real world? If not, will the world go on to have the real world version of the Bronze Age Collapse later on and forget about the age of magic? Or is the world a completely unrelated fantasy world that doesn't become the our world?

>>24885851
A perfectly valid fantasy story can be done with just humans. Many have no need for more.

The key aspect of including a race is that its presence contributes something to the story. For example, in my story the High Elves are supposed to live in idle luxury. However this raises the issue of who sweeps the streets and does the laundry. The Elves are capable of doing all that by themselves, but that would undermine the theme of the false utopia. So a slave race was required, but it would need to be non-humanoid in shape and not normally capable of talking so that the Elves wouldn't have moral problems...

>>24886261
No, it's the same as ours. Except for literal demons being involved.

>>24886623
>Except for literal demons being involved.
NTA, but involved how exactly?

>>24886921
The Sea Peoples worship them, and they think their gods are commanding them to lay siege to civilization.

And other demons are weakening civilization from the inside. Many concubines, eunuchs, important nobles, and priests are disguised demons.

>>24886623
Okay. I was confused by that deluge because it's much too late in the timeline for Noah's Flood. Moses should be alive and leaving Egypt instead around that time. Even if he isn't really a character in the story, the timeline should avoid disasters that would have killed him and everyone around him or at the very least merited a mention in the surviving historical records.

>>24887204
God only said He wouldn't use a Deluge to exterminate humans...emphasis on exterminate and humans. He never said anything about drowning demons in a way that doesn't harm the normal humans.

And trust me, history gets weirder as I move closer to the plot. By the 19th century, there will be space colonies and Dyson Swarms dotting space even as human knights engage demons on Earth itself.

I love my black and white conflicts set in gray worlds.

>>24868365
My worldbuilding is about a special girl fighting the evil empire

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>>24868365
I was thinking that in my world the lord of the Abyss is a being of madness and corruption that cannot truly create, only twist and break. As a result, all demons were ultimately once elementals that came too close to a place where the barrier between the Abyss and the mortal world is thin, and got dragged through and twisted into a demonic form, but with some of their original elemental nature still shining through. I was thinking that there would be some kinds of demons, like imps, who can be of any element (flame, ice, lightning, shadow, etc.) while there are some kinds of demons that are only made of one kind of corrupted elemental, like gargoyle-looking demons for stone elementals. Besides ideas for which kinds of demons can be made of only one element, since I want there to be more than just one breed designated for each element, so succubi work better as demons created solely from flame elementals like picture related, or demons that can be any element? And have you done anything like this yourself?

>>24868573
People dont want to admit that every thing in this post is 100% true

How the hell can audiences even see the players in a coliseum built to accommodate faster humans?

And by faster I mean fast enough that you need multiple kilometers to give them space to move.

>>24889035
How the heck are they so fast?

>>24890566
Superpowers.

>>24891176
Okay, how do the powers work?

>>24887232
So it sounds like the Sea Peoples are meant to be Atlantis and possibly equated with the Minoan civilization in line with that one theory about Atlantis. I still don't understand though the thing about not drowning humans when apparently these kingdoms are not 100% demons but only infiltrated by demons, and natural disasters drowning entire countries shouldn't possibly be selective enough to only target the demons.

>>24889035
Massive video screens like in big concerts, zooming in on the action. Slow motion replays might be necessary.

>>24892986
The difference was purely academic by that time. Even the common people had become as evil as the demons.

What would an idealised Middle Class even look like?

>>24893821
You need to be consistent about these things. Evil humans should still count as human. If God has promised not to send another flood to destroy humans he should keep to that word and use other means. There are many possibilities, such as meteor strikes. (See Sodom and Gomorrah.)

Though I have no idea if you're going for Christian fiction or not.

>>24894045
Tbf I just thought it would be ironic if God turns the wordplay back on them. The barbarians thought they'd be safe since God promised he wouldn't exterminate humanity with floods, so God points out that:

1. It wouldn't be exterminating humans since they're just a fraction of the human race, and actively engaging in hurting the whole.
2. He never said anything about not exterminating demons, and these folks are definitely the majority of the demon race.

>>24894057
It turns God into a liar for no good reason. Much better and more historically accurate would be to have Thera erupt cataclysmically, or everyone in the evil kingdoms get killed by invading Hebrews, or a combination of both options, depending on where your kingdoms are meant to be located.

>>24893882
>What would an idealised Middle Class even look like?
Why do you want one?

>>24868573
Unfathomably based nooticer

>>24868573
That's been the default for almost forever. The Trojan War used to be depicted as a battle of knights in the medieval era.

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>Saw this Ben 10 fanart once, used it to model the character that would be "The Strongest of This Era"
>He can summon 10 overpowered Spirits, each of which is individually a top 10 contender in the modern era, and command them in battle.
>The summoning works on the principle of Spirit Transference where the human body is trapped in the Spirit Realm so that the Summon can obtain a fully corporeal body, allowing it to use 100% of its power.
>An above average Sorcerer can summon and vaguely control a lot of petty spirits. An exceptional Sorcerer can fully summon one powerful spirit. An elite one could actually control it.
>He can fully summon TEN of the strongest ones in existence and control them with ease.

He is considered the LeBron James of his generation, if not a G.O.A.T. prodigy the likes of which won't be seen again. If he really wanted to, he could conquer a country in a single evening.

He currently studies History and hopes to become the Governor in the future.

>>24896176
Because one of the two superpowers is based off the idea of a Complete Capitalist Victory.

>>24898731
>Because one of the two superpowers is based off the idea of a Complete Capitalist Victory.
Details please.

>>24900048
It's an entirely different world where Wizards emigrated from their ruined home dimension sometime in the 2nd millennium BC. The timeline started going off the rails as these Mages started to make reality bend to their whims.

In this case, the Federal Reserve was never founded in the main capitalist power, which ensured the Great Depression never happened, which ensured that it was the capitalists who won the ideological war and crushed the socialists.

Nuclear power is endemic, the UN has actual teeth, the Cold War equivalent never even got started because the US equivalent just nuked the Soviet equivalent and the Golden Age of Capitalism is soon going to have its 200th anniversary.

I'm just trying to find some inspirations for what life would be like for a normal citizen.

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Rate my idea
>gemstones are naturally aligned with various elements (common trope, not my idead), ruby = fire, topaz = lightning, etc.
>an apiarist (beekeeper) can take a gemstone and carefully integrate it with a beehive. Very involved process if it's a natural beehive, a little easier if it's a beebox. Requires some amount of light magic to do and the process can fail sometimes
>but if it's successful, the bees will "bind" to the gemstone and their honey, hive structure, wax, etc. Will begin reflecting that. They still obviously take in flowers that subtly change the color of the honey, but it will primarily take the vibrant color of the gemstone itself
>a beehive with a bound ruby will produce rubyhoney, which shares some attributes with the element associated with the gem. It's still edible as the effect is greatly diluted, but in this case it would be spicy honey (this is NOT because of the spicy honey meme food, I've not tried that, nor will I. Fuck you)
>elemental honey is more valuable than regular, obviously, and one of the major uses for it is in alchemy, where it can act as a very stable base for elemental potions of all kinds
>the queen will eventually start laying eggs that produce colorful bees to match their new element, like how orchid bees look in irl life (pic rel, middle is an orchid beee)
>gemstones get depleted very slowly, so theyre not infinite, and thus cannot be a naturally occuring thing, but they're also not going to run out so quickly it would be unprofitable for apiarists or alchemists to keep them
What think?

>>24900417
Interesting facet of society to explore, but you'd have to look at it from a larger scale if beekeepers can figure out something like that. Gemstone faceting would be the standard, but introducing them to an organic structure would be a matter of study. Cool story by itself, too.

>>24901139
Or I could cheat by making it a recent discovery that very few people in the world know about during the time of my story (which is exactly what I'm gonna do)
That way I only have to worry about the logistics and economy of it on a small scale

>>24900417
How did people discover this?

Hey, does anyone know any decent inspirations for a setting that's working at Kardashev 1 levels of energy usage?

In simpler words, that's about 1000 times more power than modern Earth at minimum.

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>>24902520
Well, as far as my story goes, an alchemist moves into a new town and starts up a potion shop, and one of the first things he does is find a beehive to SH0BE a flawless ruby into. He received the ruby as a parting gift from his mentor after completing his apprenticeship, and im thinking his mentor is a BEE autist. Since he's also an alchemist, he makes tons of potions using honey and gemstone powders, but using powders could cause instability in the potion, so he experimented with a few different methods and eventually his eccentricities lead him to leaving the gems in a beebox for some time to see if there would be a reaction, and wallah, emerald honey!
In the current day of the story, only two people as of yet know about it because the former master is a recluse who doesn't speak much to others, but the protagonist will eventually strike a deal with a neighbor that moves in who has a lot of experience in beekeeping to teach him the secret so they he can get a consistent supply of elemental honey
Also btw, he sources these flawless gemstones from a traveling DORF and enlists the aid of an cute ELVE mage to magically charge them to the correct level
Also unrelated but I'm thinking about how to incorporate a bnuuy into the story in a way that makes sense more than just a pet. For example, the protag has a cat that he bought specifically to guard his garden from thieving vermin, but he is a fat fuck and doesn't catch shit, thus prompting him to make an animal speak potion to he can strike up a deal with the mice (who are cheesed to meet him)
Thus, the cat and the mice serve multiple purposes and are more than pets and pests. Dunno how to include a bnuuy properly...

Background:
>Humans become evolved enough to colonize solar system, start fearing extinction after they run out of solar energy.
>Make plans to colonize thousands of stars in the 50ly sphere around the sun.
>Make tens of thousands of ships capable of travelling at 10c, outfitted with complex drone systems that will self-duplicate and establish space colonies for the new settlers to live in.
>New settlers will be stored in the form of embryos, then will be "born" after the Central Computer decides the system is ready for human colonization, ie enough space colonies have been built to accommodate them.
>Each embryo has been "programmed" to be peak physical and mental fitness, with high social instincts to prevent infighting and promote cooperation.

It's all fine till now, but then begins the real problem. While the main plan has succeeded, and there are now millions of men inhabiting the thousands of stars (and septillions of drones, of course), a problem emerged that Earth had never even considered.

These colonists are all first generation spacers who've never seen the earth and feel no attachment to it. No loyalty, despite everything the A.I. did to educate them on the importance of loyalty.

But they're also highly independent and intelligent, which means they can just ignore the A.I. and decide that hey, why listed to the motherland at all?

This has happened before. Centuries ago, humans struggled with countless internecine conflicts between space colonists in the Solar System and Earth natives. Thing is, Earth LOST that war and space colonists took over the Solar System.

The very same space colonists that sent these Ark Fleets.

Irony abounds. The old space colonists fighting the central government on Earth are now the central government on Earth who are looking at a burgeoning independence movement of Space Colonists.

And they don't know what to do.

Do you include your political fantasies in your woldbuilding?

>>24886095
not to get too /pol/ in another board but we've been in a new zeitgeist of Rules for Radicals for awhile. liberals (this is not a post about how conservatives or 'the other side' are good or how these traits are somehow unique to this group in particular but these are the people that have had a monopoly over media and culture for decades now, and as of late have actively worked against the creation, promotion or consumption of any media they find "problematic" and so that is who i am critiquing) will profess how bad things like slavery, imperialism or colonialism were, but only if they were against the wrong targets. given the opportunity to enact any of those ills on their ideological enemies and they'd do so without a second thought and would have no issue justifying it under this same framework. they hate the idea of objective intrinsic evil that's measured by some objective basis that any normal person can see rather than something decided via group consensus and established via theory, then it would make it impossible to shift this consensus around as needed because grabbing power and dominating others is a lot easier with rules you don't have to live up to yourself. today's oppressed is tomorrow oppressor and then back again once they fall back into line.

the era we're living in, going against these ideas isn't just a matter of disagreeing with someone else. you're talking about being branded a "fascist" for expressing heretical ideas. going against this grain and talking about objective observable evil would instantly start raising red flags to people like this because concepts like objective, observable reality are rooted in whiteness and patriarchy, defining or categorizing things is a form of fascism. but rather than every single writer in the west being an ideological zealot, i think it's more just this is how everything is presented now, no one really thinks anything of it. everything is shades of grey except when they're not because someone performed a sacred transgression. having a Bad Guy who is just Evil because He Is is like, SO 1900s! who does that anymore? (unless he's white and bigoted, of course) - and i think most people assume that LotR or all foundational genre fiction is like that and all of the bad guys are like that and there's no nuance, that you don't have layered characters. even Aragorn has to go through the journey to become the Good and Wise King, he didn't just start that way. i think you could look into the Star Wars sequels for even more on how these people think, because so much of the power and prestige Rey is given feels so totally unearned. modern writers look at something like the original trilogy and don't see the hero's journey, they see Luke being granted all this stuff because he's white and male so he's granted the role of Hero which entitles him to all those powers and prestige. we just need to say The Force Is Female and the same magic spell will work on our new protagonist!

>>24903614
I exclusively worldbuild to make strawmen of my in irl life poltical enemies and make them as retarded and evil as possible (true to life) and make them lose (unfortunately not always true to life)

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>>24903981
kek

>>24903614
Sometimes, but only if they already fit in.

>>24903614
Such is the act of a cretin.

>>24900417
My first impression was that this was meant as a piece of minor backstory detail like the flavor text on a potion of lightning resistance in a video game. Then I thought some more and imagined that maybe there could be plots like having the main character be a thief who tries to steal the gems from the hives and has to deal with the elemental magic bees, or maybe the bees could get out of control and become a threat to the city or something. Maybe there even could be a plot in which the magical principle originally developed for bees is extended to other creatures, such as humans...

>>24902779
It sounds like you're going for a low-stakes slice-of-life narrative instead. That's not really my kind of thing so I can't comment much on that.

>>24879314
i ask myself the same, but then i remember i'm not posting, and i assume in my hubris that my ideas are worth stealing

>>24904922
I apologize for this post. It probably came off as entirely too insensitive, and I'm regretting posting it.

>>24904937
My plan is more complex than fits in a single post and is in a flux anyway. Unlike what might have been expected, posting here led to a realization that a part of my outline had critical underlying issues and needed to be rethought from the ground up because minor or moderate revisions wouldn't do it. I'm still trying to figure out the new shape of the plot.

Also, people are different, and someone copying an idea like "MC, in a shocking twist, gets turned into a vampire" or "Fire/Water elemental nagas along with many other elemental fantasy races" would result in something different from the original poster's version. For example, the naga idea could result in a battle harem adventure story, a high school comedy, or a serious depiction of a clash of multiple cultures in which the main characters strive to keep their world from collapsing into an all-consuming war.

>>24903614
No, people are too consumed by politics and fantasy should be an escape from that shit.

>>24904984
Don't worry about it
It didnt feel insensitive at all
Your ideas were cool and I can see a story built around a more high stakes criminal underbelly of a fantasy honey industry. But, true, this story in particular is a more SoL comfy story
I appreciate your posts

>ambient mana in ancient times was much denser than today
What's a good reason for this being the case?

>>24905279
That sounds like The Magic Goes Away by Larry Niven. In that story the use of magic consumed the local mana, eventually resulting in zones where magic didn't work at all. If the mana had instead been gaseous and mobile, this would have resulted in evenly lowering mana concentrations all over the world.

You could also have the mana be a resource that is continually produced by something, such as sacred trees or volcanic eruptions or mysterious ancient technology that no one understands any more. Any reductions at the source for whatever reason would then lead to lower levels of ambient mana. The Coldfire Trilogy by C. S. Friedman had the fae (sentient mana) surge with earthquakes that happen often because the planet is tectonically young. In The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson the Earth-Current is life-force/mana/electricity that comes from deep underground in certain places and is also an exhaustible resource like oil.

>>24905279
What if it was tied to specific ancient magical creatures but they were hunted near to extinction
Like unicorns for example
Unicorns made magic everywhere they went and thus the lack of them, after being hunted for centuries, has weakened magic as a whole

>>24902779
Update to my idea to make it better
>the neighbor that moves is actually the mentor bee autismmaxxer
>he got old and sick of doing alchemy, as his real passion was beekeeping, but he was trained as an alchemist and was good at it so he stuck with it his whole adult life to provide for his family
>now his kid is grown up and only cares about MONEY or business in a general sense and tried and failed to start multiple in the capital city because it's just difficult to get started with all the old dogs there
>the mentor visits the protagonist one day to catch up, and he admits that he wants to retire and leave his potion shop to the MC, but he refuses because he likes his current home in this small town better
>instead, the MC convinces his mentor to sell his potion shop to some schmuck, move out to where he is, start a proper appiary where he can go full beemaxxer autistmode, and let his son handle the shop side of the business while he spends his "retirement" taking care of bees like he wanted to all his life
>this way, the two alchemists will work together to experiment more with the elemental beehives and eventually turn it into a grand thing
>this has the added bonus of the mentors grandchildren becoming neighbors and friends with the protagonists adopted daughter/apprentice (who is the second main character btw)
>>you know, I felt kind of bad for leaving you all behind when I finished my apprenticeship. I could have stayed to help you with the buisness, and part of me thinks I should have. Especially after coming out here and learning that it's always best to stay close to those you care about. But another part of me is glad that I did, because out here I found someone new I to care about. And I've found this place where we can all be happy. I don't know. I guess I've been pretty lucky all my life. Especially to have had you to teach me alchemy, master. You love your bees. I love alchemy. :)

>>24905753
This sounds much better, with having the bee-keeping aspect relate to the plot and the personalities of the characters rather than some static bit in the background that could be easily replaced with something else.

I refuse to give a reason for why magic works. It just does, and be satisfied with that.

But I'll spend weeks poring over articles to figure out how they dammed up the Mediterranean or melted the North Sea.

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>>24905888
Well, it was never going to be a static background thing because that's not how I world-build at all. I don't just think up ideas that I think are neat and implement them for no reason, I only do so if I can deliberately tie it to the characters in a way that fits them. Otherwise I shelve the idea unless I can think of a direction connection to the characters. For example, in this specific story, I have a generalized map in my head of the world, but it only goes as far as
>the village the alchemist settles in is located at a crossroads between 3 major cities of the kingdom, and is right next to a slightly haunted forest. He chose this place because of those facts since a spooky forest is a good place for ingredients, and a major crossroads means many travelers will pass by his shop. I did not go through and name each city, nor name the continent, nor kingdom, because to the alchemist, that's not particularly pressing information. There's no reason to bog the reader down with names of places that are never going to be seen when that page can be better spent on words that actually matter to the characters
Anyways, if that didnt make sense it's because it's 4am and I'm tired cause I just watched like 6h of stranger things to prepare for s5 tomorrow and I deleted what I wrote like 3 times cause I felt it wasnt making sense holy shit im tired
>>24906541
Based
So many people are too GAY when it comes to le magic and think that the brando sando way is the only way it should work. If you want to give a hard system with tons of rules and limits and stuff, that's fine, but it will take the fucking magic out of it and make it into science, which is fag shit

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>>24906541
Also, I have several different worlds I work on simultaneously, one in which magic is virtually unexplained, and another where I try to actually create rules. Both are fine approaches imo. Here's what I have for the rules one
>there are 3 components to casting spells
>1) the hand signs - every spell requires dexterous use the the fingers and hands to do complex motions (words do not accompany this btw, it's basically silent)
>2) "fuel" - nearly all magic requires some form of equivalent exchange to cast the spell that's needed. Can be as simple as a pinecone to light on fire for a fireball ala gandalf or as complicated as a whole collection of dragon parts to idk do something important and spooky like create an army of skeletons (there's one inside you right now btw)
>3) knowledge of the spell - reading it in a tome and understanding the logic behind it and how the spell physically manifests
So with all those 3, basically, it looks like this
>in order to cast a levitate spell, the magician needs a bird feather, a quick right-hand motion, and the knowledge of exactly when to let go of the feather so it turns into wind or whatever. I think the intresting thing about this is that the 3 different parts can pull different amounts of weight for each spell and will inevitably come from 3 different types of magicians. For example, this spell can be made more powerful by using more feathers, thus, a wealthy magician can just throw more feathers at his problems and make it work. Meanwhile, a magician who has KNOWLEDGE, would know that some bird feathers behave differently than others because he studied the spell for a long time and knows how to cast it the most efficiently by maximizing different aspects. Meanwhile, meanwhile, you can have someone who is incredibly dexterous with their fingers and can thus pull as much magic out of that one feather as possible, because their casting was so exact, that their one feather effectively behave like a dozen from the resource fag and a special eagle-wing-brown-feather from the knowledge fag.
In this system, all people who use magic are called "magicians", but there is a ven-diagram like spectrum where people who prioritize different methods are labeled differently. These are not set in stone yet, but for example
>resourcefaggots are called mages and are generally looked down upon by other types because they're like rich nepobabies who bought their way into magic
>fingerfaggots are called warlocks and are generally respected for their skill, but considered unrefined and uncultured by the others. This method is often used by the poor
>knowledgefaggots are called wizards and are what is often traditionally associated with magicians. Towers, hoarding tomes, experimenting with random bullshit, the whole shebang. They're like the propee high society of magicians
Because of this all, obviously the most powerful, and thus potentially the most dangerous magician are people who have all 3

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>>24906955
So the most poweful magician would have great hand-finger dexterity, a well learned mind that has spent decades studying spells, and is wealthy enough to be able to afford a huge stockpile of resources. Someone like this is rare in the world and if they do exist they would probably be called something special that I would have to make up, but lets just say for now it's "archmagician" or whatever
Anyways. What do you think? What kind of spellcaster would (You) strive to be under this system?

>>24906955
Don't steal my post.

I can't decide if I want to include runic/enchantment magic as its own school of magic. Due to the way my magic system is set up, it has to be its own thing. You wouldn't really be able to cast fireball using enchantment methods. I also have alchemy. The difference being that alchemy imbues while enchanting overlays.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a theme/spells that are enchantment-y that don't just overlap with alchemy.

>>24906955
This is like casting in old-style D&D except every spell has both somatic and material components and verbal components don't exist. The different specializations aren't really like character classes but more like feat chains in D&D (which had feats like Maximize Spell, Heighten Spell, Empower Spell, etc.), so I don't think the different varieties of caster would really be called by different terms most of the time. Presumably every type of caster starts out the same and then develops in some direction, or tries to. Untalented casters without resources to speak of would by logic also exist, and they would be stuck casting unamplified basic magic and maybe getting good at something entirely different.

>>24907334
Intresting
Didn't know that as I don't play dnd
However they will be called different things in my world because I say so

>>24906924
Background detail isn't bad. It makes the world feel more lived-in and less like a generic fantasy setting. The difficulty lies with introducing the detail in a natural way that doesn't overwhelm the reader with unfamiliar terminology or feel like tedious infodumping. And not all detail known to the author needs to be put on the page in explicit terms.

>>24907977
I agree with you, which is why I try to introduce everything through the eyes of the characters so they have some amount of value
Gene wolfe did virtually all of his worldbuilding this way. Very natural.

How should I (how do you) go about reconciling magical/supernatural abilities performed by humans, in a monotheistic world?
My only reference is Bakker (Second Apocalypse) but its debatable whether there even is single God of the universe in that series.
The obvious way to go is that its heretical/evil/sinful to perform magic. Sin is easy to explain away with freewill given by God, but I guess my main contention is that why magic exists at all if its bad?

>>24908910
Bakker is the worst model you could have picked, because he is not a Christian and his liberal and anti-theistic male feminist views show through his writing even when he is trying to write fiction informed by the conservative worldview.

There are multiple ways of allowing for magic in a fantasy story:
a) Magic is a natural innate ability that people have in the world.
b) Magic is really a form of technology, possibly deriving from a lost civilization with a very high understanding of the natural laws. These natural laws are not necessarily the same as in our world.
c) Magic comes from non-human supernatural intervention. Good "magic" is divine miracles.
d) Any combination of the above.

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>>24868365
What are some different races that can be associated with different seasons like picture related? And duo you have a Thanksgiving equivalent in your setting?

how do I copy a magic system without making it obvious? Any tips for disguising my thievery?

>>24910615
What system are you copying?

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In my world most of the women have short hair because short hair is cute as fuck and it's not my fault most people IRL don't see this.

>>24912201
Just a guess, but I'm thinking Dungeons & Dragons.

The D&D magic system was originally taken from Jack Vance's Dying Earth books, by the way, hence the term "Vancian magic". Also, the ioun stones are directly from Dying Earth with permission from Vance. The spell Prismatic Spray is also originally from those books that I remember.

>>24912223
>In my world most of the women have short hair because short hair is cute as fuck and it's not my fault most people IRL don't see this.
What's the in-setting reason for that?

>>24914460
lice prevention

>>24912223
Same. Almost all my female characters have bobcuts regardless of setting.

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>>24912223
You are my enemy. Were we to meet I'd have to throw a glove in your face immediately. I hate character development.

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>>24868367
>>When making said original races, what advice do you have/what is the process that you use, and what races have you made with said process/resources? And how do you make sure that they’re distinct/non-redundant?
I make what I think would be hot and then build around that
>>What are your feelings on typical fantasy races like the aforementioned two, Orcs, Goblins, etc.? And how do you go about putting your own twists on said races/make them less generic?
I do have the usual set of races but I like to slightly twist them. For example an elf's breast milk can extend a human's lifespan, making human elf couples possible. My dragons are the world's archivists (task given them by an ancient apostle of the fire god) who spend most of their lives recording information on their island. Their king is a dragon who lives in space (they grow larger the more knowledge they have, he grew too large for the planet) and flies by once a year to get updates from the others. It causes a planet-wide aurora and deep rumbling, this event is also most cultures' equivalent of New Years' eve. I also intend on creating crystal golem people but I need to figure out how to make them fuckable.

>>Were any of your races created artificially? If so, who did it and why?
For context: the world is currently about 4000 years after the Cleansing (working name but might keep it), an apocalyptic event where the gods descended to wipe out most of the population. Humanity (and other races, you know what I mean) was essentially transitioning into a full sci fi civilization at that point, but there was an issue - they were getting too curious and too close to discovering the existence of the original god, whom the four elemental gods sealed away. The gods panicked and decided that wiping humanity out is the lesser evil in this situation, as freeing him could potentially end the world entirely.

One of the things created before the apocalypse were genetically engineered beastfolk - essentially your standard kemonomimi. Still haven't fully decided their purpose yet, but I'm leaning towards colonizing new planets.
The gods completely suppressed the pre-Cleansing history with a new mythology, and they really didn't want to allude to anything made by that world, so the official creation myth does not mention beastfolk in any capacity. Because of this, they are treated as inferior and are essentially the designated slave race, probably 60-70% of all slaves.

Also, some trivia I came up with. Pre-cleansing history, culture, and fashion are almost completely lost. One of the world's demons, an assistant to the god of death, is essentially a demonic secretary and wears a business suit. Because she's the only known figure to wear something like this, it's basically seen as satanic. That means that, when the world progresses to a more modern age again, edgy teens will wear fancy suits to piss off their parents.

And here's a monster I came up with (sorry for the ai image).

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In the fantasy world I'm writing I have the standard Tolkienian fantasy races (with some twists) and a couple of my own creations. I also intend to try to give each race multiple cultures if possible.

Humans don't need much introduction. They will be able to outgrow our capabilities and limitations if they put the effort in.

Elves are of dilluted fey blood, which means they are part living stories and have some access to narrative story magic. This also means if they become famous there's a bit of... pattern imposed on them, where they play the part of their legend.

Dwarves start out as the standard dorf, but as they grow older and/or stronger they become more elemental. Skin becomes more stonelike, eyes turn into gemstones, and hair becomes metallic (So a family named Coppercurl would have copperlike hair, and beards for the men).

The Halfling/Gnome equivalent I'm still working on (the name being most annoying to think of).

The Cauldronborn/Spartoi are big, leukic (almost albino), golden eyed Homunculi who were created as soldiers and bodyguards by the First Ones™. They have a mercanery warrior culture and they're slowly dwindling out as fewer and fewer are discovered each year (They're a male only race.) Although one naval expedition found a lost Atlantean colony that has a fruit which allows them to feel lust and romantic love, and have managed to sire offspring.

The Star Wanderers are humanoid with some amphibian traits, psionic with a third crystaline eye on their forehead, and nearly all of them live in great nomadic caravans. They're known for being great artists and healers and they usually get a warm reception as they want for little and seldom overstay their welcome. By pure coincidence the way they track family lineages resembles Navajo custom to a degree.

The automata are fantasy robots who have developed a mercantile culture (get your jokes in) in their quest for the raw materials needed to create more of themselves. They possess some of the First Ones knowledge and consider the Cauldronborn to be distant family as fellow creations of the First Ones.

There's a psionic race that can transform between the 4 states of matter (usually in a crystaline form).

Druidic/Primal magic has created tribes of beastfolk who vary between almost human to more fully hybridized ones.

I'm still working on my dragonpeople. Since the metallic Alchemical dragons are based on Gnosis and Enlightenment the dragonpeople might have started as disciples who sought to emulate them.

The vibe I'm going for is more heroic fantasy with some sword & sorcery and weird fantasy. The general culture and tech level is intended to be more Europe during mid/late Roman Empire rather than Dark Ages or Medieval (some exceptions will apply that causes more developed tech to be available).

The world is unfinished in both a Watsonian and Doylist sense. The geography moves around and cultures will have developed with this in mind.

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>>24914460
It feels nicer and is more attractive
>>24914952
Thanks
>>24914972
We shall be enemies, prepare for the next time we meet

>>24914972
Why do you hate character development?

>>24917946
Cutting a woman's long beautiful hair short to symbolize she has changed is nearly as bad as dyeing it instead for the same purpose.

>Why magic universities are built in high places
The Mages in my setting symbolise power itself, and the ridiculous arrogance it engenders. By building the Centre of their power on high ground, they not only symbolically put themselves above the Muggles, but also symbolically look down on them from on high.

I was planning to make the Staff Office a literal Ivory Tower to make the metaphor even more blatant.

>Why do Magic Schools even have power?
If knowledge is power, then Magic Academies become the biggest centers of power in the world.

Headmasters tend to be elected on basis of respect within the community and have the right to command the Enforcers, the military branch of Magical Community.

>Why do the strongest Mages rule?
Wizards respect wisdom. The best Mage is obviously the only one capable of enforcing Magic Law and overseeing the education of the next generation of Mages.

>Why isn't the world a Magocracy?
It is. The Mages just don't see the need to rule it directly.

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>>24868365
I’m working on a setting based on Asian countries like Japan and China. What are some beings and creatures from the folklore of these regions that work as races versus ones that work better as monsters?

>>24915778
>For example an elf's breast milk can extend a human's lifespan, making human elf couples possible.
But what if the male is the elf?

>>24918715
Probably cum

is there a better pyromancy lore than Dark Souls?

>>24918354

>How can Mages make money?
By making energy, raw materials, and time of industrial processes tend towards zero.

We need massive amounts of raw ore and electricity to make Aluminum. A Mage can do it with a few flicks of his wand.

>What can they NOT do?
Theoretically speaking, they can do anything. They are Mages, after all. What's the point of magic if it has limits?

Practical speaking, Mages are still limited by other Mages. For example, a single Mage probably can't destroy the planet because the subconscious will of every other Mage (past, present or future) will be fighting against him.

>Are they bound by causality?
No, not unless they want to be.

>Do normal people have ways to fight them?
Lol. Lmao, even.

How can a teenager become the leader of a modern first world country?

I'm trying to give a certain country a 'Fantasy Kingdom in Modern Context' motif and he's supposed to be their "Prince".

>>24919842
Kill his parents lol

Any other suggestions? Hopefully useful ones by people who have political worldbuilding tips to share?

>>24919842
To win an election in a democracy, the boy would need to be at least 18 for legal reasons and he would need to have some very powerful backers who would almost certainly be looking for a puppet ruler. Getting enough credibility for a realistic election win would still be tough. The most likely case to work out in practice is that the boy's father (or someone) already had the maximum legally allowed terms and everyone knows that the older person is going to make all the decisions and wants it that way. The country could also have elections that are so fake that the true rulers effectively just assign someone obedient and photogenic to be the figurehead, and this time a teenager was thought to be good publicity to counter the complaints about the country being a gerontocracy.

The country could also be a traditional monarchy with all the succession rules of a traditional monarchy, so that when the king dies for whatever reason, the prince gets to inherit, though if he is too young at the time, he would have one or more regents ruling for him until he comes of age.

>>24920088
The puppet ruler thing is great advice.

But the 18 plus thing can be changed by the Legislative if necessary. After all, they're the ones that make the rules. And considering how this would give them access to an entire new vote bank in the form of these "youths", it's politically either advantageous or effortless.

I'm presuming there would be conflicts regarding giving the youth power, but those could probably be negated if it was understood to be a purely ceremonial election.

Actually, I think it's likely to be a multigenerational project. People need to be prepared for the idea of a teen President decades before he's actually elected.

I've got a bit of a theme that all civilizations need to follow a common cycle:
>Bunch of vaguely equal polities competing and cooperating with each other.
>Whittle each other down until only two major camps and then some petty fringe parties remain.
>One faction wins, the other faction gets reduced to nothing.
>The winner is hollowed out from their victory, stops expanding shortly, and then implodes.
>Multiple factions emerge from its corpse.
>Rinse and repeat.

>>24920368
Now that that's settled, the actual answer to OP question about civilizations.

The first and most important species are the Daeva and Asura, named after the gods and demons of Hindu and Buddhist myth. They were both created BEFORE the Big Bang, and exist in the form of incomprehensible fluctuations in spacetime itself.

They generally don't have anything to do with the earth, but their Client Species do. Angels, a religious group of multiple alien species dedicated to worshipping the Daeva, send a few Drones to wipe out the human race sometime in the 20th century because they think there might be Asura here.

The result caused over 20 MILLION deaths before the Drone was destroyed.

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>>24916055
>Elves are of dilluted fey blood, which means they are part living stories and have some access to narrative story magic. This also means if they become famous there's a bit of... pattern imposed on them, where they play the part of their legend.
What's their origin story? And what happens if two races have kids? Oh, and I'd love to hear more on the unfinished nature of the world.

>>24920416
>The result caused over 20 MILLION deaths before the Drone was destroyed.
How did they defeat it?

>>24919425
>is there a better pyromancy lore than Dark Souls?
What specifically is so great about it?

>>24915778
I would love to hear more on this world! Maybe the golems could secrete a flexible substance for their joints and shit?

>>24907977
>The difficulty lies with introducing the detail in a natural way that doesn't overwhelm the reader with unfamiliar terminology or feel like tedious infodumping. And not all detail known to the author needs to be put on the page in explicit terms.
What advice do you have there, and what books/settings handle that well?

>>24922121
>How did they defeat it?
They sent a Protagonist at it. I'll write the story some day, but the heroes who beat them are mentors to the current generation.

If you want me to be more specific, dropped it into the far future where the universe is imploding. Not even the Drone can survive the Great Crunch.

>>24922121
>What specifically is so great about it?
I like that its different from "normal" sorcery. But I was really was just asking if there are other cool pyromancy systems/lore in other media

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>>24868365
What’s your opinion on hybrid races like half-elves? I prefer to have inter-race pairings produce the same race as the mother personally.

And when they DO produce half-races why aren’t there more hybrids that aren’t just half human?

>>24922121
>What advice do you have there, and what books/settings handle that well?
Most successful published fantasy novels are at least decent at this. Of course not all of them have particularly deep or complex worldbuilding and so are playing easy mode with the information delivery.

The Hobbit + The Lord of the Rings is a good example with complex worldbuilding. The Appendices are optional reads for people interested in that kind of thing. Most of the Appendices didn't even exist in the first edition of LotR. The LotR Prologue is for the people who didn't read The Hobbit and for people interested in the lore. In the main narrative Tolkien gets through a lot of information without boring or confusing the reader. It helps that the hobbits as outsiders have a legitimate reason to be explained everything.

For a negative example, The Silmarillion is massively flawed because Christopher Tolkien didn't understand good information delivery and arranged things based on chronology. Valaquenta and Of Beleriand and Its Realms are the worst offenders as infodumps that stop everything to deliver piles of fictional information that is not very necessary at all to understand what is going on in the plot.

For another negative example, Malazan Book of the Fallen doesn't bother to explain the strange terminology and unfamiliar names, resulting in an unduly confusing first book that is only made somewhat comprehensible by the simplicity of the plotting. Particularly egregious is the ending in which a new worldbuilding element with a weird name suddenly manifests and solves everyone's predicament without ever having been properly foreshadowed.

Then by Book 10 the reader has come to understand the logic of the setting and the terms, with next to no mysteries remaining. This leads to a dull and flat feel because deep down Malazan is just the author's old D&D custom setting with the serial numbers filed off and the worldbuilding is too barebones and shallow to support a ten-volume series. I think letting a series get to this state is even worse than the initial state of confusion.

boys what's a free image editor i can use to combine small images into a large one. i downloaded tiles of a city map id like to use as a stylistic template for my own town map but i need to join the tiles. i did upload them to pixlr.com but i see no way to save a combined image.
also, what image editors do you use to make your town or other maps

Because of my hatred for arbitrary and impossible to hide secret lore, I've made it so all the most bizarre events are common knowledge in my world:

>Everyone KNOWS Tripura was found by time travelling future humans that colonized our galactic supercluster
>Everyone KNOWS Llys is ruled by an evil Lich Emperor that demands human sacrifice
>Aliens exist and may invade us anytime? Also common knowledge, and nobody panics about it.
>There's a secret order of dark sorcerers manipulating human society to their own purposes. The only real secret is its entire member list, and you can otherwise just google them up.
>Everyone already knows that the oceans contain remnants of a civilization that predates humanity. What about it? Why should anyone except archeologists care?
>yeah, gods once ran the Earth and there are previous iterations of humanity. But this doesn't affect your daily life so nobody cares.

To hell with pointless and implausible Masquerades. I'll keep all my supernatural secrets in the open.

>>24919795
>Why do Mages keep fighting each other?
Because the more Mages exist, the less special and all-powerful every individual Mage is.

And being highly individualistic and anti-social, Mages are bad at forming communities. Power makes them unusually sociopathic.

>Why don't their conflicts destroy the world?
Magic works by creating a Personal Territory for every Mage within which they can change the laws of reality. Mages extend this Territory to a certain range to affect other objects. Their powers don't affect anything outside this range.

You could create the Big Bang within this PT without so much as melting an ice cube outside of it.

>Why do they still form communities if they're so anti-social?
Because they're still humans and see the benefits of forming small tribes. They're just too antisocial to extend their communities beyond "me and my close friends, plus our Clients/Vassals/Students"

It's also why they either rule like colonial overlords over Muggle subjects, as individual despots, or as anarchic settler colonies. They don't do mass cooperation

Their very existence is an affront to the principles of modern civilization.

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>>24922121
>What's their origin story?
I'm still working on it, but what I have in mind is that elves are descended from various fey (lesser and greater) who had children with humans. These human/fey hybrids had children of their own with eachother, and a few generations later (and whole bunch of stories told about their lives and exploits) you have a stable population of elves.

>And what happens if two races have kids?
It depends on the races. I've mostly concerned myself with the human blooded ones. I see no problem with a humanocentric fantasy setting.

Humans and elves produce half-elves. I'm still working on their themes and rules (Fantasy TTRPG fan, can't help it).
There is in fact one culture of elves who have mastered the story of the rescue romance (they raid slave caravans to free the captives, and human ladies often fall for the handsome rescuer) and they have a breeding program for these half-elves which hopefully results in more elves down the line (some do happen, and the elves are trying to figure out the rules).
Now dor the elven ladies? They're not supposed to mingle with human men, but most people turn a blind eye to widowers and divorcees having dalliances with human or half-elven men. I hear there's an underground poetry society where ladies tell tales of forbidden romance.

The essence of dwarves is not really compatible with humans, but on occasion there are dwarves who lack the elemental essence and these are married of to humans, usually part of diplomatic or trade deals. ("Beautiful dwarven princess, she will be a good wife and give birth to many heirs" and similar things). Dwarves haven't figured out what causes this... medical condition? But those who suffer from it are considered somewhat immature looking and undesirable for proper dorf marriages. It's all considered a bit tragic ("Oh the poor thing"), and marriage to humans is considered most (society and the individual no/low-essence dorf in question) an honorable way to make the best of it (You're/I am helping the clan). That being said they're not married of willy-nilly and good care is taken in vetting the potential suitor. You need to make sure everyone wants this, especially the bride and groom. The children are human, if on the shorter side, and many of them end up showing great talent with elemental magic.

As mentioned earlier, the Cauldronborn/Spartoi aren't interested in romance normally. That one fleet that disappeared did find an Atlantean colony, and a fruit there enables them to feel lust and romantic feelings. Some human ladies did find these pale giants attractive and eventually a new race (still need a name) is born. They're shorter and and lack the superhuman physique of the Spartoi, but they're able to sync up with many First One artefacts and alchemical formula. These half-Cauldronborn see themselves as the heirs of a tragic fading memory, and seek to make a legend of their own.

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>>24922121
>Oh, and I'd love to hear more on the unfinished nature of the world.

The world is not a natural one, it and the star system it's in was all create ages ago. Well... I'm thinking some 3000 years ago, but a great cataclysm and many disasters since has resulted in a loss of lore and memory.
I decided on the 3000 years since a youger world would be an interesting change of pace, while still leaving time for empires to grow and fall.

Anyway, the world was not finished when the cataclyms happened. Ancient sorcery was left unfinished and great geographical change happens relatively rapidly. A lake could grow in a year, a mountain in the lifetime of a man, and other such things.

As a result of this I think semi-nomadic cultures would be more common compared to ours.

Naturally there would be ways to stabilize an area. The equivalent of the Roman empire has placed great importance in stabilizing their cities and roadsystem.

>>24922795
They should be very rare, not a fan of diverse metropolitan fantasy settings. Maybe there aren't more hybrids because the pairing just hasn't happened.

>>24924679
>Because the more Mages exist, the less special and all-powerful every individual Mage is.
Then why do they have magic schools?

>>24922795
An important thing to remember that because the world probably wasn't created yesterday, if the races are hybridizing in the present you have to think about how the world would have been changed by hybridization in the past.

In my setting some human cultures have significant Elvish ancestry, which shows in the local phenotype. There is also a culture with Dwarf admixture, though those people don't look like they're going to appear in the plot at all. Elves and Dwarves have hybridized only very rarely and the resulting children are almost indistinguishable from pure Dwarves.

By far the most common mixing is between humans and Elves, and this mostly involves male Elves taking advantage of human women and not marrying them. (This was more common in the past.) The resulting children are humans with Elvish traits, the differentiating point that makes someone an Elf or a human being immortality. This immortality is magical in nature and functionally a type of curse. The curse can only be passed on through the female line, and if the husband isn't also an Elf, the resulting child is still likely to be mortal. It is also possible to turn a mortal human into an Elf, but the Elves have long considered such a thing unethical. It is also highly advanced and specialized magic known to very few, and those few don't use it these days and keep it hidden.

>>24925885
Why does any criminal join a gang? It's simply common sense to band together for greater safety and power.

You can be sure that if any single University "wins" and wipes out everyone else, they'll immediately fall into infighting until only one is left.

>>24926316
I think I'll add something about the immortality if anyone is interested.

There are many types of immortality. Elves have one of the better ones, but the Elves with the passage of time have come to consider their immortality not worth it, so turning a mortal into an Elf would be an offense against the mortal. Some Elves might want to make an exception for a lover, but the extreme obscurity and difficulty of the spell has kept it successfully unused for a long time.

But importantly for the underpinnings of the story, there is a particular character who has been researching the methods of immortality and transformation for thousands of years. He has made significant progress too. Vampires for example are a flawed recreation of the Elves and share surprisingly many things with them while still being fundamentally different in important ways. But even that was long ago. He has made progress since and has started to understand what makes Elves tick.

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>>24926689
>But importantly for the underpinnings of the story, there is a particular character who has been researching the methods of immortality and transformation for thousands of years. He has made significant progress too. Vampires for example are a flawed recreation of the Elves and share surprisingly many things with them while still being fundamentally different in important ways. But even that was long ago. He has made progress since and has started to understand what makes Elves tick.
More details please!

>There is also a culture with Dwarf admixture, though those people don't look like they're going to appear in the plot at all.
What more can you say on that? And why are Dwarf traits dominant in Dwarf/Elf pairings? Why is Elven immortality considered a curse, and how does the Elven transformation work?

>Anyway, the world was not finished when the cataclyms happened. Ancient sorcery was left unfinished and great geographical change happens relatively rapidly. A lake could grow in a year, a mountain in the lifetime of a man, and other such things.
I would love to hear more about this please!

>>24923462
>For a negative example, The Silmarillion is massively flawed because Christopher Tolkien didn't understand good information delivery and arranged things based on chronology. Valaquenta and Of Beleriand and Its Realms are the worst offenders as infodumps that stop everything to deliver piles of fictional information that is not very necessary at all to understand what is going on in the plot.
How would you have handled things instead for the negative examples then?

>>24922309
>But I was really was just asking if there are other cool pyromancy systems/lore in other media
Maybe Fire Force?

>>24922220
>If you want me to be more specific, dropped it into the far future where the universe is imploding. Not even the Drone can survive the Great Crunch.
Ouch. I'd love to hear more about the Daevas, Asuras, and Angels, along with Earth in this setting, BTW!

>>24903614
yes my elves are disgusting commies and my chuds dwarves are eradicating them thanks to the powers and advancement that the free market has provided them with in the matter of warfare

>>24928417
>More details please!
(post too long, cont. next post)

>What more can you say on that?
Human/Dwarf hybrids are closer to humans in height but have many strong Dwarf traits in physical appearance. The culture with human/Dwarf hybridization in the past is well below 50% Dwarf and is not fond of underground life. They're strong warriors who could pass for pure humans for someone who doesn't know what a Dwarf looks like. They are uninvolved with the plot as currently planned. Sometimes a Dwarf-height individual is born among them.

>And why are Dwarf traits dominant in Dwarf/Elf pairings?
Dwarf genes tend to be dominant over Elf genes for some reason. It's as simple as that. Some Elf traits appear sporadically in Dwarf populations which had experienced ancient mixing. Some of these traits are benefiting from positive selection and have become more common over the years. It is believed that originally all Dwarves had dark skin, but this is no longer the case.

>Why is Elven immortality considered a curse, and how does the Elven transformation work?
The Elves have come to be bored, depressed, and afflicted with nostalgia and a sense of purposelessness. They attempt to hide this all with frivolity and, increasingly, mind-affecting drugs. Suicide is not a solution to the Elves' predicament, as the souls would still be aware of themselves but would not be able to consume any drugs to feel better and would not be able to do much else either.

A past civilization messed up the proper functioning of the afterlife system in pursuit of their own immortality. This decision turned out to be a really bad idea in the long run even if it worked out great at the time.

The Elves transformation is not instant and is done in two independent stages, both of which take some time. If the first stage, the body's ability to draw on ambient life force, is already functioning on someone, only the second stage is necessary. The second stage is effectively a very strong curse with permanent effect that binds the spirit to the world (the solar system) and halts the natural aging process. The spirit will remain attached to the world even if the body dies and becomes inoperable, even if the proper functioning of the afterlife is repaired. Only a complete and utter end of the world can potentially free the Elf, and even then it's not clear what would happen to the Elf.

>I would love to hear more about this please!
I'm not the anon who wrote that particular post. My world keeps changing because I keep getting ideas that contradict with other ideas or notice that an old idea simply wasn't good enough. For example, I have an impulse to change the nature of the Elves, but that would cause so many other issues that I'm sticking with the standard Elves for now.

Sudden cataclysmic destruction is a different thing entirely, though I have that too, and so are unstable dream worlds, which I have too, but it's a particular dimension and not the standard one for the characters.

>>24928853
>yes my elves are disgusting commies and my chuds dwarves are eradicating them thanks to the powers and advancement that the free market has provided them with in the matter of warfare
Are you being serious, lol?

>>24930798
are you a communist? do you think you are entitled to other people's shit?

>>24928417
>More details please!
Souls are naturally immortal, but corporeal bodies are required for many things. The different types of immortality have to do with the types of the immortal body (if any).

For example, tying a spirit into a rock is a really crappy form of immortality that is worse than not having a body in the first place. A doll with moving joints is better than a rock but still not very good. The options are numerous, but generally people would prefer to have something resembling a biological human body. For a necromancer type character this means turning oneself into an undead (more common) or becoming a spirit that possesses the bodies of others (less common).

But about that particular character, he is very skilled at magic and also clever. He turned himself into a Vampire, which is almost as good overall as being an Elf despite several flaws such as sunlight weakness that come from being built from fundamentally different magical principles. The undead operate because of the Shadow dimension of death, while the Elves are bound to the real world. Now in the plot it eventually will turn out that that particular character has over the years developed a "turn off your immortality, lol" spell that does not even require close range and is using that spell as part of a far-reaching plan that is triggering a major war among the most powerful characters in the setting...

What would be the minimum number of people required to establish a long term, self sustaining, self perpetuating colony on another planet?
>>24903981
Kek based Dantemaxxer

>>24872841
Sounds retarded. You need to understand the philosophical concepts of Heaven and Hell before making some retarded bullshit up.
This is terrible.

what format do you use for detailed descriptions of locations on a map? like take an urban, grid map. buildings, entryways, character locations. how do you organize it on a text file (or a file with links) to retain the spatial relationships between all the map items

>One might observe that magic, however beguiling it appears in the tales of antiquity, constitutes little more than a supposed traffic in powers supernatural and therefore irregular; and although it has long furnished diversion to the fanciful mind, it stands in no small opposition to the temper of civilized society, being at once irreligious, anti-social, and unbecoming to the dignity of human reason.

>Science, by contrast, presents itself as a universal enterprise; and not only does it pursue truth through objective inquiry, but it likewise cultivates those habits of mind which render humanity more thoughtful, more cooperative, and more humane. It may be said that, in placing human understanding at the very centre of our engagement with the world, science affirms—in a manner at once modest and resolute—the true spirit of humanism, whilst permitting a sober and critical examination of religious claims.

TL;DR: Science is from a world where humanity is sole genius of the universe, and the telos of the universe must naturally trend towards human progress.

Magic makes a world of darkness, superstition, violence, and all sorts of degradation of man.

>>24931823
>it likewise cultivates those habits of mind which render humanity more thoughtful, more cooperative, and more humane
rumao

I've been interested in using an apocalypse scenario where humanity is basically on their last legs fighting against eldritch monstrosities. Like, pushed to their final city, and for the sake of numbers there's ~100,000 left. Surrender means extinction so they have no choice but to keep fighting. Now realistically, how low of a percentage of the remaining population would males have to be in order for them to be deemed too valuable to be risked in combat? 10%? 5%? 1%? Would any of the remaining males be between the ages of like 13-75? Would the answer change if there were say 500,000 or 1,000,000 humans left?

>>24868365
>>24868367
>>24868370
>If you have any non-human sapients species/races in your setting, what are they?
Mostly just humans at this point. There are a few sapient beasts and other odd creatures, but I would consider them unique entities and not members of any race. Maybe elementals and golems if you consider them a "race", but many of them do not have human level intelligence.
I'm considering adding other races but I don't know if I want to.

>What are your feelings on typical fantasy races like the aforementioned two, Orcs, Goblins, etc.? And how do you go about putting your own twists on said races/make them less generic?
They've just been done to death and I don't think there's much new to say about them. I think a lot of people add these races just because they're in other fantasy worlds.
Of course if you have a good reason and they do impact the world, there's nothing wrong with elves and orcs and such.

>What kinds of magic, psychic abilities, and/or other powers exist in your world? And if multiple types exist, how do they interact with each other, if at all?
All things contain a certain amount of mana. Many different types of mana exist. Fire mana, earth mana, water mana, etc. There are also more esoteric types of mana like time mana, dark mana, sword mana, or human mana.

>If the different types can be combined, what is the result? And if not, what is the reason?
Different types of mana naturally conflict. In small quantities they merely interfere with each other's effects. In large quantities, they can become unstable or even react violently. For example, you would not want to have dense earth mana and dense fire mana in the same place. This is the in-universe explanation for volcanoes, incidentally. Many other natural disasters are similar.

The one exception to this rule is human mana. Human mana does not conflict with any other type of mana. However, human mana from two different people will react violently, whereas two sources of fire mana can meld seamlessly.

>>24932799
>How do people use/gain access to the magic?
Although human mana can be used to cast spells, it's basically never done. With human mana you are limited to the amount you personally have, its recovery rate is limited to your natural regeneration speed, and using it makes you tired and weak. Techniques for using human mana are also incredibly rare. You cannot take in external human mana as it would conflict with your own.

Circles are the solution to these limitations. Mages use their human mana to form concentric donut shaped containers for other kinds of mana. Using this method, you can take in all kinds of mana from the environment in much greater quantity than your human mana. The amount you can store depends on the number of your circles. A first circle mage might only need a raging bonfire to completely refill their mana, while a fourth circle mage would need something significantly more powerful.

As the need for mana is constant, many mages raise familiars. These are magical beasts that produce mana of a certain type. Feeding and caring for a familiar is not cheap, but it's often less expensive than buying what you need outright. Large forces may control areas that naturally produce dense mana, like an ice sea or a perpetually stormy mountain.

Mana is vital, but it's also not enough. You need to know how to use it. The use of magic is organized into schools. Pyromancy, aeromancy, hydromancy, etc. These are largely based around the manipulation of a single type of mana. There are exceptions like alchemy and rune magic, which can be applied to all sorts of mana.

Techniques for using magic are heavily guarded, and for good reason. Your magic is your livelihood, your survival method, and the most condensed essence of your beliefs and values. Even in powerful forces only basic techniques are freely available.
As such, most learn magic through the master-apprentice system. When a master feels that they have reached the limit of their own magic, they will take on one or more apprentices in the hopes that future generations will improve upon it further. Sometimes, when a master dies without an apprentice or strong connections, they will record their magic system in their tomb.

>>24932807
>Is there anything that the magic or powers explicitly cannot do?
Magic as a whole has almost no limits. Individual schools of magic have weaknesses and strengths, however.

>how much of the limits of the abilities are inherent versus a lack of understanding?
One is practicing more than a single school of magic. There are ways to reduce conflict between different types of mana and even combine them, but these techniques (if they exist) are all closely guarded secrets. You *can* use more than one kind of magic without these techniques, but you'd hamstring your mana pool and you couldn't use two different kinds of mana at the same time, so it's rarely worth it. Some mages prefer to fill their smaller circles with a different kind of mana just for some utility spells, however.

The other big one is immortality. There are only a handful of life extension techniques and they are all flawed. Raising yourself into undeath is one of the more common ones, although necromancy is (relatively) rare and taboo. Only one person has ever developed a near perfect solution to indefinite lifespan, and it still has some major downsides.

>On the subject of hyper-advanced technology, what exists in your world
The tech level ranges from early modern in more civilized areas to neolithic in less civilized areas. Not including magic.

>Do the people in your setting believe in any celestial beings like Angels or something similar? And do these beings actually exist, and if so, how accurate are the beliefs?
Some do, but mages generally do not. It's a matter of culture. The father of magic (as he is called) solidified magic as its own thing, separate from early shamanistic practices.
Celestial beings do not exist, though some may ascribe divine qualities to real creatures.
>How about Demons
Same as above.
>Are there any other categories of otherworldly entities in your world, like the Fae, Yokai, Ghosts and specters, Grim Reapers, Elementals, etc.?
There are elementals, ghosts, and other types of magical creatures. Usually they are simply borne of dense mana and have varying levels of intelligence.
>What about the gods in your world
There are no personal deities in my world.

>>24931358
>You need to understand the philosophical concepts of Heaven and Hell before making some retarded bullshit up.
Alright then, what do I need to know?

>>24928417
>How would you have handled things instead for the negative examples then?
I would have started out The Silmarillion with an Introduction written by myself (in place of the one Tolkien meant to write but never did) explaining that these texts are the ones that Bilbo translated from Elvish in Rivendell. I would have talked about Elrond's ancestry a bit and mentioned a few names such as Finwë that will be important later on while avoiding spoiling any specific plot points. I would have let through that these texts show the Elven perspective on things and may be biased for the line of Finarfin.

I would then have gone straight into Quenta Silmarillion and not interrupted it with the worldbuilding digressions introduced by Christopher Tolkien to make the reading experience as pleasant as possible. After that would have come many other texts, including Of Men and Of Dwarves to somewhat fill in the blanks in the main story for those interested in things like that. I would not have included Of Rings of Power and the Third Age, which was made by Christopher Tolkien from various parts.

As for Malazan Book of the Fallen, the structure of that series is a total mess and one that is not easy to fix. For example, the Shake subplot that takes many hundreds of pages over multiple books turns out mattering very little to the rest of the plot and should have been its own separate book if included at all. The series also manages to permanently ruin the credibility of its main villain halfway through the series and never comes up with a proper replacement villain or a coherent driver for the story again. This kind of thing may be "subverting the expectations" but never should be done in practice because it leads to bad literature that annoys the reader.

I think Erikson also should have been more sparing with the lives of his main characters or else written a shorter series, because towards the end we not only get too many resurrections to bring back the beloved heroes but also too many new Malazan marines with generic personalities to replace the ones who had died in battle. This leads to a feeling of meaninglessness and life and death not mattering.

Erikson also should have been more sparing with solving his mysteries and bringing his background detail to the foreground, because at the end of the series only the Azoth are still mostly unexplained, and each of the four mighty legendary races from millions of years ago has come back to the plot from supposed extinction, alive and well, and in great numbers. Some things in the background should stay in the background, or else there is no background and the world feels as shallow as a puddle. Introducing new mysteries can help in a situation such as this, but having too many resurrections is a cardinal sin that also applies to legendary races.

What's a good way to invoke the feeling of the bronze age civilizations at their lowest point? I'm trying to write about a civilization in the far future that was great but has inevitably fallen because of the cycle of civilizations. The protagonist shows up from space to fuck them up (like the sea peoples in the bronze age collapse) and break the cycle of civilization to create prosperity. This is a sci fi thing and a lot of advanced tech will be lost or controlled by a few elites. I don't just want to make space egypt pastiche so how would you invoke some of that stuff? Architecture, fashion, general ideology. I feel like there's a strong direction that I'm not seeing. I probably have to do more research

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>>24933491
lust provoking image for attention

>>24932613
Zero effort posting is bad. If you have a problem with my posts, say it.

>>24933986
>[science] cultivates those habits of mind which render humanity more thoughtful, more cooperative, and more humane
I’m not going to dignify your retardation with a proper response

>>24934002
Then don't say anything.

Would a Post-Scarcity civilization that coexists with a lesser civilization, one that has more than enough resources to maintain their lifestyle without competing with the latter, be inclined to be more peaceful?

I think it will. It's like the US and the Indian Reservations, or India and the Sentinelese and other protectorates. When a greater power has no need to extract resources from a lesser one, it generally just ignores them and/or keeps them as a protectorate.

>>24934696
Isn’t Star Trek a bit like this?

>>24936346
No, Starfleet is all about going out and seeking new civilizations.

My excuse for why my setting needs to plug humans into Mecha, instead of just letting AI do it, is simply that humans have genetic/muscle memory of movement with a bipedal form. It's much cheaper to just clone or train a human martial artist than it is to create and run an AI brain from scratch.

Once you move into mass production, every minor cost cutting counts.

How does that sound?

Is there any word for a collective consciousness made from a large number of individual brains?

The long and short of it is that all males of a certain nation in my setting are merged together after death to form a single network, and that network eventually develops a central consciousness.

>>24936402
It should be easy to make one AI and then copy that one as many times as necessary. However in real life AIs aren't genuinely intelligent and also use vast amounts of energy compared to a biological human brain. These would be serious problems for a mecha that already has high energy requirements just to move its limbs and would need to be built as light as reasonably possible while also possessing significant destructive power that would make the machine a danger to its surroundings if controlled by an unthinking AI.

>>24936674
Exactly. Brains are cheap, but AI and their hardware are expensive.

What kind of ideology could convince Space Colonies to declare a war of secession against Earth, but make such a complete hash of it that they're destined to lose?

I want them to be operating under a political ideology that's seductive enough to go to war over, but so irrational that they never stood a chance at winning.

I'm planning for it to be partially motivated by some technology.

>>24936767
I'm thinking that the status quo was that the colonies were more or less ruling themselves, and Earth was more than willing to let them be, but then Earth had an industrial revolution that made it easier to rule the entire solar system from the capital.

This didn't directly cause the revolution, but it did ensure that the Colonials had a sense of urgency for whatever cause they were championing. They knew their days of "liberty" were at an end, so it was now or never.

>>24936682
I would like to add that you would probably have a microcontroller handle the basic walking cycle while the user concentrates on steering the mecha on a higher level and operating the weapons. A possible exception to this would be if a functional neural interface had been developed and the increased dexterity from more leg control was considered helpful for the operations.

>>24936778
The only purpose of the biological brain is to fast track learning basic functions like walking, as well as more complex thungs like strategic thinking, so that the computer parts can focus on high speed combat.

After all, why should it be an either/or thing? I want both flesh and machine working together, both doing what they're best at. A normal brain can never do the calculations a machine can, not remotely within the same time frames, but it's infinitely cheaper and easier to train.

Once we split up problems and allow both to do what they're best at, the result is greater than the sum of either the bio or electronic components.

>>24933491
Many bronze age civilisations had a palace economy, where most of the economic output was controlled by the palace or temple administration and then distributed back to the workers and dependents.

Tied in with that is ritual gift giving. The bigger the gift, the more status you gain, and so giving generous gifts is an important way for rulers to maintain legitimacy.

The importance of hospitality and the treatment of guests is another big one. Both the guest and the host have certain obligations that are considered sacred.

Here's my explanation for why gender equality is much more advanced in Wizard society:

1. Magical society is more orderly; which is not to say it's remotely peaceful or non-violent. But in general, all the violence is ritualistic and lawfully regulated, which means there's not much chaos and fear.

2. Magical society is highly intellectual, with little to no emphasis on menial work.

3. Magical society is highly flexible due to the mindset it takes to become a successful Mage. They don't have much trouble adopting new ideas as quickly as it becomes convenient.

4. And finally, Mages are not particularly hierarchal. They don't really have a concept of "naturally superior people" due to how turbulent their society is.

>>24937022
Here's my explanation for why gender equality is much more advanced in Wizard society:

women can cast spells as well as man can

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This covers the bases for sapients (mostly humans races have been made so far) in the world I'm currently making. I want this to be an anthology series.

>>24936402
If using AI would otherwise be preferable, why is it so important to use humanoid mecha instead of other vehicles?

>>24936767
>What kind of ideology could convince Space Colonies to declare a war of secession against Earth, but make such a complete hash of it that they're destined to lose?
Zeon!

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Asking here because the Writing General wasnt interested.
I'm intrigued by the Greek concept of the genius, the sort of guardian angel or second spirit that follows you around everywhere as well as Julian Jaynes' interpretation of it. I want to introduce it in one of my stories as a second self without calling it any of that. Basically a second version of you person, someone who sits and walks beside you and watches every mistake you make, trying to help you if you would just listen and who can be a connection to the divine for you by taking the shape of deities and appearing to you. But also those with the skill are able to send forth similar to an astral projection or messenger.
What would be a good name fur such an entity that isn't "genius" or "inner/second/spiritual/astral self"?

>>24937022
this is dumb
>>24937263
this is smart

There is gender inequality because genders are not equal. If you want them to be equal than make them the same.

My wizard society is incredibly sexist because the strongest wizard was a giant coomer and set up a patrilineal clan system to preserve his bloodline

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>>24868365
I’m looking to create a supers settings for a story, and one of the major villains will be trying to figure out where supers can get the energy to do the bullshit they can do and use that to create an army of supers, like how Kryptonians are solar-powered, what are some of the different options and their pros and cons, and what do you do in your own supers setting if you have one? I was considering having my supers just outright alter reality, but it seems like that could get OP fast.

My wizard society is incredibly sexist and a plutarchy because magic talent is inherited so the strongest wizard has a harem of witches that are forced to keep pumping out babies so all spells women are allowed to work are about housekeeping, all alchemy is about fertility and low-level wizards get no witches for themselves.

My wizard society is sexist because male magic is orderly and reliable but female magic is chaotic and corrupting.

>>24937461
Hands.

>>24937619
I did. Power is more than just who can hit harder. Why else do you think guns didn't create perfect equality between the sexes?

I'm modelling them off North European societies, the most egalitarian societies in the history of the human race.

>>24937466
Worst politics in scifi award goes to....Gundam!

Tomino was too busy being an edgelord to realize Zeon would have been wiped out decades ago by superior Earth forces, not come within a hair's breadth of winning the war before White Base turned the tide.

He just doesn't understand geopolitics.

>>24938997
>Hands
What do you mean by that?

I want to do urban fantasy, but I don't want a magic system. What are some rules I should apply to myself so I can remember to have themes and not rules in universe?
So far I have
>no secret societies with ranks and schools and institutional knowledge
>little ateliers where one great master has a lineage of successors who are hopefully building on whatever he left behind are fine though
>no legions of hell or heavenly hosts (the supernatural isn't orderly or systematic either)
>no bestiary
>knowledge is inherently fragmentary since people always comprehend the same event slightly differently
>the knowledge is straight up not good for you metaphysically
>the only way to get better at dealing with the supernatural is through exposure therapy, and every exposure is pretty likely to result in death
>you can use basically whatever lore you want as your framework for understanding it, you can see it in a Christian framework, a Shinto one, a Jungian one, whatever, none are correct so all are fine
>solutions to supernatural problems tend to be extremely personal and specific, even if you make hunting "vampires" a specialty every single "vampire" is so unique outside of the "blood drinker of the night" common theme that every single one needs a unique solution to put down

>>24941297
>>solutions to supernatural problems tend to be extremely personal and specific, even if you make hunting "vampires" a specialty every single "vampire" is so unique outside of the "blood drinker of the night" common theme that every single one needs a unique solution to put down
If the supernatural can be "anything" then it doesn't have a definition.

>>24939007
>Power is more than just who can hit harder.
correct but who can hit harder has the final say.
>I'm modelling them off North European societies
You realize these are an aberration that can only exist because of modern technology and the modern political landscape right?

>>24941331
That's not what is being said though?

>>24940596
...how can I make it clearer? You know what hands are, right? What we can do with them?

>>24941340
That is effectively what you said.
You will very quickly lose coherency with what classifies as what because everything is so wildly different from each other. Especially
>>you can use basically whatever lore you want as your framework for understanding it
if all ideologies are "right" how do you make any decisions. I don't think you've thought about this

>>24941336
>correct but who can hit harder has the final
Anon, the world is ruled by old men.

And it's called advancement, not aberration.

>>24940596
he means picking stuff up. It's not actually a good justification. Mechs are to be cool modern knights. Nothing else matters

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>>24941371

>>24941297
Developing at least a rough magic system is a necessity in a story that has a lot to do with magic, but there is no requirement to tell the reader how the system works. There is also no requirement for the system to work like Dungeons & Dragons with defined spells and standard monsters. For example David Eddings in the Belgariad series had a very loose magic system based on the Will and the Word, in which the casters could do pretty much anything they could imagine except erasing things from existence. Successfully imagining complex or difficult things rather than just abstractly wanting something to happen was the hard part. (This is not a recommendation to read Eddings, by the way.)

Those vampires of yours sound like some sort of chaos beasts that only get called vampires because the term is easy for humans to understand.

>>24941896
I will clarify further.
Its a wave function collapse. That's the analogy.

>>24942176
That is still an underlying magic system, even if no one in the world has discovered it yet. Quantum mechanics has rules too and is very predictable on a larger scale. Nuclear power generators wouldn't work otherwise. Even ordinary life in our human-scale world depends on the aggregate predictability of the underlying quantum world.

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Who are the strongest characters in your setting?

>>24941372
>the world is ruled by old men.
The world is ruled by old men because the strength of one man doesn't amount to much in real life. Organizations and groups are the only way to go further.

In a fantasy world where an individual can surpass armies, personal strength rules all. Organizations can only exist on the back of an individual's power.

>>24942331
There should still be factors such as
>charisma
>leadership skills
>desire to rule
>traditional ideas about legitimacy

For example, if a strong and savage mountain giant enters a town of simple farmers, the giant probably wouldn't be accepted as the new mayor even if the farmers were unable to defeat the giant in combat. It would be more likely that the surviving farmers just fled. Or you could have a mighty wizard voluntarily serving a king who has no supernatural abilities whatsoever simply because the wizard views the king as a good and legitimate ruler.

On the other hand, an individual in possession of sufficiently powerful and subtle charm or mind control magic could reliably maneuver himself to the top of any hierarchy that doesn't have sufficient defenses. Then the new ruler would might well turn out to be more or less unskilled at the actual ruling part, and being surrounded by enchanted yes-men wouldn't help.

>>24942511
Just being strong doesn't automatically mean you can rule a force, but you need to have strength to do so.
Maybe you're best friends with some powerful wizard and he lets you "rule", but that doesn't mean you're really in control. What happens if the wizard wakes up one day and decides to kill you? What can you do about it? How many people would it take to defeat him? Is it even possible? What if he just wants to push a specific policy? Can you risk saying no? Can you fend off your enemies if he decides to leave? What if he simply dies of old age? What if there are multiple wizards, and they, as people do, have conflicting interests? How do you manage to appease both wizards, or play them against each other?

Leadership, real and fictional, is filled with these sorts of problems. Even at the top you are beholden to those you borrow power from. It's a careful balancing game, wisely managing the interests of important parties without overspending. History is littered with deposed rulers who simply could not afford to maintain their ambition.

Personal strength is the only thing that is truly reliable in this regard.

>>24942665
Important people having bodyguards is an old idea. Sometimes these bodyguards would decide to usurp the person they were protecting, but the concept remained in use nevertheless.

For a ruler, casters with mind-affecting abilities would be the greatest threat, far more so than someone capable of taking the place of artillery on a battlefield. The latter would be comparable to a powerful feudal vassal commanding many men and therefore a significant force in politics, but the caster with the mind-affecting abilities could potentially undermine the entire system without having to play the same game as those without such abilities. Think Wormtongue in Tolkien's works or Lelouch in Code Geass.

>Just being strong doesn't automatically mean you can rule a force, but you need to have strength to do so.
The strength could well be strength of character and/or strength of tradition.

In a world in which magic is powerful and useful and can be taught without special requirements, the people in charge would probably see the use of becoming at least passable wizards themselves. It would be like a medieval lord being skilled in armed combat.

>>24942331
I didn't reply to him because he clearly doesn't know how the world works and will write fantasy slop that nobody will read

>>24942328
Strongo, God of Strength

>>24942328
Meh, why not? It's a tie between four different characters.

>One is a greedy corpse hidden under a mountain.
>One is a prince of Israel
>One is a trillionaire techbro in Afghanistan
>One is a starving student in Greece

All of them try not to fight the others, so I can't tell you which is the strongest.

>>24932810
>Magic as a whole has almost no limits. Individual schools of magic have weaknesses and strengths, however.
What are the major schools of magic?

>>24945717
I don't have all of them nailed down, but:

>fire (pyromancy)
>water (hydromancy, etc. I'm not going to list it for every magic school)
>air
>earth
>life (plants)
Elemental magic. The materials are cheap, so they are cheap to learn. I admit these are pretty basic, but basic makes sense for the most popular schools. Doesn't mean that they are weak, though. A school must cover all aspects of magic before it can be considered "major".

Of course, fire is still better at attacking and air is still better at movement, but you aren't restricted to just "burning things" or "creating wind". A beginner might start out only being able to conjure flames, but a skilled pyromancer could burn more intangible things like lifespan or memories. An advanced mage might even realize that true nature of fire magic is not "burning things", but consuming them permanently, drawing out their power and essence to create something new.

A lot of the more basic schools are open ended by design. They are many practitioners, so there are many styles and variations. Also it saves me from writing myself into a corner.

>Light
>Dark
A little rarer, but still quite common. Light magic excels in speed, while dark excels in concealment.

>Time
>Space
>Sound magic
>Illusion Magic
>Force magic
Rarer still, but not out of the ordinary. Celestial bodies as well as space itself fall under the purview of space magic.

>Law magic
Magic of rules and restrictions. Create binding vows and contracts, empower yourself with oaths, curse and restrict your enemies, even change the laws of reality within a certain space.

Definitely rare, but not unheard of.

>Soul magic (Necromancy)
Rare and shunned almost everywhere, yet extremely famous. In an official capacity, it is studied in secluded towers and secret laboratories, where pawns can be sacrificed and any involvement can be quickly denied. It's hard to find information on necromancy, but the necessary materials are almost free so long as you don't care where they come from.

It has more practitioners than you'd otherwise think because it is one of the few widely known ways to extend your lifespan. Fully raising yourself into undeath prevents your human mana from growing, however.

>Blood magic
Occupies a similar position to the soul magic, though markedly less popular. Its effects sit somewhere between soul magic and life magic. Begrudgingly tolerated in some circumstances, barring tests on human subjects.

>Blade magic
An obscure yet complete school of magic. Deals with blades and cutting, separating things from one another. Not studied or even noted by most. High attack power, but lacking in other areas. Of course, all magic can be advanced and improved, even minor fields. All it takes is a few pioneers to pave the way.

>>24945800
>Alchemy
This is an ancient school of magic, originating from early humans consuming the remains of beasts to gain their power. It has mostly fallen out of fashion.

Unlike most other schools of magic, Alchemy is not based around a single type of mana. Instead, it focuses on modifying your natural capabilities by infusing your body with external mana in the form of elixirs (permanent) and potions (temporary). In essence, you take parts from a animal, plant, or other magical being, modify their powers (with other parts) so they are suitable for the human body, and absorb them.

Like magical beasts, using these abilities is fluid and natural, requiring little concentration in most cases. The mana cost is low compared to casting spells too. This means that alchemy is many times more efficient in combat than other schools of magic. It's broad scope and long history also gives it a great breadth of techniques and abilities. That is, if those old recipes don't require materials that are now outrageously expensive or even extinct.

However, as many upsides as it has, it has fallen out of favor for a reason. It's very expensive to acquire all the materials you need to use alchemy, and it's very inflexible. You can't just take elixirs carelessly. You have to consider the impact it will have on your current and future "build". Overly strong muscles without equally strong bones and tendons won't end well. Nor will fire breathing without a fire proof throat, face, and mouth. You even have to consider how different types of mana in your body might conflict. And if you ever have to change your "build", it's an entire ordeal. Practitioners of others schools of magic can simply modify their spells.
It's also difficult for an alchemy ability to directly affect a resisting enemy.

Rare as a main field, although some (especially doctors) dabble in it.

>Enchanting
Relatively rare in most areas, but common in others. Necessarily studied as a secondary type of magic.

Enchanting materializes and overlays spells onto people and objects. Like alchemy in that it focuses on no specific type of mana, but with its own sets of upsides and downsides. Firstly, you are inlaying spells, not mimicking nature. This is both good and bad in that you have more granular control over your abilities, but it comes with neither the ease or efficiency of alchemy. Secondly, without the natural non-conflicting barrier of human mana, enchantments readily interfere with each other and cannot be easily stacked. A fire mage would not want to enchant themselves with anything but fire magic. Thirdly, you can enchant items, even storing mana in them as fuel for the spells you inlay (this is how mages' currency is made).
This means that, although you may be a fire mage, you could effectively use water magic enchanted items if you wanted to. Just not at the same time/place as your fire spells.

Enchanters exchanging magic items either as gifts or as a trade is common, even traditional.

>>24945803
>Probability/Fate magic
Manipulation of chance, luck, and causality. Subtle at times, direct at others.

There are several fields like this, the product of great mages who did not spread their life's work. While they can be considered "major" in that they are complete schools of magic encompassing all the things one might need magic to do, they are neither widely known nor widely practiced. This is both good and bad. Lack of public knowledge means lack of progress, but it also means that your abilities are unknown.

>Human
Impossibly rare, but ubiquitous at the same time. The process of creating a mana circle is human magic, after all.
The number of people who have truly studied human magic can be numbered on one hand.

If I have one principle for my own world, it's that I'll never make a DnD style magic system.

I can't even imagine a future where the United States could have a peer opponent that could give them a real fight.

Rome had Persia, Britain had France and then Germany, Athens had Persia, but who could be the weaker but close enough enemy that could let America show off?

>Plan on a low fantasy setting with the big theme being a war breaking out between humans that are roughly on a late 1800s industrializing tech level and a species of intelligent flight capable humanoids with some similar attributes to birds of prey
>The big theme is the difference between a species which had its culture formed through a dexterous hand and horizontal expansion vs. capable wings and vertical movement
>There's no other sapient race and all the diversity will be done through several human powers and birdfolk factions

So far there are a few roadblocks in this I'm not yet sure how to overcome:

>Don't make this Pandora people vs. technological humanity
>How do I make neither humans nor birdfolk too strong?
>What do birdfolk feast on? They lend themselves to nomadism, do they have some sort of pastoral society?
>What do they do with the sick, injured or disabled that cannot fly anymore? They're dead weight
>How do I properly make birdfolk territorial without accidently steering into "Proud, arrogant elves" territory?
>Why didn't humans and birdfolk clash before, and why didn't the birdfolk lose in constant civil wars given their nomadic structure?
>How close to real life humanity can we pattern this before it becomes a turn of the century war with birds?
>What would cause the war to break out in the first place?

As for the rest I'm having some ideas already

Apologies for the botched first post before, I deleted it since

>>24945851
>If I have one principle for my own world, it's that I'll never make a DnD style magic system.
Why precisely is that? And what would you recommend instead to someone looking to make their own system?