Seasons, Holidays, Time, and Change Edition FAQ:>What is worldbuilding?Worldbuilding is the process of creating entire fictional worlds from scratch, all while considering the logistics of these worlds to make them as believable as possible. Worldbuilding asks questions about the setting of a world, and then answers them, often in great detail. Most people use it as a means of creating a setting or the scenery for a story.>"Isn't there a Worldbuilding general in >>>/tg/ already?"Yes, there is. However, that general is focused on the creation of fictional worlds for the intended purpose of playing TTRPG campaigns. Here you can discuss worldbuilding projects that are not meant to be used for a roleplaying setting, but for novels, videogames, or any other kind of creative project.>"Can I discuss the setting of my campaign here, though?"If you want to, but it would probably be better to discuss it on >>>/tg/ . We don't allow the discussion of TTRPG mechanics, however. If you want to discuss stats or which D&D edition is best, this is not the place.>"Can I talk about an existing fictional setting that is not mine?"Yes, of course you can!>"Does worldbuilding need to be about fantasy and elves?"Worldbuilding, as already stated above, and contrary to what many believe, does not inherently imply blatantly copying Tolkien. In fact, there are many science-fiction setting out there, and even entire alternative history settings which do not possess supernatural elements at all. Any kind of science fiction book has an implied setting at least, which involves a certain degree of worldbuilding put into it.Old thread: >>25130237
>>25218478Thread Questions:>How do the people in your settings celebrate the changing of the seasons? Are there any seasonal festivals or ceremonies that aren’t just copies of ones from our world, and how do you make such holidays?>Are there any supernatural beings with ties to the seasons in some way, be they spirits, gods, etc.? And how are they affected by the aforementioned rites and rituals>Similarly, what about monsters and mystical beasts with special ties to the seasons in some ways, like a special deer that shows up around spring? And what are some less obvious animals to tie to each season, thematically speaking?>What about magically speaking, are certain spells tied to the seasons or certain Honestly surprised no one’s made a new thread until now. Bonus questions: >What kinds of fantastical creatures and outright monsters exist in your worlds, and how did you design/choose them? What process did you use when designing them and/or would recommend to others? And what is your favorite monster of all (hard mode: no dragons)?>If you used any existing monsters or creatures from myths and legends, like dragons, how did you put your own spin on them? And where do you prefer to look for your inspiration and ideas?>Speaking of, did your monsters and/or magical beasts evolve more or less naturally, or were they deliberately created by gods, wizards, and/or some other beings? And if the latter, why did the creators make them and how?>How does the presence of the monsters affect the ecosystem of the setting? Are any of your monsters herbivores or do they solely feed on the blood of the innocent?>Are any monsters in your setting sapient, or are they all just beasts? And if any are sapient, what do you have to consider when including them?>Do the people of your setting tame/domesticate any monsters somehow, and if so, how does that affect their society, and how do they manage that feat? Speaking of, how do people defend against wild monsters?1/2
>>252184802/2>In your setting, what is the major religion(s) present? What advice do you have for creating religions, including books and other resources on the topic or existing fictional religions done well?>Where did you look for ideas on the religion's name, religious garb, ceremonies/rituals, tenants, etc.? Are there any religions outside of the Judeo-Christianity umbrella that have good aspects for fictional religions, especially if they aren’t used as often as they should be?>How accurate is the religion to the actual reality of the setting? And if the god(s) of the setting actually exist in the world, how does this affect their faiths, and what needs to be remembered when making said gods and pantheons?>Where do you look for ideas/resources on creating the divinities of your settings? Are there any settings in particular that you feel do gods right?>Do your religions have Saints, Angels, Demons, and/or other important figures besides the actual gods? If so, what are they like, and how do they impact the religion?>Lastly, how much power does your religion have over the setting? And how do the people of your setting view the gods and religions?
How do you overcome the bias against steampunk and other settings inspired by the 19th century?
>>25218896I typically do it by removing the steam.
>>25218923So what, a punk world?
>>25218478I was loosely inspired by the Brothers from RWBY, and was thinking that the main deities of my setting would be a Lady of Creation and a Lord of Destruction (who I was thinking would be a couple, with potentially some children of theirs as lesser deities), the former making things all the time and the latter destroying the things that would harm the world at large and refining what he doesn't destroy, like a writer and their editor. What other aspects make sense for them and/or their subordinate deities to have besides Art and Life for the Lady and Death for the Lord (and maybe Disease, because things like diseases and monsters would be what occasionally slips by him and maybe because people pray for deliverance from said diseases)? Maybe Dreams for the Lady?List anon, are you here? I tried asking you last thread but you never replied before it died.
>>25218896You have to find one good book. Perhaps three.
>>25220452Nah, I keep the time period but replace all of the tech with magic, so it's magitech. My world has airships ubiquitously throughout it, costing a much as a car would on Earth. Almost none of them use lighter than air balloons because people of the world consider them dangerous. Of course, they do exist, but have the same novelty they do today.The airships in my world use gemstones to keep themselves aloft.
hey guys is there a good map / image annotating software. i want to take a map image and be able to write text labels in different areas, have single letters or symbols that link to markdown or text files that contain info about the map location or plot events that occur there and hopefully display some of that info with a mouse pointer hover over the letter / symbol. anyone use anything like this? image annotating / image labeling / image link adding moreso than image editing.
>>25221178You can if you know HTML and use leaflet.This is the only solution I've found that does everything exactly like I want it to.
>>25221453this looks like what i want.
>>25221559https://leafletjs.com/download.htmlYou'll need the pixel coordinates of the map, but you can just get that in any image editor hovering over.Creating Markers is easy enough.You can place as many markers as you want, with whatever image icons you want. I just made them all transparent because my map is already labeled.
>>25221570Here is what is looks like if I use the icon images.
>>25221570thanks bro i grabbed that but i might try the leaflet plugin on obsidian first, i'm not a programmer altho that image there doesnt look very complicated, does the html you have over to right there save in its own html file per each of the coordinates or is it all contained in some single library file. what do you tend to view your map in, an html browser?
>>25221577I just double click the HTML file and it opens in chrome.Everything you see is a single file (html code wise). The part you edit.The library has its own source which you never have to edit.You can even cut an image into parts, and stitch them together. This isn't required for desktop use, though I did this because the raw map is like 100mb and loading it on its website was killing data on mobile.Leaflet can basically do anything google maps 2D can, but locally.
>>25221583>You can even cut an image into parts, and stitch them together.oh nice, the thing i wanted to start annotating is made up of 8mb or so pngs, i was thinking about doing a table document but if you can connect them with this that's better. are those colored line outlines of counties or countries in your first image done in leaflet? is there the option to link or duplicate some info entries in the single file to separate html or markdown files where if you edit that other file it'll then update / write to the single file or just import that info from the separate file into that coordinate entry?
>>25221600The outlines are part of the image itself, which is made in inkscape. You CAN create an outline with a polygon in leaflet if you want, but you'll have to draw it in code, which would be a pain in the ass.It is a map of floating landmasses. Each has a gemstone of a different color at its core dictating the biome of the skyland.When it comes to the obsidian plugin I have no idea. Technically you can split an html file into as many parts and includes as you want. Even more so if you know PHP.Honestly, the more you know how to script, the easier it becomes. This isn't like learning a programming language. You just need to know where to insert text into predefined templates.Its less like making a website, and more like making a profile on myspace.
>>25221607yea it doesnt sound too hard, it's the very distant past but i did create several sites in html and i think i used some css tho i dont remember it, im sure it's like one tag or something to include text from a separate file. in the zoom levels png image there is that just an html table with your map segments?
>>25221612This is the code that controls the zoom. There is an x y and z directory structure. You just make them the specified size (in this case 500x500px).At a factor of 2.So you have a 500px image of the whole map.A 1000px image cut into 4 pieces. (2x2 images)A 2000px image cut into 16 pieces. (4x4 images)A 4000px image cut into 64 pieces. (8x8 images)A 8000px image cut into 256 pieces. (16x16 images)A 16000px image cut into 1024 pieces. (32x32 images)If you put them in directories numbered correctly, it will just assemble itself with no work required on your part. You just need to know the configuration default.There is also nothing preventing you from just stitch together whatever images you want.I could make them 1024 ahegao anime girls or whatever.You could have a higher zoom level have different images. For example zoomed out you see a city's borders, but as you zoom in it has the city map and road names, further in individual boards of the building, bacteria on the board, atoms making up the bacteria... etc
>>25221650If you need software to cut up a large image into a bunch of smaller ones, here is a freeware tool to do that called tile mage.>https://www.mediafire.com/file/76zvpjxpbycx6r4/TileMage_Portable.zip/filehttps://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/886fc4f04106202cb928a0ac3c1d4ec9f631bbde7efdbd8aa4e5feb2b9a35e67>Obviously, don't trust a rando on the internet to send you software. I've been using it forever.
>>25221650In this case Z is the zoom level, X is the x-axis image index, and Y is the y-axis image index.0,0 is the top left image.
>>25221650>>25221657thanks for the help bro, great stuff
>>25221669i might have jump into it to know what you're talking about, do you mean the letters in the brackets separated by slashes toward the bottom of your image. looks like there's a leaflet draw plugin that lets you draw boxy polygons with mouse pointer
>>25221674Yep, they are variables that are parsed by the engine. So you can change the structure if you need to.They are folder names.>tile/0/0/0.png
>>25221677ok so that's the code that displays your title map image
I'm doing away with aliens altogether because I can't write them. I'll just let different human factions be weird enough that they *feel* more alien than most fictional aliens.I've already got the big bad empire that's basically a eusocial posthuman entity. Due to being descended from a single God-Emperor and his family, almost all of the ten billion "people" of the empire are genetically siblings, and everyone in the aristocracy is basically an identical twin.That's already more alien and weird than most aliens on Star Trek, and yet they're technically as human as you or me.Their enemy, the main superpower that used to be just Space America, can now embrace the genetic modification, cybernetics, and so on. An entire race of extraterrestrial digital posthumans that "hop" into genetically modified meatsuits is now acceptable. This is also the most efficient physical form to exist in space, because human bodies are simply not adapted for microgravity and radiation. They can populate the entire solar system much more efficiently than a human race that needs Earthlike conditions.I'll just have to make sure they keep a purely biological "kernel", mostly a brain and reproductive organs, so that they aren't left completely dependent on technology to live.
>>25221746There's also the Exodists, a shorthand for all the many colony ships humanity sent forward to colonize nearby solar systems. Journeys can take decades or more in real-time despite relativistic travel*, and anti-senescence technology has to keep the colonists young, healthy, and *sane* for that distance. Even wall to wall automation can only do so much. These colonists are way more stable, sane, and orderly than any human alive, almost like stereotypes of Germans, Japanese, or Swiss people. They also possess radiation tolerance hundreds of times higher than ours and even some photosynthesis capabilities. They're based on the concept of Tree People, ie Ents. Old, immortal, and inhumanly strong and orderly beings that can feed off sunlight (radiation), water, and dissolved minerals in said water. And more importantly, won't go mad from a lifetime of sensory isolation in the depths of space.*time dilation will ensure that passengers travelling at speeds just a hundredth less than light will experience less time passing**
>>25218485>Speaking of, did your monsters and/or magical beasts evolve more or less naturally, or were they deliberately created by gods, wizards, and/or some other beings? And if the latter, why did the creators make them and how?Outside of humans and ordinary animals, the only natural creatures are the Old Ones, whom are extinct. All monsters were created by them essentially on a whim. One Old One decided to emulate humans and created Giants and the others did similar. The lesser ones like witches, goblins and the sort have evolved over time to accept magic and use it, while the greater ones like Giants, True Dragons and Warlords are completely incapable of using magic as they were created before its inception. True Dragons are extinct, Giants number a total of five while Warlords number around fifty, all of these groups are incapable of reproducing as only males exist and any offspring with humans for the latter two would result in just normal humans. >Are any monsters in your setting sapient, or are they all just beasts? And if any are sapient, what do you have to consider when including them?Only a few a sapient, while some are descended from formerly sapient species. Lesser Dragons all originated from the corpses of True Dragons and changed from there, but few of them are actually sapient and are really just very dangerous animals. Goblins are the most successful sapient monsters as they have cities, but they are far fewer than men, and are destroyed where found. Nor are they willing to tolerate other goblin cities resulting in infighting. Witches more or less blend into human society but do so through deception.>Speaking of, how do people defend against wild monsters?Organised hunting teams. In the case of very dangerous monsters, mages or Aura Knights handle them. >>In your setting, what is the major religion(s) present?There are no real dominant religions. More like personal faiths and cults. They may worship or revere a certain figure or follow a set of ideas but it is as varied as ancient paganism in the West and Near East, where cults rule the day.>How accurate is the religion to the actual reality of the setting?Somewhat. A number of the figures worshiped did once live but are now dead, other than the Kraken. The Warlords worship their creator god, but it has been dead for thousands of years, and only a few of them have ever actually seen it before. They are aware of its existence, and know that it is dead but revere it regardless.>Where do you look for ideas/resources on creating the divinities of your settings?Greek and Roman paganism.
Is there a way to build multistory buildings such that they can passively vent up hot air without allowing in rain?
>>25221989It's called a hat, a cap, a lid lol
>>25218478I’m going to start working on an original superhero story/setting soon, is there anything I should consider going in when it comes to those kinds of worlds, especially if I’m thinking that powers would only have appeared in the setting, as far as anyone can tell at least, a few years ago? What about ideas for where superheroes and villains get the power to accomplish the feats we see them achieve?
>>25222744>>25221989also known as a roof
>>25222744>>25223424Reading comprehension issues. I want something that will let the hot air out.
>>25223424This is incorrect.>>25222744This is correct.>>25223517I even drew the hot air for you. It's the light grey it comes out of the pipe which is open, and the pipe is covered by a metal cone.
>>25223644They are very common, you can buy them on amazon.
>>25223517Also, you can just bend the vent pipe in a U shape.
>cynical setting where the most depressing real-world theories of consciousness, philosophy, society, culture, life etc. are the actual rules >characters believably struggle, try to live in spite of this>pretty much always fail and are consumed by the settingWould this just turn off all potential readers?
>>25223665Sounds like a power fantasy for nihilistic teenagers.
I will now proceed to try explain why a highly industrialised country still has a flourishing rural culture:The #1 reason is simply that it's easier to raise families in villages. You've got your entire family and friends there to help you out with children or the old parents.Internet and modern communication technology already makes it practical to Work from Home over long distances. Since my setting is decades more advanced than modern Earth, remote work across a few hundred kilometres isn't a big deal. Rural life is simply more idyllic if you have money. Clean air, less density, nature, etc make it a lot more pleasant than living in some cyberpunk city.There's also another factor that modern first world countries can't match: rural areas have a stricter class structure, which makes it easy to find domestic servants to do the chores for you. I'll note my world is still more dystopian than realistic, so a lot of the darker elements are accentuated. Some of these villages are basically Antebellum Southern Plantations or medieval feudal fiefs, with all the brutality that implies. But that doesn't mean a middle class member of the gentry can't find pleasant living in his native village.
>>25223715Besides, most manufacturing has been moved to space anyway. Most of planet earth is now a vast nature reserve for wealthy landowners and retirees. While big earth cities still have a lot of high value manufacturing, the giant factory cities of the modern era are mostly a relic of the past. Naturally, most people do actually prefer living in cities. All that independence and luxury is hard to avoid if you're single with disposable income. Civilized people prefer cities for a reason. But cities can't replenish their own population, and anyone who wants a family can find it practical to work remotely and raise their kids in the empty rural heartlands.
Context: >The main setting is a Ringworld constructed by Wizards to be the home of the world's first Magic Nation, mostly because they don't like the idea of being just a human subculture. >Having magic on their side let them construct it at sizes the normal human civilization is currently incapable of, despite the latter already being advanced enough to have billions living in space colonies dotted around the solar system. >It's meant to be pretty comfortable and fully self-sufficient as part of the national goal of creating a world by, for, and of Magicals only. So food, water, and all other raw materials are to be sourced from their own territory. >The ring is located at the Jupiter-Sun L4 and L5 Lagrange Points, where it uses an artificial wormhole sucking in Helium from Jupiter to both power the ring and provide constant heat and light. It is, in effect, an artificial sun. >Water and other essentials of life are similarly sourced from Jupiter's moons, the asteroid belt, and the far side of the solar system. All of these amazing feats of engineering were only possible because they have functionally infinite energy, near omniscient knowledge of all science, and centuries to work with. It's given the new nation a bit of a superiority complex. They've actually started seriously considering claiming the entire Solar System past Jupiter, Manifest Destiny style. Needless to say, this will mean conflict with the rest of the human race. But thanks to the natural distance and how they've already cornered all the best space, they have a solid chance of victory.
>>25222754Yes: try to work out how their fights would work. Superhero settings can't work without fights. Make those battles the core of the setting.
>>25220684....please take inspiration from better stories. Like Zoroastrianism, for example.
>>25223715>>25223783>Clean air, less density, nature, etc make it a lot more pleasant than living in some cyberpunk city.>Naturally, most people do actually prefer living in cities.I don't get it
>>25225508A true cyberpunk city would purify the air before it enters my house. Cold, fresh, even 2% extra added oxygen.>$60 dollars more per month on my gas bill.
>>25225615well that's not cyberpunk then. You're still contradicting yourself
>>25225508I'm the OP. It's because cities give you more freedom for individualism and more high quality infrastructure. It's all hedonism and comfort in there.Think of it as happiness (village) vs pleasure (city).
>>25225852Cyberpunk is not grunge.
If anything, modern urban scifi should emphasise clean aesthetics, minimalism and efficiency, rounded surfaces, and cuteness.
>>25226028what do you think punk means?
>>25226140Names don't necessarily indicate meaning. Look at guinea pigs.
>>25226143you're just making up your own definitions arbitrarily. You must be an awful writer
>>25226140Typically people attribute "punk" to anti-establishment behavior, however there are arguments this isn't even true.The punk of -punk genres doesn't actually attribute to anti-establishment rhetoric.As it has routes to the hacker subculture of modifying devices and technology. Part of "punking" and "pheaking" subcultures of the 80's. The same people who would record tones on payphones and play them back to get free phone service. Which became BBS communities in the budding internet.>Skunking, being a reference to Lockheed Martin's skunkworks that built the SR-71."punk" has been, historically, typically synonymous with "powered">cyberpunk - cybernetics powered>ecopunk - ecology powered>gempunk - gemstone powered>steampunk - steam powered>dieselpunk - diesel powered>aeropunk - air poweredHowever, people have been loosely also attributing it to an aesthetic.>nasapunk - looking like NASA>comupunk - looking like the USSR
We need more pro-authority themes these days. Less cyberpunk and more Cybertopia. Skynet needs to be replaced by Culture Minds, the heroes should be cops fighting degenerate anarchist punks, and the government should be honest executives and bureaucrats like in Singapore or Japan. Our society is rotting apart because everyone wants to be the dashing rebel, but nobody wants to help keep the lights and water on.
How can I make a point about a certain aesthetic inside my world being wasteful without resorting to exposition dumps? The aesthetic in question is a sort of ornamental lake system where a region is flooded to make shallow lakes. Raised platforms are constructed to form artificial "islands", and connected by ornately decorated bridges.The lakes are meant to be filled with ornamental fish, plants etc and some sections are deep enough for boating and fishing. The thing is, water is really precious in the region, and these false lakes are meant to be an insurgency of the elites. Normal people are busting their backs for enough water to survive while the elites keep their luxury waterworks. I want to convey this disparity through environmental storytelling without needing to have characters rant about it.
>>25226404/wg/
>>25226426No, it's the literature worldbuilding thread. It's related to how we can use worldbuilding for stories. And environmental storytelling is about how we can use the setting itself to tell stories.
>>25226491You guys use worldbuilding for writing? I just keep adding shit to world anvil lol
I've been trying to build a world that criticizes communism and marxism but I've found it impossible because logic, common sense and historical proof dictates that a world like that would collapse once the system runs out of previously earned money/commodities. I reached the conclusion that a world built on such system like that is unsustainable for the long run and would remain in perpetual decay rather than advancing until reaching a peak, then proceed to decline.And I can't bring myself to build one that criticizes capitalism because on top of being overdone it would also be hypocritical, as the the research done for creating this world was thanks to tools available due to capitalism.
>>25226798
>>25227653>nooo you can't criticize le heckin' communism it hasn't been tried yet!
>>25228329But why would you try to start a political argument anyway? And don't say you weren't.
>>25224307>....please take inspiration from better stories. Like Zoroastrianism, for example.NTA, but what’s the deal with Zoroastrianism, and how does it apply to their original question? Heck, what are some other stories you would suggest?>>25226496I’ve heard a lot of mixed opinions on that, anything I should know before trying it?>>25226120Okay, what are some existing examples then?
>>25228744>Okay, what are some existing examples then?There aren't any, that's my problem. Everyone wants their scifi city to be some dystopian Blade Runner set.
>>25228744World Anvil isn't worth it's price. There are plenty of places you can host a wiki for free.Miraheze is my favorite.It can be at big as you want, backups are easy to make, and its more customizable in features and appearance being MediaWiki.
>>25228744>NTA, but what’s the deal with ZoroastrianismIt's the original Manichean Good vs Evil Gods stuck in eternal conflict story. Moorcock perverted it for his works.
>>25218478What races do you include in your settings/stories, especially ones that are used less frequently and/or are more obscure, and why those specific races? Especially if they’re based on being or creatures from existing myths and legends like the Mothman, etc. I want to create a list of races, especially underutilized ones so they get used more. I’d like to see the Grays in Sci-Fi get translated to fantasy more, maybe they’re inhabitants of a parallel plane who use magic in their abductions, for example.
>>25228663Why do you type like a man taking estrogen?
>>25218478>Worldbuilding is the process of creating entire fictional worlds from scratch>just mixing Lego sets
>>25229175>me just mixing some lego sets
Does anyone have any idea about how I could ensure a 500km radius Torus/Ring style space colony could avoid constant cyclones due to Coriolis Forces?
>>25230914https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_ball_theoremA torus is combable, so doesn't have the vorticity problems created by spheres.
>>25230936I have no idea what that means.
>>25230914Longitudinal Bulkheads. Just make big walls along the length of the rim that block or retard the flow of the air.
>>25231057And remember, this may cause rain on the regions where the hot air meets the walls due to rain shadow. So figure out a way to channel that water "downwards".
What's the reason why your magic users amd casters carry a Staff, Wand, Etc?
>>25230979It means the coriolis force can't create constant cyclones because it can't develop a chaotic wind system. Chaotic wind systems only develop on spheres because they can't have regions of zero vorticity.A torus will have regions of zero vorticity which destructively prevent the movement of air stagnating it. If there is a high pressure zone and a low pressure zone next to each other they equalize on a torus. On a sphere, the Hairy Ball Theorem causes all of the wind direction vectors to constructively interfere on random places across the sphere, creating new wind in random locations and thus weather.(Interestingly, this also means there must be at least exactly 2 points across the Earth at any time where air particles don't move.)
>>25231162Thanks. That makes it much easier.
>>25231162My setting doesn't have traditional races, instead each "race" is just determined by the specific (there has to be a better word/phrase for it but) aspects of the disease that manifested for the individual, which affects them on the physiological level.
>>25231360Meant for >>25229138
>>25229138>GraysI do have another fantasy setting in mind actually with a race of spacedwellers that are a mix between aliens, Lovecraftian, and traditional demon/folklore creature with some deep-sea flair. It sounds like you're asking about conventional races more than new ideas, though?
What's a government system that is just as likely in Fantasy as in Scifi?
>>25231440oligarchy
>>25223665It would turn me off, there's enough misery in the real world.
>>25231566An oligarghy is a phenomenon that can emerge in any system, not a system in itself.
>>25231440I've decided on a theocratic empire where a small group of religious coded elites control a militaristic society entirely dedicated to world conquest.
>>25231440Caste system, Monarchy and democracy as long as magic technology can equal 1700s technology for the average person
>>25231806>militaristic society entirely dedicated to world conquestdoesn't sound like that would last too long
What's more important? The Race itself or the Culture and History of the Race?
>>25231918What good is race if has no culture.
>>25231652>oligarghy>Oligarchy (from Ancient Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía) 'rule by few'; from ὀλίγος (olígos) 'few' and ἄρχω (árkhō) 'to rule, command')[1][2][3] is a form of government in which power rests with a small number of people.>form of government>What's a government system that is just as likely in Fantasy as in Scifi?>form of government
>>25228788Okay. How does that inform the question the original asker was looking to answer though?>>25230090Do you use Lego in your own projects?
>>25233482Do you not know what an analogy is?
>>25233536I'm reasonably sure that's a bot.Anyways, I was thinking of creating a military based on folk Buddhist theology. I'm trying really hard not to start relying on anime/manga, but it's hard.
Is there any fantasy which has absolutely zero magical elements in it? No dragons, wizards, elixirs, nothing. I can't think of any.
>>25233544Why bot if you aren't even advertising anything?
>>25233556...do you mean historical fiction? Try Ivanhoe.
>>25233544I'm reasonably sure you're a faggot that plays with other people's intellectual toys because you could never create your own.
>>25233616coming from the retard who doesn't know what an analogy is
>>25233596Something like that but in a fictional setting
>>25233653If it's set in an imaginary location in the ordinary flow of history, it's historical fiction. If it's set in an alternative timeline of our world, it's science fiction of the alternate history sort. If it's set on an entirely different planet where the laws of physics are the same as in our world, it's science fiction even if the characters look and act just like humans.
Dune may have made the idea of melee combat in a scifi setting popular, and I'd never deny all the work that went into making it make sense....but I'd say all he did to justify it only ended up emphasizing how unnatural and forced it is.Star War unironically did a better job because it let the melee combat be a privilege of explicitly supernatural superhumans that didn't need guns to plow through dozens of soldiers. It also let the soldiers with guns have their own domains while the Force users did their own thing. This not only let both scifi and fantasy parts shine, but also made them make sense.
>>25233980I don't really agree. He changed the meta game of war and the answer when you can shoot is to melee. The fancy shield is just plate armor and guns are just bows and crossbows
>>25234407>the answer when you can shoot is to meleeWhat.
>>25233544Original asker, I would love to hear more about this, and aspect suggestions that you have for me please.
Does anyone know any sources for how infantry combat might change in the coming years? Especially regarding drones and such.
Are there any activities that have avoided the fate of becoming industrialized besides thinking and speaking? I am trying to hit upon a magic system that cannot be industrialized and I'm coming to the conclusion that pretty much everything physical can be done by a machine or an industrial fashion.
Only one of the major militaries in my setting is a modern national army because I'm trying to make a point that it's an exception rather than the norm, historically speaking.The Magic Nation, for example, has a military that's more of an armed religious militia than a professional army. They don't fight for the country, they explicitly fight for the interests of their clergy. The Empire, meanwhile, has a military that's officially just the bodyguards of the Emperor.
>>25233556Gormenghast
>>25236208You need to go for blatant violations of physics of the sort that might appear in less realistic science fiction but are out of reach for realistic technological advances. For example, your characters could have a way of efficiently turning lead into gold in a way that doesn't require a massive particle accelerator and vastly more money input than the process generates. Then there's instant teleportation over cosmic distances, time travel, etc. Don't just settle on having the magic be a handgun that fires elemental bullets or a replacement for an electric motor, but think about the fun ways to do things that are normally impossible.
>>25236516But if the mechanics of it are doing handsigns or drawing geometic patterns with special inks or combining ingredients and reagents and gives a predictable outcome then its able to become a science. Which means you can systematize it and then automate it since the results are predictable. The chinese system for cultivation is anti-industrialization, that is highly personal with general routes which have been recorded as "try approaching it this way but you're going to have to still figure it out for yourself". That's the kind of point I'm making. If your system permits something like "put a drop of blood here to activate this rune which will create an orb of light which will glow at a prescribed intensity for a prescribed period of time" it can be understood scientifically and then industrialized. It's not an "art" but a science.I kept looking after I asked and so far no, only capital-A arts, thought/reasoning, and communication seem to resist this. So probably just those like I originally supposed.
>>25236465On the whole, my world is based on the theme that "The Modern Era" never happened. That includes modern militaries.
>>25218478Besides horses and oxen that can carry loads endlessly and never tire, and undead birds to use as spies, what animals and monsters in particular would be most useful as undead minions? I’ve had insects suggested to me, for starters, what else works?
>>25236681Undead humans which can use their dexterous hands to use tools, or their undead brains to perform calculations, or some combination like a speech to text tool that you dictate too and it faithfully transcribes your words to the page.
>>25236556The Western system has always had a person's mental processes as the key. Additional details might even be completely optional for experts and just help the caster get into the proper mindset for the spell. A mindless robot arm making programmed gestures over an assembly line while an automated recording plays the words of a chant would be an ineffective cargo cult imitation of the real thing.
>>25235494*can't shoot
>>25236208make magic emotion based. Machines can't make emotions
>>25236681dolphins for marine propulsion
>>25218478What Worldbuilding guides and other resources would you recommend and why?
>>25236516>>25236877>>25236208I generally go with "magic is a subjective experience". That puts it well beyond the capabilities of even our contemporary society much less someone fucking around with punch cards and steam engines.Because yeah I honestly tire of magitech.It's the epitome of "wouldn't it be neat if—" but then it basically isn't ever actually neat. Honestly I feel like many people are just scared that scifi necessarily has to look like Star Trek/Mass Effect/Halo and thus take refuge in magitech because 90% of scifi is unbearably drab
>>25231440Specialist city states.Not having city states in scifi is contingent on an absolutely enormous amount of hand waves.
>>25231114Safety mainly. The #1 goal of every magic user is to get rid of magic the moment it's been told what to do. If it just bouncing around your body and brain it becomes unhealthy fast.Demons or Elves retain a spell they've cast in their bones until its effect is realized. In a human that has small but rapidly cumulative negative effects so by instinctively shunting the construct into the staff you keep yourself relatively clean.This also has the effect of human wizards usually travelling with a sweat tent so they can purge residual etheric gunk from their pores at the end of the day.
>>25238539If it's possible to generate a spell effect reliably then the end result is always magitech. But that doesn't mean the world you're building has achieved that. The rules for getting electricity have always been the same, yet it took humans 100,000 years to invent an electric motor/generator.It's only really in the past 100-150 years where technology has become really complex. A lot of previous technology was very simple.
>>25236681Swarms of undead insects. Unless you have a flamethrower how do you fight them?
>>25236208Podcasts and influencers are literally that no?
>>25218478Hey, I’m trying to come up with names for individual elemental beings in my world. Besides just twisting words like “flame” for fire elementals, etc., what can I do, does anyone have any suggestions for me please? And what do I have to remember when including elementals in the first place, especially if the magic is also primarily element-based?
>>25239219That's what I said.
>>25239219>It's only really in the past 100-150 years where technology has become really complex. A lot of previous technology was very simple.Why DID it take humans so long to reach this point? The ancient Greeks had steam technology, why did they never use it for trains and shit?>>25231360>My setting doesn't have traditional races, instead each "race" is just determined by the specific (there has to be a better word/phrase for it but) aspects of the disease that manifested for the individual, which affects them on the physiological level.More details please?>>25231369I would love to hear more about this! Still, what more conventional races do you have?
>>25241056>Why DID it take humans so long to reach this point?symbolic and holistic thinking over mechanistic thinking, and slavery.
>>25240028For naming them, I might suggest going one layer further than twisting words for elements around. Come up with some words that might be important in the elemental's language - these can just be somewhat resembling a word for that element. ex. Dhaer (Flare) or Khar (Cairn, stone), then just use that kind of word as a root to work off for creating groups of names. You can also use kiki and bouba in the names to give some indication of the character's personality or status. Ex with Khar: Kharnos, Dakhra, Kirikos, Rakhor. I'll mention personally I don't like super alien names for magical beings like Xiri'k'na or some shit like that.>And what do I have to remember when including elementals in the first place, especially if the magic is also primarily element-based?This is a really broad question and worth exploring based on your world.
>>25241056>Why DID it take humans so long to reach this point? The ancient Greeks had steam technology, why did they never use it for trains and shit?Imagine you're a wealthy ancient Greek. You hear about this new invention that can automatically open and close doors. What a waste, just have a slave do it.Human labor was not valuable/expensive enough for an expensive steam engine to be worthwhile.
A Hive Mind style race that doesn't sacrifice quality for quantity would be truly terrifying, won't it?Especially if instead of being melee focused insectoids, they're humans or humanoids with every weapon we possess? It's strange how nobody else seems to have hit on this concept. Everyone just wants to keep repeating Starship Troopers.
>>25239415No matter how much you disdain podcasters and influencers, they are still craftsman and not industrialized thinking nor speech.
It's not very easy to write a history section for Space Nations because all of them are really new. Modern nations, no matter the date of the state, can usually harken back to centuries of human society in that region.There were no indigenous humans in space.
The only Hive Mind in my world are a human subspecies. They "communicate" by what the main human faction calls quantum entanglement, mostly because they're pretending there's some scientific basis to it.There isn't. They're explicitly using magic, a magic based on their deep knowledge of how "Individualism" is mostly just an illusion of the Cosmos. You could consider it my stab at Buddhist themed science fantasy.
>>25242402Can anyone help me with this?
>>25242650They base themselves around philosophies and ideologies for building a better future. A new planet is a clean slate and a fresh start on which they can try anything.
>>25241918>Human labor was not valuable/expensive enough for an expensive steam engine to be worthwhile.What could cause that to change?
>>25244278The abolition of slavery, serfdom, and forced labor in general.
>>25242901This. Anon if you're really struggling with this look at parasocieties IRL. Groups like Hezbollah, the Houthis, People's Republics of Donetsk / Luhansk in modern times and the Soviets and other Commie states in the old days. Hell, North Korea is basically a space colony on earth in how it's developed a new narrative of what it is.You can just create a new culture (albiet one that is couched in ideology and / or at least pretends to be rooted in the past). All the more in space.
Which name sounds coolest:1. Midgard2. Mittelreich3. Mittelia4. AlderiaThe name is meant to mean "Central Kingdom" or "High Kingdom" in German.
>>25218478How do magic focus items like picture related work in your world, and what do you need to consider when adding them?
>>25244641I like Mittelreich. The others sound too "fantasy".>>25244700It's simple, if you are holding/wearing your focus you can do magic, lose it and you cannot. If your focus is destroyed you can make a new one, but if it is only stolen then you must get your original back.
>>25244963It IS fantasy.
>>25244402No, you have it backwards. These legal changes happened BECAUSE human labor started being valued more.This is typically how social change really happens. Eg we got all these child labor protections when child labor was already on its way out, not when it was at its height. The same happened with slavery.>>25244278Historically? It starts with a plague. The Black Death killed off so many people that it caused a massive labor shortage. This pushed nobles and other higher echelons of society to offer better conditions (wages, working conditions etc) to the lower classes. This is how serfdom basically disappeared in western Europe.This wasn't enough on its own. At least a few more things contributed to it:In the following centuries British industry (steelmaking etc) started using a lot of coal. Coal was really available, which allowed industry to flourish over the following centuries. Britain became a strong naval power. This allowed for a lot of international trade, which made Britain quite rich. This pushed up wages of the working classes.Eventually somebody reinvented the steam engine and things took off from there. Labor was expensive back then and there was a lot more use for expensive machinery by then.
>>25242369>>25242436The hivemind species I have built has melee, ranged, and magic units. They have fighter style aircraft which are themselves creatures that are part of the hivemind. There are large capital ship sized spacecraft that are effectively giant whales, with sphincters inside for doors. Invaders of the ship are denied entry by the creature itself. It isn't a union of multiple assimilates species, just a single lifeform with many archetypes.
>>25218478>In your setting, what is the major religion(s) present? What advice do you have for creating religions, including books and other resources on the topic or existing fictional religions done well?I'll weigh in here.My setting is very much an iron-age society, and in the region that my stories take place that translates to what I call 'pre-ism' or 'pre-Christian' religion.There are effectively three layers of religion, which people engage with to different degrees.>Temple ReligionThis is the big picture shit. Mostly it revolves around a small amalgamated pantheon of gods which the entire culture generally acknowledges and worships throughout the empire. These consist of:>The Sun GoddessWho is the strongest, cruelest god. Demands the most of supplicants and has a large, organized clergy that exerts influence on culture and politics. Centered in two massive ziggurat complexes in the Summer and Winter capitols. Even the most illiterate peasant is instantly familiar at least with the scary people who demand tributes on her behalf.>The Moon GodMaster of Magic and Dreams. Weird, aloof, and distant. His cult is centered on the Palace of Wisdom, a massive temple that serves as the HQ of Imperially-Sanctioned Magic Users. Commoners don't really give him the time of day, especially since his cult is an incredibly esoteric mystery cult.Their deepest mystery is that the Moon God insists that the gods themselves (himself included) are frauds and not gods at all. This is a fiercely guarded secret among his adherents as it would be considered blasphemy anywhere else.The Imperial Creation Myths are all couched in the Great Divorce between the Moon and the Sun, with all 'lesser gods' rationalized as their myriad children.>Regional CultsThese are the remnants of prior local religions subsumed into the Imperial Cult. Each city, tribe, river, and region generally has one or many patron gods which intercede for their chosen people. These are downplayed as 'small gods' by the clergy of the Sun and Moon, but they have the most significance for your average person in the setting. Clergy tend to be very old-school shrine keepers, shamans, elders, etc. and preside over local liturgies like processions, festivals, etc.>Folk ReligionThis is the hearthfire shit. Ancestor veneration (that is to say Catholic / Day of the Dead style prayers and offerings both to care for the dead in the afterlife and seek their help on earth) is almost universal, as are supersitions regarding spirits of nature, home, childbirth, etc. that are even more varied than the small gods.The more rural and remote you get the more likely you are to see people who basically ignore the gods entirely in order to focus on appeasing the spirits and the ancestors. Officially these beliefs are totally tolerated but clergy and adherents of 'real gods' tend to look down on these practices as primitive and superstitious.
>>25246039>>>25242369 (You)>>>25242436 (You)My hivemind species is just a family that got really big, and then continued to get big, with incest. Somehow their genes didn't end up turning them into inbred monsters, they didn't get sterile, nor did they suffer from the bazillion other things that should cause this bad habit to collapse.That "somehow" is actually just because the patriarch of the family is a demigod. That's also why they have such perfect synchronicity, their souls are metaphysically linked.
>>25246440As I said, I am trying to make Buddhist horror the main theme of my setting. I am kinda annoyed by how hiveminds are just lots of bugs that only exist to be target practice.
>>25246440>That "somehow" is actually just because the patriarch of the family is a demigod. That's also why they have such perfect synchronicity, their souls are metaphysically linked.What effect does this have on their afterlives?>>25246466>As I said, I am trying to make Buddhist horror the main theme of my setting. I am kinda annoyed by how hiveminds are just lots of bugs that only exist to be target practice.Yeah, there does seem to be a definite trend, though many hiveminds of that kind are more dangerous than your wording implies. I'd love to hear more about this aspect of your setting, and in general though, please. Especially since that'll help me suggest ideas.>>25246039More details please!
>>25248129>What effect does this have on their afterlives?They don't get one. That's the point. They want to avoid the cycle of reincarnation, but also don't want to abandon their greed and materialism.
>>25248129>pic relatedI'm just going to make a bulleted list of facts. As the universe it's in needs to be entirely rewritten, as I haven't worked on it in over a decade.BIOLOGY>The common humanoid variety is slightly shorter than a human. (Obviously, they can be basically any size and shape, from inches to kilometers.)>Their arms are typically replaced by weapons made of bone. Their bones contain metals like iron, gold, and tungsten.>Their "blood" is an inky black, honey-viscosity slurry of proteins and reprogrammable cells.>This blood can replace any part of their body, and their body can be turned back into that blood.>The most obvious part of their bodies are bulbous, protruding, blister-like growths around joint regions that contain this substance.>Mouths contain very acutely pointed teeth for consuming protein-rich food.>Even though they are members of a hivemind, each unit still exhibits individuality. They share information and skills.>When in proximity to the hivemind "core", it has the ability to control individual units collectively.>All members of the hivemind have control over each other's blood.>They lack pain receptors, but have a nervous system that cues damage.CULTURE>They are not monsters and will farm or cultivate like most other species.>Their religion is centric to a theory of universal consciousness.>Providing their blood to those outside of their race will give brief access to memories of nearby members of the hivemind.>They have sex, shop, dine, and have entertainment venues. They build memories and experiences that can thus be shared.>Their normal language is spoken with multiple sets of vocal cords. Often, they do not speak, as they are telepathic with members of the hive.>They can learn to speak other languages, such as human languages, within an hour. Receiving a download of the information from the collective, so long as such information is in range.
>>25248731Addendum, I forgot to include that they can choose and remove parts of themselves pretty much at will. Takes about a hour.>I want more tastebuds in my mouth to taste food better.Extrapolate with this fact what you will.
Gods don't really need offerings or worship. They don't eat or drink, after all, nor do they have any need that the little creatures that started living on earth "a while ago" could satisfy.However, they do like being flattered. What god wouldn't? What thinking being wouldn't? There's nothing greater than having people prostrate themselves before you and try to appease you.They rarely even answer those prayers, except what little is needed to keep their worshippers from dying out wholescale. They care nothing for their bickering or politics. They care nothing for famine or plagues as long as they don't present an extinction level threat. And they are prone to just getting bored of any given community and abandoning them on a whim.
>>25218485>>In your setting, what is the major religion(s) present? What advice do you have for creating religions, including books and other resources on the topic or existing fictional religions done well?There's a cult which calls itself the Order of The Empty Throne. Shortform is Regents or Retainers, depending on denomination.Their backstory is that they somehow persuaded an eldritch abomination to impregnate a random girl with a Messianic figure that's prophesied to rule over the entire earth. But once it conquers the world, it will then descend beneath its surface forever and leave the Cult to rule it in his name. It's a sweet gig.
>>25248939The purpose of an offering is typically not to gift a god with something. They are omnipotent and have no need for your earthly shit.It is rather and act showing that you are willing to give what you have to them, either as a display of subsurviance, or trust in their power.>I don't need this thing, because I can get it from you.or>I really need this thing, but I'm willing to give it up to show you how much you matter.It's one of many reasons human sacrifice has always been so prevalent in ancient cultures.
>>25248948I'd love to hear more about this. And is anyone opposing them?
>>25218480>How do the people in your settings celebrate the changing of the seasons?Setting doesn't really have noticeable seasons and it never comes up in my stories. The setting isn't earth with a magic coat of paint. It being different from earth is part of my main character's hidden internal wound and part of his deep isolation and alternation from literally everyone on the planet.
>>25226175Nothing is stopping you from writing that.I wouldn't read it but maybe someone out there would.
This is part world building, part linguistics question.There's Mystics (Magicians, Alchemists, mediums etc) and Rationalists (scientists in the IRL sense).Science is the umbrella term for both albeit not commonly used as it's considered too diffuse.Does that make sense internally and in terms of linguistics?Science just means Knowing Thing™ after all.
>>25226175I once wrote that while I was an anarchist just to challenge myself. I don't think I could do it today without it coming across as preachy.Conversely I'm presently writing a painfully sappy ancom Solarfunk story despite my actual beliefs being more on the unbearably edgy side.>Our society is rotting apart because everyone wants to be the dashing rebel, but nobody wants to help keep the lights and water on.That's a consequence of over specialization. You can get the same result by writing hardhat sci-fi. There's a 1:1 overlap between how many layers of abstraction away from ensuring societal survival and notions of heroic hard of gold Rebellion a demographic is.
What's the optimal strategy for an empire that has to appease their rival in one front (to balance a smaller rival), while realizing they will inevitable have to fight it in the other front?
>>25251527Whatever Iran is doing IRL
>>25251527It depends on a lot of factors. Like, does the one rival gain its power through trade or conquest, or a mix, etc.?
I wanna make a cyberpunk-esque world but without the political commentary. You know, flashy neon aesthetics, ultra advanced high-tech and an inhumane selfish society.Is that even possible? Do I have any alternatives or related currents?It's just, from what I understand, cyberpunk is a critique, but all its interations end up giving it this super cool and awesome feel no matter how dreadful the implications are. As in, it's a cute world to look at, but not to live in. But I really want to avoid politics or even commentaries.Also, is there something like a Ancient Roman-punk genre or something like that?
>>25252863I was already in the process of doing this, and I have a pretty cool aesthetic for it.>Ancient Roman-punk genreI thought you were looking for something non-political anon.
>>25252932Sorry, wrong thread.
We'll have one land that is green were everything in it is shades of green, including the giant frogs and turtles
>>25252883Did I said I wanted to do Ancient Roman-punk? No, I asked if there was something like that and Ancient Rome politics are far removed from contemporary ones.
>>25252863You could instead go for religion. Say, in this universe Hell has advanced technology but everyone is inhuman and selfish because everyone is either a demon or a dead human sinner. And those with only minor sins probably didn't end up on this particular layer but somewhere at least a little nicer, so that everyone on the cyberpunk layer is a drug dealer or a fraudster at the very minimum. That kind of thing has an effect on a society.
How am I supposed to decide on anything? How am I supposed to "worldbuild" anything?Whenever I come up with something and write it down, or God forbid try to draw it, I always feel like I made a mistake trying to include it, and I can't bare to look at it even a week later. Every other fantasy world I read about or interact with through other media seems so fully formed and complete, where as mine feels hollow and fake, and I just think why bother at all?
>>25253246>I wanna make cyberpunk without politics.>It is possible to make cyberpunk without politics.>I understand it hard to avoid politics in cyberpunk anyway.>For some reason the last liner of my post has nothing to do with the other 3 lines.Is this what you are telling me you did? Insert some non-sequitur question tangentially related to the topic with context that is was part of that topic, but you didn't really intend it to be.If this is the case, please don't write a book.
>>25252863>I aspire to be shallow and dumbbut why
>>25253415Your world feels hollow and fake because you can't even make one thing without shitting yourself for lack of self belief. Fix your personality issues
>>25242369If they're smart enough to reason with why do they need to be an enemy?
>>25246440It's a Magical Realm, but a based one.
>>25253482>>25253664Lol. You have brainrot.Adding politics doesn't make a piece smart nor deep. If anything, it can backfire if the creator has a poor handling or understanding of actual politics. GoT may feel "deep" because it has all those contrived conspiracies, but it feels like that to the average reader who hasn't read anything but equally shallow books with a brighter tone.A story about discrimination (whether is based on race, gender, etc.) can come across as corny or empathetic because it all depends on how is handled and not because it's political. At the end of the day, it's a story about someone who suffers over something they aren't in control. And that is something almost everyone has experienced.
>>25253914You are retarded, it has nothing to do with not wanting politics in your story. I agree that building a cyperpunk world not focused on politics is a good idea. I just don't think you can execute it in a competent way.
>>25254527You are retarded and sound butthurt because someone doesn't want to invest in politics. And guess what? Every great piece, cyberpunk or not, is good in spite of being political, not because it's political.
>>25253853Because they hate everyone who's not part of them.
>>25254814Reading comprehension fail.What part of>building a cyberpunk world not focused on politics is a good ideamakes you think I want a story about fucking politics?Just to spite you, I'm going to take my cool as fuck apolitical cyberpunk mood board, and build sick ass world.
My own cyberpunk setting unironically makes the punks the antagonists because I love writing short stories about cops in mechas slaughtering dozens of gangsters at a time. Though I'll grant that the main reason these gangs exist in the first place is because though the Megacorp running the world are efficient and keep the streets clean, their policies directly led to said gangs forming. The corporation keeps forcing rural immigrants to come to the city to keep the workforce stable (people don't have kids anymore), which leads to cramped slums full of people that resent the government and have zero social responsibility. The only solution is to give the people reason to owe the government loyalty, but the government is obsessed with the socioeconomic version of Just World Fallacy and refuse to admit they probably shouldn't inculcate a nihilistic "Fuck you got mine" ideology in their citizens.
>>25255032To elaborate on this, they have an exponentially stronger tribal instinct than normal humans. While they're almost entirely harmonious with each other, they're almost incapable of holding empathy for outsiders. It's not that they're mindlessly hostile either. They just don't care about anyone but their own group, and only see everyone else as either assets to be disposed of later, or enemies.
>>25218478Hey, what does Star Wars, especially in the expanded universe novels, do right in terms of world-building that you took lessons from for your own worlds? What about the mistakes it made that you learned from?
>>25253665No but even bad worldbuilding like Azeroth or D&D still has this feeling of "authenticity" or something why is that even if it's shitty?
I'm having trouble mapping out planetary combat in the far future of the 22nd century. It's easy enough to work out how advanced space combat will work, but there's only so much gigatonnes the planet can take before it's simply not worth escalating. Maybe precision is the key, not power. Instead of focusing on lasers or railguns like I do with space battle, I should focus on nanobots, EM waves, and sending waves of drones to overwhelm the enemy.
>>25256083>No but even bad worldbuilding like Azeroth or D&D still has this feeling of "authenticity" or something why is that even if it's shitty?What specifically is so bad about them?
>>25256083they finished it
I'm halfway done with my first book only to realize that I suck with maps and decided to make most of my actions very much based on political strategy. I don't even know where to place the castles.
How can I humiliate a noble faction that wanted to shelve the "wimpy nerds" of the Military Intelligence agencies because they're obsessed with giant armies and superweapons?I'm looking for a scenario that would discredit their doctrine in the eyes of the Royal Court.
>>25258127Place the castles near the fields. Their strategic purpose is to give the landlord a fortified military base to control his land with. And remember, if you're writing a pre-gunpowder setting, that ASOIAF is BS. Castles can hold out for months if not years even against the best armies. It's literally impossible to roll over a medieval European castle in weeks without gunpowder or vast siege machinery that probably doesn't exist in that era.
>>25258527Your response?
>>25258662What era and place is that from, my dear blockhead?
>>25218478What is the true nature of the soul in your setting?
>>25258840Figuratively or literally? The existence of a soul is critical to my world's magic system.
>>25258527>Place the castles near the fieldsNear the fields or inside? I assume outside so that way farmers can actually deal with it. Also, stuff like army generals, barracks, etc., where they inside the castle or in their own distinct place?>And remember, if you're writing a pre-gunpowder setting, that ASOIAF is BS.I have some magic that could make for some easy explosives, but other than that you're right it will probably take months even then. I'm honestly not sure how to handle the siege process either when most books I read don't go descriptive into the combat at all. I think I'll have them do minor objectives while a siege is going on since none of them are generals themselves.
>>25259052You place them as close to the fields as possible, the castle protects the farms, that's like its whole purpose.If you place your castle away from the fields, I'm going to set a fire in your fields so the people in your castle die from a lack of food.
>>25259137Thank you. I'll work on that soon. Map making is far from my expertise but I'll keep that in mind.
It's also worth remembering that despite what stupid Japanese Light Novels say, most leaders will have a good idea of how magic in their setting works and how to fight it effectively. Good writers don't write in terms of PCs and NPCs.
>>25260548videogame isekai rpg is the shittiest writing in the world. That should be obvious
>>25260548Thankfully my magic is so exclusive that not even the people who are even able to use it entirely know what it does. The bad news is that it means it can hardly be reliable and thus I'm stuck having to learn actual tactics anyways.
At one point one simply has to decide whether aesthetics come before lore. You can't have normal medieval European castles if gunpowder or equivalent weapons are common. You'd either need to evolve star forts and such or weaken your setting.I personally want to put power levels first I don't care what my setting looks like as long as I get drone swarms, mountain destroying spells, and the Internet of Things.
>>25236208Congratulations, you've just realized there's nothing that fundamentally makes humans any physically different from machines except complexity.
>>25231162You're wrong. All that means is that a Torus CAN avoid cyclones, not that it WILL.
>>25236208Honestly you could do something biological. Like if magic is partially science based or requires the flow of qi or whatever then machines are disbarred from ever using it regardless of how autistic you want to make the motions or exact incantations needed to make spells.
>>25261147I wrote that post, and you are correct. I was explaining it trivially.I could put a flat wall in any wind system and create a vortex deliberately. Of course that can happen.In a toroidal space habitat like a Stanford Torus, for example Elysium, winds on a toroid will almost always create uni-directional vector fields. If a vortex can form, they will almost quickly be destructively interfered with, and thus will not form cyclones.However, localized cyclones are more likely as the systems get larger. A Halo from Halo, or a true Ringworld that is built at the habitable orbit of a star can form local cyclones due to landmass perturbation on convective heating of surface water.>tl;dr - I was addressing the anon's concern about "cyclones being everywhere due to Coriolis forces. As Coriolis forces aren't the primary concern in this system.
>>25261180That's why we should avoid direct statements like that. People who are completely ignorant of physics might take it at face value.
>>25261242Next time, I'll just not help.
>>25261270Don't be childish.
>>25261473I'm an anonymous person on the internet. It is easy for me to just not give a single fuck.
Hey chuds, help me decide, do i commit to making a map with realistic geology, tectonics, climates, weather paterns etc. like what Artefixian did with Cretak in picrel? I'm torn because on one hand it'd be a bit of a magnum opus of worldbuilding, on the other hand this is a 500+ hour type of work, since i'd have to learn all the methods from scratch.Gonna post a few more pics taken from his website.
>>25261713
>>25261719
>>25260708>You can't have normal medieval European castles if gunpowder or equivalent weapons are commonThe transition from medieval warfare to early modern warfare took like 200 fucking years to complete. Yes, you fucking can.
>>25261713>all this just to make 5 blobsno anon it's fantasy. What is it with redditors trying to make fantasy into science?
>>25261923So that you have something consistent and factual to fall back on and don't pull stuff out of your ass all the time like GRRM and end up with a landmass half the size of europe having million people living in it and 3 cities of 10k people
>>25218478Here’s a thought, besides the obvious answer of bone (and other materials from people for that matter) what other mundane (as in, existing IRL) materials make sense as being effective in channeling the energy of necromancy, be they in focus items like wands or staves, or enchanted items like pendants, armor, etc.? For instance, besides iron, because of all the iron in blood, what metals could work well for such items? Or if wood, what kinds of wood? Especially if they can be used to give the necromancy spells modifiers, like a blast of necrotic energy imbued with some of the essence of fire so it not only drains your life force, but feels like it’s burning you, or one imbued with the essence of ice so it causes frostbite, for example.
>>25261967>landmass half the size of europe having million people living in it and 3 cities of 10k peopleYou can also do that with your nerd map. The map should follow the narrative not the other way around
>>252584631. Superweapon backers tend to be wimpy nerds2. Giant armies and superweapons are opposing doctrines. You either build for quantity or you build for quality. Having 2 parallel production lines makes no sense.>I'm looking for a scenario that would discredit their doctrine in the eyes of the Royal Court.sabotage/assassinations
>>25262014zinc, magnesium, potassium, carbon ect. There's all sorts of stuff in the human body
>>25262056>1. Superweapon backers tend to be wimpy nerdsThey can also be football bros that like huge trucks> Giant armies and superweapons are opposing doctrines.That makes no sense. There is no contradiction to making a lot of regular tanks and a few super tanks. See Hitler
>>25262070>There is no contradiction to making a lot of regular tanks and a few super tanks. See HitlerHitler explicitly made super tanks because he didn't have the manpower, materials, or oil for an equivalent strength in regular tanks. Famously so. You could not have chosen a worse example for your argument.
>>25262056Ahh, it's not like the US was building ships, planes, and amphibious vehicles the entire time they were also building extinction balls during WW2.
>>25262056>Giant armies and superweapons are opposing doctrines. You either build for quantity or you build for quality. Having 2 parallel production lines makes no sense.It's not meant to. They're strawmen.
>>25261967This still doesn't defeat the point that it's fantasy. You can do pretty much whatever you want as long as the fantastical rules ytou set in place aren't broken. Artifexian for example has probably inspired thousands of redditlings to spend hundreds of hours learning geology and weather science before they ever actually begin making the story they actually wanted to do to begin with; meanwhile GRRM just winged it and sold millions. LotR is far from perfect either, and is even more successful. Science isn't very useful for any of this because 1. it takes far too long to sufficiently learn for practical use 2. the more you understand about it, the more limiting it is to your imagination and might just blackpill you, preventing you from writing at all. Like at that point, why not just write historical fiction?
>>25261713You can tell any kind of fantasy story you want on a generic long coastline with a cold north and a hot south. Mapping out a whole globe for a fantasy setting is generally nuts, historically every civilization lived in its own little ecumene and everything beyond its frontiers basically didn't matter.
>>25262136Not in the first half of the war. Let be honest here. Fascist dictators want it all.
>>25262798>It's not meant to. They're strawmenThere's a difference between being a strawman and being incoherent. Limited resources and standardization means that that "quantity" and "quality" are competing directions of development. Which is "better" will be situational, but you can't argue for both at the same time for the same job. That's not a thing that happens. Prioritization forbids it.>>25262658Specialization is a thing that happens in militaries. Not relevant.
Is there a word for a Dyson sphere style structure, but for planets rather than stars? The long and short of it is that the Emperor of Earth constructs such a structure to protect his lands from space based opponents. The solar system has been colonized by dozens of disparate nation-states that have more than enough power to reroute a meteor at the planet.Generally speaking, rulers don't like the idea of being threatened by unpredictable foreign actors. His solution was as simple as it was ridiculous. He'd just cover the entire planet in a shell that'll let light through, but will prevent both high intensity radiation* and orbital payloads from hitting any place he doesn't want it to hit.Before you ask, there are regions where he can open holes in the shell to allow legal space travel. He doesn't want to shut the planet in, he just doesn't want anyone to have a free shot at him. It's like the Great Wall of China for the space era. If barbarians come from the Steppes on horseback, you make a wall. If they come from space with gravity, you make a roof. Operation British is not an acceptable threat. *like lasers.....
>>25263189You didn't address the part about the giant army having superweapons.
>>25263376Apparently the concept already exists. It's called a supramundane world; ie a Birch Shellworld.
>>25218478I'm writing a story about ten years in the future where a sickness killed 90% of humanity in like, a week. It's nothing exciting- just sort of a meandering story about a group of teenagers just sort of existing. The issue I have is that I need to figure out how cars and the internet work in this world. Is it possible for just a few people to maintain these kind of infostructures (greatly reduced) in cities for example? Obviously things like transatlantic cables are a lost cause...
I am currently fleshing my world out and decided to write a story set in a sort of antedeluvian vibe, similar to conan or the old testament, with demon magic and cults and obscure magic, but I am facing some issues.I cant of course copy conan and unlike conan, my setting isnt our world in an imagined earlier age, so I cant draw threads from myth.Can I still achieve a similar vibe of a vicious and free land, different peoples fighting for dominance with their own cultures?My magic system is very vague and relies on manipulation, talking to spirits or demons and influencing the elements as well as light and dark, none of that "fireball, magic missile, spell shield" business.What are some elements I could include or how should I tread the different cultures an MC might encounter?
>>25262065>zinc, magnesium, potassium, carbon ect. There's all sorts of stuff in the human bodyThanks! Okay, so what kinds of effects/modifiers could each metal have on necromancy spells, especially elemental ones? Maybe carbon lets one reinforce the bones of undead with a diamond lattice using earth magic, for example?
>>25231965Ask white supremacists.
>>25263655there's not even anyone to keep the lights on anon so no
>>25263655Here's what needs to happen to even remotely have something like that:>massive population contraction>countries with too few people to do that close to big cities basically return to tribal societies>people basically forced into jobs to keep infrastructure running>people present who are adamant to learn and teach skillsHere's how that might look:>people dont know each other, have no connection to each other and need to have a forced ideology/culture to gather around>children born after the fall might be the only ones who have such a connection.>only technology still running is what can be powered by small generators and maintained without integrated circuits>wood carburetors are the only way to keep any gasoline-based stuff working (including generators)>maybe one or two proper power plants per nation kept alive by people who have unionized into a guild-like faction>no new chips of any sort. everything more sophisticated and powerful than a self-made logic circuit is impossible to reproduce>guilds of scrappers and recyclers>people would become somewhat rural again (satellite settlements around large former cities) since without refrigeration and largescale logistics, food needs to be produced close to where it's consumedbasically, think less fallout-style roving gangs and more Amish with generators and clunky cars and bandsaws rebuilt from first principle. Actually, a lot of stuff would be from first principle as people try to recreate still known comforts and technologies on a lower level. I recommend reading the Scarlet Plague for a more realistic depiction. Also look into a project called the "global village construction set" as to what technology could be maintained and how (for a while, as it requires standardized parts)
>>25231918The way different cultures within that race draw from common traits to still be in clinch with each other.Stop writing single-culture races. If your characters ever only interact one culture of that race, have them mention some other culture theyre having issues with. Remember that the persians ended up influencing the spartans to fight other greeks. So there might be wood elves that have no problem working with dwarves to act against the interests of high elves.
>>25264287Yeah, that's basically what I had planned too. This story takes place in the "in-between" generation, where they're just using up resources that still exist. That's why I made so many people die, so fast. There's basically nothing to fight over, because there's so much of it. It's also kind of a commentary (pretty surface level) on why people do things. The world exists the way it does because some people just... didn't know what else to do and went to work the next day anyway, some people gather together in "farms" which evolved into kind of large hippie communes that produce food and weed where people went that didn't want to stay in the cities. And some people, especially the younger ones are just purposeless and party all the time. The main characters are basically just nomads that drift from city to city doing drugs and delivering mail when they feel like it. They were ~10 when the plague hit, so they grew up without direction.This part is just a transitional phase. In another ten, twenty years, the leftover resources will be gone, and infostructure will collapse beyond the ability of so few people to maintain it, etc, but that's not in the story. I just wanted to figure out how they can get their hands on cars that still work, but maybe I should just ignore it?
>>25264421>I just wanted to figure out how they can get their hands on cars that still work, but maybe I should just ignore it?Gasoline has a halflife of like 1-6 months, maybe two years if it is specially treated, it decays back into water. methane haws a halflife of 12 years, methane-driven cars could survive longer if methane can be survived. But as I said: the only way to keep powering combustion engines longterm without refineries is with wood carburetors. People do that now already and they look halfway functional, even if they have horrible efficiency.Maybe the protagonists could be an early form of scrapper guilds and could get their hands on a car like that from a sort of "techno amish" as I described: people living in tightly knit communities as rural food producers for the "techies" from the cities from which they get support, with scrappers forming a link between the two.If there is ANY semblance of modern technology and infrastructure remaining, it's likely in this form in a few select countries on earth.
>>25264461Hm. This is a conundrum. I'll think on this. Maybe I'll lean heavier on the mail thing, with mail curriers having special cars? At this point, the west and east coasts are basically independent from each other, and only a few people travel across the great plains.
>>25264486Have you seen the movie The Postman or read the original novel? it's basically that but less apocalypse-punk and more "founding fathers and civil war philosophy in the future that looks like the past". It's about a mail carrier in a post-apocalyptic USA where nobody knows what exactly is happening in the rest of the world and pretenders come to take the power. I just had to think of it because it sort of fits that way.If you want to write about how civilizations stay together and teenagers find direction, here's an idea:If youths want to earn a living in a world without direction, hiring on as couriers and delivery boys of all sorts and getting their own sanctioned cars is a way that would appeal to teenagers. In old times, carriage drivers would carry passengers and mails by going from stagehouse to stagehouse to get new horses and feed. if you have a wood carburetor car, youd have to hop from village to village to stock up on wood in between, drop off mail and any other deliveries due. Those would be organized by a guild or similar that runs such a business. They could meet many different societies with different ideas about how to live. Those would stay only connected because they deliver the goods demanded of them. No loyalty, only exchange.
>>25264545>>25264486I forgot to mention just now:Wood carborators cars would be very fuel inefficient. Large engines are more fuel efficient than small ones, so equipping a bus or a van with such a technology would be best for running deliveries. Also, lower HP output would mean theyre bad at climbing hills. Maybe you can set the origin of the network in Detroit (fittingly) and extend across the great plains.ALTERNATIVELY, you could just handwave the stuff saying that they use "wood gas diesel" that they collect at each leg of the journey from the communities that agree to be part of the network. those communities could have a primitive machine to turn wood into fuel. Just mention a few times that one of the group goes to get new fuel barrels at every stage. A story like that works best if the issue is sometimes mentioned and only becomes important or crucial once or twice. So dont make it a plotpoint or a mcguffin all the time.
>>25231918The Culture and History of the Race, without a shred of a doubt. The book Shōgun is a great illustration of this. It puts most fantasy novels to shame frankly. Kinda convenient that in the infinite space that is fantasy, the Races are basically Californians wearing a skinsuit.
>>25231918Depends, not everything has to be deep. If the answer is the race itself then you just go for the MMO approach where the race is fascinatingly grotesque or extremely fuckable to make it popular.
Thematically, what source of magic is most appropriate for an urban fantasy setting? I was thinking about genies and powers granted from wishes, since we live in a greedy and envious society.
>>25263962Nascar is culture.
>>25265431Demonic entities granting powers in exchange for payment.Defense comes from paying these powers to protect you or from knowing how limited these entities truly are.Bartimeus did this well.
