Spring Edition Welcome to /wbg/, the official thread for the discussion of in-progress settings for traditional games.Here is where you go to present and develop the details of your worlds such as lore, factions, magic and ecosystems. You can also post maps for your settings, as well as any relevant art (either created by you or used as inspiration for your work). Please remember that dialogue is what keeps the thread alive, so don't be afraid of giving someone feedback!Last Thread: >>92561216Resources for Newfags: https://sites.google.com/view/wbgeneral/Worldbuilding links: https://pastebin.com/JNnj79S5 (embed) (embed)https://cryptpad.fr/pad/#/2/pad/view/Eo+fK41FKVR7xDpbNO0a0N4k0YYxrmyrhX3VxnM14Ew/Fantasy map generator: https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator/wbg/ Discord: https://discord.gg/JCjYYb2E (broken)Thread Questions:>Now that it’s finally spring, how do the people of your setting celebrate its coming, are there any festivals or ceremonies about it?>If so, how did you design said spring holidays and rites, and what inspiration did you take besides Easter?>What entities, be they gods, spirits, or otherwise, are tied to the season either mystically or metaphorically, and how do they affect it or the aforementioned ceremonies? What about plants besides flowers?>Finally, how does spring tie into the magic of the setting?
do women shit or poop in your setting?
>>92643573not on camera
What are some good references for lists of African animals? I went through a fanmade GURPS supplement and just CTRL-F'd, but could do with more.
Desigining the aesthetic style of a major cultural group of goblinsand having FUN
>>92646946>I went through a fanmade GURPS supplement And what is this supplement?
>Spring Edition I actually had related thoughts on the subject, should the woods that elves transform to their liking be eternal spring, summer or autumn?I personally would like to try autumn, but being in decline just doesn't fit with the elves in the next campaign.>>92643573I don't think such details are important for anything.
Are there any "Open Source"/other collaborative formula settings I could plop my fiction into? Most people like to have their shit all to themselves, so they can claim the rights etc. but it usually means all the work fades away, eventually. I'd rather tack on a patch of lore onto a map and have my work contribute to some wider imagining that surpasses just my work. Write for something people might come back to, long after, even if mostly in a footnote form.What should I be looking for? Any particular search terms?
>>92647389Well that definitely reminds me of the babe.
>>92648269Anon's Animal Album: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eKLy3OC8ARNmNHf-JJ5RkVQ9yWIgPpIl/view
I think I've read my fill of European and Asian cultures for worldbuilding ideas. What cool African cultures and civilizations should I read about? I have very little knowledge of them even though they had their own kingdoms and empires.
>>92650593Baganda by John Roscoe: https://archive.org/details/bagandaaccountof00roscuoft . He really goes into detail on everything so it's a great resource.There's a pretty good History of Africa podcast ( https://historyofafricapodcast.blogspot.com/p/seasons.html ) that's covered Aksum, Madagascar/Merina, Ashanti, and the Sokoto.Outside those, the Dahomey, Zulu, Kongo, Imbangala, Mali, and Songhai are interesting/important. The Imbangala are quite possibly the worst culture to ever exist. Maasai and the pygmies are iconic but I haven't read too much about them. The Sanhaja played a decently important role in helping trade between North and West Africa.
>>92650593Wakanda
>>92650631Good stuff, thanks anon!
>>92650593Ancient Egypt obviously. Then there was Carthage, though they were Phoenecian colonizers from West Asia. There were also the Numidians who the Carthaginians would hire as mercenaries known for their cavalry. However the Romans offered them a better deal and turned them into a client state with a bunch of former Carthaginian territory before annexing them.Mali is of course a great example of a medieval african kingdom, one of the most famous tales being that Mansa Musa after having converted to islam (or rather after his father converted and he took the throne) on his pilgrimage to Mecca spent so much on souvenirs paying in gold that he crashed the European gold market, and he was forced to buy back his own gold on his way back in Alexandria. This owing to Mali's huge gold mines and salt mines. However their kingdom fell apart as their borders outpaced their ability to control them, and the Songhai would then take them over. The Kongo had a ton of cool ruins in the Congo basin (that european explorers assumed had been built by a long-lost race of white people), who were big participants in the Slave Trade (one of the big reasons for their collapse) and converted to Catholicism.You should also check out the Kilwa sultanate. Supposedly founded by a Persian king according to myth, they controlled most of the East African coastline, and made a fuckton of money on the Indian Ocean trade, they used Swahili as their trade language but would also use drums to communicate with inland tribal nations when making deals (they didn't trust each-other enough to make the deals face to face).
>>92643308Speaking of Spring, in my setting’s world the deities are each tied to one of the four seasons, essentially creating four sub-pantheons whose power depends on the time of year, like the Winter gods being weakest in Summer and vice versa. I could use some help coming up with domains for each season though. I’ve already got some, like Summer getting Flame, the Sun, and War, Winter getting Water/Ice and the Moon, Fall getting Wind and the Harvest, and Spring getting Earth and Renewal, but what else works? My brain is refusing to cooperate, and I still need at least three or four more for each season, so any ideas you have would be a godsend, pun intended.
>>92650275Thanks, are there any others you know of and would recommend anon?
If you have to design a magic system... fucking how? A bunch of spreadsheets?
>>92643308Kys d*scord cancer.
>>92650593This is also something I've been thinking about.If you think of it, Tolkien seemed to be heavily inspired by Norse Myth specifically.Are there other tropes from other parts of the world which can inspire? I will still have Elves of course, but I need to create 7 realms, and Elves are only native to one of those realms.
>>92656142I just make something and when it comes time to design the gameplay systems for it I'll flesh out the mechanics and maybe add some more lore as needed or desired.
Has anyone developed a setting that integrates an actual D20 into the lore, either as a simple object or as a reality-shaping...thing?
Strange question, but am I correct in assuming that it would basically be impossible to "launder" a large sum of money back in (roughly) medieval times?I have a scene where a jaded mercenary character is convinced to do the right thing only because the greed option wouldn't be feasible, but I'm not sure if that holds any actual weight.
>>92656628Middle-Earth was intended on being a new-age European myth. The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit being the most popular, but he took inspiration from Welsh myth, Celtic cycles, and other tales. Saying he was inspired by Norse myth specifically feels disingenuous, even if he did lift most of the dwarf names from the Voluspa.>>92643308Spring is represented by the fairer of the seelie fae. They take the stage in the production of a cosmic play for a sleeping deity of humanity, interred in a bed-tomb on the moon. Much of the celebration of the mortals mimics the blooming of the flowers and return of the birds, with agoras covered in technicolor-daydream fields of flowers. It's all tinged with the knowledge that the season of magick is coming, when the most mischievous faeries play hell with weather and even the length of days.
>>92647389Those look delightful. What can you tell me about the shell goblins?>>92650156What babe?
>>92649884"/tg/ maeks a steting therd"
But what’s the tax policy of the major powers of your setting?
>>92657545The babe with the power.
>>92654324cool idea, I like it>Summeras an australian I want to say 'death'. concentration of power, consumption? plastic energy, mutation? the mania before the fall? immortality? masculine energy? order and unity?there could be elements that all gods value but interpret differently, of course
>>92643308What are some potential spells for a magic system in which the spells are all tied to a season, particularly Spring magic spells besides growing flowers or controlling bees or other spring critters?
>>92656656Okay, so what have you made so far then?
Maps from the planar reals are written in a circular fashion, intended to be spun on a pivot when viewed. North and south are more equivalent to forwards and back rather than up/down. They also have information inscribed along the rim, like the name of the region depicted and the coordinates.That is all.
>>92659518Thanks!I've never been to Australia, are summers there really that bad? I mean, I've heard of all the deadly creatures that call the continent home, like spiders and shit, but what makes the summers particularly bad besides them, is it just that hot?The other ideas are mostly great, thanks, but I'm a little confused on what you mean by "plastic energy". Your logic for the Summer pantheon having Death 'and' Immortality also escapes me, but again, these are mostly great ideas, and if you have any more for the other seasonal pantheons I'd love to hear them.So, you're saying that each seasonal god group could have, say, a god of Death, but each a different aspect of Death, that kind of thing. Like, Winter might have a god that takes those who die of old age, Spring those who die young, etc. That kind of thing. Cool idea.
>>92647389snailhide goblin makes me incredibly horny, imagining it gobbling my gook while the little leather flap obfuscates its lithe limpledorp schlorpening around my gonads.
>>92643308What would be some good fantasy names for mutations that allow the wielder to use fantastical abilities?Colloquially the term in my setting is "mutations" but I wanted a more technical term. I liked Bloodline Limit from Naruto a little, but I also think it's not quite the right term, as I am not a fan of the "limit" part.
>>92649238>hould the woods that elves transform to their liking be eternal spring, summer or autumn?free opinion: If it's a "magic forest of the magic elves", it could be a season based on the health of the forest/its people. spring/summer when all is good, autumn when things feel "dry" or "weak", and winter when everyone is dying and a party of mighty adventurers is needed to fix the issue asap
So I have a character for a setting that can earthbend and uses wolf teeth clubs for itthe thing is, the spikes seem like they'd snap off or would get dulled considerably from being used to hit rock like this earthbending soldier: https://youtu.be/-gTLXJYWXOo?t=86I wanted the weapon to identifiably be a wolf tooth's club and not something like a kanabo with it's blunt studs. I'm wondering if there's a way to have the spikes smashing into rocks without them being damaged by it.
>>92643308I’m actually trying to come up with some fantasy spring holidays myself, but besides copying Easter the only thing I can think of is a Groundhog Day parody, so I could use some help.
>>92663906Magic. Or you can have it be rectangular in shape and have two sides with teeth and two sides flat, something like a macuahuitl.
>>92663906>>92664631Or just make the maintenance part of their life.
>>92660575I was totally free-associating off my own nonse internal logic lol. you should do whatever you come up with that makes sense to you!>plastic energymutable energy, not locked in any particular form. the air crackles with heat and things burn and transform. heat and energy are only one part of summer, but they're an important one. the world at large deflects summer's glare; it regulates itself, wind and bodies of water. but past a certain threshold, living things sizzle and split and die, and carcasses steam on baked earth. forests sway in the sun before, imperceptibly and suddenly, kindling gives way and they vaporise in the smoke of a forest fire.partly it's just a creative charactersation of summer's 'vibe'; plastic, lurid, destructive, mutant, nasty, manic; maybe, again, mad max vibes are influencing me lol.when I think summer, I'm thinking heat, but also it's relation to an overall ecosystem and yearly cycle, and the way humans live in and/or celebrate it. so more than just a god of fire or warmth, a summer god to me might be (partly) the god of the transformative stress applied to that ecosystem. it's an extreme held in check. so, that god or it's worship might manifest in a way that sanctified that combative relationship, OR it might deify a 'perfect' unchecked summer; an impossible (or at least impossible to live in) realm of fire, plasma, anarchy and collapse. it could really go a million way as to how your setting's cultures interpret any of this, but I'd think maybe summer would be associated with unbound magic and seismic change. hence, plastic, fluid and dangerous energy as one aspect.>is it just that hot?I'm sure there are worse places but it gets really hot. I actually feel physical discomfort at the UV damaging my skin when I go outside, so I try not to in summer. it's oppressive, sickly-bright, especially if you live near a lot of concrete. the sun is worse than the creatures if you live in a semi-developed area
>>92657431Money as in a some kind of state-backed note/whatnot without any actual value or as in something like a coin whose stated value roughly matches the actual value of the material it is made of? If the latter then you wouldn't need to launder it. If the former then given the relative lack of omniscience of the state back then in comparison with today I doubt you'd even have to worry yourself with something like that. That being said the easiest approach seems to me to be to use the money to buy up land from some hard-pressed noble and then sell the land to someone else at a discount. Another approach would be to "invest" in merchant ships and trade caravans.
>>92663952Depends on the culture, but spring equinox is easy enough. Spring is generally time for fertility and mating festivals. Natural occurrences involving the thaw, predictable flower blooms or early crops, things of that nature are pretty normal. Or just make up historical/religious events to celebrate.
>>92664922Yeah, even with the ideas I like I'm going to put my own spin on them, but I still appreciate any ideas you can or have already given me.Okay, thanks for clarifying what you meant there. I was completely stumped trying to figure that out. What about the other seasons, particularly Spring, do you have any similar associations for them akin to what you've described Summer's "vibe" as being? Like how I see Spring as a time of renewal, new growth, and life returning to what once was barren.Noted if I ever go there, thanks. Speaking of that and what I mentioned above, what are the other seasons like there?
Okay. So I'm building a setting. Elf / druidy forest kingdom with some humans (human, wood elf, some kind of art & magic elf (maybe Warcraft blood elf or FR sun or star elf - haven't picked a statblock yet), woodlings (MM3), faun, korred, centaur, maybe vulpinal, MAYBE a small treefolk) has (undecided of method/route yet) travelled to and made a landing colony on a foreign plane (coming out in a weird dark alien forest), with seemingly no civilisation, just weird monsters and animals they've never seen before.A short time later, PCs are settlers on the second wave. They should have a reason to stay (unsure what yet) but there should be merchants bringing goods to and from home, but it should be inconvenient and somewhat dangerous and slow or intermittent. Anything the colony can't make they'll have to pay through the nose for.The new colony will have factions and religions and guilds from the old world trying to get established in the new one, albeit informally. Everyone will be colonists first and tied to their old factions second, at least until it grows.I'm picturing a campaign / gameplay loop about developing the settlement, solving town problems, finding supplies & materials in the wilderness for town or taking on jobs from townsfolk, maybe some monster taming / ranching. Exploration and townfolk settler stuff, and of course encountering weird flora and fauna.After they're established I have the start of four enemy-ish factions to introduce on the new world, some of which should be allyable with effort.Anyways. Besides churches, what would be some good interest groups to include from such an old druidy-skewing elf kingdom, who might have an interest in a colony on a new world?Random aside: in a more conventional fantasy world with adventurers, fortified inns along roads make sense. This video was some cool world building stuff. https://youtu.be/QkZhWT3DswQ?Any inspiring world building ideas you've come across? Written or video, either is fine.
>>92656142Spreadsheets and a power design ruleset like the ones for GURPS or HERO are one way. Eggplant (a blogger) made a bunch of variant magic systems that all share a single pool of spells built as powers for GURPS.You could make something more freeform and eyeball it. D&D editions up to 3rd and PF1 come with various subsystems for researching / pricing new spells, but redesigning the underlying framework I don't think they have a process for.Failing that, I would say write down your ideas, rough out some mechanics (and yeah use some spreadsheets) and then play test it to see how it feels. The first draft will probably suck. So you want to play test it RAW and your goal is to make notes of how its broken for iteration. But that's just the videogame design process.
>>92661236You should go fap before posting.
>>92667162>I'm going to put my own spin on themofc! just noting that I'm not remotely attempting to be impartial loluh yeah, I wrote a whole thing but got distracted and forgot where I put it. (I'd add that while I kinda characterised summer as dangerous and unruly, like a foreign tyrant, I can also seeing it being more of a semi-heroic underdog agitator, with some ares/hermes/dionysus inspiration)Spring I would probably play really straight, the associations with femininity, youth, renewal, creatures great and small, and pagan antiquity. first makes me think of pastoral mystery faiths and that's fun territory so I'd just go with that. maybe a lot of variety in how it's interpreted between cultures, and the way different social stations, traditions and cults are able to commune with it. I can imagine some interesting relationships with folk heroes or animalistic minor gods who naturally intrude on Spring's divine territory.I'm imagining Autumn would be more about maturity, interdependence, craft and guidance, while Spring is more about the youthful forging of new relationships. the central idea is the life that contracted in winter unfurling. I'd probably give Spring associations with romantic courtship, knights, muses - the power of art, vows and personal relationships, before an unknown horizon, where Autumn is more about wrapping things up. Spring would be the god of foolishness and experimentation. I think it also makes sense for it to have a savage, over-enthusiastic side. Spring really makes me think of a journey from the inner to the outer. underworld themes come to mind too given the proximity to greek underworld myths, but I could also see those duties being split with the other seasonsI imagine spring being a god with a lot of incarnations in it's imagery, and unstable cultsidk does that help?spring is nice. our weather is pretty erratic, you still get crazy hot days sometimes, but spring is prob my fav season
>>92666673Before state backed notes IIRC there were bank backed notes you could transfer to another bank. It would be difficult to fake that record checking process unless you have an inside man though.
>>92647926Historically speaking it was a common misconception that eating animal testicles would raise your testosterone to make you as strong as certain animals. Do you think that kind of psudo-science would exist in a fantasy world? Like, if a human saw an orc what cockamamy schemes would they concoct to gain Orcish strength?
>>92658303The tax policy's 1 completed novel per season.Get to writing, fat man.
>>92667377Don't worry, we've all done things like that, and I totally get where you're coming from with the lack of impartiality tooOkay, this is all great stuff I can use as the basis for the domains for my seasonal pantheons, especially Spring being associated with knights, thanks! I'm a little tired, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but did you mention Winter in any detail? Because I'd love to hear about that too!
>>92667931yes but I feel it's not that helpful in isolation lol. is there another concept to your setting? if you just wanted a general impression of what you might associate with each season, there's a ton of great material online, look up how they're depicted in folk songs and famous poetry or see if there are other games that used them heavily in their pantheons or magic systems.I feel like it'd be more useful to discuss how to actually implement the gods in your setting, and/or which of those possible associations are most engaging (both to us and to the NPCs in your setting who worship them)
I'm trying to come up with an explanation for humans being the common race in a world where more powerful races like elves and demons exist.I want to blame this on the concentration of magical power. Beings with more mana have poor fertility rates and a female skewed sex ratio. Humans have smaller mana pools so they out fuck every race.
>>92667400Wouldn't the same process as I stated above work here aswell, or would the banks in this scenario demand a transcript of every private sale of their banknotes? That hardly seems feasible to me unless the notes are more like a receipt of valuables held by the bank in which case it wouldn't really be money. >unless you have an inside manThat wouldn't work in such a scenario either since it would be easy to trace it back to whatever inside man they had by checking the record of transactions.
>>92668126Well, I was thinking that the seasons would be the axis of the setting, everything being tied to a season on a mystical level, if that helps. Also, like I said earlier, the gods of each season are strongest during said season and weakest in its opposite, and I was thinking that many temples would serve a different god during each season on a fixed rotation if that makes sense. I would still love to hear any more ideas you have for the Winter gods and their domains though. Like, does Time make sense for Winter, since the changing of the old year to the new one happens in winter, or would you put other domains for Winter and make Time something that all the seasonal pantheons share in a different form like the Death idea a few posts ago?
>>92669905Yeah, most if the transaction would be bank to bank, I don't imagine you *could* privately sell them.>they'd catch the inside man.Probably. I did say it was unlikely to work.
>>92670331>>92670331>most if the transaction would be bank to bank, I don't imagine you *could* privately sell them.Wouldn't that leave it outside of the question of money laundering then or am I missing something?
>>92657431The IRS didn't exist in the middle ages. IE- the IRS doesn't need to know why you are suddenly incredibly wealthy.
>>92670994The 2002 "catch me if you can" film makes me think it would be possible (if difficult) to use a series if scams and fake documents to cheat a bank dependent on paper records, at least for a while.
>>92670233well, the whole thing has got me thinking about a setting I was tinkering with (though I hadn't worked on the religion + cosmology much) where the seasons are major gods. >many temples serve a different god each seasonyour idea of seasonal gods is kinda messy... which hopefully makes it interesting and ripe for development lol. I'm curious how you might characterise this! is this humans being opportunistic and unfaithful? appeasing fickle gods in equally fickle manner? are there some sects that resent the rotating temples, instead either worshipping one gods' aspects, or dividing worship by some other logic? are the gods harmonious in their passing influence, or is each trying to expand their domain over the others? are the seasons elemental features of reality? could there be, or were there, other seasons/gods? do the aspects of reality they touch also get stronger in their season?is your world flat and/or allegorical-mythological in it's cosmos, or is it based on irl seasons, with seasons occupying different parts of the globe?are the seasons like animist nature gods, or more like personified rulers of their season?>does time make sense?I'd say 'time' is a very abstract and unclear concept so I wouldn't really make it a core part of any of them desu! I literally don't know what time is. timekeeping is a thing we do. I'd probably make memory a feature of all of them in some form, but most obviously important to autumn and winter.>winterI'd make winter cold, quiet, depths, failure of language, interiority, rituals, lack of differentiation, indifference to humanity, ungoverned spaces. cruel but honest, with great potential for enlightenment. representing the underlying direction of the world, and intuition. a force also associated with the safeguarding of life through it's limitedness and frailness. rewarding robustness beneath the surface and preparation. maybe also governing the painful passage between the known and the unknown
>>92650631You were not kidding, the Imbangala were crazy. Cannibalism, normalized infanticide and casual slave trade with Portuguese. Nuts.
>>92643308Me and a group of friends were going to run a HEX campaign last year but it fell through because we couldn't all get our schedules lined up. I wasn't the GM but I went through the books since and it inspired me to work on my own setting inspired by it. I love old pulp explorer and adventurer kind of stories, and also the whole Noble Savage Tarzan aesthetic so it's basically just big goulash with all the tropes and ideas I like tossed in, I'm not even worrying about any kind of ultra autistic realism or anything, it's just a big prehistoric adventureland full of monsters and magic and all of that and everything is the way it is solely because I think it's cool.It's really rough and basically just notes I've been jotting down and haphazardly slapping together when I feel like it, but I'm having fun with it.I got Atlantis, I got El Dorado, I got dinosaurs and giant bugs and insane cannibals that worship an Eldritch god, I got sea monsters and a bunch of primitive tribal groups I plop down wherever I feel like it and so on and so on. It's weirdly liberating just making up your own world with your own rules.
>>92643308>>92672754ok, I'm tinkering with this setting I mentioned some more and (still in gestation but) I wanted try doing a real 'classic fantasy' setting with a half-familiar but half-fresh feel, retro-inspired, and I thought gods of seasons and mystery cults fit well with that.going for like, bronze age fantasy with ruined civilisations, a bit of ecological-industrial fable and pastoral mystery fantasy, but then also some more modern and bohemian social sensibilities. that probably doesn't make sense outside of my own head yet lol.really leaving it mostly undefined and thinking hard about presenting the few elements I do want to put upfront cleanly.I'm still working on the cosmology and overall how much of the world I want to develop in writing (probably not a ton). otoh I'd like to do something different to just reproducing european fantasy, but what I'm riffing on genre-wise *is* european fantasy and I'm a westerner; trying to deviate too pointedly from that just doesn't work and is dishonest lol. the whole vibe I'm going for is a land that's clearly fantasy in tone, but not limited to myopic caricature of western fantasy, a little more open-minded, and a bit dreamy or fable-like. that means some openness in the cosmology to foreign influences or to multiple interpretations of the world. some references in mind are mythic poetry, childrens' books, the overly sincere way tolkien characters talk, earthsea and other fantasy that deviates from bog standard perspectives. and like a touch of amber or never-ending story.this is a setting about fantasy adventure in the vein of d&d, but generally smaller scale, and a *little* bit more romantic, a little more invested in social conflict, mysteries and problem solving. thinking about fantasy fixtures like taverns and temples, celebration and intrigue.I have some ideas about central themes and metaplot but I don't want to define it strongly bc I don't like being didactic
>>92674483for races I'm thinking humans and elves are definitely in. I guess I'll hammer out in more detail when I flesh out the world and cosmology. I'm not really sure how to fit dwarves into what I'm thinking... I don't really have strong feelings about the role they'd play in the world and mythos but they're fun to play and classic so I'm unsure if they have a place or not. maybe they could be a small population of wandering jack-of-all-trades blacksmith/teacher types? I want to keep it a tight cast but I think some slightly left-field humanoid choices like merfolk, catfolk, nymphs or monsterpeople could b cool; going for like a naive early fantasy feelI really love doing stuff with different magical and spiritual traditions so I might try to get into that. druids, clerics + witches? I'm thinking subtler magic, generally, than dnd. a *little* more like tolkien, with flashy displays being rare; there's great power in the world but it has to move in certain ways.I really liked the idea of seasonal gods bc it speaks to a more naive kind of fantasy that seems really fun. I'm not sure if they should have aspects, if they should be prime, if there should be any other gods?having them be animistic elemental gods major, with minor gods being mountains and rivers and stuff, seems like one fun option. but also they could just be one pantheon or segment; much like greek mythology having the olympian and cthonic gods? I can imagine day and night, or sky and sea, being major competitors.might have to get more into the philosophy to really explain, but I'm thinking of summer, winter, autumn and spring as imperfect deifications of the natural rhythms that enshroud and articulate the world, maybe with day and night as lesser or allegorical messenger/instrument gods. still feels a bit weird to me. I might go w the idea that each god has multiple aspects/interpretations, but the seasons are consistent themes.
>>92657545They herd snails for meat, skin, and shells, slime (the slime is used to make candy), get into horrible blood feuds frequently, and raise moss and mushrooms as crops in a big mountain sized castle.>>92661236Thanks, I think.
>>92643308>Now that it’s finally spring, how do the people of your setting celebrate its coming, are there any festivals or ceremonies about it?Yes! There are fertility festivals held in the great Holds (and the cities below) involving olympic style games that vary according to the hold’s traditions / location. In addition there is a huge celebration held in the capital full of races and sport and free food / booze. This all climaxes with the highland and lowland holds renewing the ‘marriage’ that keeps the confederacy together and ultimately a fantastical passion play where their respective folk heroes united for the first time to swindle Winter into leaving the earth for 3 seasons out of the year.>If so, how did you design said spring holidays and rites, and what inspiration did you take besides Easter?It’s explicitly not easter based nor even very religious. It’s much more of a combo of comfy Northern European solstice stuff, hellenic games, and aztec festivals.>What entities, be they gods, spirits, or otherwise, are tied to the season either mystically or metaphorically, and how do they affect it or the aforementioned ceremonies? What about plants besides flowers?Satyrs and She-Satyrs, hibernate in winter and Harpies migrate seasonally like geese. Amusingly, the Harpies abandon the male (flightless) Demi-Harps when they do this, so for some of them Spring marks the end of their seasonal ‘bachelor party’>Finally, how does spring tie into the magic of the setting?Subtly. Magic is at its zenith in summer and is nearly dead in winter. To the point where mages often ‘take the winter off’ from study or otherwise spend the time making preparations for spring.
>>92667287Nobody has any suggestions for me?
>>92647389I like the snail goblins.>>92658303Memes aside it’s not that difficult.My setting has a pretty simple one.Each hold is responsible for raising a certain amount per season for the common trust. The central government gives zero fucks how the holds raise this money.In practice the holds usually end up going one of two routes:>A relatively simple to enforce flat tax to hit goal, with options for labor, goods, or food rather than currency.Or>A network of tax farmers who each compete for their posts and try to overshoot quota and get kickbacks off whatever they gather extraMethod 1 tends to be stable and comparatively popular while Method 2 tends to lead to surplus and is easier to execute for the powers that be since they’re outsourcing the hard part.
>>92667287>>92676692Those fortified inns make perfect sense. Like Caravansaray.My suggestion with your colonial setting depends somewhat on what life is like in the ‘normal’ world. Who are the power brokers in the kingdom?It’s obvious that the Crown and Druids will have an interest in it. Agreed.But whatever the middle powers are (bourgeoisie? Guilds? Scholars? Enterprising Nobles?) will likely have some try to get some sort of advantage or wealth out of it.Finally, colonies tend to attract minorities, outcasts, people who fucked up their lives, people down on their luck, people who are overlooked (6th sons, ugly people, flavor to taste based on your setting).Basically anyone who either doesn’t have much to lose or thinks there’s a chance to strike it big could be motivated enough to go out and cross the spooky planar barrier.
>>92675768I like your little illustrations, it's cool>>92676639I love the sound of your setting! esp. the sense of place and of a shared culture>magic is nearly dead in winterbold choice but interesting>>92667287>>92676692interesting idea! to me it seems that unless there are special resources in this new region, two types of people/factions would be interested; those desperate or unwanted back home (and depending how your society works that could be something lie a disgraced family clan, a social movement or even a neighborhood that happens to be down on their luck and also happen to all have similar political/commercial ties, but it could also just be 'the poor' or 'the afflicted' in general), and the other type would be people who *have* resources but no space to invest them back home, whether because of law, bad circumstances or ill will back home, or just having no space to penetrate the dense social fabric. wild stab but these could be things like a waning druidic sect, nobles with family troubles... and of course, those seeking to profiteer from the whole endeavour - from the caravans, the freshly arrived people, the unstable social fabric.other things like craft guilds might have to be incentivised to send their people
>>92676771I'm thinking the elves, arranged into houses a bit like Heian Uji, and everyone is part of a "noble house" of some kind or another, but if you're ever read the Elminster in Myth Drannor novel, a council of squabbling nobles whose houses are responsible for different sectors of government is what I'm imagining for the basic society. Nobody, elected, appointed by the previous holder of the position, unless they fuck up so badly they resign in shame, or the Coronal (or some Coronal equivalent) ousts them. I'm picturing the Coronal as a line of emperors, rather than elected by magic morality-screening-swords.Nonelves are mostly not in the major positions of authority, and humans are at the bottom of the totem pole. Not mistreated, but also not trusted with a lot of responsibility due to their impulsiveness and short lifespans. And while occasionally they might get a station win, an elf who gets a position likely keeps it for 15-20 human generations. Unless the Human is transmuted into a longer lifespan or reincarnated (The savage species rituals are available, if expensive), humans just won't have the lifespan required to hold onto real power for long. So, maybe a lot of more ambitious humans would join the expedition. I don't know how they're going to be organised yet, but I'm leaning towards their ancestors having been driven out after losing a war, and getting sanctuary from the elves. Ostensibly they would belong to elven clans too, though with lower station. Maybe they are more focused on trade and merchant and arcane guilds for better opportunities? Wizardry would offer a path to longevity without the equivalent of being knighted and uplifted into lower ranks of the nobility.Woodlings, could be uplifted humans and their descendants.The others I mentioned... I dunno yet.I'll need to think up those outcasts.
>>92676885There will be special resources to be discovered, but I'm going to start the campaign before the subsequent gold rush sets in, with PCs as one of the earlier waves of explorers.
>>92672754For the question about the harmoniousness of the transfer, I was thinking that it'd be a little of column A, a little of B. That is, they accept they have to cycle, and cannot stop it any more than a human could stop the seasons, but sometimes they make things a little more difficult for the god moving into the new temple if they're ticked at them for some reason. Nothing too drastic, they want the temple to be intact when they get it back, after all. What so you think?I guess that makes sense now that I think of it. Although the keeping and tracking of time might work for a Winter god instead now that I think about it, thanks! Now if only I could think of a different domain or two that could have a god for different aspects in each season besides Death and/or Life.Nice, thanks for the suggestions!>>92674483Glad that I could help inspire you, or at least get you motivated to come up with some new ideas! Kind of fitting that we helped each other that way.You might want to take a look at Exalted if you want some inspiration. Just a suggestion.>>92674973As for dwarves, maybe you could do something like WoW and have them be a race of stone beings that became flesh and blood over time? These god ideas are all interesting, I'd love to hear more about the "animistic elemental gods" approach, if just to make sure that I understand what you mean correctly.
>>92677591>the transferthat makes sense! they maybe can't stop it but also, unless I've misunderstood, they ARE the seasons - they don't change with the seasons. they themselves are doing the dance. it might be beyond the scope of your lore, but there must be a reason they keep doing it. maybe it's more like they can't stop the changing of the seasons anymore than a human can stop eating and drinking.>temple I was also just wondering if the gods were jealous. why are you redecorating MY temple for spring? you should wait faithfully for next winter instead...where do the gods go off-season? are they still present?>domainsdo you mean domains that would be shared by all the seasons? good fortune when dealing with natural forces - farming, hunting, weather - would be an everpresent concern of worship. something like fate, or time construed as fate, and natural/cosmic order, things lining up the right way, could be a duty they all share (and historically natural/cosmic order was often associated/conflated with mortal justice, order and rulership). magic could be something they all govern in different ways, if the seasons are the axis of reality and magic is a way of harnessing that. air, wind and the ether/sky/space/stars? - the seasons are oft represented in the wind, and gods in general are oft represented in the sky. ooh, conflict in general is a super important domain - not just open war, but coercion, negotiation, making peace, subterfuge, ritual conflict.>exaltedhm, ok, thanks. looks very different to what I'm going for but it also does seem new!>dwarveshm. I think I'm just lacking any vision for what dwarves are supposed to be myself. I definitely want to make them more, not less human, but preserve the essential racial dynamics. I was just never a dwarf person lol, they're classic but they so much tend to hew to one archetype. so I'm trying to think how to strike the right tone with them, keep their dwarfiness but make it accessible
>>92663776any advice here?I came up with>Bloodline Abilities>Bloodline Powers>Bloodline SkillsBut they feel a bit too literal
>>92679595I’m a big fan of ‘manifestations’ for people who are pro-mutant and ‘aberrations’ for people who are anti-mutant.Just my 2 cents.
>>92679595>>92679743You can go beyond and call them "blessings" or "sickness". If you're going with blood as a theme, assuming it comes from their heritage, you could do "blood boon" or "blood curse" and other variations from there.
>>92677865Thinking about it, I may have been subconsciously inspired the Discworld book Wintersmith, if just a little bit. Have you ever read those books? They're funny and like turning fantasy tropes on their heads, with the magic usually being more subtle (the witches use mind games just as much or even more than magic, for instance), so you might find some ideas for your own stuff there. Like the Disc's dwarves (I can tell you more if you don't mind spoilers).Yeah, they can sometimes resist for a little longer, hence why sometimes you get wintery weather in spring, ect., but it's like trying to hold one's breath, you have to take a gulp of air eventually.I was thinking that the gods of each season would have a realm that's always at the peak of their season and that they dwell there when not ushering in, ruling over, or cleaning up their seasons. They can still venture out into the world, particularly in mortal form, but the further away the next season of theirs, say Winter, is, the weaker they are and the more it strains them, with the Winter gods being weakest in Summer like I said.Yeah, I was thinking domains that could be shared, or split among them with each one having a different aspect, yeah. Thanks for the ideas! I'd love to hear more about your ideas on the magic.Well, it was the first example I could think of for a fantasy setting that strays further away from the classic medieval fantasy tropes, but don't worry, even if you don't like it after checking it out I'm sure that I can suggest some others for you.What if the dwarves were originally a human culture that split off and eventually developed enough to become a new race, but almost no one remembers this?
>>92675768you are welcome. i will coomtribute in a second. this has inspired me greatly. goblinas. they can catch my slime anytime. hnnggggggghhhh.also for worldbuilding here's a fantasy recipe for one of the slime candies:Elderwhisker Candy.Ingredients:1 cup fresh Slime Syrup (see below)2 cups pounded sugarcane juicePinch of powdered slime (may be swapped out for powdered sugar in a pinch)1/2 cup of grated root of man (substitute with protein-rich, thick liquids, like goat's blood)Steps:Hunt down a Common Slime. Once it has popped, collect the gelatinous outer barrier and hang out to dry in the sun for 1-2 days. Once it becomes translucent and glossy, crush into a fine powder. Set aside a cup of the powdered slime, and add the remainder to a pot, along with a gallon of drinking water. Set the pot over the dwindling coals of a campfire, stirring constantly. Once you can drag a stirring-bone along the bottom of the pot without the mixture filling in, dump in the juices of one whole sugarcane. Stir constantly until it forms a thick, shimmering syrup. Dip a clean branch of thornwhip into the mixture, and spin the branch between your palms to form the long strands of elderwhisker candy. Make sure to drop them into the powdered slime to maintain their shape. Serve on it's own, or use as a binder for nuts and dried berries.
>>92675768as portented
>>92687035>>92685146Based beyond belief
>>92680269>>92680269I love Discworld, especially the lancre witches. haven't read that one though! maybe I should reread or look into that setting more, I do want some lightheartedness in my settingall your ideas make sense! it's about intent in the end. it sounds like you're going for the classic kind of set up where the gods have stakes in the world, and occasionally get into real conflict, but are mostly settled in their ways.>ideas on magicreally not sure yet lol, the core of the setting is still in gestation. some touchstones would be the apocalyptic consequences of magic and industry in mtg's dominaria, the subtler magic of settings like discworld('s witches) or earthsea, and lotr's magic - not often overt or flashy but in beings' presences and connections.>dwarvesmm, it's not really getting at the thing I'm having trouble with which is, what role do dwarves serve in the setting and as characters? humans are the audience perspective race - with all the variety that entails, but generally they play the fool and are near the center of the story, they're quick to decide what they belong to and quick to be proven wrong. elves are the tragically sensitive old guard who are hard to cooperate with or make sense of, and both fascinate and annoy most people.classic dwarves are fine but 'inscrutable, traditional monoculture' doesn't work for my setting. I want to soften them a bit without turning them into human-lite. I'm not personally a fan of dwarves as sidekicks to humanity.I'm leaning towards dwarves being *individually* different to humans - probably being self-possessed survivors with a kinda autistic love for craft, metallurgy and certain natural elements - and with their own little social structures, but not insular from humans. like elves, they walk that line between 'human' and 'other'. I have some ideas about how race and culture work, and how different races might experience things like memory and space.
Name autist here.I want to know how anon feel about creating character with the same name.Is it special/have meaning?For example, i use ivan when i too lazy to fin a name.Until, i found out that i have 73 of ivans on my stories.
https://www.noteflight.com/scores/view/063dd505024a0aaceff3d062d9618bd920cbec64So I wrote a national anthem for a kingdom in my setting.I need some help making it rhyme though. I got the first two lines of the chorus to rhyme, and I suppose the last line doesn't need to rhyme with anything else, but the first four lines don't rhyme together.I really want to preserve that feeling of "take up arms, we need to drive out the undead!" Any help? Also how does the song sound? I sort of made it a mixture of Kazakhstan's, Romania's, and another national anthem someone else made for their setting.
How do I integrate combat and stuff into an Academic setting? The story is set in a magical school for magic, and I want the students to blow some things up.
>>92690243I did "forest with creatures" and "lake with creatures" for mine back in the day
>>92690262Wdym?
>>92690243To give 2 examples from english literature, the forbidden forest and the hogwartz lake from harry potter. Forest is filled with big hungry and intelligent spiders, unicorns, flying, an "hill giant" and an tribe of centaurs that´s into astrology and horoscopes and the lake houses an entire tribe of mermen.
>>92690412But students aren't allowed there.
>>92688853I'm with the grr-man on that, including multiple character with the same name resulting in the need for a secondary discriptor to identify who is who lends realism to the story.
>>92690243Academia and dueling go hand in hand.
>>92690243What if it's an academy to train soldiers? Or if fighting is an essential part of the economy?
>>92656142>fucking how? ...You just do it?>A bunch of spreadsheets?Huh? For what?
>>92658303>But what’s the tax policy of the major powers of your setting?>Power 1Tax only businesses (including churches and criminal syndicates), thus making them responsible for collecting from the peasants via price increases, directing the people's resentment toward the merchant class instead of the government. >Power 2Employ large amounts of bureaucrats and oracles to predict and track the productivity of every individual farm to an exacting degree, planning the yearly budget around that. Shortfalls are taken out on the serfs.>Power 3Tithe whatever you think is fair to the person above you in the hierarchy, and if he disagrees, he will personally come to your house/castle and cave your fucking skull in. Typically, lords in this system will have an income commensurate with the size of the skulls they use to decorate their castles.
How would you distinguish Dwarf/Gnome hybrids?
>>92692362Stocky beardless manlets with regular sized feet?
What's good tool for making timelines?
>>92692473Unironically excel.
>>92692473King lists.
>>92692362from what
>>92692779From Dwarfs and Gnomes, duh
>>92647389Kickass art, all look like they'd be at home in medieval marginalia.>>92649238Given seelie/unseelie jockeying common to most settings any attempt to arrest the natural cycle would be an aberration. At best it would result in the sort of "day inside year outside" fuckery associated with folklore imo. Recall that autumn is a time of harvest and plenty, all the more so for gathering supplies to face the oncoming winter.>>92650593Don't know much about them but Madagascar's interesting. Plugged into the Indian ocean trade network and as settled by Malays as Africans. There's also the nonsense land bridge of Lemuria from back when taxonomists hadn't into plate tectonics. Ranavalona's very easy to reskin as a witch-queen too what with being a totalitarian intent on restoring the indigenous totemic faith by brutal means and working a chunk of the population to death in corvee labour run months long hunt (mass ritual sacrifice anyone?).>>92658303Potlatch one-upmanship, hazardous corvee labour quotas and tithes to the temples (meritous acts are tax-deductible). Yours?
>>92689959Any feedback?
>>92688395Almost missed this! Yeah, it's been a while for me too, but I still like the books a lot. GNU Terry Pratchett.That's basically what I was thinking, yeah. I was also thinking that the gods lean towards benevolence, but can occasionally cause issues for mortal life. Like, when someone gets frostbite in winter weather, or heatstroke in the summer, it's not out of deliberate malice, it's just because that's what 'happens' in that kind of weather if you're not careful. For a different metaphor, tying into summer, when a wildfire starts because of the summer heat and burns a large chunk of forest down, it's not evil, but a natural result of the circumstances. Get what I mean?Any thoughts on animals/mythical creatures that I can associate with each season/have the gods take the form of, by the way? There's some obvious ones, like Polar Bears and other arctic creatures for Winter, and tropical creatures for Summer, but Spring and Fall are a bit harder, my best idea for the latter is Turkeys, and for the former maybe Deer.Okay, thanks for clarifying what you mean with dwarves. I'll try to come up with some more ideas for you. To start, how about making different beard styles and the like between dwarven groups/clans to make it clearer that they not all exactly alike?
>>92692362Well, what would you call them, assuming that you want them to be something distinct from Hobbits and Halflings?
>>92692504>Unironically excel.Why Excel specifically?
>>92687035Blog?
>>92695091>Well, what would you call themGnome/Dwarf hybrids, presumably dwarves might call them half gnomes, and gnomes vice-versa>you want them to be something distinct from Hobbits and Halflings?The only thing Halflings, Gnomes, and Dwarves have in common necessarily is their size, they're as different as humans and elves are.
>>92691572You mean among the lines of "kill monsters in dungeons to get rare shit and monster parts"?
>>92695649Yeah, why not?
>>92674973I’m working on some elemental gods for my own setting, so I would love to hear more about these animistic elemental gods you mentioned.
>>92643308fix your discord link
>>92699127No.
>>92699127>>92700048Then just remove it.Why do we even have one? So schizos can go complain we are actually just another discord cult?
New thread.>>92704218
>>92643308Bump
>>92704226you fucking clown
Drew some goblin jobs. Joblins if you will. I think I have a pretty good idea of what the typical dress of male and female goblins of this group is like now.>>92687035I'm flattered by your very chaste fan art anon, thank you.
>>92699127Why is it broken in the first place?
What kind of magic would a Chinese wizard specialize in?
>>92708224Internal alchemy.
>hmmm, I need a name for this one goddess, what should I pick?>she's a goddess of moon and night, and is he protector of nightly travellers>hmmmm>ah, yes, "Luna">anon, you sly dog, you did it again
>>92708284>Hmmm, this is a terrible place full of darkness and evil>I've got it>The Darklands.
>>92691800>for whatNTA, but I would imagine it's for balancing the spells against each other and running damage calculations and shit.
https://www.exceldemy.com/create-a-flowchart-in-excel/
https://www.exceldemy.com/create-a-flowchart-in-excel/Whoops>>92695196
