It’s All Greek To Me 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 or post whatever relevant input you might have!Last Thread: >>93826727Resources for Newfags: https://sites.google.com/view/wbgeneral/Worldbuilding links: https://pastebin.com/JNnj79S5https://cryptpad.fr/pad/#/2/pad/view/Eo+fK41FKVR7xDpbNO0a0N4k0YYxrmyrhX3VxnM14Ew/Fantasy map generator: https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generatorThread questions:>Are there elements in your setting (armor, weapons, monsters, etc.) that were inspired by the Greco-Roman world, and what are they if so?>Why did you look at the Greeks and/or Romans first inspiration, what makes them so iconic?>If Greek and Roman nations and cultures exist simultaneously in your setting,how do they interact, and how do you justify the anachronisms?>Do any other ancient cultures or mythologies captivate you more than the Greeks and/or Romans do, and if yes, why do you prefer them, as inspiration or otherwise?
What is the secret sauce that makes a setting a good setting?
> tqThe history and setting of my story are essentially a fictionalized, fantasized, streamlined version of the pipeline from Roman culture to colonial American culture. That is to say, there was an ancient empire formed from the conquest of several proto-nations in a Mediterranean-like region, which eventually collapsed into various constituent states, and from one of those states voyagers eventually crossed the sea and settled a new continent. It's the rough equivalent of imaging that Rome collapsed, leading to a dozen Italian city states, and then one of those states founded America, which then rebelled against the Italian parent state. The result is a distinctly new-world gunpowder era civilization, but one that feels older and has maintained more traditional art, architecture, language and culture.
>Do any other ancient cultures or mythologies captivate you more than the Greeks and/or Romans do, and if yes, why do you prefer them, as inspiration or otherwise?Ancient Chinese history as a whole is something thats on par with greek myths, having larger than life hero's leading countless lives to their deaths in bizarre and tragic ways almost, ALMOST, puts something like the trojan war to shame.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIr8u0j08gU
>>93913260>Are there elements in your setting (armor, weapons, monsters, etc.) that were inspired by the Greco-Roman world, and what are they if so?My setting is an SF setting, but actually yes.The empire that once ruled over the local region and - after two separate brutal wars lasting 35 of the past 60 years between them - now is stuck in its home system is inspired in part by Athens. They use sortition to select their legislature, and are highly democratic in general. Their "President" is called the First Citizen. Also like Greeks, they're a lot more willing to execute former leaders.There's also a major transhuman power (tl;dr: 3k-ish emulated minds hide on a barren super-Earth in the middle of nowhere during the first of those two wars, build up infrastructure to mass clone themselves, then it turns out that humanity won the war without them), which I was sort of casting around for a while, looking for something to make them really 'pop'. Eventually, I settled on borrowing the whole 'reputation economy' bit from Eclipse Phase, *but*, they're also currently on a conquest/expansion spree, driven by people wanting more reputation, which they can get by expanding; this was inspired by the way the Roman Republic went ham on expansionism because it was a great way to go up in the world. (They also speedran Polybius's kyklos in waves of horrible violence, revolutions, and counterrevolutions, before stabilizing in this form, and their reputation economy lets them effectively 'exile' troublemakers by lowering their reputation enough, similar to Athenian ostracization.)
>>93914803its Worcester sauce
>>93913260Anyone has 4chan worldbuilding discord link?
>>93913260Kys d*scord cancer.
>>93914803You won't like the answer, mate.The secret sauce is equal parts effort, care, and talent. You must envision this full, living world that you genuinely feel excited by yourself, and put time and effort in to explore.Then it gains depth and detail that people can see and feel, and be enthralled by. Note, that just addung detail for the sake of detail won't do the trick. The details must be hints and iceberg tips of actual parts of the world. Even if you can't tell the difference consciously, subconsciously you can feel, when something is surface-level, and when something is real. Plus fake detail make your world feel cluttered.Actual shape you care and effort take are not tgat important. It can be imtricate linguistics and mythology, like Middle Earth's or it can be elaborate geopolitics, like Westeros's. Doesn't matter. Its the genuine care and effort put in, and talent to back them up that matter.
>>93917096There's no discord in OP, anon
>>93914803autism, passion, your sexual fetish.
Can you give me more on flat worlds? They seem like a great way to create a world on one side and make another one of the other side.
>If Greek and Roman nations and cultures exist simultaneously in your setting [...] how do you justify the anachronisms?This question seriously bothers my 'tism. the roman state existed alongside hellenic ones for centuries. Even their "golden eras" were pretty much simultaneous with each other. The romans cemented their hegemony over the mediterranean by ended the latters'.
>ordained clergy are able to evoke their deity's power to perform theurgy/divine magic>anyone can just walk into a relevant deity's temple and get a free instant cure of any ailment or injury from common cold to missing limbsBesides poisons, what uses could herbalism have in such a context where it's redundant as medicine?
>>93918868Drugs.
I have a thing for very kind of generic, high fantasy and its aesthetics- including the stupid armor. How do you worldbuild to conjure up this aesthetic? Is it all in description?
>>93918868cuisine and drugs.Also, just because you can go to the clergy/temple to have your ailment fixed doesn't mean that there isn't a need for it the medicinal side of herbs. Not everywhere you go has a temple or availible priesthood for one, nor is it likely worth the travel for smaller stuff if you can just drink the tea you have at home or whatnot.
To keep this thread bumped with some relevant content and just as an exercise I think I'll start doing some worldbuilding "live" in this thread (This board and thread moves slowly enough that I can probably do go to work, sleep, during the process, but you get the point), incorporating ideas suggested by other people.It'll be a fantasy setting, suitable for playing D&D or something similar in, and in honor of the thread theme I'll be basing the "aesthetics" of the settings on the Mediterranean.I have some ideas, but I'll give everyone a chance to chime in before I just go off.
World is darkness given shape and permanence by light. Topside is covered by a crystal dome of heaven and surrounded by "candles" - fortresses, where chosen keep fores burning to ward darkness off. Flipside is constantly dissolving into cthulhy darkness, but the Sun (which circles the world every day) and Hell (which is basically a layer of hellfire to separate the world from the outer darkness) don't let the dissolution reach the topside.The gods are not truly sapient, they aree just cosmic forces/entities, whose power flows into the world from topside. Small worldlets float in these streams of power, given shape by the light also, but not as stable.I dunno what to do with the afterlife. I don't want the dead to go to the gods or their worldlets, that's too boring. Hell is reserved to those who sell their souls.Where should the dead go?
what if all guns were revolvers
>>93914803Whether you like it or not
>>93920749That would be a... revolution
I'm running a sword and sorcery bronze age collapse/apocalypse campaign, drawing some inspiration from Robert E Howard, Gene Wolf, the Gray Mouser, etc. Combination of historical inspiration with splashes of high fantasy, and piles of linguistics jokes nobody ever gets.What would you play? I think you can kind of gather what the situation is.
>>93827561I've done some more thinking regarding the future of the twins and I think the avenue I want to take Vaius in is to merge his character with an earlier concept I had of a crippled Dux who commanded troops along the same border. With that in mind does it seem plausible for someone to lose their right arm and leg as a result of amputation after having their horse fall on them? I'm envisioning that he took a slingshot to one side of his face which spooked the steed enough to (probably cast him off) before toppling over.Due to his wounds he'd from then on go around atleast partially veiled in civil society and rely on a dedicated slave-footman to act as his hands and feet whenever he wasn't using a palanquin or chariot. I like the notion of a big gallic-like warrior being like a shadow to a crafty cripple, so I imagine that he'd pick his man based on martial prowess as much for his servile quality with a promise that after a decade of service he'd be set free and given some cushy job running one of his business affairs or whatnot.
>>93921040Given his crippled nature he would practically be excluded as a possible imperial replacement which would go some way towards helping to alleviate the camellian relationship with the throne. Furthermore, with the extensive network he's set up through the prominent family of his local mistress he might even be a solid candidate for governor of the province of Sandarmark now that he isn't a real threat to the emperor (especially since he would likely struggle with leading men in the field). In fact, by keeping Vaius sweet the emperor could encourage the kind of jealousy between the twins by having Vaius more or less skate by while Odalfin continously have to prove his worth down south. Alternatively, he could use the neutralisation of Vaius as a threat as an olive branch to get on the family's good side by allowing him to not only carry on in official office in a state that would otherwise mandate retirement but actively see his continued usefulness.
>>93913260>Are there elements in your setting that were inspired by the Greco-Roman worldNo there are no pederasts in my setting, nor any cultures based on male homosexuality.
>>93920963That picture is to compressed to be readable, anonzo
>>93922022Still unreadable. Convert to pdf maybe? 4chan supports pdfs
Here we go, sorry about that.
I need example of media with creative magitech.I'm not very creative and all I can think is boring stuff like "robots, but golems" and "themoptic camouflage, but invisibility spell", basically just replacing usual tech gadgets with """magic""".
>>93913260Any advantages to a wavy bladed sword over a straight one?I have a tribe with a serpent motif and this carries over to their swords, but I wonder if there should be any practical use for their serpentlike swords or if it should mostly just remain a cosmetic thing they just do (like knights wearing really gaudy armour)
>>93919775I was gonna use this to bump, but the thread has actually been super active relatively since I posted this. I'll still post one thing before heading to bed though.Since muskets, pistols, spyglasses, alchemy, compasses and plate armor are core in D&D I think we should "move the timescale" forward so to speak. I'm thinking a genericized renaissance broadly should be what we look to rather than a genericized medieval period. Plus since I made the early to decision to have this based in the Mediterranean, this gives us a lot of stuff to just steal from Italy and SpainCity states, legitimized "adventurers" in the form of Condottieri and Conquistadors, Leonardo Da Vinci based magi-tech (Gear based golems? Horse drawn tanks?), church chicanery, and people obsessed with duels. Fun times.And of course, the fact that D&D fighters are all about polearms, crossbows, plate armor, etc. that's also very fitting.This cements the basic concept of the setting. Tomorrow if the thread needs bumping I might do something with religion and magic, unless someone else has any cool ideas.
>>93923456Don't know about curvy asian swords. I can tell you that many western and arab swords are designed to be swung like hammers though. You put weight on the end of the sword to give it more momentum as you swing it, allowing the sword to do more work than your arm (or at least meaning you don't have to swing your arm as hard and tire yourself). Broadswords often are built like this, but it's usually kinda subtle. If you know the Master Sword in Zelda it's a good example, it's thinner closer to the base. The Gladius also worked as a shortsword version of this, which is why it was the workhorse of the Roman Empire. It's real easy to use, and it's short length increases it's hammer like attributes. Kukri Knives too. Scimitars work on the same idea, with the curve at the end acting as extra weight on the tip.
>>93923456A wavy blade is effectively wider than a straight one of the same weight would be. So it would cause more bleeding I imagine, a longer wound. Probably less optimal than just making a wedge but obviously someone thought it was worth trying, and they show up a few places IRL in history. Flamberges, kris knives, that sort of thing.In short they probably cause a lot of bleeding, to incapacitate/kill the target more quickly. There are easier ways to do it but it looks cool so some people did it IRL.
>>93922092The Harkonnen are not evil? Is this revisionism?
>>93919048Is... Is that Yakub watch his creations wage war on the blacks?
>>93924825They never were. They were simply foing what they had to. It was war. Atreides weren't squicky clean either. The books are just written from self-serving Atreides point of view
>>93923456So called "flame" blades leave horrible torn bleeding wounds, but are somewhat worse at cutting. They are based used against bare skin (not even clothed), or on really large weapons, such as Flamberges
>>93922092Interesting lore, but I see many races are just hiding from space elves, so as a player I couldn't really flount my tech level without getting murderized along with my tribe?For me, iron-users sound pretty cool. Seems like they'd need a little push to settle down and really explode the riddle of iron, at which point their civilization would explode, dominating the world.I'd play a savage raider with a vision of a stable kingdom like that.
>>93922572Gunnerkrigg CourtMirrodin
>>93914803WUV~<3
I was trying to create a Celtic based setting for a story and maybe to set a game in, but I don't have anything super concrete yet other than a few details. The gods are real but recuperating after a god war involving the equivalent of the formorians, who basically got magically nuked and mutated by it. Sometimes they "bless" warriors or those who do them favors by teaching them the warp spasm, which temporarily deforms them into hideous superhuman monsters by twisting their muscles and bones beneath their skin. The greater the pain brought about by the transformation the greater the power. There are people called highlanders, although their region is mountainous desert, a giant caldera like area raised up from the seabed in ancient times, rich with ores and minerals. There are several different states with different cultural flavors, like Welsh, Irish, Scottish, etc. but they're all subject to the High King, who is the top authority over all other kings and clans. It is tradition to hold your weapon high and roar out your name and greatest accomplishments before a duel. Lots of lochaber axes, brogit staves, knobbly shillelaghs, claymores, targes, etc. It's rare for someone not to have green eyes. There are painted clans, like Picts, and wild 'green men' who have fused with plants. Various types of faerie and monster exist, like wulver, nuckelavee, selkie, and little people called ghillie, who wear leaves. There are also witches and druids and other magic users. Some people are cursed by geas, which magically compels them to do certain things. One character I though of was a great warrior who is rude and abrasive to women because his geas, placed by a spiteful witch, compelled him to kill any woman who helped him/gave him something freely. If any of you guys has any other fun ideas for things that would fit in a world like this, I'd love to hear them. Also any fun ideas for interesting geas and the conundrums they might bring.
>>93925647I'm trying to work it out, I think it's a LOTR inversion thing where the Elves took the blond humans on the top right and twisted them into being some kind of fanatic barbarian orc horde who think they're Elves and are going around killing all the other humans. I do find the idea of humans larping as elves to be really funny, feels like a Noldorfag joke.
>>93922092>>93920963I like the memes, glad you're having fun anon, but don't get so caught up in worldbuilding that you don't actually run the game.
Thoughts on anti-personnel laser weapons? With power roughly on the same level as cartridge firearms of today, we can get decently practical laser equivalents using pulsed lasers. With minimal optimism, we can have supercapacitors and energy density sufficient to not need a battery backpack. Even though such a weapon isn't more lethal, it can be lighter and has no logistics concerns (if you were extremely desperate you could turn a crank and produce enough energy by hand to charge the batteries required for hundreds of shots). I used to be a huge hater, but the tech is surprisingly soon to be in reach, and the few drawbacks (requires fancy computers for pulsing and focusing, kinda shittier in fog/rain/smoke/dust, the battery is a bomb) are outweighed by the convenience of the weapon. A lasgun or blaster it is not, but it would be pretty convenient. I'm tempted to introduce them strictly as a "personal choice", some people/organizations might liked the (comparatively) rugged simplicity of conventional firearms enough to bear the burden of needing to manufacture and transport cartridges by the tens of thousands, and the extra weight out in the field. Does that seem reasonable?
>>93929670Its not "shittier" in smoke or fog, its useless.A mirror defeats it outright.Lasers are a weapon for vacuum of space. There they work fine, without producing dangerous debris like a firearm does
>>93929989You're wrong. The particles in question are incredibly low mass, they would absorb some of the energy yes, but in this range and power the pulsed laser would absolutely pass through and continue to the target. These pulses are microseconds apart, and the energy is high enough to cut steel, dust and smoke is just going to weaken the beam. Even if you had water or a film of dust on the lens it wouldn't be an issue, though it would be sub-optimal. Also mirrors don't work like that with pulsed lasers, and no mirror is perfectly reflective anyways. Bitch about my optimism on batteries and superconductors instead of shit that literally isn't a problem.
>>93921946Looks fine to meAre you viewing it on a phone? Apparently they compress big images like that and you have to do something with the URL to get the "real" image (though I don't recall exactly what)
>>93917113>your sexual fetishIs there an example of this part being particularly well executed in worldbuilding?
How do you think of names for your fictional cultures/lands?I just have this *need* to make it roll well off the tongue. Even when I find a "meaningful" name sometimes I'll dump it because it doesn't roll off the tongue well enough when I say it.
Do you feel writing a setting for a game is different to writing one for a book?Do you feel gameplay considerations affects worldbuilding negatively?
>>93929670I love lasers. There's a faction in my setting who since it's (the setting's) inception have used laser rifles as their main weapon. Theirs are backpack fed though and don't use any exploding batteries. They use chemical lasers instead so it's equally if not more unsafe.
>>93930634I get really obsessed with linguistics and onomastics in general, and I really like hiding very elaborate and subtle multilingual jokes in my material. Little stuff that nobody will ever get, like naming all of the towns after American states, but with the names transliterated into Turkish. No reason to do states, I just thought it'd be funny because my players are American. So, Washington becomes Samankoyu, or "Straw-Town," because Washington was from Hwaesa which was an old Norwegian name meaning a pile of wheat. Washington itself essentially means "wheatpile town." Really it's a way to get a name that actually means something, even if what it means is obscure or irrelevant--players can tell when a word MEANS something. It conveys age, depth, it nails the word to something deeper than a few syllables, an implicit reality. When people start talking about fictional things in the same way they talk about real things, they are immersed.While you might be tempted to make up languages wholesale it's usually easier to find an existing language that has a feel you like and try to adapt words from that. There are a bunch of dead languages that nobody speaks anymore that you can go mutilate without offending anyone except serious linguists.
>>93930634Having a name fit well into a casual conversation is quite important. Especially culture names. Like it's important we can turn France into French and Frenchman. It'd be a whole lot harder to have a conversation about them if we had to turn their name into the 'Francesians.'.
>>93933444>Washington itself essentially means "wheatpile town."Huh, I always assumed it was a more like "town where they wash a lot"
So my fetish setting has older women grooming young centaurs into their future husbands and mountsWhat are some good ways an older woman can make a young centaur (who starts off small but will grow absolutely massive, like 7 feet tall at the withers) acclimate to being ridden?The women won't wear spurs (as centaurs can just respond to vocal commands). Centaurs also have a very strong instinct against being ridden which their future wives will knead out of them during the rearing process.
>>93934827Just like we do with horses.Now the real question is what would be the optimal fighting technique for a human riding on a centaur? Would the centaur be wielding the weapon and shield? What would the human do?
>>93934945Centaur wielding massive two-handed shield, possibly with spikes or blades, like a medieval dueling shield, but wider.Human wields a somethibg like a billhook, but with small crossguards on handle, so they can brace it like a lance
>>93914803Believing it's a real place and treating it as such.
>>93935055Why a billhook? To grab people while the centaur kills them?
>>93934827Melee centaur, archer on the back. Alternatively, the centaur wears two shields (that are appropriately shaped, eg. two semi-circles) and the rider has a lance, sword, and shield.
>>93935086You want a slashing weapon for rideby attacks, that won't also get stuck in enemy anatomy like a halberd would, and piercing weapon for ramming action like a lance. Billhook mainly combines those two qualities, plus you can drag enemies behind you, as centaur gallops forward.Centaur is there more for defending the rider and "driving"
>>93935055A centaur of that size would have ridiculous reach if armed with a polearm, considerably superior to any human-sized rider's. The rider with a polearm thus would be a purely secondary addition. A shield's maybe a good idea, but it'd weigh the centaur down even more than the rider and the centaur's own armor would, which's probably a bad idea. Might be best to make their human part's armor considerably thick, have the rider use it as their shield, and arm the rider with some sort of ranged weapon or something one-handed to help out if something goes past the centaur's polearm. Though I'd personally just give the centaurs bows and have them be really big, really angry mongols with arrows that due to the size and strength behind them punch through armor. It'd work reliably, require less of an investment than making them into heavy cavalry, but would not have the same shock troops factor heavy cavalry does, obviously.
>>93935121>You want a slashing weapon for rideby attacks, that won't also get stuck in enemy anatomy like a halberd would, and piercing weapon for ramming action like a lance. Billhook mainly combines those two qualities, plus you can drag enemies behind you, as centaur gallops forward.Anon, have you considered that there might be a reason why every cavalry army in history has solved this problem with a sabre+lance combo instead of awkwardly trying to combine those two functions into one weapon?
>>93913260Handy that the TQs relate to Grome since I'd just been brainstorming an Odysseus / Theseus / Hercules tragic hero to cut a bloody swathe through the system then compose epic poetry about it.Basically the core idea was Kryptonians + Saiyan + Sith in a memetics focused SF setting. The Practitioners were an order of "combat empaths" who specialised in extreme suffering which they then transferred into their unprepared victims. Living a life obsessively devoted to self-harm (physical, emotional and philosophical) what was bearable (almost pleasurable even) to Practs was enough to shatter anyone else.Their magnum opus came in the form of the Diaspora initiative whereby all their resources and insight were concentrated to oversee the blossoming of a paradise world specifically so they could engineer its destruction and leave a scattering of "sole survivor" transhuman infants across surrounding space.The Suffering arises at first from being obviously different, then from learning of their lost paradise heritage and finally realising that said paradise was only made so that they could feel terrible about missing out on it. At that point whatever they do furthers the Practs' aims of of creating an Overman Amid Thorns, the fact that most use their powers (deeply repressed trauma unleashed by Saiyan-like tiers of progressively more catastrophic outbursts) to butcher remaining Practs is beside the point. The pain-power that crushes them is what they worship, that the Diasporites know that in beating the Practs they can't help but satisfy then caused even more anguish. Just as planned.So far so SF, where's the greek stuff? Well, as well as physical caches each Diasporite has a mind palace "Fortress of Solitude" containing both the bittersweet memories of lost paradise and serving as containment vaults for trauma waiting to be unleashed. A particular Diasporite turned interstellar magnate is as many indirect Greek epic allusions and references as I can cram in.
>>93935684The most extreme form of self-harm / trauma storage would be to make an impenetrable labyrinth of the mind. The mythic labyrinth was Minoan, they reversed double-headed Labrys axes, those are a modern symbol of lesbianism, the labyrinth + Crete imply bull/cow imagery and the Amazon female warriors were so called for their breastlessness.So Syn (alluding to syn[thesis] with the latter a homophone for Theseus) is a mutilated woman (breastless, also lacking top teeth as cows do) who drags an axe behind her pyramid-head style as she wanders around the ship (and her own memories) which she's nominally in charge of.Combine Ariadne's red string, Heracles strangling snakes in the crib as well as his poison-crazed kinslaying with cyclic virgin sacrifice and Medea butchering her brother... Syn either arrived a twin Diasporite, was conjoined or had a "normal" sibling/soul-mate. At some point the insanity (or perhaps tragic fashion, hubris) led her to dismember this beloved, in her mentally disjointed state since she periodically tries to recreate this person in body and mind from unsuspecting innocents (given cow imagery there may be overtones of Moloch, the red string could be umbilical).You might rightly see that she's as much minotaur as Theseus, indeed the labyrinth she's made of her mind may be to (unsuccessfully) separate and quarantine different personality aspects. That can be made more explicit with bull-like horns. Maybe not on her head directly but instead blending the Nemean lion skin, golden fleece and Medusa's head. All those virgin sacrifices which never quite create the beloved (some Daedalus post Icarus' fall?) hang about her neck and in a half-alive fashion group their way on top of her head.As to other cultures I've already mentioned Minoan themes (typical topless dress except scars instead of boobs + the red string could look like the snake-holding mother goddess). "Leaping the Bull" could be cool. Humbaba's faceful of entrails too?
>>93915467I can dig it. A fanfic where they encounter the OG US and wonder why they're LARPing as Rome so hard when they comparatively have so little to do with them would be hilarious.>>93916373Lovely, the fact that they're copies temporarily inhabiting a given extension would give the whole thing a livestreamer flare. iirc there were some other faction like that (therians maybe?) which serve as a nice illustration of what posthumanity implies. They're not "unethical" exactly, our human incentives operating in an alien context can just lead to some horrific to us baselines outcomes.>>93918491Whose golden age? Macedon was Hellenic but they were hardly the city-state leagues of old.>>93920718Corpse-tallow keeps the candles lit both physically and spiritually.>Ia! Ia! The Hand of Glory beckons! What is Dead may Dreaming Lie! Our Ancestors dance in the Flickers! >>93920800...revolting.
>>93935923>Corpse-tallow keeps the candles lit both physically and spiritually.Hm, so the dead don't go to some other olane, they stay to keep the borders of the world from fraying... Huh, this is pretty awesome. Would give Candles a greater meaning, and make resurrection an interesting conundrum
>>93935923>Macedon was Hellenic but they were hardly the city-state leagues of old.True, but the macedonians were the ones who brought greek culture from the periphery to the center stage of the world scene. It's kinda hard to argue that the hellenistic period wasn't the golden age for greek culture and geopolitical dominance.Even if we were to exclude the golden ages for the two cultures it's still a fact that Rome was around in the time of Classical Greek meaning that it isn't necessarily anachronistic to have them side by side.
>>93936155My own answer to the question of>If Greek and Roman nations and cultures exist simultaneously in your setting,how do they interact, and how do you justify the anachronisms?is that my roman inspired-empire (i.e the fulvian empire) is based around the concept of northern barbarians conquering the not!italian peninsula and uniting it under them as overlords. Following a period of upheaval and civil war the ethnic hegemony gets disbanded with some noteworthy exceptions leading to a heightening of the cultural romanization as the local culture is already perceived as more sophisticated than the former overlords's and natives increasingly take their share of the power within the state. Meanwhile the not!greeks (i.e tyrhenians) are basically the spread out remnants of an ancient empire that collapsed following a chain of natural catastrophies. Having come out of their own dark age a couple of centuries earlier the tyrhenians have been busy colonies their region and establishing their own leagues and kingdoms that view for hegemony over the lands that remain of the former empire and beyond.
>>93936173Fuck, had a long bit about how they interact with eachother but it vanished so TLDR:Conquered we conquer.jpg
>>93930634I like Tomino's naming sense.The show Dunbine happens in a fantasy world called Byston Well.When they were making this show, the studio was located near a place called "Shakujii", which means "Stone God's Well".So the name of the world came literally because it was created "By Stone (God's) Well", By-Ston Well
>>93934945>Just like we do with horsesBut how do I make it lewd and /ss/?
>>93932897Yeah that's the thing with laser rifles (technically a misnomer isn't it? Rifle I mean), they are pretty fucking dangerous for the user in the case of a failure or damage. Then again that's consistent with such weapons over time. A rifle can (hypothetically) have shitty cartridges and blow up, or fire when dropped (hello SIG), but it's still more safe than a bow, which could have the string snap and cut you to the bone, which is safer than the spear which you could maybe cut yourself on if you're a massive fucking klutz but basically nothing else.I think the main draw has to be convenience more than power you know? All of these can kill a dude from far away, but adopting the technology comes with an expectation of convenience. Not surprising that archers replaced singers for example.
>>93936005The hand of glory is an irl talisman made from the remains of an executed thief, each digit's lit up to cast a foul spell. Journey to the West starts with imagery of the five great mountains which denote the world's limits in fact being the palm of Buddha. Combine the two and the dead both safeguard existence and perhaps by "burning away" impurities (the HoG is after all made from criminals) may perhaps ascend to enlightenment of a sort.>All that is good in mad shines true to be taken by the crops, nourish the people and endeavour to grasp at purity once more. The wretched within us is oily smoke, clouding Candlelight and banished to the outer darkness!>>93936155I'd argue it was placed on the map at least through holding off the then-superpower Persians as well as vigorous colonial efforts (which would in turn sow the seeds of Rome). When we think of "greek golden age" it's often about the political / philosophical flourishing which were both associated with Polises. Alexander was a great conqueror and spreader of these values (they endured all the way in Bactria!) but I'd argue his golden age was a distinct one.>>93936173I like that you dragged the middle ages' Germanic dominance and attempted Byzantine resurgence "backwards" through regular history. Sorta like a more modest version of >>93915467.A little more on >>93935684. The Labrys + red string combo ought to look a little like Asclepius' Caduceus and despite being breast less it'd be nicely creepy if the string wrapped about her (which rises to the horns/hands/snakes headpiece) fattened like herniated intestines. Breasts of a sort (again, for cow imagery) while remaining literally Amazon and removing any potential magical realm from the Minoan tiddy-dress.Given Ariadne's string is already almost Arachne's silk and the Medusa motifs I figure the Ship + AI (or perhaps a subset of her madness-mazed self) could be a "sane" yet vengeful Athena. Headbursting ahoy!
>>93937226>ink the main draw has to be convenience more than power you know?The only alternative to power would probably be the same physical volume of "ammo magazines" delivering a higher amount of shots. Basically, you're either getting more shots if you pack the same amount of mags, or the mags are taking less space if you want to keep the same amount of mags.One would probably say something about easier maintenance, but the problem is that while you do get less mechanical parts, the amount of electronics suddenly increases, and everyone knows electronics can be sensitive as fuck.
>>93936155>it's still a fact that Rome was around in the time of Classical Greek meaning that it isn't necessarily anachronistic to have them side by side.I still wonder sometimes what the world would be like if Pyrrhus actually managed to best the romans
>>93937615Well that could be mathed out. For a pulsed laser, 200 J per pulse, 10 microsecond intervals, 50 pulses, that requires 10 kJ of energy for one "shot" that's a power output of 20 megawatts. I got a magazine right next to me with 30 bullets inside of it weighing just about a pound. You need a rechargeable battery that weighs no more than that, and can provide energy for at least 30 shots, or 300 kJ of energy minimum. Looking up specific energy of current Li-ion batteries that is definitely in range even on the low end, and the high end is up to 3x that specific energy.It is possible to get 3x the "ammo" with similar stopping power using only current battery tech, for the same weight. Specific power is a different question, since that's around 250 W/kg and is WAAAAAAY lower than the required 20 megawatts per shot. But supercapacitors are in development and would have the same specific energy and (based on projections) sufficient specific power for what we need in the relatively near future.So yeah. 3x as much ammo per pound carried is pretty fucking good.
>>93920963It would appear that elf LARPers are burning down the world and now the last alliance of Celts and Meds must work together to defeat them.
>>93937816Molesting children would be acceptable in the rest of the Western world, not just Church and Hollywood
>>93923800I want this to still be a D&D setting so for magic I can't do much about the mechanics, and for religion I will still need to at least keep the mechanics (Althogh 5e is much freer there than previous edition).Meanwhile the period and arra I'm aping here is pretty well steeped in monotheism, whether it's Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Shiite islam or Sunni Islam.But then because I was thinking about whether I should exclusively focus on the part of the setting i had basing off the Italian peninsula during the renaissance (Since that was all I'd put thought into. I reached the conclusion that im gonna start there, then i'm gonna build out from it) I had three ideas.1: Different interpretations of theology2: Saints3:AntipopesSo I could have everyone in the parts I'm basing off Spain and Italy (and southern France) worship one God, but maintain all the domains and interpretations with various saints.The trickery domain could be represented by Saint Francis who lied to a group of demons to convince them to leave his flock alone, or something. And to let us have religion conflict even when we know "god" is real and let's us do magic, we can steal the concept of antipopes. Plus this way we can have Borgias AND a less openly corrupt church for those who prefer it that way.Now antipopes can arise over a lot of matters. But I think this being a D&D style fantasy setting gives us a unique way to do it.Undeath.If the previous pope dies and is then brought back to life as a vampire or lich... do they elect a new pope or does the old pope retain his office?Now there's two ways to take that. Making the borgia pope the undead means you gotta do borgia vampires. The imagery of Catholicism plus actual vampires is a trope for a reason, it's cool, and immortal schemers is always nice to have in a setting.On the other hand making a religious schism between the wicked and the dead is interesting, and I think only Larian has really done devout liches
>>93938059Where are the Dwarves? How do you have elf lovers rampaging without the Dwarves there to help us fuck them up?
What were the ancient hittites actualyl like? The late bronze age is one of my favorite periods but at least from what I have seen, the Hatti never seem to get the same attention the babylonians or assyrians do. What set them apart from their contemporaries of the age?
>>93913260>Are there elements in your setting (armor, weapons, monsters, etc.) that were inspired by the Greco-Roman world, and what are they if so?The most notable one is Kairos, the Greco-Egyptian land where the players will interact with the Senate and reform the government. The second is Tyria, which will be a reconstruction of the Third Servile War. Beyond those two lands, each "world" is associated with one of the astrological signs, and so they'll take inspiration from the greek and roman gods connected to each sign ("Jupiter land" is inspired by Jupiter/Zeus, but also other jovian deities like Marduk and Odin). Kairos and Tyria are just particularly greco-roman in comparison. >Why did you look at the Greeks and/or Romans first inspiration, what makes them so iconic?I love philosophy and stories of war, and both of those nations have distinct time periods where they were beacons of both. They also have fallen empire periods, which I also am intrigued by. >If Greek and Roman nations and cultures exist simultaneously in your setting, how do they interact, and how do you justify the anachronisms?They do and don't exist simultaneously. My world is one land divided by time. Each time period focuses on when one of the cultures had hegemony over the land, but all cultures exist at all time periods. They serve a more archetypal purpose than a realistic one. >Do any other ancient cultures or mythologies captivate you more than the Greeks and/or Romans do, and if yes, why do you prefer them, as inspiration or otherwise?Overall, China joins Greece and Rome as an equal. The world and inspiration is as much eastern as it is classical western. Within my game, I have Deep Space, Fey forest, Megalopolis, Roman Syria, Evangelical Swamp, the Levant, Greco-Egyptian foothills, Basque mountain pass, Babylonia, and wasteland regions, each with relevant cultures or amalgamations of cultures in similar regions.
What are some ways for a true alliance between a race of monstrous people and a race of more numerous humans?I was thinking that the relations would steadily be getting warmer between the two of them before a grand invasion forces a true military alliance.But I'm not sure how, especially as I intended to be a disputed land between them (and one of the battle cries of the monstrous people are "The disputed land belongs to us!" and they have songs about reclaiming the land, which unnerves many of their allies).The disputed land is currently divided 50/50 with one half belonging to the humans and one half to the monstrous people, but neither side is very happy with that as both think they own all of the disputed land.
>>93942478First thing off the top of my mind is France, Germany and the territory of Alsace-Lorraine. It's a very even mix of French and German speakers, and is not only resource rich, but the most defensible region around their shared border area. The Germans won it in the Franco-Prussian War, and this was seen as an enormous slight to the French who spent the next couple of decades scheming to get it back. Which they did in WW1. Then naturally Hitler takes over Germany and takes an 'irredentist' view to German territory (that is to say we demand ALL 'german' land regardless of anyone elses opinion). While he initially focused on Austria, the Sudetenland, and Danzig, the French were never far from his mind and the French knew this. But they weren't willing to cede their own territory, because again it's rich, mountainous, and easily defendable and they spent a TON of money building the Maginot Line fortifications. Now the Blitzkrieg happens, the Germans quickly re-annex the territory and continue to occupy northern France until the Americans show up. At which point the Americans hand it back to the French. After WW2, the Germans are forced to give up several territorial claims, and they are so beaten down they don't have a choice in the matter. But despite Germany being split into two, there are still fears that Germany could spark WW3 again if not properly minded. Hence the European Steel and Coal Commission. Originally just meant to lift tariffs on coal and steel between West Germany and the Low Countries, it also was intended to tie West Germany's economy to those regions, so that Germany would be hurting itself if it ever waged war on them again. This it turns out was a smart move (and was largely what the US was trying to do with the Free Trade system). It was so successful it turned into the EU, which are now informally lead by France and Germany.
>>93942523A big part of this too is probably the free-travel of people within the EU- see it no longer matter so much if an ethnic German is living in France, because he can just hop a train to Germany and doesn't have to bother showing his passport when he crosses the border. As such Germany has access to pretty much the entire German population of Europe without having to really worry where the borders begin and end. So with that in mind, I think a way of mending the gap between your two races is give them an economy that the other is mutually invested in (if one succeeds the other succeeds) and allow for free travel of the others peoples (this was actually pretty common in the middle ages- kings didn't have the money to pay for border guards to check peoples passports- they also didn't have an immigration bureau to print out peoples passports either)
>>93937470>I'd argue it was placed on the map at least through holding off the then-superpower Persians as well as vigorous colonial effortsI don't disagree with that. It definitely set it on the map. My point is though that without Alexander the Great and subsequent hellenistic rulers it would have remained a periphery note in the world history, especially so if we ignore the western biases inherit in greek-fanboyism.>(which would in turn sow the seeds of Rome). What do you mean? Sure, the romans were highly influenced by the greeks but it wasn't as if their rise to power had much to do with them.>When we think of "greek golden age" it's often about the political / philosophical flourishing which were both associated with Polises. Alexander was a great conqueror and spreader of these values (they endured all the way in Bactria!) but I'd argue his golden age was a distinct one.Fair. >I like that you dragged the middle ages' Germanic dominance and attempted Byzantine resurgence "backwards" through regular history.Thanks. It's funny 'cause I based it on asking myself the question "what if the romans lost the cimbric wars?" which then evolved to becoming applied to an earlier era in which the romans where just one of myriad political entities on the italian scene. The bit I dun' goof'd away was basically that I based the emperorship of my not!romans on the question "what if Scipio Africanus accepted the kingship that his foreign troops tried to bestow on him?" but with a much more greek-focused second punic war.
I came up with a really good drinking game.I play DnD so this is a Dwarven drinking game but you can tweak it as you see fit.So the gist is the characters chug beer (CON check) and whoever fails to chug a beer this round is on the receiving end of Your Mama Jokes from the rest of the party. Winner is the one who has Your Mama Jokes left and he doesnt have to pay for the beers. One joke each who passed the check per round.Here comes the twist: the jokes are subject to racial influence.So a dwarf would say something like>Your Mama's cooking so bad, you can only stomach it coz you are a dwarf.This on its own is good I think but it gets better - after the in-character joke the player explains the context or the punchline of the joke out-of-character to the table.>So guys the point of the joke is the food is so bad you can only eat it because dwarfs have poison resistance.This can be literally anything, I have a few dwarven jokes ready if you are interested or are looking for inspiration.The DM gets the jokes written down from the players, can choose his favourite and gives appropriate reward to the author.What do you think? Bonus points if the NPC that teaches the players this drinking game is called Korgumli from the clan Strongbearer
>>93942855Korgumli is a dwarf if thats not obvious.
>>93942855Yo mama is so dumb she raised a kid who thinks this is a good idea
>>93942921Jesus Christ man, you didn't need to hit him that hard
>>93942523>>93942533Okay I have an idea now>Territory is originally human occupied>Trolls in the area drive out humans >Humans take and lose territory>When most of the territory is lost to trolls in a period of human weakness, the monstrous race attacks the trolls >Monstrous race has race-specific magic that is OP vs the trolls and wipes them out >Humans claim the land is theirs because they occupied it first (many structures in the territory and roads were human built)>Monstrous race claim the land because they fought and won it from the trolls, which the humans could not (after trolls attacked, some areas were never occupied again by humans)>Area is also good mountainous defense and has lots of metal in the mountains >Fighting erupts again, this time the land is split approximately 50/50 >Uneasy truce is reached after a time >Monstrous race controls most of the river sources and dam them to limit human populations >Humans control most of the metal rich areas and block them off from the monsters >After a while the monsters agree to undam the rivers in exchange for a metal tax on the towns that live off the water >Then the Big invasion happens and they form a true alliance Think this works?
>>93917096no u
>>93946992No, I actually based the idea off Eustace Osgrey and Rohanne Webber in the Sworn Sword by GRRM. Notably the part where Webber dams the river leading into Chequy lands.
>>93943703Works roughly.
>>93930913I've written three books (126,000 words each). I've written two campaigns. Campaigns take far less time, but are just as hard as a story if that makes any sense. My main advice is set a time to work and stick to it. It's a few months if not a year long project that is completely reliant on your work ethic.
>>93938574Since this is meant to be useful for D&D I think I should also have a dwarf homeland, an orc homeland, a place for elves, some idea for tieflings, and some role for dragons and the dragonborn.The alp equivalent is a good and obvious homeland for our goblins and orcs and dwarves, this also gives us a good excuse to have a no man's land in the "cisalpine" region, an equivalent of the stolen lands of golarion or the border princes of warhammer. This way you can have a region where players can set up their own little thing. Also I am thinking that'll be the original homeland of haflings. That can also give me a reason to have the light/stout split. Lightfeet are obviously the halflings who left, seeking shelter in the homelands of other races, while stoutheart stayed behind fighting for their home.Elves I'm thinking should have an archipelago in the middle of our Mediterranean sea, it's very warhammer/tolkien I guess, but I don't really have any other ideas except making them the equivalent of the romans or greeks. The precursor civ. Although you could do both? They retreated to their island, but many of the city states are built around elven ruins? I think that's a cool idea.Tieflings I'm thinking are some mix of romani and cagots. You know, everywhere, looked down upon, sort of have their own parallel society going while also being involved with certain trades. For dragonborn and dragons in general I'm thinking I'll have a bunch of barbary corsairs esque peoples across the sea, loosely ruled by a sultan in a loose match up of the ottomans and the mamluk sultanates. Their precursor empire was ruled by dragons (With big harems, think , those dragons had a jannisary/mamluk class that actually ran the empire, and that jannisary class overthrew the dragons who went into exile. Now should the dragonborn be the jannisary class or the dregs of the dragon nobility that stuck around. Input would be cool here.We already have an undead kingdom with the papacy.
>>93954035Now since I'm doing renaissance Italy and bards have a fun thing called "colleges", there's an obvious way to flesh out the setting. Each college could represent the university of a specific city and help flavor each city state and tell us about them. Plus it gives players part of their backstory through character creation and forces them to engage with the world at least a little bit. If you're a glamor bard that means you lived X city for at least some years of your life, and X city has these specific traits. I don't think it needs to be exclusive at all, I think everyone should be able to come from anywhere, but it serves as a baseline."Dance" being a core bard school now is a bit odd in that regard. Maybe one city is very focused on art?Glamor might be a city with a very heavy focus on arcane magicAnd lore is the oldest university, the one that started the concept of an institution of higher learning, and therefore the most focused on academic learning.And Valor can be from a university from a city with a very martial outlook.I also think each of these universities should also educate wizards, and maybe you could tie schools of magic to specific universities? There's 4 colleges in core now, and 8 schools of magic, so 2 schools and 1 college per city and the combination gives us some insight into the character of the cities.I should start naming these cities, I'm thinking I'll come up with some pseudo italian subject to change based on input from this thread.
>>93955514My immediate thoughts connect back to the idea of the undead papacy, obviously whatever city he resides in is the home of the necromancy school, which gives us a heavy focus on arcane magic, so that connects us to the glamor college, and therefore the enchantment school.Well now we gotta do the Borgia undead papacy right? The vampire pope rules a city of intrigue, glitz, and arcane magic. The Italian masked carnival every day, with magic and vampires. Although the masks would probably connect well to illusions too. If anyone has any better ideas I'm always open to suggestions. I'm also thinking that the theology here should stereotypically be quite conservative, as the traditional home of the papacy. For name of this city I'm thinking of Cattano, taken from the maiden name of the matriarch of the Borgias. Cattano should be a glittering city surrounded by disease ridden marshland and vast farm estates rarely visited by their aristocratic owners who are too busy vying for political power in the city against the bejeweled clergy.The lore city as the first higher learning institution should imo focus on the more "primal" aspects of magic. The simple summoning of energy with evocation and the reshaping of things with transmutation. I'm thinking that since this place has a long intellectual tradition, it could in general be a place with a culture that values skill and I had the idea for a city run by guilds and the university. Sort of like a mix of Florence and Ankh-Morpork. The city would have fewer aristocrats, since technically a master baker could end up having more political influence than a noble. Although this makes the city no less cut-throat.I'm thinking of naming this city Piera, from the name of Leonardo Da Vinci's father. Continued in next post.
>>93913260How did the Greeks and/or Romans view magic, for those of us making historical fantasy settings?
>>93957380Plato in his symposium presents a pretty universally negative view of magicians.Augustus ordered writing on magic burned.Pretty much all sources on Greco-Roman magic is Egyptian in originThat's all I've got.
Could these burn marks on one of my pans be a reasonable world map?
>>93957380Like the other anon said most magic wasn't seen in the best of lights AFAIK, but that didn't stop the romans from having a flourishing curse-tablet industry IIRC.However, divination was pretty damn popular and culturally important, to the extent that in one of the crucial battles of the greco-persian wars (I forget which) the greek army, according to Herodotus, refused to engage before the animal remains showed a favourable outcome, leading to quite a hilarious section in which they keep going through sheep until they get the desired outcome upon which they immediately charge the foe.Similarly, the Delphic Oracle (and many others) were highly respected establishments.
So I had an idea for a living deity uniting three tribes through marriageThe deity has one child with a woman of one tribe, and another wealthy family of the second tribe marries someone to the third tribe and has a daughter. These two children marry.Do you think this is enough bloodties to each? I had an idea of the three sons they have also being modified by magic to bear the unique physical traits of each tribe, as they are of a race where each tribe differs slightly physically
>>93960098>Do you think this is enough bloodties to each?Yes, seems pretty much like the best way to get a monogamous marriage out of for actors and in so doing bind them together.Ofc, this likely hinges on the illustriousness/prestige of said families and children being born to the union who can then act as a future glue to merge the parties.
>>93960044Divination wasn't seen as magic, it was considered religion.
>>93962508I don't love this new trend of spamming retarde /his/ and /pol/ shit to keep this thread bumped.
>>93963146>>93963159The image is specifically Leonidas from Total War: Arena, so we're talking Spartan kit c. 480 BCE, if that helps any.
>>93962951I think your /his/ brainrot is retarded, not history itself. Stop ruining boards with your virulent retardation
>>93963427>Seething isn't a good look lmao, you lose.Rejecting /pol/tardation is actually always a good look.
>>93963457>seethe about OP pic nobody else gave a shit about>dump this undiluted off-topic /pol/ vomitYou are what you hate nigger, smearing irrelevant crap all over the thread way more than OP's disinterest ever could.
To get this thread back on track (Even though it doesn't really need bumping) I'm gonna continue my little world building project.>>93956375For the city with a specialty in Dance, I had an idea, partially because we just had an influx of /pol/ and because I said it would be a city very focused on art.Ever heard of Gabrielle D'anunzio? Precursor thinker to fascism? He ran a city state in the early 20th century, the Province of Carnaro/Free City of Fiume with a constitution based on "music", where half the population were hardline rightwingers and the other half communists and everyone was on drugs.I'm thinking I could base the city on a fantasy take on Fiume. A city that was seized by an equal part madman and genius (Well, the extent to which Gabriele D'Annunzio was a genius outside of poetry is debatable, but fantasy Gabriele will be) who proclaims art to be the foundation of law itself, and has an explicit plan to in a sort of Garibaldi way unify the whole land in one big nationalist project.Batallions of poets and artists discussing the master plan for taking over the world while zooted out of their minds.Figures here could be based on other political and artistic weirdos through history with ideas far ahead of "their time". You could probably even have some weird renaissance futurism (The italian movement) where people try to make warforged spaghetti.Obviously they specialize in Dance because it's the odd one out, it's the newest one chronologically, and because the founding ideology of the entire state apparatus is appreciation of the arts.I'm thinking for magic this place should specialize in illusion and divination, because of the contradictory nature, because illusion is the most "Artistic" of the remaining schools, and because divination fits well with a place built around out there ideas and future ideas.For the name I'm going with Rigo (A dumb pseudo-italian version of the croat name for Fiume)
This is a preliminary map for a setting I want to do. I'm basically just stealing from mythology/ancient world shit that I think is cool. I don't know what to put up north besides vikings, which I don't want to do because I don't like norse stuff. Here's more details about the whole thing.>Bronze age technology>No huge empires/authority, mostly city-states>Whole thing's a mega-continent>Focus on trade-routes and world-trekking>Ancient race called the Keepers were supposedly struck down for their hubris by the gods, actually wiped out by monsters from beyond the stars which are still sealed in deeply hidden complexes>Aureum is not!greece, Middle Kingdoms are the not!middle east, Khem-Aht is not!egypt, Southlands are not!africa, Tyr-Shan is kinda not!south america, others are self-descriptive because I haven't thought of a cool name yet.
>>93964410>Middle kingdoms>China>Separate thingsThis is such a whiff.
>>93964196Red Flood's accelerationist France is a gateway drug to all sorts of amusing insanity, heard about Fiumi from that and can see why it's worth riffing on.Not quite the same but a para-cold war was fought along lines distinct from capitalism-communism which to my mind demanded not not!fascists to set the whole bipolar world order up. Since I didn't want ethnonationalist totalitarianism the working concept is a sort of fetishizing the Overman independent of their ethnic stock. Basically the same way Spartans considered themselves to be perpetual occupiers of the Helot natives of the land combined with a Metal Gear nation of mercenaries. I'm thinking something like not!Boers going trekking only to decide on their travels that "masterhood" ought to be extended to the not!Zulus for standing above other Africans as they did above the !British. Incidental mercenary during migration is retroactively cast as alike to Israelites wandering the desert of the ten thousand's Anabasis.The end result is an esoteric stateless multi-ethnic warrior cult who'd canonise Shaka Zulu and Ungern-Sternberg. While Mainlander would have supported the SSP if he hadn't an heroed the fact he volunteered for military service in order to temporarily surrender his individuality means an even more death obsessed version of him could be an appropriate touchstone.Of course unlike your Fiumi I can't handwave this trainwreck ideology's functioning with magic (it'd be even less tenable than the Nazis as they had generations of Prussian militarism and the stab in the back to push people to extremes). That said while not outright magic this is supposed to be a cold war a la Phantom Doctrine where MK ultra worked. Their drugs would make Pervitin look like a placebo and long after their downfall werewolf brigades of Manchurian candidate sleeper agents (often liberated from concentration camps where said inhumane methods were perfected) plague both powers.
>>93964434I don't know what you're bitching about but I do know I don't give a shit about it.
>>93964498The mandarin name for China translates to "The Middle Kingdom", now try to be less hostile you fucking faggot.
>>93964543Didn't ask.
>>93964196Oh btw what is Rigo in the wider not! Italy's context? Are there other magically empowered fringe ideologies like Diggers in !Britain or a more enduring !Parisian commune?>>93964410I reckon India and the Steppe ought to be two horizontal rectangles rather than vertical since they're divided by the Himalayas which makes each what it is via rain shadow.
>>93964460Haven't played Red Flood, but googling it it seems like a fun project. I could never really get into HoI 4 mods because it always seemed like political visual novels with runtime in the dozens of hours per route.I don't know if your Outer Heaven on meth idea works as an organizing principle for something like a globe striding alliance ala the comintern/Warsaw pact/NATO, but for a singular group, you don't really need too much actual viability. Slav nazis are huge, euroasianists are still a thing, and for a moment there every trotskyist was making up some demented take on how to achieve communism by doing shit like nuking yourself, and even on a more relevant and current international scale you have team ups of islamist militants, hedonist monarchists and silicon valley tech bros in saudi arabia.If you want these guys as a sort of third campist spartan death cult meets blackwater that should work just fine, and I think that could be really cool depending on what kind of game or story you were doing.
>>93964582Rigo should serve as one of the big city states (I'm making 4 to start, based on there being 4 bard colleges and 8 schools of magic in D&D 5.5e), a rival of my vampiric papal states (Cattano) and my Ankh-Morporkian Not!Florence/Not!Bologna (Piera) and the last one that's yet to be thought up in terms of influence, but existing as an upstart since its prominence begins with the Gabriele D'Annunzio expy seizing power with his political outcasts. This city should explicitly be the only one interested in unifying Not!Italy in a single centralized state with a single unified (If Avant-garde) culture. This is meant to be an explicitly D&D based setting taking for granted the existence of D&D magic, so every state and statelet has magic involved in it, and of course the Vampire Papacy and wherever I decide to place the living antipope (I'm still struggling with that) has at least tacit divine support.>>93964566Why post if you don't want anyone's input?
>>93964795I wanted help with what to add, not petty nitpicking over dumb shit.>>93964582You? You're cool.
>>93964666Yeah, I'm too brainlet to manage the base game let alone mod madness so browsing the lore will have to do. I'm intending it as a component of the axis, most likely as a "consultant" hired by Boer-related ethnosupremacist reactionaries who then outcompete, regulatory capture and coup their way into control (there'd be a "leopards are my face" moment when the "the Overmen are perpetual occupiers" logic rears it's ugly head to the populace). Makes at least as much sense (or as little rather) as an absolutist cult of personality surrounding the literal schizo Artaud.Saudi arabia IS a good shout though as it's meant to be 70s/80s they'd not have the same incentives to modernise (even if only superficially) that they do now that the writing is on the wall regarding the indefinite viability of petrostates. Perhaps a similar notion could take effect in South America: cybersyn via banana republic and colonial nobility in exile (maybe even oil dollars too if not!Venezuela). Clerical fascist guerillas as the militants and something like Almeria's sea of plastic applying tech bro maximalist logic to agriculture (perhaps a necessity of oil spills degrade the UFC's old banana-based economic interests). All were influences around that time and the combo would give the Posadists an interesting neighbour to feud with!>>93964795Vampiric Rome certainly gives communion an interesting re-interpretation, one wonders if Longinus licked the spear... A lot of Italy's disunity (and fury at that state of affairs) rises from France, the unified state next door, steam rolling the squabbling Italians while also stirring the pot whenever it looked like one of them might achieve hegemony. Avignon would be a good place for the antipope (given vampires maybe one died and came back this creating a disputed succession). The HRE's link to the papacy and the Guelph / Ghibelline split also invite Austrian foolery from over the Alps (I'm assuming the time frame has Hapsburgs on the throne).
>>93965016It's not really meant to be alt history, it's meant to be a D&D setting based on the Mediterranean and I zoomed in on renaissance Italy as a source of inspiration because I noticed that muskets and pistols were now core in the new edition of D&D, the fact that adventurers can be justified as a sort of Condottiero, and many other things in D&D being really more renaissance that they are medieval. Also Leonardo Da Vinci based magi-tek sounded fun.I have ideas for other nations, but they're not developed because I only "work" on this when I want to bump this particular thread (The whole idea was a way to bump the thread while actually getting some world building done) but so far all I've really got is a vague notion that there should be a dwarven kingdom in the alps, orcs living in the alps too descending upon the region from the north in occasional raids, an elven realm in an archipelago in the middle of the sea between the other countries, and the most fleshed out idea is a Mamluk sultanate-esque state created by the dragonborn Jannisaries/Mamluks of the former Dragon empire (The dragons themselves having retired to their harem-hoards and left the dragonborn to actually run their empire, until the dragonborn formally overthrew them and forced the dragons into exile) comprising a central urbanized region and things like barbary corsair statelets loosely under their control.I don't really have an equivalent of the Habsburg or the Habsburg/Papal conflict, I'm sort of replacing that with the low-burn unification conflict, inter city state rivalry, and a papal/antipapal conflict between an undead pope and a living pope, and I'm imagining stepping up the intensity of the Corsair/Knights of Malta/Italy conflict depending on how things develop as I'm world building. Not because the whole Guelph/Ghibeline conflict not being interesting, but because I just haven't really had any ideas in that direction yet.(Out of characters, continued next post)
>>93965016Continuing>>93965293>(given vampires maybe one died and came back this creating a disputed succession).That was actually my explicit idea too. The pope died, they elected a new pope, and the old pope was rescurrected. The conservatives in the clergy stuck with the vampire pope and the more radical faction went with the antipope.Avignon is a good place to put the antipope, shielded by the Not!Alps. But I also thought maybe I could put him with the Paladin NotKnights of Malta (Although I haven't gotten to those yet)What do you think? As for your take on South America.That's a really cool idea. Sort of a contras meet The People's Republic of Walmart. Burnham esque managerial state in the spreadsheets, clerical fascist contra death cult in the streets. You could even have internal conflict over this, sort of like how there was the split between the SA and the Strasserites and the classical conservative establishment/Hitler and the SS, or the Carlists and Franco.And as for the South African part of the Overman (Ooermen? I don't know how you'd say Ubermensch in Afrikaans) situation.The idea of a corporation ending up in control of an unstasble government isn't entirely without precedent, you already mentioned the UFC (But there's also Hawaii, Saudi Aramco, and the "Innovation Zones" proposed by some politicians), but now imagine if the state had explicitly empowered the UFC to fight its battles for it, taking over the security state functions explicitly so the state would avoid getting their hands dirty.
I think I've asked this before but in my setting, about 100 years ago all the major cultures collapsed their borders and went from countries to city-states, leaving all the frontier lands without rulership. So there's a big wild west style land rush where people found these frontier towns, and you get big melting pots of races and cultures. It's basically the whole "points of light" thing. My issue is basically trying to figure out a good political reason you'd give up that kind of power. A lot of the races have a gimmick or culture that keeps them fairly centralized. It could be the result of a great war but I kind of don't want to deal with the fallout of most of the people in my setting being shellshocked.I'm kind of new to worldbuilding so any help is appreciated. I can go into individual cultures if that would help too.
>>93965581A plague could work. A huge amount of the population gets wiped out, the kings and nobles can't protect their subjects from the masses of brigands/monsters/foreign raiders in the aftermath, and then everyone moves closer to the cities. Now cities are sending colonists all over the place to claim high value territories.
>>93965711That makes sense. I think my big issue is that I don't feel historically well informed enough to make sensible decisions for in-universe political entities. I'm happiest with one race, my dwarves, because I was able to pull in a tinge of real history but put a spin on it so it feels like they have real history. On the other hand some cultures, especially the more fantastical ones, are really hard for me to visualize relational histories between them and the rest of thr world.
Unicorn Overlord got me to thinking... why aren't elven nations more accepting of human refugees that can be used as literal man power?
>>93961248It's still magic though.
>>93966598In the sense that jesus is a wizard.
>>93966816No, but true, Jesus would indeed be classified as a magician. Just because the magic is god-adjacent doesn't make it non-magic.
>wake up>look at what happened in /wbg/ while I was sleeping>seething about skin color
>>93920963Old post now but if the creator is still here I personally think you did a fantastic job portraying the races in this setting, it's perfect for a Conan-adjacent fantasy world whole still adding in some fantasy staples and nonhumans in a way that doesn't feel forced, as humans-only is very crucial to the Conan feel.Great job.
>>93964839>>93964566>>93964498>>93964410>Asks for feedback>Gets feedback>Goes into autistic ragelmao
>>93965293Fair enough, it's not my place to insist on realism. That said renaissance Italy was that way for a reason and latter Garibaldi-esque unification attempts were a reaction to having been walked over by outside powers. Mine's only taking cues from reality at best since actual alt history is beyond me, while it won't quite match geographic determinism I intend to Strangereal the world map except by collaging various continents past rather than Earth as it is now.Inheritance-less slave soldiers is a cool one combined with potential hybrid sterility among the dragon born making castration unnecessary (I could also see them as harem guards if no self-respecting dragonblood would admit attraction to the hairless ape harem). Would !Ottoman nobility "Greekifying" themselves through generational harem preferences be relevant? Janissaries often came from the Balkans, perhaps one of the Sultanates made themselves almost-dragonborn through determined admixture.Maltese death knightly orders are a must, especially versus the crypto-draconic corsairs. Maybe a !Venice and !Genoa sponsoring privateer galley trade war? And what of Aragon? They were pretty codified in their maritime rules and were effectively colonists of Sicily (though of course everyone's had a go with THAT island...). Regarding anti-popes por qué no los dos? It's not like history showed any more restraint.Perhaps in reference to that time a pope was dug up and tried post-mortem another ex-pope (perhaps also grandmaster / founder of Malta?) was brought back as a witness in the ongoing popish legal battle. He declared both unfit and set himself up as yet another contender (on the basis of an entirely distinct necromantic theology, possession by the holy ghost rather than being one by blood of Christ?).
What kind of dynamics would greek gods have between lovecraftian elements?
anyone else increasingly worldbuilding with no or few maps? I always waste way too much time OCDing out about what the map looks like
>>93970258I've never used a map. I've heard starting with a map is a bad worldbuilding stereotype
>>93970274Only if your map looks like a badly-drawn map of Earth
>>93970258The only time I've used a map at a particularly early stage of worldbuilding was when the setting was "an alternate Earth during its own LGM, and also the Panamanian isthmus hasn't formed."I've been fiddling with how to draw an SF map lately. It's kinda an interesting problem. I definitely think it's a mistake to mark systems by what kind of stars they have - F, K, G, M, who cares? What matters is if there's a habitable planet there, if there's a species homeworld there, etc. Anybody know any particularly good SF maps?
>>93970258I can only consider it for a small country, maybe a kingdom at best.
>>93970035Yeah okay.
>>93970258I use a lot of maps as support for my worldbuilding since I find it a nice anchoring point for fleshing out various cultures based upon interesting places that grow out of map making which in turn inform how the map itself evolves and changes.As an example this map started out as me wanting a ridiculously fertile area next to one of my main powers with a potent nomadic threat pushing up from the south. From that it made sense to have some sort of natural barrier to not only separate the native settled chatians from the heartland of the city-state of Gastram but to also stop the nomadic tribes from directly threatening Gastram. That gave rise to the hill lands in the south east. However I needed a reason why the fulvian empire didn't annex the hill lands following the fall of Gastram which in turn lead me to come up with the notion of the 'Lion of Moser', a gastramite warlord who managed to survive the fall by nominally swearing fealty to the empire as a client state in exchange for keeping the border safe from nomad raids and invasion. As for the chatians themselves, given the relatively flat terrain once one gets past their southern highlands, their martial talents have been split into proficiency with the longbow amongst the common folk and a specialised type of duelling within the warrior class, know as Speardancers, for their athletic fighting style amongst a forest of stakes they put down to shield themselves from cavalry.Together their armies form a solid counter to the javelin throwing light cavalry of the nomads.
>>93970258I've accumulated a vague idea in my head of what the world (or at least a continent of it) looks like, but haven't done any refinement of it just yet so it's all just rough shapes.Pic is more or less what I've got so far; I've no idea what to do with the rest of the world, and don't think I could get away with just leaving the rest of it as empty ocean, but hopefully I'll come up with something in the future.
>>93970274Why would using a map be bad worldbuilding? I've never heard this
>>93919048>How do you worldbuild to conjure up this aesthetic? Is it all in description?The weird armor isn't just viable but preferable to more realistic alternatives like chain mail. So an ancient civilization left behind weird looking armor. Perhaps certain shapes are better at drawing in ambient magic energy so that's why enchanted armor has a huge curvy shoulder piece with glowing lines on it.
>>93980938Mountain. Armour. (pls ignore that it redirects piercing blows to the chinks between "chain" links)>>93970258The joys of space opera, I only need a notion of overall biome to get stuck in so OCD triggering events can be averted. Strangerealing with archaic continent's on the other hand >>93968801... Well, I can't say I didn't ask for it.
>>93968382Thanks Anon.
Some shmuck is telling the board people hate their DM's worldbuilding. What a false loser, right? Right?...
Does anyone know any good RPG settings, books, comics anything about modern military fantasy? Something with kind of a similar vibe to pic related.
>>93987443Tactical Breach Wizards? It's SWAT tactics with Into The Breach-style predictable enemies, but you're also a wizard.Shadowrun is kinda similar, though it counterbalances the magic and cyberpunk elements, so I don't think it's quite what you want.
Do you think it makes sense for a race with horns like this to view bowing as disrespectful due to the lowering of the horns?The way I see it, if the head is lowered, they can charge forward with the horns.I wanted them to view the raising of the head as respectful. However I realize that also creates another conundrum- if the person is raising their chin into the air, they could also slam their head down to slash people with their horns.
>>93993065>GEOpolitics>in space
>>93990082Exposed neck overcomes that and antlers aren't exactly made for a chopping motion. If they were then raising chin and nodding to the side would be harmless enough. Also creates a spectrum of "I'm not a threat" much like that between a nod and full prostration.>>93993110Nothing wrong with that, it's one of the reasons "jump lane" FTL is so popular.
>>93970575One of the nicest SF maps I have seen is from SpaceMaster
>>93914803Dinosaurs
>>93994835I fail to see what oil has to do with it.
Logistical question for you anons:Picture a spiral staircase that goes up for miles and is wide enough for fifty men to walk side by side without squeezing. Would it be more efficient to climb on the outer edge where each step could be several paces long, or on the inner hub where each step takes you higher but takes more effort?
>>93999776If it's that big to begin with I'd stay near the hub it's not like it'll be any less distance but it would be safer to have the wall beside me and for building camp next to and if anything tries to attack me I can keep my back to the wall and push them off.
>>93993277Yeah you're right about the exposed neck. I wonder if it makes sense for them to bow when greeting humans in human lands (as humans think raising the chin is a sign of haughtiness and looking down on people), and humans raise their chin and heads when greeting them in their lands.
Anyone have any experience running an alignment system where Evil and Good aren't the standard vanilla?My Neutral Evil god is a powerful Dire Wolf that's basically just a powerful hunter. He supports eating the weak to make the strong stronger, but doesn't seek out destruction at all.(The CE God is more standard Evil for balance, but in my mind it's more powerful vs. weak. Does that make any sense?)
>>93999776This is a physics question and the answer is the amount of work should be exactly equal assuming all those ideal physics things. As for "efficiency" idk
Real question: How has there not yet been even a one heavyweight worldbuilding projects done on /tg/ out of pokemon. Mystery dungeon style. You're a damn liar or deluded if you say the interest isn't there but it just never appeared. All the building blocks you could ever ask for are already there for the taking.
Worldbuilding a group of races who's religion is just Loki's Brood after Ragnarok. Along with a bunch of esoteric nonsense causing deviations.Fenrir's Children who remain in the Old World converted to a werewolf supremacist sect of Christianity because the Missionary from the order of Saint Christopher thought it was a good idea to replace God with Fenrir and Adam and Eve with Hati and Skoll when translating the bible.Those in the new world forgot about vengeance and are content with dominating the lands between Vesterheim and Niflheim which is basically an endless frontier where they're free to terrorize the local furries, unless they're inuit. Also convergent evolution to being steppe people, but with more heavy infantry and trade cities along the Mississippi where they trade with New-Generation Æsir.Further south, they mistook Xolotl and Quetzalcōātl for Fenrir and Jörmungandr alive again. And accidentally discovered multiple esoteric truths which took away all desires for vengeance against the Æsir, or they're just high on drugs while the locals are too terrified to correct their theological assumptions.Meanwhile younger-generation Æsir are pondering while sitting atop mountains of gold after establishing a trade empire.
Any tips on how to properly use ChatGPT as a worldbuilding tool? I think I got it, but what are some big pitfalls I could trip into?
>>93918445My setting is three concentric flat earths, each smaller and hovering above the next, with the underside forming a false sky, and that formation in turn floats above the primordial waters of Hell from which it rose. The first layer is a completely standard D&Dish Euro-fantasy land (I'm running B/X D&D and used this as the starting location). Above that is a mishmash of all my more gonzo inspirations, many of which intrude on the lower world in hopes of conquest. The highest and smallest layer is Heaven. Putting all these worlds together physically rather than having separate planes has been fun because the players are able to physically travel between them in vehicles (now that they know of the other layers).
>>94005162I find in general ChatGPT is the worst worldbuilding tool ever. The only use is when you have a question about how to fill a "hole" in your worldbuilding ("I need an explanation why XYZ would happen, even though logically it would probably be ABC"), and even then, you often have to repeatedly prompt/clarify/ask for multiple ideas.
>>93987443I would suggest's checking out guardbro's veil riders TTRPG. They got a WAR CRIMES chart
>>93987443>>94012238The veil riders is currently a solid choice as far as ttrpg games with live support go. The creator allows anyone to slot into their DMs and answers questions pretty quickly. It's kind funny because a bunch of faggots on here like to try and say the creator is a troon lover when all he does is constantly dunk on them lol.
>>94005162Chat GPT is terrible at avoiding repetition, since it essentially comes to the most sophomoric initial conclusion about every single thing. You can sometimes talk it through to a more sophisticated result but the act of doing this is always more mentally taxing than just doing the fucking worldbuilding itself.On the other hand, what Chat GPT can be very good for is doing research for you quickly. If you need an alliterative couplet in old Norsk it can crank that out for you quickly, and if you just need something that sounds cool and has a bunch of thules in it--great.
>>94014400>what Chat GPT can be very good for is doing research for you quicklyI would disagree: in my experience, if it doesn't know the answer then it'll just make something up and present it in the exact same way as it would the truth, which kind of poisons the well as far as trying to find objective facts goes.You'd have to corroborate every claim it makes by looking it up and reading elsewhere anyway, making it redundant.
>>93914803Real World PoliticsProtagonists Working for the Lawful Neutral Empire that has the Aesthetics of an Evil Empire. Gratuitous Nudity Furry RacesMain Human Protag having Big Boobed Often Naked Female Cat Furry Love InterestCongratulations, you are the next George Lucas / JK Rowling.
>>94015583all based
I like when worlds are progressing in technology, culture, society, etc instead of being stagnant, like say people discover gunpowder or systems of government change, I like to treat magic like a science/technology in this way for example they may master, discover, and/or develop a new type or system of magic
How might a less nationalistic and more cosmopolitan faction's soldiers react to fighting alongside a longtime rival that's quite nationalistic and patriotic?I intended the nationalistic faction to do things like sing their anthem each morning, have battlecries that talk about reclaiming disputed lands (akin to "Skyrim belongs to the Nords"), and to prefer speaking in their own language instead of in the lingua franca.
>>94018315I read an interview with a fantasy writer one time and he said any time you stray away from D&D fantasy you cut your sales figures. Specifically he said if you ever introduce guns or gunpowder your property is DOA because audiences will not read it. I've always thought that was interesting.
I might brew up a cyberpunky world with heavy AG racing elements. The players could engage in all sorts of legal and illegal AG races. Could include all sorts of espionage and illicit sources of income.
>>94015085It varies, but you get a feel for it, and it will frequently show its work. More importantly though in setting work it doesn't really matter if it's wrong most of the time.I.E. if I need a word for Enemy/Rival Tribe/Slave in a dead language, I can ask the machine and it'll give me something--Dasyas maybe, and it doesn't actually matter if this is authentic to the Vedas, because I'm not running the game for a bunch of Indo-Aryan tribesmen, I'm running a game for normal modern people ABOUT X Y or Z.If you're using it to write academic papers obviously you're asking for trouble but for spitballing and making a setting it can be very convenient to have a homunculus that can take a crack at it for you on command.
>>94021570Do tell us more about this please. How dangerous would these races be?
I need a quest inspiration for my Mausritter campaign.The wise Owl sorceress has in her possession the Tailband of Newt regeneration. The party doesnt know this but they are likely to come across the burrow of adventurous slow-worm who is on a quest to get this tailband in order to regrow his lost limbs and become a mighty Comodo Dragon or some shit.I have no idea what this quest, presumably given by the Owl sorceress, should be. Please anons anything will help me.
>>94021091>How might a less nationalistic and more cosmopolitan faction's soldiers reactFirst off you need to pinpoint what sort of soldiers you're talking about, are we talking battle-hardened professional soldiers serving in a standing army, callous and potentially foreign mercenaries, or levied local peasant with little to no experience of warfare, etc?Furthermore, are we talking about a nation or your average non-nation state?>longtime rivalRival to what extent and how much of that has ingrained itself into the general public zeitgeist or is it just a matter of veteran soldiers being accustomed to having them as their enemy?>prefer speaking in their own language instead of in the lingua francaThat's something everyone does. Have you never been to a social gathering containing people who don't all speak the same languages? Even if you don't mean to exclude people it's really hard to stop yourself from slipping into the occasional non lingua franca chit-chat.
>>93913260I was thinking that I would create my own pantheon of gods for my setting’s region based on Ancient Greece and Rome, instead of just copying the Olympians more directly, does anyone have any advice for me before I take the plunge?
Do you anons use AI to generate portraits of important people from your setting? I figured that would be a better option than spending hundreds of dollars on artist commissions. I mean, it's not like anyone besides me is ever going to see this stuff anyway, right? It should be good enough for such personal projects.
>>94029366I either write a description or draw it myself.
>>94029366No.
>>94026878She wants leg of toad or something with the caveat that she can't afford to anger the "donor" for either being or related to a fellow sorcerer. The party are tasked with engineering a "tragic accident" which will require the donor be rushed to the Owl for amputation and regrowth. The Owl wants deniability (perhaps even wrangling a debt out of the scheme) and also to observe the Tailband's effect on regeneration, assuming the slowworm is present he may balk at the apparent horror of the process. The party may then have an RP opportunity to talk them back from self-harm or egg them on the "no pain no gain" path.>>94028097Divine succession from primordial to titan to Olympian, the practice of mystery initiation (to the extent that our modern conceptions owe as much to playwrights taking the piss as actual priests), the "interpretatio graeca" and assimilation of eastern religious influences can combine into something neat.Say the indigenous not!Greek religion became buried under so many layers of mystery that the gods stopped being recognisable. This could be loss of credibility by the mystagogues who claim to speak for them after disaster / scandal or having them be somehow wiped out. Mystics try extracting / reconstructing the true Greek nature of their gods from the imperfect reflections of them that their neighbours revere.
>>94029366>AI samefaceUse a lora or hypoernetwork I beg of you, even taking a celebrity who looks nothing like your ideal and setting it to .4 or so gives you better results as the ai attempts to draw a pleasing face instead of that
>>94029423You magnificent bastard you, thanks a ton. Do you want to name someone in your honor?
>>94029497Err, for the Greek thing? I think Phaethon's neat so maybe make a god like him the interim chief. The Wheel is a holy symbol for renewal and the fact that he's sprinting across the skies trying to rebuild the solar chariot broken by his hubris while still fulfilling his duties. The Wheel represents the sun arcing over all skies (and therefore all lands / pantheons gleaning motes of the same insight despite their inferiority to not!Delphi + Olympus's central perspective) and also the need for neo-mystics to travel far from home to colonise / trade / conquer. There's also a physical metaphor in the faith being rebuilt from rim to spokes to hub, perfection arising from balanced imperfection (you can shoehorn in the neoplatonist One as a truth within / between the original !Olympians of you like) while the celestial chariot (and remade greek faith) is a ship of Theseus.Basically major god or not some mascot figure who is simultaneously Prometheus, Sisyphus and Icarus. A well meaning jobber perpetually trying to fix their cock-ups, a mystery cult so much up it's own ass that it can only gesture vaguely at stories that aren't all there any more.
>>93913260>Are there elements in your setting (armor, weapons, monsters, etc.) that were inspired by the Greco-Roman world, and what are they if so?I’m doing a sci-fi setting, so include references in the names of places, and leaders might pattern themselves after Greco-Roman figures, both mythical and historical.>Why did you look at the Greeks and/or Romans first inspiration, what makes them so iconic?A lot of democratic/republican imagery cribs from Greece and Rome. A lot of authoritarian imagery does too (just look at the fasces and the Roman salute for some funny overlap). The fractured nature of Archaic and Classical Greece, the warring Hellenistic kingdoms, and Italy during the rise of the Roman Republic, and the outsize personalities involved, make for abundant inspiration.>If Greek and Roman nations and cultures exist simultaneously in your setting,how do they interact, and how do you justify the anachronisms?No need to assume anachronism. The Tarquin dynasty was descended from Corinthian exiles in Etruria, Magna Graecia played a large role in the early-to-mid Republic, and the last Hellenistic kingdom was extinguished byAugustus.>Do any other ancient cultures or mythologies captivate you more than the Greeks and/or Romans do, and if yes, why do you prefer them, as inspiration or otherwise?I enjoy Ancient Near Eastern history and mythology as well as Greco-Roman stuff, so I do add some names or references (ocean world named Atra-hasis after a version of the Flood Myth, for example). There’s a literal-minded straightforwardness that can be used to add flavor (think Sargon dipping his weapons into the sea to signify his control over the known world, or Athenian diplomats accidentally swearing fealty to Darius I because they misunderstood the significance of giving earth and water). Plus, it’s hard to beat Ancient Mesopotamia when it comes to grandiose titles, and the sheer brutality of Assyrian monumental inscriptions speak for themselves.
>>94005684Fascinating! How do the stars and celestial bodies like the Sun and the Moon work?
Anons, please help develop the setting of my novel by poking holes in it. It's reasonably fleshed out by now but there are still gaps in the history, culture, language, political structure, etc. And it's hard enough to come up with good prose, I don't want to keep getting hung up when I realize that I don't know what kind of material the governor's palace facade it made of or whatever the fuck.qrd:> imagine if renaissance-era italy discovered the new world and founded america> colonial / gunpowder era but with a stronger mediterranean influence and cultural-genetic connection to an older romanesque civilization across the sea> country is an ostensible democracy, there are two co-ruling elected consuls> seven or so years prior to the story there was a brief but very violent civil war. a disaster / terrorist attack took place in the capital, the central government was very quick to assign blame to a rival nation. rural / frontier states in the union questioned this conclusion and some even called it a false flag, and their delegates refused to declare war on the accused foreign nation. civil war ensued> federalist forces spent most of the war getting their shit kicked in before suddenly rallying and emerging victorious. no official explanation given but there are rumors of some magical shenanigans behind the sudden victory> (there is a discreet form of magic in this world, it's not called magic and it's highly tied to this culture's religion and to the act of creation in general)> since the war ended the government has rapidly centralized, parliament is essentially sidelined after they failed to unanimously declare war, in favor of a massively bloated body of ministers appointed directly by the consuls> reconstruction has gone poorly, but don't tell the elites that. very strong "this is fine" attitude (as in, everything is decidedly not fine)
>>94031788> tension building, homeless and war orphans accumulating in cities, last election was hotly contested, two new consuls fucking hate one another, riots narrowly avoided, infrastructure still lying in ruins> religion is very abrahamic, humanity was created by a satanic figure and redeemed by a single all-powerful God, church is influential but increasingly sidelined, people in general having a crisis of faith> several main characters are part of a religious-warrior order, blends some elements of the crusaders with the knights of columbus, they combine aspects of soldiers, clergy and ambassadorspoke some holes friends. big picture or little details.
>>94030066Im sorry to disappoint you but it was me the Mausritter guy asking if you want to name a character in the quest.
>>94031788how are the two consuls elected exactly? Why do the latest pair hate each other? What are the main politic factions?
>>94032495> how are the two consuls elected exactly? Why do the latest pair hate each other?The two are essentially polar opposites apart from being shit-eating populists One is a very young and fairly radical outspoken conservative who puts on a good show of supporting the military, the church, retvrn to tradition, etc. the other is a geriatric career bureaucrat, a fair-weather progressive, social reformist, wealth redistributor, etc. Both of these guys are full of shit and 100% in favor of the continued centralization of power in the government elite. My vague idea is that something went wrong this last election cycle and that these two were never expected to rule together. Both had the expectation of co-ruling with someone of their own political faction but some unforeseen fuckery of the electoral rules and checks and balances forced them together in this situation that satisfies no one. I'm having trouble figuring out how that happened exactly. Maybe the nation uses some variation of the first-past-the-post voting system and the two of them getting thrown together was some weak attempt at a compromise. But I can't quite figure out the finer details.Spoiler alert, both of these guys are going to end up being killed in circumstances arranged by their successor, a military governor-general who totally supplants the democracy but is hailed by the people as a stabilizing force in a time of crisis. The incompetence of the consuls is the canvas on which he'll work.
>>94032444Not to worry, I'm happy to be of use either way. I reckon you could include a shady frog by the name of "Tad" in the proceedings. He hates the fact that his metamorphosis into adult form was incomplete leaving him with a vestigial tail that keeps growing back no matter how many times he chops it off. May be a rumourmonger / guide / ferryman during the party's search for a newt. May also try to abscond with the Tailband in the hopes that its regenerative magic will invert his damned persistent tail.
>>94034899You are a well of inspiration anon I cant thank you enough you truly went above and beyond.I havent thought of a reason for the party to look for newts, I simply took inspiration from the ring of regeneration and flavoured it to fit Mausritter. But there is a lake nearby and the party could make a trip there so I will put some newts in and make Tad the contact. He could be knowledgeable about first aid and stuff and volunteer to take the "donor" to the Owl especially if he learns the party is looking for the Tailband. Maybe the Tailband could be a newt heirloom or something that the Owl gained from clearing the pollution done by the squirrels, or humans. Im leaning squirrels. The party could alternatively learn about the Tailband this way, if they miss the slowworm.Once again thanks a ton I will make sure to include both your ideas in the campaign.
>>94027909>First off you need to pinpoint what sort of soldiers you're talking about, are we talking battle-hardened professional soldiers serving in a standing armyThis one. I also intended for the more cosmopolitan soldiers to still have some of their own national pride, but just not as much as their neighborsIt's a nation yes, and the largest one in the setting.>Rival to what extent and how much of that has ingrained itself into the general public zeitgeist or is it just a matter of veteran soldiers being accustomed to having them as their enemy?They argued and have fought over disputed lands for a long time. A treaty was signed recently, I posted about it last thread but the idea is one faction controls the upstream rivers and the other controls mining resources. The agreement was that the rivers would be undammed to provide water, in return for a mining tax paid to them.The two factions also faced an imminent threat from a Dark Lord. During that time they did work together but only the higher ups of the nationalist faction could speak the lingua franca, so they rarely mingled much. However the lingua franca is more common now.>That's something everyone does. Have you never been to a social gathering containing people who don't all speak the same languages? Even if you don't mean to exclude people it's really hard to stop yourself from slipping into the occasional non lingua franca chit-chat.I only really chat with groups of people who speak foreign languages (a bunch of Brazilians) at work but the workplace instituted an "only English" policy after like a week.One of the employees trolled the management when a Portuguese customer walked in whose English was rather rough, and the Brazilian employee only spoke English with him.
>>94036767>This one. I also intended for the more cosmopolitan soldiers to still have some of their own national pride, but just not as much as their neighborsI see. In such a scenario it seems plausible to me to expect a certain amount of unease between the soldiers of the two nations, including the occasional fights when drinking is involved. Whenever a resource might get depleted (such as a good source for water) or a piece of prefered camp-site is up for grabs I wouldn't be surprised if there was some infighting too which might lead to a moral and disciplinary drain if not quickly seen to. Good commanders might instead try to steer the inherent tribalism into friendly competition amongst the troops of the two nations in order to get the most out of them rather than see them tear eachother down.>It's a nation yes, and the largest one in the setting.Aight, I take it that means that the state's troops (primarily) belong to the same ethnicity then.>but only the higher ups of the nationalist faction could speak the lingua franca, so they rarely mingled much.How much intermingling who actually be happening here? If the army is large enough it's fully feasible to have the forces of the two act more or less seperately, and only coming together in time for battle in which it would make sense for them to keep operating as two joint parts if too numerous to be handled by one command. As a not too accurate example I believe the Ottomans tendedto field their armies in three distinct groups; the centre being under the direct command of the sultan who acted as the overarching commander of the army with the flanks consisting of the anatolian and balkan forces respectively.
>>94037374If you want an example of when tensions on ethnic lines lead to a complete debacle in what would otherwise have been a given victory then the battle of Aljubarrota might be of interest to you. The gist of it is basically that the allied french knights of the spanish royal host refused to chill with their frenchness which lead the spanish troops to basically say "fuck it" and sit idly by as the french decided to commit mass suicide by charging a fortified range-heavy opponent upphill, only to then get talked into doing the same for the sake of honour and showing up the frog-eaters. And no, the fact that the area was by then covered in mud and dead and dying men and horses didn't make it any easier.
>>93918445When I do flat worlds, I don't bother with the "other side" - in fact, most of the time there is no other side. There is not even an end to them. There are always things beyond, terrifying and alien things, and if you manage to communicate with one of those, they have stories beyond the beyond, tales of things that make them deadly afraid.Imagine the (old) Minecraft world, but there is something beyond the Farlands. In fact, the Farlands have their own Farlands, vastly more fantastic and hard to understand than themselves. And that goes on forever.And, so people say, there's a place in there somwhere where the world becomes "normal" again. In fact, it becomes more than normal, it becomes so mundane that the mundane looks fantastic in comparison. And there are other places there, places people call "Paradise" and "Hell" and "Waw" and "Sukhavati" and "Hades" and "Nirvana" and "Valhalla" and an uncountable number of other such. Other people call those people fools, and they might not be wrong.
>>94035376Considering newts + salamanders retain tails their whole lives and Tad's eager to be rid of his (going so far as to vocally associate it with childishness) there's a lot of social play available if your party are into that. Up to you how villainous he is, provided a diplomatic incident is started over his accidental (or not so much if combat is the pretext for the maiming which will require amputation...) insults there could be a final roleplay-fest over getting him over his ironically childish obsession with being physically "grown up" in ways that don't matter. Nice contrast to whatever they end up doing with that slowworm psyching himself up for "dragonhood". Ought to be easy to toss some lake monster into things if the players prefer combat over talking. Tad's either distracted, a shithead or colluding with the PCs (out of apparent charity) to manufacture that "tragedy".Can't comment on the squirrels since I don't know what you have planned. Sounds like there's plenty to go on though, good luck!
>>94037408>>94037374I see. Thanks for the help. Also that battle sounds like a massive turbo tism war.
>>93968818Nothin?
>>94041353>>93935684 and >>93935693 is a sufficiently advanced transhuman filtering their trauma through symbolic association's which just so happen to regurgitate and remix long-forgotten myths.
>>94039455In Mausritter combat isnt really the focus, its actually quiet barebones, you automatically hit for example. I like all your suggestions they definitely add "the touch".Im thinking Tad is gonna be a shadier individual, trying to include as much details you mentioned as I can. He will help party more if he learns about the Tailband. He could be nosy since hes the rumorbroaker in the are.I reskinned the fairies from Tiny Fables to be the squirrels. The short hand is they control some territory mainly serve to complicate my players lives. Their prince is looking for his frog shapeshifter bride and is poisoning the lake with his magical tears, making the amphibians furious.
>>94039455If I can bother you a bit more and only if you dont mind helping - you already done enough. How would you deal with the tomcat.The setting is the party has to get a beerbottle from a nearby house, form an entire team to raid the house, get a hedgehog to poll it back to town in exchange for fruit.Probably on their way out the raiding party is waylaid by the local tomcat whos willing to strike a deal. Help him deal with his bully, another tomcat, whos encroaching on his territory and eating his food, in exchange for the beerbottle, potentially even throwing an all-you-can-eat granule version type of deal into the mix. The mice like the granules.Im planning to give this to the party:Rope of cat imprisonment>When laid on a ground in a circle all cats are forced to sit in the middle of it until agitated.Simply fighting the tomcat is an option and im willing to go along with anything the party comes up with but they are new players and I want to have something to hint them at in case they decide they dont want to fight.
What's a cool sounding but (mostly) pointless title for a child born with anti-magic abilities who is learning at a magical school?The wizards find out about his abilities and decide to indoctrinate him as a weapon (to remain the best magical school), and one of the things they give him is a cool sounding title that doesn't actually amount to much.I intended it to be kind of Sun Wukong's "Keeper of the Horses" title
>>94043529Anathemagen
hey guys, i'm working on races for my setting and i've come up with an evil enemy race that i'm quite satisfied with, but i could use ideas on their physical appearancethey're basically spiritually incomplete shells of mortal beings who lack a complete divine essence, this renders culturally as other races describing them as not having a soul, not being a full person etcthey are deeply subconsciously aware of their spiritual incompleteness to the point where the only motivations that drive them and determine their actions are greed, envy, anger and treachery towards each other but especially towards their superiors - they are even envious towards animals, as even they possess a more complete essence than themi debated making them snakemen but i didn't find that very satisfying for a mook race, any and all ideas would be appreciated
>>94037957Nice!>always things beyondForever? What about celestial mechanics, how do they work here?
>>94044349Differently, depends on where you are. I'm not above using hyperbolic geometry for both the landscape itself (so the further you go, there more space there is) and the space above it. Things like the local sun might just kinda roughly circle some spot, but when you're near the path, it looks like it goes from the horizon to the opposite side, kinda "dissolves" into a thin ring of light far in the distance, then reconstitutes itself back where it started. If you'd be at the exact centre of that circle (assuming it has a constant centre), you'd see no sun at all, just a dim reddish light at the horizon, slightly lighter in one direction and dimmer in the opposite, and those spots would circle around.There might be a "North Star" somewhere, but it would only be due north for the next several billion of km around your location. Or it might always be there, in all places, and truly at infinity.
>>94041306You're welcome. And yeah, when french knights are involved 'tism is a guarantee.I don't recall the name of the battle or the details but I seem to recall that in one of the crusades against the Ottomans the failure of the entire crusade was down to the french knights similarly refusing to not just charge straight at the foe when the two forces finally came together on the same field.
>>93914803Be passionate about making your setting through having fun. People can just tell if you're having fun or not on a project even if it is a bad project.
>>94043537>anathemaI swear to fucking god ever since reading that 1 Thousand Sons 40K novel I have hated that word for how much it was fucking used.
>Gods>Map (local and world)>History>Countries>Races>Governments>War Histories>Currency and Trade>Animals and Plants for Crafting potions and Poisons>Concept of Alignments>Magical SchoolsFirst world I built. Any did I miss anything my players would want?
>>94048933Did they tell you what they wanted?
>>94048933Fetish materials
>>94048933Well you won't know until they start asking. Make a bunch of shit and then improv the rest.
Gods feel like the hardest part to make
hit me with your best human creation myths
>>94056897orcs and elves banged
Trying to think what the most likely responses by world governments and public to the following event:And this is supposed to be extremely near-future event, like weeks before the first manned mission to Mars this happens:> alien spacecraft parks itself over the UN headquarters > dumps the Voyager 1 probe on its front steps> and broadcasts the following message (which I’m paraphrasing): “to the denizens of… Sol III? Is that its name?… ‘Earth’? Okay… Denizens of Earth, normally a species like yours would be so unimportant and beneath notice that you would be able to go about your business without interference until you start traveling to other star systems. How-freaking-ever your stupid planet has this weird habit of getting caught up in major galactic events, I don’t know why, but you do. So far you’ve been lucky enough that the impact of these events on your species doesn’t seem to be too severe, but it’s only a matter of time before you get involved in something more serious, and now that you’re becoming an interplanetary species, it’s probably going to get worse, so we felt a fair warning was finally in order, so I don’t know where you are on FTL travel, directed energy weapons, artificial gravity, and all that other stuff but it’s really in your best interest to maybe try and hurry those developments along. Or consult with one of the other species with hidden outposts on your planet to get that tech developed. Good luck with that”> then abruptly leaves the solar system This is assuming that a cover up of this encounter is quite impossible. I’m trying to think what the impact might be.Especially considering that these aliens are effectively telling mankind that they need technology believed impossible before needs to be in development right now.
Looking for someone with some good naming sense.>SF setting>a basic formation for a space war is a "constellation", centered on one crewed warship and 6 semi-autonomous warships about half the mass of the crewed oneI am coping and probably going to refer to the crewed vessel as a cruiser or destroyer, but am loath to call the others just "drones". They aren't really drones, they operate close (around 0.25 to 0.5 light seconds), and they are more like detached weapons platforms that are operated from the crewed warship. Especially since I am already calling various small craft such as repair machines and defensive whipple shield holders "drones".>linked semi-autonomous constellation membersSounds like garbage. But it's wrong to call them frigates too I feel. I kind of want to give them an evocative name like "Hound-1", but that's a tactical designation more than a name for the class of weapon.What could I call these?
>>94057269satelites make sense to me
>>94057309I agree partially, but am concerned about confusion with other satellites. And moreover they don't really orbit the crewed vessel. It's possible, but even "destroyer satellites" is iffy for clarity. SF has a jargon problem for real.
>>94057365R.O.F.P. : Remotely. Operated. Fire. Platform.
>>94057392Better than nothing. Thank you. Now I'll just decide if destroyer is a fine term even when divorced from the context it was born in, or if forcing people to learn a new term for something very different than a wet navy makes sense.
>>94057269>They aren't really drones, they operate close (around 0.25 to 0.5 light seconds), and they are more like detached weapons platforms that are operated from the crewed warship.The real equivalent to this are CCAs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_combat_aircraft(CCAs are a kind of drone.)
>>94057102So they aren’t invading. But we could be invaded sooner or later because humans just have the worst luck in the Galaxy? And they just expect us to scramble to develop technology many have written off as impossible just prior to this in short order?I imagine a lot more screaming governments and a sudden movement amongst jaded citizens to just roll over and accept humanity’s fate
>>94056897Regular primordial Titan's decay crossed with eternal recurrence, dreamtime and PIE myth. Basically once there was Ymir and Ymir only because they had eaten everything and everyone else, thereby becoming them. Mystics dispute the cause of Ymir's dissolution, here we will say that in order to have become the singular timeless being They were it was logically necessary that there have been those warring hands and teeth to cannibalism one another unto divinity. Only the separate could struggle so yet separation was not within Ymir, so in order that They may be complete Ymir made themself incomplete.The world is made for humanity yet to nakedly exist so is to be alike unto Ymir and so incapable of the strife that is the essence of Their emergence. So on a red plane of spilled blood a division was wrought is and not, sky and ground, Manu and Yemo. Through dialogue and mutual mutilation they expanded the raw fact that "humanity is" (that Ymir might emerge that humanity might be) adding in more and more as hoc just so stories to justify our existence. The eyes imply light to see by so there was day, day implies a lantern so there was the sun, the sun implies fusion and it was so, fusion implies the atom and so on and so on. Mortal Man emerged the precise moment he was least himself, that moment when the dreaming gods could most reasonably place the spark of soul within hominids retroactively millions of years in the making.>>94057269Planetes meant "wandering stars". The full designation could be confused with system terrain so it's informally shortened to "Ettes", additionally a Rogue is one marooned relative to its overseeing "star" ship whether by design or not. That's all thematic though, looks like >>94058263 has the actual word.
>>94058263>>94058394Both very helpful, thank you.
>>94044422Fascinating!
Does anyone have that one super basic 'where to put mountains and rivers' image? It was like ms paint tier but had some interesting info. I mostly remember it had information about where to place like deserts and swamps and stuff as well, at one point it goes into 'wine country' which sticks in my mind.
>>93970258>anyone else increasingly worldbuilding with no or few maps?Sort of. I made a map with like 10 town on it and the players have only visited two in the past 3 months. This weekend I am trying to usher them into a new town but it's definitely informed how I have filled out the other parts of my maps.
>>94061653I think it's good to over-prepare but only in the sense of 'have X number of towns ahead of time, whichever one they go to is actually that town' and then just put down town markers. Depending on setting this might even be more 'realistic' in that lots of smaller towns and villages didn't have formal names and were barely even landmarks to people who didn't live locally. So there's just ten spots on your map marked 'town' and then maybe one bigger one which is more widely known and services a bigger population which has an actual name like 'Woodstown.'
>>94005162>Any tips on how to properly use ChatGPT as a worldbuilding tool?Learn how to prompt properly.https://www.promptingguide.ai/techniques/fewshotI've found that it's useful at filling in the gaps of a concept I already have in mind. It's also good at describing a scene/giving me a blurb I can read to my players. Input:>The small village of Queen's landing has fallen on hard times, but a fisherman discovered a long lost treasure while out at see that has attracted travelers from all across the ream. Describe the scene as the party comes to townOutput>The small village of Queen's Landing, once a quiet and forgotten dot along the windswept coast, has erupted into an unexpected bustle of life. The cobblestone streets, usually deserted save for the occasional wandering cat or sleepy merchant, are now thrumming with excitement. The salty sea breeze mingles with the scent of roasting meats from hastily erected food stalls and the tang of freshly baked bread, as vendors, old and new, rush to cater to the influx of visitors.>At the heart of the village, the town square is now a makeshift marketplace, the treasure drawing traders, adventurers, and curious travelers from across the realm. Their tents and carts—decked in vibrant colors—are packed tightly together, overflowing with wares like rare spices, exotic fabrics, and trinkets glittering in the midday sun. Lively bartering fills the air, mixed with laughter and shouts, and the occasional bray of livestock brought in from neighboring towns. Musicians, sensing an opportunity to earn coin, gather at street corners, their melodies lending a celebratory air to the once-muted village.This took less than a minute to produce and is mostly usable as a blurb to describe the scene.
>>94061733Last example,Input:Brainstorm 3 ideas for adventure hooks in the villageOutput:See pic related.These are fine starting points that can be developed into a further adventure. You could talk ChatGPT through that entire process, but it's better to do it yourself and use ChatGPT to supplement basic stuff. The system works best when you give it something to chew on rather than asking broad open ended questions.
>>94061748>>94005162Also, you can create a custom GPT that will only reference documents that you upload to it. So if you already have a world built out in a text document, you can upload that and the model will use that as a basis for it outputs. I haven't tried that though.
Not my map (obviously) but here's what Venus would look like with water equal to Earth. Thoughts? How would you flesh this out?
>>94062140Pretty kino.
>>94062180It is, isn't it? The only issue I'm seeing is that there's a lot of mountains and elevated areas where farming would be difficult. There'd be a lot of fishing based food systems in place, that's for sure.
>>94043617Pathologic Tragedians
>>94062140I'm going to steal this, or at least use it as a starting pointIs the yellow supposed to represent desert? If so, what changes would be required to make it not? Just lower temperature/higher humidity?
>>94062841It's an elevation map. Green is lower elevation, red is high elevation. So yellow is somewhere in-between.
Considering that solar plasma is a near-term technology for propulsion by way of plasma magnet "sails", that's one out of two realistic answers for sailing in space, basically hang gliding or parachuting in space. But in order to have sailing we need a second fluid medium for our "space keel" to push against.What do you figure? Gravity? EM is taken, weak and strong nuclear force is useless for this, so that leaves just the one for the other fluid medium. Kinda a can of worms, but we have had kneeled ships for thousands of years without really understanding how it worked. Could be plausible that someone figured out this "simple" mechanism but no other real applications of gravity control or manipulation exist? If this was granted then you can have "primitive" reactionless ships that can get torch ship performance (just the sails can give 1m/s squared, could hope for around 3m/s squared and with "rowing" from an electrostatic containment gas core NTR approach maybe 4 without too much hopium), can hit top speeds of like 0.5c (based on our current knowledge of the sails alone), I think you could convince people that this is only handwavium, not unobtanium.If you don't know what I'm talking about, even better. You're the kind of person who would have to hear about "deploying plasma sails" and "gravitic keel" and not be rolling your eyes thinking it's actually super soft science fantasy.
>>94062140Azimuthal equidistant projection, please.
>>94062140>Thoughts? How would you flesh this out?I would borrow from sources like Eclipse Phase, Transhuman Space, and the like, model the colonization, and then have something (GRB from neighboring system?) destroy all the higher tech and strand the locals on the planet. Humans hanging out with uplifted dogs, dolphins, octopi, elephants, etc. Nanotech swarms forming lakes that flense flesh and leave behind iron. Towering metal mountains that are the ruins of once-great cities.I feel like basically all "post-apocalyptic civilization" stuff works backwards from "I want fantasy tropes justified by lost high tech", so it would be interesting to work forwards instead.
