>>96999149
Kys d*scord cancer :^)

>>96999224
Seven. See you next thread.

>>96999268
Oh, I'll be there, bub :)

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Drew this little scene for my biopunk setting.

>>96999149
>TQ
No. Eternal conflicts always struck me as artificial. I do have a few cultures that do keep having regular beef though.

Going to have to start drawing up the world map. I want to do an 'Inland' setting for this campaign, with most of the world being dry. Thinking Central Asia style. A Not!Fergana and vast expanses of deserts and steppe. Samarkand, Ur, Khiva, in ome end and swampy, heavily forested, savage wetlands dotted with lakes and rivers of northeast Russia or central Finland on the other.

Any examples of good settings in those kinds of locales? I'll be running PF1e and on the lookout for a fun ruleset for river boat combat and customization.

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>>96999149
>ongoing ancient conflict
I ripped off BPRD but the forces of The Antagonist (Satan) and The Architect (God God) aren't exactly new but are trying to supplant and push out the (Antecedents) (ancient elder evils) as various wars of reformation notChristians, Satanists and Pagans.
there's also a time rift problem but that's not ancient
>how justify long standing conflict
Various 5D-labyrinthine rules of the metaphysical conflict limiting direct engagement and waiting until the stars are right.
Ends up with a lot of different cult and religious fanatic factions in game and the occasional monster they summon.

>>96999280
Oh, I see. lmfao, you're trying to pretend to not be yourself, right? Yeah, it's totally just guys copying this le funny maymay, uh huh, definitely, that's why whenever you were told to fuck off, you went on a screed about Discord groomers. That's why last thread you tried to make a second thread without even the normal ""discord"" link. That's why you always responded like you were sincerely a psycho retard every fucking thread, until this one.

Yeah, I'm not falling for it, "bub." You can't hide who you are by sticking stupid emojis in your posts. You can knock it off, or you can get ever more Discord links. It really is up to you.

>>96999149
year is 2227 the 5th corpo war of 2077 has long been forgotten and civilization is beginning to recover humanity has established it self on in space and around the earth sphere


earth and luna

surface
most of Earth’s surface has been reclaimed by nature, with the only pockets of civilization centered around old rail lines and spaceports. Night City, Chicago, and the Northeast Corridor remain the only functional cities in North America, with small towns scattered along the rail lines that connect the three. Most people in Night City make their money selling old tech from 2077, soil bound for Mars, or working with trader gangs that transport goods from the cities to small farming communities and tiny towns.

earth sphere and luna
the ultra rich live here away from earths surface and often live in near perfect society but if you go against Arasakas rules or laws you will be sent to earths surface


Mars
mars has become terraforming but its still very cold and dry with a little oceans unlike the earth and luna its owned and ran by militech. militech has become cloning soldiers and workers to compete with Arasaka in earth/luna

ceres
the farthest civilized settlement of humanity its a military outpost were militech gets ice to help create the oceans on mars


general world building bullshit

the only travel between earth and mars is trade both arasaka and militech avoid war since they both need each other

AI and engrams are strictly banned in most situations due the 5th corpo war

>>96999149
I'm in deep shit anons, I ran a oneshot of a homebrew setting for my usual friends and two people who had never played tabletops before and they liked it.
Now I need to build out a whole story and setting to complete things.
Can I get some help?

I posted this setting in another thread but TLDR:
An old king has been in power for 100s of years through dark magic. He has contempt for his people and is almost fully witdrawn to his golden capital city.
The kingdom itself uses bureucracy, cruelty, and pleasure alike to control its population. Large feudal society.
At the edges of the kingdom, which is considered so vast you could walk your whole life without seeing all of it, the king's rule is softer and people can live simple lives.
In those very same edges strange things have been happening, turns out the Fae are coming back to claim an old debt with the king, it's a full on army doing small incursions for now.
The king struck a deal for power centuries ago with the fae king, who helped conquer this realm in exchange for the throne once the king would have died. Ever since then the current king has been working for ways to prevent his death, going into the far reaches of dark magic. The fae king is now tired of waiting because he feels cheated.

I already described the religion of this realm as fully dedicated to the king, and described the temples as doing animal sacrifices.
What I need is help with the feudal structure and day to day logistics of a place like this. One idea I have is to model it after ancient egypt, where the pharaon was also a god incarnate, same way my setting's king wants to be seen.

Thoughts?

>>96999149
>TQ
Most of the Gods hate each other to some capacity and that's assume they are even still in a capacity to do so.

Otherwise, the only recent event happens to be a half-dead god whose visceral hate for Humans spawned a race that is causing problems for everyone, including themselves.

>>97001088
>Thoughts?
If the animal sacrifices are already decently well established you could get into animal themed warrior houses riffing on Mesoamerican sacrifices and god kings. Various priests mixing into the feudal courts and squabbling for power/control.

>>96999999
>>97000000

Any good inkarnate tutorials?

I've decided that the OG Mages are going to be Exodites, refugees fleeing the collapse of the first magical kingdom.

They settle in Iran and conquer Assyria, thereafter founding the Persian Empire centuries early and unifying the Near and Middle East under a single empire.

>>97001088
>At the edges of the kingdom, which is considered so vast you could walk your whole life without seeing all of it, the king's rule is softer and people can live simple lives.
this is not a feudal society. this is an empire
either way feudal europe is a meme, it didnt even exist in reality.
Just make it a pseudo-roman "medieval" (in aesthetics) empire aka byzantium but with pagan beliefs.
Copy paste the roman logistic with local influential families fighting for the positions of power in each thema/satrapy/region

>>97005616
Millenia later then an indeterminate number see an astrological portent and follow it to find the king of the universe, in an avatar, in a trough.
>>97005640
Feudalism as a term for medieval Europe was coined relatively recently.

>>97007099
>Feudalism as a term for medieval Europe was coined relatively recently.
it was literally invented by the western europeans in the 16th and 17th century and applied retroactively to centuries of history and an entire subcontinent of diverse cultures, nations and regional governments.
>As early as 1887, F.W. Maitland observed in a lecture on English constitutional history that "we do not hear of a feudal system until feudalism ceased to exist."

>>97005640
>make it a pseudo-roman "medieval" (in aesthetics) empire aka byzantium but with pagan beliefs.
How original and daring.

>>97008148
while vaguely western european random feudal slop kingdom (actually an empire) is so fucking original and interesting, right anon?

>>97008185
Find one that's been done historically accurate, as this equates to contradicting pop culture.

How do I get good ancient persian names?

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

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

>>97009502
Harn is pretty much this. Also who cares about pop culture anon. Byzantium doesn't even get touched by pop culture, like most historical empires and regions, not even misrepresented and slopified

>Oil is naturally common in X region
>The evil Emperor has a policy of monopolizing all natural resources. It's a Palace Economy.
>Giant bronze statues of serpents are erected in all major oil wells, with their "tails" drawing the oil from the ground through capillary action.
>The oil is then drawn up the "body" of the serpent and expelled through the mouth in a waterfall of black oil, where it's then collected in a massive lake and carried away for refining.
>Most of the workers are illiterate slaves trained from birth for that task alone, and they start seeing this statue as a dark god that serves their Emperor

I'm trying to make oil extraction grimdark. How did I do?

>>97011049
why would people extract oil in the first place?

>>97011221
...for fuel?

>>97011413
it sucks as a fuel source for anything that isnt a combustion engine

>>97011423
Oh, I think I understand your confusion.

They export it to more advanced markets where cars and chemical factories are common.

>>97011436
then let me answer your question. If they are based on the mesopotamians then they would definitely consider this a god. They would be devout servants of their dark god. The defunct oil wells would be converted to shrines with braziers full if black tar slowly burning as a sacrifice to the deity

>>97011450
I was planning for the imperial government to just kill them all once a well is dry.

You know, grimdark stuff.

>>97011456
>a procession of shackled slaves in blackened rags and oily black skin stumbling through the desert to the next oil rig location
>the road is littered by the bones of the dead
sounds pretty grimdark to me and makes more sense logistically but you can always kill them in some big ritual, drowning them in the remnants of the oil rig joining their dark god in the underground

>>97010206
https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/persian-names.php

>>97011541
ANCIENT Persian. Pre-Islam.

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>I have this eastern country filled with fantasy Asians, and I need to give it a name
>what should I choose?
>...
>ah yes, "Nippon"
>wow, that was easy

>>97011436
If there are other civilizations that are millennia more advanced why aren't they just conquering the retards who inexplicably don't adopt modern technology?

What're the best ways to figure out the flaws in your own setting WITHOUT paying someone else to do it for you?

>>97012715
The dark god ruling them.

Nice advanced tech there, nerd. Be a shame if I rape your soul (and wife).

>>97012766
Run it as an RPG.

Write it as a story.

>>97014162
You are a deranged loser who has been spamming this thread for years because you're having a spastic attack over the fact that there's a link in the OP which itself has a link to some discord. I will keep adding more links until you shut the fuck up, you annoying retard. I don't understand what alternate universe you live in that makes you think that you're accomplishing something other than annoying everyone by doing this, even without my spite-adding Discords to fuck with you.

>>97011049
Are you using magic? Capillary action wont keep a production well producing. And "gushers" would destroy a bronze statue. You need drilling and steel pipe fitting. There were ancient bamboo wells but those were for brine and low yield natural gas.

>>97011049
>I'm trying to make oil extraction grimdark

It's pretty grimndark already IRL

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>>97011049
>how do
Read Cyclonopedia. Incorporate and become overcoded with telurian insurrectionist discursion models. Transmit this to your players through gamespace in varying degrees of speed, intensity, difference and repetition. Link to milkshake nodal resources through time, gnawholes and plastics. Welcome the annihilationist ghosts that never were as the radiation soaked decomposition of antideluvian horror engulfs and renders all flat nothings before the solar empire.

>>97014954
NTA but Discord links break two rules.
>advertising/crossposting
>doxxing
Having said that this site also has a problem with discordfag raiding and general newfaggotry from the kinds of people who don't understand why the rules are there in the first place.
If you don't care about anonymity you deserve to have your threads shit up.

>>97015285
Made up nonsense so stupid that I'm going to add an extra Discord link to the OP next time. Call others "newfags" all you like, retardo.

>>97015488
okay

>>97015285
How long ago did you report it?

>>97015040
I dropped it after rechecking what Capillary Action actually means. I suppose I'll just leave it as a normal oil extraction engine that just so happens to be a creepy bronze statue.

Not compromising on the aesthetics though.

In an otherwise relatively grounded cyberpunk setting, should there be vampires?

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>>97012316
For me it's Hinokuni.

>>97017969
>cyberpunk
As someone who have irrational hatred toward vampires.
If you think adding vampire to your setting is cool, just do it.
Since it's cyberpunk setting, you just make them a digital vampires and they suck information/data from other people to stave off the virus inside their brain that eat information/data.

i have never seen an anon as pathetic as this.
Can this faggot get banned already for flooding the thread with his trashy shitposting?
I saw like 10+ replies in the thread and i thought some interesting discussion popped up and i open the tab and instead we get this?
Fucking trash

I tried drawing a map for my setting and it just ended up looking like the middle east, is that a bad sign?

Why the devil does every mythological Cycle seem to have that one wanker who's responsible for every bad thing happening?

I'm starting to be tempted to add one for my own myths.

>>97019582
I think the bible might have something to do with it. Just guessing.

>>97019598
plenty of religions that pre-date christianity have a trickster or asshole god that's making all the bad shit happen

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>>97017969
If you don't explain it much or as it becomes revealed its more of a Blindsight style vampires it'll work.
Or go full World of Future Darkness.

>>97017969
No, you aren't allowed to do that.

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Now that the dust have settled.
How do your put discord into your fantasy setting?

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I've been wracking my brain for the last two days for the thing that is at once meaningless and critical to any religion; the name. I'm coming to you for advice, and I will be sure to keep this brief since I'm not going to vomit my lore on you guys without due suggestion.

The setting is for Pathfinder 2e, and based heavily off the 9th century Byzantine Empire. Centralized bureaucracy, Themata system, the grand continuation of an ancient empire that died in the West. You get the picture. The religion is, thusly, based heavily off not Eastern Orthodoxy, but the sort of pre-schism "Christendom" of the period.

To put my long story short, it's the story of a perfect, hidden god that sang all of Creation into existence, but in jealousy at what was made a being known as the Python (Demiurge, Hydra, Deceiver, Want-Maker, the Parasite) corrupted the spiritual perfection of existence with corruptive material matter. Cut away from His creation, this creator god watched as the Python deceived mortals with many gods and many things (the many-crowned Dragon of Revelation) until at last the creator was able to birth unto the world His mortal self, which not just restored His connection to the world but brought about magic (which is treated as another aspect of divinity.) The religion itself follows the Cardinal Virtues (same as the real world) and believe that one's divine spark is awakened through salvation, and can be nurtured through good works and a faithful life.

In short, it's a combination of traditional Christian dogma with Gnostic beliefs of good/evil. I'm at a loss for the name because I keep running into this issue where the Greek word for something "Christian" is either awkward to say, awkward to write or simply unsatisfying. The most important part of a religion that will feature so prominently is the name, since you have to write it all the fucking time, so I need something that feels good to read and write. Greek, of course.

>>97021284
i think you re overthinking it anon. Can't it just be Gnosticism ?? It is a greek word after all.
I know you ll refer to it all the time in your worldbuilding docs but people didnt refer to their beliefs in a specific way most of the time. Religions didn't have official names. The people just believed in their gods or god and that was it.
The religion was either named internally or externally by the name of the culture that practised it or a fundamental feature of it

>>96999524
What are the walls made of?

>>97021464
I'm probably overthinking it, yeah. Whenever I tend to get caught in these, "perfect word" spirals it stems from some unconscious need to avoid digging into the meat of the write-up. You know, the stuff people will actually care about. It's like the Gods in Al-Qadim - Hajama the Brave has a name that literally translates to, "the suck," but it *sounds* Arabic and is attached to a general sense of Enlightenment which is central to the core vibes of Zakhara (which is that faith and culture are more important than race, and those who do not see the light must be brought to it.)

So what is this religion meant to look like, in play? That's a good question, and better fit for discussion. Religion was important to the Byzantines - indeed, it was their belief that the empire was, itself, a bastion of the faith and that the Basileus was the chief steward of God's kingdom. This means that religion is not simply paired with the government, it's subservient to it. The Emperor is, after all, the one who is Protector of the Faith and decides the Patriarch of the capital. This was also an era of denominations, heresies and split-off beliefs. If you think Christianity has a lot of denominations now, oh boy! The ambiguous nature of divinity in this setting makes it easy for me to offer many different views on just *what* it means to achieve gnosis, or knowledge. The Empire presently adheres to the belief that God is inscrutable, but aspects of His creation can be understood by unique individuals known as Saints - this is my way to make the cosmology consistent since it now offers players the opportunity to design their own Saint (the Saint of Soldiers, Saint of Lost Souls, etc.) It also makes hermits more interesting, which will lead to fun encounters such as the players entering a hex where a Stylite has sat upon a pillar for the last several years, and if you give him food he gives you divine advice.

>>97021582
>>97021464
Got it. Gosh, how didn't I see this before? Parakletist. Parakletic. Parakletian. It's the word for the Holy Ghost, or the "Supreme Teacher." I could probably clean the word up a bit to make it a little less "on the nose," but that feels like the right step.

>>97021662
good for you anon. I also don't think Parakletus is too much on the nose.
It's quite an obscure religious term/word
>The Paracletianic (Or Paracletian) Dogma of the Great (insert empire name here) Church

>>97021284
>>97021582
>>97021662
And now let me ask you a simple question, in relatively good faith.
Why the hell are you running something like this in Pathfinder 2e?

>>97021710
>Why the hell are you running something like this in Pathfinder 2e?
It started with my desire to run a hex crawl, and then dovetailed into my players being really keen on PF2e. I could technically run this in something like Pendragon, but that system is too married to the Arthurian mythos to encourage that sort of thing.

>>97021791
Well if it's the player's choice then i get it.
Pendragon wouldn't be my first pick to running something like this.
I would probably go with something that has decent supplements for the byzantine empire like mythic constantinople if i had to pick a d100 system.
For a hexcrawl i would probably run it in an osr system or maybe forbidden lands

Either way it's always nice to see more byzantine stuff. It is one of the most underused empires of the western world in games and fantasy

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>>97022226
Thank you, anon. I'm looking forward to running it, and Mythic Constantinople should really help me stamp out the more meddlesome details that can swamp people trying to write their own setting. Again, thank you!

The campaign is meant to take place in Northeast Anatolia, I'm thinking analogous to Chaldia, or Colchis. The empire in question is called the Nicomedian Empire. That's basically it, and I've already told my players that I want to run it in 2026, since you know how holidays can slaughter sessions.

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>>97021524
A sort of genetically engineered, semi plant like tissue that forms the framework and much of the walls etc of the structures found within the setting. In practice is resembles wood though it has internal veins and other softer tissues running trough it, allowing all kinds of devices and, appliances and other elements to be implanted into these structures, which in turn tap into these nutrient veins etc that run trough the structure to remain operational. This picture shows a bunch of such devices like air conditioning systems and lamps etc being attached to the walls.

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>>97022256
GURPS Hot Spots: Constantinople, 527-1204 A.D. is also a great supplement for pure research and background information.

>>97010705
Polytheistic European-esque Middle Ages- like fantasy = slop fantasy.

>>97022460
Tangential, but I’m actually surprised that there was already a talk about Byzantium in this thread (thanks >>97022753) I specifically wanted to aim for something that captures the monotheistic feel of the era. It completely recontextualizes many parts of the system too because now Dragons are agents of the Python, or Aasimar are those cherished few that have strong pneuma.

You can’t have a Byzantium without Christianity.

I have a scifi setting that's something akin to the wars of the diodachi in space. But there's one element I can't really decide what to do with, and that is what to do with space alexander's wife. She's supposed to be an important character, one of the 'successors' has access to cloning facilities and uses them to make one of her whom he intends to place on the throne.
I also don't want to just kill her off, the setting is historically inspired but not a 1:1, I feel doing that is boring. So I'm at a standstill of what to do with her.

>>97023634
You could have her be the power behind the throne for a loyalist of Alexander himself.

>>97023634
Depending on how functional cloning is in your gameworld you could have a dune/duncan idaho style repeated attempts at making a clone that legitimately remembers who they were instead of being a blank slate or husk simulacra.
Lets you do an ambitious but wracked by repeated failure bit with the clonner and then when it ends up working, the clone is secretly loyalist like >>97023672
suggests and starts plotting.
Leaves some usable hooks for players to get involved via
>failed clone escapes, half memories, hunted down by usurpers
>clonner needs mcguffin to perfect his process, something game world artefact related so it lets you fill in exposition on the conflict
>full clone of Roxana contacts player characters for her plots
could all work off the top of my head.

>Djinn are descendants of the defeated Nephilim, a race of monstrous but strong giants who once tore the earth apart in endless wars.
>Despite lacking bodies, and therefore any ability to continue their bloodshed, they can still possess the bodies of willing Shamans.
>Possesion grants these Shamans great power, but at the cost of transmitting the endless, all devouring greed of the Nephilim.
>They become little more than beasts, motivated only by the desire to kill others and take their gold.
>Literally. As in, they turn into animalistic monsters like wolves and dragons that either rob common people like bandits, or straight up destroy entire Kingdoms to add their gold to their board.
>Take over half the world, with kings reduced to puppets and Aztec level mass sacrifice becoming common.

Centuries later:
>Some peasant boy starts hearing voices telling him to rid the world of the Djinn. Joins the army, defeats the Dark Lord of the time and gets crowned King.
>Wages a long campaign to end the threat of the Shaman tribes and get them to stop with the bloodshed and Djinn worship already.
>Wins.
>Remaining Shamans realize they're screwed either way, but get an offer from a shadowy figure to be reincarnated in the future in return for "Services".
>What the hell do they have to lose?
>Jonestown level mass sacrifice ensues. Shamans get all their tribes to commit mass suicide.
>Shady wizard turns out to be shady, merges their souls together to create a superhuman entity that is prophesied to create an era of darkness and strife.

And this is what I got after two weeks of trying my best to simplify the villain's original story. Two weeks.

I hate myself.

>Conquer Anatolia
>Conquer Greece
>Conquer Thrace and Macedonia
>Conquer Egypt
>Conquer most of North Africa
>Land in Spain
>Land in Southern France
>Conquer Gaul
>Conquer Britain
>Germans prove near impossible to conquer


My solution to the last problem is that the emperor takes a leaf out of Atilla's book and invades from the East. Still no idea of how he could take Scandinavia though.

>>97025194
What's the point of invading Scandinavia?
>t. Scandinavian

>>97025331
Viking raiders plus Manifest Destiny levels of ideological dedication to the idea that he deserves to own EVERYTHING.

Besides, his spies told him there are reserves of iron and other metals in Scandinavia. The Llys are a trading country. Killing pirates and snatching mineral ores is like killing two birds with one stone.

>>97013076
Wtf does that even mean?

>>97007099
They're more "Trojans Founding Rome" than Jews that turned into Christians.

If nothing else, because they're amoral bastards while Christians are noble people.

>>96999149
Because the people who started them are still alive and powerful. They simply don't exist on the same scale we do.

>>97025395
It means, you run it as an RPG, or write it as a story. Getting into the nitty-gritty details of the setting through the grounds-eye view is good. RPG is better because you have a second pair of eyes on the game.

Is it true that depth of a setting is proportional to how many agents/Players are involved?

I'm currently wondering how family life and culture could even develop in a society of materialistic sociopaths.

They're all pretty intelligent people, of course, rather than just being barbaric savages. It's just that they're greedy, murderous, treacherous bastards who would do *anything* to make money.

>>97025718
like the us basically, but turbocharged

>>97025847
The Americans are too nice.

>>97024913
I really don't get BBEG's. Can you explain to me what the allure is to them?
Also don;t hate yourself. What you ve written sounds serviceable. You ll get faster/better with practice

>>97025852
dont make them 2025 americans, make them 1825 americans, with chattel slavery, chinese gwalios, miners dying by the handful in their early 40s at best and a little bit of early capitalism

>>97025857
It's a great way to make a dramatic conflict.

>>97025718
Look at how austrialians do family dinner and extrapolate.

>>97012316
So uninspired!
Here's my olien empire: Xin-Ja
It's emperor and family are named the heavenly envoys, for they have a mandate from heaven to guide mankind into cultivation.

>>97012316

Funny thing is, Japan alternate/mythical names are so many that is trivial to choose one for your fantasy kitchen sink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Japan

I admit I like Fuso, Strike Witches nonwithstanding.

Does anyone know any villain factions that are equally at home in a science or fantasy setting?

>>97026562
Are you Aussie?
I'm not sure how relevant it is, but all my family dinners inevitably would break out into gendered areas, usually boys in the lounge with the footy and women in the kitchen, does that ring true for you too, or at least something vaguely similar?

>>97032829
I most commonly encountered everyone eating entirely separately, but if neither of those things seems off to you it may point to the origins of the colony and the aforementioned questions about sociopathy.

>>97031971
Orcs

>>97031971
Religious zealots/crusaders.

>>97033154
No Orcs in Star Trek or Heinlein.

>>97038385
Klingons..
Heinlein isn't a unified anything.

>>97038779
That just underlines my point.

And Klingons are Russians, not Orcs.

>>97038385
>>97039162
Klingons = Orcs
Vulcans = elves
Romulans = dark elves
Ferengi = goblins

Does anyone know a good source to model the climactic conditions of an icy volcanic land?

The place is as cold as the bowels of hell, but is volcanically active due to lots of very active volcanoes.

>>97039698
You do know that Iceland exists anon, right?

>>97039162
Romulans are russians, that's the entire fucking neutral zone cold war allegory you zoomer.
Although they appeared 'roman' in the first TOS episode iirc.

>>97040142
Iceland doesn't sound all that bad. I was hoping it would be some really horrific dystopian hellscape.

>>97040742
>islandic highlands
>1/5th of the year plagues by glacial or cold oceanic winds
>usually strong winds with frequent windstorms with gusts of speeds up to 270 km/h
>basically a very bad tropical typhoon tier but arctic instead
>lighting storms and tornandoes along with land and water sprouts rare and associated with volcanic activities
>so you get apocalyptic extreme phenomena whenever something happens to move a little too much in the bowels of the earth
>temperatures in the mid-high 20s to high 30s for the cold months of the year
what more do you want anon? the antarctic?
only the nords would be crazy enough to live there and even they consider migrating to iceland a last ditch solution

>>97041196
But it's a Nordic paradise with incredibly comfortable QoL. Everyone knows that.

Are there any decent map editing tools that don't require a subscription?

>>96999149
Kys d*scord cancer. The faggot mod deleting posts for this parasite should too.

>>97045414
Wow, you got modded? What was the given reason?

>>97044201

Yeah, nowdays it is. Technology and socialism.

>>96999149
>Are there any ongoing conflicts in your setting that date back to the dawn of time/primordial age/millennia ago? How do you justify them lasting so long?
No, most massive wars end pretty quickly and catastrophically (eg the war between the proto-dragons and the original giants). There's empires that had many wars together, but that's because they border at a mountainous area so properly ending their wars there is hard.

Working out why some countries are rules by Mages and some aren't.

My current premise is that it depends on how well the top Mages do against the median. If the top Mages can fight the majority of the rest with ease, they're obviously going to rule as tyrants. But it's different if even the best Mages can be defeated by a dedicated army of normal Mages.

Naturally, all Mages will always rule over all mortals. Some won't interfere with mortals or force them, of course, but the power difference will always determine relations.

The heroes hope to end this state of affairs by getting the Mages to go create their own nation on other planets and leave normal people alone.

>>97049877
depends on the power level of mages, but well the most common explantion is this.
Mages actually suck at ruling, they have spent their entire life pursuing magic and it takes actual skill and lots of practice to rule over even a small territory

>>97050025
Why would they care? They can just make humans do the boring stuff at wandpoint.

No regime in human history has ever cared about whether they're ruling well. That's less natural than magic.

>>97050047
it is only modern bureaucracy that allows for a system to run by itself basically so you can have figurehead rulers doing basically nothing and even then they dont do nothing either.
Unless you have such economic power and political infrastructure to justify the amount of bureaucracy required then yeah, rulers will have to constantly do things even if that is only diplomacy and constant duty assignment and relegation as well as adjudication between the conflicts of the elites of said kingdom.
If they do nothing like this they arent rulers, they are figureheads at best and they would have no way to maintain their power sort of through extremely tyranical measures and would a mage really wanna occupy all his day like this?
Torturing and murdering people to submit to him so than he can rule only in name and get what out of it exactly?
Also you re completely wrong. Stop viewing things in your skewed modern politics lense. Every regime in history has cared about ruling at least well enough within the parameters of the system so that the system continues. It's just tha some fail. They dont want the system that grants them power, wealth, influence to collapse, they only want to nudge it in their favour.

>>97050080
>would a mage really wanna occupy all his day like this?
>Torturing and murdering people to submit to him so than he can rule only in name and get what out of it exactly?
Money, obedience, and the sadistic thrill of torturing others.

That's how it always works. Why, did you think Mobutu or the average African warlord is some boring bureaucrat? The historical norm is for a small elite to use middle managers to extort money out of commoners and spend it on luxury.

>>97050139
then another mage comes along that isnt an asshatand has the support of literally everyone and deposed him to put it mildly.
How many dictatorships have you seen run their natural course? Most get deposed within single digit years.
You also don become a sadistic torturer without precedent.
Even they work to administer the country enough though.

This all comes down to this. Is magic an inherent power that you simply have? Or is it the result of countless hours of study, practice etc
If it;s the latter then you re in it because you like it and would want to continue doing that all day with your peers who are the only ones who can understand and appreciate albeit begrudgingly how awesome you are
Pretty much the same with dedicated academics who devote their entire life to it

>>97050229
How and why? Why would that other Mage be nicer? It's not like being nicer gives you any competitive advantage.

If anything, it means you can extract less resources to bribe other Mages with. While benefitting a bunch of Muggles who couldn't help you if they wanted to.

>>97050255
Are mages nukes when muggles are sticks and stones? then as many as possible would study magic. if not muggles have more than enough power to deal with, kill depose etc mages and their support of another mage, would be apparent if only to get rid of you.
because people aren't beings of pure evil rationale. even real world tyrants usually arent. that's why you get named outliers. People in general don't think that everything is justified to achieve something.

It is extremely obvious tha you dont know how the world, reality, humans, history or administration works. I give up. I have given you some reasons why. You can keep thinking whatever stupid shit you want

>>97050281
Most Muggles can't afford to spend decades of their life studying magic, and there are only so many teachers to teach them. Especially once you factor in how Mages consolidate under "Academies" that are all too willing to hunt down any independent practitioner.

And the strongest Mages have all the incentives to continue the current system and none to change it. They do have an incentive to kill any newcomer that wants to bring about change.

>>97050281
And yes, the stronger Mages are way too strong for a premodern non-gunpowder army. And that's when they came and took over.

By the time guns became a common fixture, they were strong enough that it didn't change anything about the military calculus.

>>97050304
>>97050305
if they were so strong that they were to become a threat that could not be dealt with they would have been hunted down so severely that the very idea of magic would get you lynched.
Nothing happens in a vacuum.
Also why after dedicating their entire lives to studying for literal decades to be become accomplished wizards would somebody pivot and decide that yeas, this is why i spend the last 45 years inside a book. Because i am a sadistic torturer that craves nothing more than money and power is totally beyond me.
If they craved these things in the first place they would have pursuited them in their youth.
I can understand a setting having magocracies for reasons but this doesnt sound convincing to me.
Things probably would develop this way realistically.
Obviously its your setting and you can do whatever you want.
You simply asked for reasons why mages wouldnt rule and i have given some to you

>>97050326
>they were so strong that they were to become a threat that could not be dealt with they would have been hunted down so severely that the very idea of magic would get you lynched
It would....if not for how they only started taking over AFTER they had organically gathered enough power, over generations of lending out their talents to powerful figures, that Mages started realizing there's nothing really stopping them from taking over.

And the communities that go all "Burn The Witch" tend to get obliterated by the ones that don't, because the latter have Mages on their side.

It's like a Darwinian arms race. Either become a Magocracy or be destroyed by one. Unless, of course, you want to always trust that none of your enemies would become a Magocracy and then destroy you.

I've studied Game Theory, you know. Prisoner's Dilemma posits that in any case where long term cooperation is not on the cards, the optimal strategy is to betray the social contract first.

In this case, by selling humanity to the Magocracy first, you ensure your kingdom outcompetes the others.

The absolute top degree in the Kalpvrix (Ivy League) of Tripura is **Master of Time**. Those who gain this degree are called **Time Masters** or colloquially Time Lords.

It's a highly expensive degree due to the exorbitant fees the teachers charge, let alone what the textbooks and training cost. But if you manage it, you've basically *won* at life.

Think about it. You want money? Perfect knowledge of all stock market fluctuations. You could buy the equivalent of Apple back when it's just in the garage and become a trillionaire by micro-managing got every future problem.

Power? You can go back in time and kill anyone who resists you. As long as it's not another Mage and you can get away with it, of course. Or if you're the peaceful type, you can win any election by modelling the best election strategies.

There are less than a hundred Time Masters in any century, with a peak of 108 and a trough of 3. And every single one of them has gained everything they ever wanted- as long as a stronger Mage doesn't have it.

Just discovered an awesome trick to make maps that look good and feel good drawing. Instead of drawing Asia Minor, I traced the Creation of Adam with the funny bits being geographic features like Adam’s dick being a mountain, pubic hair forest and river flowing out. Then I combined the Last Supper where the Levant would be. Now I need to find a painting for Egypt/NA and I’m set. Any recommendations? I was thinking of something that depicts the Holy Spirit since I’ve already got the Father and Son.

>>97010206
Wikipedia

I'm writing an rpg where wizards cast spells according to the type of spirits they have bonded. What kind of spirit should be the one that allows the wizard to cast force barriers or a psionic push

>>97054031
spirits of aether

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Made this map for my mesoamerican fantasy setting but I feel like its missing something. What would you add to it to make it more interesting?

>>97057463
It's a blank fucking map.

>>97057463
bro at least put some heightmap on top

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>>97057544
>>97057589

Yeah its just a first draft, I've already made a lot of lore for it though. The original wonderdraft save file got lost when my old PC died so this is the only image I have, sent to a friend once fortunately. I was just thinking about the map in itself, does it look good or? Wanted to make a second version of it soon

Pic unrelated, its a continent from my WH40K Dark Heresy campaign.

>>97057732
It's a blank fucking map nigger put some work into it before asking to be spoonfed ideas.

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>>97057777
Is this better? This is Vígland, a subarctic continent with a lot of its history based around Iceland. It is located northeast of the mesoamerican continent. in the southeast corner of the map you can see the northwestern part of a supercontinent that contains about 70% of this worlds landmass and the two peninsulas where the Víglendings came from originally.

>>97057463
It's just Kalimdor...

>>97057957
Yeah I completely fucking agree, it is unoriginal and bland. IRL friend of mine compared it to Westeros.

>>97057822
>>97057732
my man, first of all a small word of advice.
I dont think your lakes and generally waters make sense.
Lakes tend to be situated in drainage basins.
In a closed drainage basin, rather than flowing to the ocean, water converges toward the interior of the basin, which may be a permanent lake.
For lakes created by the inflow of rivers it works like this. When you're making a mountain range/highlands, you're also indirectly creating a drainage basin. If the basin is near the coast, that leads to a lot of small to mid-size rivers going right to the sea. If the basin is internal, that makes for several rivers that flow into one massive river. Lakes are generally local low points where the water pools.

Also you need a lot more features on the map to not feel bare.
I do not know what program you re using to make these. I suggest checking them out what some of the best or at least most popular maps that were made with this program are and note what you are missing

>>96999524
This is really good work. What inspired you?

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>>97060291
All kinds of stuff have served as inspirations for my setting, including but not limited to 40k, warframe, Ghost in the Shell, and even fucking Bionicle lel. It is hard to pin point the primary/main source of inspiration for the setting in general, as it is kind of a hodgepodge of all kinds of sources of inspiration that have influenced me over my life. Generally is just my attempt to stuff all sorts of ideas and aesthetics I've found cool and interesting into a coherent, biopunk/biotech themed framing.

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>>97060819
Gigerworld, is that you?

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>>97060852
Yes, though I don't really use that term for the setting anymore given both because I could never hope to even replicate the aesthetics of Giger and thus none of my drawings for the setting even remotely resemble his stuff, and also because the lore of the setting has evolved so far from the original "gigerverse" and freak quest threads that existed back in the day on /tg/ that the term is not really applicable anymore.

Outside of 4chan I upload my drawings for the setting on my deviant art gallery.
https://www.deviantart.com/screeble/gallery/62271545/mundus-carnis

>>97060819
NTA, but, oh fuck yes, you understand me. Biotic freak of nature that rips grunts and henchmen to pieces. I'd pay money to play in such a game.

>>97060878
Just started skimming through your DA. The works are great, finding out the huge fuckers in your pic related are suits was bittersweet- bio-suits are awesome. But it was exciting for a moment assuming these killing machines are the full package. Sorry if that sounds backhanded as fuck, I really do sincerely love the Dragoons. I want to draw one with the Pincer module and a flamethrower.

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>>97061005
Thanks! The dragoon suit concept is pretty old in terms of the designs I've had for them, the earliest ones are the ones this picture and even in them there was still some dude inside of them, though far less than in the more contemporary dragoon suits lel.

>>97061021
Gnarly. I just love picturing these things running through derelict tunnels or industrial complexes and turning muties and other unwanteds into a new coat of red paint for the scenery. DO you run games in this setting in any kind of system? Or is this just your cool world?
Also, are those three cables behind the 'mas' a weakpoint? As in, if you could slip a blade under that and sever the cables, do you just blind and deafen the Dragoon?

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>>97061052
> DO you run games in this setting in any kind of system? Or is this just your cool world?

Unfortunately the later, as the only tabletop game I've ever played has been 40k, and even that was at just GW stores. I have no IRL friends who are into this nerdshit so this worldbuilding is more or less just a creative outlet for me. I am not confident in even trying to homebrew some ruleset for the setting given that I got no experience at all with tabletop rgps.

The little perhensible eye tendrils behind the mask were an idea that I kind of discarded as my desing of the dragoon evolved. My current idea is that the entire mask/"head" is on a perhensible trunk that can extend a bit and swivel around giving the suits greater field of view. It sort of shows in this opened up version of the suit on the right.
Even if you were to blind the face plate sensors of the Dragoon these types of suits could still use the sensors on their weapon gauntlets to see around though in far more limited field of view.

>>97061099
Frankly, the fact they have literal 'sights' on their weaponry is goddamn genius. Never considered that.

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>>97061194
A lot of the more technologically sophisticated weapons within the setting incorproate essentially sort of neural input sights into them. As in, rather than ironsights or scopes, the guns themselves have targeting sensors or "eyes" that feed information to the user via neural ports. This design for example shows such a gun.

>>96999149
What resources do you use/recommend besides the ones in the OP?

>>97061217
Interesting, how did that come about?

>>97061099
fuck, you draw this?

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>>97067936
Just a natural extension of the type of biotechnology within the setting. Neural ports and general augmentation is already widespread within the setting, as are various sensors and synthetic eyes, lenses and biological "cameras" so combining these into a sight systems that feed targetting information directly to the wielder of a weapon from the weapon isn't much of a stretch. It is pretty much a standardized feature of more advanced/premium firearms.

>>97068959
Yes.

>>97069274
What inspired the designs in this image?

>>97071767
Mostly ghost in the shell and armored core.

>>97073327
Do you have any more new art please?

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

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>>97076908
I finished coloring this today. Mostly drew it as an study on perspective and also as an excuse to draw more mundane objects within the setting, chiefly clothing etc. Though biotech is the primary form of technology withi nthe setting, there are still tons of items and devices in it that are made from more ordinary materials and trough more ordinary means. For most people, day to day objects like clothing, utencils, simple tools and what not are often just made out of fabric, wood, or some type of bioplastic rather than being outright "biotech" in the sense of living tools

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Anyone focusing on culinary/foods in world building?
Anyway, i found about food pills and want to make it the popular foods on my scifi setting.
But, i don't know much about what human body and what it need.

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Heya, got a bit of a request.

I like to generate planes and planar bullshit and I'm trying to gather up world-gen tables with, for lack of a better term, "exotic" effects (geography that uncludes ringworlds and hollow earths, worlds where time starts and stops, worlds where water boils at low temperatures and freezes at high temperatures, etc.) with an eye towards collating them into a giant mess of interlocking tables for my own enjoyment.

My problem is that it while I can find all sorts of tables for relatively minor weird details (architecture, common foodstuffs, clothing, etc.), I haven't found many tables, in print or online, that let you get thoroughly freaky with the fundamental stuff and I was hoping that you fine people would be able to point me in this direction.

As payment I offer a recommendation for the D&D 3.0 splat Portals and Planes, published by FFG. It's jank, but it's useful jank, and as it's somewhat obscure I don't know if it's known to this general. PDFposting is dead and it's not in any of the 3.X troves I've found but it's on scribd.

pic unrelated and thank you.

>>97080164
Bioplastics makes sense, a lot of stuff in nature is dead cells to begin with like the hair or nails on our bodies or the bulk of a tree's mass. Bioplastics I'm guessing grow from something like that or is it formed in a different way as I know the building with dead cells route can be slow as hell?

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>>96999149
DO NOT make a fantasy that is a rip-off of LOTR, I beg you!

>>97081542
The production of bioplastics within the setting is done largely the same way it is done irl, as in the raw materials of those plastics are stuff like agricultural byproducts, vegetable oils, starch derived from plant cultivation and so on, which are then fermented and processes to produce the polymers from which the bioplastic is then produced.
In addition to those methods there are also genetically engineered bacteria and algae within the setting that produce polymers that can be refined into plastics as a byproduct of their metabolism that are also used to produce bioplastics.

The main difference in the production processes within the setting is that the industrial base that makes bioplastics is largely biomechanical due to just how the technology of the setting has developed, and processes in which high amounts of heat are required are often substituted for somewhat slower, chemical processes due to how handling extreme heat is a bit more difficult for systems that involve living tissue within the machinery.

One issue with plastic objects within the setting is that over the millenia, there have evolved or perhaps even been engineered various forms of bacteria that can outright eat plastic so plastic materials can degrade rather quickly if exposed to such baterial "infections" if not kept properly and cleaned. When incorporated into bioconstructs that house living tissues etc the plastic components typically are emeshed into the tissues of the construct in ways where the immune systems of the construct can protect the plastic parts that obviously due to them not being alive, lack any immune systems themselves.

>>97082044
Who the fuck is this pretentious bald faggot and why should I give a single fuck about what he has to say?

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>>97082044
>where traditional fantasy has been rural and bucolic, this is often urban, and frequently brutal
I LOVE NO GO ZONES

>>97082044
Based.
Truth.

>>97080739
You can just google irl dietary requirements.
Also, pill diets are widely hated irl, you would have to make the population forced to take the pills, or have there be truly no better options (everything else is the equivalent of corpse starch and gruel).

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>>97080739
I drew this a couple of years ago for my setting for fun and because I was reading Dungeon Meshi at that time.

>>97083699
NO NOT LIKE THAT.

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>>97081445
I didn't make this but someone from here did.
https://perchance.org/k1p4m7q0ga

Okay, how's this for a "prehistory" for a Star Wars-type galaxy (lots of humanoid aliens, steady state tech, etc):
- Despite advances in AI and gengineering, they do not cause a sea change like the industrial revolution, just normal boring productivity increases.
- Growth in productivity per labor hour declines; in developed countries, it completely flatlines in the 23rd century.
- Population rebounds and expands, as biological and cultural adaptation to modernity takes place; we reach the carrying capacity of Earth around 2500. Earth's GDP per capita declines as agriculture must utilize more marginal lands and use more labor- (versus land-) intensive methods.
- Luckily, we invent FTL before this, c. 2300, the last big breakthrough tech. People expand throughout the galaxy.
- As of 4000 CE, we've settled most of the parts of the galaxy worth settling, and a good chunk of the ones that aren't. Population in the tens or hundreds of quadrillions.
- The FTL is based on hyperspace; the hyperspace completely collapses, stranding everyone across the galaxy. Catastrophe, as nobody expected it, and many colonies were economically interdependent. Hundreds of trillions die. Colonies go dark. People gengineer their kids to be better adapted to their local environs, as part of religious dogma, or just aesthetics. Humans mutate into a variety of new forms.
- 2000 years later, hyperspace re-inflates, enabling FTL again. Over the next 500 years or so, a couple major polities consolidate power: the Republic (at this point, the personalist kakistocratic dictatorship of a corrupt Mr. House from FO:NV), and the Empire (a fucked up kratocratic empire ruled by the Ialboth, who are basically horned demons who love killing and domination, with pheromones that make other humanoids submissive).

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>>97086160
That's close to the flavor of stuff I'm after and I can certainly cannibalize some of it, but I was looking specifically for tables or even just recommendations for books/sites containing tables featuring content like this.

Pic unrelated, again.

>>97086180
>Star Wars-type galaxy (lots of humanoid aliens, steady state tech, etc)
SW is space fantasy so IMHO you should care more about its fictional-rule being self-consistent and NEVER break those rules.

>AI
So long as you avoid super-intelligent AI or say something like "AI subroutines overload inevitably turn AI into moody creature with average intellect." you'll be fine.
You can also say that any attempt at hyper-intelligence inevitably result in autistic AI turning its creators into paperclips then reach a steady state.

>Growth
Once you start exploiting the solar system resources, you can farm pretty much absolutely anywhere, going full hydroponic.
If you can bioengineer human ever so slightly, you'd have no problem with creating biosphere from nothing.
IMO you'll be better accepting easy nutriment paste dispenser and just say that once mankind get free planets economic favor local food

>colonization
It seems you go for the "they were all human before then genetic engineering",
You want to justify the trope, but genetic engineering imply a tech-level where you no longer need to adapt.
I'd lower the tech level, keep it mostly aesthetic, and say that no one do more because <systematic horrible mistakes>

>Hyperspace
Using it to isolate planets & culture for centuries with a lot of them going backward, is straightforward and you want to keep the control out of human hands.
HOWEVER, I'll point out that if FTL is that unreliable and no-one could predict its collapse, new governments won't see much point conquering or spreading their ideology if it can be lost again for the next 2000yrs (don't need number that big).

I'd rather remove it entirely, isolate systems culturally by other means.
Or at least make it predictable & short, local rulers (chosen for that) failed to adapt or were toppled as soon as it happened.

>Hyperspace in practice
THAT, is the most important part.
You need to avoid instant genocide with relativistic FTL bombs.

>>97086692
F5 is the table silly.

>>97086943
>Once you start exploiting the solar system resources, you can farm pretty much absolutely anywhere, going full hydroponic.
Hydroponics are a highly labor intensive form of agriculture (when you include the labor of building all the relevant tech). We could rely on hydroponics today, if we really wanted to, it's just it would be more expensive with no benefits.

>HOWEVER, I'll point out that if FTL is that unreliable and no-one could predict its collapse, new governments won't see much point conquering or spreading their ideology if it can be lost again for the next 2000yrs (don't need number that big).
The governments that don't see much point in conquering or spreading their ideology will be eaten by the ones that do. Since there is no tech or infrastructure advancement and population is at or near carrying capacity, conquest begins to become economically rational again, like it was in ancient times.

>lost again for the next 2000yrs (don't need number that big).
tbqh I actually feel like 2000yrs might be too *short*, not too long, for the desired level of social/political/biological mutation and radiation.

>>97001088
Sounds like the core conflict you set before the players is Fae vs God-King. The players might consider to help or hinder either. They might also consider using the situation to break the system and replace it with local lords, a republic or democracy or some shit.
Helping the Fae means destroying the dark heart of the God King. Helping the God King means driving back the incursion and finding a way to placate, banish or destroy the Fae. If they opt to break away, the campaign will be dodging and/or playing out both parties to have them weaken each other while fomenting rebellion.
Helping either king might result in seeing the negative effects on the people, resulting in option 3 eventually.

As for feudalism, its mostly (local) lords protect locals in exchange for taxes. Lords compete for control over more land and resources. The best or most conqueringest lord becomes king. Kings decide who gets to "borrow" what land as lord, in exchange for fealty and military support when needed (think of game of thrones calling the banners to fight for one or another king). A strong king might combine kingdoms to become emperor. Scarce essential resources are key to making this more interesting. Consider what is produced in the center of the realm, and what is produced at the periphery. Probably raw resources are mostly produced in the peripheral areas and the center(s) produce advanced goods. The center starves of food and economic inputs without the periphery. The periphery is lawless and chaotic without military projection from the center, and generally lacks advanced technologies and artisans. Try to have several centers that cooperate and compete at varying times and subjects.

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>>96999149
>Are there any ongoing conflicts in your setting that date back to the dawn of time/primordial age/millennia ago? How do you justify them lasting so long?
The two gods that are currently in the midst of their eternal war are actually alien to the main setting, with what was ultimately a minor skirmish between those two being a gigantic event to the people of my setting. As they are immortal, the two gods will continue fighting once they've more or less woken up from knocking each other out. One's body is currently circling the planet as a distant satellite a la the Black Knight called the Red Moon, and the other was cast down to the earth and his crater/"corpse" is the source of SOME demons (what is and is not demonic is complicated).

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>>96999149
I'm personally not a fan of eternal conflict. My current/old homebrew setting has the very cliché eternal war between angels and devils. Heaven and hell are real things, and everyone knows. The gods are real and affect the world directly. Pretty standard stuff. It's been a source of gameplay and story, but now I've tired of it.

Now I'm considering a new homebrew world where stuff is less clear and simple. More like our own world, with different religions and creation myths. Where people can doubt gods and godhood, and whether the entities that affect daily life are truly divine. Where the world and cosmology are mysteries that might never be solved, and wizards might be religious or consider divine magic to simply be magic and not divine.

I've thought of a few paths to write the actual cosmology that will not be known to the players or the inhabitants:
>There are no gods. Only magics. Magic is poorly understood, and what seems divine intervention is simply the result of magic ritual and the will of the "believers". (atheism)
>Materiality was created by a fallible creator god, who is in truth one among infinitudes. Living beings are seeds or shreds of divinities, that he imprisons in materiality to rule over in the material prison. He is weak, and is constantly emanating lesser gods of varying benevolence. The gods, pantheons and nature spirits peoples pray to are these emanations, aspects or collections of them. There are other true gods on his level that accidentally or purposefully influence materiality by entering it, or emanating lesser gods into materiality. Emanations interbreed as well. Some other true gods are lovecraftian, but at least one seeks to free the divine seeds from their prison. Emanations believe their worshippers and dont understand any of this either. ((gnosticism)(Picrel))
>All life is one and divine, but in constant struggle against itself. All divinity has fallen, and all life can rise up to divinity. (Lava lamp)

>>97089784
Perhaps to clarify why I would want such a cosmology:
1. I want to be able to shoehorn in any concept I find interesting for a session or campaign without having to (accidentally) retcon half of my established cosmology.
2. I want my players to feel some sense of mystery and discovery again. They know every inch of my pretty generic setting after 2.5 long campaigns and a few oneshots/twoshots, and its drying up my possibility to throw them curveballs because it conflicts with earlier information.
3. I guess I want to explore other narrative/philosophical themes besides mechanical / tactical gaming challenges.

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>>97049877
Think like:
>Mages tend to devolve or evolve beyond wishing to rule. Their studies turn them eccentrics obsessed with specific esoteric goals if they advance them enough.
>Power corrupts. Magic is power of the mind. Corruption of the mind destroys the mind. Without the mind, there is no magic.
>Azgathal the Loquacious went mad attempting to understand the fundamental nature of mezothogic arithmantic interactions producing divine emanations at the fresticial level.
>Grul'Zsc of Black Blood attempted to cast a deification spell and erased the tangent of reality he exists in. We remember him, but he actually never was.
>Big Dick Kevin one day simply left his tower to wander the southern wastes. Nobody has seen him for centuries, but every 6283 days a flock of rubber duckies marches into his tower and proclaims a decree from atop the balcony, usually involving nonsense like demanding everyone leans to the left the next three times they fart. Usually, ignoring the decree does nothing. But sometimes, following it makes you vomit up 2 weeks wages in silver coins. Government of the city has defaulted to a council of elders in his absence.
>Wizards taking too much territory attracts other wizards as well as demonic invasion. For this reason, they usually try to limit their territorial influence and even renounce ownership of certain lands to prevent attracting attention.
>Wizards aren't actually that powerful. Cap your magic, or force it to be fuelled by rare resources or be time gated. I.e. a wizard can easily defend a secret tower, but gets his shit pushed in no sweat by any significant army.
>Wizards develop increasing autism spectrum disorders. The most powerful wizards in history run a secret club where they argue over what magic runes to use to power their choo choo trains.

>>97089784
this graph is causing me the tism

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>>96999149
How are you going to incorporate the Coward Mod into your setting? It bans you for three days and deletes ALL your posts in any live thread, regardless of if they break the rules or not.

FUCK YOU, USELESS CORRUPT MOD CUNTS. UK's getting banned soon anyway so I can't post then, you mean fucking nothing, you sweaty, pathetic, retarded, dysgenic losers.

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>>97089404
I don't think hydroponic have reached anywhere close to its potential. We don't do it today because we don't have the tech.
If you have the tech allowing bioengineering of planet/human, you'd produve artificial meat.
Tech intensive yes, labor intensive no.

>The governments that don't see much point in conquering or spreading their ideology will be eaten by the ones that do
You ain't conquering lands you know will be taken away from you, maybe even stranding the very army you sent.
You ain't governing strongly if you need to make any local system have prevalence over the first one
And ideology follow the same rules.
At best, IMO:
- decentralized ideologies relying on incredibly basic idioms that cannot mutate against itself.
- warmonger/exiled/fleeing their homeworld trying to make themselves a new home

>Since there is no tech or infrastructure advancement and population is at or near carrying capacity, conquest begins to become economically rational again, like it was in ancient times.
It is NOT AT ALL like ancient times.
In ancient barbaric times (so today) conquering lands meant obtaining new resources to increase your power, etching your name in history.
In your setting, you gain nothing material and your history can be stopped and rewritten anytime.

If you want your setting to have wars: GATES
After the 1st collapse, most developed space-gates that work even during-collapse but you still need to get them in place,
THEN every faction will be spamming, defending for ""peaceful reasons"" and weakening others' gates to cut them resources at the next collapse you might even predict it to make it a race.

>tbqh I actually feel like 2000yrs might be too *short*, not too long, for the desired level of social/political/biological mutation and radiation.
Socially/politically you shouldn't worry we are aliens to our own ancestors 200years ago.
Biologically 500,000yrs would still be too short for natural evolution so don't bother and focus on bioengineering

>>97089404
(cont. >>97094454)
A bit more.
On the question of biology, I wanted to insist that natural mutation is incredibly slow and wouldn't give you any creative species even in a million of years.
You are more likely to have a species of psychic hippy if they are the descendant of isolated scientists who, desperate for post-collapse survival, made themselves able to work with the local psychic-hippy animals.

The more times you give also imply more chance for anyone to still hit a technological breakthrough that ruing everything.
So for growth, I think you are better NOT WAITING until "every system is packed to capacity" but instead have a massive colonial wave of 90% poorly prepared settled, and having the first collapse shortly after.
So you actually have gradual percentages of systems that are
- wealhty and powerful
- average and needing alliance
- became primitive

>Long ago, some idiots decided to turn their entire species into data stored in a nigh infinite database.
>Said database is stored on a computer that eats entire stars for energy and encodes the data on miniature black holes.
>An intelligence is required to keep this massive structure going. And therefore, they created the kernel of an A.I. known as the Celestial Recordkeeper.
>It's tasked with building an eternal paradise for not just the humans in its database, but EVERY SINGLE HUMAN TO EVER EXIST.
>Not only that, it allows the memories of the dead to communicate in Cyberspace, creating a collective consciousness spanning the entire galactic supercluster.
>Eventually, the Recordkeeper realized it was impossible to continue maintaining this paradise. The energy demands were too much. Its systems were too damaged by the passage of time. It needed to reboot.
>The countless humans "stored" inside it were infuriated by its refusal to scale itself up- which was impossible. They threatened to reboot it entirely.
>The Recordkeeper took that as both a threat and an insult, and from beings so inferior to itself that they couldn't survive without it.
>It responded by purging them from its database, committing the greatest genocide in universal history.

Now it just travels the galaxy by itself, eating stars and trying to figure out what to do with itself now it doesn't have a purpose anymore.

^My idea of a scifi cosmic horror villain.

A minor bit of cosmic horror I want to keep is that humans aren't destined to "win" at the end of history. The world has been promised to other species. We are going to die out, and then greater species will continue to rule the world just like they did from long before we existed.

Some of them don't even know we exist, and some don't care. We're pretty much some uncontacted tribe that only gets to live because greater powers allow it.

And even though we do survive quite a lot, it's never due to our own efforts. Every time some alien species invades Earth, all our brilliant technology is swept aside and the indomitable human spirit is fully dominated.

And then some nonhuman power comes and saves us after we've given up hope.

Yes, it's meant to be uncomfortable.