>6 discords
do we really need that mayn?

>>97312196
I just took an old OP I didn't actually check what was in it

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>>97311994
Anyone got any generators, or guides for making, complex forests? Or at least several generators that would help me cover the entirety of what you'd find (flora wise) in a forest?

>>97312196
Would've been eight if I'd had my way.

>>97311994
Rooollll

>>97312196
You don't even need this general thread, with all you retards spamming "wat is cheezborger liek in ur settan ??" on the catalog.

>Make complex magic system
>There's no way to accurately simulate it in a system without making 2000000+ custom spells or some sort of fiat system
>Never do anything with the setting as a result
Don't make the same mistake bros.

>>97314389
Worldbuilders never do anything with their settings anyway, so I don't see the problem.

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>>97314398
Why it hurts so much

>>97314389
Just write a fucking novel you sandersonian retard.

>>97314389
Honest question: why? Why would you want to take the magic out of magic like that?

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Desiging soldiers for a faction within my autistic biotech worldbuilding project

>>97311994
What Worldbuilding resources not in the OP would you recommend and why?

I think this will be of interest here
https://youtu.be/1TGUotgCYvg

>Want to work on fantasy setting
>Realize I'd have to go into the humans backstory and even if I handwave it that they're a Hanseatic League like trade empire that still requires other nations and factors
>Don't want to do this
>Stop working on setting
How do I get over this?

>>97311994
Anybody knows a list of alchemical/pseudomagical items? I have alchemists everwhere in my game and I want to have a big list of appopiate concoctions, bombs, acids and oils to be found in cities. I want explicit mundane fantasy stuff like, a grey paint that turns bright purple when its gonna rain, a very quick and strong glue or an acid that only dissolves metal.

also, related question:

I have Mithril in the setting as an alchemical alloy made from giant spider cobwebs, and makes steel armor with the propierties of kevlar (good against bullets)

On the opposite side, which could be the secret ingredient to make Adamantine; a metal that makes blades almost unbreakable?

I am cursed I tell you. Every time I make a new fantasy thing I can stock it with elves and goblins and vampires and all sorts of whimsical magic creatures, but the moment I try to add my favorites, dwarves, they feel out of place.

>>97319532
orphan blood
but only if they were crying as they died

>>97320182
what makes them feel out of place?

>>97311994
>thread question
Depends on who I'm aiming to interest.

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I’m thinking of completely subverting the dwarven stereotype by following the Pillars of Eternity approach—making them 'Boreal Dwarves' based on the concept of Neo-Neanderthals, even if the setting's inhabitants don't know that. I want to avoid the subterranean lifestyle, the 'drunk Scottish' trope, and the 'displaced people' allegory.

Similarly, I want to adapt Lizardfolk and other reptilian races through a biological lens rather than a purely fantasy one. By making them strictly cold-blooded, their populations would be concentrated primarily in tropical regions.

>>97319532
I went looking for this myself; best I found in a gameplay context for a big fat list of alchemy was:
- Darklands has a bunch of alchemy because its "wizards" are alchemists
- Pathfinder has an Alchemist class, 1e Pathfinder was 3.x bloatware so there's a whole lot of potions there.

Maybe there's some alchemical equivalent of the Picatrix, idk.

>>97315399
Wonderfags are brain-fried by Nasushit. People in the past thought magic had lots of rules, whenever they were making up reasons it failed (other than it not being real), it was always either you did it wrong or a malicious spirit fucked it up.

>>97320394

It makes me wonder if in a mafic setting magic would be treated or recognized as magic at all but classified as another branch of science. Isaac Newton was very much into occult and alchemy besides science.

>>97320422
We just call "magic" everything that didn't work, like we call "traditional medicine" everything that doesn't work. People in the past frequently divided up "technique for manipulating the supernatural" into many, many sub-categories: black magic, astrology, alchemy, haruspexy, acupuncture, necromancy, pyromancy (the practice of reading the future via flames), etc.

When you specify something more like, "specifically chanting and waving your hands around," sure, in the same way we think of computer programming or swordplay as specific fields.

>>97320481
the problem with that is that "traditional medicine" did generally work since most modern medicines are just refined forms of the plants and concoctions used by apothecaries

True, academic medicine (allopathic or "school" medicine) focused on identifying specific pathogens and mechanical causes, it often overlooked the broader human context of illness.

In the mid-1800s, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that mothers were dying of "childbed fever" because doctors weren't washing their hands. When he presented this to the academic elite, they mocked him and forced him into an asylum. The academic blind spot wasn't just a lack of knowledge; it was hubris. Folk medicine, which relied on observation ("When I wash with wine, they live; when I don't, they die"), was often more scientific than the "science" of the time.

Penicillin is the perfect example of this. When Alexander Fleming "discovered" it in 1928, he wasn't finding something unknown to humanity, he was finally quantifying a phenomenon that folk medicine had used for thousands of years. For centuries, "folk" practitioners used specific moldy substances to treat infections, while academic doctors often dismissed these as "superstitious" or "unsanitary."

On the other hand. Academy-trained surgeons would move directly from performing an autopsy on a diseased corpse to delivering a baby without washing their hands. They took pride in their blood-stiffened surgical gowns as "badges of experience."

Midwives and folk healers often had ritualistic cleaning practices. In many traditions, water was "blessed" or infused with herbs (like lavender or rosemary) before washing. While they didn't know about "germs," they respected the idea of ritual purity, which effectively meant they were cleaner than the university-trained doctors. Folk healers used wine, vinegar, and beer to wash wounds

By the 18th century, "modern" medicine had actually regressed. They stopped using these "primitive" washes in favor of dry lint or even "laudable pus", the horrific academic belief that thick yellow pus was a sign of a wound healing well.

Landcity or Palatine City? Which sounds better?

>>97319452
Only develop the parts you like and the rest just rip off from actual history with just some name changes and/or leave them purposefully vague

>>97320422
The natural magic, using herbs to heal, eventually became part of science.

>>97315399
Unless your magic is extremly rare ala LotR or completly random, people that use it will try to understand it. And understanding it leads to magic eventually becoming another science or art.

I personally built around that by having elemental magic as the common magic that's well understood, studied and practiced along with much rarer magic types that people are trying to understand, but its so rare and runs on completly different priniciples that nobody is making any meanigful progress. At most there is a small insight here or there.

>>97320801
Palatine City

I don't know how you thought Landcity would be good.

You could even go with The Palatial City.

Does your world have any famous (or infamous) serial killers?

Third time the charm, I guess.

Started editing, pastebin prevented me from making it public after I removed a single link. Guess their standards changed over the years. Copied it to justpasteit, but can't post the new link for the 2019 list here, couldn't because it's flagged as spam. So I'll make a pdf for the updated list.

>>97320356
Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with having both something "traditional" and "subversive". I take a species, give it a set of characteristics which can be used to form a sort of baseline culture/identity, and then create different permutations of that culture based on where I drop it in the world.
Nothing wrong with taking traditional formulas and putting a little spin on them either. I'm taking some Scottish influences and mashing it up with some Chinese influences. Confucianism works surprisingly well with dwarves.

>>97320286
idk, all I can really imagine them as is like warhammer or tolkien dwarves, and like I said they're my favorite fantasy dudes but it just feels kind of derivative.

>>97325093
>I take a species, give it a set of characteristics which can be used to form a sort of baseline culture/identity, and then create different permutations of that culture based on where I drop it in the world.
In a similar vein (and if setting permits), having distinctions based on nationality could allow for even more differences to exist within a single race, or even among several. Iron Kingdoms does this pretty well; conflict ensues more due to nationality or allegiances than due to race, though that does still exist. Also has beardless dwarves.

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I'm brainstorming a 16th-century-inspired fantasy setting with a few twists. The names and history will be different from our own. The first twist: the in-universe Russian Tsar married the Khatun (Queen) of the remnants of the Golden Horde, rather than the former conquering the latter. This led to a reinvestment in and revitalization of the Silk Road. While the best days of this 'Jade Road' still pale in comparison to the Atlantic trade and the colonization of the Americas, its existence changes several things.

First, the East is more dynamic and wealthy. Since a branch of the Jade Road moves north, the Baltic Sea is richer; the in-universe Hanseatic League experiences a Renaissance parallel to the Italian city-states. Persia, India, and China see increased prosperity, and the Ottomans lose their monopoly on Eastern trade, creating two competing routes (North and South). Additionally, the English 'Moscow Company' (historically the world's first joint-stock company) becomes successful decades before the East India Company. Religion conflicts still happen, Spanish rise still happens, the colonization of Americas still happens, but instead of the usual "Europe vs. The Rest" or "Ottomans vs. Everyone," you have a tripartite struggle.

Is this a strong setting foundation? How close should I stick to real history even if this is mostly meant for a fantasy setting?

>>97328208
If an alternative trade road existed to the goods of india and china then the colonial projects would be significantly diminished, simply because it would be much simpler for the european nation to access the desired resources.
For the most important fact under all this is the Netherlands situation. If an influx of trade were to come from the Baltics then the Dutch are perfectly places to capture a large part of it and move the trade along to the south, to spain.
So i think that if spain holds these lands which is far from far fetched, then the entire history changes.
Also even if nothing else changes the existence of a source for these trade goods significantly diminishes the value of a large part of colonies especially as plantations hubs, so you might still see colonisation but more of the northern us type or the portuegese with trade stations/forts competing for alternative trade routes.
In reality it wasn't even europe against the rest at least till mid to late 1700s. Most colonial projects in Africa are dated after the successful coup of the East India Company in India.
You have to understand that the British had been harvesting a good relationship with the Mughals for at least 150 years before they found their opportunity to weasel themselves in. A stronger Persia/Mughals and more importantly a Britain that focuses on the Northern trade, suddenly put in a much more favourable position than the one it found itself in, would most obviously focus it's attention on the Baltic trade.
Also i can imagine a golden age of piracy happening in the north of Europe with the Norse being a real menace.

>>97320356
You don't have to have dwarves in your setting at all if you don't want to. Why subvert something instead of just not having it?

>>97330610

DNDdrones have this weird feeling they NEED to use the basic races.

>>97328208

I like the spirit of that, but it wouldn't work. Shipping is gonna be waaaaaaaay cheaper by sea anyway.

Tell me about the sun in your setting
And dont say its a star

>>97332491
It has a crumbling dyson sphere built around it that used to host a massive internal biosphere which has now become a near endless desert.
I have another setting and in that the sun is the evil eye of the demiurge

>>97332535
>dyson sphere
gay
>near endless desert
awesome
>sun is the evil eye
awesome
>demiurge
gay

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How can I make underwater and it fishy inhabitants interesting?. I wanna add merfolk (and maybe even fish men) into my setting, the sort that can walk on land, talk, trade and raid the coastlines sometimes even riding on the backs of giant sea crustaceans for items they can't get underwater.

Yet I wanna make them somewhat interesting and I'm struggling with ideas on how powerful they are or what they could do in a world set in a late-medieval soon to be early renaissance period other than merely annexing coastlines or sinking ships or send expedition deeper inland to explore what is beyond the sandy beaches to the much annoyance of the local lord seeing some fish freaks are squatting on his land to claim it, so anyone here know where I could find some inspiration on this sort of subject?

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>>97316358
More autism with an additional soldier design and a bunch of gun designs.

>>97316358
>>97333455
Now, are there people in these or like gross aliens?

>>97333463
Underneath the armor they are just heavily augmented and altered humans.

>>97332491
>And dont say its a star
There isn't one. The entire world is covered in a glowing red mist and locations connect to each other as travelers think about them doing so, or randomly if someone travels without a destination in mind. There isn't a concrete planet beneath people's feet to orbit a star.

>>97331660

That's where a Volga-like river enters the picture. Regardless, I didn't intend to have this Silk Road dominant, more like the region is richer than it was historically.

>>97328294

Good points. And I can use Baltic and Scandinavian corsairs for inspiration.

Also, I can make distinct styles depending on who is trading with whom:

>The Atlantic Powers (Spain, Portugal, France)

American Gold/Silver, Sugar High Baroque, Galleons, Colonial Grandeur

>The Jade Road Axis (Russo-Horde, Hanseatic League)

Silks, Spices, Fur, Gems Gothic Renaissance, Sables and Silk, Steppe-Cavalry

>The Sublime Gate (Ottoman/Persian influence)

Traditional Silk Road, Mediterranean Trade Janissary Professionalism, Mathematical/Scientific Hub

>>97333455
Strident Clarion is a horsecock gun.

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>>97333411
I like to study ecological habitats for species influences.
Meadow merfolk that plant sea wheat and farm manatees for milk.
Goo lagoon merfolk that collect perfectly preserved corpses and mummifies themselves in the brinepools.
Mountain merfolk that harvest coral and cause tsunamis by shifting the land.
Forest merfolk that protect the kelp forest from sea urchin with pet crabs. They could trade kelp to sea travelers and guide them to safety.

Elves have evolved a mechanism to perfectly repair telomeres, effectively halting cellular aging. To prevent the runaway cell growth we call cancer, Elves must have incredibly aggressive "biological police" (p53 proteins). This makes their bodies hyper-sensitive to mutations. Elves aren't "aloof" because they are arrogant; they are risk-averse because their bodies are primed to trigger Apoptosis (programmed cell death) at the slightest hint of chemical or radiation damage. An Elf wouldn't drink alcohol or smoke; it would literally trigger a localized "shutdown" of their liver to prevent a tumor.

>>97334788
this sounds like more of a con than a pro

>>97335107

Immortality has trade-offs.

>>97332638
What makes a dyson sphere gay?

Going to try and ask this here but I doubt I'll get an answer: I pitched the idea of turning my very natural fantasy setting into one with steampunk societies. Airships and pirates, similar to Skies of Arcadia and it slides into a nature vs technology theme. No one seemed keen on the idea. Why does it feel like everyone I know only wants grounded low magic fantasy settings?

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>>97334732
That's just what the acoustic weapons in my setting look like. Sought to emulate a sort of brass horn shape language with them.

>>97332491
It is the Elemental Primordial god representing the element of Light with a vague association with life such as with healing magic being light based. It has no self awareness except that experienced by its emanated Aspects.

I haven't yet decided if it orbits the planet or the planet orbits it.

>>97334788
So they just die if they consume alcohol or can they live without a liver for however long?

Actually this has me wondering, what happens with their blood, since the alcohol would be in the blood stream first, or their stomach or intestines?

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>>97333455
The knight is wearing a sort of symbiotic suit of living armor, that becomes essentially a second skin for him. The mane, lance "energy blade" and shield are all composed of the same living fibers that due to the "magic" within my setting can be used to form cutting heat blades, scevering lances and temporarily rigid shields. The warskin itself is fundamentally composed of these same fibers, that form the scaffolding for the living tissues grown around the user.

>>97338417
>>97336630
very eldar/dark eldar coded

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>>97339458
Can't really escape the influence of the stuff one grew up with and still finds incredibly cool.
Though these>>97336630 aren't even from my setting's "dark elves" anyways. Those designs are for this faction which is the dominant religious order of the setting.

The "dark elves" of the setting are a bit out of date in terms of aesthetics but I am gonna update their look as well in due time as I get trough these faction infographic images.

>>97339539
very slaaneshi

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>>97339545
Beyond the sex pervert elements of the designs and some overal with color schemes, I don't really see much resemblance to slaanesh stuff. Slaanesh aesthetics weren't a source of inspiration for me in the first place, if anything out of 40k, the stuff I drew aesthetic pointers from were tyranid guns for pretty obvious reasons. The general design process for the look of the sisterhood was generally just driven by my attempt to come up with an interesting look for a biotech fertility cult that would make sense in universe. The sex pervert elements in the aesthetics of the sisterhood are intentional, given their beliefs and role within the setting. Some of my older designs for them were already treading similar ground though the look was less refined and more ugly mostly because I was terrible at drawing women back when I drew this.

>>97339615
I do enjoy armor-of-the-many-boob with her pelvic-octopus-whip.

It's... horny.

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>>97339745
The idea with the Aphorine devotees is that they are essentially biochemical warfare specialists. Their augmentation has turned their bodies into living cauldrons for production of potent chemical concoctions, drugs and hormones they can use to either subdue, beguile or just outright kill their victims. Basically, they are akin to living censers that in combat, emit a cloud of mind altering vapors. Just getting too close to them without rebreathers may be dangerous and even rebreather aparatuses may not help because many of the chemicals the aphorine devotees can unleahs are skin permiable. The octopus like "caressid" symbiote plays a vital part in this process as can use the basal compounds produced by the augments of the aphorine and catalyze them into even more potent chemicals and toxins and transfuse them into it's stinging tentacle whip, allowing the Aphorine to basically deliver lashes laced with whatever mixture of drugs, toxins or hormones they desire to inflict on their victims.

>>97334762
I like those ideas, I can work with that

The goo Lagoon one especially, got me thinking of a underwater necrocracy with merfolk mummies and necromancers and these said mummies when brought to the surface be in tanks of brine that could be cool

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>>97333455
>>97336630
You doing illustrations of different weapons and soldiers in your setting has inspired me to do the same, even though I mostly focus on space stuff, though I don't do it very often (This is the latest one I did, after someone asked me to complete a set of similar pictures for all the main factions of the setting).

>>97341958
Neat. The race for which these weapons are for are some sort of insectoids?

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>>97311994
What are some good resources for when you want to add an element of randomness to your world-building?

>>97343614
AD&D 2e's World Builder's Guidebook is very useful for fantasy settings. Diku (https://topps.diku.dk/torbenm/maps.msp) is good for planetary maps.

For future history/science fiction stuff, I've found far fewer sources. GURPS Space 4e has a detailed alien generator, which I turned into a Python program here: https://www.online-python.com/FcrCEyQbiw . Throne of Salt has some good tables for planet generation, particularly this one: https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2019/10/mothership-planet-generation.html . Sectors Without Number does the same using SWN's tables: https://sectorswithoutnumber.com/ . Traveller has lots of tables too, and this looks to be a web version of them: https://srd-tools.com/sector.html

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>>97343295
Yeah.

>>97344184
Cool bugs. Sort of remind me of earwigs a bit.

> Planet inhabited by various High-Fantasy civilizations including races of Men, Gnomes, Elves, sapient Dolphins, Crab People
> Technology is around 1500s-1600s for most civilized peoples
> "Comet" airbursts in the atmosphere
>It's full of spores
>These spores attach onto things
> These hundreds of thousands of spores grow into hardened eggs usually around the size of a large briefcase, but often larger as well.
> The eggs hatch, all around the world, around the same time. Some of these eggs are within cities, either found by people or grew there somewhere
> The majority of these eggs hatch into baby dragons of various natures & others hatch into monsters that will grow into kaiju-level beings.
> They are all insanely aggressive to any humanoid life-forms, they will hunt animals but only if they do not have humanoids to eat.
> Within the first week, the Invaders had grown to their adult forms
> They destroy cities worldwide and the civilizations within storms of fire, lighting & ice
> 500 years later any surviving humanoid settlements are underground or, if On-Top, extemely nomadic & in a superposition of being either more technologically advanced than Before The Cataclysm or essentially High-Fantasy Mad Max level of tech.
> The populations of Men, Gnomes & Elves who live underground have branched into various races of Stone Men, Dwarves & Dark Elves more focused on developing technology & industry than their terrestrial counterparts who focus exclusively on magic so that they may combat the Invaders
> The races of sapient dolphins and crab people have had 500 years of unimpeded technological & economic progress and have sent scouts onto Land to assess the world for colonization
> The Dragons & Monsters have evolved into an ecosystem On-Top, while being biologically directed to destroy any humanoid settlements on the surface. SOME SAY THEY HAVE BEEN EVOLVING TO ACCESS THE SUBTERRANEAN CIVILIZATIONS..

Is this cool?

>>97311994
Kys d*scord cancer.

>>97344936
Sad your shitty thread got ignored because you can't even make a thread anybody wants to post in?

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Owing to the natural difficulty of actually getting an asteroid, and the chance it doesn't contain any valuable metals in it, would it still make sense to break them down to use as shielding for permanent space habitats?

>>97345195

Absolutely. Asteroid composition is anything but monolithic, as it were, but loosely falls into 3 categories, C, M, and S type. Those are easy to remember since they are short for carbon, metal, and silicate, or stony. C-type, carbon rich asteroids, are the most common, making up 75% of asteroids, while S-type, silicate or stony asteroids, comes in a distant second at 17% , M-type Metallic asteroids are much less numerous.

Now when it comes to mining that hardly tells the whole story, M-types are mostly nickel and iron, neither of which we’d particularly want to bring home to Earth, but which would be valuable for building stuff in space. For that matter there are also several sub-types of asteroids and two different classifications systems, and the asteroid belt is anything but the only place you can find asteroids nor the nearest place to find them. It also is not unusual for two asteroids of different types to blunder into each other and merge or to be somewhere in between these types.

C-types, the most common asteroid and also the ones that gets ignored a lot in asteroid mining conversations focused on impressing folks with the idea of mountains of gold, are quite valuable themselves. They contain lots of water, which is never a bad thing to find in outer space. But they also contain plenty of life-useful elements and particularly noteworthy is phosphorus. Something that is quite hard to find on Earth in concentration and a major bottleneck on agriculture, so if asteroid mining ever gets heavily developed and cheap, that is the sort of thing we might bring home since it is valuable. Not as valuable as gold or platinum of course, nowhere near, and these big space boulders have a lot of those.

>>97345195
it would probably be easier to just mine out the inside and build your habitat in there

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>>97338417
Extra lad to the roster. These guys are heavily augmented and armored, elite cavaliers that specialize in close combat and being bodyguards to the Baryxian nobility.

>>97338417
protoss/eldar, neat.

>>97314389
The first mistake you make is thinking magic is something to systematize.

The names I use for my fantasy gods and characters are impossibly cringe. How do I find sufficiently cool names?

>>97347961
>How do I find sufficiently cool names?
Look up random drug names and change a letter.

>>97348270
Fertinyk
Coican
Opion
Heroij
Psiliocyar

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I genuinely actually unironically no fooling have NO idea what to worldbuild.

>>97348998
what do you wanna play anon?
or if you re a nogames worldbuilding for fun, what concept are you interested in?
then simply start building around that

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>>97349097
Honestly? Kinda interested in just "having" a dedicated fantasy setting to return to. Most interested in an Elder-Scrolls-y style many races with distinct regions, lore, and lots of adventure locations. I sometimes write dungeon pointcrawls for fun and often reuse them for tabletop games, but for almost all of my campaign up until this point I just make something new every time and don't have a dedicated "world" to return to, which makes me feel very unsatisfied and a bit like a fake GM/DM. I'm having a very hard time just making a fantasy setting to make it; like picking what sort of theme or tech level or races or whatever just feels impossible when I usually try to make things more piecemeal based directly on whatever sort of game I'm running. You may consider this a strength but my lack of autism is turning out to be a huge detriment in this case.

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>>97349908
i will teach you my secret technique. pick at least 30-50 fantasy pictures that you like, just like the one you posted, be it portraits of characters or landscapes. The requirement is that they activate your fantasy, in a way, i m sure you know what i m talking about.
Make a folder, etc and start trying to write something about each pic in your program of choice.
Then when you have written enough about them try to connect things if you havent done so already.
I will give you one of my favourite pics, not as a piece of art but as something that made me singlehandedly create an entire setting for ita long time ago.

Since your strength lies in disparate themes and versatility then make a setting that will allow this versatility to flourish.

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>>97344545
I don't even remember where exactly the specifics of the design came from. They're obviously bugs and their queens are based on termite queens, but stuff like the head-crests and the long cerci on the males just came about at some point while I was working on the design. Tbh the head-crest is a pain in the ass to draw consistently at different angles and I kind of regret it.
They're probably my favorite species in the setting because the design came about a bit more organically, while a lot of the other species have a pretty obvious theme with the design. And also because I think it's fun to draw a bunch of completely non-humanoid bugs in fancy clothing.

Let's see if this rooster works for the 16th century.

## HUMANS

## CELESTIAL-TOUCHED or FALLEN ONES (Aasimar)
1. Angel-Touched (Standard)
2. Lamassu-Descended (Ancient Guardians)
3. Sphinx-Born (Riddlers)

## INFERNAL-TOUCHED or MARKED ONES (Tieflings)
1. Cambion-Blooded (Standard)
2. Gorgon-Cursed (Serpent-Touched)
3. Lilitu-Born (Night-Children)

## ELEMENTAL-TOUCHED (Genasi)

## FEY-BLOODED (Elves)
1. Sidhe/Fair Folk (Celtic Area)
2. Valkyrie-Blooded (Norse War-Maidens)
3. Siren-Touched (Mediterranean
4. Slavic Vila
5. Germanic Alfar
6. Romance Fata

## GNOMES (Small Fey)
NOT tinker inventors - earth-dwelling fey, household spirits, tricksters

1. Earth-Dwellers (Standard)
2. Household Spirits (Brownies)
3. Mine-Dwellers (Kobolds)

## SHIFTERS (Lycanthrope-Descended)

1. Werewolf-Blooded (European Standard)
2. Nagual (Mesoamerican Sacred Shifters)
3. Eastern Beast-Kin (Hengeyokai)
4. African leopard-men
5. Nordic bear-shifters

## CYNOCEPHALI (Dog-Headed People)

1. Ethiopian/North African (Standard)
2. Anubian/Sethians (Egyptian Death-Guardians)
3. Saint's Kin (Eastern Missionary)

## NAGA (Serpent People)

Temperature Restriction: Tropical/Temperate ONLY - cold-blooded, become sluggish in cold

1. Divine Naga (South/Southeast Asian)
2. Gorgon (Mediterranean Cursed)
3. Lamia (Child of Night)

## VANARA (Monkey People)

**Climate Preference**: Tropical/Subtropical - uncomfortable in cold

1. Ramayana Heroes (South Asian Standard)
2. Sun Wukong's Kin (East Asian Tricksters)
3. Forest Guardians (Southeast Asian)

## GOLIATH (Giant-Blooded/Nephilim)

1. Nephilim (Biblical Giant-Blood)
2. Jotun-Blooded (Norse Frost Giants)
3. Atlas-Kin (Classical Titan Blood)

### SATYRS

### DHAMPIR (Vampiric Heritage)
1. Eastern European (Slavic Standard)
2. Strigoi-Born (Romanian Undead-Touched)
3. Nosferatu-Kin (Germanic Plague-Bearers)

### REVENANTS/HOLLOWED

### HULI JING (Fox Spirits - East Asia ONLY)

### RUSALKI (Slavic Water Spirits - Eastern Europe ONLY)

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>>97311994
>Do you have any interesting alchemical ingredients or magical components for spells?
I would love to include more of these, but all of my players have grown up playing 3e, 4e and 5e and refuse to use spell ingredients for the games since "we're only playing a few levels anyway, it's not like we're going 1-20".

>>97351178

Consider adding Blemmyae, Mermaids, Selkies, Rakshasa / Oni, Bastet-Kin/Leopard-people.

>>97348579
No, like commercial drug names. Shit like Tramadyl or Melakonin.

>>97354717
melatonin isn't a commercial drug name it's an actual chemical

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>his world is never going to get published in any way whatsoever
Why even bother, bros?

>>97355293
>Why even bother, bros?
why have sex if you're not going to record it and start a porn site

What do you guys even do when you world build? How do you decide what to work on? Like, if someone asked me a question about my setting, I could probably come up with an answer, but I can't imagine myself sitting down to "world build" abstractly without any goal in mind.

>>97356697

Worldbound is a bottomless well. If you put yourself to it, it is a never-ending endeavour. It feels like work, it is work, but you risk to never stop world-building instead of coming with stuff as necessary. The best philosophy is of thinking with the iceberg analogy.

>>97356697
>What do you guys even do when you world build?
You can either start small and go big, start big and go small, go layer by layer, go forward in time from a beginning, or just dick around in a particular field like ecology or theology. Doesn't really hurt to have a backlog of ideas even if you don't use them all at once and it's generally fun to do if you can get into it.

Also you can get sorta checklisty with it and then throw in some fluff on top after you've got a decent skeleton for a setting. Think of it like building a wiki for something that doesn't exist.

>>97332491
There are several. They range in size from a large beach ball to a small moon depending on how intimidating they want to be, they can grow much larger if they want to kill everything in a given area, which is... surprisingly often.

Suns range in personality from "if you do anything that angers me I will vaporize you before you realize you made a mistake" to "I will vaporize you just because the thought of life angers me that much". The closest thing to a friendly sun is Corona the Radiant Sun who has agreements with almost every major civilization to show up periodically and blast their farmlands with energy in exchange for being worshiped (suns don't feed on worship, Corona is just a massive narcissist, even by sun standards). On the other end of the spectrum there's Scorch the Merciless Sun whose hobby of nuking random villages was so unpopular that the three major kingdoms in its orbit put aside their differences and pooled their resources to try and kill it (they failed to kill Scorch but succeeded in banishing it through a hole in reality, it hasn't been seen since).

In general if you're in my setting and you see a ball of fire hurtling through the sky in your general direction you should probably bow just to be safe. They're extremely petty.

>>97357626
Do the suns ever fight God's?
Do the Gods wrangle the suns?

I would like to think suns are the natural enemy of the Gods in this world

>>97311994
How powerful do you prefer your alchemy to be? Is it basically magic like in FMA, or more along the lines of mundane chemistry, and what do you need to consider for each approach?

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In a world with a firmament, how far could you see? Could you see everything if you were on a mountain or would air density and pressure and such set a max view distance?

>>97356697
I usually start with a story then add and subtract based on what leads to a better story. Usually this cascades into the smaller details.

>>97336483
I'll be honest, that sounds quite interesting to me, so I'm not sure I'm a great judge for why you're getting a tepid response. I have some ideas though.

If you're trying to convert an existing setting that people are connected with, they may be against the perceived "loss" of the old setting. I've also noticed a stigma around the concept of steampunk settings, but usually just for being "cringey" rather than anything specific. Some people also prefer settings that are more personal, and consider settings with more ship-on-ship combat to be less engaging.

That could also be why the people you talk to prefer grounded low-magic settings. Low-magic usually is also easier for people to relate to, if they just want a setting with very minor changes to their "normal". I think that's a similar reason why cyberpunk settings are also usually "safe".

How do you pitch the idea to others, is it as straightforward as this post? Sometimes it can just be a matter of a bad pitch that gives the wrong impression.

>>97358029
It might depend on what other physics you want to shift to get the world to be "stable". Assuming you don't do that sort of simulation: air density, pressure, general weather, and other obstructions would limit the view.

Where I live you need a particularly clear and calm day to even see 7 miles away from a mountain top. It's probably unlikely that a flat firmament world would have a day completely clear and calm across the entire surface, especially when you include the different types of weather phenomena. Though it could allow for an interesting event akin to the borealis or an eclipse, where you could see across the entire distance.

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>>97336483
>turning my very natural fantasy setting into one with steampunk societies. Airships and pirates, similar to Skies of Arcadia and it slides into a nature vs technology theme.
Can't say I'm keen on it either anon. "Steampunk" means a different coat of paint 90% of the time, and since I never played Skies of Arcadia, it doesn't click anything in my head.

What else can you say about it? Does the planet has land, or is it just air? I once tried to make something inspired on planetary romance, a gas giant with normal gravity and breathable atmosphere in the middle layers, being too thin upwards and the pressure too powerful downwards. The floating islands existed due to a red element, most of which orbited the planet as a ring of crimson icebergs, and after someone figured out how to power airships with it, people were fighting for land and mining it out of existence.

>Why does it feel like everyone I know only wants grounded low magic fantasy settings?
No idea.

Gonna throw links at your screen, see if something helps.

https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/2013/24518330/

https://archive.org/details/windships_a_guide_to_riding_the_sky/mode/2up

https://www.forgottenfutures.com/game/ff1/

https://www.forgottenfutures.com/game/ff7/index.htm

https://www.forgottenfutures.com/game/ff9/index.htm

https://swashbucklingplanets.wordpress.com/tag/airships/

http://arcana.wikidot.com/tempestarii

https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/2009/4278898/

https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/2010/10098720/

https://udan-adan.blogspot.com/2015/07/airships.html

https://lastexile.fandom.com/wiki/Vanship

https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/68780/how-would-a-world-with-drifting-land-masses-be-mapped-charted-for-navigation?noredirect=1&lq=1

https://artonelico.fandom.com/wiki/Sol_Ciel

https://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/Waylight.Waylight.html

https://drifting-dragons.fandom.com/wiki/Oboro_Casca

>>97357659
The only recorded instance of it happening was when the god of candy defeated Ignition the Primal Sun and sealed it inside an ocean of caramel, but the god of candy is an extremely unusual case.

If you asked a god why this is he would first pull you aside for a private conversation (this is a mistake, never speak with a god in private) where he would spend the rest of the day giving you a presentation, complete with graphs, on how it just isn't worth it for him. And by the end you'd walk out of there satisfied with his answer, but unable to get how charming and intelligent the god was, and you'll feel an overwhelming urge to tell everyone you know about this amazing new god you just met (NEVER speak with a god in private).

However, if you asked a sun, it would answer that it legitimately doesn't see the difference between mortals and gods. Then it would probably vaporize you for implying it could be defeated.

>>97358029
>In a world with a firmament, how far could you see?
Consider the following: You can see the moon.

>>97343614
>sample pic
You can click the arrow next to image posts and download the original png you phoneposting faggot.

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>Finally decide to give actual world building a try
>Now have the perfect setting to dump the random ideas/notes/unfinished stories
I've been writing for fun and some side money for a few years now and this all is pretty fun to flesh out from time to time.

Anyway I have some weird questions for the thread if anyone can answer:
>How much do you use AI?
>At what point do you see it becoming a crutch (if at all)?
>What pitfalls have you encountered/imagine come from it?
>When would you draw the line with using it?
I've always avoided AI writing after trying novelAI when it released, and was pretty blown away by how god awful it was at the time.
But for a lazy answer to some writers block, I threw a few questions to chatgpt today for naming a city and was pretty surprised with what it spat out (and somewhat helpful it was). It essentially gave me an entirely new idea I hadn't thought of to work with, and most importantly sparked some really good inspiration into what was just a port city I dropped on the map.
I'm not about to go pay for a subscription or lean heavily on AI writing, but its far better than I remember it being.

I'm also not trying to start a pro AI vs anti AI argument, but as I said I haven't used any generative text for several years and want a better idea of its current value.
if any

>>97364262
That's true, but air does get thinner the higher up you go and there's usually less dust water vapor and other obscuring particles

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Working on my geography, this land I'm working on is mostly desert, but in the north there are mountains and because of rain shadow the other side are a mostly swampland. And i had the idea of the main river in the area going through a gap in the mountain range and delta-ing out into the ocean but it's the part of this I'm least happy about. Does anything like this exist on Earth or is there a better way to get mountains and swamps and deserts all relatively close to one another?

>>97366036

If the problem is having river+swamp+desert+mountains the Colorado River, dependening on your definition of mountains. Probably not that tall on paper, but still there.

In fact the problem isn't really having desert with a swampy river delta, that does happen often. The problem is having particulary tall mountains next to a great river basin.

>>97311994
>Do you have any interesting alchemical ingredients or magical components for spells?
That is a great question and I need to get started on that soon.

I've always liked focusing on the side details to things like alchemy or potion crafting (or any other fantasy profession).
Off the top of my head I think of for my fantasy world:
I'm also really sorry if this has been done
>Can some random schmuck do alchemy? why not?
I like the idea that one of the major dangers with alchemy would be that it is always formed in a gas state (or at least the most potent potions are) before being distilled (and contained) into a much weaker and usable liquid version.
You ~could~ huff the alchemical fumes of a strength potion and it would be MUCH more potent than the potion, but your muscles would likely tear through your skin and off the bone. Little timmy wanted to get stronger before a tournament, and fucked up his ingredients and now all his bones are jelly.
While a alchemist in a village can be a great boon, many see it as a ticking time bomb as a plague doctor like alchemist might fuck up and blow up their house (if their lucky) or release some horrid plague because they mixed up ingredients.

I also like the idea of
>Valuable ingredients aren't just dangerous because you need to kill a dragon, but the actual extraction process can have a worse fate than dieing
again, off the top of my head: Some valuable mushroom is not just hard to find, but if you disturb the fairy circle or try to pluck one the wrong way you risk cordyceps esque spores being released and turning you into a conscious fungal slave

Both of these would be pretty good reasons for an Alchemist's guild, because the last thing they need is the production of magical drugs and bombs unregulated.
shit I might roll with this now.

>>97355293
Why do some people play overly autistic games that are little more than spreadsheet simulators?
Because they enjoy it

>>97311994
Why are humans special in your world? What makes them the main characters?

>>97320356
>I’m thinking of completely subverting the dwarven stereotype
Then don't include dwarves.

>>97367934

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImYu9dJM4kQ

>>97367934

Humans are a sponge who fuck anything, get raped by anything, absorb any magic or poison, and create powerful hybrids.

>>97367981
>get raped by anything
I'm not sure if you're naming this as a good thing or a bad thing.

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>>97320611

>>97365998
Yeah, but if the moon ever sets, that's irrelevant.

>>97367934
>Like all other lifeforms, Earth was seeded by the race called the Primordial Men. It was part of an experiment to create a "Successor Species" that could repeat or even continue their achievements.
>But then a shard of the cosmic power that ordered this world (not God) crash landed on Earth and became our Moon, which allowed humans to develop magical powers.
>And then the primordial descendants of the other being that produced all matter and energy in the universe (not God) colonized our planet. Their genes gave humans control over Anima, the life-force.
>And then a race of Angelic beings called the Watchers settled on the Moon to bask in its magical power. They transferred their infinite knowledge of magic to humans, boosting our development.
>And then a time travelling remnant of a Kardashev 4 civilization came to Earth to rebuild space age civilization. That let us transform from iron age to space age in just a few centuries.

>>97368568
In other words, immigration and multi-culturalism made us stronger.

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>>97338417
Shield projector bug thing. The "energy shields" in my setting are just thin silk like fabric composed of fibers that can temporarily become immovable objects, and thus essentially gain tremendous amount of physical resilience. This state does however heat the fibers up and maintaining it too long will cause them to burn out without sufficient cooling.

>>97365890
>How much do you use AI?
I use it to audit and apply sound changes, or to try and make sense of my notes
>At what point do you see it becoming a crutch (if at all)?
None because it's terrible and needs constant hand holding to get it to work properly
>What pitfalls have you encountered/imagine come from it?
The context memory is not amazingly long if you are using it for creative purposes and it will begin hallucinating or causing issues quite quickly
>When would you draw the line with using it?
Having it write actual text, also once the conversation becomes longer than a certain point because it just breaks.

ChatGPT is kind of shit for creative tasks but I've found Claude is able to do a decent job of translating into my conlangs and identifying problems such as missing roots.

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>>97368634
Along with the awesome art, thats a really clever premise for and organic shield.
It sounds like you're saying the moth forces and electrical current through the fibers to temporarily make them rigid and incredibly resistant, almost like an organic-thread take on non-newtonian fluid.

That kind of reminds me of when capcom brought japanese ecologists to try to explain how their monsters would work in a grounded setting.
Rajang specifically, they talk about something along those lines.
It was for some MH anniversary, but I can't for the life of me find the video though.

Anyway, love the work you're doing anon and seeing more posted

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>>97369572
Thanks! The actual in universe explanation to how the fibers work is a bit more esoteric and tied to the "magic" system of the setting, but the functional aspect of it is that the fibers can be in either a mobile/flexible state where they can move around and bend, or become rigid and gain tremendous tactile strenght, allowing them to withstand great amounts of punishment without breaking (though they are not invulnerable, just extremely resistant to physical forces that would otherwise shred them in their motile/flexible state).

The fiber blades and ranged applications of this tech also utilize this flexible/rigid state alteration principle for how they work, plus the element of heating up the fibers to cut trough materials. Essentially, a fiber blade can be a flexible and moving whip like cord at one moment before suddenly attaining a hard, and rigid cutting edge/tip that heats up enough to just cut trough flesh. This process does consume the fibers though as the intense heat burns them which is why fiber weapons often have spools of these fibers attached to them from which they can draw more.
The ranged fiber weapons in turn just project a thread of fibers at rapid speeds at targets, and become rigid near the moment of impact, the momentum of the fibers then pushing this rigid hot spike of fibers trough the target. Some even lose this rigidity just after the impact, unfurling in a violent fashion inside of the target, the still heated fibers making a mess out of the innards of the target.

>>97369676
Is there anything is this world that isn't flesh?

Sci fi setting giving all the missiles bug names. Right now I'm torn on one, a smaller defense missile meant to intercept and destroy larger ones, between calling it the Fire Ant or making a Big O reference by calling it the Louse and giving it the military jargon code DOR-03.
What name sounds better?

Since my cosmology is fundamentally gender essentialist, women can't really *use* magic, but they're the only ones who can pass it on. The only way to be a Mage is for your mother to be a Mage as well, even if she doesn't have any control over it.

However, they can still use wand magic because it's technically the wand doing the magic, a common loophole that allows governments to use 100% of their magical population.

.....but I don't like this explanation. Magic in my setting works on the principle of the Soul commanding the Body "inside" the Mage, and therefore the Mind commanding Matter outside it. It makes no sense for a wand, a material substance, to do Magic by itself.

>>97345235
I wasn't aware phosphorus could be found on asteroids. This changes the dynamics of things like you say when people mostly focus on precious/rare metals as the target of asteroid mining.

To that end, say there is a reliable way to ship these products back to Earth (whatever isn't getting sold and used by the spacenoids first). What effect would this have since you mentioned the bottlenecking?

Would I be wrong in saying that magic being hereditary would make eugenics an inevitability?

>>97373637

Yes, and probably the reason why elves are going extinct with inbreeding.

>>97373716
Inbreeding doesn't necessarily lead to extinction. Jews have been doing inbreeding for millennia and they're the smartest people on Earth.

The real problem with inbreeding is that it allows bad genes to proliferate. But if there are no bad genes, or there are other ways to check bad genes, inbreeding is no more dangerous than any other reproductive strategy.

>>97373533
Cheaper food production. And a significant widening of the population bottleneck, since the scarcity of phosphorus is one of the biggest problems with feeding the population beyond a certain point.

>>97373323
What if women can "borrow" or "lease" magical ability from men?

>>97373799
>smartest people on Earth
>jews
Top lel.

>>97373637
Would depend on how exactly is it inherited.
If it's gene-like, or has an outright genetic component, then yes, like the good goy above said.
If it's some sort of bloodline blessing/curse, then it's more lax, but still favoring a clan-like structure.

A more curious take could be something like willingly passing the magic talent to the next generation.
To avoid said talent eventually going extinct, think of it more as investing a portion of one's power. Like planting a seed.
Whether or not it'll grow will depend on the recipient, with the amount of invested power increasing potential for that growth.
I think this makes for a more interesting dynamic between mages and their apprentices.
As well as adding some intrigue and power play to the powerful mages' families.

>>97373894
Jews have the highest intellectual achievements of all races. It is what it is.

Inbreeding isn't a good idea, but a half sane eugenics policy can make it reasonably safe. Just don't let unhealthy or unfit people breed.

Want to brew a setting that's kind of a kitchen sink. The main inspirations are Planescape, Ravnica, Limbus Company, Smt, Kill 6 billion demons. Basically a huge town where all sorts of paranormal beings coexist with mortals. Do you have any ideas on where to start? I don't want to go too deep into worldbuilding, just enough to get a game going.

>>97373637
It depends on whether social pressures incentivize magical abilities.

>>97373799
Interbreeding leads to higher genetic diversity, which leads to higher probabilities of surviving.

Jews have spent most of their history on the edge of extinction because of their insular society.

>>97373533
Just to be clear, phosphorus is still really scarce.

>>97367934
They aren't. It's the Mages (a human subspecies) that will inherit the Earth.

>>97356697
I just try to reconstruct my fantasies into a coherent setting.

>>97334788
You really want telomeres and Elves in the same setting?

>>97373894
>more curious take could be something like willingly passing the magic talent to the next generation.
That would be too chaotic to worldbuild. The mechanism needs to be simple and predictable.

>>97373637
What >>97374059 said. Why would society prioritize magical eugenics? What advantage does your clan or tribe get from breeding more Mages? And is it worth the disadvantages or investment?

>>97374058
Start by answering the question of why are the things the way they are?
Doesn't have to be a common goal of some sort.

I.e. in case of Planescape's Sigil, it's because Sigil is the multiversal hub.
People sometimes just drop in there through a random portal.
Once you figure out the "why", think about the "how", as in how are they living together.
Like, whether or not fire elementals have their own, fireproof, "elemental" district.

Without going into details, a nondescript tavern for the travelers on a budget should work.
Fair grounds, markets and neighboring areas - anywhere that sees a lot of traffic, both locals and outsiders.
People from all over can share news and information, and alcohol often helps break the ice.
Tea and coffee houses, opium or hashish dens, look for places people can go to relax and have a quiet conversation in private.

>>97374168
Not at all. Just think about it like passing the magic wand from teacher to a chosen promising student.
If anything, it keeps things more orderly, as it's just "the grand wizard X, student of Y the Wise".

>>97373637
Yes? Many important traits are genetic but most societies historically did not practice eugenics. Natural selection sufficed.

Eugenics has really only ever been practiced to (unsuccessfully attempt to) remove discontinuous negative traits from the gene pool, whether it was Spartans leaving out disabled babies or the Nazis killing all the schizophrenics. Positive selection for discontinuous traits was never practiced, because humans do not like being forced to not ever have children because only the special people with the magic genes get to have children, and that kind of eugenics would do that to the majority of the population.

(To be clear, the magic users will be more sexually successful unless it has huge disadvantages elsewhere, for the same reason rich people are more sexually successful; eugenics refers to the specific practice of bringing intentionality into it.)

>>97374682
I hate how the Nazis ruined eugenics for everyone. It's objectively a good idea to maintain the health of the population.

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>>97372959
The City is primarily biological though many of it's technologies and especially it's foundations incorporate inorganic materials to them or are outright mechanical in nature. The City is powered by massive underground power plants and is built upon ferrous bone supports that dig deep into the crust of the earth. The roots of the City spread far and wide and leech off materials from the soil into the City's biosphere.

>>97374829
It's not. Actually maladaptive traits automatically breed themselves out.

>>97374970
Then why does diabetes and Down Syndrome still exist?

>>97374829
I really don't think something like forcefully sterilizing all people with a genetic disorder would be a serious possibilty outside of a dictatorship
Hell, even the nazis tried to hide their own eugenics programs

>>97375067
Because they're not maladaptive enough to die out faster than they reproduce.
It's why humans aren't living for 200+ years, aside from accidents and illness unrelated to aging.
We have never lived long enough for the laundry list of issues that crop up with age to become a problem.
You wouldn't sweat having your dick shrivel up and fall off at 250, if you can barely make it to 70.

Similarly, people with 'beetus fuck, and have children, and those children inherit their faulty genes.
Basically, what you're looking for is either aborting pregnancies with that extra chromosome, for which retards and bible-thumpers will have you torched.
Or, instead, you can quietly exacerbate all those diseases until people die from them before they get a chance to propagate their condition.
So, turn diabetes into "super-diabetes" that kills you before the onset of puberty, and you'll see a sharp drop in diagnosed cases of type 1 diabetes.
All because "muh aborshun is mordur" retards and selfish cunts refuse to put the rubber on and spare the next generation from suffering like they did.

…now I kind of want to be a biomancer of some sort conducting eugenics experiment on a kingdom's population with the purpose of creating more mages.
Sounds like a good cloak and dagger type campaign, depending on whether the 'mancer is the designated villain or not.

>>97375067
>diabetes
Type 1 diabetes is probably polygenic, with individual genes that contribute to it providing a benefit (and thus being impossible to breed out) until they combine up to a critical level. It is no longer maladaptive due to technology.

>Down Syndrome
Down Syndrome is a spontaneous mutation; parents are basically all genetically normal. Downies have vastly reduced life expectancy and fertility. You might as well ask why miscarriages happen.

>>97374852
Love your setting anon.
There's a hundred different takes on cyberpunk, with everything, short of borging out completely, and sometimes even that.
But rarely, if ever, did I see a full-on, honest-to-god biopunk setting. You're doing good work anon.

>>97375080
>>97375131
The question isn't whether it's politically feasible, it's whether it works at improving the genetic health of the species.

And besides, if the Nazis hadn't ruined its reputation, I'm sure the Bible Belt's objections would be overruled.

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>>97375232
Thanks. The setting has been my primary creative outlet for a quite while now. Atm my primary goal is to get the infographics depicting the armed forces and weapons of the primary factions done, which I will hopefully manage to do within this year.

Do eugenics even make sense without race theory, 18th century taxomy, 19th century scientific racism, gene theory and that sort of stuff?

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>Open drawing program to finally begin my map
>Draw a coastline
>Don't really like it
>Move on to a more stylistic design instead, drawing a mountain mesa
>Lines look like absolute shit
>Close drawing program
Looks like I'm not doing any worldbuilding this week!

>>97375298
The Spartans (allegedly) practiced it, thousands of years before any of that, so yes.

>>97374829
The big issue with eugenics is that humans mature and breed so slowly that by the time you notice the positive traits you were selecting for also has some really nasty side-effect it'll be too late to easily fix it. Though with modern gene-sequencing technology that would be less of an issue, since you could just genetically screen people to ensure the genes that lead to enhanced strength or intellect don't also cause your heart to explode when you turn 20. Though at that point you might as well not rely on random and clumsy natural mutations and just use genetic engineering to create a race of supermen (possibly to conquer the world?).

>>97375067
IIRC downs syndrome isn't actually a hereditary condition, but something that happens when something randomly goes wrong with early embryonic development and results in a duplicate set of chromosomes which screws up the proper development of the embryo. You could prevent people with it from being born by aborting any fetus with the syndrome, and the odds of it occurring is to some degree tied to things like the mother's age and exposure to mutagenic chemicals, but it's basically always a random chance that it occurs so you can't really remove it from the gene pool.
Hereditary diabetes (as opposed to the one caused by improper diet) tends to onset relatively late, so most of the time people already had children by the times the symptoms started to show up, and when the average life-expectancy was lower the difference it made to your lifespan wasn't that great. In modern times it's easily medicated so the effect on your lifespan and ability to reproduce is minimal.

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>>97375298
>Do eugenics even make sense without race theory, 18th century taxomy, 19th century scientific racism, gene theory and that sort of stuff?
Depends on what you mean by eugenics and what you mean by make sense. Selective breeding goes back thousands of fucking years, but without modern science, any breeding program applied to humans isn't really going to be selecting for "good genes".

>>97375442
The biggest thing with eugenics is that most blatantly negative stuff is either:
- Late onset, like Huntington's, so you won't detect them early enough (which is how it gets into the population in the first place);
- Polygenic, like schizophrenia, so you can't actually breed it out (the Nazis killed ~every single schizophrenic in Germany; today, Germany has about as many schizophrenics as anywhere else);
- Spontaneous mutations, like Down Syndrome.

Even something like Tay-Sachs, where it's a single extremely bad gene that's visible ~immediately, the people with the recessive version don't have any visible signs of having it. If you don't have the ability to test for genes, it's almost indistinguishable from one of the above.

All I want is Mages banning intermarriage with normies.

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>>97375909
Ahh, so typecasting them as weak, sickly, heavily inbred degenerate villains who must be put down for the good of humanity? Very based setting lore Anon.

>>97375909
Segregation isn't eugenics. Banning intermarriage will mean the relative mage and normie populations will remain roughly static, barring one being more adaptive than the other.

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>>97368634
>>97369676

The same principle that enables the fiber shields and weapons to function can also be applied to achieve a form of levitation, via essentially turning the fibers into either stilt like anchors or fin like "wings" that constantly cycle trough their rigid "immovable object" and standard flexible phases. While not the fastest method of flight by far, these levitation systems make up for their lack of speed with the fact that they can provide steady lift and can support quite heavy payload ratios compared to the energy demands of the suspension system. This makes them ideal for various weapon platform systems like the one depicted here.

"The Baryxian gilded ballistas are sophisticated bioconstruct drones used as fire support platforms for the Cavalier troopers. They can be equipped with a wide range of baryxian heavy weapon systems and due to their ability to levitate freely trough air at a steady pace, terrain features provide no obstacles for them. They are however rather expensive to produce, meaning that they are far from expendable to anyone besides the wealthiest of Baryxian Lords."

Kind of felt that something like this was obligatory for me to make for House Baryx as other houses I've depicted also have levitating drone weapons using the same fiber tech the Baryxians are the masters of. Would have felt weird if Baryxians lacked levitating drones.

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>>97376006
The Zhdunian sentinel drones in this picture are an example of other types of levitating drones I have already depicted.

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>>97376029
Other examples of the same lev tech are found in the Shrike suit and Sniper Drones of House Lienis mercenaries.

>>97375932
The problem is, nobody can. Using swords against a Mage is like fighting Yujiro Hanma with mcdojo skills.

>>97375559
>any breeding program applied to humans isn't really going to be selecting for "good genes".

Wouldn't that depend entirely on what is being selected for though? Especially if there is the ability to actually genetically screen for specific genes/introduce them artificially and mix and match bloodlines in a systemized fashion rather than the traditional way selective breeding has been done.
Many of the issues with inbreeding and whatever could be entirely avoided via technological intervention and more refined process of selection and shit like embryonic screening. Inbreeding issues stem after all from defective genes accumulating and getting the chance to express themselves due to too many recessive genes and whatever. Via screening the genetic makeup of embryos you could propably just cull those with issues and let healthy ones develop.

And besides, who wouldn't want to have more Mages? You wouldn't even need government policies. People will be independently trying to bribe the best wizards with their daughters.

>>97375080
Didn't they do that in Iceland?

>>97376457
Depends on what magic does to the mage.
If it's a mind-melting or reality-bending shit the likes of 40k, you'd instead be chased out of the village with torches and pitchforks.
Further, even if it is relatively safe, it'd still depend on the public perception of mages and magic as a whole.
For instance, if it's viewed as a blasphemous perversion of natural order and an offense against god by the local church, you'd have a hard time finding a willing partner among the pious.
Another aspect is the said government's policy on controlling the population of mages, neither letting them die out, nor allowing them to breed too much.
Magic is power, perhaps the greatest power after the divine. Letting some witless peons inject magic genes into their bloodline is how you get rogue mages that answer to no one.

>>97376547
Except whichever community decides to tolerate or elevate them will destroy or enslave the ones who don't.

>>97373799
>Jews have been doing inbreeding for millennia and they're the smartest people on Earth.
According to themselves.

>>97376457
>And besides, who wouldn't want to have more Mages?
Mages. The biggest threat to a mage would be another mage.

>>97376199
>without modern science

>>97379098
Sorry I somehow just missed that lmao

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>>97376006
Additional Baryxian drone, one designed with the specific purpose of being flying long range fire support devices. They use their suspension vane wings and miniaturized biojets to manouver trough air and their fiber beamers to pick off targets at distance, before repositioning themselves.

>>97373046
> or making a Big O reference by calling it the Louse and giving it the military jargon code DOR-03.
Is… is it a Wizard of Oz reference?

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>>97382863
No

>Writing out major events and political twists
>Remember that on the tabletop I wanted to run this setting several years before all that happens

>>97367934
Because relatively speaking they breed like roaches and outpopulate everyone

>>97367934
They aren't "special" but the elves are cautious of them because they appeared on the continent as primitive semi-nomadic tribals and quickly built up multiple human civilisations to rival them in only 2000 years. Mainly as a result of being used as mercenaries by various warring elven nations due to their perceived expendability and stronger physical strength.

>>97367934

Humans are the standard. Every other race is a branch of humanity, gaining disadvantages and advantages.

>>97384120
That's THE evolutionary advantage.

Why though? What's stopping the other races from pumping out more babies?

>>97385100
At first, the worldbuilder's desire for human dominance and the rarity of other more special better races aka the way people who made dnd felt about things and they humanfaggotry and afterwards, tasteless retards aping the past and sacred cows galore that have created an atmosphere that humanity has to be the dominant race and that is the default nowadays in fantasy

>>97385100

Not him, but a useful starting framework is humans need something like fewer calories (2,000 or so) to work than a giant troll (50,000).

>>97385100

Large-Scale Cooperation: While Neanderthals were incredibly strong and had brains as large as ours, they lived in small, isolated family groups. Homo sapiens, however, developed the ability to cooperate in much larger numbers.

One theory, popularized by the "Cognitive Revolution" hypothesis, suggests a genetic mutation allowed Sapiens to speak with greater complexity with abstract though and symbolic art.

Neanderthals were heavily muscled and lived in cold climates, requiring significantly more calories per day (estimated up to 4,000–5,000) than the leaner Sapiens. During a famine or a harsh winter, Sapiens could survive on much less. There is some evidence that Sapiens could have children more frequently, allowing our populations to bounce back faster after disasters.

The Climate Trap: As the climate shifted rapidly during the last Ice Age, the dense forests Neanderthals hunted in turned into open steppes. Neanderthals, who used heavy spears for ambush hunting, struggled to adapt to the open-plain hunting that Sapiens excelled at with their lighter, projectile weapons (like spear-throwers).

Sapiens were the ultimate "jacks-of-all-trades," capable of living in deserts, rainforests, and arctic tundras alike.

We were slightly better at getting food and reproducing, slowly pushing others into marginal areas where they eventually died out.

Alos assimilation (Interbreeding): We didn't just replace them; we absorbed them. If you have non-African ancestry, about 1% to 4% of your DNA is Neanderthal. In a sense, they didn't go entirely extinct, they were "bred out" into the much larger Sapiens population.

Disease: As Sapiens migrated out of Africa, they likely brought tropical diseases that the isolated populations of Europe and Asia had no immunity against.

>>97385229
>Disease: As Sapiens migrated out of Africa, they likely brought tropical diseases that the isolated populations of Europe and Asia had no immunity against.

Shouldn't the sapiens be vulnerable to local diseases in europe/asia in turn? I always wondered why the spanish didn't get hit hard with some south american disease while the natives got absolutely destroyed by the european diseases the spanish brought with them

>>97386327
Amerindians have less genetic diversity than other populations due to the bottleneck; basically, imagine there being 100 different "locks" against diseases in Eurasiafrica, and only 3 in the Americas. A disease adapted to Eurasian populations can get into Amerindian ones, but not vice versa. It will infect people (indeed, when people showed up in America, they tended to get sick as they were exposed to every new disease simultaneously), but it doesn't form the basis for a pandemic like smallpox.

As for Africa, "Eurasian" diseases like smallpox were already present there, because it was physically connected. However, the mainstay "African" diseases like malaria and sleeping sickness are born by parasites like mosquitos and the tsetse fly, and thus can't "leave." (Well, Italy used to be a malarial zone, but you know what I mean.)

>>97311994
I want to incorporate a catholic splinter movement into what I want to do, but I cannot for the love of me come up with something that feels original. I want to make their beliefs interesting.
As of now, all that occurs to me is that they could believe Mary is Jesus' literal Equal (taking the Mediatrix and Coredemptrix stuff to the next level), Victim souls are official dogma, and they believe in Thaumaturgy. But all of this is basically just exaggeration of what splinter catholics believe. The only things missing are having a fake pope and being sedevacantist. Another idea I came up with is that it could be all but run by 'nuns' (not actually ordained), but I fear that would be leaning too much onto the woman angle.
Can you guys provide me with some feedback? Some other niche catholic religious concepts are also much appreciated.

>>97386327

In the case of Americans, because Eurasia concentrates the grand majority of urban populations AND the majority of domesticated animals. Zoonotic are relatively rare because the jump of a diseases from species to species is a low probability event. But you massively increase the chances of that happening in places with a lot of domesticated animals and population concentrations:

Smallpox
Tuberculosis
Typhus
Cholera
Influenza
Measles
Mumps
Black Death

These are history's biggest killers, and they ALL come from the Old World and a most of them come from animal domestication. Cows alone is responsible for measles, tuberculosis and smallpox. For cows these diseases are like cold for us, no big deal. But things that make a cow a little sick makes humans very sick or deadly.

>>97386638
>>97386327

The reason these were a "cold" for many Europeans but a death sentence for Native Americans was natural selection. Because these diseases had been circulating in Eurasia for centuries due zoonotic diseases from animal domestication (no cows, pigs, horses, sheep, and goat in America), those who survived them passed on some level of genetic resistance or antibodies to their children.

When these germs reached the Americas, the population had zero prior exposure, leading to "virgin soil epidemics" where mortality rates often reached 80% to 90%.

>>97386657
Smallpox killed a third of the population in virgin soil epidemics, including in Iceland. Evolutionary impact on immunity is quite muted, even for high-lethality endemic diseases; acquired immunity (exposure earlier in life) is mostly what does it.

Do you draw boundaries in your setting for different types of games, different cultural and ecological biomes of sorts with a different selection of races, or even classes? I do, I'm dividing my world into possible campaigns, each with four races. Although the world is coherent, the areas are so different that you could set different genres within the same world. From low fantasy, early medieval northern europe to renaissance era italian city states, and then further south to sword and sorcery, piracy and pulp.

>>97332491
The largest and most organized religion in my world is the worship of the Mother Sun, the fertility goddess from which all life springs. You might say that that'd be the earth, but no, that is a harsh and austere patriarch whose temper is only softened by the warmth of a woman. Their eldest is the sea.

>>97386832
>Do you draw boundaries in your setting for different types of games, different cultural and ecological biomes of sorts with a different selection of races, or even classes?

I'm using ages for that, with tech levels and avaible races depending on which age the game is set. All of them take place on the same continent, just at different spots in the timeline.

>>97386461
It's for a modern day CoC game set in the mid-west.

>Making space opera setting
>Much of it is based off the succession wars after the death of Alexander the Great
>Realize most of the major characters I've written are essentially fighting over whether or not space alexander would have fucked them
Should I keep going down this trajectory or change things a little?

>>97314398
the solution is to charge head first source: I slapped my players into the setting I'm making and figuring details on the go(redone hierarchies around 4 times already but the party is looking to interact more so I guess I'm doing pretty good)

>>97376457
depending on their power and how easy it is to become a mage, their existence could seriously threaten the monopoly of power by any rulership class.

Like if you're not careful any exploited/discriminated group could produce an indivdiual capable of taking down a nation.
>>97375909
honestly depending on the setting the power dynamic between those two is so great, that any relationship forming would have to avoid really hard to not become fucked up.

Like imagine a relationship with someone who can just rewrite your personality with a thought.

>>97373799
Unfortunately intelligence correlates with schizophrenia so they are also the most likely to develop schizophrenia.

>>97389566
Sorry man, but this sounds way too pathetic and Tumblr-y for me.

>>97390659
Good. I WANT it to be a setting where grinding for power is a survival tactic. Nobody should ever be able to take their social status for granted.

>>97389566
Neither. Double down on it. Have someone try to get the guy cloned to "revive" him and kick the infighting into overdrive as a result.

In battles between summoners, wouldn't the optimal strategy be to remain as far from the field of battle as possible while trying to sneak up on the opponent?

>>97312819
complex forests dont exist b cos they are just made of trees and sometimes rocks

>Urban Fantasy setting
>Post Apocalyptic War between modern scientific civilization and the Dark Lord's ancient empire
>Single superpower that won the War reigned dominant for nearly two centuries, now decaying due to psychotic power struggles between the camps of populist strongmen and everyone else
>Everyone knows this is the best chance to make a move, nobody wants to be the first
>Mutually Assured Destruction inevitable due to orbital laser arrays, ICBMs, AI drone swarms on the science side and dragons on the magic side

Since nobody can officially make War anymore, but everyone has both means and motive to do so, the world is torn apart by non-stop genocides and terrorist acts done by so-called non state actors that are being funded and sometimes controlled by one of the many states.

The dishonesty and secrecy is honestly more chaotic than actual war.

>>97390659
>>>97375909 (You)
>honestly depending on the setting the power dynamic between those two is so great, that any relationship forming would have to avoid really hard to not become fucked up.
>Like imagine a relationship with someone who can just rewrite your personality with a thought.
So he can force her to be happy? I don't see the downsides here.

>>97383486
If you can literally forget about them, they were never important.

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If your setting doesn't treat vampires like radioactive shit.
Your setting is shit!
SHIT!

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How could you program a race of biological machines? I wanted something like the engineers from halo but how does such a creature know how to fix up the space boats when you can't exactly stick a usb cable into them?

>>97394601
Take inspiration from Scorn with biological connection points and access plugs. As far as programming them goes its pretty much the same as a machine except your manipulating the neurons in their brains.

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>>97394601

You could use the Avatar method of plugin their neuronal tails together.

>>97394601
first thing that comes to mind is just connecting/rewiring neural pathways in the machine's brain/neural cluster
it's also possible to encode information into DNA (already being done IRL with significantly greater density than conventional electronic storage, albeit currently slower, more expensive, and less reliable), but as far as I understand, we don't know exactly how instinctive behaviors are formed/transmitted, and there's no conclusive proof of DNA being the vector

Is there any way a government could make stronger family bonds among the public, presuming they have enough knowledge and money?

The purpose is to make people prize their family more so that said family can be held hostage for their good behaviour.

>>97394962

1-Encourage multi-generational family units.
2-Encourage ancestor worship
3-Filial piety.
4-Introduce collective familal punishments if they fail to police their own members.

>>97367934
Humans have the "women are wonderful" effect but applied to the entire race. Even the gods are biased in their favour, so humans take less holy damage. Every other race has a charisma penalty.

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Urban fantasy or modern fantasy as some might put it

Is it more interesting to have magic, magical races and creatures be hidden from common knowledge or out in the open that to the point seeing a dragon flying over the city is just a another common occurrence?

>>97392594
>In battles between summoners, wouldn't the optimal strategy be to remain as far from the field of battle as possible while trying to sneak up on the opponent?
Depends on a ton factors.
>Do the summoners need line of sight to summon
>Can the summoners summon through defenses
>Are the summoners creating summons, teleporting in functionally immortal creatures, or teleporting them in from a finite pool of mortal allies
>Do the summons expire
>Do the summons have an upkeep cost
>Do the summons go down when the summoner does
>What is the maximum range of the summoner
>Does the summoner need to actively control their summons
>Will the summons turn on the summoner if their control is disrupted
>Can the summons be desummoned either by a specific counterspell or by interference with the summoner
>How quickly can the summoner summon
>How much can the summoner summon before needing to rest
>Can summonings be disrupted
>Can the summoner move while summoning
>Can the summons be intimidated, bargained with, or otherwise be rendered neutral or turned against the summoner
>Can you travel back through summoning portals
>Can the summons be passively repelled by something
>Can summonings be botched in a way that damages the enemy force
Optimal strategy is going to range from sacrificing a virgin to setting off fireworks to break the summoner's concentration to chucking a bomb through a portal and everything in between.

Running away while they waste time/resources/energy summoning and then murdering them in their sleep would be my first choice. Unless they're bringing in autonomous summons that maintain themselves, there's not much point to fighting their summons at all. That is assuming you can't kill them before they summon.

>>97397912
A masquerade is much more common, easier to world build for since most of real history still happens, and much easier to get people to relate to what is happening since it uses the real world as reference.

An urban fantasy setting without masquerade has a much more difficult time world building but also a lot more creative freedom in how the existence of the supernatural impacts the modern world and you have a lot more stuff you can come up interesting things for.

>>97397912
The latter. Hidden magic generally either involves either ass worldbuilding or contrivances on the level of "the planet is sentient and fucks with people's senses to keep them from realizing magic exists when they really fucking ought to". Or shit magic.

>>97398024
>A masquerade is much more common, easier to world build for since most of real history still happens, and much easier to get people to relate to what is happening since it uses the real world as reference.
This presupposes that the setting is meant to be some equivalent of the real world Earth.

Literally nothing stops you from doing a masquerade on an alternate "present" or past or future for that matter.

>>97398087
>This presupposes that the setting is meant to be some equivalent of the real world Earth.
>Literally nothing stops you from doing a masquerade on an alternate "present" or past or future for that matter.
I guess, but at that point you're getting the worst of both. Like it's much harder to world build since you have to do it for both a hidden and open world and people will have less ways to relate to it.

Could still be fun though.

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>>97398114
>people will have less ways to relate to it
Eh, you can have an alternate world and still have it be highly relatable. And setting something on an alternate world can free you up from having to crowbar the shit you want to do in around real world history/politics/religions/etc. It's not all downside in that regard.

A good example of this done well is the Ace Combat series. It's set on a completely alien earth just to avoid having to do the stock Ubisoft ass-covering every fucking game.

>>97398196
belka did nothing wrong

What if, ant people? Slaver ant people, who themselves get enslaved by elves?

>>97397912
Why not both? Some magic can coexist with the real world, and some can't. The latter stays hidden.

>>97398196
That's the boring, lazy corporate answer. A real worldbuilder tries to make a coherent timeline, not avoid or ignore any butterfly events.

>>97394962
Humans will have to be forced to live in family housing.

>>97399350
>not avoid or ignore any butterfly events.
Right, so no masquerade bullshit keeping the world from learning about magic.
>A real worldbuilder tries to make a coherent timeline,
So what's the problem with having a coherent timeline for an alternate earth?

People make medieval worlds with original histories all the time. Why is it suddenly a problem if the world is modern? What's wrong with wanting a modern setting with original races, cultures, religions, geographies, or whatever?

>>97394601
The same way God did. Brains and genes.

Historically, a woman might have given birth to six children only for three to reach adulthood, with most deaths occurring during the first year. It was common for 40% to 50% of children to die before reaching puberty.

Maternal mortality was equally prevalent. It is estimated that the number of women who died in childbirth rivaled the number of men who died in wars. In many peaceful eras, childbirth was actually more lethal to the female population than combat was to the male population. Before modern medicine, roughly 1 in 100 to 1 in 150 births resulted in the mother’s death. Because women had multiple pregnancies—often six to ten—their cumulative lifetime risk of dying in childbirth was as high as 1 in 10 or 1 in 20. In many cultures, children weren't named until they were a year old.

Because the risk was so omnipresent, many cultures treated pregnancy with a solemnity that reflected the possibility of death. In many European traditions, women would go to confession or take the Eucharist before labor, often settling their affairs and drafting wills. If they survived, it was celebrated with a formal ceremony of thanksgiving.

How would a fantasy setting tackle it? Let the childhood mortality be as high despite the presence of magic? Have healing magic be rare? Perhaps magic not having figure out how to deal with childbirth because of the two souls problem? Have magic solve the issue with the resulting population explosion? Have monsters/spirts that target children and pregnant women? Have lethality much higher than real life because monsters actively hunt humans?

All reasons for why magic is considered evil by the "Science Side", ie the modernists who follow modern liberal principles:

1. Magic is anti-humanist. It's derived from the power of what's basically Satan, a primordial god that tried and failed to take over the universe. Whenever you use magic, you're basically channeling HER will.

2. Magic is anti-meritocratic. 99% Mages are just born with their powers, and their ability is hard capped at birth. Hard work and effort don't matter, only your parentage does. It inevitably creates aristocratic clan based systems.

3. Magic is sexist and gender essentialist. If you were born male, you can use magic but you can't "create" it or pass it on. If you were born female, you can pass on the gene to your kids but can't use it. So it inevitably creates patriarchal systems.

4. Magic is inherently zero sum. All Mages are basically drawing from the same pool of power. Killing other Mages actively makes you stronger. This system can't allow for peaceful cooperation, it will incentivize Mages to kill and enslave each other.

5. Magic is irrational. You can't really study it to get stronger, you can just hope the true masters of magic (Satan and his followers) just beam the knowledge to you because it helps their plans. The existence of magic makes science impossible.

Wdyt?

>>97399997
Ignore it unless relevant to plot.

Can there be a symbiotic relationship between rats and crocodiles where crocodiles depend on rats to protect their nests from other predators (including the rats themselves) in return for protection from larger predators?

If not crocodiles, dinosaurs will do. It just has to be a big and powerful reptilian predator.

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>>97400348
Just go with dragons and ratbolds.

>Humanity in my world only gained magic due to our prehistoric cavemen ancestors forming a symbiotic relationship with microscopic cosmic spirits called "Wills".
>Wills fast track human evolution to ensure we will eventually occupy the entire universe.
>But they do this by manipulating humans to fight each other non-stop for power, regulating magic power to ensure more ambitious, egoistic people get more power than humble, peaceful ones.
>This means that Magic users can never replace normal humans because they're too good at killing each other, but will always rule over us because they're better at killing us than we are at killing them.

There you go, that's my explanation for why Magocracy exists and humanity hasn't evolved democracy.

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>>97398196
>It's set on a completely alien earth
Well not completely.

>>97400500
It's meant to be Cosmic Horror. Some weird primordial entities are effectively evolving the entire human race into a species of Dark Sorcerers.

>>97399997
Personally I like the idea of magic reducing the amount of deaths in general, but that supernatural threats even it out again.

Like healing magic heavily reducing childhood mortality and deaths to disease in general, maybe even magic boosting food production(like enhancing crop growth, keeping out pests, manipulating the weather and the like), but on the other hand you have a lot of people regularly get killed by monsters that prey on humans, be it hidden threats like vampires and werewolves within human societies, wild ones like goblins and dragons and the like on the road, up to more human threats like evil magic users sacrificing humans in masses.

The excess amount of people also gives you a lot more fodder to fill your world with, like people becoming adventures and bandits and the like, where them dying in masses doesn't really threaten population numbers.

>Humanity moved into space because 2/3 of the planet was either conquered by the Empire or destroyed by Monsters
>The so-called Earth Federation was hiring trained volunteers for it's solar system colonization campaign, and millions of refugees joined up because they had no homes to return to.
>So space colonists, who are the wealthiest inhabitants of the solar system, already have a grudge against the country controlling most of Earth and hate how the other third is controlled by a government that won't help them take their lands back.
>Despite this, it's been so long that 90% of the radicals just want independence, not revenge. They don't really have a connection to their homeland anymore.

How do you like this Hard Scifi + High Fantasy fusion? I don't really have a name for the genre, but it probably doesn't matter because it'll never get popular, haha.

>>97398633
Technically, all sapient species capable of organized labour fit in this. You could make it into a world of Eusocial insects. They are pretty freaky, you'd never run out of shit.
>>97400515
Ngl I don't get why people that reuse geograohy in their maps always do the most blatant examples. Another map I saw had Lake Baikal copypasted right in the middle of the fucking world like people wouldn't notice.

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I just got this. It's a doorstopper of about 750 pages with entries to every fictional country you can think off from literature, from Oz, To Gondor, Atlantis, the Treasure Island, to Laputa (not games or RPGs but I can live with that). Would recommend any fictional country or place for inspiration?

>>97400515
no wonder they need all those sheep if its that cold

What's the Hard Scifi regular for solar system level war? I want no FTL, no psychic powers, no perpetual energy machines, no space magic whatsoever.

It should respect the laws of physics and common sense.

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>>97402457

Nicoll-Dyson beams?

I want to run an investigation game in the desert part of America, 70's to 90's about. I was wondering if I should have it take place after a war that took down global communications just to kind of rein in where players can go and what they have access to. Like no airports, telephones if any are going to be local landlines that go to communications hubs. No internet, but maybe similarly local networks. No one really knows whats going on in the rest of the country and information is scarce. War took a toll on the country so theres also just less people around. I also think it would be a cooler world to explore than something that already exists irl. Everything else would be pretty similar with major cities and military emplacements destroyed. I wouldn't use it as a shoe-in for most post apocalyptic stuff like mutants and futuristic weapons I'm more or less trying to just reset the world back to wild west days with modern tech. Not even "end of the world" just a step backwards. Is this a stupid ass idea?

>>97402457
>regular for solar system level war
Rock throwing.
Change the rock with asteroid.

>>97400861
>Hard Scifi + High Fantasy fusion?
So, just basic scifi.
Hard scifi tried to eliminate the fantastical tropes of scifi like ftl. By introducing magic, you just bring back the fantastical shit.

>>97402457

The Expanse.

>>97400515
I think we can all agree that New Zealand is plenty alien.

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>>97400861
>How do you like this Hard Scifi + High Fantasy fusion?
Equivalent exchange

>>97402457
>It should respect the laws of physics and common sense.
Common sense says space would never be militarized beyond earth's orbit and that shit will be turbofucked by Kessler syndrome after the first minor conflict up there which will invariably just involve ground launches and unmanned satellites.

>>97402457
Do you mean within a solar system?

>>97400128
TV TROPES: THE SETTING

After reading a bunch of shitty porn set in generic dragon quest fantasy land that all use convient magic contraception I've started to wonder how that would acutally impact a pseudo-medieval world. Even today we're dealing with a slow but steady population collapse, and safe, convient, cheap, easily avaible contraception turning having a kid into a choice surely played a big part in that.

>>97311994
What are the pros and cons of using material components in magic systems?

>>97404282
I mean, it depends on a lot of other questions like
>how expensive and elaborate is child care in this world
>how much freedom do women have to choose their own life? are they free to work in careers of their choice? do they have access to decent education on the whole?
>Is child birth still as risky as in the past or does magic help make it safer too?
>same about childhood mortality
>>97404508
personally I like that it really allows you to narratively limit magic characters can do on any occasion without robbing them of their powers entirely. Like when certain stakes require a certain piece of magic not working, it's easy to just cut of the material access, and depending on circumstances you can make it even a region wide thing.

>>97403514
No, the magic is clearly delineated from the hard science.

>>97404234
Yes.

>>97404217
Kessler Syndrome only applies for orbit, and you're making the mistake of assuming any political leaders that are willing to send thousands of men to their deaths will care about future threats to satellites.

Nothing can stop war. It's a universal phenomenon.

>>97405772
>Kessler Syndrome only applies for orbit
Yes, but there isn't strategic or practical value in militarizing past orbit. Resources from space aren't economically practical to bring to Earth and militarizing further away doesn't confer strategic benefit to combat on Earth. The most you would maybe see is combat on Mars between Martians if we ever got permanent colonization going there and that's not really space warfare.
>you're making the mistake of assuming any political leaders that are willing to send thousands of men to their deaths will care about future threats to satellites.
To the contrary, I am assuming future political leaders will absolutely fuck up our satellites in the future. Hopefully after I'm dead.

>>97404282
>Even today we're dealing with a slow but steady population collapse, and safe, convient, cheap, easily avaible contraception turning having a kid into a choice surely played a big part in that.
For most of the world for most of human history, having children was an investment in your business and a retirement plan. Still is in a lot of places. Also, I fucking assure your plenty of populations have had knowledge of both contraception and abortifactients while still maintaining population growth.

The shit driving down birth rates are women's rights, child labor laws, high cost of childcare/living, social atomization, socialized retirement plans, destigmatization of childlessness, etc.

>>97405916
>Yes, but there isn't strategic or practical value in militarizing past orbit. Resources from space aren't economically practical to bring to Earth
This is what planet-mania does to your brain. The real resources aren't in planets, they're in asteroids.

It's that which nations will fight over, not mere planets.

So, dragons are popular for a reason, but what are the best and most interesting way to incorporate them into a setting beyond "big monster to kill"?

How can a monarchy keep itself from being subordinated by the nobles? How can the Royal Family keep itself dominant and not beholden to either the commoners or the other magnates?

>>97406203
As the big good monsters *helping* the heroes kill the bad monsters. More like pagan gods than animals, really.

>>97406213

There are multiple ways. One is to be an attention whore, if you foment a culture that encourages nobility to constantly praise you, they won't have time to plot against you. You can also consistently side with another social class that supports you and use them as a hammer against the nobility. You can have a secret police or spy force that it is loyal to you, and you alone. You can use parallel hierarchies, for example the church to reinforce your authority and by pass noble authority etc. In the end, it is a game of divide and conquer.

>>97406213

A monarch who is broke is always beholden to someone. The most successful monarchs were those who secured independent revenue (like crown lands, colonial trade, or direct taxation) so they didn't have to ask the nobles for money every time they wanted to go to war.

>>97406238
Can a monarchy do ALL of the above? To keep an Imperial Cult to legitimize their rule, maintain a secret police to hunt anyone who commits lese-majeste, and maintain a group of otherwise disenfranchised loyalists that owe their position to the King and can balance the noble houses?

>>97406248
In other words, a monopoly on the means of wealth. Land, minerals (like iron or salt), and maybe even commerce.

Am I right?

>>97406213

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig_qpNfXHIU

If the greek gods actively commanded their cults, do you think they'd prefer to personally show up to receive the worship of their cults or just create a unified priesthood?

Which option is more likely? I don't really understand what factors go into unified or decentralised religions.

Can someone critique this magical planetary defense system for whether it "works"?

>Magic can only recreate real phenomenon by drawing energy from other dimensions and channelling it according to the wizard's will.
>Aliens have a laser gun they want to use to boil the planet.
>Wizards create a spell that will create an ionised plasma shield at whatever point the laser aims, deflecting the laser and protecting most of the planet.
>Wizards have a lot more energy under control than the aliens do, so the aliens pretty much just give up and leave.

>>97406297
>Can a monarchy do ALL of the above? To keep an Imperial Cult to legitimize their rule, maintain a secret police to hunt anyone who commits lese-majeste, and maintain a group of otherwise disenfranchised loyalists that owe their position to the King and can balance the noble houses?
Why not? Stalin and other totalitarian dictators did two out three and Chinese Emperors did the third.

>>97311994
Why does A.I seem to be such a rarity in sci-fi, even hard scifi?

>>97374058
>>97374498
I wrote some stuff, mostly just taking from the stuff I like, I don't care about being particularly original, but I'm a bit stuck wondering the kind of stories that a setting like this can host, what do you think anons?

File: 20260120_035936.jpg (1.76 MB, 4096x2285)

1.76 MB JPG

I can't believe some people don't like world/lorebuilding in books and stories or say it's waste of time, learning about the world and hearing about tidbits of history and Stuff is like one of the best parts of a fantasy or sci fi story for me at least

>>97406994
That's because modern writers aren't interested in exploring new worlds.

>>97406994
Why did they say they don't like worldbuilding? I'm sure they gave a reason.

>>97406504
It's not en either/or question. Zeus will still obviously have primacy, but all gods will continue to have their own cults since Zeus is nowhere near as jealous as YHWH.

>>97406203
Well, Harry Potter used them as mere animals abused to guard treasures for wizards or goblins. Dresden Files used them as demigods that could change form and use high class magic.

>>97320501
No it didn't. Traditional medicine was entirely useless. I'm saying that as an actual doctor posted in a rural area.

>Exposure to sapients can induce a soul in objects.
>Ships gain Klabautermann due to decades or centuries of sailors.

Now scale that up for the space age....
>Space Colonies can have millions of inhabitants.
>They typically last centuries.
>They represent the hopes and dreams of an entire new human race

Yeah, Space Colonies have evolved their own spirits that can influence material reality. Best case scenario, they can actually help defend the colony from dangerous accidents and outside attack.

>>97407111
>Well, Harry Potter used them as mere animals abused to guard treasures for wizards or goblins
NTA, but they were also essentially treated like cattle, being allowed to live only in specifically designated dragon reserves where they are regularly harvested for parts.
Dragons are used for everywhere in the wizarding world like
>their heart strings are one of the most common and powerful cores for wands
>their hide is has magic resistant properties and is used for fancy clothing like jackets and boots and the like, but also for protective equipment like gloves all children are exppected to wear for potion class.
>their blood has a dozen known uses ranging from being a useful potion ingredient to being used as spot remover and oven cleaner.
>their meat is put on wounds to help treat the pain, also occasionally prepared and eaten like DragonTartare
>they produce milk that is used for cheese making
>powered dragon claw is snorted by students before exams as it supposdely helps the brain focus. Its also used in potions
>their dung is used as fertilizer for magical herbs
>their horns were also powdered and used in potions.
>their livers and eggs were used in potions too
Personally I really like this as Dragons in setting are not really any less dangerous than you expect dragons to be, but they've become the equivalent of powerful animals in the real world where we have to go out of our way to not hunt them to extinction, only difference is their parts also useful beyond just status symbol.

>>97407377
As I said, abused animals. HP is an anthrocentric setting where humans are the center of creation.

>>97405931
>The real resources aren't in planets, they're in asteroids.
It will literally never be cheaper to mine asteroids than to refine an element from resources on earth.

I don't have planet-mania. I know how much space travel costs. Even if we had theoretical megastructures that make launching and landing cheaper, it would still not be more cost effective to fetch asteroids than to refine shit on earth.

To use a comparison, it would be like harvesting icebergs for fresh water instead of using desalination. Technically possible but dumb as fuck.

>>97406213
>How can a monarchy keep itself from being subordinated by the nobles? How can the Royal Family keep itself dominant and not beholden to either the commoners or the other magnates?
As a general rule, consolidation of power is just as unstable as power vacuums. So the short answer is it can't. Absolute monarchies through history have been reliant on everything from support of the merchant class, to support of the priests, to support of nobles, to support of the intelligence agencies, to outside backers, to support of the military, to support of the commoners. Usually several at once. As a supplement, all governments either need support of the commoners OR support of the military OR support of outside backers at a minimum.

Even the longest running dynasties in history were subordinate to internal or external interests for much of their rule.

If you just want a long running dynastic rule, I would say
>military dictatorship
>very strict succession laws
>some large source of direct income for the royal family other than taxes
>the priests made a puppet of the royal family
>outside backing
>very large royal family given as many titles as possible such that transfers of power tend to be within the dynasty
Country won't necessarily be stable, but at least coup attempts and civil wars will tend to be dynastic in nature.

Alternatively ditch the monarchy entirely and go for a corrupt elective system dominated by a merchant family.

>>97374852
>Polluted zone
>Toxic Gulf
W-what happened?
Was it on purpose? Did someone fuck up?

Anyway,
>I fucking live for maps
and this is one of the best I've ever seen.
There is so many little details and stories across it that it tickles my autism perfectly and it is beautiful.
Again this is coming from a map autist with a folder filled with them, but this is an easy 10/10 without even mentioning the other awesome details of your setting.

Keep it up anon, this is fantastic stuff

>>97406994
Some authors just text dump worldbuilding details that end up having no narrative or atmospheric significance in large dry chunks. That's what people don't like when they say that shit.

It's like finding a grocery list in a horror game.

>>97407769
>HP is an anthrocentric setting where humans are the center of creation
In fairness, that's cause human wizards created an ethnostate that deliberately suppressed other races and species including forbidding them from having wands or participating in government. There is a reason non-humans sided with Voldemort.

>>97374829
first stage of eugenics should be weeding out all eugenicists

>>97406669
If I'm understanding your question and setting correctly:
>Aliens are real
>So are wizards
>Magic is as powerful as technology if not more
Seems perfectly fine
>Magic can only recreate real phenomenon by drawing energy from other dimensions and channelling it according to the wizard's will.
Wizard magic, no problem these are your rules
>Wizards create a spell that will create an ionised plasma shield
This were I raise an eyebrow, but only because you asked about it "working". I'll also preface I'm no expert in any of this

>Ionization is (very bare bones) the removal or addition of electrons from a molecule or atom.
Perfectly fine so far, no reason for a wizard to not be able to do this.
>Plasma, again VERY broad strokes, is fucking with the electrons to make something conductive and super fucking hot.
Again, wizards nbd.

So wizards are making a super heated shield to DEFLECT a heat ray.
I don't care about the details and neither would most people.
But as far as your question about "Aliens boiling the sea and Wizard stops it, does it work?" I don't think THAT specifically does in what you posted.
Heat doesn't deflect heat and as far as I understand that situation creates an even hotter spot on the planet with your rules.

Not to say there isn't something to counter the aliens of course.
Maybe they freeze molecules to create as possible to absolute zero to counter the heat ray at point of impact?
Depending on type of laser the aliens use, natural means or materials could deflect or absorb it? (diamond or graphene flakes to absorb heat then just send it back or something)

It is a great premise though (if I understand it right)
"Imagine having the ability to fabricate or conjure whatever as long as the laws of physics apply" would make physicists, geologists, metallurgists, etc much more interesting in your world lol

>>97408640
>first stage of eugenics should be weeding out all eugenicists
While I appreciate the sentiment, there are practical applications of eugenics, such as Iceland's app to avoid cousin fucking or cascade testing and genetic counseling (both things recommended by the CDC and not just under this administration) to avoid children being born with heritable diseases.

That said, that sort of shit is generally not what anyone calling themselves a "eugenicist" means.

>>97406213
Step 1: Create a political system where nobility is a title and social status one can achieve and have conferred upon them.

Step 2: Create a political system where said Nobles have the obligation to be part of certain aspects of the Imperial government and "encouraged" to insert themselves within certain institutions.

Step 3: Give them a pathway to greater power by way of being chosen as imperial consorts. Once married into the royal family, their original names are added to the Imperial Registry and all their assets officially belong the Imperial Family.

Step 4: Gradually indoctrinate and move members of the family into special Noble only properties where they help to perpetuate the true Emperor in his tomb palace through fanatical worship.

>>97408561
The civil war that wrecked the City caused a lot of damage ot it's infrastructure, in that particular region, the fighting destroyed what essentially was a massive industrial zone, leaving behind a ruined, gangerous wound in the Cityscape, where what remained of the malfunctioning biomechanical infrastructure of the City to spill out toxic bile and other pollutants from the innards of the City.

And thanks, the full size image of the map can be found here:
https://www.deviantart.com/screeble/art/Mundus-Carnis-map-v3-938912094

It is a bit out of date though, I am planning on making a new version of it at some point, both larger in size, with co-ordinate grid as well as a bit of altered geography to make it less obvious that the City is just located in east asia.

>A gorillion years ago, the first emperor sent out an expedition to search for the elixir of immortality
>they encountered many delays and setbacks and never found the elixir
>when they finally turned back, the land the had departed from was nowhere to be found
>with no choice they settled on the nearby eastern continent
I can't decide if I want their descendants to be "elves" (humans merged with a sort of element), or something else. The idea is that they found a shitty half measure for a longer lifespan, but no eternal youth and definitely no true immortality.

I know a full shell dyson sphere isn't the most realistic depiction but I like them. My main question though is, is there any way of making it that planets surrounding the star are livable and not frozen rocks? Assuming a scenario where the planets weren't ground up to make the sphere. Or if it's a half of a full shell, again is there a way surrounding planets and space colonies could survive for half their orbit?

>>97411753
>is there any way of making it that planets surrounding the star are livable and not frozen rocks?
Dyson spheres are for energy capture in the first place, so couldn't you just beam a portion of the energy received at planets such that they are kept livable? Either directly as artificial starlight or as concentrated beams that would then be used to power artificial temperature control for sealed habitats?

Like imagine a Death Star set for reheat.

>>97411607
that set up is pretty similar to the anime/manga Hell's paradise.
There the main setting is an Island near japan which was settled by someone sent out ages ago by the chinese emperor to find the elixir of life. The island was basically turned into a labratory to create it, primarily by researching Tao(the local chi equivalent), for that purpose they also create a bunch of other kinds of beings by combining humans with other life forms. WIth the strongest being a handful of near immortals who are part flowers, they can perfectly regenerate and dont age as long as they have enough energy, which they only replenshis with a special elixir created by refining human corpses.
There were also a bunch of more normal people who only had their lifetime extended by being part tree, but the longer they lived the more tree like they became until they eventually just full on became trees and lost all sense of self.

>>97411753
how about making it the opposite of a Ring world, where you essentially leave in Ring like gaps that could still let enough sunlight escape for nearby planets.

>>97411917
Thanks. I read that manga when it came out but dropped it at some point so I didn't know all that. The setup is based on an actual legend about Qin Shi Huang (first Emperor of China) who allegedly sent his court magician (Xu Fu) looking for the elixir. He also drank shitloads of mercury and is the guy buried behind the Terracotta army.

>which they only replenish with a special elixir created by refining human corpses.
The one thing I want to avoid is using human corpses, souls, spirits, or anything like that. It overlaps with other forms of life extension/immortality that I have.

File: Ju Fa regenerating(1).gif (7.61 MB, 525x295)

7.61 MB GIF

>>97412206
I mean, you could totally just go with a similar plant based immortality, without without the need to replenish it through harvesting humans.

Maybe just base it on some special fruit that is cultivated like Golden Apples in european myths or Peaches of Immortality from eastern ones.
Or something like Ambrosia/Nectar where an elixir is made from special flowers.

>>97408603
Their victory proves that the Cosmos favors them.

I had a revelation.

>Hard scifi world, K1 civilization verging on K2.
>AI that makes Gemini look like an abacus are common and cheap.
>Storing a person's entire personality, including memories, on a drive is now a possibility.

But also:
>Secretly Lovecraftian, magic is dangerous and real.
>Sudden and inexplicable baby boom due to the Black Goat slowly (over centuries) taking physical form in our world.

Since working women obviously can't afford to take care of said babies, I can make it so they download "a portion" of their personalities into advanced Androids and make THEM take care of the babies. Science triumphs over magic again.

>>97412952
Though this does have the side effect that after centuries of silence, hundreds of thousands of space colonies came alive with the crying of newborn children.

History had ended, but now it has risen from the grave. Now humanity has no choice but to finally send human colonization ships to other solar systems. The expansion is now a survival strategy.

What entity could possibly stand up to Nyarlathotep and be humanity's "guardian figure"?

>>97413265
There's a game who's name I forgot where one of the eldritch monsters you have to fight in the evil ending is called Humanity. Maybe humanity itself is the neural system of an outer god that can go toe to toe with Nya

>>97406929
Still taking advice, the setting can fit a lot of stuff so any idea for areas and factions are welcome
So far I got the obvious Angels and demons and fey, mortal mafia, space pirates, lovecraft monsters that are actively hunted and harvested for parts and the people that hunt them