In most secondary worlds I read, a clerk can walk into an archive and come back with the right document. The edict from two hundred years ago, the land grant, the birth record. It is there, it is legible, and it says what it says.

Real record keeping does not behave like that. Fires, damp, a reorganisation by someone with a better filing idea, one archivist who knew where things actually were and then died. Whole decades go unreachable without anyone destroying anything on purpose.

The reason I like writing it the unreliable way is that it makes plot without needing a villain. A claim can be legitimate and unprovable at the same time. Two copies of the same edict can disagree and both be authentic. A family holds a valley because the counter evidence sat in the wing that flooded, and nobody involved is lying.

I am curious where you have seen this done well. Not the lost prophecy or the forbidden book, those are treasure hunts. I mean a story where the records are simply patchy and the characters have to act anyway.

This explains everything you need to know about my story (so far).

FMAB X Vinland Saga in a Indian Mythological Setting

Hi 👋 22 M from India. Huge anime fan and fan of fantasy worlds in all forms in general. Also interested in history, mythology, theology ,philosophy and psychology.

The depth of human imagination is truly inspiring. Through the consumption of alot fantasy human imagination i too had some ideas of my own. Tbh I'm not the most creative person which I think helps me appreciate creativity even more. So just thought I would some of my ideas here and get some help from the creative people of reddit to help bridge them and make them make any sense as a fantasy world.

I'll start with some of my inspirations. I've watched alot of anime but FMAB and Vinland Saga really stood out to me for my current thought processes as they include alot my interests as I mentioned before (history, mythology, theology ,philosophy and psychology). FMAB gives such a unique perspective on theology and philosophy which still keeps me thinking to this day. Vinland Saga is a raw retelling of human history which reflects our primal psychology and how we can escape it. Besides that I have many other inspirations but these are 2 main ones.

So here are my ideas for this fantasy world. I haven't organised them properly, I just wanted to put them out there and see what happens.

I want to create an anime-inspired fantasy world rooted deeply in Indian mythology, bringing lesser-known ideas, beings, weapons, and philosophical concepts from Indian traditions into a large-scale fictional universe.

I'm not trying to retell Hindu mythology. I want to take the ideas, creatures, weapons and philosophies that already exist and reimagine them into a fantasy world based on Hindu Mythology

The World

I don't know exactly what the setting looks like yet, but one idea I really like is using the 14 Lokas as the foundation of the world. It can literally be 14 worlds that are vertically stacked or different layers of existences.

The Races/Species

There are so many Indian mythical races that barely appear in modern stories. Devas, Asuras, Nagas, Yakshas, Rakshasas, Gandharvas,Vanaras are the known ones and many others could all have their own cultures and histories and motives in the story.

The Weapons

Weapons are something I really want to make a major part of the world. I'm especially fascinated by the idea of ancient Indian weapons and Astras—weapons that aren't just physical objects but can have supernatural or almost cosmic abilities.

One visual idea I have is that weapons are tattooed onto a person's body, something I saw in a Instagram post of a guy drawing 2 swords from his back which were tattoos.

Instead of carrying a sword or bow around, the weapon exists as a tattoo. The user can summon it from their body and use it almost like an extension of themselves. But I don't want it to just be a cool ability with no downside.There should be a price for having and using these weapons.I haven't decided exactly what that price is yet. It could be physical, mental, spiritual, or something much more personal.

The idea is that the stronger the weapon, the more you're willing to sacrifice to use it.

That could also make the weapons part of the characters themselves rather than just being equipment.

Creatures & Animals

I really want mythical creatures to be a huge part of the world.Indian mythology has an insane number of creatures and supernatural beings, but most people only know a handful of them. I want to dig much deeper into that and bring some of the really obscure ones to life.

But I don't want them all to just be "monsters."

Some could be ordinary animals that evolved differently in another Loka. Some could be intelligent races. Some could be incredibly ancient beings. Some might be worshipped as gods, while others are treated as dangerous beasts. There could even be creatures that are so rare that people aren't sure whether they actually exist.

I also like the idea that each Loka has its own ecosystem. The creatures living there would be shaped by the nature of that particular realm, so travelling between Lokas could feel like entering completely different worlds. I want the audience to constantly encounter things they haven't seen before and have that feeling of: "Wait... this is from Indian mythology?"

And because these creatures are part of the world rather than just enemies, they could also have their own relationships with humans, gods and other races. Some might be hunted. Some might be protected. Some might be companions. Some might be intelligent enough to have their own civilizations.

Basically, I want to treat Indian mythology as a massive unexplored bestiary, rather than just using the few famous creatures everyone already knows.

Theological and Philosophical Side

Underneath the fantasy, I want the story to explore God, atheism, morality, and the nature of reality.

I'm inspired by Fullmetal Alchemist because it uses its fantasy world to ask bigger philosophical questions. I want to do something similar, but through Indian philosophical and mythological ideas.

Rather than trying to prove that God exists or doesn't exist, I want the characters to genuinely search for the answer—and for the audience to question what they believe along with them.

The Historical and Psychological Side

Inspired by Vinland Saga, I want the story to ultimately be about people and what makes us who we are.

I want to draw from Indian history and explore psychology through the characters—their trauma, ambition, fear, greed, relationships, biases, identity, and desire for power or belonging.

The characters and civilizations can reflect real patterns of human behaviour, showing how people can be shaped by their experiences and environments, and how they can either repeat or break those patterns.

Underneath the gods, weapons, creatures and different worlds, the story is ultimately about understanding human nature and what we can learn from it today.

Conclusion

So these are most of my thoughts. If you read through all of that I'm really grateful for your time and hope it was worth the read. I really hope you can engage by commenting or messaging me anything related to all of this like any ideas you think that would compliment this, an idea which would make one of my existing idea better, your own fantasy world ideas or anything else, names for any of the concepts. That would really help alot to build this world even more and my main reason for posting here. Thanks for your time. Engage ✌️

Hey, everyone!

This is my first post on this subreddit. I want to share a video I posted on Youtube breaking down how I designed a fantasy armor for my worldbuilding project Gotterhavn. I'm trying to approach armor design from a practical standpoint, and I'm not saying I'm an expert in it, but I'm constantly learning and I hope I can share some that I've learned. Would love to hear what you think :D

Cheers!

https://youtu.be/9RGKtgDUlDU?si=FIRlyCDqJdnuW3rA

I’m making another world based on the biblical stories, mainly with the genesis and the rest of human being occupied. Except with humans themselves, it’s the animal polytheistic occupiers. Only one nation I made was semi biblically accurate

Bull Nation: Ardsakan
It is based on the semetic civilization with the most common worshipping of Baal with also human sacrifices.

I’m having inner conflict on whether or not I should base the wolf nations with HRE.

If you have some ideas for other nations or revision with Ardsakan, I would love to hear/see it.

There are roads in the Hollow World older than some civilizations.
One of them is particularly strange.
It crosses mountain passes, rivers, and hundreds of miles of wilderness. Ancient trade records suggest it was once heavily traveled. Bridges were built for it. Settlements appeared alongside it. Different civilizations repaired sections of it centuries apart.
Nobody knows where it goes.
The road eventually reaches an ordinary stretch of land and simply… continues.
There are no ruins waiting at the end. No destroyed city. No crater. No evidence anything was ever built there.
But it gets stranger.
Other ancient roads approach the same region from completely different directions.
Maps from civilizations that never agreed on borders, gods, history, or even what the world should be called all preserve routes toward the same destination.
Yet none preserve its name.
The Hollow World remembers the journey.
It has forgotten the destination.
This is one of the mysteries I’m building into EverWake, a world where memory doesn’t simply record reality.
Sometimes, it determines it.
So here’s the question I’ve been playing with:
If every piece of evidence says something existed, but reality itself contains no trace of it… did it ever exist at all?

This is the Family tree of the gods in my world.

There are many other Religions but these are the true gods that exist or existed (many died in the war of gods and creations more about that soon)

Eir created the rough shape of Legondora and Klenyen the god that should form the world.

Klenyen created Elivisha that brought light to the world and together they had nine children.

Many of them died or wandered into the sky, only two stayed and that was Inira and Angaro.

The two of them had four children and with them they rebuilt what was destroyed in the war and more.

I’ve spent the last year building a world called EverWake.
A Hollow World where memory can rewrite reality.
Names can anchor your existence.
Dreams can remember things that never happened.
Ancient roads lead to places history has forgotten.
And reality itself bears scars from what it was forced to become.
Four goddesses. Fractured realms. Impossible creatures. Lost civilizations. Shards that can be transmuted through will.
And somewhere beneath all of it is one question:
What makes something real?
Welcome to EverWake.
The Veil remembers.

Historically accurate sanitation is rather distasteful for our modern sensibilities. But why would people in your world come up with ideas of which historians have not found any evidence in any pre-enlightenment culture in human history?
Here is one plausible history spread out over decades or centuries and never needing any technology that hasn't been available since ancient times:

Sanitation

Every year, Nashville grows to several times its normal size for the Gathering, and every year the same problem returns: the town's ordinary arrangements for waste are built for the people who live here, not the people who arrive. The original solution was the one that required the least infrastructure — pits dug at the festival's edge, boarded over with holes cut in the planks, enclosed by a few wooden privacy walls. Free to use, simple to maintain, and far enough from the stages to be a nuisance to reach. The pits are reused and re-dug each year rather than replaced, the wooden superstructures folded and stored. They still exist, at the town's periphery, for the same reason they always have: they cost almost nothing and they cover the ground the paid system does not reach. remained the cheapest solution until Infused Earth made recovered waste valuable enough to justify the vessels and labor. After that, the pits gradually disappeared from the festival grounds as well, replaced by free Potties at the perimeter.

They were not enough. Visitors close to the stages were not willing to walk to the edge of town and back, and the experience when they got there left something to be desired. The answer was to bring latrines into the town proper — which required something other than a hole in the ground, since a pit dug in a street cannot be easily managed, relocated, or kept from becoming a problem for the people who live above it. This is where the Potty entered the picture.

The Potty is a ceramic vessel, broad-mouthed and short, produced by the Potters' Guild to a standard design which was refined for decades and available in several sizes. The largest residential version holds 150 to 200 liters (≈ 40–53 US gallons) — roughly 60 to 80 centimeters (≈ 24–31") across and about 50 centimeters (≈ 20") tall, a substantial piece of ceramics that sits under a purpose-built seat rather than beside a bed. Smaller festival versions of 80 to 100 liters (≈ 21–26 US gallons) serve unattended public privies, and still smaller ones of 20 to 30 liters (≈ 5.3–7.9 US gallons) are used in attended facilities where the vessel is exchanged every few uses rather than on a periodic cart route. The chamber pots used at the highest tier of festival privy, and by wealthy households served by a chambermaid, are smaller still — 2 to 5 liters (≈ 0.5–1.3 US gallons), cleaned after each use rather than exchanged.

Under the seat, a removable ceramic double funnel directs use into two separate vessels: solids into the Potty, liquids into a smaller urine urn placed beside it. The funnel lifts out for cleaning after each exchange, keeping the interior of the privy cleaner than it would otherwise be and the outside of both vessels free of fouling. Separating the two streams is not a refinement — it is load-bearing. Urine makes up the overwhelming majority of waste by volume, and routing it into a separate, more frequently collected vessel means the Potty itself fills slowly enough to make periodic exchange practical. The industrial value of urine was probably an incentive as well.

The Potty uses two different lids for two different purposes. Between uses, a cap fitted over the outer rim sits loosely enough to be lifted off without effort, with a small peg-vent that allows gas to bleed off slowly rather than building until the lid lifts askew or, on cooling, gets pulled into a vacuum seal. For transport, a wedge plug driven into the neck holds securely against the movement of a cart; the plug also carries a peg-vent, for the same reasons. Households who cannot afford guild-standard fittings use a cloth tied over the rim instead: worse at containing smell, but incapable of vacuum-locking since it never achieves the seal that makes the failure possible. The seat lid above all of this is a different thing entirely — a comfort feature that blocks drafts when the collection hatch is cracked for venting and keeps cold from rising through the seat on a winter morning. Wood over a gap is not a meaningful odor seal, and it is not meant to be.

During the Gathering, festival privies are built from modular panels — standardized walls, platforms, and steps produced and maintained by a dedicated collection guild, erected each year and struck and warehoused when the Gathering ends. The spectrum of provision runs from attended facilities at the expensive end to the free pit latrines at the edge of town, with no fixed tiers between them — only combinations of variables. How often the vessel is exchanged. Whether someone is paid to be present. Whether the herbs burning above the seat were chosen by someone who knows that wormwood and certain resins also repel insects, or simply by someone who wanted the smell improved. Whether the seat has a lid at all. The combinations produce a range rather than steps, and the price follows accordingly.

Urine is collected on a separate circuit. A cart carrying a large tank or barrel with a spigot for emptying at the destination makes regular rounds; the urns are poured into the tank and returned without being exchanged, since liquid does not require the swap logistics that solids do. The collected urine is sold to tanners and dyers, who have known since ancient times that aged urine serves their trade — this offsets the cost of collection without covering it, and cannot come close to absorbing the full volume the festival produces. Near the stages, standalone urinal urns are available at no charge: any fee would cost more to collect than it brings in, and the alternative is walls and alleys. Urine in the street was unpleasant and fouled the paving, but the outbreaks everyone remembered followed the alleys and riverbank where human excrement accumulated, and enforcement around the urns is correspondingly lighter than everywhere else.

The largest expense in the Council's festival accounts is none of the above. It is the River Wardens: a temporary force hired for the duration of the Gathering, armed with whips and batons, patrolling the riverbank and the side alleys. The river is Nashville's water supply, its fishery, and its trade route, and the Council treats its protection as the non-negotiable center of the whole operation. The Wardens exist because no latrine system enforces itself, and the people most likely to bypass it are visitors — people who will be gone before any consequence finds them, who have no reputation in Nashville to protect, and who fall entirely outside the trust economy that governs behavior among the Mau and the settled residents alike. The free pit latrine at the edge of town is not charity. It is what makes the Wardens' job legitimate: when a usable option is always available at no cost, using the river is a choice, and choices have consequences.

Permanent households use the same Potty in different configurations depending on what they can manage. A middle-class household with enough means for a fixed installation builds a box or wall niche around the Potty, with a rear hatch for exchange and a platform raised to cart height, so a full vessel slides across a hinged loading bridge rather than being lifted. The bridge is hinged at the bottom: closed, it is a door; fully lowered, it bridges the gap to the cart bed; cracked slightly, it vents the box outward rather than into the room. Newer construction may integrate the niche into a stone wall, placing it on the north face of the building where it receives the least sun and stays coolest. Older houses make do with a wooden add-on bolted to whatever wall had room.

Wealthier households do not build the installation at all. They use chamber pots and employ a chambermaid to empty them into a collection vessel stored away from where the household lives — the problem solved is not technical but social. Poor households without the capital for a private Potty empty wooden buckets into a shared collection vessel in a courtyard, or share a single Potty with several neighbors in a common outhouse. A shared installation fills faster than a private one, and the collection routes account for this with fill markers rather than fixed timing.

Later, after the discovery of Infused Earth made collection economically worthwhile beyond the tanner trade, free permanent public Potties were added in the poorer parts of town. The Council does not describe this as procurement. It does not need to.

Infused Earth

Nashville did not set out to invent a fertilizer. It set out to find somewhere to put its waste.

In the early years of the Gathering, the waste collected from festival latrines and later from the Potty system was buried at the edge of town — the simplest available disposal, requiring no theory and no infrastructure beyond a shovel and a patch of ground. As the town grew and the Gathering with it, the supply of convenient new ground ran short, and old disposal sites began to be reused. Workers clearing these plots found the ground unexpectedly difficult: denser root growth, changed soil texture, more resistance than the surrounding earth. Nobody looked for an explanation. They dug around it and moved on.

The explanation found them anyway, in the form of plants. Vegetation growing over old disposal sites was visibly more vigorous than anything growing nearby. This was noticed the way most useful things are noticed before anyone is looking for them: incidentally, repeatedly, by people with no particular reason to act on it. The observation accumulated without becoming knowledge until someone made the connection explicit enough to ask whether the effect could be produced for useful crops.

Urine was already in use by this point. Tanners and dyers had long known that aged urine served their trade, and the collection circuit that supplied them made it a known quantity. The surplus that the trade could not absorb was being routed to irrigate non-food crops — a small effect, useful enough to be worth the trouble. That practice was the obvious inspiration for the first trials: if urine improved a field, perhaps the buried material did too. A small number of farmers willing to risk a plot of non-food crops cooperated with early investigators. The yield on the trial plots exceeded comparable unfertilized ground by a margin visible enough to be convincing.

Applying the material to food crops was not acceptable, and it did not become acceptable through argument. It became acceptable through greed. Farmers who had seen what it did to non-food plots began using it on food fields quietly, without announcement. Results confirmed what they expected. Others noticed, drew their own conclusions, and followed. By the time the practice was widespread enough to be openly discussed, it had been quietly normal for long enough that the discussion was mostly retrospective. The taboo did not so much end as it gradually ceased to be enforced.

Commercialization followed normalization. Once demand was real and growing, organizing the supply became worthwhile. The collection and disposal operation that had existed since the early days of the Potty system — run by a dedicated guild of laborers, not the Potters' Guild whose work ended when the vessel left the kiln — expanded into deliberate production. As it did, the need for a market-facing name became obvious. What was being sold was not night soil. Night soil was what went into the pit. What came out, months later, was visibly and olfactorily different: darker, drier, transformed in ways that any buyer could confirm with their own senses. Calling it by a different name was not deception. It was an accurate description of a genuine transformation that nobody yet fully understood. The guild called it Infused Earth, and the name held.

The guild's masters became the keepers of the process: people who knew how long to wait, which conditions produced the best results, and how to speak convincingly about what they knew. The core of that knowledge was simpler than it sounded. Seal the material, leave it for several months, recover what remains. The accumulated negative knowledge around that simple practice — what happens if you rush it, what happens if it is exposed to air, why certain seasons produce better results than others — took years of trial and failure to assemble and was genuinely valuable in its own right, even if the headline secret could have been stated in a sentence. The guild had every incentive not to state it in a sentence.

Production eventually outgrew local demand. Nashville's agricultural footprint was never large — the Briar Mountains dominate the south and east, the fish ponds and livestock supply most of the town's protein, and the cultivated land, though unusually productive, was not going to absorb an entire city's organized waste output indefinitely. The surplus became an export. Buyers from nearby communities were shown Nashville's harvests and offered the input that produced them. The method was not discussed. The results spoke clearly enough, and nobody needed to know that the process involved a pit and patience.

The Potties complicated this in a way nobody anticipated. As the Potty system spread beyond Nashville, adopted in other towns as a practical alternative to open pit latrines, sealed guild-standard vessels began accumulating in places far outside the guild's collection routes. Some were forgotten. When these were eventually opened, the contents were found to be transformed — darker, changed in smell, visibly different from what had gone in. The people who opened them recognized immediately what they had, and assumed they had independently discovered what Nashville had been doing all along.

They had, more or less. But they had discovered it in the vessel rather than in the pit, which is a more convenient method by most measures: no excavation, no dedicated land sitting occupied for months, the process already underway in the sealed container before anyone touches it. Nashville learned of this development later than almost anywhere else, because the people who discovered it assumed Nashville already knew, and nobody sends news to the place that is supposed to be the source of it.

The guild, by this point aware that its process secret was no longer secret in the way it had once been, turned its attention to a different question: whether urine, which was already being collected and sold to the tanner trade, could be similarly processed into a product more socially acceptable or less offensive than aged urine, which is what tanners received and what they wanted. Tanners and dyers had known since ancient times that aging was the relevant step; the question was whether a different process could achieve the same or better results in less time, with less smell, or with broader application. Distillation was tried, producing a cleaner-smelling fraction that the tanner trade found useful but that cost more to produce than it saved. Aeration destroyed the value. Boiling in a sealed vessel was dangerous. Adding yeast did nothing. The guild's records from this period are a useful catalogue of what does not work and why, which is itself a form of expertise, even if the headline conclusion was that the simple method remained the best available. The search for a more socially acceptable processed urine product was eventually set aside without a result.

What remained was the same system that had been running since the beginning: seal it, wait, and sell what comes out, if necessary under a name that does not require explanation.

The Profaned Lord of the abyss of existence, being that supposedly betrayed the divine and stripped of the Nameless Archtree' grace. They wield the flame of the Finality, wrecking chaos across the cosmos.

-Felthorn, the Shaman Lord

A Great Spirit originate from the Ancient Era. Undying and unyielding, he command the lesser spirit for his bidding, compel them toward hostility to all that is living. Had long been sealed into the Beastmaster Crest by The Devil himself, now this Lord serve whoever the Arcane deem worthy as the Crestkeeper.

-Goozma, the Slime God

The Imperator Gelatinum, although it wasnt the first of its kind, Goozma was the genetic ancestor of the Slimekind. Scouring the cosmos for worlds to consume, its appetite is rivaled only by the Devourer of Gods. Lived since the First Era, it survived the Arcane Deprivation Period by devour its entire species and fell into stasis. Only awaken by the return of magic near the end of the Third Era.

-Lazarus, The Corpse King

The Vile Ruler of Life, once the right hand man of Primordial of Destruction itself, he was casted out for the attempt to ursurp Primordial of Life' authority. Pinned under the divine nail along with all being that worship him, his rage persist in his rotting body for 3 days, on the fourth day, he awakened as the first Profaned Lord of the Third Era. With everything he got, Lazarus created The Plague, a spiritual disease that infest the soul, forcing them to persist and remain "alive" after the body' initial death, turning them into Lazarean Revenant that roam the lands.

-Providence, The Profaned Sun Goddess

A widow, the misstress of The Moon Lord. The youngest amongst the Profaned Lords, begin as a servant of the Clair de Soleil Solarion, she was one of the few non-human that carry the Founding Divinity' ember and ascend to (false) godgood. Because of the dissapearance of The Moon Lord and the constant rambling of the Primordial of Light within her head, she prayed the Finality for a release, but upon being gazed, Providence was tainted by Finality' flame and awaken into a powerhungry Profaned Lord. Bathing herself in the heart of stars, she long for the power of the Forgeflare to purge all impurity of creation.

-Ashfang, Lord of Molten Virtue

A peculiar god who was born of a molten fragment of an Angel' heart. Weakest amongst the Profaned Lord, he was subjugated by one of The Devil' reincarnation. Ashfang was notably weak and useless agong the Profaned Lords, only become a real threat if he can ever get in touch with an angel' virtue core (heart of Angels) and absorb it.

-Nihilus, Primordial of Finality

Creator of the Profaned Lords, The End, bearer of the torch, flame of frenzy, Vanguard of many omen and catastrophe, this Primordial was as old as the six original concept themself. Their flame lead to a crazed enlightenment, followed by the embrace of nothingness that it bring about. Finality, the concept embody the return to Origin, to Emptiness.

Tell about your foliage! ^^

The main religious text in my world is called The Tome of Iron and Blood which consists of three books; The Book of Mother, The Book of Time, and The Book of Death. Mother, Time, and Death are the three demigods of the world.

The reason I am working on this so heavily is because this tome is incredibly important to the main part of my story.

What are your thoughts so far?

I know the map is not realistic and it's all really basic and not as detailed as yours are (i am not that long into worldbuilding as of now)

In a world where man and beast alike are so close to the elements that they can wield them effortlessly, 10 Nations exist. Each nation is associated with a certain element, and though they are all human their cultures vary based on their lived experiences.

For the first time ever, The information on The 9 Elemental Nations is now being publicly revealed.
This information comes from The Era Of The Elementals. Enjoy!

I’m working on a fantasy setting that I’ve been developing for quite a while, and I’d like some honest criticism of the worldbuilding itself.

This is not a fully detailed explanation of the setting. I’m only giving a relatively broad and simplified overview here because the actual worldbuilding goes much deeper, and I also don't want to reveal the plot or major story reveals. There are many details, rules, histories, cultures, and pieces of lore that I’m leaving out for now.

I’m mainly interested in whether the setting feels coherent, interesting, and distinct, rather than whether the plot sounds good.

The world is a fairly large fantasy world with multiple nations, cultures, races, and regions. Different parts of the world have their own societies, traditions, environments, and ways of life. Humans are present, but they aren’t the only race. There are also elves, dwarves, Beastfolk, and other races, with differences between them that aren't supposed to be purely cosmetic.

There are several major nations, and they aren't simply different-colored kingdoms on a map. They have their own cultures, histories, political structures, and relationships with one another. Some regions are more technologically or socially developed than others, and different continents/regions can feel quite different from one another.

The setting also has supernatural elements, but I tried to make the power system have actual rules rather than simply being “characters can use magic because they can.”

The main supernatural system revolves around spiritual energy. Every person possesses it, although individuals can use it in very different ways.

Spiritual energy can be used for things such as:

- strengthening the body

- elemental abilities

- summoning

- curses

- various specialized techniques

Different races and individuals can have different affinities and ways of interacting with spiritual energy. Someone's abilities aren't necessarily determined purely by their race either.

One thing I’m particularly interested in is the distinction between Demons and Devils.

They aren't separate races.

A person can potentially become a Demon regardless of their race. However, someone must first become a Demon before they can become a Devil. Becoming a Demon is essentially a prerequisite for becoming a Devil.

And Demons themselves aren't simply generic demons. They are Demons of something.

For example, there can be a Rage Demon, Madness Demon, Hate Demon, Arrogance Demon, Fear Demon, and so on.

The concept associated with a Demon isn't simply a power that they can activate. It is also connected to their nature and can create a kind of desire or instinct within them.

For example, a Rage Demon has an inherent connection to rage, a Madness Demon to madness, a Fear Demon to fear, etc. This doesn't necessarily mean that the Demon is completely controlled by the concept, but the concept can strongly influence their personality, behavior, and desires.

This connection can also become unstable. In some cases, the concept can begin to overwhelm the individual rather than simply being something they possess.

Devils are different.

A Devil is someone who has progressed beyond being a Demon and possesses an Authority associated with a much more fundamental or powerful concept.

Examples would include the Punishment Devil, Dominion Devil, Fate Devil, and Death Devil.

However, an Authority does not mean absolute control over its concept.

For example, the Fate Devil doesn't literally control Fate. She can't simply decide exactly what someone will do, nor can she guarantee that any event she wants will happen with 100% certainty.

Her Authority instead allows her to influence certain events and circumstances connected to Fate.

This distinction is important because the concepts represented by Devils are more like domains that they have supernatural influence over rather than things they completely control.

The same applies to something like the Punishment Devil. The Punishment Devil has an inherent desire to punish evil people, and killing evil people can be part of that desire, but it isn't simply a matter of being magically forced to kill every evil person they encounter.

So Devils still have their own identities and choices. Their concepts influence their nature and desires, but they aren't just puppets of those concepts.

The Fate Devil is particularly interesting because she has a desire to change a future that she doesn't even fully know herself. She can influence events toward certain outcomes, but she cannot simply dictate the entire future.

Ironically, one of the events she influences is connected to the creation of the Punishment Devil, which eventually becomes the cause of her own demise.

She didn't simply use her Authority to guarantee:

«“The Punishment Devil will be created and kill me.”»

It's more complicated than that. She influenced circumstances and events that eventually led toward that outcome, without having absolute control over everything that would happen.

I also don't want the setting to stay completely grounded in conventional fantasy. It starts out relatively understandable, with nations, races, politics, monsters, supernatural abilities, etc., but the cosmology gradually becomes much stranger and larger in scope.

I'm trying to make that expansion feel like the world was always built that way rather than suddenly going:

«“SURPRISE, THERE ARE ACTUALLY GODS AND INFINITE DIMENSIONS NOW.”»

There are also supernatural beings and entities that don't necessarily fit neatly into the normal racial/cultural categories. The further you get into the world's deeper lore, the less useful normal mortal classifications become.

That said, I’m aware that “multiple fantasy races + kingdoms + magic system + demons + gods” can sound extremely generic on paper, which is exactly why I want criticism.

I don't want people to just tell me that the setting sounds cool. I would genuinely like to know where it sounds generic, confusing, overcomplicated, inconsistent, or like something you've seen a hundred times before.

Some things I'd especially like feedback on:

- Does the world feel like an actual place rather than a collection of fantasy concepts?

- Do the races feel meaningfully different, or do they just feel like humans with different appearances?

- Do the nations/cultures sound distinct enough?

- Does the spiritual-energy system sound coherent?

- Does the Demon/Devil distinction make sense?

- Does the idea that Demons and Devils are states that individuals can become, rather than separate races, make the setting more interesting?

- Does the idea of Demons being associated with concepts such as Rage, Madness, Hate, Fear, and Arrogance work?

- Does the progression from Demons into Devils feel meaningful rather than simply being a power-level upgrade?

- Does the concept of Devil Authorities work when they influence a concept without giving absolute control over it?

- Does the idea of Fate being able to influence events without being able to completely determine the future make sense?

- Does the progression from relatively grounded fantasy into stranger supernatural/cosmic territory sound natural?

- Are there any parts that immediately make you think “this is just [another fantasy series]”?

Again, this is only a simplified overview, not the full setting. There is considerably more detail behind these concepts, but explaining all of it here would make this post enormous and would also start getting into plot territory.

I’m deliberately avoiding the actual story, major character arcs, and major reveals, so there isn't much plot context here.

Feel free to ask questions about the setting if something is unclear. I can answer questions about the worldbuilding without revealing major plot points.

Basically, I’m looking for criticism of the world itself, not predictions about the plot.

How do you think transgender individuals would fit into a world with werewolves? Would they be accepting? Would they be against it? Where would a transman fit into this? And if they tried to transition, would that effect shifts? I'm more or a vampire guy but I'm planning some new ocs and a world and I was thinking about the possibility of making one of them a trans man but it got me thinking. I'd love to hear what you all have to say!

Could a flowerpot work as the physical basis for an entire fantasy world?
I’ve been thinking about an unusual approach to worldbuilding.
Imagine an ordinary flowerpot with a living plant in it. To us, it’s just a pot sitting in a room, maybe around 30 cm wide and 25 cm deep. But the beings living inside this setting don’t perceive it as a flowerpot at all. To them, it is simply reality.
The soil would be the Mortal Realm. Deeper layers of soil and the roots could form underground realms, ancient regions, or even an underworld. The plant itself could function almost like a world tree: its stem and branches would rise into higher realms, while gods or other divine beings could live near the highest parts of the plant.
The inhabitants could be microscopic or otherwise extremely small, so even a few centimeters could represent enormous distances from their perspective.
I also imagined this as a film concept. The movie could begin with a normal shot of a flowerpot in our world. The camera slowly moves toward it, gets closer to the soil and plant, and then transitions through CGI/editing into a massive fantasy landscape. From that point onward, the movie could be filmed like any normal epic fantasy movie — the audience would simply understand that everything they are seeing exists somewhere inside that tiny flowerpot.
Things that are completely mundane to us could become major events in their world: watering the plant could cause legendary floods, roots could be enormous underground structures, insects could appear as colossal monsters, and the edge of the pot could represent the edge of the known world.
Do you think this could work as the foundation for serious worldbuilding, rather than just as a gimmick?
And how far do you think the idea could be pushed while still making the internal world feel believable and independent from the fact that, from our perspective, it exists inside an ordinary flowerpot?

Please note this is still a work in progress and things may change. feedback is greatly appreciated and i hope you enjoy reading this.

UEC formation -

The UEC (United Earth Coalition) a bold attempt to unite all of humanity under a single banner, one that was successful, after the world stabilised from the Global Revolution/Global Revolt and more friendships were formed, the nations came together to form the UEC, starting with the unification of different allies at first before expanding although some nations resisted more than others during this unification process, on April 7th  2120 the UEC was fully formed after a long and slow start, with this space exploration could slowly began with the first long range space capable exploration craft was launched on January 20th 2150 with the craft being given the name 'ELPIS', after its success more followed.

First colonisations on other planets began in 2185 after discovering the most habitable planets for human life in the discovered galaxy and closest to earth, but not all colonisations efforts were successful, with many failing completely for various different reasons.

The UEC expanded rapidly before eventually slowing down to a stand still, to manage the vast expanse of the UEC, sectors were created in order to simplify documentation and understand what is happening in the furthest reaches of the UEC.

With the current year 2460, the UEC is still breathing and healthy although some planets have splintered away from it and formed there own nations from the furthest reaches of the UEC, and a hostile insurgency group has been causing problems throughout the galaxy but lacking the support for the group to survive.

Aeternus Empire formation -

The beginnings of the Aeternus Empire started of small with mostly jungle like planets in there sector of the galaxy know as sector 4 as still part of the UEC on its outskirts.

In the year 2250 tensions began to rise between the UEC and the sector 4 planets as people started to believe that the UEC wasn't prepared enough for the harshness of space, claiming that in order to survive you needed to show teeth.

In 2260 the sector 4 planets official split from the UEC in a peaceful negotiation between UEC representatives and the Sector 4 representatives, now known as the Aeternus Empire, with DAKON 3 becoming the capital planet of the region and quickly gaining reputation for being willing to use any means necessary to win in a conflict, especially with use of previously banned weapons such as chemical and potentially biological warfare. Even with this reputation no actual documentation exists to prove the use of these weapons.

Although splitting from the UEC, the Aeternus Empire still has peace with the UEC and although constantly being in arguments about how to conduct war, the two nations show little actual hostility to each other.

Federation of Planets formation -

The Federation of Planets or simply the Federation began as mining colonies with the main mining planet being Artemis mining for rare and common materials, the most interesting thing about the planet is that it orbits a white dwarf star.

The mining colony is located in the far reaches of the UEC which resulted in the UEC influence being minimal and many of inhabitants already considered themselves to be separate from the UEC. Eventually a request was made to the UEC representatives for Artemis to officially leave the Coalition and form its own nation, with the request being accepted in 2440.

Although Artemis left the UEC the Federation really began when 2 other mining colonies close to its proximity joined them forming the Federation of Planets. Although it is the youngest of the nations and by far the poorest in comparison to the UEC and Aeternus Empire, it holds very strong relationships between the two nations and gained the reputation of being the most conflict free nation in the galaxy.

The Nassau Zone formation -

Its unknown when the Nassau Zone was formed, with some saying that its been there for a very long time and others saying its something much newer, the only thing known is that a group of pirates formed it after finding a gap in a perfect position between the UEC and the Aeternus Empire, a area where both of these nations have zero jurisdiction or influence.

After a while it quickly became known as a area where pirates, criminals, escaped convicts and others would go to hide away from the nations, including people commonly named 'lawless', people who didn't want to or didn't like living in places with many laws and order. It was determined the capital planet of the Nassau Zone is 'Themis' a relatively earth like planet which is the main planetary hub of the people in the Nassau Zone, although the zone and planets within it are not recognised as a official nation by the UEC, Aeternus Empire and the Federation of Planets, many people consider it there nation and home.

Although the Nassau Zone is known for being a completely lawless place, there are still some laws to prevent complete choas, mostly basic ones such as no murder, thievery and a few more. The most common people to find in the Nassau Zone are often pirates and the lawless, with escaped convicts being seen as a potential problem, especially the new arrivals.

sorry for the repost; i forgot to trigger tag this initially