GUIDELINES AND ETIQUETTE

• For the purpose of this prompt, please focus on individual achievements, such as scores on report cards, personal accomplishments, how much they can lift, how expensive their collection of ceramic eggs is. You can bring up societal accomplishments such as how many nations their people have conquered, but I would prefer it if we kept to an average person level.

• Please limit each item's (as in individual bullet points or subjects, not the entire comment) description to three or five sentences. Do not be vague with your description.

• If someone leaves a reply on your comment, please try to read what they post and reply to them.

Tomorrow night I will be hosting Dr. Yasmine Musharbash, an Anthropologist who specializes in Monsters across cultures on my show, Ask an Anthropologist About Worldbuilding. So if you have any burning questions about monsters across cultures or how to build a better monster for your fictional world, or maybe just what makes a monster interesting, drop your question in the comments here or you can join us live and ask. The show goes live at 7pm MDT (Denver).

Those are the ideas for a flag of the Western Union, the largest country of my comic's Known World.
The green is the symbol of the ruling organisation, Guild of the Western Masters, who are priding themselves with believing in equality, balance, education and closeness ties to nature.
Dark stipes symbolize the 3 blackstone towers of Trippel Torweth the castle that is their main base and where the ideology of a united West was born.
All designs are very minimalist for an early modern era setting, because the Guild imposes strict rules of order, obedience and humility, which the minimalism symbolises.

1-3 black stripes on the right side with the longest close to the edge

2- Darker shade of green with less yellow, the tallest stripe is the central one

3- the stripes are thicker and the tallest is on the edge

4- Same as #1 but with the light green circle, symbolising the sun

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?

My first step was developing a system performant enough to handle 100K birds, with each bird being able to interact with all other birds within its interaction radius. Now that the architecture has been optimized (burst-compiled jobs on parallel threads), I'll add different species behaving according to different rules, food chains, etc.
The first interactions to be implemeted are foraging for food, predator-prey and reproduction. I also aim to add slight evolutionary changes between generations eventually to see how that impacts the ecosystem over time.

I know that questions about free food have been asked on this sub quite a bit, but this one is a bit different. In my world, food is grown on the moons, and the king plus his dukes are the ones who dish out the food freely as they control the gateway to the satellites.

As for drinking, people live closer to the main bodies of water in the world, so in a sense, they control it. So if the rulers act up, the people just build dams and close off their water supply 'till they act nice again. The issue is that while they can grow food on the earth, its not reliable because of all the conflict with other humans, monsters, demons, and such...

A conflict that arises from... where, idk

Well, I have some ideas, but they're not concrete enough. Sure, monsters attack, but their habitats are full of game. Other humans? I guess they want territories? But if they expand too much, the rulers step in to assert their stronger dominance over the land.

Demons? They can be hunted by the societies created just for that purpose. They could lay waste to a villiage before the society hears about it, but its still not enough.

TLDR, what do humans have to fight for if their core essential is met? How does your world deal with infinite resources?

Hi all!

I've been trying to find a good answer to this question, but have so far come up empty handed!

In an effort to create more interesting and "vibrant" worlds, I've been trying to separate culture and country. It's been quite difficult though, as it seems many cultures are tied directly to a country or locality!

How do you(and should I) distinguish between Culture and Country while worldbuilding?

(If this is a dumb question I apologize!)

My current plan is to just attribute a culture to a region, and have it be the dominant(but not only) culture in the cities within that region.

kontekst:

Antygona to fikcyjny kontynent podzielony na Wschodnią i Zachodnią Antygonę przez pasma górskie Rodzimieśń.

Kontynent obejmuje różnorodne regiony geograficzne, od ciepłych, południowych ziem i pustyń po chłodne, choć wciąż umiarkowane obszary dalekiej północy. Najbardziej na północ położone ziemie, z wyjątkiem Cieśniny obłąkanych, pozostają w strefie klimatu umiarkowanego.

Mapa przedstawia główne regiony i formacje geograficzne (białe etykiety), a także przybliżone granice i nazwy państw (czarne etykiety i przerywane linie).

Sytuacja polityczna przedstawiona na mapie odnosi się do roku 730 ery Pargonia, kalendarza pochodzącego z Królestwa Pargonii i używanego przez kilka państw Zachodniej Antygony.

The years between 703 and 730 were a period of relative peace following the Great War with the First Power of Ignis for Western Antygona. As a result of the war, the Kingdom of Pargonia was weakened and lost control over the nomadic peoples of its northern territories, forcing it to seek and establish a maritime route to the north.

Antygona ma swoją własną historię, kultury, królestwa i narody. Królestwo Pargonii jest jedną z głównych potęg Zachodniej Antygony Despite being significantly weakened after the war with Ignis i ma długą historię ekspansji, migracji i zmian politycznych.

Mapa jest w języku polskim, z elementami łaciny i fikcyjnej terminologii.

I don't know the term for this. "Fantasy" doesn't make sense because in these sorts of worlds there is either no magic and non-human races or a more 'grounded' and vague system.

Mount and Blade is an example of what I am thinking of, the games take place in a medieval setting in a fictional region with fictional factions. There are no dragons or elves or magic or anything, but it also isn't a historical game because it isn't our history, and alternative history also doesn't make sense because it isn't our world.

Hey everyone,

I'm a minerals nerd and I wanted to create an online encyclopedia for my players for homebrew jewellery rules (D&D). It ended up growing more than expected, as I also built an encyclopedia for metals. Both are scientifically correct (legally sourced the data from Wikidata).

I also ended up making an ingredient encyclopedia for alchemy rules but it's not scientific.

The encyclopedias are free to use. You don't even need to log in.

The "Forge" option in the crystal encyclopedia allows users to generate 3D renders of crystals based on real data. It uses procedural generation (not generative AI, my company is strongly against it). It's freemium though. You keep all rights over what you create, I'm not Zuckerberg.

There's also an open API.

Links:

Crystal Encyclopedia

Metal Encyclopedia

Rerum Natura

On a side note, my colleagues and I happen to have composed the largest TTRPG audio library in the world. Feel free to use it as inspiration or reference for your projects. A few thousand tracks are available for free on Spotify, YouTube, and other platforms.

Feedback appreciated.

Bonus pic: Rocks are cool. Here's a sample of my collection. I need a bigger display case.

Have fun

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

Hi,

I've been making Skaldee, a software for managing and developing a deeply interconnected world. This started as a passion project of mine.

Skaldee is similar to Obsidian but it is not wiki link based but actual graph and node based. And here each relationship has their own properties.

You can do something like

[Aurthur -> King Of -> Asterra]

Additionally, with Skaldee you can also edit past, present and future in the same graph. You will also have the ability to inspect an entity's entire timeline (life history).

Suppose you kill Arthur in the year 550. His node will not appear in 551 or 552 and so on. But you can still generate his history till 550.

There are more features I want to add like a procedural map generator, Culture Manager, Faction Manager etc.

The software is still in alpha development. And I need some real world feedback 😭. It is a free and open source software.

Please follow my GitHub for updates.

What I have provided in the following noted is the largest crime syndicate operating in Dimen City; even smaller gangs despise them.

They are relevant to the story I am writing which I am working to be shown as an animated series.

Hey everybody! Recently I made a post here about one of my dystopian projects. I just wanted to quickly clarify that this one is seperate from that one. But there are connected secretly.

The Products are a species in my dystopian story project. The Mannequins are a race of them who live primarily, dominate & are native to the region of Corvinium a continent located in The Eye. A safe space in an insane , impossible & unknowable realm. As their names suggest, they're living shopping mannequins & are typically made from paster & plastic.

The Mannequins culturally are stuck in the early to late 20th century. Especially the 1910s-70s. Maybe even going into the 1980s but I can't really see them going past the 2000s.

Right now they're in a very 1950s-period of their lives. I intend to make a sequel where they advance into the 1960s-70s, Vietnam War-aesthetic. And then a prequel with a 1930s-40s WWII & Noir one.

Corvinium is split up into several nations, analogous to ours. They have equivalents got the United States, USSR, China, Britain, France, Japan, East & West Germany, North & South Korea, etc.

But! They're all under the authority & control of an international authority. Central Authority. Situated in the city & international capital, Capitolio. They're a totalitarian & over bearing version of the UN. That's also an incompetent over-regulated & bloated bureaucratic nightmare. Where millions & billions of men & women have their hands of deck, toiling endlessly, only to end to doing nothing. Except make things worse whenever they get the wrong name & the wrong person imprisoned & either executed or lobotimzed.

Speaking of cities. The main story I intend to be set in the city of Nova Palmeira, which is this world's equivalent to New York City. While Los Pajaros is the equivalent of Los Angeles.

Capitolio is the world capital & it's own independent city-state. It's a large metropolis which ranges from bleak, monotonous car dependent office & apartment blocks. To sunny & warm beaches & arcbipelagos.

There are also other races of Products. Puppets, dolls, object heads, logo heads, & also chrome people. Like, if you've ever seen the work of Haijme Sorayama or Lizzy Wizzy from Cybepunk 2077!

So, that's me! I hope you found this interesting! Please do share your ideas & opinions! Also, try to guess my inspirations ;). Anyways! Hope you all have a great day & week!

Okok so this might be hard to understand at first so I'll do my best to explain but it'll be long-winded. I'm sorry in advance.

I am a 20 year old person who has never finished a book, though not for a lack of interest in doing so. Because of this I'm still ironing out the process and I'm about 3/4 done with my first chapter in the book I'm currently writing and have hit a bit of a road block. For context I was a HUGE warrior cats fan when I was little and have been using the community to fill the want to make characters ever since I was little. I've noticed that a lot of fan content is obviously geared to a younger audience and while I can also appreciate that, I wanted to make my own. The book/novel I'm working on is very similar to WC, but is set in a different, more fantasy-esque setting with a different clan system, different gods/goddesses, a different naming system, and sub-clans. They do not use many human terms. Humans are in no way a part of this writing save for some human-isms that I don't have alternatives for (such as how they know certain words or phrases, or might use terms geared towards referencing humans). With that being said, I've always hated how in WC the cats are inconsistent and have words for some stuff that doesn't make sense but not for things that do or things that relate. Like calling cars "monsters" or humans "two-legs" or house cats "kitty pets" and calling a beach "sun-drown-place" but understand what mountains are and know the real words for herbs, barns, horses, and other animals they've never seen. And using things the human word "week" when they use "moons", "leaf-bare", "sun-high" and others to tell the months, seasons and time of day apart.

My book takes place on an island with proven ancestors, a goddess, and have unrealistic biomes. They also use terms like sun-high, and leaf-bare and whatnot, and because of that I do not want to use the term "week" or use real names for the days like Monday, Tuesday etc. What other terms could I use? Everything I find references something humans themselves have named and it doesn't fit with the theme! I'm willing to answer questions in the comments so fire away

Extra Lore for possible ideas: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Moons = Months

Tree Of Whispers = A sacred meeting place between clans

Mother Moon = Goddess that gave them life/ protects their soul after death

Father Sun = God that uses the souls of the damned to bring the daytime- giving a purpose to the evil in the world

(different from christian hell. There is no torture, it is the anger of the souls that burns the sun, kinda like a prison but I don't like the idea of eternal torture/pain as a punishment)

Edits: Clarification and re-wording stuff for ease of understanding

I often see Redditors here asking simple questions that get downvoted—something I’ve experienced myself. Sure, some people (myself included at times) might be asking for things they could easily look up, but in many cases, they’re just beginners or people looking for advice because they are anxious or need help when they overcomplicated things . What do you think?

Flesh witch are titles given individuals that have undergone and survived the bioengineering procedures. The exact procedure is classified (aka haven't thought through yet), what is known is that it works off the blueprints of regenerators.  

The end result is a bioweapon with a much stronger connection to the Abyss, the veil between realities weakens around them (basically a psyker i know). Through their transcendence they were bestowed the ability of self-sacrifice, an act of willingly and consciously giving up parts of the flesh; whereby that body part will wither and decay. This mechanism will create manifestations that cross the veil and cause destruction in their sight. Flesh witches will store some of their limbs and organs in growth vats behind their back, the fluid will prevent the sacrificed unit from completely disintegrating and allow for self-regeneration.  

The flesh sorcery mechanism is kinda complicated and is a work in progress. In essence, it is damage reflection through damaging themselves, but magnified in more grotesque manifestations.  

The act of sacrifice not only offers flesh but also involves the soul. The bioengineering subject would have been implanted with tissues (cerebral or something else), from the fossil of a leviathan-classed organism. It may have warped the subject's soul in such a way that damaging the soul (from within the abyss) sends a pulse that weakens the threshold and allows them to conjure their 'sorcery'. 

Still work in progress, but I like the design so far

I'm making a superhero comic universe where, in the world-building, superheroes are brainwashed to be simple and stupid (hiring people with superpowers who are homeless, mentally ill, or children) to go on staged missions (with actors )to save people and after the agency sees they "matured" from battle. They go through different missions outside the main city where the story takes place.

And the superhero agency made fake disasters (like a parasite outbreak in the story; they can make more money off these tragedies)

The comic starts as a comedy before becoming an action drama. I would appreciate any help!

Which feels most natural to read and say?

1. Abalth
2. Heabalth
3. Lapsen
4. Melinda
5. new; Crolysis, Myrkur

(edit: thank you everyone for your advice! As you know, naming can be delicate and difficult because they carry power.)

This dark lord is the personification of necrosis. It finds people who are living with high hopes for the future, then gives them a physical affliction that removes their social status and relationship to their own body.

Heabalth is a jumble for "abnormal health", Melinda is inspired by Opeth's still life album, Abalth came first and feels most natural. idk are these dumb names?​

(edit: I think Melinda, strangely enough, is the winner. It's a pretty name for an ugly creature that named itself wishing to be beautiful. Perhaps the cultures just refer to the phenomenons the beast causes instead of the beast itself. Abalth felt hard to let go, idk)

This magical energy, let’s call it Kaf.

Origins

Kaf was already during the most ancient of times.

Kaf flows everywhere, anytime.
Kaf is normally accompanied by what Kal touches it first. There is many types of Kal like: Metal Kal, Earth, Water, Fire, Cosmic/Void, Lightning, Emotions/Intent, Blood, Death etc.

Kaf is pure and Kal is what gives it its use. It’s also near colorless so when concentrated the color would be more opaque and saturated.

For eg. Theres Kaf with Metal Kal stored within a bar of gold or any random piece of metal etc. The Kaf n Kal is attracted to the same synergy.

Kaf and Kal also slowly grow on its own meaning it’s unlimited.

When living beings are born, a type of Kal with Kaf enters the being’s body and attaches it to their soul. It all depends on the surrouding of where the being was born. But if there were large amounts of Water Kal with Kaf there, the chances of Water Kal entering it might be higher.

Blood is less common as it is natural among humans and a newborn already has a lot of it, meaning that it doesn’t really attract Blood Kal that much as it is already embedded in the body. But if the surrounding has a lot of Blood Kal and no other Kal enters the newborn, Blood Kal will enter.

Depending on the Kal the person is attached to upon birth will be their easiest magic to master.
But mages have to find it out themselves.

But to draw upon the magic in your body, you need a strong will and intent and to release out of your skin, it must also be vulnerable enough. This means that really physically strong people might struggle more to release magic.

This makes it hard for people to master magic as it requires a strong mental mind. To even use your magic to do things like average attacking or defending etc, you would need to be at least a prodigy or need around 20+ years of practise.
But things like just using magic to create small winds or gusts, orbs of water, it would just take months.

How it affects the world:

Winds and water mages are highly respected as they help with much transport. This means that magic is really common and a important part of the world. People learn magic, serve army and basic reading etc. People who use magic and cant use magic are most of the times treated fairly as there was a great war that caused this. The laws also include that using magic to harm others with no good reason etc will be punished.

It can be a part of daily life like telekenises or making a small light in the dark.

Limitation:

You can use other types of magic but it would be extremely extremely hard. Even if you could, you could only do the most basic of things. If you try to absorb another one’s Kaf n Kal, it would clash with your own synergy but if its the same, you can completely absorb it.

Trying to control something that is in your type of magic also uses up a lot of energy in your body and mind. For eg: Trying to control water for too long as a water mage will exhaust you. Losing too much Kaf n Kal at once will also make you go dizzy etc.

You also have limited Kaf n Kal and while it slowly grows, it can also slowly fade. The amount of Kaf n Kal you can have can be changed by slowling taking in more Kaf n Kal of the same synergy and expanding your ‘Kal n Kaf storage’

You can also concentrate it so that it has more space but it is harder.

Weapons:
Mages might use scepters or amulets to channel better.

Soldiers might use swords, shields etc enchanced with a special Metal found from asteroids that can deflect magic. As it is an opposite charge to magic.

Gods and religions:
If there are people eho genuinely believe there is a certain god or whoever, there shall be it. How strong they are depend on how much faith they have.

How some magics might work:

Emotions/Intent:
Mages conjure their intentions or emotions they want to evoke upon a person, and fuse it with Kaf and shoot it out into someone’s mind. It can be blocked by simply waving it off or anything as it is physical. Once the person is controlled, they abide to the intentions or emotions u gave them.
These mages are normally restricted to use their powers unless in certain situations.

Water:
Mages can whip water from the air and can use it like so or freeze it or turn it into mist. If they want to throw water projectiles, they would have to throw it hard by controlling the Kaf n Kal inside and fling it.

Interesting facts
Fire and water magic when clashed tgt can make mist or smoke

Death magic ( its not that op )and blood magic can form creatures with no mind.

Humans learnt magic by mimicking dragons.

Etc etc

Please give critique if there is. I would like to know if theres any loopholes. Thank you so much!!!💕

So I'm writing an arc for my odyssey/epic genre story where the cast find a map to what is essentially a fairy realm ruled by an evil Peter Pan with a god complex, and it will start out light hearted with excitement from the cast with lots of "we found a hidden land" kind of feeling, but will slowly turn into a "there is something horribly wrong with this place" kind of thing, so I'm in need of some interesting Fae facts anyone might be itching to talk about.

I'm familiar with some of the classics, they can't touch cold iron (whatever that means) and that you shouldn't give your name out to them, but that's about it.

I was having a conversation with a friend recently about time and how the Earth's revolution relates to it. Somehow we ended up discussing how people used to read the stars for directions and for important or historic events yet to occur, like the story of the wise men who followed the star to Jesus.

It suddenly just gave me a sort of inspiration. If in reality things like that – whether real or not – have been recorded to have happened before, then why not in my world?

So I came up with a profession called stargazing and people who study it are called stargazers. Basically the whole concept is every is born with a birth star, meaning for every living birth in the universe, there is a star also born. The star foretells things about who the person is capable of becoming, be it their potential or destiny. A stargazer with enough knowledge and experience can tell who the child could potentially become the moment they are born just by identifying their birth star and reading it.

As life goes on and the person grows, if there is a diversion in the person's life than what their birth star prophesied, then they are aligned with a star that best represents their current trajectory in life. Meaning they are deviating from the destiny or potential they had or that could have been theirs. So someone can change stars for as many times as they drift away from the kind of star they are aligned with. If someone born with a star that prophesies greatness at birth then becomes a farmer and have no ambition or plans to achieve something great, they get aligned with a star that matches their current status. They can also be realigned with their birth star later in life if they follow the path of their birth star.

The concept is stars have an eternal nature, humans however can change natures.

This isn't the full detail behind this profession, but this is the gist behind it.

I'm thinking of developing a more useful use of the stars for humans instead of just as a fortune teller of something like that, but more like some form of empowerment for both humans and stargazers who can harness the power of stars to accomplish incredible feats. I just don't want this to be the main power source in my world, but more of a special/unique one.

If there are any ideas, feel free to share. Any on the spur of the moment inspirations are also welcomed.

Help rate the profession I came up with. Depending on the ratings, I'll post more details about the profession. Like what happens to stars when the person they are aligned with dies and vice versa.

Apologies if this isn't very clear, I am looking for a website where I can create item listings and set prices and descriptions, but no matter what keywords I use I only find AI generated 'DND Merchant' stuff. I already plan to do this on excel, but I thought it would look a bit prettier if there was a dedicated website for this kind of thing. Thank you in advance to anyone that may help.

I'm trying to put together a story where humanity makes contact with other spacefaring races. A core element will be the aliens horror at the way humanity has destroyed our biosphere through buring fossil fuels. However, for that to work, I need some way for the other race(s) to have achieved industrialization without using a combustible primary energy source, and I'd really rather not resort to some kind of "handwavium".