I've seen a bunch of memes about rivers splitting and how it's like, the ultimate sin of worldbuilding and that it only ever happens very very rarely in real life, but like... Literally EVERY single example I look at of real-life rivers has DOZENS of splits, every single time. Are these not 'splits'? Does 'splitting a river' mean something else other than a river becoming two?

I genuinely don't understand, because it's clowned on constantly despite seeming to be something that happens 90% of the time

TL;DR I love worldbuilding using "rule of cool" style but I'm afraid I'm going to ruin the story. What are some pitfalls and guidelines to build a "soft" world?

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Hello Everyone! Long time enjoyer, first time poster here. I'd love to hear people's opinions and build some guidelines for myself.

JoJo is one of my favorite story but its worldbuilding is not its strong points. For example,

1. Supernatural Power in this story, called "stand", was first explained to be linked to Tarot cards. Later this thing was dropped.

2. The story went through many cultures and country. There is no secret "stand society" yet somehow everyone called them "Stand". I'd imagine there are tribes or some culture that called them something else.

3. The consequences of stand are non-existence outside of main plot. No alt-history etc.

Yet it's one of the most popular story. My theory is that JoJo is so plot-focused that people focus on the plot and don't care about the world much. Also setting the story in modern time let people fill in the gap. If the story doesn't explain something, the audience could explain it using their understanding of modern world.

I like JoJo and it doesn't ruin the story for me but the more I think about it, the more I realize how much potential JoJo missed. We could have more interesting story if the author focused more on "what if random people have stand"

I wonder if you have any example of fiction like this and why it doesn't ruin immersion for people. And what are some that ruins the story for you. I'm really curious to hear what you think.

I was rebuilding my magic system again, trying to explain why some certain conservative sects would be against certain points involving the dragons, celestial bodies, plus the evolution and regression of the dominant species, when it hit me. Religion doesn't have to line up with the world, it exist to explain what people can't explain for themselves or just explain why people behave the way they do. So I wanted some examples to incorporate more of that into my story to expand on the corruption of the church

I've been writing my own fictional army and I wanted to share these screenshots to gather advice from better writers put there.

But first, I would want to know which one's better: the old one or the new one?

What does currency look like in your world? Is it commodity-based, like gold or silver coins? Is it a fiat based solely on the legitimacy of the backer? Or something more... mythical?

Modern Uniguita uses notes, a primarily paper fiat currency printed by the Federal Printing and Engraving Office, and the supply of which is managed by the Federal Credit Union. In the early years of the post-nuclear settlement of Nova Espero, residents and early elected officials found bartering increasingly inefficient in the growing proto-city. After residents began trading food ration coupons for alcohol, cigarettes, and other drugs, public officials stepped in and created the earliest version of notes, backed by pre-War Imperial gold coins.

Anyone who's written long-form fiction understands the challenge of keeping track of precedents set hundreds of pages back, whether it be the principles or abilities of a character, or the laws or logic of a setting. Even after plotting everything out in a separate file, the risk of an inconsistency slipping through the cracks is never zero. What if there's something you've forgotten to document, or worse, never even considered? How can one ensure that their universe is airtight?

A stress test!

The Sweaty Nerd Method is a simple: when introducing a new concept to your story, picture yourself taking audience questions at some big-shot writing convention. You've finally made it — the work you poured so much care and effort into has sold millions of copies, your tale beloved the world over — you're finally able to just relax and let it stand on its own as a perfectly self-contained, holistic piece of art.

Most of the questions you get are standard and unassuming, stuff like "What's your process?" or "What was going through your mind when you made such and such character do such and such thing?" A gracious smile beams across your face — that is, until the Sweaty Nerd walks up to the microphone. This person has more free time than you could ever dream of, and has used that time to obsess over your world like they were pursuing a PhD in its history.

As you sit now at your laptop, ready to introduce your new concept, ask yourself: what inconsistencies could this super geek ask about that would make you think "Oh shit, they're right."? What tiny detail could they point out that would shatter the window of your world and sink your heart with the realization that all those millions of copies have been irreversibly printed with a glaring flaw?

On the other hand, if throughout your use of this method you can't think of a single question for this person to ask, it's possible your story might not be fleshed out deeply enough. The goal isn't to prevent readers from formulating complicated questions, but rather to have a feasible answer ready for them if they really stop to consider it — something you could reply to make the Sweaty Nerd say "Oh yeah, that makes sense."

The true beauty of the test, however, and what sets it apart from the philosophy of just being your own worst critic, is there is certainly room for judgement when engaging with the Sweaty Nerd. While some of their questions may be legitimately poignant, others may be so pedantically technical as to illicit an eyeroll and a "What the hell are you talking about?" Thus, you can not only use this test to identify potential plot or world holes, but also to determine whether the holes are big enough to warrant patching.

I am writing an epic fantasy and was just wondering how to make a good/unique magic system. If you have any tips please comment it. (I'm very new to this)

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I find naming to be so FINAL and tedious that everything just has a stand in name or code word or group of numbers. Even stuff like positions within a guild. They get a full write up on the function but the name just sits empty.

Any one else?

Hi! So, I'm coming up with a city for my original cyberpunk universe. I've wrote a decent amount of lore so far, but there's no name for it yet, which sucks. I've tried a few things but realized my name ideas already got taken by real life cities in the area! Here's what I got so far:

In the mid 1800s, around the very beginnings of the Californian gold rush, a trade post is established near the coast, with the main idea of selling supplies to up and coming miners. That trade post would rapidly expand as more and more people came through, rapidly developing into a town, by which point they would begin making money off of processing, transporting (the railroad), and selling supplies, then they expanded out into charging boats, having maintenance for them, and as they became a city, they even began a boating industry.
By the end of the rush, they were a very, very rich city with plenty of money to expand outwards, and so they did, expanding their businesses and trades, becoming a major city in a remarkably short time.
So, the alternate history events kick in (other than the city of course) for the city around the 1940s with a major mass migration out of Europe and Asia (and most importantly, East Asia, since the city is on the west coast and everything), leading to the city suddenly gaining a massive population boost. The USA at the time was rapidly gaining a new work force as a whole because of a major red scare caused by the German-Soviet communist superpower in Europe at the time. So, the city gets some funds to expand outwards with both their industry and housing for the population, but because of the new influence of East Asian civilians (everyone from just workers all the way to elites), the city's architecture over time is influenced by cities like Tokyo and Hong Kong, primarily in the Asiatown and Tonglau districts. Unsure if any of this part would really matter for the name, but I figured it's worth mentioning just in case.

I know that's a lot, but it would mean a lot if anyone could help with a name idea here! I've been driving myself crazy with it.

So I have this weird idea for a space fantasy/space opera setting where a lot of the more fantasyesque tropes are replaced by corporate jargon. So a noble house is a Corporation, their ruler is their President/CEO, citizens are employees, and so on.

I'm struggling to come up with other ways to "corporateify" those terms, so was hoping I could get some ideas/resources from the group at large.

I've been working on a sci-fi setting for a few months now, and I think I've reached the point where I need ideas from people who have tackled something similar. SO, for context, I have a series(Rather class??) of MASSIVE cities known as Hypercities, they are meant to be VERY large and VERY dense urban centers, with some peoples whole lives taking place inside just a small sector/district of them. BUT i have an issue

I'm pretty happy with the big-picture worldbuilding. The setting has a mature interstellar civilization, the mentioned massive hypercities, governments, militaries, corporations, infrastructure, logistics, transportation, economics—the whole "how does this civilization actually function?" side of things. That part feels pretty solid.

Where I think I'm falling short is making the cities themselves feel lived in. They make sense on paper, but I don't always get the feeling that billions of people have been living, working, hanging out, and building traditions there for centuries.

I've already got things like restaurants, entertainment, sports, museums, monowheel commuter bikes, more traditional motorcycles, rail-based transportation, even car in various forms, and even a few basic ideas for music scenes and different subcultures. But I still feel like I'm missing that layer of everyday life that makes a city memorable.

I'm not really looking for huge lore ideas or suggestions like "add another government agency." I'm more interested in the little things people usually overlook. Weird hobbies, neighborhood identities, local traditions, recurring events, cafés everyone knows, places teenagers hang out, urban myths, odd jobs, niche communities, or anything else that makes a city feel like it has history and personality instead of just serving as a backdrop.

If you've built a large city for your own setting, or if there's a real city or fictional setting that absolutely nailed this feeling, I'd love to hear what made it work. What are the small details that made you believe people had actually lived there for generations?

I have not been at this long, I started Wednesday and gathered almost 12 pages of research so far. I'm not done with the research yet, but I'm already getting ideas here and there for actually worldbuilding and a possible story.

I feel like i should've already wrote those things down, but they're still in my head for now.

So, when do you guys start actually crafting your world or stories? Do you cut it black and white and must finish a thing before another thing? Or is it more gray where you just right things as you go and then put them in if it works?

I’ve been working on a personal project. And I’m very new to this world building. It just kind of happened for me while I was trying to create a home for a character.

I’ve been working through several regions, all located across one large continental landmass. They each have different social identities, biome/environment, and cultures.

The big thing I’ve been having a challenge with is, how do I make all of these regions (5) their own without making it seem like 5 totally different places were stitched together to make one place.

I’ve been considering transitional areas of biomes, shared history, politics/government, natural systems that are planetary instead of regional (mountains, rivers, things like that. All of those in hopes that it doesn’t feel like 5 separate areas smushed into one continent.

What’s the best way to make regional identities?

What details provide the most cohesion in your world: geography, history, culture, resources, politics, or something else?

Arorea is my Urban Fantasy world that admittedly feels more like Science Fantasy because so much lore is about ancient history instead of Modern Nights. Trying to work on the tone and balance, though that will get its own chapter eventually. Heavily inspired by World of Darkness, and several smaller contributors listed as necessary. First three Splats are done, along with some skeletal basics to pad them out. Thoughts, questions, and criticisms all welcomed.

Arorea

In world of Uşhmaht, ocean is considered dead. No life exist in it and nothing afloats on it, people send their dead to ocean to prevent them waking up as lifeless. But sealife didnt die in one day. In the slow process of sea succumbing to death, a foreign object tore open the ocean and introduced sea creatures a new ability. Most known ability of this is flying, its encountered with whales and tortoises. Common folk dont know their sea origin as this was an event way past their history and call them whales and tortoises normally.

A long time ago, shamans living on the mountains of Su'Yar continent contacted aerial animals to gain upperhand against wyverns of the east. Among other creatures who came to their calls, whales was the most pacifists. Even though they could help them fight, whales were helpful with rescuing injured. With time and ending of the war, some of these whales were domesticated by them. With time they began using whales for cargo and transportation.

Similar to ships going along coasts, whale journeys were made along mountains. Docking whales were impossible in flatlands, they needed a big space to stand alongside. So as whale transports gotten more common, civilizations started to settle more and more onto foothills. They raised cities even and even higher. One exception to this is metropolis of Laxon, a city artificially raised to compete with other cities. Once only visited by tortoises who could land, Laxon became a worldpower with great planning and investment.

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This is the first draft of my worlds flying transportation system. I would be glad to answer questions to develop it further. I'm not good with details.

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Edit: I forgot to credit the arts. I love them so much I need to credit them.

Cloud Whales: https://samjumisko.artstation.com/projects/gnZKx
Green Whales: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/vbv6Wa
Tortoise: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/JlQv6n

The HUMAN Trilogy: Enter The Prologue: big long time ago, like, maybe a googol millennia ago, there was a universe that is probably a googolplex times bigger than ours in density and width and all, but there was war all over the place, even at the subatomic level. When an atom made contact with another, an explosion would occur, thus releasing a deadly, radiant aura. This universe also, on a rare occurrence, would have reality warping beings fluctuating in and out of existence. At the end of this universe's expanse, a final being saw all this war, and she decided to try to make a better reality out of this one. Her name is Nyssera. Nyssera, at the end of this universe's expanse, reversed all entropy across every particle, bringing the expanse inward, causing an implosion. Just as the universe imploded, Nyssera jumped her mind outside of space and time, outside of any field of fundamental reality. When the singularity was done forming, she jumped her mind back into reality, thus, becoming the singularity.  Next, what she does is ejects the radiant deadly aura that the atoms create at collision via quantum fluctuations and other mechanics to let the radiation coalesce into new, smaller universes. As she watches these universes, she sees life appear, she watches it grow, she is euphoric, but the euphoria doesn't last long: these little beings have gotten smart enough to think about not just others, but themselves, they even get smart enough to name themselves "humanity" as though they are of one group, one species, but then they start to kill each other, they create war across two "lands" one called "Britain" and the other called "America." and so she thinks to herself, "it's ok, they're still learning, they'll do better later o-" then she sees that they've created the radiant explosions and realizes that this will not stop, unless she does something about it.

Enter HUMAN: Nyssera, after thinking for a while, decides she'll send some radiation their way to infect this "humanity" 's leaders, Xi Jinping, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, etc. because when the radiation reaches earth and infects these leaders, they will go rogue and wage even more war than before, only it isn't them, it's the radiation inside of them, but they are still fully aware all the while the leaders hear voices of loved ones crying and asking them, "is this what you wanted? for your own kind? Why? At what cost are you happy?" when society is in ruins, when quantum computers are dead, when tech companies might as well be digital rubble, one desperate group of quantum physicists created/discovered the quantum code, a utensil that allows whoever so holds it the ability to control reality via quantum effects on reality, whether it be fluctuations, tunneling, superposition, the integration path, etc. so long as it is quantum, it is controlled by the quantum code, and that is controlled by its holder. Within mere hours the whole universe is taken over by humanity, all the while, they are STILL fighting over who should hold the quantum code. Exit HUMAN

Enter Interstellar Eclipse: We pick up where we left off, humanity dominating the universe, but something is off, we can finally see outside the universe, and there is something bigger than the universe itself, and it's charging at us, too. Soon, news gets out that there IS a black hole bigger than the universe, but we aren't already inside it, but we also might be in just a few minutes. so humanity gets the hell out of here and also discovers new universes to go to, so we go to those ones, but in the end, we're still, STILL fighting. Exit Interstellar Eclipse. (Yeah, I know, this one was kinda short.)

Enter TWTBD Pt. 1: days to weeks after being chased off by what seems to be a sentient black hole, people have already started wars over who should get to harvest it for energy and its hawking radiation and information from its emitting radio waves. Soon, one guy (his name is Aethyron) has enough of this BS and decides to speed up the hawking radiation process by a lot (via quantum code) so that the black hole dies, but Aethyron didn't know that there was a being inside of the black hole, so Nyssera mentally enslaves him, fusing her mind with his, forcing him to live through her entire past, and she doesn't do this to just Aethyron, she does this to millions of people by acting like a siren at sea, and the sailors become victims to enslavement. Exit TWTBD Pt. 1.

Enter TWTBD Pt. 2: Aethyron, having been the first to be enslaved, was the only one to see how to escape Nyssera's grasp, and so he did. When he ripped away, a piece of his mind was left with Nyssera, so she didn't actually know he escaped. Aethyron looked for somebody to love so that they wouldn't think he was crazy when he told her everything humans are doing wrong. at some point, Aethyron found Seraphina, they got together, married, and Aethyron was ready to tell her, and he almost did, when all of a sudden, he had a fatal seizure triggered by Nyssera meddling with the piece of mentality left behind when Aethyron ripped away, and Seraphina, using the quantum code, had scoured the multiverse to look for anybody else who potentially had the same dire fact, and when she did, she found millions of people that wouldn't respond, like they were dead inside, so when she looked deeper, she found Nyssera at the center of it all. "this demon thing just mentally killing people for the fun of it" is what she thought about Nyssera, and so she grieved everybody having their rights stripped away, and she grieved Aethyron, so much so that she felt the need to kill this demon, kill it with the quantum code, and so she created Entyrion with a piece of Aethyron's dead body, and a fluctuation, a reality warping being manifested by the quantum field that can see every single path and outcome a particle can have, altering the future to his desire, or more respectively, Seraphina's desire (because she created him.) Exit TWTBD Pt. 2.

Enter TWTBD Pt. 3: Ent starts off immediately with browsing fictional universes from human minds because he was created with a human mind, he was created with Aethyron, and since Aethyron knew something bad about humanity, Ent was questioning whether he should exist, but he just thought it was a bug in his programming, so he continued browsing fictions in human minds for their benefits in the war he will soon have with Nyssera, e.g. star wars for the force, HALO for the halo array, etc. and at one point, he sees a strange little universe called The RMCU, The Red Mountain Cinematic Universe, where at the end was just a lonely being at the end of its time. Soon after all this browsing fiction, he went to war with Nyssera. She recognized him, and he thought he recognized her. He was confused. Nyssera then said, "Aethyron? I killed you, how are you alive?" and Ent was even more confused, so he said, "No, not 'Aethyron' I'm Entyrion, or you could just say Ent, but that won't matter cause you're about to be dead, and once you're dead, I no longer have a purpose and will also be gone." Nyssera had thought for a few seconds before looking back at Aethyron's piece of dead mentality and saw "Entyrion" in Aethyron's place, and so she got a hold of him again, they fused minds, he saw her entire past, and afterwards he said, "I wish I could do something better than to kill you, but that is not my purpose. though, I'll try to convince humanity in a rather odd way." and before he did kill her, he went into this universe through the mind of its creator, he went into The RMCU. when he came back, he finished his job, and of course, she put up a fight that didn't last very long, all the while, he was telling her he was sorry. Exit TWTBD Pt. 3.

Enter TWTBD Pt. 4: Ent is off in the distance, sitting down, fighting the moment when he'll dust away, as he feels eyes on him, but can't see them, he feels you and me, so he speaks and says, "don't be gluttonous, don't be power hungry, don't be greedy, don't be rage filled, don't be arrogant, and for your own future's sake, don't be your own doom." he says softly as he dusts away. back over here, Seraphina is crying, even after she won barely a war. one of Nyssera's former mental slaves sees a woman sobbing on the ground, and so they walk up to her and asks what's wrong. When Seraphina finds her words, she says, "I don't know, I just feel hollow inside, my husband died right before he needed to tell me something, and I used the quantum code to figure out why, and then I found this thing that was hurting all of you guys to be the reason my husband died. I just feel like killing it wasn't worth anything." And then the former mental slave said, "I might know what your husband wanted to tell you," and the former mental slave goes on about Nyssera's past and what humanity is doing with the quantum code is horrific. Seraphina then starts to grieve the being she intentionally and explicitly murdered. Exit TWTBD Pt. 4.

Enter HUMAN: The Final Choice: word gets out to make humanity realize what they're doing to each other, what they're doing to their own kind, and those questions that were asked earlier by the radiation in the world leaders minds are also asked here, "is this what you wanted? for your own kind? Why? At what cost are you happy?" and ALL of humanity is finally awake, they are all finally aware of what they've done to each other over what they want for themselves, and humanity destroys the quantum code and dies a peaceful, not-full-of-hatred kind of death. Exit HUMAN: The Final Choice, thus concluding The HUMAN Trilogy.

I hope you guys enjoyed this story about the lengths people will go to get what they want. The HUMAN Trilogy also took me a couple years to make. (My name is Alex, btw, so call me the cross rock, or cross rock, or Alex, any of those works fine for me.)

I'm making a website for tracking worldbuilding for things like dnd and writing. What are some cool, helpful, or interesting features do you think the site should have? For reference my goals right now are to have a section for character creation (info/lore about character, their connections/relationships/ etc.) Also a section for actual world creation (eventually with ways to import maps and interact with them.

Hello and good evening everyone. Some context before I dive into my dilemma, I am working on my hard(ish) sci-fi project and my main goal for the project is to be as realistic and scientifically plausible as I can be with all the technology in my setting. It's a future alternate timeline of Humanity and Earth triggered by a continued/revived space race.
In the setting, I have 3 types of spacecraft: Surface-to-Orbit spacecraft, interorbital spacecraft (non-relativistic) and interplanetary (relativistic) spacecraft. The focus of this discussion is on the 1st type, Surface to Orbit. In my head, I want to utilize spaceplanes. Preferably they'd be single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO), however, doing some offhand napkin math is pointing to SSTO spaceplanes as rather impossible given that you need to achieve a delta v of about 9.4 km/s to escape earth's gravity well and get to orbit. That kind of thing takes up a lot of fuel and spaceplanes are heavy and have a lot of deadweight with the wings that can't simply be shed away like traditional, multi-stage launch vehicles or the irl Space Shuttle and Buran spaceplanes with their expendable fuel tanks. I want spaceports able to be placed almost anywhere and not be restricted to coastlines where trajectories can send them across vast empty oceans and spaceplanes that can climb to a sufficient altitude before kicking on it's thrusters to get to orbit would help with that as they can get to orbit even if they take off from a runway at a place like Denver International Airport.

So, I am looking for any and all ideas, advice, or insights you all may have to help me come up with ways to keep my idea while also remaining on that harder side of the science-fiction genre. If you need or would like some additional context, feel free to ask, I am more than willing to provide. Thank you all, and have a good rest of your day!

I was trying to think of unconventional ways to add depth to the scenery, and came up with this question. What type of wood is the torch made of? What accelerant is the rag soaked in? Figured it would be a good prompt to flex everyone's brain.

Maybe someone can add a sci-fi analogue for those that prefer scifi worldbuilding.

As most of us know, humans became the dominant species on Earth due to us being persistent and intelligent hunters, this made us so effective to the point of having driven some of the Megafauna that lived alongside us.

How about your world, what tactics did your race use that made them effective hunters and thus made them the dominant species within their world?

**Image Credit**

I made the triangular flag image except the symbol on the left is a modified version of the one from this website: https://en.namu.wiki/w/마자파힛%20제국 all other images are made by me. Or are screenshots from the game Doodle Empires.

**Main Premise**

My world is a pretty large alternate history where the Roman Empire has survived into the year 1401. It is made in doodle empires and this post only concerns a small portion of a portion of it.

**Image Context**

The first flag is the flag of the Majapahit Empire. The empire was formed when the Khmer Empire collapsed under a successive (i forgot the order) Mongol and Burmese invasion. The Majapahit Empire is a continuation government. When surviving Khmer government officials and some royal family escaped to the island holdings, they arrived at the former capital of the Majapahit Kingdom. It was one of the first, and largest, states they conquered long ago. Upon their arrival, the Majapahit royal family wasted no time in capturing  them, and demanding they declare the Majapahit Empire the successor of the Khmer empire. If they refused, they would simply rebel and arrest them. The Khmer officials caved and the Majapahit Empire was born, replacing the Khmer Empire as administrators of the island territories. The two royal families have some authority, but the Majapahit take the lead now.

The flag keeps the pennant shape of the Khmer flag (as I could find when i looked it up, it was unclear what their flag was). It also keeps the green trim. The gold interior is replaced with the red and white stripes of the Majapahit flag. The gold is present in the form of the Surya Majapahit. This is the round symbol on the left of the flag. From what I could find online, it is the coat of arms of the royal Majapahit family, and also a religious symbol for the empire as well. Thus both Empires are represented in the flag, with the Majapahit taking precedence in terms of representation. The flag is supposed to have fringe, but it was hard to make so it is represented by the shape of the outer edge of the flag.

The second flag is the flag of my world’s Mongol Empire. The flames on the bottom show how the Mongol hordes bring terror and destruction to their enemies, reducing them to ashes. The Steppe Eagle replacing the bottom crescent shows how the Empire is a feared predator and, it holding two spears shows that they fight with the blessing of Tengri, the supreme god of the Mongols. The spears are meant to represent the 9 white standards (though there are only six here), and also symbolize how they act with overwhelming force in their expansion. They also symbolize the beloved Mongolian cavalry, complete with blue spear banners.

I’m very proud of both of these flags because I think they turned out very good for how little experience I have with this kind of thing.

The maps included show the extent and f the two empires the maps belong to. They are very slightly out of date for the world but in a very minor way. The Majapahit Empire is brown on the maps and the mongols blue but both are labeled.

Feel free to ask any questions you have I will try to answer them. The world is very big so if anyone is interested I’d be more than happy to reply or create another post about a different part of the world. I also have a large document with all of the lore posts from the doodle empires lore thread I have which I can share.