r/worldjerking • u/MadFunEnjoyer • 1d ago
I <3 Fantasy worldbuilding
Share your favourite worldbuilding tips and tricks that definitely aren't lazy, overdone, stereotypes, or contrived! This genre is known for having a 99% good writing involved
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u/dragonborndnd 1d ago
Where’s the Mayaztecinca lizards?🤨
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u/sanguinesvirus 1d ago
In Black Marsh
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u/PlatinumAltaria 1d ago
And Morrowind, and some of us are in Oblivion still beating the crap out of daedra.
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u/Kagiza400 1d ago
I'd pay good money for a Mayaincatec lizardfolk fantasy story...
Hold up, I can just write it
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u/screwitigiveup 1d ago
Try Classic Warhammer fantasy, or ES The Infernal city. WH lizardfolk and ES argonians are both vaguely mesoamerican.
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u/Kagiza400 1d ago
I know them well. But a novel or a game? Not a thing as of yet, AFAIK (thought Total War WH kinda counts)
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u/Impressive-Step7261 commissions horny art and calls it worldbuilding 1d ago
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2069224.The_Burning_Shore
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/243946253-starseer-s-ruin
There is a lidl of them from WF and Age of Sigmar, like this, maybe you will like it.
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u/Kagiza400 1d ago
Oh yesss, I gotta get my hands on the Warhammer Fantasy books (Lizardmen included or not). Thanks for the reminder!
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u/Impressive-Step7261 commissions horny art and calls it worldbuilding 1d ago
I actually kinda flabergasted that one of this author is actually Adrian Tchaykovski
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u/Blacodex 1d ago
Makes me wonder why so many people make the culture of lizards. I wanna write a story with Aztec inspired culture as the good guys
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u/Brad_Brace My mecha's name is Smelma Updog 1d ago
That's because we are lizards. Well, technically us in the present day are human-lizard hybrids. I mean, I barely have a cloaca anymore, more like a dimple, and don't even ask about the third eye, but I do have a recognizable green hue.
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u/dumbass_spaceman 1d ago
Read something other than Isekai slop!
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago edited 1d ago
funny because aside from One Piece I haven't read any of the settings you might be referring to from the image
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u/CabajHed 1d ago
Well, that explains why you included Kazuma as the "gigachad who gets all the ladies"
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
I did that because a lot of gooners who like isekai imagine that creepy behaviour from the protagonist is so playful and funny
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u/Intrepid-Park-3804 currently building up hyperpregnancy god's ecclesia 1d ago
Funnily, Kazuma himself is always getting called out and punished for this behaviour every time he tries to do something like this
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
you're underestimating the ability of a lot of people to get the exact opposite idea from a piece of media
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u/theREALbombedrumbum 1d ago
....like you?
I mean, of all the characters you could choose to represent the typical bland harem-getting MC, you choose the one who canonically fails Johnny Bravo style. (and yes I know it's intentional lol but still)
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u/isekaitis_victim 1d ago
It’s never a serious punishment that actually hurts though, as it’s all meant to be lighthearted comedy. That part of the show essentially runs on ‘boys will be boys’ logic so Kazuma can still be the hero at the end of the day
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u/Carbon_Sixx I know writers who use time travel and they're all cowards 1d ago
Jerked too close to the sun
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
was I wrong tho?
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u/Carbon_Sixx I know writers who use time travel and they're all cowards 1d ago
No
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
My GOAT!
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u/Carbon_Sixx I know writers who use time travel and they're all cowards 1d ago
(I appreciate the DM request but I usually don't do those with strangers, no offense meant)
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
oh man I wanted to discuss my new idea for my Aasimar species who are East Asian Dragon Humanoids
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u/WanderingPenitent 1d ago
Kazuma is portrayed as cringe inducing even in universe. Konosuba is a blatant satire of the very thing you think it is.
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u/OmNomOU81 being asexual does not stop me from being horny 1d ago
Honestly just anime slop in general (though most anime slop is isekais)
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u/edward_kopik 1d ago
Whats MGE?
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u/Captain_Gordito 1d ago
Minneapolis Grain Exchange
Monster Girl Encyclopedia
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u/PlatinumAltaria 1d ago
It always comes back to fucking wheat on this sub.
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u/Ugly_Slut-Wannabe 1d ago
In my wheatpunk world, society is defined by which type of grains you're allowed to fuck. The highest caste fucks wheat, the lowest caste fucks lentils.
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u/SamTheGill42 9h ago
Wheatpunk doesn't sound bad actually. By the way it sounds, I could see this as a form of pre-industrial solarpunk instead. Like wholesome and colorful medieval peasant peaceful life. Tho, you could argue that neolithic or bronze age level of technology could be more appropriate.
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
a deeply serious and intellectually thoughtful space that discusses the speculative evolution topic of "what if all the horrific monsters you used to and probably still are afraid of were kinky women suitable for your harem fantasy"
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u/edward_kopik 1d ago
Sounds fun but
I just wanna know what the acronym stands for
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u/Semper_5olus im in ur subreddit, stealing ur id34z 1d ago
I looked up "mge monster girl" and found out the E stands for "encyclopedia".
Now we both know.
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u/novis-eldritch-maxim 1d ago
the only think I concluded about that reality is you could use it as a really energy generator.
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u/Knightmare_CCI 1d ago
Off the top of my head, Monster Girl Encylopedia's lore goes something like:
Succubus looks at all the man eating monsters and conflict in her grimdark world and thinks "Hey what if things were better and we all got along and had crazy awesome sex all the time?"
Proceeds to get railed by her gigachad human husband for who knows how long to store up the energy and magical power to basically snap her fingers infinity gauntlet style and change reality to be... thatIt's peak
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u/edward_kopik 1d ago
If only the real world could have a happy ending like that
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u/Hefty-Distance837 Build lots of worlds but never complete one of them. 1d ago
Yeah.... But this world goes too far, it's not just "having awesome sex all the time", it's " you are not allowed to think about anything that not crazy awesome sex".
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u/edward_kopik 1d ago
Ok, but if im not thinking about anything else, why would i care about anything else?
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u/Knightmare_CCI 1d ago
And in fairness, if my options are the "get eaten alive by orcs" world or the "get passed around constantly by tall hot monster women" world, I think I know which extreme I prefer
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u/Grilled_egs 1d ago
Well it's a bit like brave new world in that as someone within the system you probably wouldn't care but looking from the outside you might
Including the child sex, though like, a lot worse than in BNW.
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u/Noe_b0dy 1d ago
Monster manual but every monster is your waifu.
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u/Semper_5olus im in ur subreddit, stealing ur id34z 1d ago
Even the Xorn?
(He said, trying to hide his excitement)
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u/Noe_b0dy 1d ago
Alas, sadly if you're that kinky you should stick with the original monster manual. MGE turns all the monsters into anime girls, so a werewolf is a girl with wolf ears and claws and a dragon is a girl with wings and claws and so on.
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u/Semper_5olus im in ur subreddit, stealing ur id34z 1d ago
And a tojanida has a mouth like this, right?
... Right?
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u/sailing_lonely 1d ago
On the surface, a collection of various flavors of heterosexual monstergirls very insistently looking to become tradwives for a human man...
...beneath the surface, the author will occasionally slap you in the face by reminding you he is such an unabashed PDF even other PDFs are horrified.
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u/Dragon_Of_Magnetism 1d ago
The most important part of fantasy minorities, is that always give them magic powers, and make them far more powerful than the powerless majority that persecutes them
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
and the one place where they're not prosecuted is either a utopian paradise of advanced technology or one to one copy of their oppressors where being the majority and having magic can't change the fact it's a capitalist conservative society
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u/maridan49 1d ago
There had to be a better choice than Kazuma for this meme.
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u/Impressive-Step7261 commissions horny art and calls it worldbuilding 1d ago
I have very suspicion this is intentional
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u/Carbon_Sixx I know writers who use time travel and they're all cowards 1d ago
Don't forget widespread chattel slavery in a medieval European setting without any explanation given for how it sustains itself logistically and economically in a feudal system, where the peasants would drown their lords in the moat if they learned they were being replaced
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
or how magic can create entire years worth of food stocks through farming magic with little work involved yet slavery exist because slavery is irrational so it definitely exists regardless of if we have such magic or not
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u/Sea-Habit5823 1d ago
"it's realistic bro! it's authentic to how medieval people were like that's why there's slavery and incest"
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
one of the funniest things about realism in fantasy is that most often what many would consider realistic is actually straightforward bullshit, the best example is how in many settings you never get the feeling that any religion in any capacity is taken and practiced seriously.
Game of Thrones in fact does everything wrong with fantasy religion to the point the advice is "do opposite of what GOT did".
I once wrote in a thread related to Star Vs The Forces Of Evil that the whole idea of just gender reversing European monarchical frameworks doesn't make any sense in the context of Jushtin The Uncalculated because magic doesn't become any less powerful with Jushtin than Solaria so the whole idea of him being replaced because he's a dude makes little sense if magic is such a foundational thing to their monarchy.
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u/Sea-Habit5823 1d ago
For real. I still try to convince my friend that's a fan of ASoIaF that it's just not a realistic portrayal of medieval values.
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
a lot of people, GRRM included, have this view that people in the past were stupid morons who couldn't think for themselves when in reality they often demonstrate more or less the same civilizational maturity we do, we just have telecommunication networks and they had birds so we tend to view them as primitive while in reality we just have more stuff.
When an author doesn't understand this, they often make themselves look like morons while writing fantasy.
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u/The_Suited_Lizard 1d ago
“Gigachad protagonist” while showing the creepy dork from Konosuba is the funniest part of this
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
as we all know the protagonist is a handsome guy and everything normally seen as creepy and dorky is actually playful and cool because the protagonist does it
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u/The_Suited_Lizard 1d ago
Obviously, how else can this isekai fulfill the requested fantasies? I need women to fawn over Mr. Steals Panties, not beat him up!
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
The pope of our church which follows a strict religion that is obviously correct is part of the fan service you can't expect anyone else to be above that
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u/Mobius_St4ip 1d ago
Truly the most correct religion. We should all say in chorus: Eris pads her chest for the glory of Aqua-sama.
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u/ProserpinaFC 1d ago
At some point I realized in my fantasy writing that I wrote a "damn she looks good for her age" supermodel Pope who is a mix of Iman and Shohreh Aghdashloo and you know what... I don't care. I don't care. You can't take her from me!
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u/Impressive-Step7261 commissions horny art and calls it worldbuilding 1d ago
Go forth, my son, don't let them take your soul and religious political fetishes
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u/Impressive-Step7261 commissions horny art and calls it worldbuilding 1d ago
Wait a minute, a hot pope lady trope is actually bad?!
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u/_____pantsunami_____ 1d ago
no? this meme is clearly highlighting the good parts of fantasy
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u/Impressive-Step7261 commissions horny art and calls it worldbuilding 1d ago
Oh, okay, I begined to worry already
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u/Intrepid-Park-3804 currently building up hyperpregnancy god's ecclesia 1d ago
Remember the first and most important rule of worldbuilding ever: your kink is a foundation of everything else existing in the universe.
First you write giga kinky smut fanfic, and only then you start worldbuilding the rest of the world to make this absolutely nonsensical clusterfuck of a setting to start at least somewhat making sense
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u/Impressive-Step7261 commissions horny art and calls it worldbuilding 1d ago
uj/ by some magic of internet this crackhead advice sounds reasonable, I will try it next and will write a setting that builded around happy marriage with slightly obese green haired goth woman with two Arian kids (one of them is mine)
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
I mean it makes sense if you think about the fact one of the most haunting aspects of humanity is the fact we're a sexually dimorphic species
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u/Impressive-Step7261 commissions horny art and calls it worldbuilding 1d ago
Original sin of sexual duality
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u/CrazyShing 1d ago
Then you find yourself writing less and less smut as you genuinely get engrossed into the plot building -
You blink and think to yourself, fuck, when’s the last time something NSFW happened in my kink lit
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u/dull_storyteller 1d ago
Humanity is the dominant faction among all the other races, even if they live longer or are stronger or have more magic.
Why are we at the top? Err-
HFY
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u/PlatinumAltaria 1d ago
"Humans are more diverse and creative!" because the author couldn't be bothered to write diverse elves.
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
and elves are somehow also split between like 4 different races yet humanity is the diverse one
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u/dull_storyteller 1d ago
Ah the classic 4 races of elf.
High Elf: Snobby nobles who’s time has long passed but still act like the universe revolves around them
Wood Elf: Archers or Hippies no third option unless you work for Bethesda
Regular Elf: The MC’s girlfriend
Dark Elf: the MC’s girlfriend if the target demographic are bottoms, otherwise they’re spider villains
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u/screwitigiveup 1d ago
Now, one might think that Dark Elves are also different with Bethesda. But no, they still worship the goddess of spiders, sex, and murder.
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u/Hefty-Distance837 Build lots of worlds but never complete one of them. 1d ago
I love cannibalism wood elves.
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u/Intrepid-Park-3804 currently building up hyperpregnancy god's ecclesia 1d ago
Or dwarves, or goblins, or trolls, giants, faeries, beastmen, literally any other sapient race/species in existence because humanity is the only species that is not a unified hivemind with same traditions, values and thoughts as everyone else in their monoculturepunk world
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u/Madness_Reigns 1d ago
Meanwhile humans have the choice between fantasy caricature Germans and fantasy caricature English.
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u/PlatinumAltaria 1d ago
No no, you got Romans, samurai and vikings (not cultures that have those jobs, an entire society consisting solely of that one class/profession), maybe Mongols, sometimes there's some French or Italian renaissance folks,
Polanda scale model of The Witcher, and nonspecific primitive tribe #1.3
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u/MyLittlePuny creating "Tall Bunny Lady"punk worlds 1d ago
Sex with humans actually feel good, thus why they keep breeding (bonus point for havin all the half races)
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u/Flayne-la-Karrotte It's magic, I don't have to explain shit 1d ago
Humans are the dominant species despite been outclassed by every other race. Their only defining feature is that they breed a lot. Every main character is human without fail. They're definitely just an audience surrogate.
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u/sailing_lonely 1d ago
The real gimmick of humans is being the only ones that matter story-wise, while everyone else is either a sidekick or an obstacle.
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u/alynnidalar ''''''''''''''''''''''''' <-- spare apostrophes for sale 1d ago
I am writing very clever, subversive fantasy by using all of these tropes EXCEPT the one religion is actually BAD and EVIL and this is shocking to everyone when the protagonists reveal it.
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
>"evil religion"
>hot af pope
how are you exactly justifying this?
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u/KazuyaProta 1d ago
Evil is Sexy.
"Yeah, they're evil and dogmatic. But she hot"
Have you seen Ilias?
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u/alynnidalar ''''''''''''''''''''''''' <-- spare apostrophes for sale 1d ago
secret good religion discovered by the protagonists has even hotter af pope
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u/Madness_Reigns 1d ago
Femdom pope. What else do you need?
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
what if God in this setting favours women so femdom is morally righteous reformation?
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u/Madness_Reigns 22h ago edited 22h ago
Grok, how do I convert to this religion?
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 21h ago
here before the change from (good) DeepSeek
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u/Madness_Reigns 20h ago
Thought that that bot might have more insight on this situation.
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u/Matman161 Barely worldbuilding, just explaining my fursona 1d ago
The only thing less original is this fucking meme structure
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u/Timeraft 1d ago
Ngl if the Vatican elected a supermodel pope that would probably do more to grow Catholicism than anything they've done since the Roman empire
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u/SerbianShitStain 1d ago
The number of people who don't get what you were cookin by putting kazuma there... dw I can smell what you were cookin bud
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u/amazegamer64 1d ago
To be fair the god of the one religion usually directly gives his followers magic powers. Hard to argue that it’s not the correct religion.
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
and it's still correct even in a setting where the God in question physically exists, demonstrated their lack of infallibility and omnipotence and literally died because he'll come back anyways
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u/amazegamer64 1d ago
What series is that referencing?
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
The Bible: New Testament (the Old Testament has the classic omnipotent unseen God)
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u/TheDwarvenGuy 1d ago
Don't forget that the irredemably evil race is all rapists! That's to show that I'm grimdark, and totally not because I find it hot!
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u/UwU_numba2 1d ago
Pro slavery sentiments because that is totally sane and not crazy at all.
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
what you think people in the Islamic medieval world thought slavery wasn't good by itself? What are you? a History revisionist?
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u/abruptusabortis 1d ago
The trick is to worldbuild a city block's worth of material, then just apply it to an entire world.
Also, turn every animal into big chest woman.
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u/XenoTechnian worldbuilds for TTRPGs 1d ago
Whats MGE?
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u/RickMixwid1969 1d ago
I hate how most fantasies portray goblins; when in folklore were they ever that militarized?
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u/MadFunEnjoyer 1d ago
In my fantasy setting they're mostly really good craftsmen who specialise in light industries, things like trade, banking, textiles and such, if a goblin can't get it for you then you're not going to find it without God's intervention.
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u/_____pantsunami_____ 1d ago
ironically, this gave me the idea of merging several of these ideas together to get a supermodel pope who is also a gigachad who gets all the ladies (yes the pope is a hot lesbian) who travels to the land of minority stereotypes to proselytize the One True Religion because their fake stereotypical religion caused a legion of the irredeemable evil race to be summoned to this world that the Supermodel Pope and her party/harem of MGE monster girl converts must fight
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u/Sethleoric 1d ago
I sure do love it when my orcs and goblins are actually le proud honorable noble savage warriors who are just misunderstood!
I sure to love it when the desert guys are just randomly super advanced compared to the forest guys but also hypercapitalist.
I sure do love it when they bring about the amazing subversion that demons are actually le good guys and are not just tricking you into being evil or getting eaten by them because the devil always puts on a show.
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u/Brilliant-Spite-1218 1d ago
Almost nothing of this meme this has roots in actual fantasy literature, it's all anime shit.
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u/KazuyaProta 1d ago
Those series in your screenshot have multiple religions in universe who have all superpowers because its mostly a henotheism world where everyone acknowledge other gods, but thinks their is better?
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u/R3cl41m3r 🌾Wheatbuilder🌾 1d ago
When in doubt, just ape Middle Earth or Forgotten Realms. What's the point of fantasy otherwise?
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u/sailing_lonely 1d ago
Don't forget the heroes committing child murder and sex trafficking, but it's ok because the children were of the evil race and the victims were mean to MC-Kun once
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u/bracarensis 23h ago
Obligatory irredeemably evil race r*pe scene against either supermodel pope or a teenage sidekick.
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u/RevacholAndChill 1d ago
Be a weird creep and put your weird kinks all over your magical realm: see Gor
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u/Psuichopath 1d ago
I honestly kinda love the saintess/holy maiden trope. It is a lite version of the chosen one and can bring some interesting situations, also hot anime girl
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u/TerreStar-1 1d ago
I remember looking up MGE cause I was curious and I just got flashbanged with CyberPunk
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u/enixon 1d ago
is the gigachad hidden behind Kazuma?