/lit/ - Literature

>>16725583
In one setting I'm working on, reality itself is unfixed, a bit like clay that wasn’t fired properly, stable at first glance, but when my equivalent of mages uses their powers, or during certain natural events, and/or in regions where there are few sentient beings to observe and perceive their surroundings, things can drastically change and flux, though intelligent beings are hard to permanently alter.

One religion I was thinking of for the setting believes that the state of the world is because God is asleep, and they are God’s dreams, or at least what he subconsciously created via his dreams, there might be some debate on that. But I was thinking of a greater divide, one between two factions with different ways of handing this. One wishes to keep God asleep using prayers that are basically divine lullabies, offerings, etc., believing that the world will end if God wakes, while the other wishes to awaken God with their louder prayers and actions, and that they will be rewarded by surviving the awakening if they do.

I was also thinking of a faith(s) that believes that the gods abandoned the world during its creation, due to the local Original Sin or some outside factor, and they have to either somehow call the gods back or complete their work in their stead.

I am thinking of at least one or two more religions and/or splinter sects for the setting, what do you think of what I already have, and what do you think would be best for the religion(s) I want to round it off with? My best idea is a cult or something that believes that humanity was once advanced, but devastated the world in their arrogance, and that the unstable reality of the world is the fault of their ancestors. Also, please note that no one in the setting will have any idea which, if any, is the truth, and even I am unsure right now, if I even decide to choose at all. Any ideas would be much appreciated, please, especially regarding names for these religions.

>>16725583
Fantasy writers are so fucking pathetic. You aren’t tolkein, and not even tolkein did this shit. Just make the religions in your world analogues of real religions. Make everything in your world an analogue of some real thing. If you don’t it’ll just be meaningless shit like the vast majority of fantasy

>>16725583
Well you can always take the safe pagan route or take a monist route. In either situation make your characters extremely religious. I think a monist route has more options opened as pagans aren't interested in world-proselytizing. In whichever, I would have a few solid religious practices which are a bit shocking and almost unrealistic then cover it up w great prose. You want them to be rudimemtarily followed but with that route you open a lot more potential plot points and justify a believable religious aspect to it.

>>16726695
Either extremely religious or extremely rudimentarily so*

>>16726681
Why is it so pathetic to worldbuild?

Our modern conception of "classic fantasy" was founded by Christians like Tolkien, George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis, Keats, Novalis, Charls Williams, and Lord Dunsany.

It's only fair that, if you wish to incorporate religion in your fantasy story, that you try to do research into Christianity and its relationship with fantasy, poetry, and fairy stories.

If you want a place to start, don't think of the creation of your story's world as "worldbuilding" and more like "sub-creation."

Also, here's a book recommendation

I hope this helps, anon.

>>16725583
Start with the articles of faith, then the mode of worship, and build it from there. All real world religions have these.

>>16726666
Don't have the original sin concept in there just leave that as an unknown thing, why the gods went away (if they did at all)? If you consciously don't want it to be like a Christianity rip-off certainly don't use exclusively Christian concepts.

Interesting idea. Religion is always fun to write of you want to go into a fundamentalist route. Can you explain how a fanatic may go about her day and how she would act towards heretics?

>>16725583
Fantasy religions: Ancient Norse

Created by a God called Thor who used his mighty hammer Mjolnir to smite his enemies, the Norse mythos boasts some of the most impressive and complete heroes, gods and lore of any culture in history. These figures all have a unique god-like presence that, with the passage of time, have lost all ties to physical space, such that they can manifest as ghosts or animated corpses.

However, some of these mysterious entities are still considered in some parts of the world to be the ghosts of lost children who will be forced to return from their rest in the netherworld upon awakening.

Consequently, it is likely that people who suffer from deja vu, waking nightmares or hallucinations of deceased family members are suffering from the negative after-effects of these haunting phenomena.

(With thanks to, Bart Spinks)

People who suffer from deja vu, who see everything in déjà vu, are most likely to have experienced a terrifying family tragedy.

Convulsive seizures, such as those that accompany epilepsy, can cause a sense of deja vu.

Certain forms of dementia may also result in the experience of deja vu.

People who are constantly repeating day-to-day activities, such as putting on and taking off a jacket, may be experiencing a form of spontaneous visualisation, in which, instead of the routine of the act, an experience from their past appears to be repeating at that moment.

Most of these experiences are positive.

Such experiences are part of our everyday lives - whether we've recently experienced them or not.

>>16728160
The religious fanatic may be an anarchist, a fascist, a hardcore socialist, a hardcore communist, a hardcore reactionary, or maybe they’re a washed-up 1980s TV star.

I’ve been looking at who the hottest religious extremists have been in recent years.

Anarchist terrorist Anders Breivik:

In 2011 Breivik assassinated eight people at a youth camp on Norway’s island of Utøya, then shot 69 more at a youth camp on the island of Utoeya. He targeted the participants in the Norwegian Labour Party’s youth camp, believing that the political left were enemies of the Norwegian people. One teen, 14-year-old Siv Aasen, was killed in the July 22, 2011 attacks.

In 2009, Breivik had set off a car bomb in central Oslo, killing eight people. Prosecutors claimed he was trying to destroy the government, and that the victims he left alive were to be his “sacrificial victims”.

“As we see from [Breivik’s] own texts, the motive behind the attack was to destroy the Norwegian Labour Party, which he thought to be headed by radical socialists,” says Knut Haugland, the party’s deputy leader. “But this is the idea we have had for the last 20 years and he rejected it.”

Maintaining silence

Norway’s conservative-led government is a coalition of the centre-right Conservative Party and the right-wing Progress Party, led by Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. As a centre-left party, the Labour Party must maintain diplomatic silence on some controversial subjects.

One such issue was the sentencing last year of a gang of youths in Hyde Park, London. Many commentators noted that the longer sentences they received were disproportionate to the seriousness of their crimes. Others decried the disproportionate sentences given to white youths compared with black or Asian youths.

Then came a picture that was widely shared online. It showed members of the Park Road Young Offenders' Association (PROYA) – a group of young men, some still in prison, who had worked to help reduce reoffending rates in the inner city area of west Belfast. Among them was Paul McCullagh, who is in jail for attempted murder.

McCullagh, now 26, was 19 when he was shot. He had been given a 10-year sentence. McCullagh was at his third wake in five years, because of the gangland feud which has torn through west Belfast.

He asked for his killing to be marked as a "political murder" to "re-establish political and religious relations in Ireland". McCullagh's body was dumped in a pigsty by IRA members, with no funeral and no gravestone.

He was listed on the UN's Disappeared Persons' Commission, which provided the UK with a list of those believed to have been abducted, tortured and killed. But three years ago, after the high court ruled that the British state had denied him and a number of others due process, the British government decided the list should no longer be considered "purely a political and religious gesture", according to BuzzFeed News.

>>16727914
>Why is it so pathetic to worldbuild?

Every author has a weak spot, no matter how far back you trace it in their psyche. What is pathetic is to try and build your fantasy world by outfitting an old “what-if” scenario with magic that you wish you’d played with when you were seven. Fantasy is not for people with life experience, and most of the worldbuilding books I’ve ever seen in the science fiction/fantasy category are written for people with life experience. You don’t want a writer to write all of their novels from the perspective of someone who has spent their life exploring imaginary worlds, because that’s not a world you’ve ever seen. If I’m gonna read about a world, I want to read about the world from the perspective of someone who has lived in that world.

Which is why I can understand why the news has been so damn gloomy. It’s harder to imagine a world you’ve never seen, especially one that has so many different kinds of people in it. In a world of war, I need to be able to imagine what a person who doesn’t get the news might think. What does my immigrant neighbor think of his new neighbors, many of whom have children who are learning American values? What is it like to be a young black man in America today? How many more children are learning that police will shoot them down if they see them playing in their neighborhood? What does it feel like to live in a nation that is weary and angry, and feels threatened by people who look like us?

Because here’s the thing: this is a problem that we can’t afford to continue to ignore. It’s a problem that, when addressing it, our head can actually hurt.

Imagine this scenario: you’re heading off to an event with a partner, for instance, when you spot someone that you used to have a crush on, back in the day. This crush is now way more attractive than you. You look into their eyes and feel things stirring, but instead of letting them go, your partner grabs your hand and drags you into the building.

And yes, I'm being dramatic, and no, I do not think this is my fault.

I have spent a week - and - a - half trying to get someone, anyone, to call me back.

Monday I talked to several customer service representatives over the phone and was essentially ignored.

Yesterday I talked to a supervisor who was supposed to help.

She called me while I was at work, I didn't answer, and when I tried to call her back there was no answer.

>>16725583
The latest religion of my science fiction setting is the religion of humanity.

It's still one of those that holds sway over the entire galaxy - we're all in this together, and anyone who isn't pulling his own weight is getting off the hook and getting out of the way.

Any time someone is a bit too sure of himself, we're all taught about humility.

And any time someone is too sure of himself, we're all taught that it's the job of the scientific community to uncover the truth and shove it back down their throat.

Let me ask you something, and let's keep it very simple: If in our society we had one grocery store, stocked to the brim with produce from everywhere in the world, but we only had one chef who could prepare the food and decide what would be on the menu every single day, and he could only cook foods that have never been cooked before, and he could o only cook what he was absolutely certain would go together to make a good meal, that meal would turn out to be a disgrace.

It wouldn't be nutritious at all.

But if he could prepare a meal that nobody ever had tasted before, nobody would ever say that that meal was terrible.

It would be a new and wonderful discovery.

In my book, the company that makes JIF is a disgrace.

This is one company that every grocery store should carry - but there are very few stores that carry it. Unlike the religion of humanity, it does not hold sway over the galaxy. It doesn’t have to support people or nations to succeed.

Here’s the point that’s been lost on us, and that is that this source of harmony is based on something completely diferent, something profoundly galactic. It isn’t a religion. It’s a science. And what is scientific about the notion of peaceful coexistence in the face of common danger?

Fortunately, there is no need to argue that this technology was created specifically for any one race or people. Because they all can be considered as equal parties to the experience, I will make the counter-argument based on natural evolution and how that principle is responsible for every species becoming dominant on the planet today.

It all starts with one creature, doing the unthinkable. Something no other animal will ever do. He breaks the conventions set for that type of creature, evolving to higher, more powerful, and even more unique states.

Eventually, that creature will find it easier to thrive. So they pass down their unique DNA into the next generation.

That cycle continues until the end of the natural world. After all, what's an evolution without a natural process to increase your numbers?

>>16729097
If anyone here wants to accuse me of being "bitter", or having some major beef with humanity, you're going to find a Bitter old - timer right up here in the sling.

Actually, I'd say more about me than you would, since I'm essentially a recluse.

I rarely leave my home, and only do so if I absolutely have to.

I can't get along with crowds.

People are too opinionated, and they think they know what's going on - because that's what they read in the papers.

Those who are more honest with their personal tastes tend to fall into one of four categories. They are the sophomores who only come to the tent when they want to buy their parents new furniture, the visitors who come to the tent for some light games, the college students who like the food, and the foodie in their corner of the country, the most passionate about the food, yet fearful of it. And then there is the first-timer, who turns out to be a former visitor and newcomer to the event. I have fallen into this last group, usually the first time. And you will never see me try and collect this set as a portfolio piece. It is just a sweet record of something I experienced, will never see again and certainly never want to, not to mention that I will never sell it at all.

The truth of the setting, and the religion of humanity, hit home with the team in a way I can't easily describe.

It was also both a tease and the longest part of the game.

The religious themes became a huge aspect of the game, and both Sarah and I found ourselves repeatedly looking up words in Latin.

At the same time, the puzzles were more varied and creative than any we'd seen before.

Sarah made us change our minds about what would or wouldn't be considered an edge case, or outside the realm of possibility, in her game knowledge.

On the one hand, it made the game more engaging and fun for me to help Sarah solve them, and more challenging for her, but on the other, she really made me think about what I would or wouldn't consider to be a "rule".

I have to admit, it made me put more of an emphasis on following the rules when I played than I usually would.

And even though we don't have her game with us right now, that doesn't mean I won't go back and re - read it some more.

It's definitely one to add to the collection

>>16727953
Thanks for the book recommendation, do you have any others, please?

>>16725583
Didn't we have a thread on this a few weeks ago?

>>16728418
Actually a good take that rambled into personal issues.

>>16729110
you are a fucking insane person

>>16730414
I don't think he is insane.

The gods are very important to my magic system and I wanted to give a nod to these gods throughout the game.

Finally, I had several lyrical ideas for the game, but not enough time to write them into the game.

So there you have it!

That's how the story came to be and how I went from a complete amateurship programmer to a respected game developer in a matter of just two years.

Unfortunately, due to a slump in the gaming industry (as well as my own schedule), I haven't been able to dedicate the time to put this game out there.

Maybe sometime this year I'll be able to show off this amazing game!

Until then, I hope you guys enjoy what I've been able to show.

As many of you know, one of my hobbies is board games.

I've been playing a variety of different games, but it's recently been a favorite genre of mine to play.

I've recently been enjoying games like Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, Cribbage and Onitama.

I've always enjoyed games, but the problem I've always had is when I play them.
I don't really follow the rules that well.

Which means, when it comes time to play someone, I don't have much of a clue what they're doing.

Luckily for me, these are usually "after hours" games.

One night last week I decided to invite some friends over to play.

We didn't have any brand new games, so I pulled out our copy of "Hereditary".

I picked it up because we had talked about it before.

I know I wouldn't have ever bought the game without some kind of incentive, and a couple hours of playing "Hereditary" was that incentive for me.

Basically, "Hereditary" is a game based around what it feels like to be surrounded by a pack of angry people.

If that doesn't sound like a nice idea to you, you aren't alone.

In fact, before the game I said to the friends I invited to come over, "Look, if you don't want to play this game, you don't have to, but I think it will be fun."

So they all agreed to come over and we were set.

I showed them the rules, and also explained that this was my first game ever, and that I really didn't know how it worked.

I thought it might be easiest to just start the game.

So we sat down and started the game.

Here's the rules I was taught: Everyone starts out in the jungle.

After you're sure that no one is moving, then you move in a straight line (unless you're attacked by the king, in which case you get to go back one space) until you reach a trading post (or your own village, or whatever you want to call it), and then you build.

All of the buildings, such as farms, workshops, lumberyards, and so on, are in a space just like in Super Mario RPG.

There are a few different types of construction (tradesmans' workshops, schools, temples, and houses for the common folk, to start with), but most buildings can be made on the spot.

Since this is a free game, there are no opponents to fight in the ordinary sense of the word.

Of course, there is another element to the game, however.

"Guardians" inhabit different spots in the forest.