/lit/ - Literature

yo I fucked the link to the previous thread in the OP, here's the real one >>22864109

Anyway, here's the thread questions:
>what's the most interesting city or inhabited place in your setting? Why is it so interesting and what functions does it serve in your setting?
>does your setting feature living or sentient buildings?
>tell us more about the architecture of your world, is it based on a culture's actual architecture or is it more unique?

>>22954745
well i'm thinking they just sorta do it like that plus the aformentioned birdmen do make them consider the spiritual aproach. They have facsimile codexes on hand and the bible in multiple languages too, plus the sample size is small enough and the planet being full of life would be a gift of god sort of thing plus some other coincidences i could throw at it

>>22954841
Mmm... sorry but i'm not buying it, no.
If there was christian texts among them, wouldn't it make more sense for them to have developed into a society with christian morals? Perhaps a society reflective of the dark ages?
Anyways, i'm not suggesting that you should scrap the mesoamerian idea, it's a very cool concept in fact, but you sure need a better reason rather than just coincidence.
Like, maybe one of the 12 astronauts you mention was a history teacher specialized in mesoamerican culture and brought many texts describing their cultures, religion, languages, and technological feats. Maybe then all data on the space colony is lost due to an accident and people start using these physical books as a sort of bible from which to rebuild civilization. Or maybe the alien species living in that planet resemble mesoamerican gods and creatures, forcing people to believe in them and returning to old traditions in consequence. Something along those lines could work better than mere coincidence.

>>22954841
Any other reasons for why they might do that?

>>22954685
I found some of the old notebooks where I wrote fantasy stuff when I was a teenager. The writing was quite bad, but the world itself is decent. I think I will start writing about it again.
I don't have the map of the continents anymore, nor the names of most of the important characters in its history, but it doesn't matter that much, and I vaguely remember how the map went.

>>22954899
brother my reason is the 12 astronauts are just a giant self insert which means anything is fair game. The aliens do build small pyramids and wear elaborate feathers.
>>22955769
cool factor and sample size.

>>22954699
>what's the most interesting city or inhabited place in your setting? Why is it so interesting and what functions does it serve in your setting?
Well a few days ago it was "unnamed high school city" that I spent literal months on before realizing the main antagonist of that arc was a carbon copy of the Mathemagician from Phantom Tolbooth, so that idea is on hiatus for now. As of now it's probably El Dorado, where my story starts. Not actually El Dorado, just the idealized version of El Dorado that got 3D printed from the brains of a bunch of conquistadors who isekai'd themselves through sheer greed. Among the flying rivers that El Dorado uses for trade (in-ground rivers become contaminated by a manifestation of thalassophobia), it's also unique because everything grown on its land grows golden. Which is wonderful for trade, but makes them absolutely reliant on trade for food (livestock slowly become contaminated after a few generations, but are still edible, usually).

>does your setting feature living or sentient buildings?
The devouring city of Hazelwood is sentient, at least it was before the events of the Battle of Ash 300ish years before the start of my chapter 1, it's been dormant since then. Hazelwood is a voracious and intelligent mega-city that wished to grow into everything and become everything, and went to war with the city-state-alliance (lead by El Dorado) in an attempt to grow around the world tree the city states were clustered around. The war never officially ended (they only stopped fighting because both sides lost 99% of their armies during the aforementioned battle), so nobody knows if or when Hazelwood will begin growing and devouring again.

>>22956294
OK anon sorry for trying to help you flesh out your setting.
I get that you choose mayan esthetics because of cool-factor but you could as well explain why in a coherent way, otherwise it's not a setting, just an art project.
>>22956329
Mathemagicians are a cool concept, i'm stealing it now. Since nobody knows what a "Phantom Tolbooth" is, nobody will ever know.

I'm creating a Murder Cult for my fantasy romcom story.

>It used to be a left wing terrorist organization that robbed banks and homes to fund their insurrection, but it gradually turned into a religious organization.
>By the time the story begins, they've degraded into mindlessly assassinating any political or business leaders, indoctrinating youths in backwards communities, and selling everything from drugs to people.
>They basically ruined the Protagonist's original homeland, forcing him to immigrate to richer nations where he's been living a meager life as a tech worker while he tries to build up the money to bring in his family.
>They have some kind of supernatural drug that allows their members to basically become low level superhumans, can contract and control shadow demons, and have lots of weird Voudoo trinkets. This gave them a massive edge over more "normal" gangsters and cartels, and granted them total control over the underworld.
>Their leader is allegedly some kind of immortal spirit that jumps from body to body.

Should I make the First World governments treat them like just a normal criminal organization or like Al Qaeda and other terrorist orgs?

We all like to nerd out about conlangs, but have you actually gone through with one so far?
While my current work contains many languages, I am actually committed to one specific one which is a conlang even in-universe, meaning that it was invented in the world itself for the purpose of facilitating trade and other communication between an aquatic race that has problems speaking in air and the airbreathing races that have trouble hearing underwater (I posted about this in a previous thread).
I am actually kind of committed for the reason that a consistent yet natural and organic feel is entirely unnecessary here. I can get away with making it as dry and mechanical as I want and vocabulary can easily be constructed by going through a list of goods commonly traded.
I also decided to add a writing system that is easily made in shells, making them very durable records, as well as the source of my world's most commonly used numerical system, being designed to facilitate simple and fast calculations (kinda like IRL the decimal system was facilitated by far-travelled merchants).
Currently, I am thinking of a way to create letters and numbers for this that require the least amount of holes drilled and lines scratched to encode meaning.

>>22956744
In a story of mine, elves and wizards speak a language which is a mix of latin and mayan influences. I haven't written down any grammar rules, or vocabulary, or designed a writing system, but every line has a direct translation and I try to keep it consistent so that the same words are always used for established things.

>>22954685
Must be extremely incomfortable both for the people and the rhino. Poor thing will never be able to roll over. Also the constant deambulation would be 10 times worse than sailing. Things would fall on the floor all the time. It works with a tortoise because it sails smoothly. Not a rhino. This trend of putting huge cities on the back of terrestrial animal need to stop asap, this is fucking retarded.

>>22956897
Normalize putting cities on snakes using rectilinear locomotion
https://youtu.be/vnLDq8Lz5hg?si=olvp5v5mgRVkGPr2
Bonus: there would be only one street so everyone would be living on main street
Double bonus: entire worlds on snakes like this could be ouroboros and thereby ring shaped.

>>22956646
>>22954899
oh you're missunderstanding and i am too lol. There is a lot of similarity between the aztec and renaissance worlds, a lot of parallels irl, just different paint. My idea already was that the main computer on the base breaks down before everything can be saved, not really considering wether it was intentional or accidental, it doesn't matter. Loads of people in stasis/on the main crew are probably carrying a lot of personal items, inculding what i am cosnidering to beb"items of cultural significance" as defined by the mission charter, which would be the bible, codexes and textbooks and other cultural works. The aliens are supposed to be albatross sized, with some of them, especially at the landing site, having a monument-building culture that involves pyramids. I'm toying with the idea of them having weird draft animals that the people want access to. The aliens are supposed to be covered in feathered ornamentation and their culture is, atleast in some vague headcanon way, similar to mesoamerica, but not quite. They are also latently schizophrenic, all of them, so they speak in tounges, they can understand us and speak our words but not the other way around. They guide the colonists, and through converting they ensure a christian future.
Yeah, maybe on the mexican side someone is more educated on the matter, but i'm mostly taking that for aesthetics cause their stuff is simple and straightforward, doesn't need multiple degrees of trade/separation like other cultures and historic parallels. Their worldview also puts emphasis on the fluid nature of life and the cycle of all things, which i think the astronauts would find appealing. I feel like a lot of things would become foundation once the first generation is taught that. The astronauts are self-inserts so i can get away with building my own perfect society.
Part of their aesthetic is also based on the fact that between the colonists there are a bunch of shells, feathers and even bird pets brought as keepsakes and those become limited luxury items in control of the king/some lords, as the alien feather equivalents are of inferior quality and lack the connection to home.
Also part of cultural development is just the point where a few people define it all for everyone.

>>22956779
Even if you dont plan on going all in on Conlang, that is probably a good idea since fantasy/scifi fandoms are full of pedantic nerds that'll go "well actually, in chapter 17 line 35 you used this word ina context that implies...."
I actually am thinking about creating not just a script but turning it into a font that Word can use so I can write texts in it just for decorative purpose in images. Maybe.

>>22956744
Tried for about six months before throwing in the towel. Luckily I have enough material that I can at least throw in a few words here and there and trick my reader into thinking there's a fully completed language.

The problem is that "conlangs" are too mundane for me, my retard brain has to do dumb shit like "HURR DURR WHAT IF THEY ALSO HAD A BASE 8 NUMBER SYSTEM HOW WOULD THAT EFFECT THEIR LANGUAGE".

>>22957753
conglangs are kind of a waste of time when you can just use real languages and make up a dialect, which is way way easier.

>>22956897
>the rhino is a golem, not a sentient animal, so it doesn't suffer not gets tired
>it's neither in constant movement, it only moves once every season for strategic military and trading purposes
>this also makes it impossible to siege so it's probably an extremely secure place, and therefore rich since many banks and nobles will want to stablish themselves there
Worldbuildinglet detected.
Get some imagination, faggot.

>>22957024
>still not explaining why the culture resembles meso-american society
>"dude.... don't think about it too much"
NGMI, but nice drawings tho

>Citadel (Dragonlance novel)
>Discworld
>Ringworld
>The Scar (China Mieville)

>A game of Thrones
>Mistborn
>The Lord of the Rings
>Dune

>>22958355
because i expect a society of modern people to be limited in their craftsmanship ability especially in the near scifi future so i expect they would adopt far simpler styles, it's not one-on-one, merely similar, taking notes. They're not eating people, it's just that half of them are mexican

>>22958355
>>22958434
And i believe fashion is guided by convenience + aesthetic choice.

>>22958444
And a lot of this shit just looks cool as fuck if only it were more europeanized in functional choice, their statecraft method of decentralization also works in such an isolated society, their early conditions would be pretty harsh and the ethnic choice gives way to strongmen leaders who exalt ideology.
The birds are just a weird wedge for weird things to be possible. Something vaguely remembered, even by the few that still live. Part of the cycle.

>>22958434
That doesn't make any sense. Just because they are mexican doesn't mean that the moment you take away their technology and sicentific progress they will retourn to being mayan.
If we have a nuclear holocaust and the only survivors are from sweeden they won't become vikings with time.
I don't care it's cool.

>Tries to make an interesting world, and tries to make its history, characters, factions, political situation, culture, religion and concepts developed, sensible, believable and cool.
>"Lol, you just take writing too seriously, why can't you just have fun?"

How do you deal with fags like this?
Does anyone else feel like this attitude amongst audiences and readers is becoming more and more prevelant? People wanting stories to be simpler and stupider to satisfy their baby brain and obsessively hating everything remotely complex. When I go into a story, I want to see everything that I just mentioned at the top. And above all else? Actually fucking competent writing. I want good storytelling. When people say they want more "fun" in a story or for a story to "take itself less seriously". What they usually mean is
>This story should make fun of itself and have forced inorganic humor that doesn't come naturally from situations or from character interaction
There are a lot of people who will say something "Takes itself too seriously" when they really just mean "This actually cares about it's own storytelling when I don't respect it enough to engage with that."

I swear to god, it feels like we're reaching a point where just caring about the basics of storytelling is something considered avant-garde. It's unbelievable really.

>>22958527
I think I said it in a previous thread already, but you shouldn't give a toss about what other people think when doing art. If you want to express yourself and what you like just do it. What's the point of expression if it's constrained by what other people think?
Doing it commercially is another issue entirely, of course, but in neither case you should mind people calling you autistic for doing what you like.

>>22958508
ok you fucking boring retard

>>22954685
>haven't been in this general for a while
>OP took the conlanging part out of the name
Sad, but fair, this hobby really is fucking tiny, especially if you go full autism and flesh your languages out naturalistically instead of "le elvish language with grammar identical to latin lol"

>>22957525
That's what I was worried about. Then again, you can always deflect by saying a synonym was used.

>>22954685
Does the general accept questions related to alternate history?
If so, can any of you help me make up a divergent branch of buddhism starting in around the 1st or second century A.D, bonus point if it doesn't have much to do with greco-Buddhism? This specific branch would be mostly practiced in europe and certain parts of Asia as part of a wider eurasian environment going from the pacific to the north sea on the Atlantic coast that was basically united by a set of progressive steppe conquests by steppe peoples much like the mongols and the turks. I'm trying to make my own tweaked version of ezcalli. For the sake of disclosure, I plan to make south eastern europe and most of italy be Alt-Jewish while Spain, North africa, south Gaul and parts of italy still worship something like greco-roman religion.
P.S: I'm indecisive, should I put the proper european horde khanate in Poland, East Germany and the Baltic or in Pannonia. I think putting it in Ukraine/pontic steppe or russia is kind of lazy and it's too far away from europe proper. There's going to be a runt western european khanate based around the rhine that is kind of a joke.

>>22954685
Well, in my setting the cities are mainly themed around the four elements, though in comparison to picture related, there are a lot more cities themed around two elements, or even three in some cases, and maybe one themed around all four to a significant degree. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can show this for each city besides the obvious shit like making Fire cities largely red and having lots of torches, or Water cities having a lot of blue and canals? Avatar is good for some inspiration, but I don’t want to copy it wholesale, especially since I want to make my cultures more varied than various flavors of fantasy Asia. What say you?

>>22958365
>The Scar (China Mieville)
Never heard of it, what makes it worth mentioning here?

>22961325
Whoops, that post should have picrel, not that. Here.

How does one start worldbuilding ?

>>22962742
Well, that mainly depends on what you want to do, anon.
For creating a setting from scratch, I always following the "snowflake method", that is, starting your world by settling down it's core ideas and concepts first, then writing about the specifics of that baseline, and then about the specifics of the speifics, in all directions, like a snowflake.
Starting with the first step, defining the broad ideas, think about it as a pitch, here you specify what kind of mood or themes it tries to transmit, what makes it different, interesting or special. For example:
>the setting is a grimdark medieval fantasy world in which people have been cursed to not die
>sci-fi world in which humanity has been slaved by aliens and are used as cattle in giant spaceships
Only after you have defined this general description, you should start writing down its political factions, its historical characters, its creatures, etc.
Then you write about the specifics that matter to the plot, like characters and events, or daily-life details.

>>22963000
I wrote this answer three (3) times because I accidently hit "esc" twice while writing it. I want to die.
>>22960215
Yeah sorry man, but /wbg/ is a good general name contrary to /wbcg/, and considering that there was no conlanging discussion at all I figured that it was unnecessary. But maybe we could change the OP again.
>>22960694
Yeah that's related to worldbuilding, in fact, I think it's mentioned in the OP, somewhere.

>>22954685
Since the person I was talking to last thread stopped replying after one post, I'm continuing this here. The core idea is that in my world there are six main gods, one for each element; Light, Fire, Water, Earth, Air, and Void, the former of which has minor Creative and Chaotic aspects, while the last has Destructive and Orderly aspects. After they created the basic template for the different races as a group, each combination of gods teamed up to make a race by combining their respective elements into the template, so while each race has 'some' of each element in them, and can use magic of any element with training, they naturally have an easier time learning magic of the elements that they're aligned with, and tend to focus on those.

Some of these races included Humans being the Light & Void race, since humans are often depicted as a race that's variable and adaptable, Elves being the Light & Earth race, combining the natural energy of Light with Earth's vitality and durability to get a race that is long-lived, in tune with nature, and almost ethereal in their appearances, and Dwarves being the Earth & Fire race, combining Earth's durability with Fire's drive for change to make a race that is short but strong and tough, resistant to high temperatures and skilled craftsmen.

After this in the current age, the gods are currently experimenting with new races and beings with three elements, though it's worth noting that one element can be dominant over the other(s) in some races, with Dwarves having more Earth than Fire, representing which deity was most active in the process of making them. There are both single-race and mixed-race settlements and cultures, with most of the latter being primarily composed of races that share an element(s). Humans are the most likely to mingle with races that share no elements with them. The races tend to worship all of the gods while putting particular focus on the ones that contributed directly to making them, but humans in particular can revere other gods as well.

The list of combos is below, the ones with question marks being ones that I'm less certain on, any feedback would help greatly please. The person in the last thread suggested water, earth, & light for lizardfolk, do you agree or disagree? He also thought that the octopus-folk should be Water/Void because of the ink, while I put them as Water/Light since octopi can change colors and morph their bodies, and are intelligent problem solvers, thoughts?

2 Element Races:

L/V: Humans

L/F: Djinn

L/E: Elves

L/W: Octopus-Folk?

L/V: Shark-folk?

E/F: Dwarves

F/W: Naga

A/W: Yeti?

E/V: Troll?

E/A: Centaur?

E/W Dryads?

3 Element Races:

F/L/V: Oni?

A/E/V: Giant/Goliath

W/E/F: Slimes

W/L/V: Merfolk?

F/E/V: Goblins?

L/E/V: Dark Elves?

L/A/E: Tengu?

W/E/V: Frog-folk

A/W/V: Siren?

L/F/W: Triton?

F/E/L Kitsune?

W/E/L Lizardfolk?

A/V/F Dragonborn equivalent?

>>22964289
you draw this or fake ass satanic idolatry?

>>22965234
What? No, it was made by AI.

>>22965577
fake ass idolatry. Never again shall you tempt with digits, apostate.

>>22966778
What are you talking about?

>>22967938
he needs to take his meds

>>22967946
Such is the path of the worldbuilder.

>>22964289
>Octopus-Folk?
Lusca ?

Currently I'm building a setting for my next 4chan Quest- SHEEP QUEST, where the players control and anthropomorphic sheep man who becomes an unlikely hero and adventurer. The idea being this race is very peaceful and unassuming, a bit like Hobbits, but this one manages to rise to the challenge despite being an underdog. Basically being one of the weakest kinds of beings in this world and yet still managing to find success because of my blatant desire for saccharine uplifting content.

My main issue is coming up with the demographics and races of this fantasy world. I don't want it to be pure furshit, but fitting non-furry races around sheep people is a little tough. I could make it just generic high fantasy with elves and Dwarves, but I feel it would make the world seem to much like "humans are... LE BAD" given the main character being different then them. I'll probably just go with a gonzo kitchen sink approach to make exploring new places interesting, but I feel the setting would lack a lot of coherence and ultimately feel a little silly.

>>22957753
Really, you did that? What happened?

>>22956675
Maybe have some kind of parapsychological division that is lead by a man that is highly analytical and document his struggles of fitting this organization and the phenomena into a materialist worldview. It would showcase how the organization is subverting the First World through it's actions.

Con-Lags in general are a retarded waste of time. You can't change my mind.

>>22969883
What if you are a filologist and is part of your hobby?
Anon, you imply that we are here for practical purposes when it's really all part of a hobby, why do you care about it being useful or inefficient?
Most of us do it for fun.

Bumping

>>22972530
What has actually been made via this method, if anything?

Kill yourself bumpfaggot

Suppose that magic is fueled by emotions. Sometimes by categories of emotions, and sometimes by extremely specific emotions. So this is a world of the very bright and the very grim already.

Now you get someone who seems to have all of the potential for magic. He seems to be very kind. As it turns out his personal magic runs on Malice. Capital M Malice.

>>22973008
Dune

Here's my very bare bones idea. It's about a normal materialistic society with a fantasy twist where there are deities that grant wealth.

Premise is the discovery of credit cards with unlimited balances that can be used by anyone. for as long as they want. However, it is not limited to credit cards, but wealth in general. Story will explore the extent of human greed, but altruism too.


Of course,I haven't put any thought into any of these questions.


>What will the government do in response to huge amounts of money being “magically” given to random people?

>How will the economy react?

>How will the people react?

>What are the cultural/religious implications of this miracle?

>How much do these deities interact with people?

>Are these deities doing this out of benevolence, indifference, or maliciousness?

>>22973226
>What will the government do in response to huge amounts of money being “magically” given to random people?
Nothing much they CAN do if it's gods throwing stuff at people in unlimited quantities.
>How will the economy react?
Collapse.
>How will the people react?
Probably die.
>What are the cultural/religious implications of this miracle?
Apocalyptic.
>How much do these deities interact with people?
How should I know? It's your story.
>Are these deities doing this out of benevolence, indifference, or maliciousness?
Clearly either maliciousness or idiocy.

Did /wbg/ ever try starting a wiki?

>>22958464
wow this is beautiful, its been awhile since ive seen a more beautiful picture than this
such sights is why life is worth living praise God for his creations

>>22974507
I made a wiki for my own project.

>>22974642
We could have a collaborative wiki. Decide on a world in the thread, some of the main concepts, and then just let autistic anons document the fauna and minor lakes in their free time.

>>22974656
I tried to do several various collaborative worldbuilding projects, but nobody ever actually collaborated.
I'm still mad. Look, if you start with one, I may help, but I did my part already.
If you want to start with one, I would advise starting out with a general idea for the world, like I did once stating:
>"the world is a tree surrounded by a great desert, in the tree live kingdoms of bugs"
But that failed, so what the heck do I know?

>>22973226
Do you know what inflation means?
If there's more money in circulation in an economy, it's logically worth less.

>>22974837
>kingdom of bugs
>the kingdom of bugs is a democracy, with a royal family that has a symbolic status
Get it? It's like Great Britain.

>>22975058
>bugs
>not chinese
lmao
probably half the tree is communist by now and the kingdom is negotiating with the commies by ceding rights

>>22975237
>the bolshebugs murder the royal family
Surely this will achieve utopia.

bump

What do you guys want to see in a story with worldbuilding? I say this as a sperg who has spent years painstakingly building a world, only to realise that all of the fantastical elements I started with are now completely gone and I fear that I've created something that isn't really that exciting. Would you guys read a story like that, when there is no myth or mystery? Or is it the more mythopoeic elements that get you interested in stories like this?

>>22978055
I think purpose of world building is to have a reference when you write a story. It's about building a foundation to make writing easier for yourself. So the world itself doesn't need to be mystical or even epic. It can be mundane. Your reader only encounters it through your stories.

>>22978055
>all of the fantastical elements I started with are now completely gone
How did that happen even?

>>22954685
What might a city aligned with Law (as in Order) be like, assuming that it’s not just something like picture related? What about a city that reveres the forces of Chaos? After all, there needs to be SOME logic to things if the city wants to function.

>>22978332
cheers. I think I needed that
>>22979077
>start writing little fantasy stories at 10, start making imaginary maps and try to make my own world in the same vein as Tolkien and the million other fantasy books I read at that age
>the world goes through lots of changes and elaborations over several years, but at the same time as I'm growing up as a person
>develop an interest in history in high school, slowly incorporate more concepts from ancient and medieval history
>simultaneously fall out of love with fantasy after spending 3 years trying to finish the wheel of time, but still maintain a love of worldbuilding
>story is now a sort of political drama, with characters who possess only perceived influence over people by designated titles.
>The world itself has also become less fantastical after I studied (and subsequently dropped out of) geography and ecology in uni
TL;DR: I grew up and my imagination - and subsequently, my worldbuilding - became less fantastical.

>>22954685
What pairings of the seven sins/virtues make the most sense to you? Which are the most interesting?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_virtues
I'm trying to characterize seven societies by pairing one of the seven virtues with one of the seven deadly sins in a way that makes sense. Basically, if a society has one virtue, its sin/flaw will be consistent with that virtue. The virtues and sins are embodied at the same time, representing both sides of the society that practices them, this will also determine their relations with other societies. Here's the combinations I've come up with:
>Diligence-Gluttony
>Kindness-Sloth
>Charity-Lust
>Chastity-Pride (Not very sure about this one)
Please share your own ideas if you have any. Any combinations you think are better or make more sense. The sins/virtues I have still to pair up are: Wrath, Envy, Greed, and: Temperance, Patience, Humility.
Also, I deliberately omitted Diligence-Greed and Patience-Sloth because they just seemed too obvious. Although the latter two flow so well into eachother I'm tempted to change it.

>>22978055
>Would you guys read a story like that, when there is no myth or mystery?
You really don't need magic to have myth and mystery. I think that without myth and mystery you really need to be exploring some interesting concepts in world-building for it to be worthwhile.
>Or is it the more mythopoeic elements that get you interested in stories like this?
I like things that are interesting. Well done mytho-poetic narratives fulfill this fairly well, but there's alternatives.
>>22981500
I don't say this to offend and I apologize beforehand, but I don't think your imagination grew up as much as it died a pauper's death due to lack of interesting info.
>>22980553
Depends on how you want to characterize both of those forces, it could range from a totalitarian society/total anarchy to something alot more mellow.

is "schizo-" a valid suffix for alien species? Like it's not it but it is it ie
>schizophyta
>schizozooa
maybe i am missunderstanding something here tho

>>22981500
You know you can have several different worldbuilding projects all at once, right?
You don't need to combine all ideas in a single project, you can also, you know, create separate world with different levels of magic an tech.

>>22982688
i mean, species are called whatever the fuck the person who discovers them wants to
there's a fossil named after cthulhu

>>22981675
>something alot more mellow.
Probably more like this, or at least something more neutral.

Is the idea of a character using his merchandise as weapons unique enough. The general idea is that there is this robotic police force. They’re treated like wrestlers with merchandise, action figures etc. My idea was that my main character was gonna use his action figure styled weapons as his main source of combat.

Do you think it's possible to start agriculture in the ruins of busted cities?
>Backstory is that the neighborhood got abandoned a couple centuries ago because of low taxation and it isn't worth rebuilding, so it just...went to pasture.
>Lots of poorer people started moving into the abandoned skyscrapers and the underground, and basically formed entire "tribes" with their own territories and culture.


I wanted them to have their own fields and even fish farms in the ruins of the old city, hidden from the new one. I was just wondering what the challenges would be in urban agriculture.

>>22985529
>the ruins of busted cities?
You might be interested in picrel, and also in similar roof and yard vegetable patches kept by Londoners around the time.

Suggest me a name for a massive underground train network that consists of multiple "floors" of platforms stacked one above the other.

>Each platform has high speed trains, of varying levels of comfort. The "upper levels" are luxury air conditioned trains with in house catering, large and spacious bathrooms, and even individual cabins. The "lower levels" are just normal subway systems with equivalent facilities.
>The system is so large and well connected that it can transport anyone to anywhere inside city limits within less than five minutes. Everyone from business executives to daily wagers uses it.
>Cars are taxed so heavily that only the 1% can afford to use them, so everyone else uses public transport. The city is a lot cleaner and less congested for it, but people still use bikes and non-motor vehicles to get by.
>And yes, that includes boats. Parts of the city look like Venice.

If nobody gives me any names in the next 6 hours, I'll just name it the Metropolitan Subway and call it a day.

The island my story takes place on has some really special geography:
>The northern region is basically just mountains.
>Central region is plains, and it's here that the entire city is built.
>Rivers from the mountains flow into the city and provide fresh drinking water. Or rather, one river does. But it's admittedly a really big river and breaks into smaller distributaries as it drains into the ocean.
>The city is a vast circular walled city. Most of the region inside the walls is uninhabited, which is more because of how vast it is than because the city is small. It's actually a pretty large, healthy city with a steadily growing population.

I want there to be a reason for why the southern end of the island isn't settled, and why there can be forests growing there. Climate is eastern Mediterranean, off the Levant.

I want to be spoonfed resources for creating a fantasy language.
I have:
>an idea of the phonetic quality of how I want it to sound
>some fragments of words/suffixes/prefixes I want to be used
>some words I want to be used
>a small handful of words I have already assigned to mean something
I'm specifically looking for exhaustive lists of grammar concepts, which point out the bare minimum needed for a language.

There's a region in my world that had a catastrophic societal collapse a few centuries ago, mostly due to a massive bird demon blowing up the central land with a Tsar Bomba level explosion. Once the radiation was cleaned off, the survivors got to rebuilding civilization.
Thing is, the natural resources of the region hadn't really been tapped beforehand. And thanks to the confluence of multiple realities due to the aforementioned magical explosion, there are a lot of pocket dimensions around which may contain land and minerals. So the government basically instituted a Homestead Principle where you can claim any land you want as long as you can make use of it and defend it.

As a result of all this, the country is a lot more Libertarian than you'd expect. It's kinda like old Wild West America, with settlers trying to tame the frontier and taking out the older settlers, ie the tribes. It's kind of a a genocide, but whatever.

It's also the reason that country is so ridiculously rich in all kinds of natural resources.

How to conquer an archipelago? It's supposed to be rebelling due to their main government repealing their sovereignty (in its defense, they literally tried to overthrow the Parliament), and they are supposed to lose.

>>22985529
>Backstory is that the neighborhood got abandoned a couple centuries ago because of low taxation and it isn't worth rebuilding
That's not how it works. Low taxation means more investement from companies.

>>22986302
Sorry, I didn't phrase it right. As in, the place just doesn't give enough taxes to justify keeping it.

So about the space aztec colony.
firstly, my main idea is somewhere early on a radical cultural shift takes place that makes the inhabitants, atleast of that specific cit, adopt a more traditionalist "primitivist" theocratic ideology through some specific turn of events that i'll propagandize the hell out of, and the surrounding regions slowly adopt the culture/elements of it like it always goes. Basically one dominant theocratic society influences/conquers neighbouring new societies.
I was thinking of how i can make heraldry work, for big places i'm thinking the capital just grants a heraldic coat of arms with set rules, but for smaller settlements, which i think would be far more loosely-named, referencing events, things of relevance. Like most villages here in croatia. i was thinking maybe a system of phoenetic pictographs that combine to spell-out the name like aztec glyphs. Idk where i would start with what the glyphs would look like, or how exactly they would combine/be read as. I want to make it similar to aztec but also want to make it clearly something else.
I want a robust system for random place names where i can just come up with a symbol on the spot.

>>22985633
...with ships?

Is the idea of dragons being basically domesticated like dogs and evolving weird decent? The idea is that this warrior from a closed tribe thats like “muh pride” can summon dragons. Except in the modern world dragon’s range from fat pug like freaks with weird proportions or being so small he can use them for weapons. They would still be useful and powerful but funny looking.

I've been thinking about writing a story in a fictional world in which honey is the primary fuel, like for instance the industrial revolution was honey-based. Honey, wax, and other bee products have immense value and numerous uses. Bees have been enslaved and are worked 24/7, and also modified genetically to produce more. One character I'd like to have is a rusty robot which upon being restored, reveals to have partaken in the old bee-pillage/war in which humans enslaved the bees and plundered the honey etc. The same way Dijon is the capital of mustard, this other city (which I dont have a name for yet) will be capital of honey and consequently of the world.
Dont know the story yet, but I just think bees are cool and honey is yummy, so I want to dump a lot of cool ideas and things into this world and story. And toads. Toads are awesome.

>>22987678
That was done in How to train you Dragon I think, there's that blonde guy who has a very dopey-looking dragon and it was well done there so you can too

Bump

>>22987792
What a waste of honey

>>22987792

>>22985577
Maybe the topography isn't right? Lots of swampy, sandy soil, trees, small hills etc?

>>22980553
I've been thinking of an Order faction that falls into legalism. Functionaries and beurocrats everywhere, where the law permeates everything, and life revolves around finding ways to sidestep it.

I want my character to have like a multi form power up in the vain of Luffy’s gears and such. Is there any animals/nature aspects that have any unique evolution stages? One half of me wanted to base my main character’s forms off of human evolution.

Does magic system should be rationalized in worldbuilding? Like you write an entire history of it or simply just say 'this guy can cast magic because he can'

>>22991003
There's basically two different schools of thought regarding magic in modern fantasy fiction: either your story has "hard magic" or it has "soft magic".
Hard magic is when you put rules to magic, like stating that all magic comes from X and can only be cast during day Y, those kind of rules. A good example of a hard magic system is Sympaty from King-killer's chronicles or Allomancy from the Mistborn series.
Soft magic on the other hand is just the old meme of "its magic I ain't gonna explain shit", it's the most popular since it allows lazy writers to just "deus ex machina" out of every situation possible. An example of it being used in a good way of is the good old Tolkien.
If you don't know this distinction already though, I wonder what the fuck are you doing here.
In reality you can do whatever the fuck you want with your text, there are no rules.

>>22973008
Everything

What science fiction or fantasy would you guys consider to be master classes in world building? Preferably the more recent the better

>>22954685
Theocratic country with a main religion that praise the 'Casuality god' this religion has 3 main branches each practicing their religion on their own way
>1. branch A: Born to be used by the casuality god therefore they have to polish their bodies and minds as much as they can to be of use to their god
>2. Branch B: They believe causality is the purest form of praise, they solve everything by using binary methods, like throwing a coin
>3. Branch C: They believe they can manipulate causality by using their minds to manipulate reality, they perform all sorts of strange rituals
The world is divided into 4 main areas, each branch having their own territory surrounding a lake at the middle of the lake is the capital where priests govern
Still working on making a plot tho

i have many worldbuildings ideas, and a few settings, but i'll throw out one that i think has potential i had as a dream but i don't personally wish to pursue:

“what if there was a religion revolves around exorcising demons from stars?”

What the are Black Holes in this religion? Brown Dwarfs? Black Dwarfs? Neutron Stars? Pulsars/Quasars/Magnetars? Supernovas?

anyone try Obsidian?

>>22994532
Nope. How about you?

IS keeping track of everything in my head the best option if i don't ever intend on publishing worldbuilding details anywhere?

>>22996188
...for context i am schizotypal to a mild degree this stuff is not hard for me.

>>22996188
>>22996225
Try both and see what works. Writing kind of forces you to go into details that you would otherwise overlook.

>>22996188
That depends on how complex and deep your setting is. If your worldbuilding level is nintendo tier then it's ok to hold everytjing in your head, if it's tolkien tier, it's gonna be more difficult.

>>22996333
It's very complex, but i mostly keep track of that stuff through sketches, illustrations or pictographic charts cause i often change the language i use to describe things as i go along, plus i dislike writing it down cause i don't feel like an anthropologist connecting dots. Sometimes the dots make very very inticing and logical connections

>>22996459
You don't need to go full anthropology level of detail though, why don't you just attach some basic text descriptions on the bottom of the pictures?
It's always good to at least have notes.
Also, you can't always illustrate concepts and ideas.

>>22996803
it's easier to understand the pictographs when you know what every detail means.
Honestly adding glosses never crossed my mind lol thanks bro.

>>22954685
bump

>>22954685
How do you organize your worldbuilding? Do you use any apps, Word, or just pen and paper?

>>22998526
I use wiki software, like zimwiki and obsidian (the latter is more advanced and therefore recommended). My workflow is to create I create a new folder for each kind of concept (like creatures, races, countries, factions, locations, etc.) and every time I come up with a new monster concept or a new location, I just make an entry for it in its corresponding folder. Then I just link the entries or pages or whatever yu wanna call them with the hypertext system for convenience.
For example, if a monster lives in certain area, I link that area's entry. Obsidian also makes a nice looking node graph based on those links which help you visualize your world.
Yeah, it's basically just that, a personal wiki app. And before you say anything, no, it's actually very easy to use, basically a notepad with extra features.

>>22998661
are those wiki softwares resource hogs?

>>22998847
Obsidian might be a little bloated, but they are not resource intensive in general if that's what you are asking, again, they are basically text editors with added features on top, if that's too much for your computer then it must be a potato.

>>22998526
idk, this retard draws
i just make notes in apple notes

>>22999008
I'm probably a bit more cursed. I've been using a dedicated discord server for my notes since i started really world building since COVID, so basically everything dated, and searchable by media, though i have been meaning to transfer to something "more sane" like Obsidian but it's been rather slow going doing so.

>>22958527
>blah blah blah
Just ignore the retards. Their frame of mind is prevalent, not virtuous.

>>22958527
where is this prevalent?