wbg worldbuilding general

A
Anonymous09/05/26, 12:56No.98625939/wbg/ - Worldbuilding General
Welcome to /wbg/, the official thread for the discussion of in-progress settings for traditional games. Here is where you go to present and develop the details of your worlds such as lore, factions, magic and ecosystems. You can also post maps for your settings, as well as any relevant art (either created by you or used as inspiration for your work). Please remember that dialogue is what keeps the thread alive, so don't be afraid of giving someone feedback or post whatever relevant input you might have! Resources for Newfags: https://sites.google.com/view/wbgeneral/ Worldbuilding links: pastee.dev/p/sp2Mdb5I https://cryptpad.fr/pad/#/2/pad/view/Eo+fK41FKVR7xDpbNO0a0N4k0YYxrmyrhX3VxnM14Ew/ Fantasy map generator: https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator Discord links: /wbi/: https://discord.gg/6ZjEc7dy4T Worldbuilding Hub: https://discord.com/invite/wGjxK3Y The Writer's Forge: https://discord.com/invite/CUxHxWq Tira: https://discord.com/invite/f52W6Kg Dawn of Victory: https://discord.gg/hUAynC3w Conlangerama: https://discord.com/invite/ceKjZBr2jC r/CreativitySquad: https://disboard.org/server/join/655230995859243008 The Literatrium: https://disboard.org/server/join/794794629106892861 Paracosmist Collective: https://disboard.org/server/join/1132392321346965554 The Shadow Cabal: https://discord.com/invite/38ZY6CD3rU World of Tyrell: https://discord.com/invite/gtDFrBHGYb r/Worldbuilding: https://discord.com/invite/worldbuilding Last thread: >>98507993 [/tg/thread/98507993#p98507993] Thread Question: >What are the stars like in your setting? Are they just normal balls of nuclear fusion plasma, or something else?
op image
137

Replies

A
Anon09/05/26, 13:01No.98625956
>>What are the stars like in your setting? Hidden for lore reasons. The sky is intentionally and conspicuously starless, and the only evidence that there were stars are in relatively well hidden runes in wall art.Basically the whole planet is warded on a cosmic scale to try and prevent any more immortals from popping in and causing more trouble.
A
Anon09/05/26, 14:32No.98626221
>>What are the stars like in your setting? Are they just normal balls of nuclear fusion plasma, or something else? Don't exist.
A
Anon09/05/26, 14:42No.98626261
(Last thread died before I got to respond)[/tg/thread/98507993#p98623640] >Nice, though I must say it's the forelimb spurs that gave me most intrigued The blue spurs emerging from the forelimbs in that sketch are fiberwhips, essentially a sort of augment producing similar blades as the ones wielded by the Kanshin in this picture.> I like the grooves filled with symbiote ammo(?) in the armour too. Any particular functions there? They are hives for seeker wyrms, essentially sort of flying self guided living "missiles. The speherical "eye" like orbs on the dragon are supposed to be biolaser "eyes" whereas the forward facing horn is a fiber beamer, and the just antler like horns are neurotelepathic antennae.Regarding the psychological specialization and adaption you mention in your setting, it sounds very interesting. Especially the element of cultivatio nof "normal" humans being seen as inherently seditious/treasonous. Psychological adaptation and alteration of humans is in my view often both cooler and more unsettling than just overt physical alteration via evolution/mutation.In my setting, the chimera category under which the dragons fall, also includes beings known as "Servitors" who are essentially engineered lineages of humans whose primary alterations are psychological. They basically derive great sense of satisfaction and purpose from serving the people/households they are bonded to, or othewise serving their tasks. Most look outwardly just like humans, but simply have black slcera to mark them as servitors, though that trait is not fool proof because human and servitor intermixture has introduced the genes for black sclera to more or less ordinary humanity as well.
Reply image .png
A
Anon09/05/26, 14:52No.98626300
[/tg/thread/98507993#p98623732] The horror potential for biotech is massive just in how it can be used to sublty manipulate the behavior and biology of people and other organisms without being anything overtly grotesque. I was not familiar with The Screwfly Solution but instead I remember reading Oryx and Crake as a teen and it unsettled me quite a lot (was a weird book in general).The Shenshinryu in the setting have a strong cultural place especially in societies of the City that have strong interactions or memories of them. Some Concordat frontier communities propably partially revere and fear them, whereas more settled ones celebrate victories over the "dragons" and the past where the expanding Concordat drove them off from the territories of the City they were trying to reclaim. Some individual powerful dragons that used to roost in a district and were finally slain by the advancing Concordat Defense Forces, would have entered the cultural memory of the Concordat quite deeply. Likewise, many dragons remember that their foremothers and other relatives were driven out from their territories by the Concordat, which just ads to the ire many wild dragons have towards the ustart servant state that is now controlling signifigant chunks of the City.Also, managed to finish the preliminary sketches for the major dragon species. Eventually I'll have to do proper colored drawings of these things.
Reply image .png
A
Anon09/05/26, 17:20No.98626916
>>What are the stars like in your setting? Hollow knots of ley lines, arranged in fractal patterns. Sunlight is refined prana, stars refine surplus soulstuff into it. There are about a thousand stars in the whole of Creation....I think I didn't change any of this since 2017ish.
Reply image .jpg
A
Anon09/06/26, 01:00No.98628792
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t365MuktYQs TQ: It's where this guys from
A
Anon09/06/26, 02:48No.98629211
What is your worlds version of Rhodesia? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1720spO4yQ
Reply image .jpg
A
Anon09/06/26, 12:57No.98630935
[/tg/thread/98507993#p98552849] I'd never heard of Maltas before. How interesting! Now in true "weird wasteland" fashion the first thing that comes to mind is some Knights of Malta having been in Brazil on some Papal business (not surprising in a Catholic regional power nor on the apocalypse's eve as they scrambled to make a difference). It'd be amusing if they were constantly confused for the capoeiristas yet too proud to change their older than the Old World bestowed title for something more differentiated.Cool detail with the irl sub scheme. Learn something new every day I guess. Honestly it makes me wonder why OG Fallout never bothered to turn this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48343589 into Nuka Cola's "purely for marketing purposes" battlefleet. No Soviet collapse obviously but it's too good a historical tidbit to pass up!Same with the Shindo Renmei, never would have guessed though I suppose if you have Fanatic holdouts across the Pacific islands it only makes sense they'd be holed up in the jungle too. Terrorising their own communities is crazy stuff but "shoot the traitor before the enemy" must've made sense from their warped perspective. On the matter of ethnic factions resurgent Gauchos from southern Brazil as an almost steppe nomad horde could be fun. Bonus points from the various exotic mutants they may ride and a sort of "geographical warfare" between impassable jungle chopped and burned to let the wide pampas spread (it's anyone's guess what the climate would be up to post cartoon nuclear war).
A
Anon09/06/26, 13:17No.98630974
Haven't decided yet. A key aspect of the setting is that the universe is a charnel house whose stink we can't perceive. Sufficiently advanced ayys either lobotomise themselves into stagnant idiot savant hermits or try (yet inevitably fail) to outrace the shadow of their own enlightenment. The best means of delaying or redirecting compulsive introspection is the use of antimemes and any tricky enough to muddle a godlike mind are more than enough for mere mortals.A lot of dark energy and matter are precursor ruins made imperceptible and / or folded into strange dimensions in their attempts to escape themselves. I'm partial to Count to Eschaton's take on the universe as teeming with design we fail to recognise (red giants are Dyson swarms emitting redshifted waste, supernovae are detonation remnants or panspermic seeding etc...) and Remembrance of Earth's Past posting that current physics is the ruin of something far richer. I'm not big brained enough to pull off either of those well and in any case by the time any of it's perceptible to PCs they're the big-dick Clarketech wielders teetering on the edge of collapse.
A
Anon09/06/26, 22:13No.98633087
These threads are pointless now that the board is infested with normgroids, casuals, tourists, nogames, and parasites I see only 2-3 actual worldbuilding posts in each thread's 200+ posts
A
Anon09/07/26, 08:37No.98635280
What are your space uniforms like?
Reply image .jpg
A
Anon09/07/26, 12:25No.98635779
Question: What's an appropriate name for not!cultivators (for those not familiar with the term its basically someone who pursues a higher state of being by assimilating cosmic energies within them) in an advanced sci-fi space setting? Something that sounds "futuristic" but also spiritual and rooted in mysticism. So far I got; >Progressors >Excelsiors >Exemplars >Übergnostics >Divine-Aspirants >Apotheosi Unfortunately none of them are quite what I'm looking for.
A
Anon09/07/26, 13:23No.98635973
what can you advise me to do if I want to talk to someone in-depth about my world. This is a serious problem for me so I really need a solution. I can't talk about it with my players because that would be spoilers and other people don't care.
Reply image .jpg
A
Anon09/07/26, 14:01No.98636107
I always thought the solar punk aesthetics and character design of Pokemon was appealing, and many of the cute girls were very fuckable. However, any sort of lewd content associated with the franchise always gets associated with bestiality, a fetish that I personally find abhorrent. I also find the furry community to be insufferable, so I thought of a setting that shared an aesthetic design sense with Pokemon without actually involving pocket monsters.20 years ago an experiment in an underground laboratory opened a portal into hell. While fighting to contain the incursion of demons flooding into t he facility, the chaotic magic of the portal affected the computer terminals hooked up to the internet, causing digital human-like creatures to step out of the glowing screens and drive the demons back. The portal was sealed thanks to their strength and bravery, but many demons managed to escape the compound only to reproduce and corrupt local wildlife.These digital people, known commonly as "sprites", are often stronger and more capable than humans, though they lack the drive and individual agency that humans possess. Like a computer program, without any input they struggle to determine what to do. Legally speaking they are somewhere between pets and humans, though their loyalty to the human race has earned them considerable favor from the populace. Many work alongside humans in agriculture, manufacturing, construction, coding, and even police work. They are varied in appearance, having multicolored bodies, (think of the livery on race cars), and a wide variety of shapes and sizes. What the excel in most, though, is fighting demons.Between every town is a wilderness full of demons. Don't imagine them as ugly and fearsome monsters. The same overall "cute" aesthetic you see in Pokemon designs is present in the demons. They are your common enemies you find during random battles while traveling between towns.
A
Anon09/07/26, 20:41No.98637994
Why is sci-fi the best setting for fascist governments?
Reply image .jpg
A
Anon09/08/26, 01:11No.98639258
Depends on the Star in question. Some stars are more normal. Others very much aren't. For most people it doesn't really matter besides avoiding certain stars but it has a huge impact on safe FTL. Traveling too close to the wrong star at the wrong time has very bad consequences. Which is why certain stellar travel lanes are so popular and common. In addition many Stars have very nasty quirks for their star systems, making them very troublesome to interact with much less inhabit. This also affects the availability of living space and resources, despite there being an entire universe to exploit. If it were for so many stars providing impassable death zones, friction would be a lot worse between different species. As is, you have to carefully chart around various Star Regions and the good star regions are hotly contested. Serving as an excuse for conflict and struggle when in reality there SHOULD be plenty of living space and resources available to discourage it.It's why Ill Omen Stars and 'Lucky' Stars are taken so seriously in the setting. Imagine how powerful and influential they can be when they are THAT far away still! Imagine being in their star system itself? Knowing what Star's influence is waxing or waning is important to know depending on the star. More so if you are born under certain stars and what those influences will have. Which is something even primitive species and civilizations know about. Its just the more advanced ones know just how powerful they are when in close proximity, hence why entire star systems/regions are either fought over like crazy or collectively avoided like it's worse than the reality corrupting plague.
A
Anon09/08/26, 03:40No.98639748
This is probably my final post on this topic since this general is a total letdown. I want to point out the absurd irony of asking a question on the literal worldbuilding forum and nobody having the CREATIVITY to come up with any ideas for solutions. Also from your reactions I can surmise that none seem to share my experience and clearly can't relate to the problem enough to engage with it which laughably almost definitely confirms you're not actually worldbuildersIn the time since I posted my question I came up with two partially effective solutions - starting a discord server where the users are forbidden from meta discussion and all discussion has to be conducted as if the setting is real and the users live inside it. The other option is to just do regular AMA threads in a place I remembered about. Thanks for nothing.
Reply image .jpg
A
Anon09/08/26, 03:40No.98639749
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t365MuktYQs Whats the best thing about sci-fi settings?
A
Anon09/08/26, 05:41No.98640083
how did pre-industrial meat market work?to my knowledge meat was too expensive for the common man to eat more than a few times a year, which was often something they produced themselves anyways but meat was produced as a byproduct from wool, leather, and milk regardless so enough meat was being produced that being a butcher was a career, but most potential customers couldnt afford their product and would have animals they raised themselves when they needed itnoblemen only made up a small fraction of the population at any given time and they would likely just keep their own personal butcher under employ rather than go to town and buy their meat in a world before modern market capitalism who was actually buying all the butchers meat?
A
Anon09/08/26, 14:24No.98641195
What are the best programs and other methods for creating maps of interstellar empires?
A
Anon09/08/26, 23:15No.98643960
[/tg/thread/98507993#p98552849] I was also enjoying some tunes today Botanon and some further Fallout Brazil silliness came to mind. One thing I liked about the Bethesda was the cheerful songs on the radio contrasting with the reality of mowing down raiders or worse. I think a lot of Os Tincoas fits that feel. 2:05+ especially of this one especially sounds like it'd fit happy little bursts of semi-auto fire pretty well: https://youtu.be/hlf00SbHG0w?is=UtNyC4X4kRLjZMlRCandomblé and other syncrectism is pretty interesting more broadly too. Given they "channel" a set number of archetypes during their ceremonies I could definitely see a gimmick settlement in the vein of the Republic of Dave where it's a cult with castes of the same costume "person". At the very least it's compatible with with a Sulik "we and I" sorta character.This whole vid feels like a fitting Weird Wasteland encounter too. One of my favourites of all time; the guy is like that "moisturised, flourishing, unbothered" meme come to life as river godling: https://youtu.be/lZbfNtDCHdM?is=CK_s1L3rkWRKVnkd
A
Anon09/09/26, 21:29No.98648517
I have four types of magic, of which mages can pick 1 at the start and eventually use three at most:cleric magic (mtg white, mostly healing and protection from undead)druid magic (transformation in animals, summoning elements. MTG red + green)wizard magic (telekinetics, time and space warping, illusion, precognition, MTG blue but without the water aspect)evil cleric magic: not totally MTG black, but almost. Corruption themes. Can jinx, dominate others and also power up the rest of magics, with the catch that its much easier to level up in ranks than the others, but has bad effects to the caster's health, in-game and sometimes lowering stats permanently.I think I could use a fifth type of magic, maybe Bardic magic? does it have a niche? IDK i just think that five is better than four. Muscle magic such as monks does not apply, i already cover that on combat moves.
A
Anon09/10/26, 09:54No.98650998
What would be a realistic way to import the Japanese tradition of "We prefer the less efficient technology" to the entire world?
Reply image .jpg
A
Anon09/10/26, 13:48No.98651687
I'm building a modern-ish setting, roughly an equivalent of 1990s in technological and cultural development - do you guys have any advice on how to write politics and government? Basically what would you say are the absolute minimum requirements for them to feel real?
A
Anon09/10/26, 16:09No.98652268
Thinking about this did give me an idea for a setting or concept within a setting >Based loosely on Elden Ring style aliens coming from the stars >Every now and then some sort of powerful creature crashes down from the skies >Range from human babies who grow into 12 foot tall ubermensch capable of bench pressing a ship to six headed monster lion/snake crossbreeds, to full on eldritch colors that poison the landscape and everything in between >Most of the humanoid ones tend to live for a few centuries or thousand years, interbreed with mortals, and each generation is less and less impressive >Most others end up being killed by heroes or eventually just dying >Some reproduce asexually or with similar fauna and create lasting species of monsters with varying levels of consistency >Population believes that the stars are literally deities and the beings that crash to the surface are their unwanted or bastard children